by R J Scott
“Mads?” Brady asked from behind me.
I dunked the filter holder into the hot soapy water in the sink and held it under for a while.
“Brady,” I murmured in reply, but didn’t turn to face him.
“Sorry for hitting you, dude,” he offered in what seemed to me like the most insincere way ever. It was on the same level as, “Shit, sorry I picked up your water bottle by mistake.”
I let go of the machine part and it bobbed to the surface, a stream of bubbles flowing from it. I may have overdone the dish detergent a little.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, because it didn’t matter. What was important was that Brady and his brother weren’t at odds with each other, and that Brady would now treat Ten a little differently after their talk.
And then came the interrogation.
“Did you always know he was gay, from when we were kids?” Brady asked, cautiously.
I didn’t like that question at all. Was he saying that because I was bi I must have a fully functioning gaydar and must have known? Ten would only have been twelve when I spent time with Brady in the minors—hell, he’d been a kid and probably hadn’t known for certain whether he was gay or straight or anywhere else on the spectrum.
Whatever Brady meant to achieve with the query, it came over as an accusation. I grabbed a dish towel and the machine part and dried it and my hands, and finally I turned away from the sink to look at Brady. He winced as he saw my face. I hadn’t managed to get a shot at him, not a real one, and part of me wanted to punch him right then just to get him to back the fuck off with the questions.
“No. I’m damn sure he didn’t even know himself, and I don’t have magic fucking gaydar. I didn’t even know until he freaking told me, which for your information was only a couple months back. So don’t even start accusing me of keeping secrets.”
Brady’s face fell. I was right—he had been accusing me of hiding the truth. The part of me that wanted to punch him was back with a vengeance. Then he said something that knocked back my anger and turned the whole situation on its head.
“Shit,” he began. “I was hoping he hadn’t gone through everything alone; that he’d at least had someone to talk to.”
My chest tightened. Brady was looking at me like he’d just lost game seven in the Cup finals. Devastated.
“Brady—”
“What does it mean for him?” Brady asked me, and he sat heavily on one of the stools, his elbows on the counter.
I wanted to say something to make things right at that point, some glib comment about how Ten was a strong guy and how it wasn’t that bad for a player to be different on a team. The Railers were full of all kinds of guys, split fairly equally between American, Canadian and European; that much was a given. Cultural differences began there, and that was just the start of all their differences. I wasn’t naive enough to align sexual preference with something like the province a guy was born in, but I hoped that the team discovering Ten was gay wouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Particularly when the team was cohesive and on a tear to win a game.
“There was that kid in college, the one who came out,” Brady said. “He’s been getting all this hate mail—threats, even.”
I’d read about that, sent a quick email of support to him, but he wasn’t a player with the same skillset as Ten. He wasn’t the one making it into the NHL and having a spotlight on him. It could be a million times worse for Ten. Then it hit me how badly I was trivializing what any guy in hockey was going through if they were gay.
“The Railers are supportive,” I said.
“And he has you,” Brady said.
I hadn’t even made sense of how I was feeling, but Brady looked like he wanted an answer.
“I will always have his back,” I offered.
Brady considered my words. “If you hurt him—”
“You’ll kill me, I know. Well, you can try…”
“Fuck you, Mads,” Brady said without heat. “I could take you any day.”
“Fuck you back.”
Brady scrubbed his eyes. He looked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, as only the captain of an NHL team can.
“Mom and Dad were okay?” he asked me softly.
Ten answered from his position in the doorway. How long he’d been standing there, I didn’t know. “Did you expect them not to be?” he asked.
He had his cell phone in his hand and he looked different somehow. Confident, maybe. Was that just because I was in love with him? Was I just praying Ten would stay confident, positive, and not give in to any kind of hate thrown his way? However hard management tried, there could be signs at games, slurs, hate, articles, questions about his abilities as an athlete. I’d seen it all at one level or another.
