Archive of Our Own ^beta

How do you live without a left lung, a left arm, a left kidney, the left half of your heart? Ask Jack Zimmermann. He found out the hard way.

He cut Kent Parson out without anesthetic, because when you hate yourself that much at seventeen, you remove the things you love most to keep them from being destroyed along with you, and you do it in a way that hurts you the most to make sure that nothing is left.

Kent goes kicking and screaming, gouging marks into him in an effort to hold on. He does cruel things and spits vile words that Jack thinks that he deserves for the longest time, because Kent has a map to all his most vulnerable parts and knows just where to hit to make it hurt. Kent does it because he’s lonely, he does it because he’s confused, he does it because he was cruelly abandoned into the cold. These are all true.

That doesn’t make it any easier to bear.

Jack goes to college, heals, relapses, heals again, starts and stops, takes steps forward and backwards. He falls in love, finds another best friend, and the scar tissue fills in most of the gaping chasm on his left side. There’s a single picture on his wall, worn at the edges, of two figures hoisting the Memorial Cup that he hangs up no matter where he goes.

He comes out, and it’s not an act of bravery no matter what anybody says. It’s an act of sheer instinct and adrenaline, and he almost regrets it when Kent texts him a single grammatically correct sentence three days after it happens.

Thanks for the heads up.

It’s the first time they’d been in contact since Jack’s senior year, and it’ll be the last time for another year before Jack can finally muster up the strength to give the first apology that Kent probably deserves. A week later, Bitty nervously stumbles through a story about Kent coming by the Haus over the phone and that’s probably where the peace talks really start.

The Kent that Jack encounters in the aftermath of their new armistice is a different man wearing a familiar mask. Still cocksure, still brutal, still charming enough to impress even the most gruff pundits, but older and more responsible, a war-weary captain rather than an arrogant knight. Whenever Jack sees him, he’s surrounded by Aces and yet somehow he’s always alone.

How do you apologize for that? Jack has no idea, so he doesn’t try. The fear of failure can never be fully excised, no matter how old he gets and how many therapists he sees.

The day that Augustin Berenger is traded to Vegas, Jack gets a text from his father. Bad Bob has taken an advisory role in the Habs management office, so Jack finds out that Augustin Berenger has gotten the axe from the league’s most storied franchise before the trade is even announced. It’s to clear cap space and shore up the blue line, but it’s also for vaguely-put problèmes interpersonnels, which Jack takes to mean that Augustin has simply been himself again.

He’s not going to be pleased, he texts back as Bitty bangs around the kitchen cooking breakfast. Berenger is Quebecois through and through, and being traded from the Habs to Vegas, of all places, will be adding insult to injury. Not to mention that Kent and Augustin practically loathed each other in juniors.

Berenger? Or Kenny? he receives in reply. It seems that his father has the same idea.

The first time Jack met Augustin Berenger, Augustin called him a cocksucking bitch. His accent was raw and unrefined, dug straight out of the ground with dirt still clinging to it. He combines the roughness of good old-fashioned hockey with the flashy skill that gets people drafted first overall, and the Huskies play like an extension of his arms and legs. He was everything that they wanted Jack to be, and everything that Jack was not.

They always used to say that Augustin and Jack were similar except for the differences in countenance and grace—Augustin’s hot-blooded cockiness juxtaposed against Jack’s cool arrogance. They also used to say that Augustin was better than him in every conceivable way, and when Augustin crashed and burned halfway through his rookie year in the show, they said that Jack might finally have a chance to one-up his predecessor.

And Jack very much did, in all the most unexpected ways.

In any case, he’s pretty sure he called Augustin something along the lines of a incestuous backwater hick that day, though the details escape him now, and Augustin had fired back with perfect accuracy.

“It’s nice that your daddy bought you a friend, but be a good boy and put your dog on a leash.”

Kent had barreled into Augustin’s knees in retribution a half-period later, a memory that Jack used to look back on fondly until he was the one in the hospital bed.

He watches their first game together with all the morbid curiosity of a horror movie enthusiast. He expects something like the games in the Q during one of their bad weeks: Kent, sulking and furious, hogging all the pucks and glory while Jack sniped at him and strangled the rest of the team with immovable strategy and icy coldness. An unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

Kent wins, because of course he does, but that’s not what causes Jack to watch the game to its end despite the difference in time zones and his practice early tomorrow morning. It’s the fact that this time, when Augustin and Kent collide on the ice, it is not as enemies and it is not an exercise in nuclear deterrence. It’s a dance.

His left side buzzes, like a limb fallen asleep.

It takes less than three days for Kent to call and inquire, in his idiosyncratic way, about what the hell happened to cause the downfall of the greatest player that they both ever played against. Jack tells him to let the past stay where it is, because he was never really able to say that about the two of them. He might think that Augustin is a stuck-up, aggressive, bitter showboat, but he knows Kent’s urge to dissect better than anyone, and he’s privately unsure that Augustin can handle that kind of scrutiny.

Then again, baseless assumptions have always been a fatal flaw of his.

Frankly, Jack might as well have told Kent to go drown himself in a lake for all the good his words of warning do, but before they can get into it more, a familiarly-accented voice starts shouting and Kent’s the one who hangs up this time.

Kent obviously doesn’t let the past lie or drown himself in large bodies of water, just as Jack figured he wouldn’t. What he doesn’t expect is for Augustin—witty, cutthroat Augustin Berenger, the steel-spined farm-boy from the Baie, who used to bare his teeth into a mean smile until Jack wanted to break them one by one—to bend.

It’s a slow surrender, bit by restless, reluctant bit, but he knows what he’s looking at when he watches Augustin pull off moves against the Schooners that he has only seen while tearing apart his own game tapes at sixteen. It’s the kind of chemistry that general managers make their careers on, the kind of symbiosis that only sport can grow between two people, and then there is that third, clandestine thing.

He’s looking at a boy in love with Kent Parson.

Here’s the thing about being in love with Kent Parson; it’s terribly easy. It’s loving Kent that’s the hard part, because the constant brightness makes it hard to look at him, and the sharpness of wit that draws everyone in is just as good at cutting surgical incisions as it is at entertaining a crowd. In the end, Jack had to look away. He had no choice.

From what he knows, Augustin has never been one for self-preservation.

“Hey, Zimmboni. What’s with the face?”

Snowy and Tater lean over his shoulder in bizarre sync, Snowy offering him a second bottle of ginger ale. They’re all in the lounge of their hotel in Anaheim, with nothing better to do than to watch the Schooners game. Jack accepts the drink, feeling as though he’s been caught with his pants down. This should be a private moment, his epiphany, but it’s taking place in front of a stadium of twenty-thousand people and Jack’s entire team.

“Shit,” Snowy says distastefully as the whistle blows for an offside, “Boneheaded move by Swoopsie.”

“He’ll be kicking himself,” Jack agrees, only half inside his head. Onscreen, the camera is focused on Augustin and Kent as they exchange words. He watches as Kent grins widely at something, a small, self-satisfied smirk growing across Augustin’s face as he knocks Kent’s helmet forward. Kent turns to face the ice, chewing on his mouthguard, and misses the way that Augustin admires him for a brief, fleeting moment, a strange softness in his cold dark eyes.

“Shit,” Snowy says again as the camera cuts away, slightly quieter and with something as close to affection as his dry, deadpan voice can be. “Look who finally made a friend.”

“I thought you two were friends,” Jack says, eyes glued to the screen. “Or as friendly as he gets, at least.”

“We are,” Snowy states, “He’s just slow on the uptake.”

“Um,” Tater replies, wounded, “What about me?”

“Don’t ask me what you are, man. For starters, you’re like a foot taller than a person is supposed to be-”

“Is he a good guy?” Jack interrupts abruptly. Snowy gives him a weird look, and he elaborates, “I haven’t, uh…he doesn’t like me much. But, uh…I don’t know-”

Tater rescues him, “Is he kicking dogs and stealing candy from babies?”

“No,” Snowy snorts, “No, don’t listen to the pundits, they don’t know shit. Pisses me off whenever we’re on the ice together, but you won’t find a better guy on this side of the Mississippi.”

“I really am hoping you say this because we are playing on the other side of river,” Tater says, but the rest of it is lost to Jack as the second period ends and the Aces troop back into their dressing room. Kent always leaves the ice last, but this time, he leaves with his hand pressed against Augustin’s numbers, disappearing into the dark maw of the tunnel just as the cameras cut away.

Jack feels the phantom weight of a hand against his back, and shakes the ghosts off his shoulders as he stands, “I’m going to bed.”

“You sure?” Snowy asks, taking the bottle from him. “You don’t want to see if the Schooners manage to stage a gripping comeback?”

“Nah,” Jack says as he shrugs on his blazer, “I already know they won’t.”

“Yowch,” Snowy calls after him as he retreats, “I’m telling Brewski you said that.”

The ride up to his hotel room is quiet. He shares with Tater, mostly because in the man’s own words, “Snowy is snoring like brink truck backing up over gravel,” so the room is empty save for the massive suit tossed haphazardly over the back of the desk chair. He sighs in the silence, and the sound is deafening.

Hockey is everything to men like Kent and Augustin. Jack remembers what that was like as if it was only yesterday.

The day he realized that Kent Parson was in love with him was the night of a regulation loss to Val d’Or. Jack was drinking himself under the table in the basement suite of their other alternate captain after the game, and Kent had wandered downstairs with a neck covered in hickies from one of the girls who’d been clinging to him all night. One of the splotches on the bottom of his jaw was a more vibrant shade of purpling red, an hour older than the love bites and the result of a scrap with someone who had taken a run at Jack’s back late in the third.

Kent was stone-cold sober, because he took designated driving seriously. He took everything seriously. Jack hadn’t seen it then.

“Wanna get out of here?” Kent had said.

“What about your bird?” Jack had sniped, looking down at his beer only to see that Kent had stolen it from his hand without him even noticing. Everything had been very warm, almost claustrophobic. “The one you were rubbing up against in Buzzer’s room.”

“Fuck it, she’s not the one I care about right now,” Kent had said, setting the bottle down and tossing his keys from hand to hand with a devilish grin, “You look like shit, Zimms. Let’s go before you rot down here.”

He’d skipped the turn that would’ve brought Jack back to his billet house, and it wasn’t until they were at one of the tiny inland ponds frozen thick enough for skating that Jack had even noticed the change in route.

“No,” he’d slurred as Kent pulled over. Under the moonlight, Kent’s hand was warm as it slid up along his leg, and the medication twined with the alcohol and his blood, “Fuck, Kenny, I don’t wanna play anymore fucking hockey tonight.”

“Come on,” Kent had breathed against his neck, “Just one scrimmage. I’ll let you take all the good shots. A little one-on-one pickup never hurt anyone.”

“We lost.”

Kent’s voice had sharpened, “I know that we lost. You wouldn’t stop reminding us that we lost until the fucking vodka hit your bloodstream.” He’d wrenched away, taking his warmth with him, and gone for the door handle, “You know why the guys pay for your booze even though you’re loaded? It’s so they can fucking stand to be around you. Come on.”

Jack hadn’t obliged. He’d grabbed Kent by the waist, hauled him onto his lap, and dulled his own rough edges instead. It was easier that way. It was easier than lacing up his skates, feeling the cold air scorch his lungs, and watching Kent give him everything in the only way they both really knew how without being able to give anything real back.

It was easier to watch Kent give up hockey just to cling to Jack’s limbs for a little longer, and know that he’d do it every time that Jack asked.

But that was a long time ago.

Bitty doesn’t pick up when he calls, which is unsurprising considering both time zones and the insanity of his schedule. Jack switches the Schooners game back on, sitting on the edge of the bed as the puck drops for the beginning of the third. It’s a familiar sight, for a minute at a time.

Augustin plays like a boy in love with Kent Parson. Kent Parson is playing like he would gladly let Augustin break his heart.

