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Dan had never promised anything to Keith, not ever. The threat of Keith’s departure had hung over them for a long time. The only time they discussed it was when they were fighting already, and even then, Dan only just wanted him to shut up about it. We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it, Keith.
 
They came to it. The Canucks, desperate to get rid of him and his contract, bought him out. Keith was back home, at the beginning of July, and Dan called him and said, “I’m sorry, but this is probably best for us, anyway.”
 
Without emotion. Without regret.
 
Keith didn’t even know what to say to that. Afterwards, Dan wouldn’t speak to him at all. That summer, Keith drank a lot, and every time he did he messaged Dan. He never got an answer.
 
The longing didn’t stop. It became muted a little, shuffled in with all the other distractions in his life, but it didn’t go away. You can get used to anything.
 
But if Dan didn’t want him anymore, where was the purpose in thinking of him? Why waste the brainpower when he should be focusing it elsewhere: on his game, for example? On conditioning and getting faster, so he could make the fans proud of the Minnesota boy who was finally back home?
 
He knew what he needed. He lived in his habits; men were one of his habits. Dan was erasing himself from Keith’s life, so what was Keith to do?
 
He needed a diversion. He needed a substitute.
 
——
 
It was two a.m., maybe three — it was late, anyway. They were returning from a three-game road trip: Anaheim, San Jose, Colorado. Keith had barely spent any time on the team charter at all, and didn’t really have a regular spot.
 
He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that it was December and things still weren’t gelling. He hadn’t come here because Minnesota was a contender: in fact, the team’s middling-ness would seem to guarantee Keith a chance to wear the red and green every night. But they were over thirty games into the season, and he’d only dressed for half of them. There was no big-fish-small-pond syndrome here. Keith was playing poorly and his ice time reflected that.
 
It hadn’t been a bad road trip and he hadn’t been a disaster but he also hadn’t felt useful in any concrete way. The best thing he could say about his performance was that it didn’t warrant another scratch in the next game, but there were no assurances. There were young guys in the AHL vying for those spots, guys who could improve in a measurable sense. Keith was on the downswing.
 
All of this was probably why Keith had insomnia. Not just here, now, on the plane, but also here, now, on the plane. He wasn’t tired at all; in fact, he was particularly alert.
 
Without a usual seat, he’d ended up across the aisle from Zach Parise, towards the back. A few of the medical staff at the very front of the cabin were speaking in hushed tones, and he could see the glow of a few screens over some of the players’ seats in the middle, but back here, everyone was asleep. Keith felt this weird, unfamiliar sense of power.
 
He glanced over at Parise, who had nodded off with his iPad in his hands. It had defaulted to a screen with thumbnails of all his videos. He saw a few thumbnails that were just pink, fleshy rectangles; Keith knew what those videos must be. He looked around the cabin again just to see if anyone was watching him — he wanted to see what was in Parise’s porn library, if there were any kinks he could tease him about or otherwise bank for his rainy-day joke repertoire. So he leaned across the aisle and very carefully tapped the display on the tablet, scrolled down, and noticed something right away.
 
It was gay porn. All of it. Muscle hunks, by the looks of it. He had about fifteen episodes of “Suits” and the rest of his library was gay pornography.
 
Keith clicked off Parise’s iPad display and then withdrew back into his own seat quickly. He didn’t know what to do with this information. He knew a lot of straight guys who watched gay porn out of curiosity, once or twice, but he didn’t know any straight guy who had a whole collection of his favourite videos loaded onto his tablet for when he travelled.
 
Only a few minutes later the captain came on the P.A. to indicate that they were descending into MSP; Parise himself roused a little, kicking his feet. Keith couldn’t help but look at him. It was like a wall had been felled. There were things he never allowed himself to notice about straight guys because there was never any point. Now he noticed Parise’s hair and his lips and the way he rolled his shoulders, repositioning himself after his drowse. He watched him blink and twitch as he came back to life. It seemed human and relatable and, coupled with what Keith had just seen on Parise’s iPad, erotic.
 
Keith was unprepared for all of this.
 
He bade goodbye to everybody and made his way home. He was still very much awake, and he was excited now. In his head, as he drove, he was already formulating an interrogation speech for Parise the next day at the rink.
 
——
 
They practiced in the morning and Keith kept his eye on Parise whenever he could. That sense of dominance, from the night before on the plane, carried over into today. I know something about you, and you have no idea.
 
He kind of wanted to sit on that feeling for awhile, but he was also impatient.
 
Once they’d wrapped meetings and workouts, Parise stayed behind to chat with Mike, so Keith had to make up a reason to linger in the locker room. He fabricated an issue with his elbow pad not fitting properly, and talked to Tony, the head equipment guy, about adjusting it until he saw Parise exit the office.
 
“Actually, look at that, it’s fine now,” Keith remarked hastily, and then hurried off to catch up with Parise.
 
He managed to reach him in the parking lot just as he was getting into his car.
 
“Hey, Zach! Got a second?”
 
“Yeah?” Parise said, looking genuinely confused; they hardly knew each other.
 
“So, ah, I was being nosy last night on the plane ’cause I couldn’t sleep and I had a look at some of the videos on your iPad.”
 
Parise blanched, and shrank back a little against his car, his eyes like saucers.
 
Keith wanted to reassure him, but he was enjoying the way this was unfolding too much, how appealing Parise was when he was terrified.
 
“Um, so I was just wondering something … do you fuck men?”
 
Keith ran a hand through the hair at the back of his head and chewed his gum, playing it casual.
 
Parise came back to himself, apparently, just enough, and said, “What? No. That’s … no, Ballard.”
 
“No? That’s a clear no?”
 
“No.”
 
“That’s too bad,” Keith said. “’Cause I do. And, you know, when I saw that, I got kinda hopeful that there was someone in my locker room who at least was on my level. It gets hard out here.”
 
Some of the colour had returned to Parise’s face. He saw him look around surreptitiously; there was nobody in the garage, not near the two of them, anyway.
 
“Well — I mean — that’s not to say that I haven’t … ever…” he corrected, slowly.
 
“I don’t mean to put you in a weird position. Also, no one else saw. I turned your iPad off before anyone else could see. The main reason I’m here is to let you know that if …. well, I’m here for you, in whatever way you might need.” He emphasized the word whatever, careful not to break his gaze. “Just shoot me a text, okay? Also, get a privacy screen for your iPad.”
 
He gave Parise, still stunned, a whack on the arm, and then made off in the direction of his own car, trying not to strut.
 
He wasn’t sure if he was seriously expecting a response. It seemed likely enough that Parise would pretend the conversation had never occurred at all.
 
Then came the text, the next day:
 
» Hey, do you wanna hang out?
 
Well, what could he possibly mean by that?
 
——
 
Keith decided that middle-man bullshit like drinks or dinner or video games were unnecessary. He invited Parise to his loft and sauced himself up beforehand, even though they were playing the next day. By the time he heard his buzzer go he was loose, easy, hoping to God that Parise liked to top so that they wouldn’t have to paw at each other in pathetic desperation. He already had a full beer in his hand for Parise upon his arrival. He took it readily, looking nervous but cute. Keith had never thought he was cute, but he saw him through a new lens, a widened lens.
 
Keith’s living room TV was playing Sportscenter highlights, but he had a laptop hooked up with some porn at the ready to break the ice. He’d never needed that with anybody else but there had been at least a kernel of romance or attraction with those men. Parise sat down on his couch to watch the TV, or pretend to; they didn’t speak. There was no chemistry and no pretense aside from the one that loomed: that Keith had found out he wanted to fuck him. Or that he was open to fucking him. It was still a question mark.
 
Parise took a few long draws from his beer bottle; he was already almost done. He fidgeted with the corner of a throw pillow on Keith’s couch. Keith went and quickly retrieved another beer for him and a whiskey for himself, and Parise protested: “Hey, you’re into the hard stuff already? Thanks for offering!”
 
“Well, all right, you fuck,” Keith said, reaching a long arm across to his bar cart, which was behind the couch, and pulled up the bottle of bourbon; he passed it to Parise. Parise undid the stopper and took a full draw, then wiped the droplets of whiskey from his mouth: now Keith was getting turned on. He loved men’s mouths. He loved when they did things that were not deliberate. He loved to watch a man trip over his own words. Parise didn’t do that too much because he was quiet. Keith wanted to get Parise talking.
 
“One more,” Keith said, jutting his chin out at the bottle of bourbon still in Parise’s hand. Parise obliged, took another gulp, inverting his head this time, so Keith could see his Adam’s apple pulse a little as he swallowed. Keith grabbed the bottle from Parise and kissed him on his mouth before he had a chance to properly swallow: he wanted to taste it. Parise wasn’t prepared and he jumped a little: this was fine. Keith liked the challenge, he liked jarring him. He pried the beer bottle away from Parise too and then grabbed Parise’s hands and Parise clearly wasn’t comfortable. He needed dominance. Keith pressed both of his hands down, onto the cushions or his own legs. He pushed down on his hands as he kissed him and rendered him immobile.
 
Of course he could have fought back if he really didn’t like it.
 
