Off the Ice

by Avon Gale

  “Were your eyes closed during that shot, Holtzy?” A beefy hand shoved his shoulder, and he turned to face Morley, his defense partner on the Venom. Trevor Morley was handsome, if somewhat rough around the edges, with spiky golden-brown hair, blue eyes, and a brick-wall physique. He exceeded Tristan’s six foot four by a few inches and outweighed him by probably twenty pounds of solid muscle. During games, Morley played with a mean-as-hell scowl. He had a reputation in the league as someone not to be fucked with, but off the ice, his teddy-bear personality shone through, and he delighted in being the biggest prankster on the team. They’d become close friends in the years since Tristan had joined the Venom as a wet-behind-the-ears rookie.

  Tristan leaned on his club. “Maybe we should call it a day and go to lunch.”

  “Not until I finish this bucket. Practice, bro, practice. You’ll never improve your swing otherwise.”

  Tristan grumbled good-naturedly and grabbed another ball.

  “When Ryu gets back from training, we’ll have to get him out here too. You both need to up your games. It’s no fun slaughtering you two every time. You know I thrive on competition.”

  Tristan laughed. It was true. Ryu, his best friend and the Venom’s backup goalie, also sucked at golf. Unlike Tristan, who took it in stride, it pissed Ryu off not to be good at something. Ryu was currently in Sweden participating in a camp run by Kris Karlsson, a legendary goalie from the nineties. Until he returned in a couple of weeks, their improbable trio was down to a duo.

  “Are you coming out tonight?” Morley asked as he adjusted his stance, eyes focused on the field. “You should’ve seen these chicks we met last weekend. They’re supposed to be at the Empty Bottle again tonight.” Morley swung with such perfect form he could’ve been posing for the cover of Golf Digest. The ball flew straight and landed near the farthest yardage marker. “They were strippers, man,” he added, grinning. “I’m sure one of them would be more than happy to take a ride on your pole.”

  Tristan sighed. “Seriously? We’ve talked about this. Dial back the sexism—we’ve both got sisters.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Allow me to rephrase. We met some lovely ladies, dancers, who I feel would be honored to meet a studly gentleman hockey player such as yourself.” Morley rolled his eyes. “So? Are you in?”

  Instead of answering immediately, Tristan pounded a ball out onto the field while he tried to come up with an excuse to bail.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy partying with his teammates. They were fun guys. Family, really, after three seasons. But with Tristan being one of the few singles on the Venom’s roster, they expected him to be constantly chasing skirt. Little did they realize he had no interest in women. Not sexually anyway. He’d known he was gay since he turned thirteen—and he’d known it was something he’d have to hide if he wanted a future in hockey for just as long. Things were slowly getting better, but as Michael Sam’s short-lived NFL career could attest, there were reasons for the lack of openly gay athletes in professional sports.

  Tristan wasn’t the only gay man playing hockey. Hell, he’d been fucked by enough players to know, and the teammate he’d dated in college had also gone on to the NHL. They still hooked up whenever their current teams crossed paths. However, the existence of other queer players didn’t mean Tristan could admit the reason he had no interest in partying with the guys was because they weren’t going to the right clubs. Tristan might not mind a bit of harmless flirting, but he hated pretending. He’d rather stay home alone than be forced to put on an act.

  Someday he might be ready to be honest with his friends. Someday. Not now.

  Of course, hiding such an intrinsic part of himself wasn’t exactly ideal. Whenever Tristan hooked up with someone, he dealt with paranoia about being outed for days afterward. The loneliness, the sense of being disconnected, untethered from everyone and everything sometimes left him with an unbearable ache in the pit of his stomach. But nothing in life was perfect. Tristan was living his dream and getting paid well—very well—to play the sport he loved. How many people could say the same?

  “I don’t think I can make it,” Tristan finally replied. “I have a paper due on Tuesday, and I still have to do some research.” It wasn’t a lie. He was only taking a couple of courses to ease himself back into student life, but Professor Cruz—dark-haired, scowly Professor Cruz, whose wiry body made Tristan think things he shouldn’t—had already assigned two papers in the week and a half since the summer session started.

