Risking the Shot (Stick Side Book 4)

by Amy Aislin

  That same day, a local LGBTQ sports blog released Tay’s coming out article that he’d interviewed for last month.

  Afterward, Tay had turned off the notifications on his phone for three days, letting his agent forward him the important stuff, like supportive messages from his teammates and sponsors. Dakota had kept an eye on everything else. The homophobic or negative comments on Tay’s Instagram he flagged for Mason to delete. Dakota had asked Tay for access to his social media to take care of it himself, but Tay kept reminding him that was what his agent was for.

  Three days later, he’d turned his phone back on to dozens of messages. Mason, who’d been visiting at the time for this very reason, had nabbed Tay’s phone and continued to deal with the fallout himself.

  Which hadn’t been as bad as Mason had expected. What was one more gay hockey player? They were coming out left and right since Ashton Yager had done so. Further, what was one more gay hockey player on the Toronto team? They already had one that was out publicly, and, according to Tay, three who were out to their team and management—Dean, Grey, and Desie, the latter of whom was undergoing physical therapy for his knee.

  In the end, Dakota sat back and let Tay deal with things the way he wanted to even though he was dying to tell the media to stick a fork in it. Tay’s way of handling things was to let Mason take care of everything.

  Dakota had kissed him stupid after that, absurdly proud that Tay wasn’t taking something else on. He might have cancelled his class registrations for the summer term—well, indefinitely until he figured out if paramedicine was right for him. Didn’t mean he wasn’t as busy as ever. He spent hours working out each day, keeping in shape for the upcoming season, was furiously working on updating the first book of his comic so his art style matched book three, he’d signed up for an online art course, and he was volunteering with the Foundation on some of their summer camp programs.

  “Stanton says he’s coming by soon,” Mason said, Tay’s phone in hand.

  They sat in the family room after dinner, Dakota nursing a tumbler of the Dalwhinnie Tay had gifted him on their first date, Mason in work mode, going back and forth between his phone and the laptop on the coffee table, occasionally jotting notes into a notebook. Tay and Andy lay on their stomachs near the fireplace. They’d completed the castle puzzle a couple months back and had moved on to the Enterprise.

  Furrow between his eyebrows as he tried to fit a piece into place, Tay said, “’Kay.”

  “He’s bringing mail from your organization’s office. Fan mail, I’m assuming. I’ll go through it first. He’s also bringing products from what he says are, and I quote, ‘companies who want you to pimp their stuff so they can generate some LGBTQ-friendly cred.’”

  “What’s LGBTQ?” Andy asked, legs kicking behind him.

  “Um.” Tay’s panicked gaze met Dakota’s. Dakota shrugged, making Tay stick his tongue out at him. “It’s what me and your dad are.”

  Dakota snorted a laugh. It was better than nothing.

  Legs pausing, Andy’s little face creased. “I thought you were boyfriends. You live in the same bedroom now.”

  “We’re that too,” Tay confirmed.

  They were, more or less, sharing the same bedroom. Tay hadn’t moved in exactly. In fact, he’d moved out of Alex Dean and Mitch Greyson’s and back into his own place right after his team had lost the first round of the playoffs in game seven, but he spent most nights with Dakota and Andy, which Andy loved almost as much as Dakota did. Dakota thought it’d be weird having another person in their space. But Tay just fit. Had since their first dinner together when Dakota had still been questioning if he was doing the right thing getting involved with Tay.

  He wasn’t questioning anymore.

  “I got an email from AITech earlier today,” Mason said. “They’ve sent through the app for you to test.”

  Tay grinned. “Sweet.”

  Last month, after Mason had given Tay’s sponsors a heads-up about his upcoming coming out article, the two co-founders of AITech had reached out to Tay directly to show their support—which had turned into a two-hour-long video call Dakota had shamelessly eavesdropped on. By the end of the call, the three of them had known each other’s deepest secrets and were newfound best friends. The following day, AITech rescinded the offer for Tay to be the face of their money management app, wanting him instead for a drawing app for tablets they’d had in development for months. First, though, they wanted Tay to test it to ensure it had all of the functionality an artist needed.

  “Out in the Field wants to know if you and Stanton want to collaborate on an article about your coming out experiences.” Mason scribbled something in his notebook. “I’m forwarding this email to his agent, but you might want to talk to him about it when he gets here.”

  Tay bit his lip, gaze flying to Dakota’s. “What do you think?”

  Dakota winked at him. “Might be good for kids to read about what it’s been like for you guys.”

  Out in the Field was the LGBTQ sports blog that had done Tay’s coming out article. Based in Toronto, they were a small shop owned by a married couple consisting of a former women’s soccer star and the former CFO of a national bank. They worked out of their own home, but in order for the interview to feel more authentic, Tay had invited Roseanna Johnson—the former soccer player who was also their writer—into his apartment. Dakota had sat next to Tay on his couch and held his hand because—well.

  Where else would he be but at the side of the man he was going to spend the rest of his life with?

