doing ten over the limit as we hit the road out of UVM and keep going.
Beck’s laughing beside me, and my hands are wrapped around the wheel like I’m trying not to throttle it.
I don’t ease up on the speed until I’m sure no one is following us.
“A dick?” I say to Beck when I finally feel like I can talk again. “You’re really original.”
“Who needs originality? Cock and balls are a classic.”
We’re silent for a moment while I check the rearview mirror.
“Ah, I guess I should probably say thanks,” Beck says quietly. “You know, for warning me.”
“I should have left you there.”
“I wouldn’t have blamed you. You need your scholarship, I get it.”
And yet, my scholarship wasn’t on my mind when I started the car and officially became an accomplice. “We’re teammates. We have each other’s back, no matter what.”
“Sure. Teammates.” Beck’s mood shifts. “Can you drop me at the dorms before you go to McIntyre’s with the guys? I’m not in the mood.”
“You? Not in the mood?”
He doesn’t reply.
“Dorms are fine,” I say.
“So the CUM games are over. You’re finally free of me.”
It should feel better than it does.
“Are you going to tell the guys I almost got busted and didn’t finish? They’ll probably decide you’re the winner if you tell them how you were my knight in shining armor.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Totally did. You acted like a captain. Just like last year when it was the Grant and Jacobs show.”
“The … what?”
“You two were practically inseparable. The rest of us are good, but the coaches practically jerked off over how great you two were together.”
“That’s disturbing.”
“Do you know I used to think you guys were fucking?”
My eyes shoot wide. “The hell? Why?”
“You and I? We’re teammates. You and him? It was … more.”
“Well, yeah, we were friends.”
“You hung off him.” The glare he turns on me is kinda mean. “‘Grant, let’s practice shootouts,’ ‘Grant, are you coming to McIntyre’s?’ ‘Grant, let me suck your dick …’”
“Screw you. None of that ever happened.”
“If you say so.”
We’re quiet for a minute. I almost, ridiculously, feel like coming clean to him. But there are about a million people ahead of Beck when it comes to evaluating my sexuality, and I don’t trust for a moment that he wouldn’t run straight to the team and tell them all about how he turned me gay with one kiss. No, thank you.
“I was, umm, maybe a little jealous.” He’s staring out the window, and I swear he’s purposely making sure I can’t see his face.
“Jealous?”
“Not about you guys. It’s … I have a lot of friends, but I don’t have a best friend. No point, really, when as soon as I graduate, I’ll be back in New York.”
Any other time, I would have thought Beck was bragging, reminding us all about his life in Manhattan. Now, he sounds tired.
It’s unbelievable that I have the urge to comfort him.
“If it helps, I don’t have a best friend anymore either.” With Grant in Montreal, under the pump with the NHL and trying to squeeze in any free moment he has with Zach, I know that’ll leave fuck all time for me. “And unlike you, I don’t have a lot to fall back on.”
I can feel him watching me.
“But we both have the team.”
“For this year,” Beck says.
“For this year,” I echo. I’m uncomfortably aware of the mirrored regret in our tones.
I have good reason not to be pursuing the NHL, but Beck’s good, and I don’t doubt he’d catch an agent’s attention, which has me wondering why he’s not taking that path. It’s not something I’ve ever cared to think about before.
I pull up at Colchester U, and we walk back to the dorms together. This time I’m not thinking of all the ways I can ditch him.
Instead, I’m puzzling out what’s going on in his head.
I don’t even care when he joins me in the elevator.
It’s probably a good thing this stupid competition is over, because this weird companionable silence between us doesn’t work for me. We need some space. And I definitely need some time to figure out what’s going on with me.
When the elevator opens on my floor, I step out and turn back to him. I open my mouth, but I have no clue what I’m planning to say. Congratulations? Not likely. Well played?
Our eyes catch a second before the doors seal closed.
I head back to my room and shower, but by the time I climb into bed, my head is