24. Ben
BEN
Nolan makes it through the first set of doors before I catch him.
“Wait.”
He keeps walking.
Bobby and Sindre are farther down the hall, headed for the players’ lot. Neither of them turns around. If I let Nolan reach the outside doors, he’ll be in his car before I can get him to stop again.
The equipment room beside us is unlocked. I pull the door open and get my hand against Nolan’s back, low enough that I don’t hit his taped shoulder.
“In here.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
I crowd him through the doorway before he can keep going. Nolan could plant his feet and stop me. Instead he lets me get him inside, then knocks my hand away and turns on me while I pull the door shut.
The room is narrow and dark, with metal shelves taking up most of the space. Old socks and bleach have soaked into the air. A strip of light under the door shows Nolan’s shoes and not much else.
He’s close enough that the front of his sweatshirt brushes my jacket when he breathes.
It’s been three days since I touched him. I’ve gotten used to not having to think about that. If we’re alone, I can put a hand on his leg or pull him across the couch. I can kiss him because I want to, and he kisses me back.
The clean soap smell from his shower is trapped in here with us. My palm still holds the warmth of his back. I want to put it there again, but Nolan has crowded himself against the shelves to get as far from me as the room allows.
Right now his arms are folded across his chest, and I don’t like the way he’s looking at me.
I deserve it. I still don’t like it.
“We don’t need to do this,” Nolan says.
“Do what?”
“Whatever has you shoving me into a dark closet.” His mouth twists. “I’ve had enough of those.”
He’s spent enough of his life hiding for other people. I just pushed him into a room with no windows because I didn’t want anyone watching us talk. “That’s not fair.”
“You’re going to talk to me about fair?”
“Nolan—”
“Next time you don’t want me around, just say it.” He drops his arms, but only so he can shove both hands into his pockets. “I don’t care. Why would I care?”
He cares. He wouldn’t be this angry if he didn’t, but saying that is probably the fastest way to make him leave.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want you around.”
Nolan shifts, and a stack of empty skate boxes scrapes against the shelf behind him. There isn’t enough room for him to step away from me. “You said you were busy and then ignored me for two days.”
“I was with Grayson.” That explains where I was. It doesn’t explain why I ignored him.
“I know that now.”
Nolan waits. I brought him in here to explain, but the part where I explain why I didn’t type four words into my phone is where the explanation stops working.
“I just didn’t want—”
Nolan steps into the small amount of space between us. “Your gay brother to meet the guy you’re fucking?”
My back meets the door. “Keep your voice down.”
Nolan stares at me. “Sindre has the aux and he’s playing that Norwegian metal shit. Nobody can hear us.”
“Still. Keep it down.”
He lets out one short laugh with nothing good in it. “Well, I didn’t tell him, did I? I didn’t say shit to anybody.”
I know. Grayson walked into a conversation about gay bars, and Nolan never once mentioned that he’d taken me to one. I stood there waiting for him to expose me anyway.
“I know,” I say.
“Do you?” Nolan’s voice is quieter now. That makes it worse. “I thought we were friends, man.”
The words hurt. We settled this weeks ago. Nolan is my friend. He’s the first person I text after a game and the person I expect beside me when I order dinner. I don’t understand why he’s saying it like I’ve already taken that away.
“We are.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me your brother was here?”
I search for something better than the truth I don’t want to give him. “I don’t know.”
Nolan looks away. The strip of light under the door catches one side of his face and the silver at his ear. He’s still close enough to touch. I keep my hands to myself.
“You could’ve sent one text,” he says. “My brother’s here. Can’t hang out. That’s all.”
I could have typed exactly that. Nolan doesn’t wait for me to agree.
“We’re…” I stop because I don’t know what comes after it that fixes anything.
His attention comes back to me. “Fucking?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“You can’t even say it in here.” Nolan waves one hand at the shelves and the closed door. “There’s nobody around, Pope. It’s just me.”
“What’s there to say?”
