Chapter Sixteen #3
Before the guy got the chance, Damir said, “It sounds as though he was the one to harass Howard. Or do you accept sexual remarks about straight players?”
The linesman looked at him with something akin to relief. “Two for holding,” he said decisively and blew his whistle.
“But—” Mr. Minnesota started. His team captain dragged him away by the elbow, shoving him toward the penalty box.
Play resumed before Damir could find out what Kilian had said after being accused of ogling the opposition.
They were both on the first power play unit, so they took their places at the faceoff circle, and the game began again.
They had sixteen minutes left, and Damir intended to make them count.
Since the Sea Lions didn’t play until tomorrow, this marked the NHL’s first-ever game with an out gay player. It wouldn’t be auspicious to lose.
Luckily, the Fury were confused by the entire incident and unwilling to tail Kilian too hard. No one got into his personal space, allowing Damir to shoot him a pass from within the faceoff circle that he took all the way to the opposing goal unimpeded.
Their goalie was no Petterson. Kilian made the shot, and the lamp lit up.
Perhaps the Firecrackers’ goal celebrations were a tad too effusive in the face of what some players (and probably some fans) would see as an unjust penalty.
In response, the Fury doubled down in the stupidest way possible, netting penalties for roughing against Fulls and boarding against Cerny in quick succession.
With Kilian and Damir both on the power play, they went three for three, scoring one right after the other.
Having a partner who could read his plays and who had enough creative skills himself to find the right strategy, the free lane, the perfect angle, was something Damir had sorely missed on the Firecrackers’ roster.
Matheson centered Damir’s line in five-on-five.
But he wasn’t quick enough to keep up with Damir consistently, as Matheson was more the type of player to linger around the crease, flirting with goaltender interference to finish a play.
Kilian was a breath of fresh air.
Damir knew splitting up the strongest players made sense; it kept two lines functional enough to score with some regularity. But he hoped he could play more with Kilian. He hoped he could always play with Kilian.
He—
He needed to nip these thoughts in the bud.
Kilian had been more than clear with him, and Damir needed to stop embarrassing himself.
They won by a substantial margin, which should have pulled Damir out of his funk. Hoping it would help, he lingered in the showers, trying to blast away his annoyance at himself with hot water.
“Oh, Denny!” Lissy called from a nearby stall.
Damir gritted his teeth in irritation.
“I can smell your bad mood. What’s gotten your panties in a twist? Were your two points not enough to satisfy?”
If the Firecrackers could scrape a playoff spot, Damir could be in the running for the Hart at his current scoring pace. He was very satisfied with his performance. He just wasn’t satisfied generally.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“No, you’re not, my grumpy Russian bear. Hey, guys, should we be feeling down tonight?”
“No!” chorused too many teammates for Damir’s comfort.
“What do we do when someone’s down?”
“Lift ’em up!” Ketchup called cheerfully.
“And how do we lift them up?”
“No,” Damir said. “Please, no.”
“With the helicopter!” Matheson poked his head around from his shower stall. Apparently, he wanted to watch.
Lissy advanced on Damir with his hips swirling mesmerizingly. It was truly a special skill, one that would be at home in a strip club or an asylum.
Damir looked up at the ceiling. Why him? Why now?
“What the fuck,” Kilian said.
Lissy paused in his advance.
Kilian stood in the doorway to the showers, finally finished with postgame media, which had probably been a shitshow of reporters clamoring to talk about his sexuality and the penalty he’d drawn.
He had his caddy in hand and a towel slung over his shoulders, but he still wore his compression shorts.
Why? Everyone saw one another naked in the shower.
Maybe he didn’t want to make the other guys uncomfortable.
Damir would do the same in his position.
“Denny was down,” Ketchup explained. “Lissy’s lifting him up.”
“With his dick?”
“With the helicopter.” How Lissy managed to sound indignant about it was anyone’s guess.
“Um,” Kilian said.
Lissy demonstrated, mercifully pointing the wildly flopping appendage away from Damir in Kilian’s direction.
The corners of his lips twitched.
“See!” Lissy cried triumphantly. “The helicopter brings joy and laughter wherever it goes.”
Kilian broke into loud guffaws, going so far as to set down his caddy so he could hold himself up against the force of his laughter with his hands braced on his thighs. “Oh my God,” he gasped out. “You pointed that thing at Damir?”
The sight and sound of Kilian’s merriment softened Damir into a smile. He forced his face back to neutrality.
