Shifting Gears
I thought he was going to beat the shit out of me. Instead, he surprised the shit out of me.
When Ivan’s hand grabbed the back of my neck, I thought this was it. But then when his forehead touched mine, it was the most shocking and gentle thing I had ever felt. This giant of a man, this former NHL enforcer, was leaning on me.
And then he admitted it. When I told him my truth, he told me his.
I could feel him shaking slightly as we stood there in the silence, letting our own honesty sort of just hang there in the garage. I knew he was scared. I’ve been there. But one of us had to make the first move.
I brought my hand up to his wrist at first, my fingers barely making it around the thickness of this man. But then my other hand removed itself from his chest and found his jaw, the stubble rough against my palm, showing him without words that I was here, that I wasn’t going anywhere as I tried to control my breathing and my pounding heart.
He breathed out a sound I’d never heard from him before—a raw, unvarnished sigh of relief that seemed to come from the bottom of his soul. When he pulled back to look at me, his grey eyes were clear. The wall was gone. All I saw was Ivan, terrified and hopeful, so huge and massive and so real and raw all at the same time.
My legs felt weak, or maybe his did, because we both seemed to slide down at the same time, our shoulders against the tire of the lifted Mustang at first, before we literally sat down on our asses ending up beside each other on the concrete floor. The garage, usually so loud, was suddenly so quiet.
We sat there, shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg, staring at the wall, sitting there in awkward silence.
I went first, figuring it would help him not feel so afraid or so alone with his honesty.
“The married guy… he was my coach. It was pathetic really. He was my…uh…first. We carried on for 12 stupid years I kept thinking he was going to leave his wife for me.”
He was silent for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the opposite wall. “This shop… was my father’s whole world,” he said, the words coming slow, like he was afraid to admit something even now. “After I left the NHL, I couldn’t be… another disappointment to him.”
He didn’t have to say more. I understood the weight of that single sentence as I had a father just like that. We talked then, not as boss and employee, but as two men, sharing their gay secret to one another at last. Of two men who had run from their secrets and found some solace in the smell of oil and the turn of a wrench. We talked about our professional careers, the roar of the crowd and the silence after our injuries. We talked about the discipline, the focus, how it felt to have a body that was both a weapon and a liability. We talked about our fathers, and the shame they made us believe they’d have about our secret sides.
I told him about my coach, how big and strong I thought he was, how he groomed me, made me what I am, or was, as a quarterback, and then dumped me after I left the NFL and stayed with his wife. I told him about a couple other married guys along the way, in between my coach’s visits, and then some of them afterwards. He told me about the countless, meaningless encounters he had, with women he never slept with, and younger guys he nailed in bathroom stalls and nameless men in the woods, one a married cop he regularly banged over a picnic table. He never had intimacy; I thought I did.
It was the most honest conversation of my life. With my boss, this giant, muscled macho looking man, holding back tears as we sat against the tires of a Mustang, as I did the same. I told him things I had never told another living soul. And I got the feeling I was there listening to the same from him.
When the conversation lulled, the air changed again as a new realization seemed to come over us, sitting side by side in the quiet garage.
“It’s really late now. But we should… finish the car,” he said, not moving a muscle.
“We should,” I agreed, my own body refusing to obey the command.
We sat there for a moment longer, and I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was thinking.
He stood first, and then, in a gesture that shattered me, he held his hand out to pull me up. His grip was strong, sure. Warm. Safe. He didn’t let go. His eyes locked on mine, seemed to be asking me a silent question.
So I went first again. “Have you ever, you know, thought about me…?”
He let out a long puff of air and suddenly looked shy. “Every fuckin’ night.”
I couldn’t help but blush. Without thinking, I responded by rising up on my toes and pressing my lips to his.
It wasn’t a kiss of passion, not yet. It was soft, closed-mouth, and rather tentative at first. I felt him freeze for a heartbeat, as did I, but then he melted into it, his free hand coming up to cradle the back of my head to hold me still, his thumb stroking my hair. His hand was so big. It made me feel small again. My mouth opened, just a bit, and his did too with the hint of a touch from his equally thick tongue. It was over in a second, but it felt like an eternity. My heart did another first: it actually fluttered. And the small smile on his lips probably looked identical to the one I was feeling on mine.
“Let’s finish the Mustang.” He said, taking a step back. And instead of feeling rejected, I felt respected. This was his garage after all. Not some location for some seedy one-time encounter despite the fantasies running through my dirty brain.
So we finished the Mustang. We worked in a silence that was full of everything we’d just said. There seemed to be a new lightness about us both, as if we knew each other a whole lot more and suddenly felt a whole lot more comfortable. Every time he handed me a tool, our fingers brushed. Every time I passed him a part, our eyes met and held for a second too long. A new, unshakable rhythm hummed between us. I felt like he knew me better than anyone else knew me in this world. And maybe I was the first one to truly know him.
As we were wiping down the last of the tools, the clock pushing past one in the morning, he didn’t look at me. He focused on cleaning a wrench that was already spotless.
“My place,” he finally said, his voice a low rumble in the quiet shop. “It’s… quiet. No one there.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. This was it. The invitation. Not to a backroom or a rushed encounter, not into a washroom stall or over a picnic table, but to his home. His private space.
I let a slow, genuine smile spread across my face, the kind that reached my eyes as my heart fluttered again.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice steady and sure. “I’d like that.”
To get in touch with the author, send them an email.
