One on One (Cayuga Cougars Book 5) Read online

  Lydia scurried off to dip my ice cream. The sound of excited children and tired adults filled the small shop. A warm wind blew in when the door opened, carrying the smell of the lake and the cry of gulls. When my cone was presented to me, I fussed over it. Lydia grinned and rang me up. I paid her and slipped in a tip for the double dip that she always called a single.

  “You and them Cougars bring us a win tomorrow night!” Lydia shouted as I made my way through the crowd to the door.

  I lifted my cone in reply, then pushed out into the heat. The sun was hot on the back of my neck. I shifted my suit jacket higher on my forearm as I moseyed along, licking at the rapidly melting cone as I made my way home. Early June up here was delightful. Warm but with low humidity, the trees were lush and green, the sky a robin’s egg blue, and the scent of metallic lake water rode the breeze. I paused by the fire station, under a massive oak, to try to get ahead of my cone and read the big local bulletin board. Fingers now coated with sticky, buttery ice cream, I lapped like a mad man to keep the mess from my shirt.

  A pair of young boys raced past on bikes. I nodded at them when they shouted something about the Cougars, then returned to the bulletin board. Flyers in hot pink and bright yellow flapped in the wind. Most were yard sales. One blue one had information about a new knitting group at the red-brick Methodist church across the street from my house. I’d always wanted to learn how to knit. Betty’s mother made the finest scarves and sweaters I’d ever owned. Maybe once hockey was over, I’d drop into the knitting group.

  A lilac-colored paper flitted and danced in the breeze. I licked my index finger clean, then pinned the paper to the board with my finger so I could read it. It was an announcement for the annual Cayuga County Music Festival. There were bands and performers listed; many were folk singers or bluegrass, which I adored. Throw me some blues, soft Southern rock, folk or bluegrass, and I was one happy man.

  The festival was this Saturday, which worked out well. We’d be back from Binghamton late Friday, with a game here on Sunday at one. Juggling my messy cone with my jacket, I managed to get my phone out and make a note about the festival to remind me.

  I lingered under that tree until I had my treat under control, and then I ambled along, chewing on the cone before I turned at the library, inhaling the lake air as I grew nearer. My house was on a small kicker road that led to the lake. It sat alone, looking down at a sandy boat ramp, with neighboring homes only now filled with tourists. During the winter it had been quite lonely. All the summer homes had been locked down tight, and it had just been me and my satellite TV on the nights that we were home. Travelling used to be a burden, but now it was a blessing.

  “Good Lord, Lancaster,” I chided myself as I unlocked my front door. “Shake off the doom and gloom. At least you’re not in the closet anymore.”

  I had to admit that I’d made a fine point. Damn, I was a clever man. I might not have anyone to share my life with right now, but at least I was out from under that miserable cloak of lies I’d wrapped around my shoulders for close to thirty years.

  The lake called. I washed my hands in the kitchen sink, peeled off my rink attire—all coaches and players were to show up in suits, per the head coach’s decree—and filled a glass with sweetened tea. I grabbed my laptop on the way out. The sliding door opened effortlessly, and I stepped out onto my small porch, glass in one hand, laptop with game films for me to review yet again in the other. Cayuga Lake glistened, the sun glinting off its surface, the water lapping at the shoreline. Sighing in pleasure, I settled down on the glider, sipped my tea, and spent the next two hours looking at film of the Binghamton Broncos’ offensive capabilities while sneaking peeks at the lake. In the end, the lake won, as it always did. Sundown found me still on the porch, smiling into my now empty glass of tea. Life was pretty okay. I reached over absently for Betty’s hand and found only the warm laptop.

  “Well hell fire,” I sighed and let my gaze return to the lake. Okay, so life was still pretty okay, despite the fact that I was sitting here holding hands with my Dell. Maybe I needed to put more effort into dating…

  2

  On the bus trip to Binghamton, I spent my time discreetly discussing places in Cayuga where a man of my predilections could find another man with similar predilections. It wasn’t going well. I’d spoken to most of the LGBT members of the team, but most had nothing to offer aside from a gay club in Corning.

