by R J Scott
I knew that. I knew it was bonding. I mean, what was more bonding than getting blind drunk with your team mates? Only I hadn’t had a drink since Freja had told me she was pregnant. First it had been the shock that one drunken hookup had produced a child, then it had been solidarity with her, then it had been because I was determined to be the most responsible dad in the entire world. Now it was because I’d lost the habit of cracking a cold one.
“Noah is sleepy, so am I, you need to go.”
I looked at my wide-awake son and my equally non-sleepy nanny and sighed.
“I’ll take a shower,” I agreed grudgingly.
A shower became needing a shave first, and then styling my hair, and then finding clean, presentable jeans and a smart button-down shirt in a dark red. Only when I passed the mirror did I realize what I’d done. I looked good, even for me, but was it for Stan, or was it for the team?
Maybe it was just for me?
I kissed Noah, fussed with him a little, and he did at least let out a tiny yawn.
I handed Amy the card Liza had given me, said I’d explain it all tomorrow but that this was kind of a back-up for her. She just said she had my cell phone number, and added that just because she’d got food poisoning once didn’t mean it was going to happen again.
“I’ll call in,” I said as I walked through the door.
She shut the door on me, and I kind of needed that. Because standing outside the apartment debating whether to stay or go, with the door open wide, wasn’t a good thing.
My car started first time, it wasn’t snowing, and I made it to Stan’s place in good time. He had a typical highly paid player NHL house, all gates and walls and wide turning areas for cars. There weren’t a lot of cars there, but I knew most of the guys were taking cabs, and some were actually staying the night.
For a while I sat in my car looking up at the house. Don’t tug a tiger by the tail. I’d looked it up, or at least I’d looked up what I thought Stan had meant. Don’t make Stan angry, because he might turn on me. That was the only meaning I could ascertain.
If only I could turn back the clock to last year. Instead of just leaving I would have explained more, about expectations on me, and about how I felt.
I would have still left, but at least my heart wouldn’t feel quite so bruised.
A loud knock on the window had me jumping so hard I smacked my head on the roof of the car.
“Way to give me a concussion, asshole,” I said to Arvy when I opened the door.
“Get your ass inside—it’s fucking freezing out here.”
So I did. I walked inside with Arvy, and there was Stan looking like he’d stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine. He was so gorgeous I nearly went to my knees at the thought of what I’d lost with the decisions I’d made.
“Vodka,” he announced, and thrust a glass at each of us. “Na Zdorovie,” he said, jovially. “Drink.”
And for the first time in a long time, I drank.
Eight
Stan
“What’s the difference between a G-spot and a golf ball?” Adler shouted over the thumping rap music someone had turned on.
Who had done that? What was wrong with Elvis? Ugh. Rude people. I shrugged because I didn’t know what a G-spot was. My sister began to snicker. Arvy continued staring at my sister. He had been doing that for the past hour since he had arrived with Erik. My gaze kept leaping from Adler to Erik, who was talking to Dieter and Trent by the food table.
“A guy will actually search for a golf ball.”
Galina threw back her head and laughed heartily. I chuckled to be polite. Adler rolled his eyes.
“Didn’t you get it?” Adler asked. Galina patted my biceps.
I shrugged. “I am not sure for this G-spot is,” I confessed.
My sister rose to her toes and whispered into my ear what a G-spot was and where it was located. I felt my face turn hot. That made Galina laugh again.
“My brother has always been a shy one when it comes to female things,” she said with a smile. Arvy stared at her openly. I peeked over my sister’s head and saw Erik break away from Trent and Dieter to go upstairs.
“Tell more jokes. They are funny. Ha!” I moved around Adler while keeping my focus on Erik. He climbed the stairs quickly. Was he getting his coat from the blue guest room and leaving? Why? I had not glowered at him at all. Moving past the large fir tree, I grabbed the present I had run out to buy for his baby and went off after him. Tennant and Jared slowed me down by the buffet table asking about the pickled herring, why there was so much salami, and what the beet-and-potato salad dressed with olive oil was. I hurried to answer them as nicely as I could, then ran up the stairs, gift in hand.
