Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Brandon
Back at Danton’s house after our first-round success against Winnipeg, I’m winding down.
And by winding down, I mean playing mini sticks on my knees with his kids in the basement.
It’s exhausting. How do they have this much energy?
And don’t they know that their dad and I are supposed to be resting up to play against Minnesota in round two of the playoffs in a couple days?
“It never stops,” Danton says as if he’s read my mind. He blocks a shot that his younger daughter, Gina, takes, then sends the ball back in her direction to take another. This one he lets sneak past him.
The ball comes to me next, and I shoot it towards the other goal that’s being guarded by Moxy. She grabs it in her mouth and slowly runs away, getting the kids to all chase after her.
When they’re gone, I collapse onto the floor on my back.
“That’s more energy than I’ve seen out of Moxy in ages,” Danton says.
“She’s smart,” I say. “She knows that if she wants to take a nap anytime soon, she needs to get the ball away from them.”
“True.” Danton laughs. “It’s about time we stopped anyway. Vicky wants me to grill up some burgers tonight. Why don’t you call Ryan and see if he wants to join us.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, I think. Save him from the inevitable takeout he’s going to order.”
“Alright,” I say, then send the text to Ryan.
Hopefully, he shows up. Because honestly, after a few days of the two of us being attached at the hip in Winnipeg and deciding that this is a relationship, it’s weird not having him around right now.
Suddenly, these home stretches in St. Louis aren’t nearly as appealing.
On the road, even though it’s kept between the two of us, we can enjoy being together more than we can here.
Ryan
“Do you wish we were back on the road as much as I do?” I ask Brandon when he opens the door for me.
His lips pull up at the corners. “You have no idea.”
“Oh, I think I do.” I laugh. “I’m fucking dying.
” With a quick glance over his shoulder I see that the only Foley paying any attention to us is Moxy, who is strolling down the hall towards us with her tail wagging.
I take advantage of the rare privacy around this house and pull him out of the view of the hallway to slip him a quick kiss.
“So what’s for dinner?” I ask when I pull away.
“Burgers,” Brandon says. “But you already knew that. It was in the text I sent.”
I take my shoes off and place them with the others by the door. “I honestly didn’t read past you asking me if I wanted to come over for dinner.”
“Why not?” He laughs. “It’s not like I sent you a long text.”
“Because Vicky is the best cook in town.”
“I heard that!” Danton yells from the kitchen.
“And he’s not wrong!” Vicky yells as well. She peeks her head around the corner, smiles, and waves me over. “Come on in, Ryan. Dinner is almost ready.”
When I enter the kitchen, Danton is shaking his head. “I’m the one doing all the grilling and she’s in here taking all the credit.”
“She did roast the vegetables,” Brandon says.
“And make the salad,” Danton’s oldest son says.
“And cookies!” Danny says. There are cookie crumbs all over his mouth and half a cookie in his hand.
“You’re all traitors,” Danton says, then places a loud kiss onto Vicky’s cheek.
This is one of the many things I love about the Foleys.
They have no issue teasing each other and joking around.
There’s no malice in their words. It’s all good-humored fun.
They’re a lot like the Bouchards in that way, but with fewer bone-crushing hugs.
But even I’ll admit I’d give anything for a Momma B hug these days.
It’s interesting. My whole life I grew up in a cold, sterile environment where my very existence was treated as an inconvenience. Where everything I did was scrutinized and no matter how well I excelled at hockey, it didn’t matter. They never cared.
But the two times I’ve lived with another family, I was surrounded by the complete opposite.
The Bouchards welcomed me into their home and treated me as if I was their own.
They showed up to my games, made sure I was fed, and always had a warm embrace waiting for me, offering stability and safety I didn’t understand at the time.
And then there’s the Foleys. In this family, it’s absolute chaos in the best ways possible.
I’m practically run over by Danton’s two daughters as they make their way to the dinner table with Moxy trotting behind them.
None of these kids are wearing shoes. They all have dirt or cookie crumbs on their noses.
Everyone is wearing Mules swag of some sort, looking comfortable and casual for dinner.
Growing up for me, there were no sweatpants at the table.
