Across the Pond

by R. J. Scott

Three days I waited for him to text me, all the while sending him little messages about my day. Nothing too complicated, details of his promos, a funny story about Colorado and his inability to sit still in interviews, and a link to some hockey memes. In those three days, he attended two practices, and today was the next game, against LA, a local matchup, which had tensions rising in the rink. It was a home game, which meant that a large number of LA fans would be descending on our arena, and it was this game we were using as the focus for episode one of our new behind-the-scenes documentary Raptors-Radio, which was a cool name despite the fact that it wasn’t on the radio. It had a retro feel. There would be three episodes taking us up to season’s end.

  Yesterday, after a heated practice, Ryker, Jens, and Alex had done a skills competition with footballs and hockey sticks, on ice. I was there watching the three of them horse around, and I wouldn’t have known that the event at The Gila Monster Motor Court had even happened. He was smiling, grinning, messing around as if he didn’t have a care in the world, and the footage we got was so good. Enough for the episode, plus some GIFs and stills we could use on social media. At least no one saw me staring at the stills of Alex in my office, at least no one except Jason, who loudly called me a wanker, scared the shit out of me again, and then pointed at Alex on my screen.

  “Nice photos,” was all he said, but I got the feeling I overreacted with my blustering and shutting the screen. If the look he gave me was anything to go by, he knew I’d been staring. It had been him who’d invited me up to the box tonight, to watch the game in luxury, given as how he was out of town with his wife’s family and the box needed bodies, which I acknowledged was good for marketing. So here I was, nursing a beer and watching every part of the game from up high.

  Hockey games weren’t much like football games back in England. There was no real segregation of fans. Everyone was good-natured, for the most part. There wasn’t violence in the seats that I could see, but there was a lot of cheering every single time the JAR line took the ice. I was smug. We were two goals up, both from the JAR line, and even though Alex hadn’t gotten the goals, he was certainly getting assists. He was on fire tonight, focused, accurate, and scrapping for every loose puck that came his way. When the third goal went in, this time a give-and-go from Alex to Ryker and back to Alex, I was up on my feet with the Raptors fans, shouting in jubilation.

  That’s my Alex, out there, being all cool and sexy.

  I hung around the arena after the game. We’d taken LA three goals to one, and I wanted to soak up the sheer excitement buzzing around the team. I spent time watching fans and talking to the guys in the Raptors concession shop, noting that it was Ryker jerseys flying out of the shop if fifty-two in one night is considered flying. Who knew, but it made me smile to myself when they told me they’d sold twenty-one Garcia shirts with the number thirty-four on them. There was even evidence on the concourse of grudging respect from the LA fans, although I did hear a couple of curses and the odd mention of wanting Ryker traded to their team immediately. I couldn’t see a world where the Raptors let go of Ryker or Alex, but hockey was a weird game.

  Then I hung around the parking lot, waiting for the players, exchanging high fives as they came out in twos and threes, and finally I saw Ryker and Alex. They stopped and signed caps and jerseys, joking with the wide-eyed kids who’d been allowed to stay up late for this Saturday game. When they came closer and Alex saw me standing by my rental, he stopped walking and said something to Ryker, which resulted in a fist bump. It was only Alex who came over to me, Ryker getting in his car and heading out.

  “Do you need a ride?” I asked.

  Shit, that was some loaded question.

  Alex nodded and got into the car, belted himself in. “Can we drive out somewhere and talk?”

  Dread pooled inside me, but I stayed positive. “Jason’s away, with Yvonne and the kids. We could go to the pool house?”

  “And talk?” he asked.

  “Talk is good.”

  I switched on the radio, a late-night talk show about the use of classic literature in schools. God knows how I’d found that show, and with a deft touch on the button, I switched to a 90s music channel, and we drove back to the pool house to everything from Justin Timberlake to Madonna. I parked, locked the car, and the two of us headed to my home away from home.

  I wondered how long the talking would take and whether this was the end of things. Shoulders back, determined to make my case, I slipped off my suit jacket and put it over the back of the nearest chair.

  “I need to kiss you,” he said and prodded me back against the wall, where he pinned me. “I don’t want to talk.”

