how strange it is to be anything at all

in which taylor grows up, finds himself, and falls in love, though not necessarily in that order.
(or, the one where taylor plays for the golden bears and jordan plays for the oilers, and still they find themselves gravitating toward each other).

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter Text

There are many things that Taylor doesn’t understand. He doesn’t get why it’s so hard to learn another language, doesn’t know why people love the TV show Mad Men so much, doesn’t understand why guys get so weird about the idea of going down on a girl. He’s not sure why he’s majoring in physical education instead of geography or statistics, or what he’s going to do when he’s done with school.

At this very moment though, he’s mostly not sure why he needs to take this first year 20th century literature elective or how it might be relevant to his physical education degree or any other aspect of his life in general.

Barron says that variety and new experiences build character. Taylor likes his roommate because he’s a good teammate and a great friend, but thinks that Barron might be full of shit. It’s something that flickers across Taylor’s mind again as he stares at the blinking cursor on his laptop screen and doesn’t understand how this essay on The Great Gatsby will end up being useful to his life in any way once he’s done with the class.

When Barron comes storming into the room ten minutes later, Taylor’s made a little headway on the assignment though he’s pretty sure he’s doomed to be stuck with a 247 word count on this 1000 word essay for the rest of eternity. He sighs and stretches, craning his neck to look over at his roommate.

“You're coming out tonight, yeah?” Barron asks, sitting down heavily on his bed and toeing off his shoes.

Taylor raises an eyebrow. “To what?”

“Jesus, Hallsy. The game. Battle of Alberta!” Barron gestures vaguely at the air in front of him. “My dad hooked up the team for bonding and all that, remember?”

Taylor had not, in fact, remembered. “Oh,” he says when he realizes that Barron’s been watching him expectantly, waiting for an answer. “I, uh. Homework?” he finishes lamely.

“Boring,” Barron says. He makes his way across the room to peer at Taylor’s still mostly-blank document. “Essay?”

“The Great Gatsby,” Taylor affirms. “Don’t see what’s so great about it.”

Barron just grins and leans over Taylor to quickly type out some words: Green light! American dream! Golf! New money and eggs and SHITTY DRIVERS.

“Done. Best summary of the book ever!” Barron announces, admiring his handiwork. “So no more excuses. Come on out. It’ll be fun!”

He stares at Taylor, expectantly, a familiar routine that the two of them have practiced over and over again in the last two months they’ve been living together—it’s inevitable that Taylor will give in.

(In his quieter moments, Taylor knows that he really shouldn’t turn down any more team-bonding opportunities, especially not after the Golden Bears had been so understanding and accepting in the wake of his awkward and stilted first month on the peripheries of the team, when he spent most of his off-ice time keeping to himself. Taylor’s grateful for Barron’s seemingly never-ending persistence, for the patience of the whole team, really.)

“Okay, okay, fine, it’s not due until Thursday anyway,” Taylor says, saving the document. He can’t help but laugh when Barron cheers and attempts to pull Taylor into an awkward headlock. “Thank your dad for me, okay?”

“Sure thing, buddy,” Barron says. “The boys are all meeting in the lobby in fifteen for pre-gaming. Don’t back out on me, Hallsy!”

Taylor mock salutes as Barron beams at him before bounding down the hall to hammer at their dorm-neighbours' room, shouting at them to get ready, his voice booming down the hall. The door to their room clicks shut, muting Barron’s excitement, and Taylor exhales, long and hard.

Taylor’s teammates want to watch warm-ups. Their seats have a pretty good view, up toward the top of the lower bowl, but for a bunch of guys who are split pretty evenly on Calgary versus Edmonton, the extreme close-ups of their hometown heroes they can get pressing their faces to the glass to watch shooting drills aren’t something they can pass up. He doesn’t begrudge them that. He would want to watch, too, under other circumstances—circumstances, mostly, that involve more of a mindset he had a few years ago, before he spent months painting his dreams in Oilers colours: ironically, back then, he probably would have been cheering for the visitors.

That, and the prospect of pressing his face to the glass and having someone he knows peering back at him from the ice—well. Taylor feels arrogant even thinking anyone would recognize him at this point in his non-career, but it’s still a paranoia he can’t shake.

He opts instead to peruse the team store while his buddies take in warm-ups. It’s a less mortifying option, but not much less disheartening: there’s an entire display of Seguin jerseys right in the front, juxtaposed with the shiny new Nugent-Hopkinses, as if Taylor needed a reminder of how much Edmonton really loves their number-one draft picks. He slips past the crowd of people gathered around those racks and wanders aimlessly, his main goal here being to kill time until the game starts. He actually considers buying something, mostly because he feels kind of out-of-place wearing his Golden Bears hoodie in the midst of so much copper and blue, but he’s not sure he could stomach actually pulling on an Oilers logo just to sit in the stands.

His phone beeps with a new text message. It’s from Barron: Dude – reddy’s chirping the hell outta ben eager down here so if you come back and we’re down a centre you know why.

Taylor sighs. He’s perfectly aware of how this whole team bonding thing would work a lot better if he actually stayed with the team. They’re a good group of guys: the fact that they didn’t write him off as a complete dick after his sullen, antisocial first month here proves that. They’re better friends than he deserves.

“Excuse me,” someone says; Taylor looks up quickly, startled, but it’s just a woman trying to reach past him to grab an Eberle t-shirt.

“Sorry,” he mutters, scooting out of the way.

She grins at him. “Maybe you should stand in front of someone less popular, eh?”

“Yeah,” he says, and tries to smile back.

It’s still strange for Taylor, seeing all the 14s wandering around Edmonton, but he definitely prefers them to the Seguin jerseys. He tugs gently on the sleeve of the sweater hanging in front of him, Eberle emblazoned in crisp white letters on the back, turning it to see the number sewn onto the upper arm. If he twists it a certain way, it looks like the ‘1’ isn’t there.

It seems like a million years ago that Taylor sat with Jordan Eberle in a hotel in Regina and talked about the possibility of the two of them playing together even after those two weeks of World Juniors. But Taylor hasn’t talked to Jordan in a long time, now, and the Oilers have Tyler Seguin: 17 G, 20 A, not quite Calder material but not too shabby either—so the point is, Taylor can’t imagine either his ex-teammate or Edmonton misses him very much.

“‘Scuse me,” another person says, leaning past him to grab a shirt. He probably really should relocate.

He does so, then, making his way out of the store to wander the corridor instead. No one’s going to pay any attention to him shuffling along with the masses of people questing for beer or nachos or whatever.

Warm-ups are already over by the time Taylor heads over to the seats that Barron’s dad has secured for the team. The rest of the Golden Bears are already there, waving him over with almost embarrassing levels of enthusiasm; Taylor can’t help but grin as he makes his way up and over to do his best to not think about how he had felt wandering through the racks of Oilers jerseys just moments before.

“Heard you were chirping big boys,” Taylor says instead, leaning over from the end of the aisle to address Reddy. “Not dead yet?”

“Nah. But you got my back if I start some beef tonight?” Reddy shoots back good-naturedly.

“You know it,” Taylor deadpans. “That’s how you know you’d win the fight.”

“Dope,” Reddy says, laughing and holding out a fist to bump.

(Sometimes, Taylor has to marvel at what a good group of guys he’s ended up with. When he’d showed up back in August, he’d been intending to keep to himself mostly out of shame in the realization and refusal to believe that he would not be able do what he used to. It had been embarrassing; it still kind of is. He had tried, and he had pushed and keeps pushing because maybe if he just tries harder…

But the team, they had still invited him out even when he kept turning them down again and again, until finally Barron, the only other person on the team who’d come over from the OHL, who Taylor had vaguely known before, had perched on Taylor’s desk and stared him down.

“Do you think you’re better than us?” he had demanded.

Taylor had been surprised, too blindsided to lie or make up an excuse, to put up defences. “No,” he had stuttered out. “No, of course not. I just…”

Barron had cracked a smile at that, small but genuine, almost like he had understood. “Okay,” he had said. And then, thoughtfully, “You should come out with the boys tonight.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Barron had said. And that had been the end of that particular line of discussion.)

Barron nudges at Taylor. “Who do you think’s gonna take the game?”

Taylor shrugs. “I don’t have a horse in this race. You?”

“The Oil,” Barron says immediately. “This is gonna be their year, probably? Playoffs, at least.”

“Plus his dad might murder him in his sleep if he says the Flames,” Rosy adds from Barron’s other side.

“Fuck that, I’ll murder him in his sleep if he says the Flames,” Mucha says from the row behind them, his arms crossed.

The camaraderie and uncomplicated bantering continues well into the beginning of the first period. Taylor is grateful for it, finding it easier to sit through the game with the comfortable good-natured back-and-forth teasing humming in the background as he settles back into his seat.

Taylor’s life becomes an infinite loop of hockey, school, and sleep. They win some games, he passes his mid-terms, he hooks up a few times with girls he meets at parties, and he goes out of his way to consciously spend off-ice time with his teammates. He starts taking part in team poker tournaments and sometimes he goes out to one of the numerous bars that are on campus with the rest of the boys.

(One time, he’s helping Fergy carry when he’s pretty sure that he sees Tyler Seguin on the other side of the bar and almost drops the drinks in his hands in surprise.

Fergy nudges him. “You okay there?”

“Yeah,” Taylor says uncertainly and tries his best to offer an assuring grin.

“‘k,” says Fergy. He offers Taylor a sympathetic smile but lets the conversation go and leads the way back to their table in the back. Taylor follows and wills his hands to stop shaking, the drinks splashing a little over the sides of the glasses. And if he’s quiet for the rest of the night, trapped in the booth between two back-up goalies, the boys don’t call him out on it.)

For the most part, his life almost seems to be settling into some sort of routine, something familiar. Taylor’s not sure if this is what he wants, but maybe it’s not all bad either. He tries to burrow himself into these habits and hope for the best. Sometimes, it feels a little like resignation, like giving in, but he’s not sure he likes what the potential alternatives to this might be, so he mostly tries not to think about it too much.

“Hey buddy, you busy?” Barron says breathlessly, jarring Taylor from his thoughts as he barrels into the room like a startling 6’5” hurricane. He throws down his book bag and stares expectantly at Taylor.

Taylor flips the headphones he’s wearing off his head and tosses his anthology of Canadian literature aside —pretty much anything would be more interesting at this point than Sinclair Ross, honestly. He sits up straighter on his bed. “What’s up?”

Barron's voice is muffled as he digs frantically for a textbook under his own bed. “You love bread as much as I do, right? Especially when it's like...oh, I don’t know. Cheap and fresh?”

Taylor rolls his eyes. “Dude. It's your turn to buy. I just went, like, two days ago!”

“Yeah, but how was I supposed to know that Mucha was going to get the munchies halfway through the poker tourney?” Barron laments. “Gotta keep the goalies happy, am I right? C’mon Hallsy, buy some dollar bread? I have a fucking tutorial in, like, five minutes. Be a beauty and help me out here.”

For a moment, Taylor considers saying ‘no’ just to fuck with Barron. But ultimately he does what he always does, and with a sigh, he ends up reaching for the Golden Bears hoodie slung haphazardly over his desk chair.

Barron cheers and digs around his pockets for a twoonie, which he then flicks at Taylor’s head. “I’ll buy you a pint tonight. You’re my bro, bro. Go to the downtown Sobeys though, eh? I still don’t trust the one off-campus after the time people kept finding, like, nails and shit in the bread. Scary as fuck, man, I don’t wanna die.”

“Uh huh,” Taylor says, pulling on his jacket over his hoodie and tugging on his headphones, only half paying attention. He doesn’t mention to Barron that he normally just goes to the off-campus one anyway since it’s so much closer. It hasn’t killed either of them yet, so Barron wouldn’t know the difference, and what doesn’t result in his roommate’s untimely demise can’t hurt him.

Taylor doesn’t really have much waiting for him this evening besides homework and alleged drinks with his roommate, so maybe it's not such a bad idea to take some time out for himself, to just be an anonymous entity wandering out and about in the city. The fresh air might even be an added benefit today: there’s this vague ache in his back that doesn't seem to want to go away, no matter how he tries to stretch it out. It’s nothing, probably nothing at all—maybe he slept on it funny or maybe he turned the wrong way during contact drills at practice, or maybe it’s actually all in his head—but he still can’t help thinking about it, a constant reminder of how this is his life now.

Even though he knows that there’s probably nothing wrong, he can’t help but remember the way the ache used to shift into pain that radiated down the back of his legs and pooled in his knees. He finds himself anxiously anticipating the feeling to set in again after being cautiously without it for almost a year now, even though there realistically is no basis for it. He knows himself well enough to know that this isn't a good headspace for him to be in, so it's probably for the best to get away, even if it's just for a little while.

He waits on the crowded LRT platform, barely managing to squeeze on to the full light-rail car, and cranks up the volume to his headphones as loud as he thinks he can without bothering the press of bodies around him. The thumping bass and looping synth-line of the new Avicii jam gets into his head and it’s a good distraction when he’s able to sort of stop thinking for a while.

It’s a relief to finally be able to escape the stifling crowd of the train. He takes a deep breath of autumn air the moment he gets back up to street level, turning up his collar and huddling into himself for warmth. It's only mid-October, but there's still a chill in the air, and when he gets to the Sobeys, he’s grateful for the gust of warmth as he steps in through its doors.

The song he’s listening to switches to a Far East Movement track when he makes his way over to the front of the store where they set out their daily batch of store-baked bread, marked down to sell off in the afternoon. He wanders over to the rack without hesitation: this grocery store’s food costs more money than he can comfortably afford, and much more than he’s actually willing to pay, so he bypasses all the other shelves—Taylor is a man on a mission. He pauses, examining the rows of dollar bread: he and Barron burn through enough of it that Taylor wonders if he should pick up more than one loaf, especially with the added factor of Mucha occasionally devouring their food in an accidental fit of munchies.

So Taylor's distracted with contemplating exactly how many loaves he should be buying when he feels someone tap him on the shoulder. Taylor starts a little—he’s probably in the way of someone else who’s looking to grab a loaf, so he slides his headphones off around his neck, turning around to apologize and step out of the way.

Instead, the apology dies in his throat when he finds himself standing face-to-face with a broadly grinning Jordan Eberle.

“I thought it was you!” Jordan says delightedly. “How you doin’, Hallsy?!”

For a long moment, Taylor catches himself staring at Jordan, speechless. He has the overwhelming urge to stutter out an excuse and leave without the bread. While Barron would be disappointed and likely withhold the owed beer on principle, he'd get over it eventually.

But Taylor doesn’t move, he can’t move, and Jordan's still grinning at him with unabashed cheer, waiting patiently for Taylor to say something, anything.

Suddenly Taylor’s just tired, so tired, of running away.

So, instead, he fumbles in his pocket to turn off his music. And then, brave, he straightens up and offers Jordan a tentative smile of his own. “Hey Jordan.”

For the most part, Jordan likes living alone—there aren’t roommates to clean up after and he doesn’t have to share the remote control and there isn’t anyone else around to make noise when he wants to take a nap. And, if he feels like he needs company, Magnus and Tyler both live in the same building, Sam lives in the next building over, and Whit is pretty much never doing anything but being a grumpy old fuck anyway, so he can almost always be coerced into going out for dinner or to the bar.

One thing that Jordan doesn’t totally love about living alone is how he has to buy his own groceries when he runs out of staples like juice or milk, especially on afternoons after long practices when pretty much the last thing he wants to do is leave the warmth and comfort of his apartment to go to the store. To be fair, it’s not like the store’s that far away: there’s a grocery store just underneath the apartment buildings beside his unit. So toward the end of a particular juice-less afternoon, Jordan finally decides that he can’t wait anymore for a daily dose of vitamin C to spontaneously appear in his fridge, and hauls himself off the couch to pull on a coat and hat to go investigate his juice options.

He’s just walked into the store with the intention to beeline over to his intended purchases, pay for them and leave, when he realizes that he probably recognizes the person hovering over a rack of bread at the front of the store, a familiar figure that Jordan hasn't seen in ages. Before he even realizes what he’s doing, he finds himself striding over, and, with just the briefest hesitation, reaching up to tap the person on the shoulder.

When the person turns around, Jordan can feel his own mouth curving into a wide grin as he blurts out a delighted greeting. Taylor seems just as surprised to see Jordan here, but recovers quickly enough and then he is offering a smile of his own.

“—how’s things?” Taylor’s asking, chewing on his lower lip. It’s something that Jordan remembers him distinctly doing before each game at the World Juniors from years ago, usually after adamantly declaring that he was not, in fact, at all nervous.

“Good, real good,” Jordan tells him cheerfully. “I live just above here. What are you up to? Why’re you in Edmonton? Visiting?”

“I go to school here,” Taylor says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “U of A.”

“Cool. What’re you studying?”

“I’m a Phys Ed major,” Taylor tells him.

Jordan blinks. “Wait, like…gym? You can major in that?”

Taylor shrugs. “Guess so.”

Nodding, Jordan tilts his head to the side, curious. “You still playing?”

“Yeah,” Taylor tells him. “Uh. With the Golden Bears.”

“That’s awesome!” Jordan says sincerely, grinning wide. “Seriously, Hallsy. That’s great!”

“Yeah,” Taylor says, his cheeks colouring a little. “Thanks.” And then he pauses, before clearing his throat. “Anyway, I should probably…”

“—oh, yeah, right, guess I’m keeping you, eh? We should catch up sometime when you’re not busy.” Jordan pulls out his phone, scrolling through contacts. In the back of his mind, a small voice wonders why Jordan’s suddenly so enthusiastic about getting back in touch with someone he hasn’t spoken to in such a long time—an acquaintance by this point, really. He shoves that thought away for now. “I think I only have your Ontario number,” he says instead. “Do you have a new Alberta one?”

Taylor seems to stare blankly at him.

“Or,” Jordan pushes on. “If you don’t remember your number yet, gimme your phone and I can program mine in?”

There’s a long beat, just shy of being awkward, until Taylor finally nods, digging his phone out of his pocket, unlocking it and handing it to Jordan. Grinning, Jordan quickly types in his number and saves it, sending himself a quick Ebs is a huge beauty message from the phone before handing it back to Taylor and showing him the message on his own phone. “Aw, Hallsy. You shouldn’t have!”

Taylor’s cheeks flush a deeper red, ducking his head like he always did years ago when he was being chirped and didn’t know how to respond. Jordan can feel his own smile growing fond at the vague familiarity of this all.

Later, when Jordan walks out of the store with a carton of orange juice in hand, he pulls out his phone to respond to the message he had sent earlier while in the store. srsly though we should hang, he fires off, almost surprising himself when he realizes that he really does hope to hear back from Taylor soon.

It takes Taylor a few days, and then a few more days after that, to work up the courage to text Jordan back; when he finally replies with a hey, congrats on the win, it’s already been more than a week since their encounter at Sobey’s. Taylor’s not even sure he should be expecting a response: Jordan had been friendly at the grocery store, had seemed downright enthusiastic when he ran into Taylor again. They had been friends, once, years ago, and Jordan’s always been a nice guy. While that probably hasn’t changed, Jordan’s a professional hockey player now, not just some gap-toothed kid who was good at hockey and had grinned at Taylor from across the ice in Kazan and in Saskatoon.

Taylor can’t help opening his phone’s inbox and flipping through his messages anyway. He sits up straighter on his bed as he scrolls through them. There’re a few older texts from his mom, and teammates, and some from his boys back home updating him on how the Kingston Voyageurs are doing so far this season, nestled in between a series of unanswered messages from Ryan Ellis.

Taylor knows that he should probably answer Ryan’s texts at some point, and he wants to, too, kind of. Over the past few months, the contents of Ryan’s sporadic messages span from life in Windsor (we got kerby!! DONT FUCK WITH RYCHS!11), and then Hamilton (summers soooooooooooo boring), and then Milwaukee (love the city but hate spelling it), or random thoughts that occur to him at any given time (hay remember the time watty slapped you on accident during the interview?? :) lol), and from time to time, the texts still trickle in. Ryan’s always been a good friend, and for that disastrous month last season when Taylor had gone back to the Spitfires, he had been a good and supportive captain. But the last year and a half of Taylor’s life has felt like one long exercise in embarrassment, and he’s not even sure he’d know how to begin responding to Ryan’s messages.

So he doesn’t say anything. And maybe, eventually, Ryan’s texts will taper off too, like Taylor’s correspondences with his other former teammates. He knows it’s not that they don’t care about him, or that he doesn’t care about them. But things just get kind of...complicated when he tries to work through his own disappointment in how things have transpired. After the Memorial Cup tournament, the repeated MVP trophy and even the defended championship had seemed almost meaningless as he sat in his doctor’s office trying to listen to his doctor as she had recounted the extent of the injury to his back. All he could focus on was the creeping, numbing shame that he’d be letting down his parents, his coach, his friends.

Maybe it’s just better this way.

He peers down at his phone again, surprised to see that he has a new message. Curiously, he clicks on it. It’s from Jordan: took u long enough!! whats up u non???

Taylor worries at his bottom lip, thinking. Not much. you? he finally types out.

The reply comes through almost instantly. hate catching up on text. drinks tonight??

sure, Taylor fires off. He then tosses his phone aside as Barron comes back into the room and drops down on the other bed with a heavy sigh, an ice pack strapped to his shoulder.

“You okay?” Taylor asks.

Barron nods, gesturing to his shoulder. “Sorta popped out when I was at the gym today. Trick shoulder.”

Taylor winces in sympathy, remembering that feeling all too well. “That sucks, bro.”

“Yeah, well, maybe one day I’ll get a bionic shoulder like yours,” Barron says wryly. “Guys with fucked up shoulders, we should start a club. Or a newsletter.”

“Oh yeah, we’d give the best advice,” Taylor says. “How to get sympathy from rockets. Ten things to do instead of moving your arm.”

“A journal-type thing about a week of having to jerk off with your other arm,” Barron suggests. “Or an exposé called ‘how I rehabbed my wrecked shoulder by punching my roommate a lot.’”

“You can’t punch me,” Taylor says. “We’re on the same team.”

Barron smiles at him suddenly, bright and wide. “That’s true,” he says, and Taylor can’t help but grin in response.

