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Nineteen minutes.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuuuck. Patrick checks his watch for the third time in two minutes and cringes inside when the next minute rolls over and he’s still in the car. He’s going to be late, and he really, really can’t be late. Not today, of all days.
He swings his way around the widest turn he’s possibly ever taken and barely manages to get his car in park before he’s barrelling his way up the stairs and fumbling the key in the lock to his apartment. He kicks the door closed behind him, his fingers already three-quarters of the way through the buttons on his shirt. He knew when he'd made the date that the timing would be tight, and that was before a group of indie yarn dyers from Elmdale had decided to take their monthly sojourn to the shop today, of all days. He’s balling it up his work shirt and throwing it in the corner of his bedroom area at the same time that he’s slipping his phone out of the back pocket of his dress pants and pulling up the app for Chet’s Pizza. It was new, and buggy as shit, but he didn’t have time to place the call and put on his lucky shirt.
And he couldn’t not have his lucky shirt, because it’s the Leafs and it’s the first game of the official season. Fifteen minutes, and Patrick officially decides that he’s going to have to leave his slacks on. He knows David will kill him, these are his potential wedding slacks after all, but he’s running the constantly shifting time math in his head and, well, some things just have to be sacrificed on the altar of efficiency.
The blue t-shirt is hanging right where it’s supposed to be, front of the top rack in his closet, set just the barest breath apart from his other shirts so that it doesn’t get too wrinkled, so that his button downs won’t rub the luck out of it through some kind of weird closet-friction-juju. He slows down for the first time since he’s whirlwind through the front door, and it’s for just long enough to slip the navy blue t-shirt off the hanger gently, so he doesn’t stretch out the neck. He slips it on and rolls it down his torso, flatting out the seams along his biceps and making sure to pass his palms once, twice, three times down his sides so that the shirt is as long and flat as it’s going to get. He feels a little bit of calm soften his edges, the same way he always does when he manages to slip into his lucky shirt. He grabs his game-day hat off the dresser and slams it on his head.
Ten minutes.
The door slams behind him and he thinks for the briefest second of not locking it, but his better angels win out and he loses a precious thirty seconds re-locking his front door. It’s only two minutes to Chuck’s, and by some miracle of miracles the online order went through. His pizzas are sitting on the hot rack at the front of the store, his name scrawled in Chuck’s messy handwriting on the side of the boxes. The smell of mushroom and basil fills his car as he buckles them into the front seat. He’s on his two-minute countdown, and it’s going to take at least five to get to the hotel, so the last thing he needs to do is walk through the door with sudden-brake-no-turn-signal pizza.
He’s only three minutes late when he knocks on the door, and he hears the muffled voice of Mike Ross so he knows the game hasn’t officially started yet. He should probably still feel bad because he is late, but he's so relieved he hasn't missed the puck drop, he can't manage to find the guilt. He looks both ways before he spits over his left shoulder, lifting two fingers to the brim of his hat and tossing a wave to the sky. He wasn't religious but his Pappy Brewer had been and he wasn't one to mess with tradition now. Satisfied, he knocks a few quick raps and even though he knows what's coming, it still takes him by surprise when the door swings open.
"Hello, Mr. Rose."
*
There are only 90 seconds left in the 3rd and they've been tied since the beginning of the second and Patrick is dying. He's perched on David's bed, an abandoned plate of pizza on the bed behind him, a sure sign of how distracted he is because if it spills on David's duvet he won't be getting laid for a week. Nylander's got the puck and Patrick holds his breath. They're a good offensive line, but streaky, and they've been hot throughout the preseason, which meant they were primed to go cold any second.
"Could go cold," he hears Johnny mutter under his breath and Patrick can't help but smile. The Roses has always made him feel like family. But these quiet moments were what made them feel like friends.
The crack of stick on puck seems louder than it should in the small space and it's flying from Nylander to Matthews, back to Nylander then across to Aberg, so fast that Patrick keeps losing track and then the buzzer sounds, the white lights flash and Patrick almost doesn't want to look but he does and it's theirs, the fucking win is theirs! Patrick is on his feet without a second thought, cheering and pumping his fists above his head and he doesn't feel self-conscious at all because Johnny is next to him yelling just his loud, the skin around his eyes crinkling the same way David's does when he's grinning as big as Johnny is. Their hands join in the air, fingers lacing together in the kind of hazy intimacy that seems inherent to sporting events.
And it's only, like, 7% awkward when Johnny accidentally holds on a beat too long before they both resume their seats on opposite beds. David would be proud of 7%, Patrick thinks, and if that's the case, it really doesn't matter if the Leafs win, because that's a victory in and of itself.
(except it absolutely matters, and they take home the W and later that night David blows him on delightfully pizza sauce free sheets)