Page 4
August
It had been fucking stupid to do it, Matt knew that much. For all of his high-minded talk about going cold turkey he’d just mainlined it instead. After he’d hung up, he couldn’t fall asleep. It was like the rush of adrenaline that he felt after a game, one of the really good games where he was on the ice with a one-goal lead and the goalie pulled as the final seconds ticked down, and the other team just couldn’t even it up.
Those were the kinds of nights he’d always wished that he and Aiden had lived in the same city because he always had the urge to go home and fuck it out. They’d usually had to settle for phone sex.
And now, just a conversation had thrown him off of the rails. He tried jerking off, but that just made it worse, because all he could think about was Aiden that last night in New York, his hands twisted in Matt’s hair and his voice shaking when he told Matt what he wanted. When he begged for it.
All of the complicated emotions he’d felt in New York were still bubbling there under the surface, but for all that he knew it was a stupid thing he’d done and an even stupider thing to hope, he couldn’t help it. Eventually, he got up to wash his hands and splash cold water on his face, and then just got up. He went up the stairs to the roof of his condo building and watched the sunrise and tried to figure out what to do with the rest of his day.
Jammer was back in town earlier than expected. He’d recently broken up with his poet girlfriend and decided that the best way to get over her was to get onto the ice, a thought process Matt could definitely understand.
Matt went to meet him for breakfast near Jammer’s apartment in Old Port. He was well aware he looked like shit. He’d been sleeping badly even before Aiden, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it besides melatonin and CBD gummies and hoping for the best. Maybe Aiden would decide to stop talking to him again. Maybe he could just go back to normal and forget any of it had ever happened.
Ha. That was funny.
“Cap,” Jammer said breezily when Matt met him outside of the crepe spot.
Jammer looked the same he always did: a giant barrel of a man, dead-eyed, tanned and wearing an absolutely ridiculous outfit. Matt didn’t know a whole lot about fashion outside of various brands of athletic wear, and the custom suit shop he had been patronizing since his rookie year. Jammer, on the other hand, liked to experiment. His outfits frequently cost as much as Matt’s mortgage and were always a statement.
Jammer hadn’t been on the team during the breakup either, had been acquired from the Long Island Railers the following year as a rehabilitation project. He’d flourished in Montreal and helped them win a second Cup. And he’d only ever known Matt as a steady, reliable two-way presence, on the ice and off.
“Jammer,” Matt said, grabbing him in a brief but effusive bro-hug. “Sorry about Diya.”
“It’s cool,” Jammer said. He broke away, shrugging, and held the door for Matt. “I get it; it’s hard when you aren’t really cut out to be a WAG. Our schedules didn’t exactly line up, either. Not with her tours and my travel.”
“I know you really liked her, though. So I’m still sorry.”
Jammer smiled his charming, crooked smile at the hostess. Once they were seated, he said, “Probably loved her, but who can tell at all with those things?”
“In my experience, when you’re in love with someone, you know it.”
Jammer’s keen eyes fixed on Matt, and he raised one eyebrow. “Sounds like there’s a story behind that one.”
Matt snorted. They both looked down at their menus. “Well, yes, and no. I guess with my wife, it was pretty clear neither of us had ever been in love. Once it was over and you’re mostly relieved, you know.”
“It doesn’t matter now. I’m very, you know. Accepting. The pain is momentary, but the experience and the memories are forever.”
By now, Matt was used to Jammer’s little aphorisms. “Well, the memories are certainly forever, anyway,” he said dryly, “whether that’s a good thing is really up to the individual.”
“Oh, no. No, even the painful memories are a learning experience.” Jammer was so painfully earnest it was almost too much to handle.
“Jammer, I love you, man, but come on. I haven’t even had a cup of coffee yet.”
Jammer laughed. “Touché.”
Matt ordered a breakfast crepe with eggs and cream cheese and smoked salmon, with a side of potatoes, and Jammer ordered two of them. They ate in silence for a while, which was nice. It was a pleasant spot, huge-windowed and sunny with red brick walls. The tables were a bit too small to comfortably fit two hockey players’ legs underneath, but the food and coffee were good enough that Matt was willing to suffer.
“You look like shit, Cap,” Jammer said, after they had gotten halfway through.
“It’s been...a weird summer.”
“Tell me about it. Rhetorically, and in the empathetic sense that I am also having a weird summer.”
