by A. E. Wasp
“Don’t be like that,” Paul said flatly. He dropped down on the seat.
“So. That sounded fun,” Robbie said. “Are you in trouble?”
Paul nodded. He pulled his legs up onto the window seat, wrapping his arms around them and resting his head on his knees.
Robbie wanted desperately to put his arm around Paul, but he was half afraid it would scare him away.
“Yeah,” Paul said, voice muffled. “He said it wasn’t an ‘official’ admonition, but it was near as good as.”
“What the hell is an admonition? Where do these guys get off telling you what to do with your life, anyway? They don’t own you.”
Paul sighed and picked at a loose thread on his jeans. “An admonition is the first step in church discipline. Where they talk to you and try to get you back in line with church teachings. Bring you back to the truth.”
Leaning back so Paul couldn’t see him, Robbie rolled his eyes. “What’s the last step? They kick you out?”
Paul nodded, rubbing his face against his knees.
“So, they kick you out of the church, so what? Find another one. Or stop going altogether?” As far as Robbie could tell, the only thing Paul got from those people was a never-ending pile of crap.
“I knew you wouldn’t understand. You can’t. You’ve never been a believer. You’re not even a member of a church. Any church. You don’t know what it’s like.” Paul sniffed and wiped his hand across his nose.
“So, tell me. Please.” Now he did touch Paul, grabbing his knee and squeezing.
“It, the Church, was my whole life growing up. I’ve known these people my whole life. I spent every Sunday with them: choir practice, youth group, service trips. Every holiday, every milestone in my life was spent there.”
“When my momma—” Paul’s voice cracked. “When my momma got sick, and then when she, when she died…” He shook his head, not even bothering to wipe away the tears running slowly down his cheek.
“I wouldn’ta made it one day without those ladies. I wasn’t even living at home. I was on campus, and they made me stay in school. They fed me and cleaned my clothes and prayed with me and got me through the roughest time of my life.”
What the hell was he supposed to say to that? He wrapped his arm around Paul’s shoulder. Paul turned to him, fisted his hand in Robbie’s T-shirt and sobbed like his heart was breaking.
Robbie knew his was.
There was just so much he still didn’t understand. When Paul finished sobbing, he pulled away with a humorless laugh, wiping futilely at his eyes and nose.
Robbie pulled his shirt off and handed it to him. “Might as well use this. It’s already a disaster.”
Paul’s eyes widened, but he took the shirt and looked studiously down at the floor.
Robbie’s jaw ached from how hard he was clenching it. Fuck it. He had to know. “So, all these nice church ladies. If they knew you were gay, they would just turn their backs on you? There wouldn’t be any help for Gay Paul?”
“I don’t know,” Paul whispered. “I can’t even…I mean…I’m still me. They love me. They’re trying to help. They’re worried. I mean, it’s not the life any parent wants for their child, is it?”
“What? What the—” Robbie took a deep breath. “What kind of life are you talking about?”
Paul stood up. Robbie followed him with his eyes as he paced the length of the narrow but long room. “Most parents want their kids to fall in love, settle down, have a family, right? Be happy.”
“I guess,” Robbie said. “But how does being gay mean you can’t have any of that?”
Paul shoved his hands into his pockets, walking and talking quickly as if he could outrun the trail of bullshit he was laying. “Well, two guys or two women can’t have kids naturally.” Paul laughed nervously. “I mean, like don’t get me wrong. Obviously I, I liked—” his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, “like it, what we did.”
“Fucked?” Robbie wasn’t giving him any wiggle room.
Paul blushed, then paled so quickly Robbie worried that he was going to pass out again. “Yeah,” he said, surprising Robbie by looking him right in the eye. “I liked it when we fucked.”
Past tense, Robbie noticed a little hysterically.
“But you have to admit, the whole thing is kind of unnatural, Paul continued. “Sex is supposed to be for procreation. And what we did? Not how God intended.”
