Chapter Five

September

Matt had known Aiden had done the interview, but he didn’t realize when it was published until a September morning right before camp was due to start, when both of them were woken up by Aiden’s phone buzzing nonstop. Even after Aiden turned off the notifications and sound, they both knew they were still coming.

Matt gave him some space to answer the ones he needed to—telling his parents no one had forced him to do it, responding to congratulations from Gabe—but hung around as long as he could, just in case.

“Is it okay?” Matt asked.

“Well, it’s mostly just family right now. And friends. Just heard from a few guys from my juniors team I haven’t spoken to in years.” Aiden looked down at his phone, like he couldn’t entirely believe it. “Almost all of that’s been...really nice. And my social media’s been mostly fine, but there’s a lot of ‘why can’t they just play hockey’ sort of shit starting to pop up.”

“Ignore it.”

“Honestly, if that’s the worst it gets, I’ll be satisfied.”

Eventually, Matt had to get out the door and start the drive to Brossard if he wanted to hit the ice for practice in time. Aiden hovered in the living room as Matt was packing his bag, and Matt looked up at him. He wanted to say something that would accurately convey the tightness in his chest, but he couldn’t. “I still can’t believe you actually did it.”

“You can’t? Because I did .”

“I know, it’s just...we spent so much time arguing about what this would look like the first time around. It’s just weird as fuck, you know?”

“Yeah,” Aiden said, dry as anything. “Fucking tell me about it.”

“Sorry,” Matt said, softening. He stood, and Aiden bent down to grab his bag, follow him to the door. “Are you okay, Aidy?”

“I’m fine. I think. It just feels weird.”

“It is weird.”

“It’s not as weird as it would’ve been if I did it while I was still playing, I think.”

“Probably not. You don’t mind that I’m not saying anything official yet?”

“No,” Aiden said, so quickly that it actually startled him. “I don’t want things to be worse for you than they’re probably already going to be. I’m sure people will speculate anyway. You don’t...there’s no reason to stick your neck out for me .”

He looked at Aiden again, trying to gauge how he was feeling, what was going on. But Aiden looked the same as ever, in his oversize hoodie and worn-out leggings, the arms of the sweater hanging over his hands. It looked a little bit like he was trying to retreat into his clothes, and Matt couldn’t entirely blame him, even if it wouldn’t have protected him from what would probably be a shitstorm of both supportive and unpleasant comments. Aiden had always been like that: when things got too much, he just sort of...shut down.

Aiden looked back at him, brown eyes unreadable, and finally said, “Hey, you’re going to be late if you don’t get out of the door soon. I’ll have shit ready for you when you come back.”

“Okay,” Matt said. “Thanks.”

He wasn’t sure what it was going to be like, heading into camp. He was fairly sure that his teammates would put two and two together, even the ones who hadn’t been in on the secret the first time around. Whether or not they’d have the balls to bring it up to him was another story altogether.

In the end, Fourns was the one to do it, cornered Matt in the locker room as they were all pulling on the last bits of their gear. “Cap? Got a pretty interesting notification from the Times this morning.”

Matt exhaled. “Yeah.”

“So it didn’t say it exactly, but I can read between the lines. This guy’s living with you?”

“For now.”

Fourns’ eyes crinkled at the corners in the way they often did when he was making a joke. “Man, an American ? I thought you had better taste than that.”

“He’s from Winnipeg,” Matt said mildly.

“Yeah, but he played in America for years. He’s got a house there. It’s basically like being American. Also the amount of times we’ve met them in the playoffs...esti de calisse de tabarnak.”

“Is it going to be a problem with the guys, Fourns?”

The goalie shrugged. “Doubt the younger ones have figured it out. I’m not even sure if Jammer figured it out, or whether he’s just letting you tell him on your own time. I just had some thoughts and I wanted confirmation. Is it gonna be a distraction this year?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Then we’re good.”

Matt thought about telling him that the knee was probably going to be a worse distraction than Aiden could ever be, but he didn’t want to freak anyone out. He just had to take it slow, stretch before the games and not push himself too hard at practice. Maybe he’d be able to get through the season unscathed.