Matt stared at him. “Jammer, you’re one weird fucking guy, you know that?”
“It’s part of my charm.”
He wasn’t wrong, but Matt wasn’t about to give him a bigger head than he already had. He poked at his crepe, suddenly not very hungry.
Jammer’s shrewd eyes saw right through him. “Seriously, though, Cap. Are you good?”
“I’ll be good to start the season. I’m just—have you ever known something’s a bad fucking idea and done it anyway?”
“All the time. Most recently, dated a poet,” Jammer said, sawing one of his crepes with immense satisfaction. “Pretty good couple of years. Best sex of my life. Pretty sure there’s gonna be a poem about me in her next book, though, so that sucks. Would I do it again? Every time.”
Matt pushed the crepe across the plate and frowned. While Jammer ate, he took out his phone and composed a text message.
Aiden woke up later than usual. He worked his way through the morning Routine, with more emphasis on a longer yoga session in the hope that that would help his brain stop screaming at him. The results were inconclusive. When he finished, lying on his back on the mat, he checked his phone.
Matt had texted a picture of the sunrise from the roof deck of what was presumably his condo, and: I couldn’t sleep last night.
Aiden stared at it for a long time. He wrote back, while he waited for his coffee to brew. Haven’t been sleeping much lately myself.
It was strange, talking to Matt in the same way they’d started talking so many years ago, stilted and awkward, overthinking every interaction. Not exactly the same: Matt had spent most of the first few months pulling Aiden’s metaphorical pigtails just to get his attention. This new fragility was different. The worst part was that he wanted it. He wanted it as badly as he’d ever wanted anything, Matt sending him pictures the way he’d always done. It wasn’t real. It didn’t do any good pretending. But god , he wanted it.
Matt said, You can just tell me to fuck off if you don’t want to do this. I’d understand if you don’t.
I don’t know WHAT I want. Things have been kind of fucked over here in case you didn’t notice.
Oh, I did. For one thing, who the fuck decorated your house?
A startled laugh burst out of his mouth before he even realized it was coming. I hired an interior designer because I didn’t want to think about anything.
Looks like they didn’t think about anything either. Hope you didn’t pay them too much. That couch fucking sucks.
It’s pretty terrible, he agreed. Aiden poured himself a cup of coffee and chewed on his lip. Feeling daring, he added, Didn’t hear any complaints from you at the time.
Had other things on my mind, I guess.
Aiden burned his tongue and wondered, yet again, what the fuck he was doing. Are you still in the same condo?
No, my ex got it in the divorce.
He stared at the text message and his fingers itched with the desire to ask about it. He remembered the first time he had seen a picture of Matt’s wife—it was their wedding photos, in a piece in The Athletic about what various Royal players had been up to over the Christmas break. Emily Safaryan had been a very pretty woman, tall and slim and tan, with wavy dark brown hair pulled up in a complicated braid, a distinctive nose, striking light brown eyes that were a similar shade to Aiden’s and dark freckles dusting her nose and cheeks and shoulders. She looked radiant in her wedding dress, smiling over her shoulder at Matt, handsome in his gray suit, in the middle of the dance floor.
Aiden had stared at the picture for a very long time, and then he’d gone out and gotten so drunk that he’d woken up from a blackout in the airport in Montreal. No luggage. No plans. Nothing except a hundred missed calls and three hundred text messages, from the coach, his team, his family, all increasingly panicked and furious. He hadn’t tried to see Matt, or even talk to him: he’d turned right around and bought a ticket back home. It had taken him a really long time to clean up that mess. He still flinched, inwardly, thinking about it.
Sorry.
It’s fine. My new place isn’t bad. A fresh start wasn’t the worst thing.
Matt sent Aiden a brief video, panning around the kitchen in what was presumably his new condo. It was modestly sized, pleasant and modern with industrial touches: exposed pipes and concrete countertops and green plants in every available window space. Toward the end of the video, Aiden caught a glimpse of Matt’s plate, with a half-eaten breakfast sandwich and what looked like a small bowl of fruit, yogurt and granola.
Did you learn how to cook?
Some things stay the same, some things change.
I don’t think that’s how the saying goes.
Matt sent him the eye-rolling emoji in response.
Hey...
Yeah?
I know it’s been a while, and some of the guys knew when it was happening, but do you mind if I tell Gabe? I owe him an apology and an explanation.
It’s fine.
Thanks, Matt.
