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“Thanks,” Aiden said, and then hesitated. “If it’s okay with you, could I...come with you to Brossard? To watch?”

There were things happening in Matt’s chest that he couldn’t describe, things he couldn’t even begin to put into words. “Aiden,” he said, finally, “I would love that.”

It wasn’t that things weren’t awkward, because they were a little awkward. Aiden sat at the kitchen table while Matt made him coffee and toast with cashew butter, running his hand through his hair like he couldn’t believe how much of it was missing. With it cut, he looked less like a tragic Arthurian knight and almost like the kid he’d been when Matt had first gotten to know him. There were hints of gray sweeping through it, but the style made him look years younger. It was completely disorienting.

“You keep staring at me,” Aiden said. “Look, I promise, I’m not going anywhere this time.”

“It’s not that.” Matt slid the plate across the table. “I just got used to your mountain man look, you know?”

Aiden laughed, self-conscious, and touched the back of his neck. It was bare again. His hair had been long for long enough that his skin was a shade lighter there, where it had been covered during the summer. “I wasn’t doing a very good job of taking care of myself.” He looked down. “Sometimes it kind of felt like I didn’t deserve to.”

Matt took his own coffee cup and said, carefully, “You’re going to go back to the therapist?”

“Yeah.” Aiden nudged at the toast with one finger. “I owe it to you. But also to myself. It’s...it’s kind of terrifying, trying to think of a way to be happy without hockey, but I’ll never know if I don’t try, right?”

“And it doesn’t have to be without hockey. I know it’s not the same, but if you ever, I don’t know. If you ever want to skate with the team, or suit up for practices, I’m sure—I’m sure I could make it happen. I’d love to be able to get on the ice with you again regularly.”

“Yeah?” The corner of Aiden’s mouth tilted up in an almost shy smile.

“Yeah. Aidy, those times we were able to skate together over the summer? Those are some of the best memories of my whole life.”

“Wow,” Aiden deadpanned. “Pretty sad life, considering.”

“Actually, it’s been awesome. But when we could skate together, it was like the two best parts of it were finally together...you know?”

“Yeah. I do. And it was satisfying as hell to save all of those shots on you.”

“Joke was on you,” Matt replied, taking the empty plate away from him, “I was just using you as a study for shootouts.”

Aiden gave him a sour look. “We were about even on those, all things considered, after that first one where you distracted me.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“You didn’t have to. You were just you. I have eyes , Matthew,” Aiden said, and Matt couldn’t help it, he leaned down to kiss him again, his mouth that tasted of black coffee and cashew and burnt toast.

Aiden did come with him to practice, let Matt rest his hand on his knee as they drove across the bridge to the practice facility. They wouldn’t be able to skate together today—Aiden still didn’t have his own gear, but they could take care of that, Matt thought, already trying to figure out how to get it packed and shipped from New York—but having Aiden in the stands would be a novelty.

It felt right, having him there. Usually, the practices were open to the public, but the lower stands were blocked off and spectators had to congregate by the glass on the upper level. Because Aiden was Matt’s guest, he had made it through the usual security, and was sitting on the bleacher, closer to the ice. Not in the front row, of course, but he was noticeable anyway, in his dark hoodie and leggings, scrolling through something on his phone so he didn’t need to look up at the team as they came through the tunnel and the door to start warming up.

The team didn’t fail to notice, either. Cormier skated up to him. “Cap? Everything cool?”

“Yeah,” Matt said, and looked over at the stands, where Aiden was watching them, a little nervously. Before Aiden had left, again, he’d been around the team, he’d been part of the group chat, but Matt had never really said it. Saying it would’ve made it real; saying it might’ve shone a light on something that wasn’t ready to be revealed. All of that was over now. “My boyfriend decided he wanted to watch us skate after all.”

Boyfriend sounded pretty stupid, considering what Aiden was to him, had been to him over the decades. But it was the only word he had.

Cormier tilted his head to the side, like he was processing the information. He was a big kid from a small town in rural Quebec, and he had a slow, thoughtful way of speaking in English that made him seem a lot older than his twenty-three years. He’d spent a few years in the minor leagues, but he wasn’t going back anytime soon. “It’s still weird to me. Not that you have a boyfriend. Just that it’s him . You are both...probably going to the Hall of Fame.”

