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CHAPTER SIX

“HEY.”

Louie just wants to leave this rink. He wants to leave this rink and take a nap and think about what he has to do right at morning skate tomorrow so Coach will put him in the lineup.

He does not want Ryan to sidle up to him after practice and say hey .

“Hey,” Louie says. “What’s up?”

“I’m gonna go look at that house,” Ryan says. “The one with the red door. You wanna come?”

How does Louie tell him, gently, that he really needs a nap?

How does he tell him, also gently, that he doesn’t want to?

“Uh,” Louie says.

“I was thinking,” Ryan goes on, “because it has a second bedroom, you could take it? If you want?”

But Louie already has a bedroom. At Santa’s house. Although—Louie likes Santa and Bee and he also likes their puppy, even though it chews on everything, but he feels like a guest at their house. He was also a guest a Liam’s house last fall, but it felt different.

Ryan definitely has the same energy as Santa’s puppy, but he won’t chew on Louie’s shoelaces. Probably.

“You don’t have to,” Ryan says with a shrug. “I just thought… be cause you’re probably sticking around for a bit… maybe even until the end of the season…”

Ryan’s optimism is apparently endless. But he was already wrong once when he said Louie would make the lineup when he’d only just arrived. He could be wrong again. Coach could bench Louie another time tomorrow, and could decide that calling Louie up was a mistake and get someone else from Springfield. In a few days, Louie could be back on the farm team.

Louie almost asks Ryan why he even wants to live with him, since they barely know each other, but he’s got this one figured out. It’s just because they got here at the same time and Ryan decided that he was the easiest to latch onto. It’s a smart move.

Admittedly, Louie is a little bit charmed by that red door. He’s a little bit charmed by the black backsplash in the kitchen and the piano in the living room.

“You’re going right now?” Louie asks.

“Right now,” Ryan confirms. “Have a look. It’s fine if you hate it.”

Louie has a feeling that it will not be fine at all if he hates it, but the second he steps into the house, he knows it’s impossible to hate. It’s cozy in all the right places with a big couch and shelves that have some knickknacks on them, with a soft blanket draped strategically over an armchair, but it also has a big TV, a huge fridge, and a shower with different showerheads.

When he looks around the living room, he gives one of the piano keys a tap.

Ryan turns to grin at him like that means Louie approves of this place.

The guy from the management company has so, so many great things to say about the house. At this point he could casually throw in that someone was murdered violently in the main bedroom and Ryan would still go for it. He’s walking around with a huge smile on his face, peering into rooms, pointing things out to Louie. “Did you see the size of that bathtub?” and “That porch in the back is so nice—we could have dinner out there when it gets warmer” and “The door. Fucking love that door.”

He signs the lease. It’s month-to-month, which helps when you’re not a superstar with a no-trade clause in your contract. Louie would know. His career so far has mostly been about coming and going. Over and over again.

Louie doesn’t get to stay.

He won’t kid himself: this is just another guest room, but it won’t be one until he leaves. For now, for a little while, this could be his room.

“So?” Ryan asks when he finds Louie outside the door.

The building manager has just left with a bounce in his step as he headed to his car.

Ryan’s smile is so bright, it’s impossible to look away from. It draws you in. There’s happiness here , it says. Stick around.

Ryan shoots Louie a probing glance. “Before you say anything…”

“Yeah?”

“You should know that I can’t cook,” Ryan says. “Like, at all. Except for grilled cheese.”

“What about pasta?” Louie asks. Because everyone can make pasta. Right?

“With varying success, yeah.”

“How do you ruin pasta?” Louie isn’t a master chef either, but he at the very least knows the basics. Not that anyone at home ever bothered to teach him. It was his billet mom who insisted that he couldn’t leave her house without learning a few things. Louie misses her—she died three years ago and he couldn’t even go to the funeral.

“I’m very good at ruining things,” Ryan says with a shrug. “I just figured I’d mention it.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to cook for me,” Louie replies.

“Okay.” Ryan bounces on the balls of his feet. He looks like he’s about to confess that he robbed a bank. “There’s something else.”

“What, do you like to scream for no reason at two in the morning?” Louie asks .

Ryan frowns. “That would be a weird fucking thing to do.” He smirks. “Oh, oh, Louie, I think that was just your roommates having sex.”

“I wasn’t even—” Louie was not being serious. “Never mind.”

Ryan cackles and pokes him in the side. Right. He obviously got that Louie wasn’t being serious. “Dude.”

“So, what is it, then?” Louie asks. Can’t be worse than him ruining pasta.

Ryan clears his throat. Shuffles his feet a little more. “I’ll just say it, huh? I, uh… I’m very gay. I guess you should know that.”

“Oh,” Louie says. Not nearly as bad as ruining pasta. “My brother is gay.”

“Your… brother?”

Crap . Louie was so excited that he wasn’t going to mess this up. He wasn’t thinking. Obviously, Ryan, being a hockey player, would think of Bastien first. “Not that brother,” Louie says. “My older brother. Dominic.”

Ryan frowns. “I didn’t know you had an older brother.”

Most people don’t. Dominic is very much okay with that. Their dad very much isn’t. Neither with Dominic quitting hockey nor with him being gay. “He’s a pediatrician. Or, like, on his way to becoming one.”

“Wow,” Ryan says. “He really said fuck the family business, huh?”

“Sure did,” Louie says. “Although my mom never played hockey either.”

“Your Olympic medal-winning speed skating mom?”

“Okay, yeah…” Louie shrugs. “Maybe Dominic is adopted.” Or maybe Dominic was smart enough to get out while he still could. Maybe he realized it was impossible for all three of Martie Hathaway’s sons to live up to his sky-high standards and took himself out of the equation.

Louie had a chance to do the same, but he wanted to live up to those standards. He wanted to be exactly like his dad. That was before Bastien turned out to be the golden boy who would keep the Hathaway name alive in hockey .

“So, your maybe-adopted brother is gay,” Ryan says, “and by telling me that, you were also trying to tell me that you’re okay with me being gay?”

“Yeah,” Louie says. “I’m absolutely okay with it.”

Ryan tilts his head and considers him. “What did you say to your brother when he came out?”

“That I love him,” Louie says. “Didn’t seem appropriate right now.”

“Hm.” Ryan nods slowly. “Yeah. Okay. I think we’ll file this away as a success?”

Now it’s Louie turn to consider Ryan. Dominic sat Louie down years ago when Louie was still in high school. He’d met someone at college. A guy. They’re not together anymore, but Dominic told him later that the guy in question—Louie never met him—was a hockey player. Now Dominic is engaged to an elementary school teacher. When Dominic spilled the beans about his college boyfriend, he was sweating. Wringing his hands. He wouldn’t even look Louie in the eyes.

None of that with Ryan.

“You’re… I’m not the first person you’ve told,” Louie guesses.

Ryan laughs. “No, dude, you’re really not.” He bites his lip. “I just… took a long look at you and figured you’d be cool with it.”

Louie laughs. “You took a long look at me?”

“Not a gay look.” Ryan raises his palms. “No homo, et cetera, et cetera.”

“You don’t have to do that with me,” Louie says, even though it was probably just a joke. Maybe it was ninety percent joke and the remaining ten percent was some kind of insurance. Just in case.

Dominic does it, too. Tones himself down. And Dominic isn’t even playing a sport that is still homophobic enough to keep every single gay NHL player in the closet. Louie has no doubts that they exist. One of them is standing right here with him and he can’t be the only one.

Ryan nods. “Room’s all yours, then.”

All his. At least for a little while.