11. Nick
NICK
I’ve been feted at dinners and galas. I’ve had rooms full of people raise a glass and toast to the crown prince of Ardenia.
And yet, none of those august occasions hold a candle to a bunch of burly hockey players smashing beer pints together and yelling, “To Nick! MVP!”
MVP might be a better title than crown prince.
“Congratulations to the new guy for that clutch save in the final seconds. Throwing your body across the goal like you were a freaking secret service agent…I nearly had tears in my eyes.” Bill lifts his pint glass, reaches across the table to clink it against mine.
In that moment, Bill Crandell’s approval means as much to me as my father’s.
Beer sloshes out of my teammates’ glasses onto the table. It’s a bit challenging to drink beer when I’m smiling this big. My lips can’t close around the glass.
The Comebacks are sitting at a long table in Mitch’s bar, Stone’s Throw Tavern.
It has an elevated hole-in-the-wall feeling.
Cozy and homey, but still nicely furnished.
A big Christmas tree stands next to giant windows in the back overlooking the river.
Patrons play games of life-size Jenga. A spiral staircase with garland on the banister curlicues up to an off-limits loft space that’s Mitch’s office.
Football plays on a bank of TVs above the bar.
I haven’t been in a bar remotely like this since university, and even then, I couldn’t stay long because of fears around security. Onlookers would openly stare at me, take pictures, firmly in the belief that since I was a public figure I had no right to privacy.
“Nick, I think you need to teach Hank a thing or two.” Des is the only one not drinking a beer. He opted for a martini, an odd choice in a place like this, but I get the feeling it’s a regular occurrence for him.
“The student has become the teacher.” Hank flashes me a lazy half-smile as he sips his beer across the table. Does he realize how adorable he is? A big, sexy teddy bear.
“It was one game. One period in one game,” I say.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Derek says. “You had some awesome saves in there.”
I also had some misses, too, but fortunately nobody is mentioning those. Short memory.
“Thank you to Griffin and Mitch for the defense. You made my job much easier.”
“For a guy with only one functioning eye, you’re pretty good,” Des says.
“And for a guy with only one functioning nut, you’re pretty good out there, too.” Griffin winks at him with his lone functioning eye.
“Des is a cancer survivor,” Tanner tells me. With his sweet face and bright blue eyes, I can’t imagine Tanner contributing to the trash talk like his teammates.
“I’m sorry and congratulations,” I say, covering my bases.
“It’s all good. Everything down there is still going strong.” Des smiles at Tanner in a quick, throwaway moment. Nobody else seems to catch it. A stolen glance that seemed a touch too friendly. Maybe I’m not the only closeted guy here.
“You guys were so good out there,” I gush to him and Tanner. Their passing was beautiful choreography. “It’s like you share a brain on the ice.”
“We’ve been doing this for a while,” Tanner says.
“You all played together in high school, right?”
They nod.
“Feels like yesterday,” Hank says.
“We kicked ass then. And we’re kicking ass now.” Bill wears a satisfied smile.
“And if you’re wondering, Bill was the same hard-ass back then.” Des blows him a kiss. “Only back then, his voice would do the puberty cracking thing, so it wasn’t as intimidating.”
“Des, don’t make me tell the sleepover story,” Bill says.
“Now I have to hear it!” I laugh into my glass as I attempt another sip.
“Nobody has to hear it.” Des cocks an eyebrow Bill’s way.
“You were the one who brought up puberty.” Griffin raises his shoulders to his ears.
“I’m not listening to this slander. I’m going to the bathroom.” Des stands up and gives us a blanket middle finger.
“So what happened?” I ask once he’s gone, eager like a child in a village hearing a story from his elders.
Bill clears his throat. “Sophomore year, we were having a sleepover at Derek’s house. Des would always fall asleep first. He needed his beauty sleep. So we did the thing where you stick a sleeping person’s hand in warm water to get them to pee.”
Tanner rubs his face, his face red already with laughter.
“And Des peed his pants?” I ask.
“Nope,” says Hank, practically giddy. “He came in his pants!”
The table erupts in laughter. Our glasses shake, clanging against each other’s.
My mouth falls open. “Can that happen?”
“Apparently.” Hank shrugs. “He woke up with a big sticky stain on his sweatpants and locked himself in the bathroom.”
“Still doing that, apparently.” Bill looks over at the Stone’s Throw restroom. Even hard-ass Bill is cackling, his smile an arresting feature on that stonecold face.
I join in the laughter, tears pricking at my eyes.
“Poor Des,” I say. I feel bad, but also I don’t think I’ve ever laughed like this. Pure, contagious guffawing. Could I be having anymore fun?
“It was embarrassing. And something we shouldn’t be laughing about all these years later, gentlemen!” Tanner says. “I’m gonna go check on him.”
