The referees skated in a circle around them, monitoring the two of them carefully. Matheson threw his own stick and stood blade to blade with him. “You are. Homos shouldn’t be playing in the NHL! All you do is dilute the quality of the game.”
By this time the rest of his line was standing close by, ready to defend him if needed. Two of their teammates were holding Nathan back, keeping him from charging in like an enraged bull, but Jeremy had had it. “I’m not gay, asshole, but even if I were, I could skate circles around you any day.”
The Senators’ player dropped his gloves and came at him with lightning speed. Jeremy’s head snapped back as he took an upper cut to the jaw. Thank god he wore a mouth guard or he would be spitting out some teeth by now. That was it. He was sick of the looks random people were giving him when he passed them in the streets. He was tired of walking into the showers, only to have the rest of the team find an excuse to leave. He was done trying to be the better man. If Matheson didn’t respect a gentleman, then maybe he would respect someone a little more forceful.
Before the referees could drag the other man off the ice, Jeremy dropped his own gloves and charged, hitting Matheson in the chest with such force he toppled over. Jeremy straddled him and pummeled him everywhere he could reach.
Matheson gave as good as he got, and Jeremy briefly wondered if he would need to have his jaw set after a particularly hard punch. By the time the referees peeled them apart, blood was running down both their faces.
“Fucker broke my nose,” Matheson practically whined as he was escorted off the ice.
“It would be an improvement to his ugly mug,” Jeremy muttered as he allowed the other referee to lead him to his own bench. He walked right back into the locker room and sat down on the bench. Even if he only got a two-minute penalty, which he strongly doubted, there was no way he could go back into the game. Blood was pouring from a gash he’d received somewhere along the way, forcing him to wipe it out of his eyes every few seconds.
He slumped down and waited for the team doctor to come and stitch him up. He didn’t have to wait long. The older man came bustling in, brandishing syringes, needle, and thread. Jeremy flinched a little when the doctor injected a syringe full of lidocaine around the wound on his forehead. “What’d I get?” He winced when another injection was applied to the wound.
The doctor picked up his hands and looked at them while they waited for the lidocaine to do its job. “Five minutes and a game misconduct. Not that you’ll be playing on Friday anyway. Do your hands hurt at all?”
Jeremy looked down at his hands, surprised to see the knuckles were scraped and bruised. He flexed them a little, relieved to find they were only stiff. He was going to lose the video game tournament with Nathan and Rachel tomorrow because of the stiffness, but at least they weren’t broken. It would really suck if he couldn’t work on his video games because his hands were in casts. “They’re fine,” he said.
The doctor shook his head and sighed. “You hockey types. You’d go right back out on that ice after I stitched you up if you didn’t have those penalties, wouldn’t you?”
Jeremy grinned at that because it, of course, would be exactly what he would do. He reached up, expecting to brush away more blood and was startled to see there wasn’t nearly as much as before. “It’s not so bad,” he said to the doctor. “The blood is already slowing down.”
The other man gave a long-suffering sigh, letting Jeremy know exactly what he thought of jocks. “I gave you some epinephrine to slow the bleeding so I could at least see what I was doing. The lidocaine has probably had enough time to work now. Tilt your head back a little.”
Jeremy sat very still as the doctor threaded the needle and began sewing his forehead back together. He knew it wasn’t really serious since the doctor would have sent him to the hospital if he had been worried. However, it still wasn’t a good idea to crack a joke when a man was piercing you with a sharp pin every few seconds.
By the time the doctor had assured himself that Jeremy had no signs of concussion, that he still had all his teeth, and that all his parts were still working, the game was over and the rest of his team was filing back into the locker room. From the grins on their faces, it was easy to surmise they’d won. Nathan didn’t come into the locker room and was probably talking to the sports reporters just outside the room.
The goalie, Johnston, plopped down on the bench next to him and spit out his mouth guard to grin at him. “Great fight, rookie!” He bumped fists with him before standing up to begin stripping off his equipment, tossing it on the ground willy-nilly until he stood in nothing but his jock strap. “I don’t care if you’re fucking a dead horse at night. You really manned up out there, and that goal of yours was a beauty. I caught the replay on the big screen just before Matheson decided to dick up.”
