Page 2

CHAPTER 2

KENO EDGEWOOD

The game against New Jersey is totally shit. The refs absolutely fucking suck. I mean, there’s zero doubt, even among the New Jersey players, that they’re fucking throwing the game. By the last six minutes of the third period, we’ve had four two-minute penalties. And at least three were bullshit.

New Jersey’s captain, Alex Michaels, even challenged the last one. They didn’t take it back.

We’ve had more than ten penalties in this game, which is incredibly unusual. Not just for our team, but for hockey in general. More than half were bullshit.

What makes it even more fucked up is that not a single penalty has been called on New Jersey. Not one; and there’ve been at least two that should have been.

“If we’re going to get called on breathing, then we might as well give them something to penalize us for,” Julian mutters as he drops onto the bench beside me.

Julian is new to our team this year. It’s his second year in the NHL. He started with Chicago, and we traded for him this year. He’s a cool guy with a big laugh and loads of personality once you get him talking. Otherwise, he’s very quiet. He has the biggest smile, though. The kind where you can’t help smiling, too.

“Keep playing respectfully,” Coach Merrill scolds, resting his hand on Julian’s shoulder.

“There should be someone checking in on refs,” Hilt argues. “It’s like a tenured professor at a college. Once their job is guaranteed, they can suck and no one will do anything about it.”

I’m not the only one who glances at him, but his gaze flickers toward me and he shrugs. “My brother has tenure. He has lots of things to say about his colleagues.”

I chuckle. Then my shoulders sag as one of the refs blows their whistle. I’m shocked that the call is against Arizona.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” New Jersey’s Hunter Evans says as he glides toward them, slamming his stick on the ice. “Just let us fucking play, already.”

You know it’s bad when the opposing team—the winning team—is surrounding the refs and arguing about the call.

“Yeah, we get it. You love New Jersey,” our Barron Walsh says. “Don’t worry; you’re making sure they win.”

The ref blows his whistle again. Barron rolls his eyes and skates toward the bench. “Can we just refuse to play the rest of the game?

Needless to say, we lose the game. Not even New Jersey is happy about winning.

“Is it really a win when the refs throw the game?” Alex yells as he skates off the ice, furious.

“Seriously, is there someone we can call and report that shit to?” Etna asks. I’m not sure he’s talking to anyone specific as he files off the ice with the rest of us. I catch Julian flipping off the refs as he leaves the ice.

As we make our way into the chute, I hear someone in the crowd above hollering, “You’re a bunch of fucking disgraces, refs!”

“We didn’t pay to watch the refs play chess and throw the game!” another screams.

“At least it isn’t just us,” I say.

I’m trying to play it off like I don’t fucking care. So we lost. Big deal. We’ll come back in the next game. It’s not the first game we lost this year, and it won’t be the last. That’s the way of hockey.

But fuck, is it infuriating when the refs interfere like that. I really do wish there was someone we could call about it. Though I can only imagine what they’re going to say… “So, you lost and you want us to look into the refs?” I can just hear their mocking tones.

The calls couldn’t come from the losing team. They needed to come from the winning team. Or someone higher up.

No, there should be better checks and balances by the ref’s association or whatever. Whoever oversees the refs. That’s the answer. I’ll never understand why they can get away with so much.

The locker room is quieter than I’ve ever heard it. There’s zero talking. Just the sound of everyone peeling off their pads and maybe dropping them a little more aggressively than usual. I can feel the frustration and anger boiling just under the surface.

As usual, I climb onto the bus after Etna. He’s already sitting beside the window, staring absently outside. It’s a cold, dark night and the wind is biting. I was born in the South, so I’m not necessarily attuned to East Coast weather, but I understand that this kind of chill is early for this time of year.

Shivering, I fall into the seat beside Etna. He glances at me, giving me an unauthentic smile that barely touches his lips. He had two penalties today. Neither of which were accurate. One should have actually been on the other team.

“You okay?” he asks.

Another of the many penalties that should have been called on the other team was the way I was practically picked up and body-slammed onto the ice. Even the crowd was chanting “This isn’t wrestling,” and we were on New Jersey ice!

Seriously, I laid there for a hot fucking minute as I struggled to get the air back into my lungs as the game continued around me.

“I’m fine,” I say.

Horny turns in his seat in front of us. Lund Hornback, affectionately called Horny, is our goalie. And he’s damn good, too.

“I think Hilt and Julian are talking about hitting a club to release a little steam,” Horny says. “If you’re interested.”

Etna is already shaking his head before Horny even finishes talking. “Honestly, with the bullshit that was pulled on Caulder last year? Not a fucking chance am I hooking up in a club. In fact, I don’t know if I’ll ever step foot in a club again. I’m good.”

I chuckle. That was a wild ride. Some chick claimed Caulder knocked her up, but Caulder maintained that not only is he gay, but he’d never seen her before. The paternity test ended in his favor and the girl disappeared. However, for a solid month or two, Caulder was fucking miserable. The media was not kind, either.

Etna’s right. No, thank you. It’s always been a legitimate fear of mine to accidentally knock up some chick and end up with a kid and baby mama drama for the rest of my life. Hence why I’m far more celibate than I’d like to be. Me and my hand are close friends.

“It’s late and I’m old,” Etna adds without conviction.

He’s not entirely wrong on the ‘late’ part of that claim. It’ll be nearly eleven by the time we get back into our hotel room. However, he is far from old. At three years my senior, he’s only twenty-five.

Horny snorts. “Right.”

Hilt and Julian sit in the seat across the aisle from ours. Hilt Callahan is one of our defensemen. He’s been playing for eighteen years. Or is it nineteen now? Anyway, he’s old hockey and still damn good. I’ve never seen someone with such quick reflexes, though he’s been heavily hinting that he’s thinking about retiring this year.

