Across the Pond

by R. J. Scott

  “… this paintball place tomorrow. Part of this public relations thing the team has cooked up. Lads looking like lads and all that,” Ryker was saying, his jab to my side bringing me back to our visit. “This Sebastian guy, he’s got some pretty cool ideas that he’s trying to get implemented. Shit like following Penn around and snapping pics of him being broody and strumming a guitar.”

  “The girls will love that,” Henry said, easing his leg up onto a pillow. It was a nasty-looking thing, scars everywhere, bright red ones that would take years to fade. They’d not yet unwrapped his eye after the surgery to reattach his retina. There was no guarantee if or when his vision in that eye might return.

  “Yeah, they will. We’re doing a paintball thing. Then there’s some sort of lake setup he wants to do with Alex here.” Ryker jerked a thumb at me. “Because he’s the face of the Raptors,” he said, spreading his hands over his head to make an imaginary rainbow. I lobbed a magazine at his fat head.

  “Alex is cute.” We both stopped chucking that Nat Geo back and forth. Henry’s face, what we could see of it, turned a thousand shades of red. “Pretend I didn’t say that. The pain meds for this eye are making me gay.”

  “Is this a new kind of pill that the world has never heard of before?” Ryker asked, giving Henry a pat on the foot. “It’s cool, Big H. Alex is cute if you hold a picture of me up in front of him.”

  I flipped Ry off and gave Henry a quick smile. He waved at me, his blush easing a bit as he slowly drifted off to sleep. Ryker and I winked at each other, got to our feet, tossed a sheet over Henry, and snuck out of his room.

  “So, Henry has a type, does he?” Ryker asked as we made our way to the front doors. The security guard gave us a look, but he never said a word. Typical. Bet if I’d come in alone, he would have been all over me.

  “Just the meds talking,” I countered, stumbling over my own feet as Ryker shoved me out into the warm Arizona sun. “Stop it, man. I just wanted him to know I see his shit.”

  “Leave it be, okay? Coach is already riding you hard. You really want to get into something with some asshole rent-a-cop?” Ryker dropped an arm around my neck. “You can’t fix stupid. Come on, let’s go grab a bite. You got this beach thing to go be all supermodel for.”

  “Fuck you,” I barked, giving him a playful push. We jostled back and forth until we were both in my Jeep. The wind whipped hard around the windshield. “You okay with all this?”

  Ryker snapped his belt, his curls dancing around his face. “With all what? You being the face of the team? Totally, but I just think you should maybe tell Sebastian that you’re… wait, no, that’s stupid. He knows you’re gay. I’m just…” He shrugged. “You know what. It sucks.” He slid on a pair of shades. “The whole thing. It sucks. What possible fucking difference does it make who a player takes to his bed? We’re still playing the game. Who we sleep with is inconsequential. I just hate that we’re still deemed less than because we find the same sex attractive.”

  “Yeah, well, add on being a Latino when the whole world hates all your azteca beauty.”

  “Aztec?”

  “Brown and from Mexican descent,” I explained. “That and gay? I’m fucked.” I could explain more, about how actually indigenous people were still a majority, even if their culture and legacy was mostly entirely erased, but that was probably for another day, and anyway, Ryker wasn’t an asshole who needed shit explaining to him.

  Ryker frowned up at the sun. “That is also total bullshit.”

  We rapped fists, and I cranked over the engine. We had spoken our truth. That was all we could do for now. I left him off at home and headed out to Silverbell Lake. I was supposed to meet up with Seb there to take some snapshots of me chilling at a local park. Feeding the ducks, maybe fishing, typical day off sort of stuff that he wanted to start flooding my and the team’s IG feed with. He’d already done some work with Vlad, and his followers had climbed by over a thousand. With my face and the strong Latino community, he was hoping to jack up my numbers and hits, which would then lead to the team picking up more social media presence. The man had ideas, not just SM stuff either, but deeper things for the team that I didn’t quite grasp or care about. All this boy wanted was to play hockey and kiss a certain older Brit.

  When I pulled into the parking area, Seb and the photographer were there. Both jogged over to me. My belly tightened when Sebastian flashed me a smile.