I checked all the bedrooms and didn’t find him. Leaving mine, I stumbled over him in the hallway, leaving the bathroom. His green eyes flared when he saw me.
“Nice bathroom,” he said, then gestured at the room.
“Yes. It has good toilet.” Ugh. That was stupid. “And sink. Sink is good.”
“Yeah, I saw that too. Look, Stan…”
I shoved the box with the silver paper and red bow at him. “Is for new baby.”
“Noah. His name is Noah.”
“Yes, I know is Noah. That is good name.” I shook the present. He stood there staring at it like it might be a bear trap. “Take it.”
“I’m not sure I should.” He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I mean, it’s really nice and all…”
“Take it. Our bad past no mean baby should not have gift.”
He lifted a shoulder. The shirt he was wearing slid down to show me a bit of his collarbone. It was just as beautiful as I recalled. Covered with delicate skin that would bruise if I sucked on it long and hard enough.
“He got his gifts last week.”
“Then he has more.” I crammed the damn box against his chest. “Why be so awful stupid? Take present for Noah. I shop hard with bad head.”
His mouth tightened. “Stan, I appreciate it, but I got my son stuff for Christmas. He’s good.”
“He is no good before getting—this getting my…my gift for him makes happy times for baby. You are…why so always—stupid corn fucker!”
Erik snorted. My brain caught up with my words and I felt even more inept and bumbling.
“Corn fucker?” He snickered a bit. It made me incredibly upset to hear him laughing at me, like he probably had the day he’d walked away from me. Laughing at the big oaf of a Russian who had fallen so hard and so fucking deep.
“I hurt for you so much!” I shouted, grabbed a handful of those golden curls, and jerked him to me, my mouth crushing his. I kissed him hard, violently, angrily. He stiffened, then leaned in to me, just a bit. That changed the kiss from something done to hurt him into something being done for sheer pleasure. His lips softened, his mouth opened, and I went in deep. Erik moaned softly as my tongue slipped over his. The taste of him lit fires within me I’d thought long doused. My grip in his hair tightened…then Anatoly bellowed my name.
I stumbled away from him, my fingers slipping out of his hair, my lips wet from our kiss.
“Stanislav! Come break the seal on the vodka!” Toly roared to the hoots of many of the Railers in attendance.
I flung the gift at Erik and thundered down the stairs, my face flushed. The bottle of Beluga Noble was handed to me, and I cracked the seal and downed several long pulls. Cheers went up. Anatoly opened a second bottle, and I drank from that one as well. I then went on to drink out of every bottle that was opened over the next hour, in the hopes that I would no longer feel the heat of Erik’s kiss. It didn’t work. The vodka sat in my stomach doing nothing to dull the ache in my head and heart. I tossed back shot after shot, my eyes on Erik as he was handed a shot glass. He’d hovered at the fringes of the party for the last hour, giving me sidelong glances.
He threw the vodka back like a professional, then took another shot. I sipped on my next shot, my attention on my ex-lover as he
began to talk a bit more loudly and wave his arms about with more passion. I’d never seen Erik tipsy. During our summer in Helsinki, he didn’t drink alcohol. Of course, during a rigorous training regime, drinking would be foolish, but on the rare nights out, he’d still drank very little. I enjoyed my vodka on occasion, such as parties and celebrations or when trying to drown the confusion Erik caused.
Another hour passed. He had taken one more shot and paired it with a beer Tennant had handed him. The guests were leaving now that two a.m. had come and gone. Galina and Anatoly had left to take Arvy home. Foolish man had tried to match my sister shot for shot and was, to quote Adler, shitfaced.
“Thank you for a wonderful time,” Trent said as he bussed my cheeks. I straightened, then shook Dieter’s hand. “Is anyone in charge of Curly Top over there?”
Trent pointed at Erik, stretched out on the sofa, talking to himself as he balanced a beer bottle on his nose. Or tried.
“I will take charge of him,” I told the tiny man with the big personality. Trent gave me a long look though eyes heavy with makeup. Then he winked.
“Be gentle. He looks delicate.” With that, the man in the pink-and-plum suit patted my biceps, latched on to his boyfriend’s arm, and led Dieter off into the bitter-cold night.
