I'm horny enough to know I need to fuck Mateo someday. I'm pathetic enough to know I'd rather fantasize about justbeingwith him this morning.
After I've set my mug on the counter, I refocus on my phone,my texts closed but a new search open. I quickly type my name and land on sites Mateo might have found. I read and shake my head and marvel at the manipulation of public perception and the passage of time. Gone are the days ofJameson Sinclair Scores Five-Hole at a Las Vegas Nightclubnext to a picture of liquor-soaked me, several half-dressed women, and at least one slutty man. Now there's a candid of sober me standing behind date number three, my arms wrapped around her far too sweetly, and the wordsTwo for Holding? Why the List of Hockey's Hottest Bachelors May Be Down a Man.
Even back then, when everyone loved to hate me for being unstoppable on and off the ice, I could've been found in quieter places if anyone had thought to look for me there. Now I'm a few years past 40, and I'm not sure I'd be in any VIP lines, but I'm not against the idea of being drunk in a club, especially if a very specific slutty man is next to me. I frown at the images on my phone. Where I am and where I've been don't change the fact that it's always been a show. A version of the one my parents made me rehearse as a kid.
I give myself a few minutes to lament the loss of things I've surrendered. Then I set my mask aside—only here, in the privacy of a place I don't really call home. Sighing at the terrible puns in the headlines, past and present, I wonder what words they'd use to write about Mateo and me, if given the chance. Something about backchecking? Stickhandling? Anything about the crease or the slot would be fair game, I suppose. Two-man advantage almost makes me smile, but I remember it will be easier for the media to be cruel than kind. Then I close the search on my phone and walk away.
I miss my view of the ocean, and everywhere I dream about being is closer to there than here. I stop myself just short of wondering what Mateo can see from wherever he is now.
A few days later, another search results in another flurry of photos of me, this time from date number two. I roll my eyes at any ofthe articles suggesting they were taken after the adorable embrace candids at the street fair. I roll them again when some aren't sure whether it's the same woman as before. Or not before. There's a picture of us at the bar, our knees touching as we lean toward each other to talk. There's another one once we've stood and are saying goodnight to the bartender, my hand resting against the perfect arch of her lower back. A third captures us while we're waiting for the elevator. I'm surprised to see her body pinning mine to the lobby wall.
I remember a lot about that moment. How she smelled like perfume instead of cologne when I breathed her in. How her cheek was smooth instead of rough when I brushed mine against it. How she was all softness and curves and lace instead of the taut lines and broad shoulders that had once stood in front of me wearing nothing but boxer briefs and a wet spot I've never been able to forget.
But if anyone had asked, I would've sworn I had pressed my body against hers.
Mateo texts later that night.Having fun?
I'd tell him no, but those two letters are difficult to type.
Over the next month or so, I go out another five or six times, and sleep with none of the women. I wake to five or six pictures of me touching them in five or six different restaurants or bars or night markets. Nobody in a position to fire me cares that there's been an uptick in my social life because I've been caught with successful women on dates ranging from cute to classy. Harper knows better than to go looking for things she doesn't want to see. If Simon's half the man I want him to be, he'll keep his mouth shut about anything he finds. I tell myself the hum of guilt I hear is only because of them.
The voice note I receive suggests I'm wrong.
It's late, and I hope you're already asleep by the time I send this, but I don't know. Maybe you're up. Maybe you're out withsomeone again. But I—is this because of me? Is this because of Logan? He and I aren't—we went camping, and I'll answer anything you want to know about that, if you really want to know it, but it's not—we're not together or anything. We're just friends. Or maybe—that's probably a shitty word to use, right? Friends. You and I have said that for years, but it doesn't really come close to describing us. What we are. Or what we were. But Logan and I are—maybe we're doing the same thing you're doing with all these women. Are we all reaching for the closest warm body? I don't know what else I'm allowed to hold on to. I don't know the right way to be close to anyone else when I'm still in love with you. But that's not—I want you to be happy, Jamie. And if you are—fuck, why do I feel like the only person who doesn't think you're happy? Why do you look so much like Jameson Sinclair again?
I want to drop my phone to the floor. I also can't stop listening to him, his voice no longer a balm when he sounds this tired and this disappointed in me. Part of me wants to defend myself by saying that I probably haven't had any more sex with these women than he's had with Logan, but I don't think that was his point. And I could argue that he's the one who gave up on me, but I've never been convinced that's true when I'm the one who moved away.
Still lying in bed in nothing but my briefs, I glance at the time and wonder whether he's awake. I don't want to talk to him, but I'm just frustrated enough that I need to respond. The only question is whether I text it or say it out loud. I decide my raspy voice would give him a way to torture himself too, and I start recording.
I've always been Jameson Sinclair.
Whether Mateo's quiet accusation got to me or not, I don't go out with anyone for a while. Swimming laps at the gym becomesa priority again. I talk to my parents more than I have in a while. I spend hours on a video chat with Kai while he preps the bar for the day. He tells me he hasn't seen Mateo in almost a year, and suggests that I stop being a fucking idiot.
It's what it sounds like, anyway.
He really says, "That man's the only choice you've ever made foryou, J."
"Hockey," I argue weakly. "I love hockey. I've chosen that for me, too."
"You chose hockey because your dad told you to try it, and your mom cheered you on, and it came so damn naturally to you. You stayed with it because everyone around you made it your entire identity, and you didn't have to be anyone else. Even off the ice you've been hockey player and playboy, or hockey player and girl dad, or former hockey player and current coach. You love hockey, and it was easy to love because until you ran from here one night, it had given more than it's taken. But you met Mateo, and he was easy to love too, and he was all yours. Only yours."
I've always been Jameson Sinclair.
"Kai—"
"You've never been anyone but J to me," he says, pausing in front of his screen with a couple of bottles of vodka in his hands. I don't think he's read my mind, especially when we're almost three thousand miles apart, but I can't ask when he keeps talking. "Then the rest of the world learned your name, and you started making decisions with them in mind. The choices didn't stop being foryou. They just stopped being for J—or Jamie."
I swallow hard and blink away tears before they fall. "We've never talked about this."
"Guess we've gotta add it to the list."
He's not wrong. I try to keep myself from feeling terrible aboutit by remembering how many important things wehaveshared. Who cares that I didn't tell him about my attraction to men, or that my name carries pride and loss everywhere I go? We've spent countless hours mourning his dad and bitching about my mom. We've cried when dreams have come true and laughed when it's all gone wrong. We've pulled each other from fights and cleaned each other's wounds, and gone weeks without speaking and picked up right where we left off.
When we have to, we'll get a little pissed off that there's something we've ignored—maybe even hidden—and then we'll be best friends again. And I need my best friend now.
"I'm scared, Kai. Really fucking scared. What will happen if everyone finds out?" I ask, hushed in case a fear spoken too loudly will have a better chance of damning me. "What will they do to me?"
"If nobody ever finds out, what will you have done to yourself?"