Page 50 of Goaltender Interference

“Oh. Okay.”

“Why?”

“I dunno.” Nolan looked away. “Just, like, wondering. I kinda got that vibe but I wasn’t sure.”

“Yeah, well, Jesse is bisexual, like your Uncle Anders.”And me, Connor thought with a little twist of his stomach. But he wasn’t ready to havethatconversation with the kids.

“Right, yeah, I kinda figured that out after the uh, stuff in Toronto.”

“Jesse went a little overboard with that,” Connor said, because he didn’t wanna think about his son thinking that guys should go around behaving like that, whatever their sexuality.

Nolan snorted. “Right, no. I get that. I was wondering if things would be a little, um, a little different this season, maybe.”

“Because of Tanner and Jesse?”

“Yeah, you know.”

Connor wasn’t sure if he did so he raised an eyebrow and waited for Nolan to continue.

“I mean … like, Evanston and Toronto are all …” Tanner waved vaguely. “And Boston has always been kinda …”

Despite the lack of actual words to help him out, Connor got the drift of what his son was getting at. “I think there will be some changes, sure,” he said. “I have no idea what Tanner’s sexuality is but we’ll look out for any guys who are LGBTQ, you know? It’s my locker room and even though we haven’t had an, uh, openly gay or bi player until now, you know I’ll look out for my guys, right? And Gavin is gay. So there will be support all the way to the top of the organization.”

“Right, yeah.” Nolan shrugged. “I guess I was thinking about how hard it was for Uncle Kelly to come out, you know? And then Mom was a total bitch to him and?—”

“Hey!” Connor said sharply because he might not agree with Viv or the way she’d treated his brother but he wouldn’t stand for Nolan disrespecting his mother that way. “You don’t call your mother that, you hear me?”

“Well shewas.”

Connor frowned. “She was wrong to treat Kelly poorly because of his sexuality but that doesn’t give you the right to treat her poorly either.”

Nolan sighed, his shoulders slumping. “I … like, she’s superweirdnow.”

“Her views have gotten a lot more …intenserecently,” Connor agreed. “And I’m sorry you three have ended up in the middle of it.”

He’d had to fight tooth and nail to even take the kids to Kelly’s wedding for fuck’s sake. But he’d tried to never badmouth Viv in the process. It was a weird, uncomfortable line to walk.

“I’m just mad at her, okay?”

“Okay,” Connor said. “You can be mad. But that doesn’t mean I feel okay with you talking about her that way. I wouldn’t tolerate that language from guys on my team and I won’t tolerate it from you either. That word is disrespectful. Whether we agree with people or not, we treat them with respect. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

Connor stifled a sigh. Whether or not that message got through remained to be seen, but the agreement was something. “Okay,” Connor said. “Good talk. Now, get to bed. Your grandpa will be here early to get you to practice, then off to school.”

“Okay. Night.”

“G’night, Nols,” he said softly. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

With that, Nolan was gone and Connor sank onto the bench near the entryway.Well, fuck.He absolutely hadn’t been prepared forthat conversation. And to have it happen so close to the hookup with Jesse left his head reeling.

He was gonna have a hell of a lot to juggle this season, that was for damn sure.

And training camp started in two days.

Connor let his head fall back against the wall, closing his eyes and praying to Saint Sebastian for strength.

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