Winter Ball (20 page)

Skip smiled at her, feeling like he’d just gotten a pat on the head for a macaroni necklace, and Cheryl Carpenter disappeared into the kitchen.

“I should have brought wine,” Skip said in an undertone.

“If it’s less than two hundred dollars a bottle, they use it in the gravy,” Clay said, and Skip shot him a killing look. “I’m serious!” Clay maintained, hands up. Then he cast a determined smile over Skip’s shoulder. “Hi, Dad!”

“Clay!” Skip moved so Clyde Carpenter could come embrace his son.

Yeah, a little awkward, and when the vegetable plates came out, Skip heeded Clay’s frantically waved hands and stayed the hell away from the dip. But Clay’s parents were friendly, and
very
liberal, and they were as supportive as possible of their slacking, video-game-playing son, even when he was overshadowed by his rather spectacular sister.

Skip sat on the cushioned stone of the fireplace apron in a room with a plush berber carpet and cream-colored walls that were pristine and flawlessly painted. He sipped really expensive wine and noshed on stuff he’d never heard of while listening to two people sincerely intertwine the adventures of their flawless perfect daughter with the more modest accomplishments of their son.

“Sabrina is doing really well at Stanford,” Clyde said as Skipper tried to forget he’d just eaten bean curd and sprouts. “She’s earned another grant, Clay. She was sorry she didn’t make it up, but they’ve taken the twins to help volunteer at a child cancer ward for Thanksgiving.”

“I miss them,” Clay said, and although his voice, too, rang with sincerity, Skip was pretty sure he detected some understandable relief.

“Of course—and you met with Austen, right?”

“Yeah, but Skip and I were sort of ahead of the group during golf. I didn’t get a chance to talk.”

Skip looked at Carpenter quizzically and he shrugged. “Austen’s my sister’s brother-in-law,” he said weakly.

Skip stared at him, because they’d
both
blown the guy off for a prick, and if Skip had known he was family, he probably would have made more of an effort.

Carpenter smiled innocently back and then said to his family, “I, uh, joined Skipper’s soccer team.” As a diversion, it worked perfectly.

“Clay!” his mother said delightedly. “You didn’t tell us that! Skipper—how’s he doing?”

“He’s doing great,” Skip said with enthusiasm.

“Well, he never was very fast,” Clay’s uncle Carter said with a pitying look. “He couldn’t make it in any of his high school teams.”

“Yeah, well, high school coaches don’t have any patience,” Skip said staunchly. “He sort of got thrown into the deep end, really. At first we just needed him to sub for the defense, and he did a real good job there—smart player, listens, thinks on the field. But after the first game, I got sick, and the next game Richie—uhm, er, our, uh, forward”—he charged on through the blush—“couldn’t play last week, and he played both games like a champ. Last week it was like he’d been there for years.”

“That’s wonderful, Clay!” his father said, beaming. “I always knew you could enjoy sports—sometimes it just needs to happen at the right time, you know?”

“So what made this the right time?” Uncle Carter said, narrowing his eyes.

Skip and Clay exchanged glances, and Clay shrugged and held out his hand. “You were doing fine,” he said, smiling.

“Well, mostly he was just fun to talk to, and Richie liked him, so it was great to have him on the team.”

“Is Richie cocaptain?” Carter asked, all curiosity. Uncle Carter had a wife, Candace, who was playing games with their children in the adjoining room, and Skip wished he’d wandered in there.

“Uh, no,” Skip said and then decided to go for broke. “Richie’s my boyfriend. His opinion’s sort of important.”

“Oh!” Carter said, laughing—but not unkindly. “You’re right. His opinion counts. Why isn’t he here today?”

“Uh.” Skip pulled at his collar. “Someone sort of broke into his family business last week and vandalized it. Did a really good job of it. He just texted me and said he barely finished cleanup. He’s crashing at his place, and tomorrow his family is having their Thanksgiving.”

“So you get two meals, then?”

Oh God. Shoot him now. “No, sir, only one.”

“Oh,” Carter said, and he sounded… compassionate. Like he understood.

“That is a shame,” Clay’s father added, and again, that compassionate smile.

