Empty Net

by Avon Gale

  “What if—” Isaac stopped himself with effort. Max was reading a book, but he hadn’t turned the page once, so it must not have been very good. Or else he was an incredibly slow reader.

  “Just say it,” Max encouraged. “It will make you feel better.”

  What if Laurent tells them he threw those games last year? What if they take away our championship?

  “I don’t think it will, but thanks,” Isaac said and slouched in the chair he’d finally settled into. He checked his phone again, though he didn’t imagine Laurent would be texting him from the meeting room. “I wish I could be in there.”

  “I know, Isaac.” Max patted him on the arm. “But you can’t. And Laurent’s doing fine, I’m sure.”

  Isaac raised his eyebrows but said nothing else. By the time Laurent appeared in the lobby, he was white-faced and wild-eyed, and his mouth was drawn into a sneer that meant he was feeling especially vulnerable. When he reached Isaac, Laurent looked like he either wanted to hug Isaac or hit him.

  “Everything okay?” Isaac asked.

  Laurent’s look was on the edge of scathing, and he gave an hysterical bark of a laugh. “Sure.”

  “Hey,” Isaac said quietly and put a hand on Laurent’s back. “You want to be quiet?”

  Laurent nodded.

  “Okay,” he said quietly. The whole voice-restriction thing they did was a little weird, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to explain it to Max. Laurent had mentioned once that he talked about it to Liz, and she said it took away the pressure of “performing” and being good enough when Isaac did that. It allowed Laurent to relax. Isaac didn’t necessarily understand. He was just glad it worked.

  Xavier gave him a little half-hearted wave as he walked past, and Isaac returned the gesture. Xavier looked about as drained as Laurent, but there was a defiant set to his shoulders. Good for him. It did no one any good to hide.

  “Where’s Misha?” Max asked.

  Isaac rubbed a hand over Laurent’s back and tried to translate it into a yes or no question that Laurent could answer. “Still in the room with the commissioner. Right?”

  Laurent nodded and looked relieved.

  “Why don’t you two get out of here,” Max said, clever enough to know something was going on with them and to not ask what it was. “I’m guessing you want to drive back with Laurent instead of us.”

  “Seeing as how it’s my car,” Isaac answered.

  “It’s mine, actually,” said Max. He smiled at Isaac. “I’ll sell it to you cheap, though.”

  “Thanks. C’mon,” he said to Laurent, but Laurent pulled away and went to Max. He looked briefly at Isaac, as if waiting for something. Permission to speak. Isaac gave the smallest of nods.

  Laurent held his hand out toward Max. “Thank you, Coach Ashford. I’m sorry for my behavior last year and earlier this season. I wish you and Coach Samarin could have been my coaches all along. I think I might have actually loved this game. I wish I could have.”

  Max’s smile was so warm and understanding it made Isaac’s eyes sting. He shook Laurent’s hand. “I wish that too, Saint. You’re one hell of a goalie. One of the best I’ve ever seen, in any league.”

  “Thank you.” Laurent said it without rancor or suspicion, acknowledging that it was a compliment. Then he moved back toward Isaac and picked up his bag.

  He was silent until they climbed in the Jeep and the doors were closed. “Isaac? I need to tell you something.”

  “Okay.” Isaac had a suspicion he knew what was coming.

  “I’m not playing hockey anymore. I’m done. And I need to go to my father’s house and tell him. I need to be done with him too. I want to be done with all of it.” Laurent wasn’t looking at him, but was instead staring out of the window, as though he were looking at a future he desperately wanted to make real.

  It made Isaac sad to hear that his suspicions were correct and that Laurent was going to quit playing. But hockey wasn’t the thing that kept Laurent swimming when the world tried to drag him under. It was just one more thing that tried hard to drown him—an inexorable tide controlled by his father’s influence. “I understand, Saint. Just tell me how to get there.”

