Chapter Text
I was pulling out my gear for morning skate when Blake strode through the door whistling, drawing most of the attention of the locker room to him. I had to hide a snicker as he walked by a hungover Eriksson who was giving Blake a heavy glare.
“Someone had a good night.” Lemmings commented as Blake reached his locker and began undressing.
Blake smirks over his shoulder as he pulls off his shirt, showing off scratches along his back. “I suppose you could say that,” he looks over at me. “Thanks again for the assist Wesley, I’m still not sure why you didn’t go for her yourself.”
“I told you,” I slipped on my chest proctor over my head. “She’s like a sister to me and she dated a friend of mine.” Not that I would have gone after her even if she wasn’t.
“Still,” Blake laughs. “There are some girls that are tempting enough to breaking bro-code for and if I were you? I probably would have broken it.”
“Thank God he isn’t,” Forsberg cut in. “I don’t think the PR team could handle two of you.” Laughter broke out from those listening to the conversation.
Blake picked up a stray sock and threw it has Forsberg. “Yeah, whatever. What did you losers get up to at The Lantern House?”
Forsberg shrugged, “Not much, mostly just kept on eye on Eriksson, but Wes ran into an old buddy of his.” I froze as he turned towards me. “What was his name again? Something with a J?”
This is bad, this is really bad. “Uh,” was all my mouth seemed capable of saying.
“It was Jamie,” Hewitt unhelpfully jumped in. “One of my childhood best friends’ name is also Jamie, so I thought it was a funny coincidence.”
Yeah, super funny.
And of course, Blake begins to make things worse. “Oh man, you guys met J-Bomb? Isn’t he’s the best? You’ll have to try his cooking sometime, it is to die for.” Any other time the way that Blake rubbed his belly and wiped away pretend drool would have made me laugh.
But I don’t think anything funny right now, especially with the furrowed brows that both Forsberg and Hewitt were now sporting. Eriksson even began to look more confused instead of angry through his hangover. Each of them glanced at me, but my wide eyes and frozen limbs probably only made them question things more.
“Wait, how do you know him?” Forsberg asked.
Now Blake looked confused too, “Him and Wesley are roommates.” He turned to me. “You didn’t introduce them to Jamie?”
Fuck, he said Jamie, not J-Bomb.
Hewitt looked between me and Blake, “No he didn’t, they spoke to each other like it was the first time they’d seen each other in years.” His confused gaze settled on me, “You guys live together?”
Words failed me as I tried to think of something to say, but nothing came. My breathing became heavier with every second I couldn’t say anything. It felt like everywhere I looked I caught the eye of someone who was looking at me confused.
My stomach suddenly rolled with a wave of nausea. I dropped whatever it was I was holding, I don’t remember, and sprinted to the bathroom stalls. The door slammed into the interior wall of the stall as I immediately got to my knees to empty my guts.
Once there was nothing left to heave, I lifted my head from leaning over the bowl, only to stare at the wall behind it. I jumped as the automatic flusher got rid of my breakfast and the physical evidence of my freak out.
Silence met my ears as I realized just how quiet the locker room had gotten. Everyone probably noticed me sprinting to the bathroom, wondering what was going on.
Now what the fuck was I supposed to do here, normal people don’t freak the fuck out when asked about their roommates.
Nothing came to me, so I just groaned and leaned my head against the stall of the bathroom, recognizing, even in my existential crisis, that the toilet seat probably isn’t clean enough to put my head on.
If Jamie were here, he would’ve thought of a believable excuse without a second thought because he’s so smart. But he’s not here, I am, and I froze like a deer in headlights.
A tap on the stall drew me from my mind, and I turned to see Blake standing there. I quickly got up to say something, but the blood rush to my head interrupted whatever nonsense was about to come out of my mouth. Blake grabbed my shoulders to help steady me as I reached for the wall.
“Hey man, you good?” He looked worried for me, like he cared.
But would he care if he knew about me? About Jamie?
“Yeah, I’m fine, just…been feeling a little off this morning.” I look back at the toilet for a second, “I, uh, guess it caught up to me.”
Blake doesn’t look like he believes me, and even though I know I have nothing left to throw up, my stomach drops again.
Before I could turn around to dry heave, Blake pulls me into a hug, surprising me. Confused, I hug him back, but before I could say anything to him, Blake whispered, “I read the bottom of your mug when I was washing the dishes. I know man, I know.”
