I nodded, swallowing against the sudden bitterness in my mouth. “I’m the one who hated it. It was—the stress. The sneaking around. It… That’s no way to carry on a relationship. If we hadn’t been roommates—both on the roadandat home—I think I would have ended it a long time ago.”
“Because you’d be stuck rooming with him?” Taylor asked. “Or because rooming together was a break from the secrecy?”
I had to think about that for a moment. Now that he mentioned it… fuck. “Both, I guess? Being roommates made it easier to be together without anyone suspecting anything. But it also meant we couldn’t get away from each other. Not easily.” I paused. “When things started getting shaky, I realized I was kind of trapped. Drew didn’t want anyone to know about us, but if I asked for a new roommate on road trips and I moved out of our shared place—people might ask questions. I didn’t know how to explain it.”
“Wow,” Taylor said. “So you couldn’t get out without outing yourselves.”
“Exactly. Any time we’d fight and I’d suggest some space, he’d remind me of that, and… ugh. It was exhausting.”
“How did it end up getting so public?”
Laughing bitterly, I turned my pint glass between my fingers. “Because of the time Drew thought I was going to stay at the hotel bar longer than I did. He said he was tired and calling it a night while I was hanging out with our teammates.” I sighed and brought my beer up to my lips. “I left a little while later and busted him balls-deep in—well, in a staff member who I won’t out.”
Taylor almost choked. “Whoa. He cheated on you? With a staff member?”
“Mmhmm. Some of our teammates heard us fighting about it, and… Well, after that, everyone knew about us. And they heard us very loudly breaking up.”
“Shit,” Taylor breathed.
“Yeah. The next morning, Coach healthy-scratched us both because he knew we weren’t fit to be on the ice. Drew tried to do damage control with the coaches, our teammates, his piece of ass, and me, in that order.” I rolled my eyes. “I went straight to the GM and demanded a trade out of Vegas. He had to scramble a bit, because he already had a bunch of trades in the works leading up to the trade deadline, but he made it happen. Two days before the deadline, I was on my way to Seattle.”
Taylor whistled. “How has nothing come out about the staff member? Or your ex?”
“Our GM made us all sign mountains of NDAs. Not just the three of us, but the whole team and the staff. The staff member was quietly fired with a fat severance package as long as he keeps his mouth shut.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Taylor muttered. “Screwing a player has to be a breach of contract. They shouldn’t have needed to give him severance.”
“No, definitely not. But they really, really wanted to keep this thing quiet. I have no idea why—maybe they just didn’t want thebad press, or… I don’t know. But they were way more concerned with keeping it quiet than anything else.” I laughed bitterly. “I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason they didn’t give me shit about demanding to be traded out. Just had me sign an NDA and got me the hell out of there. Now the only one left is Drew, and he gets enough points every year that he’d have to rob a bank or murder someone to get released from his contract.”
“Jesus Christ.”
I grunted in agreement. Then I sighed and met his gaze. “When I met you at the club, it had only been a few months since that all blew up. I just… I wasn’t as ready as I thought I was.”
Taylor nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Yeah, I can understand that.” He sipped his beer. “How long were you and Drew together?”
“Four years,” I whispered.
“Wow.” He exhaled. “Well, you guys did a pretty good job of hiding it. A lot of the gossip from the NAPH team filtered down to us on the farm team, and I never heard a thing about you two.”
I laughed halfheartedly. “I guess we did a good job, then. Right up until we didn’t.”
“I was already here by then.”
“Word still got around, though,” I grumbled.
“Yeah.” He grimaced. “That really sucks.”
“It does.” I traced my thumb through some condensation on my glass. “And Drew is the only boyfriend I’ve ever had, so… it’s hard to think about doing anything with anyone because it might end up public like that again.”
“Ooh, shit.” Then Taylor cocked his head. “Wait, he really was your first boyfriend? You weren’t out until… I guess your mid-twenties?”
“I was out. My family has known since I was a teenager.” I waved a hand. “It was never an issue with them. But I didn’tdate. Didn’t hook up. Nothing.” I swallowed. “Drew was my first. First… everything.”
“Really?” His eyes lost focus, and I could almost hear him doing the math.
“There was a lot of pressure to play hockey when I was a teenager,” I explained. “My parents emigrated to Canada when I was twelve, and they spent a lot of money they didn’t have to keep me on the ice. Whenever I wasn’t playing, I was either doing schoolwork or helping with my parents’ restaurant.” I half-shrugged. “There wasn’t a lot of time to notice boys. Or do anything about it when I did notice.”
“Oh. Yeah. I, uh… I played with a lot of guys who were so laser-focused on hockey, they didn’t do anything else. Including date.” He laughed softly. “I think hockey forces a lot of us to be late bloomers.”