That evening, Taylor finds himself at a little restaurant-café type place, Jordan’s choice. It’s not exactly Taylor’s scene and he’s not sure if they serve more than just Indian food and chai-based beverages, as per the chalkboard sign outside, but he can see why Jordan’s picked it. Most of the staff and patrons, college-aged kids preoccupied by their tablets and Macbooks, look like they couldn’t care less about hockey—something mystifying to Taylor—and the ones who would care don’t seem like the types who would stop someone to interrupt his night out. Judging by the way Jordan’s sitting undisturbed near the back, playing with his phone, Taylor wagers that he’s not wrong.

“Hey!” Jordan says with a huge grin when Taylor pulls out the empty chair across from him and sits down. “Wasn’t sure if you were going to actually show.”

Taylor smiles, shrugging out of his jacket. “Nice place,” he comments. “Didn’t know you were such a fan of curry and hipsters.”

“Shut up,” Jordan says, laughing as he tucks away his phone. “The people here are nice. And you’re the university student. Aren’t you guys the ones who are supposed to be all cultured and shit?”

“Dunno,” Taylor replies. “Pretty sure every third word out of the mouths of the dudes on the team are, like, ‘boner’ or ‘smokeshow.’”

Jordan just laughs harder. “Sounds like fun.”

“They are,” Taylor agrees.

Jordan seems to take that as a cue to stand up and makes the wait one moment motion at him before wandering away. Taylor complies, fidgeting a little in his seat as he waits, twisting the sleeves of his sweater.

When Jordan returns, he’s clutching a pitcher and two pint glasses that he sets down heavily on the table. “Hope you didn’t actually want to drink chai ‘cuz I got Big Rock honey brown. I didn’t know what you drink and they had it on tap,” Jordan says. “Guess I could have asked you first. Hope it’s okay.”

“It’s cool,” Taylor says. He reaches for his wallet. “How much do I owe you?”

Jordan just waves a hand cheerfully at him before picking up the pitcher to pour. “It’s on me.”

Taylor hesitates. “But—”

“You can get the next round,” Jordan assures him, momentarily distracted by his pouring job.

Jordan’s sloppy at it, more foam than beer, and he grins sheepishly when he slides a glass over to Taylor and clinks their drinks together. “To finding long-lost friends,” Jordan announces. “And celebrating reunions with a super shitty pour.”

“Don’t quit your day job,” Taylor agrees, lifting his glass to drink.

Jordan makes a face at him. “Clearly this means you know what I’m up to, hockey by day, terrible beer pourer by night. So that’s me, let’s talk about you. What’s up?”

Taylor shrugs. “School, mostly? It’s boring. Most of the classes I’m in are pretty dumb.”

“One of the assistant coaches has a kid on the Golden Bears. Uh, Smith?” Jordan says. “Some sort of badass first name.”

“Barron?” Taylor says. He grins. “Yeah, he’s my roommate, actually. Total beauty. He got us a bunch of tickets to your Battle of Alberta game at the beginning of the season, actually.”

Jordan quirks an eyebrow. “Yeah? You saw us play?”

“Absolutely. You guys were good. Nugent-Hopkins is unreal,” Taylor says.

“I’ll tell Nuge that he’s got a big fan in you,” Jordan promises, pausing to take another drink of his beer. “How about you guys? Got a good record?”

Taylor shrugs. “We’re doing okay. Our PP’s solid. Some nights, our goalie bails us out. We do the best we can. It’s a good group of guys.”

“I should come see you guys play some time,” Jordan muses out loud. “I'’ve never been to a U of A game.”

Taylor opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, and then changes his mind. “Sure,” he says instead, with another shrug.

“Sound more excited about it,” Jordan teases.

Taylor offers him a half-smile.

They don’t talk about hockey for the rest of the evening, nor do they talk about all the people they both used to know. They do catch up though: Jordan tells him about his first year in Edmonton, about how he was seeing this girl but isn’t seeing her anymore, about the difficulties of cheering for the Roughriders while living in Eskies territory.

“To be fair, it’s not the fault of the people of Edmonton that the Riders are terrible,” Taylor finds himself saying, and it’s all he can do to hide his grin against his pint glass when Jordan starts spluttering with feigned outrage.

“You have bad taste,” Jordan accuses, doing his best to keep a straight face. “That’s so disappointing.”

“Sorry,” Taylor says, mostly failing at trying not to laugh. “Will you ever forgive me?”

“Nope,” Jordan says. “My love for the Riders is sacred.”

“Not even if I buy the next round?” Taylor asks.

Jordan seems to consider this. “That’s a start,” he says solemnly, not even trying anymore to hide the wide, mischievous grin spreading over his features. His knee knocks against Taylor’s under the table, and all of this feels so natural and easy that suddenly, Taylor can’t even remember why he was ever apprehensive about getting back in touch with Jordan in the first place.

It’s weird, Jordan thinks, how glad he is that Taylor’s actually gotten back in touch with him. They had been friends a few years ago, which had fizzled out as Taylor had become increasingly difficult to communicate with, when he had become unreliable at returning emails and text messages, until he had stopped responding altogether.

Jordan remembers the news reports at the time well enough to know that the last year probably hasn’t been the easiest for Taylor so he can’t begrudge him for falling out of contact. He’s also let the avenues of communication slide a little himself due to the distance between them and how difficult it can be to stay in touch with someone when there are more immediate things to worry about. Something that feels like guilt starts to curl a little bit in his chest when he thinks about it too much, like maybe he could have done more to help out a friend in need.

On some level, he knows that isn’t true, that taking on this imagined responsibility is unfair to both Taylor and himself, but Jordan can’t help it. He thinks that maybe that’s how it had all started, the almost aggressive earnestness in suggesting that he and Taylor hang out again in Edmonton as if no time at all had passed; perhaps he had even hoped that Taylor would have rejected the idea and completely absolved Jordan of guilt, no matter how real or fiction. But then Taylor had actually texted him back, and Jordan was surprised when he realized that he hadn’t been disappointed at all with Taylor taking him up on the pseudo-invitation to catch up.

After that first catch up session, Jordan finds that they’ve actually been texting more often and have even started making plans to hang out on a semi-regular basis, and Jordan realizes that it doesn’t even feel like an obligation; he wants to hang out with Taylor. Somewhere in the last few weeks, it feels like they’ve been effortlessly rebuilding the friendship that had fallen to the wayside in the last year, and Jordan is glad for it.

Jordan’s so distracted by the entire situation that he startles when his phone rings in the early afternoon while he’s finishing his lunch and realizes that he’s missed most of the show he’s been watching as he’s been mulling over the renaissance of his friendship. He picks up the phone without looking at the caller ID.

“I’m bored. What’re we doing tonight?” the person on the other end demands instead of a proper greeting. It’s Ryan Whitney; of course it is.

“Dude,” Jordan complains, mostly amused. “I’m going to the movies tonight.”

“Going to the movies without me?” Whit says accusingly. “Ebs, I’m hurt. You decide you like Gags more than me?”

“You know, I do have friends outside hockey. Sort of. Outside the team, anyway.” Jordan pauses; takes a deep breath. “You wanna come?”

“…are you going on a fucking date?” Whit asks. “You want me to third-wheel chaperon you while you’re out with some girl?!”

“It’s not a girl! And it’s not a date. Just my buddy.”

“Oh? And what’s your buddy’s name?”

“Taylor.”

“Taylor’s a girl’s name,” Whit informs him.

Jordan laughs. “I’m gonna tell Fedun and Chorney you said that and watch them destroy you.”

“Jordan’s also a girl’s name,” Whit says flatly.

“I’ll help them destroy you,” Jordan promises. “Plus, I’ve met chicks named Ryan.”

Whit snorts. “Work on your chirping, Ebs. I hope your buddy’s better at this than you are.”

Jordan’s suddenly struck by a sense of disbelief and vague concern as it occurs to him how tenuous it could be to introduce a new factor into this reconnection with Taylor.. “Can you...like. Tonight. Not be so...you? You can be a bit…”

“Fuck you pigeon, I’m always nice,” Whit says.

“No, I mean, like…it’s…” Jordan thinks about what he wants to say and the best way to articulate himself. “Well. He plays hockey and he was probably a shoo-in for pros before he got hurt a while back. Might be weird if you’re totally on as you tonight, you know?”

“Lots of people get hurt, Ebby,” Whit says, but he sounds considerably more serious right now, like he’s actually paying attention to what Jordan’s saying.

“No, but.” Jordan pauses, considering. “We played in a few tournaments together back in the day. He was really, really good.”

“Did he play with you when you lost in the World Juniors to my people?” Whit asks. “What’s his last name?”

“You’re an asshole,” Jordan says mildly. “It’s ‘Hall.’”

The surprise in Whit’s voice is genuine as he seems taken aback for a moment. “Is that the kid we almost took instead of Segs? The one who got hurt right before the draft?”

“Yeah,” Jordan says. “That’s him.”

Whit whistles. “Christ. What he’s doing in Edmonton?”

“The Lightning ended up drafting him in the third round,” Jordan explains. “But he’s at U of A for now, a Phys Ed major.”

“Ah, hockey players, keeping the ‘dumb-as-rocks’ stereotype alive and well,” Whit says. “Yeah, no worries. It’ll be fine.”

Jordan sighs. “It’s just that, well. We kind of lost touch a while back, you know? I don’t wanna, you know. Freak him out or anything.”

“Ebby, it’ll be fine,” Whit says firmly. “I swear.”

“All right, okay, good,” Jordan says, trying his best to sound confident. He closes his eyes and wills it to be true, and tries not to wonder why this all seems so important to him right now.

While Jordan had texted Taylor to ask if he would mind if one of his other friends came along for the evening—and Taylor had said he wouldn’t—Jordan can’t help feeling apprehensive. It’s sometimes easy to forget that Whit, despite all his grumpy posturing, is actually a pretty awesome friend who genuinely gives a shit about the people in his life, though getting him to admit that would probably be weirdly similar to pulling teeth.

So to Jordan’s relief, he’s reminded of this when he’s standing between Whit and Taylor in front of the theatre. Whit’s doing a good job of including Taylor in the conversation, making a noticeable effort to try and put him at ease and take interest in Taylor’s life and what he might have to say.

Whit seems to be enjoying himself too, as he tries to convince both Jordan and Taylor that the PS3 is infinitely superior in every way to every other game console in the known universe. “It’s an all-around entertainment system. How can you beat that?”

“Don’t care,” Jordan says. “Xbox is still way better.”

“I’d rather muck Xbox, too,” Taylor agrees.

Whit pauses, before backtracking to grab for Taylor’s elbow. “Hallsy, right? Can I call you that?”

When Taylor nods curiously, Whit seems to take this as his cue to continue. “Okay, Hallsy, I don’t know how they teach you to talk in the OHL? But here in Edmonton, we speak English.”

There’s a long moment of silence, and Jordan’s almost horrified, until Taylor starts laughing.

“Don’t mind Whit,” Jordan says, turning to glare at a smug-looking Ryan Whitney. “He thinks he’s better than everyone because he’s got three quarters of a social science degree.”

“Sociology,” Whit corrects. “And I only dropped out to go play hockey with Mario Lemieux. You know you would have done the same thing.”

“Definitely,” Taylor agrees, and if possible, Whit’s grin somehow gets smugger.

Jordan’s about to add something else, when he’s interrupted by a gaggle of pre-teen girls at a birthday party, all starry-eyed and excited to meet their favourite Oiler as they ask for a picture with him. Whit magnanimously offers to take the picture for them, and suddenly he and Taylor have countless iPhones being thrusted at them to take photos for the girls. Jordan can’t help but worry about the identical shit-eating grin on both of their faces as they tell the group of girls surrounding him to smile.

And he’s not wrong to be afraid, either, because as soon as they’re out of earshot, both Whit and Taylor burst into wild laughter:

“Jordan Eberle is sooooooooo cute, ohmigod!” Whit flutters his eyelashes disturbingly.

“I know, right? He’s my fav player!” Taylor adds in a cracking falsetto.

Both of them set themselves off in hysterics all over again, like they’re actually funny. Jordan does his best to look displeased by it all, but finds himself ducking his face to hide a smile behind his scarf instead.

There isn’t really anything they all want to go see, and Jordan’s fairly sure that Whit was kidding when he had suggested the remake of Footloose, so they go and watch Immortals instead. It’s only two hours long, but it’s stupid enough that Jordan would sincerely love to have that time back.

Evidently, the sentiment is shared by both Taylor and Whit, because as soon as they pile out of the theatre, both of them are already complaining loudly about it—

“Terrible,” Whit grouses. “Just fucking terrible.”

“What the fuck did we just watch?” Taylor says, furrowing his brow. “Seriously, is it just me or did the movie make no sense?”

Ryan shakes his head. “It’s just you,” he tells him. “You and your OHL education.”

There's a long pause, and Jordan can feel his own shoulders tense up. He's about to change the subject when Taylor laughs. “Whatever, college dropout.”

A grin creeps across Ryan's face. “Shut your mouth, gym major.” And then, in response to the dumbfounded expression on Taylor's face, Ryan's grin gets even wider. “That's right, kid, Ebs let the cat out of the bag.”

“It may have come up,” Jordan says sheepishly.

“Thanks a lot, Doc Seaman,” Taylor tells him, on the verge of laughing again.

“The fuck?” Whit says.

“WHL scholastic award or some shit,” Taylor says. “Ebs won it back in the day.”

“How do you even remember that?” Jordan wants to know.

“I’m more than just a pretty face,” Taylor says, almost straight-faced.

Whit barks out a laugh. “Dream on, kid. You don’t even have that going for you.”

“At least I don’t look like you,” Taylor tells him, and Whit just laughs harder and responds with another chirp of his own. And Jordan trails behind them, head still reeling and feeling like he’s missed something significant.

The Oilers blow out the Blackhawks before heading on a road trip to the southern States, the team excited about the winning record they’re currently maintaining, and Jordan decides that that’s a good enough reason to put a phone call through to a rarely used number that he’s been going back and forth on calling all week. The intention is to satisfy his curiosity, to find out some more about why Taylor’s been so quiet and scarce to communicate over the past year, something he still hasn’t managed to work up the courage to ask Taylor about.

Something in the back of Jordan’s brain nags at him for going behind Taylor’s back to piece together what’s happened. But ultimately, he quashes those thoughts as he makes the executive decision to step out onto the balcony to their hotel in Dallas as he waits for the call to go through, hoping that the number is still valid. He catches himself exhaling in relief when Ryan Ellis finally picks up.

Jordan and Ryan have stayed friendly over the years, after the Under-18 tournaments and back-to-back World Junior Championships. It’s easy to lapse into familiarity and comfort with him, to angle for information that might otherwise be awkward to obtain from one of Taylor’s former teammates and close friends.

“We’re playing you guys next week,” Jordan says.

“No, you’re playing Smashville next week,” Ryan says. “I’m down in Wisconsin with the Admirals.”

“Did you just call it Smashville?” Jordan asks incredulously.

“Smashville, Smashville, Smaaaaaaaaaaaashville,” Ryan sing-songs. “Whatever, whatever, I do what I want!”

Jordan cracks up at that.

“You’re so easy,” Ryan says. Even without being able to see him, Jordan knows that Ryan’s probably looking pretty pleased with himself at the moment.

“Shut up,” Jordan says, still laughing. “Okay, question.”

“Tell me what you think about me,” Ryan says immediately.

“Ugh,” says Jordan. “Every single time.”

“Come on, Ebs. Your line,” Ryan prompts.

Jordan rolls his eyes, but dutifully searches his memory for the next line. “Try to control me, boy, you get dismissed?” he tries.

Ryan makes a pleased little noise, apparently satisfied with the way that this conversation is going. “That is not the next line, but I’ll take it anyway. Sup? What can I do you for, Jordan Eberle?”

Suddenly, the original intention for this conversation strikes Jordan as oddly serious for the general lightness from just moments before. He hesitates for a moment, deciding it best to just push forward with his non-sequitur. “Uh. Did you know that Taylor’s at U of A?”

Ryan seems to sober up a little bit as well at Jordan’s question. “Hall? Sort of. He’s kind of shitty at answering texts these days.” He pauses. “How is he?”

“Not sure,” Jordan admits. “Kind of why I’m asking. Thought maybe you’d know?”

“Not really,” Ryan says and then pauses again. “He pretty much disappeared for a little while there.”

“Yeah,” Jordan says, lapsing into silence that stretches between the two of them when Ryan doesn’t say anything else in response.

“Why does it even matter to you?” Ryan finally asks, though it seems more curious than angry. “I mean, were you guys even that close or anything?”

“I…don’t know?” Jordan says honestly. “It’s just. He’s a friend, you know? And when shit happened, maybe I could have reached out more then.”

“So you’re trying to make up for not reaching out then?” Ryan says. He sounds resigned. “Or…?”

“No,” Jordan says. “I don’t know. Maybe at first. But it doesn’t make sense to pity him, you know? He doesn’t need it. I don’t think he wants that, either. I just like hanging out with him because he’s a good guy.”

“Yeah,” Ryan says, exhaling loudly. “I get that. It’s kind of stupid, but I think we all kinda feel that way.”

They talk a little bit more after that, Jordan asking about Ryan’s new life in Wisconsin but the conversation’s suddenly become stilted in ways that conversations with Ryan usually never are. They end up making slightly awkward small talk for several moments after that, until Ryan finally, mercifully, says, “Hey listen, I gotta run. But it really was good to hear from you, Ebs. Don’t be a stranger.”

“You too, Elly,” Jordan says sincerely.

And then, just when Jordan thinks that Ryan’s already hung up, he hears, “Next time you see the little brat, you tell him to pick up his phone, okay?”

“Okay,” Jordan says automatically, nodding even though he knows that Ryan can’t see him right now.

He finds himself staring at his phone long after Ryan’s hung up, standing there on the hotel balcony in the cool Texan night air.

Since they’d started texting each other back in October, Jordan finds that he’s now texting with Taylor almost all the time. They text constantly, while Jordan’s on the road, while Taylor’s on a long-haul bus trip though rural Saskatchewan, even sometimes when they’re in the same city. The texts are never life-changing, just random thoughts and chirps as the thoughts cross their minds throughout the day. It’s a comfortable dynamic, Jordan thinks.

The back-and-forth spills into December, into the lead-up to Taylor’s exam period and the Oilers’ last road trip before the Christmas break. The team normally has a ‘no phone’ rule heavily enforced during meals, but it’s so early that no one seems to care that Jordan’s poking at his phone while sleepily stirring milk into his coffee. He tries not to faceplant into his eggs and toast as he texts Taylor over breakfast in San Jose, trying to type coherently while enjoying Taylor’s increasingly disgruntled messages about the early morning class he’s sitting though in a completely different country.

They’re about halfway through the meal, Sam sitting across from Jordan and opening his mouth like he’s about to make fun of Jordan for laughing silently at his phone, when coach’s booming voice interrupts them all. “Where the hell’s Seguin?”

The mischievous grin disappears from Sam’s face as he mouths Oh shit at Jordan, which peaks Jordan’s concern in turn. He immediately pulls up Tyler’s number to message him.

WHERE R U? Jordan texts Tyler.

It’s several minutes before Jordan’s phone buzzes twice in quick succession. He looks down at his phone at the two texts from Tyler:

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and

WHATS OUR HOTEL CALLED AGAIN

Well, shit.

“Uh, Coach? Segs is on his way,” Jordan volunteers.

On the other side of the table, Sam’s phone buzzes. Sam looks at it for a moment before rolling his eyes at Jordan. “Oh yeah,” he says, turning to smile sweetly at their coach, doing his best to sound as sincere as possible. “Definitely on his way, Coach.”

Their coach just gives them both an unimpressed look and doesn’t say anything in response.

(“I can’t believe I’m getting scratched tonight,” Tyler complains loudly, later, as he paces the length of his hotel room.

“Well, you did kind of miss curfew?” Jordan says, doing his best to sound sympathetic.

Tyler just makes a despondent noise and drops down onto the couch looking displeased.

“You missed curfew by, like, twelve hours,” Sam says cheerfully, but pats Tyler on the back anyway. “And you don’t understand time zones.”

“I understand time zones plenty,” Tyler argues. “Edmonton and San Jose are an hour different from each other.”

“San Jose’s Pacific Time, numbnuts. They’re an hour behind us. So if you forgot to change your clock, you would’ve been an hour early for breakfast. If you're gonna make shit up at least don't sound like a complete moron about it,” Sam says.

Tyler just groans louder. “Please shut the fuck up. Still can’t believe I’m getting scratched tonight.”

“‘Least it's only one game,” Jordan points out. He thinks for a moment before adding, “So maybe don’t be late for team dinner tonight in case that's another strike?”

Tyler makes a face. “What time’s dinner?”

“Five thirty,” Nuge says from the other side of the room where he's been scrolling through his phone. He looks up, the corner of his mouth quirking into a smirk. “San Jose time. Which is six thirty Edmonton time, by the way.”

Tyler half-heartedly flips off a smug-looking Nuge, as Sam dissolves into hysterical laughter. Jordan just grins and files this whole debacle away in his brain, a story to text Taylor about after the game.)

The end of Taylor’s first semester passes by in a blur of final exams and assignments, cram sessions, and all-nighters. By the time he finishes his last exam of the week and hands in his last essay, he’s ready to crawl into bed and sleep for weeks.

Instead, he finds himself going out with the hockey team to celebrate the upcoming winter break, the night ending with him happy and drunk, and waking up vaguely hungover in the bed of a petite geography major, with more than a dozen sent drunken text messages to Jordan in his phone that seem to have gotten increasingly incomprehensible as the night had gone on.

He flies home to Kingston the next day, halfway across the country to spend Christmas with his parents with their familiar, quiet, and low-key traditions. He presses his forehead to the passenger side window to watch the city go by when his mother drives him home from the airport.

On his second night home, Taylor wakes up slowly from a half-remembered nightmare and spends the next hour tossing and turning, before writing off the rest of the night’s sleep, pulling on a hoodie, and slipping outside for some fresh air to hopefully clear his head. He sits on the back steps and looks out at the backyard of his family’s home in Kingston where the annual rink used to be: he can practically still see where the boards had stopped metres before the train tracks on the other side of their property, close enough to peer over when he was out stick-handling as another train whistled by.

