by R J Scott
Then I saw the tree. It was lopsided and had a hole in the middle. Someone had stuffed a raggedy Santa doll into the gap. The lights weren’t evenly strung, the ornaments were all handmade by kids and grandkids, and the angel had a bent wing and a crooked halo. The presents under it weren’t stacked for eye appeal, and included mine. It was a disreputable tree and would not even have been granted admittance to any of the Lockhart homes. I loved it instantly and ran to it to scope out every ornament up close.
“No kidding.” I grinned and plucked a paper nutcracker from one of the boughs. A young Layton had colored, cut out, and glued the nutcracker onto an empty toilet paper roll. His name was scribbled on the big, bent hat. I held the ornament up. Layton looked pinched. “Okay, seriously, this is adorable! How old were you when you made this?”
“I don’t know. Six or seven, maybe,” Layton said, his huge family circling like sharks. Mrs. Foxx settled in beside Layton protectively. I got where they were coming from. If what I assumed had happened to Layton had really happened, I’d be overprotective too.
I turned the ornament around slowly, admiring it. “I remember making something like this… it was a reindeer, though, in first grade. We all made one for our parents. I took all kinds of care with it on the trip home, making sure it never got bent on the flight or in the limo. No, it was second grade. Yeah, that was the year Cole and Karrie Anne went to Rome for the holidays. Yep. I ended up giving it to Apollo’s folks. They put it on their tree next to something Apollo had made. I don’t think it ever made it to the tree in the grand foyer at home. Huh. Guess it wasn’t good enough.”
Layton reached out to lay a hand on my forearm. I started a bit, then flushed. I jammed the nutcracker back in place. When I worked up the courage to look at him, his gaze held all kinds of things.
“It was good enough, Ad.” He gave my arm a light squeeze.
“Brunch is ready,” Mrs. Foxx said, her gray eyes a little bit warmer,.
Brunch was a big bowl of scrambled eggs, tiny little breakfast sausages, and a pile of toast. Jelly was in jars. Butter wasn’t butter but margarine in tubs, and the kids sat at the table with the adults and talked non-stop. The meal was sloppy, loud, and not at all refined. I fucking loved it. One of Layton’s brothers asked me about hockey. Another asked me about my childhood. His sister enquired about my past relationships. I was about to reply to her when Layton steamrolled me.
“This is going to stop now,” he barked, then slammed his fork on the table. The kids fell into silence, as did the adults. I sat back all kinds of shocked. “He’s here as my guest. He’s not here as a suspect to a crime. He’s the man I’m dating.”
“Son, we’re just concerned about you,” his mom said.
Layton threw his mom a dark look, then pushed to his feet. “I need some air.” He stalked out of the room.
I sat there with my mouth open and a breakfast link on my fork, staring at the empty seat beside me. Wow. What was the deal with Layton and his mom? My lover had a shitload of secrets.
“I— Ah… I’ll go talk to him,” I said as the front door slammed.
I shoved the sausage into my mouth, left the packed dining room, grabbed my coat and a sprig of plastic mistletoe that had been tacked to a doorway, and jogged out into the bitter cold. A tiny snowflake drifted downward, then another. I spied Layton heading west, his gait rapid. I ran after him. He tossed me a glower when I stepped up beside him. He looked cold in his thin sweater. I draped my coat around his shoulders.
“You’ll get cold,” he said.
“I’m a hockey player. Cold won’t kill me.”
We pounded the pavement in silence for a few minutes until we came to the end of the block. I danced around him, stepping in front of him and blocking his path. Snow was piled up on either side of the walk and I knew he wouldn’t step out into the foot-high banks. Not with those shiny loafers he had on. I dangled the mistletoe over his dark head. He gave the green bunch a glare that should have incinerated it. I wanted to ask about the looks he’d exchanged with his mom, but he needed to feel safe enough with me to tell me. Guessed we weren’t there yet, but we would be.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m claiming a Christmas kiss. It’s tradition.” I wiggled the plastic clump. A cold wind blew down the street. Fuck, it was cold.
“Adler, stop being an ass.” He glanced around me. “Now get out of the way. I need to process my shit.”
“Uh, sorry, no. Not moving. I don’t think you can make me, so just give me my kiss and we’ll go back home. Where it’s warm.”
“You’re a hockey player. You don’t get cold.” He snuggled into my coat, the sexy prick.
“I was thinking of you,” I countered. A flake landed on his head. It was sparkly and perfect for a second before it melted into his thick hair.
“Uh-huh. Alder, this is stupid. You’re not out. We’re standing on the corner of Wisteria and Crocus Lanes at noon on Christmas Eve day. Everyone is home and probably peeking out their windows at us.” He waved a hand at the houses surrounding us. “There’s no way you’re kissing me here on the corner, so stop with the asinine holiday shit and move so I can walk off some of this—”
I kissed him. Right there on the corner of Wisteria and Crocus Lanes in Alton Heights, Michigan. And I mean I kissed him. My arm went around his waist, I jerked him into me, and I kissed him so hard and so long there could be no doubt in the mind of any Michigander spying on us that we were a couple.