  The kiss was electric. The fact that we ended up on the floor of my hallway kissing and getting each other off was something else altogether.

  This might have been a goodbye, but God, it was a hot goodbye. Lying spent in each other’s arms on the hard floor, I waited for the words I dreaded.

  “Seb?”

  I carded my fingers through his soft hair. “Uh-huh?”

  “You can say no if you don’t want to, but I kind of have something to ask you.”

  Thirteen

  Alex

  His expression morphed from sated to tense, then to something harder to read.

  “Can I get up before you ask this question? My back isn’t too keen on this hard floor.”

  “Sure, yeah.” I jumped up, tucked my dick back into my pants, and offered him a hand. The clean one, not the one coated with tacky jizz. “I need to…” I held up my hand and nodded at it. He did the same, a weak smile playing on his puffy lips. It thrilled me a bit to see that my kisses had made his lips so pink. That was probably a bad thing, but there it was.

  We padded into the kitchen, washed up, and tried to get our clothes back into order. I’d ditched my jacket, tie, and shirt when we’d been pawing each other. Sebastian’s gaze kept drifting to my chest and stomach as we dried our hands on some paper towels. Now that we’d burned off the lust, the air around us was thick and cumbersome.

  “Coffee?” Seb asked, and I nodded. “You can ask what you wanted to ask while I get the kettle on. I went out and actually bought myself a kettle.” He shook it at me as if to prove he’d gotten one. “I can’t believe there was no electric kettle in this kitchen. And tea. I bought in tea, PG Tips tea from World Market. I take them everywhere with me. The other day I went to the coffee shop across from the arena and asked for tea, and they gave it to me black, and when I asked for a jug of milk, they brought me over an entire jug that held about a gallon in milk. Imagine a country where there are only a few kinds of tea to be had, but eight hundred and four brands of coffee. Heathens.”

  I chuckled at his nervous banter about tea, for goodness sake. Next thing, he’d be off about the weather, which was his other go-to subject whenever he was filling holes in a conversation. “I’m sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable.”

  He looked back at me as he filled the kettle with water. “It’s not so much that I’m uncomfortable. Well, perhaps things are a bit awkward, but it’s more a sensation of being hurled one way, then heaved the other. I’m not sure, but I’m suffering a slight whiplash.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I shoved my hands into my front pockets, fingering the change and the edge of my cell phone. “I’m sorry for that too. My head has been… well, it’s been a mess for a long time. Meeting you has made it messier.”

  He sighed heavily, then turned to face me, kettle in hand. “I never meant to make your life harder, Alex.”

  “No, hey, no. I didn’t mean that in a bad way. Well.” I flipped over a quarter in my pocket. “Okay, in a bad way maybe just a little, but that bad way led to a good way.”

  His sleek eyebrow skittered up his forehead. “You have thoroughly lost me.”

  “I figured.” He gave me a tired sort of smile, then turned to place the kettle on.

  “Can we sit down? Maybe I can get my thoughts aligned better if I’m not looking at your ass.”
/>
  He shook that tight ass for me. That made me laugh, and some of the tension riding the cool air currents faded.

  “We’ll sit, but you have to put a shirt on,” he countered, so to make things fair, we sat on the couch after I pulled my shirt on. I didn’t button it, though. I loved his eyes roaming over my body almost as much as I loved his hands doing the same.

  “Okay, so here’s the thing…” I wiggled around to face him, one leg drawn up, my arm on the back of the couch, my fingers resting on his shoulder. “Today two things happened. And from the outside, they might not seem like big things, but, for me they were monumental.”

  He nodded at me to continue. I slid my finger under the collar of his shirt just for the tactile. His skin was warm, soft, and scented like a summery citrus drink. I could taste it forever.

  “When we were leaving the dressing room, Louis Dillinger found me. Louis and I played on the same college team. He now plays for LA,” I explained to ease that confusion on his face. “We were pretty close back in the day. Always dated together, that sort of thing. Anyway, tonight he texted me. Louis is a great guy. Real ladies’ man. So he invited me to his hotel room where he said there were twins waiting for us.”

