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Chapter Text

In a world where Jack had a fraction of regret about how loudly he shouted at Kent when Kent showed up at his dorm out of the blue to talk to him, it was because Shitty’s attitude toward him  for the next few days became distinctly cool. 

Usually Shitty lounged around their shared room during his downtime, offering up weed-induced musings for Jack’s consideration or quoting sometimes irritating bits of wisdom from authors Jack had never read whenever Jack took his turn in continuing the conversation by replying. Truthfully, Jack wasn’t sure if he actually enjoyed Shitty’s presence or not, but he did appreciate the constancy of it. There was something very comforting in his behavior being as predictable as it was, and Jack welcomed the routine. The world just seemed concrete and navigable when he could open his mouth to speak and already anticipate the type of response Shitty would offer. 

But after coming home one day to find Jack screaming at a silent Kent (and truthfully, screaming was the least Kent deserved), Shitty’s behavior wasn’t predictable any longer, and he didn’t spend nearly as much time in their room. In fact, he seemed to make a point of spending the following week anyplace else.

“Just a precaution, brah,” he told Jack, a distinct edge to his voice, when Jack commented on the change five days later. “You know, just so I don’t interrupt you again when you’re yelling ad hominem attacks at an old friend who’s nice enough to visit you.” He sent a meaningful look square at Jack—Shitty had always hated personal insults, especially in politics, ranting to Jack several times about politicians continuing to use them, outraged that it distracted from genuine issues.

“I didn’t want him here. I didn’t invite him,” Jack retorted, because he hadn’t. And it didn’t matter if seeing Kent again brought heat to stir in his stomach, if the familiar sight of his ratty flannel and worn T-shirt that he still wore despite being a millionaire sent a flood of nostalgia, one that was more sweet than bitter, rushing through him. “Plus, you didn’t hear what he said to me.”

Shitty didn’t even dignify him with a verbal response, just arched a skeptical eyebrow before turning away from him to pull on his shoes and sweatshirt.

Just as well that Shitty hadn’t heard Kent offering him to make him an A of the Aces, to sign him with his team the moment Jack finished the year at Samwell. Unless someone knew Kent, no one could realize how infuriating his offers of help could be, like he thought he could sweep in and solve everyone’s problems. Like he could solve all of Jack’s problems, as if Jack weren’t already trying to solve them himself. No, Kent and his presumptuous savior complex never let him think anyone else could do a thing for themselves.

Kent wanted to be everyone’s hero. He loved being liked. Fuck if Jack was going to give him that ego boost. He wasn’t some kind of improvement project for Kent to mold into an NHler in his spare time. He could do that himself.

That night, while Shitty was probably making a circuit of the various weekend parties, Jack stayed in, stretched out on his narrow dorm bed. A documentary on Iwo Jima played dimly in the background on his TV, but Jack ignored it in favor of scrolling through several websites on his phone. Namely, Kent’s Instagram and Twitter. 

Jack knew himself well enough to recognize that he was looking for something. He couldn’t name what, though. Proof, maybe, that he could then show Shitty and make him see beyond a doubt that it was Kent who was the asshole here.

Instead, he found lots of photos of Kent’s Aces teammates (that Jeff Troy in particular seemed to show up a lot), cats, various well-known sights from the cities Kent travelled to, as well as the occasional picture of restaurant food. (Why the hell did people bother with that?)

But the image that gave him the most pause wasn’t the one of Kent and Troy shirtless and lounging together on a pool raft shaped like a pair of angel wings. Instead, it was the one dated the same day that Kent visited Jack. The two occupants of the photo were none other than Kent and Zdeno Chara, the Boston Bruins captain. They were both in suits and appeared to be having dinner together at some ritzy restaurant that was all cream-colored furniture and gold gilt on the walls.

Photography had always been an interest of Jack’s, and he wanted to scoff at this snapshot for its composition, because it looked like some kind of stock photo sold by Getty Images or something. Neither Chara nor Kent was looking at the camera. Instead, they were both looking at each other. Since the angle of the shot was vaguely positioned over one of Chara’s shoulders, only about half of his face was visible, but it seemed like he was smiling at Kent. Since Jack barely followed the Bruins and had never seen any of Chara’s press beyond the snippets he’d incidentally glimpsed on TV, he was reduced to guessing from body language, but he thought that it looked like Chara was relaxed and enjoying Kent’s company.   

But there could be no doubt about the expression on Kent’s face. With the way he was gazing at Chara, fruity cocktail lifted in one hand as if he were specifically toasting him, and the smile on his face, soft and fond and brimming with affection, it was clear that what he felt for the other captain was far more than just respect for a veteran hockey player. 

An unexpectedly sharp spike of anger lanced through Jack at the sight, and he had to fight to tamp it down.

It was because Kent was living the life Jack himself should have, Jack told himself firmly. There was Kent, enjoying the glamour and grit that came with being an NHL wunderkind, while Jack was still at Samwell, trying desperately to reshape a woefully inadequate D1 team that needed drastic help if they wanted to make it to the Frozen Four.

And Jack wanted to get to the Frozen Four. He wanted to step out onto the ice and remind everyone that he was Jack Zimmermann, that he may not be in the NHL, but he was still talent. 

He should be strategizing. Not concentrating on what Kent was doing.

Still, Jack couldn’t help but pick up his phone to study the photo again, trying to convince himself that he was mistaken, that Kent didn’t actually look that happy.   

But he did, and Jack remembered a time when Kent had that same expression when he looked at him. The Christmas before last, Kent had been wearing an identical smile as he gazed at Jack, in almost an identical pose with his fingers wrapped around his wine glass. His face had been softened by candlelight, and he didn’t wear his hair slicked back at that point, so wisps of gold had gently framed his face. He’d been breathtaking, especially since he’d been solely focused on Jack.

Warmth still pooled in Jack’s stomach at the memory, but it quickly drained away. Because seeing Kenny look that way at someone else was just—was just— irritating. Since he now had to worry about all the guilt trips and manipulations Kent would use to trap them. 

Forget Kent. Jack needed to concentrate on the immediate improvements their team desperately required in order to have even a halfway decent season. Their defense was absolute garbage—he should instruct their coaching staff that their prospect search needed to concentrate on D-men first and foremost.

Still, his thoughts kept drifting back to Kent and how utterly at ease he seemed to be with Chara. It probably didn’t help that Chara himself was a defenseman.

But it was just two hockey captains having dinner together. They probably weren’t even friends.

A pattern of sorts developed, which Jack only recognized after Kent ended his third visit with him, slamming his dorm door and storming off without saying goodbye. 

“Don’t say it,” Jack ordered Shitty, whose disapproving gaze he could feel resting on him.

“No, you should probably hear this,” Shitty said calmly, bookmarking his spot in his Maya Angelou biography so he could give Jack his full attention. “You’re my friend, but Christ, you can be such an utter dick.”

Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Shitty held up a hand. 

“That’s it. That’s my assessment on the matter. I’m not looking for your commentary. You decide if you want to do something to change my mind.” 

And Jack tried. He tried to summon some kind of snappy retort, a pithy response that would summarize just how much of a bastard Kenny could be, how he’d trapped Jack and tricked him. How he was still trying to do that now.

Because back when they were in Juniors, when they were Zimmermann and Parson, the incredible duo ready to take the NHL by storm together, Kenny was Jack’s everything. He was his liney, sure, and the second half of their power plays, definitely, but he was so much more than that. He was a bridge between Jack and other people, reaching out to them so that Jack didn’t have to, since he didn’t know how to. He was Jack’s confidant, who listened to him and reassured him and put his fears to rest. He was Jack’s distraction, always trying to take Jack’s mind off of his problems, with either sex or a movie or a massage or just a couple of beers and Jack’s Xbox. He’d billeted with Jack and his parents for two years, and during that time, he’d become closer to Jack than anyone else ever had, worming his way into Jack’s thoughts even when Jack knew all he should be thinking about was hockey and how to do better and be better.

For a time, Kent had been the person Jack relied on. The person he trusted. The person he thought he could depend on to see him through thick and thin.

And then he’d stepped over Jack’s prone body on the bathroom floor, unwilling to let something so trivial as Jack’s overdose stop him from entering the NHL and snagging his spot as top player.

When Jack needed him most, Kent had turned his back and left him behind. Now, Jack refused to accept his charity whenever Kent deigned to visit. If Kent thought Jack still needed him now, Jack wanted to prove him wrong.

Once, Kent had done everything for Jack. And him coming back to Samwell again and again was proof that he still wanted to, that he thought he could still fix Jack’s life, even though they’d been out of contact for the two prior years.

But Jack didn’t need him. Not anymore. His refusal to take Kenny’s calls for weeks at a time back when he was in rehab should have driven that message home. Kent continuing to come here, continuing to act like Jack wanted him or needed him—it was just manipulative. It was like he was trying to force himself into Jack’s life, and Jack did not want him there. 

But he couldn’t explain all of that to Shitty. It wouldn’t make sense. It barely made sense to Jack.

So, hours later, he found himself again analyzing Kent’s internet timelines, checking to see what he did immediately after leaving Jack. While it felt vaguely like stalking, Jack insisted to himself that it wasn’t. After all, he only wanted to keep tabs on Kent because he needed to reassure himself that Kent wasn’t going to spring up in front of him whenever Jack rounded a corner. It wasn’t like he was watching Kent to be weird or because he found it hot or anything like that. He just wanted the assurance of predicting Kent’s movements, the certainty of knowing where Kent was and who he was with, and he wanted all of that because he didn’t want Kent at Samwell, not at all. 

Maybe there would be another picture of Kent with Chara. When he’d visited last time and Jack sent him packing, Kent had obediently vanished with his tail between his legs, only to pop up a few hours later on Instagram, taking a photo with Chara at some kind of high-class modern art exhibit. At least they’d both been looking at the camera that time, instead of Kent gazing adoringly at Chara.

Not that it bothered Jack for Kent to look at someone else that way. Kent could screw whoever he wanted and probably frequently did. Jack didn’t care.

Pulling up Kent’s Instagram, which he now had bookmarked on his phone, Jack impatiently waited for the photos to load, cursing his dorm’s molasses-like wifi speed as he did.

Everyone always complained about the slow wifi at dorm meetings, and their RA always assured them that she was relaying all of their complaints to IT. Personally, Jack hadn’t ever taken notice of the issue, even when Shitty ranted about it. But as he waited for the new pictures Kent had posted to load, every extra second seemed agonizing for a reason he couldn’t even name.

Finally, the photos appeared in full, and Jack snatched up his phone, scrolling furiously to examine each new one. He was familiar enough with the Boston area to recognize the setting instantly—it was the city’s Public Garden. Those swan gondolas in the background of that one photo of the suspension bridge gave it away. There was the ubiquitous photo of the Washington statue, one of Kent smiling with a couple of fans, and then—Jack’s breath caught in his throat—several of Chara and Kent together. 

One was of them standing by the pond with a couple of bikes, the one Chara was holding no doubt his own, probably custom-built for his enormous frame. Another had them crouching down by the Make Way for Ducklings statues, with Chara pretending to hold one and Kent fawning over how tiny it looked in his huge arms. (Completely asinine, in Jack’s opinion.)

But the last one depicted the two of them at an honest-to-God picnic. Like, with a large spread of colorful food and an actual blanket. True, the blanket had a Southwestern pattern on it rather than being red and checkered, but still was so cliché it was sickening.

Kent had always liked Southernwestern patterns, Jack realized with a jolt. But Kent had no reason to bring his own blanket from Las Vegas to Boston. Had he given Chara a blanket as a gift? Or did Chara have Kent’s blanket for whatever reason? If Kent had given Chara his blanket, then what did that mean? 

It might not have even belonged to Kent, Jack tried to reassure himself. Southwestern patterns were sold on the East Coast, after all. 

Still, the question and the uncertainty of the answer nagged at him, and once again he found himself desperately studying the photo, trying to absorb every detail. Chara was sitting on his side, one long arm propping himself up, looking at Kent . . . affectionately, Jack noticed, his stomach churning at the sight. And while Kent seemed to have just been giving Chara a quick glance, there could be no doubt of the fondness in his gaze, the small smile on his face that Kent only wore in private, preferring his trademark cocky smirk for all public photoshoots and media interviews.

Really, Jack only remembered Kent smiling like that at Jack himself, never anyone else.

That was when the realization of the pattern hit him. This was repeated behavior on Kent’s behalf, Jack realized. He was trying to generate a reaction from Jack. Kent would show up at Samwell whenever he had a game in Providence or Boston, and then when he couldn’t ensnare Jack again, he ran off to pal around with Chara. He was using Chara, trying to get back at Jack, prove to him that he didn’t need him.

Waste of effort on Kent’s part, then. Jack already knew they didn’t need each other. Kent had done just fine without him in the NHL, getting the Calder and the Art Ross during his rookie season. And Jack certainly didn’t need him. He was a shoo-in for team captain of the Samwell hockey team next season.

How pathetic. Kent’s behavior was absolutely pathetic. And using Chara like that? Solely to provoke Jack? It was pretty appalling. To think Shitty was convinced that Jack was the one with no sense of decency.

Maybe Jack should call Chara and let him know. It would only be the right thing to do.

He didn’t.

Chapter Text

Again and again, Kent returned to the Haus, which only surprised Jack the first time. Kent could be more stubborn than was good for him, and he never seemed to realize it. He honestly seemed to think that he could change Jack’s mind and have him sign with the Aces—he seemed to think if he could convince Jack of that, then he’d be absolved of his selfishness for leaving Jack behind in the first place.

But Jack didn’t plan on letting him off the hook that easily, so even as much as he didn’t appreciate Kent’s visits, he always made sure to give Kent just the slightest tidbit of hope, just enough to keep him coming back for more. 

Not only did Jack enjoy the consistency of it, but he liked the idea that even if Kent had an NHL career and multiple awards that he didn’t, at least he held this power. It was comforting to know that even when he’d lost control over the rest of his hockey career, he still had some control over Kent.

By sophomore year, Kent hadn’t stopped visiting Jack. He also hadn’t stopped visiting Chara, which Jack meticulously tracked using Kent’s online presence. It was a short, ongoing cycle: he appeared on Jack’s doorstep like a stray cat that was too stupid to understand it wasn’t wanted and wasn’t going to score any table scraps, Jack eventually lost patience when Kent wouldn’t take the hint and go away, and then Kent ran to Chara and they did touristy Boston stuff together. The kind of stuff that mostly appeared on TV commercials for Boston tourism, but not anything anyone in real life actually seemed to do. No one else except for them.  

(It was part of the reason Jack knew their relationship was a fraud. No one actually spent that much time at different museums, and Jack was a person who legitimately enjoyed museums. Kent had never possessed the kind of academic mind capable of appreciating exhibits, anyway. 

Maybe he’s faking it for Chara, an unhelpful voice in Jack’s head once suggested, and Jack had been so angry that he’d spent the entirety of the team’s game tape review with his jaw clenched and hands coiled into fists.)    

And speaking of stray cats, Kent and Chara actually found a kitten together at some kind of wine tasting or another. (They were both in suits. Kenny was in that light blue-gray suit that made his hair look like golden wheat and his eyes look like the ocean.) They took a photo of themselves—or, rather, someone took a photo of the two of them, because it wasn’t a selfie, and Jack was seriously beginning to contemplate if they just had a photographer regularly following them around—extracting a fluffy kitten from beneath a rose bush. Kent’s hands got scratched from the thorns, which he was certain to document on the Instagram. (Always a martyr. Always trying to make himself look good.) The story of his kitten rescue actually got a brief TV spot for the Boston news that barely clocked in at thirty seconds, during which Kent was sure to remind the reporter interviewing him that he didn’t rescue the kitten alone. Chara had helped.    

Reminding everyone—reminding Jack —that he’d been routinely hanging out with Chara.

No one else seemed to understand that. They were all taken in by Kent and his new kitten, including the new D-men that Jack brought in for this year.

“What a good guy,” Birkholtz, the one with the big teeth, said as he grinned at the image of Kent cuddling his cat on the TV. “You always hear these stories about how the pros turn out to be total dicks in real life. ’Swawesome to see that Parson isn’t like that.”

The other one, Oluransi, who was a Bruins fan and wouldn’t shut up about it, was already obediently going to Instagram and following the account for Kent’s cat. 

