head above water Anthology
Author: yourblues
Date: 2022-08-11T05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: FanFiction; Breathplay; Face-Fucking; Lack of Communication; M/M; Other: See Story Notes; Rivals to Lovers; Under-negotiated Kink; big rat family feelings; could plausibly classify this as a quarter-life crisis; the crushing weight of one's own expectations; Men's Hockey RPF; Leon Draisaitl; Matthew Tkachuk; Leon Draisaitl/Matthew Tkachuk; Alternate Point of View; Rough Oral Sex; Frottage; Hand Jobs; Morning Sex; Brady Tkachuk; Quinn Hughes; Leon Draisaitl/Matthew Tkachuk (offscreen); Timestamp
Description: Anthology containing: head above water summer clothes dare to breathe happy trees this is for keeps
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Rights: Copyrights as per source stories

head above water by yourblues

Series: head above water [1]
Fandoms: Men’s Hockey RPF
AO3 Categories: M/M
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leon Draisaitl/Matthew Tkachuk
Characters: Leon Draisaitl, Matthew Tkachuk
Freeform Tags: Breathplay, Face-Fucking, Lack of Communication, Other: See Story Notes, Rivals to Lovers, Under-negotiated Kink, big rat family feelings, could plausibly classify this as a quarter-life crisis, the crushing weight of one’s own expectations
Status: Completed
Chapters: 8
Words: 91,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Published: 2022-08-11
Updated: 2022-08-11
Packaged: 2023-12-04 17:02:37
Summary:

Maybe Matthew’s not captain material, but he still has an A on his jersey. The end of last season was kind of a shitshow, yeah, but it’s been months since then. He’s better now, and he can prove it. There’s just the issue of a couple of DMs on his phone.

drat_29: When you get in tell me what room
drat_29: We have to talk

1. if you ain’t first, you’re last

Author’s Note:

i started writing this in february like “oh it’ll be a tight 40k and i’ll just post it before the playoffs and let it get jossed” but then, surprise, it kept growing. therefore it now exists in an alternate universe where the flames and oilers rosters this coming season are approximately the same as they were last season, even though that is laughably untrue in real life. it’s more-or-less compliant with real life up until the end of the 2022 playoffs and then i just decided to ignore reality entirely for the sake of my sanity. please just go with it. call it a fond farewell to the rat battle of alberta era.

i have at other minor points decided to ignore reality — for example, brady is still living in the mark stone rookie house simply because i thought it would be fun to write about. once again please just go with it. this is 90k of fanfiction as a vessel for feelings and porn. it is what it is.

other content notes: for my emeto pals, there is a scene where someone is mentioned puking offscreen and one where someone vomits graphically onscreen. there is canon-typical drinking. this isn’t a story where homophobia doesn’t exist — it doesn’t rise to the level of what i would consider canon-typical homophobia, but the expectation of heteronormativity is very much present, so ymmv.

huge, huge thank yous to k, n, and j for the time and effort they took beta-reading this fic and making it better. love y’all sm. also shoutout to the rat crew for supporting this hot rat summer from day one.

Matthew can hold his breath for a long time.

When they were younger, out on the lake, he and Brady would take turns sucking in big breaths and ducking under while their dad timed them. There was a technique to it: breathe in, and in, and in, and plunge down into the water. The world goes murky and quiet. Picture the seconds ticking by on Keith’s trusty stopwatch. Count them, or try to, all too aware of how your Mississippis are always just a hair too fast. Picture the seconds, picture more of them than your brother managed. When your lungs start to itch, let out half a breath. When they start to burn, let out the other half, and sink lower as the bubbles rush upward. You’ll start to feel desperate before you really are desperate. Learn to tell the difference. Don’t kick for the surface until there’s no other option. To the winner goes the bragging rights.

There was a time when Matthew won all of the Tkachuk sibling contests. Then Brady caught up in size and skill and everything turned into real competitions. Matthew could always hold his breath the longest, though.

“You’re a freak,” he can still hear Brady, small and gangly and freckle-spattered, telling him as he emerges once again with yet another new personal best.

Taryn, tiny and round-faced, chirping: “No, he’s a mermaid.”

“Merman.” Matthew, still catching his breath, bobbing off the side of the boat with the sun beating down on him. “Come on, Taryn. Merman.”

“Man’s a stretch, boy.” Keith, laughing. “Come on, Brady, you’re up.”

It’s been years since they did that. Things kind of leveled up in the sibling rivalry activities department. That doesn’t mean Matthew isn’t still the reigning champ. Besides, it’s a useful skill — he’s using it right now. He is sitting on the bottom of a pool in Toronto, holding his breath for as long as he can.

Which is a pretty long time, but eventually he has to come up for air.

“—I mean, you’re the youngest one right now, right?” Quinn is saying, sitting on the edge of the pool with his feet in the water. Brady is hanging on one of his legs, his chin propped on Quinn’s knee. “I can’t think of anyone younger who might be named one soon.”

“New York should name Lafreniere just to show you up,” Luke says. He’s up on one of the deck chairs with his phone. “For the bragging rights.”

Jack, floating on his back about six feet from Matthew: “I don’t think New York cares what Ottawa is doing. I don’t know if anyone cares what Ottawa is doing.”

“Hey,” Brady protests, but his attempt to reach for Jack is thwarted by Quinn hooking his free leg over him.

No fucking thank you. Matthew plunges back under, once again hoping that when he comes back up, they’ll have found a new topic of conversation. On the bright side, the pool at the place he and Brady are renting while they’re here for summer workouts is great. Matthew comes to rest, cross-legged, on the bottom. It’s not like being underwater in the lake — the water is too crisp and clear, too perfectly blue. The late afternoon sun glints gently on the surface, broken only by Jack’s lazy form, his hair floating around his head like a halo. Over on the side, next to the 8 FT tiled into the wall, Brady tickles the bottom of Quinn’s foot and gets kicked in the ribs for it. Matthew sees the way he flails and knows he’s laughing, even though he can’t hear it.

His lungs are burning. He starts counting anew — three Mississippi, four Mississippi — ten more seconds, come on, Tkachuk. Twelve. Fifteen.

He pushes himself up and breaks the surface with a gasp.

“Damn,” says Jack. “Thought you might’ve moved in down there.”

“Hey, you okay?” Quinn asks. To Brady, before Matthew can answer: “Is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine once we stop talking about captaincies,” Brady says. He splashes water at Luke, who ducks away with a yelp, covering his phone. “Hey, Lukey, wanna get my brother a beer?”

“No, don’t,” Matthew says, just as Luke says, “Not really.” Luke sticks his tongue out at Brady as Matthew adds, “I’m not trying to puke again tomorrow. Gary’s really kicking my ass this summer.”

“You’re kicking your own ass,” Brady says, then apparently tickles Quinn’s foot again, because Quinn jerks and makes a high-pitched noise of protest. He digs his knuckles into the top of Brady’s head while Brady makes an insufferably smug face.

“You are the most annoying person I know,” Quinn tells him.

“I’ve been telling him that his whole life,” says Matthew, swimming to the side of the pool to haul himself out. He shakes himself dry as best he can and grabs his towel and t-shirt from the deck chair he’d left them on. “I’m gonna go order dinner.”

“The usual for me,” Brady calls after him. “And put it on your own credit card this time!”

Matthew will, but only because it’s his turn to pay. They’ve been cycling through ordering from the three same places most nights, because training leaves them too exhausted to think about cooking. Also because neither of them are great cooks, but mostly the first reason.

Inside, the air is cold on Matthew’s wet skin, so he wraps the towel snug around his shoulders while he leans on the island in the kitchen, punching the order into his phone. He should ask if the Hughes boys are staying to eat. Well, Brady’s the one who invited them over, so Brady should have to deal with that, but Brady probably won’t deal with that, so. Sighing, Matthew plants his forehead on the counter for a long moment, then picks himself up and slumps back over to the sliding glass door.

“Am I ordering for two or five?” he calls.

Brady has a brief conversation with Quinn, then holds up a hand with five fingers splayed. Matthew offers him one particular finger in return and goes back inside to triple everything in the order. He has changed his mind, though — this is definitely going on Brady’s card.

Once the food is on its way, Matthew considers returning to the pool party, then goes to the living room instead, and lies on the couch with his arm over his eyes until the delivery driver rings the doorbell half an hour later. He extracts his own meal before calling the boys in for dinner, sitting back to eat while they all squabble over the wraps and sandwiches left to choose from. Eventually, they get settled around the table, shoveling food into their mouths like they haven’t eaten in days.

Matthew is too young to feel old, but the amount of raucous energy they all have makes him feel distinctly not like a kid anymore. He’s not sure how he feels about that. It should be a good thing, right? A sign of maturity. If only his coaches could see him now. So mature. What a leader.

“So, Matthew,” Jack says, grinning between bites. “How do you feel about working out with your very best friend this summer?”

“It’s a big gym,” Matthew says. “I feel like I’m going to mind my own business.”

***

When Matthew hauled his ass up from St. Louis to Toronto, he expected the same as every year: a few weeks of intense workouts with the usual guys from around the league who do their training at Gary’s. There are always a bunch of GTA guys — Robby, Shoresy, Scheif — McDavid, of course — sometimes Stamkos. Matthew and Brady aren’t the only ones who make a pilgrimage from elsewhere to train, but who they run into really depends on timing. It’s always a good chance to catch up with guys you only see a few times during the season, to maybe make some new friends, to remind yourself that your rivals are all just as human as you.

Well, except McDavid. Matthew has yet to see proof that he’s not cybernetically enhanced.

The point is, under normal circumstances, the Toronto training trip is something to look forward to. It’s the time in the summer when Matthew sets his mind seriously on the coming season, fine-tuning his workouts toward the goals he’s set for the off-season. But there was another upside he was looking forward to, which is that the training would get him out of his own head. No thoughts, just the burn in his muscles and the burn in his lungs. Let the professionals bark at him and do what he’s told until his body says uncle, and maybe he’d come out the other side better than he went in.

And for the first couple of days, it was going great. But it turns out it’s hard to do all that with Leon Draisaitl staring at him from across the room.

Draisaitl is supposed to be in Germany. He does his summer workouts in Germany. Matthew is not sure why he knows this, but he knows it the way he knows, like, Ovechkin shoots from the circle. It’s just a fact he picked up from existing in the world. So when McDavid walked in with Draisaitl in tow, Matthew was sure it was a stress dream.

Matthew doesn’t have anything against McDavid, really. Sure, there’s the whole rivalry thing, but there are Oilers that Matthew actively dislikes, and McDavid isn’t one of them. On the whole, it’s really more about Edmonton hating Matthew than Matthew hating Edmonton. McDavid seems like a pretty good guy. But if he has ruined the sanctity of Matthew’s summer training by bringing Matthew’s hottest hater in to glower at him while he lifts weights, Matthew might have to start nursing a real grudge against the guy.

All day long, he could feel Draisaitl staring at him. Sometimes he would sneak a glance and see Draisaitl chatting it up with McDavid, minding his own business, but Matthew knew in his heart that the staring was happening.

Well, in his heart, and also because Rob told him it was happening. Twice. Both times when Matthew was deep in a bench set, and Rob leaned over to whisper, “Look tough, buddy, Draisaitl’s watching,” then laughed when Matthew nearly dropped the bar.

The rivalry, again, is more about Draisaitl hating Matthew than Matthew hating Draisaitl. He seems like an okay guy, the hating Matthew part aside. Self-righteous and kind of smug, sure, but if they were on the same team, they’d probably get along. And, while there’s something fun about a guy with a face that pretty wanting nothing more than to kick your ass, there were a couple of moments last season when Matthew thought maybe they were shifting into a friendlier, more mature kind of rivalry. One specific moment, lining up next to each other right before the puck dropped on the second round, when Matthew couldn’t resist the urge to plant his hand on Draisaitl’s thigh and move him ever so slightly back to his own side of the red line.

“Careful, people might think you want to be close to me,” Matthew had said.

“Shit, we can’t have that,” Leon laughed.

But then, of course, they played the series, and nothing good came of that.

It wasn’t even that gratifying seeing the Oilers get swept afterward. Not that Matthew watched a single second of it, but Brady cheerfully kept him updated regardless of whether he cared to know or not. He knows that Draisaitl finished the series on one leg, and he knows, from seeing him in the gym doing modified exercises, that he’s not back to 100% yet. But he also knows that there’s no reason for him to be lurking around distracting Matthew from his training when he’s supposed to be on another continent.

But it’s whatever. Right now, Matthew is just trying to mind his own business and evolve as an athlete.

“I just want to know why he’s here,” he says the next morning, flat on his back in the grass. It’s early, but the sun is unforgiving. He’s drenched with sweat. They’re all out here doing strength and conditioning work today, and despite the fact that they haven’t exchanged a word, Matthew is acutely aware of which drills Draisaitl has bested him in. On the bright side, if there was a scoreboard, Matthew would be winning. Because winning at the gym when Draisaitl is kind of mostly healthy is a great consolation prize for Matthew getting his ass beat when the guy was skating around held together with duct tape and anti-inflammatories.

Rob drops down beside him, leaning back on his hands and kicking his legs out. “Well, if it’s just to fuck with you, it’s working.”

“It is not.” Matthew is still catching his breath from that last sprinting drill. He closes his eyes, letting the sun bake his face.

“Rent-free in your head, bud,” Rob says. “Totally rent-free in your head.”

“Who, Draisaitl?” Brady asks, plopping into the grass on Matthew’s other side.

“No,” says Matthew.

“Yeah,” says Rob.

“You know that has nothing to do with you, right?” Matthew eyes Brady at this. Brady shrugs. “McDavid thought it would be good for him to come work with Gary a little, you know, for his ankle rehab. He’s here for a couple more days, then Davo is dragging him to Boots.”

“’Davo’?” Rob echoes with a laugh. “Since when are you friends with him like that?”

“Wait, how do you even know all this?” Matthew asks.

Brady gives him a look like he’s deeply stupid. “I asked them. You know, like a normal person.”

Matthew punches him in the thigh. Brady offers his Gatorade bottle. Matthew opens his mouth, and Brady squeezes a stream of watered-down Cool Blue into it.

Well, that’s one mystery down. Now if Draisaitl could stop distracting him, things would be great. This was Matthew’s turf first, after all. Kind of bad sportsmanship to drop in and be mad that Matthew is here.

A minute later the strength and conditioning coaches come through to rouse them from their hydration break, loudly promising just one more circuit before they move on to stretching and recovery. That sounds great to Matthew, whose legs are a little wobbly as he gets to his feet. He did not pace himself this morning.

“Come on, bro,” Brady says, giving him a swat on the ass. “Move it. Time to go show Draisaitl what you’ve got.”

Summer training is not a competition. Except when it is.

The circuit takes them through five grueling drills for different variations of strength, speed, and agility. By the end, Matthew is huffing and puffing like he’s just finished triple overtime. But, more importantly, he’s still winning on the fake scoreboard in his head. He is feeling triumphant about this, doubled over, attempting to look like he’s stretching and not dying, when another Gatorade bottle is shoved under his nose.

“Nice work this morning,” McDavid says. “You were a beast out there.”

Matthew grabs the bottle and uses some deep reserves of willpower to straighten up and pour the drink into his mouth. Then he wipes the sweat from his eyes, blinking hard to make sure he’s not hallucinating. Not that McDavid isn’t usually nice enough, but he doesn’t usually have a noted Tkachuk-hater in tow. Maybe he’s feeling magnanimous after their playoff series.

And — ah, yes, there’s the man himself. Standing off to the side while McDavid makes this diplomatic offering, hands on his hips. Just like the rest of them, Draisaitl’s t-shirt is plastered to his torso with sweat. Matthew takes a few extra seconds to enjoy the view, because Draisaitl has done plenty of his own staring, and turnabout is fair play.

Draisaitl squints studiously off toward the sidelines.

“Thanks,” Matthew says, handing the Gatorade back. “You too,” he adds, even though he hasn’t paid a lick of attention to McDavid today.

“Davo, let’s go,” Draisaitl says.

“Have you seen my brother?” Matthew asks, finally looking around. Everyone else is finishing up their last rotations, and he lost track of Brady’s group. Matthew tries to keep an eye on him, if only to keep track of who has the bragging rights on any given day. McDavid frowns, looking between the stations, but it’s Draisaitl who jerks his chin toward the other end of the field.

“He’s doing the hurdles. Davo.”

McDavid gives Matthew a shrug and heads off with Draisaitl.

“Thanks,” Matthew says. Then, as he musters all the leg power he has left to jog over to Brady, calls after them over his shoulder, “Nice to see you too, Leon!”

***

“I’m just saying,” Rob says as he drives them home that afternoon. Even though Matthew and Brady aren’t staying at his house this year, they’ve been carpooling. “You might want to sleep with one eye open. He really looked like he was thinking about how nice your untimely demise would be.”

“Thanks, that makes me feel very safe and secure,” Matthew says. He’s got one foot up on the dashboard, trying to stretch out a sore spot in his right hamstring. “He wants to beat me, not kill me. It’s not that serious.”

“He’s German,” Rob says. “Everything is serious in German.”

“He was nice to me.” Brady pipes up from the back, sticking his face between the front seats of Rob’s SUV. “Maybe you’re the problem.”

Matthew tries to smack him, but he’s at a bad angle for it and his hand just ends up grazing Brady’s nose. Brady punches the back of his seat in retaliation.

“Yeah, Brady, tell us about your best friend Davo,” says Rob. “What did you even say to them?”

Brady looks far too smug in Matthew’s peripheral vision.

“Well, first I said, guten tag, wie geht’s—”

“You did not,” Matthew groans.

“—and then I said, just so you know, I’m not an asshole like my brother—”

“I swear to god, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“Well, see if I ever tell you my reconnaissance secrets again,” Brady huffs.

“Whoa, big word there, buddy,” Rob says. “Don’t trip on that college education.”

“Shut up, Thomas,” says Brady, aiming a noogie at Rob’s head, which turns into a scuffle, which nearly makes them run the next light.

Matthew sees it coming before the other two notice, the seconds stretching out unnaturally long as they barrel toward the busy cross-street. It shouldn’t be enough time to have a coherent thought, and yet Matthew somehow has time to see an entire future where one of those speeding sports cars rams straight into them. There’s a sickening crunch; the SUV skids and spins and fills with airbags. When they climb out of the wreckage, Rob’s got some superficial scrapes and bruises, and Brady is fine, thank fuck, but Matthew’s got a broken something and he won’t be cleared for contact until a month into the season. And somehow, it’s better that way. Just — easier for everyone. No one has to explain to him why they won’t give the C to a guy who can’t even play on opening night.

But then Brady yelps, and Rob slams on the brake. They skid to a stop with the nose of the SUV poking into the intersection. Matthew let out a breath and drops his head against his knee.

“Sorry, bro.” Rob reaches over to pat his thigh. Brady offers an apologetic ruffle of Matthew’s curls.

Matthew waves them both off. “Just don’t get us killed, you idiots.”

What grace under pressure. Incredible leadership, Tkachuk.

It’s stupid that he’s so hung up on it. The facts are the facts: it was made clear to him, going into the playoffs, that a show of exemplary leadership would be a major deciding factor in naming Calgary’s next captain. And then Matthew embarked upon a playoff run that culminated in breaking his hand in a stupid fight, rendering himself essentially useless as he notched one assist while they lost four straight games to end their season.

Sure, no one told him to his face that he blew it, but he’s not stupid. It didn’t even come up in his contract negotiations. It’s possible that’s because they were pissed he didn’t want to commit to a full eight years, but really, you can only whiff on so many one-timers before it starts to become part of your legacy. That’s not the performance anyone was looking for from a future captain.

“Me and Quinn are going for dinner,” Brady informs him once Rob drops them off, darting upstairs to change before Matthew can complain about being abandoned. He considers, briefly, texting Rob to tell him to turn around and come keep him company, but the truth is he’s not really in the mood for company. Or rather, he doesn’t feel like he’s very good company right now. He knows he’s sulking, and he’s pretty good at putting on a good face, but an evening alone with no one around to suffer through said sulking doesn’t sound like the worst idea.

Dinner is leftovers from the night before while Matthew calls his mom and lets her talk at him about the trip to Virginia in the fall she’s planning for her and Keith. Hexts Johnny some complaints about certain Oilers, texts Auston about when their Toronto schedules might align, texts Taryn about the new workout playlist she sent him. He takes a quick scroll through Instagram, sees one picture of a Cup celebration, and sets the phone back down.

Maybe he’ll go for a swim.

The water is perfect and sun-warmed. Matthew’s heart isn’t really in it, though, and after a few laps he rolls over to float instead. The sky is starting to turn pale pinks and oranges, which is a strange relief — soon it will be dark, and then Matthew can go to bed, and tomorrow he can get back to work.

You know, if Leon Draisaitl doesn’t come to murder him in the night.

Matthew takes a deep breath and sinks beneath the surface. He won’t go far without pushing himself toward the pool floor, so he floats there in limbo, two feet under. The sunset looks like a watercolor painting. He lets his feet buoy up so his toes can touch the air, but keeps the rest of him under, counting, six Mississippi, seven Mississippi. It’s much harder to stay down this close to the surface. He doesn’t set any new records, but it’s not like there’s anyone around to witness anyway.

After a Gatorade, a shower, and a check-in with Brady to make sure he’s coming back to the house tonight, Matthew flops onto the couch and gives Instagram another shot. A lot of his guys are posting their vacation photos or summer workout pics; he dutifully doles out likes and drops some chirps in the comments where they’re necessary. Brady has posted a story of Quinn with a guacamole-laden chip halfway into his mouth, looking like he has just realized his picture is being taken and is not thrilled about it. After that are two pictures of beaches, a large fish, another workout pic.

Which reminds him.

Matthew can admit it’s pure curiosity that has him going to McDavid’s account to see if he’s giving the people a glimpse into their dynamic duo working out together in the off-season. He can even admit it’s a little bit of pettiness that has him toss McDavid a follow while he’s there. That’s what McDavid gets for offering Matthew his Gatorade. All that’s there, though, are a couple of pictures of McDavid working out from before Draisaitl showed up, and a nearly expired story that’s a selfie of them, half-smiling, heads close together: @drat_29 in the GTA.

Of course Matthew taps on Draisaitl’s handle. Of course he does. If nothing else, maybe there’ll be a photo of him from today with his sweaty shirt stuck to his abs, which would make this social media journey at least a little bit worthwhile.

No such luck. But there is one of him from the day before, mid-pull-up in the gym while McDavid judges from the side. He has tagged McDavid, Gary Roberts Hockey Training, and Puma. The caption is a flexed arm emoji. It is, objectively, very boring.

🔥🔥, Matthew types in the comments.

He’s not trying to antagonize. The guy’s physical prowess really is worth at least two fire emojis. If Draisaitl takes it the wrong way, that’s on him. If anyone asks, Matthew was just making friends.

***

At the gym, Matthew minds his own business. This is not something he’s always great at, but when it comes down to it, he knows when to put his head down and focus. That’s what he was supposed to be doing this whole time, and he was doing a pretty good job of it until the Oilers leadership brigade rolled up. He gave into a couple of impulses to be annoying — and who can blame him, really? — but now he is back to the business of minding his business. He’s not tracking anyone else’s drills or progress. He’s not keeping a scoreboard in his head for anything except for last season Matthew vs new season Matthew, and he’s going to crush that guy.

His brother, though, has other plans. Captain Brady of the Ottawa Senators is out here networking like it’s a gala reception.

“Traitor,” Matthew hisses after Brady has his second casual chat of the day with the wrong half of Alberta. It’s not very threatening, because he is currently stuck on the floor with his hips twisted while one of the training coaches foam rolls his left glute, but it has to be said.

“Who, me?” Brady asks. He plops onto the floor next to Matthew, kicking one of his long, gangly legs out and pulling his other heel in to stretch while they talk. “I’m just being friendly.”

“Well, it’s distracting. Jesus, ow.” Matthew grits his teeth as the foam roller rolls over a particularly tight knot. His whole body feels like a particularly tight knot lately.

“Do we have to have that conversation about relaxing again?” Jesse the trainer asks.

Brady rolls his eyes. “He hasn’t relaxed in years.”

“Shut up, Brady,” says Matthew.

“For the love of god, Chucky, please relax,” says Jesse.

“I am relaxed.”

That earns him a bop on the head with the foam roller.

“You see what we put up with?” Brady asks. He grabs the ball of his extended foot, glancing around the gym as he stretches. “Anyway, like. Tim thinks Draisaitl is so cool. I’m trying to get him an in to be real buddies instead of just text buddies.”

“Is being German not enough of an in?” Matthew grumbles. Brady just laughs, well aware that Matthew isn’t going to argue with him about going out on a limb for a teammate.

Matthew kind of wishes he had a teammate around right now. He’s feeling a little outnumbered. Rob’s one of his best friends, sure, and Brady’s kind of required to be on Matthew’s side if they’re not up against each other, but it’s different than with his Calgary boys. Guys who have been in the trenches at the Battle of Alberta. If Johnny or Hanny or Monny were here they could talk shit and understand exactly where they all were coming from.

Not that the Edmonton contingent is bothering Matthew on purpose — they are minding their own business too. But they’re throwing off the vibes.

When Jesse is done foam rolling the hell out of all of his lower body muscles, Matthew trudges to the nearest water station on his jell-o legs. He didn’t wake up grumpy, but his mood has been spiraling steadily downward all day. Hydrating might help. Well, it probably won’t, but he has a lot more work to do today so he should do it anyway. He fills his water bottle, chugs half, fills it again, and stands there sipping while he does a cursory Instagram scroll, knowing full well the chances of seeing another fucking Cup picture and making the mood worse is plenty high.

It takes him a moment, upon being confronted with Draisaitl’s face on his feed, to realize why the fuck Draisaitl’s face is on his feed. Because, right, he followed McDavid. Really brilliant move on his part — now there are two things on his feed that are annoying him right now.

And it’s a good fucking picture, which is just so unnecessary. Draisaitl is crouched barefoot in the grass with McDavid’s big, fluffy Bernedoodle, his face scrunched in a laugh as the dog licks his cheek. If someone took a picture of Matthew like that, he would immediately post it so all the boys could comment about how he’s fishing, because he would absolutely be fishing. Lenny and Leo. Dream team! says the caption, punctuated by a dog emoji.

Matthew stares at the photo, getting more annoyed the longer he looks at it. Then someone drops a weight with a clang, and he jumps. His thumb slips. The little heart turns red.

Well.

You know what, he’ll leave it. Maybe it’ll confuse and distract the enemy or something.

He grumps through the rest of the day, doing his best to direct his ire at Brady instead of at any coaches or trainers or unsuspecting bystanders. What are little brothers for, if not to channel Matthew’s annoyances into? Besides, Brady thinks it’s funny. He makes no less than five jokes about Draisaitl living rent-free in Matthew’s head, which just makes Matthew more annoyed, because first of all, he is not, and second of all, that’s not the reason for the mood. Matthew’s not sure what it is, exactly. A combination of a lot of things, and nothing in particular, all rolled up into one and making him feel shitty today.

He does his best to concentrate on his workout, but for the rest of the day all he thinks about is going home and sinking to the bottom of the pool for a while. He can technically leave whenever he wants, but he’ll feel shittier if he doesn’t get through his work. Also, he has to wait for Rob unless he wants to call an Uber, which just feels excessive. He’s so in his own head about all of it that he doesn’t even notice when Brady and Rob hit the showers until after they’ve vacated the gym floor. With a sigh of relief, he packs it in and heads for the dressing room. A quick shower, the short ride home, and then he can sulk in the pool all he wants.

“What are you doing?”

Matthew has his shirt halfway off. He pulls it back down and turns with a sigh.

“Well, right now, I’m trying to go take a shower,” he says.

Draisaitl looks unimpressed, but then again, he generally only has two facial expressions for looking at Matthew anyway: unimpressed, and pissed off. Sometimes both at once, if he’s feeling spicy.

“No, I mean.” Draisaitl gestures with his phone, as if Matthew should know what he means. Unfortunately, Matthew does know what he means, and knows for a fact that feigning innocence is not his strong suit. He tries anyway.

“Not sure what you mean,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest, then hooking his thumbs into his pockets, trying to look casual. For some reason he has forgotten how he stands in normal circumstances. He can’t figure out what to do with his hands. Not that Draisaitl isn’t going to know that Matthew is fucking with him regardless. That’s kind of the point.

“Right,” says Draisaitl, fifty shades of skeptical, then when Matthew raises his eyebrows questioningly, adds, “On Instagram?”

Matthew shrugs. “Just making friends.”

“No, you’re not.”

To Draisaitl’s credit, he knows how to not make a scene. He’s keeping his voice down, keeping his stance loose. There are some other guys in the dressing room, and only a couple of them seem to have noticed this little confrontation.

“Says you,” Matthew says. “Where’s your fearless leader?”

“Davo? With the trainer.”

“I’m just saying, he’ll be friends with me.” Matthew bends to swipe his own phone from his gym bag. “Are you mad I followed him and not you? Because I can fix that.” Just a few taps and swipes, and he’s got his thumb hovering threateningly over the follow button.

Draisaitl squints at him. “Why do you think I care?”

“Ouch,” says Matthew, but shrugs and pockets the phone. “Your loss, man.”

“I’m sure,” Draisaitl says, so deadpan that Matthew is tempted to check for a pulse.

“Yeah, okay,” he says. “Look, good luck next season, eh?”

He goes to squeeze Draisaitl’s shoulder, fully aware of how annoying that will be, but he’s still surprised by how quickly Draisaitl catches him by the wrist. Draisaitl himself even seems a little startled by it, and it’s his hand doing the grabbing.

Well, at least Matthew isn’t the only one in this gym too tightly wound for his own good.

Without dislodging Draisaitl’s grip, Matthew takes a step closer to give him two pats on the meat of his bicep.

“I mean it,” he says, unable to help his smirk. “I’d miss you if you got traded somewhere warm and sunny.”

Draisaitl continues to look unimpressed. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

The guy really does have a handsome fucking face. And like, there’s the rest of him, but Matthew’s never been this close to him without full gear and a shouting match, and it is really something. His eyes are bluer than expected.

This, of course, is when McDavid walks in.

“Sorry about tha— Leo, what the fuck?” he asks, but in more of an amused way than an offended way. Draisaitl drops Matthew’s arm like a hot potato.

“Just making friends,” Matthew offers. He rubs his wrist where it’s warm from Draisaitl holding it. His heart rate is weirdly high, and he would really like that shower now. A cold one.

“Yeah, okay,” says McDavid. He hits Draisaitl in the shoulder. “Come with me, I want to show you something. I mean, you know, if you don’t mind me stealing him.” This last part, heavy on the irony, is for Matthew, who waves off his concern.

“No, please, fuck off,” he says. He doesn’t say it with malice, but he does say it with some urgency, and, as soon as McDavid shrugs his goodbye, he turns to crouch and dig through his gym bag. Just for something to do while the pair of them get out of the room. Not because he’s offended or anything, or wouldn’t have otherwise been happy to keep chatting. Chatting, or, you know, goading. A little of both. Not because of any of that. Just because, god, his dick is so hard right now.

***

Another afternoon in the pool. The heat hasn’t broken yet, but their rental house faces west, so the backyard is mostly shaded and almost pleasant as Matthew floats, eyes closed, replaying the Draisaitl confrontation over in his head. Not his finest hour. Not the part where his dick got interested. That’s not exactly unexpected, and kind of funny. But Matthew really does prefer to leave that kind of sniping on the ice. He’s not the guy who talks shit to the press, and he’s not the guy who picks fights away from the game. He was just in such a shitty mood.

He’s still feeling prickly, but better than earlier. While he drifts in the pool, Brady and Quinn sit on adjacent lounge chairs, scrolling on their phones more than chatting. When they first got home, Rob had hung out until he had to take off for dinner with his girlfriend. They played some makeshift water polo, him and Rob versus Quinn and Brady, which was a great excuse for Matthew to throw some elbows and get some aggression out. God, he misses hockey. It’s such a weird combination, the dread about the letter on his jersey and the anticipation of getting back out there. What he really wishes is that it was still last season. Last season was one of the best seasons of his life until he choked. So much for being clutch in key moments.

But that’s another ship that’s sailed. If Matthew were smart, he’d get the fuck over it, so he can show up to camp in the fall with a clear head, ready to do it better this time.

“Ugh,” says Quinn, flopping back on the deck chair. He places his phone on his face and sighs.

“Hey.” Brady stretches a leg across the space between their chairs to prod Quinn with his toes. “None of that. Who do I need to beat up for you?”

“Violence is not the answer, Brady,” Quinn says, but moves his phone to look at him. “You sure you don’t wanna come to Boots? One of my buddies just said he can’t make it, so there’s room in the RV.”

“You know I can’t. Some of the BU boys are in town, I promised I’d see them.”

With a groan, Quinn sits back up to type on his phone. “I see how it is. You went off to Boston and made all your college friends—”

“You’ve literally had me to yourself all week,” Brady says. “I can’t help that I’m popular.”

Quinn glances sideways at him with a grin.

“I’ll go,” says Matthew.

They both stop to look at him. It’s possible they forgot he was there.

“To Boots,” he clarifies, propping both his elbows on the edge of the pool. “If your buddy wants someone to take his ticket, I mean. Sounds like fun.”

“Sure, yeah,” says Quinn. He exchanges a look with Brady that Matthew cannot read in the slightest, then shrugs and gets back to typing. “I’ll tell him and text you all the info. We’re heading up tomorrow after lunch.”

“That’ll cut into your workout time,” says Brady, smirking. “You sure you can handle that?”

“Fuck off. Thanks, Q. We’ll have more fun without him, anyway.”

“For sure,” Quinn laughs, then yelps and rolls off the chair as Brady tries to kick him.

Matthew takes a deep breath and plunges back into the water.

So, that night finds Matthew packing a duffel bag for a long weekend in bumfuck nowhere, Ontario, feeling guilty about skipping out on what’s probably going to wind up being three full days of workouts. It’s so annoying when Brady is right. Changing his mind now would come off as super weird, though, so he’s committed to it. Besides, maybe he does need a break. Maybe that’s why he jumped at the opening to go. Call it a mental health break. People are all about the mental health stuff lately.

He is sitting on his bed, staring at a stack of t-shirts and polos, trying to decide how many is enough to get him through what is sure to be a very sweaty, drunk experience, when Brady knocks on the doorframe. He’s in the boxer shorts and oversized t-shirt that he sleeps in, his hair still wet from the shower.

“Hey,” says Matthew. “How many shirts for a four-day festival?”

“At least double the days,” says Brady. He comes to lean against the dresser in Matthew’s room, next to the bed. “You’re definitely gonna get beer spilled on you, so. Eight, I guess.”

“So they did teach you math in college,” Matthew says, grabbing two handfuls of shirts and shoving them into the bag.

Brady drums his fingers against the dresser. Scuffs a foot against the carpet.

“Did you want something?” Matthew asks.

“Nope,” says Brady. “Just, uh. Checking in.”

Matthew stretches to grab last season’s team hoodie from the foot of the mattress. “Don’t be weird. Tell me what you want.”

“Nothing!” Brady protests. Matthew gives him a flat look. Brady folds his arms across his chest. “You’re leaving all weekend, maybe I just wanted to hang out a little, geez.”

“Yeah, okay,” says Matthew, but Brady doesn’t budge, frowning and fidgeting with a hangnail, and it occurs to Matthew that he’s serious.

It’s been kind of nice, sharing the house with Brady while they’re up here training. They have plenty of space, so it’s not like they’ve been all up in each other’s business, but it’s pretty rare that it’s just the two of them for an extended amount of time, no other friends or family members attached. They’ve done all right for themselves. Three square meals a day and everything. Plenty of friends coming over to hang out, but also plenty of time just the two of them, sprawled on opposite ends of the sectional in the den, watching sports or reality TV and fucking around on their phones.

Matthew’s grand plans for the evening were to finish packing, maybe jerk off, maybe think about Draisaitl a little while jerking off, just to try it out, then take a melatonin and attempt to get a good night’s sleep before he’s stuck in an RV with the Hughes brothers for four days. He can push all of that back a couple hours.

“Okay,” he says again. He scoops up his clothes and the duffel, dumping them off the side of the bed, and pats the duvet. “Wanna watch a movie?”

They kill the lights and watch The King’s Man, each of them on their own half of the mattress with Matthew’s laptop on the bed between them. For the first half, they trade chirps about who would die first in various espionage situations and who would be able to pull off the 1902 fashions, but by the second half, Brady is out, snoring lightly with his head lolled back at an awkward angle. He looks very stupid. Matthew should take a picture. It would serve him right for derailing Matthew’s plans.

Instead, he tugs the pillows so Brady won’t break his neck. He stops the movie and sets the laptop on the dresser. He gets himself ready for bed, brushing his teeth, washing his face, taking a piss, and by the time he’s done, Brady hasn’t moved, so Matthew gets one of the soft, heavy throw blankets from the living room and lays it over him. Pops that melatonin. Slides under the other half of the covers and tries to sleep.

***

Boots and Hearts is a massive, sprawling, sweaty mess of a music festival.

The RV they’ve got for the weekend is just big enough for the extended Hughes party of six to live in without anyone suffocating. There’s a big, sinfully comfortable couch along one side of it, a bar-style dining space along the other, and a massive flat-screen affixed above the kitchenette. In the back end, bunks for everyone and a bathroom nicer than in some hotels Matthew’s seen. It’s parked in a primo camping space near the edge of the RV park, a short walk from the fairgrounds, and packed to the gills with supplies — ‘supplies’ here mostly meaning food and beer. The first couple of days have been full of drinking and dancing, competitive cornhole and grilling burgers, beer pong with people Matthew’s never met before and will never see again, although a couple of them asked for selfies, so they will surely remember it more clearly than Matthew.

It’s a good reminder not to lose himself too much, no matter how much he’d like to. He’s not a superstar, but he’s not anonymous. If he does something boneheaded it will absolutely end up on the internet with ten thousand retweets about what a goon he is, and while he doesn’t really care what people on the internet think, it’d still be annoying to deal with.

The music is great. The Hughes boys are a trip. Matthew has known them for over a decade, but they’re too young to have ever been in his age bracket growing up, so he hasn’t had much one-on-one time with them. They’re good guys, great hockey players. Easy to hang out with, generous with their snacks and drinks, and have never heard of personal space in their lives. Luke is a lightweight, so he’s always giggling; Jack keeps disappearing for long stretches and when Matthew asks where he’s gone, the Hughes’ other buddies grin and say, “Just making friends,” while Quinn groans into his beer.

Matthew likes Quinn. He’s basically been a second brother to Brady. Matthew probably owes him some drinks for that.

Late on Friday — or, very early Saturday morning — it’s just the two of them, finishing a couple of beers before they pack it in for the night. It’s the most pleasant part of the day, weather-wise — when the humidity has dissipated and it’s almost cool enough for a sweatshirt. Almost. The pair of them are sitting outside the RV in folding chairs, Matthew with his feet kicked up in an extra empty one. The rest of the crew has turned in for the night, except for Jack, who is playing flip cup with a group of people a couple of campsites over. They can’t see him, but every couple of minutes that boisterous laugh breaks through the night, followed by a distinctive, “Let’s go, baby!”

Quinn, who half an hour ago was rubbing Luke’s back while he vomited behind the RV and then tucking him into bed with plenty of Gatorade, grins to himself every time this happens.

“He’s quite the kid,” Matthew says after the fourth or fifth time. He’s at the level of buzzed where it would be way too easy to let his own problems spill out of him, and he needs some sort of conversation to distract him so that doesn’t happen.

Quinn laughs, shaking his head.

“He’s a nightmare,” he says, his tone making it obvious that he thinks the exact opposite.

“Good at making friends, though,” Matthew says, and Quinn rolls his eyes and kicks the chair Matthew’s feet are in.

“Speaking of friends. It’s cool that you came. Sorry if Luke got any puke on you.”

“Nah, I got away in time.”

“Good.” Quinn gives him a lopsided smile. “Brady likes it when we hang out, you know. He’s always bugging me to see if you’re free for dinner or whatever when I’m in Calgary.”

“He wants you to spy on me,” Matthew jokes, but adds, “No, I usually am, though. Just text me or whatever.”

“If I don’t get a better offer,” Quinn says, then tips back the rest of his beer and shoots the can like a basketball into the empty cooler they’ve been using for garbage.

“You heading in?” Matthew asks. Quinn shakes his head.

“Gonna wait up.” He nods in the general direction of Jack’s new friends’ campsite. “It’s quiet hours at two anyway, so he’ll be back soon. Don’t feel like you have to stay up, though.”

Matthew shrugs. “Not tired yet.”

They fall into a silence, comfortable on Quinn’s part, moody on Matthew’s. Somewhere nearby, someone is playing an old Tim McGraw album on tinny portable speakers. As Matthew catches up on group texts and socials, he weighs the pros and cons of posting something about the festival. Pros: he could buy a big cowboy hat for the photos. Could make some sort of quip about how it’s fun but no Stampede. The hometown fans would like that. But if he’s gonna post, at this point in the off-season, it should probably be workout pics. Or he should just wait until the season starts.

When he sees that McDavid has posted a story, of course he taps on it right away, but it takes a moment for him to put together that the stage the video is panning over is the same stage he was watching earlier that night, just from a different vantage point.

Matthew puts down his phone and resists the urge to smack himself in the face.

“Hey, Q,” he says. “McDavid does Boots every year, doesn’t he?”

Quinn grins. “Yeah, but don’t worry. It’s really hard to run into someone here unless you do it on purpose.”

“Thank god for that,” Matthew mumbles, and goes back to click through his actual friends’ stories. He’s pretty sure Brady literally told him McDavid and Draisaitl were coming here, too. No wonder Brady and Quinn were looking at each other like Matthew was out of his gourd. Or worse, maybe they thought that’s why he wanted to come. Which is absolutely ridiculous. He’s here because he needed a break.

Quinn is right about one thing, though: it’s not long before Jack wanders back into camp.

“Hey, night owls!” he greets them, lifting a red plastic cup in toast. His plaid shirt is unbuttoned and there are wayfarer sunglasses that he did not start the day with shoved up into his hair.

“Hey, yourself,” Quinn says, plunging a hand into the cooler that’s not filled with trash to fish out a Gatorade. He tosses it to Jack, who drops the red cup to catch it. “Drink that.”

“Yes, sir.” Jack drops into a folding chair to do just that, kicking his feet up in the same chair Matthew is using.

While Jack and Quinn chat about their plans for the next day, Matthew taps over to Draisaitl’s Instagram, because if he has posted any photos in big cowboy hats, Matthew deserves to see them. But, no, there’s only a snapshot of him and McDavid with a group of people Matthew doesn’t recognize, captioned Excited to check out #bootsandhearts with @mcdavid97!

“Boring,” Matthew mutters under his breath.

“What’s that, buddy?” Jack asks, tapping his foot against Matthew’s ankle.

Matthew shakes his head. “Nothing important.”

***

It’s about halfway through the next day that Matthew starts to feel peopled out. Or, not peopled out, exactly. The people are fine. It’s himself Matthew is sick of.

He’s been drinking all day, trying to achieve the level of carefree that everyone around him woke up with. It’s not that he’s not having fun — he’s having plenty of fun. They hit the fairgrounds as soon as the music started and have been going strong ever since. Matthew keeps buying rounds for the boys, when Quinn doesn’t beat him to his wallet. Some guy in a Kings t-shirt asks Matthew to pose for a photo where they’re pretending to fight each other, which is pretty funny. It’s just that between the fun moments, he remembers how annoyed he is, and there apparently aren’t enough drinks in the world to get over that.

Matthew’s dad always says that wallowing in self-pity is for guys who aren’t willing to put in the work, and if Matthew has been doing one thing this summer, it’s putting in the fucking work. His dad also says to always be a good teammate, and he’s not going to be the bad teammate of the Boots crew.

What he needs is a break from his break.

“I’m gonna go check out the merch,” he yells in Quinn’s ear over the opening chords of the next set. Quinn nods and slaps his back a few times.

“Text me if you lose us,” he yells back.

Matthew doesn’t really care about the merch. He buys a fresh beer and takes a long, meandering lap around the fairgrounds, people-watching, listening to the music, contemplating and then deciding against several big cowboy hats. The sun is starting to get low, and the air is hazy with dust kicked up by thousands of boots. There’s a surreal feeling to it, like there’s some sort of bubble between Matthew and the people around him. Like he’s experiencing everything from a dimension that’s slightly askew from reality. It reminds him of when he had his concussion. His mom came to take care of him then, and honestly, if he could lie down right now until she brought him some soup, he probably would.

Well, maybe not soup. It’s fucking hot outside. This makes him think he could probably use some water, so he finds a concession stand, buys a bottle, and chugs it all in one go. He feels slightly more human after, and then he finds a restroom to take a piss, which also makes him feel more human. When he reemerges into the heavy summer air, he takes a moment to stand there with his face turned up, letting the late afternoon sun beat down on him. He takes a deep breath. He can turn this day around.

Matthew is still standing there at the crossroads between restroom and concessions, trying to decide if he wants another beer before he finds the guys again, when a familiar voice says about three feet to his left, “Oh, you are fucking kidding me.”

Well, there’s something to turn the day around. Or to turn it somewhere, anyway.

Matthew turns, grinning, and spreads his arms wide.

“In the flesh.”

Draisaitl does not look thrilled to see him. Draisaitl doesn’t look thrilled about anything, actually: his hair is sweaty and matted, his t-shirt sticking in patches to his chest. Just like every other person at the festival, his shoes and calves are coated in dirt, bits of grass stuck to the soft ankle brace sticking out of his right sneaker. His cheeks are flushed, and his face is screwed into a scrutinizing look that’s not quite a glare. Matthew suspects he, too, is at least a little bit drunk.

“You don’t seem excited to see me,” Matthew says.

Draisaitl rubs a hand on his face, raking it back through his hair. “What are you doing here?”

“Just here with some of the boys. Having some brewskis, enjoying the tunes. The real question is—” Matthew throws an arm across Draisaitl’s shoulders, steering him toward the nearest beer stand. To his surprise, Draisaitl allows this. Presumably Draisaitl just needs a beer to deal with the trauma of running into Matthew. “—what are you doing here? First you show up at my summer workouts. Now this. Are you stalking me? It’s okay if you are, I’ll understand, the real shame would be in lying about it.”

“Holy shit, you talk so much,” says Draisaitl. He shrugs off Matthew’s arm, then counts off his next two points on his fingers. “Came to work out with Davo. Came here with Davo. Both his idea. And kind of regretting it now.”

“Ouch,” Matthew says “Careful, I’m gonna start to think you don’t like me.”

“I didn’t think that was a question.”

“Double ouch.” As if this is news. There’s something about the way Draisaitl says it, though, that feels a little bit negotiable. Or maybe Matthew’s just drunk. Whichever. “You hate me too much to let me buy you a beer? Call it a temporary peace offering.”

Draisaitl snorts. “Yeah, I guess.”

The whole five minutes they spend in line, Matthew wonders if someone in the masses is going to notice the Kodak moment happening under their noses. Sworn enemies calling a truce to buy overpriced festival drinks together. They don’t have much of a conversation — Draisaitl shrugs about which artists he’s liked best so far; Matthew pokes at him about what the McDavid crew is up to (watching from the VIP area, of course, so that Connor can enjoy the show without being mobbed by his adoring public). Draisaitl mostly keeps his eyes on the beer up ahead, so Matthew takes advantage of the opportunity to sneak a few glances. Usually if they were this close together they’d be two seconds from a roughing minor. Draisaitl is about as sweaty and grumpy as he’d be if they were two seconds from a roughing minor, and still annoyingly good-looking. But that’s true on the ice, too. Some fucking magic ability to stay handsome when he’s sweaty and grumpy. And if he starts grinning that grin he grins when he’s pissed off, look out. Mister October from the Hot Hockey Players Charity Calendar coming at you. Sure, he might murder you, but at least those pretty eyes will be the last thing you see.

When Matthew gets sweaty and grumpy, he kind of looks like a drowned rat. He looks good enough the rest of the time, but. Geez.

When they get to the front, Matthew buys them each a Coors Light tallboy. Draisaitl holds up his can.

“To kicking your ass again next season,” he deadpans. Matthew returns the toast with all the solemnity he can muster.

“You bet.”

They take long drinks, and then they stand there, eyeing the crowd. It is not the most awkward moment of Matthew’s life, but it’s up there. He should go find the guys, and he is sure Draisaitl will be relieved to escape back to McDavid and company, and yet the actual words ‘okay see you in the fall when it’s time to punch each other in the face’ do not seem willing to come out of his mouth. He waits for Draisaitl to say something. Or to just leave. That would be appropriate.

Matthew looks at Draisaitl. Draisaitl takes another drink, looking right back. It’s still not quite a glare. More of a sizing up.

Maybe, Matthew thinks, now is the time for an olive branch. Far away from the ice, far away from Alberta winters. They’ll never be best buddies, but acquaintances might be okay.

He opens his mouth to say something, and is interrupted by a shriek, a shout, and a big beefy guy barrelling into both of them. Beers go flying. The guy’s elbow catches Matthew in the sternum. Wheezing, Matthew catches him by the arm and barely keeps the two of them from toppling over.

“What the fuck?” Draisaitl yelps.

“Oh, shit, sorry, bro, I’m sorry,” the human wrecking ball says, giggling as Matthew tries to set him upright. He’s clearly wasted to a degree that makes Matthew feel almost sober by comparison.

“Hey, Jackson! Buddy! Dude, get it together!” Wrecking ball’s friends appear, a six-pack of equally shitfaced dudes, all of them in tank tops and backwards BOOTS snapbacks. They gather their buddy from Matthew with lots of shoulder-pounding and back-patting. “C’mon, man, we’re gonna miss Flaga Line!”

“Maybe mix in a water at some point, too,” Matthew offers, somewhat hypocritically. The group seems to realize then that it was real live people their pal just fell on.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry, fellas,” one of them says, but another stops short, squinting hard at them.

“The fuck,” he whispers, then points at Draisaitl. “Sorry to you only.” Points at Matthew. “Fuck you, dude. Fuck you big time.”

“Uh,” says Matthew.

“Okay, we’re going now,” Draisaitl says, grabbing Matthew by the wrist as various levels of recognition start to dawn on the frat party’s faces.

It takes a moment for Matthew’s brain to catch up with his feet as he’s yanked away. They stumble to a stop further from the main stage, with a hearty group of partiers between them and where they left their new best friends. The sudden dash made Matthew nauseous, so he doubles over breathing for a moment. There’s a big splotch of spilt beer on his t-shirt.

God, he did not just freeze back there. Fucking embarrassing. Bunch of sloppy-drunk bros from Kingston or some shit and the best he had was uh. He’s roughed it up with guys bigger than them, with dozens more bouts under their belts. Besides, he doesn’t freeze. He acts. He steps the fuck up. That’s kind of the point of him. God, he needs to get out of his own head before next season starts.

“We could have taken them,” he says as he straightens up. And to think a minute ago he was thinking this might be a turning point. Just a nice moment in the sunset with a guy who loathes him. Too much to ask for, apparently.

“You could have taken them,” Draisaitl says. “Ugh, look at this.”

Unlike Matthew, who just got a splash, the entire front of Draisaitl’s shirt is soaked.

“Shit,” says Matthew, reaching out to pluck the fabric where it’s plastered to Draisaitl’s stomach. It sticks with a stubborn sucking sound when he pulls at it. Draisaitl bats his hand away, making a face. “Sorry, man.”

“I think it’s not your fault. Mostly. This time.” Draisaitl grabs his shirt by the back of the neck and peels it off. Twisting it between his hands, he wrings a drizzle of beer from it. “Ugh. Where’s the closest, uh, merch booth? I’m not wearing this all night.”

“Could just go without,” Matthew says, in a way he would not have said half-sober. God. Very smooth, Tkachuk.

“Not doing that, either.”

“So get one from your camp.”

“Don’t have a camp.” Draisaitl pushes up on his toes to look around.

Turns out the McDavid camp is not actually camping — they have a bloc of hotel rooms. Which makes sense when you’re Connor McDavid trying to enjoy yourself, but it kind of misses the point of the festival. Specifically, the part of the festival that’s about being a mess with easy access to a place to pass out. Regardless, Matthew can’t help but feel like the current situation is kind of his fault, which is how he finds himself saying, “We’re in an RV. Just come borrow one.”

Draisaitl gives him the world’s most skeptical look.

“I’m serious,” Matthew says. “And then you can go back to McDavid, and I’ll go figure out where the hell my guys are, and we can forget about all this until the next time you want to kill me, and then maybe suddenly you remember that I was nice to you, causing a tiny moment of hesitation, which lets me steal the puck and score a game-winner so pretty you have to say in the post-game that you almost respect it. Sound good?”

Matthew seems to have developed a pathological inability to shut up. Draisaitl’s face has only grown more skeptical.

“I’m gonna say no to all that,” he says slowly. “But yes to a shirt. Is that allowed?”

“Eh, I guess so.” Matthew throws his arm around Draisaitl’s shoulders to steer him toward the RV park, laughing when Draisaitl immediately shrugs it off again. There’s just something about the guy that makes getting under his skin extra fun. There’s more of an art to it than with someone who will just snap and drop the gloves.

It’s not a long walk from the festival grounds to the RV park, but the way the noise level drops off as they get away from the stages makes it feel like crossing into a different world. Not that it’s quiet, exactly — it’s barely dusk. The party is just getting started. The campgrounds are in full tailgate mode, music being pumped from truck stereos and portable speakers, loud laughter, people chatting and hooting and hollering as far as the ear can hear. But it’s a separate thing from the amped-up music and dancing masses inside the gate, and as the sun goes down, the heat of the day is breaking. Matthew breathes in the smell of earth and grill smoke.

“Do you come here a lot?” Draisaitl asks as they kick up dirt on the wide, packed path between campgrounds. There’s an air to the question that conveys a distinct mood of well, I guess this is happening.

“Not really,” Matthew says. “The Hughes boys come sometimes. I just tagged along this year.”

“Davo comes every year,” says Draisaitl. “I just came with him this year. Well. It was his idea. Usually I’m in Germany.”

“Well then,” Matthew says, feeling strangely smug about this, “I guess we were just meant to find each other.”

Draisaitl smacks him with the wet t-shirt.

“Oof, dirty pool,” Matthew says, aiming a jab at Draisaitl’s ribs, which he twists easily away from to whip Matthew right across the ass. Matthew whirls with his fists up only to find Draisaitl with his hands raised in surrender, both eyebrows up, the corners of his mouth turned down comically in a farce of innocence. Matthew huffs and punches him once in the shoulder, not even hard.

“Ow,” Draisaitl says, covering the spot Matthew hit. “Two for roughing, for sure.”

“No way,” Matthew protests, but then he sees Draisaitl’s smirk and rolls his eyes. “Asshole.”

This is dangerous. Matthew is having fun. And if Draisaitl hits him with that shirt again, things are going to get awkward down south really fast.

“Takes one to know one,” Draisaitl says as they resume their trek.

“So you admit it,” says Matthew.

Draisaitl shrugs. “Maybe.”

Matthew cannot read his tone at all. Maybe if he hadn’t started drinking before noon he’d be better at parsing the nuances of hot, cagey guys who hate him. In his defense, he didn’t think he would have to deal with anything resembling nuance today. And also in his defense, Draisaitl is distracting. He’s shirtless, and sweaty, and Matthew can see the tan line at the waistband of his Puma shorts. Matthew’s fucked guys who like him less than Draisaitl does. It’s kind of fun. Who knows if Draisaitl would be good in bed, but he’d for sure look good with his clothes off.

File that under things not to say out loud. Matthew shakes himself back to reality.

“So for that t-shirt you’re borrowing,” he says. “I’m thinking shirsey? Nice flaming C on the front, big Tkachuk 19 on the back? So you don’t forget who it belongs to.”

“No,” says Draisaitl.

“That’s fine, I don’t actually have one anyway.” Matthew waits a beat. “What about a big Gaudreau 13?”

“Fuck off.”

Matthew grins up at the last streaks of sunset over their heads. “You’re killing me, buddy, you really are.”

***

To Matthew’s relief, the campsite is empty. He was fairly sure it would be, but there was always the chance someone had wandered back and he would have to explain why he’s got one of his most noted haters in tow. Not that there’s not a good reason for it, but the commentary would definitely ruin the perfectly civil mood

“Here we are,” he says, punching in the access code on the door. “Home sweet home.”

“Nice place,” says Draisaitl. As they traipse up the steps into the RV, he steadies himself with a hand on the back of Matthew’s hip, which is possibly the most distracting thing Matthew has ever felt in his life. His feet stop moving of their own volition. He takes a moment to consider that maybe he hallucinated the touch, but then Draisaitl pokes him in the back.

“If it’s a mess in there, too late,” he says.

“It’s not a mess.” It’s not spic-and-span or anything, but they haven’t been here long enough to create a real disaster area. There are some empty beer cans lying around and a stack of used red solo cups rolling on the floor, a pile of Jack’s clothes on the couch, an open bag of all-dressed chips. It was messier when Matthew rolled out of bed this morning. Quinn probably cleaned up the worst of it, because Quinn is that kind of guy.

It would be stupid for Matthew to be nervous right now. All he has to do is grab a t-shirt he won’t mind never seeing again and send the guy on his way. And yet his palms are sweaty. The back of his neck is hot. Inside the RV, it really is quiet.

Draisaitl pokes him again, not gently.

“Will you stop that?” Matthew twists to bat his hand away.

Draisaitl shoves him. “Then move.”

“Oh my god,” Matthew says, incredulous, and shoves him right back. “What is wrong with you? I know they have manners in Europe, did you forget them over there?”

In the time it takes him to ask these very reasonable questions, they’ve exchanged several more shoves, stumbling further inside as Matthew tries to defend himself and backpedal simultaneously. Draisaitl grabs his arm, which might be to keep him from falling over, but it also might be an attack on Matthew’s person, so he wrenches free and gets Draisaitl’s cheek with a slap — not even hard, it’s more like a tap, really, but Draisaitl gapes with such offense that Matthew starts laughing, only managing the barest attempt at defense when Draisaitl facewashes Matthew with his beer-soaked t-shirt in retaliation.

But Matthew has more than two decades of roughhousing experience, so it’s easy for him to recover. He briefly gets Draisaitl into a headlock before that’s thwarted by an elbow to his ribs. It’s an accident when he steps on Draisaitl’s foot, and maybe an accident when Draisaitl kicks him in the ankle, if Matthew’s feeling generous, which he’s not, but the combination sends him tumbling, and there’s no fucking way he’s not taking Draisaitl with him.

“Wow, Tkachuk,” Draisaitl says, flat on his back with Matthew’s face mashed against his chest. There is, it turns out, just enough room between the couch and the dining bar for two grown hockey players to sprawl on the floor. “That’s how you treat a houseguest.”

“You started it,” Matthew says, picking himself up enough that he’s not tasting Draisaitl’s skin when he speaks. “You realize you started it, right?”

“Fuck off.” Draisaitl pushes Matthew’s head away, and Jesus. If the boner situation was precarious before, now Matthew might need a whole new campsite for the tent he’s pitching. He sits back, trying to be inconspicuous about it, while Draisaitl scoots free and gets to his feet. He uses the dining bar for leverage, but he also plants a hand on Matthew’s head again, pushing himself up, and if Matthew were standing up, his legs might go weak.

“Fuck,” Matthew hisses, rubbing his cheeks. His whole face is too warm.

“Sorry,” says Draisaitl, sounding very not sorry. He’s turned away from Matthew, adjusting his shorts, which means Matthew’s view is mostly his ass. Oh, of course it’s a great ass. Matthew has a fleeting fantasy of sinking his teeth into it. He has a second, less fleeting fantasy of yanking Draisaitl in by his shorts and swallowing his cock until his knees buckle and he comes down Matthew’s throat. What a thing to be stuck in Draisaitl’s head next time he’s trying to kick Matthew’s ass. How satisfying it would be to catch his eye across the ice and know he can’t help thinking about Matthew’s mouth on him.

Now that would be something to look forward to next season.

“Hey, Draisaitl,” he says, smirking. “Is that a dick in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Draisaitl stares at him, but from what Matthew can see, he’s not the only one turned on by a little roughhousing.

“You know, I don’t know why I’m asking.” Matthew grins wider. “I know you’re not happy to see me.” He grabs at Draisaitl’s shorts, but Draisaitl smacks his hands away once, twice, and finally just grabs Matthew by the hair, yanking his head back. Matthew makes an involuntary, embarrassing noise, his eyelids fluttering before he can focus on Draisaitl’s face.

Draisaitl’s lips part, then close again, his teeth sinking into the lower one. Matthew holds his gaze as he curls his fingers into the waistbands of Draisaitl’s shorts and underwear, tugging them over the curve of his ass, then down the front of his thighs, just enough for his cock to pop free. There is something seriously wrong with Matthew, because his mouth is watering like he hasn’t sucked a dick in years. He takes the phone out of Draisaitl’s pocket before it falls out, setting it safely on the floor. Then he leans in, letting Draisaitl’s dick slide over his face as he licks a stripe up it.

“Holy shit,” Draisaitl says, sagging against the dining bar. He looks skyward, his hand tightening in Matthew’s hair. “God, fuck you.”

“I mean, clearly, you wish,” Matthew says, and wraps his whole mouth around him.

It is exactly as satisfying as he imagined. Draisaitl grits his teeth, staying stubbornly quiet, but his fingers are deep in Matthew’s curls, clenching, pulling Matthew in until he chokes, pulls off to breathe, and dives right back in. Matthew keeps his own hands on his thighs, curled into fists, because everywhere he could put them seems weird, and because he can imagine Draisaitl is getting off on fucking Matthew’s face like this. Thinking that he’s the one in control. Yeah fucking right.

But fuck, it feels good. He knows somewhere in the back of his mind that this is stupid and reckless, but it’s the best he’s felt all summer. He’s so hard he wouldn’t be surprised to find a wet spot on the front of his shorts. He grazes his teeth along Draisaitl’s dick; Draisaitl grunts, jerking him back in, so that Matthew’s nose is briefly pressed into Draisaitl’s dark thatch of pubic hair before he chokes again. He tries to pull off, but Draisaitl keeps him there even as he coughs. Matthew himself can’t tell if the muffled sound he makes is indignant or grateful. He can feel spit dribbling down his chin, can taste salt and sweat on his tongue, can’t see past the end of his nose. Draisaitl holds him there, his throat filled with cock, his eyes watering, as Matthew remembers how to fight the urge to breathe.

Then Draisaitl lets go, and the breath Matthew sucks in is almost as good as coming.

“Fuck you, too,” he gasps, and sucks him down again until Draisaitl moans, finally — he even sounds mad about moaning, which Matthew will fucking cherish — and comes in Matthew’s mouth. Matthew swallows triumphantly, then tongues at the head of Draisaitl’s dick until he shoves Matthew off.

“Fuck,” Draisaitl says, breathing hard. He looks wrecked, flushed and sweaty, his lower lip red from biting it. “What the fuck.”

“You’re welcome,” Matthew says with a voice that sounds like it’s been dragged through gravel. He wipes his mouth and rocks to his feet, because it doesn’t matter now if Draisaitl sees the tent in his shorts. Like, speaking of ships that have sailed. He goes back into the bedroom to grab a t-shirt from his duffel. When he returns, Draisaitl has made himself decent but still looks like he maybe just got hit by a bus.

Matthew tosses the shirt at him. “You’re welcome again.”

Draisaitl holds the shirt up, letting it unfurl.

“Are you serious?” he asks.

It’s a gray shirt with S-T-L in a huge block font across the front, filled with the St. Louis flag. In Matthew’s defense, he thought he was grabbing the plain gray one. But he shrugs anyway.

“Take it or leave it.”

Draisaitl rolls his eyes, but pulls it on. Then he pauses, looking at Matthew, his gaze dropping blatantly to Matthew’s crotch and back up to his face.

“Uh,” he says. “Do you w—”

“This was fun,” Matthew interrupts. “But you can leave now.”

It’s definitely better if Draisaitl’s lasting memory of this is getting his brain sucked out through his cock, not of Matthew making stupid noises and stupid faces when he comes after two and a half strokes. Draisaitl hesitates, his brow furrowing, which is also stupid, because he should be jumping at the chance to run back to McDavid.

“I mean it, fuck off,” says Matthew.

Draisaitl stares for one more moment, then straightens his shirt and grabs his phone from the floor.

“See you around,” he says before the RV door bangs shut behind him.

***

Thus, the summer of 2022 becomes the summer that Matthew gave Leon Draisaitl a blowjob. He returns from Boots with a light sunburn, a throat still sore from being fucked, and a snapback for Taryn, which he presents to her with much aplomb when he and Brady return to St. Louis. When Brady complains that Matthew didn’t buy him any souvenirs, Matthew reminds him that’s because Taryn is his favorite sibling, then loses the ensuing wrestling match.

As they fall back into the patterns of being home, Matthew feels more and more like the person on his knees in that RV was a person he barely knows. It’s not the first time he’s done something reckless while drunk in the summer heat, but reckless is an understatement for this one. He only hopes that Draisaitl was also drunk enough to write it off as temporary insanity that they never need to talk about again.

Besides, it’s not like one more person in the league knowing how much Matthew likes dick is going to make or break him. He doesn’t really care if people know, as long as they keep it to themselves, and even then he doesn’t really care if they tell if it’s in service of getting him laid, and beyond that, well. The rumor mill churns ever onward, and Matthew has better things to do than try to control it. Hell, he’s pretty much resigned to the idea that it’s more likely than not that Brady’s heard some stories, and anyway, Brady isn’t stupid, so between the no girlfriends since high school thing and Matthew’s occasional lack of subtlety, he’d probably put the pieces together anyway. They just don’t talk about it.

Brady would be cool about it. No doubt. Brady, being a whole twenty-one months younger than Matthew, somehow wound up on the other side of a generational divide where he came back from Ann Arbor thinking that having a gay friend would be, like, a badge of coolness, whereas Matthew came out of his stint in the program still trying to wash “that’s so gay” out of his mouth with soap. Regardless, Matthew prefers their perfect bubble of plausible deniability. Popping the bubble would put him one step closer to telling the rest of the family, which would probably be fine, overall, except for how it would require a lot of rearranging of expectations really fast, and that would be such a pain in the ass. That, and the fact that Big Walt is almost definitely only familiar with the concept of gay people in theory, and Matthew does not feel like dealing with the round of twenty questions that would come with the big reveal, at least half of which would be variations on “Are you sure?”

