Game Changer

by Rachel Reid

  “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” he teased. “Big game tomorrow.”

  “I will be soon. I just...wanted to hear your voice.” Scott cringed at how hokey that was. He wasn’t good at this.

  “I miss you.”

  Scott smiled at his phone. “I miss you too. Did you find a tailor? I would offer to pay for it, but I have a feeling you’ll turn me down.”

  “You’re right. I would,” Kip said. “I was going to ask Elena if she knew a good one, but then I thought...”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. I don’t want to... I mean, she kinda...”

  “She knows?”

  “No! No. She doesn’t. I mean, I didn’t tell her about us. I just... She’s gonna figure it out, y’know? She’s smart. And...she knows I like you. But, yeah. If she learns I somehow scored a free Hugo Boss tuxedo, she’s gonna have questions.”

  Scott frowned. “Right.”

  “Maybe...maybe I should rent a tux. Just to be...safe.”

  “No, that’s... No. You should...” Scott sighed, and hoped he wouldn’t regret this. “You should tell her. If you want. You said she’s your best friend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell her. I don’t want us to come between you and your best friend.”

  “Thanks.” Kip sounded relieved. “I really want to tell her. And she can keep a secret better than anyone. She’s the best. You’d like her.”

  “I’d love to meet her.”

  “Save her a dance at the gala.”

  “Deal. I’m a terrible dancer, though.”

  “She’s an amazing dancer. She’ll make you look good. Promise.”

  “Okay,” Scott said absently. Kip sounded like a weight had been lifted, but Scott felt like it had been placed directly onto him. He chewed his thumb.

  “So, Valentine’s Day, huh?” Kip said cheerfully, changing the subject.

  “Hm?”

  “You wanna cook for me?”

  “Right...yeah.” Scott shook his head. Get your head in the game, Hunter. “Yes,” he said, more convincingly, “I do.”

  “Didn’t know you cooked.”

  “I can cook,” Scott said. “I was a latchkey kid. I made a lot of the meals for Mom and me when she was working late at the grocery store. And later...when she got sick.”

  “Sorry,” Kip said. He seemed genuinely embarrassed. “I should have figured.”

  “No! I wasn’t saying that to make you feel bad. I just...like telling you things about me.”

  “I want to know everything about you,” Kip said quietly.

  Scott thought his heart might burst. He was so touched by Kip’s words that he didn’t notice that he hadn’t replied, until Kip said, “Oh god. That was a bit intense. Sorry.”

  “Not at all,” Scott said. “You can ask me anything.”

  “Anything, huh? How about...what are you gonna cook for me?” Kip’s tone was relaxed and playful again.

  “Not telling. It’s a surprise.” Scott grinned. “Oh, shit. Unless... Do you have any allergies?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay. Then it’s a surprise.”

  Scott picked up a pen that was sitting on the desk in front of him and started absentmindedly doodling on a hotel notepad. “How was your day?”

  “Fine. Not too exciting. Except, y’know, you.”

  “Tell me everything that happened. I just want to hear your voice.”

  Kip talked about the podcast he’d listened to on the way home from Scott’s that morning, and about the woman he saw with an iguana in a baby carrier, while Scott listened and drew little swirls on the notepad.

  “So, yeah,” Kip said, when Scott’s swirls had reached the edge of the page. “That’s about it. Not a very exciting day.”

  Kip yawned, which made Scott aware of the time. “Oh god, I’m keeping you up. You have to work early tomorrow, right?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I should go to bed.”

  “Okay. Me too.”

  “But Scott? I’m glad you called.”

  Scott smiled into the phone. “I’m glad I did too.”

  “I’ll watch the game tomorrow night.”

  “I’ll score a goal for you.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “I will! First goal is yours. Remember that.”

  “All right. It’ll be our secret.”

  “Yeah,” Scott said quietly.

  After they said goodbye, and after Scott pocketed the notepad he’d been doodling in, he exited the business room and walked back through the lobby. He was met by Frank Zullo. He had a young woman on his arm, and they both seemed pretty drunk.

