by R J Scott
I pulled away, his fingers sliding from our slick cocks, his eyes slowly opening, showing me sated emerald beauty. I’d always gotten lost in those eyes. What did I do now? Kiss him? Shove him out the door? Take him to my bed for the rest of the day? Call him names? I was flustered, unsure, scared of the emotions trying to overtake me again.
“We have eggs now.” I walked to the sink, washing my hands vigorously.
“Stan…” I heard him pulling paper towels off the holder on the island.
“We have eggs now.” I cranked off the taps, grabbed the edge of the sink, and inhaled and exhaled several times. I heard his keys jingle, and craned my head to look back at him. He’d tucked and zipped and righted his shirt. He looked as good as a man who had slept in his clothes could look.
“I’m leaving now. I’ll call a cab, and I just— That was… I need to get home to Noah.”
“Go, then.” I looked away from him and locked my gaze on the bubbles in the sink.
“I’ll pick the car up another time. Stan…”
“Go. Now. Go. I am— This was bad stupid. Eggs would be stupider worse.”
He left without replying. I stood there watching the bubbles disappear until the cleaning crew arrived. I wondered if they could neaten my life as well as tidying my house.
Nine
Erik
I can’t help but think that somehow, at some point, I fucked up last night. After what happened between us in Helsinki, shouldn’t we be able to stand and talk? I could have explained about Freja in a lot more detail, about her career, and her not wanting the baby, about the things I’d decided after she told me that.
But we’d reverted to type, falling on each other like starving animals, and there hadn’t been any talking. Nothing more meaningful that harsh breathing and curse words.
And then eggs? What the hell? I should have stayed, I could have asked him why he’d turned away. Was it revulsion? Or guilt? Or just plain anger? I needed to talk to someone; that was someone who wasn’t nine months old and breaking his first tooth. There was no game today, and no skate, not even an optional one, but we were back tomorrow with practice, and back-to-back road-trip games the day after that.
Road trips. No Noah, and all Stan, and this weird, impenetrable wall that was between us.
I need to talk to someone.
Freja was out. She was on location somewhere in Brazil—her first breakthrough, apparently, and the reason she hadn’t reached out to visit Noah and me over Christmas. Not that I’d expected her to; as far as she was concerned, she’d had Noah, and now it was on me.
Arvy was my best bet. He knew my town, my family, the way I’d seen my own parents’ marriage crumble and how I’d wanted better for Noah. He’d understand.
He was also single, and probably hungover, so he’d be at home and an easy target. I changed Noah’s diaper, pulled on layers of clothes and the familiar bunny coat, and called a cab. Maybe this was the best thing. I’d talk to Arvy, get my head clear, and then get another cab, or Arvy, to drop me at Stan’s so I could collect my car. If I timed it right, I might be able to talk to Stan as well.
Or eat some eggs or something.
I texted Arvy to ask for his address. He sent it back immediately, and then there was a second text. Why? Too late. I had the address, I had a cab booked, and Noah and I were on a road trip all of eight miles to Arvy’s place.
The man who opened the door to me wasn’t the one I expected. I mean, it was Arvy, but he wasn’t bleary and hungover, he was bright and shiny and exuded all kinds of things like good health and cheeriness.
“Come in, come in,” he said, and took Noah from me, doing a complicated back step and making Noah fly, which he loved and giggled loudly. “So, Master Noah, I have all sorts of things to tempt you with.” He opened the door to his enormous fridge, which at first glance just held beer and cans of energy drinks. “Guess we need to ask Papa if he brought you any snacks, little man.”
The flow of Swedish was too loud for me, but Noah, who was used to a whole mishmash of English and Swedish, burbled and batted his hands at Arvy.
“I have this,” I said, and handed over a banana. Arvy looked at it and then at Noah, puzzled, and I immediately took the banana back, opened cupboards, found a plastic bowl, and chopped the banana into finger-squishing pieces. There was no high chair here, but between us we made a nest of pillows that Arvy assured me were only cheap and could be replaced.
And then, with coffee and cookies he had at the back of a cupboard, we sat on opposite sofas.
“How do you even survive?” I asked, and indicated the fridge.
“Takeout when I don’t eat at the rink. Not shitty takeout, though. There’s a salad place that delivers and it’s only a few miles up the road. But you’re not here to quiz me on the contents of my fridge.”
“I just don’t have a lot of friends in Harrisburg yet, and you’re the best I have, and I needed someone to listen.”
“No worries, but can I go first?” Arvy sat upright and crossed his legs, his coffee perilously close to ending up on his thick cream carpets. “I think I’m in lust.”
I blinked at him. “Who with?”
“I met her last night. She has beautiful dark hair, and these gorgeous gray eyes, and her smile… Beautiful.”
Gah. If I hadn’t known better I would have thought he was describing Stan, and then it hit me. “Stan’s sister?”
“You saw her, right? Do you think I should ask her out? Would Stan kill me?”
“He loves his sister,” I said. I knew that because it was what he’d told me last summer. Not told me exactly, but he’d always smiled when he mentioned her name. He was a passionately possessive Russian, Galina was his sister, and Arvy was a hockey player, albeit a rich one. That was not going to go down well.
