Page 70 of Delay of Game

The ref dropped the puck, and Zach was already moving. The key to the face-offs was muscling in early, but not early enough that you’d get thrown out of the circle. Zach had the puck on the curve of his stick before the Oaks center could react, and whipped it back to Nate, who was in the process of using his shoulder to shove the winger he was covering out of the way and gain possession. The way the three of them still moved as a unit, Bee higher up the ice to accept the stretch pass, Zach streaking down the middle to follow, all of it was the same as it always was.

Nate was able to turn off his brain for a little, concentrate only on the game. Moving his feet. Getting pucks to the net. Toward the end of the first, the Cons were up 2-1, a close enough game that they had to be careful but a lead nevertheless. One of the Oaks’ forwards—Armstrong?—tried to slam him into the boards as they battled for the puck, but Nate probably had twenty pounds on the guy. So he didn’t go anywhere, barely even got knocked an inch sideways. His first mistake there was probably laughing, but he couldn’t help it. It was always funny when a guy just bounced off of him.

Armstrong’s face went red and he snapped, “Shut the fuck up, Singer, it’s not my fault your fat ass ain’t easy to move,” while he put his shoulder into Nate’s side.

The thing was that Nate was used to hearing trash talk on the ice. He was used to being called a woman, a pussy, various and less creative slurs about his sexuality that had been the norm for guys trying to get a rise out of you from mites onward. He’d been called the k-word, once, and that had been the only time he’d ever even considered fighting. Logan Beaulieu had gotten there first, and he hadn’t had to make the choice for himself.

He was used to all of that, as shitty as it was.

Still, this time...the words got under his skin.

On the bench, instead of paying attention to the ice and the line changes, he thought about dropping in the draft rankings because there were concerns about hisconditioning. He thought about feeling tongue-tied and awkward in locker rooms from the time he was ten and aware that he was so much bigger than everyone else there. He thought about the way Rachel had looked at him, sharp and knowing, the first time he’d taken his shirt off, like everything about him suddenly made sense. He thought about feeling like it was too good to be true when Zach was actually interested in hooking up with him—even though he didn’t look like he had looked as a teenager anymore, they were in such different leagues. He thought about how Zach had abruptly decided he wasn’t interested in hooking up with Nate anymore and he didn’t even know why and—

“Cap?” Bee asked. “What’s wrong?”

There wasn’t a whole lot of time to talk on the bench and this wasn’t something he wanted to talk about on or off of it. “Armstrong was chirping me a bit,” he said. “I should just let it go. Sometimes it’s easier than others.”

Bee’s face instantly darkened. “He didn’t—”

“No, not anything like that,” Nate said hastily, because he didn’t want her fighting.

Bee was unfortunately used to dealing with that shit too. The team stuck up for her whenever they could, but she could also take care of herself. The worst of it had happened in her rookie season, before the rest of the league had learned that not only could sheplay, she would put her fist into your teeth if she had to. And that she had an entire team of guys behind her who’d do the same.

Those same guys, and Bee, would have stuck up for him too. But it was just chirping, it wasn’t even a nasty one as far as those things went. It wasn’t even that bad. It wasn’t worth getting anyone hurt over. It just happened to be the particular knife that slipped perfectly between Nate’s ribs.

“Well, if he does,” Bee said, patting his glove with hers, “you let me know.”

“Thanks, Bee.”

She followed up with him after the game too, trailing after him after they had finished with the showers and the media availabilities and the cooldown and the quick meal. She was still munching on a granola bar, a weirdly childlike gesture, and he thought how it was easy to forget sometimes that she was still only in her early twenties.

“It’s not like you to get so rattled about some chirps,” she said, when he didn’t say anything but just let her follow along.

“I’ve been, uh...having kind of a rough few months. Things kind of stick when they shouldn’t, you know?”

“Um, about that.”

Nate wished that the parking lot was closer because he knew what was coming and he didn’t want to deal with it. He didn’t saywhat about it. He didn’t say anything.

Bee didn’t give him the reprieve he’d been looking for. “I mean, are things okay? With you and Zachary? You’ve always been so close and if you had a falling-out for whatever reason, I think...well, I think it is important to the team that we actually face it and talk about it. Because you two are very important to the team. And also to me.”

Nate wanted to wither into nothing. Curl up and die. Go sprinting down the hallway and leave her in the dust. Anything would be better than Bee’s earnest face and concerned looks. Instead, he said, “Uh, Bee, I can’t really, I... Things are...complicated.”

“Try me,” Bee said bluntly.

For a second Nate thought about just blurting it all out, telling her all of his secrets. Even though he’d figured out things about his sexuality that hadn’t made any sense before, it wasn’t like he’d actuallytoldanyone. On top of everything else, holding that in had been weirdly and uncharacteristically lonely. The only person who knew was Zach, and that was the whole can of worms. It would have been nice to tell Bee, who he trusted not to be a dick about it, considering she was best friends with Mike and had been the first personhe’dcome out to. But it wasn’t just Nate’s own secrets that were at stake here. It was Zach’s too.

“Bee, I just can’t,” he said, hating himself for not being able to be brave and do it.

“Mon capitaine, we won this game, but our line isnotworking the same way. And if we are going to win the Cup this year, then we have to be operating at top capacity. Can you just tell me what thehellis going on? It really isn’t like the two of you to have a fight.”

They’d never had a fight—not a real one, anyway—since Zach had gotten traded to Philly and Nate had gotten to know him. He’d been reserved and a bit standoffish at first, taking everything the wrong way, but Nate had won him over, somehow, and then the real Zach had started to emerge. And since then, they’d had periods of awkwardness, like when Zach had had that girlfriend last year, but never anything like this.

“We’re not fighting,” Nate said. It was a terrible lie and Bee clearly didn’t believe him, but he was saved by the fact that the rest of the team was starting to trickle out of the visitors’ locker room and head down the hallway toward them. Already he could hear the whoops of laughter as Netty had Gags in a headlock, the protests as Gags flailed his arms, trying to get a blow in.

“Okay,” Bee said, “but you know, if you want to talk. I am here.”

Nate thought for a second about telling her the truth.I fell in love with Zach and then I fucking ruined it somehow, because I ruin everything I touch.He thought about the rest of the team hearing it.

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