Point Shot 01 - Two Man Advantage (10 page)

“You’re something else, man, you know that? So you’re saying that I’m a disappointment to my folks? Is that what you’re saying? That me and Kurt are letdowns?” Dan snarled, stopping for long enough to throw that verbal spear at me then picking up with the back and forth.

“Whoa, okay?” I said, bringing my hands up in a “Stop right there” kind of gesture. “I didn’t say you
or
Kurt were an embarrassment, disappointment or letdown to your folks. I said that you and him aren’t what they envisioned when they were planning their little family. Don’t act as if you’re not up on how hard it had to have been for them when you came out to them. And then when Kurt was born… Dan, you know I’m only talking true here. They are amazing
because
of how they didn’t give two shits whether you’re gay or Kurt is special. That is something rare. You know what my mother did the day she found gay porn under my mattress when I was fourteen? She introduced a bottle of Yukon Jack to the back of my head. You want to feel the lump from the seventy-two stitches?” I asked, then reached up to run a finger through my hair.

I froze as soon as I realized how much had run out of my mouth. Dan sat down on the skinny mattress facing me, one leg bent in my direction. The look of suffering he wore glued my flapping lips tightly shut.

“Yah, let me feel it.” He reached for me. I was as tight as a banjo string. He brushed my hand away. His breath was warm and welcome on my cheek. His fingertips moved over the raised scar. My eyelids fluttered. My heart battered the inside of my ribs. “You know that she was a very bad woman, right?”

“Don’t go there, man.” I shoved at him. His arm went around the back of my neck. His cheek rubbed against mine, dark brown whiskers abrading against ginger. A weird strangled noise got caught in my throat. I didn’t recall throwing my arms around him or pulling him to the bed, but I must have. Maybe Dan had tugged me down? Whoever or whatever, we lay face to face in that cold basement, my nose resting against his jugular for a long time. When I could suck in a steady breath, Dan moved me onto my back. He rained kisses over my face and neck, whispered things that made me queasy and shaky. He finally turned off the light, pulled me to his side and positioned my head on his biceps.

“I’m sorry,” I said sometime later as the hot water pipes moaned in the ceiling.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.” He buried his nose in my hair then dropped a kiss on my scalp. “They were taken aback some when I told them I was gay, but it was good, you know? Accepting even if they didn’t understand it much. They knew it would be really hard. They’re they only people who know—I mean, aside from you, Vic.”

“I ain’t telling no one,” I vowed. He wiggled downward an inch, rooting at my face until I lifted my mouth to his. Sweet God and the baby Jesus, that kiss…it was unlike any other kiss I had ever shared, and let me point out that I have sucked face with a goodly number of people; male, female, and one or two that I wasn’t quite sure about. This kiss was beyond any kind of description but I guess I have to try. It moved me. It propelled me to want to hold on to Dan Arou forever. It spurred me to want to try to be a better man so that Dan would be proud of me instead of embarrassed. That gentle, molten caress of his lips over mine made me yearn for him to be a part of my life. That kiss made me desire things that I had never had the courage to desire before. Like respect, admiration, acceptance and understanding.

“You’ve got to stop doing this to me, Arou,” I whimpered when he left my mouth to place soft pecks on my neck, “You’ve got to stop making me expect sunshine and rainbows when there ain’t nothing but shitstorms in the forecast.”

Dan rose on one elbow, his blue eyes sultry and lazy. “You’re just afraid to step out into the sun,” he said, touching my bottom lip with his index finger. “Scared to get burned, but I get it. I get it, Vic. I’ve got some SPF eight thousand for this tender ivory skin of yours. I won’t let you get burned again, Vic. Not ever.”

I searched his eyes, looking for the lie. It was in there. Everyone carried the lie in their eyes. That one where they said one thing then did another. That one where they called you “son” one day then “loser” the next. I looked and looked until my eyes began to blur but I couldn’t find it.

“You little fucker, don’t make me do this.” I lunged upward, capturing his mouth, flipping him onto his back. He went willingly, far
too
willingly. I hovered over him, my hands fisted on either side of his head. “You’re not going to be happy until I say it, are you?”

“I want you to say it because you mean it, not because you’re afraid I’ll pull my love from you if you don’t.” He reached for me with both hands, leading my mouth to his.

