Page 12 of Forbidden Hockey

I’m laid out for a week, and when I’m back to health, the first thing I do is race to Dash’s house. But he’s not there. No one’s there. The place has been fucking abandoned. I don’t know what the fuck to do. Dash doesn’t have a phone. Who knows where the fuck he is by now?

Robin. In my bones, I know Robin’s behind this.

I get Hunter’s help because Hunter will know what to do. Hunter always knows what to do.

“What about getting in touch with his dad? Maybe he’s told his dad where he is?” Hunt says.

Duh. Right. I haven’t seen the guy since that one time he brought Dash to hockey. Our paths never crossed again.

Travis answers in a gruff, earth-weary voice. Isn’t the man still young for a dad? He shouldn’t sound so tired. Maybe that’s what the restaurant business does to you.

“Uh, Mr. Nolan? It’s Dirk.”

“My son’s boyfriend?”

“We’re not…” I huff. “I’m looking for him. Have you seen him?”

There’s silence and shuffling on the other end. “Sorry to disappoint you, kid, but he hasn’t talked to me since his mother died.”

Shit. I rail off a bunch of curses in my head since Hunter’s with me. He has weird rules about cussing. He wasn’t as strict about it when we lived with Mom, but he laid down new rules when we moved out.

“Swear all you want when you turn nineteen—except in front of me,” he’d said. Nineteen is the age of majority in BC, Canada. “You don’t get to swear in front of me.”

I didn’t get it. I’m still not sure I get it. I mean, I guess Ikindof get it…? He claims it’s important that I see someone as an authority figure, like the way most kids see their parents. He thinks it’ll give me security.

He’s not wrong. His rules used to chafe so bad when I was younger, but with the constant contrast between Hunter, Dash’s guardians, and our mom’s negligence, I think I needed his overbearing ways to recalibrate.

But extending things past adulthood is a little overboard.

“Guess we’ll see,” he’d said.

In any case, I keep it clean around him. I swear like a fucking sailor when I’m with my friends and Dash, who’s more like a brother.

“I think something’s happened to him. He’s not at his house. He’d never leave without saying goodbye to me.”

“Robin,” Travis says.

“Yeah, that’s what I think, too.” I don’t have any proof, but I know it. Call it a fucking hunch.

“I should have listened to my gut, but I let him …” he trails off. “I’m gonna do better. Thanks, Dirk.”

“Wait. I’d like to help.”

“Is that okay with your parents?”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to explain that I don’t have parents, but one glance into Hunter’s dark and concerned eyes reminds me that I do. Aside from him raising me since Dad died,he applied for guardianship when we moved out of Mom’s place and got it. He’s my legal guardian until I turn nineteen.

“Yeah. It’ll be okay, so long as I get my homework done.”

Hunter smiles.

We don’t have luck, and neither do the police. Dash is just gone.

February and March pass with no word from Dash. I’m at Travis’s restaurant so much that he offers me a job on the weekends. I beg Hunter to let me work there, anything to get my mind off Dash being gone. He finally says yes, and I get my first job as a busser.

Dash and our plans and dreams of getting drafted together weigh heavily on me as the days tick by. What’s gonna happen with school for him? Will he be too behind to be considered for a team?

A warm hand lands on my shoulder. “You thinking about him?” Travis asks.