Skating Through

by Jennifer Cosgrove

  As they changed shoes, Ben realized he wasn’t quite ready for the evening to end. He surprised himself by suggesting they go to the diner down the street and get something there. Ryan raised his eyebrows at that but didn’t say anything, much to Ben’s relief.

  The diner was a good idea. They slid into the booth, Rachel and Ryan on one side and Ben and Marcus on the other. If Ben had given any thought earlier to how it would feel to sit that close to Marcus, knees brushing under the table when one of them shifted, he’d have been convinced it would have turned him into a sweaty, inarticulate puddle on the floor. Instead he was laughing, mostly at Rachel picking on Ryan over his terrible bowling skills, and not worrying about being anything other than himself.

  It didn’t feel awkward until they all walked back to the parking lot where Ryan had left his car. Rachel and Marcus were parked a few spaces over, so they paused at Ryan’s car to say goodbye. It had been more like a date for Ryan and Rachel, so Marcus and Ben moved away to give them a few moments alone.

  “So, are you practicing yet?”

  Ben shook his head. “Not yet. We have a few clinics before tryouts and then practices.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot. You don’t really have all that much time to just hang out or whatever, right?”

  “Not really.” Ben shrugged. “Worth it though. I like playing.” He took a chance. “Do you ever come to any of the games?”

  “Sometimes.” Marcus grinned at him. “I’ll make sure to go to more this year for sure.”

  Ben could feel his face heat for the millionth time that evening. “That’d be cool.” He winced internally. He’d been doing so well, why was he being such a dork now? Rachel broke the weird silence that had fallen between them when she finally walked over.

  “Ready to go?” Rachel asked Marcus, and Ben nodded to Marcus and stepped away. To his surprise, Rachel stepped in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. She gave him that same appraising look that she had before, but this time it felt like approval, somehow. That was—good. He liked her, and it was nice to think she liked him too.

  She wrapped an arm around his waist, giving him a one-armed hug. He squeezed her shoulders in return, hoping it wasn’t too awkward. She pulled away and walked around the other side of the car to get in, raising her hand in a wave. “Later, dude.”

  Ben raised his hand to wave, realized she couldn’t see him and lowered it. Marcus laughed quietly at him, and Ben was still trying to come up with a response when Marcus suddenly closed the distance between them and gave him his own hug. Ben was so shocked that he froze. He felt Marcus stiffen and start to pull away before he got it together and wrapped his arms around him. Marcus was a few inches shorter than Ben, and his hair brushed the side of Ben’s face. Ben wanted run his fingers through it, just to see if it really was as soft as it looked.

  Marcus relaxed into the hug for a few seconds before stepping back. There seemed to be a blush forming on Marcus’s face, mirroring Ben’s own, but it was really too dark to tell.

  Marcus cleared his throat. “If you want to talk or anything, just text. Okay?”

  “You too.” Ben jumped when Rachel beeped the horn, and Marcus nodded before getting in.

  It was easy to ignore Ryan’s smug smile through the window as Ben walked over to his car. He got in and put on his seatbelt before facing him, ready to get it over with. “Go ahead. I know you want to.”

  “That—” Ryan cranked the car and put it into gear. “—was painful to watch.”

  Ben groaned and slid down into his seat.

  “Did you at least get his phone number?”

  Ben made another pitiful noise and covered his face. “Yes, but I think it was because he felt sorry for me.”

  They stopped at a red light, and Ryan gave him an incredulous look. “Are you insane?” He stared until the light turned green, and Ben made a frantic gesture for him to go. “He was flirting with you, and you were flirting back.”

  “No, I wasn’t. I was just—”

  “Nope. Do not take this away from me.” Ryan was shaking his head. “I have never been so proud of you in my life.”

  Ben thought about that for a second. “I’m not sure if I should be offended or not.”

  “You loosened up and actually talked to the guy you like. And—” Ryan pointed at him without taking his eyes off the road. “—he likes you too. Just like I said.”