It’s not Jack’s place to say anything, and yet no one knows what hockey can do to love and vice versa like he does. There was a time, long ago but less far away than one might think, where it was his job to protect Kent; smaller, faster, meaner, more willing to get his hands dirty. It’s an old sensation, a familiar one with the same kind of muscle memory as walking through your childhood home.

“Christ,” he says to himself as Kent and Augustin pull together the kind of magic that he hasn’t seen in a long while. The word echoes in the empty hotel room. Almost against his will, he smiles. Something warm and forgotten flickers awake in his chest. “Attaboy, Kenny.”

On the bedside table, his phone rings insistently, and he picks up with his eyes still glued to the screen, “Hey, Bits.”

“Hey, sweetheart,” Bitty says sleepily, a yawn thickening his lightly accented voice, “Sorry, I was in the shower. What’s up?”

“Do you think I, uh…hm. I’m not…really sure how to put this.”

That’s one of the many things that Jack loves about Eric; he always waits while Jack struggles to stitch his thoughts into palatable sentences. He finally decides on: “Do you think we’re supposed to try and protect people even when they don’t want to be protected?”

Bitty’s voice is dry, “Hon, why’re you speaking in riddles?”

“I think Kent is dating someone,” Jack says, watching as the Schooners struggle to break out of their zone. One of their defenders gives Kent a shove, and Augustin is only beaten to that opposing player by their rookie, Devon Smith, by an inch. Kent just laughs, muted verbal jabs falling from his mouth at record speed. “On his team. I just…want to make sure everything is okay. Is that weird?”

Bitty’s sigh rustles the speaker, “I don’t think it’s weird.”

Jack’s own voice goes dry, “Bits.”

“Well, maybe just a tad weird. I just think…that Kent is an adult. He can take care of himself.”

“I know,” Jack says quietly as the refs jump in to separate the scrum. Augustin is yelling something at a Schooners player, who gives him another shove under the ref’s arm. Kent is still grinning like a shark. “I know. But I…maybe he shouldn’t have to. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know who else would do it, if not me.”

Bitty yawns, “Well…I suppose that it never hurts to check in, hon.”

“Go to bed, Bits,” Jack laughs, muting the TV as the Aces go for a line change, “I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”

“‘Kay,” Bitty says immediately, voice muffled. Despite the distance, Jack can vividly see him lying prone on their bed, face squished against the pillows, blond hair spilling like straw across the white sheets, “Love you.”

“I love you, too.”

As he lies in bed long after the Schooners lose, long after Tater slumps in and starts snoring despite the nose strips he got from the team doctor, Jack stares at the ceiling and thinks of the way Kent had grinned during the game, carelessly young and all teeth. In spite of himself, he smiles: it’s about damn time.

Chris can’t tell whether to be gratified or ashamed that he never truly noticed Augustin Berenger when they were both kids.

It’s morally upright and correct of him, that’s for sure. Angie is his best friend in the entire world: she’s his other half, and Augustin is a small and often annoying shadow of his other half, the younger brother that Chris often is and never had. All that Augustin was to him, no matter how good at hockey he became, was the dark silhouette trailing behind the sun and moon; Angelique Berenger and Christophe Patenaude, Hockey Canada’s premier defensive pair from the time that they are ten years old.

Angelique goes to Montreal when they’re fifteen, and he feels half-empty and hollow without her. She calls, she texts, and unbeknownst to either of them, their team’s championship win at the end of Bantam is the last time that they will ever play hockey together again. He plays for a Junior A team in Joliette, signs with the university offering him the most money, gets drafted late in the second round by the Ottawa Senators, and tries not to look back.

No other defence partner that they give him ever keeps up like Angelique does. Every year, he goes to Ottawa and every year, they send him back to Boston College with the promise of next season.

In the same year that Augustin Berenger is christened as God’s gift to hockey, Christophe kisses a boy for the first time in a library bathroom, finds that he likes it, and starts working towards making the roster of his NHL team for good this time. He goes home every summer to see Angelique for a week at a time. They frolic with old friends through the woods and splash in the river’s shallows, and Chris goes back to college every autumn thinking very little about his missing shadow.

A year away from his graduation, the boy comes back from Rouyn-Noranda as the newest heir to the game of hockey, and Christophe can only think: uh oh.

Augustin has gone from a dark shape in the rearview mirror to some sort of demigod, or something equally ridiculous. His once-scrawny frame is now long and elegant, with broad shoulders and legs that go on for days, and his hair is dark and lush instead of limp and greasy like it was when he was thirteen. Chris hasn’t seen and has rarely spoken to the kid in years. Suddenly the kid is no longer a kid, and is in fact the kind of beautiful that causes insanity.

Augustin is the one who asks first, all while staring unsubtly at Chris’s mouth, “Are you in town long?”

They get coffee, and then drinks, and then Chris says, almost out of breath, “Come to the bonfire tomorrow. We’ll celebrate the future of hockey.”

He still remembers the way that the fire had looked as it washed over Augustin’s face, the same ethereal beauty that is washed in starlight when Chris kisses Augustin’s long, pale neck. Augustin may have lacked experience at the time, but he more than makes up for it with impressive endurance and industrious enthusiasm, and it isn’t as if Chris was any particular virtuoso in hookups outside frat house basements anyways.

The next day, they smile at each other as Chris gets back in his car, and he lets that moment stay in the Baie where it belongs.

Their families used to joke that Chris and Angelique were going to get married and finally bring the two families together, but he always figured that his mom knew who he was long before he ever did. He comes out to her and Angelique the week after he despoils the latter’s brother, and both of them say something along the lines of “duh.” He goes to Ottawa, and is sent away once more. The coach says, “next season,” and Chris believes him.

He thinks about calling Augustin when his final season at Boston College begins, but Augustin has new friends and new star status in Houston, and so Chris lets it lie. He never calls.

There is a period of time when he hates both of the Berenger siblings, and it’s after they put six pins in his shattered knee. Within twelve hours, he goes from NHL bound to unable to walk properly ever again. There will never be a next season.

Who wouldn’t feel hatred after that?

Angelique calls him every day, and Augustin doesn’t call him at all. Once, when they’re sitting together in the reception area of his physical therapist watching an Aeros game on the muted television, he spitefully says to her, “Well, I guess now we both get to watch little August live our dreams.”

He wants her to leave, to forget him, to let him drown. She still has her career, even though it’s not the one that she wanted when they were eleven, her beautiful little shadow has everything, and now he has nothing.

All she does is rip him a new asshole with brutal efficiency and fall asleep in the plastic chair with her psychology textbook balanced on her lap.

His knee heals agonizingly slowly, and he starts attending class regularly now that his degree actually matters. It takes a fifth, and then a sixth year to graduate, a few pitying professors to teach him how to write down what whirrs through his mind at breakneck speed, and two years of reinvention to get him interviews with half the teams in the NHL for the second time around.

“It’s a shame,” most of the interviewers say, “What happened to you. We would have liked to see you play.”

During one calamitous interview with the Rangers, a game is playing in the background, Augustin’s number seven flashing around the rink. Chris grits his teeth and lies, “I’m ready to move past it.”

As it turns out, the Leafs are the only team self-absorbed enough to not even mention his career-ending injury. He accepts their offer the day after they send him a contract, and moves into a clapboard shoebox in a shitty part of downtown with two roommates who are Leafs fans. Both of his parents are horrified for different reasons.

He’s bitter and always angry, and yet every time he sees his other half, he asks, “And how is Augustin?”

Angelique figures out the timing between her brother’s coming out and his pretty quickly. For a long time, she thinks that he’s still in love with her little brother every time he asks. Chris doesn’t think that he ever was, except maybe for a single night in the back of a pickup truck where he did his best to make sure the ridges in the truck bed didn’t bruise Augustin’s precious, prodigious spine. But he does remember what Augustin said against his cheek afterwards, lips chapped and limbs curled under a thin blanket in the muggy heat: “I never knew that this was possible.”

It’s the same thing that Jordie says to him the first time that they ever kissed, in the shadows of the Marlies’ arena while fans streamed out of the gates and into the streets. “I never knew that this was possible.”

The first time that Angelique meets Jordie, she makes a scathing joke about Chris’ type that he still rebukes to this day. The only similarities that Jordie and Augustin share are their age and a wavy crop of dark hair: Jordie is a round-faced goofball of a goalie still clawing his way up the pecking order of professional hockey, who single-handedly charmed Chris by tripping over his own feet during a charity event. They just look similar from the back. That’s just a coincidence.

He has a cane now, and usually it clacks across the sidewalk as he hauls himself down the pavement towards the coffee shop, but today the combination of summer heat and medication allow him to walk unaided. His knee still clicks as he enters the coffee shop and asks for a black coffee without looking up from his phone.

Cher: I’m telling you they’re never going to let me take care of their cat again

“Chris,” Helene says purposefully he tries to tell Jordie that the reason his cousin won’t let him take care of her cat is because he keeps overfeeding the feline cretin, “It’s been a fucking while, and I know for a fucking fact that your mother didn’t raise you to be rude.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Hell. A while? I saw you and your sister a few weeks ago down in Toronto.”

“My dude, I’m not talking about me. Tear yourself away from the damn screen for a minute and look up-”

“Chris?”

He looks up.

This time around, the shadow is wide-eyed and sporting a thin white linen shirt that shows a brace underneath it, binding his injured ribs in place. Chris’ knee twinges, and for a moment, resentment rises bitterly under his tongue.

“Fuck,” he says, sliding his phone into his pocket. Augustin looks a little bit like he’s been hit by a car, which isn’t a look that he often sports. Chris covers the Leafs and the Marlies exclusively, so he’s never held a mic to Augustin’s face during or after games, and never tries to see him during road trips. For a moment, he’s glad he never got that job with the Aces back when he was first floundering in the real world with nothing but rage, a bum knee and a newly awarded degree in journalism. “I didn’t know you’d be here, August.”

Augustin’s jaw works weakly for a moment before he asks, “What are you doing here?”

I live here. It’s not just yours. You never come back if you can help it.

He thinks about the chill of summer night against bare skin, the shared heat beneath a thin blanket and the bruises of corrugated metal against his back. The anger fades quickly. The last time that he was truly happy, it was in this town, on the rink nearby, with cold wind in his face.

“I just got back,” he says, taking his coffee from a smug-looking Helene, “I wasn’t planning to come home this summer, but my mom heard I was in Montreal for a few days, and made me drive up. It’s supposed to be a surprise for Angelique.”

“What a coincidence,” Helene muses as the blood drains from Augustin’s sunburnt face, “Both of the boys who never come home, back at the same time. What a coincidence indeed.”

“Helene,” Augustin says, all that familiar stress bottled up in his chest threatening to spill over. Chris laughs to himself. It’s always been easy to flick his switches, “I’m going to kill you-”

“Hey, who’s this?”

Chris is suddenly grateful for the new patchy beard that Angelique and Jordie both loathe with every fibre of their being, because it hides the surprise in his face when Kent Parson comes out of the washroom in all his blond, handsome, fit glory. It shouldn’t be a surprise. The media has painted a picture of Augustin and Parson attached at the hip, with sizzling on-ice chemistry to match. Chris thought—perhaps foolishly—that it was all a public relations gimmick, a symptom of Augustin’s unpopularity with general managers and precarious popularity with everyone else.

It only takes one look to change all of that. It’s the same look that Jordie gave him when he came off the ice at the beginning of the pre-season last year, dripping sweat from his nose and dark eyelashes. Parson smiles up at Augustin with all the care and devotion of a knight to his lord, and all the hunger of a starving animal.

Chris thinks, a little maliciously, oh, this is going to be so fun.

“Uh, this is Chris. Christophe,” Augustin stammers delightfully, and Chris feels his grin widen, “He’s the Patenaudes’ youngest kid, you already met his brothers.”

“I’m the one that got away,” he says as he shakes Kent’s hand. Augustin chokes on air at the thinly-veiled double entendre and Chris barely stifles a laugh as he continues, “My brothers both still live here, but I work in Toronto covering the Leafs.”

