I honestly did not know what to say to him, so I let my head teeter to the right to rest on his.
"Long story short, huh?" Keiffer said a moment later, his voice a bit thicker than normal. "So, why are you hiding in the closet?" He tugged upward with his arms to nudge me gently in the upper chest.
"I'm scared to step into a brighter limelight," I shakily confessed. Keiffer placed a kiss under my ear. "I never really wanted all the fame crap that came with playing hockey, but I was good. From the time I was ten people were talking about me. I had two full scholarships offered to me when I was in tenth grade."
"Fucking stars all aligned over you when you were conceived," Keiffer said then nipped at my neck. I heard the jealousy in his voice, but I didn't hold it against him. From what I had seen of his skills, if he had not been driven out of his home by ignorance and hatred so young, he could have had the same opportunities I had. "Sorry. That was shitty. Sometimes I look at you and just want to slap you silly. You have all this," his hands rolled to indicate my loft," and bitch and whine about the press and the travel."
"Yeah, well, I know what it looks like to everyone else, but being the poster child of the league isn't a fucking cake walk, Keiffer," I snapped and went to stand up. He cinched his arms around me once more to keep my ass on the bed.
"Don't go. I'm being a dick. Tell me about where you're at." He began rubbing at the center of my chest with his hands. It helped massage the knot in my windpipe away.
"The pressure to perform, to be the perfect player, to play up to and beyond the expectations of the fans, team and myself is like a noose sometimes. There are days that I wish I had gone to college instead of coming straight into pro hockey. Maybe if I had taken those four years, I would have lived more, gotten a better handle on the stress of being who I am, been able to explore and embrace being a gay man. Fuck, I don't know." I coughed then cleared my throat. Keiffer continued to massage that spot between my pectorals as he rubbed his scruffy cheek against my shoulder. "Then I hear myself complain and feel like the biggest fucking ingrate in the world. It's just–I don't know. Playing in New York is tough."
"Yeah, this city will grind you into fucking paste if you're not tough. But you and me, Riley, we're tough. We're survivors."
"You're a survivor, Keiffer; I'm just some kid from Minnesota who was born with hockey skills and a stick in his hand." I tossed my plate to the nightstand.
"Bet that sucked for your mom," he muttered beside my ear. A clipped snort of laughter bubbled up inside me. Keiffer must have felt the slack in my tight muscles occur when I laughed because he tugged me backward then shimmied out from under me. I lay back on my bed; arms spread to the sides as he slid a leg over my abdomen then sat on my pelvis. "We all got our own shit to deal with, Riley. Maybe we both need to stop hiding behind the easy shit and start facing the hard shit."
I reached up for him. My fingers slid into his satiny hair.
"Don't ever cut this," I gruffly said then pulled him down for a kiss. "What would you do to change your life if you could?"
He tasted my mouth deeply before replying. A trace of sage lingered on his lips and tongue. It was fucking crazy enticing. "Go back to school and then to college. I can't fucking believe you turned down two scholarships."
"I'll make you a deal," I said when he started peppering kisses across my chest.
"Mmm," he purred while tonguing an already hard nipple.
"Get your GED and I'll pay for college."
He lifted his head from my chest and sat back, clearly stunned. His hands rested on my abdomen.
"Why would you do that?"
"Because I care about you and because you're not a stray dog or a kid with cancer." We stared at each other for several moments. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. I hoped that I hadn't pissed him off. "Do I need to sweeten the deal?"
"Sweeten it how?" He sat back now, all of his weight pressing on my crotch. He had put on a few pounds living here. Amazing what proper nutrition will do. His naked body was a work of art, really. I desperately wanted to take him in hand and stoke him until he was breathless.
"Get on the hockey team at whatever college you want to attend, and I'll make sure that the Nightwings scouts are paying attention to you."
"I'm only a street fuck, Riley. Why the hell would you do all of this for me?"
"You're so much more than a street fuck, Keiffer," I said. He frowned slightly. "Someone has to start taking care of the kids who are forced to live on the streets just because they're gay," I replied. "Someone has to stand up for them. Someone has to start somewhere, and I'd like to be that person."
