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And teaching JT to play his cards right had become an important part of Ryan and Hayes’s job, as they’d both stepped up and become father figures to the kid in Jake’s absence. JT was very much like Hayes in the sense that he was good and he fucking knew it. The two of them had gotten into many fights over his arrogance, Hayes having warned against it.
“You might think you’re great, OK? But one injury, JT. That’s all it takes and you’re cooked. You need to stay humble and you need to work as a team player,” Hayes had told him recently over dinner one night after several of JT’s teammates had complained to Ryan post-practice about him being a puck hog. “You can be the best player out there, but no one’s gonna respect you if you constantly flaunt it. This game’ll catch up with you real quick if you’re not careful.”
“I’m not you, OK? You know what? Fuck this,” JT had shot back, standing up and tossing his napkin onto the table like was going to leave.
Hayes also rose to his feet. “Sit. The fuck. Down,” he ordered calmly, and JT, after rolling his eyes into the back of his skull, did. Hayes gave JT a lot of leeway, knowing that he’d struggled with anger and depression since his father’s death, something for which Amara had him in therapy. But he would also remind him who was boss when necessary. “You need to learn to take criticism because guess what? You wanna play? You’ve got an entire lifetime of it ahead of you. And some of it? Is fuckin’ brutal.”
“I’m…sorry.”
“It’s all good, man. You know I’m just tryin’ to help you, right? Listen, I might be old, but I know a thing or two about this game, and so does your Uncle Ryan.”
Both Hayes and Ryan had come to love JT like a son. They’d always talked about the possibility of having kids, but they ultimately never did because of the demands of their NHL careers and now the business. But JT was pretty much their default kid anyway. Neither of them could count how many times they’d woken up to him sound asleep on their couch after having “run away” from home, which usually coincided with Amara having gone on a date with a new man.
“What? You want her to be alone and miserable for the rest of her life?” Ryan had asked him one morning after finding him there.
“It’s…not fair to my dad,” he’d cried, as Ryan held his hand.
“He’s not coming back, JT. I know it hurts. Believe me, I’ve been there. But your mom? Is one of the most amazing, strongest people on this planet, and if there’s anything she deserves, it’s a chance at happiness. Don’t fuck that up for her, man. You know you’re always welcome here, but she worries about you and she loves you more than anything in this world.”
They’d been there for him through all the rites of passage that he’d been way too embarrassed to share with his mom. They’d nursed him through his first hangover, been there for him when he’d been dumped by the older girl to whom he’d lost his virginity, they’d picked him up from the police station when he and some friends had been detained for smoking weed in a skate park at two in the morning, and most memorably, for the mother of all conversations.
“I can talk to you guys about…stuff, right?” he’d asked from the backseat of the Lincoln Navigator as Ryan and Hayes drove him home from practice one night.
“Of course, man.” Hayes had answered immediately.
“And you won’t tell my mom?”
“That part’s not guaranteed, bud. There’s a threshold. Don’t cross it.”
“Fine.” He took a deep breath. “How’d you guys know you were gay?”
Both Ryan and Hayes shot each other a look.
“Uh, Hayes? You, uh, you wanna take this one?”
“Nope.”
For obvious reasons, neither of them had ever planned to divulge to JT the series of events that had led to them discovering their attraction and love for each other, considering the huge role his mother had played in all of it.
“Is there a reason you’re asking, or like, are you just genuinely curious?” Ryan responded.
“Um, so please don’t tell my mom. But, like, I was at this party last night in the woods, and…I kinda sorta did some…stuff with a few of my teammates. And I didn’t hate it.”
“A few?” Hayes had yelled. “Damn, man. I’d barely even kissed anyone at your age. Kid’s out here gangbangin’ half his hockey team.”
“Well, you’re kind of a loser, so there’s that,” JT had teased.
Hayes had debated hitting him with a “Your mom didn’t seem to think so,” but ultimately decided against it, having developed somewhat of a filter with age.
“So, listen, JT. That’s normal,” Ryan had told him. “It’s totally normal to experiment. And you don’t have to put a label on yourself, OK? But one thing I can absolutely promise you with 100 percent certainty? If you ever come out to your mom, she will not care. She will love you regardless.”
“Yeah, no shit,” he’d replied immediately. “I’m not worried about that. I just don’t want her to know I was at a party. She thinks I was sleeping at a friend's house.”
Ryan had exhaled. “Right. I knew that.”
“He still going after that damn Michigan?”
Amara’s voice startled Hayes back to the present. He put his crochet project down on the bleachers as she handed him a Wawa coffee and had a seat next to him.
