Breakaway

by Avon Gale

  Well, mostly he didn’t. But he’d been kind of hard up for it, for a while.

  “Lane...? That’s what thing?”

  Oh. Right. “They weren’t happy things were going well for me. I mean, they were. But Zoe, I know my parents. They were happier meeting you than watching me score a hat trick and win a game. Or when I could take them to dinner for the first time and pay with money I’d earned playing hockey.”

  “Well, I am pretty great,” she told him, deadpan. “But are you sure you’re not just.... I mean, I sat by them at the game, Lane.”

  He smiled at her, but it didn’t feel like a smile at all. “Did they ask you a million questions, or watch me play?”

  “Well, they.... I mean, they watched you obviously, but....” She sighed. “They were pretty curious. I just thought they were kind of awkward. You had to get it from somewhere.”

  That made him laugh. “Yeah. Well, trust me. It wasn’t that. You know, I used to feel really bad about it. That I was... that I was gay,” he said. It was always easier, every time, as long as he was saying it to someone safe. “Like somehow that meant all the sacrifices and stuff they made for me, that it wasn’t worth it because I failed.”

  “Failed? What exactly did you fail by being gay, Lane? Being straight? What the hell does that have to do with hockey?” Zoe started banging things around behind the bar. “You were drafted by the NHL. Isn’t that, like, the pinnacle of success if you’re a Canadian boy?”

  “Pretty much. It’s that or join the Mounties.” He cleared his throat. “I was kidding about the Mounties.”

  She still looked mad, and it took him a moment to realize it wasn’t at him. “So they can fuck off, then. I don’t think they made you sign a contract that said, ‘I, Lane Courtnall, promise to be straight if you nurture my God-given talent to be good with a stick.’”

  Lane started giggling, mostly because he felt weird and embarrassed about what she was saying—but something else too. “Being good with a stick is the problem. Remember?”

  She smacked her hand down on the bar. “No. It isn’t,” she snapped. “It’s how you are. So you’re good with a stick, and you’re good with a stick. So what? It makes me so goddamn angry, because my parents pulled this bullshit with me too. Like everything I’d ever done failed to erase my sin of loving a girl. They used to tell me they’d kick me out if I dyed my hair, got any piercings, or—God forbid—any tattoos. I told them I had a girlfriend my freshman year in college, and you know what? That’s why I got all these tattoos. Because it didn’t matter. I’d found the one sin that was worse, and somehow my body and who I chose to share it with was offensive to them. So why not mark it up?”

  “And they’re hot,” he said, reaching down for the soda gun. He pressed a button and watched some clear, carbonated soda spray out.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  He looked up at her. “Looking for the button that turns on your closed captioning, because your accent is really thick when you’re mad.”

  Zoe’s green eyes were flashing in anger. She was all flushed, and her mouth was drawn into a straight line. Then her lips twitched, and she snorted and then started giggling. “Lane? I know we’ve known each other for basically less time than my dye job lasts, but you know what? You’re my best friend, too.”

  “Even if I like guys?”

  “Even if you’re as queer as a two dollar bill,” she assured him, still giggling. She was trying to get the soda gun away from him, but Lane was actually enjoying putting all of the different sodas into his glass, so he kept it from her. “Give me that back.”

  “As queer as a... toonie?” Lane pushed the buttons, looking for the Dr Pepper.

  “A two-dollar bill. Did you say toonie? You’re out of your goddamn mind. Give me that back.” She tried jumping for it, but she was short, and Lane was six foot three and half standing on his barstool.

  “A toonie. It’s a two-dollar coin. We have those in Canada. And one dollar coins too. Know what we call those?” He aimed the gun at her. “Go on. Guess.”

  “If you tell me it’s a one-y, I’m not going to believe you.”

  “Nope. A loonie. It’s got a loon on it. That’s a bird, in case you don’t have those here.”

  “Oh, I got a looney here, but it ain’t no bird,” she chirped at him, and Lane grinned and spritzed her with the gun. Just a little, but she shrieked—like a girl, which he told her gleefully—and threw a straw, a coaster, and one of those little swords with a piece of pineapple on it that people put in drinks.