Satisfied that Parise wouldn’t raise a hand to bat him away, he lifted his left hand to grab Parise at his hairline: he loved the tangle of locks between his knuckles, tight to the scalp. He pulled him closer, and he felt Parise attempt to regain command of the kiss, now. He felt him struggle a little under Keith’s body. He wormed his haunches back into the cushion, and put his now-free hand against Keith’s hip, and began massaging him there, feeling beneath Keith’s waistband.
 
Keith broke for air and said, “I think we’re both overdressed.”
 
Parise didn’t need any more direction; he pulled his shirt off in a fluid, delicate swoop. Then he tugged at Keith’s own t-shirt, so Keith obliged in turn, but he was still sitting on Parise on the couch, both of them in jeans. Parise’s face was already raw and red from Keith’s stubble rubbing all over. Keith pulled off of him and stood for a functional moment to get mostly undressed. They were both in boxer-briefs within thirty seconds. There was a big wet spot blossoming on Parise’s green briefs; Keith licked his lips, priming to taste him.
 
“Can I suck your cock, Parise?”
 
Parise, still uncomfortable with words, clearly, just arched his back and did a beckoning motion to Keith. He dropped to his knees as gracefully as he could, and then buried his nose in the warm parts of Parise, a thing he’d never even entertained as recently as two days ago. He smelled nice: a trace of sweat, but mostly clean, something sweet, like caramel or sugar. He licked up his shaft and all around his head, kneading his palms on his hip flexors, sliding a flat hand into the crack of his ass. He felt Parise writhe under him and struggle not to make a sound.
 
This annoyed Keith. The whole performance annoyed him: that he was reluctant, that this was being drawn out of him almost unbidden.
 
Keith dipped his head up, his hand at the base of Parise’s cock. “You like this?”
 
Parise nodded.
 
“No. You don’t get any more until you say it.”
 
“Yeah,” Parise said, gruff.
 
“No. Tell me exactly what you want.”
 
“I want you to suck me. I want you to suck my dick.”

Keith smiled, still staring at him. “Okay,” he said, and dived back in, the back of his tongue on the head of Parise’s cock, a couple of tentative fingers at his hole. He sucked him off for a few more minutes, feeling Parise shift and shuffle under him, groaning but not saying anything else.
 
“All right, Zach,” Keith said, lifting off of him again; he saw Parise open his eyes with a little shudder like a spell had been broken. “This is it. Are you gonna fuck me?”
 
“Uh, is that — is that what you w—”
 
“Don’t answer a question with a goddamn question, Parise. Are you going to fuck me?”
 
Parise licked his lips. “Yeah. Yeah, Ballard. Get on your knees.”
 
Keith, who had been half-hard-to-hard throughout the evening’s proceedings, stiffened considerably at the sudden shift in Parise’s tone. He grinned and turned over so that his ass was in the air. He felt Parise get in position behind him, felt the slap of a big palm on the side of his thigh, then the other hand on the other thigh, lining him up. Then the entry: Parise’s nice, big, warm cock, filling him up. He was tentative at first, little thrusts, like he was afraid he was going to hurt Keith.
 
“What the fuck are you doing, Parise? Are you fucking me, or not?”

Parise didn’t answer him, but he did grab him by his hips, and then pushed all the way into him: it did hurt. It hurt profoundly, actually, because Parise had a huge cock, and even with the cushion of booze the spit-lubed entry was rough. But it was incredible, too. It was a feature of Keith’s fucked-up-ed-ness, how much he loved that pain. He wanted to bleed. He pushed back into Parise, trying to find the rhythm with the broadest strokes; they quickly reached it, both of Parise’s hands on Keith’s haunches, slamming into him. They had no soundtrack except for skin on skin and all the sounds that Parise tried to bite back.
 
“Fucking — say it, Parise,” Keith said, his teeth clenched, still hurting, still euphoric. “Say it, fucking say — it —”
 
“Fuck — Ballard — I’m gonna — come —”
 
Then he screamed, or growled, or something. He grabbed Keith by the shoulders when he did it, bucking his hips into him, uncontained, at least for that moment. Keith rode the shudders with him. He was still hard, still untouched, but Parise seemed mostly dumbstruck, unsure of what had happened; he fell back into the corner of the couch, rubbing his eyes with one hand and his pulsing cock with the other.
 
He didn’t really want to look Parise in the eye. He went to his washroom and cleaned himself off, then brought a towel out for Parise and tossed it to him. Parise used it to mop off his forehead and his cock and his stomach, and then left it resting there, like it afforded some modesty.
 
“Should I — should I return the favour?” Parise asked faintly, a little of his composure seemingly having returned.
 
Keith shrugged. “I mean, I can help myself just fine with the memory of you fucking me like that, Zach. That’s gonna sustain me for days.”
 
“Yeah, me too,” Parise said, “But come here, anyway.”
 
Keith did as he was told. He let Parise take his softening cock in his hand and stroke it back to attention. He was still sitting on the couch and Keith stood over him, naked, trying not to focus on the absurdity of this moment, the speed with which it had happened. Parise started to kiss around the base of his cock, the hairs Keith had purposefully trimmed not long after he’d gotten Parise’s text message. He was a lot gentler and more — sensual than so many of the “straight” men he’d taken home. Quick fuck, lights out, one-word goodbye. A sloppy handjob in the back seat of a truck, a hasty exit. The only one who had fucked him with any passion was —
 
He tried to push the thoughts of Dan out of his brain. There was somebody else sucking his cock, after all, and he was doing a fantastic job. Parise slid off the couch so he was kneeling on the floor in order to get more of his mouth into it. Keith craned his neck back; he felt the orgasm rearing, and tried to focus on the ceiling ductwork, shifting flashes of light on the metal from the TV that was still playing silent football highlights. It wasn’t working; Parise was far too good with his tongue and his throat and his hands. Keith felt his lips and teeth forming a word, something that started with “F”; he grabbed Parise’s head with both of his hands just to steady himself as he came. Like Parise himself, he couldn’t properly speak. He was rattled by the orgasm but also by how attentive and talented Parise’s mouth was. He knew before his climax had even subsided that he would need more of that.
 
Parise pulled Keith’s cock out of his mouth and looked up at him; there was a fleck of come on his bottom lip. Keith quickly maneuvered him back into standing position and kissed him, licked the salt off of his mouth, tasted himself. Parise was only too happy to kiss him back. They stood in Keith’s living room, both of them naked and spent and sweaty only twenty minutes after Parise had arrived.
 
He let Parise take a shower, and then he got dressed, and left — not in too much of a hurry, but also not leaving room for any conversation. Once he’d left, Keith walked back into his living room, noticed the droplets of saliva that had fallen out of Parise’s mouth onto the floor, the half-gone beer bottle sweating onto his coffee table. As soon as he’d been there he was gone.
 
Keith was already figuring out ways to get him back.
 
——
  
The next night they played Vancouver. It seemed fitting.
 
When Keith arrived at the arena for the morning skate, he felt his heart race a little; he wasn’t sure how Parise would behave, to what level he would acknowledge him. If it would be different: if Keith was even capable of recognizing what the difference would be. He racked his brain trying to think of encounters they had had before. They had talked a bit about playing NCAA hockey in the midwest; they had played against each other ten years ago. Beyond those commonalities, what had they ever really talked about? Baseball? Movies and TV shows? All Keith knew in that department was that Parise liked “Suits” and porn.
 
When he arrived at ice level he looked around a little and found that Parise was on the bench; he noticed Keith right away. To Keith’s surprise, he flashed him a huge, almost silly smile. Keith smiled back, automatic. He just looked happy. Happy that last night had happened, happy that they had this secret, now. It occurred to Keith that maybe he was filling a hole in Parise’s life, something he needed.
 
Keith needed it too, probably. He needed it like a tonic, to steel him against seeing Dan tonight, in whatever form he would take. They were first opponents when they met properly, when Keith fell in love with him, so this was the circle completing itself, Keith supposed. The snake eating its tail. Once again Dan wears an enemy sweater. He wears the sweater of a club that was supposed to nurture Keith but instead broke him.
 
He knew their rituals. He knew what time they liked to play two-touch in the hall: Dan, Weber, and Tanev. Always the three of them, sometimes more. Sometimes Dan broke off with the forwards but he always liked to have a little blueline powwow before the game. Keith checked himself out briefly in the mirror and then strolled out into the hall, over to the visitors’ dressing area. A weird part of him hoped he’d be wrong and they wouldn’t be out there, but there they were.
 
“Bally!” Tanev exclaimed, immediately abandoning their game and rushing to give him a hug. The kid looked like he’d grown up over the summer. Weber smiled at him and shook his hand. Dan didn’t approach him at all. He picked the ball up off the ground and stalked down the hallway and around the corner without even looking at Keith.
 
Tanev was starting to ask him some questions about adjusting in Minnesota and Keith wasn’t listening. Dan had walked away from them. He hadn’t even faked his way through a greeting. Keith wanted to run after him, crash the room, ask him why he thought that was the right reaction.
 
“You all right, Bally?” Weber said, shaking his shoulder.
 
“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Keith said, and attempted to gear himself up. He talked to the two of them for five minutes or so; they shared a few memories of coming to Minnesota when they were all teammates, how Keith would never shut up about a Minneapolis specialty, a burger stuffed with cheese, so finally on an off-day a group of them had all gone to a certain bar to try it and all of them were disappointed.

“I wasted my cheat day on that stupid burger!” Tanev said.
 