I’d also known other hockey players who loved men, who fucked men—Jesus, one guy in LA was living with his boyfriend. The team spun it as roommates, but a lot of people knew the real story. Ten didn’t have to come out publicly. He could play hockey until he was forty, and whatever relationships he had could be kept on the down-low.
Ten was asking a good question. Bruce and Jean Rowe were good parents, with a broad outlook on life. Had Brady expected them to be different when faced with one of their sons coming out?
“No,” Brady said immediately, but he didn’t sound so sure.
“Mum wants to join support groups and march in Pride with me.”
Brady blinked at him, probably considering whether Ten was fucking with him. Also, the whole thing about a Pride parade meant Ten would be out and proud and everyone would know he was gay. I could almost pinpoint the moment when Brady had to stop himself hyperventilating, and the moment where he pulled his shit together.
“I’ll march with you,” he announced.
Ten went over to his brother, bumped arms, then gave him the biggest noogie, Brady cursing up a storm. “I’ll hold you to that,” Ten said. Then he looked at me and I saw his smile, the heat in his eyes, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“Jesus, Mads, stop eye-fucking my little brother,” Brady muttered.
For that he got a smack on the back of his head from Ten, and they bickered for a short while. I left them to it, turning back to my super-important cleaning-of-the-coffee-machine job. I would do that for a while, then make an excuse to go hide in my room; give the brothers their space. They needed that. But it seemed Ten had other ideas, placing his cell on the counter next to me and thumbing through his contacts to Jamie’s number.
“Will you stay?” he asked quietly as the sound of the call connecting filled the room.
I had maybe seconds to answer, but this was important to Ten. If he was telling Jamie, then there was nowhere else I wanted to be than right there next to him.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, a little gruffly because my throat felt tight with emotion.
“Yo, Ten,” Jamie answered. His voice echoed a little, like maybe he was at the rink. I knew Jamie was playing today, an evening game, not a matinee like us. Talking of which, we only had a couple of hours to get to the rink, and Ten really still needed a shower; he smelled of berries and sunshine and I wanted to kiss him all over, and I couldn’t do that at work.
“Jamie, hey.”
“Won’t work,” said another voice, a deep Russian-accented voice, “not throw game for you, Little-Rowe.”
There was some scuffling and cursing, and a very resounding, “Give me back my fucking phone, asshole.” And then Jamie was back. “Fucking Russian goalies,” he muttered. “Wassup, Ten. You okay?”
That was Jamie’s default setting—he always started conversations wanting to know if everything was okay with the person he was talking to. Because if it wasn’t, then it was a given that Jamie would have a solution to your issues.
Solve this, Jamie, I thought. Your little brother is gay and sleeping with a guy older than him, and oh yeah, he plays professional sports for a living.
“Look I have something to tell you. I wanted to�
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“Oh shit, Ten, did the fucking Railers trade you? What the hell? Fuckers. Tell me you got sent somewhere good.”
I bristled at the insinuation. What was it with Ten’s brothers and their anti-Railers bullshit? One day we’d lift the Stanley Cup, and then they’d be crying into their beers. I realized I’d gone off on a tangent in my thoughts when Ten’s voice could be heard saying more or less the same thing. He rounded it off by calling both his brothers fucking idiots.
I tended to agree. The Railers were a new team, but we had depth, and we were going to rock this league so hard they wouldn’t know what hit them. I was going to take great pleasure in watching my team take down both Boston and Florida, then taking Brady and Jamie out for dinner somewhere way too expensive and making them pay.
“My bad,” Jamie said, his voice less echoing. The noise of others in the background had faded a little, but he was still with other guys. “So, the Railers didn’t trade you…” He trailed away expectantly.
“Look, I didn’t want to do this over the phone,” Ten began, looking to me for support.
I placed a hand over his, and caught the approval in Brady’s expression. Yay me, I’d finally done something right.
