Page 16

JULIAN

By the time I’m driving home from the arena on the tenth, I’m ready to see Arush again. I’ve spent the past twenty-four hours surprised by the realization of just how much I missed him. I miss his presence and his conversation. His smile.

I miss hugging him when I walk through the front door.

That was probably the first moment I realized we’d already created a routine and the absence of it is deeply felt.

I walked through the hotel room door, and while I knew he wouldn’t be there waiting for me, my eyes immediately looked for him. Expecting to see him there.

The room was dim and empty. Just me. As it remained for the following six days, every single time I walked through the door.

But as I drive home, I’m so, so ready to be with him again. I can’t wait to see his face and the way it lights up when he smiles at me. I want to get lost in his pretty, dark eyes.

I want to feel the way his hand fits in mine. How his body fits against mine as we embrace.

Since I called him a few days ago, we’ve talked on the phone a lot. Still, the first thing he asks when he answers my call is always ‘ Are you okay? ’ It makes me wonder what he’s thinking when I’m gone. Why is that his first question?

The lobby of my condo complex has a lot of people roaming around.

Among them is Sally as she gets her mail.

I smirk, thinking about what Ellie and Paul told Arush.

The old couple means well. They enjoy keeping up on the lives of everyone in the building.

But they’re truly an older couple from a very different generation.

I’m positive they don’t mean harm by the gossip they share. It gives them something to entertain themselves, and Ellie’s wit is sharp. I’m convinced that keeping up with the condo has a lot to do with it.

They would invite any one of our neighbors in if someone needed something.

They might pass some judgment and spread some wrong information in the process, but in a way, everyone in this condo is their family.

You might not like what family does, or understand it, but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t take care of them if they needed something.

That’s Ellie and Paul.

As much as I adore them, I’m also glad I don’t run into them.

I only have a short time at home before I promised my Arizona friends, who are now here in Chicago, that we’d grab an early dinner before the game.

Which means I want to soak up all of Arush’s attention while I can. Before I need to leave him again.

Thankfully, tomorrow is a day off. I’m not stepping foot outside this building. I might head down to the gym for a while, but I’m not leaving. Maybe Arush will let me drag him down with me, just so I can keep my eyes on him all day.

My eyes lock with Arush’s as soon as I open the door into the entry. His smile is a cross between excited and shy. I drop my gear bag and suitcase while I cross the space to wrap my arms around him. He hugs me tightly as the door clicks shut quietly behind me.

We don’t speak and my eyes drift closed as we stand there just like that for a long time.

I love the way he smells. There’s something that screams he’s from a different culture here.

Spicy and warm, welcoming. I press my nose to his shoulder and take a deep breath, filling my lungs with all things Arush.

“I’m glad you’re home,” he says quietly.

“Me too.”

“I’m sad you have to leave again.”

I laugh under my breath. “Trust me, it’s not my first choice.

I get games back-to-back when we’re home, but when we’ve just come from a week of travel where we were in a different time zone yesterday, played a game last night, traveled home today and have another game tonight?

I think the people approving these schedules should have to play them for a season. ”

“It doesn’t seem healthy.”

I snort through a grin. “Trust me, impact sports aren’t healthy in general.

It takes a lot to keep at something this violent on your body.

It’s always impressed me when people play into their thirties.

You know they began when they were six-, seven-, eight-years-old.

That’s two to three decades of hard impact play, constant stress on your body, and pushing every part of you far beyond what the body should be put through during a rather short period of time. ”

“Why do you play?” Arush asks.

I press my mouth into his shoulder again as I think about it. “I love it.” It’s as simple as that.

“Do you worry about the toll it takes on your body and how that’ll affect you later in life?”

“Definitely. All the time.”

“Are you going to play into your thirties?”

I don’t answer right away but take another deep breath of Arush. Has anyone ever smelled this good before? Is it whatever he showers with or maybe puts on after? Or is it just the smell of Arush Bakshi?

“I don’t know,” I say eventually. “Part of it isn’t up to me. If a team wants me, that gives me the opportunity to keep playing. If they stop wanting me, that means my skill is weakening. On the one hand, I’d rather go out on my own choice.”

“On the other hand?”

