The Understatement of the Year (Ivy Years #3)

SCORING CHANCE: an attempt or an opportunity for a player to score a goal.

Rikker

An hour and a half later, I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, holding two ice packs against my bare chest. They might or might not keep the swelling on my bruised ribs to a minimum.

Whatever.

A trip to Capri’s was out of the question. Not only was I banged up; I’d never been more embarrassed in my life. I just lay there in a pair of ripped jeans, too exhausted to even get ready for bed. Someone knocked on the door. It was probably Bella, come to check on me. If I were to leave town, she’d be the only one to notice. She and Coach. Fuck. I didn’t even want her company. I just wanted to be left alone to sink into the fucking floor.

We lost the fucking game. 1-4.

The knock repeated—three sharp raps. She was probably going to just beat on the door until I answered. “It’s open,” I grumbled.

But the doorknob wiggled with the telltale muted click of a door that was not open.

With a groan, I sat up and lurched for it, turning the handle to let Bella push the door open. The minute I felt it give, I turned to throw myself onto the bed again.

Someone cleared his throat, and it was not Bella.

I rolled over to see Graham standing there, looking down at me. One hand was shoved into his jacket pocket. The other held a bottle of Jose Cuervo. “Hola, Juan. Quieres un tequila?”

It took me way too long to answer. “Uh, sí?” It wasn’t the most gracious response. But shock made me stupid.

“Got glasses?” He set the bottle down on my desk and pulled a lime and a camping knife from his pocket. He flipped up the blade and took it to the lime. Shaking off a little of my surprise, I dropped my ice packs on the floor and found the shot glasses in a desk drawer. I dusted them on my jeans.

Graham swung my desk chair around and sat down in it. He poured two shots and handed me a wedge of lime. “Knock it back, man,” Graham said. He tipped his shot into his mouth.

I drank too. The tequila stung the back of my throat. At least I hoped it was the alcohol, because it very well could have been Graham’s gesture. Here he was, in his own fucked-up way, offering me support. Of course, it was Graham’s version of support — strong drink. But at that moment, when I was literally friendless, it meant everything to me.

Just looking across at him made it hard for me to swallow. What a mess we were: one gay guy who tried to be out, and it had only led to disaster. And one… I didn’t want to classify Graham. Only Graham could classify Graham. But whatever Graham was, he didn’t make it look easy.

“You’re thinking too hard over there,” Graham said, reaching out a hand. “Let’s have that glass. We’ve got to do that again.”

I did as I was told, and together we threw back a couple more shots. The alcohol did its thing, and began to soften me at the edges. My shame and anger flattened out, which should have been a good thing. But I only became broody instead.

“Saw you trip him,” I said.

Graham fingered his shot glass. “I did it again after you left, and took two minutes for it. Didn’t help things. Felt good, though.”

We sat in silence after that, but somehow it wasn’t awkward. Putting more words to everything that had gone wrong tonight would have been painful and pointless. For both of us. So silence was definitely the way to go. And Graham was here with me, feeding me tequila. He’d been called a faggot to his face tonight, because of me. Yet here he was.

Unbelievable.

His long fingers tapped one of his own knees. Sitting in a room with him was still trippy. It was like watching a video of my old life. I could see it and hear it, but not touch.

He was staring at me, though. At my bare chest, if I wasn’t mistaken. Not that I’d call him on it. The conditions of our truce were pretty simple. Graham was solid with me on the team, and I pretended to believe that he was straight. That was only fair, especially since he’d brought tequila as a peace offering.

Except I could feel those blue eyes on me. So I raised one languid hand to rub my chest. I didn’t do it in a porn film way — it was just a casual brush across my pecs, like anyone might do. But man, did his eyes flare. Oh, hell. I could feel his gaze on me, like a physical touch. I felt it in places I shouldn’t.

And then Graham turned away, toward the desk. He picked up the lime. “One more, I think.”

“Sure,” I said, wondering how this night would play out. Graham and I, drunk together. That’s something that had never happened before, back in the day. There was no telling what it might have led to.

