Chapter 18 #2
“Yeah.” Nick gets that. He notices the phone in Connor’s hand and raises an eyebrow. “Calling home?”
Looking down at his lap, a bigger smile creeps in. “Ouais.” That pang of jealousy sinks through Nick again, the yearning to have home be a person and not a place.
He pushes it away. “How’s that going?”
“Great.” Connor’s smile makes it all the way to his eyes now, bashful and sweet. “Really, really good. It’s … easier, than I thought it would be. Y’know, I—We went to dinner with my captain and his family a couple days before I came out here.”
Nick freezes. Stares at him. “We, like…” He doesn’t want to use names. Even though they feel alone on this balcony, it’s never safe to assume.
But Connor nods, and Nick gapes. “I—Your captain knows?”
Now Connor looks outright sheepish, bringing a hand up to run it through his hair. “I, uh, at this point I’d say maybe two thirds of my team know.” He shrugs helplessly. “Apparently I’m … I’m not subtle.”
The first thing Nick feels is a burning in the hollow of his ribs—jealousy, the dark and twisted and bitter kind.
Jealousy that in literally half a season Connor has been brave enough to do something that Nick still hasn’t in almost six.
He’s out, if only to a small circle, and it seems fine, and of course he has to beat Nick to this too.
Has to be better. Has to make Nick feel inadequate the way he always used to without even trying.
And then he takes a breath, and pauses, and pushes it away. Because Connor … Connor looks terrified.
He can see it now, beneath the smile, the wry jokes, the flippant attitude—this is the exact thing that had Connor so scared that he left the country; the idea of being so unable to hide his emotions that he would out himself to the whole NHL.
“I get it, now,” Connor murmurs, voice husky, fists white-knuckle tight in his lap.
“Why you do what you do. I got mad, that first night, because you’ve always been able to do that.
Even when we were kids. You just flip this switch and you’re gone.
I hated it then and I hate it now, but I get it, because shit, Nicky, I lasted three months.
And I’m lucky that all the guys who have noticed are cool with it, but …
it only takes one person who isn’t for it to all come crashing down.
And I don’t—I don’t know how you’ve done this for so long.
I hate it.” He shakes his head slowly. “But I get it. And I’m sorry I was an ass about it.
This weekend has been … not what I expected it to be. ”
“It can be a lot,” Nick offers. What else can he say to that?
He hates it too, but it is what it is, welcome to the NHL?
It’s shit but it’s the price we pay for getting paid a fuckton of money to follow a rubber bullet around an ice rink?
If you do it long enough, you’ll stop feeling like you’re a real person?
None of those things are helpful. He sighs.
“It’s … it’s not all bad,” he offers. “Like you said, the guys on your team who know are cool with it. I had … I had Marco, through everything. I wouldn’t have made it without him.
” When he gets home, he’s going to give his best friend the biggest hug.
“And I didn’t have … anyone. Like you do. ”
“So you do have someone now.” A statement, not a question. Nick shrugs.
“That’s something for another night.” He is definitely not unpacking all that at 11 p.m. on a balcony in fucking Toronto.
“But what I mean is … it’s not all like this.
But if I do what I do here, it’s enough to give me a reputation that spreads.
It’s kept me safe. And … I don’t need to go that hard on it anymore, but I’ll be honest with you, Conn, at this point I don’t know how to stop. ”
“Crisse,” Connor mutters, snorting derisively. “Look at us, eh?”
“Fuckin’ shining stars of the NHL.” Nick raises his glass in a mocking salute.
“I never thought I’d make it this far,” Connor says, after a long beat of silence.
“Even before … I honestly didn’t think I’d get here.
It had been my dream for so long I couldn’t imagine anything else, but I—I didn’t think I would actually make it.
I just needed someone else to tell me I’d failed so I could stop.
But then I was doing well in Fribourg and I had so many offers coming in so I decided to take a chance, and before I knew it I was here. An All-Star.”
“As a wise man once said,” Nick declares, “‘The years start comin’ and they don’t stop comin’.’”
Connor stares at him, incredulous, and then both of them break at once and they’re giggling like children, leaning against each other to stay upright. “Jesus, you’re an idiot,” Connor gasps once he catches his breath. Nick grins widely at him, pleased.
The silence stretches between them, both of them sitting in the depths of more understanding than they’ve maybe had at any point in their prior relationship.
Eventually, Nick clears his throat. “Will you stay?” he asks, quiet and hesitant.
“Now that you’ve made it?” It’s entirely likely Connor has gotten to the NHL and discovered that it’s not actually what he wants at all, and when his contract is out he’ll walk and never look back.
For some reason, the idea fills Nick with panic.
“I—I think so. As long as I can.” Connor nods determinedly, jaw set, and Nick can relax.
“For all the shit surrounding it, I love the game. It’s the kind of hockey I always dreamed of playing, and I—I belong, on the ice.
We belong on the ice.” He reaches over, covering Nick’s free hand with his own.
“Regardless of whether or not we belong in there.” He jerks a chin towards the closed doors, the party happening just fine without them.
It’s risky, to do it out here where anyone could walk out and see them, but it’s late and it’s dark and Nick’s entire heart is sitting right in the middle of his throat—so he turns his hand over and interlocks their fingers, gripping Connor’s hand tight.
“And hell,” Connor continues, the sharp kind of smirk on his face that always used to spell trouble, “if they try and tell me I don’t, once they learn too much, I can raise a whole lot of problems on my way out.” The smirk grows sharper. “Papa’s just waiting for the chance.”
A laugh blurts out of Nick’s chest as he imagines George LaPorte burning the NHL to the ground on behalf of his son.
It’s easier than imagining Connor standing up and doing the thing Nick has always feared he’d never be brave enough to do under his own power, in all of his NHL career.
Walk away.