  Morley’s eyebrows spoke volumes, being nearly at the level of his hairline. “‘Research’? Bro, I don’t even understand why you’re taking those classes. This is our only time to relax without Clancy riding our asses. Why do you need a business degree anyway? You’re making bank with your new contract extension.”

  Tristan lifted a shoulder. The contract extension was actually the reason he’d decided to go back to school. It meant he’d be in Atlanta for the next three years, barring an unexpected trade. Plenty of time to finish his degree. “I was about to start my junior year when I got drafted. I’m halfway done. I don’t want those credit hours to go to waste, you know? I want a plan for after hockey.”

  “But, dude, you’re what, twenty-four?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Even better. You won’t be retiring for ages. If you play your cards right, you can live off your earnings for the rest of your life. You won’t need to get some boring-ass nine-to-five.”

  Tristan set a fresh ball on the tee. “Yeah, maybe. But there aren’t any guarantees. You know that. I could get hurt the next time I step on the ice, and bam! No more contracts. No performance bonuses or endorsement deals. No day with The Cup. It’d be over.”

  Morley blanched. “Bite your fucking tongue, bro. You shouldn’t even be thinking about that, let alone saying it out loud.”

  “I can’t not think about it,” Tristan said mildly. He whacked the ball and watched it soar nearly straight upward before plopping onto the grass a few yards in front of him. He sighed, turning back to his friend. “It’s the realist in me. Besides, my parents have been on me to go back for years. I don’t fantasize about some white-collar job in international relations, but it feels smart to do this now. That way, if I’m ever forced to quit hockey, I’ll be qualified to do something other than play-by-play announcing for some dinky local TV network. And that’d be if I got lucky.”

  Morley gave an exaggerated shudder and quickly crossed himself. “You should find some wood to knock on.” His expression was dead serious. “You’re freaking me out with all this talk of injuries and quitting.”

  Tristan laughed and knocked on his head. “There. Satisfied?” Tristan was as superstitious as the next hockey player, but Morley had him beat. He even prayed before every game “in case Jesus is listening,” though Tristan knew for a fact Morley only stepped foot in a church once a year for Christmas Mass.

  “Close enough.” Morley peered down into his bucket. “Five left. Let’s finish this up and grab some lunch.”

  “Yep.” Tristan lined up another shot and gave Morley a questioning glance. “Last one finished buys?”

  Morley nodded without looking up. “You’re on.”

  Tristan grinned. No need to tell Morley he was on his final ball.

  * * *

  Sebastian stood in front of his class, eyes sweeping over the students who had bothered to show up. It was a couple of weeks into the summer term, and as expected, the class size had shrunk considerably since the first day.

  What wasn’t expected, however, was the presence of Chuck Bass, who hadn’t missed a single class. Not only that, but he hadn’t worn a ball cap since the first day—although he was still showing up in those sweatpants, which Sebastian was doing his level best to ignore.

  Today he was wearing a Pink Floyd shirt. Sebastian wondered if blondie was even old enough to know who they were, and resisted the urge to go
full-out classic-rock hipster and ask him. He had a class to teach.

  “Today we’re going to talk about perception,” Sebastian said, leaning back against his desk. “The way we perceive others has to do with a variety of factors, and the assumptions we make because of them. Humans have a tendency to place people into a hierarchy, and we design that hierarchy in several ways.”

  He wondered if he was losing them, but Gray Sweatpants was typing away at his computer—a newer model MacBook, Sebastian noticed—so either he was taking notes or blatantly ignoring Sebastian in favor of updating his Facebook. Sebastian noticed the painfully trendy young man with the notebook, the one who always sat next to Gray Sweatpants and probably took notes in calligraphy given that fancy pen, was absent today.