  Sebastian’s eyes widened just a bit. “That’s quite the friendly offer.”

  “Right? And at one time, like maybe six months ago, I would have done it. I would have gone with him back to his hotel, and I would have banged one of them because soy un hombre macho.” I clapped my chest. “I’m a macho man,” I translated and got a bob of his head. “I had to prove it to everyone. Tonight, I said no thanks. I told him I had someone special and that I wanted to be with them.”

  His eyes lit up. “That’s sweet. I think you’re special as well.”

  I brushed the back of my fingers over his collarbone. “I really like you a lot. So much.” I sighed when he leaned in to brush a kiss over my lips. “Right, so, back to the stuff, or we’ll be lying on the floor again.” He snorted softly. “I felt good about turning him down, like it was another small step in putting distance between the real Alejandro and this huge fake-ass persona that I’ve been pretending to be. As I was walking down the hall, feeling all cocky about my progress, I realized that I’d not said I had a special guy at home. That ate at me a little.”

  “Alex, there’s no right or wrong way to proceed down the path of self-enlightenment and acceptance. Every small step leads us in the right direction.” The kettle switched off and he stood and went to tend to the drinks. When he returned, he passed me a cup of his weird-ass instant coffee, then settled down beside me with a cup of tea cradled in his hands.

  “Thanks, this smells good.” I lied, then took a sip, and smiled, before resting the big blue mug on my thigh, where it warmed my leg nicely. “So anyway, I was upset about not being gayer or something, I don’t know.”

  “I think you’re plenty gay.” He winked and pulled down his collar to show me a fresh love mark on his clavicle.

  “Hashtag sorry not sorry.” His eyes rolled. “There I was, wondering how I could be gayer and not come out when my phone rang. It was my little sister, Elizabeth. She was calling to tell me that she’d stood up to Mamá and Abuela and picked the boy she wanted to be her chambelán de honor. She was giddy with pride and ran on and on about this boy Dwayne, who not only is not Latino but black; he’s not even Catholic. She and he are flirty dating, according to her. I have no idea what flirty dating is, but she’s met his family, and they love her.”

  “Good on her,” he replied, sipping his tea and patiently waiting for me to get to the damn point.

  “Yeah, I said the same thing. Her choice was not a popular one in my house, and she’s taking a lot of flack from the older folks, but she’s sticking to her guns. She’s so strong, so sure of herself, so powerful. And then there’s me. I’m older than she is, bigger, stronger, and yet she makes me look like a mouse. It shames me that my little sister has more backbone than I do. What kind of man hides from his truth?”

  “Alex…”

  “I want you to come with me to my sister’s quinceañera, as my date.”

  He looked as if someone had slugged him in the solar plexus. His eyes flared, his mouth parted a bit, and his cup of tea sat on his lower lip frozen in place. He lowered his mug, wet his lips, and blinked.

  “I don’t know what a quinceañera is, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, no, don’t be sorry. It’s a party. Um, kind of like a sweet sixteen party or a debutante ball?” He nodded. “It’s a celebration of a girl turning fifteen and signals her becoming a woman. It is a huge deal in the Latino culture. Everyone dresses formally, and my parents are going to spend a fortune on it.”

  He stared at me dully, as if his mind was having trouble with the whole concept. “And you want to take me to this highly important celebration as your date?”

  “Yes.”

  He slowly placed his mug of tea on the table, then twisted around to look me right in the eye. “Alex, I’m not sure this is the best way for you to come out.”

  “I’ll tell my family before the misa de acción de gracias.” Again, the lost expression. “It’s a mass of thanksgiving for the girl who is making the transition to a young woman.”

  “There’s a mass?”

  “Oh yes. Trust me, there’s a mass for everything. Broken toenails get an hour of devotions.”

  “Ah, well, this is…”

  “I get it if you don’t want to be part of all the shit that’s going to go down. I understand totally. I’ll be happy to go stag, but I’m going to tell my family that I’m gay. I can’t go on like this anymore. The fear, the worry, the constant terror of someone finding out is killing me. It’s ruining my game; it’s stripping all the joy out of my life. If they hate me, then they hate me, fine. I’ll at least be free to be me.”