I didn’t need to ask him what he mean’t. He knew, he knew about me, about Jamie, and about us. My arms dropped from the hug, instinctively moving to push Blake away, but he only held on tighter. “I don’t care Wesley, you’re still the same kickass hockey player, no matter who you love.” Tears began to form in my eyes as I tentatively hugged him back again, leaning my head on Blake’s shoulder. “But, I am a little confused on how you managed to pull someone as cool as Jamie with your ugly mug.”
I laughed and sniffled as I shoved Blake away. This time he let me and he had a smile on his face when I looked at him. “You know,” he started, still speaking low. “I’ve been on this team for a good few years now, and I know that the majority of guys out there wouldn’t care. If you wanted to say something, of course.”
Any humor I felt was now gone, “I’m not sure I have a choice after a freak out like that.”
“Hey,” Blake put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “You always have a choice. If you want to tell them, I’ll stand by you with a death glare aimed at anyone who dares to try and say something shitty. If you don’t, just tell them you haven’t been feeling well, and I’ll start loudly talking about my sexcapde from last night, effectively distracting everyone.” He smirks and wags his eyebrows at me.
I roll my eyes, “More like disgusting everyone.” He just smiles and winks at me. “Thanks for offering that, but I think it’ll be awkward not explaining. Especially since we’ve been in here whispering to each other for the last five minutes.” A heavy breath left me. “I want to be out to everyone at some point, so I probably should start with the team, right?”
“Whatever you want man, I’ll stand with you.”
“Okay,” I shook off some jitters. “Okay, I’m going to do it.”
Blake smiled and slapped me on the back, “You’ve got it dude.”
With another deep breath, I walked out of the stall, but before I could walk out of the bathroom, Blake grabbed my shoulder. I turned and looked at him, was he already changing his mind about standing by me?
“Maybe you should rinse your month before you go out there again dude.” I snorted, but agreed with him, so I moved to the sink.
After a minute of rinsing with water, I stood from the sink and stared at myself for a second in the mirror. Watching myself breathe in and out to try and calm some of the nerves. This will change how everyone on the team looks at me, but in reality, I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing it for Jamie.
The man is currently giving me the cold shoulder right now because I pretended to be old acquaintances, and in all honesty, I don’t blame him. I know he wants to believe that I’ll come out this summer, but that doesn’t make it easier. Coming out to my team will show him that I want to be fully out with him.
Blake catches my eye in the mirror. Suddenly, he’s giving a huge cheesy smile with a double thumbs up that I couldn’t help but chuckle at.
Finally, I turned around and with Blake right behind me, I reentered the locker room. Guys were talking lowly to each other, but all conversation stopped when they noticed I was standing there.
My confidence began to plummet as they all stared at me, but just as the words ‘I’m fine, just a little sick’ were about to fall out of my mouth, I felt Blake’s shoulder bump into mine, reminding me that he was right there beside me.
You know, Blake may be annoying 90% of the time, but I’m also starting to realize that he’s a really good guy.
I began rack my brain to figure out of to say what I want to say, but before anything came to mind, Eriksson spoke up, “You good man? I’m sure coach will let you go from morning skate to rest for the game tonight.”
“No, I’m fine, I’m good to skate.”
“Fine?” Hewitt looked at me like I was stupid. “Dude, we all just heard you yaking, you don’t have to stay.” A couple of guys nodded along with him.
“No, that was, uh, just nerves, I guess.”
“Nerves?” Lemmings looked at me unbelieving. “You didn’t even seemed phased before your first NHL game, I didn’t think you could get nervous.” Quite a few guys chuckled at that, which was fair, that was true.
My laughter turned into a deep sigh as I prepared to tell them, “Actually, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you guys.” I looked around the room, at each one of my teammates. “I was going to wait till the end of the season, but Blake found out and he thinks I should just tell you guys.”
“That’s right, so if anyone has a problem, you’ll answer to me. Got it?” Turns out he wasn’t lying earlier. He had his game face on, staring at everyone, daring them to say something, even though I hadn’t said the words yet.
“Yes sir,” Hewitt said as he saluted Blake, seemly trying to break some of the tension that had been building.
I looked around at all the guys, knowing that this could be the last second that some of them respect me as a man, but never the less, I know that this would be better for me in the long run.
