Free Breakaway by Avon Gale Page B

saw us.”
    “Holy shit.”
    “Yeah.” Lane still didn’t like to think about that, but now it made him mad instead of guilty. Or mostly it made him mad. Feelings were confusing.
    “And then what? Your parents cried, told you that you were a disgrace to their name, and asked how they’d ever show their faces at church on Sunday?” She coughed. “Or something like that, maybe?”
    Lane was kind of terrible at understanding subtext, but even he got that that must have been what her parents’ reaction was. “She closed the door.”
    “Oh. And then you came downstairs, and they were sitting on the couch, holding hands, looking at old home movies of you, and crying?”
    Lane blinked at her. “Huh? Was that before or after the yelling and the church thing?”
    “That second one wasn’t mine, it was Erin’s. Look. Sometimes your stories need a little help, Lane.” Her smile was kind, and her eyes were warm. “Also, I’m over here trying not to cry a little that you said I was your best friend.”
    “Oh. Bad crying, or ‘we just won the Stanley Cup’ crying?” He eyed her suspiciously. “I won’t call you that, if it’s bad crying. I don’t know anything about girls. Remember? And I definitely don’t know about them when they’re crying.”
    “It was in a good way, but don’t worry. Now I just want to punch you. But are you saying your parents just… never said anything?” She made a face. “That’s kind of fucked up. But if they knew, why’d they think we were dating?”
    “They want to think that. They didn’t ask me, and I was too mad to say anything when I figured it out.” He looked down at the bar, flushing. “And I… I don’t know. I should have said something. Are you mad that I didn’t? I’m kind of mad at myself.”
    “Of course I’m not mad,” she said, reaching out and patting him on the hand. “They seemed really happy you were doing so well. If they think we’re more than friends, then that’s their problem, not yours.”
    “That’s the thing,” Lane told her. He took her hand in his, and it astounded him how easy it was to touch her in affection, when he had always been bad with that kind of thing. Maybe because he was around guys a lot of the time, and he wanted to touch them with a lot more than just affection, but that couldn’t be the only reason. He didn’t want to sleep with every guy he met.
    Well, mostly he didn’t. But he’d been kind of hard up for it, for a while.
    “Lane…? That’s what thing?”
    Oh. Right. “They weren’t happy things were going well for me. I mean, they were. But Zoe, I know my parents. They were happier meeting you than watching me score a hat trick and win a game. Or when I could take them to dinner for the first time and pay with money I’d earned playing hockey .”
    “Well, I am pretty great,” she told him, deadpan. “But are you sure you’re not just…. I mean, I sat by them at the game, Lane.”
    He smiled at her, but it didn’t feel like a smile at all. “Did they ask you a million questions, or watch me play?”
    “Well, they…. I mean, they watched you obviously, but….” She sighed. “They were pretty curious. I just thought they were kind of awkward. You had to get it from somewhere.”
    That made him laugh. “Yeah. Well, trust me. It wasn’t that. You know, I used to feel really bad about it. That I was… that I was gay,” he said. It was always easier, every time, as long as he was saying it to someone safe. “Like somehow that meant all the sacrifices and stuff they made for me, that it wasn’t worth it because I failed.”
    “Failed? What exactly did you fail by being gay, Lane? Being straight? What the hell does that have to do with hockey?” Zoe started banging things around behind the bar. “You were drafted by the NHL . Isn’t that, like, the pinnacle of success if you’re a Canadian boy?”
    “Pretty much. It’s that or join the Mounties.” He cleared his throat. “I was kidding