Winter Ball

by Amy Lane

  “Where’s Carpenter?” Skip slurred. “Good guy. Needs to play soccer more often. You’ll let him play soccer when they take me away, right?”

  “Where you going?” Richie asked, sounding tired and distracted. Well, it was three in the morning. “And Carpenter went home. He’ll be taking my spot in the morning.”

  “Mm…,” Skip acknowledged. “And I’ll be going to the gay league. They have to have a gay league for soccer, right? If they don’t let us play in the rec league?”

  Skip was lying on his back, the bags of vegetables on his wrists and ankles, while he stared at his ceiling and tried to make understandable patterns of his life from what he saw there.

  Richie bustled around the room, cleaning the thermometer, replacing the tissues, grabbing the refillable water bottle, probably to fill it with water. He stopped all the activity to squint at Skipper.

  “Why in the hell would you be going to a gay league when I would still be in rec league?” he asked.

  Skipper gazed at him unhappily. All this time together and no sex. Being sick sucked. “Because I’m the one who outed us,” he said, thinking it was reasonable. “I didn’t mean to tell Carpenter. I don’t want your dad to know and stop talking to you. I just want you to be able to stay during the week. So I get to go to gay league. Everyone at work knows I’m gay. You can stay in rec league. Nobody needs to know about you.”

  Richie shook his head. “Don’t move,” he muttered. He came back with a full bottle of cool water and more meds. “Here. Baby, sit up.”

  Skip complied and took the bottle of water and the meds. When he was done, he gratefully gave the bottle back to Richie, wondering if Richie was mad because he didn’t want Skip to be in the gay league either.

  “You at least want to be in the rec league still, right?” Skip asked mournfully after Richie was silent for a moment.

  “I’ll be in any league you are, Skip,” Richie said wearily. “Gay league, rec league—you pick the game, I’ll follow you on the field, okay?”

  “I’m sorry I outed us to Carpenter. And the guy who wanted me to watch porn with him at work. And that guy’s secretary.”

  Richie laughed a little and settled Skip down against the blankets again before turning off the light. “You know what I’m sorry for?”

  “What?”

  “That you’re sick as a fucking dog. I’m fucking terrified for you, because you’re actually sicker than you were three years ago. And you tried to drug yourself up and go to work like you didn’t have any place better to go.”

  “That was dumb,” Skip said, meaning it. He’d felt okay driving to work, but brother, about an hour after that, he’d been a mess.

  “That was lonely,” Richie said, his voice breaking. “And now you should be obsessing with getting better, and you’re babbling about gay league soccer because you don’t want to make me mad coming out. I’d stand up on the roof of our office and blow you if you’d just stop babbling enough to get better, okay, Skipper? Just… don’t worry about gay league or rec league. You and me, we’ll be you and me, and we’ll play soccer, and it doesn’t have to matter, okay?”

  “But who’s gonna come take care of me when you go?” Skip said, confused. “’Cause the team did it last time. But I babble.”

  “Me and Carpenter,” Richie said. He made himself comfortable at Skip’s back, but not touching. “We’ll take care of you. Don’t worry, Skip. You’re not going to be left alone. And you know what? If we needed to, we’d call the team. If they didn’t want to take care of you because of the gay thing, fuck ’em. We’ll find other guys.”

  “Like our guys,” Skipper said, feeling sullen. “Good guys.”

  “Yeah—they’re only good if they treat you right. Now go to sleep, Skipper.”

  “Kk. Love you, Richie.”

  “Love you too, Skip.”

  “That gets easier to say every time.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s more important too, like, you know, brushing your teeth or coffee in the morning. Like you have to do it.”

  “Yeah.” Skip smiled, his fever receding somewhat, his brain tired but sound for the first time in days. “Like drinking water or going to the bathroom. You can’t think of it not happing.”

  “Or breathing, Skip. That sounds better.”

  “Yeah. Like breathing.”