“That’s a big presumption,” Matt said, embarrassed. He wasn’t used to it when the rookies said things like that to him, even though he knew that he was kind of a legend to them, for finally bringing home another Cup to Montreal. “A really, really big presumption.”

Cormier shook his head, green eyes crinkled in a smile. “I don’t think so. I mean, if you guys combined your trophy room, it would probably be... I don’t know. Maybe you’d need two rooms. It is difficult to wrap my head around.”

“If you think it’s strange for you, you can imagine how I felt when it happened to me.” It was strangely—good to be able to talk about it like this, in the open, again. He’d felt the same sense of relief when they’d started telling their teams the first time around. The weight of secrecy lifted. Except this time, he didn’t need to worry about it all crashing down around him. “Come on, Rémi, better get in place for the drills before Coach Roy’s ready.”

Aiden was still watching him, and when he saw that Matt was looking back, he smiled.

Even though he’d made the decision to stay, it wasn’t any easier when Matt left for road trips. The empty condo was too quiet. It wasn’t like Aiden had nothing to do: he was still keeping things together, cooking, seeing Dr. Gauthier. Something about leaving and then coming back had been like a light going off in his head.

It wasn’t just his relationship with Matt that he’d had one foot out the door for, it was therapy, too. When he told Dr. Gauthier that he’d been avoiding really trying because he was terrified of what it would mean if he fucked things up anyway, she just smiled at him, the kind of serene smile that wouldn’t have been out of place on the ice.

“It was important that you had this realization yourself,” she said. “I am proud of you, Aiden.”

“Yeah, so,” he said, and swallowed. “Also I think...maybe I want to look into medication? I don’t know if it’s going to be right for me. Or a conceivable long-term solution. But until I can feel a little more...even.”

“That’s absolutely something we can explore together. I can refer you to a colleague of mine who can prescribe.”

“Thank you.” The clawing fear was still there, of the unknown, of failure. But he’d told Matt he was going to do everything he could to be better, and the fact was: he just didn’t know if he could dig himself out of this hole with willpower alone.

“Of course,” Dr. Gauthier said, and then looked down at her notebook. “Is there anything else you’d like to discuss today?”

“The short list, or the long list?” Aiden asked, and settled in for the session.

Later that night after the game, Matt’s familiar face on video chat made something clench in his chest, but he forced it down and made himself smile. “Hey, Matty. How’s the knee?”

“Holding up,” Matt said, with a little grimace. He was already in the bed, shadowed in the dim hotel lights, surrounded by crumpled sheets. It was insane, how good he looked to Aiden just then, the broad expanse of his shoulders and chest, bruised and battered. “I’m probably going to need another round of steroid injections and Toradol if it keeps up like this, though.”

“Don’t push yourself,” Aiden said, even though he knew it was useless. He’d played through so many of those nagging injuries himself, and Matt was even more stubborn about his Iron Man streak than Aiden had been. “If you need to sit, you should tell them you need to sit.”

Matt laughed, the exhausted, adrenaline rush of a laugh you had sometimes after a game. He was half-sitting and half-lying in the pile of pillows, and Aiden wished more than anything that he could be there, that he could curl his body like a comma against Matt’s. “Baby, it’s my contract year. I’m not going to tell them I need to sit.”

“About that,” Aiden said. He swallowed again. His mouth felt dry, which was funny, because his palms were suddenly sweating. “I know it’s not the best time to talk about this, but...are you thinking about next season? Still?”

Matt’s dark eyes were just as tired as his voice, looking Aiden over with a combination of fondness and concern. “I’m thinking about a lot of options. I haven’t made a decision yet, though. It’s just, you know how hard it is to stop .”

“Yes. Well. At least you probably won’t be as bad at retirement as I am.”

“Look—this isn’t a good time to talk about it. I want to do it in person, when I do make the decision.”

The gnawing fear again: would Matt be playing again next year? Would he be switching cities? Would Aiden have to uproot his life again, learn how to survive somewhere new, without even the scarce familiarity of Montreal?

And then he realized, all of a sudden, with the sudden force of a puck to the cage: it didn’t matter.

Wherever they went, however long Matt was away: it didn’t matter.

