by R J Scott
“CHL,” he mumbled.
I couldn’t hear properly. “Enough with the muttering,” I snapped, because I couldn’t help myself.
“The CHL,” Ryker said, and this time he looked up and met my gaze and he looked absolutely torn, gutted, sad.
“Your grandpa wants you to go into the Canadian Hockey League?” I said, spelling out exactly what I knew CHL meant just to give myself time to get my head around all this.
“Grandpa says I’m being scouted and I could be playing for real up there, ready for the draft.”
Temper coiled low inside me. Next time I saw Ev, I was going to kill the bastard. Of course Ryker was being scouted—he was fast and accurate, and his hockey sense was steady. Any team would be lucky to have him. But being scouted didn’t mean he had to take up a place anywhere.
“We talked about this,” I said as calmly as possible. “You promised me you’d stay in school and get your diploma.”
The knock on the front door was loud and demanding, and I stood up with angry words right there on the tip of my tongue. I stalked through my house and wrenched open my front door, the wood smacking back against the coat rack. Ev was standing there in a suit, looking a hundred kinds of smug. I turned away from him and he followed me in, closing the front door behind him. I thought I heard something like “nice welcome,” but I didn’t care one bit what the man wanted to say.
We went through the large entrance hall and into the front room. I stopped just inside the threshold of the room and let him pass.
“Is Ryker ready?” he asked as he brushed at his jacket with his hand and straightened it. “We have a meeting at twelve.”
“A meeting,” I said, and how the hell I kept my voice even I don’t know.
“With a prospective agent who’s flying out to meet us in Harrisburg,” he said, and then just waited for me to say my bit. He looked like he was relishing every single moment of this.
“An agent,” I repeated.
He opened his mouth to say something and I don’t know, maybe I had a face like thunder, or maybe it was because I was taller, stronger, and younger than him, but he abruptly went from smug to looking concerned as I stalked him.
“Sit. Down,” I said, and pointed at my sofa.
“Excuse me?”
“I am talking to my son, and you will sit out here and wait.”
He made a show of looking at his watch. “I can give you five minutes.”
I stepped closer. He stood his ground. One more step, and this time he moved back, almost falling over the discarded throw pillow.
“Sit. Down,” I said again.
“Now listen here—”
I was right up in his face then. “You will sit yourself the fuck down and you will wait until I have goddamned finished talking to my son, and you will not say a fucking word.”
I jabbed at his chest with my finger, and he caught my hand and twisted it. Thing was, there were only twenty years between us. He was a fit guy, an ex-hockey player, and he had moves.
But by the time I had him flailing back on the sofa with shock on his face, he knew for damn sure that this defenseman still had the strength and power to topple any kind of man.
“Now sit there and shut up, or leave,” I said.
Going back into Ryker’s room, I closed the door behind him and went to the window. Fresh air, even this crisp Fall air, was exactly what I needed to clear my head.
“Dad?” He sounded so incredibly lost.
I sat next to him, and pulled him in for a sideways hug. Not a bro hug, not a friends’ hug, but the kind of hug that a dad gave his son. To my horror, Ryker turned and buried his face in my neck, his hair wet from his shower and his shoulders shaking. Was he crying?
Well he won’t be laughing, idiot.
“Start from the beginning Ry,” I said in my best gentle voice, which wasn’t difficult, as the temper I’d had going on with Ev had vanished as soon as my son wanted me to comfort him.
“I told him I’d talked to you, and he said you knew nothing, that you were used up and finished, and I shouted at him, and he threatened mom, said she was weak, and it scared me, and then he said he was picking me up from yours place because whether I liked it or not I had a meeting with an agent, and now I don’t know what to do.”
To me, it sounded like Ryker was close to hyperventilating. I gently eased him away and wriggled back so there was room between us. He had been crying, his skin flushed and his eyes red.
“What do you want to do?” I asked gently. Because wasn’t that what this was all about really? I had my opinions, about burn out, and Ryker growing into his body, and gaining experience and skills, and finishing his education. Ev saw Ryker as the next big thing and wanted to push him to work at it now, to be the next freaking Crosby.
That wasn’t going to happen. To me, Ryker was the coolest hockey player I’d ever seen, with the most amazing skills and the ability to shoot from any part of the rink. With my pride talking, I could say he was as talented as Gretzky. But I also knew that while he was good, he wasn’t the next big thing; he was a solid left wing with a future ahead of him in the NHL, but he needed to slow down and learn and grow into his height.
“I don’t know what I want to do,” Ryker said. “Apart from hockey. I love hockey. I want to play for the NHL. You understand that, right?”
“Yeah, you know I do. I wanted to play in the NHL more than I wanted to breathe,” I said, and we exchanged wry grins.
“But you never finished school.” He wasn’t accusing, he just sounded like he really wanted to understand.
“That was for a very different reason, Ry. Your mom and I, we had a battle on our hands, and I worked damn hard to get money so I could…”
That wasn’t where I’d expected this to go. We’d done the whole complicated story of his conception and even hinted at some of the hurdles we’d had to jump just for me to see him. Casey and I had sat there and explained to eleven-year-old Ryker that we both loved him, that we wanted the best for him. What I never said, and I never will, is that I used up every single cent of my signing money over those years just to fight for him. Hell, I spent most of those years sleeping at friends’ places or in cheap, shitty rentals. But I’d do it all again for the chance to be in Ryker’s life.
