Read Online Empty Net by Avon Gale - Free Book Online

be quiet when he was at home by himself, and if that might work next time. He would never do it—could never do it—but the thought of it was the only thing that lulled him to sleep.
     
     
    THE NEXT day before practice, Laurent felt cold and clammy when he went into the locker room, like he had a fever.
    He had no idea what was going to happen. Isaac, for all he knew, might have been pulling some elaborate hoax on him. Maybe the whole “let’s be friends” thing was just a trick, and Laurent would walk in and expect something nice and only get something painful in return.
    Like you’re not used to that by now?
    But Isaac came up to him immediately. The locker room fell silent, and everyone was unabashedly watching. Laurent couldn’t blame them as he and Isaac usually went out of their way to ignore one another.
    All the things he could say felt sharp and barbed like wire. But he didn’t say them because Isaac gave him an easy smile and said, “Hey, Saint. What’s up?”
    Everyone stared at them. Laurent swallowed. Get away from me, you disgusting fag.
    No, no, no. Laurent didn’t think that, didn’t want to think that, and he did not want to say it to Isaac. “Hi, Isaac.” He realized he hadn’t called his captain Drake and flushed scarlet. A mistake. He slid into that cold place and the core of meanness he cultivated so easily.
    Isaac sucked on his lip ring. In and out. In and out. He was clearly nervous and wanted it to work out.
    Laurent was nervous too. He tried to relax a little. They didn’t say anything else, but the team immediately noticed their lack of antagonism.
    “Is it Opposite Day?” Drew Crowder looked between the two of them. “Huh.”
    “Look. We’re all tired of having a negative attitude in the locker room,” said Isaac.
    “Drake, you sound like a motivational poster,” Hux muttered. He looked askance at Laurent, as if he were waiting for him to fuck up.
    Laurent remembered the thing he’d grabbed and put in his gear bag that morning, and wondered if he should even bother. Hux hated him, and he should, because Laurent was—
    Stop.
    “Good. Get motivated to get over it. We have. Haven’t we, Saint?”
    Saint again. Laurent nodded. “Yes.”
    “This is so touching,” said Griffin Miller. “It’s like a Nicholas Sparks movie.” Everyone stared at him, and he shrugged. “I got a little sister. Fuck off.”
    “I do too,” said Crowder. “She likes horror movies, though. Which is what I think we’re in right now.”
    “This isn’t helping,” Isaac said darkly.
    “You’re starting to sound way too serious, Drake,” someone else pointed out from behind Laurent. “Is this what happens when you live with the coach?”
    Every pair of eyes went back to Laurent, like his teammates were just waiting for him to say something insulting and hateful. Laurent didn’t like knowing that, but it was true, and that’s what made him want to say it in the first place. At least he could live up to everyone’s expectations if they were only that he’d be an asshole.
    “Saint,” Isaac said, as if he knew. “Saint here is sorry for being an ass. And you guys are going to give him another chance.”
    “Why?”
    The rest of the team voiced that sentiment. Hux and Murph were quiet and slouched against the lockers.
    He should say something. Laurent knew that. Something not awful. Something like he was trying or he’d try hard. But he couldn’t say it. There were too many people staring, with too many expectations, and he’d just fuck it up anyway.
    “Because I’m the captain, and I said so,” Isaac finished. “Happy?”
    “I think we should revote on the captain thing,” someone muttered and the team chimed in.
    “Yeah. Goalies are never captains.”
    “Especially dumb ones who forget when people are dicks.”
    “I call for a revote.”
    “No!” Laurent shouted, not understanding until it was too late that he was interrupting the kind of banter that he was never included