  “One way in which we organize individuals into a hierarchy is based on the things we’ve been talking about in this class so far this semester—perceptions of wealth, class, that sort of thing. But we also make designations in this power hierarchy based on other factors, and I wanted to take a bit of time to talk about those. Race and gender, for example...and sexuality.”

  Sebastian waited a moment to see if mentioning that got anyone’s attention, but besides Gray Sweatpants glancing briefly upward, the rest of the class were staring at their computer screens. One young woman was on her phone and one guy was slouched in his seat against the wall, half-asleep.

  And these were the students who’d bothered to show up.

  “You put me in a position of power in this classroom because I’m the professor,” Sebastian continued. “But there are other, more subtle factors that you might not even be aware of—the position of where I’m standing in the room, for example. It’s very similar to what happens in your mind when you go and watch a rock concert.” Sebastian waved a hand. “Or whatever music you kids are into, nowadays.”

  That got a slight smile from Gray Sweatpants. Interesting.

  “Musicians are literally raised to a position above you on a stage, so your mind fills in the hierarchy clues and places these people above you. You do it with me because I’m standing while you’re sitting, I’m speaking while you’re quiet, and I’m awake while you’re sleeping.” He stared hard at the dozing kid in the back, who didn’t realize Sebastian was addressing him at all. Several of the others did, though, and it wasn’t only Gray Sweatpants who smiled this time.

  “Now, what about me changes your perception of my place in the power hierarchy?” Sebastian’s mouth quirked. “Before you awkwardly avoid my eyes and figure out how to answer this, I’ll do it for you. I’m Puerto Rican. Does that make any of you question if I’m really in charge of this classroom?”

  There were a few gazes exchanged among the engaged students in the room, and a few mumbles and awkward smiles.

  “And how about if I tell you that I’m gay?”

  That got their attention, most noticeably Gray Sweatpants, who looked up sharply from his computer. Sebastian met his big, wide blue eyes and stared at him, waiting to see if Mr. Trust Fund had anything to say about that.

  “Now, I’m telling you this for a few reasons. One, my primary interest and area of study—which you’d know if you bothered doing any research about your professor—is LGBT issues in Latinx urban communities, and how traditional ideas of gender and class are challenged by openly queer individuals.

  “Two, I want to spend some time discussing perceptions and how we, as individuals, challenge those perceptions in our day-to-day life...as well as the images we present to others. I want you, in your next assignment, to talk about a role you play in a community that you have a particularly strong tie to—familial, cultural, I don’t particularly care which—and where you think you fit in the so-called ‘power hierarchy.’ Then, tell me something about you that might challenge that perception and why.”

  He paused. “This is a very personal assignment, so I hope you will take the time to really think about what I’ve said and deconstruct your own place in one of the social spaces you inhabit.”

  Gray Sweatpants was still watching him, and Sebastian found himself meeting the kid’s big blue eyes for the second or third time. Maybe it was because none of the other students were bothering to interact with him in any way, or maybe it was just the kid was hot and those wide eyes and that full mouth were giving Sebastian ideas he shouldn’t have in class.

  Or maybe there was something else. Maybe Gray Sweatpants was looking so intently at him because he—

  Stop it, what are you doing? You’re in class. Save your pervy fantasies for later.

  Sebastian glanced at his watch and realized it was time to end class. “That’s all for today. I’ll expect your papers turned in to me via the class site by the end of the week.”

  He watched as they all stood up and assembled their things, heading toward the exit singly or in small groups. He thought he heard one of the girls murmur, “...really gay?” on her way out of the door, and he had to stop himself from snorting.

  Gray Sweatpants was the last one out the door, and the girl probably would have had her answer if she’d noticed how Sebastian unabashedly eyed the guy’s ass in those pants on his way out. But she was already gone, and the only other person left was the kid asleep in the back...and he was snoring, so Sebastian doubted he noticed anything much at all.

