Winter Ball

by Amy Lane

  Nobody watched him drive up. Nobody watched him park his car right behind Richie’s, one of maybe seven cars in the full little parking area. Skip was a secret, a surprise, and if he was lucky, he could see Richie before anybody else saw him.

  As he walked around the copse, staying to the shadows, he smelled tobacco and heard a voice swear “Gross!” on the exhale.

  Oh God. Skip really was the luckiest man on the planet.

  “That shit’s really bad for you,” he said, rounding the corner. Richie was leaning against a tree, glaring at the house and smoking. He was dressed nicely in jeans and a sweater, but the jeans slid around a waist that was a bit stringier than it had been, even since Sunday, and his face was sawtooth lean. He’d shaved recently, but in the light from the porch, Skip could see he’d missed patches. Well, he didn’t have anyone to look nice for, maybe.

  He saw Skip and he dropped the butt onto the wet earth at the tree’s roots and ground it out, his face lighting up in excitement.

  “Skip! Oh my God! Holy shit! What are you doing….” His expression fell and he slowed his gallop into what should have been Skip’s arms. “Skip, you have to go home, man, my dad cannot catch you here—”

  “Come home with me.”

  Richie stopped talking and stared at him. Skip took that last step into Richie’s space. He smelled more heavily of tobacco than he ever had, and Skip reckoned part of his reluctance to come by was that Skip would realize how much he’d been smoking lately.

  Who cared? Skip would take him, nicotine and all.

  Skip looked down and seized his battered, yellowing fingers in his own.

  “Skip?” Richie said, uncertain, and Skip caught his eyes and smiled tentatively.

  “We… we were outed to the team today. I mean, you weren’t there, but McAlister’s dad saw us, I guess, and Mac showed up all ready to be a jerk and a bully and….”

  Richie’s shaking hand found the cut at Skip’s cheekbone. “I’ll fucking kill him,” he said, voice crumbling.

  Skip caught the hand near his cheek and held it there. “You don’t have to.” He smiled, the memory still sweet. “The whole team just sort of shut him down. Told him to get the fuck out of there, they didn’t need him if he was going to be an asshole.”

  “They did what?” Oh, his disbelief was precious. It was, very nearly, Skipper’s own.

  “They chose us, Richie. They would rather play with us, out and proud, than line up behind McAlister, a big asshole, any day. They chose us. We’re their friends. It was that fucking simple.”

  Richie shook his head and held his free hand to his mouth. “It’s not that fucking simple,” he said. “You know it, Skip. It’s not simple.”

  “No,” Skip said, leaning forward, kissing his temple, hushing what seemed to be roiling through him. Well, Skip could sympathize. “It’s not simple. But it’s huge. Come home with me. We have friends. We can be family. I mean, I met Carpenter’s family, Richie—and they weren’t perfect. They weren’t. They make Carpenter feel like shit even when they’re not trying, and I swear, if I ever eat anything called ‘tofurkey’ again, shoot me before I swallow. But other than their whole vegan thing and pushing out mostly perfect spawn—except for Carpenter, thank God—they were really nice people. But they weren’t perfect. And you and me? We’re really nice people. We can have a really nice family, even if it’s not perfect and what everyone wants it to be, you know?”

  Richie gave him a wobbly smile. “You sound really fucking wise, Skipper. You know that?”

  “Please?” Skip’s voice cracked. “Please? For me, Richie? I mean, you might be able to live this way, but… man, I fucking miss you when you’re not at my place. It hurts, and I thought I was used to being alone. It’s like a few weekends and I’m spoiled—I need you there or my feelings are all messy and bleeding—”

  He was going to lose it, start crying like a complete asshole, but Richie cupped his face in his rough hands and kissed him. Oh God, tobacco or no tobacco, Skip had needed the taste of him so badly! Richie deepened the kiss, and Skipper wrapped his arms around Richie’s shoulders and gathered him in, taking his tongue and then giving back, needing that ebb and flow, that perilous shift between who was giving and who was getting. Needing it more than water, more than food, more than breath.

