Page 18 of Stubborn Puckboy (Puckboys #9)

SEVENTEEN

Novi

My toe keeps catching on uneven grass and making me stumble. Someone needs to maintain this stupid golf course better.

I stagger to the side and catch myself before I face-plant onto the green. Actually, crawling feels easier. Crawling over stupid, nobbly, tuffy grass.

It is not often I get drunk, but I suspect tonight I might be close. Either that, or Colorado is suddenly having constant earthquakes.

And making my gut all twisty.

I groan as my hip starts to vibrate. What fresh hell is this?

I reach for it, my other arm buckling beneath me, and my chest hits the ground hard. I’m still spitting out grass and dirt when my hand closes over my phone, and I pull it out. The bright screen is a blast on my eyeballs after all this shaking.

It takes me a minute to blink into focus.

Elena .

A feral noise builds in my throat as I answer.

“What do you want?”

“Considering I have ten missed calls from you, I was going to ask you the same question.” The Russian wraps around me like a warm hug. Speaking it with Ezra is not the same, mainly because his is a mix of broken Polish and Russian.

“I am going swimming,” I tell her, rolling onto my back. The stars blur and twist over themselves in the sky, and I can’t make any of them stay still.

“You called me … to tell me you’re going swimming?”

“Yes. I am depressed.”

“And drunk. Don’t you play tonight? Or did that already happen?”

“I did. I won.”

She laughs. “You? Or your team?”

“I suppose they helped. But they hate me, so fuck them.”

“Radimir.” There’s an edge to the way she says my name. “What happened?”

“They all assume I’m a homophobe. Me. I piss rainbows, but no one knows, so they say all these nasty things about me.”

“Sounds like a medical condition you should get checked out.”

“Fuck off.”

Elena doesn’t rise to my tantrum. “You know how easily you can fix that? Tell people.”

“I can’t.”

“No one’s going to arrest me. I’m safe.”

“You don’t know that!” This is the same thing I’ve been trying to convince myself of all night.

I’ve typed out lots of social media posts that ranged from I have struggled for so long and now it’s time to live my truth to I’m gay bitchesssss dick dick diiiiick and deleted them all.

Every time I tried to post, I pictured the police showing up at my sister’s door.

I pictured her being arrested or fined, or calls to boycott her show, or it being shut down.

Her entire life upheaved, all because I wanted to have sex.

“I do, actually. Hardly anyone has been arrested with these anti-propaganda laws.”

“There was a doctor yesterday. And this is only what they actually report. I have been following the news.”

“Why would anyone care what my brother in another country is doing?”

“You are a pseudo-celebrity and the perfect person to make an example of.”

There’s a long silence. “I don’t want you to be miserable because of me.”

“And I don’t want my nieces or nephews to become a target because of me.”

I am a selfish man. Sulking about not being able to have a boyfriend, or keep my friends, or speak up and be a role model for younger LGBTQ kids.

Some people in the league do not want all that responsibility, but I do.

I want to wear the jerseys, I want to use rainbow tape, I want to marry a man and plaster my husband all over social media.

I want to be the You Can Play spokesperson.

I want other people to see me the way I see Ezra Palaszczuk.

Fearless.

Instead, stupid Radimir Novicov is drunk on a golf course who the hell knows where. I will not be surprised if I pass out and miss the team plane tomorrow.

My whole head swims. “Come to the States,” I beg. “Or Canada. Just come. I will pay for everything. Our parents love it in Canada.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “They said.”

“I’ll buy you a nice place, and we will get the kids into the best school and ? —”

“Uproot them from everything they know? Separate them from their friends? From Ivan’s family?”

“Then denounce me. I will come out, and you’ll tell everyone you hate me, that I’m misguided, and everything will be okay.”

Her sniff is the first thing to let me know she’s crying. “I can’t do that.”

“It will be lies. I’ll know it.”

“You’re my brother!”

“And I am miserable.” There was a very brief time when it looked like Russia was heading in a positive direction for queer rights.

I’d hoped, waited, assumed it was only a matter of time before I could come out and everything would be okay.

I almost did it at one point. But slowly, things are going backward, and I’ve had to watch as the country I love so much works to criminalize my existence again.

I’m lost. There are too many choices to make, and I’m paralyzed that I won’t make the right ones.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

“Just come out,” she whispers. “You handle your life, and I’ll handle mine.”

“It doesn’t work that way!”

She might think the possibility of anything happening is slim, but it’s still there. Even a slight chance is too much of a chance, and if something did happen because of me, I’d never forgive myself. Things have already gotten worse—there’s no way to tell that it won’t get worse again.

“You’re so stubborn,” she pushes. “Stop trying to put it all on me.”

“You’re forcing me to.”

“I’m not forcing you to do anything.”

She doesn’t get it. She hasn’t lived outside of Russia before, so she has no clue what it’s like in the rest of the world. She’s happy and safe there, for now, but what happens when she’s not?

Elena has always believed things work out happily and that the world is good, but the world is fucked-up for a lot of reasons, and what I have to deal with is only one of them.