“Okay, let’s move this back to you, son. As I see it, your options are, you quit now and impress the scouts and get yourself up to the CHL. Or you stay at Shattuck until senior year and you’re eligible for the draft but you’ll have strengthened your game and grown into your height. Hell, maybe you opt to go the college route. Who knows?”
He looked uncertain for a moment, and then dipped his gaze. “I don’t know what to do, Dad. Should I take what I can, when I can? What would an agent say?”
Fuck, he looked so lost, like he was pinning everything on the idea that an agent was the answer to all things. Was that what Ev had been feeding him? Agents guided and assisted, but this kind of a decision was way above the pay grade of any agent.
“Any agent who really cared about the player—and there are a lot out there, good ones—would be looking to you for what you want to do.”
Ryker looked like he was going to cry again. Jesus, the pressure that Ev was putting on my son was tearing him apart from the inside out.
I moved further onto the bed, cross–legged, and waited until he did the same thing. We used to play a game when he was a kid. I would say a word, and he would say the first thing that came into his mind. A stupid game, where every answer was related to hockey. I wished I could use that game now, but this was way more serious. I needed to string proper words together. I needed to be the adult here.
“Do you agree with your grandpa that you’re the next big thing?”
I couldn’t help but think of Ten as I asked that. Ten had always come high on all those lists that rated skill, and when I watched him on the ice he had a hockey sense that was rare. He was fast and confident. But under it all he was everything I wanted for Ryker�
��a person happy in his own skin, endlessly optimistic, when it came to hockey at least.
“No,” Ryker said, and looked at me like I’d accused him of some heinous crime. “But…”
“But what? You can say anything you want. It won’t go any further than this room.”
“I’m good,” he added with a splash of confidence I wanted to see.
“I know.”
He looked right at me, with that focus I admired in him, and half smiled. “Will you be my agent?” he asked.
“God, no!” I exclaimed. I wished I hadn’t said the words quite so strongly when Ryker’s face fell. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I amended. “I’m a grunt, a player, a coach. An agent finesses all kinds of legal shit.”
That made Ryker smile, and the smile reached his eyes. “Is that a technical explanation, Dad?”
“You want to go to this meeting with your grandpa?”
“No. But he won’t listen to me, and he keeps saying you’re wrong, and I need you to talk to me like…” He stopped, and I waited for more, because he looked so deadly serious. He bit his lip, an unfortunate habit he’d picked up from his mom. I recalled watching her biting her lip a lot the night he was conceived. One thirty-dollar room, one experimentation, and Ryker was made, just like that. Not out of love maybe, but certainly out of a strong friendship that only wavered when Casey’s dad got involved.
Ryker was the best parts of me and of Casey. I couldn’t be prouder of our son.
“Go on,” I encouraged him. “You want me to talk like what?”
“Not my dad,” he said finally, and dipped his gaze again as he flushed scarlet.
“You want me to give you advice man to man?” I smiled at him.
“No, Jesus, no.” He looked aghast again, and I didn’t have the heart to call him on his cursing, because hell, his mom wasn’t there and he would say worse on the ice. “Properly, like hockey player to hockey player.”
Now that I could do.
“Okay, so this is the way I see it. Looking at your skill, seeing you skate, I think you need more development time. You have a lot of raw talent, you’re fast, focused, you see the puck, you look at the play not the player… it’s all good.” His smile was wide as I said that. “I’m so proud of the work you put in, and when I’m in the stands for your first NHL game, I will probably embarrass you by cursing the refs and shouting plays.”
“Dad… jeez…”
“Look, if I were you, I would stay at Shattuck, get my education, become the left wing that can be counted on, get taller, get faster, and put myself up for the draft at eighteen, hell maybe even think about going to college and work on your skills on a college team.”
“Yeah?” He looked so hopeful—settled, almost. “You think I could go to college?”
“Of course I do, hell, you’re a bright kid. You could get a degree, you could do it all. College and hockey.” I didn’t know what college could mean to him, I hadn’t gone to college, or even properly finished school, but I knew he was capable.
He glanced at the door, the confidence slipping a little. “What about grandpa?”
“I’ll deal with him. And I’ll talk to your mom; she and I are on the same page.”
“She doesn’t stand up to grandpa, though.”
I remembered the day they’d slammed the door on me, Ev telling me that Casey was having an abortion. I’d seen Casey behind him, crying and saying nothing even though I called her name. I also remembered the courts, the news articles, the lies, and that singularly beautiful day when she’d turned around to her dad and said one word. He’d been mid-rant—something about me being a bad influence, drinking too much, whoring around—and she’d just said enough. She had a backbone that I admired, she just also knew how to keep the peace around her blustering asshole of a father.
“She would if she knew for sure what you wanted, Ry.”
“Really?”
“I promise you.”
“Dad? Can we talk about something else?”
Uh-oh, this sounded ominous, like there was a hidden world of hurt for me in that simple sentence.
