Page 59 of Tempting the Teammate
Some photographs ended up on new lines we stretched above each of our beds, black-and-white ones and color ones, innocent to all who might look at them in passing, yet evocative of all the moments that had come before and after taking them. Griffin raising his stick high on the ice while I sat in the box with the camera. Sitting in the locker room with a victorious grin on his face. Walking away from me in the late November mist along the lakeside path. So many moments that nobody would suspect were filled with secret kisses, loving glances, and searing touches.
“Can’t wait to see these,” Griffin said, pushing himself away from the railing and stepping toward me. I could see the invisible chains holding him back and the tension with which he stopped himself from sweeping me into his arms.
I said nothing.
He was fading. That was what it felt like. He was slowly fading like an old photograph left in the sun. Slowly and surely, he would disappear, and it would be our fault that we’d let it go so far.
Yet I still said nothing.
What could I do? Ask him to kiss me when people randomly photographed us in the streets all the goddamn time? Ask him to hug me and fuel the speculation?
We had been gifted something special, and the two months that followed had etched themselves into my soul, never to leave, yet we had also been given a worldwide interest in every move we made. And one simply couldn’t make many moves when everyone watched.
Most moments were sweet enough, innocent enough, but they were all reminders that we had never had a chance to grow something normal between us. And the weight of expectations we alone had from it was multiplied by an infinity when we factored in the fans and the casually curious viewers.
We had taken the world by storm, but the world had taken us just as swiftly.
“I like this light,” Griffin said as we slowly walked back to campus. It was a long walk, but one we both enjoyed. It gave us a break from the rising tension in the house. Nobody had thought of it before, but we were just students. We had our exams, our private lives, our practice, our games, and a show that had reached a larger popularity than anyone had anticipated.
Our games drew larger crowds than ever, fans lining up long before any of us arrived at the rink, waiting in the back to photograph us, to ask us to sign knockoff merch and posters, fan edits, toys, and memorabilia.
No twenty-year-old was ready to cope with that. Not in a healthy way.
Damon had almost let it go into his head, flashing his abs at fans while grinning and messing around. Luckily, Damon got bored easily, so the novelty wore off, and he returned to his more private shell. Phoenix bristled at the attention he didn’t think he deserved. Toby got unwanted hair ruffling from people who felt like they were his siblings, thanks to the clever positioning of his character. Mason fashioned himself the future of the NHL all over social media, causing more than a few raised eyebrows among the team.
Coach Neilsen saw it, too, growing more agitated with the lack of privacy. Our team meetings were filmed, our post-game celebrations, our locker room moments. The last vestiges of privacy existed in our rooms and in the locker room showers, but that was little space to breathe.
Even now, as Griffin and I strolled down the street, people looked at us from inside cafés and bars, waving, smiling, speaking words of encouragement, or simply asking questions.
At some points, we’d begun ignoring most of the noise. At first, it had felt like a selfish thing to do. Later, it felt like it was the only thing we could do to hold on to our sanity.
Photographers lurked from behind every corner, trying to catch us in the act, to break the story everyone speculated about.
Last week, Griffin and I had considered not seeing each other in public. Griffin had floated the idea carefully, but something on my face had told him that I couldn’t lose that. I couldn’t live in our room forever. If I lost that last shred of normal college life and was imprisoned in the four walls of our room, I would break.
We walked shoulder to shoulder, careful so our fingers wouldn’t brush, and we spoke of things that had nothing to do with what we had, what we felt. And that, more than anything, made the image fade faster.
The truth of it was that we acted as though we were ashamed.
The production had collected a lot of material that hadn’t been used. A lot of it waited for the right moment to be plugged into the story. They continued to track us everywhere, filming events, organizing things, generating drama with subtle directions, and creating artificial tension both inside our team and between us and other teams. It was a slow, almost imperceptible buildup, but it had to blow up somewhere. Something had to crack.
They cut the edits however they liked, even if things had nothing to do with each other. Sometimes, an episode wouldhave a snarky comment from October picked up on a hot mic, but it would be put over a frowning reaction from last week’s match.
The team had met privately more than a few times to discuss how to handle these moments. Should we play into the drama that was on TV? Should we act like our characters acted in YouTube’s best-of compilations? Or should we ignore it? We had agreed to ignore these things and to be more open than before with the things that bothered us. So we found ourselves in the basement discussing who said what and who was annoyed by it more than we wanted.
And when the crew got a few of us together for a round of interviews, I found myself sitting next to Griffin, as they always put us together. Phoenix was in the middle, to my left, and Mason and Damon sat on the other side of him.
We had a broad-ranging discussion that covered all imaginable topics until Jen Harding directed her attention to Phoenix. “Did you feel intimidated by the Steel Saints when they started being considered a more open and inclusive team? They currently have six active players who identify as gay, including the captain. Would you say it affects your place in this team and your vision for what the team should be like?”
Phoenix’s face darkened, while my body tensed. This was the moment to speak up. This was when Griffin and I could have shattered some of the illusions that were being pushed by the show. Because, at the end of the day, the appeal of Griffin and me was that we were so close that it would be wonderful if we were gay, but nobody fully believed that we were. It left Phoenix as the only gay member of the team.
Yet neither of us cowardly bastards uttered a word.
The person who cleared his throat was Damon, leaning in. “See, that’s a common misconception that we aren’t as inclusive as some other teams. I myself have never been constrained bylabels such as straight or gay or bi, Jen. Maybe the fact that we don’t care either way shows a more refined character than the public displays that feel more like attention stunts.”
Phoenix looked at me, though I didn’t know why. Damon had just helped dispel the lone pioneer image he was forced into, and I had failed to help him. But he still looked at me. And when I realized that his look wasn’t an accusation that I had abandoned him—he couldn’t know either way—but a plea for further help, I nodded. “Say it,” I whispered, then found strength in my voice. “Tell them what everyone should know.”
Phoenix blinked slowly and nodded. He turned to the camera. “Four years ago, before I was even considered for this team by Coach Murray, who has since retired, this team was captained and co-captained by a gay couple. After they graduated, a gay man took over, only to fall in love with a teammate and share responsibilities. We’ve had a gay coach for one season and several more teammates who didn’t identify as straight. To even imagine that I am some lone voice of diversity, to render me as some kind of struggling minority, and to erase the history of this team’s pioneering inclusivity is not only offensive, it’s morally bankrupt and deeply unethical.”
