by V. L. Locey
“We need to play tight. No turnovers. No errant passes. Stay on your man. Pull the penalty if you can. No embellishments but if they’re hooking, pinch the stick to your side and make it blatant. The refs are letting them play their game, we have to play their game as well.”
Helmets bobbed in agreement. The men skated back out, Mitch tapped his pipes with his stick, a sort of goalie thing that he’d picked up recently. Four taps, turn, four taps. One did not question goalie stuff, one just accepted it.
The faceoff following the timeout was crucial, and Dan Arou-Kalinski won the draw with ease, then took a shot at the goal that rang off the pipes, then flew into the netting. Big Mark Ply, a roaming grinder on the Cottonmouths didn’t like the sound of the puck hitting the pipes, maybe he had dog ears, and he crosschecked Dan in the ribs. There was no need for Dan to play it up to pull the penalty. Whistles blew. Ply was led to the penalty box while Dan wheezed for breath on the bench, his ribs hopefully only bruised and not cracked.
“Maybe he should learn to pay attention,” Bert Mason, the associate coach for the Cottonmouths shouted at our players. I threw a look to the glass that separated the teams to find him standing on the edge of his bench, screaming at our players. “Or does he simply close his eyes, moan in pleasure, and ignore a man behind him?”
I may have come a bit unglued then. The whiteboard that I’d just picked up to hand to Victor was flung to the spit-covered floor and I lunged at the glass. The large sheet of Plexiglas wobbled back and forth while we coaches tried to get our hands on each other. It was not pretty. It was shameful. Truly. But the men on the Cougars’ bench cheered me on and tapped their sticks on the boards when both Bert and I were directed to either sit down or be ejected from the game by an official.
“He insinuated—” I bellowed at one of the linesmen. Dewey tossed an arm around my neck, spun me away from the official, and patted my chest.
“You did good. Pull back a little now and let the men take over. They heard what was said.”
“Right, yes, of course. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let them get to me.”
The head coach merely smiled and stalked back to his end of the bench. I turned to look out on the ice, my head spinning from the rush of anger I’d just experienced.
“When you get mad, you get mental mad,” Vic chuckled and offered me his hand. I shook it, but felt like a fool over my outburst. “Thanks for backing my man like that.”
I nodded. The game got back underway with the Cougars on the power play. A vitally important one that netted us five shots on goal in a minute and four seconds. The team was fired up. Sander got us the tying goal with a beautiful deflection from a pass from Devon by the boards. The celebration in front of the home team’s net quieted the rowdy crowd.
“Nicely done. Nicely done! See what happens when you shoot the puck?” I said to the power play unit when they came over the boards. The next line rolled, Mike Buttonwood now back on the ice, his cheek stitched up neatly. For some indefinable reason, my attention lingered on Mike. I could feel the energy flowing off of him. He skated to each player on the ice, talked them up, pointed to his face. I wasn’t sure what he was saying, but the sentiment sank in. Every Cougar out there was mad determined.
The shot that won the game for us was a stupid wobbly pass from Dan that ended up on Mike’s stick. How fitting that our captain, the one who had bled for this team not ten minutes before, corralled the puck and came up with a beautiful backhand to forehand move that lost his defender. His shot sailed over the goalie’s blocker and into the net. Our bench went wild. Then it fell to us to defend until the final buzzer sounded. Somehow, we’d held them off. Signs saying that the Cougars were snake-bit fell to ice in defeat, much like the home team.
Players hustled over the boards. The coaches all hugged it out. The fans in Augusta were as stunned as the Cottonmouths were. The handshake line was tense. I opted out of shaking hands with Bert, and simply mumbled something nice about his team as we passed each other on our way to pose with the Richard F. Canning trophy for winning the eastern conference championship. Pictures were snapped of smiling, sweaty faces. The coaching staff let the men revel in the victory for the night. We celebrated in Dewey’s hotel room with coffee, doughnuts, and recently acquired game tapes of our next mountain to climb, the San Diego Scorpions.