Kent Parson is much nicer than he appears on television, which is what everyone who has ever met him has said to Chris in office kitchens and press rooms on the road. Augustin, on his best behavior for his boyfriend, offers Chris a ride that he immediately and heartily accepts. He covertly texts his father and tells him not to pick him up, and toggles over to Jordie’s contact.

is it okay if I flirt with someone to wind them up?

The response is almost immediate: yah but then u owe me unspeakable things when u get back.

And by unspeakable things i do mean sex things :)

Chris hopes that his flush isn’t too vibrant as he accepts Kent Parson’s offer of the shotgun seat. Augustin still drives like a lunatic in the truck, as if he’s invincible. Chris and Kent talk pleasantly about hockey while Augustin visibly sweats in the driver’s seat, and Chris feigns shock when he sees his father’s truck in the driveway of the Berengers’ home.

Momentarily, all of his mischief is wiped out of his mind by the cannonball that is his other half tackling him to the grass. She easily avoids his bad knee as they tussle and he’s already inside the house with an arm wrapped around her shoulders before he remembers that he’s supposed to be shit-disturbing. He cranes his neck to see Kent and Augustin in a tense conversation just before the door swings shut.

Angelique catches his eye and elbows him in the gut, “No.”

“You got old and became no fun,” Chris replies airily, smacking a loud kiss on the top of her head. “He looks good. Like, really good. The long hair works for him.”

“I will literally fucking kill you, dude, I will scratch out your eyeballs.”

Dinner is fantastic, as it always is when Aunt Manon cooks. Chris watches as Kent and Augustin unsubtly knock ankles and press their knees together below the dinner table. His attempts to flirt are so soundly ignored by Augustin’s sickening devotion to watching Kent’s every move that he gives up and starts engaging in real conversation about halfway through his first plate of food. Say what you want about him, but he doesn’t fight losing battles.

He doesn’t think that he was ever in love with Augustin, but at least now he knows for damn sure that Augustin was never in love with him.

It takes about three lovesick glances for him to give up on the mischief portion of the evening, but he and Angelique are well-known for finishing each other’s sentences, and the sentiment extends well beyond talking.

It goes like this: Uncle Jean forgets, again, that Chris is gay. Everyone turns to look at Augustin for some reason, and Chris doesn’t say anything, because he’s not an asshole. Augustin shrugs too nonchalantly, “What, was I supposed to throw a parade? We both have our official membership cards already, so it’s a little late.”

Angelique does say something, because sometimes she is an asshole: “They punched them at the same time, like a two for one deal.”

Chris sucks at his teeth as silence falls over the table. His brothers have looks on their faces like Christmas came early, Angelique looks like she’s been hit by a car, his mother is glaring at him like it’s his fault he slept with someone almost a decade ago, and Kent Parson has gone as still as a statue.

Luckily, his brothers make an off-colour joke, Angelique starts kicking people under the table, and the conversation moves on for everyone except Parson.

Kent Parson is renowned for his unflappability in the face of a league that wants nothing more than to get under his skin, but he wanders around like a kicked puppy as they clean up the dessert plates and someone starts playing an old record on Uncle Jean’s beat-up turntable. Augustin avoids Chris like the plague, too busy trying to pin his boyfriend down in one place, until Chris manages to ambush him in the dining room.

“Chris,” Augustin says, studiously scrubbing the wooden table with a damp cloth, “What do you want?”

“I’m sorry,” Chris says, “I’ve been fucking with you all evening, and I think I went too far, because your boyfriend is staring daggers at me.”

Augustin’s head jolts up, eyes wide and terrified, “We’re not-”

“August,” Chris tries to placate, holding out his hands. Too much, too fast, just like it was when they were younger, “Relax. You guys were playing fucking footsie under the table the whole dinner. Well, half of dinner, sorry again, but that’s twice as long we’ve ever done-”

“Hey, you said that you would stop,” Augustin complains petulantly, like he did as a child when Chris would tie his skate-laces into intricate, unpickable knots before practice.

“Right, sorry. In any case, I have a boyfriend now, too,” he smiles inadvertently, like a goddamn sap, “and I was just trying to get a rise out of you because I haven’t seen you in a while. I’m sorry.”

Augustin smiles cheekily after a moment, the barest upwards tick of the corner of his mouth, “Well, it’s nice to know that you’re no longer hopelessly in love with me.”

“Oh, get fucked,” Chris sighs. He and Angelique need to have words, it seems.

She’s sitting on the rocking chair on the porch when he finally makes his way out of the house, cradling the warm bottle of chardonnay from dinner. It was just big enough to fit them both when they were fifteen, and it fits them again now; Chris has gotten a lot skinnier since he stopped playing hockey. She curls against his side, a pointy elbow jabbing into his ribs, as they pass the last few sips of the wine bottle back and forth.

“They seem happy,” he says, breaking the ambience of the cicadas. Angelique gives him a withering look, and he sighs, “I’m sorry. I was just-”

“Being mean?”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, “But to be fair, I’m not the one who- hey!”

Angelique drains the wine, and just as she sets the bottle down on the porch, there’s the patter of feet. The door bangs open and a maniacally laughing blond blurr flies out, followed shortly after by a lanky dark-haired shadow.

“Where are you going?” Angelique shouts after Parson and Augustin as they pile into the Berengers’ beaten-up cherry red pickup truck, “Hey! Chris is leaving soon!”

“Bye, Chris!” the faint cry peters up the driveway, youthful and carefree, “See you in Toronto, you fucking traitor!"

“Use protection!” Chris shouts as the door shuts, and the truck peels off in a whorl of dust. They watch it settle in the dying sun, and Chris sighs, a long breath that has been sitting crystallized in his lungs for years. “He’s back.”

Augustin changed that season, the one where Chris lost everything. He has always been too selfish to wonder why, too bitter to really feel any sort of sympathy for the demise of Augustin’s promising career. He still doesn’t know why, but a smile curves his mouth when he remembers how Augustin’s tensity uncurled whenever Kent Parson so much as looked at him.

Maybe it really does all turn out in the end.

“You were really never in love with him?” Angelique asks carefully as the car’s noises fade into nothing, “It’s okay if you were, Chris. I won’t judge you. But I have to check, because he’s happy.”

Chris thinks of a dark-haired man, but it’s not Augustin. It’s Jordie, the fresh-faced goalie who stayed in college for four years so that he could carry his team to the Frozen Four three times in a row. Jordie, who has a gap between his two front teeth that has nothing to do with hockey, who drags Chris kicking and screaming out of his darkest, most rotten places, and who is finally going to crack the NHL roster next year despite an injury that almost ruined his career, because he just believes that he will.

Something warm and vibrant blooms in his chest, staining the bones of his ribs. He loves Augustin. He always will. It’s just not the same. “Don’t worry. I’m glad he’s happy.”

“Coming inside?” Angelique asks, standing with a yawn. Chris motions for her to go on without him.

“In a minute. I have a phone call to make.”

“Tell Jordie that I say hi,” Angelique says as the door shuts behind her. Chris swipes heat from the humid May evening off his brow, and hits speed dial.

Connor Whisk spends the first year of his NHL career in the ugliest bedroom he’s ever seen in his godforsaken life.

Jeffrey Troy’s design sensibilities match his personality to a T; none of it makes sense, it’s heinous visually, but it’s strangely comforting and welcoming in its own fucked up way. Connor hasn’t slept better than he has on the king-sized bed in Swoops’s McMansion guest wing, with a soundproof door so that he doesn’t hear the video-game tournaments while he’s trying to sleep.

When he emerges from his nap on a rest day in late November, it’s to the usual suspects crowded together on the massive living room couch: Parse, Scraps, Swoops, Allie, and Frisk. They’re all avidly watching Allie struggle to do battle with a strange, rocky eldritch beast, less to appreciate the strategy and moreso hoping he dies quickly so one of them can get his turn.

“Hey, Whisky. Come join us?” Jeff asks without looking away, “Allie sucks at this.”

“Blås mig,” Allie retorts, just before the massive monster steps on him, “Fuck!”

“What does that mean?”

“It means blow me, Troy,” Allie snaps, tossing the gaming remote so that it hits Parse in the face.

“Ow!”

“If you insist,” Swoops puckers his lips. Allie rolls his eyes, tossing his wavy blond Prince Charming hair and making a come-hither gesture that fucking kills Frisk. Even Parse grins despite his arrow-focus on the television screen.

Connor feels his lips compress. The Aces make fewer and more good-humoured gay jokes than other teams that he’s been on, and he’s supposed to be able to live with it by now. For fuck’s sake, he’s not even fully gay, and the Schooners and Falcs have pretty much silenced anyone who is virulently homophobic in the league anyways.

So why does it fucking bother him so much?

He shakes his head. “Just need some water.”

“Cool, don’t let us stop you,” Parse says, rubbing the part of his forehead where Allie hit him, “Join us if you want, no pressure.”

Every day, Tango or Denice ask him what it’s like to play with Kent Parson, or know Kent Parson, or hang out with Kent Parson. Connor doesn’t know how to tell them that he has no idea. He plays on the third line with Kevin Mitsuya and Daniel McCandles, so he almost never shares ice with Parse outside of practice or the single pre-season game where he filled in for Devon Smith. Parse is over at Jeff’s all the time, but Connor’s palms get sweaty whenever he even thinks about speaking to him.

It’s Kent Parson. There are a lot of people that Connor doesn’t particularly care about disappointing, but now one of the exceptions is his captain. Dex makes fun of him sometimes for it, but when they’re in their shared hotel room on the first roadie of the season, he says, “You should know that Parse was the one who wanted you to be here. Sometimes, you act like he’s going to take you out back and shoot you between the eyes.”

Despite Nursey’s pointed comments about his lack of poetic prowess, Dex has always had a way with words. Connor doesn’t take his eyes off of his laptop screen, where his previous preseason game is currently being dissected by a table of pundits. “Scarpello told me that it was Berenger.”

Dex shrugs, “The NHL’s most well-kept secret is that Parse wants whatever Gus wants.”

The sounds of the video game fade into the background, and Connor stops dead in his tracks as he ducks into the kitchen. Speak of the devil.

“Oh, hey Whisky,” Augustin says without looking up from his phone. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter by the slowly heating electric kettle, dressed to the nines in a well-fitted shirt and crisp trousers, a delicate gold cross pendant settled in the hollow of his collarbone. Connor is wearing a hoodie and sweats, and his hair is a rat’s nest from his post-practice nap.

“Hey,” he manages to say, glad that his hood is up to hide his flush. To say that he has a crush on his alternate captain isn’t an entirely accurate statement. To say that he has to work hard on not staring or blushing when Augustin has no shirt on in the dressing room might be more accurate, though. “Sorry, I just need water.”

“Don’t let me stop you. No interest in joining the video games?” Augustin asks wryly as he tucks his phone into his pocket. The electric kettle clicks off with a hiss, and Augustin snorts as he pours hot water into a mug already prepared with a teabag, “We’re too old for you, I guess.”

It’s half true. Connor’s fallen in with Dex and the younger players: Flicker, Petal, Jem, Mitty, and Smitty hijack his free time every chance they get, and even the overtly suspicious Luka Rubenis is slowly warming to him. The three generations of the Aces have silly spats that the young players often win: Scraps likes to say it’s because their knees still work.

“You’re not old,” is what he says, like a moron, as he waits for the tap water to run cold. The corner of Augustin’s stern mouth curls upwards.

“Thanks, Whisk,” he pats Connor on the shoulder as he walks past, and his palm is warm from the heat of the mug, seeping through the thin fabric of Connor’s T-shirt, “You sure know how to make a guy feel special. Great job with the breakout drills today, by the way.”

It shouldn’t make him feel like this, that warmth in his diaphragm as Augustin disappears into the living room and is welcomed with the jeers and cries of the rest of the Aces core. He’s not supposed to be dependent on praise like he was before college. He’s spent the last four years making sure that he can stand on his own two feet; captain, star player, future NHL prospect.