  Richie moaned and broke away, burying his face in Skip’s shoulder.

  “Please?” Skip begged again.

  “You’d better fucking mean it,” Richie threatened, his voice as raw as Skip’s.

  “Never meant anything more,” Skip said, his heart almost breaking with relief.

  “C’mon,” Richie ordered, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the back entrance of the garage. “Let’s go get my clothes.”

  They’d taken five, maybe six steps toward the big yellow house when Richie’s dad burst out of the front door.

  “Richie!” he yelled. “Richie! Dammit, who’s out here with you?”

  “It’s Skipper, Dad,” Richie said back. He stopped and clutched Skip’s hand so tightly, Skipper wouldn’t have dreamed of letting go.

  “Skip—what in the hell!” Richie’s dad rounded the corner, and Skip could see that the strain of the past few weeks hadn’t been kind. His ginger hair was now mostly gray, and there was a lot less of it. Like Richie, he’d lost a little bit of weight, but Ike had lost it in his neck and cheeks. Suddenly Ike Scoggins didn’t look like a junkyard bulldog anymore. Suddenly he looked like an old man.

  Oh God. Richie must be so torn.

  “Hi, Mr. Scoggins,” Skip said weakly. Richie was clutching his left hand, so Skip held out his right hand to shake.

  Ike Scoggins spit on the ground and growled. “You faggot piece of shit—you get the fuck away from my boy!”

  “I’m taking him home.” It was funny how those words were maybe the bravest thing Skipper had ever said.

  “You’re what?” Ike strode forward and Skipper braced his knees. He’d done this before already today, and he was fully ready to do it again.

  But Richie surprised him. He let go of Skip’s hand so he could jump between Skip and Ike, then furiously crossed his arms. “He’s taking me home,” Richie said clearly.

  And all of that bulldog-mean bluster just froze.

  “Richie, get back in the house.”

  “No.”

  “Richie, I said get back in the—”

  “Why?” Richie cried. “So Kay can lie some more about why her little brother didn’t show up? So we can listen to your sister talk about the last guy she slept with? I’m done, Dad. I’m done. Rob and Paul, they pretty much stole your fucking business, you know that?”

  Ike seemed to shrink in front of them, and he looked away. “We don’t know that—”

  “We do too.” Richie glowered at his father. “We do know. And all your bullshit about me needing to be taller and stronger, and Kay’s bullshit about how I’m too much a smartass to be any good—it’s just that. It’s bullshit. Everybody’s favorite meatsacks ran off with the money, and you know what? I’m the only way you’ve got to keep your business afloat. And you can keep hiring me to do that right up until the cops shut you down for aiding and abetting and insurance fraud and all sorts of things that can happen if you don’t own up to Rob and Paul and what they did. Or you can fire me because I’m gay.”

  Ike’s swing would have leveled his son, but Skip whirled Richie around and took the brunt of it on his shoulder.

  Still fucking hurt, but Skip jumped in front of Richie to block the next punch anyway.

  It fell, but at half speed, and Ike Scoggins backed off, looking confused in the light from the porch, and Skip barely grunted as it landed.

  “Richie, I don’t care what this fucker made you—”

  “I’m gay,” Richie said, louder this time. “And I’m in love. Skipper treats me… like a man should be treated by someone he cares about. He listens when I talk. He makes sure our house is nice—”

  “Our house—”

&n
bsp; “Yeah. Our house. I decorated it. We’re getting new tile. I’m going to get him a dog for Christmas, and we’re going to make sure it’s trapped in the yard. We’re in love, Dad. Don’t you get it? Like you and Mom used to be a long time ago? That’s how we are. But we’re going to make it, because Skipper’s loyal. And he’s kind. And he just doesn’t ditch out on people. That’s not how he’s made.”

  “Get out,” Ike said, his voice empty. “Get the fuck away from me. I fed you, I kept you, I fucking raised you, and this is what you do? You run off with some cocksucker when I need you the most?”

  “If you don’t want me to work for you, yeah, Dad. That’s how it’s going to be.”

