Page 32
Story: Call It Home
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“CAN I TALK to you?” is the first thing Ryan says to Louie at practice the next morning.
Louie managed to escape last night, too embarrassed, too riled up, and too overwhelmed to have any sort of awkward conversation with Ryan before he left. But of course he can’t fully escape Ryan; he’s still Louie’s teammate. “Right now?” Louie asks.
“Later is fine, but I…” Ryan catches Louie by the elbow to keep him from walking out onto the ice. “Ella said you told her you didn’t want to babysit Maja by yourself.”
“Because I didn’t,” Louie says. “Ida is easier, she can talk.”
“And you told Ella and Lee to, what, ask me?”
“I didn’t tell them to do anything. And there really was some confusion about who’d ask who.” Louie takes a step back, sweating before he even hits the ice. “Can we just…” He takes a few steps to the stick rack and grabs two of his own. “Not now, okay?”
“Fine,” Ryan says and takes his own sticks, bumping into Louie before he walks away, “but if you wanted to hang out, you could have just said so.”
Except Louie couldn’t have just said so and they both know it.
He’s been a mess. Mentally, that is, not at the rink.
The more he’s not a mess at the rink, the more he feels like he might be able to get a handle on the Ryan situation without completely screwing himself over. Now that he thinks about it, he’s been a mess a lot off the ice. He never let it affect his performance.
The problem with Ryan is a different one, though. Not because he’s a man, or a teammate, or a friend. Louie likes him differently. A few months ago, when they were on the road, Ryan asked him about the last time he’d kissed someone and Louie told him about New Year’s Eve, when he kissed his teammate’s girlfriend’s friend at a party back in Springfield.
“Classic,” Ryan said.
“I kind of ghosted her when I came here,” Louie admitted. He told her he was leaving, but they didn’t talk after because Louie was in Full NHL Mode and thought he didn’t have time for a girlfriend.
That’s how Ryan is different. Louie wants to make time for him.
But he also doesn’t want to hurt him again. Ryan didn’t say it outright last night, and kept it jokey, but he is terrified of people leaving him and, well, Louie left him too. And while sometimes that is the reality of life—people leave you and there’s nothing you can do—Louie doesn’t want to do that to him a second time. When, or maybe if he goes back, he needs to be sure he can stick it out. He was going to tell Ryan that last night, but he couldn’t find the right words.
Ryan came to his rescue. Said Louie would tell him when he’s ready. And he will. He just needs to figure out what ready is supposed to feel like.
Ryan doesn’t bug him on the road; doesn’t ask if he wants to talk again.
The team goes out for dinner together in Chicago and Louie sits next to Ryan because he wants to and because he misses him. Ryan convinces him to eat the rest of his dessert because he’s full, except he’s never full. Louie will think about that dessert for the rest of his life.
In Nashville, Louie scores another hat trick. He doesn’t know how the hell he did it, but there he is, holding up his three-puck stack for the camera. He pulls Ryan into the picture because he got assists on two of the goals. Ryan hugs him and Louie doesn’t want him to stop.
Ryan saves his ass in Winnipeg when the puck bounces off his stick and he almost scores on their own goal. It’s so incredibly close and their goalie is so incredibly far out of the net, but Ryan throws himself in there and swipes it out of the crease before it crosses the line. Louie finds him after the game, before they get on the plane, and thanks him.
“I knew I had to. You would have beaten yourself up about it all season,” Ryan says.
On the flight home, Louie sits with Ryan. When Ryan has fallen asleep, Louie stares at his hands and thinks about taking them.
It’s early morning when they land in Hartford. Louie gets into the car with Liam, watching Ryan the entire time. He’s talking to Waldo, not leaving just yet. It’s not until they’re on the highway and Liam asks him if he wants to grab breakfast somewhere that he realizes he would have rather gone home. With Ryan.
It seems terrifyingly simple in the end.
“Actually,” Louie says, “could you drop me off at Ryan’s?”
Liam laughs. “Yes, of course I can.”
Louie climbs out with all his bags and rolls them up to the front door. He still has his keys somewhere and by the time he’s dug them up, Liam has sped off, either because he’s really hungry or because he didn’t want to give Louie a chance to change his mind.
The key slides into the lock easily and when it clicks open, it welcomes him home. He throws the door open and walks in, the house filled with gentle morning light. A huge plant that wasn’t here when Louie left is towering by the table that they leave their keys on. That’s where Louie puts his. His bag stays in the hallway for now; he won’t move back into his room before he’s talked to Ryan.
Who apparently isn’t here yet.
Louie shuffles into the living room and takes in the scene—empty glass on the table, next to it a half-eaten bag of candy, a blanket puddled in Ryan’s spot on the couch. Louie’s favorite knit blanket is folded neatly on the other side of the couch. Waiting for him to come back. For a second, Louie can’t breathe. How did he walk away from this?
Like everything’s in slow motion, he sits on the piano bench. Back in Boston, he couldn’t play anymore when his dad was around. He’d always comment on it and said Louie could have spent that time on the ice. He barely practiced anymore after he’d stopped taking lessons. He’s forgotten a lot, but Ida has a tiny toy piano and he actually taught her a few easy songs. He may have not been playing much, but his fingers remember.
