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Dylan wakes up and knows that he’s not in his bed. He therefore chooses not to open his eyes, under the ‘what I can’t see isn’t real’ prinicple. He thinks for a minute. He’s not on the road and he definitely didn’t wheel last night, so he has been. Magic’ed or teleported or whatever. Awesome. Great. Terrific.
He actually has gotten his shit together over the last year or two, not that he could say that outloud without getting openly laughed at. But he has! For example, he hasn’t been magically dumped into a Hall of Famer’s bed since he got traded. That’s progress!
That was progress.
Whatever.
The problem at hand is, he’s going to wake up. Well, he’s going to open his eyes, and Luc Robitilla won’t be his buddy anymore. Actually, he has no idea who his buddy is going to be now. Some numbers are really well known. Like, everyone knows that the 7s go to Ted Linsey, and that he yells at you about the NHLPA for the first and last ten minutes you’re there, but he lets you drink whiskey in your coffee for breakfast because it’ll put hair on your chest.
But 17? Fuck if Dylan knows who the 17s go to. He was planning on getting his shit together, he didn’t ask around before he changed his number. But by now he can feel that whoever he’s in bed with is awake, and waiting for him to wake up. Dylan takes a deep breath, and opens his eyes to see who his new number buddy is.
Wanye Gretzky is looking at him.
“Good morning!”
Dylan falls out of bed.
Wayne looks down at him over the edge of the bed, then back over his shoulder.
“Oh no,” says WAYNE FUCKING GRETZKY, “I broke him!”
“I told you to stop scaring them,” says an accented voice from the bed, “They’re not expecting you.”
“I just want to help,” says Wayne, and then he looks down at Dyln on the floor, “I give good advice.”
Dylan nods from the floor. He can physically feel his eyeballs trying to pop out of his face.
“You absolutely do not give good advice,” says the other voice, and then Jari Kurri appears on the other side of Wayne to look down at Dylan on the floor, “He doesn’t give good advice. You don’t have to listen to him just because he’s The Okayish One.”
“I will not be falling for that,” says Wayne.
“Why are you on the floor?” says Jari.
“What the fuck?” says Dylan.
Jari reaches his hand down, and after hesitating Dylan shakes his hand from the floor like this is the NHL awards or something.
“I’m Jari Kurri. I wore number 17 for a long time, and for some unknown magical reason, this makes me your therapist,” Jari says, “This is Wayne. In the 80s he often wore very short shorts and was quite cute, so I threw out the receipt and now I am stuck with him. That is about all you need to know about him.”
Wayne briefly squints his eyes and tilts his head, before apparently accepting this description.
“Who are you?” says Jari.
“Um,” says Dylan, “I’m Dylan. Strome. Dylan Strome. My number used to be 20 and I would go to Luc Robitaille and he used to take us out for mimosas.”
“At the place with the fish tank?” asks Wayne casually, and Dylan .25 seconds from losing what’s left of his shit.
“Yep, the place with the really long fish tanks that go all the way to the deck.”
“That’s a nice place,” says Wayne, and then to Jari, “They do the homemade corn beef hash there.”
Jari nods.
“Luc has good taste. Well, sounds like you know how this goes. Why are you here?” asks Jari.
“Um because I’m having relationship trouble?” guesses Dylan.
Jari rolls his eyes.
“That is why everyone does this, yes. What specifically did you do in your specific relationship that brought you to me?”
“And me!” adds Wayne, and Jari rolls his eyes again.
“Well, ah, I got mad at my. Well he’s my best friend. But he’s kind of my boyfriend, but we don’t say that ever so he’s also kind of not, and I told him that it wasn’t fair that I’m always the one who has to travel to him, and he said it's not his fault that he had to play in the All Star Game or that he lives under all the snow in Edmonton and I said that I didn’t say it was his fault, just that he should please come to Chicago next time, and he said he couldn’t because he’d have to ask for an extra day off and I said dude, they’ll give it to you, and he said but I don’t want to ask and then I yelled at him because he never stands up for himself, so he shut off skype and I ate some ice cream and then I woke up here.”
During this speech Wayne has slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows, then his knees, until he’s standing up on the bed in a victory stance. Jari has not moved, except to put his hand over his eyes.
“Dylan,” Jari sighs, “Is your kind of boyfriend Connor McDavid?”
