Risking the Shot (Stick Side #4) - Amy Aislin Page 0,30

damn sure.

Tay forked a bite of his glazed salmon brown rice bowl and popped it in his mouth. “What would that be?”

Mason, NHL quarterback shoulders straining against his dress shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to his elbows, leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Last time we met you were thinking about coming out publicly.”

“Yeah. And you told me to think about it.”

“Did you?” Mason sipped his water.

Tay nodded. “I still want to come out. But not yet.”

“Want to do it in the off-season like I suggested?”

“Maybe.”

Picking the sprouts out of his spicy Korean sashimi bowl, Mason said, “What changed in the last few weeks? You were all gung-ho to come out right then and there, and now you want to wait?”

Tay dropped his fork and sucked sauce off his thumb. He had been gung-ho, tired of living in a closet, unable to hold hands with a guy in public. Not that he’d had a guy at that time, but he could admit that he’d been frustrated with hiding from everyone except his family and team.

So what had changed? Two things.

The first was Alex Dean and Mitch Greyson, who’d been able to make their relationship work for years without publicly coming out, proving that it could be done.

And second . . .

Tay cleared his throat. Wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I sort of . . . met someone.”

“Okay.” Mason’s chewing slowed. “Given our conversation, I’m guessing your someone’s a he?”

Tay nodded.

“I get it. If you come out now, he’ll be tossed into the spotlight too.”

“That. And he has a four-year-old son. Dakota can handle the spotlight.” Tay had no doubts about that. Dakota’s confidence virtually oozed off the man. “But his son . . .”

“Kids change things.”

“Yeah. I figure if I come out in the off-season, there’ll be less of a media shitshow, and hopefully, by the time the season starts, they will have more or less forgotten about us.”

“They won’t,” Mason said, bursting the nice bubble of ignorance Tay had been happily living under. “Stanton came out two years ago, and he’s still being called Toronto’s gay hockey player. You talk to him about this? Get his perspective?”

“Not yet.”

“You talk to your guy?”

“No. It’s . . . uh . . . new.”

“Hmm.”

They ate in silence for several minutes. A honk from the street far down below made its way up to them, and all around them was the sound of conversation and laughter and cutlery clinking against dishes. Servers inconspicuously made the rounds with water jugs. Tay glanced at Mason’s sunglasses enviously, wishing he’d remembered to bring his own from home. Flipping his phone over from where he’d had it facedown next to his plate throughout lunch, his lips curved upward at the new text from Dakota.

At this time of day, that was unusual, as Tay had come to discover over the last several days. It was mid-afternoon in Toronto, which was when Dakota tended to get pulled into meetings at the off—

Oh wait. It was Saturday. Dakota had fewer restrictions on his time, hence why he was texting Tay in the middle of the day.

God. Being on the road meant Tay could never remember what day of the week it was.

He tapped the message to open it and found a photo of a grinning Andy holding a puzzle box. The image on the box was of a many-turreted 3D castle, something out of fantasy books. Castles are my nemesis, Dakota’s text read. This one’s all you.

Just castles? According to Andy’s whispered words before he’d gone to bed, Dakota hated 3D puzzles in general.

I’m in, Tay texted back. Then he snapped a photo of the view—hills in the distance, palm trees down below, a cloudless sky a shade of blue so clear that Tay committed it to memory for use in his comic—and sent it to Dakota.

Dakota’s next message was a photo of his front yard taken out of his living room window—at least, Tay thought it was his front lawn. He hadn’t gotten a great look at it in the dark—and the sleet that was making the photo blurry, with the caption, Sure. Rub it in.

“Judging by the grin on your face, I’m guessing that’s your new guy,” Mason said. “How’d you two meet?”

Business was off the table for the moment as they caught up on their personal lives. That was the thing about Mason—he genuinely cared about the players he represented, and he liked to say that he was friends with each of them.