Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Nico
I woke up Sunday morning to Evan still asleep beside me and forty-three unread texts on my phone.
I eased out of bed without waking him and went to the kitchen. Made coffee. Stood at the counter, scrolling through the damage while the machine hissed and gurgled.
My agent, Neil. The Lasers’ PR manager, Rachel. André three times. Griffin. A dozen teammates. Sports reporters I’d never heard of asking for comment.
And at the top of my email, time-stamped at 6:04 a.m., VortexStride’s legal team.
I didn’t need to read it. I knew what it said.
Four years. Eight cities’ worth of billboards. A signature shoe we’d been developing for six months with my name literally on it, my input on every design element.
Gone.
I set the phone down and poured a mug of coffee.
Yesterday’s family calls were behind me. Miguel was hurt. My parents were shaken. But they were still there, and that mattered more than the mess of how we’d gotten to it.
This—the professional fallout, the public scrutiny, figuring out how to move forward—this was different. And my instinct, the one that had gotten me through eight years in professional hockey, was the same as it always was: make a plan, work the plan, don’t look at what you can’t control.
So. First things first.
I called Neil.
He picked up on the first ring. “Tell me you’re not looking at social media.”
“I’m okay.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” A pause, and I could hear him shifting into gear. “The response has been better than expected overall. Lapierre posted something positive. Morelli and Savard went on record. Half your teammates jumped in without being asked.”
“And VortexStride?”
Silence.
“Neil.”
“They terminated the deal this morning. Morality clause. Legal team moved fast.”
I’d known the second I saw VortexStride’s email in my inbox. Knowing hadn’t made it easier to hear.
“What else?” I asked.
“That’s the worst of it. For now.” His tone shifted to the one he used when he was managing me. “The market’s changing. Brands that wouldn’t touch queer athletes a year ago are actively looking for them now. There will be other deals.”
“I don’t want to talk about replacement deals.”
“Fair enough. Rachel wants a meeting at noon. I’ll be on the call.
She’s got a draft statement ready, but nothing goes out without your approval.
Your job in the next few days… don’t go to ground, don’t say anything unscripted, and don’t look like a man who has something to be ashamed of. Everything else is mine.”
“Okay.”
“Good.”
I hung up and stood there with my coffee, taking inventory.
Angry? Yes. Disappointed? Yes. Surprised?
Not really. I’d known coming out would carry risks.
I’d just never let myself think too specifically about which ones, or how fast they’d arrive, or what it would feel like to lose something I’d worked for because I’d kissed my boyfriend in a parking lot.
I made a plan. Call André. Get through morning skate. Meet with Rachel. Handle the statement. Play the game tonight. Figure out the rest later.
I could do this part—the action part, the making-a-plan-and-working-it part. I knew how to do that.
Evan’s bedroom door opened. He appeared in the doorway, rumpled and uncertain.
“Good morning,” I said, reaching for a mug. I poured his coffee and added cream and sugar without asking. I’d watched him make it enough times to know.
He took the mug and wrapped both hands around it like he needed the warmth. “How bad is it?”
“Manageable.”
“Nico.”
I looked at him. “VortexStride dropped the endorsement deal. Neil says the overall response is better than expected. Rachel wants a meeting at noon to go over a statement.”
He paled. “They dropped you?”
“Morality clause. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine—”
“Evan.” I kept my voice level. “It’s one deal. There will be others. I’m not falling apart over this.”
He stared at me like he was trying to figure out if I was acting calm or actually felt it.
Honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure myself.
“I need to call André,” I said. “Then I’ve got morning skate. I’ll be back after the meeting with Rachel.”
“Do you want me to come to the meeting?”
“It’s team PR. You don’t need to sit through that.”
“But it’s about us—”
“It’s about me making a statement.” I softened my tone. “You’re not part of the statement. That’s deliberate—it protects you. Stay here. Rest. I’ll tell you everything when I get back.”
He nodded but didn’t look convinced.
I called André while I dressed.
“You good?” he asked without preamble.
“Getting there.” I pulled on my jeans. “I called my family yesterday. That was… it was a lot. But they’re okay. We’re okay.”
