Coast to Coast

by R. J. Scott

  We stopped and kissed each other every few feet or so.

  “I got you a present,” he said between kisses.

  “I got you one as well,” I admitted.

  “Mine is stupidly sentimental,” he said.

  “Mine too.”

  We stopped walking and stared at each other, and I wondered if I looked as blown away as he did.

  He cradled my face with his hands. “Are we…?”

  “I think we are.” I rubbed my cheek against his hand.

  We almost made it inside, got right to the lobby entrance when the door slammed open, and Alex was there, wide-eyed and pale. He shouted out a stream of Spanish, and Rowen waved a hand in front of him.

  “Say again in English.”

  “It’s Henry. I couldn’t stop him. He agreed to go, and he wouldn’t listen to me.” He vibrated with tension.

  Rowen snapped into coach-mode, gripped his upper arms. “What happened?”

  “Henry went with Aarni. He’d been drinking.” Alex shook himself free. “I should have tried harder to stop him. I had hold of him, but Aarni… oh God, he was drunk, and he got in the car, and Henry said it would be okay.”

  “Calm down—”

  “Alejandro, listen to me.” Rowen shook him a little.

  “The car, there’s been an accident. I don’t know anything else.”

  Rowen took full control then. “What hospital?”

  “I don’t… I…” He scrambled to get his phone out of his pocket and held it up to us. “Twitter,” he said helplessly. There was a picture of what was left of Aarni’s orange-and-black Bugatti.

  I took the phone and scrolled through the posts. “Fuck,” I said as I read the tweets that speculated this was a car belonging to “that guy from the Raptors,” and one of the photos caught an ambulance leaving and another one of the same ambulance arriving at the hospital. “He’s at Memorial.”

  We were back in Rowen’s car in seconds, Alex in the back, and reached Memorial within twenty minutes of leaving the apartment complex. We headed straight for the emergency room, not knowing what else to do.

  “They won’t tell us anything,” I said as we stood in the middle of the waiting room. People stared at us, the three wide-eyed men wondering what the hell to do next.

  “Coach.”

  We spun to see Aarni gesturing from a side room and went straight over. He closed the door behind us in what was clearly some kind of relatives’ room.

  “What happened?”

  He didn’t have a scratch on him, although there was blood on his left sleeve, and he looked as if he was in shock. He also stank of alcohol, like he’d opened a bottle of whiskey and poured it all over him.

  “It’s Henry. I shouldn’t have let him drive.” Aarni hid his face from us. “Fucking kid didn’t know how to drive. Crashed it.”

  “You were the one driving!” Alex said, shocked and rigid.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aarni snapped.

  “I saw you,” Alex shouted. “I saw you get in the car.”

  Aarni shoved Alex back against the wall, an arm to his throat, and for a moment Alex was still. Then with a twist, he was away from Aarni’s hold, and it was Aarni pressed to the wall.

  “Have you killed him? Have you hurt Henry?”

  “He drove my fucking car into a brick fucking wall!” Aarni shouted back at him.

  Rowen yanked Alex off of him and held a hand to Aarni’s chest to stop him from moving. “Talk to me, Aarni,” he demanded.

  Aarni wouldn’t meet his gaze, and I exchanged looks with Alex, who was bright-eyed with temper, his hands in fists. Would Aarni really let Henry drive his car? Had Henry crashed it? That didn’t sound right at all.

  “He could have killed me,” Aarni said, but something was off. “What if I’d died?”

  “I saw you drive away,” Alex snapped, “and that’s what I’m telling the cops.”

  Aarni ripped free of Rowen. “You punk-ass kid, you need to fucking go home where you come from—”

  “Enough,” Rowen said and got in between them. “Alex, sit down. Aarni, tell me everything.”

  Finally, Aarni glanced up, and in his eyes, I could see the same calculating look that my dad had been so quick to use. Aarni was working an angle, gauging the situation, deciding what to say.

  “Kid’s in surgery, and he might not make it,” Aarni said with no horror in his voice at all.

  Alex let out a keening cry and scrubbed at his hands, sliding down the wall into a crouch.