Is he sure. As if a couple of weeks ago he wasn’t literally drooling over a thick German cock in his face. Like a goddamn bratwurst, he thinks with a snort.

Anyway, Draisaitl’s back in Europe now. On Instagram, he is back to his regularly scheduled workout posts and sponcon. God, he’s boring. Good-looking, but so boring. Great ass, though.

Matthew tries to put him out of his mind, but he still thinks about him when he’s lying on his bed, one hand on his dick while he pushes the other through his hair, remembering the way Draisaitl’s fingers clenched in his hair. His scalp was tender for hours afterward, and he couldn’t stop touching it even after he got himself off quickly in the RV bathroom and rejoined the guys for the Saturday night headliners. He’ll jerk himself off and rub a hand up and down his throat, remembering the feeling of being too full up with cock to breathe. Thinks about how satisfying it was when Draisaitl buckled and came in his mouth.

It doesn’t help that Draisaitl forgot his stupid shirt when he took Matthew’s. Matthew should have thrown it out. It’s a plain blue tee with the Puma logo down the front; he can’t imagine it has any sentimental significance. But instead he tossed it in with his laundry, and now it lives in the back of his t-shirt drawer, mocking him, because throwing it out is exactly what Draisaitl would expect, so if he decides he wants it back, Matthew will be ready to demonstrate that he is, in fact, a nice person who respects other people’s property.

The point is, this is altogether way more Draisaitl than Matthew needs in his life. He needs to focus on the things that matter, not on his questionable summer choices.

“You know, there are other people in this house who might want to get some work in,” Taryn says, poking her head in from the basement stairwell. Matthew isn’t sure how long he’s been down here. Several buckets’ worth of pucks at least. He’s been shooting on autopilot, going over each missed scoring chance from the playoffs, trying to work out how he could have made good on each of them. Little things that would have turned the tide. There are a few that haunt him more than the rest — an open net, a rolling puck. A ringing post. The ones that made his teammates squeeze his shoulders afterward and tell him not to let dumb luck get him down, but Matthew’s dad always says smart people never blame dumb luck.

“Sorry,” he says to Taryn, scooping his pile of pucks to the side. “You wanna share?”

“You don’t even live here,” she huffs, but grabs her stick and a bucket of field hockey balls anyway. “Let me warm up, then let’s play Horse.”

There is something comforting about shooting with a partner, especially with Taryn, when the alternating thuds of rubber pucks and clacks of plastic balls form a rhythm that Matthew only ever hears in this one place. They go wordlessly until Matthew’s pile is depleted and Taryn’s bucket is empty, then they gather their ammunition back up and play the game. Matthew wins the first round, but loses the next two, mostly because his wrists are getting tired.

Still — “Best of five,” he insists.

Taryn rolls her eyes. “Sure, but when I win, I get to shoot by myself for a while.”

Matthew agrees to her terms. He rallies to pull out a win in the next round, but Taryn does indeed get the best of him in the last one, so he concedes the victory and goes to clean up the pucks.

“Brady says you were being weird in Toronto,” she says as he does this, leaning on her stick with a hand on her hip.

“Well, Brady’s always weird, so what does he know?” Matthew says, scooping a puck up on his stick blade to drop into the bucket. One of the field hockey balls is wedged behind the target, so he pries it free and sends it back toward Taryn.

“I mean, not a lot,” she says, but presses on anyway. “Are you still mad about the playoffs? Because, like, it sucked, but you can’t mope about it forever.”

“I’m not still moping.” Matthew bends to start grabbing pucks in stacks, instead of one by one with his stick. “I’m still mad about it because it sucked, but that’s the same with every playoffs.”

“Yeah, okay,” Taryn says, with that particular sarcasm of teenage girls that cuts straight to the bone. Matthew gives her his best withering look, but it’s no match for the one she levels back at him. After a brief staredown, he sighs and starts hauling the bucket back up to the shooting mat.

“What do you want me to say?” he asks. “Sorry Brady thought I was being weird? I don’t think I was being weird.”

“Okay, fine, but you are still moping,” Taryn says. She pulls a ball toward her with her stick and sends it neatly past Matthew toward the target. “Every time you’re home you’re moping, anyway. I was just trying to help.”

The thing is, Matthew really thought they had a chance last year. He went and told the press about it and everything. It wasn’t a ‘let’s get into the playoffs and see what happens’ year. It was a ‘we need to capitalize on this’ year.

“Listening to Brady never helps,” Matthew says, but drops the bucket to wrap her in a hug as she lines up another shot. “But I appreciate you.”

She jabs him in the gut with the butt end of her stick. “I love you, too. Please let me shoot now.”

August meanders into September, the Missouri summer clinging determinedly to the days while autumn creeps into the nights. They get in one last lake weekend, one last cookout, and one last round of golf with the whole family, and before Matthew knows it, he’s packing for camp. It sneaks up on him — for weeks he felt like he still had weeks, and then he had days, and then suddenly he’s shoving things into his suitcase the morning of his flight like he hasn’t been doing this whole song and dance since he was sixteen.

“Anything I can help with, sweetheart?” Chantal asks from the doorway of his bedroom, frowning as he opens and shuts drawers. She came over to make sure the house is ready for the cleaners, which has turned into watching Matthew’s last-minute packing with undisguised concern. His house is too damn big for one person’s shit, is the problem. He’s always losing things in rooms he forgot he has. “Are you looking for something that’s maybe in the laundry?”

“I just feel like I’m forgetting something,” Matthew says, but fuck it. It’s not like Rob won’t be here all season to mail anything Matthew forgot. With a sigh, he heaves the suitcase closed and zips it up. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Chantal echoes. Matthew gives her a thumbs-up. “Great. I’ll make lunch, and afterward we’ll drive you boys to the airport.”

It’s always hit or miss whether the schedules will line up so Matthew and Brady fly out on the same day. Usually it’s nice when that happens — a little extra time to hang, built-in company between security and takeoff. Brady’s been looking at Matthew funny ever since Taryn told on him for gossiping, though, and Matthew has been somewhat frosty about it.

Matthew loves his siblings, but he hates the idea of them pitying him, and he hates the idea of them talking behind his back about how pitiful he’s being even more. He hasn’t even been that bad, he’s just been more focused on getting ready for next season than on the usual summer fun. And it’s not like he’s been all work and no play. He went to that Lumineers concert with Taryn. Greece with the whole family. Boots and Hearts.

So after their parents drop them off, they shuffle through the precheck line without much conversation. The Flames group chat is popping off with guys announcing their arrivals into town, and Brady is glued to his own phone, so they’re both occupied enough to keep things from getting awkward. At the mouth of the terminal where they would have to split up, Brady nudges him with an elbow.

“I’ve got like half an hour before boarding,” he says. “Want to grab a beer?”

This is the tried-and-true Tkachuk man tradition for getting over an argument. No apologies, no regrets, just the offer of a beer, or a basketball game, or a trip to Chipotle. One party offers, the other accepts, and it’s all water under the bridge.

They didn’t really have an argument, though. Matthew isn’t angry with Brady. He’s not sure what he is, but he feels like someone is sitting on his chest.

“I think I’m just gonna find my gate,” he says, clapping Brady on the shoulder. He squeezes, once, hoping that somehow conveys the tangle of not mad, well, not at you, anyway he’s feeling that he doesn’t think there’s a word in English for. “I’ll see you in a couple months, yeah? Kick some ass out there.”

“Yeah, good luck,” Brady says. Matthew doesn’t look back as he wheels his carry-on into the terminal.

2. eyes on the pinstripes

The hockey gods must have a really fucked-up sense of humor, Matthew thinks, his head against the window as the team bus rumbles northward for the Flames’ first preseason game.

Of course, they always have warm-up games against the Oilers, but it doesn’t have to be the first game, except for apparently how this time, it does. On top of that, with the number of prospects and bubble guys drawing in to show their stuff, Matthew isn’t sure why his services specifically are needed. But it’s fine. Even with the extenuating circumstances, he would rather play than not play.

By the time he landed in Alberta, Matthew had been ready to put the summer behind him. He squared his shoulders, went in for his first presser of training camp, and told the gathered members of the Calgary media that he understands all the things he could have done better last season, that he’s thrilled about his extension and committed to the team. Told them how he focused all summer on working hard, on getting better, stronger, faster. Ask his family, he said with a laugh, they’ll say he barely even took a vacation.

Of course the question came: “What are your thoughts on whether the team is going to name a captain this year?” Every phone in the press corps inched closer to record Matthew’s answer.

“You know, none of that’s up to me,” he told them. It was a rehearsed answer; he knew he’d need it. The words came out a little too clipped, a little too fast, but that’s better than the stumbling and mumbling he’d have done if they caught him off-guard. “I just know this team is really fortunate in that we have so many leaders. There are so many guys who would deserve that, and that I’d consider myself lucky to have as captain. I’m sure the coaching staff and management will make the best decision for the team.”

Then he went over to Noah’s, drank a few too many Bud Lights, and fell asleep on the couch.

The goal is to not get too in his head about it. Well, the goal is to win his team a Stanley Cup, but there’s a lot of bites to that elephant. Matthew’s dad always says to only focus on what you can’t do if there’s something you can do about it, so he’s doing what he can. He’s showing up and giving it his all every day. Texting his dad afterward about what he thinks went well and where he needs to work harder, because if anyone will hold him accountable, it’s Keith. Wrangling the guys for dinners or hang-outs away from the rink, building that team unity. And every day, he makes sure to check in with the younger kids in camp, especially the first-timers. He knows all too well that it’s one thing to let your skills speak for themselves, and another thing entirely to feel like the veterans give a shit. Matthew doesn’t want anyone on his team wondering if their teammates give a shit about the work they put in.

“Chucky so serious,” Lindy kept teasing him in practice, laughing as they battled in the corner. “Serious man Chucky. Big grown-up Chucky, you gonna be so serious about everything all season?”

“Nah, just about beating you,” Matthew said, poking the puck free and making a break for it. Lindy whooped behind him, banging his stick on the ice instead of giving chase. Matthew found himself grinning, too, with the cold air on his face and the ice smooth under his skates, a little spark of anticipation finally rippling under his skin.

Maybe he’s not captain material, but he still has an A on his jersey. The end of last season was kind of a shitshow, yeah, but it’s been months since then. He’s better now, and he can prove it.

There’s just the issue of a couple of DMs on his phone. They showed up about an hour into the drive, as the bus trundled past the exit for Bowden.

drat_29: When you get in tell me what room
drat_29: We have to talk

At present, Matthew is choosing to ignore them. He has a busy evening planned. When they get to the hotel, he and Sean are taking a bunch of the kids out to dinner, which will surely go late. He will very responsibly limit himself to, like, two beers. And then he’ll need a good night’s sleep before his first game in months.

Basically, if he’s in Draisaitl’s head — good. That was kind of the point.

“Okay, so, after check-in, meet back in the lobby in thirty?” Sean asks, popping over the top of the seat in front of Matthew as they broach the Edmonton city limits. “You know where we’re going or should I get the concierge to draw a map?”

“Fuck off,” Matthew says, grinning. “Yeah, in thirty’s good.” He twists up and around to pass the message to the couple of youngsters, Cole and Jakob, in the pair of seats behind him. “You boys hear that? Thirty minutes, don’t be late, Monny will start eating rookies if he gets too hungry.”

“Fuck off,” Sean laughs.

So once they’ve checked in, the whole boisterous group of them gathers in the hotel lobby, and Matthew leads the way to his favorite steakhouse nearby. They have a really good group this year, he thinks, even missing some guys from last season. At least they got Johnny back. Matthew spent more of last season than he’s willing to admit worried about that. Even though Johnny is cozy at home tonight in the house he bought with his new contract money instead of trekking up to the hinterlands with Matthew.

But it’s going to be fun, Matthew decides. Fuck Draisaitl, fuck summertime-Matthew’s stupid choices, it’s going to be fun. They’ve got a great group of kids who are itching to get into the game tomorrow. A handful of older guys to show them the ropes. The first glimpse of what this season could be. Anything is possible.

This optimistic mood buoys Matthew through dinner, where he fields questions from the new kids about game days, about Edmonton, about playing against Connor McDavid. He treats himself to a ribeye and encourages the guys on Sean’s half of the table to order the most expensive things on the menu. Gently bullies a conversation out of the quiet Belarusian kid who has spent all of camp glued to the sides of guys he knows from Stockton. By the time the meal is winding down, the whole table is bubbly and gregarious, like a real family dinner.

Matthew’s attention wanders as the guys chatter away. Across the restaurant, above the bar, there’s a television that’s been showing the Blue Jays all evening. They’re in the postgame now, the talking heads dissecting clips of a loss in Baltimore. As Matthew watches, it cuts to commercial. There’s no sound, but he’s seen the commercials enough times to know what they’re all trying to sell anyway, and he’s about to move on when the flash of skates on ice catches his eye.

HOCKEY SEASON IS HERE, proclaims the screen before it smash-cuts to a Battle of Alberta highlight reel. Some of Matthew’s finest moments up there. Lining up a hit on Draisaitl, getting ragdolled by Kassian. Making friends in a scrum at the goalmouth. Lindy scores a goal, Johnny scores a goal; McDavid scores three more. Oilers vs. Flames preseason NHL hockey, tomorrow, 7PM MT.

On the table, Matthew’s phone lights up with a notification. Just Rob — Matthew will text him back later. But then a second one pops up, and Matthew snatches his phone up before anyone else sees it.

drat_29: Or I can come to the hotel and start asking around. Your call

“God dammit,” Matthew says.

“Everything okay?” asks Cole.

Matthew shakes his head. “Yeah, just — yeah, it’s nothing important. Don’t worry about it.”

Im out to dinner. Chill out and give me an hour, he messages back, along with his room number. Then he locks his phone, sticks it in his pocket, and flags down their server for one last drink. Whatever. If Draisaitl wants a conversation that bad, they can have a goddamn conversation.

***

Back in his room, Matthew paces. Changed into sweats and a t-shirt, he puts his phone face down on the bed so he doesn’t have to look at it, then a minute later flips it over again so he can glance at it as he paces. He might throw up. That might be the best case scenario, actually. Draisaitl shows up and Matthew vomits pan-seared ribeye all over him. That’s one way to make sure he never wants them to talk again. Or maybe Matthew can distract him with another blowjob. That option shouldn’t be so appealing. It would probably make the situation worse in the long run, but sometimes a temporary solution is the best you can do. Matthew’s dad always says — wow, Matthew does not want to think about his dad right now. Big Walt can go right into a box in the farthest-back corner of Matthew’s mind until Matthew is done making bad decisions for the night.

Fifteen minutes pass. Twenty. Matthew makes himself stop pacing and sit down. Eyes the mini-bar wistfully. He hasn’t gotten a text back, so maybe Draisaitl came to his senses and realized the only time they need to talk, ever, is when they’re trading chirps on the ice. That way if anyone pops a boner they can keep it to themselves.

There’s a knock at the door. Matthew flops back on the mattress, presses his hands to his face, and groans.

Another knock, which sounds more like a kick.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” Matthew says, probably loud enough to be heard. He palms his dick, which is more excited than he is about this impending encounter, and wills it not to embarrass him. Then he summons all his willpower and answers the door. Draisaitl, in track pants and a hoodie with the hood up, barely waits until it cracks open to slip inside and close it firmly behind him.

Just to get the first word in, Matthew says, “If you came to give my shirt back, you could have done that at the rink.”

Instead of acknowledging this statement, Draisaitl shoves him. “What the fuck was that?”

“Oh, come on, really?” Matthew says. Draisaitl fends off his attempt to shove back, so Matthew darts in to push his hood off instead. He looks ridiculous with it up, like he’s waiting to beat someone up in a dark alley. Or in their own hotel room. Anyway, this doesn’t make Draisaitl any friendlier.

“’Come on, really,’ are you serious?” he grits out as they grapple in the entryway. Matthew gets ahold of the front of Draisaitl’s hoodie like he would in a real fight, but it’s not like he’s going to start throwing real punches, and in his split-second of indecision Draisaitl gets the upper hand. Matthew’s back hits the wall, Draisaitl’s forearm shoved against his collarbone.

This is going well.

“What is wrong with you?” Draisaitl asks.

“You’re gonna have to be more specific,” Matthew says. “A lot of people have a lot of answers for that.”

“Oh my god,” Draisaitl mutters. He lets Matthew go almost as abruptly as he came at him, pacing into the room and then halfway back, where he stops and folds his arms over his chest. It’s the first good look Matthew has gotten of him, and it’s surreal to see him standing in the middle of Matthew’s hotel room, but, really, nothing has changed. Unimpressed, pissed off, unfortunately still good-looking.

“Nice to see you, too, by the way,” Matthew says, adjusting his sweatpants in a hopefully inconspicuous way.

Draisaitl sighs, looking skyward as if this conversation is the most demeaning chore in the universe. “What the fuck am I doing here?”

“Great question,” says Matthew, even though it was clearly intended for a higher power than him. “Kinda seems like you just wanted to see me.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m just saying.” Matthew hooks his thumbs in his pockets and leans against the wall. “Like, just a guess, but maybe you’re mad you can’t jerk off anymore without thinking about me gagging on your cock.”

Under normal circumstances, if Matthew heard these things coming out of his own mouth, he might have to walk into the tundra and never return. But he can’t help himself. He can remember everything he’s thought over the past two months about being reckless and stupid and distracted from the important things, but now, with Draisaitl staring him down, all he wants to do is reach out and mash as many of the guy’s buttons as possible.

“If it makes you feel any better,” he adds, “it’s a great cock. I think about it all the time.”

He’s not sure what he’s expecting by way of response, but it’s not the way Draisaitl’s brow furrows, his head tilting curiously.

“You liked it,” he says. “You liked that.”

There’s an implication there that makes Matthew feel like the back of his neck is on fire: you liked that. The gagging, the choking, the pulled hair, the come down your throat. You don’t even like me, and you liked that.

“I mean, obviously,” Matthew says, trying for nonchalant, but his voice sticks a little. He clears his throat. “Yeah, I liked it. Is that what you came here to hear?”

“I’m not sure,” Draisaitl says, more to himself than to Matthew, but he closes the space between them again, slowly and with skepticism, as if Matthew might be the bait in a trap. He only has about an inch on Matthew, but Matthew lifts his chin anyway. He thinks he should say something as Draisaitl pushes a hand into his hair, pulls his head just slightly this way and that, brows drawn in concentration — something like, well, you liked it, too, but the words dry up on Matthew’s tongue as soon as Draisaitl touches him. Draisaitl’s face is very close, and it’s hard not to look at his mouth. At his teeth sinking into his lower lip, the same way they did in the summer, when he looked down at Matthew on the floor of the RV.

“I think I owe you one,” Draisaitl says.

Matthew’s brain stutters to a stop. “What?”

Draisaitl swallows. “If you want.”

“I — yeah,” Matthew says. “Yeah, uh. If you want.”

It’s very possible, Matthew thinks as he’s steered toward the bed, that actually, he fell asleep, and any second now the real Draisaitl will wake him up by banging on his door. That would make way more sense. He must be dreaming. But everything feels alarmingly real: the nubby hotel carpet under his bare feet, the mattress hitting the backs of his legs, Draisaitl’s fingers digging into his shoulders as he plants Matthew on the edge of the bed.

Draisaitl gets on his knees. He looks at Matthew’s dick straining against the fabric of his sweatpants, runs a hand through his hair, and sighs.

Matthew says, “Look, if you don’t want to—”

“Shut up,” says Draisaitl. He puts his hands on Matthew’s thighs, sliding them up to the waistband of his sweats like he’s finding his bearings. He’s not even really doing anything yet, and Matthew already feels a little weak-kneed. There is something very wrong with him. Good thing he’s sitting down.

It’s nothing like the blowjob Matthew gave when their roles were reversed. Draisaitl is measured, methodical, one hand working the base of Matthew’s dick, the other braced against his hip. He knows what he’s doing, that much is clear, and the sliver of Matthew’s brain that isn’t in his groin is suddenly desperately curious to know who else Leon Draisaitl has been sucking off. Who else has seen the way his mouth gets red from being stretched around a cock, or the way, from above, his eyelashes look surprisingly soft against his cheekbones?

Lucky fucking people, is who. The guy is annoying, but fuck, he’s good with his mouth.

“Fuck,” Matthew breathes, ghosting a hand over Draisaitl’s hair. Considering how Draisaitl manhandled him last time, Matthew should have no qualms about grabbing him however he wants. The idea sends a shiver through him, but his hands won’t do it, so instead he fists one in the hood of Draisaitl’s sweatshirt and holds on to the edge of the mattress with the other. He digs his toes into the carpet and tries to remind himself he has teammates in the rooms on both sides of him every time he swears out loud.

When Matthew comes, Draisaitl coughs and pulls off halfway, so he still swallows most of it, but winds up with a streak across his lip and cheek. He looks up at Matthew like that, blue-eyed and red-mouthed with come smeared on his face, and fuck if Matthew’s spent dick doesn’t twitch.

“Jesus,” Matthew says, belatedly letting go of Draisaitl’s sweatshirt. “So you’re just good at everything you do, huh?”

“If it’s worth doing,” says Draisaitl. He wipes his face with his hand, then wipes his hand on Matthew’s sweatpants, which Mattthew should be offended by, but he’s still stupid from his orgasm. Draisaitl sits back, closing his eyes, and presses his hand to his crotch, letting out a gusty breath.

“You want some help with that?” Matthew asks.

“No.” Draisaitl pauses, looking up at Matthew again. “Or, actually.”

He picks himself up gingerly from the floor, but there’s nothing delicate about the hand he plants on Matthew’s sternum, pushing him flat on the bed. He climbs up, one knee then the other, to sit astride Matthew’s chest. When he gets his dick out, he rocks forward to smear a bead of precome on Matthew’s chin. Matthew leans up to try to get his mouth on it, but the angle is impossible with Draisaitl on top of him.

“Don’t, just stay there,” Draisaitl says, settling in with his hand working, up and down his shaft, quick and efficient.

“Kinda feel like I’m being used,” Matthew mumbles, which gets a snort of a laugh from Draisaitl, but he’s happy to lie there and watch Draisaitl get himself off through half-lidded eyes. It doesn’t take long. After a minute, Draisaitl grunts like he’s going to come; Matthew closes his eyes and only winces a little when the streaks hit his face.

“Tell me when you’re done,” he says, tonguing at the corner of his mouth where a gob of jizz landed.

In response he gets several seconds of Draisaitl breathing, then, “Hold on a second.”

At the first touch to his eyelid, Matthew flinches, but he soon realizes there’s come there, too, and Draisaitl is wiping it away with a damp thumb, presumably so it doesn’t get in Matthew’s eye when he opens it. Matthew waits patiently for Draisaitl to finish before he hits him in the thigh.

“Okay, move, I’m washing my face now.”

This is not the first time Matthew has let someone come on his face, but it is the first time in a long time he has looked in the mirror afterward. He looks like the aftermath of some amateur porn shoot, and absolutely not like someone who has his shit together, though that last part might have less to do with all the semen and more to do with the situation as a whole. There’s something in his gut that won’t quite settle, but it’s not discomfort or regret. He can’t put his finger on it.

You liked this, he thinks, not sure if it’s directed at his own reflection or at Draisaitl in the next room. You like this.

When Matthew emerges, pink-faced from scrubbing away the evidence, Draisaitl is sitting on the edge of the bed with his phone in hand. He rubs idly at his mouth, flexing his jaw, and seems to startle when Matthew speaks.

“So we’re even now, huh?” he asks.

Draisaitl shrugs, shifting to look at him. “I guess so, yeah.”

The thing is, Matthew knows what finished business feels like, and he knows all too well what unfinished business feels like. Maybe it’s just him, but this feels like the latter. He’s never been good with unfinished business.

He goes to sit on the bed next to Draisaitl — not right next to, that would be weird. With about a foot of space between them. Close enough for him to reach over and take Draisaitl’s phone from him, which, surprisingly, Leon doesn’t fight. He finds Draisaitl’s contacts and punches his number in, then types in the name field, Matthew 🔥

“If you ever want to do it again,” he says, handing the phone back.

Draisaitl stares at it. “Should have used the rat emoji.”

“No way.” Matthew says. “Fire emoji Matthew, that could be any hot Matthew. There’s hundreds of us. Rat emoji Matthew, there’s only one. It’d blow my cover.”

“‘Hot Matthew’?” Draisaitl looks at him sideways. “I just thought that was because of the Flames.”

Matthew socks him in the arm. Draisaitl makes a face and rubs his bicep.

“Don’t think I’ll go easy on you tomorrow night because of this,” he says, and Matthew laughs, shaking his head.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

***

Draisaitl is a man of his word: he does not go easy on Matthew the following night. Matthew wasn’t expecting him to, nor would he want him to, but it is the first game of the preseason, and so Matthew’s allowed to be annoyed when Draisaitl lays him out before he even has his legs under him.

The crowd, of course, loves it. There are few things the Oilers faithful enjoy more than seeing Matthew get his ass handed to him. But it’s okay, because Matthew gets him back with several hits before the period ends.

It’s a chippy, messy game, in the way only preseason can be. No one has linemates they’re used to, because half of the guys on the ice are going to end up in the minors, or shipping back to juniors, or their teams in Europe. These first few games are always more about assessment and team-building than winning, or at least, that’s what Matthew tells himself whenever one of his guys flubs a pass or misreads a play. He’s playing on a line with Jakob and one of the Russian kids, Dima; his job tonight is to get himself into game shape and set them up for success, not to show up Leon Draisaitl. Not that those things are mutually exclusive.

The man himself puts the Oilers on the scoreboard first, of course. Both of his ankles seem to be fully functioning. Good for him. It’s a pretty goal. Matthew is probably imagining the smirk Draisaitl throws his way as he flies by the bench, but then again, there are a lot of things from the past twenty-four hours Matthew would think he only imagined, so maybe not.

Yamamoto scores another one for the home team before the first period expires. Matthew bites back his groan only because there are impressionable youths sitting on either side of him, and, after Sutter’s pep talk in the locker room, spends intermission scheming with his temporary linemates about how they’re going to get themselves a goal.

Halfway through the second, on their first power play of the game, Monny beats them to it with a quick snipe from the slot. That gets the whole team buzzing, and for a couple of minutes they’re all flying. Ruzicka nearly ties it up in a goalmouth scramble, and takes a couple of nasty shoves from Kassian both before and after the whistle for his efforts, which means Matthew has to spend his next few shifts laying hits on Kassian until he’s too annoyed at Matthew to focus on hunting other guys. Matthew takes some gloved pops to the face and a few stinging slashes for his efforts — worth it, honestly.

“Really, day one, you wanna go?” Kassian shouts in Matthew’s face as the second period winds down. He’s mad because Matthew hooked him when the ref wasn’t looking, but in Matthew’s defense, it was pretty funny.

“Not really, sorry, bud,” Matthew says, skating out of reach before he can get yanked into a nonconsensual fight. As he passes by the Oilers bench, a sharp, familiar laugh catches his ear.

“Real tough guy tonight, huh?” Draisaitl calls after him, leaning on the boards. “Come on, you can take him.”

“Too early in the season for dental work,” Matthew calls back, grinning wide as he chews on his mouthguard.

But there’s only so much fun Matthew can have while his team is losing. They rack up scoring chance after scoring chance — his line specifically has some primo chances that slip just barely out of their fingers, bad bounces, misses by inches, which feels like some sort of fucked-up karma held over from last season. Jakob and Dima are clearly frustrated, but it’s not their fault.

When they pull the goalie, Draisaitl puts the puck in the empty net from about sixty feet away, then takes half a lap gesturing for the crowd to cheer louder.

Losing sucks, but the mood in the room isn’t bad. There’s optimism; there’s the buzz of leftover adrenaline. The scoreboard doesn’t reflect the good stuff, and there was plenty of good stuff. Matthew would have loved to make a way bigger statement the first game back, would have extra fucking loved to shut the Edmonton crowd up, but he does his best to shrug off his own grievances and go with the flow.

“It was practically an open net, it was right there,” Jakob moans in his stall as they strip their gear off.

“Hey, you did great out there. Don’t beat yourself up about it.” Matthew is in the middle of unclipping his shoulder pads. He pauses to squeeze Jakob’s arm. “We’ll get ’em next time, eh?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jakob glances over with a mischievous look. “I really thought you were gonna get in a fight in game one of the preseason.”

“Wouldn’t put it past him,” Blake says, ruffling Matthew’s curls as he passes by. Matthew makes a face at him. “Our fearless Chucky, setting the tone for the season.”

“Is the tone this season ’fucking annoying’?” Shilly laughs from his stall. “Because I can get with that. Sounds like fun.”

“The tone for the season,” Matthew says, “is winning. And I’ll be as annoying as I have to be until that happens.”

He asserts this with a straight face, but the room fills with a chorus of oooohs as soon as he says it, and he has to duck his head to hide his grin.

As they’re leaving to pile onto the bus, Matthew pauses outside the locker room, looking down the corridor toward the home team’s room. He’s never been there, not in this building, but he knows where it is. The idea of popping in to thank Draisaitl for a good time is laughable, but it crosses his mind, just for a second. The confusion it would cause. Draisaitl would be so pissed. It’s almost tempting. But then Sean pats him on the ass on his way out, and Matthew drags himself back to reality.

Right. He has a season to focus on.

On the bus home, Matthew settles in next to Sean, who pulls up a movie on his laptop and pretends not to be reading Matthew’s texts with his dad over his shoulder, and then pretends not to be texting Johnny about Matthew’s texts with his dad. He’s not a very good actor, but Matthew doesn’t care — the Tkachuk game post-mortem isn’t a secret. Tonight, Keith mostly has thoughts to share about Matthew’s choices during some of those failed scoring chances (helpful) and how Matthew should have handled Kassian (not helpful, but Matthew humors him).

They’re passing through the outskirts of Red Deer when Matthew’s phone lights up with a text from an unknown number. He’s spent the past few minutes trying to come up with a decent answer to Keith’s third don’t know what you were thinking there of the night, and it takes him a moment to realize the new message isn’t part of this ongoing conversation.

Good game, it says.

Fuck off, Matthew replies.

🙂, says Draisaitl.

***

A brisk autumn has Alberta in its grip by the time October rolls around. Somehow after half a dozen years, Matthew is still surprised by how quickly summer slips away in the Canadian prairies — even in London it was still t-shirt weather when the season started. The days are crisp and blue-skied, perfect with a hoodie or a jacket, but the temperature drops off quickly once the sun goes down. Soon, Matthew knows, he’ll start smelling snow in the air, and the dry winter wind will come for him, leaving his knuckles cracked and his lips chapped for the next five months.

But not yet. Right now, they’ve got a perfect fall day, and they’re breaking in Johnny’s new house with a cookout. Most of the guys are there, some wives and girlfriends, a handful of kids and dogs running around. The sun is bright in the afternoon sky, baking the back of Matthew’s neck despite the chill in the air as he hangs out on the back porch with Noah and Sean. Johnny, the self-appointed grillmaster, is flipping burgers, except when he gets distracted by the kids and dogs and Meredith steps in to keep the whole operation from falling apart, an apron draped neatly over her baby bump.

There are a couple of days before the first real game of the season. The roster is pretty much set. No big surprises, no big changes. There’s not much else they can do to be ready except take advantage of this chance for a little bit of downtime together as a team.

“Here you go, babe,” Johnny says, handing Sean a plate with a burger and a generous helping of pasta salad as he drops into the spot next to him with a beer in his other hand. “Just the way you like it.”

Sean lifts the top of the bun to peer at the toppings, nods, and picks up the burger to dig in.

“S’good,” he says with a full mouth.

“Yeah, Meredith made it,” Johnny says with a sheepish grin.

“Hey.” Noah swats at him. “Where’s ours?”

Johnny gives him a puzzled look. “Get it yourself?”

Noah grumbles, but gets up to do this. Matthew, not quite hungry yet, is content with his beer for now.

“So,” he says to Johnny, “how many Johnny Hockey Juniors do you think you can fit in this place?”

“That’s up to the lady,” Johnny says, stealing a noodle from Sean’s pasta salad with his fingers. “It’s a great place, though, right? I’m thinking we might put a little rink in down there.” He nods to the flat expanse of grass where Marky and Calle are currently being climbed on by several small children while Lindy’s girlfriend takes pictures.

“Should do one of those, uh.” Sean gestures with his burger. “Asphalt you can ice over in the winter. So we can do ball hockey when it’s not freezing out.”

“Careful,” Matthew says, bopping Johnny on the knee with his beer. “You’re gonna have the whole team over here taking advantage of your sweet new digs.”

Johnny laughs. “You mean you’re gonna be over here taking advantage every time you get lonely in that high rise.”

Matthew shrugs, but doesn’t argue. It’s probably true.

“Anyway,” Sean says around a mouthful of beef. “Thursday night. Are we going out after?”

“Uh, if we win, maybe,” Matthew says. “Let’s try not to jinx it.”

“Wow, Chucky the optimist,” says Johnny.

“Chucky’s still pissed about last year,” Noah supplies helpfully as he reclaims his seat, a full plate in one hand and fresh beer in the other.

“I just thought, you know, he might want to go out,” says Sean.

“I’m pissed at myself about last year,” Matthew corrects. “I’m not trying to drag anyone else into it.”

“Oh, Chucky, don’t be like that.” Lindy, en route to his girlfriend and Swedes with two glasses of wine in each hand, leans down to hug Matthew from behind. “Chin up, eh? It’s gonna be a great season.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Matthew contorts to ruffle Lindy’s hair, which makes him duck away, but he gives Matthew’s head once more fond nudge before he continues on his way.

“No but really, you gotta stop beating yourself up about it,” Johnny says. “Like, I know you feel bad, but leave it in last season where it belongs. We all have.”

Matthew snorts. “I find it hard to believe that no one else here is still pissed about last year.”

“Well, yeah, but not at you.” Johnny bumps his beer against Matthew’s knee, leaving a cold spot of condensation. “First of all, it’s not like you broke your hand on purpose. And second of all, no one blames you for not being 100% with it all fucked up like that. Let it go.”

“Let it go. Let it go—” Toff sings, clapping Matthew on the shoulder as he passes. Matthew bats him away, feigning a grimace, while Noah drops his head into his hands with a groan.

“Looks like someone doesn’t appreciate fine cinema,” Sean says dryly, then turns to Matthew. “Johnny’s right. Fresh season, man. Make the most of it.”

“Yeah, that’s the plan,” Matthew sighs, pushing himself to his feet. “I’m getting a burger, does anyone need anything while I’m up?”

Noah heaves a sigh that speaks of great burdens. “Now you ask.”

“I’ll get you another beer,” Matthew says. “Just drink that one fast.”

“Chug, chug, chug,” Johnny chants as Matthew heads for the grill. “Chug, chug, chu—ow!”

***

Matthew blinks, and the season is upon him.

He has mixed feelings about starting the season at home. The Saddledome is his favorite place to play, except for when he has a really good game in St. Louis, but a few games to settle in and get comfortable before playing for the hometown crowd wouldn’t be the worst thing.

He did have a decent preseason. A handful of points. He feels strong, steady on his skates. He’s been good in the room, he thinks. There’s a level of play that he wants to reach that he hasn’t hit yet, but he’s putting in the work. He’ll get where the team needs him to be.

The morning skate is loose and chatty. Just enough work to get the legs moving, the heart pumping. Matthew gets his hair ruffled about fifteen times in the locker room as everyone heads for the showers.

“What the fuck is wrong with you guys?” he laughs as he ducks away from yet another attempted noogie.

“For luck, babe, come on,” Marky insists, and how can Matthew say no to that? He sighs and lets it happen. Marky gives him a smacking kiss on the head for his troubles.

Back at his apartment, Matthew eats lunch, calls his mom, spends two hours tidying his apartment and scrolling on Instagram, then lies down to take his pregame nap feeling as wide awake as if he’d just had ten cups of coffee.

This is what he’s been waiting for, right? This is what he’s been working for. A fresh season, so he can fix how last season ended. He’s ready for it, he knows he is — he put in more work this summer than ever before.

A whole new season. That’s a lot of time to make things right, and a lot of time to fuck things up.

He manages to get some sleep, but he would not characterize the nap as restful by any stretch of the imagination.

Matthew tries to shake it off as he leaves for the rink. That’s not the kind of energy he wants to bring into the room. He puts on his suit — a new one for the new season, pinstriped because Brady said he could never pull off the look, and Brady is wrong — and answers the texts his dad sent while he was attempting to sleep. Keith loves to give pointers on the first day of the season no matter how many years Matthew has been playing. He also answers the text from his mom, but that one just says “Good luck tonight!!! I love you!!!” with a bunch of hearts..

On the drive to the rink, he blasts his brand new pregame playlist from Taryn. Parks in the same spot he parked in for every home game last year. Straightens his jacket in his reflection in the car window. Questions, briefly, his pinstriped suit choice, but it’s too late now.

The corridors are strangely empty as Matthew makes the trek from the parking garage to the locker room. There are the team photographers snapping pre-game pictures, but other than that, it’s dead quiet. It’s fucking eerie. Matthew checks the time on his phone twice, but he’s not late — he hasn’t been late since he stopped carpooling with Noah.

As he walks into the locker room, Matthew is pulling up the schedule to make sure he has the game time right, because all he can think is maybe he’s actually way early, so he’s several steps in before he realizes the whole team is already there. Not just the team. The coaches, the trainers, Treliving and the AGMs.

“Uh,” Matthew says. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”

Matthew has never been the subject of an intervention before, but he imagines this is something like what that feels like. What there is to intervene about, though, he has no fucking clue.

“Oh, not much,” Lindy pipes up, a grin tugging at his mouth. “We all just thought we’d come watch you get dressed today.”

“Oh,” says Matthew. “Okay, well, that’s very normal of you.”

He looks from Lindy to Noah, who is apparently here early for the first time in his life, and whose stupid perfect poker face doesn’t give away a damn thing, to Johnny, who looks like he’s about to eat his own hands, and finally to Coach Sutter, who is standing right in front of Matthew’s stall. When Matthew catches his eye, he shrugs and steps aside.

Matthew’s jersey is hanging there, just like it has before every game for the past six years, except for one thing: there’s a big white C sewn onto the left shoulder.

***

The guys call for a speech. Somehow, he manages a speech. The team has clips of it up on their socials within the hour, and when Matthew watches it later, he’s astonished that it’s coherent at all. The whole thing is a blur in his mind, but playing it back, he only sounds slightly gobsmacked. He spouts some solid leadership cliches, talks about what a special group they have this year. Makes some promises about showing up every day and being the best he can be for them.

“Your face was so funny,” Johnny cackled once all the pomp and circumstance was over, after every guy in the room had hugged Matthew, thumped his back or squeezed his shoulder. “You were so confused, I thought you were gonna shit yourself.”

“I was mostly just confused that Hanny was early,” Matthew said (Noah: “Hey!”), then shrugged. “No, I just really didn’t expect it. I thought I’d gotten the game time wrong or something.”

Sean, on Johnny’s other side, snorted a laugh. “See, that’s why he’s captain. Dropping that ‘I didn’t expect it’ with a straight face. The humility is overwhelming.”

“Yeah, well, pay attention, maybe you’ll learn something,” Matthew said, which led to him once again receiving some very undignified noogies.

So he’d pulled on the jersey and skated out into a packed Saddledome as captain of the Calgary Flames. They played a hockey game against the defending Stanley Cup Champion Colorado Avalanche. They lost a hockey game to the defending Stanley Cup Champion Colorado Avalanche. Afterward, he gave another speech, about what they did right and what they’ll do better next time, and then sat in his stall, feeling the letter on his shoulder even after he shed the jersey.

“Wanna go grab a bite?” Noah asked, changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, his hair damp from the shower. Matthew, not yet changed or showered, shook his head.

“Next time,” he said. “Go ahead and get out of here.”

His phone has been blowing up all night. He’d kept it on long enough to Facetime his parents before the game (“We’re so proud of you, sweetheart,” his mom said tearfully; “You looked about as surprised as I was!” his dad boomed, laughing), then turned it off, because the thought of responding to all the congratulatory texts was making him dizzy.

Not that he’s not happy about it. Of course he’s happy about it. It just doesn’t feel real. The first time he saw his reflection with the C on his chest, he was so overcome with relief that for a second it was hard to breathe. How selfish is that?

Back home, he reheats some pasta for a post-game snack and eats it at the kitchen counter, scrolling through pictures from the evening until he finds one to use on Instagram. There are some good ones just of him — the photographers clearly had an objective — but he opts instead for a shot of him and his linemates celebrating a goal Johnny scored in the second period. Caption: What an honor to be named captain for this incredible group of guys. Not the result we wanted for opening night but never been more excited for a season!

Only half of the C is visible in the photo, but it gets the job done. As the likes and comments start rolling in, Matthew switches over to his mountain of unread texts and dutifully works his way through them as he gets ready for bed. It’s nice that so many people have taken the time to reach out, even guys he’s only spoken to in passing since they played together, but every well-deserved he reads makes the whole thing feel like more of a charade.

He’s not an idiot. He knows that for most of last season, his name was a big one in the mix for Calgary’s next captain. He wanted it, maybe more than he should have, maybe not for all the right reasons, but he also wanted to feel like he earned it. Now he kind of feels like he tricked everyone with all the going through the motions he did last season.

By the time he gets under the covers, there’s only one unanswered text left.

Texts from Brady have been somewhat sporadic since they left for camp. Matthew and Brady aren’t every-day texters anyway, and it’s been tough to know what to say to him, so Matthew has mostly been waiting until Brady texts first and responding quickly so he doesn’t seem mad. Still, every time a text comes through, Matthew feels like a tool all over again for the way they said goodbye. Now seems like a good time to start making up for it. Instead of responding to Brady’s text, Matthew calls him.

“Heyyy, captain!” Brady answers, more buoyant than he has any right to be at 3am eastern time. “I was about to take it personally you weren’t texting me back.”

“Hey, captain,” Matthew says, grinning a little despite himself. “Nah, I just had a million people to respond to. But thanks for the text.”

“The C looks good on you, bro,” Brady says. “Did you talk to Dad already?”

“Oh, yeah, I Facetimed him and mom before the game. You know him, he was like—” Matthew puts on his Big Walt voice, which is less how Keith actually sounds and more just deep and silly “—‘Doing the Tkachuk name proud, kiddo, you finally caught up to your brother.’”

Brady laughs. “Well, I knew you’d get here eventually.”

“Yeah, everyone keeps saying that,” says Matthew. “I think me and Dad were the only ones surprised.”

“I don’t think Dad was that surprised. And it’s probably a good thing you were surprised. Makes you look humble for once in your life.”

“Thanks, your support means a lot.”

“Always here for you, you know that.”

“Yeah, even though it’s definitely past your bedtime.” Matthew glances at his phone screen for the time and grimaces when he sees that people have started responding to his responses to their congrats texts. He puts Brady on speaker so he can go through them.

“That’s your fault for taking so long,” Brady says. “And I was pretty amped up from the game anyway, you know how that goes.”

The Senators, unexpectedly, won their opener in Toronto earlier that evening. Matthew nudges Brady into babbling about it while he texts people back again. It’s cute how fond Brady is of his team even through all of their struggles. Matthew really hopes this is a turnaround season for them.

Among the slew of messages from family and friends, there’s a new one from a familiar unknown number.

Congrats, Draisaitl has texted.

“Uh,” says Matthew.

Brady stops mid-sentence. “What?”

“Nothing, sorry.” Matthew shakes his head. “Just still getting a lot of texts.”

“Mister Popular,” Brady teases. Matthew would noogie him if they were in the same place.

“It’s nothing,” Matthew says again. “What were you saying? Your boy Jimmy on the power play?”

As Brady launches back into his story, Matthew types, Thanks bro, then deletes the bro part before sending. He fidgets with his phone for the rest of the conversation, but there’s no follow-up response. The Oilers’ own opener is the following night, so presumably Draisaitl is getting a good night’s sleep or whatever.

Once he and Brady say goodnight, Matthew sends his own follow-up: Good luck tomorrow. The worst that can happen is Draisaitl ignores it. Or thinks he’s being a smartass. Matthew is fine with either of those outcomes. He plugs his phone in on the bedside table, turns off the lamp, and sinks back against his pillows.

He’s the captain of an NHL team, just like Brady is. Just like his dad was.

It still doesn’t feel real. He’s going to wake up tomorrow with no mountain of text messages, no memory of a late-night phone call, the old familiar A sewn onto his jersey, opening night looming. He’ll play the game again, maybe score a goal, and maybe the good guys win.

In the dark, Matthew traces a C over his collarbone, right where the letter sits with his jersey on. He tries to dredge up the triumph he thought he’d feel when this moment came, but all he finds is guilt. The same old guilt he’s been carrying around since last season, and the fresh new stuff for not feeling the way he should right now. Preemptive guilt for whatever happens this year. He used to be so good under pressure. It used to be something he wanted. He can’t figure out what changed.

Not that lying in bed fixating will help anything. With a sharp exhale, Matthew pushes his hand under the covers and palms himself through his pajama pants. Jerking off to Leon Draisaitl won’t help anything, either, but at least he’ll stop thinking about the captaincy while he does it. It’s been his go-to for months now, and yeah, at some point he should get some new material, but why mess with what works?

It’s just kind of funny that it’s happened twice now. Once can be a mistake; twice is dangerously close to on purpose. On purpose is not the kind of complication Matthew needs in his life, especially not after the events of today, but he’s still gonna get off to it. He likes to wonder what would happen if he got on his knees again — if Draisaitl would grab him by the hair and fuck his face like before, or if he’d have more restraint the second time around. Matthew hopes not. The sore throat was absolutely worth the satisfaction.

Overheated, Matthew kicks out of his pajama pants so he can stroke himself the way he likes. He licks his palm to ease the friction and thinks about Draisaitl’s hand working the base of his dick while he bobbed his head so methodically, cheeks hollowed, brow drawn in concentration.

Twice, and Matthew hasn’t seen him naked yet, which feels like a waste. He’s got to be a sight. He barely got a glimpse when they shared a locker room at the All-Star Game a few years ago. Maybe if Matthew got him riled up enough, Draisaitl would fuck him into the nearest flat surface behind a closed door. That could be fun. There’s something gratifying about getting under a guy’s skin when he’s balls-deep inside you, and Matthew can imagine the annoyed snap of Draisaitl’s hips, the slap of skin on skin, the fingers digging bruises into him as Draisaitl falls apart and comes inside him. He’ll feel it for days, but Draisaitl will think about it for months. Years, even. Twenty years for now getting inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and he’ll think about fucking Matthew in a broom closet or whatever. Now that’s a legacy.

He comes, grunting, and lays there for a minute regretting how now he’s going to have to clean up before he sleeps. Or he can just use his t-shirt and shower in the morning. He tries that, wiping himself off and chucking the shirt toward the hamper before wiggling back into his pajama pants, but he still feels kind of gross, and he just winds up tossing and turning until he gives up and goes to the bathroom.

Sliding back under the covers in a clean t-shirt, he gives into the urge to look at his phone one more time before.

🖕, Draisaitl has texted.

Matthew snorts, sends back a 😘, and goes to sleep.

3. there’s only two things I do well, sweetheart, and skating’s the other one

When Matthew wakes up the next morning, he is still captain of the Calgary Flames. And the next day, and the next, until the days stack up into a week, and he’s still captain, and the world is still spinning. The team starts the season 2-1-1, which isn’t great, but it’s not awful. Matthew is playing about the same — not great, not awful. He’s got three assists and a handful of drawn penalties. He’s playing solid defense. It’s nowhere near as good as he needs to be, but it’s mostly not an embarrassing effort. He’d really like to score a fucking goal. His dad always says that assists are the mark of a selfless player, but it would be nice if Matthew could bury one of the chances his teammates set him up for.

The thing is, he doesn’t feel any different. He’s the same player he’s always been. The guys don’t treat him differently, and he doesn’t treat them differently, not really, because he can’t figure out what should be different. Maybe nothing. Maybe things are fine how they are, but Matthew can’t help thinking there’s more he should be doing. He just has to keep finding ways to channel that energy.

Today, he’s teaching the rookie to fight.

To be fair, it was Jakob’s idea. He got in a tussle with a big guy from Vegas in their most recent game and his flailing was GIFed all across Twitter, and so he wants some practice throwing punches.

“I mean, sure, but wouldn’t you rather learn from Looch?” Matthew asked when Jakob first broached the topic, but Jakob’s face suggested that was perhaps a more terrifying prospect than facing down NHL guys unprepared. So now they’re taking a few minutes after practice to get some pointers in, with Sean and Johnny hanging back to serve as the peanut gallery.

“Don’t let the other guy knock you off-balance. It takes some practice to get good at it, especially before you start really bulking up,” Matthew says, holding onto Jakob by the front of his jersey as Jakob attempts to break his grip and get a good hit in. “And if you do fall over, take the fucker with you.”

“And what do you do if you can’t even reach the guy?” Jakob asks in his cute little French accent, swinging a futile fist and knocking himself off-balance. Matthew hauls him back upright before he falls too far. The kid is 5’10”, maybe 180 pounds soaking wet. No one has high hopes for his fighting career.

“Then maybe you just don’t get in fights,” Sean offers. He has a hand on Johnny’s helmet, holding Johnny at an arm’s length while Johnny tries and fails to reach him with punches.

“Yeah, you just find out where they live—” Swing and a miss from Johnny “—and come for them in their sleep instead.”

“I don’t think that’s legal,” says Sean.

Johnny shrugs. “That’s how they do it in Jersey.”

“That’s terrifying, thank you,” Jakob says.

Matthew jerks him in, looping him easily into a headlock and rubbing the top of his helmet. “How about you just play your game, and if anyone messes with you, I’ll kill them. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” Jakob squeaks.

They hit the road for Seattle, San Jose, Arizona. Regulation win, regulation loss, shootout loss. That last one is fucking embarrassing. Any given Sunday or whatever, and no disrespect to the guys slugging it out down there, but on paper there’s no excuse for a team like Matthew’s losing to a team like the Coyotes.

“You know, you don’t have to explain every single scoring chance you missed to the media after games like these,” Johnny says to him as they shuffle away from the presser in Arizona. Big words from a guy who’s going to spend the whole flight home scowling and watching game tape, Matthew thinks, but since those are also his in-flight plans, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

“Pretty sure I left a couple out,” he grumbles, giving the back of Johnny’s neck a quick squeeze so Johnny knows the ire isn’t directed at him. Johnny sighs and gives him a soft elbow to the ribs. At least they can be grumpy together.

Optional skate tomorrow, he updates his dad from the plane. Maybe 3 straight hours of tip ins will help.

Get someone to do some pressure v contains with you. 1 on 1s not great tonite, Keith says.

Yeah I know, Matthew says. Will do.

It’s still so early in the season that worrying is nothing but counterproductive, so Matthew is trying not to worry, but he can’t help thinking about last season, racking up points, when the winning started to feel effortless. They have so many of the same guys this year. The same core, the same bonds between them. It doesn’t seem like it should be that hard to get back there.

***

The season’s first Battle of Alberta is a Tuesday night in late October. Matthew has not been counting down the days, exactly, but there’s been a constant awareness in the back of his mind as it creeps closer. Two weeks, one week, days — now hours. The Edmonton Oilers are in town, and Matthew feels very normal about it.

“It seemed like things were already getting heated between these teams even in the preseason,” one of the reporters says in the pregame media scrum — a new guy whose name Matthew doesn’t know yet. “How much does that rivalry fuel games like these, and are you worried at all about things getting out of hand?”

The questions are routine. Yes, the games get heated. Yes, they’re a little more fun to win, and they suck a little more to lose. It’s not that they’re not thinking about how last season ended, it’s just that they’re focused on the current season. Matthew tries to give decent quotes even when the answers are the same as always. Sometimes he amuses himself thinking about the things he would never say: Well, I’m not worried about things getting out of hand, but I am kind of worried about Leon Draisaitl looking at me the wrong way and popping a boner in the middle of the game. Have you ever popped a boner while wearing a cup? It’s not comfortable.

Keith would certainly have some things to say about public relations after that. Not to mention his coaches, teammates, the entire Flames organization, USA Hockey, the NHL as a whole. Most likely it would not be filed away under examples of good leadership.

He and Draisaitl haven’t spoken, texted, anything since opening night. Which is how it should be. That congrats is possibly the only thing this season that Matthew feels weirder about than his captaincy.

Anyway, Matthew does not share any of this with the press. He gives some standard answers and then goes over to Noah’s to eat lunch and play Chel. He’s found that having something to do between the morning skate and the pre-game nap leaves him in a better headspace for when the puck drops, and Noah is pretty much always down to chill. They pick up carryout on the way there, which they eat directly from the containers on Noah’s couch, then fire up the Xbox for a couple of rounds of Blues vs. Bruins.

Between games, Matthew checks his phone and notices he’s got a message from Brady. The text is a YouTube link, accompanied by the helpful commentary of: LOL LOL

“Hang on,” Matthew tells Noah, setting his controller aside. “Brady sent me an apparently hysterical video, so I have to watch this real quick.”

“Oh, yeah?” Noah says, scooting to watch over Matthew’s shoulder. When Matthew clicks the link and the video that pops up is one from the Edmonton Oilers account entitled PRE-RAW | Leon Draisaitl 10.25.22, he laughs as Matthew groans. “Scouting the competition for you, eh?”

The video is cued to a timestamp, so it starts up in the middle of Draisaitl mumbling something about focusing on playing a full sixty-minute game.

“Now this is the insight we need,” says Noah. “This will give us that winning edge, for sure.”

“I can’t imagine why I’d want to watch this,” Matthew gripes, but as he’s saying this, he catches his own name. He and Noah both immediately shut up to listen.

“—even in the preseason game, things already seemed to be getting heated,” a reporter is saying. “Do you think that will be a particular challenge for the team tonight?”

“No, I mean, he uh— Matthew likes to be annoying. If you let him get to you, that’s just what he wants.” Draisaitl shrugs, picking at the microphone stand. “It’s better to ignore him and focus on our game.”

“Matthew,” Noah echoes with a laugh. “Since when is he friends with you like that?”

“He’s not, shut up,” Matthew says, shoving him. He missed the next question, but it’s probably one of the same ones about the rivalry that Matthew had to answer earlier. Draisaitl looks equally annoyed about it. Noah huffs and huddles back in to watch.

“No, I mean, obviously when you play against a team a lot, and like with a rivalry between us and Calgary, things get heated. Uh, sure, you could say personal, I guess. More for them, after last season.” He sighs, scratching his cheek through his beard. “Obviously we don’t like each other, but at the end of the day, he’s playing for his team the same way we’re playing for ours. So it’s really all just hockey.”

Off-screen, another reporter asks, “What do you think about the Flames naming Tkachuk captain?”

Draisaitl scoffs, smirking. “I like our captain better. Next question.”

The next question is about the Oilers’ power play, which Matthew has lost too many hours of his life watching tape of already, so he feels good about stopping the video there.

“Wow,” says Noah. “That was almost nice.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Matthew mutters, shooting a text back to Brady: See I told you I’m the one living in HIS head rent free. Noah, reading over his shoulder, snorts at this.

Brady responds, U guys have like one head put together. its a duplex and ur both paying rent. Then, a few seconds later, Q says i have to tell you that was his joke not mine.

Neither of you are funny, Matthew says.

“They’re a little funny,” Noah says.

“You’re not funny either.”

“Oh, did you trade your sense of humor for that C or what?” Noah asks, then yelps and keels over as Matthew digs tickling fingers into his side.

It’s easy to laugh it off with Noah next to him, but later that afternoon, when Matthew is home and has crawled into bed for his pregame nap, he pulls the video back up and watches it again.

“Matthew likes to be annoying,” Draisaitl says on the phone screen. “If you let him get—”

Matthew skips back to watch again.

“I mean, he uh— Matthew likes to be annoying. If you—”

Again. Same thing.

“I’m the annoying one?” Matthew asks out loud. He closes YouTube and pulls up his texts instead, scrolling down to the unknown number thread that houses his short conversation history with Draisaitl, but pauses with his thumbs over the keyboard, unsure of what he even wants to say.

The reason that Draisaitl’s number is still an unknown number in Matthew’s phone is because it felt too weird typing Leon, and there was no way in hell he was saving it as Draisaitl. Sure, he could have given him a code name — his phone is a graveyard of numbers with names like Josh Tinder GTA and Flannel shirt STL that he’s texted maybe three times apiece — but that felt weird, too.

However. Given the events of today. Matthew opens the Edit Contact screen and types in slowly, L - e - o - n. Well, McDavid calls him Leo. Matthew backspaces the n, then decides that’s even weirder and puts it back. Stares at the name for a long minute. Adds a fire emoji. Draisaitl would probably hate that, so Matthew leaves it, and taps save.

Leon, he mouths, trying out the shape of it. He’s only said it a few times before, and then only when he was being annoying on purpose. But it’s fine. Way less of a mouthful than Draisaitl.

He doesn’t end up texting anything. Probably bad luck to text an Oiler before the game anyway.

***

The game does not get out of hand, exactly. Well. Not in the first five minutes.

There’s always something special about the roar of the Saddledome on rivalry nights. Matthew can feel it in the air when he skates out for warmups. He takes his laps, does his stretches, bumps the shoulders he needs to bump, dialing in as much as he can with the niggling awareness of certain players doing the same on the other half of the ice.

No one ever believes Matthew when he says he doesn’t start shit on purpose, but in his defense, when he chances a glance over to the visitors’ side, Draisaitl is already looking back at him. Well, glaring back at him. Or maybe not quite glaring, but there’s definitely a scowl involved.

Lindy is stretching near the boards between the blue line and center. Matthew grabs a puck and goes to skate some circles around him.

“What’s up, Chucky?” Lindy laughs as Matthew taps the puck under his outstretched leg and picks it back up on the other side.

“Just thought I’d come say hi,” Matthew says, patting him on the butt with his stick blade as he takes a slow lap around him, digging his edges into the ice. He glances up at the clock on the jumbotron and counts the seconds in his head: five, four, three, two—

“Hey, Tkachuk,” Draisaitl calls. “You gonna score a goal tonight? You been saving that for us?”

“Hey, fuck off,” Lindy calls back, but Matthew taps him on the shin before he can get any further.

“I got this,” he says.

It takes just a few long strides to be skating parallel to Draisaitl, both of them gliding along the center ice line with about six feet between them.

“Why, you wanna see me score?” Matthew asks. “You come to see the Chucky show tonight?”

“You really just said that? With a straight face?” Draisaitl asks. “Wow.”

Matthew grins. “Hey, you brought it up.”

“Maybe I was just worried you forgot how.”

“Hey, Chuck, everything okay over here?” Backlund slides up to Matthew, putting a hand on his shoulder. It takes about half a second for McDavid to do the same on the other side of the ice. Duncan Keith is hovering nearby, too, and Kassian is making his way over from below the icing line.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Matthew says. “Just catching up with my good buddy Leon.”

“You sure?” asks Backs.

“It’s been awhile,” Leon says. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

“Oh, so much.” Matthew winks at him.

McDavid, whose hackles had been up until a second ago, sighs and hits Draisaitl — Leon? — Matthew’s brain trips over itself a little bit. Whatever. McDavid sighs and hits Draisaitl on the ass.

“C’mon, Leo, let’s go,” he says.

Darnell Nurse is also eyeing the situation as Kassian finally barrels in. Matthew can feel another teammate at his own back, too. The level of tension is almost comical.

“We good over here?” Kassian demands.

“Yeah, uh, this is an A and B conversation,” Matthew says. “But since you interrupted, I’ll just see my way out.”

He’s pretty sure the weird noise he hears as he skates away is Leon trying not to laugh.

The game starts scrappy, but not nasty. There’s a flurry of scoring chances on both ends, and then it settles into a rhythm — fast-paced and chippy, but still a rhythm. And then Looch catches Puljujärvi in the corner with a hit that the Oilers don’t like, and everything starts unraveling. By the end of the first, there have been no goals and sixteen penalty minutes, none of which belong to Matthew, although that’s more due to dumb luck than because he’s playing like a Lady Byng candidate.

Less than a minute into the second, Nugent-Hopkins roofs one at the end of an odd-man rush. Seventy-two seconds later, the Draisaitl-to-McDavid connection does its thing, and suddenly Matthew’s team is sitting at the bottom of a hole that feels much bigger than two goals has any right to feel.

“Okay, okay, look,” Matthew says, elbows on the boards with Johnny and Lindy as they catch their breath between shifts. “They keep collapsing in on me when I crash the net. I’m gonna do that and get back out real quick, try and get me the puck, I think I’ll have a shot.”

It works perfectly. Johnny puts the pass right on his tape. Matthew can see Koskinen’s eyes go wide behind his goalie mask as he clocks the clear shooting lane.

Ping.

A groan fills the Saddledome as the puck ricochets off the post. Matthew shouts an inappropriate word that gets lost in the noise and hustles back as the rush goes the other way. Nurse dumps it in; the forwards give chase, and Matthew finds himself battling in the corner with his very favorite Oiler.

“Nice shot,” Leon says, digging his skate blade into the ice as Matthew tries to shove his foot away to get at the puck.

“Oh, fuck off,” Matthew says. God, he’s fucking hard to move. The consolation, Matthew guesses, is that Leon’s having no luck moving Matthew, either.

“Right back here, Chuck,” Johnny calls, hitting his stick on the ice.

Leon jabs an elbow into him, jockeying for position. “Can’t score or take a compliment, eh?”

“Heard you talking shit at your presser this morning,” Matthew grits out.

“Talking shit? I thought I was pretty nice!”

Matthew doesn’t respond, except to finally pop the puck free, batting it in Johnny’s general direction. Johnny corrals it and sends it up the ice to spring Lindy and Shilly for a two-on-one, and three seconds later, the goal horn goes off.

That’s one.

The second one comes in the final minute of the period, Calle from Rasmus. In between there’s another six PIMs. Two of those did belong to Matthew, because standing up for your teammates is apparently roughing now, and he spent the whole time in the box chomping on his mouthguard and trying to clear the puck through sheer force of will.

The third one comes in overtime. Johnny Hockey, baby.

***

No one wants Matthew for media after a game where he barely did anything, so he’s showered and dressed early. He sticks around anyway, pacing the locker room and vibrating with leftover adrenaline.

“Atta boy, Pelly, great game tonight,” he says, clapping Jakob on the shoulder as the kid heads out. He didn’t get any points, either, but he had some really nice defensive zone plays, and he didn’t try to fight anybody. Matthew is mildly haunted by the idea that he might try to actually fight somebody.

“You’re still here?” Johnny asks when he comes out from the showers, toweling his hair dry. He, of course, was in high demand from the press. “Go the fuck home, man.”

Matthew doesn’t want to go home. He’s so full of energy that he feels jittery. He was kind of hoping someone would suggest going out to celebrate the win, or even just grabbing a nightcap, but if anyone has plans they’re keeping them to themselves, and besides, they have practice in the morning and it’s already late. So he goes home.

The thing is, as the relief of triumph fades, Matthew can’t stop thinking about what a shitty game he played. No points, a stupid penalty. He hasn’t played an exceptionally good game yet this season, and if there was ever a time to step the fuck up, it was tonight. He paces around his apartment, replaying those missed scoring chances in his head — it sure as fuck is a good thing they didn’t wind up needing those goals. The last thing he needs is to spend another postgame presser walking the local media through his inability to do his job. He doesn’t even want to check his phone, because he knows his dad will want to talk through it, and he doesn’t fucking feel like it.

At least Leon will be pleased that Matthew is still incapable of putting the puck in the net. A nice consolation prize for him.

Standing in the middle of his living room, Matthew rakes a frustrated hand through his hair. His fingers catch on a tangle, and he clenches them in the curls, pulling until it hurts.

God dammit.

He pulls out his phone, swiping away the long texts from Keith, the happy face and confetti emojis from Taryn, the celebratory gifs and memes in the team group chat, and scrolls down, down, down to Leon.

Come over, he texts.

The reply takes less than a minute: Fuck off

Matthew sits down on the couch, dropping his head into his hands and breathing deep. It’s so stupid — they won the damn game. But he feels like he’s going to crawl out of his skin.

Dont be a sore loser, he types. Come fuck me. Send.

It’ll distract him from feeling shitty about himself, at least. It’ll get all the nervous energy out.

Address? Leon texts back five minutes later. Matthew sighs with relief. He sends it over along with the door code, slumps sideways on the couch, and stays there until his phone tells him he has a visitor to be buzzed up.

Leon, as usual, does not look thrilled to see him, but he steps inside like a normal person instead of coming at Matthew with violence for once. He’s wearing an Oilers hoodie, which Matthew would comment on if he weren’t so wound up. Hands stuffed in his pockets, shoulders hunched, bad mood written all over his face. Matthew doesn’t give a shit. He’s here, isn’t he? Showing up kind of forfeits him the right to complain about being here.

“Okay, let’s go,” Matthew says, grabbing him by the front of his sweatshirt and dragging him toward the bedroom.

“Sure, okay,” Leon says, dripping with sarcasm, but he doesn’t fight it. “You know ‘sore winner’ is a thing, too, right?”

“Yeah, whatever,” says Matthew.

In the bedroom, Leon makes a show of stopping to take his shoes off, shooting Matthew a look that implies he thinks that perhaps Matthew was raised in a barn. Not too far from the truth, really, considering the things he and Brady did to their poor mother’s house. But that is so far from relevant right now.

“Might as well take off everything else while you’re at it,” Matthew says, going to rummage through his bedside table drawer.

“Wow, right to the point, huh?” Leon says, but pulls off his sweatshirt and t-shirt as one, balling them up and throwing them at Matthew. “You think you’re the boss because you won tonight?”

“Can we not talk about the game?” Matthew flicks a condom packet at him in retaliation, which he catches with one hand against his chest. “I didn’t say ’come over, let’s chat’, did I? I said come fuck me.”