For a moment, the feeling of calloused hands on his waist and ginger hair flash across his vision. He does wonder how Chad is doing sometimes, but he hasn’t asked.

Cold water splashes over his hands from his overfilled water bottle, and he shuts off the sink. Parse is still playing when Connor retreats back into the shadows of his ugly room and shuts the door, the sounds of his cursing leaking under the crack in the door frame along with amber light.

He tries to sleep some more, but his phone keeps going off with messages from some of the younger Aces. He listens to the thickly-accented voice memo of Jem complaining about how Mitty won’t share the care package from his mom, and likes all of Smitty’s jeering messages in return about Mitty being a mama’s boy.

A text comes through from Ford: how are things? call soon?

He rolls over and texts back, something’s off

He hasn’t been able to focus lately, and it’s not just because of Augustin Berenger’s back muscles. The transition to professional hockey has been a leap he wasn’t sure he was willing to take, but the money was great, and the faith the Aces were putting in him was gratifying. Still, a weight won’t shake off his shoulders, not even on the ice when he feels freer than anything.

He gets an immediate response, maybe you’re homesick.

Maybe this is true. Connor doesn’t exactly long for Arizona, but he does miss the familiarities of Tempe and the comfortable smallness of Samwell. Vegas is wide and loud, and it hurts his eyes some days. He’s gone from being the best player on his team to barely good enough to play on the main roster. Every game is an elimination game for him—one false move and he’ll be down in the minors, and he might never crawl his way back out.

I think I might try going back to church

Ford texts back, chill

I think you’ve been talking to Nursey too much

Church isn’t something he typically thinks of to fix his woes, but it’s his mother’s solution to everything, so Connor gives it a shot. He googles the nearest Catholic church and asks Jem Jansing, his designated carpool buddy for the month, to drop him off at a nearby coffee shop on Sunday after morning skate.

To his surprise, Jem doesn’t turn into the coffee shop’s parking lot when it appears on the side of the road, “Uh, I think you missed the turn.”

“I didn’t do nothin’ of the sort,” Jem drawls, one arm dangling out the window. His dirty blond hair gleams in the sunlight as he adjusts his sunglasses, “I know where you’re actually wantin’ to go. Coffee shop,” he snorts, “Where’ve I heard that one before?”

Connor settles back into the shotgun seat, suddenly feeling quite warm as Jem pulls to a stop in the church parking lot. He leans out the window once Connor gets out, “I’m gonna go to Dex’s place to play Catan with him n’ Ruben n’ Smitty. But if y’all wanna join us, have him bring you by after.”

“Him?” Connor asks dubiously, “Like…God? Because, like… I don’t think He’s gonna drive me anywhere. ‘Jesus, take the wheel’ is a metaphor.”

“You’re a funny kid,” Jem says, despite being only a year older than Whisky is. “See ya soon, Whisk.”

He peels out of the parking lot with a squeal of tires, leaving Connor standing in the middle of the asphalt parking lot of a Catholic church in Las Vegas.

“Okay,” he says, and ascends the stairs.

The church is modest, and the nave is empty and cool, without the flashy trappings of the cathedrals that his mother always drags him to on vacations. It’s various shades of tan and wood, with creaky, sparsely populated pews. He’s missed Mass, but there are still a few stragglers sitting with him in companionable silence.

The weight is still there, though it gains more shape the longer he sits in silence. Part of it is fear. Part of it is pressure. He picks it apart slowly, methodically searching for something he can get rid of. It’s not affecting his game, but it’s only a matter of time until it-

“Whisk?”

He turns so quickly that his neck makes a cracking noise. Augustin, still wearing his Aces hoodie from practice, is staring at him with wide eyes from the aisle, hand resting on the wooden back of Connor’s pew. Connor feels his mouth swing open, and has to remind himself to shut it.

“I, uh…did Jem tell you I was here?”

“No,” Augustin says, his expression growing less surprised as he ducks into the pew next to Connor. His voice drops to a whisper as he sits, “No, I come here on Sundays when we’re not on the road. The priest and I have a little deal. I get him playoff tickets, and he keeps the doors open after Mass ends for me.”

Connor squints, “Isn’t that what led to Protestantism?”

Augustin snorts quietly, “Alright, college boy. I’ll take your word for it.”

They sit in silence for a few more moments before Connor gets up the courage to ask, “You’d be honest with me, right?”

“Sure.”

“Am I fucking this up somehow?”

Augustin cranes his head to look at him, a divot appearing in his cheek as he chews the inside. He waits a few moments before saying, “Whisk, I’ll be the first to say that plus/minus is a bullshit stat most of the time, but you’re plus two from the third line. You’re not fucking this up.”

“You hesitated,” Connor accuses.

“I can…tell that something is bothering you,” Augustin says, gesturing half-heartedly to the confession box, “You can air it out in there, or…well, to me, I guess. The sooner you talk about it, the sooner you can deal with it, and the sooner you can just get back to hockey.”

Connor can’t help but say, “You sound like the team therapist.”

Augustin does laugh at that, loud enough to draw the befuddled stares of the other few attendees, “You think I’m bad? Try having this conversation with Jeff.”

Connor nods, knowing full well what a conversation with Jeff would be like. They sit for a few minutes of silence as the awkwardness slowly sloughs off like snow down a slanted roof, before he hedges, “Dex and Jem invited us over for Catan.”

The evil grin that Augustin dons doesn’t belong in the sanctity of a church, but there are some that say a church doesn’t belong in Vegas, that hockey doesn’t belong in the desert, and that wanting to kiss other men doesn’t belong in sports. Every rule has an exception.

In any case, Connor loses tremendously at Catan.

The next few games go well. He plays one game on the second line while Ruben is out with a mild cold, manages to pop in a goal while the Aces are shorthanded, gets into a scrap over someone shoving Scraps and actually wins, and catches the eye of a pretty blond in a Seattle nightclub as they celebrate winning their second away game of the week. The Aces are playing their favourite game, Operation Get a Girlfriend, and today’s unwilling victim is Dex, which is why Connor lets himself look for just a moment too long.

Over by the bar, the man raises his glass. Connor turns away.

He holds his breath as the man comes over anyways, tall and a willowy kind of elegant. He’s wearing silver eyeliner on his bottom eyelids, and smiles with teeth, and Connor is too drunk to do anything but shrink into his seat and avoid eye contact. His veins buzz.

Please don’t, please do, please-

“Hey stranger,” the man says, and Connor looks up to see that he’s not looking at him anymore, but at Kent, standing off to the side with Augustin and Swoops. He braces himself for a brutal jab or face of revulsion. Kent just smiles placidly.

“I’m sorry,” he says over the thrumming music, “I’m flattered, but no.”

Beside him, Augustin is laughing, shoulders shaking the hem of his untucked shirt. Kent elbows him surreptitiously with a scowl, and Connor watches with something heavy lining his stomach as Augustin has to turn away to disguise his uncharacteristic mirth.

The man takes the rejection easily, leaning against the nearby column to eye the rest of the table, “Well, any of you boys want to dance with me?”

His eyes linger on Connor for a moment, and he hides his face in his beer bottle. He wants to say yes. The words don't come out.

“Yeah,” Jem says after a beat of consideration, setting down his drink, “Alright, I’ll dance with ya.”

The man looks him up and down: white button down shirt buttoned up to his collarbone, khakis, untrimmed blond hair, terrible shoes, shiny Rolex, “You're straight, sweetheart.”

“Yes I am,” Jem agrees, “But I'm pretty as sin and a damn good dancer to boot. You wanna make a boy jealous, darlin’? I'm your guy.”

The man’s smile grows, “Not sure pretty is the word I’d use for you, but alright.”

The rest of the Aces cheer Jem on until he insists on doing the macarena in the middle of the club dance floor and gets booed into oblivion. The blond’s name is Isaac, and he slips a receipt with a phone number scrawled on the back into Connor’s pants pocket as he walks by to get another drink.

“Next time,” he says with a wink, and vanishes into the crowd just before Kent comes to bundle Connor into a taxi.

They play one more game in Calgary before flying back to Vegas. Connor misses three scoring chances, gives up two turnovers, and is benched for a shift in the second after his mistake leads to a goal. They lose in overtime, and Connor spends the entire plane ride fiddling with the receipt before ultimately tossing it into the airport recycling bin on his way to Swoops’ car.

The weight on his shoulders is a composite mosaic of things, and his sexuality is just one of many. He and his girlfriend broke up halfway through senior year, and he’d never thought that dating a man was in his future. In his life experience, men are for bathrooms and hidden corners and dark bars with bad music and sticky floors. Not for holding hands and cheek kisses. Not for dating.

Then again, in his life experience, hockey is a means of getting an education, not a career. Now, here he is with an NHL contract, playing on the same team as some of the best players in the world. He could win a Stanley Cup. He could have everything, but only if he’s on the team.

He can’t afford distractions anymore.

The next day, he texts Ford and Tango, what if I came out to the Aces?

Tango’s reply is immediate, ur gay homie? Why didn’t u tell me???

Connor can’t help but laugh at that. He’s still laughing when Ford calls the group, “Whisky, is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine."

“Everything is not fine,” Tango’s pout is audible as his call connects, “Connor, buddy, do you know how many guys were asking about you at Samwell? You’re telling me I let down an entire campus of attractive young men for nothing?”

“Ford, stop him please.”

“Whisky can keep his secrets,” Ford says over Tango’s malcontented grumblings, “Did something happen?”

Connor plucks at a loose thread in the cuff of his hoodie, “I think that worrying about it is distracting me from hockey.”

“Oh my God,” Ford says, equal parts amused and exasperated, “It always comes back to hockey.”

“Everything always comes back to hockey,” Tango agrees, “I say go for it, dude. If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make that cha-”

“Stop,” Connor says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I just wanted to know that I’m not making a dumb mistake.”

“I think you’re doing what’s best for yourself,” Ford replies thoughtfully, “Even though you’re crazy. Like, totally nuts. Like, absolutely bonkers-”

“I mean, didn’t Kent Parson have every opportunity to be a dick about Jack?” Tango adds, “But the only real dickery we see is hockey rivalry related. I think you’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” Connor says, sucking in a breath, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Ford agrees, and then: “Wait, it’s eight in the morning out here. Why are you awake at five in the morning?”

Connor turns around and stares down the highway from whence he came. Now that he thinks about it, his quads kind of hurt and the Strip is a dark shadow on the horizon as the sun rises. “Went on a run.”

“Uh-huh,” Ford says dryly, “You forgot you have to run back now, didn’t you?”

“...no.”

Tango’s hysterical laughter is the soundtrack for the first two minutes of his run back home, but there are worse things to listen to.

Augustin and Parse are together in the equipment room when Connor finds them before practice, fully dressed in their gear and taping their sticks. He swallows his nerves before he can say something stupid, “Hey, cap?”

“Hey, Whisk,” Parse says with a bright smile, holding out his hand for a roll of white tape. “I thought you’d be on the ice already. What’s up- Gus, the tape.”

“No,” Augustin says calmly, methodically taping his own stick in black, “I keep telling you that white tape is a travesty. If you want to go against the natural order, do it yourself.”

Parse scowls, “Can we have this debate when our rookie isn’t standing there looking like he kicked a dog?”

Augustin’s head snaps up, and Connor has to bite back a wince. He’d been hoping to avoid triggering what Jem and Mitsuya covertly call Operation Disappointed Dad “What did you do, Whisk?”

Connor’s seen that look employed on Smitty, Mitsuya, and Jem with alarming regularity, but he’s never been placed firmly under its aim, and it’s a force to be reckoned with. He stutters despite the relative banality of his confession, “Uh- can we close the door?”

Parse jabs at the small of Augustin’s back, and moves to shut the equipment room door behind Connor, whose limbs suddenly weigh a thousand pounds.

“So,” Augustin says quietly once the door shuts with a click, “What’s…what do you want to talk about? Are you…okay?”

