Page 67 of Hotshot
“Yeah.” Denny exhaled and closed his eyes. “Everything died on the mountain that day. Everything. My dad was gone, my brother was in college and never came home, and my mom lost her fucking mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“She drank and drank and did whatever she could to make the pain go away.”
“That’s sad,” I said softly.
“Everything they say about life changing in a flash is true. I was thirteen. I lost my whole family and—poof. I wasn’t me anymore. I had no identity. No purpose. No one knew what to say or how to act around Mom and me. We’d been part of a strong unit, valued members of a ski community, and then…we were sad victims of a terrible tragedy. You can only bring over so many casseroles before you give up. My pre-Elmwood days after the accident were a blur. A slow slide into silence. I didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t want to ski…I just wanted to be left alone.”
“What made you try hockey?”
“My mom said she thought it was dangerous. And I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to scare her into paying attention to me.” Denny slid a glance my way. “Family dysfunction at its finest. Two years after the accident, we were unrecognizable. My mom was a junkie and an alcoholic, and I was a weird kid who’d alienated my old friends and played hockey like it was my job.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. When I was on the ice, I couldn’t hear myself think. I was too busy learning, keeping time, doing math in my head. I ignored my mom, and she ignored me. It probably would have gone on like that till I graduated, but she started a fire in the kitchen in a drunken haze. Family services swooped in to rescue me. I suppose they could have called my dad’s sister, but she lives in Canada. They called my grandmother instead, and…that’s how I landed in Elmwood.”
“Jesus, Den. And your mom?”
He sucked in a deep breath. “She never got better. She died three years ago from an overdose.”
“Fuck, that’s so…sad.”
“Yeah. But the truth is that my mom died of a broken heart. She couldn’t cope without him. Sometimes it pisses me off that she didn’t choose me and Kai. I think it made us bitter. That’s how I feel, anyway. I don’t know about Kai. We rarely talk anymore. Thing is…I can’t judge her. She loved him so much, you know? I’ve never loved anyone like that. I never will.”
“You don’t know that.”
“That shit’s not for me. Honestly, it’s one of the reasons I broke up with Mary-Kate. I love my friend, but I can’t do the big romance. I don’t feel it for her, and she asked me why the other day and…I didn’t know what to say.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” Denny sighed heavily. “She’s an amazing, cool person. She looks out for people. Fuck, she barely knows you,and she told me to bring you to Coach’s barbecue ’cause you’re my friend and she wants to help.”
“I’m not following…” I hedged.
He grunted. “Doesn’t matter. Geez, you didn’t sign up for all this. Sorry.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” I chided without heat. After a minute or so, I spoke again. “You know, my parents had the big love story too. My mom died when I was five, and my dad has mourned her for twenty-four years straight. His addiction is work. He worked too much before she was gone, but it got worse after. Late nights, always traveling. He wasn’t a bad father, though. He tried.”
“And that’s why you’re here.”
“He offered me a hefty sum, Hotshot. Not NH-fucking-L money, but not too shabby.”
Denny scoffed. “It’s not about the money for you.”
“No, it’s not,” I admitted, resting my elbow on my bent knee. “I love the guy. He stood by me when I came out, accepted me no questions asked. That’s a bigger deal than it sounds like ’cause it involved a small personality transplant and a willingness to change his thinking. And he did. For me. Dad used to be flippant with stereotypical insults—this is gay, that’s gay. I was scared shitless to come out, but I didn’t want to live in the closet, so I gathered every ounce of courage I had, packed a bag in case I needed to make a quick exit, and told him my truth.”
“How old were you?”
“Eighteen. You know what he did? He gave me a hug. I wasn’t sure if that meant we were cool, so I asked. Dad smacked me upside the head and told me not to be an idiot. Of course we were cool. To which I said, ‘Then quit being a prick.’ We were good until that stupid billboard episode, but I didn’t hesitate when he called me. I’m not suggesting that I was excited about a brief sojourn in Vermont. I wasn’t. But there’s this side story: my dad brought my mom here years ago and she loved it. Supposedly,she joked that he should sell everything and buy a small house here. He could work at the mill and she could tend horses and raise us kids.”
Denny narrowed his gaze. “He bought the mill in Wood Hollow for your mom?”
I rolled my eyes. “Not quite. That’s the story he tells and it’s a nice one, but I know my dad pretty well and if the mill wasn’t a good investment, he wouldn’t have bothered. He pulls the sentimental strings to sway me to do his bidding. It’s a dance we do…the Cunningham waltz. We make deals and we talk around pesky things like feelings through contracts.”
“And propositions.” He smirked.
I bumped his shoulder and laughed. “It sounds cold and calculated. Trust me, I know it does. It’s just how my father communicates. Most of us don’t get that sitcom-perfect upbringing with no scars and no heartache. We get a potpourri of good intentions and bad follow-through. We get fucked over when our heroes die too soon, and we’re left with a parent who can’t cope or have unconventional coping mechanisms. And where does that leave us?”