Power Play

Chapter 4-1

Chapter 4

Ryan’s number is the only thing Dante thinks

about as he skates. The slip of paper is in the inside pocket of

his jacket to keep it safe, the same place where the rent money was

yesterday, but he doesn’t need it—he’s already memorized the seven

digits. He wanted to call last night when he got home from the

skate shop, but it was late and he thought it might be awkward,

explaining how he got the number. What would Ryan think if he knew

that Dante looked it up in the phone book? Or that, as he ate

dinner before going to bed, he stared at the phone in the kitchen,

the one that hangs on the wall by the fridge, and mentally dialed

it over and over again? He knows he needs to focus on his skating

and when he arrived at the rink this morning at seven, he should’ve

put on his blades and taken a few turns on the ice, he needs to

practice, he paid to. That’s where his dreams lie, in short

track. He doesn’t need to get distracted.

His last boyfriend was distraction enough. A

skater, a boarder like Bobby, a full head taller than Dante with a

broad chest, narrow waist, and choppy hair bleached an unnatural

shade of orange. Jared. This was back in high school, junior year,

and he was in Dante’s study hall, a brooding, moody guy who wrote

really bad poetry about road kill and laughed when anyone fell, off

a skateboard or down steps, he didn’t care. He was cute though, and

a good kisser, and could get his hands into Dante’s pants within

seconds of getting him alone, that was nice. He had strong

hands, and he knew what he was doing.

He was Dante’s first, three weeks before

junior prom, which they both swore they wouldn’t be caught dead at

and Jared ended up going to anyway. It was on a Saturday, Dante

remembers it clearly, a day his mother got called into the office.

Jared slept over the night before and they stayed up late, fooling

around beneath the covers of Dante’s twin-sized bed, the two of

them pressed together and their hands clasping each other tight.

Sometime before noon, the kisses and caresses became something

more, something urgent and heated and Dante didn’t think he wanted

to go that far, he tried to say no, but his words were lost in

Jared’s mouth, his body crushed beneath his boyfriend’s, his hands

held up above his head and out of the way. “It’s okay,” Jared kept

whispering between kisses. “It’s okay, Dante. I love you, it’s

okay.”

Only it wasn’t, not really—it was quick and

painful and when it was over, Dante rolled out of bed and stood

beneath the hot spray of the shower for almost a half hour, trying

to wash the stench of s*x away. When Jared asked if he wanted to

come watch him skate, Dante begged off with a headache, told him

he’d catch up with him later, but he knew that wasn’t quite true.

He felt it in Jared’s goodbye kiss—whatever they had together had

snapped apart, broken in the instant Jared went too far.

At school he stayed polite to the guy,

smiled in all the right places, let him touch him in the boy’s

bathroom between classes, stole kisses outside when waiting for the

bus. But Dante didn’t call him anymore, and the more he thought

about it, the more he realized he needed to focus on his skating,

that was his dream, not some small-town boarder with a quick

laugh and big hands. They never officially broke up, not really,

and they did have s*x again, twice in fact, once in Dante’s living

room when his mom was at work and once behind the skate ramp in

Jared’s backyard, but the words of love that Jared muttered when he

came meant nothing to Dante. Their senior year they didn’t share

any classes and sometime after that, they drifted apart. Dante

hadn’t even looked at a guy since.

Until Ryan.

Dante doesn’t know what it is about the

boy—he’s not really much to look at, to be honest, a bit plain and

pale. With that light hair the color of a deep blush wine, those

freckles over his nose, he’ll never really tan, even if he spends

the rest of his life out in the sun. He’s the type to burn and then

peel, his skin pinked to pain and his freckles dissolving like dew

in the morning sun. But he has strong arms, Dante likes that in a

guy, he likes to feel safe and protected when he lies with someone,

as if those arms and hands can keep the rest of the world at bay.

And Dante can see in his eyes a smoldering anger at his accident, a

stubborn streak that won’t let this get him down. He likes that

fire, guttering low but still burning, he knows Ryan will

walk again. He’ll skate again, and he’ll be better on the ice than

before, he’ll be the best damn hockey player ever, Dante feels that

in his heart as much as he feels his own Olympic dream.

He likes Ryan’s smile, the shy way he looks

at Dante, the easy camaraderie that’s sprung up between them. It’s

as if they’ve been friends forever—Dante knows just what to say to

get Ryan to laugh, he feels comfortable with the boy in a way he’s

never felt with anyone else before. Sure as hell not with Jared,

and not with his mom or Bobby or any of the girls in the skate

club. There’s just something right between them, something

that clicks into place—Dante feels like he’s been struggling to

solve a puzzle for years, searching piece by piece, hoping to find

something in this dead-end town that will fit for him, and then he

sees Ryan and it all comes together, everything, his future, his

skating, his life. It has him wondering if maybe he can

allow a little bit of distraction right now. Maybe Ryan’s exactly

what he needs—maybe there’s more to living than skating and

striving for dreams. If so, he’d sure like to find out.