The Play of His Life

by Amy Aislin

  Ex-boyfriend. Who he smiled at like a dope with his first crush.

  Man, maybe he should’ve eaten more than the pretzels on the flight over. Two sips and he was already at that stage of buzzed that made him sleepy. The one that came right before being drunk off his ass and unable to walk.

  Although, in his defense, Riley was grinning stupidly at him, too. The wings in his stomach turned dragon-sized. The only times he’d ever felt this strange feeling of anxious excitement also had to do with Riley. Their first kiss. Graduating from hand jobs to blowjobs. The first time they had sex.

  The last time. The last time that Christian had thought meant so much. Only to wake up the next morning to find Riley gone.

  “How long are you in town for?” Riley asked, and he sounded as drugged as Christian felt.

  “Just until…” Boxing Day, he almost said. But that was only five days away. Not enough time to get his Riley-fix. What if they could get the friendship back that they’d once had? The fact that Christian was still in love with Riley after all these years probably meant he was pretty pathetic.

  But the truth was that he missed his best friend just as much as he missed his boyfriend.

  He cleared his throat. “Until after the new year.”

  And now he had to make some phone calls. First to his boss about taking the extra time off. Second to the airline, which would probably charge him as much as his plane ticket to reschedule his flight.

  Given the soft smile on Riley’s face, it’d be completely worth it.

  “You don’t need your cane anymore?” Christian asked.

  The look on Riley’s face could only be described as surprised pleasure. Because Christian couldn’t keep his mouth shut and had given himself away.

  Yes, he still cared. So sue him.

  He cleared his throat. “I, uh…followed your career. You know? Obviously.” He was sure his shrug made him look like he was having a seizure. Forcing his shaking hands not to betray him, he brought his mug up to his mouth for another sip. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Riles.”

  Riley only grunted. “I knew the risks of playing pro sports. Besides, I was told I was lucky. The way I fell the injury should’ve been a lot worse. As in a knee brace and a cane for the rest of my life, but…” He held both hands up like, cane-free, bitches!

  “I thought you would’ve—” called me. Um, no. No, no. Things not to say to your ex who doesn’t seem to be nearly as affected by your reappearance in his life as you are by his. “Gone into coaching,” Christian finally went with.

  “I thought about it,” Riley admitted. “But after I got hurt, I just…needed a bit of distance from hockey.”

  “So you decided to work in a bakery?”

  “No,” Riley said. “I decided to start my own.” His voice held a tinge of disbelief, like he couldn’t quite believe he’d gone ahead and started a bakery. Who did that anyway?

  “You started a bakery,” Christian repeated slowly, trying and failing to keep the incredulousness out of his tone, “in downtown Oakville. Where the rent prices are notoriously insane?” Businesses opened and folded so fast Christian couldn’t keep up. The only ones that stayed open were the ones that had been established for years.

  “Yeah.” Riley looked away as if this was a subject he didn’t want to talk about.

  Christian ignored it and plowed forward anyway. “Are you having trouble?”

  Riley waved his hand, physically brushing the topic aside. “I’m fine,” he said with a smile that was so patently forced.

  And that hurt, that Riley wouldn’t confide in him. They used to tell each other everything. But what did he expect after six years of radio silence?

  Finishing off his hot chocolate, Christian set his mug down and forced a smile of his own. “I should get going. I’m sure you have stuff to do. Thanks for the hot chocolate.” He eyed the Kahlùa bottle on the shelf behind the counter. “And the booze.”

  Riley chuckled. “You’re welcome. Hey, don’t be a stranger, okay? I’m here almost every day. Come by for lunch when you have a free afternoon?”

  Christian would be here for lunch every afternoon if that wouldn’t make him look like a psycho stalker on crack.

