Tough Guy (Game Changers)

by Rachel Reid

  Now it was like the lights had been turned on and Ryan’s world was full of color and possibility. It was terrifying in its own way, but now that he’d gotten a taste of what his life could be he would do whatever he could to push the darkness away.

  He checked his phone and saw there was a text from Fabian.

  Fabian: What are you doing Sunday morning?

  Ryan: Nothing. Why?

  Fabian: My friends get together every Sunday for brunch. It’s just Vanessa, Marcus, Tarek, and me. Do you want to join us?

  Ryan: Really?

  Fabian: Yes. It’s not fancy. We put things on frozen waffles. And drink cheap Baby Duck mimosas.

  Ryan: Do you toast the waffles?

  Fabian: Yes! We’re not monsters!

  Ryan: Sounds good then.

  Fabian: The rule is everyone has to bring one waffle topping.

  Ryan: Like what? Syrup?

  Fabian: No. Like something creative. Use your imagination.

  Ryan frowned and typed, I’m not sure I have an imagination.

  Fabian: Of course you do. You were very creative last night.

  This text was accompanied by one of those winky face emojis that Ryan always found so thrilling.

  “You’re texting him right now, aren’t you?” Wyatt teased.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Your face is bright red and you have a giant dopey grin.”

  Ryan read over the text conversation, excited that Fabian had invited him to hang out with his friends. That had to mean something, right? He knew Fabian was generally friendly and social, but still. This seemed like a step in the right direction.

  He wrote back, I can’t wait to see you again, which he hoped sounded more romantic than desperate.

  When Fabian wrote back, Counting the minutes, darling, Ryan beamed.

  “Geez,” Wyatt laughed. “I hope he likes you as much as you like him!”

  Ryan tucked his phone into the seat pocket, nestling it against his Anne of Green Gables book. “Me too.”

  * * *

  “I want everyone on their best behavior.” Fabian shot a hard look at each of his friends. “Be nice to him.”

  Marcus gave him his best innocent face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “We’re not going to scare off your big strong boyfriend,” Tarek said.

  “He’s not my—” Fabian huffed, and continued. “I’m serious. No grilling him with questions. No oversharing about sex.” He gave Vanessa a particularly pointed look for that one. “No teasing. No implying that I’m in love with him. Just. Be. Cool.”

  Vanessa put her hand over her heart. “I promise I won’t do at least some of those things.”

  The buzzer downstairs sounded, and Fabian darted to the door.

  “Oh my god, he’s so excited! I love this so much,” Marcus said.

  Fabian glared at him over his shoulder before he opened the door and ran downstairs. Of course he was excited; Ryan had been away since Tuesday morning, and he’d only gotten back late last night. Fabian was dying to see him again. When he opened the door that led to the street, he found Ryan wearing a black wool coat, a gray toque, and an adorable smile.

  “Hi,” Ryan said.

  “Hi.”

  For a moment, Fabian just stared at him. He realized they were, with Fabian standing on a stair above him, at perfect kissing height. So he kissed him. He would have leapt into his arms, except Ryan was carrying two large grocery bags, and they both appeared to be quite full.

  “What on earth is all this?” Fabian asked.

  “I wasn’t sure what to bring, so I bought a bunch of stuff,” Ryan said sheepishly. “Hopefully some of it is good.”

  “I should have explained that we are extremely easy to please.”

  He led Ryan up the stairs and into the apartment. All three of Fabian’s friends were staring unabashedly at the door.

  “So you remember Tarek, Vanessa, and Marcus. They all live here.”

  “Hi,” Ryan said. “Thanks for having me.”

  Fabian heard Marcus mutter, “God, I wish,” and he narrowed his eyes at him in warning.

  “You brought groceries,” Vanessa said, taking the bags from Ryan. She peeked inside one. “Is this real champagne?”

  Everyone gathered around Vanessa as she pulled out a bottle of Moet from one of the bags.

