Page 77 of Home Ice Advantage

Ryan tried his best to concentrate on the practice, but his head felt like there was a thunderstorm brewing in there. He wasn’t upset. He was happy for Eric. They’d never talked about what they were doing, but he’d started to...he didn’t even know what he was hoping for. It had felt real and solid and like something when Eric had took him home to Montreal. But if he was going to be leaving Boston, Ryan also couldn’t expect that things would just continue that way. It was one thing to keep them up when they were working together, in the same city, when it was easy. It was another thing to commit to something long-distance.

Either way he was going to have to talk to Eric, finally.

That opportunity came sooner than he was expecting. Ryan was already home at his sad little apartment, making himself dinner, when Eric texted,Can you let me in?Ryan checked the stove burners he had on under his griddle to make sure that nothing would catch fire if he accidentally got locked out of his apartment and went downstairs to do just that.

When he opened the door, he found Eric on the doorstep, bedraggled from the steady rain that had been falling that evening, droplets misting his glasses. He had a black leather briefcase tucked under his arm, and his coat was billowing a little in the wind. When he saw Ryan, he took a step forward and grabbed him by the shoulders and leaned down to kiss him.

Ryan made a surprised noise into his mouth, especially because now he was getting rained on too, especially because they were basically in public, but went with it, still swept up in the emotions of realizing that they might have to end this soon. Eric kissed with the kind of desperation that Ryan felt, like he knew things were changing faster than they had been ready for, like he didn’t want it to happen any more than Ryan did.

When they finally pulled apart, Eric’s glasses were a smudgy mess of rain and nose-prints, and he was breathing a little raggedly. Ryan said, “Uh, you know, you can come in where it’s not raining.”

Eric laughed, although there was a hint of uncertainty to it. “Yes. Of course.”

“I’m making cheesesteaks,” Ryan said, “if you, ah, want one. If you can eat one?”

“That sounds perfect right about now,” Eric said, and followed him up. “I don’t really keep kosher, you know.”

The cheesesteaks were something that Ryan had eaten in Philadelphia in his playing days, and he’d gotten kind of obsessed with recreating them at home. They weren’t exactly clean eating, but sometimes you just wanted a gigantic portion of meat and onions and cheese on some bread that, by the time you were finished with it, was practically falling apart under the weight of the filling. He’d gotten pretty close—the key was freezing the meat before you started trying to slice it—but the bread was always a struggle. For some reason, the right kind of rolls just weren’t available outside of Philly. He made do.

Eric leaned against the counter in his narrow galley kitchen while Ryan worked. He’d already done most of the prep, so now it was just a matter of cooking the meat and onions on the grill and laying the cheese on top toward the end, toasting the rolls just a bit in the fat left behind. He watched Eric from the corner of his eye, waiting for him to talk. He’d taken off his coat and wiped his glasses off with a cloth, but his curly hair was still a little damp, and he kept rubbing the back of his neck uneasily.

“Can you just tell me what’s going on?” Ryan said, finally, as he was chopping up the meat straight on the griddle.

“I had an interview today.” He didn’t sound happy about it, his voice tight and stretched. “I was offered a head coaching position.”

Ryan’s stomach dropped. He shoveled meat onto the roll and looked up, forcing himself to smile. It wasn’t hard, and it was the hardest thing he’d ever done. “Eric, Jesus, that’s amazing. Congratulations, buddy. I’m, I’m sorry I don’t have anything special we can drink to celebrate.”

“Well,” Eric said, mouth twisted down. He couldn’t look Ryan in the eye. “I’m not sure if I’m going to take the job.”

“What?” Ryan said. It was like whiplash, a little. The pride and the fear and the relief. “Why not?”

“Well. As you might’ve already guessed considering the vacancies around the league, it was the Railers.”

Ryan stared at him. “Oh.Ohhh, Jesus.”

“Yeah. So. I asked them about what they’d do if a player reported something similar again, and I wasn’t very encouraged by the answer. It was just corporate bullshit for doing the bare minimum to cover their asses. I was—not thrilled by it.”

The meat steamed in the buns, but Ryan suddenly didn’t feel very hungry. “Eric, I...look, no one deserves that position more than you. And I think if you want it, you should take it. You’ve worked so fucking hard for it, and this kind of chance doesn’t come up very often. You know better than anyone.”

“Yeah,” Eric said, shortly. He pulled one of the plates toward him but didn’t eat, either. “I just...morally, I’m not sure if I can do it. And I heard their owner on the radio on the train ride home, ranting about how unfairly the organization was being treated in the press. It’s just...it’s the chance of a lifetime. But I don’t know if I can take it, Ry. I just don’t know.”

The dinner forgotten, Ryan took a step forward, and wormed his way into an embrace. Even now, it was almost shocking how easy it was to fit their bodies together, considering Eric’s height advantage and the way Ryan’s face ended up buried somewhere in his chest when Eric’s arms tightened and pulled him in closer. “The thing is, Eric. You’re like...a really good person. Iknowyou. And I know if you took that position and anything happened, the guys would trust you, andIwould trust you to do the right thing, no matter what the team wanted.”

“That’s. Probably kinder than I deserve,” Eric said, voice muffled by Ryan’s hair. “I appreciate you saying that, probably more than you know. But I don’t know...”

“I think that if you want the job,” Ryan said, hating himself for how fucking sad he felt saying it, “you should take it. Like I said. No one deserves that more than you do. And I want to see you—I want to see you behind the bench where you belong.”

Eric mumbled something again that sounded likeIambehind the bench, but Ryan couldn’t hear it clearly over the pounding of his heart in his own ears. “I have some time to think about it. So I’m going to think about it. Okay?”

“Yeah. This isn’t the kind of decision you should make right away,” Ryan managed. “But I want you to know, like, whatever you do. I’ll support you in it.”

“Thank you,” Eric said again, and kissed the top of his head, a gesture that was so ridiculous that Ryan tried to swat him away. “Hey. I’m starving. Let’s eat, and then we can talk about like—anything other than this. Please?”

“Whatever you want, buddy,” Ryan said, and sighed as he untangled himself from the embrace. “I can be a very good distraction.”

Eric, laughing, kissed him again, but Ryan didn’t feel any better after it.

Eric had a hard time falling asleep, even after a pretty intense orgasm. He lay awake in Ryan’s bed instead, alternating between staring at the ceiling in the shadows of the room and looking back down at Ryan’s face. Eric liked to see how slack and relaxed Ryan was in sleep, because awake, he was constantly in motion, constantly on edge, constantly smiling or talking or getting his stupid nose into everyone’s business.

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