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Jamie knows he's in love practically from day one. But he doesn’t realize he has a shot in hell with Tyler until several years later, the night before Game 7 of the second round of the playoffs.
“Wait. You what?” He blinks dumbly for a long moment, staring at Tyler standing there in Jamie’s foyer.
Tyler steps forward with renewed determination, and says again, with absolutely certainty: “I’m gonna win this for you.”
Jamie shakes his head, feeling like the rug just got pulled out from under him. “No, no, I got that part. It’s the why.”
“Because you deserve a god damn Cup, man,” Tyler tells him fiercely.
Jamie rolls his eyes, suddenly a little more even-keeled simply because he’s so used to reigning in Seggy’s casual dumbassery that it’s second nature now. “Yeah, still not the part I was talking about.”
Tyler swallows and his eyes go a little hesitant, a little wary. “Because I... You know. Because I...” He runs a hand through his hair, and then the same hand back down over his features. “Because I’m in love with you,” he says it through a forlorn shrug, like he’s already made peace with the fact that his feelings are one-sided.
Jamie gapes. It’s somehow even more impossible to believe the second time he hears it. “Since when?” he asks, incredulous.
“Since forever.”
“And you’re telling me now?”
Tyler shrugs again, this time feigning nonchalance. The act is so obvious that Jamie doesn’t know why he bothers. “I don’t know. This just seemed like the part of the movie that called for it? I haven’t gotten to play in a playoff game in 4 years, and now we’re here. Game 7. Everything on the line... Perfect cinematic moment.”
Jamie has no idea how to respond. He’s been quietly talking himself down from being too obvious about falling head over heels for one of his best friends for years now. He’s been trying (and failing) to get over it.
The tense set of Jamie’s shoulders and the probably flabbergasted expression on his face seem to be interpreted wrongly though, as Tyler suddenly takes a step backwards and raises both hands. “It doesn’t have to be a thing. We’re good. Or, well. I hope we’re good. You feel whatever you wanna feel about it, and I’ll take it, but I’m still winning you that damn Cup, okay?”
Jamie takes a second to reorient himself. And then he slowly nods and reaches a hand out until it can wrap around Tyler’s wrist. “Okay,” he says.
Tyler looks taken aback. “’Okay?’” he repeats, suspicious.
“Yeah. Let’s go win a Cup.”
“Fuck yeah. Let’s win a fucking Cup.” But the grin on Tyler’s face is oddly hesitant. “And the, uh, the rest of it?”
In response, Jamie does what he’s wanted to do for a very long time, but never believed was possible. He kisses him.
Jamie’s fantasies about kissing Tyler were always of hungry and eager and stubborn lips. Wild hands. Unencumbered, rushed thrusts, and heavy, tight grappling. Instead, he presses chaste lips to Tyler’s, and Tyler hums softly while closing his eyes.
They break apart slowly, and then lean back in for another kiss that goes the same way.
“I can’t believe you actually...” Jamie starts to say, softly, without meaning to, and he trails off embarrassed.
But Tyler catches his gaze with defiance in his eyes. “Tomorrow. You and me,” he whispers, a little breathless even though they’ve hardly done anything. “I’m gonna get you this game and then you’ll have to believe it.”
***
They lose in double-overtime.
Jamie feels his heart get slowly ripped from his chest, one cracking rib at a time, as he stands there watching the handshake line he’s supposed to join in the next few seconds.
His eyes catch Tyler’s then. Briefly.
A hint of sad brown, and then he glances away to the blinding white ice and the team that just knocked them out of the playoffs again. But it mends a couple ribs, that glance. Heart broken but still beating.
Afterwards. After they’re showered and changed and have gone through the god damn press. After they’ve successfully avoided running into any Blues family and friends on their way out, but not the sounds of their celebrations...
After.
It’s the middle of the night on their flight back to Dallas. Jamie stares at what he can see of the back of Tyler’s head, a few rows ahead of him, and he wonders if this thing between them is all over before it’s even had a chance to start.
