by RJ Scott
“If he’s not here in one minute…” Coach huffed and then disconnected the call.
I turned to talk to Alex, but he was scrabbling with the lock, and I watched as he stumbled out of the door. He didn’t turn to talk to me, and at the speed he was moving, it was a wonder he didn’t fall over his own feet. With a sigh, I watched him leave, then propped the door open. Work was calling, and I couldn’t sit around wondering what in God’s name had just occurred.
“Can we talk?” Jason asked from the door, and I gestured him in. He sat in the seat that had been propping the door open, and slumped low. Had he heard what just happened? How could he have? Why was he in my office this early on a Tuesday?
“What’s up?” I closed my journal and gave him all my attention. I might’ve been volunteering my time here, but he was my boss, kind of, and he looked as if the world was bearing down on him.
“The usual shit,” he muttered. “Lankinen is appealing his sentence, medical reports…” He stopped then and reached back to shut the door. What the hell people would do if I had a bigger office I don’t know. “Henry isn’t doing so well. It’s his eyesight.” He pointed at his face and gave another hearty sigh.
I’d not seen my friend this despondent since he’d broken a leg in the second year at Cambridge and missed trying out for the rowing team. Then I’d nursed him back to health with the promise of sex and drink. Neither with me, of course—Jason was all about the boobs and straight-up whiskey. I was more interested in Nicky the bartender and staying sober so I could enjoy an inevitable blow job after Nicky had finished working. Jason had soon snapped out of the slump, but this wasn’t something I could fix easily with drink and sex. So I put my business head on and took the items one at a time, thanking the heavens we weren’t discussing, on serious terms, me kissing Alex or Alex kissing me. I doubt Jason would’ve been cool with me getting up in any player’s space if it caused trouble.
“Okay, so Lankinen, on what grounds is he appealing?”
Jason shrugged. “Fuck knows. It’s all legal speak, and our lawyer says he has no case and that it will be thrown out, but I had to leave the meeting because he actually suggested we come to a sort of compromise so that Aarni just leaves this alone.”
“What kind of compromise?”
“He said himself it was all noise, but I left after Mark ripped a strip off the lawyer and then stormed out. I followed him, but he was gone, which left Cam sitting there with Mr. Suit. So now I have to find one brother to calm him the hell down and go back and rescue Cam from the boardroom.”
“But you came here instead?” I’d known Jason long enough to read his expression. “To talk? Or to hide?”
Jason straightened in the chair and looked indignant for a brief moment before subsiding again. “Maybe a bit of both,” he admitted. “It’s actually the Henry thing that’s messing with my head. The kid is still working through the accident, and it’s hit-or-miss whether he will make it back for the next season. I liked Henry, quiet, but he had this funny side…” Jason stopped talking, and I waited a beat to see if he was simply thinking out loud. “How do we deal with this? What are you doing?” he finally asked.
“Ah, so now we get to it, you want to know how I’m going to fix all this?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m not, at least not yet. I have preparation to do, but I have a couple of good ideas, one being Alejandro Santos-Garcia, Alex, as our clean-cut poster boy for the Raptors.”
I recalled the kiss and wondered if everything I’d come up with was going to lead to the motherlode of bad ideas.
“Alex? But he’s… What about Ryker? We bought you in to work with him on—”
“Of course Ryker is part of this, but his personal situation comes with its own, let’s say drawbacks, with him so closely aligned to”—I looked down at my notes—“Tennant Rowe. Also there is the fact that he’s in a relationship with another man.”
“Seriously? We’re going there? You’re gay for fuck’s sake.”
That was the second time someone had misunderstood my statement, and I leaned back in my chair, twirling my pen. “Let me tell you a story.”
“Jeez, do you have to?”
“In England, we had a footballer Justin Fashanu, who came out as gay—”
“I know this story—”
“—the pressure was intense from the start, from journalists, family, and fans alike. He ended up getting so much hate, and you know how it ended when he took his own life. Do you really think men’s professional hockey in the US, a predominantly aggressive and masculine sport, will look kindly on a player who doesn’t have the requisite blonde woman on his arm?”
