The Play of His Life

by Amy Aislin

  A tap at his bedroom window. Christian’s stomach jumped and his mouth went dry. Riley. Continuing their Christmas Eve tradition. He was surprised and yet not. Heart pounding, he opened the window to a grinning Riley.

  “Hey,” Riley said, voice low in deference to Christian’s mom sleeping down the hall.

  Turning so his back was to Christian, Riley sat on the windowsill, took off his wet boots outside, slid into the bedroom, reached back outside for his boots, set them on the towel Christian had already placed next to the window inside—because a guy could hope—and stood to shed his winter coat.

  How could Riley be the only person in the world ugly plaid flannel pants looked good on? So not fair.

  “I’ve come to collect,” Riley said. He looked a little less tired than he had earlier, as though the fresh air gave him his second wind.

  “Collect what?”

  “On my bet. You owe me an answer.”

  The answer to why Christian still lived in Vancouver and hadn’t moved back home yet.

  “Here.” In an effort to distract Riley, Christian handed him a wrapped gift, a box roughly twelve by twelve. “Merry Christmas.”

  If it was possible, Riley’s grin got bigger. He sat on the bed and tore into the wrapping, opened the box and…

  The smile fell off his face. Christian’s stomach dropped to his feet. He’d done something wrong, he just knew it. For hours he’d debated whether or not to give Riley this gift. Worried that it would make Riley feel bad—

  “T,” Riley said, barely above a whisper.

  —When he just wanted Riley to know how awesome he’d been, how much ass he’d kicked, and that Christian was always thinking about him.

  “I…” Riley’s words fell away.

  The scrapbook was Riley in paper form. Christian had started it… God, he couldn’t even remember what the first entry was. Riley’s first game in net, maybe?

  Pictures, newspaper articles, web articles, blog posts…hell, even Facebook posts and ticket stubs from every game Christian had ever attended. The book chronicled Riley’s journey as a hockey player from the first game he’d played goalie as a kid until the very last game, two years ago with Toronto, when a player from the opposing team had run into him, breaking his leg and damaging his knee. It had effectively ended his pro hockey career. Christian had even found a newspaper article about Warm Glow in a recent issue of the Oakville Beaver that his mom had kept for him, and a blog post on blogTO called “The best little places no one knows about.” He’d added them in to the scrapbook just last night.

  Riley flipped through the pages, fingers touching a picture here, an article there. “T, I can’t…I can’t accept this. This is yours.”

  “No. It was always meant to be yours.”

  Riley’s chin wobbled. He wiped his eye on his shoulder in that way guys-trying-not-to-cry everywhere had of pretending they just had to scratch an itch. Next to their eye. It made Christian’s stomach hurt because at one point, Christian had been the one person Riley had let himself cry in front of.

  Stretching out on the bed on his stomach, Riley propped the book up against Christian’s pillows and continued flipping through it. Christian meant to give him some privacy, but he wanted to be near Riley, near his warmth, so he settled right next to him.

  Riley grunted and flicked a finger against a group shot of the team they’d played for when they were sixteen. “I hated this guy.”

  “Me, too. Wonder if he still coaches.”

  “He does. In St. Catharines, I think.”

  “Poor kids. He’s probably gotten more cynical with age.”

  Riley snorted. “No doubt. Man.” He continued flipping through pages. “I haven’t even seen half of this stuff.” He stopped every once in a while to smile at something or reminisce about a moment or impart some gossip. So and so was married, or so and so retired from hockey, or remember this game? When we were still drunk from the night before and got reamed by the coaches?

  “That was an awesome night,” Riley said, stopping on a blog article from hockeyfights.com about the full line brawl that included the goalies during a Toronto vs Vancouver game.

  “Yeah,” Christian agreed. Even as he’d been hollering from the stands, his stomach had clenched with dread, afraid Riley might get hurt.

  Riley was halfway through turning the page in the scrapbook when he noticed the ticket stub glued to the bottom right corner. “You were there?”

