Page 14 of Game Misconduct

if i knew that was what it took to shut you up, i would’ve done that sooner, Sato had written.

I’m out with my teammates.

no shit? and yet...? speaking of desperate

Fuck off, I already know what it takes to shut you up. A slap to the face and a cock in your mouth.

There was no answer and Danny frowned. Maybe he had taken it too far. He didn’t want to think about that, so he went and played air hockey. Won a round, lost a round. He was really drunker than he thought he had been. Slaps on the back from Gears and Landry, room a pleasant blur of teammates and bar patrons and smoke, phone an unpleasant weight in his pocket, a reminder. He half walked, half swayed his way back to the booth and checked his phone again.

Sato had sent him nine middle-finger-raised emojis.

Danny smiled.Cute, but I liked the other one better.

FUCK. YOU.

“Stop texting Gears’ mom and come play another round,” Landry groused, appearing at Danny’s shoulder so suddenly he dropped his phone on the table.

“Yeah, yeah, coming.”

He thought about Sato, alone in his bed, probably furious and definitely thinking about him, and forced the smile down. Maybe there was something to be said for team bonding activities after all.

Bee punched him in the chin and Mike said,“Fuck.”

She let her gloves drop. “Oh marde, I’m sorry, Michael.”

“Dude, it’s fine. Don’t apologize. I got you in the eye earlier.”

“You did.” She knuckled her eye socket with the round end of the boxing glove. “I’m going to have a black eye, probably.”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t care. I’ll look tough like you,” she said, teasing.

His mouth twisted a little as he tried to frown rather than smile. “That’s not agoodthing.”

“Also not a good thing—what’s going on with you, mon chum? I almost never get a hit on you.”

She had put her gloves up again and they circled the ring. It was always good when Bee came with him to the gym, because he liked fighting her. She didn’t go easy on him when he was bruised, not likesomedudes he could name and shame. Also he liked to think he had something to do with her growth from uncontrolled punching to a more strategic terminator. She didn’t really fight much on the ice anymore; Coach had put a stop to that. Even without the intervention, Bee didn’t have to fight much on the ice anymore. Everyone knew she could handle herself, and everyone knew that even if they thought she couldn’t, either she’d fuck them up, or Mike would.

Also, she didn’t complain when he punched her in the stomach or the face. And she’d punchhimin the stomach or the face.

Mike didn’t answer right away. He took several test jabs at her, but she danced back easily enough. He hadn’t been really trying to hit her. “Nothing’s up.”

“Mmm,” Bee said, taking the offensive.

He led her around the ring, letting her wear herself out. Blocked the occasional punch she threw his way, harder than he had to, probably. That was the problem when people got into relationships, they suddenly got real fucking concerned about whether their friends were happy, whether they were lonely, whether they were taken care of. He wasn’t sure if that was really what Bee was doing but he sure as hell hoped it wasn’t. He didn’t mind her mother-henning him occasionally because he did the same thing to her. But this...

He threw a right hook and smacked her on the arm as she tried to step back and protect her face; she swore.

The problem was this wasn’t anything he could talk about with Bee. Like, they’d shared a lot. She knew about all of the fighting he’d had to do as a kid, because other players saw the name on the jersey and how small he was, and figured he’d be easy prey. He was the first one she’d come to about problems she was having with one of their teammates, Kyle Hill, who didn’t like that he’d lost his spot on the first line to a woman. But there were limits.

Like Mike couldn’t just come up to her and say,I keep fucking a guy I hate and I don’t want to do it but god, he’ssohot.That was an awkward enough conversation on its own, but Mike just couldn’t get over the hurdle, even with Bee, of actually telling the truth. He’d been keeping it quiet for so long that even with his best friend, a woman who knew him better than his own siblings, it seemed impossible. It had been a secret for over half his life. Sometimes he could barely even think the word.

As soon as he’d realized certain things about himself, he’d figured out that if he wanted hockey, he wasn’t going to be able to be open about it. It was bad enough being one of the only not-white kids at the rink. It was bad enough being smaller than everyone else at the rink. He didn’t want to be the only gay kid at the rink too. It was a pretty shitty way to live, and it weighed down on him sometimes, but he didn’t know any other way to make it work, not when he’d wanted to play hockey more than anything else. It was so ingrained at this point it was a habit.

And now here he was, letting his best friend beat the shit out of him in a bighearted attempt to cheer him up and he couldn’t even tell her why he was in such a bad fucking mood.

“You know you can tell me anything,” Bee said, as she faked him out and punched him in the stomach. “I’m not going to be an asshole about it.”