Gavin
When I step out of the elevator onto our floor, carrying breakfast in both hands, I see Bouchard coming out of my room. He spots me, and points at his room next door. I follow him into it.
“What the fuck is going on?” I ask when he closes the door.
“You have a visitor,” he says.
For a moment, I get excited, thinking maybe my dad has shown up. But then I see the grave look on Bouchard’s face and I know exactly who’s in there. With Connor. Alone. I want to burst through the wall.
Bouchard takes the trays of food out of my hands and places them on his bed. It’s then that I realize we’re not in here alone. Olsen steps out of their tiny bathroom.
He holds his hands up. “Hey, man,” he says. “I don’t even have an opinion. You two do you.”
I nod at him, then look at Bouchard. My heart is racing. “Does the entire floor know?”
“I don’t know, man. Shit got loud, but I stepped in before it gotthatloud.”
I look to Olsen for confirmation.
He shrugs. “Probably just us.”
“Okay, so it’s not a complete disaster.” I mean, truthfully, now that I’m confronted with it happening, I don’t care if my teammates know I’m gay. What are they gonna do? Kick me off theteam? They don’t have the power to do that. But Connor. I do care about keeping his secret from them. And I definitely care about protecting him from any further backlash from his father.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Bouchard says. He shakes his head. “After that display, there’s no way that man is winning father of the year.”
“No shit.” I laugh bitterly while my blood continues to boil.
“If anything,” Olsen says and sits on his bed, “if the rest of the team heard the way he was talking to Connor, they’d have rushed into your room and beat the shit out of him.”
“Funny,” I say. “Because that’s exactly what I want to do right now.”
Bouchard places his hands on my shoulders and looks me in the eye. “Don’t,” he says. “Connor’s a big boy, and this is not your fight.”
“It kind of is my fight,” I say. I’m the one who kissed him. I’m the one who started this. “I gotta get in there.” I spin away from him and move towards the door.
“Gavin.” Bouchard’s hand is back on my shoulder. “If you go in there, you’re only going to make it worse.”
“At least they finally stopped yelling at each other,” Olsen says.
He’s right. There’s no sound coming from the other side of the wall.
Bouchard’s eyebrow quirks up, and he thrusts his thumb over his shoulder towards the wall between our rooms. “Quietest it’s been in there since we got here.”
I narrow my eyes at him, giving him my best stone-faced glare.
“It’s true,” Olsen says.
“So you knew before this morning?” I ask Olsen.
He shrugs again. “Like I said. It’s none of my business.”
Goalies, man. They truly are the gatekeepers of every team.
I hear my room’s door shut while we’re silent, followed by footsteps pounding down the hall. “I gotta go,” I say to Bouchard and grab the trays of food I brought up. “Thanks for stepping in this morning.”
“Don’t mention it,” Bouchard says. He looks at Olsen. “You hungry?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I could eat.”
