Chapter Ten

“Hey, dude, check out the family,” Dan called when we hit the ice at the Rader for our last game before Christmas. I glanced at the glass where he was pointing. There sat Mr. and Mrs. Arou, Dan’s younger brother Kurt, who was waving a Cougars foam finger over his head, and Heather, holding my son. Dan and I skated over during our warm-ups to tap on the glass at Jack and exchange knuckle-bumps with Kurt through the glass. Dan’s brother jumped up and down. Jack stared at me over his mother’s shoulder, then puked milk onto her sweater. She was not impressed, but the little joker on her shoulder seemed to be. He smiled a wide, toothless grin at his old man.

“That kid is going to be a shitter,” I laughed as Dan and I returned to stretching.

“Acorn and tree,” Dan countered, then bent over to touch his fingertips to his toes. Damn shame hockey pants hid that firm ass of his, but I knew it was in there, just waiting for me to slide into it.

I had to tug my mind from those kinds of thoughts. A hard-on under a cup is no fun. Besides, our house was full of people. Dan’s family was bunking with us until New Year’s. Tomorrow Heather, Brooks, Jack and Mr. and Mrs. Rupert were coming over for ham and all the fixings, prepared by Mrs. Arou. I planned not to eat one morsel until then so I could glut myself to the point of passing out. Not like I’d be getting laid after the meal. With his folks sleeping one wall away from us, Dan was not about to get busy. I had suggested a ball gag out of the goodness of my heart, but Dan had merely given me a raised brow in response.

I was anxious to get this game done. For the first time since I was old enough to remember, I was looking forward to Christmas. The big meal with the family, then the selected friends coming over afterward to sling back eggnog and watch classic Christmas movies like Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and Batman Returns. Nothing says Christmas like explosions and Michele Pfeiffer in the Catwoman suit, am I right?

I had gotten an early present, though. Tonight we were facing the Waconia Wasps. The last time we had played this team, I’d had the joy of dropping an elbow to the then backup twineherder, Frank Hickok. Frank was now the starting goalie and I suspected he remembered me. He’d had some choice words for me about my predilection for sucking cock when I’d run into him coming into the arena.

It made me feel so good inside to know that people had warm recollections of times spent in my company. I was glad to have McGarrity on my line now. He had been fourth line at one time, but he and I clicked so well he was now a steady first-liner. I suspected Dan would be too, but the crush to keep the gay boys separated as much as possible was probably felt by Lambert and the coaching staff. The league was not the issue. It was the press, and the small but moronic vocal minority who held up signs at our games about God, immorality and fags burning in Hell. They kept a close eye on Dan and me, which was another reason he and I acted like the professionals we are.

“Well, look who it is!” I said with pure happiness when Georg Pepperpopperpooperman skated up to the faceoff circle. “I haven’t seen you since the last time we played. How’s it hanging, Lurch?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” the massive Finn asked. “I saw that you and Arou are corning each other now.”

“Corning? Is that some sort of Finnish tradition I’m not familiar with? Or do you think Dan and I spend our nights diddling each other with corncobs? If so, let me set you straight so that your next hate-filled slur is accurate. See, I use my penis to penetrate Dan’s tight little bum. Although,” I stood up and placed a finger to my chin, “we do sometimes use sex toys, but that’s a discussion for another time.”

“If you’re done filling us in on gay sex, do you think we can drop the puck, Kalinski?” asked the linesman, a nice guy with the last name of Burt.

“Georg here wanted to know,” I explained as the wingers shoved and nudged each other in boredom. Lambert was yelling something that contained my name and the words “flaming Polish asshole”, but the crowd cheering me on made it hard to hear my coach. Hate when that happens.

Pepperpopperpooperman went eighteen shades of red. “I did not. I don’t care what those two queers do to each other!”

“Well, you asked about corning, so I just assumed you were curious. It’s okay to be interested in an alternative lifestyle, Georgie. If you want, I can teach you the secret LGBT handshake and you can come to one of our meetings. We have spiffy rainbow coffee mug cozies.”

“I fucking hate you, Kalinski,” Georg spat—and I mean spat—in my face. I reached up and wiped the spittle off my chin. Burt, the linesman, gave us both a warning about being dickheads and trying to delay the game. Burt dropped the puck. Georg won the faceoff. The rest of our teams skated off to play hockey.

