Defenseman No. 9 - Xavier Neal Page 0,85
you how much you’ve hurt me, hurts me.”
“Hugo…”
“I give and give and give and you fucking take and take and take. And now…,” the lump in my throat swells to suffocating proportions, “you’ve taken the one thing from me I wasn’t ready to let go of just yet all because you’re too fucking insecure with who you are.”
Tears noticeably collect in his gray gaze, but I don’t stop.
I don’t rush to save him from the agony.
I don’t rescue him from the ache.
I don’t defend him from what it is he needs to fucking hear.
“Hockey was one of the only things I had outside of you, Crash. The funny thing is, if you would’ve asked me to give it up for you…it would’ve hurt like hell, but I would’ve done it. I would’ve swallowed my unhappiness. I would’ve explained to my team and dealt with their disappointment. I would’ve chosen you if the discussion were requested to be had, but instead, you took my choice to sever ties with my love of hockey without my consent.”
The first batch of thick drops begin to fall from his eyes.
“I don’t give a fuck if the world knows that I’m bisexual or that you’re my fucking boyfriend. I never have. I just wanted the focus of me being on a team to be about what I do on the ice not who I do off it.”
He watches me adjust the bag on my shoulder, step to the side, and open my door before croaking, “You don’t wanna hear what I have to say?”
“No.”
The definite refusal shifts more tears to his cheeks.
“I am not in the mood for some half-assed, half-hearted, half-thought out apology.”
Another set of sniffles starts that tempts my own into coming.
“We’re done here.” Those words are proceeded by me getting into my SUV and slamming the door shut.
It takes miraculous intervention to not only get me to start my vehicle but to drive off, leaving him with nothing else but his own tears. The drive to my parents’ house is done in absolute silence due to needing every ounce of focus to not wreck along the way. The instant I pass through the gate of their community the dismay from earlier arises, once more. Some of the houses belong to a couple of the volunteer players while others are home to the parents of Vlasta students.
Students who have all heard by now.
Who most likely had a hand in the entire fucking city knowing.
Anxiety continues to fester as I park in their driveway and enter their house.
I’m barely two strides in when my mom comes traipsing down the stairs in a panic, “I know. I know. I should’ve already had on my shoes and been ready to walk out the door the minute you walked in, but I just got the most fascinating data back on a project we’ve been working for almost six months and-”
“It’s okay,” I quietly insist.
She abruptly stops on the last step and tilts her head to the side. “Something’s wrong.”
The fact it isn’t a question would normally make me smile.
That’s where I get the blunt observational shit from.
“Paul,” she calls out to my dad, prompting him to come from where he, too, was most likely reading something in his office while waiting for my pending arrival.
He offers me a bright, welcoming grin. “There’s my boy!”
In spite of me being taller and larger than him for a good hunk of my life, he’s never failed to treat me like I’m still the same size I was when I tried out for t-ball. To him…to mom…I’m not abnormal or enormous. I’m just their son. Perfect the way I was made. Perfect the way I am.
Tears reach my eyes long before I can even fester a smile tugging at my lips.
His hands find their way to his khaki slacks at the same time he questions, “Bar or couch?”
The word is practically air. “Bar.”
“Bar it is,” he says warmly. “Diane, do you mind grabbing your phone so we can order something in?”
“Not at all,” she states on an adjustment of her glasses. “I just…need to remember where I put it.”
“Use the app on your watch,” Dad suggests while motioning his head for me to get moving to the kitchen.
“Oh! Brilliant idea!” She exclaims prior to instantly doing it.
Both of my parents are known to get a little spacey when their mind is involved in their passion. It’s one of those things that made devoted family time a skill they worked on rather