Harrisburg Railers Box Set 2

by R J Scott

  Max said nothing for the longest time. I slid from the bed to find a dirty shirt to clean off with as he took care of the condom. He reached for me when I returned to the bed, pulling me to him. We lay looking at each other. I thought I could see it in his eyes. That emotion that we all searched for. That glowing feeling that lyricists wrote songs about and poets waxed eloquently over. I knew I was feeling it. I thought I was feeling it. Maybe I was just seeing the love growing inside me for this man reflected in his eyes. Perhaps I was projecting, or it might be wishful thinking.

  “You okay?” he asked a moment later. I nodded and smiled and brushed away all that sentimental stuff. “You look funny.”

  “That’s my lingering orgasm face,” I quipped. “You look funny too.”

  “Can’t help that, I was born with this face.”

  That made me snicker. “I like your face.” I wiggled closer, and he draped a thick arm over my shoulder.

  “I like your face too.”

  Work was one thing that kept my mind off missing Max and the constant concern over Rolf. The man had been too quiet. I suspected he was biding his time to drag out the torture. I’d even called one of the cops I knew and discussed the situation with him. Unless DK was willing to press charges, they really couldn’t do anything. His advice had been to be careful and call if he showed up.

  That sat there on the back-burner in my mind like a rancid kettle of lamb stew. Sadly, I didn’t even have Max there to help ease the disquiet.

  He and the Railers were resting, ready for the first two games of the conference championship against Florida. Thankfully they were starting at home, but we didn’t meet up. We talked as often as work, practice, and the press corps would allow. The media pressure was insane. So far, I’d managed to stay out of the limelight, and that was okay. I’d only seen my name linked with him once on a small sports blog DK had pointed out to me.

  I had no issue with being seen at his side. I’d come out long ago. I’d been married and openly run Crossroads with Liam. So, the thought of cameras in my face was nothing that worried me. It was just the intensity of the media and the fans as the teams battled to the final round. Some of the stuff I read online aimed at the players horrified me. And the vile hatred thrown at Tennant Rowe because he loved a man saddened me deeply. I would never understand how those who claimed they were children of Christ could warp the words of a man who preached love into such twisted hate.

  The shelter had been inundated with new intakes. We now had so many kittens it was hard to find room for them all. Four dogs had been rescued, one in such bad shape there was no saving the starving little thing and our vet had kindly put him down. We had a little poodle mix who had been so dirty and matted we’d had to shave her down to the skin. She’d be a hard sell to people without her pretty brown curls, so that meant she’d be here for quite some time. I spent another hour after closing trying to make the money stretch far enough, but it just wasn’t happening.

  “Dammit all.” I sighed, pushing back from my desk. My eyes were scratchy, my back stiff, and my heart heavy. We’d need to put on another major fundraiser to cover costs next month. Since we had so little cash in the coffers, I’d have to dip into my savings for some of the necessities, like advertising. Bucky wiggled up next to me, his blue eyes questioning. “I wish I’d been born rich instead of so damn good-looking.”

  His tail wagged merrily at my joke.

  “Let’s go check on Cocoa, then go home.”

  Bucky raced to the office door then ran to the kennels. I left him outside despite his sad looks. New intakes were kept away from other dogs for a reason.

  Cocoa—who was not very cocoa-colored without her fur—scrabbled across the tiles, tiny butt wiggling and bare tail whipping. She seemed comfortable enough. Thank God it was late spring and not winter. Poor tiny thing would be freezing.

  She bounded after the treat I tossed into her kennel, ate it, and curled back up on her cushion. Bucky glared at me when I exited the runs.

  “Sorry, you’ll be able to visit her soon.” I snapped his leash on and led him outside, locking the door and engaging the security system.

  Bucky sat beside me, tongue lolling, snout out the window, enjoying the wind in his face. If only life were as easy for us humans. I really missed having someone waiting for me at home. I missed sitting down to a meal with a man who asked me how things were going. Those little things were massive when they were gone from your life. A gentle reminder to pay the water bill, to pick up some milk.