“You and me, Finn,” I said as my gaze burned into him. The massive dick didn’t look worried. He straightened up and shook off his gloves.

It was on like Donkey Kong.

My gloves hit the ice and we grabbed at each other’s sweaters. Georg had incredible reach. His first punch landed squarely on my cheek and shook my fillings. I managed to get a quick uppercut in, but then the Finn yanked my helmet off, the chinstrap popping free after it nearly choked me. He hit me so hard on the side of the head my vision blurred. Another shot to the back of my neck drove me to my knees. I went down and Georg fell on top of me. The back of my head bounced off the ice. That hurt, bad, but since I was under the Finn, no one saw it. I sure as hell fucking felt it.

Before we could do any more damage, the men in black and white broke things up. I was hauled to my skates and led to the penalty box amid stick taps to the boards from my teammates. I dabbed at my temple as I rested, the towel coming away bloody. My head hurt, inside, as if a migraine was brewing behind my eyes. I felt half sick when I looked down at the bloody towel. Tossing the towel aside, I tried to find Dan among the players on the ice but couldn’t remember his sweater number or how he spelled his last name.

The nauseous feeling continued to linger as I sat through the fighting penalty. I leaned back and rested my sweaty skull against the cool glass, hoping that the darkness of closing my eyes would ease the sudden need to puke all over my skates. I swallowed rapidly and worked on trying to recall the names of my childhood teachers. Where had I gone to school? Shit. Fuck. It had been in Chicago. That felt right. I had grown up in the Windy City, hadn’t I? Yes. Bean Town. No, Boston was Bean Town. Chicago was called something else. What the fuck was it? As I struggled to recall where I had grown up, a creeping panic overtook me. Then the urge to throw up became more than an urge. It became something vital. I rolled my head gently to the right. A headache the size of Lambert’s wife flared to life.

“Dude, I need a bucket,” I croaked to the old man in the suit writing down my penalty time on his clipboard.

He glanced up, bored brown eyes flaring when he saw me. He then jumped up and nearly went out onto the ice when I vomited all over the sin bin and my fucking self. I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the noise, which seemed magnified inside my skull. Whistles blew and people shouted. Someone touched my shoulder. I cracked open an eye to see the Cougars’ trainer, Lou, getting in my face. The short, ugly twin of Danny DeVito was asking me questions.

“Where are we, Kalinski?”

“Tampa?”

Were we? I tried to look at the ice to see the logo at center ice, but there were too many people blocking the way. Dan shoved his sweet self in behind Lou. Buttonwood pulled him back to the ice. They exchanged heated words.

“Fuck, I don’t know.”

“Can you walk?” Lou asked. His voice sounded tinny.

I nodded and then groaned as the pain in my head exploded. Lou turned and barked about a stretcher. I reacted violently to that and forced myself to my skates.

“I can get there,” I grunted, my stomach rolling.

Lou helped me out of the soiled penalty box. Dan skated to my side, and with both the trainer and my lover’s help, I left the ice of my own fucking volition. Dan hovered at the bench but never left the ice. He wasn’t allowed to, and man, that had to suck big time for him. Of course, I was not having a fucking picnic either. Lou got me up onto a gurney in the “Quiet Room” despite my objections. Then he asked me stupid question after stupid question, his eyes locked with mine throughout the evaluation.

“Repeat these words. Black, camera, cat,” Lou said. I tried to look over his head to find a soda machine. “Kalinski, repeat those words.”

“Where’s the Coke machine?” I asked, and tried to focus on Lou’s big nose, since I couldn’t recall where the soda machine was.

“Do you remember what happened before the fight?”

I closed my eyes. My mind was nothing but blank spots and crushing pain.

“Kalinski, look me in the eye and tell me what happened before the fight.”

“Can I get my sweater off? It stinks like puke.”

“In a minute. Just try to answer my questions, okay?” Lou said.

People were milling around outside the door.

“What was the score of the game before you went down?”

“I don’t know. Did we score? Fuck. Fuck.”

It was terrifying not to know this shit. He asked me to tell him the days of the week in reverse. What comes after Friday going backward? Shit. Fuck. My brain was scrambled up.

“Victor, repeat the three words from earlier.”

“What three words?”

