11. Mads
ELEVEN
Mads
I heard every single word, but then it was easy, because they were shouting so loud that people on the next street could probably hear them.
Love just happens. That was what Ten said to Brady. He said he loved me, that he was in love with me. The words were equal parts stunning and overwhelming. Because what happened when two people were in love with each other? That was more than just sex; it was hearts and flowers and promises.
God, I’m so fucking scared.
The shouting lessened and became more like serious conversation.
I moved into the small laundry area I had and found some of my sweats, feeling less vulnerable than just being in a towel.
I immediately turned to the coffee machine, pulling it apart bit by bit, because clearly it was vitally important that I clean it today.
My face hurt where Brady had gotten in the punch of a freaking lifetime.
I didn’t think he’d broken anything, but I had to dig deep into my hockey reserves to ignore the pain.
There was no way I was standing in the kitchen with an ice pack on my face; I was not giving Brady the satisfaction.
“Mads?” Brady asked from behind me.
I dunked the filter holder into the hot soapy water in the sink and held it under for a while.
“Brady,” I murmured in reply, but didn’t turn to face him.
“Sorry for hitting you, dude,” he offered in what seemed to me like the most insincere way ever. It was on the same level as, “Shit, sorry I picked up your water bottle by mistake.”
I let go of the machine part and it bobbed to the surface, a stream of bubbles flowing from it. I may have overdone the dish detergent a little.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, because it didn’t matter. What was important was that Brady and his brother weren’t at odds with each other, and that Brady would now treat Ten a little differently after their talk.
And then came the interrogation.
“Did you always know he was gay, from when we were kids?” Brady asked, cautiously.
I didn’t like that question at all. Was he saying that because I was bi I must have a fully functioning gaydar and must have known?
Ten would only have been twelve when I spent time with Brady in the minors—hell, he’d been a kid and probably hadn’t known for certain whether he was gay or straight or anywhere else on the spectrum.
Whatever Brady meant to achieve with the query, it came over as an accusation.
I grabbed a dish towel and the machine part and dried it and my hands, and finally I turned away from the sink to look at Brady.
He winced as he saw my face. I hadn’t managed to get a shot at him, not a real one, and part of me wanted to punch him right then just to get him to back the fuck off with the questions.
“No. I’m damn sure he didn’t even know himself, and I don’t have magic fucking gaydar. I didn’t even know until he freaking told me, which for your information was only a couple months back. So don’t even start accusing me of keeping secrets.”
Brady’s face fell. I was right—he had been accusing me of hiding the truth. The part of me that wanted to punch him was back with a vengeance. Then he said something that knocked back my anger and turned the whole situation on its head.
“Shit,” he began. “I was hoping he hadn’t gone through everything alone; that he’d at least had someone to talk to.”
My chest tightened. Brady was looking at me like he’d just lost game seven in the Cup finals. Devastated.
“Brady—”
“What does it mean for him?” Brady asked me, and he sat heavily on one of the stools, his elbows on the counter.
I wanted to say something to make things right at that point, some glib comment about how Ten was a strong guy and how it wasn’t that bad for a player to be different on a team.
The Railers were full of all kinds of guys, split fairly equally between American, Canadian and European; that much was a given.
Cultural differences began there, and that was just the start of all their differences.
I wasn’t naive enough to align sexual preference with something like the province a guy was born in, but I hoped that the team discovering Ten was gay wouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
Particularly when the team was cohesive and on a tear to win a game.
“There was that kid in college, the one who came out,” Brady said. “He’s been getting all this hate mail—threats, even.”
I’d read about that, sent a quick email of support to him, but he wasn’t a player with the same skillset as Ten.
He wasn’t the one making it into the NHL and having a spotlight on him.
It could be a million times worse for Ten.
Then it hit me how badly I was trivializing what any guy in hockey was going through if they were gay.
“The Railers are supportive,” I said.
“And he has you,” Brady said.
I hadn’t even made sense of how I was feeling, but Brady looked like he wanted an answer.
“I will always have his back,” I offered.