  The tension faded a moment. And then Richie grabbed Skip’s hand again. “C’mon, Skip. We’re getting my clothes.”

  “Over my dead—”

  Richie pulled out his phone. “I’ll call the cops, Dad. You made me sign a lease—it’s in the shop, remember? I sign a lease, I have the right to get my clothes. I have the right to get my shit, and if I call the cops, they’re going to remember you, and they might start asking more questions about Paul and Rob, and the next thing you know, your precious business is over because you were too goddamned mean to let your son get his own fucking clothes.”

  Richie was snarling, spitting and pissed, by the time he’d finished speaking, and his hand in Skip’s felt hot, burning up, with the anger that had been blazing in him all these years.

  And Ike Scoggins was a broken man. He turned away, waving his hand.

  “Get your shit, Richie. You’ve got until after dinner, and if you and your faggot boyfriend ain’t out of here, I’m telling Kay’s other brother what you two are doing up there.”

  “We’re not doing anything,” Richie muttered, “because if we had to have sex in my bedroom with all of you downstairs, my balls would deflate.”

  Ike made a half-strangled noise and started to turn around, but Skip urged Richie on, pushing at his shoulders until they were both walking up the stairs above the garage.

  RICHIE WAS right. It didn’t take long. He grabbed a couple of garbage bags from the garage, and together they threw all his clothes and blankets in those. He had a few things on his dresser—pictures of himself when he was a kid, pictures of his parents when he was a baby, even some pictures of Kay and Ike and the boys.

  Richie grabbed them all, but not carefully, and Skipper wondered where they would hide those things so he could forget that his family had been as broken as Skip’s.

  They were just shoving the last of the load into their cars when Skip heard a muffled “What in the fuck!” from inside the house.

  A group of people burst on the lawn in Skip’s rearview, just as he and Richie were pulling away. Skip had a momentary worry that they’d tried to follow, but Richie had said Kay’s people were all talk. When nobody chased them down, Skip had to guess he was right.

  He was relieved.

  It was going to be their first night living together and not just playing house.

  Skip knew it couldn’t be perfect, but he was hoping it would be a start.

  THEY STOWED a lot of Richie’s shit in the garage but managed to bring most of his clothes inside. After a few frantic moments of shoving it into drawers and finding room in the closet, they were done.

  Richie was—ta-da!—moved in.

  And both of them were starving.

  Skip toasted them some bread and butter and panfried some sausages to put on top.

  They dug into the repast without hesitation. Skip was halfway through before he told Richie that he’d been planning to stuff a tiny turkey and do garlic mashed potatoes and sweet potato pie and brussels sprouts and cheese and about six other things, all on Saturday after they’d gotten back from the game.

  Richie shook his head and reached for another helping of sliced sausages and cheese. “Nope,” he said, throwing a sausage slice into his mouth. “You can do all the fancy shit before Christmas. We’ll invite Carpenter, Jefferson, and maybe Jimenez and Cooper, since they don’t do much on the holiday, and you can cook for us until we all get fat, how’s that?”

  Skip grinned at Richie, thinking he looked good in the kitchen, but Skip wanted to try him out other places too. The couch would be good, possibly, but the bed was his ultimate goal. Definitely. Definitely the bed.

  “Yeah,” he said, feeling some of the wonder of that. “We can… we can have a real Christmas, and people will come over, and….” He swallowed, some of his ebullience fading.

  Richie reached across the table and covered Skip’s hand with his own. “What’s wrong?”

  Skip shook his head. “It’s… you know. Just… stupid dreams you have when you’re a kid. You’re going to be a movie star or an astronaut.” You’re going to be an athlete and have tons of friends and someone at home who cares if you live or die. “But this… this, you and me—it’s nothing I ever dreamed of, you know? But it’s all I ever wanted.”

  Richie’s smile was slow and shy. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Me too.” His smile faded and he grazed Skip’s cheek with his thumb. “You’ve got a black eye, do you know that?”