He wonders how much this loss might have changed Tyler’s determination to make a real go for it with Jamie.
It’s one thing to make bold declarations when you have a shot at winning big. But now that Tyler’s grand gesture has gone up in smoke... does he still want to try?
Jamie’s so preoccupied with the thought that there’s someone plopping down into the neighboring seat and talking to him before he’s even realized he isn’t alone in the aisle. “Hey, so Roope’s flatlining, and Dicky looks like he might throw up. What’s the plan, Cap?”
Jamie turns his head to fully look at Spez, who he already knows the team will be losing this summer and is already feeling the hole it’ll feel like. But the guy is still a class act and still helps the team as much as he can in the interim.
“I don’t know,” Jamie tells him honestly.
Spez purses his lips and nods in acknowledgment, then leans back in the seat next to Jamie that was otherwise unoccupied before. “Alright. Just go save the kids, okay? We can figure out the rest later. Klinger and Es are already on Miro, not that anything really phases that kid” He smirks a little, but his eyes are as sad as Jamie suspects his own are.
Jamie claps a firm hand on Spez’s shoulder, and then gets up out of his seat to go be there for his younger teammates. To go be the Captain he doesn’t really feel like at the moment, but can fake well enough that a rookie won’t know the difference.
He can feel Tyler’s eyes on him as he navigates the aisles, checking in with people as he goes. But he keeps his own eyes averted, not sure he could still pull this off if what he saw on Tyler’s face was as shuttered and distant as his nerves claim it will be.
***
Jamie doesn’t wake up until late in the afternoon the next day, and then he lets himself sulk in bed, in the darkness his blackout curtains provide, for over an hour.
Eventually what gets him on his feet is a rumbling stomach and the repeated ringing of his doorbell.
It’s Tyler.
“I’m going to get you that fucking cup,” he says without preamble, and he looks as bad as Jamie feels.
Jamie sighs and steps back to let Tyler in. “You know it’s not just on you to get us there, Segs. The whole team... And, fuck, I should’ve made that wrap-around, I should’ve gotten it in--”
He’s interrupted by large hands settling onto both of his shoulder and squeezing hard. Even through Jamie’s t-shirt, he can feel the heat of Tyler’s palms and the firm press of each finger into his tired muscles. “Stop. I made you a promise and then didn’t deliver. If you should be mad at anyone it’s me. And now you probably don’t even--”
Jamie shakes his head. “You never needed to give me that for me to believe you.”
They stare at each other like a couple of lovesick idiots for long enough that Jamie is definitely embarrassed.
Finally, he coughs and puts on his Captain mask. “So. How are you holding up?”
Tyler laughs darkly. “I want to drink myself unconscious, but I think I’ve finally reached the point in growing up where I can tell that’s probably a bad idea right now.”
“So mature in your old age,” Jamie teases. It’s light-hearted, though tempered by the sad mood. He’s trying, at least.
Tyler tries right back, though it’s also a bit reserved. “Hey, bonafide veteran over here, Chubs... Or so they tell me.”
The laugh that escapes Jamie at that surprises him. He honestly didn’t think he was capable of so much smiling sincerely, let alone laughing, this soon after such a tough loss. But here Tyler is, here they both are, finding a little solace in each other despite it all.
Tyler kisses him.
Jamie kisses back. And hopes--standing there with his bedhead and threadbare t-shirt, his boxer-shorts and his heavy heart--that he’s not just imagining this moment.
Is this really going to be a thing? Does he really get to have this?
***
He gets to have it for a week. A week of catching eyes across dressing room clean outs and closing media statements; a week of the sporadic shared lunch or dinner while dancing around how to proceed...
And then Tyler has to leave for Toronto.
They have dinner together on Tyler’s last night in town, and it feels normal in a way that Jamie was worried it wouldn’t. They’re still friends first, and teammates. Whatever they are now has so far not put a dent in that.
“I have a bottle of that whiskey you like,” Tyler says when Jamie lingers on his doorstep after having dropped him off.
“And I have a six pack of that beer you like back at mine.”