“Kit Purrson,” he repeated, with that smile that said he’d already been thoroughly charmed by Kent and wouldn’t hear a word against him. It seemed unfair that Jack lived nearly three thousand miles from Kent and still had to see that smile. “God, that’s almost too cute. Clever, too.”

Jack just thought it was plain narcissistic.  

Birkholtz was now also scrolling through one of the Instagrams. Kent’s, his cat’s, whichever. “And wow, look at all this time he’s been putting in at the animal shelter! He’s made it the main Aces charity of the season!”

Oluransi chuckled. “Did you see that picture of him and Chara cuddling those puppies together?”

Birkholtz cracked up, lifting his phone for them both to see. “How about this one, where he’s trying to convince Jeff Troy to hold a chinchilla?”

Unable to stomach any further praise for Kent, Jack left the living room in favor of grabbing his phone and exiting the Haus. Maybe he’d go down to the lake, snap a few pictures of the ducks. Maybe he’d get an Instagram for himself and some piece of arm candy to run and cry to whenever Kent upset him. And then he’d document every damn one of their dates and meals and animal rescues and spam it all over the place online for the whole world to see, so Kent could know what it felt like to see photo after photo of Jack with someone else. 

Almost the instant the idea appeared in Jack’s mind, he dismissed it. It was tempting, sure, but spending so much time with another person sounded like a lot of work, and not the kind he liked, even if it would serve to give Kent his due comeuppance. 

But someone really needed to take Kent down a peg and show him that it wasn’t okay to hurt people and use people as easily as he did. It would be one matter if Kent genuinely did enjoy being around Chara and spending time with him, but it was just painfully, transparently obvious that the only reason he gave Chara the time of day was to screw with Jack.

Still, Jack did appreciate the certainty of the pattern. He didn’t handle ambiguity well, and movies and books with those open-ended conclusions unsettled him for days. It was kind of nice, as much as seeing Kent at any point could be nice, to be able to predict when he’d be turning up at Samwell. 

But while Kent was predictable, those two new D-men weren’t.

Heated, furious words were still hanging in the air when the Haus’s screen door clattered closed behind Kent as he departed from his latest sojourn to Samwell. While Jack hadn’t wanted to say any of them, there had always been something about Kent that forced his hand, forced him to take action he didn’t want to, forced him to be someone he wasn’t sure he was comfortable with being.

The engine of whatever ridiculous sports car Kent had driven up in this time purred to life before deepening to a roar as he raced away. The vibrations seemed to rattle the entire Haus from foundation to attic, as if it all might come crumbling down in Kent’s wake.

Silence ensued for several heartbeats before Birkholtz cleared his throat, tearing his gaze from Oluransi’s. They’d been sitting at the kitchen table throughout the entire argument, glancing at each other with wide eyes in between looking from Kent to Jack as they took turns launching verbal grenades at one another. But the two of them had only been gaping at each other ever since Jack screamed at Kent that the only Christmas miracle he ever wanted was to never have to see Kent again in his life.

(Bob and Alicia had invited Kent to Christmas dinner with them that year. Ostensibly, Kent was at the Haus to check in with Jack to make sure it was okay, but Jack knew better. Kent was there to rub the invitation in Jack’s face.)

It wasn’t like he meant it. Kent just pushed him into saying it.

(Jack would like to have another Christmas with Kent and his parents, with Kent gazing at him across the lit pillar candles, offering Jack bites of smoked salmon off of his fork. Still, Jack wasn’t sure if he could forgive the whole Chara deal. He wasn’t sure he could forgive Kent for messing with his head like that.)

Birkholtz blew out a breath as he turned to Jack, the rickety kitchen chair creaking beneath him. “So. Uh. That was a lot.”

The break in the tense silence seemed to spur Oluransi into speaking as well.

“Yeah, man, what the fuck?” he asked, looking at Jack, sounding legitimately curious. “An actual League guy shows up at our door, and you yell at him like that? What’s your problem?”

“ He is,” Jack snapped, not actually wanting to be that honest but tired of everyone always acting like Kent was the victim. “Showing up here and expecting me to roll out the welcome mat for him must be permanently penned in on his schedule, it happens so often.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Birkholtz held up a hand, his jaw opening and shutting, looking like a nutcracker with those overly large teeth. “You’ve done that to him before?”

“Seriously?” Oluransi asked, staring at Jack in disbelief.

The front door clattered and Shitty strode in. “Can confirm,” he said, pushing a pair of sunglasses atop his head and sending a cool glance Jack’s way. “Kent Parson is a regular target that Jack uses to vent his frustration. I guess hockey isn’t enough of an outlet,” he said archly, his expression stony as he gazed at Jack. 

Jack ignored him. He always ignored Shitty when the topic of Kent came about. He had his reasons for treating Kent as he did, and he was sick of being criticized for refusing to share them.  

Weirdly, there was a distinct look of disappointment on Oluransi’s face as he turned back to Jack. “So, that’s your thing, then? Just . . . going off on people when they try to be nice to you?”

“He’s not ‘being nice’,” Jack replied, his hackles rising. “He’s being Kent.” 

He knew Kent, all right? He knew how he operated, how he set himself up to look all nice and charming, like he wouldn’t hurt a fly. It was all very careful and cultivated; Kent was an expert at engineering himself to appear friendly and likable. Jack was the only person who knew who he truly was.

“Uh, okay.” Birkholtz said, rising from the table. He was looking at Jack like Jack had just blown the championship game for them, and Jack didn’t understand why. “We’ve gotta go study. See you guys at practice. C’mon, Rans.”

They gathered up their books and sandwiches and were out the door before Jack could explain about Kent any further.

Frowning, Jack watched them go, before turning to Shitty. “What was that about?”

Shitty heaved a gusty sigh, the one he always used whenever he felt the question asked of him was far too simple to even warrant an explanation, and retrieved two beers from the fridge.

“Well, brah, let’s see,” he replied, settling himself into a chair and motioning for Jack to take the one across from him. “Because, maybe, you’re our captain, and you’re meant to be the one leading the team? And yet here you are, screaming at an old friend of yours, right in front of your teammates?”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with them, ” Jack argued. “Why should they care?”

Shitty rolled his eyes at him. “You specifically recruited them for the team,” he reminded Jack. “You. Personally. Because you were so worried about our defense. You’re our captain, they’re a couple of freshmen, and they committed to this school because of hockey. And now that they’ve witnessed the latest installment in your verbal blood feud with Parson, they’re wondering if they made the right decision, or if they’ve destroyed their futures by deciding to play on a team where their captain is someone who totally loses his shit on his friends for no reason at all and could potentially tank whatever opportunities the team might give them.”

Jack just sat there. None of that had occurred to him. “Oh,” he said, blinking.

Shitty plunked down one of the beers in front of him, keeping the other for himself. “Yeah, brah,” he said, twisting off the cap of his own beer. “ Oh. ”

With Shitty’s help, Jack was able to rebuild whatever he’d had before with his new D-men and convince them to trust him again. Soon, Oluransi became Ransom and Birkholtz became Holster, and they started really listening to his instructions on the ice, attuning their play to his style and instructions. Every once in a while, he still caught one of them looking at him for a moment too long, as if they were trying to figure out what was going on inside his head, but he could ignore that.

What he couldn’t ignore was Kent, who was suddenly not appearing after nearby games. He also declined Jack’s parents’ invitation to Christmas dinner, which would have satisfied Jack if it wasn’t for checking his Instagram that day and finding a photo of him and Chara curled up on a couch together, evidently celebrating the holiday with one another.

The first time Kent didn’t visit the Haus after a game, Jack tried to rationalize it. Providence was forty minutes away, after all. Maybe Kent just didn’t want to make the drive. 

But then Kent stayed away after a Bruins game, too. And while Jack should have been grateful, honestly, happy that Kent decided to leave him alone, he couldn’t be. Kent hadn’t posted any pictures to the Instagram since before the game, and Jack couldn’t relax until he found out what his plan was, what he was trying to do. What, did he want Jack to be worried for him or something?

It worked better than Jack wanted to admit. He tossed and turned in his bed for three hours that night, unable to sleep. Finally, around two o’clock in the morning, he surrendered out of desperation, and reached for his phone to call Kent. 

The action marked the first time he’d reached out in any way whatsoever to Kent in years. The first time since back before the 2009 draft. 

The phone rang four times before Kent picked up. 

If Jack were an NHL captain, he would have answered before the first ring was even finished.

“Hello?” Kent’s voice was still fuzzy with sleep. 

Something low in Jack’s stomach twisted as the memory of a sleepy, cuddly Kent waking up beside him in bed and gazing up at him with a smile, the early morning sunlight playing on his hair, pushed its way to the front of his mind. 

“Hello?” Kent repeated when Jack didn’t respond, too preoccupied with memories. “Who the hell— Jack? ” Alarm rose fiercely in his voice. “Are you okay? Jack? Are—are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Jack managed to reply. “I just . . . I didn’t expect to hear your voice.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“ You called me ,” Kent pointed out, annoyance creeping into his tone and edging out the worry. “Who were you expecting? Fucking Taro Tsujimoto?”  

“Why didn’t you come by tonight?” Jack blurted out, the question eating away at him. “I was expecting you to drop in. You know. Like always.”

Another pause, and this time Jack could vaguely discern a background murmur, a deep voice that most definitely wasn’t Kent’s.

“Are you with someone?” Jack demanded reflexively, nearly stunned by the force of the anger surging through him at the thought.

Kent didn’t respond to Jack right away, instead prioritizing the other person in the room. “No, Zdeno, it’s okay. Go back to sleep,” Jack could distantly hear him telling the other person, probably holding the phone away from his face to speak.

Zdeno. Zdeno. Chara’s first name began with a Z, didn’t it?

Before he could google it, Kent returned his attention to him. “What do you want, Jack?” He made no attempt to disguise the impatience in his voice.

“I—I—” Jack thought his mind might melt from the frustration of having far too many thoughts running through it at once but not being able to grasp onto a single one of them to form a coherent response. “I want to talk to you,” he burst out, his mind still filled with images of a sleepy seventeen-year-old Kent waking up in his bed, the warmth of his body pressing into Jack’s. “Please, just—-come and see me again. We can talk. I want to talk.”

Kent was silent for a moment, and then—

“Goodnight, Jack,” he said coolly, and then he hung up.

Jack didn’t let the abrupt end of their conversation deter him from bringing up Google on his phone and searching for Chara’s first name.

It had to be some other guy, right? Because all Kent was doing with Chara was using him for dates to make Jack jealous. Jack couldn’t picture him actually sleeping with the man. But two-timing him, going out to fancy restaurants and on idiotic picnics with him and then getting his kicks in someone else’s bed? That was Kent. That was so Kent. He wasn’t sleeping with Chara. Not really. Chara probably meant nothing to him at all.

At least, that’s what Jack told himself as he waited for the astoundingly sluggish wifi to load the webpage. Jesus, he could probably go and buy a Boston newspaper, flip to the sports section, find out the answer, and get back to his dorm before he actually managed to get the information online. 

Then the page finally loaded.

It was the first result. Zdeno Chara. Captain of the Boston Bruins.

“Goddammit!” Jack shouted, heaving his phone at the wall, where it shattered into several pieces at the force of the impact.

Chapter Text

The very next day he bought a new phone, charging it to the credit card he’d had since he was a teenager. The explanation he gave to his parents was that he was helping out some new photography students with a project and accidentally dropped his old phone into the lake. It was a calculated fabrication, playing on their hopes for him to be happy and busy and making new friends, and he felt no guilt whatsoever about lying to them. Really, he was sparing their feelings by not telling them the truth about Kent—Bob had played with the Habs for most of his career and would probably be heartbroken to know that Kent was whoring himself out to a Bruin.

So. Jack had a new phone. Same number, though. Same contacts.

Which was why he really, really didn’t understand why Kent didn’t call beforehand and instead just strode right on into the Haus one afternoon as if he lived there.

“You said you wanted to talk to me,” Kent said, coming to a halt just a few paces away, his eyes gray as storm clouds. Maybe they looked that way because of the light gray suit he wore beneath his navy blue woolen trench coat. Jack thought the long coat made him look like some kind of Marilyn Manson reject. Senior year in high school, Alicia had bought Kent a sapphire - colored puffy ski jacket, and he’d looked much better in that. Much cuter. Much more approachable and familiar. Maybe he thought this coat made him look more adult. It didn’t.

“This isn’t a good time,” Jack informed him, because it wasn’t. He’d been giving Larissa, a sophomore recruited by Shitty to be the team manager, a tour of the Haus. She’d been offered a room and free board as an incentive to accept the position. 

Kent had the nerve to look offended at that, like he hadn’t just surfaced out of nowhere after skipping his visits for the last two games. “That so?”

“Yes,” Jack hissed out between gritted teeth, because Larissa was standing right there, glancing back and forth between Jack and Kent, and he knew, he just knew she was trying to figure out what was going on. 

Larissa cleared her throat somewhat awkwardly, and Jack had to give her credit, because her voice was still reasonably confident. She wasn’t easily shaken, which was a good quality to have in a team manager, especially with their team.

“Is this a friend of yours, Jack?” she asked, looking at Kent with distinct curiosity.

“No,” Jack said immediately, because frankly, Kent wasn’t.

Larissa let out this little scoff of disbelief, like she thought Jack said the wrong thing, and Kent himself reared back a little bit, shock flitting across his face. And Jack didn’t really know why, because it was true. They weren’t friends. 

“I’m leaving,” Kent bit out.

“What?” Jack stared at him, his jaw clenching so tightly he thought it might snap. “You’re leaving? Just like that?”

How could Kent show up here, acting like he was going to give Jack a chance, only to then reject him? Was he doing it deliberately to torment Jack? 

“Why shouldn’t I?” Kent spat back at him, his eyes seeming more blue than gray now and burning almost unnaturally bright in his face. “I’m clearly not wanted here.”

He turned to storm out the door like a petulant five-year-old, but Jack raced down the steps and grabbed his shoulder, whirling him around before he could step all the way outside.

“So that’s how it is, huh?” Jack demanded, adrenaline pounding through his veins. “You can’t stand to hear the truth?”

“It’s not—”

“It is,” Jack insisted, taking a vindictive pleasure in the momentary shock and hurt that flashed across Kent’s face. “Why is that such a surprise to you?”

Kent just stared at him. “You really think,” he began, his voice incredulous, “that I’d be coming back here time after time, taking whatever fresh insults you throw at me, if I didn’t consider us friends ?” His voice cracked near the end.    

“Why would you think we’re friends?” The question left Jack’s mouth as a sneer, but it was a completely legitimate query. He was honestly curious about why Kent had this notion of the two of them somehow spending the rest of their lives as tried-and-true buddies when every one of their visits ended with them yelling at each other.

There was a sharp inhale from behind Jack, and he whirled to look over his shoulder; Larissa was there, watching, her dark eyes huge in her face. 

But Kent, always needing the last word, drew Jack’s attention back to him. 

“I’m not coming back here,” he said quietly, his face unreadable. “Don’t you dare goddamn ask me to ever come back. I’m so fucking tired of wasting my time on you when you never give a damn about anyone but yourself.”

With that last little petty barb, he twisted out of Jack’s grip and stalked past him, the screen door clattering behind him just like it had so many times before. There was yet another slick sports car slung along the front yard, and Jack could spy a couple of lax bros lurking nearby and shooting it furtive glances, as if worried their reputations would plummet for admiring anything vaguely associated with the Haus. 

Something low in Jack’s stomach contorted oddly at the sight of Kent opening the driver’s side door, but he couldn’t name what. While victory should have been pumping through his veins, triumph for finally laying out his clear feelings to Kent, letting him know what Jack really thought, he was also slightly disappointed that Kent walked away without a backwards glance. But then, Kent had always been pretty self-involved.

If Kent wasn’t so volatile, maybe they could have repaired their relationship. If he wasn’t so selfish and willing to reach for his career at any cost. If Kent weren’t so insistent that he knew what was right for Jack while trying to control him. If Kent weren’t screwing Chara and pretending to care about him just as a way to get back at Jack.

He never should have asked to see Kent again, Jack realized. Because when he’d done that, he’d just been giving into Kent’s machinations. He’d been surrendering. But he’d driven off Kent for now. And he could only hope that Kent stayed away for the rest of his college career.

