by R J Scott
“I’m five seven, thank you very much. So, back to you, because you’re the one who’s the mayor of Fuck-Up-My-Life Land.”
“Right, yeah, so I said something stupid to the man and—”
“Is he a hockey player?” Apollo handed me a cloth napkin, then shook his out and placed it over his lap to protect his tight, black skinny jeans.
“No, I think he’s a social media guy. Like to help with the whole ‘Tennant Rowe and Jared Madsen are butt-sexing each other and want to tell the world about it’ situation.”
“Mmm, I see. He’s a spin doctor?”
“I don’t know. ‘Social media dude’ works. But yeah, he’s got these eyes and a mouth…”
“Good to know. Makes seeing and speaking easier.”
“Quit being so Apollo, okay? Tell me what to do. How do I make things right with him?” I slurped my soup, made a yummy sound, then chanced a peek at my best and only friend.
“Well, what I’d suggest is not to be a wise-cracking ass-trout when you run into him next. You don’t have to entertain people for them to like you, Adler.”
“I know.” I grabbed some oyster crackers from a small bowl and sprinkled them on top of my soup. “Did I ever mention how glad I am that you decided to come work for me when my mother suggested I get a PA who wears an apron?”
“It was the apron that clinched the deal.”
I nudged his shoulder with mine and finished my soup. Maybe the celery would make me less inclined to be an ass-trout.
I should have known that celery wouldn’t make me less stupid. I mean, if it did have that kind of magical capability, everyone on Earth would be incredibly smart and tinted green from all the celery they consumed.
The next day I rolled through the players’ entrance like a man on a mission. I had two goals for morning skate. Show the coach that my being traded there was a good thing, and find the social media guy and apologize for making that bladder and cock crack. Cracks. Two cracks to make amends for.
The Railers dressing room was buzzing with masculine conversation. A sock hit me in the side of the face the moment I stepped foot inside. I threw a dark look at Stan, the Russian goalie who spoke little English but wore Hulk and Pokémon tattoos like prefect badges.
“Ha!” Stan roared, then went back to talking to his equipment like it was completely normal. Goalies are beyond odd.
I made eye contact with Tennant, who might be one of the prettiest men I’d ever met, right after Media Man with the lush mouth and haunted eyes. He nodded, and I did the same.
I’d keep a close eye on his and Madsen coming out. Not that I was crossing that flaming bridge anytime soon. Telling my parents had been bad enough. They hadn’t gotten mad. Getting angry would have required caring enough to feel such a powerful emotion. Nope. They’d just mumbled something as they went out the door to work or for cocktails at the country club. It might have been “Okay” or “Great, he’s a fag now as well as a hockey player. When will the shame end?” or maybe “When did the Montclairs say they were joining us for skiing in Vale this year?”
After I peeled my suit off and was in compression shorts and an old Skid Row shirt from their ’89 tour, I pulled my cell out of my bag, found my ear buds, and went off in search of a treadmill. I found one next to Arvy. He gave me an easy smile. I decided to tell him a joke about a rabbi and a priest who were buying a car together.
“They decide to store the car at the priest’s house. So one day, the rabbi goes over to see the car and finds the priest sprinkling water on it. The rabbi asks, ‘What are you doing?’ The priest replies, ‘I’m blessing the car.’ So the rabbi says, ‘Okay, since we’re doing that…’ and takes out a hacksaw and cuts two inches off the tailpipe.”
Arvy laughed so hard he fell off his treadmill and had to get the new bruise on his leg iced down. See now, humor did work to make people like you, despite what Apollo always said. Feeling pretty good about myself, I plugged my ear buds into my cell and slid the phone into the band on my right bicep. I found my jogging playlist. Lots of Cinderella, Guns N’ Roses, some Lita Ford, and a fat dollop of Bon Jovi.