Tanner gets up and heads to the restroom.
“Des is okay. He knows we’re just fucking with him,” says Griffin, then turns to me. “Like you and your friends do back home.”
“Yeah.” The inaccuracy of Griffin’s assumption curbs my enjoyment for a brief moment. I have many privileges in my life, but I’ve never had this.
“You need a refill.” Hank picks up my pint glass. He shows me his empty one, too.
A minute later, we’re at the bar getting fresh beer. A short guy in a tight henley pours us our drinks.
“You have fun today?” Hank asks me, leaning against the bar.
“Fun is an understatement. I had the best time. I’m the MVP!”
“You’re the MVP!”
“Seriously, Hank. Thank you so much. For everything.” Maybe it’s the beer I’ve had.
Or the high of today. But impulse makes me wrap my arms around him in a hug.
Bros can hug, right? It’s brief, and right before I pull away, he places his hands on my hips in a quick hug back.
Those two seconds of his touch make my insides get all gooey.
“You should find a league in Baltimore when you get home.”
“I wish.”
“Uh, who cares what your father thinks?” Hank says this like it’s obvious. “You’re a grown adult. It’s your life.”
“If only it were that simple.”
“Why isn’t it?” Hank furrows his brow in confusion. I don’t have a good answer for him, not one that makes sense and still hides my true identity.
“It’s complicated.” I shrug and laugh it off.
“Nick, I tried for years to change myself for my ex-wife. Didn’t make a damn bit of difference.
She still hated me, and I was still miserable.
I know I’m not the crispiest fry in the Happy Meal, but something I’ve learned after forty-something years on this planet: stop trying to please other people.
If they don’t like you for who you are now, they’re not going to like you once you fit their mold. ”
I pull out my royal reserve to keep my face as unemotional as possible, to fight back the tears threatening to sting my eyes.
His kernels of wisdom land like an arrow plunging into a bullseye.
But what am I supposed to do with it? Since I was a boy, I’ve been told that we must put the country’s happiness over our own. There is a mold, and I must fit it.
But he can never know that. To him, I will always be Nick from Baltimore, never Prince Nicholas. There will always be a barrier between us.
“Like I said, it’s complicated.” I excuse myself to use the bathroom before I can clock any disappointment on his face.
The bathrooms are located down a narrow hallway with an overstuffed bulletin board hanging on the left side wall. My head clangs with thoughts of the king’s disappointment, and with the shame of being a thirty-six-year-old still worried about disappointing his father.
I look up just before I bump into someone outside the men’s room.
Only it’s not one person.
It’s two people.
Two people smushed very close together.
Smushed very close together because they’re kissing.
Des and Tanner kissing.
Des?
Tanner?
Kissing??
Each other???
“Whoops.” Des laughs awkwardly as he pulls back from a red-faced Tanner. “We were just doing a little post-game celebrating.”
“Sorry,” I mumble as I sidestep them. “As you were…”
In the bathroom, I go straight into a stall, sit down, and heave out a freaked-out breath. Did I just stumble onto their secret? Am I not the only closeted player on the Comebacks?
It reminds me of the Friends episode where Phoebe and Rachel catch Chandler and Monica making out through a window, and Phoebe can’t stop screaming “Chandler and Monica! Chandler and Monica!”
Des and Tanner! Des and Tanner!
Shit. There are wedding rings on their fingers. Are they cheating on their wives? Am I now a witness? Will I be dragged into divorce proceedings for testimony? That will undoubtedly force me to reveal my true identity. Oh, and the gossip rags will have a fucking field day with this.
No, I’m going to play it cool. We are all adults. I don’t know their lives. Maybe this is a custom in American hockey leagues. Isn’t this what happened in that television program Heated Rivalry?
“Whatever,” I mutter to myself in my coolest, most laid-back American accent. “No worries, homies.”
Christ. Never say that again, I warn myself.
I leave the stall and give myself a confident nod in the mirror. Back at the table, Des and Tanner sit there, talking to their teammates as if nothing happened, as if they weren’t just using each other’s mouths as oxygen masks.
Hank nudges over my fresh pint glass when I take my seat.
“Sorry about before,” Tanner says to me.
“About what?” I laugh it off while trying to communicate with my eyes that I know how to keep a secret.
“I usually hate PDA. Des and I are still in the newlywed phase.”
“And we really were celebrating the game.” Des throws his arm around Tanner. They kiss again, a sweet peck on the lips.
“Speaking of, you never returned my Third Eye Blind CD that I lent you for your wedding.” Hank crosses his arms.
Des’s wedding ring clinks against his martini glass. I notice now it’s the same style of ring as the one on Tanner’s finger.
“Shit,” Griffin says, staring at me. “You didn’t know.”
