Page 150 of Hockey Bois
“Nice. We always liked it when the high-school kids would come do drills with us back in elementary school. They were so big and fast. Coolest people ever,” Brady said wistfully. “A lot of good hockey memories back then.”
Quietly, carefully, he asked, “You wanna talk about it?”
Brady heaved a deep sigh. “No.”
“Okay.” It was hard to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “Wanna talk about something else?”
Silence for a moment, and then, “Maybe not? Can we watch the stars for a bit?”
Nick squeezed Brady’s hand where it lay in his on the grass between them. “Yeah, we could do that. But I was promised making out, so I’m going to cash that in before the end of the night.”
“Deal.”
*
Nick pulled at the collar of his suit. It was too damn hot out to be in the thick wool with a tie slowly strangling him. Maybe he should’ve gone a bit more casual, but Jenna was insistent that if they attended the fundraiser, they had to look nice. So here he and Terry were, fidgeting in their suits while Jenna took Jess and Gail on a tour of the museum.
Jenna’s work often threw fundraisers to supplement the other donations they received. The museum didn’t charge admission, and so Jenna and the other curators sometimes had to get creative with exhibits and events. They did a great job; across all of Nick’s visits, he’d never found the museum lacking.
Their fundraisers were always top-notch. He remembered the first one he’d attended after college. He had actual money in his pocket, and he’d had fun bidding on the silent auction items and pretending he was a fancy socialite instead of a young professional who probably stuck out like a sore thumb.
He still kinda stuck out, but at least when he was part of a group, he felt better about it.
“What are you gonna bid on this year?” Terry asked between sips of his Merlot. He rarely drank wine, and it was clear the effort now was all for show, to add that air of sophistication he felt he needed to blend in. “I think I saw a basket with sports stuff.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “Signed Ovechkin puck and some stuff from other teams I should probably care about but don’t. I already put in my bid. You?”
“Gail’s gonna bid on a river cruise down the Potomac.”
“Fancy.”
“I hope not,” Terry whined. He’d started the night with his tie perfectly knotted and in place; it’d been an hour and it hung loosely from his neck. Each time he pulled at it, it inched closer to becoming untied. “Why do we have to wear these stupid things? Why is this a thing?”
Nick shrugged and finished off his wine. “I’m gonna get some more. Want some?”
Terry looked at his glass, his first of the evening and still at least half full. “Nah. Get me some of those little nacho thingies? Like five?”
Trying not to laugh at his cousin hoarding hors d’oeuvres, he nodded and left the table. It gave him time to check his bid on the auction as he made a round of the courtyard, lit with hanging lights and filled with soft music from a quartet playing on a stage built alongside the fountain. It was a good touch, very whimsical or whatever word Jenna had used when she’d described it to him weeks ago.
By the time he made it back with his fresh glass of wine and an absurd number of snacks, the girls had returned. Jess was attached to the arm of one of Jenna’s co-workers, asking him about some painting as she dragged him onto the dance floor. Terry and Gail followed suit (though notably not until Terry had stuffed two nachos into his mouth and given Nick a thumbs up in thanks), looking every bit a cute couple.
Nick couldn’t take his eyes off Terry and Gail. They slipped their hands together with practiced ease, effortlessly fell into step, danced awkwardly but adorably like the point was to be near each other. It was a good look on them, and it made something in Nick’s chest clinch uncomfortably.
“You know,” Jenna said. “If you’d asked, I could’ve tried to get another invitation for Brady.”
“I know,” he said as casually as possible, and turned away from Terry and Gail. “I never got around to asking.”
It was half true. He’d been so caught up in Brady, he’d legitimately forgotten about tonight until Jenna mentioned it a week ago. And then he’d been too nervous to bring it up because sure Brady might come along, but what if he didn’t want to? He’d only just gotten Brady to go out to new places with him, and he was sure it was because those places were filled with strangers who wouldn’t give them a second glance. It’d take a lot of work to frame coming to an event like this as anything but a date, especially if they were wearing suits and drinking wine while mingling with other couples.
The fact that he was too scared to ask his sort-of-boyfriend on an actual date that other people knew about was pretty telling.
“You know what I’m going to say,” Jenna warned. “I’m gonna keep saying it because I think you need to hear it.”
Nick didn’t argue. Maybe he did need to hear it.
“Gail says you guys don’t act much like a couple at games,” she started, pausing to gauge his reaction before continuing. “Like, she knows you two are… well, whatever you are, she knows about it. Most of the time she says she can’t see a difference between how you guys are now and how you were before, except that you both smile more.”
“How should we look?” Nick asked, like he didn’t have his own ideas about it.