  The surprised wonder in his voice and the pleasure in his eyes caused Christian’s heart to flippity-flop in his chest. He tried to shrug as casually as he could. Like, sure, I went to your games. No big deal. I’m just a pathetic SOB who wanted to feel close to you for a little while even though you didn’t know I was there. I swear I’m not a stalker.

  Yeah. Awesome. He didn’t mention that he’d been to every Toronto vs Vancouver game in Vancouver. Riley would figure that out on his own when he went through the rest of the scrapbook.

  Riley didn’t say anything but his eyes got dark and he swallowed roughly before glancing away. Christian could’ve sworn he saw Riley’s hand tremble when he turned the page.

  He slowed at a series of pages filled with articles about his injury and recovery. Christian almost hadn’t included them, but they were a part of Riley’s life, a part of who he was. It was important to remember the good and the bad. Riley didn’t seem too bothered by them, and he stopped at a newspaper shot of himself coming out of the hospital surrounded by friends and family.

  “How come you never…” Riley cut himself off and shook his head, flipping the page.

  “How come I never what?” Christian asked, curious.

  “You never…came to visit me. When I got hurt.” Riley wouldn’t look at him, and his voice was quiet and unsure.

  Well, this was as good a time as ever to start that talk Christian wanted to have. No better time to put your feelings on the line than the present. “I did.”

  Riley’s head whipped toward him so fast it made Christian jump. “What?”

  “I came, but…” Christian shrugged again. “You had a lot of people here. Or there, at the hospital, I mean. Teammates, I guess? I dunno. And a bunch of family.” Christian had recognized Riley’s parents, grandparents, and even a couple of cousins from Quebec. “I didn’t think you wanted me there.”

  “You flew all this way,” Riley said slowly, incredulousness in his voice, “and what? Went right back?”

  Another shrug. Because yeah, pretty much. Not even his own mom knew he’d been here for those few hours.

  Riley huffed out a breath and it sounded broken and wet and—

  “I’m sorry,” he blurted. It sounded torn out of him with the rusty claw end of a hammer. “God, T. I’m so sorry.” He rubbed his hands over his face.

  “Riles—”

  “No.” Riley looked at him with eyes that were wet and a face drawn into tense, hard lines. “Is this why you won’t come home? Because you think I don’t…I don’t want you here?”

  Christian couldn’t hold his gaze and when he heard Riley take a breath to speak, he mentally braced himself for whatever rejection was coming.

  “I never meant for you to feel like that,” Riley whispered. “Like you weren’t important to me. You were. You are. You’ve always been the most important person in my life. Always.”

  “Then why did you leave? That night?” Christian didn’t think he had to specify what night he was talking about. “I thought it was…We were going to…” He couldn’t get the words together but Riley’s nod said he knew what Christian meant. I thought it was the beginning of us again.

  Riley blew out a breath. Closing the scrapbook, he moved it higher onto the pillow, then rolled onto his side. Christian mimicked his position so they both lay on their sides facing each other.

  “I didn’t come here to sleep with you that night, you know,” Riley said. “I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay. I mean, I wanted to sleep with you. Obviously.” Christian t
ried not to let that go to his head. Either one. “But at the same time, I didn’t. I knew how hard it’d be after, going back to our separate lives, and… But then you started talking about quitting school and moving to Denver and I was so confused and I didn’t want you to…to…to eventually regret making that decision and end up hating me,” Riley finished, turning his face into the pillow. He said that last part so fast it made Christian’s head spin.

  “Riley, honey.” The old endearment had Riley lifting his head to look at him. “Sometimes people make sacrifices for the people they love. And that was one I was willing to make so we could be together.” It was getting hard to talk past the lump in his throat.

  A tear escaped Riley’s eye and dripped onto the pillow. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like hockey was more important than you. It wasn’t. Never.”

  “Then why did you stay in Colorado that summer? For hockey?” All Christian had wanted was to spend a few weeks at home with Riley before Riley had to go back to Denver for hockey camp a couple of weeks before school started.

  Riley gave him a self-deprecating smile. “I thought I could have it all. But sometimes you can’t.”