That would be best, Jack decided then and there. Enough with playing straight into Kent’s hands. His earlier longing for Kent had been misguided, an old sentiment that had now outstayed its welcome. Forget Kent, he needed to focus all of his concentration where it mattered: his hockey team.

Just as he turned back to Larissa, deciding now might be a good time to escort her over to Farber, he realized she was already brushing past him to move out the door, just as Kent had.

He blinked. “Where are you going?”

“Away from here,” she replied flatly, and unlike Kent, she did cast him a backwards glance. Several of them, in fact, looking over her shoulder at him even as she strode determinedly away from the Haus.

“What the fuck did you say to Larissa?” Shitty demanded from him as soon as he got back from his women’s studies seminar. 

There was an open history textbook on Jack’s desk (an examination of the politics of war throughout American civilization), but in a rare moment of distraction, he was ignoring it in favor of swiping through some photos on his phone. They had passed through a significant portion of rural area during their last roadie, and Jack was able to capture some shots of the rural landscape at dusk on their way back. While the composition was amateurish thanks to shooting from a moving vehicle, he found himself proud of the content all of the same. The sight of the dark silos standing tall against the dusk sky filled him with a strange type of simultaneous yearning and yet contentment.

Reluctantly, Jack placed his phone on his desk and turned to face Shitty, whose jaw was clenched and form rigid with tension. When Shitty got into these kinds of moods, Jack found that the simplest solution was to give him his full attention and attempt to listen to him, even if he didn’t prioritize whatever he had to say. Admittedly, Jack didn’t bother with the path of least resistance very often, but since Shitty was an open book when it came to emotions, it was better to attempt to placate him than cope with the team noticing and then trying to detect the source of Shitty’s discontent.

 “What’s wrong with Larissa?” Jack asked mildly, keeping eye contact and trying to make his expression earnest. It was a struggle, since he was vaguely annoyed at the interruption. 

“You tell me,” Shitty shot back. “I had her all primed to take this job, and she really wanted it because she couldn’t get another work-study. Now she’s texting me about not wanting it at all. What did you say to her?”

It was irritating, Jack found, having everyone constantly assuming he was the villain where Kent was concerned.

“I didn’t say anything to her,” he informed Shitty coldly, dropping his attempt at good faith. “I don’t know what she’s upset about, and frankly, if she can’t handle listening to me tell it like it is to someone else, then she’s probably not the right fit for organization, anyway.”

For a moment, Shitty paused to absorb what Jack had said, his gaze shifting to the side as he concentrated, then flickering to Jack’s face again. Then realization seemed to surface, his eyes widening, his mouth grimacing. 

When Shitty spoke, his voice was very quiet. “Would I be wrong in my guess that Kent Parson put in a visit to the Haus today?”

Honestly, Jack didn’t want to respond. Nothing but evidence or manifestation of the Madonna-whore complex could send Shitty into lecture mode quite like Jack’s attitude about Kent Parson.

Unfortunately, Shitty took the silence spooling out between them as confirmation, and he sighed, sounding more exasperated than anything else. “Why would he show up here all of the sudden?” he asked, studying Jack. “When he stopped coming around, I was happy for him. I’d assumed he’d gained too much self-respect to put up with the way you act around him. Why’d that change?”

Jack’s annoyance surged. “I don’t act any particular ‘way’ around him,” he insisted. “I just get sick of him acting like he’s God’s gift to hockey. And I just want him to know—well—”

He floundered wordlessly for several moments, and then it occurred to him that he didn’t actually have words for what he wanted Kent to know. Was it that Jack still thought of him as a sleepy seventeen-year-old awakening in his bed? Was it that Jack knew he was onto him about Chara? Was it that he no longer considered Kent a friend? Kent seemed to have received that message loud and clear, even if he had acted like a child about it.     

“There must have been a reason,” Shitty said slowly, his eyes boring into Jack’s. “He wouldn’t just suddenly appear.”

“Well, he did.” Jack relished in revealing that to him, to prove that Kent held more of the blame, that his reaction hadn’t been unwarranted. “After one phone call, he thinks that he can waltz right in.”

Satisfied, Jack prepared to rest on his laurels of winning the argument, but Shitty just sighed again.

“Please tell me,” he said in a distinctly disappointed tone, “that you did not invite him here specifically so you could then scream at him and turn him away, freaking Larissa out in the process.”

“I didn’t invite him!” Jack tried to tell him. “I just—I wasn’t expecting him to show up at all!”

“Jack.” Shitty gave him a look so crushed it was as though Jack had just permanently ended someone’s career on the ice, like he was goddamn Todd Bertuzzi.

“I didn’t!” Jack repeated, his voice rising for emphasis, his irritation surging as Shitty’s expression refused to recede.

Shitty exhaled deeply, turning a tired gaze on Jack. “Listen. I want you to know this. Most of the time, I’m proud to call you my friend, teammate, captain, designated not-stoned-person, whatever. But Kent? For whatever reason, you can’t control yourself around him. And it makes things weird, man. Not just for me, but for other people. Holster, Ransom, and now Larissa. So I’m going to ask you two things. One: stop inviting Kent to hang out with you when it’s clear it never ends well.” He held up a hand to stifle Jack’s protests. “I know what you’re going to say, and I’ll admit that you didn’t know he was going to show up those other times. But you had to know that he’d show up this time. I don’t buy that you’re that oblivious, Jack, not where Kent is concerned.”

Jack gritted his teeth and waited for Shitty to finish. 

“Two.” Shitty caught Jack’s gaze, locking eyes with him. “You go make things right with Larissa. I know you don’t feel that anything with Kent is your fault, so feel free to just say you have a blindspot where he’s concerned, or even just actually apologize for what you said. Whatever. But we need a manager, and she needs a job, and I want her to feel like she’ll be okay if she accepts the position.”

“In other words, you want me to apologize to her for what I told Kent?” Jack challenged him.

But Shitty didn’t back down. “I want you to show her that you can be a good guy, Jack. Because I have every faith that you are a good guy. Whatever you have with Kent—that interferes sometimes, but it doesn’t change who you are.” He gazed at Jack with a strange mix of pleading and commanding. “Please go find Larissa and apologize so she’ll reconsider taking the manager position. She really needs this job.”

Not a half hour later, Jack found himself trekking into one of the older art buildings, the older, non-refurbished one where most freshmen and sophomores took their classes but somehow was always left out from campus tours for prospective students. According to Shitty, Larissa could often be found there after hours, and the advice proved accurate; Jack located her in one of the practice studios. 

Not bothering to knock, he simply thrust the clear glass door open and trudged inside, spotting the flash of annoyance on Larissa’s expression but not allowing that to dissuade him. So what if she didn’t want him here? He didn’t want to be here, either.  

“Hey,” he greeted her, deciding he might as well be the one to start the conversation. At least he might be able to say what Shitty wanted him to say before Larissa threw him out. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for earlier. For my conduct. That’s not . . .”

Me, he was going to say, but fuck if he wasn’t tired of being expected to apologize for himself wherever Kent was concerned.

“My approach to handling the team,” he said instead. “What you witnessed was an anomaly. I don’t treat my guys that way. And I wouldn’t treat you that way.” Not if she was halfway competent, at least.

One of Larissa’s eyebrows quirked at that, and she folded her arms across her chest. “Oh, really?” she asked, in a tone that made it quite evident that she wasn’t actually asking for clarification. 

“Yeah,” Jack replied, because what did she actually want from him here? He was apologizing just like Shitty had asked, but Larissa didn’t seem at all convinced.

“Hmm,” was Larissa’s only response, and she narrowed her eyes, studying him.

Uncomfortable under the weight of her scrutiny, Jack broke eye contact and shifted his gaze to the wall behind her. The colorless cement reflected his gray mood and overall lack of enthusiasm for the situation at hand, and even as he glanced from the various vivid paintings on the wall, abstract messes of colors and shapes, he couldn’t find any way to bolster his spirits beyond reminding himself that this entire awkward situation would be over soon. He’d probably be able to walk out of this building five minutes from now. He tried to visualize it, to remind himself that it was still attainable. 

“Why are you here?” Lardo asked eventually, the question more curious than combative. “I mean, you obviously don’t want to be. Do you really expect me to believe that the big bad hockey captain cares what some art major, one he doesn’t even know, thinks about him?”

For a moment, Jack hesitated, tempted instinctively to lie, but then he just shrugged, not having the energy to concoct a creative cover story. “Shitty asked me to,” he told her eventually. “And he . . . I’d do nearly anything for him. So I figured finding you and telling you I’m sorry for being a dick was within boundaries.”

Though he wasn’t sure what Larissa would think of the admission, she softened as he spoke. 

“You’re good friends with him, aren’t you?” she said, more of a remark than a question. “It’s always good to see someone who will stand by his friends.” But then a frown creased her forehead again. “Tell me something: if I did accept the position, how often would that one guy in the trench be coming around for you to have another blowout argument with him? Because, listen, if I wanted to hear two people constantly fighting with each other, I could just turn on any shitty reality TV show that makes me despair for the sorry state of its audience to want to watch it in the first place. God knows TLC has enough of them.”

“If I can help it, Kent will never be coming around,” Jack promised her and himself as well.

Surprise flitted across Larissa’s face as his vehemence, but she didn’t seem put off by it. 

“Treating the cause, but not the symptoms, huh?” she asked wryly, and then she sighed. “What the hell. I’ll take this job.” But then her gaze snapped up to look at Jack directly. “But I swear to God, if you ever treat me like how you treated that Kent guy, I’m handing in my resignation that second. I don’t care if I get stranded in the middle of—I don’t know, the fucking Utah desert—I won’t put up with it.”

“I wouldn’t strand you in Utah,” Jack informed her, almost smiling. “But no promises about someplace like Connecticut.”

She gave him a smile for the first time since watching the argument between himself and Kent. Jack said his goodbye and walked back to the Haus to tell Shitty the team now had a manager.

Chapter Text

With the help of Larissa (who was quickly re-christened “Lardo” by the residents of the Haus), the team was more organized than ever, and some of the managerial responsibilities that had fallen on Jack’s shoulders now could be delegated to her. Initially, he’d anticipated that it would be a sorely needed relief. 

Finally, he’d thought, someone else to take up team duties and worry about arranging tutors for team members at risk of being disqualified thanks to academic eligibility standards. At long last, another person to handle the community outreach programs that the team was expected to perform and organize the dates and events. And after an eternity of dealing with clashes on campus between teammates and both staff and other students, some other poor slob got stuck dealing with it. With all of these duties shifted away from Jack, he was free to concentrate on planning for the future of his career, or pursuing his photography, or at least, focus fully on his game without any pressing distractions.

But instead, Jack merely found that the extra time in his schedule was being frittered away as he resumed an old pastime with gusto: following Kent and Chara’s love life. Now, however, more people beyond Jack were noticing, and it had become somewhat more complicated to follow the various developments of their relationship as more and more fans became aware of their closeness and misinformation spread like wildfire. And Jack could watch the reactions online like some kind of theatrical drama unfolding before him.

See, back during Kent’s second season with the Aces, fans had started regularly spotting him waltzing around the Boston area, not in the least because Kent was utterly in love with himself as well as any person who’d so much as give him the time of day. With attention and adoration being his narcotic of choice, he would stop and take pictures with anyone who looked at him twice, whether they actually recognized him as a hockey player or not. And since Kent encouraged fans to tag him in their posts so he could retweet them, his presence in Boston was then regularly broadcast to all of his social media followers. 

So, while Aces fans were wondering why Kent was so often in Boston, Boston fans were constantly on the lookout for the Aces captain who might be visiting their city. Forget Jagr Watch—2011-2012 was the year of Parson Watch. And then, as Kent entered his fourth season, his time in Boston only increased, and rumors of him transferring there started to surface and then multiply.

Vegas responded to their star player’s regular trips to northeast by, as Holster once ever so eloquently described it, “promptly losing every iota of their shit and never regaining a single scintilla of it.” Maybe it was because the Aces were Nevada’s only pro sports team, maybe it was because they’d grown attached to Parson, who’d won them a Cup his rookie season and then in 2012 as well, but Kent’s travels had Aces fans in a constant uproar. A tsunami of paranoia swept through them that the reason for Kent visiting Boston was because he was planning on signing with the Bruins. And once that rumor got started, online debates raged more intensely than a nuclear war could ever hope to, complete with fear-mongering unseen since the Cold War, all focusing on if Kent was staying in Vegas or going to Boston. 

During one of his visits, Kent posted a selfie to his Instagram of himself and Chara having drinks together at the upscale bar of the Langham Hotel. Rather than enthusing about Kent’s fashion sense or waxing poetic about how easygoing and friendly he was (as Aces fans typically did in comments on Kent’s social media pages, Jack had often observed in annoyance), their ensuing meltdown was only matched by the Vancouver riots back from when Kent won the 2010 Olympics for Team USA. The photo’s comments were promptly inundated with demands that he reveal if he was signing with the Bruins or not, often accompanied by insistence that he “owed” fans an explanation for his actions. 

It reached the point that NHL Network did an actual segment at the next home Aces game, featuring numerous Aces fans (of varying levels of sobriety) tearfully expressing how much Kent Parson meant to them, how deeply they loved him, and how much they hated the Bruins for trying to steal him away from them (despite no evidence that the Bruins had done so).     

Jack knew these details because he’d been in the Haus’s living room with a few teammates when the interviews had first aired. Holster and Ransom had been watching, bursting into laughter each time an Aces fan, from a burly biker dude to a duo of teenage girls in Uggs and leggings, proclaimed their love for Kent and hate for Boston. 

“Well, I’ll say this about Vegas,” Ransom said, cracking up as a father of four, his teenage sons looking on concernedly, practically sobbed onscreen at the thought of Kent leaving the team. “One thing Aces fans and us Bruins fans have in common? They’re both fucking lunatics. Just look at this shit. Parson told everyone he’s not going anywhere! Like, ten times already!”

Holster chortled as well, taking a swig of his beer. “Right? I can’t believe an expansion team has this devoted of a fanbase. Bettman’s dream has come true, I guess. But come on, you’d be lucky to have a marriage these days with a fucking tenth of this passion!”

After the interviews aired, a Twitter war broke out, with Bruins fans responding to Aces fans’ vocal resentment of them with disdain and insults of their own. Aces fans retaliated, and a short-lived rivalry was born that day, a rare one that only existed between hockey fans themselves and not the actual teams or players. 

But that was Kent. Able to tear people apart with just a hypothetical, his actual presence not even required.

In fact, the question of if Kent was going to sign with the Bruins spawned an official meme, one that became so widespread that even if someone knew nothing else about hockey, they were at least in on this joke. From that point forward, whenever Kent was spotted in another city, be it because he was vacationing or there for an official game, fans would snap a photo and jokingly include a caption wondering if he was going to sign with the local NHL team. If the city had no team, fans would claim that Kent was obviously there to start one. It became the “in” activity to remark on any of Kent’s non-Vegas photos that he would no doubt soon be moving to the city or town in question. He’d once joined Jeff Troy for Christmas, travelling back with him to Troy’s home of Milk River, Alberta. After posting a selfie, his comments section were filled with jokes that the tiny town with a population of just over eight hundred people would be the site of the NHL’s latest expansion team, with Kent as its first member.

But for Vegas, it was no laughing matter. They loved Kent (to an unhealthy degree, in Jack’s opinion) and were possessive of him. It was their worst fear to lose him to another team. He was their hero, their golden boy, the favorite son of their city.

He was to Vegas, Jack conceded reluctantly, what he had once been to Jack and his family.

Throughout all of the fans’ antics, Jack watched with interest and amusement. He’d never considered himself someone who lived vicariously through celebrities and had always considered both the gossip rags at the checkouts and their faithful readers fairly pathetic. 

But now that Jack knew the subject of all the drama, he was willing to admit that he found it quite . . . not entertaining, per se, but just captivating. Maybe it was a type of camaraderie, a shared experience with the fans of being riled up by Kent Parson, a type of empathy, but he found their reactions fascinating. Several times he’d caught himself scrolling through Twitter during a class, eager to see the latest batch of outrage from the Aces fans at the prospect of Kent leaving them, and the irritation of the Bruins fans for thinking they would want him.

