Across the Line (In The Zone) (24 page)

Chapter Forty-Three

November arrived. Becca had ended up hiring Eli Austen and was now neck-deep in work. Calder barely saw her. It seemed as if they were always passing by each other. Their schedules weren’t meshing well. Hockey games were played at night for the most part. If the game was in San Diego, he didn’t get home until the wee hours of the night. Becca was usually fast asleep, exhausted from running on all cylinders since early in the morning, because contractors needed to take advantage of the daylight hours and Becca was pushing everyone toward opening before the end of the year. And when on the road, he obviously didn’t see her at all.

But she seemed happy.

He tried to look at this period like her training camp. She was getting ready for the season to start. She was focused and passionate, both good qualities he valued. She had her eyes on the prize too. In his case, it was the Stanley Cup. In hers, it was the grand opening. He just wished there was more he could do to help alleviate her workload, but she insisted there wasn’t.

True, he had no restaurant experience. It would be as if she offered to help him with
his
job. So he concentrated on the little things like making sure she ate and slept. She tended to forget about food, something he never did himself. He set up the office so it was more his and hers. He kept the volume on the TV on low when he was home and she was working. But he also did one big thing, which was make sure she had money. She was going through it like crazy. He had plenty, but it still shocked him how expensive it was to open a restaurant.

Eventually, he told himself, things would settle down. Once the new Cups opened, she’d be able to drop down out of hyperdrive, they’d fall into more of a routine, and he’d have his girlfriend back.

Today, even though it was Saturday, he woke up alone. She was already gone and had probably been at the café for a few hours already. He went through his minimalist morning routine—shower and a protein shake—before heading to the BIC for practice.

The team had taken five penalties last night and then allowed goals on all but one of the resulting penalty kills. Needless to say, the coaching staff was not pleased. They ran a rougher than normal practice. Angry with himself, Calder worked hard. They all wanted to prove to themselves and the coaching staff that last night was a fluke, but it was damned hard when Hart was playing like he was on a time delay.

After practice, Calder debated about whether to ask him what was wrong.

Ever since Calder had fought Riggs that night, their relationship had been relaxed, verging on good. In fact, just a couple of nights ago, he and Becca had met Hart and Jeremy for dinner after an early home game. It had been difficult to pry her away from her work, but he’d done it, and they’d had a great time. Jeremy had surprised them by drawing caricatures on the paper tablecloth. He sketched Hart with an elongated, squared-off jaw. He’d played up Becca’s distinctive eyes and eyebrows. As for Calder, he exaggerated his always-in-need-of-a-trim hair. After dinner, Becca insisted on taking the drawings with her, intending to frame them.

On the ice, they’d not only relearned how to play together well, they remained on the first line along with Tim Hollander. The three of them continued to lead the team in points by a fairly decent margin.

In the end, honest concern along with curiosity prompted him to approach his brother as he left the training room for the showers.

“Hey, what was up today?” he asked.

Hart stuck his head under the faucet and let the water run for a moment. “Nothing.”

The fact that he’d said nothing confirmed it was something. If it had been a hangover like Calder had thought, Hart would have said so.

Hart pumped some soap into his hand and lathered his pits. Calder did the same, not pushing it. He decided patience might get him further. They finished washing up, still without speaking, turned off the water as other guys came in. After toweling off, Hart went right to the dressing room, not bothering with his hair.

Now Calder knew it was something serious.

He intended to catch up to him, but Bob Jellinski stopped him.

“Griff, thanks again. Me and the guys had a great time.”

Calder had kept the promise to show his appreciation to the equipment guys. They did a truly stellar job keeping their gear in tip-top shape, despite numerous individual requirements and requests from the players. On their last trip to New York, he’d bought them all dinner and tickets to a Broadway show.

“My pleasure. Least I could do.”

When he went to put his street clothes on, he didn’t see Hart in the dressing room, so he checked the players’ lounge. Bingo. Hart was there with a plate of food in front of him—chicken and pasta and a green salad—and he was frowning at his phone. Calder got himself a couple of boneless breasts and a bowl of pasta too.

“Everything okay?” Calder asked, sitting down across from him.