Tyler huffs a short laugh. “So you’re saying we should’ve done this years ago, and our combined stupidity is what’s cockblocking me right now?”
Jamie presses a kiss to Tyler’s forehead. It’s strange how even that feels overly intimate and as though he should have asked permission first. The rules between them are still unclear and muddled for all the self-inflicted rules they’ve gone by so far.
So they take it slow. Which is kind of insane considering they’ve basically been pining for each other for the better part of the last few years.
But Jamie doesn’t know how to do being with a friend, and Tyler doesn’t know how to do something serious, and so fumbling their way through this at a glacial pace is probably for the best.
At least, that’s what Jamie tells himself on late nights when he really wishes he’d just stayed at Tyler’s place after dinner instead of heading back home.
“I am going to snapchat the hell out of you,” Tyler says the night before he leaves. They’ve got Stranger Things playing on the screen before them and their takeout dinners fully demolished across the coffee table.
Jamie turns so that he can face the side of Tyler’s head, and openly stares. Openly wants. After a moment, one side of Tyler’s lips quirk up in a smirk, though he keeps his eyes on the screen.
But then Jamie turns a little solemn with his thoughts, and Tyler must sense it because he turns to face him with a furrow between his brows. “I’ll call too, man.”
“You don’t think we should maybe press pause for the summer?”
Tyler frowns. “Is that what you want?”
“No. I just...” Jamie ducks his head. “It’s gonna be a long couple months. And we haven’t really said what this is, or what it will be, or whatever. If you wanna hook up while--”
He’s interrupted by Tyler pressing a hard, insistent kiss to his lips. A kiss that feels like he’s trying to prove something. “If I get to finally do this with you, I’m doing it for real,” he says as he pulls away. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re it for me. Whether you’re standing right next to me or a few thousand miles away.”
And, well, how can Jamie not kiss him again at that?
***
Being long-distance right at the start isn’t the only hurdle.
The other major one is this: They’ve known each other so well and for so long that it’s strange learning each other in this new context. It’s almost like starting over in a sense. Like Tyler is back to being the punk kid fresh from the Boston trade who’s looking to prove himself, and Jamie is back to being the awkward kid newly named captain and terrified of fucking it all up.
“I wish you could just come visit me. We’re friends; it wouldn’t be a big deal,” Tyler tells him during one of their near daily phone calls.
“It’d be noticed.”
“Fuck it, do it anyway.”
“Segs...” Jamie sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “If we’re actually doing this, I think we need to save the risk taking for the times when we have to, not the times when we just want to.”
They both know this. But saying it aloud is a little sobering.
He can hear Tyler sigh as well on the other end of the line. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.
Flirting by phone--hell, even by FaceTime--is hard. They’re both such tactile, physical people. Jamie doesn’t really know how to express affection through words all that well, especially when he doesn’t want to get too sappy and ridiculous just yet. Not this soon. He wishes he could just reach out and pull Tyler into him. Put a hand on his thigh, trail fingers through his hair... anything.
And he feels stupid at the idea of even texting Tyler these desires, let alone speaking them out loud.
He admits as much one night during a video call after he’s had a couple drinks, not enough to be drunk, but enough to feel warm and a little bold.
Tyler’s smile at this is goofily charmed, like he finds Jamie as endearing as he does amusing. “What, so you’re too chicken shit to tell me you wanna, like, hold my hand?” he teases.
Jamie’s just gonna blame his blushing cheeks on the alcohol. “I mean, kinda? When it’s dumb, innocent stuff like that, I feel like a fucking sap.”
“Oh, so you’d be cool saying that stuff if it weren’t so innocent?” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively, and then laughs as he’s taken out of frame by Gerry collapsing on top of him.
Jamie’s blush burns a little brighter. He feels like a god damned teenager about this whole thing. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“You telling me you’re not into the idea of phone sex?” Jamie can hear the obnoxious smirk in his words, and silently curses himself for finding the mental image endearing. Seggy is not nearly as charming as he likes to think he is. Really. Jamie’s just the idiot who fell for him anyway.
