by Avon Gale
“Umm,” Ethan answered and cleared his throat. “I’m not sure how to answer that.”
“Not in a pervert way, you idiot,” Spence growled without rancor. “For that outreach shit.”
“Kids mostly? But I mean, you know, just tell me if there’s something you want someone to go to, and I will.”
“You on probation or something?” Spence asked, eyes narrowed at Ethan. “You look like a hooligan, but I don’t remember hearing you’d been arrested.”
He should probably let his hair grow back. People kept saying that. “No, Coach. I just like it. I did that stuff in Vegas a lot, so I wanted to volunteer.”
“Good way to get in with the fans,” Coach Spence said, so Ethan gave up trying to explain. It didn’t matter why Coach thought he was doing it. He just wanted the opportunity.
Ethan got some of the guys together, and they took some teddy bears to a children’s hospital with Zoe Mays, the team’s photographer and marketing coordinator—and part-time bartender at Cruisers, because no one in the ECHL was well paid—along with the team’s mascot, Stormy. Stormy was a shark, and after that terrible Syfy movie came out, everyone started calling him Sharknado.
He also signed up to volunteer at camp for local kids who were interested in playing hockey. Zoe explained that the program was funded by the Sea Storm Foundation, in an attempt to get more locals interested in the sport. Ethan told her he’d do whatever he could to help out and promised to rope Riley into doing so too.
“Sloany’ll be there too. Right?” Ethan said, nudging her. “Captain’s duty and all that.”
Since their last captain was traded over the summer, Ryan had been elected to take his place—despite the joke that the position was cursed and whoever held it would be traded before the next season.
“Yup. Also marketing coordinator’s boyfriend’s duty,” Zoe agreed. “And oh, that reminds me. There are some shirts and jerseys of yours in the pro shop. If you could autograph some for promotional events, that’d be swell.”
“Sure.” Ethan grinned. “Do I get a discount if I want some?”
“Yup. But we’ll give you some to take to the camp. Also if you want to send a few to your family, let me know, and I’ll throw a few extra in there for you.”
“Thanks, Zoe,” Ethan said sincerely. “That’d be great.”
“No problem. I really appreciate you helping out with the volunteer stuff. I tried to get Lane to do it, and he was kind of… well, Lane.” She laughed. “But you’re great at it, and the camp thing is important to me.”
“Me too. Hockey made sure these are tattoos from my sister and not prison,” he joked, but it was the truth. “I had this history teacher who told me if I didn’t find something to do with all my energy and being angry, I’d join the army and end up court-martialed for punching someone for using a racial slur.” Ethan smiled at the memory. “He took me to his rec league, and I had no idea what I was doing. But I loved it. I probably don’t skate that much better than I did then. So hopefully you got someone else to teach the fundamentals.”
“I think you’ll be great,” Zoe said. “And that’s a great story. Mind if I put it in the promotional materials?”
“Maybe not the part about me being court-martialed,” he said, and she laughed.
The Sea Storm started their season with a win, followed by a loss that weekend, and Ethan got in a fight in both games. According to hockeyfights.com, Ethan won both of those fights handily. Someone in the comments called him a badass, and another one called him a goon. Awesome.
Things were going pretty great, as far as Ethan was concerned. He loved the weather, he had friends and a roommate, and he was playing hockey. He missed his sisters, but they kept in touch. He was saving up—which somehow was going better than usual, though he didn’t know why—so they could come visit. He had no complaints and he was excited about helping out with the hockey camp.
And then shit got weird.
It all started when Ethan’s sister Britt texted him that she’d e-mailed a picture of her, Kelsey, and their mom in the brand-new Sea Storm jerseys Ethan sent them. Britt said they all approved of the teal color, even if the water-tornado logo made them all giggle. It made Ethan giggle too. It was just so angry.
Ethan’s computer was a centuries-old Dell laptop that sometimes turned on and sometimes didn’t, depending on the moon or the weather or the time of day. When he went to check his e-mail for the picture his sister sent, his laptop turned on, but the screen remained obstinately dark.