He stood up to hand me my glass. “Cheers,” he said, holding his own into the air. Then he downed it. Then he set the glass on my desk and turned around again. “Rik?”

It took me a second to answer, because I was swallowing tequila. “Yeah?” I stood up to put my glass onto the desk beside his.

Before I could retreat again to my corner, he moved into my space. When his big hand landed at the side of my neck, I quit breathing. Time slammed to a halt for a second, until I realized that he was examining the place under my jaw where Eros had slashed me with his stick.

“How bad does it look?” I whispered, just to say something normal.

But Graham wasn’t even listening. He dropped his hand, only to put it on my bare waist. And then his mouth dipped down to graze the juncture between my neck and my shoulder. A pair of soft, moist lips began to nibble at my skin.

Jesus fuck.

Again, I froze with surprise, too shocked to say anything, or to shove him away. His mouth made a path along my throat, dropping wet kisses on his way. I didn’t react at all. Well, that isn’t true. My dick jumped to attention, straining against the zipper of my jeans faster than you can say “bad idea.” Then Graham raised his head, his tongue landing at my ear. When he sucked my earlobe into his mouth, I let out a gasp.

“Do I still do it for you?” he whispered. Not waiting for an answer, he gave me a shove backward, onto the bed. Even as I sat down he was straddling me, pushing me down. His mouth attacked mine a second later. He kissed me, hot and wild, and I let him. No — I practically rolled out a fucking rug for him, scrambling back to get all the way onto the bed, pulling him into my arms.

Yes, yes, yes, my body chanted. Four shots of tequila in, it was easy to shut off all the logical parts of my brain. With the hard, warm body of my first love practically scaling me like a monkey, I couldn’t summon the will to think this through. His big hands threaded into my hair, his mouth slanting down over mine again and again. His lips were wet and warm, and his tongue made long, greedy draws against mine.

Suddenly, we were fifteen again, and crazy with desire. There was no finesse to our making out. We were too hungry, too desperate. It was all grip strength, grunts, and heavy breathing. The bed barely held four hundred pounds worth of horny hockey players who were trying to achieve nuclear fusion through their mouths.

My clumsy hands found their way under his shirt, and over the hard planes of his back. He dragged his mouth off of mine only long enough to yank his shirt over his head. And then we were skin to skin. When I grabbed his beautiful chest in two hands, tweaking his nipples with my thumbs, he let out a howl of need that I was probably going to hear later in my dreams.

And it was Graham. My Graham. Those familiar blue eyes were half-mast with lust, and his golden skin was flushed with desire. For me. There was nothing like it. With his hips grinding against mine, I thought I might blow in my jeans the way we did when we were teenagers.

“Want to suck you,” he said between kisses. And before my brain could even unpack that declaration, I lost his mouth on mine. He began dropping hot, open-mouthed kisses across my pecs, lingering over my nipples. Then he traced the centerline of my chest with his tongue.

It was all happening so fast, and I was on fire, panting like a maniac. Rough hands yanked my jeans open. When he tugged, I lifted my hips. But then I was lying there, exposed for him, my knees still tangled in my jeans. So vulnerable. I experienced a twinge of worry, hoping that Graham didn’t plan it this way, spreading me bare so he could teach me some kind of lesson.

But before I could even finish that ugly thought, his breath was there, nuzzling my groin. On the sound of his sigh, my shoulders relaxed against the bed. Hungry lips began tracing my shaft, and I flexed my hips, desperate for a little friction.

When he opened his mouth and took me in, my brain took another sabbatical. Everything was wet heat and motion. I looked down my body, and the sight almost undid me. Graham knelt on the floor beside the bed. With eyes shut tight, he worked me over. I saw his cheeks draw in, and he gave a good, hard suck. An involuntary shout flew from my mouth. And at the sound of it, Graham moaned. The vibration caressed me, and as I watched, Graham’s free hand dipped down to rub himself through his jeans. He moaned again, and the vibration almost finished me off.

