Page 93 of Two for Roughing

Practice went well despite the threat of an extra meeting. With the ice broken, the guys joked around, asking Kilian if he was sure he’d never had a crush on a hockey guy, how they ought to refer to male puck bunnies, and what gay dating apps were like. Kilian, a far better sport than Damir would have been in his skates, reminded them all gently that he’d had a vested interest in no one finding out about his sexuality until last week, which had kept him off of dating apps and away from jersey chasers.

“Jersey chasers is too boring,” Ketchup opined, skating in lazy circles while Kilian did stickhandling drills. “I vote puck bucks.”

“I vote you actually put in some effort so the third line can quit sucking so much.”

Three guys within hearing distance yelled some variation of “Ooh, burn!”

Deciding Kilian would be fine, Damir dedicated himself to his own routine of stretches before the coaches announced the practice lines and they got to work.

After practice, they gathered for a predictable lecture about the Firecrackers standing behind Kilian and expecting their players to, if not do the same, at least not openly contradict them. Brianna followed this up with a few choice words about not saying or doing anything in front of a running camera that they didn’t want to have to explain to their parents or children, which made Kilian go from pale to very red when more than one head turned to look at him.

“So, don’t go clubbing in Boystown unless you want to end up getting papped the way Howie did,” Ketchup translated. Kilian pushed him off his chair, an easy feat since he was incapable of sitting in one with all four legs on the floor like a normal person.

There was a brief video review session at the tail end because they had a game the following day, but by then, no one paid much attention. With the excitement about Kilian, catching up on their Christmas breaks, and the upcoming road trip to California over New Year’s, the team had too many things to chat about besides tomorrow’s game.

It would come back to bite them. The Minnesota Fury were unlikely to be a cup contender, but they also weren’t to be ignored.

Damir took a few notes on their defensive game, noting they had won their last three games based on what he would charitably call “goals that could be reviewed for interference.”

On the way out, he waylaid Rocky to impart what he’d observed for their own top defensive pair. Kilian waved a quick goodbye before sprinting out to meet his mother for something Damir didn’t quite catch.

Unfortunately, this meant he had to drive Ketchup and Kilian’s father to his apartment alone. The barrage of unasked-for hockey tips laid on both of them by the latter did nothing to phase Ketchup. Damir, on the other hand, developed an ache in his jaw from clenching his teeth and excused himself to his room for a nap before he had to go to the mosque.

But as soon as Damir lay down, the memory of Kilian eyeing up a room full of hockey players and declaring them all not his type assaulted him, leaving him bruised and battered.

With a growl, Damir rolled over and punched his pillow. It smelled of Kilian’s hair care products, which made Damir’s heart clench. And it didn’t help his embarrassment at behaving like a teenager with his first crush.

Hard to believe that of the two of them, Kilian was the one able to compartmentalize sex and feelings.

Damir had grossly underestimated him a year ago when they first hooked up. He’d continued right on underestimating him the next few times they met, flattered by Kilian’s blatant interest. Somewhere along the way, he’d fooled himself into believing he could have more from Kilian than Kilian wanted to give. It served him right for taking what he did get for granted.

Damir was surly and poorly rested when he got out of bed and put on his favorite suit. Some men wore more traditional garb to the mosque, but Damir didn’t have any, and besides, he liked the idea of wearing what he thought of as his best clothes regardless of what they were. He paired the suit, so rich a gray it was nearly lavender, with a deep green shirt and no tie. He considered styling his hair the way he usually did when he meant to look good. But the wind off Lake Michigan had turned well below freezing over the last few days, so he pulled on a beanie and shrugged into his peacoat.

Men who usually hung about outside to smoke and chat crowded the mosque, keeping out of the cold. Damir slipped out of his shoes and completed his ablutions, his mind still half-occupied with Kilian rather than the other men in the washroom. He took a deep breath to let go of the thoughts and picked a spot toward the back.

Ever since he’d rediscovered the practice a week ago, Damir had prayed once every day. It wasn’t a conscious plan. But he’d catch sight of Kilian smiling at something his parents did, or he’d hear Kilian laughing at something a teammate said in the group chat, and a rush of emotion would overtake Damir all over again. He didn’t know how to hold it inside his ribcage without screaming in ecstasy or crying in agony; the inescapable enormity of it could not fit inside him.

“We pray so Allah knows we appreciate what He does for us,” Damir’s Baba had said when Damir asked why they did it so often. At the time, Damir had given a surly, teenage huff. What had Allah done for them but made them hated and even persecuted in Russia? What had Allah done for Damir but made him in such a way that His own teachings rejected?

It turned out Damir had to grow up and live his life and fall in love to understand it wasn’t anything Allah had done for him but the pure joy of being able to live in this world and experience these things. Damir breathed deeply through the ritual motions and the familiar words and let go of the sadness that Kilian didn’t want him back so he could celebrate that they had met at all.

He would keep praying, he decided.

Kilian’s rejection of anything more serious between them was a blow, but experiencing the feelings in the first place awakened Damir to how good it felt to find things to be thankful for and joyful about. The world around Damir was difficult, unkind, and prejudiced enough to warrant his frequent surliness. Rising above it was a skill he’d had as a child and lost before he could appreciate how important it was. As an adult, he could relearn and practice it like any other ability.

After, he stuck around long enough to sign a few baseball caps and T-shirts. One boy asked him hesitantly about his teammate, “the redhead,” and whether he really was gay. He lowered his voice so much on the last word Damir could barely hear him.

“Yes,” Damir told the boy. “He is. And he’s very brave, I think.”

The boy’s father placed a hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t disagree. He asked Damir about his season, and Damir found himself drawn into a brief conversation about the rigors of an athlete’s meal plan and whether he could keep halal on the road. He’d spoken about these things before, but only with Kilian. Commiserating with other Muslims about the mundane irritations of life as a minority reminded him that no matter what he chose, he did have a community here. Even though he’d been wary and resentful of it to the point that he hadn’t dared trying to become a true part of it.

Maybe it was time to change that.

The brief glimpse of inner peace inspired Damir. On the short walk home, he called his agent to get the ball rolling on a potential future. He’d hoped for an immediate and quick resolution, but his agent gave him nothing but a promise to look into it. As a result, he arrived home in a strange mood, hopeful and anxious, at peace and devastated all at once. Had they been alone, he might have told Kilian all about it, but they had company. Kilian brimmed with stories about shopping with his mother, blossoming under the ability to make his own choices about walk-in fashion. Damir wouldn’t steal Kilian’s moment with his own worries.

Unchecked, they persisted to the next day, through his workout and his nap all the way up until they left for the arena. Kilian took the driver’s seat as a matter of course, so Damir took the passenger side. Ketchup and the Howards sat in the back, Ketchup immediately slouching low because “everyone knew you didn’t need a seatbelt there.”

“You’re going to die in a preventable car accident,” Damir told him as Kilian pulled out of the garage and into traffic. Damir could get used to having a chauffeur. Someone to drive around in the middle of the day through all the stops and starts. He didn’t mind it so much at night when the roads were clear, but now, when everyone who owned a car in Chicago was on the road with them, he couldn’t deny having Kilian take care of things helped him relax. Could he ask Kilian to never move out and drive him everywhere?