Summer 2016
If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
Erika hadn’t said a word since “Hello.” A slim ray of hope had existed, at least at the beginning, that a romantic dinner date with Jimbo Wormel might be the start of her happily ever after. That likelihood was quickly dashed, along with the restaurant’s ambiance, by the clank of dishes being dropped into a plastic bucket and the busboy’s off-key singing.
“You know, you look vaguely familiar,” Jimbo said. “Perhaps a resemblance to one of my ex-wives.” There was a glint in his mud-brown eyes, maybe from the flickering candle, but possibly as if he was kidding. “Have you ever been married?”
Apparently Jimbo didn’t follow figure skating. Erika Tsuchino had been semi-famous—for at least fifteen minutes—back in 2014. A run at an Olympic medal, the death of her father and coach right before The Games, a short-lived marriage to her on ice partner and the pregnancy that followed; it had all been tabloid and TV news.
“Well,” she began.
“My heart bleeds gold. My sexy parts get hard with steel. I want you, babe. I want you, babe. Come to my room and let me, let me, let me, let me, ahhhh.” The teenage boy danced about as he sang—if one could call it that. After Jimbo flashed him a dirty look, he stared at Erika expectantly. The truth was quite tempting.
Actually, yes. I married a gay guy, Erika wanted to say. Tom Alan—that’s his name, like two, but it’s just one. While my father was grooming us as champion pairs skaters from childhood, he was also, unbeknownst to me until I was practically standing at the altar, grooming us for an arranged marriage, which isn’t as uncommon in modern day Japan as you’d think. She’d tell him everything. Papa died before we could wed, but my mother insisted we respect his final wishes, even though everyone knew Tom Alan was hung up on a British guy named Milo. So, we did it, honeymoon and all. I slept with Tom Alan every night, for weeks and weeks and fell deeper and deeper in love, which I never told him, because he’d found his way back to the Brit. The marriage was annulled just about the time the baby came, but I’m still not over him two years later.
She sighed, but said none of that. Tom Alan and Milo were living their fairy tale ending. As she stared at the spinach stuck between Jimbo’s teeth, as she recalled blind dates, computer dates, reconnecting with high school crushes on Facebook, and fix-ups her best friends from her sport swore would be the men of her dreams but weren’t, Erika wondered what had happened to hers.
“I guess I’m in sort of a transitional state at the moment,” she said.
“Let me, let me, let me, ahhhhhhhhhh.”
“Is it just me,” Jimbo asked, “or is that fairy waiter annoying the shit out of everyone?”
“Busboy.” Erika knew deep down that wasn’t the word she should have objected to. She thought a lot about words lately. As she and Tom Alan got back on the ice to try and recapture their place as one of the top pairs skaters in the world, they were performing their short program to Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sounds of Silence. A few sign language passages had been worked into the choreography, including “Words hurt,” “Words heal,” “Silence kills,” and “Speak up.” The piece was a tribute of hope for those struggling for human rights all over the world, including the LGBTQ community in Russia, where Erika and Tom Alan had skated at the last Olympics.
“And really, Jimbo, the word fairy is totally—”
The kid with the bucket sashayed right into their table, causing Jimbo to spill cabernet all down the front of his shirt. “Son of a b—”
“Holy shit, yo! I’m so—Oh. My. God. You’re Erika Tsuchino.”
Jimbo stood. “I’m not. I’m wet is what I am.”
“Not you, dude. Her.” The busboy was at her side in a shot. His nametag read Kensuke. He was a strikingly handsome kid with sparkling black eyes and a scruff of sparse facial hair. “Can I get your autograph?”
“Is there a problem here?” The gentleman who had seated Jimbo and Erika joined the fracas. “Sato! Get back to work!”
“In a minute, yo! I’m talking to a celebrity.”
“Now or you’re fired,” the kid’s boss snapped.
“I’ll leave it up front,” Erika said. “Don’t get in trouble.”
“Oh, he won’t can me. He’s all ‘Blah, blah, blah.’” Kensuke made a moving mouth with his hands. “‘I’m the boss of you. Blah, blah, blah.’ Yo, you were awesome in Sochi and at Worlds with Baranowski.” He pronounced it spot on. “Sick, man, sick!”
“Thank you.” People were staring, so Erika took a pen from her purse, rather than argue anymore. “I don’t know what to sign.”