Jamie huffs a breath and rolls his eyes just as Tyler’s face comes back onto his phone screen with a grin. “Not when the only knowledge of your dick I have is from the locker room.”
There’s a brief pause as Tyler glances away and bites his bottom lip. And then Tyler says in a tone that Jamie recognizes as a forced casual. “I mean. We could change that.”
Jamie swallows. “We could,” he says slowly, drawing out the words. “But...”
“But?” Tyler quirks an eyebrow at him, slowly warming back up to teasing.
“This is gonna make me sound like a sap again.”
“Judgement free zone, bud.”
“I just don’t wanna start anything like that when I can’t touch you. I want the first time I get to know you like that to be in person.”
Tyler’s features soften, and he stares at Jamie with unfettered adoration for so long that Jamie puts his hand over his phones camera and groans, “Oh shut up.”
Tyler laughs. One of the dogs barks in the background. Jamie feels lighter than he has in awhile.
After they hang up, Jamie smiles down at his now dark phone, and then texts Tyler.
I really want to hold your hand
Almost immediately, he gets a text back: Hard same
***
It’s not like Jamie’s just sitting around at home counting down the days to training camp or anything. He’s still got a life he’s living, still has work to do and workout routines to uphold.
Though when Jordie comes back into town, he wastes no time ribbing Jamie for how much time Jamie now spends on his phone.
“Seriously, who is she?” Jordie’s holding tongs in one hand and a beer bottle in the other as he stands over the steaks cooking on Jamie’s backyard grill.
“If I have to tell you one more time that there is no girl, I’m gonna dump the rest of this beer over your head,” Jamie threatens.
“And if I have to listen to you lie to my face one more time I’m gonna throw a flaming hot ribeye at you.”
Jamie rolls his eyes. “You’ve been here barely a week and you think you have me all figured out.”
“I had you all figured out the day you were born, Chubbs.”
Jamie flips him off. Jordie just flips the steaks.
Jamie’s phone buzzes with an incoming text then, and instead of giving Jordie more ammunition, he pretends to go inside to grab more drinks before he pulls it out to look.
I keep catching myself almost telling my mom about you
Jamie’s breath catches. It takes him a few minutes to get his head on straight enough to text back, and when he does he deflects with an intentionally obtuse joke, wondering if Tyler might be regretting the text and needing the out.
Pretty sure your mom’s met me before
The ellipses from Tyler’s end appear immediately, but they stay there for so long Jamie figures he got distracted mid-way through.
Or was maybe writing and deleting words over and over again...
Finally: You know what I mean
And then: Sorry
Which obviously Jamie can’t stand for. He promptly hits call and puts the phone to his ear.
“Uh. Hi.” Tyler’s greeting is stilted in that way he gets when he’s not sure what to expect from a conversation.
“Don’t be sorry,” Jamie tells him.
Tyler sighs. “Look, it’s fine. And I am sorry. I know that was too much. I wasn’t thinking and--”
“Tell your mom,” Jamie interrupts. He swallows nervously, grip tightening on his cell. “Tell her about us. If you want to. If you’re serious.”
Tyler’s silent for a long time. Jamie forgets how to breathe.
“I’m serious.”
“Then do it. And... And can I...” He glances over his shoulder to look at Jordie still manning the grill out back. “Jordie’s here. And he’s being a pain in the ass about whatever’s making me keep looking at my phone like it hung the moon.”
Tyler laughs brightly, but his voice is a little breathless with disbelief and wonder as he asks, obviously going for teasing but failing, “You think I hung the moon, huh?”
It occurs to Jamie then that this new level of their relationship all started with Tyler admitting to being in love with him, and Jamie’s never actually said it back. “I think I’ve been a little in love with you since you first got to Dallas.”
Tyler sucks in a sharp, startled breath. “Oh.”
“A lot in love with you,” Jamie corrects. “At least for the last couple years.”
“Right.” He sounds winded, dazed. “Right. And you want to tell Jordie.”