Yeah. Okay, I have to go to the gym.
Aiden felt a little better after he finished the coffee and ate his toast. He texted Gabe, Do you want to get lunch today?
yes , Gabe responded, almost immediately. u can come over if u want.
Aiden sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to this conversation, but he should probably pull the Band-Aid off sooner rather than later. He also wasn’t looking forward to lunch; any deviations from the Routine made him feel a little sweaty and nauseous, and it had only gotten worse since his retirement, without any external impetus to make him do things he normally wouldn’t. He went to the gym and lifted weights in silence about it for a few hours, but he didn’t feel any better after.
Aiden paid for and picked up the ramen Gabe had ordered from a place not far from his apartment, made his way back to the building and headed up the elevator. It was a modern, shining edifice, something that would have been unthinkable in this neighborhood when Aiden was a rookie. There was a doorman and everything.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, when Gabe opened the door for him.
“Hi!” Gabe took the bag. “Come on in, Soupy. I even cleaned up for you so, like, you should feel pretty special.”
“I already do,” Aiden said solemnly and followed him into the kitchen. If it hadn’t had Gabe in it, Gabe’s apartment would have been almost as soulless as Aiden’s house. But Gabe had personalized it with pictures of his family and colorful prints hung everywhere, and the couch was covered with so many pillows you could barely even sit on it.
He watched as Gabe bustled around, opening the take-out containers and pouring the soups into bowls set up on his kitchen island, spooning the sesame salad and gyoza onto plates, very carefully not looking Aiden in the eye. They sat down at the stools and ate in silence, Aiden mostly pushing the food around on his plate and Gabe stealing glances up at him when he thought Aiden wasn’t looking. Aiden tried to stop his leg from bouncing, but he couldn’t.
“Look, Gabe, I did want to apologize to you for my behavior that night.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do. It wasn’t fair to you, especially since I know you were just concerned for a friend.” Gabe flushed, like he was about to say something else, but Aiden pushed onward before Gabe could get it out. “I did want to offer you an apology, because I was an asshole and you didn’t deserve it, but I also wanted to, uh, give you an explanation because I know that wasn’t in character for me.”
“Okay,” Gabe said, his chopsticks frozen in midair.
“I don’t know if you remember the conversation we had last year, when you asked me if I’d ever dated another player.”
“Of course I do.” The tips of Gabe’s ears were flushed darker, and he couldn’t look Aiden in the eye.
“And I told you that I had, and it hadn’t ended well?”
“Yeah? Oh, shit, you were talking about him ?”
“Yeah. We used to...well. We were together for almost five years.”
“ What —I’m—” Gabe stared at him, speechless for the first time since Aiden had known him. “ What? ”
“It was the first time I’ve really seen him off the ice in over a decade. I’m sorry. Like I said, it wasn’t fair to you. It was just a shock, and I wasn’t prepared for any of it, especially not after drinking.”
Gabe looked down at his ramen again. “I mean, I guess, if it was still that bad after all this time. It must have been really serious.”
Aiden had one of those memories he wished wouldn’t surface at such inopportune times but that he couldn’t seem to stop having. Matt in bed with him, rolling over with his stupidly determined expression. Taking Aiden’s chin in his hand, forcing him to look. Well, why shouldn’t we get married?
“Yes. But I was young and stupid, and I fucked it up, and now here we are. But I still shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I won’t do that again, I promise.”
“I forgive you, obviously,” Gabe said, still a bit flushed. “Especially since you bought me lunch.”
No matter how Aiden tried to change the subject, the conversation was still awkward after that, Gabe obviously wanting to ask more but holding back out of either embarrassment or respect. Twisting the wrapper from his chopsticks in a tight spiral, he looked from the half-eaten food to Aiden and back. “But it was ten years ago, right, you don’t still have, like, feelings for him, right?”
Aiden shrugged, uneasy, his fingernails digging into his palm. “Not that kind of feeling. Okay. Let me help you clean up.”
He could feel Gabe’s eyes on him the entire time.
Later that evening, alone in his home again, Matt asked, “So what the hell do you even do in your spare time these days?”
Aiden had known it was a bad idea, but after leaving Gabe’s apartment, he had been seized with the unaccountable, intrusive thought that he needed to talk to Matt. He spent most of the afternoon trying to talk himself out of it, but after he made dinner and cleaned up, he finally gave in. He’d called and Matt had picked up almost immediately. They had talked about mostly nothing for the last half an hour. Aiden hadn’t exactly forgotten how much he liked just talking to Matt, but it was strange to be reminded of it as he was actually doing it.
