Page 63 of The New Guy
He actually groans. “Hudson, don’tdothis.” And bydo this, we both know that he means with a man. “You’re so close to what you want! You’re skating so well. By July I could have you locked into a new contract with Brooklyn. We might even get that no-trade clause. All you have to do is keep your head down. Be smart for once in your life.”
“For once in my life?” I hiss. “That issounfair. This conversation is over now. Good night.”
I hang up on him for the first time in years.
Gavin whistles softly. “What just happened?”
I blow out a frustrated breath. “Usually I don’t push back if it’s about my career, but he’s trying to have a say in my personal life. So I just bought myself another awkward conversation.”
Gavin gets up off the couch and goes into the kitchen. He puts a tray on the counter and begins adding things to it—a small dish of nuts, a couple of clementines. Two glasses. Then he pulls a bottle off the highest shelf of a kitchen cabinet. It’s a single malt scotch. “Have a wee dram with me?”
I nod, and watch as he pours an ounce or so into each glass. Then he puts a few ice cubes into another dish and carries everything over to the sofa, placing the tray between us.
He sits down and hands me a glass, then he puts an ice cube into his and raises it for a toast. “To overbearing families, and the strength to push back at them.”
I clink my glass against his, and take a sip. “Thank you.”
He shrugs. “Is your dad going to make your life difficult?”
“Like that would be new?” I take another sip. “The man has no boundaries. Usually it doesn’t bother me so much, though, because I don’t have much of a personal life for him to invade.”
Gavin looks thoughtful. He tosses an almond into his mouth, and studies me. “Do you think he just can’t stand the idea of his son’s attraction to men?”
“No,” I say quickly. “It’s not quite that bad. He can’t stand the idea of my career being tanked by it, though. Things haven’t gone the way they were supposed to. He’s frustrated with me.”
“Would he be just as irritated if you had saidI have a girlfriend?”
Slowly, I shake my head. “He wouldn’t love it. He’d say it’s a distraction. But he wouldn’t care so much, because nobody would write rude social media comments about me and my team just because I had a girlfriend.”
“So…” He clears his throat. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something, and I know you don’t owe me anything. But do you hook up with women on the road?” His face actually looks a little red now.
“I have, in the past. Like, a couple of times a year, maybe.”
His eyes widen. “That’s it? Why? Don’t the women swarm the players after games?”
“They swarm,” I say with a shrug. It’s just a fact since I’m a single, attractive, professional athlete. Finding willing sexual partners is never a challenge.
“But you’re not interested? I’m just trying to understand.”
“I’m, uh, sexually interested, if that’s what you mean. I’m attracted to women. But…” I rub my neck. “It’s a little hard to explain.”
“Try me,” he insists.
I pick up a clementine and peel it, just to have something to do with my hands. “Picking up women is easy. And nobody blinks, right? I’m passing for a straight man. But sex is supposed to make you feel, um, connected to people, right?”
His eyes flash with amusement. “Unless you’re terrible at it, yes.”
“Yeah, well I am. Because afterwards I just feel stupid—like those women see me as the super straight dude they assume I am. As if I got away with something. It just leaves me feeling lonelier than I was before. Like I’m playing a role.”
“Oh.” He sips his scotch. “One time Eddie told me about a medical study he’d read in a journal. This one stuck with me. He said that bisexuals have higher rates of depression than people who identify as straight or gay.”
A section of clementine pauses halfway to my mouth. “Really?”
“Yeah. Maybe because they don’t feel like they belong to either the straight community or the queer community.”
I put the fruit in my mouth and chew, so that I don’t have to speak. But something in my heart clicks into place. Because that sounds really familiar to me. I’ve always felt like I didn’t belong with the straight bros but didn’t really see myself as a gay bro, either.
It just never occurred to me that anyone else might feel that way, too. Or that I would ever meet anyone who understood that about me.
