Changing on the Fly

by Cherylanne Corneille

  Everett wouldn’t tell him what happened, but Harry did.

  “Oh, it was Thomas, you know how he is. He said something gay—” Harry caught himself with a wince. “Ugh, sorry. I meant he said something stupid. But it was something stupid about being gay,” he offered, as if that were an excuse.

  Nick, who had learned to just stare at his teammates when they did shit like this until they apologized, crossed his arms over his chest. He’d put on more muscle this summer because Everett was as finicky about his workout schedule as he was everything else, and there was no missing the gym or cheating on the pre-camp diet. Sometimes, Nick woke up dreaming of pizza.

  “He said it was nice that Birdie didn’t care about hanging out with a – with you,” Harry said, scowling, and Nick knew with certainty what word Thomas had used.

  Not thoughtlessly, this time, but on purpose. Anger simmered, but Harry put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s gonna happen,” he said. “People are stupid. He’ll get over it.”

  “So I gotta listen to that kind of shit until Cam Thomas learns not to be a fucking asshole?” Nick was angry at the unfairness of it all. “Until, what, he’s the one who’s comfortable? Fuck that, man. Fuck that.”

  “I know,” Harry said. “Look, Milesy. Think of how many of us there are who don’t care, and don’t let yourself get caught up on the one guy who’s probably gonna end up sent to the minors anyhow. He’s not that great on the ice, if you haven’t noticed.”

  Nick appreciated his loyalty, but it was hard to explain how infuriating it was to be told that his comfort in his own locker room came second to a homophobe’s. That he should be grateful for the rest of his teammates not acting like assholes because he was gay.

  But when the coach pulled him aside and asked if he’d changed his mind about coming out officially, Nick just shook his head and said things were fine. Nick never said a goddamn word to Cam Thomas, not even goodbye when the asshole was sent to Lehigh.

  The incident with Thomas, though, proved that the guys had started noticing how much time Everett and Nick spent together. Nick didn’t know what to do, because he didn’t want to drag Everett into anything, but what was he supposed to do: ignore his own boyfriend and pretend he didn’t exist?

  “Have you asked him if maybe he does want to come out?” Jacob asked one night when Nick was outside by the now-covered pool at Everett’s, shivering in his Foxes hoodie and keeping an eye on Everett through the kitchen windows.

  “I know he doesn’t,” Nick said, but maybe that wasn’t true. “He didn’t the last time he was dating someone.”

  “Nicky, you two practically live together,” Jacob pointed out. “You’re in love. You think he’s going to break up with you if you just ask him about it?”

  It was so much easier for Jacob, Nick thought. Jacob and Kristen had been the same – they’d met, they’d dated, fallen in love, moved in together, gotten married, and were now expecting a baby. His brother would never understand that things wouldn’t be that easy for Nick, no matter how much he wished they could be.

  He tried to say that, and Jacob sighed. “I know, Nicky. I mean, I don’t know, but I get what you’re saying. But relationships don’t work if people make decisions for each other and don’t communicate. Trust me, little brother. I don’t care if it’s two guys or two girls or what, that shit is universal. Just talk to him already.”

  Maybe his brother had a point.

  That night in bed, Nick said, “I love you. A lot. I mean, I…really do.” He smiled at Everett and got the same kind of smile in return – sweet, intimate.

  “I love you, too.” Everett said it easily, never in hesitation. “Even if you totally blew your net coverage during that game with Carolina in the third period.”

  Nick hit him in the arm. “Score more goals, then, hotshot.”

  Everett’s sweet smile turned into a leer. “You want me to score, Milesy? That it?” He moved fast with his athlete’s grace, straddling Nick, and grinding his half-hard cock against Nick’s. “Because I definitely can.”

  “Only because I don’t want to stop you,” Nick informed him, pushing up and sliding his hands into Everett’s hair – which was back to being too-short to grab, but he liked the buzz of it under his palms.

  “Is that what you told that guy from Carolina?” Everett asked, biting at Nick’s jaw.

  “He’s not my type,” Nick joked. “Stop chirping, Birdie, and fuck me.”

  Communication was going to have to wait.

  ***

  BY DECEMBER THEY were a totally different team and everyone knew it. The Foxes were coming together on the ice, and Nick’s skill as a defenseman was being noticed along with Everett’s significant offensive contributions. They lost games, of course, but there was no repeat of the horrific nine-game losing streak that had prompted the Foxes’ management to orchestrate a trade at the deadline last year.

  “You don’t think one of us will end up traded again, do you?” Nick asked Everett in a hotel room in Montreal. The room had two beds, but they were in one of them, closest to the window.

  “Nah. We’re both playing well. You’re having a hell of a season.” Everett sounded proud of him.

  “You too.”

  They were quiet for a moment, and just before Nick could come up with some worrying scenario in which he’d be shipped off to San Jose or somewhere equally impossibly far away, Everett said, “Move in with me.”

  Nick stared at him. And stared some more. “Uh. Huh?”

  “Your skill with words is so impressive, Milesy.”

  Hockey chirping was a hard habit to break, even in bed with your boyfriend. “Fuck you. And I – you really want me to move in?”

