Off the ice, p.1
Off the Ice, page 1
© Copyright 2017 by Van Cole All rights reserved.
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Off The Ice
Gay First Time Romance
By: Van Cole
Table of Contents
Off The Ice
Gay First Time Romance
Foreword
Come Stalk Me!
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
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Foreword
Chris Knoll is one of the top players for the New York Rangers. Anybody who knows anything about hockey is impressed with his performance – and that includes noted sports journalist Matt Tucker. Trouble is, not everybody in the industry takes Matt too seriously, because he’s openly gay. When he arrives to conduct a profile of Chris for Sports Illustrated, Chris’s homophobic teammates are quick to warn him to be careful.
As the two get to know each other, however, Chris’s guard goes down and his interest kicks in. Despite the backlash against him, Matt is tenacious and bold. He defies all the negative stereotypes Chris has ever had about gay people – and he’s awakening an attraction in Chris that’s never come to the surface before.
But for a top-league sports player at the height of his career, swarmed by girls every time he leaves the house, hooking up with a writer is not really an option. After all, this is the kind of secret you try to hide from journalists. What are you supposed to do when a journalist is the secret? What’s more, how are you supposed to square that with your intensely judgmental best friend?
Only one thing’s for sure. Chris doesn’t have a choice. Whatever happens, he’s just going to have to run with it.
Come Stalk Me!
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Will The Second Chance At Love Be Better For These Former Lovers?
Dan is a professional hockey player at the top of his game – but when his wife up and leaves him out of nowhere, it feels like game, set and match. How is he supposed to get through his upcoming games with an apartment empty of furniture and his wife off sleeping with some baseball player she's supposedly been seeing for a while now?
Turns out, however, that Dan's life isn't finished loading things onto him yet. When Dan's college flame Jeremy walks back onto the scene, after years of Dan convincing himself that he's not gay and that his father was right about everything? Well, it completely screws his head up.
Now, Dan has no idea whether he's coming or going. Is he supposed to try and make it work with his wife???
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Off The Ice
Chapter One
Chris
Even ten years into the game, Chris still felt the same thrill as he first stepped onto the ice. This wasn’t even a major match – just a friendly before the main season started. Even so, he could feel the adrenaline coursing through his body. He felt the same strong bond with all his teammates as they skated neatly into position, and the same temporary animosity he always felt for the other team’s players.
Afterwards, they’d drink together. Chris already knew a few of these guys, and on a personal level he liked them. But right now? They were enemy soldiers, and Chris was ready to go for blood.
The starting signal was something he felt internally now, rather than with his five main senses. See, Chris played on another level; all the movements he made were pure muscle memory. It left his head clear to think. That was his most valuable asset as a player, or so said their manager. There were more powerful players in the league, and faster players – but his quick thinking was completely unmatched.
It felt good to be the best, but it felt even better to play and prove it. A crowd like this was especially rewarding. They were so loud that he felt it in his bloodstream, and in his chest. Even as he tried to drown it out to focus, they were still there ringing in his ears and spurring him on. He knew it was arrogant, but what made it even better was the knowledge that plenty of them were there to see him.
Their home stadium had actually banned paper signs recently. It had caused an uproar with the fans, who liked to make their feelings known – but it was largely signs with his name on them that had showed up in the stands.
He’d worked hard for this career, and he continued to work hard. For that reason, he supposed, unable to restrain himself from grinning as he made a killer pass to his best friend Darren Schloss, he did kind of deserve this.
It was difficult to cast that thought aside once they’d won the game, team cheering and roaring like some kind of pack animals as they exited the stadium and climbed onto their tour bus. It wasn’t a long drive back from Jersey to New York – but they’d sure spend the whole ride celebrating anyway, with Chris central to their celebrations.
One thing that had surprised Chris about professional sports was the friendliness of his team. He had been expecting a little competition and unpleasantness behind the scenes. College hockey had been full of that kind of shit – people who considered one another rivals as much as they were teammates. Here on the Rangers, there was no such feeling. Chris guessed that was partly due to where they were. In college, you were fighting to be noticed by the scouts, and there were a limited number of places for professionals.
Once you got onto a professional team, you were made. There was nothing left to fight your other players for but glory – and you were better off working together to get that.
As such, the Rangers were kind of like family to him. Loud and obnoxious in a way that he truly appreciated, his teammates filled his life with noise, stupid laughter and gruff, masculine support. They’d cheer him on when he got friendly with a groupie, and he’d cheer them on when they got friendly with a groupie. They had a tally chart hidden from the manager which detailed who puked most during their wild drinking sessions.