He’s not sure how long he’s been out sitting out here by himself when he hears the back door open and shut behind him, and his mom’s voice: “What are you doing out here? It’s not even seven yet.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he says, and then turns around to look at her and the two steaming mugs in her hands. “Is that coffee?”

“No.” She sits down next to him. “Hot chocolate. Still want it?”

Taylor nods and makes grabby hands for the drink. His mother laughs and passes one of them over before wrapping her hands around her own mug.

They sit for several moments in companionable silence before she speaks again—

“You know,” she begins. “Your dad really wanted to set the rink up for us for Christmas this year. I think he just wishes you'd stop growing up, really. The weather’s been yo-yo-ing like crazy though, minus ten one day, plus five the next. But I think he’s just happy to have you home for Christmas.”

“I was home last year, too,” Taylor reminds her.

“Yeah, I guess you were, but this year…” she trails off.

“—but this year what? I’m lucid? Conscious?” Taylor knows that his tone isn’t as light as he’s trying to make it, but he can't seem to stop himself. “Not high on pain meds?”

“Healthy,” his mother fills in, frowning with disapproval. “Don’t do that, T. You know I hate that.”

“Sorry, Mom,” he tells her, feeling vaguely chastised.

She sighs. “Besides,” she says dryly. “Your shoulder surgery was after Christmas. Your lucidity wasn’t an issue until the new year.”

“I think Dad liked have a half-conscious kid around so that he could tell me all about his glory days over and over again and no one was around to stop him,” he says, half-hiding behind his mug. “I probably thought his stories were the best.”

That seems to get a flicker of a smile out of his mother. “So how is that shoulder doing?”

“It’s fine,” he says.

“Taylor.” There’s a warning in her tone and he instantly feels bad about it. He can’t fault her irritation when that’s the answer he remembers giving in lieu of proper responses, up to and including when she’d called him after that first Memorial Cup game in Brandon.

“It’s okay,” he amends. “I barely notice it at all. I can pass and shoot and it feels good. It feels fine when I raise my arm up. I’ll help you string the lights later, okay?”

She makes a vague noise of approval. “And how’s school?”

“Boring,” Taylor says flatly.

“How’s everything about school not class-related?”

“Decent,” he concedes. “The guys are nice. My roommate’s a beauty. Did I tell you that he played for the O?”

“Really?” she says with interest. “Did you ever play against him?”

“Yeah. He played D for the Petes, a really big dude. I remember him shadowing me sometimes. He messed up his shoulder back in the day though. I like him more now that we’re on the same team.”

She nods. “Are you liking CIS hockey?” she asks, taking a sip of her drink.

Taylor shrugs. “It’s different. Not bad. It’s…” He hesitates. “Still hockey, I guess,” he finishes quietly.

She leans in to gently bump their shoulders together. “You meet any pretty girls yet? Anyone special?”

“Not really,” he says carelessly. “Just, you know. A few parties and stuff. The scenery in my lit class is the best thing about it.”

“Are you being respectful? And you do remember that ‘no means no,’ right?” Her face hardens. “Are you using protection?”

Taylor almost spits out the gulp of hot chocolate in his mouth. “Mom!”

“I’m just saying, sweetheart,” she continues, eyeing him. “Your dad and I are not ready to be grandparents yet.”

“This is officially the worst conversation we’ve ever had,” Taylor complains, feeling a blush creep up into his cheeks despite the cold morning air.

She just laughs. “What’s your mom for, if not to embarrass you every now and then?”

“Driving you to rehab?” Taylor says sardonically.

“Both times,” she agrees and swats at him. “I promise I didn’t mind doing that though.”

On some level, Taylor knows that this is true; that his mother loves him, that she’d do almost anything for him. He knows that she was patient, but firm, on the mornings when he thought he couldn’t get out of bed; that she’d let him rage, let him be angry and be devastated when it all felt like too much to handle, when it felt like the physiotherapy and strength-training and re-adjusting to his skating stride was never going to end. He knows that he’s lucky, so lucky, to have that. But the gratefulness he feels is beginning to verge on something that’s almost as embarrassing as the sex talk for completely different reasons, so he does the only thing he can do, and changes the subject.

“Hey,” he says instead. “You know who I ran into in Edmonton? Do you remember Jordan Eberle? I played with him at a bunch of tourneys and stuff.”

“Sure,” she replies, scrunching up her face, thinking. “He scored that big goal in Saskatoon, right? Doesn’t he play for the Oilers now?”

“Yeah,” Taylor says. “We hung out a few times. He’s a pretty good guy.” And then, wryly, “Probably feels sorry for me or something.”

“Self-pity’s not a good look on you, T,” his mother chides him. “I bet he has better things to do than hang out with people he feels sorry for. Besides, I can think of worse things than hanging out with you.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Taylor rolls his eyes, but can’t help the beginnings of a smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth.

“I have to dispense all my valuable advice to you now since you’ve already decided that you’re not coming home for reading week,” she continues.

“It’s expensive to come home,” he says apologetically. “I mean, might as well just save the money to fly home for the summer anyway, right?”

“Sure,” she says. “Then you can use your study break at school to actually study.”

Both of them, well aware of Taylor’s feelings toward academia, laugh.

They lapse back into comfortable silence again for several moments. “How’re you doing, anyway?” she eventually asks, curious. “In general, I mean.”

Taylor turns to look at her. “What’s with all the questions?”

She just stares right back at him. “Can’t I want to know about what’s going on in my only kid’s life?”

When he doesn’t say anything, she sighs and starts telling him about her life over the last five months, about her job, and their newest home renovation project, and how they’re thinking about getting a dog. Taylor wraps his hands around his cooling mug and lets his mother’s voice wash over him, basking in its familiar comfort as he rests his head against her shoulder.

She pauses abruptly and smiles. “You used to do that when you were little,” she says. “I miss that.”

“I like hearing about what you’re up to,” he tells her.

She laughs and reaches over to pull him into a one-armed hug, and pretends not to notice when he involuntarily tenses a little as her arm slides around his lower back.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” she tells him and then kisses the top of his head. “Is it still bothering you?”

Taylor thinks about stalling, about pretending that he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but in the end, resigns himself to the fact that he’s never really been able to lie to his mother. “Not really, I guess,” he finally says. “Sometimes it feels weird when I wake up in the morning or after a hard practice.”

“Your legs…?”

“Are fine,” he says. “It’s just, you know.” He gestures at his back. “Sometimes it’s just…stiff and stuff. But mostly it’s okay.”

“Does the trainer at your school know that? Did you tell him?”

Taylor shrugs. “It never really came up.”

“You might want to do that,” she says gently.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll think about it.”

“Do it and I’ll make you chocolate chip waffles for breakfast today,” she says, taking the empty mug from his hands.

Taylor raises an eyebrow, incredulous. “Are you trying to bribe me with breakfast to do stuff?”

She doesn’t look embarrassed about it at all. “It always worked when you were little.” She stands up, making her way to the back door, empty mugs dangling from her hand. “Come in soon, okay? Could use your help setting the table. And I seem to recall someone volunteering to string the lights today.”

“I’ll do the lights after going to the gym,” he promises. “Can I take your car?”

“If you drop me off at work on the way,” she agrees, and he nods his thanks.

“Oh, and T?” his mother says, and hesitates for just a moment when he turns around to look at her. “I’m proud of you. You know that, right? Me and your dad, both of us.”

“You have to be,” Taylor tells her. “I’m your only kid. Who else are you going to be proud of?”

“There’s that, sure,” she says with a smile. “But on top of that. You’re doing good, kid.”

Taylor’s not sure about what to say in response to that, not sure he has a response appropriate for that. “Thanks, Mom,” he finally says, when what he thinks he might really mean is I love you too.

It all happens almost too fast for Jordan to process: one moment, the Oilers are playing the Stars and he’s calling for the puck; the next, his legs are tangled with Jamie Benn’s and there’s a distinct snapping noise, followed by a flare of throbbing pain in his knee. He manages to get back to the bench and sits there, willing the pain to go away.

But it doesn’t, so just fuck everything.

The rest of the boys pat him on the back in encouragement as he’s helped into the dressing room and all that’s left for Jordan to do is cross his fingers and hope that this isn’t a serious injury.

While the trainers tell him it’s probably a fairly minor sprain, they also say that they’re going to book him some tests and scans just in case. Jordan’s trying to be optimistic about the whole situation, but the truth is that injuries are frustrating no matter how they’re spun. For now, Jordan would love to just be grumpy about this and not think about how monumentally stupid the next few days in his life are going to be, as he repeatedly assures too many people that he won’t need someone to spend the night at his apartment to help keep an eye on his invalid self.

He gets home later than usual that evening after extensive time with the medical staff, the team doctor finally sending him home with strict instructions to stay off his feet and to ice his knee religiously. In the interest of getting back on the ice as soon as possible, Jordan’s complying with their instructions when he finally checks his phone to find it blowing up with messages, mostly of sympathy and well wishes from family and friends.

Jordan sighs as he scrolls through his phone, wincing when he shifts a little to get into a more comfortable position on the couch. He really didn’t think his hockey situation could get any worse than the constant losing, but he’s starting to learn not to be surprised with just how far this free fall seems to be able to actually go.

He’s still allowing himself a little more time to wallow in self-pity when the phone in his lap buzzes again, startling him out of his brooding.

It’s from Taylor. hope your ok :(

Jordan hasn’t seen Taylor since he had gone back to Kingston for Christmas. He quickly types out a reply, hey u back in edm tho??

Yup got back last week. Saw your game on tv. Sucks, the message comes back.

Jordan smiles despite himself. He considers Taylor’s text for a moment. Everything sux. Im bored. Come over?? he types out and sends.

His phones buzzes again. Ok. Dunno where you live tho except near sobeys maybe? Want me to bring anything?

BEER, Jordan types all in caps, followed by his exact address.

Taylor shows up about half an hour later, carrying a six-pack of Big Rock. “Didn’t know what you like to drink,” he says in greeting, familiar grin hidden under his layers of winter gear. “Sorry. Hey.”

“Hi. It’s fine. Big Rock’s good.” Jordan finds himself grinning in response as he slowly leads the way back down the hallway.

Taylor follows, taking in Jordan’s apartment. “You look gimpier than last time I saw you.”

“Shut up and sit down. I don’t want to look up to talk to you,” Jordan says.

Taylor just laughs. “How are you feeling?”

“Been better,” Jordan says. He glances hopefully over at the beer.

“Are you even allowed to be drinking?” Taylor says, eyeing Jordan suspiciously as he opens one of the bottles.

Jordan shrugs. “Sure,” he says.

Taylor mirrors Jordan's shrug and hands him the bottle and opening up another one. “Did you go home for Christmas? Your folks live in Calgary, right? That’s pretty close.”

“I did. It was pretty sweet. Turkey time and family stuff and all that, you know. How was yours?”

“Good,” Taylor says, nodding. “Quiet.” And then, “I’m sorry about your knee.”

Jordan groans. He takes a long pull of beer and then pokes at the less-than-frozen icepack resting on his knee. “Me too. I’m so excited about the tests tomorrow and starting PT this week.”

“Yeah, it’s super fun, you’ll love it.” Taylor pauses. He tilts his beer bottle to point at Jordan’s icepack. “Hey, you need, like, a colder one or something?” he asks.

“That sounds pretty awesome, actually,” Jordan says. “There should be a couple in the freezer.”

“‘k,” Taylor says and wanders into the kitchen, beer still in hand. “Nice place, by the way. Your freezer’s pretty empty though.”

“So’s the fridge,” Jordan agrees. “Pretty much the only drawback to living alone. When you’re out of food and too lazy to buy more, it’s all on you.”

Taylor laughs, shutting the freezer door. “I kinda like living with other people, to tell you the truth. But hey, if you need someone to pick up food, I could, like. Go grocery shopping for you, if you want. Since you’re hurt, I mean.”

“That’s okay,” Jordan says. “It’s just downstairs. And if I were feeling too lazy, I could probably just make Gags or Segs do it for me. Or get it delivered. But really awesome for you to offer that. Thanks.”

“No problem,” Taylor says easily and grins at Jordan, passing him a cold icepack wrapped in a dish towel.

Jordan accepts it gratefully, settling it gingerly onto his knee. “There is this one other thing you could do though,” he says.

“Sure. What’s up?”

“There’s this thing, in the front closet,” Jordan says. “It’s wrapped in creepy Santa paper, I think. You could go get it?”

“Okay,” Taylor says, and disappears again into the front hall for a moment to rummage around, returning several moments later with the aforementioned package. He holds it out to Jordan.

“Uh, that’s for you. Merry late Christmas and whatnot,” Jordan says.

Taylor looks surprised, staring at the haphazardly-wrapped gift in his hand, and then at Jordan, and back again. “I didn’t get you anything,” he finally says.

Jordan rolls his eyes impatiently. “No, hey, this was mostly for my own benefit. You’ll see, don’t even worry about it. And you brought beer, that’s the best gift of all!”

Taylor opens his mouth like he’s going to argue, hesitates, and then closes it again. “Thanks,” he finally says instead.

“Open it already,” Jordan urges.

Nodding, Taylor tears open the pile of tape and wrapping paper. He pulls out the gift, unfolds it, and starts laughing almost immediately. “You got me a Riders jersey.”

“I got you a Weston Dressler jersey,” Jordan corrects. “That’s the best kind of Riders jersey!”

Taylor’s still laughing. “I should send a picture to my dad. He’s pretty much played for everyone but your Riders. I bet he’ll be confused.”

“He can’t be confused. Dressler’s the best!” Jordan declares passionately. “Put it on, hey?”

Rolling his eyes good-naturedly, Taylor complies and strips off his cardigan. And out of nowhere, Jordan thinks that his brain might be short-circuiting a little bit, because he's staring at Taylor as pulling on the football jersey over his tight t-shirt and he can’t stop, doesn't want to stop, and what the fuck.

Taylor doesn’t seem to notice how distracted Jordan suddenly feels. “I hate myself a little bit right now,” he says. He looks down at the jersey he’s wearing. “Thanks, though.”

Jordan blinks a couple times, trying to get himself to focus back on the conversation right now and wills himself not to come off like a huge weirdo. “But this is probably the coolest you’ve ever been in your life,” he manages.

Taylor’s still laughing at that when Jordan, in a fit of forced normalcy, pretends to throw the Xbox controller at his head.

Later that evening, after Taylor’s gone back to the dorms—and Jordan had offered to drive him, but Taylor had made a lot of noise about how Jordan should be keeping his leg elevated—Jordan’s still slightly shaken by the momentary lapse that had occurred earlier in the evening. He sighs, trying to work up the energy to stand up and get ready for bed, when he spots a stretched-out blue cardigan flung carelessly over the arm of the couch.

Jordan stares at it for a long time, before picking up his phone and typing out a message. You left your sweater here. Ill return it next time k?

Minutes later, Jordan’s phone buzzes three times in rapid succession. He peers down at it to check:

cool. thanks ebby

and,

feel better and good luck 2morrow

and,

dresslers ok i guess ;)

Jordan grins. He carefully folds up the cardigan and sets it on the arm of the couch. He decides that one more episode of Suits before bed couldn’t hurt and pushes everything else out of his head for now.

“Are you sure it’s okay that I’m here?” Taylor asks for the third time. He looks distinctly uneasy, still bundled up in his scarf and Golden Bears hoodie, both bare hands wrapped around his medium double-double. He’s glancing around the bowels of Rexall warily, like he’s not sure who might be watching, and Jordan wonders, for the third time, if it would be overstepping his boundaries to hug him in reassurance.

He resists the urge and just shrugs. “Yeah, of course.”

“Okay,” Taylor says, clearly unconvinced, and sips his coffee. Jordan can’t even imagine what it would feel like to be here in Taylor’s situation, knowing he should belong here (Jordan would never tell Tyler this, but he always thought Taylor would go first, even after the hit, all the way up until he heard the actual injury report) and feeling so certainly that he doesn’t. It’s probably kind of like how Jordan never thinks Taylor looks quite right in green and gold, not when he was so well-suited to the fierce reds of Windsor and Team Canada, but Jordan has never seen him in copper and blue anyway so he’s not sure why it matters.

He is sure, though, that he’s glad to be Taylor’s friend no matter what colours he’s wearing. And he’s glad to be here with him now, even if Taylor looks as if he’s having second thoughts about this reunion.

“C’mon,” Jordan says, nudging Taylor to follow him as he heads toward the rink.

Taylor falls into step beside him. “You’re limping.”

“PT was a bitch this morning.” Jordan makes a face. He’s got a brace on—his jeans are too tight over it so he’s been relegated to bumming around in sweatpants instead of the post-workout clothes he brought—but it’s still sore. It’s driving him nuts. He hates being injured.

“Should I go find you a wheelchair?” Taylor gives him a little grin. “Or I can piggyback you.”

Jordan laughs and bumps Taylor’s shoulder with his own. “I’m trying to recover, not re-injure myself.”

“Right, okay, I see how it is,” Taylor says, joking, but when Jordan goes to steer them down the tunnel, he hesitates.

“C’mon, man,” says Jordan.

“Hang on.” Taylor finishes his coffee, wanders back down the corridor to find a bin for the cup, and then comes back to walk with him.

The cold air always hits about halfway down to the rink, but Jordan is used to it, even in his t-shirt. The Devils are just finishing up their morning skate when they reach the ice, moving in easy circles around each other and throwing haphazard pucks at Hedberg. Jordan leans against the boards to watch; after a moment, Taylor joins him, his eyes fixed on the players as they trickle back to the bench.

“Henny!” Jordan calls when he spots Adam.

“Hey!” Adam grins and skates over immediately. “What’s u—holy shit,” he interrupts himself, and the ensuing sequence of him simultaneously trying to open the door and climb over the boards would be hilarious if Jordan wasn’t legitimately concerned for everyone’s safety. Taylor looks like a deer in the headlights, but his shocked face is hidden as soon as Adam finds his feet and wraps Taylor in a bear hug.

“Hey, Henny,” Taylor says, muffled somewhere in the folds of Adam’s practice jersey. Adam has dropped his gloves to clutch the back of Taylor’s hoodie like he thought he would never see him again. They stay like that for a long minute; Jordan hangs back and watches. As glad as he is to be here, Adam and Taylor go back way further than he and Taylor do, and they deserve this moment.

“Holy shit,” Adam says again, pulling back to take Taylor’s face in his hands and stare at him. “You’re such a fucking idiot. The hugest non-beauty I know, Jesus Christ, Hallsy.”

“Fuck off,” Taylor says, sheepish, and he almost looks like he’s trying not to smile for a second before he gives into it, his eyes crinkling at the corners as his whole face lights up. He goes easily when Adam pulls him into another hug.

Adam has to go, though, to join his team in the locker room and grab a shower, but he makes Taylor promise to hang out and wait for him, and he gives Jordan a hug before he runs off: a quick, tight squeeze that Jordan understands is a thank you.

Taylor is quiet after Adam leaves, first watching him disappear with the rest of the Devils and then turning to look at the rink instead. The only people left out there are Hedberg and a couple of defencemen, standing together with one of their coaches, chatting, but Jordan knows that’s not what Taylor is looking at. The ice is vast and inviting even all torn up like it is right now; it’s only been a few weeks since Jordan got to skate on it and his gut still twists with want when he looks at it.

“How long ‘til you can play again?” Taylor asks, startling Jordan out of his thoughts.

“Week or two?” says Jordan. “We’re kinda playing it by ear.”

“Cool,” says Taylor. Jordan watches him for a moment, then, impulsively, hoists himself up to sit on the boards and swing his legs over.

“I thought you were trying not to re-injure yourself,” Taylor says.

“Shut up,” Jordan says. “Come on.” He lowers himself cautiously to the ice, careful on his bad knee.

“Ebs,” says Taylor.

Walking on ice in sneakers is always strange because Jordan isn’t as sure in them as he is on skates, but he takes a few steps out anyway before he turns around to look at Taylor.

“Are you coming?” he asks.

Taylor huffs and rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he says, and hops over the boards. Jordan grins at him before continuing toward centre ice. He understands, he thinks, why Taylor would have reservations, but he also thinks that Taylor earned his spot on this ice as much as anyone, and besides—this is Jordan’s second home in Edmonton, and he wants Taylor to feel okay being here.

It’s a few minutes before Taylor wanders over to join Jordan on the Oilers logo, sidling up next to him and following Jordan’s gaze up to the numbers in the rafters. “So is there a reason we’re out here, or...”

Jordan shrugs. “Not really. Just felt like it.”

Taylor snorts, but when Jordan glances over, he’s smiling, soft and fond, looking out into the invisible masses of Rexall faithful like he can hear the roar of them echoing through the building even though there are still hours until gametime.

“Okay,” he says eventually. “You wanna get lunch with me and Henny?”

Jordan shakes his head. “I got gameday stuff. You should come to the game tonight, though.”

“Maybe,” Taylor says, and for once Jordan feels like he really means ‘yes’.

Jordan eyes the laptop screen he’s been staring at for the last ten minutes, waffling between whether this is a great or terrible idea—he’s still not entirely sure. Finally, he decides that if he’s going to be doing this, he’s not going to do it alone. He picks up his phone to dial the one person who will inevitably agree to go along with all his whims, suddenly overwhelmed by gratefulness that Colten’s been called up and will hopefully be here in Edmonton for the foreseeable future.

“Hey Tubes,” Jordan says, when he picks up on the third ring. “You busy?”

“Never too busy for you, bro,” Colten tells him cheerfully.

“Ugh,” Jordan pauses, grateful for the gradual dissipation of the nervous energy humming under his skin. “Wanna go to—”

“—yeah, I’ll go,” Colten interrupts.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

“Doesn’t matter,” Colten says smoothly. “I’ll go anyway. Is it to the peelers? Say it’s to the peelers.”

Jordan groans. “It’s not the peelers! C’mon, man!”

“You’re breaking my heart here,” Colten continues, unfazed. “So where are we really going?”

“Golden Bears game,” Jordan says. “They’re playing Lethbridge tonight. Still wanna go?”

There’s a long pause. “Your boy invite you to his game?” Colten finally asks.