  I sank into the nearest chair. I’d seen the photos, the way the car was mangled. Henry had been in that? We’d only talked the day before yesterday, after he’d scored a goal against Toronto, one of our best wins to date. I liked Henry, and now he was dying?

  “The kid demanded to drive the car and I knew the car was too much for a kid like that. It’s a man’s car, for fuck’s sake.”

  He was overdramatic, sneering, and none of this was ringing true. Henry was cowed by Aarni, under his spell, I’d seen it for myself, and wouldn’t demand anything.

  “He never wanted to drive your car!” Alex shouted and stood.

  Rowen put himself between the two men again. “Alex, do you have a number for Henry’s parents?”

  Rowen had one hand on Alex’s chest and the other on Aarni.

  Alex’s expression was full of pain, and he fumbled with his phone. “What do I tell them?”

  It wasn’t as if any of us knew if Henry was even alive, and Rowen shook his head. Alex closed his eyes briefly and then left the room, shutting the door behind him.

  “We should ask for news,” I said, even though I knew that no one here would release details to a hockey team, even with one of the owners and the coach asking for news. The three of us sat together in one corner, Rowen quiet, introspective, me not being able to make sense of what had happened, and Aarni with his arms over his chest, looking as if he had nothing to worry about.

  “Were you driving the fucking car?” Rowen asked him and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

  “No,” Aarni said, but his expression betrayed him. I knew what a liar looked like, and Aarni was lying. His eyes darted around the room, his fingers fisted, then loosened, and his brow was peppered with sweat. The door opened, and I expected Alex to walk in, but it was a cop, flanked by two security guys.

  I stood immediately, as did Rowen, but Aarni was slower to stand, and I thought I saw fear in his eyes.

  “Mr. Aarni Lankinen?” the cop said. “We have a few more questions following on from your statement.”

  Aarni cleared his throat. “I don’t know what I can add. My good friend, Henry, took the car without asking. I managed to get in the passenger seat at the last moment, but he was driving like a lunatic and drove straight into a wall. I’m lucky to be alive, and now he could be dying.”

  “You’re lying,” Alex said from behind the security guards. “I watched you climb into the driver’s seat. You barely made it. You were so freaking drunk.”

  Aarni tilted his head and sighed. “I don’t know how much you could have seen from an apartment on the opposite side of the building to the cars—”

  “I followed you down, you fucking asshole.” Alex dashed forward, one of the guards catching him.

  The cop was assessing the situation, his lips tight, his eyes narrowed, and then he nodded sharply.

  “We have a report from the firefighters who responded to the call. It would appear that there is some confusion as to who was driving—”

  “They’re wrong,” Aarni blustered, but I could see the small fear in him had become something else. He looked as if he wanted to run.

  “Then I’m sure we can clear this up,” the cop said.

  Aarni spun to face me, gripped my shirt, uncoordinated and swaying, the scent of alcohol too much this close.

  “Don’t let them question me. I’m not going,” he pleaded.

  Rowen reached over and unpeeled his fingers before st
anding between me and Aarni. “What did you do?” he asked the hockey player.

  “Nothing. It wasn’t me. It was Henry. He made me do it.”

  Alex yelled something, the guards scrambled to stop him coming into the room, Aarni shoved at Rowen, attempted to push past the cop, yelling something, hitting out, but it was Rowen and the cop who finally subdued him, and he was cuffed. I caught Alex and held him tightly, even though he had weight and height on me. He appeared to be broken.

  “Everything will be okay, Alex,” I lied.

  Alex’s voice broke. “Henry could be dead. My friend could be dead.”

  Rowen sat back on his heels. “What did you do, Aarni? What the fuck did you do?”

  Sixteen

  Rowen

  There were a few moments left until sunrise, and here I was, alone, at my patio door, staring at Spikes McGhee. I opened the slider gently and stepped outside. The air was cool, not Ontario-in-January cool, but cool enough to feel good on my bare feet and chest. My skin pimpled in goose bumps. Okay, so perhaps it was close to Ontario-in-January cool. I stood in the morning air, arms folded, looking up at the white hat atop my cactus buddy as the sky blossomed into a glorious palette of sangria, heather, plum, and flamingo-pink. The sunrises here were breathtaking on a nearly daily basis. My gaze moved from the oil painting Mother Nature was creating and settled on that white hat.

