Chapter 5
Ash
Even at its most boring or painful, I could normally keep my attention on Callie. I could normally at least act into whatever we were doing, but not today.
And not with how bad my leg was hurting.
Avoiding Thayer was easier than I thought–skipping out first and not lingering in the locker room or on the ice. It may have helped that he didn’t seem all that eager to see me alone either, but it was becoming unavoidable now.
The pain started up again a few days ago, but it was minor at first. It was just a dull ache–more annoying than anything. It didn’t start getting bad again and requiring my routine of painkillers every three hours until yesterday, but it was still manageable.
Today, it was killing me.
“Can we try something?” I asked in a pained wince, carefully moving Callie to the bed next to me and no longer putting all her weight on me.
“For your leg?” she asked as I sat up carefully, dragging my leg like it was a dead weight on the bed. “Is it bugging you again? I thought it was better.”
“You and me both,” I muttered, shaking out my head with a sigh. “Here, just,” I started, taking her hands slowly and resting them on either side of my knee. “Just kind of…I don't know–massage it or knead it, please.”
Callie seemed confused, but determined, working her hands similarly to how Thayer did. It wasn’t exactly right, and her hands were much smaller, not as firm, but it felt alright enough.
“Just…move up slowly,” I mumbled, awkwardly lying back down as she worked her hand up my leg.
I wanted this to work so badly.
I wanted to be able to solve this with Callie and not need Thayer to do it again, because it was one thing to have me moaning like I was in heat for my girlfriend touching my leg, but not my coach.
Very different things.
The only problem here was that the further she worked up my leg, the less I believed it would work. I didn’t know what Thayer was doing that was so magical that day, but whatever it was, Callie wasn’t doing it.
She was trying–for sure–but it didn’t feel good at all.
In fact, it kind of hurt.
“Stop,” I grumbled, resting my hands over hers before she made it to the worst part. “I’m sorry–I thought that might work–”
“It’s fine, I guess.” Callie huffed and puffed, straightening up before sliding off my bed, irritable. “I’ll just see you later, Ash.”
“Wait,” I said suddenly, wincing at sitting up too quickly and climbing out of bed. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to go–I can go down on you or something–”
“Don’t sound so excited about it,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes with a dainty hand on her hip. “I’m good, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow–today’s clearly just a bad day for you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Callie raised an eyebrow, coughing out a laugh like I was an idiot for missing the point here. I stuttered out a few breaths, waiting for an answer from her, but she was clearly waiting for me to get there on my own.
Another reason relationships didn’t work well for me–I was too busy and tired for mind games like this.
“Hello–”
“I’ll see you later, Ash,” Callie sighed, half-heartedly waving goodbye at me as she left.
Honestly, watching that door shut was a relief.
I liked Callie, of course, but I never felt relaxed around her–I always felt like I was performing. I thought it was just jitters from our relationship being so new, but we were almost a year in now, and I still felt so on display when I was with her.
Even when we were alone.
It was so bad–and I knew this pissed her off–but I'd never been able to actually sleep over at her dorm or have her sleep with me in mine. I could never seem to settle enough to actually sleep at night with anyone, even before her. I’d never done a sleepover with my friends, or at the very least, I didn’t sleep during the ones I did attend.
My mom thought it was a control thing for me, but all I knew was that I just never felt comfortable unless I was in my own space, and alone.
The only person I'd ever told that to was Coach Reed, and only because I needed to explain why I had to have my own room when we traveled. It pissed off most of our team, but Reed kept the reason why quiet for me.
Things didn’t get better for me after Callie left. I was still in pain, and the longer I lay down, the worse it got when I’d finally get up. I must have wallowed there for an hour before I finally got up and got changed into running clothes, forcing myself to get active.
It always helped, even if it burned.
Today was a rare rest day–no game or practice. I hated those days, if only because my leg always got worse on days when I did nothing. I would try to relax and rest, but I always ended up at the rink, even just skating for fun or bullying Carp–our captain and my roommate–to shoot at me for a while.
Carp was the only person I'd ever successfully slept in the same room as, and I had no idea why. I was in a single dorm for my whole first year, but when I came back in the fall, I was rooming with him.
The entire hockey team was housed on the same floor in the same dorm building, which was great for team spirit, not so much for my weird sleeping habits.
Luckily, Carp never complained about my weirdness. I couldn't sleep for almost a month that year, but we worked together to find both a schedule and a system that worked, involving moving the room around so that I was next to the door and had all the other furniture between our beds.
Carp was a good guy.
