Contract Season, page 21
He locked his phone. Put it down.
Curled up resolutely on his right side. Ended up on a bruise from a blocked shot. Rolled to his left. Felt his arm start going to sleep, even if the rest of him was still stubbornly awake.
Brody flung off the covers, unzipped his suitcase, and popped a THC gummy. This was ridiculous. He wasn’t jet-lagged. He was tired from playing twenty-six minutes of hockey, the most ice time on the team.
He could text Sea in the morning, if he still wanted to. That was a game he’d played with himself after London had broken up with him—don’t text him now. You can text him after you take a walk. After you take a shower. After skate. After you call your brother. In the morning. It was more manageable, if he reduced the amount of time he had to get through from forever to a twenty-minute phone call.
After the walk or the shower or the skate or the pep talk from Bryce, Brody never did text London.
There was absolutely no reason why this approach wouldn’t work with Sea.
Brody didn’t know why he needed to think about having an approach to keep himself from texting Sea.
He’d been with London for three years. They’d lived together. He’d imagined their rosy post-NAHA relationship—getting married; a dog; kids. Moving back to Vancouver. Carpooling to youth hockey practice, or ice dancing, or baseball.
Brody literally could not imagine Seamus Camp Murray driving a minivan full of hockey sticks.
He didn’t know why he’d tried to imagine that at all.
Maybe to illustrate how fucking pointless all of this was.
He shouldn’t want to text Sea now. He shouldn’t want to text Sea in the morning. Even if, sometime in the last few weeks, Sea had become the person Brody wanted to talk to about this.
Because he got it.
And because—fucking damn it all to hell—Brody liked talking to him. Liked his weird brain, liked the way his mouth shaped words, liked the low bedroom rumble of his voice.
You could like things without them being any good for you. Brody was a professional athlete; Brody knew that as well as anyone.
This wasn’t deciding between french fries and a side salad to go with his hamburger, though.
This was ridiculous. He needed to stop thinking about Sea and go the fuck to sleep.
There was no way Sea would answer, even if Brody did text him.
Brody grabbed his phone anyway. The sudden blue-white glow of it hurt his eyes in the dark.
Has anyone unexpected come out to you? he texted. Because I have a queer professional hockey player group chat now.
Sea’s text-in-progress dots popped up before Brody could put the phone down. Damn it, why was he awake and on his phone? Probably a show, or going out, or otherwise being young and hip and spontaneous and—Sea.
Not that Brody was old, but the accumulated wear and tear of pro hockey made him feel like he was ancient. And no one had ever accused him of being hip or spontaneous a day in his life.
Another reason they would have been doomed, even before the rest of it happened. If Brody couldn’t see Sea fitting into his own imagined life, he couldn’t see himself fitting into Sea’s, either—he couldn’t follow him on tour; he couldn’t stay up until three in the morning, smoking weed and drinking whiskey and picking at a guitar.
Well, it was almost three in the morning and he could feel the THC gummy liquefying his spine.
The weed could also explain the way he was staring at Sea’s text-in-progress dots popping up, and disappearing, and popping up again.
When his phone vibrated in his hand, the wave emoji taking up his lock screen, he almost dropped it.
“I tried to text,” Sea said, with an uncharacteristic briskness that did nothing to mask the way alcohol had rounded out his vowels. It was loud, wherever he was—music in the background, laughter, voices. “But I’m a little drunk and my fingers weren’t working.”
“It sounds like it.”
“Heyyyy.” He huffed it out on a laugh. “So all the gay hockey players live in DC?”
Maybe Brody should have thought through making the timing less obvious—who knew where Sea was, who he was with. Maybe Brody shouldn’t have texted at all. “Can’t confirm, can’t deny.”
“That’s nice,” Sea announced firmly. The background noise cut off. “I’m walking home now. So we can talk. Without yelling.”
“I’m not yelling.”
“You don’t seem like the type to yell,” Sea said. “Kinda got you down as a silent treatment guy.”
Brody wasn’t, actually. Not that he yelled at people, either, unless he was playing hockey. “I think I’m more in the middle of the Venn diagram.”
“Fine, you love a damned difficult clear-the-air conversation.”
“It’s called being an adult.”
“Ouch,” Sea said mildly, but not like he was mad about it. “Anyway. Your gay hockey group chat.”
“It’s weird,” Brody said. “That’s all. I knew they had to be out there, statistically. But to sit there and eat tacos and talk about it? I dunno.” He paused. “And they’re together together.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Does it? The last thing I want to do after a shitty game is go home and see one of my coworkers.”
“I meant the support. The...whatever. Community. I’ve never had that.” There was a deep yearning in Sea’s voice. It made Brody want to roll over and smother himself in a pillow.
“Like I have.”
“You’ve got your group chat.”
“So no one’s come out to you?”
“I don’t look at my DMs anymore. So, maybe. Nobody with my actual phone number, anyway.”
“Maybe your community is in your DMs.”