  LAURENT HELD Isaac’s hand in a death grip when they arrived at his father’s house. It looked the same as ever, stately and impressive, colonial-style brick with immaculate windows and a perfectly manicured lawn. Laurent breathed out slowly and wished like hell it was over and they were on their way home to Spartanburg.

  He turned to Isaac. “I want you to come with me. But not because I’m afraid of him. I am afraid of him. But I want you to come with me so you can be there when I end this.”

  Isaac must have been just as nervous as Laurent, because he nodded and didn’t say anything.

  Laurent reached in the back of the Jeep and grabbed a plastic bag, then got out of the car. He waited for Isaac to come around next to him, and they started up the drive together. The walk to the front door seemed to take both an eternity and no more than an instant, and once they were on the front porch, Laurent’s hand shook as he knocked on the door.

  It probably should have made him sad that he was knocking on the door to his own house, but the place had never felt like home. The only home Laurent had was standing right beside him.

  His father stood in the doorway, his eyes narrow and mean, and Laurent felt the usual churn of fear and anxiety that his presence always inspired and had to force himself to speak. “Father.”

  Laurent wished it was like some dramatic movie, where his father would reveal they were not related after all and that he’d bought Laurent off the baby black market or something equally absurd. But he and his father had some physical characteristics in common—height, build, the same general coloring—and Laurent knew that, as much as he would like to deny it, he too had that core of viciousness inside of him. It was the reason why he had to quit playing. It was the reason why he needed Isaac. He wanted to be Saint, not St. Savoy, Jr.

  He raised his chin. “I came here to give you something.”

  “Unless it is an apology for your abominable behavior—”

  “It isn’t.” Laurent did take a small satisfaction at how his father’s eyes bugged at that. Denis St. Savoy hated to be interrupted. Laurent pulled the thing he’d brought out of the bag and shoved it at his father. “Here.”

  His father looked down on instinct and smirked at the way Laurent’s hands were so obviously trembling.

  I’m afraid, but he’s a coward.

  “Why would I want this rag, Laurent?” His father was one of the only people who said Laurent’s name like it was supposed to be pronounced, with the accent on the proper syllable and the correct sound at the end.

  “This rag” was Laurent’s jersey. His Spitfires jersey, recently worn in the championship game when his team won the Kelly Cup.

  “Am I supposed to be proud of you for winning a meaningless game with a team of fags?”

  “Oh, whatever,” Isaac muttered next to him.

  Laurent felt a spike of fear as his father’s gaze shifted to Isaac. He didn’t want Isaac to do anything stupid, because it was Laurent’s only chance to finish things by himself. He needed to take it. “Be quiet, ange,” he whispered under his breath.

  But Isaac heard and fell quiet.

  “All this time I thought all you wanted was for me to win. But it’s not that simple, is it? I have to play good enough not to embarrass you, but not too good that it might seem like I’m better than you.” Laurent swallowed the old hurt of “why can’t you love me” rising up to choke him. “I never wanted to be a better goalie than you. I just wanted a better father. So here’s all you will ever have of me. I’m done.”

  He threw the jersey at his father’s feet and said, “But just so you know—I am better than you. On the ice and off of it.” With that, he turned away, and blindly grabbed for Isaac’s hand as he walked toward the Jeep.

  He expected some parting shot, some snide comment about his holding hands w
ith a man. But the only sound he heard was the door slamming behind him.

  Laurent did not turn to see if his jersey was still there, abandoned on the front porch. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter if it was or not. It was over. St. Savoy was gone for good, and Laurent could finally be exactly who he wanted.

  Epilogue

  LAURENT STOOD behind the counter and neatly tidied up the various bits of paper his boss relied on to organize the comic shop. They were usually the names and numbers of issues he needed to order for a customer. Laurent worked on an Excel spreadsheet to keep better track of things, but getting his boss to use technology wasn’t easy. Usually he just stuck the papers to the computer monitor with bits of tape.

  The jingle of a bell sounded as he finished with the stack. “We’re closed,” he called and tried to remember to use his “customer service” voice. Charlie was terrible with technology, and Laurent was terrible with customers. Luckily comic book readers had an okay tolerance for both.

