Page 5

CHAPTER FIVE

RYAN CAN’T TELL if Louie likes him.

He definitely tolerates him. Gives him the smallest of smiles when he sits down next to him to watch Ida Hellstrom and the Little Vikings play. There’s something very polite about it that threatens to rub Ryan the wrong way.

It almost feels like Louie is making fun of him somehow.

He chooses to ignore it.

“Okay,” Liam says, “I’m getting food. What do you want? Nachos, popcorn, hot dog?”

“Um,” Louie says.

Louie is definitely one of those guys who doesn’t eat nachos or popcorn or hot dogs. Kale all the way.

“Water?” Louie goes on.

“Listen, Dad says it’s okay to have a treat,” Liam says and turns to his wife. “Babe, what do you want?”

“Popcorn chicken for me, please,” Ella says.

“Lee, you didn’t mention the popcorn chicken,” Ryan says. He’s definitely not saying no to popcorn chicken.

“Louie?”

“I… yeah… popcorn chicken.” There’s some resignation to Louie’s voic e, like the popcorn chicken was forced upon him. Peer pressure.

“I’ll be back,” Liam says and is immediately stopped halfway up the stands by two teenagers in Cardinals hats who must have recognized him.

“Boys,” Ella says to Ryan and Louie, “will you take Maja for a second? I need to run to the bathroom and I have a feeling that Liam will need some help carrying all that chicken.”

“I would love to,” Ryan says and reaches for little Maja, who beams when she is handed over. He spent all morning entertaining her with stuffed animals. Ida got involved as well and told Ryan he could borrow her humongous stuffed IKEA bear when she found out that he hadn’t brought any stuffed animals from Toronto.

Ryan doesn’t own a single stuffed animal, but he didn’t have the heart to tell Ida that. He obviously took the bear to his room. His name is Gustav and Ryan kind of loves him.

He starts bouncing his leg, so Maja won’t get bored with him and start crying. That’s where his expertise ends. When kids cry, Ryan likes to hand them back to their parents or someone who is better equipped at dealing with tears.

Maja points at Louie.

Louie smiles at her and it looks so much more genuine than the smile he greeted Ryan with. “Hi,” he says.

“Look, she totally knows how to…” Ryan gives her another bounce. “Maja, can you say Louie? Loouuu–iiieee.”

“Luu,” Maja says.

“Wow, so good,” Ryan says. “Amazing.”

Maja laughs.

“Now say Ryan,” Louie says and leans closer.

Ryan snorts. “Oh, I tried that this morning, she won’t do Ryan.” He tried hard. He bribed her with the big stuffed bear, but it didn’t work.

“Aw, come on,” Louie says and gives Maja a gentle poke. “Say Ryan.”

“Rah,” is what they get .

“Ryan.”

“Rah-rah.”

“Close enough,” Ryan says and gives the bobble on top of Maja’s little hat a boop.

Ryan never did stuff like this back in Toronto. He mostly hung out with Carrot and Slaw, they played video games, and sometimes Ryan went to see Kaden. Not that they saw each other a lot. Kaden was—is—on the farm team, so most of the time, one of them was out of town.

At least Kaden has finally given up on texting him. He even tried to message Ryan on Instagram, so Ryan blocked him. Maybe he should block his number, too. Although he somehow can’t bring himself to do it.

“Maja,” Louie says, voice soft, “say Rah-rah.”

“Rah-rah,” Maja parrots.

“Good job!”

Maja claps. She’s wearing humongous gloves that are way too big for her tiny hands. It’s stupidly cute.

A group of women, all in those long parkas and hats with big fluffy bobbles, all of them holding Starbucks to-go cups, shuffle into the row in front of them. They all smile their bright toothpaste ad smiles and one of them waves at Maja, who at the very least attempts to wave back. The woman clutches her heart. “Your daughter is so cute.”

“And she has two very handsome dads,” one of her friends adds.

Ryan is—is he having a stroke? Are these very blonde ladies insinuating that Ryan and Louie are Maja’s dads? Like that’s just a thing? Two dads coming to a kids’ hockey game with their daughter.

He should correct her. Right? He can’t let her believe that he and Louie are—what? Married? With one or possibly multiple children?

“Oh, we’re not her dads,” Louie says nonchalantly. Like he corrects people on not being a gay dad every fucking day.

“Yeah, we’re just entertaining her until her parents get back,” Ryan adds when he remembers how to speak .

The women laugh. “Aw, that’s so sweet. Looks like you’re great babysitters.”

They thankfully move along, further down, where they join four more women in identical outfits and with identical Starbucks cups.

Louie shakes his head. “Do I really look old enough to be a dad?”

“There are dads who are way younger than you,” Ryan says.

Louie, for some reason, doesn’t seem to like that. He sighs and stares out at the ice, his expression stony.