I couldn’t concentrate on words, because the thumping inside my skull was now making my eyes water. I shook my head and dry-heaved. Lou patted my shoulder and murmured something about sitting still while he called the paramedics. The trip to the hospital was less than pleasant. Every bump, every sound, every touch made me want to simultaneously curl up into a fetal position and hurl.

After the arrival, some tall black doctor who told me his name when we first met talked at me, but I couldn’t recall his name five minutes later when he asked me to. They took a scan of my head, then peeled my filthy uniform off my sweaty body.

“We’re going to keep you overnight,” some nice little nurse said as they hooked me up to one fucking contraption after another. She had blonde hair. Was it Heather? No, Heather was taller and had bigger boobs. “Just for observation.”

“Okay,” I mumbled, then tried to help her help me into a hospital gown after she gave me a light sponge bath.

All through the cleaning of vomit off my chest and legs, she asked me questions. Who was the president? Did I have any family? What state were we in? Seemed a smart woman would know where she was. It pissed me off that people kept asking me these inane questions. Then I cried simply because I couldn’t tell her who my family was. I had a son. Why could I not remember his name?

It came to me about three hours later when the nurse woke me up yet again.

“Jack—my kid’s name is Jack,” I informed her, and got a warm smile and a sip of water. “Jackie Blue, like the song,” I added as the information clicked into place.

My head still hurt if I moved it. My feet were cold. I needed Dan’s calves to place them against, but all I got was a warmed blanket and another sip of water.

“Is there anyone out there waiting to see me? A short guy with blue eyes and long, dark hair?” I desperately wanted to sleep, mostly to get away from the headache.

“Yes, there are lots of people out in the waiting room hoping to see you. Your partner has been asking to see you hourly, but the doctor wanted you to rest until we had the results of your CT scan back.”

“I’d rest better if my partner were here,” I told her. “Please. Just for a few minutes. Is my boy out there? Jack. Is Jack with his other dad?”

“Not that I remember. Probably your son’s mother took him home. It’s three in the morning,” she said as she fussed with my covers. Yeah, that made sense. The kid needed his rest. “I’ll let your partner in, but only him. Your friends will have to wait until the doctor clears it.”

“Thanks. My son’s mom is going to be a nurse. Hopefully she’s as good at sponge baths as you are.”

The nurse blushed, then shook a finger at me before leaving. I let my head fall gently back to the pillows. Must be I drifted off, because the brush of Dan’s lips over mine pulled me out of a funky dream.

“Hey,” I moaned as I looked into sapphire eyes filled with agony. He kissed me again, softly, but with incredible need. His weight on my chest was familiar, his taste calming.

“I was so scared,” he whispered, then sat back on the bed, his hip tight to mine. I grabbed his hand and held it tightly. He reached up to run his fingers over my temple where they had put about twelve stitches. “You okay?”

“I’m good.” Dan lowered his hand and gave me his patented “You’re full of shit, Kalinski” look. “I’m better than I was a couple hours ago. It’ll get better. I’ve had a few of these so stop with the looks. I still can’t remember what happened, not really.”

“It was a fight.” Dan held my hand and filled in the missing details. Why couldn’t I dredge that info up? I scowled as I tried to make my brain function right. “They said you have a concussion.”

“Yeah, I figured as much.”

“I hate that fucking Finn. I promise the next time we play him I am going to spear him in the nuts,” Dan barked with a vehemence that made me smile. He looked so good with the shadows of the muted lighting playing over his Inuit features.

“I love that you want to kick his ass for kicking mine.”

“Heather says you should be able to come home in the morning for Christmas.” He slid quickly into another subject, probably to avoid getting overly emotional in case the nurse returned. “You’ll need to rest and shit, but at least you’ll be home for the holiday.”

“Ho, ho, ho.”

Dan stayed at my side for the rest of the night. When tall black doctor, whose name was Dr. Daniels, finally sprang me with a list of things to do and not to do—playing hockey being at the top of the not-to-do list—I got dressed, popped a couple Tylenol, slid into Dan’s Jeep and promptly fell asleep.

I napped on and off all day. Mrs. Arou, Heather and Dan hovered around me like vultures. The meal was delicious, but I was relegated to small servings, so I couldn’t eat myself into a coma as I had planned.

“Just as well,” Dan mumbled when I complained about my failed food-intake plans. “Seeing you stumbling around not knowing what city you was in was enough to make me not sleep for a month.”