“Yeah.”
Jordie pokes his head into the kitchen from the back door to tell Jamie the food’s ready, just as Tyler says, almost a whisper, “Tell him.”
A smile blooms on Jamie’s face, the kind he already knows is gonna get chirped by Jordie, who throws his hands up in the air in exasperation at the sight of it. “Okay. I’ll call you back later tonight.”
“Looking forward to it.”
Jamie hangs up and watches his big brother cross his arms over his chest and lean against the door jamb, looking smug.
“So. Gonna lie to my face again, or do I get a name?”
“That was Segs.” Jamie holds up the phone.
Jordie groans. “I meant the girl.”
“Yeah, I got that.” Jamie doesn’t know what the feeling in his chest is right now, but it feels good. “It’s Seggy.”
Jordie chokes on his own saliva while Jamie laughs at him.
And then Jordie pulls him into a headlock while crowing about how much money he’s gonna make from a couple of their former teammates.
***
Tyler Seguin is basically allergic to clothing, so his bare chest on Jamie’s screen is nothing new.
It feels new, though. It feels like if they were in the same room right now, instead of separated by thousands of miles, Jamie would be able to finally reach out and touch all that tattooed skin while knowing that he’s the only one who gets to.
It’s a heady thought.
A thought he must be absolute shit at hiding because Tyler promptly leers at him and flexes.
Which Jamie has to roll his eyes at, he can’t not. Most of his responses to Tyler’s antics are just second nature at this point. Ingrained in him the same way hockey is, or being a pesky younger brother.
“Don’t,” he says, before Tyler can start in on him. “You know what you look like.”
“I also know what you look like, but I could definitely use a refresher.” The leer is still there, but his eyes have narrowed in anticipation, like he’s actually hoping Jamie’s gonna just tug his shirt off for him.
But a locker room is different. A beach or a pool are different. Jamie knows he’ll really be looked at in this context, with intent, and he’s always been a little shy about that. “If you think this call is gonna deteriorate into softcore porn, I’m hanging up now.”
Tyler sighs heavily, though it’s all for show, and his tone is light as he replies, “You’re lucky I find the whole wet blanket side of your personality so endearing.”
“I take great pride in how charming the stick up my ass is.”
The laughter that erupts from Tyler at that bowls him over, out of frame, so that Jamie is left with just a darkened bedroom to grin at.
Tyler remains shirtless every time they video chat after that. And Jamie knows the guy loves to show off his abs and tats, but it’s pretty obvious this is an intentional display now.
It wouldn’t be nearly as frustrating if it wasn’t also working. Jamie has been doing pretty good at keep his fantasies of getting more intimate to himself. Letting his imagination go wild at night in bed, or in the morning in the shower, but being something akin to a gentleman (he is still a fucking hockey player though) when he talks to Tyler.
Now? Now it’s all he can do not to buy a red eye to Toronto every time Tyler sends a Snapchat of himself in bed with a caption of “Miss You” or “Imagining you next to me.”
He lets it all out in the only way he can think to without actually initiating phone sex. He writes it down in an email.
Jamie feels a little ridiculous when he opens up his laptop. An email feels almost too formal. Like he’s gonna type a god damned love letter and mail it off to Toronto, sealed with a kiss.
But he’ll try anything at this point, and so he puts his fingers to the keyboard and hopes he doesn’t make an idiot of himself.
You drive me crazy even on the days when we don’t talk. And on the days when we do, I feel like I’m going to burst into flames with how much I want to reach out and touch.
I’m not going to tell you this on the phone, since you’re incorrigible and a fucking menace and I know where that would lead. But I did need to tell you.
I apologize in advance for when I finally see you in person again. Pretty sure this summer tested my restraint to the brink.
He has to down a couple shots before he’s brave enough to hit send, and even then still feels his face heat with a blush of embarrassment.
This was probably a stupid idea.
Jamie goes through his usual nighttime routine. Gets waylaid halfway through by having to respond to Jenny’s probing texts, since Jordie is as crap at lying to their big sister as Jamie is. And then, on his way to bed, catches sight of his still open laptop to see a new email.