  “What is the matter with you?” She was still glaring, but Lane could tell she wasn’t really mad.

  “You know what? No one’s ever done that for me.”

  “Thrown things at you? I don’t believe that for a minute.”

  “I don’t think they’ve done that either, but mostly I meant... stuck up for me. You got mad. And I know it was for you, but it was a little bit for me too. Right?”

  Zoe gave him a look that made him feel embarrassed again. And that other thing, which he realized was some mixture of affection and whatever a brother might feel for a sister.

  “It was a lot for you too,” she said quietly, wiping up the mess he’d made with the soda gun. “And you know, maybe they’ll get over it. They might. I’ve seen it happen.”

  “Did yours?”

  “Oh, hell yes. My mother’s not going to let sins against nature make her look like a fool in front of her people. She puts a hat on me and takes me to Sunday service when I’m home, and tells everyone about my new tattoos and how I’m ‘a lesbian and she couldn’t be happier to still love me.’”

  Lane’s eyes widened. “Can you promise I will never, ever have to meet her? She sounds terrifying.”

  “She is. But when I called her on it, she said if being bisexual was how God made me, she was just being how God made her. And that if I ever thought I couldn’t bring someone home to meet her, I should think again. She was my mother, and if I had a lesbian baby—which, I don’t know, okay, don’t ask—she was going to be its grandmother. So could I please get over myself and make sure I covered my tattoos at dinner.” Zoe laughed and spread her hands. “I don’t go home a lot, but when I do, she points out some really nice girls at church and then asks if I’ve been saved and am I ready to go back to boys yet.”

  “I don’t think this story is true,” Lane said, because how could it be? No one’s parents were like that, were they? “Does your mom really say all that stuff out loud?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Zoe’s smile faded a little. “My dad hasn’t spoken a word to me since he found out. I guess my sin against nature makes it too hard for him to look at me and remember I’m actually his daughter and he’s supposed to love me. Or, okay, I know he still loves me. But I guess it’s okay if he just doesn’t speak to me. My mother told me he thought it was his fault for not spanking me enough. That made me see women as the dominant partner.”

  “So you don’t think I should do the brave thing and call them up and say, ‘hey, Zoe’s not my girlfriend because I’m gay’?” Lane felt the words, heard them echo in his head.

  “Honestly? No. You know why?” She threw the towel back over her shoulder, and it got her shirt all wet. She leaned forward, with her arms braced on the bartop—and then snapped her fingers sharply. “Lane. Stop staring at my tits. You’re the worst gay guy ever. You’re maybe queer like a loonie instead of a twosie.”

  “Toonie.”

  “Whatever. What I was saying is, I don’t think you should tell them you’re gay by telling them what someone isn’t, to you. I think you should tell them you’re gay when you tell them what someone is.”

  Lane nodded. “Okay.” He thought about that for a minute. “Wait. What?”

  She sighed and handed him a Dr Pepper to go, fresh and sparkling with ice. “Don’t tell your parents you’re gay and I’m not your girlfriend. Tell them you’re gay because someone is your boyfriend.”

  “Can I tell them it’s that
hot guy on Teen Wolf?” He leaned forward. “It’s time for me to go home, huh?”

  “It is so time for you to go home,” she agreed, but she said it nicely. “You can take my car, as long as you remember to come pick me up. And all I meant was, tell them when it matters. Y’know?”

  “You do matter, though,” he said sincerely. “If I weren’t gay, I would really like to be your boyfriend. And also to see your tits. I’m just curious. They look nice.”

  “Lane. The thing where you say sweet stuff and then follow it up with a dumb guy thing.... Well, you’re a gay dude who plays a sport for a living. What was I expecting?” She tossed her keys across the bar. “I’m done at ten, but you know that means more like eleven.”

  “Right. Thanks for letting me borrow your car.”

  “Don’t clean it out again, Lane.”

