Before I can react to the unexpected embrace, Leo has stepped back and is peering at me closely.

"I was going to say you look good, but I’m not much of a liar," he says, tilting his head.

I shake my head, laughing. I can’t argue with that. The last few days have taken their toll. But I push the thoughts of everything that’s happened aside and try to wind Leo up a bit — enough to distract him from my inner turmoil at least.

"Always the charmer!" I say.

"Hey! It’s me that should be mad at you for not coming to our wedding!" Leo says indignantly but with a mischievous glint in his eyes that tells me he's not serious.

He's right, though. It was a real shame I had to miss that event, and I’ll always regret it, but we were in the middle of our new season training camp and I couldn’t get leave to come home even for a few days.

Another man walks over. He’s a good half-head shorter than Leo and me, wiry and sinewy. Seemingly without any conscious thought on the part of the prince, his hand immediately closes around his husband’s. His gaze leaves my face, and he gets a very special gleam in his eye as he briefly turns to his partner.

Is this what love should look like? I think. If so, Claudia and I never had that.

I must have screwed up my face because Leo frowns as he turns back to me.

"Don't pay me any attention," I say playfully, but then I’m lost for words until the unasked-for truth blurts out. "Claudia and I broke up.”

I recall the day the NHL announced a break so that players could go back to their home countries to prepare for the Winter Olympics. Beaming, I picked up the phone and called my longtime girlfriend, Claudia. I was in luck! The nine-hour time difference between California and Austria meant that I caught her at breakfast time.

She’s living her dream as a staff member in the Sustainable Energy for All initiative at the UN in Vienna, although we actually met at UCLA where we took the same sustainable energy management course. It was more exciting than the dry title suggests).

Claudia was articulate, passionate, and beautiful to boot. I fell for her the moment I saw her. For weeks, we had heated discussions in class and on campus until the debates eventually turned into something more.

I’ll never forget how happy I was when she finally came to one of my hockey games. For a long time, she’d been reluctant because ice hockey, especially in sunny Los Angeles, is hardly an energy-efficient sport. At some point, she must have decided I was worth it.

Then I got doubly and triply lucky when I was drafted by the L.A. Kings, a top NHL team. We were so happy. For five years. Until two years ago when she landed her dream job. Almost 10,000 miles away. 14 hours by plane. In Vienna.

Even then I didn't give up. Why should I? It would only be for a few years, and I loved her.

Admittedly, these last two years have been difficult, but that's the way it is for people in long-distance relationships who also happen to have challenging careers.

I run my left hand through my black mop of hair which is always too wild to tame even with the strongest products. I gave up trying years ago and cut it pretty short. The action usually soothes me, but today it doesn't help dull the pain at the memory of that phone call. My heart skips unpleasantly. Maybe I should see a cardiologist? Can a broken heart affect competitive sports performance?

No matter how hard I try to distract myself with non-existent medical issues, it doesn’t work. My ex-girlfriend's voice rings in my head in the same emotionless, almost bored tone she used to let me know she wasn’t going to fly to Beijing with me. That there was no future for us. That it was over. That, after almost seven years together, she doesn't love me anymore.

I clench my teeth so hard that my jaw aches.

Not even the hectically rebooked flight to Vienna instead of Terengia and the face-to-face conversation I insisted on having with her could change her mind. She doesn't want me anymore.

If I'm completely honest with myself, we’d started to grow apart even before she moved to Vienna, and it just so happened to be Claudia who drew the long-overdue line. I was absurdly trying to keep something alive that had been dead for a long time.

It still hurts, though.

Bringing my focus back to the present, I notice Leo and Guillaume are looking at me with furrowed brows.

"I'm so sorry to hear that,” Guillaume says after a moment in his sing-song French accent.

I've only met the prince's consort a few times, but he seems like a really good guy. He loves ice hockey, too — so what more can you wish for in a partner?

Maybe that said partner looks at you the way these two look at each other, a little voice inside me chirps.

"Thanks ... but ... don’t be. It was time. I think we’d grown apart a long while ago, but for some reason … I didn't want to admit it," I stammer sheepishly, and then to make matters worse heat rises to my cheeks.

"It’s still tough," Leo says with a shrug of understanding. "But at least my last breakup earned me Guillaume." He looks at his husband with profound love.

A wash of envy floods over me. I’ve known since I was a teenager that I’m bi, but there are only two people who know. Okay, there are my two best friends and the few guys I went to bed with before I got together with my ex.