He braces himself for disappointment. Which is a bit of a default for him, but more so since that last playoff loss.
Instead, what he gets is this:
Jameson Randolph Benn
You’re a fucking idiot.
I want to touch you so badly I get hard just from imagining you pushing my hair back out of my face. Or pressing your lips to my knuckles. OR FUCKING ANYTHING YOU COULD COME UP WITH
If anyone should apologize it’s me, but I’m not going to because I want you too much to be ashamed of it.
Jamie falls asleep while imagining sweetly kissing each of Tyler’s knuckles, and then taking two of Tyler’s fingers into his mouth... Among other things.
***
“I got us tickets to the Raptors’ game,” is the single best sentence Jamie has heard maybe ever.
He immediately calls Tyler, embarrassingly breathless as he says, “I’m coming to Toronto.”
“Wait, what? How-- Really? But I thought you said--”
“A buddy got Raptors tickets. He’s insisting we all go.”
Tyler’s sudden burst of laughter sounds absolutely delighted. “Oh shit, that’s perfect!”
Jamie can’t help but grin in response. They’ll have to be careful, of course. But maybe... Maybe they can have a night.
One night. To get them through the rest of the summer.
And, okay, if they’re being overly cautious about this whole thing, well who can blame them. Jamie doesn’t want to fuck this up, and there are a billion ways to do so.
The Raptors win and the whole city goes insane. Jamie gets momentarily wrapped up in the celebration. He and the friends he came with are basically wasted by the time the night starts winding down, even though that wasn’t Jamie’s intention in the beginning. He wanted this to be perfect.
But maybe the pressure of that expectation is the real reason the alcohol flows so easily.
As soon as the text from Tyler comes in, announcing the end of the watch party for the game he was hosting, Jamie makes excuses about turning in for the night and grabs a cab.
He gets to Tyler’s apartment building and stares up at it for a long moment as the car he came in drives away.
“Fuck, I love you,” he whispers up at some random balcony he imagines is Tyler’s. Christ, he’s drunk.
But he’s also here. And so is Tyler. As far as Jamie’s concerned, nothing else matters.
Tyler looks suitably inebriated himself when he opens up his front door to Jamie. And the condo behind him is in as much disarray as a Tyler Seguin party would dictate.
“Mom says hi,” Tyler says, pseudo-casually, saddling up to Jamie and throwing an arm around his shoulders. He directs them both down the hall towards the master bedroom like he’s done it so often it’s muscle memory now, and Jamie pointedly doesn’t think about why that is, or why he’s being a dick for lingering on the thought.
“Tell her hi back.” Jamie blinks a few times, trying to fully take in the change in location.
Tyler strips down to his underwear the second a closed door is between them and the dogs. And then he just stares at Jamie, both expectant and appreciative. As though Jamie could stay exactly as clothed as he currently is and Tyler would still be able to enjoy him.
When Jamie does nothing but stare right back, however, Tyler turns and faceplants into the mattress with a groan. “Fuck. I really wish I’d caught you at the beginning of the night instead of the end of it.”
Jamie presses pause for a moment to fully take stock of just how drunk he and Tyler are. Which turns out to be just enough that it would be a bad idea to have sex, but not enough that they aren’t both aware of how to stop the bad decision-making process.
They still strip down to their underwear and share the bed in the master bedroom. It feels impossibly intimate, getting under the covers with Tyler and shuffling close until Jamie can put his arms around him and bury his nose in Tyler’s neck.
“Knew you’d be a cuddler,” Tyler sighs contentedly.
“Knew you’d be an octopus,” Jamie shoots back on a yawn, as Tyler’s limbs slowly find yet more ways to wrap around him.
It’s scary how easy it is.
Scary how wonderful it is.
In the morning, they wake up slowly. They brush their teeth side by side. They set the timer on the coffee maker to brew a couple hours later. And then they head back to the bedroom to finish undressing each other, and finally taking each other apart in the best way.