There was no such thing as a grass stain, or in Brandon’s case, innumerable puck marks scuffing the garage door.
There was no yelling and playing and throwing a ball back and forth over the table.
And in the case of little Danny, there definitely was no clutching onto a stuffed hodag for dear life twenty-four hours a day.
I look around the table and see everyone smiling and laughing as they put food on their plates. I need this. Regularly. I can’t remain in my apartment alone and closed off and sterile anymore.
Vicky tips her head and very quietly asks me, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I nod my head and smile at her. “Just, thanks for having me.”
Casually, she leans over the table and fills a glass of wine for me. “You’re welcome here for dinner every night if you want. You don’t need to wait for Brandon to invite you.”
Brandon
I don’t know a lot of things but one of the things I do know is that Vicky’s extended invitation to Ryan to come over for dinner any night he wants doesn’t include basement blow jobs. But here we are, with me on my knees, sucking Ryan off in my bedroom.
I mean, whatever. All the kids are in bed and Danton and Vicky are doing Lord knows what in their bedroom, but still. I’m guessing this wasn’t what she had in mind.
“Ah, fuck, Brandon,” Ryan moans. Thankfully he keeps it pretty quiet. He threads his hands through my hair and holds me steady as he begins to thrust his hips. He’s gonna blow at any second now.
“Fuck… fuck… fuck… ahhhh.”
That’s it. I pull off of him and swallow my reward.
“Goddamn it, that was good.” He sighs, pulls his pants up, and falls back on the bed.
I get up off the floor and crawl onto the bed to lie beside him, resting my head on his chest. He’s breathing heavily and I can hear his heart beating hard.
“You should probably head home soon,” I say. But it’s the last thing I want him to do. This is the third night we’ll spend away from each other in four days and as happy as I am to be back in St. Louis and not on the road, I have grown used to being able to sleep beside him when we’re playing away.
“I know.” He sighs again and starts massaging my scalp with his hand. “I’m just going to lie here for a little longer. After that blow job, I can’t see straight.”
I nod my head against his chest. “It would be dangerous for you to drive in that condition.”
He wraps his other arm around me, holding me to him a little closer. His breathing is leveling out; his heart rate is calming down. “Do you think Danton and Vicky would notice if I just moved in here with you?”
“Danton probably not,” I say, feeling a warm flutter in my chest. I’d love it if he could stay, even though I know that’s not a possibility. “But Vicky definitely would.”
“I don’t think she’d mind.”
“No,” I agree. “She’d probably be thrilled. She loves you.”
“Of course she does,” Ryan laughs. “I’m irresistible to other people’s mothers.”
His statement makes me frown. We’ve never talked about his family, not even when we were younger. But I know they’re not around. And he may have laughed, but I don’t think it was a joke.
“What about your mom?” he asks, breaking me from my thoughts.
“What about her?”
“Would she love having me around?”
I look up at him. He looks calm and sated, but also a little sad. I shake my head at him. “You know she would,” I say. “You were her favorite billet.” Mine, too, I want to add, but don’t.
He runs his fingers through my hair, smoothing the wayward strands behind my ears. “Does she know about you?”
“What about me?”
“That you’re gay?”
I shrug. “We’ve never talked about it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve just never had any reason to tell her or my dad.”
“What about Ander?”
I nod my head. “Ander knows.”
“Why him?”
I lay my head back down on his chest, looking away from him. If I look at him now as he continues to ask these questions, I run the risk of accidentally blurting out the truth. “He kind of figured it out.”
He continues to play with my hair. “But he’s okay with it?”
“Of course he is.”
GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN—EIGHT YEARS AGO
Ryan
Not that I necessarily have a lot of practice, but I’ve never been good at goodbyes. And right now, as I watch Big Mike and Ander load up my things into the back of his Suburban, I’ve never felt more depleted.
I should be thrilled right now. Instead of having to go home to Dallas, I got invited to play for the United States Developmental Hockey Team.
I’m likely to play for my country in the World Juniors tournament.
For the next year, I’ll be living in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
That’s where my new team is based. And instead of living with a billet family, I’ll be staying in the dorms there.