“Do what, Ten? Jesus, kid, you’re freaking me out,” Jamie said. “Wait, I’m taking this somewhere quiet.” He kept talking as he walked, his voice increasing and decreasing with each breath as he moved. “Are you injured? Shit, Brady said your last game was brutal, but I haven’t watched it yet.”
“I’m not injured,” Ten started, and then stopped. “Can I talk yet?”
There was the sound of a shutting door. “Okay, I’m in the video room.”
“I’m gay, Jamie,” Ten said confidently, and I squeezed his hand.
“Oh,” Jamie said after a slight pause. “Okay.”
“Do you have any questions?” Ten asked as it went quiet. “Should we talk?”
“About what?” Jamie asked. “I’m not talking to you about sex.”
“Asshole, I meant about me.”
“Nope.”
Ten looked at me and shrugged. Even Brady looked confused.
“You’re not angry?” Ten asked tentatively.
“Angry about what?”
“About me not telling you?”
“No,” Jamie said immediately. “Why? Should I be?”
“Brady was.”
Another pause. “You told Brady?” Jamie asked. “What did he say? Don’t let him shout at you, Ten. He’s an arrogant, pushy asshole who’ll try to tell you what to do, but under it all he’ll be worried. He’s just crap at showing affection.”
Brady huffed. “I’m here, actually,” he announced.
Jamie didn’t even react to that. “I knew you would be,” he said. “Look, Ten, I don’t care who you fall in love with. I’m your brother and I want you to be happy. Am I pissed you haven’t told me? No. You must have had your reasons.”
“I was going to tell you next week when we were in Florida.”
Ten sounded so happy that Jamie was supportive, that Brady wasn’t beating me up again. Weird how sentiment hits you when you know someone really well and all you want is for them to be happy all the time. That was how I felt about Ten. That was what love was like, I guessed.
“So why did you move it up to today? Because Brady is there? You have a matinee game with Boston, right?”
Ten blew out a soft breath, and I went from squeezing his hand to lacing our fingers. I didn’t know if he wanted that reassurance, but I certainly needed it.
“Brady walked in on me and my boyfriend.” He looked at me as he said that.
“Okay, so you have a boyfriend. Cool.”
“I’ve had to tell management, and my agent, and the team is next after you and Brady.”
“Wait, did you tell Mom and Dad yet?”
“Yep, they’ve booked all three of their sons into the next Pride parade.”
“Cool,” Jamie said. “I’m up for that. Wait again, who are you involved with?” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Is it another player?”
“It’s Mads.”
“Jeez, I thought you just said Mads.”
“I did.”
“Jared Madsen? That Mads?”
“Yeah.”
There was a very definite and prolonged sigh at Jamie’s end. “He’s a good guy,” he finally offered. “Tell him if he hurts you I’ll kill him.”
I tapped a finger on the counter to indicate that I wanted to talk. “Jamie, Mads here. I promise you, if I ever hurt Ten, you can take it in turns killing me.”
Silence. Why was there silence? I was feeling fidgety when the line remained quiet. Jamie was like that—the peacemaker, the thinker, the one who had these weird periods of quiet when he said very little in the way of anything at all.
“I love him,” I said to fill that space, and then, because it was as vital to me as my next breath, I unlaced our fingers and cradled Ten’s face. “I love you,” I said as I stared into his beautiful eyes. “I’m too old for you, I have a kid, and I have Ev on my back all the time. I don’t rake in the big bucks anymore, but I do cook a mean omelet, and I love you, Ten.”
Weird that my first declaration of love was with witnesses. Somehow it was important that I say it at that moment. As if saying it in front of his brothers would show Ten it was real. I hoped Ten didn’t think I’d cheapened the whole thing.
He didn’t. He rubbed a cheek against my hand, the silk of his hair on my fingers. “I love that you’re older than me, and I love omelets,” he said, “as long as there’s no mushrooms. And I love you too.”
Nah, he clearly didn’t think it was cheap or wrong for us to be doing this in front of his brothers.
No, it was actually Brady and Jamie who ruined the moment, making simultaneous gagging noises and then teasing Ten.