“Here.”
Kensuke handed her a used napkin from the other table. Eww, but she signed it anyway. Best wishes. Jump higher. Erika Tsuchino.
“OMG! Thank you so much.” Kensuke seemed on the verge of fainting. “Is Tom Alan here?”
He even got that right. Some people dropped the Alan even after being told repeatedly the two names went together as one.
“No. Sorry.”
“If I give you my cell, can you have him call it?”
“Oh…I…”
“Who’s going to pay my dry cleaning?” Jimbo demanded.
Was he seriously going to ask a kid making less than minimum wage to cover the cost of washing his stupid shirt? “I will,” Erika said.
“Chillax, old man.”
“Sato!” The manager was suddenly involved again. Kensuke’s charming smile and good looks probably got him out of a lot. This time, however, his boss wasn’t wooed. “Get out.”
“In the middle of the dinner rush?” Kensuke took off his blue apron and maroon bow tie. “No prob, yo. My pleasure.” He dropped them both to the floor, and offered a parting shot. “Eat my ass, Hideki.”
So ended another shot at finding Mr. Right. Erika and Jimbo didn’t even wait for their entrees. She was grateful she had taken her own car. As she got in, she checked her phone.
Billy: Gimme a buzz.
A text from the other ex—the redheaded baby daddy—maybe looking for a booty call. Recalling the last one, Erika seriously considered it.
Billy liked it when she rode him like a cowgirl, but there was something about feeling his weight on top of her that got her off. She’d leaned down to kiss him, and then managed to roll them both over so she was underneath, all without him pulling out. Their choreography was almost as flawless as what she and Tom Alan could do on the ice.
You’re not supposed to be thinking about him now, Erika had told herself.
With one of Billy’s hands on her breast and the other between her legs where he alternated between a gentle sway and quick, jolting thrusts, she’d given herself over to the heat down below that soon rose as a tingle over her entire body. When Billy shuddered, so did she. It was not unusual for them to climax together, despite the fact Erika could still count the number of times they had actually made love—or was it just sex? When Billy kissed her neck, when he left his mouth there and began to hum—Celine Dion, she thought, not the song from Titanic, but one of her other romantic ballads—she’d had to ask herself again.
“This is sweet, babe,” he’d said.
“Yes.”
“Be nice if, ya know, we made it kind of a regular thing.”
“Hmm.” Burrowed into Billy’s sweaty chest, Erika had agreed.
“Except, I’m probably not really ready for that stuff, I guess…commitment and…whatever.”
“Then why do you bring it up?”
It wasn’t the first time he had. Erika had gotten out of his bed then. She’d stood at the side of it, naked, just looking down at him.
“Here comes the pissed off woman stance,” Billy had said with a smirk. “Arms across boobs, like, ‘No way are you getting at these again now.’”
“Nope. Let me tell you something about women.”
“Let me tell you something about women.” Billy sat up, back against the headboard, the sheet falling away so Erika could see almost all of him. He was usually a man of few words, unless he had a reason to use a lot of them. He was particularly fond of post-sex monologues. Erika wished she hadn’t gotten up. The bed would have been a far more comfortable spot to take in what was about to come. “I love women,” he said. “I love women hard.” What he did with his eyes, where he put them, she felt as if she might climax again, just from his look. “You may not know this about me, because we got together and fell apart pretty fast and there wasn’t a lot of time for talking, but women are my main role models in life—my mother and sisters, Irina Mischen, all those years at the rink working with her, Coach LeDoux…I must have mentioned her.”
Erika couldn’t really recall.
“You know when I first got into hockey?”
“When?”
“The sixth grade. We played floor hockey in gym. I wanted to play it every day, but we moved on to stupid basketball. There was no such thing as a floor hockey team anyway, but we did have a field hockey team—a girl’s field hockey team. In seventh grade, when we were eligible to play sports, I tried out.”
“No way.”
“Yes way. I was a freakin’ pioneer, and Coach LeDoux, she put me on her team—went to the principal and the school board to do it. Stuck up for me when other schools complained about having a boy on the team, how it was unfair. She assured them I sucked.”
Erika smiled.