It’s not... “cinematic,” or whatever. There’s a lot of awkward fumbling, especially at the start. A lot of pointed chirps when one party suddenly feels more vulnerable than the other. And a veritable fuck ton of exploring bodies that they both thought they already knew but never completely understood.
Leaving for the airport afterwards is arguably harder than joining that game 7 handshake line.
***
Weirdly, everything is both easier and harder after Jamie’s visit.
Jamie now knows the feel of Tyler’s body beneath him, knows what he’s missing while they’re apart, and longs for it all the more.
But, at the same time, now that they’ve crossed that particular line in their relationship, Tyler is entirely shameless about initiating innuendo-laden flirting that eventually leads to... other activities.
And as this continues, Jamie becomes more and more comfortable sending the random text or email, or dropping the thought in conversation on a phone call, the little things he’d be doing if Tyler were physically with him right then.
I like the idea of making you dinner, he texts, out of nowhere.
Tyler’s responses are always lightning quick.
You’ve cooked for me before
Yeah back when I was afraid you’d burn our apartment building to the ground if I let you near your own stove
Still counts! What’s the difference if you do it now?
Jamie thinks it over carefully, picking out words that he hopes will somehow explain the warm feeling in his chest that he gets at the idea.
Now it could be a date. I’m looking forward to actually getting to do date stuff with you
He probably sounds like an idiot, but it’s the best he’s got. Most of the life skills he’s learned all, in some way, relate back to hockey. And articulating lovey-dovey “every romantic cliché sounds amazing when I apply it to you” thoughts are not one of those skills.
But then, a couple weeks later on the phone, Tyler sheepishly admits he’s started learning to cook more things. That he’d like to try some of it out on Jamie when he gets back. “I swear I’m testing it all first. I’m not trying to poison you.”
“No, just whoever you’re forcing to be taste tester before it gets to me,” Jamie teases, but his heart is suddenly so light it’d probably float off into the stratosphere if it wasn’t caught beneath his ribcage.
The number of times Tyler snapchats him is already astronomical, but it skyrockets even higher as the summer winds down. It’s like Tyler can feel the end approaching just as heavily as Jamie can, and is all the more impatient for it the closer it gets.
“Do you think the team will notice?” Tyler asks him late one night over FaceTime.
They’re both in bed, nothing but loose sheets haphazardly arranged now for the ruse of modesty. Jamie is loose-limbed and sated from the hour they’ve just spent together.
Or, well, not together. But as close as reality will allow until September.
“Notice?” Jamie asks. His head is still a little slow, too relaxed now and ready to just fall asleep. Preferably with an arm around Tyler, but he’ll have to make do.
“Us. Do you think they’ll notice something’s up.”
That draws Jamie up short, and he heaves himself a little further up the bed so that he’s fully sitting up, rather than about to fall into the pillows. “Do you think they will?”
Tyler’s brow furrows and his mouth twists to one side as he considers. “I don’t know. I guess... I guess what I’m really asking is what would you do if they did?”
It’s a question they probably should have talked about before any of the other ones, honestly. Because Jamie is the Captain, and the two of them are the faces of the franchise, and honestly does a handful of years pining for your best friend mean you get to put all that in jeopardy?
But, then again.
These are his boys.
This is his team, and he’s seen how they come together over both wins and losses with the same loyalty and camaraderie and respect. He trusts them as brothers to the extent that he trusts his actual brother.
For a moment, Jamie imagines someone on the team figuring it out. Someone noticing something off and connecting point A to point B. It probably wouldn’t even be hard, given how obvious he and Tyler sometimes are without meaning to be.
Granted, this is a group of hockey players.
Imagining doesn’t get him very far, though. Because all his brain can supply him with is the memory of that middle of the night plane ride back to Dallas after the Blues kicked them out of the playoffs. Roope trying so desperately to play it cool, while also so enthusiastically eating up every word or gesture of comfort Jamie could offer. Dicky talking himself in circles about what his performance means for next season, but falling quiet and breathing in deep, cleansing breaths just at Jamie’s hand on his shoulder.