I reached toward his body on the floor. “Give it to me,” I rasped, smacking him on the hip so that he’d understand what I wanted.

Graham jerked up from the floor. With two hands, he yanked his jeans open. They hit the deck with a jingle, and then he was stepping out of his jeans and boxers. Putting one knee on the bed beside me, he bent over my waist again, taking me in from an even better angle than before.

“Uhhhn…” I said. Because it’s hard to be eloquent when your dick is in somebody’s mouth. I ran my hand up the inside of Graham’s bare thigh, my fingers sifting through his soft leg hair on the way to the good stuff. When I cupped him, he gasped. When I stroked him, he moaned.

And then it was practically all over but the crying. He was moaning and thrusting into my hand, and I was not going to survive it. My nuts got tight and my spine hitched and I took one more big breath. “Look out,” I gasped. Graham didn’t duck and cover, but it was probably too late anyway. Slamming my head back onto the pillow, I came like a rocket launcher. And he took it like a champ. A few seconds later he came on a muffled groan, spilling into my hand, shuddering with satisfaction.

When silence descended a minute later, Graham lay panting on my belly.

“Up here,” I croaked. I pushed further back onto the narrow bed, my back up against the cold plaster of the wall. I wiped my hand on my discarded T-shirt, and then threw that on the floor.

Graham swiveled and fell, his head landing near mine. But his eyes were focused on the ceiling, and I had no idea what was in his brain. I tucked my chin down to place a soft kiss on his shoulder. He didn’t flinch or move away, but neither did he roll into me. “Graham, are you…”

But that was as far as I got, because he held up a hand. “We’re not talking right now,” he said, his eyes drooping. “Don’t want to discuss it.”

I gave a strangled laugh. “Okay. I was only going to ask if you’re as drunk as I am.” Because I’d just noticed how loopy four shots of tequila could leave you after a long, disastrous game and on an empty stomach.

“The room is spinning,” Graham mumbled.

“That’s because you got naked with me, baby,” I joked, biting his shoulder a little.

“Shut it,” he whispered, hitching away from me, rolling onto his side.

Right. Even drunk, I could extrapolate. Graham would probably crawl out of here in about two minutes. Then he’d shut down again, and go back to ignoring me.

But at the moment, the bed was so small that his body was still only inches from mine. I put my hands to his shoulders and squeezed, massaging the muscles under my palms. He was beautiful, and I didn’t want to stop touching him.

With a firm grip, I dug my thumbs into his traps, my fingers working his neck. I gave it a fifty-fifty chance that he’d pop up off the bed and go away. But I kept going. Carpe Diem and all that. I worked both my hands up his neck to the base of his skull. And then I massaged his scalp, because there isn’t a person alive who isn’t a sucker for having his head rubbed. All that fine, pale hair went sifting through my fingers. Finally, I felt Graham sigh and relax.

I knew there was wisdom in quitting while you’re ahead. But Graham had thrown a switch inside me that could not easily be turned off. Just from massaging him, I was ready to go again. So I slipped an arm around his waist, hitching my body against his, so that my erection lay against his ass. His muscles stiffened in my arms. But I wasn’t going to give up easily. My hand began a slow tour of his chest, and I pressed my lips to the back of his neck.

When I felt his breath catch a minute later, I knew that I had won.

It didn’t take long until he was rolling over, reaching for me. His mouth was salty now. I could taste myself on him. We went slower this time, exploring one another thoroughly. Graham’s eyes were slammed shut, as if looking at me was more than he could handle. But his touch was reverent — his big hands sliding around my hips as if trying to memorize them.

He reached between our bodies and took me in hand. Arching his back, bringing his torso even closer, he was able to grasp us both at the same time. It was glorious. I rocked my hips, thrusting into his hand and against his cock, taking long gulps from his mouth. As good as it was, this taste of him only made me hungrier.

Someone knocked loudly on my door.

Graham jerked his hand away from me as if he’d just discovered he was touching a stick of dynamite. His whole body went rock solid, his eyes popping wide with panic.

