5. Oskar
CHAPTER FIVE
OSKAR
Eight o’clock. Three games of Pro Hockey Sverige. Three losses.
Now I’m on number four. With twenty seconds left, a defenseman skates over, screens me, and helps Karlstad tie the game.
“Nej! Fuck off!”
Thirty-seven seconds into overtime, we lose. I throw the controller onto the couch.
“This is your fault,” I tell Kai, who is not here to hear it.
He has no idea I am blaming him for losing video games in a hotel room many blocks from wherever he is being difficult tonight.
And he is difficult. That is the first thing I have learned about him. His face gives away everything and then closes in an instant. The most interesting thing becomes whatever caused the transformation.
I liked that he didn’t ask about my work.
I did not offer the information because for a few weeks I am only a man at a baseball game, a tall foreigner who blends in with the crowd.
That’s something I’ve never been allowed to be.
Back home, I was the goalie who was going to make it, then the one who had made it.
People watched me, talked about me, and expected things.
Here, for a little while longer, I am nobody. I want to stay this way as long as I can, especially with Kai. One sentence, and he would understand too much. He would think hockey is all I am, and I am not ready to give him that yet.
We both held things back. Kai fought himself all night, wanting things and resenting the want. He loved having my hands and mouth on him, begged me to fuck him.
He loved that perhaps more than anyone I have ever been with. But afterward, his shoulders would go tight, as if hunger were something to apologize for. I would decide it was time to go, then look at him and stay.
Sjukt snygg, we’d say at home. Sickeningly handsome. Here, people probably just call him sexy as fuck. I smile, remembering how he laughed when I spoke American for him.
By the time I left, a knot in him had loosened, but not completely. There was a deeper one no part of me could reach, and knowing that made me want to find it more. This is what I should pay attention to and won’t.
Because I have knots too. Not the same ones, but enough to recognize them in others.
I know what it looks like when someone is trying hard to pretend they are fine. A joke arrives too quickly, or a smile doesn’t quite reach the eyes. I recognize the way a man asks to be held and then resents me for holding him.
The cost of standing close enough to see it can be high. Once, my best friend asked me to say I would not make myself small again so someone else could be comfortable. I said I would try. The promise still sits in my chest.
What a night, though. I have never been more satisfied than I was with Kai. Blood rushes south as memories surface, and my right hand is eager to help. But after Kai, jerking off would be boring.
It’s been more than a year since the last person who almost mattered. Her name was Astrid. But being with Kai confirmed something I already suspected. Women are fun; men are trouble. Apparently, I prefer the trouble.
I knew this before he asked me to stay, which he did so badly he could have won an award. He had become quiet, and I assumed he was working out how to send me home. Then he opened his mouth.
“Since we… I don’t… You…”
He turned red from chest to ears, with every nerve probably firing at once as he fought to stay calm. It was the same look he had during sex: completely undone and trying not to show it. He is beautiful when he’s sure of himself, and even better when he’s losing the fight for self-control.
“You’re not bad,” he’d said, as if it were a massive compliment.
Not bad. It almost made me laugh in his face, but when I saw what it had cost him to get the words out, I didn’t. I nodded seriously and agreed, the way you accept something a person can barely afford to give. I’d bet the season he’s never made that offer to a hookup before.
My phone buzzes as I am shutting off the PlayStation.
KAI: You alive or did I wear you out?
I’m chuckling before I finish reading it.
OSKAR: I think I wore you out. Did you fall asleep after I left and wake up wanting more from me?
KAI: Get that big head under control.
OSKAR: My head is normal size. At least the one on my shoulders.
KAI: It’s an expression. Having a big head means you’re full of yourself.
OSKAR: Thank you, English tutor. But I know this.
OSKAR: Or as an American might say, bruh, you are cooked.
He takes a moment to reply.
KAI: Okay, I just spat water all over the room.
OSKAR: Wish I’d been there to see it, dude.
KAI: Kiss my ass.
And there it is. My face gets hot. How does he do that from half a city away?
OSKAR: With pleasure. I know how much you like it, so I’m on my way.
OSKAR: You will moan for me?
KAI: As tempting as that sounds, I’m too sore to do anything down there until I get some sleep.
OSKAR: Is your mouth sore too? I could kiss your ass and let you blow me.
A minute passes with no answer. I’m about to walk it back when his response arrives, not one message but an avalanche.
KAI: Let’s give it a day or two.
KAI: I mean if you’re serious, and we both still want to meet up.
KAI: It’s very tempting. But maybe we should hang out first?
KAI: Then we can see what happens. We’ll talk, make sure we want to do it again.
KAI: Not that I wouldn’t like it. But maybe you won’t. We’ll talk about it, okay? And if we still want to, maybe we can.
KAI: Because I would like it. You know how much I liked it.
I need to stop him before he scares himself away. The closer Kai gets to something he wants, the more he tries to find a way out.
OSKAR: I will want to, but only if it is good for both of us. Do you want to hang out?
I can picture him reading it. The sigh of relief, followed by immediate suspicion of why he feels it.
KAI: That’s why I texted. Are you busy tomorrow?
Now the relief floods through me. I won’t look at that too closely.
OSKAR: Other than a meeting with my new employer on Friday, I am free all week. They put me in a hotel, and I have been bored since the day before yesterday.