  “But you had four bags full of pop cans. Okay. Never mind. I won’t.” He waved at her, then said nonchalantly, “Oh by the way, I texted Jared, and we’re going to, uh... hang out after the game in Savannah. Have a good shift.”

  “Lane. Lane, you brat, why didn’t you tell me that first?”

  Lane grinned and ducked out into the sunshine. He put the thing with his parents away, not to forget about, but just to think about when he was ready. For the time being, he was going to go to the gym and then take a nap. Maybe at Zoe’s, because he had her keys.

  Except now he was thinking about going to Savannah that weekend and seeing Jared. And he might have to do something else before his nap, and he was pretty sure he shouldn’t do that at Zoe’s. His parents might be horrified their son was gay, but they’d be glad to know he still had manners.

  Jared had been around enough ECHL teams that went bankrupt and folded to know that the Savannah Renegades would, at some point, suffer the same fate.

  It kind of bummed him out too. He was on his third season with the Renegades, and they were by far one of his favorite teams. The guys were great, and they knew how to have fun. They also liked to win, and it wasn’t always an easy thing to balance those two things. Sometimes guys who liked to have too much fun were douche bags who didn’t carry their weight on the ice. On the opposite end of the spectrum were the guys who were too into winning and sucked all the fun out of the game, like a giant, fun-sucking vacuum.

  But the Renegades were professionals who knew the score, knew they were playing ice hockey in a region where the majority of the population would rather watch televised poker than go to a hockey game. Not that Jared could blame them. The humidity was like a living thing, a monster that seeped into your lungs and turned into a sponge. But the Renegades had a loyal fan base, and a booster club that made honest-to-God casseroles and said bless your heart without irony.

  Jared loved Savannah, the city, more than any town he’d ever lived in. The houses were great—creepy like a horror movie and covered in vines, shaded by trees older than entire generations. He liked that it stayed warm well into the fall. He was from Michigan, and it was definitely not like that at home. There was a lot of history in Savannah, which he loved, and it was close to the beach, which he also loved. He’d spent his entire career wary of doing anything that suggested he was putting down roots, but a few months earlier, he looked at a little condo by the river. Not anything fancy. He’d not moved on it or made an offer, even though he wanted to. He was sure the second he did, the phone would ring, and off he’d go, somewhere else.

  Probably somewhere cold.

  For most of his career, Jared had signed one-year deals. Though last time his agent—who he only thought about at tax time—had attempted to ink a three-year deal with the Renegades to keep Jared in one place. After which it went understood that Jared would retire. The three-year deal was rejected. Jared knew it would be. Not because they wouldn’t like him to stay that long, but because they were all uncertain of the future of the market.

  Jared was signed through the end of the year, and supposedly they were working on a deal that would keep him here for that season and two more. And then, Jared figured, he could retire and maybe keep a job within the organization. But he didn’t want to leave Savannah, and that was a problem, because it meant possibly making a commitment to something. Somewhere.

  Someone.

  He’d never been the player who inked multiyear deals in the ECHL. He wasn’t young, and his days of being a fast-skating center were way, way over. Actually, had he ever had those days? He didn’t think so. But with the scar on his cheek and his close-cropped hair, his pale eyes and somewhat stocky stature, Jared had no problem being a team villain. It was fun actually, and everybody knew he didn’t really eat kittens and babies for breakfast. He was a fighter with a code of honor and liked to think he was well respected in the league because of it.

  He’d made a few kids cry once, but he blamed that on his playoff beard. And they were really little kids too. His best friend, Alex Rawles, who’d been Jared’s teammate, rival, and roommate throughout their careers, thought that story was hilarious. Alex couldn’t scare an ant. The one time he’d fought Jared on the ice—during one of their stints as archrivals—Alex told Jared to give him a shiner so he could get laid later. Alex then took a wild swing at him that actually landed, because Jared was laughing so hard he couldn’t get out of the way in time.

