“Tell me more! I want to hear the shit you guys say.”

  “It depends on the player.” I thought for a second. “I have this Russian teammate whose favorite chirp by far is, ‘you know this is the pros, right? Not the pee-wees?’” I rolled my eyes. “He used that on someone once, and the guy came back with something about ‘in Soviet Russia, hockey plays you.’ And my teammate fucking hates the whole Soviet Russia meme thing, so his concentration was just gone.”

  “Oh no.” Hunter put his hand to his lips. “They found his kryptonite!”

  “Exactly. And it got around, too. Other teams started coming at him with that, including some of the Russian guys. So we all started hammering him with it at practice until he could just roll his eyes and get over it.”

  “Smart.”

  “Yeah, and in return, he taught us a few chirps in Russian, which throws off the other Russian players like crazy.” I laughed, skimming over the menu. “Plus they try to retort in Russian because they assume we must speak it, but like, literally all we know is the handful of phrases we use on the ice.”

  “There’s… a lot of strategizing with your shit-talking, isn’t there?”

  “Yep. Don’t know if other teams do it, but the Breakers…” I chuckled and shook my head. “Hell, one of my French Canadian teammates tried to do the same thing—teaching us a few phrases in French. That was fun, but then my buddy mispronounced something or misspoke, or—anyway, he basically ended up saying something really offensive by accident.”

  “Oh no…”

  “Yeah, and it was within earshot of a French Canadian ref.” I grimaced. “That… did not go over well, so we all shelved the French chirps. If I could ever get the hang of Swedish, though…”

  “Wow. What a way to motivate people to learn another language—so you can shit-talk people who don’t speak English.”

  “Pfft.” I shook my head. “We don’t learn the language—just the shit-talking phrases we can use to fuck with our opponent’s heads.”

  Naturally, that was the moment our server appeared, and her eyes widened.

  Face burning, I cleared my throat. “Sorry.”

  She just laughed. “It’s okay. Can I get something started for you gentlemen?”

  We ordered a couple of sandwiches and some fries (this place had spectacular fries, and I was hitting the gym later), plus a couple of iced teas.

  After she’d gone, Hunter grinned. “Tell me more about hockey trash-talking.”

  “You really like those stories, don’t you?”

  “Are you kidding?” He brought his water glass to his lips. “Hockey would be a million times more entertaining if we could actually hear this part.”

  “Hmm, you’re probably right.” I leaned forward, folding my arms on the edge of the table. “All, right, so, the Russian guy I mentioned before…”

  “Jesus, Deek.” Vasiliev laughed. “You know we’re playing golf, right? Not putt-putt?”

  I rolled my eyes as I watched my ball wander past the hole, in absolutely no danger of going in. “I’m still ahead of them.” I gestured at Kramer and Welch.

  Vasiliev barked a laugh. “My ninety-year-old grandmother is ahead of them, and she’s never golfed in her life.”

  Kramer and Welch rolled their eyes and grumbled, but they didn’t put up much in the way of an argument. They really couldn’t—I was having an off day today, but those two routinely sucked.

  As we continued down the green, I surreptitiously checked my phone in case I’d missed a response to the text I’d sent Hunter a little while ago. None so far, though he had read my message, which said, Any chance you’re available tonight?

  Eh, there was time. He’d been out with his daughter earlier, and he might be driving right now.

  “Jesus, Deek.” Welch elbowed me. “You’re spending more time on your phone than my kids do. You got a piece of ass you’re not telling us about?”

  I lowered my phone and glared at him. “Fuck you. I’m just nailing something down with a buddy.”

  “Yeah.” Welch laughed. “Nailing something, I’m sure.”

  I smacked his foot with my golf club. “I don’t think your mom’s invited this time.”

  He rolled his eyes and flipped me off. “Har, har, Deek. Fuck off.”

  Before I could think of a comeback, my phone vibrated again.

