Page 95 of Puck You Both

Fists shoot up in every corner, twenty men in apathy shirts celebrating a single word, and I bend down over my laces so nobody sees my face, because I’m pretty sure my face is currently spilling my secret—I’d take a bullet for every idiot in this room, and they definitively don’t need to know that.

The door cracks open and Coach Martin pokes his head in. He takes in the shirts, the candle burning in Jinx's stall, the cue cards, Kane's phone still filming from the floor, and lets all of it go with one slow blink. “Congratulations. Practice started eight minutes ago."

The skate goes well, which is its own problem. My reads come early, my rebounds die where I put them, and between drills I catch myself glancing down on the A on my chest. I'm playing like a man with something to be happy about, and every time I freeze the puck I can feel Becker watching me be happy about it.

At the water break he skates a slow circle past my crease and says nothing, which means surveillance.

The gym after empties slow, then all at once. I'm finishing my last set on the bench when Becker racks his dumbbells at the next station and stays.

"Good day, huh?” he starts, and before I can say anything, he adds, "You know I know, right?"

The bar stops mid-rep, and so does my heart.

In the span of a single breath I run months of tape looking for the leak. The grinning at my phone in my stall, twice, minimum, but more likely daily. Or maybe it’s all those co-chair syncs that have become more frequent than any charity event requires. Or Tuesday, in the showers. Did I hum? I think I hummed. Who hums? Happy people hum.

I rack the bar before my arms can incriminate me further and sit up, assembling a face and, somewhere behind it, an alibi. “Know what?”

"Not the what," Becker says. "The that." He sits down on the next bench, elbows on his knees, towel hanging from his hands, and for a moment, the bits are gone. This is the other Becker. The one maybe five people alive have met. "You've been happy for months and lying about something for months, and those are both new. So. Whenever you’re ready."

Stopping my exhale of relief is its own workout and for a moment, it’s all on the tip of my tongue. Two names, one admission. The sentence has been ready for weeks, sitting in my chest, waiting for a door. And here's a door, open, held by the best friend I have.

My mouth opens and the sentence disintegrates. "Soon," is what comes out instead.

He scrutinizes my face for a painfully long moment, then nods and rises to his feet. It’s not until he’s at the door when he spins around and the regular Becker is back. "The corkboard has a section reserved."

***

I’VE BEEN PARKED outside my mother's house for six minutes, engine off, earbuds in, windows up. I checked the street first, twice, to make sure it’s empty. This is not a performance that can afford witnesses.

"Grześkowiak," the app says.

"Grez-KOW-ee-ak," I say.

Red buzz.

"Grześkowiak," the app says, with infinite patience.

"Gzheh... SKOH-vak."

Red buzz. The screen offers me an encouraging message. Almost there!

I'm nowhere near there. The app is programmed to be polite.

I break the name into zones, the way I'd break down a shooter. Front half first. The rz lands. I've had the rz for two days now. The rz is mine. It's the soft middle that keeps folding under me, the same spot every rep, that ś sound that has no business existing, and I run it again, and the buzz comes again.

"Fuck."

The phone speaker is probably distorting the reference audio. Except speaker is fine and I know it.

I try it quieter, half-voice, like sneaking up on it.

Buzz.

I try with my eyes closed.

Buzz.

A delivery truck rolls past and I stop mid-vowel and sit there with my mouth open until it turns the corner. There are limits to what this street needs to see.