  “You okay?” Mark asked groggily, appearing behind me on silent feet. He slid his arms around my middle and rested his scruffy cheek to my back.

  “You know what a white hat symbolizes?”

  “Something to do with computer hackers?” He yawned and snuggled close. His warmth crept into my chilly flesh. If only it could seep into my cold bones.

  “Perhaps, but I was thinking more along the lines of morality. In the old days of black-and-white cinema, the bad guys always wore black cowboy hats and the good guys white. It’s probably some sort of cultural hang-up about white symbolizing purity.”

  “So we’re standing out here half-naked when it’s forty-two degrees, discussing the cultural conceptions of sexuality and gender?”

  I exhaled deeply. “I veered off course. My point was that in the old westerns, the good guys wore white. When I moved out here, I thought I would be the good guy. I’d be a cowboy riding in on my trusty steed, white hat on my head, and I’d clean up this here town.”

  “May I say that you trying to sound like some cowboy right off the Texas plains with that Canadian accent is kind of funny?”

  “No, you may not.” He snorted softly and hugged me a little tighter. “I failed my team, Mark. I failed them by not getting rid of Aarni sooner. Now we have a promising young player in the hospital facing who knows how much rehabilitation and heartache, a media nightmare, and a team shaken to its already wobbly core. I failed them all. I’m no gallant sheriff with a shiny silver star.”

  “Whoa, okay, just whoa.” His hold loosened, and he circled around to look at me. God, he was pretty with his hair on end and the purple pink of a new day on his face. Even with the shaggy whiskers and bags under his dark eyes, he was stunning. And my guts twisted like a politician’s promise. “You’re not responsible for any of this.” I grunted and scowled. “Make that face all you want—it never did scare me. This whole damn nightmare rests solely on the shoulders of Aarni Lankinen and the owners of the team.” I began to protest, but he steamrolled me. “Don’t bicker. You’re not responsible. My father is, for signing that motherfucker in the first place. Dad was the one who let Aarni stay on the team after that grisly attack on Tennant Rowe. My brothers and I are responsible because we dicked around and never made the hard call to look into getting rid of that poisonous scum as you asked. This whole thing rests on Westman-Reid shoulders, not yours. You did all you could do in the capacity that you had to work within. So don’t be trying take the blame. I carry it, and I will fix things.”

  A whirlwind of emotions swirled around me, buffeting my heart and mind and soul, the gust of realization nearly blowing me off my feet.

  “You’re not nearly as intimidating as you like to think you are,” I eventually said.

  “Neither are you.”

  “You’re also not nearly as vapid or self-centered as I originally thought.” I cupped his face, his whiskers rough and erotic on my palms. “My experience with men like you…” He quirked an eyebrow. “Men who look like you. Who are too handsome to be real—models, actors, singers, the fashionable elite, you know, men like you. Every single one that I’ve ever met has been snobs. Every single one that I’ve dated has been insipid, greedy, uncaring dicks who cared more about Instagram followers and social events than the poor, hungry, or marginalized.”

  “I resent being clumped into that category,” he stated, and I kissed him into silence. When he opened his mouth to protest again, I merely kissed him harder. “You can’t kiss me forever,” he snapped, his hackles clearly up. This was not going how I had planned. “Just because I modeled does not mean that I’m—”

  “I know. I know. Please, just… can you let me finish?” I still held his face in my hands. His nose wrinkled in consternation, a look that was at once adorable and utterly prince-like. “He not only broke my heart. He shredded it.”

  “He who?”

  “Not important. Please stop interrupting, or I’ll have to kiss you again.”

  “Will you tell me about this jerk sometime?”

  The man was ridiculously persistent.

  “Yes, sometime, but not now, so please just let me get this out, or I will kiss you into submission.”