  After dinner and Mason’s subsequent departure back to his hotel, Dakota sat outside with Tay, Andy, and Stanton—the latter of whom Dakota and Andy had gotten to know much better in the last few months. The summer sun was still high in the sky, and the breeze was warm on Dakota’s skin. He sat on the deck stairs next to Tay.

  Andy leaned against Tay’s knees, gazing down at the phone in Tay’s hands. “What are you doing, Tay?”

  “I’m getting my post ready,” Tay said. Mason had given the phone back to him only after extracting a promise that Tay would leave his social media notifications off until the scrutiny died down and that he wouldn’t answer calls from unknown or private numbers.

  Stanton loomed behind Andy, nursing a beer, squinting against the sun behind his thick glasses. “You sure about this? Sharing your comic with the world? I mean, you only told me about it, like, two months ago.”

  “Even if I wasn’t sure, it’s too late now,” Tay told his best friend. “I already posted on my personal page that it was coming.”

  Something new is coming! Tay’s Instagram post had declared this morning. Launching tonight at 7pm EST is my comic about three water witch brothers as they attempt to protect their small town from an ancient magical threat . . . and fall in love with the men of their dreams in the process. Check it out @TayDraws3.

  His followers on that page had shot up from a couple dozen to several thousand in only a few hours.

  “Well, sure,” Stanton muttered. “Doesn’t mean you can’t delete that post and pretend it never happened if you change your mind.”

  “I’m not changing my mind.”

  Where Tay had been nervous about sharing his comic several months ago, now his shoulders were drawn back in confidence and he bit his lip in anticipation. Blowing out a breath, Tay sat back and turned to Dakota, a grin taking over his expression and stealing Dakota’s breath.

  A ball formed in Dakota’s throat at how damn proud he was of him. Arm coming around Tay’s shoulders, he kissed his temple. “Ready?”

  “So ready.”

  Tay hit Post and sent his comic out into the world for everyone to see.

  AND TAY MAKES TEN

  By Roseanne Johnson

  It might seem like LGBTQ hockey players are the new normal, but it’s still a big deal when one publicly comes out. Such is the case with Toronto forward Taylor Cunningham, who, earlier today, was the 10th NHL player to come out of the closet, announcing
his bisexuality via an Instagram post advertising his boyfriend’s bakery.

  I sit with Tay in his living room, and right off the bat, I’m comfortable in his presence. Tay is charming and easy-going, and while his boyfriend, Dakota, who sits in on the interview, is a bit more somber and less easy to smile than Tay, Tay assures us it’s out of concern for him and that Dakota is usually much less reserved.

  “He’s just worried about me,” Tay says with a soft smile at Dakota that makes me envy their connection, even though mine with my wife is just as strong. There’s something about how Tay and Dakota fit that screams #couplegoals.

  When I ask if he came out for his boyfriend, Tay chuckles. “Not one bit. It’s something I’ve been thinking of doing for the past few months, since before Dakota and I met, even.”

  He wanted to be true to himself, he says. Dating women is easy. No one blinks if you’re heterosexual. But also being attracted to men meant he was purposefully burying a part of himself.

  “I wanted to be able to take a walk to High Park with Dakota and hold his hand. Or give him a kiss while waiting in line to buy movie tickets. Or feed him a bite off my plate at a restaurant. All things coupled men and women do. I wanted that for myself.” He wedges his shoulder against Dakota’s and brings Dakota’s hand up to kiss his knuckles. “I wanted that for us. It’s impossible for me to hide how I feel about him, and I don’t want to try.”

  So impossible that I can see it right in front of me. Dakota positively melts at Tay’s words, slinging an arm around Tay’s shoulders and whispering something in his ear that I don’t catch. If I were a lip reader, I’d say it looked like “I love you.” Dakota might not talk much during our interview but his facial expressions and body language say a lot.

  “Why now, though?” I ask. “Why not back when you were first thinking about it?”

  “I started seriously thinking about it last fall, but then my Gran . . . well, there was a bit of a family emergency and I didn’t think of it again until the new year. And then I met this guy and then it was the playoffs. It’s been a busy few months. Coming out in the off-season made more sense strategically anyway.”

  Speaking of the playoffs, Tay laughs self-deprecatingly when I ask him about game seven of the first round. “Oof,” he says with a quiet laugh, rubbing his jaw. “We lost that pretty epically, didn’t we?”

  Popular consensus is that their backup goalie, Dahlberg, choked when it counted. Tay is quick to set the record straight. “It’s called a hockey team for a reason. We’re all at fault. We fought hard but we weren’t cohesive. We didn’t come together in that last game the way we usually do.” He shrugs with a smile that I remember seeing on the most competitive players on my team. The one that says, “Look out. I’m coming for you.”

  “We’ll be back next season,” he says. “Just wait.”

  “Can we expect to see Dakota in your comp seats?”

  Tay and Dakota share a loaded glance I can’t read.

  “Not all of them,” Dakota says, speaking up for the first time. “I’ve got a four-year-old son, and I can’t leave him with a sitter for every game. Tay knows that. Besides, he donates a lot of his comp tickets to the Foundation.”

