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Chris
After a day like yesterday, Chris woke up feeling fresh – almost empowered. Though he’d spent his whole life understanding his sexuality in a completely different way to this, he had to come to terms with the fact that his world had shifted. Why shouldn’t the world of sport learn to accommodate him? Knowing that he was doing something quite pioneering appealed to his inner sportsman, too.
Suck on this, prejudice.
Still, he couldn’t help but grimace when he glanced sideways at his phone and the hundreds of notifications showing up on the screen. It was on silent, but he could still almost hear the chime of the constant Twitter mentions and the texts. Instead, he turned away from his bedside table and paid attention to the far superior view of Matt, curled up and defenseless on the pillow beside him.
Now that Chris had started looking at him this way, it was impossible to understand ever having not seen him in this light. The first second he’d set eyes on Matt, how had he managed not to melt? What had stopped Chris from seeing the light in his eyes, and the pretty, playful twitch in the corner of his lips?
At least they’d come through all those barriers now. Frankly, Chris was surprised at how quickly he’d negotiated this particular minefield. Some people wrestled with their sexuality for years – and sure, maybe it had been buried below the surface with him, occasionally rearing up its head and being shoved down again. Having actually been faced with a man he badly wanted, though, he had managed to sort it out.
With Matt’s help, yes. But he’d gotten there.
He shuffled under the covers, shifting closer to his new partner. His skin was warm to the touch, and he smiled faintly as soon as Chris made contact with it – trailing his fingertips over Matt’s shoulders and down his upper arms.
“Hi,” he said. Clearly, though, he was still mostly asleep.
Even so, Chris grinned and answered back. “Morning, sleeping beauty.”
What they’d get up to today, he couldn’t imagine. Presumably there would be even more statements to make, and official people to speak to – and at some point, he was going to have to go back to training and face his teammates. It probably wasn’t going to be an enjoyable experience, but... hey. He’d have Matt sitting in the stands. Besides, if they all refused to look him in the eye from this day forward, then it was their loss. They knew he was an excellent player, and a decent guy; they’d been drinking together and bonding together since he first joined the team. They’d be stupid – and homophobic – to miss out on that.
Still. It was going to suck if they did.
“You’re not actually thinking of getting up yet, are you?” Matt’s sleepy voice cut into his thoughts, drawing Chris’s eyes back over – and a smile on his face. “It’s too early for that. I don’t know what time it is, but... it’s still too early.”
“Kind of want to go for a run,” Chris admitted, letting that exploring hand of his drift up to comb through Matt’s hair. “But I wouldn’t be out for long. Could share a shower.”
“Alternatively we could just... go back to sleep.”
Chris snorted, shuffling closer again to press a kiss to Matt’s forehead. He could feel the man smile against him, and it warmed his heart in a way he hadn’t felt in years. “Maybe I could make breakfast when I come back in. Coffee. That’d wake you up.”
“I will move for coffee,” Matt said against Chris’s body. “Can confirm. Especially if you picked Starbucks up on your way back in.”
“Let’s see...” Chris picked up his phone, neatly ignoring all the notifications and just glancing at the time. Maybe later, but right now? No thanks. “Yeah, it’ll be open. What’s your order?”
“The gayest thing on the menu,” said Matt. “Failing that, a venti mocha with cinnamon syrup.”
“Sounds like it’d make me puke.”
“It’s perfect,” Matt assured him, “and you’re an angel. Have a nice run.”
“I will.”
It took him a few moments to disentangle himself, kissing Matt’s head again as he left. Even as he was shuffling off the mattress, Chris could see Matt expanding to take up all the new space behind him, and shook his head.
This was his new life now, apparently. A space-greedy boyfriend with a taste for too-sweet coffee.
He wouldn’t trade it for all the heterosexuality in hockey.
Chris dressed quickly, hoping to beat most of the morning crowds. Once the commuters were up and about on their way to work, it was much harder to run – and the air was warmer and muggier, too. Plus, the Starbucks queue could quickly turn into a nightmare. Well – if it got late, he could always order pick-up.
As he stepped out of the building, however, he realized that this would be the first time he’d actually set foot outside as an out man. It felt strange – a bizarre mixture of vulnerable and newly alive. He felt that everyone on the street around him knew his deepest, darkest secret. But if that was his deepest, darkest secret, then... wasn’t that amazing? Not only was he a good person, but he had absolutely nothing left to hide. He was open. He was free.
His feet pounded the pavement hard as he ran, carving out his new space in the world. He could feel the rhythm of the city beneath his feet. At first, he didn’t even think people were looking at him too strangely. Of course there were always a few funny looks as hockey fans began to recognize you, but they were just the same as they always had been – no new gay disgust.