It would be a blow to lose Hilt. I’d like to think he and I make a good wall in front of Horny. And he’s a huge dude, too.

Julian shakes his head and icy water droplets slap my face like ice shards. “Fucker,” I mutter, shoving him across the aisle.

He gives me a big grin and runs his hands through the short braids sticking up around his head. He almost always has his hair like that. I think it’s part of his aesthetic as much as it is his culture. Honestly, I love it. Not enough people understand how hair alone adds to personality. And he loves to spray us all with water. Bitch.

“Coming out with us?” he asks when Etna and I are looking at him.

“Caulder Haines,” we answer in unison.

Julian laughs. “That’s not going to happen.”

“He’s gay and never stepped foot into the club and yet, it happened,” I point out.

“If they just suck your dick, they’re not getting pregnant. At least, not from you,” Julian points out.

“Seriously, have fun,” Etna says. “I’d rather kill zombies or something.”

Julian shrugs.

“And pretend they’re refs,” someone behind us mutters.

We all nod in agreement. Too bad we couldn’t add faces of our own onto opponents. Okay, that’s probably not a healthy way to go about life and it’s a good thing that’s not possible, but still. It’s fucking frustrating.

There’s very little talking on the bus. I’m sure we’re all pissy about the same thing. I’d be surprised if a bunch of the team didn’t go out tonight.

I’ve never been into the club scene, so while I’ve gone with Etna and the guys a couple times, it’s never my first choice of how to spend the evenings. When I want to hook up, I much prefer apps. I always wear a condom and always pull out before I finish. Just in case. Especially after the Caulder thing.

It’s not just because our old teammate and friend, Laurent “Lo” Duval, started dating him, but I think it was hard to watch for a lot of us. The possibility of shit like that happening is far greater when you’re a celebrity, rich, an athlete, or somehow perceived as ‘above’ the general population. When your life is as a public figure, people want a piece of you, and some will stoop to shitty lows to get it.

It was also a great example of how fickle the public is. Everyone was immediately against Caulder, confident this girl was right. At least half of them swung in his favor once he came out and demanded a paternity test. The rest either fell away or quietly supported him when the test results came back.

No one wanted to admit a pregnant woman could lie or falsely point out the father of their child. I admit I wasn’t entirely confident he didn’t do it when the story first broke. Not until I saw Lo’s reaction to it. That was the first thing to give me pause.

The second was imagining being Caulder in that situation. I don’t think I’ve stepped foot in a club since. Yeah, I’m good. To this day, every time someone mentions a club, it’s the first thing I think about. It was close to home with Caulder being Lo’s boyfriend, even if we hadn’t known from the onset of the accusations. But it’s also close to home because he’s a pro hockey player.

I’ll take my viral “outing” over that any day. If someone claims they know my sexuality better than me, have at it. I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks. Bottom line is that their opinions don’t affect me. If it makes them feel better and sleep at night insisting I’m gay because I drunkenly kissed my best friend on the beach two summers ago, then good for them.

Everyone gets drunk and kisses someone they wouldn’t otherwise at least once in their life. That sure as hell wasn’t my first time, though I’m hoping to make it my last. Who knows who I could have knocked up and not remembered? It would be a different Caulder situation, but one I probably would have been stuck with.

But that was my fourth drunken kiss. The first was when I was sixteen and snuck out one night to party with my teammates. Drunkenly kissed the center. I only barely remember it and if I’m not mistaken, he kissed me.

Twice in my single year of college. Once with a girl I was really into, who was not into me, and another with… well, someone. I’m a little foggy about who they were. I’m not sure about gender or general features. Only that it happened.

Thankfully, drunken kissing seems to be my limit. I haven’t drunkenly fucked thus far, and I’m going to keep myself out of that game before I cross the boundary and have something to truly regret in my life.

Besides, I’m enjoying being a gay guy playing hockey. For the first time in my life, the work I do off the ice feels important. I feel like I’m reaching people. Like I’m making a difference just by existing. I’m showing queer youth they can play sports and be fucking good at it.

Yes, I worry it’ll come out that I’m lying one day. In a way, I find it a little comical. A man pretending to be gay. Usually, it’s the other way around.

However, I never outright said I’m gay. In fact, the only time I said anything on the matter was to contradict it. I saw how well that went over, so I haven’t bothered since. Apparently, drunken kisses revealed my truth.

Whatever.

Bottom line: I never claimed to be gay. Those words never left my mouth. Any time—and I do mean any time —someone brought up my sexuality or the video or Etna not on the ice, they receive nothing but silence and a polite smile from me until they get back on subject.

If I tell the truth, they say I’m lying. The world only accepts my lie as truth. All because of a stupid video of two men with blood alcohol levels so high that neither of them remembers the incident at all. If it weren’t for the video, no one would be any wiser. It might as well not have happened.

I glance at Etna. He’s staring out the window, eyes half closed. I suppose if I were going to kiss any guy, I’d kiss him. He’s my best friend, so why not, right? I guess he’s attractive.

Frowning, I try to determine if I think that’s the case. He has the qualities that girls find attractive, anyway. Body of an athlete. Carelessly hairy face because he’s too lazy to shave every day. Confident. Nice smile.

Wait. Is it a nice smile? Maybe I need to ask him to smile to study it for a minute.

Shaking my head, I lean back in my seat and stare at the back of the headrest in front of me. Guess I’m tapping into my supposed gayness by trying to figure out if my best friend is attractive. At least it got my mind off of stewing in anger over the game for ten minutes.