Jeremy watched Johnston head for the showers with bewilderment. Goalies were a strange breed. Anyone who voluntarily stood there and let people shoot ninety-five mile an hour pucks at them had to be just a little crazy. “Fuck a dead horse?” Jeremy said out loud, still trying to wrap his mind around what the goalie had just said.
“Yeah, don’t mind him. He’s crazy,” Hawkins, a right wing from the second line, called out across the room. “Goalies. Sheesh. But he was right about your fight, dude. You handed Matheson his ass on a silver platter. Caught word that you broke the fucker’s nose. Good for you. Don’t let anyone fuck with you.”
At least the rest of the team seemed to be back on an even keel with him. No one was looking at him funny. They were slapping him on the back and joking around with him like they had before that wretched column had been released. Hopefully, the coach wouldn’t be too steamed.
The coach marched into the room as if summoned by the thought. “Reiner, get in here!” he roared, pointing to his office.
Jeremy shrugged at the others and stood up, taking a few seconds to take off his blood-stained jersey and shrug out of his shoulder pads before joining the red-faced man and closing the door behind him. He stood there, unsure what to do. Should he sit down? He didn’t really want to mess up the leather chair since the sweat was still drying on his back. Maybe he should have taken the time to fully change before coming in to face a seething man. Somehow it didn’t feel right to be standing here half naked. The only thing he wore on his upper body were the suspenders that kept up his hockey pants. Maybe he should start wearing a T-shirt under his equipment.
“I put you on the first line so you would smarten up and perform, not so you could get into a tussle. A game’s misconduct, Reiner. What the fuck were you thinking?” The coach’s voice rose with every word until he was shouting at the top of his lungs.
Jeremy stifled the urge to shout right back at the head coach. “He started it,” he said instead, flinching inwardly at how lame that sounded.
The other man rubbed his hand over his face wearily. “Yeah, kid, I know. Matheson got a three-game suspension for his trouble. A little harsh, but one of the refs said he heard whatever shit Matheson was spouting at you and didn’t take kindly to what he heard. At least things have gotten better with the other guys, right?”
Jeremy just stood there, confused beyond belief. This was it? This was all he was going to get? The coach obviously interpreted the look on his face accurately because he pointed right at him. “Don’t think you’ll get away with it next time. Matheson was asking for it. Next time you fight, you got three extra miles for dry land training. Now go hit the showers. You stink, and you’re covered in dry blood.”
He did as he was told, shedding the rest of his equipment before stepping into the showers. He tilted his head back and let the hot water run through his hair and soothe his sore muscles, happy the doctor had put a waterproof bandage over the stitches so he could bathe properly. Most of the guys were finishing up now and were asking about his meeting with the coach. A few offered invitations to go out for a beer, but Jeremy turned them all down. All he really wanted right now was a soft bed, a warm body next to his, and a couple of ibuprofen. The lidocaine was wearing off, and he was starting to feel the ache in his head.
Nathan finally walked in, stopping under the showerhead right next to his even though most of the others were now free. Jeremy didn’t miss the speculative looks he got from his other teammates but now they were just looks of curiosity.
“Yo, Nathan,” Johnston called. “Take care of our boy, yeah? He deserves it.” The goalie walked out of the locker room, snickering about dead horses the whole way.
Nathan turned his blond head toward Jeremy. “Dead horses?”
Jeremy couldn’t hold back his own snicker. “He’s a goalie.”
“Gotcha. Goalies are crazy, especially ours. He’s damn good at what he does though.”
Jeremy smiled again. It felt good to be treated normally again. “He is at that.”
They showered in silence for a few minutes, Jeremy shampooing his hair carefully to avoid the bandage. There was no reason to try and dislodge it. He reached for the shelf built into the shower wall and grabbed the conditioner that Rachel had bought for him. He couldn’t help but notice Nathan didn’t have any conditioner. “Why doesn’t Rachel make you use conditioner?”
Nathan chuckled and rubbed some soap over his wide chest. “My hair is too short. You don’t wanna use it, you need to cut your hair.”