  See you tonight. ;)

  I grinned, thumbed a quick Looking forward to it back to Hunter, and then pocketed my phone.

  A minute later, someone else’s phone pinged audibly. Welch reached into his bag in the back of the golf cart to get his phone. “Goddammit.” He scowled. “Guys, I gotta run. One of the girls needs a lift to practice, and Nicki is stuck at the dealership.”

  Vasiliev snorted. “You really don’t want to lose this game, do you?”

  “Zip it.” Welch looked at Kramer. “You gonna keep playing?”

  “Nah, man.” Kramer slid his club back into his bag. “I’ll ride with you.”

  We said our goodbyes, and the boys left in their cart, leaving me and Vasiliev to finish our game.

  “This should go faster without those two,” Vasiliev muttered.

  I laughed. It wasn’t that we liked to rush through our golf games, but there was something to be said for not having to twiddle our thumbs while one of our buddies went two dozen strokes over par on each hole.

  We finished playing that hole and headed for the next one. On the way, Vasiliev said, “So what’s going on with you? You’re not usually on your phone when we’re golfing.”

  “Oh. Uh.” Some heat rushed into my face. “Just… Like I said, nailing down some plans for later.”

  He shot me a skeptical look, and I was irrationally sure he knew exactly what those plans were and with whom.

  But he let it go, and we continued golfing.

  It made me wonder, though—if he had figured it out, then what? We’d been friends since college, and he was my closest friend on the team. He was both the person most likely to not be a dick about it and the person I was most afraid of alienating. Except that was stupid, because he’d roomed with Matt for two seasons, and he’d been best man when his brother had married his husband. If there was anyone I could safely come out to on the team… I mean, why not start with him and test the water?

  So, as we got out of the cart at the fifteenth hole, I said, “Listen, um.” I cleared my throat. “I think… I’m uh…”

  Vasiliev turned to me. “Hmm?”

  Fuck, this had been easier when he’d been looking the other direction. I drummed my nails on the handle of my club, trying to figure out how to say it. What the hell was I so afraid of?

  Well, that was an easy enough answer, but I was—

  “Something wrong?”

  I took a deep breath. “No. No, there’s… I, uh…” Oh, hell. What was I afraid of? Of course that sudden surge of just do it courage meant the words came tumbling out awkwardly and stupidly: “So I’m actually gay.”

  Ugh. God. Really? That was how I was doing this? Fantastic.

  Vasiliev’s eyebrows jumped. “No shit?”

  Swallowing hard, I nodded. “No shit.”

  He studied me for a second, then shifted his attention back to selecting a club from his bag. “Kind of wondered about that.”

  I blinked. “You did?”

  “Kind of.” He slid a different club from his bag and glanced at me. “What? I’ve never seen you even look at a woman.” As he moved into place to tee up, he added, “If Kramer’s wife doesn’t turn your head, I don’t think you’re straight.”

  My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Oh. Fuck. “Did… Does anyone else know?”

  “Don’t know.” He leaned down to put his ball on the tee. “Ask them.”

  That made my stomach lurch into my throat.

  Vasiliev looked at me. “What?”

  “Huh?”

  He gestured at his face. “You’re all green.”

  “Oh. Uh.” I cleared my throat. “Just… I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m ready to, uh…”

  “Why not?” He shrugged and focused on getting ready to take his swing. “You’ll be the fifth just on our team. Nobody cares anymore.”

  Okay. That was… That was valid.

  “You’re probably right.” I drummed my fingers on the end of my club and waited for Vasiliev to take his swing.

  He watched the ball fly through the air, and then swore in Russian. At least, I assumed it was swearing. My Russian wasn’t great, but I could usually tell when he or Turgenev were cursing just by the way they snarled and scowled. He glared at the ball, which was rolling to a lazy stop well away from the hole, and then he shook his head.

  “Fucking thing,” he muttered. Turning to me, he said, “Anyway—coming out to the team. What are you waiting for?”

