9. Ben
BEN
I can’t call my twenty-one-year-old brother to get advice about gay sex.
My phone sits on the kitchen counter with Grayson’s name on the screen anyway.
It’s been a few days since the incident, but thinking about it still brings back the heat of Fraser’s mouth around my cock. I can see him on his knees in front of me, naked and hard, looking up like taking orders was another way to tell me to fuck off.
Then I remember how I left.
I used him like a thing I could put down when I finished. He was naked, streaked with my come, and barely done shaking when I shoved my cock into my pants and told him I wasn’t into men. Then I walked out without helping him clean up or asking if he was all right.
If a woman got me off, told me she wasn’t really into me, and ran before I could get my pants on, I’d think she was an asshole. Avoiding me for the next several days wouldn’t improve my opinion.
I’ve never treated anybody that way. I’ve always been honest with women about what I want and careful not to make them feel cheap afterward. With Fraser, I broke both rules in less than half an hour.
The sex itself left me confused as hell. Remembering what I did afterward makes me feel sick.
It hasn’t stopped me from wanting him.
Last night I woke up with my hand around my cock and his name behind my teeth. I was dreaming about getting him back against that wall. This time, when I dropped to my knee, I didn’t turn away from his dick.
I can almost taste the drop that slid over the head.
My cock thickens against my zipper. I brace both hands against the counter and wait for it to get the message that we’re going to a team party, not back to room 1127.
Maybe I’ve secretly been gay all along.
That possibility falls apart as soon as I think about the women I’ve wanted. None of that was an act. I liked their bodies, touching them, and the sex. There isn’t a hidden collection of men I refused to admit I wanted. There’s only Fraser.
Bisexual is the next possibility. The word is simple when it belongs to somebody else.
Applied to me after one man, it feels like I’ve skipped several steps.
There should have been signs, so I go back through locker rooms, parties, teammates, and every friendship that ever got physically close. I can’t find any.
I pick up the phone. Grayson’s contact is still open, his photo showing him in sunglasses with half his face cut off because he’s never taken a normal picture in his life.
Calling would mean telling him I had sex with a man. That sounds a lot like coming out, which would be a strange thing to do when I’m not gay and have no idea if bisexual applies after wanting one specific asshole.
There’s already a gay Pope. I can’t take that from Grayson.
I lock the phone and leave it on the counter.
With the screen dark, the condo is painfully quiet.
It came furnished by the team, right down to the gray couch and framed print over it.
I unpacked my clothes, filled one kitchen cabinet, and stopped.
The second bedroom is empty except for two unopened boxes.
Nothing in the living room belongs to me except the phone and a pair of running shoes by the door.
I’m supposed to leave for Fraser’s place in ten minutes.
He sent the invitation to the team group chat before Arizona. Everyone is going, including Haugen, and Fraser hasn’t told me to stay away. He’d have to get within speaking distance to do that, and I’ve been dodging him like he’s an angry defenseman.
I could skip it by claiming a headache or food poisoning, except somebody would tell Nara and she’d start asking questions I couldn’t answer.
If I don’t go, the team will decide I hate Fraser. They already know we snipe at each other. If I stop showing up when he hosts, somebody will ask why. They won’t land on him sucking my cock in Arizona, but I don’t want them looking.
I grab my jacket and keys before I can talk myself out of going.
Fraser lives in Capitol Hill. The drive is short enough that I don’t have time to improve the plan, which currently consists of finding him alone and saying I’m sorry.
I park across the street from his building and turn off the engine. Light spills from the top-floor windows. Three players I recognize go in while I sit behind the wheel.
I need to stop ignoring Fraser. I’ll go upstairs, wait until nobody is listening, and apologize for using him. What happened can’t happen again, but I don’t want him thinking I walked out because there was something wrong with him.
That still leaves the problem of how to explain what was wrong with me.
We’ve played okay since Arizona because hockey gives us enough to say to each other.
That might not last. Sex between linemates has a way of curdling when nobody talks about it.
Probably. Jesus, I don’t know how Diaz and Matty do this.
They live together and still manage to play hockey without hiding in rental cars outside each other’s homes.
Someone knocks hard on my window.
I jerk around. Bobby is bent beside the driver’s door, giving me a look through the glass.
I lower the window. “What?”
“Are you coming inside?”
“Yes. I’m coming.”
He looks past me at the empty passenger seat. “Who are you talking to?”
“Nobody. I was thinking.”
“That bad, huh?” Bobby straightens before I can answer. “Come on. I’m freezing.”
He heads across the street without waiting, and I get out to follow him.
Fraser buzzes us into the building. Bobby takes the stairs two at a time. I make him wait at the top because arriving out of breath would be one more thing I couldn’t explain.
The door opens before we knock.
“You two planning to spend the night in the hall?” Fraser steps back to let us in. His eyes touch Bobby first, then slide to me. “Shoes can stay on. Beer is in the kitchen. Don’t let Anton choose the next game.”