“Sure thing, captain.” Leon’s tone makes it clear he is only barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes, but Matthew’s dick still twitches at the words. The back of his neck burns; hopefully Leon doesn’t notice how red it turns when he’s embarrassed. He sets his bottle of lube on the bedside table and shuts the drawer firmly. Leon is standing there watching, like he’s waiting for something.

“Look, if you don’t want to—” Matthew starts, which actually does make Leon roll his eyes.

“I’m here, right? Don’t be weird about it,” he says, tossing the condom onto the bed. “Take your clothes off and let’s do this.”

What’s weird, Matthew thinks, is taking your clothes off to have sex without touching the person you’re about to have sex with, but that’s what they do. Leon has a bruise the size of a fist on his ribs, and Matthew wants to dig his own knuckles into it and see what kind of noise he makes. He wants to bite the soft part of Leon’s belly below his navel, to drag his tongue through the muscled creases of his thighs. He can’t remember the last time just looking at someone turned him on so much.It makes him feel a little crazy.

He moves without thinking, crossing the room to crowd Leon against the wall. Leon makes an affronted noise, but Matthew catches his wrist and holds onto it as he drops to his knees. He shoves Leon’s hand into his hair and presses his face into his crotch, mouthing at his balls and the base of his cock.

“Fuck,” Leon says, sagging under the sudden onslaught. His fingers clench in Matthew’s curls just the way he remembers, and Matthew moans, letting Leon drag him up enough to get his mouth around him. He bobs recklessly, not caring if he gags. Digs his fingers into Leon’s hips, hoping he leaves marks. He just — wants. Leon makes a strangled noise above him, and he wants more. He pulls off, wrenching against Leon’s grip, to bite the jut of Leon’s hipbone, then his stomach, that soft low part, just like he wanted to.

“God, okay, come on,” Leon manages, pulling him up by his hair. Matthew stumbles to his feet and never quite regains his balance, being shoved to the bed, turned, manhandled onto it on his hands and knees with Leon right behind him.

“Give me that,” Leon says, his mouth hot against the back of Matthew’s shoulder. Something in Matthew’s brain recognizes that he means the lube on the bedside table, so he grabs it and passes it back, then collapses onto his own forearms, trying to catch his breath. The stubborn hands on his hips, the graze of teeth down his spine — every new touch lodges another half-swallowed sound in his throat. He almost sighs with relief when he hears the plastic click of the cap opening.

“You know,” Leon says as he drags two slick fingers through the cleft of Matthew’s ass, “I think you might actually look good like this.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Matthew groans, the expletive breaking when Leon pushes one of those fingers into him. There’s some distant part of his brain that knows he should have a little bit more fucking decorum, like, at least enough not to go face down, ass up for this guy, of all guys, or to at least not be so goddamn desperate about it. Get it together, Tkachuk, etcetera, except he doesn’t want to.

Leon isn’t gentle with him, which is good, because he doesn’t want gentle, either. He isn’t sure what he wants, but this is something close to it. Choking on Leon’s dick is something close to it. The thing is, he’s gotten just about everything he’s wanted, hasn’t he? The NHL career, that C on his jersey, all that’s missing is a Cup, really, not that any of that has anything to do with Leon’s fingers, rough and efficient, as Matthew muffles soft moans in the duvet. His cock is hard and heavy, and he’s almost about to cave and touch it when Leon pulls back entirely, followed by the crinkle of the condom packet.

“Okay, hey, roll over,” Leon says, and it takes Matthew a moment to remember how to use his limbs like that, but he does, and only kicks Leon a little bit in the process. Leon catches his ankle and moves it to his other side so he’s between Matthew’s legs, over him, lining up, hitching Matthew’s leg up against his hip. Matthew was not expecting to be looking at him while they did this, and is gratified to see that the face Leon makes when he pushes into him is genuinely stupid.

“Don’t tell me I look good like this, too,” he says.

Leon makes a noise that’s almost a laugh. “God, you don’t shut up, do you?”

The stretch isn’t entirely comfortable, but it feels fucking good. Matthew groans, arching into it as Leon pulls out and thrusts back in. He was so right about Leon looking good with his clothes off. Sweaty, flushed, his muscles taut as he fucks into Matthew over and over — it might be the best he’s ever looked. The pink in his cheeks brings out the blue in his eyes. He could shut Matthew up easy — could push fingers into his mouth, could turn him back over and press his face into the mattress, holding him there while he fucks him. Matthew would let him. He would like it. Maybe he wants it.

Leon plants a hand on his chest for leverage; Matthew grabs it, pulls it up to his throat, relishes the way he can’t breathe for a few blissful seconds before Leon yanks it away.

“The fuck,” Leon pants.

“Don’t stop,” says Matthew. “Fuck you, don’t stop.”

The half-second of hesitation is suffocating, but then Leon drives into him again with a snap of his hips, and again, and again. Matthew lets his head fall back, mouth open in a grateful moan. A moment later, Leon’s hand comes to the base of his throat, a careful weight behind it. He leans heavier, not enough to stop Matthew from breathing, but enough that it makes it just a little bit hard to suck in a full breath.

“Shit,” Leon says. Matthew can’t really see him through the bright spots in his eyes, but he sounds wrecked. You say the sweetest things, he would say if he could string two words together. Half a giggle escapes him at the thought, which makes Leon press down harder, so that Matthew has to gasp with his whole mouth open to get any air. It feels so good that Matthew wants to cry.

Leon collapses when he comes, and Matthew takes a gulping breath, the rush of oxygen leaving him dizzy. It takes him a minute to come down, too, as Leon breathes on top of him. He realizes belatedly that his thighs are clamped so tight around Leon’s hips that they’re shaking, and he forces himself to relax, letting his feet come to rest flat on the bed. The movement makes Leon slide halfway out of him. Leon shudders, pressing a hand to Matthew’s side to still him.

“Give me a second,” he mumbles.

Matthew gives him two, three, four, five — and then Leon shifts off of him and out of him with another groan. He smooths his hand down Matthew’s flank, which for some reason makes Matthew want to curl away from him, but he stands his ground, lying still. Leon sits up, scrubbing a hand through his hair.

“Sorry,” he says. Matthew thinks for a moment he’s apologizing for the choking, but it seems more like it’s about the extra time he’s taking to pull himself together. “Geez, okay, you want me to blow you?”

“If you want.” There’s a croak in Matthew’s voice.

Leon gives him an odd look. “And if I don’t want?”

Matthew shrugs, avoiding his gaze. The high faded fast, and now he’s only half-hard and a little sore. His neck aches in the shape of Leon’s hand. Those’ll be some fun bruises to explain. He touches the area, carefully. Leon’s gaze drops to his fingers testing the shape of his clavicle.

“Are you okay?” he asks, sounding more awkward than Matthew would have believed him capable of being.

“Yeah,” says Matthew. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He tries to exude some intangible aura of fine-ness to make this claim more convincing, which must work in some way or another, because Leon pats him on the stomach and gets up to drop the condom in the trash bin. Matthew watches him, not not admiring the view, but mostly thinking about how much he would like to find his sweatpants. Before he can make a decision about moving, though, Leon returns to the bed, climbing up to straddle Matthew’s thighs.

“I’m getting you off,” he says. “I’m not gonna just owe you one.”

“Okay,” Matthew says. “I’m not stopping you.”

“Okay,” Leon says, wrapping his hand around Matthew’s cock. There’s something faintly embarrassing about how soft it is, but Matthew keeps his poker face even as the back of his neck gets hot again. Leon’s hand is still slick enough with lube from earlier that it slides easily. It feels good. Matthew closes his eyes, focusing on how it feels good. It shouldn’t be difficult. It’s a fucking handjob.

“Matthew,” says Leon. Matthew opens one eye to look at Leon, who is shifting forward to once again fit his hand across Matthew’s throat. He doesn’t bear down, but just the weight of it resting there is enough to make Matthew’s heart speed up. “Is this—”

“Yeah, like—” Matthew takes Leon’s wrist and moves his grip so he can feel the pressure against his windpipe. Leon’s hand on his dick is still going, and the combination of the two makes Matthew shudder all over. He lets his eyes fall closed again, relishing it. It’s not long before he’s leaking into Leon’s hand, his breath coming in short pants.

“There we go,” Leon murmurs, low in a way that crawls under Matthew’s skin and makes him want to squirm. Maybe he does squirm; he can’t really tell. Leon twists his slick palm around the head of Matthew’s dick, and when Matthew moans about it, he does it again, and again, leaning more weight on his hand until Matthew chokes and comes all at once.

Leon pulls his hand from Matthew’s throat as soon as he makes that strangled noise, but he waits until Matthew has stopped trying to buck into his fist to stop stroking him through it. It takes a minute for Matthew to pull himself together.

“Shit,” he says, his chest rising and falling with big breaths. “Now I need another shower.”

“You needed one anyway,” Leon says, wiping his hand on Matthew’s ribs.

“God, you’re charming,” Matthew deadpans. Leon just smirks as he climbs off of him.

Matthew might need a shower, but he’s also a gentleman and a good host, so he lets Leon wash up first, even though this means that when he pulls on his sweatpants the waistband cuts right through the spunk on his stomach. Not that it matters, given the mess of lube between his thighs which will make the pants gross anyway, but whatever. It doesn’t matter.

While Leon hogs the bathroom, Matthew lays on the bed with his legs dangling off the side, trying not to think too hard about what just happened. It’s just sex. And sometimes sex gets weird. Sometimes you do weird stuff during sex because it’s what feels good in the moment. Isn’t that the whole point of sex?

“Hey,” says Leon, emerging still naked, his hair slicked back like he combed it with wet fingers. “I’m done in there. If you wanna.”

“Yeah, I will in a minute.” Getting up feels like a lot of effort. Matthew stares at the ceiling and pokes his toes against the carpet while Leon pulls on his track pants and t-shirt and hoodie. He’s not expecting it when the mattress dips with Leon’s weight as he sits down next to Matthew.

Leon’s hoodie is distasteful because it’s an Oilers hoodie, but other than that it looks warm and soft. Leon looks cozy in it, and Matthew is struck by the urge to burrow into him. It’s stupid. This is all stupid. What are they even doing?

“Are you missing a sock or something?” Matthew asks, more aggressively than he means to.

“No,” says Leon.

“Okay,” Matthew says. “Are you leaving?”

“Yeah,” Leon says, but he doesn’t go anywhere. He just sits there, looking at Matthew. The way he’s looking makes Matthew wish he had put on a shirt despite the mess.

The silence stretches out for an excruciating minute before Leon says, “You played good tonight.”

A dozen sarcastic responses leap to Matthew’s tongue, and all of them die there.

“Thanks,” he says.

“You’re welcome.” Leon touches Matthew’s neck, frowning as his fingers trace the dip in Matthew’s clavicle. Matthew keeps very still. Doesn’t breathe. As if that will somehow stop Leon from seeing any of his weaknesses. Or whatever Leon is looking for. Whatever he’s looking for, Matthew doesn’t want him to find it, just on principle. Slowly, up the line of Matthew’s throat, under his chin, then coming around to cup his face. Leon’s thumb on Matthew’s lower lip. One of his fingertips brushes Matthew’s earlobe, maybe by accident, then definitely on purpose, surprising a shaky little sigh out of him.

“You should go,” Matthew blurts.

Leon presses his lips together in a thin line.

“Yeah,” he says. He pats Matthew’s cheek, not quite gently. “Keep your head up. We’ll get you next time.”

He gets up to leave. Matthew forces himself to sit up.

“Hey,” he says. “Thanks for coming.”

Leon shrugs. “Wasn’t the worst time.”

He lets himself out. Matthew sits on the bed for a long time before he gets up to shower.

***

The bruises are less vivid than Matthew expects, but they are there, a faint purpling ring around the base of his throat and a mottled blotch where Leon’s thumb pressed into the side of his neck. He should be glad that they’re less obvious. Not like it matters. His teammates are nosy assholes anyway.

“Jesus, Chuck, what happened there?” Johnny jabs a finger into Matthew’s neck.

“Ow, fuck off,” Matthew grunts, ducking away to pull his undershirt on. He’s been trying to change quickly, wearing shirts whose necks haven’t been ripped out, but there’s no hiding in a locker room. He feigns ignorance about where they came from, alluding to getting jerked around by the collar of his jersey during more than one game in the past week, which seems only half-convincing and prompts one of the trainers to tell him to let them know if it keeps happening, eyeing Matthew as if he’s one of those old European royals with bad blood who could die from a stubbed toe.

Noah has another take. “Man, I knew there were a lot of people out there who would line up to choke you,” he says after practice. “I hope you’re charging them for the privilege.”

“Yeah, well.” Matthew doesn’t quite manage to sound casual, but he does resist the urge to rub at the bruises. “As side hustles go, it’s more fun than Cameo.”

“Hey, do what you want.” Noah grins his crooked smirk of a grin. “If that’s what chills you out, no judgment. Just don’t make me explain it to Sutter if you go too hard and show up to practice with a broken neck.”

“Fuck off,” Matthew says, and throws a ball of tape at him.

Matthew does feel better, though. Whatever was suffocating him that night after the game against the Oilers has dissipated, leaving a much more normal amount of pressure on his shoulders.

That weekend, Matthew gets the monkey off his back with an early goal against Minnesota. It’s just a tip-in, but Lindy lifts him off his feet like it was a game seven overtime winner, and suddenly Matthew feels like he’s skating with fifty fewer pounds on his shoulders. He adds another, prettier one in the third just for good measure, and in the buzz of postgame adrenaline finds himself texting Leon a link to the tweet with video of the second one: In case you were still worried

Congrats now you’re only 8 goals behind me, Leon texts back, which comes with its own little thrill of victory. Matthew had been worried that things would get really weird after the, uh, slightly unorthodox sex, but look at them, texting like normal people. Which is weird, but not in a bad way.

They don’t keep a conversation going, but a couple of days later, Matthew is on Johnny’s couch, watching the Vegas-San Jose game with Johnny and Noah. Meredith has gone out for a girls’ night, and Johnny’s about as bad at rattling around the house without her as Matthew is at rattling around his apartment alone, and so the Avengers were assembled, except Sean, who for some reason did not plan his life around the rest of them potentially getting bored.

The Oilers are on a road trip out east right now, and during intermission Matthew and the guys are treated to a recap montage of a combined McDavid-Draisaitl seven-point effort that lets them eke out a win over Boston. While in general Matthew would prefer they not be eking out any wins, for standings purposes, he has to admit it’s impressive, and finds himself once again reaching for his phone.

Saw the highlights. Nice game tonight, he texts.

“Oh, that’s sick,” Johnny says as the recap switches to the Devils game to show off some fancy overtime goal by Jack. Matthew grins at the fist-pumping celly the kid gets in before he’s smothered in a group hug.

“You should try it next game,” he says, fidgeting with the edge of his phone case.

“Maybe I will,” says Johnny. Noah snorts. Johnny throws a pillow at him. “Way to be supportive.”

What Matthew would like is for them to get to the Ottawa recap. He knows Brady had a good game, and he wants to find something nice and specific to text him about.

Thanks, Leon texts.

🔥, Matthew shoots back.

His phone is silent all through the Toronto-Detroit recap, but then another text comes through.

Your neck ok? it says.

Matthew stares at this one for a minute. He workshops a few responses before going with, It’s fine but the guys chirped me good about the bruises

“Oh, man, brutal,” Noah laughs. They’re on the Carolina-Pittsburgh highlights now; apparently Svechnikov broke some ankles tonight. Matthew forces himself to pay attention, as if not looking at his phone will make Leon respond more quickly. Assuming he responds at all.

“I’m getting another. Anyone else want another?” Johnny gestures with his empty bottle as he gets up.

“Yes,” Matthew and Noah say in unison.

“Now here was a fun one tonight, Ottawa besting the Islanders in a surprisingly lopsided win—” the voiceover on the TV announces, finally. Matthew sits up to watch closely. The Senators have not quite managed a winning record so far, but they’re hovering close enough to .500 that it feels like they really might turn the corner. The game looks like it was fun as hell, though, and it’s easy for Matthew to craft a detailed and supportive text to Brady, tacking a chirp onto the end so he doesn’t get a big head about it. It’s a mark of his willpower, he thinks, that he doesn’t let himself look at Leon’s next text until he’s done with this.

Sorry about that, it says.

Matthew smirks to himself, sending back, Are you though

He’s got a handful of selfies saved from when the bruises were at their worst. They’re not great pictures — nose to chest, his chin tilted up, wearing a team t-shirt with the neck torn out that does nothing to hide his throat. He took them for himself, for reasons, but maybe Leon would like to see his handiwork. Matthew picks the one where he looks the least stupid and sends it over.

Shit I would have chirped you too, Leon says.

Well now’s your chance, Matthew says.

There’s a long pause, and then: Did you chew that shirt yourself or did you need help from a teammate

Matthew snorts.

“Johnny,” Noah calls plaintively toward the kitchen. “Chucky’s flirting with someone on his phone.”

“I’m texting my siblings, asshole,” Matthew says as he types, All by myself baby, it’s a Tkachuk original

Brady texts: 💪✔🤑🧀. Matthew will respond to him later.

Noah rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

“Wait, who’s Chucky texting?” Johnny asks as he returns to dole out cold beers.

“His siblings,” Matthew says.

“He’s flirting,” Noah says. Matthew flips him off.

Stick to hockey not fashion, Leon says.

Matthew texts back, Crush my dreams why don’t you

Leon says: 🙂

“See?” Noah says. “Look at his face!”

“Oh my god, can you mind your own business?” Matthew says, snatching the bottle Johnny passes to him.

“Oooh, struck a nerve,” Johnny laughs. “Leave him alone, Hanny, and let’s just be glad he’s smiling about anything again. He’ll spill when he’s ready.”

“There’s nothing to spill,” Matthew says, and Noah and Johnny scoff about it, but they let the subject drop. Once they’re distracted plotting which restaurants to hit on the next roadie, Matthew picks his phone back up and texts, If I give you a list of teammates I hate can you hit them next game

Probably shake their hands instead, Leon says.

Wow rude, says Matthew. Leon responds with a shrugging emoji.

“You know, Hanny has a point about your face,” Johnny says.

Matthew chucks a pillow at him.

***

The next day, they head out for their eastern Canada road swing with Winnipeg tacked onto the end. At eight days long, it’ll be the longest trip they’ve had this season so far, and Matthew can’t help thinking that however the games shake out will set the tone for the team through Christmas, at the very least. It’s still early enough in the season that looking at standings points is useless, with most teams still bunched up in the middle, but having a good road trip would put the Flames near the top of the pack. Having a bad one would leave them clawing at the bottom.

Matthew wants other teams to see his guys on their schedule and get worried. He wants people to talk about early contenders and not be able to leave them out of the mix. Matthew Tkachuk’s Calgary Flames, he wants to hear when he turns on SportsNet, they’re something to be reckoned with.

But before all of that, he has to beat Brady.

When they fly into Ottawa the day before the game, Matthew’s parents have already been in town and texting him about family plans for two days. Matthew is looking forward to it, of course; it would be better if Taryn could have made it up from Virginia, but she’s very busy being a big shot DI field hockey player, so Matthew will give her a pass on this one.

Please get here soon so they can interrogate u instead, Brady texts as Matthew does a quick change in his hotel room, which makes Matthew laugh because the reason Brady gets interrogated is that he’s terrible at replying to Keith and Chantal’s texts. Matthew is great at replying to their texts, and thus escapes the interrogations.

He orders an Uber to Brady’s place, then replies to him, Might go out with the boys instead

Do NOT, Brady says.

🙂, says Matthew.

When he gets there, he’s greeted with cheers from Brady’s roommates as his mom swoops in to kiss his cheeks. He gets a quick hug from Keith, and then a big one from Brady, who squeezes tight and lifts him clean off his feet.

“Oof, buddy, save it for the game,” Matthew laughs, slapping Brady on the back until he puts him down.

Brady, Josh, and Tim have hung a homemade banner that says CAPTAIN CHUCKY in big, uneven letters. It looks suspiciously like it has been used before. There are cupcakes, which are definitely store-bought, but Matthew doesn’t turn his nose up at a store-bought baked good. They have family plans for a little celebratory dinner after the game tomorrow, so he wasn’t expecting anything now, and despite all the agonizing he’s done over the captaincy, it’s nice.

“I got you something,” Brady says, slipping Matthew a smallish gift box. “It’s kind of stupid, so open it at the hotel where I don’t have to look at you.”

“It’s really cool,” Tim pipes up over Brady’s shoulder.

“Es ist so geeeeil, eh?” Brady digs an elbow into Tim’s side, which makes Tim immediately dissolve into giggles. “Who asked you?”

“You’re so rude, Brady,” Josh says around a mouthful of cupcake.

“So rude,” Tim echoes, still grinning ear to ear.

“I’ll just save this for later,” Matthew says, tucking the box into his back pocket.

Keith and Chantal clear out before long for a date night downtown (Josh coos at the romance of it all; Matthew and Brady cover their ears), so Matthew spends the rest of the evening on Brady’s couch playing video games with his brother’s roommates. It’s almost like having an extra night at home before the roadtrip starts. They fuck around in Fortnite and ‘Chel until they get hungry, then order dinner, which they eat in the living room with a Raptors game on the television. When they’re done, Brady collects everyone’s empty takeout containers to throw away.

“I’ve literally never seen you clean up after other people before,” Matthew says.

“Shut up,” says Brady, balancing a precarious stack of styrofoam. “I’m trying to convince them to respect me.”

“It’s totally working, Brades, just keep trying,” Josh says from where he’s lying on the floor. “Maybe clean my room next, that would definitely help.”

Brady flips him off on his way to the kitchen. As soon as he’s out of earshot, Josh turns to Matthew and says, “He really is the best.”

“The worst,” Tim says, typing on his phone. “But also the best.”

Matthew twists in his seat to look back toward the kitchen. After spending so much of his childhood basically helping to raise Brady, it’s weird how much growing up he does away from Matthew. Even though it’s been almost a decade since they started spending more time apart than together, and even though Matthew knows what a good kid Brady is and how much work he puts in, it’s still strange each time they see each other how he’s a little bit more of an adult, managing his own life. In plenty of ways, managing it better than Matthew manages his own. He’s good; he’s steady. When his team loses, he shoulders the load gracefully.

Brady, returning sans garbage, leans over the back of the couch to peer at Tim’s phone. “Oooh, Matthew, he’s sexting your enemy.”

“Not sexting,” Tim groans, aiming a smack at him that mostly misses. “Why do you always call it sexting when it’s in German?”

“Because it’s funny.” Brady hops the back of the couch to reclaim the center cushion, settling there cross-legged. “And it’s just such a sexy language.”

“Dummkopf,” Tim says with narrowed eyes.

Brady grins and waggles his eyebrows. “Du siehst heiß aus.”

Matthew only knows about three words of German and he can still tell that Brady’s accent is shit. The effort, though, is unfortunately cute. Josh groans and rolls his eyes, though, so maybe it’s less cute when it happens every day.

“So Brady’s networking this summer worked, huh?” Matthew asks, leaning to talk to Tim around Brady’s weird scrawny head. “You best friends with Draisaitl now?”

He asks this very casually, as if he’s not concerned that saying Leon’s name out loud will give away his extracurricular activities. Or as if the mention of him doesn’t make Matthew’s dick twitch just a little bit.

“We just text,” Tim says, texting. “But maybe we’ll work out this summer.”

Matthew elbows Brady in the side. “All that effort for maybe a workout. Way to go, traitor.”

“Hey, some of us like making friends instead of enemies,” Brady says, elbowing him back, which quickly turns into a grappling match that lands them on the floor as they both try to hit each other without hitting Tim. Josh has been around for way longer; he knows to just get out of the way. Brady has had size on Matthew for years, but Matthew is meaner, so he has no qualms with digging his fingers into the ticklish spot in Brady’s armpit, making him bark a laugh and flail for just long enough for Matthew to pin him with a knee in his back.

“Total dirty pool, asshole,” Brady protests, muffled against the floor.

“Don’t worry, Chucky,” Josh says, patting Brady’s curls. “We’ll avenge your honor tomorrow.”

***

Inside the box from Brady is a very expensive-feeling silk tie, blue plaid with thin red and white lines woven through the pattern. On the back of it there’s a custom label embroidered to read Call Me Captain, with the Cs stylized like the patch on Matthew’s jersey. Under that:100% CGY, Made in USA with the date of Matthew’s opening night game in smaller script underneath.

It’s a good thing Brady told him to open it in private, because this way no one is around to chirp him when he swallows the lump in his throat. Matthew doesn’t wear ties often, but of course he wears it to the rink the next day.

Wes McCauley is officiating the game, so he makes Matthew take the first faceoff against Brady — “Get in here, captain,” he says with a laugh — which obviously Matthew loses, but after that, it might be the best game he’s played all season. Maybe the best game the whole team has played all season. All four lines are rolling, passes snapping tape-to-tape, and yes, Matthew does hope that the Senators are starting to turn things around, but he’s more than willing to sacrifice them for one night for his own sake.

Two goals, three assists. Johnny gets two and two; Lindy racks up four points of his own. If someone wanted to call them the best line in hockey, Matthew wouldn’t argue. He might humbly deflect, but he wouldn’t argue.

The final score is 8-2, and if Matthew were on the other end of that, he would be unbearable for the rest of the evening. Brady has always been a way nicer kid than him, though, so by the time they sit down for dinner with their parents after the game, he is grumpy but affable.

“Hey, you’ve still got Matthew beat in faceoffs,” Keith says, slapping Brady’s back as Brady shoves free bread from the table basket into his mouth.

“Yeah, I’ve got that going for me for sure,” he deadpans, mouth full, and kicks Matthew under the table. Matthew kicks him back, but not hard, because he’s a magnanimous winner.

“Brady,” Chantal says. Brady covers his mouth, chews, swallows, and gives her a sheepish grin.

“I think,” Matthew says graciously, “that the scoreboard didn’t fully reflect the effort.”

“Thanks, Matthew, that means so much,” says Brady, but he gives Matthew the scrunched-up smile that means he’s not being entirely sarcastic.

Matthew doesn’t feel bad for trouncing him. He needed the win more than Brady did. He feels, maybe for the first time this season, the way he thinks he’s supposed to feel about leading his team: capable, in control. Like he’s contributing what he’s supposed to be contributing. Keeping stupid mistakes to a minimum. Instigating, yeah, but mostly only when it’s helpful, or when someone pisses him off with how they come at his teammates, or is just generally annoying.

But Brady’s got an ugly scrape on his jaw where Dillon’s stick caught him up high in the second, so he deserves a little sympathy.

“No, but seriously, you guys have really stepped up this season,” Matthew says. “I mean, maybe not tonight, but—” Brady pulls a face, and Matthew laughs. “Sorry, bro. Take it out on Edmonton when they roll through town for me, yeah?”

Brady snorts. “Yeah, we’ll see.”

“Okay, enough shop talk,” Chantal cuts in. “Let’s have a toast to our captains.”

Keith flags down the waiter, who brings them a nice bottle of bubbly. Chantal and Brady both laugh and clap when he pops the cork, which makes Matthew laugh, too.

“To Brady and Matthew,” Keith says when they all have a glass to lift. “Good kids and good captains.”

“We’re so proud of you both,” Chantal adds.

“To the best big brother,” Brady says.

“And an okay little brother,” Matthew says.

“Matthew,” says Chantal.

“Okay, a pretty great little brother,” Matthew amends, giving Brady another kick under the table. “I’m glad we get to do this together.”

“Yeah, it’s about time you caught up,” says Brady.

They drink. Keith is generous with the refills, and by the time Matthew heads back to the hotel, he’s pleasantly tipsy and not nearly wound down enough to sleep. He gets ready for bed and tucks himself in anyway, but instead of trying to sleep, he lies in the dark scrolling through Instagram and replying to all his friends’ stories with 🔥s or ❤s depending on the context. When he runs out of posts, he scrolls through the night’s scores and highlights on the NHL app instead. Sure, maybe a little bit just to see his own team dominating the headlines, but no one needs to know that.

There were some other good games tonight. A blowout win for the Bruins over Montreal. A barnburner between Washington and Carolina. The Kings and Ducks are still playing, tied in the waning minutes of the third. The Oilers didn’t play tonight. Maybe they watched, Matthew thinks, nestling into his pile of pillows. They’re on the road right now; maybe they went out to dinner and some TV in the restaurant treated them to the highlights while they tried to enjoy their steak or whatever. Certain guys over there, it would definitely ruin their evening a little. That would be pretty funny.

Hope you watched the Chucky show tonight. It was a good one, he types, palming himself between his legs as he hits send. He’s not hard, yet, but he could get there easily. After a night like tonight, he deserves it. Not just quick and dirty, but indulgently, drawn out until his thighs shake and his toes curl. He squeezes himself through his pajama pants, thumbing at the head of his cock through the fabric. If there were someone to blow him right now, that would be perfect. Taking their time, taking Matthew to the edge so slowly it’s almost torture, while he lies there savoring every swipe of tongue, every drag of lips, every clench of fingers into his thighs.

His phone lights up with a response from Leon, and he keeps his hand on himself while he reads: Congrats on beating up on your kid brother

Matthew snorts a laugh even as his cock twitches. Leon would be good for this, he thinks. He’d enjoy making Matthew squirm. He’d want him to beg for it, and he’d get off on saying no. Maybe Matthew would hold onto the headboard, or maybe he’d push his fingers through Leon’s hair, trying to get him to give Matthew what he wants. He’s still rubbing himself over his pants, but he’s fully hard, now, dragging his fingernails up and down the line of his cock.

One-handed, he texts back, Rewarding myself for it right now

Oh you finally learned how to go fuck yourself? Leon says.

Nah thats what I have you for

It’s only after Matthew hits send on that it occurs to him that’s presumptuous. Three times might be enough to call it on purpose, but they certainly don’t have an arrangement or understanding of any sort. Especially after that last time, which was very on purpose but also pretty fucked up. Not entirely in a bad way. But. He pauses in stroking himself, chewing on his lip as he watches the little typing dots appear and disappear.

It takes a minute, but then Leon says: Careful, people will think you only like me for my cock.

Matthew grins, shoving his pants and the blankets down to get his hand around himself for real, and texts back, Dont be stupid I like your ass too.

He can picture it: Leon’s head between his thighs, bobbing methodically, keeping his stubborn pace no matter what Matthew says. The smooth expanse of his bare shoulders. His lips, red and slick around Matthew’s dick. Maybe Matthew would reach down and push his thumb into the stretched corner of Leon’s mouth, or dig his heel into Leon’s back, trying to urge him into giving Matthew more. Maybe Leon would say hey, okay, roll over in that thick, heady voice of his, manhandling Matthew onto his stomach to leave teeth marks in the flesh of his ass and eat him out while Matthew ruts against the mattress, too desperate for friction to care how he looks or sounds. Maybe Leon would fuck him after, while he’s still too sensitive to take it but too boneless to fight it so all he can do is muffle his whimpers and moans into the pillow until Leon is done with him.

Really thought you would have gone with mouth there, says Leon.

Matthew forces himself to slow his hand down so he can type, toying idly with the now-slick head of his dick. It still takes some effort to get the response out with no typos: No complaints about that either. Most of the time

Leon says: Most of the time? Better step my game up

Less stepping up more shutting up, Matthew sends with a little laugh to himself, the sound more a breathless huff than anything. He thumbs at the slit of his dick, thinking about Leon’s tongue doing the same thing. Pictures Leon doing the same thing in his own hotel room. He’s not completely sure where Leon is right now, except that he’s somewhere on the east coast. Or maybe he’s in Central time now. Before Leon can respond to the previous message, Matthew asks, What are you doing right now

Out to dinner, Leon says, then: You’re being very distracting

It might be an admonishment, but it feels more like another point on top of the pile Matthew already racked up tonight.

Little late for dinner, he says.

Leon: Well mostly just drinks now

Leon: Don’t you have jerking off to do

Matthew: Working on it

And he is. Matthew is so hard now that just ghosting his fingertips along his erection makes it twitch. He could come any moment he chooses to, but there’s something delicious about holding out. He thinks about last time, with Leon, the careful way Leon put his hand across Matthew’s throat. Puts his phone down to fit his hand over the places where the bruises were, after. He can’t get the same leverage as Leon could on top of him, and he doesn’t want to, not really, but the sense memory makes his toes curl. He slides his hand up, pushing three fingers into his mouth, not sure if he wants to choke on them or suck on them, but very sure he wishes they belonged to someone else. His phone lights up with a new message, but he’s not willing to sacrifice either hand to check it now.

They’re playing Edmonton again in two weeks. He probably shouldn’t get his hopes up, but if they’ve done it three times, what’s the harm in four?

He trails his fingers up his dick again, lost in how good even a light touch feels so throbbingly close to the edge, and apparently that’s the limit, because it jerks and spurts, and Matthew does not have the willpower not to grab himself and stroke through it, wringing out every drop of pent-up orgasm. It leaves him breathless and a mess, lying there blinking through the bright spots in his eyes while his brain reboots.

“Fuck,” he says into the dark.

After a minute, Matthew remembers his phone. He wipes his spit-covered fingers on his ribs and grabs it to squint at Leon’s message.

If you come thinking about me you owe me one, it says.

Matthew laughs, high and hoarse. If that’s true, he owes Leon for months, if not years, by now.

He flicks on the bedside light and drags his messy hand through the come on the front of his shirt, getting as much onto his fingers as he can. Hooks two of them into his mouth and takes a picture, nose to chest, same as the picture with the bruises. A matched set, or something.

Guess I owe you one, he says when he sends it to Leon.

Guess I’ll see you soon, says Leon.

***

They wind up splitting the road trip, five points out of eight, which isn’t the showing Matthew hoped for, but it’s okay. It’s still a decent showing. Neither of the losses were because they didn’t play well. Matthew tells his team all of this in the locker room after the shootout loss in Winnipeg, because it’s true, and, to be honest, because he’s not sure how convincing his optimism was for the first month of the season. A team needs to know their captain believes in them. It was never the team Matthew was having trouble believing in.

They fly back home after the Winnipeg game, going straight from the arena to the airport for one of those grueling late-night flights that will put them on the ground in Calgary in the frigid, pre-dawn hours. Tomorrow is a day off, at least, and everyone has strict orders to get some rest. Some guys get a head start, napping on the plane, but it’s a short flight, so Matthew curls up in his window seat with an iPad to watch some game tape while the road trip is still fresh in his mind while Noah pulls up a movie next to him.

That’s the plan anyway. They’re about thirty minutes into the air when Jakob appears by their row, fidgeting with the cuffs of his hoodie sleeve and waiting to be noticed.

“What’s up, Pelly?” Matthew says, pausing the power play he was watching.

“Can I talk to you?” Jakob asks.

Without another word, Noah pats Matthew on the thigh, scoops up his laptop, and ruffles Jakob’s hair on his way back to take Jakob’s seat next to Ruzicka. The kids have been sticking together; Matthew thinks it’s good for them, having each other to lean on. He takes out his airpods as Jakob settles in.

“I just want to know what I can be doing better,” Jakob says. “For the team. And for me. I mean, the American League is great but I like it here way better.” He gives a nervous smile with this last part, as if it’s an embarrassing thing to admit, but Matthew doesn’t blame him. It’s halfway through November, and Jakob’s still looking for that first NHL goal. Plenty of apples, but that’s not the same. Matthew never spent any time in Stockton, but he remembers all too well being a kid on the team driving himself crazy wondering what else he could do to feel like the veterans gave a shit about how good he was.

“First of all,” Matthew says. “Tell me what I’m gonna say.”

Jakob sighs, rolling his eyes and reciting: “First of all, you’re playing well, so don’t get in your head about it.”

“There you go.” Matthew grins and hands him an airpod, holding up his iPad. “Let’s figure out what to work on next practice.”

Jakob might think Matthew is doing him a favor, but really it’s the other way around. Watching game tape with and for someone else opens up new perspectives and calls attention to new details. He picks out plenty of things to chat with Jakob about, and a couple of things to text his dad about tomorrow.

Sean and Johnny are both snoring behind them, so they talk in hushed tones for an hour about systems, about adjusting on the rush, about making space in front of the net — a lot of things. Matthew just hopes some of it is helpful. There’s a brief homestand the coming week before they head back up the highway for the season’s second Battle of Alberta. The perfect chance for everyone to get some rest and then dial back in on the basics that always start to slip at the end of a long road trip. Time to get your focus back, Keith would say, but Matthew has been doing nothing but focus.

The way Brady carries his captaincy, so casually and naturally, with such easy confidence, has been stuck in Matthew’s head since Ottawa. Brady’s been like that since he was a kid, while Matthew’s always had to work harder to rally people around him, which never seemed fair, what with Matthew being older and wiser and, until pretty late in their teenage years, better. Not that Matthew isn’t proud of Brady — he’s always been so proud of Brady he could burst. He just wonders, sometimes, why Brady was born with that while he himself was born with a smart mouth and no impulse control.

Not that it really matters. Leadership can be learned just like any other skill. Matthew’s only been working on it for half of his life so far.

4. pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever

“You’re early,” Leon says when he opens his front door.

“Not that early.” Matthew stomps the snow off his boots before stepping inside to take them off. He shrugs out of his coat, which Leon hangs up, and takes a sweeping look around the interior of the house. There’s a cozy-looking living room off to one side, a spacious kitchen to the other, a flight of stairs tucked away toward the back. Given the chance, Matthew would absolutely poke through everything like the nosy fuck he is, but that’s not why he’s been invited over. “So where do you want me?”

The answer to this question is interrupted by a high-pitched bark followed by the skitter of paws on the hardwood floor. Matthew jumps, but the dog is maybe a foot and a half tall — some sort of miniature poodle mix, bouncing and yipping at Matthew’s feet.

“Bobo, come on, behave yourself,” Leon says, scooping the dog into his arms. The dog wriggles until it gets both paws propped on Leon’s chest, looking excitedly between Leon and Matthew.

Matthew does not succeed in not smiling. “Bobo?”

“His name is Bowie,” says Leon, knocking Matthew’s shoulder with his own as he heads toward the kitchen. The dog blinks at Matthew over Leon’s shoulder with huge eyes. “And I’m in the middle of dinner.”

Matthew stands there for a moment, unsure if that’s an invitation to follow, then decides he doesn’t care and follows anyway.

“Are you saying being graced by this face didn’t kill your appetite?” he asks as Leon returns to a bowl on the island counter and starts stabbing at the pasta in it. Bowie watches with interest, but is apparently better trained than some humans Matthew knows. “Careful, people might think I’m growing on you.”

Leon quirks an eyebrow at him. “God, anything but that.”

“Don’t worry. It happens to the best of men.” Matthew leans on the opposite side of the island and gives Leon a beatific smile, which has absolutely no effect on him.

“You ate, right?” he asks. At Matthew’s nod: “You want a beer? A water?”

“A beer’d be great.”

“It’s real beer,” Leon says as he sets Bowie down and goes to the fridge. “Not that pisswater you tried to give me at Boots.”

“Wow,” Matthew laughs. “I went out on a limb to be nice to you and that’s your takeaway?”

Leon shrugs, grabbing two cans and tossing one to Matthew. “My takeaway was mostly the blowjob. But I didn’t forget the pisswater.”

The beer Matthew has been gifted says Holsten Premium Product of Germany. Of fucking course. Leon watches him open the can and take a sip. Unfortunately, it does taste better than Coors Light.

“Okay, yeah, it’s good,” Matthew says, barely resisting the urge to roll his own eyes. Leon digs smugly back into his pasta. Bowie has rounded the corner to sniff Matthew’s ankles, so Matthew bends to pick him up, and immediately gets licked on the face. Leon snorts, but Bowie seems thrilled just to have Matthew’s attention.

This is all surprisingly not awkward. Matthew had been braced for some level of awkwardness, at least in the time between ringing the doorbell and getting a dick in his mouth, but this is all — normal. Which is kind of weird, but kind of nice. But also kind of frustrating, because he’s been half-hard thinking about getting here since the team left Calgary this morning, and being in Leon’s proximity isn’t helping. He had to make up excuses to turn down dinner invites from both Noah and the Swedes for this.

“So,” he says, leaning across the counter to peer into Leon’s bowl, keeping one hand steadily scratching Bowie behind the ears. This seems to be the off switch for his wriggling. “What did Chef Leo whip up tonight?”

“It’s leftover carryout,” Leon says, the slightest bit sheepish. “I mean, I can cook just fine, but cooking for one all the time is a pain in the ass.”

“Missed opportunity. You could have whipped us up a sexy dinner for two.” Matthew grins.

“You,” Leon says, “were early. And you said you ate.”

“Yeah, a room service sandwich.”

“Sounds like bad planning on your part.”

Matthew places a hand on his heart like he’s been wounded. Bowie immediately starts wiggling again until Matthew laughs and puts him down, giving him one last ruffle on the head before he bounds off. Leon rolls his eyes, takes a big bite of pasta, and slides the bowl across the counter. Matthew shovels a forkful of noodles into his mouth, and then slides the bowl back with all the smugness he can muster.

“You know how annoying you are, right?” Leon asks.

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Matthew says, and is rewarded with Leon hiding a real laugh behind his beer. He’s handsome when he laughs. Well, he’s handsome in general, but there’s something particularly appealing about his face when Matthew gets a genuine smile out of him.

If someone had told Matthew six months ago that he would ever set foot in Leon Draisaitl’s house, much less be making him laugh, he would have referred them to a psychiatrist. Even right now, it’s somewhat surreal. It’s a nice place, though, a little sparse in decor — not that Matthew can talk, given his big empty house in St. Louis. There is a sense of home to it, though. It feels like a place a real person lives. A place where someone cooks and sleeps and sulks after bad games, invites buddies over for beers after good ones. Leon seems more relaxed in it than Matthew’s ever seen him before.

Leon, now, down to his last few noodles, is eyeing Matthew with a non-zero amount of scrutiny.

“What?” Matthew asks.

“What’s—” Leon starts, reaching across the counter to take Matthew by the chin, thumbing at the corner of his mouth roughly enough that Matthew winces.

“Chapped,” he says, twisting his head, but not enough to dislodge Leon’s grip. It happens every winter, his lips cracking in the dry Alberta air, the corners getting raw and red. A constant pain in Matthew’s ass, but, like sore muscles or minor nagging injuries, the discomfort is just part of the season at this point.

“I thought maybe someone punched you in the mouth.”

“You wish.”

“Yeah, I would have had to send a gift basket.” Frowning, Leon presses his thumb further into Matthew’s mouth. Matthew bites down, not too hard, on Leon’s thumbnail. Harder, when Leon tries to remove his hand.

“You know if my fingers end up like your mouthguards there are people who will want to have some words with you,” says Leon.

“You know if that happens—” Unfortunately talking means Leon gets to go free, but it’s a necessary sacrifice. “If that happens you’ll have to admit you’ve been hanging out with a Tkachuk.”

“Obviously that would be no good at all.” After one last bite of pasta, Leon turns to rinse his bowl in the sink. Matthew eyes the back of his neck. Thinks about pressing his mouth to it. Scraping his teeth over that knob of Leon’s spine just above the collar of his crewneck sweatshirt. He could crowd him against the sink right now and put a hickey there, big and blotchy, impossible to hide. Payback for the bruises Leon left last time.

“Terrible for public relations,” Matthew agrees, somewhat belatedly, and takes a long drink. “So do you want me to blow you now or what?”

Leon turns off the tap and gives him an appraising look.

“Yeah, come on,” he says, and leads the way to the bedroom.

This is all very different than Matthew expected. He thought he’d be on his knees within minutes, if not seconds, of stepping into Leon’s house. He thought he might not even make it out of the foyer. He blocked the whole evening off, but, if he’s being honest, he thought he might be in and out in less time than it took Leon to finish his pasta. If it was strange to see Leon in Matthew’s home last time, it’s even stranger to move through Leon’s, intimately aware of being the thing that doesn’t belong.

“Nice place,” he says as they trek upstairs, just for something to say.

“It’s okay,” says Leon. “I’m kind of getting tired of it.”

“Well, then, I guess it’s time to buy a new one.”

Leon throws Matthew a smirk over his shoulder.

The bedroom isn’t messy, exactly, but it’s more unkempt than Matthew expects. Maybe that’s just him buying into stereotypes — he expected spic and span, clean and efficient, but there are clothes on the floor that didn’t quite make it into the laundry basket. A couple of neckties and pieces of mail strewn across the dresser. The bedspread is crooked, not pulled all the way up at one corner.

Halfway into the room, Leon has noticed Matthew is still in the doorway, and has stopped to frown at him.

“You’re allowed to come in,” he says. “That’s kind of the point. Just close the door so Bowie can’t come in.”

“Wow, what a line. Does it work for you often?” Matthew says, but pushes the door shut and shuffles over to him anyway. Just two guys, standing toe to toe, about to bone, and here is all the awkwardness Matthew expected when he first got here. He’s nervous. Why the fuck is he nervous? He wasn’t nervous downstairs; he should have just jumped Leon there. Blowjob in the kitchen would be a step up from a blowjob in an RV at Boots and Hearts, at least. Leon’s gaze flickers to Matthew’s mouth, to his throat, up to Matthew’s eyes again. Matthew’s heart thumps in his ears.

“I think,” Leon starts, but doesn’t finish the thought. He takes Matthew’s chin like he did before, thumbing at that sore, chapped spot, except then he twists his wrist to push his first two fingers into Matthew’s mouth. Matthew bites down, pushes his tongue between them, but when he starts to kneel, Leon hooks the fingers behind Matthew’s teeth and yanks him toward the bed instead.

It does occur to Matthew that if he gets whiplash giving head, he will have to explain it to a trainer somehow. But that’s a problem for later.

Leon’s bed is raised up high on a box spring, and clambering onto it is an awkward adventure that ends in Matthew on his back with Leon on his hands and knees over him. Matthew’s brain barely has time to catch up — might not have enough blood in it to catch up — as Leon pushes Matthew’s chin up and leans down to drag his teeth along his bared throat. Matthew’s breath leaves him in a gust. He pulls at Leon’s sweatshirt with clumsy hands until he gets a grip on the hem, and Leon slips out of it with hardly a pause.

“Take this off,” Leon mumbles, pushing Matthew’s shirt up, so Matthew does, and is pushed flat again so Leon can bite a line down his chest. His hand is braced on Matthew’s collarbone, his thumb across Matthew’s throat. There’s not even that much pressure behind it, but it’s hard for Matthew to breathe anyway. Not because of Leon — just, his chest feels tight. He slides his hand up the nape of Leon’s neck and is surprised by how soft his hair is. Has a wild, fleeting thought about dragging him up by it to taste his stupid German beer right off of his tongue.

Up until now, Matthew has barely put his hands on Leon, even when Leon was fucking him, and it still feels like he’s breaking some rule when he digs his fingers into Leon’s back, finds the shape of his ribs, feels the muscles moving under his skin. Leon’s mouth is hot on his neck, for sure leaving a mark, and Matthew should probably have something to say about that, but for some reason the only word that comes to mind is please, and there’s no way he’s saying that out loud.

With one last bite to Matthew’s collar bone, Leon scoots lower to fumble with the fly of Matthew’s jeans. His head is bowed, but the tips of his ears are flushed pink, and Matthew can’t resist the urge to reach out and tweak one.

“Fuck off,” Leon says, slapping his hand away.

“I thought I owed you one,” Matthew says, somehow finding his voice, even if it’s far too breathless.

“Well, maybe you’ll owe me two.” Leon gets a grip on Matthew’s jeans and underwear and yanks them down together. Matthew squirms helpfully to get them all the way off.

“If I didn’t know any better,” he says, accidentally-on-purpose kicking Leon in the knee, “I’d say you were inventing reasons to keep fucking me.”

Leon stops to look at him like he’s one of the bigger idiots on the planet, but instead of responding, he wraps his mouth around Matthew’s cock.

“Oh, Jesus,” Matthew says, his head falling back. He hooks one leg over Leon’s shoulder, urging him closer with a heel in his back. It doesn’t work, but Leon wraps his arm around Matthew’s thigh for leverage, and Matthew can feel the way his body moves as he bobs determinedly, his lips tight around Matthew’s shaft. God, he looks good — his broad, smooth shoulders, his slick mouth, his strong hands. It’s really stupid how good he looks. He would be so much less of a problem if he didn’t look so good.

It’s easier than it should be to get lost in the coiling pleasure, watching Leon through half-lidded eyes. Almost possible to forget what a bad idea all of this is. How stupid it is for Matthew to be here in the first place. Possibly, how stupid it is to let Leon near his dick, but he hasn’t bitten it off yet, so it’s probably unlikely at this point. Matthew smooths his hand over the back of Leon’s head, down the nape of his neck, which once again feels like breaking a rule.

Then he notices that Leon has taken his hand off of his leg, and Matthew can’t quite see it, but it seems very much like that hand is down the front of Leon’s sweatpants.

“Oh, don’t you dare,” Matthew says, kicking Leon in the shoulder hard enough that he pulls off with an affronted noise. “That’s mine. That’s for me.”

“What the fuck?” Leon says with a half-dazed scowl, letting go of Matthew for long enough that Matthew can scoot out from under him.

“I’ve been thinking for weeks about blowing you, you don’t get to just do me while you jerk yourself off.” Matthew wrenches free when Leon grabs his ankle. “Take your stupid pants off.”

“There is something really wrong with you,” Leon says, but he takes his sweatpants off with more annoyance than anyone should have when stripping for sex. His cock bobs up, hard and red. Matthew has that feeling again, that almost-crazy need-want that makes his mouth water and his knees weak, and he scrambles to push Leon to the mattress before Leon can get the upper hand again.

It’s hard to know where to put his hands. There’s so much of Leon, and Matthew has hardly touched any of it. He settles for his hips, pinning him by them so he can get his mouth on Leon’s cock, sinking down then back up to suck the precome from the head of it. Leon makes a strangled noise that might be a swear word as his fingers tangle in Matthew’s hair. He doesn’t quite pull Matthew down onto him, but he doesn’t need to with how greedy Matthew is. He wants that rush of Leon’s cock pushing into his throat, so deep it’s either choke or swallow or somehow sometimes both.

“God, you really like that, huh?” Leon asks. His accent is thicker than usual, and there’s something absurdly hot about that, as if Matthew is literally sucking the second language out of him. “You really want this.”

Matthew makes a choked noise of agreement, letting Leon hold him down when he goes again. The need to cough pushes up from his lungs, but he can’t get the air for it, and he tamps down the urge to fight for breath. Tears prick at his eyes. Leon lifts his hips in several short, quick thrusts, fucking Matthew’s mouth, and Matthew takes it until he can’t, jerking against Leon’s grip. Leon lets him go immediately. Matthew hunches over, gasping, his forehead almost against Leon’s stomach.

“God, okay,” Leon says, combing fingers through Matthew’s hair that don’t push or pull or grab. “Shit, okay, let me come in your mouth.”

With one good, deep inhale, Matthew shifts back down to start sucking again. He goes a little easier; Leon’s hand in his hair guides but doesn’t force him. He’s so hard it’s torturous not to reach down and touch himself, but he’s determined to finish this first.

“Come on,” Leon says, “shit, come on.” He pushes his thumb into Matthew’s mouth alongside his dick, stretching the chapped corner of his lips. It hurts, but Matthew leans into it anyway. He likes it, or maybe he’s just too turned on to care. He feels Leon tensing before he starts to come, so he’s ready for it, swallowing until Leon groans and pushes at his head.

Matthew sits back, wiping his mouth. Leon just lies there, his chest heaving with breath, one hand over his face. There’s a bead of come that Matthew missed on the head of his dick; Matthew wipes it up with a finger, and Leon twitches and gasps at the touch. It might be the most satisfying thing Matthew has ever seen.

Not satisfying, though, is how fucking hard his dick is. Not that he doesn’t think Leon is good for it, but it looks like he’s down for the count, and Matthew really wants to get off, so he spits in his hand and strokes himself with a sigh.

Leon’s gaze fixes on him like a laser.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asks, reaching for Matthew’s wrist. He’s pretty forceful for someone who was a boneless heap half a second ago, and it surprises a laugh out of Matthew.

“You seemed a little distracted,” he says, twisting away from Leon just to be annoying, but going with it when Leon grabs him by the arm and yanks him back to the mattress. Matthew lands on his back just about where he started this whole endeavor, and tries to sit up again, just to be annoying.

“Will you — stay down,” Leon grunts, pinning Matthew’s arm to the bed, then his other arm, then moving that first hand over to grab Matthew by the neck. Matthew catches his wrist, not to move it, but to keep him there; Leon shifts up, forcing Matthew’s head back and his jaw shut, and Matthew makes a choked-off, wanting noise that he barely recognizes.

Leon is hesitant letting go of the arm he has pinned, as if he expects Matthew to lunge, but Matthew stays where he is, sucking in breaths through his teeth. He jerks when Leon wraps a hand around him, bucks into the touch, scrabbles for a hold on the smooth headboard and winds up gripping the pillows instead. Fuck, he tries to say, but it just comes out as a grunt. As Leon jerks him off, his hand slides up to grip Matthew’s jaw and push those fingers back into his mouth. Matthew would bite them, but his mouth falls open in a moan, and Leon keeps it that way with his hand jammed knuckles-deep against Matthew’s teeth, his thumb digging into the soft underside of Matthew’s chin.

Leon waits until he stops coming to pull his fingers free, sliding them over the curve of Matthew’s slick lower lip. Matthew closes his eyes, catching his breath while Leon prods one sore corner of Matthew’s mouth, then the other. He bites at Leon’s fingers, belatedly and without any force. He’s his own boneless heap now.

A huff of a laugh escapes him when he feels two fingertips tracing up the center of his abs through the come on his stomach. He grins, opening his mouth wide, and wrinkles his nose when Leon wipes the messy fingers down his tongue.

“You’re so weird,” Leon says. It doesn’t sound like an insult.

***

Connor McDavid won’t stop texting.

Not texting Matthew, of course. He’s texting Leon. Except Leon is in the shower, and his phone is on the bed, vibrating with every message.

Matthew is also on the bed. He’s lying there with his jeans pulled on but not buttoned yet, his feet dangling off the end, one of Leon’s fluffy towels draped around his shoulders. His shirt is still on the floor, and his hair is still wet from his own shower. He’s for sure leaving a big wet splotch on the duvet, but he’s okay with that.

He wasn’t being nosy. He didn’t even read the texts or anything. The phone just kept buzzing, so he checked to make sure it wasn’t an emergency, saw four texts from McDavid that seemed, from the notification previews, to be about the game tomorrow, and then flopped onto his back to let McDavid keep talking to himself. Bowie, who darted into the room the moment they opened the door, has sprawled conveniently on the bed right where Matthew can pet him without otherwise moving.

Sneaking out while Leon is cleaning up is an option that occurred to Matthew. To preserve the sanctity of the rivalry, or whatever, and to avoid any awkward conversation. But that would be rude, and probably make things even weirder than whatever it is they’ve got going on now. And also, dragging himself into the shower was difficult enough. If waiting for Leon to kick him out means he gets to lie here a little longer, then that is the current plan.

Tomorrow at the morning skate, he’s going to have to blame his hoarse voice on the dry air or something. He flexes his jaw, testing the painful, cracked corner of his mouth. Definitely didn’t help that situation at all, but also definitely worth it. He presses his fingers to the spot on his neck that Leon sank his teeth into, digging into the fresh bruise as Leon’s phone buzzes with another new text.

Matthew really hopes no one has been trying to text him for the past hour. His phone is in his coat pocket downstairs. Probably not a good look to be going AWOL the night before a rivalry game. He’s weighing the pros and cons of making himself go get it (pros: phone; cons: moving) when Leon reappears, damp and naked, scrubbing his hair dry with a towel. Bowie perks up, but doesn’t move from Matthew’s side.

“You’ve got like fifty texts from McDavid,” Matthew says.

“What? Oh, yeah.” Leon tosses his towel toward the laundry basket on his way back onto the bed. “We usually talk the night before big games.”

“Well, don’t worry. I didn’t read your top secret strategies for tomorrow.”

Leon gives him a smirk, and gives Bowie a ruffle, before settling cross-legged and picking up his phone to backread. As he scrolls, his expression shifts between thoughtful and amused, sometimes bemused. When the phone vibrates again in his hand, he pulls a face and shoots off a text before he finishes reading, then shoots off several more.

“What’s he like?” Matthew asks, because lying there watching is too awkward. “Like, as a captain. Obviously he’s only the best player in the world or whatever, but it’s weird to think of him, like, giving big speeches in the room.”

Leon shrugs, setting the phone down on his knee. “He’s not really a big speeches guy. I mean, sometimes, but he’s more leading by example. Obviously we get along, so it works for me.”

“Yeah, you guys seem tight,” Matthew says, crossing his arms behind his head. The dog, disapproving of not being petted, immediately climbs up to stick his face in Matthew’s face. Matthew cranes his neck to the side to see around him. “It’s just kind of funny because he’s all kind of, you know, awkward and serious, and you’re mister handsome cool over here.”

Snort. “Yeah, right.”

“Okay, you’re right. You’re horrible to look at.”

“Whatever.” Leon rolls his eyes, but there’s something almost fond about it. Maybe. It sits strangely in Matthew’s chest, so he looks away. “Connor is — okay, maybe not cool, but he’s a good guy. I don’t know. This is our, what, eighth year of this shit together? So we just understand each other by now.” He shrugs, fidgeting with the corner of his phone case. “No one hates losing more than him, I can tell you that.”

Matthew scoffs. “You say that, but you’ve never met my dad.”

“Yeah I have,” Leon says, then grins a tiny grin at Matthew’s raised eyebrows. “Okay, not really met. But he gave me the evil eye from down the hallway in St. Louis once.”

“You’re fucking with me,” Matthew says, but Leon’s expression says no, he’s not fucking with anything, so Matthew groans and covers his face with his hands. “God, that’s embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing for you. Nightmares for me.” The phone goes off again; Leon picks it back up to respond, and silence falls between them as he gets caught up in the back-and-forth of texting. Matthew lifts his hips to hitch his jeans up higher and button them, pats at his damp hair with his towel, and then is out of things to do that don’t require moving, so he goes back to petting the dog and poking at his hickey.

Another round is also an option that occurred to Matthew, and it occurs to him again, now, that he could probably make it happen pretty easily, if he didn’t want to go yet. Leon is still naked — just push him down on the bed and go for it. Maybe not another blowjob, because Matthew does want to be able to speak tomorrow, and he probably shouldn’t get Leon to fuck him, since he doesn’t want to be sore for the game tomorrow, but there are plenty of other options.

But he can’t look at Leon texting McDavid and not think of his phone downstairs, his team trickling back to the hotel after their various dinners out. His chest feels tight.

When Leon pauses in his typing, frowning at his phone, Matthew asks, “Should I go?”

“What?” Leon looks up, brows furrowed. “Uh, yeah, if you want. You don’t have to.”

“I probably should,” he says. “I just mean. Big game tomorrow and all.”

“Right,” Leon says, shooting off another text before offering a wry half-smile. “I would say good luck, but, you know. I hope you lose.”

“Thanks, that means a lot to me.” With a groan, Matthew pushes himself up and sets about finding his shirt and socks. Leon stops texting long enough to pull on his sweatpants, then scoops up Bowie and walks Matthew downstairs to wait with him while he orders his Uber.

Matthew has some missed texts, but nothing important. Just goofing around in the group chat. He feels guilty anyway.

“Don’t think this means I’ll go easy on you,” he says.

Leon grins. “If you tried to, I’d take your head off.”

***

This time, Matthew wouldn’t say the game gets out of hand. He would say it goes to shit.

McDavid scores a goal; Tanev takes a penalty and Nugent-Hopkins scores on the Oilers’ ensuing power play; Jakob finally, finally scores a goal, then it’s called back for offsides; Looch and Nurse drop the gloves over the hit on Puljujärvi last game, or maybe over a hit on McDavid at the start of this one; Matthew almost gets stabbed in the face by Mike Smith for whacking at the puck in the crease after the whistle; Matthew gets jumped by McLeod, presumably for having the audacity to not let Mike Smith stab him in the face; Matthew puts McLeod on his ass and gets two minutes for self-defense. McDavid scores again.

And that’s just in the first ten minutes.

“God dammit,” Johnny yells as they stomp back into the room for the first intermission. Matthew wants to punch something. He takes off his gloves and throws them into his stall before dropping into it to seethe.

A few stalls down, Jakob looks like he’s about to cry. Matthew should say something to him. Will say something, when he’s done seeing red.

“No more stupid fucking penalties,” Sutter tells them, wagging his finger around the room. “You know they score on the power play. And you keep putting them on the fucking power play. No more of that. Smart sticks. Cool heads. Got it?”

The back of Matthew’s neck flushes hot, but he grumbles his acknowledgement with the rest of the guys. It takes him until the end of the break before he can make himself stand up, clapping his hands for attention.

“Okay, boys, that was just one period. We just gotta win the next two, and we can still take this whole thing,” he says. “Let’s focus. We fuckin’ got this, let’s go.”

“We got this, Chucky,” Lindy says in the stall next to him, whacking Matthew on the ass.

Matthew does not feel like he’s got this, but he would really fucking like to get it.

Unfortunately, the second period doesn’t go much better.

“I thought you said you weren’t gonna go easy,” Leon says when they crash into a corner together, chasing the puck. Matthew does not dignify this with a response, just jams the butt end of his stick into Leon’s ribs and kicks the puck out to Rasmus.

Leon didn’t say anything to Matthew during warm-ups, but Matthew could feel him there the whole time, circling like a shark on the other side of the ice. He’s going to be fucking unbearable if the Flames don’t turn this game around.

Thirteen minutes in, they finally catch a break. A fluke bounce sends Johnny and Lindy on a two-on-one, and no way Johnny doesn’t bury the last-second pass Lindy sauces him. Tough angle, top cheddar, easy-peasy.

Then of fucking course on their next shift, Johnny takes a hit up high. He hasn’t even hit the ice before Matthew’s in the middle of the melee — it’s all a blur, and then he has Bouchard in a headlock while Foegele tries to yank him back by the collar of his shoulder pads. Lindy is grappling with Derek Ryan next to them, but that’s about all Matthew can make out in the scuffle, and he doesn’t really care what everyone else is doing anyway. Foegele pops him in the face with a glove, which almost makes him lose his mouth guard, so he yanks Bouchard around to put him between himself and Foegele. Bouchard is elbowing him and yelling at him to get the fuck off; McLeod is also yelling at him to get the fuck off, which is kind of fucking hypocritical of him given earlier, and then an official is yelling at him to get the fuck off.

“You wanna stop him from scoring, try playing defense,” he spits at Bouchard as the official pulls him away. “Really fuckin’ classy, bud, really fuckin’ classy.”

“It was an accident, fuck off,” Bouchard snaps back.

“You know that’s not gonna stop us, right?” Shouting hurts Matthew’s throat, but that’s not going to stop him. The official — it’s Rooney, god, why is it always guys who have known Matthew since he was a kid pulling him out of scrums like he’s still a toddler throwing tantrums? — Rooney’s got a good enough grip on him that it’s not worth fighting to get free, but he’s still going to get the last word in. “We’ve got more than two guys who can do that. Maybe that’s confusing for you, I don’t know.”

“Yeah, that’s why we kicked your ass last year, we only have two players,” Foegele spits back.

“Oh, fuck off, have you even scored this year?”

“Okay, come on, Matty, let’s go,” Rooney says, guiding him toward the penalty box.

“What, me?” Matthew asks, chomping so hard on his mouthguard it’s a miracle it doesn’t break. “Come on, Chris, are you serious?”

“We’ll get some of them, too, I promise.”

“Where’d Johnny go?” Matthew twists around, realizing that he hasn’t seen him since the hit.

“Skated off on his own, and right down the tunnel.” Rooney deposits Matthew near the box and gives him a hearty pat on the back. “Now you take two minutes to calm down, eh?”

Once all the penalties are sorted out, the Flames have the power play, but with Johnny out and Matthew in the box, it fizzles into nothing before it can even get started. To add insult to injury, barely a minute after the power play ends, Nurse finds Leon for a breakaway, and he tucks the puck five-hole on Marky like it’s nothing.

In the locker room between periods, Matthew digs his fingers into his neck like he can rip the mouth-shaped bruise right off of it.

Toff gets them one more goal late in the third, but the Oilers hit the empty net when they pull the goalie, and that’s that. If Ottawa was the best game they’ve played all season, this was the fucking worst. Matthew wants to throw up. Instead, he slings a towel around his neck and goes to tell the media about everything that went wrong tonight.

***

The team has the next day off, so after a morning run and a phone call with his mom, Matthew spends most of it sulking on Noah’s couch. He’s been glad for Noah as a friend since he got here, but he’s been extra appreciative this season, if only because Noah doesn’t care if Matthew sulks. Matthew is all too aware of the innate uncaptainliness of sulking to do too much of it around anyone else, but Noah himself is an expert sulker. He elevates it to an art form.

Over the course of the afternoon, they tire themselves out playing Bruins vs. Blues on NHL ‘22, then order Chinese food and eat it off the coffee table in the living room while they watch some HGTV show that Noah likes. Well, Noah does most of the watching; Matthew munches on crab rangoon and scrolls through Instagram, wallowing in guilt and listening to Noah’s commentary.

Leon posted a photo from the game either late last night or early this morning. Himself after he scored that second-period goal, sliding into Zach Hyman’s arms, his mouth wide open in a grin. It pisses Matthew off every time he looks at it, which means he should probably just not look at it, since he has to go all the way to Leon’s profile on purpose to see it. And yet.

“Oh, come on, can you believe this guy?” Noah asks, gesturing expansively at the television screen with his fork. There is something happening with the house renovation, but Matthew has not been paying enough attention to know what. Noah’s vowels get all long and Bostonian when he’s annoyed, though, which is objectively funny.

“Oooh, come aawn,” he mocks. Noah grabs a throw pillow and whacks him with it.

“Oi!” Matthew raises his arms to fend off the attack. “Show some respect.”

“Never,” Noah says, but he shares his orange chicken.

None of this makes Matthew feel significantly better. Marginally better, maybe, but mostly it just distracts him for a while. He spent all morning picking at the hickey Leon left on his neck; he can’t do that around Noah unless he wants to draw attention to it. The hoodie he’s wearing hides it, but he can feel it when he turns his head. He’s half-convinced Leon did it just to distract him, except nothing about it felt calculated at the time.