Unable to start while looking at them all, I drew my gaze down at the Toronto logo on the floor, “I just going to bite the bullet here, I’m gay. I’ve been hiding that part of me to all of you because I thought it’d be easier for you all to get to know me as a player on the ice without that judgement, but I didn’t realize how hard it would be for me to go back into the closet.” My hand lifted, almost subconsciously, to rub my neck because of my nerves. “It’s been adding a lot of stress to my personal life and at some point that’ll effect how I’m playing on the ice, so I’ve been debating for awhile about telling you all.”
I continued to stare at the ground until Blake bumped my shoulder. Finally I looked up to see mostly shocked faces, but none of outright disgust. Tomilson even stood up, drawing everyone's eyes to our veteran teammate.“Thanks for telling us. Sorry if I did anything to cause you not to tell us sooner.” He turned into his locker to continue to get ready for practice. Everyone else slowly did the same, a few of the ones closest to me, giving me knuckles or low-fives before continuing to change.
A deep sigh left me, and tears began to form once again in my eyes. Blake threw his arm around me, “See man, I told you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I rubbed my whole face, trying to hide that I was rubbing away the tears in my eyes. “I guess you did.” Jokingly, I pushed him off me and moved to my locker to resume putting on my gear for morning skate. As I was picking up my arm guard that I had dropped earlier, I felt something hit my back. I turned as saw Eriksson looking at me.
“What’s up?” I asked, a little tense as I sat on the bench to strap on the rest of my gear.
“I just wanted to make sure you knew that I’m sorry about that comment I made about your shirt.”
“My shirt?” Then, I remembered, “Oh, the Tom Ford one? Dude, I do not care about that, you were just giving me shit for a flashy shirt.” I picked up the roll of athletic tape that he threw at me, and tossed it back. “Which I knew was going to happen the moment I bought it.” Eriksson could only smirk as he started to wrapping his wrist with the tape.
I could feel that most of the guys in the locker room were listening in, so I guess now is of good a time as any to let them know my boundaries. “It’s pretty hard to offend me, as long as the joke isn’t rooted in hatred or bigotry, I don’t really care. But sometimes I will act fake offend to mess with people, so be on your toes.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lemmings leave the locker room by himself. My good mood dims a smidge seeing as he using waits for a group of us to leave all at once. He and I were pretty close seeing as we both were from Boston, but it looks like the camaraderie might be over.
“So can I ask you to let me know when I look like shit?” Forsberg jokingly asked with a smirk on his face.
I snorted as I reach for my practice jersey, pushing Lemmings away from my mind. If he’s got a problem with me being gay, then we never would’ve been super close anyway, “You always look like shit. In fact, everyone here does. None of you are uglies are exactly my type.” With that, I pulled my jersey on as quite a few people laughed. My eyes caught Eriksson’s blond hair as he was bent over tying his skates, “Well, maybe Eriksson, but that’s only because he’s blond, everything else about the asshole is a turn off.” He looked up and rolled his eyes at me at the sound of his name, but didn’t seem to take real offense.
“Blonds huh,” Luko chimed in. “Do you have a special blond in mind?”
I chuckled at him as I started to put on my our skates, “If you’re asking if I have a boyfriend, the answer is yes, I do.” I looked over at Eriksson, Hewitt, and Forsberg. “It’s actually Jamie, you know, my childhood best friend from last night.”
“Oh, is that why you started freaking out?” Eriksson makes a jab at me. “No offense dude, but I don’t think I would’ve guessed in a million years that he was your secret boyfriend.”
“Honestly,” Hewitt stood in front of his locker, fully dressed for practice. “Now that you’ve told us, it’s kind of obvious. I’ve never seen you accept any puck bunny attention, or pickup anyone, despite telling us you were single. Which should’ve been the biggest clue, cause what single twenty-two year old guy turns down sex?”
“Oh, don’t you worry,” I stood after finishing up with my skates, turning to grab my stick. “I’m doing just fine in that department.”
Eriksson suddenly grew a smirk as he looked at me, “Nah, the biggest clue is the fucking metal sticking out of his eyebrow.”
If only they knew about the tongue piercing I was forced to take out.
Even though he’s making fun of me, this is the most comfortable I’ve felt in this locker room since I first stepped in here. So, I suppose I should show them more of the real Wes, and he can be quite the cocky asshole. “I would argue with that, but every straight guy I’ve met with an eyebrow piercing wasn’t straight for long after meeting me.” I cackled at their groans as they filled the room. “And no, the real biggest clue is how much a play flirted with you most of you.” I pointed at Forsberg with my stick, “Especially you Fours, I can’t remember how many times I’ve called you cutie or some other pet name.”