  Skipper shrugged and felt the bruise where Mr. Scoggins had nailed him grab his upper arm. “Apparently today was the day everybody wanted to beat the shit out of me,” he said and then grimaced, because that was not entirely the truth. “Okay. That’s sort of a lie. I hit McAlister first.”

  Richie gaped. “You hit him first? Jesus, Skip—what’d he say?”

  “I don’t remember,” he lied, brow knitting as he felt very stubbornly that he wasn’t ever going to repeat that. “But it wasn’t nice.”

  Richie moved his fingertips from Skip’s cheeks to his battered knuckles. “Look at you, Sir Galahad.”

  Skip flashed him a grin. “You’ve been playing The Order, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah.” Richie’s voice dropped and he raised Skip’s knuckles to his lips. He pulled back and flashed another one of those shy smiles. “You, uh, came straight over from practice?” he asked delicately.

  Skip looked down at himself, soccer slides over his socks, mud pretty much smeared from his ankles to his hips. “Oh God. I cooked like this!” He gestured in horror, and Richie laughed.

  “Yeah. You came over to face my dad in your soccer slides and your sweats. Man, I’m going to remember that forever. But you don’t need to keep the same outfit on that long.”

  Skip stood up in a hurry. “Yeah, uh… I’ll be back in twenty.”

  Richie bit his lip, still smiling. “No hurry. I’ll do the dishes while you’re drying off.” His smile widened. “Turns out I live here!”

  Skip nodded, and he had to turn away or he’d kiss Richie while he was all stinky and muddy and… and almost tearful. Richie lived here. His clothes were in the drawers and his chosen flower arrangement was on the table. He’d be there in the morning on Saturday, and on Monday, and all the days in between.

  “Out in twenty,” he said, proud that his voice didn’t shake.

  He threw his clothes in the hamper and hit the shower, seeing the plain white tile and the mildew in the corners as he went. He leaned his head against the wall, suddenly frightened all over again. Oh, Richie. How am I going to make a home for you? It’s all I dreamed of as a kid, but all I had as a kid was dreams.

  He thought he’d about conquered that moment of uncertainty when the shower curtain pulled back and Richie stepped in. Skip wiped his face on his upper arm and tried to turn a smile on him, but Richie shook his head and wrapped his arms around Skipper’s waist, leaning his cheek against Skipper’s back.

  “Did you just get scared?” he asked, barely loud enough to carry over the water.

  “It just hit me,” Skipper said. “I want to give you a home, and I think I know how, but, you know. Don’t have a really good road map.”

  Richie laughed a little. “You didn’t know how to coach when you started either,” he said, tightening his hold. “I’m sta
rting to think being a grown-up isn’t going to school or even paying your own rent. It’s learning to fake it when you got no other choice.”

  Skipper laughed too, reassured. “Well, then we’re good,” he said, turning carefully in Richie’s arms. “I’ve got no choice here, Richie. I tried to imagine us not together anymore, and… it hurt so damned bad. It’s what made me come get you. I stand by that.”

  Richie dodged so that Skip was getting all of the water on the back of his neck and none of it hit Richie in the eyes. “Don’t ever imagine life without me,” he said soberly. “It makes me hurt inside that you had to do that.”

  Skipper was tired of hurting. He was ready for joy.

  He lowered his head and captured Richie’s mouth, smiling when he tasted toothpaste. Richie must have brushed his teeth when he was done with the dishes, which was thoughtful.

  “No more cigarettes,” Richie whispered against his lips. “I promise.”

  Skip nodded, but he was done with words. He kissed Richie again, sweetly, and again, hard. He kissed him thoroughly, and then he teased. Richie followed him ravenously, plastered against his front so tightly not even water could get through, and Skip pulled back for a breath. “Did I get all the mud?” he asked, because he had vague memories of soaping up his pits and his privates before he’d lost his shit.

  Richie looked down and laughed. “Give me the washcloth, Skipper. You’ve got mud so far up your legs you practically hit your good bits.”

  Skip handed it over and turned around automatically. Then the soapy warm washcloth ventured up his thigh, right under his buttocks, and he grunted.