“Well, no, but yes, I mean… What about the Harrisburg Railers? They have so much rainbow on their team it’s like they have a pet unicorn at the arena.”
“And that is my issue. See, the way it works is the Railers have Tennant Rowe, a phenom who puts up the points. The team is successful, and they already have one Stanley Cup in their trophy cabinet.” I was getting proud of my hockey knowledge now. “How many of these championships have the Raptors won? In fifty years?”
“None,” Jason said.
“All I am saying is, fans will forgive a lot if the team is winning, but the Raptors? I know they’re heading in the right direction, but we need a very different approach, one that plays to the market out there. I want to get Ryker and Alex challenging each other, filming the results, working on Instagram and Twitter. I’d include Henry in this, with his recuperation maybe, if you and the medical staff felt it was appropriate. I want people to see the heart of this team, the friendships that survived even Aarni Lankinen and what he did. I need to see his and hers Halloween costumes with the hockey wives. In fact, I need the hockey wives to step up and create a group to dazzle anyone who follows the team. And definitely, above all things, we need lads being lads. You know—messing about, pranking, challenges, photos of them buff on a beach, playing volleyball. But most of all, scoring goals and winning games.”
“Lads being lads.”
I sighed, Jason had spent four years in England and was one of the only people in the US I knew who didn’t need a translation, but I gave it to him anyway. “You know—buddies, messing about, team bonding like that.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I know what lads are. I even know what a wardrobe is and a pavement, not to mention I support Manchester United, and drink tea more than coffee now.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “See? It only took me four years to move you to the dark side.”
“Ha, freaking ha.” Then he grew serious again. “So, what do we do next?”
“I’ll have a report with costings by the end of the week. Three more days and I’ll present it to the management team, okay? But first off, you need to hunt down Mark and get him back in the boardroom and rescue Cam.”
He huffed, but he left the office, and I realized that in the space of less than thirty minutes, I’d had two emotional clashes in this small space.
I really need to get out of here.
My exploration took me to the kitchens in the basement, one of the places I hadn’t visited properly yet. That was where I met Alan and Mo, who ran the space with an iron rod. The team was made up of mainly young kids, apart from them, and I’d eaten some of the food they’d prepared, and it was way better than average for a place like this. Only I thought they were missing a trick, and that was where I guided the conversations when I heard that Alan had trained in France for two years and was a gifted pastry chef and that Mo, his wife, was a genius when it came to decorating cakes. Yet they’d ended up in the dungeons of the arena, turning out healthy food.
“Have you ever considered expanding?” I asked them when I had them both in one room. They were in a lull before the post practice lunch rush, when Alan would prepare specific food for particular skaters.
I wonder what kind of food Alex likes? Is he a dessert person? Cream? I wonder if he likes cream.
“… so yes, we�
��d like to do that.” I caught Alan finishing and realized I’d missed all of it. I tapped my ear and put on my best British accent.
“Apologies, can you repeat?”
Thankfully Alan didn’t take issue with the fact that I’d gone off into my own little world. If anything, he seemed to grow more excited by the end of the chat.
A coffee shop for visitors, specialty cakes for events, maybe hosting said events against the backdrop of the arena, with hockey players. I scribbled down the ideas and made a note to look into how other arenas pulled in extra money. I’d assumed there would be vendors selling all kinds of things on game nights, but the information I had was that the major brands weren’t interested in buying into the Raptors.
I really wasn’t surprised.
We could have a Ryker coffee, sprinkles with his number, an Alex cappuccino with spices, and I knew that this was the small stuff, but at the end of the day, this was a brand we needed to rebuild.
“Where would you do this?” I asked, and Alan was all too happy to show me, leading me up two flights of stairs and along corridors until we reached a pair of double doors.