Driving home later, blasting the playlist Taryn sent him entitled ~NEW SZN JAMS~, all the annoyance bubbles back up. At himself, at Leon. Mostly at himself. What the fuck has he been thinking, putting so much time and energy into sleeping with a guy who could not give less of a shit about him? He’s slept with guys who didn’t like him before, sure, but those were one-offs, and then back to the grind. And definitely never before a big game, when he should be focused on his team. He should have been focusing, and instead he was letting Leon Draisaitl choke him with his cock.

Think of the devil or whatever, because when Matthew checks his phone while he’s brushing his teeth before bed, there’s a brand new message from Leon.

Hows gaudreau? says the text. Matthew throws his phone across the room.

Well, technically, he throws it out of the room. Out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, where it hits his bed and bounces to the floor with a soft thud. Matthew finishes brushing his teeth with much more ire than he started with, splashes some cold water on his face, takes a piss, then stomps over to pick the phone back up.

Hows gaudreau? it still says.

Go fuck yourself, Matthew texts back.

Thought thats what I have you for? Leon says.

“Oh, fuck you,” Matthew says out loud. He starts to type that, but the little typing dots appear again, and instead of letting Leon get another word in first, Matthew hits the facetime button, gearing up to say something vicious. What that will be, he has no idea, but it’ll come to him.

When the call connects, Leon already has his innocent face on: eyes wide, eyebrows up.

“Sorry for even asking, geez,” he says.

Matthew would love to punch him right now. He heaves a sigh, scrubbing a hand through his hair.

“He’s fine,” he says. “Well, not fine, but, you know. He’ll be fine in a few days.”

“Okay. Good.” Leon stares through the screen for a long moment. “You couldn’t text that?”

It looks like he’s laying on his couch, but the lights are low, so it’s hard to tell. He’s wearing a team hoodie, the hood pulled up, resting gently atop his hair. It’s the same hoodie Matthew thought looked so cozy when Leon came over after that first game, and something about recognizing that makes Matthew’s stomach twist into a knot.

“Apparently not,” he says, and flops backwards onto his bed, holding the phone above him. “Ugh.”

“You know, someone once told me some wise words,” Leon says. “How did it go? Oh right. Don’t be a sore loser.”

“Oh, like you can fucking talk,” Matthew says.

Leon huffs a laugh. “Language, please. His ears are very delicate.”

He pulls the phone out and down to show Bowie dozing on his chest, his free hand scratching behind the dog’s tiny ears.

“Does he know his dad’s an asshole?” Matthew asks.

“He loves me anyway,” Leon says smugly.

“I guess someone has to.” It’s possible Matthew is being unfair at this point, but Leon looks so comfortable that it’s annoying. “Why the hell are you texting me about Johnny?”

“Because I’m a nice person who cares about other people.” Leon scritches under Bowie’s chin; Bowie makes a sleepy snuffling sound and nuzzles into the touch. “Right, Bobo?”

“Okay, fuck you, goodnight,” Matthew says, and Leon says, “Hey, wait.”

There is a long, skeptical silence. Matthew raises his eyebrows expectantly. Leon looks skyward as if praying to be freed from this mortal plane.

“What the fuck,” he mutters finally, and heaves a sigh. “How are you?”

“Fine?” says Matthew.

“Still really fucking annoying, okay, got it.”

“Still fucking pissed,” Matthew corrects. “Your guy clocked my best guy in the head. I don’t know what else you expected.”

Leon shrugs, turning his attention back to the dog. It’s unfair, Matthew thinks, for him to look so soft and warm while Matthew is trying to be pissed at him. Not even at him, really. Leon’s not the one who hit Johnny; he wasn’t even on the ice. Just pissed at everything he stands for.

“Stunning defense of your guy there,” Matthew says.

“Oh, come on,” Leon says. “Do I think it sucks, yeah. I mean, I’m sorry about your guy, but you know shit like that happens.”

“Shit like that,” Matthew says.

“You know what I mean,” says Leon.

Of course Matthew knows what he means. He’s been on both the giving and receiving end of shit like that since he was a kid. But when it’s Johnny, when it’s the team that ended their season last year, it’s hard to keep his personal feelings in check. He rubs a hand over his face, tugs at his hair. Rolls over onto his stomach to prop the phone out in front of him.

“Anyway,” Leon says. “If you just called to yell at me about something I didn’t do—”

“Jesus, don’t be so dramatic,” Matthew says. He puts on his very best diplomacy voice. “Thank you for asking about Johnny. That was nice of you.”

Leon makes a face at Matthew’s tone, then shrugs. “Bouch feels bad, for what it’s worth. I mean, he also thinks you’re a maniac. Connor said you’re not so bad but I don’t think anyone believed him.”

“Connor said,” Matthew echoes. “And what did you say?”

“I said you’re really annoying but you give great blowjobs.” Leon smirks when he says this, but it’s a soft smirk, not like the sharp, dangerous ones he gives on the ice. The memory of how good his cock feels in Matthew’s mouth offers itself up on a platter, and Matthew swallows hard at the idea of blowing him like he is right now: warm, comfortable, kind of sleepy. Maybe with the TV on in the background, volume down low. Leon working lazy fingers through Matthew’s hair. Maybe afterward Matthew stays there, just as warm and comfortable, his head resting where Bowie is, feeling the gentle rise and fall as Leon breathes.

“Matthew,” says Leon.

“Sorry.” Matthew shakes the image out of his head. “Yeah, I mean, I do give a great blowjob, so that’s good. Nice of you to set the record straight.”

“See, I told you I’m nice,” Leon says, smoothing his hand over Bowie’s head and down his back.

Another idea: afterward, Matthew crawls up and lets Leon taste himself off Matthew’s tongue. Settles on top of him and lets their mouths slide together, slow and messy, until Leon’s lips are red from kissing the same way they get red from sucking dick. And then maybe for a little longer.

“When do we play you guys again?” Matthew asks, the question slipping out of his mouth the moment he thinks it.

“Uh, I think after Christmas. Not for a while. Maybe everyone forgets they’re supposed to be mad by then.” This last part is clearly sarcasm, but Matthew gets stuck on the first part. The knot in his stomach has tied itself into about a dozen new, tighter knots.

There is something very wrong with him.

“Well, that’s plenty of time to plot our revenge,” Matthew says. His voice sounds weird, but maybe Leon won’t notice. Leon probably doesn’t know him well enough to notice.

“Yeah, good luck with that.” Leon shifts, pillowing an arm behind his head, and smiles, smug and closed-mouthed.

“And you call me annoying. Have you met yourself?”

Two perfectly arched brows. “I thought I was ‘mister handsome cool’?”

Matthew groans. “If you keep using my words against me I’m going to have to stop speaking to you.”

“How horrible for me,” Leon says, then, with a fond little laugh, “Oh, hallo, Bärchen, are you awake now?”

Bowie has roused himself from his nap and snuffled up to lick Leon’s face. The view from the phone goes wonky for a minute as Leon gives the dog a thorough ruffling and a kiss on the head, then twists to deposit him on the floor. There’s a cheerful arf followed by the skittering of tiny paws on hardwood as Bowie runs off. When Leon comes squarely into view again, he’s sitting up straighter. His hood has fallen down, and he scrubs a hand through his hair. Matthew wants to press his face into the warm space between his hoodie collar and his neck, and he feels a little sick about it.

“Sorry about that,” Leon says.

Matthew says, “I should probably go.”

Leon frowns. “I was being sarcastic. When I said how horrible.”

“Yeah, I got that, I just—” Matthew lets out a breath, rubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t know, I just feel like I should go. It’s kind of late.”

“Okay,” says Leon. He chews his lip before adding, “I should go take Bowie out anyway.”

“Okay,” Matthew says. “Uh. Goodnight.”

Leon hangs up. Matthew plants his face in the bedspread and groans loudly. He doesn’t know which is worse: that the conversation made him feel kind of better, or that now he’s mad about how long it’s going to be until they’re in the same place again. Probably the second one. Matthew is a guy who tries to be honest with himself, so there’s no point in lying about it: if there weren’t three hours of highway between them, he would be going over there to get dicked down right now. An hour ago he was lecturing himself about focusing on the team, and one stupid conversation turned his willpower inside out.

Obviously, Matthew isn’t opposed to hooking up in general during the season. He’s not opposed to dating, to having relationships. All of that is part of a healthy work-life balance or whatever. When his dad was playing, he balanced a whole family. Hooking up with some guy a few times a season shouldn’t be a big deal.

But this is a guy who gleefully ended their season last year. On one leg. With a little help from his friends, yeah, and usually Matthew wouldn’t hold winning against one specific person so much, but at least Connor McDavid looked Matthew in the eye in the handshake line.

You liked it, Leon had said to him, weeks and weeks ago now. You liked that. Like it was something strange and fascinating. So maybe that’s why Leon is in this: to see how much Matthew will take. To see what other fucked up things he likes. To see how quickly his resolve crumbles when sex is on the table. Maybe that’s interesting to him. Maybe it makes him feel good about himself, knowing that behind the scenes the guy he’s been bitching about for the past six years is kind of a fucking mess.

Matthew can’t blame him. Other way around, he would probably find it a little cathartic, too. But the thing is, Leon is right. He does like it. Maybe more than he should.

***

The Canucks come to town for a weekday matchup. Quinn texts to ask if Matthew wants to grab dinner the night before the game. Historically he and Quinn have been more the type of friends to chat for a few minutes in the hallway, but once you do Boots together, you’re real friends, apparently. Matthew feels kind of weird about it — not in a bad way, just in the way where he cares a little too much about what his little brother’s best friend thinks of him.

“Congrats, by the way,” Quinn says over their mountain of sushi, gesturing at Matthew’s shoulder with his chopsticks. “On the captaincy. I don’t know why you were so stressed about it, we all knew it was gonna happen.”

“Either you’re just saying that, or you totally missed my stellar playoffs performance,” Matthew says, stealing a slice of yellowtail from Quinn’s side of the plate. Quinn gives him a look that says he definitely noticed, but won’t be retaliating. Yet.

“Yeah, not your best work, for sure, but like—” he pops a piece of Philly roll into his mouth and chews and swallows before continuing. “Didn’t you have a broken hand? You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“Yeah, well.” Matthew shrugs. “Here’s to hoping I don’t drive the team into the ground.”

Quinn rolls his eyes. He’s a very good eye-roller, because when he does it, every part of him advertises how he’s only doing it because the oppressive idiocy of whoever he’s dealing with has forced him to. As opposed to some people, who love to roll their eyes at Matthew about every tiny affront.

“You’re second in the division with like two games in hand,” Quinn says. “I think you’re doing fine.”

“Yeah, but we could be first in the division,” Matthew says, half-joking. As if it’s not weighing on him every day.

“Or you could be fourth.” Quinn points a chopstick at him. “You’re not getting sympathy about that here, buddy.”

Fair enough. Matthew lets the conversation turn to the Canucks’ woes, which are mostly confined to a late-November slump after a pretty solid start. Quinn himself has been playing well, at least according to the stats sheet and the couple of games Matthew has caught. They have a lot of good pieces on their team, and they came so agonizingly close to a playoff berth last year. Matthew doesn’t generally root for division rivals, for obvious reasons, but he’s rooting for Quinn a little bit.

“Did you catch Brady’s game last night?” Quinn asks. Matthew did not, because he had his own game, but he caught the highlights later. The Senators lost a close one to the Devils. “They look so much better than last year.”

Matthew quirks an eyebrow. “Yeah, but who were you really rooting for?”

“Depends on who’s asking me.” Quinn grins. “Nah, Brady knows I’m always rooting for my brothers. Same way he’s hoping I lose tomorrow.”

“I wouldn’t put money on that.” Matthew is pretty sure if the pair of them were trapped in a burning building, Brady would have trouble picking who to save first. He dunks a piece of rainbow roll in soy sauce and pops it into his mouth. Quinn makes a face at him, picking up his phone to scroll a little before passing it across the table.

It’s the beginning of Quinn’s texts with Brady from today. The very first one, sent at a reasonable time ET but a stupid early one MT, says: Good morning ❤ hope u lose tomorrow ❤

Matthew shakes his head and hands the phone back. “He says that now, but.”

“I should probably just block him whenever I’m playing you,” Quinn says, but shoots off a text as he says it, so there’s nothing even resembling teeth behind the threat.

It would be weird, Matthew thinks, for him to ask how Brady was doing. Their trickle of texting picked up to a more normal pace after the game in Ottawa, but Brady doesn’t tell Matthew everything, whereas Quinn is basically a repository for every thought that enters Brady’s mind. He would have the answers for all the questions Matthew keeps punking out of asking, like, how much is Brady feeling the pressure of getting his team back on their feet? Does it ever feel impossible? What do you do, as a captain, when it feels impossible?

Of course, Quinn would turn right around and tell Brady how nosy his weird big brother was being. Better to talk about the standings, about the house Quinn owns with Jack that they are slowly filling with weird art, about their respective upcoming holiday plans.

Quinn snorts at whatever response he gets, then sets the phone aside, picking up his chopsticks with a sheepishly pleased expression on his face.

“He really is the worst,” he says, stealing one of Matthew’s salmon sashimi slices.

“Yeah, I could have told you that,” Matthew says.

“That tie he got you was sick, though, right? He thought you’d drag him for being too sappy, but I was like, no, Brady, it’s okay to be nice sometimes.” Quinn is rearranging the sushi pieces on his half of the plate as he says this, contemplating the order in which to eat them, and pauses here to give Matthew a mischievous grin. “I know you guys are secretly soft. You can’t tell me that didn’t get you.”

Matthew shakes his head. “Let’s just say it’s a good thing he told me to open it in private and leave it at that.”

“Soft,” Quinn confirms, and steals another piece of salmon. Matthew can’t argue with him. He knows too much. Changing the subject is the only option.

“So how was Edmonton?” he asks.

Quinn shrugs. “Annoying as usual? Like, I swear, man for man probably like two-thirds of our guys are better than their guys, but—” He makes a gesture suggesting he would like to do some small amount of violence to Connor McDavid. Extremely relatable. “I’ve got a bruise the size of a grapefruit right here—” his upper ribs on the left “—from your best friend Draisaitl, if you want to pay him back for that for me.”

“We’re not friends,” Matthew says.

“Brady says he’s pretty cool, actually,” Quinn says.

“Yeah, well, Brady is the worst,” Matthew says.

Quinn just laughs. He is definitely going to text Brady about this as soon as Matthew leaves.

***

They roll into December, winning more than they’re losing. It was a tough few games without Johnny, and Matthew breathes easier once he’s back on the ice, although if Johnny had his way he would have been skating days earlier. Luckily Johnny is not in charge of his own well-being. Not that Matthew has a great track record of being patient with his own injuries.

“Oh, no, honey, your face,” his mom greets him when they get to St. Louis, holding Matthew’s head to examine the nasty cut on his lip. It happened two days prior in Denver — high stick; he’s just glad it didn’t knock any teeth loose — and it is refusing to heal because Matthew keeps chewing on it. Chantal calls over her shoulder into the house: “Keith, come look at your son’s face!”

“It’s fine, mom,” Matthew says, ducking out of her hold so he can hug her properly. Keith struts into the foyer, his face splitting into a grin when he spots Matthew.

“Oh, yeah, the chicks will dig that scar,” he says with a laugh, pulling Matthew in for a slap on the back. “The Avalanche game, right? You should have clocked that guy.”

Matthew makes a face, biting on the scab. “I tried, but Johnny beat me to it.”

“Eh.” Keith waves this off. “Come on out back, your uncle’s here. We’re grilling steaks.”

If you ask Matthew, it’s too cold to be cooking outside, but far be it from him to tell Big Walt when grill season is. He doesn’t bother taking his coat or shoes off, just tromps through the house to the back porch, where he drops into a deck chair and is handed a beer by his Uncle Kevin. He’s not going to offer to help unless asked, because Keith has a lot of opinions about grilling techniques, mostly regarding how only he can do it right. Shortly, Matthew’s mom reappears, wrapped in a parka with gloves on and a glass of red wine in her hand.

The conversation meanders through St. Louis gossip about people Matthew knows, people he doesn’t know, and people he supposedly met one time or another. His mom still knows more about what goes on at Chaminade than Matthew knew when he was a student there; his dad is so free with the Blues front office anecdotes that it might legally be considered tampering for Matthew to be present for the conversation. Kevin, by far the more laid-back of the senior Tkachuk brothers, laughs along and pokes Matthew about life in Calgary. He’s clearly pleased with his local knowledge after visiting with Keith last year, and is excited to hear updates on every guy he met.

And, inevitably: “So, Matthew, have you met any nice girls up there yet?”

“Nah.” Matthew shrugs and takes a pull of his beer. “I think they’re hiding from me.”

“I’ve told him he’s not trying hard enough,” Keith says. “He’s got the pedigree to snag a good one. Just needs to put himself out there.”

“Keith.” Chantal swats Keith’s shoulder before turning to Matthew, pushing a couple of his curls back into place. “You’ll meet someone when you’re ready, sweetheart. Just promise to let me help plan the wedding when it’s time.”

Matthew gives her a closed-mouth smile. “Of course.”

Even though it’s been a year since Taryn started college, it’s still weird to come home during the season and not have her around. Matthew doesn’t mind it being just him and the grown-ups, but the vibe is very different than when he has a sibling with him. He tries to make up for it by sending play-by-play of the juicy parts of the conversation to the Tkachuk Sibling Tkachat, which just gets him a bunch of increasingly absurd reaction gifs. It isn’t as good as exchanging looks behind their parents’ backs, but it’s still pretty good.

During a lull, Matthew glances down at his phone to see that Leon has texted a photo — of Bowie, standing in snow deep enough that only his ears and the top half of his face are sticking out.

So maybe Matthew has not exactly dealt with the Draisaitl issue. But the texting is all hockey-related chirps, occasional begrudging compliments. Cute dog pictures. Matthew just can’t convince himself that cute dog pictures are going to be his downfall. Sometimes he’ll send stupid selfies after good games, to let Leon know he should catch that night’s episode of the Chucky show, but also because it seems to be a good way to egg Leon into sending some back. Half the reason Matthew is talking to him is because he’s nice to look at, after all. But the cute dog pictures aren’t a bad trade-off either.

So despite himself, he grins as he texts back, Get him some snowshoes

No way. Hes too canadian already 🙄

Matthew snorts.

“Oh, something’s funny,” Keith says. “You gonna share with the class, Matthew?”

“Nope,” Matthew says, tucking his phone into his coat pocket.

“Ooh, cold.” Uncle Kevin leans over to clap Matthew on the shoulder. “You tell him, kiddo.”

“Speaking of cold,” Chantal says pointedly. “Are we about ready to move this meal inside like civilized people?”

The men acquiesce, and so they move inside to eat like civilized people and talk about civilized topics, like real estate. Chantal has been overseeing some remodeling on Brady’s house that he purposefully put off until the season started, which has inspired her to start thinking about some kitchen upgrades herself, and she thinks perhaps Matthew should do the same. Matthew thinks that’s maybe something they should run by Rob, considering he spends more time living in Matthew’s house than Matthew does. Keith, though, has been trying to convince Rob to buy a place of his own, so he’s generally opposed to looping him in on homeowner decisions that might encourage him to keep crashing at Matthew’s. Also, Keith just likes telling people to buy houses. He was married with a kid and a house at twenty-five, and that worked out great for him. He’d hate for anybody to miss out.

“He’s making the money, he’s gonna be here a while,” Keith says. “It’s a good investment.”

“Yeah, but I kind of like having someone there while I’m gone for the season,” Matthew says, sawing off a bite of steak. His dad might be annoying about the grill, but he does cook a nice piece of meat. “And it means I don’t have to make Mom go check on things.”

“Are you planning to buy in Calgary?” Uncle Kevin asks, reaching for more grilled zucchini. “Since you’re gonna be there a while longer now.”

“I’ve been telling him to get out of that apartment,” Keith says. “He’s not twenty-two anymore. If he’s staying up there another five years, he should at least get a real place to live. Brady’s buying in Ottawa.”

“Yeah, I’m not dealing with that in the middle of the season,” Matthew says.

“Well, you let me know when you want to, and I’ll come up and help,” his mom says.

Keith says to Kevin, “A lot of guys rent, but if you’re gonna be somewhere more than a couple years, I always think it’s good to make the investment. That way when his contract’s up he can sell and get that nice little cash bump.”

“I’ll let you know, Mom, I appreciate it,” Matthew says, then, pointedly, “So how was UVA? I saw the pictures but I’m sure there’s stories that didn’t make the group chat.”

Chantal immediately breaks her own “no phones at the table” rule to pull out those pictures again, and the mood in the room bubbles up as attention turns to everyone’s favorite Tkachuk. Thank god for Taryn, Matthew thinks, not for the first time in his life.

The game is fine. Matthew doesn’t score any goals, but he draws the penalty that leads to the Flames’ first goal of the night; he gets two assists, one on purpose and one that’s kind of a fluke; and he gets a talking-to from the official about how if he catches Matthew starting something one more time he’ll find a penalty to call about it. Matthew maintains he has been starting nothing — just capitalizing on situations where other guys are prone to start something. The Blues faithful are not pleased with him tonight.

Still, Matthew can’t help drinking in the roar of the Enterprise Center, even when the fans are rooting against him, and coming away with a win is always sweeter in St. Louis than anywhere else on the road except maybe Edmonton. His dad doesn’t text after the game, but will surely show up tomorrow morning with some thoughts. There has never been a question about which parent Matthew inherited being a sore loser from.

But that’s four wins in a row. All on the road, starting in Colorado. That’s their longest streak of the season so far. Matthew is trying not to think it, because it’s not the same, it’s already December, but that early-season road trip that set the tone for them last season — maybe this could be something like that.

Instead of dropping into his usual seat for the flight to Minnesota, Matthew makes his way further back to catch Adam before he settles in next to Jakob. Adam does not seem surprised that he’s being sent to sit with Noah. Jakob has had a rough couple of games, and was a healthy scratch tonight. The stormcloud over his head could be seen from space. Sutter has told him it was just to give him a chance to reset, to watch the game from above and get some big-picture thinking, but that doesn’t make it fun.

“Please don’t tell me don’t get in my head about it,” Jakob says, slumping against the window and giving Matthew a weak smile. He doesn’t wear misery well. At the beginning of the season, he was upbeat, determined, always looking for the next step he can take. Watching this season wear him down has sucked.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” says Matthew. “Want to watch a movie?”

Jakob shrugs. “I might fall asleep.”

“That’s okay.” Matthew pulls his iPad out of his bag. “The last time I watched a movie with my brother, he fell asleep halfway through and so the whole rest of the movie he was next to me like—” He tips his head back at an awkward angle, imitating Brady’s snoring. It doesn’t quite get a laugh out of the kid, but it does get a better smile.

Jakob is different from Brady in a lot of ways — Brady is twice his size, for starters — but Matthew can’t help feeling more like an older brother than a captain as they settle in to watch. It’s kind of nice. Brady blew past needing Matthew to look after him and straight into making Matthew hustle to keep up with him years ago, but Taryn has more or less kept his big brother skills sharp. Like, sometimes you just need someone to hang out with you and not remind you that you can do better. The hockey issues will still be there tomorrow. Jakob is allowed to set them aside so he can not feel shitty for a little while.

He does fall asleep before the end of the movie, though. Matthew takes several pictures of him with funny Instagram filters. That would be his duty as either a big brother or a captain.

He is trying not to think it, because thinking it feels like asking the hockey gods to come for him, but as they string wins together, he is starting to unclench. They are a third of the way through the season and things haven’t fallen apart yet. Matthew’s been making up for lost time on the goal-scoring front, racking them up fast enough that he texted Leon the other day to watch his back, he’s gaining on him. When he catches sight of the C in the mirror, his stomach still lurches, but not quite as much as before. He’s getting used to how it looks. Maybe that’s the first step.

Leon responds to the text with two multi-goal games in a row, which is rude of him but kind of hot. With the team rolling like it is, Matthew has decided to be practical about this: he’s not going to stop wanting to fuck the guy anytime soon, so there’s no point in wasting his energy trying not to think about it. When the Oilers are back in town, if Leon wants to go again, he’ll just keep things to the point. The point being getting off. And maybe spending some quality time looking at Leon naked. The important things.

***

A week later, in California, Matthew is two shots and a beer in before his mind turns to those important things. They beat the Ducks, then get a big win in LA to pull even with the Kings for first in the Pacific, and a bunch of them go out after to celebrate. It’s a Saturday night, and Matthew is turning twenty-five at midnight.

Hey send nudes, he texts, just sober enough to keep his screen tilted away from Sean, who is beside him at the bar as they wait for the bartender to fill up another tray of shots for them. Should have just done bottle service, but it is what it is.

Fuck off, Leon says.

🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁, Matthew texts back.

“Can we just have, like, a whole cup of limes?” Sean asks the bartender over the music.

Are you drunk, says Leon.

Matthew: Yes

Leon: You first

Cant im at the club babyyyy, Matthew types, but is cut offby Sean elbowing him before he can add the appropriate number of y’s to baby, so he sends the text off woefully incomplete.

“Hey, get the tray, Chuck,” Sean says. He has four beers balanced in his hands already, so Matthew hoists the tray up like a waiter, nearly drops it, then carries it with both hands back to their table. It’s one of those low tables, half-circled by a bench seat, and rapidly filling up with empty glasses and bottles. Their road schedule hasn’t allowed for many chances to go out so far this season, so it’s nice to get so many guys out for drinks.

“Shots for my boys!” Matthew announces to a round of cheers, and spends the next several minutes toasting each of them individually, to more rounds of cheers. Jakob and Adam are leaning against each other and giggling; Lindy subtly slides a couple of waters in next to their beers. What a crew, Matthew can’t help thinking when he looks at them all. What a team. Even the ones embarrassing themselves on the dance floor.

When he checks his phone again, Leon has texted: Wow

Matthew drops into a seat, tucking himself against Marky’s side, because Marky isn’t nosy.

I decided im allowed to want to fuck you, he sends. Marky, more interested in his conversation with Calle than in Matthew’s texting, drapes an arm around Matthew’s shoulders and gives him a distracted kiss on the head. Need pics for motivation

Leon says, You just decided now ??

Matthew says, Kinda want to sit on your dick

It’s true. That’s been a frequent fantasy lately. It would be a nice view, Matthew thinks. Leon would make that stupid face he makes when something feels really good. His stupid soft eyelashes would flutter when he moaned. Matthew could take him as deep as he wanted and feel it the whole next day. Maybe leave some bite marks on Leon’s chest.

After an annoyingly long pause, a picture comes through. It is not, as requested, a nude, but it is of a photo of one of Leon’s big hands grabbing the distinct bulge of his erection through a pair of gray sweatpants.

This dick? he says.

So having this conversation in public was maybe a mistake. Matthew does not need to be this horny while out with his teammates. He chews on the end of his thumb, staring at the curve of Leon’s fingers around his cock, at the shape of the head pressing into the fabric.

“Hey, Marky, can you look and see who Chucky’s texting?” Noah asks loudly. Matthew hits the home screen button so quickly he almost drops his phone.

“No way, man,” Marky says. “None of my business who those dirty pictures are from.”

“Dude,” Matthew protests, hiding his phone against his chest.

Marky laughs, hooking Matthew into a rough half-hug. “I wasn’t looking on purpose, you’re just waving that big-ass phone screen right under my nose. Kind of hard to miss, buddy.”

From across the table, Noah makes the ‘I’m watching you’ gesture at Matthew, but then immediately gets pulled away by Toff for some unknowable reason. Hopefully to go embarrass himself on the dance floor, because that’s what he deserves.

Matthew hunches over to make sure his screen is hidden to type his reply: Now I have a boner in the club thanks

You asked, Leon texts back.

Hate you anyway, Matthew says, and Leon says: 🙂

A hand on Matthew’s back makes him jump, and Marky laughs.

“I mean it, you know,” he says, giving Matthew’s shoulder a squeeze. “I don’t care who you’re texting. You don’t have to hide about it.”

“Sorry.” Matthew straightens up, shoving his phone in his pocket and grabbing his beer. The movement makes his head spin, so he leans against Marky for support. “It’s just private.”

Marky snorts. “Yeah, obviously.”

Matthew looks into his beer, sighs, then sets it down and grabs someone’s water instead, draining half the glass in one go. Then he leans on Marky’s shoulder again.

“Marky,” he says, closing his eyes for a moment. “Am I a good captain?”

“Wow, drunk Chucky,” Marky says with a chuckle, rubbing his palm in circles on Matthew’s back. “Yeah, buddy, you’re a great captain.”

“Hey, Chuck, you doing okay?” Lindy drops onto the bench next to Matthew. There’s not quite enough room for him, but he slides over anyway, squishing Matthew neatly between himself and Marky.

“He wants to know if he’s a good captain,” Marky says, the traitor, and Lindy laughs.

“Oh, buddy, you’re really drunk, huh?” he asks.

Matthew squints. “Drunker than I thought I was. Sorry.”

“Hey, no sorry, just drink more water,” Lindy says, nudging the glass in Matthew’s hand back up toward his mouth. “Of course you’re a good captain.”

As directed, Matthew finishes the water, and lets Lindy replace the empty glass with another half-full one from the table. It’s possible these are the waters that the kids were supposed to drink; Matthew should figure out where they’ve gone off to.

“Hey, Johnny Hockey!” Marky calls as Johnny weaves back into view, pulling Sean by the wrist. Johnny jumps, blinking at them. “Come tell Chucky he’s a good captain.”

“Oh, hell yeah.” Johnny lets go of Sean and steps deftly around the table to deposit himself on Matthew’s lap, hugging him around the neck and pressing their cheeks together. “Oh captain, my captain, Chucky, baby, you’re fucking perfect.”

“You’re so fucking drunk,” Matthew says, but squeezes him back tighter than necessary. There’s a lump in his throat that, if he were sober, might be too painful to handle. Part of him, deep down, knows how undignified this all is, but the guilt is buried under about seven layers of alcohol, and it’s not strong enough right now to keep him from pressing his face into Johnny’s neck and breathing deep until his head stops spinning. Someone pets his hair, and he thinks traitorously of Leon’s fingers sinking into his curls. He presses his mouth to Johnny’s shoulder, biting on the fabric of his shirt until Johnny squirms and yelps.

“What is wrong with you?” Johnny laughs, but he drops a kiss on Matthew’s head as he gets to his feet. “Okay, who’s up for one more round?”

It’s probably a bad idea, but hey, all they’re doing tomorrow is flying to Arizona, and then they have a whole day off in the desert before they have to play hockey again. The sunshine and the golf course will cure any hangover.

“Yeah, one more round on me,” Matthew says, extracting himself from between the Swedes and pushing himself to his feet, less wobbly than he expects, but then again, he has a mission now. God knows this night out isn’t about him. Another round for the boys, so everyone can go back to having fun.

Later, after they stumble back to the hotel, after they have made sure everyone has an alarm or wake-up call scheduled to be alive for their flight in the morning, Matthew crawls into bed, flops onto his back, and lets the world wobble gently around him. It took some willpower for him to convince himself to brush his teeth and change into pajamas, but he knows future Matthew will thank him. Now he just has to figure out what to text Leon before he passes out.

Not that he needs to text Leon. That dumb smiley face from earlier is still the last thing in the chain. But he wants to. He’s too drunk and tired to jerk off, even though looking at that photo Leon sent makes him want to. In the end, he gives up on saying anything coherent and just flicks the bedside lamp on long enough to snap a selfie: comfortable on his pillow, eyes closed, smiling a smug close-mouthed smile and holding a peace sign next to his cheek. About to dream sweet dreams of your dick, he types. Send. Sleep.

***

Leon, well before Matthew drags his wretched corpse out of bed the next morning: Very cute

Matthew, only after he has poured enough green juice and iced coffee into his body to be able to type real words again: Kind of want to die

Leon’s emoji-based response conveys absolutely zero sympathy.

5. take the fall! act hurt! get indignant!

“Matthew!”

Matthew hears Taryn before he sees her. He has been in St. Louis for less than an hour — met Rob at the airport and swapped the car out as Rob went in for his flight to Toronto, drove himself home, dumped his bags, changed into something that didn’t smell like airplane, and headed straight to his parents’ house. He’s stepping out of the car when Taryn shouts, and has just enough time to clock her sprinting down the front steps into the driveway before she jumps on him.

“Oh, Jesus, hi,” he laughs, letting the momentum of the hug spin them around. “I missed you, too, kiddo.”

Not including tonight, he has two full days with the family, then flies back the day after Christmas. Brady got in late last night after his game in Detroit, and is perched in the kitchen stealing from the veggie tray their mom is trying to assemble when Matthew and Taryn come inside. He jumps up, ducking past Chantal to wrap Matthew up in a bear hug that sends him staggering back several steps.

“Why are you both trying to knock me over today?” Matthew asks, holding onto Brady for balance as Brady laughs, giving him several hearty slaps on the back.

“That’s what you get for showing up last,” he says, then retreats with a whine as Chantal bullies him out of the way to get her own hugs and kisses in.

“Your dad’s out doing some last-minute shopping, but he should be back soon. Seriously, Matthew, hasn’t that healed yet?” This last part is about the scab on his lip, which did heal, and then got split open again in a somewhat-deserved scuffle last week. Between that and the chapped lips, Matthew has been nursing a sore mouth for over a month now. Chantal waves her own question off, though. “Come here, be more helpful than your brother is being.”

“I’m doing quality control!” Brady protests, his mouth full of broccoli and ranch dip.

They both get roped into helping with the preparations for tomorrow’s big dinner, but it’s fun, letting their mom boss them around the kitchen, trying to catch each other with a subtle elbow to the ribs or jab in the side when she’s not looking. Taryn sits at the kitchen table, poking at her phone, claiming she did her fair share of helping in the week she’s been home before Matthew and Brady got there.

“I mean, she’s right,” Chantal says when Brady complains, so Brady throws a carrot stick at Taryn as soon as she looks away. Taryn catches and eats it smugly.

It’s easy to fall into the rhythm of being home. He and Brady spend most of the day at Chantal’s beck and call, with occasional help from Taryn, if she’s feeling generous, or if their mom insists. When Keith gets home, he recruits Brady and Taryn to wrap the gifts he’s bought his wife, which is going to be a disaster because all of them suck at wrapping gifts. Chantal claims Matthew for herself, though, hugging him around the waist when Keith summons the kids to help.

“You can have the other ones,” she says. “I’m keeping my baby boy.”

“Nice, Mom, what does that make me?” Brady asks as he and Taryn get up from the table.

“My babier boy,” Chantal says without missing a beat. “Go help your father.”

“I’m so glad I’m everyone’s favorite daughter,” Taryn deadpans. Matthew sticks his tongue out at both of them as they shuffle after Keith to the basement.

Matthew doesn’t have many clear memories of the year and a half of his life when he was an only child, but he has heaps of them from the years when he was the only kid old enough to be useful. When his dad went off on roadtrips, it was him and his mom against the world, looking after Brady and Taryn as a team. Chantal does not pick favorites, but Matthew likes to think their mother-son bond is a little extra special because of that.

“Okay,” he says once the kitchen is empty, and presses a smacking kiss to the top of his mom’s head. “Let’s get these potatoes peeled.”

“Watch your fingers with the peeler,” Chantal says.

Matthew groans. “That was one time, Mom.”

“One time too many,” she says, bumping him with her hip as they take up positions next to each other at the counter, the big bowl of sweet potatoes between them. Matthew isn’t much use in the kitchen, generally, but he’s good at following directions, and he likes seeing Chantal’s plans come together, helping out where he can. Once they fall into a rhythm, it’s nice, working next to each other with the radio playing low in the background. Every now and then Chantal will sing along with a couple of lines in that way where she’s only halfway aware she’s even doing it, but she always laughs when Matthew joins in, because Matthew can’t carry a tune to save his life. She never tells him to shut up, though.

Being home is good. It’s complicated, because Calgary is home, too, but that’s different. Calgary is home because Matthew’s team is there, and because he’s convinced the city to love him for as long as he’s helping their hockey team win games. St. Louis is home no matter what, and the only people he really has to impress here are his family, and they would probably still love him if he suddenly sucked at sports. Probably. Well, his mom definitely would.

The thing is, he thought that after that last game before this little break, he would take off his jersey and feel like he was taking off the letter, too. Just for a couple days. But that’s not true. He feels it the whole day, not like a nagging injury, but like — Matthew doesn’t have any tattoos, but like he imagines that would feel, after the ink has dried and the skin has healed and it doesn’t hurt anymore, but the flesh still remembers the needle intimately.

Which is probably how it should be. You don’t take off a captaincy. That was a stupid thing for him to think.

They order pizza for dinner, an annual tradition before two days of big home-cooked meals, and afterward everyone sprawls in the den to watch a movie. Their parents drift off to bed first, then Taryn, until it’s just Matthew and Brady, poking at their phones with ESPN on in the background. Despite the Christmas decorations and the winter wind outside, Matthew is reminded of the summer with a sharp pang of nostalgia.

“So how are the boys?” he asks. Brady glances up from his texting with a shrug.

“Good. I almost dragged Tim here for Christmas with me, but Chabs won him over by, uh, not being in Missouri.”

“Hey, what’s wrong with Missouri?”

Brady makes a vague gesture that is probably meant to encompass everything from the bitter winter to the general Midwesterness of their beloved home state. “I think he just likes Quebec. Don’t ask me to parse the European mindset.”

He says this phrase, parse the European mindset, like he heard it from someone else and thought it was very funny, which makes Matthew laugh.

“Okay, well, tell him I said hi, and that Missouri rules.”

Brady agrees to this, and goes back to texting for a minute before he speaks again without looking up. “Quinn says hi.”

“Hi, Quinn,” Matthew says. “You know we grabbed dinner when Van was in town?”

Brady glances at him like Matthew is missing some brain cells. “Yeah, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Matthew mocks, rolling his eyes and going back to his own phone. He is not texting Leon, but he is thinking about it. The problem is, what would he even say? How’s your Christmas going? Hope you’re not stuck in Edmonton? That would all be kind of weird for people with their relationship, right? But his fingers itch with the urge, so he goes and likes Leon’s Insta post from the Oilers team holiday party a couple of days ago instead, which kind of helps.

It’s past one in the morning before he gets back to his own house, which is only 11pm Calgary time, but Matthew is yawning as he gets ready for bed. It’s still weird to come back to his own house when he’s home for the holidays instead of crashing in his room at his parents’ place. It’s not even his childhood bedroom, since they sold the house in Creve Coeur a few years ago; it’s just — having everyone around. Brady across the hall, Taryn in the next room, his mom always just a shout away. That’s what he’s used to at home. His house is big, and there’s only one of him. He’d said this when they first went to look at it, the summer that he and his mom went all over the St. Louis suburbs trying to pick the perfect place, and she had squeezed him around the waist and said, “Yeah, but that gives you room to grow. Gives you space for a family one day.”

No one would really care if he just crashed at the parents’ house during these visits, he’s almost positive. But then what’s the point of being an adult with his own house?

He didn’t pack much for such a short trip, banking on the cache of clothes in his room here to get him through it, and as he’s digging through the dresser for a t-shirt to sleep in, something catches his eye. A distinct shade of blue, hidden in the back of the drawer. He grabs the corner of fabric and out it comes: Leon’s t-shirt from Boots and Hearts.

That’s what he forgot. When he was packing for Calgary and feeling like he was missing something, it was this stupid shirt. He was supposed to have it with him if Leon asked for it back. Of course, Leon never asked for it back, and the times they have seen each other, they’ve had other things on their minds. Or at least Matthew did. Who knows what Leon is thinking most of the time. If he made any assumptions about what Matthew did with his belongings, that’s on him.

Matthew holds the shirt to his face, but all the beer and sweat was vanquished months ago and it just smells like laundry detergent now. The fabric is soft and stretched out at the collar, as if this is a shirt that was worn and washed often. The urge to try it on doesn’t quite take Matthew by surprise, but the way it curls up and settles in his gut, equal parts guilt and want, is something else.

Still, he weighs the pros and cons — pros: ???, cons: kind of fucking weird, Tkachuk — and despite how those measure up, he pulls the shirt on anyway. He takes a selfie in the mirror and sends it to Leon: Look what I found

It takes a few minutes for Leon to respond, but Matthew is still standing in front of the mirror looking at himself when he does. He can’t stop thinking about Boots. About Leon’s sun-warmed skin when Matthew threw an arm around his shoulders. About the way his eyes went dark when he realized Matthew meant it, about the blowjob.

Wow never thought id see that again, Leon says.

Matthew chews on his lip, then responds: I’ll bring it back to calgary. You can come get it

Leon says: Sounds good

Matthew thinks, sometimes, about that moment back at Boots, before everything spiraled out of control, when he thought maybe it was time for an olive branch. They’ll never be best buddies, he’d thought, but maybe, like, acquaintances. People who are civil to each other. Matthew can’t figure out if they’re friends now. He can’t even figure out if they technically get along. He just — keeps wanting. It’s been weeks, months even, and he’s still at square one. Wanting.

Merry christmas btw, he types, and stares at it, trying to figure out if it somehow gives away how much time he spends thinking about Leon between texts. It doesn’t matter, of course. No impulse control. He sends it anyway.

Thanks, Leon says. You too.

***

Keith comes back to Calgary with Matthew on a whim to stay through New Year’s. Matthew is pretty sure this is less due to a burning desire to go to Alberta in the dead of winter and more because Keith’s hardly done any traveling yet this season and it’s making him antsy. There are some plans for both parents to hop around the league in the spring, with a bunch of stops on the NCAA field hockey circuit, but that seems far off when you’re staring down the long, gray stretch of January and February. Thus, Big Walt comes to town.

Hockey-wise, it’s a rough stretch. They lose to San Jose again, then cough one up to the Ducks in overtime. They’re still at the top of the division, but LA and Vancouver are close behind them, with the Oilers nipping at those guys’ heels.

“Geez, kiddo, twenty goals before January, you’re allowed to look a little excited,” Keith says over breakfast as they watch tape from the game against Anaheim. On-screen currently is Matthew’s first-period tally, including his apparently lackluster celly.

Matthew shrugs. “It was mostly the pass from Johnny. I just tipped it in.”

“Well, yeah, I can see that,” Keith says, tapping the iPad screen. “Look at Noah’s positioning on this, too — when’s his contract up? I’m gonna poach him.”

“I did not just hear that,” Matthew says, getting up for a coffee refill.

Keith stretches, sitting back with a grin. “Well, you’re not coming home for five more years, so I have to have fun somehow.”

Matthew levels the most un-poachable look he can muster at him, but Keith just laughs.

“You said it was a good extension,” Matthew says. “Besides, the Blues don’t need me and they can’t afford me right now anyway without dumping a bunch of guys.”

“Yeah, but your mom would be so thrilled.” Keith slides his coffee mug across the table for Matthew to fill while he’s up. “As soon as we get one of you boys, I’ll be set for life on husband points.”

“Maybe stock up on jewelry just to be safe,” Matthew says, grabbing the mug by the handle. “Cream no sugar, right?”

As nice as it is to have him around, Matthew thanks his lucky stars that his dad will be leaving before the game against Edmonton. It’s weird enough when Leon texts while his dad is around. He does not want to do the mental gymnastics that would be required to handle having them both in the city at once.

The matinee game on New Year’s Eve is Keith’s last of the trip, and Matthew breathes a sigh of relief when they eke out a win over the Stars. It’s a chippy one, leaving Matthew with a goal, a handful of fresh PIMs, and a shiner from some third-period roughhousing.

Even though he was there when it happened, Noah laughs when Matthew shows up to the NYE party with a black eye to match his black-on-black suit. Matthew rented out the space for the team: a private club with a view high above the city, now filled to the brim with teammates and wives and girlfriends and friends, except Johnny and Meredith, because the baby is too small for parties, and they wanted to stay with the baby. Still, Matthew is extra glad he went all-out when even his dad looks a little impressed.

“What’s that they say?” Noah says over the music. “How you spend New Year’s Eve is how your new year is gonna go?”

Keith gives Matthew a hearty slap on the back. “So lots of fisticuffs next year. That’s my boy.”

“Or just lots of winning,” Matthew says. “With fisticuffs on the side. Hopefully not a whole year with my face like this.”

“Aw, Chucky, it’s a good look for you,” Noah says. “It’s when your face goes back to normal you have to worry about.”

Keith laughs his big, booming laugh as Matthew tries to give Noah his own black eye.

Having just Keith in town is way different than having both of Matthew’s parents visiting. Like, the difference between a nice family vacation and spring break. The guys love Big Walt, and he loves to relive his youth, calling for rounds and making friends with everyone. Brady got that from him — the ability to walk into any room and make friends. Watching him hold court, Matthew always thinks that if they were peers, if they were playing at the same time, they would have made good teammates. Good friends, even. Just a couple of guys, raising hell on and off the ice. No legacies yet. Just hockey.

Many drinks later, Matthew takes a selfie in the bathroom, close up on his eye and cheek, his face turned to the light so the swelling is visible and the beginnings of the blotchy purple stand out. You owe someone a gift basket, he texts, then stands in there for several minutes waiting for a response, and pretends the night isn’t just a little bit worse when he doesn’t get one.

They stumble home at a very respectful two in the morning — the team has the day off tomorrow, but Matthew doesn’t want to fuck up his sleep schedule by staying out all night. Keith could have probably kept going until sunrise, but then he would be unbearable tomorrow.

In the elevator up to his condo, Matthew’s phone rings.

His drunk fingers answer the Facetime call out of habit, and gets about half a second of Leon’s flushed, grinning face before he realizes what he’s done, says, “Oh, shit,” and hangs up.

“Everything okay?” asks Keith.

“Yeah, just a drunk dial.” Matthew puts his phone on silent and stuffing it deep in his pocket. He doesn’t look at it again until his dad is safely asleep in the guest room for the night, and he’s in his own room with the door locked.

There’s a second, missed call from Leon, and two texts: Wtf, then Ok fuck you?

Matthew grins, just a little, and calls him back.

“Too late, I’m pissed at you now,” Leon says when he answers. He’s in bed, shirtless, which is a welcome sight. He isn’t in his house, Matthew is pretty sure, but he can’t see enough of the background to tell for sure. Maybe a hotel room. He has had too much to drink to remember the Oilers’ schedule right now. Leon is still flushed, still grinning, kind of sweaty — drunk, obviously. It’s New Year’s Eve.

“Dude, I was in the elevator with my dad,” Matthew says, and laughs at the face Leon pulls. “Yeah, exactly. You should thank me.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever,” Leon says. “Let me see your face.”

Literally that is the entire point of Facetime, and in fact they are currently looking at each other’s faces, Matthew does not say. But he does laugh about it.

“Wow, you’re extra rude tonight,” he says, going to the bathroom to let the bright vanity lights illuminate his latest battle wound. “Did you call to jerk off to my black eye? It’s okay if you did, but if so I think I get to watch. I don’t think it’s that bad though.”

It takes him a moment to find an angle where he’s getting the light on the right part of his face while not blocking it with his phone. The bruise is less swollen than it was earlier, but more colorful. From Matthew’s extensive experience with getting punched, he’d estimate it’ll be gone within the week.

Leon scrunches his brows. “Who does the gift basket go to?”

“I’m not actually sure. Maybe send them to everyone in Dallas just in case.”

“Thanks, that’s very helpful.”

“You know I love to be helpful.” While he’s in here, Matthew figures, he might as well get ready for bed, so he props the phone up on the sink and reaches for his toothbrush. “But seriously, to what do I owe the honor?”

“Next week,” Leon says, and Matthew’s drunk heart skips a beat. “We have a game the night before at home, so we don’t get in until early on the game day. But it’s the first stop on a road trip, so we’re staying overnight before we fly to Vancouver. So I was just thinking. Uh. It felt like too much to type all that.” He rubs a hand over his face and up through his hair, leaving it sticking up in a million different angles on top.

His accent is stronger when he’s drunk. Kind of like when he’s really turned on, but not exactly the same. More like he sounded at Boots and Hearts, except Matthew wasn’t as familiar with the baseline back then, and he’s probably drunker than he was then, judging from all the mumbling.

Matthew grins at the phone and says around his toothbrush, “Leon, are you soliciting me for sex?”

“Obviously,” Leon says. “And I want my shirt back.”

“Oh, the truth comes out,” Matthew says. Spits in the sink and adds, “It looks pretty good on me. Maybe I want to keep it.”

“We’ll see about that.” Leon rolls onto his side, settling into the pillow. “Mostly I just want to fuck you. So everything else, whatever.”

The witty rejoinder Matthew’s mind supplies is something along the lines of, oh good because I think about you every day, but instead of saying that, he ducks down to rinse his mouth with water from the sink. Splashes some on his face for good measure, scrubbing the sweat of the night away, taking a moment to try to pull himself together. It doesn’t work very well. Matthew’s brain is still sloshing slightly in his head every time he moves. There’s something about the current view on the phone, Leon tucked into bed, hair mussed and eyes heavy, that makes Matthew wish he wasn’t about to crawl into bed alone. He could go for some lazy, drunk-ish sex before passing out. Or even just some making out and rubbing up against someone.

That’s not the kind of sex he has with Leon, but. Whatever. Fuck.

He straightens, patting his face dry with the hand towel. Leon is just watching, so quietly that Matthew wonders if he’s going to fall asleep.

“So come over after the game,” he says, hauling his train of thought back onto tracks that aren’t headed straight for a cliff. “Just promise you won’t be a sore loser.”

Leon grins a grin that has surprisingly little smirk to it. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”

“Why, have you finally discovered sportsmanship?” Matthew adjusts the phone on the sink so it’s facing more towards the bathroom door, away from the toilet. “Sorry, I need to piss.”

“Very sexy,” Leon says. “Obviously we’re going to win, so you will have to not be the sore loser. Besides, after the game is better anyway. We can have more fun that way.”

“Can you not try to give me a boner until I’m done peeing?” Matthew asks. “It’s hard enough just looking at you.”

Leon snorts. “Hard enough.”

“I’m gonna hang up on you.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“You think I won’t?”

“I mean, I can’t stop you.”

Matthew finishes his business, washes his hands, and takes Leon back to the bedroom. “Where even are you right now?”

“Davo’s guest room. He had a party.” This admission comes with a beleaguered sigh, which makes Matthew raise both eyebrows as he props the phone on his dresser.

“Don’t tell me there’s trouble with the League’s favorite duo,” he says. “Say it ain’t so, Leo.”

“No, it’s just whatever.” A big yawn, and afterward, his words are heavier, drowsier. It does something to Matthew’s insides. Or maybe that’s all the alcohol. “Remember last season, like, February? When we were in that big slump and might not make the playoffs?”

“Of course.” Matthew grins, starting on the buttons of his sweaty button-down. “My favorite part of the season.”

Leon rolls his eyes, but keeps talking anyway. “In the middle of that, I told him, like. And maybe I shouldn’t have said it, but, you know, I told him I couldn’t fucking wait to test the market in a couple years. So he’s been wanting to do everything together all the time since then. Like this summer, you know? Like that’ll make me want to do matching extensions. I mean, I love the guy, but I don’t know what I’m doing yet.” Another sigh, big and heavy in the way only drunk sighs can be. “Are you getting naked?”

“Are you trying to phone sex me from McDavid’s guest room?” Matthew asks, one hundred percent aware of his dad down the hall, and one hundred percent aware that his resolve won’t last if Leon says yes.

Leon bites the side of his thumb. It’s difficult to read his expression, but even through the video call, the way his eyes drop down and back up, evaluating, makes Matthew feel hot all over. But then Leon shrugs, pressing half his face into his pillow. “Not this time. Just let me watch.”

“Uh,” says Matthew, his fingers going still on his shirt. “Watch me — change?”

“Not like I haven’t seen it all before.” And there’s the smirk. Sleepy, but very present. Matthew swallows.

“If I try to do a striptease, I guarantee you will never want to sleep with me again,” he says.

“Not stripping,” Leon says. “Like a normal person. I know that’s hard for you, but—”

“I should have hung up on you,” Matthew says, but goes back to his buttons with unsteady hands. He wasn’t even thinking about it, before, and now he’s hyper-aware of every inch of skin. Of Leon’s gaze following the deepening vee down his chest. The back of his neck is burning, but at least the light is low enough that Leon can’t see him flush.

He feels like he’s rushing through it, so he slows down, but that makes him feel ridiculous. Who the hell decided shirts should have so many buttons? Also, he kind of hates the idea of Leon not being in Edmonton, which is stupid. Leon not being in Edmonton would make Edmonton way easier to beat, which would be a net positive. It’s just that anywhere else would be farther away. Which would be — something. Inconvenient.

“Matthew,” Leon says. “Don’t tell what I said about the market. Yeah?”

Matthew swallows. “Yeah, of course not.”

And then he’s out of buttons. He starts to shrug out of the shirt, but Leon is watching so quietly, and suddenly everything feels quiet. That stifling kind of quiet that sucks up all the air in a room. Matthew strains his ears for something, anything — the building’s heating system, Leon breathing. Not his dad snoring, even though that’s surely happening. Anything else. But it’s so quiet.

“I’m just gonna,” he says, and goes to get his pajamas from where they’re shoved under the edge of the duvet on his bed. Technically, he’s still in view of the phone, so. Yeah. It’s not like he’s not used to taking his clothes off in front of guys, after years of locker rooms and plenty of sex, but he’s not one of those guys who just hangs around naked. Not because of how he looks or anything. He’s fine with that. It just feels weird.

He finishes changing there by the bed, trying very hard not to look like he’s hurrying through it. Button-down off, old t-shirt on. Jeans off, pajama pants on. He cannot imagine it’s a particularly scintillating show, but whatever. It’s done.

Leon is exactly how Matthew left him, except maybe more sleepy-eyed than before.

“Are you happy now?” Matthew asks as he climbs into bed, pulling the covers up to his chin, except for the one arm he keeps out for the phone. His battery is really low. If it cared about him at all, it would have died before he started undressing.

“Ja,” Leon says, rubbing his face. “Yes.”

“Ja,” Matthew echoes, smiling despite the embarrassment still warm on his skin.

“Shut up.”

Matthew does, but only because he’s distracted watching Leon, who is clearly on the edge of falling asleep. His eyelids keep sliding closed for long moments before he blinks his focus back again. The view from the phone camera wobbles, like he’s having trouble remembering to keep it propped up. Maybe he won’t even remember this whole stupid striptease thing in the morning.

It’s quiet again.

“You know that thing,” Matthew says, “where they say, like. However you spend New Year’s Eve is how your year is gonna go?”

“Is that true?” Leon asks. He closes his eyes with a soft laugh. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Matthew says. “Fuck.”

***

In the morning, as Matthew pours two cups of coffee with Taryn’s New Years playlist playing on the bluetooth speakers, Keith shuffles into the kitchen, visibly suffering, and says, “You’re in an awfully good mood for someone who should be way more hungover.”

“I have youth on my side,” Matthew says, handing him a mug. “I ordered breakfast.”

“I knew I raised you right,” says Keith.

The evidence of the previous night’s debauchery is scant. Two hangovers — one mild, one worse — a bunch of selfies, a slew of messages in the Tkachuk Sibling Tkachat from Brady and Tayrn, texting Happy New Year from the east coast. The record of a five-minute Facetime with Matthew’s mom just after midnight. The record of a longer Facetime, two hours later. One secret about Leon’s future.

It was a good night. Matthew is in a good mood. Keith can drag him for it all he wants. His team pulled out a tough win, and isn’t that how he should want to start the new year?

Matthew’s phone is on the counter, charging, because he fell asleep without plugging it in and it died overnight. This is less embarrassing than Leon, who passed out with Facetime still going and dropped his phone on the mattress without hanging up. Matthew was too tired at that point to decide if he should text him to mix in a water next time or make a joke about how Germans are supposed to be able to hold their liquor, so he let it pass without comment, but he’s keeping a chirp on the backburner for if the opportunity arises.

Keith flies out tomorrow. The Oilers come to town on Friday. Six days. Matthew’s got two other games to get through before then — a quick road trip to Minnesota and Chicago — and he’s going to have a hell of a time staying focused. At least once his dad leaves he can jerk off as much as he wants. And have some space to think.

He takes care of those things in that order. Once his dad is in the air, Matthew goes back home, sprawls on his bed, and spends half an hour getting off, indulging in a slew of Leon-centric fantasies he felt too weird to fully enjoy while he had company. Then he takes a nap, makes some dinner, and does his thinking.

The getting off had to come before the thinking because the thinking would have absolutely put a damper on the getting off. Because the Leon thing is — well, it’s complicated, and it’s not supposed to be complicated. He thinks they might be something resembling actual friends with benefits, now, and that alone would be fine, but Matthew isn’t stupid. He has caught himself sending texts and waiting with bated breath for the responses. He has caught himself taking twelve selfies before one is good enough to send, caught himself watching Oilers games and worrying, just a little, when Leon takes a big hit. He can’t be doing that shit.

First of all — and this can’t be emphasized enough — this is Leon Draisaitl, who could barely stand looking at Matthew before Matthew sucked him off that first time. Second of all, even if it were someone who actually liked Matthew as a person, the logistics of having a real relationship with someone on a rival team would be a nightmare. He can’t imagine people would react well, and trying to explain it to Big Walt? Absolutely the fuck not.

The sex is good. Matthew has no plans to give up the sex. But he knows better than to want more than that. Matthew grew up with a perfect blueprint for what a good relationship looks like right in front of him. He knows what he wants his future to look like.

Anyway, the roadtrip sucks. They get shut out by Minnesota, get their hopes up about beating up on league-last Chicago, and wind up getting the shit beat out of them there, too. Matthew picks a fight to try to make himself feel better. It doesn’t work, and leaves him seething in the penalty box for five minutes while he tries to figure out if he broke his hand again when one of his punches glanced off the guy’s helmet. The answer is no, it turns out — it’s basically fine once the swelling goes down — but wouldn’t that have been some kind of poetry , taking himself out of commission right before the Edmonton game?

By the time Friday rolls around, Matthew has hung all of his optimism and a sizable chunk of his self-worth on not letting the losing streak get any longer. They haven’t lost three in a row yet this season. When he gets to the rink, he takes an extra minute to sit in his car and pull himself together. Hockey first, then he can be as hard for Leon Draisaitl as he wants to be.

Leon, though—

“Hey, Tkachuk!”

Matthew is minding his own business, puck-handling through his half of the neutral zone, when Leon calls his name. He hears the smirk even before he looks up.

“Ready to get your ass beat again?” Leon asks. He’s parked near the red line, on one knee with his other leg outstretched, leaning into his hamstring.

It’s stupid how much Matthew wants him. He’s not even doing anything hot. And yet.

“Nah, saving that for later,” he says, getting a quick waggle of his eyebrows in before guys start noticing this exchange. He can hear the TSN recap later tonight already: And there’s Flames Captain Matthew Tkachuk and Leon Draisaitl exchanging some words during warmups again — that’s when we should have known it was going to be another rough-and-tumble matchup between these two teams—

“Okay, boys,” good old Wes McCauley says when they circle up for the opening faceoff. “I want you all to behave yourselves tonight, eh?”

Matthew grins around his mouthguard.

The game starts off great. Matthew is so pumped full of adrenaline that he feels almost superhuman, throwing hits, winning puck races, passes snapping tape-to-tape. The ice tilts so far that it seems inevitable when one of those sequences — Matthew to Johnny to Lindy — finds the back of the net only halfway through the first period. The Saddledome erupts in cheers; Matthew throws himself at his linemates for a group hug, whooping into Lindy’s ear.

He does not look for Leon as they fly by the benches, because he knows Leon will be looking at him, and he doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking this is about him, even if it is. The satisfaction is going to be Matthew’s after he wins this thing and he has Leon naked and annoyed about it in his bed. Maybe Matthew will make some stupid joke about scoring as Leon’s cock pushes into him. Because Leon said he wanted that, right? Mostly I just want to fuck you. Matthew has replayed it in his head a thousand times in the past week.

Mangiapane gets them another one late in the period, and Johnny adds one of his own in the second, off a highly satisfying between-the-legs pass from Matthew. Leon isn’t speaking to him at this point, just checking him hard every chance he gets. Matthew wonders if that’s going to be a theme later, too. He kind of hopes so. He kind of hopes Leon shoves him face-down into the mattress and fucks his frustration out. Then, afterward — Leon lying next to him, flushed, sweaty, his eyelashes dark and damp, too fucked-out and breathless to still really be mad. Feel better now? Matthew would ask, which will for sure get him an eye-roll, but maybe it’ll get him a laugh, too.

But then the third period happens.

Yamamoto spoils the shutout fifty-two seconds in. That should be Matthew’s cue to get his fucking head in the game. He scrambles over the boards to line up for the faceoff, the guys shouting after him to get it back, boys, get it back, but at some point when Matthew wasn’t looking, the ice tilted in the other direction.

Nugent-Hopkins. 3-2. McFuckingDavid. 3-3.

The clock winds down, five minutes left, four minutes, and they just cannot get momentum back. They’re playing on their heels, blocking shots but not forcing turnovers. The crowd’s frustration is both audible and palpable. There’s a distinct air of betrayal in the arena — how dare the hometown heroes let this game slip away, after such a promising start. Getting everyone’s hopes up just to shit the bed.

Three minutes left. Matthew goes over the boards with his line again, even though they’ve barely caught their breath. It’s sheer willpower that gets him to the puck first when Duncan Keith sends it up the ice, and a lucky bounce that gets them into their zone. Lindy rips a shot off — it goes wide, ricocheting off the boards up toward the blue line.

Sometimes, in hockey, things happen too fast to think. You just react, and may or may not know later what you thought in the moment. Sometimes the memory is just a blank space, and on the other side is a puck in the net, or an opponent down on the ice. Other times it all slows way, way down, like there’s this momentary pocket of time that’s separate from the rest of the world, where Matthew can see everything happening all at once, make the tactical decision, and then as soon as he makes a move everything snaps back into place at full speed.

Right now, Matthew sees in slow motion: Big Z corralling a bouncing puck. Saucing it, perfectly, between two Oilers, but then Hyman’s stick catches the barest edge of it and it goes careening off-course toward center ice. Toward Leon. Leon doesn’t miss a step, but Matthew sees that jolt of determination that comes when you realize you’ve got a breakaway on your stick.

There are two minutes and seventeen second left in regulation. Like fuck Matthew is going to let him win it here.

There’s no way he’s going to catch him for a clean takeaway, and if he lets Leon get too far before he makes a move Wes will almost certainly give him a penalty shot, so. Matthew lunges, outstretched, and whacks Leon right across the ankles with his stick. Leon goes sprawling. Wes’s arm goes up with a shrill blast of the whistle.

Matthew twists out of the way of the furious stick Leon swings at him, letting the man in stripes get between them as he picks himself up off the ice.

“I love it when you make my job easy,” Wes says.

***

“You’re really proud of yourself, huh?” Leon says, dragging Matthew through his own apartment by a fistful of his hoodie. He has been there exactly long enough to divest himself of his shoes and nothing else.

All things considered, his ire is kind of funny. His team won, and he can’t even let Matthew be the most pissed off.

“Sorry, what was that you said about sore winners?” Matthew asks. Leon stops to glare at him. “Hey, I’m just saying.”

“Oh, you’re just saying, that’s okay then.”

It was a tactical decision. Matthew’s guys killed the penalty. He refuses to feel bad about it. There are plenty of other things for him to feel bad about after giving up three goals in the third to lose in overtime. Matthew is not in the mood to be mocked about it. He’s not even really in the mood to fight about it. He’s not mad at Leon. He’s mad at himself. But he can’t reach out and shove himself in the chest about it, so he does that to Leon instead.

Leon shoves him right back. “Don’t fucking start.”

“You started it, what the fuck,” Matthew says, and pushes him again, on principle, and they grapple for a minute in furious silence. Matthew whacks his elbow against the hallway wall, then tries to knee Leon somewhere sensitive enough to disarm him without ruining his chances of getting laid; Leon side-steps it, but that puts him off-balance long enough for Matthew to twist away.

“Stop, Jesus, fucking stop it, okay?” he says. “I’m not in the mood to fight.”

“Wow, really?” Leon laughs in disbelief, but he must see something in Matthew’s face or posture, because he sobers quickly. “Uh, but do you still want to—”

“Yes,” Matthew says, too quickly. “Yeah. Yes.”

He probably shouldn’t, after the shitshow that was tonight. If he’d thought a little more about the game and a little less about sex they could have won. But he wants to. He might crawl out of his own skin if they don’t. Not getting to would feel like losing twice.

Leon is still dubious. “If you want me to leave—”

“I don’t,” says Matthew, raking a hand through his hair. “I’m just in a bad mood about the stupid game. Sorry if you wanted to get off on rehashing the whole thing, but me wanting to sleep with you right now is totally separate from all that.”

“Okay,” says Leon. “Good.” There’s a flush to his cheeks, like he’s maybe a little bit embarrassed about having had to ask. He reaches out and gives Matthew’s cheek a sharp pat. “Come on.”

Matthew bats his hand away, but Leon just takes that as an opportunity to grab him by the wrist and resume pulling him toward the bedroom. Less violently this time — it wouldn’t work if Matthew didn’t go willingly, but of course he goes willingly, and closes the door behind them, because having sex with the door open is weird even when there are no tiny dogs around.

Leon lets go of him to start on the buttons of his coat, still looking flustered. Guilt over derailing their evening with a temper tantrum sloshes in Matthew’s stomach.

Very smooth, Tkachuk. Very sexy.

“Here, sorry, let me,” he says, and helps himself to the coat without waiting for a response. Leon lifts his hands in a sure, have at it type of gesture, which leaves the back of Matthew’s neck warm with the idea that he’s maybe tipped his hand. As if it’s some sort of big secret that just being this close to him makes Matthew feel like he’s on fire. But the buttons come undone easily in Matthew’s fingers, big and black and plastic, and he can’t help thinking about New Year’s Eve as he works them open, top to bottom. About Leon watching him undress so quietly.

Now, Leon is watching him from much closer, his face schooled into something that Matthew can’t read. He’s fucking inscrutable when he wants to be, but hey, it’s a long way from pissed off and unimpressed.

“I get it, you know,” Leon says as Matthew reaches the last buttons. “I was gonna be so pissed off if we lost tonight. Especially since it took me half the game to think about hockey instead of fucking you.”