  “You realize you practically live there already, right?”

  “But…yeah, I do. So why are you asking me?”

  Everett started laughing. Nick loved his laugh, a bright happy sound he’d barely heard last season and now heard all the time. “Jesus Christ, Nick. You and romance are like…like…”

  “Like you and winning faceoffs?”

  “Oh fuck off,” Everett said, but he was grinning. “Seriously, just move your stuff in.”

  “I pretty much already did.” Nick rolled onto his stomach, bracing himself on his elbows. “My apartment is, like, the place we crash after games when winning makes you horny, and you can’t wait long enough to back to your place to fuck.”

  “I do like that,” Everett agreed. “But I can learn to appreciate delayed gratification. I guess.”

  “Or put the seats down in the Escalade,” Nick suggested. He swallowed hard as the implications of Everett’s words sunk in. “You’re asking me to move in and give up my apartment.”

  Everett nodded. “It’s stupid for you to pay rent, you know.”

  “Yes, I know I don’t make as much as you do, highly ranked power forward,” Nick said, only half-joking. “But you know what people will think.”

  “They already think it, Nick.” Everett’s smile faded. “Cam Thomas was the only one dumb enough to say something, but they all know.”

  Nick didn’t know what to do. On one hand, he was thrilled at the relationship milestone and on the other, he was uncertain what it meant that Everett just planned to do it and not say anything. “You going to tell the team you’re gay?”

  “I think they figured it out,” Everett said wryly. “Also, remember that game in Buffalo last week? Or, uh, remember what happened after that game?”

  Nick remembered. They’d won, and soundly, and Everett had been all over him the second the hotel door closed. “Yeah, I remember. I was sore for two days.” Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Nick smiled. “It was awesome.”

  “Our room was next to Brick’s,” Everett said, referring to their teammate. “We weren’t quiet. You do the math.”

  Nick groaned and buried his face in his arms. “Did he say something?”

  “Only that he’s never heard you put that many words together in a sentence,” Ev
erett joked, but there was worry running beneath it. “And that he got why I was so much, uh, nicer. Now that I was getting some.”

  Nick just mumbled into his arms and didn’t lift his head. “Great. Fuck, that’s embarrassing.”

  “That he heard me railing you into next week?”

  “That he heard me getting railed by anyone.” Nick lifted his head and propped himself up again. “Jesus.”

  “I think it was his way of telling me that he didn’t care,” Everett said. “And also that the Hilton has shitty insulation in their walls.”

  “I do want to move in with you,” Nick said, and his heart was racing. “But I don’t want to have to pretend we’re roommates. And I know you don’t want to come out, and I – I guess what you’re saying is we don’t have to since everyone knows? Is that it?”

  Everett nodded, but he didn’t look at Nick. “I don’t want to pretend, either,” he said softly. “But it’s not the same thing as pretending if we just don’t talk about it, is it?”

  Nick’s voice was steady as he answered, surprised by the vehemence of his own reaction to that statement. “Yeah, Ev. Actually, it is.”

  “So what does that mean?” Everett asked, after a moment of tense silence.

  “It means we do what we’re doing, and I’m keeping my apartment. Because I can’t – I’m not saying that you have to come out or we’re breaking up. But it’s a big deal, moving in together. I want it to be…” he searched for the right words. “Honest, I guess. But I’m not unhappy, Ev. I’m not making you do anything, either. This part is your decision, not mine.”

  Everett stared at him a long time without speaking, then turned off the light. Before Nick fell asleep, Everett said, “Coming out to the team would make you say yes?”

  “I said yes already,” Nick reminded him, moving close, putting an arm around Everett, and settling against his back.

  Everett didn’t say anything else – not that night, or the day that followed, or in the weeks after that.

  Chapter Twelve

  WHEN NICK FOUND out about the trade from Buffalo to Philly, he’d had no idea it was coming, having never thought himself important enough to be included in any sort of last-minute player deals.

  And he had no idea what was coming when Everett took him out to dinner – a nice place, a date place, somewhere they hadn’t been since last summer, and said, “I want to come out, Nick.”

  “Thanks for making me move in the middle of a Philly winter, asshole,” said Nick, but he was grinning.

  Everett didn’t smile at his joke, which was probably not a big deal. He was giving Nick the intense look he wore on the ice or on the bench during a game. “You have like four things in your apartment. But I don’t mean coming out to the team – I want to come out to the league.”

  Nick stared at him. “You – what?”

  Everett nodded. “You were right, what you said about being honest. And I want to be honest. But this isn’t just about me. So if you don’t want me to come out to everyone, I’ll just tell the team, and you can move the last three things you probably don’t need into my house, and we can call it good.” Everett pushed his water glass on the table between his hands. No booze for them, mid-season. “I wasn’t ready before, but I am now. If you’re not, though, it’s fine. You gave me the same choice and loved me, anyway.” He groaned. “This sounded so much better when I practiced it in my head.”

  “You don’t have to do this, you know. Not for me,” Nick managed.

  “I know. That’s why I want to.” Everett smiled at him. “You made me realize I could.”

