28. Nolan
NOLAN
Bobby looks at me again from across the locker room.
I don’t look back. He’ll take it as an invitation, and I don’t want to hear a single fucking word about what he saw in my kitchen.
I should have told him that before he left. At the time, Ben was in my bedroom trying to put his arm through the side of a shirt, and Bobby was the problem I could get out of my condo.
Now he’s sitting across the locker room with his mouth visibly full of questions.
Ben’s stall is empty.
He’s not late yet. He has time to get here, although not much. I have no idea whether he found an Uber right away or stood in my bedroom until he could breathe again, and I keep picturing the tag sticking out of his inside-out shirt.
It’s none of my business now.
Telling myself that doesn’t help.
The room is louder than it was at the start of the season.
Winning does that. Guys talk over the music and each other.
Bobby and Sindre are arguing about a goal from last night’s game, dragging in anyone who gets too close.
Two stalls down, one of the rookies has the standings open on his phone and keeps turning the screen around for anyone who walks past.
We’re winning enough that the playoff conversation has changed. Nobody says it like a wish anymore. We’re above the line, and the teams chasing us have to catch up. If we keep playing the way we have been, we’re going to stay there.
I should be enjoying this. After the start we had, every guy in here should be unbearable.
Bobby catches my eye again and lifts his eyebrows.
I stare him down until he turns to Sindre and says something I can’t hear. He’s holding a fresh can of Monster. When he notices me looking at it, he points toward the hallway and mouths, Vending machine.
Under any other circumstances, I’d give him shit for spending that much on something he could have bought by the case. Today I ignore him.
The locker-room door opens. Ben comes in carrying his gear bag, dressed in the same clothes he wore to Tessa’s party. His shirt is right side out now. His face is blank enough that nobody else looks at him twice.
Bobby does.
Only for a second. Then he bends over his skates.
Ben goes to his stall without looking at me. There are only a few feet between us, but nobody would guess he woke up in my bed this morning.
He strips off his shirt and sits to pull on his gear. The careful way he lowers himself onto the bench tells me he’s feeling what we did last night. I see his thighs spread under me again, and heat pulls low in my stomach before the anger comes back.
Ben catches me looking.
His hands stop on the laces of his skate. Neither of us moves until Bobby yells at Sindre that the replay proves nothing, and the rest of the room gets loud around us again.
Ben looks down first.
I still want privacy. Knowing Bobby saw us makes my skin crawl, and I don’t want the story getting out of this room any more than Ben does.
I just didn’t need him to act like being caught with me was the worst thing that could happen to him.
Caleb turns the music down when Gunderson steps into the room.
We get the practice plan, a reminder about travel tomorrow, and the usual warning that winning a few games doesn’t make any of us special.
Nobody needs the speech, but nobody talks through it either.
We know what the standings look like, and we remember how quickly they can change.
When we get up, Ben and I move at the same time. He stops to let me pass in front of him.
“Thanks,” I say, because somebody is behind us and that’s what I’d say to any teammate.
“Yep.”
His voice is flat. I keep going.
The cold hits my face as soon as I step onto the ice. I push hard through the first lap, letting my legs take over. My body is tired from last night and tight from sitting in the car, but neither matters once we start moving.
Ben is ahead of me when we round the far end. He digs into the turn and accelerates down the boards. I know that stride well enough to see the exact moment he opens up, because I’ve spent most of the season learning how to arrive at the same piece of ice.
We usually pair off during the passing warmup. Today he sends his first puck to Bobby instead. I take one from Sindre and keep moving. Nobody notices anything except Bobby, whose head swivels between us until the assistant coach bangs his stick against the ice and tells him to pay attention.
Gunderson runs us through breakouts first. Ben, Bobby, and I take our usual spots for the line rush. Bobby doesn’t say anything while we wait, although I can feel him looking at both of us now.
The puck comes around the boards. I pick it up on my backhand and hear Ben call from the middle.
“Wall.”
I send it up without looking. He’s already there.
Ben takes the pass in stride, carries through the neutral zone, and leaves the puck for Bobby before the defense closes on him. Bobby gives it back across the slot. Ben could shoot, but he knows where I’m going to be.
The puck reaches my stick beside the far post. I put it into the open net.
“Again,” Gunderson calls.
We circle back into line.
Ben doesn’t tap my pads or say anything. He doesn’t need to. The play works because none of us has to check where the other two are anymore.
Breaking up with him over breakfast hasn’t changed the moment I expect him to cut toward the middle.
The next rush is just as clean.
During the small-area drill, Ben takes a hit along the boards to keep the puck alive. I collect it below the circle and send it through two sticks to Bobby. He scores before the goalie can get across.
Bobby shouts and bumps my shoulder on the way past. I let him. Ben is already skating back to retrieve the next puck.
On our next turn, Bobby loses the puck at the blue line. Ben covers for him before the rush can go the other way, and I swing low enough to give Ben somewhere to send it. The pass hits my stick clean. I carry it back through the middle while both of them drive the net, pulling the defense apart.
Ben gets my rebound and buries it.
I take one stride toward him, stop, and turn toward the line instead. Behind me, Bobby hits Ben’s shoulder with his glove in celebration.
Ben doesn’t call after me.
For the rest of the drill, we play like nothing happened this morning. Ben calls for the puck, and I give it to him. When I get trapped against the boards, he gets close enough to offer an outlet. Bobby keeps finding the gaps we open.
Nobody watching would know anything is wrong. That’s good for our playoff chances and shitty for me.
Gunderson blows the whistle and sends us for water before the scrimmage. I skate to the bench and squeeze a bottle into my mouth. Ben stops farther down with Caleb and one of the defensemen, listening while Caleb talks with his glove tucked under his arm.
Bobby glides up beside me.
“Pope’s fast,” he says.
I lower the bottle. “What?”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “I’ve never seen a naked guy move that quick.”
He expects me to laugh. Any other morning I might. I can already hear how it would go once he got started: Ben’s sprint, my pants around my hips, the emergency Monster run. It would be a great story if it belonged to somebody else.
“Don’t,” I say.
Bobby’s smile stays in place, but only because he hasn’t understood me yet. “Come on. He left so fast I thought he was going through the wall.”
“I said don’t.”
That gets him. He looks at me instead of toward Ben.
“You say nothing about what you saw. Not to the guys, not to anybody.”
Bobby’s smile disappears. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone.”
“Don’t joke about it with me either.”
He shifts his stick from one hand to the other. “Okay.”
Protecting Ben is easy. I look down at the water bottle while I screw the cap into place because doing it after he called me an exception fucking hurts.
Bobby is quiet long enough that I look at him again.
His eyes stay on me. The grin is gone, and he no longer looks tempted to glance toward Ben.
“I didn’t know Ben was gay,” he says.
“He’s not.”
Ben said the same thing this morning, and hearing it in my own voice makes my stomach hurt. Bobby still doesn’t get to decide for him.
Bobby makes a small sound in his throat. “I’ve heard that one before.”
I look at him. “What does that mean?”
His face closes. Bobby, who will tell the room what he ate for breakfast and demonstrate how badly it went if somebody laughs, suddenly has nothing to say.
The whistle sounds from center ice.
Bobby pushes away from the boards. “I won’t say anything.”
He skates back toward the drill without looking at Ben once.