  “Do we need milk?”

  Bucky sneezed, filling the incoming air with dog snot.

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  Pulling up in front of our row of brick houses, I saw the lights were off at my aunts’. There was a school board meeting tonight. They’d probably dragged DK with them to that. They liked having him chauffeur them around. Truthfully, DK driving eased my mind a bit. Both of my aunts had dinged several cars in the past year. And I kind of hoped he was with them, because I loved the kid, but my mood was sour tonight, my back bowed with worry about work and the want of something more in my personal life. A warm meal, a cold beer, and a long shower might help lift the blues. I spied my running shoes in the closet when I hung up Bucky’s leash. A run. Yeah, that might help. Bucky and I could go over to Wildwood Lake, work up a good sweat, and maybe take a break on the same bench Max and I had had a sort-of date on.

  I liked that idea a lot. After a quick change into running shorts and a Railers tank top—my friends back in D.C. would never forgive me—and a note slid under my aunts’ door telling them where I was and when I hoped to be back, I loaded Bucky back up and we were off.

  As soon as I felt the crunch of gravel under my sneakers and the twinge of thigh muscles responding, I knew this had been a good idea. Sure, it was hot, and I was already sweating, but sweat was good. Sweat was worry leeching out of your pores. Bucky jogged along at my side, happy to be active. Dogs like him weren’t made to lie around in offices all day. I was a bad doggy daddy as well as a crummy boyfriend. If I was a boyfriend at all, which I didn’t think I was. Max seemed to be in no hurry to commit. Should I drop a hint? Maybe I should ask him out on a date. A real date. Not a sex date. Something romantic. Sweat ran into my eyes as we ran past the wetland area, the song of tiny frogs warming up for the nighttime concerto filling the humid air.

  My legs burned and my lower back was tight, but I was starting to feel better. I would ask Max out. On a dinner date. In a restaurant. With other people. And I would hold his hand and tell him I not only liked his face, I kind of loved it. Then we could go home and have sex. Yeah. Smiling despite the tug of my hamstrings complaining, I rounded a corner, and there stood Rolf, leaning against a thick oak tree.

  Had he followed me to the park? What possible reason could he have for being at a random park the same time as I was?

  I skidded to a halt, Bucky tight to my side. Seeing Rolf there, with the shadows of the setting sun falling over him, I thought I was seeing a ghost. Liam and he looked so alike they’d been mistaken for twins a few times. Anger and fear welled up inside me. I tightened my grip on Bucky’s leash. The dog began to whimper, unsure and upset about the dark feelings flowing out of me.

  “Are you following me?” I panted. He rolled a lip. How could anyone mistake him for his kind, loving, caring younger brother was beyond me. You could see the hatred in his light blue eyes. “DK is not going back home.”

  “As if I wanted the bastard back under my roof. You’ve probably already turned him, just like you did Liam.” He never moved, just stood there, nonchalantly leaning on that damn tree, appearing to be just a guy talking to another guy should anyone run past.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want what’s mine. What Liam was going to leave me until you wormed your faggot ass into his head and twisted him up.”

  I sorely wished I could keep my emotions under control as Rolf was doing. Aside from the burn of revulsion in his gaze, he was a
s cool as that proverbial cucumber. Handsome, yes, and unassuming in manner.

  “What kind of shit are you talking here?”

  Bucky growled low in his chest. I did not tell him to stop.

  “I want half of Liam’s assets. Just like I would have gotten if not for you turning him.”

  My mouth dropped open a bit. What assets? The only thing he’d had was his half of the investment in the shelter, and that had become mine when he passed away.

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  A young woman ran past. Rolf smiled warmly at her. She nodded back.

  “Pretty, huh? Oh yeah, that’s right. Your kind don’t like tits and pussy.”

  “I’m done with you. If you want money, get a loan. You’re not getting shit from me. Liam and I were married. Legally. Everything that was his became mine. And what was mine would have gone to him if I’d died.”