“Good.” Relief in his voice. “What else do you need?”
“Just wanted to check in before skate.”
Background noise—Naomi’s voice, one of the kids laughing. Normal Sunday morning chaos. The kind of thing I wanted someday.
“The team’s got you,” André said. “I want you to know that.”
Something in my chest loosened. “Thanks, Cap.”
Morning skate was exactly what I needed.
The locker room was actively normal. Thompson had his earbuds in.
Fortin was arguing about last night’s scores.
The playlist was the same. The routines were the same.
Nobody made a big deal of it, which was the point.
The reaction wasn’t silence or awkwardness.
It was sameness, and sameness was the thing I’d been afraid I’d lose.
Ross, our nineteen-year-old rookie, stopped by my stall on his way out. Didn’t look at me directly. Just said, “Good for you, Briggs,” and kept walking.
Four words.
I sat there for a moment, feeling something I couldn’t name. Gratitude, yeah. But also, an awareness that the thing I’d been most afraid of, the locker room, had turned out to be fine. The thing I should have been more afraid of was losing Evan.
I geared up and hit the ice, and for two hours I didn’t think about anything except hockey. The ice was the one place that still made complete sense.
An hour after practice finished, I was sitting across from Rachel in the PR office.
The meeting with Rachel was efficient.
She had the statement drafted: two sentences, clean and direct. I’m proud to be a gay man and a professional hockey player. My private life is my own, and I ask that the media and public respect that boundary.
“It goes out tomorrow morning,” Rachel said. “We let the Sunday news cycle run without feeding it. Monday we own the story.”
“One change,” I said. “Second sentence. ‘Personal life’ not ‘private life.’ Private sounds like I’m hiding. Personal sounds like a boundary.”
She typed. “Done. Good catch.”
She walked through the media protocol—what the team would and wouldn’t field on my behalf, how interview requests would be handled, deflection language for teammates who got approached. I took notes. Asked questions. Got answers.
Then she shifted in her chair, like she was about to say something delicate.
“One more item. Evan Beckett. If he’s receiving media contact—and based on what we’re seeing online, he is—his communication strategy matters. We can help coordinate if he wants support.”
“I’ll talk to him about it.” I didn’t think he would go for it.
After the meeting ended, I sat in my car for a moment.
The plan was working. Neil had it. Rachel had it. The statement was clean. The locker room was fine. VortexStride hurt, but it was survivable. I had a framework, a timeline, and people handling the pieces I couldn’t handle myself.
This was the part I knew how to do—contain it, manage it, execute.
The part I didn’t know how to do was Evan.
He had no framework. No Rachel, no Neil, no locker room full of teammates treating him like he was fine.
He had a business he’d built from scratch that was taking collateral damage.
He had a life designed around privacy that was now public property with his name, his headshot, his history with Ryan…
all of it circulating without his consent.
I could see him receiving my action-mode as distance, like I was managing the situation instead of being in it with him.
I didn’t have a play for this.
I stopped at the grocery store on the way to his apartment. Sandwich makings, fruit, and the sparkling water he liked. I couldn’t fix the rest of it, but I could do this.
When I got to his apartment, he’d showered and changed. His laptop was open on his desk. He’d been trying to work.
I unpacked the groceries without making a thing of it.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said over my shoulder.
“No trouble.”
I made sandwiches, and we sat at his table with the afternoon light coming in through the window. I told him about the meeting and the statement, the timeline, and Rachel’s offer to coordinate his media strategy.
He listened the way he always did. Careful. Processing.
“She’s right,” he said finally. “The statement won’t stop the coverage. It just gives them something official to quote while they keep digging.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve been thinking about search results.
My professional headshot is circulating—I’ve already taken it down, but the cached versions are everywhere.
” He ran a finger through the condensation on his water glass.
“There are things I can do to push the coverage down over time. It’ll take a few months, but I know how to do it. ”
I looked at him. This was the Evan who’d built something from nothing after Ryan. Practical, forward moving, thinking three steps ahead even when he was scared. “That makes sense.”
Evan nodded.
“About Wesley,” I said. “His offer to help still stands.”