  “No, don’t do anything,” he said, waving at the tall man with the expensive camera. “I want this,” he said, motioning to me sitting in my Jeep, windblown, with a little Katy Perry and Daddy Yankee Con Calma remix blaring.

  I took his meaning differently. Yeah, I sort of knew he wanted this—this being me—and I wanted him too. His lips curled. I sat back in the seat, looked at the bright blue sky, and let the photographer do his thing. We spent all day at the lake. I’d been told to sit, stand, pout, smile, hang out with ducks, try my hand at fishing, paddle a kayak, and make sure I interacted with every fan who approached me.

  The sky was purple when Steven Maxwell, the photographer, drove off into the sunset. The park was closing in a few hours, and most people had gone home for dinner. Sebastian sat beside me on the ground, our backs to a fat date palm tree, our bare toes resting just at the edge of the water. Wading wasn’t allowed, but cooling off your toes? There were no signs against that.

  “I’m knackered,” he announced. I snickered. “What?”

  “Nothing. I like the way you say things.”

  “Do you, now? And what sort of things is it that you like hearing me say?” His thigh rested next to mine, his fingers between my fingers, our clasped hands tucked between us. “Just so I know for future reference when I’m wooing you.”

  “Well, wooing is one.” I snorted. He bumped my shoulder with his. “Um, let me see. Faffing, bell end, taking the piss, crisps, candy floss, boot, flannel, nappy, and courgette. It’s a zucchini!”

  “Bloody American.” He sighed.

  “Hey, Mexican-American, novio.”

  He stretched his feet out. He had long toes, nicely manicured. His spiffy loafers lay beside my sneakers. “That’s a word I’ve not heard before. What does it mean?”

  I hesitated, unsure of why I’d even tossed out that word so glibly. “Um, it means boyfriend.” His silence was unnerving. “Sorry, was that a total whiff?”

  “A whiff?”

  “You know, like when you go to hit the puck but you miss it completely.”

  “Oh, um, no, no, I’d say you hit the puck quite well. I’m just trying to shake off the impact of it colliding with my skull.”

  Shit. Shit. I’d gone in with the B-word too soon. I dropped his hand and stood, the soft dirt cool under my feet. Seb got to his feet as well.

  “Forget I said that.” I glanced over at him. He was so beautiful with the final colors of the day on his whiskery face. I ached to touch him, to cup his chin, lick into his mouth, hold him close. “I was just… there wasn’t a better word to use.”

  His hand skimmed across my back, settling on my hip. I stiffened and gave the lake a quick glance. There was no one around, at least not close enough to see us. And it was growing dark. And I really needed his touch, so I listed to the side a bit, just enough to press my hip to his.

  “It’s the perfect word. It means a man who you have a romantic relationship with,” he replied, his fingertips slipping under my shirt to rest on my skin. A shiver ran through me. “That’s what we’re in, isn’t it? And before you say it, romance and sex are two vastly different things. You can have sex and not be romantically interested in your sexual partner at all.”

  “Right, sure, I know that.”

  He drew me closer, his hand creeping around my side. I had to fight the need to jerk free, act offended, make a stupid joke about not being a queer. It was so deeply embedded in my psyche. The thought that I’d never get past being so terrified to be me choked me down. Seb moved around me, curling in close, wrapping me into his arms
. It felt so good, so right, so wonderfully me, being held by this man, that I lowered my head to brush a kiss over his scruffy cheek. Then to his chin. Then my lips roamed over his mouth. The kiss was sweet and soft, and under a tree at the lake. I cinched him tight, kissed him a hundred million times at least, and felt Alejandro the third glowing like one of the early stars twinkling to life over our heads.

  Ten

  Seb

  Okay, so the kiss in the park? That messed with my head more than I cared to think about. First of all, we’d been impossibly stupid out in the open like that, even if it was dark and the park deserted. And we hadn’t stopped at one. No, we’d kept going, moving back into the trees, his pliant body pinned between me and the trunk of a huge, sprawling magnolia, and we’d kissed for what seemed to be forever, while picking twigs from our hair. We’d only stopped when I got a cramp from the awkward position, and we’d fallen to the grass, laughing. Because, hell, it’s funny shit to get a cramp while kissing, or at least it was that night. He was away now, on day four of a six-day road trip, taking him to Canada, and I’d never seen anyone as excited as him heading out with the team.