The knock came again. Bang bang bang. “Rikker, if you’re in there, open up.” It was Bella’s voice. “Or at least answer your phone. Tonight wasn’t your fault.”

Beside me, Graham began to tremble.

I put my lips right beside his ear, barely whispering. “The door is still locked.”

“Come on, Rik,” Bella called again. And when she rattled the doorknob, Graham’s body gave a horrified jerk, like he’d been tasered.

But the door held, of course. And then after an achingly long silence of a minute or so, we heard the sound of Bella’s footsteps tapping away, heading down the stairs.

It was so quiet then that I could actually count our heartbeats. And after a dozen or so of them, Graham got up and fumbled for his clothes.

“Graham,” I whispered. “You don’t have to panic.”

But he wouldn’t even look at me. With shaking hands, he stumbled into his jeans.

I pulled the blanket up from the foot of the bed, mostly covering myself. And I watched a freaked-out Graham prepare for a hasty exit from my room. I could almost hear the worry loop trailing around inside his head. Never should have done that. Never should have done that.

Whatever. If he wanted to freak out and run away after hooking up with me, that was his loss. That’s what I was going to tell myself, anyway. What’s one more bruise on a battered heart? Mine probably already looked like a veteran NHL player’s face.

Before the door closed on him, he said one word to me. “Sorry.”

I was tired of hearing that word from him.

His footsteps echoed as he retreated down the stairwell. For the second time tonight, I lay alone on my bed, nursing my wounded ribs. The next time I heard footsteps on the stair, I knew that it was only one of my exchange-student neighbors on his way in for the night. There would be nobody else calling, or coming to visit me.

My bruises throbbed again and my head began to ache. But the silence hurt worst of all.

The next event in my fun-filled life was a team meeting in the wood-paneled club room at the rink. Like a brave man does, I snuck in at the last minute, holding up the wall beside the door. At the front of the room, Coach paced, his hands in fists.

“It’s not that you lost the game, you idiots. It’s that you lost your cool. That asshole played you like a whole fucking orchestra of fiddles. Watching last night’s tape? It took me half a bottle of scotch. Seven minutes, guys. Seven. Minutes. That’s how long it took that dickface to wreck your game. The wheels came off early, and they stayed off. And all because of a few carefully planned taunts. Baby stuff! You got taken down by yourselves, basically. Because if you don’t know how to be immune to petty shit like that, you’re not going to last very long in hockey.”

He stopped pacing, his hands clenched at his sides. “We’re not watching that tape, because there’s nothing to watch. There’s no point in analyzing the plays, because you idiots didn’t even show up to play the game.”

I was new to the team and all, but I’d never seen Coach as angry as this. It must not happen very often.

Fuck me.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but I gave one of your teammates the day off. The only guy who can hold his head up high after that shit show is Orson. Seventy-six fucking shots on goal Saint B’s took. And you punks took thirty. And Orson kept his shit together for three periods, and only let in four! Who was your MVP last night? Orson. That ass from Saint B’s taunted him the worst of all, and it was a fucking waste of breath, people.”

Coach took a minute to look every guy in the eye, one at a time. “Where. The. Fuck. Were the rest of you?”

Graham

The following weekend, on the way home from the Union game, the bus was dark and quiet.

Needless to say, there’d been no cause to blast our win song after the buzzer. Orson did his best, letting in two goals the whole game. But we couldn’t put the biscuit in the basket to save our lives. Without two of our best offensive players, our rhythm broke down.

So here we were, riding home late on a silent bus, every guy thinking dark thoughts. And then there was Bella. She was currently curled up in the seat beside me, her head on my chest as if I was her own personal bolster pillow.

Across the aisle, Hartley sat with his arms folded across his chest. He wore the stoic expression of a man serving out the last bit of his prison term. As our captain, he’d ridden along to the game even though he wasn’t allowed on the bench. It couldn’t have been fun to watch us lose from the stands. Knowing Hartley, he blamed himself for the loss to Union.

Nobody on the bus was happy right now. And I’m sure everyone sat in his seat, assigning blame. It’s just that I’m pretty sure they didn’t all blame themselves.

