“Yes and no,” she says. I look at her, confused. She smiles at me and continues. “It’s not so much that you’re gay that’s saving your hide right now. It’s that there’s no way to implement this rule fairly as the rule couldonlyapply to gay players.”
“I don’t get it,” I say, still not following.
“It’s simple. This isn’t a mixed sex sport. So there’s no scenario in which two heterosexual players could fall for each other, making it completely discriminatory against its homosexual players by default.” She sits back in her chair and sips her tea, looking pleasedwith herself. Which she should be. What she’s laid out is one hundred percent true and incredibly smart.
I smile. “So the rule is moot.”
“Exactly,” she says. “However, this is still messy.” She looks at me with sympathy again. “You and Gavin can’t play against each other. Maybe a different couple would be able to manage it, but you two can’t. Especially him.”
“So the only way this works is for me and Gavin to end up on the same team.”
“Which”—Coach points his pen at me again—“is why a trade to Buffalo is the best option. But the margins are incredibly slim, and we don’t have that much time to make it work if we can at all. The trade deadline is Wednesday.”
“It’s not impossible, though,” I say as my heart beats excitedly in my chest. I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up, but I can’t give up either. Not now. Not after Michelle has laid out a way to nullify the Marshal Rule. “Trades go through at the last minute every season.”
“They do,” Coach agrees. “But never one of this magnitude with so many moving parts and contingencies. And we’re still ignoring the fact that your father isn’t going to let you go.”
“Is there any way we can force him?”
“Well…” Michelle looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “What if I told you I’m proposing a different rule to the league?”
“What kind of rule?” I look at her skeptically. Not because I don’t trust her, but because I have no idea what she might be cooking in that brilliant brain of hers.
“The Kennedy Rule,” she says. “One that says family members can’t play for each other to prevent preferential treatment.”
I bite my lip as I take this idea in. “So it would be illegal in the league for me to play for the team my father is managing?”
“Correct,” she says. “And therefore it would force his hand. Either he agrees to trade you, or he quits.”
The relief I feel causes me to slump in my chair and let out a breath. “He won’t quit,” I say. “I can guarantee you that.”
“We know,” she says.
“And he will make it his goal,” Coach says, “to make yours and Gavin’s lives miserable.”
“He’s already doing that,” I say, rubbing my face with my hands.
“Don’t worry.” Michelle pats me on the shoulder.
“We’re going to get ahead of this,” Coach promises.
I nod at him, feeling grateful he’s on my team. “You do realize you’re probably going to lose your job for helping me, right?”
He grins at me with a glint of knowing behind his eyes. “I hear St Louis may be looking for a new coach.”
Then, rising from his seat, he asks me to follow him. He walks me to the living room and pulls a box that I recognize off the mantel. I was given one as well, but him presenting Gavin’s to me feels more significant. Without Gavin by my side in Milan at the medal ceremony, I couldn’t enjoy it. It still doesn’t feel right now as I stare at Gavin’s in Coach’s hands. But soon, when I deliver this to Gavin, my alternate captain, my partner, it will feel like the reward it was supposed to be. He hands it to me. There’s a gold medal just like mine inside. “Go give this to Gavin, would you? He’s probably looking for it.”
TWENTY-THREE
Gavin
My teammates, my father, and I are in my living room, picking at the long-gone-cold remnants of the pizzas we ordered hours ago, when there’s another knock on my door. It’s almost four in the morning. I eye Bouchard, who’s still on my couch, but no longer crammed as Tavish moved to the floor in an attempt to spread out and stretch his legs. “Who else did you invite?”
“No one,” Bouchard says with cheeks full of pizza. He finishes chewing, then swallows. “I swear.”
I rise and walk to the door, expecting to find another teammate, or maybe my coach. That would be nice, actually. I could use a sit down with him to make sure I still have a job. Instead, when I open the door, I get something so much better.
Connor.
