Chapter 4
Chapter four
Varga
Cross was asleep before we’d cleared the gate.
He sat in row two, aisle seat, with headphones on. His mouth was slightly open with his head tipped to one side.
I leaned over the back of his seat. “Cross.”
No response.
“Cross. Captain, my captain.”
“He’s asleep, Varga,” Heath said from across the aisle, without looking up from his book.
“He’s not asleep; he’s pretending. Within thirty seconds of sitting down on every flight, he starts pretending because if he commits to the bit early, he doesn’t have to talk to me.” I turned my attention back to our venerable captain. “Cross, I’m going to tell you a story.”
He didn’t move.
“He’s playing dead,” I said.
“He’s asleep, Varga.”
“Heath, look at his hand.”
He looked. Cross’s right hand was resting on the open Chicago Tribune on the tray table in front of him. The crossword was half-done. He held a pen, capped, between his thumb and forefinger.
“He’s holding the pen,” I said. “If he were sleeping, it would have dropped.”
I once asked Cross why he did the crossword in pen. He said, if you can erase it, it didn’t happen. At the time, I thought he was only talking about the crossword. Later, I figured out it meant a lot more than that.
He was a man who married his wife at twenty-three. He signed a contract with the Chicago Ironhawks and never asked for a trade.
“He’s in love with that pen,” I said.
“Probably,” Heath said.
“He’s been in love with that pen since I came up. That pen is the second most committed relationship of his life.”
“Varga,” Cross mumbled without opening his eyes. “You could be quieter.”
“Cross! You are awake!”
“I’m praying for sleep.”
“You’re eavesdropping.”
“I’m awake and hearing you. I’d like to go to sleep without having to pray for it.”
“Twenty-six down,” I said.
“You don’t know twenty-six down.”
“What if I get it right?”
“Then I’ll know you cheated.”
“How?”
“Because you’ve never gotten one right.”
“Cross, that is deeply hurtful.”
“Goodnight, Varga.”
Rafe sat at the back, row twelve. He lay back and stared at the plane’s ceiling. He had boarded a charter for the first time and discovered that the seats reclined fully.
Returning his seat to upright, he caught my eye across the rows. I raised an eyebrow. He gave me a tiny thumbs-up. I gave him one back.
“He gave you a thumbs-up,” Heath said.
“He did.”
“That is the most Saskatchewan thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Heath, be respectful. The kid is doing his best.”
I was silent for a moment as Heath turned a page in his book.
“You brought a first-edition Hemingway on a plane, Heath. What if we go down?”
“We’re not going down.”
“What if we hit turbulence and you spill your coffee on Santiago and the marlin? The Old Man and the Sea, defiled permanently.”
“I won’t have coffee until I finish reading. And Kieran gave it to me as a gift, so I’ll wait.”
“Oh, right, it’s a book about a fish. What if I spill my coffee on Santiago and the marlin?”
He turned another page. “Then I’ll kill you, Varga.”
I didn’t turn my head to look at Rook. I didn’t need to.
He was two rows back on my side of the aisle, where he always was.
He’d put his bag in the overhead and coffee in the cupholder.
His book was about the Civil War, and he’d been reading it since August. When he was finished reading, he would place it in the seatback pocket.
We were playing in Detroit tonight, Columbus two nights later, and Pittsburgh the next. It was three games in four nights. It was Rafe’s first NHL road swing. By Saturday afternoon, the kid’s legs were going to feel like a building had fallen on him from the inside.
The plane leveled. I pressed play on a playlist Rook had made for me in May, for a road trip starting in Boston.
He had put it together while I was packing.
I hadn’t known he was making it until I got to my gate and saw it on my phone, untitled.
It included twelve songs he knew I liked and three he hoped I’d like by the third time through.
It only took twice.
***
Heath opened on my second knock. He wore the hotel’s terry robe over sweats.
“What’s up, Varga?”
“You gonna invite me in?”
“Of course.” He stepped back and went to the bed. He left the door for me to close.
“Where’s Kieran?”
