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Joey and Laurel have had a cool repartee about engagement throughout the offseason, both through video calls when he was back home training or in Toronto butting in on Scratch’s training, and in her office now that he’s back in KC. It’s not so much Joey for or against, not so much Laurel for or against, but Joey panicking that Scratch will say no and Laurel silent, and Joey panicking that Scratch will laugh in his face and Laurel much less silent because duh Scratch would never laugh in his face, even Joey’s therapist knows this. Scratch is not a laugh-in-facer. Scratch is kind. Scratch is so kind. Joey really wants to lock him up no takebacks.
“I love him very very much,” Joey says, then kind of wants to curl into a ball after saying that. “It is embarrassing,” he adds, because obviously.
“It sounds like that’s mutual,” Laurel says. “He always gets you your favorite bubble tea after our sessions.”
Joey grins at his knees from his curled up ball. Joey’s favorite isn’t even static, it changes by the day, other than ‘only half sweet’, which is eternal — unfortunately, since half-sweet remains too sweet and Joey doesn’t have the heart to tell him — but Scratch always seems to know which flavor he’s going to be in the mood for. And he’s always so pleased with himself, smiles proudly at Joey like he’s a puppy who brought him a great stick. The best stick in the whole entire world.
“I don’t want him to say no,” Joey says.
“That’s wholly understandable,” Laurel says. “Which is why it’s a good idea to have a discussion with Scratch about your respective views on marriage and commitment before you propose.”
Laurel has said this before. Joey rejects it. Talking about marriage is letting on that he’s planning to propose marriage, and then Scratch will decide he’s going to beat Joey to the punch by proposing first, and then it will be a whole mess.
Joey may not actually be worried about Scratch saying no, let alone laughing in his face.
He grins more at his knees.
*
“I was torn,” Scratch says. “I couldn’t decide if you were having a strawberry day, or you were feeling a bit more honeydew, so I got you both. I’ll drink whichever one you don’t want.”
“You’ll willingly drink half sweet?” Joey says. “Without dying?”
“I’ll do it for you,” Scratch says grimly.
Joey grins and grabs the honeydew — strawberry’s naturally sweeter, so Scratch will find it more palatable. Plus it’d be way too sweet for Joey. Win-win.
“How’s Laurel?” Scratch asks.
“Great,” Joey says. “She’s great.”
“Great,” Scratch says. He takes a tentative sip of the strawberry and doesn’t make a face like he’s poisoned or anything. Joey’s so proud of him.
*
The start of the season’s always a whirlwind — you cram moving back from wherever you wandered home to, a bunch of new and prospective teammates, the gauntlet of training camp, and the schoolkid excitement of an upcoming season, and there are a lot of competing feelings. And that’s not even getting into the fact the rings are going to be unveiled when the regular season gets underway.
It’s fine at first. Him and Scratch basically don’t leave the apartment except for groceries and Laurel when they get back, too busy unpacking and vegging and getting accustomed to living together again. They spent as much time together as possible during the offseason, but that still wasn’t as much as either of them would have liked, so they’re recharging their ScratchnMoney batteries. They’re probably going to have to rethink their training in the future, either split the offseason between Chicago and Toronto or find somewhere neutral instead, because weeks without Scratch bit hard, and it’s not a long flight, but you can’t just duck out of training all the time, even for true bro love.
Joey isn’t really thinking about the Scouts season right up until they’re at Willy’s for a barbeque with all the returnees, catching up with each other before training camp starts. Shithead took big money in free-agency, way more than the Scouts could afford, and Joey’s as happy for him as anyone — guy’s earned every penny — but it’s weird without him here. He’s been a Scout forever and now he’s just — poof. Gone.
“He’s not dead,” Willy says.
“He’s in a different conference,” Joey says. “That’s basically dead.”
“At least we don’t have to play him as much,” Willy says. “He really did earn the nickname, and he’s not going to be our shithead anymore.”