“What’s in my DMs are people telling me that I’m a pedophile.” He said it flat. No inflection. “I mean, there were nice messages, too. Way too many guys trying to hit on me for someone who’s ‘in a relationship.’” Brody could hear the air quotes. “But I don’t want to see the rest of it, and I don’t even want to ask someone in PR to go through them for me.” He paused. “But look, I don’t want to be all drunk and sad and think about that shit. I just wanted to say I think it’s nice that you have your little group chat now. Even if you’re the third wheel.” Sea was laughing by the end of it. “Hey, are you gonna dump me to be in a long-distance throuple?”
“I can’t dump you. I signed a contract.” He paused, hoping Sea wouldn’t take it the wrong way.
“Shit.”
“You signed it, too.”
It was quiet for a few seconds, interrupted by the sound of a car passing out on the street. “Do you ever think about how ridiculous all of this is.”
“All the fucking time.” Brody rubbed a hand over his face. He usually fell asleep before the gummies really hit, but he was feeling spacier by the minute, like his brain was observing this conversation from three inches up and three inches to the left of reality. “Sorry I fucked up the other night.”
“I fucked up, too.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I shouldn’t have said what I said.”
“No, I know.” There was another long pause, the beep of someone—Sea, probably—hitting the button for a crosswalk. “But it’s not your fault I’m all fucked up about stuff.” He paused. It was a thinking quiet, or alternatively Brody was reading too much into Sea’s drunken speaking pace. “I like kissing you. It’d be easier if I didn’t.”
The sensation of I like kissing you pooled in Brody’s chest. Warm, heavy pressure, like summer sunlight hitting his skin out on the water.
He answered, maybe a little delayed, maybe a little caught up in imagining the shape of Sea’s mouth as it pursed around the syllable of you, “None of this is easy.”
“Sometimes it feels like it is. When I’m with you. Just, you know. Talking. You have the best laugh. Your damned dimple.”
Brody closed his eyes. The sunshine feeling was spreading down to his stomach, his elbows, the skin behind his knees. “Why do we keep fucking up, then?”
“I don’t think we ever had a chance.” Sea was talking even slower than usual, like he was thinking before each word. With his eyes shut and the THC in his system, Brody’s brain reduced each one to an individual sound, an individual vibration in the air coming through his phone’s speaker.
Put together, those syllables made him feel reckless. Rebellious. Like he wanted to say fuck it, and follow Sea onto his front porch. He’d probably forgotten to leave a light on, like the night Brody had dropped him off after dinner; Brody could push his shoulders against the wood of his door and kiss him. Do more than kiss him: remember to turn the porch light on before they left, put his dirty glasses in the dishwasher, get annoyed at the way he let junk mail stack up by the door and probably never left his keys in the same place.
Ordinary things.
Nothing about Sea was ordinary, except of course that it was. The pile of laundry on a chair in a corner of his bedroom. The condensation circles on his coffee table.
Keys jangled on the other end of the phone, all the way down in Nashville, Tennessee. “I’m home.”
“Did you leave the porch light on?” Brody asked.
Sea huffed out a laugh. “Did I what?”
“Did you remember to leave the porch light on, when you left?”
“What the fuck?” he said, and then, “No, I always forget.”
Brody wanted to tell Sea that it was fucked up that the world wanted to get in the way of a future where he remembered to turn Sea’s porch light on for him. What he said instead was, “I like kissing you, too.”
He wished that changed something.
Maybe it did. The warm, almost nervous, almost pleased way Sea told him good night, and how that was the last thing Brody heard before he finally fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty
I hate you, Sea texted Ian. I fucking hate you
It was ten minutes before Josette’s car was picking him up to go to his first-ever professional hockey game, and he’d finally ripped open the mailer that had been sitting on his coffee table for the last week. He hadn’t particularly wanted to see the green and white of a Nashville Bucks jersey hanging in his closet, or draped over the chair in his bedroom.
His feelings for Brody at the moment were...complex.
Or they weren’t.
He wanted to smash their faces together.
Smashville, indeed.
He’d only had one beer. He didn’t have an excuse.
He maybe would have had more than that, if he’d known that Ian wasn’t getting him a normal Bucks jersey. One without a number. Or one for Rasmus Holmgren #29, which wasn’t an unusual sight in the Nashville metro.
No, Ian had gotten him one with Kellerman across the shoulders. A 6 stitched, loud and proud, on each arm. Looping boldly, white on green, the entire length of the back.
Ian texted back, If you’d opened it earlier you would have had time to get a different one.
Sea didn’t dignify that with a response. He ripped off his hoodie and Loretta Lynn T-shirt, and yanked the jersey over his head. He hoped that it would be too small, too big, too something, and that he’d have an excuse to not wear it, because Ian wouldn’t want him going out to get his picture taken looking like he didn’t know how clothes were supposed to fit.
It fit perfectly.
Fucking Ian.
Sea stomped to the foyer to fumble on a pair of ankle boots, drag a black leather jacket out of the closet. That covered Brody’s name and number, leaving only the Bucks’ front logo visible—the head of a charging stag in profile. Ten points.
Was it too late to take a shot?