My leg was on fire by the time I made it halfway to the rink. I thought I was going to die from how bad it hurt, gripping onto any available surface with a death grip as I sat down. I thought about heading back to my room, relaxing like I was supposed to, or heading to the rink.
The last thing I wanted to do was seek out Thayer…
But he could help.
There wasn’t even a guarantee that he was at the rink today, but I still hauled my dead body off the bench and made my way to the rink, just in the hopes. I was a prideful person and had no interest in repeating last week with him, but he did fix my issue.
It was worth a little embarrassment.
It might have happened slowly, but eventually, I limped my way into the rink.
As soon as I crossed the threshold, I started walking as normally as I could, even if that was more painful–I couldn't let anyone still lingering see it.
Painfully, I made my way to the offices, hoping to find Thayer and only finding one empty room after another. I was losing hope and adrenaline the longer I went without finding him, almost giving up, until I heard someone in the weight room.
It was likely just one of the other players, but I still let hope win and poked my head in.
My eyes fell over two men–Thayer bench pressing and Reed spotting him. I assumed they worked out in their spare time–even Reed wasn’t old by any means–but I’d never actually seen them do it.
I’d found who I was looking for, but for some reason, I didn’t speak up right away. I didn’t interrupt and get his attention–I just lingered. I watched him for a minute, inspected his form, and found my mouth got very dry very quickly–maybe it had been the whole time?
Too much time passed for this to be considered normal, so I cleared my throat, garnering both their attention as Thayer racked the weight and sat up on the bench.
Sweat was dripping down his chest and forehead, making loose strands of his hair stick–
“Coach Thayer,” I called out, nudging my head back. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Of course,” he panted, wiping his bare chest with a small towel as he stood, smiling at Reed as a goodbye.
Thayer gestured for me to walk ahead of him, leading him down the hall to one of the training rooms instead of his office, like he might have expected.
I held it together just fine the whole way, but as soon as that door was shut, I started limping over to sit on one of the benches–I just couldn’t do it anymore.
“It really hurts today,” I said awkwardly as I sat down, wincing.
“I can see that,” he said, almost angrily, kneeling next to me to help straighten my leg out. “Don’t tell me you walked all the way here with it hurting like this.”
“I’ve played on it when it hurt worse,” I mumbled. “I can usually just run or work it out, and it feels better, but it’s like it’s superhuman pain today–I don’t know what’s wrong–”
“What’s wrong is you got used to not feeling pain again,” he muttered, taking my hand and resting it on his shoulder to help me down to the padded ground. “It’s the same pain it’s always been–you just forgot what not feeling it was like.”
“But it’s not going away,” I argued, biting my tongue at the whimper that wanted to break free once I was flat on my back. “I even tried having my girlfriend do that massage thing you did, and it just hurt worse.”
“That’s nice in theory, but she probably wasn’t doing it right,” he huffed, down on the ground next to me, but not touching me–I was swallowing my pride and asking him for help, and he wasn’t doing it.
It was frustrating!
I didn’t ever ask for help, and I finally was. He seemed like he was going to help me, but now he just seemed angry and annoyed with me, huffing and puffing like I was a naughty kid he was responsible for.
“Okay, well, are you going to help me or just scold me?” I asked, folding my hands over my eyes to block out the light and him and just all of that. “You can slap my wrist or whatever later–”
“We just need to talk first, Ash,” he said reluctantly. I peeled back one of my hands to find him almost in pain, clearly uncomfortable as he rested his hands flat on his legs again. “We need to set boundaries, and–”
“Look, I’m in too much pain to care about last week, so–”
“Not that,” he sighed. “There’s something you need to know. I just don’t want you to find out on your own somehow and feel any particular way about any of this stuff.”
He shifted uncomfortably, taking a slow, controlled breath. “I meant to tell you, Jordy, and Tommy, when we first met, just to clear the air, but in the showers seemed wrong, and then I needed you to let me help you and not take it weird, but uhm.”
“I’m gay, Ash,” he finally got out, letting out a breath like it was a relief.
It may have been a relief to him, but I now had a very different perspective on his reaction to my reaction last week. He was so controlled and poised–like he was restraining himself–oh, god!
Was he like…into me?
No–that was insane.
He wasn’t into me, and he was just telling me this to be professional–he was right. I would have found out on my own eventually and would have had some feelings about him not telling me, especially if we were forming a trusting bond.
Just because he was gay didn’t mean he was into me–that was like thinking every straight man was into every woman they ever met.
“Okay?” I finally asked, covering my face again. “Can you tell me about this while you work? It really hurts.”