Chapter 7 From Dinner Rolls To Communist Literature
FROM DINNER ROLLS TO COMMUNIST LITERATURE
Elliot
Now Breaker, Lennon and I headed downtown to meet up with the rest of our team and the guys and gals from the Thunder to prep and serve Thanksgiving meals for people in need.
These kinds of events are always a mixed-bag of emotions for me.
I’m eternally grateful for the life I’ve built, the privileges I’ve afforded myself, and the fact that I have the free time, energy, and money to give back to my communities.
But there is a part of me that will never forget what it felt like to be a kid on holidays, standing in line with strangers at food banks or soup kitchens, waiting to be fed while Mom did her best to make everything feel as normal and as special as possible for the two of us.
One particular year when I was ten always sticks out in my mind.
It was that weird, in-between age where I was old enough to know the deal with Santa but still young enough that Mom was able to convince me that sleeping in the kitchen with the oven door cracked for heat was just a fun way of camping and not actually her way of keeping us warm on frigid nights because she couldn’t afford to turn the heat on.
It was the day before Thanksgiving break at school, and our teacher took us to an assembly in the cafeteria to help put together baskets of food—cans of corn and cranberries, boxed stuffing, dinner rolls—for the high school kids to deliver to “the less fortunate” later that afternoon.
I had a blast stuffing baskets, and when I went home that day, I’d been so excited to tell Mom about the good deeds I’d done that day.
But before I got a chance, a handful of high school kids in their letterman jackets and cheer uniforms were knocking on our apartment door, delivering a basket that I’d help assemble that afternoon.
Those teenagers didn’t know me. They didn’t know I was a student at the elementary school or that I’d been so excited arranging jarred gravy and canned green beans just a few hours ago.
Those older kids were kind and caring. Nobody said or did anything to make me feel less than. They didn’t have to. I knew it intrinsically the moment I opened the door.
When Mom asked what we’d done at school that day, I lied and said we helped the first graders make hand turkeys. I couldn’t let her in on the shame I was feeling deep in my chest. That would have killed her.
I know that there will be kids, teenagers, young adults in line for food today that are going to feel shame, embarrassment, guilt—all things a person shouldn’t feel on a holiday, or any day for that matter—and I try to make it my mission to make things as fun as I possibly can to take the edge off all those big, harsh feelings.
“Do you think they’re gonna be dumb enough to stick the O-Line on turkey duty again?” Breaker asks from the front seat, his hand grasping Lennon’s tightly on the center console while a folk-sounding Taylor Swift song I don’t quite recognize plays quietly from the speakers. I snort in response.
“Yeah right. After last year when Pak and Smith set one of the rotisseries on fire because they thought they could stick a frozen bird in and crank the heat to five hundred to cook it faster? I don’t think so. Adler is going to have us all manning the mashed potato station.”
“Fuck, I hope so. I love mashed potatoes,” Lennon sighs, bringing Breaker’s hand to his lips and kissing along his knuckles without taking his eyes off the road.
Even from my spot in the back seat, I can see the flush take over Breaker’s cheeks, and even though I want to roll my eyes at their cheesy romance, I can’t help but smile.
I also can’t help the image that flashes in my mind. The one of me and Alex, leaning back on his stoop under the stars, our lips brushing against each other and the hot, molten sensation that overtook me when I thought he was kissing me back.
I shake it off as quickly as it comes. I can’t think of Alex that way. He’s my friend, he’s straight, and even if he wasn’t, I’m not looking for anything serious. I can’t lose myself in poetic fantasies about butterflies and stolen kisses.
And yet…I can’t help the “what ifs” from sneaking in.
The smart part of my brain knows that Alex and I are just friends, but the dumb, lizard, caveman part can’t let go of the kiss.
It can’t let go of the subtle flirtations.
It can’t let go of the urge to storm into the event hall, find Alex, throw him over my shoulder and scream to the world that he’s mine, mine, mine.
Oh my god Elliot, shut up. You’ve known the dude for a few days. You spent a grand total of two hours with him. You don’t even know his middle name.
That is a good point, and a wonderful excuse to reach out. I pull my phone from my pocket and tap out a quick message.
Elliot
What’s your middle name?
Alex
Kozlov. What’s yours?
Elliot
Ugh, mine is awful. It’s Raine.
Alex
Raine is an awesome middle name. Why would you think that’s awful?