No matter where they were, Matt would always be coming home to Aiden, and Aiden was going to do what he needed to do to be there when Matt came home. To make it work. Maybe it wouldn’t always be easy. Maybe he’d do a horrible job at that, too. But Matt loved him and Matt was willing to wait for him and maybe Aiden didn’t deserve it at all, but he had it. All that mattered now was what he chose to do with it. That was within Aiden’s power, and it always had been. He’d screwed it up in the past, but now he was looking at the future. Now he could finally look at the future.

Whatever happened, it was going to be okay .

“Aiden?” Matt said, concerned. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I... I just realized something. It’s nothing.”

“You looked like you just saw a ghost. Seriously? You’re good?”

Aiden smiled and said, “Yeah. Okay, Matty. I’ve kept you up long enough, eh? You should sleep.”

Matt’s brow furrowed, like he didn’t quite believe it. “Okay. Hey, Aidy.”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“Yes.” For the first time in a long time, Aiden said, and meant it: “I know. I love you, too.”

After they hung up, Aiden reached for his laptop. There was a folder of pictures he still had on the hard drive that he’d never quite been able to bring himself to delete, even after things had ended. Knowing it was there had always felt a little like a barely healed scab, something that would start bleeding at the lightest touch, even years later. A Pandora’s box that should never be opened.

Aiden was finally ready to open it.

The road trips through the New York and Philly area had always been bittersweet for Matt. When he and Aiden had fallen headfirst into their relationship the first time, it had been a chance to see him, one of the few times they ever had during the year. And then after Aiden had dumped him, it was an exquisite kind of torture, being so close to him but not able to touch. The reminder of the things he’d lost.

So to say it was strange playing in New York without Aiden in the crease was a little understatement. He’d been that one constant, that lodestar. Gabe Walker had done a good job of taking over even though they were big skates to fill. Matt watched him warming up, stretching on the ice, and sighed. He should say something. It was probably going to be awkward as hell, but he should say something.

He skated over.

Gabe looked up immediately, a little wary. “Safaryan,” he said, as he got up out of the stretching position he’d been in so he could look Matt in the eye. This close, Matt could see so clearly how young he really was.

“Hey,” Matt said. “Sorry. I didn’t want to make this weird. I just... Aiden told me what you did. When he left. When he came home.”

All around them, both teams were in the midst of stretches and the beginning of the warm-ups. The skaters whizzed by; at the corner of his hearing Matt could hear the steady bang of pucks against the boards.

“Home?” Gabe hunched a little forward. “He did, huh.”

“Yeah. I wanted to say, I don’t know. Thank you. I’m sorry about...everything, you know. But thank you. He’s...it’s meant a lot to me to have him back.”

“Yeah.” He sighed, an exhale that Matt saw rather than heard. “You’re welcome. I just—promise me one thing, Safaryan.”

“Yeah?”

“Take good care of him. I fucking love that guy, probably more than you know. And he needs someone to take good care of him. Even if he’d never say it. You leave him on his own and he’s...well. You saw how the last year went. He’s kind of a disaster. Promise me.”

“I promise you,” Matt said. It was almost comical, talking about Aiden that way, like he was a starving rescue dog. But in a way that’s what he had been when he came to Montreal over the summer, raw and more than a bit feral, ready to snap at any hand offered in kindness. Matt thought about him in the condo, how comfortable it was coming home to Aiden’s warm body in his bed, Aiden’s cooking in the kitchen, Aiden’s company on the couch. “I promise. I’ll take really good care of him. I do .”

Gabe cocked one eyebrow. “Okay. Hey. We probably shouldn’t be talking like this, huh? I don’t want to get to know the guy whose ass I’m gonna kick in like twenty minutes.”

“Shit,” Matt said, and laughed. “You sure have a high opinion of yourself.”

“Earned,” Gabe said. He smiled, and Matt could see immediately why Aiden was so fond of the kid. “Okay. Just as long as you know what you got yourself into.”

The game was a tough one. No matter how hard he tried, Matt couldn’t get one past Gabe, and it was clear that Gabe was taking no small amount of satisfaction in blanking him. The rest of the team stepped up, though: it was a nail-biter that went down to OT. And then one of Gabe’s teammates banged in a rebound past Fourns, an angle he had no chance of reaching, while Matt watched from the bench.

He sighed, watching the Libs come out to congratulate Gabe and give him his hugs and helmet taps. Matt could give him that one: Gabe might’ve won the game, but Matt had the guy.

“What’re you smiling about, Safy?” Jammer asked. “We lost .”