“Hey, Riles, can I check my e-mail on your laptop?” Ethan asked his roommate, who was making dinner. Maybe that was why he was saving up so much money. Riley made them dinner most nights, which meant Ethan didn’t have to spend on pizza and McDonalds. “Mine’s dying.”
“Sure,” Riley said, flipping a piece of chicken in the pan.
Ethan went into Riley’s room, which was a lot neater than his, and sat at the desk in front of Riley’s MacBook. He navigated to Gmail, signed in, and laughed at the picture of his sisters and his mom all standing wearing his jersey with that ridiculous logo, arms around each other, holding up three fingers.
They did that, instead of the usual number-one gesture, because three was Ethan’s number. And it was his number because, every time he went on the ice, all he could think about was the three people who meant the most to him in the world.
Ethan sent back an e-mail and then went to find the site he used to upload pictures and have actual copies of them printed and mailed to his address. He had a photograph of all three of them in his Blackjacks jersey, and he wanted to put the photos side by side.
Caught up in a brief bout of homesickness, he went to the bookmarks link out of habit. It took him a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t his computer, and that’s why he couldn’t find the website. Then he saw “porn I like,” which made him grin evilly.
What better way to deal with unwanted homesickness, than by being a jackass and embarrassing his roommate?
He opened the folder and glanced at some of Riley’s favorites. He thought about e-mailing himself the link to the video of the cute girls in roller skates. And then his curiosity got the better of him when he noticed the subfolder called “Bad game.” He thought maybe it was hot, girl-on-girl porn involving chicks in hockey gear fighting and then making out.
Ethan realized after a couple of seconds that he was being a jerk and looking at stuff that was private, but he was captivated by what he was seeing. Because the most recently added videos didn’t have any girls in them at all. Just guys.
Guys who had tattoos and shaved heads actually. Guys who looked a lot like him.
He signed out of his account, stared out of Riley’s window for a minute composing himself, and went back to the kitchen.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Riley said from the kitchen. “Rangers play tonight, if you want to watch.”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Ethan stammered, unsure what he was feeling. He didn’t have a problem with Riley being into guys. And in fact he lost his temper plenty of times at people who did have a problem with that kind of thing. But was Riley into him? And if he was and Ethan felt weird about it, did that make him a hypocrite?
That pissed him off. What about all those times he got mad at people for being homophobic dickheads? Which happened more than he liked, because people ran their mouths off thoughtlessly in locker rooms all the time. But seriously if people thought there weren’t gay guys playing hockey, they were idiots. There had to be. If you were into dudes, living with them and being around them all the time would be an attractive career choice. Ethan never wanted anyone to feel like they couldn’t talk about a boyfriend in the locker room.
But if Riley was into him, Ethan Kennedy, and not some theoretical guy? Was that okay? It had to be. Ethan refused to even consider the idea that it wasn’t. How could he stand up for people if he was a liar and a hypocrite?
Ethan went outside to smoke, because the nicotine helped him think. So what
if Riley thought he was hot? What if Ethan was living with someone who wanted him to do those things on the video? Have Ethan on his knees, sucking his cock.
Ethan didn’t have a problem with blow jobs, obviously, but he’d never given a thought to giving one—or even getting one—from a guy before. Maybe he was missing something.
It was flattering to think Riley thought that way about him. Or it would be, if Ethan knew for sure Riley did think that way about him. Maybe he was feeling weird because he really didn’t know for sure. That’s why he shouldn’t go snooping around other people’s laptops and bookmark folders.
“Hey, man. Game’s starting. And eat some dinner. You can’t live off of cigarettes. I know you keep trying.”
Ethan put his cigarette in the empty coffee can on his balcony, wandered back inside, fixed himself a plate of chicken and vegetables, and went to find his roommate. Riley was on the sofa watching the game, his plate balanced on his knees. There were two beers on the low table in front of the couch. “I got you one,” Riley said, nodding toward the beer. His eyes were on the game.