  “Seriously, check out Vespers,” Dan Arou-Kalinski whispered.

  “I’m not sure we need to whisper,” I pointed out, but Dan’s dark head stayed close to mine.

  “I know you’re funny about things,” he said.

  I pulled back to give him a long look over my reading glasses. I’d not read a single word of the book on my lap, but it was a good cover when one was seeking confidential information.

  “Funny how, exactly?”

  “Well, uhm, funny like backward,” he replied, raking his fingers through his long hair nervously.

  “Backward how, exactly?”

  “Shy like, you know. The opposite of Vic.” He appeared proud of that reply. “You’re classier, reserved. Modest.”

  Okay, yes, I did tend to be a little circumspect. “You’re not wrong.” I closed my paperback spy novel, glanced out of the darkened window at the New York countryside passing by, and found that my reflection wasn’t all that terrible. Sure, there was some gray and some wrinkles. Signs of a good life. “I’m not sure I’m looking for the type of man who hangs out in clubs.”

  Dan shuffled in his seat. “I know. I tell Vic all the time we need to find someone to fix you up with. Someone really tasteful and understated.”

  “The opposite of your husband,” I teased, with a quick wink for my top winger.

  “Oh, totally the opposite of my husband,” Dan chuckled, his gaze moving to Victor returning to his seat up front from a bathroom trip. We waited. Sander had made his move a moment ago and now sat beside Mitch, looking a picture of innocence. The explosion went off pretty much how we’d known it would. The toy shark was whipped at Sander, who expressed his confusion about being singled out for the crime, then threw the shark back to McGarrity. Lots of cursing and laughing erupted. “I guess I better get up there with him before he forgets the jokes are in good fun. Wish I knew what to tell you, Coach. It’s a small village filled with pretty conservative people.”

  “Yes, of that I am aware. Thank you, Dan.”

  He smiled and nodded then went off to talk down his irate spouse. I pretended to read, then removed my glasses and slipped them into the pocket of my dress shirt. That knitting group at the fire hall was more and more appealing by the day.

  Standing behind the bench that night, I had a damn good idea who would be getting solid looks from Boston and Baltimore when training camp arrived come September. Things were going to get interesting. Talk around the league was already firing up and we had three weeks until the newly released expansion draft date of July 4th. There was no way in hell Sander March or Dan Arou would be left sitting in Cayuga for long. I kept this all to myself, of course. Victor, I was sure, knew it as well as I did, but he was probably suppressing. Not being intimately involved, I could see the bond between Dan and Sander on the ice. They clicked, plain and simple. The Broncos were unable to counter the speed and tenacity March and Arou-Kalinski had out there. Hell, Binghamton could barely find their asses using both hands.

  We’d cruised into the second period with three goals to their none. The lone penalty we’d taken midway through the second had been a shit goaltender interference call on Mike Buttonwood, who’d been shoved into the Broncos tender. No harm done, because the penalty kill hit the ice with a fury. Kalinski had sharpened the special teams into a lethal force. The Broncos had no shots on goal during their power play, and that blew a little dust under their bonnets. Frustration began to set in, and with that short tempers flared. Arou-Kalinski pulled a nice penalty, his speed and agility on a breakaway giving the lone defender able to k
eep up with him no choice but to trip him. Sure, it was what we coaches would call a “good penalty” as it had saved the goal, but with the fangs our special teams had been showing, it was a stupid penalty to take.

  Sander socked one in off the faceoff, stunning the Broncos goalie, who had no clue where the puck was. As he looked behind him in dismay, we celebrated the goal on the bench as well as on the ice. The third period was an example of precision defensive play. The boys locked the Broncos down, giving them only two shots on goal in twenty minutes of hockey. When the horn sounded, we’d come away with a decisive win for the first game of the first round.