Elliot
I guess it’s not awful, it's just uninspired. My mom was 17 when she had me…during a rainstorm…
Alex
Nah, that's not uninspired. That’s history, a story. It’s a name with a good reason to pass it on. Kozlov is awful. It's my mom’s surname, and I’m pretty sure it means ‘goat’ in Russian or something.
Elliot
Dammit.
Alex
What?
Elliot
I love goats. Every time I turn around, you get more and more adorable.
Alex
You are a relentless flirt, Elliot Raine Baker.
Elliot
I’m sorry. I’ll back off.
Alex
I didn’t say it was a bad thing :)
Elliot
Alright then, Alex Goat Holmes.
“You have something you want to share with the class there, Elliot?” Breaker asks, his whole body twisted and turned in the front seat to try to look at my phone screen. I pull it back against my chest, instantly incriminating myself in doing so.
“Mind your own business, Breaker,” I say, kicking the back of his seat.
“What? You look like the cat that got the cream, that’s all. I’m just wondering if you’re chatting with your new boyfriend on the hockey team.”
My mouth drops, and Lennon eyes me through the rearview mirror.
“Don’t look so surprised, Elliot. Your little pizza party outside of The Hive Mind was all over social media, and don’t think we didn’t see you two leave the club together holding hands. Did you kick a three-pointer past that hot goalie or not?”
I open my mouth, close it, then open it again. I’m sure I look like a gaping fish, but I don’t exactly know how to respond to all of that.
“Okay, Len, you’re mixing your sports metaphors and it's not working. Alex was having a weird superstition moment and I was helping him out. Besides, he and I weren’t holding hands when we left the club. You would know that if the two of you weren’t fucking against the glass.”
Lennon scoffs as he pulls into the parking lot behind the large food bank.
It’s already packed to the brim with flashy sports cars and oversized, over-shined SUVs—a stark contrast to the lives of the people we’re here to feed today.
It kind of feels like we’re pulling up to a rich asshole convention, but I try to shove aside my own negative feelings and just appreciate the way the team administrations have brought us all together to do some good today.
“Excuse me, Mr. Judgy McJudgyPants, but Breaker and I are classy. We weren’t fucking against the glass wall, we were dry-humping against it. We fucked in the bathroom of the club, like two men in a loving, committed relationship should.”
I make a show of gagging as Lennon throws the truck in park, even though getting off in a club bathroom had been the only thing on my mind when we went out Sunday night.
I grab on to the car door handle, ready to fling myself from this vehicle and this conversation, but Breaker flings back across the center console and grabs my shoulder.
“Not so fast, Elliot. Are you and Holmes a thing? Because if so, I love that for you. He’s totally hot, in a weird, quirky, doofus kind of way.”
I bite back the surge of jealousy roiling in my gut when Breaker calls my guy hot, because he’s not my guy, even if I can still feel his lips on mine when I close my eyes.
I also have to fight the urge to punch Breaker square in the jaw for having the nerve to refer to not-my-Alex as a weird, quirky doofus.
“Yes Alex is hot, and yes we hung out. We’ve been chatting, but we’re just friends.”
“Are you sure?” Breaker asks, drawing out the question. “Because I saw the pictures of you two handing out slices outside The Hive. You had stars in your eyes, and Alex was looking at you like he wanted to get into your pants.”
“Trust me, Alex doesn’t want to get into my pants. He’s straight, he told me so himself.”
“So was I,” Lennon murmurs under his breath, and I roll my eyes. Lennon might have thought he wasn’t queer once upon a time, but anyone with two brain cells to rub together could see that he was head over dick in love with Breaker since their college days.
“He told you he’s straight? He just offered up his sexuality on a platter to you, for no reason?” Breaker asks, his eyebrow arching menacingly. But I don’t want to give them all the details. I don’t want to tell them all about how I kissed Alex and he—kindly, so kindly it ached—shot me down.
“Not for no reason. We were talking about post-game adrenaline, which led to a discussion about sex, and the fact that he sleeps with women and only women was thrown around. Can I get out of the truck now?” I ask, and don’t wait for an answer as I jump down out of the car and into the brisk, chilly air.
“Huh. I mean I met Alex last year at the US Open and I got the vibe from him, you know? Dude seemed way into the men’s doubles, if you know what I mean. I could’ve sworn he was one of us,” Lennon says. We cross the parking lot, nodding and saying quiet hellos to a few Redwoods rookies as we walk.