“Which I did, but damned if she didn’t fight for me, and by the end of the season, maybe I didn’t suck as much…because of her. Not long after that, we found the rink up here and I started playing youth hockey, but I’ll never forget the shot she gave me. She’s principal now—sadly in another district. We keep in touch. She’s all up in this upcoming election and I’m with her…and with her…because now I’m the father of a little girl and these things are even more important to me.” Billy looked at Etsuko, his daughter. “Nobody’s going to make my baby girl feel like less. Nobody’s going to disrespect her or take away any right she has. She won’t need me to fight for her, if she’s anything like her mother, but bet your ass I will anyway.” Billy slid back down the mattress and pulled up the covers. No way was she getting back at his body parts either. “You didn’t know some of that, did you?”
Erika had to admit she didn’t. “No.”
Only nineteen when she’d gotten pregnant just after the Games, Erika also had to acknowledge the fact she still wasn’t sure how young was too young when it came to…whatever.
“Do we even really know each other at all?” Billy had asked. “Like, everything…all the way?”
Erika thought they did—the important stuff, anyway—unless Billy knew about the secret she was keeping. Could he read her that easily, she wondered as she looked down at her phone again?
Billy: Just heard about your dinner disaster.
So much for sex. And how the heck did he know about the date from hell before it even ended? In no mood for conversation, Erika decided Billy would have to wait.
* * * *
The idyllic vision waiting for her at home made her wonder why she’d ever even left.
“How’d it go?” Tom Alan was down on the floor, his knees to his chest, no shoes or socks or shirt, just a pair of blue jeans. Muscles rippled and the smallest paunch of gut contracted and jiggled every time he giggled with Etsuko. The name meant “joy” and it surely fit. As she stared up at him from atop his bent legs, she reached for the MTA coin on a lanyard nestled in the hair in the concave of his chest. The idea for the symbolic jewelry had come to Tom Alan’s romantic partner in a train car. It was given their first Christmas with a promise they would never be farther than a train ride apart for more than a few days. “Was this one your soul mate?” he asked.
“The busboy was more intriguing.” Erika joined them on the floor after kicking off her shoes. “Jimbo and I ran out of things to talk about before the bread came.” She tickled the sole of Tom Alan’s foot with her toe as two black and copper cats scrambled up into her lap. “He was a real jerk, actually.”
“What will this little girl want to be?” Tom Alan asked out of nowhere, not the slightest bit interested in the response to his question.
“The fifth female president in a row.”
“Aim high.”
“Or…just happy,” Erika said. “That’s all any of us want. Happy and not alone.”
“Aww.”
“She been fussy?”
“Uh-uh.”
“She will be if you hold her all the time.”
“I don’t get to babysit much lately,” Tom Alan said.
“Whose fault is that?”
Though they had taken off two full competitive seasons following the 2014 Olympics and World Championships, Tom Alan continued to hop continents to provide competitive skating commentary on Japanese television and perform in ice shows—mostly solo. Borne of figure skating royalty, Nobuo and Kyoko Tsuchino, Tom Alan and Erika were a celebrity super couple over there. Half the country had swooned when they’d wed, and though most of their fans had eventually forgiven Tom Alan when the marriage fell apart, some still berated him online.
“I’ll be home a while now.”
“Where’s the Brit?”
“He went to bed early.” Tom Alan and Milo had their own apartment, but stayed at the family home often, the one Erika’s mother had purchased in Westchester County New York in the summer of 2014. Nestled in the middle of five secluded acres, it was not only closer to the practice rink where Erika and Tom Alan trained, but also to the train station where Milo was always arriving from or heading to NYU, where he was studying to become a forensic psychologist. “We had a spat.”
“Ku areba raku ari.”
“I guess,” Tom Alan said.
It had been one of Erika’s father’s favorite expressions—”There are hardships, and there are delights.” His translation, his meaning, was more along the lines of “When life seems too good, expect something bad.”
“I got a commercial in Japan for breakfast cereal and he doesn’t want me to take it. He says I have enough jobs, and if I really need to take on anymore, they should be here in the States.”
“So much for staying home a while.”
“It’s an extra few days when we’re already over there for NHK. I figure I should strike when and where the iron’s hot, right? As long as we plan ahead…I made sure I had nothing going on from now until fall. I’m all his until he has to go for two weeks in September.”
“Just…his?” Tom Alan didn’t even glance over, so Erika tickled his foot some more. That got him to look at her.
“Everyone’s,” he said.