Poor Rikker.

Thinking of him gave me a weird little nauseous rush. I was pretty embarrassed about what I’d done. Running away from him after practically pouncing on him? God. I couldn’t imagine what he thought of me. Tomorrow, I would call him and apologize. I’d tell him that I was glad he was my teammate, and I hoped we could be friends. I could do that. I’d still be the world’s biggest coward, but I could make a fricking phone call.

I would have already apologized, it’s just that I hadn’t seen Rikker. He’d stood at the back of the world’s most depressing team meeting. And then I heard Coach tell him that even though Hartley would be attending the Union game as captain, Rikker would not be on the bus.

He did not manage to keep the flinch off his face.

After that, Rikker walked straight out of the room, and I hadn’t glimpsed him again. If his exams were done, he’d probably already gone home to Vermont. We got three weeks off, before we had to come back for hockey just before New Year’s.

“Hey, Coach!” somebody yelled from the back of the darkened bus. And when he stood up, I saw that it was Big-D.

“Yeah, kid?” A couple of seats ahead of me, Coach swiveled around to answer him.

Big-D trundled down the narrow little aisle, his phone in his hand. “There’s some news story out there about our team. I just got, like, twenty texts warning me not to drop the soap in the shower.”

Jesus.

Coach stood up, parking his butt against the seat back. “Okay, guys, listen up. There is an article, and it’s in the Connecticut Standard. But the national outlets are going to jump on this. Rikker’s transfer was pretty unusual, and a reporter sniffed that out and interviewed him. So the team is going to be in the news for a little while.”

There was a collective groan, and a few curses thrown around.

“Hey!” Coach barked, holding up a hand. “It’s just noise. If you want people to respect your game, if you want to win, you need to play through the noise. You guys fucked that up once already, right? I’m telling you right now, if you can’t concentrate, go ahead and hang up your skates. Not on the news or on the shit people send to your phone. Your game is all that matters. Figure out how to win again, and the reporters will be asking much different questions. Like, ‘how does a small school like Harkness do it?’”

Coach folded his arms, and the bus got very quiet. “I know you don’t like having this shit in the news. But neither does your teammate, Rikker. What happens next in your team story is completely up to you. Don’t blow it by getting distracted by the noise.”

Coach turned around, as if he was going to sit down. But then he stopped and turned toward the back again. “I can practically hear your wheels turning. You’re thinking, ‘my buddies are going to have a field day with this.’”

“We didn’t sign up for this shit,” Big-D grumbled.

Coach just shook his head. “That is exactly the wrong way to look at it. The truth is simple: you can either have an easy life, or you can be hockey players. The pro scouts are poking around, keeping tabs on some of you. You’re hoping make it into the AHL after college, or — God bless you — the NHL. Guess what? People are going to write shit on the Internet about you. You’re too slow. You’re too small. You’re ugly. Some of it might even be true.”

There was a little chuckle at that.

“It’s just noise, right? And you’re sitting on this bus thinking, ‘Yeah, but I won’t care, because I’ll be a professional hockey player.’” Coach paused to smile at us in the dark. “Nothing is ever getting easier for you in this sport. The noise only gets louder. The hits get harder. You’re a bunch of pampered little shits right now. Did you stop to consider that some of the teams you play against have their own noise? Maybe they practice on shitty ice, or the coach is a drunk. You think you’re being tested by this shit on the Internet? Fine. But find a way to pass the test. Because there will only be bigger ones.”

Then Coach sat down. And I let out a giant breath that I didn’t even know I’d been holding.

“Wow,” Bella whispered beside me.

Wow, indeed.

Eventually, the bus pulled off at a rest stop, so that everyone could have a pee break and maybe buy a candy bar out of the vending machine. “Ten minutes,” the driver called. Bella counted everyone as we got off the bus.

I didn’t go into the building like the others. Instead, I hung back in the parking lot. When I was sure that I was all alone, I took out my phone.

