Chapter 23 #2
Has Matt thought about him as often as Nick has? Or is he too pissed off to care? Nick would probably be pissed, if it were him, but Matt’s not usually that petty.
Is it too much to hope that Matt wants him to reach out?
Before he can think better of it, Nick’s carefully throwing back the sheets and creeping out of bed. He swipes his phone off the nightstand and tiptoes out into the living room, dialing before his nerves can get the better of him.
The call goes straight to voicemail. Perfect.
“Hey,” he starts, wincing when his voice cracks.
“I, uh … I’m sorry. Both for everything I said, and for being a fucking coward right now and calling while I know you can’t pick up.
” He snorts to himself—Jesus, he’s a piece of work.
“I … God, Matt. I know I fucked up. I don’t need you to tell me that.
Plenty of other people have done so on your behalf, believe me. ”
Nick swallows hard, emotion welling in his throat.
“I shouldn’t have called you a distraction.
I shouldn’t have run away. I feel like we’ve established that I turn into an asshole when I’m scared, and Christ, I haven’t been that scared in a long time.
” He sucks in a sharp breath. “It’s like …
sometimes it feels like my feelings for you are just one big neon sign floating over my head.
Like people take one look at me and they can see it, how I—How much I care about you.
It fucking terrifies me, man.” Nick swallows hard.
“But not as much as the idea of not having you in my life.”
Any minute now the machine’s gonna cut him off, he thinks with a flare of panic, gripping tighter to his phone. “I’m really sorry, babe. And you can yell at me all you want when I get home, I promise, just … please, don’t give up on me yet. I—” BEEEEP.
Damn it. Well, he got the gist of it across. Hopefully that’s enough.
It feels like it’s been forever since Nick’s done this: sprawled out on the couch in Marco’s living room, Lindsay’s feet digging into his thigh, some absolute reality TV trash on while their cats tangle together on the armchair.
Marshmallow is a fluffy white lump on the dog bed next to the couch, occasionally licking Nick’s dangling hand.
On the screen, a woman throws a full glass of wine right in the face of the guy she’s on a date with, and Lindsay cackles. “Serves him fucking right!” she crows—then she looks towards Nick, frowning. “You’re quiet tonight.” She prods him hard with her toes. “Still haven’t heard from Matt?”
“Nope.” Nick’s pretty sure Lindsay hears his breath hitch.
“But, y’know, he’s crazy busy right now, so…
” They’ve been playing back-to-back gigs since the EP came out, and going by social media—which Nick is not stalking, thank you very much—they’ve had a packed media schedule around it too.
Nick tweeted something nice about the EP, and he’s clinging to the hope that since all the band members liked the tweet, he hasn’t lost Matt yet.
But his voicemail has gone unacknowledged.
He’s starting to think it always will—Matt did tell him not to expect him to wait around, after all. “You don’t get to put me down and pick me up when it suits you.” Isn’t that exactly what Nick’s trying to do?
If Matt never speaks to him again, he’ll deserve it.
“Oh, Nick,” Lindsay says, sighing. He pokes her in the shin.
“I’m fine,” he insists. “I’m just … thinking about some shit.”
“Wow, don’t hurt yourself,” Marco mutters.
“Asshole.”
Marco grins, tossing an M a hundred assholes like Bam-Bam, at every rink he’s skated on.
“Whether I’m with Matt, or—” He falters, unable to even voice the possibility of an alternative.
“I—I don’t want to be alone until I retire.
” His voice trembles with the admission, a weight lifting off his chest. It’s terrifying to want, but God, it’s even harder to pretend he doesn’t.
“And if I’m gonna live my life with … with someone, people are gonna find out, and I don’t—It’s worse, somehow, wondering if each new person who clocks me is gonna be the one who tells the world.
And I don’t … I don’t like the idea of that being out of my hands. ”
In the past, anyone who might have outed Nick would never have had any proof.
The only person who knew for sure about him and Connor was Connor himself, who would’ve been throwing both of them under the bus to say anything.
Same with any of the other players he hooked up with over the years.
And as for strangers in bars, would anyone have actually believed them without evidence, if Nick denied it?
People lie about sleeping with hockey players all the time.
Nick’s been taking advantage of just that for his entire career.
“Fucking control freak,” Lindsay murmurs fondly. She swings her legs around so she can lean up against Nick’s side, a comforting weight and the underlying scent of cinnamon sugar. “No one can make this decision but you, honey,” she says. “But whatever you want to do, we’re with you.”
“We’ve got you, kid,” Marco agrees, shuffling up to stretch his long arms around them both. “Hell, you’ve got more silverware than the rest of our team combined. They can’t exactly sweep you under the rug. But … there’s no going back, if you do it.”
“I know.” Nick hums, biting his lip. “I have this plan. That I’ve been thinking about. And I don’t know if I can even pull it off.” It’ll require a hell of a lot of bravery, from a lot of people.
“Just promise me something,” Lindsay says, quiet and serious. Nick raises an eyebrow at her, and her lips purse. “Promise me you aren’t thinking about this because you want to win Matt back. It has to be for you.”
His eyes burn at the implication that Matt needs winning back, like Nick has been lost already. But he nods, jaw tight. “It is,” he promises, and it’s not a lie.
He is a star of the sport. He’s maybe not up there with the likes of Crosby and Ovechkin, but he’s kind of a big deal.
He has a lot of fans, a lot of kids with posters of him on their wall.
A lot of young hockey players insisting they want to grow up to be just like him.
It sounds egotistical, maybe, but it’s a fact. Nick knows how popular he is.
And he knows what it would have meant, when he was thirteen and terrified of the feelings he was only just figuring out how to name, to see somebody as famous and popular and admired as him stand up and say that those feelings should not exclude him from the sport he loves.
That it’s okay to feel that way. That he feels that way too.
It would have been everything. And Nick’s too much of a coward to be a spokesperson, too much of a jackass to be a role model, but … someone has to start, right?
If nothing else, he never again wants to feel the fear that Bam-Bam made him feel. Like his career, his privacy, is in someone else’s hands.
He clears his throat, blinking back his tears to focus on his two best friends. “I want to do it, even if he never talks to me again.” His determination is audible, and they don’t protest. “But if I’m gonna do it, I need to talk to a couple people. And Sofia.”
Marco stares at him quizzically. “What does my sister have to do with this?”
“Well, that’s the thing.” Nick bites his lip, wondering how best to explain what he’s been thinking. “It’s kind of a… project.”
It might be stupid. But if they can make it work, it could change everything.