  “Evening, Hunter,” Zullo said, with more than a little sneer in his tone.

  “Zullo.” Scott nodded. “Just getting in?”

  “Sure. Just, ah, heading to bed, y’know?”

  “Pretty sure you already have a roommate,” Scott said, glancing at the young woman.

  “Hey! Shit! You’re that big superstar guy!” she slurred.

  “Come on, darlin’,” Zullo said, giving Scott a hard look as he guided the woman past him.

  “Video meeting tomorrow morning at nine sharp,” Scott called after him.

  Zullo ignored him and got into an elevator.

  Scott sighed. This was going to be a pain in the ass for Zullo’s roommate. The team had a policy of placing older players with younger ones in hotel rooms on the road. Scott, as captain, usually roomed with rookies and new additions to the team. It was a system that typically worked well, and kept a lot of the younger players out of trouble. But sometimes the older players were the problems.

  Scott took the next elevator up to the team’s floor. He didn’t know what room Zullo was in, so he walked the hall a bit until he heard a door open. Sure enough, Zullo’s young roommate, a French-Canadian kid named Brisebois, wandered into the hall. He looked like he had been asleep.

  If Scott knocked on the door and tried to talk to Zullo, it would just turn into a fight that would wake everyone on the floor up. He’d talk to him tomorrow.

  “Hey, Breezy,” he said to the sleepy young defenseman. “Come on down to my room. I’ll get a cot sent up.”

  * * *

  Kip sat across from Elena at a table in a little Mexican restaurant in midtown.

  “So...does it look okay?” he asked.

  “It’s fine. I made some notes. I emailed them to you before I left to meet you.”

  Kip pulled out his phone.

  “You can read them later, dummy,” she said. “The cover letter was very good. Your résumé is fine. It’s just a few notes.”

  “Okay.”

  “So what’s this news you have for me?”

  Kip grinned, and then ducked his head to hide it.

  “Oh my god. You’re in love,” she said.

  “No!” Kip said quickly. “I’m not in love. I just... I’ve been seeing someone.”

  “Oh? Seeing? Not just sleeping with?”

  “Well...mostly sleeping with. But it’s becoming more than that. I think. I hope.”

  “All right.”

  “It’s, uh, you know... Scott.”

  “Scott. As in—”

  Kip’s eyes darted around them and he leaned in. “Yeah. Exactly who you’re thinking. And I know it’s pretty unbelievable, but...yeah. We’ve been hooking up. And he wants me to...”

  He trailed off. He suddenly felt embarrassed. Somehow, when Scott wasn’t actually there, the whole thing seemed like a fever dream.

  “He wants you to...go steady?” Elena guessed.

  Kip rolled his eyes. “Sure. Or, like, date. Like...be boyfriends. Or whatever.”

  “Secret boyfriends?”

  “For now,” Kip said, with as much dignity as he could muster.

  Elena
smiled. “Well!”

  Kip smiled too. “Yeah.”

  “Jesus, this is cute. I’ve never seen you like this, Kip.”

  “Like what? I’m not like anything!”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m just...happy, is all. He’s really—”

  “You know what?” Elena said. “This just turned into a beer lunch. Tell me everything.”

  * * *

  “That was interference!” Eric Bennett yelled. “He was on top of me! Come on, ref!”

  “I saw it,” the ref said. “It wasn’t. Calm the fuck down.”

  Scott put a hand on Bennett’s chest to stop him from crowding the ref.

  “You can’t be serious!” Bennett hollered over Scott’s shoulder.

  “I am serious, and I will give you a misconduct penalty if you don’t back off, Bennett.”

  “Let’s just move on, Bennett,” Scott said. “Come on, we don’t need a penalty right now.”

  Bennett glared at Scott through his mask.

  “Please,” Scott said. “We’ll get them back by coming back and winning this game, all right?”

