A Sexy Lumberjack is no Fit for Erik Karlsson
Brendon had expected his first high school party to be just a bit more exciting. The house was filled with eleventh graders dressed in costume, and by costume, he meant girls wearing the most minimal amount of clothing possible and almost every boy wearing a hockey jersey. Brendon was guilty of the same crime, his Erik Karlsson jersey draping over his bony shoulders. He was wearing his usual ripped black skinny jeans; it wasn’t like he was going to wear sweats to a party.
He was sitting alone on a leather chesterfield in what must’ve been the living room. The TV was on, playing reruns of Corner Gas. Brendon had seen this episode before. Lacey and Brent almost hooked up but some farmer interrupted them. Stupid fucks. Anyone in their right mind would’ve just done it in the back of the car, not wait 8 hours to not even kiss.
He brought the red solo cup in his left hand up to his lips and sipped a little bit of the hard ginger ale it contained. It tasted pretty much the same as the regular variation, and had very little chance of getting him intoxicated. He couldn’t come home drunk. He was barely allowed to go out tonight, let alone go to a real high school party with drinking and drugs and sex.
Ryan, Spencer, and Jon were all at this party. He’d seen Spencer and Jon earlier, Spencer was in a white and black striped sweater and black sweatpants, probably couldn’t find a costume and threw together something to make him look like a ref. Jon was in a Boston Bruins jersey. Gross. He hadn’t seen Ryan yet, but he knew he was there. And it certainly wasn’t because he was looking at Ryan’s twitter today, and definitely not because Ryan had tweeted the address and Brendon probably wouldn’t have known about the party otherwise.
He checked Ryan’s twitter a lot. He thought about Ryan a lot. It wasn’t a big deal, he had to make sure Ross wasn’t saying shit about him while they worked on their English project. He hadn’t, but with all the bickering they’d done (Ryan had even argued over the dress Brendon had picked) it wasn’t unreasonable of him to believe that Ryan might vague him. Although, Brendon did have to admit that Ryan’s perfectionism had merits; it has gotten them all a 95% on the project.
He stared at the empty glow of the screen, the lame dialogue from the mid-2000s boring him. He pulled his phone out. 5 notifications from Dallon. He wasn’t really in the mood to open that conversation. It was 11:30, and he was already considering leaving. Maybe partying just wasn’t his scene. After all, hockey always came first.
He felt the couch dip on the right hand side, warmth beside him. He turned his head to see an unshaven Ryan Ross, dressed as a lumberjack. A toque covered his flow, his face looking more mature. He had a crimson flannel on with the top two buttons undone, leaving little to the imagination. Leave it to Ross to use Halloween as an excuse to look like a total slut. He sipped on the can of Molson Canadian in his hand.
“Uh, what are you doing here?” Brendon asked softly. He felt genuinely confused. He and Ryan hadn’t spoken to each other since they had presented their Macbeth project earlier that week.
“Y’know, I saw ya sittin’ here, all alone, and I fel’ kinda bad for ya,” his speech was clearly slurred, and his voice sounded strange, different from usual. It was nasally and all the vowels sounded rounder. He was definitely drunk.
“I don’t need your fucking pity, Ross,” he hissed. Ross put his arm around Brendon’s shoulder, then took a long swig out of the Molson.
“C’mon bro! Call m’Ryan!” he slurred. “Y’know, I’ve been too hard on ya! Actually, considerin’ the jersey yer wearing right now, maybe not,” then proceeded to ruffle Brendon’s hair. What the literal fuck was happening.
“Um, can I help you with something?” Brendon asked.
“Nah, this is the bes’ seat in Tom’s house though! Y’got good taste,” Ryan smiled. Brendon had heard how white girls acted when they were drunk in bathrooms, and he was pretty sure that this was it.
“Thanks?” Brendon quirked his eyebrow. “Are you alright?”
“Jus’ havin’ a good time! Don’ y’ever let loose a lil’?” Ryan asked.
Brendon was just a little bit too embarrassed to admit that he didn’t. He didn’t think Ryan knew that the Uries were the only mormon family east of Alberta, which was where he was from originally. Brendon certainly didn’t know where Ryan was from. Was he born in Toronto or was he from somewhere else? What was his family like? Brendon was curious about so much to do with Ryan, the ominous, sexy lumberjack pressed up against his side.
“Wha’ a fuckin’ awful episode this is, I use t’watch this show all the time when I was young,” he said. Wait, Brendon wasn’t the only one whose childhood guilty pleasure was the awful adventures of a bunch of people living in rural Saskatchewan? Huh.
“Ha, yeah,” Brendon began to loosen up a little. There was no harm in talking to a drunk Ryan Ross. “I used to watch this all of the time as a kid too.”
Ross took another long sip of the beer.
