Shutout

Chapter 15 - Kane

I'm still struggling to wake up fully when my phone rings. A part of me wonders if it's Logan again. He's the reason I'm still tired, but I guess I can't completely blame him. 

After his amazing performance in the game last night, which Twitter informed me was rare, I was eager to talk to him and see how he feels and congratulate him beyond texts. So I encouraged him to call me sometime, thinking he would call in the morning. He did. One in the morning. 

I struggled to wake up to the blaring ringtone in my silent house. I squinted until I could read his caller ID and decided to answer it despite the time. His voice had been very clearly slurred, indicating that he had had a little too much to drink while he was likely celebrating with his team. 

When I answered, he was so excited to talk until he could hear my voice truly. Then he kept mumbling about waking me up and being sleepy and cute or something. Eventually, I convinced him it was okay, and he was back to being energetic. We only talked for a few minutes, to be honest, before I told him I needed to go to sleep, and he probably should, too. His goodnight was cute, like a scolded little kid. 

But, as I sipped some coffee to try and wake up at eight in the morning, my phone was ringing again. Unlike earlier, the caller ID was not Logan. Despite my desire to just not pick up, I do. 

"Hello?"

"Um, hi," The voice is quiet, but then a throat is cleared, and a much more masculine voice comes back through the line, "Is this...Kane Jenkins?"

I hmm, setting down my coffee cup, "This is he. May I ask who this is calling?"

"Oh, um, this is Liam Lindahl."

I have to scrape the back of my mind to find where his name is from. Once I do, I sit up straight, suddenly conscious of how I sound to him. Harold, however, doesn't move from where he sits next to me on the couch.

"Oh, thank you for calling me Mr. Lindahl."

"Liam. Um, call me Liam."

"Sure, Liam," When the line is silent for longer than three beats, I talk again, "Thank you for calling me, Liam. I've been eagerly anticipating a response from you or your manager for quite a while now."

"Yeah...sorry about that. I was just, um, trying to figure out what I wanted to do, you know, with your proposal or whatever."

Liam was older than Logan, I knew that, but probably younger than me. Nevertheless, he sounded like an insecure teenager being forced to talk on the phone by their parent. His voice wasn't as quiet as it was when he first talked but there was still an uneasiness that structured it. The poor boy was probably freaked out about a journalist trying to talk about his sexuality after the shitstorm that happened when he came out. 

Liam Lindahl was the first active NHL player to come out as bisexual almost three years ago. Not that he chose to be the first. Liam was outed by fucking tabloids and a bitter ex. Photos of Liam looking particularly cozy with another male, whose face was blurred, went viral at the beginning of his fourth NHL season in Anaheim. Aparently they were leaked by Liam's ex friends-with-benefits after Liam no longer wanted to have something together. From there, it was a media shitstorm of people accusing Liam of being gay, of being a bottom, of using male escorts, of being anything but the ci-hetero masc man the sport demanded of him. 

After a couple of days, Liam read a statement (that was also released on Anehiem's social media) to a conference of journalists (which is kind of a shitty move on Anaheim's part for making a very vulnerable man sit in front of the sharks who literally just ruined his life) but took no questions after. In the statement, Liam made the brave and sad decision to come out as being bisexual. He admitted to having been in an on-and-off relationship with the man in the picture, whom Liam wished to remain anonymous despite how he hurt Liam. Apparently, no one, not even his family, knew of his sexuality before those photos became mainstream.