  “Sometimes you can,” Christian corrected. He ran his thumb over Riley’s five o’clock shadow, the bristles gently scratching his skin, and placed a small kiss on the corner of Riley’s mouth. “It just takes a while.”

  Riley squeezed his eyes shut; another tear leaked out anyway.

  “I’m sorry, too,” Christian said. Riley’s eyelashes were wet when he opened his eyes to look at him. “For not being strong enough to hold on to you.”

  Christian was wholly unprepared for Riley to lunge at him. They lay on their sides, arms around each other, faces buried in the other’s neck, legs tangled. Trying to control their emotions. Riley’s shoulders shook under Christian’s arms like he was quietly sobbing out all the pain and hurt and heartache of the last several years. Christian’s own tears were surely drenching Riley’s neck. But even as he cried for the lost years between them, wicked wings of glee unfurled in his heart. Riley didn’t hate him! Riley said Christian was still important to him! Riley didn’t leave that morning because he didn’t want Christian; he left because he was scared. Riley was still his…um…

  Okay, maybe they still had to talk about the future, but that could wait.

  He tried to ignore the little tiny niggle of anger snaking its way into his brain. Because seriously, fuck them. Had they just talked all those years ago instead of assume shit, they would’ve saved themselves all this fucking drama. Jesus.

  Whatever. Too late now. All they could do was move forward.

  “Can we start over?” Christian asked. “Well, maybe not start over. There’s probably too much history between us for that. But can we start…again? Or…” Fuck, he wasn’t making any sense.

  “Yes.” Riley pulled away to look at him. His eyes were dry but his face was still splotchy. It made him no less beautiful. “Whatever you want, yes.”

  Whatever he wanted? Was Riley being purposefully vague? Or did he literally mean whatever Christian wanted. Because what Christian wanted was Riley. In his life. Forever. Maybe babies, but he wasn’t a hundred percent sold on that. They could talk about that later, though.

  “When you go back to BC, we’ll still keep in touch, right? And you’ll come visit more and I’ll come visit you?”

  When you go back to BC… A little piece of Christian died inside. All his hopes and dreams for their future, that brief moment when he thought they’d come true, curled up and shriveled in his chest. He forced himself to smile and nod before he started to cry again.

  Riley was looking at him oddly, like he was trying to read his mind, so Christian forced his lips to curve higher. Riley finally smiled back at him and then looked behind him for…whatever it was, Christian didn’t know.

  “I need tissues,” he said, and propped himself on an elbow to look over Christian’s shoulder. “All the snot has moved into one nostril and I can’t breathe from it.” He plastered himself half on top of Christian trying to reach the tissue box on the night table.

  Christian snorted and let the pain he wanted to wallow in creep to the background. He had Riley here, now. Better make the most of it while he could. He could go back to feeling pathetic and sorry for himself over the fact that Riley didn’t want him forever when he got back to Vancouver.

  When Riley finished blowing his nose, he stood to throw his used tissue away and grab something out of his coat pocket.

  “Want your Christmas present now?” he asked.

  Christian rolled onto his back and lifted his arms to stretch his back. “Is it magic chocolate?”

  He waited for an answer and when none was forthcoming, looked at Riley, who stood on the side of the bed closest to the window, staring at the strip of skin visible between the bottom of Christian’s hoodie and the top of his sweatpants. Biting back a smirk, Christian wiggled, forcing his pants down an extra smidge, just enough to reveal his hipbones and the top of the V that led to his dick. A dick that had finally softened during their talk but was now reawakening. Visibly so if the way Riley went cross-eyed was any indication.

  “Wha…uh…huh?” Riley so charmingly articulated.

  “Magic chocolate,” Christian repeated, settling one arm behind his head and hooking the thumb of his other hand into the waistband of his pants. Testing the waters. Whatever you want, Riley said. Well, if Christian couldn’t have Riley for forever, maybe he could have him for the next week and a half. Riley’s mouth dropped open when Christian flexed his abs. Yeah. The man was down with that plan. “Did you get me some for Christmas?”

