The Understatement of the Year (9 page)

As she so often does, Bella cracked my deflector shields wide open, and I laughed out loud.

Facing the corner, I took a shower that lasted about three and a half seconds.

People like Big-D have it wrong. They think that the gay guy is going to be the one who’s slowly soaping up his dick, watching you shampoo. But that’s not how it works in a varsity locker room on planet Earth. The gay guy is the one who discreetly goes about his business, showering quickly and then getting the hell out of there. He puts his underwear on when his skin is still damp, even though it will stick up his ass crack for the rest of the night.

He isn’t staring at you, and he’d rather eat broken glass than sport some wood in the locker room. That way, when his life explodes in his face because he forgot to raise the deflector shields one time out of a million, you won’t be able to accuse him of being creepy. You’ll look back on your years of showering together, and be unable to remember a single thing he said or did when you were naked.

Because he is invisible. At least he tries to be. His computer’s browser history is deleted every time he steps away from the machine. His clothes are nondescript. His face is carefully blank.

Honestly, it’s exhausting.

As I jammed my feet into my socks, I would have bet cash money that Rikker was setting a similar land speed record across the room for how quickly a guy could get out of this claustrophobic hellhole. Though I couldn’t even settle up that bet with a glance in his direction. Because that would violate more than one of the codes I kept. Number one: never look around the locker room. And number two: never,
ever
look at Rikker.

“Hey, Graham? I have a favor to ask you.” Bella stood beside me, her hair going frizzy from the shower steam. Ventilation hadn’t been invented when this place was built.

“Yeah? Lay it on me.”

“I’m going to give out the hotel room assignments now, and I want to put Rikker with you.”

The only blessing was that my face was inside my locker when she said it. Because even with years of practice, no deflector shield was strong enough to withstand that kind of shock. I mean…
holy shit
. I needed to give her some kind of reply. But that’s pretty hard to do when your heart has just crawled up your throat and into your mouth.

“You’re okay with that, right?” she prodded. “I never took you for the homophobic type.”

“Right,” I mumbled. Because I was going out of my fucking mind just then. She said she didn’t take me for the homophobic type. But that was dead wrong. I was the most homophobic person alive. Because “homophobic” means “afraid of homosexuals.”

And I was pants-shitting terrified of myself.

“Graham, look at me.”

Sorry, honey. No can do
. “Just a second,” I said. “Cover me.” This conversation had just reminded me of something important: the flask in my hockey bag. With the locker door blocking one side, and Bella the other, I yanked it out and screwed off the cap. With my head in the locker, I took a deep pull.

Even as I swallowed, Bella yanked the flask out of my hand. “Graham!” she hissed. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“
Nothing
,” I hissed right back. “Now give me that.”

“Not a chance.” Her fingers actually shook with fury as she tightened down the top. Then she dropped my flask into a pocket of her bag. “You skated really well tonight,” she said, her voice tight. “And I was relieved to see it. Because you are freaking me out lately.”

I managed to meet her eyes then, but it wasn’t easy. Bella was pretty good at reading people. I felt her laser gaze searching my face for clues.

She leaned in close, although nobody was going to hear us over the thump of the music and the slamming of locker doors. “Why are you drinking so much, Graham?” she asked. “What’s the matter?”

I just shrugged. Because that’s all I had to say on the subject.

“Fine,” she said, her face hardening. “Be a jackass to me, if you must.” She pushed a hotel key envelope into my hand. “But don’t be a jackass to him.”

God, how I hated hearing her say that. It killed me every time I saw Bella and Rikker talking together. Not only did I fear for my own privacy, I hated the feeling that I was losing my best friend. To
him
.

“My flask,” I said, hating the sound of my own voice.

“You can have it back tomorrow, after the game.” She marched off then.

Hell
.

There was nothing to do then except to go off to find some dinner. And — if there really was a God in heaven, like they taught us at my homophobic hellhole of a high school — more alcohol.

—
Rikker

I ate a late dinner of crab cakes and lobster roll at some fish place that Coach herded us to. And then everyone walked back toward the hotel in plenty of time for our ten o’clock curfew. But I dawdled, walking down the side streets, buying myself an ice cream cone in a drowsy little cafe. I liked cities. I liked their busy sidewalks and their anonymity.

Where I grew up in western Michigan, there was only a taste of the city life. Most everyone favored the dull suburbs. When I moved to Vermont for tenth grade, I thought I’d hate the rural atmosphere. But it actually grew on me, because it was more honest than the aggressively tended lawns of my youth. There were ragged meadows, with cows munching them. There were miles of pine forest, and the outline of the Green Mountains everywhere you looked.

Still, I preferred the city. Especially a good, old one. My ex-boyfriend and I used to drive ninety minutes from Burlington into Montreal, where the drinking age (and therefore the clubbing age) was only eighteen. We had a blast finding all the gay bars and trying them out.

A group of college kids passed me on the sidewalk, laughing together. There was no denying that I was lonely, and letting it get to me tonight.

At ten o’clock on the dot, I walked into the hotel carrying my duffel bag and a heavy helping of dread. When Bella had given me my key card, she’d done it with a frown. “If you see anybody drinking before the game tomorrow, will you tell me?”

“Um, sure?” You’d have to be a pretty big idiot to want to drink before getting onto the ice with a bunch of guys who were trying to squish you like a bug.

She didn’t say anything about my rooming situation, so I was pretty sure who I’d find. Unless he’d fled, somehow.