Nevertheless, Kent shot the rumors dead in the water the next time he had a game against the Bruins. 

“Your continued presence in Boston has certainly stirred up strong feelings in your fans,” some ESPN talking head remarked to Kent during a post-game interview. “Do you have any thoughts about their enthusiasm and their reluctance to see you play for any other team?”

Fresh from the shower, his hair still damp, Kent chortled. “Enthusiasm is one way to put it,” he said, flashing his brilliant smile that still somehow stirred something in Jack’s chest, and the various reporters chuckled. 

“But no,” Kent went on, growing slightly more serious. “I do have something to say.” He looked directly at the camera, smiling, but took a moment to brush back his matted hair from his forehead, a nervous habit from his teenage years that media training hadn’t quite managed to smooth out of him. “Zdeno—Chara—he and I are dating. We’ve been official for a couple of months now, and we’ve been keeping it quiet, but we both feel like now is the time. You’ll probably hear the same thing from him tonight, so Aces fans, Bruins fans, this is your Christmas Eve ceasefire. Put away your weapons and rejoice, because I’m not going anywhere. I’m just in love.”

Idly, it crossed Jack’s mind that he’d been the one who taught Kent about the World War I Christmas Eve ceasefire. And now it had been used to describe the circumstances of Kent fucking someone else. 

In love. In love. The words echoed in Jack’s mind, bouncing around his brain even as he tried to drive them out. He sat there on the couch, his jaw clenched so tight it strained his teeth, as Ransom and Holster simply gaped. Then they looked at each other and exploded into huge guffaws and mindless chatter. 

“Big Zee! I can’t believe it—”

“All this time, the Aces have been bitching about the Bruins stealing him away! Turns out he’s just been getting some solid dick from Chara—”

“Solid? I’ll bet it’s fucking all-consuming. Like, the opposite of a black hole, because it’s, you know, solid, but it’s also fucking massive—”

Jack didn’t bother stifling a huff of annoyance, knowing they were too wrapped up in themselves and each other to pay him any attention. While tempted to make a snide comment about Kent’s choice in partners, he resignedly realized that not only would it fall upon deaf ears, but that now that Kent’s sham relationship with Chara was public knowledge, he might as well adjust, if reluctantly, to the idea that he now probably wouldn’t be able to walk into a Dunkin’ Donuts without overhearing gossip from random Boston denizens about their beloved hockey captain and his much younger, much smaller choice of lover. 

The morning, he shuffled downstairs to the breakfast table the next morning to discover Ransom and Holster marvelling over a heartfelt tribute to Chara and Kent from Bruins fans, who had evidently forgotten their previous antipathy for Kent. All was right in the world, it seemed—except for the black cloud that loomed over Jack for the rest of the day.    

Months crawled by. Kent didn’t visit. Didn’t call. Jack made the mistake of checking his stats once and found that he was on a twenty-two game point streak. The discovery had left him moody and withdrawn for the rest of the day, and an attempt by Ransom and Holster to cheer him up by recruiting him into playing Settlers of Catan ended in disaster.

The semester was dragging its way to a conclusion when Jack realized he didn’t want to go home to Montreal. He didn’t want to live in the house where he’d lived with Kent just a few years prior. By now it felt like an eternity gone past, distant and unreachable, but just the thought brought on a sharp stab of pain, like the wound was somehow still fresh. 

He made arrangements to stay at the school for the summer session, reasoning that someone needed to be around the Haus to make sure it didn’t burn down. And it was a breeze to apply for and secure the extra funding for paying the housekeeping staff to clean the Haus regularly during the summer, too. The most stressful part of the process was class selection, but Jack finally made peace with himself when it occurred to him that the classes themselves weren’t important to him as long as he was accepted onto the rosters. Regardless, he found himself automatically planning to clear out a few of his history classes for his major, and then picked a few other interesting ones on a whim, including an advanced photography class.

An unpleasant surprise awaited Jack when the regular fall semester began again and he had the opportunity to meet Samwell’s latest recruit for their hockey team: a former figure skater named Bittle. A former figure skater who couldn’t check . Couldn’t take them, couldn’t land them. 

Jack had to clamp down on his tongue to keep from screaming at the coaches when they introduced Bittle to the team. He knew he hadn’t been as on top of the recruitment as a captain should have been; he’d been preoccupied with recovering from Kent’s manipulations. But to dump this absolutely hopeless mockery of a hockey player onto his lap? It had to be a punishment. It had to be.

Still, he had to give Bittle credit: every time Jack ordered him to the rink for an early morning weekend practice, Bittle was there. He might not have been anything remotely resembling an asset on the ice, but at least he was trying to become one. 

And Bittle was also . . . sweet . Jack felt odd thinking of anyone that way, and he typically didn’t place any value on that particular trait. It was nice that people were nice, sure, but being nice didn’t help anyone win games. But somehow he found himself appreciating the trait in Bittle, even though all of those pies he baked and offered to the team were in flagrant disregard of the team’s diet plan. Even if Bittle was a sorry excuse for an actual player, at least he was devoted to his teammates. 

Something strange happened to him after a one-on-one Saturday morning with Bittle, though. He’d just exited the Faber rink and was on his way back to the Haus when Bittle came racing after him.

“Hold up a minute!” Bittle called out, and Jack decided it was worth his while to stop.

 Halting, he wheeled around to find Bittle lugging a heavy-looking backpack and red cooler behind him.

“Yeah?” Jack inquired skeptically, raising an eyebrow at the items.

“Um.” Bittle’s face was red, but he looked directly at Jack when he spoke. “I fixed us a nice breakfast. For you, I mean, as a thank you for helpin’ me all the time.” He awkwardly indicated his backpack. “I was thinkin’ we could have a picnic? I brought along a blanket. I noticed you liked that spot down by the lake.”

At the word “picnic”, Jack’s mind instantly flashed to the picture of Kent and Chara eating together in the Public Gardens, the one that was nearly two years old. 

Something must have shown on his face, because Bittle recoiled slightly. “Uh, if you don’t want to—” 

While he’d never pictured himself as the kind of guy who went on picnics, suddenly Jack was seized by the need to spite Kent, or at least, to prove to himself that what Chara and Kent had done was nothing special.

“No,” he told Bittle brusquely. “It’s a good idea. C’mon, let’s have a picnic.”

He led the way down to one of the lake’s more private, secluded spots. Not the most private one, though—that one he was keeping his own secret, so that it was always available to him whenever he needed time to himself away from anyone who might try to bother him.

As he helped spread out the blanket and then unpack the cooler of its numerous varieties of quiche and biscuits and gravy, all Jack could think of was that he should be documenting this moment to post it later, start that Instagram arms-race he’d begun considering initiating with Kent. 

But then Bittle handed him a large slice of broccoli and mushroom quiche, and suddenly, the urge wasn’t quite so strong anymore.

“This sure is nice, isn’t it?” Bittle asked, filling a cup of coffee from the thermos and handing it to him. He glanced around at the lake, which was still, the water reflecting the morning’s bright blue sky and the red and gold leaves on the surrounding trees. “Thanks for sittin’ with me,” he said with a bright, genuine smile that seemed just very . . . endearing. (Sweet.)

As if on reflex, even though he was quite certain it wasn’t a reflex, because Jack found himself smiling back, and for the first time in a long time, he felt . . . lighter.

Chapter Text

Junior year seemed to slip through Jack’s fingers before he could even properly grasp it, and before he knew it, senior year was starting, with his NHL signing looming over him. Jack always half-expected Kent to surface again, to beg him to sign with the Aces, but Kent never appeared, and no offer from Vegas ever surfaced. It was because they’d won the Cup again that year, Jack told himself, struggling fruitlessly to suppress a surge of bitterness whenever he glimpsed the coverage. That was probably why. If Kent hadn’t taken the Cup, the Aces would have been clamoring for him on their team.

(Jack refused to think about if he would have considered them as a serious option, because he wasn’t sure of the answer.)

Still, once Jack put his name with the Falcs, he expected some kind of acknowledgement from Kent, maybe a congratulatory text or a phone call wishing him well. And it wasn’t because he honestly wanted to hear from Kent as much as he’d just come to expect to hear from him. 

But Kent never reached out. He didn’t seem like he was thinking about Jack at all.

His romance with Chara seemed to be continuing, judging from the photos on their Instagrams. They spent a disproportionate amount of time together for two people who lived on opposite ends of the country, and each time Jack saw on the Instagram that Kent had been in the Boston area for a game against Boston or Providence and had opted to spend the night with Chara rather than driving up to Samwell, it was as though slow-burning coals were simmering beneath his skin. 

By now, their relationship was a household conversation in all of New England, no doubt helped by the Boston media, who were, as always, rabidly devoted to their sports teams and insisted on meticulously documenting their stars’ love lives. Much to Jack’s irritation, he couldn’t turn on a TV or pick up a paper without being bombarded with photos of the couple’s latest date. Kent’s name, particularly in the Boston area, had become almost synonymous with Chara’s. Most students at Samwell knew Kent not by his own hockey accomplishments, not by his Calder, his Art Rosses, or by the three Cups he’d earned for his team, but by the fact that he was sleeping with the 6’9” Slovakian captain of their city’s NHL team. On the East Coast, the Las Vegas Aces were known mostly as “the team whose captain is getting dicked down by Boston’s captain.” 

Sometimes Jack wondered if it ate away at Kent, that he was becoming better known because of who he was fucking than because his own accomplishments. Most of the time, Jack fervently hoped that it did. 

Still, that didn’t mean he enjoyed accidentally overhearing Holster and Ransom’s speculation on their sex life as he sat at the Haus’s kitchen table, trying to do his homework.

“What do you think it’s like when they bang?” Holster wondered out loud, scrolling through his phone. He was probably looking at Kent’s Instagram. No doubt there was a new photo or several of Kent and Chara going on a duck tour or something equally moronic. 

Jack wouldn’t know. He hadn’t checked lately.

Ransom blew out a breath. “Dude. Chara’s legs? That kind of leverage? He probably takes Parson straight to pound-town.”

Holster grinned. “Takes him there through the railyard. So he can run a train on him.”

Ransom laughed. “Heaven must really be a place on earth, because Chara sent Parson directly to the boneyard. But Parson’s still here, somehow!”

“Here with a hands-on escort, complete with full room service,” Holster added, waggling his eyebrows.

Slamming his textbook closed, Jack grabbed his backpack and stormed out the door, stalking to the library instead. Once there, he managed to snag an unoccupied table in a quiet section with only a few other students around. He had just reassembled his books and his notes and was starting to settle into his work when a nearby phone buzzed and a girl at the table next to him squealed with delight.

“Oh my God, look at this,” she said, shoving her phone in her friend’s face. “It’s Chara and Parson! Look, they’re at the farmers’ market together!”

Jack cast a furtive glance her way and grimaced when he noticed she was wearing a Bruins sweatshirt. He should have noticed that before.

“God, I wish I could date Chara,” her friend, who looked like she could do much better, said with a wistful sigh.

“I wish I could date Parson,” the first girl replied, and she really looked like she could do much, much better.

There was something tragically ironic, Jack thought to himself bitterly, that he’d opted to attend Samwell to get away from Kent, but he was reminded of him wherever he went on campus regardless.

Shortly after winter break, an elegant cream-colored envelope with a wax seal arrived for Jack in the mail. Cautiously thumbing it open without checking the return address, Jack idly observed with gold foil lining but only made the connection when he glimpsed the whimsical typeface.

You are formally invited to “Party with the Parse” and “Bardownski with the Bruin” at the wedding of Kent Parson and Zdeno Chara. Ceremony to be held at 5:00 with reception, dinner, drinking, and especially dancing to follow. Please RSVP for yourself and your guest (optional) by May 1st. 

He held the pearlescent cardstock in his hands for several moments to stare at it, the grain of the texture itching at his fingers and the stationary seeming uncommonly heavy in his grasp, leaving his wrist aching. But it was nothing compared to how the invitation strained his hand when he was finally able to stop staring and instead slide his gaze down to the vivid watercolor illustration beneath the text.

It was a painted version of that stupid photo of Kent and Chara by the Make Way for Ducklings statues, Kent and his sham boyfriend (now fiancé, Jack’s brain supplied unwillingly) immaculately rendered in art form.

So it had come to this, then. Kent was going to pretend like he would actually go through with marrying that poor sap. And he was inviting Jack there to taunt him, to prove to him that he’d moved on.

Jack gave the engagement a week, maybe two if he wanted to be generous. Kent’s attention was known to wander—look at how easily he’d left Jack behind when Kent went first in the draft. He’d run off to Vegas without even a backwards glance. No, he wouldn’t be able to keep the facade with Chara for very long—Jack was actually amazed Kent had kept up his con for as long as he already had. But then again, he’d remained focused on manipulating Jack for the better part of four years now, and his relationship with Chara was all a part of that, all a way of rubbing Jack’s face in the knowledge that he’d moved on, that he was having the time of his life in the NHL.

Kent would stop at nothing to prove a point to Jack, and the invitation resting heavy in Jack’s hand was proof of that.

The following day, Jack’s mother called, as she often did, just to check in with him. When he’d first started school, his parents would call every other day, rotating the schedule in between the two of them, just in case he felt like he could open up to one of them and not the other, he supposed. But now, when he’d demonstrated that he was reliable and not going to slip back into old habits, they only called once a week. 

Bob liked to chat about the projects his charity was either beginning or ending, but he was careful to limit his hockey talk, as if afraid a minute over the minimum amount would push Jack to another overdose. His mother usually was bubbling with enthusiasm over the location of her latest shoot or the latest roles she’d been offered, or thrilled about some new connection—a young up-and-comer actor, a stylist she thought was brimming with talent, or a director she thought might be the best match for her latest passion project.

(Both of Jack’s parents were good with people. In a matter of minutes, they could be the center of the room, charming the crowd, helping people feel valued and at ease. Jack had never shared those talents, but Kent had. No doubt it was a large part of why Bob and Alicia had been so drawn to Kent, why they hadn’t hesitated to make him their second son.)

The call between Jack and Alicia proceeded as usual, with Alicia asking about his classes and his teammates before excitedly telling him about a role she’d landed in a highly anticipated film adaptation of a psychological thriller novel. Then once that was through, the topic changed to one Bob and Alicia rarely discussed with Jack: Kent.

“Sweetheart, I wanted to be the one to tell you,” Alicia began, her voice very gentle. “Your father and I heard from Kent and . . . well. He’s—he’s getting married. To Zdeno. Chara. The Bruins captain.”

“I know,” Jack replied, trying to keep his voice even despite the automatic flare of resentment at Kent. “I got my invitation yesterday.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and then Alicia asked, sounding very startled, “You did?”    

“Yeah,” Jack responded, the single syllable sounding terse even to his own ears. He glanced at the invitation that was propped up in the corner of his desk so he could look at it frequently, even though each glance sent his blood pressure spiking. “I have the invitation here.”

“Oh.” His mother still sounded shocked, and she seemed to flounder for several moments before recovering. “Well, uh, you do know that . . . sweetheart, you do know that your father and I . . . agreed to act as Kent’s family, do you understand? With his family situation being what it is?” Her voice was both delicate and desperate. “And since we’re acting as the parents of one of the grooms, we’ll be expected to sit at the family table during the ceremony and the reception and . . . so on. That’s what we’ll be doing. I . . . I don’t know if you’d be interested—”

“No,” Jack stated emphatically, cutting her off.

“Oh, all right.” There was an insulting amount of relief in his mother’s voice, and then her tone perked up significantly. “So, do you need to find a new suit? Will you be bringing a date?”

Jack hadn’t even contemplated the question, but now that he did, a pair of warm brown eyes and a sunny Southern smile popped into his mind, even though he hadn’t anticipated it.

“I’ve got a suit. And the date . . . well, I’ll have to check and see,” he told his mother, surprising even himself.

“A wedding?” Bittle repeated, his eyes sparkling. “With you? I’d love to!”

“All right,” Jack said, satisfied. At least now he wouldn’t be the loser who turned up single at his ex’s wedding. “It’s here in Boston, just after finals end, so you shouldn’t even need to go home first.” He wasn’t sure if Bittle usually drove or flew back to the South, but it didn’t really matter, anyway.

“What’s the dress code?” Bittle asked eagerly. “Have you decided on a gift? Should I bring one? And, um, who’s the wedding for?”