“Well, next time I’ll make sure to give you more to think about,” Matthew says. “Keep you occupied the whole game.”

“I mean, I won’t stop you from trying.”

Matthew is out of buttons once again. He tugs on the loose sides of Leon’s coat, not sure what to do with his hands now, and not entirely willing to meet Leon’s gaze. The last thing he wants is to be pitied by the guy who just beat him, and it feels like they’re veering dangerously close to pity territory. He should have just gone with it when Leon first barged in, ready to gloat his way through this whole encounter. Would have been way less awkward that way. He just wants — he just wants.

He takes a breath and asks, “So are you gonna fuck me or what?”

Leon grins, giving him a push toward the bed. “Take your clothes off and we’ll see.”

The posturing would be more effective if Leon wasn’t already visibly hard in his sweatpants, but at least Matthew knows as they strip that he hasn’t totally ruined the mood.

“There’s condoms and stuff in the — yeah,” he says, because Leon is already rummaging before he can finish the sentence. Naked, Matthew scoots back onto the bed, watching him emerge with a foil packet and the bottle of lube. He gives Matthew a cocky little smirk about it, like it’s supposed to be impressive that he didn’t need instructions to find them. Awful, Matthew thinks. He’s awful, and yet all Matthew wants is to get his hands or his mouth or literally anything on him. There’s been something hooked behind his breastbone all week, pulling him toward this with a single-mindedness that Matthew usually only feels with hockey. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to think straight until they’re done here.

Lucky for him, Leon is very with the program. He helps himself to the space between Matthew’s legs, pushing him back against the pile of pillows at the head of the bed. For a second, Matthew thinks Leon is going to kiss him, but of course instead he scrapes his teeth down Matthew’s neck, and Matthew lets out a gust of a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He rubs his cheek against Leon’s hair, pressing his nose briefly into it before Leon scoots lower and bites the fresh bruise on Matthew’s ribs instead.

“Ow, geez,” Matthew says, but half a laugh escapes him, too, and the hand he slides to the nape of Leon’s neck isn’t to push him away.

“Was that from me?” Leon asks.

“Probably. You were playing like an asshole all night, so.” This admonishment just gets him a smirk and a thumb pressed into the bruise, which makes him hiss and arch into it.

“You probably deserved it,” Leon decides, and presses his lips to the sore spot with unnerving gentleness before he sits back to grab the lube. The touch of his lips sends a weird shiver up Matthew’s spine.

“Fuck — yeah, probably,” Matthew says. It’s been a while since he slept with the same person this many times in a row, and he’s off-balance with the realization that more of this is familiar than not — the shape of Leon’s body, the weight of him, the way he moves, the sureness of his hands. The anticipation is different when it’s half memory. Maybe Matthew doesn’t want Leon’s hand around his throat this time — maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, he doesn’t know right now — but he wants everything else, just like he remembers.

He’s still not sure what to do with his hands. He grabs fistfuls of the duvet as Leon eases a slick finger into him.

“You’re so much less annoying like this,” Leon says. He slides his palm up and down Matthew’s thigh, the gesture clearly saying relax, which — they’ve got a lot to learn about each other if he thinks Matthew is a guy who relaxes.

“That kind of sounds like a challenge,” Matthew grits out, rocking his hips against Leon’s hand. His dick is hard against his stomach, and it’s so tempting to touch it, but he wants to come with Leon inside of him.

“No way,” Leon laughs. “It was more of a compliment.”

“God, you have got to stop wooing me,” Matthew says. Leon bites his knee in retaliation, which doesn’t disprove Matthew’s point. But he loses that train of thought as Leon adds more lube, rubbing his thumb behind Matthew’s balls, making him see sparks. Matthew would be more embarrassed by how easily Leon can take him apart if Leon weren’t so flushed himself. Like, he’s trying to play it cool, but Matthew can tell he’s into it. The pink tips of his ears, the way he bites his lip when he pushes a second finger in, making Matthew groan at the stretch. His cock, so dark and hard it’s almost purple, shiny at the tip — god, he has a nice cock. He’d be so much less of a problem if his cock wasn’t so nice.

“You know what I keep thinking about,” Leon says, “is this drunk asshole texting me from LA saying how much he wants to sit on my dick.”

“Wow, what a jerk,” Matthew says, then arches as Leon’s fingers curl inside him. “Oh, fuck.”

Leon smirks and does it again. Matthew grabs at the duvet again as he bucks into it. He feels like there’s something else he wants to say, but Leon keeps doing that, pressing in every time he can almost form words. It would be infuriating if it didn’t feel so good.

“I still want to,” he finally manages. Leon’s eyes flick up to him, holding his gaze. Matthew grins a grin that’s probably dopey as hell. He doesn’t care right now. “You think you can handle it?”

“Do I think I can?” Leon asks, and leans down to lick the small pool of precome off Matthew’s stomach. His tongue brushes the head of Matthew’s dick as he does it, which makes Matthew jerk and swear again.

“Asshole,” Matthew says, kicking him. Leon laughs, pulling his fingers out and wiping them up the back of Matthew’s thigh.

“Okay, let’s go then,” he says, climbing up and over Matthew to flop against the pillows next to him, gesturing generously to his dick with both hands. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

“Oh my god,” Matthew mutters at the ceiling, an admonition of his own taste in men, but of course he’s gonna do it. He pushes himself up and straddles Leon, rolls the condom onto him, strokes him a few times with a palm full of lube, trying to do all of this without looking like the main thing on his mind is how he’s so turned on he might explode.

“Come on, Chucky,” Leon says, rocking his hips up. “You want to score at least once tonight, don’t you?”

“Okay, first of all, don’t call me that. It sounds fucking weird coming from you,” Matthew says, scooting forward to line himself up over Leon’s cock. “And second of all, shut the fuck up.”

Matthew sinks down on him, exhaling as he goes, his eyes fluttering closed at the sweet stretch, the fullness. His thighs are still tired from the game, and he feels it almost as soon as he starts to work up and down, but somehow even that feels good.

He was right: it is a great view. What he didn’t count on was Leon looking back at him. It makes Matthew want to pull a blanket over himself, but it also makes him feel hot all over in a way that goes straight to his dick.

“So are you gonna tell me I look good like this?” he asks.

“Get real,” Leon says, looking like he wants to eat Matthew for breakfast.

“God, you’re so charming.” Matthew sits back, giving his burning thighs a break. He stays there for a moment, Leon fully sheathed inside him, rocking his hips in tiny circles. Leon’s face does an absurdly satisfying thing, his lips parting in a silent moan, and then he reaches for Matthew and pulls him forward by the waist. Matthew grabs the top of the headboard with an “oh, fuck” as Leon thrusts up into him. He rocks back to meet it, and they don’t so much find a rhythm as mutual desperation, rutting against each other like it’s the only thing that matters. Leon gets a hand around Matthew’s dick, not tight enough to jerk him off, but it’s enough for Matthew to fuck into Leon’s fist every time he moves. His thighs are shaking long before he comes, and when he does, they give out completely. His whole body does. He muffles a moan in Leon’s hair as Leon keeps going, his hips working as fast as they can, the slap of skin on skin loud in Matthew’s ears.

“Come on,” Leon grunts, rolling them over as a unit. He slips out of Matthew as they do, but pushes right back in. He can fuck Matthew harder from this angle, and Matthew isn’t sure if it still feels good or just overwhelming, but it is exactly what he wants. Leon is so close to him, not just inside him, but covering him, his breath hot on Matthew’s neck, and it’s all Matthew can do just to hold onto him.

“Fuck,” Leon gasps as he comes, his body going stiff, and buries his face in Matthew’s shoulder.

Slowly, Matthew unclenches the fingers that are digging into Leon’s back, even as Leon works his hips a little more, as deep inside Matthew as he can get. Another soft, stupid, helpless noise escapes Matthew’s throat. Leon lets out an unsteady breath and pats Matthew’s side, shifting to pull out, but Matthew somehow musters the energy to wrap his weak legs around Leon’s hips.

“Give me a minute,” he says, faintly surprised at how wrecked his own voice is. And he hasn’t even had a dick in his mouth today.

“Okay,” Leon says, but he does push himself up so he’s not entirely lying on Matthew. Matthew’s come is smeared between them, all over their chests and stomachs, and he sticks a little as he moves, and pulls a face that’s more amused than grossed out. Propped up on his elbows, his face is still too close. His cheeks are flushed, his lips bitten. Matthew lets his head fall to the side so he doesn’t stare.

Gingerly, when every movement isn’t sending uncomfortable threads of electricity up his spine anymore, Matthew relaxes the grip of his thighs. Leon rolls his hips like he can’t help himself, even though the movement makes Matthew clench around him. Matthew can feel how he’s mostly gone soft, but he can’t help thinking that if it weren’t for the condom, he would be fucking his own come even deeper into Matthew, and that sends a different kind of feeling up his spine.

“Okay,” Matthew says. Leon eases out, using Matthew’s knees as leverage to sit up. Matthew hisses through his teeth at the loss, and Leon rubs an apologetic hand up and down his thigh.

“Do you want the shower first?” he asks.

“Honestly, I don’t think I can move yet,” Matthew says, then, “Don’t start,” when a hint of smugness tugs at Leon’s mouth. Leon, unfazed, props his chin on Matthew’s knee.

“So are you still mad at me?” he asks.

“I wasn’t mad at you to begin with,” Matthew groans, dragging a hand over his face. “You were mad at me. I was mad at myself.”

“Both of us mad at the same person, wow. I think that’s the first time that ever happened.”

Matthew laughs hoarsely. “Fuck off and go shower.”

Leon rubs Matthew’s thigh one more time, then pulls himself away to do just that. Once he’s gone, Matthew lets himself splay out with a sigh, stretching his legs the length of the bed, testing his sore hips.

It would be great if he could be fucking normal about this. He decided weeks ago that sleeping with Leon was okay as long as he kept it to the important things — getting off, a little eye candy — and yet it feels so much more complicated. He lays his forearm over his eyes and tries to will it all away: Leon being here, him wanting Leon to be here, every missed scoring chance, every turnover. He is better than he played tonight. He’s no McDavid, no Johnny Hockey, but he is better than that. He knows it.

Matthew is still taking stock of what a fucking mess he is when Leon reappears in the doorway.

“Here,” he says, tossing something. The wet washcloth lands next to Matthew with a soft thump. By the time Matthew has processed this, Leon has disappeared again and the shower is running.

Matthew looks from the washcloth in his hand to the bathroom door and contemplates hauling himself up on his wobbly legs to join Leon in there. Pros: Leon; cons: moving. Pros: maybe round two?; cons: that might be — too much. And not just physically.

At least cleaning himself up is enough of a chore that it’s distracting. The washcloth is not enough; he will still need a shower, but he’s slightly less disgusting by the time Leon emerges, patting himself dry with a stolen towel. Matthew’s chest feels tight again, and he focuses his gaze on the ceiling instead of watching him get dressed.

Except instead of getting dressed, Leon climbs back onto the bed, flopping on his stomach next to Matthew. He crosses his arms on the pillow and rests his head on them, closing his eyes.

“Wake me up when you’re done showering,” he says.

“Sure,” Matthew says, but he still can’t get up. Or he could, like, his legs are working, but nothing in his brain wants to. He twists the corner of the washcloth, which is now cold and damp instead of warm and damp, and looks at Leon. At the smooth curve of his shoulder, half-hiding his face. His slightly parted lips, his soft eyelashes. The way the tension that seems to always be tugging between his eyebrows has melted away for once. Matthew has a fleeting fantasy of smoothing his thumb across Leon’s brow, of stroking his knuckles down the scruffy beard on his cheek.

Get it together, he thinks, as panic rises in him like floodwater. Get it together, Tkachuk. Come on.

Leon opens his eyes, Matthew is convinced for a second that he could feel him staring. Maybe he could. Maybe he can read every thought on Matthew’s face. His brows twitch together, the corners of his mouth turning down. Matthew feels like he is fully underwater.

Leon shifts closer, moving like if he does it quietly enough, no one will notice, even though Matthew is still looking right at him. He closes the gap between them so he’s almost on top of Matthew again. Touches the bony edge of Matthew’s eye socket, where the skin is still the ugly yellow of an old bruise. Matthew should school his face into something neutral, but he can’t remember how.

“What,” he croaks. It’s supposed to be something like What are you looking at or What’s your deal right now, but that first word is as far as he gets. Leon’s gaze drops to his mouth. Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise when he leans down, but the brush of his lips over Matthew’s is such a shock that Matthew forgets to breathe.

And that’s all it is. A brush of lips. The barest hint of Leon’s beard against Matthew’s skin. It might not even technically count as a kiss. Leon tilts his head, a tiny movement, and their noses nudge against each other. Matthew’s heart is pounding so loud that he’s sure Leon can hear it, and yeah, that’s embarrassing, but he cannot exist in this limbo. He can’t.

Matthew takes one deep breath, then another, and says, “If you’re gonna kiss me, can you at least do it right?”

“This is so stupid,” Leon mumbles, but the next one definitely counts as a kiss.

It’s almost tentative, just for a second, but the moment Matthew kisses back, Leon cups his face in both hands and it turns messy and demanding faster than Matthew’s brain can follow. It’s been months and months since Matthew kissed anyone, and longer since he kissed anyone like this, all teeth and reckless urgency. Way longer since he’s been kissed the way Leon is kissing him, like it’s a competition to see who can climb inside the other person first.

It really is stupid — the way his toes curl, the way the sting of Leon’s beard against his chapped lips just makes him want more. The way it feels like that first gasp of air after kicking frantically for the surface. Matthew pulls Leon closer, bites his lip, digs his fingers into the flesh of his ass, licks the moan from his mouth. He wraps a leg around Leon’s waist, trying to get friction against his stomach. He’s hard again, Leon is more than halfway there, and Matthew can’t help arching up so Leon’s cock slides against the cleft of his ass.

“I’m getting another condom,” Leon says, barely intelligible, and Matthew says, “Yeah, yeah, yes, fuck.”

The ten seconds it takes him to pull away and glove up are torture, but then he’s on Matthew again, and they’re kissing as he pushes into him. Matthew is slick enough from before that the stretch is the good kind of rough. A punched-out sound escapes him as Leon fucks him open again, their open mouths sliding together as they pant for breath.

It doesn’t take long, for either of them. Afterward, Matthew feels shaky with overstimulation and a little hazy from coming so hard. His legs have stopped trembling, but he still wouldn’t trust them to hold him up.

“That was good,” Leon mumbles, very close to Matthew’s mouth. Matthew’s lips are buzzing, half-numb. The only upside to how chapped they get is no one will know that half the redness is from beard burn. He bites Leon’s lower lip in agreement, and relishes the snap of teeth that gets him in return.

He is pointedly not thinking about how normal this could be: lying with Leon after sex, coming down together. Maybe even basking a little bit. Already, as the high wears off, dread is creeping back into his bones. He doesn’t want to think about that, either. He doesn’t want to drag himself into the shower and then lie here alone all night, drowning in his own thoughts, his whole body raw and tender to the touch.

He wants — who fucking knows. He wants to not feel guilty for feeling this good. He wants to have won the stupid game tonight.

Leon is clearly not plagued by such things. He trails his fingers through the mess on Matthew’s stomach, lightly over his spent cock, between his legs, and dips one fingertip inside him, meeting no resistance. Matthew jerks, swearing.

“You have practice tomorrow?” Leon asks, far too self-satisfied.

“I hate you so much right now,” Matthew says.

“Good,” Leon says, but his eyes are on Matthew’s mouth.

“Leon,” Matthew starts, but he has no idea which question to ask. What are we doing? What does this mean? They all feel like something out of a teen drama. Do you think doing this makes me a bad teammate? A bad captain? Leon wouldn’t care. Do you know I think about you every day? That I count down the days until we get to do this again? He can’t say that out loud. It’s all so stupid. This whole thing is ridiculous. Matthew pushes forward to press his lips to Leon’s again, and is wholly unprepared for the lazy, contented way Leon kisses him back. For how gently his hand comes to rest on Matthew’s waist. He smiles against Matthew’s mouth, and maybe it’s just one of his stupid smug smirks, but feels like one of those rare, real smiles. The kind he always tries to hide when it’s Matthew who’s causing it.

Matthew’s lungs fill with panic again, and he jerks away, making himself sit up. He takes several breaths before looking back at Leon, who is still lying there, watching Matthew with a furrow between his brows. So much for his shower — he’s a mess from round two. His mouth is swollen. He’s not smiling now.

“I,” Matthew starts, but has to steel himself to get the whole sentence out. “I think you should go.”

Because he has hit Leon in the face before, Matthew knows exactly what he looks like when he’s been hit in the face. Which is way too close to what he looks like now.

“Are you kidding me?” Leon asks, pushing himself up, too. Matthew looks away. “No, fucking look at me.”

Matthew does not. He stares forward, at his dresser, where Leon’s blue Puma t-shirt is folded neatly. He has to swallow before his voice will work again.

“I mean, I don’t think I have another round in me,” he says. “So if we’re done here. You should probably go.”

There is an excruciating silence before the mattress shifts. Matthew flinches when he feels Leon’sbody heat at his back, but the fight he’s braced for never comes. Instead, what he gets is Leon’s chest against his shoulder blades, Leon’s hand sliding around to span his throat. Lips soft behind his ear, then, with a sigh, pressed to the crook where neck meets shoulder.

Matthew closes his eyes. He wants the hand on his throat to tighten until he sees stars. Until all he can think about is the lack of oxygen.

Finally, Leon says, “Okay.”

He pulls away, and Matthew sits there, slumped in defeat, as he pulls on his clothing without bothering to clean himself up. Leon doesn’t look at Matthew, but Matthew can’t not look at the crescent-shaped fingernail marks in his back, or how the tips of his ears have turned redder than his well-kissed mouth. That awful, uncontrollable need-want that always comes with being near him surges up in Matthew’s chest again, except this time it has nothing to do with sex, and this time, for once in Matthew’s goddamn life, he pushes it down instead of letting it win.

Leon shrugs his coat on and stands there in the middle of Matthew’s bedroom, fully dressed except his shoes.

Matthew says, “Don’t forget your shirt.”

“Fuck the shirt,” Leon says, and leaves without it.

6. a bruise on the leg

It takes a long time for Matthew to convince himself to move. None of what just happened feels completely real. He half-expects to close his eyes and wake up back at some point in the evening before everything went off the rails. Before Leon leaving. Before Leon kissed him. Maybe before the sex at all. Maybe before he lost the damn hockey game.

The panic is receding, replaced pound for pound with guilt. He needs a shower very badly. So much of him is sore — his thighs, his ass. His mouth, tender with beard burn. Not to mention all his muscles, still tired from the game, the strained shoulder where he absorbed a couple of hard hits, the knot of a bruise on his calf where he blocked a shot in the third.

When he finally drags himself to the bathroom, he turns the shower on as hot as it goes and slides down to sit under the spray, his head tilted back against the tiles. The stall fills with steam so thick it’s almost like being underwater. Fresh sweat beads on Matthew’s face, and he thinks of the summer, of sitting at the bottom of the pool in Toronto and looking up at the blotchy kaleidoscope sun through the water, of counting the seconds until his lungs burned for air. He tries that, now, but he can’t get a deep enough breath to hold it.

What the fuck is wrong with him? He had one objective coming into this season. One fucking goal: to make it up to his team for how last season ended. To give them his all, every day, relentlessly, single-mindedly. They gave him the C, and even that wasn’t enough to keep him focused.

What the fuck is he doing?

The water turns lukewarm, then cool, then frigid. Matthew is shivering by the time he convinces himself to stand up and scrub off, and he only does it then because the last thing the team needs right now is for him to make himself sick. He’s played his fair share of flu games, but he’s no Michael Jordan. When he goes out there with a fever, he makes mistakes instead of miracles.

Once he’s clean, he pulls the gross duvet off his bed and crawls under the top sheet still wrapped in a towel. He’s exhausted, but his brain won’t turn off. His room smells like sex, even when he switches his pillow out for one that no one laid on while they were fucking. The sheet isn’t heavy enough, and Matthew can’t stand the thought of having the duvet on top of him, with its splotches of lube and sweat and come. He pulls the towel tight around himself again, puts on his slippers, and goes to the living room, where he collects all three of his throw blankets and curls up under them on the couch.

At some point, he closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, it’s light outside. He doesn’t feel like he slept at all. When he rolls onto his back, his whole body reminds him what he did last night.

“Fuck,” he says to his empty apartment.

He has practice today. He has — no fucking idea what time it is.

That gets him moving. His phone, abandoned on the coffee table, is dead, so he wraps himself in one of the blankets and wobbles to the kitchen, where the clock on the stove tells him he has a solid two hours before he needs to be at the rink.

Relief hits him first, and then annoyance. What the fuck is he supposed to do with himself for two hours?

The answer to this is: plug his phone in, but don’t turn it on. Start to make coffee, then turn off the machine and dump it out when the smell makes him want to throw up. Sit back down on the couch and slowly eat a handful of dry cereal, so he doesn’t show up to the rink with an empty stomach. Check the time again, and wonder what the fuck he’s supposed to do with himself for another hour and a half. He’s so tempted to lie back down. He has a vision of a whole different version of the day: he pulls the blankets back over himself, goes back to sleep. No one knows why he’s not at practice, and his phone is off, and everyone is very worried until Johnny uses his spare key fob to come check on him and finds out that no, nothing’s wrong, Matthew was just tired. He just didn’t care enough. The whole organization is very embarrassed because they have to sit their captain for a game as punishment for just not caring enough. Matthew is very embarrassed; Big Walt is very embarrassed. Next time he lobbies for Matthew to start planning a move to the Blues, he’ll say with a laugh, “And it’ll work out great because your mother can make sure you get up for practice.”

In the end, he just goes to the rink early. He accidentally-on-purpose forgets his phone at home, and, in the car, tunes the stereo to a satellite radio station that won’t utter a word about the game last night. His dad has probably texted him. He’ll be annoyed if Matthew doesn’t respond, but that’s a problem for this afternoon.

Noah finds him in the weight room, two and a quarter miles into an uncomfortable ride on the bike.

“There you are,” he says. “I knew you were here somewhere. We’re on the ice in ten, come on.”

After practice, Matthew will go home and respond to whatever his dad’s sent with as much tact and dignity as he can muster. He’ll catch up on Instagram. He won’t check to see if Leon posted gloating about the game last night, and, if Leon hasn’t texted, he’ll pretend not to care until he convinces himself to believe it. He’ll put the t-shirt in the back of a drawer where he won’t find it again until the end of the season. He’ll be done with this whole fucking mess.

***

Matthew is not good at being done with this whole fucking mess.

He tries to give it a few days. A week. It was pretty fucked up, he thinks, the way things went down, and it’s only natural to take some time to process it. Not that there’s all that much to process. They were sleeping together, things got weird, and now — whatever. Now they’re probably not sleeping together, judging from how Leon hasn’t texted once since he left Matthew’s apartment in a huff. “Sleeping together” is a heavy term for what they were doing anyway. Fucking when the opportunity arose. It’s not like they were even friends with benefits. You have to be friends for that.

It’s not like Matthew just lets it go, anyway. He’s not the type of guy to let things go. The other night when Leon had a couple of goals, Matthew texted him good game. Well, he texted him a Twitter link to the video of the second, more impressive goal and said This is hot, but same gist. He didn’t get a response. Then last night after a beer and a half he texted, Way to take a compliment. Once again, no response. So that’s that. It’s whatever. He has a hockey team to worry about.

“Dude, pace yourself,” Johnny says in the weight room a week later, eyeing Matthew as he grunts through a set of squats. “Aren’t you supposed to be being careful with your shoulder?”

“Shoulder’s fine,” Matthew grunts. “And I am pacing myself.”

“Yeah, okay.” Johnny doesn’t even try to sound convinced. He doesn’t push the issue, but it’s definitely going in his back pocket for later. “You want to come over for dinner tonight? Monny’s making dinner for me and Meredith. I’m sure he can cook for four instead. No promises on the quality though.”

Matthew grits out the rest of his set — nine, ten — before racking the bar and straightening with a huff. He pulls his arm across his chest to stretch his sore deltoid.

He can’t stop thinking about Leon’s mouth against his. Or about Leon kissing his neck, his soft lips and rough beard against Matthew’s skin. He’s picked at that spot behind his ear so much that there’s a scab there now.

“Yeah, sounds like fun,” Matthew says, because the only way to keep himself focused right now is to spend as little time alone in his apartment as possible. He would rather be around his guys than alone, anyway. Johnny brightens at his acquiescence.

“Cool, I’ll let them know,” he says, already texting. Matthew checks his own phone, for lack of anything else to do — the team group text is silent since everyone is at the rink right now, but Brady and Taryn are bickering in the Tkachat about what criteria Taryn is allowed to look for in college guys (NOT taller than Brady, because Brady likes being the tallest guy in the family; NO Cubs fans; MUST have good vibes, which Brady is to be the sole judge of).

Are you dating someone????? Matthew interrupts Brady’s ongoing list.

u post ONE insta story with a frat bro 🙄🙄, Taryn says.

HE WAS WEARING A CUBS HAT, Brady says.

No cubs fans taryn, Matthew says, then adds a ❤ so she knows he loves her anyway.

“Good thing Hanny’s all the way over there or he’d accuse you of text flirting,” Johnny says, thwapping Matthew with his sweat towel as he goes to change out the weights on the bar.

“I’m literally texting my siblings,” Matthew says. He holds his phone out so Johnny can see the group chat. Johnny laughs and shrugs him off.

“You know he only says that whenever you’re on your phone looking happy, right?” he says. “You’ve been so serious this season.”

“Oh, sorry for taking my job seriously,” Matthew says, but that just gets him an eye-roll.

“You’re still allowed to have fun. It’s a game, it’s supposed to be fun.”

“I am having fun.”

“Since when?” Sean asks, appearing at Matthew’s side to watch Johnny move the weight bar down several notches from where Matthew had it. “You need a step stool, John?”

“Fuck off,” Johnny says mildly. “Chucky’s coming to dinner tonight.”

“Oh, good,” Sean says, slinging his arm around Matthew’s shoulders. “We’ll get him drunk and make him talk about his feelings.”

“I did not agree to that,” Matthew protests, but neither of his terrible teammates acknowledge him, their attention turned to Johnny’s workout instead.

Matthew doesn’t think he’s been overly serious this season. He’s made time for fun. Gone out with the guys. Stayed in with the guys. Passed out on Noah’s couch more than once. Maybe he’s been more serious than previous seasons, but that’s because he’s not a dumb kid anymore.

Whatever. He shows up for dinner promptly at six o’clock with a six-pack of Bud Light and a four-pack of organic baby food brand with a label he recognizes, because he had a minor crisis at the supermarket on his way over and couldn’t figure out which was more appropriate. Meredith takes both from him at the door and shoos him into the living room to hang out with Johnny.

The baby is still so small it’s intimidating. Matthew’s not sure how Johnny deals with it. If a human being that fragile and helpless was his responsibility, he would spend every waking moment beside himself, which would be every moment, because he would never sleep. She’s cute, though, and Johnny looks nothing but pleased, laid back in his recliner while she dozes on his chest. They have the Toronto-Detroit game on the TSN turned down to a low murmur, because Johnny and Meredith claim it helps the baby sleep.

“You guys are lucky we had the housekeeper come through yesterday, because it was a disaster in here before then,” Meredith says as she comes in from the kitchen to hand Matthew a beer.

“Thanks, Mer. The house looks great, really,” Matthew says, and he means it. There’s some baby stuff scattered around the living room, but it would be weird if there wasn’t.

Meredith disappears back into the kitchen for about three seconds before they hear Sean saying, “I swear to god, if you don’t go relax somewhere—”

She reappears, pouting, to flop into the other recliner and pull the big fuzzy Flames throw over herself. Two minutes later, she’s snoring.

“Babies are exhausting,” Johnny says, brimming with fondness.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Matthew says.

The salmon and vegetables over mashed potatoes that Sean serves them are perfectly edible. They eat in the living room so that Johnny doesn’t have to move, and save Meredith a plate so she doesn’t have to wake up. Shortly after they finish, Johnny nods off, too, so it’s just Matthew and Sean sitting on the couch watching the hockey game on almost-mute.

Sean glances toward the kitchen with a dire expression. “Help me clean up?”

“Yeah, of course,” Matthew says.

The mess is not as bad as Matthew expects. They load the dishwasher and wipe down the counters and stovetop as quietly as possible. Sean knows his way around the new Gaudreau kitchen, Matthew does as he’s told, and before long they’re finished and rewarding themselves with a beer apiece from the back of the fridge. They lean against the counter, and Sean holds his bottle out to Matthew to clink.

“Good work, Captain,” he says. “Glad you came over.”

“Yeah, it would suck to have to clean this up by yourself,” Matthew jokes, taking a long swig. It has not, as was threatened, been an alcohol-heavy night, which Matthew would have realized sooner if he’d taken two seconds to remember there would be an infant present. It’s been a pretty cozy evening, actually. Even though Matthew has been here for almost every step of the life Johnny’s built in Calgary, minus a couple of seasons at the beginning, it feels special to see it all come together like this. Great wife, cute kid, awesome house, big-ass contract, falling asleep in front of the television before 9pm. Like a checklist of what growing up is supposed to be.

Sean shrugs. “Yeah, that, but also, uh. We’ve been trying to figure out what’s up with you lately. So now I’m cornering you to ask what’s up with you lately.”

“I’m fine,” Matthew says. Sean raises his eyebrows. “Okay, like, I’m a little stressed about the standings. But I don’t think I’m the only one, you can’t say you’re not stressed about it, too.”

Sean’s expression remains unchanged. Matthew socks him in the arm. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“‘Don’t look at me like that’,” Sean mocks gently. “Come on, Chucky. We know you better than that. For a while we were like, okay, giving him space. We figured the captain thing was weighing on you. So don’t get me wrong, you’ve been great, but you don’t seem happy lately. We’re kind of worried about you. Hanny is, too.”

He picks at the label on his beer bottle while he makes this little speech, while Matthew’s fingers have gone still, squeezing his own bottle so tight that if it were a can, it would crumple in his grip.

“So, what,” he says, swallowing the lump that tries to rise in his throat. “You guys have just been getting together for lunch or whatever to talk about what’s wrong with me?”

“Chucky,” Sean says.

“That sounds fun,” Matthew says. “Wish I’d been invited.”

“Matthew.”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay, you’re fine,” Sean sighs, and Matthew sags with relief as Sean’s phone pings with a text. He checks it, frowning, then jerks his head toward the living room. “John says we should come watch this hockey game.”

Matthew shuffles after him back to the living room. Both Meredith and the throw blanket have disappeared, hopefully to a real bed, but Johnny is still parked in the recliner. He and the baby both awake now, watching the television with identical big eyes. When the first game ended, TSN switched to Dallas-Edmonton, and Matthew’s stomach lurches when the first thing he sees is a close-up of Leon’s face, yapping angrily at someone as a ref skates him back from a scrum. The score bug in the corner says they’re halfway through the second, and the game is tied 4-4.

“Hang on, I’m sure they’ll replay it,” Johnny says, turning the volume up a few clicks.

They do indeed replay it.

“And here’s where this mess all started,” the commentator says. “We’ve seen Draisaitl throwing big hits all game, and after this one here it looks like the Stars decided they’d had enough of it—”

Onscreen, Leon crunches a guy in green into the boards. The Dallas players take exception. Two of them get in his face, and another takes a whack at Leon’s leg with his stick, which the Oilers players then take exception to themselves, and it’s a matter of seconds before the whole thing devolves into a brawl.

“Oh, this does look fun,” Sean says, dropping onto the couch. Reluctantly, Matthew sinks into the seat next to him. The back of his neck is still burning. He’s sure Johnny knows what he and Sean were talking about in the kitchen.

“Drai’s in a bad mood tonight,” Johnny says with a laugh, gesturing at the montage of hits the broadcast is showing while the officials sort out the penalties.

“I’d be in a bad mood too if I played in Edmonton,” Sean says. This is a joke that was a lot more satisfying before last year, but they all still make it anyway.

At the end of the deliberations, there are three Oilers and two Stars in the box. Leon takes the seat closest to the door, chomping on his mouthguard and looking no less pissed off than when he was in the middle of the scrum. He takes his helmet off to scrub a hand through his sweaty hair. Matthew’s gut clenches with want, with guilt.

You’d think he’d be past the wanting by now. He should find someone else to sleep with, but that’s so unappealing. Maybe he’s spoiled. Too used to getting what he wants, even when he hasn’t earned it, and now he doesn’t know how to cut himself off.

The look on Leon’s face when Matthew told him to leave — fuck. If you had told Matthew a year ago, a month ago, that he’d be stuck trying to figure out if he hurt Leon Draisaitl’s feelings, he would have laughed. It still feels absurd. It feels like something Rob or Brady would joke about to get on his nerves. Except no one is going to be joking about it, because no one knows anything even happened. There’s just Matthew, who can’t tell anyone, and Leon, who has decided they’re not speaking anymore. It’s like nothing ever happened at all.

And his teammates want to know what’s wrong with him.

Dallas scores on the powerplay. Leon whacks his stick against the doorframe on his way out of the box hard enough that the shaft cracks and splinters.

“Well, as long as he calms down before we have to see them again,” Johnny says, then, in a baby voice as he pokes at his kid’s nose, “Isn’t that right? Because otherwise daddy will fight him, right?”

“You will not,” Sean says.

Matthew feels nauseous.

This is all Leon’s fault. Pretty bold of him to be pissed off when things only got fucked up in the first place because he kissed Matthew. Things were fine the way they were before that. Leon has to know that was stupid. There’s no reason they can’t just go back to how things were, except Leon won’t fucking text him back.

“I think I’m gonna head home,” he says.

“Ah, yeah, it’s getting pretty late,” Johnny says. He holds out his hand as Matthew gets up. Dutifully, Matthew squeezes it and drops a kiss on his knuckles.

“Thanks for dinner, Monny,” he says, and tries not to think about how they’re going to talk about him as soon as he leaves. Hushed tones, worried glances. Commiserating over how little information Sean was able to pry out of him. He’d thought he was acting pretty normal, but clearly he needs to get it together.

In the car, he buckles himself into the driver’s seat and is hit with a wave of misery so strong that he can’t breathe for a minute, much less drive. He hunches over, forehead on the steering wheel, and concentrates on not throwing up until it passes. Then he grabs his phone,and fumbles through his contacts until he finds Leon and hits the call button.

Leon doesn’t answer, of course. He’s in the middle of a game. It rings and rings and cuts to voicemail, and Matthew hangs up, chucking the phone onto the passenger side floorboard like it’s burned him.

“Fuck,” he yells.

He drives back to his apartment in silence, no radio, no nothing. If Leon is curious when he sees the missed call, he doesn’t reach out to ask about it.

***

Brady is selected for the All-Star Game. Matthew is not. Both of these are kind of expected, and Matthew tries not to let it get to him.

Under normal circumstances, Matthew would be happy enough to take a family vacation in Miami while Brady just happens to be doing All-Star things on the side. They had fun in Vegas last year. This year, though, he rifles through his entire mental filing cabinet of excuses before the brotherly guilt kicks in and he assures everyone he’ll be there. Considering the spectacle Brady made of cheering for him in the playoffs last year, he owes it to him to at least show up. Even if it is different because there is literally nothing at stake, as opposed to, you know, an actual championship.

The greater Miami metro area is a big place. As long as he avoids the festivities, the chances of running into Leon are slim to none. He is totally capable of having a normal fucking vacation. He needs a normal fucking vacation.

“There he is,” Keith booms when Matthew gets to his parents’ suite. Taryn is in the next room over with a couple of her friends. Matthew has his own room, because he’s an adult. His dad folds him into a brief, back-slapping hug before his mom wraps him in a tighter one that Matthew clings to a little bit longer than is dignified.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she says, kissing his cheek. “So glad you could make it. Brady thought you might not.”

“What does Brady know,” Matthew grumbles, which gets chuckles from the parents.

He hangs out with them for a little while, chatting and going over the schedule for the weekend, until Taryn texts: BEACH BEACH BEACH BEACH BEACH. Thirty minutes later, they are barefoot in the sand.

This morning, Matthew left his apartment building in subzero weather and almost ate it on the frozen sidewalk while loading his suitcase into the car. Now, the air is warm and damp and salty instead of bitingly, bitterly dry, and the water is cool but not cold. Matthew wades in up to his chest, then dives in and swims a few more yards out, until his head is just above the surface with his toes on the ocean floor. The saltwater stings his lips. The waves are low but choppy, and each one lifts him off his feet, weightless for a moment.

“Matthew! Wait up!” Taryn is calling, leaving her friends in the shallows to swim to Matthew. She can’t touch the ground as far out as he is, so when she reaches him, she loops her arms around his shoulders and attaches herself to him piggyback-style. “God, this is nice, right? It was fucking cold in Virginia.”

“Yeah, it’s great,” Matthew says. He means it. Out here, being gently buoyed and buffeted by the water, the sun warm on his face, he can feel himself slowly unwinding. All the tension he’s been clutching tight unspooling to wash out to sea. Maybe he’ll spend the whole weekend out here. No one will ask him any questions about what’s wrong with him. No one will be able to find him, except Brady and Taryn, and he can handle them.

“Okay, going under,” he warns, bouncing on his toes and taking a deep breath before plunging under the next wave. Taryn’s shriek is cut off as she clings to him with all of her limbs. He doesn’t stay under long — it’s harder to, in the ocean, and Taryn can’t hold her breath as long as he can — but, for one sweet moment, he basks in that perfect white-noise silence of the whole world being muffled by the water.

When he pushes back up to the surface, Taryn gasps and smacks her fist against his shoulder.

“Asshole,” she sputters, but she’s laughing.

“Aw, come on, it’s part of the fun,” Matthew says. She huffs and rests her chin on his head.

“I’m glad you came,” she says, squeezing him around the shoulders. “Me and Brady thought you might not.”

“Mom said that, too,” Matthew says. “Obviously I was gonna come. Why wouldn’t I?”

She shrugs. “I dunno, just a feeling.”

“Well, hate to break it to you, Tare, but you are definitely not psychic,” he says, turning them to look down the shoreline, watching the waves roll in and break. The beach isn’t crowded, but there’s a decent number of people scattered across the sand and in the water. Lots of brightly colored beach towels and big umbrellas.

“Crush my dreams, why don’t you,” Taryn says, but she brightens almost immediately. “Oh, look, I think there’s a sandbar!” She knees him in the side like a horse. “Take me to the sandbar!”

“Would a ‘please’ kill you?” Matthew asks, but he dutifully bobs his way over to where a couple of other swimmers are hanging out on higher ground. Taryn lets go of him when they get close and turns to wave at her friends, who are still back toward the sand. They wave back cheerfully but do not seem inclined to swim out, which Matthew is quietly glad about because it means he gets a little more sibling time. At the apex of the sandbar, he can almost sit and still have his head above water. He lays back to float with his heels anchored in the sand, keeping half an eye on Taryn doing the same so they don’t drift apart.

They stay like that for a little while — ten, fifteen minutes, maybe, just floating in companionable silence in the middle of the ocean. The water laps at Matthew’s ears, a soothing soundtrack drowning out distant chatter and the occasional caws of seagulls. He wants to ask again: Why wouldn’t I come? But he’s pretty sure he knows the answer. Because there’s something wrong with him lately. It’s so obvious even Brady and Taryn could tell through texts and Facetimes alone.

“Just a warning. They think you’re hot,” Taryn says, startling Matthew out of his thoughts.

“What?” he asks.

Taryn is floating blissfully, eyes closed, the sun on her face. “Lakelyn and Candace. They think Brady’s nice, but they think you’re hot. I told them please don’t ever say that to me again, but I’m just warning you. And, you know, sorry in advance.”

“Just tell them I’m taken,” Matthew says. Taryn opens one eye to look at him.

“Are you?”

Matthew hasn’t really talked to either of his siblings about anyone he was dating or interested in or whatever since he was a teenager taking girls to school dances because that was the thing to do. He is aware that it’s a point of both curiosity and mild concern. He bites the inside of his lip and does not do the mental math to figure out how long it’s been since he slept with someone who wasn’t Leon.

“No,” he says.

“Well, I’m not gonna lie about it.”

“Hey, I’ve lied for you plenty.”

“Shut up.” Taryn splashes him. “I just mean if I lied and it came up around Mom and Dad that would be super weird to explain.”

Matthew sighs. “Fine, fair enough.”

They stay on the beach for hours, swimming, sunbathing, playing volleyball, and get back to the hotel with just enough time for everyone to shower and change before dinner. Matthew spends most of the meal trying to be nice to Lakelyn and Candace but not nice enough to give them any ideas. Brady, joining them fresh off his All-Star media blitz, keeps smirking at him over his beer like he knows exactly what’s going on. Matthew makes a mental note to beat him up later.

As they all leave the restaurant, Brady snags Matthew’s arm and announces, “We’re going out, don’t wait up.”

“I don’t get a choice in this, huh?” Matthew asks, letting himself be dragged along. Brady already has Uber up on his phone, typing with his free hand.

“Obviously not. See if Johnny wants to come. Unless he brought the kid?” Matthew shakes his head; the Gaudreaus had decided the baby was too small for an All-Star Weekend, so Meredith stayed home with her. “Okay, cool, then let’s fuckin’ go, man.”

This is what a normal vacation is supposed to be. Beach during the day, hitting the bars at night, drinking too much, not giving a shit. Johnny joins them, then Quinn and Jack, then Auston, Zach and his brother, everyone greeting Matthew with hearty hugs and “Hey, who invited this guy!” and “Dude, no one told me you’d be here!” with big grins and slaps on the back. In all of Matthew’s anxiety, he’d forgotten how many friends he’d be surrounded by. It’s not long before he loses track of the various friends-of-friends and family members that get folded into the group, which quickly becomes too big to manage in any sort of cohesive way. That’s fine, because it’s easier to disappear into a big group. Matthew takes the shots that Brady puts in front of him and lets himself get swept up in catching up with everyone after half a season of communicating mainly through Instagram likes and half-dead group chats. They hit three different bars, and there’s no sign of Leon all night.

***

Matthew wakes up the next morning with a more-than-mild hangover, but no ill-advised texts to or from hot, cagey Germans who hate him. It’s the first thing he checks, one eye cracked open, but there’s nothing. He should be used to there being nothing by now.

Brady is in a similar condition, hangover-wise. There’s a comforting solidarity to it. The hair of the dog serves them well over brunch with Taryn and friends, and then they sweat it out on the links with Keith and Chantal while the girls head back to the beach for the day. Fresh air, sunshine, a little friendly competition. By the time they have to head back for the Skills Comp, Matthew feels almost like a fully functional human being. Chantal and the girls all don their Sens gear, but Matthew follows his dad’s lead with more neutral attire — his Anheuser-Busch Brewery t-shirt is almost the right shade of red anyway. In the stands, he keeps a Flames cap pulled low, knowing full well the cameras will find them anyway. Given his druthers, he’d be watching from a bar somewhere, instead of being the only NHLer in attendance who wasn’t invited by the league. He should have brought a friend of his own to play hooky with, but Rob had other vacation plans this year.

It’s weird, watching from afar. Hard not to feel like he should be down there. Johnny is small but easy to spot, maybe just because Matthew is so used to looking for him. Brady is also easy to spot because of his weird scrawny head. While the big guns are battling it out for Hardest Shot, Matthew catches sight of those Tkachuk curls weaving between the guys on the sideline. He gets to the gaggle of Pacific players, and Matthew’s stomach lurches before he drops to a knee next to Quinn. Obviously he was looking for Quinn.

Except a minute later Brady twists around to say something very much not to Quinn. Like a two-headed monster, Draisaitl and McDavid turn at once. McDavid says something in response, looking like he huffs a laugh with it. Brady bumps his shoulder against Quinn’s, gets up, and skates over to them.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Matthew mutters to the rafters.

“What?” Taryn asks.

“Nothing,” says Matthew.

Brady is chattering away. McDavid seems amused. Leon seems — well, Matthew’s shit at reading him up close, he’s not even going to try guessing from a hundred feet away. He cannot imagine they all have that much to say to each other, except, like, wow our colleagues sure can shoot the puck hard. But that’s Brady for you. He’ll have a conversation with anyone. Now, he’s gesturing broadly about something that gets another laugh from McDavid. Taking his phone out. The three of them lean in for a selfie.

“What is Brady doing?” Tayrn says, hitting Matthew in the arm. “Are you seeing this?”

“Oh, I’m seeing it,” Matthew says.

“Aren’t those the guys that hate you?” one of Taryn’s friends says.

“I think hate is a strong word,” Matthew says. “I am gonna have to kick his ass for it, though.”

“He’s so ridiculous,” Tayrn says with great fondness, then leans around Matthew to make sure their dad is also seeing this.

Meanwhile, Brady is showing McDavid and Draisaitl something on his phone. Hopefully just the selfie. McDavid gives him a thumbs-up, so probably just the selfie. Then, Brady, who is genetically incapable of shutting up, turns to point right to his family in the stands.

McDavid raises a glove in greeting.

Matthew is going to kill his brother. He waves back, but only because it would be rude not to. Taryn also waves, with a little too much enthusiasm. Leon stares.

“I think it’s sweet that he’s making friends,” Chantal says.

Matthew spends the rest of Hardest Shot checking Instagram so he doesn’t have to look at anyone. When it’s over, he excuses himself to the restroom. He feels like he might puke.

He walks past the restrooms, past the concessions, straight out into the warm night air. The crowd inside is lively, but the parking lot is dead. Out in front of the arena, there are a series of long, palm-lined cement staircases leading down to the VIP parking area; Matthew picks one at random and starts down it, then changes his mind and sits on the steps instead.

There is nothing around the Panthers’ arena except a sea of concrete parking lots. Across the street is a mall or something, but you have to cross a main road to get to it, and thinking of trying it just gives him a vision of getting run over by an SUV trying to get to Nordstrom Rack. When they find him in the road with all his broken limbs, his mom is distraught, he’s ruined his brother’s All-Star Weekend, and Leon feels a little bit guilty for not waving back when he had the chance. The Flames ship him back to Calgary for a couple years of rehab and replace him on the top line with — probably Blake. He’d be good there. It’s all very unfortunate, but everyone moves on.

Nope. Way too dramatic. Like a fucking Lifetime movie. Besides, he doesn’t really want to go anywhere. He just wants to be alone for a minute. To get some air.

After a while — fifteen minutes, maybe twenty — his phone buzzes with a new text. It’s Taryn, asking where he’s gone. There’s another from earlier that he missed, which is of course Brady sending him the stupid selfie he took down on the ice. No caption, just Brady smirking, McDavid smiling gamely, Leon doing something with his face that’s barely not a grimace.

Save it for insta, Matthew texts back as his gut twists itself into brand new knots. He needs like five more beers.

Taryn texts again: did u get lost ????????

Felt sick. Went for a walk, Matthew texts back.

are u outside?

I’m fine, don’t worry about it

Of course Brady didn’t mean any harm. Matthew isn’t actually mad at him. He’s mad at himself. That’s his specialty, isn’t it? And it’s not like Leon cares that he’s here. Leon hasn’t texted in weeks. Leon decided he was done.

That’s the refrain Matthew keeps returning to lately: Leon decided he was done. Maybe Matthew doesn’t entirely get why — sure, it was kind of shitty how abruptly he kicked him out, but it’s not like he was going to spend the night anyway. There’s nothing he can do about it, so he needs to get over it.

Get it together, Tkachuk, he admonishes in his head, doubling over to rest his forehead on his knees. It shouldn’t even matter that much. He should be glad, actually. All the Draisaitl stuff got way too complicated, and now’s his chance to buckle down and focus.

“Matthew!”

Taryn’s shout is followed by the patter of her footsteps down the step. With a groan, Matthew hauls himself upright as her white sneakers come to a stop and she drops onto the step next to him.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “I was looking all over!”

“I’m fine.” Matthew scrubs a hand over his face. “I swear, I just needed some fresh air.”

“You look sick.” Taryn reaches as if to feel his forehead. Matthew makes a face and bats her hand away, so she punches him in the knee. “We were worried about you, idiot.”

“Sorry.”

“You better be. Come on.” She grabs his arm and starts to stand up, but Matthew’s legs don’t want to work yet. His whole body feels leaden. Taryn pulls harder. “Matthew.”

“In a minute,” Matthew says.

Taryn sighs and plops back onto the step. Then she scoots over and puts her head on his shoulder, letting out a long sigh. Matthew wraps his arm around her. They sit like that for a minute, looking out at the scenic rows of vehicles and palm trees. The towering street lamps glint off all the metal and fiberglass, and if Matthew squints and lets his vision blur, it’s almost like the moon on the ocean.

Matthew, too, would like to know what the fuck is wrong with him lately. It’s not just the Leon stuff. It’s easy to pin it on that, because it sure as shit isn’t helping, but it’s just not true. He felt shitty before all that. He’s felt shitty for months. He’s had some good stretches here and there, but really, he’s felt shitty since last season ended. He wants to know what’s wrong with him, that he hasn’t been able to shake it off.

“Can I tell you something that sounds really stupid?” he asks, breaking the silence. “And you can’t tell Brady.”

“Yeah, of course,” says Taryn.

“So like. With the caveat that I know I got named captain this year. And I know I’m second on the team behind Johnny in points. And that we’re like two points out of first in the division,” Matthew says, picking at the knee of his jeans. “I just feel like I fucking suck this year.”

Taryn is quiet for a long moment before she asks, “Is this because Brady’s an All-Star and you’re not again?”

“Not really. I mean, I’m happy for him.” Matthew shrugs. “I don’t know, I told you it was stupid.”

“It’s not.” Taryn shifts so she can get both arms around his waist, squeezing. “You don’t suck. Brady just doesn’t have a Johnny Hockey on his team to steal the spotlight.”

“Okay, but maybe I would suck without Johnny,” Matthew says.

“Nah. I mean, your life would be harder, but, nah.”

“You have to say that. You’re my sister.”

Taryn laughs as she extricates herself from the hug. “If you think I won’t tell you when you suck, you’re confused about what family you’re in.”

“God, speaking of, you really left your poor friends alone with Mom and Dad?” Matthew asks, trying to steer the conversation into something less humiliating. “They’re gonna get, like, CIA-level interrogated.”

“They’re tough. They can handle it.” Taryn flips her ponytail over her shoulder and shrugs. “I did say I was just going to the bathroom, though, so I probably shouldn’t be gone much longer.”

Matthew glances at her. “Is that a hint?”

“Yes,” she says, but when their eyes meet, she bites her lip, her gaze flicking over Matthew’s face like she’s searching it for something.

“I know you said don’t tell Brady,” she says, “but you should talk to him. Maybe his therapist knows someone in Calgary you can use.”

Matthew frowns. “Brady’s therapist.”

“Yeah?” Taryn says, then rolls her eyes and groans when Matthew remains puzzled. “Seriously, do you guys tell each other anything anymore? I don’t like this at all. You need to get it together.”

“I’ll talk to Brady,” Matthew says quickly. “Just — explain.”

Taryn sighs the sigh of an eternally put-upon youngest sibling. “Okay, well, in his words, he said, ‘If we’re gonna really start rebuilding this stupid team this year, I’m gonna need someone to hold all my thoughts and feelings for me.’”

“Oh.” Matthew isn’t sure what to make of that, or how he feels about being left out of the loop. Or maybe he just hasn’t been paying close enough attention. It does not help him feel less like he sucks. “Okay, well, I’ll think about it.”

“Do it.” She pokes his thigh. “Or like, do literally anything besides moping. I have enough on my plate without worrying about your dumb ass.”

“I said I’ll think about it,” Matthew says. “But don’t worry. You know me. Nothing keeps me down.”

Taryn snorts. “Not true, but good attitude.”

“Hey,” says Matthew. Taryn grins, and this time when she gets to her feet, Matthew lets her pull him up, too. He’s not sure he feels any better, but he doesn’t want her to worry.

***

“So,” Auston says to him, the two of them perched on stools at a hightop table at yet another bar. They have, of course, hit the town again after the Skills Comp. The place is packed; the crush of the crowd around them would be uncomfortable if it weren’t fifty percent limbs and elbows Matthew has known since he was a teenager. “You know what you haven’t spilled is whether I get to wingman you this weekend.”

“Absolutely not,” Matthew says, downing half his beer while Auston waggles his eyebrows.

“Aw, come on,” he protests. “It’s Miami, and you’re dangerously close to aging out of being young, hot, and single. Get your dick sucked in the men’s room while you still can.”

“Dude, we’re the same age,” Matthew protests.

“Yeah, twenty-five sexy, sexy years. Practically ancient. Come on, Chucky, share the wealth with the men of south Florida.” Auston pushes himself up to survey the packed bar, then points to a tan guy in a polo shirt with a swath of shiny dark hair and wide shoulders. “How about that one?”

“Will you sit down?” Matthew yanks him by the back of his shirt; he drops back into his seat so hard he almost falls out of it. They are both of them plenty drunk, but if it’s a competition, Auston is winning. Probably a good thing. Auston doesn’t have any siblings or teammates out tonight to keep an eye on — not that Johnny needs Matthew’s supervision, especially right now, tucked happily under Chris Kreider’s arm, which, Matthew has no idea when that guy showed up, but, okay, cool. Brady is gleefully holding court with the Hughes boys and Clayton Keller, his face a drunken pink and his smile ear-to-ear. It’s very possible that neither of them need his supervision, actually.

“Okay, well, I think I need you to explain your type to me again, because every time I think I’ve got it, you have complaints,” Auston is saying. “Small words, please. What flavor of penis are we looking for?”

Matthew shoves him. “Dude, my brother is right there.”

“Yeah, and?” Auston’s face scrunches. “Dude, he doesn’t give a shit. Unclench and have some fun.”

“I am having fun,” Matthew says, which is mostly true. It was more true a minute ago, before he started once again avoiding the mental math to figure out how long it’s been since he slept with someone who wasn’t Leon. Less than a year. More than six months. It doesn’t matter. The idea of picking some random person in this bar to hook up with makes his stomach turn. Not because he doesn’t want to get laid, but because — whatever.

There is probably not enough alcohol in the world to erase his awareness that Leon is somewhere nearby. Maybe out at a different bar or club, maybe back at the hotel. Every time Matthew manages to forget, the realization kicks him in the teeth again. At any second he could look up and Leon could be in the room. Maybe their eyes meet across the bar. Maybe despite the weeks of radio silence, Leon jerks his head, and Matthew follows, and Leon puts him on his knees in a bathroom stall and fucks his throat until tears leak from the corners of Matthew’s eyes, spit smeared down his chin, his wet choking noises drowned out by the pounding music. Even if it was the last time they did anything, it would be fitting, right? Drunk and sweaty, away for a long weekend somewhere just far enough removed from reality that it doesn’t really feel like it counts. Maybe that’s what Matthew needs. Closure, or something.

“Chucky.” Auston snaps his fingers in front of Matthew’s face. Matthew startles. “Jesus, okay, I’m getting us some water.”

He slips away. Matthew pulls out his phone. Opens his text chain with Leon and stares at the messages that Leon has not answered. Starts typing what room are you in, but only gets halfway through before he backspaces emphatically.

If Leon is done with him then Leon is done with him. Get it together and get over it, Tkachuk.

He is still staring at the texts when he’s ambushed with a hug from behind. Brady whoops in his ear; Matthew drops his phone on the table.

“What the fuck, Brady?” he says.

“Quinn’s taking a picture, try to look like you’re having fun,” Brady says, so Matthew mugs dutifully for Brady’s phone in Quinn’s hands, then tickles Brady’s side until he yelps and recoils.

“Ugh, fuck you,” Brady says, straightening his shirt. “Hey, we’re thinking we hop to one more bar before heading back, you’re coming with, right?”

Matthew twists in his seat, surveying the room. “Matts said he was coming back with water, I should probably wait for him.”

“Matts is making out with a hot brunette by the bar.” Brady pulls a face. “So you can wait for him, yeah, or you can text him good luck and come with us. Clayton says there’s a good place down the street.”

“Okay, fine.” Matthew slides off of his seat and cuffs Brady in the head. “You’re opening the tab, though.”

“Quintin is opening the tab,” says Brady.

“I am not,” says Quinn.

“I’m opening the tab,” Brady amends. He slings one arm around each of Matthew’s and Quinn’s shoulders, steering them toward the door. “All-Star Weekend, baby!”

***

At the end of the night, back in his hotel room, Matthew re-reads his texts with Leon instead of sleeping.

He doesn’t need to re-read them. He pretty much has them memorized. But for something that no one else in the world knows happened, reading them is proof that the whole thing was real. Even when it feels like something he made up in a weird, horny fever dream.

Because it does feel fake. Boots and Hearts was practically a different dimension. Everything that came after that — well, it’s not like Matthew has never kept a hookup secret before. That’s how it has to be, a lot of the time. But there’s something about the way everything with Leon happened that’s slightly outside of reality. Or maybe he’s just too drunk to think about this right now.

Everything Matthew has ever wanted in his life, there’s been a clear path laid out to it. If he doesn’t get it, it means he didn’t work hard enough.

Leon is nothing like that. He is impossible. Or at least, not possible without jeopardizing everything else. Or not possible as anything but a flash in the pan. And maybe that’s what Matthew liked about him. No expectations. Leon couldn’t think less of Matthew to begin with, so there was no way for Matthew to fuck it up. It didn’t matter how he fit into the rest of Matthew’s life. At best they could, what, fuck each other’s brains out three to five times a year until it was time for them to go their separate ways and focus on their legacies? Not that any of that matters at this point. Not that Matthew can even put it into words without recoiling from it like a hot stove.

And yet here he is. Reading the texts again. Typing out, meticulously, again, What room are you in? and deleting it. We need to talk, and deleting it. The prospect of more silence is somehow worse than the prospect of getting told to fuck off.

Instead, he texts Brady: You still up?

Qs room, Brady texts back almost immediately, followed by the room number. That’s as good an invitation as any, so Matthew finds his slippers and pads down the quiet hallway to the elevator.

He should expect it. He really should. The greater Miami metro area is a big place. It’s a big fucking hotel. There are so few moments this weekend when either of them would be alone, much less both of them at the same time. So of course when the doors slide open with a ding, Leon is there.

He’s leaning against the back of the elevator, the hood of his hoodie up, typing on his phone. For half a second, he doesn’t notice Matthew, but when he glaces up to check the floor number, he freezes. It’s possible no one has ever been less happy to see Matthew in Matthew’s entire life.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Leon says.

Shoulders squared, Matthew steps into the elevator, waves his keycard in front of the reader, and punches the button for Quinn’s floor. He leans against the back wall, arms crossed, keeping a foot of space between them.

“Of all the elevators in all the world, huh?” he tries, but his resolve cracks as soon as Leon looks at him.

Matthew is either way too drunk for this or not nearly drunk enough for this.

He had almost convinced himself he was misremembering the way he felt around Leon. Exaggerating it, maybe. But now, looking at him, it’s like being hit with a sledgehammer: guilt, want, guilt, want. If they weren’t basically in public, he might drop to his knees right now. Except as the floors tick past, what he can’t stop thinking about is Leon’s mouth against his. The nudge of Leon’s nose against his own. Tentative fingers on Matthew’s waist. He’s right there, looking at Matthew with those blue eyes, and Matthew wants him so bad it hurts.

“I miss you,” he blurts.

Leon snorts. “Yeah, I bet.”

Matthew gapes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Leon’s eyes flick over to watch the floor numbers counting up, and seems to sag with relief when they come to a stop.

“Leon,” Matthew says, with no idea of what’s going to come after it. I can’t stop thinking about kissing you. Fuck. But Leon is leaving, and he has to say something. “Can we at least talk?”

Leon pauses with one foot planted on the gap between elevator and hallway, keeping the door from closing.

“Now you want to talk,” he says, eyebrows up in his hairline.

“I texted you and called you,” Matthew points out.

“Yeah, I noticed,” Leon says, sharp-edged. The elevator door buffets against his foot, dinging in protest. He kicks it with his heel until it slides open again. “So, what, you want to keep hooking up?”

Matthew shakes his head. “Yeah, obviously, but—”

“Am I allowed to kiss you now?” Leon glances up and down the hallway, dropping his voice lower. “Or should I stick to choking you until you come? Just so I know the rules.”

“I don’t have rules,” Matthew protests. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

The elevator door tries to close again, the ding angrier this time. Leon closes his eyes for a moment, looking pained.

“Fine, come on,” he says.

Matthew barely processes the invitation in time to get out of the elevator before the door closes between them. He stumbles, rights himself, and hurries to catch up with Leon, who is not waiting for him as he strides down the hall. Pretty pathetic to be literally chasing after him, but Matthew is drunk enough not to care. They nearly collide when Leon stops to dig his key card out of his pocket. Matthew’s heart is pounding like he sprinted to get here.

The door shuts behind them, Matthew’s back hits the wall, and Leon’s mouth is on his before he can even take a breath. There’s nothing tentative about it. Their teeth clack together, and Matthew makes a sound that’s half yelp, half moan as Leon bites down on his lip. His hands scrabble against Leon’s hoodie until they get ahold of it in fistfuls, as much to pull Leon closer as to keep his own knees from buckling. He’d really thought — fuck. He’d really thought this wouldn’t happen again. The relief is like a tidal wave. Leon tastes like beer, smells like it, too, and Matthew wonders if they just missed each other out at the bars earlier. If they were in the same room and didn’t know it. If any of the local craft ales were up to Leon’s standards or if he had to suffer until he was drunk enough that the Michelob Ultra seemed fine.

Leon is cupping Matthew’s face, now, the violent edge of the kiss replaced by a determined thoroughness. He keeps Matthew’s head tilted at the angle he wants, one thumb smoothing over Matthew’s cheek, the other digging into the corner of his mouth. He’s clean-shaven for the All-Star Weekend, but there’s still enough stubble for that rasp Matthew loves as their mouths slide together. Matthew slides a hand into Leon’s back pocket, urging him even closer, wanting to feel him getting hard in his jeans.

“You missed me?” Leon asks, low and heady, barely pulling away enough to get the question out.

“Yes.” It’s more a gasp than a word.

“You want me to touch you,” Leon says, not a question, punctuated by teeth.

“Yeah,” Matthew says, digging his fingers into Leon’s lower back under his hoodie, above his waistband. “Yeah, yes, please.”

Leon gets a hand between them, palming Matthew through his pajama pants. Matthew’s breath stutters, and another moan escapes him as Leon squeezes just enough to make Matthew buck into him. They should move this to the bed, or at least turn on a light so that Matthew can see Leon, can see the way he gets flushed and sweaty, but when he pushes away from the wall, Leon plants him right back against it.

“Don’t,” he says, which of course makes Matthew do it again, with more leverage, shoving Leon against the opposite wall of the entryway. Leon lifts his chin, defiant, breathing heavy. His stupid hood is still up. Matthew reaches for it, and Leon smacks his hand away.

“Don’t,” he says again.

“Wow, bossy,” Matthew says.

“Fuck you,” Leon says, and Matthew kisses him again. He can feel all the tension in Leon’s body, and he wants to kiss it out of him. Wants to feel it melting off of him from Matthew’s touch, wants to make him come and leave him a sated, boneless heap. To make him feel so good he forgets how last time ended. He rocks against him, tastes the way he groans, the kiss dragging out, long, slow, excruciating and perfect.

It’s Leon who breaks it. He twists his head away, meeting Matthew’s eyes in the dark. Matthew can’t see enough of his expression to read it, but it doesn’t matter, because Leon pushes him back by his hips — not away, just back — and sinks to his knees between Matthew and the wall.

“Leon,” Matthew says weakly, bracing one hand against the wall, then the other, as Leon presses his mouth to Matthew’s stomach through his t-shirt. The layer of fabric is torture as Leon does it again, below his navel, then over the bulge of Matthew’s dick in his pajama pants. “Fuck, Leon.”

Matthew knows how good Leon looks sucking cock. It’s a minor tragedy that it’s too dark to see him well, but the light switch is on the other wall, and he is not willing to pull away to reach it. Not when Leon is sliding his hands over Matthew’s ass, taking the waistband of his pants with them. Matthew’s fingertips dig into the wall at the feeling of Leon’s hot breath over his dick, Leon’s thumb and forefinger encircling the base of it, stroking slowly up and down. Matthew’s hips twitch again. This is not an easy position — Matthew’s feet have to stay wide to leave room for Leon’s knees on the floor between them, and bracing himself against the wall keeps him perpetually off-balance, but none of that matters. The only thing that matters is Leon’s mouth on him.

Shifting his weight, Matthew props his forearm against the wall so he can rest his other hand on top of Leon’s hood — carefully, in case Leon wants to smack him away again, but he allows it, and when Matthew palms the back of his head through the fabric, Leon makes a soft, wanting noise around his dick. It’s one of the best sounds Matthew has heard him make. Carefully, again, he trails his fingers along the front edge of the hood, then slides them slowly into Leon’s hair, letting the motion of Leon’s head push his hood back as he goes. His hair is sweaty, a little stiff with product, but it feels so good to sink his fingers into it.

Matthew cannot explain why touching Leon on purpose, touching him just to touch him, touching him in the way you do when you’re learning someone’s body — why it always feels like he’s breaking a rule, when he will sit on the guy’s dick without a second thought. It’s its own little rush, though, when he does it and comes away knowing things like how even with a cock in his mouth, Leon will shiver when Matthew traces the shell of his ear. His methodical blowjob will stutter at fingernails scraped lightly down the back of his neck. Do it twice in a row and he’ll make a sound that’s almost a whimper, and then he’ll make up for the lapse in concentration by doubling down until Matthew’s legs shake. Even in the dark, Matthew can make out the curve of his cheekbone. He can’t help stroking his knuckles over it, feeling how Leon’s cheeks hollow out as he sucks.

“Where do you want me to come?” Matthew asks in a breathless rush when he feels himself getting close.

Leon pulls off just long enough to say, “I’ll swallow.”

Then he does something with his tongue that makes Matthew’s toes curl.

“Oh, fuck,” Matthew groans when his orgasm hits, letting the wall take his weight as his knees go weak. He palms the back of Leon’s head again, his fingers clumsy as Leon sucks him through it, until Leon eases back, wiping his mouth. It seems to take a moment for him to get himself together, and another moment for Matthew to realize he should probably move. His legs are still jelly, but he shuffles back enough that Leon isn’t bracketed against the wall, tugging his pajama pants up from around his thighs.