Much, much later, as I lay awake with Dan spent and slumbering spooned against my back, I stared out at the inky nothingness, eyes drowsy, and tried to remember the sound of my mother’s voice when it hadn’t been slurred or angry. I couldn’t. For the life of me, I could
not
recall what I had ever done so fucking wrong. I mean, how could a kid of seven do something so bad that he deserved to be shamed and slapped around? Why send your kid to the ER on the eve of his fourteenth birthday? Seriously, what the fuck had I ever done beside clean up after her, use hockey, my only escape, to cover up the signs of abuse, and cook dinner on the nights when she wasn’t sober enough to?

“What did I do to deserve that shit, Mom?” I asked the creaking pipes.

The covers began to suffocate. Dan’s heat started to sear. I threw aside the blankets, my thoughts on getting some answers to the questions burning inside me. I stopped only long enough to fish my cell out of the front pocket of today’s worn jeans on the floor.

Up the stairs I went, barefoot and naked from the waist up. It was warmer on the ground floor. The house was sleeping. Soft snores were everywhere. I went into the kitchen. The light in the range hood was on. Over by the back door I found what it what I was looking for—a window to the night. The throw rug was thick under my soles. My eyes roamed the small backyard searching for something that might be an answer. There was nothing but a new inch of snow and a vibrantly white half-moon. My hand was moist as it clung to the phone. Cold air seeped around the old door lounging in the frame. I ordered my fingers to relax as I stared down at the phone in my hand. They did. One by one, until I could see the small buttons. She was right there under #1.

I don’t know why I had her as the number one. Number one what? Bitch? Yeah, maybe. It’s probably some Freudian mumbo-psycho-jumbo reason. Like despite how she abused me until that night when I shoved back at fifteen, I still wanted her to love me. I lowered my hand. My forehead met the icy pane of glass in the door. I was so cold, inside and out. I hadn’t been able to find the warmth I so craved until I had stumbled across Dan Arou.

I snorted. Brow nearly frozen to window pane, I had a good chuckle at the image of a toilet sitting atop the roof of Sacred Heart Hospital in
Scrubs
. “The Epiphany Toilet” Janitor had called it. I guess a man doesn’t have much control over where or when inspiration gives him a crosscheck to the boards. I peeled my forehead from the glass. She was still waiting for me to dial. I ran my tongue over my top teeth, then made that annoying smacking sound that went through Dan like a sharpened bayonet the moment he heard it. That thought made me smile. Thinking of my mother and the past made me hollow. I straightened the throw rug with my foot before heading back downstairs. Dan made an unpleasant growl of disapproval when I snuggled against his warm, naked body. If I didn’t freak out from the normalcy and love in this family before the birthday cake and ice cream were served I’d be fucking amazed.

“You’re cold,” Dan mumbled groggily. I hugged him closer. He purred like a happy bobcat.

“Not as cold as I used to be,” I assured him.

* * * * *

Waking up on a vacation or suspension or holiday break should be at a man’s leisure. It should be languid, you know? All serene, with little birds chirping at you like you’re Cinderella or Snow White or whichever one of those Disney Princesses sang with frigging birds. Or did they all sing with birds?

Anyway, a dude should awaken to find his rough-and-ready lover lying flat on his belly, tight ass in the air, tube of lube open and in hand, begging for a good lay. He should
not
wake up to Ray Stevens’ “Gitarzan” right in his ear. Dan and I both rocketed out of bed swearing like, well, irate hockey players.

Kurt stood beside the sleeper sofa, still in his pajamas, laughing like the damned monkey in the blaring song. I sat back down, pulled the sheet over my feet, then snarled at both the Arou boys. Dan stepped into his boxers. He fell to one knee when his big Hobbit foot got caught in the fly. Kurt grabbed his old ’80s boom-box and raced back upstairs.

“Jesus,” Dan groaned, rolling from his bruised knee to his pert ass, “that sucked.” I nodded in grumpy silence. Dan got up from the floor and stretched. The door upstairs had been left open. The smell of coffee and bacon frying slipped down the stairs. My mouth began to water but I wasn’t sure if it was the breakfast cooking or the sight of Dan stretching his muscles.

“You’re fucking sexy. I ever tell you that?” I asked. He winked as he bent down to touch his toes. His hair was a knotted mess. His jaw was covered with dark stubble. I desperately wanted to pull him back to bed and get lost in the sounds he would make while I made love to him.

