4. Mads #2
“Okay.” I sat down, a trick I’d learned from Coach Benning. He’d explained that it was all about psychology and lowered confrontation levels, and I agreed. Ryker paused for a moment, then sat down opposite me.
“Another year,” Ryker offered.
This was good; we’d reached the negotiation stage.
“No deal. Draft year, and then it’s your choice whether you defer and go to college or take the chance early on to get on a team.”
Ryker looked right at me. He was a good-looking kid, a future bright star, and for a moment he smiled at me, and there was the old Ryker, the kid who played rough and tumble with me.
I’d lost out on so many firsts with him—first step, first skate, first day at school—but I was determined to have some say in his career.
I didn’t want him losing control, hurting himself young.
Selfishly, I wanted him to have the career I had lost. He could have the best parts of me, my eyes, my hair, but thank fuck he didn’t have my stupid heart issues.
“Okay,” he said finally.
I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”
He shrugged like that wasn’t important, but I hoped it meant something to him.
I opened the door to let Casey in, but it wasn’t just Casey standing outside the room. Tennant freaking Rowe was there as well, his mouth wide with a smile when he did this complicated handshake fist-bump thing with Ryker.
When I looked at Ryker, I saw my seventeen-year-old son.
When I looked at myself, I saw a man who was heading for thirty-three and feeling every day of that in hockey-sore muscles.
And when I looked at Ten, I knew his age, and I still had doubts.
I saw him as a man, someone I wanted to kiss; an irrational thought that wouldn’t leave me alone. He wasn’t gay, or bi, or even curious, otherwise Brady would have said something, or hell, someone would have made a big deal about it.
Look at me lusting after the straight guy.
“I need to get back,” I explained, although Ten and Ryker were talking, and it was just Casey who heard. I pulled her in for a hug and whispered the details of my and Ryker’s agreement into her ear. She looked grateful.
When I left the three of them outside my office, Casey and Ryker were hugging and Ten was looking right at me. I couldn’t make out his expression. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know why he was staring at me with that curious half smile. He saw a dad, a coach, and he was friendly with my son.
I couldn’t have anything else. I didn’t want anything else.
My walls were up, and I wasn’t letting them down.
So, when the shit hit the fan, I wasn’t ready for it. We were two days out from our first pre-season game, the team from Jersey was visiting, and the buzz in the room was good. Alongside my defense gelling with the addition of Mac and Arvy in the lineup, the forwards were looking good.
Not that I was looking—or indeed staring—at Ten.
Much.
He was on fire, running circles around his teammates.
My only concern as an observer was that he was centering the second line, and his lineys couldn’t quite keep up with him.
They tried, but Ten had a quick mind, even quicker instincts, and he was passing and they weren’t there to receive, leading to too many turnovers.
What did we do, though? Get him to slow down, or put him on the first line where he really belonged?
I was sure the speed issue would settle down, but I knew for a fact that Ten’s left wing, Lee Addison, a seasoned pro in his seventh year, was getting frustrated.
I’d seen it happen over the course of that day’s practice session—some shoving, a bit of cursing, but mostly it was harmless.
Russian Stan was in net, and we were running three-on-two drills, each line going against one of my pairs.
I had an idea of who I was putting with whom, and enough notes to back it all up when we had strategy meetings after practice.
I heard the fight before I saw it, but skated over on instinct, sliding to a halt and attempting to work out what the hell was going on. A quick head-count had five guys beating on each other, and right in the middle, Ten.
Coach skated alongside. “What the fuck?” he shouted, and blew his whistle.
Three of the fighters backed off, but Ten and…
shit, that was Addison, his linemate. They were still going at it; Ten sliding back, losing his footing and falling on his ass, dragging Addison with him in a tumble and tangle of arms and legs.
The crack of a breaking stick had me wincing, and I waded through the shocked observers to the two on the floor.
Ten was on the bottom to start with, but by the time I reached him, he was straddling Addison and shouting in his face.
I couldn’t make out the words, not clearly, but I winced at what I did hear.
Fag. And that was from Ten. Disgust and disappointment welled inside me.
Ten knew me, knew I’d had a boyfriend. He wasn’t a kid who crossed lines like that.
I gripped his jersey, and with a tug so hard he flailed, I dragged him upward.
Temper made me see red, and I yanked him across the ice.
He couldn’t get purchase, off balance, and almost crashed to the rubber when we stepped off the ice.
“Jesus, Mads,” he said, and righted himself with a hand on the boards.
“With me,” I snapped.
The forwards coach skated over, but I waved him away. I was dealing with this, and even though he frowned, my counterpart let it go.
“Five minutes,” was all he said. “Then he’s mine.”
I stamped my way to the changing rooms and through to the skate-sharpening area, which was sound-proofed. I had words to say, and I wasn’t leaving them unsaid. Ten came in after me, and I shoved him aside so I could shut the door to my office.
“What the fuck?” I asked with restrained aggression.
“He fucking started it!” Ten said, touching the lump on his forehead. “Asshole.”
That defense meant nothing to me, and it was my turn to snap. I backed him up against the door.
“If I ever hear you using that word again, I will personally knock you the fuck out.”
I was shouting right at him, eye to eye, and I saw the moment when the temper in his eyes became something else. Confusion.
“I didn’t… I wouldn’t…”
“I heard you, Ten. You called him a fag—”
“No,” he interrupted me, and he sounded so hurt—defensive, almost. “He called me that, said I was showing him up, that I needed to slow the hell down, and then he called me a faggot, and I lost it, okay?”
Now it was my turn to be confused. “I heard you say…”
“That if he ever used the word fag again, I would bury him.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” Ten looked at me like I’d grown a second head, like I had something on my face. He was trying to find something there, and all I could show him was confusion.
“Did you do that for me?” I asked, and abruptly all my strength left me and I slumped against the wall for support.
“Jared—”
“Don’t do that, okay? I’m at peace with who I am, but I don’t need you to fight for me, you get that? You keep yourself safe and you don’t rise to what anyone says.”
“That’s bullshit,” Ten snapped. “That word is offensive and I don’t want it used in that way, demeaning, laughing. I won’t have it.”
“Why? Ten, there are ways of dealing with this. Official ways.”
“He kept saying it, and he knew…”
“Knew what? About me? The world and his wife know I’m bi; I don’t need protecting.” My confusion was growing, and Ten looked like someone had kicked him in the balls and left him to cry in a heap on the floor.
“He saw me, he must have…”
“Ten?”
“Okay, so it’s no big deal, right,” Ten began. “I took a guy back to my room when I first got here, and he saw.”
“What are you saying?”
Ten looked at me. “You’re not stupid,” he said. “I’m gay, Jared. I’m in the fucking closet, and I’m gay. Okay?”
With that, he left and shut the door behind him, and I was frozen to my chair. I rested my elbows on my desk, then scrubbed my face with my hands.
Abruptly, everything I felt and wanted was right there for me to take.
And I realized I was in shock.