“Sorry, fuck,” he says, giving Leon a hand up. “God, you’re good at that.”

“Yeah,” Leon says, his voice rough in a way that goes right to Matthew’s gut. He wants to be on the bed now so he can sprawl like he wants to and taste the way Leon gasps and groans while Matthew jerks him off. Then maybe they can go again. He tugs Leon in to kiss him, easy in a way that feels painfully normal. Hands on his waist. Simple and soft. The urge to recoil — this won’t work, you can’t have this — claws at the inside of Matthew’s chest, but he forces it down, holds on a little tighter, kisses Leon’s upper lip and the corner of his mouth and his chin and his jawline. If he does it enough, maybe he’ll convince the ocean of doubt in his head that it’s okay.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Leon says, pulling away. Matthew expects to be dragged to the bed, but Leon doesn’t go anywhere, just — pulls away. “Okay, don’t, you can go now.”

“I — what?” Matthew is sure he misheard, but.

“I said you can go now,” Leon says.

Matthew stares, then reaches backward to hit the light switch by the door. The entryway is bathed in bright white light. Leon winces, his face scrunching.

“What the fuck?” he asks.

“I think that’s my line right now,” Matthew says. “What the fuck do you mean, I can go now?”

“I mean you can go now,” Leon says, still squinting, rubbing his face. His cheeks and mouth are both flushed pink. He’s hard in his jeans. His hair is mussed from Matthew’s hands in it. He looks horribly, heart-breakingly good. The floor under Matthew’s feet sways nauseously.

“You don’t want—” he starts, but the words die at the look on Leon’s face. No, Leon doesn’t want. “You want me to go.”

“I want you to go.” Leon folds his arms, hands tucked against his sides.

“I—” Matthew tries to take a deep breath and finds that he can’t. “Then why— then what the fuck was all this? I said I missed you and you just— what the fuck, Leon?”

Leon closes his eyes. He sighs, his shoulders rising and falling with it.

“Can you just go?” he says. It’s not harsh, or sharp. It’s mostly just tired. “I always go when you want me to go.”

Matthew can’t argue with that. He wants to. He wracks his brain for one single example to throw back in Leon’s face, but there isn’t one. Leon has always left when Matthew said to. He has always let Matthew go when Matthew wanted to leave.

“Okay,” Matthew says, raking a hand through his hair. “Okay, fine. I’ll text you later?”

“If you want,” Leon says.

It’s not a long walk to the door. Matthew didn’t even get five steps into the room.

In the hallway, the pattern on the carpet makes his head swim. He presses his hands to his face. Digs his fingers in at his temples, trying to make it all make sense. Down the corridor, a small group of people are laughing as someone fumbles with a keycard. Their chatter sounds Finnish, maybe. Swedish? Matthew turns away, hoping no one will recognize him from behind. He takes his phone out because he doesn’t know what else to do. There’s a text from Brady from two minutes ago: are u comin up here or nah?

***

Matthew barely registers his feet taking him down the hallway, to the elevator, up another floor to knock on the correct door. After a shout and the sounds of some scuffling inside, Quinn pulls it open. He’s flushed like he gets when he’s been drinking, his hair mussed. He grins at Matthew and says, “Come on, we’re watching Bob Ross.”

Matthew expected the room to be more of a party, but it’s just Quinn and Brady, plus Jack, curled up and snoring on the chaise longue. There’s evidence of several nightcaps, but also several half-empty Gatorades around the suite. Brady is on the bed watching television, propped up by a small mountain of pillows and eating grapes out of a plastic bag.

“Why the fuck are you watching Bob Ross?” Matthew asks.

“Because it’s on,” Brady says around a grape. “Did you know there’s a whole Bob Ross channel?”

“No, I did not know that,” Matthew says.

Brady frowns, brow furrowing. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Matthew says. “No, I think I’m pretty fucked up right now.”

“I’ll get you a Gatorade,” Quinn says.

“Come sit. Bob’s painting a path in the woods,” Brady says, patting the mattress next to him. Matthew does, sinking into the pile of pillows, and Brady scoots over to put his head on Matthew’s shoulder, grinning a dopey drunk grin.

“Grape?” He offers the bag. Matthew shakes his head, feeling queasy. Brady shrugs and pops another one in his mouth, turning to Quinn. “Matthew’s been having a tough year.”

“Shut up, Brady,” Matthew groans, rubbing his face.

“Not, like, statistically,” Brady says. “Mentally, you know? He thinks we can’t tell, but he’s really shit at acting normal.”

“Brady,” Matthew says sharply. Brady’s mouth snaps shut. Matthew presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying not to hyperventilate.

They’re not really a crying family. Matthew is not a crying type of guy. He is not going to cry here and now, but it takes him a moment to get it under control. If he’s lucky, the light from the TV isn’t enough to see that his eyelashes are wet.

“Sorry,” he says, wiping his cheeks even though they’re technically still dry. “Sorry, fuck.”

Quinn is standing by the bed, holding out a cold red Gatorade.

“Do you want something stronger?” he asks. Matthew shakes his head and takes the bottle. He’d say thanks, but there’s a lump filling his throat. He’s grateful just to have something to do as he twists the cap off and chugs half of it.

Brady is staring at him, equal parts confused and wounded.

“I was just kidding,” he says. “I mean, not totally kidding, but I was just teasing.”

“I know.” Matthew wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then wipes his hand on his pajama pants. “I know, it’s fine. It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Brady says. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m,” Matthew starts, but his stomach lurches, bile sloshing in his throat. He scrambles up, pushing Quinn out of the way to beeline for the bathroom, and drops to his knees in front of the toilet just in time to puke all the Gatorade right back up. And all the booze. He can taste the whiskey shots they had earlier, sour and smoky, and that makes him vomit more.

“Ugh,” Jack’s groggy voice comes from the other room. “Who’s ralphing?”

Whatever Quinn says in response is drowned out by Matthew retching again. It’s been at least six hours since dinner, but there is apparently still food in his stomach. When he finally runs out, he rests his head on the seat, cold sweat beading on his forehead. He closes his eyes. Tries to breathe through his nose, but the acrid smell of his own puke is too much, so he takes careful, even breaths through his mouth instead, trying to get his heart to stop racing.

He can tell by the footsteps that the person who comes into the bathroom is Brady. The faucet cuts on, then off, and then a cup of water is nudged against Matthew’s elbow. Moving as little as possible, he takes it to swish a mouthful around and spit into the bright red of the toilet bowl.

“Can you flush?” he mumbles, laying his head back down. “The smell is gonna make me puke again.”

“Yeah,” Brady says. He hits the lever. Matthew sighs in relief as clean water fills the bowl and Brady lowers himself to sit cross-legged on the tile. He puts a hand on Matthew’s back, rubbing in big, careful circles. They stay like that for a minute, maybe two, until Quinn tiptoes in and, oh, that’s humiliating. Getting throwing-up drunk in front of his little brother’s best friend. He had such a good showing at Boots, and now this.

Quinn touches the top of Brady’s head, his fingertips bouncing nervously on the curls. “Do you want me to see if I can find some ginger ale? Or some crackers or something?”

Matthew forces himself to sit up and shake his head, pretending that the movement doesn’t make the room spin and his stomach turn. “No, just give me a minute, I’ll get out of here. Shit, sorry.”

“Yeah, you’re not going anywhere,” Brady says, his voice a notch higher than usual the way it gets when he’s upset. “Unless it’s to your room, in which case I’m coming with you.”

“You really don’t have to.” Matthew takes another careful sip of water to swish and spit. “I’ve been drunk before. I’ll survive.”

“It’s not really the drunk part I’m worried about,” Brady mumbles, which Matthew chooses to ignore, staring at the viscous, pinkish blob of saliva floating in the toilet bowl.

“I think there’s a Sprite in the mini-fridge,” Quinn says, and removes himself from the situation. Matthew is jealous. He would love to remove himself from the situation. He can’t look up yet because he can feel Brady staring at him.

“So the way I see it,” Brady says, even but firm. Matthew can imagine it’s the voice he uses when he’s doing captain shit. It’s a good captain voice. “Either we both go back to my room, we put the trash can by the bed, and you can tell me what the fuck’s wrong with you. Or we both go back to your room, we put the trash can by the bed, and you can tell me what the fuck’s wrong with you.”

“This isn’t Ottawa,” Matthew says. “You’re not in charge of me.”

“Right now, I think I am,” says Brady. Matthew chances a look at him, and can tell from his face that he will not be swayed. Matthew can be just as stubborn, but god, he does not have the energy. The thought of trying to have an argument right now makes his stomach threaten to mutiny again.

“Fine. My room,” he says, then rests his forehead against the toilet seat again. “In a minute.”

On their way out, Quinn gives him a bottle of Sprite and a hug. Brady gives Quinn a kiss on the top of his head and a murmured apology that makes the back of Matthew’s neck burn. Jack, thank god, is snoring again. Matthew has done his fair share of walks of shame, and has rarely found them shameful, but he can barely stomach this: trudging back to his room with Brady as babysitter after showing up just long enough to vomit prolifically in Brady’s best friend’s bathroom. He’s too old to be drinking until he pukes to begin with, and it’s not like he can explain that it’s not the alcohol that made him sick. It’s that Leon doesn’t want him anymore.

That’s what that was, right? A pity fuck. Pity blowjob, whatever. Matthew looked just pathetic enough in that elevator that Leon gave him a parting gift. He’d thought Leon was just mad, before, but now it’s pretty clear that whatever was pulling him to Matthew is broken, if not dead.

And it shouldn’t matter. They’re not even friends. Right? But for some reason that just makes the fact that it hurts even worse. Because they had just started to— Matthew had just started to— fuck.

He needs to think about this sober. He does not want to think about it sober.

Back in his own room, Matthew splashes cold water on his face and brushes his teeth until his gums bleed, then he and Brady crawl into opposite sides of the bed, turn off the lights, and lay in silence for several minutes.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Brady asks. This is the opposite of his captain voice. This is just a worried little brother, and it makes Matthew’s chest ache. “I know it’s like — complicated sometimes. But you can still talk to me.”

Matthew sighs, blinking up at the ceiling in the dark. His eyes feel wet again, but at least no one can see it. “I know.”

“I really was just teasing.”

“I know. It’s fine.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“No, I mean.” Matthew closes his eyes. “The teasing is fine. Don’t worry about that. It’s other stuff that’s fucked up, but it’s not your fault.”

A long pause, then. “Okay.”

A longer pause. Matthew swallows hard.

“I was kind of seeing someone,” he says. “And I think they just broke up with me.”

“Shit,” says Brady.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” Brady says. “That sucks.”

“Yeah.” Matthew breathes, trying to keep his voice from cracking. “I think I really liked them.”

Matthew can hear Brady shifting, although the bed is big enough that the mattress doesn’t dip.

“Them,” he says. It’s not quite a question, but it doesn’t really need to be. Years of plausible deniability, down the drain.

“Him,” Matthew says.

Another lengthy pause, which Matthew is grateful for. He needs it to pull himself together.

“Matthew?” says Brady. Matthew makes a sound of acknowledgement. “It’s his loss. And I bet he’ll regret it.”

The lump in Matthew’s throat is too thick for him to get any words out around it, and he has to blink rapidly up at the ceiling again to keep from tearing up. Instead, he reaches a blind hand out across the bed, and squeezes tight when Brady grabs onto it. Too tight, probably, but Brady doesn’t complain.

***

The Atlantic Division makes it past the Metro but loses to an Avalanche-powered Central in the final round, much to the chagrin of the hometown crowd. Brady picks up a couple of assists and one nice goal, and, presumably most importantly, looks like he has a blast out there

Matthew didn’t watch the original Western Conference matchup because he got roped into doing an interview with ESPN that took longer than expected. He’s fine with that. He gets to see Johnny score ridiculous goals every day, he doesn’t particularly want to watch Leon, and after last night the opportunity to go on live television and say a bunch of nice things about Brady seems important not to pass up.

That morning, they both slept through breakfast and woke up slightly worse for wear. They didn’t talk about the events of the previous night, but Brady did give Matthew one of the longest hugs of his life before heading back to his room for a shower. Matthew’s stomach is still sour, though possibly less from the alcohol than from everything else.

In the harsh light of day, it seems even clearer that last night was a pity fuck, and that pisses Matthew off. If Leon wanted to end things, he could have just manned up and said he wanted to end things instead of playing mind games about it.

He told Brady the truth last night: he liked Leon. More than he should have, probably, and that’s why it stings so much now. But Matthew’s not going to chase him down between All-Star events about it. He’s not going to beg and plead about how to fix it or whatever. He has some dignity. Or, he has to draw a line if he wants to keep any dignity. Fucking, yes, fine. Fucking with Matthew’s head? That’s not something he’s willing to put up with. It was never going to be a real relationship anyway. He’s better off letting it be over.

After the game, they go out for a family dinner, and after that, instead of going out, Matthew goes back to the hotel to go swimming in the pool with Taryn and her friends. The water is still warm even though the sun went down hours ago. He plunges in, sinks to the bottom, and blinks up through the water at the greenish blotches of the pool lights. He holds his breath for as long as he can.

7. the inches we need

On the jet back to Calgary, Johnny drops into the spot across from Matthew and says, “Dude, I feel like I barely saw you this weekend.”

“You saw me,” Matthew says, which is true on the most technical of levels. “I dunno, I had a lot of family stuff.”

“You Tkachuks do love to stick together.” Johnny shrugs, kicking his feet up. He doesn’t seem bothered by any of this, just curious. “Well, I hope you had a good time, and, like, actually took a vacation instead of hanging around the rink all weekend. God knows you needed it, Chuck.”

When Matthew was planning the trip, Johnny offered him a spot on the jet right away, even though Matthew had been the slightest bit avoidant ever since that dinner with Sean and Johnny. Not cold-shouldering or anything, just steering clear of too much alone time. Matthew considered flying commercial anyway. He didn’t want to get cornered about his feelings again. He knows they mean well, and that they only worry because they care about him. All the same reasons his siblings worry about him. But god knows he’s talked about his feelings enough for one weekend.

He shrugs. “Hit the beach. Hit the golf course. Hit the bars. Sounds like a vacation to me.”

Johnny pats him on the knee. “Atta boy.”

Brady has been texting him since his own plane got in the air: If u wanna talk about it more u can call me anytime, he says. And, Its ok if u dont want to but if u do. u kno. And, Im glad u came this wkend sorry u had a shitty time tho.

Taryn, still at the Ft. Lauderdale airport with her friends, is sending all her photos from the trip to the family group chat. Notifications for them keep popping up in waves of four or five as she fights with the wi-fi. Matthew’s favorite is one of the two of them on the beach the first day, his arm hooked around her neck while she hugs him around the middle, both of them with wet hair and sand sticking to their legs and feet. He remembers one of Taryn’s friends — Lakelyn, maybe — telling them to pose. It might have been the best he felt all weekend.

It wasn’t all shitty, Matthew finally texts Brady back from somewhere over the prairies. Oklahoma or Nebraska or something. I’m glad I came too.

This is not entirely the truth, but not entirely a lie. It was a real mixed bag of a trip. But it was good to be with his family, and that counts for a lot.

Next yr both of us again 🤑🤑🤑, Brady says, which gets a snort from Matthew.

“Hm?” Johnny asks, cracking open one eye from where he’s dozing by the window.

“Just Brady being stupid,” Matthew says.

“Mmm.” Johnny laughs. “Not flirting?”

“Definitely not flirting,” Matthew verifies, and makes a show of going back to his phone, even though he’s all caught up. A minute later, though, a new bunch of pictures from Taryn comes through. Matthew scrolls, saving his favorites, until his stomach settles. There’s a good one of him and Taryn on either side of Brady under one of the big ASG signs; he posts it to his Instagram story, typing in bold white font under their feet, Proud of this All Star @bradytkachuk.

He fiddles with his phone for a minute, watching likes pop up on the new story, before texting Brady again: Did you tell taryn?

No but shes not stupid, Brady texts back.

Mom and dad?

No idea, Brady says. mom maybe. dad probably wouldnt even think to think of it lol

Matthew lets out the world’s longest breath.

Did you tell Q, he asks, half as a joke, but also because he can’t imagine Quinn not following up with Brady about the puking debacle. He’d texted to ask if Matthew was feeling okay the next day, and sent a smiley emoji when Matthew assured him he was better, thanks.

Brady says: I didnt tell him but hes also not stupid

Then: Also he likes guys too so i think he has a radar

Then: Dont worry he said i can tell u that

“Jesus,” Matthew mutters. Ok thanks, he texts.

Love u, Brady says.

Love you too, Matthew sends back dutifully.

The snowy ridges of the Rocky Mountains are starting to appear on the horizon. Even though Matthew has flown over them dozens of times, he takes a picture anyway, of the brown patchwork farmland that rolls up into mammoth peaks shrunk to miniature by the height of the plane, of the unfathomable vastness of the land below them. He lets himself think for one moment about how a couple of months ago he might have sent the snapshot to Leon, maybe with some witty caption, maybe with no caption at all. He would have hit the send button and sat there, fidgeting with his phone, waiting for a response that might not come for hours. Kind of pathetic, Tkachuk. Kind of pathetic.

He sends it to his family instead, typing into the group chat, Thinking about a family ski trip next year?

Yesssssssss, says Taryn.

⛷⛷⛷, says Brady.

That sounds wonderful honey, says their mom. Just promise to be nice when you beat your father down the slopes.

Haha no, says Brady.

Who says they will, says Keith.

If ur not first ur last dad, says Taryn.

After a long pause, Keith says, Did they move the middle finger emoji

Taryn: 🖕

Brady: 🖕🖕

Never mind your mom found it, Keith says, followed by, 🖕🖕🖕

Matthew’s chest feels very full and tight.

Love you guys, he sends.

Love you too baby, says Chantal.

***

This time, it’s easy not to think about it.

They don’t have their last game against the Oilers until March. That’s so much time to not think about it. Matthew unfollows McDavid on Instagram and changes Leon’s name in his contacts to Do Not Text. He is not the only Do Not Text in Matthew’s phone, which means finding him will hopefully be too annoying for sober Matthew and too difficult for drunk Matthew. One more game in March, and unless for some godforsaken reason they face off against each other in the playoffs again, he won’t have to look at or hear or think about or acknowledge the existence of Leon Draisaitl until next season, and by then, he will have found someone else willing to fuck him so hard he can’t think straight, and everything will be fine.

He told Brady it was a breakup. And while maybe that was not technically true, that’s what it feels like. Naming it like that, out loud, breakup — it helped, actually. It gave it a finality. Breakup. Over. Done. It’s not something that never happened. It happened, and it’s done. A fun little life experience that will never make it into a feature article or Tkachuk family puff piece.

To celebrate his newfound liberation from thinking about it, he talks Noah, Sean, and Johnny into going to a Wranglers game. He’s been meaning to catch one since Jakob got sent down a few weeks ago, which shouldn’t be hard, since they’re still in the same city, but somehow the game schedule never seems to work out. The planets finally align on a Tuesday night in mid-February, so the four of them pile into Sean’s SUV and head out to take in an American League matchup. It turns out to be a good one: the Heat steamrolls the visiting Roadrunners 7-2 with two goals from Jakob, including a sick deke on a breakaway. He’s flying out there, beaming as he hugs his teammates, and Matthew’s heart aches just a little bit as he watches from the stands. He wants the kid to be that happy in the big league. He wants him to score those big goals on the biggest stage, because he knows that’s what Jakob wants, too.

Matthew never spent any time in the AHL, but he can’t imagine he would have handled it so gracefully. He’s never been good at not getting what he wants. Though, if this season has been anything to go by, he’s not exactly great at the flip side, either.

After the game, they talk their way back to the dressing rooms with minimal effort, trading high-fives with a couple of trainers and a stray coach on their way. Kirkland, who’s been around for a few years, spots them down the hallway before they get to the home team’s room, hollering at them through cupped hands.

“It’s the big boooys!” he announces, slapping some hands when they get close. “Lemme grab Pelly for you. He was geeking out that Captain Chucky came to see him.”

“Aw,” says Noah. “Captain Chucklehead.” Matthew kicks him. The four of them loiter conspicuously for another half a minute until Jakob bursts out of the room, ready to dole out hugs.

“What’s up, guys?” he says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Matthew elbows his way in first to give him a good squeeze, lifting him into the air. Jakob pounds him on the back, laughing. “You picked a good game to come to, eh?”

“Yeah, looks like we might have to steal you back soon,” Sean says, clapping him on the shoulder. “Sick goal on the breakaway, man.”

“Thanks.” Jakob is beaming. His hair is still damp from the shower, and he looks much more like the bubbly guy who started the season out of camp than the frustrated one Matthew last saw at practice. “You know, I was so bummed to get sent down here, but it is nice to not feel like I suck for a while.”

“You never sucked,” Matthew says quickly. Jakob rolls his eyes.

“No, but when you feel like you suck it makes everything harder,” he says. “Like, hard to see the big picture, you know? I kept getting stuck on like, okay I need to score right now, but what is it really? I want to play in the NHL. If I have to come back here and figure some more stuff out first that’s not a big deal in the long run.”

“That is profound as shit, Pelly,” Johnny says, which makes Noah snort.

“And,” Jakob says proudly, turning to Matthew. “I’m not getting in my head about it.”

“Atta boy,” Matthew says, and reaches out to ruffle his hair until he yelps and ducks away.

On the way home, Sean drops Noah off first. With just the three of them in the SUV, Matthew can’t help the way his stomach turns nervously, especially when Sean and Johnny do that thing they do, exchanging glances in the front seats to have a wordless conversation that Matthew is not invited to. But when Johnny twists around in the passenger seat, he’s got an easy smile on.

“This was fun,” he says. “Very captainly idea for a night out, but still fun.”

“Oh, shut up,” Matthew says.

“And it gets you home in time for Mer to catch a nap before the midnight feeding,” Sean points out, eyes on the road.

“Yeah, that too,” Johnny says, swatting at Sean’s shoulder. Sean swats back, making Johnny laugh, and Matthew thinks suddenly, sharply of the summer, of being in the SUV with Rob and Brady, laughing and bickering and barrelling toward a red light, and how he wanted a C on his jersey so badly he’d convinced himself it was impossible.

He’s been captain for four months now. Things are going pretty well.

***

March comes as a surprise. Alberta is, just like every year, refusing to thaw, and so there are no hints of spring to denote the passage of time. Matthew sinks so deeply into the routine of the long, grinding stretch of the season that he hardly knows what day it is, until one day he looks up and February has been over for almost a week.

It was a good month, both for him personally and for the team. He hit thirty-five goals last week. At the beginning of the season, with his slow start, it seemed impossible that he could improve on last year’s numbers, but he just might get there after all, and that’s a huge weight off his shoulders. They are atop the Pacific once again, boxing out the Kings, who are doing their damnedest to catch them, but far enough ahead of the rest of the pack that only a real clusterfuck would give anyone else a shot. Edmonton and Vancouver are vying for that third slot, since the Central teams are once again hogging the wild card spots, and Matthew certainly has a preference there. He has taken to catching the Canucks highlights and texting Quinn when they have a particularly good night, and sometimes when they have a rough one.

not to jinx it but poor brady if we wind up playing each other, Quinn said one night when his team has once again found themselves in the three-seed spot. he won’t be able to text me for a week.

It is safe to assume, Matthew thinks, that Quinn knows what Brady told Matthew about him, even if neither of them has brought it up. Matthew doesn’t think it’s his place to bring it up, really, even though he is horribly curious about things like — when did he tell Brady? How did he tell Brady? Should Matthew have figured it out on his own, since the two of them are, you know, in the same boat? Matthew’s pretty good at figuring out when guys are down to fuck, but the obvious answer there is that Quinn is not interested in fucking him, which is overall a good thing, but a minor blow to Matthew’s ego. Taryn’s friends all think he’s the hot older brother.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. If Quinn wants to talk, they can talk, but it’s kind of nice to just have a quiet solidarity about it.

I’ll share him but only if you keep edmonton out of the playoffs, Matthew told him. Much easier said than done. Matthew’s general boycott of all things Oilers means he doesn’t know the details, but he is aware that they’ve been picking up steam in the homestretch in that annoying way they tend to do. When the Flames head north next week, it’ll be an important game for both clubs as they jockey for their desired positions in the standings.

And that’s all it’s going to be.

He really has been good at not thinking about it. He slips up sometimes when he’s jerking off and his brain wants to turn to the memory of Leon’s fingers in his hair, or Leon’s cock splitting him open, or the soft, wanting noises Leon made around Matthew’s dick in that hotel room in Florida. About Leon’s insistent mouth on his, or Leon carefully wiping come off Matthew’s eyelid. Leon’s hands around his throat. The way the desperation for air is the only thing that could ever match Matthew’s stupid, inexplicable desperation for Leon. But Matthew has learned to push those away quickly before they can take root. Besides, he has plenty of other shit to focus on.

So he does not count down the days until they go to Edmonton. When it’s time, he gets on the plane and spends the fifty-minute flight watching an episode of Peaky Blinders with Noah. He goes to dinner with Blake and the Swedes, then crawls into bed early and stares up at the ceiling in the dark.

And then he thinks about it.

His fingers itch for his phone. It would be so easy. Just a quick you up? that would probably get ignored, but maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe Leon is lying awake thinking the same thing. Maybe Leon is waiting for him to text. Maybe Leon will be pissed at him for not texting. Hell, Matthew’s still pissed at Leon for how he acted in Florida, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still want him. Refusing to think about it doesn’t mean there’s not still a stupid, hopeless part of him that’s pathetically hung up on this.

This is why he doesn’t think about it. Once he starts, it’s impossible to stop.

He doesn’t even have to text. He could just check Instagram. See if Leon’s posted anything in the past month. Try to read in his face in the photos if he feels even the slightest bit bad about kicking Matthew out like that. Or maybe he just thinks they’re even now.

“God, Tkachuk, get over it,” he groans, rubbing his hands over his face, and then reaches for his phone anyway. Just past 11pm — that’s one in the morning, eastern time, but still worth a shot.

You still up? he texts Brady, then goes back to staring at the ceiling until he gets a response.

Yeah sup, Brady says.

Matthew waffles for a moment, then hits the call button. Brady answers on the first ring.

“Hey, everything okay?” he asks, his voice creased with concern. It really sucks that worrying is everyone’s first reaction to Matthew nowadays.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, sorry, I just. You know how sometimes you just really need someone to say, don’t text your ex?”

Brady laughs. “Do you need me to tell you don’t text your ex? Don’t text him, Matt. You deserve better, etcetera, etcetera.”

“God, I really want to, though.” Matthew sighs, pushing fingers through his curls.

“Don’t do it, bro. Love yourself,” Brady says, then, after a moment of hesitation, “Is this, uh, the same one from before? The one you were talking about in Florida?”

“Yeah.”

“Man, you’re really hung up on him, huh?”

“Yeah.” Matthew closes his eyes. Takes a breath that’s only a little shaky. “Yeah, it fucking sucks.”

“I’m sorry.” Brady really does sound sorry, and not in a pitying way. In a way where he wishes he could help, which makes Matthew’s heart feel strange and tight. He’s so used to holding his cards close to his chest that peeling them back to let someone have a glimpse now is physically painful, but it’s better than being alone with his thoughts. Better than giving in and texting Leon.

“I’ll survive,” he says, and swallows hard. “Just, you know, kind of going through it right now.”

“Yeah.” Brady falls quiet for a minute. Matthew doesn’t know what else to say, so he just lets the silence simmer until Brady says, “Hey, Matthew?”

“What’s up?”

“I’m really glad you’re talking to me about this.” Matthew squeezes his eyes shut tighter at the softness in Brady’s voice. “I guess for a long time I thought you just didn’t trust me to be cool about it or something. Not to make it about me or anything, but. I’m just glad.”

“Yeah,” Matthew says, thick around the lump in his throat. “Yeah, I, uh. I haven’t talked to anyone about this one, and I think I kind of needed to. So thanks, I guess.”

“Of course,” Brady says. “Can I, uh. Look, I know this is hard for you, but it’s literally killing me trying not to be nosy, so you gotta throw me a bone here. How long were you seeing this guy?”

“Off and on since the summer.” There’s no point in being mysterious at this point. It’s weirdly easy to make it sound like something resembling a real relationship instead of a series of ill-advised hookups. Like something worth being this messed up about.

“Geez, you really did keep that locked down.” Brady sounds impressed, but also a little sad. Matthew shrugs, even though they can’t see each other.

“Yeah, well, sometimes it’s easier that way.”

“I guess,” Brady says, in that tone that means he understands on a technical level but doesn’t get it, not really. Which, why would he? But it’s fine. Matthew doesn’t need him to get it, and he doesn’t really want him to have to get it, anyway. Brady clears his throat. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Depends on the question.” Knowing Brady, he probably has a whole list of questions he’s been sitting on.

“If you, like— I feel kind of shitty asking this given the current situation but, whatever, okay, so like.” Brady huffs. “If you hadn’t broken up. If you really liked this guy. Would you have, like, brought him home? I don’t know, I guess this is a pretty selfish thing to ask, but how serious would it have to be before we got to know?”

“God, Brady, I don’t know,” Matthew says with a sigh. He switches to speaker and puts the phone on his chest, because that feels easier, somehow. Like he’s just talking into the dark instead of talking to Brady. “I’ll figure it out when it happens, I guess. It’s not, you know, it’s not about not trusting you or whatever. It’s just, I dunno, all our lives we’ve pictured our futures, you know? Playing in the NHL, marrying a great girl and raising a family, just like Dad. It’s how I always saw it, and I know it’s how Mom and Dad always saw things for me, too, and so I’ve always kind of felt like — I don’t know, maybe this is stupid, but like as soon as we talk about it, as soon as I bring someone home, that dream is gone. Even if it goes okay, it’ll still be like, well, it’s not really what we expected or wanted. And that just kind of sucks.”

He doesn’t mean to say all of this. It’s just when he opens his mouth to start talking, it all kind of tumbles out, and when he runs out of steam, there’s a long pause from Brady’s end. Matthew tries to swallow the lump in his throat and only halfway succeeds.

“Okay,” Brady finally says, slowly, like he’s still working through his thoughts. “I can definitely see how that would suck. But you’re also right that it’s stupid. No offense.”

Matthew opens his mouth again, then shuts it. “Excuse me?”

“I’m serious. Honestly, I think Taryn was onto something when she said I should put you in touch with my therapist.”

Matthew is going to kill Taryn.

“I don’t know if you get to judge how stupid it is,” he snaps.

“Well, okay, yeah, maybe, but first of all, by your logic, you would only ever have secret boyfriends for your whole life, and maybe it’s just me but that sounds like a pretty fucking miserable solution. Second of all — no, let me finish,” he says when Matthew tries to interrupt. “Second of all, Mom and Dad? Like you won’t always be Mom’s favorite no matter what. I dunno, maybe it’ll be kind of weird at first, but isn’t that still better than literally never sharing that part of your life with us? We all want you to be happy. Like, not to be dramatic but if I ever meet this guy that has you calling me at one in the morning because you’re so fucking miserable over him, I am taking him the fuck out. But that’s not the point. The point is, fuck, I don’t know. You know you don’t have to be Big Walt 2.0 for us to love you, right?”

Matthew’s eyes are wet. He blinks, and two fat, hot tears roll from the corners of his eyes down his temples. On the other end of the line, a muffled voice says something in the background.

“What? No, everything’s fine.” Brady says, farther away, like he’s put the phone down for a second. “No, I’m just talking to Matthew. Yeah, I will. Yeah, goodnight.” Into the phone again: “Sorry about that. Matthew?”

“I’m here,” Matthew croaks.

“Good. Uh, Josh says hi. Sorry I kind of went off on you there.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Matthew is concentrating much more on getting himself under control than what Brady is saying. He squeezes his eyes shut until the threat of tears wanes, taking slow, even breaths.

“Matthew,” Brady says. He sounds a little choked up, too, which doesn’t help the feelings situation at all. “You’re my big brother. You’re the best big brother in the world, and I love you so much. No matter what. Okay?”

“Okay,” Matthew manages. “Yeah, okay.”

“Matthew.”

A weird, wet laugh escapes from Matthew’s throat. “Yeah, I love you, too.”

“Atta boy.” Brady lets out a gust of a breath, like he’s been holding it this whole time. “Okay, so do I get to beat this guy up or what? Taryn won’t let me beat up her suitors. Throw me a bone here.”

Matthew snorts, scrubbing the tear tracks on his temples away. “Unfortunately, I don’t think violence is the answer here.”

Derisively, but fondly: “You sound like Quinn.”

“Yeah, well, he’s a smart kid.” His voice is not entirely steady yet, but Matthew can at least speak in full sentences without feeling like he might puke now. “No, it’s just like, I can’t tell you who he is this time. I would if I could, I swear. Just not this time. And besides—” He stops to swallow. “I think it was kind of my fault.”

“Bullshit,” Brady says. “You’ve never done anything wrong in your life.”

Matthew groans. “God, I wish that were true.”

“Okay, new plan then,” says Brady. “You apologize, and if he doesn’t take you back, then I get to beat him up.”

“Not gonna happen,” Matthew says. “This one’s over. It wasn’t even—” that big a deal, but he can’t say that, not when Brady’s witnessed him so torn up about it. “It was a bad idea to start with, and it was fucking with my game anyway, so. I’m just trying to get over it.”

“Well,” Brady says, like he’s turning it over in his head. “Maybe you should apologize anyway. It might make you feel better.”

“Yeah, maybe.” There’s no point in explaining how useless that would be. Matthew doesn’t feel like arguing about it. “Look, I’m gonna try to get some sleep. Thanks for, uh.” For not being weird about it. For saying I’m a good brother even though I’m a mess. For thinking I’m worth fighting for. “Just, thanks.”

“Yeah,” says Brady. “Hey, thanks for calling.”

They hang up, and Matthew lays in the dark, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what he wants and what he can have and what he can’t have. About Taryn asking are you taken? as they floated in the Atlantic Ocean. About the way his dad looks when he’s actually proud. About how he bought a house in St. Louis that’s too big for one person on purpose; about how he’s never been to Germany; about how it’s probably nice there in the summer. About Leon, sweaty and sun-warmed, and the music in the distance fading as they walk away from the festival in search of a t-shirt, the crunch of gravel under their feet, the dust on their ankles, the tan line at the waistband of Leon’s shorts, the blue of his eyes and the sly curve of his mouth, and how Matthew should have known then, from the way he couldn’t stop looking, that he didn’t stand a chance.

***

During warm-ups, Matthew keeps his head down, going through his routine like it’s any other game. Stretching, puck-handling, annoying his teammates by stealing pucks. No material for the talking heads this time. When he does give into the temptation to glance over to the home team’s end, Leon is right there, and he’s not giving Matthew so much as a passing glance.

Twenty-four hours ago, he would have told himself it doesn’t matter, buckled down, and played the damn hockey game. But now he has Brady in his head saying maybe you should apologize anyway, and the sinking feeling that maybe he’s right.

Matthew’s not good at apologizing. He’s still pissed about Florida, and he thinks Leon’s whole reaction to being told to leave Matthew’s apartment was kind of overblown anyway. But underneath the anger, he just aches. He doesn’t want to spend the rest of his career feeling this fucked up every time they play each other.

When they line up for the opening faceoff together, Matthew glides up to his spot on the circle, giving Leon a nudge. Leon stares toward center ice, his jaw tightening.

“Hey,” Matthew says.

“Fuck off,” Leon says. When the puck drops, he jabs the butt end of his stick into Matthew’s gut as they both scramble after it. Matthew wheezes and abandons his plans for reconciliation.

To no one’s surprise, the game opens with big hits from both sides and just gets rougher from there. McDavid opens the scoring, and Foegele gets a weird one that banks in off his shin pads, but Matthew tips in a point shot from Tanev and then Johnny scores on a puck-over-glass powerplay, so there’s barely even time to despair about being down.

At intermission, Matthew stands up in the locker room and reminds everyone how good it’ll feel to end the season series against these guys on a win, tells them that all they need to do is stick to their game and they can make it happen. Coach Sutter pounds him on the back as they head back out for the middle frame, saying, “Atta boy, Chucky, go get ‘em,” and Matthew has one of those rare moments where he feels like he’s doing everything right. Yes, he has shit going on, but he’s saving it for after the game. Yeah, they’re not winning, but they’re not losing, either, and every guy in the room knows they can pull it out.

Two minutes into the second, Matthew catches an Oilers defenseman flat-footed, dekes into the slot, and rips a shot off over Smith’s right shoulder. A minute after that, McDavid gets his second of the night off of a sweet pass from Leon. Marky is pissed about it, yelling about blown coverage in front, so Matthew does a little yelling about coverage himself, and the team locks it down. They settle into a rhythm, back and forth, every shot at one end straight into a rush the other way. It’s exhausting but exhilarating — the best kind of hockey.

Almost the entire period goes by like that. No whistles. Refs have decided to let ‘em play, apparently, and Matthew takes full advantage of that, which pisses a lot of Oilers off, but, whatever, it’s not like anyone is stopping them from getting their own hits and slashes in. The game is moving so fast that everyone is scrambling to keep up, even McDavid, but no one wants to slow down in case it gives the other guys a chance to regroup. Matthew is panting every time he returns to the bench, but he would rather have this than boring hockey any day.

Backlund breaks the stalemate with a few minutes left in the period, his wrister banking off Smith and in. They get thirty seconds of a breather as the guys fly by the bench, and then it’s right back out there, just as fast, maybe faster, as the Oilers scramble for an equalizer before the buzzer.

Matthew’s at the end of a shift, but they’re stuck in their own end. His midseason legs aren’t jelly yet, but they will be after another period of this. Lindy’s gotten ahold of the puck and tried to clear it twice only to be thwarted by well-placed Oilers sticks. Even just a few feet over the blue line would give Matthew time to go for a change, which would be great, because he is maybe thirty seconds from starting to be more of a liability than an asset.

But then the puck pops free, squirting past everybody into the neutral zone. Everything freezes for a moment, and Matthew can see, if he hustles, the clear line to a breakaway.

He sprints for the puck with screaming muscles. A stick slashes at his own, trying to knock away his attempt to corral it. Someone is on him like a gnat, step for step, full speed, and he has to give up on cutting toward the net as they careen toward the end boards, tangled up in their pursuit. The end of a stick catches him hard in the ribs, and he twists furiously just before they hit the glass. His elbow thwacks against hard plastic. The body next to his crumples. The referee’s whistle is barely audible over the incensed roar of the crowd.

And then the fighting breaks out.

“What the fuck, man?” McDavid cross-checks Matthew hard in the chest before he’s even regained his balance. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Get the fuck off me!” Matthew snaps, shoving him, but then he catches the problem out of the corner of his eye.

Leon is on the ice, on his knees and elbows, holding his head.

“What the fuck?” McDavid spits again, getting one gloved shot in to Matthew’s face before Nurse gets between them, cutting McDavid out of the scuffle. Nurse gets two good shoves and a facewash in before there are officials between them, too, one holding back Nurse and McDavid while the other guides Matthew away. Johnny is struggling with Bouchard nearby; Noah and Hyman have each other at an arm’s length.

“Keep your fucking head up!” yells Nurse. “You better keep your fucking head up!”

Matthew barely hears him. Leon is still on the ice.

***

Of course, when you send one of a team’s best guys down the tunnel with a head injury, they’re gonna want to fight. Matthew’s penalty keeps him off the ice for the rest of the period, so they even have a whole intermission to stew about all the ways they’re going to pound his head in. Usually, he’d use that to his advantage. Guys get sloppy when they’re pissed off.

“Just get it over with,” Sutter says as he sends Matthew over the boards in the third. Matthew lines up dutifully on the circle next to Kassian.

“You know we’re gonna fuckin’ go, right?” says Kassian.

“Yeah, whatever,” Matthew says.

It’s probably survival instincts that get him through it. Maybe this is what people mean when they talk about an out-of-body experience. It’s like he’s been shrunk down to a single point, living behind his own eyes and watching himself throw punches. He thinks he gets a few good ones in. Kassian lands an uppercut that leaves his left ear ringing, a jab to the mouth that sends his mouthguard flying and splits his lip, and before Matthew can process anything else, the officials are pulling them apart again. Matthew doesn’t know how long the fight was. He’s pretty sure he didn’t win it. Sitting in the box afterward, he picks at the scrapes on his knuckles and cannot recall throwing the punches that caused them.

They do pull out the win. The only goal in the final frame is Noah’s empty-netter.

The mood in the room afterward is rowdy. Guys are making plans to go out, shouting, slapping asses and socking shoulders. Sitting in his stall, Matthew collects a dozen hearty pats on the back and a sweaty smooch on the head from Sean.

“Coming out with us, Chuck?” Johnny asks, then, frowning, “Hey, you okay? Hey. How many fingers?”

Matthew pushes Johnny’s hand out of his face.

“I’m not concussed, I’m fine. I promise,” he adds. He’s tender and swollen around his right cheekbone and along his jaw — it’s definitely going to bruise — and his lip is starting to scab, but he’s had way worse. Johnny only looks more dubious, but Matthew is saved by one of the coaches calling his name for media availability.

Great.

He sits down at the table on the dais with Marky, adjusting the towel around his shoulders, and offers rote answers to all the rote questions. He doesn’t have it in him to be buoyant about the win, and tries not to visibly sigh with relief anytime a question is for Marky instead of him. He can’t even focus on the faces of the media members in front of him. He can’t focus on anything. He folds the corner of the game sheet in on itself in tiny increments, over and over, then tries to smooth it out again.

“Talk to us about that hit on Draisaitl,” one of them says. “What happened there, what was going through your mind?”

“Uh,” Matthew says. His voice sticks, so he tries to swallow, but his mouth is dry, and just ends up coughing instead. “Not a lot. Just, you know, it was a really high-speed play, and obviously I wish I didn’t catch him up high, and I hope he’s okay.” He pauses and looks up, a little too quickly. “Does anyone, uh — have they said how he is?”

“Woodcroft said they were still evaluating,” the first guy says.

“Earlier this season, one of their guys hit Johnny Gaudreau up high and he was out for a couple of weeks,” another one says. “Some people might say your teams are even now.”

“Absolutely not. I don’t think of it like that at all. No one who takes this game seriously thinks like that,” Matthew says. The corner of the game sheet tears in his fingers. He covers it with his hand, like he might get in trouble for it. “Um, I was really pissed after that hit on Johnny, and Leon, you know, Leon reached out to make sure he was okay. And he said to me, yeah, it sucks, but you know shit like that happens in hockey sometime. We’re professionals, we understand that. Sometimes you get heated in the moment when it happens, but you don’t hold it against each other afterward. So I think if you asked him now he’d probably say the same thing. Or, you know, I hope he’d say the same thing. Probably easier when it’s not your guy getting hit.”

Marky touches his bouncing knee under the table, and Matthew shuts up.

When they’re done, making their way back to the locker room, Marky says, “I didn’t know you and Draisaitl were close.”

“We’re not,” Matthew says, wiping his face on his towel.

“He called you about Johnny?” Marky sounds skeptical.

“Yeah, well.”

“Are you okay, Chucky?”

“Yeah,” Matthew says, but his feet stop of their own volition. His whole brain feels like it’s made of static. “Sorry, I’m just going to—”

He turns on his heel and walks in the opposite direction as fast as he can without breaking into a run. He’s going to see Leon, is what he’s going to do. To see that he’s okay, and make sure he knows it was an accident. Just one of those shitty things that happens in hockey sometimes. He can hate Matthew all he wants for whatever other reasons, but not for this.

He doesn’t get within five yards of the home team dressing room before Kassian, coming down the corridor from the other direction, spots him.

“Oh, hell no,” says Kassian. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“Look, I’m not here to make trouble,” Matthew says, which makes him more like a character in an action flick than a real person having a real conversation.

“Sure you’re not,” says Kassian. “Because you’re leaving. I already beat your ass once today, don’t make me do it again.”

They’re not alone in the corridor. There’s a handful of people Matthew doesn’t recognize, an Oilers trainer on his phone. Zach Hyman is standing with a small group that must be family or friends. He was chatting happily up until a moment ago; now he’s bouncing a toddler on his hip and eyeing this confrontation warily.

“Where’s Draisaitl?” Matthew asks.

“What part of ‘get out of here’ don’t you understand?” asks Kassian. Matthew clenches his jaw, trying to keep his voice even and reasonable.

“If you could just tell him I’m here—”

“In your dreams, asshole.”

Out of the corner of Matthew’s eye, he sees Hyman hand the kid off to a woman in his group and slip into the locker room.

“Look,” says Matthew. “Just tell him I’m here, and then I’ll leave and you won’t have to deal with me anymore.”

Kassian rolls his eyes. “What makes you think he gives a shit what you have to say?”

Matthew takes a breath to respond, hackles raised, when McDavid sticks his shower-damp head into the hallway. His frown and furrowed brow are all concern until he spots Matthew and his expression turns stony.

“Everything okay out here?” McDavid asks, his eyes fixed on Matthew even though the question is for Kassian.

“It’s fine,” says Kassian. “Just telling this rat to go back to his side of the rink.”

Matthew barely resists the urge to stomp in frustration. “If you could just tell him I’m here—”

“He’s fine,” McDavid says. “They just kept him out of the third to be cautious. But I don’t think he wants to talk to you.”

He says all of this with an air of aggressive ennui, the way he speaks to the media when they’re cycling through all the same questions after a routine loss. If looks could kill, though, Matthew would be dead where he stands.

“Fine,” he says. “Thanks for nothing.”

***

There’s no good excuse to get out of going out with the guys, so once he’s changed he lets himself be herded into an Uber XL and shuttled to a swanky downtown bar. They get bottle service this time. The boys are buzzing. Someone puts a shot in Matthew’s hand, and he drinks it. The empty shot glass is replaced with a drink, and he drinks that, too. When he’s almost done with his second one, someone pushes a cold glass of water into his free hand, slick with condensation, and he holds that gingerly against his bruised face instead of drinking it.

“You sure you’re okay?” Johnny shouts over the music, tapping his own head with his knuckles. “Those were some brutal hits he got in.”

“He’s worried about Draisaitl,” Marky supplies, reaching between them to grab a glass off the table.

“Draisaitl?” Johnny pulls a face. “They said he’s fine.”

“You believe them?” Marky asks, eyebrows raised, but then he ruffles Matthew’s hair. “Shake it off, captain. Not your fault.”

He withdraws into the crowd, and Matthew is left staring into the dregs of his drink. Leon hasn’t texted, even though surely someone has told him that Matthew came looking for him. Maybe he’s too concussed to look at a screen. Matthew’s dad texted to tell him that his fight sucked but the tip-in goal was good. His mom texted to say Great game sweetheart!! But take care of your face please!! ❤😘, and Brady and Taryn have filled the Tkachat with fire emojis about his second goal. He should talk to Taryn soon. Even if she maybe kind of knows already, he can only make Brady keep a secret from her for so long.

“Chucky.” Johnny is waving his hand in front of Matthew’s face. “Seriously, dude, you keep spacing out. Do you need a quiet room?”

“I’m fine,” Matthew says firmly. He just can’t shake the feeling that people keep glaring at him. It’s always a crapshoot, going out in a city right after you beat their team, especially in Edmonton, but.

“See, you’re saying that— oof.” Johnny is cut off by the appearance of Sean, draping himself over Johnny’s shoulders from behind and pressing his face into Johnny’s hair. This does not deter him. “Monny, tell Chucky that if he’s concussed he has to tell me. It’s the law.”

“It is the law,” Sean agrees. He squints at Matthew and reaches out to poke at the swollen part of his face. Matthew lets this happen with only a small wince, and tries not to think about Leon touching his bruised eye so, so carefully, just before he kissed him that first time, because if he thinks about that, he might throw up. “Shit, that asshole got you good.”

“Yeah, not my best fight.”

“Yeah, well, Kassian’s always looking for an excuse to punch you in the face.”

Matthew snorts and rolls his eyes. “Well, I sure gave him one.”

If he could have just caught Leon’s eye before he got off the ice. Just for a second. Leon would know it wasn’t on purpose. He would have seen it on Matthew’s face.

“See what I mean?” Johnny says to Sean. “He keeps fucking spacing out.” To Matthew: “It’s the law.”

“I’m fine,” Matthew says, mashing his palm against Johnny’s face to slide past the pair of them. “I’m gonna go get some water.”

“Bring back a pitcher!” Sean calls after him.

Matthew does fully intend to get some water, but what he really wants is a minute to check his phone privately. He tucks himself into a corner near the bar and squints at the lack of new messages.

“Come the fuck on,” he says. He’s about one drink away from saying fuck it and texting Leon first. It wouldn’t count as caving, he thinks, under the circumstances. Right? Caving would be if he didn’t have a good reason. He has a pretty damn good reason. Not that it would matter if Leon is too concussed to look at a screen.

Matthew doesn’t want him to be too concussed to look at a screen. He doesn’t want him to be concussed at all. He wants to go back in time and take back that elbow the same way he wants to take back jerking away the night he kicked Leon out of his apartment and everything got all fucked up. When he thinks about it, he can still feel the panic rising in his throat like bile, but what if he had choked it down and let it happen? The problem was — he’s had a lot of time to think about this, a lot of time to try and fail to convince himself otherwise — the problem was he’d liked it too much, liked what it might mean too much, but one easy kiss wouldn’t have had to mean anything the same way Leon’s dick in his mouth never had to mean anything. If he had just been fucking normal about it, maybe Leon would have stayed over, just the once. Maybe they would have spent the All-Star Weekend tangled up in Leon’s hotel bed while Matthew invented excuses to skip family dinners and Leon made up reasons not to go out with McDavid. Maybe he would be at Leon’s house right now.

He meant it when he told Leon that he missed him. Maybe Leon doesn’t give a fuck, but he really did mean it.

Matthew’s head hurts. Honestly, Johnny is right. He probably shouldn’t be in a bar with strobe lights and pounding music. It’s too hard to put coherent thoughts together.

Leon has posted to Instagram exactly twice in the past month, he discovers, because he has no willpower. One is a snapshot from a game, him and his teammates celebrating on the ice. Leon looks happy, because of course he does, he just scored a goal. The other is of Bowie, snoozing on the couch, his little pink tongue poking out. Livin the life 💤, says the caption. Liked by bradytkachuk and others.

Fuck if the kid doesn’t commit to his bits to a truly annoying level. With a sigh, Matthew taps through to make sure that this hasn’t gone too far. He can’t imagine Leon would be following Brady back, after everything that went down, but—

But. Right there at the top. Following: matthew_tkachuk.

Matthew’s stomach lurches. He presses a hand against his throbbing eye even though it makes it hurt worse.

“What the fuck?” he says, the words lost in the music.

Matthew doesn’t have notifications for people following him turned on, so this could have happened at any time. Probably back when things were going well between them, and Matthew just didn’t notice. That would make the most sense. That’s the only time Leon might have given a shit about what Matthew was posting. Still, Matthew did everything he could to cleanse his feed of anything that might remind him of Leon, and Leon — maybe he just didn’t care enough to unfollow. Or he just forgot. It’s not like Matthew has posted recently anyway.

Matthew stares at the picture of Bowie for a long time before he convinces himself to close the app, but then he keeps staring at his phone in his hands. Staring at that little bar across the top, that empty space where new text notifications would show up. His head is spinning. Maybe Leon forgot to unfollow, but what if it’s on purpose? What if he’s still waiting? Still hoping that Matthew will do something? Matthew’s face aches where Kassian punched him. Brady is in his head, saying, maybe you should apologize anyway. And that was before he clocked Leon in the helmet with an elbow. God, he didn’t try very hard, did he? Argued for two minutes and let Connor fucking McDavid send him away. He’s supposed to be stubborn and annoying and instead he’s out here folding like a house of cards when what he really wants is—

Ice-cold water hits Matthew right in the chest.

Or. Not water. Stickier than water.

“What the fuck?” he gasps, shocked back to reality. The perpetrator is in front of him, laughing with an empty cup in hand.

“Whoops, sorry!” the guy says loudly. “My bad, bro!”

“Jesus Christ, seriously?” Matthew shakes the liquid off his phone, off his hands. There’s a girl on the guy’s arm, rolling her eyes and tugging him away. “What the hell, dude?”

“Sorry, man, totally an accident!” His tone implies heavily that this is not true. Someone nearby giggles loudly, and someone else is shoving a handful of bar napkins at Matthew.

“Thanks,” Matthew says in the general direction of the hand with napkins, then calls, “Hey, fuck you, man!” but the guy has already disappeared into the crowd.

“That was fucked up,” someone to his left says; another wad of bar napkins appears under his nose from the right.

“I mean, after the game tonight—” someone else says.

“It was a fucking accident!” Matthew snaps. All the gossiping eyes turn to him. He takes a breath. He does not need a scene here. The last fucking thing he needs is a scene. “Sorry. Shit, I just — fuck, was that Jack and Coke? It’s so sticky.” He can smell it, the sugar and caramelly alcohol. To the girl with the napkins: “Thank you, really, but I think I need a whole shower at this point.” To the entire gaping crowd: “Excuse me, I’m just gonna—”

Get out of here. He’s getting the fuck out of here.

He is out on the sidewalk before he stops to take stock of the damage. The entire front of his button-down is a dark, wet blotch. His chest and neck are sticky where it splashed on his skin. Fucking Christ. What is wrong with people? God, Leon would have a fucking field day with what just happened. Matthew could post about it; Leon would see. Maybe then Leon would text him. God. Fuck. Fuck.

It’s cold. He left his coat inside, and he’s not drunk enough to be immune to the chill. His head is pounding now, his ears ringing in the relative quiet of the city at night. He touches his swollen cheekbone, gingerly, and is blindsided by the memory of that moment before Leon kissed him the first time, hovering so close their lips would have touched if either of them breathed too hard. His nervous fingertips on Matthew’s bruised face, the soft nudge of his nose, and Matthew, lying there, waiting, hoping, scared out of his mind, and asking for it anyway.

8. the soul, the sweet spot, and soft-core pornography

Leon’s street is dead quiet when the Hyundai Sonata that Matthew is hunched in the back of turns onto it twenty minutes later. There is not enough leg room in the car. He’s still damp and sticky, and the throbbing in his head has lessened but not entirely abated. It took the Uber six minutes to get to him, during which time he texted Johnny that he was going back to the hotel to sleep off his headache, and then texted him again to please grab his coat for him. The driver has not been easy on the brakes, leaving Matthew vaguely nauseous, but Matthew thanks him as he climbs out of the car anyway.

There’s an SUV in the driveway and a light on in the living room. Matthew pauses halfway up the front walk, so tempted to turn around, but the Uber is already disappearing around the corner. He would have to call another one, and standing in the street waiting for it sounds like the worst of the available options.

“Get it together, Tkachuk,” he mutters, and forges onward.

Zach Hyman answers the door.

“Uh,” he says.

Matthew, hugging himself with his arms crossed over his chest, says, “Please tell me Leon is here.”

“What the fuck happened to you?” Hyman asks, with more than a little genuine distress.

“Well, first there was this hockey game,” Matthew starts, and Hyman shakes his head, ushering him inside. It did not occur to Matthew, but between the bruised face and the stained shirt and the lack of a jacket in early March, he is probably not coming off as put-together, or even particularly sane. But whatever. He takes his shoes off as Hyman closes the door behind him, lining them up against the inside wall next to the boots Leon uses to take Bowie out when it snows.

“Is that Davo?” Leon calls from the living room.

“Uh, no, it’s not,” Hyman calls back, eyeing Matthew with more confusion than suspicion. “It’s Matthew Tkachuk.”

A long silence in response, which only makes Hyman’s brow furrow further. Matthew pats him on the shoulder and heads for the living room.

Leon is pushing himself up off the couch, but when he sees Matthew, he drops back into his seat, looking stunned. Other than that, he seems okay — he’s not visibly woozy; the TV is on with the volume turned down low; no braces or bruises or bandages. Far from the catastrophe Matthew had envisioned. He looks cozy in his hoodie and joggers. Bowie is sleeping on the cushion next to him. There’s a mug of something hot on the end table.

“I was worried about you,” Matthew says.

“I’m fine,” says Leon.

Matthew says, “Yeah, well, I’m not.”

The pain in his head has become a pulsing ache behind his eye, but that’s not what he’s talking about.

“Yeah,” Leon says. “You look like shit.”

“It’s been a rough night.”

Leon raises both eyebrows.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Hyman says. “But what the heck is going on?”

The corner of Leon’s mouth twitches.

“He was worried about me,” he says.

“Team doc wanted someone to stay with him overnight just as a precaution,” Hyman tells Matthew, then stops and shakes himself, putting his hands up. “Why am I explaining this to you? No offense.” To Leon: “Why am I explaining this to him?”

“Wait, is Connor coming over, too?” Matthew asks. That could end poorly. McDavid is not happy with him right now.

Leon shrugs. “He doesn’t have to.”

“Do you want me to text him?” Hyman asks. Then, to Matthew: “Seriously, why are you here? And what’s on your shirt?”

“I think it was a Jack and Coke,” says Matthew. “One of your people threw it on me at the bar defending this guy’s honor.” He jerks his head toward Leon, who snorts loudly enough that Bowie stirs, blinking awake.

“You hear that, Bärchen?” Leon asks, scratching the top of Bowie’s head. “Best fans in the league.”

“Okay, you’re clearly fine,” Matthew says, forgetting for a moment how bruised his face is when he goes to rub it. “Ow, shit. I’ll just fuck off then, huh?”

“No, don’t,” says Leon.

“Should I fuck off?” Hyman asks, more to the universe at large than anyone in particular. He pauses, then turns fully to Matthew, his brow creased with concern. “Someone really threw a drink on you?”

“Yeah, but it’s fine.” Matthew shrugs, hooking his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans and glancing nervously at Leon. “It might kind of make us even.”

Leon holds Matthew’s gaze, biting his lip, then says without looking away, “Zach, can you go grab Matthew a clean shirt to borrow? Just whatever from my dresser is fine.”

“One Oilers shirsey, coming right up.” Hyman laughs a bemused laugh, shaking his head, and heads for the stairs. The silence in the room once he’s gone stretches thin and taut, and Leon pushes himself to his feet. Maybe Matthew is making up how he seems a little unsteady. Maybe because Matthew doesn’t feel quite steady himself.

“You could have texted,” Leon says, wiggling his fingers for Bowie to follow him. The dog hops off the couch to trot at Leon’s ankles as he heads for the kitchen.

“You haven’t answered my texts since January,” Matthew says after him, then belatedly follows, too, because why the fuck not.

“Yeah, well, you weren’t hitting me in the head in January either.” When Matthew catches up, Leon is bending to reach into a lower cabinet. He steadies himself against the counter when he straightens up with a half-empty bag of dog food. Matthew opens his mouth to tell him to be careful, then shuts it at the withering look Leon gives him.

“You know I didn’t mean to do that,” he says instead. “I tried to come find you afterward.”

“I know. I’m not mad at you about that.” Leon says this like it’s obvious. Kibble pellets clank and rattle into Bowie’s food bowl as he fills it; Bowie digs in before he’s even done pouring. Leon sets the bag of food on the island instead of putting it back in the cabinet. “Did someone punch you at the bar, too, or is that from the game?”

“Don’t be a dick,” Matthew says.

“I’m not trying to be a dick.” Leon finally stops moving long enough to look Matthew in the eye, one hand on his hip, the other on the edge of the counter. They’re closer together than they were in the living room, so now Matthew can see the tired lines of Leon’s face and the color high in his cheeks, and he wants so badly to reach for him. Leon sighs, looking pained. “You’re here, okay, you feel bad, I get it. So how long before you remember I actually like you and you bolt like that’s the worst thing I could possibly do?”

Matthew stares. “I — what?”

“I’m saying, how about you don’t be a dick?” Leon rubs a hand over his face, raking his fingers back through his hair, looking up and blinking rapidly. “Fuck.”

“Leon,” Matthew starts, but he can’t focus. His head hurts, and his brain is going in too many directions at once. “I— you—”

“Okay, one clean shirt for Captain Tkachuk!” Hyman’s voice rings out from the other room, followed shortly by, “Hey, where’d you boys go?”

Leon swallows visibly before raising his voice. “We’re in here.”

Hyman reappears to toss Matthew a plain black t-shirt.

“I dug around a little to try to find that St. Louis shirt you have,” he says to Leon. “You know, St. Louis shirt for the St. Louis kid. Didn’t see it though.”

Leon squints at the ceiling. “Yeah, I think it’s in the dirty laundry.”

Hyman laughs. “Well, this one doesn’t have Oilers logos on it, and that’s probably what’s really important, so.”

“Thanks for that,” Matthew says in a surprisingly level voice, considering he’s not sure he remembers how to breathe.

“Zach,” Leon says abruptly. “You can go home if you want. Since he’s here, and I’m fine anyway.”

“‘I’m fine,’ he says,” Hyman deadpans to Matthew with a fond roll of his eyes, then jerks his head toward the other room. “Leo.”

Leon puts on his most long-suffering expression and shuffles back to the living room to have whatever conversation needs to be had about whether Hyman is willing to leave Leon here with the guy who nearly took his head off earlier tonight. A guy who, for all Hyman knows, Leon can’t stand. Five minutes ago Matthew would have said that was probably true. Like, maybe they were in a pretty good place a few months ago, but now — fuck. Now, Matthew doesn’t know what to think. He was wrong. Obviously he was wrong. He can’t stop imagining Leon wearing his t-shirt, not just at Boots, but here, in Edmonton. On the road. Out for beers with the guys in it. Napping on the couch in it. Working out in it, sweat sticking it to his shoulder blades and stomach. Just — wearing it on purpose. The same way he kept coming to Matthew on purpose.

Bowie, finally taking his snout out of his food bowl only to see that Leon is no longer in the room, gives Matthew a vaguely betrayed look.

“Yeah, I know,” Matthew sighs. “I’m the worst.”

Bowie whines and tilts his head. In the other room, the voices are at a low murmur, punctuated once by a loud laugh from Hyman.

“If you say so. I’ll tell Davo,” he says, and a moment later is returning to the kitchen to offer Matthew a handshake, which Matthew accepts more out of habit than anything else. Hyman has a strong grip. He looks Matthew right in the eye, appraising. “He’s all yours, man.”

“Thanks, I think,” Matthew says as the back of his neck goes hot.

On his way out, Hyman stoops to ruffle Bowie’s fur thoroughly, then slugs Leon in the shoulder with an impish grin, waggling his eyebrows. Bowie chases after the pair of them to the front door. Alone in the kitchen, Matthew sags against the counter, setting the clean shirt down to press the heels of his hands to his eyes. There’s that rising tide of panic in his lungs again, but, fuck, what is the point of it? Leon wants him. Leon likes him. Leon likes him enough to want him here right now, despite all the bullshit. Shouldn’t that be enough?

Leon clears his throat. He’s leaning in the entryway to the kitchen, hands shoved into his hoodie pockets. At his feet, Bowie whines and paws at his shins. Leon crouches to pick him up, wincing as he gets himself upright again, and hugs him a little too tight, pressing his face into Bowie’s fur.

“Sorry, Bobo,” he murmurs. “Weird night, huh?”

Bowie snuffles into Leon’s neck. Matthew is acutely jealous of him. He’s a lot of things right now. Jealous of a dog, frustrated, dangerously hopeful, probably a little concussed. He has a thousand things he needs to say, all of them terrifying, and he has no idea which one is going to come out of his mouth until he opens it and says, “Why the fuck did you do that to me in Florida?”

His voice cracks in the middle of the question, but he is beyond being embarrassed at this point. He just needs to know.

Leon shrugs. “Didn’t think you’d care so much, since you were probably five seconds from bolting anyway.”

“I—” Matthew trips over his own tongue as he fumbles for words. “What, why the fuck would you think that? You do recall that I basically threw myself at you, right?”

“Yeah, just like every time, right?” Leon asks. He keeps his voice down, but there’s an awful twist to it. “Every time, you want me until you remember I might give a shit about you. Maybe I just got sick of the second part.”

“I don’t—” Matthew starts to protest, but Leon interrupts him.

“If you want to run away, do it now,” he says, his mouth tight, unhappy. “I don’t feel like dealing with it, so just do it now so I can go to bed.”

“Isn’t someone supposed to stay with you?” Matthew asks.

“I’m fine,” Leon says.

Matthew rolls his eyes. “If someone’s supposed to stay with you I’m not leaving just because you’re pissed at me.”

Leon lifts his chin. “I said I’m fine.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not,” Matthew snaps. “I’m not, and I’m sick of it. I think about you every day, did you know that? Every fucking day. Even when I tell myself I’m not going to, then I just wind up thinking about how I’m not thinking about you. And it’s fucking stupid, because it’s not like we can be together in any sort of normal way, but it’s still just like. The only thing I think about some days. Like today, I kept telling myself, no, just focus on the fucking game, and look how that worked out. I’m covered in someone’s drink, I think Kassian concussed me a little, I definitely just freaked out your teammate showing up here in the middle of the night, and you’re pissed at me. Again.”

The silence that stretches out when Matthew shuts his mouth sucks all the air out of the room. Even Bowie doesn’t make a sound. The throbbing behind Matthew’s eye is back. All he can hear is his own heart thumping, muffled like it’s underwater.

“Matthew,” Leon says. “I don’t give a shit about normal.”

The panic hasn’t receded. It has filled Matthew’s chest, pushed up into his throat, and when he speaks his voice comes out like a croak. “Must be fucking nice.”

Bowie squirms in Leon’s arms. Leon startles, as if he’d forgotten the dog was there, and bends to put him on the floor. When he stands up again, there’s something unbearably soft in his expression. Just like that time after their first game this season, when he touched Matthew’s face and told him he played well. On Facetime, New Year’s Eve, watching him undress.

And the worst part is, Leon is right. Matthew does want to bolt.

