by RJ Scott
His smile seemed forced. “We can go back home,” I offered to give him one last escape.
“I just…” He glanced at the door, then back at me. “I feel like I’m fronting or something. Like… this is me, but it’s not me. It’s all weird. I feel like I’m not being Scott, not the real Scott, but I have no clue who the real Scott is.”
“Let’s go back home,” I whispered sadly. He obviously wasn’t ready for this.
“No.” He straightened his shoulders as if going into battle. “You’ve done so much for me. The least I can do is take you to a dumbass party.”
“Don’t date me out of pity,” I snapped back, then blinked at my harshness.
He turned to face me, took my face in his cold, cold hands, and kissed me with such passion I felt light-headed.
“I’m proud to have you as my date. Let’s do this.”
I felt bouncy as we entered, my fingers biting into Scott’s arm as the music engulfed us. It wasn’t Brahms or Strauss that swallowed up our words; it was JAY-Z or Gucci Mane or some other popular rapper. We no sooner were inside than his friends swarmed around us. Massive, hulking guys crowded in to clap Scott on the back, shake his hand, or ruffle his hair. I clung to him tightly, smiling nervously when he introduced me as his date. Ryker and his boyfriend Jacob where there, as well as Ben, the handsome goalie. Tons of other players and their girlfriends, fans and boosters. People were actually talking to me in a kind manner. No one called me names or taunted me, shoved me into walls or lockers or toilets.
The night was a wild blur of music and eating and laughter. When they played a slow song, Scott led me to the dance floor—an area where the tables had been pushed to the walls—and took me into his arms in a classical waltzing stance. His hand on my hip, my right hand on his shoulder, my left in his right.
He placed his brow to mine. “I have no idea how to waltz,” he confessed as that slow, gorgeous song from A Star is Born played. Couples moved around us as red lights, like they have at hockey games, lit up, rotating slowly, throwing scarlet beams over the dancers.
“It’s easy,” I replied, and oddly enough, I led him. No one seemed to care if the tiny dude was leading the big dude, least of all Scott. He was smooth and picked up the simple box steps quickly, but his brow remained on my brow, his gaze locked with mine. It was the most wonderfully romantic moment of my life, and I tucked it away in a place where I could examine it later in when it was just me and my paints again.
“Let’s go home,” Scott whispered after the song wound down. I bounced along at his side, light and airy as a willow-o’-the-wisp, glowing and bound up in my first love affair. We walked back home after saying goodbye to his friends, hand in hand, my mouth running endlessly about the party, his friends, Mimi and Mom coming in three weeks, Winter Knight, my thesis, and the puffy little crab cakes at The Aviary, which had tasted nothing like crab.
“I think they were tuna,” I said as we stripped off coats and boots and scarves and mittens in my foyer. Well, I had scarves, boots, and mittens. Scott usually only wore his varsity jacket. The house was still. Probably Jack and Jerk, aka the Off Brothers, were off with dates. I hoped they stayed gone. I wished I had enough cash not to have roomies. Then it would be me and Scott here, in a big bedroom, and my studio would just be for work and not sleeping, eating, and bathing.
“Did you have the puff pastry?” I asked over my shoulder as we climbed to the attic. “I think they were tuna. I wonder why tuna and not crab? Maybe because tuna is cheaper. I bet so. They were good though,” I said, then pushed the door to my room open and glided inside, twirling around a bit, grinning at the flow of my silky red scarves as I did a fine pirouette. Scott stood just inside the door, his aura off. “Are you feeling okay? Did you eat that sushi that John brought? It looked hinky to me. Do you need some Pepto-Bismol or something?”
“Hayne, I think we need to talk.”
Oh God, here it comes…
Eleven
Scott
Fuck. What the hell did I say that for? Why didn’t I word it differently? I couldn’t believe how fast Hayne’s smile turned to fear.
Fear? Of me?
I stumbled until my back hit the wall, and waited for his fear to ease. After all, if there was distance between us, then he would know I wasn’t going to hurt him. Right?
