Rule #1

by T. A Richards Neville

  “Other than my burning embarrassment? Yes, I’m okay.” The fingernails on my right hand scratch the same patch of skin on my left wrist, and it isn’t until I wince in pain that I realize I’ve broken the skin. I look down at two thin, red scratches, then cover what I’ve done with my whole hand.

  “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Brooke.” Roman frowns at my hands.

  Says him and everyone else. But I don’t argue with him because that would mean more talking, and that’s not what I want.

  “What’s West doing for Christmas?” I ask, moving the topic along.

  “His family’s in Saskatoon visiting with his great grandma, so he flew out there.”

  “He’s been living in the US, though, right? Like, for a while.”

  Roman nods, one hand loosely on the bottom of the steering wheel and his elbow resting on the door. “His dad runs a hockey camp in Buffalo. They moved there from Sask when West was still in grade school. His mom’s American. From Arizona, I think. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s Arizona.”

  “Huh,” I say, not in question, but taking the new information in. “That explains the watered-down accent.”

  Over forty minutes later, I almost miss the white wooden signpost at the side of the road welcoming us to Colebrook.

  We pass through a mainly deserted downtown, the two-lane road a stretch of brown and white slush, and the buildings and storefronts pristinely white under piles of snow. A dense wall of frost speckled trees rises in the distance, and Roman steers us away from civilization, where the roads become even more difficult, narrowing between heaps of snow that haven’t yet been touched or shoveled.

  The houses become fewer and farther apart, and the snow’s a dizzying tangle crashing into the truck’s windshield.

  I’m about to open my mouth and ask if it’ll be much longer when a dark spot at the end of the unlit country road we’re on transforms into a one-story house.

  Roman parks at the side of the house, where space for two cars has been shoveled in the snow. The sash windows glow with light, and I glance at the wilderness surrounding us, its dark silhouette ghostly under the packed, snowy sky.

  “It’s this way.” Roman’s grabbed my bag and he carries it up a set of wooden stairs leading to the front door of the white clapboard house. Dark shutters border the windows, colorless in the stingy moonlight.

  There’s a rundown feel to the place, like it’s been standing for years with the same person living in it, and they never got around to modernization. There’s something very cozy about it, and I’m not even inside yet.

  Without knocking, Roman twists the doorknob, pushes open the door, and walks straight into the kitchen.

  “It’s, me, Roman!” he calls out. I follow him through the kitchen and into a hallway. A door opens at the other end of the hallway, and a man steps through it, his shoulders and hat padded with snow.

  He stamps his boots on the doormat and pulls off his hat.

  “You went out and left this place unlocked?” Roman says.

  “Knew you’d be here,” the man says rather coldly, like him finding us here is an inconvenience rather than a pleasant Christmas Day surprise. “And there ain’t nothing more threatening ‘round here than coyotes.”

  I glance sideways at Roman. Is that supposed to be reassuring?

  The man who I’m pretty sure is Roman’s grandfather hangs his hat on a hook in the wall.

  “Who’s this here you’ve got with you?”

  “This is Brooke. Brooke, meet my grandpa Joe.” The hallway’s not very wide, and I’m half blocked by Roman, so I peek around him and wave feebly, unearthing a smile for the sterile occasion.

  Grandpa Joe just gives me a look.

  “You’re not gay then?”

  I’d think he was talking to me, but Joe’s looking at Roman, nothing in his gaze to indicate his feelings attached to that question.

  “You thought I was gay?” Roman asks in surprised humor.

  “You had all those posters of men in your room when you were younger,” Joe says conversationally.

  “Hockey players, Pops. I’m not gay. I like women.”

  Joe grunts a noise that could mean anything. Then says quietly, “Doesn’t matter one way or the other to me. They were your bedroom walls.”

  “He seems disappointed,” I lean up and whisper in Roman’s ear when Joe ducks into a room just off the hallway.

  Roman turns his head, his lips just missing mine for a disappointing second. “What do you expect? He’s been waiting for me to bring home a dude all this time. Let’s give him time to get used to the idea.”