“Oh...nothing. Just looking forward to going home, you know?”

The last game in Long Island was agony to get through, because at this point all Matt wanted was to be home with Aiden. It had been a long time since he’d been so eager to just get home after a roadie, and he still wasn’t sure if that was having someone waiting, or whether he was just getting old and tired. Aiden had been weirdly squirrelly in text messages, kept saying that he was busy and couldn’t talk. So the fact that he was getting cross-checked in front of the net by Tyler Gallant, one of the Railers’ big d-men, wasn’t really helping matters.

By the time the plane had landed in YUL and Matt had driven himself home, he was almost bursting with how much he wanted to see Aiden, to touch him, to hold him.

When he opened the door, Aiden was waiting, looking weirdly nervous and shy for someone who’d basically moved himself into Matt’s life months ago, whatever hiccups they’d had along the way. Matt couldn’t stop staring at him: it was still surreal, that he was back here. He was so fucking happy, and still part of him was terrified that Aiden was going to disappear again.

“Aidy?” Matt said. “Is everything okay?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s fine. I just—well, I got you something? Made you something? I hope you aren’t upset with the walls. I don’t have a security deposit to pay you back or anything.”

“What are you—” Matt started, and then he turned and saw the wall. “What... Jesus, Aiden. You did all of this?”

“I hope you like it,” Aiden mumbled, unable to look him in the eye.

Matt’s condo had always had a lived-in, comfortable feel, but it was a little impersonal. He had his pictures from the Cup celebration and some family photos on the fridge, but most of the art that he’d hung on the walls was the kind of stuff you could buy off of the shelf in Homesense. It wasn’t as empty and soulless as Aiden’s pristine brownstone, but it was reflective of the fact that throughout the years, Matt’s life had been...kind of empty.

The wall was the opposite of that now.

While he’d been gone, Aiden had made prints of photos, in varying sizes, and framed and hung them. Just looking at the collection, Matt could feel his heart beating faster, his hands shaking a little. It wasn’t the effort that Aiden had gone through, but the pictures he’d chosen.

They were pictures of Aiden, and Matt, and Matt and Aiden together, from the very beginning when they’d first started hanging out in the offseason through a selfie Aiden had taken of the two of them from last week. Seeing them all laid out like that was overwhelming: he almost couldn’t make his feet work so he could go look at them closer. Seeing them all laid out like that just reminded him how fucking young they’d been when they first got together, how old they were now and how Aiden was still the most important person in the fucking world to him.

“Do you like it?” Aiden said again, sounding worried.

“Aidy,” Matt said, and turned to him. There wasn’t anything he could do except kiss him: swallow up Aiden’s surprised little gasp in his mouth, stroke his thumbs along the line of Aiden’s face, his soft beard and his equally soft mouth. “Aidy, I love it.”

“Oh,” Aiden said, flushed. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t sure if it was too much.”

The oldest picture was one that Matt remembered well. It was after the first playoff series they had dueled each other: Aiden had kept the Libs in it, and Matt had been the only one on the Royal who seemed like he could score on him. The Libs had ultimately won the series, and they had met in the handshake line after. Aiden had said, nice try. He’d meant it as a compliment, of course, even if it hadn’t come off that way. In retrospect it was insane that Matt hadn’t immediately realized that he’d fallen in love basically at first sight, he could see how stunned he looked in the photo of the two of them clasping hands.

There were others.

A selfie in a hotel room at their first All-Star Game.

Matt assembling IKEA furniture in the apartment Aiden had gotten in their first offseason together.

The two of them in London, a daring kiss stolen in an empty side street.

The first night that Aiden had taken Matt to meet his teammates in New York, and they’d spent the whole night chirping him until Matt, in a drunken, righteous fury, had ripped them all a new one, a defense Aiden hadn’t needed but had certainly shown his appreciation for later that night. In the picture, Aiden sat with Matt’s arm over his shoulder in the dark, crowded bar, just enough plausible deniability so that the embrace wouldn’t be noticeable. Matt still remembered how fast his heart had been beating, how sweaty his palms had been, how warm Aiden felt melting against his side. He’d felt like everyone was staring at him and it hadn’t mattered at all.

Their legs tangled together in a hammock during one of those island getaways over the summer, when it felt like the whole world outside of their hotel room didn’t exist.

The more recent pictures. A lot of them.

