Chapter 1
Logan
“Did you fucking see this?”Our tallest defenseman, Morty, waved his phone at Yagger, our third-line center.Post-practice body odor wafted out from Morty’s sweaty pits as he gestured.“Remember that ex-pro football coach who came out as all queer and shit at the awards dinner last year?Well, he’s engaged to a woman.Way to shut down that bullshit, right?”
Engaged.The word echoed in my head, loud enough to drown out Yagger’s reply and the sounds of my teammates pulling off their gear before heading to the showers.
Miles was engaged.
If Morty wasn’t lying, or mistaken, or maybe there was some other football coach who came out as queer at a dinner.Miles had come out as gay, not bi, so why would he be with a woman?He’d once told me he was occasionally attracted to women, but not enough to date them for real.
Well, we’d said a lot of things to each other that turned out not to be true.
I tried to act casual as I unearthed my phone from under my hat and gloves on the locker shelf and powered the screen on.I almost headed automatically to my messages, to a long-silent thread.Once— a year ago— I’d have texted Miles, asking WTF?Before he blocked me.Before…
Maybe the story isn’t about Miles.
A quick Google search crushed those hopes dead.There he was, complete with pictures.Miles Buckner, ex-NFL star, current winning high school coach, all six-five of him with broad shoulders, trim waist, and thighs that dwarfed mine.Still looking like a fucking Viking with his blue eyes and that long blond hair past his shoulders, though he’d apparently trimmed his beard down to mere stubble now.He wore a perfectly fitted suit in the pictures, taken at some fancy party, the kind of affair he’d said he hated.Miles stared at the camera with no sign of the broad grin I’d loved, despite his possessive arm pulling his fiancée close.I wondered if Miles grinned at her in private.Did he bend her over, kiss her, and laugh, because life and sex were so much fun—
I cut off those thoughts.
Fiancée.Avery Winters.The photos showed me the typical athlete’s girlfriend, way too damned young for him, ethereally slim, blond, pretty, dressed in some kind of shimmery fabric that revealed her smooth shoulders and the tops of her boobs.The hockey player wives-and-girlfriends ranks were full of women like her.She smiled at the camera, looking much happier than Miles’s poker face.Well, I’d be happy if I’d landed that man too.
I did land him.Then I let him go—
“Dude!”Morty thwapped me on the arm and I almost dropped my phone.“You knew that guy, right?The football player?You should ask him where he found the babe.Get him to set you up, too.”
I glared up at Morty.“I don’t need anyone to fucking set me up.”I hoped my scowl hid the panicked thudding of my heart.Does Morty think I need a beard?Does he know?But of course not, or he’d be calling me something a lot worse than “dude.”
“You’re such a loser.”Morty whacked me again, harder.“You need to get laid, bro.”
“You have no idea what I’m doing in my time off.Or who.I’d never let any woman I liked get within fifty yards of you.”
“Because I might steal her away from your puny bod.”Morty flexed his not-small biceps.
“Get your stinking pits out of my face,” I snarled.
Which of course goaded him into putting me in a headlock and trying to wrestle my face into his armpit.I didn’t mind sweaty men in general, but I resented Morty’s extra four inches and thirty pounds that let him throw me around.I hadn’t mindedMiles’ssize one bit— Fuck!I elbowed Morty in the gut as hard as I could and wrenched free as he grunted.
“What the hell, Vally?”Morty rubbed his ribs.
“Guess I don’t know my own strength.”I threw one of his favorite lines back at him.“I’m getting a shower.”I made sure my phone was locked and stuffed into the back of my locker, trying to act casual, then stripped off my shorts, and headed for the showers.I had about thirty seconds before Morty finished undressing and followed me.Fifty-fifty odds whether he was pissed enough to harass me further, or would find a new victim.
Like he used to harass Rusty Dolan.Rusty had moved up to the AHL now, getting the chance his stellar defensive skills had earned him in the higher league.But last year, as our team’s first and only out gay player, he’d been Morty’s favorite target.
The harassment started with Morty picking Dodo for Dolan’s nickname and warping it to Dumdum and Doodoo and Hoehoe.Juvenile shit.Nicknames were a thing we all learned to shrug off.Hell, mine had been Bieber for my first five seasons, because I looked a lot like the singer.The guys made fun of my pouty lips and thick eyebrows, until Bieber faded from the top of pop culture consciousness and I aged enough to not look like a boy-band member.
But Morty’s teasing of Rusty had developed a truly nasty edge, like he was digging to see what would hurt most.Family digs against the guy who no longer had one, and most of all, gay shit.F-words and jabs about bending over for men, the old, worn line about dropping the soap.I remembered Rusty snapping back once that we had soap dispensers, and if Morty dropped soap, it meant he’d brought a bar into the shower on purpose to get fucked.
Morty hadnotbeen amused, and Petrov, our captain, had just watched without expression while Morty put a choke hold on Rusty up against the wall for one second longer than I could pretend was funny.Morty had made the kid’s life hell.
Guilt flooded me as I stepped under the water, letting it stream over my heated face.I’d watched Morty and Yagger and Pete treat Rusty Dolan like shit for a year and done nothing.Fear had paralyzed me, because I was hiding the same secret and I’d been dodging that homophobic shitshow for a decade.
I’d told myself that Rusty would get called up to the Tacoma Tornados any day.The kid was destined for the big leagues, AHL soon, NHL eventually.He wasn’t going to hang around Eugene and our homegrown bullies for long.
I pretended the cruelty was just hazing, like all the rookies got when they arrived.I told myself speaking up wouldn’t make a bit of difference.I was smaller than Morty or Yagger, much older, never gonna be a star— there was nothing that made me suitable to be Rusty’s champion.
He’d move up to the AHL, but I’d still be here with these teammates around me.