  He slid his hand up along my jaw, his palm still toasty warm from his tea. “I would be honored to go to Elizabeth’s quinceañera as your date.”

  “Yeah?” A million suns flared to life in my chest.

  “Oh yes.”

  “I think I love you.”

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  We kissed for so long our drinks went cold. Which was fine. I dug iced coffee, and I really dug him.

  The next day, bright and early, still full of excitement and self-determination, I went to visit Henry. Ryker had some sort of team photo shoot that Sebastian had set up, and had to attend, something at a local shelter with puppies, so I winged it solo. The ride was cool, the blistering sun just starting to warm the dry air. I stopped for a breakfast sandwich and extra-large coffees for me and Henry, got some gas, and then rolled to the rehab center with Maluma and Ricky Be-Still-My-Fucking-Heart Martin blaring out of my speakers. Man, I had it bad for Ricky, but who didn’t? Guess I’d been a fan of older men for longer than I realized. I grinned as I thought of a saying my abuela liked to toss around when talking about Mr. Martin. She’d say, “Ricky Martin es como una pasa. Cuantas más arrugas más sabrosa es la fruta.”

  I couldn’t argue. Ricky was like a raisin. The more wrinkles, the tastier the fruit was dead on, kind of like Sebastian. Not that my guy had lots of wrinkles, but he had some beautiful fine lines by his eyes and mouth. Life and laughter lines. Sexy-as-hell lines that I liked to pepper with soft kisses when we cuddled. Grinning and humming, I whipped into the rehab center’s parking lot with No Se Me Quita filling the morning air. Then he stepped out of the wide double doors, and all those good feelings disappeared like fog over a lake once the sun crests the horizon.

  “Hey, Speedy Gonzales, we have a speed limit here!” Mr. Rent-A-Cop shouted as he stalked over to glare at me. “Slow the hell down and turn that shit off. We have sick people trying to recuperate, and your loud ethnic music is disturbing the peace these patients require.”

  I cranked off the engine, and the music died away. He stood right on the other side of the driver’s side door, a big man for sure, but not big enough to intimidate me. I was probably
twenty years younger than he was, a professional athlete, and a damn good fighter. If he wanted to bring it, I’d bring it. I should have confronted the idiota racista the last time he’d given me shit, but I’d been a good Latino boy.

  “Right, but you standing here shouting at the top of your lungs isn’t disturbing the patients?” I fired back. His nostrils flared.

  “Are you mouthing back at me?”

  “No, sir, I’m just pointing out that your raised voice is probably more upsetting than a lively song about the beauty of this man’s lover’s kiss on his mouth.”

  His hand came to rest on his handgun. That sealed my flapping gums quickly, which was just what the asshole wanted. He leaned over the door, making me wish I had the roof on my Jeep. His blue eyes were narrow, his thin blond hair whipped in the wind, and his lips had a hateful smile on them.

  “You seem like a punk to me. A little beaner punk who thinks he’s above the rules and regulations because he plays hockey on some loser team. Let me tell you something, and I want you to listen closely, amigo. The next time you give me lip is the last time you’re allowed on these premises. I will haul your greasy ass out of this car and perform a citizen’s arrest for speeding in an area marked fifteen miles per hour. I may also have witnessed a felony of some sort now that I think about it. Maybe you’re sneaking illegal substances into this facility. Better let me check that bag of food there, in case it’s full of drugs your mother snuck across the border.”

  It took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to punch him in the face and instead to reach slowly for the white bag on the seat next to me and pass it over to him. Peter Marks, that was the name on his tag, opened the bag, peeked inside, looked at me, and then walked off, making a pointed show of shoving the food I had bought for Henry into a trash can before he went inside.

  Ten minutes I sat there, hands rolled into fists, shaking with rage until I had calmed myself enough that I thought I might be able to go see Henry and smile at one of my best friends. Peter sat just inside the door, talking amiably to a couple of people, smiling and joshing, his gaze darting to me as I strolled around them, coffee cups in my hand. I gave him a blank look and went about my business. I did not want to be the next person of color shot in the back by some idiot bigot with a gun and a hatred of others, even though I was as much an American citizen as he was.