  “I will,” he promised. The questions he wanted to ask burned a hole in his gut, but he left them unasked. Instead he took a good look at Riley. Because though he was almost certain this wasn’t the last time they’d see each other, he’d thought the same six years ago. And look how that had turned out. So he looked his fill, not caring that his feelings were probably on full display. Because who cared about looking like a vulnerable sap when you’d spent the past six years missing your best friend? Some things were more important than pride.

  Rapping his knuckles twice on the countertop in a silent goodbye, Christian turned to leave. Wishing he had the guts to tell Riley everything he wanted from him. Wishing—

  “Hey, T?”

  Breath left him in a whoosh at the nickname. The one Riley had started called him from the day they’d met for some inexplicable reason Riley had never ever divulged. None of Christian’s names started with a T, so where Riley had gotten it from Christian might never know. Its utterance now made him think maybe Riley wasn’t as unaffected by their sudden reunion as he’d thought.

  Christian turned to Riley, who had come around the counter and now stood only a couple feet away. Unfamiliar shadows danced in his eyes.

  “What are you doing on Sunday?” Riley asked.

  “It’s Christmas Eve.”

  Riley smiled at the nonanswer. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  Christian shrugged. “Having dinner with my mom.” Same as every Christmas Eve.

  “We close at two that day,” Riley said. “Want to hit the ice after?”

  Hell yeah, did he ever! He was sure his answering smile held a faint hint of relief as they worked out the details of when and where.

  “Bring your gear!” Riley called to him after he’d unlocked the front door to let himself out.

  “For a friendly game?”

  “Dude, you forget. I’ve seen your slap shot. No way am I getting in net without padding.”

  Damn, did he even have any gear at his mom’s anymore? Whatever. He’d find something.

  Waving a hand over his shoulder to acknowledge he’d heard, Christian let himself out, said “Don’t forget to lock this before you leave!” waited for the “Yeah, yeah” from inside, and shut the door behind him.

  Riley Deschamps counted to ten in his head and then bounded across his shop in two steps. Plastering his cheek against the cold front window, he squinted into the darkness for a last glimpse of Christian. That might be him at the stop sign, waiting for cars to pass before he crossed. It was hard to tell in the dark.

  Resisting the urge to chase after him, Riley watched maybe-Christian cross the road and disappear down a side street.

  He didn’t realize his hands were shaking until he started washing the mugs.

  Christian Dufresne. How was it possible to think you remembered what a person looked like only to be dead wrong? Christian’s icy blue eyes were more intense than Riley remembered, his hair was darker, his cheekbones sharper, his brows bolder, lips poutier. And that darker-than-a-five-o’clock-shadow-yet-not-quite-a-full-beard beard…that was new. For as long as Riley had known him Christian had always been clean-shaven. But holy moly, the beard was hot. Made him want to reach out and trace it with his fingertips.

  Riley was pretty sure Christian would let him. The man had never been any good at hiding his emotions and truthfully? He’d never seemed to care to. Especially when it came to Riley.

  If it weren’t for Christian, they never would’ve been anything past best friends. One Saturday afternoon in October of grade ten, on their walk home from hockey practice, Christian had interrupted Riley’s tirade about a school classmate who wasn’t pulling his weight on a group project and planted one on him, right there on the sidewalk, in front of God and any unfortunate
pedestrians.

  Brave. But also so stupid.

  Riley had been so freaked. So thankful, too, because fuck did he have a crush on his best friend with no idea what to do about it.

  But it had been all Christian. Christian who initiated that first kiss, then the next one right afte —the one that had convinced Riley not to run away from his feelings. Because that second kiss meant that the first one hadn’t been a fluke. It had been Christian who initiated their first make-out session, their first official date, the boyfriend talk, their first hand jobs, first blowjobs, the sex talk, sex.

  And Riley had gone along willingly. A million percent willingly. Because Christian was…Christian was everything.

  Was still everything, as it turned out.

  It was a bit of a kick to the ass to realize he wasn’t as over Christian as he’d thought.

  As in, not at all. Great.