"People will ask why you're suddenly so interested in homeless LGBTQ youth. What will your answer be?" His eyes were amazing in the late afternoon sun. It was like looking into the depths of an emerald.
"I'll tell them the truth: as a gay man, it—"
His lips covered mine. I chuckled as he kissed me loudly and passionately. When the kiss broke, he flung himself to a sitting position then began rotating his hips wantonly. My cock began to thicken as he gave me one hell of a lap dance. He was flicking my nipples with his fingernails, something he enjoyed and I loved, when my cell rang. Keiffer leaned over to snag the phone, his smile wide, before I could shake him off. He glanced at the caller ID, smirked, and then pushed the talk button. My heart dropped to my feet.
"Riley Zeally's whorehouse, head slut speaking," Keiffer said as I lunged at the phone beside his ear. He let me have it, soft burbles of laughter rolling out of him as he pushed me back to the bed then bent down to torment me with his mouth.
"Who was that?" Otto barked in my ear. I rolled my eyes then slapped Keiffer lightly on the back of his golden head. He chortled then whispered something about Otto, who I had mentioned had not been fond of my liaison with Keiffer, being a judgmental asslord.
"That was just someone." Keiffer stopped lapping at my overly sensitized nipples and sat back up, his brow furrowed. The mood in the room began to shift.
"Riley, are you still fucking around with that punk-ass street hustler?"
"Maybe," I said, hoping it would take some of the anger from Keiffer's gaze. It didn't seem to help. "What do you want?"
Otto flew into a massive raging rant that didn't end until I threatened to hang the fuck up on him. Then he tersely reminded me that Claude, our goalie, had invited several people to have a "surprise" birthday dinner for me at the restaurant he owned.
"Guess you plan to bring the hooker?" Otto slung at me.
"I'm not taking another man to Claude's," I informed my winger. It slipped out before I could catch it. Keiffer flew off my lap, his outrage a living, breathing thing. Otto was talking at me. I sat up, Otto's blah-blah-blah falling into a deaf ear.
"I didn't mean to say that," I told Keiffer who was angrily stuffing his feet through the legs of his jeans. Keiffer hurled the plate of potpie I had placed on the nightstand at me. It bounced off my forearm. Food flew all over the dirty sheets.
"The fuck you didn't!" Keiffer threw at me as he grabbed a shirt from the dresser. It was one of mine, but I didn't mention it. Otto was still blathering at me about how stupid I was and how riddled with diseases I would be. I hung up on him and pushed to my feet. Keiffer was on a direct course for the front door when I caught up to him halfway across the living room. "I should have known that deep down you were just the same as all the others. Say you plan to come out, but hide behind the skirts of some beard until you die. Why the hell did I ever listen to your bullshit? Fucker. Miserable asshole lying fucker!"
"Why do you always run when something upsetting happens?" I asked, tugging him around to face me. He reacted with a shove to my chest that sent me stumbling into an end table. The lamp fell over and hit the floor, shattering the light bulb and crinkling the shade.
"You're such a fucking liar," he snarled then spun from me to grab his shoes from the closet by the front door. He ripped a jacket, also mine, from a hanger with such force the wire hanger fle
w from the rod and hit the floor of the closet. "Talking all that shit about owning being a gay man and helping people who aren't on the politically correct list of heterosexual charity causes," he raved as he pulled my bomber jacket on. "I should have fucking known that you would back out! You fucking coward; you couldn't even work up the balls to take me to dinner with your friends. Why the hell did I ever let myself care about you?" He ripped open the front door then stalked out of my loft.
I thought about yelling to him that if he left now he could stay gone, but the words just wouldn't leave my mouth. And, in all honesty, anything that I would have said would have been a lie. Keiffer was right. I was a coward. The ping of the elevator taking him out of my life rang in my ears for days.