“I guess you have to be Minnesota born-and-bred to truly appreciate it. We have a more sophisticated palate here in the midwest.”
 
“I highly doubt that,” Weber said, never truly grasping Keith’s sarcasm, and then Sullivan came out into the hall and called the guys back into the room, and Keith bade them goodbye and headed back to his own locker room.
 
He had wanted to talk to the two of them, sure, but the whole conversation had been perfunctory. He was still so shaken by Dan’s behaviour. He knew it would pollute his thoughts on ice tonight, too: Keith was terrible at compartmentalizing. Dan used to pick his brain about that like a wannabe psychiatrist.
 
But then, sitting down to undress so he could get his pads on, he noticed Parise, sitting across from him, looking at him. He smiled at him again, and it warmed him. Where Dan had been unfeeling and cold Parise was enthusiastic, sunny, welcoming. Keith wanted to play well to make Parise proud. He wanted to play well and earn that next fuck, earn Parise’s perfect mouth on him again.
 
——
 
They beat Vancouver. He wanted to invite Parise over again and help him celebrate his goal but he was nervous, suddenly. He didn’t want to overdo it. He said goodbye broadly to a cluster of his teammates, Parise included, and then left. Halfway home his phone buzzed and it was Parise’s name on the display; he checked it at a red light.
 
»You left in a hurry. Got a date?
 
Keith smiled. He wanted him. He knew he was vulnerable, from seeing Dan; he knew Parise was a surrogate. It wasn’t fair to him.
 
Or it wouldn’t be, if they had any feelings for each other whatsoever.
 
»You know where my apartment is, he shot back.
  
——
 
This time, they found the bedroom, and this time Parise stayed a little bit longer. They took a shower together, and Parise admired the modern decor in his bathroom.
 
“I really like your place,” he said, standing for way too long under the rainfall shower head. He had a streak of red down his back that almost hid the scratch marks from Keith’s nails when he’d been on top, pounding into him.
 
“You’re welcome here any time,” Keith said. He wasn’t even washing himself; he was just leaning against the glass door, appreciating Parise’s body. “Sorry, I know it’s rude to stare.”
 
“Stare all you want, babe,” Parise said, and the word babe brought a little bit of life back to Keith’s cock. He wanted to ask him to stay so that he could wake up next to him and fuck him again. But he didn’t know Parise’s life; he didn’t know what was off-limits yet. Again, Parise dressed and left, but this time he kissed Keith goodbye.
 
For the first time in months, Dan wasn’t the last thing on Keith’s mind as he was falling asleep. How could he be, with the scent of Parise all around him, on his sheets and his pillows, in the steam that clung to the frozen windows?
 
——
 
Their road trip to close out the year was shit. They lost every game and Parise broke his foot. He only came to Keith’s place once while he was rehabbing, and he had to take a cab because he couldn’t drive with the walking boot on.
 
“I admire your dedication,” Keith said, helping him get his pants off. He didn’t need any special care, really, but he pretended that he did so that Keith would do all the work. Keith didn’t mind at all. He had to ride him slowly so that he wouldn’t thrash around and crush his foot by accident. Parise clearly enjoyed it: he lay back, bit his bottom lip, held Keith lazily by the hips as he rocked into him. Keith could feel him getting close so he grabbed his cock and jerked his way into an orgasm, to match Parise’s; he saw Parise open his eyes to watch Keith come. Then he just laid there while Keith cleaned him up. He was perfectly capable of hobbling to the bathroom, but he didn’t.
 
“All right if I crash here?” he asked, and Keith said, “Of course,” and got comfortable next to him on the bed, and then they watched Netflix until they both fell asleep.
 
In the morning they had sex again — Keith’s fantasy fulfilled — and ate breakfast, and then Keith drove him to his physio appointment. Being out there with him, even just in his car and not in his apartment, struck him a little bit. His loft was a microclimate, self-contained. Now they were out in the world, teammates who were fucking each other. It did seem to make it a bit more real.
 
He and Dan always used to avoid each other — on the plane, in the dressing room, at team-building events, at media appearances, at dinners. It was the opposite with Parise, through no effort of Keith’s, really. He was just behaving like a friend. Keith got the sense that all of it was genuine: that Parise liked being next to him, liked talking to him among mixed company.
 
One thing he didn’t like was seeing Keith when they were on the road. Parise was almost always the one to text him first: not even because Keith was playing coy, but because he never even had the chance: Parise was that eager. In Calgary at the beginning of February, Keith had actually scored a goal and was feeling amped up about it, and wanted nothing more than Parise’s lips around his cock; he wanted to ride that high, translate it into something physical. They were flying back the next day so once Keith got back to his room and was alone he texted Parise:
 
» Hey, sexy. Wouldn’t mind your body next to mine tonight. I’m in 1327.
 
He expected a prompt knock on the door, and then Parise on top of him in short order, but instead he got a message back:
 
» Sorry, just gonna hit the hay. Will see you back in Minny soon I’m sure. ;)
 
Back in Minny? They were in Calgary, down the hall from each other, now. Still, he didn’t dwell on it. He turned the lights off in his room and jerked off. He was still so used to touching himself, so used to finding his own way to what he needed.
 
——
 
Then Parise went to Russia. With Dan: it struck Keith as very funny. Parise had no idea. It didn’t matter, anyway.
 
Parise texted him a few times, mostly photos, snapshots of things he found funny or strange in Sochi. Pictures of food, because they talked about food a lot. He went to a Russian nightclub with a few of his mish-mash team USA linemates and sent Keith a video of the dance floor, the pulsing synthesizer flatulence, the seizure-inducing lightshow. A sideways clip of Joe Pavelski dancing like an idiot. Keith watched all of the US and Canada games. He watched Dan and he watched Parise. He wasn’t even sure which one he was missing.
 
And when Parise came back to the US without a medal, Keith said nothing and asked no questions. He’d only ever even talked once about that silver medal from Vancouver.
 
“It’s in a drawer somewhere, I don’t know. My mom might have it. I mean, think about it, Ballard — if they gave a smaller trophy for being the runner-up to the Stanley Cup, would you parade around town with it? Would you bring it to your family? Would you show off the ring?”
 
Dan was coming home with a gold medal, though. Keith couldn’t help it: he wanted to hate him, but he didn’t. He texted him Congratulations.
 
He got no response, but he wasn’t surprised.
 
——
 
So he hadn’t been with Parise in three weeks. At this point, Parise was steering the ship. They came back from their Western Canadian road trip, painful for Keith in a way that was beyond words, and Parise smiled at him in a weak but genuine way before getting into his car and driving home instead of following Keith to Northeast Minneapolis.
 
They played Calgary and won, and game nights were now write-offs for Keith; Parise was usually gassed. Both of them were, or at least that was the story, but Parise always played more minutes. They didn’t spend time together for the conversation. He had missed Parise when he was at the Olympics, to be sure, but he had just missed his body. He had gotten used to the hole being filled. He had gotten used to having a salve for the burn at the ready.
 
He was in bed with the lights off, queueing up a Star Trek episode to fall asleep to, when his phone lit up: Parise.
 
» Hey, I’m sorry it’s so late, but I really could use some company right now. Mind if I come over?

» Not at all. I’m awake, come on by.

Fifteen minutes later Parise was at his door, and he looked dejected. He hadn’t looked that way after the game. It had been a decent game: they’d won, Parise had a goal, Keith was a plus-one, his bar for personal success set ever lower.
 
“Hey, Keith,” he said, with a quick-dissolving smile. “I’m sorry. I know how late it is, I know you’re tired. We don’t even need to — I just — can I come to bed with you?”
 
Keith smiled.
 
“You wanna watch some nerdy sci-fi with me? Be my guest.”
 
Parise took his shoes and pants and belt off and followed Keith into his bedroom, and they watched some “Next Generation” in the dark, but Keith could feel Parise’s body next to him; he wasn’t relaxed. There was an undercurrent of something. Once the first episode ended, Keith hit pause and rounded on Parise.
 
“Hey, something’s bothering you, right? Isn’t that why you’re here?”
 
Parise kicked his feet under the duvet, squirming a little bit. It was a move very characteristic of him when he was uncomfortable or shy, something Keith was quickly coming to know.
 
“Yeah, I just … I feel weird talking to you about it, you know?”
 
“No, I don’t know. Why?”
 
“Well, ’cause … it’s got to do with another guy.”
 
Keith couldn’t put a name to whatever happened to his stomach. It was like being kicked, but also like being on the wrong side of the centre of gravity on a listing boat. As soon as he felt it he rejected it. It was reactionary; it was meaningless.
 
“Parise, come on. Don’t bottle it up. I’m here for you, man.” He felt dizzy and he had to wrangle that while steadying the man next to him.
 
“Okay,” Parise said, his voice a little shaky. He straightened his back against the headboard. They were still shrouded in mostly darkness, Beverly Crusher’s frozen digital face on Keith’s TV providing the the only light in the room.
 
“So, when I played in New Jersey, there was this guy. Spencer. He was a trainer for the Devils, at least at first, my third year on the team. And it was one of those things — the second I saw him, the second he saw me, we both knew. Not fate, not something stupid like that, but it was real.”
 
Keith swallowed, already knowing where the story was going, sort of, and already recognizing himself in Young Parise. In over my head.
 
“It started off like this. Like you and me. But quickly — really, really quickly —it got intense.”
 