  Ben really wanted to change the subject because going further down that road meant thinking about how Marcus had looked at him—like he might think of him like that—and Ben just couldn’t deal with that. Time to go on the offensive.

  “Rachel seems to like you, that’s for sure.”

  Ryan’s mouth shut with a click. “Okay. Point to you. I’ll shut up now.”

  THE CLINIC AFTER another week of school wasn’t any easier than the first, but Ben felt more settled, which made things feel easier. He was still tired and sore at the end of the day, but they were coming together as a team. It had been worth it.

  Coach called him over as they all cleared the ice after the last set of drills. “They’re looking good, Lewis. Some of them might even be keepers.” The gruff assessment made Ben grin around his mouthguard. The rookies were still terrified, but that would push them to work harder. They were all bruised and exhausted, but they were done.

  Ben had spent the week awash in a wave of homework and going over plays, but something else had been on his mind.

  Marcus had been texting him.

  And he had been texting him back.

  A lot.

  Ben retrieved his phone from his bag even before he started stripping his sweaty gear off and scrolled through the missed texts. There were a few from Ryan, of course, but most of them were from Marcus. He’d apparently been watching some sort of cooking competition after school and live-texting it. Ben snorted a laugh, his mouthguard caught between his teeth. He plucked it out of his mouth and tossed it onto his bag.

  Ben: You’ve been busy :)

  Marcus: I’m so boooorrreeddd. have fun hitting people all afternoon?

  “Is she cute?” Smithy’s voice right next to him startled Ben so badly that he bobbled his phone and almost dropped it.

  “What?”

  Smithy elbowed him like they were sharing a secret. No matter what people thought, hockey players gossiped like nobody’s business. “Your girlfriend.” He smirked at Ben. “Or whoever she is.”

  A wave of sheer panic washed over Ben as he locked his screen so Smithy couldn’t catch the peek he was angling for. “Just a friend.” His voice was solidly on the right side of steady, but Smithy didn’t look like he was buying it.

  “Sure. A friend.” The larger boy actually pouted because Ben wasn’t spilling his guts. “I’m hurt, Cap.” Ben gaped at him and Smithy laughed, loud enough that other people were looking over to see what was so funny. He elbowed Ben again, almost knocking him over. “Just kidding. But I’ll take any deets you’re willing to throw my way.”

  Ben was sure his face was bright red by then, so he covered by pulling his jersey over his head. He stripped out of his pads in record time and busied himself with his gear bag until Smithy strolled off to the showers only in a towel, apparently done with him. Ben stared at the blank screen of his phone until it lit up again.

  Marcus: when are you done?

  Ben shoved the phone in his bag, pushing it under everything so no one could see it. He clenched his jaw to try to look like he wasn’t freaking out, but he was definitely freaking out. And why? Because someone had made an assumption? He hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t even lied about it. Marcus was a friend.

  It was just—

  Ben pulled his undershirt off with a little more force than necessary. It wasn’t anyone’s business who he talked to. He could just as easily have been texting with Ryan or even Beth. It was the assumption that pissed him off. And that it immediately made him feel like he had to hide whatever he was doing. Like it was some sort of dirty secret.r />
  Was that what it was always going to be like? He looked around the locker room, really looked, and wondered who would be staring at him if he was talking to a guy like they would talk to a girl. It made him feel a little sick to his stomach.

  Smithy had already come back out before Ben finally made himself go take his shower. He grabbed his stuff and bolted before Smithy could make any more comments. He needed to talk this through with someone.

  “ARE YOU FEELING okay? You look a little pale.” Ben fended off his mom’s attempt to feel his forehead when he got in the car. “Did you eat enough today?”

  “I’m fine.” God, pass out just one time, and you never heard the end of it. “Tired, I guess.”

  His phone buzzed in his shorts pocket. He’d retrieved it from the bowels of his gear bag before packing the last of his stuff away, but he hadn’t responded to Marcus yet. He clicked the home button and read the text.

