Rating: PG-13 for this part
Original Date of Completion: May 2002
Disclaimer: Don't own em, will one day. This is a work of fiction from my demented little mind.
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Kirk's POV
Regardless of what anyone tells you, love sucks. Well, wait, maybe I'm not being fair. I think it just sucks for me. But I'm the bright one in that whole situation. I'm the one who falls for my straight best friend. Annoyingly enough, him being straight isn't the only complication. You see, we're teammates. And I'm not talking teammates in the Friday Night Softball League. We're teammates on the best hockey team in the NHL. If you just said to yourself "The Colorado Avalanche" hit yourself with a ball point hammer until you get some sense in your head. I'm speaking of course of the Red Wings. And the best friend who is the target of my unrequited homo love, none other than Kris Draper.
I, am Kirk Maltby. Left/Right wing, member of the famed Grind Line, blah blah blah. With all the stars on our team, I'm not that famous. But that's not a bad thing. It makes carrying my secret around much easier. Guessed what the secret is yet? That's right, I'm gay. You win the prize. Your cookie will be arriving in 4-10 business days. You're thinking to yourself right now "How can he be gay and play for the Red Wings?" Well, let me tell you, it's not easy. But believe it or not, I'm not the only one. There are about 9 of us out of 26 on the active roster. Me, Homer, Wallin, Fish, Lucky, Boyd, Dandy, Shanny, and our fearless captain, Stevie Y. I'm sure at least 2 of those shocked the shit out of you. And yeah, some of them are married, but it's all for the sake of cover-ups. All of their wives know, so it's not really a big deal. Well, it would be if the public were to find out. But none of us plan to let that happen. The only people who really know about us are our other teammates, and not all of them know about all of us. And it's not like any of them would say anything, since each one of our "gay posse" as we call ourselves can claim to have slept with at least one of the "straight" guys on the team. Then you get guys like Boyd and Dandy who can claim to have slept with almost all of them.
Me however, I've only dipped into the straight side of the roster once. But of course when I did it, it had to be someone who caused a big stir about it. Pseudo straight Sean Avery and I hooked up one night on Darren McCarty's pool table. He was WAY too good with his mouth to be straight, but that's not the point. We had fun, we both enjoyed ourselves, until he came. He freaked out, called me a fag, etc. The next day, it was all over the locker room how I'd taken advantage of him on Mac's pool table. Mac though, always one to come to my rescue, told everyone Sean was full of shit. With a little bit of denial on my part everything was forgotten. Sean didn't speak to me for weeks, which really hindered our playing. He got over it one night, when he showed up drunk out of his mind and asked for another go. I agreed only to get him into my apartment. Once he was in, I stalled until he passed out. After he was out, I pried the beer bottle from his hand and covered him with a blanket. He slept like a baby until 11:00 the next morning. After that, everything was cool between us. I'd really started to look out for Sean after that night. So whenever someone tells you I'm not a good person, don't believe them. You know the truth now.
Anyway though, back to the point of all this. I'm an idiot and in love with my best friend. It's not like I set out to do it. I didn't wake up one day and say "Kirk, today, you are going to fall in love with Drapes." So didn't happen that way. It was a gradual thing, I'm talking like years of development. From the first time I stepped into the Detroit locker room, Kris and I clicked. I got along better with him than with anyone else. He became my best friend within like two months. We started spending a crazy amount of time together. And that's when I started falling. I guess it's only natural. You spend a certain amount of time around a great guy, you're only expected to fall for him, right? Yeah, that's what everyone else told me too. I don't want to be in love with him. I try desperately all the time to find something that will turn these feelings off. But they're so deeply cemented now, I don't know if there is a way. As much as I fight it, I'm in love with Kris Draper. And that my friend is why love sucks for yours truly.
"Malts, you alive over there?" I hear, breaking me from my thoughts. I glance over next to me and see Tomas Holmstrom staring at me with a bewildered look on his face.
