“How did Kevin find out anyway?” I ask.
“Are you admitting you already knew and never said anything?”
“I already told you I’m not going to be a part of this.”
Come on, come on, come on, give me a name.
“Sorensen outed himself when Healy called him on his shit and the gloves came off.”
A relieved breath leaves me in a whoosh. “Gotta go. Bye.” I can’t end the call fast enough, but when I’m met with the expectant stares from everyone in the room, I feel about two feet tall. “Uh … so, it’s not Ollie.”
All the shoulders in the room sag and relax.
“Thank fuck,” Ollie says under his breath, but then he lifts his head. “Who is it?”
“It is Sorensen. What Ava said seems to be the story. Healy somehow found out Sorensen is gay and taunted him or whatever. Maybe provoked him on the ice.”
“Would explain why Healy’s the one to be suspended when Sorensen threw the first punch,” Ava says.
Damon reaches for Ollie, who’s staring at the floor. “You okay, man? This is over. Done. You don’t have to do this anymore.”
Ollie looks like he’s going to vomit though. “Yeah. I do.”
He still wants to come out?
“Why?” I ask. “You said you weren’t ready, and this is your out.” I told him to take the out.
Suddenly the pressure is back, sitting on my chest and dragging me down.
He shakes his head. “I don’t think I am ready, but after today, with this close call … I know I need to take control if I want this to come out the way I want it to. And I know if it was me being the one forced out today, I would kill for someone to stand behind me and say ‘me too.’ I can’t let Soren do it on his own. It’s lonely enough as it is in this industry.”
The admiration I have for Ollie grows, and I have to do everything in my power to remain standing a few feet away from him instead of what I really want to do, which is go to him and wrap myself around him.
Damon claps Ollie on his shoulder. “Then let’s do this.”
“I’ll call Jen, the PR rep for New Jersey, and set something up.” Ava holds up her phone and walks over to her pacing spot at the back again.
“You’re sure?” the GM asks Ollie.
Even though Ollie’s still pale, he nods.
“Then we’ll do everything we can on our end to make sure this is as smooth and painless as possible for you.”
So hard not to blurt out “Just like losing your virginity,” but now’s not the time for jokes.
Chapter Twenty-Five
OLLIE
When Ava gets off the phone, she tells us the press is already arriving at the arena in Newark, so we don’t have much time to get there. The New Jersey management team is gonna stall for us as much as they can, because they agree this will be better for the league if we do this together.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ava asks one last time.
I really do.
At the same time, I really don’t.
I’m not ready, but I know if I don’t do this now, I probably never will. I’ll hide behind hockey forever until I can retire, and that’s no way to live. Not when I’ve found someone who takes me out of the game long enough to realize there’s a whole other world out there that doesn’t involve my skates and hockey stick.
“I need to do this.”
They’re the magic words to get everyone moving. Ava and Coach go ahead of us while the GM heads up to his office, prepared for incoming calls.
There isn’t enough time in the organization of it all to freak out until we start heading down the cold corridor again on the way out.
“Come with me to the press conference?” I whisper to Lennon.
“Where else would I be going?”
“I dunno. You’ve been weird all day and keep trying to run away from me, telling me to take the out, so yeah, I wanted to double-check.”
Lennon stops before we reach the exit to the stadium. “I haven’t been trying to run away …”
“Maybe not fast,” I mumble.
He smiles. “I’m proud of you, and if you need to do this, then, of course, I’m going to support you, but my position hasn’t changed. You can’t come out for me or for a possibility of us, because if you do, there won’t be an us in the long run. Coming out to support a fellow athlete is a completely different thing, and I admire you for showing solidarity to someone you don’t even know all that well.”
“I know him. I know him better than I know anyone else, because he’s me.”
Lennon steps forward and presses against me, his arms wrapping around my back. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. Let’s deal with today, and then we can see where we’re at tomorrow.”