Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Nico
I hated airports.
Specifically, I hated airports when leaving meant not seeing Evan for a week.
I stood in the private terminal at SJC early Wednesday morning, duffel slung over my shoulder, waiting for the rest of the guys to show up.
The terminal was quiet—just our group and the staff, the low hum of conversation and the smell of coffee from the small lounge.
I pulled out my phone and texted Evan. The response came almost immediately, and something in my chest loosened.
“You’re smiling at your phone like an idiot,” André said.
I shoved it into my pocket. “Shut up.”
“How’s your guy?” He said it quietly enough that the teammates around us couldn’t hear.
“Good.” I shifted to face him. “This week’s going to suck, though.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “You’ve got it bad, man.”
I couldn’t argue.
Washington on Thursday was a disaster—not for the team, we won 3–2—but I played like shit. Distracted, slow to react, a turnover in the second period that nearly cost us a goal. Coach Dufour pulled me aside at the second intermission.
“Where the hell is your head, Briggs?”
“Sorry, Coach. Won’t happen again.”
I managed an assist in the third and didn’t make any further catastrophic mistakes, but I knew what the game had been. In the locker room after, André found me.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. Just had an off night.”
“Is it about your guy?”
I glanced around. The room was loud with post-game energy. “I’ve got it handled.”
“You sure? Because we need you sharp.”
“You’ll have me.”
Back at the hotel, I showered, dropped onto the bed, and stared at the ceiling.
The game replayed in my head—every missed read, every half-second too slow.
I’d had off nights before, but this one had a specific cause, and I knew it.
I’d spent three periods thinking about Evan instead of thinking about hockey, because Evan was the thing I couldn’t resolve.
Not until I got home. Not until I found the right moment.
I picked up my phone.
And then I stopped.
Right moment. That’s what I kept telling myself—that it had to be in person, had to be timed correctly, had to be explained properly. But I’d been saying that for three weeks. I’d had moments. I’d just kept deciding they weren’t right enough.
I sat there with my phone in my hand and thought about Griffin Lapierre. He’d come out months ago and had navigated everything that came after. Media attention, locker room dynamics, all of it. He was still playing, still showing up. If anyone understood what I was sitting on, it was him.
I got his contact from a mutual friend and typed a message before I could overthink it.
Nico
Hey, Griffin, it’s Nicolás Briggs. Got a minute? Need to pick your brain about something.
The response came a few minutes later.
Griffin
Sure. What’s up?
Nico
I’ve been seeing someone. It’s new, but it’s serious. He doesn’t know what I do for a living.
A longer pause.
Griffin
He doesn’t know you play hockey?
Nico
No.
Griffin
How long have you been seeing him?
Nico
Two weeks.
Griffin
You need to tell him.
Nico
I know. I’m going to. I just don’t know how. What if he can’t handle it?
Griffin
Then you deal with it. But keeping it from him isn’t fair to either of you.
He can’t make an informed choice about being with you if he doesn’t know what he’s signing up for.
Every day you don’t tell him, the lie gets heavier.
And when it comes out—and it will come out—he won’t just be hurt by the secret.
He’ll be hurt by every day you chose to keep it.
I stared at that last line for a long time.
Nico
I’ll tell him when I get home from this roadie.
Griffin
Don’t wait for perfect conditions. There aren’t any. Just tell him.
Griffin
And Nicolás? Welcome to the club.
I set my phone down and looked at the ceiling. Griffin was right. I knew Griffin was right. I’d known it before I sent the message.
What I wasn’t examining was why I kept finding reasons to wait.
In Detroit on Friday, I played like myself.
Two goals in the first—once on the power play, once on a beautiful feed from André that I buried top shelf. The familiar rush flooded back. We won 5–2, and Coach Dufour actually nodded at me afterward.
“That’s more like it, Briggs.”
On the bus, I texted Evan about the night without calling it what it was.
He called me, and I lay back on my hotel bed with the phone pressed to my ear, talking to him for over an hour about nothing in particular—a recipe he’d tried, a show he’d started, the terrible gym in the Detroit hotel.
It felt domestic and easy in a way that should have made me want to bolt. But it didn’t. It never did with Evan.
When we hung up, I lay there thinking about Griffin’s message. He’ll be hurt by every day you chose to keep it.
I’d now had clear, direct advice from someone who understood what it cost to keep hiding.
Griffin’s situation hadn’t been identical—his fight had been about going public, not about concealing himself from the person he was with.
But the advice landed the same way regardless: the longer you wait, the worse it gets.
I’d received it, agreed with it, and was lying in a hotel bed in Detroit having spent an hour on the phone with Evan without telling him anything.
That wasn’t waiting for the right moment. That was choosing not to tell him. There was a difference, and I was done pretending I didn’t know which one I was doing.
I’d tell him when I got home. In person.
The next afternoon, André and I found a retro diner in Detroit with excellent ratings. He ordered a sandwich bigger than his head and studied me over it.
“You’re doing better,” he said.
“Had a good game.”
“Not just the game.” He set the sandwich down. “You seem more settled. Like you made a decision about something.”
“I’m telling Evan I play for the Lasers when I get back.”
André was quiet for a moment after I finished. “So he doesn’t know?”
“No.”
