Page 7

CHAPTER 7

JETT

What was I thinking?

No offense to Malcolm, but I didn’t care if his thesis was terrible. I barely knew the guy. It made no difference to me whatsoever if he texted me for a study session, showed up to my game, or ghosted me altogether.

But I couldn’t get him out of my head. It was getting ridiculous.

I looked for him at Coffee Cave the following morning. He wasn’t there. I could have sworn I saw him in the quad, but no. I did a double take at the Einstein poster in the campus bookstore and even thought about him while wrangling physics notes from a teammate I was pretty sure was doing worse than I was in that class. I’d bet next month’s rent that Malcolm would know if there were massless particles and if air could cast a shadow, and explain the answers in an equation that consisted of a fuckton of consonants and three numbers.

I should have asked Malcolm to tutor me instead. Let him teach me something instead of insisting that I had all the answers.

Don’t quote me, but I think that right there was the source of all my problems. According to my dad, I was contrary to the point of being borderline self-destructive. Maybe it would prove to be a fatal flaw, but in the meantime, it was a stupid trait that made life confusing as fuck. ’Cause now there was a geeky physics genius out there with glasses and freckles and a sweet body and?—

Okay.

Fine.

Are you happy?

You got me.

I was attracted to Malcolm Maloney. Attracted with a capital A.

He was cute and intense, and he persevered no matter how nervous he got. He didn’t like hockey, but he showed up at the rink. He probably didn’t even like me, but he sought me out. He was driven and passionate and…did I mention that he had really pretty eyes? Kind of green with flecks of gold and?—

Shit. This wasn’t good.

Yeah, a few people knew I was bi, like Ty and a couple of close friends from home. Oh…and my family. My mom and siblings knew and didn’t care.

My dad was another story. My sexuality was one of those things he didn’t want to hear about. He’d met my initial coming out in my senior year of high school with a cool, “Everyone is bi these days. Let’s leave that alone until you’re older, Jett. And by the way, don’t tell Randall.”

In other words, shut up and get comfortable in the closet.

And here I was, nearly five years later, itchy and occasionally miserable in said closet, harboring weird-ass crushes on guys who would never in a million years go out with me. Like Malcolm.

I wished he hadn’t told me he was gay. I’d kind of thought he might be, but now that I knew…yeah, maybe that was what was messing with me. This vague niggling idea that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be weird for us to hang out together. And talk about science. And hockey.

I wished I hadn’t uttered that stupid line about this being fate.

Fuck . What was wrong with me?

Now I just had to keep my head clear of static and not wonder if he was in the crowd tonight. We had a game to win.

“First line,” Coach Beekman bellowed.

I jumped over the boards and glided to the face-off circle, tapping my stick to Langley’s before taking my position opposite Trinity’s right winger, Nick the Prick Berdell.

“Yo, Bears. You ready to lose?”

We didn’t take the bait. Only dumb shits and amateurs would let schoolyard taunts get under their skin.

Langley ignored him and of course, won the puck.

I’d like to claim it was the beginning of a great start, but our rhythm was off. Our passes were sloppy, and the penalties were adding up. Trinity scored on a breakaway in the first period, but we connected in the second. I faked a pass to Brady and shoveled it to Oleski, who lobbed it over the goalkeeper’s head, looking as surprised as everyone else when it dropped into the goal. The stands went wild.

I hugged Oleski and tapped my stick to his before letting my gaze wander the screaming crowd. There were always a few familiar faces sitting in their usual seats, decked out in Bears’ blue and red with homemade signs. Our fans were enthusiastic and loyal. I spotted Madison from the diner, my English Lit professor, and?—

And Malcolm.

Yeah, that was him. Midsection to the right of our bench, sitting next to a tall girl with short dark hair and colorfully inked arms. I stopped at center ice and shamelessly stared. But it wasn’t weird. Malcolm was looking at me, too.

He waved and I smiled. That was it.

The problem was that I couldn’t stop smiling.