  “What? No.” Riley frowned and seemed to shake himself out of his stupor. “Here.” He handed over a small box Christian hadn’t noticed him holding. “Merry Christmas.”

  The box was about three inches by three and only about an inch thick, the size jewelry often came in. Christian sat up to take it. The red felt ribbon around the box was delicate to the touch. Ignoring Riley’s fidgeting, he pulled gently so he didn’t ruin it before tearing at the wrapping paper.

  Riley took a seat on the bed next to him. Christian could see his thumbs jerking—a nervous tick he obviously hadn’t gotten rid of.

  “It’s no memory scrapbook,” Riley warned. “It’s just a little thing…”

  Inside the box was a hammered T looped onto a leather string.

  “I had them make the necklace long enough so you could wear it under your shirt if you didn’t want anybody to see,” Riley was saying. “The metal is some type of special kind that’s only found in BC. But the artist is a local one. He has a studio not far from here and he takes custom orders. Like this one.”

  Christian understood what Riley wasn’t saying: This little T was a combination of both their worlds. A little piece of each of them.

  His breath hitched and his vision got blurry but he would. Not. Cry. They’d already done that and he’d enough of overwhelming feelings for one night.

  Instead, he smiled at Riley. “One of these days you’re going to tell me what the T stands for.”

  “No.”

  Christian leaned forward, into Riley’s personal space. “Yes,” he whispered, his head rocking with the scent of Riley.

  Riley’s chuckle was soft. “No,” he said, and closed the distance between them.

  If Christian could spend the rest of his life doing nothing but kissing Riley, he’d be golden. Too bad nobody would pay for that and he needed to make a living somehow. Porn might pay. But nobody was seeing Riley’s naked body but him, so porn was out of the question.

  Pushing Riley onto his back, Christian followed him down, kissing his lips, his neck, his collarbone.

  “I have ways of getting the information out of you.”

  Riley laughed. “They’ve never worked before.”

  Christian lifted the hem of Riley’s hoodie. “I’ve learned new tricks since then.”

  A creak from down the hall. They bo
th froze, Christian crouched over Riley with Riley’s sweater bunched below his nipples, Riley with his legs spread, one leg thrown over Christian’s calves.

  Christian looked at Riley. “Ghost?” It was barely a whisper.

  Riley raised an eyebrow. “Your mom?” he mouthed.

  A door closed. The toilet flushed. The water ran in the sink. The floor creaked again.

  Riley’s smug smile said, see? Told ya.

  Damn it! He couldn’t give Riley a blowjob while his mom was awake.

  “Christian, did you remember to turn off the Christmas tree lights?” she yelled in French from down the hall. Aaaand, sayonara erection. Nothing like a parent to cool your jets.

  “I forgot,” he said loud enough for his mom to hear him. “I’ll do it now.”

  “Okay, goodnight. Goodnight, Riley.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Christian muttered, hanging his head. Underneath him, Riley started to laugh.

  “See you both in the morning. I’m making crepes.”

  “Just kill me.” He collapsed onto a giggling Riley and wished he could melt into the earth.

  Riley woke up in Christian’s bed on Christmas morning.

  Alone.

  For a brief moment, he thought Christian was getting his revenge by abandoning him after an awesome night. A sex-free night, but an awesome one just the same. But that idea didn’t hold because, one: this was Christian’s house. And two: Christian might be a grumpy motherfucker, but he wasn’t an asshole. Not to Riley. Even when he’d broken up with Riley, Christian had been the nicest guy ever. Unstoppable tears dripping down his face, apologetic. Constantly reassuring Riley that this wasn’t his fault, that it was him, Christian, who couldn’t handle the separation.

  Content to laze around in bed for a little while longer, he rolled onto his stomach and wished Christian was there so they could snuggle. The bedsheets smelled like him, a sort of woodsy scent Riley would forever associate with Christian.

  Riley felt freer this morning. Their talk last night had cleared the air between them and he could finally breathe without it feeling like he was trying to do so with a noose tied around his neck.