Open Net (Cayuga Cougars Book 2)

by V. L. Locey

  “Aug, older gay men…well, sometimes they have a thing about tender young gay boys.” I sniffed at that stupid comment. “What do you really know about him?”

  “I know that he’s kind, caring, a gentle lover, cooks like a restaurant chef, and is smart. I also know that who I fuck is not your concern.”

  Mario gave me a blank look that actually set me back on my heels for a moment.

  “Augie, don’t take that attitude with me, okay? I hear it every day from Langley, and frankly, you’re too old to pull off the sullen teen shit,” Mario snapped, then lowered his voice just a bit. “I’m not trying to make you be home by ten or telling you not to pierce your fucking nut sack. I’m trying to tell you that it’s not good to leap into something serious without playing the field a little.”

  “You’re constantly on me to find someone and stop sitting around at home. So now that I do meet someone, you don’t want me to meet this particular someone. Is it because he’s Hispanic?”

  “Are you really throwing that at me? The bisexual man who’s in a loving monogamous relationship with a black transgender woman?” He was incredulous. And now that he’d said it out loud, I knew how stupid the comment had been. “Yeah, I’m a racist. Yep. That’s me.”

  “Sorry, that was dumb.”

  “Yeah, it was. Stop talking out of your ass.” I felt really small, so I stared out the window. “And what I said was that you should date around, get to know who you are as a gay man. I didn’t want you to shack up with the first guy who sucked your dick. Did you ask him what his status is?”

  That last one brought me up short. If I told him that Sal was positive, Mario would probably rip Sal apart. That reveal would have to come later. “We had the talk,” I said. “He told me I’m the first person he’s been this serious about for a long, long time.” Mario snorted really rudely. I threw a dirty look at him. “Don’t make him out to be a liar. You don’t know him like I do. I think something serious might be starting between us.”

  The man threw his hands over his face and scrubbed so hard I began to wonder if he was trying to remove his nose. When he was done, he rolled his gaze to me. I wet my lips nervously.

  “Augie, you can’t love a person after five days,” he said patiently. “It takes time to build a loving relationship. I can see that you’re really hot for the man, and maybe he is a good guy who cares about you for more than just that cherry ass of yours, but I highly doubt he feels the same as you do. You need to slow down, kid.”

  “Why? Why should I slow down?”

  “Because this man is your first lover, and you’re wound up in some immature fantasy about love, marriage, two adopted kids and a golden retriever, after five freaking days!”

  The guys in front of us gave us weird looks between the high-backed seats. Heat raced up my neck to my cheeks. Great. Now they knew I was gay. I should just paint it on my forehead and be done with it. Man, sometimes Mario made me mad.

  “It was three kids and a cat,” I replied sarcastically, which made McGarrity whip the back of his head against his seat fourteen times. It was something to see, really. He shoved to his feet, his kilt slipping down to cover his thighs and knees. “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I need to put some distance between us, or my head is going to blow the hell up. You,” he pointed a finger at me, “just sit there and mull over how dumb you’re acting.”

  He stalked off, using the tops of the seats for balance. I rose to see where he sat, then fell back into my seat, my thoughts jangled. I reached up to tap Chris Mueller, a defenseman, on the shoulder. He looked back at me between the seats.

  “You got any extra ear buds I can borrow?”

  I sat back with Chris’s ear buds in and found a show on the Travel Channel site about the Mayan ruins of Tulum. And yeah, I mulled as we rode, but I never did come across one instance of me being dumb about Sal.

  Toronto is an awesome city. The people who live there and cheer the Comets rock…unless you’ve beaten their team like rented mules twice. Then they tend to throw glowers at you, as well as some pointed insults about your lineage, the size of your dick, and how your team should be wearing rainbow sweaters because they were so gay. The upset Toronto Comets backers were kind of right. We were the gayest team in the AHL. I spent lots of time thinking about why I was still hiding my sexuality amid such openly forthright players daily. There was no sensible answer why I was lingering in the closet.