“You need to stop looking at me like that,” Dan said, his voice dropping lower. I shook my head to send the lurid thoughts to the corners for a while. I know, I know. I just had the dude last night. Dan Arou is nicotine, heroin and booze in one hot, condensed package. I don’t think I’m signing up for rehab anytime soon, either.

“Sorry, man,” I said, then tossed the sheet aside and stood up. My cock sprang upward, making a noticeable tent in my jogging pants. Dan eyed my erection then wet his buggered-up top lip. “
You
need to stop looking at
me
like that,” I parroted. One corner of his bruised mouth twitched. A tingle ran through me. I turned from Dan’s obvious appreciation of my plumbing and shoved my foot into my right slipper. “So what’s on the agenda, aside from paybacks on your brother? A rousing game of Canadian polo?”

“What the fuck is Canadian polo?” Dan asked as I searched under the bed with my foot for my left slipper.

“You know, Canucks on saddled moose using hockey sticks as polo mallets.”

He hit me from behind, his burly shoulder catching me mid-spine. We tumbled onto the bed, slapping and kicking as we each tried to get a choke hold on the other. Something sick inside Dan’s mind made him poke me sharply in the ribs. The giggle that escaped me was so feminine I feared an ovary might blossom inside me. That girly moment cost me. I was soon hanging off the bed, my head being ground into the floor and Dan’s leg wound painfully around mine. I couldn’t reach back to pull the rugged capuchin off my back.

“You and that mouth,” Dan ground out. I might be pinned but I was still giving him the best tussle I could.

“That’s what you said…last night,” I huffed, then choked on the rug fuzz I had inhaled. Dan chuckled, bit my neck hard enough to make me wince, then released me. I continued the descent to the floor slowly, rolling onto my back as I slithered from the shaky bed.

“I hope to say it tonight too,” he tossed out, then jumped from the bed. I lay on the cold basement floor, panting and sweaty and smiling like a chick who had just stumbled across a
Sex and the City
marathon. Mrs. Arou shouted down the steps to tell us to stop roughhousing and come eat breakfast.

It was going to suck having to pull out tonight and head back to Cayuga.

Chapter Eleven

“
Henderson?
Are you fucking kidding me? They called up Henderson?”

Coach Lambert nodded. I paced around his small office, fully geared except for my skates. “You didn’t really think that you still had a chance of going back, did you? You’re fucking lucky they didn’t put you on waivers.”

I blinked at the thought. Waivers would be the worst. I’d rather be staked out in the sun, naked, atop a red ant colony while being forced to listen to Hannah Montana music than be put on waivers. Imagine standing out there with all your flaws dangling in the cold as each team in the NHL ignores your stupid ass. Christ.

“Well, yeah, I mean, maybe. I’m ten times the fucking center Henderson is!” I railed. Lambert sat down behind his desk, his head bobbing in agreement. He pulled a tie out of his desk drawer then sniffed it.

“You’re also ten times the aggravation and upheaval Henderson is,” Coach said, pulling out a small round mirror then propping it against his computer keyboard. “Your biggest problem is yourself, Kalinski—it always has been. You have a million-dollar set of legs and a ten-cent brain.”

“Nice. Rip off Herb Brooks to slam me. Fucking hell,” I sighed, leaning heavily against the door. “I’m really stuck here, aren’t I?”

Lambert pulled his tie into a haphazard knot then flattened his collar neatly. “Yeah, you’re really stuck here,” he said, his gaze leaving the mirror to settle on me. “You’re the biggest asshole I have ever had to coach. You’re also one of the most talented. It’s because of that talent that I’m saying this, so don’t think it has anything to do with my liking you. I like a case of jock itch better.”

“That’s touching, thanks.”

Coach stood up to pull on his jacket. Game time was in ten minutes. “Let’s cut to the chase, Kalinski. You are not going to be re-signed when your contract runs out unless you do some major changing before the end of the season. You have fucked yourself off of one of the most successful NHL teams in the past four years. Grow the fuck up. Dedicate yourself to something besides winning the dickhead of the year award. Show some fucking character for once.”

I stared at him. Lambert waited for me to nod or blink, grab my cup or say something. I just stared. That was probably the nicest thing he had ever said to me. He tossed up his hands.