by Eden Finley
I’m supposed to write an article today on who looks hungry on the ice, who’s going to kill it, and who’s going to choke.
The only way I’ll be able to write the article is if Ollie doesn’t kill me. And with the way he stalls in his tracks with a murderous glare as he sees me, I think killing me might be high on his list of priorities.
“Can we talk?” I ask.
“I don’t talk to reporters.” Even though he looks forlorn, he pushes past me with angry steps.
I chase after him, the slick floor beneath my feet making squeaky noises from my dress shoes. “Are you sure that’s how you want to play it?”
Shit, that came out as a threat.
Way to go, Lennon.
Ollie spins on his heel, and his meaty hand grabs my upper arm. He pushes me down the corridor, his grip getting tighter with each step.
My stomach does a stupid fluttery thing at his touch—even if it is rough. “You do realize I’m the one who wanted to talk, right? You don’t have to drag me. Not that I mind the manhandling …”
Wrong thing to say.
He shoves me into the room where press conferences are held after games and closes the door behind him. In his defense, he probably didn’t use a lot of force to push me, but he needs to be more careful with those guns of his.
His gear bag drops to the ground, and he stalks toward me.
Ollie’s intimidating with his size and large biceps, his short-sleeved T-shirt showing those sexy-as-fuck arms covered in tats. I want to run my tongue over them while my hands weave through his ash-blond hair, which always looks wet. With sweat, with gel, I don’t know, but I also don’t care, because damn, he’s hot.
What is wrong with me? He looks like he wants to kill me, and here I am wondering what he tastes like?
“What do you want?” he asks through gritted teeth.
“Right now?” I croak. Does he know I’m thinking about licking him?
“Money? Paying me the courtesy of warning me before publicly outing me? What? Why are you here?”
Right. No thinking about licking the hockey god.
“I’m covering the Dragons for the playoffs.” I’m proud any sound comes out at all.
An undignified grunt falls from Ollie’s mouth. “Of course, you are.”
“And I want to let you know I won’t say anything. Or print anything. About any of it. I want to support gay men in sports. Not ruin them.”
He looks confused for a second. “So, you’re not here for money?”
My eyes narrow. “Don’t you think if I was going to bribe you I would’ve done it by now?”
Ollie shrugs. “Maybe you ran out of money or lost your job or are desperate, I don’t know. All I know is a piece of shit article is written about me, and then I’m traded, and this uppity, pompous reporter won’t leave me or my career alone. Then it turns out that reporter is you. You’ve been making money off me for months, so maybe you’re getting greedy now.”
He has a right to be pissed, but that still doesn’t stop irrationality making me mouth off over my articles.
“My articles are not shit. They’ve all said you have potential.”
“You said I was hiding behind Tommy. And you’re the one person outside my family, Ash, and Tommy who knows I’m …”
The guy I met six months ago didn’t hesitate in saying he’s gay. This guy? He’s the angry jock I expected him to be when I found out who he was, so I don’t know why I’m disappointed.
“Can you even say the word?” I say and then tell myself to shut up. Taunting him isn’t a good idea.
His demeanor might be casual, but the vein in his forehead and the quick pulse in his thick neck says he’s freaking out on the inside. “Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay. You should know from when we met I have no issues saying it or accepting it. It’s the world who has an issue with who I am, not me.”
“And I want to ease your mind. I don’t want to make my career that way, and I’m not about to out someone. It’s up to them when they take that step.”
He doesn’t lose his cold composure. “Good to know you won’t sell out to get ahead.”
“Why are you still pissed? I don’t have to keep quiet about anything, but I am.” God, that came out wrong too.
Learn how to talk to an angry hot guy, Lennon, for fuck’s sake.
“Just don’t understand why they’d put someone on the playoffs who doesn’t know shit about hockey.”
I pull back. “What did I write that was so wrong?” Does he know how much time I spent writing about him?
I thought he’d be more pissed about the possibility of being outed than about a few online posts saying he has the potential to be a star but was being squashed playing for Boston. “I never said you were talentless.”
“Strömberg would thrive if he was in the encouraging environment he requires to grow into a player who doesn’t need to hide behind a sniper.”
I try not to smile, but it breaks free. “You memorized my article?”
“We’re done here.” He stalks toward the exit, and I can’t help being entranced by the way his bulky frame crosses the room. Hockey players tend to have this amazing ability to be graceful even though they’re over two hundred pounds and mow people down for a living.
With one more glare thrown my way, he picks up his bag and leaves, the door shutting with a resounding click.
“Could’ve gone worse,” I reassure myself.
I knew he wasn’t going to be happy when he found out who I was, but I fear it has killed any chance I had to ever see the Ollie I met six months ago.
Chapter Five
OLLIE
When I hit the corridor, I take a deep breath. It doesn’t help me calm down. Storming into the locker room, I throw my bag in my cubby with more force than probably necessary. I don’t know if there’s a way to undress aggressively, but I’m mastering it.
“Whoa, who fucked your sister?” Bjorn asks. He’s a D-man and the size of a grizzly.
“What?” I snap.