Suddenly Skipper got it, about family being a curse and a blessing at the same time. Yeah, he’d probably have food issues too if he grew up in this house—but he could see why Carpenter would want to bring a friend here, especially one who had no family and needed people.

But that didn’t mean that after a Unitarian prayer (apparently Aunt Candace was a youth pastor because… well, because these people!), when the tofurkey and cauliflower/vegan cheese mash was passed around, Skipper didn’t eat more than his share of bread.

Carpenter met his eyes over a bite of tofurkey with pained gratitude, and Skipper nodded.

Oh yeah. They were so stopping for a burger and fries on the way home.

CARPENTER CRASHED
on his couch that night, after they polished off the burgers, the fries, and half of the cherry pie and ice cream Skipper had gone into Safeway for before they got home.

Yeah, part of it was because tofurkey was maybe not going into his top-ten lists of ways to stay healthy, no matter how much he wanted to go from a four-pack down to six.

The other part was that Skipper felt the bone-deep need for a carbohydrate pity party that he didn’t even want to reveal to Carpenter. But Carpenter knew. If nothing else, Carpenter had his own need for carbs.

“She’s brilliant,” Carpenter said through a mouthful of pie. “My sister, she’s brilliant. She always was. I’d be struggling with my algebra in the seventh grade and she’d be like, ‘Oh, Clay, it’s just this and then this and then this and then you pull an integer out your ear and shit out the answer!’ But she was always so
nice
about it. And I wanted to be a big hateful, envious turd, but how can you be when she’s such a sweetheart? I mean… she took her twins to a
cancer ward
on Thanksgiving so they knew how to be thankful. Even her husband—I mean, he
could
be a prick like Austen, but no. He’s like Austen’s polar opposite—warm, kind, real. He raises money for medical care for underprivileged youth. How do you… how do you compete with that?”

Skip gave him another dollop of vanilla. “You stay at a friend’s house when he’s sick and make sure he has someplace to go during what could be the loneliest holiday of the year,” he said. “And you make your
friend
remember what it’s like to be thankful on Thanksgiving. Good karma
done
, Carpenter. Check it off the list. Enjoy your pie.”

“I will, brother—but I’m going to cut you off. I know you, and you will
hate
yourself in the morning.”

Skip looked at the last half of the piece on his plate miserably and took a resolute bite. Nope. Didn’t help. “He… I mean, I texted him pictures of the house and stuff, and you know, had your family pose. Sent him that.”

“Nothing back?” Carpenter asked, his voice quiet.

Skip shook his head and put his palms to his eyes to stop the stupid burning. “I… maybe he changed his mind,” he said quietly, and then, last Sunday forgotten, he said what was really in his heart. “Maybe he decided he didn’t want to follow me to gay league after all.”

“Maybe he just needs an engraved invitation,” Carpenter said practically. “I mean, Skip, not everybody can just walk on a soccer field and take charge. Some of us need a little direction, you know?”

Skip stared at him.

“What?”

“It’s… it’s
rec league soccer
!” he flailed, like that explained everything. “I’m not… I mean… the name thing that everyone’s so rock solid about? That started as a
joke
. We recruited a coach, but he got a better offer from a comp league team, and there we were, our first game, and everybody’s going, ‘Who’s playing where? What do we do now?’ And I knew me, Richie, and McAlister were our best strikers and Menendez, Jimenez, Thomas, and Galvan were our best defenders, and Owens and Jefferson and Cooper could run for years, and Singh got goalie by default, you know? And I told Richie he was center and he turned around and saluted and said, ‘Aye-aye, Skipper!’ And that was it. Everybody just
called me this stupid name
! And I don’t mind the name, really—but… but it was like everybody forgot that I was just making it up as I went along!”

Skip was standing up by this time, gesticulating madly, his voice pitching with hurt.

And abruptly he sat down again, the chair creaking ominously beneath his ass.

“Like everyone assumes I know what to do just because my name is Skipper. But I need Richie to captain this fuckin’ ship, Clay. I….”

He closed his eyes. When he’d been a kid, his mom had been drunk in her room and school had been insufferable. His pants had been ripping in the ass, and he had no friends. He’d lie down in his room and close his eyes and plan what he’d do when he passed his next test and ran his next mile and graduated from this shitty high school and got a job that would pay a mortgage, and had a house and a pet and friends and a girlfriend (at the time) of his own. He imagined
past
the pain to a time when things didn’t hurt anymore, and he tried to do that now.

