Power Play

by Avon Gale

  “I see,” said Misha, because he had no idea what else to say. “If he doesn’t have a car, where else might he have gone?”

  “So, there’s this guy Drake lived with before he and I got an apartment. This dude named Gavin. He could be at his place.”

  “And did you check for him there?” Misha asked, feeling tired. Why hadn’t they offered that solution first, or better yet, gone to look for Drake themselves?

  “I have no idea where he lives. Drake never said. We promised we—look. It’s just better if you find him,” Huxley said, elbowing Murphy. “And umm. Gavin was a sketchy-looking motherfucker, so do you have a gun? Because he might be a drug dealer.”

  Misha stared at him, but instead of laughing like Misha hoped he would, Huxley just looked hopeful.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Misha said and reached for his cell phone.

  Misha was able to get Drake’s former address from the Spitfires office, and he headed off later that night to retrieve their wayward goalie—if that was where he was.

  The place was in a shady neighborhood near the Greenville-Spartanburg airport. Max insisted on accompanying Misha the second Misha related Huxley’s comment about the necessity of firearms. They found the apartment easily enough by following the loud music and the cloud of smoke drifting out of it.

  When he opened the door, Drake didn’t even look surprised—just resigned. There were a bunch of guys in the living room, all of whom gave Max and Misha suspicious looks. But Misha had spent a lot of his youth around dangerous men, and his expression made them get up and slink out without a word.

  Drake was dressed in cargo pants and a white tank top, and while the room was thick with marijuana smoke, he was drinking a Gatorade and playing a video game. Misha had a sudden, viscerally unpleasant memory of being seventeen. He wanted to drag Drake out of there by his spiky, blue hair.

  “I know. Okay? I’m off the team. Just get out of here and leave me alone.”

  “Drake,” Max took a step toward him. Drake reacted like Max was trying to shoot him. He moved away so quickly he almost tripped over the coffee table and fell on his ass.

  Drake was a lot of things, but in goal, other than angry, he was graceful. It was a testament to how freaked out Drake was that he was nearly falling over his own limbs—though the apartment was such a mess, maybe it was inevitable.

  Misha reached out and gently held Max back. “This is not how a captain behaves, Drake.”

  “I tried to tell you,” Drake muttered, looking away. He sat on the couch in an affected, petulant sprawl. “Look. This has nothing to do with you, Coach.” Drake’s scowl couldn’t quite hide his look of pain.

  “No,” Misha said very carefully. “It has everything to do with me. And Coach Ashford, and Huxley and Murphy, and the rest of the team you’re letting down by running away.”

  Drake’s expression was tight and full of anger. “Whatever. Lathrop’s a good goalie. He’ll—” Drake’s voice grew choked, his eyes gleamed with sudden brightness, and he threw the controller with a curse. “Just get the fuck out.”

  “Your friends are worried about you,” Misha continued as if Drake hadn’t spoken. “They were afraid to come here and find you.”

  Drake laughed without mirth. “Yeah. I wouldn’t tell them where it was. I used to live here. It’s fine. They think Gavin’s a drug dealer. But trust me, that’s not what he sells.” Drake’s voice suddenly sounded far older than his years.

  Something cold went down Misha’s spine. He crouched in front of Drake to put himself on Drake’s level. “You’re a leader, and your place is with your teammates. It isn’t here. I thought you took your responsibility more seriously than this.”

  “I do.” Drake jumped up, looking frantic. “Don’t you fucking get it? I’m doing this for them. For you, Coach. And Coach Ashford. We’ve got a good thing going, finally, and I can’t stay here and let it get fucked six ways to Sunday because of... what I did. Who I am.”

  Drake crumpled like a rag doll, collapsed on the couch, and buried his face in his hands. “You know who that guy is, Coach?”

  That he was still calling Misha coach made something tighten in Misha’s chest. “No. And I don’t need you to tell me.”

  “Too bad. How’s this? He’s a former client. Not even that. A trick. I used to suck his cock for money up in Columbia. My fucking parents threw me out of the house, so it was either suck guys off for money or give up hockey. And so guess which one I chose?”

