Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
THEN
Off-Season One - July
Stacey
C asey puts a casual arm around me as we watch Dirk and Dash pull up in Travis’s truck from our perch on the porch. “You’re a masochist, bro.”
“Fuck you.”
But he might be right. And I move quickly too—I’ve known Dash for exactly one off-season plus one hockey season, and here I am moving him in. What was I supposed to do? He was unhappy. An unhappy Dash is unacceptable in my books. Guess this proves that I’ll move heaven, earth, and my mother’s worldly possessions, to make him smile.
Our house in Kits sits on one of the last lots with a backyard. It’s two floors, a garden-level basement suite with a large bedroom, and three bedrooms upstairs. It’s spacious, and we’ve been living in it since our first year of high school.
Dash and Dirk make their way up the stairs empty-handed, save a duffle slung across each of them. Hunter and Travis will be along soon in Hunter’s truck with the rest of their belongings.
Dash rubs his left upper arm with his right hand in a self-soothing gesture. Big brown doe eyes pull me in. Who could resist those? I think he already knows he has but to flutter his damn lashes, and I’ll do anything for him. He’s sporty Dash today in baggy basketball shorts, and a Vancouver Orcas T-shirt.
My useless heart nudges me. Couldn’t we be together? Couldn’t it work? My heart needs to shut the hell up.
“Hey, Dash Nolan. I’m Stacey Alderchuck,” I say as if I’m meeting him for the first time. It’s like that for me, especially when I haven’t seen him in a day or two. I get to meet him all over again.
He rolls his eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” A palm slaps against my chest, and I catch it with my larger one.
“I’ll take your bag. Show you around,” I say, also as if he’s never been here before, which he has. About a hundred times. But nothing beats the smile that brightens his face. I’ll make as many ridiculous jokes as I need to so his face stays that way. I haven’t let go of his hand; I haven’t stopped drinking him in. But he hasn’t said anything, and it doesn’t feel weird yet. Maybe it’s just the way we are.
Dirk ducks as he enters the front door. His hat’s twisted backward and he’s wearing a T-shirt that says Daddy’s Boy across the front—it’s the one that really pisses Trav off, and I swear he wears it just for that reason—and a pair of low-slung jeans with his boxers poking out the top. The consistent glare that narrows his eyes whenever I’m around is firmly in place. He barrels through, yanking Dash’s hand away from me.
“I’m in the basement, right?” he asks.
“Hey, Dirk. Yeah, basement. I’m gonna get that cleared out for you, bud.” I was supposed to have it done. Still couldn’t fucking do it. Like I’d predicted, as soon as Dash found out he’d get to move in with me and Casey, he asked if there was room for Dirk. I’ve already learned that if Dash wants it, I’ll get it for him, so even though I was having second thoughts about giving the room up, those vanished into a black hole somewhere. My lips said, “Of course, sweetheart”, and I was screwed.
It required a conversation with Hunter because—I was to learn—he’s Dirk’s brother-dad. He raised Dirk, and he’s kind of a bit controlling if you ask me.
“Nah. I got it. C’mon, Dashie.”
“Wait, but …” I shouldn’t let a stranger handle Mom’s things, but maybe that’s for the best. It has to get done, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it.
They don’t get far.
We all turn to the thud of Casey’s heavy footsteps, barreling down the stairs, landing him in the entryway, stoked to have new roommates again. Bill and Ted only just moved out, but he was moping around the house, complaining about how quiet it was.
Dirk puts an arm around Casey. “I have an air hockey table, Alderchuck. You any good?”
“I could kick your ass, Boulder.”
“We’ll see. Help us find a place to set it up.”
Dirk has his hand firmly gripped around Dash’s wrist, not letting go for nothing. Dash turns his head so he can see me, but it’s not a plea to save him, it’s an apology. He’s going with Dirk. I’m becoming something of a best friend to him, but Dirk’s his childhood best friend. They’ve been through shit together that I can only imagine.