“Through there is the lobby for tickets, but in here…” He stopped talking and unlocked the padlock holding the door shut and pushed the doors open. The scent of disuse was obvious, and the place was dark until Alan fumbled with the switches by the door and light filled the space. It wasn’t vast, but it would easily hold a hundred people, and I noticed that tables and chairs were stacked in the corner, along with another set of doors with STAFF written over it in neon letters. We walked that way and went into a dodgy-looking kitchen, which Alan seemed very proud of. He patted the work surfaces and spun a full three-sixty in slow motion.
“Some investment and we could use this space for what it was meant for: events, parties, business meetings.” He grew thoughtful. “It would need some paint,” he added, and his bushy gray eyebrows met in the middle as thoughtfulness turned to worry. “Maybe more than just paint.”
“Charity events,” I announced.
He nodded. “We used to work with several charities, but it all went by the wayside a long time ago. No money for it, apparently.”
“Corporate sponsorship, charity, player events, alumni, this could work.”
Alan beamed at me, and by the time I was back in my office, I had so many ideas buzzing that I didn’t immediately spot Alex sitting on the sofa. He was dressed this time, with a full complement of shoes, and actually wearing a shirt. I came to a halt just inside the door and waited.
“Can I help you?” I asked after the pause grew uncomfortable.
He looked wrecked and not after-practice or postgame exhausted but miserable. After a while, he stood, and with his hands forced in his jacket pockets, he nodded. “I owe you an apology,” he murmured. “And I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention what happened to anyone else. If what I did was made public, it would destroy my life.”
That may have sounded overdramatic, but I was gay and accepted myself for the man I was, quite the opposite of Alex, who was in the closet and had secrets he wanted to take to the grave.
“What happened stays between us,” I agreed.
“You swear?”
At that moment, he looked every inch his twenty-two years, vulnerable, scared, and anxious, and I wasn’t sure what to say other than to give him the reassurance he needed. I saw a man who was vulnerable to blackmail, and the ammunition he’d given me was terminal if I chose to speak up.
“I swear.” I touched my heart because it seemed like the right thing to do.
He saw the gesture, but he didn’t seem any less tense. “Thank you.” He nodded and sidestepped me to leave.
At the last moment, I put a hand on his arm and held him still. “Alex, if you ever want to talk, you know where I am, and everything we spoke about would be in the strictest confidence.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, “for what I did to you.”
He honestly thought he’d caused me harm, and yes, it could be considered workplace harassment if what had happened was written down in black and white. But I had to make him see that in this case he had nothing to be sorry for. He was a mess of confusion and fear, and my instinct was to make things right, so I went straight for honesty.
“I was surprised, Alex, but please believe me that I was kissing you back.”
His eyes widened in surprise. Then he shook his arm free. “Okay.”
He didn’t sound as if he believed me, so I tried one more thing. “We should meet up outside work and talk about the ideas I have for the team.” He blanched and stepped backward out of the room. “Purely work,” I added.
He mumbled something in Spanish and then left, and not once did he look back.
Seven
Alex
Should I talk to him? Would it help to talk to someone? Who? Should I go to confession?
It had been weeks, several weeks. Abuela would’ve been horrified if she found out that I’d missed mass for six weeks, confession as well. There were no excuses sound enough to explain missing church every Sunday. “Dios no puede oirte hablar a menos que estés en su casa,” she always said. I didn’t really believe that God couldn’t hear you speak unless you were in his house. I felt that if you were sincere in your prayer, God could hear you anywhere. So if I spoke to him regularly, which I did or tried to do, sitting in a hot wooden box with an old priest who reeked of stale wine seemed a waste of time. I just told God my transgressions and eliminated the middleman.