He looks incredibly uncomfortable, and somehow, that makes it easier. Connor inhales sharply, and shortly says, “I’m bi. I like men. I might date one, and you should know, in case I make out with a guy in a bar and someone sees. But I’m not telling anyone else. It’s none of their business. I’m not their woke circus monkey, okay? I just am.”

As he says it, he can feel his shoulders straighten. The moment slips away in time, already drifting farther behind him, and he feels lighter than he has in years.

“Oh,” Augustin blinks, eyes wide. He nods once, slowly, “Uh…that’s it? That’s, uh…cool.”

“Yeah,” Connor says quietly, “Um…that’s it.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Augustin nods, his voice growing more thickly accented as he leans back against the cabinets. He looks something like a deer caught in headlights, like he’s the one who’s just bared his heart, “Yeah, no, for sure, um…I’m glad that you could trust…me? Yeah, uh…”

“This is fucking painful to watch,” Parse says. Augustin picks up the nearest soft object, one of the rags used to wipe down skate blades, and throws it at Parse’s head. Parse dodges it easily. “We’ve got your back, Whisk. Now get your ass out on the ice.”

Connor spots the clock over Parse’s shoulder and curses, “Shit!”

The bag skate that results from their lateness wears everybody down to the bone, but Parse smoothly takes the blame and the chirps for their tardiness before Connor can say anything. When they slump off the ice, panting and drenched, Connor is barely aware of the gentle tap he gets across his shinpads.

“Good showing, Whisky,” Parse says, “Except for those three-on-twos. Whoof.”

“I’ll get my legs back under me,” Connor vows, and Parse gives him another swat as he stumbles off.

They have the afternoon off before their game tomorrow, so Connor once again wakes from his nap to find a squad of Aces sitting on the couch, this time shouting at a soccer game playing on the television. Parse and Augustin are nowhere to be found, which causes his spine to unfurl somewhat. The last thing he wants is to be hovered over like some prize gay show pony at the carnival.

“I hate soccer,” he hears Jeff say distastefully as he sneaks out of his room unseen, “The field is too big.”

Connor laughs to himself about that as he turns the corner into the kitchen. Jeff’s objectively correct observations about the size of soccer fields flee his brain like water dripping from a leaky faucet as he stops dead in the doorway.

The sight he’s seeing in the dark shadows of the kitchen can only really be described as obscene. Augustin’s head is tilted back against the far wall, half-hidden by the cabinets, while Parse sneaks a hand past the hem of his hoodie, exposing the pale planes of his stomach. Parse has his knee wedged between Augustin’s legs, lips planted on the cords of Augustin’s neck, flashes of white teeth and red tongue peeking out.

“What the actual fuck?” Connor says weakly. He’s pretty sure he’s had this dream a few times before, and pinches his arm to see if he wakes up. He doesn’t. The only thing that happens is that both Augustin and Kent jerk their heads to attention, freezing at the sight of Connor like deer in headlights.

“Uh,” Connor says, face burning. He holds up his water bottle helplessly, “Sorry, I, uh- what the hell?”

“You know what?” Augustin says from where he is trapped in between the wall and Parse’s shorter frame, “I knew that we were forgetting something this morning.”

“What?” Connor asks weakly. Once, he took ayahuasca in the tenth grade, and all he remembers is a lightheaded feeling and throwing up in a bush in the middle of the night. He feels a little bit like that right now. “I mean…huh?”

“We were late to practice,” Parse says, seemingly oblivious to anything as he disentangles from Augustin’s limbs, “I had other things on my mind.”

“Other things? You were making fun of me the whole fucking drive back!” Augustin seethes, “Oh, Augustin, t’avais l'air d'un cerf pris dans les phares! Attention, la petite fille sur le trottoir pleure, vas-tu t'enfuir? Let me tell you something; you are a ridiculous man with stupid hair.”

Parse frowns petulantly, “You called it sex hair last night. Didn’t seem to mind it then.”

“Oh my God,” Connor says with all the visceral disgust of watching his parents flirt with each other. His confusion vanishes under the weight of it, “Oh my God, stop, I’m begging you.”

“You know,” Parse continues, leaning against the cupboard and straightening his skewed hoodie, “If we didn’t know certain things about you, that might come across as homophobic.”

“I think Jeff’s guest bedroom is cursed,” Augustin says mournfully. “Things keep happening because of it.”

God, Connor’s gotta move out. Or bleach his bedsheets. Possibly both. “Oh my God.”

“Listen, kid,” Parse says wisely, folding his arms across his chest, “Here’s what we actually forgot to say this morning. Your life is your life. You can share as much or as little of it as you want with whoever you want, and we want you to know that we would have shared this with you-”

“-if we had remembered.” Augustin adds.

“-if we had remembered,” Parse agrees, “We trust you, Whisky, and we’re glad you trust us. That’s all it is, okay?”

Connor finds it in himself to nod, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Augustin echoes, “Just don’t tell Mitsuya about this. Or Jem. Or Rubenis and McCandles, for that matter. Or- actually, you wouldn’t know Ethan Cross so it doesn’t matter-”

“Fucking Christ,” Connor says, turning on the sink and waiting for the water to run cold, “How many fucking people have you done this to?”

Their guilty silence is answer enough.

The next Sunday, Augustin pulls up to Jeff’s house at eight in the morning. Connor is already awake. Jeff is not.

“He said to tell you that he’s going to wring your scrawny pale neck,” Connor says as he slips into the passenger seat. Augustin slams the horn three more times before he pulls out of the cul-de-sac and swings them towards the church. They sit through Mass in their game suits, and get burgers afterwards.

“Do you think you can transubstantiate with a burger bun?” Augustin muses as he crumples up the wrapper, “You went to college.”

“I studied commerce,” Connor tells him. Augustin gives a long-suffering sigh.

“Yeah, of course you did.”

When Connor steps out onto the ice that night, he feels lighter on his feet than he usually is. He has no way of knowing why: the placebo effect, a good day, lucky bounces, the fact that Tango called him an hour before the game to rant about his internship. It doesn’t really matter why. He ends up with two goals, and Coach Wilson offers a rare not-frown after he gets off the ice as second star of the game. “Great job today, Whisk. Keep it up.”

They go to a bar with low ceilings and wooden barrels to celebrate their win, and Connor watches as Augustin and Parse hold hands under the table in the dark. Something in his chest pops when they exchange smiles, and Parse leans in to whisper something in Augustin’s ear that causes him to snort with laughter. There’s no fear, no shame. No isolation. They just are.

Connor smiles as he drains the rest of his beer, gets up to dance with a girl watching him from the bar, and the world keeps spinning.

Jason Kirby meets Augustin Berenger in September of 2010, and the impossible happens.

The entire world dictates that two men like them should never be friends: Jason is an American and a Bostonian to boot, the son of a prominent banker and a successful corporate lawyer, raised with a silver spoon in his mouth despite the lumberjack looks and hulking frame that drag him into the upper echelons of hockey. Augustin is lithe and sharp-edged, raised in rural Quebec with only trees, cows, and Habs fans for company, and he is hockey.

But that’s the magic of it. They meet, and they play together, and they become friends. Jason is tasked with protecting their new, delicate star center, and in return, Augustin’s sharp tongue never lashes out at him as harshly as it does to others. They share plane seats, hotel rooms, media ops.

“They’ll put us in the rafters side by side,” Augustin tells him during their pre-season games. Jason is twenty-three to Augustin’s eighteen, and he knows that he can never catch someone as fast as their new star player no matter how hard he tries.

He still says, “You fucking bet.”

He is never jealous of Augustin’s talent, but being just outside the spotlight starts to get cold after a month or so. He plays on the third line with the other goons, because Gerhard likes that he’s willing to smash some heads to get things done, and he’s great at it. Augustin hates it.

“You’re better than that,” he says, laying on his bed after they’ve lost to the Hurricanes. He tosses a roll of stick tape up into the air, catches it, tosses it up again, a never-ending cycle. “More talented than that. You should be on my line. You have soft hands and a wicked shot if you would just fucking wise up and stand where I can get pucks to you.”

Jason shakes his head. “You’re such an elitist. You just don’t think hitting takes talent.”

Augustin’s glare is withering as he rolls over, “Yeah, for sure, guy-who-went-to-a-high-school-with-the-word-Academy-in-the-name. I’m the elitist.

Jason grits his teeth. Augustin’s corrosive wit is only matched by his stubbornness, “I’m doing it for you, to protect you. Don’t be fucking ungrateful.”

“Don’t be delusional,” Augustin says waspishly, rolling back over and resuming his toss and catch routine, “You’re doing it so Goldie will pat you on the back and tell you that you’re beautiful.”

Jason knows a lot of things about Augustin that Augustin himself probably doesn’t even remember. He isn’t so cloistered and blind to the world that he doesn’t see the way Augustin’s gaze lingers longingly on their alternate captain Tim Goldman’s face and other aspects of his anatomy. How Augustin disappears into the corners of clubs with men that are taller, more solid, and darker-haired than he is, because there’s nothing Augustin likes more than a challenge he can wrestle under his control except for someone who will give him a challenge right back. How he flirts tastefully with girls at clubs and never brings them home, but still has love bites on his collarbone and down the length of his spine the next morning.

The team chirps Augustin for his boyish, almost pretty appearance that drives all their sisters and even some of their girlfriends crazy. Goldman’s girlfriend, his second of three that season, lays a wet kiss on Augustin’s cheek at a dinner one night and makes a joke about finally getting with someone appropriate for her age, a dark curl winding around her pointer finger. Augustin snorts and tells her that she isn’t his type. Jason laughs, because everybody else laughs, Goldie loudest of all.

He plugs his ears, endures being sexiled on roadies, and pretends that he doesn’t see men sneaking out in the early hours of the morning. He watches the way Augustin clamps onto their alternate captain, and isn’t sure if Augustin was even aware that he was in love with Goldie; they all were in some sort of way, because they had to be, and he can see how easy it might be to confuse the different types.

Then comes the day that Tim Goldman breaks his best friend’s jaw, and as Jason knows while the rest of them don’t, his heart as well.

The truth is that Augustin is not perfect, and never has been. He is mean, he is arrogant and he exploits weaknesses just because he can, a puppet-master with a vindictive streak a mile wide. Later, much later, Jason will know that it was because he was eighteen. At the time, in that bar, all he hears is the sermon condemning them to moral repugnance and all he sees is red.

Jason is second-to-last on Augustin’s not-so-private ranking of player efficacy. He is the third person to grab onto Goldie’s shoulder and haul him off of their best player, curled up on the sticky barroom floor. He tells himself that he was the one who stopped it from being worse. He tells himself that because it was his job to protect Augustin and he failed.

When Goldie pulls him aside with a mean leer on his face a week later and unsubtly asks what else Augustin has been saying or doing behind their backs that needs to come out, Jason bites back a retort about Goldie’s poor choice of words and shakes his head.

“We never really talked much,” he lies. It’s all he can give. He needs this, he needs the way that Goldie and the rest of the Aeros core clap him on the shoulders and tell him that he’s a solid guy, the right kind of guy. Not too pretty, not too mouthy, not too talented, and not too good. “We just room together. I don’t know anything.”

He feels dirty regardless, from the things that he did that he’s not proud of. The stain never really washes off. Augustin’s jaw heals and he becomes an ice sculpture of himself. Jason steers clear of the cold and they never speak on good terms again. He stays in Houston while Augustin goes, while Goldie goes, while the rest of the Aeros core are traded or sign or retire. He gets an A, and then a C. He works hard, and outside of hockey, his life is a balancing act of pride and repentance.

He sees Augustin in every talented player that comes through his dressing room; their new star center Pavel Petrov, even though he’s blond and Russian rather than brunet and Quebecois, and Gavin Rathers, the best and most arrogant defenceman that they’ve ever had. He falls back onto old habits: protect what needs protecting. He tries not to think about the fact that once, he was the thing that needed protecting from.

