Page 3 of Role Model

“Yep. I worked that out for myself.” Harris put his hands on his hips and smiled down at him. Troy wasn’t particularly tall, but if he stood now he’d probably have a couple of inches on the guy. “Part of the whole social media manager thing. It helps if you know the names of the players.” He laughed so loudly that Troy almost winced.

Troy’s eyes kept landing on the pins on Harris’s jacket. “You been with the team long?”

“Longer than you,” Harris joked. Troy got the impression that Harris was rarely serious. “It’s my third season.” He picked up Chiron, who immediately began licking Harris’s face. Harris laughed—again, too loudly—and said, “This is the most I’ve been licked by a member of this team.”

It was a ridiculous joke, but it still seemed shockingly bold to Troy. Harris probably hadn’t meant to put an image in Troy’s mind of...licking him, but that’s where his imagination went. He had never had such a vivid sexual thought in a locker room before because he always kept careful control over that sort of thing. But he’d never been confronted in a locker room by someone who comfortably advertised themself as queer before. And it didn’t help that the man was attractive.

He was also, Troy realized, talking to him. And Troy wasn’t listening.

“Sorry?” Troy said.

“Just sayin’ that you don’t seem to have a social media account.”

Not one that anyone knows about. “Uh, no. I don’t.”

“Management wants all of the players to have at least an Instagram account. Doesn’t have to be fancy or personal. You can just repost official team stuff if you’re not comfortable doing more. I can help you set one up, if you want.”

“It’s mandatory?” Troy hated publicity stuff. All he wanted was to play hockey and be left alone. The celebrity part of it sucked.

“Basically. But if it’s a problem I can probably—”

Nope. Troy wasn’t going to start out with his new team by reinforcing the notion that he was difficult. “I can set one up. It’s fine.”

Harris smiled like Troy had just told him he’d give him a million dollars. “Awesome! Also, I want to do a Q and A with you. Just a little video to introduce you to the fans. Maybe later this week.”

Ugh. “Uh, I guess. If you want.”

“I’ll go easy on you,” Harris promised with another flash of his warm, earnest smile. “Softball questions only.”

His eyes were a comforting mossy green and they shone with playfulness that wasn’t even a tiny bit mean. If Troy had to describe his own eyes, he would use words like cold and dead. And his smile wasn’t worth mentioning.

“We can wait until Sunday at least. Let you get a game under your belt.”

“Whenever.” Troy’s gaze found Harris’s pin collection again. What would it be like to be that comfortable—that open—about yourself?

When he realized he was staring, Troy snapped his attention back to Harris’s face. Harris had stopped smiling. He was looking at Troy strangely—suspiciously—as if he’d spotted contempt in Troy’s expression when he’d been examining the pins. Troy wanted to correct him. Explain himself. But years of being rigorously careful made him unable to find the words now.

“Hey, Harris! Stop hogging the puppy!” That was Rozanov, interrupting Troy before he could make a fool of himself. But also before he could convince Harris that he wasn’t a homophobe.

One more disappointed glance from Harris, then the smile returned to his face as he walked off toward Ilya with the dog cradled in his arms. “I keep telling you to just adopt one of your own, Roz.”

“Who will take care of it when I am on the road? You?”

There was laughter on the other side of the room, and Troy was left alone and forgotten.

After all these years, Troy still got a thrill from stepping onto a pristine, freshly resurfaced sheet of ice. A couple of quick laps later, he began to feel settled. His life might be a mess, but hockey still made sense.

He knocked a couple of pucks that were sitting on the boards in front of the bench onto the ice and headed for the net with one. He fired a quick wrist shot that sailed into the top corner. Always satisfying.

When he turned back to the bench to grab another puck, he was surprised to find one already headed his way. He took the pass, then did a double take when he saw who’d fed it to him.

“Coach.”

“Barrett. First one on the ice. I like that.”

Ottawa’s head coach, Brandon Wiebe, was only in his early forties, barely older than some of his players. He’d had a long—though not exactly distinguished—NHL career himself as a forward, and this was his first season as a head coach.

Troy passed the puck back. “Just needed to clear my head a bit.”

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