Page 39 of Goalie interference
“It’s…new.”
“Now we’re talkin',” he laughed, going back to watching the guys.
Ash was already out warming up by his goal with headphones in, probably on song four of his playlist now. I knew his routine well at this point, which meant I also knew better than to bug him until he was done with this part, even if there was no game tonight.
The kid was ritualistic to a fault sometimes.
“Tell me about the guy–he must be good if he's got you all locked away,” Reed teased, gesturing at the bench for me to sit with him–the guys still had most of their warm-ups left.
Something ugly twisted in my gut.
I'd never been dishonest about who I was dating. I'd always been proud of being gay, and all that, and I was proud to be with Ash, but I couldn’t be–not outwardly. I couldn’t be honest about the man I slept next to every night…but vague truths?
“He’s great,” I hummed, smiling over at Reed playfully. “Sweet, funny, playful–I have a really great time with him.”
“Hm,” he huffed, scrunching his face at me with a smirk. “What else?” he asked suspiciously. “You’re withholding something. Otherwise, you’d have just told me you were dating someone, so.”
“He’s uh,” I trailed off, readjusting uncomfortably at the idea of telling him the truth. “He’s just quite a bit…younger than me–that’s all. Still wrapping my head around it.”
“College towns,” Reed sighed, shaking his head almost sympathetically. “I’ve been living in Ann Arbor for ten years now–I can count on one hand how many times I’ve dated a woman born in the same generation as me… Never works out for me.”
Fuck.
I mean, great–he didn’t immediately jump to being grossed out by me or assuming I was fucking one of our players, but fuck. I’d thought a lot about whether Ash and I could work long-term, and I kept coming up with yes…
But was that realistic?
Realistically, Ash had NHL dreams.
At best, he would get drafted who knows where–and sure, I could follow him, but then what? He’d be in the prime of his life and coming home to a guy who thought staying up until eleven was hard now that I was retired.
“How much younger?” Reed asked, half his attention on the boys again.
“A bit,” I sighed, nodding slowly. “Teens.”
“High or low?”
“Middle.”
“I sure hope you mean in age gap and not age,” he laughed, making me bust out in my own fit of laughter that I kind of needed.
“Age gap,” I laughed, clutching my stomach with him. “He’s above drinking age–”
“You’ll be fine,” he sighed, settling his laughter comfortably. “I’m almost fifty, Thay–me dating a twenty-five-year-old versus you are two wildly different things.”
“Yeah,” I huffed, rolling my eyes a little bit. “I guess… I guess I’m just worried about the long term. You know, life after college, career, personal lives–I’ll have to meet his parents at some point, and what if I’m closer in age to them than him, you know?”
“You probably will be,” he chuckled, nudging me gently. “I mean, what, a month? I think you’re stressing yourself out over stuff like that a bit too soon.”
There was no way to tell Reed that it may have only been a month, but that I was so wrapped around that kid's finger that I’d drop to my knees for him right now. I couldn’t tell him that my whole brain was consumed by Ash and all his little things, like the scrunch in his nose when he didn’t like his food, or the snotty tone he used when he was tired and fighting sleep.
That maybe it was too soon for a normal couple to stress about those things, but that I was already mentally mapping out where all of Ash’s stuff would go in my apartment after this semester.
“But if you really feel that strongly about the guy, you have to have faith he does, too, right?” he asked, paying no mind to my spiral. “That he’ll still want you when life, career, and family do become a factor for him–that he’ll still have you at the center of it.”
It was small, but a part of me did settle with that.
It may have been messy and wrong to most people–myself included, for a minute there–but what I felt for Ash was so right. It was real and right and perfect for us.
