Winter Ball (6 page)

A sound tore from Richie’s gut, and he ripped the covers away, leaving them in the sunlight, Skip’s mouth full of cock. Skip pulled back, sucking the spit off as he went, and turned his head to the side, smiling shyly through what must have been a shiny glaze on his mouth. “Doesn’t hurt, does it?”

Richie’s eyes were enormous, and he shook his head no with a terrified reverence. “Feels great,” he rasped. “You’re gonna make me come—you sure you don’t want to—”

“Look at you,” Skip interrupted, because of course he wanted to, but he wanted to
do
for Richie this time. “Your cock is so pretty, Richie. It’s
wide
—and pink. It’s like a porn guy’s cock, all straight and veiny.” He grinned a little and licked up the vein on the back ridge like he was licking a line of ice cream off a cone.

Richie knotted his fingers in Skip’s hair, the sting urging Skip on. “You… you like my cock?” Richie asked breathlessly.

Skip sucked it into his throat again, going a teeny bit farther than last time, then came up for air. “I like your whole body,” he said, that shyness not leaving him alone. He ran happy fingers through the cinnamon trail that ran from Richie’s navel to the curly patch at his groin. Richie’s ass rose off the mattress like he couldn’t control it, and it stayed a few inches off the mattress for a moment while Skip played.

Then Skip pulled him in again, this time moving his fist. He didn’t go all the way down to the root, but since he was using his now free hand to fondle Richie’s balls, he didn’t reckon Richie would mind.

Richie’s hips slammed down and thrust up again, and Skip wrapped his fingers around the base of Richie’s cock—the better to stabilize it while Richie fucked his mouth.

Mouthfucked. Skull-dragged. Deepthroated.

Dirty words—
filthy
words—but Skip reveled in them. He was
doing
those things, and Richie was mumbling incoherently, begging him, urging him on, so he must have been doing them good.

Richie spread his legs, bent his knees, braced his feet against the mattress, and Skip found that he had access not just to Richie’s balls but also to…. Oooh… the crease between his thighs, the cleft between his cheeks and beyond.

Everyone knew queers did anal—wasn’t that what they were?
Queer.

The word
queer
made his dick even harder than
mouthfucked
.

He thrust his head down hard on Richie’s cock and slid his finger behind those big, baggy, furry balls. He barely brushed Richie’s taint, barely slid back behind it and teased the indentation between his cheeks, when Richie cried out.

“Augh! Skip! Can’t hold… gonna come. Gonna fuckin’
come
!”

Skip was ready.

Thick clots of it hit his teeth, his tongue, the back of his throat. He swallowed and sucked harder, letting Richie come straight down as he gulped. The bitterness didn’t make him gag, and Richie’s cock… oh, he could have sucked that down even farther, he was so in love with it.

Richie convulsed around him, knees coming up, arms wrapping around Skip’s head.

“Sore, Skipper,” he whispered, and Skip released him immediately, laying his head on Richie’s stomach as Richie’s extremities unraveled from the orgasm high.

Skip stared at Richie’s face in wonder, undulating his hips against the mattress.

“Here,” Richie said, nudging him up on all fours and scooting so his head was closer to Skipper’s hips. Richie was obviously replete, because he just reached a hand under Skip while Skip stayed, still and vulnerable, his ass sticking out, his chin hovering directly over Richie’s cock.

Richie caressed his backside slowly, making teasing little forays under Skip’s stomach, and then he began to talk. “Like, I know we got a game, right, and we’re going shopping afterward. But after the game, maybe… maybe I clean myself off real good and you… would you lick my asshole, Skip? The air, it felt real good, and I want you inside me… would that be okay?”

He punctuated the “okay” by wrapping his bony fist around Skipper’s erection. Skip buried his face in Richie’s thigh and thought about fucking Richie’s asshole with his cock.

“That would be awesome,” he whimpered, lips brushing the ginger hair at Richie’s groin.

Richie laughed, low and dirty, and stroked him, playing with the precome on his dripping head.

That’s all it took to make Skipper convulse and climax, collapsing facedown on the bed.

“Skip?” Richie whispered when Skip could hear something over his own heart.

