“I’ll remind him,” I say finally. “I need to pack.”
Gina and I take the bus back to Somerville. The fancy brick buildings disappear, replaced by wooden laminated sidings in beige and white, the colors of dirty snow.
The bus bumps over the imperfectly paved streets, and I turn to my phone, because the unmanicured lawns are no longer pretty.
Gina is right.
I shouldn’t go to Nashville.
I open the ticket Florian sent me. I could call him. I could say I can’t go.
But instead, I stare at it.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
Florian
Nashville is hot. The buildings are shiny and tall, and I crane my neck up.
Nashville is far away from everything I know. There is no commuting between Nashville and Boston, and I doubt many people in those two cities attempt long distance relationships with each other.
Mateo is by my side anyway.
We do not hold hands in the airport as we maneuver our large suitcases, but he is beside me the entire time. He is beside me in the taxi, and he is beside me when I arrive at the hotel that my new team booked for me. And when he asks me if I want him to go with me when I visit the Tennessee Twisters’ arena, I of course say yes.
I am out. The Twisters know I am gay, and they have chosen me anyway. I am the first out NHL player not playing for the Blizzards.
Though they only have a spot for me because their defenseman got injured.
The rideshare drives us to an arena. It is not the large one where I will play. That will be in a different part of town. I continue to stare out the window and to marvel that this has become my life. I am grateful to Mateo for letting me pretend for a while longer that we are together, and that all of this is real.
He is an incredible man. I knew it from the moment I laid eyes on him and rushed from his massage therapy room, and I certainly know it now. Each day he surprises me, and he has given me the gift of hundreds of memories to carry with me for the rest of my life. I am stronger for having met him.
“Welcome!” The security guard waves us into the arena and gives directions on where to find Coach’s office.
I am to be a Tennessee Twister. I am not even certain what a twister is, and yet I am to be one. I am to inspire fear in other teams with the force of Southern U.S. weather phenomena.
The arena is good, if not as new and expensive as the Boston Blizzards arena. Still, floor to ceiling windows of the Charles River is hardly an essential part of a work environment, and technically, no wall needs to be made of wood panels. White painted walls are perfectly functional, and I appreciate the pictures of great former Tennessee Twisters.
Some of them I recognize. Most of them I don’t. I will master them all though.
I will be an excellent Twister. I will defend my other Twisters. They will always be happy they chose me.
Men and women wear cowboy hats, and I grin.
“What is it?” Mateo whispers.
“They’re wearing cowboy hats,” I say. “They’re actually wearing them. Like we’re in a John Wayne film.”
“As long as they don’t start doing other things that happen in John Wayne movies,” Mateo says.
I giggle and kiss his cheek. He looks somewhat alarmed.
“They know I am gay,” I say.
He laughs. “The whole country knows you are gay.”
