He had to remain in the shadows and undiscovered now. This was a
dangerous time and Modano recognized this. It was obvious that the team just
like the others would not tolerate someone they perceived to be homosexual or
having any type of that feeling for their captain. He had to work
quietly.
It was frightening. The first time Brett had brought him over to this
world opened his eyes to how sweet things could be, Modano had known it would be
a dangerous road. At least he hadn’t been lonely at that time; he had had
someone to share it with. How could he have been alone for so long? How could he
be alone still?
Ah but he wasn’t alone, not really. He had seen that look in Joe’s eyes
when he caught his attention as they were boarding the plane for
Mike had been hoping that he would get to room with Joe. Maybe Joe would
have asked for him personally or something, but that hadn’t been the case. Peter
Forsberg was to be his roommate and that elicited an annoyed internal moan from
him. Who got to room with Joe anyway? It was that kid Tanguay. What made him
special?
Forsberg? Ugh! That annoyed Modano just as much as the Prom Queen being
told that she would have to room with the Captain of the Glee Club. It just
wouldn’t work. He knew that already. The plain fact was Peter Forsberg gave him
the creeps. What a wolfish, pale, predatory looking man he was. It just didn’t
seem natural for him to exist and it sent a crawling feeling up Modano’s spine
similar to the feeling he got when he looked at those creepy eyed sled dogs. He
had to sleep in the same room with that? Shivers!
“How ya doing?” Keaner said as he settled in next to Modano on the place.
A wash of extreme annoyance went through him. He had been hoping that Joe would
sit next to him not Keaner! Still, Keaner was something of a friendly face. He
had to be thankful that he hadn’t said a word about him and Brett that night
when...
“I’m doing fine Keaner, you?” Modano said.
Keaner grimaced in a friendly sort of way and rubbed his palms rapidly
over his thighs. “Just peachy keen sweetie.”
Modano sighed and tried to hold his smile. “So,” he said. “What do I have
to learn about this road team? Who does what?”
Keaner yawned and leaned back in the plane seat. “Well now, everyone
sleeps and eat and shits just like on any team on a road trip I suppose unless
you count the times in junior hockey when we would find a nice groupie
and...”
“OK I get it,” Modano said quickly not willing to have his stomach turned
at that moment with another lurid look at my manliness in degrading women hockey
story. “So there’s nothing I should know? Does anyone do anything
interesting?”
“What do ya want?” Keaner said. “I mean the younger guys go to movies a
lot, Blake and Dru are always watching Wild on E! and Joe just
sleeps.”
That’s what Mike was looking for. He tried not to sound too eager. “Joe
sleeps?” he asked. “That’s all he does?”
“Pretty much,” Keaner replied. “I mean he goes out for lunch a lot has a
nice lunch or dinner likes those places where you have to pay a shitload for a
steak the size of a silver dollar but other n that he just
sleeps.”
“Oooh,” Mike said.
Keaner sniffed. “Watch it Mikey,” he said. “I know you’ve never hurt a
fly but you can hurt yourself pretty bad most of us do excepting that you’re so
sensitive that you can really kill yourself.”
“What?!” Mike exclaimed not sure if he really caught anything Keaner had
just said at that moment. The man never seemed to put any spaces between the
words he spoke.
There was that look in Keaner’s eyes. Evil yet sensitive. He was the only
man he knew that even had a look like that in his arsenal. He remembered a time
when Keaner smashed a mouse skittering across the locker room floor and sniffled
about the possibility of it having a litter of mouselets somewhere that would
starve a cold horrible death.
“Why did you kill it then?” Modano had asked him.
“That’s just what people do,” Keaner had replied. “Can’t say I’m happy
about it.”
“Soooo,” Modano said to Peter as they dropped their bags on their beds in
the hotel. “Soooo.”
Forsberg frowned, the corners of his mouth turning down within his dark
auburn beard. “Soooo?”
“Soooo,” Modano said again feeling intensely stupid. “Who gets the
remote?”
Forsberg smiled, “Just ‘cause you asked, I get it!”
Modano rolled his eyes and couldn’t avoid smiling back. “Damn he said.
How do I get it?”
Forsberg yawned and stretched. “Well, as an Av I’ve played more games
than you this season so it’s mine.”
“Aw come on!” Modano exclaimed as he sat on the bed. “That’s not fair, I
just got traded here. How could I possibly play more games than you?” Bickering
over a remote control was a pretty safe way to get to know one’s roomie without
really asking a lot of questions. The personality was always shown that
way.
“We’re talking in the season,” Peter replied. “The second I get sidelined
with an injury, miss a few games, something like that and you start piling em
on, then you get the remote.”
Modano made a big show of sighing. “So what do you watch
anyway.”
“U2 Behind the Music’s gonna be on tonight, TV is
mine!”
Well at least it ain’t porno, Modano thought to himself. He was sick of
that.
By morning, Modano had decided that Peter was the most boring guy he had
ever roomed with in his life! There was nothing to him, nothing at all. There
was no dirty lewd reminiscing about life in the junior leagues. There was no
jokes about who’s gay, who’s a wussy or who got caught doing what with a puck
bunny or hooker. There was not even much of a sense of humor to him. He just sat
on the bed watching news channels like they were involving drama and then
finally just dropping to sleep.
He hadn’t seemed like a happy man either. Modano couldn’t figure out why.
It just seemed that there was something that was bothering him and he wasn’t
talking about it. He knew that look in another man’s eyes when there were issues
on his shoulders and whatever was bugging Peter was a large
one.
Modano switched off the light and television and crawled into bed when he
heard Peter’s deep breathing. He didn’t seem to be snoring like just about every
hockey player he knew and that was refreshing. As Mike was dropping off to sleep
he heard Peter moan and then call out a name, and saying he was
sorry.
“Please I didn’t mean it that way!”
Modano frowned and didn’t say anything as Peter went back to sleep. It
bugged him though. It had sounded like Peter had said a name and that name was
“Joe”.
Dammit! Modano was frustrated. All night he had been doing his best to
set up plays and do the best with the passes given to him. It seemed like
everything was going right except that they hadn’t scored. What was worse was
that Jeremy Roenick had scored late in the last period and the Flyers seemed
content to hold onto that 1-0 lead. They didn’t seem to be pressing forward much
offensively and they were trapping the neutral zone. Only one good pass and shot
would fix this one! Just one!
Finally, as the last minute was winding down in the third period, and the
net had been emptied for the extra attacker, Modano found an opening. He snapped
a pass through a seam to Peter who slid it to Joe. Joe wasted no time in
unloading a wrist shot seemingly burning a hole through Cechmanek and into the
net.
“Hot damn!” Modano yelled as he skated to his new teammates in
celebration. He got a smile and hug from Joe that melted him to goo! This was
where life was at!
“Good eyes Mike,” Joe said briskly and Mike knew he could feed off that
forever.
But then Joe and Peter looked at each other and their eyes didn’t break
contact as they pressed their foreheads together. The look was deep for only a
moment before Joe and Peter split and began skating back to the bench. Modano
could only stand feeling something akin to horror before coming to his senses
and getting off the ice.
“What the hell was that?” he exclaimed.
“Uh, the tying goal?” Chris Drury said.
Links to other sites on the Web