  The Foundation is the charitable arm of Toronto’s NHL organization.

  “You’ve got a son?” I jump on this because, for reasons I can’t fathom, I can’t picture twenty-three-year-old Tay as a father figure. “Do he and Tay get along?”

  Dakota grunts. “Like peas in a freaking pod.”

  This makes Tay laugh, and he falls onto his boyfriend. A murmured conversation ensues between them that I can’t make out but that has Dakota throwing his head back in laughter. Tay grins at him like he can’t believe how lucky he is.

  Since Dakota’s now talking, I try to redirect the interview to find out a little bit more about him, but my “What do you do, Dakota?” has Tay jumping in. Now he’s using hand gestures as he sits on the edge of the couch.

  “He works for the Foundation,” Tay says. “As a fundraiser. In fact, I’m helping them out with a direct mail appeal that’s dropping in early September.”

  Dropping, he tells me, is a new word he’s recently learned. In the fundraising world, it’s the day a fundraising letter gets dropped off at the post office for mailing.

  “And,” he continues, sitting so close to the edge I’m sure he’s about to fall off the couch. “He’s the co-owner of Once Upon a Time Cakes. Dakota’s a cake decorator and his cousin’s the baker. They’re opening a store in The Junction in September. They’re remodeling it now.” His proud-meter is at about a thousand on a scale of one to ten.

  I ask, “How do you put in a full day at the Foundation and then work on your store?”

  “My cousin and I work on the store evenings and weekends right now,” Dakota says, placing a hand absentmindedly on Tay’s thigh. “I bring my son and give him odd jobs to do. He loves it. The store itself didn’t need that much work, but we’re still taking our time with it. Once it opens, I’ll be cutting my days down at the Foundation to three a week. If the bakery takes off then . . .” He shrugs. “We’ll see.”

  We spend the next twenty minutes looking at pictures on Tay’s phone of cakes and cookies and cupcakes that Dakota has decorated since he launched his business with his cousin as high school kids in Halifax. Tay’s proud-meter shoots up to five thousand. Dakota smiles at him indulgently, letting him have the spotlight.

  Finally, our hour comes to a close, and I ask the question I’d ask of any athlete who’s just come out. “Do you have any advice for LGBTQ kids out there who want to play sports?”

  Tay thinks about that one for a minute, running a hand through his hair. “I guess I would say that . . .” He pauses, thinking it through some more. “Playing sports comes with all sorts of expectations. From your teammates, your coaches, your family, the fans. You’re gonna have expectations coming out of your ass, and you’re going to try to meet them all to keep everyone happy. You can’t. It’s impossible. Just make sure that you’re meeting your own. Have enough self-respect to know that it’s okay to say no. As long as you’re meeting your own expectations—or are working toward that—you can’t lose. Don’t let anybody make you feel like you’re not good enough.

  “Because you already are.”

  Lacroix attends Dakota’s birthday dinner! Read the bonus scene by signing up for my newsletter. Already signed up? Get the bonus scene by filling in this form.

  Did you enjoy Risking the Shot? Check out the rest of the Stick Side series:

  Get Mitch Greyson and Alex Dean’s story in On the Ice (Stick Side #1).

  Get Ashton Yager and Dan Greyson’s story in The Nature of the Game (Stick Side #2).

  And get Shots on Goal (Stick Side #3), featuring Mitch’s best friend, Cody.

  Author’s Note II

  My research into paramedicine took me in several different directions, but the one conclusion I came to was that no two college or university programs are the same—even within the same province. For those of you wondering, Tay’s program of study is based off an actual program offered by the University of Toronto in conjunction with Centennial College, and his coursework follows U of T’s program requirements as closely as I could make it. Any errors or inconsistencies are entirely my own.

  A huge thank you to my dad, and my brother-in-law, for always being willing to answer my hockey-related questions!

  Huge thank you also to Happy Joy, a paramedic with years of experience who helped answer my paramedicine-related questions so that I could get Tay’s course material right.

  As always, to my beta readers, Jill and Jules; my editor, Brenda Chin; my copyeditor, Posy; and my proofreader, Kiki—this book would not be what it is without your support and feedback. Special thank you to Jill for the readthrough of my very crappy first few draft chapters! Natasha, thank you for bringing Tay to life with this cover, and Stacey, thank you for making the interior shine.

  Amy’s lived with her head in th
e clouds since she first picked up a book as a child, and being fluent in two languages means she’s read a lot of books! She first picked up a pen on a rainy day in fourth grade when her class had to stay inside for recess. Tales of treasure hunts with her classmates eventually morphed into love stories between men, and she’s been writing ever since. She writes evenings and weekends—or whenever she isn’t at her full-time day job saving the planet at Canada’s largest environmental non-profit.

  An unapologetic introvert, Amy reads too much and socializes too little, with no regrets. She loves connecting with readers. Join her Facebook Group, Amy Aislin’s Readers, to stay up-to-date on upcoming releases and for access to early teasers, find her on Instagram and Twitter, or sign up for her infrequent newsletter.

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  STICK SIDE SERIES

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  Risking the Shot

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