29. Ben
BEN
I don’t want either of the men fucking on my laptop.
They’re attractive. I can tell that much. One has broad shoulders and dark hair. The other is leaner, with tattoos down one arm. They’re naked and hard, and my cock remains completely uninterested.
This was supposed to help me figure out whether I’m bisexual.
It’s been two weeks since Nolan stopped talking to me unless a play requires it. The word breakup keeps showing up in my head, but that isn’t accurate. You can’t break up with someone you weren’t dating, right?
I miss him anyway.
I think I’ve hidden that well enough. Nobody on the team has said anything, and our line is playing too well for the coaches to care that Nolan and I barely speak off the ice. We keep winning. The playoffs are starting to look like somewhere we’ll actually be instead of something we’re chasing.
Bobby is the only person who might know more. I’ve said no more than two words to him since The Incident. One of them was nice after he scored. I don’t remember the other one.
He hasn’t treated me differently. Bobby doesn’t look at me in the showers or make jokes I can hear, which should make facing him easier. It doesn’t.
Nolan hasn’t treated me badly either. On the ice, he calls for the puck and gives it up when the play is there. He tells me when I’m drifting too low and swears at Bobby when Bobby misses a pass. Then we go back to the locker room, and Nolan talks to everyone except me.
I didn’t realize how much we talked until he stopped. My phone stays quiet at night. Nobody sends me terrible gifs or asks if I’m hungry. After road games, Nolan gets on the elevator with somebody else while I go back to my room alone.
The team might be playing better now than when we were spending every night together. I keep waiting for that to make these two weeks easier.
I need to get my shit together. Even if Nolan never lets me near him again, I can’t spend the rest of the season insisting nothing about me has changed.
Can I be bi if he’s the only man I’ve ever wanted?
I skip ahead. The dark-haired guy puts the other man on his stomach, spreads his thighs, and works his mouth lower. He uses his tongue while reaching underneath to stroke the guy’s cock.
I start thinking about Nolan on his stomach instead, tattoos moving over his back while I hold him open. I want to hear what he’d sound like with my mouth on his ass and my hand around his cock. I want to find out how long he’d let me tease him before he started swearing at me.
My dick finally starts to get hard.
Great. The gay porn has confirmed that I want to eat Nolan’s ass.
I close the video before the scene changes.
The problem might be porn. I’ve never liked straight porn much either. Watching strangers have sex feels like watching somebody else’s game film when I already know the system. I can see what’s happening, but none of it belongs to me.
Women aren’t the question. I’ve wanted women my entire adult life. I’ve enjoyed sex with them and cared about some of them, even if none of the relationships lasted.
But how many did I want the way I want Nolan?
I can’t think of one who made me this hungry all the time, got into every empty minute of my day, or made me want to drag them out of a crowded room because somebody else had a hand on them.
Maybe the man part has nothing to do with it. I keep coming back to Nolan.
I shut the laptop and get off the couch.
Porn and sitting alone in my condo until I talk myself back into the same answer aren’t going to solve this.
Nolan has a team outreach event tonight. I know because the schedule went to all of us, not because I’ve started tracking where he goes. He’ll be busy long enough that I can visit Marlowe’s without running into him.
I consider finding another gay bar. Seattle has plenty. Going somewhere no one knows me might make more sense if the purpose is to find out how I feel around other men.
Marlowe’s is familiar. I know where to park and which beer to order. The last time I was there, no one cared that I was a hockey player or that I was straight. Mostly they cared whether Micah cheated at foosball.
Marlowe’s doesn’t intimidate me anymore.
I drive there.
The bar is busy enough that I have to wait inside the door while a group moves past. I look toward the tables along the back wall first.
Nolan isn’t there.
Relief comes with enough disappointment to make this entire idea feel worse.
Micah is sitting near the foosball table with a beer in front of him. He sees me before I can decide whether to leave and raises one hand over his head.
I could pretend I didn’t see him, turn around, and try another bar.
