Empty Net by Avon Gale Read Free Book Online Page A

be anything else.”
    “I’ve never been anything but awful to you,” Laurent mumbled. He wanted to go home, but the idea of walking all the way to his apartment was exhausting.
    “Yes. Believe me, I know. And you’re going to stop, because we’re moving past that.” Isaac’s voice was even, implacable. As fiery as he was in net, he had a certain immovability that Laurent found he envied.
    Would Isaac have let his father push him around? Probably not. He’d run away, and that was that. But Laurent wasn’t lying when he told Isaac that he was jealous Isaac’s parents let him go.
    Isaac. He was thinking of him like that, with his first name. Everyone else called Isaac “Drake.”
    “I probably still will,” Laurent said gloomily. “I’m not… I’ve never had a friend before. I won’t be good at it, and you’re going to get mad at me.”
    Isaac shrugged. “Probably. I get mad at Hux and Murph. Like today. Which…. Fuck. I need to text them and yell some more. Idiots.”
    “They were standing up for you,” Laurent said, as though he weren’t still horrified by how it had felt, being helpless and so close to having all his secrets laid bare. It was humiliating to stand in that shower and know he had no way to stop it.
    The same way Isaac must have felt on the ice when I spit on him. Laurent hung his head.
    “Yeah. Well, I can do that myself. They’re not bad guys. You’ll see.” Isaac flopped on his back and idly messed with his phone.
    Wait. What did that mean? “Isaac, I can’t be… I can’t be friends with them. You can’t make me,” Laurent said, panicked.
    Isaac looked up, and his dark blue eyes narrowed in thought. “You want to say something mean, huh. So I’ll hate you.”
    Laurent nodded desperately.
    “Stop talking,” Isaac said, and Laurent felt the relief at the simple instruction and went back to his magazine.
    Isaac returned to his phone, Laurent read back issues of The Hockey News , and it was maybe the best afternoon he’d ever spent around another human being. He wanted to lie down on the floor and fall asleep.
    “Hey, Isaac. Get your ass down here and help with the groceries.”
    Coach Ashford’s voice. Somehow Laurent had managed to forget there was a house connected to Isaac’s bedroom, and that his coaches lived in that house—his coaches who hated him.
    “Yeah. Coming,” Isaac called. He looked at Laurent. “We’re going to have to explain what you’re doing here.”
    “Why?” Laurent asked, panicked and trying to fight the instinct to run into Isaac’s bathroom and throw up the snacks and sugary soda. “You promised.”
    Isaac gave him a strange look. “I know, dude. But I can’t just be like, hey, me and Saint are friends now.” He crossed his arms, chin tilted. Despite being shorter and leaner than Laurent, it never made Isaac appear weak or ineffectual. “Like I said, we gotta come up with something that’ll be mostly the truth, because I know what I promised, but I’m not lying to Misha. Not for you, not for anyone.”
    It must be nice to respect someone that much.
    “In case it wasn’t clear, we’ve already been to the store,” Coach Ashford yelled up the stairs. “Carry your weight, Drake.”
    Isaac rolled his eyes, and a fond smile edged at the corner of his mouth. “Stop making my life so difficult. Let’s go.”
    Laurent followed him, but he cast a look at the bathroom off Isaac’s bedroom. “Can I just—”
    “Come on , Saint.”
    It was the nickname, Laurent figured, as he followed Isaac down the stairs. It made him feel like a different person, like someone who could maybe not be a disappointment. And oh fuck. Who was he kidding? It was going to end badly, just like everything else.
    When Laurent appeared behind Isaac in the driveway, Coach Ashford’s face might have been funny if Laurent didn’t want to crawl into a hole and disappear.
    “Umm,” Coach Ashford said, but he recovered quickly. His smile for Isaac was