Chapter Fifteen #3
“That’s just his face. Also, he probably remembers you punching me last year.”
Damir swore under his breath.
He was so cute. How was Kilian going to be his roommate and his teammate and nothing more when he knew how cute Damir could be? Maybe they should nip the phone sex in the bud while they still could. Much more of this, and Kilian wouldn’t be able to draw a line.
At least Damir wouldn’t be able to date anyone else openly, so Kilian would be spared the jealousy, but he doubted Damir would stay celibate. He was too good at sex.
Kilian underlined finding his own place after Christmas twice on his mental to-do list.
“Hey, do you have any herbal tea?”
Damir turned away from the stove to pull open a drawer. Never having had cause to look inside before, Kilian was amused to see the perfect organization of each box of tea bags, neatly in its own place, and looseleaf sorted into labeled jars.
“What kind of herbal?” Damir asked.
“Um.”
Damir did them both a favor by pretending not to notice that Kilian had been previously unaware herbal tea came in different kinds. He did give Kilian a pointed look, but Kilian could live with that.
“Ask if she wants peppermint or fennel,” Damir said.
“’Kay.” Kilian grabbed a soda from the fridge. They had one sugar-free lemon soda left and a couple of the spicy ginger ones Kilian liked. Damir must have restocked them for him.
He brought the drink to the living room, dutifully repeated the question to his mom, and yelled, “Fennel!” in the direction of the kitchen when she’d decided.
And then there was nothing to do but sit on the couch next to his parents.
Dad cracked the soda and drank three quarters in one go.
“So,” Mom said. “You’re gay.”
“Yup.” Kilian ran his fingers over the fabric of the couch, watching as the motion changed the pattern on the suede subtly. “Did you, um… The team and I put out a statement today. You might have been in the air—”
“We saw,” Dad interrupted.
“Right. Cool.”
The kettle in the kitchen boiled.
“I should go get your tea—”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mom’s voice was unbearably gentle, and when Kilian made the mistake of looking at her, so were her eyes.
Kilian subsided into the couch. “I didn’t know for a long time.” He swallowed. “Or, I mean, I didn’t let myself know. And when I figured it out, I guess I didn’t want to be any more of a disappointment than I already am.”
God, he wished he could get through tough conversations without tearing up.
It was embarrassing to be a grown man and still get all shaky and unable to express his thoughts.
He looked down at his knees, trying to hide the emotion building hot behind his eyes, but his nose was clogging up, and he had to sniffle a little.
Mom’s hand on his shoulder was as much of a balm as an admission of his childishness. “Sweetheart, whatever gave you the impression you were a disappointment?”
Under her touch, Kilian shrugged awkwardly. “The girls have their whole lives figured out, don’t they? And I got traded, and…and…I wasn’t playing well, and I’m supposed to be good at hockey, but I’m not.”
“You’re in the NHL,” Dad said. “Of course you’re good at hockey. You could be playing five minutes a night and you’d be better than 99 percent of the population.”
Kilian shook his head. “No, my skating sucks, and I spent all year working on my backcheck, and—”
“Your skating sucks for an NHL player.” There was that new wrinkle in Dad’s brow.
“I mean, comparing you to Tom Crowler every night wasn’t doing you any favors, but you’re fine.
You have years to learn technique for later, when you can’t call up the speed you can now.
You’re twenty. And your backcheck is doing great. ”
“But…” Kilian stared at him, willing it to make sense. “When I was twelve, you stopped doing extra training with me to make my skating better.”
Dad took another healthy swig of his drink. “Yeah, you were a shoo-in for the WHL draft, and your mom didn’t want you to be one of those athletes who barely passes high school.” He shrugged as if this had not been a concern for him.
Blinking rapidly, Kilian tried to parse this information. “I did fine in school.”
“Yes, exactly,” Mom said. “Your teachers always told us you were great at independent study and interested in a lot of different things. I wanted you to nourish those interests too. You can’t just live for your job, and the WHL schedule was hard enough without adding more skating on top of it.
None of the other kids were doing it, and you performed so well anyway.
I wanted you to be a kid for a little longer. ”
“I…” In all the time he’d been in professional hockey, starting from his time in the WHL all the way up to the last year and a half in the NHL, Kilian had never viewed his own youth as something to preserve. It was an embarrassment he tried time and time again to cast off and rise above.
“And what is that nonsense about your sisters anyway?” Mom continued, leaning back into the cushions and shaking her head.
“If I had a dollar for every time one of them sat at the kitchen table crying in the middle of the night when they were in their early twenties, I’d have… well, at least seven dollars.”
Seven meant at least twice per sister. Kilian wondered who had been there three times, or if one of them had only been once.
His money was on Josie for once.
Mom reached out and grabbed his hands. “I promise you, Kilian. You may have disappointed us once or twice because children need to make mistakes to learn, but you have never been a disappointment.”
“You never told me,” Kilian said, his voice watery and weak. Childish. He took a deep shuddering breath and let it be what it was. “Every time you call, you tell me what I did wrong.” He eyes flicked involuntarily to his dad.
Dad had always been emotive. Mom was the level-headed one they went to for life advice. Dad was the one who gave hugs when the girls cried over a boyfriend, the one who cheered for them at competitions and called all the other children cheaters.
Now, he sat as if poleaxed, stock-still on Damir’s cozy couch and looking as though he’d never been less comfortable. “I thought…” He licked his lips. “I thought I was helping you. Giving you tips on what to work on next.”
“I have other coaches now,” Kilian said. He absorbed the way it made Dad flinch and kept talking anyway. “I want you to be my dad again. I want you to be proud of me.”
“Kilian, I’ve always been proud of you.” Dad took off his glasses and wiped at his eyes. “Jesus, I couldn’t be prouder. My son, the NHL player.”
Kilian looked down at the coffee table. The soda bottle sweated out droplets of moisture that would leave water stains on the wood, but he couldn’t remember where Damir kept the coasters. “And…the other stuff?”
“You mean that I have a son who isn’t afraid to stand in front of the world and tell them who he is? Who can admit when he was wrong and learn to be better? And who is strong enough to show everyone he can play hockey and love whoever he wants?” Dad’s voice gave out at the end.
It didn’t matter. Kilian was crying too hard to hear much of anything anyway.
The couch cushions dipped next to him, and then he had his mom on one side and his dad on the other, and they were both hugging him for all they were worth. Kilian crumpled into their hold, safe in the knowledge that for the first time since he’d been traded to Chicago, he didn’t have to be strong.
He wasn’t sure how long they’d been sitting together all tangled up when Damir cleared his throat from the doorway.
“I apologize,” he said. “I don’t mean to intrude, but dinner is ready if you want it. And your tea, Mrs. Howard.”
They pulled apart, all a little more waterlogged than they had been a few minutes ago.
Kilian wiped at his eyes with the backs of his hands. “Thanks, Damir. Um, I guess we need to eat here?” The kitchen island barely had enough space for everyone when Ketchup was home, so it couldn’t seat four.
“Why don’t I help set the table,” Mom suggested. She got to her feet and followed Damir to the kitchen before anyone could protest.
Dad chuckled at her retreating figure. “Don’t mind her. She hates getting all emotional.”
“Knew I got it from somewhere.”
“Yeah.” Dad pulled away to look at Kilian properly. “I’m sorry I never intervened in the locker room when you were younger.”
Kilian shrugged. “You didn’t know I was gay.”