  FUNNY THEY should mention that breathing was necessary. His fever died to manageable levels that night, but breathing became a happy memory, a thing of the past, as Skip’s lungs filled up with crap that not even the most determined cough could keep out. He spent Wednesday and Thursday lying in bed limply, trying to expel his lungs through his open mouth by coughing. Richie stayed the night and Carpenter checked up on him during the day, and he almost wished they’d leave him alone. He always seemed to be making the most atrocious noises when they walked in.

  Richie and Carpenter went to practice that night and told everybody Skip was sick but to practice anyway. Skip had written down a list of drills they should run, in succession, after they finished laps around the field.

  Richie came back to the house and made sure he’d eaten soup and gave him a report on his guys.

  “Carpenter was, like, poster child for working out—you should have seen him, Skip, running, doing the drills. I think he’s lost weight, worrying about you.”

  Skip squinted at Richie, who still had the last vestiges of a nose brace on, as well as the two black eyes that came with it.

  “I know how he feels,” Skip muttered.

  “Yeah, well, eat more than soup, or you’re not going to fit into a thing you own. But you need to listen. The guys were real good—except for McAllister, but you know, he’s always been sort of an asshole about ‘Make me, whydoncha!’ so that doesn’t matter. They were good. They wanted to know if you’re going to be there on Saturday and I said if you were, it was on the sidelines only.”

  “Aw,” Skip said, and then coughed for ten minutes while Richie waited patiently for him to be able to finish his thought. “Maybe not,” Skip managed to whisper when he was done. “Maybe sleeping without coughing—there’s a priority.”

  Richie nodded. “I knew you were a smart man,” he said with some satisfaction. He trailed a touch down the side of Skip’s arm, and for the first time in days, Skip’s body remembered what that meant.

  “Ooh,” he said, rolling over to face Richie. Richie had made him get up to change the sheets that morning, and he’d just showered and taken meds. If his chest hadn’t felt shredded, he might have felt a light-year from sexy, instead of two or three galaxy lengths like he had been. “If I get better by Sunday, think you and me….” He batted his eyelashes, hoping that did it for Richie.

  “I think we might,” Richie said, rustling his hair. “But we gotta see if you can be a good boy being sick before you can be a grown-up getting well, ’kay, Skipper?”

  “Best thing about being a grown-up is getting to have sex,” Skip sulked.

  Richie just laughed.

  CARPENTER WAS there Friday while Richie went in and “pretended to work,” as he said. Skip hadn’t asked him what he was telling his dad this past week—he frankly didn’t want to think about it. On the one hand, “My friend is sick and I’m helping” was a perfectly legitimate thing.

  On the other hand, Skip wasn’t sure if Richie was any better at secrets than Skip.

  Carpenter wanted to weigh in on the matter as they played video games on the couch.

  “If you had Battlefield: Hardline, Richie could tell his dad that’s why he’s coming over,” he said while blasting through the latest-version Witch Hunter like he’d mastered it already. Because he had.

  Skip watched his character die an ignominious death and sat back as Carpenter kept playing. He had to cough in a minute anyway. “I don’t think a new video game ever kept anyone from suspecting gayness,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “I’m just saying, it would be a better excuse for him to be here.”

  Skip smiled weak
ly. “Would you like me to get Battlefield: Hardline, Carpenter?”

  Clay shot him a shy smile. “Well, I could get it for you for Christmas. But you’d have to get me something cool too.”

  Skip laughed—and then coughed—and then laughed some more. “What should I get you that would make up for that?”

  “Hm… how about coming to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving in two weeks. Richie can come too if he wants, but you should definitely come.”

  Skip looked at him suspiciously. “Really?”

  Carpenter won his level and hit Pause. “Yeah.” He turned to Skip and handed him his slippery elm tea, which Skip was grateful for. “You’re like my best friend, Skip—and obviously not the same way you and Richie have been best friends, okay? But my folks—and they mean well—they keep asking me about my social life and if I’m okay living away from home. You’re a nice guy, you’re reasonably well adjusted, and when you’re not sick, you actually make sense when you talk. It would be great if you could come over for Thanksgiving and convince Clyde and Cheryl Carpenter that their baby boy is not a complete social reject and that his last romantic breakup does not mean he’s going to fester in his tiny apartment over Cheetos and Red Bull until his heart explodes.”