Nine
I SPENT SIX weeks looking for him. Manhattan could swallow a person and never burp them back up. I visited every homeless shelter in the city under the guise of charity work. I thought that Keiffer leaving that night had deadened my heart to any more pain. I was wrong. Seeing the faces of kids in shelters, boys and girls, some as young as twelve, made me hurt in ways that changed me. I talked to runaways and those who had been thrown out like unwanted kittens. I spent a couple nights in the various shelters, bringing the press with me, making them lie down in the beds that those kids had to curl up in night after night, if they could find an available bed. I was finally doing what I said I would do; maybe, just maybe, I could keep a kid from having to turn to prostitution as Keiffer had. Thank God, he had never fallen into drug abuse. I ached and pined for him, and I kept searching and visiting.
The Nightwings organization noticed my sudden need to be hanging out with homeless gay and trans teens. It took them about ten days before the GM called me in for a meeting. The head coach was there as was someone from the public relations office. I was politely asked why I was now the spokesman for LGBTQ homeless youth. I told them that as a gay man, I felt it was my duty to help. Keiffer would have been proud. Pity I didn't know where the fuck he was. After that little discussion, things changed slightly. The owner and I had dinner about a week after I told the GM I was gay. It was a lovely meal shared with his wife, our congressional representative. We had a long talk about the homeless situation for gay youth in our fair city. Promises were made that I planned to hold the lovely congresswoman to. Then the owner informed me that the Nightwings would stand behind me if I ever made the decision to come out. I did, about a week later, first to the team and then two weeks later to the press.
That was yesterday. A day that saw my face plastered all over every newspaper, blog, and TV in New York. I was given the option of skipping morning skate due to the uproar my announcement had caused, but I decided to come in. I was still Riley Zeally, the damned goody-goody who didn't miss morning skate unless he was too sick to lace up. The press had parked themselves outside my building. The other condominium owners were not impressed, so Norman told me when I stepped out of the elevator that morning.
"Maybe you should think of going out the back way, Mr. Zeally," Norman said. I glanced over his balding head to the street. Reporters milled around like piranha waiting for a crippled spider monkey to tumble from the trees into the Amazon. I needed to stop watching so much Animal Planet, but it was either that or staring at the lights that dangled from the living room ceiling as I worried about Keiffer. Nights were lonely for those of us with lifeless chunks of calcium for hearts. "I sent most of the residents that way this morning."
"I'm sorry about all this," I said as I studied the crowds moving around the front door. "Maybe I should just go talk to them," I sighed and threw a scarf around my neck. Meeting Otto for breakfast at the teahouse would be a gauntlet run. That irritated the living piss out of me. To hell with talking. Maybe I should go out and bellow at the bastards. Tell them to fuck off and just leave me alone. Did who Riley Zeally sleep with really matter that much? "Maybe I should go out there and body check all of them into the nearest wall."
"I like the sound of that, Mr. Zeally," Norman chuckled as he tried to steer me past the wall of mailboxes to the back entrance. I almost turned to follow him, but something yellow caught my eye. I shook Norman off and stared at the man on the other side of the locked door. It was Keiffer, and he was holding up a crumpled newspaper. "Mr. Zeally don't you open that door to them barracudas!"
I ignored Norman and ran to the door, unlocking it, and then pulling Keiffer inside before slamming the door shut in the face of some woman yelling my name. He was windblown with pink cheeks and his, now shoulder-length, hair whipped into his eyes. His face looked leaner, as if he had lost the weight he had gained while living with me. A wave of words hit the back of my teeth, like a flood hitting the dam wall.
"It's fucking crazy out there," Keiffer said as I stood staring at him like a moron. "Is this real?" He unrolled the paper in his hands. I noted that his gloves were mismatched again. He still wore my bomber jacket. Keiffer held up the New York Chronicle, a kind of cheesy daily that put alien conspiracy theories on the front page. It also put the face of a famous athlete who had just come out on the cover as well it seemed. I nodded dully, my hands gripping the sides of my long woolen coat so I didn't reach out to grab the man in front of me. "Why did you do this?"
"Where have you been? I've looked in every shelter from the Bronx to the Bowery."