“Intense, like — feelings? Romantic feelings?” Keith said, thinking of his no feelings talk with Dan at training camp in 2010.
 
“Exactly. Within a few months, I don’t know what else you would call it, we were — together? In all senses but the most important. A bunch of the guys in Jersey knew. He was — this sounds fucking cheesy, Ballard, but Spencer was the love of my life.”
 
Parise paused, swallowed. The low light made it easier to look at him. His eyes were glassy.
 
“He was only there for two years as a trainer and then he started his own private business in New York. He had some celebrity clients and stuff, it was legit. So then, I figured, he’s got his own business, he’s an entrepreneur, I’m team captain and leading goal scorer, why not make it official?”
 
Keith felt his mouth curve into a wistful smile. “He didn’t go for it.”
 
“Nope. I said, let’s do it, I don’t care. I am a member of the NHL Elite, they can’t crucify me. I was ready to do it, I swear up and fucking down. I was so tired of going to events and seeing teammates’ wives and girlfriends or women du jour, like it was nothing. It was nothing. I just wanted to take Spencer to a casino night or a Halloween party. I just wanted to feel like a normal person.”
 
“What did he say? What was his reasoning?”

“He had a conservative family. I was like, okay? What the fuck ever! You’re dating an NHL player, who the fuck dates an NHL player in secret?”
 
“Your ego is showing,” Keith said, and it was only ever a tease, because Parise was one of the humblest men he knew. He understood his frustration.
 
“And he said it was to protect me, too. I’d be the first. Yeah, I know that. I knew that. I was okay with that. I wasn’t trying to be a crusader, I just wanted to live my goddamn life.”
 
“I’m sorry,” Keith said, softly. Parise was wound up, now, even more rigid than he’d been lying next to Keith in his bed; Keith took one of Parise’s hands, just to comfort him.
 
“Anyway,” Parise continued, “it fizzled out. That was a pretty big roadblock for us, because I didn’t get it, but I was like, okay. He’s not comfortable with coming out. That’s his own shit and he’s gotta work it out. Then I signed with the Wild and I came here and we lost touch. Now, I text him ‘happy birthday’ but that’s it. I used to see him every day. He lived at my place, just about. He used to go out and buy new underwear just so he wouldn’t have to go home and pack a new bag.”

They were silent for a minute or two. Dr. Crusher’s blurry face still stared at the two of them, almost like an inquisition, urging the conversation along.
 
“I was thinking about him tonight. That’s why I texted you.” Parise unclasped his hand from Keith’s and reached for his phone on the bedside table. “I know it’s so, so stupid, but I decided to find him on Instagram.”
 
Parise brought up the account, and then pressed the phone into Keith’s hands.
 
Photos of two men in tweed suits, kissing, with well-coordinated wedding party members out-of-focus behind them, clutching green flowers. A timed shot where the groom and groom leapt in midair, flanked by attractive groomsmen and women and a pink-tinged Jersey Shore backdrop. They were beautiful wedding photos. One of the two men was blonde and very tall, slim-built but muscular; Keith guessed this man was Spencer, because the other man was shorter and stockier and dark-haired, with dark eyebrows, and it wasn’t a stretch to see a resemblance to Parise.
 
“Oh, my God, Zach. I’m sorry. That must have really hurt.”
 
“I mean, you have to come out to get married, right?”
 
Keith, instinctual, reached across the bedspread and hugged Parise. He meant nothing else by it but to imbue comfort. Parise hugged him back, and his big arms didn’t just hang there lamely: he clung to Keith.
 
He didn’t want to wrench the spotlight away from Parise but all he could think of was Dan and how much of Parise’s story mirrored his own. The details were different but the disappointment resonated.
 
“Anyway,” Parise said, releasing himself from Keith’s hug, “That’s why I’m in a shit mood. So, thanks for letting me unload. And like I said, I’m sorry if it’s weird.”
 
Keith kissed Parise on the edge of his perfect cheekbone in the most innocent way he could muster. Then he grabbed his face, angled it towards Keith’s own, so that he was looking at him straight on.
 
“That guy’s an idiot, Parise,” he said, holding Parise’s jaw. “And if it makes you feel any better, I know exactly what it’s like.”
 
“Really?” said Parise, shifting again.
 
“I don’t want to make this about me. I’m here for you, right now.”
 
“No. Tell me, I want to hear it.”
 
“Okay,” Keith said, expelling a large volume of air he hadn’t realized he was keeping under his diaphragm. The spectre of Dan still hung over him. Was he a narcissist, to turn the discussion so swiftly towards himself, and his problems? Maybe — but he saw in Parise’s eyes a desperate need to be understood.
 
“We met when I was in Florida and he was playing somewhere else. We trash-talked each other on the ice and I kind of felt a vibe, felt like it was worth checking out. I propositioned him, to put it bluntly. If you can believe that.” He paused to chuckle, and met Parise’s eyes for a moment; he was smiling, too.
 
“He took me home, whatever, you don’t need to know the details. Then, the following offseason, I got traded to Van and he was a UFA and lo-and-fucking-behold he signs in Vancouver too. So now all of a sudden we’re teammates.”
 
“Perfect,” Parise remarked, flatly, guessing the narrative correctly.
 
“Yeah, right. The thing is, you say this guy of yours had a conservative family? Well, was he an actual conservative himself? Internalized homophobe, sent to gay reform camp as a teenager, crossing himself in the dressing room before games? This guy — I mean, I loved him, I laid myself bare for him, but — talk about your inner fucking unexamined demons.”
 
“You … know how to choose ’em, Ballard, not sure what that says about myself.”
 
“You’re perfect, Parise, but I also don’t know you at all. Anyway — and it’s funny that you’ve got me explaining this to you, in words, because it sounds so fucking stupid, but I told him we could come out and be together and he basically laughed in my face. I didn’t walk away. I existed in the shadows until my contract got bought out and I ended up here. He doesn’t talk to me anymore. There wasn’t even any ending. It was the most intense thing I’ve ever felt in my life. I don’t even think I’ve expressed that to another person that wasn’t him, until now.”
 
Parise was actually looking elsewhere, his eyes narrowing somewhat, and then they slid back over to meet Keith’s again. “Dan Hamhuis,” he said. “Right? 2010? That has to be it.”
 
“Fuck,” Keith said, his hands slackening in Parise’s a little bit. “Yeah.”
 
But Parise smiled, looking almost diabolical. “So you like brunettes.”

Keith couldn’t help but smile, too, at Parise’s attempt. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
 
And he kissed him. Parise’s skin was stretched a little where the tears had dried and Keith kissed all of that off of him. The Netflix home-screen blinked into black and then his TV went to sleep and there was only the sliver of street-lamp light from outside in Keith’s room as they touched each other. Darkness maybe wasn’t good; Parise, the brunette, could be Dan underneath him, submitting to him the way he always should have. Keith probably couldn’t be lanky Spencer but maybe Parise would squint hard enough, imagine an alternate reality.
 
Still in darkness, still buried in that tumult of emotion, Parise got on top of him, pushed himself into him. Soon it was too hot and they both whipped the bedclothes off until Keith was sweating a huge wet diamond on the mattress as Parise fucked him. He reached for Keith’s cock, keeping time with his hips as he thrust into him. He was so dextrous, those beautiful hands translating all their puck sense to Keith’s cock. The tip of Parise’s cock nudged his prostate and he cried out, wanting Parise’s mouth on him, wanting all of Parise so badly, hating Spencer, hating Dan, pasting his face on top of those idyllic wedding photos he’d just been looking at. That was stupid. That was jumping the gun, that was unrealistic. He hadn’t even wanted that with Dan. Parise was coming in his ass, coaxing him to climax; Keith was blind, and maybe screaming. Maybe numb, because he didn’t feel Parise pull out of him, didn’t feel anything until Parise was kissing him, lifting the veil.
 
“Thank you,” Parise said, once both of their breathing had returned to normal. “I really, really needed that.”
 
“That’s what I’m here for,” Keith said, and curled himself into Parise — he wasn’t bigger, not like Dan, but he had broader shoulders, and maybe Keith was imagining it but it seemed like he was protecting him, cradling him, hooking his ankles around Keith’s feet, like he needed him near.
 
——
 
Now it was March. That was Keith’s first thought as he blinked his way into consciousness, still wrapped around Zach Parise. Snatches of the night came back to him: photos of a man. And Keith telling Parise about Dan, something he hadn’t really wanted to do. They had traded vulnerable moments. Those things couldn’t be taken back.
 
He drew back a little bit and watched Parise. He was lying on his back and he looked gorgeous. He had lovely eyelashes and lips. Keith felt an acid sickness tugging at his heart, a thing that shouldn’t have been there. Parise was a fuck. He was like his Gopher electrician buddy. He was the Coyotes MT who had been a temp for a few weeks.
 
His chest rose and fell, his beautiful chest with its feathery brown hairs, perfectly muscled.

What the fucking fuck.

Keith got out of bed as deftly as he could without waking Parise and started a pot of coffee. He hadn’t stocked his fridge for guests in awhile. He had yogurt and fruit and oatmeal and protein powder and bottled shakes. They had practice at 11, but otherwise it was a day off.
 