Jack only had an answer to the final question, and he didn’t want to dwell on it. “The wedding is in the evening, so cocktail attire, I guess? I haven’t thought about a gift. I’ll figure out something. And the wedding is for Kent Parson.”

Bittle’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. “The hockey player that Ransom and Holster like? The one who’s bang—dating the Bruins captain?” he asked, blushing at his hasty correction.  

Even though he found it an accurate summation of Kent and Chara’s relationship, Jack ignored the belated word switch. “That’s right,” he said. “Kent was my teammate back in Juniors. He’s kept in touch.”

“Oh.” Bittle looked taken aback by the mention of Jack’s time in Juniors. It was a rarely discussed topic at the Haus, given that his overdose followed directly on its heels. 

Still, Bittle bravely soldiered on. “Do you think he and Chara are a nice couple? Ransom and Holster seem to think so.”

“I’ve never met Chara,” Jack replied flatly. “And do me a favor: don’t mention this to them, would you? This is more of a social obligation than anything else,” he added. Reluctant as he was to divulge any further information about his views on Kent, he knew he had to at least clue in Bitty if he didn’t want his planned presence at the wedding to be blabbed all over the Haus. “Holster’s main team is the Aces since he and Kent are both from that same meth-ridden part of upstate New York, and Ransom is obsessed with the Bruins. And I don’t want to have to deal with the two of them harassing me about going to the wedding of both their captains.”

Bittle grinned at him, happier than Jack could ever remember seeing him when he was in Jack’s general vicinity. “Don’t you worry,” he said conspiratorially, leaning in close to speak with him. “I’ll keep your secrets safe and sound. I won’t be lettin’ anyone be a bother to you.”

That was already a point in Bittle’s favor. Kent had been a bother to Jack all on his own. Then again, it wasn’t like Bittle’s lack of basic hockey skills didn’t come with its own laundry list of annoyances.

Still, when Jack glanced at the invitation the next time, he felt a little bit less irritated now that he had Bittle lined up as a date.    

Chapter Text

Of all the places in either Boston or Las Vegas to hold their sham wedding, Chara and Kent selected the Boston Museum of Science. Jack would bet money that it was Chara’s idea rather than Kent’s—Kent had never been interested in science or learning, and he’d never had much use for museums. When he and Jack had been together, their biggest argument had taken place during a Zimmermann family trip to Gettysburg, and Kent had tried to convince Jack to come along on some hokey ghost tour of absolutely zero historical value.

But no matter who had selected the venue or how odd Jack found the choice, when he arrived with Bittle, there could be no denying that it was very much arranged for a wedding. Jack had half-expected to show up and find out that the wedding had been cancelled and Kent had finally taken mercy and cut Chara loose, admitting that this engagement was all a sham to get back at Jack. Instead, the locale was positively swathed in decorations. Looking at it brought a strange squirming sensation to twinge in Jack’s stomach—someone had clearly spent a significant amount of time and energy on these decorations, and it didn’t look like the type of setup a typical wedding planner would have assembled. 

The large, upscale pavilion where the ceremony would take place was set right on the Charles River, open to the breeze off the water. However, long gauzy curtains had been added, hanging down in folds and then gathered at each of the posts and tied neatly with turquoise-strung leather cords. Fabric banners had also been elegantly draped from the rafters, giving the illusion of a lower ceiling, and strings of globe lights added extra illumination and a sense of cheer and warmth. The overall effect was a more private, cozy atmosphere despite the pavilion’s exposed design. 

But the colors of the fabric weren’t the typical wedding white or ivory. Instead, most of the hues were subdued but varied earth tones, particularly those closer to the ground, while others toward the ceiling were dusty violet, mauve, and peach, with occasional hints of muted indigo. The array of colors sparked an image in Jack’s mind that he couldn’t quite place, a half-formed thought that nagged at him, but it wasn’t until someone else mentioned the same idea that he was able to complete it.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” an unknown voice asked, and Jack and Bittle turned to find a young couple joining them in their row of seats. The speaker was a tan-skinned and dark-haired woman who wore a sunny yellow dress and espadrilles. Her arm was linked with a tall and well-built auburn-haired man about Jack’s age whose eyes were a startlingly bright blue.

It was the woman who had spoken. She gave them both a friendly smile, the river breeze tinkling against her dangling earrings as she did. “Kent said that the only color he wanted was green—” she pointed to a nearby panel of sage-hued fabric, “—to match Zdeno’s eyes. But Zdeno was fascinated with the desert and wanted it to be a theme, even if Kent insisted on having the wedding here in Boston.”

I knew it. Jack had to clamp down on his tongue to prevent himself from speaking out loud. Of course it had been Kent’s decision to have the wedding here, specifically to spite Jack. But why the green? Obviously, Kent didn’t actually give a damn about having a color to match Chara’s eyes, but why had he really chosen it? The Aces’ colors were black and white, Samwell’s colors were red and white, the Bruins’ colors were black and gold (not that Kent truly cared about Chara at all) . . .

Wait. Their team colors in Juniors had been green and white. The Drummondville Dragons. Of course. Of course. Kent had included green as a color specifically as a jab at Jack, to dredge up memories of their time together. Typical Kent, always finding some way or another to score a dig.

“Oh, I knew it reminded me of something!” Bittle exclaimed, glancing around the pavilion with renewed appreciation. “It looks positively enchanting. I never would have thought of decorating like this. I would have picked a nautical theme, since we’re right on the river and all. But the desert—it gives off such a great atmosphere.”

“It does,” agreed the blue-eyed man. He cast a smile Jack’s way and spoke directly to him. “Hey man, it’s so cool to see you again after so long. Weird that we’re going to be on the same team again, isn’t it? But good, too,” he tacked on quickly. “And I’m glad we have a chance to catch up now. Kent said he was going to seat us at the same table so we could hang out.”

“. . . Right,” Jack replied, a touch puzzled. This man was talking as if he knew him, but Jack was sure he’d never seen him before in his life. He’d mentioned they were going to play on the same team “again” so maybe this guy was one of his former Samwell teammates he’d played with previously? But what reason would he have for playing with him again now?

Hoping for a clue, he glanced over to the girl in time to hear her introducing herself to Bittle.

“My name is Greyeyes Greer, and this is my boyfriend, Dustin Snow,” she said, indicating the blue-eyed man. “He was friends with Jack and Kent back during Junior hockey in Montreal and played goalie on their team.”

Certain the girl was mistaken, Jack opened his mouth to correct him, but then clamped it shut as he realized he did dimly recognize Dustin from the Dragons. He’d been a very talented goalie, Jack recalled faintly. And while he couldn’t recall Greyeyes in the slightest, he knew that seating Dustin near him was another deliberate move on Kent’s part, another way of twisting the knife and reminding Jack of their past in Juniors, back when they were still a couple.

Meanwhile, Bittle didn’t hesitate to introduce himself.

“Eric Bittle,” Bittle said eagerly, shaking her hand. “That’s quite a name you have. Do you, ah, know Jack or Kent, too?”

Greyeyes offered him a slightly chagrined smile. “Not as well as Dustin did, but I’ve kept in touch with Kent. He works with my organization fairly often—I’m part of an advocacy group for First Nations hockey players. We did some work with Jack and Kent’s team in Montreal. That’s where I met Dustin, actually,” she said, sending a fond look his way before swiveling back to Bittle. “But my name—well, I was named after Mary Greyeyes-Reid, the first First Nations woman in the Canadian Royal Army. You can call me Grey—everyone does.”

Bittle looked mortified. “I didn’t mean—what I meant was—”

“It’s fine,” Grey said calmly. “I get that a lot.”

“Well.” Bittle’s face was still flushed, but he did his best to give Grey a smile. “I’m sorry for bein’ so tactless. You can call me Bitty. Jack, uh, brought me with him today,” he said, tossing a soft look over at Jack.    

“Hello, Bitty,” Grey replied affably before turning to Jack. “Look at you! I’m so happy to see you again. You look terrific, by the way. Kent said that he thought college had been good for you, and he was right.”

Kent’s never known what was good for me, Jack thought viciously, but he was distracted by Dustin speaking to him again.  

“You’re going to love the Falcs,” he told Jack, sotto voce. “St. Martin and Robinson are the two alternate captains this upcoming season, and they’re both amazing guys. It’s a terrific team. I mean, I know everyone says that about their team, but it’s true.”

“Glad to hear it,” Jack replied automatically, his mind whirling. Did Dustin play on the Falcs? He tried to remember, but he’d been more worried about ice time and salary than the team roster.

Figures, though, that he’d join a team on the opposite side of the country, in a separate division, and somehow still end up with one of Kent’s pals on his team. That seemed to be just his luck. Thankfully, before Jack could be expected to make any further conversation, the wedding director stepped up to the dais up at the front, tapped the mic, and politely but firmly encouraged all of the guests to find their seats.

“This is so excitin’!” Bittle squealed to Jack, glancing around before sitting down, as if it were a day out at the fair or something similar to him. “This is my favorite part of weddings, when you can practically taste the anticipation in the air, and everyone is waitin’, but they’re so pumped up and happy. You know that they’re thinkin’—oh! It’s startin'!”

Jack had gathered as much as a piece of classical music he was sure he’d never heard before (probably of Slovakian origin, he’d of guessed) started up on the piano, and all conversation hushed as everyone automatically turned toward the back of the pavilion.  

The couple’s walk up the aisle seemed at once far too rushed and agonizingly slow. Jack couldn’t help but note that Kent was resplendent in his cream-colored tux, his blond hair gleaming beneath the lights as his entire form practically glowed with happiness. Chara was beside him, towering over him, smiling so widely that the peculiar angles of his features were almost unnoticeable. Each wore a different color waistcoat and tie, Chara in sage green (Jack idly wondered if Kent had insisted on it) and Kent in that dusty violet. It actually worked with his eyes, Jack was startled to notice as Kent passed by on his way up the aisle, making them appear violet as well. 

Desperately, he tried to recall if he’d ever witnessed Kent's eyes being violet at any point prior to this one, and he was left feeling strangely disappointed when he realized he hadn’t.

The ceremony itself was surreal. Jack sat on the edge of his seat, waiting for someone else—namely Kent, but anyone, really—to leap out of their chair and apologetically declare that it had all been a ruse, a joke, a jibe at Jack. But it never came. Instead, Kent stood at the front with Chara, exchanging their vows without a moment of hesitation, gazing at each like it was the Burgess Meredith episode of The Twilight Zone and they were the only two people left on earth. 

The ceremony wasn’t long, mostly a lot of talk from the priest that Jack was too preoccupied to pay much attention to, followed by an exchange of vows that made it clear that the priest was really and truly Catholic—most likely Chara’s choice again, since Kent wasn’t much for spirituality, and most Slovaks like Chara were almost certainly Catholic. And thus, given the choice of venue, minister, and Grey’s mention that Chara had selected most of the colors, Jack had to wonder if Kent had deigned to participate in the planning at all beyond selecting the color green. 

But before Jack knew it, the ceremony was over, and the newly wedded couple was gliding back down the aisle again, flanked by a grinning group of groomsmen. Music was playing and conversation was picking up around him, but Jack could only sit in silence, utterly stunned.

Kent had actually done it. He’d truly married Chara. All just to get back at Jack.

Kent honestly was just that petty. Still, this was a new level, even for him.

The music died down a little bit, and there was a loud sniffle from beside Jack. He turned to see Bittle dabbing at his eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief. 

“Sorry,” he said with an apologetic smile. “I’m probably a sap, but I just got so worked up, seein’ how much those two love each other.”

“Right,” Jack said woodenly.

Bitty stuffed his handkerchief into the pocket of his suit coat. “I guess we ought to make our way over to the reception, huh?” he asked, motioning the line of guests already filing out the exits.

Jack could only nod. He still could barely believe Kent had gone through with the wedding.

But then, Kent had always been selfish. 

Chapter Text

The refreshment tent, they found, was even more elaborately decorated than the pavilion. In addition to the same draped fabric and strings of lights, there were garlands of quartz crystals strung overhead, winking in the light, accompanied by strands of dangling hawk feathers draping down in every corner and fluttering in the river breeze. A type of horizontal lattice was positioned directly over the dance floor in the very center of the tent, overflowing with pampas grass and desert flowers, with the blooms hanging down to drape in a second layer like a kind of floral chandelier. 

Bittle insisted on circling the room twice so he could gawk at the decorations, forcing Jack to hastily duck to avoid several familiar faces from hockey, mostly old friends of his dad’s who’d still been young enough to manage to play with Kent or had ended up working with him through the Aces. He also warily kept away from his parents while sending up a silent prayer that he wasn’t seated anywhere near them. It was an enormous relief when he and Bitty finally found their table and he could check each one of the agate slab place settings, scanning the guest names painted across each one in gold lettering to verify that his parents wouldn’t be sharing his table. Luckily for him, the only people seated nearby that he knew were Dustin and Grey. 

“How lovely!” Bittle gushed, running his fingers across the smooth, glassy surface of his blue agate piece. “What a fun idea—this will make such a wonderful little keepsake.” He grinned at Jack, his large brown eyes brimming with sincerity and something else that left Jack feeling oddly guilty. “You know, I wasn’t sure about this wedding at first—it’s so different than all of the church weddings and country club receptions back home. But I have to say that it’s right darn charming, even if it isn’t tradition.” He chuckled. “I think your Kent Parson is going to make a heathen out of me yet.”

“Kent does have a tendency to bring out the worst in people,” Jack replied without hesitation, because, frankly, it was true.

Nevertheless, Bittle looked very startled by the response, and Jack noticed several deeply unimpressed looks directed toward him by Grey and Dustin as they took their seats at the table as well.   

Nothing more could be said, however, because mere seconds later, a microphone was switched on and someone cleared their throat, summoning all of the attention to the long table at the front that sat on a small platform a few feet off the ground, where the wedding party sat. A podium was there as well, and now Jeff Troy stood before it. Even in his groomsman suit, Jack recognized him immediately from those photos on Kent’s Instagram—it was his unreserved and unapologetic grin that gave him away.

“Everybody, thank you so much for being here, and I promise we will not delay you long from your meal, because if you know Kent and you’ve ever had to keep up with him, God knows you’ve earned it,” Troy said, garnering ready chuckles from the audience. “And I know that Kent and Zdeno both have speeches planned, so I promise to keep mine short.

“Kent, I just wanted to thank you for an incredible six years. You’ve carried us to the Cup twice, and the playoffs every year besides that. And we all know the number of awards and records you have beneath your name. But I want to talk about something other than that. You have been an incredible friend to me for the better part of the past decade. You’ve picked me up when I didn’t have the strength to stand, you’ve helped me find a way to be happy when I couldn’t have managed it on my own, and most of all, you’ve just been there when I felt alone.

"And I know I’m far from the only guy on the team you’ve done that for. Whenever there was a guy on IR—out on injury, for our guests who aren’t into hockey—you were there to visit them and help them feel like they were still part of the team. If a new guy on our team was ESL, you made it a point to learn their language and try to speak to them—even if, from what I’m told, your accent was more often than not, absolutely atrocious.”

The remark brought on another wave of chuckles, and an abrupt sensation of strangeness struck Jack—it was odd to hear Kent’s activities from the past several years recounted by someone who so blatantly adored him. And even if Jack wasn’t inclined to believe him—well, actually, he tended to think Troy was just another of Kent’s foolish patsys—he could recognize fragments of the stories that seemed realistic. Languages had always been one of Kent’s chief talents; once he was living with the Zimmermanns in Montreal, he’d picked up on the local French dialect in almost an absurdly short amount of time.

Maybe Troy did know Kent, Jack found himself musing, his stomach twisting uneasily. Maybe Kent only showed him the best parts, the flattering qualities of his that Troy could talk up in speeches just like the one currently in progress, but maybe Troy knew Kent, even just a little bit.

Jack still knew him best, though.   

“Ultimately,” Troy went on, “what I want to say is that you’re just a phenomenal guy, and I’m proud to have you as my captain. And I’m just effing ecstatic—keeping it family friendly, folks—that you’ve found a guy who truly values you and appreciates the person you are. Zdeno, you’ve made my best friend spectacularly happy and helped him recognize how much he’s worth. Thank you. You’re a thoroughly terrific man, and I hope the two of you have an amazing life together.”