“No, Hallsy did not,” Jordan says pointedly. “Actually, he doesn’t know we’re going to be there and hopefully he won’t find out, I think. He’s your friend, too.”

“Fine, fine,” Colten concedes. “This is all kind of weird, but yeah, I’m in.” And then, “Hey, so if you don’t want him to know that we’re there, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Probably not.”

“Incognito, baby,” Colten says, sounding smug. “It’s going to be some Grade A, super spy shit all up in here. Me and you, my man, our boy won’t suspect a thing.”

Jordan does his best not to laugh, despite himself. “Why are we even friends, again?”

Jordan’s not entirely sure why he’s even surprised when he pulls up outside Andy Sutton’s house and sees Colten loitering on the front lawn in an oversized trench coat and sunglasses.

“You look like Inspector Gadget,” Jordan announces when Colten climbs into the truck, rubbing his hands together for warmth. “Are you wearing a trench coat over your winter jacket?”

“You look like Jordan Eberle,” Colten retorts. “Which completely defeats the idea of ‘incognito,’ by the way. But fear not, Young Eberle,” he continues, before digging out something from his pocket. He reaches over and sticks a bushy fake moustache to Jordan’s upper lip. “Presto change-o, you’re now an international man of mystery!”

Jordan blinks at him. “I don’t want it?” he suggests hopefully.

“I have one for me, too,” Colten continues. “We can be mystery twins.”

“You’re the weirdest,” Jordan says, trying not to smile; he knows that most of Colten’s over-the-top ridiculousness tonight is for his benefit. Colten’s always known him so well, always known when he was nervous, always known the best way to distract him.

“Mystery twins,” Colten repeats eagerly. “Tonight’s totally gonna be the best night of our lives this week.”

It’s not until Jordan’s in his seat, having picked spots in the back row behind one of the benches, and his fake moustache tucked carefully into his coat pocket, that he starts wondering if he’s in over his head. Colten’s wandered off in search of beer, and Jordan’s looking around at the spread of fans in green and gold, trying to spot him. He’s still not back by the time the Bears take to the ice for warm-ups, so Jordan finds himself getting distracted by the team stretching and warming up on the ice. He picks Taylor out easily enough.

(Jordan’s never told anyone else this, but the last time he’d watched Taylor play was during his attempted comeback in Windsor. He remembers how ineffective and slow Taylor had been in comparison to the way he had played just months before. The obvious frustration Taylor had telegraphed at his inability to make the same plays he used to routinely be able to do had been too depressing for Jordan to keep watching. He’d had to turn off the television well before the end of the game. Part of Jordan wonders if that’s what tonight’s going to be like. He doesn’t think he could sit through another period of that.)

“What’d I miss?” Colten asks, appearing suddenly and handing Jordan one of the two beers clutched in his hands.

Jordan shrugs, accepting it gratefully. “Nothing. Just warm-ups and pre-game skate. You’re back in time for puck drop.”

“Good,” Colten says. “I thought I was going to miss the entire first. You were right, but the way. Really hot co-eds kept asking me why I was dressed like Inspector Gadget. Think girls are into that? I should probably call my girlfriend tonight and ask, eh?”

“Yeah,” Jordan replies automatically, grateful that Colten’s here with him.

And like always, Colten just seems to know. He slings his arm around Jordan’s shoulder and clinks their plastic cups together like it’s all okay. Like it’s perfectly normal that they’re here at the Bears game, Jordan quietly trying not to freak out.

Jordan’s almost surprised when the game begins. Taylor’s playing in all situations, still stubborn as ever on the power play and probably more defensively responsible than Jordan remembers him ever being. He’s no longer as dominant as Jordan remembers though; he watches Taylor lose footraces and get beat to the puck as he takes a second longer than an instant to bounce back from getting slammed into the boards by the Pronghorn defenceman.

“Hey,” Colten says halfway through the second, reaching over to replace the lukewarm half-full beer in Jordan’s hand with a cold one. “The girls here are super hot. And our boy just made a sick defensive play.” He leans forward to catch Jordan’s eye. “Trust me, I know about these types of things. We could go tell him after the game.”

“Yeah,” Jordan says, bobbing his head in a way that means thanks. The grin Tubes gives him is genuine, if a little tinged with sadness, as if he’s realizing the same thing Jordan is. This is not the Taylor they remember from the U-18s, brash and confident, the kid who tried too hard to prove himself at the WJC camp and got cut, only to come storming back a year later. Here he is, slower and less mobile, hesitating before making a play or shooting the puck—this: this is new.

“Excuse me.”

A soft voice startles Jordan out of his reverie during a stoppage in play. He looks up to see two girls in matching University of Alberta zip-up hoodies smiling shyly at him. “Are you Jordan Eberle? We’re really big fans. Can we get a picture with you?”

Jordan nods; he’s never been very good at saying no to fans. Colten laughs at him and offers to hold the camera, until one of the girls recognizes him too and asks him to be in the photo as well. Colten spends the rest of the period crowing about how he’s now equally famous as Jordan.

The second period ends with the Golden Bears up by four.

The Bears’ dressing room is buzzing during the second intermission, swept up in the excitement of being in the process of shutting out Lethbridge for the second night in a row. Hickmott’s bouncing around the room, undoubtedly pumped up by his first period power play goal and his second period shorty, and Rosy’s telling everyone that he’ll buy shots for the entire team if they shut out the Pronghorns again.

Taylor’s on the peripheries of the cacophony, laughing when the boys start chirping the goalie for wandering out behind the net in boredom. He knows he’s not personally having the best game—he’s pretty sure that his two assists don’t absolve the fact that his giveaways probably outnumber his takeaways tonight, and he’s even more certain that his side’s going to hurt tomorrow from getting run hard into the boards during the first—but the team’s doing great, and it suddenly hits Taylor that he’s really missed this; feeling like a part of something, like he belongs on a team.

Reddy drops down beside him in boxer-briefs, and Taylor raises an amused eyebrow at him. He’s always known guys who’ve stripped down all the way between periods only to suit up five minutes later in time to hit the ice again—it had always seemed like an awful lot of work to him.

“Did you hear?” Reddy says, grinning and leaning in to be heard over the noise. “Apparently Jordan Eberle’s in the crowd tonight.”

Almost immediately, Taylor feels the contentment draining out of him, replaced by a sense of creeping dread. “Jordan Eberle?” he says. “What’s he doing here?”

“Dunno,” Reddy says, starting the process of pulling on his pads again. “Maybe he just loves the Golden Bears? I mean, how could he not? We’re fucking awesome.”

“Sure,” Taylor says. It’s weird that Jordan’s here. Maybe he has bros on the Pronghorns, or maybe he’s got other friends at U of A who he’s come with. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that Jordan’s here at the game and has probably just seen Taylor play some pretty mediocre hockey.

“Anyway,” Reddy continues, unaware of Taylor’s sudden discomfort. “Rowley’s ready to shit kittens, he loves Eberle so much. He’s practically giggling like a seven year old girl at a Bieber concert.”

Taylor’s saved from having to continue the conversation when their coach’s voice cuts into the excited chatter, shushing them all instantly with instructions to keep taking the game to Lethbridge in the third. Taylor pulls on his gloves and takes a few deep breaths. He resolves not to get distracted and do the best he can for the rest of the game, even if his best might not be good enough anymore.

After the game, his hair still wet, he spots Jordan and Teubert right away as he leaves the rink, a smaller guy trying to look inconspicuous as he stands around casually talking to a taller guy in a trench coat. Briefly, Taylor considers walking away quickly and avoiding the encounter altogether. Ultimately, his curiosity gets the better of him, and he finds himself squaring his shoulders, gathering up his courage, and making his way over.

“Hey,” Taylor says. And then, almost as an afterthought, “What’s with the fake moustache?”

Teubert grins at him, peeling off the moustache with one hand and throwing his other arm over Taylor’s shoulders. “The ladies love it, man, you know how it is. Congrats on the W, kid.”

Taylor just nods and smiles because the moustache explanation is complete nonsense, but then again, it’s been four years and he’ll probably never master the ability to translate from Teubert to English. Still, Teubert is a pretty good guy.

“You guys waiting for someone?” Taylor asks instead. “Got boys on the Pronghorns?”

“Nah. We did play against most of those guys in the Dub though. We probably could have given you a full scouting report,” Teubert says. Then he reaches over to throw his other arm around Jordan. “Right, Ebs?”

Jordan’s been suspiciously quiet throughout the exchange so far, but looks up at that. “Right,” he agrees. He leans over Teubert to address Taylor. “Good game, by the way. You guys looked great out there.”

Taylor nods, and swallows once, twice, to try and temper the reflexive embarrassment bubbling in his stomach. “How’s your knee?” he asks, changing the topic.

“Better, thanks,” Jordan says, offering Taylor a smile that he can’t help but return.

“Hey, let’s get a drink,” Teubert says loudly. “I mean, we have a game tomorrow night, but one can’t hurt, right? We’ll celebrate the Bears’ win and maybe the drink can turn around our losing record, too?”

Taylor’s phone buzzes just then. He looks down at it to find a message from Barron: where u at mr multi assist?? DRINKS W THE BOYZ

He looks up at Teubert and Jordan’s expectant faces and hesitates.

“Okay, one drink,” Taylor says. Teubert cheers and Jordan beams at him in that way that makes Taylor suddenly feel wonderfully reckless, and he only feels a little bit guilty when he texts Barron back: gonna be late. tell the boys to save me one.

“What a mess, that game in Columbus,” Teubert says, tipping his bottle of Coors Lite in Taylor’s direction. “Blown lead. Oh, and Potsie? Corey Potter? Dude almost stepped on Ladi’s face during warm-ups. That would’ve been shit.”

“The game against the Blues was pretty bad too, though,” Jordan adds. “Pietro.” He shakes his head. “Every single fucking time.”

“You guys were great tonight though,” Teubert says brightly, turning to look at Taylor. “They let you kill penalties now? When’d you learn about defence?”

Taylor rolls his eyes, ducking out of the way as Teubert reaches over to muss his hair. “Just because we never PK-ed together doesn’t mean I can’t do it. And what, you’re going to offer me tips now?” He smirks. “Sounds like I should be asking Pietrangelo instead.”

Teubert laughs in delight. “Ebs, I don’t remember our boy being so full of sass, do you?”

Jordan just smiles, turning to Taylor. “Three assists?”

“Two,” Taylor corrects, almost absentmindedly.

“You say that like it’s not awesome,” Jordan tells him, almost chiding. “That’s like how many points Tubes gets in an entire season!”

“Hey!” Teubert says loudly, before pausing, his grin widening. “Wait, actually, yeah, that’s pretty accurate.”

“Thanks,” Taylor says and then busies himself with draining the rest of his beer so that he doesn’t have to respond.

It’s early Sunday afternoon, and Taylor’s already hit the gym, eaten breakfast and brunch, and checked in with his mother on Skype. Barron’s spent the evening at his parents’, and Taylor’s pretty sure he’s unofficially run out of ways to procrastinate from his psychology readings for tomorrow’s class. With a heavy sigh, he resigns himself to actually having to do them, and pulls on his winter coat and book bag to trudge over to the library.

His phone buzzes before he’s even out of the dorms. When he checks it, there’s a message from Jordan:

hey u busy?

Taylor grins and quickly types out a response. not really. what up?

we got bagskated this morning. sucked. wanna come over? kick ur ass at chell

got some fuckin homework ugh Taylor sends back regretfully.

His phone buzzes again. do it here? could use company

Taylor considers this for a moment; decides that this is definitely a welcome distraction. k. be there in 30.

And that’s how Taylor finds himself stretched out on one of the recliners of Jordan’s couch later that afternoon, half-heartedly poring over the chapter overview on sensation and perception, and trying to ignore the way that Jordan’s got last week’s episode of Californication on but doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to it at all.

“You got bagskated?” Taylor finally looks up and ventures, which seems to at least somewhat stir Jordan out of his pseudo-brooding.

“We sucked last night,” Jordan says flatly. “We’ve sucked all week.”

“Well, now that they have you back, maybe you guys’ll be less brutal,” Taylor says, hoping that he sounds comforting. “Shitty night, it happens.”

Something seems to shift in Jordan and he visibly relaxes against the couch. “What’re you reading?” he asks instead.

Taylor flips the textbook over to reveal the cover of his first year psychology textbook. “It’s pretty boring, if I’m being honest,” he says.

Jordan quirks a tired half-smile. “I didn’t know that gym majors needed to know how to read. Or know about psychology.”

“Ha ha.” Taylor elbows Jordan lightly, rolling his eyes. “So fuckin’ funny, Ebs.”

“I know, I’m hilarious,” Jordan notes. And then, with genuine curiosity in his voice, “So what’re you guys learning about this week?”

Taylor shrugs. “Sensation, mostly? Like...how our brains know what we see and hear and stuff. And how we feel things, like pressure or pain or temperature. I dunno, it’s pretty confusing.”

“It sounds pretty cool, actually,” Jordan says. “That kind of stuff was always really interesting to me when I was in school.”

“What, stuff like how doctors could treat people with chronic pain by giving them...” Taylor glances down at his textbook to consult it. “...a prefrontal lobotomy?”

Jordan laughs. “It does not say that!”

Taylor grins. “How do you know? You’re a hockey player, you pretty much said so yourself. Hockey players can’t read.”

“You’re a hockey player,” Jordan says, leaning in against Taylor as if close proximity would help make his point clear. “And I’m pretty sure you can read.”

Taylor’s not sure how to answer that. But he knows he likes that he can make Jordan laugh,; likes how Jordan looks more relaxed now than when Taylor had tentatively slipped into the apartment. So when Jordan turns back to the show, still leaning heavily against Taylor on the couch, he decides that he’s okay with that too, and goes back to his textbook, turning the page.

The solid weight pressed against his side is warm and not unpleasant, but most of all, it’s distracting. After reading the same paragraph approximately six times and absorbing absolutely nothing, he decides that it’s probably time for a study break. He looks up at the television with the intention to make a comment about how terrible of a character Hank Moody’s daughter is, but instead he finds himself blurting out, “One time in high school, I handed in a math test without filling out any of the answers, just wrote my name at the top.”

Jordan lifts his head to peer at Taylor, still leaning heavily against him. “Why the hell would you do that?”

Taylor can feel a hot blush creeping up his neck, past his collar. He wonders why he even brought this up in the first place. But Jordan’s watching him carefully, like he really does want to know—it’s probably too late to turn back now. “‘Cuz I thought I was going to play in the NHL one day,” Taylor confesses. “And I didn’t feel like doing a test. I didn’t need good marks to be a hockey player, just pass school and, you know, be a good hockey player. And my marks in math were good enough that I didn’t need to pass that test to pass the class. I worked it out.”

It takes a moment for Jordan to process this, cocking his head to the side. “You took the time to work that out?” he says slowly. “Why did you even bother going to school that day?”

“I had an English test, too,” Taylor says matter-of-factly. “And I actually needed to pass those tests to do okay in that class.”

There’s another long pause, just shy of awkward, until Jordan breaks out into another one of his huge smiles. “You’re so weird,” he says, but he sounds amused and he sounds fond, and Taylor feels almost like a weight of confession has been lifted off of him.

When Jordan’s eyes drift shut later that afternoon, he’s still leaning in against Taylor, who’s feeling pretty safe and comfortable and sleepy. Taylor closes his eyes as well; tells himself that it’ll only be for a moment, only to rest his eyes from the readings that he’s almost finally finished anyway, and for now he doesn’t worry about anything.

(Jordan’s still asleep when Taylor stirs awake later, the cold grey of winter late afternoon already casting its way through the windows. Jordan’s weight is warm, steady, and comfortable against Taylor, and something in Taylor’s chest skitters a little bit, something that he tries to temper down. When Taylor thinks too hard about it, all he can feel is a vague sense of shame of wanting more than what he already has in Xbox marathons and endless text message conversations and lazy afternoons of mindless television. Hanging out with Jordan is good, it’s constant and comfortable, and that should be enough, it should be more than enough.

He tells himself that it is, wills himself to start believing it because he doesn’t want to lose Jordan again.)

Jordan can’t help it: Saturday morning, he takes a picture of his All-Star jersey hanging in his stall in Ottawa and sends it to everyone he knows.

ugly, Dustin texts back almost immediately.

thats my boyyyy hey express mail a guy a beavertail wont ya eh?is Colten’s contribution, making Jordan smile with the memory of eating their way through all the vendor carts in the city over draft weekend. (He makes sure, before he leaves, to go get one and send Colt a picture: your the worst friend, Colt texts in return.)

they misspelled boychuk, Zach replies; his parents and sisters all make general “we’re so proud” noises at him, and John turns to him with a raised eyebrow and says, “Buddy, I’m standing right next to you.”

“Just helping you cement the memories in your mind forever,” Jordan says. He takes a picture of John standing there with his dubious expression and texts that to him, too.

Taylor doesn’t reply until early afternoon, when Jordan is bored sitting around waiting for Tyler to finish up with the Oilers web team so Jordan can take his turn:

Beauty, he says. Borrowed my buddy’s jersey so I can represent when we watch the skills comp tonight. A picture comes through, too: Taylor in a navy third jersey, turned away from the camera, both arms up with his thumbs pointing to the Eberle 14 emblazoned on his back.

It maybe says something that Jordan’s been hanging out around guys like Datsyuk and Iginla all weekend and this is the first time his knees have gone weak.

(Which—it isn’t really the same, Jordan knows, because Datsyuk and Iginla, they’re idols, guys he looks up to, tried-and-true NHL All-Stars. They’re not the kid who falls asleep on Jordan’s couch with his textbooks still open, somehow fitting more neatly into Jordan’s life than anyone else ever has despite everything that has happened between World Juniors and now that probably should have kept him away from Edmonton. In some private moments, Jordan can be caught thinking words like fate; in others, when Taylor is grinning at him or going on about Jordan’s goal last game or twisting discreetly to stretch his back when he thinks people won’t notice, Jordan knows he should be ashamed for crediting the series of events to anything but Taylor’s brilliant willpower.)

looks good :), he texts back, then pulls the picture up again. He’s never seen Taylor in Oilers colours before, and seeing him in them now makes Jordan’s heart ache—not with the possibilities of what they could have been, had Taylor not been injured, because that is one thing that Jordan has decided conclusively not to dwell on: Segs is a good teammate, and that’s not fair to him. Maybe it’s less the colours, really, and more Jordan’s name and number in bold white across Taylor’s back, like Taylor is someone Jordan’s got a claim on, like there’s a part of Taylor that’s really his.

Jordan spent a little while letting himself believe that his possessiveness was protectiveness, sympathy for a friend who’s been through hard times, but he is far too familiar with butterflies and clumsy feelings that come with falling for someone to ignore them for what they are. And now, halfway through this trip, he can’t stop kicking himself for not giving into the urge to kiss Taylor before he left. Maybe it would’ve messed everything up, but if it did, at least Jordan would have the All-Star fucking Weekend to distract him. If it didn’t—well, Jordan doesn’t let himself think that far. It’s probably far less complicated than it seems in his head, but he wants to kiss this boy, hold his hand and even take him to bed, and that’s all a little scary.

“What’s the good news?” Tyler asks suddenly, startling Jordan and jarring him out of his thoughts.

“What?” He blinks at Tyler.

“You’ve got a,” Tyler gestures vaguely at Jordan’s face and then his phone, “stupid sappy look. Who ya texting?”

“Oh. Just Hallsy,” Jordan says, closing the photo and pocketing his phone.

“Right,” says Tyler, with that sidelong look he gets whenever Taylor comes up too much. Jordan’s not sure what issues lie unresolved there, but he is pretty sure he’s not the right person to deal with them. Tyler doesn’t push the issue, though—he never does. “Anyway, I’m done if you wanna, you know.” He jerks his head toward the cameras.

“Right, yeah.” Jordan gets to his feet and heads over, clapping Tyler on the shoulder as he does. “Let’s grab a drink after the skills comp, eh?”

“Sure thing, buddy,” Tyler says.

He does grab a drink with Tyler—a being the operative word, because Tyler parties a lot harder than Jordan does and pretty quickly excuses himself to go do just that. Jordan enjoys a good night out as much as the next guy, though, so he makes himself social, has some beers with the guys, and ultimately ends up sitting at the bar with John, both of them with their phones out, typing more than talking.

“Sam says I have to make sure you don’t play designated driver all weekend,” John says. “Since none of us have cars here, I think I can handle that.”

Jordan hums in agreement, lifting his phone so the camera is centred on John. “Hey, smile.”

John flips him off instead; Jordan snaps the photo and sends it to Taylor, who since he learned who Jordan’s company for the evening was has spent the past ten minutes recounting John Tavares’s first OHL goal at Jordan via text message: Taylor, Jordan suspects, is a little drunk himself. It’s a good thing, maybe, that there are two thousand miles between them, because if they were in the same bar right now, all low lighting and buzzed on a few beers, Taylor beaming at Jordan in his borrowed Oilers jersey, Jordan doesn’t think he would be able to string two words together.

John holds his phone out for Jordan to see, the screen showing a picturesque beach, complete with sunset and palm trees and a note at the bottom that reads, your all star game can suck it jt.

“We need better friends,” Jordan tells him.

John rolls his eyes and nods. “We should find where Cody is, maybe he’ll have something more exciting to do than sit here texting people who clearly don’t appreciate us.”

2nd biggest beauty i’ve ever seen, Taylor texts.

“Yeah, definitely,” Jordan says, and types back, im just assuming the 1st biggest beauty is me

No ones a bigger beauty than you ebs, Taylor replies immediately. Jordan grins. He’s just tipsy enough to be okay with fishing for compliments and letting himself relish the spark of warmth in his chest when he gets one.

“Or I could just leave you alone with whatever is just that delightful,” John deadpans.

“Um,” says Jordan, and sends off a quick except u of course before he sets his phone down. “No, let’s go. Do we know where we’re going?”

John shrugs, but Jordan follows him anyway, and tries very hard not to check his phone every five seconds for the rest of the night. After all, it’s the All-Star Weekend, and he wants some good stories to tell Taylor when he gets back.