Out on the ice, he felt a little more at ease. Jammer waggled his eyebrows at him under the visor, but didn’t say anything, and Matt was grateful for the ambiguity. The thought of the whole team getting into his business before he was even truly sure what he wanted to say about it, how he wanted to handle it on his own terms—it was a little overwhelming.

It felt better to skate hard, to listen to the short, barked instructions from the coaching staff. By now, the drills and exercises were familiar to him, and he was able to do them almost in his sleep, do them with half of his attention and enough left over to correct the rookies if any of them got out of step. It helped that the three new forwards were focused and competitive, even with Manny Singh buzzing and chirping around them.

“Manny, go easy on the rooks,” Matt said, during a break in the drills.

“Hey, I’m just making sure they have what it takes,” Manny replied, “especially if the line rushes are any indication of how things are gonna shake out during the season. Looks like I’m gonna have Koski as a center and Cormier on the wing, huh?”

“Looks like it.”

“I just have to make sure they can hang,” he said, his eyes wounded. “If I’m out there talking shit, they’re gonna get it back, you know?”

Matt would have pinched the bridge of his nose if he wasn’t wearing gloves. “Go easy on Cormier. That kid is shy .”

“Throwing him into the water’s the best way to get him to swim,” Manny said, with a little sniff. “That’s what my dad did to me when I was a kid.”

“You know, this explains an awful lot about you, Manny.”

Manny shot him another wounded look. “Low blow, Safy.”

“Don’t dish it if you can’t take it, eh?”

Manny made an exaggerated face, nose wrinkled. “ Fine , I’ll go easy on Cormier. Koski’s fair game, though.”

Koskinen, who’d been skating by, came to a sharp stop and looked from Matt to Manny, a little suspiciously. He had very pale gray eyes that were a little unsettling when he looked at you directly. “Are you talking about me?”

“I’ve been telling Manny to go easy on you and Cormier,” Matt said. “He likes to talk. You don’t have to listen unless it’s about on-ice stuff.”

“I have three older brothers, Cap. Nothing he says will bother me.”

“See?” Manny said, smiling his toothless smile. “A perfect match.”

Matt shook his head—even this made him feel more settled, more like himself—and said, “Enough. Any more time chatting, and Coach Roy will be on all of our asses. Come on. Back to work.”

Aiden had told Matt that he was fine, and strangely, he was. The world didn’t feel any different, he was still breathing the same, sitting in Matt’s condo the same, feeling a little rudderless the same.

Well, this was definitely something he would have to talk about with Dr. Gauthier.

To keep himself busy while Matt was at camp, Aiden started meal prepping, which he had generally taken over as his responsibility.

Today he was making a definitely not Jain-approved version of the comfort food his mom used to cook at home, particularly on days he’d not been feeling well, or was coming home from after time away in his billet. Dal bhat, the fluffy rice perfect in its steamer pan, the dal liberally spiced but sweet with jaggery; bateta nu shaak, with the addition of chicken for extra protein, even though Aiden could feel his mother’s anguish across the entire continent. Wheat rotli, carefully rolled into perfect circles every time. That mechanical ability was also thanks to his mother, who’d hovered like a hawk over his and Hannah’s shoulders so many times to correct their motions.

They weren’t finicky recipes, especially because he’d made them so many times, but it was time-consuming. It was something to do, at least.

It helped that Ellie had been emailing him, so while he waited for the timer to go off and put the pot into the oven, he wrote back to answer her questions about positioning and which skates she should get for her sixth birthday.

The correspondence had been a little halting but rewarding: she obviously needed help with some of the writing. Sometimes Jess sent him a picture of Ellie during her practices, small and determined in her pads and cage, and Aiden smiled and saved them to his phone. She had picked 31 as her number for the new team. Aiden’s old number.

Aiden felt—something—about it.

By the time Matt returned from Brossard, the condo smelled like home in Winnipeg and Aiden was chopping up the vegetables for kachumber. Matt’s eyes widened, briefly, when he breathed in. He sighed happily, slouching up behind Aiden to rest his chin on his shoulder.

“Did you read it?”

“Probably won’t,” Aiden said, pausing mid-chop so his shoulder didn’t send Matt’s teeth through his lip. The guy just had no sense of self-preservation.

“Why not?”

“Don’t want to know what she’s got to say about it. Don’t want to see the comments.”

