Page 7 of Bro Code

I won’t be WATCHING the game, I’ll be WORKING. He dragged a hand down his face. No one in his family understood what he did. What’s up? I’m eating lunch, I have like ten minutes.

Reply dots bubbled. He waited.

Mom is still pretending there’s nothing wrong with her back and she’s refusing to see Dr. Lesuer

Louis flipped open the takeout box. He cracked the chopsticks apart and shoveled down a few bites, then typed with the phone face-up on the desk beside him.

Idk what you want me to do about it, Chlo. Do you need money? I can send more

No Louis I need you to talk to mom and tell her to see the doctor

He scoffed, chewing as he typed with one finger. She’s not gonna listen to me

The reply dots bubbled, then disappeared, then bubbled again. Finally: Fine. Nevermind.

Can we talk about it this weekend? he sent back. I might have time on the plane to Florida.

Whatever fré. I’ll just deal with it. Have fun at your game

He resisted the urge to remind her that doing data analytics during a professional hockey game was not about “fun”. Chloé didn’t get it. She’d seen some hockey – she worked at a sports bar that was popular with French Canadian tourists who vacationed in Guadeloupe, where she still lived with their parents. But she had no concept of what a nerd like Louis did on a hockey team.

His parents were even more clueless. Mom called software engineering his “computer job” and his dad called it nothing at all, because he and Louis hadn’t spoken since Louis left the Caribbean eight years ago and came to Montreal.

So he didn’t try to explain, for the thousandth time, that working for the NHL wasn’t just watching guys play hockey. Instead, he just sent, I will have fun. You have fun being a martyr!

She sent back a middle finger and a Creole swear, and he locked the phone and went back to his food.

Riley

Games two through five didn’t go much better than game one. If this was first-game jitters, it was really dragging on.

Guys on the team ribbed him about it for a couple of days, then got impatient, then stopped saying anything at all. By the end of the first week they started avoiding his eye in the locker room – like they were afraid that whatever curse he had was catching. Petrov literally held up his crucifix as he squeezed past Riley to get to the showers one day, like he was warding off evil spirits.

A few days after that, another wrench got thrown in things when another player came out. Elliot Rodriguez. He played for Tampa, and he was basically Tampa’s version of Nic “Golden Boy” Arsenault. A breakout kid who’d smashed all kinds of records last year and was poised to become the next biggest thing in hockey. And, as it turned out, gay as a Maypole.

Rather than this making Riley’s life easier, it only made it worse. Rodriguez was crushing it. He and Arsenault were all over social media “Best Of” lists. Meanwhile, the chatter about Riley was all about how much he’d slipped since the Olympics.

Phone calls from Rick started coming more often – but these weren’t brand deals or interview requests. This was Rick wanting to know what was going on. Riley went to the team psychologist, who ran him through the usual mental health questions. Riley answered as honestly as he could: he’d been pretty freaked out during the first game, but since then he was feeling okay. It was easier to play without Liam Harris and Nic Arsenault there. How was he handling the media pressure after coming out? Honestly, he told her, he was more worried about the media pressure surrounding his performance.

He reviewed tape of his games with Coach Bertram, who couldn’t see anything obvious. No hesitation. No slacking. New York’s team clinician checked for subclinical injuries and found nothing. By all obvious measure he seemed fine, until a shot went wide, or a pass didn’t connect. It was like some kind of voodoo. A ghost in the machine.

His parents didn’t seem to notice anything: their excited texts still came after every game. They were just happy he was still on the ice after coming out as gay. They’d been as surprised by the announcement as everyone. But they were supportive. They were always supportive.

He was only a week and a half into the season when a phone call with Rick blindsided him in the parking lot after practice one day: the word “trade” had come up in a meeting with management.

“Already?” he cried. “The season just started!”

“It’s just talk,” Rick assured him. “It’s just the suits trying to rattle your cage.”

Riley braced on his car with his head down and the phone to his ear. “So they’re not actually gonna do it?”

“No, I don’t think they will, but look, the GM’s getting calls from a few teams trying to buy you cheap.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, bud, because your metrics are slipping. Because the scouts are seeing that, and they’re hearing that the situation in the locker room is tense, and they’re starting to talk.”

Riley shut his eyes.