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February 2007
There are a lot of things that Jack doesn’t know until he meets Kenny.
He doesn’t know the glint of a small metal key and a wild, triumphant grin, a teammate saying, “So, I heard you wanted some extra ice time.” He doesn’t know the sight of another player out on the ice with him after hours, until the Montreal sky is long dark, someone who is helping instead of distracting him. He doesn’t know the sound of his phone pinging at him with double texts, or the angry error message that pops up when he has gotten so many texts that his inbox is full.
Until Jack meets Kent Parson, he doesn’t know what it’s like to have a friend over more than a couple of times, or to have someone over for anything other than to do projects for school together. He doesn’t know what it is like to have a friend over for dinner and to have his parents fawn over them, excited and pleased that Jack invited over someone who is charming and funny and can contribute when Jack’s mom can’t manage to steer the conversation away from hockey.
They’re all things that are exciting for Jack, mostly. Sometimes a little nervewracking, but mostly good. He doesn’t always like the feeling in the pit of his gut when his father glows over some insight Kent has. He doesn’t always like the fact that Kent’s taking the extra ice time, too, because they aren’t even 17 yet, and the talk is already brewing about the draft and the NHL, and Jack knows that the only edge he has over Kent is that he has more hours logged on the ice. But he’d rather be playing with someone better than him than someone worse; it forces him to push himself, to try harder and think smarter and skate faster.
There are things that are new that Jack doesn’t know how to feel about, though. Things that Jack mostly feels embarrassed about. Things that he keeps tucked up in his head, because there’s nothing more terrifying than the thought of saying anything out loud and having it shot down. Or being laughed at, his words spread through the locker room and turning what doesn’t even feel like a safe place now into something truly terrifying.
They’re just getting harder to ignore, is all. He’s always been careful not to look at anyone too long in the locker room, for fear of inviting an attack. And he thought that was maybe something everyone did. Avert their eyes to keep from staring at the other guys, at the way they were more solid and less soft. Jack dismissed it as an anxiety thing, or a fat kid thing. Bundled it all up with the shame and the insecurity and everything else.
But sometimes Kent comes over to talk to him when he’s taking off his shirt, and Jack can’t help but glance. He looks away as quickly as he can after, but he has the image in his head, the way Kent’s body hair is starting to grow in soft and fair and the way he’s leaner than Jack, more built for speed. Jack knows Kent sees, there’s no way he can’t. Even Jack doesn’t think he’s very subtle. But Kent never says a word about it.
Sometimes, Jack stays over at Kent’s billet family’s house. And sometimes, they’re both dead tired and more sore than a thousand baths can fix, and Kent doesn’t feel like going down to the basement to grab the sleeping bag, or down the hall to grab the extra comforter. So Kent invites Jack into his bed like it’s nothing, and Jack knows he shouldn’t.
He knows he’s going to wake up with Kent’s elbow in the crook of his neck and one of Kent’s legs thrown over his, and he knows that at least one of them is going to be half-hard, and that they just aren’t going to talk about it, Jack taking the coldest shower he can because he’s too mortified to work one out in a house that isn’t his. He knows he’s going to be laying there at night while Kent dozes off, painfully aware of how close he is to Kent. Painfully aware of how peaceful Kent looks when his eyes and mouth are closed and when his face is smoothed out. Of how little space there is in the bed and how many places the two of them are pressed together, warmth that bleeds through Jack’s pajamas.
But he does it anyway. He sleeps next to Kent. And he keeps waiting for Kent to call him out. To look at the way Jack goes hot and cold, embarrassed and flustered and relaxed. But Kent doesn’t. Kent touches Jack casually all the time, like it’s the only way he knows how to communicate with Jack. An arm around Jack’s shoulder when Jack is tense before a game. A wink and a slap on the butt in the locker room. A hug as part of a celly. And then this. The two of them pressed together in a twin bed in a way that sometimes makes Jack’s mouth go dry and his heart beat fast in his chest.
He tried to write that off, too. Partly as insecurity. Partly as not being used to having someone want to be so close to him. But the longer Jack spends with Kent, the more he starts to think that maybe this isn’t something all friends do. He doesn’t think it’s a friendly thing to want to reach out and smooth down Kent’s cowlick and to laugh when it bounces back up moments later. He doesn’t think it’s a friendly thing to sit shoulder to shoulder with Kent on his bed when they’re watching TV, and to feel his breath caught in his lungs when he glances over and sees how close his face is to Kent’s, to see every single freckle dotting Kent Parson’s nose.
It doesn’t sink in that this is a new feeling in a scary way until they’re far too close and Kent turns his head, and he’s laughing and lit up and Jack thinks I could kiss him.
That’s another thing that Jack doesn’t know before Kent. The urge to kiss a best friend. The urge to kiss anyone at all, really. But once he has the thought, he can’t get rid of it. It’s always there, under the surface. At parties, or in the locker room after hours, or in the quiet of Jack’s room, the door firmly shut. I could kiss him. I want to kiss him.
But most of all, Jack doesn’t know that, after all that stress, after weeks and months of building it up in his head, things could be easy.
He doesn’t know until it happens that it can be as simple as settling down to sleep in Kenny’s bed, the room only lit by the lamp on the bedside nightstand. His brain is still on overdrive, and Kent doesn’t want to sleep, so they lay there facing each other, Jack’s side already sore from being pressed against the mattress, but Jack not wanting to turn onto his back.
“Hey,” Kent says, his voice sounding incredibly loud in the softness of the night. Jack looks at him, at Kent’s eyes and at his freckles and at the way the dim light casts shadows across his face.
“Hey,” Jack replies. “You okay?”
“I wanna try something,” Kent says, which is usually a bad sign. Kent seems more nervous than usual, though, when he’s suggesting a terrible idea. His two front teeth tug against his bottom lip, just enough pressure to create white indents in the pink skin. “Can I kiss you?”
Jack can’t find his words in the moment. If he could he would’ve asked for an explanation. Or checked to make sure Kenny wasn’t trying to play some sort of grand joke on him.
But he nods, instead. Because he wants that, so much, more than he really knows how to say. Kent spares him from having to say it out loud, leaning in before Jack stammers out a yes. Jack gets to taste Kent’s chapped lips and feel Kent’s nose brush against his cheek when the angle isn’t entirely right, and it’s a little bit wetter than Jack imagined it being, though Kent seems to know what he’s doing much, much better than Jack does.
But it’s nice. Jack kisses back as best he can, clings to the kiss until he figures it out, because he’s nearly desperate for Kent to like it. At least enough to do it once more. Ideally enough that Kent keeps wanting to do it again and again, to lean in and kiss Jack and make his stomach flutter and his cheeks heat up when Kent’s kiss feels like so much that he lets out a quiet little noise he didn’t know he had in him.
Until Jack meets Kent, he doesn’t know what it feels like to kiss someone. To pull away, his lips spit-slick and tingling, and to see someone flushed and staring back at him. He doesn’t know what it feels like to curl up next to someone and talk about it, after, to let the floodgates loose, to talk about these lurking thoughts that he’s been too afraid to put to words. That he, until very, very recently, couldn’t pin down to know what words to use.
He admits that he wants to kiss Kent again, and it’s scary. But Kent says he wants to kiss him, too. Jack isn’t the only one who wants to kiss his best male friend, and even if everything else about this will sink in later and will leave him anxious and worried and floored, tonight, he has something warm in his chest to accompany the way his lips feel.
Until Kenny, Jack doesn’t know what it feels like to be kissed.
Until Kenny, Jack doesn’t know what it feels like to go to sleep and not feel alone, or embarrassed about what he wants.