Before she can say anything else, I sit up and throw my phone, hard, fast, as far as I can.

Then I hear the telltale ploink of water.

Oh no.

I stagger to my feet and trip over myself as I head closer to confirm with my eyes what my ears heard.

Did I … throw my phone … into a lake?

I stare at the body of water for a long, long time.

Well.

This is a perfect night. Everyone thinks I’m a bigot, I’ve lost a friend, I’m fighting with my sister, and now my phone has taken a swim. There’s no way in hell I’m finding it now.

Which means no money, no way to order a car, no way for directions back to the hotel.

This is perfect.

Tonight is perfect.

On top of all that, I really might throw up. Apparently, I drank a lot .

I flop back down on the grass. Screw it. I will sleep here. They can kick me out in the morning after they’ve ordered me a lift, and I can grab my wallet once I’m back at the hotel. Until then, I might as well sleep off this gut-twisting, head-spinning daze.

I tuck my hands behind my head and close my eyes, trying to ignore the way it makes me even dizzier. My head is so messed up I swear I hear my name.

“Novi!”

Actually, that was my name. I peek one eye open, but there’s no one here.

Wonderful.

I am being haunted.

“Novi!”

That was definitely my name.

I open both eyes this time, and to my left, I swear I see a long shadow.

“If you have come to murder me, you have picked the perfect night for it.”

“He’s over here!”

I know that voice, and a moment later, I see the face it belongs to. Connor Kikishkin.

“Of course I would hallucinate you.”

“I’m honored.”

Colby jogs up beside him. “You asshole. We thought you’d drowned.”

I look between them both. “I am not hallucinating?”

“Nope.” Connor reaches for me to help me sit up.

“Thanks, friend .”

He laughs. “That interview got you, huh?”

I shake him off. “They did not got me. They got shit.”

“And how many bottles of vodka did you need to drink to get to this state?” Colby asks, setting his hands on his hips. On those sexy, sexy hips. Sexy … hips …

“Dude, you’re drooling.” Connor hooks his arm around me and hauls me to my feet. “There we go. Let’s get you to the car.”

“My phone is back there.”

“In the water?” Colby sighs. “Hold on.”

He pulls his own phone out, like he’s rubbing in the loss of mine, but a second later, he points to the water. “It’s there.”

Under the water, there’s a soft blue glow.

I lurch toward it, but they both pull me back.

“No way are you going in like that,” Colby says as he empties his pockets and passes things off to Connor. “Give me a second.”

Then I watch him stride purposely into the lake. The water reaches his knees before he leans down right beside the light and pulls my phone free. He’s half-drenched when he climbs back out again, and as Colby passes over the phone, I grin at him.

“You really do like me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Find someone who’ll rescue your phone from a puddle of water or whatever.”

“True hero.”

He taps my screen. “I have no idea if it’s fucked or not, but you should probably turn it off and cross your fingers in the morning.”

I do as he says. It’s supposed to be waterproof, but worst case, I have to buy a new phone. I don’t mention how easy that would be after he went swimming for me.

“Are you okay?” he asks like he can’t stop himself.

“I am drunk. Everything is wonderful.”

“I think that usually means the opposite. What happened?”

“Moya sestra zanuda.”

“No clue what you said,” Connor points out.

“My sister. She is being annoying.”

“That’s why you’re upset?” Connor asks. He’s still helping me stay upright. “You should try having two brothers like Lachie and East. For years, I thought it was their life missions to give me a heart attack.”

I would kill for a sibling who understands me the way Easton would. “She is what made my phone go swimming.”

“And before that?”

Before that … the memory of Turkey walking away from me hits, and I hate it just as much the second time around. I’m too embarrassed by how spineless I was to tell them about that though. When people think of Radimir Novicov, they think of an excellent player who is kind and fun to be around.

Not someone who can’t even support their friends.

“I was sad,” I finally say.

“Sad about what?” Colby asks.

“Sad that I am such a good player and everyone else is not.”

Connor grunts. “I’m so tempted to drop him.”

I wheeze. “You are weak since quitting.”

“I’m still holding your dumb ass up.”

“Barely. I am holding myself.”

He steps suddenly away from me, and the ground falls out from under my legs. For the second time in one night, I eat grass. “Ouch?” Nothing hurts though. The vodka made sure of that.

Connor crouches beside me. “Are we ready to play nice now?”

“I am always playing nice.”

“It scares me that you really believe that.” Connor helps me get my arm back around his shoulders.

Then, a thought hits me. “Why are you here?”

The look he gives me is pitying. “Because no matter what everyone thinks, we’re friends, Novi. Friends show up when they’re needed.”

Unlike me with Atatürk. “I do not deserve friends.”

“I used to think the same.” Connor drags me to my feet, and Colby steps in on my other side. “But my people didn’t give up on me, and we’re not giving up on you.”

I glance over at Colby. “Are you giving up on me?”

That gorgeous crooked smile lights up his face. “It’s been seventeen years, Novi. Clearly, I don’t have it in me. And neither do you.”

It’s nice Colby thinks that. Because I’m not so sure.