Rikker

When my phone rang, I hauled myself up off the couch in Gran’s den and turned down my music. I was surprised to see a 616 area code lighting up my phone. Graham had the same number he’d had in high school. I really never thought I’d see that on my phone again. “Hello?”

“Hi.” Then there was a small silence. “I was going to call you tomorrow. To apologize. But then something happened on the bus just now, and I wanted to tell you about it.”

“Uh, okay?” That sounded ominous.

“There’s some newspaper article out there, but I guess you know that already. But it must be making the rounds on Reddit or wherever, because guys started getting texts about it.”

“Fuck,” I said. So this was really happening.

“Yeah. But Coach just gave Big-D a smackdown for whining about it. And it was a hell of a speech. He didn’t even quote any dead presidents. He basically just said that if you’re the kind of wuss who lets a few texts wreck your day, don’t bother calling yourself a hockey player. And forget about the pros.”

Shit! “And how did that go down?”

“Okay, I think. It was hard to argue his point.”

I just stood there in Gran’s old farmhouse, losing my everloving mind. “Did you read the article?” I trapped my phone with my shoulder and leaned over my laptop to type my name into Google.

“No, I just called you.”

My screen lit up with hits. I clicked on the link that would take me straight to the reporter’s original article. I was hoping that the title would end up being something bland about transfer rules. Instead it read, “I Just Wanted to Play Hockey.”

There was a photo, too — an action shot of me in my Harkness uniform, lunging for the puck. Thank God they’d chosen that, and not the goofy one from the team program. In this one, you could hardly see my face.

“Rikker, are you still there?” Graham asked into my ear.

I stood up quickly, feeling a little lightheaded. “Yeah, I’m here.” I’m here, but I wish this weren’t happening. The article had fifty-seven comments under it already.

It would probably be a bad idea to read them.

My phone beeped, and I took a peek at it. “Actually, Bella’s trying to call me.”

“Yeah?” Graham chuckled. “Well you’ll have to call her back, because I need to talk to you for one more minute. Listen, I just wanted to say I’m sorry I freaked out on you the other night.”

Funny. I’d thought of almost nothing else for the last five days. Until right this second, when it suddenly seemed pretty unimportant. “It’s okay,” I told him. When I let Graham jump me, I’d already known that he was nursing some size XXL issues.

It was always going to end like that.

“I just…” Graham stammered. “It made me realize that I just can’t… do that with you again. Or any guy. I’m not going to be… going there.”

Jeez. Just say it out loud, Graham, I begged him in my mind. Say “gay.” He couldn’t even fucking say the word.

“I forgot for a little while the other night. But it’s still true. And I’m sorry I freaked.” he finished.

What a head case. “Okay, man. I get it. You do what you have to do.”

“But I want us to be friends again.”

Well, ouch. Even in the most fucked-up of circumstances, it hurt to be friend-zoned. “Okay,” I said. What other choice did I have?

“I missed you, you know. You’re the only reason I kept playing hockey. Because it made me think of you.”

Dayum! This was quickly becoming the most tweaked conversation I’d ever had. “You could have called, you know,” I said. Though I didn’t really intend to take the conversation in this direction. I didn’t want him to know how much it had hurt to be abandoned so completely. I lay in that hospital bed for days, and every time someone opened the door, I waited for it to be him.

“I was afraid.”

Yeah, I got that.

“…But it was wrong not to call, and I spent five years feeling bad about it. So I’m calling now. We were always tight, and I threw that away.”

Yeah, you did.

“So tell me how we can be friends again, and I’ll do it.”

Sure, pal! We could be the kind of friends who never, ever drank tequila together. Because if we did, that scene from the other night would probably play out all over again.

“I guess you’re going home to Michigan for Christmas, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

“Cool.” He didn’t even have to pretend that we were going to hang out together, because winter break was here. “You know,” I said on a whim, “you could come to Vermont for a night on your way back.” But there was no way he would say yes to that. And it felt a little mean to call him on it.

There was another silence. “How would that work?”

“You could fly into Burlington instead of Hartford, and we’ll drive down in time for practice on the thirtieth. I’m renting a car anyway.”