“At the rink with Marco, working on his hip. He’ll be better for the game tonight.”
“Marco’s doing the foam roller thing?”
“Marco is doing the foam roller thing. He’s probably swearing, too.”
“Marco swears at everyone. He swears at me in the trainers’ room in Italian. It’s beautiful.”
I closed the door but didn’t throw the deadbolt. The room was warm with the blinds half-cracked, letting in a small stripe of daylight. The book from the plane was on the nightstand.
I sat in the armchair by the window and put my elbows on my knees.
“You good?” Heath asked.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t believe it. Were you okay with what happened at the skate?”
“Fine. Markel’s putting Trier on the second pair tonight.”
“I know, I was there to hear him say that.”
“I’m processing it out loud,” I said. “Let me have my moment.”
“Granted.”
“Trier has been bad in the neutral zone.”
“I can’t argue with you there.”
“He’s going to give it away in the first period and look at me about it. He will make eye contact with me, Heath.”
“He’s not going to make eye contact with you.”
“He makes eye contact with me when he turns it over. I think it’s a love language. He’s in love with me in a Bohemian way. I’ve accepted it.”
“You’ve accepted his love?”
“One of us has to be the bigger man. I carry the burden.”
“You bear the weight.”
“What’s Kieran reading, other than fish books?”
“Something with a woman on the cover in a ball gown.”
“A woman?”
“Yes, a woman. There’s a man too, but he’s behind her, and his chest is bare.”
“Kieran’s reading about heterosexuals?” I asked.
“He reads about them all the time. In this one, there’s a duke, the duke’s brother, and the duke’s brother’s enemy. They’re all after that woman in the ball gown. It’s very dramatic. I’m two chapters ahead of him.”
“Does he know?”
“I’m not telling him. It’s just between you and me.”
I stood and stretched. I could have stayed for another hour. That was the thing about Heath—I always could have stayed another hour. “I’d better get ready for dinner.”
“Bye, Varga.”
“Bye, Heath.”
I let myself into the hallway and walked it slowly. I passed Rook’s room where he put out the Do Not Disturb hanger, whether or not he was in the room.
***
We won the game three to two. Rafe scored his first road goal in the second period, a rebound he banged in from in front of the net, and the bench mobbed him hard enough that his helmet came off.
Rook played twenty-three minutes, including the last shift on the ice, protecting our lead, the way Markel used him in close games.
I had an assist. I caught the puck on the boards in the third and slid it past a Detroit stick to Cross’s tape, and he did the rest. It was a Cross goal. I just held the door for him.
Back at my hotel room, I sat on the edge of the bed and sent a text to Rook.
Varga: Come over.
The three dots appeared, but then they stopped with no words appearing. Three minutes later, I heard two soft taps at my door.
I turned the deadbolt and pulled the door open enough for Rook to slip inside. He closed the door, threw the deadbolt, and pulled the chain across.
Rook wore jeans and the gray henley I’d bought him for his birthday last year and stolen back two or three times before he hid it on a shelf above my reach. He hadn’t shaved since morning. The stubble was at the length I liked best, just a light scratch against my cheek.
He pushed me back against the door. He had one hand flat on the door beside my head and the other on the side of my jaw. Then he kissed me.
I sighed against his mouth. “Door,” I managed with a hitch in my breath.
“It’s locked.”
“Chain.”
“It’s on, Luki.”
“Just checking. Could be anyone out there.”
“No one’s coming to the door.”
“The man in 812 might come over to discuss SportsCenter.”
“Then we’ll let him in.”
“That is very generous of you.”
“Be quiet now, Luki.”
“Make me.”
He laughed once, low, against the side of my neck, and kissed me again. I was quiet.
Rook raked his fingers through my hair. He pushed his thigh between my legs. The henley was soft under my hands. I pulled it up and over his head.
“Bed?” he asked.
“In a minute.”
I kissed his throat where the stubble met the soft skin under his jaw. He exhaled through his nose and said something I didn’t catch.
“What?”
“I missed you.”