When the kiss ended, he stumbled back a step, his eyes hot and confused and his lips wet and pink from the pressure of my mouth on his.
“Guess that means I’m coming out now,” I told him, my hand with the mistletoe dropping to my side. I wasn’t cold anymore. Amazing what kissing the man you loved could do for your internal thermostat.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked breathlessly, his words steaming in front of his face.
I bobbed my head. “You need me to kiss you again to prove it?” I hoisted the mistletoe back up in the air.
He shook his head. Then he nodded. So I kissed him again. And I kept kissing him, under that plastic ball of green leaves and white berries, every time I could for the entire time we were in Michigan. Mrs. Foxx gave me the mistletoe clump when we left, and a hug, so that I could keep kissing her son when we were back in Harrisburg. I didn’t need mistletoe to do that—I planned on kissing Layton every day for the rest of my life if he’d have me.
Thirteen
Layton
I was expecting Adler, so didn’t hesitate in calling for the person knocking on my door to come in. Since coming back from Michigan, he’d just been there all the time. Staying over with me, kissing me, loving on me, and bit by bit he was cracking the shell around my heart. We hadn’t made it super obvious that we were a couple here at the rink, but if I turned a corner at the arena and he was there, then you can bet your bottom dollar there was kissing.
I smiled up as the door opened, but it wasn’t Adler standing there with that damn mistletoe in his hand. Nope, it was Mr. 69 himself, Dieter Lehmann, left wing and all-around sex god if I recalled our first meeting.
“Do you have a few minutes?” he asked, edging into the room like there was a dragon inside and he didn’t want to be spotted. This wasn’t the Dieter I was used to, not the brash skater who had just turned twenty-five and who had to make a deliberate effort not to say something that was politically incorrect. He’d been the easiest to talk to about the implications of his words for the team, and for himself, but he also seemed to forget them as soon as he walked out the door. I wasn’t entirely sure he was listening to me; he often looked like his mind was elsewhere. He was a very good hockey player, or so I’d been told, someone who had worked away in the lower levels of the hockey leagues, the AHL, in the team that fed new talent to the Railers. He skated on what I now knew was the fourth line, and he was up with the Railers covering injury.
“Of course,” I said.
He stepped in
fully and shut the door behind him. “Shit,” was all he said, not moving from the door, still gripping the handle, his knuckles white. This wasn’t good—this was distinctly bad, and I had a horrible feeling that my already shitty day was going to get worse.
“Sit down,” I said, and gestured to the chair, into which he collapsed so hard that it squeaked in protest. “Are you okay?” I asked, even though what I really wanted to say was, “What have you done now?”
“I think things are… not good.” He searched for those final two words so hard that his face creased with a deep frown. Surreptitiously, I pulled my notebook in front of me and picked up the Montblanc pen that I had taken to using now, much to Adler’s glee.
“How are things not good?”
“She’s only doing it because stupid Ten and stupid Coach decided to spread their big gay love.”
My back stiffened as Dieter held up his hands when he spoke. He was agitated; shock had clearly given way to anger of sorts. Whatever. No man got to sit in my office and act like he was entitled to debate Ten and Jared’s choices.
“Shit,” he snapped, and scrubbed his eyes. He had very nice eyes; I’d noticed that in our last meeting, green and amber that at the moment were dull with misery. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded,” he said, and shuffled in the chair. Dieter certainly wasn’t the biggest on the team, but the chair was under a lot of strain.
The door opened and Adler stepped in without knocking and with a cheerful “Hey, sexy”. I looked from him to Dieter and back again.
Dieter’s eyes widened.
“I’ll be out in a bit,” I explained to Adler, who backed right out looking apologetic. Only when the door closed did I look back at Dieter, who was staring right at me.
“You and…”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
That was that—someone on the team other than me and Adler knew about us. Baby steps, I guessed. “So tell me what happened.”
I think the interruption was a good thing, as Dieter seemed calmer.
“My ex has a video, and stills, and she thinks I’ll pay her off.”
“She’s blackmailing you.”
Dieter shook his head. “Yeah, and I’m worried the photos will get out and,” he paused again, clearly searching for the right words, “cause embarrassment,” he finished.
“Okay.” I swallowed back the anxiety. This was my job and I could do it well. I scribbled some notes on my pad. “So what are these photos? Are we talking you covered up, in bed, or more explicit?”
He wrinkled his nose and looked at anything but me. “It’s me in bed, yeah. Well, on the bed actually, to start with at least. Then there’s video, of me off the bed, and um… yeah.”
“There’s more?”
“Well, she’s taking the video of me with the third we had in bed with us. A guy.”
I glanced up from my notes, a hundred questions in my head, not sure how to frame what I thought about Dieter at that moment.
He muttered something under his breath. “I was with the guy, okay, and I can see this undermines what you’re doing here. I get that, and I’m sorry.”
Oh. That was interesting.
“You identify as bi, then,” I said, and made a note.
“I identify as liking sex, all kinds of sex, but I’m not an addict.” He added the last bit with absolute conviction. “So she can’t accuse me of that, because she was part of it as well.”