Brady considered my words. “If you hurt him—”
“You’ll kill me, I know. Well, you can try…”
“Fuck you, Mads,” Brady said without heat. “I could take you any day.”
“Fuck you back.”
Brady scrubbed his eyes. He looked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, as only the captain of an NHL team can.
“Mom and Dad were okay?” he asked me softly.
Ten answered from his position in the doorway. How long he’d been standing there, I didn’t know. “Did you expect them not to be?” he asked.
He had his cell phone in his hand and he looked different somehow.
Confident, maybe. Was that just because I was in love with him?
Was I just praying Ten would stay confident, positive, and not give in to any kind of hate thrown his way?
However hard management tried, there could be signs at games, slurs, hate, articles, questions about his abilities as an athlete.
I’d seen it all at one level or another.
I’d also known other hockey players who loved men, who fucked men—Jesus, one guy in LA was living with his boyfriend.
The team spun it as roommates, but a lot of people knew the real story.
Ten didn’t have to come out publicly. He could play hockey until he was forty, and whatever relationships he had could be kept on the down-low.
Ten was asking a good question. Bruce and Jean Rowe were good parents, with a broad outlook on life. Had Brady expected them to be different when faced with one of their sons coming out?
“No,” Brady said immediately, but he didn’t sound so sure.
“Mum wants to join support groups and march in Pride with me.”
Brady blinked at him, probably considering whether Ten was fucking with him.
Also, the whole thing about a Pride parade meant Ten would be out and proud and everyone would know he was gay.
I could almost pinpoint the moment when Brady had to stop himself hyperventilating, and the moment where he pulled his shit together.
“I’ll march with you,” he announced.
Ten went over to his brother, bumped arms, then gave him the biggest noogie, Brady cursing up a storm. “I’ll hold you to that,” Ten said. Then he looked at me and I saw his smile, the heat in his eyes, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“Jesus, Mads, stop eye-fucking my little brother,” Brady muttered.
For that he got a smack on the back of his head from Ten, and they bickered for a short while.
I left them to it, turning back to my super-important cleaning-of-the-coffee-machine job.
I would do that for a while, then make an excuse to go hide in my room; give the brothers their space.
They needed that. But it seemed Ten had other ideas, placing his cell on the counter next to me and thumbing through his contacts to Jamie’s number.
“Will you stay?” he asked quietly as the sound of the call connecting filled the room.
I had maybe seconds to answer, but this was important to Ten. If he was telling Jamie, then there was nowhere else I wanted to be than right there next to him.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, a little gruffly because my throat felt tight with emotion.
“Yo, Ten,” Jamie answered. His voice echoed a little, like maybe he was at the rink.
I knew Jamie was playing today, an evening game, not a matinee like us.
Talking of which, we only had a couple of hours to get to the rink, and Ten really still needed a shower; he smelled of berries and sunshine and I wanted to kiss him all over, and I couldn’t do that at work.
“Jamie, hey.”
“Won’t work,” said another voice, a deep Russian-accented voice, “not throw game for you, Little-Rowe.”
There was some scuffling and cursing, and a very resounding, “Give me back my fucking phone, asshole.” And then Jamie was back. “Fucking Russian goalies,” he muttered. “Wassup, Ten. You okay?”
That was Jamie’s default setting—he always started conversations wanting to know if everything was okay with the person he was talking to. Because if it wasn’t, then it was a given that Jamie would have a solution to your issues.
Solve this, Jamie, I thought. Your little brother is gay and sleeping with a guy older than him, and oh yeah, he plays professional sports for a living.
“Look I have something to tell you. I wanted to—”
“Oh shit, Ten, did the fucking Railers trade you? What the hell? Fuckers. Tell me you got sent somewhere good.”
I bristled at the insinuation. What was it with Ten’s brothers and their anti-Railers bullshit?
One day we’d lift the Stanley Cup, and then they’d be crying into their beers.
I realized I’d gone off on a tangent in my thoughts when Ten’s voice could be heard saying more or less the same thing.
He rounded it off by calling both his brothers fucking idiots.