  “Ryan, what the fuck?” Fabian said. “I said bring, like, Nutella. Not hundred-dollar champagne.”

  “Someone gave it to me as a gift,” Ryan said. “I was never going to drink it. I thought it might be appreciated here.”

  “Oh, it’s appreciated,” Tarek said happily. “I’ll just get this on ice.” As he went to the kitchen he called back, “I love your boyfriend, Fabian!”

  Holy fucking hell. Fabian’s friends were garbage.

  Overall, though, brunch went pretty well. Ryan mentioned the community center he’d visited, and Tarek got excited because he was familiar with the place. As the two of them discussed all the great things the center did and the improvements it could benefit from, Fabian’s heart swelled. Since the moment he’d become aware that his feelings for Ryan went beyond curiosity, he’d worried about how he could possibly fit into Fabian’s life. Or how Fabian could fit into his. Fabian still wasn’t sure about that last thing, but watching Ryan with his friends now—infiltrating their sacred Bargain Brunch tradition, even—left him with no doubts that Ryan could fit in just fine.

  Fabian didn’t like to think about Ryan’s other life too much, or how Fabian could belong there. Maybe he was getting too far ahead of himself, but the idea of being asked to go to hockey games, to attend team parties, to be around other hockey players and hockey fans, wasn’t something Fabian could quite stomach. He’d like to say that he wanted to try, but he really didn’t. What he wanted, and he knew it was horribly selfish of him, was for Ryan to walk away from hockey.

  He told himself that it wasn’t just for himself that he wanted Ryan to quit; hockey wasn’t good for Ryan. Fabian didn’t have to follow the sport to see that. But suggesting that Ryan change his whole life after having known him for a few weeks seemed a bit extra, even for Fabian.

  Fabian decided right then, as Ryan laughed at a joke that Marcus made, that he would get over himself and take an interest in Ryan’s career. He wasn’t sure where things were headed between them, but if their relationship was entirely about Ryan supporting and being a part of Fabian’s life and Fabian giving nothing back, it couldn’t possibly last.

  * * *

  Ryan hit play on the eighth video in a row of Duncan Harvey fighting. Fabian was asleep beside him, peaceful and beautiful. It was late, and Ryan should be trying to sleep, but his body hummed with anxiety. So instead he was sitting on his bed in his underwear, his laptop balanced on his thighs.

  Ryan had enjoyed hanging out with Fabian’s friends that morning, but he couldn’t shake the certainty that he didn’t belong. They’d all been talking about music and art and things their friends were doing, and Ryan couldn’t contribute. And he couldn’t help but wonder, as he had been since Friday night, what exactly he and Fabian were doing. If this was just sex for Fabian, Ryan would prefer to know now because it would save him a lot of pain later.

  And if it wasn’t just sex, then what was it? Were he and Fabian dating? The idea seemed preposterous, and it had seemed more preposterous when Ryan had been trying not to make a fool of himself at brunch that morning.

  Preparing for the inevitable fight with Harvey was at least something productive Ryan could do to distract himself from all of his stupid, horrible thoughts. Although one of those horrible thoughts was how things like Ryan having to study videos of hockey fights were exactly why he didn’t deserve Fabian.

  But he did have to study, because the alternative was getting brutally beaten by H
arvey. Ryan didn’t lose many fights. Between his size advantage, his years of experience, and the boxing basics his dad had taught him, Ryan had the upper hand in almost every fight he’d ever been in.

  Still. Duncan Harvey was terrifying.

  Harvey didn’t fight with the skill that Ryan did. He fought like he had nothing to lose, and that both scared and saddened Ryan. He knew that Harvey had had troubles with addiction in the past, and that he’d been forced into rehab by the league a couple of times. Ryan wasn’t sure if Harvey was still having problems—he really didn’t know him well at all—but he didn’t seem like a guy who had straightened his life out.

