by RJ Scott
“Wow, so there’s a G on Stan’s as well?”
“Look at the Noah-bunny, and you’ll see it in the curve of the furry ears.”
“I will. Actually, I had a thought that maybe we should wait on my helmet.”
“You don’t have to say you like the design if you don’t,” Gatlin murmured.
I looked at him, horrified that he even thought I would do that. He was different. I felt like I could be totally honest with him, and how the hell had that happened? I’d only known him a short while, but somehow, he was the first person I’d ever wanted to confide in outside of Daisy.
Don’t trust him. He’ll just end up laughing at you.
I pushed the little voice in my head that sounded so much like Aarni, to one side.
“I love it. I just don’t want you to get this done only for me to get moved down to the minors or traded to another team.”
I shrugged as I said it as if it didn’t matter to me whether or not I stayed.
He laced his fingers with mine. “They’d be idiots to let you go. You’re exactly what the Railers’ need, someone effective as a backup to Stan, one day to be the starting goalie.”
“From your mouth…” I muttered.
“Have they said something to you?”
I blinked at him, analyzing the things that I had been told. There were key words that kept appearing in pep talks from the coaches. Promise. Stability. Trust. Along with the long-term plan for my role that Alain Gagnon had handed me where I was training with Stan, supporting him, working hard for the team.
The team that appeared to like me. Hope poked at my heart, and at the same moment, I realized I was staring at Gatlin.
“No, they want to work with me; they traded for me. I have to believe that I will be there a while if I work hard.”
“I’ll start the helmet design soon then?”
This was a question, not a statement, and I didn’t have to weigh up the options for an answer. Even if I did get traded to the opposite end of the country, I would at least have some of Gatlin’s art to take with me and a reminder of the Railers who seemed nothing but kind to me.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“How did you get the scar, Bryan?” he asked, so softly I almost missed it. Peace evaporated from my mind, and I was thrust back to the last few days at my childhood home.
“I got into a fight. Not a hockey fight.” I stopped and considered the best way to approach this. I didn’t want or need pity, so a clinical recital was best. I took a deep breath and spoke,. “I had this good friend, Darren. We were super close, ended up falling into kissing. His uncle, a pastor, caught us and lectured us on evil, and my friend toed the line, ended up getting married. I wasn’t going to change myself because of religion. Only my mom was devastated at my mortal sin, and my dad, who liked his drink, decided to use his fists on me. I was fifteen, and I fought back. I fell through the patio window and was cut. I was lucky it didn’t sever an artery or anything. It’s an ugly scar, but that was a violent time.”
It was a relief to get everything out, but I burned with shame and was scared that he would look at me differently.
Silence. I waited for Gatlin to say something, anything, or smile or frown, but all I could see was that he swallowed, and his eyes were bright with emotion.
“Okay,” he began and squeezed my hand. “Then how about we take that scar you think is ugly and make it into something beautiful?”
One-handed, he sketched my owl and the compass and threw in the hint of a puck in 3D denting my skin. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did.
“Just black and gray for most of it, or maybe shades of brown and copper, but a hint of color in the bird’s eyes.”
I watched him draw, marveling at the magic he created, but I didn’t understand at first. Then he pushed the pad toward me and turned it around.
“Tattoos to cover scars can look really good. The skin is sensitive, but you can make it work. Then there wouldn’t be a scar. There would be the midnight hunter, with your crazy vision, and the anchor of hockey in the compass and the puck.”
I looked from the drawing to his face and back again.
“You amaze me,” I whispered.
“I could do something else. It’s up to you.” He wrinkled his nose as he spoke, all kinds of modest.
“No! I want this.”
He chuckled and leaned in for a kiss.
“How about you tell me when you’re ready for me to start. I could take it slowly, do it when the shop isn’t open, make it really personal.” He waggled his eyebrows, teasing me with the thought of how much fun really personal could be.
Abruptly, I wanted him under me or over me or in me. As long as we were doing something that involved a lot of close and personal contact, I didn’t care.