  “You need to work on your threats.”

  “Noted. So, this night… this horrible night has made me realize two important things. One is that I cannot save this team by myself. The other is that I love you.”

  The tension around his eyes and mouth disappeared as my confession sank in. Those dark brown eyes I enjoyed staring into softened and warmed.

  “I’m not sure I like having a tragedy being what jolts you into seeing how marvelous we are as a couple.” He rose to his toes to steal a soft kiss. I held his face, tasted of his mouth time and again, and then let him drop back to his feet.

  “Sometimes it takes a tragedy to make a man wake up and see just how short life is and how little control he has over fate. Can we do this? This thing we have?”

  “There really is only one way to find out,” he replied, curling into my chest, my hands sliding from his cheeks into his hair. I carded my fingers through the thick mass, my heart beating strongly. His fingers rested on my lower back, warming the cold flesh. “I’m willing to give it a go.”

  “I’m not an easy man. I tend to be a little headstrong.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Also, I don’t take directions well.”

  “No? Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  I wanted to say more, perhaps get into a little verbal back and forth, but I was just too miserably tired and upset. Eyes closed, I breathed him and the morning in, exhausted beyond belief, terrified of a future that I didn’t control nearly as well as I’d thought I could. I lowered my lips to his hair, kissed the knots that his fitful sleep had made, and watched the sky brighten incrementally for several peaceful minutes.

  “I’d like to give it a go as well. A slow go?” I pulled back so that I could look at him.

  “Slow is fine. I know you’re a bit wobbly when it comes to those pesky feelings.”

  I should have probably argued with Mark, but he felt too good in my arms, so I cinched him closer, craving the flesh to flesh and enjoying the first skinny ray of sun touching on Spike’s white hat.

  “You think maybe this town needs more than a lonely sheriff? I have a big gun if that helps you decide.”

  Mark slid free of my arms, grabbed my hand, and lifted it to his lips. “I think this town is going to need a whole posse of white hats. I’d be honored to ride at your side, Sheriff.”

  I captured his mouth and danced him back inside through the doors, h
is sleep pants coming off as soon as we were inside. Mine followed in short order.

  “Deputy Princeling, that has a fine ring to it,” I whispered beside his ear as I tugged him down to the couch, the love that had burst free for this man beating against my ribcage like a newly fledged bird.

  “I want a damn badge,” he countered, tumbling to the sofa. I fell over him, nudging his legs apart, lowering my mouth to his. “And a horse named Winston Hundertwasser the Fourth.”

  He bumped and pulled at me until we shuffled around with me, dropping my back to the sofa. My skull bounced off the arm.

  “Ouch,” I mumbled, although the pain was negligible.

  “Your head is hard. You’ll be fine,” he replied, his lips brushing my throat.

  “Stay.”

  Hold me. Love me.

  “Pushiest sheriff in the West,” he replied.

  More like neediest sheriff in the West.

  “Okay, you get to wear the deputy badge,” I said when he nestled into my arms and spread his lean, hard body over mine. Nightclothes were never worn when we were in bed or on the sofa as the case may be. I liked… no, I longed for his flesh pressed to mine.

  He snickered softly, kissed my throat, and reached over to find a blue-and-brown western throw that lay draped over the back of the couch. Once we were wrapped up in it, he drifted off, his head under my chin, and I lay there, wide awake, my hand on his back, my sight on that white hat sitting jauntily atop a cactus. Maybe something good could come from this horrible mess that the Raptors were now facing. Hoping for some kind of miracle, I let sleep ride down on me like Pat Garrett on the trail of Billy the Kid.

  Sleep lasted for two and three-quarter hours. Not nearly enough. Two cell phones chirruping at the same time a foot from our heads roused both of us. My neck was stiff from the odd angle of my head on the arm of the sofa. Mark pawed around on the coffee table, answered the wrong phone first, then chucked my cell at me as I worked my head in slow circles after kicking off the cover to sit up, my spine cracking ominously. Who his call was from, I could only guess. Jason. Mine was from Terri, and she sounded as cracked and broken as the rest of us.