“I knew it! We had t’have somethin’ in common,” he smiled. Brendon liked Ross’s smile. It looked better with the little bit of stubble around his face. Brendon wondered if this was just a choice to match his lumberjack costume, or a permanent fix.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Of course! I mean, we couldn’ve been best friends in timbits for n’reason,” Brendon’s stomach dropped. Brendon had thought Ryan had forgotten. It always seemed like it. After all, he never did show up to Brendon’s party all those years ago… Brendon didn’t think about that anymore. At least, he thought he had forgotten about it. And he thought Ross had too. He thought Ross had definitely forgotten about all of their post-game slushies, the goals scored at the fault of the other, and that stupid, stupid ribbon. But maybe, just maybe, Ross thought about it from time to time too. Maybe Ross remembered that Brendon always used to mix all of the slushie flavours because he was too indecisive to choose just one. Maybe Ross remembered the deal the two of them had, whenever there was an opportunity, they would be pass it to the other. And maybe, just maybe, Ross still had his half of that MVP medal. Maybe he didn’t let go.
“You remember that?” Brendon asked hopefully, expecting Ryan to spill at least a little.
“Yeah,” he replied, sipping back the bottle of beer in his hand. One word. Four letters. That was all nine years of hatred could get him?
They sat in silence for a moment, watching the TV show. Ryan laughed at some really lame joke, Brendon smiled a little bit. Was this what hope felt like? Maybe, just maybe, they could go back to the dream team they were all of those years ago. Maybe.
Brendon tested the waters, tilted his head to the right and allowed it to rest onto Ryan’s shoulder. He looked upwards tentatively, Ryan was looking down at him with a quirked eyebrow. Ryan probably thought that this was weird, Brendon felt bad. Then, to Brendon’s surprise, Ryan’s face turned from one of confusion into one that Brendon couldn’t quite read. Ryan then leaned his head onto Brendon’s.
Brendon smiled. There was a soft warmth that radiated through his chest and through his body. Who knew that he’d find happiness in a boy wearing a half-undone flannel, holding an almost empty bottle of Molson Canadian, and whose stubble was scratching against his forehead? There was some kind of truce formed between them in that moment, this unspoken promise that neither of them would turn and hit the other with either words or fists. Everything was a soft, hazy glow. Reality didn’t seem so real.
Tom, the host of the party, interrupted. Ryan pulled away from Brendon, who felt crestfallen after losing the warmth that was radiating between the two of them.
“Tom! Assah man!” Ryan asked, leaning forward and he gazed at Tom intently, a strange look in his eyes.
Tom’s long black hair was starting to fall out of the snapback he was wearing, onto his hawaiian t-shirt. Did he really dress up as a hipster for Halloween? Like he didn’t always dress that way.
“C’mon! What’re you doin’ in here? Come party wi’ the res’ of the Huskies!” Tom was drunk too. He grabbed Ryan’s wrist and pulled him up off of the couch beside Brendon. There went his only chance at making amends with Ryan. His eyes went back to the cheesy episode.
Maybe that was a sign. Maybe, just maybe, Tom coming and dragging Ryan away from him, was the universe telling him that he and Ryan were forever destined to live in a rut where they weren’t quite sure if they hated each other or not.
Brendon was left alone to his own thoughts, and calculated that Ross was definitely drunk enough to fuck him. Probably. Brendon hated that he went through this endless cycle of “fuck you, Ryan Ross” to “fuck me, Ryan Ross”. He was a good person. He didn’t deserve this.
He downed the rest of his hard ginger ale, then considered standing up and getting a mickey of vodka from the kitchen. Who cared if his parents found out anymore? He really didn’t. He was going to get in shit for going to something that celebrated the devil anyways.
Just as he was about to stand up, a very intoxicated Jon Walker sat down next to him. His eyes were bloodshot, was he high?
“Bren! Hey man! Wassup!” he exclaimed. Okay, so his speech wasn’t that slurred. He couldn’t be that bad off.
“Uh, not much? You alright?” he asked.
“Oh yeah! S’all good. I’ve jus’ been hanging out with Spence! He went to th’bathroom though and I lost him!” Jon smiled. Jon had a very deep fondness for Spencer. Brendon was kind of happy about it secretly, it meant Spencer and Ryan were spending a lot less time together.
Spencer emerged from a door to what must have been the basement.
“Oh! There he is! Bye Brendon!” and then Jon was off. Brendon was kind of jealous of Jon and Spencer’s friendship. He was jealous of Spencer and Ryan’s friendship. He hadn’t had anything like that since, well, since he was in Timbits with Ryan. He was good friends with the boys on his hockey team, but he hated all of his school friends. And he wasn’t that close with anyone, not really. He didn’t think he’d ever have a bond like Jon and Spencer and Ryan did..
He kind of had to use the washroom, so he wandered around the house before finding a closed door that was just small enough to be either a washroom or a walk-in closet. His hand gripped onto the shiny gold doorknob and he turned it to the right and pulled it to open the white door.