“Only time I’ve been that pissed off is when I found out the captain of the football team in high school was sticking it to my sister.”
I start gearing up, and my tension eases a little at Bjorn’s unintentional distraction. “What’d you do to the poor guy?”
“Hockey player versus football player? The guy doesn’t have any teeth.”
“Ironically, like a lot of hockey players.”
“Exactly,” Bjorn says. “So, who fucked your sister?”
I huff. “Don’t have a sister. Only brothers. And I don’t care who fucks them.”
“Then what’s up your ass?”
Nice wording, Bjorn. Bet he wouldn’t be saying that if he knew the truth, because he wouldn’t want to know the answer. Cocks. Lots and lots of cocks. Okay, so one cock. And not anymore since the guy it was attached to walked out on me, but that’s not the point.
“Journalists.” I pull on my shin guards and tighten them a little too hard, because distraction time is over, and I’m still mad.
“Aww, is the pressure too much?”
The reminder that I was on a team that actually made the playoffs last year is on the tip of my tongue, but that won’t go over well. It’ll also only be a reminder that they traded me.
“I can handle the pressure,” I say. What I can’t handle is the only guy I’ve been interested in since Ash is Lennon Hawkins. When that first article came out, I hated that this guy who didn’t even know me could see right through me.
Finding out “Clark” is the one who really wrote it crushed me, because it suddenly wasn’t some random guy who had a hunch I was hiding something. It was a guy who knew it to be true, but he ran the article anyway.
At least he didn’t out you.
I have to keep reminding myself of that, because I should be thankful, not pissed.
“It’s that Hawkins guy I can’t handle,” I say.
“Because he’s a fag? Didn’t picture you for one of those phobe
s.”
I drop one of my skates and have to scramble to pick it back up to pretend his words didn’t affect me. Or confuse the fuck out of me. He accuses me of being a homophobe while using a slur? It’s not the first time derogatory terms have been thrown around a locker room. Won’t be the last. But it’s in the casual way he says it—with no anger or malice, like the world is supposed to talk like that without repercussions, that gets to me.
“He called me a pigeon,” I say, trying to squash the part of me that was raised by a strong opinionated woman who’d rip into anyone who talked like that—locker room or not.
“Ouch. But look on the bright side: he didn’t fuck your sister.”
“I said I don’t have a—”
Bjorn’s gone before I get the sentence out—geared up and stalking out the locker room.
I shake my head. Tommy wonders why I haven’t clicked with my teammates yet. I’ve been here for months but haven’t made friends. I’ve been thrown in the deep end, and I feel like the new kid at school. My game is suffering because of it; I know that. Maybe Tommy makes a point when he says I don’t trust anyone on the team because I can’t be one hundred percent honest with them.
I’ve faced off with many of these guys in the past, but that’s business. And skating with them, I do feel the connection there sometimes—like we get each other—but then the next minute, I’ll expect someone to be where I want them to be on the ice, and they’re somewhere completely different. I don’t know how to be me and build trust with these people or how to force teamwork that’s not flowing.
We’re lucky we have a shot at the playoffs at all with some of the mistakes we’ve made.
Kessler, the right-winger on my line, turns to me. “Ignore Bjorn. He doesn’t have that thing in his brain that stops him from spouting shit.”
“Or using colorful language, obviously.” I continue to get ready but avoid eye contact while I wait for Kessler’s reaction. Let’s see if we can be oh for two on the gay-friendly scale.
“Uh … yeah. I promise not all of us are dicks.”
I nod. “Good to know.”
“But you’d know that if you came out for a drink with us every now and then. Just sayin’.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” I say.
Kessler smiles. “We should get out there.”
I finish gearing up and grab my hockey stick and helmet. “Did Coach say what we were doing today?”
“Penalty drills.”
I groan.
“My sentiments exactly,” Kessler says, and I follow him down the chute and out to the rink.
As soon as my skates hit the ice and I start warming up, I feel eyes burning into me. Without needing to search the press area, I know Lennon’s tracking me with his gaze, but when I turn to scowl at him, he’s talking to the guy beside him.
Must be wishful thinking then …
I tell my conscience to fuck off.
The more I think about the benefit, the angrier I get and the more aggressive I become. Clark was this perfect guy, and it’s disappointing to find out the reality is a lot less appealing. Not that he looks any less appealing. He’s like a poison apple from all those fairy tales. Pretty on the outside but can destroy me if I take a bite.
The team’s been on the ice for about an hour when Kessler passes me the puck, and I charge past the blue line, but Bjorn is right there.
He slashes my ankle, but the coaches miss it. Which pisses me off even more. They don’t miss me illegally body-checking him though.
A loud whistle blows.
Of course.
“Strömberg! You’re already a man down and you’re pulling this shit? Get your head out of your ass and in the game.”
“Yes, Coach,” I say, breathlessly.
“You fucked your line.”
Sounds fun. I keep that tidbit to myself.
Coach throws his hands up and yells, “Change it up.”