Forsberg sighed as he rubbed his temples with his fingers. “You’re just a gay version of Blake, aren’t you?”
Blake looked at me with a look in his eye that I could only best describe as hope, which made me want to burst into laughter. “More so in college,” I answered Forsberg. “But I’m a taken man now, and I fully plan on marrying him someday.” While my tone was jokingly, I realized just how true those words were.
Jamie Canning is it for me, and telling these guys about me was a big step towards making him mine forever. We may be in a little rough spot right now, but I think this will help when I tell him.
“Ew, but also aw,” Blake threw an arm over my shoulder as he lead me out of the locker room for the morning skate. “Cause I know J-Bomb, and he is the bomb.com. If I was gay I think he’d be my dream man.” He sighed dreamingly, and I couldn’t help but laugh, even as I shoved him off of me.
He continued to act all daydreamy until his face lit up like a lightbulb. “Wait, does J-Bomb have any sisters? Single, age appropriate ones preferably?”
My eyes rolled unconsciously, “He actually does, but there’s no chance in hell I’m introducing you.”
He gasped obnoxiously loud as we reached the ice, “What, why not!”
I pushed him off of me as I stepped out on the ice, I turned to face him as I skated backwards, “I spend enough time around you, I think that speaks for itself.”
He followed me onto the ice,“But we’re talking about a female J-Bomb, I would be different with her!”
“Sorry dude,” My head shaking at Blake. “Not happening.”
“Ugh!”
Blake skated off, going off to go bother someone else, and I could only shake my head and laugh. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tomilson skating up to me. The veteran goalie and I hadn’t spoken that much. Which, now that my nerves are gone from coming out, I’m kind of shocked he stood up earlier in support of me.
“Hey,” Tomilson slid to a stop next to me, intimidatingly large in his goalie gear. “I’m inviting some guys from the team over to my house for dinner tomorrow, you think you and your partner could make it?”
“Uh,” he words taking a couple of seconds to process his words in my mind. “Yeah, yeah, I think we can make that work.” Introducing Jamie to my teammates? God, I didn’t think I’d be doing that for awhile. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to, because I do, I really really do.
Tomilson nods a single time, “Good, I’m excited to meet him,” he says in a not very excited tone, but I chose to believe him regardless.
“Oh, uh, did you invite Lemmings?” I asked wearily as I look over at the D-man who is stretching by himself, staring at the ice with a bored expression on his face. Considering he usually skating around, making jokes with everyone, I know for sure now that he at the very least doesn't know what to think. “I’m not quite sure how he feels about me now, but he definitely isn’t taking it well.”
“You’re the first one I’ve invited,” my head snapped back to Tomilson in shock. “And I think you’re right, I won’t invite him then.” With that, he turned and skated off, presumably to ask other people to dinner tomorrow.
I shook away my surprise cause there was skating to be done, but this has been a whirl wind of a half hour.
And despite how I had left home this morning in a bad mood from last night, I kind of can’t wait to get home to tell Jamie what I did today.
————————
I unlocked the door after an average morning skate. It definitely could’ve gone better, but considering the news I dropped on everyone, I thought skate went well.
Coach definitely let us know how he felt about it though.
Jamie was standing in the kitchen making breakfast, he looked over his shoulder and gave me a tense, “Hey.”
My good morning made me forget a little about how I left the apartment, and Jamie’s curt greeting quickly reminded me. But, I didn’t let it deter me, because I have some news that I think will cheer him up, “Hey,” I walked up behind him and kissed his cheek. Resting my chin on his shoulder, practically giddy to tell him my news. “So, first I want to apologize for last night, Eriksson’s wife told him she wanted a divorce yesterday. He and the guys guilted me into go out for drinks after the charity gala and I couldn’t find a way to say no that without tell them about you.”
Jamie tensed at that last bit, and if that was all I had to say, I’d be worried. “Secondly, I want to apologize for how I reacted to seeing you last night. The last thing I expected to see was you standing there and I wasn’t sure how to treat you in public. We never talked about how to act around strangers and I will admit, I wish I had done almost anything else.”