(Taylor catches the All-Star game with some of his teammates in a bar just off-campus: despite the noises everyone makes about the game being a largely useless event, the Oilers fans are stoked to have not one but two legitimate big-name guys on the roster, and the other guys know they’ll wind up with free beer if either Eberle or Seguin do anything half-decent, so they wind up with a pretty good-sized contingent.

Taylor is wearing his borrowed jersey again. It had been thrust upon him the day before; really, it’s a miracle that he made it this long with these guys without winding up in something Oilers-related before now. It’s not as bad as Taylor’d thought it would be. It’s weirdly comforting, in a way, fisting his hands in the too-long sleeves and feeling the name and number stretched across his back. There’s still a heavy feeling in his stomach, but it’s not guilt, or regret, or any of the usual suspects: it’s a strange, twisting relief that he can even wear the jersey without wanting to throw up—that he can walk around with Jordan’s name on him and feel, above everything else, immensely proud of his friend. He’d pulled it on today with hardly a second thought.

Maybe, Taylor thinks, when Jordan gets home, he can borrow it again to wear to a game. He can imagine Jordan grinning at him, manhandling Taylor around to see the back of the jersey, can hear him chirping: fancy sweater for an ugly mug. Taylor’s not sure when making Jordan smile became more important than his own issues, but he suspects it was around the same time he started looking forward to Jordan’s head on his shoulder when they watch TV together.

Regardless, though: the All-Star Game is kind of ridiculous, but it’s fun to watch anyway. Rowley buys everyone shots when Jordan notches his first point of the game in the second period, and Barron claps him on the shoulder, his beer mug looking undersized in his giant hands.

“Good game, eh?”

“Pretty terrible game,” Taylor says wryly. “No one’s playing defence. Fifteen turnovers in the past three minutes.”

“Hallsy!” Rowley shouts at him, leaning down the bar to slide Taylor and Barron’s shot glasses toward them. “Toast to our boy!”

“What, you’re sharing, now?” Barron laughs.

“He’s a national treasure of the city of Edmonton,” Rowley chastises him. “Drink.”

They do, and then Taylor pulls his phone out to text Jordan: pretty sick pass. that’s my boy.)

Jordan is home in Edmonton for all of an hour before he caves and texts Taylor. He’d been stressing a little about seeming overeager, but there’s no food in his apartment, and all of his favourite restaurants have delivery minimums that make ordering for one a pretty futile effort, so he may as well have company with his dinner. And that company may as well be Taylor, because he’s going to see all his teammates tomorrow anyway, and he could use some time to decompress from the long weekend before diving back into his everyday life.

Besides, Jordan’s not kidding himself: he’s had some time and space and now he’d really like just one more sign that all the slightly confusing feelings he’s been nursing aren’t entirely one-sided. He spent the entire flight home giving himself pep talks, some of the make a move variety, some more in the get over it vein, but none of them particularly effective for anything other than Segs shooting him wary glances across the business-class aisle.

Did you literally just land or what, Taylor texts him back, but it’s followed quickly by, sure what time? so that evening finds them well-fed and taking up residence on Jordan’s couch to watch the newest White Collar. Taylor loves the show; Jordan likes it well enough, but he’s leaning against Taylor, their shoulders pressed warmly together, and that constant distraction is wreaking havoc on Jordan’s attention span. He feels guilty, actually: he’s not the kind of guy who invites someone over to make a move on them and it feels dishonest to be sitting here with Taylor, biding his time until the moment seems right.

“You’re thinking awful hard for someone who just spent all weekend on vacation,” Taylor says, jarring Jordan from his thoughts. Jordan turns to look at him. Taylor’s grinning, but tentatively, like he’s not sure if he should be concerned or not. It takes a few moments for Jordan to get a response together.

“Technically, since it was an NHL event, I spent all weekend at work.” He could kiss Taylor right now, Jordan thinks: the little curl of the corner of his mouth, or the scrape along his lower lip, still healing from one of his games against UBC over the weekend.

Or maybe he should ask first. That might be more polite. And would give Taylor the chance to opt out.

The only problem then being how Jordan is supposed to get the words out of his mouth.

“What a terrible business trip,” Taylor deadpans. “I’m so glad I don’t get, like, school credit for hanging out with Datsyuk and Iginla and—”

“John Tavares,” Jordan interjects.

“—that Saskatchewan kid with all the World Juniors goals.”

“Shut up.” Jordan laughs, shoving Taylor lightly. “Don’t forget, I have photographic evidence of you wearing my jersey.”

“Yeah, don’t pretend like that wasn’t your proudest moment all weekend,” Taylor teases, grinning, his eyes crinkled into crescent moons, and Jordan—

“It kind of was,” Jordan blurts.

Taylor blinks at him, taken aback, their banter jarred into a pause that stretches a few seconds too long into awkward. But then Taylor frowns and opens his mouth to say something Jordan knows is going to be dismissive and self-deprecating, and Jordan really doesn’t want to hear it, so he leans up and kisses him firmly on the mouth.

Then: “Sorry,” Jordan says, pulling away quickly. He can feel himself blushing, his neck hot, and thinks immediately of a million smoother ways he could have done that.

Taylor stares at him for a long moment, then touches the scrape on his lip and says, “Ow.”

“Sorry,” Jordan says again, sheepishly.

Taylor cracks a smile. “If you apologize one more time, I’m gonna really take it the wrong way.”

Jordan huffs a laugh, all the trepidation draining out of him. “I’m trying to put the moves on you, is there really a wrong way to take that?”

“‘The moves’?” Taylor lifts his eyebrows, but he’s scooting closer, their knees bumping on the couch. “I didn’t know you had any moves. No legs. Awful mitts.”

“What, you didn’t watch the All-Star Game?” Jordan says, and he’s grinning when he kisses Taylor again. It feels right this time, natural, Taylor meeting him halfway, and Jordan thinks maybe this is where they’ve been headed ever since his heart jumped at the sight of an old friend in the Sobeys downstairs.

Jordan’s drunk. It’s late and Jordan’s drunk; he’s got Taylor underneath him in bed and they’re kissing. Jordan’s drunk because the team’s won, they’ve been winning more often, and Sam scored a million points tonight. Jordan remembers going to the bar to celebrate the big night, the blowout win, but he doesn’t remember how he got from there to here. Jordan vaguely remembers the bar, remembers wishing Taylor was there.

Holy fuck, did he make a fucking booty call?

Jordan only realizes that he’s said it out loud when Taylor laughs, sudden and bright. He’d be embarrassed but Taylor’s clearly drunk too (because it’s Saturday night and that’s what you do, sweet goal by the way, he’d said in a breathless rush as Jordan had crowded up against him as soon as the front door was shut, and it seemed like he had something else to say but then had stopped and stooped down a little to press his mouth against Jordan’s instead), his hands working at the buttons of Jordan’s shirt, skimming it off his shoulders.

The bedsheets are rumpled on Jordan’s bed, the comforter carelessly bunching up as Jordan leans down to kiss Taylor again. He can feel Taylor’s fingers winding into his hair and curling around the back of his head, Taylor’s mouth chasing his into a desperate, sloppy kiss.

“Holy fuck,” Taylor murmurs against Jordan’s mouth, their foreheads still touching.

“Is that okay?” Jordan asks, grinning. From this close, Taylor’s eyes are an almost-stormy grey, his pupils blown wide, and Jordan wants to stay here, in this moment, for as long as possible. Taylor doesn’t say anything, but his smile is as wide as Jordan’s own feels when he nods minutely, which Jordan takes as a cue to push recklessly on. “‘Cuz I’ve kinda wanted to do that for a long time now.”

Taylor doesn’t say anything for a moment, but his smile seems to grow even brighter. “Me too,” he finally says and then cranes his head up to kiss Jordan again.

“Good,” Jordan says, his hands sliding down to fumble with the zipper of Taylor’s jeans. “That’s good.”

Taylor arches up his hips to help with Jordan’s scrabbling at pulling off his pants, before they work together at tugging off Jordan’s own. There’s little finesse in their desperation, in the way that it seems like there’s simultaneously too much and not enough friction. Jordan thinks he should be embarrassed at how eager he must seem, at how desperate and jerky his movements are, one hand fisted in the fitted sheet of his bed as he shifts against Taylor. But right now, here, like this, he can’t seem to find it in himself to care about anything but the sounds that Taylor’s making, still underneath Jordan, as he leans over to kiss him, again and again and again.

February in Edmonton is frigid: Jordan may have experienced over two decades of Prairie winters, but he’s pretty sure he’ll never get used to how dark and cold they are. The Oilers go on a road trip out East where they lose more games than they win. They come home and lose some more games, their hopes for making the playoffs slipping away a little more with each passing day.

(Jordan finds himself asking Taylor to hang out more often these days, telling himself that he needs the distraction because Taylor’s become a good friend to Jordan, and he’s someone who’s not on the team. And if Jordan particularly likes the way distraction is caused by the way his mouth fits against Taylor’s, the way Taylor curls his fingers around Jordan’s hips, then that’s probably just an added bonus.)

The Golden Bears’ season wraps up in the middle of February, too, their season ending with a win against Lethbridge. They don’t make the championship tournament, getting edged out by the University of Saskatchewan for a chance to represent the West for the Cup. They did hold down a respectable record though, and while his fingers are tugging at Jordan’s shirt, pulling it over his head, Taylor tells Jordan that most of the team will be back next season to try again so the disappointment isn’t as heavy as it could be.

The Oilers lose at home in an embarrassing way to Vancouver on a Sunday, and Jordan’s feeling pretty terrible about it as he leaves the rink, shuffling morosely to his truck while he thinks about all the ways things could have gone differently; better. He’s still mulling it over while he checks his texts in his truck, waiting for his vehicle to warm up and wondering if it’s ever going to feel like they’re going to play good hockey ever again.

He’s just about to put his truck into reverse and back out of his parking spot when his phone buzzes: a text from Taylor. Curiously, Jordan clicks on it, and can’t help but laugh when he reads it: sorry for your loss.

Before he can over-think it, Jordan’s hitting the call button on his phone—

“Pretty sure that doesn’t mean what you think it means,” Jordan says when Taylor picks up on the third ring.

Taylor laughs. “Pretty sure I don’t care.” He sobers up a little, adding, “Tough game. Sorry.”

“Did you watch?” Jordan wants to know, drumming his gloved fingers against the steering wheel.

“Yeah,” Taylor says. “It’s reading week, and I’m kind of, you know, poor, so I’m pretty much the only person on the entire floor here right now. Everyone went home or to, like, Cabo. Anyway, it’s weirdly quiet here, but at least I can watch whatever I want on TV.”

Jordan considers this. “Wanna come over? We could hang out.”

There’s a long pause. “Now?”

“Why not?” Jordan says easily. “I’ll be home in twenty-ish. Come over whenever, if you’re bored.”

There’s another long pause on the phone line. “…okay, sure. See you in a bit?”

As Jordan starts his drive home, he thinks about how the shitty night he’s been having so far might actually be somewhat salvageable after all.

He’s not wrong, either; it’s pretty great actually, getting to hang out after a particularly subpar day. Drowsily, Jordan thinks about how nice it is not to have to worry about going out and picking up. Girls are great, and sex is even better, but an evening of awful television is exactly what he needs tonight, its awesomeness compounded by how comfortable it is to slouch against Taylor, who had just laughed and wrapped an arm around Jordan’s shoulders.

“Ebs,” Taylor’s voice rumbles above him. Jordan opens his eyes—when had he even closed them, anyway?—and finds himself slumping on the couch, Taylor smiling fondly down at him. “C’mon, man, get up. Don’t sleep on your couch. It’ll be terrible for your back.”

“Tired,” Jordan says in explanation around a wide yawn, making no attempt to move. “Isn’t it late?”

Taylor looks down at his phone. “Yeah, pretty late. I should go. I can probably still catch the last train home if I leave now.”

Jordan peers up blearily at him. “Fuck, don’t do that, the weather’s so shitty.” He thinks for a moment. “You could stay here?”

“I could?” Taylor says uncertainly. “Like, it’s really cold outside, but I don’t wanna be a—”

“You’re more than welcome,” Jordan says firmly, scrambling to sit up properly. “I’ll even go find you clean sheets for the guest room. It probably doesn’t still smell like puke from the last time Theo stayed over.”

Taylor laughs. “Gross. I can sleep on the couch, Ebby.”

“Didn’t you just tell me that that’s bad for my back?” Jordan demands, amused.

“My back’s already fucked up,” Taylor says, still laughing. “Your couch won’t make it worse.”

Jordan can feel his mirth dissipating quickly at that, and suddenly there’s a lapse in their easy banter when he finds himself unsure of what to say in response to that. “Hallsy…”

Taylor seems to notice Jordan’s sudden discomfort, his eyes widening and his cheeks instantly reddening as his own laughter dies off. “…that was a joke, Ebs,” he says, almost apologetically.

He’s staring at Jordan, and looking like he’s about to actually apologize, and everything about this situation is so awkward that Jordan can’t help but blurt out the first thing on his mind to change the subject. “You know, my bed’s real big. You can sleep there on the other side? Like…if that’s not too weird?”

Taylor doesn’t say anything, like he’s thinking this over carefully. “Yeah, okay,” he says finally, his cheeks still flushed pink, but he does stand up and trail after Jordan, who digs around for clean towels and a spare toothbrush, and points him in the direction of the guest bathroom.

He’s still searching for extra pillows when Taylor reappears, fidgeting and taking in Jordan’s over-sized bed. “Um. Which side?”

Jordan shrugs. “I like the right side.”

“Of course you do,” Taylor says and goes for the left, climbing in.

Smiling, Jordan sits down on the other side of the bed and gives Taylor a considering look. “You gonna sleep in jeans?”

“You trying to get my pants off?” Taylor shoots back, raising an eyebrow.

Jordan laughs. “…maybe?”

“Well, in that case…” Taylor wiggles out of his jeans and shucks them on to the floor, grinning mischievously.

“That was impressively unsexy,” Jordan says, while crawling under the comforter. “Hope you don’t snore.”

Taylor’s grin widens. “No promises.”

“I’ll shove you out of bed if you do,” Jordan says. He rolls over onto his side and closes his eyes.

(Jordan comes awake in increments, until he realizes that he’s got one of his arms wrapped around a warm, solid mass, his skin rubbing up against worn cotton. He’s about to carefully extract himself away when he hears a sleepy laugh.

“You spooning me?” Taylor asks, making no attempt to pull away.

“It’s very possible,” Jordan says.

“Okay,” Taylor says. “Why are we awake?”

“I have practice at ten,” Jordan tells him, burrowing further under the blankets.

Taylor twists around to look at Jordan over his shoulder. “Yeah, I should probably go to the gym at some point.”

“I could drive you on the way to practice,” Jordan offers. “And we could do something after, if you want.”

Taylor nods tiredly. “What time is it now, anyway?”

Jordan squints at his bedside clock. “Half past six?”

“Fuck, Ebby,” Taylor makes a tragic noise that Jordan’s pretty sure is akin to how a wounded animal would sound. “‘s early. No more talking. Only sleeping.”

“What about hand jobs?” Jordan says jokingly, settling back against Taylor, who doesn’t say anything for a long moment.

He’s worried he’s overstepped and he’s about to back-pedal, to say it was all a joke, when Taylor tells him, emphatically, “Sleep now, and there’ll even be blow jobs later.”

Jordan’s dick twitches a little at that, but at the same time, the promise of sleep isn’t bad either. “Okay,” he says, and lets Taylor’s steady, even breathing lull him back to sleep.)

They don’t end up going out on Monday evening, either, instead opting for Chell and beer, which segues nicely into a Suits marathon that ends up mostly being a half-cut make-out session on the couch.

“We’ve got a game in Calgary tomorrow,” Jordan says during a commercial break. “My parents are gonna be there and everything—”

“—so you better win, then,” Taylor interrupts.

“Aren’t you a Flames fan?” Jordan demands.

Taylor grins. “Nah. Guess I could cheer for the guy I let win at Chell.”

Jordan rolls his eyes. “Shut up. Not my fault your Xbox skills are weak.” And then, impulsively, “You know, you can hang out here tomorrow, if you want. Since you said no one was around at school, I mean. I could leave you the spare key.”

“But what if I steal your stuff?” Taylor says with a wry grin.

Jordan snorts. “I know where you live, you non,” he says, kicking lightly at Taylor, who just laughs and kisses him again. Jordan goes in without complaint, fisting his hands at the hem of Taylor’s shirt, and thinks about how he definitely wouldn’t mind if the whole evening passed by just like this, when Taylor breaks away to slide off the couch onto the floor.

“Where’re you going?” Jordan asks. He raises an eyebrow, curious. “I liked what we were doing before.”

Taylor kneels down in front of the couch, watching Jordan intently. “Think I may have promised you a blow job this morning,” he says shyly, resting his chin against Jordan’s knee.

“Oh really?” Jordan says, trying to sound casual, but unable to hide the smile in his voice.

“Yeah,” Taylor says.

“Sweet,” Jordan tells him. “Let’s do this.”

Taylor rolls his eyes as he reaches over to tug down Jordan’s sweats. “Such a smooth talker, Ebby,” he says, before leaning forward to mouth teasingly at Jordan’s dick over the thin cotton of his boxers, fingers slipping into the waistband and inching it lower and lower down Jordan’s waist.

It’s late when the Oilers return to Edmonton from Calgary, and well after midnight when Jordan finally gets back to his apartment. At this point, he’s pretty sure he’s running on fumes of adrenaline left over from the thorough thrashing of the Flames. As keyed up as he feels though, he really would love nothing more right now than to collapse onto his bed and play dead-to-the-world for the next ten hours.

He drops his hockey bag by the door, deciding that emptying it out can wait until tomorrow morning, and then almost trips over a pair of winter boots he doesn’t remember leaving by the door. When he reluctantly bends over to move them, it occurs to him that these boots don’t belong to him. The faint noise coming from the television in the living room confirms this, and suddenly he can’t stop the smile spreading across his face.

Jordan follows the strange emanating glow and quiet sounds of the Sportscentre rerun into the living room to find the television playing the highlights from tonight’s game. His grin widens when he spots Taylor stretched out on the couch, back to the television and asleep. As the television replays his first period goal, Jordan perches lightly on the edge of the couch for a moment to bask in the almost surreal-quality that his night has achieved. He reaches for the remote control to turn off the television, and after a moment, rests a hand against Taylor’s back to gently shake him awake. “Hallsy. Hey, Hallsy.”

Taylor starts, flinching, before relaxing again and rolling over to peer at Jordan. “Ebby, hey,” he says, offering him a sleepy smile. “Great job tonight. Number one star, eh?”

“You’re still here,” Jordan blurts out, unable to contain his delight.

“Hope that’s okay,” Taylor says around a yawn. “I didn’t mess with any of your stuff or anything, but there probably wasn’t anyone around at the dorms so I was just watching the game here, and then I guess I fell asleep…left your key on your counter…” he trails off.

“Yeah, of course it’s cool,” Jordan says. “Wouldn’t have told you that you were welcome otherwise.”

“Cool,” Taylor says, looking and sounding marginally more awake now. “Man, Ebby, you were so good tonight. At this rate, you’re gonna hit thirty this year!”

“You may still be half-asleep and delusional,” Jordan informs him, laughing.

Taylor’s grin widens. “Nah. You friggin’ chased Kipprusoff! Keep it up and you’ll be alright. And that play where you had, like, three dudes on you, and you still kept the puck? What was that? That was crazy!”

“You’re ridiculous,” Jordan says.

“You have such sick mitts,” Taylor tells him solemnly, his earnestness somewhat undermined when he yawns widely again.

Jordan just shakes his head fondly and stands up. “Bedtime,” he says by way of explanation. He holds out his hands to help Taylor off the couch. “You coming?”

Taylor nods after the briefest moment of hesitation and lets himself be pulled up off the couch. He stumbles into Jordan, wrapping his arms around him. “Hi,” Taylor says sheepishly, letting his head loll forward to press against Jordan’s shoulder.

“Hi yourself,” Jordan replies, fitting his hands neatly into the pockets of Taylor’s sweatpants and steering them both down the hallway toward the direction of his bedroom, because that just seems right. “Is here okay?”

Taylor makes a vague noise of agreement and crawls in under the blankets, and Jordan can’t help but smile at how he goes immediately for the left side. When Jordan climbs in beside him, later, finally ready for bed, Taylor mumbles something incoherent, almost certainly asleep again, but shifts to drape an arm over Jordan’s chest and pull him in close.

Warm and content, Jordan sleeps.

“I’m going to invite some of the guys over tonight for beer and video games,” Jordan says, not taking his eyes off the television screen where his animated Panthers are currently getting routed by Taylor’s Habs. “No game tonight, practice tomorrow at noon. Seems like a good idea.”

“Okay,” Taylor says, mashing a few buttons in rapid succession. “I’ll get out of here after this period, then.”

Jordan pauses the game to look at Taylor. “What? Why? You should stick around if you’re not busy. And Whit’ll be here!”

“He’s kind of the worst though,” Taylor says jokingly.

“You can tell him that to his face tonight,” Jordan says, nodding. He leans into Taylor’s personal space, practically crawling into his lap. “You really should come. It’d be fun if you did.”

Jordan’s smile is earnest, his hand dipping into the waistband of Taylor’s pants, splayed wide and warm against Taylor’s hip, and Taylor finds himself saying ‘yes’ before he can stop himself. It’s worth it, for the way Jordan’s grin widens even more, the way he leans in, still smiling. As Taylor leans in for a kiss, he catches himself thinking, awed, I made him smile like that.

When some of Jordan’s teammates trickle in later that evening, none of them seem particularly surprised to see Taylor sitting on Jordan’s couch. Taylor recognizes them: Nugent-Hopkins, and Jeff Petry, and Sam Gagner, and of course, Tyler Seguin. He raises a hand in awkward greeting, feeling out of place, until Whit walks in and starts laughing immediately—

“Oh shit, it’s good to see you, kid,” Whit says, and just like that, Taylor can feel himself starting to relax as he returns a tentative grin.

It’s not too awkward or anything, just hanging out with Jordan’s friends. The few times that the conversation strays toward topics that Taylor’s not familiar with, Whit is there to chirp him or steal the controller from out of his hands, and Taylor is grateful for the distraction. And then Gagner leans over to strike up a conversation with Taylor and suddenly, he’s swept up in comparing notes about all the people they seem to mutually know, all the kids who have drifted in and out of the OHL over the last few years.

