9. Chapter Nine

My house was the noisiest house in the entire history of mankind.

Liam had crashed on the couch by the looks, and his head shot up when the floorboards screamed like a demon ten steps through the door. Even after I had taken off my shoes at the door and had ninja crept along the house betrayed me. And after I had just polished the hardwood floors last week. Talk about gratitude.

“Hey,” he groggily said, sitting up and turning off the latest episode of Strange New Worlds. His sight flickered down to the bag of Taco Bell in my right hand and a bag from Wal-Mart that held some cold meds in my left. A good lie requires props. “You look rough.”

Did I? I had done my best to straighten myself up after the back seat JO session with Marcus.

“Must be the bug,” I replied, unable to meet his curious gaze. “I think I’m going to take some cough medicine, eat these burritos, and crash. Was it a good episode?” I waved my bag of Mexican food at the TV.

Liam nodded, and his green eyes narrowed. “I’m not a doctor or anything, but if you’re feeling like crap, should you be eating takeout at two in the morning?”

He pushed to his feet. He slept in shorts and a Gladiators tee, feet bare.

“Takeout always makes me feel better,” I lied as best as I could, which was not good at all. I’d never been a capable liar. My parents, teachers, and coaches had always known when I was feeding them bullshit. Liam nodded and gave me a soft “uh-huh” before I began prattling on about how sexy Captain Pike and Young Spock were and how, if I had time, I would so slash them in some fan fiction. “Right, I’m doing the bed thing. Night.”

I hurried into my room, closed the door, exhaled, and dropped my meds and takeout on my nightstand.

“You’re acting weirder than usual,” Liam said as he passed my door on his way to his room.

Yeah, I know, bro. That’s because I just double-jerked myself and my “arch nemesis” off in the back seat of your car.

I felt slimy. And not just from having our spunk dried on my skin. Nope, that actually kind of turned me on. I made my way to and then fell into my bed, and opened the bag of takeout. I wasn’t hungry in the least, but I needed something to do with my mouth, and since Marcus’s big dick wasn’t at hand, it would have to be a double beef and bean burrito. Resting my back on the headboard, I chowed down, chewing as I mulled over my choices of the past twenty-four hours.

A bean rolled down the front of my shirt. I plucked it from my thigh, ate it, and then rubbed the red sauce stain with my sleeve. Maybe I had come on too strong with Marcus. Maybe I should have kept my lips and hands to myself. Maybe I shouldn’t have texted him that message about steak and oral sex. I licked my lips at the thought of having his cock in my mouth. Damn but he was hung, thick, and long…

My cock jerked. “Shit.” I sighed, quickly leaving the sexy stuff in the dust to focus on the trickier stuff. Was it wise to get into a sexual relationship with a player on a different team?

Doubtful. Yet here I was, sexed up as hell, lusting for more of Marcus Newley in whatever way I could get him. And it wasn’t just about the sexual attraction. He was a genuinely nice guy. Single dad, talented goalie, working hard to support those he cared about. He was funny, kind, and loved fantasy and sci-fi shows, movies, and books. I adored his daughter, although I had never met her. He doted on her big time, and that right there made me want him even more. I had always wanted a lot of kids. Family is everything in Thai culture. That’s a large part of why my sister and brother-in-law were coming to America. Citra couldn’t stand the bias against the queer community—aka her younger brother—and didn’t wish for Banyu to grow up in a culture that fostered that kind of hate. Family love.

I found my phone and searched for the latest pictures of my nephew. Perhaps one day I’d have a son or daughter, maybe three or four, and my husband and I would be living in a big house outside of Pittsburgh. That was the dream. Oh, and a dog. Preferably a brown-and-white Dachshund that the kids would name. Yep, that would be me happy forever. I’d never once, in all of my various daydreams, imagined my spouse would be a hockey player. How would that even work? Who would be home with the kids and dog while we were playing on the road? And why the hell was I worrying about a dual hockey household?!

“Dude, you need to get a grip,” I whispered to myself as I tore off a bite of burrito and chewed.

You did have a grip earlier. Wink. Nudge.

I smiled at the memory of our cocks pressed tight together. Yeah, that had been incredibly hot. Incredibly hot. Warp core hot.

A belch rumbled up out of me. I finished off the burrito, tossed the bag into the trash, and turned off the light beside my bed. There I lay in my street clothes, the musky scent of sex clinging to my clothes, and I let my mind go where it wished. Amazingly, it led me back to Marcus and the way he kissed. My dreams that night were filled with sexual imagery that somehow led into a space battle against a giant bean that had been assimilated into the taco mind hive. Resistance was totally futile.

I woke up with the worst case of reflux known to man, a boner, and a lie the size of the Schaffer Salt Arena sitting on my shoulders.

