“No can do. I’m not getting my ass kicked just to fulfill your Hollywood fantasies.” In my duffel I’d hidden a big bar of dark chocolate with bits of salted caramel in it. Bella could joke as often as she wanted. But my true role as gay BFF was to keep her supplied with fine chocolate.
It worked for both of us.
“I’m only half kidding,” she whispered. “For the past two years I’ve made a close study of who has the nicest ass on the bus. It’s difficult for a girl to keep that kind of thing to herself.”
“Youdon’tkeep it to yourself,” I pointed out. “Not a day goes by when you don’t tell each ass’s owner just what you think of it.”
“Not true,” she countered. “I’m very liberal with my praise. A good manager knows to motivate the troops.”
I snorted. Bella’s School of Management was a peculiar institution. But it wasourpeculiar institution.
“The best ass is on Hartley,” she said in the barest whisper. “And that’s why it’s such a buzz kill that he’s my biggest failure.”
Now she had my attention. “Never tapped that one?” As much as I wanted to avoid the subject of Hartley’s (very fine) ass, the lure of hearing just a little more about the inner workings of Bella’s mind was just too great. “Why not?”
“Timing. Last year when he dumped his old girlfriend, he got together with Corey thenext morning.” She shook her head, looking at once disbelieving and brokenhearted. “And I love Corey to death, so I can’t even wish for them to break up.”
“That’s big of you.” I’d met Corey too, and she was the bomb.
Bella grinned. “Itisbig of me. I’d never sleep with anyone who was attached. Pepé, for instance, has a girl back in Montreal. There are like fifty pictures of her in his room.”
I wondered how she knew that, but I thought I’d just let that question slide.
“So, any given season a lot of the team is out of rotation for me. That’s why Graham and I hooked up so often last year. He’s always single.”
I kept the flinch off my face, but it wasn’t easy. The glimpses I’d gotten of his antics with women always gave me a surprise stab of…I don’t even know what. At Capri’s, girls hung on Graham with as much frequency as they did the other players. A couple of times I’d seen him make hasty, drunken exits in the company of whichever puck bunny had followed us to Capri’s from the rink.
And I already knew that he and Bella were close. They were awfully touchy feely with one another. Then again, Bella touchedeveryoneuntil they asked her to stop. So I hadn’t made any mental pictures of Bella and Graham naked together. For some reason, I didn’t like imagining it.
If I were a better person, I’d be happy for him, I guess. But apparently, I was the sort to hold a grudge.
Not your business, I reminded myself.
It was time to think about something else. Like the saucer shot I’d sunk into the corner of the net last week, scoring Harkness’s first goal of the year in our preseason scrimmage against Brown. That would have to be my happy thought. It’s not like I would be getting naked with anyone anytime soon. Hockey took up half my time, and that was only going to get worse. School took up the other half.
Besides myself, I couldn’t evennamea gay man at Harkness.
I had no real social life. When the team went to Capri’s for pizza and beer, I usually made an appearance. I’d have a slice or two and a pint, and talk hockey with the guys who made me feel welcome. I usually left early, quitting while I was ahead. It wasn’t exactly healthy, the way I still felt like I was apologizing for myself half the time. But there was no road map for being me. I was operating under the vague assumption that if I played really great hockey this season, things would just get easier. My teammates might accept me as a true friend, rather than That Gay Guy who can make tape-to-tape passes.
Because everybody loves a winner, right?
Beside me, Bella made more notes on her legal pad. From the folder in her lap, she extracted a glossy hockey program. “Have you seen this yet?” she asked. “They just came back from the printer.”
“Nice,” I said, because I knew she’d worked hard on it.
She flipped it open to the roster, where our smiling faces looked out at the camera, our uniforms still crisp and unbloodied. “You do take a nice picture, Rikker,” she sighed.
I laughed. “And here I was just thinking how Photoshopped those are. We all look like we’ve just come from having our teeth whitened.”
She pulled the page closer to her face. “What do you think of Orson’s sideburns? It’s a risky look, but I think he pulls it off.”
“No comment.”
“God, Rik!” she heaved a sigh. “That was a perfectly harmless question. I didn’t ask if you wanted todohim.”
“Bella,” I warned, dropping my voice, “I’m really not joking about this. Even if I felt like admitting to you that facial hair doesn’t really do it for me, it’s not a conversation I can have. That’s exactly what the homophobes are worried about, you know? That I’m staring at them. And taking notes.”
“Maybe they need to lighten up,” she whispered.