“That’s better. So I suppose tonight you and Milo will be having make-up sex instead of just regular sex?”
Milo bragged about their nightly ritual every morning. “I’m not wasting a moment with this honking yank’s honking dank when we’re in the same time zone.” Milo was crude, funny, juvenile, and adorable. “We’ll leave the door ajar, in case you’d like to watch.” Erika loved him almost as much as she loved Tom Alan—”Since, you know, you’re not getting any—” even when he was a bitch. The duo hadn’t skipped a night in the five days they’d been staying at the house. The HVAC system had recently been overhauled. Though Erika had never taken Milo up on his offer to peek in, now she could hear them through the heat vent in her room.
“Shh.” Tom Alan covered the little one’s ears. “And yeah.” He raised both brows suggestively. “There are only six weeks of summer left. Ko-in ya no gotoshi.” Tom Alan’s Japanese wasn’t as good as Erika’s. She’d been raised with it from day one, whereas he’d been quite a bit older when Nobuo Tsuchino had taken him in as a skater and a son. Either way, she had to agree. Time did fly.
“I’m a little jealous.” Erika admitted her feelings with a smile. “I want what you have.”
Tom Alan laughed when Etsuko giggled, both of them caught up in their own little world.
“She adores you.”
“The feeling is mutual. I couldn’t love her more if she was mine.”
Tom Alan had been right there holding Erika’s hand as baby Etsuko made her way into the world. Milo held the other, though it had been touch and go for both.
“Get your sweet arse back here, Skater Boy!” Milo had shouted into the phone, panicking even as Erika remained calm.
Tom Alan had been at the airport, just about to board a plane for Shanghai to cover The ISU Grand Prix Cup of China when Erika had gone into labor a couple weeks early. “She’s not due until next month,” he’d said.
“The baby doesn’t seem to care about the calendar, love. I’ve put up with mood swings, and cravings, and uncontrollable crying when I make tea, as if it’s a gesture of kindness akin to rescuing a puppy from under a tractor, but there’s no way in bloody hell I’m goin’ anyways near Flower’s fanny to yank out her redheaded baby.”
“Fanny.” Tom Alan had laughed, despite his nerves and excitement, as he’d sprinted through Stewart International Airport, grateful he wasn’t midair, at least in his retelling. “You do know that’s not where babies come from in America, right?”
Erika smiled at the memory nearly two years later. “Jimbo wanted to know if I was ever married.”
“Jimbo?” Tom Alan asked. “Seriously?”
“James or Jim, I assume. I didn’t ask.”
Tom Alan was still making faces at Etsuko. “You could always date the busboy.”
“I don’t think so.” Erika removed the two kitties, stood, and held out her hands for the baby.
“Already? And what was wrong with the busboy? You some sort of dating snob?”
Erika sighed. “The busboy was a kid. Plus…”
“Plus what?” Tom Alan asked, as he stood and handed over Etsuko.
“I have a feeling any interest in me wouldn’t extend beyond the ice.”
“Ah. Been there, over that, with the gay guys, huh?”
“Not completely.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Let’s go say goodnight to obaasan, Etsuko.”
“Tell Kyoko goodnight for me, too,” Tom Alan said. “Good afternoon, I guess. I thought once your mother was settled in the U.S., she’d be here for good.”
“Me, too. As long as she’s happy…”
Etsuko wrapped her tiny hand around Tom Alan’s finger even as Erika held her. “I wonder if her hair will stay red.”
The baby looked like both her parents, half Japanese, half Irish American. Biology was a miraculous thing.
“I hope so,” Erika said. “Tell Goddaddy night-night.”
“Goddaddy? That’s my official title? Sounds like an Al Pacino movie written by Tina Fey.”
“It’ll do for tonight.” Erika held the baby up for Tom Alan to smooch. “We’ll figure it all out before she can talk.” If Erika didn’t know how to classify her relationship with Tom Alan, how would Etsuko? “Goodnight. And keep it down.”
“Can’t make no promises.” When Tom Alan stretched, his jeans slid partway down. “Make-up sex can get loud.”
And it did. After all of eight minutes, Erika ended up in the nursery again, away from the vent that carried the sound of arguing, then lip smacking, and then a couple of loud groans she envisioned coming from Tom Alan as Milo took his dick down his throat. She ended up with a crick in her neck she rubbed as she stood outside the bathroom door the next morning counting the cherry blossom petals on the wallpaper.
