“I need to talk to Grandpa anyway. I’ll bring some back after lunch.”
Sully tapped my arm in a featherlight punch. “You’re a good guy, Fitzer. Anyone who rooms with you is lucky.”
I scoffed, because I wasn’t an easy guy to be around, but grabbed my jacket and headed downstairs. The drive to East Van took about forty minutes even in decent traffic, the main reason I didn’t live at home even though my team was in the same city as Grandpa. I’d avoided the rush-hour craziness now, but traffic was still the usual stop and go on King George. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, trying to stop being so pissed off at Sully.
So I was losing a roommate. It wasn’t as if Sully would stop being my friend. Even though I found it easiest to be friends with someone I was forced to see every day. Even though he’d now be spending most of his free time with Hannah. I liked the idea of trying to find someone else on the team to move in. Well, not liked, but it was the best of a bad situation. It wouldn’t be like starting over with a stranger.
And for at least two weeks, I’d have the whole apartment to myself. That was a bonus.Right?Heck, I might even hook up with a guy and bring him home, something I’d never done.
Sully didn’t know I was gay, because I kept that stuff close to my chest. There were a handful of out gay guys in the PHL, including Docker, and even in the NAPH, enough that I wouldn’t be a novelty. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t one more strike against a player, one more controversy, when teams went looking.
Once I made it to the NAPH and showed them I belonged there, then I’d come out. Until then, a few hookups with guys who didn’t know anything about hockey were the most I allowed myself. Mostly at away games, in cities like Pasadena or Tucson where hardly anyone cared about minor league teams. Heck, not too many people there cared about major league hockey.
In Vancouver or, say, Calgary, I had to be cautious. My red hair was a strike against me, although wearing a mask on the ice made my face less well known. But if I had a safe place to bring guys with Sully gone, maybe I’d figure out how to hook up here at home.
In a less dire mood, I pulled into the alley behind Grandpa’s business. The convenience store, which my great-grandfather had named “Nina’s Necessities” had existed in that same narrow storefront for almost eighty years. Grandpa liked to talk about working in the store when he could barely see over the counter, sweeping up and stocking the shelves. Dad had done the same when he was a teenager, and I’d put in some time, although billeting in Juniors meant I’d spent my last two years of high school in Calgary.
The store had evolved over the decades, but it was still a local institution, somewhere people in the neighbourhood came on their way home from work, in the evening, or on weekends, picking up that carton of milk after a late shift or cereal and bananas for breakfast. A local retirement complex had added more daytime foot traffic and probably saved our butts twentyyears back, but like every other brick-and-mortar business, we were hurting these days.
So I wasn’t surprised to find Grandpa behind the counter on a Sunday morning. He looked up as I came in from the back. “Callum! Good to see you. What brings you out this way? Don’t you have a game tonight?”
“Yeah, but not till seven. I wanted to get some boxes for Sully and I figured I’d see if you needed a hand here.”
“I can always use a hand. What kind of boxes does Sully need?”
I didn’t want Grandpa to worry, but I’d have to tell him sooner or later. “Moving boxes. He’s moving in with Hannah.”
“Aw, that’s sweet. I hope they’re happy.” He peered closer at me. “What are you going to do about a roommate?”
“No worries. He promised to cover another month. I’m sure I can find someone.”
Grandpa tilted his head. I wondered if he was going to push me for how I felt about this, but he just said, “I had a run on the boxed cereal this morning. Can you restock?”
“Sure.”
Working in the store was always good. I liked the physical repetition of bringing out cartons and opening them, stocking shelves, righting tipped and misplaced product, and lining everything up. The ding of the door opening and Grandpa’s voice from up front chatting with customers grounded me. I reached and bent and stretched, getting stuff down, putting the half-full boxes back in place, stacking the empties for Sully. Foot traffic was often best on Sundays, and I was pleased to see a steady stream of people in and out, even if most of them left with at most one or two bags filled.
Noon was heralded by Koda coming in from the back, tugging their “Nina’s” T-shirt straight across their chest.“Callum,” they said brightly. “It’s been ages. How the fuck are you?”
“I’m good. Helping out a bit.”
“I have no problem with you using your beanstalk arms to get down the high stuff,” they said from their respectable height of five-foot-eight.
“A pipsqueak like you needs all the help you can get.”
Koda spread their hand on their chest with a wide-eyed look. “Oh my, total lack of respect for your elders. What are they teaching you in that nasty hockey business?”
I laughed because Koda was only three years older than me, and I’d caught them checking the hockey scores on their phone during last year’s Cup playoffs.
“Take the old man out and feed him some lunch,’ Koda added, waving toward Grandpa.
“Speaking of respect for your elders,” Grandpa sniped back with a grin, already coming out from behind the register. “You good to go?”
Koda slipped around the counter and punched their code into the register. “All set. Have a nice lunch with carrot-head there. Bring me back a donut. Or a cupcake.”
“You wish.” I gave them the finger and took Grandpa’s jacket that Koda’d brought up from the back for his lunch break. “Don’t steal from the till while we’re gone.”
They gave me the finger back and then swiftly converted the gesture to a wave as a customer walked in.