The scent of brewing coffee was enough to rouse Parise. He came into the kitchen in one of Keith’s t-shirts and a pair of Keith’s briefs, his hair sticking straight up at the back. Keith wasn’t sure if he’d seen anything sexier in his entire life.
 
“Coffee?” Keith said, pouring him a cup, and pressing it into his hands.
 
“You’re amazing,” came Parise’s response, and he kissed Keith on the side of his mouth before taking his cup. It seemed like undue praise for the simple act of making coffee.
 
It made him feel, actually, inadequate. He wasn’t Suter or Heatley or Spurgeon. He was a bottom D pairing. He was a nightly minus, or a scratch. Why did Zach Parise want him?
 
Questions could come later. Parise was right up against him at the counter, pressing forward with his hips. Keith put his cup down. They were the same height and Keith liked that a lot, liked not having to tilt his chin upward, even a little bit. Parise’s hand cupped Keith’s balls through the fabric of his briefs. Keith had already been hard just thinking about Parise; there didn’t need to be any effort on Parise’s part.
 
Pretty soon Parise’s mouth was on Keith, that perfect mouth with its perfect timing, its round lips, its talented tongue that thrummed around Keith’s cock with an uncanny rhythm. He skated the backs of his nails down Keith’s thighs. It was daylight now and Keith’s view of downtown Minneapolis was lovely from his kitchen. Zach Parise’s brown-haired head finding a tempo above his crotch was a part of that view now. He thought of the men who had hurt him and Parise: it all seemed so insignificant to Keith in this moment. Fuck you, fuck both of you, he thought. I deserve this.

Even as he said it in his head, though, he didn’t really think so.

——

Once he recovered from his orgasm he started to consider what he could cobble together for the two of them that might resemble an actual breakfast, but Zach said he had to go. Keith didn’t bother pointing out that he was still wearing Keith’s clothes, or that he hadn’t drank any of his coffee.
 
“I’m sorry to rush off. Can I see you again tonight?” he’d asked, kissing him on the cheek and giving Keith’s package a little squeeze.
 
“I told you, you’re welcome anytime. Yes.”
 
“Maybe we could do something.”
 
“Do something?”
 
“Like, something else,” Parise said with a furtive smile. It was funny what made him blush; he’d been on his knees with Keith’s entire length in his mouth five minutes beforehand. “Like, dinner, maybe? Out somewhere?”
 
“You know what that sounds like, Zach? That sounds like a date.”
 
“I just mean — it’s only ’cause — like, we don’t really —”
 
“Relax. Yes. I’d love to, Zach. Text me.”
 
Parise left, and Keith just chuckled to himself. They were doing things backwards. He wasn’t entirely convinced he and Parise would have much to say to each other, but their sexual chemistry was so insane, the degree to which their bodies moved together, became a single fluid thing — that was an easy fallback. They could just cut their meal short and drive back to Keith’s, if they really needed to.
 
——
 
Keith felt good at practice. He’d gotten a massage beforehand, asking the trainer to focus on his quads — which were sore for reasons that had little to do with hockey.
 
Parise was busy with the media after practice and Keith couldn’t speak to him or even make eye contact with him. That was fine. That was the double life; Keith was very much used to it. Parise messaged him with the name and address of a restaurant in St. Paul. It occurred to Keith while driving there that he didn’t even know where Parise lived. Was this his neighbourhood? Did have a house, a condo? Did he have a dog? Probably not, if he was happy to stay at Keith’s for unanticipated eighteen-hour stretches.
 
It was a nice place, warm, low-lit. Exposed wooden beams and polished subway tile. When he arrived Parise was already there, in a corner, waiting for him. He smiled his big, squinting smile when he saw Keith enter.
 
“You look relieved,” Keith said, pulling a chair out. “Did you think I was gonna stand you up?”

“What? No, I just — I’m happy to see —”
 
He shut his mouth when he realized Keith was teasing him. “Are you always like this?”

“Yes. I can’t help it.”
 
The server came by and offered drinks.
 
“Should we get wine?” Keith asked.
 
“Uh — ” Parise started.
 
“We’ll get wine,” said Keith, and chose a bottle off the list after pretending to peruse it with an air of education.
 
“I’m not much of a wine drinker,” Parise said, after the server had left the table.
 
“You are tonight,” Keith said. “So, do you live around here? Is that why you picked this place?”
 
“No. I live in Cathedral Hill.”
 
“Shit, that close to the rinks? Well, thanks for making the trek out to my place so many times.”
 
“It’s only twenty minutes. You do it every day. I just looked online for something, you know, trendy. Hipster, I guess? I figured you’d like it.” Parise had already drank all of his water and was fidgeting with his glass, now.
 
The server returned to the table with their bottle of red wine. Keith made a little show of tasting it, wiggling his eyebrows at Parise, which made him smile. Keith wasn’t used to being in control of these kinds of situations. He had existed at the behest of Dan Hamhuis for so long that he’d forgotten what agency felt like.
 
They ordered an appetizer, a charcuterie plate, and it was very good and Parise looked even more relieved; he relaxed a bit, sipping wine, pouring more for Keith, eagerly, seeming to really enjoy it. They got into bottle number two pretty quick, before they’d even gotten their mains, and the conversation came easier. There were so many memories associated with playing collegiate hockey in the midwest that it could have occupied ten more evenings of discussion. Parise talked a little about his time with the Devils, too. Keith had a strange fascination with the east coast; he’d listened to Cory Schneider wax nostalgic about Massachusetts for far longer than any of his Canucks teammates ever would.
 
The evening wore on and the place began to empty out. It got quieter. There was a flush in Keith’s cheeks; he was warm from the wine, and the food, and the candle on the table, but also from Parise’s presence.
 
“You know, it’s kinda funny, that we’re doing this. I think … I think, if I hadn’t told you about Spencer, last night, that I wouldn’t have asked you. I didn’t think I could go out and have dinner with another guy. I honestly didn’t know if it would ever happen again.”
 
“We go out to dinner in groups on the road all the time. We go out to lunch, you do — not just in groups, I’ve seen you and Suter, just the two of you. Why is that different?”
 
“It’s different cause it’s — we’re just friends.”
 
“The rest of the world doesn’t know that. Why does it matter to you?”
 
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I feel like I’m sitting under a spotlight. It’s hard to explain.”
 
“You project that on yourself,” Keith said, trying to sound sage, even though he was familiar with that phenomenon: he’d seen it in Dan, over and over.
 
Keith’s hands were resting on the table and Parise looked down at them, suddenly. He pushed aside the salt and pepper and their empty glasses and took Keith’s hands in his own.
 
“I’d love to sit here and hold your hand for more than a second.” Parise withdrew just as quickly, folding his hands back in his lap.
 
“Do it, then. I don’t care,” Keith said, though that wasn’t really true. He felt his racing heart start to rise in his throat. He didn’t like the way Parise was looking, either, forlorn, distressed.
 
“No. You know it’s not that simple.”
 
“Fuck,” Keith said, louder than he’d meant to; a few heads turned in their direction, which was the precise opposite of what Parise wanted. Parise shrank back into his banquette seat and Keith felt mortified.
 
“I’m sorry. I’ve just heard that so much. And this — this is too much. I had a good time, Zach, but — fuck.”
 
Keith sighed, tossing his head back. He couldn’t quite think straight. He could hold his booze just fine but there was something about the heat tonight, and Parise’s plaintive brown eyes, his innocent mouth. Why had Parise wanted to do this, why had Keith gone along with it? It was a roundabout way to a guaranteed fuck. It only served to complicate things.
 
“Thanks for dinner,” Keith said, standing, touching Parise’s shoulder very briefly.
 
He probably shouldn’t have been driving but there was no way he was going to sit in that parking lot for even a second.
 
The roads were icy and everything was black. He shivered in his seat, waiting for his car to heat up — it had been a shock, coming out of that warm and drowsy place, a moment that would segue so perfectly to the next scene in Keith’s living room, him and Parise on the couch with a wool blanket draped over both of their knees, settling in to watch a movie, before or after the sex. He’d gotten used to having somebody else there with him so quickly.
 
Why had he walked out, anyway? That conversation could have been repaired with a couple of quick comments. Hand-waving — Keith was so good at that. But “It’s not that simple” was a trigger for him. It had always been Dan’s answer whenever Keith had proposed anything he wanted. Tell your mom. Tell the coaching staff. Tell Alex fucking Burrows. Just so he could bear a little less of the weight himself. Just so he could feel — like Parise had said, in his bed, the night before — like a human fucking being.
 
He arrived home, alone. That wasn’t written in the narrative. He’d washed all his linens, changed out the towels in the bathroom for softer ones.
 
And Parise hadn’t sent him one text. He was in the middle of composing a message to him, something along the lines of “I fucked up”, when he heard his buzzer go.
 
Parise must have more or less followed him home. He quickly buzzed him in, and then unlocked the door. Then Parise was there, red-faced, distraught.
 
“I’m sorry, Zach. Just — that comment you made, it brought back a lot of shit. But that’s not an excuse.”
 
“You shouldn’t have left me alone there,” Parise said, moving out of the doorway only just, so that he could close the door behind him. “And made me drive here, by myself. You shouldn’t have done that.”
 
“This is the problem,” Keith said. “You don’t know me. You don’t know that I sometimes just do shit like this for no reason.”
 