As he carried on and the streets got a little busier, though, it was hard to hold that argument up. Quite a few people didn’t seem to know how to look at him, especially men – and when he joined the queue at Starbucks, the muscular, suited man in front of him seemed physically uncomfortable.
Usually, people who recognized him seemed happy to see him. The worst he got was a little awkwardness, or somebody who thought it was cool to berate him for playing for the ‘wrong team’ in the street. This was definitely new, to watch somebody physically move away from him in the line.
Was this what Matt dealt with every day?
For now at least, Chris decided to ignore it. It was rarely worth confronting anybody in public as a professional athlete; the papers would run with it for weeks, and what started out as a brief irritation from a stranger could quickly turn into a fully-fledged character assassination by the press. He’d seen it happen before.
Still, he had to fight off the urge to stand closer to the guy as they waited for their drinks. If he was homophobic enough to be uncomfortable around a gay athlete who had already announced he was taken anyway, then he deserved every bit of that discomfort.
It was eye-opening for Chris, though. He had expected a little knock-back from the sports community, since that was such a closed and over-masculine space. These days, however, the general public seemed largely gay-friendly. At least, he had always assumed so. He knew there were still pockets of people who couldn’t tolerate any kind of difference, least of all man lying with man – but in the cities?
As he carried the two coffees through the door of his apartment, he carried the weight of this experience and a slight frown with him. He didn’t realize how serious he looked until Matt’s head appeared above the back of the couch, peering over with his cellphone in hand.
“Coffee?” he asked – and then, after he actually saw Chris’s face, “Oh. Did something happen...?”
Chris gave him a faint smile, handing the coffee over and taking a seat at the other end of the couch so he could stretch out. “No, not really. I might just be paranoid, actually; I’m just making assumptions, but...”
“Tell me,” Matt assured him, taking the lid off his coffee to let it cool somewhat. “I’ll tell you if you’re being paranoid. You know I will.”
Chris believed it, too. Matt may have been slight and slender, but he acted like he was as built as Chris or any of his teammates; he had no fear whatsoever, regardless of whether he was talking to someone he hated, or someone he cared about. It was an admirable trait, if a slightly intimidating one. “Okay. Well... there was this guy in the Starbucks line.”
“Should I be jealous...?”
“No,” Chris said, shooting him a playful look. “Don’t be crazy. He just kind of... I don’t know. So I can tell when people recognize me, right? It happens every now and again, and I’ve gotten good at spotting the difference between just some random-ass person staring at you, and someone who thinks they know who you are.”
“Okay,” said Matt, drinking it in. His coffee was still cooling on the table.
“I’m saying this because this guy definitely recognized me. And I guess he didn’t like who he recognized, ‘cos he just kind of... moved away from me. Gave me the widest berth he possibly could.”
“Ah,” said Matt.
“Am I being nuts?” Chris asked, wrinkling his nose. “I guess it’s pretty soon, but...”
“No,” Matt assured him. “You’re not. He’s probably an asshole. It happens to me all the time; they act like I’m contagious. Guys like you don’t usually have to deal with that, ‘cos you don’t – quote unquote – look gay. Since you’re famous, they don’t have to guess, so... you’ll probably notice that happening sometimes, yeah.”
“Jeez,” said Chris. “In 2017?”
“You’d better believe it,” said Matt, finally picking up his drink and swirling it gently in his hand. “It’ll be worse when we’re out together. I mean... don’t get me wrong. It’s not going to be every time you go out. They’re not always internally vomiting, either. Sometimes it seems like it’s just instinct.”
“It’s a shitty instinct.”
“Oh, definitely,” Matt agreed. “But at least it’s not a safety concern. Though I suppose when you’re as big as you are, nothing ever is.”
Chris gave him a weak smile, turning to his coffee for a few minutes to give himself some thinking space. He had been hoping that Matt would tell him he was making things up, but deep down he knew that wasn’t the case.
This was his life now.
He hoped he could handle it in the long-term.
Matt shuffled closer, putting a hand on his calf to give it a gentle rub. “Hey, listen. It’s okay, you know? It’s not a big deal. You can just ignore it; it’s just some random jerk.”
“I know,” Chris assured him. “It’s just... weird. Never had anything like that happen to me before. It’s an adjustment.”
“You’ll be fine.”
They fell into a companionable silence, sipping away at their coffee. Even so, try as he might, Chris couldn’t push the mental image out of his mind – that stranger, shuffling away from him on the basis of something he’d read in the news. Something as innocuous as his sexuality.