Aiden, sitting on his roof deck, stared out at the horizon and its riot of oranges and pinks. “It’s all spare time. Absolutely nothing. Today I walked home from Gabe’s just because I had nothing else to do. It was five miles? I don’t know. Took me an hour twenty.”
“So retirement’s not going well.”
“Fuck, no. Try to sign somewhere if you can, because it’s just mind -numbing.”
“You know...about that.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure if our GM is really interested in bringing me back after this season. We’re tight on cap space, and I guess the optics of paying me a league minimum and shoving me on the fourth line after everything I’ve done for them—it’s easier to let me go.”
“Matt...”
“It’s fine. I was prepared for it. I was even thinking that maybe they’d try to flip me at the trade deadline, if I’d agree to waive my no-move clause. The thing I wanted to tell you is that my agent said that at the last deadline, anyway, the only team that really seemed seriously interested were the Libs. And obviously, there’s the NMC, but I told him that either way, I’d retire before that happened.”
Aiden had to take a minute to process that. The last and only time he’d played with Matt was the Winter Olympics after they’d broken up, and they hadn’t been talking at that point. “This was—”
“Before we—all of this. Yeah. But I still... I don’t know. It wouldn’t feel right playing there if you weren’t. New York’s yours .”
“Not anymore.” It wasn’t sad or bitter, it just was.
“It’ll always be yours, Aiden.”
Aiden wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his anymore, no matter how softly Matt said it; that the worst thing about retirement was the feeling that a city that used to bring him so much joy mostly felt like a prison, when he missed playing so much it felt like a cramp in his entire body. But he was already in over his head.
He thought about his own father, a former professional hockey player who’d never really been the same after his retirement. Dad had only ever come alive when they were watching games on TV, when he accompanied Aiden to the rink and watched him battling his way onto rosters and, eventually, into what was probably going to be a Hall of Fame career. Aiden had always had a memory of coming down the stairs silently one night, of Dad’s morose face, lit by the blue light of the television in the dark, staring longingly at something he could no longer access. Aiden had always pushed that memory down, in the box of things he chose not to look at too closely. The things he couldn’t avoid anymore now.
Instead, he said, “It’s really just not the same right now. Maybe you’ll understand what that means one day. I hope you don’t.”
Matt was silent for a while, and finally said, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” The sun had dipped below the skyline, although the diffused orange glow remained for those few moments. “Not your problem.”
Matt laughed. More than a little rueful. “No, I guess you’re right.”
Aiden didn’t say anything for a bit, just watched the fading light and listened to the sound of Matt’s breath on the other line, then the faint noise of water running and the clink of dishes, the strange shift between the normalcy of some parts of the conversation—like they were picking up where they’d left off, no time in between—and the surreal quality of talking about the ends of both of their careers. And studiously not talking about the way other things had ended.
“I should go,” Aiden said, reluctantly.
“Okay. Night, b—buddy.”
The more Matt thought about Aiden retiring, the more it fucked him up. Obviously, he’d known retirement was in the cards for him. For both of them. It was the inevitability of hockey. You couldn’t play forever. But when you were young it was easy to pretend that it would never happen, or that it was so far in the distant future that it didn’t actually seem real. You couldn’t play forever, but you could basically pretend. Even with his knee the way it had been, Matt hadn’t liked to think about it too much. It was better to think I can always sign another contract, of course they’ll want me back, or even, I guess I could test free agency if I really had to.
Aiden retiring felt a little like a friend dying.
Even after they’d broken up, Matt liked knowing that Aiden was out there still. It made the matchups with the Libs more intense, even if they’d never spoken during them the way they had when they were dating.
Even if it was mostly spite, Matt had always made it a mission to get on the scoreboard during those games. It was worth it to watch Aiden’s frown behind the cage on the Jumbotron, the way he’d pull off his helmet to shake out his sweaty hair and the bitchy little twist of his mouth he’d make during stoppages in play, the way he’d work through his water bottle visualization exercise, watching the droplets arc and fall in an attempt to get his mind back into the game.
And now it was just Matt and his bum knee, leading a team of aging vets and baby rookies back out onto the ice. A reminder that retirement loomed ahead of him too, whether it was next season, or a few seasons after that. He was only thirty-five, but hockey years were like dog years, and he was an old man now. And he hadn’t really thought about not playing, or what he’d do if he wasn’t playing, until Aiden’s situation made him do it.