  “You dying. Yeah, that can be arranged.” He threw my snarling dog a murderous look, then ambled off, the lowering sun making his shadow long and distorted.

  The sweat beaded up on my neck slithered down my spine, chilling me. Had he just threatened me? I stood there for a long time, staring at where Rolf had been, shivering despite it being close to eighty degrees out. That bastard had just threatened me.

  “Sweet Jesus,” I mumbled, fear gripping me tightly around the throat. I dug into the pocket of my running shorts and called the person I needed to talk to the most. Max.

  Chapter Ten

  Max

  We’d agreed not to meet up tonight. The day after tomorrow was our first game against Florida, and Tampa Bay were coming off a full seven-game battle to get to this round against us. I’d made the very adult decision of resting up tonight, and promptly missed the hell out of Ben. I’d watched some shit film on Netflix, too wired to watch something good, too distracted to stand up and get the remote control, which had fallen off the side of the sofa and out of my reach. Ben had actually bet me that I couldn’t go one night without sex; the amount on the table was ten dollars. I wasn’t going to lose.

  Practice today had been odd-man rushes; we were shit-hot on those, and Stan still hadn’t let anything in. As a team we were positive, and there was a cautious excitement in the room. I could focus on hockey, think about hockey, anything not to think about Ben and sex.

  Still, I wished Ben were there, or that I was at Ben’s because he had this way of calming me down and centering me. Of giving me a purpose outside hockey that wasn’t just sex.

  I was hoping he’d call at some point, like a love-sick teenager, but he hadn’t so far. Apart from one random text about waiting in line at Walmart, there had been radio silence. He really was taking me at my word that I needed to sleep and focus on the next game where we had home-ice advantage. Yesterday’s barbecue had been an eye-opener. Most of the team had attended, although no one had eaten anything that could remotely give them food poisoning, just in case.

  When the phone rang, I dived for it, connecting the call before it reached my ear.

  “I knew you’d phone,” I crowed triumphantly. “That’s ten you owe me.”

  “Max.”

  The tone shut me down, cut my good humor to nothing, and I sat up from my slouch.

  “Ben? What’s wrong?”

  “I shouldn’t have called,” he said after a small silence.

  Fuck this. I was up and pulling on a jacket, passing my phone from one hand to the other, always keeping it at my ear.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked again, and pushed my feet into my sneakers, shuffling around until they fit properly. My chest was tight. “Is it the shelter? Has someone broken in again?”

  I’d spoken to the security company, and they’d assured me they’d upped their systems and added in some drive-by's. I couldn’t help feeling as if it wasn’t just the shelter that was being targeted, and I didn’t like it one little bit.

  “No.”

  His voice was small, and I grabbed my keys even as I listened to what he wasn’t saying. There was fear in his tone, and I wasn’t ready to sit there and just listen to that. I was out of the door within a minute and standing outside Westy’s apartment. He had a unit in the same building as me, rented, both of us unsure of our permanent place on the team. Of course, Westy would be picked up—he was fucking awesome. But I was done. I needed to be done.

  I knocked on his door even as I spoke to Ben.

  “Where are you?”

  “I came home,” he said.

  “I’ll be there in ten.”

  A sleepy-looking Westy answered the door, and it looked like he was going to curse me out at first for waking him up, and then his expression changed when he got a good look at me.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, looking past me, probably expecting some disaster where he could see it.

  “I need you to drive me somewhere.”

  He didn’t argue. I was acting like a madman, but he still grabbed his keys and we took the stairs to the parking lot.

  I didn’t want to drop the call. “Talk to me, Ben,” I pleaded.

  Westy side-eyed me as we pulled out of the parking lot, but I wasn’t about to explain.

  “I’ll wait for you,” Ben said, sounding regretful, then he disconnected the call.

  “Ben? Ben!”

  This wasn’t right. This was so far from right.

