See the Light (11 page)

The first game came and went in a blur. Jason saw significant ice time, but the whole thing passed as if in a dream. When the final buzzer sounded, Team USA had defeated Switzerland by a score of 5–2. While they were dressing, Marty came in and told them Canada and Sweden had both won their games. Russia and Finland, the other two teams to watch out for, would play their first games the next day.

He accompanied his teammates to the commissary and silently ate as the rest of the guys did a postmortem on the game. The coaching staff had warned them not to talk too much about the games out in the open where an opponent could hear them and use a comment as mental fodder to beat them in a game, so the men weren’t commenting much on the other team. Instead they concentrated on how they could improve their own game. Jason tuned them out as he finished and then left to go back to his room, where he fell onto his small bed fully clothed and was asleep before he could get up the energy to undress.

The next morning Jason was eating a huge breakfast, as he often did the morning after a game as long as he wasn’t playing another one, when he noticed Patrick going through one of the lines. His roommate, who Jason had gone to breakfast with, was engaged in hitting on a German figure skater he’d introduced to Jason and whose name Jason had instantly forgotten, and didn’t seem to notice as Jason’s gaze tracked Patrick through the room. Patrick sat down by himself, and before Jason could even reach for his phone to text him to come eat with them, a tall man wearing the colors of Spain sat down opposite Patrick. Jason’s blood boiled.

What the fuck?
He was confused both by the strength of his reaction and by what might be going on. Did the man know Patrick was gay? How could he tell? Jason didn’t have a great gaydar and hadn’t known Patrick was gay until the man had come out and told him, so he guessed maybe someone else could discern Patrick’s sexuality more easily. That thought did nothing to put Jason’s mind at ease about people figuring him out.
Patrick smiled at the other man but didn’t seem overly effusive, and Jason watched as the Spaniard touched Patrick enough to get his intent across. Patrick kept a smile on his face, but Jason knew him well enough to know it wasn’t a genuine expression, and for that, he felt a little bit of childish glee. The man, though, apparently would not take no for an answer and continued to talk to Patrick.
Jason looked down at his plate when he heard a scraping noise and found it picked clean. When had he eaten all that food? Returning to the tableau in front of him, Jason observed the two men. His blood was running hot in his veins, and though he knew it was from jealousy, the emotion was completely foreign and certainly not welcome. What did he have to be jealous of? Sure, they’d said they were exclusively dating, but that didn’t mean he had a claim on Patrick.
Screw that. Yes, it does.
Grabbing his tray, Jason made his way right past Patrick’s table. As he came upon him, Patrick looked up and his eyes widened, though whether in surprise or guilt, Jason couldn’t be sure. “Morning, Mr. Parker.” He put emphasis on the second part of his greeting, and Patrick obviously didn’t miss the tone of Jason’s voice, paling as he stared up at him.
Not willing to show the man how much seeing him with someone else had affected him, Jason stalked away. He heard Patrick call him but continued on, dumping his tray in the dish area and leaving the commissary. Leaning against the side of the building, Jason put his hand to his stomach, not sure if he’d puke up his breakfast because of what had just happened or because he’d eaten too much in his distracted state. It didn’t matter.
He was able to stumble back to his room and lay down on the bed, his phone turned off. After a short, restless nap, he got up and wandered around, finally coming to a game room that several of the buildings shared, with video games, pool tables, and dartboards. He was smacking the shit out of the paddles of a pinball game when he felt someone come up behind him.
“Nothing happened.”
Jason punched down on the buttons on the sides of the game so hard the machine rattled. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
Patrick moved into his line of vision. “Bullshit. I recognize jealousy when I see it.”
“I wasn’t jealous.” Jason glanced up to see if Patrick was going to take him at his word. The smirk on Patrick’s face told him all he needed to know, and he returned his attention to the game.
“I’ve been trying to call you, but your phone’s off.”
“Ran out of battery.”
“Bullshit again. You charge your phone overnight, and I know you always have a charge. You said you hate feeling helpless when the phone’s battery depletes.”
Jason cursed how well Patrick seemed to know him, but said nothing.
“Not gonna talk? Fine. Let me just say this.” He leaned over and, with his mouth only scant inches from Jason’s ear, said, “Nothing happened. He wanted something to, but it didn’t. Did you watch us for a while? I bet you did.”
Patrick ran his pinky over Jason’s on the button of the pinball game, and Jason’s hand twitched, sending the ball careening.
“Did it drive you crazy? If it did, I’m sorry. But then again, I’m not.” He took a deep breath. “Sometimes I feel like this old guy you’re patronizing or something.”
Jason abandoned any attempt at continuing his game and faced Patrick. Was that what he thought, that Jason was just using him until something—someone —better came along?
“Patronizing you? Are you fucking kidding me?” He lowered his voice. “If I wanted you any more, I’d be permanently attached to your dick. It’s actually kind of sad how much I want you. I think about you all the fucking time, okay?”
“Okay. I didn’t mean to make you mad. But stuff like that thing in the commissary is going to happen occasionally, and probably more often than that to you, since you’re young and smokin’ hot, and if we overreact every time, it won’t do either of us any good.”
“I know that,” Jason mumbled.
“Then trust me. There is no one else I want to fuck. No one whose dick I’d suck ten times a day if I could.”
Jason groaned at that image.
“Yeah, you heard me right. I’m addicted to your cock. I’m addicted to
you
. I’d want to be with you even if we couldn’t have sex. And that isn’t going to change just because some dude chats me up in the commissary. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Patrick nodded. “Good. I’m glad we had this talk. See you at practice.”
He walked away whistling, and Jason let out a breath, realizing he’d just shown his cards to Patrick. All of them. But would it come back to haunt him or be the best thing that ever happened to him? Jason truly had no idea. He was in so far over his head it wasn’t even funny.