They all get hungry halfway through Rainbow Road on mirror mode in Mario Kart. Nugent-Hopkins and Petry end up ordering food for the room, insisting on a place their billet family—one of Jordan’s other teammates and his wife—had introduced them to and was apparently great. The only catch is, Petry explains sheepishly, that while they do take-out, they don’t do delivery. This is met with a chorus of boos and heckling from their teammates, who tell them they should have to be the ones to go pick it up.

“Or,” Petry says smoothly. “We’ll pay if someone else goes?”

All eyes turn to Nugent-Hopkins, who shrugs. “Never underestimate Jeffrey’s laziness.”

The implemented system to decide who has to go pick up the food is needlessly confusing and complicated, and yet somehow, Taylor is the one who ends up with the role of chosen sacrifice. Petry beams at him and dutifully hands him a stack of twenties.

“Thanks,” Taylor says uncertainly, looking at the wad of bills in his hand. Somewhat embarrassed, he asks, “Can I get to this place on the LRT?”

“Oh,” Jordan speaks up quickly. “Hey, I’ll drive you.” He grins at Taylor, nudging him subtly in a way that could mean making out in the truck; Taylor sure hopes so. “Just let me go find some warmer socks first.”

“I can drive him,” Tyler says. “I mean, so Ebs doesn’t have to leave his own party or whatever.”

Jordan blinks, confused. “I…yeah? I guess, if that’s cool with Hallsy?”

Taylor shrugs, chewing on his lower lip. “Yeah, if you don’t mind…?”

“Or I could go,” Whit volunteers, seemingly sizing up the situation and offering Taylor a crooked, sympathetic smile.

“No, it’s cool,” Tyler says. “Could use a break from the game anyway. Nuge cheats.” He rolls away just in time to avoid a kick from Nugent-Hopkins.

“Pretty sure if he can beat you with his janky shoulder, it just means you suck at Mario Kart-ing,” Gagner says diplomatically.

Tyler flips him off amidst the litany of oh snap and variations thereof echoing around the room. “What time’s the food supposed to be ready?”

“Seven,” Petry says.

“Six o’clock San Jose time,” Nugent-Hopkins mutters uncharitably, clearly still crabby about the cheating accusations.

“I’m hungry. Go now,” Gagner sums up, looking expectantly between Taylor and Tyler.

Tyler glares at Nugent-Hopkins. “That was one time, dickwad,” he says, before turning to address Taylor. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Taylor says, wrapping his scarf around his neck a few times. He feels a bit lost, but he’s never been one to back down from a challenge and he isn’t about to start now.

“Cool,” Tyler says. And then, to the rest of the room at large, “Fuck the rest of you. Fuck you forever. Five-ever.”

“‘Five-ever’?” Whit repeats. “The fuck you kids going on about?”

“It’s longer than forever,” Jordan explains, rolling his eyes.

Taylor can’t help but smile at the explosion of laughter as he lets the door shut behind him and he follows Tyler to the elevators.

The drive to the restaurant is mostly filled with awkwardness over the quiet, thumping rap that Tyler has filtering through his car stereo. Taylor uses his coat sleeve to wipe at the condensation on the passenger side window, peering through it to watch the city streets pass by.

“I think you would have liked it here,” Tyler blurts out without warning.

“I do like it here,” Taylor replies automatically, straightening up in his seat and trying to cover his surprise at Tyler initiating the conversation.

“No, I mean like…” Tyler trails off, floundering for words. “…you know,” he finishes off lamely, apologetically, waving one hand at the air in front of him.

Taylor nods. “Yeah, I know.” And then, almost like an afterthought, “Thanks.”

Tyler sighs. “Not trying to be a dick, or whatever.”

“I know.” On some level, Taylor knows that there’s no use in wishing things were different. Suddenly, he just feels really, really tired. “Wasn’t your fault.”

Another long moment passes between them, before Tyler turns and offers Taylor a half-smile. “So there are some serious rockets at your school. You must have an in. Hook me up?”

Taylor can feel the beginnings of a grin on his own face. “Yeah, we’ll see,” he says, tapping his fingers against his knee to the beat of familiar rap song on Tyler’s radio.

(Later that night, when everyone else is gone, Jordan tangles his fingers into Taylor’s hair and threads them through gently. Taylor closes his eyes and tilts his head into Jordan’s hand.

“You okay?” Jordan asks softly, his other hand rubbing gently at the back of Taylor’s neck.

Taylor nods and doesn’t move away; doesn’t trust himself to speak.)

Taylor’s on his way back to his dorm room for a clean change of clothes when his phone rings. He checks the screen and grins when he answers. “Hey Smitty. What’d you want?”

“Hallsy,” Barron says cheerfully. “My dad just gave me two tickets to the game tonight. Wanna go? Oilers versus the Flyers.”

“Sure,” Taylor says, digging through his closet for a clean shirt and pair of jeans. “Everyone else ditch you?”

Barron snorts. “Nah. It’s true that the biggest beauties all went to Cabo for the week, but hey, you’re not so bad.”

“Whatever you say, Smitty,” Taylor says. “But if you’re gonna take me out tonight, you gotta treat me right.”

Barron makes a lot of noise before hanging up about how he always treats his buddies right. He ends up being late to meet up later that night anyway, something so familiar that it doesn’t even faze Taylor anymore.

The temperature inside Rexall Place is a reprieve from the Albertan winter raging outside and the cold that creeps in under his winter gear and threatens to stiffen his back for the rest of the evening. Taylor does his best to ignore the inconvenient twinge as he squirms out of his layers of coat and outerwear while waiting for his perpetually late roommate.

When Barron finally does rush in, he towers over the rest of the crowd, waving their tickets in the air. “Hey, hey, sorry dude!” He pauses, momentarily distracted. “Man, you need an Oilers jersey.”

Taylor looks down at the ever-present Golden Bears hoodie. “Nah, I’m good,” he says, falling into step beside Barron, taking in his ‘94 SMYTH’ jersey that Barron has, on numerous occasions, referred to as both topical and brilliant. “You can rep the Oil enough for both of us.”

“Thought you had an Eberle jersey,” Barron says.

“Borrowed that from Rowley,” Taylor says, trying to discreetly stretch out the tightness in his back. “I think he was scared I wasn’t going to give it back.” He looks over to see Barron watching him intently.

“You okay, bro?” Barron asks, concerned.

Taylor shrugs a shoulder. “A bit stiff,” he says. “Probably a combo of, like, cold and...I dunno. Had a weird night yesterday.”

“Need a massage?” Barron says. He arches an eyebrow. “No happy endings though. And you gotta keep your clothes on. It might make rooming together for the rest of the semester real awkward. You know, ‘cuz we’d be boning all the time.” And then, suddenly intensely serious, he says, “Wanna, like, talk about it? Because we can. If you want.”

“Nothing to talk about,” Taylor says, unable to hide his surprise. “Thanks though.”

“Good,” Barron says, unmistakably relieved. Taylor can’t blame him; talking about stuff is hard. “No problem. Hey, here’s a great idea, you should buy me a beer with the money you’re not spending on a jersey.”

Taylor rolls his eyes but buys Barron a beer anyway, along with a plate of pierogies for good measure.

The Oilers end up shutting out the Flyers: Jordan scores for the second game in a row, an insurance goal, but a pretty one at that. Taylor can’t help but get swept up by the enthusiasm of the crowd and Barron as they’re all on their feet. He reaches over to fist bump his roommate as they cheer loudly for the goal.

“Okay, drinks,” Barron says, when the buzzer sounds at the end up the game. “We’re celebrating, because the Oilers rule, and the Flyers fuckin’ drool.”

Taylor laughs. “You miss me so much, you gotta spend the whole night with me?”

“Five days feels like forever to not see the dude you’ve practically been living on top of for the last six months,” Barron drawls. “Plus, now that I’ve got a girlfriend, I can’t do anything until she’s back from her girls’ trip to Jasper. I’m bored.”

“Okay, sure, buddy,” Taylor says, pulling on his scarf and jacket. “I’ll be your cheap Thursday night date.” He fishes his phone out from his pocket and stares at it for a moment, thinking, before quickly typing out sick goal, sweet win! going for drinks wth my roommate, you can come if you want or not busy. “Lead the way,” he says.

Barron had driven his parents’ car to the game, and the traffic at Rexall’s parking lot is always stupid, so by the time they’re actually driving back toward downtown, Jordan’s already texted Taylor back with an affirmative for a drink at Barron’s choice of establishment. Taylor’s not even sure that Jordan’s actually going to show up, but tells Barron that one of his buddies might be joining them anyway. Barron just nods, distracted in his attempts to negotiate with one of his younger siblings to come pick up the car in order to maximize drinking potential.

Jordan does end up showing up, his hood pulled up firmly over his head, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, He grins and makes his way over to the table where Taylor and Barron are sitting. “Hey!” he says cheerfully. “Go Golden Bears!”

“You’re such a dork,” Taylor tells him, fondly. “Hey, so Ebs, roommate. Roommate, this is Ebs.”

“Jordan,” Jordan introduces, sticking out his hand to shake, which Barron does, looking surprised. “I don’t think Hallsy knows anyone’s first name.” Jordan tilts his head. “Hey, aren’t you Stevie’s kid? Barron?”

“Yep,” Barron says, though he narrows his eyes at Taylor in a way that loudly telegraphs dude: what the fuck?! He turns back toward Jordan. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Jordan says, oblivious to the silent exchange going on at the table. “Coach Smith and Hallsy both talk about you all the time. Only good stuff though, I promise.” He pauses, eyeing the table. “What’re you guys drinking? I can grab the next round.”

“I’ll drink whatever,” Barron says. “Not picky.”

“He’s a cheap date,” Taylor adds helpfully.

Jordan just laughs as he tosses his coat over the back of a chair and stretches, before making his way over to the half-crowded bar. Taylor idly wonders if they’re going to see him again tonight, if Jordan’s going to end up getting mobbed by excitable Oiler fans, pumped up by their decisive victory tonight. He’s jarred from his thoughts, though, when Barron leans over and punches him in the arm. Hard.

“Ow!” Taylor complains, rubbing the spot. “The fuck was that for?”

“Your buddy is Jordan Eberle?” Barron says, trying not to laugh.

“There was no one at res this week,” Taylor says defensively. He’s not entirely sure why, but he can feel his cheeks flushing. “We hang out sometimes.”

“Like a dirty secret?” Barron continues, not even bothering to hide his delighted grin now. “You were practically mute for your entire first month here, but it turns out you were hanging out with Eberle behind our backs.” He shakes his head in mock-disappointment. “Hallsy, are you embarrassed of us? Or him?”

“Neither!” Taylor protests.

Barron starts full-on cracking up. “I’m just fucking with you, Hallsy,” he says. “For the record, I’ll allow it. But only because Eberle seems like a pretty cool guy. I guess you can still be my boy and I don’t need to cut you from my crew.”

“Aw, but Smytty, you wouldn’t cut me out. I’m adorable,” Taylor deadpans.

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that when Rowley finds out and slewfoots you for not telling him about bromancing his mancrush.”

Taylor stares thoughtfully at Barron for a long moment. “You know that if I was trying to never let you guys meet, we wouldn’t be all hanging out tonight, right? Like, I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret or whatever.”

Barron just rolls his eyes. “You are allowed to have friends outside the team, you know. It’s not like you’re a total non.” And then, as if to emphasize his point, reaches over to pull Taylor into a headlock, which is how Jordan finds them when he dutifully makes his way back to their table with a pitcher and a glass.

Taylor twists out of Barron’s reach and shoves the pitcher toward him. “Pour,” he instructs. “Ebs is terrible at it.”

Jordan makes a face at Taylor, before turning to address Barron with a grin. “Your roommate sucks, man. So bossy. How do you stand it?”

“My life is so hard,” Barron says solemnly, handing a full glass to Jordan. “He’s pretty much the worst human of all.”

Later that evening, when all three of them are pleasantly buzzed, and they’re all crammed into the backseat of a cab, Barron gets dropped off first at his parents’ place, before Jordan gives his address to the disinterested driver. The driver just nods and doesn’t seem to recognize or care who Jordan is.

“Come home with me?” he says to Taylor, his voice pitched soft and low.

Yes, anything; anything you want, Taylor wants to say, and stops himself just in time. “Yeah,” he manages instead. “Sure. Don’t got anywhere else to be.”

Jordan has the next day off, and he stays in bed until two with Taylor, all of late morning and early afternoon spent dozing and kissing, interrupted by lazy hand jobs. They only get out of bed in the middle of the afternoon when the need for food trumps everything else. They stumble into the shower, one after the other; Jordan lets Taylor go first. He thinks about joining him there, but ends up deciding against it, just in case.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about it, though.

They spend the rest of the day on the couch, Jordan half-paying attention to what’s queued up on his Netflix and Taylor half-paying attention to the sheets of papers around him, trying to cobble together an assignment—

“I can’t believe you’re making me do homework over study break,” Taylor says. “If my mom knew, she’d send you a fruit basket.”

Jordan grins and pulls him in for another kiss. “I knew you couldn’t say no to a reward system. Apparently blow jobs really are the way to go to help you actually pass school.”

“Yeah,” Taylor agrees. “Not gonna tell her about that part, though.”

Taylor, mostly distracted by his health sciences essay, looks up and smiles at Jordan, and it suddenly occurs to Jordan how much he likes getting distracted by Taylor’s mouth, and the way he curls his fingers through Jordan’s hair, and the way his two-day-old beard rasps against Jordan’s cheek, his palms, his thighs. He likes how they can talk about hockey, how they like the same television shows, how Taylor always listens when Jordan talks even though he sometimes pretends that he doesn’t. He finds himself filing away little facts about Taylor: how he always picks the red peppers out of his food; the way his hair always seems to take on a life of its own in the mornings; how he thinks he’s discreet about moving Jordan’s hand and lacing their fingers together when Jordan forgets himself while kissing him and slides his hand over Taylor’s back.

Jordan likes how Taylor always seems to know how to make him laugh and he’s reminded of it the next day after a frustrating loss to the Coyotes. He can feel the disappointment of the night draining out of him when he comes home to Taylor dissecting Shane Doan’s weirdness ranging from his Christian horse ranch to his exploits on Mantracker in great detail. Jordan can feel himself grinning along when Taylor then segues into a very earnest and increasingly outlandish manifesto about all the ways Jordan could totally beat Mike Smith one-on-one.

“Or,” Taylor says. “You can just beat Winnipeg on Monday. That would probably work too.”

“Yeah,” Jordan agrees, shifting against his pillows, trying to get more comfortable. “It could happen.”

“Just light up Pavalec,” Taylor tells him, beside him in Jordan’s bed. He raises himself up onto his elbows to stare seriously at Jordan. “Shoot glove side. A lot.”

“Is that your professional opinion?” Jordan says.

“I don’t have a professional anything,” Taylor says, rolling his eyes. “My exciting upcoming plans are to go to class and maybe go with my roommate to check out the beer league a few of the boys are trying to set up.”

“You have time for that?”

“Uh, Ebs, our season ended last week. Most of my teammates decided that post-season is girlfriend time, and there are only so many goalie poker tourneys I can sit through. So.”

“You could get a girlfriend,” Jordan teases.

“Shut up, Ebby,” Taylor says, grinning.

Jordan reaches over to tug Taylor toward him, fingers curling around Taylor’s upper arms. The thumb on his right hand finds the long scar below Taylor’s left shoulder. He traces it carefully, thinks about the time Taylor had mentioned his labrum surgery in passing, the one that had took place just weeks after his aborted return to the Spitfires. I just wanted everything to be fixed, you know? he had said, ducking his head like he was embarrassed, before changing the subject altogether.

“You know,” Jordan finds himself saying. “You can always come over, right? Or we could hang out, right? Like…if you want to.”

Taylor nods, a little distractedly, his head turning to look at Jordan’s right hand, still trailing along the scar. “Feels weird.”

“Sorry,” Jordan says instantly, stilling his hands to pull away.

This time, Taylor reaches out to reel him back in. “Not bad,” he says. “Just weird.”

“Okay,” Jordan says. “Yeah, okay,” he repeats, this time with a little more certainty.

Taylor grins and leans in closer. “Go glove, Ebby,” he murmurs, muffling Jordan’s laughter when he covers Jordan’s mouth with his own.

The game against Winnipeg ends up going well: Dubnyk bails them out in the first and then gets his first assist of the year; Tyler has a monster game; even Whit scores a goal. Jordan gets a goal too, shooting backhand and beating Pavalec stick side. He can’t help laughing when Ryan Smyth and Nuge mob him after the goal.

(“Thanks for the ride,” Taylor said, poised to hop out of the truck when Jordan had dropped him off at the forms en route to the airport. “Oh, hey—”

“—shoot glove, right?”

“No,” Taylor said, grinning mischievously while leaning out the open door. “I was going to say ‘good luck.’”

“Get out,” Jordan deadpanned, and then watched Taylor’s retreating back as he disappeared into the residence building with one final wave.)

Jordan checks his messages before the plane takes off. It’s not going to be a long flight back to Edmonton, but it’s late and the lights are dimmed anyway. He’s got a few texts, mostly from friends back home, and one from Colten and another from Magnus, who’s back in Oklahoma City; there’s one from his brother, and one from Taylor, that says nice goal. bet if you went glove you wouldve had a hatty.

He grins to himself. He types out a quick response before tossing his phone into his carry-on in preparation for take-off. And then, out of nowhere, it hits him: for the first time all week, Taylor won’t be at the apartment when he gets back to Edmonton.

In the seats in front of him, Ladi and Ales are having a quiet conversation in murmured Czech. Jordan lets the soft noise wash over him and lull him into a restless sleep before he can think about what his sudden realization might mean.

The Oilers are still doing pretty badly in mid-March, but at least they win a spirited game against the Flames. Coach Smith had mentioned that his kid and some of his friends were planning to be in attendance for this one; Jordan’s secretly glad to know that Taylor’s there watching him. In a weird kind of way, it feels even more exciting than usual when he scores a pretty sweet goal in the first and sets Nuge up for two more.

They play Phoenix at home the next night. It ends up turning into a clusterfuck where the Oilers are trapped into a slow and painful loss, and it seems like Jordan can’t get anything going no matter how hard he tries. And then, to add insult to almost literal injury, he finds himself getting boarded by Klesla in the first. It’s worrisome for a long moment, but ultimately Jordan’s pretty relieved to end up with just a mild headache and a somewhat-wounded ego.

Despite it all though, when Taylor shows up at Jordan’s after the game looking concerned, it’s not difficult for Jordan to admit to himself that this is definitely the best part of a very long day.

“You’re okay though, right?” Taylor asks for the sixth time in minutes, and Jordan kind of wants to tell him to stop it already. But then Taylor might push away Jordan’s head from his lap, and he might stop doing that nice hair-petting thing, so he doesn’t.

“I’m fine,” Jordan says instead, patiently, and blindly reaches out a hand to pat vaguely at Taylor’s knee. “Just a bit of a headache. More pissed off about the fucking loss than anything.”

The worry-lines etched between Taylor’s eyebrows deepen; Jordan can’t help but laugh and tug Taylor down far enough to kiss him. “Let’s talk about something else,” he suggests. “Tell me something good, maybe?”

Taylor scrunches up his face, thinking, his hand still rumpling through Jordan’s hair. “I got to hang out with Nemo last night,” Taylor says finally. “It was pretty great. I haven’t seen that kid in a while.” He pauses. “You remember him, right? Greg Nemisz?”

“Of course,” Jordan assures him. Nemisz is a good guy, easy-going and friendly; Jordan had liked him when they played together at the U-18s, at the World Juniors. “What’d you guys do?”

“Just hung out, I guess,” Taylor says. “He bitched a lot about losing to you guys on Friday. I didn’t even realize he was up with the Flames until the game started! And then he called after and said he’d fight me if we didn’t go out for a drink.” Taylor grins. “I didn’t want that to happen. He could probably beat the crap out of me.”

“So it was a good time?” Jordan asks, peering up at Taylor.

“Yeah,” Taylor says. “He’s a good guy and deserves good things. He missed a lot of time that last year we were together with the Spits when he got cut real bad, but he’s okay now, says that chicks dig scars and all that. He’s definitely due for some good luck. He’s probably the only guy in history who does stuff like beast out at the Memorial Cup but hits, like, five posts instead.”

Jordan laughs. “Bet you never let him forget that either, eh?”

“Nah,” Taylor says, amused. “Why would we do that?”

“Not like you guys didn’t win anyway,” Jordan agrees.

Taylor doesn’t respond, his hand still trailing absently through Jordan’s hair. “That was a long time ago,” he says finally. He offers Jordan a crooked grin. “Gotta cut the cord some time or whatever, right?”

Jordan studies Taylor for a moment. “Me and Tubes still love talking about our Pats days,” he says, carefully, even though he knows it’s probably not the same. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“I guess,” Taylor says, and doesn’t say anything else.

Jordan sighs. “Come here,” he says, and shuffles over so that he can rearrange the two of them until they’re both lying down on the couch. He rests his head against Taylor’s chest, tucks his hand against Taylor’s. He cranes his head up to stare intently at Taylor, feels him watching him too.

“Hallsy. Everything’s okay. You know that, right?” Jordan says seriously. He’s not even entirely sure what he’s referring to anymore: tonight’s game; the Memorial Cup; everything in between them; something else. But suddenly, nothing else seems more urgently important than for Taylor to understand what he’s trying to say.

From the way that Taylor tightens his hand on Jordan’s, Jordan thinks that he might. He really hopes so.

It takes a little bit of getting used to, sharing a bed with the same person on a semi-regular basis. Taylor sometimes drools, often snores, and almost always steals the blankets. Jordan doesn’t care: he likes falling asleep with Taylor, likes waking up beside him.

