Page 46 of Scoring Position

Nico kind of wanted to hide out in his hotel room, order room service, and see if he and Ryan couldn’t cheer each other up… but Yorkie and Misha had other ideas.

“We’re going out to dinner,” Misha insisted as he all but dragged him from the locker room by the neck. Yorkie nudged Ryan along in similar fashion.

“Are we defecting?” Ryan asked Nico. Both Yorkie and Misha had played here before.

Nico looked both ways for journalists. “Do you think Quebec would have us?”

Misha and Yorkie must’ve known the restaurant from their Nordiques days, because the host seemed to recognize them and directed them right to a private room.

But the room was already occupied by two men, one of whom had a baby strapped to his chest. Nico recognized Dante Baltierra—it was difficult to forget the face of the man who’d just scored a hat trick against your team—which meant the one with the baby was his husband, retired player Gabe Martin.

Oh Lord. Was this some kind of chaperoned double date? Nico and Ryan had agreed they weren’t telling anyone they were together. Was that about to bite them in the ass?

“Kitty! You made it.” Baltierra grinned widely and took in Nico and Ryan, then fixed his gaze on Nico. “And you brought me a baby queer!”

There were many things Nico could have said. What came out of his mouth was “I’m twenty-one.”

Next to him, Ryan disguised a laugh as a cough, badly.

“And a prepubescent queer!” Baltierra added.

Ryan squawked. Nico snorted.

Everyone else pretended Baltierra hadn’t spoken, which Nico got the feeling happened to him a lot. “You get hat trick, you pay for it,” Misha threatened, holding out his hands. “Give me my baby.”

“This is our baby. Get your own,” Baltierra chirped back, but apparently he didn’t mean it, because he started unstrapping the baby from its carrier.

And that was how Nico and Ryan had dinner with Yorkie, Misha, Dante Baltierra, and Gabriel Martin, the first out gay player in the league. Nico felt a little starstruck about that, which was dumb. He knew Martin hadn’tintendedto come out the way he had. That hadn’t changed the fact that fifteen-year-old Nico had finally been able to say to his father,Look, there’s a gay man in the league now. He’s at the All-Star Game. I’m coming out too.

So, yeah, Nico knew who he was, and itwasa big deal, even if he had since apparently retired from the NHL to be a stay-at-home dad.

The baby was named Reyna, and she was Misha’sgoddaughter. Somewhere between the first drinks and appetizers, he produced a tiny pink Fuel jersey that said ?????????—princess—on the back. Nico probably owed Misha an apology for misjudging him.

He expected dinner to be an awkward train wreck of redirecting questions and trying not to meet Ryan’s gaze too obviously, but everyone else was too busy chirping and catching up on each other’s personal lives. Misha was still dating Katja and had pictures from their day trip to the NASCAR museum; Yorkie was giving tips about babies.

Nico left them to it and let Ryan, a self-professed cinephile, draw him into a discussion of German film—until Baltierra turned to them with an unnervingly focused gaze above a genuine smile. “I hope these two idiots are taking care of you. And if you ever need advice from a hockey guncle, you just call.”

Baltierra wanted Nico to call up his childhood hero if he ever needed advice on… love? Sex? Hockey? It didn’t really matter which, probably, since the thought of telling Gabriel Martin any of his problems made Nico want to curl up and die.

Martin shook his head. “I can’t believe you think you’re one to go to for advice, Mr. Didn’t Know I Was Bi Until I Was Twenty-Two.”

“Gabriel Martin,” Baltierra said with dramatic outrage worthy of any queen, “you did not just cast stones about obliviousness inyourglass house.”

Martin rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying….”

“Keep just saying and I’ll start telling unflattering stories about you and how we got together,” Baltierra warned, but Martin didn’t look worried.

“That’s it—you’ve forfeited baby-holding time.” Baltierra scooped Reyna out of his husband’s arms and cooed at her sleepy face, and Nico thanked his lucky stars nobody asked either of them to hold her.

“Once puked on, twice shy,” Ryan said under his breath. Nico snickered.

So it was a weird dinner, but the food was good, and it was cool to meet one of Nico’s early heroes, even if he didn’t get to say much.

They left fairly early, some of the sting from today’s loss softened by the relaxing atmosphere. But on the way out through the main dining room of the restaurant, Ryan threw his arm out and stopped the rest of them from leaving.

Nico walked into him. “What are you doing?”

After a moment Ryan shook himself. “Uh, nothing, just… look straight ahead and don’t stop, I guess. Coach V’s here. Back left of the room.”

---