“He cheats,” Bobby says as he goes inside.
“He picks games you’re bad at. That’s different.”
I step over the threshold. “Thanks for having me.”
Fraser looks at me again. “Sure.”
Someone calls his name from the living room, and he turns away.
The apology is going to have to wait.
Fraser’s apartment is already full. The couch and mismatched chairs are taken, so guys sit on the floor or lean against the walls.
Records are stacked beside a turntable under the front window, although tonight the music is coming from speakers connected to somebody’s phone.
A bike hangs on the far wall, and another blocks half the hallway beside a guitar case.
The couch cushions sag, and the floor beneath the guitar case is scuffed.
Nobody stares at me when I enter. Caleb lifts his beer in greeting. Anton tells Bobby he’s already lost twice and should save himself the pain. Two younger guys make room near the television, then go back to arguing over controllers.
Apparently the neon sign is only in my head.
Fraser moves through the room carrying bowls, changing the music, and taking shit from three conversations at once. His shirt sleeves end high on his arms. The ink I licked in Arizona disappears beneath black cotton at his shoulder.
He catches me looking, and this time I hold his gaze.
For one second his mouth tightens. Then he points toward the television. “Your line needs a fourth.”
I sit down before wanting him becomes visible to somebody with better instincts than Bobby.
The game is a four-player racing game that Anton claims requires strategy. It mostly requires ramming the car beside yours whenever it tries to pass. Bobby does that to me twice. The second time, Haugen throws a couch cushion at his head without taking his eyes off the screen.
“You’re dead,” Bobby tells him.
“You’re in last place,” Haugen says. “Worry about yourself.”
Haugen wins the race. He’s wedged into the corner of the couch with enough room that nobody can bump him, wearing a smug grin as Bobby puts his controller down.
“Nara says I might get back on skates next week,” he says when one of the younger guys asks. “If the next check goes well.”
Bobby stops reaching for the cushion. “She said might?”
“That’s what I just said.”
“Yesterday you said you would.”
Haugen hands his controller to Caleb. “Yesterday you were annoying me, and I wanted you to go away.”
The room laughs. Bobby does too, but his attention stays on Haugen as he gets up and heads toward the kitchen.
He moves carefully. The rest of us let him cross the room, but Bobby makes it three seconds.
“What do you need?” he asks.
Haugen doesn’t stop. “For you to sit down.”
Bobby sits.
I take the controller Caleb offers me and lose the next race because Fraser walks behind the television carrying a stack of plates. My car goes straight into a wall. Anton asks whether I need the rules explained again, and I tell him to shut up.
I play three more races, then a fighting game I haven’t touched since juniors.
Food appears from the kitchen and disappears just as fast. Fraser sits on the arm of the couch long enough to finish half a beer, but Caleb is talking to him about the next home stand.
When Caleb leaves, Bobby takes his place.
Later, I follow Fraser toward the kitchen and find four other people already in there.
He looks at me over an open cabinet. “You need something?”
An apology in front of a backup goalie and two defensemen isn’t happening. “Water.”
Fraser points to a row of glasses. “Help yourself.”
I get water and go back to the living room.
By eleven, Haugen is ready to leave. Bobby has Haugen’s jacket in hand before he finishes standing.
“I can carry my own coat,” Haugen says.
“I know.”
Bobby doesn’t give it back.
Haugen stares at him, then takes the coat and pulls it on. “I’m injured. I’m not six.”
“Never said you were.”
“You don’t have to. You’re very expressive.”
Haugen says goodnight to the room and leaves with one of the younger defensemen. Bobby watches the door close behind them. “He’s going home, not crossing the mountains on foot,” I tell him.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
His head turns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve been watching him all night.”
His face closes. “He’s a rookie.”
That doesn’t explain the coat or the way he tracked Haugen across the room. “He’s injured. Nara knows what he can do. So does he.”
Bobby’s jaw tightens. “I made the pass.”
“Rourke made the hit.”
“I made the pass,” he says again.
He isn’t listening, so I stop trying.
Bobby turns away. “Leave it, Pope. You don’t know me that well.”
He looks toward the kitchen where Fraser is laughing at something Anton said. “You staying?”
“For a while.”
He nods and goes to join them.
More people leave over the next half hour. Caleb goes. Anton gets dragged out by two teammates after announcing that everyone in the apartment is a coward for refusing one final game. The music drops low enough that I can hear bottles knocking together in the recycling bin.
Fraser still hasn’t been alone for more than a few seconds.
I pick up my jacket. I could try again at the rink or send a text when I get home, apologizing without standing in the apartment where I can see the marks my teeth left near the collar of his shirt. My arm is halfway into the sleeve when I stop. I’ve already spent days waiting for a better time.
I’m not leaving until we’ve talked.
I pull my arm out of the sleeve and leave the jacket over the chair. Two empty glasses from the coffee table give me a reason to head toward the kitchen where Fraser disappeared.