He slowly turns around and flips open the lid. His dad isn’t here to comment, nobody’s listening, and no one has any expectations whatsoever.
Louie starts with one of the very first songs he learned. He doesn’t remember the title, and it comes out a little slower and choppier than it ideally should, but he’s playing. He tries something harder next, but forgets where that one was going halfway through. He thought it would be harder to sit back down and be bad at something he used to be good at, but he doesn’t want to stop. For once, it doesn’t matter that he’s not absolutely perfect.
What was that song Ryan liked? Louie still has the melody tucked away in his head somewhere. It stayed with him this entire time and played in his head when he tried to go to sleep, even though he couldn’t remember the words. He refused to look up the actual song.
He tries to play it now and it almost sounds right. Not quite, though. He starts over, tries again, shakes his head, gives it another go.
The front door’s lock clicks again a little while later and Louie should stop playing now, but he’s really into it, and he also doesn’t want to scare the crap out of Ryan by awkwardly and silently sitting in the living room. He did leave him some breadcrumbs at least—the keys on the table, the bags in the hallway .
Ryan himself appears a moment later, leaning in the doorway with his eyes nailing Louie to the spot. “Oh, it’s you,” he says. “I was worried a concert pianist broke into the house.”
“Hi,” Louie says.
Ryan slowly puts down a paper bag and a to-go cup on the end table by the couch and makes his way over, stopping by the bench and sitting down when Louie scoots over. Still not made for two people, so Ryan is once again plastered against him, hip-to-hip, arm-to-arm, but facing the other way.
“You came home,” Ryan says.
“If you still want me here,” Louie says.
“I always want you here.”
Louie nods. Of course Ryan is just letting him come back. Of course he’s not throwing a fit or giving him a hard time. Of course not. Because this is home, Ryan’s, but also Louie’s. Theirs. Louie tips his head against Ryan’s shoulder and Ryan’s fingers are in his hair a moment later.
Louie allows Ryan’s warmth to sweep over him, at least for a little while. Then he looks up. “I’m not going to leave again,” he says. “I promise. But you have to hold me to it.”
“I will,” Ryan says. He reaches up to flip a strand of Louie’s hair into place. “I won’t make you stay against your will, though. That would be fucked up.”
“I just meant… I seem to have developed a tendency to run away from my problems,” Louie tells him. He doesn’t mention it’s his fault and that he taught him how to run. Louie loves him for it. Dominic was right about that: you need other people. They may not save you, but they can show you how to save yourself.
“Uh-huh.” Ryan gently combs his fingers through Louie’s hair. “That’s very human of you, Louie. You’re just like the rest of us that way.”
“Ryan.”
“Yeah? ”
“Stop joking about it for one second?” Louie says. “I’m saying I really want to try. I’ve been thinking about how to apologize and I can’t when you won’t be serious about it.”
Ryan runs his fingers down the side of Louie’s neck. “You already apologized,” he says. “You came back.”
Louie leans into him. “I did, but I need you to understand that I’m not… I’m not a relationship kind of guy. I’m a hockey kind of guy.”
“You don’t say,” Ryan whispers. He drops his hand. “Louie. You wanted me to be serious, so I’ll be serious for a second. It’s fine if you love hockey more than me sometimes. I can be okay with that. But then you also have to be okay with me being clingy as fuck approximately every five business days. And you have to tell me you still like me, even when you think I’m annoying.”
“I can do that,” Louie says. “For the record, I don’t think you’re annoying.”
“Not even when I make tacos in a bag?”
“That’s more disgusting than annoying.”
Ryan’s eyes narrow. “But also delicious.”
Louie elbows him in the side.
“So,” Ryan says, “you’ll stay?”
“I will.”
“And you won’t freak out on me.”
“I won’t.”
“All right, well…” Ryan gently sways against him. “You wanna go out on a date with me later? I’m thinking couch, a game, and I’ll order us something really nice?”
“Three-cheese pasta,” Louie says, “with garlic bread.”
“And maybe a good night kiss?”
“If you still want one after all that garlic bread.”
Ryan turns his head. “Maybe I’ll eat some garlic bread, too. We’ll cancel each other out.”
“That works,” Louie whispers, although he doesn’t actually want to wait until tonight. He reaches up to cup Ryan’s cheek and barely has to lean in because they’re already touching from shoulder to toe. He waits for a second, gives Ryan a chance to pull away, and kisses him when he doesn’t. For just a moment, he lingers, lips still against Ryan’s. Then Ryan leans back in for another soft kiss. It barely lasts longer than two seconds but sets Louie’s entire body on fire.
Ryan gives Louie’s thigh a squeeze. “You want half of my breakfast bagel?”
The correct reply to that is not I think I’m in love with you , which Louie thankfully realizes before he says it out loud. “I… yeah. Thank you.”
Ryan doesn’t move just yet. “Hey…” He turns and gives one of the piano keys a poke. “Were you playing Tracy Chapman?”
“I tried,” Louie says, “but I don’t think I got it right.”
“Try again?”
Louie can’t say no to him. He’s pretty sure he’ll never be able to say no to him ever again.