Page 11 of Yard Sale

“They didn’t want to come say hi?” I asked, only because I knew he couldn’t give an honest answer without sounding like a total asshole.

“Just think about the trip, okay? You know Mom and Dad probably don’t have many more years with us.”

I laughed. My parents had been using that line for years to try and manipulate us all into doing what they wanted. It worked with my brothers every time. “Yeah. Go ahead and hold your breath until I decide.”

“You’re an asshole, Tiago,” he said. And without another word, he turned on his heel and stormed out of my room.

There was very little peace left behind, but there was just enough quiet that I could lie back, close my eyes, and doze until the hospital finally set me free.

CHAPTER 3

ARAVIND

“So Chad goes, if you want to have even a chance to be accepted, you have to put on the tutu. And of course, Braden was going to do it because he would become…what’s that word? A pyre? The pyre of his family if he didn’t get accepted. His dad was, like, the president of Delta Lambda.”

Six more days. Six more days. Six more eternal, endless, insufferable fucking days left at this job before I was free. I had one more piece to write, and then I was going to leave this place and never, not once, ever look back again.

“…so he puts on the tutu, and then Chad hands him a Batman mask and a pair of high heels.”

I turned to look over at my coworker. She was on work-study—a sophomore at the university and the poster child for her sorority, though I didn’t know which one. You couldn’t pay me to remember a single Greek letter on this fucking campus.

I wasn’t a student here. This was supposed to be a temporary job when I took it because my ex said he wanted us to work in the same building. Leon said he wanted to see my face after a long day of dealing with bullshit from students and the administration.

He said that I gave him relief and comfort.

He didn’t seem to know that it was the perfect setup for me to catch his cheating ass on his desk, buried balls-deep inside his former TA. He didn’t tell me that after a dramatic breakup where he got to wear a full glass of IPA on his very expensive and very ruined Tommy Hilfiger shirt, I would have to endure months upon months of watching him bring new people into his office and close the door with a loud turn of the lock.

He didn’t tell me that being a rich, older white man with tenure meant he could get away with anything, up to and including fucking his TAs and probably half of his students because too many of them were willing. Too many of them were charmed the way I had been charmed.

The only difference was, they didn’t uproot their lives and their jobs to move into his condo. They didn’t believe in the forever he tried to sell them.

Never trust a white man who makes studying Japanese history his entire personality. All of my friends had warned me about him, but back then, I was so desperate to be loved, I wasn’t willing to listen.

I should have known by the way he made me microwave-in-a-bag sushi rice on our second date.

It was a hard lesson to learn, and a lot of crow to eat, but it was fine. The reporting job was a lifeline, not a forever thing. It was a pit stop to get me out of this hellhole, and while I still had to see Leon’s face at least three times a day when I was at my desk, at least it would be over soon.

My dad had tried to talk me into taking an interview with ESPN now that my contract was up, but that sounded like stepping from one hell right into another.

I could not and had not ever given two flying fucks about hockey. When my dad had played, I was a kid. And when his injury took him out and he went into coaching, I had to deal with all his fucking players looking at me sideways like I was some kind of freak because I enjoyed playing dress-up in fairy wings and frilly skirts instead of goalie masks and pads.

Not all of them were awful, of course. My dad collected hockey players the way my mom collected neighborhood aunties before she died, and some of them I was even willing to consider friends. Hell, a few of the players on the PPHL were friends now too.

And okay, yes, working for the PPHL was leagues better than the NHL, but most of the players were the same type of guy. Arrogant jocks who, even when they were queer, still looked at me like I was some kind of freak because they wanted to be picked by their bigot fans who thought I had no place in polite society.

I’d had enough of that in both high school and college, so the fact that I was still stuck in this vicious cycle felt a bit like I’d pissed off some god in a former life and this was my punishment.

Taking a breath, I stared back at the screen, to my half-finished article. It ended with my last trip to the hospital—Tiago lying in the bed, facing what might very well have been the end of his career. I was gone before he got any real information from the doctors, and I hadn’t heard anything since.

Sitting in my chair, waiting on some kind of update, was exhausting. What good was being the son of an NHL coach if I wasn’t going to get special treatment or insider information? I had a text out to my dad, but unfortunately, someone had taught the old man internet slang because all I got back was IDK with a crying emoji.

Fuck my life.

“Lunch.”

I turned to look at Clara. “Not hungry.”

“You’re so skinny though. You are going to waste away⁠—”