“Well, I want to know you, and there has to be a reason. Talk to me, Keith. I mean, it started yesterday, right? Something set you —”
 
“No, Zach. I’m not here for this. I’m not gonna make you go home, I’m not gonna make you go out into the cold. But I’m also not gonna talk to you about this. This is already way too fucking much.”
 
This wasn’t the way he’d wanted the evening to go at all. He had a feeling Parise felt the same way. They stood in Keith’s living room, just a single lamp on, catching some of the flurries outside the gigantic window. It would have been romantic otherwise; instead it was tense. He saw Parise’s body reflected in the window — just the shape of him, anyway, his beautiful broad shoulders, his Ken-doll haircut. Keith regretted everything. He should have kept his mouth shut and taken the easy road so that he could have Parise in his arms. That body was comforting in a way that truth and introspection never were. And, with Parise, Dan felt further away with every fuck.
 
Instead, Dan was practically in the room with them.
 
Keith felt his breathing steady a little, and he turned where he sat, perched on the arm of his sofa, to look back at Parise.
 
“I’m a fucking mess, Zach. What you see is what you get. So, do you want it?”
 
“Yes,” Parise said without hesitation, bridging the gap between them with a couple of strides. Parise took him in in his arms, kissing him, drawing him to his feet. He kissed him with a certain urgency, almost an impatience, like Parise had some hand-waving of his own that he’d wanted to employ.
 
No, it wasn’t the way he’d seen the night going, but the ending did look similar. They shed their clothes where they stood in the living room, a giant sheet of flurries their only witness, and then twirled into the bedroom, trying to leave all those sour thoughts on the floor along with their shirts and pants. Parise took him from behind, both of them on their knees, Keith’s neck arched back so far he might have strained it; he’d know in the morning. Parise’s hands found his cock and Keith’s hands found Parise’s and they reached that perfect tempo together. Parise licked Keith’s come off his fingers. He kept finding new ways to surprise him. 
 
——
 
Keith awoke to a warm, freckled shoulder in his face, and a mountain of bedclothes around it, and attempted to piece his memories together. He had a mild hangover, really just a fuzzy halo, and he felt a pit of anxiety carve itself under his chest when he recalled the night. He’d lost his cool, that thing he had done so well to preserve in front of Parise until now. The fact that he’d gotten upset meant that this meant something — but it didn’t, did it? All he’d wanted to do was fuck him because he was lonely. It was an experiment. Parise had reminded him of the vapid hunks he had seduced in college, offering to suck their dicks behind the bleachers like they lived in a crappy teenage soap opera. An ever-changing succession of bodies that were beautiful but generic. The inevitable assurance once they finished that the other guy wasn’t into dudes, this was just something he did once in a while, no big deal, and you better keep your mouth shut, Ballard. Unless it’s to suck my cock again.
  
Keith stretched a little, cracking his back, testing his muscles to see if they’d gone overboard. He’d only woken up next to Parise a handful of times but he noticed he was always the first one awake. Keith had an oddly well-tuned internal clock, thrown off occasionally by his insomnia, but that had been helped so much by Parise’s presence. Still, there was a profound loneliness in being the first one up, because for a little while they were in different worlds. Parise could be dreaming, right now, that there was somebody else beside him.
 
He rolled out of the warm bed and hunted for his slippers, something to mitigate the piercing cold of the floor on his feet. Minneapolis was draped in a thin blanket of snow; the first new snow after a melt would never not be glorious to Keith. Until now he’d only played pro in cities with much warmer climates, and the veteran guys in places like Fort Lauderdale and Glendale thought he was nuts for wanting to return to the Twin Cities.
 
“You’ll be freezing your nuts off up there,” Shane Doan had said to him once before the holidays, “and I’ll be playing golf on Christmas Day in the sunshine.”
 
“It’s my home. Cold or not, it’s the most beautiful place in the world,” Keith had countered, with a shrug.

He started coffee and thought of how Parise probably wouldn’t argue with him on that point.
 
The smell of the coffee failed to get Parise up this time, so Keith flipped open his laptop and read the news, but his mind kept drifting back to the man in his bed. They had practice in a couple of hours and there was a community event in the afternoon that Parise was attending; Keith wasn’t part of that group. It had been like that in Vancouver, too.
 
“Hey,” came Parise’s voice from the doorway, a little while later. He was shirtless, stretching. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
 
“You look like a fucking angel when you’re sleeping, Zach, I couldn’t bear to do that.”
 
“The profanity is what convinces me,” Parise said, approaching Keith at the counter, wrapping his arms around his neck and kissing him. Keith wondered for a moment whether he was going to say anything about last night, about that tense conversation, the fact that Keith had walked out. But he didn’t say anything at all. They kissed for a few minutes, and then Parise helped himself to a banana and yogurt from Keith’s fridge, and they ate and chatted and watched a little bit of tape that Mike had sent them. It was such a domestic moment, almost a banal one. It was the inverse of everything with Dan. He and Dan could only see each other on the road. Dan had come to his condo a handful of times, but only to talk him off a ledge when he was recovering from his concussions. He had kept all the lights off most of the time. So, so different from this moment, this morning moment, when the world was extra-bright because of all the snow.
 
They had a quickie in the shower and then got in their own cars to drive to practice.
 
“You don’t have to go home first, to grab your stuff?”
 
“I put it in my truck before I came to meet you last night,” Parise admitted, with a sheepish smile.
 
“That’s a little presumptuous, to think I’d invite you in on the first date!” He pecked Parise on the cheek, and then got into his car. One of his neighbours was crossing the garage at the same time, and could see the two of them, which was part of the reason that Keith did it.
 
——
 
March crept along and the weather didn’t get much warmer. Keith was looking forward to spring, to the playoffs, to jogging and cycling outside instead of in his gym. Minnesota winters did make you stir crazy, though it was broken up a bit by road trips. Keith no longer looked forward to road trips, however, since Parise categorically avoided him outside of Minnesota state lines. It struck him as odd but he still didn’t ask him about it. They headed off to the East Coast on the 16th, to some of Keith’s favourite places.
 
Boston was cold too. A lot of his former teammates in Vancouver had some negative associations with the city and its people but Keith didn’t share those feelings. He loved it: it had a magical beauty that was both old and ephemeral. He took a walk around Boston Harbour, alone, after the team lunch. There was a thin fog that hung low in the harbour, and some of the ships’ masts were done up with green fairy lights for St. Patrick’s Day. He thought of how nice it would be to walk hand in mittened hand with someone here, all the way down to the beautiful archway of the Boston Harbour Hotel, and stand under its amber-lit omphalos. To tie a scarf around his neck, to kiss a cheek pink from the cold. He wasn’t even sure which man’s face fit into these fantasies.
 
He felt his pocket buzz, so he took off his glove to check his phone.
 
It was a message from Dan.
 
Okay. Okay. Radio silence for seven months, and now — 
 
» Hey, I was thinking about you. I was hoping maybe we could see each other next week when I’m there?
 
He was blindsided. He scrolled up for a moment to look at all the unanswered texts he, Keith, had sent Dan, a lot of them just question marks that hung there, pleading. Why now, why the fuck now?
 
He felt like he needed a beer, or something harder — he’d have to settle for a coffee. He walked under the archway, romantic fantasies abandoned, and found a Starbucks on the other side, bought an espresso, and then sat down to stare at his phone and decide whether he would answer, what he would say.
 
He knew what he’d say if he had Dan with him, face to face. He knew it would all spill out of him,  unmanaged. Why didn’t you look me in the eye, in the hallway, when I went to say hi to you? Why don’t you respond to my texts, ever? Oh, and hey, guess what — I’m fucking one of my teammates here, too. Couldn’t give that up, I guess.
 
He knew Dan would have a prepared apology. He’d turn it around and make it about his own struggles, his own fears. He’d make Keith feel bad for him. Then he’d kiss him, press his hands into him, that electric touch that destroyed every shred of Keith’s willpower.
 
If he met up with him he’d have to do it somewhere very public. Somewhere that Keith knew, somewhere where Keith held the power.
 
» I’ll think about it. You really fucking hurt me.
 
In truth, he’d made up his mind already; he did want to see him. But he wanted Dan to hurt a little, too. He could stand to wonder for a week and a half, when Keith had been wondering for the better part of a year.
 
——
 
The Boston game did not go well. In the dressing room afterwards, Keith took his gear off and watched Parise give a dejected little interview. He wanted badly to comfort him. He didn’t touch him and he didn’t talk to him.
 
Then they flew to New York. This would be too short a jaunt to see New York City itself; they were at the hotel across from Nassau Coliseum. Keith had a very particular memory of going for breakfast with Dan at a greasy-spoon diner not far from that same hotel, on a frosty January day three years before. Keith wondered absently if that diner was still there. 
 
At breakfast the next morning — not at a diner, but there in the hotel, the usual buffet spread — Parise sat down across from Keith, which made Keith raise an eyebrow.
 
“Good morning,” Keith said. “Get enough sleep?”
 
“Why? Do I — do I look tired?”
 
“No, I just overheard you telling Sutes you haven’t been sleeping very well.”
 
“I haven’t,” Parise admitted, taking a bite of toast. “I don’t sleep great — uh, alone.”
 
“That makes two of us. You know, there’s a pretty simple solution here…”
 
“No,” Parise said firmly. He looked over to his left, where Granlund was sitting a few seats away. “I don’t want any of these guys finding out. That’s gonna fuck with team dynamics.”
 
