Page 40 of Two for Roughing

They got off the bus in Ashbury Heights, near Breezy and Luca’s apartment. Equal parts of hope and dread filled Kilian that they would pop out of a side street for an intervention at any second, but the restaurant was only two more blocks away, and no defensemen appeared on their way there.

A waitress seated them in a semiprivate booth and explained how to order from the tablets stashed on a shelf under the table. She gave them each a glass of water, wished them a good meal, and Tom stared down at the tablet.

“I miss when waitstaff didn’t have to explain the restaurant’s concept,” Tom said.

Kilian clicked his way through a dozen or so types of nigiri and then added two crunchy rolls and a sake-based cocktail, because why not? The conversation was going to be awkward either way. “You’re a very old man,” he informed Tom.

Tom shot Kilian a dark look as he attempted to order.

“It could be worse,” Kilian said. “You could have to download an app or scan a QR code.”

“Don’t even joke. Jax wants me to go to some Argentinian-Korean fusion place by the bay that does that.”

“’S what you get for dating a younger man.”

A smile stole across Tom’s face. He tried to hide it, tucking his chin down as he set the tablet aside, but the pure joy racing across his face was unmistakable.

Envy hollowed Kilian’s stomach. Good thing he’d ordered something with alcohol in it.

“So,” Tom said, laying the tablet aside.

“So?”

“So, are you ready to talk?”

Kilian shrugged. Tiny light, he reminded himself. His problems were a tiny light. A tiny light that grew and grew and filled his lungs, and the words burst out like a shattering bulb. “What’s to say? The whole team is one big happy queer family, and I’m not part of it.”

“No one was trying to exclude you,” Tom said. “None of us knew you were…um. What do you identify as?”

“I’m gay, Tom.”

Silence fell between them.

The waitress brought over Kilian’s drink, a gargantuan masterpiece featuring a variety of fruits speared on a cocktail stick. He took a long sip, letting the sake settle in his empty belly. “Would you have told me if I came out to you first?”

Tom took a sip of his own water. “I don’t know.”

“Is it because of…what I said to Luca? When I called him queer?”

“Oh. No, not at all. Afterward, you were so worried about making up for it, about…researching the correct things to do and say. I knew your heart was in the right place.”

Kilian swallowed convulsively around his straw, draining half the cocktail. “So why didn’t you trust me?”

“It wasn’t about you. I knew about Jax for weeks before I told him about me. And that was the first time I ever told anyone.”

The waitress stopped by with two long platters full of sushi and set them down on the table. “Enjoy!” she said cheerily, unfazed by the sheer amount of raw fish for two people.

“You told Breezy,” Kilian pointed out as soon as she left. “Breezy! I mean, he’s the straightest person I know!”

“We didn’t tell him. He overheard some stuff in the locker room.”

Kilian stared down at his sushi. It looked delicious. Tom never took Breezy out for sushi. He never meant to tell Breezy secrets and leave Kilian out.

It should have made him feel better.

It didn’t.

“I always looked up to you so much,” he told Tom. “And ever since I figured out about me, I wished there was someone else, someone older and more established, who did this before. Who could, I don’t know, pave the way. I guess finding out so many people on my team could have and didn’t…”