Ethan sat next to him and started eating, aware of Riley in a way he hadn’t been before. The game was Rangers versus the Flyers, broadcast on the MSG network. Ethan’s brows knit in confusion, briefly distracting him. “How come we can see this? Didn’t think they had this channel down here.”
“Oh, it’s… our satellite came with Center Ice,” Riley said, avoiding his gaze. “Always trying to sell the game to the southern US. You know how it goes.”
Something about that didn’t ring true, but Ethan went back to worrying about the possibility that he was a hypocrite and let it go. Then the game came on, and he alternated between being worried, being angry at the Flyers, being angry at Riley for cheering for the Flyers because he was a goddamn Devils fan, and being angry at the Rangers for not scoring more goals.
He also had two more helpings of chicken and vegetables, then did the dishes during the first intermission and brought them both a few more beers.
Ethan studied Riley when the game went to commercials, trying to work out what he was feeling. Riley was cute, wasn’t he? He was a good-looking guy. Yeah. That’s how Ethan would say it. Good-looking and good at hockey. Very stretchy. Quiet and a good roommate. Made them dinner. Had totally signed up for Center Ice and was lying about it so Ethan didn’t feel obligated to pay for half of it.
After the fucking Rangers lost to the goddamn asshole Flyers, they watched a Kings versus Coyotes game. And when they ran out of beer, Ethan was no closer to figuring the whole thing out than he was when he sat down for dinner.
So he got out the whiskey, which was what any good Irish-American boy raised in New York would do when confronted by a problem. Never mind that very often whiskey was the thing that created the problem in the first place. No. This was an emergency. A Jameson emergency.
Or, because Ethan was a poor, broke hockey player in the south, it was a bottom-shelf emergency. Ethan had found a cheap Irish whiskey in the liquor department of Publix, the local grocery store. He put some in his Pepsi, and that would have to do.
Whiskey made some people mad, some people happy, and some people cry. It made some people sick, made others feel like they were flying, and some feel like they were invincible. Regardless of how it manifested, what it really did was make people dramatic.
And Ethan was already dramatic without the whiskey. He should have known better, especially when he decided to just drink it without any Pepsi—which was what he did after Riley went to bed and Ethan was still as confused as he had been, only drunk on top of it. Great.
Finally he had one glass too many, tipped over the point of “thinking too much about things,” right over to “I should just be brave and confront my fears.” Which meant he went barreling into Riley’s room at one thirty in the morning, full of liquid courage and whiskey-fueled determination to end his mental torment.
His mental torment, which had lasted for all of four hours. It was unthinkable, and something had to be done.
Chapter Four
RILEY WAS half-asleep when he heard someone trying to open his door.
Normally this would worry him. But the door wasn’t locked, and the person who was trying to get in was having so much trouble that they had to be drunk. Meaning it was just his roommate. Something had clearly been bothering Ethan all night.
Riley knew what it was too. Ethan had figured out about the checks.
Ethan had been so intent on paying rent, and Riley couldn’t avoid him forever. So after Ethan got a bank account set up, he started writing Riley a rent check every month. And Riley, who knew how much Ethan wanted his mom and sisters to be able to come for a game, made the impromptu decision to throw them away.
He didn’t need the money, but Ethan Kennedy was one of the proudest people Riley had ever met, and he’d never be okay with not paying his share. Riley already had to pretend he had a weird thing about eating leftovers so Ethan would eat when he made dinner, and he was sneakily replenishing the Pepsi—even though he drank Coke—so Ethan wouldn’t notice he was doing it.
It was so stupid. Riley should just tell him about the money, because now he was lying. And Ethan wasn’t an idiot. He was going to figure it out and then be even angrier than if Riley had just offered in the first place. Why was everything so hard?
Ethan finally got the door open, and then he was standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the hallway light. “Riley, I don’t want to be that guy.”