I loved the designs. The fact that the compassion he showed to me wasn’t pitying. As he kissed me deeply, all I could think was that it would be effortless to fall in love with Gatlin.
If I let myself.
Aarni hadn’t called for so long I’d almost forgotten he’d ever been part of my life. I received what sounded like a pocket dial from a bar. There was no message but receiving that meant my name must have been on a list to be dialed in the first place. He had to have my number still.
How did that make me feel? Confused as to why he hadn’t phoned to apologize for what happened. Or maybe puzzled about why he hadn’t called to lecture me.
Not one part of it made me feel as if I’d drawn a line under Aarni, but at practice, I’d worked so hard as I considered the issue that Stan took a seat and decided to watch me as the team fired pucks on net. Of course, he didn’t sit for long, but it was enough for the whole team to comment on me sucking up to the coaches.
Said with affection.
Adler seemed intent on working up his best chirps. The amount of time he spent getting up in my personal space was comical, and he gave up trying to rile me as Ten took a shot, then spent a long time attempting to get a goal past my blocker. It wasn’t happening, and in the end, it was me chirping him.
“I thought you were good at this?” I said as he skated backward.
He gave me the finger, but he was grinning ear to ear. Like he loved shooting on me, as if he maybe liked me.
Practice done, and with no thoughts of Aarni in my head, the buzz of hockey and life flowing through my veins, I made my way to my stall. In the practice facility, I was on the end, but that didn’t make me feel isolated. If anything, it gave me a little space from the teasing and laughing and pranks, so I could get into my headspace if I needed to. Although no one had pranked me yet, but that was okay. I know that no one fucked with Stan because he was unpredictably Russian and likely to sit on the perpetrator. So maybe goalies were off-limits?
I never even thought about why there was only one bottle of shampoo on the side, when there was usually a selection that was permanently on offer to the players, or why I was the only guy in the showers or hell, why any of this mattered. I just knew that it was hot water, and I closed my eyes and tilted my head forward so the water could ease the tension in my shoulders. The shampoo smelled of rose or something else weird. I dried myself off and crossed to the mirrors.
I was blue. In streaks down my face and body.
I grinned at my reflection.
Damn it, I was Railers’ blue. I was a goalie smurf, and I loved it.
No one claimed responsibility, but Adler whistled way more than average, and I saw him high-fiving Lester and Connor.
This was so on.
When I arrived at the tattoo shop, my overnight bag in hand, Gatlin stared at the blue streaks with wide eyes as I explained that this would only last a day or so. He snorted a laugh and kissed me. Then, when the shop was shut, he proceeded to kiss all the blue parts he could find. He apparently had a kink for color, and I resolved right there to be the most colorful person I could be. For him.
If we played at home, I stayed over at the shop. When we were away, Gatlin and
I FaceTimed. I had to have my daily fix of him, and he made me smile so wide that sometimes, one of the team would poke me and ask me what the joke was.
Stan kind of summed it all up. “You smile big as biggest big thing.” Or at least I think he meant that because some of it was in Russian.
Coming into November, I felt like one of the team, someone whose opinion mattered, and the Railers were holding their position at third in the conference. I’d had seven starts so far, won four, lost two, and taken one game to overtime, which Ten had won for us with one of the best goals of the season so far.
We rocked this hockey thing, and I was happy in the small apartment over the tattoo shop, and the tattoo on my hip was starting to take shape. Gatlin was focused when he worked on my skin. I stared at him, teased him, tried to make him laugh. It was as if the real me was coming out from his shell, the one who’d deliberately held back after what had happened at fifteen with my birth parents.
Tonight, Daisy and George were in the arena to watch us play Columbus, fighting for the points to get us to second on the table. Gatlin was at a training event and wouldn’t be back until later, but he would get to meet them. I wasn’t in goal.