"Yeah Homer, I'm fine. Just thinking," I reply, adjusting my position in my chair.
"Kris?"
"No Homer, I'm thinking about the bagel I had for lunch. What else do I think of on plane rides?"
"There was that one time you and Chelly devised the plan to take over Colorado and tie Patrick Roy naked to the net and have the whole team shoot at him all day," He joked, doing a weird shifty thing with his eyebrows.
"Yeah, well. The bitch shouldn't have cheapshotted me when I fell into the net," I chuckled, shrugging my shoulders.
"In all seriousness, don't beat yourself up over Kris. You'll get over it,"
'I don't think so.' I thought to myself. It had already been about three years since I admitted to myself that I was in love with Kris, and the feelings were just as strong now as they were then. Of course, none of the posse knew about that. They all thought my loving Drapes was a newer deal. It saved me a lot of lectures not telling them the truth. Most of them thought I was warped in the head for having feelings for him as it was. I'm inclined to agree with them for the most part. I don't know too many other gay men who fall this deeply for their straight best friend. But that's just me, I always gotta make things complicated for myself. I always have to want what I can't have.
"I hope so, I really do," I replied sadly, staring out the airplane window.
"You'll be okay. You're the toughest guy I know," Homer avowed, patting me on the knee, then getting up and walking to where Fish sat.
I was once again alone with my thoughts. He meant well, but I was really beyond believing anyone when they told me I'd be okay. There is nothing okay about wanting to have sex with your straight best friend in the penalty box. Okay, so it's more than that. But I've always wanted to have sex in the penalty box. Sex is usually the last thing on my mind when I think of Kris. I just want him to hold me, to take me in his arms and tell me he loves me. But that will never happen. He's as straight as one can be. He's got a family; two gorgeous kids, and his wife is one of my best friends. I'm sure she wouldn't be if she knew what I was thinking at night as I watch him sleep. God, I'm really beginning to annoy myself. I wish this fucking plane would land already, I need some air. I give a glance at my watch and can tell just from the time that we're about a half hour away from Michigan. If I have to sit in this seat that entire time thinking about Kris, I'm going to result to talking to Duschene to put me to sleep. I almost shudder at that thought, and get up from my seat. I walk back to the refrigerator at the back of the plane and pull out a Mountain Dew.
"Ah, Mountain Dew, you'll always love me," I say aloud, taking a drink.
"You need help Malts,"
It's him. As I turn around, I connect eye to eye with the object of my obsession, er, affection. As much as I've tried to not act weird around him lately, I've failed horribly. Ever since Keenan was born, my feelings for Kris had intensified to an almost scary degree. Just to see him with the baby, or see how happy he got when he was showing off the pictures, it just made me....weak. I used to be able to control the feelings, but lately, I'd had a pretty hard time. Every time he asked me "What's wrong?" I wanted to breakdown and say "I love you so much." But I fought diligently with myself to stop that from happening. I even went as far as getting Stevie to change the rooming around so I wasn’t rooming with Kris anymore. Of course, that put me with Slegr, and I don't think he liked me. I don't think he liked anyone, personally. Thankfully, Stevie was willing to lie for me and just tell Kris the coaches thought it was a good idea if the rooming got switched up. I think he still suspected there was something wrong with me, but thankfully he hadn’t been persistent in finding out what.
"Um, yeah, that's what they all say. I haven't listened yet," I joked, preparing to go back to my seat.
"You pissed at me or something?" He asked my back.
Just great, he thinks I'm mad at him. I knew my stupid feelings would wind up messing with somebody else's. They can't ever keep their misery to themselves, they always have to share. All I could think of as I turned around and looked at him was how cute he looked with his hat on backwards. I cursed myself repeatedly as I tried to garner the strength to speak to him.
"No, why would I be mad at you?" I asked in reply.
