Thankfully, Ice Works had agreed to let Lara and me use their rental skates without paying for them.
Why the varsity ice hockey team needed to take their pictureonthe ice was beyond our pay grade. I assumed it was Becky Jackson’s doing.
‘All right!’ Lara shouted. She let out an ear-piercing whistle. ‘Tallest players in the back. Shorter guys, you’re up front and taking a knee. Coaches, you’re flanking. Right here.’ She pointed straight in front of her.
The team moved quickly, a few of the shorter players arguing that they should be allowed to stand in the back. Lara let them argue for a bit before she started telling people where to go. While she did that, I snapped a quick picture on my phone and opened up the Notes app.
Starting from the left, I wrote Coach Garrity’s name, then moved to the next player.
‘Bahama Mama!’
‘Spell your first and last name,’ I told James. I knew his first and last name, but this was the yearbook, and Becky would murder me if I spelled it wrong. It was easier to double-check my Notes app once the page formatting was finished than to hunt down their pictures one by one.
‘James Borrero.Jlike James,Alike ames,Mlike mes,Elike es,Slike ess.’ He continued to spell his last name the same way before I went to the next-tallest player.
‘Brad Waldorf.Blike Brad,Rlike rad …’
I gave him a death glare, and he let out an adorable laugh I think I had been lucky to hear three times in my life. It was a sweet laugh that gave me a pang in my chest. Probably because I hadn’t heard it often. I imagined Brad probably hid things that could be considered ‘adorable’ because adorable was so very close to gay. Straight men weren’t adorable. Though, yes, you could make a case for himbo golden retriever straight-guy boyfriends being adorable. But Brad was a manly sports guy who had topretendhe wasn’t adorable. He was handsome and rugged.
I remembered being like that. Not that I had ever been handsome and rugged, but Ihadfelt that fear of being too soft because then people would see that I was gay.
James scrunched up his face. ‘You just made that noise again, Waldorf Salad. What is that? Are you sick?’
I knew James didn’t have a mean bone in his body and was just trying to be funny and— Oh my God!Jameswas the adorable himbo golden retriever straight guy! But James was touching on the exact nerve thatmadeBrad hide that sweet side of him. Before James could ask anything else, I spoke over him.
‘Spell it for me for real, please?’
‘B-R-A-D-W-A-L-D-O-R-F.’
‘Thank you, Brad,’ I said.
I moved on to Steven Whalen – oops, I mean Stephen ‘PH’ Whalen – while James continued to tease Brad for laughing. I wanted to punch James and tell him to lay off, but I also didn’t want to bring any extra attention to it. This was how straight dudes were. They always teased each other over dumb stuff. I just hoped Brad could figure out sooner rather than later that he might not have to hide every part of himself. Every time I glanced back at him, he would look away from me and his cheeks would flush. Or maybe that was just the cold of the rink.
Once all their names were noted and Lara got enough pictures, she and I headed back to the edge of the rink to take our skates off. As I started to tie my shoes, I heard someone skate to a stop at the rink door. I looked up, expecting to see James, but found Brad instead.
‘Hey, Tommy. Are you … doing anything tonight?’
My stomach dropped, and I instinctively looked to my right at Lara. She had slipped her shoes on and was scrolling through the images on her camera. But I could see her eyes go slightly wider. Not at the pictures – at what Brad had just said. Because it sounded like he was asking me to hang out. And Lara knew Brad and I didn’t really hang in the same circles. Lara also had never been at one of the parties at which Brad and I hooked up in secret.
Keeping her nose down at the camera, she quickly grabbed her skates and left without saying anything.
I turned back to Brad, my words failing me. ‘I … No.’
He smiled. ‘Cool. I actually was wondering—’
‘I mean, yes! Sorry. Yeah, I forgot I have a school thing tonight.’ It sounded vague, I know, but I’d never told him about the video, and why bother with all that backstory?
His smile dropped. ‘A school thing?’
‘Yeah. I have to do—’
‘Waldorf!’ Coach Garrity’s voice echoed through the rink, and he waved Brad back to practice. ‘Talk about picture touch-ups on your own time.’
Again, my face warmed. How fucking much toxic masculinity did Brad have to deal with on a daily basis?
‘Sorry,’ Brad mumbled. He put his helmet back on and skated away.
Lara was waiting for me by the vending machines in the ice rink lobby, no longer paying attention to her camera. I handed my skates back to the attendant, and we walked quietly to my car.
