Chapter 5
Gray
I sit in my car in the circular drive of the beach-front, stone-facade house at seven o’clock on Thursday night wondering what the hell I was thinking.
When Ash asked me to come to his house rather than the stadium, I wasn’t sure how to take it.
I typed, deleted, then re-typed several responses to his invitation, starting with, “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” and somehow ending with, “Okay.”
Other drafts in between included messages like “WTF” or “Should I bring wine?” but I decided not to read into the invitation.
I finally convince myself to stop being a baby and get out of the car to head up to the house.
I pause at the front door, hand poised to knock, but I notice the doorbell is one of those high-tech ones that takes video and notifies your phone if someone is outside.
Ash likely knows I’m here already. Indeed, just as I’m about to knock, the door swings open.
I’m not prepared for how good the man looks. He’s wearing a forest green Henley with the buttons undone and loose jeans that fit just snuggly enough to show he’s got really nice thighs.
I silently curse myself again for agreeing to this.
“Hey, come on in,” Ash says, opening the door for me to pass.
His mouth quirks up on one side to give me half a smile, and the dimple there makes a brief appearance before ducking back undercover.
I try to smile back, but I’m more convinced than ever this is a bad idea. “Thanks,” I say as I step inside.
I purposely wore black yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt tonight to make myself feel as plain as possible. I considered dressing up to show him I could be more than a nerdy academic type, but I decided to lean into the dullness to remind myself, and him, why I’m here.
“Can I get you anything?” he asks as he leads me through the foyer of a gorgeous, spacious house. “Water? Coffee? Beer?”
He doesn’t mention wine, so I don’t bother asking.
“Water would be great. Thanks,” I say.
He leads me into an open kitchen-living room area, and my eyes widen at the wall of windows that overlook the Sound. I can’t see if there’s a beach directly behind his house, but lights from a marina dot the view a couple miles down the shore to the left.
The team may be called the Hartford Hydra, but they’re not actually based in the capital, which sits in the middle of the state.
Instead, Max Kaladin – perhaps wisely – built his stadium down near the shore, close to the casinos.
It’s not surprising then, that high-earning players like Ash found housing on the water.
“Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to the plush sofa in the living room, and I head over to sit down.
Ash veers off into the kitchen, which looks like something out of a Modern Home magazine.
It’s sleek and simple with clean lines and lots of granite and stainless steel, and I wonder if he actually does his own cooking.
He grabs a glass out of the cabinet and starts to fill it from a watercooler, then stops and checks the jug on top.
“Dammit.”
He puts the glass down and disappears for a second into another room before he comes back holding a new five-gallon water jug by the handle. Even from the couch I see the muscles and veins in his hands and forearms flex as he replaces the empty container with the new one.
“Sorry, the water won’t be cold just yet,” he says as he grabs some ice cubes from the freezer to add them to my glass before retrying the cooler. “I can get you some more when the new water chills enough.”
“It’s fine,” I say.
He fills a second glass and brings both over, handing one to me before thumping down into the loveseat next to the couch. He sits in the middle of it and manspreads, which once again emphasizes how long his legs are.
I’m surprised to see him drink water instead of beer, but then again, he’s an athlete, and I’m sure they’re on strict diets.
“So how does this work?” Ash asks, looking at me expectantly.
I huff a laugh. “Good question. Like I said, I’m not a clinical psychologist, so I don’t have this all worked out, but I can tell you what my study found, and we can go from there. Does that work?”
He nods. “Sounds great.”
“I assume you didn’t read the article on the study?” I ask as I settle back and cross one leg over the other.
His eyes widen, and he looks like I just told him there’s a pop quiz he didn’t study for.
I wave a hand. “Never mind. I was just curious, but I can tell you everything you need to know.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I didn’t-”
I wave my hand again. “Really, don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ve been busy with practice and training. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot, and, honestly, unless you have a background in statistics, half the article won’t make sense to you anyway.”
His shoulders ease, and I feel like a jerk for having asked now.
“What I found was fairly simple,” I say.
I stop, stumped at where to begin. Yes, the study was simple, but that’s provided you have some basic knowledge of social scientific concepts and theories. I’m not sure how to explain this to a layperson.