  The fans loved it when Ryan and Harvey fought each other. There were plenty of videos of the two of them going toe-to-toe, but Ryan avoided those ones. He didn’t like to watch himself fight. The few times he had watched a video of one of his own fights, he’d felt something akin to vertigo. It was a weird sensation, watching himself do something that he could remember doing, but being unable to believe he had actually done it. He looked scary when he was fighting, like his body had been temporarily possessed by a demon. But Ryan knew that wasn’t the case. When he dropped the gloves, he pulled a dark part of himself forward. It was, strangely, one of the only times he ever felt truly calm.

  But preparing for a fight. The anticipation of fighting. That was different.

  He watched Duncan Harvey land a punch, and Ryan winced as his opponent fell to the ice. Brutal. He knew that Harvey tended to wait and let his opponents get a few futile swings in before dropping them quickly with a merciless right hook. It was like watching a predator toying with its prey, giving it false hope.

  “What are you watching?”

  Ryan’s head whipped around so fast he nearly injured himself. Fabian’s head was still nestled into the pillow, but his eyes were open.

  “Oh. Uh, nothing. Just hockey stuff.”

  “Fights?”

  “Maybe.” Ryan closed his laptop.

  Fabian raised himself on an elbow. “Are there really videos of just the fights from hockey games online?” He scoffed. “What am I talking about? Of course there are.”

  “Yeah. I sometimes watch them before games. Of the guy I’m expecting to fight.”

  Fabian’s brow furrowed. “The fights are planned in advance?”

  “No, no, not like that. But if we’re going to be playing a team with another enforcer, chances are pretty good that I’ll have to fight him.”

  “Because you...hate each other?”

  Ryan sighed and set the laptop on his nightstand. “No. I don’t have a problem with Duncan Harvey or anyone else.”

  “So why would you fight him?”

  “It’s part of the game.”

  Fabian made a face. “I don’t understand why you would punch someone for no reason. I won’t pretend to be an expert, but aren’t hockey fights an in-the-heat-of-the-moment thing?”

  “That’s usually it. Sometimes our star player gets attacked somehow, and then I have to fight the guy who did it. Or maybe I have to fight that team’s enforcer. It’s like...” Ryan tried to think of the word. “It’s like we’re proxies, maybe?”

  Fabian’s mouth quirked up. “You’re like knights. You fight on behalf of your king’s honor.”

  “I guess. Except my king at the moment is a fucking asshole.”

  “Kings usually are.” Fabian rested his head on Ryan’s thigh and gazed up at him. “So tomorrow night, you are going to beat up a man you have no problem with to protect a man you hate?”

  Ryan threaded his fingers through Fabian’s hair, which made him sigh happily. “You make it sound stupid.”

  “It’s very stupid.”

  He stroked Fabian’s hair in silence for a while. The soothing, repeating motion was making Ryan feel drowsy, which was a welcome sensation.

  “I don’t like thinking about you fighting.”

  Ryan’s fingers paused for a moment, then resumed their stroking. “Me neither.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Hey. Duncan.”

  Duncan Harvey glanced up at Ryan from where he was stretching on the ice near the center line. Ryan wasn’t technically supposed to be talking to his opponents during warm-ups, but he was hoping he could maybe stop a pointless fight before it happened.

  Duncan spat on the ice and said, “What?”

  Ryan bent at the waist so he was closer to the other man’s face. Duncan had noticeable bags under his eyes. “I just wanted to say, we don’t have to fight tonight.”

  Duncan shifted so he was up on one knee. “The fuck are you talking about?”

  Their faces were inches apart, and Ryan was sure it was getting the attention of the crowd, so he backed off a bit. “Just saying. We don’t have to.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Yes, Ryan would like that. That was sort of his point. But he skated away without replying.

  “How’s your buddy Duncan?” Wyatt asked when Ryan got down on the ice next to him to stretch. “Does he like your new haircut?”

  “I think he wants to fight.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound like him.”

  Ryan grunted as he deepened his hamstring stretch. “He doesn’t look good. He’s sweaty and the game hasn’t even started.”