The house was in chaos. A cleaning company would come tomorrow to attend to the carnage. I stepped over paper plates and beer bottles as I made my way to the couch. Erik blinked at me around the green bottle wobbling about on his face.
“I’m a seal,” he chuckled, then barked like one.
“You are drunken fool,” I said, then reached down to pull him to his feet.
“I’m not drunk. I’m buzzed. Stop pulling on me. I can walk.” The bottle rolled down his chest to join the others on the floor. “Is there any of that salami left?”
He shook free and staggered to where the food had been.
“All is cleaned up.” I took him by the arm and led him to the stairs. “You sleep here. No drive home and kiss stop sign.”
“I only kiss Russian goalies.” He snorted and proceeded to trip up the first step.
I rolled my eyes and swept him off his feet, shouldering him like a sack of potatoes, and climbed the steps to the second floor.
“Oh wow, this is some view. Anyone ever tell you your ass is tight as a turtle?”
“You are drunk. Stop talking horse ass words.”
He patted my backside, nickered like a horse, giggled, and made a fool of himself the entire way up the stairs and into the guest room beside Galina’s. I could see why he rarely drank. He was a lightweight.
I dropped him onto the double bed, and he simply rolled out over it, no tension at being dropped from my shoulder at all.
“Where did your ass go?” He snorted as I kneeled to remove his shoes.
“Where is all time.” I yanked one shoe off, then the other, and flung his rubbery legs onto the bed.
“I have to go home. To Noah.”
“Noah is with nanny. No drive.” I stood and leaned over him to rifle through the pockets of his pants for his keys .
He slapped a hand on the back of my neck. I glanced up from the rich blue bedding to find those jade eyes locked on me.
“I’m so sorry, Stan. For leaving you…for hurting you.” His fingers bit into the nape of my neck. I was frozen in place with shock. He had no worry of me pulling away. I couldn’t. “She said she would get rid of him, and there would be no Noah.” His grip lightened, his fingers sliding over my neck to my ear then to my jaw. “I wish I could have both of you. I never stopped caring…never stopped wanting… never stopped…”
His eyes slipped shut. His hand dropped from my face and he began snoring lightly.
I left his room in a daze, my mind knotted. Even an hour later, as I rolled from one side to the other, after Galina had returned home and gone to bed, my thoughts were spinning. All I could think of was life and fate and chance.
Back in the old days, before the arrival of Christianity in Russia, many worshipped old gods. Among those old gods was Ustrecha, the goddess of chance. As the sun worked its way around the earth, I lay there, thinking of chance and fate. Had it been chance that had brought Erik and me together for that long, hot summer? Yes, probably. And had it been fate that had made him walk away? Did the gods of old Russia have his life laid out before them, and had they seen that he needed to be with the mother of his son to create him? And, knowing that, had they taken him from me?
Did he really still care for me? Want me? Did I dare even think about such things?
I slipped from bed when the sky was still black, grabbed my phone and Erik’s keys, and snuck past the sleeping partiers. Down to the kitchen I went, chancing a peek at the clock on the wall. Five minutes after four. The kitchen was the only clean part of the house, so I settled in there, making coffee and sitting at the big island in the middle of the massive room. His keys and my phone rested by my coffee mug. I sat on a stool and drank coffee and wondered if Ustrecha was playing with me and Erik right now. Old gods enjoyed toying with people. That was well known. I drank a pot of coffee, made more, ate some toast, and returned to my seat to watch the sun pinken the winter sky, my thoughts still gnarled.
“Hey.”
I glanced back over my shoulder at Erik. He looked like the bottom of a well-used toilet. His curls were matted, his eyes red, his shirt wrinkled, and his trousers twisted.
“I need my keys.”
“You will eat first. Then I will give you keys.”
“I need to get home to Noah.”
“You need eat. No pull over police with high booze blood count. Bad for Noah if arrested.”
Erik refused to argue that good point.
“I woke up and didn’t know where I was,” he said instead.
“Sit. You look bad like hell.”
“You mean I look like hell.”