  Misha stood silently as a thousand different things flashed in his mind. Memories from a lifetime ago, dark alleys, cold stones, and dank, dirty mattresses in dimly lit rooms that smelled like sweat and sex. “I don’t need to guess.”

  “I couldn’t fucking afford anything. So I hooked. Turned tricks. Sucked cock for cash. Even let guys fuck me once or twice. Whatever. It was always up in Columbia, just in the summers, and never here. And I thought it was fine. But that fucking asshole found me, and he won’t leave me alone. And if you don’t let me go, he’ll... he’ll....” Drake stared helplessly up at Misha. “Please just go. Please.”

  Misha did not go. He didn’t move. “He’ll what, Drake?”

  “He wants me to make movies. He was always trying to get me to do that, and I always said no. But one time he... filmed me. With him. And unless I do what he wants, he’ll put the one video he has on the Internet and then... tell the team. And the media. I know how much you hate what Belsey did with you and C-Coach Ashford, Coach Samarin, and I—you’re the best coach I’ve ever had. I can’t....”

  Max took a step forward, because Max would, of course, want to comfort him. Misha reached out and stopped him with a sharp look that said “trust me.” Max seemed to listen, though he didn’t look happy about it.

  Drake kept talking. “Hux and Murph... they know I’m gay and they’re... they’re so straight. They’d never met anyone who was gay until me, and they were just like, ‘Oh. Okay. Cool,’ when I told them.” Despite his choked voice, his stormy dark blue eyes were dry as a bone. “And if they knew what I did, they wouldn’t want me as a friend. That creep. He said, ‘Maybe your friends will bareback you for the right price.’ And that’s all I... that’s all I am. A fucking whore. That’s all I’ll ever be. He told me that. Told me that if I didn’t believe him, just let him go talk to some people, and then see if they gave a shit about what I did on the ice. What I did on my knees is all I’m fucking good for.”

  Drake took a breath. Then he looked right at Misha and, with a voice that sounded exhausted and almost dead, said, “What kind of team wants a captain who sucked cock for money, Coach?”

  Misha knelt in front of Drake again, and he thought about all the years of his life and how they had inexorably led to that moment and the decision with which he was faced.

  Misha had spent more than twenty years running away from his past—from what he’d done and what he was. He’d lived in shame and fear, and it wasn’t until Max that Misha was finally able to try to cast it all aside and be happy with who he was.

  One word from Misha and he could make Drake feel better, could show him he wasn’t alone, could offer the support and understanding that no one else could give him. But it was very possible that when Max learned the truth, he would turn his spring green eyes to someone else and Misha would wither away in the dark.

  When it came down to it, it was not a hard choice to make.

  What kind of team wants a captain who sucked cock for money?

  “A team whose coach did the same thing,” Misha said, and what a strange thing it was to cast off a burden he’d carried for years—even if it cost him the only anchor he’d ever found.

  Drake blinked. Then, predictably, he scowled. “What the fuck, Coach?”

  Of course Drake would not believe him. Misha rose to his feet and did not look at Max. “In Russia my father made a lot of money selling drugs, guns and women—to communists, to democrats—it did not matter. He was a bad man, and I was his son, and I was expec
ted to be like him. But I was not like him. I wanted to play hockey, not run an empire. And I wanted to be with men, not women. And when he caught me with another man and learned the truth of what I was, he told me that if he ever suspected I was abasing myself like an animal again, he would string me up like a pig and gut me.”

  He heard a sound from next to him—Max, probably—but Misha couldn’t look at him. Once he started the words wouldn’t stop. “I was approached when I was eighteen by a scout from the NHL. Russia was no longer a communist country then, but to leave, you had to have enough money to pay for the bribes. The only thing I have ever asked of my father was for the money to come here and play the game I love.

  “And maybe he would have given it to me if he had not caught me once with a man. He said that I only want to go to America so that I can indulge in my base desires and defile myself. He said it was time anyway to give up hockey and learn to be what I was meant to become.”