“Okay,” Riley said, heart racing and stomach twisting unpleasantly. “What guy?” He already knew the answer. The guy who takes handouts from his rich friends.
“The hypocrite guy.”
Wait. That didn’t make sense. “You’re not a hypocrite, Ethan.”
“I could be. I don’t want to, but I could be.” Ethan moved into his bedroom. “I have to make sure. Okay?”
Riley couldn’t say anything, because he had no idea what an appropriate response was to his roommate climbing on his bed. And then on top of him. “Ethan?”
“Yeah.” Ethan was all whiskey-soaked sincerity, staring down at him in the darkness. “Can I just make sure? It’s important.”
Riley nodded, because he had no idea what else to do. “Okay. Sure.”
Ethan leaned down and kissed him.
Oh. Riley’s brain shifted like it was a game and he was facing a shooter barreling down the ice on a breakaway. I guess it’s not about the checks.
Riley had gotten off thinking about Ethan plenty of times by then, but for some reason, it never included kissing. Which was definitely going to change, because Riley liked it. A lot. Especially when he moved and flipped them over so Ethan was beneath him and Riley could make him stop moving around so much. It was much easier to kiss him that way.
It wasn’t all that different from kissing a girl, except Ethan was tense and wiry, all muscles and angles, instead of softness and curves. And Riley was kissing him like he was trying to make him understand something, about what, he wasn’t sure.
Ethan kissed him back, and Riley could feel him slowly start to relax. It was a surreal moment, exactly what he’d been fantasizing about—making Ethan settle down. Except it was usually with a blow job instead of kissing, but Riley was nothing if not adaptable.
“Do you feel better now?” Riley asked, his voice rough.
“Yeah,” Ethan said, sounding unsteady. He seemed like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t.
Neither did Riley. He just stayed there for a moment longer and then moved, letting Ethan up. Ethan stayed on his back for a few moments, then carefully got up, walked out of Riley’s bedroom, and pulled the door closed quietly behind him.
Riley had no idea why that had just happened, but Ethan seemed to feel better when he left. So there was that.
Riley got himself off, quietly and almost frantically, imagining Ethan in his room doing the same thing. When he came his eyes were closed, but his head was turned to the side, facing
Ethan’s room.
When he opened his eyes, all he could see was the wall.
THEY DIDN’T talk about what happened.
The next morning Riley went running without waiting to see if Ethan was going to join him. When he got back, Ethan’s door was still closed. So he assumed his roommate was asleep.
Later that afternoon he finally came out of his room and asked if he could borrow Riley’s car.
Riley gave him the keys, and Ethan came back with some beer, a piping hot pizza, laundry detergent, and fabric softener—something Riley didn’t know about until he moved into his first apartment, because he’d had to look up how to do laundry on the Internet.
They ate pizza, did their laundry, played Grand Theft Auto, and watched hockey. Sometimes Riley looked over and caught Ethan watching him, and vice versa. They both pretended not to notice. It was clear, unspoken guy language that meant “If we don’t talk about it, it didn’t happen.”
And Riley assumed that meant it wouldn’t happen again. Which Riley had to admit bummed him out.
He thought about texting Lane, but it was hard to think of what to say. Does it make me gay if my roommate kissed me when he was drunk? Besides, it’s not like he really had to ask. It wasn’t the part where Ethan kissed him. It was the part where Riley liked it. A lot.
But he still liked girls too. Didn’t he? It didn’t work like that, where you went from one to the other. Right? In hockey, if you decided to go from being a right-handed goalie, you had to turn in your equipment and get a new stick before you could switch.
That was maybe not the best analogy. Still.
Riley wished he knew Lane’s boyfriend, Jared, a little better. He shot with both hands, or whatever the equivalent would be in Riley’s poorly thought-out hockey metaphor. He always assumed people were talking about baseball teams when they used the expression “played for both teams,” though he didn’t know why.