Keith couldn’t argue there; the Canucks locker room had been a mess in his last year there, but that had always had more to do with Kesler and his unique variety of shit-disturbing. No one paid much mind to what Keith got up to behind the scenes.
 
So Keith just shrugged. “Fine. Fair enough, I guess.”
 
He had his phone resting on the table in front of him; the display lit up, suddenly. It was another message from Dan. He caught Parise looking at it, too, seeing Dan’s name on the screen.
 
He picked up his phone, then looked at Parise. His eyes were narrowed.
 
“I thought you said you guys weren’t talking.”
 
“We’re not. He messaged me yesterday, just out of the blue. First time in, like, six months.”
 
“What does he want?”

Keith thought for a moment. He didn’t know if he enjoyed the edge of possessiveness in Parise’s voice, especially when it came on the heels of his refusal to touch him when they were travelling.
 
“He wants to see me next week before the Canucks play us.”
 
“You didn’t say yes, did you?” Parise asked, but then Pominville came and joined them with a plate of food, cutting the conversation short. Parise glowered at Keith while he checked his phone.
 
» This season has been so tough without you.

» Cry me a fucking river, Dan.

They beat the Islanders handily. Keith watched the first period from the pressbox, then went to the weightroom and watched the rest of it from there, by himself. Watched his team succeed without him. Succeed because they were without him, maybe. He was used to this. He’d been used to it in Vancouver, too. It never got any less humiliating.
 
It would only be a short bus ride to New Jersey, so they stayed on Long Island for another night to get a decent night’s rest — decent for most of them. Keith hadn’t played so he wasn’t very tired. He settled onto his bed to watch a terrible-looking cop movie on TV and nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a knock at the door.
 
It was Parise.
 
“I thought you were playing poker in Heater’s room?”
 
“Yeah, I busted out pretty much immediately.”
 
“Sounds about right. I’ve seen you on the plane,” Keith said, letting him into the room, allowing himself to smile only slightly. 
 
“What are you up to?”
 
“Just — TV. Nothing good, even.”

Parise stood, for a moment, not touching him. He was in a long-sleeved t-shirt and bike shorts that left nothing to the imagination. He chewed at the inside of his mouth, looking at Keith, looking as though he wanted to say something.
 
“Well?” Keith asked.
 
“Well — what?”

“You’re here for a reason, right?”
 
“Yeah. I wanna — can I stay here? I still wanna keep it, you know, under the radar, but there’s nothing weird about me just visiting you, once in a while, right?”
 
The clandestine hotel room visit was an art Keith had mastered over three years travelling with Dan, but he didn’t tell Parise that. He just smiled at him.
 
“Nothing weird at all,” Keith agreed, embracing Parise, so glad to feel his warm mouth on him after almost a week without it. He could feel him go hard in those bike shorts against his leg, very quickly.
 
Keith scrambled to mute the TV so that their only soundtrack was a faint humming from the monitor, and the dampened noises of cars and trucks on the highway, sluicing through the snow. Parise bent Keith over his bed, got the angle just right so that he could enter him deep enough that Keith wanted to scream. He would have, if he was at home. Instead he muffled his own mouth, and considered that this was on purpose, a told-you-so from Parise, proof that this wasn’t good idea. Parise didn’t even try to tease him. He fucked into him so hard that Keith wondered whether he’d be able to skate properly; then he reasoned that it wouldn’t matter, because he’d probably be scratched again, anyway.
 
He growled at him to fuck him harder, and Parise grabbed him more firmly by the hips; he could feel flecks of sweat from Parise’s brow dripping onto his back. He liked the challenge, wanted to show Parise he was more than up to it, that he could take it all, that he needed it.
 
Parise came inside him, crying out, not able to stifle his own sounds the way Keith had done; he went rigid in his climax and then slackened, his knees shaking, and then rolled off of Keith onto the still-mostly-made bedspread, his chest heaving, reeling from it.
 
Parise lay there on his back, pliant; Keith was still hard and aching and so he straddled Parise’s face, took his cock in his hand, and started to jerk off. Parise reached for him, almost weak, and Keith swatted him away; it wouldn’t take much, especially when he looked into those half-closed chocolate brown eyes. He didn’t even ask him; he didn’t need to: he came, in a few thick white ropes, on Parise’s face. He didn’t protest and he didn’t wipe it away. He licked it off of his upper lip, the corner of his mouth.
 
“Oh, you’re pretty,” Keith said, reaching for his t-shirt on the bed to wipe his cheeks.
 
“I liked that,” Parise mumbled. He kicked the bedspread down to the foot of the bed, sleepy, and then drew it back over his body and turned over, already submitting to unconsciousness. Keith cleaned up and brushed his teeth and when he came out of the bathroom Parise was snoring. Keith set an alarm for him, so that he could get back to his room at a decent hour, and then laid down next to him and shuffled his hips into him, finding, again, that symbiosis.
 
——
 
Keith made himself scarce in New Jersey. He would have disappeared into the background anyway. It was a place so steeped in history for Parise that it would have been a pathetic endeavour to try to capture his attention. He had helped beat Lundqvist and the Rangers here, two years before, in overtime, to get to the Stanley Cup Final.
 
They flew back to Minny that night. Dan messaged him some more. Keith deleted the messages, resolving not to answer them, but then inevitably breaking down.
 
Parise wanted to follow him home. They had two practices the next day, and an afternoon of meetings, but Keith said yes. Keith was pleased to finally be able to justify what he’d spent on his loft, with its solid brick construction, to silence perfectly the sound of his headboard slamming against the wall while Parise fucked him. He thought, in fact, that his bed might fall apart at its joists.
 
“Oh my god, I love —”
 
Keith’s heart stopped for a second.
 
“— I love your cock, Ballard, fuck!”
 
——
 
They practiced in the morning, but had the night free before the game. The Canucks were flying in that day. Parise could see Keith on his phone, distracted, hanging back to answer texts.
 
Parise approached him.
 
“Just promise me you won’t see Hamhuis.”
 
“Why?”
 
“Because he’s shit and you deserve better.”
 
It was such a simplified assessment — both parts of the statement. Dan wasn’t really shit, and Keith didn’t really deserve better. He certainly didn’t deserve Parise, but then, he didn’t know if he had Parise.
 
He met Dan at a lounge in St. Paul that Keith knew well. He got there before Dan and ordered a martini that easily had three ounces of gin in it. He knew he was scratched the next day. There was the other unfortunate truth, one Dan knew very well: that playing hockey kept Keith sober. And the lingering depression that still clawed at him, remnants of his concussions mingled with other features of his mind, was only amplified when he drank. And he drank when he couldn’t play.
 
He needed this wall of courage, though.

» I’m here, where are you sitting?

Oh, Dan. So predictable. He hated wandering through bars, blinders on. He was always convinced people recognized him.
 
Dan found him, sitting in a round booth near the back. Keith didn’t get up to greet him. He looked lean, a bit of a five-o-clock shadow on his chin. He’d noticed that about him in Vancouver, too, that he’d seemed thinner, or maybe just more sculpted. He’d have to see all of his body to be sure.
 
“Hi, Keith,” he said, without affect. He could turn that on and off.

“That’s quite the greeting for someone who’s been aching to see me. Has it just been torture?” He asked, widening his eyes for sarcastic effect. He took a large sip of his drink, staring at Dan as he settled into the booth.
 
“I’m sorry, but you know why I couldn’t talk to you,” Dan said, shaking his head.
 
“If our relationship had a slogan, it would be I’m sorry, but —”
 
“Why would it need a slogan? No one would ever buy it.”
 
“Whatever. I don’t want to talk about this, I don’t want to give you a chance to pull your usual shit. How was the Olympics?”
 
Dan paused for a moment; he looked offended. Good, Keith thought.
 
“Uh, they were … they were weird, actually. I mean, the tournament itself, that was great, I love playing international hockey, but Russia was a strange place. Our housing, everything was kind of ramshackle, and cold — there were whole sections that weren’t heated. We had to take little trams to the rinks, they were so far away, these jitney things, or we had to cycle. It wasn’t anything like Vancouver. And I guess cause most of us were up there alone, nobody really brought their families, there was an almost extreme level of bonding between the guys. And the coaches, all the staff, really.”
 
“Extreme?” Keith said, not bothering to conceal his playful grin.
 
“Not like that. I mean, as far as I know. But maybe. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
 
“With Kes and Patrick Kane in that US men’s locker room? I’m sure those boys got up to something.”
 
“Your teammate would know. Parise. Why don’t you ask him?”
 
Keith smiled again; Dan had said his name wrong. “Yeah, maybe I will. I’ll make a mental note.”
 
“You must be happy to be back home.”
 
“I am,” Keith said, with no air of disingenuousness this time. “It’s just great to be a short drive from the homestead, to have dinner with my family whenever I feel like it instead of having to schedule it months in advance. A lot of my friends from college still live in the Twin Cities, most of them don’t play hockey anymore, but it’s been great to get back in touch. I love this place.”
 
“You were always so excited when we came here, on the road. It made me so happy to see your face light up like that.”
 
“That’s just my face all the time now!”
 
Dan chuckled softly. “You’re doing okay? For the most part?”
 