It was probably too late to take a shot.
He’d be drinking at the arena. Sea preferred not to fuck with sports unless social drinking was involved.
He was going to take a shot.
He sloshed some bourbon into a glass, knocked it back. He was wearing a ring on his index finger—it clicked against the side of the glass.
He wasn’t used to it yet. It was his grandpa’s ring, a chunky piece of turquoise set in silver. He’d been getting ready to leave the other night, and he’d thrown it on because he liked the color next to his clambake-colored nails. It was like sunset in the Caribbean, red sun on impossibly blue water.
Sea’s nails were black now. He hadn’t been able to face the combination of camo and Clambake.
It was possible that he was fussing over the color of the nail polish he had no idea why he was still wearing because he didn’t want to think about seeing Brody again.
They’d settled back into texting after that way-too-late-at-night phone call. Nothing serious. Nothing about kissing, and whether they liked kissing each other, and whether it mattered.
Somewhere in the vicinity of the place where the bourbon was still warming the back of his throat, it felt like it ought to matter.
Sea didn’t want to be looking forward to seeing Brody again. Didn’t want to feel the swirl of anticipation in his stomach. It would all be so much simpler if he didn’t set himself up for disappointment again, but Sea had never been all that good at self-preservation.
His phone buzzed: Josette’s driver. Sea took a last swig of bourbon, straight from the bottle this time, and clattered out the door.
Clattered back in, to turn on the fucking porch light.
Clattered right back out again.
* * *
Sea had been to Josette’s box for the occasional concert, just not for hockey games. He wasn’t a concert-from-a-box kind of person, but occasionally it was easier, or Ian wanted him to charm people.
It always fucked with his head, the way he was professionally charming now. Half the time Sea still felt like a socially awkward kid from Nowhere in Particular, Southeast US, but it turned out that his face, his voice, and his bank account made people more inclined to laugh at his jokes.
Or something.
He felt jittery, almost like the buzz of preconcert nerves.
It didn’t make any sense. He didn’t give a shit about hockey, even though Josette had explained to him in the car that the Bucks were dueling with visiting Winnipeg for the wild card slot in their conference.
Winnipeg. Who on earth had ever had a strong feeling about Winnipeg?
Certainly not Sea.
“Calm down,” Josette said, taking ahold of his elbow. It was a Saturday, so the girls were there, hair done up in puffs with white-and-green ribbons and wearing miniature Klassen-Radley jerseys. “You’re making me nervous.”
She sounded tranquil as hell. Josette didn’t get heated about things, just advanced through life with an inexorable, inevitable competence that made you want to die instead of disappoint her.
Or at least, that was how Sea felt.
One of the girls dropped a hot wing on her child-sized white jersey. Apparently the feeling was not shared.
While Josette went to acquire club soda and napkins from the attendant, Sea ambled toward the edge of the box. They’d gotten there early—the seats were only a quarter full, the DJ pounding a Luke Bryan party anthem to empty air.
“Warm-ups start soon,” Jaime—the daughter who had not dropped a hot wing on herself—said. “Do you wanna go down to the glass and watch? It’s cool, since you’ve never been before.”
“I think I’d better stay put.”
“Alex can give you a puck.”
“Well, in that case.” Sea didn’t know if he was allowed to leave, honestly. He was here for the photo op. Josette had told him in the car which of the box seats had the best angle—front, all the way to the left. But he also felt like he was about to vibrate out of his skin, and the bar was calling his name in a way that he really should not listen to. “Go ask your mama.”
Mama’s blessing was granted, and the two of them—plus the head of Josette’s security team—trooped off through the arena. Jaime led the way down through the seats until they came up against the plastic partition between the ice and the seats.
“This is the glass,” Jaime said, knocking her knuckles against it. “You can come down and watch warm-ups even if you don’t have good tickets. It’s cool.”
“Pretty sure you’ve always got good tickets, babe.”
“I don’t get to be close, though. Except for warmies.”
“So this was about you getting what you wanted. Not about doing something nice for me.”
She grinned up at him. “It’s nice for both of us.”
There wasn’t a huge crowd around them, especially not with the hovering security presence. A few parents held littler kids up to the plastic or glass or whatever; a few people had signs. At least one person did a double take at Sea, and then did a terrible job of pretending to take a selfie in order to get a picture of him instead.
Which was fine. He was literally here so that people could take pictures of him.
There was a blast of music, a swirl of lights, the announcer yelled something, and then the Nashville Bucks streamed out onto the ice.
Sea knew, objectively, that hockey was fast, but there was something wild about seeing the players blaze past from six inches away. Someone slammed himself into the glass right in front of them, making the plastic rattle. Jaime watched with a rapt expression as Alex whizzed past them, face set under his helmet; then Holmgren; then Brody. They all looked massive in their pads, like fucking gladiators or something.
Once they’d finished zooming around in a circle and started shooting at the goalie, Alex spotted them, nudging Brody and pointing with his stick. Brody smiled around his mouth guard and skated over, Alex following a step behind. Sea’s nerves spiked for no reason that made any sense.
