"DoesHeated Rivalrycount?" Zak asks.
"What's that?"
"Oh, brother."
He and Jack laugh.
"You should go over and say hi," Jack encourages.
"Really?"
"Of course. Oh, wait. Looks like they're going into the water, too. Now's your chance."
As the three guys approach, I step forward and say, "Hi. Sorry to bother you. My name is Harvey, I just wanted to say I’m a huge fan. I was in the stands when you played the Game 7 conference final that went to double overtime."
Stellan, a.k.a. the Nordic Viking, smiles. "Nice to meet you, Harvey. You probably know this lug"—he hikes a thumb toward Duke who greets me with a friendly grin—"and this is our boyfriend, Bailey."
Bailey waves. "Hi. Nice to meet you."
It takes my brain a second to compute that a) Stellan and Duke are gay, because despite rumors, I'd never heard them confirm it, and b) they're in a throuple.
"Nice to meet you, Bailey," I say, prompted by a helpful elbow nudge from Zak. "Oh, sorry. This is Zak and Jack. They're…my neighbors."
Duke and Stellan both say hi, but Bailey stares them both down, like he's trying to place them in his mind.
"Oh my god!" he exclaims. "You're from FaceBros."
"You, uh…" Jack scratches the back of his neck and clears his throat. "You know of us?"
"Of course I do. You're my favorite porn site. Not that I need porn now that I have these two, but before that, I was a platinumsubscriber. Your bukkake scenes are out-of-this-world amazing. And I think I own every single piece of your merch."
I can feel Jack's relieved exhale all the way down to my bones. For a second there, before it was clear which way Bailey would go, my chest seized in dread, foreseeing one of the bad reactions they told me about.
All six of us make our way to the water. I pester Duke and Stellan with my fanboying and all things hockey, while Bailey gets into an intimate discussion with my…erm, neighbors.
That word didn't feel right the second it left my lips.
They're more than that, and they're more than fuckbuddies, too. The right word to describe what we are becoming eludes me, but it's definitely something more than that.
We keep talking for a while, sharing a few laughs, then play a few rounds of Pass the Splash. When we get out of the water, Zak invites them to come over and sit with us, and they do. Before I know it, a few hours have passed.
"I'm still in shock I live in the same town as my hockey heroes," I say as we begin packing up for the day, the sun casting a warm, low glow over everything.
"We tend to keep to ourselves," Duke says. "We value our privacy."
"I hear you on that," Jack says, helping Bailey fold up the giant blanket.
"Hey, what are you guys doing this Saturday?" Bailey asks us.
"Don't know. No plans yet. Why?" Zak replies.
"It's LGBT night at a bar in town," Bailey says. "It's super low-key and a judgment-free zone. We've made some great friends there. You guys should come. Here, I'll give you my number. You don't have to decide right away." He types his number into Zak's phone. "Think about it, and do what feels right."
"We will," I say, and after we've loaded up our respective vehicles and hugged goodbye—I hugged my hockey heroes!—I bring it up on the way back home.
"What do you guys think about Saturday?"
"I'm in," Zak says, surprising no one.