All I wanted to do was explain how I felt, what was going on in my head, but the words that I’d imagined saying had vanished as soon as I saw that fear.
“Just say it,” Hayne said. His voice was low, calm, even accepting, like he knew what I was going to say already. How could he know when all the words I had in my head had vanished?
“What?” I asked lamely.
“Say the thing, about the thing,” he encouraged. “Get it over with so we can carry on with life, or at least so I can.”
“What?” Okay, so now I was confused. I thought maybe we were talking about different things.
Hayne assumed a stance of not caring. “You’re going to say tonight was a mistake, that someone like me wasn’t the right fit for you, that I’m too…” He waved his hands at the room or at the canvases or the ceiling. Hell, if I knew, but the gesture was tired, not angry. “So honestly I’m okay with it. Just tell me, and we can move on to getting you moved out.”
Wait? What? “You want me to leave?” I managed after a pause.
“Of course I want you to leave if you want to leave, and I’m not worried if you go.” He crossed his arms over his chest, tilted his chin, and looked every inch a man who didn’t care what I did. Only the softness in his eyes and the way his voice wasn’t entirely strong and certain led me to think he wasn’t really that happy at all.
“I don’t want to go,” I said, waiting for the sunshine to come back into his expression. That wasn’t exactly what happened. Instead the softness I’d seen was replaced by a sudden stony determination.
“Okay, so you’re happy to stay. You want to fuck around with me, but you want to keep it behind closed doors. You’re embarrassed by me. I get that, but you know what. I’ve decided I’m worth more than that, and if you want me in here, then you acknowledge me out there.”
This was all going horribly wrong. That wasn’t what I wanted to say at all, but somewhere in all of this, I’d lost track of everything.
“Dad didn’t want Luke to spend spring break with his friends,” I blurted out, and Hayne frowned at me.
“What?”
“I could see Luke was tired, you know. He was such a good skater, but Dad pushed him so hard, and Luke was exhausted. All he needed was a weekend away. He had so many decisions to make, about what he wanted from his life. Scouts were watching him. They told him he’d get drafted to the NHL. They promised him a life that Dad could only dream about. My dad nearly made it to the big leagues, or that is what he’ll make you believe. He has all these grand stories about how he nearly did this or nearly did that. If you listen to him, he’ll make you think he was the next big thing, but that people had it out for him. He was determined that Luke was going to achieve all of this in his place. God, Luke was…” I stopped and slid down the wall until I could draw my knees up and hug them close. I couldn’t even look at Hayne, who had gone very quiet.
“Luke was everything I wasn’t,” I summed up the situation succinctly. “He had this eye for what happened on the ice, and you know what? If he hadn’t had Dad hounding him, then maybe one day he could have made it to the big leagues. You know what I mean?” I glanced up, and Hayne nodded, then sat on the floor and crossed his legs.
“Your dad put a lot of pressure on him?”
That was a major understatement. How could I make Hayne see how Dad would push Luke until my brother was bleeding, until every one of his muscles screamed in pain?
“All Luke wanted was two days, that’s all, and I told Dad that two days off would make him a better player, that he was tired and just needed to refocus. That was my superpower. Dad never expected me to be a player like Luke. He wasn’t
as hard on me. I just got teased when I fell over. He didn’t yell at me, but he made Luke cry the way he focused everything on success. For the first time in his life he listened to me, he said yes, and Luke went with his friends, and he was so happy. I remember his expression. He hugged me and said thank you and that he loved me so much. We didn’t do that, you know. We didn’t ever say we loved each other, but that day, he told me, and I felt so good.”
I couldn’t carry on, bowed my head, and scrubbed at my face with one hand. There were still no tears, but the ball of emotion in my throat was choking me.
“That was the weekend that Luke died?” Hayne prompted gently.
“Uh-huh, I just hope that Luke…”
“What, Scott?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head. I couldn’t give voice to that final fear in my head.
“Tell me.”
