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Shaker will start on the top line in my place tonight, and likely the next three games I will miss. He’s my protégé. The next in line Grizzlies enforcer. And he’s good. Really good. Is my job already in jeopardy? No. Of course it’s not. No. No…breathe, 2, 3, 4. Dammit. I don’t fucking miss games and here we go again. What the hell is happening with me?
I slump down onto the bench by my locker and stare at my hands.
The tremble is barely visible. It isn’t to anyone else. I know it’s there, though. Because it starts from deep inside me and thunders its way out. The locker room is quiet. I feel a squeeze on my shoulder and see Davey.
“It’s not…” I shake my head. I want to tell him it’s not what he thinks. But that is the reason I went, isn’t it? The reason I went is exactly what he thinks. To get laid. To play around with Nandy. To see what it’s like to be with a man. Everyone else thinks I was with a woman. Everyone thinks I got laid. That never would have bothered me before. Everyone expected it of me and I embraced it. But this, well, it bothers me now. Because I didn’t get laid? Or because what happened with Nandy was more. So much more. Because there is something there now that has nothing to do with sex.
Davey is right. I’ve tried everything there is to try with a woman and I’m over it. I’m bored. I want more. I want different. I want to feel…something new…something different… hell, feel anything. I felt things sitting on the floor of that elevator listening to Nandy play. Play for me. Watching his beautiful fingers dance across the strings. Looking into eyes filled with understanding. Not pity. Not even sympathy. Understanding.
“I’m sorry,” I say, but I don’t look at him. He stays standing and puts his hands in his pants pockets. There is something he wants to say.
“What?” I look up.
“What are you sorry for?”
“Screwing up. Being careless. Thinking with the wrong part of my anatomy…for disappointing you guys.” Disappointing myself, I think. And knowing I’m going to get one of those calls from my father tonight.
Davey shakes his head. “I’m not the one who needs the apology. The guys do. But more than that, TJ, this isn’t like you. To my knowledge, you’ve never let a piece of ass come before hockey. What’s really going on?”
I want to tell him. But I’m not even sure what is really going on. Is this about my dad? My brother? My mom? I don’t even know anymore. I know it’s more than sex, more than fooling around and feeling a release. Hell, I can get a release on my own.
Being with Nandy the other night showed me how much more I want. How much more I need. The friendship he offered me. The understanding. It was worth way more than getting laid would have been.
“Is there anything you want to talk about?”
I shake my head and grumble. “No.” Do I tell him I didn’t get what I went for? It bothered Davey that I wanted to experiment with Nandy. He thinks I went for all the wrong reasons. And I probably did. I care what Davey thinks. I feel this weird connection to him now because he’s gay. Because I’m very attracted to a man. I know that is ridiculous and makes little sense.
“Davey?”
He turns.
I exhale and look at my hands. They’ve stilled now. “Nothing happened.” I look up and meet his eyes. “Not like you think.”
I can’t read his expression. He offers the smallest of smiles and leaves the room.
Chapter eleven
“They’re your parents. You can tell them you want to watch a hockey game.”
Nandy just shakes his head, not taking his eyes from the road ahead. He’s tense. He’s never like this. He loves his parents. I love his parents. They’re my parents too. More so than my own. Ever since the day I came home with eyeliner on and announced my preference for boys.
I was 15, just shy of my 16th birthday. I had not expected the conversation to go well. I mean, I went into it with the same boisterous devil may care attitude that I have always done with everything. But I didn’t expect the wrath I got. I didn’t expect the red-faced fury on my father’s face. And I sure as hell didn’t expect to see the pain fill my mother’s eyes. The tears fell shortly thereafter.
“Where did we go wrong?” They asked over and over and over again.
“We can’t support this. We can’t allow this. As long as you are under our roof…”
And finally. “How could you do this to us?”
And so it was that I found myself on the doorstep of the very house I’m walking up to now.
“Have you talked to him?”
Nandy nods.
“And he’s playing tonight?”
“Yes…everything should be back to normal… his words.”