I raised the speed and incline, and ran. There was something about the steady pounding of my feet hitting the belt that worked like a natural high. The stresses of life melted away and I could forget for a minute that I was facing another Christmas with Apollo, while the family—and I use that term loosely, because what I knew about real family could fit on the head of a pin—were off doing anything but seeing me.
“Ah, fuck that crap,” I grumbled. I cranked up the tunes and ran until someone slapped my slick back. I threw a look to the left, eyes burning as sweat ran into them. Coach Madsen was standing beside me. I pulled my ear buds out.
“Layton Foxx is looking for you,” he said as I slowed my pace and dropped the incline. I took the towel he held up to me.
“Thanks.” I scrubbed at my face. “Uh, who’s Layton Foxx?” I asked, then peeled my wet T-shirt off so I could run the towel over my chest and stomach.
“He’s the crisis management guy, and he wants to talk to you before morning skate. He’s in the press room right now.”
Oh shit, the media guy with the kissable mouth? He wanted to talk to me? Fuuuuuuck.
“Okay, thanks, Coach.” I tossed my shirt around my shoulders and jumped off the treadmill, pulling the cord from my cell phone as I thundered off to find Layton Foxx.
Foxx? Yes, he certainly was. I bet he heard that a lot. Maybe I could make up something funny to say about him being foxy. Or maybe I’d better not.
I almost missed the press room, and skidded to a halt right in front of the open door as Bob Seger blared out of my cell. Layton Foxx lifted those gorgeous dark gray eyes from the iPad in his hands, and my heartbeat tripled.
Three
Layton
I couldn’t breathe again.
Not just because Adler appeared at my doorway quickly and with no warning, but also because the man was naked. Not entirely naked, of course. He wore tight-fitting shorts, but his shirt was around his shoulders, his skin slicked with sweat, and he looked like he’d run the entire way here from a very long way away.
Breathing was hard because of the shock, plus the fact that I’d honestly never seen anything so perfect as the acres of skin, hard muscles, and that V with the treasure trail vanishing into his shorts. The whole porn-worthy scene was more than I could handle and remain coherent. So I had to try damn hard, which put me off-balance. Adler was my first meeting that morning, but the one I was most worried about given our two previous meetings and the amount of crap the man spoke.
“Hey,” he said at the door, and waited.
“Come in,” was about all I could muster up to say. “Sit down,” I added.
He crossed the threshold, and with his hand on the door handle made a gesture that I assumed was a question whether he should shut the door.
“Shut the door,” I confirmed. Okay, so this was going well. Come in, close the door, sit down, and so far he’d done everything I said. He shrugged on his T-shirt, shimmying to get it to fall into place then tugging it down. Through all that, all I could do was watch. There’s nothing sexier in my opinion than a man stretching to dress or undress, where glimpses of skin are on display, teasing and suggesting what else there might be. My last lover had got pissed at the time it took for me to undress him, kissing every exposed inch, but that’s who I am. I focus hard on tasks in hand to the point of obsession.
And I could spend a lot of time obsessing over the body of the player sitting in the chair opposite me. Shame that jocks had the bodies, and very often the looks, but in my experience a lot had mean, self-obsessed streaks.
Apart from Ten and the others I’d already spoken to the day before; they seemed cool, intelligent, sensible, focused. Whereas Adler was a brainless idiot who liked to talk about genitalia. Shame, because he was gorgeous, and I was still hard from his reverse striptease.
“Adler Lockhart, 62 left wing, I want to
apologize,” he said in one long sentence, before I could start with my introduction to who I was and what I wanted from the team and mention anything about confidentiality. “It was out of line commenting on your bladder, and cocks in general.”
“Okay.” It would have been fine if he’d left it there, but no, the man carried on.
