We Understand Us （14）

"Right here! Right here!" TK shouted. "Stop right here!"

"Jesus, could you maybe not scare the shit outta me while I'm driving, kid?" his Uber driver yelled, pulling the car over.

"Sorry, man. I just…I need to get out right here."

"Whatever, dude."

"Here. Thanks, and I'm sorry." TK reached into his wallet, pulled out 200 bucks, and threw it into the passenger seat, quickly exiting the vehicle and checking Hayes's location. The phone was putting him…on the East Washington Avenue Bridge?

That couldn't be right.

Either way, he stepped onto the entrance of the bridge and scanned his surroundings, though the lack of light made it difficult to see. He'd tried texting and calling Hayes numerous times but he wasn't responding.

He knew something was wrong.

When he woke up and Hayes was gone, he checked his phone and saw that Hayes had shared his location. It was a thing they did sometimes to let each other know that they might need help.

It'd started after one of the first few times they'd partied together on the road. TK had disappeared from the club they were at and Hayes couldn't find him for over two hours.

They'd finally reunited when Hayes happened to find him passed out in a nearby alleyway. After that night, they'd agreed to share their location if they were somewhere they felt maybe wouldn't be safe for them.

This? Didn't make sense though. Why the hell would he…

A passing car's headlights allowed him to make out a figure stumbling toward him about 20 feet in the distance. He immediately unlocked his phone and called Hayes, gasping when he heard the ringtone in person.

"Ty!" he yelled, quickening his pace toward his friend and wrapping him in his arms as soon as he got there. Hayes collapsed onto him, barely able to breathe because he was sobbing so hard. "It's OK. I'm here. I'm right here, baby."

TK ran his hands up and down his friend's back, comforting him as he broke down.

"I don't…know what the fuck…is happening to me," Hayes cried.

"It's alright. Let's just go home, OK?"

They pulled away from each other, TK keeping a firm hold of Hayes's hand and hurrying him off of the bridge. His skin was stone cold. God knows how long he'd been out here; he needed to get his friend somewhere warm.

They walked a bit until they found a CVS they could duck into, TK leading Hayes to the back of the store so they could sit down on the chairs in the pharmacy while he arranged them a ride back to Long Island.

"Alright. Ride will be here in 20 minutes. Did you wanna talk about it?" TK asked, resting a hand on his teammate's thigh.

Hayes didn't answer; he just continued to sit silently, arms crossed, head down, eyes closed, and shivering.

"You know, I've thought about it before, too," TK offered quietly. "Sometimes it feels like there's no way out, huh? I get it. I, uh, right before the trade to the Isles? I was in…a really bad place. That whole rumor with me and Yardy's wife? So, it wasn't all bullshit. I did have a thing with her, but I kinda misinterpreted it. It started as just a hookup, but I…fuckin' fell for her. Hard. She told me she loved me, too. We were sneakin' around together for a bit, before she even found out she was pregnant. And not for nothin', but that dude cheated on her three times in every fucking city, man. Not that it makes it OK, but…"

He looked over at Hayes, who still hadn't moved. TK felt like he needed to keep talking, needed to get this off his chest, so he did.

"She kept telling me she'd leave him eventually, and then she found out she was pregnant. We knew it wasn't mine because the timeline didn't work, which sucked ‘cause I'd have stepped up and been a dad. I loved her that much, man. I still do. But she…decided to try to make it work with him and have the baby. Told me she was sorry, but that she didn't ever wanna see me again. I tried to drink myself to death that night, Ty. I ended up in the ER after my roommate found me passed out face down in my own vomit, my heart barely beating. Three days later, I was packing for New York."

"I'm glad," Hayes mumbled.

"Huh?"

"Not glad the bitch broke your heart," he slurred. "Glad you ended up here. With me."

"I think about that all the time," he said. "I feel like you and me? We can help each other, you know? We understand us like no one else can. There's no one else who gets me like you do, baby."

"You came for me, Teek," Hayes whispered.

"I'll always come for you."

TK checked his phone. "Car's gonna be here in five. Come on." He pulled Hayes up by his hand and led him toward the bathrooms. "It's a long ride. Better pee."

They reached the men's room, Hayes swaying as TK locked the main bathroom door after making sure no one else was in there. Hayes steadied himself against the wall as TK grabbed a baggie from his pocket, dumped it onto the vanity, and racked two long lines for them. He bent down and cleaned one before pulling Hayes over to the sink.

"Hey. This'll level you out, baby. Go ‘head."

Hayes, like a robot, leaned down and cleaned the line, immediately regaining a sense of awareness. It was amazing how quickly cocaine could pull him off a downer every single time. "Shit. Fuck are we?" he asked, panicked and scanning his surroundings.