“Yes?” says Dylan, even though it's not a question at all. It's definitely Conner, always has been.
“AH-HA!” shouts Wayne from his victory stance, “I CAN HELP THIS TIME! THIS IS MY WHEELHOUSE!”
“Would you like some coffee?” says Jari to Dylan.
“Yes please,” he answers.
Wayne starts whooping.
-*-
Wayne has already begun attempting to give advice as they walk downstairs. It all starts off as interpersonal advice and then very quickly turns into advice on how to pass the puck in different situations. At first Dylan thinks these might be metaphors, but nope. Wayne is talking about passing the puck while someone is holding on to the back of your jersey, and he means….that.
This would probably be good stuff to write down, but it is 7:00 in the morning and Dylan is not confident he isn’t tripping balls.
Jari gives him some coffee in an Oilers mug.
“We also have some Phoenix mugs,” he tells Dylan, “But I thought probably this would be less hurtful.”
“Thanks?” says Dylan.
Jari puts a nip of Jack Danials next to the mug.
“I have no idea if this puts hair on your chest,” says Jari, “but the longer that The Rambling One talks for, the more you will need it.”
Dylan pours it all into his coffee.
“Good boy,” says Jari. “Now, why have you been the only one to travel to your kind of boyfriend?”
“Well, at first I was playing way less. I was in junior still, and so I could skip a little bit of school and then he was injured. Then I think mostly it was just habit. But then I got traded and it was like. I want to be good in Chicago, and I want to be there all the time so I thought that maybe he could visit me the next few times and…. I don’t know, he doesn’t want to, I guess.”
“Well,” says Jari, “I think you are right. Sometimes a trade is a clean slate, and you can take that and run with it as much as you would like. Make Chicago into whatever you want. Work, home, whatever you need.”
“Yeah,” says Dylan, and it's really nice to hear that actually. Hear someone say that this was a good trade, and not just another example of him being a first round failure. “I’m really trying.”
“And all Conner has to do for you to feel happy is visit you?” presses Jari.
“Well…. I mean, kind of. I did the effort for a while when he was getting settled, and now he has to do the effort while I get settled. And I flew to see him like, 4 times during the season so. He could at least come once. I think,” says Dylan.
This is part of him getting his shit together. This is equal division of labor and equal investment, which is supposed to be the sort of thing you deserve and have the right to ask for out of a relationship. Self care twitter told him so.
“Wayne?” says Jari.
Wayne is across the room, in the chair next to Jari, and paying attention to Jari and Dylan like he hadn’t just been trying to demonstrate puck velocity with a pen cap on the coffee table, all in about ten seconds. Oh shit, thinks Dylan, that really is Wayne Gretzky huh.
“Wayne, why do you think that Connor doesn’t want to take a day off to see his kind of boyfriend in Chicago?”
Wayne looks somber for a second.
“Because he feels like the whole team is resting on his shoulders, and if he is gone for any amount of time it will crumble. And he is scared that everyone watching will blame him for it.”
“Not that you would know,” says Jari, dripping with sarcasm, and Wayne elbows him lightly with a smile.
“How do I get him to stop thinking that?”
Wayne shrugs.
“Well how did you stop thinking like that, then?” and holy shit, if you told Dylan 45 minute ago he was talking to Wayne Gretxky like this….
“I got myself traded somewhere sunnier,” says Wayne honestly.
“I don’t think that’s going to work this time,” says Dylan sadly.
“Why don’t you call him your boyfriend?” ask Jari, and that feels a little bit like a left turn.
“Um,” says Dylan, “at first when we played for the otters, other people called us the boyfriends as a joke. So it was like, we can’t give them the satisfaction. Then after that, I guess the stakes were higher if I accidently called him my boyfriend where people could hear. Or if he called me that. It could be like, a really big deal and then it will overshadow everything else.”
Jari rolls his eyes.
“How people are missing an entire magical system that delivers sad hockey boys dating other sad hockey boys to old hockey men who are dating other old hockey men for advice, if they want something to report on, is entirely beyond me.”
“I’ve never understood it either,” says Wayne. “You’re not wrong that all those media types are probably going to hound you both if the word boyfriends slips out though. Sadly.”