  “I know a guy who works here. He likes me.”

  Laurent smiled down at the notes he’d gathered as he recognized Isaac’s warm, amused voice. “Not enough to recount the drawer, he doesn’t.”

  Isaac appeared from around the shelf. His hair—still blue—was damp from his postcamp shower. He grinned. “Lies. Hi.”

  “Hi.” Laurent held up the papers and the money from the drawer. “I have to put this in the office. Be right back.” He put the notes on Charlie’s desk and the money in the safe, turned off the lights, and made his way back. It was early fall, so the light from the afternoon sun shone through the dirty shop window. Laurent would clean it, but it was plastered with posters and flyers. Besides. He liked that the place wasn’t perfect and hardly ever appeared to have been dusted. If Charlie owned a vacuum, Laurent had never seen it. About the only thing they ever cleaned was the bathroom.

  “How was your day?” Isaac asked him as he leaned against the counter and flipped through a comic. He’d never quite caught on to loving comic books as much as Laurent and Hux, but he was nice enough to listen when the two of them got going about them.

  Matt Huxley was the closest thing—besides Isaac, of course—that Laurent had ever had to a best friend. Thinking of that made him grab the newest issue of Demon Detective and shove it in his messenger bag, along with his sketchbook. “It was fine. How was camp?”

  “Ugh,” said Isaac, but cheerfully. “Our new goalie is a baby. As in he’s twenty or something. And he’s like, six feet taller than me.”

  “Everyone is like six feet taller than you.”

  Isaac flipped him off and pretended to scratch the side of his head. “And I forgot how much I hated conditioning drills. Or more specifically I forgot how much I hate Misha and conditioning drills. But I’m glad to be back. Missed you, though. How was class this morning?”

  Laurent had enrolled in Wofford College and had just started his first semester. It was a bit overwhelming, and he still had problems relating to his classmates—who were so much younger in so many ways besides age—but it was going all right.

  He was a business major with a studio art minor, and he hoped that, if he couldn’t take over Charlie’s Comics one day, he could start his own shop while he worked on his original comics. He’d received a scholarship, thanks to his artistic talent, and someone—he suspected it was Misha—was paying for his books and studio supplies. His job at the comic shop and Isaac’s meager salary meant they were broke all the time. But they were happy enough for it not to matter.

  Laurent told Isaac about his finance class as he locked up the shop and they headed home. They were living together in the one-bedroom apartment that was across the hall from Laurent’s old studio apartment, where Hux was living since Murph and Erin got engaged.

  Mrs. Bowen, still alive and kicking despite a bad fall that had put her in the hospital for a few weeks earlier in the summer, met them in the hallway with a plate. “Oh hello, boys,” she said with a warm smile. “I had some extra cookies.”

  She always had extra cookies, because she made them for her “boys.” Laurent knew that Hux would get a plate of his own when he got back from practice. “Thanks, Mrs. Bowen.”

  Despite Mrs. Bowen cooking for them and generally adopting the three of them as surrogate children, none of them had ever called her by her first name. Laurent wasn’t even sure what it was.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, beaming. “Is that tall young man coming by anytime soon? He looks like he could use some macaroons.”

  Only someone as old as Mrs. Bowen would call Misha Samarin young.

  “We’re supposed to go to his house for dinner tomorrow night,” Isaac said, already munching on a cookie. He was always hungry. “We can take some if you want.”

  “You’re a good boy, Jack.”

  “Thanks,” Isaac said, and Laurent hid a grin behind a cookie of his own.

  Their apartment was stuffy since they’d both been gone all day, and they went around in companionable silence and turned on ceiling fans and the three air-conditioning window units. Their apartment wasn’t much, and most of the furniture was secondhand. Unlike Laurent’s, now Hux’s, studio, it didn’t come furnished. But every time he looked around, Laurent couldn’t help the rush of simple happiness that it was his home.