“Whenever he’s grumpy,” Lissy confirmed.
“Wow, he’s always grumpy. You should be careful, man. Testicular torsion is no joke.”
The half of the team Damir could see winced and grabbed for their sacks. Kilian ignored them all and headed for the last remaining shower stall beside Damir.
Lissy followed him over. “I would have thought a gay man would appreciate art.”
Kilian eyed his soft dick, still swaying with his every move. “Whatever you say, bro.”
Spinning to glare at Damir, Lissy complained, “I can’t believe you got to him first. Everyone else thinks it’s funny. Everyone!”
“You think that includes his girlfriend?” Kilian asked Damir conversationally.
Damir dunked his head under water, rinsing off the last of the conditioner. “I have asked myself the same question many times.”
“Céline knows a good thing when she sees it,” Lissy said haughtily.
Damir and Kilian exchanged a glance.
“I thought I understood how straight people have sex.” Kilian widened his eyes, affecting dramatic innocence. “Now I have so many questions.”
Predictably, the team answered with far too many offers to tell Kilian everything he had never wanted to know about heterosexuality.
Usually, the mood before a nighttime flight would have been dampened by having to travel after such a decisive win, but the stupid dick-related shenanigans actually buoyed everyone’s spirits.
“Thank you for including him,” Damir muttered to Lissy on their way out of the locker room and toward the team bus. The helicopter might be juvenile and borderline harassment, but at least Lissy wasn’t being a homophobic dick about locker-room nudity.
“Of course.” Lissy winked. “Everyone, gay or straight, should experience the glory of the helicopter. But if you keep mocking me, I will develop a complex.”
“Good.” Damir slipped into place beside Kilian on the bus to end the conversation. He would be happy to never again speak of the helicopter.
“Hey, Howie,” Ketchup called across the bus. “What did the guy on the Fury say to you anyway?”
Kilian snorted. “He told me I had better not be staring at his ass.” He busied himself digging through his bag, a perennial catastrophe Damir itched to organize for him. When Kilian finally found his wireless headphones, he looked up to find the whole bus staring at him. “What?”
“Well, what did you respond?” Lissy demanded.
“Oh. Uh, I told him I wouldn’t know if it was worth it unless he turned around and bent over.”
It was juvenile. And more than likely to make the Fury’s locker room even more toxic than it had already been. Damir had to bite his bottom lip to keep from laughing. No one else on the bus had the same compunction. The cacophony was nigh unbearable.
Things didn’t improve when it died down either. With the expression of someone who had just been shown the eighth wonder of the world, Matheson said to Kilian, “You could say anything on the ice and tell the refs they’re being homophobic if they give you an unsportsmanlike.”
“Ask them if Firecrackers red makes you look fat,” Fulls suggested.
Ketchup popped his head over the seat backs to join in. “Ooh, compliment the D-men on how big their biceps are; that’d psych them right out.”
“Ask the D-men how big their Ds are!” Matheson crowed.
“Kinda trying to combat homophobic stereotypes here, not hit on a bunch of guys at work. I probably shouldn’t have said what I did today either.” Kilian didn’t meet anyone’s eye as he said it.
A brief, solemn silence ensued.
Rocky ruined it by bursting into giggles. “D-men,” was all he could get out.
The rest of the bus ride comprised a series of ever-worsening puns on the letter D. Damir sank lower and lower in his seat with each one, wishing he’d been as smart as Coach Simmons and brought noise-canceling headphones.
Beside him, Kilian was blotchy red but smiling all the same. “Buncha overgrown high schoolers,” he muttered.
“Throwback!” Ketchup shouted. “Team game of Truth or Dare on the flight!”
A cheer went up so thunderously loud the bus driver honked the horn in response.
Damir hated his life.
“You don’t have to play,” Kilian told him under his breath. “You can borrow my headphones.”
Damir eyed him. How did he know Damir had forgotten his?
The offer tempted him. There was a podcast about the benefits of mixing quinoa with rice he’d been meaning to listen to…
But he could handle being irritated for a few hours; he’d handled it all day and for most of his life.
“Someone has to make sure no one gets dared to storm the cockpit or post nudes on social media.”
Kilian grimaced. “Good point. Sucks having to be responsible, eh?”
For a wild, juvenile, idiotic moment, the words I dare you to kiss me right here, right now formed on Damir’s lips. He shook his head to clear them away. “Someone has to be.”