  Returning to Cayuga with two shut-out wins, I shoved around Mario getting off the bus. He and I were going through another strange time. The time before it had been me being sulky about him not feeling the same way for me I had for him. Looking back on that crush, it had been stupid of me to go there. I had known Lila was the person Mario lived and breathed for. I guess since I was hiding my gay away, it had been safer to crush on a taken man. I’d gotten through that, and we’d returned to being best buds. But now it was this Sal thing that was making things itchy and uncomfortable, like a sweater knitted out of stinging nettles.

  “Hey, you want to hit Vespers tonight?” Mario asked as we waited outside the Rader for our bags.

  “Vespers? Did someone mention Vespers?” Victor enquired as he strolled up with Dan at his side.

  “What’s Vespers?” Mike Buttonwood asked as he walked up to join the little knot by the front of the charter bus.

  “It’s this amazing new gay club in Auburn,” Dan told the group, his hand resting casually in Vic’s. “We should all go, to celebrate coming home with two wins!”

  “Um, hold up, guys, gals, and Hobbits,” Victor said, and held up a long finger and pointed at Mike. “Why would we want to take Aunt Bea here to Vespers? Or Opie there?” he added quickly. Almost too quickly.

  Mario and Dan looked right at me. I wet my lips. Time seemed to slam into a brick wall.

  “I really wish you’d stop calling me that, Kalinski,” Buttonwood snapped, then jerked his toiletry bag from Archie, one of the equipment managers.

  “I’m sort of gay,” I blurted out.

  Mike stared at me as if I had sea urchins for ears. Victor, who I guess was crap at hiding his feelings, just gave me some odd sort of smirky-smile. Mario clapped me on the shoulder. It was the first sign of friendship from him in days. Not that we’d yelled or anything, but my roomie and I had pointedly not talked about anything personal aka Salvatore Castenada. Stiff would best describe how we’d been since the bus ride to Toronto.

  “Wow, I feel like the odd duck being straight,” Mike muttered, then offered me his hand. “If you decide to come out to the rest of the team, let me know. I’ll gladly help in whatever way I can to ensure that things run smoothly.”

  “How did you not know that Augie was gay?” Victor pondered aloud as me and Mike shook hands. “We all knew he was gay. Was it not obvious to the hets?” he asked his husband. Dan shrugged a shoulder, and I blushed hard. Who else had figured it out?

  “So, yeah, Augie here is gay, and I think he should experience a bit of the gay male lifestyle before he decides to shack up with one man,” Mario announced to the others.

  Mike was eying me strangely, like he was trying to figure out where this new and rare creature called “Homosexual Augie” had come from while still being all cool about it.

  “What one man are we talking about?” Victor asked. I felt my face heat up like a Coleman lantern.

  “Sal, the orderly who works with Heather. Tall, dark and hot as hell? Older dude? Was at the party drooling all over Augie the whole time we talked to him?” Dan waited for any sign that Victor remembered Sal. My cheeks were so hot now I could have thawed Manitoba in March with just my face.

  “Aug and Sal are boning each other? Huh, why did I not know this? I think I’m feeling a little hurt at being left out.”

  “By that he means he thinks a blowjob is in order to right the slight committed upon him—right, babe?” Dan gave us all a sly look.

  “Preceded by a good rimming,” Victor replied, then slung h
is bag onto his shoulder.

  “I can do that.” Dan winked, and I turned my burning face from the group.

  Was this what being out would be like for me? Would Sal and I be able to joke in public about such personal stuff, or was that just Dan and Vic? It would be kind of nice to find out, I decided.

  “So rimming is what, exactly?” Mike enquired. My ears were now roasting, I was so embarrassed. Maybe Sal and I were a little too shy to blab about tongue-to-asshole action standing beside a charter bus spewing out diesel fumes.

  “Oh, wait, I have a call coming in.” Victor dug into the front pocket of his dress slacks, pulled out his phone, put it to his ear, then handed it to Mike. “It’s Barney Fife—he wants to know what time he and Andy should show up to escort you to the pie baking competition at the Mayberry County Fair.”

  “Fuck off, Kalinski,” Mike muttered, but a smile played on his lips.

  “Okay, moving out of Mayberry,” Mario threw out, then tossed his arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go home and change and meet back here in an hour. Lila will be thrilled. She loves Vespers.”