  Misha put his hands behind his back and stared at the ceiling. “So I sell the only thing that my father will have no part of, so that I can make enough money to leave. I take men in alleys, I take them to dirty rooms, and when I have enough money I leave without telling anyone where I am going.

  “I come to America, but all I know is hockey and how to sell my mouth to men for money. And I am terrified that my father will find me. Will come for me.” Misha shook his head. “It is stupid, of course, to think he did anything but wash his hands of me. But I was used to living in fear, and I was still afraid. So when my Russian teammates offer hospitality... I turn them down. I am afraid my father will find out, will hurt the families they have left behind. I say no until they stop asking. I came here for a new life, but all I ever did was survive. And that is not living, Drake. Don’t wait as long as I did to learn this.”

  That was all Misha could think of to say.

  Drake stood up. His eyes were wide, and his face was pale, but there was something in his expression that Misha didn’t expect to see. His next words were a surprise. “Man. I always knew you were a badass, Coach Samarin. But I had no idea. Wow.”

  A badass. Misha almost laughed, but he was gripped by the terror of what Max—Max, who was still silent—would think of him, and the noise was strangled in his chest.

  “Belsey will kick me off the team,” Drake said, but his eyes were so full of hope—hope and something delicate and bruised like a flower passed between too many hands. “You know he will. He won’t want the attention.”

  “I don’t think that’s ever going to be a problem for Belsey,” Misha said and shrugged. “But if he does, then I will quit.”

  “Me too,” Max said, speaking for the first time.

  Drake’s face shut down again. “I can’t let you do that for me—”

  “Yes. You can,” Misha said. “And you will. But it will not come to that. You will get your things and you will come to my house. If this man comes for you, I will deal with him.” Misha smiled, but not nicely. “I am a gangster’s son. I know how to make him afraid enough so that he will not come back.”

  “Fuck, Coach,” Drake said. His eyes darted quickly to Max. Then he looked down at the floor. “I don’t do it here. I swear.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Max, his voice kind. “You heard Coach Samarin. You’re the captain of the Spartanburg Spitfires, and one hell of a goalie, and that’s all that matters.”

  Drake looked between the two of them. “Can you give me a ride back to my apartment? I should probably tell Hux what’s going on.”

  “Yes,” Misha said, nodding. “I think this is a good idea.”

  It was a silent car ride back to Drake’s apartment, and Misha waited in the parking lot until he saw the door open. Even from the car, they could see Hux pull Drake into a hug and then yank him inside.

  “Can I ask you something?” Max asked at length, breaking a silence that was not at all comfortable.

  Misha felt his stomach tighten, and he wanted more than anything to avoid the conversation Max would likely insist they have. “Da.”

  “Were you ever going to tell me any of that?”

  Were you ever going to tell me that you sucked your way out of Russia and that your father is a murderous gangster?

  Misha looked at his fingers, which were wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. “No.” There was no sense in lying, and Max didn’t deserve that from him.

  “Why not?”

  Misha glanced sharply at him, the thin edges of his temper frayed like old rope. “Why didn’t I want to tell you that I used to be a whore? Is that what you are asking me, Max? Why would I ever want you to know that?”

  “Because it happened.”

  Drake’s apartment door opened, and he came out with a bag slung over his shoulder. He was followed by Huxley, who was apparently trying to tell him something as Drake hurried toward the car.

  “—this is stupid,” Huxley said as Drake yanked the back door open. “Coach, hi. Drake doesn’t need to leave. I don’t fucking care about some sketchy fucker that I could probably beat up, man. You’re my friend.”

  Max stared so hard at Misha, he could almost feel it.

  Drake threw his bag in, but he stopped before slamming the door. “I know. Okay, Hux? Jesus. But can you just let me do this? I know you’re my friend, and this is me being yours. I don’t want you involved. End of story.”

  “Fine. Being your friend isn’t fucking easy. I hope you know that. It’s way easier to fight guys you piss off during a game than fucking convince you I don’t give a shit that you’re gay or so good at blowjobs people pay you for them or whatever. I hear you sometimes with guys you bring home, bro. They’re loud. So I always figured you were a pro at sucking dick, just like you are at hockey.”