KAI: Let’s fix that. Central Park tomorrow. We’ll have a picnic, then walk around so I can show you things. I grew up here.
OSKAR: I would like that. When?
KAI: Noon? Bring lunch. You know where Central Park is, right?
OSKAR: I ran there two days ago, so yes. Where in the park? It is huge.
KAI: 67th and Central Park West. Think you can find it?
I will, even if it takes all night and a compass.
OSKAR: My phone has an excellent app for this. Noon.
KAI: Cool. Text me if you get lost.
We send a few more messages, but the effort of arranging something he wants has worn him down, so I let him go to bed. Tossing my phone aside, I stretch out with my feet on the table and stare at the ceiling of a room that is not mine, in a country that is not mine, feeling very lucky.
A planned picnic counts as a date. I’m fairly sure that holds in any language. I cannot say what it is to Kai, but he asked, and asking nearly killed him.
If tomorrow goes well, maybe there will be more dates. I can tell he likes more than my body. I want to get to know him, and who can tell what might happen. Could it really be that easy?
I let myself fantasize because I deserve to.
I’ve had flings and two temporary arrangements when we were honest about what they were.
There were the months with Astrid, who never became what I had hoped.
I have never experienced genuine commitment.
Can a man be built entirely for hockey and still have room for a person on the other side of the plexiglass?
I promised Gunnar I’d find out. The weight of the promise is like the ache of a knee that has been hurt before. Not pain, but the memory of where it used to be.
I hear my father in my head. “Don’t sell the skin before the bear is shot.” An odd saying, but maybe I’d better remember it before I romanticize myself into acting like a fool.
I leave for the date too early, telling myself it is because I need to buy food and find the correct park entrance, but this is only part of it. Mostly, I could not stand waiting in the hotel any longer.
I check the app on my phone as I’m leaving, again half a block later, and once more at a corner where it tries to send me through a fountain.
The route looks easy on the screen, but on the street, it is more complicated.
There are barriers, men shouting over boxes, and a cyclist who swears at me with real artistry when I pause in his lane for a quick second.
“Sorry,” I call after him.
He responds with one finger, never slowing down.
I keep walking. I like this city more than is reasonable after four days.
Training camp comes to mind. Only a few more weeks to go. The Fury have made it clear that I will come in as the backup, which sounds steady but is actually a risk.
Everything is conditional. Play well, and they will keep you; otherwise, you end up “developing,” as they say, in Richmond, Virginia.
I looked up the city last week, and it is far enough from New Jersey to seem like a punishment.
To make sure I understood the demotion, they would pay much less.
It would still be more than anyone in my family imagined I could earn stopping pucks, but what a disappointment it would be.
I did not cross an ocean to almost succeed.
I want the HFNA, all the speed and noise as the best shooters in the world try to beat me every night.
I need to be tested. But before I get there, I am walking through Manhattan, wondering if a man with trust issues will smile when he sees me.
This kind of thing can destroy the focus of a professional athlete.
Kai is an odd man, and his apartment is as unusual as he is.
When I walked in, I expected what rich men usually have: costly belongings, poorly arranged.
Instead, I learned that Kai collects things no one else would put together.
Finished LEGO sets lined up like museum exhibits.
Philosophy books beside a set of blueprints for a spaceship.
Copies of famous paintings leaned against framed photos of the originals.
I couldn’t tell whether he’d made the copies or bought them, and I wanted to know.
His kitchen was stocked with food so virtuous it looked like medicine.
Everything in the place said Kai is a man who needs to be in control.
But sex was the opposite. With that, he showed how much he wants to let go.
I believe both sides of him are real, and the gap between them is where he lives.
I want to be allowed in there with him, which is more than I should expect from a picnic.
I stop for a don’t-walk sign and laugh to myself. The woman next to me glances over, probably wondering if I’m crazy.
I probably am.
For the next block, I tell myself I only want Kai because he is beautiful and blushes when I push him. Because his sex noises turn me into an animal.
It would be a better lie if I weren’t also wondering what we will talk about while we eat. I have to get that right so he will not think I am stupid.
A storefront is ahead with huge gold letters in the window: FRIED CHICKEN. The smell stops me. We have fried chicken at home, but it is not the same. In America, it is less a food than medicine for the soul. I think about Kai’s refrigerator, then shrug. Every picnic needs something irresponsible.
“What can I get you?” the man asks.
“Enough for two hungry people.”
He gives me a look. “That sure narrows it down.”
I leave with a bag the size of a small child, filled with chicken, fries, coleslaw, biscuits, and cookies as wide as goalie gloves. Kai will either be delighted or offended, and I am hoping for both.
The park entrance is easier to find than I expected.
Beyond the gates are thick green trees, with tall buildings in the distance behind them.
Even after several days here, the city keeps surprising me with how quickly it changes.
Steel and glass, packed streets, noise everywhere.
Then, without expecting to, you find grass and shade, almost as beautiful as home.
I run a hand through my hair. Useless, but at least I have tried.
My heart is pounding like there is an incoming puck. Ridiculous. I have faced penalty shots with entire seasons riding on them, in front of thousands of people. Now I am nervous because an intriguing man asked me to lunch.
Get yourself together.
I walk through the gates to find him.