  “Where am I going?” Westy asked at the exit to our building. I needed to get my head around which direction we needed.

  “Ben’s place. You remember where it is?” Westy had been at the barbecue, but would he recall the intricate directions to get there again? He reached over and selected the last destination in his navigation system, and I didn’t have to give him any directions at all.

  Westy never questioned me once. Luckily, the roads to Ben’s place were deserted for the longest time until we entered the neighborhood and slowed to almost nothing before parking outside his place. There was no sign of his aunts’ cars, and I hoped to hell it wasn’t one of them who’d been hurt or died or something. Westy followed me out of the car. I didn’t stop him; hell, I wasn’t sure what I was going to find.

  Ben opened the door as we reached it, and fuck, he looked shaken.

  We stepped in, Westy shut the door behind us, and I managed to get Ben in my arms all in the same weirdly coordinated action.

  “What happened?” I asked again, and Ben gripped my shirt tighter and buried his face in my neck. Westy slid past us and disappeared into a small kitchen, coming back with a bottle of whiskey and a glass. He gestured to the living room, and I carefully, slowly, guided Ben into the room and sat him on the sofa. He pulled me down with him, and Westy took a seat on the coffee table in front of us.

  I wasn’t convinced I wanted Westy seeing Ben like this. Shouldn’t I be protecting Ben from someone seeing him so damn vulnerable?

  “What happened?” Westy asked, his tone firmer than I could have used given that my worry was all wrapped up in fear.

  “I think…” Ben looked up at me and grasped my hands. “Rolf.”

  Okay, this wasn’t the shelter, this was that asshole Rolf, DK’s father, the one who’d beaten his own son. Hell, wait, was this about DK? I looked around me as if I was expecting DK to appear from nowhere, just to reassure me he was okay.

  Nothing.

  “Is it DK? Is he hurt?”

  Ben shook his head. “He’s out with my aunts, and then staying at Skipper’s house," he murmured. “Rolf doesn’t know where that is.”

  “What did Rolf do, then?”

  “I think… I’m being stupid… He couldn’t have…”

  Ben stopped and stared at Westy, almost like it was the first time he realized it wasn’t just him and me in the room, and he tensed. Westy met his gaze.

  “Is this a police matter?” Westy asked.

  Ben nodded, and Westy was dialing 9-1-1 before I could get to my own phone.

  “Police,” Westy said into the receiver. He looked up, abruptly realizing he didn’t
know what the hell he was asking for.

  “Rolf threatened me,” Ben murmured.

  Something roared inside me, and at that moment I wanted to hunt Rolf down and kill him; tear him limb from limb and leave the parts of him in with the dogs. I’d never felt such a murderous rage before, and it left me feeling dizzy with the force of it. I couldn’t hear what Westy was explaining, such was the sound in my head. I pushed Ben away from me a little and turned to face him.

  “Tell me everything,” I snapped.

  His eyes widened, and if I’d been in less of a temper, or if fear hadn’t stolen my rational side, then maybe I would have seen I was losing control.

  He edged away from me, but I gripped his arm. “I’ll kill him.”

  He attempted to shake free, but all I knew was that I couldn’t take my hands from him, that I needed that connection.

  “Max,” he said, and shook his arm again. “You’re scaring me.”

  I instantly let go and scooted away from him a little. Shit, I was no better than the asshole who’d threatened him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and held up my hands. Westy passed the whiskey to Ben, and I stared at him as he sipped it and then downed the whole lot in one go. Jesus. “Will you tell me…?”

  “He says he wants…” Ben glanced at Westy, who nodded in understanding.

  “I’m making coffee,” he announced, and vanished into the kitchen.

  Ben gestured at the retreating figure. “Were you with him?”

  “With Westy? No, I knocked on his door and got him to drive me over.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence again.

  “Tell me what Rolf did.”

  Ben massaged his temples and shut his eyes. “I don’t even recall half of it, but he said—at least I think he said—that killing me was an option to get what he wanted.”