Sometimes—not often, but sometimes—Jordan’s jarred awake in the middle of the night and finds that it’s because of Taylor shaking silently beside him in his sleep, and Jordan has to roll over and wake him up. When he finally jerks awake, Taylor’s always apologetic and embarrassed, and usually contrite the next morning if Jordan inevitably has practice. Taylor never does explain to Jordan what exactly happens these nights (Had a dream that Kate Upton was gonna go out with me but then she stood me up. Scary shit, man. She’s real hot, Taylor tells Jordan the one time he does ask about it, and Jordan has to fight the urge to roll his eyes). But maybe that’s not the important part. While Jordan might end up slightly grumpy from a night of interrupted sleep, he can’t ever seem to help the overwhelming surge of exasperated fondness welling in his chest, and finds that he genuinely means it when he assures Taylor that it’s all right.

Taylor keeps leaving stuff at Jordan’s apartment—mostly his hoodies; a scarf, once; his textbooks, sometimes. Jordan knows that it’s not something he does on purpose: Taylor’s just kind of a messy, absent-minded dude, so Jordan ends up tidying Taylor’s things into neat little piles for him to collect the next time he’s around. Not only is it a pretty good system, but it’s probably extra insurance that Taylor will show up again at Jordan’s sooner rather than later.

So Jordan’s not all that surprised when he notices the anthology of Canadian literature sitting haphazardly on the coffee table next to the Xbox controllers. He ends up picking it up and thumbing through it out of curiosity. Most of the things in it are kind of boring and dry to him, and, with the exception of a few names that pop out at him from his yester-year experience of high school English class, largely unfamiliar. He keeps flipping, though, until he lands on a particular poem that catches his eye, and he finds himself scanning the first lines—

I shout love in a blizzard’s
scarf of curling cold

Jordan’s not a poetry guy; never really liked or understood it, but he can’t stop staring at those lines, as they resonate defiance and affection and—

“—oh, fuck,” Jordan says out loud, letting the heavy textbook thunk shut and fall to the floor.

Jordan feels vaguely sinister, lurking around Bridgestone Arena and waiting for Ryan Ellis to be done showering after practice. He wishes that they could have more time in Nashville so that he could catch up properly with Ryan, but he’s got a team lunch meeting back at the hotel that he can’t get out of, and who even knows what the Predators will be up to before the game. He consoles himself with the possibility that maybe they can hang out next time the Preds are in Edmonton; maybe Taylor will want to come too.

It’s another few minutes before Ryan comes trundling out with his hockey bag swung over his shoulder, Preds cap jammed tight on his head. He does spot Jordan though, and makes his way over jauntily. “Captain Fucking Clutch, what the fuck is up?”

“‘S’not my name, you non,” Jordan says, trying not to laugh. “Got a minute?”

Ryan grins. “For you, Ebs? I’ve got five,” he says, dropping his bag to bro-hug Jordan.

Jordan can’t help but smile back, pleased at the reminder of how easy it is to talk to Ryan. “How’re you liking it up here with the Big Boys?”

“You calling me short?” Ryan demands, amused.

Rolling his eyes, Jordan can feel his smile widening. “Of all people, you think I’d call you short?”

“Small dudes gotta stick together, it’s true,” Ryan agrees. “And the NHL is great!” He lowers his voice. “I think I might have perpetual dude boners for Weber and Suter, and I regret nothing.”

Jordan bursts into laughter. “Glad to see you haven’t changed at all.”

“Why would you mess with perfection,” Ryan says, crossing his arms. “So anyway, Canada’s Hero, no more beating around the bush. Tell me, how’s my boy doing?”

“Hallsy? He’s doing alright,” Jordan says. “You talk to him recently?”

“Yeah, a bit. He says you guys have been hanging out,” Ryan says. “He hadn’t really been answering my messages until, like, a couple months ago. No texts or phone calls, nothing.”

Jordan raises an eyebrow, surprised. “I thought it was just me.”

Ryan shakes his head. “Nah. Wasn’t just you. Nemo, Henny, Shuggy, Shuey, Mark, all the guys. He wasn’t talking to any of us. They all thought he was dead or something. I only knew he wasn’t because we played together for, like, a month with the Spits that season.”

“I watched one game,” Jordan confesses. “Part of one game, actually. It wasn’t. Well, I don’t know what I was expecting. But it probably wasn’t…that.”

“Right?” Ryan sighs. “It’s just that…okay, so no one expected him to come back to us that season. No one. And pretty much everyone we knew had left, they went pro, or guys like Shuggy got traded. Even our coach went to Columbus. So when things got fucked up for Hallsy, I think he was just embarrassed.”

“He shouldn’t have been embarrassed,” Jordan says quietly. “There was nothing to be embarrassed about.”

Ryan fixes Jordan with an uncharacteristically serious stare. “I know that,” he says. “And you know that.”

Jordan shrugs. “I guess.”

“Yeah,” Ryan says. “So he comes back too soon, maybe. And things just kind of get worse from there. It was pretty shitty to watch. And, like, I’ve known him for a long time, he gets mad at himself when he has a shitty game and starts beaking at everyone and generally acts like a grumpy piece of shit asshole? But this time was different. He just got quiet. Like, really, really quiet. And that didn’t really change for the rest of the time he was with us. After he got put back on IR, he pretty much just, like. Disappeared.”

Jordan bites his lip trying to process all this that Ryan’s telling him, things he didn’t really know, things Taylor’s never really told him. “That’s really fucked up,” he finally says.

Ryan gives him a wry smile. “He’s a lot easier to deal with when he’s being a grouch. Or just, you know, in a good mood.” He nudges Jordan. “Sounds like he’s doing better now, though. You guys hang out a lot?”

Jordan thinks about this, like what the best way might be to answer. “We hang out a fair bit,” he finally hedges. “We’re both busy, with you know, hockey and school and stuff. But, like, when we’re both free, for sure.”

There’s a long beat as Ryan considers Jordan, staring at him with a scrutiny that verges on uncomfortable, like he somehow knows. Finally, Ryan’s face breaks into a smile as he reaches over to tug Jordan into a tight hug, and Jordan finds, surprised, that he’s relieved.

“Good,” Ryan says warmly, sincerely, like he might just understand. “Take care of my boy, Ebs.”

“Hey, so I saw Ryan Ellis while down in Nashville,” Jordan mentions conversationally when the Oilers get back from their road trip, pausing a game of Tiger Woods to look over at Taylor beside him on the couch. “And this study break of yours should have ended an hour ago, probably.”

“Missed you too, Ebby,” Taylor says cheerfully, putting down his controller. “School sucks. And yeah, he mentioned.”

“Every time I think of him, I still think of this kid wearing a cage and demanding piggy backs from Tubes and Pietro.”

Taylor laughs. “Yeah, he used to do that to our boys in Windsor, too. Sometimes he wouldn’t even ask, he’d just jump on them. It was friggin’ hilarious.”

Jordan grins. “I bet no one could ever stay pissed with him though. You guys were close, eh?”

“We got drafted together, and we were, like, fifteen and sixteen, and didn’t know anyone else in Windsor,” Taylor says. “So we’d stick together a lot, especially when we were younger.”

“When I first met you, the two of you were pretty much attached at the hip,” Jordan says fondly. “You were sixteen and followed him around everywhere. It was adorable.”

“He’s a good kid! And actually, uh…” Taylor trails off awkwardly, suddenly incredibly interested at staring at the back of his hands.

“And what?” Jordan prompts curiously.

Taylor hesitates. “And I was ten,” he finally says.

“Sorry?” Jordan asks, confused.

“When I met you, I was ten.” When Jordan continues to stare at him, not comprehending, Taylor looks up. “At hockey camp,” he clarifies.

Jordan’s eyes widen in surprise. “Seriously? How the hell do you even remember that?”

“I just do,” Taylor says, ducking his head like he’s embarrassed. “It’s not like I remember you well, I just…it was hockey camp. You were a little dude with a gap in your teeth, and we played you guys. That’s all.”

Jordan scrunches up his face, trying to remember and feeling almost disappointed when he finds that he can’t. “I wish I could remember,” he finally says.

Taylor shrugs a shoulder. “No big deal. It’s just a thing that happened, you know.”

“Sure,” Jordan says, and then sets down his controller to tug Taylor in for a kiss. “But I’m here now. And so are you.”

Taylor goes in easily, tilting his head with a smile. “Yeah,” he says. “We are.”

(Jordan’s not sure when they started having conversations in bed. And yet here they are, Taylor lying next to him and propped up on his elbows while he excitedly recounts some awe-inspiring play that Jason Spezza had made last week. Taylor’s enthusiasm makes Jordan grin, warm and affectionate as Taylor’s voice washes over him. Jordan can’t help but reach out a hand, curling his fingers gently around the back of Taylor’s neck, touch feather-light. Taylor doesn’t pause in his commentary, only leans ever-so-slightly into Jordan’s touch.

Jordan takes that as his cue to keep going and trails his fingers down Taylor’s bare back while Taylor seems to have moved on to an excited elaboration of Jordan’s own shot percentage. Jordan smiles and carefully bumps his fingers over each of Taylor’s vertebrae until they rest against the small of Taylor’s back. This time, Taylor does trail off, his voice hitching a little bit and wavering before tapering off completely. But Taylor doesn’t flinch away so Jordan leaves his fingers there as he watches Taylor for a reaction.

“What?” Taylor finally says.

Where did you hurt it? Jordan wants to ask. He’s got a multitude of related questions on the tip of his tongue; he’s full of questions and things he wants to know. He wants to help, wants to make it better. But he’s not sure how to articulate what he wants to say, feels the words catch in his throat; he thinks maybe it’s not something they need to talk about, maybe not until Taylor brings it up himself, maybe when he’s ready one day.

So, instead, Jordan says, “Gonna kiss you now.”

The confusion in Taylor’s eyes clears as he smiles warmly at Jordan. “Ooooh, romance,” he teases, leaning in.

“Shut up, Hallsy,” Jordan says, the side of his mouth quirking up too, and he kisses Taylor anyway.)

By the time late March creeps up, both Jordan and Taylor are in agreement that they’re ready for winter to be over, days of sunlight now vaguely longer than the winter that dragged on before that. Edmonton winters, they mutually decide, are not necessarily one of the perks that this city they both reside in for most of the year seems to provide. Taylor supposes the weather doesn’t make too much difference to him, though, when he’s sitting on Jordan’s couch with Jordan’s feet in his lap, the coffee table in front of them littered with take-out containers, and Jordan’s large television playing something mindless in the background.

“Why Edmonton?” Jordan asks suddenly.

Taylor raises an eyebrow. “Why Edmonton, what?”

Jordan turns away from the TV to look at Taylor. “Just…why Edmonton, of all places in the world?”

Taylor shrugs. “University of Alberta has a decent hockey program.”

“Yeah, but so does, like, University of Saskatchewan. Or UNB. Or even Queen’s. Didn’t you want to stay in Kingston? Edmonton’s pretty far.”

“U of A recruited,” Taylor says. “They were recruiting heavily and I didn’t really care about marks in high school so my grades were pretty bad. Dunno if I would’ve been able to get in anywhere else this year, they might’ve tried to make me raise my high school marks instead. U of A just wanted me to come and play hockey so it kind of made sense. So.”

Jordan nods and offers Taylor a smile before turning back to the television screen.

Taylor knows that probably wasn’t the answer Jordan was looking for, probably wasn’t even what he was asking. The truth is that Taylor’s never thought about what he’d want to do with a future that didn’t involve playing hockey; even all answers he’s given throughout his years with the Spitfires to the age-old media question what would you be doing if you weren’t playing hockey? were different every year—geography teacher, poker player, weatherman. He had offered thoughtless, random answers because deep down, he’s never wanted to be anything but a hockey player. If he’s being honest with himself, he still doesn’t. He knows that might sound conceited, that it might now sound ridiculous, but it was something he had loved, had always loved, and something that he had been good at. Trying to learn to navigate a world where that isn’t an option anymore is daunting.

Most of the time these days, Taylor doesn’t think that he will ever stop feeling a little lost.

(He thinks back to when his family had moved across the country from Calgary to Kingston, the summer before high school. He thinks about how it had felt, the terror and uncertainty in waiting for inevitable change.

“What about my friends? And…hockey?” he remembers asking his mom, standing in the entrance of their living room, his hands jammed into the pockets of his sweatpants.

She had put down the book she had been reading and held her arms out to him. He’d gone in for the hug, curling in close beside her, distinctly remembering feeling like he was too old to be doing this, but the sudden need for assurance overriding teenage embarrassment. “You can always call and email your friends. And you’ll make new friends too,” his mother had said, a gentle hand carding through his hair. “And there’ll always be hockey. As long as you want it, there’ll be hockey, T.”)

At first, during the summer after Brandon and the tournament, Taylor had had the notion in the back of his head that pushing harder would get him back where he’d needed to be, where he had used to be. Diligent adherence to rehab exercises, long hours practicing and skating and training to get back into game-shape had still resulted in getting drafted in the third round, in getting returned to juniors, in having to cut his season short. On some level, Taylor knows that these aren’t necessarily things to feel shame about, but it had nearly been impossible not to feel like that after falling so short of goals he had set for himself. Accepting U of A’s offer to play CIS hockey had seemed like defeat, like failure and giving up, even despite the constant reminders and quiet assurances from his mother, and his doctors, and even Barron, that it’s a compromise.

The thing is though, Taylor thinks. The thing is, what do you do when your best isn’t good enough anymore?

He sighs, giving Jordan’s ankle a gentle squeeze. “At the Memorial Cup, that first game against Brandon,” he begins.

Jordan turns to look at him almost immediately, giving him his undivided attention.

Taylor takes this as a cue to continue. “After the, you know. Hit. When I got hit. My coach asked me if I was okay to keep going.” He pauses, and then adds, wryly, “I said ‘yeah,’ obviously.”

Jordan sits up properly to mute the television and scoots over closer to where Taylor’s sitting on the couch. “Were you?”

“I don’t think so, no.” Taylor catches his voice cracking a bit at the end of the sentence when he realizes that this is the first time he’s ever said it out loud.

“Hallsy,” Jordan says, reaching out a hand like he wants to touch Taylor’s cheek, but he doesn’t quite, his hand stilted in the air in the space between them, before he drops it back to his side.

Taylor can feel the corner of his mouth twitching into a half-smile. “When life kicks you in the face, what’s the hardest thing to do?”

Jordan doesn’t say anything. He waits patiently, looking thoughtful, as Taylor takes a deep breath.

“The hardest thing to do is get the fuck back up,” Taylor continues, doing his best not to meet Jordan’s eyes. “It wasn’t hard to lie, to keep playing at the tourney, to push through everything. But afterwards. It was hard to get up in the mornings, sometimes, and it was hard to get out of bed for rehab, and it was hard to stop feeling embarrassed and guilty enough to maybe try and fit in with the boys on the Spits and Bears even though they’re all good guys.”

Now that Taylor’s started talking, it almost feels like he can’t stop, the words spilling endlessly out of him in a hurried, anxious ramble. “I’m luckier than most people in this position, I know that. But, like. It’s still hard. Whoever said that ‘whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ shit is a lying asshole, because I don’t think it’s true.” Taylor pauses to offer Jordan a wry little smile. “I just really wanted to play in the big show, Ebby.”

Jordan still doesn’t respond, at least not right away. He looks like he doesn’t know what to say. But he does tangle his fingers of his right hand with Taylor’s left, stroking a calloused thumb over Taylor’s knuckles. “You calling Kelly Clarkson a liar?” Jordan finally seems to settle on.

Just like that, Taylor can feel some of the tension bleeding out of him, slowly replace by a trickle of relief as he feels himself slump down against Jordan, suddenly incredibly tired. “Yeah,” Taylor says, nudging Jordan’s shoulder with his own, watching the slide of Jordan’s thumb against the back of his hand. “But at least she’s hot.”

They sit like that for a long moment, pressed against each other in companionable silence, Jordan a warm and familiar presence enough that Taylor thinks he could fall asleep right here, like this, with Jordan’s thrumming heartbeat under Taylor’s ear, safe and calm.

“Y’know,” Jordan finally says, his voice a soft rumble. “You’re wrong, I think.”

Taylor gives him a questioning look, still in the throes of the lulled calm Jordan seems to have washed over both of them. “About what? Kelly Clarkson?”

Jordan just shakes his head. “No, not that. Well, I mean, yeah, that too. But, like. Hallsy.” He ducks his head so that he’s looking Taylor directly in the eye as he seems to measure out his words, speaking deliberately. “I’m sorry you’re not in the big show. That sucks, it really, really does.”

Taylor’s not sure what to say in response to that as he nods slowly. The confusion must be evident on his face though, because this time, when Jordan speaks again, he does reach out to rest the fingers of his free hand to Taylor’s cheek.

“But you’re here,” Jordan says carefully. “Because you got the fuck back up. And even if it’s not where you want to be, you got the fuck back up. You’re here,” he repeats, emphasizes. “And that’s important. That’s really fucking important.”

Taylor doesn’t say anything in response to that, but he does tighten his fingers wrapped around Jordan’s, as he tries to listen, really listen, to remember this, and maybe, just maybe, begin to believe it.

It’s almost the end of the season, and the Oilers are still losing more than they’re winning, which is depressing, but Colten is up again, which is awesome, and a great distraction for Jordan. It also means that he can’t, and doesn’t, say no when Colten calls him and tells him that he’s rounding up some of the boys to go out to the bar.

“Me, you, Gags, and Segs,” Colten tells him on the phone. “Pretty much everyone else bailed.”

“Tubes, man. It’s a Tuesday,” Jordan points out.

“Yeah, but no skate tomorrow until eleven, either.” Tubes pauses. “Hey, wanna invite Hallsy, too? I haven’t talked to that kid since I left. He’s pretty much one of the guys anyway, right?”

“We could do that,” Jordan says, looking over at the middle of the couch where Taylor’s curled up with a textbook, one hand resting on Jordan’s knee.

“Cool,” Colten says. “Do you know if he’s free tonight?”

“Ask him yourself,” Jordan tells him, and then says Taylor’s name to get his attention, before tossing the phone over to him, Colten audibly cracking up on the other end of the line.

Jordan’s night ends with herding his friends back into the car, the reasonable and responsible designated driver bemused by his boys’ drunken shenanigans—

“Hallsy gets shotgun,” Jordan announces. “My car, Regina rules.”

Colten barks out a delighted laugh but makes for the backseat. “You still go by Regina rules?”

“What the fuck are Regina rules?” Sam asks.

At the same time, Tyler leans into Jordan’s personal space, eyes lighting up. “What about vaginas? Where?”

Still laughing, Colten drags Sam and Tyler away, shooing them into the backseat. “Them kids are pretty drunk,” he says to Jordan.

“Regina rules, though?” Sam asks again, and then pitches his voice into a plaintive whine. “And why do I gots to sit in the bitch seat?”

“‘Cuz you’re fun-sized,” Tyler informs him, leaning over to sloppily kiss his cheek.

“You are fun-sized,” Colten agrees cheerfully. “And when Ebs DDs, he makes the most sober person sit shotgun. It’s his, like, Regina thing. He’s been doing it since we were with the Pats.”

“I’m not drunk though,” Tyler says. “Hey, why didn’t any of you wheel tonight, even?”

“My girlfriend would be pretty pissed off if I did,” Sam says dryly, his head lolling. “Guys, I’m drunk.”

Colten frowns. “I’ve got a pretty lady in OKC. Guys, I think I’m in love. Or really drunk.”

“That sounds awful,” Tyler tells him solemnly.

“I’m too busy driving your sorry drunk asses home,” Jordan offers. “You guys cramp my style.”

Tyler boos. “Still not drunk.” And then, directed at Taylor, “We cramp your style, too?”

“Sure,” Taylor tells him. Tyler just boos louder.

“What about you?” Sam demands.

Tyler grabs his phone and pushes it in Sam’s face. “Booty call, bitches!” he crows. And then, “Hey, Ebs. Can you drop me off at her place?”

“Yeah, okay, just give me the address,” Jordan says, trying not to laugh as Tyler almost elbows Sam in the face in an attempt to pull up the address as quickly as possible.

Jordan turns to Taylor, still grinning. “Segs’ so fucking loaded right now,” he says. “Wanna see something hilarious? Pull the iPod out of the glove compartment and plug it in, and put on ‘Ashley’s playlist.’”

“Ashley?” Taylor asks, but complies.

“Is that your girlfriend?” Sam shouts from the backseat, his eyes half-closed.

“No, that’s my sister,” Jordan tells him haughtily.

“Is she hot?” Tyler ventures.

“Yes,” Colten says emphatically.

“Fuck all of you,” Jordan says, equally emphatically.

Tyler opens his mouth to chirp back, but instead he’s distracted by the opening strains of Taylor Swift’s You Belong with Me. “Dude. Bro, this is my jam,” he announces, delighted, and proceeds to yell along to the lyrics, while Colten and Sam shamelessly egg him on, before joining in for the chorus, not even close to on-key as they serenade Jordan, Taylor, and each other.

Jordan looks over at Taylor again when they hit the next red-light: he’s got his head craned around, laughing as the song changes to Back to December. Sam is mostly passed out in the backseat and Colten’s digging around for a pen, presumably to draw on his face, and Tyler’s still singing along badly to the music, if at slightly more reasonable volumes now. It suddenly strikes Jordan how well Taylor seems to slot into his life, how this isn’t new, but for the first time, maybe it’s not surprising, either.

Tyler breaks off mid-line. “Man, I love Taylor Swift,” he says. He leans forward, reaching out a hand to grab Taylor’s arm like something serious has just occurred to him. “Hey, you guys have the same name! That’s awesome!”

Jordan groans. “Segs, why are you like this?”

“Nah,” Taylor says, amused. “Let him finish. It’s pretty funny.”

“You know, you’re all right,” Tyler declares, scooting forward to clasp Taylor’s shoulder. “Can we trade you for Ebs? No disrespect or whatever.”

“You too,” Taylor says, and Jordan lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. “But no, can’t do that. Especially since he’s playing sober driver.”

“Fine,” Tyler grumbles good-naturedly and goes back to leaning against the backseat, humming along again to the song. Out of view of everyone else, Jordan reaches over to quickly squeeze Taylor’s knee; Taylor turns to him and smiles before going back to staring out the passenger side window.

Later, after Jordan’s dropped off Colten at Sutton’s and Tyler at his booty call,

(“Eleven a.m. skate tomorrow!” Jordan calls out the window at him in lieu of goodbye.