“Yeah, sure,” I said, making sure I sounded way more blasé about leading questions like that than I was. If this was a sex question, I would show some backbone and actually talk like a real adult would, about responsibility and shit. I would not resort to crude jokes and pass over recommendations for the best condoms.
“You could have invited him over when I was here,” Ryker began. “Your new boyfriend, I mean.”
For a moment I blinked at him, parsing his words, trying to get a grip on a response, but all that came out was a string of “I don’t…” and “I can’t…”
He shook his head sadly at me. “I left my old Railers jersey here last time and couldn’t find it in the closet, so I checked the laundry in the second bathroom, because you know you never remember to empty it. I found a load of stuff in there—couple of jerseys, some boxers. They’re not yours.”
“They are,” I lied, thinking back to when the hell I would have used the second bathroom. The only one who ever set foot in there was… shit.
“Dad,” Ryker began, oh-so-freaking patiently. “Unless your name is Rowe and your number is ninety-four, then they’re not yours.”
“He’s not… I don’t…” There it went again; my capacity for rational speech was out the window.
“Then there was the text.”
“What text?” This was getting worse by the minute. Ryker knowing about Ten was something I’d wanted to manage; drip-feed him the information.
“The one Ten sent about the blowjob and then signed it ‘Suck you later, J,’ with like twenty kisses.”
Oh fuck. I was scarlet. “I didn’t want you to find out this way,” I said. “Ten isn’t out, he’s—”
“Is it good?” Ryker asked.
I balked at the question, and my dismay must have been written on my face.
Ryker snorted a laugh. “Not the sex, Dad. I meant are you and him happy? Because Mom and Martin are happy, and I want to see you the same way in your old age.”
I caught the twinkle in his eye and poked at his chest. Then I sobered a little. “You think I’m too old for him?”
How the hell I thought asking my teenage son a question like that would help, I don’t know, but out it came. I waited with nervous tension in my chest.
“Martin is years older than Mom,” he said matter-of-factly. “Is it serious?”
“I love him,” I said without thought. “We’ve been going slow. I want more now, but it’s difficult. He’s not out—you can’t tell anyone.”
“I wouldn’t do that, but you realize if he comes out he’ll be the first one to do that in the NHL? I hope that goes okay for him, because I like Ten. He has this awesome Butterfree that he evolved.”
“I have no idea what you mean, but that’s a good thing, right?”
“Give me your phone, Dad,” Ryker asked, holding out his hand. I passed it over to him, and he typed in my code.
“How did you know my code?”
“You use my birth date, Dad,” he said, with that duh expression only a technologically savvy teenager could muster. He clicked a few buttons, then held it still for a moment. “Okay, there you go. Pokémon.”
“I don’t want that on my phone—”
“Dad you have to get down with the kids like me and Ten.” He couldn’t help smirking.
That earned him another poke, then an out-and-out wrestle that ended up with us on the floor.
The door to Ryker’s bedroom slammed open and Ev stood in the entrance. “What the hell?” he said, staring at the two of us sitting on the floor.
I glanced at Ryker, who nodded. I was supporting him, there for him. Like the very best defenseman I could be, I had his back.
“Grandpa,” he started with confidence. “I’m not getting an agent. I’m staying in school, working on my game, aiming for the draft, I might even go to college, and I’m getting Dad to run me to t
he airport this afternoon. I have a history paper to get done.”
Ev looked like a goldfish, and I wanted to say that, but I had to stay the grown up here.
Ev crossed his hands over his chest. “I’ll take this to court,” he threatened, looking right at me.
Then I couldn’t help it. I snorted a laugh and had to hide it behind my hand. Somehow, I’d regressed, and I wondered if the Pokémon game’s influence worked that fast. When Ev didn’t move, I pulled the cloak of adulthood more firmly around me and levered myself off the floor.
“I’ll see you out,” I said in my politest voice.
“Ryker?” Ev said, and there was a touch of anger in his voice. “You’re listening to him? He’s a loser who didn’t even last eight years in the league.”
Ryker came to stand next to me, and we bumped shoulders. “He’s my dad.”
Which was how it came about that we saw Ev off the property. Then we watched an old game with yours truly in fine defensive form, and drove to the airport.
The last thing my son said to me as I stood by the car was a very heartfelt, “Love you, Dad.”
Sometimes simple words like that have the power to knock you to your knees. “Love you too,” I called. “Play hard. Keep your head up.”
“Always,” he shouted, and pushed into the terminal.
I drove home with music blasting and the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders. I’d rocked that father stuff and I was the best dad in the entire world, or at least it felt that way.
I was back well before Ten was due over, and excitement filled me at the thought of telling him what Ryker and I had talked about, and also teasing him for leaving his dirty wash in my hamper.
Yes, it was serious, yes, I wanted Ten as much as breathing, and yes, I was falling completely head-over-heels in love with him. I wrote a quick text to Casey about what had happened with Ryker. She sent me back a smiley face and a simple thank you.
There was nothing to thank me for. Not really. I was just doing my job.
And now I really wanted to kiss Ten, and talk to him, and make love to him, and he couldn’t get there soon enough.