Frankly, he was living the dream. Things were a little quieter when he got home to his empty apartment, populated only by the sound of his TV running in the background, but that was alright for now. He could find company when he needed it.
Things were good.
“Man,” said Darren, finally reaching him from across the other side of the bus. “That last play you made – fuck me. You were like fucking Roadrunner, stripping straight past Wile E. Coyote; they had no fucking chance...”
Clearly, judging by his language, he was already a little drunk – but Chris didn’t mind that. He grinned, slapping Darren on the back a couple times in solidarity. “Thanks, man. Felt good.”
“Felt good? Shit. It fucking looked good. The crowd’s screaming – one girl nearly had her tits out, but security got there first...”
Chris laughed, easily able to picture the scene. He hadn’t noticed at the time, with his attention all occupied by the game – but Darren had always been more distracted by the crowd and the world around him than Chris was. It wasn’t such a bad thing, even if their manager hated it. It hadn’t cost the team much so far. Last season had been record-breaking for them, and this upcoming season looked like it was going to be strong too.
What more could you ask?
“You’ve got your pick of girls tonight, my friend,” said Darren, finally dropping into the seat beside him instead of hovering around in front. “We’ll get to a sports bar where they’re doing replays; they’ll be standing in a line for you to choose from, like a fucking Vegas brothel...”
Chris wrinkled up his nose, laughing. “Christ. I’m beat; are you guys really heading out tonight? It was just a friendly.”
“Are you kidding?” said Darren. “Yes, we’re going out. You’re coming out too. You have to, man; you’re going to have to be on your best behavior from next week on.”
At first, Chris wasn’t sure what he meant. The season was starting soon, sure, but they were never all that well behaved, even mid-season. Only after a moment’s thought did he remember what their manager had been talking about this morning. Sports Illustrated was sending a reporter to write a profile on Chris, and he’d be following him around for a couple of weeks.
“Ah, shit,” he said, realizing that Darren was right. There was no way he’d be able to get wild with some journalist around. If anything went wrong – and things had gone a little wild and wrong in the past – then they’d be fucked. “You’re right.”
“I know I’m right,” said Darren, slapping him on the shoulder again. “So get your ass in gear. Drink some coffee; I don’t fucking know. You’re not going home. Not alone, and not yet.”
That was the decision made for him, he guessed. No changing it now – and maybe it’d be good for him to get out and have fun tonight. He’d been training hard before the match, as he did every time. Friendly matches weren’t technically all that important, but being on a winning streak was motivational, and it put you in the right mood. There could be no underestimating momentum.
Granted, that momentum argument might be all the more reason to continue training instead of going out.
A couple of hours later, Chris found himself in a VIP booth with Darren and the rest regardless. There were any number of arguments you could make about the benefits of team camaraderie anyway.
“Hey, asshole,” said Darren, cutting neatly into his thoughts about the importance of good teamwork. “Come to the bar. They’re giving us free shots.”
Presumably, they’d be the first of many. Technically – according to their manager – they were meant to turn down free alcohol. The drunker they got, the likelier they were to get into trouble. Whether that meant injuring themselves or getting locked up overnight didn’t matter; either way, it would damage the team in some way.
Like many of their manager’s rules, though, it went largely ignored. It was like that old ‘tree falling in the forest’ argument. If their manager wasn’t around to see them transgress, then... had they even broken the rules in the first place?
Or something.
Maybe he was already a little drunk.
As it turned out, however, shots weren’t the only thing at the bar. As soon as he arrived there, a pretty redhead turned and gasped as if she’d only just seen him, play-acting so badly that he couldn’t tell whether it was intentional or whether she was just really, really drunk. Either way, he didn’t care. She was hot, and when she bent over to touch his arm, she was showing off an ample cleavage.
“Oh, my God,” she said, her tone about as convincing as her facial expressions. “You’re Chris Knoll. You played so well today.”
“Yeah?” he said, grinning at her as he knocked back the first of his shots. “You like hockey?”
“I like hockey players, if that counts...”
Like most evenings he spent out with the Rangers, the rest of the evening was a blur. He stumbled into some cab or other, the redhead on his arm; he remembered drinking something bright green at a different bar, and downing a pint of expensive beer at yet another. In the morning, when he extricated himself from the redhead’s sleepy grip, he might wish he’d downed a little more water – but this was the life he’d earned as a professional hockey player, and it was a life he loved.
He didn’t think that would ever change.
He was about to learn that it would.