“I think I’ll ask her, if I can, so hands off, okay? You might be single now, but I saw her first.”
He was joking, but there was something in his eyes that I recognized. Connection. I’d been so lost in thinking about Stan and then drinking myself into oblivion that clearly I had missed the Arvy/Galina thing altogether. What I saw in Arvy was a serious grown-up attraction, not some puck bunny connection that wouldn’t last.
“She’s nice,” I said, “but I need to talk to you first, if you’ve got time.” I realized I was giving him every opportunity to back out of talking to me. All he did was settle back on the sofa and wait. Noah had nodded off, facing me, banana squished into intricate sewed patterns on one of the cushions.
“So, Noah was an accident.” I wasn’t sure why I started there, but the explanation had to start somewhere. “He’s the product of a one-night stand when I’d drunk way too much. I’d met Freja a couple of times before, and who knows, maybe we could have dated, but we went straight to sex, and jeez…”
“Why are you telling me this?” Arvy asked, his tone serious.
“Because this was why I got married, okay? Because she came to me for money for an abortion, and I was going to give it to her, and then when it came to it I couldn’t. So we came to an arrangement and she carried Noah to term, and I’m his sole parent now.”
“Again, Erik, why are you telling me all this?”
Noah mumbled and blinked open his eyes, and I scooped him up, banana and all, and held him to my chest. He bobbled his head a couple of times and then he was asleep again.
“Because of Stan. Because between one night with Freja and a wedding, I had Stan.”
“At the conditioning event, you mean, you met Stan? I know you did. I met Stan. Didn’t understand a word he said.”
“No, I was…with Stan, we had a…” What word summed up what we’d had? Relationship? Affair? “…a thing,” I finished in my usual pathetic, half-hearted way of labelling what had been the most intense connection I’d had in my entire life. The same connection that had never left.
“He’s, your… You mean… Jeez, what is it with this team?” He was joking to counteract the sudden seriousness of
what I’d just revealed.
“I’m trusting you with this, because we grew up in the same town, and we’re friends, and you know me.”
Arvy nodded, then shook his head, like he couldn’t make up his mind. “Clearly not as well as I thought.”
“We split, me and Stan. It was supposed to be for the summer, and that was it, like a proximity thing is all, only I fell in love, and he did, and then I left him.”
“Let me get this right.” Arvy sat forward again, his confusion obvious. “You fell in love and you left him? Why would you…” He trailed away, and I waited for the penny to drop. Which it did quickly, because Arvy was always the clever one. “Because you found out you were going to be a daddy and decided to do what? The honorable thing? Jesus, Erik. You didn’t have to get married.”
“I did. Noah deserves that.”
“Like he deserves divorced parents now?”
That hurt, because no child deserved an unhappy family, but too often they were in the middle of one. My childhood hadn’t been the brightest in terms of parents, but I’d had hockey and friends, and now I had Noah and was determined to do things right for him.
“Do I tell everything to Stan? You’ve played with him all season, you know him better than I do.”
Arvy raised an eyebrow, “I doubt it.”
“Asshole, you know I didn’t mean it that way.”
“On this team, who knows?” Arvy muttered.
I ignored him. “First I think I should explain it all. Then I think, do I want him back even if he wanted me? After all, he was happy for me to walk away. What if the summer was a one-off, an affair that was always time-stamped to end when we left?”
“Jesus.” Arvy stood up and stretched. “I think we need a beer.”
“It’s eleven a.m.”
“It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
“Not for me, thanks.”
“Sprite, then—you like that shit.” He was at the fridge by then, and I got the impression the conversation was being ended on his terms.
“Arvy? What do I do?” I asked, hating that I was dumping all of this on him. He stopped with the fridge door open and his back to me. With a loud exhalation, possibly of irritation, he turned to face me.
“You visit Stan and you tell him what you told me, but in words of one syllable where possible and with the aid of diagrams. What’s stopping you?”
Knowing that he could tell me to leave and that last summer meant nothing to him. Even if he did kiss me, and more, and touch my hair as if he was reaching for memories.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
“Do you want me to tell you not to go?”
“Maybe? No. Yes. I don’t know.”
Arvy placed the unopened cans on the counter and picked up his keys. “Come on, I’ll take you.”
“What? Now?”
“You want to wait until tomorrow when you’ll have even more reasons not to talk to him, let alone the fact that we have practice and then we’re getting ready for the road trip?
“No. Yes.”
“Make up your mind.”
I stood up, awkwardly with Noah still asleep in my arms. Stan might not even be home, and then there was the road trip, and maybe I could avoid talking to him until after then. Did I want to see how he felt now? Did I want to try to convince him that we could give everything another try? Last night he’d kissed me, got me off, and he’d wanted me so badly he was shaking with the need of it.
The sex had always been good, explosive. Enough to make me forget my own name. I looked down at a sleeping Noah.
So, I go to Stan, and I tell him everything, and what am I even looking for?
Forgiveness? Open arms? Another daddy for Noah?