By now, development camp had started, and the kids were all on the ice, kids who were still playing in juniors, some who were still in college and hadn’t even signed entry-level contracts yet. Technically Matt didn’t need to be there, but he showed up anyway. It was a good chance to get to know the new kids, to figure out who would be making the roster and who wouldn’t.
“What do you think of the boys?” Jammer asked, standing at his side. They were watching the group running through their drills with the coach.
“Pretty solid this year. I bet Jack Crane’s a lock,” Matt said, watching Crane roofing the puck over the goalie’s shoulder. They’d been lucky for him to fall to tenth overall because of his size, but he’d shown his last season in juniors that there wasn’t any more for him to learn. Some of the others, like Rémi Cormier or Joel Koskinen, were a little more of a gamble. “I like Cormier’s grit. Doesn’t lose a board battle often.”
“Koskinen’s got a good eye down the middle,” Jammer said, as they watched the ebb and flow of the exercise.
They were kids, though. All of them looked so fucking young, goofing off on the ice, chirping each other for missed shots in the drills, pushing and shoving with mock seriousness when the coaches weren’t looking. They hadn’t noticed him watching in the stands of the practice facility.
Hockey in Montreal was a religion, and people showed the fuck up for church, even when it was just to watch rookies who might not even sniff the roster for a few years yet. It was easy to blend in at first, until the fans noticed and started asking him for autographs.
Matt didn’t want to be a distraction. He went down to the boards, Jammer tagging along, and greeted all of the rookies, wished them good luck, told them they should feel free to text him if they had any questions or concerns. They all looked at him, wide-eyed, when he said that. He knew from experience there would be only one or two of them brave enough to do it.
And then, because he didn’t want to be a distraction, Matt beat a retreat for the steps. It was still good to get back into the practice facility at Brossard. There, he knew so clearly who he was and what his role was. It was hard to think about what he’d do when he didn’t have that option.
What Aiden was doing now that he didn’t have that option.
But the thing was...now, he could ask.
After the initial hesitance faded, it was like a dam had broken. Aiden found it surprisingly easy to fall back into their old pattern of texting all the time and sending pictures throughout the day. It was mostly innocuous, random observations, sending photos of interesting things they’d come across or Matt teasing Aiden in a way that felt comfortable and familiar, almost like he was on a hockey team again.
Sometimes it wasn’t.
Aiden sent Matt a picture from the gym, one of approximately four places he ever went to anymore. It wasn’t a suggestive picture, just his legs where he was sitting on the edge of the deadlift platform, next to the bar and weights. Even though he wasn’t playing hockey anymore, he still found himself following his preseason lifting regime, like that would somehow provide some kind of a structure and purpose to his life.
He added, Back to work, I guess.
Matt said, You should move the camera up a little.
Aiden snorted. I see you haven’t changed.
He did wonder about that, how easy it was to shift back into casual flirtation with someone who’d broken his heart so resoundingly. The strange thing was that the more they talked, the more he was starting to realize he wasn’t bitter and angry at Matt . When it had actually happened, it wasn’t like they’d been cruel to each other. He’d been gutted after finding out about Emily, how quickly Matt had moved on, but it wasn’t like Matt had tried to hurt him on purpose or make it worse than it already was. Aiden had been the one to ruin things. The more time that had gone by, the more Aiden was starting to realize the person he was really furious with was himself.
And now, a decade later, Matt was saying, I used to lose my fucking mind when you’d send me pictures like this. Especially at the beginning when you never seemed to realize that when I was sending you a gym selfie, it was because I wanted to give you a boner.
Well, it worked.
Yeah?
Are you working out, or...?
Well, now I’m just thinking about you at the gym. So thanks, for that.
Aiden said, Anytime.
In response, Matt sent him a picture, too. He sat on the bench facing the wall of mirrors, legs spread a little on either side of it, in the mostly empty gym. The thick thighs and solid core that had always driven Aiden completely insane. Every single muscle on display, sweaty in his tank top and shorts. He was close enough to the wall that Aiden could make out the outline of his dick, half-erect, under the fabric.
Aiden stared at it for a very long time, trying to figure out what to say. Every nerve was on fire. Well, he said finally, now I’m thinking about you at the gym.