  “Just worry about yourself.” Wyatt’s tone was uncharacteristically serious. “I’m not kidding, Pricey. If he wants to fight, end it as fast as possible. Did you see that last fight, against what’s-his-name in Calgary?”

  Ryan had watched that fight, and he had also noticed how wild Harvey’s swings had been. How hard he’d hit. How damaged his opponent’s face had been after. “Yeah. I know.”

  * * *

  In the second period, Harvey shoved Ryan. Nothing had happened between them up to that point, but Harvey must have decided it was time for them to fight.

  “Fuck off, Harvey,” Ryan said tiredly.

  But Harvey shoved him again. “Let’s go, fucker.”

  Ryan turned to face him. The Pay the Price chant had already started. “I’m not gonna fight you.”

  Harvey’s eyes bugged out. He looked feral. “The fuck you aren’t.” He threw his gloves off and Ryan watched them skid across the ice.

  “Let’s go,” Harvey snarled.

  “No.”

  Harvey tried to grab his jersey, but Ryan skated backward and Harvey ended up grabbing air and almost losing his balance. “Fight me, you coward!”

  Ryan didn’t want to. He was a good defenseman. He could contribute to a team without having to do this.

  And besides, Harvey wasn’t well.

  Harvey launched himself at Ryan, this time taking a wild swing. Ryan grabbed both of Harvey’s wrists and wrestled his arms out to his sides. Harvey lost it. He was full-on screaming in Ryan’s face, demanding that he drop the gloves. Ryan just shook his head.

  And then Harvey headbutted him.

  The front of his helmet smashed into Ryan’s mouth and chin, and it hurt like a motherfucker. Ryan staggered back, completely in shock that Harvey would do something so dirty, and then his mouth filled with blood.

  Ryan’s brain went quiet, and it was all he could do to stop himself from knocking Harvey to the ice. But he didn’t. Instead, he dropped Harvey’s wrists and skated away. Behind him, he could hear Harvey’s hysterical screaming.

  “Where the fuck are you going? You’re a fucking joke, Price! Come back and fight me, you asshole!”

  Ryan ignored him. When he got to the bench, his teammates were quiet. There were no sticks being knocked against the boards like there always was after a fight, and no congratulatory words. Just uncomfortable silence, and a disapproving glare from his coach.

  “Go to the dressing room,” Coach Cooper barked. “Get your mouth cleaned up. And stay there until intermission.”
<
br />   “Yes, Coach,” Ryan mumbled. As he made his way down the hallway, he hoped he hadn’t just thrown his career away.

  * * *

  Fabian felt sick.

  He’d thought it was time he tried to watch one of Ryan’s games. He’d met Tarek at a pub in the Village that showed Guardians games on their big screen televisions, and had been doing his best to follow the action. Ryan didn’t get shown up close very often, so the game was pretty boring.

  Until it wasn’t.

  There was a player who was almost as big as Ryan who kept shoving him. Fabian held his breath when Ryan turned to face the other man, sure that he was going to have to watch his sweet possible-boyfriend punch someone. Fabian covered his mouth with his hand, but forced himself to watch the screen.

  So he saw what happened next.

  “Holy shit!” Tarek said. “I don’t know shit about hockey, but I am pretty sure you’re not allowed to do that.”

  Fabian knew enough about hockey to know that headbutting was not a normal part of the game. He knew enough about pain to know that Ryan must be in a lot of it right now. For a second, Ryan’s face changed into something Fabian didn’t recognize. It was dark and intense and terrifying.

  “Oh my god,” Fabian said hoarsely. “Ryan, don’t.”

  As if Ryan could hear him, his face immediately softened, and he skated away as the other man was dragged off the ice by some of the officials.

  “Are you okay?” Tarek asked gently.

  “I don’t know. Why does he do this? Why would anyone do this for a job? Why does anyone like watching this?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “It’s awful. He’s too good for this.”

  “He didn’t fight him,” Tarek pointed out. “You could tell he was trying to talk the guy out of it.”