The Understatement of the Year (24 page)

Across the ice, on the opposing line, I saw his high school friend roll his eyes and smile.

The announcer had to pause before reading the last Harkness player’s name because the crowd was screaming too loud for him to go on. “What planet are we on?” Trevi asked when he finally arrived beside me.

“No clue,” I said, distracted by the relief coursing through me. The ice lights dimmed, and the announcer asked the crowd to stand for the national anthem. A spotlight went up on some dude who played it on the electric guitar, and the sound of it gave me chills. I didn’t even have a name for the way I felt right now. All I knew was that this game would be different from the one against Saint B’s.

Even if it was crazy, and embarrassing to Rikker, the whole thing was awe-inspiring. There had to be a thousand newly-converted hockey fans in this place tonight. (Tomorrow we would read on the news sites that a few drove from as far away as Toronto and Maryland to attend this game, just to show support for the first out gay Division One player.) The place was crammed full of people who’d come to see a guy they didn’t know play in a sport they might not understand. But they were all watching.

As usual, I tried not to let my true feelings show on my face. But the whole thing was really freaking cool.

Unfortunately, Coach had been right about one thing. Vermont wasn’t going to give the game up easily.

The first period was a big donut for both teams. Then, in the second, Hartley got lucky with an ugly goal right in front of the net. But the pressure from Vermont redoubled, and it was a sweaty third period. Vermont scored, unfortunately, and with five minutes left on the clock, the tension on the bench was ridiculous.

With just three minutes left, Rikker took a shot that looked awesome as it flew toward the net. The crowd flipped out. But Vermont’s goalie scrambled, deflecting it with the very tip of his glove.

That might have been the end of it. But while the crowd was still yelling over Rikker’s near miss, Big-D slapped that baby back into play, and Hartley tipped it behind the goalie and into the basket. From where I sat on the bench at that point, I couldn’t even see it happen. I only knew from the screaming.

From there, we ran down the clock and won it, 2-1.

Ladies and gentlemen, we were
back
.

—
January
—

Lamp Lighter
: a goal. In pro hockey, a goal is signified by a red light on the goal itself or on the boards behind the goal.

—
Rikker

After the Vermont game, we kept right on winning. In the middle of January, the college newspaper put our stats on the front page in enormous type: 14 WINS, 3 LOSSES, 3 TIES. Coach was all fired up. And now, when the guys from the Harkness press office showed up with a reporter in tow, it wasn’t to talk about me. (I’d been relegated to a single sentence at the bottom of these articles, usually “…the same team that welcomed gay left wing John Rikker,” blah blah blah.)

“Tell us how it feels to be the winningest college team on the Eastern Seaboard,” a sports writer had asked Hartley last week.

“It feels like hard work,” Hartley told him.

And that was true. But it was the best job ever.

One pleasant side effect of all that success was that I didn’t have time to feel lonely. Between school and hockey, all my hours were spoken for. I fell into bed like a dead man every night.

Success also meant a lack of friction in the locker room. The fact that our win song played all the time helped to promote a “live and let live” vibe. The result was that the whole team inched up the Rikker scale, simply by default. They were too busy winning to snub me.

Only one teammate was actively avoiding my eyes these days. And that was Graham, of course. He wasn’t rude or anything. It’s just that he seemed to always find a reason to walk out of a room if I walked into it. I don’t know what I expected to happen after our strange little Vermont interlude. But if I’d thought we might be close again, it wasn’t happening.

I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t offended anymore. Because I knew that Graham wasn’t afraid of what I might do. These days, I was pretty sure that Graham was afraid of what
Graham
might do.

The second weekend in January, we had only one game scheduled. To celebrate our Friday night off, Bella and I blew off the dining hall in favor of a cheap Chinese restaurant off campus. Together, we ate General Tso’s chicken and greasy fried rice. When the fortune cookies arrived, hers and mine had identical fortunes inside.

“What a scam,” Bella sniffed. “If they match, it feels as if my fortune is cheapened.”

“It’s a pretty good fortune, though,” I pointed out. Our little paper slips had read:
True love awaits
.

“Eh. I feel more optimistic whenever the lucky number on the back is sixty-nine.”

I laughed, of course. With Bella, you just had to.

“How’s
your
sex life, Rikker?”

“I sort of remember sex. Though the details are fuzzy.” Fortune cookie or not, I was never going to have a boyfriend if I didn’t meet some available gay men. In theory, there were plenty of those at Harkness. But none of them spent twenty hours a week at the hockey rink.

Bella made a wry face. “There’s a harsh irony. The team pervert gets no play.”

“I know, right? I have to do the time, but I can’t do the crime.”

She pointed to my fortune. “Maybe you’ll meet some cute boy soon.”

“As it happens,
my
lucky number on here is sixty-nine,” I said, waving the cookie slip.

“What?” she jumped for it. “That’s not fair.”

Laughing, I held it out of her reach. I was only kidding, of course. The lucky number was 16. Which did nothing for me.

Bella’s phone chimed, and she read the text on it. “Hmf,” she said. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.”

“Why?”

“Graham is texting me. Hartley and his girlfriend are hanging out, playing RealStix in his room. He invited me over. But he’s also hoping I’ll pick up a couple of six packs on the way. What an ass.”

In spite of her protestations, after we left the restaurant, she cheerfully dragged me into the package store. (That’s what you call a liquor store in Connecticut, for some reason.)

“What shall we bring?” Bella asked.

“I dunno. Am I coming with you?”

“Sure you are. It’s Friday night. Do you have a better offer?”

“That would be no.”

“Then choose an ale. I’ll pick a lager.”