The game against Russia the next day was one of the worst of Jason’s life. At the faceoff after a penalty was called against Team USA, Jason was lined up on the red line even though he was a defenseman, as was usual in shorthanded situations. The opposing centerman, Vladimov, and Jason’s teammate, Stephen Sacco, squared off in the middle of the faceoff circle. Jason was concentrating on the game, already thinking about how to box out the speedy Russian winger he was currently trading slashes with, when his world stopped.

He straightened, staring at the two men in front of him.
Did that dude just call Stephen a fag?
Before he knew what was happening, Stephen coldcocked the man. As soon as Vladimov dropped like a stone, all hell broke loose on the ice. After all, it was hard to tell who’d heard Vladimov’s slur, and his teammates were just defending what must’ve looked like an unprovoked attack. Jason, still reeling, was suddenly thrust into the middle of a melee.
He was big enough to take care of himself, despite not being a fighter, but the other guy got a couple of good punches in before Jason got up to speed. All Jason could see was the word
faggot
flashing in front of his eyes like a beacon. Finally the refs got the game under control and turned to Stephen, who was madder than Jason had ever seen him, which was saying something, considering how competitive the guy was. Huh.
Jason skated over, unable to stay away. He needed to know what was going to happen now.
“What the fuck happened out there?” The head referee asked.
“He called me a faggot,” Stephen answered, gesturing to the Russian player, who was being attended to by a trainer and was still on the ice.
“That’s a pretty serious allegation, son.”
Jason’s head almost exploded as a haze of rage formed in his vision. “I heard it. He did call him…that.”
Stephen glanced over at him, and Jason felt his face go red. He hoped his teammate would put his reaction off to the scrum and not to Jason’s visceral reaction to hearing the word tossed around.
The officials regarded him. “Of course
you
would stick up for your own teammate.”
“I’m not sticking up for him. The guy said it.”
And if you let him off for it, I’m going to kill somebody.
“Well, we still have to do something, you understand. We can’t have players starting fights for no reason.”
Jason couldn’t believe it. “No reason? Are you shitting me? Being called a faggot isn’t a good reason to punch someone?”
Stephen looked at him. “Calm down, Roney. I’ll take whatever they give me. There’s no place for shit like that in the game.” He looked pointedly at the refs.
After a short conference the head ref said, “Five and a game.”
“Fine by me.”
Stephen skated over to the bench and briefly conferred with Marty before heading off the ice. Jason watched him go, trying in vain to wrap his head around what had happened. Never mind Stephen was the best player in the world right now, which opened him up to trashtalking by the opponents, but it was entirely different to give him the typical trash talk heard on the ice and to throw a gay slur out there. What Vladimov had said floored him. With the recent trouble players had gotten in after using racial slurs, those types of comments had pretty much left the game in the NHL. Well, at least public comments.
Shaking his head, Jason skated back to the bench himself after Marty called a time-out. When he got over there, Marty looked straight at him.
“What happened, Roney?”
Jason forced himself to hold his coach’s gaze, tamping down on the fury still coursing through his veins. Banging his stick on the boards, Jason said, “Vladimov called him a faggot.”
“That’s what Stevie said, but I wanted to hear it from somebody else.” Marty turned toward the Russian bench, his lip curled. “It worked. I can’t say as I blame Stevie for reacting like he did. That’s bullshit. But now we’re down our best player, and two men down for the time being with Stevie’s penalty.” He glowered and reached for his whiteboard. “Here’s what I want you to do.”
Marty drew up a play for the faceoff, and Jason nodded, wishing he could sit on the bench and gather himself. But how weird would it look if he asked Marty to sit?