“I think though,” says Jari, “you should tell Conner that you want to start using the big scary boyfriend word. And ask him again to come to Chicago, and tell him you want it to be your team and your home, the same way he wants Edmonton to be his, and so it's important that he comes.”
“You think that will work?” Dylan asks.
“I do,” says Jari.
“So do I,” says Wayne.
“But what if he says we can’t, just in case.”
“Tell him that if the media gets wind and starts giving the two of you shit, Jari and I will come make out on the kiss cam in Edmonton,” says Wayne.
Jari cracks a tiny smile behind his coffee mug, and Dylan sees out of his peripheral vision that he’s also rubbed Wayne’s leg just a little in agreement.
“Yes Dylan, tell him you have The Brave One as an ace in the hole,” says Jari.
“That is starting to get very annoying,” Wayne tells Jari.
“Will you really?” Dylan asks.
Both Wayne and Jari’s face soften just a little towards him.
“We will,” says Jari.
“Yes,” says Wayne.
“Okay. Okay I’m going to skype him again when I get home. And I’m going to tell him. That. All of that. And about the kiss cam.”
“Good plan. Of course you have to wait until tomorrow, but good plan,” says Jari. “Do you want some more whiskey in the meantime?”
“It's 8:00 in the morning,” says Wayne.
“It puts hair on your chest,” says Jari.
“Says who?”
“Ted Lindsey says that, I heard,” says Dylan, in a helpful way, he hopes.
“Interesting,” says Wayne, “I’ve never heard him say that.”
“Are we day drinking or not?” asks Jari.
-*-
In the end they day drink a little, and Dylan does actually write down Wayne’s advice on how to pass the puck in basically every situation that any of them can think of. It expands to include all possibilities, including ‘is an enforcer chasing you?’ and ‘is that enforcer Bob Probert?’
It frankly sounds exhausting to be Wayne Gretzky. Dylan already has two flow charts going.
But by the time they’re ready for bed, Dylan is just looking forward to going home, opening his laptop, and seeing his pixelated kind of boyfriend through the screen.
He closes his eyes and tries to force himself to sleep right away. It doesn’t exactly work, but it must look convincing because next to him, Jari rustles the covers a little bit.
“That was good advice today,” whispers Jari.
“You really think so?” Dylan hears Wayne whisper back.
“Yes, I do. I think we might even have helped two of them this time.”
“I know,” and Wayne sounds a little giddy.
“You are a dork,” says Jari, “but a kind hearted one with good advice for the babies. Really you are The Great…. Dork.”
“You never give up, do you?” whispers Wayne.
“I never do, and that got you four Stanley Cups and 35 years of someone else to figure out how to work the espresso machine.”
“I’m pretty lucky then, I guess,” Wayne whispers like a sap.
Dylan hears the faint sound of a kiss, and he finally dozes off thinking that they really have it figured out here.
-*-
When he wakes up at home, Dylan calls Conner immediately with no regard for the time zones.
“WhoozeTzeeMudded?” slurs Conner through the phone.
“I love you,” says Dylan and wow. That was not the very reasonable argument he intended to start with.
“I love you too,” says Conner instantly.
“Guess who the 17s go to when they’re fighting with their boyfriends?” Dylan continues.
“Oh shit, who?” Asks Conner, and then, “Oh shit, wait.”
“Listen, before you say anything about the word or whatever, listen. I have a safety net for us. You are actually not going to believe this but…”
-*-
Their next overlapping off day, Conner is sitting on Dylan’s bed in Chicago drinking coffee with whiskey in it while he looks over Dylan’s 24 loose sheets of paper and 2 flow charts of notes. Dylan is pressed against his back with his arms wrapped around Conner’s waist, and he is so very at home.
“What does “A.O.C.” stand for in the notes about defensemen?” he asks Dylan.
“It means ‘assume on cocaine’.” says Dylan from where he’s pressed against Conners back.
“The 80s were wild, I guess, Jesus.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” says Dylan.
Then he thinks back to the easy way that Jari would put a hand on Wayne’s knee or arm, and how Wayne was sort of immune to all of Jari’s little nicknames and also sort of loved them at the same time.
“They had some stuff figured out, though.”
Conner nods. Then:
“What does the part of the flow chart that says ‘if NH’ mean?”
“It means if the other guy has no helmet, you have to follow the right side of the chart,” Dylan answers.
“What the fuck,” whispers Conner to himself.