I have the itch I get to go down to Mom’s room, feel for her heartbeat, pretend she never left. But her things won’t be there. I haven’t seen what he did, but I know Dirk changed everything. I couldn’t watch, couldn’t even be in the house. Hunter and Dash helped him. Even the thought of Hunter being around Dash—stupid, handsome, Dash-used-have-a-crush-on-him Hunter—wasn’t enough to get me down there.
It’s done now, though. Dirk’s in, Mom’s out. I don’t even know what they did with her stuff.
It was foolish and irresponsible of me to leave something so important in the hands of two people who didn’t know her. Maybe Mom’ll be pissed enough to start all the haunting she threatened. Though, knowing her, she’d be happy to know her room housed someone like Dirk. From what his brother told me, things were rough for them growing up.
Resting my hand on the worn door handle, I take a breath and stride inside. Everything’s dark. The overpowering smell of fresh paint has burned away any remnant of Mom’s unique honey and cherry blossom scent. I don’t know which I would have rather been hit with. It’s probably good that she’s moved on from this place. When she was sick, all I wanted was to set her free from the prison of her mind.
Slayer and Metallica posters cover the walls where Mom’s watercolor paintings used to be. Even the wispy white curtains have been replaced with blackout ones. A rocket-red Gibson is in the corner on a stand, attached to an amp, and a set of hockey skates is strewn across the floor where anyone can trip over them. Those have gotta move to the garage, but the rest of the room’s pretty damn cool.
The back of my neck tingles, there’s warmth wrapping around my wrist. Fingers. A wave of something moves through me—magic. My nostrils detect a phantom hit of cherry blossom.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Dash says. His eyes dart around the room. “It’s different, huh?”
“Yeah. It’s fine.” All Mom had was junk anyway. There were no diamonds, no special trinkets, just old sweatshirts and photo albums. My heart squeezes so hard it might crush itself. My mom was special—why didn’t she get anything or anyone special?
He tilts his head, but then a careful smile spreads onto his lips. Those pretty brown eyes of his light up. “C’mon. I wanna show you something.”
Yeah. Get me out of here. I don’t say it aloud, I don’t even mean for that weird voice in my head to say it, but he seems to hear it anyway. He yanks hard so that I stumble after him, leading me to the garage. Stacked neatly in the corner are cardboard boxes labeled with neat script in black Sharpie. Clear plastic containers have been stored on a shelf that wasn’t there before.
Mom’s Photo Albums is inked onto a sticker proudly shown on the front. We don’t keep photo albums anymore, but Mom grew up when they still did that sort of thing.
“I helped Dirk and Hunter get his room together. My job was clearing and organizing everything. I put all her clothing in garbage bags because I thought you might want to donate them…?” he says, unsure. “But if you want to go through them and keep something?—”
“No. Donating them’s fine.” I can’t go through the bags. Mom didn’t have anything nice. She couldn’t afford anything nice. I don’t want my heart breaking about that again. “You did all this for me?”
“Well, uh, for you and Casey. It’s the least I can do. Renting rooms to Dirk and me is lifesaving. Dad and I were gonna kill each other if we had to live in that one-bedroom apartment any longer, and Dirk’s been dying to have his own place. This is about the only way Hunter would let him.”
Right. For me and Casey. He doesn’t know that it would have been me dealing with things. He doesn’t know that it has been me dealing with things. Dealing with shit isn’t Casey’s forte and I’m fine with that. I’ve always looked after my twin, and I probably always will.
“Goes both ways. Casey and I can’t afford this place on our own. Either way, you packing this stuff up is appreciated. You have no idea. I’ve been putting it off and putting it off.”
He nods. “I know what that’s like, I … I still haven’t told you about my mom.”
And I haven’t asked. I could tell that was a no-go topic. He’s more willing to talk about Robin than his mom, and he won’t talk about Robin much, even after a year of us doing our thing—me prying, and him sharing what he’s ready to.