  “Uh, well.” I turned the tee over and over between my fingers. “I want to. And I will. But not before I come out to my family.”

  Vasiliev’s expression turned grim. “They won’t like it.”

  I laughed bitterly. “Nooo, they will not.”

  “Shit.” He shook his head. “That’s rough.” He paused. “Explains why you’ve always been so weird about the gay guys.”

  My face heated up. “Yeah. I know. And yeah, my family finding out is gonna suck. If I start coming out to teammates, it’s eventually going to get back to my folks. That’s… Fuck. I am not ready for that.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself. No one’s going to post it on social media or tell the press. We all get how privacy works.”

  “I know. But…” I didn’t know how to explain to him that I was worried about it getting leaked without saying I distrusted our teammates. Because I did trust my teammates. I just knew there wouldn’t be any stuffing that cat back in the bag once it got out, and that scared the shit out of me.

  “Relax. The team’s got you.” Vasiliev shrugged as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “They’re not going to tell you it’s okay for the other four to be gay, but not you.”

  “I’ve been kind of a dick to those four, though.”

  “You’re a dick to everyone.”

  I laughed dryly and flipped him off. “Seriously, though, I’ve—”

  “Deek.” Vasiliev shook his head. “We’re a team. We can all be dicks to each other, but we still have each other’s backs. If your family doesn’t support you, we will.”

  I chewed my lip. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “Trust me. You’re overthinking this. Now are you going to hit the damn ball or are we going to stay out here until the mosquitoes come out?”

  I chuckled. “Don’t know, man. I kind of want to see if they bite the shit out of you like—”

  “Hit the fucking ball, or I will.”

  “Okay, okay. Jesus.” I laughed again, but my stomach was tied in knots and I could barely remember how to play golf. The thing was, he was right that the team supported each other even when we didn’t always get along. He and Kramer had damn near come to blows a few times, and it was a genuine miracle Turgenev and Welch hadn’t killed each other, but they were all good friends. Hell, I’d butted heads with plenty of my teammates—not just the gay ones.

  I’d crossed lines with Ethan, Parker, and Warner, though. They knew it, I knew it, and the rest of the team knew it. Coming out and expecting them all to embrace me like they had the other four would make me a serious hypocrite.

  So no, I wasn’t going to come out to the team. Not yet. I was relieved that one more teammate knew, and that he was optimistic about the others accepting me, but I needed to keep that in my back pocket for a little while.

  I had apologies to make first. That wasn’t the only problem, though.

  I was seeing my family soon. Very soon. As I slowly came out to my friends and teammates, tentatively easing out of the closet and into the light…

  I swallowed the bile trying to rise in my throat.

  Whether I liked it or not…

  My family was going to know sooner or later.

  God help me.

  Chapter 18

  Hunter

  Scott smiled, fingertips drifting down my arm as we lounged naked in his bed. “You went by the float place again today, didn’t you?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  He shrugged. “You just seemed more relaxed when you came in.”

  “Could’ve smoked a joint.”

  “That would’ve been my next guess.”

  I laughed softly. “Seriously, though, this whole floating thing really is addictive.”

  His eyes lit up. “Isn’t it? I couldn’t believe how much I liked it the first time.”

  “No kidding. And like, a solid hour of less pain, total silence, and not even having access to my phone—oh my God, yes.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, disconnecting for a while is really nice, too.” Humor fading, he said, “I could stand to visit that place again soon myself. I might have to go tomorrow.”

  I furrowed my brow. “You sore? You seemed to be moving okay a few minutes ago.”

  “Nah, I’m feeling okay. Physically. Just…” His eyes lost focus.

  I gave his arm a gentle nudge. “Hey. You still with me?”

  He shook himself. “Yeah. Sorry. I was…” He sighed, turning onto his side to face me. “I’ve been a little preoccupied all day.”

  “Yeah?” I wasn’t sure if I should ask. We’d crossed a lot of client-escort lines, and I still wasn’t quite clear where some of them were now.