“You poor lovesick Baggins,” I cooed, then rested my swollen brain on his shoulder. He patted my skull gently and pulled me closer to his side.

We were cuddled up on the couch when the after-dinner gang showed up. Mario and Lila, Mike and Sonya Buttonwood, and Mr. and Mrs. Pete Dubroski filed in with platters of cheese and crackers, shrimp cocktail and tiny sausages that Mansfield tried to steal every time he could. I kind of missed the stupid mutt. His owners were napping in our two reclining chairs.

Heather, Spunky and Mrs. Arou were cleaning up the kitchen. Mr. Arou and Kurt had gone for a walk to make room for the next round, as Dan’s dad had said. Jack started crying, and I pushed to my feet. Dan was at my side instantly, telling me to sit down.

“I’ve been on that couch for nine hours. I need to get up or I’ll develop bedsores. Back off and let me tend to my son,” I snapped, a little more viciously than I had intended. “Sorry,” I said as soon as I could. “Killer headache and lack of any social skills,” I offered.

“It’s okay. Let me help you,” Dan said, then went over to pick Jack up out of his playpen. “Come on.”

We made our way into the master bedroom. The pain in my head was incredible, but bearable, maybe. I sat down on the mattress. Dan handed me Jack, then laid out a changing pad, new diaper, wipes and a rattle. The man knew his shit. When he looked over at me, I carefully put the baby into his arms and sat back to watch him. He talked to Jack as he pulled off the kid’s little pants and shoes. Jack smiled back, kicking with energy as Dan chattered away to him. I didn’t think I could love the man more than I did at that moment, seeing him goo-goo and ga-ga with my boy.

“I fucking love you,” I said.

Dan glanced over from removing the wet diaper. His face reflected his feelings really well.

“Marry me.”

All the love and devotion fell from his expression. He looked at me as if I had just said football was better than hockey.

“Stop fucking around.” Dan frowned and tugged a wipe from the package. Jack’s fat arms and legs were moving nonstop.

“I’m not, sweets.” I was not kidding. I was deadly serious. Once the words had tumbled out of my pie hole I knew they were what I wanted to say, what I wanted to do.

Dan’s scowl grew in intensity. “So you ask me to marry you when your brain is all bruised?”

“My brain is fine. It knows that it wants you to marry me.”

“No it don’t. It don’t even know what town we’re having this conversation in. And I don’t want no proposal from a man with a concussed head while we’re changing a pissy diaper. Fuck, man, you are the worst person ever when it comes to anything romantic!”

“Hey, whoa, it’s the thought that counts, right?”

Dan got Jack changed and redressed in record time without ever replying to me. I sat on the bed, head still rattled and thumping, as he gathered my son up and stalked out of the bedroom.

“That could have gone better,” I muttered, then lowered myself to our bed.

It felt like I had no sooner closed my eyes than someone was lightly rapping on the open door. “I promise I will not die in my sleep. Just let me rest longer than an hour, I beg you.”

“It’s your hourly wake-up, honey,” Lila called, her voice low and smooth.

I moaned and let my eyes remain closed.

“Daniel wanted me to come peek in. You were a very uncaring patient earlier and upset your love badly.”

“Pfft.” I remained on my side, my arm resting on my hip and my eyes closed to the world. I felt the bed dip strongly as she lowered her magnificent self to sit beside me. Her perfume, a strong mixture of musky sex and flowery innocence, settled over me like a cloud. “Maybe he’s hypersensitive.”

“Victor, honey, you can’t ask someone to marry you like that.” She placed her large hand on my thigh. “You have to put some effort into it. Make it special, romantic, something that your man will remember for the rest of his life. Asking him to take the plunge over a doo-doo-filled dy-dee is just the pits. You know I say this only because I love you and Daniel as if you were my own children, correct?”

“I know. I love you too, and would totally do you right now if not for fear of having McGarrity ram his bagpipe up my ass,” I said, then slowly opened my eyes. Fucking A, I was tired. I noticed a slight dip in the cranial agony, so things were looking up. Ugh.

Lila chuckled deeply as she patted my leg. “Such a randy thing you are,” she replied, then shifted a bit to cross her legs. I pushed up to rest on an elbow then gingerly sat up completely. Lila was fiddling with her hair, stroking it as if in deep thought. “If you love Daniel—and I know you do—try to come up with something a little more sentimental and passionate.”

