4. Chapter Four

So this was awesome.

Not.

I knew I should have taken the stairs or at the very least waited for another elevator when I had seen who was inside, but no. I had to be a moron who was feeling his oats after beating the man in the dressy jacket, slacks, but no tie. The jacket was a little wrinkled.

“Don’t own an iron?” I casually asked.

“I came here from the barn to offer condolences to your teammate. Sorry, I didn’t have time to press the jacket hanging in the back of my car.” Ouch. Also, ouch again. “Nothing to say about that, huh?”

This was going to hurt. “Thank you for coming,” I ground out, my sight locked on the red floor buttons that were going nowhere. “I’m sure Connor appreciates the show of support from his fellows.”

“At least he has manners,” Baskoro mumbled to my right. Suddenly, and for good reason, I did not want to engage. I’d been all sorts of ready to give it to Huda when I’d leapt into the elevator. Now I merely wanted to get to my room. This whole dynamic between us was exhausting. “At least Connor doesn’t make snarky racist comments to people on the sly.”

That one yanked my attention from the floor numbers to the angry man sharing this too small space with me. Whatever he used for a cologne was earthy with undertones of pine. It smelled a lot like I would imagine an elf smelling. Yep, Baskoro Huda smelled like Legolas. Something that should be a plus because I freaking loved LOTR, but right now that woodsy aroma was overpowering.

“I’m not sure what the hell you’re talking about, Huda, but I never make racist comments. I will, on occasion, comment about what an asshole someone is, but that is always based on personality and not skin color.”

Was this damn elevator repair person ever coming? I punched the third floor button angrily, to no avail.

“Don’t stand there pretending you don’t know what you said to me that night at the Sigma Kappa Sigma athletic supporter party.”

I looked over at him in confusion. Then an old memory wiggled out of the ton of party nights I’d had on campus. I’d only run into this guy once at a kegger that I could recall. Seemed Baskoro wasn’t a party dude, or he simply avoided events where I was. Probably the latter.

“Wait, hold on. Are you talking about that stupid party where everyone had to wear jocks and nothing else?” He glared at me like I was the one in the wrong. “I talked to you for like five minutes that night, and then I left with my date.”

“Yeah, you and that girl had a good laugh at my expense. I heard what you said to her when you two were walking away. You told her that you couldn’t wait to get away from that Asian goalie bitch.”

My mouth literally fell open. Shock made me gape like Kyleen’s goldfish Boo-Boo when she had scooped him out of his bowl and carried him into the living room to watch a movie with her. Thank God I saw the droplets of water and found Boo-Boo before he had passed over to the great goldfish bowl in the sky.

“What?!” My voice rose to a comically high level. I cleared the horror from my throat and tried again. “What the…I would…why would I say something like that?!”

He sneered at me. All that stunning beauty of his disappearing as rage and hurt took over his features. “You’d say it because I’m gay. Calling me a bitch as if equating me with a feminine term is insulting. It’s not. I’m proud to be queer and a feminist!”

“What the hell, man. No, I would never say that.” I blinked at the man as I tried to dig up the memories of that night. A stupid party at a stupid frat house. This was what his whole problem with me was. Something he misheard. Jesus wept. I rubbed at my face with my palms as the recollections of that night flooded back. “Why would I run you down for being gay when I’m queer?”

His dark eyes flared. “No you’re not.”

“Uhm, yeah, I am. I think I should know who I like to stick my dick in to and it’s eighty percent guys.” Now it was his turn to make that dumb fish face. “You were there with some guy,” I said as the memories flowed back. “Tall, ginger, and I was there with some girl.” Some girl who later became Kyleen’s mother. She who shall remain nameless. I should never have spent so much time wheeling chicks when I wasn’t wholly into them, but they were always flitting around the men’s hockey team. They were always willing, and I was always horny. Still was, but I had a better grip on those urges now. I shook my finger at him as the elevator hung there motionless. “You were a freshman, new to the team, gangly ass legs and arms like a skinny little horse.”

“Fuck you,” Huda snarled.

“Yeah, I remember talking to you. I welcomed you to the team. We shook hands.”

“Then you walked off with your date while saying you needed to ditch that Asian bitch.”

“No. No, that was not at all what I said. How drunk were you?”

“I wasn’t drunk. I was sober. And I fucking heard you say it!” He was oozing pain now, clouds of hurt wafting off him, probably from years of racial crap being tossed his way. I knew that feeling well. It was rough being a person of color—and queer—in a sport dominated by straight White men.

“No, you did not. You heard me say that I needed to tell Fitch about this Asian goalie.” He folded his arms over his chest and hit me with the driest, flattest look ever to be looked. “No lie. I told my date that I wanted to text my cousin Fitch and tell him—”

“Your cousin Fitch? Seriously. Fuck you. Do I look that stupid?”

“Well, I mean with that dorky man bun, yeah.” He snarled. I found it kind of amusing and alarmingly cute. “No, listen, I have a cousin who’s big into cycling, which is about as White as hockey, if not more so, and I wanted to pass along your name to him. What?”

“Your cousin Fitch the cyclist?”

Okay, this man was working my last nerve. “Yes, Fitch Monroe.” He stared at me blankly. “Name means nothing to you?”

“Not a thing because you made it up to cover being a dickhead.”

“Asshole.” I dug out my phone. Baskoro rolled those expressive eyes over to my cell as I unlocked it and brought up Instagram. When Fitch’s info was on the screen, I held the phone in front of his button nose and waited. He read over the post, glanced at me, and then snapped the phone from my hand to scroll. I waited, smug as hell, while the man gave witness to my rightness. “Well?”