I always thought it didn’t matter that I wasn’t out. I never thought it was important, considering I was in a long-term relationship with a woman. Now the green-eyed monster clawing me from the inside is telling me otherwise.

Who’d have thought that?

Why is this suddenly so important to me?

I have no answers to my questions.

The world suddenly seems to lose focus. Of course, I know the official version of how Leo met Guillaume: It was a chance encounter at a ball in Paris, and they hit it off immediately. When the photo outing them was shown on all TV channels, it was a total surprise to most. Me included. I hadn't even heard rumors that Leo might (also) be into men.

After that, some social media channels said that Leo had fucked his way through Terenberg’s entire gay community and that his previous girlfriends were just beards. Other sources claimed he’s bi but that Guillaume was his first male partner. Unfortunately, neither Leo nor Guillaume ever revealed their sexual orientation or any other details, and I've never had a quiet moment alone with Leo since to ask him.

Now’s my chance! I think.

Should I go for it? I mean, we know each other quite well, but is asking such a personal question inappropriate? Especially in this setting?

"Was it difficult to come out?" I blurt. For a moment, I'm surprised at myself. It's not exactly what I wanted to ask.

Leo’s eyes search mine while Guillaume's gaze softens. I raise my hands defensively. I’m suddenly grateful that we’re standing in a relatively quiet corner of the large hall of mirrors while the rest of the athletes gather around King Alexander and his wife. I take a deep breath and make a decision.

"I'm bi," I say so quickly that the words almost flow into each other. "I’ve toyed with the idea of coming out, but it was never a priority before. Now ..."

"You’re single for five minutes and already after the whole world," Leo quips with a chuckle.

My face must speak volumes because his laughter stops abruptly.

"It's important to you." He sounds almost astonished.

I shrug. After a moment I add, "I just feels like I can't quite be me."

"Then do it!" replies Leo immediately.

Guillaume chimes in more cautiously, "Talk to your agent about it first."

Leo runs his free hand over his face. "Yes, Guillaume’s right. The kind of unplanned coming out I had was hardly ideal. Talk to your agent about it. But" — again he gives his husband a look that could melt ice — "I know what it’s like to think something is wrong with you, that something is missing, that you're not right. For me, it was like a constant itch under my skin. It almost drove me crazy. And as hard as it was to be outed like that — just when I started to accept that part of myself — now, I'm grateful that it happened that way. Who knows how long it would have taken me otherwise? Ever since then, I've been free and happier than I've ever been."

As soon as he says the last word, Leo leans toward Guillaume and gives him a gentle kiss on the cheek. The gesture is so chaste and yet so intimate that I almost have to look away. At the same time, the wheels in my brain are spinning. Leo answered some questions — some I didn’t even think to ask — but he’s raised many more. Before I can ask them, though, a photographer comes over and shoos us towards the others.

We don’t get another chance for deep conversation. Still, the rest of the event is a lot of fun, and by the end of it, Guillaume and I have a plan.

The former ballet dancer started playing sledge hockey after his career-ending accident, and he won gold at the last Paralympics with the French national team. Sledge hockey, a style of ice hockey created for people with lower limb impairments, shares most of the same rules, but players sit in a sled and use two short sticks to maneuver.

I’ve loved the sport ever since I got roped into helping the coach of my old youth team who also coached the Terengian sledge hockey team. I could end up refereeing, acting as assistant coach, or even play as a substitute when there were too few players. Now, I’m the unofficial assistant coach of a sledge hockey team in Los Angeles when I have time — which is not often, unfortunately. The NHL season is long and hard.

Because of our mutual love of sledge hockey, Guillaume, Leo, and I have decided to storm the Viktor Edvardsen Arena and challenge the entire national team to a game of sledge hockey. It's going to be a blast. Especially as I know many of my teammates have never tried it.

***

The hotel where the team is staying during the training camp is a nondescript high-rise run by an international hotel chain. The rooms are rather small and as generic as most hotel rooms in any big city. I’d much rather stay in the apartment I bought a few years ago on Terenberg's Cathedral Square. It’s not far from the ice rink either — just twenty minutes by car. Or I could stay in my old room in my grandparents' villa.