Bed time came around two a.m. or so, with a short call home to yawn in Town’s ear as he congratulated us while fretting over the upcoming town meeting over the proposed LGBT youth center. When I dozed off on him for the second time, he told me to go to bed.
“I’ll listen to you worry when I get home, I promise,” I said, blew him a kiss, and then fell soundly asleep, still in my dress pants and plain white T-shirt. Five minutes later, someone was pounding on my door. I sat up and threw a pillow at the door, a foul stream of cussing just an inhalation away when my daughter called through the crack.
“Daddy, we’re all in the lobby waiting for you. Chaz’s plane leaves in two hours.”
“Shit,” I moaned aloud, squinting at the alarm clock. It read 7:16 AM. Stupid three hour international flight rules. Hopefully two hours would be enough. Damn it. “I’ll be down in ten minutes!”
“Okay, but hurry up,” Charity called.
I showered quickly, dressed even more rapidly, and then hustled down to the lobby. My ex was not impressed with my tardiness or my wrinkled T-shirt and jeans ensemble.
“My goodness, Lancaster, did you even use a comb?” Betty asked while pulling me outside to the waiting car. I nodded at James behind the wheel as I climbed into the back. A child on either side made the ride to the airport cramped.
“Any chance of a tea stop along the way?” I begged, but that idea was nixed since I’d made them late. I let my head drop to my daughter’s shoulder. She patted my rumpled hair tenderly.
“They’ll have tea in the terminal, Daddy,” Charity cooed. Charles was too busy being nervous to care if his sire was dying from caffeine and sugar withdrawal.
The rush through the Augusta Regional Airport was madness, sheer madness, but we finally got the boy to security. We all hugged and kissed and made the lad vow he’d text as soon as he landed at Edinburgh. Then he dashed off to be scanned. I meandered off to find tea. I located some in a lovely restaurant and gift shop concession area. Tea in hand, I found Betty and James standing with Charity at a vending machine.
“I have to use the men’s room. You okay?” James asked my ex. She sniffled and nodded.
“Daddy,” Charity said, then smiled up at me. She was the most beautiful young woman in the world. I patted her smooth cheek, sipped, sighed, and shook my head when she offered me a bite of her candy bar. “I was wondering if we could talk?”
“Sure, baby.” She led me outside so that we could see Charles fly off into the wild blue yonder. His mother had already stated no one left until her boy was in the clouds.
The sun was barely up, and the humidity index was already uncomfortable. We lingered in the shade behind one of several large white columns in the front of the airport.
“I was thinking about this for some time and Mama said she thought it would be a great opportunity as well…”
“Might as well just say it, child,” I sighed, knowing this tactic far too well. See, if Mama thought whatever she wanted was good then that would sway me, or so my girl thought. Actually her mother’s thoughts carried great weight with me, but that was neither here nor there.
“Okay, well…” She turned her face into the warm wind. It lifted her long, dark hair from her shoulders. “I was wondering if Townsend would be willing to let me intern for him and Mayor Ben during the summer.” Then she turned those amber eyes on me and I was pretty much done for. I said nothing, just sipped and let her ramble on with her reasons. “It would be a great opportunity for me to get first hand political experience and a half credit for one of my classes. I’d work for nothing.”
“And how do you plan to feed yourself and pay your rent if y
ou don’t get a paycheck?” I asked over the lid of my tea cup. She turned up the charm and gave me that sweet sort of smile that said we both knew I’d be paying for her upkeep while she got this wonderful experience. She did have the grace to glance down at her tiny sandals once, just to make it appear as if she were trying to look a little ashamed.
“I was hoping I could live with you,” she replied, toying with the flouncy hem of the bright yellow sundress she was wearing. “I don’t eat much, truly, and I’ll tidy up and cook dinners. Also, I promise I will not be bothersome if you and Town want to get wild and freaky.”
I nearly choked to death on my tea. “Trust me child, I will not be getting wild and freaky with my boyfriend while you’re in the same house.”
“Well, I wouldn’t care. I’ve heard Mom and James and—”
I lifted my hand to silence her. “Let’s not and say we did.” She beamed up at me, her smile so white and so disarming no man—gay or straight—would be able to not smile back. Which I did. “I’ll discuss it with Town when I get home.”