"Don't deflect; why did you do this? I need to know." He was adamant about it, shaking the paper under my nose. I pushed the daily downward. I needed to see his face, assure myself that he was really here.
"I had nightmares about you being stabbed while you slept under a bridge overpass," I told him, my hand moving from the newspaper to his face. People started knocking on the door behind us. I vaguely heard Norman storm past while muttering expletives. I couldn't look away from Keiffer as I ran the back of my fingers along his jaw. "How did you survive?"
"I survived before I met you, didn't I? Now can we make this not about me?"
"Tell me what you've been doing. If you've been hustling again, that's okay." I paused to scowl. "Well, no, it's not okay, but I understand that you have to eat."
"Maybe we need to stop talking at each other for two minutes," Keiffer said with exasperation. Norman was directing the press to clear the doorway, but they didn't seem to be listening. "I was staying with a friend."
"Did this friend pay you to fuck him? Shit, I'm sorry. You're out of my life now and what you do and with who is none of—"
He slapped his hands to the sides of my head and jerked my mouth to his. Lips pressed almost painfully to teeth, he slid his tongue along the seam of my mouth. A shudder coursed through me. Then he pulled back to stare at me, eyes wide, palms on my ears.
"Why did you come out?"
"It was time for me to be honest with the world. Did you sleep with someone for cash while you were gone?"
He leaned in and kissed me again. No tongues this time, just a gentle pressure of his lips over mine that made me lightheaded while it filled me with want.
"I stayed with a friend who got me a job busing tables at some trendy pub on the east side. I love that you came out for the right reasons, and that someone didn't out you because of us."
"I just love you," I said then took him in my arms and kissed him until we were both breathless and shaking.
"I love you too," he said so softly it was a strain to hear over the yelling doorman and press. I had a strong suspicion about what would be on the front page of the Chronicle tomorrow.
"Come back upstairs with me. We need to talk."
"Talking isn't the only thing we need to do," Keiffer murmured. He began walking in reverse as I steered us toward the elevator. I refused to let go of him so we stepped on each other's toes and bumped noses a few times, but I finally got his back against the elevator door. "Is that offer still open?" he asked after I took several short tastes of his lips. "I have a job. I can pay you back. It might take me eighty years, but I'll pay it back."
"If you get into the pros, you can pay me back in a ni
ce fat lump sum." A ping overhead informed us of an imminent door opening. We stepped back then fell into the lift when the doors slid open. Keiffer grunted when his shoulder blades slammed into the back wall. I hiked up his coat, sliding my hands under the jacket and fleece top he wore. His chest was warm. His head dropped back to rest on the wall. He knew how much I liked that move. I placed my mouth to his exposed neck and suckled on his Adam’s apple. The doors closed behind me.
"And if I don't? Holy fuck, I missed that," he whispered sensually when I lapped from his neck to his ear. I held onto his hips tightly, making sure our erections were side-by-side.
"If you don't, then you'll get a job in a field that you studied in and pay me back in smaller sums."
"Sounds like you got this all figured out," he panted. I lifted my head to gaze at him.
"Yeah, yeah, I do because for the past six weeks, all I did was think about how sweet life could be for us if I hadn't fucked it all up. Are you here to stay?"
"Will you take me to dinner with Otto and Claude and all the others on the team?"
I readily agreed then claimed his mouth for the ride up to my floor. The doors opened, I kept him pinned to the wall. The doors closed after a moment. "Yes, I will take you anywhere you want to go."
"Right now, the only place I want to go is back to your place. I need you inside me; shit but I missed your uptight ass." He gave my butt a two-handed squeeze that nearly made me forget we were in an elevator that could open any second.
"You may have to hold on for another ride to the top, you okay with sticking around for a while?"
"Oh yeah, I'm here until I get my loans paid off."
We rode down to the lobby, hiding from prying eyes when the doors opened, and then began the climb back to the loft apartments on my floor, touching each other constantly.
"So, secretly hoping you end up supersizing fast food meals after you graduate would be mostly wrong of me, right?" I leaned into him, needing to feel his body pressed against mine.
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