Chapter Two
Matt
Matt’s smile was thin and unconvincing as he deflected yet another joke from the tough-as-nails cab driver who’d picked him up at JFK. If he’d heard one person tell him that he didn’t ‘look like a sports journalist’, then he’d heard a thousand. People rarely said out loud that it was because of his sexuality – but at the same time, people didn’t seem to realize that it was still pretty blatant when they didn’t say it.
“That right?” he said dryly, his neat West Coast accent a stark contrast against the cab driver’s sharp Brooklyn twang. “That’s funny. What does a sports journalist look like?”
This was the point when most people realized how obvious they were being, and at least had the decency to look embarrassed. This cab driver, however, was part of the other group who still thought they were being subtle. “Man, I don’t know,” he said, glancing back at Matt in the mirror. “Just... big, you know? Bold pinstripe suit. Broad shoulders. The works.”
“I see.”
“The kind of guy you’d cross the street to avoid at night. You know what I’m saying?”
Matt didn’t answer, and eventually the cab driver gave up. If the guy heard Matt’s name, then he’d probably recognize that – but Matt counted himself lucky that the public didn’t really know his face. Those in the industry probably could; he popped up in the crowd at many major hockey games, and at Formula One races. His opinion was respected.
Apparently, his style choice of a modern, crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows and burgundy trousers were not. Or was it his tidy dark hair that tipped the driver off?
In any case, it didn’t matter. So long as they got to the stadium in good time, then Matt didn’t care. At least the driver was good at that. Honestly, he was looking forward to this job. He respected Chris Knoll as a player, and had since his college career began. He was just one of the players Matt hadn’t managed to cross paths with yet. Well, that was about to change.
Would three weeks be enough time to get to know the guy? Matt wasn’t sure. Some athletes were fairly simple figures, happy to let you into their lives as you profiled them. Others seemed intent on remaining as much of an enigma as possible, often alternating between kindness and aggression depending on the day. Matt tried to be as pleasant an interviewer as he could, forming good relationships with his subjects.
It wasn’t always possible. Especially with the homophobic ones.
It was a shame how common homophobia remained in the sport. As the rest of the country progressed, this industry remained slow and sequestered in the closet, crowded with overstated masculinity and intense pressure for queer men to keep their secrets.
It wasn’t healthy. Hopefully, things would begin to change. It’d certainly make his job a lot easier. Unfortunately, it would require a lot more top-level athletes to come out before things changed – and the disrespectful way the fans and the media reacted whenever anybody did come out seemed to discourage other men from trying.
In short, Chris Knoll probably wasn’t gay.
But Matt could look.
At long last, the cab pulled up outside the stadium. Matt gathered his things, leaving the cab driver a healthy tip as he settled his bill.
Well, driving around the city was probably a pretty stressful job. The guy had just been a little insensitive, probably because he wasn’t used to talking to gay people; he hadn’t really meant any harm. If he had, he’d have lost more than a tip.
He had made a good time over to the stadium. As it turned out, he was so early for his first meeting with Chris that the player was still in practice. Actually, though, this was a good thing; Matt liked the idea of slipping into the stands and watching him interact with his teammates. It was a good way to get a first handle on a subject. Did he get along with the rest of the team, Matt wondered, or was he a loner?
It’d be a surprise if he was. Good strategic thinking like Chris’s tended to come from good knowledge of his fellow players – at least, it did in Matt’s experience. As such, he expected to see strong bonds between Chris and the rest of the time, despite his star status. Whether he’d see any arrogance despite that, however, remained to be seen.
Stepping into the stadium, he felt the same rush of excitement as he did before a match. Whatever the cab driver might have guessed, Matt was perfect for sports journalism. He had as much passion for the game as any of the players he was writing about. The results meant a lot to him; the analysis was carefully tendered. By the same token, he knew exactly what kind of drills he was looking at as he settled into a seat, one long slim leg crossed over the other, and began watching the Rangers train.
Chris Knoll was certainly handsome, even with his helmet obscuring some of his features. He had a firm jaw and piercing green eyes – clear skin and broad shoulders. He had an appealing bark of a laugh that echoed across the ice, and a smile that shone out just as conspicuous.
It was a relief to see that his good nature wasn’t just put on for the cameras. He got along well with his teammates, as predicted; he was playful with his manager and trainers and seemed to get away with murder.
Yes – he’d be one hell of a subject. Matt would just have to make sure he didn’t get distracted. It had rarely been a problem before, but players were rarely as handsome as Chris Knoll was. Even then, they were rarely so close to Matt’s type...