After a slight pause, Hart seemed to realize Calder had said something. “What?”

Calder cut up the boneless breast. “You look upset. Are you sure everything’s okay?”

Hart gave him a look and sighed. He chased a couple pieces of pasta around the bowl with his fork and sighed again. “Just something I saw on the news.”

Calder dumped the cut-up chicken into his bowl of pasta and stirred it up. “Jarret Stoll beat you out for the Sexiest Hockey Player in the Western Conference again?”

Hart scowled. “No. I’m serious.” After a moment of apparent indecision, he finally sighed, woke up his phone and handed it to Calder.

Local teen beaten
,
possible hate crime.

Apprehension rippled through Calder’s gut as he read that. The news article reported a sixteen-year-old boy was in critical condition after being severely beaten. When Calder read that the kid was an openly gay player on a Midget-level hockey team in nearby Oceanside, that apprehension morphed into suspicious dread.

“I didn’t think San Diego was that backward a city,” Hart said.

Calder slid the phone back to his brother. “This kind of thing can happen anywhere,” he said with exaggerated slowness. “You can’t condemn an entire city for the actions of a few fuckwits.”

“I guess that’s true.”

Calder said nothing. His brain was fighting a war. Half wanted to analyze the sexuality question for the nth fucking time. The other half wanted to put the wall up and ignore the question. Hart had flat-out told him that time in the car he wasn’t gay.

Or had he?

Had he actually said, “No, I’m not gay,” or had he avoided answering?

Calder couldn’t remember.

He looked at his meal, suddenly not hungry at all. He had to know, damn it. He still didn’t believe Hart liked to sleep with men, but in all honesty, it was possible. It wasn’t as if Calder had actually seen his brother ever fuck a woman, and even if he had, that didn’t prove he wasn’t gay. Sometimes gay men got married and had children before they came out.

He was about to demand a straight (no pun intended) answer, when Hart suddenly shoved himself away from the table.

“Hey, Holly,” Hart said, “doesn’t your wife work at Good Samaritan Hospital in the children’s ward?”

Tim looked up from the table where he was sitting. “No. She’s in labor and delivery now. Why?”

“Is she on duty today?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I’m going over there.”

“For the third time, why?”

Standing, Hart shoved his phone into his pocket. “There’s a kid who got admitted there last night. Some asshole bullies kicked his ass and I want to give him some moral support.”

Calder almost choked on his iced tea. “I’m going too.”

Brow furrowed, Hart shot him a glance. Calder met his stare.

With a puzzled look on his face, Tim looked back and forth between them then shrugged. “Okay. I’ll tell her you guys are on your way.”

Hart left the room and Calder followed close on his heels. “Hart.”

His brother kept walking.

“Hart. Wait up, goddamn it.”

Calder reached out and grabbed his brother’s shoulder. As Hart spun, he shook Calder’s hand off. “Fuck off. I’m going alone.” His voice echoed loudly in the cinderblock corridor.

“The hell you are.”

Hart strode down the hallway again. “I’d like to see you stop me.”

Calder watched him, almost let him go then thought,
fuck it
, and chased after him. It was well past time they got this issue settled.

The sun was bright outside and, blinking against the sudden glare, he shaded his eyes. In the parking lot, Hart was angrily waving a car ahead then walking briskly around it as it passed.

“Do you know this kid?” Calder yelled, hustling to catch up. Times like this he regretted wearing flip-flops. They were fucking hard to run in. “Is he a friend of yours?”

“No, I don’t know him. I don’t even know his name, but I’m sure there can’t be too many boys admitted last night for having their ass kicked.”

By then Hart had reached his Mercedes. Calder went to the passenger side. He noticed with trepidation that some of their teammates had found their way outside, but were hanging back.

Hart opened the car door then stopped, rested his elbow on the roof and sighed heavily, his shoulders rounded, his head bowed. “Goddamn it, Calder, you’re not going with me.”

“Why not? If the kid’s a hockey fan—and if he’s playing Midget, I’m sure he is—he’ll be happy to meet both of us, or all of us.” He gestured toward the other guys who were milling around at a distance far enough away to give them privacy, but close enough to watch the drama unfold.

