“And I want to ease your mind. I don’t want to make my career that way, and I’m not about to out someone. It’s up to them when they take that step.”
He doesn’t lose his cold composure. “Good to know you won’t sell out to get ahead.”
“Why are you still pissed? I don’t have to keep quiet about anything, but I am.” God, that came out wrong too.
Learn how to talk to an angry hot guy, Lennon, for fuck’s sake.
“Just don’t understand why they’d put someone on the playoffs who doesn’t know shit about hockey.”
I pull back. “What did I write that was so wrong?” Does he know how much time I spent writing about him?
I thought he’d be more pissed about the possibility of being outed than about a few online posts saying he has the potential to be a star but was being squashed playing for Boston. “I never said you were talentless.”
“Strömberg would thrive if he was in the encouraging environment he requires to grow into a player who doesn’t need to hide behind a sniper.”
I try not to smile, but it breaks free. “You memorized my article?”
“We’re done here.” He stalks toward the exit, and I can’t help being entranced by the way his bulky frame crosses the room. Hockey players tend to have this amazing ability to be graceful even though they’re over two hundred pounds and mow people down for a living.
With one more glare thrown my way, he picks up his bag and leaves, the door shutting with a resounding click.
“Could’ve gone worse,” I reassure myself.
I knew he wasn’t going to be happy when he found out who I was, but I fear it has killed any chance I had to ever see the Ollie I met six months ago.
Chapter Five
OLLIE
When I hit the corridor, I take a deep breath. It doesn’t help me calm down. Storming into the locker room, I throw my bag in my cubby with more force than probably necessary. I don’t know if there’s a way to undress aggressively, but I’m mastering it.
“Whoa, who fucked your sister?” Bjorn asks. He’s a D-man and the size of a grizzly.
“What?” I snap.
“Only time I’ve been that pissed off is when I found out the captain of the football team in high school was sticking it to my sister.”
I start gearing up, and my tension eases a little at Bjorn’s unintentional distraction. “What’d you do to the poor guy?”
“Hockey player versus football player? The guy doesn’t have any teeth.”
“Ironically, like a lot of hockey players.”
“Exactly,” Bjorn says. “So, who fucked your sister?”
I huff. “Don’t have a sister. Only brothers. And I don’t care who fucks them.”
“Then what’s up your ass?”
Nice wording, Bjorn. Bet he wouldn’t be saying that if he knew the truth, because he wouldn’t want to know the answer. Cocks. Lots and lots of cocks. Okay, so one cock. And not anymore since the guy it was attached to walked out on me, but that’s not the point.
“Journalists.” I pull on my shin guards and tighten them a little too hard, because distraction time is over, and I’m still mad.
“Aww, is the pressure too much?”
The reminder that I was on a team that actually made the playoffs last year is on the tip of my tongue, but that won’t go over well. It’ll also only be a reminder that they traded me.
“I can handle the pressure,” I say. What I can’t handle is the only guy I’ve been interested in since Ash is Lennon Hawkins. When that first article came out, I hated that this guy who didn’t even know me could see right through me.
Finding out “Clark” is the one who really wrote it crushed me, because it suddenly wasn’t some random guy who had a hunch I was hiding something. It was a guy who knew it to be true, but he ran the article anyway.
At least he didn’t out you.
I have to keep reminding myself of that, because I should be thankful, not pissed.
“It’s that Hawkins guy I can’t handle,” I say.
“Because he’s a fag? Didn’t picture you for one of those phobes.”
I drop one of my skates and have to scramble to pick it back up to pretend his words didn’t affect me. Or confuse the fuck out of me. He accuses me of being a homophobe while using a slur? It’s not the first time derogatory terms have been thrown around a locker room. Won’t be the last. But it’s in the casual way he says it—with no anger or malice, like the world is supposed to talk like that without repercussions, that gets to me.
“He called me a pigeon,” I say, trying to squash the part of me that was raised by a strong opinionated woman who’d rip into anyone who talked like that—locker room or not.