Robbie’s head spun. Now he was afraid he was going to pass out. He dropped down on the window seat and gulped down the dregs of his ice-cold coffee while he tried to wrap his head around what he was hearing.
Where to even begin unpicking how many things were wrong with that?
“So, according to you,” he asked, “infertile couples shouldn’t have sex, then? Or older women past menopause? They’re just supposed to be celibate?”
Paul’s brow furrowed. “Well, no, I guess they can still have sex. Just normal sex.”
A pulse started beating in Robbie’s temples. He was going to have to end this conversation very soon before he said something he couldn’t take back. “Normal sex? Name one thing gay couples do that heterosexuals don’t.”
Robbie didn’t give him any time to answer. “And don’t tell me anal sex. Straight people like anal, too. Straight guys like to get pegged by their girlfriends. Women give blowjobs, handjobs. Same as you.”
He couldn’t sit still anymore. He had to move. Jumping up from the window seat, it was his turn to pace the room.
Paul watched him in silence until Robbie whirled on him, pointing a shaking finger at him. “Why is it that all you people can focus on is the sex? Why is that always, always the focus? Being gay isn’t about sex acts, for Chri— for fuck’s sake. If that’s all you think this—” he waved his hands between them, “is, maybe we should…maybe.”
Paul gaped at him.
Robbie stepped right up into his face. “You—” His voice broke, and he stopped, coughed and started again, more quietly but no less intense. “You said you loved me. Not more than two hours ago in this very place, you said you loved me.”
“Robbie.” Paul sounded anguished.
Robbie turned away from him, staring at the ceiling and blinking back tears. “You say it in your sleep, you know? All the time. You tell me you love me. You tell your father you love me in your sleep.”
“I do,” Paul said. “I do love you. But it’s not the same, right? Not like with a man and woman. Is it? Can it be? Pastor Ruebens said—”
“Don’t even finish that sentence. I could give two shits what Pastor Douchebag has to say.”
Paul got quiet. So quiet Robbie was afraid he’d finally overstepped. He was just about to apologize, but Paul spoke first.
“What if I just think I’m in love with you?” Paul spoke to the floor, not lifting his head up even an inch. Robbie could hardly hear him.
“Maybe I just love you like a really good friend? And I, I let you…I got confused? I felt like this, almost, not as much, not quite, with Eubee.”
“That’s because you were in love with him, too, you idiot!” Robbie’s head would explode if he had to hear one second more of this.
“But Eubee and I, we never did nothing. Not really.” Paul sounded like he was pleading with Robbie to understand, to assure him that he was right. Their love was purely platonic.
“You don’t need to fuck someone to be in love with them! God!” That was it. Robbie was done. For now or forever, he had no idea. That depended almost entirely on Paul.
“I can’t deal with this right now. I can’t stand here and listen to any more of this bullshit. I thought you were starting to see how wrong they were. But I guess not.”
Closing his eyes, he turned away from Paul and practically jogged down the stairs.
“What if they’re right, Robbie?” Paul cried at his retreating back. “What if they’re right?”
Robbie stopped. “You need to talk to someone else. You need to get your head on straight. You are
setting yourself up for a long, lonely, sad life. And I don’t want to have to watch you kill yourself one piece at a time.”
He ran down the stairs, grabbing nothing but his cell phone, the closest T-shirt he could find, and his jacket as he left.
33
Robbie
The sun lancing off the water stabbed Robbie’s eyes as he ran into the street. Why couldn’t it be cloudy and gray like it was supposed to be? The bright blue sky, not anything at all like the color of Paul’s eyes, bordered on offensive.
Now what was he supposed to do?
His stomach growled, reminding him that regardless of how upset he was, he needed to eat more than coffee and a banana if he was going to make it through the day.
He jogged slowly down the waterfront towards the water taxi. He’d stop in at Marination Ma Kai and get a loco moco. That was practically breakfast, right? It had fried eggs, that made it breakfast.