  Skip laughed, like he was supposed to, and then coughed for a good five minutes. He finished up and grimaced, because Carpenter was being very funny and very human—and not entirely truthful.

  “You feel totally sorry for me,” he said, feeling stupid when Carpenter grimaced in return.

  “All that other stuff is true,” he defended. “But… it didn’t hit me until I drove you home, you know? You don’t remember—you were giggling against the car window saying ‘Whee!’ the whole time. But I asked you why you even came into work. I mean, you had permission from one of the CEOs to stay home, and you come into your crappy IT job when you’re wrecked like that?” Carpenter shifted on the couch and leaned on his elbows. “Do you know what you said?”

  Skip’s face heated. “Whee?” he guessed weakly.

  “You said if Richie wasn’t there, work was the only place you’d be missed.”

  Skip buried his face in his hands and looked wretchedly at the holey sweats, which were his other uniform from this horrible week because the non-holey (whole?) sweats were in the dryer. “I am now officially the most pathetic man alive,” he muttered. “Please tell me you didn’t say that to Richie.”

  The silence next to him was not encouraging.

  “Carpenter!” Skip wailed. “I thought you were my friend!”

  “I am your friend!” Carpenter held up his hands like he was defending himself. “I’m your friend, and I don’t want you to be alone!”

  “Yeah, because nothing says ‘able to attract someone’ like being so alone you’re an object of pity! I mean how’s he gonna….” Skip started to cough again, and this one was a doozy. But he was thinking: How’s he going to respect me enough to love me if he’s sorry for me!

  “Richie fucking reveres you,” Carpenter said when the coughing fit was over. “But I’d really love it if you came to my parents’ for Thanksgiving. It would make both of us feel better.”

  Skip groaned and fell back against the couch cushions, suddenly too tired to even feel like shit. Richie’s dad was doing Thanksgiving. Richie had said so the night before, after practice. Richie dreaded it—didn’t like his stepmom’s cooking, still hated his stepbrothers, and wasn’t really fond of Kay’s brother or his family—but he didn’t want Skipper to come.

  “I can go by myself and be miserable, or I could bring you and we could both be miserable. Seriously, Skipper—just watching you try not to hurl when they all start smoking in the house will make me feel like crap. You stay home and I’ll come visit afterwards—or, even better, Friday morning, okay?”

  Skip had nodded, exhausted and sad, and resigned himself to one more holiday alone.

  Now he looked at Carpenter and actually felt a little bit of cheer starting. “Should I bring anything?” he asked hopefully.

  “Bread. Remember when you made bread that once and brought it in? Make some more. It was really good.”

  Skipper thought about making bread and saving some for Richie. They could eat it the next day—in fact, he could make them a small chicken and some stuffing, without the nasty smoke residue.

  That would work.

  “Okay,” he said, and for the first time since that first walk in the rain, he felt a little like himself. Richie would be there that night, and Skip would at least get to see the soccer game from the sidelines.

  And he’d have Richie to himself for the rest of the weekend.

  And in two weeks, he’d have a Thanksgiving with someone’s family, even if it wasn’t the one he’d hoped for.

  RICHIE SHOWED up as promised, and although Skip was still sick, they had a delicious moment that night, both in their underwear, just touching everything. Richie turned in Skip’s arms, his back to Skip’s front, and while Skip was rubbing his chest, his stomach, his throat, Richie stroked his own dick until his body tightened and he came.

  His sexy little “Nung… nun-nunghhhhh” was almost enough to make Skip hard through three layers of cold medicine too.

  As it was, when Richie got back to bed after washing down, he nuzzled Skip’s neck and kissed his cheek.

  “I’ve never done that before,” he said, and Skip managed to laugh without coughing.

  “Beat off? Didn’t you tell me you were going for some kind of record?”

  Richie’s laughter was much deeper, without the sodden edge of phlegm. “No—I mean in front of someone else.”