“Yeah?”

Skip looked up and watched as Richie licked his fingers, the come running over them like ribbons. One finger at a time, he sucked Skip’s ejaculate down, leaving them clean.

“Nungh….”

“Yeah,” Richie said with satisfaction when he was done. He rested his damp hand in Skipper’s hair, and for a moment they locked eyes, that held gaze the only speaking thing in the quiet of the sunlit room.

SKIP WOULD
never remember moving after that, but they must have. He must have chivied Richie into the shower, because he cooked them both cheese eggs and toast, and he had a clear memory of Richie, hair wet around the collar of his nylon jersey, dropping eggs onto his clean shirt.

Skipper came forward, a damp paper towel in hand, and washed him off, and then Richie urged him into his own shower so they could hurry up and go lose the tournament game and go shopping.

They drove in Skip’s car, and neither of them said a word about explaining why they’d do that. Richie had spent a lot of nights on Skip’s couch—nobody would think anything of it.

But that didn’t mean Skip didn’t think about the world seeing them during the entire trip to the field. It must have been on Richie’s mind, because as they pulled into the parking lot of Tempo Park, he looked at Skip in all seriousness and turned down his favorite Milky Chance song.

“Don’t nobody need to know,” he said quietly.

Skip swallowed and tried not to think about holding Richie’s hand as they walked from the car, or of kissing him while swinging him around the field if they won. “I wouldn’t mind—” he started hopefully, and Richie shook his head.

“Won’t nobody play winter ball if they find out we’re queer,” he said matter-of-factly. “We both like playing. They don’t need to know.”

Skipper nodded, absurdly hurt. “No,” he said. But then, low, between the seats, he turned his hand over so the back rested on the cup holder, and he looked at Richie with meaning.

Richie swallowed, his mouth twisting a little.

And then he rested his palm against Skipper’s and laced their fingers together.

“We’ll know,” Richie whispered. “It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah.”

Fine.

HE WORRIED,
though, right up until he, Scoggins, and McAllister lined up on the pitch. As he and the team greeted, as he ran through the plays, as he assessed the other team during warm-up, he double-thought every time he patted someone’s ass or flank or clapped them on the shoulder. Had he done the same thing to Scoggins, just as often? Had he done it less? Would anyone see it differently? Would they know? Could they tell, just by watching Scoggins scowl restlessly at the opposing team, that just hours before, Skipper had been sucking his thick red cock into his mouth and loving it?

Of course
that
line of thought was going to give him a boner, so maybe he’d better leave
that
bullshit alone!

But as soon as they lined up, moving their feet restlessly in the damp grass to keep their muscles from chilling, the breath from their heated bodies smoking faintly in the cold morning air, everything he and Richie had done in the past forty-eight hours went away.

It was his team, the ball, and the opposition, and God help anyone who got in their way.

Skip had expected to lose that first game, get ousted from the tournament, and then have the rest of the day—and Richie—to himself.

He didn’t expect Scoggins to score the tie-breaking goal with a minute to spare, striking it so cleanly into the net that it cleaved the air between the goalie’s fingers as he launched himself in for the intercept.

Skip didn’t expect Scoggins and the team to be doing the victory dance, the cold forgotten, as McAllister lifted Scoggins up in the air on his shoulders and ran down the field.

He didn’t expect to feel an evil knot of jealousy down in his stomach as he watched Richie Scoggins take a ride on another man.

Skip tamped down that feeling with a big stick and called the team to the sidelines to plan.

“I thought we were gonna lose,” he said, and they all nodded at him soberly, because they had too. “How about we send someone to the store for more water and some dried fruit and shit, and we run some drills on the empty field down below this one. You all game?”

Scoggins grabbed Skip’s keys and Skip pulled out his wallet to fund, but Scoggins waved him off. “You always buy, Skip—how ’bout the rest of these deadbeats pitch in!” He turned away then, avoiding Skip’s eyes as he made the collection, but something in Skipper warmed.

The riding McAllister’s shoulders? That was just regular playing stuff. But the collecting for the kitty? That was Richie having Skip’s back.

That made playing
so
much easier the next time around. Skip pretty much forgot the entire queer thing and concentrated on playing.

