Page 92 of Tough Call

“We do,” Ted said. “And we would appreciate if you would both keep this off of social media until a consensus has been reached?”

“Of course,” we both said, even as I mentally entertained the idea of posting a photo of us kissing. We were adults, damn it. We shouldn’t have to keep sneaking around like we had when we’d lived across the hall in my parents’ house.

I didn’t argue, though. I knew the rules and I knew the drill, and there was nothing to do but wait.

On the screen, one by one, windows closed until there were only two left—us, and Kirils, Madars’ agent.

The agent took a deep breath. “Gotta hand it to you, kid. You’re braver than I am.”

“I don’t care about being brave,” Madars said evenly. “I just don’t want this to come out and be a scandal later.”

Kirils nodded. “I understand.” He grimaced. “Listen, I’m gonna have to disclose this to Vancouver’s GM. They need to know what’s going on.”

Madars winced, fingers twitching in mine. “Yeah. I figured. I’m, uh… I’m surprised he wasn’t on the call.”

“Nah, I wanted to get a handle on the situation first. But I’ll reach out to him after we get off the call.”

Madars swallowed. “How do you think he’ll take it?”

“Don’t know.” Kirils sounded non-committal at best. Not pessimistic, not optimistic—just completely neutral.

I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.

“I’ll talk to him,” his agent said again. “And I’ll let you know. But you realize this means I’m telling him you’re gay, too, right?”

“I know,” Madars croaked. “It’s not really a big secret. I was out in Switzerland. He probably knows if they’ve vetted me at all.”

Which all the teams did. Hell, the GM could probably name Madars’ last few boyfriends and his usernames on hookup apps. The League was nothing if not thorough when it came to vetting players, which was yet another reason I’d thought this meeting would be a good idea. They were going to find out sooner or later. Best to hear it from us than get blindsided with it, which would just make them think we were trying to hide something shady.

Couldn’t the NAL be more like the women’s league? I didn’t think any players were dating officials, but out queer players dating teammates and even opposing players was as normal as a puck hitting the boards. Literally no one cared.

In the men’s league? Well. Here we were.

“All right.” Kirils thumped his desk with his knuckle. “I’m going to make some calls, and we’ll see if we can’t smooth this over and get you into that Vancouver sweater.” He smiled, and that was somehow even less encouraging than his neutral expression a moment ago.

“Sounds good,” Madars said. “Thanks, Kirils.”

They ended the call, and the screen went dark.

Madars rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, and he muttered something I recognized as Latvian profanity.

I wrapped my arms around him, and he buried his face against my neck and sighed heavily.

“I guess now we wait,” he whispered. “Not much else to do.”

“Yeah.” I stroked a hand up and down his back. “Not much else we can do, really.”

Another sigh.

I closed my eyes and held him tighter. I wished there was something I could say. Some reserve of optimism I could tap into so I could assure him that this would work out in the end. One way or another, it would work out—I just couldn’t say for sure if the outcome would be a good one for us.

All we could do now was wait.

Lean on each other. Hold on to each other.

And wait.

And I just hoped like hell we hadn’t made a huge fucking mistake.