“For the most part. I’m not playing as much as I want to be, but that’s life. I have to earn that, right? As much as you always pretended it wasn’t fair and I didn’t deserve it. I do. I have problems that I should work on. Like this,” he said, jiggling his martini glass. The server misinterpreted it as a request for a refill, and rushed over to the table. Keith ordered another one anyway, and Dan stared at him, frowning.
 
“The league has resources for that, it’s an excellent program. But you know that already.”
 
“I don’t think it’s bad enough yet.”
 
“Yet? Fuck, Keith. I just hate the idea of you spending so much time alone. It freaks me out.”
 
“I’m not alone,” Keith mused. “I’m actually doing a lot better. Most of this is just because I’m around you, right now.”
 
“What do you mean you’re not alone?” The change in Dan’s tone was so swift, from tender to accusatory, that Keith openly scoffed.
 
“So, you’re sad and scared for me if I’m alone, but pissed off if I’m not? What the fuck, Dan?”
 
“Sorry, I just … we left things open-ended.”
 
“You didn’t talk to me for six months! Was I supposed to just wait forever? Do you think you have me that pinned down?”
 
“I don’t know what I thought,” Dan said, not looking at Keith anymore, but past him, something washing over his face. That there could be another man in Keith’s life — had he truly not considered that?
 
They sat there in silence for a few minutes. Keith could feel his phone vibrating in his pocket but didn’t want to answer it, couldn’t conflate the two worlds right now, Parise and Dan.
 
“So, like, an old friend from college, or…?” Dan said, sounding weak. Keith knew he’d never be able to fight off his curiosity.
 
But he couldn’t tell him, not the night before they were due to play each other. Perhaps not ever. If it went sideways, Dan would use that as ammunition.
 
Keith just shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Dan. We’re not teammates anymore. You’re not here for me, and like you said, it isn’t good for me to be alone. Maybe just try and be glad that there are things in my life that are bringing me joy.”
 
Dan screwed up his face in that way Keith only ever saw as manipulative. “Didn’t I bring you joy?”
 
But Keith couldn’t help it, when Dan looked sad. “Of course you did. You were …  you were everything. I would have stayed in Vancouver if I could. I would have stayed there forever.”
 
Dan’s hand was resting on the seat of the booth and Keith reached over under the table and took it. Dan’s hand was cold, even though it was warm in the bar; he squeezed back, and Keith felt a twinge of arousal.
 
“But you’re not there, now. I’m so sorry I wouldn’t talk to you. I thought cutting you out completely was the solution, that I could stop loving you that way, that I could force all of that out of me. It didn’t work. It made things worse, and we have so few opportunities now, and I already wasted two of them —”
 
Keith didn’t say anything. He could feel his heart do an erratic dance, and he wasn’t sure if he was hearing Dan right, parsing what he was saying correctly.
 
“Do you want to … do you want to try again, then?”
 
“Yes. I can’t not have you in my life, Keith.”
 
Keith just looked at him. His phone was still going.
 
“I can feel that vibrating, from over here. Are you going to answer it?”
 
He pulled it out of his pocket: four missed calls from Parise.
 
“Excuse me,” Keith said, and stepped away from the table, into a back hallway where it was quieter, to phone Parise back.
 
“Hello?”
 
“Hey, Zach. Sorry.”
 
“Are you, like, out with him right now? Is that why you weren’t answering?”
 
Would there be any point in lying? Was that ever a positive foundation for any type of  relationship?
 
“Yeah, I am. I know, I’m sorry.”
 
“Is he going to come home with you? Are you going to fuck him tonight?”
 
Keith swallowed. There couldn’t be a lie, yet, if he didn’t know the answer.
 
“No, Zach. We’re just talking. Just trying to work some shit out. And, I think me and you need to work some shit out too, if you’re calling me four times in a row because I’m having drinks with somebody I’ve known for five years.”
 
“So, should I come by later then?” Parise said, breathless, with his own brand of nervous aggression.
 
Keith sighed. If he said no, then that was it. He’d blow it up.
 
“Yeah. I’ll only be here for, like, another fifteen, okay?”
 
“Okay, yeah. I’ll see you soon.”
 
Keith walked back to the table, placing the phone face down. Dan looked at it, then looked at Keith.
 
“Making plans for later?” Dan asked.
 
“Yeah, actually.”
 
“So, what does that mean? No invite?”
 
Dan sounded frustrated: angry, even. Keith had never really experienced this and he realized that he liked it.
 
“I have a feeling you’re always going to be the thorn in my side, Dan.”
 
They both ordered cars, to speed them off in different directions. In spite of everything, Keith wanted very, very badly to kiss Dan goodbye, but they were in downtown St. Paul, on a well-lit street, surrounded by people.
 
“I’ll come say hi, before the game,” Keith said. “Don’t walk away from me this time, please.”
 
“I won’t,” Dan said, getting into his Uber. Keith got a message from him, a minute later:

» I miss you.

Keith missed him, too, but not in a longing way, anymore.
 
There had a been a moment they could have seized, a long time ago, in Vancouver, but it came and went without either of them realizing it. That moment was in the past and Keith knew, now, that he had to leave it there.
 
——
 
Keith had scarcely been home five minutes before he heard his buzzer. He was getting tired of having to let him in every time, having to give him permission.
 
Then Parise was there, in his doorway, looking like a wounded deer.
 
“Thanks. Thanks for …” Parise pressed his lips together, still not so good at talking to Keith, really. “… choosing me.”
 
“Oh, Zach,” Keith said, with a long sigh. “We’re not just fucking, then, I guess?”

“I don’t know,” Parise said, walking past Keith into the kitchen, a good distance away from him, crossing his arms.
 
“I thought we were,” he continued, “but then you told me Hamhuis wanted to see you, and it just set something off in me. I think for a long time I didn’t allow myself to feel like I could be with anybody else. I shut off that part because I got burned so badly in Jersey. Like as long as I was playing pro I’d just have to suck it up. And then the way you approached me, it was like we were peas in a pod, like we could share this thing, like a little club with just two members. And I thought that was our bond. But it wore me down, after a while of seeing you, over and over, this realization.”
 
“What realization?”
 
“That I really, really, really fucking like you.”
 
Keith took a slow breath and looked at Parise, this man that he had, yes, chosen over Dan. This gorgeous, sensitive man, with that dazzling smile, who wanted very much to be in Keith’s life.
 
“Come here,” Keith said, and pulled Parise into him. He raked a hand through his hair as he kissed him, wanting to feel every part of him that was different from Dan. He wasn’t going to say the thing that Parise wanted to hear. But he wasn’t going to push him away, either, not when he was keeping Keith safe.
 
He liked it when Parise pulled his hair while they were fucking, and he liked finding bruises, later. Parise liked to bite him, too, on his arms, and that sometimes left a mark which Parise would apologize for, rubbing the place where it was blue and red, like he could speed the healing.
 
But they didn’t do any of that now. Keith took him to bed and they just kissed and touched each other for awhile, softly, like Keith had done when Parise was hurt. When Parise entered him he did it like they were first-time lovers, hesitant, working his way in instead of tearing Keith open. They fucked face-to-face and Parise kept leaning in to kiss his mouth and his chin, and he wouldn’t let Keith jerk himself off; after he came he slid down the mattress and then sucked him off, maybe a bit more performatively than usual, like he was trying to prove something. Keith sensed vulnerability and neediness from him. Perhaps he was aware of just how close he’d come to not having a place in that bed tonight.
 
Keith didn’t think about Dan again until after they were done and Parise had rolled over. He knew his phone had more messages but didn’t check them. The world that he and Parise had created in this bed was everything he needed, for now, and maybe even for longer than that.
 
——
 
“I’m going to call the building manager and get an extra key fob for my apartment,” Keith said in the morning. “For you,” he added, when all Zach did was look at him.
 
“That … that would be nice,” Zach replied. It was cold in Keith’s huge, sparsely furnished loft so Zach was wearing one of Keith’s hoodies, a UMN one, very old and very soft. He sat at Keith’s kitchen island eating a waffle with a knife and fork and he looked like a boy. A Minnesota boy, who loved Minnesota winters and fishing and baseball, things that Keith loved too.
 
He hadn’t considered this, even the day before. He just assumed he’d keep returning to that dark place, like he’d done so many times.
 
This was his life broken open. He could take things out, things that were wrong, things that weren’t good for him. He didn’t have to let himself be poisoned anymore.
 
He slid his stool over so he was right next to Zach and slung an arm aroung his waist.
 
“I wanna work on this,” he said, burying his shoulder in Zach’s warm neck and the fabric of the sweatshirt. “I’m not good at it, and I know that. But I really want to be better.”
 
“It’s already better,” Zach said. “It’s already so much better.” He put his fork down and kissed him, and his mouth was sweet, maple and coffee and something else. That extra flavour that was only Zach.
 
It was chilly in his kitchen and Keith wormed his hands under Zach’s hoodie, touched his bare skin, made him jump a little. He knew he was clinging to him in a desperate way, but he really needed to feel him. He needed Zach’s body under his hands. He needed him there, to steady him, to keep him sane.
 
Better might not always be enough. It was still a low bar, for Keith, a base expectation. But Zach pressed his cheek against him, smiled into his face, grabbed his hand.
 
His rock. His anchor. For now, his Minnesota boy.