And they won the
second
game too.

“Well shit,” Skip muttered this time as they reconvened. Everyone looked at him in shock, and he grimaced good-naturedly. “Halloween’s tomorrow, and I don’t have any decorations! I gotta go buy them tonight, and I guess I’ll put ’em up tomorrow after the game.”

The guys were unimpressed.

The smile creases in the corner of Singh’s eyes deepened as he squinted at Skipper in confusion. “We’re actually
winning
, and you’re mad because you can’t
decorate
?”

Skipper shook his head. Oh no. This was going to be a thing, wasn’t it?

Jefferson shook his head. “Man, you got just enough time. What is it, three? Yeah—you and Scoggins run and buy shit now, and you might have some time for setup before it gets too dark. You don’t want to have Halloween without stuff up, and candy and shit. Kids will
destroy
you if you’re not prepared.”

Skipper grinned at him. Jefferson still lived with his mother—mostly so he could support her—but even without that, he was such a good egg.

“
That’s
what I’m talking about. Okay, guys, don’t forget tomorrow is ‘fall back.’ Set your clocks before you go to bed or you’re gonna be
real
pissed off when you get in early and nobody’s here to practice.”

“Oh my God!” Galvan and Owens were practically in stereo. “God, thanks, Skip—way to have our backs!”

With that the team broke up, leaving Skip and Scoggins to haul ass up the hill, sweaty under their hooded sweatshirts but chilling quick in the October wind.

And then, right
then
, as they were hustling their asses to Skip’s car, was when Skip missed it. The wind was whipping at their faces, and they’d just won two games, and they were going to go do something
fun
with their weekend, and
damn
if Skip didn’t want to hold Richie’s hand.

He contented himself with what they would do later, after decorations, and dinner, and cookies, and TV, when it was him and Richie, breathing alone together in the dark.

“HEY, SKIP!”
Richie said playfully, pointing to the creepy dolls, artfully shattered and de-haired and staring into space with blank glass eyes through masks of fake blood. “Let’s get a bunch of those and hang them from your tree!”

Skip stared at the macabre decoration and grimaced. “That’s a shitload of money, Richie—I still gotta decorate for Thanksgiving, and I’ve got about
three
ornaments for Christmas. Maybe we—”

“Ooh! I got it!” Richie started bouncing up and down on his toes. “Okay—you get the tombstones and the strobe light and the ghost thing and shit. I’ll be right back. I’m going to the dollar store—it’s one store over, okay?”

Skip nodded, bemused, and Richie took off, his feet flapping on the ground like he was eleven instead of twenty-five. God, that sort of enthusiasm was contagious.

Skipper bought his decorations—and threw in a giant spiderweb and a Frankenstein mask for kicks—and when he was done, Richie was standing outside with a bag of cheap plastic Barbies, red paint, and rough jute twine.

“Isn’t it great!” he crowed. “It cost me about twenty bucks—that’s what
one
of those things cost in that specialty store. C’mon, I want to get this shit up before it’s dark. We need a trial run.”

“But I didn’t get candy!” Skip complained. “I need to have the candy, or all this decoration is gonna be moot, because the little bastards will
destroy
my yard!”

The year before, he’d had to relive his least favorite memories from growing up, and turn off all the lights and pretend not to be home.

“Well, you have to go get a pumpkin anyway. Drop me off home and run and get candy, and you’ll have it all ready for tomorrow night after the game. How’s that?”

Skip nodded, relieved. It was probably silly, a grown man making such a big deal out of this, but he hadn’t had a house with decorations and candy and a porch light and… and
normalcy
since before his parents’ divorce.

Suddenly this holiday loomed up, and he had a friend who would help him make it perfect, and not in a sad, lonely way either. Hanging the dolls from his little tree in the front yard was a stroke of genius—kids would love it (or hate it) and it would be…

Happy. He’d give the big honkin’ candy bars, and kids would walk away thinking that yeah, that guy in the little house with the brick bottom and the stucco was an all right guy.

It was something he hadn’t had as a kid, and he was starting to realize—like just this moment, watching Richie get all excited
like
a kid—how much memories like this meant to him.