“I don’t want to think of him… suffering.”
“I understand.”
Of course he did, watching his friend die of cancer had been so hard. Is it better to lose someone suddenly or watch them die slowly? I couldn’t imagine Hayne’s pain, but I knew that mine was all-consuming.
“I hope it was quiet, that he just sank beneath the water, all kinds of peaceful as you see in films. Just floating to the bottom, without panic. But then, I think, maybe he deliberately let himself go and didn’t fight at all.”
“You want to be sure that he didn’t mean to die?” Hayne finished for me.
Some control inside me snapped. My face was wet, my eyes stung. I was crying. After all this time, I was actually freaking crying. “Yes,” I said.
Hayne moved, came to sit next to me, leaned on my shoulder, and sighed heavily. “Seems to me he loved you so much. Otherwise he wouldn’t have said that to you.”
“What if it was a goodbye?”
“No, Scott, it sounded like a thank you to me. He was your big brother, and he would have loved you always.”
We sat in silence for a little longer, and I laced my fingers with his, letting the silent tears flow and leaning on Hayne for strength. I knew Hayne was right. We had been close Luke and I. He wouldn’t have left me deliberately.
It was Hayne who broke the silence, Hayne who gave me the perfect opportunity to make things right.
“So you don’t want to leave here, then?”
Hayne wasn’t asking me about feelings or the future. He needed me to tell him if I was staying or going, but that wasn’t what I meant to say to him tonight. I’d been in this attic space for weeks now, falling for Hayne more and more each day. That is what I wanted to make clear.
“God, no! I mean, as long as it’s okay for you, it’s just that I don’t want to leave the man I’m falling for,” I said.
Silence. Not an awkward silence, but enough time for Hayne to think about what his answer was going to be. Fear pooled in my stomach, but at least I had stopped the quiet crying now.
“Well, that’s good then, because I think I might already be falling for you, too.”
He moved then, crouched in front of me, our fingers still laced. “Let’s sleep,” he said.
Not fool around or kiss, just sleep. He knew exactly what I needed.
Curled around him, I didn’t sleep for a long time, but when I did, I dreamed, and I didn’t remember any nightmares chasing me in there.
The first I knew about the video was when Alice slapped me. The entire day had started off well but then grown steadily stranger. I’d met Ben and Jacob for coffee. We’d spent the entire session talking hockey, and I didn’t feel the pressure on my chest when we discussed our teams. It was a good start. It was after that when things started to get weird.
I heard a whispered “asshole” from behind, turned to see a group of girls staring right at me, and it wasn’t because they wanted to look at me at all; it seemed they had an agenda. I offered a small smile, since I get it. I fucked up the Eagles’ chances this year, and they were probably hockey fans. When all of them turned their back on me, I wasn’t worried. I mean, of course I was worried, no one likes to be hated, but I still had the taste of Hayne’s kisses on my lips, and I was feeling pretty damn happy.
I got shoved outside my lab class, hard, into a locker, but no one said anything to me, and I chalked it up to being an accident. Then the whispers started and the pointed fingers, and it was halfway through a Forensic Chemistry lecture that my phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it. Just like I did when it vibrated again.
And again.
Someone really wanted to talk to me, but I was too focused on the experiment to worry, and by the time I left class, the last out as usual, I’d forgotten the messages. I was meeting Hayne at the grief session tonight. He was coming straight from a meeting about the installation of Winter Knight, and when we’d spoken last, he was high on excitement. I was the final one to arrive at the meeting, and my gaze zeroed straight to where Hayne would normally sit, only he wasn’t there. At first I wasn’t worried. Maybe he was running late. Then my phone started up all over again, and fear gripped me. Had something happened to Hayne? I fumbled with my phone, missed calls from Ben, Jacob, Ryker, and those were just the main ones. Ten missed texts from unknown numbers as well. I opened them up, read three, the early ones, and they were filled with hate.
What?
“Asshole,” Alice’s hand connected with my face so hard it wrenched my neck, and I stumbled back, hitting the door frame. How could this tiny girl make me stumble so badly? Was she drunk?