  Alex, who had retired two years before to manage a local sports store in Cincinnati, had known Jared longer than anyone—since Jared showed up for tryouts for the Cincinnati Cyclones as an angry kid out of Ferris State with burning eyes and a fierce need to be on the ice. Jared had left tryouts with a year’s contract and Alex as his roommate, his right-winger, and the only one who didn’t seem to mind Jared’s moody, hair-trigger temper.

  He was also the only person Jared had told about his college hockey career and what happened there that sent him to the minors with a chip on his shoulder and a fire in his belly to prove everyone wrong. Alex listened to Jared’s story, which he practically vomited one night in some nameless hotel in the middle of a road stint. He patted him on the shoulder and then got him some water and put him to bed.

  And he slept with him. He didn’t fuck Jared, he didn’t let Jared fuck him, and while Alex was pretty easy when it came to having his dick sucked, there was none of that either. He wasn’t straight as an arrow like some guys, but he was a pretty firm, north-south-pointing kind of guy. He climbed in that crappy double bed and wrapped his arms around Jared, who was as skittish as a feral cat in those days and wary of anyone who even looked like they might want to help him. In the morning, Alex told him that he should immediately employ the wounded-lover thing to get laid, because the only way to get over something was to move on. And maybe Jared had forgotten that girls went nuts over the broken-heart-of-gold story.

  It was a crude philosophy, but it turned out to be true. Jared remembered that first girl he took to bed, whose name he never did know, but who looked like a Playboy bunny and was smart as a whip. She had legs that went on for miles and really, really long fingernails that left welts in his back. So what if he cried in the shower when she left because it felt good, but she wasn’t who he was supposed to be in bed with? He was a stupid kid, barely twenty, and it was hard to carry heartache around all the time—hard to keep waking up in a hotel room or on a darkened bus and think that it was wrong and he wasn’t supposed to be there.

  A lot of guys might feel that way about the ECHL, and Jared had met more than a few who did—guys who thought they belonged somewhere better, making millions for playing hockey on perfect ice after a night spent in a five-star hotel, traveling by jet plane and having their food prepared by a gourmet chef. Not playing three games in three days, traveling across the country by highway in a bus like a beat poet from the fifties, eating sandwiches from a cooler or cold pizza, drinking orange juice from a lukewarm container, and skating on ice that resembled the surface of the moon more than glass. Jared was pretty sure anyone in his league could play a perfect game too—if they didn’t have to fall asleep after playing in
Las Vegas and wake up to play a game in Utah and then another one two days later, in Orlando.

  He’d like to see those guys in the big club try that shit. Not that Jared didn’t love hockey and the NHL, because he did. When he’d shown up at the Flyers’ camp after a season with their AHL team, the Adirondack Phantoms, he’d been as starstruck and wide-eyed as any kid. He was impressed by the lockers and the facilities and by the speed and skill of the players at that level. He knew he had barely a shot in hell at making the lineup, and he wasn’t surprised when he was cut.

  But Jared was almost thirty-two, and his tryout invitation was the only thing he owned that was actually in a frame.

  He was in the twilight of his career, and he knew it. It was waking him up in a cold sweat at night—because what the fuck was he going to do? Not go back to Michigan, that was for sure. He was on moderately pleasant terms with his parents, but they were both intellectuals and thought hockey—and just about every other sport—was barbaric. He hadn’t talked to his older brother, James, in almost a year. James was a doctor in Fort Worth and was married with two kids. Jared used to spend the night at his brother’s house when he was traveling through Texas, but he hadn’t bothered the last few years. And his sister, Jessica, was a lawyer in Grosse Pointe and worked so much that even his parents barely saw her.

  On the one hand, he’d gotten exactly what he wanted, which was absolutely no ties to anyone or any place. On the other, what the hell would he do when he retired? He had plenty of connections in the minors, but whenever he tried to think about it, he immediately wanted to drink and take a nap.

  Maybe he’d play in the CHL, which was a league below the ECHL. But that was depressing—not because it was a lower-tier league, but because Jared was almost thirty-two and really couldn’t keep playing forever. Hockey players aged like dogs, and he was practically ancient. The only guys who played much longer were goalies, and even that was rare.