He pulled one of the matching navy blue mugs he’d bought at the dollar store down the street out of the cupboard. He started to pour the coffee, then realized he had no idea how Wyatt took it.
He poked his head out of the kitchen. “Hey, um, do you want milk or sugar or...?”
“Cream if you have it,” Wyatt called back.
Oh god. Ryan didnothave it. “I, um... I can go get some. Sorry. I didn’t even think—”
“Fuck’s sake, Pricey. It’s fine. Milk is great. Make it a good splash, though.”
“All right.” Ryan fetched the milk, which he thankfully had plenty of, from the fridge.That wasn’t so bad. You didn’t have cream and it was fine.
“Sorry,” Ryan said as he handed Wyatt the mug.
“For what? Free coffee?” Wyatt smiled at him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Relax!”
“Sorry,” Ryan said again. If only he could obey that command.
“How about we do the coffee table first so I have somewhere to put this mug?” Wyatt suggested.
Ryan nodded, probably too enthusiastically. “Sounds good.”
They worked together for about an hour. Wyatt did most of the talking, but Ryan enjoyed listening to him. He was funny, and he told great stories. At the end of the hour they had the coffee table, the sofa, and an armchair built.
“So,” Wyatt said, grunting the word as he sat down hard on Ryan’s new sofa, “I noticed that your choice of neighborhood is...unusual.”
“Oh.” Ryan sat in the armchair that faced Wyatt across the coffee table. “Yeah, well. I just thought I would give it a try. It might...be a good fit for me.” He forced himself to hold Wyatt’s gaze. Hewouldn’tlook at the floor as he braced himself for Wyatt’s reaction.
But Wyatt just nodded. “I think you’ll like it. My sister moved to the Village after college. She said it changed her life. Well.” He gave Ryan a sad smile. “Savedher life, is what she said.”
“Is she still here?”
“No. She’s in Vancouver now. Her wife works in the film industry. Production design. Here, just a sec.” Wyatt snatched his phone off the coffee table and thumbed through it for a few seconds before turning the screen toward Ryan. “Here they are. That’s Kristy, my sister, and her wife, Eve. And this little guy is their son, Isaac.”
Ryan smiled at the chubby-cheeked toddler in Kristy’s arms. “You’re an uncle!”
“Best uncle in the world,” Wyatt said proudly. “I visit every time we play in Vancouver. And in the summers.”
“That’s awesome.”
“And that,” Wyatt set his phone back on the table, “is my way of telling you that I am totally cool with you being...whatever.”
Ryan couldn’t help teasing him a bit. “So cool you can’t even say it.”
Wyatt looked outraged. “I can say whatever word you want! I just wasn’t sure which one you preferred. This is me being sensitive and knowledgeable.”
Ryan laughed, and then said, “Gay. And thank you for...” He was suddenly at a loss. He’d played on eight NHL teams before this one, and exactly zero of his teammates had openly accepted his sexuality. In fact, most of them had ignored any hint that Ryan may have given them. “It means a lot,” he finished.
“I’m a, whatchacallit, an ally!” Wyatt said, beaming. “So if anyone wants to fight you about it, they gotta come through me.”
They both laughed, because Ryan had roughly eighty pounds and nine inches on Wyatt.
This burgeoning friendship with Wyatt was, without question, the best thing about playing for the Guardians. It was always hard for Ryan to feel enthusiastic about hockey when he didn’t like his coach, and after a couple of months playing for Bruce Cooper, Ryan was pretty sure he didn’t like his coach. He embodied a lot of Ryan’s least favorite things about hockey culture: he was short-tempered, used a lot of tired sexist and homophobic adages, motivated his players by using fear and threats, and generally made Ryan uncomfortable. Frankly, Ryan was long past the point of wanting to sit straighter and bark “Yes, Coach!” whenever an aggressive man holding a white board was tearing a strip off him. These days, he kind of felt more like walking out of the room. Maybe just keep walking until he was back home in Nova Scotia.
It was tempting.
There had been a time, he was sure, that he had loved being a part of a team, of helping that team win games and championships. But he couldn’t quite recall that feeling. Even his memories of winning the Stanley Cup with Boston weren’t as golden as he would have thought they’d be when he’d been a kid.
For most of his NHL career, hockey had just been a thing he did because he didn’t have anything else. And because he’dmadeit, when so many others hadn’t. Every boy he’d grown up with had dreamed of making the NHL one day, and Ryan was the only one who had. It would be pretty fucking stupid of him to throw that away.