I stood and he sat, dropping his forehead to the cold marble island top, then moaning. I smiled at his pain. I’d been there many times myself.
“I make food for us. Many eggs and wheat toast.”
“Your English is a lot better than the last time we were…well, when we were…fuck.”
I nodded and continued gathering cooking pans. “Yes, it is better. Good now. Hip and cool.”
Erik smiled, then groaned. “Got any aspirin?”
“Is obvious you not Russian.” I let the frying pan and eggs go for a moment. I kept aspirin in the cupboard with the glasses, so that aches and pains from hockey could be addressed as soon as I got home. Sometimes my hips ached. I dumped two white pills into my palm, got him some coffee, and walked around the island to place them both in his hand.
He lifted his head from the island, smiled, and washed down the pills with the strong black coffee.
When the pills were down, he handed me the mug. I stood there for a long time, his mug in my hand, my gaze on his beautiful face. Yes, he was still beautiful to me, even if slightly green in the gills.
“You remember what you say last night?” I had to ask. His words had clattered around inside my head like a lone pea in a pod. So many confusing things. His professions to still caring. Him saying that his girl would get rid of the baby. What did that mean? Put Noah up for adoption? Get an abortion? So many questions that needed his answers. “To me? Feeling sorry? Never stop caring? Wanting? This is true speak from you?”
“Yeah, it’s true speak.”
I could feel the touch of the old gods taking me in hand. I placed his mug on the island and reached for him, the back of his neck chilly against my warm fingers. Erik came willingly, eagerly perhaps, slipping off the stool as I led his mouth up to mine. Why I was doing this, I had no idea, but it felt right. As if predestined. Blessed by the fates. He lifted a bit, onto his toes. I shimmied down, my ass against the island, and his tongue came searching for mine. My fingers travelled up his neck into his hair. Those glorious curls wrapped around my hand as I suckled on his tongue, pulling a rumble out of him that I
’d not heard since our time in Helsinki. The sound of pleasure set fire to me. Lust raced through my veins, quickly plumping my dick.
Erik was pliant in my arms. I pulled him close as I moved from his mouth to his long, unmarred neck. I nipped and bit, pulling some of that tender skin between my teeth. He trembled and writhed, his cock rolling over mine. I sucked in a hot breath. Erik grabbed at my sides, his fingers digging into my ribs.
“My beautiful dream man,” I murmured, then moved to another spot, that luscious collarbone I had seen briefly last night. I yanked at the collar of his shirt, popping a button free. He gyrated against me, his hands now clawing at me.
“Say it in Russian,” he panted.
“Moy prekrasnyy chelovek mechty,” I huffed, then nibbled on his collarbone. He tried pulling me closer, but there was no space left between us. I spun him around, the stool catching on his foot, or leg perhaps, and toppling over to the floor. His ass hit the island. He grunted. I continued sucking on his shoulder and neck, biting along his collarbone, reminding myself of how delicious his skin was.
He touched me first, slipping his hand into my lounge pants to find my cock. I rocked into his grip, my hands now fisted in his hair.
“Free yourself. Take us both in hand.” I whispered into his ear, then tugged on the lobe with my teeth.
“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.” Erik did as he’d been told. My knees nearly folded when his cock lay next to mine in his hand. “Kiss me. Kiss me hard.”
I left his ear and covered his mouth with mine, pumping in and out of his tight grip, mad with want. He gripped my hip hard with his free hand, fingertips biting painfully into my flesh. He might be smaller than me, but still he was a man, he was strong. I would carry the marks of this encounter just as he would. That thought fired me even more, and I plunged deeper into his mouth as he jerked and tugged on our cocks. My orgasm hit me quickly, as did his. He came a moment before I did, his spunk coating his hand. The slick and heat pushed me over as I imagined that his hand was his ass, tightening around me as he gasped and shuddered.
We rode out our releases, his hand gripping and pressing our cocks tight, milking us both until the trembling subsided. His brow rested on my shoulder, my nose buried in the thick mass of gold rings. I opened my eyes and saw the sun peeking through the bare trees, shining on us, reality slicing into the cloud of yearning and sex that lingered in my kitchen.