This is the opportunity of a lifetime for a hockey player my age.
But there’s a part of me, a very large part, that wants to stay here with the Bouchards.
Who am I kidding, though? As nice and welcoming as the Bouchards have been to me this past year, that’s what they do. It’s who they are. I’m not special. In a few weeks, another billet son will move in with them and I’ll be long forgotten. Just another face in a picture on their wall.
“You about ready, son?” Big Mike asks with a clap to my shoulder as he shuts the back hatch. Since I’m not going back to Dallas, he’s offered to drive me to my new home. An errand that is going to take him about twelve hours round trip. But there is no easy way to just put me on a plane.
“I think I have everything.”
He looks at me and an expression I can’t place paints his face. “That’s not what I asked.”
“I’m not ready!” Momma B says as she comes down the driveway. As soon as she reaches me, she wraps me in a hug. “You know you don’t have to go.”
“New season starts in a week,” I say. Plus, I’ve already overstayed. I should have been out of their hair two months ago at the beginning of summer when the Hodags’ season ended. But they were nice enough to invite me to stay longer without asking any questions.
It was a lot like at Christmas. Momma B just seemed to know I had nowhere else to go and she’s too polite to ask me to leave.
She lets me out of her embrace but grabs my hands with hers. “Your new team is lucky to have you. But if you need anything at all, please call us. We’re just a car ride away.”
“A six-hour car ride away,” I tell her.
“That’s light work,” Big Mike says with another clap to my shoulder. He looks around. “Where’s Brandon?”
“Sulking inside,” Ander says. He lightly punches me in the arm, then gives me a hug. “See you at the draft next summer.”
“You know it,” I say as we thump each other on the back before we let go.
“I’ll go grab Brandon,” he says, as he runs off.
Brandon
My chest hurts so bad I can’t breathe. My stomach aches. I feel like I’m choking. And to make matters worse, I can’t get my eyes to stop burning.
This is the worst day of my life, and it’s an even worse time for my brother to find me with my knees pulled into my chest as I sit on the floor between our beds.
“Jesus, Brandon,” he says after bursting into our room. “You sick or something? You look like you’re dying.”
I feel like I’m dying. How come no one told me? Why wasn’t I warned about this? When was someone going to let me know that losing someone you care about is the worst pain imaginable? Worse than cracking your head open on the ice.
My heart hurts and I have no idea how to fix it.
Ander sits across from me. We don’t have a lot of space, so his knees end up banging against mine as he mirrors my position.
“Ryan’s leaving soon,” he says. “Do you want to come out and say goodbye?”
My teeth clench and I shake my head no as I try to swallow the extra saliva that has collected in my mouth. I don’t know if I can do it. I’m barely holding it together right now. Saying goodbye to Ryan will officially break me. And when that happens, I’ll have to explain to everybody why.
Ander grabs my knee and pinches it, forcing me to look at him. I expect to see him angry with me, maybe even disgusted. Instead, he’s giving me his stupid goofy grin. The same one he wears when we’re practicing our skills on the driveway. “It’ll hurt more tomorrow if you don’t go say goodbye.”
“What would you know about that?” I roll my sore, red, watery eyes at him. The motion causes a tear to break free and run down my face.
“Nothing,” he admits. “But I’m not dumb. I’ve watched enough movies to recognize what you’re going through.” He bumps my knees again with his. “Go tell him goodbye. You’ll feel better.”
“I doubt that,” I say as I attempt to dry my cheeks with the heels of my hands.
He stands up then reaches his hand down for me to grab to haul myself up. “Go take some deep breaths and splash some water on your face. I’ll tell them you were taking a shit or something.”
“Perfect.” I laugh, but it’s weak.
He pauses when he gets to the door, then turns around and looks at me. “It’s alright, you know?”
I take a deep breath and swallow thickly, surprised at how willingly Ander accepts the truth of why I’m so gutted. “I know,” I say, feeling somewhat better.
He knocks on the door frame twice then turns back around to leave. “I’ll stall them for as long as I can. But you better get out there soon before Mom comes and finds you like this.”
I take another deep breath. “I just need a minute. I’ll be out right behind you.”