The sunset from Matt’s condo roof deck.

Aiden wearing Matt’s jersey at a team party.

A picture from karaoke night, one Matt hadn’t seen before, Aiden tucked under his arm and leaning into his body.

Matt, asleep in bed and twisted up in the covers, Aiden’s hand splayed on his shoulder.

“It’s completely insane,” Matt said, “and I love it . I love you .”

“I love you, too,” Aiden said, and seemed like he exhaled for the first time. When Matt held out his arms, he went to them, easily, an embrace that felt like Matt could maybe crack his bones. “I’ve always loved you.”

“Aiden, I just—what made you do this? What did you even...?”

“I was just thinking. About how long you’ve been in my life. How long I’ve been in yours. All of my best memories are of you. Sometimes I think my only good memories are of you. And I just... I know I’ve fucked up a lot. I know it’s not always going to be easy. But I just wanted to show you. Somehow. How much you mean to me. How much you’ve always meant to me. And to tell you, somehow, that I’m not going anywhere this time.”

Matt pulled back, just enough that he could look Aiden in the eye. Aiden’s face, familiar and unfamiliar all at once, a face he’d relearned over the last year. Soon he’d know the frown and laugh lines as intimately as he’d known Aiden in his twenties. Aiden, who looked almost shy, embarrassed by the gesture he’d made.

Aiden had a legacy if anyone had a legacy: the Cups and the individual awards and the hushed way new players coming into New York spoke of him. He’d been the Liberty for so many years. He’d had a legacy; he was probably a first-ballot Hall of Famer now that he was retired. And none of it had helped him. He’d been miserable in retirement, so miserable that even Matt hadn’t known how to help him, and the legacy had been a cold comfort. It had been all Aiden had, and it hadn’t done one damn thing for him.

Matt thought about Marcus Aurelius again: “But look at how soon we’re all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all.” He thought about “everything fades so quickly, turns into legend, and soon oblivion covers it,” and how for the last few seasons he’d been trying to reconcile those ideas with the need to leave something tangible behind in Montreal. Matt thought about Aiden, here and now, and the concrete reminders on the wall, the evidence of the memories they’d made over the years together. How he could never have forgotten Aiden even when he’d tried.

In that second, all of the doubts and questions Matt had had about his future resolved.

“Hey,” he said, “come to bed?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Aiden said, and smiled.

Aiden woke up in the middle of the night, sore and disoriented and way too fucking warm. And then he remembered exactly where he was and what he had done, and realized he felt like this because Matt was plastered against his back, arm over Aiden’s hip. His hot breath tickled the back of Aiden’s neck. Aiden felt like he had been here before and instead of feeling panicked, he exhaled and realized that he would be here again, and again, and again. He shifted to free the arm he’d been lying on and felt Matt stir into wakefulness.

“Hi, baby,” Aiden said. The word felt awkward on his tongue, even though he’d said buddy and meant something else so many times over the years that it was basically the same thing. The sleepy smile on Matt’s face when he heard it was worth it. “Go back to sleep.”

“No, in a minute,” Matt mumbled into Aiden’s shoulder, voice slurred with exhaustion. “Have to tell you something first.”

“Oh yeah? Maybe you should wait until you actually wake up, bud.”

“’M awake enough. Been thinking about it. I’m not doing free agency next season. I’m not playing next season. When the postseason ends, that’s it for me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’m ready. Whatever happens next—it’s gonna be you and me, baby. Together. We’ll figure it out together this time.”

Aiden remembered, suddenly, a question Matt had asked him once, years and years ago. What would make you satisfied? He’d thought he’d figured it out back then, but he’d been young and naive and thought he’d known everything, hadn’t had any idea what the future held in store for him.

Maybe he wouldn’t be satisfied, ever, and maybe he thought he’d figured out contentment before. And maybe he could learn to be content with what he had now.

But what came out of his mouth, with the honesty of exhaustion, was: “Matt, I’m really... I’m really happy.”

“Good,” Matt said, still into his shoulder. His eyes were closing; Aiden could feel the movement of Matt’s eyelashes against his skin, a faint brush that tickled his skin. “Now make me happy and go the fuck to sleep.”

We’ll figure it out together this time.

Aiden trailed his hand down Matt’s back as he felt his breath shift slower, deeper, and smiled.

He went the fuck to sleep.