Chapter Thirteen #4
He might know himself better, but he definitely hadn’t gotten smarter.
He couldn’t wait to tell Luca. Finally, it all made sense: the cuddling on the couch, the way Chris’s stomach squirmed when they had their roommate dates, the sex coaching.
All of it was because Chris had feelings for Luca.
The thought of confessing reminded Chris of how it felt at the top of the climb on a roller coaster, waiting for the drop with joyous fear, tying his stomach into knots.
He didn’t know what waited for him at the bottom, but he knew he wanted to fall.
He wondered if Luca would want to touch him. To bite him.
Not the time, he reminded himself.
The game started well. Jax won the opening face-off and passed off to Tom, who took it up the ice.
Denisov was on them instantly. He played hard and fast, and he kept his eyes on the puck and not on the Sea Lions’ bench. Chris wondered whether Howie was watching.
Now was not the time to worry about Howie’s relationship issues either. Tom sent the puck hurtling to Chris on the backcheck, and Chris exploded into action, passing first to Luca and then, when Luca shot the puck to him again, taking the first shot on goal.
Henderson caught it in an outstretched glove.
“Nice save, number four!” Chris called.
Hockey players had to take a little chirping, after all.
The first period ended scoreless, all tight, frenetic energy but no results.
In the second, one of the Firecrackers took a hooking penalty against Howie, and the Sea Lions went on the power play.
Luca scored from the blue line thirty seconds into it, and Chris jumped to his feet with the rest of the bench.
“Fuck that was hot,” he said, out loud and everything. Thank God the roar of the crowd made sure no one could hear him.
Luca passed them by for a celebratory lap and then hopped onto the bench so the second power play unit could go out.
“Nice one!” Chris told him.
Luca tapped their sticks together.
“Oh shit, he’s after Howie again,” Jax muttered, leaning forward, and Chris’s eyes were drawn to the ice once more.
Denisov had returned to his old tricks, hounding Howie across the offensive zone and toward the center line.
“Draw a penalty,” Luca muttered. “Come on, Howie, make him look stupid. It will not be hard. We will get them with a second power play.”
But Howie’s mouth remained closed. His head ducked down, and Denisov got him from the side, crunching him into the boards by the shoulders. He did it less brutally than the last time; Howie stayed on his feet. He lost the puck, though, and Denisov had it on a breakaway headed straight for the goal.
Howie struggled after him, picking up speed, but he couldn’t make it before the shot left Denisov’s puck, so he threw himself onto the ice, stick outstretched just far enough to catch the puck before it hit the goal.
But Denisov caught the rebound, and with Howie in the way, Dmitriyev couldn’t move. Denisov aimed for the top shelf, and Dmitriyev jumped. The puck bounced off his glove, but the second he landed, he crumpled to the ground, half on top of Howie.
“Oh shit,” Chris breathed.
The refs whistled.
They had to take Dmitriyev out on a stretcher. He couldn’t stand under his own power, and if he wasn’t willing to try, it couldn’t be good.
Lindy gestured for Nilsson to get onto the ice.
Hayes breathed in through his teeth. “Fuck.”
Nilsson wasn’t a bad backup goalie. In the AHL, he would be great.
On the Sea Lions, he warmed the bench unless Dmitriyev needed a maintenance day.
The goaltending coach had done his best to get Nilsson up to scratch, but he couldn’t fix lack of experience.
Having Nilsson in net for more than half the game meant the D-men would be working overtime, trying to block as many shots as possible, trying to play as offensively as they could to keep the puck out of their zone.
Play resumed with fifteen seconds left on the Firecrackers’ penalty. The first PP unit went out once more, playing harder and tighter now their goalie was gone. They couldn’t make it past Henderson a second time, though, and the lines switched out again.
Vanderbilt checked Denisov hard enough to send him sprawling, earning a five-minute major. Chris cursed him out mentally. Getting revenge for their tendy was all well and good, but they needed to protect the goalie in net as well.
The first penalty kill unit did all right, but by the time the second unit took the ice, the Firecrackers had gained momentum. Nilsson blocked the first shot on goal and missed the rebound. Chicago equalized.
After that, the game became a back-and-forth in terms of possession and scoring chances. San Francisco had more depth in offense, but Chicago had them beat in goaltending by a mile. Midway through the third, the scoreboard read 2–1 for Chicago, and Lindy sent Howie out against Denisov’s line.
“Get to him,” she told him. “You’ve done it before. You’re a pest, so pester him.”