Blanching, Hart seemed to notice for the first time they had an audience. But then he steeled his expression, stepped back and slammed the car door. “Fine. You know what? I’m done with it.” He walked toward the team and addressed them too. “I am fucking done with all of it.”

Calder moved to where they all stood together on the sidewalk flanking the players’ entrance.

Hart was stiff as he spoke. “You guys want to know why I’m so interested in this kid?”

Alex raised his hand. “I do.”

And suddenly Calder
didn’t
want to know. He had a violent urge to clap his hands over his ears so he wouldn’t have to listen. But it was too late.

Hart put his hands on his hips. “Because we’re brothers, me and him. Except even though he probably can’t grow a beard yet, he’s apparently more of a man than I am.”

“Hart, no,” Calder said in a weak attempt to stop the runaway train. His stomach cramped up.

“This kid—this kid whose name I don’t even know—this kid has more guts than I do. He knows who and what he is and he wasn’t afraid to tell the world, not like I’ve been.” He bent his head and let out an F-bomb.

Don’t
, Calder thought.
Don’t fucking say it.
Not here in the parking lot.

“Hey, wait a second,” Alex said. “You’re talking about the kid I saw on the news, the one they beat up because he’s gay.”

Hart lifted his head. He squared his shoulders and stood taller. “That’s right.”

Murmurs rippled through the group as they realized. Calder suddenly got angry. A red rage came over him. He couldn’t think. He could only react.

“What the fuck! Are you seriously coming out in the middle of the parking lot? That is just, literally, fucking dandy.” He glanced around. “Thank God there aren’t any news vans here, because if there were, this story would spread faster than Gretzky’s trade announcement.”

“Which would actually be just fine with me,” Hart said. “I’m ready. I’m finished hiding.”

“No, hold on there. Calder’s right.” Jason Locke, captain of the team, shouldered his way forward. He spoke calmly at a discreet volume. “While I appreciate—and fully support, I might add—your desire to slam the door on your way out of the closet, I think we should sit down and discuss how we’re going to let the media know.”

“How about
if
we’re going to let the media know,” Calder interjected. “Just because
we
know doesn’t mean the whole world has to.”

“I think that’s my decision,” Hart snapped.

Calder wouldn’t give up. “This affects the team, Hart. It’s a fucking team decision.”

“No. It’s
my
decision. Not the team’s, or yours, for that matter. If I feel like storming the Fox Sports West studio right now in a bright pink T-shirt to announce I’m a homosexual, I have every right to.”

Tim held his hands up. “Okay, okay, let’s not get all riled up again. How about everybody takes a day to let this settle down? Hart, you can think about how you want to handle this, whether you want to give PR a heads-up or not, but speaking from experience, Atwater’s a good guy. I had a minor fiasco last year that he helped me with. It wasn’t something I could warn them about. It just happened. But they handled it within hours and everything turned out okay. I think you can trust them.”

Hart nodded, calmer now.

Jason turned to Hart. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to notify the guys who aren’t here. They’re teammates and deserve to be kept in the loop on something like this.” When Hart gave his assent, Jason looked around to take roll. “Okay, who’s missing? Carps, Macky, Pasta...who else?”

A couple more names were called out.

“You going to tell the coaches? The trainers?” Alex asked.

Jason shook his head. “Let’s keep it players only for now. Agreed? We all keep this to ourselves until you hear otherwise?”

Calder heard grunts of agreement. Heads nodded. A couple of guys patted Hart on the back or shook his hand. If they’d been on the ice, they might have given him a fucking stick tap, as if he’d done something admirable. Christ, he wasn’t a fucking Hall of Famer or war veteran. He wasn’t a ball-cancer survivor. He was a fucking gay hockey player. Big fucking deal.

But even as he thought it, he realized it
was
a big deal.

His brother was
gay.

He kissed other men.

Jeremy was Hart’s lover, not his roommate.

The brother Calder had looked up to and tried to emulate all his life, the brother he’d defended by beating Riggs bloody, was a homosexual. He hated to think what the media was going to do with this. He hated to think about it at all. He didn’t care if other people were homosexual, but this was his brother. And for the past who-knew-how-many-years Hart had lied to him.