Because everything he has ever wanted, there’s been a clear path laid out to it. You work hard enough, you get it. And Leon is nothing like that. So, what — Matthew tries for this, and it doesn’t work, and he spends the rest of his career wanting something impossible while Leon goes on with his life, wins more scoring titles, lifts a Cup, retires back to Germany to raise a family who doesn’t know that Matthew exists. Or Matthew tries it, and when people find out, maybe his own teammates don’t trust him to put them first anymore. The team wants to trade him, to avoid the drama. His mom is supportive but quietly relieved when Brady marries a nice girl at a summer wedding and gives her two-point-five grandchildren. His dad tries, but never really gets it, and his texts slow to a trickle, never about anything but hockey, because he doesn’t know what to do with a son who isn’t following in his footsteps.

But then he thinks, again, about that perfect terrifying moment before Leon kissed him the first time, and how Matthew was sure Leon could read the naked yearning on his face, but what if in reality he was just holding his breath, waiting and hoping?

“You can use the shower if you want. Before you go. Since, you know,” Leon says, gesturing at the mess of Matthew’s shirt. He doesn’t sound angry or bitter. Just tired. Resigned.

“I’m not going,” Matthew says.

Leon sighs. “I’m not fucking around, Matthew.”

“I’m not either,” says Matthew. “I’m not going. I’m staying here, or at least until I have to be on the bus tomorrow. And if it’s okay with you, I think I might fall in love with you.”

That shuts Leon up. He opens his mouth, closes it. It would be comical if Matthew’s heart wasn’t racing like he just finished an overtime shift.

It’s only a few steps between them — only a few seconds — but it feels like it takes an eternity for Leon to take those steps, cautious like he’s still not convinced Matthew won’t bolt. When they’re finally toe to toe, he touches careful fingertips to Matthew’s bruised cheekbone. Even that one point of contact makes Matthew feel like he’s on fire. He winces, but doesn’t look away. He wants Leon to be able to see on his face that he means it. Because he does mean it. Maybe he wasn’t sure until it was coming out of his mouth, but saying it out loud was like cutting loose an anchor he hadn’t known was dragging him down.

He knows what he wants. This is what he wants.

“What if I told you to leave right now?” Leon asks, his fingers still on Matthew’s face.

“Not going,” Matthew says. “Like, for medical reasons at the very least.”

“If it’s for medical reasons, I can just call Connor,” Leon says.

“Please don’t,” says Matthew. “He’s not very happy with me right now. If he finds me here he might actually kill me.”

Half of Leon’s mouth quirks up into something almost like a smile. “He won’t.”

“If you say so.” Matthew swallows as Leon’s hand uncurls, his palm resting against Matthew’s cheek. “It’s not just for medical reasons, anyway.”

Leon’s eyes flick to Matthew’s mouth. He smooths his thumb over the new scab on Matthew’s lip, then trails his fingers down until his hand comes to rest at the base of Matthew’s throat, and Matthew’s eyes flutter closed as he leans in to brush their mouths together. It’s far too brief, but when he pulls back, he meets Matthew’s gaze, and Matthew is struck, again, by the blue of his eyes, and the softness in them.

“Leon,” he starts, but doesn’t have any idea what to follow it with, so he tugs Leon in, gently, by his hoodie, winding his arms around him and pressing his face into the space between his neck and the hood of his sweatshirt. Leon sighs against him, tucking his nose against Matthew’s neck.

“If you take off again after this,” he mumbles, muffled against Matthew’s collar.

“I won’t.” Matthew slides his palms up Leon’s back, splaying over his shoulder blades, feeling him breathe. “Leon, I swear to god. I’m not going. You can’t make me.”

“I could if you hadn’t concussed me,” Leon tries to joke, but his voice catches in the middle of it. His hands tentatively come to the small of Matthew’s back. His beard tickles Matthew’s neck, and the breath he lets out is so shaky it rattles Matthew’s whole body. Matthew curls his fingers into the fabric of Leon’s hoodie.

“I’m sorry,” he says. About the hit, and about everything else, too. He can’t articulate it all, but he thinks Leon will get it. He presses his lips to Leon’s neck, then higher, near his pulse point, just because he can and he wants to. All that tension in his body, that Matthew had thought before he could kiss out of him, and maybe he can still have a chance to.

They stand like that for a long time, and it occurs to Matthew it’s the first time they’ve ever hugged.

“You know this is the first time we’ve ever hugged?” he says.

Leon snorts softly against his shoulder. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah, well, you’re an asshole,” Matthew says, with no bite to it.

“Takes one to know one,” Leon mumbles. “And you smell like a bar.”

“Blame your fans for that.”

“Can’t say I’m too mad at them,” Leon says, but he pulls back — not away, just back enough to slide his hands to Matthew’s stomach, finding the lowest button on his button-down before the shirt tucks into Matthew’s jeans. He thumbs it open, then tugs the tails out to get the one below the belt. The shirt is barely damp, now, the fabric stiffening with dried soda. Leon’s hands are slow and steady, and Matthew can barely breathe as they work their way upwards, one button at a time. He’s sure if he says anything it will break the moment, so he just rests his forehead against Leon’s and watches until he eases open the button at Matthew’s sternum.

“Well,” Matthew says, hooking one of his fingers into Leon’s sweatpants pocket. “Maybe I’m not too mad at them either.”

Another almost-smile flickers across Leon’s face. With the shirt hanging open now, he slides his hands over Matthew’s chest, pushing it back until it catches on his shoulders, still tucked in at the back.

“Leon,” Matthew says with pained reluctance. “Your head.” His own temple aches in the way where he knows it’ll explode at the slightest attempt at vigorous activity. That’s still barely enough for him to keep his priorities straight.

“I know.” Leon’s fingers curl at the back of Matthew’s neck. “But you really need a shower.”

***

The hot water is sinfully good. Steam fills the bathroom, so thick that Matthew can feel it in his pores. The sweat and stickiness from the events of the night slough off of him, streaming down his body and into the drain, his skin turning pink from the heat. He turns his face up to the spray so it runs over his sore cheekbone. The scab on his lip has gone soft and broken, leaving a copper taste in his mouth.

Leon is behind him, his chest pressed to Matthew’s back, his hands sliding over Matthew’s hips. He did not need another shower tonight, but he doesn’t seem to be willing to let Matthew out of his reach. It kindles a guilt in Matthew’s gut that he’ll be carrying for a while, but he’s grateful for the company. He needs someone to lean against, right now. He’s exhausted. He doesn’t want to stop touching Leon, either. He’ll have to leave at the crack of dawn to get back to the hotel and pack before the team bus leaves for the airport, and it already seems like far too few hours to make up for all the wasted time.

Lips, soft on the nape of Matthew’s neck. On his shoulder, behind his ear. The spot where Matthew drew blood, all those weeks ago, trying to get the memory of Leon’s mouth out of his skin. The mark from his scraping fingernails is long gone, but the touch of a new kiss there wrenches a shuddery gust of breath from him, and Leon’s arms slide fully around him, holding tight as he does it again, and again, like he can’t help himself.

Impossible. Matthew’s brain still wants him to believe that. His body still wants to shy away from the tenderness. He can feel it acutely, now, the kneejerk fight-or-flight response clawing weakly at the inside of his chest.

He twists in the circle of Leon’s arms to face him, because he can, and he wants to. He holds Leon close by the back of the neck, rubs his unbruised cheek against Leon’s wet beard, shivers despite the warmth of the shower when Leon’s hands smooth down his back to his ass. Leon is not gentle when he bites Matthew’s split lip; Matthew kisses the wet smear of his own blood off Leon’s mouth, off of his teeth, until the sting of it supersedes the ache in his head. In another version of tonight, or maybe a future version of tonight, he lets Leon turn him and press him against the wall, lets him fuck him like that while his fingers slip through the condensation on the tiles, desperate for something to hold onto when his legs start to shake. Maybe Leon’s hands cover his own so Matthew can clutch them while he gasps and pleads and comes. Maybe they do it without a condom so afterward Leon can get on his knees under the spray of the shower and eat the mess out of him until Matthew is whimpering and hard again, and then they can go to bed and start all over again.

Tonight, though, when Leon nudges Matthew against the wall, it’s careful, almost meticulous, so that Matthew’s shoulders bump it first and not the back of his head. If the tiles were cool, Matthew would be tempted to turn his head and press his aching eye to them, but they’re warm to the touch, damp with condensation. He closes his eyes as Leon rubs his nose against Matthew’s cheek and presses a kiss to his jaw, to his pulse point. Leon puts his hand on Matthew’s chest, and Matthew takes it, moves it up a few inches to rest against his throat instead.

“Your head,” Leon murmurs against Matthew’s cheek.

“I know,” Matthew says. “Just—” He covers Leon’s hand with his own, keeping it there, and Leon relents, leaning in with a gentle pressure as he fits his mouth to Matthew’s again. Heat that Matthew is not allowed to chase right now curls in his gut, but he takes what he can get, drawing the kiss out long and slow and lazy.

Eventually, the water runs cold. Leon loans Matthew a towel, two Tylenol for his headache, a toothbrush, a phone charger, and a pair of sweats to sleep in, although this last one comes with a dubious frown.

“I usually sleep naked,” Leon says. “Do you want me to—”

“You’re fine,” Matthew says quickly. The corner of Leon’s mouth twitches up into a smirk, and Matthew punches him in the arm even as the back of his neck goes hot. Leon socks him in the shoulder, so Matthew digs his fingers into Leon’s side, and is startled into laughter when Leon yanks him in to kiss him in retaliation.

“Asshole,” Matthew accuses, without malice, his grin pressed to Leon’s cheek. A strange giddiness bubbles up inside of him, the same kind of nervous-happy as when he skated out for his first NHL game. The kind of dizzy wonder that says, this can be your life.

***

Matthew sets an alarm for six o’clock, then another one for six-thirty, just in case. Embarking on a new relationship is no excuse for missing the team bus.

“This sucks,” Leon says, laying on his back with his shoulder pressed to Matthew’s as Matthew finishes fiddling with his phone. Bowie is curled up against Leon’s other side on top of the covers, dozing if not already asleep. “We could be having sex right now if you could keep your elbows down.”

“Or if you could keep your head up,” Matthew says, waffling over whether he wants to deal with his texts. No, he decides, those are a problem for the morning. Especially the one from Brady that says, casual reminder dont text ur ex 😎

“Oh, so it’s my fault now?” Leon asks, affronted in a way that’s probably joking, but Matthew sets the phone facedown on the bedside table anyway. The room goes dark without the light from his screen, and he rolls onto his side, wrapping an arm around Leon’s waist. He has to wedge his hand under Bowie to get all the way around Leon; Bowie snuffles sleepily at him, but allows it. It feels like something he shouldn’t be allowed to do. So does the kiss his presses to Leon’s bare shoulder. All of it, like he’s giving something of himself away in the softness. Maybe he is. He thinks he’s okay with that.

“No,” he says, his voice rough with fatigue. “I really do feel bad.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Leon traces the line of Matthew’s spine, lightly up to the nape of his neck, down to his tailbone, up again. There’s something reverent to it. If Matthew thinks too hard about that he’ll get choked up, so he focuses on the feeling of it instead, the rhythm of the motion, the barely-there scrape of fingernails as Leon’s fingertips follow each other along Matthew’s back.

“You’re allowed to sleep, right?” Matthew asks.

Leon hums an affirmative. “Are you going to watch me all night? For medical reasons.”

“Do I have to? I’m tired.”

“Um, yeah,” says Leon. “What if I die?”

Matthew pushes up to look at him. Even in the dark, he can see Leon smirking.

“Oh, fuck you,” he says.

“Next time,” Leon says, tugging Matthew gently back down so he can resume drawing lines on his back. “Speaking of medical, you have to make someone look at your head tomorrow.”

“Ugh, I will.”

“And send me a picture when the bruise on your face gets good.”

Matthew snorts. “Why?”

Leon, through a yawn, like it’s obvious: “Because it’s sexy.”

“There is something wrong with you,” Matthew says, even as a pleased warmth settles in his gut. Leon makes another unbothered sound of agreement, trailing his fingers along the back of the waistband of Matthew’s borrowed sweatpants. That same wanting and needing that seemed so overwhelming before curls through Matthew’s limbs, all the way down to his fingers and toes, and even though they shouldn’t do anything tonight, he rubs against Leon’s hip a little, just because he can.

“Mmm, don’t,” Leon says with a weak laugh. “Fuck.”

Matthew sighs, but shifts so his dick isn’t pressed against Leon. “You’re right, this does suck.”

“Not my fault,” Leon says. Matthew pinches him.

Is it allowed to be this easy? After all the misunderstanding and bullshit? Matthew is sure it shouldn’t be, but Leon is warm and solid, and as they fall still and quiet, his fingers thread loosely into Matthew’s hair and stay there. Matthew drifts but doesn’t quite drift off, matching his breathing to Leon’s, long and slow. He thinks about how nice it would be to fall asleep like this after sex.

Next time. Next time. Inhale, exhale. Matthew rises and falls with Leon’s chest.

“I’m not,” Leon starts to say. Matthew had been sure he was asleep; the noise he makes is more surprise than question. Leon sighs, thumbing at Matthew’s cheekbone. “I don’t usually keep sleeping with someone I’m not interested in. Or don’t at least think I could care about.”

“You could have said something,” Matthew says.

“Yeah,” Leon says. “I thought you could tell. Didn’t think it would help.”

“Yeah, I don’t know if it would have either. But I guess it doesn’t matter at this point.” Matthew presses his nose into the hollow above Leon’s collarbone. Leon tucks a couple of his curls back into place. It’s strange, how he can tell how natural this is for Leon — these kinds of affectionate gestures, small and easy and intimate. He keeps thinking about how much he must have been holding himself back, and then thinking about the times he didn’t, and the ways Matthew reacted, and feeling guilty all over again.

“I’m sorry about in Florida,” Leon says.

Matthew swallows the nausea that rises at the memory. “Yeah, that sucked.”

“It was just— Every time. ‘I should go.’ Or ‘you should leave.’” Leon traces the shell of Matthew’s ear, his voice distant. It’s like hearing him through a fog. “I didn’t want to hear it again.”

“I was just scared,” Matthew says quietly. He’s glad they’re having this conversation in the dark. He doesn’t know if he could get through it looking Leon in the eye. “If I’m being honest, I’m still kind of scared. Just, you know, powering on through it.”

Leon is quiet for a moment before he says, “I think I was more pissed than scared.”

“At me?”

“At me.” Leon’s voice rumbles in his chest under Matthew’s cheek. “I mean, later at you, obviously. But most of the time at me. For wanting you so much. Because, you know. You’re fucking annoying.”

Matthew frowns. “Hey.”

“Hey what? You are,” Leon says, and flicks Matthew’s ear when Matthew bites him, lightly, in protest. “You know what, you can blame your brother. He can’t shut up about you. Made me think, little brother wouldn’t be so obsessed if you were just annoying.”

“Oh, geez,” Matthew groans. “Do me a favor and never tell him that.”

“Maybe. I might need him on my side one day.”

Leon says this so casually, but his arm around Matthew curls tighter around him, possessive, and under other circumstances, Matthew might call him on it: bullshit you’re not scared. But the idea of Leon and his family together sends his brain off in a dozen different directions, some hopeful, some trepidatious, all of them nervous, and for the moment he’s just glad to be held a little tighter. It seems like a lot, to imagine a future beyond the two of them, here, together in the dark, but that’s kind of the point, right?

“Leon,” he says, propping himself up again, just enough to be able to see Leon’s face. “How the fuck do we do this?”

Leon shrugs. “Same way we play hockey. One day at a time.”

“Yeah, okay.” Matthew rolls his eyes. “I’m being serious. We’re saying we want to be together, right? But we get what, like, four or five times during the season, maybe, and other than that people are going to notice if I start, like, taking off to Germany in the off-season. Or, like, St. Louis is great, but not really a big vacation spot. So people will notice if you start spending time there. And sure, we can, you know, not advertise it or whatever, but I have a lot of friends and family, and if we’re being serious, I don’t think I can keep it secret. I mean, I can try, but they’ll figure it out. Brady will immediately figure it out, I can promise you that. How do we draw the lines of who knows and who doesn’t?”

“However we want,” Leon says, so simply that Matthew almost laughs. His skepticism must be palpable even in the dark, because Leon huffs and shrugs. “I guess I’m just thinking, you know, Hymie knows now. Davo’s kind of known for a while. The world hasn’t ended yet.”

Matthew squints at him. “You told McDavid we were hooking up?”

He feels like he should be somewhat affronted by this, but all he can muster is faint embarrassment. Bowie snuffles against his hand; he shifts so he doesn’t have a wet nose pressed against his skin.

“Not really, he’s just smarter than he looks.” Leon puts his hand on top of Matthew’s head, raking it gently through his hair. “And he kind of had a hint because of when I asked if he knew, uh. If you hooked up with guys.”

“Was this before or after I sucked your dick?”

“Oh, way before.”

“God.” Matthew drops his face against Leon’s chest, careful to rest against the unbruised side. “I feel like I should apologize again.”

“No,” Leon says, petting the back of his neck. “Just suck my dick again and we’ll be even.”

A tiny smile tugs at Matthew’s lips. “Next time.”

“Next time.” Leon’s whole body sinks with his exhale, and Matthew sinks with it. He’s so tired, his headache replaced by the low thrum of exhaustion, but who knows if he’ll be able to sleep. It’s okay if he can’t. They have a long flight tomorrow; he can take a nap then. There are only a few hours before his alarms will go off anyway. He’d almost rather stay up talking. They still have so much to figure out. Sure, they can text and Facetime and all that, but Matthew is still afraid that as soon as he leaves, all that panic from before is going to catch up with him and drag him off like a riptide. Leon will never forgive him if he runs away again. Matthew’s dad always says the best thing he could raise is a champion, but the worst thing he could raise is a coward.

Once again, he was sure Leon had fallen asleep, but then the hand on Matthew’s neck moves, tracing the line of his jaw and the side of his face. Around the curve of his ear. Along his hairline. Delicate. Deliberate. The way you touch someone you want to memorize. A lump rises in Matthew’s throat. If nothing else, he’s not going to be a coward about this.

“I meant it, you know,” he says. Leon’s fingers still for half a second. He must have thought Matthew was asleep, too.

“What?” Leon says, gravelly, on the edge of consciousness.

“Think I might fall in love with you.”

The quiet stretches out, and Matthew holds his breath until Leon says, “Even though it’s not normal?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me what’s normal.”

Matthew sighs, trying to gather his thoughts as Leon’s fingers thread through his curls.

“You know,” he mumbles. “Dating. Posting dinner dates on Instagram. House and kids. Those jackets with the names during the playoffs. Pretty much whatever my parents would expect.”

“Mmm.”

“I know.”

Leon lets out a long breath. “Is this gonna fuck you up?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Matthew scoots in closer, so he can push his nose against Leon’s neck. “I still want to try though.”

***

When Matthew’s first alarm goes off, Leon is spooned against him from behind, snoring gently. He stirs at the sound, squirming with a soft noise of protest. Matthew, having spent the previous few hours drifting in and out of something vaguely resembling sleep, is half-awake already, but turns the alarm off to wait for the second one anyway. His head doesn’t quite ache, but instead feels stuffed with cotton. The skin on half his face is uncomfortably taut, and the concept of moving — just, no thank you.

Leon grumbles something unintelligible, his teeth scraping the curve of Matthew’s neck. His hold around Matthew’s waist tightens, and he shifts to throw his leg over Matthew’s hip. His limbs are heavy and warm. Matthew hums something between an agreement or an acknowledgement; Leon ruts idly against him, his cock more than a little interested.

Matthew laughs a bleary laugh around a bitten-off groan. “Leon.”

“What? I’m better now,” Leon mumbles.

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Matthew murmurs, but he nestles back anyway so Leon’s erection rubs against his ass through his borrowed sweatpants. Leon exhales a gust of hot air against Matthew’s neck, and Matthew, even though he is definitely not better now, grabs Leon’s hand and moves it down to press against his crotch.

What he wants is for Leon to fuck him so hard he can’t think. That way he can’t overthink this. But that’s another thing that will have to wait until next time. Leon’s weight, holding him down, the way Leon is almost covering him entirely — that’s almost as good.

“Is this gonna traumatize your dog?” Matthew asks, not sure if he cares.

“He’s probably downstairs,” Leon says, the words warm behind Matthew’s ear. “He likes an early breakfast.”

“Oh, good,” Matthew breathes, as Leon palms him through his pants, then slips his hand under the waistband, over Matthew’s lower abdomen, pushing his fingers through the thick curls at the base of Matthew’s dick. Matthew is still mostly soft, and Leon doesn’t try to get him off quick. He gets a loose grip on him, stroking his thumb up and down his length, coaxing a reaction out of it. It’s not quite enough to distract from Matthew’s head, but at least he no longer has the kind of headache that will explode if he tries anything. Leon’s hand feels good on him. He concentrates on that, on Leon’s body, on him and around him, filing away the feeling of it for later, when they’re far apart and he’s missing that touch, that weight. Leon toys with the head of his dick, rubbing at the slit; Matthew turns his face into the pillow and moans, soft and low.

“There you go,” Leon murmurs, his lips on Matthew’s neck. “You like that?” He’s still hard against Matthew’s ass, but there’s no urgency to it. Matthew can’t help pushing back against him, making Leon’s cock drag against the fabric between them, making Leon’s breath catch.

In the back of Matthew’s mind, he’s aware of the clock on his phone counting down to his backup alarm. They can take their time, but not too much time. They should finish before it goes off so it doesn’t interrupt them, but Matthew has no idea how many minutes have passed. If they had more time, he thinks he could stay like this for hours. Coming doesn’t even seem like the important part. There’s something about this time of day, right before the sun comes up, that feels like it should be infinite. It seems unfair that it’s not.

Still, the way Leon touches him is methodical, patient. Matthew doesn’t know if anyone’s ever touched him so patiently. The build is slow, but far too easy to get lost in, and eventually Matthew comes with a choking noise as his hips stutter against Leon’s hand. The sweatpants mean the mess is contained, even with Leon dragging his fingers through it, smearing it over Matthew’s upper thighs and through his pubic hair. He keeps touching, finally withdrawing only when Matthew whines, and wipes his hand on the outside of the pants. He’s so hard at this point that his hips are restless, and Matthew goes easily when Leon nudges him fully onto his stomach.

The sweatpants get tugged down in the back just enough for Leon to rub himself in the cleft of Matthew’s ass, the slide of skin on skin too dry until he spits in his hand and rubs it between Matthew’s asscheeks to ease the way. He doesn’t try to push in, just ruts against him almost lazily, his face tucked against the crook of Matthew’s neck. No, Matthew thinks — he could stay like this for hours. Leon moving against him, getting himself off on Matthew’s body. Matthew’s cock, still sensitive, pressed into the mattress and the mess inside his pants by Leon’s weight, the stimulation from the motion of Leon rubbing against him just a little too much. He hopes every time Leon wears these sweatpants from now on he’ll think about this. He hopes Leon jerks himself off inside them thinking about it. Hopes he lets Matthew watch, or at least sends pictures when he’s done.

Leon comes in hot spurts on Matthew’s ass, in the small of his back, and he has just sagged against Matthew to catch his breath when the second alarm goes off.

“Fuck,” Leon gasps, startled. Matthew huffs a laugh, only half-coherent himself, and starts to reach for it, but Leon stills him with a hand on his back. “I got it.”

“I really do have to go,” Matthew mumbles as Leon stretches over to the bedside table to grab his phone, stop the noise, and flick on the light. This last part makes Matthew wince and hide his face in the pillow with a groan.

“Just give me one second.” Leon pushes himself up, sitting back, and Matthew is more than happy to not move for one more second, so he waits. Leon’s hand rests briefly on his waist, and then Leon is leaning over him again, setting the phone next to him on the pillow and dropping a careful kiss on his bruised cheek. “I’ll get you a towel.”

Matthew needs a minute before he picks himself up, his joints protesting, his head not thrilled about the movement. The jizz on his back drips slowly as he moves, so he tugs the sweatpants back up to keep it from getting on the sheets. Leon has disappeared into the ensuite bathroom, but the phone is still lit up, showing off exactly what that extra second was for: a photo of Matthew, bare-assed, come-streaked, his face half-hidden in the pillow. The bruising around his eye is just barely visible. Leon’s hand is on his waist, his knees poking into the frame from where he was sitting on the backs of Matthew’s thighs.

Fuck, he wants to stay. He needs at least another day. Another week. A whole summer, his mind offers up, and for a moment he’s so struck with wanting that he can’t get up.

It doesn’t look like Leon sent the picture to himself, so Matthew does that for him. All yours, he types as a caption, waffling about whether that’s too much, but after everything that’s happened, too much is probably better than too little. He sends it. Leon’s phone buzzes, once, on the opposite bedside table. Matthew smiles to himself.

“Okay, I left you a towel,” Leon says as he emerges, coming straight back over to the bed, where he cups Matthew’s face and kisses him once, firmly, then again, softer, his thumbs stroking the stubble on Matthew’s cheeks. It’ll be a while, Matthew thinks, before things like that stop tying little knots in his stomach. He thinks maybe that’s a good thing. To remind him not to fuck this up. “I’ll find you a shirt to borrow. Do you want a sweatshirt? I can give you a coat, but I would need it back.”

“Just a hoodie or something is fine,” Matthew mumbles, tilting his face up to accept one more kiss, gentle on his scabbed lip. Leon lingers, letting their noses nudge against each other, before he sighs and pulls away.

“Fine, go shower,” he says, but he’s so clearly reluctant about it that when Matthew gets to his feet, the sweatpants sticking to him awkwardly, he can’t help tugging him in again, winding his arms around Leon’s neck while Leon’s hands find his hips like they belong there.

“Hey,” Matthew says. “If it were up to me I’d stay in bed with you for the next week.”

“For medical reasons, at least,” Leon murmurs against Matthew’s jawline, sliding his hands up and down Matthew’s sides. Matthew hums an agreement and rubs his nose against Leon’s beard, trying one more time to memorize the way it’s somehow soft and coarse at the same time. In an hour, he’ll be back at the hotel, packed for the bus to the airport, surrounded by teammates who have no idea any of this happened. It could so easily be like none of it happened at all.

But it won’t be. Not this time.

Downstairs, once Matthew has showered and changed back into his jeans, along with the t-shirt (gray with a Team Germany emblem on the breast) and hoodie (black with a Puma logo) Leon has laid out for him, Bowie snuffles at Matthew’s feet, then whines until Matthew picks him up, having apparently forgiven whatever grievances kept him from climbing on Matthew the night before. Leon presses a thermos of coffee into Matthew’s hands.

“I’ll drive you,” he says. Matthew doesn’t argue. He kisses Bowie goodbye and promises he’ll see him soon. He hopes he’s not lying.

It’s quiet in Leon’s car on the drive to the hotel where the team is staying. The radio is tuned to some top-40 satellite station that is, thankfully, more music than talking at this hour. Matthew keeps thinking of things he wants to say then swallowing them when he looks over at Leon, because now that they’re out of the house and en route to the real world, he’s terrified. From the set of Leon’s jaw, it’s safe to assume he’s not lacking in apprehension, either.

On the radio, the soft rock song that was playing transitions into something poppier and punkier. It takes a moment for Matthew to place it, and then he smiles despite all the nerves.

“My sister put this on my workout mix this season,” he says. Leon glances over, brow furrowed in question. Matthew shrugs. “She makes me mixes all the time. I don’t really pay attention to new music except for, like, five bands I know I like, so she says it keeps me hip and cool.”

Leon snorts. “She thinks you’re hip and cool?”

“I think she wishes I was,” Matthew says, which gets him the victory of a small smile.

“My sister is better at music, too,” Leon says. “I think only my father is worse than me, in our family.”

Matthew laughs. “Oh, yeah, mine is absolutely the worst, too. Mom and sister? Great taste. Brady? Same as me, basically. But I think Big Walt only knows songs that were on the radio in the ‘80s.”

“Big Walt,” Leon mutters, clearly amused. Matthew, feeling braver, reaches his hand out, and Leon takes it, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tight like a nervous kid waiting for a shot. Matthew squeezes back just as hard.

“Just so you know, I’m scared as shit right now,” he says.

“Yeah, well,” Leon says, his eyes fixed on the road. “If it helps. I might fall in love with you, too.”

“I mean. Doesn’t hurt.” Matthew tries to keep his voice neutral, but as soon as Leon glances over, he grins, irrepressible, his tongue against his teeth. Leon’s face scrunches, his lips pressed together, but he breaks into a grin, too, the tips of his ears turning pink. Then he rolls his eyes, of course. But he doesn’t stop grinning.

As they ease into downtown Edmonton, navigating through the early fringes of rush hour traffic, Matthew takes a picture of their hands, tangled together over the center console. Typing with one thumb, he taps out a caption to send it to Leon: All mine.

Leon’s phone buzzes in the cupholder. Leon eyes it, brows drawing together, probably because it’s seven in the morning, and who the hell would text him at seven in the morning. Matthew plucks the phone up before Leon can reach for it, though, sliding it under his thigh closest to the door.

“You can check it when I’m gone,” he says.

Leon makes a face like he wants to argue, but just sighs instead. “I told you you’re annoying, right?”

“Yeah,” Matthew says, and presses a kiss to the back of Leon’s hand.

***

On the team jet, after he has adjusted his neck pillow but before the latest round of Tylenol has kicked in, Matthew finally texts Brady back: Whoops.

Brady says, ??????

That’s about as much as Matthew feels like sharing, so he plugs his phone in and tucks it into his hoodie pocket. Leon’s hoodie pocket. The only upside of the early flight is no team social paparazzi, so he didn’t have to change out of the clothes Leon leant him. It’s kind of pathetic, how comforting it is to be able to smell Leon’s laundry detergent, to find tiny white strands of Bowie’s fur clinging to the fabric. But not pathetic enough to stop him from tugging the neck of the hoodie up over his nose and breathing in deep anytime he starts to feel anxious.

When they land in Raleigh, Matthew snaps a picture of the runway through the plane window: gray and flat, low clouds hanging over the endless stretch of concrete, overcast in the way only March can be. Not what you want to see when you head south during the season, but he doesn’t include any of those complaints when he sends it to Leon. That’s not what it’s for. It’s just to say: look, I’m here. I’m thinking of you again. I’m not running away.

Leon responds with a photo of Bowie, outside on a leash, licking a half-melted pile of dirty snow. The toes of Leon’s boots are just visible in the lower corner. Matthew snorts.

“Cute dog,” Noah says, leaning over to snoop without remorse.

“Yeah.” Matthew turns the phone for him to see. “It’s Draisaitl’s.”

“Draisaitl’s,” Noah repeats with much skepticism. “The same Draisaitl who hates you, who you concussed yesterday?”

Matthew shrugs. “He forgave me.”

This doesn’t cure any of Noah’s confusion, but the team is rustling around them, getting up, stretching, gathering personal belongings to disembark. Matthew puts the phone away feeling just a little smug.

As promised, he has one of the team trainers check out his head, and, unsurprisingly, is told to get some rest and stay away from bright lights and loud noises and they’ll see how he’s doing tomorrow. Thus, he responsibly declines the invitation from a bunch of the guys to hit up a local barbecue joint. Johnny joins him in his hotel room for room service dinner. Matthew assumes this is because he feels bad for not bullying Matthew more about his head the previous night, but it’s actually because he wants to be nosy.

“Where’d you go after the bar?” Johnny asks through a mouthful of cajun chicken pasta at the little table by the window in Matthew’s room. “And don’t say back to the hotel. I tried to come give you your coat when we got back.”

“Okay, not the hotel.” Matthew does his best to look contrite. “I, uh. Might have gone to see someone.”

“In Edmonton?” Johnny raises his eyebrows. Matthew shrugs and tries not to smile. Johnny’s eyebrows go higher. “Oh, come on.”

But Matthew can’t tell yet. It’s too new. It’s weird, knowing he might have quietly upended his entire life last night, and there’s only one other person in the world who knows. But it doesn’t feel unreal, the way the secret did before. It’s like a physical, invisible thing he’s carrying everywhere. Not heavy, like the C was for those first few months, but precious and fragile, like he could trip and shatter it with one wrong step. When he closes his eyes, he sees Leon in the car, with his pink ears and that embarrassed grin. Squeezing the life out of Matthew’s hand. Think I might fall in love with you, too.

“Had some unfinished business to take care of,” Matthew says, as casually as possible. Across the table, Johnny frowns into his dinner and mutters something along the lines of, well, fuck me for being worried, then, and Matthew sets down his fork as his stomach turns with a pang of guilt. He can’t help thinking of Brady, of how relieved Brady was when Matthew was finally honest with him, and how quietly hurt he was by how long it took Matthew to trust him. Even with everything going on in his own life — new kid, new contract — Johnny has been patient and supportive all season.

Somewhere amid all this, Matthew got so lost in the idea of being a big-picture Good Captain that he kind of lost sight of the most important things — being a good teammate and a good friend.

“Hey,” he says, reaching across the table to spear a bite of pasta off of Johnny’s plate. “I’ll tell you about it soon, I swear. I just need to work through some stuff first.”

Johnny’s mouth scrunches to the side in that way it does when he’s trying and failing to stay grumpy.

“Fine,” he says. “But when you want to talk about it, it’s gonna be over a steak dinner. You’re buying.”

Matthew reaches across the table for an awkward handshake over the pasta. “Deal.”

Despite his best efforts, he’s still off-balance enough at morning skate the next day to be declared a gametime decision and then a scratch that night. It’s the first game he’s missed all season.

There’s a part of him that wants to feel guiltier about that than he does. To get hung up on how if he had made a better attempt to protect himself while Kassian was throwing punches, he probably wouldn’t be sitting out now. If he’d kept his elbows down. Or maybe if he’d gone straight back to his room after the game to lie quietly in the dark it wouldn’t have gotten bad enough to make him take a game off. He keeps waiting for it, the guilt, to grab him by the ankles and pull him under.

It doesn’t come. Or, at least, it hasn’t yet, and the further he gets into the day, the more Matthew dares to think that maybe he’s okay. He doesn’t regret any of it, and maybe that’s okay.

He’ll call Leon tonight after the game. He’s got fucking butterflies in his stomach about it.

“We’ll miss you out there, Chuck,” Tanev tells him as Matthew stands by the entrance to the tunnel, giving out fistbumps and high fives as the guys head out to the ice. “Get better soon, eh?”

“Yeah, and you kick some ass out there,” Matthew says, swatting him on the ass, fist-bumping Shilly, Lewy, Rasmus. “Let’s go, guys, you fuckin’ got this.”

“Damn right,” Lindy says. He slaps Matthew’s hand, ruffles his curls.

“Yeah, there’s the good luck,” Toff says with a grin, following suit before Matthew can get away. Dillon laughs at him but accepts his high five without additional violence, but Marky ignores Matthew’s hand entirely to go for his hair with both hands.

“What the fuck, man?” Matthew laughs, ducking down with both arms over his head.

“For luck!” Marky calls over his shoulder.

“Come on, Chucky,” Noah says, offering Matthew a hand back up, which Matthew takes so the line doesn’t get bottlenecked. He smacks Noah’s ass, too, then gives Mangiapane a fistbump.

“Don’t worry, Cap, we’ll win it for you,” Andrew promises.

“Hell yeah we will,” Sean says, stretching up for the highest high five possible.

“You fuckin’ better,” Matthew says, up on his tiptoes to tap Sean’s hand, then he bounces back down to bump knuckles with Johnny, bending to quickly kiss the side of his glove. “Go get ‘em for me, yeah?”

Johnny throws him a salute on his way down the tunnel. “Aye aye, captain.”

***

***

On a sunny spring day in early April, Leon sends Matthew a photo of himself. He’s standing outside at a gas station, the hood of his gray hoodie up, squinting into the bright morning. The small Tim Horton’s coffee he’s holding is dwarfed by his hand. Behind him, there’s a big ESSO sign, a smaller Burger Baron sign, a Shell station, an A&W, and behind all that, the endless flat stretch of Highway 2 disappearing into the distance. As a caption, he has added: Red deer.

Matthew is still in bed when the text comes through. The team got in late last night, and on any other day, he would be taking advantage of the post-travel day off to sleep until noon. But not today.

He takes a selfie to send back, curled on his side under the covers and burrowed halfway into his pillow. Hurry up, he types to go with it.

It’s been almost a month, but the time has slipped by quickly. So much of the season has felt like slogging through mud with heavy boots on, and there’s something surreal about the ease of this. The relief of not fighting it anymore. Matthew’s mom always says to just be honest — everything’s easier when you’re honest. Matthew always thought that was about the difficulty of keeping your lies straight, but he thinks maybe it means this, too: being honest with himself. About what he wants, what he can have, what he can’t have.

He had been worried that they would run out of things to talk about. That two weeks into this thing they would run into one too many awkward silences and realize the only place they really work is in bed. And there’s still time for that to happen, sure. Matthew isn’t ruling out the possibility of Leon getting fed up with Matthew’s tendency to babble, or his inability to sit for long in the quiet moments that Leon seems to like. He’s getting better at the latter, though, and Leon — Matthew suspects he might actually like it when Matthew can’t shut up. He feigns annoyance, but Matthew can tell when he’s actually pissed off, and it’s rarely because Matthew is talking too much.

Leon is the opposite of a chatterbox, but he’s easily goaded into talking about his family. If he’s watching TV when Matthew calls, he will, with a little encouragement, give a highly opinionated running commentary on whatever sport is on. Or if he’s drunk, he’ll just spill his guts, which is sometimes hilarious and sometimes so thoroughly sincere that Matthew has to steer the conversation toward sex just to keep himself from getting too emotional. Mostly, though, it’s day-to-day talk about their day-to-day lives, which seems like it should get boring fast, but Matthew’s heart hasn’t stopped leaping every time Bowie’s face pops up on the caller ID.

Almost a month. Matthew has been collecting little pieces of knowledge and tucking them away for safekeeping, so he can be good at this the same way he strives to be a good friend and teammate. Leon likes pictures. He’ll happily send photos back and forth all day without a single word sometimes. He prefers Facetime to a phone call, but he’ll take a phone call if that’s what circumstances dictate. He’s sweet, which is something Matthew could have noticed way earlier if he’d bothered to try. He thinks he’s funnier than he really is, which is, unfortunately, cute.

Team business is mostly off-limits, but not always. Leon will listen if Matthew wants to pick through his feelings about how to handle something as a captain. He, too, thinks it wouldn’t be the worst idea to ask about a referral from Brady’s therapist, but Matthew thinks it would be too much to handle at this point in the season, so after a couple of small arguments they have agreed to table that discussion for after the playoffs. Assuming they make it through those intact.

“I want to see you before the playoffs,” Leon had said a couple of weeks ago, half-asleep as they Facetimed from different hotel rooms. At the time, neither of their clubs had secured a berth yet, although the Flames were pretty much a lock. Now, Leon is staring down the last two weeks of the season knowing that dumb luck will be just as important as winning to get his team in. Matthew does not envy him. He can’t even say he’s particularly rooting for him, from a team standpoint. He’s pretty sure that’s mutual.

“I’m horrible during the playoffs,” he’d said. “Super, extra annoying. You probably won’t even want to talk to me.”

“I’m probably worse,” Leon said, with a self-assuredness that made Matthew think he might be right. He smirked and shrugged anyway.

“We’ll see about that.”

As long as they don’t have to play each other, Matthew thinks, they’ll be fine. If they do have to play each other, well — there’s a test for them. Nothing to do but wait and see. There’s a strange kind of comfort, though, knowing that if the Flames don’t go all the way — if their playoff run gets cut short on some stupid call, or if they just fizzle when they should be surging — then Matthew is only a three-hour drive from someone who will get how he feels, who he won’t have disappointed, who he can maybe burrow into to forget about hockey for a while. Who will fuck him until he can’t remember what hockey even is. And who, god willing, is in the same boat. Matthew is ready and willing to learn and grow through a lot of this relationship stuff, but he is pretty sure he’s not ready and willing to learn and grow through a Cup in Edmonton.

The point is, the distance is very driveable. Leon is driving it right now.

Today is the one day they have before the end of the regular season where they are both home and off on the same day. Originally, Matthew had an afternoon of golf on the books. Now he has better plans, which consist mainly of not leaving the apartment.

They don’t talk about where Leon might go once his contract is up. Three seasons is too far out to think about when they’re doing this one day at a time.

They haven’t talked about the summer yet, either. There’s a superstitious danger to making certain types of summer plans before you know when your summer will start. Matthew isn’t really superstitious, but he’s not about to tempt fate on this one. Besides, summer plans would mean coordinating with their families, and Matthew is just starting to wrap his head around how to handle that. It was weird enough avoiding the subject when his parents came to a string of his games in the Midwest the other week. He has a plan, kind of. If he doesn’t punk out. He’s not going to punk out. Big Walt didn’t raise a coward.

Ok 5 mins, Leon texts an hour and a half later, which is Matthew’s cue to go meet him outside so he can let him into the parking garage. He slips his feet into his Adidas slides and pulls on the black Puma hoodie that’s become his go-to sweatshirt over the past month. He’s already told Leon he’s not getting it back. Leon seems fine with this. He seems pleased with it, really.

It’s a beautiful day. The sky in downtown Calgary is as blue as the one over the prairies from Leon’s photos along the way. Chilly, but not so cold that Matthew’s uncomfortable without a coat. He leans against the brick of his building in the sun and pulls out his phone. Three more minutes. Anticipation coils, squirming, in his gut.

This is going to be good. He’s decided it’s going to be good. There’s still a part of his brain that doesn’t want to accept that, but it’s a small part, way in the back. He’s getting pretty good at drowning it out.

While he waits, he opens up the sibling group chat. Taryn and Brady were in there trading memes earlier, which Matthew always only half-followed, because he doesn’t know what they’re talking about sometimes. That’s proof that he’s getting old. That he’s still going to turn into his dad in some ways no matter who he’s dating.

Matthew turns his face up to the sun and closes his eyes, just for a moment. Big breath in, big breath out. Then back to the phone.

Hey guys, he starts typing, but deletes it. He does this four times in a row, then shakes his head to clear it and starts again. This time, with the picture he took of his and Leon’s hands twined together over the console in Leon’s car.

New boyfriend just dropped, he types.

Send.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. He holds his breath for ten seconds, then—

MATTHEW!!!!!!!! Taryn says.

BRO, Brady says.

Taryn: OMG 💖💖💖💖💖😍

Brady: 💪💪💪💯💯💯

Matthew exhales.

🙂, he sends, and pockets his phone as Leon’s car cruises to a stop at the curb. Leon rolls the passenger side window down and leans over to watch Matthew over the tops of his sunglasses as he crosses the sidewalk.

“Can you help me?” he calls. “I think I’m lost. Where’s the rodeo?”

“You’re an idiot,” Matthew tells him, sliding into the car and pulling the door shut. He should probably wait until the window rolls all the way back up before leaning across the console, but he can’t help himself. He hasn’t been kissed in a month. Leon’s hand comes to his neck, warm, familiar, already enough to make him a little weak in the knees.

“Hi,” Leon says without pulling away.

“Hi,” Matthew murmurs. He starts to sit back, but Leon tugs him in for one more, and Matthew laughs against his mouth. “Careful, people might think you actually like me.”

Leon grins. “Yeah, that would be terrible.”

Notes for the Chapter:

as usual, there is a soundtrack. ♥

Works inspired by this one:

- [Cover Art] head above water by warmupbrawl

- head above water - PODFIC by 2ndGENflowers (FickleBiscuits)

summer clothes by yourblues

Series: head above water [2]
Fandoms: Men’s Hockey RPF
AO3 Categories: M/M
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leon Draisaitl/Matthew Tkachuk
Characters: Leon Draisaitl, Matthew Tkachuk
Freeform Tags: Alternate Point of View, Face-Fucking, Other: See Story Notes, Rough Oral Sex, Under-negotiated Kink
Status: Completed
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Published: 2023-03-17
Updated: 2023-03-17
Packaged: 2023-12-04 17:02:44
Summary:

“We’re this way,” Tkachuk says, jerking his head as he veers right into the maze of RVs. Leon lets him lead, and takes the opportunity to look at him. Because why not? There’s nobody around to notice, and when else is he ever going to see the guy like this, in the dead of summer, about as far away from the rink as they can get?

summer clothes

Author’s Note:

i was doing one of those “request a scene from my fic from someone else’s point of view” writing memes on tumblr and this one got… pretty long?? so i am posting it here, because i will definitely lose it in the depths of tumblr if i post it there. did not have it beta’d; hopefully there are no egregious errors.

this corresponds exactly to the first sex scene from head above water, just from leon’s pov. i can’t stop you from reading it without reading that first, but i don’t think it’ll make sense without the context!

content notes: in addition to the tags, this also has a character briefly worrying if he misread signals about consent during sex. (he did not, but that doesn’t get resolved in this scene.)

Leon has no idea how he got here.

Technically, sure, yes. He could describe the physical steps that brought him to this time and place, beginning with boarding a plane from Köln to Toronto, because Connor wanted to hang out this summer, and Leon still feels guilty for bringing up free agency, so he said he would come. He would submit, briefly, to the training regime of Scary Gary; they would hang out by the pool, grab drinks with the local guys, stubbornly not speak about the now-looming dilemma that’s actually three full seasons away anyway. Music festival? Sure, why not. Connor goes every year. Leon doesn’t have strong music opinions. Seems fun.

The free agency thing is — well, he shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place. It was mean. He’s not even sure if he meant it. Connor has been wounded about it ever since, but Leon refuses to apologize, because you know what, he should be able to talk about free agency if he wants to. He should be able to talk about it with one of his few friends who really gets where he’s coming from, could help him try to figure out what he really wants. And who knows what will happen in the next three years anyway? Maybe he will want to sign matching extensions. Way too soon to tell.

So, not starting with the plane from Köln. Starting with his dumb ass last February, drunk and pissy and maudlin in the way a losing streak in the dead of winter will do to you, saying, God, I can’t fucking wait for free agency. I bet I can sign somewhere warm. He still feels bad about it, and now he’s slightly drunk and drenched in some asshole’s Coors Light, following Matthew Tkachuk to an undisclosed third location.

Connor is going to have a field day with this, assuming Leon makes it back alive.

The dusk paints everything around them golden, including Tkachuk — his stupid curls, glinting in the low summer sun; his skin, pink and bronze from a day spent outside. He’s sweaty and dirty just like everyone else at this festival, and he looks good. It’s really annoying that he looks good.

“Do you come here a lot?” Leon asks as they walk down the dirt road leading from the festival to the RV park. Small talk, not his favorite, but better than trudging in silence.

“Not really,” Tkahuck says. “The Hughes boys come sometimes. I just tagged along this year.”

“Davo comes every year,” says Leon, adjusting the beer-soaked t-shirt thrown over his shoulder. “I just came with him this year. Well. It was his idea. Usually I’m in Germany.” As if Tkachuk needs that much information. Leon bites the inside of his cheek. This is stupid. How is he even supposed to interact with Tkachuk away from their endless series of goalmouth scrums? Leon could congratulate him on his extension or something. Because that would seem genuine, for sure. But Tkachuk is already glancing over with a smirk.

“Well then,” he says, as smug as ever, “I guess we were just meant to find each other.”

Leon rolls his eyes and whacks Tkachuk with the wet t-shirt. Mature? No. But Tkachuk has never inspired maturity in him. The fracas this inspires is short, and Leon makes sure to get in one more thwack in before ducking out of reach. Tkachuk gives him an affronted look. Leon feigns innocence. Tkachuk, pretending not to be entertained, socks him in the shoulder, and Leon feigns injury.

“Ow, two for roughing, for sure.”

“No way,” Tkachuk protests, but then he catches on and treats Leon to an eyeroll of his own. “Asshole.”

“Takes one to know one,” Leon says, back in familiar territory. He can feel the grin tugging at his mouth, the way it always does when they get into stupid spats like this. Tkachuk is annoying, yes, but he’s fun when he’s riled up.

“So you admit it,” Tkachuk says.

Leon shrugs. “Maybe.”

Tkachuk snorts and shakes his head, not even pretending he’s not entertained now. One point for Leon.

The Tkachuk thing is — well. He’s fucking annoying, is the thing. And he’s a really, really good hockey player. Leon wouldn’t be surprised if Calgary names him captain next season. And Leon’s not oblivious, he’s heard the chatter about him off the ice, in the room: great teammate, people say, couldn’t find a nicer guy, they say, respectful to everyone from the owners down to the arena staff. But the fact of the matter is that Leon only sees the guy on the ice, and on the ice he gets under Leon’s skin more than anyone. But — and you won’t catch Leon admitting this out loud, especially not here and now — in kind of a fun way. When someone is that good, it’s fun to beat them. Still sucks to lose to them, but hey, Leon’s got the upper hand in that category for a few more months, at least.

“So for that t-shirt you’re borrowing,” Tkachuk says, kicking up dust as they walk. “I’m thinking shirsey? Nice flaming C on the front, big Tkachuk 19 on the back? So you don’t forget who it belongs to.”

“No.”

“That’s fine,” Tkachuk says. He’s got his thumbs in his belt loops, strolling along like he’s the star in a goddamn Western or something. “I don’t actually have one anyway. What about a big Gaudreau 13?”

Leon snorts. “Fuck off.”

Tkachuk grins up at the fading pink and orange sky. “You’re killing me, buddy, you really are.”

Not your buddy, Leon does not say. It’s definitely the kind of thing Americans would think is rude, even if it’s true.

They’re far enough from the main festival now that the music has become faint thumping bass in the distance. There are some campsites providing their own soundtracks, nothing Leon recognizes, all of it with that same telltale country twang. Not Leon’s first music choice, but he doesn’t mind it. He’ll mostly listen to whatever. He likes that everyone here seems so dedicated to the theme. He’s been having a pretty good time this weekend, when he’s not getting beer thrown on him or getting lost trying to find something better than a Coors Light.

“We’re this way,” Tkachuk says, jerking his head as he veers right into the maze of RVs. Leon lets him lead, and takes the opportunity to look at him. Because why not? There’s nobody around to notice, and when else is he ever going to see the guy like this, in the dead of summer, about as far away from the rink as they can get?

God, Connor is never gonna let him live this down.

In his defense, Leon hadn’t even experienced a full season of Tkachuk in the NHL when he asked Connor about him. Tkachuk was annoying as a rookie, too, but it was subsequent seasons that would show Leon exactly how annoying. He didn’t look as good back then, one foot still in his awkward teenage years, but he wasn’t bad-looking. And he was good. Good hands, fearless edges, smart mouth. And Leon’s not oblivious, he’d heard chatter about Tkachuk off the ice. Leon was younger, then, too, less discreet and less picky, and he’d figured there was no harm in asking.

Connor responded helpfully: “Do I know what?”

To be fair, Leon picked a bad moment to ask. They were in the middle of warm-ups in Calgary.

“You know, if he’s,” he said, then stared at Connor until Connor parsed the innuendo and pulled a face.

“How am I supposed to know?”

“I don’t know, you were in the O, he was in the O, right? I could tell you every guy in the Western League who was down for it.” Leon caught a puck sliding past and sent it back across the ice. He remembers this so clearly for some reason: watching the puck leave his stick and glide smoothly into the opposite boards. He remembers the conversation with Connor word-for-word. Remembers Tkachuk on the other side of the rink, oblivious, chomping on his mouthguard.

“Yeah, but you were, like.” Connor lowered his voice. “Actually getting it. Okay but wait, hang on, back to the point. Seriously? Matty Tkachuk?”

Leon shrugged. “I’m not that interested, I just like to know my options.”

And he’d meant it, mostly. Continued to mean it in the following years as Tkachuk got increasingly more annoying on the ice and increasingly more good-looking off of it. Most of the time. Sometimes he was doing some really questionable things with his hair. Anyway, Leon never did get an answer to the question, but Connor still likes to remind him at least once a season — usually when a Battle of Alberta is at a fever pitch — that he once admitted out loud that he would hit that.

Anyway, he may not be looking for a hookup anymore, but that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy the view.

The campsite is thankfully empty. Leon stares at the sun-browned back of Tkachuk’s neck as he punches in the door code for his RV. He’s just drunk enough to think about pressing his mouth to it. Maybe later, back in the hotel room, he’ll follow that thread to the version of this scenario where he follows Tkachuk out here for a shirt and instead they have sweaty, nasty sex on the floor of the RV. Or on the couch. In a bunk? There might not be room on the floor.

“Home sweet home,” Tkachuk says. Leon shakes off the horny heatstroke and follows him up the steps.

“Nice place,” he says, and means it — he’s not a big RV guy, but it’s a nice one. Spacious. Lots of amenities. He trips over himself on the way up, drunk enough to be just a little uncoordinated, catches himself briefly on Tkachuk. Embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as walking into Tkachuk when he stops moving. Actually, that’s not embarrassing. Rude to stop so suddenly and block the walkway.

Leon pokes Tkachuk in the back. “If it’s a mess in there, too late.”

“It’s not a mess.” But he doesn’t move. Leon’s whole view is Tkachuk’s back, his t-shirt stuck with sweat to his shoulder blades. He can’t help himself: he pokes Tkachuk again, right between them.

“Will you stop that?” Tkachuk twists to bat his hand away.

Leon shoves him, trying not to smirk. “Then move.”

“Oh my god.” Tkachuk shoves him right back. “What is wrong with you? I know they have manners in Europe, did you forget them over there?” Leon returns the gesture, and the fight escalates from there, but they are moving further into the RV, so. Two points for Leon. Backpedaling, Tkachuk trips on his own feet, so Leon grabs him to haul him back upright, only to get repaid with Tkachuk darting a hand out to get him on the cheek. It takes Leon by total surprise, and Tkachuk starts laughing, his eyes crinkling up into half-moons.

“Fucker,” Leon says, shoving his beer-soaked t-shirt into Tkachuk’s face, but he’s laughing, too now. Tkachuk wrestles like a guy who grew up with brothers — opportunistic, a little dirty, and with great delight — and he gets Leon into a headlock, but only briefly. An elbow to his gut gets Leon free, but their feet are hopelessly tangled in the narrow walkway at this point, and when they go tumbling, Leon’s just glad it’s not into anything with hard edges.

Turns out there would be enough room to fuck on the floor.

“Wow, Tkachuk,” Leon says, flat on his back. Tkachuk is on top of him. His breath is hot and wet on Leon’s chest. Everything is suddenly less funny. “That’s how you treat a houseguest.”

Tkachuk rolls his eyes as he picks himself up. “You started it. You realize you started it, right?”

“Fuck off.” Leon pushes Tkachuk’s stupid curls away from his face. Rude, maybe, but he’s done ruder to the guy on the ice, and there’s a situation happening that he needs Tkachuk to not be on top of him for. He scrambles up, using Tkachuk’s head as leverage (“Fuck off,” Tkachuk complains), and turns to adjust his shorts and try to will his boner away. Now that’s embarrassing.

Maybe Tkachuk is polite enough to not notice. Would be really great if all those nice-young-man rumors were true.

Tkachuk, though, is still on the floor. On his knees, eyeing Leon like he’s a four-course meal. When his eyes catch Leon’s, a smirk curls the corner of his mouth.

“Hey, Draisaitl,” he says. “Is that a dick in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Leon stares at him.

“You know, I don’t know why I’m asking. I know you’re not happy to see me.” As if this is something that’s very funny to him. He reaches for Leon’s shorts; Leon bats his hand away, out of habit as much as anything, and must lose his mind a little in the brief ensuing scuffle because it ends with his hand in Tkachuk’s hair, pulling his head back. Tkachuk makes a noise like a choked-off gasp, his eyelids fluttering and his mouth falling open.

Leon should say something. Preferably something like, hey, what the fuck. He opens his mouth, closes it again. Digs his teeth into his lower lip. Tkachuk looks up and holds his gaze, deliberate, unwavering, but Leon is not going to be the one to blink, not even as Tkachuk’s fingers curl into his waistband and tug down. Leon’s cock springs free, mutinously hard, inches from Tkachuk’s face. Tkachuk eyes it — takes Leon’s phone from where it’s about to fall out of his shorts pocket and sets it on the ground — goes back to eyeing it. It’s very possible that Leon has real heatstroke and this is all a fever dream. That seems more likely than reality. His pulse is racing. His feet are glued to the floor. His hand is still in Tkachuk’s hair, but he’s not sure what to do with that, either. The part of his brain he uses to move his limbs has ground to a halt. He should say something, and is about to, really, when Tkachuk leans in and licks a stripe up his dick.

“Holy shit,” Leon says, instead of anything useful. He looks skyward, his hand tightening in Tkachuk’s hair. He cannot believe this is happening. “God, fuck you.”

“I mean, clearly, you wish,” Tkachuk says, and swallows him down.

It’s not like any blowjob Leon’s had before. Sure, he’s had plenty of kind of weird, random blowjobs, his options for sex being what they were growing up, but Tkachuk is — he’s something. He’s something else entirely. He bobs on Leon’s dick, greedy, a little frantic, and groans when Leon gets a better grip on his hair. Coughs when he goes too deep and then immediately goes deep again, powering through it like he has something to prove. With no idea how thick the walls of the RV are, Leon bites back moan after moan as his world narrows to Tkachuk on his knees with his hungry mouth.

He looks really fucking good like this. Leon had imagined he would, but. Fuck. Leon has never seen a guy just take it the way Tkachuk is right now, his hands on his own thighs, letting Leon’s hands in his hair push and pull him. Leon’s careful about it, at first — kind of rude to just yank someone onto your cock — but when he does it more roughly, Tkachuk makes a desperate, needy sound around Leon that Leon feels all the way up his spine. It almost doesn’t feel real. It’s like something out of porn. Tkachuk pulls back, and Leon jerks him back in, all the way, and holds him there. Tkachuk tries to cough but doesn’t fight it. Whimpers, moans, but doesn’t fight it.

Fuck. Leon is going to see him like this every time he closes his eyes for a month. He might never be able to look at him without seeing it again.

He lets go, and Tkachuk rocks back with a wet gasp.

“Fuck you, too,” he rasps, then gets right back on Leon’s dick, possibly even greedier than before. Leon’s a little dizzy with how good it feels, how close he is. A moan falls from his mouth, too loud, but he can’t help it. Fuck. Fuck.

Leon comes so hard his thighs shake. Tkachuk swallows, swallows, mouths at the head of Leon’s dick until Leon pushes him off, overstimulated.

“Fuck,” Leon pants as he catches his breath. He can barely string two words together. It’s like his brain got reset and is still booting back up. “What the fuck.”

“You’re welcome.” Tkachuk sits back on his heels, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The tent in his shorts is obvious as he gets up. Leon is struck with the urge to shove him to the sofa and repay the favor — get his mouth on him, suck him until he’s swearing and coming with his brain leaking out of his ears. He’d look fucking good like that, too. But before anything like that can happen, Tkachuk brushes by on his way to the back of the RV, leaving Leon standing there with his shorts down.

“Shit,” Leon mutters, pulling them up so he can put his dick away. He hastily combs his fingers through his hair, rubs at his still-hot cheeks.

Tkachuk reappears to toss a shirt at him. “You’re welcome again.”

Leon holds the shirt up, letting it unfurl to reveal a giant S-T-L across the front.

“Are you serious?” he asks.

Tkachuk shrugs. “Take it or leave it.”

Leon rolls his eyes, but pulls it on. Then he looks at Tkachuk again: at his mussed hair, his red mouth. The bulge in his shorts. It’s stupid the way it makes heat twist inside him even though he came two minutes ago. Extremely stupid the way it makes his mouth water. Especially stupid the way he feels distinctly like he owes Tkachuk one, like maybe he deserves a long, wet blowjob after choking himself on Leon’s cock.

“Uh,” Leon starts, so awkward he feels like a teenager. “Do you w—”

“This was fun,” Tkachuk interrupts. “But you can leave now.”

Leon stares again, dumbstruck.

“I mean it, fuck off.”

Leon opens his mouth. Closes it. Straightens his shirt. Grabs his phone from the floor. When he straightens up again, Tkachuk’s expression hasn’t even twitched. It’s like a tangible thing, the wall he’s slammed up. A far cry from the guy who was having such a good time buying Leon beers and needling him on the walk out here.

Leon doesn’t know what to do with that. And you know what, it’s not his fucking job to figure it out. If Tkachuk wants to play mind games, he can play with himself.

“See you around,” he says, and lets the RV door bang shut behind him.

Outside, it’s dark. Leon’s face is burning, but the heat of the day has started to dissipate. The campsites are louder now. That faint thump of bass is still going in the distance.

He gets three steps away before he hesitates and turns around. No sign of movement from within the RV. He can’t get back inside, not without Tkachuk letting him in, but he could knock. Maybe he should — he doesn’t know, make sure the guy’s okay or something.

Fuck.

Leon closes his eyes for a moment and sees Tkachuk on his knees again, his lips stretched around Leon’s cock. Eyelashes dark and damp over his cheekbones. Leon’s fingers in his curls. And then the wall slams back up. I mean it, fuck off, Tkachuk says in his head.

So Leon fucks off.

It’s not a long walk back to the main festival grounds, but it feels that way. Tkachuk’s t-shirt is just a little snug, and he feels absurdly conspicuous with the S-T-L splashed across his chest. Should have turned it inside out or something. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken it in the first place. What did he have against the gaudy souvenir shirts anyway? At least those wouldn’t have come with a side of — whatever the fuck that was.

Belatedly, he checks his phone. Connor has texted three times: u get lost? then, everything ok? then, are you coming back?? As Leon reads these, guilt pools in his stomach, and he texts back quickly, coming back now. sorry. got a great story for you though.

He’ll leave out the part about the blowjob.

Maybe he should have knocked. Checked in before leaving for real. Maybe he really fucked up, read the situation wrong, and Tkachuk didn’t want — that. The gagging and choking and pulled hair. It really seemed like he wanted it. Like he liked it. But maybe he would have let Leon return the favor if Leon hadn’t gotten so carried away.

Feeling nauseous, Leon buys a bottle of water from the first vendor he sees, chugs half, and dumps the other half over his head. Maybe he should have knocked, but he’s too far away now, and he’s sure he wouldn’t be able to find that RV in the sea of RVs in the dark. He could ask Connor for Tkachuk’s number. He’s not going to do that. He could message him on Insta. Maybe he’ll do that. No fucking idea what he’ll say, but he’ll think of something. Tomorrow. Or maybe after the festival. After the festival is probably safest.

Having a plan makes him feel slightly less unsettled, and he slips back into the VIP area with a flash of his wristband at the entrance. The headliner is on now, music blasting, and it’s easy to find Connor and his friends watching, beers in hand, singing along. Leon takes a deep breath, shakes the weirdness off, and elbows his way in.

“Sorry about that,” he says loudly in Connor’s ear. “You won’t fucking believe where I’ve been.”

“I thought you, fuckin’, like — ran away or something,” Connor shouts back. He’s pink-faced from all the sun and beer he’s had today. He always swears more when he’s been drinking, which is very funny to Leon. “What the fuck, man?”

“I ran into a friend of yours,” Leon says. When Connor frowns, he steps back enough to show his shirt. Connor frowns deeper.

“Who the fuck do I know from Saint— ohhh, shit. Oh, shit, seriously? Here? Your favorite person.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“What the— so why are you wearing that? Did you lose a bet or something?” Connor is laughing now. Leon feels forgiven. He slings an arm across Connor’s shoulders.

“Long fucking story,” he says. “I’ll tell you after the show.”

dare to breathe by yourblues

Series: head above water [3]
Fandoms: Men’s Hockey RPF
AO3 Categories: M/M
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leon Draisaitl/Matthew Tkachuk
Characters: Leon Draisaitl, Matthew Tkachuk
Freeform Tags: Alternate Point of View, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Morning Sex, Other: See Story Notes
Status: Completed
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Published: 2023-04-20
Updated: 2023-04-20
Packaged: 2023-12-04 17:02:48
Summary:

Leon was having such a nice dream.

dare to breathe

Author’s Note:

once again i was writing this for that “request a scene from my fic from someone else’s point of view” writing meme on tumblr, and it got kind of long, so we are once again adding it to the ao3 collection! once again did not have it beta’d; sorry for any typos, etc.

this corresponds exactly to the last sex scene and aftermath from head above water, just from leon’s pov. i can’t stop you from reading it without reading that first, but i don’t think it’ll make sense without the context!

but also, since we’re here!!! i want to shout out some amazing things other people have made related to head above water:
- this trailer by irrelevanttous
- this cover art by warmupbrawl
- this hard copy of the fic, typeset and bound by sayornispress on tumblr
to say that i’m flattered by these talented people making these things inspired by my fic is a wild understatement. i am VERKLEMPT. i hope anyone who enjoys this fic universe goes and drops them a like or kudos or compliment as well ❤

Leon was having such a nice dream.

He doesn’t dream a lot, or at least, he doesn’t remember his dreams a lot, and when he does, it’s usually a memory of feeling, not details — of strangeness, vague imprints of people or places fading too quickly to matter. Whatever issues Leon’s brain wants to work out while he sleeps, that’s none of his business. This dream, though, it was nice. It was warm. It was—

Shattered, by the alarm on Matthew’s phone.

Matthew’s phone.

Matthew.

Not a dream.

Not a dream at all, but here, his body warm and solid in Leon’s bed. Here, reaching to turn the alarm off, then sinking right back into place. When Leon tightens his arm and presses his face into Matthew’s hair, he doesn’t stiffen or pull away. The opposite, actually. A wave of relief crashes over Leon, so strong it leaves him a little light-headed. Or maybe that’s the concussion. He feels okay, he thinks. Probably no way to tell until he gets up, or looks into a bright light. All the more reason not to get up.

“Too early,” he grumbles into Matthew’s neck, and throws his leg over Matthew’s hip, as if that will keep him there forever. Matthew makes a sound that’s not a protest, and oh, Leon wants to fuck him so bad. He shifts even closer, rubbing against him.

Matthew groans and laughs. “Leon.”

“What? I’m better now,” Leon mumbles.

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Matthew says, but he nestles back against Leon anyway. Even with the layer of clothes between them, no one’s body has ever felt so good against Leon’s. They fit each other, Leon had thought, early, early on — way too early on — so early on that it had scared him a little. But they do, and there’s vindication in how right he was. He thinks Matthew is still maybe not as convinced as he is, but he is willing to be convinced, now, and that makes all the difference.

Matthew takes Leon’s hand from his waist and presses it to his crotch instead. He’s not hard, not like Leon, whose half-chub is nestled comfortably against Matthew’s ass, but that’s not the point. Leon palms Matthew through the sweatpants; Matthew lets out a gusty breath.

