Gravity

by Tal Bauer

“I love your smile,” I whisper. “It's the first thing that took my breath away when we met.”

Is this all a dream? Is this truly happening? Did your lips touch mine? Did you really kiss me? And say you wanted me? I want to be reckless I want to make promises I want to give you forever. I want to give you everything. I want to climb inside a clock and control the hands of time I want to fly forward and know How many hours do we have? How long will your smile last when you look my way? How long will I hold your hand? For a lifetime or a day?

Tell me anything you want Whisper to me your dreams And I will spend eternity Figuring out how to take the stars from the sky And spread them like sand scattered at your feet Tell me how to make your heart race Tell me how to make you smile Let me write you a love story Let me give you my heart Let me empty the oceans for you—

Being a superstar pulls you away from everyone. I want to be a part of the team again. Lonely hockey is for the river—for when I am playing against what is inside of me. The game is for playing with other people, my friends, and I miss that.”

“The truth is, Hunter, mon coeur… you are my strength.”

I am Bryce's biggest fan. He's the brightest star in my sky, a man I look up to not only as the best athlete in my sport, but because he is an incredible human being. He still is my hero, not because he plays hockey or because he is the next Great One. He is my hero because he is Bryce.

I check both directions before I kiss him goodnight. “I'll see you at breakfast.” “I'll see you in my dreams,” he breathes.

“It is two in the fucking morning, and you have been together since eight a.m.

I'm wearing an Étoiles t-shirt with Bryce's number and his name on the back.

Because that's not obvious

“You,” Slava says, barking at me. “Give me your keycard.” Behind Slava, MacKenzie, Valery, and Etienne are desperately looking away. They're staring at the potted plants, the escalators, the grouting in the tile. Their faces are red and their lips are pressed tight. I frown and hold out my keycard. Slava snatches it, then presses his card into my hand. “You two want to talk all night? Fine. Leave me in peace.”

If my life has led me to one destination, it's here. Not to hockey, but to him. I'll make love to him until the stars fall from the sky.

Hunter plops down next to me on the bench, and MacKenzie makes room for him like the most junior member of the team coming to squat beside his capitane is nothing to bat an eyelash about.

Let me write you a love story Let me give you my heart Let me empty the oceans for you

I will do anything to bring you the happiness That you have unchained within me You will always be my forever And even if you leave You will always be the man who discovered this part of me

“Doing anything after the game?” Hunter asks me. “I hope so.”

“You going to play hockey tonight, or you just going to skate around and make eyes like you're in love?”

Slap. My stick connects with the puck without conscious thought, and my shot bullets over Valery's shoulder and into the net. He just missed the catch.

Uh oh

“I know what I'm doing after the game.” “Oh?” The announcer's voice nearly drowns out his reply. His lips move against my ear, my skin, my hair. “Je vais te faire l'amour.” I'll be making love to you.

We are in Montréal. We are home, and Hunter is beside me, and I am in love with him with everything that I am.

“Mon amour, mon amour. Don't fight. We're trying to help you.” A new noise slips from Bryce, something between a wail and a whimper. His eyes lock on mine, and I keep whispering to him, telling him to hold on, fucking hold on, that he's going to be okay. “I love you,” I breathe. “I love you, Bryce.”

Why haven't I told him before today that I love him? Did he hear me? Did he understand what I was saying? There was so much panic in his eyes. Could he even see me?

Bryce is everything to me, I want to say. He's everything, fucking everything, to me, and that might have been the last time he and I— Bryce. Oh my God, Bryce.

I want to feel him, to know he's still here, that the man I love is still alive inside this too-still body. There's nothing.

Memories from past games, when Bryce was their champion, their hero, their shooting star. It's like they were saying their goodbyes.

“We're together.” My voice is an impression of sound. I kiss Bryce's palm and fold his fingers around the memory of my lips. “I love him.” “I know.” MacKenzie jerks his chin to the rest of the room. “We know. We've known the whole time.”

Valery wanted to break you into tiny pieces and dump you in the Fleuve Saint-Laurent, but I said non, that was too much effort to waste. We should dump your shit from the back of the plane before we crossed the border to Canada.

If only I had realized from the moment we met, the moment he said, “Bonjour,” the moment our eyes brushed each other across that Vegas ice, that he was the love of my life. The man I was destined to fall for, not just as a hockey hero, but as my soul mate. The other half of me.

Weeks ago, I'd wondered: what does a secret like ours do to a team? Nothing, apparently. Nothing at all if we were never a secret and if we are more than a team. If we are family, then there aren't any secrets that need to be kept.