“I didn’t buy my ticket yet,” he said slowly. “I’ll look into it.”

“You do that.” But what were the odds? He’d probably just tell me later that the tickets didn’t work out. It might even be true. There weren’t that many flights into Burlington.

“Okay man. Hang in there. You know, with the whole article thing.”

“Yeah, it’s going to be a party.”

He chuckled, and the sound of it was so familiar that it made me sad. “Later.”

“Adios, Miguel.”

But he didn’t answer me in Spanish. Instead, he just disconnected.

After I hung up with Graham, shit got serious.

My phone started ringing again, and it never stopped. By the next morning, I didn’t even recognize the bulk of the incoming numbers. One of them said ESPN on it. What athlete doesn’t want to take a call from ESPN, right?

This guy.

I kept my cell phone powered down most of the time. I logged into the Harkness College directory and unlisted my telephone number and email address. Everybody who mattered in my life (all four of them, or whatever) knew how to reach me on Gran’s house phone, anyway.

Hunkering down on my bed with an old Kurt Vonnegut novel, I tried to shut out the world.

“John?” my grandmother called up the stairs to me around noon.

“Yeah?”

“Your coach is on the land line.”

“Thanks, Gran! I got it!” I picked up the house phone. “Hi, Coach.”

“Rikker! Quite a stir you’re causing on the interwebs. Is your phone ringing?”

“Yeah, but I don’t answer.”

He chuckled. “The press office wanted me to wake you up at dawn with instructions. But I told them there was no way you’d speak to another reporter if you could help it.”

“This is true.”

“Look, kid, the timing of this is good for you. Outside the rink right now there’s three news vans.”

“What? Why?” I felt nauseous all of a sudden. Hopefully, my teammates were all too busy leaving town to notice.

“First Division One hockey player to come out, yada yada. That, and it’s a slow news day in sports.”

“So you’re saying I should pray for some NFL player to get arrested for something.”

Coach laughed. “Yeah, but until one does, you need to call the Harkness press office and have a chat with them. They’re expecting you.”

“What for?”

“They’re going to work on answering some questions from the press. It’s either that or you’re doing a press conference.”

“…Or I’m changing my name and moving to Fiji.”

“Shitty hockey teams in Fiji, kid. Now write down this phone number.”

When I called the press office, I didn’t get the same young woman who had sat through the interview with me. It seemed I’d moved up the ranks to the head of the press office. “Call me Bob,” the guy said. “My question for you is this — would you rather sit down with ESPN or Sports Illustrated?”

“None of the above?”

Bob chuckled. “Now, that’s no fun. You have a chance to make a difference, Mr. Rikker. What if there’s another athlete somewhere, too afraid to tell his teammates the truth? What do you say to that guy?”

I’d say he’s not crazy. Because this was no fun.

“I don’t have anything new to add,” I pointed out. “I’m not going to talk about my personal life to a reporter. And the first reporter already printed everything I told her.”

“That’s not how it works,” Bob argued. “She didn’t print your conversation verbatim. So even if you say exactly the same things, the next reporter puts his own spin on it.”

But I didn’t want to be spun. “Sir, here’s the problem. Since I gave that interview, all my teammates were called ‘faggots’ to their faces by the Saint B’s team. And then I was ejected from a home game for punching one of my ex-teammates. How do think the press will spin that?”

There was a silence on the line. “Who saw this happen?”

“Like, a few hundred spectators.”

He actually cursed under his breath. “All right. Maybe we should wait on the interviews. We can do a personal statement instead. We’ve got to give them something, though. The beast is hungry, and it wants you.”

How encouraging. “What’s a personal statement?”

“A letter, basically. ‘Dear journalists, I am humbled and overwhelmed by your interest in the story of my transfer. While I need to keep my focus on my game and my schoolwork at this time, I’d like to thank Coach James for his faith in me, and my teammates for their patience with their new teammate.’”

I stifled a snort.

