Point Shot 02 - Game Misconduct by V.L. Locey

goose in winter. “Give me that and sit down on the bed.”
    I did as he asked without saying a word. Yes, I expect a gold star. Dan grabbed an upholstered chair from the corner and dragged it over. He sat across from me, my arm resting on my elbow as he fiddled with the medical supplies I’d picked up on the way from the rink.
    “I got a call from Lambert about half an hour ago,” Dan said.
    “Oh yeah?”
    “Yeah. Seems Buttonwood filled him in on the ‘situation’. Let me see your arm.” I extended my left arm. The gash was red and tender. Dan’s hand cradling my forearm was warm and just a little damp. I guessed he was nervous. “Lambert says we—and that means all those who aren’t het—are safe in his locker room. He seemed genuinely upset about the shit with Prescott.”
    “I suspect old Phil the Homophobe will be doing some mandatory counseling.”
    “This looks really sore,” Dan noted as he turned my arm slightly one way then the other. He wasn’t making eye contact, so my assumption about him being nervous seemed to be on the mark. “Do you think counseling will help?”
    “Not in the least. Yeah, don’t poke it, okay? That hurts.”
    “Sorry,” he whispered. He quit prodding at the neat black sutures and picked up a white paper package.
    “To your question, no, I don’t think counseling will help. You don’t just erase a lifetime of hatred with a team-mandated ten hours of talking to Dr. Veronica Mindprod.”
    I enjoyed seeing him play nurse. He tore open the packet and extracted a white square.
    “True. Hold that in place. You need two. Every time I see this it pisses me off all over again.”
    Dan ripped open another package then slapped the second bandage into place. I hissed. His gaze leaped from my left arm to my face. We fixated on each other. Gazes locked, we sat there stupidly staring into each other’s eyes. The fucking Lifetime weekly chick flicks had nothing on us. If I hadn’t been so overwhelmed with a billion things to say, I would have been disgusted by how menstrual I was acting.
    “I’m sorry about everything, Dan. I know you weren’t ready to come out yet. If we hadn’t been fighting about the trouble my dick gets me into it—”
    “Stop using your dick as an excuse for poor judgment.” He jerked his gaze from mine and returned to futzing over my arm.
    “Right, yeah, true words there. I guess I chose to bang Heather that night just like I chose to stay as drunk as I could manage after you left me.” I really wanted to grab him and shake him to make him hear me.
    Dan nodded as he slowly began wrapping the nasty gash on my forearm.
    “I’m trying to make better decisions now.”
    His gaze flickered to mine.
    “Seriously,” I added.
    Dan looked back down. I unconsciously sucked in some air between my teeth. He shuddered.
    “Sorry,” I mumbled. “Dan, I know I fucked up. I guess I didn’t really consider us to be in a relationship. I mean, we wanted each other bad, and there was something starting, but you were gone. I didn’t know if we would ever be together again, and I was weak. I fell into a pattern that I knew from my childhood even though I had sworn I would never act like her.”
    “Your mother, you mean,” he said as he worked with incredible tenderness. “We’re products of our environments, babe.”
    A thrill ran through me to hear him use that word. That was in-the-dark-of-the-night wordage there. It was what he whispered to me as we held each other after sex, what he cooed into my ear in private. I called him “sweets” in those special, intimate times. He called me “babe”.
    “Guess so. Anyway, no excuses, I fucked up. I know that. I want you back, Dan. I love you.”
    He stopped wrapping for a moment and I found myself drowning in lapis.
    “What about Heather and the baby?”
    “What about them? I’m paying for all her medical bills and for her last year of college. She’s a nursing student.” I plugged that bit of info in so