  A swirl of emotions almost undid him right there at the table, a heady mix of love and pride and trepidation, anxiousness and fierceness and everything else. “Won’t I sound like an asshole if I say not to?”

  “You didn’t think that about me, even when it was true.”

  “I kind of thought you were an asshole,” Nick muttered. “Mainly about the garage.”

  “And now we have a house with room for, what, three cars and a pair of jet skis?”

  “Stop distracting me with extreme sports,” Nick retorted, thinking. “If you want to do this, then I support you. Of course. Even if this means about a thousand more of those horrible seminars.” He threw caution to the wind and reached out to touch Everett’s hand, still a little shy about public affection but figuring he’d get over it. “You could think about it, you know. My lease is for a year, anyway.”

  Everett laughed, and so did Nick. They ordered dessert, and then they drove past Nick’s apartment and went home.

  ***

  “WOW,” JACOB SAID, when Nick called to tell him the news. “How the hell is he going to follow this gesture up when he proposes?”

  Nick hung up without answering and called his parents next.

  “Oh, honey, that’s so wonderful,” his mother said. “You tell Everett we’re so proud of him, and he’ll always have a place in our family.” She paused. “Unless he breaks your heart, then that place will be in the garage.”

  “Mom!” Nick had to laugh. “I’ll tell him, though.”

  “He could always sleep in that car of his,” his mother said pertly. “It’s certainly big enough. I’m sure those seats fold down.”

  Nick knew for certain that they did. Everett had yet to learn to appreciate delayed gratification.

  “Hey, Mom?”

  “Yes, darling?”

  Nick stared out the window at the snow falling, his mind made up and a sense of peace settling over him. “I’m not going to let him do it alone.”

  “Of course, you’re not,” his mother said, no surprise whatsoever in her voice. “That’s my Nicky. You’re a defenseman through-and-through, honey.”

  Hockey parents were not like other parents, but he appreciated the sentiment. “Thanks, Mom. For, you know. Your support.”

  There was a slight pause and a sniff. “Oh, Nicky. Honey, I couldn’t be prouder of you. I understand why you waited so long to tell us, but I hope you know that it never was an issue. And Nicky – just think. Your little niece or nephew will grow up in a world where it’s always been okay to be gay or bi or whatever else and play hockey. Just think how wonderful that will be.”

  Nick surreptitiously wiped at his eyes, touched and absolutely unable to respond to that in any meaningful way. “You just want more free hockey tickets,” he said, only half-teasing.

  “I wouldn’t say no,” she said agreeably. “Now put Everett on the phone.”

  Everett took the call, confused at first and then looking a little misty-eyed himself when he handed Nick his phone back.

  “She said the thing about our niece and nephew living in a world that always accepted gay athletes, huh,” Nick said, amused. “I wish I was that good at always knowing what to say.”

  Everett’s smile blinded Nick, like lights shining off the ice. “You are,” he said softly. “Trust me.”

  ***

  IT WAS A sunny winter day when Everett Sparrow stepped up to a microphone, looking sharp in a suit and incredibly determined. And Nick Miles, no longer just a face in the background, stood right by his side.

  Everett reached out and took Nick’s hand, and together, they faced the crowd.

  “Thanks for coming today,” said Everett. “We have something we’d like to tell you.”

  The cameras flashed, the light blinding, and Nick squeezed Everett’s hand.

  ***

  WHAT HAPPENS AFTER this press conference? Well, that’s up to us – the fans, the players, the media, and the league. By recognizing and supporting LGBT athletes, encouraging their participation in our favorite game, and remembering that in the end, Love is Love – that’s how we give Nick and Everett – and the real-life players who will bravely take these same first steps – the happy ending they deserve.

  Also by Avon Gale

  Scoring Chances series (Dreamspinner Press)

  Breakaway (Scoring Chances #1)

  Save of the Game (Scoring Chan
ces #2)

  Power Play (Scoring Chances #3)

  Empty Net (Scoring Chances #4)

  Dreamspinner Press

  Let the Wrong Light In

  Conversation Hearts

  Old Acquaintance

  Whiskey Business (coming Winter 2017)

  Open Ink Press

  All in Fear Anthology (December 2017)

  About Avon

  Avon Gale wrote her first story at the age of seven, about a “Space Hat” hanging on a rack and waiting for that special person to come along and purchase it — even if it was a bit weirder than the other, more normal hats. Like all of Avon’s characters, the space hat did get its happily ever after — though she’s pretty sure it was with a unicorn. She likes to think her vocabulary has improved since then, but the theme of quirky people waiting for their perfect match is still one of her favorites.

  Avon grew up in the southern United States and now lives with her very patient husband in a liberal midwestern college town. When she’s not writing, she’s either doing some kind of craft project that makes a huge mess, reading, watching horror movies, listening to music, or yelling at her favorite hockey team to get it together, already. Avon is always up for a road trip, adores Kentucky bourbon, thinks nothing is as stress relieving as a good rock concert, and will never say no to candy.

  At one point, Avon was the mayor of both Jazzercise and Lollicup on Foursquare. This tells you basically all you need to know about her as a person.