  “Yeah?” He felt some pride in that, and his melancholy over Thanksgiving started to fade.

  “You’re special, Skipper. Don’t ever doubt it.”

  Skip fell asleep with his arm over Richie’s tight stomach and had confused dreams about turkeys beating off and ejaculating gravy.

  Fucking cold medicine.

  Winning and Losing

  SKIP BUNDLED up and wore his scarf and hat to the game, grateful it wasn’t raining. Richie and Carpenter had both threatened to tie him to the bed if it was, and while from Richie this could have counted as something sexy and heretofore unexplored, from Carpenter it was spoken in sheer frustration.

  The Scorpions played a team about equal to them, so Carpenter playing defender made a real difference in the rest of the team being able to play.

  Skipper prowled the sidelines, unable to even shout directions, but every now and then Richie would look over at him and he’d point to someone and make gestures, and Richie would unerringly read his mind.

  It seemed to be working too. The team had been pretty happy to see him (there’d been lots of backslapping and jokes about Kleenex), but once they got on the field, they were all business. Skip appreciated that about them—nobody asked once why they didn’t get called into nursing duty again, and he wasn’t sure how to explain, “I babble, and I finally have a secret worth telling.”

  They were tied 2-2 at the half, and Skip managed to give rusty directions when everybody came in for a drink of water and a huddle. When he was done telling McAlister to leave Carpenter alone because he was getting the job done, and Galvan and Owens to stop talking to each other in the midfield because the opposition was listening and figuring out what they were doing, he called “Break!” and sent them all back on their way. They had just finished the kickoff when a couple of not-quite-familiar people wandered down on the field.

  Oh fuck.

  They were actually wandering onto the field.

  Skip had managed to avoid shouting for half a soccer game, but he sucked in a breath and hollered, “Get off the field, we’re playing here!”

  He doubled over to cough after that, but as he was going down, he recognized the startled face that turned toward him.

  Oh hell.

  A few minutes later the two people who’d hurriedly run off the field to circle round the back drew near him, and he had to fight
not to wheeze when the smell of cigarette smoke hit him.

  “Hi, Mr. Scoggins,” he said weakly, holding out a hand.

  To his relief, Richie’s dad took his hand and shook it, and his stepmom gave Skipper a rather reserved nod from behind his shoulder.

  “Good to see you up and about, Skip,” Ike Scoggins said, his voice measured.

  The day was blustery and cold, and Skipper felt his cheeks heat under that even look. “Yeah, well, Richie and Carpenter wouldn’t let me play.” Skip hoped he was being charming. “They said after all that work getting me better, if I wrecked myself playing rec league ball, they’d strangle me.”

  Those had been Carpenter’s words, actually. Richie’s words had been “For the love of Christ, if you love me at all, you’ll just get fucking better.”

  “Well, maybe now that you’re better, Richie can stop spending all his time at your place,” Ike said, and Skip shrugged.

  “We play video games,” he said. “Carpenter too. When the weather gets better, they’re going to help me fix the yard up so I can get a dog.”

  His yard was already fixed up—but he was dying here, under that nicotine-scented breath and even stare. Ike Scoggins looked a lot like Richie—narrow cheekbones, bony jaw, redhead’s coloring, except Ike’s skin was cooked a darker red than Richie’s. But he was missing the bright eyes and the potential for laughter. And the gentleness that sometimes took Skip’s breath away.

  “You seem to rely an awful lot on the kindness of strangers,” Kay said, her voice derisive. “Someday you’re going to have to stand on your own.”

  “Like Paul and Rob?” Skip asked acidly. He knew very well they both lived in the house with Ike and Kay, while Richie paid rent to live over the garage and pretend he had his own life.

  “Decent apartments are hard to come by,” Kay snapped, and Skip wanted to reply They are with what you pay! but his team needed him.

  The turnover was that quick—just long enough for a conversation with two people who appeared to hate Skipper’s guts—but suddenly the other team had the ball and they were making inroads against the Scorpions’ weakest link.