He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw what was behind that bathroom door. Tom was sitting on the lid of the toilet seat, Ryan was straddled on top of him. Tom was undoing the already minimal number of buttons Ryan had done up, Tom’s shirt was already off. Ryan’s tongue was down Tom’s throat, and vice versa. Ryan’s hands were running up and down Tom’s chest, tracing every outline of every muscle. Brendon’s jaw dropped, as did the cup in his hand.
The contents spilled on the floor. Ryan’s eyes shot open, looking Brendon in the eyes. He pushed back off of Tom, their lips pulling apart with a loud smack. Ryan stood up and looked as though he had just been caught committing a murder.
Brendon let out a tiny cough, then slammed the door back shut, pressing his back up against the wall beside the bathroom door and slinking down it. Holy shit. Ryan and Tom? Ryan andTom?Tom?
“What the fuck Tom!? Y’were suppose t’lock the door!” he heard Ryan yell.
Brendon stood back up onto his feet, almost tripping over them. His whole body felt numb. He took deep breaths as he walked away from that bathroom door as quickly as he possibly could without looking suspicious. Fuck.
Once he was out of the party, a rush of cold, Canadian air hit his face. The street lights displayed a soft, white glow, and revealed little snowflakes falling through the night sky. The sky was starless, Brendon hadn’t seen a proper starlit sky since he’d been in Edmonton.
He attempted to distract himself from what he had just seen while he took the short walk from Tom’s house to his own. He tried to fill his mind with thoughts of hockey; of plays, of games, of strategy. It had always been his best distraction. But that failed miserably, and his brain would trail back to the twitter fight, to their huge fight they had gotten into on the varsity bench, to every fight they’d ever gotten into on the ice and off.
As he found himself standing in front of his home, he thought back to the first exhibition game. Ryan had looked so good at that game. As he walked up the stoop, he thought maybe it was in that moment, when Brendon had seen Ryan sitting on that bench, when their eyes locked, maybe that was when Ryan had fucked Brendon up.
“How was youth group, Brendon?” he heard his father’s voice call out. Like Brendon had actually gone to youth group, he had been using it as an excuse to get away from his family for years now.
“Good,” he responded, very quickly trudging his way up the stairs and into his bedroom.
He fell backwards onto his bed, red sheets pooling around his body. He stared at the ceiling, and hoping that perhaps, if he thought hard enough, he might be able to feel the warmth of Ryan’s body beside him again.
Ryan and Tom. Brendon still couldn’t wrap his head around it. Of everyone at that party, why Tom? Why wasn’t Brendon good enough?
His mind started to trail onto a dangerous train of thought, imagining what exactly Tom and Ryan were doing in that moment. Brendon winced at the idea of Ryan sleeping with the infamous hipster.
Brendon thought that Ryan had been flirting, but he had definitely read those signals wrong.
The only thing Brendon knew for certain now was that Ryan was definitely into dudes. For sure. And that gave Brendon hope. If Ross and Oakes broke up, Brendon had a shot.
It certainly didn’t stop Brendon from being insanely jealous. When would this stupid boycrush end? It had been two months. He’d be over it soon. He had to be.
He pulled off his clothing and crawled underneath several layers of warm, flannel sheets. He pulled the extra pillow in his bed into his body, and fell asleep pretending it was Ryan.
* * *
The next morning he awoke to his text tone. He had forgotten to put his phone on mute overnight. He turned over and let out a tiny, sleepy noise, attempting to fall back asleep, but his efforts failed when it went off again.
It was still black when he looked out the window, with the exception of a few passing cars and streetlights to guide them home. Who the fuck was texting him at this hour?
He groaned and sat up, wiping sleep out of his eyes and stretching. He pulled the covers off of himself, and stood up out of bed to retrieve his phone from the pile of dirty clothes he had left there the day prior.
When he clicked the home button, he frowned to see two notifications from a number he didn’t have saved. He woke up on a Saturday for this? He looked at the time as well, it was 6:43am. His phone buzzed and binged again, a third notification from the same unknown number. He rolled his eyes and unlocked it, his curiosity getting the better of him.
His heart fell into his stomach when he read Hey this is Ryan Jon gave me your number
Holy shit. Why was Ryan texting him?
Listen I know what happened last night looked bad but it was really just Tom and I too drunk to think and it certainly wont be happening again
Oh. Ryan was the kind of guy to act gay when he was drunk, but return back to the safe grips of heterosexuality while sober. Brendon wasn’t really into the thought of that.
Please dont tell anyone about this Brendon its already bad enough with Keltie spreading shit
Ryan was that desperate? He was actually going to say please to Brendon? It was a moment of vulnerability for Ryan, Brendon supposed.
If you tell anyone I’ll fucking destroy you
Underneath, Read 6:46am appeared.
Ryan’s hands were shaking when 12 hours had come and gone, but he still had no response.