***

“Baskoro! Just the man I wanted to see!”

I glanced up from the display of a road in Greece on the stationary bike, startled to see Marlene from PR standing in front of me. She’d pulled her dark hair back into a bun and was in a thick brown sweater and skirt combo.

“Ms. Blass,” I replied, slowing down from the mad pace that I’d set for myself. Pedaling across the Grecian countryside had not helped work off the worry about someone finding out about Marcus and me. Sweat dampened my face, back, and neck. Several other team members were in the workout room with me. Liam on another bike with earbuds in, Fossie and DJ in the corner lifting weights, and Greck was working his biceps on the chin-up bars. Every one of them shot me looks as Marlene neared.

“Oh please, call me Marlene. After all, you’ve generated more ticket sales and interest in the team than we’ve seen in years! So please, first names. So, now that I found you, I wanted to let you know that we’re not letting the video that the Comets released before the game last night be the final stone flung in our virtual slingshot war. We’re already working on setting up a shoot for you to film another video. This time, we’re going to use a country rock song that is perfect for the rivalry between you two!”

I glanced around the room. Everyone was keyed in on us, on this conversation, and all the Gladiators were smiling and nodding in agreement.

“Oh, well, okay.” I swiped at the sweat on my brow with the sodden towel around my neck. “I just…maybe do you think that this has gone on long enough? Like that possibly we should focus on hockey and not making videos to stir up angry emotions?”

She blinked, then laughed. “Oh, that was perfect. Honestly, hockey players have that innocent, homegrown dialog down pat. I’ll be sending you a copy of the song so you can learn the lyrics. We’ll need you before the cameras in two weeks. This will be just you alone this time as the tension seems to be between the two goalies. And don’t worry,” she patted my bicep but drew her hand back when she felt the sweat on her fingertips, “we’ll make sure to show some of the highlights of that amazing win last night.”

Her phone buzzed. She smiled brightly at me, wiped her fingertips on her skirt, and hurried off to make some other poor guy’s life more complicated, or so I assumed.

“How does it feel to be a superstar?” Greck crowed as he leapt from the chin-up bar, landed on his feet and then, to the hoots of half the team, threw his arms into the air ala Molly Shannon’s Mary Catherine Gallagher SNL character.

The ribbing started in earnest then. All of it’s good-natured, but still it was sitting wrong. Yeah, Marcus was on the other team. The team that was goading ours just as hard as we were goading them. And yeah, it was all for fun. Filling the seats was good for minor league sports teams. As was stirring up interest in hockey in general. More kids might start playing, bringing more talent into the pool for the future, etcetera. Yet this whole thing was starting to feel icky. I didn’t mind a few pokes on social media, honestly, but now that I knew him better—way better than most other players—I wasn’t quite so keen to make people dislike him. Truth be told, I wanted our fans to like him as much as I did.

Realizing just how much I liked Marcus did peculiar things to my stomach. Or maybe that was the double bean burrito hitting my lower intestines…

***

“Honestly, I totally loved the last video,” Citra called in Thai from the living room. We tended to speak our native tongue when with family for some reason, even though all of us spoke English quite well. I was making funny faces at Banyu, who was gurgling and drooling all over himself. “It was so different. And that country rock song was so good! I downloaded it to my Gladiators playlist.”

Gently lifting the pudgy boy in a bright yellow sleeper from his crib, I cradled him close, uncaring if he slobbered all over my long-sleeved tee.

“You have a Gladiators playlist?” I asked, carrying my nephew from his room into the large living room where Citra was unpacking boxes. Still. They’d been in Watkins Glen for two weeks and were still trying to get settled. It was hard as my brother-in-law, Joyo, had started his new job at Schaffer Salt the day after they had landed at the airport in Elmira. He still looked jetlagged. Citra had been left to do most of the unpacking, care for Banyu, and deal with my parents when they’d arrived for a week.

Not that my parents were a problem, but they were old school Asian at times even though we’d been in America for over twenty years. Mom didn’t quite understand Citra’s need to find a job. In her day, Mom would explain, a new mother would devote all of her time and energy to her baby, even to the exclusion of her husband. That was a bone of contention that my sister would not budge on.

My father loved Joyo as his own son but wondered why he had only applied for a mid-level job instead of something higher in the company. He didn’t quite grasp that the job market today was not at all like it had been when he had moved his family to the States so long ago. So now that my parents had gone back home, Citra could do as she wished, which she was going to do, anyway. Like take date nights when I was free to babysit.

Mom also had some trouble with married couples having a date night. Most of the wedded folks that I know back in Thailand take their kids with them when they go out anywhere. It’s a child-loving culture. Many of the eateries are big outdoor venues where kids run free and play with adults sometimes joining in. My parents rarely left us alone when we were young. My father simply did not grasp why a husband and wife would want time away from their offspring.