What day was it? He often lost track during the season. All he knew was that it wasn’t a game day. He should hit the gym, work out and check in with the PT doc since his shoulder was aching a little bit more than he was happy with.
What he really wanted to do was go home, close the curtains, and wallow like a teenaged girl. He was allowed, right? For at least one day?
Despite the bite in the air, he picked a table outside. Sometimes it felt like he went weeks without feeling the sun on his skin. He ordered, pushed up the sleeves of his sweatshirt, and turned his face to the sun with a sigh.
The waitress brought him his third cup of coffee because he wanted more coffee and his stomach lining was not the boss of him.
As he stared blankly at the Seattle skyline, he felt that familiar feeling of being looked at. Sure enough, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a few kids sneaking glances in his direction, trying to figure out if he was who they thought he was.
He knew how it would go. Eventually, one of the kids would be persuaded to go up to him and ask. He was pretty generic looking, so he didn’t get recognized very often. When it happened, he felt a combination of weird and extremely flattered. Sergei always got recognized. But that’s what happened when you were a giant with a Russian accent and a killer smile.
One of the kids stumbled forward, and with a glare back at his friends, walked nervously towards Robbie’s table. Robbie smiled at him when he got close. “Hey.”
“Uh, hi.” The kid glanced back over his shoulder at his friends, and then back to Robbie. “My, uh, friends wanted to know if you’re Robbie Rhodes, from the Thunder. Number 22?”
“That’s me,” Robbie said with a smile. “You guys watch hockey?”
“We play hockey!” The kid’s smile was adorable. He was maybe twelve or thirteen, still small and young enough to not feel like he had to hide his excitement under a veneer of coolness.
Robbie loved this part of being recognized. It was so odd to be on the receiving end of fanning, but he remembered how happy it made him when his hockey idols took the time to speak with him. It was the very least he could do.
“Oh, yeah? What’s your name?”
“James,” said the kid, blushing.
“Nice to meet you, James.” He looked around the kid and smiled at his three friends. “Why don’t you tell them to come over?”
Waving wildly, James called his friends over.
The waitress brought Robbie his breakfast, and he convinced the kids to sit down and tell him about themselves.
They were great kids, animated, intelligent and wild about hockey. The way they peppered him with questions, interrupting each other loudly, and arguing among themselves over what strategy the Thunder should use for some upcoming games, made Robbie laugh in spite of everything.
It hurt when they talked about him and Paul as a team, but he grit his teeth and agreed that they made great partners.
“You guys are going to go to the All-Stars next year,” James said with authority.
“Sucks about the Olympics, dude,” one of the older boys said, referring to the League’s decision not to take the seventeen-day break it would need in order for players to participate in the games.
“I think it was a good decision,” Robbie said, shoveling the last of his sandwich into his mouth. James stared at him, eyes a little glazed, and Robbie’s gaydar gave a little ding.
Uh-oh, was James a baby gay hockey player? Robbie knew that feeling well.
The other kid’s well-thought out argument in favor of the break was interrupted by two women calling for them across the patio.
James waved them over. “It’s my mom,” he told Robbie. “She’ll want to say hi, too.”
Paul had had better luck beating some manners into Robbie than his parents had so he stood up as the two women approached the table.
“Mom, it was him!” James said.
A pleasant-looking woman in her mid-thirties, James’ mother rested a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him. “We figured that when you guys didn’t come back.” She looked up at Robbie. “Thank you so much for talking with them. I hope they weren’t too annoying.”
“Not at all. They’re great. They know a lot about hockey.”
The kids preened under the compliment. James’ eyes practically sparkled.
The other woman, who looked like an older version of the first one, smiled at Robbie the way more than one female fan had and held out her hand. “Veronica River. Aunt to half of these boys. Janey’s younger sister.”
Robbie caught James’ eye roll out of the corner of his eye and bit back a smile. “Robbie Rhodes, nice to meet you, ma’am.”
Veronica held his hand slightly longer than necessary and undressed him with her eyes. She wasn’t exactly subtle, and one of the older boys snorted, then looked down studiously at the ground.