Leaving the three of them to talk was all kinds of easy. They had things to say to each other, and I went to my bedroom. This was my space. Personal photos, dark bedding, a gorgeous view over the lake from one window and the front gardens from the other. The ceiling was tall, the bed huge, and there was plenty of room for two hockey players to stay in there.
So, I guessed this wasn’t my room anymore. And with that in mind, wanting Ten to be with me when I woke in the morning and when I went to bed at night, I began clearing out one side of the closet to make room for his stuff. This was a statement I was making—giving him space, making this permanent.
I could imagine his smile when he saw what I’d done made my heart expand in my chest. I was a sappy, mushy idiot over Ten, and I didn’t care who knew it. Or, at least who in the family knew it. I wasn’t ready to be the one to expose Ten to the entire world, and we’d cross that bridge when we came to it.
“Breakfast,” Ten said from behind me, pushing his hands down past the waistband of my sweats. “I love you.”
I turned awkwardly, kissed him, and he hugged me so hard I couldn’t breathe at first; he had one hell of a grip.
“You know I need to tell the team,” he said as I held him close.
He was right; the Railers were a good bunch of guys, a family. I was convinced they would support him, and if they didn’t, I’d educate them. With my words, of course. Not my fists.
I’m not a Neanderthal.
Twelve
Tennant
Breakfast with Brady. Wow, it was something special. I mean, being able to sit with my older brother—who was generally a massive bag of dicks—by Mads’ side and talk freely about shit had been an amazing experience. While he still had that elitist attitude about hockey and the Railers, he seemed to have found some respect for me as a man. Everything in my life was clicking into place. Sure, there were things that we needed to work through. Like being out with Mads but not really being out with Mads, if that makes sense. We went places, but were careful not to touch in an intimate way or show any signs of being anything other than friends or player/coach. It kind of sucked. No, it really sucked. I began
wondering if coming out to the world might be the way to go. Then, at least, we’d be able to hold hands at the movies and not have to sneak into each other’s homes. Homes. That was another thing that needed to be thought about.
But for now I had to concentrate on afternoon hockey against my big brother’s team.
This was what it was all about. The crowds chanting my name, the smell of men in sweaty pads, the spray of ice, the sound of bodies and pucks bouncing off the boards, the knowledge that you just stole the puck from your older brother and got a quality scoring chance. Heh, yeah. Hockey.
“You’re making Brady look like a minor-leaguer,” Addison said during a line change.
I bumped gloved knuckles with him. Yeah, Brady was working hard to keep me covered. It was the match-up of the day. The press had been slobbering over Rowe vs. Rowe for days now, playing up the “youth and speed vs. age and experience” angle. The truth was that the second line—which was still my line, damn it to fucking hell—was outmatching Boston every time we were on the ice. But that outmatching came at a cost. Boston was a big, physical team. Always had been and always would be. They played with an edge. I had no doubt that when I was next out on the ice, Brady would make me pay for stealing that puck so easily from his stick.
We were rolling into the bottom of the second period with two fat goose eggs on the scoreboard. The Railers were keeping up well with the big, bad boys from Boston, though. We had the edge in face-off wins, but Boston was creaming us with blocked shots and hits. Like, their hits tally must be in the hundreds by now, or maybe it just felt that way. Brady had driven my ass into the boards so many times I’d lost count. I’d be a huge walking bruise tomorrow.
I spat my mouth guard into my hand, rinsed my mouth with water, spat that onto the floor between my skates, then grabbed my other bottle and downed some Gatorade. Seven minutes left in the period. After I rehydrated, a trainer tossed me a clean towel. I scrubbed my face and then my visor, feeling the hum of the game in my marrow.
Mads was instructing, aka yelling at the defense. He wanted more net-front pressure on the Boston goalie. That would be nice. So, then the next play, one of the Railers puts lots of pressure on the goalie. So much that he ends up in the penalty box with a two-minute goaltender interference call. Dumbass.