"CVS bathroom."

"Teek? Why the fuck are we in a CVS bathroom?"

???

Hayes watched as TK pressed the button to raise the partition. "Jesus. Ridin' in style, eh?"

TK flipped the switch for the reclining seat, stretched his arms over his head, and leaned back, getting comfy in the Mercedes-Maybach limo he'd arranged to pick them up via Uber Black. "It's a long ride. Besides, we're fuckin' stars, baby."

Hayes exhaled loudly, reclining his seat as well and rolling over to face his teammate. "I don't know how I got here tonight, man. One minute I was on Osi's couch, and the next I was starin' down at the river. I don't know what happened, but it was fuckin' terrifying, man."

TK rolled to face him as well. "It's the ox. It fucks with you, starts making you think all kinds of weird thoughts. Plus the shit with Ryan, then what happened with us the other night…it makes sense."

"Yeah, but like, I can't be thinkin' like that, man. I don't…I mean, I didn't wanna…I wasn't really gonna…" He stopped for a moment, then continued. "Teek. Do you think we need help? I'm startin' to feel like it's…a little out of my control."

TK sighed, reaching between the two captain's chairs they were seated in and grabbing Hayes's hand, both of them still a bit rambly and slightly twitchy from the lines they'd just ripped in the bathroom.

Hayes didn't pull away.

Everything told him he should've, but he didn't.

"What we need is each other," TK told him. "We're young, we're rich, we're outcasts, and we've been through a ton of shit in our lives, baby. So what if we like to let loose and party a little?"

"A little?"

"OK, a lot. But we can stop any time we want to, you know that. And we have each other's backs. That's huge. I see your pain, Ty Hayes. I know there's a lot going on behind those beautiful green eyes, and guess what? I don't give a shit about any of it. Whatever you did, whatever you've been through? I'm always gonna be here for you. You know that, right?"

Hayes nodded and, realizing he was still holding onto TK's hand, let it go.

"And I know it sucks that Ryan left, but you two will be fine. You can travel to see each other, spend breaks together, meet up in cities when you're near each other. You'll make it work." TK paused. "You really love him, don't you?"

"Like, more than anything. Which is why…"

"Don't," TK interrupted him. "Nothing happened. I told you that."

"Listen, you can keep sayin' that, but we both know for a fact that somethin' did fuckin' happen, man."

"Yeah? So, what are your options then?"

"I tell him."

"And then what?"

"And then, most likely, he breaks up with me."

"Is that what you want?"

"Fuck no. I'm gonna marry that kid someday. Or die tryin'."

"Then you don't tell him," TK stated matter-of-factly. "You're making this way harder than it has to be, Ty Hayes."

"Teek: I fuckin' cheated on him."

"No, you didn't cheat on him. The drugs did."

Hayes rolled onto his back and away from his friend. "I'll take ‘things drug addicts say' for 400, Alex."

"We're not drug addicts, baby. We can stop any time we want to," TK repeated.

"So then, like, why don't we?"

TK shrugged. "You wanna?"

"Teek, aren't you tired? We're playin' like shit, we can't even hang out with each other on the road, the fans are all talkin' mad shit about us…"

"Then fuckin' let ‘em!" TK yelled, sitting up. "Ty, people are gonna talk shit because that's what people do. If you're great, they'll say you suck. If you're hot, they'll say you're ugly. Fuck it, baby. Regardless of whether we party or not, people are gonna say what they wanna say about us. Let ‘em. We know who we are."

Hayes nodded slowly.

Yeah, I know exactly who I am: a cheating drug addict who just thought about launching myself off a bridge.

"Teek? I'm tired. I wanna…I wanna stop. I have to."

"You really wanna stop?"

"Yes."

"Then we'll stop," TK said nonchalantly. "We'll give it a rest for a bit, focus on our game, and get back on the coaches' good sides."

It all sounded good, but the growing pain in Hayes's stomach had other plans, mainly getting another round of pills down his gullet as soon as possible. "How do you just…stop? What about the pain?"

"I mean, you don't stop altogether. You just…take only what you have to, to manage your symptoms. Take just enough to keep you feeling normal, to level you, but that's where we'll stop. We won't go beyond that."

"That's…that's not stoppin', man," Hayes argued.

"Well, baby. It's either that or you go to rehab. You ever been to rehab?"

Hayes shook his head. "You?"

"Yeah. And it was the worst month and a half of my life. I thought the detox week was going to kill me, honestly."

"When did you go?" Hayes asked, watching TK reach into his pocket, pull out the baggie of coke, dip a finger inside, and bring it to his face.