“Come on, Milo! I’m late.” She was ready to drop off Etsuko with her daddy, but someone’s primping was holding her up.
“Use one of the other loos.”
“I don’t need the loo. I need Etsuko’s bag, which I left on the counter.”
“Hold up. I’m brushing my teeth.”
She heard running water. “And that calls for a locked door?”
“I’m in my undies.”
“I’ve seen you in underwear—often. every morning. Come on!”
“I’m also pissing.”
“Eww.” Now she heard that, too. “While brushing your teeth?”
“I got two hands, Flower.” Milo called her that because of the old figure skating saying, the one stating the male partner was the stem and the female the flower. “Only need one for each.”
“That shortcoming’s Tom Alan’s problem, not mine. Open the door.” She heard a flush and then the sound of the knob, a word she often used when referring to Tom Alan’s mate. “Men are gross.” She shoved past the one in tight, bee-striped boxer briefs and reached for her tote.
“I love you, too.” He kissed her on the cheek.
“Wash your hands.”
“My hands came nowhere near you. And my lips last touched willie hours ago.”
Erika couldn’t help but grin. “Pig.”
“Will you never forgive me for stealing your husband right out from under you?” Milo put a hand to his out-of-control bedhead. “You’re a beautiful girl. I promise someday you’ll meet ano—Oomph!”
“Sorry.” When the overstuffed purple paisley bag hit him a second time as she strutted through the door, her smile broadened. “By-ee.”
As Erika trudged through slow morning traffic on her way to Billy’s, a remaining hint of Tom Alan’s cologne from when he’d kissed Etsuko goodbye had her eager to get back into his arms on the ice. The one time they’d made love, it was awkward but gentle, so loving but also sad. She’d lain beside him naked afterwards, and clothed in the nights that followed, as they’d held one another as the only constant each had after so much loss. Even if they never shared another sexual moment, there was an intimacy between them no one else could ever come close to replicating. She imagined it, though—fucking him. She wouldn’t mind his tentative nature—Tom Alan could be so bashful—as he teased her first with just one digit, then wet her with his mouth. She would love to feel the full weight of his six foot six body atop her again as he thrust in and out, so lost and comfortable as things progressed he’d forget to be timid. Tom Alan was huge. She barely came to his chest. The sounds he made with Milo, imagining them against her ear as they came together, the fantasy had often brought her there by herself. She was ready to give in to it now, except the light changed, so she had to move on, in traffic and in life.
Admittedly fickle, once Erika arrived at Billy’s, it was all about him. The sight of Etsuko cradled in his massive arms, burrowed into his burly chest, was still something beautiful to see.
“Hi, baby girl. Daddy missed you.” Billy was a good seven inches shorter than Tom Alan. He wore a Boston Bruins T-shirt and boxer shorts, and his pale, white legs flecked with red wisps were bruised and scarred from another recent hockey game. Erika had called before she’d left the house. Billy was forty minutes away. He’d had plenty of time to put on pants. “Grandma is gonna bring Tuxedo and Mama over later. Yes she is.”
Etsuko bounced excitedly.
“She loves those dogs.”
“They love her, too.” Billy had adopted four dogs out to Wahl family members after a tour in Afghanistan between high school and college. “Sometimes I think we still could have come up with a better name for her.” Mama was the mother of the other three. She was all black. Tuxedo, Domino, and Oreo were all black and white. “You wanna come in a while?”
“Training.” Erika hooked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Just a minute or so. You never answered my text last night.”
“Oh. I forgot. Sorry.”
“It’ll be quick,” Billy said.
Erika looked at him, then stepped inside. Billy’s apartment—the second one he’d shared with Milo when both moved downstate—was all beige, except for Etsuko’s pink swing, pink playpen, and a large pink teddy bear. Milo hadn’t been there long enough to add much decorative flair. Erika also saw a blue book. A text book—French. Billy was studying to become a veterinarian. Why was he learning French?
“You gonna sit?” The careless way he did, after plopping Etsuko in her swing in front of Bubble Guppies on the TV, offered a view of himself Erika fondly remembered: its taste, and girth in her tightness. Was he doing it on purpose?
“I’ll stand.”
If he was he horny, hoping for a quickie, before Erika took off to spend four hours on her feet or being hurled across the rink…Fat chance.