"It just seems like lately you'd rather listen to Duschene talk about ice fishing than be anywhere near me. What's wrong, Kirk?"
"It's nothing, Kris," I lied after a brief silence. "You're imagining things,"
"Okay," He sighed, conceding to my victory. "You want to come over for dinner tonight? Julie's making lasagna,"
As I looked into his eyes, I knew there was no way I could decline. My mind was telling me this was a bad situation to put myself in. Spending time with Kris in a hockey setting was simple, because I could just concentrate on hockey. But this was far from a hockey situation. This was a family type situation, where he and I were almost guaranteed to spend sometime alone. This was exactly what I've tried to avoid. It was the times he and I were alone when I felt at my weakest. 'You can handle this.' I told myself. 'You've had dinner with him a billion times, this is no different.' Even as I told myself that, I wasn't sure I believed it. I hoped that strength I prided myself on was up for a challenge today, because this wasn’t going to be easy. But I could never say no to Kris. And there is almost no way on Earth I'd say no to Julie's lasagna.
"Sure," I replied, fiddling with the cap on my Mountain Dew. "What time?"
"You can just catch a ride with me," He replied, walking back to his seat.
This just keeps getting better. Even more time alone with him. I was really going to drive myself to the insanity point with this. I found myself cursing the feelings for what has to be the 50th time today. Why did I have to fall for Kris? I had a vast array of gay friends around me, and I fall for a straight one. But that's me, can't ever do things the easy way. I was starting to think this was some kind of elaborate punishment for always saying I'd never fall in love. I fell all right, and I fell HARD. And tonight, I had to spend time with the person who pushed me, so to speak. This was not going to be easy. But for Kris' sake, I had to try and forget about the blinding pain in my chest from not having him, and go back to being his best friend. I didn't like to think about the possibility that I'd been hurting his feelings acting the way I have been.
I took a deep breath then walked back to my seat. I slipped my headphones on to avoid any major thought for the rest of the plane ride. All I thought about the rest of the ride was how bad Creed really sucked, and ask myself why on Earth I bought the CD. I couldn't really come up with a good answer beyond "It was Sean's fault." He was the one that made me like that My Sacrifice song. He didn't bother to tell me that the other 10 songs on the CD blew.
Thankfully, I wouldn't get all the way through the CD before the plane landed. Once we were safely on the ground, I grabbed my bag from the overhead and made my way to the exit. For once, I seemed to be the only one in a hurry, so I got to look like an idiot for 10 minutes or so before they opened the door. As soon as the door was open, I bounded down the steps and stood to the side of them until the rest of the guys came out. As soon as Lucky and Hully made their way down, I followed them into the airport. When you really don’t feel like signing autographs, send the stars in before you, and no one even notices you. This was something I'd perfected over the years with Shanny and Stevie. And then this year with Lucky, Hully and Dom around, it only made it easier. Brett knew about my little system, and constantly told fans "That guy plays for the team too, go hit him up for an autograph." Most of them just looked at him like "Yeah, whatever." And while that was somewhat damaging to my ego, it was great when I was feeling like I am today. I smiled as people swarmed around Luc and Brett and waved at them as I walked right past. They both gave me a dirty look as I took a seat to wait for Kris.
Kris smiled as he walked in, and motioned me toward the door with his head. I pushed myself up from my chair then walked over to him. He held the door for me as I walked out, which ridiculous as it is gave me little butterflies. God, him holding the door open for me gave me butterflies, that's pathetic. These feelings really were beginning to get out of control. I don't know how in the hell I expected things to be normal between us again when I keep feeling the way I do. 'Be strong. Be strong.' I told myself. I've been strong for awhile now, I hoped I had enough in me to make it a little bit longer. As we reached Kris' car, I found my hand shaking as I grabbed for the door handle. I took a deep breath, then opened the door. Here I go, embarking on what could prove to be a VERY difficult night....
TBC
© 2002 Triple X
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