“I’m here, Rook.”
“You were two rows up on the plane.”
“That was twelve hours ago.”
“It was a long flight.”
“You missed me that entire time?”
“I miss you when you go to the bathroom.”
“That is not a normal thing to admit to a person.”
“Then I won’t admit it again.”
“No, keep it up.”
He kissed me again and then moved us toward the bed. I lost my T-shirt somewhere between the door and the foot of the bed. His hand was on the small of my back when the backs of my knees hit the mattress.
I fell flat on my back, and Rook’s lips landed on my chest. He went slowly on purpose. He stopped at the spot in the center of my abs that had undone me so reliably our second year that he’d started calling it the off switch. It still worked.
I breathed in through my teeth, causing an audible hiss.
Rook’s hand slid between my legs. He raised his head to look at my face.
“Luki.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got you.”
I’d heard him say it a hundred times, but it still made everything stop. I’d been narrating in my head since the puck dropped: the overall game, Rafe’s first road goal, and Rook’s twenty-third-minute shift. Then I continued with the walk to the bus and the elevator up.
Rook said I’ve got you, and it all stopped.
I closed my eyes and let him have all of me.
His mouth was warm as he wrapped his lips around my cock. One hand was on my chest. The other wrapped thumb and fingers around the base of my cock.
When I was close, I raised one hand and held it over my mouth. I knew myself, and I knew how loud I could be. Rook replaced my hand with the hand he’d held flat against my chest.
My nostrils flared, and I came, grunting into his palm with my eyes closed. My breath shattered in my throat. Rook didn’t move until the orgasm faded.
Then he pushed his body forward against my side, kissing my neck.
Rook’s phone buzzed on the nightstand. He didn’t reach for it.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
“I won’t.”
“Who is it?”
“I won’t know without looking at it. It’s probably nobody.”
“At a quarter to twelve on a Wednesday?”
“It can wait.”
I pushed my face into his collarbone and closed my eyes.
Rook rarely stayed past midnight on the road. He had taught me early that midnight was the soft limit and one was the hard one.
I pressed my hand flat against his chest, feeling his heartbeat. He kissed me again and sat up.
I watched him put himself back together. He raked his fingers through his hair once. He didn’t look in the mirror.
He came back to the bed and bent over me, kissing me on the forehead. “Sleep.”
“Okay.”
I watched him walk to the door. He opened it six inches, looked through the gap with one eye, opened it the rest of the way, and was gone.
I lay where I was.
It took nineteen minutes.
We’d been doing it for five seasons. We never ran over twenty.
I closed my eyes. The duvet was rumpled at the foot of the bed. The pillow next to me had the dent of Rook’s head in it. It was already fading.
I rolled onto his side of the bed. The sheet was already cooler than on my side.
I pressed my face into the pillow and breathed in once.
He smelled of the hotel body wash. Underneath that was the scent of his warm skin and lingering cedar.
It was the smell of our sheets at home, and it didn’t wash off.
I could pick it out of a lineup of two hundred men in the dark.
The dent faded a little more under the weight of my face. I rolled onto my back.
The ceiling had a popcorn texture and a smoke detector with a small green light. A water stain in one corner looked like the state of Tennessee.
I turned my head toward the door and thought about the hallway on the other side of it. Rook’s room was across from mine. Heath and Kieran were two doors down, sharing one room and one bed.
I pictured Heath waking up first because Heath would be the type. He’d call room service before Kieran was a person yet. The two of them would sit against the headboard, drinking bad hotel coffee.
I want a night on the road where he doesn’t have to leave.
The sentence landed flat in my chest. There was no way to dress it up as something else.
I reached for my phone.
Varga: You back?
I’d sent that message at least a hundred times before. It only took thirty seconds for the response.
Rook: I’m back. Goodnight.
I set the phone down and looked at the door. Down the hall, Heath had his arm or his leg over Kieran in bed in a city away from home on a Wednesday night in October.
Rook was across the hall, alone.
I looked at Tennessee on the ceiling and couldn’t sleep.