“Suit yourself.” He leaned back into the couch.
Fat dick. Maybe she could…
“So I heard about your date last night.” Billy picked up a bath towel from the laundry basket on the floor in front of him.
“Oh?” Was he jealous?
“From your busboy.” Etsuko giggled when he shook it out before starting to fold it.
“My busboy?”
“Kensuke’s his name.”
“Yeah.”
“And I think he’s probably gay.”
“Yeah? How do you know all this?” Erika wasn’t that famous, not anymore, hardly worthy of a mention on TMZ or anything like that over a spilled drink at a restaurant. In Japan she was, but not the States, where alleged diehard figure skating fans often walked right past her and Tom Alan looking for Tara and Johnny.
“I know Kensuke,” Billy said. “He plays on my team.” He nodded towards an autographed hockey stick hanging on the wall. “He doesn’t know the whole story with us—you and me, our connection. He just called ‘cause we’re tight like that. These kids think I’m all cool and stuff.”
“Do they?” His eyes are up there, Erika reminded herself.
“Like I said…” Billy ignored the snark. “He was excited. Once I told him I actually know you guys, he begged me to hook up a meeting with you and Tom, and Booger Fisher.”
“Milo.”
“He’ll always be Booger to me.”
“Sure. I don’t see a problem with that.” Erika turned for the door.
“There’s more.”
She turned back. “Such as?”
“Well, if he does play for Tom and Booger’s team, not just mine, if you get what I’m saying…”
“Your subtleties aren’t lost.”
“Then he’s probably down with figure skating way more than hockey, right?”
“Jerk.” Erika picked up the closest thing to her—an oven mitt from the counter at her back—and chucked it.
“Hey!” Billy squawked.
“That’s a stereotype.”
“It is not. Jesus!”
Erika didn’t even try to catch the oven mitt when it flew back her way.
“I just thought meeting some gay people might be good for Kensuke.” Billy shrugged. “In case he’s having trouble coming to terms.” He rubbed his arm where the pot holder barely brushed him. “I was going for…something nice here, babe.”
His puppy dog pout was precious. “I know you were.” Erika let her arms drop to her sides. “Has he told you he’s gay?”
“No. He just…acts gay. Don’t hit me!”
She’d already raised her hand, even though she had quadruple jumped to the same conclusion.
“And it doesn’t matter to me if he is, just so you know. Except…” Billy picked a mug up off the glass-topped coffee table and took a big gulp.
“Except?”
“He’s got a girlfriend.”
“Oh.”
“At least she thinks she’s his girlfriend.” He set down the mug with World’s Best Dad printed across it. “From all outward appearances. She’s my star player. I guess Kensuke could be bisexual…or at least bi-curious.”
“Yes. He could be. There is such a thing, you know.” Erika folded her arms across her chest again.
“I’m aware,” Billy huffed. “I’m only part Neanderthal. Oh no! Is that offensive to Neanderthals?”
“Ha ha.”
“I had a life before I met you, you know.”
“As what?”
Billy balled up the same navy blue bath towel he’d started with. “You and me…it was…whirlwind. That’s the word, right?” He stopped and looked at her a second. “First we argued and insulted each other, then you flirted and seduced me to get me into bed.”
“I think you’re rewriting history.”
“We fell in love…had sex…Maybe reverse that. Then all our talk was dirty, until you told me you were marrying Tom. Then all we talked about was that. We talked about that a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“No. I mean a lot—around and around, over and over.”
“Okay, Billy. I get it. What’s your damned point?”
“Unless I’m just using all that as an excuse.”
“For what?”
“His name was Randy.”
“Randy?”
Billy stood, like before. This time, he turned away, almost wistfully. He hugged his towel, and Erika got comfortable against the wall. “We played doctor a lot. Not like that.” He looked back and scowled, though Erika hadn’t uttered a single syllable. “We played vet, with all of Brianna’s stuffed animals. She had this huge bear Mom and Dad gave her one Christmas. Randy would bring it in and I’d make it all better. Valentine’s Day came around and I was in CVS with Mom. They had one of those ginormous cards…you know, the ones as big as a small person, that happened to have a bear on the front. I asked Mom if she’d buy it, so I could give it to Randy.”
“Aww.”