  The good news was that Christian didn’t appear to hate him. After the way Riley had left things after they’d hooked up six years ago—because no one in their right mind, after a night of better-than-spectacular sex, thought disappearing before the sun came up a good thing—he hadn’t expected Christian to ever again look at him the way he had today: with warmth and happiness and okay, a touch of that familiar grouchiness, too.

  But man, that had been a shit time. Riley finished closing up, bundled into his many layers, locked up behind him, and started his short walk home in minus twenty-degree weather, following the same path maybe-Christian had taken only a half hour earlier.

  Downtown Oakville, and this section of Lakeshore Road in particular between Navy and Allan Streets, always reminded him of Los Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Small shops interspersed with restaurants, bakeries, ice cream parlors, and hair salons. But without the island in the middle of the street. And it wasn’t surrounded with tall buildings—Oakville had some kind of bylaw that prevented buildings from being above a certain height. And without palm trees, because this was Canada and the only palm trees in Canada were…well, nowhere.

  The further he walked from downtown, heading south toward Lake Ontario, the quieter it got as he entered the residential area with its old, historic homes. He could hear the waves lapping against the shore. He’d grown up hearing that sound outside his bedroom window and hadn’t realized he’d missed it until he moved back home for good after he injured his knee a couple years ago. The injury had been so bad it had cut his pro hockey career short after only just three years. But those years had been awesome and he never looked back on them with what-ifs or regrets.

  Speaking of regrets…

  Rewind seven and a half years, to the end of their second year at university. When Riley had decided to stay in Colorado over the summer to go to an exclusive hockey training camp he’d been chosen to attend. Instead of coming home like he’d promised. Where Christian already had a summer internship lined up in Toronto—only half an hour east of Oakville—and was just waiting for Riley to come join him for a few weeks.

  But Riley hadn’t. And Christian couldn’t do it anymore. The separation was killing him; Riley could see it happen, even over Skype’s pixelated connection. Christian was hardwired to shower affection on the people he loved. He needed to see Riley, to touch him and hear him and smell him for longer than the brief periods they’d managed to get together between their classes and midterms and exams and part-time jobs and Riley’s hockey games and practices.

  And Riley had understood. So he hadn’t fought for them. Even though it felt like his heart was being cut out of his chest with a rusty spoon.

  In hindsight, that was his biggest regret. It had cost him his best friend.

  But he couldn’t regret staying in Colorado for hockey camp. He credited it with making him a better player, which had eventually led to being a first-round NHL draft pick.

  He just wished things could’ve been different.

  Fast forward almost a year and a half after their breakup, to the start of their fourth year. Christian’s dad passed away of a stroke unexpectedly. And Riley couldn’t not go to the funeral. Christian’s parents, Sylvie and Charles, had been a second set of parents to Riley growing up. And Christian had been a mess.

  Granted, sleeping with Christian the night after the funeral probably hadn’t been smart. But Christian had been so sad, and he’d seemed so alone. Riley had known it was a mistake afterward, as they’d lain in bed talking and Riley had realized that Christian was subtly dropping hints about moving to Denver to be with Riley, despite still having two semesters left of school.

  And Riley had panicked. He hadn’t wanted to be a person someone else gave up everything for. So he’d left as soon as Christian fell asleep.

  Fine, that was his biggest regret. Not staying. Not trying. Not keeping in touch. But it was too late now.

  Or was it?

  His extremities were numb and his right knee twinged by the time he reached the driveway of his clapboard house on Front Street. Riley looked northeast, in the direction of Christian’s house on King Street, where Christian’s mom still lived and where Christian probably was right now. Less than a five-minute walk away. He remembered the way Christian had tucked his face in Riley’s neck when they’d hugged earlier, just like he used to. And his choked voice when he’d said hi. And how he’d looked so reluctant to leave the bakery. And the delighted smile when Riley had suggested a hockey game.

  All was obviously not lost. It was an opportunity he wasn’t going to pass up again.