“You’re together? And married?” I ask the couple.
“Yup.” Des lets the P in “yup” pop.
“Oh.” Suddenly, my freakout feels like a cruel prank. “I didn’t know.”
“Bill has a strict rule that we don’t talk about our relationship at the rink. We can’t even kiss.” Des rolls his eyes. “If you haven’t deduced it by now, Bill is kind of a party pooper.”
“To avoid any uncomfortable situations, you two shouldn’t bring your marriage into the locker room. What if you have a fight and then that negativity messes with the team mood on a game day?” Bill shrugs, as if to confirm the fact he’s right.
I’m still stuck on the marriage part.
“You’re right, Bill. How dare we think for a second that our marriage is more important than being beer league champions. I’m so glad you’re here to keep our priorities in check,” Des says.
“Nobody here wants to watch you guys make out in the locker room,” Bill says. “I don’t even like watching you lick an envelope.”
“But it’s fine for Tate to run onto the ice and kiss you when we win?” Des shoots back.
“That’s different. That was the championship game.”
“Rules for thee, not for me,” Des snaps back in a singsong way.
“You and Tanner could’ve kissed.”
“We had colds. Apparently, when you live with four children, it’s a mandate that you’re constantly sick.”
“Who’s Tate?” I whisper to Hank.
“Bill’s boyfriend,” he whispers back.
Bill has a boyfriend?
“By the way, I can tell from the red line that you’re a bad kisser. Way too much tongue,” Des says to Bill. “You remind me of a dog eating table scraps.”
“Get fucked,” Bill says.
“Not in the locker room, apparently.” Des crosses his arms. “Although Griffin and Jack might’ve broken that rule.”
Bill’s eyes leap open. Griffin looks down and sips his drink.
“I told you that in confidence,” Griffin grumbles.
“I hope you didn’t make a mess for the cleaning crew,” Hank says.
“Uh oh, Bill. You have a rule breaker on your team,” Des says with a heaping dose of sarcasm. “You know, I’ve had to listen to your captain bullshit for twenty-five years. Guess what, buddy? Pot’s legal now. So take a bong hit and chill out.”
Bill turns to Griffin. “What did you and Jack do?”
“Nothing. I’m not talking about this.” Griffin turns away from him and gives a dirty nod to Des.
“Who’s Jack?” I whisper to Hank.
“Griffin’s boyfriend,” he whispers back.
“What?” I feel my eyes get as wide as Bill’s. Griffin has a boyfriend, too?
“Look, if our boyfriends were our teammates, then we’d follow these rules, too,” Bill says to Des and Tanner. “We’re not trying to single you out.”
“I mean, would it be so horrible if Des and I kissed in the locker room before we went out on the ice, for good luck?” Tanner asks.
“He makes a good point,” Griffin says. Griffin, who also has a boyfriend.
Trying to wrap my head around everything, I spot Mitch behind the bar caressing the cheek of the short bartender.
“Is that Mitch’s boyfriend?” I ask Hank.
“Charlie? Nah.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“That’s his husband.”
“Husband?”
I bolt out of my seat as the world continues to spin wildly.
“What the fuck!” I yell.
Everyone stops talking at our table.
“You all have husbands and boyfriends?” I ask…a table full of burly hockey players.
They nod, a bit nervous and unsure.
“You’re all just…gay. Openly gay?”
“No,” Des scoffs. “Some of us are bi. Or demisexual.”
No wonder they all seem so chill. None of them are encumbered with a secret weighing them down like an anvil.
Bill stands up, cautious vein pulsing in his forehead. “Is that a problem?”
“N–no. I just…didn’t know.”
“That we’re all queer as three dollar bills?” Griffin laughs. “It wasn’t planned. We probably would’ve picked a better team name if we all knew.”
“What about Derek?”
“His boyfriend Cary is the best,” Hank says. “Drinks way too much iced coffee.”
I blink at Hank, wondering if he’s going to join the coming out chorus.
“Are you okay?” Hank asks me, eyes ringed with concern.
These men are getting to live and love openly. And dammit, why can’t I? I’m not Prince Nicholas here. I’m Nick from Baltimore. And Nick from Baltimore is a grown adult who doesn’t need to worry about heirs and royal optics.
“I’m okay. I’m also glad I found this team because…” Deep breath, Nick. You can do it. “Because I’m also gay.”
Silence descends on the table for a long beat.
“Okay. Cool,” Bill says. “Anyone need a refill?” He holds up his almost empty beer glass.
Tanner and Griffin give him their order. Bill stands up and heads to the bar. For a moment, I wonder if they misheard me. But no, they heard just fine. Their teammate is gay, and it’s no big deal.
I sit back down, feeling like a new man, one slightly more in control of his destiny.