“She refused…because it was almost ten bucks. She let me pick out one from the regular rack, though, so I didn’t have to give him the same stupid Pokémon cards everyone else was getting.” Billy started to pace. “It was pretty mushy, this card, something like, ‘Of all my favorite things, you’re my favorite of all,’ and it had some stuff from that song on the front—the kitten, the mittens, the kettle and a wet rose.”
Erika fought a smile.
“Valentine’s Day fell right before winter break. I gave the card to Randy…and he didn’t speak to me for four years.”
“Oh. I’m sorry that happened.” She brushed Billy’s cheek when he came to a stop right in front of her. “But I’m not sure a childhood crush—”
“The summer of that fourth year, and the next four that followed, we gave each other blowjobs all through vacation bible school.”
“Oh.”
“After graduation, he never spoke to me again.”
Of all the things Erika was thinking, she said, “Your mother is awesome.”
“No argument here.”
Billy was quiet then, but he still had a stranglehold on his towel.
“Keep going,” Erika said.
“It hurt me to see Randy every day and not be friends. I hated that we were…”
“Estranged?”
“Okay. That. All I knew about sexual feelings then was the ones I got looking at the underwear pages in the JC Penney book—bras and panties sometimes, boxer briefs and tighty-whities other times. I knew I really wanted to see a naked dude that wasn’t one of my brothers and a naked chick…girl…woman.”
“Take a breath.”
He did, and also released his towel from its stranglehold.
“I bet you’re a little surprised,” he said afterward.
“No.” That was a lie.
“Even if I’d only been with one guy and a whooooole lot of women…”
Erika challenged that with the arch of one brow.
“The point is, I guess I wasn’t really sure the bisexual label even fit…until later in life…when I was with a couple more of…each.” Billy swiped at his face. His other hand stayed at his side. He had scars, too, like Tom Alan. He and Erika hadn’t talked much about those either. “Even if I hadn’t been with a guy for a while by the time you and me got together, even if talking was at a minimum and our whole relationship was on and off in a blink, and now we’re basically exes with benefits…”
Erika wanted to smack him for that.
“It’s probably the sort of thing people who are intimate with one another should share.”
“Probably.” When he finally looked at her, she wanted to hug him.
“You’re not…pissed, disgusted…whatever?” Billy moved to Etsuko and picked her skating Snoopy up off the floor where she’d dropped it.
“No.” This time, Erika’s answer was honest. Despite many marathon sexting sessions back in the day and actually sleeping together a dozen times, this was the most intimate they had ever been.
“I’m nervous with guys. One I went out with insisted I was gay and just wouldn’t admit it. That kind of bullshit doesn’t sit right with me. I know what I am. Another time, I actually chickened out on a Grindr hookup. He was alright. Paul was his name.” Billy finally gave up on the towel he’d been cradling and dropped it back in the basket. “I’m pretty secure in my game when it comes to women.”
“Justifiably so.”
“You’d think it would be the other way. I know what I like, and that should translate. I was giving head one time…” Billy laughed. “You don’t want to hear about that.”
She sort of did.
“Even if what we had was fast and complicated, even if we rushed in and out of it, it’s important you know my feelings for you were completely real. I loved you.”
“I don’t doubt that.” She was a little upset about the use of past tense, however. “I’m glad you told me. Though I have to wonder…why now?”
Billy shrugged. “Didn’t it just come up in conversation?”
“It seems like more.”
Another shrug.
“Does Milo know?”
“No.”
“As close as the two of you are…”
Billy had been the first one on his feet for Milo when he and Jenn took bronze in Sochi, and also when he got booed at the press conference afterward for making a speech in support of Russia’s LGBTQ community. When Billy freaked out at the thought of becoming a father, Milo was there for him, too. “I’ve seen you coaching little five-year-olds, haven’t I? It won’t be that different. Just don’t put on the goalie mask when changing a nappy. That thing makes you look a little scary.”
“It wasn’t easy keeping it from him, I tell you that,” Billy said, heading for the kitchen—all of four steps. “Morning wood he never bothered to hide…trips from the shower to his room with no towel on…” He kicked the oven mitt into the air, caught it one-handed, and put it back on the counter. Erika wanted to fuck him.
“Knowing Milo, I’m surprised he didn’t hit on you just in case.”
“Oh, he did. Multiple times, but I’ve never been interested in sleeping with a whole bunch of people at once, like he was.”