Ryan shoots him a look. So, Louie was upset because the hockey moms thought he was old enough to be a dad. Not because they thought he might be gay. Not that he is. It’s still—nice? Yeah. Nice. Refreshing. Because things are not terrible in most locker rooms these days, or at least they weren’t terrible in the locker rooms Ryan has been in, but most guys still don’t want to appear gay.

Ryan also doesn’t want to appear gay. Even though he is super-duper gay.

Maja makes a displeased noise.

“Hey,” Ryan says, dismayed because he’s totally failing as a babysitter, “don’t do that. We were happy two seconds ago, what happened?”

Telling her not to do that, of course, only makes her more displeased. If she was one of Ryan’s nieces and nephews, Ryan would hand her to someone else right about now.

He turns to Louie. “Here, take her.”

“Why?” Louie asks, eyes wide. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Maybe she just wants a change of scenery,” Ryan says, waggling his eyebrows at Louie.

“Right, because things are so different over here.” Louie presses his lips together and considers Maja. “That’s not gonna help.”

“What, are you scared of little kids?” Ryan asks.

“Babies don’t like me. They like me better as they get older.”

“Good thing she’s not a baby. She can practically say my name. Babies can’t talk.”

Louie takes Maja like she’s a bomb that’s about to go off, carefully sitting her down on his lap. “Okay, fine,” he says. “But if she starts crying, it’s your fault.”

“She looks so happy, though,” Ryan says and gives Maja’s chubby cheek a poke.

She giggles.

Yeah, handing her to Louie was a great idea. Ryan goes in for a round of peekaboo to keep her happy. And to make Louie look less freaked out about having to hold a child. It’s kind of funny. He’s doing just fine.

“We’re great at this,” Ryan says and holds up his phone. “Smile.”

Maja beams at him, but Louie frowns. “You’re not posting that on Instagram, right?”

“Why not?”

“Because… you have to ask Lee first,” Louie says.

“Good point.” Ryan is so used to posting stuff on Instagram, he kind of didn’t consider that. Carrot and Slaw never cared. He shows his phone to Louie. “Look, so cute, though.”

Louie’s lips twitch the tiniest bit.

It kind of feels like an in.

“Hey,” Ryan says and pulls up one of the five thousand tabs he has open on his phone, “I’ve been looking at apartments. And houses. Mostly houses, because the apartments around here aren’t that great. I found one that’s above a pub in Silver Lakes, but… do I want to live above a pub?” He shows Louie the page with the pub-adjacent apartment. It has really nice exposed brick walls. High ceilings. Loud people just outside every night.

“Probably not,” Louie says.

He is correct.

“So, I also found this one,” Ryan says and pulls up another option. “It’s pretty close to the arena, but most of the guys live out here, right?”

“I think so, yeah,” Louie replies. He’s gone back to sounding very polite.

Ryan doesn’t know what to do with that. He shows him another option. A house in Cedar Mills, not in town but close by. “What do you think about this one?” He holds out his phone and swipes through the pictures. “It has a red door.”

Louie’s eyebrows twitch, like he’s saying, really, that’s what matters to you? The color of the door?

“It also has really nice floors. And it comes with furniture, which is great because I don’t have any furniture.” Ryan moves on to the pictures of the kitchen. “New appliances. And that black backsplash looks really cool.”

Louie doesn’t comment until Ryan gets to the photos of the living room. “Does it come with the piano?”

“I think so,” Ryan says.

“Do you play?”

Ryan shakes his head. “No, but it looks cool.”

“Hm,” Louie says and it has a slightly judgmental undertone.

“I like it,” Ryan says and it ends up sounding a bit like a question. It’s not that he needs Louie’s approval to rent a house. They barely even know each other—he’s also asked Carrot and Slaw what they think. Ryan just doesn’t like making big decisions all by himself.

“But?” Louie prompts.

“It’s kinda big,” Ryan says. He nudges Louie. “Are you gonna look for a place?”

Louie frowns.

Maja frowns along with him and makes another fussy noise.

“Nooo, do you think it’s a bad house?” Ryan asks.

“That’s—” Louie lets out a sigh of relief when Liam and Ella return with several trays.

Liam takes Maja, who looks a lot happier all of a sudden. “Papa,” she says and smacks him in the face.

“Yeah,” Liam says with a laugh. “Is that what these guys have been teaching you? How to hit people?”

“We would never,” Ryan says. “But she knows how to say my name now.”

“Oh, does she?” Liam says, like he doesn’t believe him. “Maja, can you say Ryan?”

“Rah-rah,” she says, even more delighted than before.

Ryan claps for her and she claps along with him.

Maybe being a dad isn’t so bad.

He obviously changes his mind about that when Maja stars crying a few minutes later and Liam has to abandon his chicken to take her up the stands and change her diaper.

Ryan doesn’t want to have anything to do with diapers.