  “I’ll grab my wife and we’ll meet you here!” Mike said cheerily, then jogged off to jump into his car.

  “He’s bringing the missus to Vespers?” Dan asked as he walked off with Victor.

  I spun on my heel to glower at Mario. The Italian-Scot gently removed his arm from my neck.

  “You’re pissed off,” Mario said matter-of-factly.

  Archie appeared again with Mario’s bag. We waited to start talking again after the equipment man lumbered off and the bus had pulled around to the side of the arena.

  “Yeah, I’m pissed off. I don’t want to go to some gay club to hit on dudes. I want to go home to Sal. Man, why is that so hard for you to grasp?” I shouted at Mario. He leveled that grown-up look at me, and I got even madder. You know the look. It’s a placating one that says, “As soon as you’re done having your little tantrum, we’ll try to have an adult conversation,” and it for sure fired me up.

  “I grasp it just fine, Augie. What you need to grasp,” he tapped the center of my chest with a big finger, “is that you need to cool your fucking jets with this man. If it’s love like you swear it is, it will hold up to you hitting a club for a few hours. What, is Sal the jealous type?”

  “That’s so not the point,” I snarled. Mario folded his arms over his white dress shirt and planted his booted feet wide. “The point is I don’t want to do this. I just want to go home and be with Sal.”

  “Augie…” he exhaled dramatically, then gave the now empty parking lot a long look. When his troubled eyes met mine, I saw compassion there and it weakened me a lot. “I’m just worried that you’re leaping into something you’re not ready for. There’s no such thing as love at first sight. No, do not argue with me,” he said when I opened my mouth to refute that point. “Lust at first sight, yes, but not love. You’ve had one male lover. One. And it’s to be expected that a kid with no previous romantic attention would throw himself at the first man who gives him the come-on. I get that, I really do.”

  “It’s not about all that shit,” I argued, but in the back of my mind a tiny seed of doubt took root. “I just feel things for him—strong things.”

  “Yeah, it is about those things, but I also get why you can’t see it. Just hang out with us for a couple hours tonight. Meet some other young gay men, talk to them…hell maybe even dance with them. And after a few hours, if you feel like going home to Sal, I’ll drive you there myself. Okay?” He held out his right hand. Knowing he would just stay on my back about this forever, I put my hand in his and we shook. “Good, now hop into that hot car of yours and go home to change. Lila and I will pick you up in an hour. And no, Sal can’t come along, so don’t ask.”

  He walked off, his purple, green and white kilt swinging around his legs with each stride. I threw my bag onto my shoulder, then whipped it into the trunk of my Mustang. I hoped something inside it broke.

  That was stupid. If my cologne broke it would make a mess on my dirty clothes.

  I slammed the trunk and sent Sal a text.

  Mario is a dick. Wants me 2 go 2 some club in Auburn. I do NOT want 2 go.

  Sal hit me right back.

  Is it a gay club?

  Yeah, I typed back.

  You should go.

  I stared at the screen on my phone for a long time. Was he trying to make me hook up with some other dude? Had he grown sick of me while I’d been in Toronto? The vibration of an incoming text jarred me out of my worry.

  Aug I’m not pushing you away, you know that.

  I frowned at his words and sent a reply.

  It kind of feels that way.

  Aug, stop. I’m stuck working late shift. Go with the team. Celebrate how kickass you are.

  My thumbs angrily battered out a reply.

  I’d rather celebrate with U.

  And I want to be with you, but here I am doing non-med supply inventory. Adulting sucks.

  I fired back.

  So do I.

  Yes you do, and quite well too. I’ll see you around 6 am. Have a Labatt’s for me =)

  He sent me a smiley face and I sent him four hearts. I hoped those emojis would be enough sweet stuff to carry us over until I was in his arms again.

  “Wow,” Mike and I said at the same time. Vespers was unlike anything I’d ever seen. If the folks in Martens Bay, Manitoba could see this, they’d faint dead away. The club was this nondescript brick building on the border of a residential and industrial part of Auburn. If you drove past it during the day, you’d think you were passing an abandoned factory or something. But at night, you’d never mistake it for a factory. First off, the line of brilliantly dressed people waiting to be granted admission would tip you off. As would the marquee over the doors that glowed VESPERS in sensual red neon that lit up half the street.