  Bennett huffed, but skated back to his crease. Scott watched him tap the goal posts—right, left, and then right again—with his stick. A superstition that helped him gather himself and focus.

  Scott turned to the ref. “For the record, that was interference.”

  “Don’t you start on me, Hunter.”

  Scott skated back to the bench with the rest of his line to let Coach Murdock know what was going on. “Bennett’s mad,” he said.

  “I can see that Bennett is mad. I’m watching the game.”

  Harv Murdock had once been a great NHL center himself. An outstanding goal scorer, and a pioneer for Black players at a time when there had been none in the NHL, Murdock’s career had been cut short by a knee injury. He had returned to the game years later as an assistant coach, and had been the head coach of the Admirals for ten years.

  “You know who else is mad?” Murdock continued. “Me. I’m mad because our defense decided to take the night off.” His voice grew louder with each sentence. “I’m mad because we’ve given up three passes this period. I’m mad because we’re down by two goals, and one of those goals was scored shorthanded. So fuck Bennett being upset about a guy running into him. Let’s start playing hockey here, gentlemen.”

  “Good idea, coach!” Carter said cheerfully. He and Scott skated over to the face-off circle together.

  “He’s not lying about our defense,” Scott said. “Something is off with this team tonight. It’s like we’ve never played together before.”

  “Yeah, well. I don’t think it’s a secret what’s off,” Carter said.

  Scott grimaced. Things had gotten a little out of control at the team video meeting that morning. Scott had attempted to take Zullo aside and suggest that maybe he stop kicking his roommates out late at night, especially before game days. The discussion had escalated to the point that Zullo had informed Scott that his roommate, Brisebois, was “a fucking queer anyway,” and that he “could have stayed and learned something.” That had made Scott mad enough to shove Zullo, and well...

  “Frank’s not exactly a team player tonight,” Carter said.

  “When is he ever?”

  “Only down by two, Scott,” Carter said. “No problem at all. Let’s turn this shit around.”

  “Yeah...”

  * * *

  Kip watched the game with his parents.

  “Not looking too good tonight,” Dad observed.

  “No,” Kip agreed. It was a definite understatement. By the third period, Philadelphia had buried the Admirals 6–2.

  But Scott had scored one of those goals, and Kip had smiled at the idea that the goal was for him.

  “Well,” his mother said, “there’s always the next game.”

  “Yeah,” Kip said. The broadcast was showing a lot of close-ups of Scott’s face. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were fierce. When a Philadelphia player skated by him and said something, Scott shot him a look that would turn most men to stone.

  “Must be smoothie withdrawal, right?” his father joked.

  “Must be.”

  The game ended, and Kip watched Scott and his team exit the arena and head back to their dressing room. Scott hit the blade of his stick hard against the wall, just before he disappeared from view of the camera. Kip winced. He’d never seen him look so angry.

  “Can’t win ’em all,” his mother said, turning off the television.

  “Guess not.” Kip stood and stretched. It had been a long day. “I should go to bed. Work tomorrow.”

  “Goodnight, sweetie,” his mom said, and kissed him on the cheek.

  Kip knew he wouldn’t hear from Scott tonight. He considered sending him a text, maybe try to cheer him up. All he could think of were unhelpful platitudes, though. And besides, it wasn’t like he really understood how Scott felt right now. Hockey was Scott’s whole life. It was his job to win games, and Kip may not know Scott very well yet, but he knew Scott probably took every team failure personally.

  Exhausted but unable to sleep, he lay in bed and stared into the blackness of the room, listening to the bitter February wind blowing outside. He picked up his phone for a moment, staring at it in the dark before setting it back on his nightstand. Eventually his mind quieted down and he was able to drift off.

  When the alarm on his phone woke him at five the next morning, he saw a message from Scott, sent at 1:30 a.m.:

  I’d give anything to see you right now.

  * * *

  Kip had a lot of things on his mind at work on Wednesday.