Dash rubs his arm. Soothing—he’s soothing himself. I wanna do it for him. He bites his lip.
“I did the same thing. Put it all off. I wished someone coulda done something like this for me.”
I wish I coulda been the one to do it for him. “Did you keep any of her clothes?”
His head tilts to the ground, the longer pieces of his hair fall across his eyes. I reach out and curl the hair behind his left ear without thinking about it. Pink blooms across his cheeks and he steps back.
Fuck, maybe I shouldn’t have done that.
“I did,” he says with sour notes. Does he regret it? I wanna know so badly. Wanna know everything about him, if I’m honest. It feels wrong for another second to go by without us knowing absolutely everything about the other.
What would Mom do?
This is the closest I’ve gotten to the heart of him, and it’s not close enough. I want more of him, deeper connection, closer, closer, nothing between us. His past is a dark barrier separating us. It’s what always will. At some point, I’ll know everything, but it won’t matter. I’m a mentor, I can’t be anything other than a friend.
“Do you like old movies?” I ask.
“Love them.”
“What do you say to a smorgasbord of snacks and an Indiana Jones marathon?”
I already know Dash’s favorite movie is the same as mine—Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and that he likes to add gummy bears and M he places his palm in mine. “Take a breath, sweetheart.”
His ribcage expands with fresh air, deflating slowly. “When Mom was gone, he wanted me to be his boyfriend. He … at least he didn’t force himself on me like, like that .”
“Did he assault you?” I say, breaking my vow not to say a word until he finished. But fuck. Just the idea burns acid tracks through every vein, every artery. Makes me want to tear off Robin’s skin.
“No … no. Sorta? Ugh, it’s confusing. We didn’t have sex. He wanted to. There were touches. No touches to my special places, but he liked to stroke …” Dash trails off, pulling in a fresh round of oxygen. “He’d stroke my arm or rest a hand on my thigh. Ran roses over my skin and across my nose—always across my fucking nose. He acted like we were together, and I was supposed to, too, or he was gonna leave me on the street with nothing.”
Yep. I’m way out of my league here. Every way I’d end Robin is all my caveman mind’s coming up with. Nothing productive or profound.
“I was around seventeen, close to eighteen when Mom died. There was some time between then and…” Dash clenches his fists. “Even though the gestures weren’t big ones, it was enough to make me uncomfortable. I complained. That’s when he locked me in a bedroom in the basement of a house I’d never seen before. I guess he had it the whole time. I don’t think Mom knew he had it either. Far as we knew he lived with us, paid the rent for us. H-He kept me in the dark.”
Dash sucks air in past the lip he’s holding onto with his teeth. It makes a ff-fft sound as he shudders.
“Things would crawl all over me, constantly. I was afraid to fall asleep. I know it sounds stupid, but I thought whatever the creepy-crawlies were would lay eggs in my brain or somethin’.” He stares at the ground. “It was so cold. I couldn’t stop shivering. I’m surprised none of my limbs froze off.”
Does Travis know all of this? Bet he doesn’t know the details. If he did, he’d be in jail for murder.
“He wanted to control me like he did Mom. With some ‘cocktail’, he called it.” He takes another uneasy breath. “I know what you must be thinking. Why didn’t I run straight to Dad? But up until that point, I trusted Robin. He told me Dad was a horrible person, and I believed him. I believed a lot of things Robin said.”
I grip the chain of his swing and pull him toward me. I let our foreheads touch—that’s all that’s touching—and my body tingles everywhere. Little pinpricks of fuzzy lightning. He breathes long slow breaths, eyes closed, hanging onto me without physically hanging onto me. We’re joined by something invisible.
“Th-That’s why I hate myself so much,” he says softly.
Yep. It’s decided. If I’m ever within forty feet of that gaslighting sonuva bitch, he’s a deadman.
“Dad hates when I tell him how much I hate myself, and I get it. What we say after the word ‘I’ has an impact, especially if we repeat it over and over, but the little voice inside my head won’t shut up. The little voice inside my head questions everything.”