Evan sipped his water. “I know.”
“He’s good at this. He’s been through it.”
“I know that too.” He set the glass down. “I just need to handle this my way.” He said it without heat. Like it was already decided.
I let it go. Pushing wouldn’t get me anywhere, and I could see the logic well enough, even if the logic was also a way of not having to depend on anyone from my world to solve a problem my world had caused him.
I mentioned the game tonight. Kept my voice even.
He set down his sandwich. “I’m not going tonight.”
I stopped chewing.
“I know I should—”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“Nico, I want to explain. Every camera in that building is going to be looking for me. Everyone will know who I am now. And I can’t…” He shook his head. “I’m not ready.”
I made myself swallow past the lump in my throat. “I get it. The arena tonight is different from what it was last week.”
Relief flickered across his face, followed immediately by guilt.
I understood the logic. Forty-eight hours after the photos went viral, walking into a packed arena was a huge ask.
But I was also acutely aware—sitting there in his kitchen on game day, my endorsement deal gone, a carefully managed statement going out tomorrow—that I’d just come out publicly and my boyfriend wasn’t going to be at my first game since it happened.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll text you after.”
“Thank you.” His voice was quiet. “For not making this harder.”
I stood and started clearing the table. “It’s one game.” It came out sharper than I’d meant it to.
Evan heard it. I saw him register the edge in my tone.
I averted my eyes and kept clearing plates.
“Nico—”
“I need to get to the rink early.” I picked up my bag. “Pre-game routine.”
“Right. Of course.”
I kissed him at the door—quick, not enough—and left.
The arena had that pre-game energy it always had. The hum of preparation, the smell of the ice. I let it settle over me the moment I walked through the players’ entrance.
This, at least, was simple.
I found the trainer and got my right wrist taped because it had been tightening up mid-motion all week. Then the usual progression: stretching, resistance work, the low burn of muscles waking up. André fell into step beside me mid-routine without a word.
Team meeting. Tactical. Something to think about besides what was going on in my own head.
Pre-game meal. Someone produced a soccer ball, and we played two-touch on the loading dock in the cold air, music from somebody’s Bluetooth speaker rattling off the concrete. Fortin caught Thompson flat-footed and didn’t let him forget it. I laughed without meaning to.
By the time we went back inside, I felt almost human.
But when I pulled my jersey over my head before warmups, I thought about the VortexStride deal. The signature shoe. Six months of meetings and mock-ups I’d actually liked.
And Evan not in the stands.
I knew how to handle the professional fallout. I had people for that. What I didn’t have was a plan for the fact that my boyfriend was alone in his apartment tonight because walking into my arena felt like too much.
I pulled on my gloves and headed for the tunnel.
The ice would make sense.
It did that night too.
The crowd was louder than usual, or maybe I was just more aware of it.
I caught the signs in the lower bowl during warmups: a rainbow flag in Section 112, a hand-lettered poster that said WE GOT YOU, brIGGS in block letters, a kid in the front row holding up a number seventeen jersey with both hands like an offering.
I didn’t let myself look too long. But I saw them.
The moment the puck dropped, my head cleared.
Detroit came out strong, we matched them, and for sixty minutes the only thing that mattered was the puck, the ice, and the five guys on the ice with me.
I scored in the third with a rebound off the right post, the kind of goal that happens because you’re in position and paying attention. Clean and simple.
We won 3–1.
In the locker room after, nobody made a speech.
Nobody needed to. Thompson cranked the music.
Fortin dumped a water bottle on the rookie’s head.
It was exactly like every other winning locker room I’d been in for eight years.
I stood in the middle of it and realized that this was still the same locker room, and I was still the same person in it.
André caught my eye across the room and nodded once, just that, and I nodded back.
That was enough.
I texted Evan from my stall.
Nico
Kept looking for you in the stands.
The response came while I was dressing.
Evan
Congrats on the win. Saw your goal in the third.
Nico
Wish you’d been there.
I sent it and put my phone away. His answer was waiting when I got to my car.
Evan
Me too.
I sat in the parking lot and read it twice.
It wasn’t the same as having him there. But it was honest, and honest was what we’d promised each other.