“I don’t do sentimental,” I said.

She tsked me soundly.

“Any suggestions for something romantic but not emasculating?”

“Well, now,” Lila sighed as a contented smile curled the corners of her bright-red lips, “I just might have a thought or two that may help you salvage things once your handsome head is healed.” She patted my leg. Her nails were long and painted red and had little holly leaves for decoration. How did someone even paint tiny holly leaves on their fingernails with such precision? “Why don’t you let me ponder on things while you get better and make up with that sexy man of yours?”

“Please don’t expect me to wear anything lacy or break into song, because as much as I adore Dan, that ain’t going to happen, no way and no how.”

Lila gave my thigh a squeeze then sashayed away. I lay back down, my head still slightly jumbled, and tried to think of something romantic, sentimental and passionate that a fatheaded Pole could pull off. Yeah, hopeless and headachy about covered it. Also sleepy. I was so damn tired. I slowly lowered myself back to the bed, rolled tenderly to my side to face Dan’s pillow, and crashed.

When the next nudge to wakefulness came, I blinked away the groggy to see Dan sitting beside me on the bed with a glass of water and some pills, his expression guarded.

“Heather said to take some Tylenol,” he said. The water looked tasty, so I sat up and instantly regretted it. The room spun viciously and my brain protested. “Easy.”

“I’m okay,” I mumbled as I waited for the dizziness to subside. “You’d think someone with a skull as hard as mine wouldn’t be this easily fucked up by a tiny tap to the head pan.”

“You’d think,” he murmured, then handed me the water. I drank half of it down, then washed down the acetaminophen with what remained. “You want something to eat?”

“Not right now.” I looked at the clock on the dresser. It was after midnight. The house was quiet, so the Arou clan must all be sleeping. “Did I sleep through the party?” Dan nodded, then took the empty glass from my hand. I frowned as he slid off the bed and disappeared, coming back a moment later minus the drinking glass. “Were people mad?”

“Nope, they understood you needed to rest and recover.” He closed the door, then began unbuttoning the dark-blue dress shirt he had worn over a pair of black jeans.

“Are you still mad?” I asked. His sight jackknifed from his buttons to me. “I didn’t mean to piss you off. I was only speaking truth, Dan.”

“Yeah, I know,” he sighed, and then returned to looking at his buttons. “I guess I was just in a bad place emotionally, you know?”

“Uhm, sure.”

He exhaled dramatically, then shrugged out of his shirt. I loved his upper body. His chest was a work of art, all toned and tight, covered with darkly tanned skin and springy black curls. If only the inside of my head hadn’t felt like a Judas Priest gig was taking place there, I would have been all over that man.

“And there’s the problem,” he said with a bit of snap.

So he was still mad. Wonderful. Now it was my turn to exhale like a drama queen. “Dan, I’m sorry that I am so fucking emotionally stunted. My mommy didn’t feed me the recommended daily allowances of TLC when I was growing up.”

“I know, and that’s what makes it so hard at times.”

He tugged down his zipper and stepped out of his jeans. He was going commando. Shit. I loved it when he did that. If I had known I would have…probably puked on his Nikes. Asshole brain bruises. He padded over to our bed, then got under the covers. I was still dressed and lying on top. He placed his hand on my face. My eyes drifted shut.

“I know you don’t have one clue about how to show all that love inside, so you just bumble around like a drunken loon letting shit just run out of your mouth and hoping what you say is something nice.”

“Pretty much,” I agreed. “Do loons imbibe?”

“It was the first thing that came into my head,” he admitted, then removed his hand. I sorely missed its warmth. “You want help getting undressed?”

“No, I can take off my own pants.”

After a couple of failed attempts and one close call on keeping my food in my gut, Dan kicked off the covers, left our cozy bed, and slowly undressed me. I kept one hand on the wall throughout the defrocking. When we were both naked, he stepped close, his chest and thighs pressing against mine. He kissed me gently, yet with so much passion, I nearly crumpled. Or that could have been the fact that the house was pulling a Wizard of Oz and spinning in sickening circles. It could stop anytime now, thanks.

“I love you, Vic.” His arms slithered around me.

I rested my fucked-up head on his. “I love you, too.”

I vowed I would do better next time I asked. I’d be all Johnny Romance. Right now, though, I needed to lie down or risk tossing my Christmas cookies all down Dan’s strong back.