Page 9 of Breaking the Ice

“Did—” Gavin swallowed hard. “Did people give you shit?”

“Nothing obvious, and well . . .there was another guy on the Mavs, too. He wasn’t out either, so we had each other. It could’ve been worse, I know that. But it was that, on top of everything else. It was like I could never relax and just remember why I liked, why Iloved, playing hockey.”

Gavin didn’t know what to say. “Shit.”

Zach chuckled under his breath. “Yeah, basically. It was shit. I was miserable. Course then I quit and I was miserable not playing, at first.”

He didn’t want to know what that felt like, but he did. When he’d first come out here, it had been so quiet and he’d been so alone, and the pain, already intense, had grown and grown until it was excruciating, like hundreds of nails shoved under his skin.

Eventually, Gavin had found ways to blunt it, to dull it. Until he could bear it.

“But you figured it out.” Zach was standing there, whole and hearty, looking so fucking alive, with none of the sourness of depression or sadness around him. He didn’t need to tell Gavin he was okay, but Gavin discovered he wanted the words anyway.

“Yeah,” Zach said. “Took time. But things fell into place. I finished my degree. Decided to go to grad school. And the coaching thing? That was unexpected but good.”

Unexpected, but good.

Kind of like how it had felt to Gavin when he’d woken up this morning and hadn’t known that hours later, he was going to be sharing a beer with Zach.

“Good,” Gavin said. Not sure what else he should say. Not sure what hecouldsay. He didn’t want to take the job; hecouldn’ttake the job.

But the temptation tugged at him, anyway.

He drank more of his beer. Tried to think of something else to say, and just when he thought he couldn’t, his brain snagged on something Zach had said.

“So, this other guy, on the Mavs, who was out? You guys stuck together?”

Zach nodded, picking at the label on his bottle.

“You get together with him?”

Zach’s eyes shot to his, looking shocked. “No,no. God, no. Hayes is just . . .he’s my best friend. It was never like that between us.”

Hayes.Hayes.

The only Hayes Gavin could remember was Hayes Montgomery. His brain was still stuck on the fact that Hayes Montgomery was gay, but then Zach kept talking.

“Few years ago, he was traded from the Mavs to the Sentinels, so even if I’d stayed, signed the next contract, and thenextcontract, he wouldn’t have been there, anyway, and I’m so glad . . .” Zach trailed off. “It was just better this way.”

He didn’t sound like he quite believed it, but Gavin let that go. He understood. Sometimes things that were better—like him moving here, letting the world fall away around him—didn’t always feel awesome.

But that didn’t mean they werewrong.

“You’re still friends, though?” Gavin wanted to skirt the counter sitting between them and put a reassuring hand on Zach’s shoulder or,fuck, something. But it had been years since they’d casually touched like that, and before, when they had, everything had been totally different.

He didn’t know how to touch Zach now.

Zach smiled. “Yeah. He’s actually the one who figured out where you were.”

It was almost automatic instinct to say,well fuck him then, but then Gavin realized he wasn’t angry Zach had shown up today.

“Yeah? Well, I’m glad he knew,” Gavin said.

“You actually mean that.” Zach sounded shocked.

“I didn’t shoot you, did I?”I asked you to the porch. I invited you inside. I listened to the whole job offer.

Zach rolled his eyes. “We established already that you weren’t gonna shoot anybody. Definitely not me.”