  There was the job at the museum that he’d finally applied for. There was the fact that he was going to be getting his tuxedo tailored after work—the tuxedo Scott had given him. The one Kip would be wearing to the Equinox Gala at the end of the month. Surreal.

  And then there was Scott’s message from last night. And the Valentine’s Day plans for Friday.

  Oh. And the fact that Kip was secretly dating Scott Hunter.

  Kip had never smiled so hard in his life as he had when he had seen Scott’s message that morning. It had completely unmoored him, and he’d been floating away, up into the atmosphere, ever since.

  In response to Scott’s message, even though it had been sent hours before, Kip had snapped a quick selfie. He hadn’t even fixed himself up; he had still been in bed, hair disheveled and face sleepy. He’d wanted Scott to know he had woken up to the message, and how happy he had been to see it.

  (He had to admit, the photo was kind of sexy too.)

  Scott had replied just after eight, which Kip saw when he was in the back room at work.

  Scott: Wow.

  And then, Thank you. I can’t believe I didn’t have a picture of you before.

  Kip had written back, I can do better.

  Scott: No. It’s perfect.

  Then, But feel free to try. :)

  Kip had laughed and written, I don’t have a picture of you, you know...

  No response had come for a minute, and then he’d received a photo from Scott. It was an image of a Gatorade ad Scott had done.

  Kip: Fuck you.

  Scott had ended the conversation with a winky face emoji and Kip had reluctantly gotten ready for work.

  Kip was a complete space cadet during his shift, and of course, Maria noticed.

  “What’s fucking you up today?” she asked at the end of the morning rush. “I mean, besides Scott Hunter, who you are obviously in love with.”

  “No I’m not!” Not exactly a lie. Maybe.

  “Sure,” Maria said.

  “It’s just...” Kip decided to offer another secret to distract from the bigger secret. “I applied for another job. At the Museum of the City of New York.”
r />   “Whoa!”

  “Yeah, well. There is no way I’m gonna get it. But... I don’t know.”

  She punched his arm. “Kip! Look at you, improving yourself!”

  “I mean it would be really great. If it happens.”

  “This is exciting!”

  “Maybe, yeah. Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

  “Not a word,” she promised. “Are you sure you want to leave this glamorous job behind?”

  “As long as I can keep the apron.”

  At quitting time, Maria walked with Kip to the subway station. She was heading back to the East Village apartment she shared with three roommates. Kip mentioned that he was meeting Elena, and that she was going to help him with his tux for the Equinox Gala. He omitted a lot of details.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to the Equinox Gala,” she said. “That is fucking nuts. What if Beyoncé is there?”

  “Then she will have the honor of dancing with me.”

  * * *

  It was always a big deal when New York played Boston.

  Boston had their own star center, a hotshot Russian named Ilya Rozanov. He was cocky, brash, flashy...everything Scott wasn’t. And the fans loved him.

  He was also an incredibly skilled player, with an uncanny ability to always be in the right place at the right time.

  Scott knew better than to let him get under his skin. Rozanov antagonized everyone in the league. He had gotten good at ignoring the yappy Russian, but sometimes Scott just wanted to hit him into next week.

  Coming off the embarrassing loss in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Scott was fired up. Coach Murdock had run them through a brutal practice yesterday after they’d arrived in Boston. Their defense had been especially punished, which Zullo had taken as well as expected.

  Zullo was a problem. Scott had played with guys who were assholes but still got the job done on the ice. Zullo was getting the job done less and less. Scott didn’t know how much longer he could put up with him. He was becoming a serious distraction, and not what they needed as the playoffs got closer.

  Murdock knew how Scott felt about Zullo. The general manager knew how Scott felt. Scott tried not to let his teammates know because it was his job to keep the team together as a unit.

  Scott was on a stationary bike at the arena two hours before game time, watching Rozanov playfully trash talk Scott and the Admirals on ESPN. Scott shook his head and fought a smile as he watched the television. He had to hand it to the kid—he put on a good show.