Upstairs, the door to room 312 opened with a mechanical click, and I pushed inside. It was so dark in there that I assumed I was alone. In fact, when my eyes adjusted to the dimness it startled the crap out of me to see Graham sitting at the little table near the window, his chin parked on his folded hands.

I dropped my bag on the floor and fumbled for one of the bedside lamps. Even when I clicked it on, making a circle of yellow light on the rug, he didn’t move.

“
Hola, Miguel
,” I said, my voice low.

There was no response.

Seriously?
Even if I could understand his reluctance to speak to me in a room full of people, ignoring me right now was asinine. He made me feel like I was starring in that movie where Bruce Willis is dead, but doesn’t know it.

I
should
have just headed into the bathroom to brush my teeth and pretend like it didn’t matter. But it did matter. And during the next ten seconds, my anger swelled. I was suddenly
livid
, with the sound of blood pounding in my ears. Because no matter how much you might want to pretend a person doesn’t exist, you can’t do that. Especially if that person is your teammate.

Especially if that person used to be your best friend.

Crossing the room, I stood over him. He didn’t move. Not a muscle. So I raised a hand, hovering my palm over his forehead, where all that soft blond hair framed his face. I used to run my fingers through it. But I didn’t do that now. Instead, I used the heel of my hand to give his head a violent backward shove.

He moved then, because I really didn’t give him a choice. His neck snapped back until it collided with the wall, and his wild eyes met mine. But he didn’t say a word. And it made me so fucking crazy that I was close to losing it. I didn’t even plan to, but I made a fist.

“Hit me,” he whispered then. And the expression on his face held so much pain that you might think I’d
already
socked him.

“
FUCK
you,” I spat. I wanted to hit him — I really did. But the small flicker of sanity that I still possessed decided to surface, reminding me that I would only get in trouble for it. He probably
wanted
me to deck him so I’d get kicked off the team.

Not worth it.

Not worth it.

Just breathe.

I didn’t punch him. Instead, I reached up like a punk-ass kid and flicked him on the forehead. That’s proof right there that I was, at that moment, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Hell, just then, I wished he’d hit
me
. Because then I’d have a good reason to feel this insane.

But that didn’t happen either. Instead, Graham reached up and caught my retreating hand by the wrist. Awkwardly, he pulled the back of my hand tight against his forehead, trapping it there. He closed his eyes, and heaved out a breath that had the weight of the world in it.

Stunned, I was frozen in place for a split second. My brain went temporarily offline at the feeling of Graham’s hand closing around mine. For a long second, I could only manage to take in the warmth of his palm and the trembling fingers.

Freaked out now, I jerked my hand out of his grip. Taking two steps backward, my knees hit the back of one of the beds, bringing me down to a seated position.
Time out
, my consciousness pleaded, trying to catch up. And all the while my heart slammed into my ribs.

“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely.

I cleared my throat. “For what?”

He gave his head a single, violent shake. “For everything. The whole frickin’ thing. It’s way too late to say it. But I am. Sorry, I mean.”

Whoa
. More silence from me, while I waited for the world to stop tilting. “Okay,” I said, taking in some extra oxygen.

“I’m sorry I
ran
.” He put his head down in his hands, and I could see his chest rise and fall with each breath that sawed in and out.

Well, fuck. A part of me had been waiting five years to hear this. But now that he’d actually apologized, I found that it hurt too much to talk about it. “Um, thanks for the sentiment. But I ran too, dude. It’s just that you ran faster.”

See, running away wasn’t Graham’s crime. Running from thugs who are yelling “sick little faggots!” is not a bad call. The real damage was that Graham never spoke to me again. And as far as I knew, he never told a soul that he was there the day I was attacked.

Although, if I’d been thinking straight in that E.R., I probably wouldn’t have told anyone either. But they gave me painkillers at the hospital. So my parents were treated to a sloppy version of events. It was enough to freak them out for good.

By the time the police arrived to ask me why the thugs had beat me up, I said what my parents told me to say. “They wanted my wallet.” The cops didn’t even bother to ask why I still had it. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t fooling anyone.

My parents’ solution was to get me the hell out of Dodge. They thought that if they sent me away from Graham, I wouldn’t stay gay. “Vermont will be good for you,” they’d said when they brought up my grandmother. “You’ll go there to heal.”

Permanently, though.

Yeah. Thinking about this was really not my favorite activity.

Graham was still slumped into his hands at the table. He looked like a man who was waiting to be executed for his crimes. And even though I’d been mad at him for five years, I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Okay, Graham. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

I waited until he picked his head up to look at me. It was the first time he’d made eye contact on purpose since I’d come to Harkness.

“I’m going to stop torturing you,” I said. “No more…” I didn’t even know what to call the taunting I’d done to him. “I won’t bring it up again.”

“I deserved it,” he said.

Hearing say that really took me back, because that was a classic Graham response. He had that still-waters-run-deep thing going on. Whenever we fought about XBox, or whether one of us had slighted the other one — whatever fifteen-year-olds argued about — he felt it deeply.

“Fine,” I said. “So this is how you’re going to make it better. You’re going to stop looking like you want to puke every time I walk through a door. I didn’t come to Harkness to wreck your life. I came to play hockey. There’s a lot of guys in that room who’d like to toss me out on my ass, so you can try to stop being one of them.”

His face was as somber as I’d ever seen it. “Okay,” he said finally.

“I mean it. Let’s forget every fucked up thing that happened. We won’t talk about that shit ever again. But in the locker room, we have a truce.”

“All right,” he said slowly.