“I tend to overtalk, and when I don’t know exactly what to say then I come out with all kinds of shit, like commenting on your small bladder. Which I’m sure isn’t small. I mean, no man wants to be told they have a small anything, right? I’m sure your bladder is very much in proportion with the rest of your body. And as to the sex thing in the parking garage, well I get uncomfortable debating the various places my teammates stick their cocks, and I don’t really want to think of Ten that way. I mean, he’s a nice guy, not that I know him really well given that I haven’t been with the team long since the trade, but he’s a good player. Thinking about his cock isn’t something I really want to be doing. Or Coach Madsen’s either, to be honest. What they do with each other’s cocks in their spare time is up to them.” He stopped his speech at that moment and bit his lip, a flush on his cheeks. “Well, shit,” he added.
At that moment I could have happily waved away the overtalking and the inappropriate subject matter, signed off on having spoken to him, and been on my way. But that wasn’t my job, and I took a moment to look down at the paperwork in front of me.
“I think you would benefit from some sensitivity training,” I began.
“Hell no. I’m sensitive. I can be sensitive.”
“It’s standard procedure,” I reassured him and lied at the same time.
“Oh.” He deflated a little. “You mean everyone has to do it?”
I wish at that moment I’d just said yes, because that would have stopped Adler in his tracks. But no, I had to be all cagey. “That’s confidential.”
He frowned. “So not everyone, then.”
“Like I said, confidential.”
“What about Arvy?”
I couldn’t for the life of me think why he was picking on Arvy as an example, so I missed another opportunity to cut this dead. “Confidential,” I said.
“I see, so he has this gay cousin, which gives him an out from an entire day wasted listening to shit about what I can and can’t say?”
“Mr. Lockhart—”
“So if you know someone who knows someone, then you have an out. Right?”
“That’s not how it works—”
“I know Arvy,” he said, and sat back in his chair. “I have to think about what I say in front of him, so that’s me being sensitive.”
“You’re missing the point,” I began patiently, and then I really screwed the pooch. “Wait, Arvy was there when you were handling your junk in the parking lot.”
“Oh,” Adler said and sighed noisily. Then he scrubbed his eyes with his fingers. “Hate that political correctness shit,” he muttered.
I assumed he meant the sensitivity training, but I wanted to move on from this. “It’s all common sense, and with the changes on the team it’s vital we present a united front to any and all media inquiries.”
“Hell, I don’t care what Ten and the coach do.” He looked at me, and I waited for more, because he seemed like he was going to add to that sentence. Only he didn’t. His lips thinned like he was trying very hard to hold something back.
I took that as a sign that he was about to say something crass, and almost felt proud that he’d held back. I looked down at my sketched notes.
“This is a question you don’t need to answer, but it would be helpful to know if you have any religious objections to the situation that we should make a note of.”
“Christ, no,” he said, then snorted a laugh at his own joke. He quickly stopped and schooled his face into all serious business. “Sorry, couldn’t stop myself.”
And that is your problem, Mr. Hockey Guy.
I mentally crossed through religion; put an extra tick in the sensitivity training column because this guy seriously had no filter.
“Do you have any questions for me?” I asked, attempting to bring the mercifully short meeting to an end.
“That’s it?” he asked, and looked surprised.
“This was just to touch base, get to know the team sort of thing.”
Adler crossed his arms over his chest again, and I saw the muscles bunch; this man was strong. “You don’t want to ask any questions about me?”
“We’ll talk at length later, post sensitivity training.”
“Honestly no more questions?”
“No. My primary focus is building a social media presence that supports the team as a whole and has the face of equality.”
He nodded slowly. “So you mean to the outside we’re all fucking happy-clappy praise be to the sexual alphabet in all its iterations?”
I wanted to say that was why he needed training on what was appropriate. I didn’t.
“This is an explosive situation, Mr. Lockhart. The Railers could make a really positive mark here.”
“Will you quit calling me that? My name is Adler, or Ad, or Adzee if you want to go the whole hockey nickname route adding zee on the end of every last name. Which would make you Foxxzee, which is cool.”
I ignored that. “Adler, you may not understand the situation in full, but this is the first NHL player making a strong statement about who he is so that he can live openly with his partner.”
“I get it,” he said defensively. “I’m not fucking stupid, I just don’t get why it has to be a thing.”