  It takes me a little while to relax around Roman’s grandpa. He’s not unfriendly, but he looks at me like he’s already made assumptions and now it’s just a matter of me debunking them and proving myself.

  He’s not the cute little grandpa I was expecting, and him and Roman interact more like student and teacher than close family.

  “You’ll be heading back to Maine soon?” Joe asks him. He doesn’t leave any room in the answer for anything besides ‘yes.’”

  “Tomorrow,” Roman says. “I’m going to take Brooke to see Kimberly tonight, then drop her off in Montpelier on my way back to campus.”

  “It’s too late for all that.” Joe drains his bottled beer at the round kitchen table. “Stay here tonight and see Kimberly in the morning, if you have to. There’s a storm building out there, and you shouldn’t be driving all over the north east when you’ve got a game in just a few days.”

  It’s an incredibly invasive statement to make, but over the course of the night I’ve seen for myself this is how Joe is, and he doesn’t possess a filter when it comes to speaking his mind. He doesn’t pretty up his opinions or mince his words to save your feelings, and he takes some getting used to.

  “Aren’t you serious about hockey anymore?”

  “What kind of question is that?” He tries to hide it, but Roman looks across the table at his grandpa, a complex flicker of surprise in his hazel eyes.

  “Doesn’t look to me like you’re taking it seriously. Gallivanting all over the place when you could be practicing or learning from old video. You’ve got the opportunity to be in that rink every day. Drills, edgework—faceoffs. It can all be improved, Roman. You’re not memorable yet. A long way off it.”

  “I am in the rink every day,” Roman fires back only half as defensively as anyone else would, his tolerance everlasting.

  Dropping my gaze from both of them, I stand up and tuck my chair under the table. “Excuse me. I promised I’d call my mom to tell her we got here okay, so she’s probably worrying because I, ah, haven’t yet.”

  With a smile so coy it’s apparent I’m lying, I shuffle out of the room and into Roman’s old bedroom, where he dumped our bags when we got here.

  I leave the door open the tiniest bit and brace for the raised voices while I sit on the bed and open random apps on my cell phone.

  The shouting doesn’t come, though, and Roman and Joe are still just talking.

  Curious, I tread lightly on my feet and listen at the bedroom door, staying hidden behind it.

  “I’ll never understand why you keep coming back here. You think I’m too senile to take care of myself?”

  Roman doesn’t answer that, and I frown over the silence, staring at the yellow wedge of light showcasing the worn patches throughout the blue carpet in the darkened bedroom.

  “Looks like I’ve scared your little girlfriend off.”

  “Brooke’s not my girlfriend.”

  My heart strains at the mention of my name, and they’re in there talking about me.

  “She’ll distract you, Roman. Some women only see a jersey and a career opportunity.”

  “Yeah, Brooke’s not like that.”

  “And how would you know?” There’s a hurtful note of abhorrence in Joe’s voice.

  “Because we’re friends.”

  “You don’t bring your friends here.”

  �
�Shocking, huh?” Roman says airily.

  Gruff laughter splits the tension circling me, and I breathe through the alleviation and walk back to the bed.

  I leave Roman and his grandpa to talk, flipping on the light switch on the wall and closing the door, confident this is their warped version of normal and there’s nothing for me to worry about.

  A bulky silver camera sitting on the shelf above the twin bed catches my attention, and I kneel on the mattress, putting my hand around it and taking it down. I flip open the window and hold down the ON button, not expecting the screen to light up and come on, but it does.

  The first image is a video still showing the inside of a hockey rink, and I let it play, the still unfreezing into a wobbly shot of the ice the camera holder zooms in on.

  Suddenly, the camera’s turned around, and a dark-blond, curly-haired girl grins into the camera, grinning a gap-toothed smile right into the lens.

  “A little less, Kimberly,” A male voice says from out of shot. Kimberly shuffles back, wiping curls from out of her face. “Better. Tell everyone what’s happening right now.”