I bought a six of Switchback. Not only do I love that beer, but it’s the stuff that Graham and I drank at guerrilla night. The most immature part of me was hoping he’d remember.

Bella led me to an entryway in the very beautiful Beaumont House. “He’s on the third floor,” she said. We climbed up two flights of marble steps. There were four rooms and a bathroom on the third floor landing. Bella opened the left-hand door as if she owned the place. “Hey guys,” she said, breezing in. “We brought the goods.”

“Awesome,” Hartley said from where he sat cross-legged on the bed.

Beside him, Graham looked up at us. When he saw that I’d come in with Bella, a flicker of confusion crossed his face.

Good.

“Damn, this is a sweet room, Graham,” I said.

“Thanks,” he muttered. Graham had a generous single, with a big screen TV on the wall and a giant bed. There was even room enough for a beanbag chair in the corner, where Hartley’s girlfriend Corey lounged, a video game controller in her hand.

Hartley and Graham both sat the wrong way on the bed, propped up against the wall. Bella climbed on too, snuggling up to Graham’s side.

I wandered over to the desk, where Graham’s computer and a couple of speakers were playing his favorite tunes. He was half-way through a classic rock playlist. I decided to fuck with him a little. With a few taps of the keyboard, I switched to a list of dance music. Lady Gaga began to sing “Bad Romance.”

Although Corey began to move her shoulders to the beat, Graham gave me a look of irritation.

I just grinned at him, forcing him to look away.

Perfect.

I parked my butt on the floor next to Corey, who was battling it out in a game of RealStix against her boyfriend. There were only ten seconds left in the game. When the buzzer sounded, Pittsburgh had beat the Bruins 3-2. “Who’s your team?” I asked Corey. “Did you just beat Hartley?”

“Of course,” she grinned. “I
always
play Pittsburgh.”

“Ask her why,” Hartley said with a smirk.

I gave Corey a sidelong glance. “Maybe I don’t need to. Pittsburgh is a great team. And the captain is the hottest dude in the NHL.”

“
Jesus
, not you too!” Hartley complained as I high-fived his laughing girlfriend.

Corey put a hand over her heart. “It’s his boyish smile, you know? And he and I play well together
.
Right, Hartley? You owe me five bucks.”

“Beginners luck,” Hartley mumbled.

Corey just smiled. “Beginner’s luck means something different to Hartley than to other people. I’ve been kicking his butt for a year and a half now.”

“Who’s going to take on Graham’s Red Wings?” Hartley asked. “Bella?”

“I’m more of a spectator,” Bella said. “Even when it’s on a screen.”

“Graham versus Rikker, then.” Hartley tossed me his controller.

Without a word, Graham pulled up the menu on the screen. He dialed up the Red Wings versus the Bruins without asking me which team I wanted to play. But nobody seemed to notice except me. The Bruins were popular enough around these parts, anyway. (If I were, say, a Ducks fan and he knew that without asking, then tongues might wag.)

Hartley opened a beer for everybody. I took a slug of it before Graham started the game.

Right from the first minute, it was a battle.

He and I attacked each other’s weaknesses like two people who had spent the better part of junior high matching wits. When we’d played that night in Vermont, I’d noticed that Graham had upped his game over the years. (Because he had it in his dorm room, obviously. Not because his reflexes were better than mine.) Even so, I was lucky enough to score the first goal today. As soon as the lamp lit, I glanced at him.
Take that, G-man
.

His gaze said:
bite me, Rikker
. And there was heat in it.

The ref dropped the puck and we were at it again. I skated away with the puck, sending it flying behind the net where I knew that Graham’s slowest D-man would have to chase me. And the sharp elbows were out as the two of us battled it out.

“Jesus, kids,” Bella muttered. “You know this is your night off, right?”

Around us, conversations were begun and ended. Corey left to go to her roommate’s concert, and Orson arrived with a six-pack of Harpoon.

Graham and I played all three periods of the game without handing it off to anyone else. I was up by one goal when the buzzer rang.

“I’m next!” Orson said immediately. “Trade you a Harpoon for the controller.”

“Deal.”

I handed Orson my controller, but turned to look at Graham. His face was as sweaty as mine felt. And his expression said:
this ain't over
.

A couple of beers later, Graham broke out the scotch. He and I sipped wordlessly while Hartley battled Orson to a tie. Bella was engrossed in her phone the whole time. “I have to go,” she said eventually, standing up. “Pepé’s girlfriend dumped him, and I think he needs some comforting.”

“Is that what we’re calling it these days?” Graham asked.

Bella gave him an ornery look and shouldered her bag. “Goodnight all,” she said. I received a kiss on the cheek, and then she was gone.

After Hartley beat Orson, Graham cued up another Red Wings vs. Bruins game. “Rematch,” he said, his voice stiff.

“If you insist,” I said. “It will only end the same way, dude.”

“Arrogant,” Graham grumbled.

“Slow reflexes,” I returned.

Orson laughed. “Competitive much?”

“Good clean fun,” I said, covering a smile. Poor Orson had no way of knowing that RealStix had once been our favorite form of foreplay.

Shit, I really needed to get out of this room before too long. Just a few minutes more…

But the game sucked me in. And when I looked up again, Hartley and Orson were gone. It was the middle of the third period of a scoreless game. And my mind snagged on the idea that I was sitting here with Graham alone, at lonely-o’clock. It was just enough distraction to be my undoing. Graham snuck around the net and scored on me. “FUCK!” I yelled, wiping my forehead.

“That’s right. Patience is a virtue.”

As the faux crowd went wild, I put the controller down. “Your game, dude. I should go.”

“What? With three minutes on the clock? You just can’t stand
officially
losing.”