“Part of me wants to keep playing for as long as I’m able. I’d really like a Stanley Cup before I retire.”

“Everyone wants a Stanley Cup, I think.”

I grin, loving how much he’s absorbing about hockey.

“Correct. It’s the highest team achievement as far as most are concerned.

However, unless Chicago can get their ass together next season and begin clawing their way to the top again, it’s just not going to happen.

It’s been nine years since Chicago’s won.

Nine years since we’ve even made it to the championship. ”

“Wow.”

“It’s like a dark cloud formed over the team in 2017 and we haven’t been able to break free.

We went from the top of the heap to the very bottom of the division.

I’ve only been here for two non-consecutive seasons and that’s enough time to see that the team just isn’t gelling the way it should.

I don’t know what needs to happen, but we’re a long way from what a championship team looks like. ”

“I’ve heard gelling before. It means working together?”

I grin, my arms tightening a little. We haven’t moved from within the entryway, nor from each other’s arms as we talk.

“Yeah, it means that we find a rhythm that works really well together. If you think about poles on a magnet. In some orientations, they’re perfect pairs.

But if you turn the sides of one around, they push apart, no matter how much you try to force them together.

Not gelling is like the opposing ends of a magnet.

They’re just not working, no matter how much you try to make it happen. ”

“So you need a different magnet?”

“Uh… The magnet analogy works best when you’re talking about why people aren’t gelling.

It doesn’t work quite as well when we explain why people do.

I think it can be viewed as different personalities in general.

Some people just click, right? Like you know right away that they’re your kind of person.

On the ice, it can be the same way. Whether it’s personality, play style, or something else. Maybe just a vibe.”

“So swapping out still works in this scenario as an answer, then,” Arush points out.

“Yeah, okay. That’s fair. That’s easier said than done, though. It’s not just gelling. It’s skill, availability, pay. All kinds of things factor into it. You can have the twenty best players in the league on one team and they still might not win because they don’t work well as a single unit.”

“Huh.”

“I’m kind of hoping I’ll be traded again at the end of the season,” I confide. These words haven’t left my mouth before. I’ve barely allowed myself to think them.

“And go where? A winning team?”

A smile spreads across my face. “I mean, we all want to be members of a winning team, right? Honestly, I just don’t feel like Chicago is a good fit for me.

Coming from Arizona, where the team is a team , I can see and feel the stark contrast. I’d love to go back to Arizona, of course, but honestly, I’ll be happy anywhere that has that team feeling. ”

“You move a lot,” Arush notes.

“I have the last few years, yeah.”

“Do you like that or not?”

I shrug. “It doesn’t actually matter much whether I like it. Habitually, I spend so much time attending to hockey commitments that I rarely see the places I’ve lived in. During the offseason, I visit family and friends, so I’m not home much then either.”

He nods. “I’m glad you’re home now.”

I press my face into his neck. “I am too.”

“Even if it’s for a short while.”

“I’m not leaving the building tomorrow at all. Just me and you. All day.”

“I like that.”

Me too.

Eventually, we make it out of the hall and I unpack my suitcase while Arush sits on the edge of the bed and talks to me about what Ellie and Paul had to say this morning as they had tea together.

He follows me into the bathroom and continues to talk to me while I take a shower.

I’m not sure either of us even noticed my nakedness until I’m in the closet dressing.

Then there’s a moment of silence when we both realize that I’m standing there with a towel around my waist.

Arush’s cheeks flush as he stares at me. I think he’s trying to keep his eyes on mine, but they keep drifting downward. He licks his lips and then backs out of the room.

I grin and quickly get into a fresh suit. There’s no point dressing comfortably to meet my friends when we’ll be heading for the arena directly from dinner.

All too soon, it’s time to go and I have Arush in my arms again. “I’ll be home soon,” I promise.

He nods. “I know.”

“You okay on dinner? I can have something delivered.”

“No, I’m good. I’m learning to master the air fryer. So far, I haven’t started a fire, so I feel it’s going well.”

I chuckle. Taking a step back, I press a soft kiss to his lips. “All day tomorrow. I promise.”

Arush nods.

It isn’t until I’m at the hotel where the Arizona team is staying that I realize I should have invited Arush along.

It’s actually really shitty of me not to have.