"In juniors. When I was 18. Something…kinda happened, and I spiraled a bit." TK dipped another finger inside and reached it over toward Hayes, who leaned down to sniff it without even so much as a slight hesitation. "Just to level you, baby."

"We can stop any time we want to, you know that."

It sure didn't seem like it.

"What happened?" Hayes asked, then shook his head. "Forget it. That's none of my business."

"Nah, it's fine. I trust you." TK fidgeted a bit, returning the baggie to his pocket and crossing one ankle over his knee. "So, remember you asked me if I'd ever been with a guy and I said that I had, but it wasn't consensual?"

"Yeah?"

"I messed around with one of my teammate's girls. I, uh…without sounding like too much of a douche, my looks kinda attract a lot of attention. Always have."

Gee, you don't fuckin' say? Hayes thought bitterly, alternating between watching TK pick at his hands in his lap and staring into his gorgeous, albeit dilated, dark eyes.

"And, like, it's really hard for me to say no to sex. She came onto me, we fucked, and he found out. He assured me everything was cool, that it wasn't the first time she'd stepped out on him. Anyway, the following week, we had an away game and we were partying in one of the guy's rooms. There were all kinds of drugs being passed around, and someone broke out some heroin. And you know me, I've yet to meet a drug I won't do, so of course I was in."

"Was that your first time? With heroin, I mean."

"Yep. I shot up, and I…woke up naked in the bathroom next to a trash can full of used condoms, blood all down my legs. I don't remember anything other than just being scared as hell. I didn't say shit, man. I didn't wanna get kicked off the team for being high.

"The next day at practice, I was so sore I could barely move. He pulled me aside and asked me how my ass was doing. He let me know that if I touched his or anyone else's girl again, he'd OD me and make it look like an accident."

TK stopped talking, moving his hand to brush away a few stray tears that'd escaped his eyes. "I don't…like, to this day, I don't even know how many got a turn, man. There were at least six other guys there, but I don't know how many…"

He paused. "One helped me get cleaned up, got me to my room and into bed. Said he didn't know anything, but I could see it in his eyes that was a lie. He wasn't involved, but he knew something. That…fucked me up, and I started with oxys right after.

"Within two weeks, the team had me in rehab. Lied and said I was injured to save face. I got sober, though. Came back and killed it. Managed to stay sober, too, until I ended up with the Preds. That was just too much money and temptation too quick, man. Then the whole shit with Anna, Yardy's wife?" He shook his head, forcing a smile. "And…here we are."

"You ever tell anyone? About the assault?"

TK scoffed. "Nah. Wouldn't have done any good. Hockey culture, man. He was the team golden boy and I was the fuck up. Some things never change, huh? Ugh, anyway. New subject. So, you always knew you were gay?"

Hayes laughed. "Nah. Not even. I was…I was abused by my coach's wife in Junior A, so I was always attracted to older women. Messed around with a couple guys in juniors out of drunken frustration, but it never got past kissin' and dry humpin'. Ended up with Rook last year because we were both bangin' the same older chick. It's…a long story, but she sorta pushed us to deal with the fact that we were in love with each other. The rest, as they say, is history."

"Did you always know you wanted him?"

"Oh, from the minute I fuckin' met him. I mean, I didn't recognize what I was feelin', so it was just this constant, heated rivalry between us. But lookin' back? Yeah, I fell in love with Rook the moment I saw him. He's…perfectly imperfect, that one. And there's nothin' I wouldn't do for him."

"That's a sweet story, Ty Hayes. I'm glad you two found each other, just like I'm glad we found each other. I am so glad I got traded to New York."

"Me too," Hayes said sadly, an insane amount of guilt and shame creeping over him as he took his phone out to text his boyfriend.

H: I love you, Rook. I just wanted you to know that.

R: Are you OK?

R: And you know I love you, too. So much.

H: I am now.

R: You with him?

R: Hayes, are you with him?

H: I love you. We'll talk tomorrow.

R: Fuck. You're with him, aren't you?

"So, let's do it," TK finally said, Hayes raising an eyebrow, unsure what he was referring to. "Let's get ourselves better. We'll do it together, OK? I mean, we won't be able to stop everything, but we'll keep ourselves level and get our heads back in the game. Sound good?"

"Yeah," Hayes agreed. "It sounds great, but like, do you really think we can do it?"

"We understand us, Ty. We'll help each other. We can do it, baby. OK?"

Hayes nodded.

He'd told Rook he'd fight.

And he would.

Tonight was just one more little fuck up, but it was over now.

He would start fighting right now.

He would.