Page 39 of Interference

“Pfft. Eighty-five percent of being in the military is doing incredibly stupid shit to pass the time.”

“Wow. You must have some stories.”

“A few, yeah. I think we made a few first sergeants go gray a decade or two early.”

“I can’t judge.” He snickered, eyes dancing with mischief. “I’m pretty sure my teammates and I have done that to a few coaches.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “Oh, yeah. Hockey players are not known for being the most well-behaved creatures on the planet.”

“Sounds like soldiers and hockey players are cut from the same cloth.”

Anthony pursed his lips. “I want to say we probably get into fistfights more often, but maybe I’m wrong?”

I rocked my head back and forth. “We definitely get more than two minutes in timeout for it. Assuming we get caught.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know that fighting is five minutes.”

“Ooh, they mean business. Five minutes in the naughty box to think about what you’ve done.”

Anthony snorted. “Something like that. I swear it’s because we spend the first two minutes yelling at the other guy through the glass, so we they make us sit for another three just to calm down.”

I barked a laugh. “Wait, so you’re sitting next to the guy you were fighting with?”

“Well, there’s Plexiglas divider, but… yeah, pretty much.”

“Oh my God.” I laughed and rolled my eyes. “That’s hilarious.”

He chuckled, but as he picked up his drink again, he sobered. “Anyway, Simon and I—we know the League. They can look the other way over major stuff, and then turn around and say ‘jail for a thousand years’ because someone looked at a camera the wrong way. It’s… they’re not super consistent, but we didn’t really want to be the ones to test those waters, you know?”

“I can imagine. But you ended up coming out?”

Anthony nodded. “We decided we were better off coming clean than getting caught. And we were starting to make some noise about moving in together, so we figured we’d tell the team and let the chips fall where they would.”

“What do you think would’ve happened if they decided it was against the rules? Would they have disciplined you?”

“I don’t think so. Both our agents and the players’ association rep figured they didn’t have much room to punish us because, like I said, there was no rule explicitly forbidding it. Plus there’s precedence on the women’s league that couples can work on teams. So, worst case, one of us would probably get traded, and then we’d just do the long-distance thing.” His expression darkened a little as he watched himself absently swirling his water glass. “These days, I wonder if that might’ve been the best-case scenario after all.”

“Long distance?”

He nodded slowly. “It would suck to be apart, but we wouldn’t have all this scrutiny we do now. And maybe people still would’ve put us on a pedestal, but we wouldn’t have to live up to that pressure 24/7 like we do now.”

“Wow,” I whispered. “That has to suck. Especially when you’re not in a great place.”

“Exactly.” He ran his fingertip around the rim of his glass. “Plus it’s really fucking hard to fix your relationship when you’ve basically been told you can’t break up without professional consequences.” He met my gaze. “I’m not one to bolt from a relationship at the first sign of trouble, and I don’t want to break up. I love him. But I never realized how hard it is to dig into your problems and have the tough conversations and sort shit out when you feel like you can’t walk away. Like, what if we pull it all apart, and then we realize we can’t fix it? Or that we don’t want to? We’re stuck.”

“Jesus,” I whispered. “So you guys can’t split? Even if it’s amicable?”

Anthony shook his head. “I mean, it’s possible if we go to the higher ups and say, look, we’ve split up but can still function as teammates, and have everything be fine. But it’s also possible they’ll drop the hammer and boot one of us.” He swallowed hard. “And I’d bet my entire year’s salary that I’ll be the one to get the boot, not him.”

“How do you figure?”

He sighed, shoulders sinking. “Because he’s way more valuable to the team than I am. I think I’m a solid defenseman, but I’m no superstar. Replacing me is going to be a hell of a lot easier than replacing a hundred-point-per-year forward like him.”

I exhaled. “Wow. So you’re really between a rock and a hard place.”

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Especially because I like it here. I like Seattle. I like my team. Being traded and moved is part of playing hockey at this level, so it could happen anyway. But if I can help it…”

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