“Of course,” she said as she placed a photograph of herself, Joyo, and a newborn Banyu on the mantle over their fireplace. “I listen to it when I stream your games. It’s amazing to be able to watch you play now! Even Joyo watches and you know how he is about worshipping only Muay Thai boxers.”

“Hey, it’s good to broaden his horizons.” I smiled at Banyu, who was slapping at my face with a pudgy hand while sucking on my chin. “I think he’s hungry. If you have some milk expressed, I’d love to feed him.”

She turned from the mantle, a ribbon of lucky numbers in her hand—something that would be draped over the pictures she had just placed—and pouted. My people were big into lucky numbers. My aunts had all asked for the room number that Citra had been in while in labor and then demanded to know Banyu’s length, weight, and head measurements. Some Thai women even go to monks to find out the best dates for giving birth or other monumental life events.

“Sorry, I’ve been busy. Here, let me have him.” She smiled softly down at her son as I carefully passed him over. Citra was a pretty woman, still carrying a little baby weight in her face that I personally felt made her look even prettier. She was petite and wore her long black hair pulled into three ponytails. I nudged her toward the sofa so she could feed the hungry one and started placing her knickknacks on the mantle, back to mother and child.

“I’m so glad you guys are finally here,” I said as I unwrapped a small cloisonne duck that had been handed down to her by my paternal grandmother.

“We’re glad to be here. I wish there were more teaching openings locally. I might have to expand my searches for the bigger cities like Corning.” She sighed. “I also wish people would stop telling me how good my English is. I mean, hello. I was born in Thailand, yes, but I grew up in America.”

“Try not to let it get to you. I’m always the Asian goalie,” I replied in English and then adjusted the duck to face toward the sunny window. The warmth from the November sun was nice today, filling their living room with lots of brightness. Pity the sun was doing little to counter the cold that had settled over the Glen since Halloween.

“I know, mai bpen rai,” Citra replied in Thai. No worries. “Easier said than done.”

“It will all work out,” I told her, shifting my sight from the window back to the mantle. “I keep telling myself that.”

A long moment of silence filled the house, the only sound coming from my nephew, who was belching, then giggling, before returning to the boob buffet for his second course. The kid was a champion eater, which explains why he was such a chonk.

“Would you like to talk about what’s worrying you?” I peeked over my shoulder to see her burping Banyu as her brown gaze rested on me. She gave me her loving sister who knows it all smile. “You’ve been reserved for weeks now.”

I sighed. There was no point in arguing. She knew me better than anyone. Even my own parents didn’t have the insight into me that my sister had. I moved over to sit next to her. She placed Banyu in my arms. He waved his chubby arms and legs around as he graced me with a little coo that melted my heart.

“I met a guy,” I whispered as if the press and PR people were lurking behind the unpacked moving boxes.

“Baskoro, that is wonderful!” My sister was a gusher before she had gotten pregnant. Now that she was a mom, she gushed with even more gusto. “When can Joyo and I meet him? Oh, bring him to Thanksgiving dinner.”

The notion that we were doing Thanksgiving wasn’t a new one, but my sister was full on into making sure her son would know all the American holidays and be as accepted in his new culture as possible. Generally, as Thai-American kids, we had this wonky sort of Thanksgiving celebration where we ate a lot of Thai food, watched TV, and then went to bed just to try to fit in. My folks also did Christmas, but it was not a religious day for them as they were Buddhist. So again, we got presents, ate lots of Thai food, watched old Christmas movies like Home Alone on TV, and then went to bed.

I wasn’t sure Banyu would grasp a holiday meal at his age no matter if it was Easter or Songkran, but she was determined to roast a turkey and bake a pumpkin pie. Who was I to argue?

“I can’t. He’s doing his own meal with his aunt and daughter.” Banyu dozed off in my arms, his pink bow lips parted, his long dark lashes resting on his plump cheeks.

“Oh, a daughter. Tell him to bring them here. I have a twenty-five-pound turkey in the fridge that Joyo’s foreman gave him.” She slipped around to sit sidesaddle, her socked feet tucked under her backside. “I can make more stuffing.”

“I can’t invite him.” I kept my sight on my sleeping nephew.

“Baskoro, is he married?” Citra asked, her tone sharp.

My sight flew from the babe dozing in my arms to my sister. “What? No, of course not. Man, what do you think I am?”

“Sorry, sorry.” She exhaled deeply. “I know you better. So why can’t he come here? We have lots of room and food. Mom and Dad aren’t going to be here to interrogate him since they’re taking that cruise to the Bahamas with Uncle Niran and his new girlfriend.”

