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We stay like that for a minute. Across from each other. He’s watching me as if he is trying to reconcile Tomáš’ younger brother he knew years ago with the version standing in front of him. I can’t tear my eyes away from his watching.
From the other room, Tomáš calls out. “Tobík! Get back here, Kovár wants to make a toast.”
Damián tilts his head toward the door. “Go. It’s your night.”
“It’s Kovár. He’ll talk for twenty minutes.”
Damián laughs. Short, surprised. “Go anyway.”
I go. But I carry the sound of that laugh with me like something I stole.
Kovár does talk for twenty minutes.
I stand with Tomáš‘s arm heavy across my shoulders, a beer going warm in my hand, while a man I barely know tells the room I’m going to do great things. He compares me to a player I’ve never heard of and to himself. He compares me to a horse, which nobody understands, and Kovár doesn’t explain it.
My eyes move over the room while Kovár speaks. Damián is looking at me. Not at Kovár. Not at the beer in his hand. At me.
I look away but I feel him watching. I listen to the toast. I laugh when Tomáš claims he taught me to skate, which isn’t how it happened, but I let him have it. When I dare to look up again, Damián is still watching. His beer is at his mouth, his eyes on me over the rim. He doesn’t look away when I catch him. He just takes a slow sip and lowers the bottle.
Later, I’m telling Šíma and a few others about the draft call. The part where I said “very honor” instead of “very honored” and the scout paused for three full seconds on the line. The room is laughing at my story. I’m laughing.
I look up and Damián is not laughing. He’s leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed, watching me with an expression I can’t read. Not amused. Not distant. Focused. Like I’m speaking a language he’s trying to learn.
Later I use the bathroom that’s down the hallway. The bass gets quieter the deeper I go. I use the bathroom, wash my hands, and come out.
In the hall opposite, Tomáš‘s bedroom door remains open with a light on. Damián is standing by the bookshelf with his back to me, looking at the photos. Tomáš has them lined upalong the shelf in mismatched frames. The two of us at six and eleven on the outdoor rink behind our grandfather’s house. At a football match, Tomáš grinning, me squinting into the sun. Me at fourteen in gear that was too big, holding a stick taller than I was.
“That’s a terrible photo,” I say from the doorway.
He turns but doesn’t look startled. He looks like he was waiting for someone, and I was the person who came.
“You were small.”
“I was fourteen.”
“You were tiny.” He picks up the frame, the one of me at fourteen. “Tomáš used to show me this. Tobík’s going to make it, watch.”
“That sounds like Tomáš.”
“He was right, though.” He puts the frame back on the shelf. “He talked about you all the time. His little brother who reads too much and skates too fast.” He pauses. “His little brother. That’s how he described you. Still describes you. Like you are still this kid in gear that outweighs him.”
He looks at me in the doorway. His gaze travels from my face, down my body, then back up.
“But you’re not really that young and small anymore, are you?” He whispers this, almost to himself.
I move into the room. I don’t decide to. My legs make the decision and the rest of me follows. He sits on the edge of Tomáš‘s bed, and I sit next to him. The mattress dips under our weight. We’re close. Closer than the room requires.
The last time I was this close to him was on Tomáš‘s balcony the summer I was sixteen. The church spire across the rooftops was lit with gold. He was telling me something about a match and I wasn’t aware of the words, only the shape of his mouth saying them. That was the night I understood what I was feeling. That I was attracted to men, and more specifically this man.
“Damián…” I say, and stop, not sure what I was about to say. I turn to look at him and he’s watching me again. Brows furrowed, and an intent gaze trying to puzzle me out.
“Yeah.” His voice is lower than it was in the kitchen. Lower than it was moments ago across the room. “Yeah, Tobík.”
He’s turned toward me on the bed, and his eyes drop to my mouth and stay. My breath stops. I can feel his breath on my face. Beer, and underneath the beer, the soap I memorized the name of three years ago. This is the closest I’ve ever been to getting what I want.
In the living room, Tomáš roars with laughter. The kind that carries through walls, down a hallway, through a bedroom door that isn’t quite shut.
Damián flinches. His whole body flinches, like the sound hit him physically and jerked him out of a trance. His hand goes to his own knee and his eyes come up to mine. Whatever he sees on my face makes him look away.