  “Only three more, men!” I shouted in the boisterous away dressing room. The team hooted and threw tape into the air. The men gave March the Cougar Cap, a new tradition that had started back in the regular season. Someone, who it was remains a mystery, had brought in this stupid cap with round yellow ears and a fluffy yellow tail that rode down the wearer’s neck. The outstanding player of the game, as judged by the team, got to wear the cap that night. Then the cap was passed along to another player after the next game. Sander had deserved it. He’d rallied the team around him in short order, and after some issues at the end of the regular season, he’d come back a new man. Now, some said that was love, and some said it was freeing himself from some deeply abusive issues in his past. I say it was both plus a big dollop of old-fashioned determination.

  When we returned to the hotel, I fell into the king-sized bed, sighing at the softness of the mattress. My back would be a wreck come morning. Rolling over, I then checked my texts and found a new one from Charles. I opted to call him, since I was unable to locate my glasses and those little letters would make me buggy. Besides, it would be good to hear my boy’s voice.

  “Must be a sign of the apocalypse. You contacted me without me haranguing you,” I teased.

  “Charity harangued me,” he confessed, and I laughed softly.

  “She’s got her mother’s haranguing skills. How goes those finals?” I kicked off my shoes and wriggled back onto the mushy mattress.

  “Good. I have two more and then I’m heading to Scotland.”

  “Scotland? When did we discuss Scotland? Who is paying for Scotland?” That last question seemed the most important. My bank account wasn’t exactly filled with free cash flowing in.

  “Dad, we discussed it at Christmas,” he replied in mild exasperation. “Remember? Professor Switzer is taking a select group of environmental studies students from his hydrologic sciences and policy classes to Scotland to study environmental watershed sustainability and the physical and chemical impact of humanity on several lochs.”

  “Oh right, the lochs. I made a joke about being eaten by Nessie.”

  “Yeah, you made a joke.” Charles snorted in that amusing way of his. “And I assumed you and Mom were paying for it?”

  I drew in a long breath. So much for that trip to the Virgin Islands I’d been contemplating for thirty years.

  “Sounds like a great opportunity. Let me talk things over with your mother,” I replied, then crossed one ankle over the other. “She and James are planning a wedding, after all.”

  “Yeah, I know.” There was a long pause. “Are you okay with that? I mean her and James getting married in September?”

  “I’m fine with it, son, truly. I want nothing more than for your mother to be happy. She’s a good woman, she deserves a man who—”

  “Yeah, okay, I don’t need to know what James is doing to my mother.”

  “How did a genteel man such as me raise such a pervert? I wasn’t going to say a thing about what James and your mother are doing, I was going to say she deserves a man who will make her happy.” I waited just a tick. “In bed.”

  “Ah man, Dad, you’re so gross. I cannot go there.”

  I laughed aloud at his histrionics. “You’re too easy, Chaz.”

  “Man, I’m shuddering all over the dorm. What about you?” He flopped onto his bed, the squeal of the mattress springs creeping into my ear.

  “Are you asking if I have a woman I need to make happy in bed?” I heard him huff and chuckled. “Okay, I’ll stop. No, there is no one I need to make happy in or out of bed.”

  “Are you looking? I mean, you do know that Charity and I are completely cool with you dating men.” I smiled at the reflection of myself in the mirror over the dresser. I’d been blessed with amazing children. That talk with them when Betty and I knew we couldn’t go on as we had been any more, had been brutal. I’d been terrified of them hating me. But they hadn’t. They’d been shocked, of course, but they’d shown real compassion and maturity far beyond their years. Guess Betty and I had done an okay job of raising two incredible human beings.

  “I’m sort of looking,” I admitted, the smile falling from my face. I glanced at the muted TV instead. “Cayuga doesn’t have a large population of gay men. Hell, I’m not sure there are any unattached gay men in the entire county.”

  “There’s got to be one or two. Keep looking, Dad. Oh, hey, my date’s here.”

  “Date? What’s her name?”

  “Her name is Kelsey, and she’s adorable. Very warrior goddess vibe. I’ll call you after classes are over.”

  “Call your mother!”

  “I will. Talk to you later.”

  And just like that, the phone was quiet against my ear.