  “Roman’s winning another award.” Kimberly’s smile sags into an overexaggerated bored eye-roll. The camera pans back to the ice and the kids on it. Maybe nine or ten? I’m not good with ages, and these kids are wearing hockey gear and helmets, so it’s even harder to pinpoint.

  From an orderly line at center ice, kids skate forward one at a time to be presented with some type of award. The last one in line skates lazily to the front, the blade of his stick dragging along the ice, and a guy in a charcoal suit says something to him shakes his hand, loops a gold medal around his neck and puts a small trophy in his hand. Everyone cheers.

  “Woo! Go, baby!” The camera zooms up close on the young boy. Number 14 under the name KING.

  It’s Roman.

  Then the camera swings to the side, to a woman standing with her hands together, clapping louder than anyone else. Her rich brown hair, almost black, is tucked behind her hears, poker straight down her back.

  Noticing the camera’s on her, or just to look at whoever’s behind it, she turns her head, her ruby smile full and bright, and I pause the video.

  It’s like looking at Roman. Green eyes with that silver-gray hue, no brown in hers though. The quality of the video isn’t great, but the similarities are too clear for her to be anyone other than his mom. And even though she bears a striking resemblance to Stephanie around the mouth and eyes, it’s not her.

  I’m almost positive the man holding the camera is Roman’s dad, but that’s where he remains, behind the camera.

  The focus changes again, and Roman’s skating toward the door. He steps through with his stick in his hand and his head bowed, and the man in solitary waiting for him on the other side of the glass, with his newsboy cap and dark brown jacket, is Joe.

  He claps Roman on the shoulder as he’s unclipping his helmet. His cheeks are pink when he takes it off, his sweeping hair wet and stuck to his forehead.

  I take a mental note of the date in the top right-hand corner of the screen, then turn the video off and close the window. Kneeling back on the bed to put the camera on the shelf before Roman realizes anything’s amiss, I make the calculations in my head.

  Eight days after that video was taken, Roman’s parents were dead.

  The dusky, early light streaking in through the tilted blinds is tinged in blue. Blinking my eyes fully open, chasing away the fuzz, I adjust to my surroundings, remembering where I am and how I got here.

  Roman’s lying beside me. I’m in his bed, on the side that’s pushed up to the wall.

  I watch him while he’s still sleeping. The subtle, predictable rise of his chest. The defined slope of his jaw and the delicately crafted angle of his cheekbone. His hair’s soft, sweeping darkness, shorter after a recent cut and taper, but still longer on top. Mildly tousled from sleep against the gray plaid pillow. His chest’s bare, the quilt reaching below his ribs, and he’s so handsome, so fascinating to me, I could cry. He’s more than skin deep, surpasses surface level. His phenomenal looks are a fraction of his charm and why I’m drawn so vehemently to him.

  A lump constricts my throat thinking about what I saw last night and how tangled up I am. I didn’t ask for this. He put me here. Set a trap and let me fall into it. No warning, no safety net. When I said yes to him, forfeited a hundred bucks in favor of this, I’d pictured the outcome a whole lot differently. A lot less complicated. Not nearly as many feelings involved.

  Roman’s eyes crack open, narrowing as he rouses from sleep. Dragging a hand over his face, his head tilts toward me on the pillow. He blinks, gaze locking onto mine.

  I can’t conjure up anything suitable to say, and the silence wraps me in its unassuming safety. As long as Roman doesn’t say anything, he can’t hurt me. I’m okay.

  I’m not safe, though. I haven’t been safe from the start. I let myself get twisted into something I don’t know how to free myself from.

  Moving onto his side, Roman leans on his elbow. Slips his other arm under the quilt and across my stomach. There’s so much I’m bursting to say right now, but nothing that can change where we are, or how I’m feeling. The morning haze is lazy, and I go with it.

  My heart speeds up, galloping out of control when Roman rolls on top of me, his forearms on the mattress either side of my head, caging me in. Dark hair flops over one side of his forehead, into his eyes, and I reach up, touching it with my fingers and pushing it back from his face.