He's looking at me, and I know that light in his eyes. I know it, because it's how he always looks at me. When we're in each other's arms, or when we're making love, or after, when I'm holding him and kissing him and can't get enough of him.

I lift Bryce's fingers to my lips and kiss his knuckles. He shoots me a worried look, a question buried beneath his happiness. I lean in and kiss him on the lips, this time surrounded by our teammates. Our family. And when I pull back, everyone is beaming.

I'll give him everything. Anything he wants, anything he needs. I'll cradle his hopes and keep them safe until he can take hold of them again. I'll build scaffolds for his dreams, too, and I will lift him on my shoulders until he can touch the stars.

Bunny, put out of your mind, right now, any fears that you don't have a place with us after this. You are this team's heart. You're not going anywhere. Oui?" A tear slides down Bryce’s cheek as he nods.

When the doctors leave, the rest of the team shuffles back in, most of them clutching paper cups of coffee. Slava hands me one, and he tells Bryce, “If you want any, you'll have to lick it off his lips.”

At the end of the game, we'll lay each of the pucks from the goals we score on Bryce's seat, too, and when he returns, he’ll find our monument to him.

Every one of our names has been removed. We got permission from the league to replace each of our name tapes with Michel. Our sweater numbers are our own, but tonight, we skate for Bryce.

Bryce: Mon amour, it's agonizing to be here while you are there. I want to be by your side every moment of our lives. I wish I could place my heart and soul in your hands and live forever as close to you as I can be.

Me: You are with me each and every moment. My heart is in your hands. My heart, my life, my everything. Put your hand on your own heart, mon amour, and you'll feel mine beating next to yours.

Me: I'm watching you sleep and holding your hand. My fingers are on your pulse, and I'm watching your chest rise and fall. Bryce, I have never in my life been as terrified as I was yesterday. I thought you died in my arms, and my biggest regret was that I hadn't told I loved you yet. So I'm going to tell you every day now: I love you. I love you, and I want everything with you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

I heard you say, ‘I love you,’ and, somehow, I could breathe again. Barely, like I was trying to suck oxygen out of bubbles under the ocean, but I could. The world came back, and I saw your face. I heard you say it again. ‘I love you, Bryce.' That's all I remember, until I woke up with you sleeping on my thigh in this hospital bed. At the darkest, most petrifying moment of my life, you were there. You have always been there.

I have something I need to say to you, but I want to say it. So as soon as I am able to speak again, I will. I'll hold your hand and I'll look you in the eye, and I'll tell you. Because I do, Hunter. I do, more than anything. More than everything.

My French is getting stronger. Of course, I'm teaching myself the romantic phrases first. How do you say “I am yours” in French? Or “I love you with all of my heart”? Now I know.

We clap and cheer, and then come together in front of Bryce's empty seat. Everyone puts a hand in, and Coach says, simply, “For Bunny.”

Of course, someone else stuck googly eyes on most of Bryce's picture frames, and there's a gift basket on Bryce's bed filled with bottles of lube, a few dildos, gay porn magazines, and a pair of fuzzy leopard-print handcuffs.

“Je t'aime aussi, mon amour.” My voice is more breath than sound, a whisper strained through silence. But these words have shape and weight, and they move from my lips to Hunter's ears. “Je t'aime de tout.” Then we're kissing again, and crying, and his tears slide down my face as he holds me tight and says to me, “Tu es le seul pour moi, mon amour.”

“Bryce, I would lose the Cup every year for as long as I lived if it meant I got to live those years with you in my arms. And I would rather hang up my skates and never step on the ice again than take a risk with your life. There is nothing—nothing—that is worth risking you for.”

In hockey, everything is about the Cup, right? Everyone wants it, and people will sacrifice damn near anything to get it. I know how hard you and everybody else have worked to get here, so I want you to really listen to me when I say this to you: not a single person on this team would choose to sacrifice you for the Cup. And if it comes down to choosing—you or the Cup—we will all choose you. We nearly lost you once. We're not losing you again.”

I want to be by your side when I heft the Cup. I said it, I meant it, and now the moment is here.

Twenty thousand eyeballs are staring down at us and millions more are watching on television. I don't care. Kiss me, mon amour. Kiss me and let's show the world what true love means. And, he does. We kiss as I hold the Cup over our heads.

I've taped a ring to the back side of the puck. It's a simple band, a deep silver color that reflects light in scattered prisms. It's made from a meteor mined out of Quebec. Starlight that came to Earth. Like Bryce.

“You once asked me, when we were sitting by another river, what it all meant. What happens next? And what does the future look like?” I take his hands in mine. He's holding the ring, staring at it, staring at me. “Je veux passer ma vie avec toi.”