“Fair,” Matt murmured, and pressed his mouth against Aiden’s neck. It wasn’t really a kiss, just a light touch, a declaration of his presence. “You know you can read the article without reading the comments. It was a good one. Thoughtful. Circumspect about certain things. I know she was interested in the Montreal angle, and me , but she didn’t really go into it as much as I thought she would have.”

Aiden shivered anyway. “She probably got the juicier angle from me coming out. Either way, I know , but if the comments are there, it’s hard not to look. So I just avoid the whole thing altogether. Anyway—how’s camp?”

“Fucking weird, knowing it’s maybe the last one. Can only imagine what it was like for you.”

“I didn’t really know it was the last one at the time. I wasn’t... I was focusing on the things I could control.”

“Jesus, baby, you really haven’t changed.”

“I have, though, I came out—”

“You have, you have, I didn’t mean—fuck, Aidy, I’m sorry. Are you okay? With that.”

“I guess so. It’s kind of a relief, in a way, to...not have to tell anyone anymore because everyone will just know. But also I just really hate people paying that much attention to me for things that aren’t hockey.”

“Yeah,” Matt said. He nuzzled his face into Aiden’s neck again, and Aiden’s skin prickled at the sensation of Matt’s beard against it. He had to fight the urge to tip his head back, lean against the solid weight of Matt’s body. “Well, I’m proud of you. Anyway.”

“Thanks,” Aiden said, a weird, swooping feeling rushing through his stomach. The timer went off. “You should, uh, let go of me. I need to finish making the rotli.”

While he waited for Aiden to finish, Matt helped out by washing the accumulated dishes that had built up in the sink. Aiden thought, again, how nice it was to have this: working together in the kitchen, knowing where Matt was going to be so he could pivot around him. The synergy of not needing to tell Matt what to do to help or ask him to move out of the way. It was almost like being on the ice again, knowing where the defender would be waiting for the pass when Aiden scooped the puck up from behind the net. It was almost like it was years ago, but better, because it felt more grounded. Real.

And it was worse because it had to end so soon.

Aiden sighed. “It’s going to be weird going back to New York when—”

“What?” Matt cut him off, and his hands stilled where they had been scrubbing the sauté pan.

“Uh, when I go back to New York, when the season starts?”

Matt turned away from the sink to take Aiden’s arms in his hands, holding tight right above the elbow. His palms and fingers were still wet and soapy, and Aiden’s shirt slowly absorbed the water. The sensation was so uncomfortable against his skin that Aiden almost couldn’t pay attention to what Matt was saying, which was, “Why would you—why, do you want to go back?”

“Wasn’t that the arrangement? I would come for the summer? Well...the offseason’s almost over.”

“No, you should stay, if you want to.”

Aiden stared at him. But Matt didn’t look like he was joking, his hands still digging into the muscle of Aiden’s arm. Aiden said, slowly, “I won’t have much to do when you go on the road. I’m just going to be in your condo, you know. Taking up space. You’re going to be busy with hockey, you won’t want me around.”

“Yeah, but I won’t be on the road the whole season, right? You’re still figuring your shit out, so there’s no rush—you don’t have to go, right?”

Aiden felt, for the first time in a long time, like maybe he was missing something. “I mean... I guess?”

“Okay. Okay.”

And then Matt’s mouth against his, the kiss insistent, the kind of fervor Aiden hadn’t been expecting at all after the quiet night in they’d been having. A surprised noise escaped before he could stop it, but as always, it was easy to give in, easy to allow himself to not think too hard or look too long at anything in front of him. Matt started tugging Aiden’s wet shirt over his head, and he forgot, for a moment, about dinner, about the fall, about anything else except Matt’s hands on him.

welcome to the club officially, Gabe said. it wasn’t a bad article right? allison’s been pretty cool to me too. so if u had to do it that was a good way to go.

Aiden was in bed, aggressively spooned by Matt, who was fast asleep, his hot breath condensed in the space between Aiden’s shoulder blades, half of his body folded on top of Aiden’s. The weight was comforting. Thanks, bud. I still haven’t read it. Probably won’t.

ur so weird. i love reading news abt myself.

That’s because you’re vain as hell.

i know it’s part of my charm. r u gonna be back in nyc anytime soon?

