He did that thing with his eyebrow. The one that meant he was judging me but also fond of me, which were apparently compatible emotions in the Russian operating system.
We watched Star Wars that night. Mik had questions. Many questions. Most of them about the structural integrity of the Death Star, which he considered poorly designed from an engineering standpoint. I had never loved anyone more.
MIK
It was Cole's idea to tell Coach first.
"He's the one who can actually protect us," Cole said. We were in his truck in the facility parking lot, twenty minutes before morning skate, and I was experiencing the particular kind of nausea that comes not from illness but from the anticipation of voluntary vulnerability. "If the team knows and Coach doesn't, that's a problem. If Coach knows, he can handle whatever comes next."
The logic was sound. I did not argue with sound logic. I argued with everything else.
"What if he benches me again?"
"He benched you because you were playing badly. Not because of who you sleep with."
"These things are not always separate in my experience."
Cole reached across the center console and took my hand. His grip was warm and steady and I focused on the pressure of his fingers against mine and tried to breathe like a person who had not spent the last twenty-seven years training himself to believe that disclosure was a prelude to destruction.
"I'll be right next to you," he said. "The whole time."
"That is actually what I'm afraid of."
"What?"
"If I am alone, I am afraid alone. If you are next to me, I am afraid for both of us. That is twice the fear."
"That's also twice the courage."
"That math does not check out."
"Mik." He squeezed my hand. "We do this together. That's the whole point."
We walked into the facility side by side. Down the corridor, past the locker room, past the training staff offices where Luca, the new equipment manager, was already sorting sticks and humming something Italian. Past the film room where I had spent a hundred mornings alone in the dark. To the end of the hall, where Coach Callahan's door was closed and the light behind the frosted glass said he was already inside.
Cole knocked.
"Come in."
We went in. Coach was behind his desk with a cup of coffee and a stack of papers that he was marking with a red pen, which made him look like a teacher grading homework, which was not far from the truth. He looked up. Saw both of us. His eyebrows rose approximately two millimeters, which was the Callahan equivalent of shock.
"Briggs. Volkov. Sit down."
We sat. The chairs were small and hard and positioned too close together, which meant our shoulders were touching. I focused on that point of contact the way a drowning person focuses on a piece of driftwood.
Cole spoke first. We had agreed on this. He was better with words. I was better with silence, but silence was not useful in this particular scenario.
"Coach, we wanted to tell you something privately. Before anyone else. Because we respect you and we want you to hear it from us."
Callahan set down his red pen. He looked at Cole. He looked at me. He looked at the space between us, which was approximately zero inches, and I saw something move behind his eyes. Not surprise. Recognition. The same look I imagined a veteran coach got when he finally saw a play develop that he'd been anticipating for weeks.
"Go ahead," he said.
"Mik and I are together."
Five words. Cole said them the way he made passes on the ice. Direct, accurate, no hesitation. The puck was in the air. All that remained was to see where it landed.
Callahan was quiet for what felt like a geological age but was probably four seconds. He picked up his coffee. Took a sip. Set it down. And then he said something that I will remember with perfect clarity for the rest of my life.