Page 65 of Goaltender Interference

“Not like that,” he said, throwing Jesse a vaguely disgusted look. “But anyone can see you’re better than Tucker. Then again, so was the roadkill I passed on the side of the highway the other day.”

“Oh fuck you,” Tucker said. “I do fine.”

They started squabbling and Tanner disappeared with a laugh and shake of his head, making a beeline for the woman by the pool table.

“So, this is what the team’s like, huh?” Jesse said quietly, turning toward Connor.

He still felt a little tense, but not quite as bad as earlier.

“Pretty much.” Connor sighed. “I do my best but …”

“Right.”

It was no Toronto, that was for sure. Then again, Jesse had probably been spoiled there.

“Honestly, Crawford is harmless,” Connor said quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’ve played together for a long time. He’s a bit coarse sometimes, but overall a decent dude. I don’t know much about Tucker yet.”

“Makes sense.”

Tucker had apparently been in Concord most of last season but had done well at training camp and looked like he might make it onto the Harriers roster this season.

Connor’s frown deepened. “You need me to say anything to them? I don’t want them to think it’s alright if they’re laying into you and Tanner for your sexuality or anything.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” Jesse waved off the offer. “Honestly, it was just chirping. No biggie. I’ll stand up for myself if I need to. Tanner will too.”

“Yeah, but the guys need to see you two have support from the captain.”

Jesse studied Connor’s face. He found the way Connor distanced himself so much from his own sexuality interesting. And like, sure, they were in public at the moment and Connor wasn’t out, but it wasn’t the first time Jesse had gotten the feeling that Connor put other guys in the LGBTQ+ community while firmly keeping himself outside of it.

And Jesse didn’t even think it was intentional. Connor might be fucking a man now but mentally, he was still veryverymuch in a straight-boy mentality.

Whatever. Jesse wasn’t into pushing anyone to be anything they weren’t. Hell, he hadn’t understood why the entire Fisher Cats team had been so aggressively into the whole coming out in public thing anyway.

Jesse only brought it up in his own life when it was relevant.

Like his family knew, of course, but they hadn’t made it a big deal about it or anything. Hell, he hadn’t come out even. Just talked about people he was into. It helped that there had neverbeen anyone he was that serious about, so he hadn’t had to do the whole ‘bring a person home to meet the parents’ thing, but his parents knew and they were fine with it.

Maybe a little less fine with him ending up bare-assed all over the gossip pages but really, if they didn’t know what he was like by now, they hadn’t been paying attention.

But it was still interesting to see how Connor dealt with the whole thing. How he compartmentalized his life.

“Jesse?” Connor said, frowning.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he said. “I mean, I’ll let you know if I need you to have my back but I’m good right now.”

“Cool. I’m gonna go get some more shots. Wanna let me out?”

“Uh, sure,” Jesse said, sliding out of the booth to let Connor slip past him. “Have fun.”

Crawford shot him a skeptical look. “Our captain have fun? Not fucking likely. He’s boring as shit. I could sort of get it when he was with Viv but he’s single now and lame as ever.”

Connor rolled his eyes and walked back over to the bar.

“Oh, butyou’reMister Fun?” Jesse asked skeptically, turning back to the table. “I don’t see you out here fighting people off. You’ve had your ass parked in this booth since we got here.”

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