  “I’ve, um… I’ve got a family thing coming up this weekend. A wedding in Idaho.”

  “Oh.” I studied him. “You don’t sound thrilled about going.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s one of my cousins who I adore, and she’s marrying a great guy. It’s the, um… The rest of the family I’m not so sure about.” Scott sighed. “It was rough seeing them over the Fourth because I was finally coming to terms with what I am, and they are, uh, not accepting of people like us.”

  I cringed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, I’m heading out there on Tuesday. I’ll be home the next Tuesday. And hopefully this time, I won’t have a hankering to jump back into the closet.”

  I grimaced. “They really fuck with your head, don’t they?”

  “They do, yeah. And it’s… Sometimes I just wish I could tell them.”

  I studied him, wondering how to proceed with this. “Have you thought about telling them?”

  “A lot.” He sighed. “The more I think about it, the more it terrifies me. But it’s becoming clear to me that it’s not like I could just come out to other people and still fly under my parents’ radar.”

  It took me a second to put the pieces together. “Because you’re a public figure.”

  Wincing, Scott nodded. “God, I envy my teammates who are out publicly. Hell, there’s a rumor going around that they’re going to be featured in a big magazine spread about queer athletes soon. I would kill to be able to be as open about my sexuality as the guys are. But there’s no way in hell I’m getting to that level any time soon. Or ever, if I’m honest. Because that would mean coming out to my family, and that’s…”

  I swore I could feel his heart sinking. “They really wouldn’t take it well?”

  Scott laughed bitterly. “Holy fuck, no. You hear about those parents who disown their kids for being gay? Toss them out on the street? All that shit?” He tapped his chest. “My parents. Guaranteed, if I had ever come out as a kid, I’d have been out on my ass. Probably with a bloody nose to boot.”

  My lips parted. “Seriously?”

  “Yep. And that scares the crap out of me.” He thumbed the edge of the sheet that was loosely draped over us. “I mean, as dickish as they are about gay people, you’d think I’d want to tell them to kick rocks, but…”

  “But they’re your parents.”

  “Yeah. It’s… I know it’s weird. Like I can compartmentalize that they’re assholes about gay people. I hate that about them, but I also still love them, you know? They’re my family. They’re the only family I’ve ever had. Some days, I want to cut them off for being the reason I hated myself for so many years. Others, I’m terrified of them finding out what I am because I’ll lose them.” With a humorless laugh, he shook his head. “I know, I know, it doesn’t make a goddamn bit of sense, but—”

  “No, it does.” I ran my palm up his forearm. “More than you think.”

  He met my eyes, uncertainty etched all over his face.

  “Like you said—they’re the only family you’ve ever had. And even if they’re not, even if you made a new one for yourself one day, you still love them, and it’s hard to let go of people you love. I have a friend who stayed with her ex-husband for ages even though he was an abusive jackwagon, and she told me after the divorce that leaving wasn’t just hard because she was afraid of him. She also loved him. She knows she should have left a long, long time ago, and it’s really hard for her to explain that there was a part of her that didn’t want to lose the man she’d loved enough to marry.”

  “Even though he mistreated her.”

  I nodded. “He was good to her sometimes too. It wasn’t nearly enough to excuse all the bad stuff he did to her, but it was definitely enough to make it harder for her to leave. And after she did leave, she grieved hard for the guy he was supposed to be. No, that doesn’t sound rational, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to a lot of people, but it kind of does, too.” I trailed my fingertips up his arm. “You don’t sound as crazy as you think you do.”

  “Well, that’s good, I guess.” He was quiet for a moment, then met my gaze. “Do people in your life know about you?”

  “Not that I’m a sex worker.” I paused. “Okay, my ex-wife and her husband know about that part, since they’re involved in my financial situation, and… But you’re asking if people know I’m queer? Yeah? Yes, I’ve been out as bi since I was fifteen.”

  Scott’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”