Chapter 4 #4
Adam should’ve known better than to issue Mo a challenge.
He swooped out in front of Adam and then whirled around, his face a mask of dejection.
“Baby, please.” Heedless of the state of Adam’s shirt, he put both hands on his chest and arched dramatically to look up into his face, practically swooning.
He fluttered his eyelashes, much like Adam imagined Sage had with the possible football players.
“Don’t leave me this way!” Somewhere in the parking lot, a car door slammed.
“Think of all the good times we’ve had together!
The bottomless brunches at Henry’s—well, almost bottomless!
The clandestine trysts in the locker room after hours—”
“I’m not fake fucking you in the locker room,” Adam protested, his ears burning as he resisted the urge to look around. Surely no one was close enough to overhear—but what would it look like? “It’s gross in there.”
“And think of the children, Adam. You don’t want to raise them in a broken home, do you?
What will it do to them if their father abandons them?
” Mo curled his hands in the fabric of Adam’s shirt, pleading.
He might have nailed the tone, but his expression left no doubt he was enjoying himself: his eyes were sparkling and his plump lips were curled up in a teasing smile.
“We can try again, can’t we?” Another flutter of his ridiculous lashes.
Then he surged up on his toes. “Kiss me again like you used to.”
The electronic lock on the car next to them chirped, and Adam nearly jolted out of his skin. He took Mo by the elbows and peeled him off. This was far from the most strenuous exercise he’d gotten this morning, but suddenly, he felt too hot all over.
“Come on, let’s just… get in the car before you get any more sunburned.” Adam pushed past him toward the Land Rover, feeling the damp hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Fuck. Had he put sunscreen there? He didn’t think so. His hockey gear was going to chafe tomorrow.
He’d already stowed his bag in the back, climbed into the driver’s seat, and started the engine by the time Mo opened the passenger door. He flung himself into the seat and slammed the door after him, face stony.
Great. Now Adam had fucked something else up. He curled his hands into the steering wheel. What did I do now? He thought he finally had a handle on what made Mo tick, and now—
Mo huffed an enormous sigh. “Girl, what the fuck is your problem?”
“What?” Adam looked over to find Mo’s mouth pinched.
“Any time I show the slightest bit of personality, you turn red and stiff and start looking around like a caged animal.” His eyes were narrowed. He reminded Adam of a shelter cat. Ready to swipe at the strangers.
“I don’t—”
“Do not deny it. What, afraid people will realize I’m gay? Or maybe you just don’t like a queen.”
Heat flooded Adam’s cheeks, and he swallowed hard. It hadn’t occurred to him that Mo would read his embarrassment at being on display as personal. “I don’t…” He trailed off, trying to gather his thoughts.
“Don’t what?”
“It’s not you,” he started, because Mo deserved to hear that first. “I’m not lying. It’s not personal. It’s…” He sighed and tried to articulate how much the idea of public displays of his sexuality made his skin crawl. “I’m not much of a PDA person.”
He’d never been fond of physical contact outside of a few set situations.
On the ice with layers of padding, Adam never begrudged his teammates any of the customary manly-bonding taps, nudges, slaps, boops, and even the occasional helmet smooch.
But off the ice, touch with friends and family was a carefully negotiated, often unspoken, individualized agreement.
Thankfully, on a team of professional athletes, Adam’s quirk of needing personal space barely registered on the weirdness scale.
“For one, I’m not good with… surprise touches. Or most touches with most people,” he admitted, struggling to maintain eye contact.
“Okay,” Mo said slowly. “Obviously, I’m a handsy person, but I can respect a boundary.” His mouth tightened again. “You could have said.”
“You’re right.” Adam rubbed his face. “But it’s also… Do you know how many out guys there are in the league?”
Finally serious for once, Mo shook his head. “I don’t.”
“Less than ten. And I was the first.” The first to be drafted while already out, the first to be publicly out, the first to be a team mascot.