“It’s hard not to be trapped by that voice,” I say.
He nods. “I believed a lot more stuff Robin said, too. He’d been saying stuff for years. It didn’t start right away. I thought he was a good guy.”
“That makes sense, Dash. It’s like the metaphor about the frog. If you put it in boiling water, it’ll jump out right away, but if the water starts tepid, brought to a boil slowly, he’ll be cooked to death.”
“Uh-huh. It’s really scary, Stace, because…”
“You stopped trusting yourself,” I finish for him.
“Exactly,” he whispers. “I can’t trust anything I think or feel. It’s been better since I met you.”
I smile.
“But it lurks in the background.” He opens his eyes. I’m suddenly aware of how close we are, foreheads still touching. It’s easy to fall into step with Dash.
I jump away, letting go of his swing gently. “Travis said that Robin’s in jail now, awaiting trial,” I say, mostly to calm myself down.
“Yep. All locked away.” He sniffles.
Locked away, but not forgotten.
“For now,” he adds.
“You don’t think they’ll keep him there?”
Dash shrugs. “The lawyers think we have enough evidence, but ultimately, it’s up to the judge and jury.”
Therefore, it’s on his mind. “Do you journal?” I ask him.
“I’ve tried. I have a bunch of little journals I’ve started and stopped.”
“What if I held you to one? Would you be alright with that?”
I finally get a smile from him. It’s watery, but it’s better than the last heart-wrenching ten minutes.
“You giving me homework, Doctor Alderchuck?”
It’s a good thing he said that. Fuck. I need to remember my damn place. I’m here to help him, not get fucking close to him.
“I plan to. Like you said, it’s important what you put after the word ‘I’. I’ll do it with you. We’ll put a lot of good shit after ‘I’ in our journals every night until we believe what we’ve written.”
But hearing all this—fuck me—I’m extra glad for my rules. Thankfully, Robin was unsuccessful, but it sounds like he was hardcore trying to groom Dash, control him. I’m not the predator Robin is, but it’s shades of gray given our situation.
D ash doesn’t like anyone coming into his room, even Dirk has to knock and leave the door open when he’s admitted inside. I stand outside the door, fingering the soft cotton in my hands. Will this be welcomed or will it upset him? Fuck. I should have run this by Dirk, or even Casey, but this feels like something that’s just ours. I’ve had days to do this. Since the park. Instead, I lamented over the idea until I was compelled. Until my footsteps brought me here.
Tired of indecision, I knock with confidence. He’ll love it. I know he’ll love it.
“Dir—oh. Stacey.” He’s in a white tank top and checkered pajama pants. His dark hair’s sticking up all over the place. It’s noon, but we work odd hours at The Wicklow and take naps at will.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Nah, I had to get up soon. Dad wants me there at four.” Dash bounces between calling Travis Dad and Travis. I think he wants to call him Dad, but he doesn’t think he has any right to at times. “What’s up?”
“I have a confession to make.”
I hand him the sweatshirt with my gut twisting. I don’t want to do anything to hurt him, I promised Travis I’d look after him …
“Miami Vice,” he reads. “This is a Miami Vice sweatshirt.”
I nod. “Mom and I were fans. She had this made for me one year. It’s not an original or anything, but?—”
Tears zig-zag down his face like fucking Plinko chips. Oh shit. Shit. Dirk’s gonna kick my fucking ass, and I’ll let him.
“Sorry, I’m sorry. I thought you might like to have it. I know it’s not gonna replace your mom’s, but it’s warm and you said you get cold at night.” Even though it’s hot outside with it being the summer, the insulation in this house sucks, and that makes it cold on the inside in the mornings and at night. In the middle of the day, it’s a sauna.
He pushes at my chest. “I’m not crying because of that , Stace. I’m crying because you’re so lucky to have a memento like this. I can’t accept this. No way.”