When he gets married, Kayla finally asks why Augustin isn’t there. She knows that they’re not friends anymore, but Augustin’s the reason that they ever met, the reason that she gave Jason a second chance and then a third, the reason why they’re sitting on the same couch packaging wedding invitations on the night that she finally asks him about it. She misses talking about movies and not having to button her shirt up high around like she does around some of his less polite teammates. Jason misses Augustin too, and not just for those reasons.

“He wouldn’t come even if I invited him,” he says as he slides Tim Goldman’s invitation into its envelope.

It’s easier this way.

He could fold Augustin in two punches like cheap cardstock, but he doesn’t. He lets Augustin lay dirty hits on him every time they play each other, lets him win the one fight where they finally drop gloves, lets him break his nose because Augustin’s punches aren’t as accurate as his verbal barbs, but by God does he mean them.

Pride and penance. That’s all it is.

He’s old now, and he’s spent the last ten years making the Aeros into Cup contenders, and a family on top of that. One more year, and he’ll be done, so he spends the summer dropping in on training camps with his younger players just to make sure that they’re steady on their feet before he goes for his last push towards silver. He hosts a training camp in Boston that most of them attend, and flies out for the ones that can’t.

That’s how he ends up in Seattle in mid-July visiting Kevin Mitsuya, whose persistence in keeping touch with old teammates is only matched by his defensiveness of his new ones. If Jason had his way, he’d have made sure that Mitty retired an Aeros legend, but he doesn’t get to choose. He can only watch.

“It’s great to see you, man,” Mitty says as he welcomes Jason in, “How’re your kids doing?”

“They miss their uncle Kevin,” Jason ribs, accepting a beer as they sit at the kitchen island. It’s nice to be in neutral territory: the Aces and Aeros are both southern expansion teams with everything to prove, and Vegas is Augustin’s turf now. Jason knows where he’s not welcome, and the ravages of the desert sun are nowhere to be found this far north. “By the way, do you like it up here?”

“The weather is an acquired taste, but I like being near the ocean,” Mitty laughs. He’s shaved his playoff beard by now, and he looks younger than his twenty-six years, still like a fresh-faced rookie. “Why, are you looking to move out of Houston?”

“Maybe,” he has lived in Texas for almost twenty years now, from draft to retirement, which is practically unheard of. He could no sooner remove it from himself than cut off an arm, but he’s never lived anywhere else, never seen what he might be missing. And it’s not as if he doesn’t have the money. “Maybe Boston, and a summer cottage on the coast. I just want my kids to be able to frolic in a forest.”

“Careful,” Mitty snorts, “They might think you’re Bigfoot and shoot you. I just have to lock the garden gate and then we can go. Are you sure you don’t want to stay over tonight? I have a guest room.”

“Didn’t you say your fiancee is flying in from England tonight?” Jason laughs, “No thanks, Mitty. I don’t want to hear that.”

“We aren’t that loud,” Mitty mutters as he steps outside the sliding door and descends the balcony stairs. Jason stands and stretches his aching limbs as he peers around the kitchen. Mitty only lives here for three or four weeks during the off-season: the rest of the time, he rents out this fully-furnished home to students at the nearby university for a fraction of the cost of living. He’s just that kind of guy.

He peers at the fridge once he’s done rinsing out his beer bottle in the sink. Kayla is a snoop, and she likes to say that the best way to know something about a person is by looking at their fridge and in their garbage can. There are some things left over from the recently vacated summer students; mostly letters and photographs, a couple post-its about groceries. He spots an elegant, embossed piece of silver cardstock underneath a piece of paper begging someone named Gemma to replace the empty milk carton and lifts it to get a better look.

A proverbial bucket of ice water dumps itself over his head. He doesn’t read the rest.

It’s not so much that it’s an open secret in the league that Kent Parson isn’t straight, but he is a captain beloved by his teammates, even the ones that leave him eventually, and they’ll unsubtly jump to his defence before logic can warn them not to give away the whole gambit. Jason got an inkling to the reason behind Parse’s permanent bachelorship when a freshly traded Oliver Bloom landed in his dressing room at the start of the season, immediately ripped into Rathers for calling Parson a princess, and refused to make peace until he received an apology.

“Hey, I- shit.”

When he looks up, Mitty’s face is pasty-white, his lips almost bloodless. He looks terrified, and something in Jason’s gnarled, old, bitter heart cracks.

“I meant to take it down,” Mitty says, scrambling over and yanking the invitation down so that the magnet hits the floor with a clatter. “Shit, I- you aren’t supposed to know. Not you specifically, they wanted it to be quiet- I’m only really going because I’m dating his sister, you know-”

“Mitty,” Jason says quietly, “It’s okay. I knew…I knew about Berenger. I won’t say anything.”

“You won’t?” Mitty says, uncharacteristically sharp, “Because I know that there’s bad blood between you and Gus, and I don’t get into it because it’s your business, but they deserve this, you know. They deserve to be happy.”

“I know,” Jason chews on his bottom lip, disguised by the bristles of his beard, “The bad blood between me and Augustin…I can’t fix it. But I never wanted him to be unhappy.”

That’s not entirely true, but he has never wanted Augustin to be lonely.

“Right,” Mitty says, an awkward smile on his face as he lays the invitation on the far end of the kitchen counter, “So, dinner?”

“Lead the way.”

He tries not to think about it until he’s in the cab back to his hotel. Kent and Augustin, dating. Kent and Augustin, not just dating, but getting married. There are always rumours going around, but he never thought that they were anything substantial. Jason saw what he wanted to see: Augustin with a captain finally willing to defend him unconditionally, on a team willing to accept him with all his raw, sharp edges. He thinks maybe that he should have known, from the closeness and the trust, the on-ice chemistry and off-ice reliance that Augustin only ever has with the people he loves most.

Still, he comes to the conclusion that there was really no way to know for sure. Kent did for Augustin in his first year with the Aces what he would do for any of his teammates, and is otherwise intensely private. Augustin’s trust is a hard thing to earn, because once he gives it, it can only be broken by shattering it into a million pieces.

There was a time, a long time ago, when he thought he’d be behind Augustin at the altar, wearing an ugly suit and an itchy boutonniere, and he knew that the person on the other side wouldn’t be a woman no matter what happened.

Maybe it’s just nice to be half-right.

“Hi Jason. It’s…it’s Augustin. I just, um…wanted to let you know that I got your present. I, euh…I know you didn’t sign the card, but you’ve never really been that subtle, and Kevin Mitsuya is a terrible liar, so…I don’t really know why I’m calling. To say thanks, I guess. Kent says thanks as well. I’ll see you in Houston in November. Um…tell Kayla I said hello? Alright. I, uh….bye.”

When Florian was drafted in the first round by the Las Vegas Aces, his brothers called him and asked him if he had met Kent Parson or Augustin Berenger yet. He hadn’t even left the arena.

Both of them text him afterwards though, while he’s at dinner with his family. He reads them out, and his parents help him puzzle out a polite and enthusiastic response that doesn’t scream desperation. Already, he’s gotten a feel for who they are, even from so far away.

Kent Parson: welcome 2 the team, flower!!! call if u need anything. not kidding.

Augustin Berenger: Hey Florian, it’s Augustin Berenger, I got your number from Coach Desrosiers at RN. Feel free to call me or Parse if you ever need anything, he forgot to tell you that he’s the one who texted you just now.

Kent Parson: this is kent parson btw.

Two and a half years later, his brothers get their wish; Florian squeaks his way onto the regular roster after his last season in Rouyn-Noranda and another in Reno. He gets two phone calls after the preseason camp is over; one from the general manager, and one from Augustin Berenger.

“You need a place to stay?” Augustin ends up asking once they’ve talked about the results of training camp and Florian’s time in the Q, “You should stay at my place. I have a spare room, I’ll set it up for you.”

That’s how Florian ends up living in the guest bedroom of his alternate captain and childhood idol for his first NHL season. He still has a Berenger Habs jersey, which he makes sure to hide under his bed when he moves into the apartment. He ends up not having to: Augustin lets him have his privacy, and isn’t even in the apartment much at all. Florian jokes during preseason camp that he’s the landlord and Augustin is the tenant, and Augustin just laughs along.

It’s not until he goes to Kent’s house for a start of season party that he realizes where Augustin spends most of his nights. Maybe it’s because he accidentally drags his girlfriend into one of the bedrooms and sees familiar glasses on the bedside table, but he’s really too drunk to remember the particulars of how he finds out that Augustin has a room at Kent Parson's house.

He wakes up hungover and doesn’t think to question it. Obviously, Kent lets his alternate sleep over. When Florian was captain, he had his alternates stay the night all the time. Besides, Kent has NHL superstar money to kick around, so there’s no need for anyone to sleep shoulder-to-shoulder on the floor.

Kent comes over when Augustin isn’t gone, for short periods of time where they mostly bicker in the kitchen because Augustin has his favourite pans here and won’t let Kent hold his fancy Japanese kitchen knives. Once, Florian offhandedly mentions that he’s allowed to use them, and times Kent’s outraged rant at thirty-seven and a half minutes.

“I’m going to disconnect the hot water from your bathroom,” Augustin says darkly at the twenty minute mark.

“How was I supposed to know that this would happen?” Florian replies, a pillow pressed to each side of his head. “I just got here.”

“Don’t think you can get away that easily,” Kent jabs in surprisingly proficient French. “And, you know what, that’s another thing-”

“Oh my God, Kent,” Augustin shouts, brandishing his knife, “I’m actually going to kill you if you say the words ‘knife’ or ‘pan’ one more time.”

“You guys argue like an old married couple,” Florian mutters.

“Tell that to the old ball-and-chain,” Augustin retorts, furiously chopping onions.

“Yeah, I love you, too,” Kent spits angrily, “Give me the remote, Flower. We’re going to watch Ghostbusters. The 2016 one.”

“Oh, fuck you!”

In November, Florian’s girlfriend breaks up with him. She’s back in Quebec, and the long distance has been getting to them both lately, but they’ve been together since Florian was sixteen and he thought that if they could make it through this season, they could’ve survived it. He was going to propose at her university graduation and everything, and now all he can muster up the energy for is hockey. He stops shaving, cutting his hair, wearing nice clothes. It’s pathetic, but when is love not some form of pathetic?

“Uh,” Augustin says with an edge of panic when Florian finally explains his slovenly appearance, a week after the breakup. “Right, uh…sorry to hear that.”

Kent, Mitsuya, McCandles, and Jansing show up that evening to force Florian to play video games with them. None of them mention the breakup, even though Flicker tries and fails not to bring up relationships as they play their way through some new adventure game that Mitsuya brought.

“You just gotta go for someone closer to home, makes everything easier. I mean, how many times have Kent and-”

“Shhh,” Kent replies sharply, eyes trained on the screen, “You’re going to make me fuck up my turn.”

Eventually, Florian begs off so that he can wallow in his misery without being looked in on. He lies on his side facing the apartment window and watches the sun set as the rest of the Aces slowly leave Augustin’s apartment. The sky is gold, the same colour as her hair. He wonders if she misses him yet.

It’s probably a good thing that Kent confiscated his phone a couple hours ago.

The sun is nearly below the horizon when Florian hears Augustin sigh loudly from the living room, followed by the sound of the front door shutting. “Every year, I remember how terrible I am at this.”

“Hey, you did great,” Kent says with uncharacteristic fondness, his voice muffled by the bedroom door. “There’s only so much we can do. Swoops has always been way better at this shit than us. God, I wish he was still here.”

Augustin’s voice is wry, “I think Angie might kill us if we take her trophy husband from her just because we can’t deal with a heartbroken rookie.”

Kent laughs as he says, “It would be so I could stop hearing his fucking moping over not being able to eat poutine too, if that helps.”

Florian knows Jeff Troy only from the ruckus he had caused in Montreal by taking a massive pay cut to be with his wife, herself alternate captain of the Montreal Victoire. There’s still a Troy-sized hole in the lineup, and in the dressing room stall that Florian is trying desperately to fill.

