Page 63 of These Wicked Games
“You just want to see me cry,” I laugh.
Oli’s eyes darken and he steps into me. My back hits the edge of the island. “Oh,zayka,” His hand comes up to my throat, his thumb pressing against my Adam’s apple. “I have far more fun ways to make you cry.”Oh my fucking god. My dick perks up, and his eyes become hooded when it presses against him. “Like a goddamn trigger.” He leans into my neck, sinking his teeth into my flesh. The shock of it makes me moan, and his tongue runs up the bite before giving me a smile.
“Barely even affected,” I squeak.
He barks out a laugh, and it’s so boyish I can’t help but smile. “Cut the fucking onion, Dre.” I cut up the onion, and I don’t know why, but onions never really bother me much—so I do not cry. Oli takes them and throws them into the bowl with the meat. “Salt and pepper.” I grab the shakers, handing them to him, and he measures by memory, then mixes the pork and onions.
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
He sighs. “I guess.” He grabs the dough and drops it onto the butcher block on the island, then grabs a rolling pin. I watch his arms flex while he rolls out the dough.Fuck me sideways. “Dre?”
I blink my attention away from his delicious muscles to focus. “I um, just mean, you guys were so poor. How did you attend games? I remember you said you both used to go.”
Oli grimaces and I want to take the question back. I almost tell him to forget it; I don’t want to upset him. “My mother, I mean, she made sure I didn’t know what she did for money but . . .” Heruns his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “I found out. Plus. Kids are assholes. There were rumors.”
“Rumors?”
“Um, during middle school there were rumors that she broke up the marriage of a teacher whose son was in my grade, and he beat me up. Blamed my mother.” He shakes his head. “I just remember the things that were said about her. She was a beautiful woman. That’s how it is, though, isn’t it? Men go out of their way to cheat on their wives. They’d hire her for a service, using their money, risking their home lives, and yet it was my mother who was at fault. She was the whore. She was the homewrecker. It was just a job to her. It put food on our table. It was one of three jobs she did to provide for me. She worked her ass off so that I could attend some home games, and to get into this already expensive sport.”
“What about your father?” He never talks about him.
“I’ve never met him. I’ve never even seen pictures of him.” Oli shrugs. “She was pregnant with me when she left and came to the States. I think they were still married, so I’m not sure how she did it. She never shared that part of her life with me, but I suspected he was abusive. She had a friend here at the time, and she helped her. Then her friend died a couple of years after she had me, and she was on her own.” He smiles. “She took classes, learned English . . . she fought to give me a great life.”
I think about it. It’s not something I’ve ever had to worry about. Hockey was basically expected. Don’t get me wrong, I fucking love being a goalie, but I never had to worry about how much it cost, or if I was going to get in. Even if I was a mid player I would most likely have gotten here. Maybe not on the Vipers, but on some team. It’s legacy.
The problem with that, though, is the future of this sport will only belong to a certain tax bracket. It should be accessible to everyone. If we want to attract the best players, why are we alienating a huge chunk of talent due to income? Oli’s mother never should have had to work that hard to make sure her son had a shot.
A pit forms in my stomach thinking about the switched tests. “I am so sorry.”
He shrugs now, cutting out the dough in little circles with what looks like a cookie cutter. “What’s done is done.”
“You believe me? That I didn’t—”
“Dre . . .” He faces me and I want to see it in his eyes—that he trusts me. I need it. “I don’t believe you intentionally did it.” He looks away. It’s not what I want. I want one thousand percent confirmation that he knows I didn’t do it. “What’s done is done, okay? It’s what happened, and there’s nothing that can fix it.” I don’t know if he’s talking about me, his mother, or the place we’ve ended up in. I want to argue, but instead I let it go. “Can you fill that pot with water? Salt it well.” I listen, still wanting to talk about this, but Oli’s tone tells me it’s final. “Turn it on high.”
Oli grabs two spoons as I prep the water then join him back at the stove. “How much?”
“Just like a teaspoon. Not too much or they’ll fall apart.” I watch him a couple of times before trying it on my own. Watching the way his thick fingers delicately pleat the dough into half moons around the filling makes me smile.
When we’re done it looks like we have dozens of dumplings. “I freeze them. Easy dinner for a while. The last thing I want to do after traveling is cook.” He puts half of them on a plate, then puts the others into a freezer bag. We go to the stove as the water beginsto boil. “About five minutes. They’ll start to float.” He dumps a few into the boiling water then grabs a skimmer and waits.
“I just want you to know that even if we had very little growing up, I never missed out on anything,” he says softly. “She worked so much, but I always remember her being there for me. We used to have movie nights, went on hikes. When she had a little extra money we’d go to home games for the Vipers. One day, for my eleventh birthday, she must have saved for a bit and she bought me your father’s jersey.” I feel as if all the blood in my body pools at my feet. My hands are cold, my stomach clenches.
Just calm down, he doesn’t know. This is why he can’t ever know. My father means too much to him. How can I break that version of him in his mind? “Expensive.”
“I know, right. She told me that every day for a year she set aside a dollar so she could afford it. I still have it.” Oli pulls the first batch out onto a plate then drops another in. “I had him sign it when I got signed to the Titans.
I remember that day like it was yesterday. Seeing Oli standing in our locker room for the first time confirmed the things I’d already been questioning about myself. He was nearly half the size he is now, but seeing him for the first time it was like all the pieces I couldn’t figure out finally fell into place.
I was going to do it. I was going to tell him how much he meant to me that night. I was going to confess how much I felt and how crazy it was making me not to tell him what he meant to me.
After I dropped our cups off, I’d paced the front lobby just waiting for him, thinking about what I was going to say. I didn’t think Oli would return my feelings, but I didn’t care. I just needed him to know. But he was taking too long, and I remember walkingback down to my father’s office and seeing him come out like he’d been struck by lightning—disheveled, seething—then his eyes locked with mine.
I never, ever want to see that look again.
The rage and hatred that dripped from those ocean eyes I loved so much hurt worse than his fists, even when he broke my nose. I didn’t care. Physical pain was something I was used to.
The heartbreak that shredded my soul afterwards nearly ended me. I was so confused.“Oli failed his drug test.”I couldn’t believe it. I insisted there had to be a mistake.“He’s under a lot of stress, Andre. This happens. What I won’t have is him assaulting my son.”