  I wish things could be different. I wish I could tell him that. I can’t say with certainty this is what being in love feels like, and my heart may not be breaking, but it’s definitely bruised and he’s definitely left a mark.

  His head dips, mine tilts, and he captures my lips in a soft, feathering kiss that sends a wave of tranquility through my chest, reaching my toes and my fingertips, making me lightheaded. He calms me in a way no one ever has. In a way it feels like no one ever could.

  His whole weight’s above me, supported by his straining biceps, and I place my hands either side of his ribs, my thighs spreading to allow him to get closer. He’s hard, I can feel him against my lower belly and hip, and I’m aware of exactly what it is I want. I’m ready, and he knows it. I don’t want to wait. Don’t care he won’t be there tomorrow, or the day after.

  Folding into his kiss, between his arms, I lose myself in him completely. One hand cups the back of my head as Roman deepens the kiss, stealing another little fragile piece of my heart without even realizing. I bring my knees up to his waist, the quilt falling away. Cold air humanizes the moment, and I shiver against Roman’s lips, my nipples tightening under my lace bra as goose bumps ripple over my skin.

  Roman’s lips leave mine while he reaches across the bed and rummages around in something underneath it. Finding what he was looking for, he rips into it the single blue square with his teeth, his eyes level with mine, and then he hands the opened wrapper to me.

  I take over with shaking hands. But once the condom’s out of the foil, Roman picks it from my fingers, moves his hand down between us and drops his head as he raises himself higher on his forearm. He shoves down his boxers in the front, the waistband snug over his gluteus, and rolls on the condom one-handed. He’s as relaxed and in control as he is impatient, making me feel as inexperienced as I am.

  I lift my hand from his ribs to the left side of his chest, to see if his heart’s pumping as wildly as mine. If he’s as affected as I am, or whether I’m in this alone, drowning in unfamiliar waters with no life vest.

  Lifting his head, he glances up at me as my fingers spread over his pectoral, his skin radiating warmth beneath my palm. His deep hazel eyes flicker over my face, a light, fleeting frown casting shade over his gaze, dulling the magnificent jade flecks, before he leans his face in and slants his lips over mine.

  I feel his hand working between us, a low growl vibrating in his chest, then he tugs the edge of my thong, teasing it down my thighs. I
lift my butt off the bed, to make the task easier, and Roman smiles against my lips.

  We haven’t spoken a single word to each other. Our movements, actions, our intimate looks handling the communication for us. Maybe if I open my mouth and speak, I’ll back away from him. Wimp out and leave here painfully empty and unsatisfied. Walk out of this house the same unadventurous, scared Brooke I walked in here as. Never going after what I want, never believing I deserve it as much as other girls do.

  “You still with me?” Roman’s quiet gaze shakes me out of my own head, reeling me back into the present. Back to him.

  “Yeah.” I nod. Trail my fingers up to his smooth jaw and lift my head, pressing my lips to his.

  Fitting his hips between my thighs, he guides himself into me, just the broad, swollen tip at first. I think I stop breathing when he pushes inside. He’s slow, and careful, but I’m on fire. The burning, painful heat nothing like the blissful heat from his kisses, or the way he touches me. This hurts.

  His hips start to pick up a lazy rhythm, and he’s putting just as much effort into our kiss as he is everything else. He gives me time to adjust, for my hesitant, tender body to become used to the breadth and length of him, and he sinks in gradually, taking his time.

  I realize I’m clinging to him, one hand on his back and the other at the side of his neck, like I’m hanging on. Like he’s the only thing keeping me from screaming out when he’s the one causing all my distress and discomfort.

  He curls one hand around my shin and bends my knee to my chest, holding onto me, giving himself more room, more space, to press forward—deeper. His body’s an overwhelming furnace, and he sucks the air out of my lungs and out of the room, stealing it all for himself and it making it so I can hardly breathe.

  His fingers tangle in my hair, and he groans against my lips. My thighs and my insides ache with every thrust, doesn’t matter how careful he is with me, how thorough and gentle, I need space. I need a break. I need to breathe.