Ty poked my ribs. “Who is it? Not Tara…it can’t be. She hates your guts.”

I rolled my eyes, wiping sweat from my brow. “Who’s Tara?”

“The girl you strung along at Langley’s a couple of weeks ago,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“Heads up. We’ve got a fuckin’ game to win, boys,” Coach griped.

“Yes, sir.”

It wasn’t pretty.

Whatever corrections and adjustments we’d made were forgotten. We played safe, as if we were protecting a win we had yet to secure.

Now, with one minute left in the third period, we were still tied. Frustration ate at me, and I could almost feel the wheels in my head churning in the wrong direction, overanalyzing every shot I took. And then there was Malcolm. He’d never watched a hockey game, and this was the one I’d insisted he should come to?

No problem. There was still time to make something happen. Anything.

We won the face-off. Ty fed me the puck and I was off, thundering along the outside lane with two defenders on my tail. I spotted Brady on the left wing and signaled for him to speed up. My pass was clean and thankfully, he didn’t bobble it. He raced for the goal, scanning for an open player. He was so damn obvious, it was painful.

This was the shit we’d practiced over and over again. No hesitation necessary. Just pass the fucking puck.

I yelled his name and boom , the puck sailed in my general direction. It was a terrible pass. I scrambled to reach it, but Trinity’s big D-man beat me to it. I raced after him, sweat dripping in my eyes, skating as if demons were riding my tail. Desperate times, desperate measures. The only way to stop his momentum was to check him, so…I did.

The whistle blew, and guess who got sent to the sin bin?

Trinity scored on a power play and got the W.

Losing sucked, but sometimes, it double sucked.

Coach was pissed. No, worse…he was disappointed.

“You let yourselves down out there. That game was ours to win or lose. We’ve got some work to do. We owe it to this town and those fans. And we owe it to ourselves.” He stretched his beefy hand out. “On three, Bears.”

“Bears!” we yelled.

I slumped off to my corner of the bench to slip off my pads and untie my skates. I needed a hot shower, food, and silence. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I hadn’t done anything remarkable either.

Pathetic much?

The solemn mood lifted at the prospect of a postgame get-together. Was I in? I tucked my towel around my waist and gave a noncommittal grunt, rescuing my cell from my locker after showering.

A new message from Malcolm lit up my screen.

FYI—As you know, I was in attendance this evening. It was difficult to see the puck, let alone decipher which shots were implemented. But it was a fast-paced and pleasant diversion. Thank you for the invitation.

So businesslike, so Maloney.

My heart beat like a drum in my chest, and a sappy grin tugged at the corners of my mouth. I chewed on my bottom lip and mulled over an appropriate response.

Glad you came. Ready to get to work? No, that was too casual. How about… Thanks for coming. We should get started on that lesson. Tomorrow?

I pressed Send and set my phone aside to finish getting dressed.

Thumbs-up emoji. 11 a.m. at my place?

I liked his message. Your address?

He supplied the info and followed it up with, Sorry for your loss.

No one died, Maloney. It was just a game.

I know. Another thumbs-up emoji. You’ll win the next one.

I shoved my cell into my bag and tied my shoelaces, rejoining the conversation in the locker room, feeling lighter than I had all night. Someone threw a roll of tape at me, I retaliated by tossing my sweat-soaked jersey. The banter turned to juvenile taunts mixed with our own take on our loss. It wasn’t negative, though.

No one blamed Brady for the terrible pass or me for not getting the shot off before Trinity’s defense got involved. One play didn’t make or break a game, and we could learn from this. We had time to get better and make something of our season.

And this was why I loved hockey and this group of guys. I loved the brotherhood, the acknowledgment that we were in this together. I had a tendency to hold on to disappointment—play with it like a ball of dough I could reshape into something more palatable. Tonight, I let it go. Malcolm was right; we’d win the next one.

The guys were making plans—pizza and beer at Vincento’s. Was I in?

I nodded, hiked my bag onto my shoulder, and typed one last text.

Thanks. See you tomorrow.