Enthusiastic applause began before Troy had even stepped down from the podium, but even above it, Jack could hear the cry of, “That’s right! Zeesus is a ten! An absolute ten, do you understand me?” A quick glance over at the head table told him that the person shouting was unmistakably Brad Marchand, a teammate of Chara’s from the Bruins and one of the groomsmen.      

A new speaker mounted the podium as Troy returned to his seat, a person who Jack didn’t recognize. One of Chara’s friends or family, then—he knew all of the Aces and Kent’s close buddies from his Instagram, just like he knew Troy. Given that the man was a stranger, Jack ignored him as he droned on, opting instead to devote his time to watching Kent. Troy’s seat was directly beside him on his left, while Chara was on his right. As Jack stared, he saw Troy sit down again and Kent leaned in to give him a tight, one-armed hug, whispering something into Troy’s ear that caused him to grin, before cuddling back up to Chara, all while looking deliriously happy. A faint, inexplicable stab of anxiety pierced through Jack at the sight.

It seemed too . . . real. Not manufactured or calculated, not like anything planned, just . . . natural. 

As if Kent was truly in love with Chara. As if their marriage wasn’t some kind of ploy but the real deal.

A faint feeling of dread descended upon Jack, but he pushed it aside. So what if Kent could sell the lie well? He’d had enough months with Chara to practice. No, this wedding wasn’t about Chara. It was about Jack.

But as the current speech finished and Chara himself moved to take the podium this time, still radiant with happiness, another niggling doubt wormed its way into Jack’s mind, and he listened with rapt attention and only half of his previous skepticism.    

“I want to take you back to the 2010 season,” Chara began. Jack had to begrudgingly admit that his deep voice had a certain warmth to it, and there could be no denying the brilliant smile he sent Kent’s way—though it still lit a spark of sympathy within Jack for the poor guy’s naïveté. “I was on my way home from a wedding in California when my plane had to land in Vegas because of a blizzard in the Midwest. I had my Kindle and I was ready to simply pass the time by reading my books—but then I checked my phone and found some new tweets from one of my favorite accounts. It was Kit Purrson’s.”

“Kit’s twitter is all of our favorites!” Marchand shouted, and the crowd chuckled again. 

Chara grinned and went on. “There was a new video with Kit—just one of her scratching at the window and trying to get to the birds on the other side. But I left a comment about how videos with Kit always cheered me up, even when I was stranded, unable to get to my team, on the other side of the country. And then, right away, as soon as I made the comment, who do I get a call from? It’s Kent Parson, and he wants to know which airport I’m at so he can come get me.”

“That’s our Parse!” Scrapiani, an Aces defenseman, called out, and there was a chorus of rowdy agreement from Bruins and Aces alike. Troy slapped Kent on the back, Jack noticed, unable to suppress a quizzical eyebrow from arching up as he did.

“That is him,” Chara agreed, smiling like a doofus. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but Kent seeing someone in trouble and racing to help them? That is who he is at his core. And that day was when I began to discover that. Because this was during the season, and Kent actually should have been up in Canada with his team for a road trip. But he had to stay home because he’d caught the flu. He was still recovering, but that didn’t stop him from rushing to the airport to pick me up so I didn’t have to wait there for hours on end for my new flight. He drove there in that pickup truck—the one Marchy always makes fun of—so that I’d have the extra leg room. And then he took me back to my house so that I could eat and rest there. But on our way out of the airport, he stopped to give me a gift.”

Here Chara held up the plush toy. Jack couldn’t see anything special about it, and he grimaced as the crowd obediently let out an appreciative “aww” at the sight, Bittle unabashedly amongst them.    

“He stopped by one of those claw machines, the ones where you can try to use the crane to grab a toy, and won me this Charmander without any problem,” Chara continued, smiling as if Kent had given him some kind of unique and valuable treasure and not some mass-produced children’s toy. “And he apologized when he gave it to me—he told me he was sorry there weren’t any Charazards and that he hoped I’d still like the Charmander.

"And I—” Chara paused, swallowing. “I told him that I would. That I’d keep it forever, and I have. Because this stuffed animal—” he held up the Charmander again, “—marks the day I really began to know Kent Parson. Not as the overconfident young American the media wanted me to know. But as a legitimately kind person, someone who would rescue a fellow athlete but virtual stranger from being stuck at the airport for hours on end. Who would take the time to drive there in a car especially picked for me so I could be comfortable. Who would take the time to win me a toy to cheer me up. And all of this was when he still had the flu.

“That is the man I am marrying,” Chara said, turning to Kent with a brilliant smile, one that had Jack’s stomach somersaulting oddly as he witnessed it. “I want everyone here to know that my husband is more than just a hockey player, even more than just the best one out there. He is someone who truly cares about other people, someone who would go far out of his way, even when it was inconvenient for him, to make someone else’s day better, even when he didn’t know that person. They call him Kent ‘Powerhouse’ Parson because he always will take a fight to protect his rookies on the ice. They call him Kent Victory Parson because that’s his middle name, and because he wins, and he wins very often.

“But today marks the day that I can call him my husband, and before I would say any other compliment about him, I would say that he is someone who is generous. Someone who doesn’t hesitate to help. Someone who we all know has been fighting to improve his city since the day he got there. And I want this person—this fantastic, amazing, and legitimately kind person—to be the most important person in my life. Kenny—” Chara paused to swallow again, “—thank you for marrying me. Thank you for letting me be a part of your life. I promise you— I promise —” there was a fierce certainty in his voice, “—that I will always be by your side. I love you more than anything. Thank you.”

He sat down to a thunderous round of applause, but Jack couldn’t have lifted his hands even if he’d wanted to.

Kenny. Chara had called him Kenny. But that had been Jack’s —that had been Jack and Kent’s. Not Chara’s. It couldn’t be Chara’s.     

Floor, he sat frozen as Bittle dabbed at his eyes, and up on the platform for the head table, Chara sat down to many backpats from the collection of groomsmen. Right after, Kent swooped to give him a solid, lingering kiss that generated a litany of wolf whistles. They only broke apart when Chara pulled away to give Kent a gentle nudge toward the podium for the final speech, and even then, Kent lingered for a moment, his hands gripping Chara’s hips as he pressed his face into his chest, nuzzling against him in a way that seemed almost impossibly gentle, since it was Kent.

And when he finally broke off and moved to the podium, he cast an impossibly fond look back Chara’s way that sent Jack’s pulse racing and skin simmering. The sensation only multiplied when Kent turned back to the audience with a beaming smile—Jack remembered how back in high school, Kent had despised public speaking only slightly less than him, but now his confidence was evident from the relaxed stance of his posture to the steadiness of his voice and smooth start to his speech.

“I’d hate to be cliché, but I figure it’s my wedding and, hey, I can do what I want,” he began, earning soft chuckles from the crowd, and his grin only spread wider. “So I’d like to take a moment to you to talk about memories. From my point of view, weddings basically only exist to give friends and family a day to remember, so I wouldn’t be doing my job as host if I didn’t give you the up close and personal exclusive about how this day came to exist.” Kent’s smile turned sly. “You know from my Dude’s Health and ESPN covers and all the time I spend modelling underwear, that if there’s one thing I don’t mind, it’s getting up close and personal.”

More chuckles from the crowd, this time stronger, but Jack felt like his world had been tilted sideways. Kent was an underwear model now? Jack hadn’t even known—outside of hockey—outside of Chara —he hadn’t even been following Kent’s activities.    

“When I remember my time at the Olympics in 2010, I don’t think back on what’s on the official record. I don’t really remember the part about scoring the goal that won the game and brought Vancouver to riot. I don’t even really remember the joke getting started that the ‘V’ in my name stands for ‘Vancouver Has Been Destroyed,’ like my teammates began claiming after the fact. I just remember that after the game, I should have been celebrating. But I couldn’t have felt more down than I was then. There was a situation in my personal life that had me feeling like I was in a place where no one else understood what was happening to me and never could, no matter how much I explained. 

“It wasn’t a good place, and it was an incredibly lonely place. I remember being out at the club with my fellow members of Team USA and watching them celebrate our gold medal, and never feeling less like partying in my life. And at a certain point, I just couldn’t stand to see their happiness a moment longer. I was just hurting and hurting inside, and I knew that I shouldn’t be, that I should be happy like them. But I wasn’t, and I couldn’t stand it. So I left them behind and got myself a couple drinks and went up to the roof to get drunk on my own.”

Something in Jack’s stomach twisted at that, and with sudden clarity, he recalled that on the night of Kent’s golden goal at Vancouver, he’d ignored a half-dozen of Kent’s calls, an unusually high number given that Kent had given up on trying to contact him months before that.

Suddenly, Jack had the sense that every pair of eyes in the room was turning to stare at him, even though no one was even looking at him at the moment.

“But I wasn’t on my own for long,” Kent continued, his gaze leaving the crowd to seek out Zdeno and gazing at him with such blatant devotion that it was almost uncomfortable. “Because Zdeno, the captain of the Slovakian team, actually came to find me, asking the rest of Team USA where I was until someone was able to tell him. When the door opened and he stepped out onto the roof with me, he told me that he was there to congratulate me on my win. 

“But he did so much more than just that. He took one look at where I was, saw that I was sitting there on my lonesome, and then just took a few minutes to talk to me. Even though it was as cold as hell, even though I’m fairly certain he probably would have liked to be enjoying his own drink someplace warmer and with less freezing cold wind, he put aside his own comfort and any kind of ego just to listen to me pour out my sorrows.

“I don’t think we live in a world that appreciates kindness often enough,” Kent went on. “And at the time, I certainly didn’t feel like being kind to anyone or like anyone was all that kind to me. But in that moment, Zdeno showed me there were still kind people, that there were people who were willing to listen to me when I was ready to talk. And then, when it became clear it was too cold for us to stay on the roof any longer, he was the one who made sure I got back to my room at the Olympic Village safely. He walked me straight up to the door, and then gave me his number in case I needed to talk to someone again. All of this, just for some punk rookie he didn’t even know. And this was before the time I invited him to my place when he was stranded at the airport. That came afterward. So this kindness that he was offering to me wasn’t an attempt to return some kind of debt, and it wasn’t out of obligation. It was just freely given because Zdeno was and is a genuinely kind person.  

“And then, in the fall of 2010, I began visiting Boston for personal reasons,” Kent went on. “Both after games with the Bruins and after games with the Falcs. Many of those visits did not end well, and each time I was left feeling like I had that night at the club rooftop. But I didn’t want to feel that way anymore. I was tired of feeling hurt. I wanted to feel better. So I took what felt like a risk for me and called Zdeno. I asked if he was up for hanging out, and because the man is a literal saint, he immediately agreed. And after the first few times, it became a standing arrangement: when I was in Boston and feeling low, he would swoop in to pick me back up.”

Jack was riveted on Kent, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught Bittle turning to look at him, suspicion written all over his features. 

Jack ignored him.    

“But when I recognized the pattern, I realized I wanted to put a stop to it,” Kent declared, an edge of determination entering his voice. “I was tired of getting nowhere and making no progress in my situation, and I wanted a change. So I changed my reason for visiting Boston. After Bruins games, after Falcs games, I was only there to see Zdeno. And this time, we were going to have fun together. He wasn’t just my shoulder to cry on now, even though I’m eternally grateful that he was willing to step and be that person for me. Now, I wanted to be the person he laughed with, be a person who brought the same joy and kindness into his life as he did for me. I valued him beyond belief, and I wanted to not only show him that, but be the person he valued as well. And it worked. We were able to start something goddamn beautiful together, something that was just ours.

“I used to dread visiting Boston,” Kent admitted, his voice cracking slightly. “There were some memories tied to the place that never failed to cut me up and cut me down, and as soon as we got here, I’d just want to jet off back home to Vegas.”

Heat began slowly creeping up Jack’s neck, and he couldn’t name the reason for it, but it only intensified as he saw both Grey and Dustin swivel to look in his direction and that Bittle was still laser-focused on him. 

“But being with Zdeno taught me that it didn’t have to be the struggle I was committing myself to, that I didn’t deserve to just hurt and hurt with no healing in sight. He taught me that I was worth more than that. And together, we were able to change my dread for Boston into something I looked forward to. I—” his voice became noticeably more clogged, but he continued even as Jack could spot glistening tears trailing down his face.

“I met someone who helped me through that,” Kent continued. “I met someone who made me look forward to going to Boston. Someone who made me smile at the thought of the city.” He turned to Chara. “Zdeno, I met you at a time in my life when I was desperate. I just was so incredibly low. But you . . . you helped me through that. You helped me push past the bad memories and stop giving into them. You helped me ignore my need to rehash the past and try to fix something that I truly needed to move on from and stop focusing on. And I can’t even tell you how much I love you for doing that.” Kent’s voice gave out, and for several seconds, he struggled to regain it, but then he succeeded. 

“And throughout it all, you were so gentle. You never judged, even though you easily could have. You never read me a riot act or told me I was being an idiot who needed to pull myself together. You were just . . . patient with me when I really needed to figure myself out and focus on leaving my past behind. And thank you for helping me do that. Thank you for letting me move on from my past to build a future with you. Because that’s what I want. I just want to make memories with you, to look back on our time together just as I look at Boston now because of you, and just be filled with love and contentment and peace.

“You might have been surprised at the choice of venue today—I know I told my team about it, and I never got so roasted as hard as I did. But we chose this location because we wanted it to be about the memories. We wanted all of you to be able to get silly photos by the T-Rex statue, to make your hair stand on end at the electricity exhibit, take Snapchat videos of yourself being an idiot and imitating the different bird calls you can listen to, and then to be able to have a magnificent view of the city and harbor once it gets dark. I don’t want this day to just be about me and Zdeno being happy. I want all of you to be able to have a day that’s nothing but fun. I want you to be able to look back on this day years from now and feel like I gave you happiness just like Zdeno gave it to me.

"So please, just enjoy yourselves. Drink, dance, explore the museum with your kids, or you’re sick of your kids, pass them onto me and Zee for the evening so we can practice. I just want this day to be wonderful for all of you. Please, just have the night of your life tonight.”

The instant Kent stepped back from the podium, applause began, building and escalating until it sounded like a Nor'easter pounding down onto a car’s metal roof. Grimacing, Jack could only look away, disgusted by all of the faux sentiment that Kent had cobbled together and even more disgusted that all of the other guests had bought it.

And yet . . . doubt wormed itself into his brain, more intense than the first few times. He’d lived with Kent for two years and slept with him for one, and he still thought that he had a pretty good gauge on when he was lying, even close to a decade later. And yet, he couldn’t spot any indication that Kent was being untruthful. There used to be tells for when Kent was relaying an invented story—how many times had Jack witnessed him lie to Bob and Alicia about where they were going to be that night or if there were going to be any parents home during the party of one of their juniors’ teammates? Out of nervous habit, Kent had always slipped off his snapback and run his fingers through his hair, the only sign of dishonesty during his otherwise flawless lie.   

True, Kent presently wasn’t wearing a snapback, so it wasn’t as though he’d had a tell that would give him away, but he also hadn’t done anything else to indicate that this story about himself and Chara had been invented.

And Jack was well aware that there had to be some grain of truth found within what Kent had said. He had visited Jack after Bruins and Falcs games, and he had started to hang out with Chara after seeing Jack. And then Jack had witnessed with his own two eyes the endless photos of Kent and Chara hanging out together on social media. 

Plus, Jack conceded uneasily, those parts of Kent’s story about feeling awful during his visits to Boston weren’t necessarily a lie. Oh, sure, they were definitely one-sided and only included to be manipulative and build sympathy for himself—but. Jack knew Kent had been upset after coming to Samwell. And he also knew that Kent was probably upset that night he’d tried and failed to reach out to Jack after winning the gold at the Olympics.

They’d made a vow, he recalled distantly, feeling like he was unearthing details of someone else’s life from eons ago. He and Kent had promised each other during juniors that they’d meet each other on ice during the first Olympic Games of their career and that they’d each play their hardest despite their ongoing relationship.

Back then, there had been no thoughts of breaking up. There’d been no thoughts that Jack wouldn’t be playing in the NHL.

Kent had believed in him, Jack realized dimly. He’d believed in him to make it to the NHL then, and he’d believed Jack could do it later, even post-overdose, when he’d extended the offer of joining the Aces to him. 