“Ten a.m. San Jose time,” Sam mumbles from the backseat. “‘s what Nuge would say if he wasn’t at home right now, playing COD and rubbing one out while on the phone with his girlfriend.”

“Ew,” Jordan says, pulling back onto the road. “Dude.”

“I should call my girlfriend,” Sam continues, ignoring him.)

and made sure Sam’s stumbled safely into his apartment, Jordan idles his car in front of the building and looks over at Taylor.

“What?” Taylor wants to know.

“I didn’t pick up tonight,” Jordan says by way of explanation. He grins, teasing. “Wanna be my consolation prize?”

Taylor laughs. “Yeah, I guess I’d be okay with that.”

“Good answer,” Jordan tells him. “I’ll make it worth your while. Maybe I won’t even kick you out before sunrise.”

“But will you make me breakfast? That’s the real question,” Taylor quips, playing along.

Jordan’s smile softens as he puts his truck back into drive. “Yeah, Hallsy,” he says fondly. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

They keep a reasonable distance between each other for the rest of the trip back to Jordan’s, during the walk up to the building, and the elevator ride up to his floor. To stay on track, they compare notes on their respective seasons, so engrossed in the conversation that they’re still talking about it when they get into Jordan’s apartment.

Jordan throws himself onto his bed. “This entire season,” he laments for what’s starting to feeling like the millionth time. “Fucking brutal. We really gotta start winning something soon.”

But this time it’s different, this time it’s better, because he’s not talking to himself, because Taylor’s lying on the bed beside him watching him thoughtfully.

“Dunno,” Taylor says. “It wasn’t all bad. You were pretty good this season, all-star and all that.” He grins, shifting so he’s almost on top of Jordan, his hands planted on either side of Jordan’s head, framing his face. “Jordan Eberle for all the awards. Hart, Vezina, Selke, all of them!”

Sitting up to rest against his elbows, Jordan can’t help but return the smile, already feeling a little better. “If I win the Vezina, can I win the Calder, too?”

“Nope, that one’s locked up.”

“Yeah, I guess Nuge is pretty great,” Jordan says.

Taylor scoffs. “Whatever, Ebs, I was talking about my boy, Henny. Don’t feel too bad about it, though, you can have the Masterson.”

“For what? Dealing with teammates who know all the words to every Taylor Swift song ever written?”

“Nah. For having a super-sick shooting percentage,” Taylor tells him solemnly, doing his best to fight back a grin.

Jordan rolls his eyes. “That was horrible, Hallsy.”

“Think you’re ever gonna find a cure?” Taylor continues, undeterred.

“If I take off my pants right now, would you please stop talking?” Jordan asks, grinning.

“Absolutely,” Taylor says.

Jordan laughs and tugs Taylor down for a kiss, warm and familiar and Taylor complies readily, sliding off of Jordan to curl up beside him, pulling him in closer. Taylor breaks the kiss off first, and when Jordan opens his eyes, he catches Taylor smiling and watching him speculatively.

“What?” Jordan says softly.

“Nothing,” Taylor replies. He moves a hand up, threading it through Jordan’s hair, and Jordan finds himself leaning into it. “You’re still wearing your pants though.”

“You could help me with that,” Jordan suggests mischievously. “I’m totally sober. Maybe I’m self-conscious.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Taylor tells him, and Jordan’s momentarily taken aback at how sincere he sounds. “I am going to take off your pants though.”

Taylor’s a little less coordinated and a lot less sober than Jordan is right now, but he manages to undo the zipper and buttons on Jordan’s pants. He licks one hand from wrist to fingertip and unceremoniously slides it into Jordan’s boxers, getting an almost immediate reaction from Jordan when Taylor strokes him a few times.

“Ebby,” he says. “I’m just gonna. Like. Can I just…?”

Jordan groans, hitching his hips up to thrust up into Taylor’s hand. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

“Okay,” Taylor says and then tugs down Jordan’s boxers and shuffles down the bed so that he can put his mouth on him properly, moving his hand to slide against Jordan’s hip instead.

What Taylor lacks in skill, he more than makes up for it in enthusiasm and determination. He doesn’t do anything fancy, but he keeps at it. Jordan finds himself loosely curling his fingers in Taylor’s hair, edging toward orgasm, and suddenly realizes that he kind of wants to kiss Taylor properly instead.

“Wait, wait, fuck,” Jordan manages, trying not to buck his hips. “Taylor, stop. Come here.”

Taylor looks up curiously, letting Jordan fall out of his mouth and Jordan barely manages a shudder from the sudden loss of wet warmth. “But you didn’t…”

“I know,” Jordan says, reaching blindly for Taylor to tug him up. “But just, like. Don’t want it like that. I want...fuck. Just, c’mere. Please.”

It only takes a moment for this all to process, because almost immediately, Taylor’s scrambling up to press his mouth against Jordan’s and Jordan’s tugging at the buttons of Taylor’s shirt and pulling it off and pushing down his pants, and Taylor’s got his hands everywhere: in Jordan’s hair, on Jordan’s shoulders, on Jordan’s ass. Jordan gets a leg around him and feels himself thrusting against Taylor’s hip. He’d be embarrassed about how messy this is, how needy and desperate he’s feeling right now, but Taylor’s rutting right back up against him, his face buried against the side of Jordan’s neck. And suddenly, Jordan doesn’t even care, because this, this is anything but perfect, but this is what he needs and what he wants as he pushes up against Taylor again.

Afterward, sticky and tired, Jordan’s pretty sure that he should get out of bed to find something to clean up the mess covering both of them, but Taylor’s got an arm secured around Jordan’s waist, and Jordan decides that he’s too comfortable to care right now, and yawns widely instead.

“Hallsy, you should stay,” he says sleepily, settling back against Taylor and tugging the sheets up over them. “I’ll make you coffee in the morning. And toast. And eggs…” he trails off, his eyes closing.

“Okay,” Taylor mumbles against the back of Jordan’s shoulder, and Jordan smiles, the last thing he remembers before falling asleep.

Taylor’s still sleeping when Jordan wakes up the next morning for practice. Jordan goes about his morning routines more quietly than usual, trying to let Taylor sleep; he tries not to think about how badly he wants to crawl back into bed for just ten more minutes, tries not to think about how right it had felt to wake up, pressed up close against Taylor. Instead, he makes enough coffee for two so that there will be some for Taylor when he finally gets out of bed.

Since the season’s starting to wind down, their practice is surprisingly low-key, which is probably for the best since Colten and Tyler both look pretty hungover, and Sam doesn’t look like he’s fairing much better. In the end, they all push through, though there is a brief moment of hilarity when Tyler somehow loses a one-on-one footrace with Theo toward the end of practice.

“Oh my god, Segs,” Theo says, delightedly, pulling Tyler into a headlock as the rest of the team makes no attempts to pretend they’re not all pointing and laughing.

“I’m never drinking again,” Tyler mumbles sadly, just out of earshot of Coach.

“That is a lie. You are a liar,” Whit says, skating past and tapping the back of Tyler’s shin with his stick on his way back to the dressing room.

“This is true,” Tyler says and then pulls Theo down onto the ice with him.

Laughing, Jordan goes over to help the two of them untangle themselves from their impromptu wrestling match when Sam skates up and asks if Jordan wants to stick around to shoot the shit with Andrew Cogliano and have lunch with the guy since the Ducks will be taking to the practice ice after the Oilers clear out. Jordan says ‘yes’ almost immediately, looking forward to catching up with an old friend.

As it turns out, Jordan finds himself being dragged back out to the benches by Sam before the Ducks are even done practice, his own hair still dripping wet from his shower. Since neither the Ducks nor the Oilers will be going to the playoffs this year, the Ducks coaching staff don’t seem to care that Sam and Jordan are watching the practice; in turn, Jordan doesn’t feel so bad about Sam leaning over the boards to heckle Andrew, or when Andrew skates over to resume his never-ending chirping war with Sam.

Without prompting, Sam launches into a very thorough explanation about why Andrew’s hair is currently the most subpar it’s ever been, and Andrew is busy making offended scoffing sounds while trying to interject with his own barbs. It’s why Jordan’s so distracted, laughing at the two of them and their ridiculous back-and-forth, that he almost misses Cam Fowler skating up beside Andrew to stand and wait patiently, if a little tentatively.

“Cam!” Andrew announces brightly, loudly interrupting Sam’s tirade, when he finally notices his teammate standing there. “These losers are double-teaming me. Even it up, please!”

“But everyone knows you’re the best, Cogs,” Fowler deadpans, and Sam just laughs harder at the mock wide-eyed sincerity in Fowler’s expression.

“Et tu, Fowler?” Andrew says mournfully, shaking his head. Jordan just grins. “I hate all of you for the record.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Fowler continues solemnly. “I’m only making fun of you because I love you too much.”

Andrew snorts, shoving playfully at Fowler. “Yeah, yeah, you’re so full of shit. So what’s up?”

“I was hoping to talk to Jordan, actually,” Fowler says. He seems suddenly nervous, taking off his glove to rub at the back of his neck before turning to address Jordan. “If you’ve got a moment.”

“Everyone wants a piece of Ebs,” Andrew says. He smirks. “No one cares about Gags, here.”

And, with that, Andrew and Sam are off and at it again. Jordan motions Fowler to move further down the bench, just out of earshot from the bickering pair, though both of them are still grinning knowingly at the ridiculousness of their friends.

“They always like that when they’re together?” Fowler asks.

“You have no idea,” Jordan says, rolling his eyes fondly. And then, “So I can probably guess. But what did you need to talk about?”

Fowler looks a little embarrassed. “Well, you know. Elly—Ryan Ellis—he says that you hang out with Taylor Hall sometimes?” Fowler says haltingly. “So…uh. I… Can you say ‘hi’ for me? It’s just…you know. Been awhile.”

Jordan gives him a look of amused disbelief. “…are you guys, like, the CHL mafia or what?”

Fowler just stares at him, uncomprehending.

“You’re not the first guy he used to play with who’s tried to get in touch with him in the last six months,” Jordan clarifies. “All you Spitfires, man.”

“It’s been hard to get in touch with him,” Fowler says, with a sheepish shrug. “Just want to make sure he’s doing okay, you know?”

Jordan nods, because he does know. He thinks for a moment before fumbling for his phone and hitting redial, waiting for the person on the other end of the line to pick up, hoping that he will.

“Hey Ebby,” the warm, familiar voice says after the phone clicks on after the third ring, and Jordan can’t help but smile. “Somebody lied about breakfast this morning.”

“Sorry,” Jordan says, laughing. He pitches his voice lower though, soft enough that Fowler won’t be able to overhear him. “I did leave coffee for you in the coffeemaker though. Make it up to you with dinner?”

“You’re on,” Taylor replies. “Still at your place, probably gonna stick around until my class this afternoon, if that’s cool. Trying to decide if I want to do some homework. Probably not.”

“Of course that’s okay,” Jordan says. “Also, I got someone on the phone for you.” He hands the phone to Fowler with an encouraging smile.

Fowler hesitates before taking the phone and pressing it to his ear. “Hey Hallsy,” he finally says. “It’s Cam. Cam Fowler.”

Jordan watches as Fowler almost immediately start laughing at something Taylor’s saying. He can’t help but grin as he moves away to give Fowler some space to talk on the phone, to catch up with an old friend, and he reinserts himself neatly back into the middle of Sam and Andrew’s new line of argument over hair products instead.

The season ends quietly, another sad finish by the team when the Oilers get shut out by the Canucks in the last game of the year. The plane trip back to Edmonton is quieter than usual, and when they land at the airport, all the call-ups immediately board another flight for Oklahoma City to get ready for the AHL playoffs. Colten hugs Jordan tight before he leaves and makes him promise to keep in touch.

It’s too late for the team to go out by the time they get back. Jordan finds himself standing in the front hall of his apartment, thinking about texting Taylor but remembering that it’s late and Taylor’s probably sleeping by now. Jordan almost feels like he should be embarrassed about his eagerness to talk to Taylor, but he’s not. He wonders if that says something about the whole situation, too.

(There’s a text message from Taylor in Jordan’s phone that pops up when the plane touches down in Leduc that reads next year’ll be your season, and despite everything that’s happened tonight, it makes him smile.

The last thing Jordan remembers thinking before he falls asleep that night is how he wishes Taylor were here.)

The Oilers do go out for drinks the next night, a last hurrah to another forgettable season that’s reduced to regretful sound bites and a twenty-ninth place finish. The entire team’s there to pound back shots and down an irresponsible number of beers. Somehow, the camaraderie helps, the knowledge that they’re all in this together, that they’re going to turn this all around together, somehow, one day. The team drinks to next year, to better puck luck, to the motherfucking PLAYOFFS, a solemn echo around the table as the team all lift their glasses, liquid sloshing over the sides.

Jordan finds himself stumbling back into an empty apartment at the end of the night. None of his teammates had needed to crash at his place, and he hadn’t been trying to pick up. (It’s not something he’s done in months now. He doesn’t want to think about what that means.) Taylor’s at a pre-exam party one of his teammates is throwing; his texts to Jordan have been steady all night, but are growing increasingly incoherent so Jordan thinks he’s probably having a good time.

It’s weird, Jordan thinks, trying to get used to living alone again.

He ends up calling Colten in Oklahoma City, forgetting completely about time zones and then spends the next five minutes apologizing about not remembering. Colten just laughs and yawns, because he’s Colten and the best partner in crime Jordan’s ever had, and he just says that he hopes Jordan’s not turning into Seguin.

“What’s shaking?”

“I…don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” Jordan says, and then he pauses, surprised, because that’s not what he had intended to say when he had dialled Colten’s number just moments ago.

“You know, for such a nice little dude, you can be a pretty tragic drunk sometimes,” Colten says. He sounds marginally more awake now.

Jordan makes a non-committal noise. “I just…I don’t think I want it to be over, you know?”

“Is this a hockey thing?” Colten asks.

“No,” Jordan says immediately. “I like Edmonton.”

Colten’s silent for a moment, like he’s considering. “Are you talking about Hallsy?”

“No.” Jordan pauses. “Maybe.”

Colten laughs, though not unkindly. “Thought so.” He sounds fond; Jordan will worry about accidentally outing himself to Colten later.

“How’d you know?” Jordan wants to know.

“We’ve been friends for a long time now, Ebs, me and you. I know you pretty well, okay? It’s not that big of a deal.”

Jordan exhales, grateful. “I feel like I just got him back, like I just found him again,” he says. “Does that sound insane? I don’t want to give that up, you know? I don’t want to let go, not yet.”

Colten hums into the phone. “Who says you have to?”

“I dunno. It’s just…we’re gonna be pretty far apart this summer. And we’ve got our own shit going on. And September’s kinda far away,” Jordan says. “And I just, I want…I want, Tubes.”

“You tell him that?” Colten asks quietly. “What you just told me, I mean.”

“‘Course not.”

“Maybe you should,” Colten says. “Couldn’t hurt.”

Jordan considers the for a moment, dropping into one of his kitchen chairs, stretching forward so that he’s got an arm against the table, his head pillowed in the crook of his elbow.

“Ebs? You still there?”

“Yeah,” Jordan mumbles. Colten’s probably not wrong. He tells him as much.

“I know,” Colten says. He sounds smug. “Uh. Maybe don’t do it tonight though,” he adds. “You’re pretty drunk.”

“Shut up, Tubes,” Jordan says mildly, around a quiet laugh. “But hey. Thanks.”

“No problemo,” Colten says. He pauses for a long moment, like he’s considering something. “For what it’s worth,” he finally says. “I think you guys could be pretty good for each other.”

As Taylor’s first year of university draws to a close, he thinks that maybe he’s just as uncertain about most things in his life as he was feeling at the beginning of the school year. He doesn’t know if the Golden Bears will be better next year, if they’ll win more games or make a run for the CIS championships. He doesn’t know which electives he’s going to choose to take in the second year of his program. He doesn’t know if he and Barron are still going to be roommates next year; he kind of hopes so because they had worked well together.

He’s not sure if he’ll ever feel like he’s good at hockey again. But stepping onto the ice never stops feeling vaguely like coming home, so maybe that’s going to be okay too. People adjust, they re-evaluate, and maybe, Taylor thinks, he can too. He’ll go home this summer, hang out with his parents and meet their new puppy, the dog that Taylor had begged them for when he was growing up and the only thing they had ever denied him. (People change, his mom had said softly over the phone. I can’t wait for you to meet him. He’s going to love you.) Maybe he’ll even go look up some of the people he used to know—maybe they’ve changed, or maybe they haven’t. Taylor knows that he sure has.

He tries to text Ryan Ellis more regularly these days, a silent apology that Ryan seems to understand anyway and accepts immediately in his speedy responses that don’t miss a beat. He does his best to stay in touch with Adam, Cam, Greg, his friends back home, thankful and almost marvelling at how easy it is to fall back into old patterns with them.

(“How are you doing?” Ryan asks one day on the phone, uncharacteristically serious during a lull in conversation.

“Better, I think,” Taylor says, and finds that he means it. “I’m doing okay.”

“Good,” Ryan say. “That’s really good.” He pauses. “You know, it’s good to have you back. Kind of sucked, not having you around.”

”We live in different cities, Elly.”

“Around, around, asshole.”

“I know, I know.” Taylor exhales. “It was just. You know. Kind of embarrassing. For me. It kind of felt like. You know. Letting everyone down.” It’s no less true now than it was a year ago, but it’s getting easier to say. Maybe that’s important.

“That’s...” Ryan starts and then seems to stop himself. “Hallsy,” he says instead, slowly, like he’s considering his words carefully. ”No one is disappointed with you. We were all just waiting for you to let us back in.”)

For the first time in what feels like a long time, Taylor thinks that he might be starting to look forward to the future. He’s anticipating the summer and whatever will happen next, the hockey season and even after that. He’s looking forward to another year with the Golden Bears, and even the thought of the uncertainty that might lie ahead doesn’t cause as much anxiety as it might have used to.

Before he can get there, though, he has finals to pass. Math was easy, psych was just memorizing a bunch of facts, and the exercise science final was surprisingly hard, but Taylor thinks it went okay. Lit’s the last exam of his year and he finds himself cramming for it the day before, trying desperately to remember information about meanings and symbolism, hoping like hell that he’ll recall these things when he sits down to write the test.

He finds that it’s not so hard to memorize the beginnings of poems, maybe because Jordan’s been seeping into everything he reads even though he’s not exactly sure why. Context becomes irrelevant: all your hands are verbs and you fit into me like a hook in an eye; the last line of that short story they had to read two weeks ago, Stay here, he says. Stay here. (Taylor doesn’t understand what it means, or why they even have to read this story from a book published well after the year 2000—the class is 20th century literature after all. But the phrase seems fragile and delicate, so maybe that’s important too, the way these words, stories, histories maybe say all the things he wishes he could say to Jordan out loud. These are things that feel like they might be bigger than both of them, even something as simple as ‘please don’t go.’ Taylor wants Jordan to be here tomorrow, and the day after that too; he just has to figure out how to tell him and make him understand.)

Taylor’s only a little surprised when his phone rings in the middle of the afternoon as he’s frantically trying to study. He reaches for it, glad for the interruption, and smiles widely when the caller ID tells him it’s Jordan. “Hey,” he says, leaning back to stretch from being hunched over his desk for most of the day. “What’s up?”

“How do you feel about Skype sex?” Jordan asks, his voice light like he’s kidding but with the hopeful inflection that Taylor’s come to understand means that he might not completely be. “I’m asking for a friend.”

“Uh,” Taylor says, thrown off-guard for a moment. He can feel his heartbeat speed up a little as his brain slowly sorts out what Jordan’s words mean. “Okay? I mean, I feel okay about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Taylor tries to keep his voice even, as light as Jordan’s had been, though it’s never as effortless for him as Jordan always makes it seem. And then daringly, he adds, “Phone sex is good too.”

Jordan laughs, surprised and warm, a sound that goes straight down Taylor’s spine. “Oh good. And what about distance-type things?”

“What, you mean like Skype sex from long distances?”

“Yeah, among other things,” Jordan says. “Think you’d be into that?”

Taylor smiles even wider, even though he knows that Jordan can’t see him right now. “That depends, I guess. You still asking for a friend?”

“By friend, I meant me,” Jordan says mock-seriously. “For the record, I am one hundred percent asking you about having Skype sex with me.”

“Well, in that case,” Taylor says. “That changes everything.”

Jordan huffs out a soft laugh. “I want to at least try. Like not not being…whatever this is. If that’s, you know…” he trails off.

“Yeah,” Taylor says quickly, honestly, relieved. “Me too.”

There are no guarantees: Taylor knows this from experience. He knows that sometimes you can try and try and try until all that’s left is an aching void or screaming pain, and still it won’t be enough. He knows that trying doesn’t always equal success, but he’s starting to learn that not getting what you want doesn’t necessarily equate to failure. Sometimes, you have to re-evaluate what you want, because plans change, priorities change—sometimes, it’s an accomplishment just to get up in the morning, to make it through the day pain-free.

(“We are more than what we’re not. I think that’s something that has to be true,” Jordan had said to him once, his fingers ghosting down Taylor’s spine. It had felt good. It had felt right. Taylor had felt like he would have been okay with staying in this moment forever.

He thinks that should scare him more than it does.)

Taylor thinks that maybe the residual fear will always be there—that his best isn’t good enough anymore, that maybe the people he cares about will figure out that the person he is now will be less compelling and disappear from his life.

But it takes courage to push into the unknown; Taylor wants to be brave enough to keep moving forward, to figure out what kind of person he wants to be, to see if Jordan wants to stick around and do that with him. Taylor doesn’t want to be too scared to try.

“So, uh. Just to clear this up,” Jordan says suddenly, his voice cutting into Taylor’s thoughts. He sounds bemused, delighted. “If you’re good with all of this long-distance Skype and phone stuff, we should practice. I mean, that’s the only way people get good at these sorts of things, right? So. What are you wearing right now?—”

“—Oh my god, Ebby—”

“—Because wouldn’t it look better crumpled up on my bedroom floor?” Jordan finishes. He sounds pleased with himself as he starts laughing hysterically.

And Jordan’s laughter is infectious, because after a moment, despite himself, relieved and happy, Taylor starts laughing too.

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