“Okay, can we all just zip it?” I say, exasperated. I run a hand through my hair to try to dispel some of the nervous energy coursing through me. “You-know-who and I have some talking to do, and once we’ve done that, you can have all the opinions about my love life that you want. Until then, the three of you need to stay the hell out of my business.”
“Someone’s just cranky because he wants to tell his boyfriend that he loooooooves him,” Mom coosin an annoying baby voice, pinching my cheek as she teases. Breaker and Lennon have the good sense to hide their snickering behind their palms, and I silently count down the seconds until the puck drops. I’m surrounded by buttinskis that need something else to focus on.
I don’t want to tell them what I’ve only just admitted to myself. That I’m too far gone, and it doesn’t matter how terrified the thought of losing him makes me. I have to tell Alex how I feel about him. I can’t live in a world where Alex and I are just friends, and I can’t keep continuing this game of make-believe where we play house, share a bed and a cat and our bodies without any real commitment.
Tonight, I’m going to tell Alex that, despite all of my promises, I’m in love with him.
Then, I have to hope that he might possibly feel the same way, or accept the fact that Alex Holmes was always destined to be the loss of my life.
“Hey Elliot,I think your boyfriend is broken,” Breaker leans over to mutter in my ear somewhere near the end of the second period.
“Shut the fuck up,” I mutter back, nervously tapping on my thigh as the clock winds down.
This game has been a shit show, to say the least. The Thunder’s offensive line has been holding steady, scoring two goals in two periods. But those goals don’t matter when, on the other side of the ice, Alex has been letting pucks fly past him like he’s nothing more than a wide open door to the back of the net. My man looks more like a gangly kid in hockey cosplay than the fast, sharp as hell goalie that I know him to be. The Bearcats have sunk five in on him, and the Thunder’s defense is starting to crack under the pressure. They’re clearly tired from pulling double duty to make up for Alex’s shortcomings, and it’s painful to watch.
I’ve damn near chewed a hole through my cheek out of anxiety. In all my years of being a hockey fan, I’ve never seen a goalie play so poorly, and I can only imagine what is going through Alex’s mind right now.
“Holmes has barely let five goals past him all season, and now…” Lennon gestures vaguely to the score board hovering above the center of the ice, as if it holds any new information.
“Lennon. Shut. Up.” I hiss through gritted teeth. I’m not aware of any mid-game rituals my superstitious Alex might perform when he’s not playing his best, but I can’t imagine that having his friends shittalk him from the stands is doing any good for his karma.
The tension in the arena is palpable as Thunder fans become increasingly pissed off, and the guys on the ice start to feel the anger of the impending loss. My eyes are glued to the puck as it glides across center ice and gets picked up by the Bearcats’ forward. He smacks the puck to the left winger, who fakes a pass right, pulling the attention of the Thunder defensemen and leaving him wide open. His stick comes up and he takes his shot, but Alex is quicker than him. The puck lands smack in the middle of Alex’s glove where it blocks the upper right corner of the net.
The crowd roars and I jump to my feet, handing out high-fives to my friends and the fans around us. One saved goal might not change the trajectory of the game, but I’m just happy that Alex has finally woken up.
I’m busy chest-bumping the drunk dude with the beer belly hanging over the waistband of his jeans in the seat behind me when the sound of bodies slamming against the glass grabs my attention.
In front of me, a swarm of bodies in opposing colors smash into one another in a blowout fight. Gloves are thrown, helmets discarded, and fists fly all while refs try to wriggle their way into the moshpitto break up the fighting. A quick glance at the jumbotron tells me what I missed while I was celebrating. After Alex saved the shot, the Bearcats left winger slid into the crease, collided his big body into Alex’s and knocked the mask right off my man’s face.
That explains how this turned from an NHL hockey game into a UFC championship match in less than a second. I might not be a hockey player, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that no one fucks with the goalie unless they want the entire team feeding them their teeth.