Kent had believed in him. But then he’d moved on from Jack. He’d moved onto Chara, and then he’d only looked back when Jack had requested it. Never again besides that.

Could Chara and Kent honestly be in love? Could Kent have found true happiness with Chara after too many arguments at the Haus with Jack?

It didn’t seem likely. But Jack suddenly couldn’t shake the idea.

All throughout dinner, Jack tried to wrap his head around it. Bitty oohed and ahhed at the appetizers of Southwestern-style lobster roll sliders with spicy avocado and then waxed poetic over the main course of the coconut-glazed salmon with mango salsa over lime rice, but Jack was preoccupied with trying to make sense of the strange potentially new reality that had suddenly and unexpectedly thrust itself upon him. The food tasted like sawdust in his mouth, and even with several sips of water after each bite, it still lodged uncomfortably in his throat. Any attempt to include him in conversation were met with monosyllabic responses, and at least Dustin and Grey seemed to clue into the notion that he didn’t want to talk, even though Bitty didn’t.

When the time came to cut the cake, Jack wasn’t sure what to think. He stood with everyone else to watch Chara and Kent cut their first piece of cake, with Chara sitting to be more on level with Kent. And he watched as Chara politely fed a narrow slice of cake to Kent straight from his fingers, shaking his head at Marchand and Troy’s repeated shouts urging him to turn it into the cake smash. Kent, however, didn’t hesitate to scoop up a finger full of icing and smear it across Chara’s lips and then dive in to enthusiastically kiss it off, much to the groans and shouts of “Get a room!” from the rest of their assembled teammates. 

After witnessing that particular display, Jack couldn’t summon up the appetite for dessert, even despite the deluxe dessert bar that both awed and delighted even Bittle.

When the music started up for the couple’s first dance, Jack could barely bring himself to watch, but he did anyway, feeling not unlike the individuals who witnessed car accidents and couldn’t stop looking even though they wanted to. Before his eyes, Chara and Kent took to the dance floor and actually managed to be semi-graceful in their movements in spite of the eleven inches Chara had on Kent. And while the music was completely unfamiliar to Jack, Bitty helpfully supplied the missing information.

“Oh, how lovely,” he said, gazing at the happy couple like he was considering asking them for a threesome. “It’s ‘Your Song’ from Moulin Rouge.” 

Moulin Rogue. A movie Jack had never seen or had any interest in. A movie that he could never recall Kent ever so much as mentioning during all the time they’d spent together in juniors. 

A movie Kent and Chara must have watched together and enjoyed, if they selected it to be the song of their first dance.

“So excuse me forgetting but these things I do

You see I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue

Anyway the thing is, what I really mean

Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen,” the song rang out.

As Jack stood, struggling to believe what was before him, Chara twirled Kent away from him for a moment, still within arm’s reach, so he could cover Kent’s eyes with his enormous hands, and then, when the lyric finished, he turned Kent back to face him, sliding his hands away as he beamed down at him. Kent threw back his head and laughed, and then folded himself in close to Chara, so much so that they were barely dancing, clinging to him as if he could never imagine letting go, like he hadn’t married someone who lived at the opposite end of the country than he did.

The display of undisguised playfulness had Jack’s breath catching in his throat, and he found himself wondering: if Kent wasn’t fixating on getting Jack back, if Jack wasn’t going to be spending his time in the NHL fending off Kent’s advances, where did that leave Jack himself?

He had no answer. Though he knew he should have, he didn’t. And he sat there at the table throughout the rest of the song and several of the next, contemplating the question, even other guests, including Grey and Dustin, abandoned the tables in favor of the dancefloor or to explore the museum.

Bittle watched them go eagerly, maybe a touch desperately.

“You wouldn’t, um, be up for a dance, would you?” he asked Jack, doing his best to keep his voice casual.

Even in the midst of a borderline identity crisis, Jack shook his head resolutely. “I’ve never been one for dancing.”

While clearly crestfallen, Bitty quickly tried to mask his disappointment. “That’s fine.”

Still, his gaze kept drifting in the direction of the couples who continued to make their way up to the dancefloor or who exited the tent entirely. 

Meanwhile, Jack stared at the agate table settings, the careful arrangements of muted roses interspersed with potted succulents, their painted clay pots gleaming beneath the globe lights. A desert aesthetic for the life of someone who lived in the desert. The life of someone whom he had not been involved with in any capacity for years now. The life of someone who had decided to marry someone else. Possibly for real?

Was it real? Could it honestly be real, or had Jack finally been fooled by Kent like everyone else?

Whatever the answer was, Jack had to know. With certainty. It was time to confront Kent once and for all, so that Jack could finally extract himself from this mess.

Abruptly, he stood from the table, and as soon as he did, Bittle hopped up as well, excitement on his face.

“Changed your mind about dancing?” he asked eagerly.

“No,” Jack replied flatly.

Bittle looked somehow taken aback by the bluntness of his reply, but still valiantly persisted. “Then—would you like to go look around the museum? See what exhibits are open for us guests?”

“You go ahead,” Jack informed him, feeling generous. He should confront Kent on his own, not drag Bittle into their argument. “Have fun.”

For whatever reason, Bittle reared back as if surprised, but then snapped forward again, a scowl etching its way onto his face.

“ ‘Have fun’?” he repeated, his voice rising. “ ‘Have fun’? What part of this day do you think has been the most fun for me today, Jack Zimmermann? The part where I stood there and waited for you to introduce me to your old friends, but you didn’t, so I had to introduce myself? The part where you sulked throughout the entire dinner? Is it supposed to be fun now, while you’re ignorin’ me again so you can run off and do—do—well, whatever it is you’re about to do? Or maybe it was listenin’ to one of the groom’s wedding speeches and suspectin’ that it was you— my date —who he was talking about when he went on and on about his trips to Boston bein’ miserable?”

It was as if a flare of dynamite ignited within Jack. “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” he snarled at Bitty, the stress of the evening taking its toll at the reminder of Kent’s uncomfortable and accusatory speech. “You don’t know a thing about me. Not a thing, got it?”  

For a moment, Bitty looked alarmed at his sudden vehemence, but then his voice hardened again.

“You're right,” he said icily, drawing himself up ramrod straight and sending Jack a look of disdain. “I guess I don’t.”

He spun on his heel, presumably to stalk off somewhere, but he instead found himself face to face with a very pretty blonde girl who looked as if she was still in high school. She also appeared strikingly similar to Kent, as if she might have been a cousin or a sister—but Jack couldn’t remember if Kent had a sister.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the girl said shyly, glancing from Bitty to Jack. A strand of blonde hair fell from her elaborate updo in front of her face, and she brushed it back as she shifted her gaze to Bitty. “But I was wondering—would you like to dance with me?” she asked, blushing as she spoke.

All traces of anger melted away as Bitty smiled at her. “Oh, honey. Of course.”

He proffered his arm, and she accepted it, and they glided off to the dance floor without a backwards glance. Jack found himself forcibly reminded of the time when Kent had visited the Haus and Lardo had witnessed the altercation that ensued. Kent had strode off to his sports car without looking back at him, just like Bitty had done now.

But there was no time to think about Bitty. Jack had a mission. He needed closure.

He needed to find Kent.

Chapter Text

Determinedly weaving around the edges of the dance floor, Jack set his sights on the head table, where he could see Kent and Chara were still sitting, looking at each other like they’d forgotten anyone else had ever entered the world. He was just about to mount the steps to the platform when a hand latched onto the back of his shirt and yanked him back. 

No even knowing who it was, Jack whirled around, unclenching his jaw and ready to spit whatever vitriol he had to so he could continue towards Kent. But he was caught off-guard to find himself staring at Bruins forward Brad Marchand, and even more off-guard to see the contempt in Marchand’s expression.

“Let me go,” he managed in spite of himself, bringing Marchand’s lip to curl. It made his nose look even bigger than it actually was.

“You’ve got to be fucking joking with me, right?” Marchand asked, his tone extremely unimpressed. “Like, you must think you’re the actual goddamn Joker if you think that I’m going to let you at either Zee or Kent. They’ve both done too much for me to do that.”

“Let go,” Jack told him heatedly, trying to shove him off, but Marchand had more than half a decade in the NHL of using his body weight to his advantage, and managed to maneuver so that he shoved Jack back instead. 

“Not on your coke-ridden life, Zimmermann,” Marchand told him with a tight grin, and Jack went to shove him again, but the motion just brought more attention.

“What’s going on here?” Patrice Bergeron asked as he strode up to them, frowning, Troy and Scrapiani from the Aces hot on his heels. 

“Bergy, Swoops, Scrappy, meet Jack Zimmermann,” Marchand said, sarcasm apparent as he waved his hand in Jack’s direction. “Kent’s ex,” he added conspiratorially, as if the entirety of the hockey world hadn’t been aware that Jack and Kent had been dating back before the draft.

Immediately, Troy and Scrapiani tensed, their expressions morphing from curiosity to distrust and anger as they turned to look at Jack. And while Jack certainly wasn’t afraid of either of them, he wasn’t able to deny a sense of unease when he glimpsed the genuine dislike on each of their features.

He didn’t know them. He didn’t know any of these people. And yet it was evident that they’d already formed opinions on him just from knowing Kent, without even officially meeting him.

It was extremely disquieting.

“Jesus,” Troy said, shaking his head and looking at Jack with something lower than contempt. “I fucking told Kent not to invite you.”

“Well, he’s here now,” Bergeron noted resignedly, turning to Jack. “And while you’re here, you’re going to politely go back to your seat and not cause any other disruptions.”

The condescending assumption that he could give Jack orders and that Jack would listen had resentment flaring within him, and he gritted his teeth. 

“I want to talk to Kent,” he informed them. “And I’m going to do that.”

“Zimmermann, let’s not make this ugly,” Scrapiani told him evenly, even as Troy began shedding his suit jacket and pushing up his shirt sleeves in anticipation. “This night isn’t about you. It’s about Zee and Parse. Don’t ruin this for them.”

“Yeah, I think you’ve ruined enough for Kent as it is,” Troy added scornfully. 

Wrenching open his mouth, Jack decided it was finally time to tell someone about what fraud Kent was, how this entire wedding was a sham, how he didn’t love Chara but Jack. 

But as he was about to begin, a new voice interrupted, deep and commanding even while remaining friendly. 

“Marchy, Bergy, what’s going on?” 

Zdeno Chara himself descended from the platform to join them, an inquisitive expression on his face as he glanced from his teammates to Kent’s to Jack.

Marchand waved a contemptuous hand in Jack’s direction. “Hey Zee, come on and meet the bullet Kent dodged.”

“Fuck you,” Jack spat, startling himself. He hadn’t talked that way to anybody since he was a teenager.

Marchand just bared his teeth at him. “Right back atcha, bud.”

“Enough.” Chara held up a hand, studying Jack a speculative way that left him strangely unsettled. “Jack, isn’t it? I’d like a few minutes alone with you, if you can spare the time.” 

He gestured toward the head table, which was now entirely vacant; Kent had slipped away when he was distracted by these morons, Jack realized, chagrined. 

Still, speaking with Chara was only one step down from speaking with Kent, Jack reasoned. He could still get some semblance of a resolution, some kind of peace of mind. If that had to be enough, then that was . . . well, it wasn’t fine, but it Jack could come to grips with it.

“All right,” he said, nodding, and following Chara up the platform steps, conscious of the four pairs of eyes boring into the back of his head but intent on not showing it.

It was only a short walk to the table, but not until that moment had Jack ever appreciated the full difference in their heights. As he moved alongside Chara, and then even as he sat down, he wasn’t able to ignore the seven inches that Chara had over him.

When they settled at the table, Chara didn’t immediately initiate conversation, instead taking several moments to study Jack’s intently, an unreadable expression in his green eyes. Unable to cope with this newest bout of uncertainty, Jack’s temper frayed rapidly beneath his scrutiny.

“Well?” he snapped, abrupt and irritated. “Is this the part where you threaten me and tell me that if I ever hurt Kent again, you’ll drown me in the river and make sure they never find my body?”

For his part, Chara showed nothing but honest confusion, his brow creasing. “Why would I threaten you?”

Jack frowned at him for that, wondering what his game was. “For hurting Kent, I’d imagine,” he said bitterly, thinking of all of the people close to him, from Shitty to Lardo to Ransom and Holster, who were solidly seated in Kent’s church of the perpetual victim.

“Ah.” Understanding flitted over Chara’s face before settling into a frown as he gazed at Jack, but a remarkable earnestness remained in his eyes. “Yes, there’s that. I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t think poorly of you for what I’ve heard about you, but I also admit that I don’t fully know you. Kenny told me of what you said to him.”

Kenny. Jack tried to cover his unease with a snide comment. “Oh, well, there was no doubt about that, was there?” Kent would never outgrow his love of playing the victim, he was sure of it.

The remark brought Chara to quirk an eyebrow, but he continued, apparently unbothered. “Hearing it made me glad that he decided to stop going to see you, certainly. But I still don’t think I’m one to make a judgement on you. I don’t know what you’ve been doing in your life either before or since then. I don’t like you,” he concluded thoughtfully, “but I also don’t know you. Besides, without you, who’s to say I would be marrying Kenny?”

There it was again. Twice in the same conversation. Kenny. Like Chara knew him, like Kent was truly special to him.

Jack’s stomach squirmed at the thought of it.

“What do you mean?” he pressed, ignoring the sensation.

Chara shrugged. “What else but that? You heard Kenny’s speech, didn’t you? He wouldn’t have needed to see me so frequently if you weren’t cruel to him whenever he visited you. But he needed some kind of comfort, and I was happy to be there for him. He worried me, a person who was so young but always sad. I wanted to help him if I could, especially after he helped me like he did at the airport. And since I wanted to make him happy, to cheer him up, I began to take him places. Show him the city, my favorite restaurants, my favorite statute.” Chara’s voice turned fond as he spoke, and he seemed to smile earnestly at the memories, his gaze softening and drifting away from Jack in reminiscence.

It left Jack deeply uncomfortable to see someone wear that expression when thinking of Kent, but also scornful. All of those historical monuments, and Chara’s favorite statue was Make Way for Ducklings ? What a chump.  

“My idea was to show him that Boston could be about something more than nothing but misery over and over,” Chara continued, his voice cooling as he looked directly at Jack. “And eventually, the message got through. I was extremely happy to help him, and even more happy when we both realized that we could have more than just being friends who enjoyed helping each other. So, after a while, it occurred to me that I wanted to protect him from you. But without you there to insult him, I might never have realized that. I suppose I should thank you—this could be your wedding to Kent, after all, if you hadn’t been determined to always fight with him. But you’ll have to forgive me—I feel strange about thanking someone who I know repeatedly insulted and belittled my husband. You can recognize this, surely?”   

Those earnest eyes fixed on Jack evenly, like Chara was sincerely requesting his understanding, but also not particularly bothered by the prospect of not receiving it. 

Chara was indifferent to him, Jack realized, startled in an altogether different way than he’d been perturbed by the disdain of the other Bruins and Aces. Chara didn’t view him as competition or an obstacle or anything resembling a threat—he simply viewed Jack as a figure from Kent’s already buried past.

Somehow, the realization left Jack feeling even more dismissed and overlooked than the assumptions by Kent’s teammates from just moments ago. He’d been fully anticipating Chara resenting him at least a fraction, but now it appeared like Chara simply didn’t think of Jack at all, not beyond the direct aftermath of Kent’s visits to Samwell.

Now, Jack was freshly struck by the amount of time and energy he’d devoted to stewing over the photos of Kent and Chara together, and he was overcome by the notion he’d been quite foolish for quite a long time.    

Just as the doubt surged, the awful feeling that Kent and Chara were truly in love with each other and Jack wasn’t actually a part of Kent’s motivation at all, a third voice broke into the silence that had fallen heavily between them.

“Zee? Jeff tried to stop me from finding you, so I knew— oh.”  

Twisting in his chair, Jack found that Kent was standing behind them, gazing at the two of them, wariness written all over his features. His suit jacket and violet tie were gone, the first several buttons of his shirt were undone, and his hair was thoroughly tousled, as if various parties had been vigorously ruffling it the entire evening. With him standing against the soft lighting and glistening stone garlands, the color of his eyes were impossible to decipher, and Jack was left oddly uneasy by the ambiguity.