She squealed just a little, but hugged me a lot.
There were a few hundred fans waiting for us at the Rader, all in high spirits and many a little tipsy. Among the thong was Town, smiling proudly, his rump resting on the fender of his car as I made nice with the fans. It took me several minutes to get to him, when a cheer rose from the crowd. I glanced over my shoulder to see Sander holding the eastern conference trophy over his head. There was a parade into the rink where the trophy was then locked into a huge case in the main lobby.
“Looks pretty good,” Town said at my side. Our fingers were meshed together.
“Imagine how nice that big cup will look sitting beside it.”
I gave my man a sly little peek. He looked gobsmacked. “Did I just hear you brag?”
I pinched a little bit of air between my thumb and index finger. Then I kissed him. His brown eyes rounded. We got a rather nice round of applause.
“And did you just kiss me in front of all these people?” he asked, merriment dancing in his eyes.
“I did. Seems my genteel Southern ways are being debased by all the crass Yankee directness I’m exposed to on a daily basis.”
Town laughed, pulled me close, and whispered something scandalous about debasing me just a little bit more. I was all in for that and so we hightailed it home as soon as we could break free. We dove into my bed, naked and needy, and hungrily sucked each other off.
When the fires had been dampened a bit, I met Town on the back porch with two glasses of an earthy elderberry wine from our favorite winery. We cuddled on the glider, both of us just in shorts as the night was warm.
“It’s good to be home,” I sighed as I burrowed into his side, his arm settled around my shoulder. We pushed the glider back and forth in unison. “Tell me your worries about the youth center.”
He took a long pull from his glass. Dusk was creeping over the lake, the sky a vibrant peachy-pink behind some gray clouds that had blown in. Way off in the distance, thunder rolled ominously.
“Well, the first meeting was last night at the fire hall and the reception was not overwhelmingly positive,” he sighed, frowned, and then took another slug of wine. “Ben and I knew this would be an uphill battle, but we didn’t think it would be this damn steep right off.”
“What’s the biggest concern? I mean, it’s just a place for kids to hang out. Seems it would be better to have them supervised than roaming the streets busting up mailboxes or doing drugs.”
“You would think, but apparently some people are worried the trans kids are going to pee in the wrong bathroom, the gay kids are going to lure straight kids off the street and turn them gay, and the bi kids are going to be having sex with goats.”
“Goats?”
He rolled a lip. “I made that up, but the sentiment was the same. I just…” He exhaled loudly and emptied his glass. I rubbed his thigh. “They’re just kids who want a safe place to hang out and just be. Why the fuck is it so hard for some people to just let us be?”
“Fear and religion.” Town grunted then poured himself another few inches of broody purplish-black wine. “I know from whence I speak.”
“I know you do. Shit, I just…whatever. We’ll just have to start pushing the facts to counter all the misinformation out there. Maybe I can work up something for the paper for next week? If I had, like, four more arms and an army of clones.”
“Buried a bit?” I asked, the first chirrup of crickets now reaching my ears.
“Just a bit.” He took a long drink of wine.
I jumped at the opening he’d given me. “Funny thing…” Town glanced at me over his glass, one eyebrow canted upward. “My daughter was wondering if you’d like to take on a highly motivated and immensely professional intern for the summer.”
He blinked. Several times. “We can’t pay her much. The budget just doesn’t allow for another city worker at the moment.”
“She’s willing to do it for experience and a college credit.”
“Can she start tomorrow?” I chuckled. “No, I mean it. Stop giggling, I am beyond serious. I will drive down and get that child myself right now.”
“I’ll call her in the morning and tell her to pack her bags.”
“I love your daughter,” he sighed, and theatrically sagged into me.
“Course you realize that our alone time here is going to be zero with Charity around,” I reminded him.
“I have a house.”
Well now, that he did. And a rather nice one. “Then I guess you’ll have yourself an intern for the summer and a frequent overnight guest.”
“Mm, I love the sound of both of those things.”