They visit me regularly in Los Angeles, but I'm usually so busy that we only manage to grab a few meals together. I didn't fly home last summer either because a few of my teammates and I decided to do some extra training. This year is set to be our best chance of winning the Stanley Cup. To hold the huge trophy in my hand would mean everything — the pinnacle of my career — and if sacrificing a summer with my grandparents is the key to winning it, then it’s a sacrifice I was willing to make.

My thoughts wander to Claudia and I sigh. Is our relationship another victim of last summer? But no, the certainty is growing stronger and stronger that it wouldn’t have changed anything. Even if I’d spent time with her in Vienna this summer, it was already over, even if I’m only just starting to admit it to myself.

Pushing those depressing thoughts aside, I focus on the here and now — the accommodation and the training camp. The coach insists that we stay together in a hotel, as much as a team-building exercise thing as anything. The truth is, I've known all the other players since we were kids. We either played on the same side or against each other in one of the Terengian junior teams.

Terengia is an ice hockey nation, and almost every household has the required sticks and gear lying around. As kids, we played hockey out on the streets in summer and on the ice in winter, so naturally we all know each other. Especially since there are not that many players who make it into the U16 or U18 national teams.

There’s still over an hour before I have to be at the rink, so I throw the contents of my suitcase into the basic wooden closet in the room that will be my home for the next week.

Song 2 by the British band Blur makes my cell phone buzz on the small desk in front of the window where I placed it. A grin crosses my face. That particular ringtone can only mean one thing!

"Hello, you two!" I say as soon as I accept the call.

"Hi, Daniel!" two voices sing-song back. They’re clearly in a good mood.

Elisabeth, Benjamin, and I were in the same class together from kindergarten until I left for the USA when I was sixteen. That whole time, we were inseparable.

At some point, they fell in love, but I never felt like a third wheel. My life centered around ice hockey, and if I needed anything, both of them were always there for me. It was them who rescued me from Vienna after the failure of my last-ditch attempt to save my relationship.

Elisabeth is a sports agent — mine, as it happens. Benjamin joined his family’s business, although I have the feeling that he spends more time coaching the youth ice hockey team that we both used to play in than he does on his tax consultancy. But that's his business. In any case, he used to be a pretty decent goalie.

"Have you heard that Stefan is injured?" Elisabeth asks me cautiously.

I groan. Stefan and I are the perfect team. We've been playing together since we were four years old. He has always been my left wing. I’ve lost count of the times he’s delivered the perfect pass and given me a direct shot on the net from my position as center. Unfortunately, he didn't make it to the NHL — completely undeservedly in my opinion — and now plays for a club in the Terengian premier league.

"Don't tell me, the idiot went skiing," I state with desperate certainty.

Stefan and skiing — it's fatal. I don't think he's been on the slopes once without hurting himself. The silence on the other end of the line speaks volumes. Damn! I had such high hopes for the upcoming Olympic Games. We have a really strong team! Now Stefan is going to drop out because he can’t say no to skiing.

"How bad is it?" Maybe he just needs a few days off and he’ll be back on form.

"Three broken ribs."

Shit! I was so looking forward to playing with Stefan again after such a long time. The two of us always had that touch of magic. It was almost as if we could read each other's minds. We’d make the most daring passes to each other knowing the other one would always pick them up. I haven’t found the same chemistry with my teammates in the L.A. Kings.

A sense of foreboding like a black cloud gathers inside me. "Who is his replacement?"

Benjamin sighs loudly as his wife delivers the bad news. "Hovenberg."

Frustrated, I drop onto the bed. Not that I’m surprised. If anything, I was surprised Nico Hovenberg wasn't on the original national team roster. The fact that I can't stand him doesn’t mean he isn’t one of the best players our little country has to offer.

"His knee has healed," my best friend's voice echoes through my small room in an infuriatingly reasonable tone.

Maybe that’s why he was overlooked in the first place — he was injured when they picked the squad for the Olympics back in September. His father seems to be on every important committee in the country, which normally guarantees his son a place on the team. But now that I think of it, I vaguely recollect some kind of scandal two years ago. I've been away too long and the NHL seasons are too demanding for me to keep up with all the Terengian gossip, but I remember hearing that Hovenberg senior fell out of favor. I can't remember the details, though.

"Nico averaged three points in the last ten games," Elisabeth adds.

In ice hockey, individual players are graded on points — one point for a goal or one point if you deliver the pass that your teammate sinks. A three-point average is remarkable, even I have to admit that.

"Maybe he won’t be playing on the same line as you," I hear Benjamin add hopefully.