But I feel like I need to have a conversation on both ends first, and I’m not sure how that conversation begins.

Meeting four strangers at once can be a little overwhelming.

The guys pile into my SUV with a chorus of “Jules!” as if I hadn’t just seen them a couple of days ago. In fact, we’d spent a couple days together since there was an obnoxious gap between games.

I grin. “Welcome to chilly Chicago.”

“It’s not Edmonton,” Hilt points out. “You’re not still buried in snow.”

“Okay, fair.”

We head to a restaurant near the arena and sit around a table. Conversation is as it always is. Hockey. Hilt’s family. Horny being Horny. Although tonight, he decides he’s going to mix things up a little.

“So, I did a thing,” Horny says. I think we all hear the nervousness in his voice.

“What’s that?” Keno asks.

“I signed up for Thrustr.”

A beat of silence passes before Keno says, “Cool. Hooked up yet?”

Horny shakes his head. “No. I’ve been thinking about what you said months ago. About it being okay to experiment and stuff. I’m not sure I’m going to hook up this way, or at all, but—” He shrugs.

“Good for you, man,” Hilt says, clapping him on the shoulder.

“A word of caution,” Etna says and Horny meets his eyes. “Be careful.”

“I can’t get a dude pregnant,” Horny says, frowning.

I laugh, shaking my head.

“No. I didn’t mean that or diseases. I trust that you know the risks involved with unprotected sex.” Horny nods. “I mean, I want you to think about the hockey headlines of athletes in the news with sex scandals.”

“Specifically, the gay hockey players,” Keno says. “I think it’s great that you feel comfortable potentially exploring your sexuality. I’m not knocking doing so through Thrustr either. I just want you to be extra cautious of the situation so you don’t end up as one of those headlines.”

Max Latham comes to mind immediately and his notorious St. Andrew’s Cross exposé.

Then there was Felton Badcock and his Benny Bop account, though it’s still entirely unfounded that he is Benny Bop.

There’s zero facial proof. Not a soul has come forward to confirm him as such.

Only a star on his hip serves as the sole, circumstantial proof.

A tattoo that’s been duplicated thousands of times, both in support of leaving Felton alone and because it’s not an uncommon tattoo or spot to have a tattoo.

There have been others, but those are the biggest ones over the past handful of years involving hockey players.

“I’ll be extra careful,” Horny vows.

“Good,” Etna says.

“So, what’s new since we saw you a couple of days ago?” Hilt asks me.

Arush flashes in my mind and… I’m not sure I’m ready for a full debriefing on what’s going on here. This isn’t a situation like Keno and Etna, where they’d practically been married already and are just making it official.

I found this guy online. On a mail-order spouse website.

“I met someone,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “Not in the last couple days but… we’ve been talking for the past month.”

“Ohhh!” Horny says excitedly. “When do we get to meet her?”

Is this the time when I correct him on gender? I shake my head, more in answer to Horny’s question than my own. Instead of correcting it, I keep myself neutral. “Not yet. Maybe next time we play.”

Horny frowns while the other three snicker. “Isn’t this our last game against each other for the season?” Horny asks.

I take a drink of my water with a wide smile. “Yes.” He glowers at me, making me laugh. “Maybe after the season ends. It’s only been a month. A lot can happen in that time so… I don’t want to put too much pressure on something so new.”

“That’s cool, Jules,” Etna says. He grips my forearm loosely. “Can’t wait to meet her.”

Her. She. I feel incredibly dishonest right now.

But I don’t want a conversation revolving around sexuality at this very moment.

I’m comfortable with my sexuality and have been my entire life, even having not shared it with anyone else.

I don’t need an outside person’s approval, especially if that conversation went nowhere and I ended up marrying a woman.

Arush being a man startled me and honestly, I felt really fucking stupid for having missed the fact that I misread male.

I was never upset that he’s a man, though.

However, being bisexual isn’t something I’ve broadcast to the world. For that matter, neither is being asexual, though I do make it obvious for those who recognize the colors on my wrist. I’m not sure I want to share that at the moment. Not even with my closest friends.

So I don’t. The conversation moves on and my admission is absorbed into the evening. Each minute ticking by is a minute closer to going home to Arush.

It’s going to be a long night.