“He’s not…” I blew out a breath that tickled Banyu as he slept. His lashes fluttered once, then he blew a spit bubble that I dabbed up with my sleeve. “He’s on the Comets.” Citra blinked in confusion. “They’re a team we play against. He’s the goalie for them and we have this supposed big rivalry that isn’t really a rivalry now, even though it might have—”

“Slow down,” she whispered, her small hand coming to rest on my shoulder.

I drew in a breath and then told my sister everything. From the first meeting when I had misheard Marcus to the bitter words to our making up to becoming friends, and finally to the night in the back seat and all the days after. Marcus and I had shared thousands of texts since that passionate night. Some of them were really racy, others were about his daughter who I could not wait to meet somehow, someway. Some were about our fandoms or Banyu or the news or weather or current standings in the pros. Sometimes we gossiped about players on other teams and sometimes we had phone sex that left me a messy, breathless glob.

I purged my soul to my sibling, who nodded, sighed, and rubbed my arm throughout.

“Wow,” she softly said after I’d emptied myself of all words. “That’s a lot of stuff to wade through. You really like him, don’t you?”

“Yeah, like you do mangoes.”

That made us both chuckle. Citra had eaten so many mangoes during her pregnancy we were all certain Banyu would be born with bright orange skin and green leaves instead of hair.

“That’s some crazy like then,” she whispered before giving my arm a pat or two. “Baskoro, you should be honest with the team about this relationship. You know that lying about important things in our lives makes us depressed.”

“I know, I just…” My eyes closed as I mulled over the aspect of coming clean. “I just don’t even know how to go about it. Everyone on both teams, and our fans, think we hate each other. The rivalry is selling tickets, so the teams are pushing the contention we supposedly have. I’m not even sure if Marcus wants to come clean to his fans and team.”

“Maybe you should ask him instead of giving him hand jobs in the back seat of your roommate’s car?” She gave my bicep a poke.

“That only happened once. We haven’t seen each other since then. We have a game in Wilkes-Barre the day after Thanksgiving, and I don’t even know what to say to him about it. I want to spend time with him, but it’s such a hassle and if someone finds out…”

I let that float off into space.

“Then you need to figure out a way to be honest about you and Marcus. Remember how crippling it was for you to hide the fact that you’re queer?” I nodded sullenly. Yeah, that had been terrible. I’d been so scared of my family’s reaction to me being gay, I sat on it for years until, as always, my sister wormed it out of me. Together, with her hand in mine, a month later I came out to my parents. That had been a rough time. They weren’t angry at me, but they were disappointed. I felt at times they still were, but now that I could marry someone and have kids, the disfavor—the losing face—would be less. Although some of my relatives in Thailand were not accepting at all which, hey, their loss, but it still hurt. “Do you want me to hold your hand while you tell your team?”

I snorted in amusement as the baby slept soundly now that his little round belly was full. I tenderly lifted him upward so I could kiss his cheek and smell his hair. Baby shampoo clung to the ebony peach down covering his tender scalp.

“Thanks, but I think I can manage to tell the team without my big sister glowering at my friends. I just need to figure out how, and when, and then talk to Marcus about it all. He has to be willing to come clean or we can’t do it. I refuse to push him into this. It would be like outing someone, yeah?”

“Yeah, it would be.” She sat there as I cuddled my nephew, her mind going a mile a minute, the tip of her tongue between her lips. A sure sign she was cooking something up. “I might have an idea as to how you can open up a conversation with Marcus about telling the world about your mad love affair.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, one night in the back seat of a car isn’t exactly a mad love affair. We need more time together to see if what we have is worth jeopardizing our good standing with our teams and fans.”

“Right, of course, I know that. One thing at a time. Give me ten minutes.” Up she sprang, unpacking forgotten, as she now had an idea in her head to help her baby brother. I watched her go into her bedroom and then come out with her laptop. I quirked an eyebrow and stood, the babe in my arms tightly cradled to my chest, his head resting on my shoulder. “Okay, so don’t look so terrified,” she stated. “I just need to type up a few things.”

“Type up things? Citra, this isn’t an English assignment,” I replied and gently laid Banyu in his little sleeper rocker contraption. I covered him up with a green and blue flannel baby blanket, then turned to find my sister seated on the sofa typing away.

“Hush now,” she said, holding up a finger. Her sparkling brown eyes met mine. “There’s no problem a well-worded poem won’t cure.”

A poem. She was writing a poem. For me, the goalie, to read to my…Marcus, the other goalie. A poem. My sister really had to find a job so she would stop crafting sonnets for her dumb younger brother to read to his…Marcus.

I sorely needed a term for what Marcus and I were to each other, but “one off in the back of a messy car” sounded a little crass. Plus, we were way more than that now, I felt. What he felt had yet to be determined. Ugh. I needed a mango and knew just where to find one.