Elisabeth and I stay quiet. The coach will definitely try out different combinations to see what works best, but as Juri, Emil, and Matthias play on the same line for the Terenberg Capitals in Terengia’s national league, breaking up their dynamic would be stupid. They could play together in their sleep.

The other two left-wingers in the squad are really young, one playing in the U16 team and the other in the U18s. Both are good but still green.

"Maybe Anton will be your go-to," Benjamin says, referring to the U18 player. "Or you could forget about the left wing and focus on your right."

Elisabeth and I say nothing yet again. Gabriel is already lined up as my right wing. We’ve played together since we were kids and work well as a team now, but while the strategy that Benjamin is suggesting might work for youth teams, it’s no good at Olympic level.

We're screwed! If we don't gel as a team, we'll probably be eliminated in the group stage. The other teams would soon pick up that I’m only playing through my right wing and exploit it, destroying us completely.

"You never know, maybe it'll work out with Anton," I say more cheerfully than I feel.

***

It works out with Anton — not.

Not at all.

The boy has talent, without question, as does his even younger colleague, but the two kids aren’t only nervous, they’re so overawed by my reputation that I can’t get a peep out of them. I feel like yelling, Come on, guys! I'm only flesh and blood too. But it would only make them more nervous. I didn't score a single goal today in training. Granted, the goalies are in top form, but it’s like playing with one arm tied behind my back.

"Line change," the head coach barks out, his voice resounding across the ice. After ninety minutes on the ice, sweat is pouring from me as we head to the bench where Edvardsen is waiting. He has a reputation for ruling with an iron fist — a reputation he fully lives up to today. A couple of the guys raise their eyebrows at each other behind his back, and I have to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing out loud.

"Okay, let’s try Miller, Verieux, and Hovenberg ..."

That’s me, Gabriel, and Nico.

I zone out the rest of what the coach is saying. The time has clearly come for me and Hovenberg to try out together. I’m surprised the coach has taken this long to put us in the same line, to be honest, although he probably knows our history. Terengia is a small country, and even though what went down between Hovenberg and me happened a good quarter of a century ago, almost everyone knows why we became arch-enemies.

A rough jab in the ribs brings me back to the here and now. Gabriel grins wryly at me and nods to where the others are already lining up.

Here we go.

As I drive from the bench to where one of the assistant coaches is about to drop the puck, the thought of playing badly on purpose crosses my mind. But if I pretend that Hovenberg and I are unfit to play together, what's the alternative? Our youngsters might get over being starstruck by me, but then what? Can I trust them not to lose their nerve under the kind of pressure that the Olympic Games brings? Anyway, I don’t have it in me to give less than one hundred percent. Ice hockey has always been my great love, and I’d feel like a fraud if I played half-heartedly.

There’s no time to think now anyway. The moment the puck touches the ice, I've secured it to win the face-off for my team. We fly across the ice towards the goal.

One of the things that has always attracted me to ice hockey is the speed of the sport — it's exhilarating. Added to that is the bond you build with your teammates. That almost intuitive understanding between players as you sweep across the ice — there's something magical about it.

Gabriel and I make two quick passes to get around one of the opposing defenders, but then Gabriel is rammed against the boards in a legal check while the other defender speeds towards me.

"Here," Hovenberg calls from the left.

A quick glance in his direction shows he's clear. I flick the puck to him, swerve the defenseman, and then hear the familiar clack on my blade as the puck comes back to me. Hovenberg saw that I’d skated free and fed me the puck for a shot on goal. The goalie is off to the left so maybe, like the rest of us, he expected Hovenberg to try sinking the puck himself — he’s normally the kind of player to put himself before the team. Not anymore, I guess. Either he’s feeling generous or maybe he’s grown up.

I don't normally think this much during an entire ice hockey game, let alone right before I go for the slapshot. Now, shards of ice swirl up as my stick hits the puck and that unique sound tells me that I've hit it perfectly. The goalie desperately pushes his way across the ice to wedge himself between the puck and the goal, but he's too far out, he’s got no chance. The little black disc sails into the upper right corner without the slightest resistance, just like I hoped.

Cheers break out. Gabriel skates over and bearhugs me, then our two defensemen join in. Only Hovenberg is left standing apart from us, his face expressionless. He turns abruptly and drives back to the faceoff spot as if nothing happened.

I glance at the bench. Our head coach's bushy eyebrows are almost touching in astonishment.

This is going to be fun.