Without saying anything, Jamie moved the pan and turned off the burner. I took a step back to give him room to move away from the stove, but he stayed standing there. Since he still hadn’t said anything, I moved on to my final and most important point, “Thirdly, I came out to my team this morning.”
Jamie whipped around, facing me for the first time since I started speaking to him, “What?” He said, a look of complete and utter shock on his face.
I couldn’t help the smile that grew on my smile, “I stood in front of my team, and told I was gay.”
He just blinked at me, “You’re serious?”
Laughter escaped me, “Yes, do you want me to call Blake down here to prove it to you?”
That finally seemed to break him from his confusion. A smile broke on his face as he stepped away from the stove to wrap me up in a hug.
“I’m so proud of you,” his words were soft, but they still mean so much to me.
“Don’t give me to much credit,” a laugh as I pulled out of the hug to look at Jamie’s beautiful face. “I didn’t leave this morning thinking I was going to come out, but somethings were said and it kinda just happened.”
Jamie’s head tilted to the side a little, “What sort of things lead to you coming out?”
I cleared my throat, pausing thinking about how sum up the whole incident. “Basically, my teammates who were at The Lantern House brought up that I ran into you. Blake then brought up that he knew you. Teammates were confused how Blake knew who you were. Confused, Blake said we were roommates. Cue everyone staring at me in confusion. I then run into the bathroom and throw up. Blake then comes into the stall and tell me he knows about us because he read the bottom of my His mug and that he thinks that most of the people in the locker room wouldn’t care if I told them, so…I told them.”
A small smile was on Jamie's face, "Couldn't you have just said that you didn't want to say we were roommates in front of the girls I was with in case I brought one home?"
I couldn't help the groan that left me as I let my head drop onto Jamie's shoulder, "I knew you would've been able to come up with a believable excuse."
Small chuckles let Jamie as he slowly nodded, “But then you decided to come out just like that?”
“Well, no,” My head lifted off his shoulder. I couldn’t lie to Jamie, even if it makes myself look better. “In that moment I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but honestly Blake was great in talking me through it. Making jokes to distract me from my nerves, and of course, offering to threaten anyone if they gave me shit.”
A small smirk appeared on Jamie’s face, “Blake makes it really hard to hate him. But, you seem to be in a good mood, it went well than?”
My hands reached out to grab his, “Yeah, mostly. Everyone seemed confused or shocked, but I didn’t notice anyone looking disgusted. There is one person I know didn’t take it well, Lemmings. We usually shoot the shit, you know, and he just kept to himself for most of the skate, didn’t speak to me once after I came out to everyone. I don’t think he hates me now, just he doesn’t know how to act around a gay guy, I guess you could say.”
Jamie’s thumb started to comfortingly rub the back of my hand, “Sorry about that baby, but everyone else was good?”
“There are a few guys that I’m still unsure of, but I didn’t talk to them much before either, so I guess they’re still up in the air, but you’ll never believe this.” An eyebrow of Jamie flicked up as I got excited. “Tomilson stood up in front of the entire locker room to thank me for telling them and apologized if he said anything offensive to me without knowing.”
“Really?” Jamie seemed almost as shocked as I was when it happened. I had told him how the goalie hadn’t really said much to me during my time with the team. “That was cool of him.”
“That’s not the best part, he came up to me later and invited us to dinner at his house along with some of our other teammates.” It suddenly occurred to me that maybe Jamie might not want to immediately meet my team. “I did agree out of shock, but if you wanted to stay in now that no one will bother us because we can tell Blake to fuck off, we can do that too.”
He just stared at me, wearing a neutral expression, “Do you want me to meet your teammates?”
I give him an ‘uh duh’ face, “Of course I do. I want them to know you so I talk about how much you mean to me and they’ll get it because they seen how amazing you are. It’s been killing me not being able to talk about you. I ran into a girl I knew from college last night who knew I was gay, and it felt amazing to finally be able to talk to someone, even though all I really got to say was ‘I have an amazing boyfriend’ before Blake swooped in and swept her away.”
That got a chuckle out of him, “Well than I guess we’ve got plans tomorrow then.”
A sigh of relief left me as I smiled back, the tension that had been building between us felt lighter than it in a long while. It’s not complete gone, but better, and that’s all I could really ask for. I leaned forward and gave Jamie a chaste kiss, “So, is anything on the stove for little old me? I’m starving.”
Jamie rolled his eyes, but he was smiling as he turned to the cupboard and pulled out two plates.