The Linemate's Obsession

Erik peels the tape off his stick for the third time and starts again. Clean white from heel to toe, a black band at the top so he can see the puck in his peripheral vision. He has done it that way since peewee. Last night's loss sits on the room like wet gear. Three goals in the third. There is a dent in a locker where somebody's fist went. Hannah leans in the equipment room doorway with a bag of pucks and tells him Coach wants lines on the board in five, and that he is with the new kid. Beau MacIntyre is flame-red hair and a shot that snaps off the blade like a whip crack, and he overskates two passes in the first drill. Flashy, reckless, highlight reels and turnovers in equal measure. But when the whistle goes, Erik catches a look on his face that is not confidence. It is the same one Erik sees in his own mirror. The rink at Raven's Peak is old. The boards are patched in a dozen places, the netting sags, the lights hum just off-key. Two years in the ECHL and three teams, and this is the first place that hasn't felt like a bus stop. There is a video of Beau on the internet with a million views. He was fifteen, provincial finals, he scored the overtime winner, and then he went down on his knees and cried while his father hugged him. People have been calling him crybaby ever since. Jace Thorson makes a joke about it on the team bus, loud enough for everyone. Erik was also fifteen when he told his father he was gay. His father scouted for the Wild and spent fourteen years watching kids. Erik still has the scar above his eyebrow, and it still itches when he is nervous, and his father's phrase still runs in his head before every game. So the two of them build a line, and then something else, and every single thing they have worked for rests on information neither of them can take back if it gets out. *"I've been hiding my whole life. And I'm tired, Erik. I'm so goddamn tired."* A hockey romance between two men on the same line in a minor league town, about a mocked video, a suspension, a leak, and what it costs to stop playing small. The romance is closed-door.