  So much so that I wanted to run after him like a bloody idiot. I could just imagine me jogging down after the bus, blindly attempting to get onto the damn thing.

  “Hey, wake up, you wanker!”

  I jumped a mile in my chair and looked up to see a grinning Jason in the doorway. Four years in England and he’d picked up all the best curse words, which he used loudly with a fake British accent and always ended up cackling like a moron.

  “Jesus,” I muttered and threw the nearest thing I had to hand, an empty binder I was labeling. It bounced off the wall next to him, and he never even flinched.

  “There’s a reason you never played sports, you know,” he deadpanned and then slid into the guest chair opposite me. “Your aim is for shit.”

  I couldn’t let that go and tossed an entire pot of paperclips at him, several lodging in his hair.

  “My aim is fine,” I said and narrowed my eyes at him as I expected retaliation.

  He shook his head, and the paperclips fell to the floor, all apart from one that attached itself to a curl. I could’ve told him it was there, but what would have been the fun in that? He didn’t retaliate, only crossed his arms over his chest and watched me.

  What is he watching me for? There was a lot going on behind his eyes, and I waited for everything to spill out. I was used to this. Cam was the oldest and all calm, Mark the youngest, whom I hardly knew, even though I’d been with the Raptors for nearly two months, and then there was fiery Jason, who told people exactly what he thought. Not so much now with his careful, considerate gaze.

  “It’s Garcia we need to talk about,” he began, and my chest tightened in shock.

  I picked up my soda to hide my reaction, which was heavy on the guilt and worry. “What about Garcia?” I asked as calmly as I could manage. Fuck. Had we messed things up? Were people aware of him and me? Why the hell had I thought kissing him in the park was a good thing? I knew he was torn between two worlds, and I wasn’t a Neanderthal. I knew how to do the right thing.

  Except for when you dragged your man into the undergrowth for a quick fumble.

  “You need to sex him up,” Jason stated, and I nearly spit out a mouthful of my drink. Instead I held it in. Then I swallowed and placed the cup on the desk.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I saw the prints for the park shoot you did, all playing to the hockey player who likes to fish and run after Frisbees.” He cleared his throat. “But in Yvonne’s opinion, he had too many clothes on.”

  “There is so much wrong with that statement,” I muttered, relieved that we were not going to be talking about secrets I was keeping. “Not only is your wife way too old for Garcia, but you wouldn’t be asking a woman to take her top off to sell hockey tickets, for fuck’s sake.”

  Jason sank lower in his chair, his cheeks red. “I know, I know, but Yvonne basically said that all the other players are doing it, like on water board things behind boats, and you’ve got to admit hockey players are built fine.” He blinked at me. “That’s what Yvonne said, anyway, and you’re gay. You gotta see that, right?”

  “Out,” I said with force and pointed at the door. “And don’t come back until you’ve read every antiharassment rule we have in place,” I was saying with a jokey tone, but all I could think of was that actually Alex was pretty damn fine and that the idea of him out on the water with all his rippling muscles on show was making my pants tight.

  Fucking inappropriate.

  “I’m going.” Jason held up his hands., “Like I said, it wasn’t my idea.”

  He winked at me, the asshole, and left, pulling the door shut behind him. I concentrated back on the contact sheet of a photo shoot we’d done with the oldest guy on the team, playing with his dogs in the back garden of his huge house. But I couldn’t think, because what I’d said was true in so many ways, and not about the objectification. This whole deal was about selling the players not based on skill but on a social profile.

  It was that Yvonne was thirty-two, only a few months older than me, so if she was too old for Garcia, then what did that make me? Ten years too old for the hockey player with the gorgeous eyes?

  I needed to get out of the office for air, which was how I found myself hiding in the corner of staff parking, sitting in the shade, nursing a new soda, and thinking through my life choices. No one could see me here, and if they did, I would just tell them to go away. Apart from Mark, who found me because, fuck my life, it was his car I was sitting next to.