  And that the guy in the boxer briefs with no shirt and the lip ring was his boyfriend. If Laurent loved hockey the way he loved Isaac Drake, he’d have a stack of Vezina Trophies already. And while he didn’t mind watching Isaac—and giving him advice—while he was in goal, and already had season tickets to the Spitfires, not a single part of him missed playing.

  But beneath it all he was sad when he watched his boyfriend and his friends on the ice—like he’d missed out on something pure and joyful. His father had hurt him in a lot of ways, but making hockey a punishment instead of a pleasure was one of the worst. Laurent was working with Liz on forgiveness, but he didn’t think he’d ever get to a point where he’d forgive Denis St. Savoy for that.

  “What do you want for dinner?”

  Always a loaded question. Laurent’s recovery was, for the most, progressing nicely. But he’d had a bit of a relapse right after starting school. The stress of being judged and found wanting made him creep off to the bathroom to throw up when Isaac was asleep. But Isaac had found him there afterward, miserable and shaking and convinced he’d ruined everything, and had just wrapped his arms around him and sat with him on the floor until Laurent felt better.

  “That’s why they call it recovery,” Liz told him. “Instead of recovered. It’s ongoing.”

  That and Isaac’s assurance that he understood, was enough to keep Laurent from giving in to the urge to throw up when he felt stressed out. He hoped that one day the urge would go away entirely, and when he told Liz that, she was proud of him and reminded him that on his first visit, he said he didn’t want to stop. That was, in itself, a victory, and Laurent was proud of himself for it.

  He learned not to think he deserved things that hurt him. Or he was learning, anyway. And without the stress of his father and hockey, with friends and a boyfriend, a job and a pursuit he generally enjoyed—with the possible exception of finance class—things were better than they’d ever been. He’d stood up to his father and taken control of his life, and it felt amazing.

  “Pizza,” Laurent said confidently, in response to Isaac’s question about dinner.

  “You got a coupon? We are so broke.” Isaac shook his head. “Professional athlete. Can’t afford to order pizza. Welcome to the ECHL.”

  “We can. You just need to find the right coupon.” Laurent opened his laptop and navigated to a folder on the desktop. “I put them in here. Remember?”

  “God. You’re such a dork,” Isaac said fondly as he walked over to kiss the back of Laurent’s neck. “Ooh. That one has a free side of chicken wings.”

  “With the purchase of an extra-large pizza only,” Laurent pointed out. “See if Hux wants to go in on it.”


  While Isaac went across the hall, Laurent sat on the couch and flipped on the television. Cable was included in their rent, because Mrs. Bowen had it, and she liked the package with the “movies from my day,” which happened to include the NHL Network.

  On which there was a story about his father.

  “Nominations for this year’s hockey Hall of Fame have been announced, and it looks as if former goaltender Denis St. Savoy’s name is not on the list. Earlier this year St. Savoy was banned from coaching in the NHL and its affiliate leagues after numerous allegations of blackmail, incentivizing players to cause injury to opponents, intense homophobia, and general misconduct. St. Savoy, a former goaltender for the Nordiques and the Rangers, allegedly paid one of his players to injure goaltender Isaac Drake of the Spartanburg Spitfires during a playoff series. It would appear that St. Savoy’s egregious ethical violations and lack of personal character could not be overlooked, and it doesn’t appear as if he’ll be considered any time in the near future.”

  Laurent could tell that Isaac had come back into the room. He could feel Isaac’s presence behind him like a sentinel.

  Laurent had heard not a word from his father since the day he left, and he never wanted to. Shortly after they returned from Asheville, Laurent hired a lawyer and contacted the authorities about a restraining order. Not that he’d needed either. His father was content to let him go, and that was the single nicest thing the man had ever done for him.

  “He’s not getting into the Hall of Fame,” Laurent said, looking over his shoulder at Isaac. “Because he’s not good enough.”

  “Goddamn right they’re not,” Isaac growled as he walked around to look at the television, arms crossed in front of Laurent, like he was the goal Isaac was protecting.

  “You make a better door than a window, Drake.”