Page 19 of You, Again

Nolan scooped up a cone. “Well? What’d you think?”

“They’re terrible. Like…really fucking awful,” I deadpanned.

He huffed indignantly. “No, they aren’t. They’re just kids.”

“So what? I’m pretty damn sure we were better at their age.”

“You were. The rest of us weren’t,” he replied cryptically, skating to the next cone.

“You were good too.”

Nolan shrugged. “I did okay in college, but I was never going to go pro.”

I watched him glide away, picking up cones and stacking them under his arm till it looked as if he were holding an orange torpedo. I followed him off the ice and into the equipment room, perching my ass on a steel bench against the wall while he hefted pucks and cones onto an open shelf.

“Where’d you go to college? Minnesota or Wisconsin? I forgot,” I lied.

He sat on the opposite end of the bench and untied his laces. “Wisconsin. I was there for two years before transferring to UCLA.”

“UCLA,” I repeated. I knew he’d transferred and had moved to California, but I couldn’t remember why. Or maybe I’d never asked, so… “Why? You were at a Division One school, why transfer to D-two?”

“I stopped playing after my freshman year.”

“Why?”

“You sound like a two-year-old,” he snarked. “Why, why?”

“Well?”

Nolan pulled his sneakers out from under the bench, wiggled his feet into them, and bent to tie his laces. He took his sweet time looping the lace around his thumb and double-knotting it…right foot first, then left. Same as always. It was a superstition we’d shared when we were kids. Right, left, right, left.

I was about to kick that left sneaker to get his attention just as he straightened and twisted to face me.

“I came out.”

That was it. Three words.

And the crazy thing was that it wasn’t news. I knew he was out. I’d personally known he was gay since he was sixteen. But I’d never heard the story or had been brave enough to ask how he’d told the rest of the world. Ronnie had mentioned it in passing once. I’d probably said, “That’s cool” or something passive and neutrally supportive. Something that in no way reflected how I’d really felt.

True…I hadn’t seen Nolan in seven years, but still…this was something we’d never ever discussed. It felt momentous and important. And maybe something I could use to address that sort of accidental kiss the other day.

But of course, I flubbed it.

“Came out of what?”

Nolan rolled his eyes. “Can you ever be serious?”

“Fuck serious. Serious is the worst. Serious ruins everything.” I leaned forward and braced my elbows on my knees. “And…I knew you came out. Ronnie told me a while ago.”

He inclined his chin slightly. “Yeah, I was nineteen—homesick, heartsick, and…believe it or not, I’d started to hate hockey.”

I bugged my eyes in dismay. “What?”

“No joke. I passionately hated it. I hated going to practice, I hated my coach, my teammates, I hated the smell of the ice. Nothing about it made me happy anymore, and it showed. I became a permanent fixture on the bench.”

“Fuck. That’s…bleak.”

“I know. Maybe I wasn’t the best forward on my team, but I’d always beenoneof the best. I became the worst. It was like I was punishing myself or something. My folks suggested a change would do me good. They wanted me to come home. Instead, I transferred to the other side of the country, came out to them over the phone, and delved headfirst into becoming my best gay self.”