He got through the rest of the game but made errors he hadn’t committed since juniors. Russia beat them 3–2, and Jason left the ice, his emotions roiling. As soon as he could, he got in the shower and scrubbed hard, as if he could wipe Vladimov’s words away. When he got out, he heard two guys talking. “Did you guys just say they’re having a press conference?”
One of the players nodded. “Yeah. I guess the press wants to know what caused the scrum. Marty said he’s reporting Vladimov too. This could get ugly. That dude’s an asshole. I can’t believe he said that. No wonder he can’t find a team in the NHL to take him on.”
Jason wasn’t sure of the stances these guys held toward gays, and he wasn’t about to fly a rainbow flag over his locker, so he said nothing. Vladimov
was
an asshole, but not just for what he’d done today. Who knew why those guys didn’t like him?
He dressed and found himself being drawn toward the press room, arriving just as Stephen and Marty sat down on the dais. Immediately the questioning began, like some perverted form of the Spanish Inquisition.
“We’ve heard Vladimov used a gay slur, and that’s what started the fight.”
Marty leaned toward the microphone. “We really can’t get into specifics.”
The man continued, talking over the voices of the other press. “Fair enough. So let me ask you this, Stephen. Are you gay?”
Stephen’s incredulous expression warmed Jason’s heart, and he began to wonder if the other man was. He’d never heard scuttlebutt about it, but then again, he’d never heard anything about himself either.
“What kind of question is that? What would it matter if I was?” His voice rose as he continued to speak, and the cameras flashed all around him. “Would I not have netted almost a hundred points last year? Would I not be the captain of my team? Or of this team? Would my team not have won the Stanley Cup two years ago?”
The press guy was clearly flustered. “Well, I—”
Stephen cut him off. “I know some gay people. I won’t out them here, but I consider them friends, and I have absolutely no problem with who they love. It’s none of my business or anyone else’s. If you can’t be respectful, I’m finished with this conversation.”
Stephen rose and walked away as the press exploded, asking each other what they thought of the events and wondering if the reporter had hit a nerve with Stephen. They speculated that Stephen himself was hiding something, and that was why he hadn’t directly answered the question. Jason watched the whole thing unfold like a spectacular car wreck but wasn’t sure what to do about it.
On the one hand he wanted to thank Stephen for what he’d said, but he wasn’t sure if the man’s words had been purely a PR move. Since Stephen had been a star from about fourteen, he was used to dealing with the press, and it was hard to tell when he was speaking the truth and when he was simply saying what was expected. He seemed like a decent guy, but Jason didn’t feel like he could take a chance in possibly outing himself.
In the end, Jason said and did nothing and felt his gut tearing itself apart. As he walked back to his dorm with a few other guys, his phone chimed. He pulled it out. Seeing it was Patrick, he waited until he’d separated from the other guys at the door to his room before reading the message.

I heard what happened. You okay?
Jason snorted.
Dandy.

Vlad directed the comment at Stevie, not you, right?
Sighing, Jason responded.
No, not at me, but it might as well have been.
He threw the phone on the bed and peeled off his outerwear. By the time he was down to his Team USA tracksuit, the phone had buzzed again.
You’re upset. Want to talk about it?
Jason bit his lip. He didn’t want to talk about it. What he wanted was for Patrick to hold him, to tell him he wasn’t a freak.
Not really. Gonna hit the hay.
Almost immediately came Patrick’s reply.
You sure? You know I’m always here for you, and that I understand. Sleep well, babe, and try not to let this bother you.
With an eye roll Jason plugged his phone into the charger. “Not likely.”