His face goes still.
That isn’t what I meant. I mean that we both know what we’re doing. We don’t need to announce it to make it happen. Nolan knows I want him. He knows I haven’t touched anybody else.
Before I can get any of that out, he catches the front of my shirt and kisses me.
His mouth hits mine hard enough to knock the back of my shoulder against the door. He kisses me once, angry and hot, his fingers clenched against my chest. I get one hand around his waist. Then he’s already pulling away.
I follow.
My mouth catches his again before he can put space between us. Nolan makes a rough sound against my lips, and for a few seconds he gives it back. His body presses into mine. I feel the heat of him through our clothes and slide my hand under the back of his sweatshirt, desperate for skin.
Then he pushes against my chest.
I stop chasing his mouth. His lower lip is red from the pressure of mine, and I want to bite it and pull him back until his hands are on me again.
My hand is still under his sweatshirt. Nolan looks down between us, and I drag it free.
Nolan looks at me while he wipes his thumb over his lip. “Yeah. I thought so.”
I don’t know what he thinks the kiss proved. I know I’m hard, which isn’t helping me understand anything.
“Come over,” I say. If we get out of this room and away from the facility, I can make him stop looking at me like that. “We can figure this out.”
“Not tonight.”
I thought he would say yes. Nolan almost always says yes when I ask him to come home with me, and the flat refusal leaves me standing there without another useful thing to offer.
He reaches past me for the handle. I move because making him fight me for the door would be worse. Nolan pulls it open, and the hall light fills the equipment room.
He doesn’t look back before he leaves.
I wait until I hear the outside door shut. The metal from the locker room is still loud enough that Nolan was right: nobody could have heard us.
I drive home alone.
I don’t turn on the radio. Every time I stop at a light, I can still feel Nolan’s mouth hitting mine and his hand knotted in my shirt. He kissed me and still left. I don’t know what to do with that.
All I offered was my condo and the chance to keep doing what we’d already been doing. When I said we could figure it out, I meant I could get him alone somewhere familiar and hope the argument ended.
Grayson’s empty coffee cup is beside the sink when I walk into the condo. He rinsed it, but he didn’t put it in the dishwasher. I put it away and check the guest room even though I already know he didn’t leave anything behind.
The bed is made. His towels are in the hamper. The space looks the same as it did before he arrived.
I stop beside the couch. Nolan has slept there. We sat there through an entire game with his feet under my thigh, kissing whenever the play stopped. Three days isn’t long enough for the condo to feel wrong without him in it.
I turn on the late game and sit where he usually does. The home team takes a bad penalty before I have the volume set. Nolan would have something to say about the lazy stick that caused it. I reach for my phone before I remember he doesn’t want to come over tonight.
I could have told him Grayson was visiting. Nolan knows I have a brother. He knows Grayson is gay and lives with Korolev. There was nothing in the message that would have required me to explain what Nolan and I do when we’re alone.
I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want Grayson looking at us together and knowing. Then I treated Nolan like he was the problem instead of the person covering for me.
That was fucked up.
The game comes back from commercial. I watch a full shift without knowing who has the puck.
Nolan said he thought we were friends. We are. I would be pissed if he disappeared for two days and gave me nothing but busy. I nearly lost my mind watching him dance with a woman before we’d even agreed on anything. He had a right to expect one honest sentence from me.
I don’t want Nolan staying angry with me. I don’t want another night of four-word messages, or seeing him at practice tomorrow and wondering whether he’ll come near me when it ends.
The apology doesn’t need anything else around it.
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Grayson. I fucked up.
I send it.
Nolan answers a minute later.
I know.
I stare at the two words. They’re better than nothing, but not by much.
Five minutes pass before the phone buzzes again.
you busy tomorrow?
I have practice.
The answer comes fast.
no shit. after?
I read it twice, then settle back against the couch.
I could be free. If you make it worth my while.
The typing dots appear. A second later, Nolan sends me a middle finger.
I smile anyway.