“Is this gonna traumatize your dog?” he asks.

“He’s probably downstairs,” Leon murmurs into Matthew’s hair. It smells like his own shampoo. “He likes an early breakfast.”

“Oh, good.”

Leon’s thought about this, waking up with Matthew, fucking slow and sleepy before the real world comes into focus. He’s thought about it too much. Thought about it when he was trying so hard not to think of Matthew at all, in the early mornings when he woke up alone, or late at night when he was too exhausted to keep the fantasy at bay. Thought about it long after he figured it was impossible anyway.

He slips his hand under the waistband of the sweatpants, but he takes his time moving south. He likes the feeling of Matthew’s abdominal muscles tightening under his palm, likes the thick, silky curls of Matthew’s pubic hair between his fingers. Matthew’s cock, when he gets there, is just starting to stiffen, and Leon takes his time there, too. That’s part of the fantasy, taking his time. It’s limited this morning, he knows that, but he’s going to use every second. It’s not even really about getting off. It’s just about — touching. About being allowed to touch.

Although —

He rubs his thumb over the tip of Matthew’s dick, and Matthew moans into the pillow.

“There you go,” Leon murmurs. He kisses Matthew’s neck; again, behind his ear. He doesn’t want to take his mouth off of Matthew’s skin. “You like that?”

— the getting off part will be good, too.

Matthew doesn’t answer in words, but he presses back against Leon, making Leon’s dick slide against the fabric over Matthew’s ass. Leon grunts and lets himself grind in, just a little. His needs are not important until he’s done with Matthew, but god, he wants. He can’t explain the way he wants Matthew, the urgency of it, the way it seems to sit deep in his chest where a soul might go if it were a physical thing. There might not be words for it in any language.

But still, he takes his time. Strokes Matthew meticulously, deliberately, exploring and memorizing. He doesn’t have a bedside clock, so he doesn’t know how much longer they have, but he feels like it will be enough that he won’t have to rush this. He traces the vein up the underside of Matthew’s dick. Thinks about tracing it with his tongue. Curls his first around the head of it and thinks about doing that with his mouth, too. Thinks about doing it just like this, long and slow and patient. Taking all morning with it. All day, even.

There’s something viscerally satisfying about feeling Matthew’s cock swell in his hand. It was so soft when Leon started, and now it’s thick and hard, leaking at the tip. Matthew is making soft, breathy noises. He’s not moving much, just the occasional twitch of his hips, and there’s something satisfying about that, too. Leon knew he could be like this, if he would just let himself be. Soft and pliant, taking tenderness the same way he takes punishment.

Matthew comes with a choked-off sound that Leon wants to lick out of his mouth and swallow. They’re not at an angle for kissing, though, so instead he keeps stroking him through it, coaxing shudders and gasps out of Matthew’s boneless body. He catches the spurts on his fingers and smears them on Matthew’s skin, thinking about how the sweatpants will stick. There’s something, too, about his sweatpants on Matthew. His clothes on Matthew. No, not something — he’s not stupid, he knows what it is. He’s been wearing Matthew’s stupid t-shirt for months now. It’s a claim. It’s being claimed. It’s Matthew in his bed, in his clothes, under him, wrapped up in him, and Leon finally being allowed to think, Mine.

He palms Matthew’s cock again; Matthew whines, so he withdraws, wiping his hand clean, and presses him gently onto his stomach. Matthew goes so easily. Soft, pliant, exposing the vast expanse of his bare back, rising and falling gently; the angles of his shoulder blades flexing like wings under his skin; the back of his neck; the sweet dip of his spine; the perpetual bruises on his ribs. His arms curl around his pillow, his face tucked into it. A mole — a freckle — a handful of them, scattered, that Leon never noticed before. He looks so perfect that for a moment Leon is afraid to touch him, but who is he kidding? He can’t not. He tugs the back of the sweatpants down just enough to expose Matthew’s ass. His cock twitches at the visible hint of the mess between Matthew’s thighs.

Who knows how much time is left at this point, but Leon is sure it’s not enough to fuck him the way he’d want to fuck him — long and slow and deep, dripping with lube, until he comes again with his dick trapped between his body and the mattress. Leon won’t do it if it won’t be as good as he wants it to be, but he’s so hard, now, and god, he wants. He rocks forward, letting his dick slide between Matthew’s asscheeks. Spits a glob of saliva into his hand and rubs it there, then rocks again, biting back a groan at the fresh slickness.

Before now, he never would have tried this. Even just rutting like this, not even fucking him, not if he couldn’t see Matthew’s face. Ever since that first time in Matthew’s apartment, when Matthew was so ready to take it on his hands and knees, and fuck did Leon want to, but something felt off, and he didn’t trust Matthew to say it if something was wrong, but he figured he’d be able to see it in his expression. He never could shake that feeling, so he kept Matthew where he could see him. So he could see if something was wrong. Or, you know, wrong enough that they should stop. He’s not sure he always made the right call, but they’re here now, so he can’t regret any of it.

They’re here now, and Leon is trying to trust him.

And, fuck, he loves this. Loves Matthew’s body under his, slack and sated. Loves pressing his nose into Matthew’s hair, loves kissing the back of his neck, loves moving against him and feeling all of the ways they fit together, the push and pull, the building heat. If they had the time, he would keep Matthew like this all day. He’d finger him and fuck him, memorize him, come in him, make him come, make him come again, do it all over and over until Matthew couldn’t remember why he ever had a second thought.

Leon comes with a groan, streaking Matthew’s ass, the small of his back. He tucks his face against Matthew’s shoulder to catch his breath. And then Matthew’s second alarm goes off.

“Fuck,” Leon gasps. Under him, Matthew rumbles with a laugh and starts to reach for the phone, but Leon is not ready for him to move yet. He stills him with a touch. “I got it.”

“I really do have to go,” Matthew mumbles. Leon knows this, he does, but he hates it. He’s not ready. His head might not hurt anymore, but his heart still does. He’s not — fuck. He silences the alarm and flips on the bedside lamp, sitting back as Matthew hides his face in the pillow against the onslaught of light.

“Just give me one second,” Leon says. He half-expects a protest or complaint, but Matthew lies dutifully still. Leon’s fingers feel clumsy as he pulls up the camera up on Matthew’s phone, steadies himself, and frames Matthew’s come-streaked back for a picture. He’s not sure exactly what compels him to do it, except that maybe he needs proof that all of this happened, or needs Matthew to have proof that it happened. That Matthew came here, and he stayed.

Because that’s the real crux of the fantasy, right? Waking up together, taking their time — it means there was no you should leave or I should go. It means that Matthew stayed.

Leon sets the phone on the pillow next to Matthew and kisses him carefully on the cheek. “I’ll get you a towel.”

In the bathroom, he pulls a clean towel and washcloth from the linen cabinet and sets them on the toilet. Then he picks them right back up again so he can sit down instead, weak-kneed as the past twelve hours hit him like a bus.

The game. The hit. Sometimes when he takes a bad hit it’s all a blur, but he can recall precisely the thwack and crunch of Matthew’s elbow against his helmet. Staying down afterward, clutching the ice until the world stopped spinning. His teammates’ outraged shouting in the distance and him, on his hands and knees, wondering if he deserved it, after what he did to Matthew in Florida. Not in a malicious way. He could tell right away the hit wasn’t malicious. He’s been hit maliciously by Matthew before; he knows how that goes. But, like, karmically or whatever. Maybe that’s what you get, he’d thought.

The hour in the quiet room. The tentatively positive diagnosis, but take it easy and we’ll check you out in the morning, okay? Connor fussing over him in the locker room, muttering in that way he does when he’s really pissed off, the way where it’s more to himself that anyone else, I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him, Leo, I swear to god, I don’t care if you think he’s cute or whatever. Zach driving him home. The lights sliding by made his vision swim, so he spent the ride with his eyes closed, head against the cool window, while his phone vibrated in his hand with texts that weren’t from Matthew. Stupid, he’d thought, to hope for an apology, but for a few minutes in the car, he was filled with so much stupid, hopeless, dizzy yearning he thought he might choke on it.

All of that feels so long ago. Because then Matthew showed up. And — everything after that.

He’d lied, when he said he was more pissed than scared.

But he hadn’t lied when he said, however we want. And he hadn’t lied when he said, one day at a time. Eventually, if he’s patient, they can start looking further ahead than that. Weeks, months. Years. Contracts. Careers. Maybe thinking like that is jumping the gun, but he can’t help it. He itches to make a plan. He works better with a plan. Trusts better with a plan.

So: a plan.

He’s going to get Matthew into the shower. Put some clothes on, make some coffee. He has a thermos he won’t mind Matthew keeping. If his stomach decides to cooperate, maybe he’ll have a protein bar, but it might be too early to eat. Anyway, he’ll drive Matthew back to the hotel, and he’ll kiss him goodbye, and he won’t panic when he disappears inside to go fly across the continent with his team. He’ll wait until the Flames are in the air to text. Probably send a picture of Bowie, because that’s low-pressure, easy to respond to. His heart will hurt, the same way it has for months, but it’ll be okay, because they’re okay. They’re going to be okay.

Leon sucks in a deep breath, rubs his hands over his face, and gets up.

“Okay, I left you a towel,” he says, going straight back over to the bed. Matthew is sitting up, now, so it’s easy to take his face in both hands and kiss him, smooth his thumbs over Matthew’s cheeks, kiss him again. “I’ll find you a shirt to borrow. Do you want a sweatshirt? I can give you a coat, but I would need it back.”

“Just a hoodie or something is fine,” Matthew says. He tilts his head up obligingly for Leon to kiss him again, so Leon presses a gentle one to the scab on his lip.

“Fine, go shower,” he sighs, trying not to sound too put out about it. As Matthew gets up, though, he pulls Leon back into a hug, pressing their cheeks together.

“Hey,” he says, his voice warm against Leon’s ear. “If it were up to me I’d stay in bed with you for the next week.”

“For medical reasons, at least,” Leon mumbles, rubbing his hands up and down Matthew’s sides. Matthew makes a soft noise of agreement, nuzzling Leon’s cheek. He likes the beard, Leon thinks. It’s kind of sweet. He kisses Matthew’s cheek one more time and nudges him toward the bathroom. “Go shower.”

Once he hears the water cut on, Leon gets dressed and picks out a t-shirt and hoodie for Matthew to borrow, setting them neatly on the unmade bed along with his clothes from last night. He considers, briefly, the cola-stained button-down, and tosses it in the hamper instead. Downstairs, he scoops Bowie up and cradles him one-armed while he starts the coffee and picks through half of a protein bar before giving up on eating. It’s not the earliness so much as his nerves. He’s never been good at eating when he’s nervous.

“Well, we’ll see how this goes, eh?” he says to Bowie, who licks his face in response.

While the coffee brews, he checks his phone. Frowns, when he sees a text from Matthew, but — it’s the picture from a few minutes ago, of Matthew’s bare ass, his come-streaked back. In the photo, Leon’s hand is fit perfectly to Matthew’s waist and his knees poke into the bottom of the frame. Matthew’s head is turned to the side enough that the bruising on his face is visible, but his eyes are closed, and he looks more relaxed than Leon ever thought he’d see him. The picture is hot, of course — Leon saves it to his phone, and will absolutely be getting some use out of it later — but that’s the thing that he can’t stop staring at. No fight-or-flight drawn taut through Matthew’s shoulders. And under the picture, Matthew texted a caption: All yours.

Leon closes his eyes, touching the edge of the phone to his lips. There’s a tiny part of him that’s still convinced Matthew will bolt again as soon as he doesn’t have to look Leon in the eye. That staying one night doesn’t undo months and months of running away. He doesn’t believe that will happen, not really, but compulsion to protect himself while he still can — it’s there, stubborn and ugly, ready to rear up again the same way it did in Florida.

It’s going to take a lot of texts like this to bury it. A lot of soft moments. A lot of time, and a lot of deliberate choices, even when it’s hard.

Well, he’s a goddamn NHL player. That’s not a career you get without making a lot of deliberate choices, even when it’s hard.

He hasn’t bothered with most of the texts from last night, and he doesn’t bother with them now, either. People are concerned, but they’re also probably asleep, or assuming he’s still asleep. He’s fine with that. The only one he really needs to deal with is from Connor, who texted him to say, ok i talked to zachy but TELL ME if u need someone to come over.

All good, Leon texts him, belatedly, as the sky is turning from gray to silver outside. Ill tell u about it later. Thx tho ❤

Bowie wriggles free when he hears Matthew coming down the stairs. He’s too good at reading Leon’s moods; he knows Matthew has been forgiven. When Matthew appears a moment later, in his own jeans and the hoodie Leon left him, Bowie is nestled smugly in his arms.

“I’m glad he likes me again,” Matthew says.

“Don’t test him,” Leon says, as he screws the tops onto the travel mugs. He wants to take another picture, of Matthew and Bowie together, Matthew in his Puma hoodie, but — next time. He has to trust that there will be a next time. So instead he just hands one of the thermoses to Matthew and adds, “I’ll drive you.”

“Okay.” Matthew kisses Bowie on the top of his furry little head. “Hey, I’ll see you later, buddy, okay?”

Leon could really fall in love with him. He knew he could, if Matthew would just let him.

“Okay, come here, little idiot,” he says, taking Bowie from Matthew and setting him on the floor. “He’s got a plane to catch. You’ll get over it.”

Matthew graciously does not ask if Leon is talking to the dog or to himself.

In the car, Leon isn’t sure what to say, and it seems like Matthew isn’t, either. He wants to be comfortable with the silence — he’s usually good at being comfortable with silence. He wants to be okay with letting Matthew go back to his team, back to the rest of the world, but it seems unfair that Leon just got him and has to give him back again already.

But that’s the whole thing, isn’t it? If he really wants it, he wants it even when it’s hard. And god, he fucking wants it.

“My sister put this on my workout mix this season,” Matthew says. The music on the radio, he means. Leon had been thinking too hard to hear it. He glances over, and Matthew elaborates. “She makes me mixes all the time. I don’t really pay attention to new music except for, like, five bands I know I like, so she says it keeps me hip and cool.”

Leon snorts. “She thinks you’re hip and cool?”

“I think she wishes I was.”

“My sister is better at music, too,” Leon says, unable to help a small smile. “I think only my father is worse than me, in our family.”

“Oh, yeah, mine is absolutely the worst, too,” Matthew says with a laugh. Talking about his family, he brightens in a way Leon hasn’t seen before. It sparks a new little warm spot in Leon’s chest. “Mom and sister? Great taste. Brady? Same as me, basically. But I think Big Walt only knows songs that were on the radio in the ‘80s.”

“Big Walt,” Leon mutters. Now there’s someone he doesn’t have a plan for. He’s half-convinced the guy’s got a grudge against him for talking shit about his son in public, but that might be all in Leon’s head. Who fucking knows. One day at a time, right?

Matthew holds his hand out toward Leon; Leon takes it, lacing their fingers together and squeezing hard.

“Just so you know, I’m scared as shit right now,” Matthew says.

“Yeah, well,” Leon says, not quite brave enough to look away from the road. “If it helps, I might fall in love with you, too.”

“I mean,” Matthew says, cool as anything. “Doesn’t hurt.”

He’s grinning, though, irrepressible, his eyes scrunched up into crescent moons. Leon can feel his ears turn pink, but he has to grin, too, nervous giddiness winning out over everything else. He squeezes Matthew’s hand again, driving with that smile in his peripheral vision, and every time he catches a glimpse of it, he can’t help thinking, All mine.

happy trees by yourblues

Series: head above water [4]
Fandoms: Men’s Hockey RPF
AO3 Categories: M/M
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leon Draisaitl/Matthew Tkachuk (offscreen)
Characters: Brady Tkachuk, Matthew Tkachuk, Quinn Hughes
Freeform Tags: Alternate Point of View, Other: See Story Notes
Status: Completed
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Published: 2023-07-06
Updated: 2023-07-06
Packaged: 2023-12-04 17:02:52
Summary:

Quinn knows way too much about the Tkachuks.

happy trees

Author’s Note:

yet another pov flip for a tumblr writing meme that got too long for tumblr. one day i might write in the future of this universe, but alas today is not that day. thank you to the anon who gave me an excuse to get into the head of my favorite side character ❤
this scene corresponds to the one in chapter six of head above water where matthew goes to see brady in quinn’s hotel room, and thus there is both drunkenness and puking. once again i can’t stop you from reading it without reading the main fic first, but i don’t think it’ll make sense without the context!

also, there is now a podfic of head above water! i’ve never had someone podfic my fic before so i think this is the coolest thing ever. give it a listen!

Quinn knows way too much about the Tkachuks.

When he says that Brady tells him everything, he doesn’t mean literally everything, but it’s close enough. It’s been like that since they were fifteen. Brady is not a person who keeps things close to his chest. If he has a feeling, a problem, a thought, he wants to talk about it. Quinn cannot relate, but he is a pretty good listener.

“It’s been almost ten minutes,” Brady is saying now. He’s pacing at the end of Quinn’s hotel bed in his boxer shorts and an old t-shirt from some golf club, phone in hand. “Should I text him again?”

“If you want,” Quinn says from his spot on the mattress. They’ve been back from their night out for about an hour, still tipsy, too wound up to sleep. Probably need to hydrate more before they go to bed anyway. Quinn definitely does, at least. He hadn’t been bothered when Brady invited Matthew up to join them, of course, but he wouldn’t be bothered by getting the rest of the night to themselves, either. Well, Jack’s there, but he’s unconscious on the chaise longue, snoring his cute little snores so Quinn knows he’s still alive. Jack barely counts as other people anyway.

“I’m doing it,” Brady announces. He stops pacing right in front of the television to text. Quinn sticks a foot out to move him so he can see Bob Ross painting his path in the woods. Brady mashes some buttons with his giant thumbs, then turns to look at the door as if hitting send would summon his brother.

Because Quinn knows too much, he knows there’s something up with Matthew. Not that he needed Brady to tell him this explicitly — he spent enough time with Matthew over the summer to notice it himself, and wow it was not subtle, although to be fair Quinn has always been better than average at gauging people’s moods — but he has, over the course of the season, heard all about how Matthew’s been quiet, Matthew’s been distant, Matthew’s been, I don’t know, he just doesn’t seem happy. Do you think he’s mad at me? Taryn says he’s the same with her, so I don’t think it’s a me thing. Matthew is almost an extra brother to Quinn, or maybe more like a brother-in-law. Kind of. Anyway, he’s not not concerned, but at this point he kind of wants to take the guy by the shoulders and shake him.

“Brady,” says Quinn. “Come sit down. If he shows, he shows. If he doesn’t, he probably just passed out.”

“I know that,” Brady grumbles, but he comes to flop into the spot next to Quinn anyway, leaning against him with a gusty sigh. Quinn puts his head on Brady’s shoulder. Brady puts his head on Quinn’s head. A perfect fit.

“Are you sure he didn’t say anything at Boots?” Brady asks. He smells like a combination of all the bars they went to earlier — sweat and alcohol and his own familiar cologne.

“First of all,” Quinn says, “that was, like, six months ago now. If something from then was still bothering him, I don’t know, he usually tells you anything that big, right?” He squints at the TV. The basketball game they’d first flipped to had made him nauseous, with all the bright colors and fast movements, but the painting is kind of soothing. “Second of all, you know I would have told you if he said anything.”

“Yeah, well,” Brady mumbles into Quinn’s hair. “He doesn’t tell me everything big.”

“I know, buddy,” Quinn says, patting Brady’s hand.

Around the campfire at Boots, Quinn had thought seriously about just spitting it out — look, Brady won’t care if you’re gay, but he cares a lot that you don’t trust him. Except he knows how he would feel if people came up to him and started announcing what he should do about his sexuality, especially if he had to share an RV with them all weekend. Bradydidn’t say so, but Quinn’s pretty sure he’d kind of hoped that Quinn and Matthew would have some sort of heart-to-heart about liking dudes at the festival and come home to tell him all about it.

“You know, I’ve told you before,” Quinn says, when Brady’s silence has stretched out dangerously close to brooding territory. He touches Brady’s hand again; Brady takes his, squeezes it. Quinn turns their wrists so Brady’s big palm is on top of his, studying the way his own pale fingers lace through Brady’s freckled ones. “You can tell him about me if you want. And then if he wants to talk to me, he can. You know I’ll tell him you’ll be cool about it.”

“I know,” Brady sighs. “Maybe. I appreciate you.”

“You love me.”

“I love you. Obviously.”

Quinn’s least favorite thing about being drunk is how sometimes he swears he can feel the Earth spinning faster than usual.

“I need a Gatorade,” he says, extracting himself. There are a few half-empty bottles around the room, but he wants a cold one. While he’s in the mini-fridge, he digs for snacks, holding up the options for Brady.

“Grapes,” Brady decides. Then, after Quinn has tossed the ziploc bag to him, “Where the fuck did you even get these?”

“Tourist mom at the beach thought I looked hungry.”

Brady laughs. “Mama’s boy even for the tourist moms.”

“Shut up,” Quinn says, but the biting retort he definitely would have thought of is interrupted by a knock on the door. Brady perks up. Quinn waves him off. “I’ll get it, I’m up anyway.”

In the hallway, thank fuck, is Matthew. Standing there in his pajamas and slippers, he kind of looks like he got run over by a bus. He didn’t look like that when they parted ways an hour ago.

“Hey,” Matthew says warily. “Brady’s here?”

“Yeah, come on. We’re watching Bob Ross,” Quinn says, because that’s probably better than what the fuck happened to you?

Matthew shuffles in behind him to find Brady popping grapes into his mouth and chewing with an intensity that is probably supposed to seem casual.

“Why the fuck are you watching Bob Ross?” Matthew asks. He sounds as bleary and unfocused as he looks.

“Because it’s on,” Brady says around a grape. “Did you know there’s a whole Bob Ross channel?”

“No, I did not know that,” Matthew says.

Brady frowns. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Matthew says. There’s something particularly concerning about someone his size looking so unsteady on their feet. “No, I think I’m pretty fucked up right now.”

“I’ll get you a Gatorade,” Quinn says. He never did get one for himself. He goes to dig through the mini-fridge again, setting aside a Cool Blue, while Brady offers Matthew the grapes. Matthew declines, but he does take Brady’s offer to sit, and Brady looks so pleased about it — his head on Matthew’s shoulder, so pleased just that his big brother showed up. It twists something up inside Quinn’s chest, because he knows Matthew loves Brady, even with whatever’s going on with him, but no one loves like Brady does. He’s all heart. He’s tough, but he wounds more easily than people think. Matthew should know that.

Brady catches Quinn watching them and grins.

“Matthew’s been having a tough year,” he says.

“Shut up, Brady,” Matthew groans, rubbing his face.

“Not, like, statistically,” Brady says. As if he hasn’t had this conversation with Quinn a dozen times. This is his version of subtlety. “Mentally, you know? He thinks we can’t tell, but he’s really shit at acting normal.”

“Brady,” Matthew snaps.

Brady shuts his mouth. In the silence that follows, Matthew presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, breathing too quickly, too loudly.

The mini-fridge emits a high-pitched whine, angry at being held open for too long. Quinn grabs the closest bottle — red, that’s fine, everyone likes red — and closes it, straightening back up as Matthew scrubs at his cheeks.

“Sorry,” he’s mumbling. “Sorry, fuck.” If he were Jack or Luke, Quinn would wrap him in a hug until he got all of the bad stuff out, but that might be weird here. Maybe if Brady wasn’t sitting there looking so hurt he would do it anyway, but.

“Here,” he says instead, offering the Gatorade. “Do you want something stronger?”

Matthew shakes his head, taking the bottle and twisting the cap off to chug it. Quinn glances over to try to catch Brady’s eye and maybe assess the situation a little better, but Brady is just staring at Matthew. So: bad. The assessment of the situation is that it’s bad. Quinn has known Matthew for almost a decade and he has never seen him cry. Nothing like a crisis to make him feel abruptly sober.

“I was just kidding,” Brady says, uncharacteristically soft. “I mean, not totally kidding, but I was just teasing.”

“I know.” Matthew wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing the red Gatorade stain. “I know, it’s fine. It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Brady says. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I,” Matthew starts, but stops. He’d been pallid to start with, but the remaining color drains from his face. He bolts for the bathroom, pushing past Quinn as he lurches off the bed. A moment later, they’re graced with the distinct sound of puking.

“Fuck,” says Brady. He rubs a hand over his face. “Fuck. Quinn, I don’t fucking know what to do.”

Matthew vomits again, loudly. From the other room, Jack grumbles, “Ugh, who’s ralphing?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Quinn calls to him, then, “Brades, man up. Come on.” He offers both hands to pull Brady to his feet, helping to steady him once he’s upright. Jack can wait until he gets everything else under control. First, Brady, and then Brady can deal with Matthew, and everything will be fine.

“Just go sit with him. Get him some water,” he says, moving them both toward the bathroom. “If we need to, you guys can have this room and me and Jackie can go back to his.” He’d kind of hoped Brady would crash with him, but it’s probably better this way anyway. Not that the situation is better, but. Whatever. There are wants and then there’s needs.

“I don’t want to kick you out,” Brady says.

“Dude, seriously, don’t worry about it,” Quinn says. “Just go talk to him.” Brady is easy to move when he’s not trying to be an immovable object, and Quinn gets him all the way to the bathroom door before he decides to plant his feet.

“What if I say the wrong thing?” he asks, dropping his voice so low it’s barely audible. “I don’t want him to hate me.”

Quinn is not always the most physically affectionate person — blame an adolescence filled with anxiety that his friends would be able to tell he was gay from the way he touched them, never mind the gay-ass shit they were all doing with each other anyway — but sometimes he can’t help himself. Especially with Brady. The way his head fits against Brady’s shoulder, and all that. Now, he reaches up to make Brady look at him, his fingers sliding into the soft buzzed hair at the nape of Brady’s neck.

“You won’t,” he says. “You love him. He knows that.”

“Yeah, I know, but.” Brady sighs. Shakes his head. “Yeah, I know, you’re right. Okay.”

Quinn does not eavesdrop. He retrieves his Cool Blue Gatorade and sits on the edge of the bed, sipping and watching Bob cover up a mistake with happy trees.

He won’t say it, for a couple of reasons, but he would bet money that whatever is up with Matthew, it’s because of a guy. There’s nothing else that Matthew would let get this bad without talking to his family about it — the Tkachuks are just that type of family. They talk about everything. But none of the rest of them know what it’s like to keep it a secret that you’re in love and fucked up about it.

After a few minutes have passed, Quinn goes to check on Jack, who has dozed off again. His head is lolling against the side of the chair, so Quinn tries with middling success to tug a throw pillow up to support his neck better. At least the sounds of puking have stopped by the time he edges into the bathroom. Matthew is still hunched over with his cheek on the toilet seat, cup of water in hand, sweat beading on his pale forehead. Brady is sitting cross-legged next to him, rubbing slow circles on Matthew’s back through his t-shirt. He looks up at Quinn with a grim expression.

“Do you want me to see if I can find some ginger ale?” Quinn asks, touching the curls on the top of Brady’s head. “Or some crackers or something?”

Matthew groans and sits up. “No, just give me a minute, I’ll get out of here.” He winces as he shakes his head. “Shit, sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you’re not going anywhere,” Brady says. He sounds more himself again; the twist in Quinn’s chest loosens, just a little. “Unless it’s to your room, in which case I’m coming with you.”

“You really don’t have to.” Matthew takes a sip of water, swishing it in his mouth and then spitting into the toilet. “I’ve been drunk before. I’ll survive.”

“It’s not really the drunk part I’m worried about,” Brady mumbles. Matthew doesn’t respond, staring hard into the toilet bowl. Just tell him, Quinn thinks at Matthew as hard as he can. Can’t you see how worried he is? But of course it has no effect.

“I think there’s a Sprite in the mini-fridge,” Quinn says, and goes to check before he says something that’s not his place to say. He feels like he should be on Matthew’s side, given the circumstances, but it’s too hard not to be on Brady’s side. Not that there’s sides, really. It’s just — it’s just not his place.

“—go back to your room, we put the trash can by the bed, and you can tell me what the fuck’s wrong with you,” Brady is saying. He’s not speaking loudly, but it’s his captain voice, so it carries.

There is indeed a Sprite in the fridge. Instead of taking it back to Brady and Matthew, though, Quinn sits back down on the bed, the planet once again spinning too fast underneath him. He rubs the pad of his thumb against his fingers, thinking about how Brady’s hair had felt against them. Bob has rolled over into a new episode, and it isn’t clear yet what he’s painting now. Jack is snoring again. The soda is cold, condensation leaving a damp spot on Quinn’s thigh, and he picks at the label until he hears movement from the bathroom.

“Hey,” Brady says when he sticks his head out. “We’re gonna go to Matt’s room.”

“Sorry, Q,” Matthew mumbles, muffled through the hand on his face. He’s upright now, looking possibly more unsteady than before. Brady’s bigger, though; he can handle it if Matthew keels over.

“Seriously, don’t worry about it,” Quinn says. He gives Matthew the Sprite, and then gives him a hug, too, because he looks like he really fucking needs one. Afterward, Brady wraps Quinn up in his long arms and kisses the top of his head.

“Sorry,” he whispers into Quinn’s hair. “He really didn’t mean to wreck your night or anything.”

“I know, it’s fine,” Quinn whispers back, and wishes the Earth would stop fucking spinning.

Once the door closes, he stands in the quiet for a moment, letting his own wave of nausea pass. He rubs his hands over his face, through his hair, takes a couple of deep breaths. There’s the beginnings of a headache behind his eyes, like the kind he gets anytime he cries. Emotional hangover, his mom calls them. He wants to call her, suddenly, to tell her he loves her, but she is definitely asleep by now.

A soft, wheezy snore pulls him from his thoughts. The throw pillow has slipped from under Jack’s head again, and his neck is at an angle that will leave him with a hell of a crick in the morning. Quinn goes to sit on the edge of the chaise longue. He puts his hand on Jack’s shoulder. Jack’s eyelashes flutter, dark against his cheeks.

“Hey,” Quinn says softly. “Rowdy. Wake up, buddy.”

“No,” Jack mumbles.

“Yeah, no, you gotta,” Quinn says. He combs his fingers through Jack’s hair, pushing it back from his face. “Come on, you’ll thank me in the morning.”

It takes some more coaxing, but he does get Jack up and over to the bed. Jack grumbles the whole way, but curls up under the covers with a happy sigh when he gets there. Quinn flicks his ear (Jack whines and swats at him) then makes a meandering lap of the room, turning off lights, kicking clothes away from where they’ll get tripped over, plugging both his and Jack’s phones in to charge. He puts the Cool Blue on his own bedside table and the last cold Gatorade from the fridge on Jack’s side. If Matthew doesn’t talk to Brady after all this, he thinks, maybe he will start the conversation himself. Yeah, it’s not his place, but someone has to do something. Quinn doesn’t want Brady to be upset anymore, and he doesn’t want Matthew to fuck up his life. Not if he could fix it just by saying something. Or maybe he won’t fix anything, but at least he could try.

“Did someone throw up?” Jack asks sleepily as Quinn finally crawls into bed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Quinn says. Jack snorts, but doesn’t press the issue. It’s a big bed, and Quinn is almost too tired to move, but he musters the energy to stretch across and ruffle Jack’s hair.

“Hey,” Jack protests, but doesn’t move at all. He doesn’t even open his eyes.

“Hey yourself,” Quinn says. “I love you, okay?”

“I love you, too,” Jack says with a sigh. “Now leave me alone so I can sleep.”

this is for keeps by yourblues

Series: head above water [5]
Fandoms: Men’s Hockey RPF
AO3 Categories: M/M
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leon Draisaitl/Matthew Tkachuk
Characters: Leon Draisaitl, Matthew Tkachuk, Tkachuk Family (Hockey RPF)
Freeform Tags: Timestamp
Status: Completed
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Published: 2023-08-11
Updated: 2023-08-11
Packaged: 2023-12-04 17:02:57
Summary:

Matthew and Leon in St. Louis, one year later.

this is for keeps

Author’s Note:

happy one year anniversary to head above water! i have had such fun sharing this universe with you all over the past year, and am still always so flattered and grateful about how lovely people’s reactions to the story have been, from the comments to the tumblr messages to the amazing creative projects. to celebrate the anniversary, i wanted to write something short and sweet about matthew and leon navigating their relationship a year-ish after the events of the original story. it’s not much, but i hope you all enjoy it. ❤
as usual, i can’t stop you from reading this without reading head above water first, but i don’t think it’ll make sense without the context!

“So how’s it going out there?” Brady asks.

Matthew jumps about a mile in the air. He hadn’t heard anyone come in. But here’s Brady, hauling a case of Bud Light to the fridge, trailed by Taryn, trudging into the kitchen through the garage door with a bag of groceries looped over one wrist and their mom’s SUV keys in the other hand. She drops the keys on the counter and comes to tuck herself against Matthew’s side, just to the side of the big window looking out onto the back porch.

“Ooh, how is it going?” she asks, jockeying for space as if Matthew doesn’t obviously deserve the best view here. He steps on her foot a little bit; she elbows him in the side and refuses to budge. “No blood or tears yet, huh?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, the night is young.”

“Wow, thanks,” Matthew deadpans, and goes back to spying on the back porch. Leon is out there.

Leon is out there with Matthew’s parents.

Leon had said last night, “You know, I promise— I promise—” (this had been said while kissing Matthew, and so it took a few tries to get all the way out) “—I promise you can leave me alone with them for five minutes. It’ll be fine. I promise.”

Now, outside, Matthew’s dad is grilling burgers for dinner. His mom is hovering with a glass of white wine. Leon is standing there, beer in hand, abandoned by Matthew, who ducked inside to use the bathroom and, before his siblings reappeared, was making himself wait exactly five minutes before reemerging. The three of them are chatting. Impossible to tell about what.

“Looks like it’s going okay to me,” Taryn says.

“So why does Matthew look like he’s going to shit himself?” Brady asks, closing the refrigerator door and coming to join them.

“Because Matthew has anxiety.”

“Shut up, Taryn,” Matthew says. She hugs him quickly around the waist.

“I’m taking these out to mom.” The groceries — toppings for the burgers. “I’ll try not to scare your boyfriend off while I’m out there.”

“I’m coming with you,” Brady says.

“Bring beers!” Taryn calls over her shoulder.

Well, there’s no way Matthew is leaving Leon alone with his entire family.

Although it’s not the first time Leon’s had to deal with all of them together. At the past season’s All Star Game in Toronto, Matthew’s parents had insisted that Leon join them for dinner, and it went fine. Well. It was awkward and nerve-wracking, but fine. Not that Matthew had thought anything would really go wrong. It had been over a month since the big reveal, Christmas Eve, all five of them together in the den half-watching Elf while they digested dinner: hey, you know the guy I’m seeing? It’s Leon Draisaitl. Yes, that Leon Draisaitl.

At least everyone understood then why Matthew had made them wait so long. It had been a bit of a sore point over the summer when he’d come out to his parents and admitted he was maybe kind of seeing someone but refused to share the details. They aren’t a family that keeps secrets from each other, and here he was not only revealing that he’d been keeping a big one, but that he had another one that he wasn’t planning on spilling anytime soon. It made for an awkward couple of days. When Brady met his girlfriend, he’d told the family group chat after date one how much he liked her. An adjustment for everyone, doing things Matthew’s way.

A long series of adjustments, really. Constant little shifts. It’s better than things were before, for sure — a huge weight off Matthew’s chest. They’ve gotten past all the gasping and cackling (from his siblings) and all the careful concern (from his parents) about dating someone in the league — dating someone on a rival team. His mom asking gently, oh, isn’t that hard on you; his dad cringing at the potential career complications. He just hasn’t quite stopped holding his breath yet when the topic of his love life comes up. Sometimes it still feels like everyone is walking on eggshells around him.

Following Taryn onto the back porch, Matthew goes straight to Leon and leans against the railing next to him. He mirrors Leon’s stance, arms crossed but not defensive. Close enough to touch, but not actually touching.

“Hi,” Leon says, closing the gap briefly to thumb at Matthew’s elbow. He is horribly handsome in the dusky golden haze, bright-eyed and sun-kissed, happy to be here. Matthew wants to slide his arms around Leon’s waist and press himself against the solid heat of his body. If they were alone, he would.

“So what did we miss?” Brady asks, emerging from the house with Bud Lights for everyone except their mom. She’ll drink it if they’re out at the lake or whatever, but not in her own house when the wine is right there. Leon is not yet brave enough to disparage the Tkachuk family beer of choice. He’ll go toe-to-toe with Big Walt over hockey stuff, but he suffers the light beer with no more than a pointed grimace at Matthew.

“Everything,” Keith says. “We had the whole party without you.”

“Impossible. I am the party.” Brady drops into a patio chair, only to be swatted by Taryn, who is unpacking condiments.

“Be useful,” she says. “Give this to Dad.”

Brady takes the package of sliced cheese and lobs it toward the grill. It goes wide; Leon grabs it from the air and hands it over.

“Thank you, Leon,” Keith says, pointedly polite.

“Yeah, no problem.”

Matthew sways closer just enough to press their shoulders together for a moment. Leon touches his elbow again, a quick squeeze.

“Leon was telling us about his time in Spain this summer,” Chantal says, easing the conversation back onto the tracks. “It sounds lovely.”

Vacations are a safe topic. It’s easy to fall into the discussion, comparing beaches, resorts, getaways. Matthew’s mom still loves any excuse to talk about Greece. Mexico, Bahamas. Taryn decides quickly that they need to make Marbella or Mallorca the next family vacation destination, while Brady argues over her for Italy. It all feels very normal, laid-back and a little rambunctious. It is all very normal, except for the part that Leon is there, pulling up photos of the villa on his phone to show Taryn and Chantal, and that’s supposed to be the new normal, but Matthew isn’t used to it yet. Leon has been such a private piece of his life; it feels strange trying to slot him in here. Not bad strange. Just strange. Sharing him is strange.

“What a sweet little dog,” Matthew’s mom coos. They’ve gotten to the Bowie portion of the slideshow. Bowie was really in his element in Spain. Matthew’s seen all the pictures.

The reason Matthew made the announcement at Christmas — Leon, yes, that Leon — is that their bye weeks lined up, and they wanted to be able to take off together right after the All-Star Game without having to engage in some grand deception. They’d already done that once, last summer, and while Matthew had appreciated the privacy, he had also hated keeping the secret. Sending pics to the family group chat of beaches and cocktails that carefully omitted any identifying details. They knew he was there with, well — “your sweetheart,” his mom had taken to calling the anonymous boyfriend who was Leon, while his dad opted for “your man,” but always with raised eyebrows to make sure everyone knew he understood it should be meant in a gay way. Brady, in a rare show of mercy, just went with “boyfriend,” as did Taryn, except she liked to say it like boooooy-friend and occasionally threw “boytoy” into the mix because she thought it was funny. Anyway, Matthew’s family had known he was on vacation with Leon without knowing it was Leon, because he and Leon had agreed at the beginning of that summer to make sure they at least lasted the summer before they told more people. McDavid and Hyman could keep a secret.

So they had spent two perfect weeks in West Palm Beach. Not all of it inside the hotel room, but they did spend a decent chunk of their time there. Had to leave occasionally for housekeeping to come in. If Matthew thought he was gone for Leon before that trip, well, having his hand held on the beach and being kissed at sunset and waking up to Leon’s bedhead every day had tipped him into some concoction of agonizing softness he hadn’t even known he was allowed to feel. He came home grinning like an idiot, and he could tell it hurt his family’s feelings that he wouldn’t tell them more.

Thus, the announcement at Christmas, so when he and Leon jetted off for three days in Turks after the All-Star Game, Matthew could send a tasteful selfie of the two of them on their hotel balcony to the group chat, even if they were all still saying Leon’s name like they weren’t entirely sure they had the right guy. That part had gotten better over the past six months. There is now a version of the family group chat that included both Leon and Brady’s girlfriend. Matthew’s dad likes to post in there when Leon got a hat trick or whatever. Taryn loves that Leon is a big emoji guy and that his brother-in-law plays field hockey.

Now, Leon is saying to Chantal, scrolling fast through his photos to get back to February, “The place we stayed in Turks, that was really nice, let me show you—”

“But look at these pictures,” Taryn is saying, shoving the Google search on her phone at Brady. “Marbella for sure.”

“Italy,” Brady insists, batting her hand away. “Think of the pasta, Taryn!”

“You think they don’t have pasta in Spain—”

Matthew’s dad is moving the burgers from the grill to the serving platter. Matthew takes the package of cheese from him and starts laying slices so they melt over the hot patties.

“How you holding up, kiddo?” Keith asks.

“Oh, you know,” Matthew says. Keith pats him heavily on the shoulder.

“All set for your trip?”

Matthew is going back to Cologne with Leon at the end of the week. It’s a whirlwind tour of meet the parents this summer.

“Yeah, I mean, you know I’m not packing until the night before, so.”

“Don’t let your mom hear that.”

Matthew snorts and cracks a grin.

“All righty,” Keith says. He lifts the platter of burgers as Matthew finishes with the cheese, raising his voice to cut through the chatter. “Who’s ready for a real American delicacy?”

“Dad, he’s lived in North America for like ten years,” Brady says.

“Twelve, actually,” Leon offers.

“Yeah,” Keith says. “In Canada.”

“Hey, now,” Chantal says.

Keith sets the platter on the patio table amongst the buns and fixings, barely pulling away before Brady and Taryn are diving in for their share. Usually Matthew would be in the thick of it, but instead he sidles over to Leon, tugging on his t-shirt and propping his chin over Leon’s shoulder to watch the melee. Leon presses his nose briefly to Matthew’s head, hides a kiss in his hair. They only stay like that for a moment, but Matthew’s next breath still comes more easily than the ones before it.

“Alberta beef is a thing, you know,” he says as he and Leon take their seats.

“Yeah, we know, it’s sitting right next to you,” Taryn says. Matthew throws a burger bun at her.

*

“I think that went well,” Leon says, flopping onto the sofa in Matthew’s living room and kicking his feet up onto the cushions. It’s late, but not so late that either of them feels compelled to head straight up to bed. Leon is just the slightest bit tipsy, pink-cheeked and talkative. Matthew stopped drinking over an hour ago so he could drive them home, but he doesn’t need alcohol to feel drunk around Leon.

And Leon is right. It did go well.

Matthew goes to the sofa and lies down directly on top of Leon. Tucks his face into Leon’s neck and wiggles his hands under the small of Leon’s back until he’s hugging him around the waist.

“Oof,” Leon says. He squirms, getting more comfortable. Matthew doesn’t move, just lets Leon figure out how to work around him until they settle again. Leon smells like sweat and soap and charcoal smoke from the grill. He rubs his hands up and down Matthew’s back before just wrapping him up and squeezing.

“It did go well,” Matthew says, muffled.

“Your mom hugged me.”

“Exactly.”

“Your dad didn’t hug me.”

Matthew snorts. “Did you want him to?”

“Mmm. No.” Leon laughs.

“Too bad. He’s a hugger. He’s gonna hug you eventually.” Matthew pushes himself up to look Leon in the face. The top of Leon’s head is pressed against the couch arm, squashing his hair so it sticks out in different directions. There’s a dusting of summer freckles across the bridge of his nose, barely there, really only visible from inches away. His eyelashes look feathersoft, catching the light when he blinks, and his eyes are somehow blue and green at the same time. Sometimes Matthew still cannot believe he’s real.

“I’ll start mentally preparing myself now,” Leon says, then grins, his tongue poking out between his teeth. Matthew narrows his eyes.

“You better.”

He starts to lay his head down again, but Leon stops him — “Hey, c’mere,” and a finger under Matthew’s chin, tugging him in for a kiss. Soft, slow, savoring. The kind of kiss that could go somewhere or nowhere at all. Matthew presses into it, his toes curling. When the kiss ends, Leon’s expression is more serious. He strokes his knuckles against Matthew’s cheek.

“Hey,” he says. “You want me to fuck your brains out?”

Matthew lets out a big breath. “God, yes.”

Because, yes, it went well, but god it’s fucking stressful. Even with everyone saying and doing the right things. They still think it’s weird. Matthew knows they do. Leon, yes, that Leon. Mister “I would get off the ice” himself. They’re trying so hard to be normal about it, but.

Weirdly — or maybe not weirdly, maybe Matthew needs to give his dad more credit — Keith is the one being the most normal about it. Over coffee on Christmas morning, he’d asked, “So, how serious is this? Are you two angling to get onto the same team?” And Matthew had shrugged, hemmed, hawed, mumbled something about being committed to his contract in Calgary and how they’re okay with the distance for now, and Keith said, “Well, if you are, you’re gonna want to start planning it a couple years in advance. If you want a team that doesn’t suck too much to have the cap space for both of you.”

“And you don’t think that’s a stupid idea?” Matthew had asked.

“Kid, you’re a superstar,” Keith said. “He’s a superstar. You both have more leverage in the market than most guys could dream of. If you’re not using it to get what you want, then I’d be disappointed in you.”

His mom — well, his mom is nothing but supportive, but she’s still being so careful with him. Everyone was worried about him, season before last, and everyone has pretty much bounced back except for his mom. Brady texted him when the Oilers visited Ottawa this past March saying, ok sorry but am i allowed to hit your boyfriend??? and then several hours later, dont be mad at me but i hit your boyfriend. Taryn is very dedicated to being a cool little sister about it. Sometimes it feels like she’s trying too hard to be a cool little sister about it. Which feels like a kind of shitty thing to think. Matthew should give all of them more credit, really.

But he doesn’t have to think about any of that while he and Leon are alone. Not when they have his whole house to themselves, and not when Leon is pulling him in for another kiss. This one has more bite to it. Matthew is hungry, too; he cups Leon’s face in both hands and kisses back like if they kiss enough, long enough, deep enough, it might be possible to have his fill. That’s the thing about the distance. They’re pretty good at dealing with it, but it means that every kiss is making up for lost time.

They make out like that for a while, until Matthew’s mouth feels slick and buzzy from it, his lips tender from the scratchiness of Leon’s two-day beard. When Leon slides his hands up Matthew’s back to take his shirt off, Matthew says, “You know, there’s a great bed upstairs.”

“Yeah,” Leon says with a grin. “I’ll fuck you there.” Tugs one of the belt loops on Matthew’s shorts. “Get you naked here though.”

Matthew huffs a laugh. “Is that the most efficient way to do it?”

“Who knows. Just gives me more time to enjoy the view.”

It’s been almost two years since they first did anything, over a year since they sorted their shit out, and Matthew’s knees still do the thing where they get a little weak when Leon is particularly blunt about how much he likes to touch Matthew, likes to look at him. It still makes him feel hot all over, still makes him antsy with anticipation. He squirms out of his shorts and underwear when Leon pushes them down, kicking them off of the couch, and finds a better position astride Leon’s thighs to lean down and kiss him again.

Somewhere along the way, letting himself want Leon got easy. Now it’s just part of him. Not like breathing, because he still has to remind himself to do that sometimes. It’s like his heartbeat. Like the blood in his veins.

The air conditioning prickles across Matthew’s bare shoulders. He feels very naked, with Leon still fully clothed underneath him; feels like he’s on display, even with the blinds closed and the house empty except for the two of them.

“You could be naked, too,” he mumbles against Leon’s mouth. Leon hums in agreement, sitting up to let Matthew strip his shirt off as they find their feet. His clothes end up in a trail from the couch to the stairs, where Matthew will find them in the morning and think about a future where Leon’s stuff is always everywhere in his house, because they don’t have to squeeze their time together into a few weeks in the summer and a handful of scattered dates throughout the season. A future where Matthew’s home, wherever it is, is half Leon’s, and the line between the halves is so blurred that yours and mine has become simply ours.

*

The next day is a golf day. Boys only. Matthew, Leon, and Brady, with Big Walt leading the pack. Despite their midmorning start time, the weather is already hot and hazy when they tee off. They’re all sweating by a few holes in. Matthew would have preferred a perfect blue-sky day, but he does like the way Leon’s polo shirt sticks to his shoulder blades.

“Don’t miss,” Brady says as Matthew lines up a putt from a couple yards out. “Come on, Matthew, don’t miss. Don’t fuck it up, now, come on.”

Matthew lets out a breath and taps the golf ball. It rolls straight — straight — not quite straight — kisses the edge of the hole and comes to a stop mere inches on the other side.

“Goddammit,” Matthew says.

“That’s fine,” Leon says. “Not embarrassing at all.” Matthew’s dad snickers and jostles Leon with an elbow. Nice that they’re bonding, even if it is over roasting him.

“Whatever, I’m still ahead of you,” Matthew says, pointing his putter at Brady.

“Sure, for now.”

Matthew taps the ball in, then takes a bow as everyone cheers sarcastically.

It’s a nice morning. The scores stay close and the competition is fierce but mostly it’s just nice. Leon gets in on the chirping and cracks some bad jokes, which is how Matthew knows he’s feeling more comfortable. They get a golf cart to themselves and when they’re driving between holes Leon rubs Matthew’s thigh, or Matthew tangles their fingers together and kisses Leon’s hand, if he’s sure no one is looking. It’s not just that his dad and brother are around. People know Matthew at the country club, and St. Louis gossip moves fast. He’s kind of resigned himself to word getting around that the Tkachuks’ latest stray hockey player is a good-looking European, but people are used to Keith and Chantal playing host to guys from all over by now. St. Louis gossip moves fast, but it mostly stays in its own circles.

By a hair, Matthew wins the day. Leon loses to all of them, because twelve years in North America hasn’t convinced him to put effort into his golf game yet. He takes it better than he takes losing most things — he has been trying so hard to be cool and chill on this trip that it veers into comical sometimes — but Matthew can see the wheels in his head turning and maybe deciding that keeping up with Matthew’s dad and brother might be a good enough reason to improve. Big Walt, though, is thrilled for the chance to dispense advice about clubs and driving stances and whatnot, given that his sons stopped listening to him on that front long ago. After the game, they grab cold beers inside the club, and he doesn’t even get a whole drink in before he’s dragging Leon to the adjacent golf shop to show him the putter that will totally, absolutely change his short game. Leon shoots Matthew a look that might be a cry for help, but there’s a non-zero chance he comes back from this having been gifted an entire new set of clubs, so. He’ll survive.

That leaves Matthew and Brady to hold down the bar. Matthew downs a couple of beers a little too fast, and they go straight to his head. A few hours in the sun will do that to a guy. He takes off his ball cap and mops his forehead as he and Brady post up at a high-top near the bar — close enough for easy refills, far enough for privacy. It’s the early afternoon on a weekday, so the club is pretty empty, but there are patrons here and there. None of them need to know Matthew’s business.

“You know I’m really happy for you, right?” Brady asks. He’s slightly sunburned, pink across his nose and forehead despite his visor. “Even if it is kinda weird when I’m playing against the guy who’s kissing my brother.”

“You’ve played against guys who were kissing me before,” Matthew says, tipsy enough to joke about it. “You just didn’t know it.”

Brady makes a face. “Don’t tell me that.”

“Hey, you brought it up.”

“Look, I just don’t want you to be pissed at me if I knock him over or whatever.”

Matthew laughs, not at Brady’s concern, but because even though Leon is built like a brick house, the way he skates — not that Matthew has room to talk, but if he took issue with everyone who knocked Leon over, he’d be in a fight with half the league. Well. Moreso than he already is.

“Dude, it’s fine, just like. When you’re taking runs at him, avoid the dick area. That part’s important.” Brady chokes on his beer. Matthew pats him heartily on the back. “Do you get this weird about guys Quinn gets with, too?”

Brady takes a moment to compose himself, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Quinn doesn’t get with guys in the league.”

“That you know of.”

“He would tell me.”

“Are you sure? He does like big guys. League’s a great place to find big guys.”

“Dude, why do you know that?” Brady looks at him like he’s grown three heads, or dropped some obscure facts about quantum physics or something. Matthew shrugs.

“We talk,” he says. “You know that.”

“Still weird,” Brady mumbles, and pulls out his phone to send a text. Sorry to Quinn, Matthew thinks. There’s a brief back-and-forth that he’s is tempted to try to snoop on, but he doesn’t, because it’s not like he’ll ever fully understand Brady and Quinn’s codependent friendship even if he did read all their texts, and besides, he’s been annoying enough for the moment. When Brady pockets his phone a minute later, he’s back to being earnest. “Anyway, I was just trying to say, I really am happy for you. That guy before him had you so fucked up, it’s just really good to see you with someone who seems good for you.”

“Oh,” Matthew says. “Yeah, uh.”

“I’m just saying,” Brady says.” You ever wanna drop that name, I’ll gladly take his dick off.”

“Not necessary,” Matthew says, too quickly, and takes a long drink to shut himself up. Brady narrows his eyes.

“Matthew.”

“What?”

“Matthew.”

“I’m getting another beer, you want one?”

“Obviously.” A beat. “Matthew.”

Matthew ignores him in favor of flagging down the bartender. Brady waits impatiently until they have their two fresh drinks in hand before continuing.

“Matthew,” he says. “Please tell me Leon isn’t the same guy you were crying and puking over in Florida.”

“That was a long time ago,” Matthew says.

“Matthew.”

“Okay, look.” Matthew steels himself with a breath, sharply in and quickly out. Thinking about that stuff doesn’t make his stomach hurt like it used to, but that doesn’t mean he wants to talk about it. “That was a long time ago — it was, don’t give me that look — and we worked our shit out. Seriously. So just do me a huge favor and drop it, okay?”

Brady’s face contorts through a parade of conflicting emotions before he finally says, “Okay, fine.”

“Thank you.” Matthew squeezes his shoulder. “Seriously.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Brady grumbles, and pulls out his phone to do more texting. Matthew recognizes the emojis in the contact name at the top of the conversation.

“Jesus, Brady, dropping it means not immediately telling Taryn.”

“I’m not,” Brady says, thumbs flying. “Mostly.” He pockets his phone again and peevishly chugs about half his beer. Matthew sighs, sips, fingers his own phone but resists the urge to text Leon to ask if he and Keith are planning to reappear soon. The vibe of quality brother time is well and truly killed. They stand there drinking in uneasy silence for several minutes before Brady clears his throat.

“Look, if you’re happy, I’m happy for you, I guess,” he says. “I’m gonna give you a hug now, though.”

“Ugh,” Matthew says, but lets Brady squeeze him.

Thankfully, Leon reappears with Matthew’s dad soon. He has two new clubs in hand and is so deep in a conversation with Keith about his own impending contract negotiations that they hardly pause to say hello when they get back to the bar. Keith signals the bartender for another round as Leon comes to lean on the high-top next to Matthew.

“—no, you know, like I said, the hardest part will be the term, I think,” he’s saying to Keith. “You know they’re going to want another seven or eight years. Which would be fine, except he’ll only have three left on his by then, and when that’s up maybe we’ll want to try to make a move.”

“Somewhere warm,” Matthew butts in. They’ve had this conversation before.

“Or there’s always St. Louis,” Matthew’s dad says, a twinkle in his eye.

“Tampering,” Brady accuses.

“You can come, too,” Matthew offers.

Brady rolls his eyes and turns to Leon. “So you really think you’re gonna stick with my brother that long?”

The tone of the question clearly takes Leon aback. Matthew resists the urge to stomp on Brady’s foot.

“Of course I’ll stick with him,” Leon says, frowning.

“He has to, so we can teach him to use those new clubs,” Keith says, clapping Leon on the back. Leon works up a confused sort of smile as the bartender brings over a pitcher and four chilled glasses. Keith immediately takes over filling each of them to the brim.

“Hey,” Matthew says, sneaking a hand around Leon’s wrist to give it a squeeze. When his dad finishes pouring, he lifts his glass with his free hand. “How about a toast?”

“To what?” Brady asks, not quite managing to not sound sullen. If he decides to be a dick about this long-term, they’re going to need to have a conversation.

“I don’t know, just like.” Matthew shrugs. “We’re here together.”

“To Leon’s first time losing to us at golf.” Keith grins, clinking his glass to Matthew’s, then Leon’s, who allows the toast but does pull a deeply affronted face, and, finally to Brady’s as he lifts his glass belatedly. “May it be the first of many.”

“I thought the new clubs were gonna fix that,” Leon deadpans.

“There’s no accounting for raw talent, kiddo,” Keith says, his big laugh booming across the bar as Leon makes another face. Matthew doesn’t know why he ever thought Leon was hard to read. His heart is always on his sleeve, especially when it comes to winning and losing and wanting.

*

Brady is not a dick about it. He is, to his credit, clearly trying to be cool about it and not quite succeeding. He also definitely told Taryn.

“He’s just protective of you,” she says. “Give him some time, he’ll be fine.”

“And what, you don’t give a fuck what happens to me?” Matthew teases.

“No, I just have eyes,” Taryn says. “Leon’s clearly, like, nutso crazy about you. He’s putting up with us, isn’t he?”

At the moment, Leon isn’t putting up with anyone. He was still sleeping when Matthew left on a breakfast run then detoured to his parents’ because Taryn goaded him into bringing her a frappuccino. It’s too early for Brady to be up, so the two of them are sitting on the front stoop, shaded from the morning sun.

It’s been a few days since their round of golf, and Brady has been — mostly fine. Kind of touchy. A little standoffish. He was supposed to go to a baseball game with Matthew and Leon yesterday and just straight-up bailed. He’s clearly no longer rolling out the welcome wagon, and it kind of sucks.

“Yeah, I guess,” Matthew says.

“No, I mean it. It doesn’t even matter that you won’t touch him in front of us. The way he looks at you is gross.” Taryn knocks their knees together, smiling. “You just can’t blame Brady for being all, you know. You know how sensitive he is. I don’t think he ever really told you, because you were already dealing with so much stuff, but he was pretty fucked up about that stuff in Florida. He was really worried about you. He texted me about it all the time.”

None of this makes Matthew feel less guilty. He sighs into his iced coffee. Taryn leans her head on his shoulder, and he squeezes her in a half-hug. The front door swings open behind them.

“Don’t move,” Chantal says. “I’m taking a picture.”

*

When Matthew gets back to his house, Leon is still in bed, hogging the entire duvet. He does not look particularly peaceful or innocent, the way sleeping people are always described, but Matthew takes a picture anyway. He likes how Leon looks, naked in his bed, tangled in his sheets. He’ll be able to send the photo to Leon during the season when he misses him but doesn’t have the right words for it. He knows that’s going to happen. If he thinks too hard about it, he’ll start missing Leon right now, even though they’re in the same room.

So while Leon snores gently, Matthew sets the coffees on the bedside table and climbs onto the mattress with the bag containing their lukewarm breakfast sandwiches, which he then dangles right in front of Leon’s nose.

“Wakey wakey,” Matthew sings. Leon just grunts, so Matthew straddles him and leans down to say in his ear, “Hey, hot stuff, I brought breakfast.”

Leon’s eyelashes flutter. One eye cracks open. Matthew lets the bag bump against Leon’s face.

“Stop that,” Leon croaks. Matthew does it again. Leon scrunches his face up. Matthew does it again. Leon paws groggily at Matthew, then grabs him by the waist and rolls both of them over. Matthew yelps a laugh as he winds up on his back, Leon on top of him, the duvet hopelessly tangled between them.

“Good morning to you too,” Matthew says as Leon tucks his face into Matthew’s neck and lets out a gusty breath. Matthew rubs his back. “Do you want your sandwich or not?”

“Maybe after breakfast,” Leon mumbles, his teeth grazing Matthew’s earlobe. A shiver ripples all the way down to Matthew’s toes despite how warm he is under both Leon and the blanket. He shoves the food aside, wincing as it tumbles off the bed, but it’s hard to care too much when Leon is kissing, sleepily, his jaw — his cheek — finally his lips. Matthew slides his fingers into Leon’s hair to keep him there, and feels him waking up as the kiss gets deeper. He wiggles around, trying to get more of Leon and less of the duvet, and only succeeds at making the problem worse until Leon laughs against his mouth.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he says, deigning to help get both of them free. He gets Matthew’s shorts off while he’s at it, and Matthew shrugs out of his t-shirt, and, yeah, Leon is right, this is a way better breakfast than sandwiches.

Afterward, they eat in bed while Matthew tells Leon about the conversation with Taryn. It reminds Matthew of last summer on their secret vacation, where they ate so many breakfasts handed off by room service to whichever of them had a bathrobe close at hand. They had both flown to southern Florida not quite still smarting from their respective playoff losses, but dragging plenty of other baggage. Leon, still reluctant to let Matthew out of reach for too long, as if he might be swept away by the ocean. Matthew, nauseous with anxiety that being together for more than a night or two would somehow ruin it. Would reveal to Leon something that he had sorely misjudged, that he didn’t like, couldn’t fall in love with.

It had taken them about five minutes to fall into bed, a couple of days to shake off the awkwardness of sharing their space 24/7, and just under a week for Matthew to realize that, lying in bed with Leon, he could talk about anything. Even the hard stuff.

“I don’t know,” he sighs, leaning back against Leon’s chest. Leon’s arms around him, Leon’s chin propped on his head. Leon likes to hold him, and does so like Matthew is a human-sized teddy bear at any given opportunity. Matthew never thought of himself as a person to hold, and feels like maybe he shouldn’t like it quite as much as he does, but he does anyway. “We’ll talk at dinner tonight and hopefully everything will be fine and then we’ll be gone. If he’s still upset after that then I’ll talk to him at Christmas or whatever.” Leon kisses his hair; Matthew tilts his head back so Leon can kiss his brow, too. “Sorry.”

“Mmm,” Leon says. “Maybe you should just let him be.”

“I don’t want him to be a jerk to you.”

“He can be a jerk to me if he wants.” Leon kisses Matthew’s forehead again. Matthew makes a face at him.

“Okay, maybe you don’t care, but I don’t want to be fighting with him about it all the time.”

“I don’t not care. It’s just like—” Leon makes a soft noise in his throat, like he’s not sure how to say what he wants to say. “You can tell him all you want, but that’s just words. I’m the one who has to prove him wrong.”

Matthew closes his eyes. “You don’t have to prove anything.”

One more kiss, and murmured against his forehead: “Yes, I do.”

Maybe Matthew should argue further, but he doesn’t want to fight about it. He hates the idea of anyone in his family not trusting Leon, but— it is what it is. Kind of made his own bed with that one, when he stumbled into Quinn’s hotel room to puke his heartbroken guts up. But if that hadn’t happened, he never would have talked to Brady about what was going on, and if he never talked to Brady, he might not have had the guts to show up on Leon’s doorstep last year. Which means really it’s Brady’s fault that they’re together. Maybe Matthew should tell him that.

Regardless, they are already committed to dinner at Matthew’s parents’ house again. Chantal, insisting that she gets to play host one more time before her baby boy flies off to Europe, has ordered enough food for an army from a local favorite Italian place. When they get there, Brady is on the living room couch scrolling on his phone.

“Hey,” he says, barely glancing up.

Leon touches the small of Matthew’s back, and Matthew doesn’t push it. He goes to hug his mom instead. When they all sit down to eat, Brady gives the pair of them a tight smile, but barely participates in the conversation about their plans for Germany. Better that he’s quiet than snarky, Matthew figures, but it still stings.

“We have a hotel in Cologne,” Leon tells Chantal. “My parents have a guest room, but it’s also my nephew’s room when they babysit, so it’s just easier not to hog all their space, you know? And they turned my old room into an office years ago.”

“Well, we’d love to see pictures of whatever you two get up to over there,” Chantal says, her eyes darting pointedly over to Matthew. Leon looks at him, too, a fond smile curling the corners of his mouth.

“Yes, Mom, I’ll text you all the pictures,” Matthew says.

He can’t stop thinking about what Taryn said — He’s clearly crazy about you. The way he looks at you is gross.

Obviously Matthew knows how Leon feels about him, as surreal as it still seems sometimes. But he hadn’t — well, he’s mostly only thought about how he would look to his family in this relationship. He hadn’t thought about them noticing the way Leon looks at him, and now he can’t stop looking at Leon and wondering what everyone else sees when Leon looks back. If they notice the little subtle ways Leon touches him that won’t embarrass Matthew in front of his family. When Matthew looks at his parents together, he sees a unit. He wonders if he and Leon look like a unit. Maybe it’s too soon for that. Maybe it’s obvious they’re still kind of fumbling their way through this. But maybe that doesn’t matter if it’s clear that they care about each other. That they want to support each other. Keep each other afloat.

“You know I don’t get most of this schedule stuff until way closer to the start of the semester,” Taryn is saying, now, as their dad grills her about senior year festivities so they can plan their trips to UVA.

Leon’s hand is resting against the edge of the table. Matthew reaches for it quietly. He touches Leon’s wrist, then threads his fingers with Leon’s, turning their hands palm-to-palm, right there between their placemats. Leon squeezes, quick and tight.

“Hopefully the timing works for when Matthew and Brady are in Washington,” Chantal says. “We could rent a car and drive up to the city. It’s so beautiful in the fall out there.”

“I wish I could go,” Brady sighs. “I like Charlottesville. It’s such a cute little town.”

“Yeah, getting to see your sister play would just be a bonus, huh?” Keith teases.

“Let us know if any of the games are streaming, yeah?” Leon says to Taryn. “I’d like to try to watch.”

Taryn beams at him. “Yeah, I can put it in the group chat.”

Matthew tugs Leon’s hand up and kisses the back of it. Quick, soft, holding his breath. The kind of gesture he wouldn’t notice if his parents did it. It feels wildly conspicuous, now, but the conversation keeps going on around them. Matthew’s mom catches his eye briefly with a smile, but she would do that anyway. His dad is busy spooning himself out more pasta for himself and Taryn. Brady is frowning at his food, but not in a sullen way. More just like he’s thinking really hard. Maybe Taryn is right and he just needs a little time, but Matthew is still going to give him a huge hug before they leave.

Leon grins at him, though. Matthew exhales, and grins back.

Table of Contents

- head above water

- Title Page
- 1. if you ain’t first, you’re last
- 2. eyes on the pinstripes

- 3. there's only two things I do well, sweetheart, and skating's the other one

- 4. pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever

- 5. take the fall! act hurt! get indignant!
- 6. a bruise on the leg
- 7. the inches we need

- 8. the soul, the sweet spot, and soft-core pornography

- summer clothes
- dare to breathe
- happy trees
- this is for keeps