  Even in the dim of the car’s interior, Misha could see Drake’s face turn red. “I know. Shut up already.” He held his fist out. “Thanks. Seriously. You’re... the kind of friend I thought only existed in television shows and animated movies.”

  Huxley muttered something, but he fist-bumped Drake and said, “Don’t throw your towels on the bathroom floor, dude. If Coach makes us do bag skates again because you’re a lousy houseguest, I’ll punch you.”

  Drake closed the door without bothering to answer, but some of his tension had eased.

  Once they were back at Misha’s, he directed Drake to put his stuff upstairs in the guest room, which had its own bathroom. It would at least give Drake some measure of privacy while he was there.

  “I have to take Coach Ashford to get his car. There’s food in the kitchen if you want it.”

  Drake nodded and stared down at the ground. He finally looked up and met Misha’s eyes. “Thanks,” he said, and for the first time, he sounded like he might cry. With that he turned and hurried inside the house.

  Misha turned to Max and then nodded at the car. Max got back in, and he didn’t look pleased as Misha headed toward the stadium.

  “So you’re just.... That’s it, then?”

  Misha didn’t know what to say. “You want to explain to Drake why you’re staying over?”

  “Staying over,” Max said and gave a harsh laugh. Misha hated making Max sound like that. His laugh was usually so joyful. “Misha, you realize you haven’t asked me a single fucking thing about how I feel about any of this. Don’t you? I mean, I know you assume I’m disgusted and that you’re taking me to my car because you also assume I don’t want anyone to know that I practically live at your house.”

  The day’s emotional upheaval was beginning to take its toll on Misha. “Max—”

  “No, Misha. Listen. I get that you’re the coach and you have a player staying with you. I get that. I do. But even if Drake weren’t here, you’d have taken me home anyway. Because you think I don’t want anything to do with you after what you didn’t actually tell me.”

  They drove into the arena’s parking lot, and Misha slammed the brakes a little too hard. He finally looked over at Max, who was clearly angry. Misha deserved
it. He didn’t know what to say, and his silence was clearly all the answer Max needed.

  Max made a sound, shook his head, and yanked his door open. “So, yeah. This pisses me off. But just so you know? The reason I’m mad right now isn’t because of what you told me. It’s because you honestly thought I’d be disgusted. You want to know how hearing that made me feel? I was proud of you. Oh, and by the way? I’m in love with you. I was before I heard that story and I still am. And what you did for Drake was really fucking brave, because I know you thought the second I learned the truth, I’d be gone. The only thing that disgusts me is that you thought I’d ever look down on you for any of it.”

  Misha stared at him, unable to respond. Then Max leaned over and kissed him aggressively, with his hand around the back of Misha’s neck to hold him close and his tongue brazenly invading Misha’s mouth. He rubbed his other hand up and down Misha’s chest and then pulled away to catch his breath.

  “You know what I realized, Misha? It’s not my forgiveness you need. It’s your own. Just like it’s not me that’s ashamed of what you did to survive and get out of Russia. It’s you. And until you stop being so... so disgusted by yourself, it’s probably a good thing that our goalie is living upstairs in your house. Oh. He’ll need a dresser or something and probably a bed. You could get one on Amazon.” Max leaned in and kissed him one more time. Misha kissed him back, fighting the urge to put his hands on Max and pull him in, to drag him back into the car and take him home where he belonged.

  “So now you know. How I really feel about all of that. Got anything to say to me?”

  Misha rested his forehead against Max’s. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  “Well, I don’t want to spend the night in a parking lot,” Max said and sighed. “I mean it, Misha. I can’t be the reason you feel bad or guilty. Not about this and not about the accident. But you need to believe me.”

  Misha nodded and pulled away. His mind was still buzzing with the things Max said to him. “I was proud of you” and “I love you.” He should say that to Max, because he did love Max. More than he’d loved anyone—certainly more than he loved himself. And Max was right. Misha was the one who didn’t forgive himself for Max’s accident. Misha was still disgusted by what he’d done. Maybe deep inside he was still ashamed of being gay.