Chris winced. He wondered if he should intervene. But what could he say without revealing Howie’s unfortunate crush on the opposition? Howie would never forgive him. He said nothing and watched as Howie hopped the boards.
He got up in Denisov’s space immediately, yapping away with his mouthguard hanging out the side of his lips as he battled for the puck.
Chris couldn’t see Denisov’s expression, but he didn’t need to.
Denisov shouldered past Howie, leaving him to stumble on the ice, and took the puck straight through their zone. It hit the back of the net before Howie could even think of catching him.
The game ended 3–1 for Chicago.
Making matters worse, Luca had to do media since he’d gotten the only goal of the game for San Francisco.
The first few questions were all right—standard fare about how Dmitriyev was doing and how the team could have prevented the loss: played a full sixty minutes, protected their goalie better, all the usual sound bites.
Honestly, Chris thought they’d done a decent job protecting their goalie.
They couldn’t block every shot on net. Nilsson would have to learn to stop a few, and he’d have to learn fast.
Chris winced from a few feet over when Luca called on Olivia Starling.
“We’re seeing a very different team than we did last week,” she said. “Do you think the exuberant Halloween celebrations we saw online contributed to this decline?”
“No,” Luca said through his teeth.
“And what about this team’s commitment to political activism? Has it caused any friction this season with new additions such as Semyon Fedorov on the roster?”
“I was unaware playing hockey with children now counts as activism,” Luca said.
Chris winced. That response would be shared all over social media.
The media availability segment ended shortly afterward, but the question was out there now, which meant journalists would think of their own answers, more so thanks to Luca’s nonresponse.
They drove home in silence. What was there to say? Starling had picked up on the glaring issue facing the team: could everyone handle sharing space with queer guys? She mined for a story and found one, but she had no idea how deep it ran.
Before, the thought of Starling sowing dissent among the team would have occupied him all night. Now, Chris couldn’t help but forget all about her as he examined Luca out of the corner of his eye when he stopped at each red light.
Luca looked exhausted. His head rested against the window, and the streetlights illuminated his profile perfectly. Would he let Chris kiss him? Would he touch Chris if he asked?
Chris’s cock thickened in his suit pants, and he shifted in his seat.
Leonora must be a wizard. Even with a semi, they were comfortable.
“I know everything is kind of shitty now,” Chris said once they’d reached the safe haven of the apartment. “But, um. I was hoping we could—”
“No,” Luca said harshly.
“Oh.” Chris’s stomach sank. “Did I do something? Or, um, maybe tomorrow in Montreal—”
Luca sighed the same way he did when Chris suggested they watch a romcom instead of a miserable Italian arthouse film about two guys building a shack on a picturesque mountaintop somewhere.
The guys never kissed despite obviously being in love, and their beards looked scratchy and awful.
Chris did not understand the appeal. But he did understand Luca sighing as though Chris was pushing him into something he didn’t want to do.
“Or not. I’m sorry, never mind. I’ll—”
“Chris,” Luca said.
Chris fell silent.
“I cannot help you with sex anymore.”
Rushing sounded in Chris’s ears, so loud he hardly heard the plaintive “Why?” stumbling across his lips.
Luca gave him a look Chris couldn’t read. He hated it. He was good at reading Luca. He was the only person who was good at reading Luca. “You know why. You must know why. I have not been subtle.”
Chris tried to remember: Luca’s insistence, when he came back from his summer in Italy, that he do something to help Chris cover rent; the outings in Seattle and Chicago; him rolling his eyes at the stupid Furby; his lukewarm response when Chris told him how much Luca meant to him on the boat ride.
How the nicest thing he’d come up with to say about Chris on the plane was about Chris’s silly underwear.
“Oh,” he said through numb lips. “Right.”
Of course it had been transactional for Luca.
He’d said as much. He might have enjoyed the sex but didn’t want more of it.
He must have been able to tell that Chris had developed feelings.
Chris was such an idiot, falling for a guy who tolerated him at best and reading too much into his responses.
He should have charged a hundred bucks a month in rent and called it a day.
Luca gave him a half of a smile, barely there.
“Sorry for asking,” Chris mumbled. “I—uh. Goodnight.” He turned on his heel and went to his room, where he faceplanted straight into his sheets and squeezed his eyes shut so the tears burning behind them couldn’t get out.
So this was how it felt to be turned down by someone he had feelings for.
What a cruel joke to finally understand what it meant to feel this way about someone when that someone would never feel the same.