Page 62 of Game Misconduct

“I’m not done,” he managed to mumble into her shoulder, even though her arms were wrapped around him so tightly he could hear his ribs creaking.

“I know, but I’m happy for you, and I wanted to do it.”

Mike’s eyes were burning and it was definitely the cold. His heart was beating too fast, and he couldn’t make it slow. “Happy for me?”

“Yes, mon frère, for telling me, but mostly because you deserve someone in your life, and I know whoever it is will be—”

“So, uh, about that...”

Bee put a few inches of space between them, but didn’t release him, and he didn’t pull away. A shadow ghosted across her face, an immediate frown. “Michael, is this why you’ve been so upset recently?Who do I have to punch?”

“God, Bee, I do love you,” he said, and buried his face in her shoulder again. Affectionate and embarrassed. “You don’t have to punch anyone.”

“Are you sure? I will, if he’s hurt your feelings.”

“It’s not like that,” Mike said, his fingers smoothing over the back of her jacket before he disentangled himself. He really wished he had that fucking cigarette. But he’d told her, and the world hadn’t ended. His hands were shaking and he folded his arms over his chest, hands tucked in his armpits, to hide it. “It’s, uh—please don’t fucking laugh at me.”

“I wouldnever.”

“He, uh, plays hockey too, and it’s not really my place to—uh. You know. Say anything about him. But yeah, he plays too.”

Bee’s eyes widened, noticeably, but she did not laugh. “Michael...”

“It’s, um. It started in the summer, and he’s really, actually.” Mike swallowed hard. “He’s really fucking great, actually.”

She wasn’t saying anything and he couldn’t look her in the eye, because he didn’t want to see what her expression looked like. This was new territory and even though the world hadn’t ended yet that didn’t mean he wasn’t still expecting it to.

“I really—I really—he’s great,” he repeated, finally, and then it was like once he started talking, the words kept coming and he couldn’t stop them. “He’s helped me so fucking much, Bee. The drills I had you doing with me? The improvement I’ve had? Actually getting minutes? That was all him. He was the first person to like—the first person to see my potential. I mean, I know you saw it, but he’s the first person to actually try to get it through my thick fucking skull that I could be better—that Ishouldbe better—”

“So why are you...?” Bee asked, voice careful, almost gentle.

Mike was pacing again. Jesus, he wished he still had that cigarette. “He’s—he’s got a lot of stuff of his own going on. He, uh, he’s in pain all the time, I think, and he drinks like—a lot. He missed a practice and got scratched the other day and he won’t—he doesn’t—I think he knows it’s a problem but he won’tdoanything about it, and I just don’t want him to—”

“Hey, Michael,” Bee said, and gathered him back up into one of those bear hugs again.

He was not crying, but he was definitely wasted and his eyes were burning and he was overwhelmed with feelings. What kinds of feelings, he didn’t even fucking know, but it was like his head was going to explode. Or his chest. Or all of him at once. What the fuck, how did people deal with this all of the time? If he felt like this all of the time he’d probably like, man, he didn’t even know. Spend most of it screaming incoherently or something. It wasn’t even necessarily in a bad way, even though his brain kept howling,what the fuck, what the fuckat him.

“Shit, Bee. I’m a goddamn fucking mess.”

“I think you are doing pretty well considering. Better than I was doing at this point with Sakari. At least you’ve never had to buy an emergency plane ticket like I did.”

“I’d do it if I had to,” Mike said, and was surprised to find it was true.

“So it’s like that, eh?”

“I—yeah. I guess it is, yeah.”

“So what are you going to do? About—your man?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do. But Jesus, I’ve been keeping this shit inside for years. I haven’teverbeen able to say it. Goddamn, Bee.”

“Thank you for trusting me, Michael.”

“Mon frère,” he said, after a moment.

“‘My brother.’”

“I know.”

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