“What the—?”
“Get the fuck out of here,” she screamed in my face, the stench of alcohol washing over me. She was drunk, her eyes wide, temper slashed across her expression. That explained it all. I needed help here, and it was the moment I looked for Monica that I met Hayne’s steady focused gaze.
“Hayne?” I asked, my head still ringing, my face scarlet, and an overwhelming fear that I’d fucked up somewhere along the way.
“We need to all sit down,” Monica encouraged, moving between me and Alice. “This is a peaceful session.”
Hayne ignored her, took a step toward me, held up his phone, and pressed play.
I didn’t get it at first. What was I watching? The motion of the phone was shitty, like the person holding the phone was drunk. It seemed to be footage of a party, and there was chanting, and I recognized Craig. Was this some horrific thing that Craig had done? People did know I had nothing to do with Hayne’s housemate, right? Just because we were both involved in sports, it didn’t mean we were the same.
Then it changed, and I made sense of the chants. Scott! Scott! Scott! The video focused on a man, completely off his head with drink, unable to focus, stumbling, grinning like a fucking idiot, the Scott in the video was holding something, no… someone… by their legs, upside down, and laughing so hard as they did it. I recognized the freshman I was holding, Danny I recalled, a quiet kid, the younger brother of one of the football players, gay, bright, happy. Memories of him saying he’d loved hockey flooded my head with sickening clarity.
“Light as a fucking fairy!” Video-Scott shouted, and there was Craig, slapping me on the back, one jock to another, as Danny fled when I let him go. Video-Scott bro-hugged Craig, a whole chest bump, and the beer he picked up sloshed everywhere.
Craig went up to the phone that was recording this, grinned evilly, and gave a thumbs-up. “One more fucking fairy down,” he shouted with glee.
The video ended then, the room silent.
“That wasn’t me,” I defended.
“It was clearly you,” Hayne said, and I realized he’d moved to stand next to me. “You were drunk, right?”
“I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d taken the tablets… and then I’d drunk so much… I remember the party, but I don’t even remember this… Hayne, I don’t.”
Hayne nodded as if he understood what I was saying, but he didn’t touch me or glance at me, simply took his chair for the session. I couldn’t breathe. I was sorry, humiliated, shocke
d, and stepped back out of the room, gripped my phone, and left before I fucked up anything else. I heard Monica call my name, but I didn’t stop.
I ran from the building, straight into Jacob, who gripped me.
“I’ve found him!” he called as I struggled free of Jacob’s hold. Then Ryker was there and finally Ben. I closed my eyes.
“What did I do?” I asked no one. “I don’t remember.”
They took me to the café. I didn’t recall how I got there, staring down at my feet, horrified at what I’d seen myself do. I went into the coffee shop first, but they didn’t follow me. The place was quiet, dark, but I saw a figure at the table. Danny. The same guy I’d lifted upside down.
“Sit,” he murmured, and I scrambled to obey, just because I deserved to do what I was told, and also everything he said to me, every goddamn word of it.
“Fuck, Danny,” I managed. “I don’t know what I did, why I did it, I swear to you that I’m not like that”
Danny lifted a single eyebrow and gestured to his phone. “Adam wants to kill you,” he began conversationally, as if telling me his brother wanted to end my life was just accepted.
“Of course he does.”
“It’s okay though. I stopped him. He won’t hurt you.”
Adam was a big guy, but I could defend myself if I needed to against him. Only I had the feeling I would just let him pummel me if he needed to. Just like I’d accepted Ben could do the same to me. I buried my head in my hands and groaned, then forced myself to look Danny in the eye as I apologized. He was different to Hayne, his hair lighter, his eyes blue, but all I could imagine was Hayne sitting opposite me now. I’d hurt Danny and then I’d beaten on Craig to get him to back off of Hayne. What was wrong with me? How could steroids give me such a rage that I’d thought it was okay to hurt another man?