That was planned for the weekend matchup against one of our Pennsylvania rivals, which they were staying for. That meant I had time to focus on them. After the game, I brought both in to meet everyone on the team. Daisy had that thing for Ten, and Ten was happy to get a long hug and promised to give her a signed puck.
“How about a jersey as well?” Ten asked and reached into his bag to pull out a spare. Damned wonder boy had spare jerseys on him at all times, for his fans. I’d noticed some Delaney jerseys in the crowds that attended the games, and I made a note to have a few spare to give out when I met anyone who knew me.
“She’s my mom, and she’ll want one of mine,” I interjected, pouting at Ten and pasting a suitably hurt expression on my face. Daisy stopped in her gentle flirting with Ten and the team and rounded on me, her eyes wide.
“Bryan?”
“What?”
“You called me ‘Mom,’” she said and pulled me in for a hug. I don’t know why it was a shock; she’d been my real mom since I was fifteen. “You’ve never actually called me that.”
Oh.
I didn’t realize I’d held that back. We hugged, and she pulled me down to whisper in my ear.
“I’m still taking Ten’s jersey,” she teased. “But I do love you, sweetheart.”
“Love you, Mom.” Then I turned to George, who was discussing with Connor some move Gretzky had pulled in the seventies that Dad had witnessed. “I love you too,” I said to him and poked him in the arm. “Dad.”
He looked at me and then at Mom, puzzled, and then he hugged me. “Love you too, son.”
Everything was perfect. Tonight, I might tell Gatlin how I was feeling.
When we all ended back at Stan and Erik’s place, Mom and Dad were welcomed in, and I was so proud of them. When Gatlin arrived a little later, I introduced them as my mom and dad, which of course made my mom go all gooey and huggy.
Gatlin talked to Dad for the longest time, both seeming so serious, but I let it run its course.
“Your young man is lovely,” Mom said, catching me coming from the kitchen with a plate of nachos. She stole a handful and then pressed a kiss to my cheek. “I can tell your dad likes him as well.”
“I love him,” I blurted and could have bitten my tongue. I didn't want my pronouncement of love to be heard by some random Railers member stealing their own supply of chips and dips from Stan's massive kitchen.
She just patted me on the chest. “I know you do.”
Gatlin and I dropped them back to their hotel, and I was quiet in the car on the way back to his apartment, the darkness inviting all kinds of secrets.
“I love you,” I said as dramatically as I had announced it to my mom. We were halfway home and just about to turn at a light.
Gatlin side-eyed me, took the turn, then indicated and pulled over at the next clear spot. He kissed me then, deep and never-ending, and it was a mark on me I would never want to erase.
“I love you too,” he murmured against my lips and then continued the drive home.
Yeah. Life is good.
Twelve
Gatlin
His back to my chest, the heavy breathing of a man close to the edge, filling my room and my soul, my hand tightly fisted around his cock. This was how every morning should start. Bryan pumped into my fingers, his skin flushed and sticky-damp with sweat that I lapped up greedily. My cock rested between his tight ass cheeks, spent, my spunk on his lower back after he had begged me to pull out, toss the condom, and come on him.
“Love you,” I murmured into his shoulder. His cock kicked, covering my fingers and the sheets. Bryan gasped and fucked my hand, his firm hold gripping my wrist.
“Oh fuck.” He panted as his body drew up tight, right down to his toes digging into the dirty sheets. “Love you…too.”
I rained a storm of small kisses along his neck and ear, milking him until the tremors subsided and he melted into my arms.
“Better now?”
He nodded, his chest rising and falling at a somewhat reasonable pace.
The man had been beyond tense since November had edged its way toward December. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving, a meal that he and I would create and share here. A week after that, on December first, the Raptors arrived in Harrisburg. With each passing day, I felt his anxiety rise a little more and a little more.