He gets out of bed and creeps over to the door. Kent hid his phone in the dresser by the doorway, and the couch faces away from the hall. If he can be quiet, maybe…

“I mean, I guess it’s good practice,” Kent rambles as Florian struggles not to let the floorboards squeak under his six-foot-five frame, “Dealing with all these teenage hormones and mood swings. I mean, could you imagine how we’d deal with our own kids if we didn’t have a built-in practice dummy every year? Jeff says that-”

“What?” Augustin asks. Florian freezes an inch from the doorway at the sharpness of his voice. “What did you say?”

Kent barrels on heedlessly, “That Jeff keeps complaining about not being able to eat poutine because of his diet plan.”

Augustin’s voice is the kind of intense that Florian has only ever heard during tied-up games with a minute left in the third, “No, the other thing.”

“That it’s good practice for dealing with- Oh my God,” Kent trails off, and then says pitifully, as if one wrong word will set off a bomb, “That’s not what I- well, I mean- okay, so- fuck. Do I want kids?”

There’s a minute of stunned silence, and Florian expects Augustin to make some sort of joke. He waits patiently in the thick, awkward quiet for the punchline. All he gets is Augustin, weakly saying, “Do you?”

“I mean,” Kent’s voice is frantic now, at a pitch that Florian has never heard his calm, collected captain reach, “I thought about it for a little bit after the wedding, but we still pretend we don’t live together, and I was thinking, like, that’s really gonna fuck up a kid, but also kids don’t really notice anything before they’re three, but also the entire world is going to notice if I suddenly have a kid-”

“Kent,” the sofa creaks, the telltale shuffle of someone shifting against its cushions, “Please breathe.”

Kent takes a deep, shuddering inhale, and then exhales. He says, with only a miniscule tremble in his voice. “I want kids, Augustin.”

Florian blinks once, twice, as the words sink. It sounds like they mean that they want a kid together, like they’re together. There is a small smattering of quietly content gay guys in the league these days, and Florian knows that Kent is one of them because Mitsuya mentioned walking in on him with his boyfriend once and Kent had laughed. But he’s never met, or even thought to ask about…

His mind returns to the glasses on the bedside table, and he curses himself for missing so many obvious clues. There is a silver ring on the chain that Augustin always wears around his neck, and another ring on a leather cord that Kent always has around his left wrist except for when he plays, one that he went crazy looking for when he thought that he lost it on a roadie in Detroit.

I thought about it a little bit after the wedding.

Here he was thinking that they were talking about Angelique Berenger and Jeffrey Troy’s wedding, like a fucking moron.

“You want to have a kid with me,” Augustin says slowly.

“Yeah,” Kent answers, voice raspy, “I have for a while now, but…I wasn’t sure if you did, and I kind of didn’t want to know if you didn’t-”

“Two girls and a boy,” Augustin says abruptly, his voice tense. “An oldest and a youngest sister, a brother in the middle. I figured, best of both worlds, you know? We…turned out alright, so-”

There’s a ringing silence for just long enough that Florian thinks he should make some sort of noise to let them know he’s awake, but he doesn’t. If someone were to ask him why he didn’t, he’s not sure that he’d say. Maybe it’s because he’s embarrassed, or ashamed. Maybe it’s because he wants to give them this.

“You want to have kids,” Kent says slowly, after a pregnant pause, “With me.”

“Yeah,” Augustin sighs, “God help me, I do.”

This is, of course, when Florian’s massive, lumbering frame finally catches up to him. The worn floorboards beneath his feet give an almighty creak that goes on for what seems like an eternity, but must be only a couple of seconds. There’s a ringing silence in the aftermath. Florian hopes that for their next trick, the floorboards will swallow him whole.

“...Flower,” Augustin hedges, “You can come out if you want.”

The floor creaks underneath him with more regularity as he pads out of the bedroom and into the warm light of the living room. Augustin and Kent are curled on the couch facing each other, knees barely brushing, eyes trained on him. Kent is pink, and Augustin is so pale that Florian can almost see his veins.

“How much of that did you hear?” Kent asks. Florian must hesitate for too long, because Augustin sighs.

“You aren’t in trouble, Flower.”

“I just don’t want you to have to tell me something you don’t want to.” Florian says. It stings that they haven’t told him that they’re together, but he reasons that it’s their business, and it almost works. They exchange a glance regardless.

“We didn’t mean it like that,” Kent finally says, “Can you sit? You’re so tall that it freaks me out.”

It’s not the first time that someone has said this to him, so Florian sits on the coffee table, which is made of solid wood and easily bears his substantial weight. Kent blows out a breath once the joints stop creaking, probing his forehead lightly, “It’s not you, kid. It’s just a big secret to keep, and we like the quiet. It makes things easier.”

“Could you imagine?” Augustin mutters, disgust staining his voice, “Christ, the fucking circus they’d put us through if they found out we were married, I’m nauseous just thinking about it-”

“Okay, calm down,” Kent interjects, “But, like, yeah. Yeuch.”

Florian can’t help but laugh, “I mean, I was only a little offended, but I’m glad you aren’t as big into PDA as Jem and his bird.”

“Oh, God,” Augustin buries his face in his long-fingered hands, “If Kent had his way-”

“Jesus fuck, I can’t do anything in this goddamn house,” Kent mutters, though he’s smiling slightly now, “How’re you feeling now, by the way?”

“I believe in love again,” Florian deadpans, but finds that he’s telling something like the truth. Love is a beautiful thing. It overcomes adversity, it never bows in the face of tribulation. It transcends distance and time. “Can I have my phone back?”

“No,” he receives their reply in unison.

Kent shakes his head, “Go to bed, kid. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Florian’s not so sure that he will, but he certainly can’t feel much worse than this. A yawn escapes his mouth as he stands, neck bent to avoid hitting his head against the ceiling beams.

“I think you guys would make great dads, you know,” he says as he ambles towards his bedroom, “You…already kind of are.”

“Thanks, Flower,” Kent says quietly, “You’re gonna have to babysit, you know.”

“Dope,” Florian replies, “I love kids.”

“Christ, Kent, he can barely babysit himself,” he hears Augustin hiss as the bedroom door shuts, and yeah, that’s not an entirely inaccurate statement.

The next morning, Augustin is cooking breakfast when Florian stumbles out of his bedroom half-asleep. He holds up Florian’s phone without turning around, “You had a phone call.”

Florian dives for his phone, and his heart plummets when he sees that he has missed calls from his mother and younger brother, no doubt calling to ask how the fuck he managed to fumble the most beautiful girl in the world. He must visibly wilt, because Augustin makes the most sympathetic face that Florian has ever seen.

“It’s gonna be okay, kid,” he says in French, “Your first love is…it’s always hard. Losing it is harder. But it turns out in the end, okay? I promise.”

“He’s right,” Kent says as he emerges from Augustin’s room in an overlarge t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, hair mussed and stubble patchy. “It’ll turn out in the end, trust me.”

Florian watches as Augustin leans into Kent’s shoulder and presses a kiss to the top of his head, Kent slipping a hand into the back pocket of Augustin’s jeans, “Guys, come on. Right in front of me, on a day like today?”

“Sorry,” Augustin says. Kent doesn’t look contrite at all.

“It’s good practice,” he says, lacing his fingers through Augustin’s, “For embarrassing our kids.”

Jess Tanaka has only been out of university for a year when she gets the call from the Las Vegas Aces. The public relations officer on the other end of the phone sounds as confused as she feels when he says, “Kent Parson wants to set up an interview with you.”

There’s a lot that’s strange about this. Jess covers the NHL Eastern Conference beat for an online sports media startup, and Vegas is about as far from that as it gets from her wheelhouse. She asks if the Aces PR meant to call her colleague who covers the West, and is told, “No, he asked for you by name.”

So Jess packs her camera bag, her laptop, and a single stand light, and flies out to Las Vegas. The entire flight, she wonders why they’ve chosen her.

If the rumours are to be believed, Kent Parson is retiring after this coming season. He’s almost forty now, and after his last knee injury, his once-godlike speed has waned significantly. The Aces might make the playoffs this year, but they won’t win. Could he be announcing Berenger’s replacement as alternate captain? Officially announcing his own retirement?

But none of that explains why they called her.

She lands at McCarran and sees a man in a dark uniform standing by the baggage claim with her name on a sign. She follows him into a dark car far nicer than anything she has ever or will ever ride in again, with water bottles in the passenger doors and enough air conditioning to combat the ferocious desert heat.

“You get used to it,” the driver smiles in the rearview mirror as she tries to surreptitiously fan her underarms dry, blazer crumpled in a pile on the seat next to her.

“The heat, or the car?”

“Both.”

She expects him to pull into the parking lot of the Aces arena, and privately worries when they get off the highway two exits early and end up in a small residential neighbourhood sheltered with palm trees and thin shrubs, the lawns stained various shades of brown from the sun. The driver pulls to a stop in front of a modest, old-fashioned two-story house with a veranda and a small front yard covered in the shadows of acacias and desert willows. It only takes one look at the Aces flag hanging over the threshold and the hockey net in the driveway for her to understand where they are.

“It’s at his house?” she asks, mouth dry. The driver looks at her in the mirror once more.

“Don’t let it scare you, kid. He’s not nearly as scary as the other one.”

There’s an older woman sitting on the shaded porch on a swinging bench, wearing a no-nonsense white pencil dress and sipping iced tea from a damp flower-shaped glass. When Jess steps nervously onto the steps, she pulls the straw from her red mouth with a pop and crisply says, “My name is Jenny, I’m Kent’s agent.”

“I’m Jess Tanaka. We spoke on the phone,” Jess agrees, struggling to balance her equipment on her shoulders and hoping the sweat isn’t showing through her blouse, “Where should I set up?”

“In the living room, straight down the hall,” Jenny hums, her legs gently pushing the porch swing back and forth, “He’s taking a call in his study, but he’ll join you in ten minutes,” she leans her head back, closing her eyes, “Everything is off the record unless otherwise explicitly stated.”

“We agreed that everything would be on the record unless explicitly stated,” Jess responds before her self preservation instinct can kick in, “I mean, in our phone call. I’m a journalist. I can’t just…he has media training, right? What do I call him, by the way?”

Jenny peers at her, unamused, “Just don’t call him late for dinner. Take your shoes off inside.”

The house is clean and modest, with an artistically tiled foyer and the AC on so high that she has to put her blazer back on as she slips her shoes off by the shoe rack and pads deeper in. The hallway is lined with photographs: one from each of the four Aces Cups that Kent Parson has won, in three of which he shares the frame with Augustin Berenger. There are pictures from various Olympics and tournaments, and more average ones; Parson and Berenger in a grassy field with Jeffrey Troy and Angelique Berenger, Parson and Red Wings alternate Devon Smith posing at the Grand Canyon, a picture of Parson with Atlanta’s Jeremiah Jansing and the Aces’ own Kevin Mitsuya smiling on a beach.

Something moves upstairs, and she hastens into the living room, homey with its lush carpet and handmade wooden furnishings. There’s a loveseat across from an armchair by a bookshelf, and she begins to set up her lights and camera facing the armchair, nerves bubbling in her stomach as she hunts for an outlet. She’s so wrapped up in rehearsing what she’s going to say that she doesn’t hear the footsteps descending the stairs.

“You alright down there?”

She nearly bumps her head on the coffee table, and her face is palpably red as she sits up, “Oh! Sorry, I just need an outlet for the lights, shit- I mean, crap. Sorry.”

Kent Parson grins down at her, hands stuck in the pockets of his khakis. His hair is combed and gelled neatly, a thousand varying metallic shades over smile-crinkled eyes that are a colour twenty years of intense internet debate have not managed to properly name. Today, they look green in contrast with his loose linen shirt.

Her mouth is suddenly very dry as her childhood crush returns in full force. She stands and sticks out her hand, hoping it isn’t sweaty. “Jess Tanaka.”