Erika lowered her brows, which had shot up before she could stop them.
“Not like that. I prefer dating one person at a time. Out of sight out of mind Booger rotated partners like The View changes cohosts.”
“Oh.”
Billy smiled.
“What?”
“Memories. Fantasies. We could have easily messed around. And just as easily, I could have fallen in love with the British jackass.”
“Wow.”
“I knew it was better just to play it off and then yank it while listening to him and someone else through our paper-thin walls—him and Tom Alan, eventually.” Billy picked up the coffee carafe and stared into it. “It hurt sometimes, but I had to protect my heart.” He came back to the present. “Jesus, I sound like a w—” Cutting himself off showed intelligence—or fear.
“You sound like a human being with feelings.”
“I guess. Back in the day, monogamy wasn’t really Milo’s goal. I’m over him now. The moment I saw him with Tom—”
“Tom Alan.”
“I knew that was going to be something. Then I met you.”
Erika handed him his mug from the other room.
“Oh. Thanks. You and me.” They both held onto it. “That was supposed to be something, too. Anyway…”
Erika let go.
“If Kensuke’s up front, it’s all good.” Billy poured his coffee. “If he’s just stringing Jesse along…that’s not right, is it? You know how emotional teenage girls can be.”
“As opposed to teenage boys?” Erika took several steps and glared.
“Teenagers in general.” Billy came closer. “Like we were…you literally, and me emotionally, maybe. I was a jerk and here I am ready to condemn Kensuke for the same thing.”
“Shh.” She put a finger to Billy’s lips but quickly took it away. She had to get to the door. “It’s not the same.”
Billy followed. “Maybe we’ve grown up some in two years.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe not all the way, though.”
Erika wondered what that meant.
“This thing with the kids, it’s a little bit like your situation, right? With Tom?”
“Tom Alan. And not really.”
“How not really?” Billy chuckled. He kept coming and Erika kept backing away. “You were in love with a gay guy until you met me.”
Maybe he was right.
“I’ve never loved anyone like I loved you, Rika.”
“Except maybe Randy…and Milo.”
“I loved you,” Billy said.
“I know.” Erika believed that and didn’t want Billy to doubt it, even as the ‘d’ on the end of ‘love’ punched her in the gut every time.
“It was complicated…you and Tom Alan…you and me.” The past tense was also inaccurate.
“If you and Kensuke are so tight…and you might identify the same in regards to your sexuality,” Erika said, “why don’t you talk to him?”
“Because we still live in a world where parents might yank their kids from the league the moment word gets out the coach is bisexual, that’s why.”
“Oh,” Erika said sadly.
“They all know I played girls’ hockey. I tell them right off the bat—age five to eighteen—there’s no gender discrimination on my ice. Of course, the five-year-olds have no idea what that means, but I try to show it. Back to your question, who I sleep with stays with me and the person sharing my bed.” Billy nodded toward the door to their left. Though he hadn’t dressed, the bed was made. The prickle from the fantasy Erika had enjoyed in the car was still tempting her. As Billy leaned in, purposely pressing his crotch into hers, she desperately wanted to let him quench the wanting in her heart, in her gut, and right where his dick was. She could tell he wanted her, too. “This bouncing back and forth between adult and immature is tough,” he said.
“All in a day for most men, I thought.”
“Hey! Why isn’t that sexist?”
Billy’s mouth came really close and Erika could not care less right then about being politically correct. “Because.”
“That’s not fair.” He twisted his sexy pink lips into a pout. They were the same shade as his nipples and the tip of his soft cock. Erika closed her eyes and tried to recall the feeling from mere moments ago, and the image from when he’d sat on his ugly couch. “But you’re…smoking hot, so I’ll let it pass.”
“Charming.” Erika was torn between grabbing his dick and kneeing him in the balls.
“Hmm. So, when can I bring him by?”
“Who?”
“Kensuke.” Billy played with her hair, a sure way to get her to say yes to anything.
“Oh. Today, I guess.”
“Cool.”
“I gotta go, though. Now.” She sidestepped under Billy’s arm and reached for the doorknob.
“My chauvinism and offensive ways or my confession?”
Erika smiled. “My sport. See you later. Bye, baby girl.”
Etsuko cared more about her cartoon and her toy than her mother’s departure.
“See you later, babe.” When Billy touched her face, Erika nearly melted.