But when I look for Alex in the mess of bodies, he’s not there, and he’s not in the net either. It seems that while everyone else was distracted by the fights occurring behind the net, Alex and the Bearcats’ goalie—Price, I think—have found themselves in a match up of their own.
I didn’t see who left their net first, but by the time anyone notices, the two goalies have thrown their helmets and are circling each other at center ice. Price takes the first hit, landing a blow directly into Alex’s chest. I suck in a long breath as I watch Alex shove the other goalie back, then reach over to pull the guy’s jersey over his head. His fist connects with Price’s middle as they both fall to the ice, pulled down by the weight of their pads and the imbalance of their skates. A ref finally catches upand breaks them apart, and both goalies are sent back to their respective nets while half the players from each side are sent to the penalty box for fighting.
The jumbotron camera focuses on Alex, who spits on the ice before gliding back to the crease, where he breaks his stick over his knee in frustration.
I cringe, knowing that that moment is going to be clipped out and repeated on every sports show, highlight page, and even a few late night talk shows later tonight.
The second period ends with little fanfare, but both teams manage to keep the other from scoring until the buzzer sounds. I spend the short intermission between periods wondering what the hell crawled under Alex’s skin. I’ve watched him play for years, before we even knew each other, and he’s never been one to fight on the ice. It’s hard to reconcile the Alex I know—the Goalie God who, just last week, cried when he found a spider in his bathroom because even though I let it free outside, he was worried that the spider wouldn’t be able to find his family again—with the guy throwing fists and letting the team mop the floor with him.
By the time the third period rolls around, it seems like everyone is ready for this to be over. Each team takes a few shots on goal in the first three minutes,but it’s almost as if they all decided to let the cards fall where they may and run out the clock.
Even so, I can feel the disappointment, resentment, and self-loathing coming off of Alex in waves. I know that he is kicking himself for letting the Bearcats score on him so many times, and that he’ll be blaming himself for the outcome of this game for the rest of the season.
That’s the thing about playing pro sports. All the shiny moments, the big wins, the epic victories are all shoved aside when the shit hits the fan.
The wins come and go, but the losses stick with you forever.
There’s a scuffle down on the other side of the ice, causing a symphony of blown whistles to temporarily stop the clock again. I lean forward to bang on the glass with my fist.
“Elliot, he’s not gonna hear you above all the noise,” Breaker says, but that just makes me bang harder. The laws of sound and physics can’t stop me or the indescribable connection I have with my man. He’ll hear me because he has to.
“Alex!” I call out through cupped hands before pounding the glass one more time. He turns, and when I catch his eye through the grid of his face mask, the disappointment marring his features hits me soul deep. My poor, sweet angel. Losing is a partof life when your job is playing sports, but Alex’s sadness cuts me like a knife. Logic, rational, and statistics all go out the window. The fact that there are a hundred cameras pointed directly at me doesn’t matter. I don’t give a shit about any of that when my baby is frowning. All I want to do is break through the glass, crawl across the ice and pull him into my arms.
I hold my hands up to the glass, making a heart with my fingers and thumbs. Then, I place both hands on the glass and lean in, pressing my lips to the cold and kissing until the entire spot around my face is covered in fog. When I pull back, my lip print is felt on the glass, and I use my finger to draw an “E”, a heart, and “GOAT”. Getting the letters correct while writing backwards and in the wrong direction isn’t an easy task, but it’s worth doing right when the light returns to Alex’s eyes. He holds a gloved hand up towards me, then taps it twice on his chest.
The world slows to a steady crawl, time moving like a snail in molasses as Alex and I gaze at each other through the glass separating us. I’m distantly aware of the sound of the crowd and the chattering of the fans sitting close enough to have a front row seat to this cloying display of affection, but I don’t care. I don’t step back from the glass, I don’t shy away from my feelings, and I don’t take my eyes offof Alex, even when he’s turned back to protect the net once the puck is dropped again.