Which brought me back to not having anyone to talk to about my head shit. Could I approach Sebastian? I’d done my best to avoid him for two weeks. Every time I thought about how I’d kissed him, my gut churned. That had been so bad and so out of character for me. It was nasty wrong, taking advantage of a person like that. What if he decided to call me out, go public with a Me Too story about me sexually harassing him at work? Sweet Mary, what the hell had I been thinking? Sure, his lips were soft and his whiskers rough but still… In all my years of dating I had never pushed myself on a girl. My soul was now tarnished, the rusty guilt of being gay had a thick patina of new cruddy—
“Garcia! Did you hear one word of what Novi just said?”
My head jerked up so hard my neck cracked. I glanced around to see Coach Anderson glaring at me. Fuck. I swiped at the sweat on my brow, using the towel to help me gather my shit before replying.
“Sorry, no, sir.” Her brows dropped into a tight V. “Ma’am! No, ma’am, sir, Coach. Coach. No, I missed it.” When I lowered the gold-and-tan towel, everyone on the bench was flaying me with dirty looks. What a jerk I was. Ignoring the associate coach and the captain? “Sorry, cap,” I shouted to be heard over the roar of the Railers fans. Vlad gave me a curt nod, but Coach Anderson’s glare lingered, as did the one that I was getting from the head coach a few feet away. Fuck. I had to get my head out of my ass. That third period sit-and-stew on the bench during our last game should have cleared my thoughts of everything but hockey, but no…
“I said that Lyamin is not feeling well,” Vlad repeated for the moron wearing number thirty-four. Man, my hero Auston Matthews would not have been so proud of his fellow Mexican-American, now would he? I bet he’d never acted this stupid or kissed people without permission. “I heard him speaking to Rowe as I skated past his net. He has a bad cold—you can hear it when he speaks.”
“So we’re going to take advantage of the fact that their goalie is sick.” Coach Anderson shoved a whiteboard between Ryker and me, leaned in close, and began scribbling on it in a bright blue marker. Jens leaned around me to see. “Lyamin is a wall, we all know that, but he’s not impenetrable. He’s always been a little weak on his glove side, but his team plays tight to cover that tiny flaw. Tonight, he’s not going to be as quick to recover when his glove drops prematurely. I want all the forwards to stop trying to find a pretty shot and just shoot the fucking puck. From wherever, from every angle, and keep that puck high. If you’re in the men’s room and see
an opening, drop your dick and shoot the puck.”
Chuckles broke out along the bench. We’d gotten used to Coach Anderson, after the initial shock of having a woman on the team. She wasn’t shy or overly frilly or soft. She called us assholes when needed, praised us when we deserved, and knew her hockey. Also, she had a way of keeping Coach C from becoming too intense. They worked well together. Pity their team was still a sloppy stew of misfits.
I hit the ice with a vengeance born of fear. If I continued to fuck up, Coach would not hesitate to plant my ass in the press box during the next game. The shame of being a healthy scratch, combined with the boulder of other shit clogging up my brain would surely bury me. My family would call asking why, my neighbors would call, the press would call, hell, probably the Pope would call.
I settled in on Ryker’s wing, Jens on the other side back by the boards as we waited for Tennant Rowe to haul his royal self into the faceoff circle. He and Ryker exchanged this quirky sort of smile. Then both dove at the puck, slapping and shoving until Ryker got an elbow into Rowe’s chest that knocked him back just enough for his stick to lift. Then it was a simple shuttle of the puck from Ryker to me, and I whirled around and took the shot on the Railers goal.
It careened off the crossbar, Lyamin’s big catching mitt missing the slap shot. The puck flew up into the netting, and the whistles blew.
Vlad, being Vlad, made a round of the Railers net as we reconvened for another faceoff. A low, gruff, and short spat of Russian conversation between the two took place, none of which I understood. Stan sneezed loudly, then lifted his mask, which got us another few seconds of waiting while he wiped the inside of his mask clean, using the thin white cotton gloves tenders wear under their blocker and catcher.
“He’s not having fun,” Vlad told us as he glided our way, stick resting in his arms. “I’ll work the crease and him a bit. You three keep shooting.”