In that case.
“Nuh-uh. You can too accept it. I said so, the end. May I?” I hold out my hand for the shirt. I tug it over his head, and he slides his arms inside. Then he hugs himself, which is so very him. So many self-soothing gestures. Didn’t anybody hug him, or is that because he misses the hugs he got?
Wide doe eyes appraise me. “It smells like you.”
“I can wash?—”
“No. Nope. I like it as is. Thank you. I still don’t think I should have something this special.”
He should have everything special. “It’s not like you don’t live here. How about you think of it as a loan? You can add it to your growing collection.”
In the few weeks he’s lived here, he’s added a couple pairs of my socks and a few T-shirts of mine to his closet in addition to the original T-shirt he’s never returned.
His cheeks pinken, and he rubs the back of his neck. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. I accept this sweatshirt as a long-term loan. It’s cozy as hell. Your mom knew how to buy a sweatshirt.”
I’m growing out of it, but it’s big on him. He’s lost in that thing. “Uh, okay. Enjoy.”
Enjoy? Dammit, I sound like a moron.
“Wait. Why don’t you come in? You can tell me a story about your mom while I get ready for work, and I’ll tell you one about mine.”
I’m invited into his room, and he wants to tell me about his mom? I step inside without thinking and make myself at home in his large bean bag chair.
C asey finally steals his hat back, the one I’ve been wearing for days. He replaces it with the one he’s been wearing for days. I don’t know when we started doing that, just that he started it when we were kids.
“Want your own hat for a change, bro?” I ask.
“No, I want a turn with Dash’s hat. They’ve lived here long enough, they must share. House rules. Go find Dirk’s and wear it for a bit so he knows. He hid it from me.”
Yeah, don’t think I’m ready to take Dirk’s yet. We have a weird, unspoken beef. But wait a tick. I’m hung up on something.
“That’s not Dash’s hat.”
“It’s totally Dash’s hat. It doesn’t even have the Wildcats logo, bro. You really didn’t notice?”
I … I didn’t. I’ve been distracted by a certain someone. “Why didn’t he say anything?”
Casey shrugs. “I dunno. He probably thought you wanted to wear it.”
Casey struts off in nothing but a pair of shorts and Dash’s hat. I remain dumbfounded. Did I wear Dash’s hat for three damn days without noticing? Without him saying a word? Fuck, Casey’s right. There’s no logo on that hat. It’s plain white. And speaking of white, Dash appears from his bedroom in nothing but that white sweatshirt I gave him.
That might have been a mistake. Seeing him in something mine’s done something to me. Made something stir in my chest and my nether region. Dammit. I fucked up. Again. It’s a long list of never-ending fuck ups with Dash.
There’s gonna be changes around here, starting with a “more clothing around the house” rule.
He sits at the kitchen island, hair disheveled, pretty lashes blinking away, face still compressed with lines from his pillow. I can’t look away, but I need to look away or my stupid hormones are going to convince my dick to think things it can’t.
I will not think with my penis brain. Not about Dash. He’s been through hell. I promised his dad I’d help him, not sink my cock into him.
“What happened to pants? Ever heard of pants?”
He lays his head on the counter, ready to go back to sleep. I check the time. He can’t go back to sleep. He needs to eat something and get ready for work.
“Pretty sure I just saw Casey walk that way in his underwear,” he mumbles.
Casey’s my brother, though, and I’m not attracted to him. Not attracted to Dash either just because he’s wildly attractive. I’m a dude with healthy testosterone, that’s all. Clothes prevent things like, say, shoving Dash against the wall and exploring his mouth with my tongue.
Take a breath, Alderchuck.
I move to the fridge. Cooking will distract me from everything—his pretty eyes, his full lips, what he might be wearing under that sweatshirt. Oh, god. He is wearing something under that sweatshirt, yeah?
Don’t wanna know. I will not become a monster.
Fuck. Distraction might have to become a way of life for me.