“We can handle this if it gets out,” I reassured him. How I was going to handle it, I didn’t know, but the challenge was there and I felt calm and centered. “I’ll need to have all the information you can get. Okay?”
Dieter nodded. “Thanks,” he said, and stood. “I’ll get everything I can.”
“Don’t pay her,” I warned.
“I won’t unless I have to,” he said.
That wasn’t completely what I wanted to hear, but it was a start. Last thing I needed was to have to battle blackmail as well as a threesome on camera.
He was still standing there.
“Is there anything else?”
He slumped back into the chair and this time he buried his head in his hands. What could be worse than a sex tape?
“I am an addict,” he said through his hands.
“A sex addict,” I said, summarizing where I thought we were in this conversation. I could deal with this; there were things we could do.
“No,” he lifted his face and I was startled to see his eyes bright like he was trying not to cry. “Pain medication.”
I didn’t know what to say, and I knew I was sitting there like an idiot. I really needed to get a grip.
“You want to tell me?”
“No,” Dieter said, with complete honesty. “But I guess I have to. No one here knows, it’s not public record, I’m clean now, working hard to stay that way, but you need to know what else could come out.”
“This girlfriend…”
“Marianne.”
“Marianne knows about the meds.”
He looked at me and he seemed so lost. “I don’t know.”
This I could handle. “Okay, anything that happens, we can deal with it.”
“Really?” He brightened, like I’d just handed him a million dollars.
“You need to talk to me though, keep telling me how you’re doing.”
“Okay,” he stood up and extended his hand and we shook again. “Thank you.”
I locked up my office after Dieter left, finding Adler in our usual meeting spot. We kissed quickly, then I took his hand and faced him head on.
“Management has offered me a position here full-time. I’d like to take it.”
I wanted to add a question, like, “What do you think of that?” Even ask for his approval, like, “Is that okay?” I didn’t need to when his lips curved in a smile that made his blue eyes spark.
“That’s good news,” he said. Then he kissed me, pulling me back into the shadows of the corridor. Anyone could walk past, but I didn’t care. I had purpose here, and I had Adler, and I felt good.
Like nothing from my past could touch me.
Stan’s New Year party was like nothing I’d seen before. Apparently New Year is a big thing in Russia, and he opened up his large house to everyone on the team. I wasn’t the best person at parties, never the life and soul, and I generally ended up in the kitchen. Let’s be honest, if it had just been me then I would have made excuses.
But I was with Adler, who wanted to dance and mingle and joke, and through it all he was dragging me around. The party was team only, and although some of the team looked at our joined hands, no one actually called us out on it.
Until Mikhail arrived.
He was Stan’s friend from their KHL time in Russia, and a Flyer, which apparently meant he was open for all catcalls and derogatory sarcasm. None of which appeared to faze him, because he gave as good as he got. He was a tall guy—way taller than a lot of people in the room; more a basketball player if I’d been asked to guess—which was where my problems started.
He was loud as well; had this booming laugh that I found just a bit too much. He was in the kitchen when I managed to get a break from the chaos in the main room, and at first I thought about turning around and leaving.
“Hello,” he said, in less accented Russian than I’d come to expect from Stan.
Stan tried really hard with his English, but he’d picked up some pretty awful phrases that he used at any given moment. I tried to explain to him when things he used in a sentence weren’t completely appropriate, but he just grinned at me, the big idiot.
“Hey,” I said, and opened the huge fridge in search of a drink. I didn’t really drink a lot of alcohol—always too much of a control freak, I guess. Which explained why I’d fallen asleep after three sips of eggnog on Christmas day.
I shut the door, jumping a mile when Mikhail was right the fuck there, smiling at me.
“Jesus,” I cursed, and stumbled back and away.
H
e held up a hand in apology. “My bad.”
“It’s fine,” I said.
“When you come and sort Flyers?” he asked.
“Sort ?”
“I think everyone on Railers is gay,” he announced, and I bristled a little. Not everyone was gay—just me, Adler and Ten, and Jared and Dieter were bi. “We have gay man on team. He is scared,” Mikhail added. “He like friend.”
He stepped forward even as I moved back, until I couldn’t move any further, my ass against a cupboard. With hindsight I was sure I would realize that Mikhail wasn’t trying to intimidate me, or loom over me, or any one of a million triggers that were causing the tightness in my chest. But right now, my back was against the wall, I was trapped in the corner, and I really didn’t fucking like it one bit.
“I’ll give you my number,” I said, and sidestepped a little, gauging how I could get past the big Russian and through the door to the party beyond. He crossed his arms over his chest and just stood there.
Okay, was this some Russian thing, standing still and looking all brooding and sulky?
“Excuse me,” I said, my mouth dry. This was stupid. “I need to find Adler.”
“Lockhart? I like him,” Mikhail said. “Fast on ice. I feel bad I knocked him into glass at our last game, but feel good I caught him.” He grinned like he’d made a joke, and he probably had, but his delivery was a little stilted.
“Uh-huh,” I said, and straightened as the door opened and Adler came strolling in like he had all the time in the world. He stopped dead by the door and looked at the two of us—the tall, hulking Russian and his much smaller boyfriend who probably looked like a rabbit in a trap.