Words were not really working to lessen his worry. The sex did the job quite well, and I was thrilled to rid him of that stress as often as he needed. Rutting like wild stags would only work for so long, and then he’d be back to the man I’d first met. Jumpy, scared, living in a state of perpetual anxiety. All because of Aarni, that motherfucking abusive cockmonkey. If I’d have had access to a city trash truck, I’d have driven to Arizona, found that sleazy, pig-faced bastard, and run him over. Then backed up and run him over again. I might have continued doing that until Aarni Lankinen was nothing more than a red grease spot on the street.
“Good. We have a lot of prep work to do for tomorrow. Your mother’s stuffing recipe calls for oysters.” I nuzzled the base of his neck, nipping a little as he turned to pudding in my arms. “I’ll run to the store and grab some. I love your mother.”
“Mm, yeah? Why? Because she shared her stuffing recipe with you?”
“Because she calls me a young man.”
He laughed sleepily and drifted off, sated and secure and safe. And that was how he would stay. I would protect him with my life if need be. I held him for a long time, marveling at how fucking lucky I was to have this man. Then, sadly, the demand to pee grew too strong to ignore. I pressed a kiss to his back, right where all that new color and design now rested. Then I covered him up and started the day. Piss, shower, screw the shaving, since Bryan said he liked the silver whiskers.
After the coffee had brewed, I filled up a mug and went downstairs to find the newspaper and check for sales on oysters. If there was such a thing as a sale on oysters. Garrett was turning the key in the lock when I yanked the door open, startling him so badly he dropped his satchel.
“Dammit,” he snarled over my sniggers. After he composed himself, I shut and locked the door behind him. I had two whole days off, and I did not want some walk-in sneaking in when I wasn’t aware. Two days with Bryan. Talk about the perfect way to celebrate a holiday all about thanks. Well, Bryan and the guests we were having over for dinner. “You’re chipper. Must be that young pup warming your bed?”
“Must be,” I threw him a grin and a salacious wink.
A small smile pulled at his thin lips. “I’m happy for you then.”
“Yeah?” I paused by the cash register where Jess usually crammed the mail.
“You sound surprised.” He lifted my mug of coffee from my hand, took a sip, grimaced, and then handed it back.
“Well, I kind of am, to be
honest. I thought you and the folks only wanted to see me suffer.”
“Oh, for fuck sake, Gatlin!” Garrett shouted, slamming his leather bag filled with important banking type papers onto the glass counter. That brought my head up from the grocery store advertisement search. “I wish I knew where the hell you ever got the idea that I wanted you to suffer!”
“I let her die.”
He gawked at me for several long seconds. I bent back down to poke around under the register. When I straightened, empty-handed, his expression had shifted from anger to one of mild aggravation. He sighed, fixed his tie that had blown free of his vest when he’d whacked the counter with his satchel, and pinned me down with a look.
“Gatlin, you did not let her die.”
“But—”
He threw up a hand to slice off my words like a hatchet. “No, for once, just for one damn time, would you listen to me? I have never held you accountable for Gina’s death. That seizure could have come on her at any time. Sadly, it hit when she was alone. No, do not speak, just listen to me just for once! You were a fine older brother; we both were. We adored her. We spoiled her. We doted on her. But no person can be with another person every minute of every day. You’ve carried this burden for twenty years, and it’s an unneeded yoke.”
I studied him intently, a mug of coffee resting in my shaky hand. “Mom and Dad hold me responsible.”
“Which is why I’ve not spoken to them since the day of Gina’s funeral.”
Wow. That was news to me. I'd known they'd been estranged for some time but never really understood why. Garrett wasn’t one to talk. Guess that was a brotherly trait.
“I just wish I knew how to talk to you.” He added.
He stared at me, and I stared at him.
“Okay, well, thanks for not hating me. I thought you did.”
His nose twitched a bit. A sign that he was still mildly upset.
“You would have known if you ever talked to me and not assumed the worst.”
Right. Well, that kind of thing went two ways, but meh, I was tired and smitten and did not want to nitpick with him. I made a move to give an awkward hug over the counter, but he drew back slightly.