For what seemed like a long several seconds, Kent hesitated, stepping forward but then back again as if he couldn’t decide to remain with them or walk away. Then he let out a long breath, glancing at Jack for a quick moment before turning to Zdeno. 

“It’s not like I mean to interrupt, but we have to leave for the airport in twenty minutes,” Kent told him, ignoring Jack entirely. “So if you want to say sayonara to anyone before we hit your homeland, I guess now is the time.”

“You’re leaving?” Jack blurted out.

The gaze Kent turned on him was profoundly unimpressed, and one hand rose to rest on his hip as his mouth tightened. “Is it any of your business, really?”

A sudden feeling of helplessness enveloped Jack as he stared at Kent, struggling to name the multitude of emotions bombarding him from every angle. He’d anticipated ending the day with the satisfaction that his suspicions about Kent faking his engagement to Chara had been accurate all along. Now, he was all too aware that Kent was going to leave Boston a married man. Married to someone else. Someone he loved and already had a life with.

Was it love? 

Jack still didn’t know, and he couldn’t cope with the question any longer.

“I need to talk to you,” he declared to Kent, springing up from his seat and almost knocking over his chair. “Alone,” he added emphatically, casting a meaningful glance back Chara’s way. He wanted to bury his past with Kent once and for all, without any interloper clogging up the possibility of closure. 

At Jack’s request, Chara emitted a small noise of dissatisfaction and folded his arms over his chest, but quickly shifted his gaze from Jack to Kent, watching him to see his answer. 

For his part, Kent only sent a quick glance Chara’s way before giving an equally quick nod to Jack. 

“Fine,” he said, his tone clipped and his eyes only just barely skimming over Jack’s face. “But let’s make it quick. I have a plane to catch.”

Chara absorbed this answer placidly, rising to join them like Godzilla rising from the ocean. “I’ll be waiting nearby,” he said calmly, and as they descended from the head table and ducked out of the wedding tent, Jack was very aware of him following behind them.

But he remained back by the pavilion, allowing them to go off to speak privately. Jack found himself unexpectedly relieved, as scattered memories of Lardo, Shitty, and Ransom and Holster’s reactions to his conversations with Kent flitted through his mind. 

Kent led him out to the patio right by the river, where they were totally alone even though the area was clearly designed with the intention for wedding guests to lounge there. Standing tables had been arranged, their surfaces decorated with potted cactuses in patterned jars, scatterings of multi-hued crystals in sand-filled clay dishes, and more leather-tied bouquets of desert flowers mixed with hawk feathers. Kent ignored all of them in favor of going right up to the railing and leaning against it, staring at the Boston lights against the dark horizon. 

Jack followed, and for a moment or two, simply watched him. The moon was impossibly bright in the night sky, bathing their surroundings in a faint icy glow, and the pale light played on Kent’s face, dimly illuminating his features. As he stood still, he almost could have passed for an alabaster statue instead of a real person, which was strange to consider. Jack found himself unable to picture a life— his life —where Kent didn’t exist. 

A second passed, then ten, and then Kent turned to look at Jack in annoyance. 

“Look, I’m not trying to be a dick, but I really don’t have all night. I have to be at the airport in thirty minutes to make our flight, and I have some people I actually want to talk to. So either put up or shut up. I can’t play these little games where you act like you want me but then reject me again.”

Though he wanted to be offended, especially with all of his questions gnawing away at him, Jack found that he wasn’t. Maybe it was the peaceful setting, but more than anything, he was just desperately curious—he wanted, more than anything, for Kent to talk to him, to explain why he’d gone through with this wedding to a man he may not even love. While Jack had never pictured himself as a manipulative person, he decided to start off with subterfuge. 

“All right,” he said, struggling to keep his voice placid. “So, you didn’t go for a church wedding?”

Kent scoffed a little bit at that, but at the same, he seemed to soften slightly at the mention of his marriage. Maybe it really all was a sham, and if he could feel guilt, he felt guilty about duping Chara and lying to everyone. Anything was possible. “Please. I’m from Sin City.”

He used to introduce himself as being from Montreal, Jack recalled abruptly. Because that was where Jack was, because that was where Jack’s parents lived. But now—now he introduced himself as being from Vegas.

“But isn’t Chara Catholic?” Jack pressed, dredging a faint memory he thought he’d picked up in an interview one time. “Didn’t he want anything more religious?”    

The mention of his now husband seemed to melt any of Kent’s tension or resistance even further, his muscles slackening as tenderness washed over his face. “We talked about it. And we decided that before we go on our honeymoon, me and Zee are stopping out in Slovakia, and doing a smaller ceremony and reception out there.” A happy sigh escaped him, and he glanced back over his shoulder to where Chara was waiting several yards away. “He has a lot of friends out there who weren’t able to make it, and a lot of elderly relatives who wouldn’t be able to fly, and we both decided it would be nice to do a second wedding out there. He’s Catholic, like you said, so it’s going to be a full ceremony. I love him, but dear God, it’s going to be a fuckin’ beast to drag myself through that service. Catholic wedding masses are about two fucking hours long.” He tossed Jack a grin, with nothing smug or snide about it. “The things we do for love, huh?”

“Right,” Jack replied woodenly, stunned by Kent’s response. He didn’t even seem to be lording his marriage to Chara over him, just discussing it as casually as he would with anyone. 

And he’d said love . He’d said it twice, that he loved Chara.

But could he? He couldn’t, Jack suddenly decided with certainty. He never had. Kent was playing Jack, just like he’d played Chara and now all of their guests. He was lying to the world, but Jack wouldn’t be made a fool of, not by Kent.

Time to play Kent, in that case. 

“I was surprised, you know,” Jack told him, feeding him just a little bit of the truth so that he might win some honesty in return. An odd sensation filled him as he spoke; he rarely spoke about his feelings, much less was truthful about them. “By the wedding. At the museum.” He didn’t specify why; Kent could take Jack’s reasoning about him very personally, like he had that time back with Lardo at the Haus.

Kent shrugged. “I was surprised, too. But logistically, it makes sense, you know, with plenty of stuff for guests to do, and a bunch of our friends and our teammates have kids, so it’s a good way to entertain them all at once.” He grinned, and Jack realized that his freckles were still visible in the moonlight. “And I think it’s fun to picture my godchildren growing up and remembering my wedding as the time they got to visit that kickass dinosaur exhibit or play with static electricity, rather than sitting around at some boring reception hall.”

The casual drop of new information caught Jack off-guard. “I didn’t know you had godchildren.”

Kent simply nodded. “Yep, once the vet I stayed with for my rookie year and his wife had kids, they asked me if I’d be interested. I said yes, of course.” He hesitated, and then offered Jack a friendly nudge with his elbow, like they were pals again. “A little bit like you and your peewee team, huh?”

Jack was very aware of the sudden stiffening of his muscles, and he couldn’t prevent his voice from growing distinctly chillier. “I didn’t know you knew about that.”

“Bob and Alicia told me,” Kent said, his voice not letting on that he’d noticed Jack’s change in attitude. “You know, it’s funny, I never would have expected you to go ahead and volunteer for something like that. You never seemed interested in that kind of work when we worked with the First Nations bantam team. But then again, if there’s anyone who could whip a peewee team into shape, I knew it would be you.”

The blithe assessment and the reference to their Junior years struck a bitter chord within Jack, and he didn’t waste time holding up a vexed retort. “Because you know me just so well?” he demanded. “Because you know what I like, is that it?”

Visibly recoiling, Kent blinked, and Jack wondered if he would determinedly attempt to take the high road, but then he struck back like a viper. 

“Because I had faith in you, Jack,” he snapped, fury seeping into his voice as he sent a poisonous glance Jack’s way. “Maybe your memory has been impaired by too many college keggers, but if you remember the month before the draft, you might remember that it was always me reassuring you that you were the best, that you’d go first, that you were better than me. Christ, every time you needed me, I was there for you, and I’ve tried to be there for you since. Not that you’ve let me.” 

“It’s always about you, isn’t it? Jack shot back. “That’s what this whole fake wedding is about—you getting back at me! Well, you know what? You haven’t won. You’ve lost, because I truly don’t give a fuck about you shackling yourself to Chara!”

“Shackling—” Kent should have been an actor, because the expression on his face managed to appear astonishingly confused. “What the fuck are you talking about? I’m marrying Zdeno because I’m fucking in love with him, Jack! You seriously think this about you? ”

The stare he aimed Jack’s way appeared so genuinely baffled that Jack found himself unable to respond, his doubt completely overwhelming him, amplified a hundred times from what it had been before.

“Oh my God, that’s it,” Kent said, his eyes fixed on Jack, looking utterly astounded. “You seriously think that I’m doing this to get some kind of payback at you? Jack—I’ve moved on. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t tried to see you for over two years now, and the last time I showed up, I was only there because you asked me. I left when you were brutally honest about how you didn’t actually give a fuck about me—but maybe I was wrong about that.” He continued to stare at Jack like he was some kind of alien lifeform. “Maybe you do care—maybe you want me hung up on you.” 

“I don’t,” Jack defended himself, but Kent wasn’t paying attention to him, only staring out at the river and shaking his head. 

“Christ, I’m so glad you’re an asshole,” he told Jack without heat. “Because honestly, if you’d have been less of a dick to me, I might have gotten back together with you.”

Like Jack would have ever allowed that. “I’d never—” 

“But I might have,” Kent informed him, cutting him off. “I didn’t, though. Jesus, I’m glad I listened to Jeff when he told me to forget about you and focus on Chara.”

“You never forgot about me,” Jack insisted, seized by the urge to prove his theory about Kent lying to Chara true, even though he knew the chances of its likelihood were rapidly dwindling. “You couldn’t handle that I’d moved, couldn’t stand that I was at Samwell and not with you, so you decided to hurt me by throwing yourself at Chara—”  

Kent threw back his head and laughed, and it was less ugly than Jack would have predicted. “You think I don’t have a life besides worrying about you? Obsessing over our trainwreck of a past together?” He paused for a moment, and then a speculative expression slid over his face.

“Or is that what you want?” he asked, watching Jack closely. “You want me to be obsessed with you, you want my marriage to Zdeno to be about you—because it makes you feel important, if I’ve arranged my life and new relationship around you.”   

Jack said nothing. He couldn’t say anything.

“Oh, you do,” Kent breathed, his face utterly stunned. He shook his head as if trying to clear away disbelief. “Well, here’s some news for you: you don’t get to have me be miserable for the rest of your life, do you understand me? Fuck, you’re not entitled to have me pining after you and moping around because I can’t have you. You made it abundantly clear that you didn’t want to be with me, so I went and found someone who did. And as it happens? I didn’t even have to go outside your own city. And soon enough, the reason I was going there wasn’t to see you, but to see him. 

“Zdeno is kind to me in a way you never were. He cares about me, Jack. Me. Not just my hockey, not just me as an extension of himself and his game. I’m not an obstacle to him. I’m not his crutch, either. And most importantly? I’m not someone who’s useful sometimes and can be tossed aside like trash the rest of the time.”

Straightening from where he’d been leaning against the railing, Kent looked at Jack squarely, the dim light rendering his eyes a dark blue to match the night sky.

“I’ve moved on, Jack,” he said quietly. “Maybe you should try it sometime.”

The words seemed to suspend themselves in the air for several moments as Kent scanned Jack’s face as if looking for something. However, Jack was left with no indication of if he located it before Kent drew back and turned from him, walking away without a backwards glance. As Jack stood rigidly, frozen in place, Kent moved to where Chara was waiting several yards away and smoothly burrowed himself beneath one of his long arms. And then, with neither of them paying the slightest bit of attention to Jack, they ducked back into the wedding tent, no doubt to say their goodbyes before their departure.

Of all the points throughout the evening that Jack had thought surreal, this one topped the list. Gazing after Kent as he walked away, after he’d just spoken extensively regarding his feelings for Chara, after Jack witnessed his obvious infatuation, left him feeling as though he’d stumbled into some bizarre dream.

He no longer could deny it, having neither an inclination or reason. Kent was sincerely married to Chara. Kent may even have married him because of the situation created by Jack himself. Chara had even outright stated Jack had brought them together.  

The realization was slowly dawning on Jack that this marriage, that Kent and Chara together, was not only reality, but a reality that he had created. Well, both himself and Kent. They’d forged the circumstances, and then Kent and Chara had completed the rest of the work themselves. 

And they were married now. Married. Maybe because of Jack.

Gripping the railing tightly, Jack welcomed the sensation of the cool metal jabbing into his palm, breathing in deeply, the night wind off the river battering into his face and forcing his eyes to tear. The day’s events were beginning to take their toll, he could tell, and he could feel his feet starting to ache with weariness. But he didn’t want to return to the tent with all of the rest of the guests, not just yet.

Flashes from earlier filled his mind, from the unfamiliar song that Kent and Chara had selected as their first dance, to the photograph of them by the ducklings statue that had been significant enough for them to choose for their wedding invitation. He thought of their picnic in the park, the one that he and Bittle had inadvertently mirrored years later.

Bittle. A faint stab of guilt pierced through Jack for his treatment of him, but, requiring all of the concentration he could manage, he pushed it aside. 

Snippets of Troy’s speech earlier replayed in Jack’s mind: “You’ve picked me up when I didn’t have the strength to stand,” and, “If a new guy on our team was ESL, you made it a point to learn their language and try to speak to them—even if, from what I’m told, your accent was atrocious more often than not.”

And Marchand had said something similar, despite never having played on the same team with Kent. But he still believed in him, still trusted him, still wanted to protect him from Jack.

Kent truly had reconstructed his life with these people, Jack realized, feeling as though maybe he shouldn’t be as surprised as he was. He was a team captain, someone who guided rookies, someone who was a friend to foreign players, someone who remembered even the teammates who couldn’t play at the moment. It seemed like he was even someone who had helped out an opposing player, going by Marchand’s remark.

And Kenny had always been that person. Even as a sophomore in the NHL, he’d been rescuing Chara from the airport and letting him rest in his own home. 

Kent wasn’t someone whose life began and ended when he visited the Haus, and in that moment, Jack shook his head at himself for being naïve enough to fall into the trap of thinking that he was.

Kent was an NHL captain, and by the accounts of both his teammates and rivals, a good friend. And now he was Zdeno Chara’s husband. Now, it was certain he’d moved on from Jack.

“I’ve moved on, Jack. Maybe you should try it sometime.”

Kent had left him behind again, striding forward without looking back. Previously, Jack had resented him for it, and while he anticipated the familiar twinge, he wasn’t disappointed when it didn’t arrive.

Maybe Jack needed to stop looking back, too. Move on, just like Kent had.

Hadn’t Shitty mentioned something about that, too? I have every faith that you are a good guy. Whatever you have with Kent—that interferes sometimes, but it doesn’t change who you are. But Kent? For whatever reason, you can’t control yourself around him.

Jack had people in his life just like Kent did. People who believed in him. Maybe it was time to take their advice.

A new song started up from the wedding tent, the slow songs of the early evening giving way to more fast-paced club music, and Jack reached a resolution, the image of his picnic with Bitty drifting into his mind once again.

He still wasn’t much of a dancer. But tonight, he was going to try it, at least once, just to mark the occasion.

With one last glance at the Boston skyline glimmering across the water, Jack let his gaze drift over the familiar outlines of the towers and spires. He noted the beacon blinking blue atop the Berkeley Building—tomorrow would bring clouds.

Tomorrow. The next day; the future. And it was strange to consider that soon in the future, Providence would replace Boston as home for Jack, but for Kent, it would remain the city where he spent the second-largest portion of his time. It was a city he’d consider with fondness, not because of Jack or Samwell, but because Chara lived there. His Zdeno, his Zee. Just like Kent was now Chara’s Kenny. 

But the future had come and swept Kent up and propelled him forward as Jack struggled to gain a foothold. It had left him behind, left him out of the majority of Kent’s life, and Kent had moved on without him.

Now was time for him to do the same, Jack decided, turning his back on the Boston skyline and squaring his shoulders. To find himself a future that didn’t involve seeing Kent outside of games, didn’t involve wondering and worrying over what and if Kent still thought about him.

With a determined stride, Jack set off back toward the wedding tent, determined to make the most of his evening. Maybe if he apologized, he could convince Bitty to dance with him.