Klinger and Esa talking in low tones to Miro, even though the rookie outwardly appears completely unshaken, and something in Miro’s eyes telling Jamie that the other two defensemen know exactly how to get through to him despite his unflappable walls.
Polak cracking jokes to his seat-mates that Jamie figures will fall flat but somehow don’t.
Bish texting with his family in St. Louis, navigating that minefield of enthusiasm and disappointment so well Jamie’s just as in awe of it as he is of Bish’s in-net game.
Rads and Dobby both passed out and uninterested in any post-mortem, though in different ways.
Spezz still there, still helping however he can, despite the writing on the wall.
And Tyler.
Tyler, whose eyes follow Jamie through his entire lap of the plane that night. Jamie never glances Tyler’s way, but he can feel the gaze on him as he makes the rounds.
This is worth it, Jamie’s brain finally concludes, even though his heart already did ages ago. We’re a team. And “team” is never a word said lightly.
“Well, if you were okay with it, I’d probably just tell them that I’m in love with you, and then make them skate a few extra laps.”
The real answer is a little more elaborate than that. A little more complicated. But Tyler grins so hard at what Jamie says--which isn’t untrue at any rate--that Jamie settles down into the pillows and turns off the red alert that had previously been running through his head.
“I wish you were here,” Tyler says.
***
Tyler returns to Dallas right before training camp, and his first stop is Jamie’s place.
“How the fuck did I somehow miss you more the closer I got to today?” he asks on Jamie’s doorstep.
Jamie doesn’t have an answer to that. He’s been missing Tyler all summer like he’d miss a god damn limb.
It’s never felt like that before. Even when pining away and internally brooding a bit about his lack of a shot with his liney, he never spent an entire summer feeling like a Tyler shaped hole was being carved into his heart.
He gathers Tyler up in his arms in a firm hug. Stands there, breathing in tandem with him and drinking in the scent of him, the feel of him, the weight and comfort.
“Heard a rumor you might want to cook me dinner,” Tyler finally says, playful.
Jamie doesn’t pull back. He noses up to Tyler’s jawline and tangles his fingers in the ends of the hair Tyler’s been growing out. “Heard a rumor you might want to poison me.”
Tyler laughs softly, and then pushes his hands up under Jamie’s shirt, mapping the contours of his back.
And then he pauses. “I love you,” he says, though he makes it sound like the beginning of a rehearsed break-up speech. “But I’ve been thinking, and I understand that you--”
“You’re it for me, too, alright?” Jamie interrupts.
Tyler stares at him, assessing him, trying to read all the words Jamie wants to say but doesn’t know how to in the breadth of Jamie’s shoulders, the brightness of Jamie’s brown eyes.
“...Alright,” Tyler slowly nods as he says it. But he sounds sure, and Jamie wants to never ever give him a reason not to be.
“Whether we win the Cup together or not.”
Tyler sucks in a sharp breath, as if he thinks Jamie’s gone just a touch too far.
So Jamie reiterates. “I mean it. I will always mean it. You don’t have to do anything to prove yourself to me.”
It’s barely past noon, but they climb into bed together anyway. They don’t do much of anything while in it, though, other than hold onto each other and whisper about what the next couple years could look like.
“I’m winning it for you anyway,” Tyler declares, though the words are soft and muffled due to the fact that Tyler’s face pressed against Jamie’s shoulder.
Jamie’s about to argue his point again, but Tyler pulls him a little closer and, half-asleep, presses a chaste kiss to the top of Jamie’s bare, freckled bicep. “You and me. Our names engraved on the same fucking trophy for once. And... And if it doesn’t happen, I’ll get them engraved on some god damn engagement rings.”
There is very little Jamie is willing to argue with about that logic.
“I'd accept either in a heartbeat,” he says, even knowing Tyler doesn't mean it seriously. It's a joke, meant more to deflect than entertain. Jamie understands this.
He understands Tyler. And feels understood in return.