“James is right,” she said. “You are the cutest of the Thunder players.”
Robbie forced a smile.
“Aunt Ronnie!” James yelled, turning eight different shades of red.
“Gross!” One of the other boys yelled. “Don’t flirt with him, Aunt Ronnie. You’re so old!”
Robbie tried to cover his laugh with a cough. By the look Ronnie shot him, he wasn’t completely successful.
Janey grabbed her sister’s arm above the elbow and squeezed hard. “We’ve got to go. It was nice meeting you.”
James gave his mom a pleading look. She looked down at him, and up at Robbie, doubt clear in her expression. James grabbed her shirt and pulled her down to whisper in her ear.
“I gotta do it, Mom. I gotta know,” he said just loud enough for Robbie to hear.
Janey didn’t look thrilled, but she nodded. “Okay, baby. But I’m going to wait right there.” She pointed to a spot on the railing about ten feet away. “Ronnie, can you load the boys into the van? We’ll be there in a minute.”
Veronica herded the other three boys away with a wink to Robbie, and Janey gave Robbie and James some privacy.
James’s face was still red, and he stared intently at his sneakers.
“What’s up?” Robbie asked.
“Never mind,” James said. “It’s stupid.”
Robbie sat back down, so he wasn’t looming over the kid. “I bet it’s not. Whatever it is, I promise not to laugh or anything, okay?”
“Yeah?” James risked a glance up. His eyes met Robbie’s and then flicked back down.
“Yeah.” What in the world could be bothering the kid that much, he wondered?
James took a deep sigh, his thin shoulders rising and falling. “Some, some people, say…they said, that you…you were gay.”
Robbie could practically feel the heat coming off James’ face. Shit. He should have known that’s what the kid was going to ask about. What was he supposed to say now? Well, technically, it wasn’t a question. “And?” he asked gently. “What about it?”
James looked up at him, face set in determination. “Are you? Gay?”
Robbie almost laughed. He’d never expected the first fan ever to ask him di
rectly to be a twelve-year-old kid. He’d wondered what he would say when it happened. Now he knew. He would lie like a little chickenshit.
“No,” he said. “I’m not.”
“Oh.” James’ voice was small. “Okay. Sorry.”
Damn it; the kid sounded near tears.
“Well, um. I gotta go.” He tore out of there before Robbie could say anything, running right past his mother.
She spared Robbie a look he couldn’t read, and then took off after her son.
Fuck. Just. Fuck.
This is it, a voice whispered in his head. This is where you decide what kind of man you’re going to be.
He stood there, paralyzed for what felt like an eternity.
Fuck it. Fuck the haters. It was his life, and he had to live it out loud. Enough talking the talk, it was time to man up and walk the walk if he wanted to be able to look at himself in the mirror ever again.
He tossed a couple of twenties on the table and ran through the restaurant. Hitting the parking lot, he quickly scanned the cars, looking for James and his mom. A flash of blonde hair caught his eye, and he cut through the rows of cars towards them.
“James,” he called out when he got close enough. “Wait.”
Janey turned at the sound of his voice, her hand tight on James’ shoulder. He couldn’t blame her for glaring at him.
“Hold on,” Robbie said. “Can I talk to you for a second?” Janey’s eyes narrowed at him. “And you, too, of course, ma’am.”
She looked back at the van, then nodded. She led them a few feet away from the other people.
James wouldn’t make eye contact with Robbie, so Robbie squatted down to be closer to his eye level. “Hey, James. I’m sorry. I lied. I am gay.”
Janey gasped softly. James looked up, red-rimmed eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Really?”
Robbie laughed. “Really. Trust me. I’m not saying it just to make you feel better.”
“Why are you saying it?” Janey asked softly.
Robbie straightened back up. “To make me feel better.”
She smiled at him. “Good.”
James was all smiles now. “I won’t tell anybody. I promise. I just wanted to know ‘cause…” he blushed and looked away.