“…Then you just recount what you told the Connecticut Standard. Just the facts. ‘The coach let me go. My uncle pointed out that it was against ACAA regulations. Coach James offered me a spot. The end.’”

“Okay. I can do that.”

“Great. Put some words on a page, and send me what you’ve got in an hour. We’ll help you work the kinks out of it, and then we’ll get this puppy out to all your new fans.”

I wrote down his email address and got the hell off that call. It was only after we hung up that I realized I’d let Bob from the press office assign me homework. Over Christmas break.

Shoot me.

By mid afternoon, it was all done. My new BFF Bob had edited my original two-pager to make it sound like it had been written by a happy-go-lucky boy scout. It had an “aw, shucks” quality to it that didn’t sound like me. But I wanted to be done with it, so I’d approved all but the stupidest of his changes and shut down my computer.

Downstairs, I found Gran rolling out Christmas cookies at the kitchen table. “When you’re famous, you’ll still remember the little people, won’t you John?” She peered over her glasses at me.

“If there are cookies, I think I can fit you into my busy schedule.” I helped myself to another cup of coffee. “You know, a cookie would go really well with this.”

“Check that batch in the oven, would you? I always burn at least one batch. If the phone keeps ringing, it could get ugly.”

“I’m sorry about this,” I said quickly. “I have a feeling that it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Maybe we should just let every call go to the machine. I just can’t answer the phone today.”

She waved a floury hand, dismissing the idea. “It’s mostly my friends who call on this line. It’s very exciting, really. Gertie saw it on Facebook already.”

“Gertie is on Facebook?” I opened the oven door. With Gran’s oven mitt, I slid the tray of cookies out of the oven and set them on the cooling rack. They looked done to me. So I scraped one off the sheet with the spatula, and then flipped the blazing hot thing into my mouth.

That was a mistake.

“Owrrh,” I yelped as my tongue got singed.

Gran watched this foolishness with one eyebrow cocked. “Should I be worried how you’re doing at that school for geniuses?”

And that made me laugh, which made me choke a little bit. I had to set down my coffee mug to get a grip on myself.

“It’s a good thing you’re handsome,” Gran said, turning back to her rolling pin. “At least you have that going for you.”

The phone rang again. Gran adjusted her glasses and peered at the caller ID. With a little sigh, she picked it up. “Good afternoon, Rebekkah.”

Uh oh. My mother. I’d seen her name on my cell phone earlier, too. But I didn’t check to see if she’d left a voicemail. I couldn’t handle her today.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Gran said to her. “Why? Because I can hear in your voice that you’re not in the proper frame of mind to speak to him right now. It would be best if you could calm down first.” As I watched, Gran winced. “Why would you assume that the press coverage was his idea in the first place?” she asked. “You do not sound entirely sensible right now, my dear. I’m going to hang up now, and perhaps we can talk later, when you’re feeling more relaxed.” At that, Gran set the phone back into its cradle.

Her tone had been remarkably composed while she spoke to my mother. But now she was glaring at the phone as if hoping that lasers might shoot from her eyes and incinerate it.

“Gran?” I said lightly. “If there’s a chance that my parents won’t send me my Hallmark card this Christmas, I’ll carry on somehow.”

Her shoulders slumped. “That’s not funny, John.”

“It isn’t?” I was pretty sure it was. Because my parents had already done their worst to me. Now they were freaking out because I’d made the news, and their church friends would see it.

Whatever. Not my problem.

“It’s sad is what it is,” Gran said, turning around. “Because some day your mother is going to be an old woman. And old age has a way of stripping away the distractions, and making you see the big picture of your life. So she’ll be sitting alone in some nursing home asking herself ‘what have I done?’ And it will be too late for her to fix it.”

That did sound depressing. Except that Gran probably overestimated my mother. As an old lady, she would probably pat herself on the back for doing everything the Bible told her to. And she’d probably be feeling pretty smug about it.

Again, not my problem. As long as my parents still paid the portion of my school fees that financial aid did not cover, then I could live with their rejection. “Let’s just eat more cookies,” I suggested.

“Let’s,” Gran agreed.