  Marcus: ??

  “Is that Ryan?”

  Ben jumped and automatically locked the screen. His mom wasn’t even looking at him, eyes on the road.

  “Um.” What had happened in the locker room still had him rattled. “Nope.” He tried to make his voice sound normal, and he didn’t know if he’d succeeded or not.

  “One of the boys, then?” It took him a few seconds to realize she was referring to the guys on the team. She always called them “the boys” or “the hockey boys.” She was probably only making conversation.

  “Just a friend from school.” Ben thumbed on the phone and typed quickly.

  Ben: On the way home now. Talk later?

  Marcus: :)

  HIS MOM HADN’T pushed, knowing how exhausted he could be at the end of a hard practice, and he was glad to be home. He took his bag upstairs and gave Biscuit a quick scratch behind the ears before sitting down on the edge of his bed and pulling the cat into his arms. Biscuit meowed a bit in protest but finally allowed a cuddle to Ben’s chest, settling in with a rumbling purr.

  Ben was tired and hungry and a little bit sad. He sighed. At least he could take care of two of those problems. He gently released Biscuit onto the bed and stood, stretching and taking inventory of any places that might need icing. Nothing stood out, but he’d probably be sore in the morning. He rolled his shoulders and went back downstairs in search of food.

  Ben followed his nose to find his dad in the kitchen taking something that smelled really, really good out of the oven. “Lasagna?”

  “Yep.”

  “Need help with anything?”

  “Cut the bread?” That was one thing Ben appreciated more than anything about his dad. In the midst of the normal chaos of their household, he was usually the calm one who kept things together in the background. Usually. Ben was getting the bread knife when he spoke up again. “Everything go okay today?”

  Ben rolled his eyes. It had been too much to hope that his mom wouldn’t be that observant. She must have talked it over with his dad while he was upstairs hugging Biscuit like a teddy bear. He put the bread on the cutting board and carefully started slicing it into Mom-acceptable pieces.

  “It was great. The team’s really coming together.”

  His dad made a noise of encouragement and got the salad out of the fridge. “Sounds good. Get the plates?”

  Ben nodded and put the bread on the table before getting plates out of the cabinet. He knew this game. His dad never approached things head-on, like his mom did. No, he would bide his time and then pounce when the time was right.

  Well, he might as well give him something to work with. “Coach says the new guys are looking good,” he said casually. His dad made that noise again, and Ben waited.

  “How’s being captain working out for you?” And there it was. They probably thought the stress of being in charge of the team was getting to him. They were so wrong that it was almost funny. Almost.

  Ben shrugged. “Okay, I think. The new guys are still terrified of Coach Jordan so they come to me instead.” He picked a piece of carrot out of the salad bowl and crunched it for a few seconds. “I don’t get why they’re so afraid of him. He’s fair, and he’s nice enough when you get to know him.”

  His dad snorted and batted Ben’s hand away when he tried to sneak another carrot. “I think you answered your own question there, son. They don’t know him like you do.”

  “I guess.”

  His dad set the lasagna dish on the table. “If you need to talk about anything, we’re here. Okay?”

  Ben stared at his dad’s bent head. Did he know? He suddenly felt the urge to blurt everything out, get it over with. Of course, that was when his mom and Beth made an appearance, saving him from his indecision. He met his dad’s eyes when he straightened up, giving him a quick smile and a nod that seemed to put him at ease.

  Ben grabbed a seat, hip checking his sister before she could sit there. It was the prime spot, or so it seemed to them, and they’d fought over it since they were little. She flicked him on the back of the head and sat in the chair across from him. They glared at each other over the table until his mom sighed.

  “Can you two please get along?”

  “She started it.”

  “He started it.”

  They weren’t really mad at each other. It was just a game they played to mess with their mom. Their dad had figured it out a long time ago. Ben jerked his foot back before she could kick him in the ankle. She did something complicated with her eyebrows that made him snort, and the truce was finally made. They both looked innocently at their mom, and Ben could swear he heard a chuckle from the other end of the table, deftly covered with a cough.