I skate my way to the bench, and this time when my eyes lock with Lennon, he’s staring right at me. It’s impossible to decipher his expression. It almost looks sympathetic, but that can’t be right. I can already see the article about Ollie Strömberg crumbling under the pressure and making stupid mistakes in practice.
I’m already on edge without him being here making it worse, yet I still find myself drawn to him.
Ugh.
“Strömberg!”
Fuck, I zoned out, and I realize more than a few minutes have passed. I jump over the rail and get back into the drill, but my head’s not in it. If I’m honest with myself, my head hasn’t been in the game since the trade.
I’m in a rut, and I don’t know how to pull myself out of it.
In the middle of a play, music blasts through the speakers of the arena with Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.” It’s followed by a round of expletives that echo around the rink.
We all stop on the ice and stare up at the DJ booth.
At my last meeting with Damon, he asked if I knew of any jobs available at the arena. Matt Jackson’s brother needed work, and it happened to work out that our game DJ had resigned, so I put Jet’s name forward. He got the job, but listening to him scrambling to turn the music off while swearing his heart out in a thick drawl, I’m beginning to wonder how he made it through the interview.
It’s the last straw for the coaches, and they give up. “You’re skating like newborn foals out there. You think that’s gonna get us to the playoffs?”
“He’s great with the pep talk, ain’t he?” Kessler says beside me.
“Can baby horses even skate?” I ask, and Kessler tries to hide a laugh.
“Get off my ice,” Coach says. “And Strömberg, come to my office when you’re showered.”
A chorus of “Oooh” and “Someone’s in trouble” rumbles through the arena until Coach yells at everyone to cut the shit.
All I can think is I’m about to be sent back down to the AHL.
I perch on the edge of the seat in Coach’s office—as much as my big frame allows me to anyway.
“Is there anything going on that we need to discuss? A problem with anyone on the team …” Coach starts.
I sit up straighter. “What? No. Nothing like that’s going on.”
He leans back in his chair. “Something’s gotten in your head. I thought when you first came to us that the trade might’ve messed you up a bit, but there’s something still missing out there.”
Where to start. It’s the trade, it’s my sexuality, it’s wondering if giving up my relationship with Ash was worth it, it’s Lennon’s articles, it’s … everything.
“We fought hard to get you, because you’re one of the best wingers in the league. Or, you could be if you’d drop your hesitance out there. Boston didn’t want to let you go. We knew how desperate they were for Malik, and we wanted the best in return.”
“Should’ve tried for Novak, then,” I mumble.
“So, you’re saying your stats are only because of Tommy Novak?”
“No,” I say way too quickly. Admitting that would be like saying Lennon’s article made good points. “Tommy and I made a great team is all, and I still don’t know any of the guys here yet, but I promise to make more of an effort. Kessler said something about hanging out or whatever. I’ll push harder, I’ll—”
Coach holds up his hand. “Your position’s not in danger. I asked you in here to see if there’s anything I can do to help if something’s going on, because you’re not the same kid on the ice here that you were in Boston.”
He’s right, and I know I need to up my game.
“I’ll find a way to do better.”
Coach nods. “Go on, get out of here.”
Defeated and pissed off—at myself mostly, but my brain still wants to blame Lennon for some reason—I leave his office only to be assaulted by more swearing through the arena speakers.
Sounds like Jet’s having as a good a day as I am.
Instead of heading for the exit, I t
ake the stairs up to where the DJ booth is, because having someone like Jet and his brother on my side will be a good thing in the long run.
Jet was on stage at the benefit, but the difference in his appearance as he opens the door is astounding. The guy on stage wore tight, ripped jeans, heavy guyliner, and an old T-shirt. His shaggy hair was slicked in the front but messy in the back, like a mini Russel Brand, but right now, it’s loose and wild around his face and neck, there’s no makeup, and he’s in black slacks and a Dragons sweater vest. After seeing him glammed up, he kinda looks ridiculous.
“Hey. Jet, right?”
He stares at me, wide-eyed and flustered.
“You’re … you’re Oll—” Recognition dawns on his face. “Thank fuck. I thought management was on their way up here to rip me a new one.”
I stifle a laugh as I step past him. On the dashboard of his equipment is a bright red light labeled mic. I point to the button and switch it off.
Jet’s face falls, and his skin turns ashen. “Oh fuck, I’m so fired.”
“Don’t worry, in Gordie Howe’s own words, ‘Hockey players are bilingual. They know English and profanity.’ It’s nothing no one here hasn’t heard a million times before, and the offices are generally empty at this time. But, uh, you might not want to do that during the game tomorrow.”
Jet slumps and falls back into his chair. “I’m in way over my head.”
“You know, when I asked Damon if you knew how to DJ, he gave me the impression you did.”
“I’m a musician. Apparently, Damon doesn’t know the difference. But I need this job. I can’t go back to being a server or I run the serious risk of breaking plates over rude assholes’ heads.”
“Damon warned me you can be blunt.”
He also said I’d like this guy, and I think he’s right.
“If it makes you feel any better, I know what you mean,” I say. “I bussed tables throughout high school.” I make my way over to the computer and pull up a spare chair. “I guess we should start with the basics.”