It’s not that I assume Ash is a dumb jock. I learned long ago not to buy into that stereotype, but the sheer amount of background information I could give him paralyzes me as I collect my thoughts.
“Alright,” I say, regrouping. “I looked specifically at mental and emotional effects. The results suggested at first that trash talk mentally distracted participants when they engaged in a competitive activity, but when I separated those results out by gender, they broke down. Women were mentally distracted by the trash talk, but men weren’t, presumably because they’re used to hearing it, so they find it easier to filter out. ”
He’s frowning, and I realize I probably could’ve left all this out since it doesn’t apply to him anyway.
I grimace. “Sorry, it’s not relevant, so forget I brought it up. The part that’s relevant to you-”
I stop again.
“Excuse me for not asking earlier, but you do gender identify as male, right?” I ask. I’m sure I would’ve heard about it in the news if he didn’t, but better safe than sorry.
His eyebrows shoot up. “Do I not look male to you?” he asks.
Fuck me. He looks very, very male to me, but that’s beside the point.
“I’ve learned not to assume anything,” I say, trying to recover. “What you look like to me doesn’t matter.”
“So I don’t look male to you?” he presses.
I see the hint of a smile on his lips, and I know he’s trying to tease me, but it’s more complicated than he realizes.
“What does male and female look like?” I ask. “For someone to look female, does she have to wear a dress and have long hair like the icon on bathroom doors?”
He shrugs. “That’s a good place to start, isn’t it?”
“So should I assume someone who wears pants, has short hair, and has non-existent breasts is male then?” I ask, and his expression falters.
“I know this may seem nitpicky,” I go on, “but you run into problems when you identify gender based solely on extremes of masculinity and femininity.”
He nods slowly. “It’s the hair that’s throwing you then,” he says as he runs a hand through the longer locks on top of his head to push them back from where they’ve fallen into his eyes.
He’s still teasing, and I decide to let him have this one.
“A little bit,” I say.
I’m dying to run my fingers through his hair. Getting myself off before I came did nothing to help the situation between my legs, and I’m ashamed at how weak I am for lusting after him right now.
Ash considers the idea a second more, then shrugs. “Yeah, I consider myself very male,” he says with a grin. His eye crinkles the tiniest bit so I’m not sure if it’s a wink or not, and now I’m wondering if he’s alluding to the dick pic he sent me.
I almost ask him but talk myself out of it. He doesn’t seem the least bit self-conscious about sending it, and I’m not bold enough to bring it up just yet. Maybe when I know him better.
“Alright, so we’ll stick to the results of the study as they relate to male participants,” I say, trying to regain control of the conversation. “The part that’s important to you, then, is the emotional effects of trash talk.”
He frowns. “Emotional effects?”
“Everyone experiences emotions,” I say quickly before he can deny he has them. “But how and when we express them can vary. I specifically looked at anger and shame because they’re often related.”
He looks at me as if this is news to him, which it probably is. The shame-rage connection is well-documented in social science, but I wouldn’t expect someone outside the discipline to know this.
“Experiencing shame can often lead to anger and vice versa,” I explain, “and that’s exactly what my study found.
Participants experienced both of these emotions when subjected to trash talk, but the interesting thing is that the order in which they experienced them varied by gender.
Women got angry, then experienced shame. ”
“They felt ashamed for feeling angry?” Ash asks, and the question is clarifying rather than doubtful.
“Exactly,” I say. “Anger often isn’t an acceptable emotion for women to display, so they’re conditioned to feel bad for expressing it.”
He nods. “Women do tend to take more shit for expressing anger than men,” he says knowingly.
I stare at him as his observation throws me for a second.
He shrugs. “I have two sisters. The sins of the patriarchy are a common topic of conversation at holiday gatherings.”
I blink, then smile. “And what do they think of your hockey career?”
He smiles back, and I’m transfixed by his dimples.
“You mean my job where I play a sport that epitomizes the inherent violence of athletics and encourages problems to be solved through physical altercations?” he says, clearly quoting someone. He cocks his head. “They’re so proud.”
While I agree with the description in principle, I feel bad his sisters view his career that way. Ash has achieved a level of success many people only dream of, and his family doesn’t appreciate it.