“He doesn’t know you play hockey. Doesn’t know you’re Nicolás Briggs. Doesn’t know any of it.”
“No.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Two weeks.”
André looked at me. Not angry, but something more considered than that. “And he’s never pushed?”
“He’s pushed. I’ve deflected.” I picked up my burger. “He knows something’s off. He’s been patient about it.”
“Patient,” André repeated, like he was turning the word over.
“Okay.” He set down his drink. “Then I need to say something.” André’s expression didn’t soften the way I’d expected it to.
“Because Nico… you’re not keeping a secret.
You’re lying to him. Every day you don’t tell him, every time he asks about your life and you give him half an answer… that’s a lie. Not an omission.”
I felt a flash of irritation. “There’s a difference between—”
“Is there?” He looked at me steadily. “You’re asking him to trust you with his feelings while you’re withholding the basic facts of your life. If he did that to you, what would you call it?”
I didn’t answer.
“He already knows something’s wrong,” André said. “He’s been patient. But patience has a limit, and when he hits it, the lie is going to be the problem, not the hockey.”
I stared at my burger. “I know.”
“Then get home, tell him, and stop giving yourself credit for planning to do the right thing.”
We ate in silence for a minute.
“You’re kind of brutal,” I said.
“You need brutal right now.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Two days later, Monday night in Florida was when things got ugly.
The Flash were physical from the opening faceoff—aggressive defense, chirping forwards, an atmosphere that felt hostile in the way of a team that had something to prove.
In the second period, their big defenseman, Svoboda, started targeting me.
Little slashes when the ref wasn’t watching, an elbow to the ribs in the corner, escalating chirps I absorbed and skated away from.
Third period, he cross-checked me from behind along the boards.
I spun around and we dropped gloves.
The crowd erupted. Svoboda threw first, catching my shoulder.
I connected with his jaw, and then we were going at it—grabbing jerseys, trading punches, his fist catching my face and mine catching his.
The ref stood back. The linesmen waited.
When I finally yanked Svoboda down and he hit the ice, they moved in.
Five minutes each. We sat in adjacent penalty boxes, both bleeding, his nose gushing, me tasting copper where I’d bitten my cheek.
He was still chirping through the glass. I couldn’t hear him clearly, but I could read his lips.
Fucking faggot.
He didn’t know. There was no way he knew. He’d just reached for the ugliest thing available and used it.
But it landed anyway.
I sat there in the penalty box with my knuckles throbbing and tried to think clearly.
This was what it would look like if I came out publicly.
Not everyone would be André. Not every opponent would leave it on the ice.
Some of them would use it exactly the way Svoboda just had, as a weapon calculated to destabilize.
And if I was with Evan publicly—if there were photos, if his name was attached to mine—he’d be adjacent to all of it.
He hadn’t signed up for that. He didn’t even know it existed.
We won 4–3. I barely registered it.
Tampa was our last game, and I played well enough—an assist, solid offense, a win—but the whole time I was counting down.
In the locker room after, Thompson sat down while I unlaced my skates.
“You’ve been different this trip,” he said.
“Different how?”
“Like your head’s somewhere else. That friend you’ve been texting?”
I tensed, then made myself relax. “What about them?”
“Nothing bad. Just… whoever they are, they’ve got you pretty hooked.”
Fortin dropped onto the bench on my other side. “He called someone for an hour on Friday night. Smiled during Coach’s rant on Monday. That’s not normal Briggs behavior.”
“Must be pretty special,” Thompson said.
They weren’t wrong. I looked at André, who gave me the smallest nod.
“His name is Evan,” I said.
A beat of silence. Thompson’s eyebrows went up. Fortin looked surprised but not thrown.
“Oh,” Thompson said. “Cool.”
Just that. Cool.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Sure. As long as you’re happy, right?”
Fortin nodded. “My cousin’s gay. He’s been married to this guy who teaches middle school for like six years. They’re great together.”
Something in my chest unclenched. Two more people. And it had taken about thirty seconds.
“So, when do we get to meet him?” Fortin asked.
“We’ll see. He’s not really a hockey guy.”
“Bring him anyway. Anyone who’s got you smiling at your phone that much must be something.”
They headed for the showers, and I sat there with my half-unlaced skates, thinking about the math of it.
Every teammate I’d told had reacted the same way—easy, unsurprised, already knowing the shape of me before I’d said a word.
That was the thing about telling people who already knew you. The information landed in context.
Evan didn’t have that context. With Evan, I was still just Nico. And telling him would change that in ways I couldn’t predict or control.
The flight home on Wednesday morning felt endless.
When we finally landed, I texted Evan from the parking lot and drove the thirteen minutes to his apartment rehearsing what I was going to say.
I need to tell you something. I’m a professional hockey player. I play for the San Jose Lasers. I should have told you before now.
Direct. No hedging.
I haven’t been honest about what I do. I’m in the NHL, and the concealment was a choice I kept making when I should have stopped.
Better.
By the time I pulled into his parking garage, I still hadn’t landed on the exact words. But I’d stopped expecting to. There weren’t going to be perfect words. There was just going to be the conversation.
I punched his apartment number into the keypad.
“Nico?” His voice through the speaker.
“Yeah. It’s me.”
“Come up.”
I stood outside his door and took a breath.