  Chapter Three

  Over the next couple of days, Tristan gave serious consideration to the topic Professor Cruz had assigned. What “social space” did he inhabit? Hockey, of course. The dressing rooms, the arenas, the charter planes and busses. Tristan spent most of his time with other athletes. Where did he fit into the hockey power hierarchy? What role did he play—aside from the obvious answer of “defenseman”? Did he ever do anything to challenge that role?

  Tristan typed a first draft, which was more of a stream-of-consciousness-style brain dump than anything. It ended up a seven-page ramble that had no real purpose or sense of direction, but luckily, there were a few diamonds amid all that rough. Those ideas Tristan cut and polished into a more cohesive second draft. One he thought Professor Cruz would appreciate.

  Sexy, dark-eyed, gay Professor Cruz, who put his sexuality out there like it was nothing. Who lifted his chin and practically dared anyone in the class to say something negative.

  What would it be like to be able to do that in front of a group of strangers? To be totally candid and honest about who he was? Tristan wouldn’t know. He couldn’t quite imagine saying the words to his family or his teammates, let alone a lecture hall full of people whose respect he wanted to keep.

  Professor Cruz had certainly earned Tristan’s respect with his frankness. And his bravery. Even if the guy was out flying rainbow flags every weekend, it couldn’t be easy to share that aspect of his personal life, potentially opening himself to criticism or bigotry. Tristan admired the courage that took as he sat there ruminating on his place in the world of hockey and the homophobia that still pervaded the sport, particularly in the junior levels.

  No one had stood up in front of the league and proudly declared their queerness to the masses. But that wasn’t something Tristan planned to address in this paper. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

  He refocused on the task at hand—deconstructing his place within the hockey community, and what about him, aside from his sexuality, challenged the perceptions of outsiders. The answer came in a flash that left Tristan feeling foolish in the aftermath. Obviously, the fact that he was back in school pursuing a degree made him different from many of his teammates. He still considered it worthwhile to complete his education, though he had a salary most people would envy and friends like Morley who questioned why he would bother.

  His topic decided, Tristan tackled the paper with renewed energy. He was in the middle of reworking his closing paragraph when a ping from his MacBook alerted him to a new message.

  Tristan’s Gmail inbox was open, and a little green box flashed in the
corner—a chat invite from Steven. They’d been emailing consistently since the first day of class. He’d already begged Tristan to send him notes a couple of times, but he’d never initiated a chat before.

  Curious, Tristan accepted the invite to see the message.

  Steven: Hey, how’s the paper going? Did you figure out your subject yet?

  Tristan: Yeah. Almost done, actually.

  Steven: Oh man, seriously? I’ve got nothing so far.

  Tristan considered for a moment. Are you part of any clubs? Play any sports? Or are you involved in a church or anything?

  Steven: No I’m not really into any of that. IDK. I’m stumped.

  There was a pause. Then Steven sent another message: Would you mind letting me read your paper? Just so I can see what you did. I can proofread for you!

  Tristan hesitated. But, really, what harm could there be? Besides, he could do with a second set of eyes.

  Tristan: Yeah, sure. Will send in a bit.

  Steven: Thanks, man, you’re a lifesaver! Hey gotta go but I’ll read it later and get back to you.

  Steven signed off before Tristan could reply.

  Another hour passed before he felt ready to let someone else see his work, but eventually, Tristan completed his revisions and sent the paper off to Steven. Not too shabby, if he said so himself. It might even earn him an elusive A from Professor Cruz.

  After a quick shower and a protein shake, Tristan checked his phone to find a stream of texts from Morley.

  Morley: Bro remember that movie I wanted to see? Its @ the cheap theater now.

  Morley: Shootouts car chases hot chicks EXPLOSIONS!! Fuck yeah lets go!!!

  Morley: Dont ignore me ill show up @ ur house and drag u out the door in a headlock.

  Morley: Cmon bro im bored af.

  Tristan snorted. What the hell. He could use a couple of hours of mindless entertainment. What better way to decompress than with over-the-top special effects and excessive amounts of gunfire?