  * * *

  Of course, Christian showed up at Warm Glow the next day in the middle of the craziest of lunch hours.

  Fine, to be fair, Riley had told him to come for lunch, but in his defense, Riley hadn’t expected the Friday before the Christmas weekend to be this insane. It was like everyone who worked and shopped downtown Oakville forgot there were other restaurants and bakeries on Lakeshore to lunch at.

  Yeah, okay, maybe he was just frustrated that one of his part-timers “forgot” she had a final exam today and couldn’t come in for her lunchtime shift. Christian walked in, took one look at the lineup Riley was serving, another at the tables Riley hadn’t had time to clear. Then he came around the counter and disappeared into the kitchen. Riley barely had time to wonder what the hell he was doing before he came back out with a large bin and started clearing tables.

  The relief Riley felt was overwhelming. One wrong move and someone would post a negative review on Yelp or Urban Spoon or whatever app the kids were using these days to avoid making decisions. And his little bakery couldn’t afford the bad press until it was a little more established. It was already hard enough making rent every month. They didn’t need to lose any customers.

  He lost track of Christian while he took orders but he was always peripherally aware of him coming and going from the kitchen. Riley could hear Samantha, his business partner and Warm Glow’s live-in baker and cook—literally. She lived above the shop—talking in the kitchen, which meant she’d made Christian’s acquaintance. When he screwed up an order because he was busy thinking about trying not to think about Christian, Riley pretended this day was the same as any other and that Christian was still in Vancouver and went about his business.

  Christian’s gruff laughter from the back shot that plan to hell.

  It was almost an hour later that the line disappeared, though a few people remained at the tables.

  “Is it just me, or was that busier than normal?” his other part-timer, Henry, asked. Henry was a seventy-year-old retired army vet who only worked Tuesdays and Fridays because those were the days his wife hosted her knitting club and it was either get the hell out of the house or listen to them talk about the misadventures of their various grandkids.

  “Everything’s crazier at the holidays,” Riley replied, wiping down the drinks counter.

  Henry started wiping down the small counter that held the condiments. “Should’ve seen the fight that broke out over a parking spot at the Toys “R” Us yesterday. Thought I was go
ing to have to use my army general’s voice.”

  Riley had heard Henry’s army general voice. It was terrifying.

  Speaking of terrifying voices, where was Christian? Not that his voice was terrifying, but his grumpiness had been known to scare a kid or two.

  Riley turned and there Christian was, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, hands on his hips. He wore one of Warm Glow’s green aprons over jeans and a dark blue T-shirt. Just the sight of him made Riley’s heart flip.

  Christian had always been a big guy, but Riley had forgotten just how imposing he could be when he scowled that way. And what was with his pouf hairstyle? A pompadour, was it? Riley had seen hairstyles like that on guys before and thought those men should be on the cover of cheesy romance novels. But Christian pulled it off, probably because he could scowl anybody into liking anything.

  “Is it my turn to order now?” Christian asked.

  It made Riley laugh and the tension drained from his shoulders. “Sure, what do you want?”

  “What’s good?”

  “Seriously? You’re asking me that in my own bakery? Everything’s good. The salad—”

  “What guy likes salad?” Christian interrupted. He said “salad” like “peas”—which Riley knew Christian hated more than any food ever.

  “I like salad,” Riley said, slightly offended. Warm Glow’s salads were good, damn it!

  “Me, too,” Henry said, coming around the counter to grab a wet cloth. “Know why?”

  “Because you’re turning over a new leaf?” Christian suggested.

  Riley just looked at him.

  “What?” Christian said. “That was funny.”

  “That was as lame as ever.”

  “I thought it was funny,” Henry said.

  “Me, too,” piped in a customer adding milk to his coffee.

  Christian raised an eyebrow at Riley like, see?

  “Awww,” Riley gushed. “You have fans.”

  That got Christian scowling again.