  “Oh. Hey,” he began and startled me out of my thoughts so hard I spilled soda down my top.

  “Hello,” I replied and left it at that.

  “I um… you’re…” He gestured at his car and then me and then back at the car.

  I scrambled to stand and brushed myself down, knowing I’d likely wrecked my suit trousers. “Sorry, mate,” I said and then winced. Mate was such a friends-hanging-out word, and not one I would use at work.

  “No worries.” He went to get in the car and stopped at the last moment. “You want a beer? Some of the staff will be at my place watching the game tonight. Beer? Snacks?”

  I immediately thought of the emergency snacks I’d bought from World Market. Maybe this was what I needed to do to get out of my headspace for a while, by watching the Raptors in their game at Toronto, drinking weird-ass American beer, and eating snacks from home. Or I could go back home and watch the game and worry about what I was doing and whether it was fair to keep seeing Alex and also to stop thinking about how sexy Alex was in his uniform.

  “Sounds great,” I agreed. “Text me the address, and I’ll bring snacks.”

  Mark shook his head. “It’s cool. We have loads.”

  “Not the right ones,” I said with a smile, and Mark didn’t reply, gunning the engine and heading out.

  Watching the game at someone else’s place on a big-ass plasma TV didn’t make it so that Alex wasn’t sexy. In fact, he was sexier on the big screen. Every time the camera panned to Ryker, there he was sitting with him, looking all flushed and edible. But at least here, with ten or so others, I could get caught up in the beauty of the fast and dangerous game.

  “What is this again?” Mark asked and held up the tiny knobbly stick. He touched his tongue to the end of it and reared back with horror on his face.

  “A Twiglet,” I explained for the fifth time.

  “And it’s covered in?” He waved the tiny snack around, and the distaste on his face was hilarious.

  “Yeast extract,” I deadpanned, “like Marmite.”

  He raised a single eyebrow. “And Marmite is?”

  This was going round in circles. “Mark, I dare you to eat that Twiglet.”

  He rotated his shoulders and cracked his neck. “If I die…” Then he pushed the snacky goodness into his mouth, crunched twice, swallowed, and sat there with a horrified expression. We stared
at each other for a moment, and then he downed half a can of beer, followed by an entire handful of Cheetos. “Dude,” he sprayed orange cheesy flakes everywhere, “that is rank.”

  “I quite like them,” Doris said from the other chair. She was one of the team of cleaners, and she and Mark could often be found in the corner cackling over shared jokes. I liked her for her Twiglet-eating prowess.

  “Then I name you an honorary Brit,” I announced and took a handful of Twiglets for myself.

  Mark muttered something that sounded a lot like tastes like ass, but he was interrupted when the TV time-out finished and we were back to the action.

  No one had expected the Raptors to win tonight. We were up against a strong Toronto team that had thirty points more than we did at this stage. They were heading for the playoffs, that much was certain, unless they fucked up, and who knew what would happen? But heading into the last ten minutes of the last period with the score at four-one to Toronto, it wasn’t likely we’d get a win here or even a point for a draw at the end of normal time, which isn’t what they call it in the US. In hockey, if the goals were even, then they did this thing where they went out and played for extra minutes or something like that, with the first team to score winning an extra point. Or something. To be honest, I was happy sitting there eating Twiglets, drinking beer, and ogling Alex.

  “My man in a suit,” Mark stated and pointed at the screen. “Have you ever seen anything so sexy.”

  Doris threw a Twiglet at Mark, but we were all too glued to the action for it to become a full-on food fight. Anyway, I could see sexier, and his name was Alex.

  “Ryker’s line is out again,” Mark informed us all, even though we were each of us watching the screen. One of the sexiest things I’d ever seen was Alex going over the boards for his shift. Utter focus and fluidity of motion, and all those other things that the announcers spoke about. To them, Alex and Ryker were a dream team. Add Jens, and the line was the one that had gotten the one on the board tonight for the Raptors. They’d earned the nickname on social media of the JAR-line, something I was promoting as a hashtag on Instagram and Twitter.