  “Are you done?” His mom rolled her eyes at both of them before Beth started chatting about something she needed to pick up for school.

  He let the sounds of his family push away the remaining edge of anxiety. He wasn’t ready, not yet. He’d worry about it later.

  Chapter Seven

  BEN ESCAPED TO his room after dinner with a slightly damp shirt. It had been Beth’s turn to do the dishes, and he’d helped clear the table, putting himself directly in the line of fire. Beth was lethal with the sprayer. He pulled the shirt off and tossed it into his laundry basket, before opening the bottom drawer to grab a sleep shirt. There, hidden in his clean laundry, was the wooden box. He’d been too busy to give it or the letters any thought for a while.

  Biscuit chose that moment to interrupt, pushing his way through the not quite closed door and jumping up on the bed to immediately curl up on the pillow. Ben chuckled to himself. “Just make yourself at home.” He pulled on his shirt and turned back to the box—and finally took it out of the drawer after a long moment’s consideration to set it on the nightstand. It still hadn’t been possible to talk to Gran about the letters, and he hadn’t taken the time to look at what else was in there.

  After closing the door, he sat down on the bed and shifted the cat-laden pillow over to make room, getting a sleepy, one-eyed blink before the cat curled up tighter, closing his eyes.

  The dog tag was still in his nightstand drawer, but he’d left everything else where it was. He set the letters and envelopes to the side, not really wanting to look at them again just yet. The Purple Heart in its case was also placed carefully on his nightstand. That left only a few more things in the box.

  There was a pocket watch that looked much older than anything else. Ben picked it up and was surprised at how solid and heavy it felt. He turned it over in his hands and tried to open it, but found he couldn’t. It didn’t open. That wasn’t surprising, given how old it seemed to be, but Ben really wanted to see what it looked like. He pressed the release again and felt the cover start to move, but it felt like something was caught in it.

  Ben slid his thumbnail along the edge, praying he wasn’t causing any damage. It held for another second and then slowly creaked open. There was something between the watch face, which was cracked, and the cover. A picture. Ben put the watch to the side and opened up the folded image, the edges worn and t
he creases threatening to come apart in his hands.

  He recognized one of the two men as William Harris, remembering the portrait Gran had shown him of the smiling young man in uniform. The picture in his hand looked like it had been taken before that one, judging by the clothes and the length of William’s hair. The other man he didn’t know. The man who had Will’s arm flung companionably around his neck, both of them with huge smiles on their faces, their heads tilted together.

  Ben turned the picture over. Scribbled in the bottom corner, so faded he had to squint to read it, was “Will & Eddie—May 1939.” He looked at the picture again, holding it closer to his face. The two men looked happy, and they were sitting closely together—

  “Oh my god.” Ben looked over at the letters he’d so carefully stacked on his nightstand. He thought about the little war stories Will had told in them, and how he’d sounded so glad that “E” didn’t have to be there with him, too.

  “Oh my god.” He looked at the picture again. “E” was Eddie.

  He picked a letter at random and scanned it. It was just like he remembered: addressed to “My Darling,” and very careful not to say anything about E’s gender. This one talked about how the cold would be so bad for E’s (Eddie’s) lungs. Ben looked at the picture yet again and took in Eddie’s smaller stature. He didn’t look sickly, not by a long shot, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have asthma or something similar that wasn’t obvious.

  Wait. Gran had mentioned an Uncle Eddie once. Hadn’t she? He needed to talk to her soon. She’d be back from her trip to Florida next week, so maybe he’d be able to carve out some time to ask some questions. He’d only been curious before, but now he really wanted to know what Gran knew. If he was right in his conclusion, and he was pretty sure he was, then the letters were even more heart-wrenching than he’d originally thought. Because if they’d been in a relationship in that time, not only would it have been seen as a mental illness, it would have been illegal and cause for immediate dishonorable discharge.