He looked genuinely puzzled, a typical example of someone who has never had to fight for recognition. I bet he’d never been beaten on for his identity in any way, bet he’d never had a day of fear. I wanted so much to say all that, but this wasn’t the forum for that type of discussion. It was a preliminary meeting, and nothing to do with countering ignorance. It was about a baseline, about a quick face-to-face with every player to see what work I needed to do to present a united front as a team. Education, awareness, sensitivity—that was what this was about.
“Thank you for coming in,” I began, but he waved the words away.
“Love is love, right? I mean, I’ve never been in love with a man, have you?”
Wait up. Where did that come from? Isn’t he contradicting himself there? One minute he’s saying love is love, and then he picks up on loving a man.
“The first session is tomorrow after morning skate,” I said, ignoring what he’d said.
He looked frustrated. “I don’t get this,” he snapped. “Why it’s even a thing. Hell, it’s worse that a player is fucking a coach than that it’s two men.”
Okay, none of what he was saying was making sense now, and I really needed him out of this small office space, because, hell, this impassioned, nearly angry man was making me feel incredibly uncomfortable. I stood up and shuffled around the desk, opening the door.
“Thank you,” I said, hoping he’d get the hint.
He stood up and faced me, far too close for comfort, and I could see his expression had changed from confused to utterly focused. He moved to the door, but instead of walking out he leaned on it until it closed and we were both inside.
I didn’t like this; I could feel my chest tightening. No one had said that Adler Lockhart was the sort of man to intimidate, but hell, I felt like I was back in school.
“You missed off one vital question on your list,” he said, his hands on his hips, his large frame completely blocking the only exit from the room.
Pushing through the rushing noise in my head, I stepped back a little until my ass hit the desk. I rested my hands behind me, feeling for the stapler. It wasn’t big, but it was enough to make my fist a weapon.
“What was that?” I asked, waiting for the vitriol and the flash of violence.
“You never asked how I identify myself; you need to add that to your list before you push people into training about how to be fucking sensitive to a sexual orientation
situation. Then you need to say something about it not leaving this room.”
“The training will cover—”
“Ask me now,” he interrupted, his hands dropping from his hips and hanging loose at his sides. They weren’t fists, he wasn’t tight with anger, and he was literally requesting that I give him the question. “Go on,” he continued. “Say, ‘Adler Lockhart, who do you like to sleep with in your spare time?’ and see what I say.”
“This is ridiculous,” I snapped. “You need to leave.” His body posture screamed relaxed and teasing, but his challenge scared me.
“Ask me.”
I just wanted him out of the room. I was confused and stressed and he was digging for something from me, God knew what. “For goodness sake. What is your sexual orientation?”
He nodded then, and pushed himself away from the door.
“I’m gay,” he announced.
I didn’t believe him, “You can go,” I said, and tensed in anger. This wasn’t him trying to assert authority or intimidate me; this was a huge fucking wind-up.
“No, I’m serious. I fuck guys, or they fuck me—mostly I fuck them. So I don’t need the political correctness training. And you can’t tell anyone that, because I’m not even out to the team.”
I looked at him and saw how earnest he appeared. The man was actually gay? Hell, if he was saying it to get out of the training, he needed to understand that words and lies hurt.
“Right?” he asked. “I can skip the training.”
Did he actually believe he wasn’t a walking disaster with a mouth that spewed garbage? Him saying he was gay? That didn’t mean a thing, although if he was telling the truth, then I needed to rethink the typical questions I should ask in the baseline assessment.
“You can go,” I repeated.
“But I said—”
“I’ll see you tomorrow at the session. All the information is posted on the board in the locker room.”
He sighed noisily and opened the door. But my relief was short-lived when he didn’t leave but hovered there in the open doorway. “I think it’s cool to see a couple like Ten and Coach who don’t seem to self-destruct after a few months. I hope they’re very happy, and I’ll attend the training so you can tick your boxes, but I won’t like it.”