Another rumble of thunder bounced off the lake, and we went inside before the rains came. Back to my bed, where we curled into each other as the skies heaved and hawed. We were safe and dry and contented in each other’s arms and sleep, when it came, was ushered in on the steady beat of a summer storm.
That peacefulness lasted until I woke up and called my daughter. Then all manner of hubbub happened, the least of which was new flight plans, a call to my ex-wife to fill her in, and call from my son from Scotland—he sounded slightly slurred, but he was legal to drink over there so all I could do was hope he didn’t puke on his shoes, and warn him away from fast women—and a boyfriend who was on his phone with a reporter, trying to set up an interview with the mayor to discuss the dwindling cinder and salt piles.
“Think Chaz has any room for us in his room in Inverness?” Town enquired, after his call was completed. “I could use a week away.”
I hugged him tightly and made a mental note to see about a vacation for us when the championship round was over. Right now though, the only travelling I was doing was to the west coast. Charity and I had ten minutes together at the airport before I had to catch my flight to Detroit, which was the nearest connection hub, and then grab a plane to San Diego International. The whole team had been crammed onto this flight, which was quite the step up from our usual means of transportation, even if we were in the cheap seats.
The guys were excited about the upcoming series and the chance of flying instead of riding. I read a bit on the flight, nothing too involved, just a little mystery with a predicable conclusion.
After touching down in San Diego, we were herded onto a charter bus and driven to our hotel. Game one was at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow, so we had a late skate that afternoon, followed by media time. Then we had the evening to ourselves. We spent it in the Gaslamp Quarter where we went to dinner at a trendy little bistro, then hit a club or two. Well, the young guys went clubbing, the older gents and the married men went back to the hotel. I spent the night with Vic, Dan, and Mike playing Cards Against Humanity until bedtime rolled around. I called home before hitting the sack. My daughter was set up in my house and was eating a late dinner with Town while they did her employment paperwork and he read over her résumé. Needless to say he was impressed, and so had Ben been. Both were ea
ger to put their new intern to work. Charity was giggly with excitement.
“Make sure you eat well,” I told her as I slid into bed, my back stiff from the flight and the sightseeing we’d done.
“Daddy, I’m not four. I’ve lived by myself on campus for two years now,” she recited from memory. “I do know how to feed myself.”
“I know. And I know how college kids eat.”
“Ugh, you’re so fatherly. Here, talk to Town while I go dig out my crayons and coloring book for the night’s entertainment.”
Good Lord, she was sassy at times. She got that from Betty.
“Hey handsome,” Town crooned in my ear. “I’ll make sure she eats well, don’t worry.”
“Thanks, honey.” I yawned and turned off the light, my head dropping onto a hard pillow. “I miss our beds,” I complained. “I miss you in our beds.”
“Yeah me too, but you’ll be back by Tuesday.” Yes, we would. Two games here back-to-back then home for games on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and then, if needed, back out here for a Tuesday and a Thursday night game. I yawned so widely my ears popped. “You sound whipped. Get some sleep. We’re going to grab a snack, and then I’m heading home.”
“You think she’d be mad if I asked you to stay in my room just to make sure she’s okay?” I slid my bare feet over the clean sheets a few times as I usually did at home.
“Yep.”
“Yeah, me too. Well, make sure she locks up after you leave.”
“Will do. Talk to you tomorrow. Pleasant dreams.”
“Night,” I murmured, my eyes slamming shut.
When I woke up my phone was lying on my pillow, dead as a doornail. Padding into the bathroom, I then plugged it in, used the facilities, and then made my way to the balcony after I brewed a halfway decent cup of tea in my room. After sliding the door open, I stepped outside in just a pair of light pajama bottoms and looked down at the bay. The view was breathtaking. But then again, so was Cayuga Lake in its own naturally beautiful way. And while the bay had many delights it did not have Townsend Harris. It did have a gorgeous baseball park that I could see from my balcony on the fifteenth floor. The hockey arena sat deeper in the city, about ten miles or so from the bay. It was a new barn, only a few years old, and held close to fourteen thousand people.