I opened the baby bag and pulled out wipes, cleaning Noah up and checking his diaper, and that gave me time to think, even if Arvy was standing by the door with his boots on and his jacket already zipped. Talk about eager.
I prevaricated as much as I could, determined to make the right decision, and then I realized I was making no decision at all. If Stan told me to fuck off, then great, I’d accept that. But Stan had asked me about my feelings, and I’d been honest. At least I thought I’d been honest.
Finally we were in the car and heading to Stan’s place, and Noah was awake and burbling away. He’d need feeding soon, but I was damn lucky to have a baby who didn’t seem to care that he was eating and sleeping in all kinds of different places.
We pulled up at the gate and it was locked. Which meant me sneaking in and getting my car wouldn’t have worked. Seemed that Arvy knew the number, though, and the gates swung open.
“How many people know his number? Isn’t that some kind of security risk?”
Arvy snorted. “First off, he often uses the bus to get home, and secondly what is his jersey number?”
“30.” I thought everyone knew that, but he wasn’t asking me an actual question.
“See, easy, his gate code is 3030—so predictable.”
We pulled up next to my car, and not for the first time did I notice the difference between mine and every other team member’s vehicle. Arvy’s was one of the most sensible, and even that was an Audi Q7. One day I’d get a new car, one with auto defog and a working radio. Of course, that was way down the list, after actual furniture.
In the time it took for Arvy to turn off the engine and walk to the front door, his enthusiasm for this visit had waned a little. He brushed his hair with his fingers and posed for me.
“You think she’ll like this? How do I look?”
“Like a hockey player trying too hard,” I deadpanned, because I could, and because it took my mind off what I was doing there. He sent me a look that spoke volumes and muttered a curse word under his breath, then he rang the bell, and the door opened after a short pause.
Galina answered the door, and her eyes went from me to Noah and then to Arvy. She smiled, and Arvy was right; she had a beautiful smile and looked so much like her older brother.
“I’m sorry, Stan is out right now. He’s walked to buy ice cream.”
Ice cream? I hadn’t even known this exclusive neighborhood had shops. I didn’t say that, but I wished I had, because there was one of those awkward pauses while Galina and Arvy stared at each other.
“I like your jersey,” Arvy said.
She looked down at the standard Railers practice jersey, which hung loose on her. She really needed to get one that wasn’t her brother’s.
“Thank you?” she said, as a question.
Arvy didn’t stop, he just kept on talking. “I could get you one of mine, maybe in a smaller size.”
It would have been a funny situation had we not been standing in the cold, with Noah in my arms.
“That would be nice,” she said, and startled when I cleared my throat. “Sorry, you shouldn’t have the baby out in the cold. Would you like to come in and wait for Stan?”
Arvy was in quicker than I’d ever seen him move, and I followed a little more sedately. Noah was still awake, his eyes wide, and I stood and waited for what was next. Should we take off our coats? Were we staying?
“Can I take your coats? Come into the kitchen—I have coffee, and I can find something for the little one.”
Galina reached for Noah, who I swear was flirting, with his best wide eyes, Cupid’s bow smile, and a soft, cooing bah sound. He twisted his fingers in Galina’s hair and tugged, and she just laughed.
I didn’t have to be an expert to see Arvy falling in love with her the very second she laughed and held a baby.
It had never been that way for me and Freja, but I can’t tell you how many times I’d thought I should try.
We drank our coffee and ate tiny breads with sugar that Galina called Plyushka. She took Noah and held his bottle for him, tenderly brushing his curls from his forehead. The house was warm and still decorated from New Year’s, softly lit with candles, and I was relaxing and nearly forgetting the kind of conversation I had to have with Stan.
&n
bsp; Arvy was chatting now, talking about hockey and asking questions about Russia, and nerves had given way to smooth conversation. Galina talked with an accent, but her English was so much better than Stan’s. When Arvy asked her, she explained that Stan only had time for hockey, and hadn’t thought to learn much English until last summer.
“Something changed,” she said. “He began to actually listen to people who told him to learn, and he’s taking lessons.”
I nodded as she explained. Had Stan told her about last summer? Had he mentioned how the Swedish hockey player had used him, or had he called it breaking his heart? And had he started to learn English because of me?
Of course he hadn’t, but still, the warmth of association rested in my chest, and I smiled.
Ten
Stan
My neighborhood is what is called upper class. Big, expensive homes. Fancy cars. Someday I think I’ll buy the biggest American car I can. Maybe a Cadillac. That’s the mark of success in America. Big cars. Big houses. Big boats. Big, big, big. Like my ice cream. A big tub of chocolate with marshmallow. Everything here was super-sized, jumbo, enormous.
So different from my childhood home. Yet the sound of children out playing in the snow was the same. Several ran up to me, eyes bright, cheeks red and wet, all with hockey sticks in hand.
“Mr. Stan, will you play with us?” asked Darren, the boy who brings me my daily paper. I glanced up at his house, a sprawling two-story with an attached two-car garage. There in front of the two doors, in the recently plowed drive, sat a net. “I know my dad said we shouldn’t bother you because you’re busy, but now you’re just walking with ice cream.”
He made a good point. I smiled down at the boys and girls. “I am happy to play with you.”