I’ve done enough running for one lifetime. I literally ran away from Bobby, who once got stuck in a practice jersey because he forgot to untie the neck.
I go over.
“Hey,” Micah says as I reach the table. His eyes move past me, checking the room. “Are you here alone?”
“Yeah.”
He looks like he wants to ask something else, but he points at the empty chair instead. “Sit.”
I get a beer first, then take the chair across from him. The foosball table is empty. The dry-erase trivia scoreboard hangs on the wall behind it with Micah’s team several places below the top.
“You still owe me a rematch,” he says.
“You lost.”
“That’s why I need the rematch.”
It is almost normal. I ask where Tessa is, and Micah says she’s working late and might come by afterward. He tells me our last game cost him money because he made the mistake of betting against Nolan scoring. I tell him he should know better.
After I say Nolan’s name, Micah’s smile fades. “I’m sorry if I read that wrong the other night.”
“What?”
“You and Nolan. I thought you guys were dating.”
There isn’t a good answer. There might have been if Nolan and I had ever talked about it before Micah forced the word into the open. Now the only answer I have is that we weren’t dating and Nolan broke up with me anyway.
“Uh,” I say.
Micah waits, but I don’t come up with anything better.
“You know you can be honest with me if you need to talk,” he says.
“You’re Nolan’s friend.”
“You and I are part of a sacred foosball brotherhood.” He puts a hand over his heart. “I would never betray that.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. He’s ridiculous, but talking doesn’t feel quite as impossible afterward.
“Things between Nolan and me…” I stop because I still don’t know how to finish.
Micah leans back in his chair. “Let me guess. He kissed you, and now you’re all confused.”
“We’ve been fucking since December.”
Micah’s chair jerks sideways. He catches the edge of the table before he falls out of it, sloshing beer over his hand.
“What?”
I just said it.
My ears ring, and I feel light enough that I grip the edge of my chair. Somebody at the next table laughs over the music without looking our way.
I told another person that Nolan and I have been fucking. Nothing happened except Micah spilled his beer.
Micah wipes his hand on his jeans. “Since December?”
“Yeah.” Saying it a second time is easier. “But I’m not gay.”
“You know there’s not just—”
“My brother’s gay. I know the alphabet, I promise.” I take a drink because my mouth is dry. “I think I’ve even got a pamphlet or two somewhere.”
Micah starts laughing. He grabs a napkin from the dispenser and wipes the beer from the table before it reaches his phone.
“Okay,” he says. “No pamphlets.”
“Thanks.”
“Does Nolan know you’re here?” he asks.
“No.” I look down at my beer. “I said some shit to him, and we’re not… doing stuff anymore.”
The pause isn’t for Micah. I can’t make myself give what happened a better name.
“That sucks,” he says.
“Yeah.”
He waits to see whether I’ll keep going. I don’t. I’ve already told Nolan’s friend more than I’ve told anyone except Grayson, and Grayson doesn’t know anything useful. Sacred foosball brotherhood or not, Micah belongs to Nolan first.
Micah lets the silence go. “So what are you doing here?”
“I’m not sure.” The honest answer is getting easier, which is inconvenient. “Trying to figure out the vibe, maybe. Find out if there are more words I don’t know.”
“Words aren’t the thing that really matters.”
“They are when you say the wrong ones.”
Micah watches me but doesn’t try to explain my own life to me. I finish my beer and stand.
“I think I’m going to head out. Thanks for talking.”
“Nolan’s a hothead,” Micah says. “He’ll listen once he calms down.”
“It’s been two weeks.”
Micah winces. “That explains why he was so pissed at trivia the other night. We lost the geography round. Nolan doesn’t lose geography rounds.”
I look at the scoreboard behind him.
Micah points at it. “Seriously, dude, fix this or we’re going to drop in the rankings. My honor depends on that.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He keeps pointing at the scoreboard until I laugh again.
I leave him at the table and head outside with my phone still in my pocket.