  We had been admitted quickly. I suspected it was because of Madame Lila. She led the way into the club like a true and wondrous matriarch. Her hair was down, her dress was long and slinky. It was a shade of rose that matched her eyeshadow. She moved with such grace you wanted to toss flower petals in front of her. The bouncers waved us in with just a glance at my ID. Most of the public could trip over AHL hockey players and not know who we were, so it wasn’t fame that got us to the front of the line. It had to be Lila.

  “I’ve never seen so many shirtless men in my life,” Yvonne Buttonwood shouted over the pulsating tones of “You Spin Me Round”, that old 80s song by Dead or Alive. “And I once got an eyeful of the Cougars dressing room after a game.”

  Mike pulled the tiny brunette in to his side. I kind of froze in place right inside the main doors. My eyes couldn’t take in enough information to appease my brain. The kind of drab exterior disappeared the moment you stepped inside. The nightclub grabbed you by the balls and led you inside to be devoured by a crush of hot men moving under rolling red, blue and purple lights on a huge dancefloor. I glanced up to see a second floor overlooking the dance area. Maybe that was the lounge?

  “Come on, we’re blocking the door,” Dan said.

  I shuffled along behind Arou, my gaze flying all over the club. Each man I passed looked at me as if I were a sexual being and not just a doofus hockey player from Manitoba. Some reached out to touch my arm, or tried to whisper something to me. I tried to be polite, but the music was too loud, too pulsing, too damn amazing to converse right.

  Within ten minutes I had a dozen drink tokens resting in my hand. We had yet to sit down, because the Buttonwoods were shaking it out on the dance floor and we didn’t want to leave them alone while we climbed to the lounge. I tapped Dan on the shoulder to get his attention, then leaned up to shout in his ear.

  “Why are all these guys buying me drinks?”

  He chuckled and patted my shoulder affectionately. “Because you’re the hottest thing in this club tonight.”

  “Not hardly,” I replied, then smiled at some tall guy with a big nose as he slid
another plastic chip into my hand. “You’re hotter than I am.”

  “I’m not at all, and even if that were the case…” He wiggled the finger his wedding band rested on. “Just enjoy the attention, man.”

  “Are you hitting on my old man?” Victor asked, appearing, as he did, out of nowhere. I nearly swallowed my tongue, then shook my head vigorously. “Good thing, Opie. I’d hate to have to beat the white off you, since you’re playing so well.”

  “I don’t get why they want me. They don’t even know me,” I shouted around Victor to Dan. “I could be a jerk.”

  “Augie, they want to get to know you better,” Dan yelled at me. A dark purple light crawled over him. “You have no idea how rare it is for a dude who oozes innocence like you do to come strolling into a club. You’ll be able to cover your walls with all the drink tokens before the night’s over.”

  “I’m so thrilled to be here on 80s night!” Lila said, then wiggled in between Dan and me. “August, I insist you dance with me.” She threaded her fingers into mine and pulled me onto the dance floor as Madonna’s “Vogue” began to play.

  “I don’t know how to dance,” I shouted. Damp male bodies bounced off me. It wasn’t totally unpleasant.

  “Just do what I do,” Lila said with a laugh.

  She struck a pose like a fashion model. I did the same. Two guys on either side of me got all kind of dramatic with their posing. They gently slid in between Lila and me. I anxiously looked around the cute dude with the bright blue hair. Lila waved at me, then continued doing vogue moves. The twinky blue-haired guy grabbed my hand. The other guy ran his fingers down my arm. I threw a glance around for my friends, but they were all out of my range of vision.

  “You look hot,” the guy with the sapphire hair shouted beside my ear. Sweat ran down my neck, so yeah, I was hot. The gyrating crush of hundreds of men made the air in the club thick with the smell of male, aftershave and sexuality. “Loosen up, pretty boy,” he instructed me, his lean body now flush to my hip. His bottom lip was pierced and his eyes were lined with kohl. He rubbed his dick against my hip bone. I tripped backward. Some big dude shoved me away from him when I stepped on his foot. I muttered an apology and spun in a circle, desperate to find a face that I recognized among the throng.