I don’t know.

i can get home opener tix for u. itd mean a lot to me if u could make it.

I haven’t been to a game since I retired and I don’t know how it’s going to feel, but I’ll do my best.

thx, soupy. i miss u. its not the same practicing with knighter.

You got this, buddy.

In response, Gabe sent him back a litany of heart emojis in the Royal’s blue, white, and red.

In the end Aiden was both surprised and not surprised that things died down quickly after the article came out. There had been a bit of a stir when it was first published because there were so few players, active or retired, who were out. It wasn’t as notable now as it would have been if he’d done it at twenty-six and still an All-Star; and he didn’t look himself up on the internet anyway. He got an occasional shitty comment on his social media, but he had gotten used to those anyway after an off night and a hard loss.

Easy to ignore.

It was strange when Matt started playing the preseason games. It was the first time in a long time that Aiden was actually at home watching a game solely as a spectator and not as a child hoping to get there one day or a potential competitor observing his opponents.

The Royal usually played most of their exhibition games at home, but Aiden couldn’t bring himself to go. It was one thing to get out on the ice himself, another thing entirely to watch Matt on it, to hear the bite of skates on the ice and the players shouting to each other, and to have to watch it from the stands with plexiglass between him and the thing he’d loved most in life. He still had to make up his mind about whether he was going to the Liberty’s home opener, but that was a problem for another Aiden.

“I’m sorry,” Aiden said, as Matt got ready to drive over to l’Arène and Aiden helped him grab the shit he had lost track of last minute: his keys and phone and wallet. “I’m, uh, not ready to go to a game.”

“It’s fine,” Matt said, distracted, as Aiden handed him his keys; pressed a quick kiss at the corner of Aiden’s mouth. “You have a standing invite.”

And then he was gone, and Aiden was left alone to figure out what to do until game time. He tried to read one of Matt’s books, because the title was Meditations , which sounded like something he would be into after years of mindfulness and meditation to keep himself on an even keel for games. But it turned out that the book wasn’t about meditations as much as it was some Roman emperor going on and on about the things his family had taught him and things he was thankful the gods had given him. Aiden found himself reading the first page about ten times before giving up. It was hard to imagine meditating going very well with this guy; that was an awful lot of fucking words. He put the book back on the shelf.

But he still felt restless and unsettled. Instead of trying to read more of the book, he decided to work on actual meditation. Aiden put down his yoga mat and stretched his legs out. By the end of his exercise, he was loose and marginally relaxed, although he immediately tensed up when he realized it was almost game time. He had an intense internal debate about whether he was actually going to watch it, but ultimately, he ended up fumbling for the remote.

Aiden watched most of the game from the floor, alternately draped over the coffee table to get a better view of the TV, or fully prone, like he was when Fournier let in a goal and the Royal fell behind. He felt overwhelmed: there was the anxiety of his personal investment in Matt doing well, the anxiety of watching the game, thinking about the way he’d have positioned himself when they showed shots of the goalies, missing the way he could just shift into that calm zone with no thoughts, just reaction. Now it was like the worst of both worlds, with his brain screaming at him about rebounds, and he wasn’t even in the same building to do anything about it.

During the intermission, he lay down on his back between the couch and the table, closed his eyes, and worked on an actual meditation, no thanks to Marcus fucking Aurelius. The rest of the game was less exciting. Matt tied it up about fifteen seconds into the second period. One of the Morin twins slammed home a rebound for the insurance goal five minutes later, and the Justice couldn’t get it back.

Aiden still felt like he couldn’t entirely breathe until the time ticked down and the final horn sounded, and the win song played over the rink speakers.

He hadn’t watched Matt in a postgame interview in years, and only a few since he got the C in his fourth season with the Royal. It was a little surreal. Aiden could see the same person in him, the way Matt always talked about hockey back when they were kids, but now he had a little gray at his temples and his beard, now he had the added weight of responsibility when he answered questions.

There was no smile when he said the necessary things, just that familiar intent look in his dark eyes and a curious angle to the way he cocked his head to better hear the reporters. It was just an exhibition game, but it was also a reminder that the season would be starting in earnest.

Aiden hauled himself to his feet. Matt would be home in a few hours. He should get his head together.

And the rest of him.