How would he captain this fuckin’ ship without Richie? What if Richie just dropped out of his life entirely, leaving Skipper gay and alone and starting his personal life from scratch?

And the pain didn’t go away.

He dropped his head into his arms and tried hard not to cry. Mostly he succeeded. Clay finished off Skip’s pie for him and waited until he stood up and proposed
Witch Hunter 4
. Skip was finally getting good at that one.

HE WENT
to bed around twelve, after checking his phone about six million times for a message. Finally, right before he dropped off to sleep, Richie texted.

Jesus, Skipper. It took me half an hour to read through the travelogue.

Skip stared at the text and narrowly avoided punching in “Where the fuck you been????”

I missed you today.

Yeah—I fell asleep and I just woke up now. Dad and Kay are prepping turkey and fighting—I can hear them through the walls.

Why are they fighting?

Cause Dad finally asked her if she knows where Paul and Rob are when she told the insurance people she didn’t. I think it’s occurred to both of them that her sons aren’t coming back, and that they took a fuckton of money with them.

That sucks.

I hate them
, Richie texted, and Skip could hear his voice, with the words echoing from his stomach. He hit Call.

“I don’t blame you,” he said when Richie answered.

“God, I needed to hear your voice,” Richie said, and he sounded broken and sad and tired.

“You fuckin’ think?” Skipper shot at him. “All goddamned day. Now tell me about the yard.”

He let Richie talk to him about forklift rentals and insurance assholes and cars that were half-buried in mud. The talk washed over him, Skip going “Uh-huh, yeah, okay” but so glad to be a part of it, so glad Richie needed him there, that he would have listened to it all night if he had to, just so they weren’t alone.

Richie rambled to a halt after about half an hour, though, then changed the subject to the family gathering the next day. Skip closed tired eyes as he talked about how awful it was going to be.

“I figure,” Richie said, “we can gauge who knew or helped the two of them get away with all of this by who shows up. When Kay’s whole family bails, there’s gonna be a fight that makes the one they’re having now look like fuzzy bunnies humping.”

“Oh my God,” Skip muttered. “Richie, I know this is… I mean, the cops aren’t
my
first line of defense either, but have you thought about… I mean, if the insurance company catches you—”

“I’m not going to fuckin’ jail for them,” Richie said disgustedly. “Not a damned one of them. Not even my dad. Nope, I’m being absolutely honest, man, above fucking board. We had to talk to the police to put a claim number on the insurance forms, and if one of those guys even thought to ask me if I knew who did it, I’d be singing like a… a… a….”

“Tofurkey?” Skip suggested, just to see if he’d laugh.

He did, his giggles echoing against his pillow as he huddled in his bed. Skip had been there a few times, and Richie lived more simply than even Skip. His bed consisted of a mattress on box springs on top of a basic rail frame, backed up in the corner of the bedroom by a window.

Skip remembered that it didn’t even have a comforter, just a couple of blankets and some basic white sheets.

No wonder Richie had been so excited about decorating Skip’s place for Thanksgiving. He felt like he was making his place…

His
place.

Like he was decorating his home.

Richie had wound completely down now, his voice slurred and loopy as he giggled over how Kay kept wailing, “They’re my babies and I love them!” loud enough to be heard through the garage.

“Richie?” Skip said, not wanting to drop a bomb on him right now but needing Richie to hear him. “Richie—I just want you to be home.”

“Yeah, Skip. Me too. I’ll come home Saturday, okay? Won’t leave again ’til… M….” And he fell asleep right in the middle of that sentence, leaving Skip thinking that Richie didn’t need to move out into his own apartment to have another place to live.

THE SCORPIONS
had managed to secure a practice field from three to five the next day, meaning they were starting out in the late afternoon but it would be near full dark by the time they were done.

Skip got there early, of course, with a big cooler full of water and sports drinks and even some dried fruit since it was such a long practice. He had everybody but McAlister there by the time four o’clock rolled around. There’d been another storm the week before, and McAlister worked for a tree service, so it was his busy time—Skip didn’t think too much about it.