“The first couple of years, I could barely do an interview without it being brought up. Murphy, how does it feel to play your first game knowing gay kids are watching? Murphy, how does it feel to get your first NHL point knowing queers are in the stands? Murphy, what kind of example are you setting for the gay children when you get a penalty?”
Mo snorted. “Shit. I didn’t—I was actively avoiding hockey news during that time, so no, I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, it sucked.” A few months into his rookie season, Jorts had held a shin guard to his chin like a microphone and asked Adam, “When you skate down the straight ice on your gay legs, do you think about all the possible Ls, Gs, Bs, and Ts who made the ice your gay skates are gayly skating on?” Adam had been so caught off guard, he’d laughed, barely noticing the way the rest of the locker room had held their breath, waiting to find out if the joke was acceptable.
“I’m sorry.”
Adam shook his head. “It’s… whatever. The point is, it took a while for me to get them to stop. To focus on hockey.”
“And dating someone publicly is what? Going to remind them that you’re gay?”
Adam huffed and threw his hands up. “I don’t know. I’ve never dated anyone publicly.”
“Wonder why,” Mo muttered just loud enough to be heard. Shit. Adam deserved that.
“Sorry. Just—I’m a little bit…”
“…High-strung?” Mo suggested after a moment. He didn’t even sound judgmental.
Adam wrinkled his nose. “No. Yes. No?”
Mo snorted. Okay, fine, Adam was kind of a mess, and he could see the humor in it.
“The PR team have been keeping me pretty sheltered the past few days, giving the statements time to circulate. I did that one curated post-practice chat about it, you know, asking for privacy and support. But it’s back to regular stuff tomorrow, and I don’t know what I’ll get, but…”
“It’ll probably start up again, in some way.”
“Yeah. Except—” He pressed his lips together between his teeth. Mo waited. “Now I’m the only one who’s a captain. I’m supposed to set an example—not just for the team. For kids who might want to be like me.” People would be watching and waiting and having Opinions about how Adam conducted himself.
Mo tilted his head. “You know you can’t fail at being gay, right? That there’s not one right way to be in a relationship? Like—we’re in Arizona. This is not a liberal hotbed. It’s more like Satan’s frying pan.”
Despite himself, Adam mustered a smile.
“So I get that you’re stuck trying to please a fanbase that’s already predisposed to think all your relationships are bad because you’re gay. But you know that’s their problem, right?”
Adam’s cheeks heated. He hadn’t expected Mo to cut through his hang-ups so handily. He felt unnervingly seen. “I know that. But they don’t.” He waved at the windshield, in the direction of the city.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Mo said, voice light. “But it’s fine. I get it. Gotta walk before you can sashay. As long as you’re aware that there’s no single gold-standard way to have a relationship, we can play pretend missionary-only heterosexual-except-for-inconvenient-gender couple.”
Adam swallowed back the lump in his throat, ignoring the way those words scraped at him. They were making progress. Instead, he started the car and eased out of the parking lot. “Maybe we could set some boundaries.”
That brought some of the lightness back to Mo’s voice. “We probably should have done that day one. So… no surprise touches.”
“Please.”
“Hand-holding when on dates?”
Adam shrugged. “Can’t promise I won’t jump if I don’t see it coming.”
“Noted. Hm, since your parents insisted on feeding you your Wheaties, your arm around my shoulders makes more sense. No surprises that way.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “I’m a totally average height for a hockey player.”
“That is a very important caveat. By the standards of everyone else, you are too tall for us to flip that script. If I put my arm around you, I’d look ridiculous.”
“You are pocket-sized,” Adam agreed.
Mo squawked. Then he said thoughtfully, “I can avoid making dick jokes easy enough, but anyone who’s ever met me will think I’ve been swapped out for a pod person if I don’t have some flair.”
“I have met you before,” Adam pointed out. He might not know Mo well, but he didn’t need to to know that.
“So, pet names.”
“Pet names?”
“What are your thoughts?”