  “Now what do we do for the rest of the night?” I asked the middle-aged man in the mirror. He shrugged in reply. “Fat lot of help you are.”

  We arrived back in Cayuga with two juicy wins under our belts. I’d sat next to Dewey on the ninety-minute ride, tweaking little things here and there that we’d like to see more of in game three. To be honest, there wasn’t much to change. This team was playing better than we could have ever hoped when the season began. There was no strife in the dressing room, the lines were clicking, scoring was up, penalty minutes down, and the air in the locker room was filled with confidence. The coaching staff didn’t want to get our hopes up, but the vibe was there. It hummed and sparked every time the Cougars hit the ice. We were cautiously optimistic that this would be our year. We hoped so. Everyone with a snarling cougar on their jacket or sweater wanted to see McGarrity hoist the Calder Cup before he retired.

  “We can go over those power play stats tomorrow before the game,” Dewey said, as we filed off the bus. “Get your head together with Kalinski and talk to the forwards about the need to focus on winning those face-offs. We could be doing better.”

  “Will do.” I tapped out a note on my phone and stepped off a cool bus into a hot June day. As an associate coach, part of my job was playing middle man, in a way. The head coach would delegate things to me and then I’d pass along his wishes to the other coaches and players. I also ran drills and collated important facts, such as our minute slip in faceoff wins. “I’ll take care of this tonight. I’m taking a few hours Saturday to attend that music festival by the lake. Unless you want me to hang out after morning skate on Saturday as well?”

  I mentally crossed my fingers he would say no.

  “No, no need to stay. Work them on it a bit tomorrow morning. They’re not midget league, they know to watch the refs hand and choke up on their stick. Just shine a light on it.”

  “Good enough.” I clapped the big D-man on the back and gathered my bag from the luggage storage area. Mario fell in beside me as we made our way to our cars. I told him to bring his faceoff skills to morning skate the following day.

  “Ah fun, faceoff drills,” the burly redhead sighed.

  “Could be worse. Could be speed sprints,” I joked, pushing the button on my key fob to unlock my Subaru Outback. I’d bought the spiffy new red car the day after I’d moved north, on the advice of everyone I spoke with. Driving in the snow was a new experience for me. One that I was not overly fond of. “You wouldn’t happen to be going to that music festival by the lake Saturday, would you?”

  He paused to rub his whiskery chin, the summer wind whipping around the
Rader to tug on his kilt.

  “I don’t know. Lila might enjoy it.”

  “What kind of music are we talking here?” Victor asked, joining us beside my car, Dan at his side, both with duffle bags on their shoulders.

  “Folk and R&B mostly, according to the flyer,” I replied, opening then tossing my bag into the back seat.

  “Oh Christ, like banjos and shit? We’ll pass,” Vic quickly said.

  “Hey, don’t speak for me. I might like to go,” Dan stated.

  I gave Mario a look. McGarrity shrugged.

  “Babe, banjos.” Victor shuddered. That made me snort in amusement. “I cannot do banjos. I’ll be kicked out of the Disturbed fan club if word got out I was within a ten-mile radius of a banjo.”

  “We’ll see,” Dan told me, took his husband by the hand, and led him along, his mouth going like a duck’s backside.

  “Marriage. Ain’t it grand?” Mario commented, gave me a saucy wink, and ambled off.

  Sliding behind the wheel of my car, snickering over the marital discussion still taking place in the parking lot, I smiled wistfully. Yes, marriage was indeed grand. Someday, maybe, I’d like to try it again. I’d truly enjoyed being that close to another person. Nothing made me happier than coming home to spend the night with family. My days of sowing wild oats were long past. Sitting on the porch, swinging, tea in hand, dog at my feet, and a sweet man at my side sounded like Nirvana.

  “Well, hell, I just described a Hee-Haw skit,” I chortled to myself.

  “Hey!” I jumped a good six inches, my gaze flying to Dan leaning on the open window. “Oh, sorry Coach. Vic and me are really looking forward to going to the music festival with you.”

  I peered around the short Canuck. Vic was throwing their bags into his big black SUV—and I do mean throwing.