After a moment, he shoved the phone into my chest, exhaled, and glanced up at the ceiling. “Fine, you have a cousin named Fitch, who won a few races on his bike.”

“He won Paris-Roubaix and Giro D’Italia,” I proudly emphasized.

“Yeah, I saw. Whatever. Why would you need to tell your cousin about me?” He was dancing back now, his ire quickly dissolving into that embarrassing heat when you find out you’ve been wrong about someone and had no clue how to save face.

“Because we like to keep each other abreast of other people of color who are pushing through racial and homophobic barriers. And yes, Fitch is gay, and yes, he is Black.”

He rolled his eyes. Those lashes had to be fake or thick with mascara. No way did a man have such pretty lashes.

“No shit, I saw he was Black. Do you think I’m that blind?”

“If we’re judging by the two goals you let soar past you tonight, I’m thinking that maybe you should haul your scrawny backside to a nearby Vision Mart to pick up some spectacles, Grandpa.”

“You’re such a scrotum.” I caught the flicker of something that might have been amusement in his eyes. We stood there staring at each other. The lights inside the elevator muted as the power dimmed and then rose. “Given this recent evidence, I will say that I might possibly have misheard what was said about me the night of the Sigma Kappa Sigma party.”

“Thank you.” I sighed, feeling a weight lifting from my shoulders that I wasn’t even aware I had been carrying. “For the record, I would not run down a man trying his best to break out in a sport that’s got people trying to hold him back.”

“Right, of course. I must have…perhaps I projected.” He seemed to loosen up a bit then, the tension in his shoulders lessening. Several long, awkward moments passed. Were we going to have to sleep in this damn box? “That little girl on your lock screen. Is that your kid?”

“Yeah, her name is Kyleen. You want to see more pictures of her?”

“Definitely. I mean, sure, if you want to show me.”

I darted a peek at him. He sure looked sincere. Which was odd as hell because most guys his age weren’t really into kids.

I brought up a few of the thousand images of my princess. He cooed over them all, smiling at the picture of her and me eating ice cream cones this past summer. We had made a fine mess of ourselves.

“She’s really cute. She must take after your wife.”

“Ha, yeah, you’re humorous. There is no wife.”

“Oh.” His gaze flittered to me like a nervous hummingbird before zipping back to a shot of Kyleen in her Wonder Woman outfit. “Your girlfriend then.”

“Nope, no girlfriend. Just me and my gal and my great-aunt. You know how it is for us queer folk. We have to build our own family sometimes.”

He openly stared at me as if trying to work out what to say. He opted to move on and not comment. The air was stuffy now, his cologne filling the small space. The aroma of Rivendell was appealing, not going to lie, but I did need to get my head out of Middle Earth and back to this quaking, tentative détente we had reached. Huda did not strike me as the kind of guy who spent time at fantasy or sci-fi conventions. He was far too uptight.

“She’s adorable. Want to see my new nephew?” he asked, and I nodded. A light bright enough to power every home in Watkins Glen illuminated his face. It literally took me back a step. I’d never seen the guy smile. Ever. His whole being glowed. The broody look was gone, replaced with joy as he thumbed through his pictures while I rested my chunky ass against the railing to keep me upright. Lord above the man was pretty. “His name is Banyu, and he’s three months old. I got to be there when he was born, well, not in the room because…yuck no I’ll pass on seeing my sister’s womanly gates.”

I sniggered softly as I looked down on a pudgy, happy baby being kissed on each cheek by a beaming couple.

“He’s precious,” I stated honestly before handing him his phone.

“I know. I can’t wait for them to move here in November. My brother-in-law got an upper management job at Schaffer Salt and my sister is applying for substitute teaching jobs in the area. They’re anxious to be in America with my parents and me, but my brother-in-law is sad about leaving his family behind in Phuket.”

“Well, they can visit,” I said as he gave his nephew one last loving look.

“Yeah, they can. I don’t think they will much, though. They’re leaving because the human rights in Thailand aren’t great. My last visit when Banyu was born was pretty tense. Like, people there knew I was gay. I mean, I’m not exactly quiet about my queerness online, and it’s not good there for LGBT people or women so they’re coming to the US where they can raise Banyu in a country that’s more accepting of those who aren’t the default.”

“More accepting, yes, but still have a long way to go.”

“Yeah, truth.” A moment of quiet resignation settled on us. The elevator jerked, scaring us both out of our wits.

“Hey, now that’s good news,” I said as we stuttered upward a few dozen feet. The doors opened and about forty people were crammed into the area awaiting us. A few in suits, probably hotel management, a couple in work overalls which I assumed to be elevator repair people, and various members of our teams. The hockey players who were gathered behind the guys in the overalls all stared at us as if they were expecting to find two bloody corpses lying in the lift.

My head coach gave me a long look. I smiled and stepped out of the elevator and away from the wild woods scent as if we’d not been stuck for close to an hour in a metal box dangling on a cable.

“So that was fun,” I quipped. A few members of the press corps milled around at a respectable distance but still jotting down tidbits while probably taking pictures on the sly.

The Comets engulfed me, pulling me down the corridor to our bank of rooms. Questions flew at me that I made light of, playing up how I’d not only beaten Huda on the ice but also in the battle of words we’d had during our time together. I glanced back while Crispy was going on about no one getting anything past me, not even a pun, when my eyes met Baskoro’s. He was chatting with his fellow goalie, Liam Polkman, his expression inscrutable.

He nodded, just once, and then I was tugged into the room and the door closed on Baskoro Huda.

Funny though, I could still smell woodland on my clothes and see that honest, pure smile of his in my mind’s eye…