“Kent Parson,” he shakes it, and she does her best not to pinch herself afterwards, “Don’t worry about the language. I’ve heard far, far worse. Hey, would you mind pointing the camera this way instead?” He points at the loveseat.

She shrugs, “Sure thing. Wherever you want.”

He helps her to change her setup, and even manages to dig out a power bar so that she doesn’t need to unwind her extension cord. At some point, a glass of water is set down on the table for her when she isn’t looking, and he tries to offer her snacks every few minutes, which she politely declines.

A cat winds itself around her ankles just as they finish setting up the lights.

“That’s Kit,” Kent says as he settles into the loveseat, leaning against the right armrest with an easy smile as she fusses with the lighting levels. “She’s an old lady, but she’s still got some fight left in her. She’s twenty-one years old this year.”

“Impressive,” she says, squinting at the camera screen. “Do you want me to take a test clip so you can see how you look?”

Kent waves her off, grinning down at his cat as she leaps gracefully onto the coffee table and curls up in the wide, decorative wooden bowl sitting on top. “I know how I look by now.”

One question itches under her skin, and she manages to hold onto it until she’s sitting in the armchair, camera and microphone rolling, pad of questions in hand and far more of them crowding her mind.

“Can I just- I mean- why me, sir?”

Kent smiles. His face is surprisingly youthful, he looks a decade younger than he is. There’s a silver band on his left ring finger, but he’s also wearing a bunch of simple silver rings, so she shunts aside a secret wife or torrid affair. That leaves retirement rumours, captaincy issues, trade intentions.

“Just call me Kent. I asked my sister if she knew any promising journalism students, and your name came up first,” Kent says, snapping her back to reality, “She was your TA for, uh-”

“Postmodernism and the Power of Poetry,” Jess says, flushing bright red. She can’t believe that Beth Parson even remembered her name, let alone kept track of her career path. “Oh my God, I didn’t think- I mean, thank you.”

“Yeah, no sweat,” he replies easily, combing his hair back with his fingers. The cowlicks have threads of silver through the gold, which shine under the stand light, “Anyways, I thought this might give a kid like you a big break, get your career started, you know?”

She nods wordlessly. So this is bigger than a captaincy or retirement announcement, but Kent’s all smiles and his agent isn’t in the room, so it must not be a bad thing. She’s trying to figure out what the hell is going on as she prepares all her things when the front door opens and shuts with a snap.

“Honey, I’m home!” A familiar accented voice calls down the hall, followed by Augustin Berenger in the flesh. He looks younger than his years as well, though a year of retirement has filled out his slender, athletic frame somewhat, and he’s got facial hair now, a trim beard kept close to his face.

“Oh, I didn’t know-” Jess snaps her mouth shut because Kent obviously isn’t listening to her, too busy watching Berenger toss a set of keys onto the dining table.

“Hi, sweetheart, you’re late,” he says, and Berenger smiles as he lopes over.

“Hi, darling, I got stuck in traffic,” he replies, and Jess thinks for only a moment that this is all a bit of ribbing between teammates, just before three-time Stanley Cup champion Augustin Berenger leans in and kisses four-time Stanley Cup champion Kent Parson full on the mouth.

Jess feels her jaw drop. Not a secret wife.

Augustin draws back after a brief moment which feels like an eternity, and spots her gormless expression. He looks crestfallen, “Oh, you haven’t told her yet.”

Kent is grinning like a fiend, cheeks slightly pink. “I was waiting for you.”

Augustin holds out a hand to her, “Augustin Berenger. Sorry about that. I’m typically far more polite.”

Kent mutters something discontented under his breath as they shake, but Augustin ignores him.

“Jess Tanaka,” she clears her throat, and offers in spite of all her journalistic thirst for knowledge, “That can be off the record, if you want.”

“Why would it be off the record?” Augustin asks, sitting with a sigh beside his…boyfriend? Husband? She’s finding it very warm in here all of a sudden, and sits in the armchair with a thud as he continues, “This is why you’re here. We’re gay, we’re married, and also Kent is re-”

“Hey, could you give me a fucking minute to say something?” Kent jabs an elbow into the soft part of Augustin’s torso, under his ribs, “This is my interview, asshole.”

“Our interview,” Augustin mutters under his breath, massaging the sore spot, “What’s mine is yours, darling. But fine, go ahead.”

Jess is finding it absurdly difficult to breathe, “Right. Yes, this is…on the record. We’re rolling.”

“Behave,” Kent warns Augustin as they settle easily into the loveseat, just big enough to fit the two of them if one has his arm around the other. Due simply to height, it’s Augustin who leans back, a hand gently rubbing the shoulder seam of Kent’s shirt.

“Do you want to…introduce yourself?” she asks, stumbling over her words. Her notepad of questions is forgotten, simply something for her to rest her hands on. Kent’s laughing at her a little, she can tell, and Augustin pinches his shoulder until he sobers. He addresses the camera with only a little humour.

“My name is Kent Parson and this is my husband, Augustin Berenger.”

Augustin looks smug, “Yeah, that’s right, I put a ring on it, you cave-dwelling internet people. Eat your heart out.”

“Don’t put the cave-dwelling part in the article.” Kent adds. “Please.”

“Okay,” Jess says, swiping a hand over her mouth so that she doesn’t laugh, “How long have you two been married?”

“Nine years last week,” Kent says promptly, “We got hitched just before pre-season camp, and our honeymoon was the fuckin’, uh…was it technically our Global Series games in London and Belfast?”

“It was raining,” Augustin says grumpily, “That’s all I remember. It was raining but we beat the Schooners twice. Also, hitched is such an ugly fucking word. We got married. Just say “married.””

There’s a strange tensity in their muscles, where they are otherwise relaxed and their smiles easy. It must be unconscious, she thinks, and her heart thuds gently in her chest. They are baring their hearts and souls to her, and trusting her to do right by them in the process. This is their legacy, their whole lives, now the responsibility of a twenty-four year old sports writer.

She wonders, perhaps a little foolishly, if this is how Kent felt when he was captain of the Aces at her age.

She asks them questions as they come to her and they answer without hesitation: how long they’ve been together, how many people might know about it, whether it’s affected their careers significantly, how they navigated the minefield of professional scrutiny and personal responsibility. They’re not delivering a love story, though sappy smiles are exchanged from time to time. They’re just telling the truth, as much of it as they can manage.

She doesn’t ask stupid questions, no was it hard? or what was it like to be so alone? Instead, she asks them this: “would you change anything?”

“No,” Kent says without hesitation. He has been holding Augustin’s hand in his lap the whole time, just below the frame of the camera, and he squeezes as he answers. “Nothing.”

“I’d change my haircut, probably,” Augustin muses, scratching the back of his ear idly, “It was a little too long back then.”

She snorts at that, just before asking the question that everybody will want to know. “Why now?”

In the glass sliding door behind them, the sun is growing golden orange as it sinks towards the horizon. The two exchange a look, and Kent says, “Off the record or on the record?”

“Either,” she replies, pen tapping her pad, “As long as you specify.”

“On the record,” Kent continues, “Augustin’s retirement last year means that our relationship being public no longer interferes with our professional careers. We no longer see a reason to keep this private, since the whole thing was entirely fucking inconvenient anyways.”

“Off the record,” Augustin says, looking a little bit smug, “Adoption paperwork is public record, and we’re trying to submit it by the end of the year, so that’ll be out in the world by Christmas. And some journalists are weasels. No offense.”

“None taken,” she agrees. Every rose has its thorns, after all. She can’t help but smile, “Congratulations.”

Kent beams. “Thanks. And before you ask, yes, the kids will play hockey.”

The rest of the interview goes smoothly after that. Kent helps her pack up her equipment, and asks as he’s winding an extension cord around his arm, “Do you want to stay for dinner? We’re having a couple of people over anyways, so one more person won’t be a hassle or anything.”

“I don’t want to intrude-”

“You’re not intruding,” Augustin says from where he’s been lurking by the stove, “We’re inviting you. Kids these days, I swear.”

In the end, it’s the five-hour old bagel sitting in her backpack that she had planned on eating for dinner that seals the deal. “As long as it’s not an imposition.”

It turns out that “a couple of people” are Daniel McCandles, Florian Tessier, and Kevin Mitsuya. Jess struggles to act as normal as she possibly can in front of a room of Stanley Cup winners until Florian sidles up to her, messily shoves a handful of popcorn into his mouth, and mumbles, “You get the story?”

“Huh?” she nearly fumbles her glass of wine, already slippery with condensation. “Oh, uh- yeah. It’s kind of…surreal, you know?”

“Yeah,” Florian snorts, offering her popcorn from another handful, “Just wait until they start arguing about kitchen knives, and it’ll get really real.”

“I can fucking hear you, Florian!” Augustin says loudly from the stove. Florian winks at her, and she takes another sip of wine to hide her flush.

The scene is achingly warm and familiar. Kent and Augustin stand side by side in the kitchen, exchanging insults and sweet kisses like a couple married for thirty years rather than just nine. Jenny the agent comes in once the sun starts to set and makes deadpan comments about Kent’s inability to chop onions without crying. McCandles and Mitsuya loudly argue about the upcoming preseason in the living room, and when Jess corrects McCandles on statistics without even thinking about it, Mitsuya gives her a resounding high-five instead of harping on her for eavesdropping.

She finds a minute to sit in the bathroom, contemplate life, and text her sister: you’re not gonna fucking believe where I am right now

When dinner is ready, they all sit around the massive dining room table, a huge slab of wood that could fit twenty people if everyone crammed together on the benches surrounding it. Nobody sits at the head of the table.

“Toasts!” Kent says avidly once they’re all seated. Florian groans.

“This is so cheesy.”

“Getting old made Parse cheesy,” Mitsuya grins, “Ten years ago, he would’ve never even imagined doing something like this. If the guy I met my first year here ever found out about this, he'd eviscerate you.”

“I don’t care,” Kent retorts, lifting his glass of water, “You’re gonna raise your glass, toast to something, or you’re benched for the preseason. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Don’t think I won’t.” Augustin agrees, “Let’s see you win the Rocket Richard from the bench, you fucking behemoth.”

Jess hides a giggle behind her wrist, and Florian gives a long-suffering sigh. “Fine, but I’m not starting.”

“To Christian Louboutin,” Jenny says abruptly, “And Christian Dior.”

“To the end of an era,” Florian adds, “And to a fifth Lord Stanley for Parse.”

“To being the cool uncle,” Mitsuya grins.

Everyone turns to look at her. Jess stammers for a moment, struggling for something to say.

“To advancing in your career due to nepotism,” she manages.

“Not nepotism. Networking,” Augustin corrects, raising his glass a little higher, “To embarrassing PDA in public.”

“Gross,” Kent grins conspiratorially, meeting Jess’s eyes, “Off the record? To the future captain of the Aces, Kevin Mitsuya.”

Mitsuya’s eyes bug out of his head, “Huh?”

“To the fucking Las Vegas Aces,” McCandles says, cutting off Mitsuya’s spluttering, “The best fucking team in the world.”

Their glasses come together with a chime.

Double or Nothing: Kent Parson and Augustin Berenger Reflects on Their Careers and Life After the NHL
By Jess Tanaka (NHL East).

Kent Parson’s Vegas house is smaller than one might think.

He offers to help set up the lights in the living room, “I always wanted to be an electrician, it’s a shame that all the hockey got in the way.”

There’s very little to introduce when it comes to Kent Parson; Aces captain, four-time Stanley Cup champion, with his name on every trophy that the NHL offers to its forwards. There’s very little to introduce about Augustin Berenger as well; the former alternate captain of the Aces who retired after last season, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and three-time Cup champion. Perhaps, after two decades of watching them dominate NHL ice, we all feel as if we know everything about them.

And yet, Parson and Berenger still have a few aces up their sleeves.

“My name is Kent Parson and this is my husband, Augustin Berenger.”