Jeremy rubbed the slick substance through his hair and thought about having it cut off. He just couldn’t do it. His hairstyle had started off in university as an easy way to rebel against his father, who had insisted on a military type flat-top. Now the style had become a part of him. “I think I’ll stick with using the conditioner, thanks.”
Nathan looked at him, an assessing look on his face. “Good. I like it long like that.”
Jeremy shifted uncomfortably and quickly shut off the water. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he wandered back to his locker and put on his street clothes. By this time, only he and Nathan were left in the locker room. He leaned back against Johnston’s locker, hoping like hell he didn’t have a dead horse stashed in it somewhere. He closed his eyes, analyzing his unexpected discomfort.
Nathan’s offhand comments had never bothered him before. Neither had the casual touches. Nathan had even touched him in sexual situations. Just last night, Jeremy had made slow love to Rachel spooned with her from behind while Nathan had fingered her clit. The two of them had driven her to five orgasms before she pleaded for rest. Nathan’s hands had brushed over his cock repeatedly while he’d been easing inside her. Prior to that damn column, he never would have given those accidental touches a second thought. He knew Nathan swung both ways. The way he’d rubbed off against Jeremy’s ass that first night had proven it, and Nathan had confirmed it later. He’d never pushed Jeremy for anything sexual. Now Jeremy wondered if those touches had really been an accident.
If those touches weren’t accidental, Jeremy had to decide how he felt about what was happening between the three of them. He was pretty sure he was in love with Rachel. He couldn’t wait to get home to see her at night. The thought of being with her caused his heart to pound in anticipation and gave him warm fuzzies that spread through his entire body, not that he would word it that way outside of his own mind. He missed her desperately when she was gone and being with her felt like being home.
Only…if he was being completely honest with himself, he would admit he was beginning to feel the same way about Nathan. He missed the man just as much as the woman. Sometimes if they went to bed before Rachel did, he felt the strongest urge to cuddle up to Nathan’s big, muscular body and soak up his warmth and strength. He had grown to crave Nathan’s domineering ways in bed, even if he was only directing Jeremy on how to make love to Rachel. The very thought of not being with Nathan left a gaping wound in his chest that Jeremy was pretty sure he wouldn’t survive if it were actually to become reality. Did that mean that he was in love with Nathan, too?
More importantly, did that mean he was gay?
Jeremy had never given his sexuality a second thought before. Sure, he could identify and even appreciate a good-looking guy, but he’d never been sexually attracted to a man before.
He shifted again as Nathan walked out of the showers butt naked, running the towel over his short hair. That odd little feeling in his chest, like a bird’s wings fluttering madly against his ribs, started up again. He’d been feeling those wings more and more often lately. Especially when he’d found himself imagining being penetrated by Nathan while he plunged into Rachel’s willing body. Those thoughts had always gotten stronger as he was drifting off to sleep. As much as he loved their threesome relationship, he couldn’t help but feel he was missing an integral part of himself.
Nathan wrapped the towel around his lean waist and sat down next to him. “I’d be careful if I were you. You never know what Johnston might have in his locker.”
Jeremy smiled but didn’t open his eyes. He was starting to feel the effects of his impact with the ice, and his head was throbbing steadily now. He was so damn tired.
He could feel Nathan sitting forward, and then a warm palm landed on his thigh, strangely comforting and, for that reason alone, discomforting. Nathan squeezed his thigh and then gripped his chin gently, turning his head so that he could see Jeremy’s face. “You took a pretty hard knock there, Jer. Are you okay?”
“I’m just sore and tired. Nathan?” Jeremy licked his lips, unsure how to express what he was feeling.
“Yeah?” Nathan’s thumb ran across his eyebrow, right below the stitches.
It was all Jeremy could do not to nuzzle into that loving touch. “I’m not gay,” he finally blurted out.
Hand falling away, Nathan sighed and stood. Jeremy finally opened his eyes and watched Nathan as he let the towel drop to the floor. He had one second to appreciate that hard body in all its glory before the other man began pulling on his clothes. “I know you’re not gay, Jeremy,” he said quietly. “No one who responds to Rachel like you do is gay.”