“RIP Shithead,” Joey says solemnly.
“RIP Shithead,” Willy says.
The BBQ was supposed to be a nice ‘welcome back, fuckers’ thing, but Joey leaves it feeling weirdly tense, and the feeling only gets worse and worse, until the first day of training camp, when Joey sits down to put his socks on and then malfunctions. He sits there on the bed, one sock on, paralyzed. Why? He has no idea, but that doesn’t change the fact that he feels completely incapable of putting the other sock on now. Which is a problem. He needs to wear both socks. Also to be able to move, probably.
Scratch comes into the bedroom — both socks on, like a functional person — looks Joey up and down, and then sits down beside him.
“Are you having a bit of a crisis?” Scratch asks.
Joey mutely nods.
“You could literally sleep through training camp and still be in the roster,” Scratch says. “The guys love you, the new guys are going to love you, and we’re a different team but we’ve still got most of the pieces we had when we won the Cup, there’s no reason to think we can’t go the distance again this year.”
Joey nods acknowledgement.
“Did I address any of your concerns?” Scratch asks hopefully.
Joey shakes his head. Pretty good stabs at it, but probably hard to address it, no matter how well he knows Joey, when Joey’s not quite sure what exactly the concern is himself. Though if anyone would know Joey better than he knows himself, it’d be Scratch.
Scratch holds his arms out, and Joey tucks himself in, pressing his cheek against the slow thud of Scratch’s heart. No freaking out from Scratch. Probably because there’s no good reason to freak out. And yet.
“It’s because you’re gonna miss Shithead so much, isn’t it,” Scratch says, and Joey laughs.
“We gotta go,” Joey says reluctantly.
“We have time,” Scratch says. “If you can handle being on time instead of early.”
Joey pulls away.
“Ugh,” Scratch says. “I was so hoping this was the year you’d settle for being on time.”
“We’re going to be late,” Joey says.
“You mean five minutes early instead of fifteen?” Scratch mutters, but he goes to the hall to put his shoes on, so Joey ignores it and focuses on putting his sock on. Then shoes. Then he needs keys, except Scratch has them out already. By the time they get to the practice facility whatever it is has passed, and when Scratch gives him a slightly excited smile, Joey smiles back.
It honestly is pretty weird without Shithead there, a strange Shithead blank in the stall across the room from Joey’s. Nobody’s taken it yet, either out of respect or out of concerns it’s like, a biohazard, who knows, but it won’t stay empty. Someone has to take it eventually.
Joey knows no teams are the same after an offseason. With Cup teams that’s especially true, considering the premium that players with Cup rings get on the open market. Not that they’ve gotten their rings yet, obviously, but like. Metaphorically. The Cup rings are in the metaphorical mail at the moment.
It’s a team in flux — no team as good as they are can keep rolling on the way they have without bumping up against the cap ceiling, and contender or not, you have to adapt, bring in new blood, let the rookies play so they can learn and grow. It still kind of sucks.
At least they have Willy. Willy’s going to retire in a Scouts jersey or wreak havoc upon the hearts and souls of Scouts fans on his way out. No in between. He is Joey’s rock. His lodestone. He also currently has Joey in a headlock and is ruffling his hair like he hasn’t seen him since the Cup celebrations, not literally the other night.
“My Money,” Willy coos. “My lucky charm. Coach is putting you on my wing.”
“I don’t wanna be on your wing,” Joey says.
“Too bad,” Willy says sweetly.
“I don’t want to be on his wing,” Joey mumbles to the floor when Willy releases him. For one, that’s a whole lot of pressure. For two, Joey can’t shut shit down as well if he’s on an offensive rush line, that’s like, the opposite of his role. He’s not bad at it or anything, it’s just not how the Scouts have deployed him. And finally, most of the team only has to deal with Playoff Willy during the postseason. So do Willy’s linemates, but in the meantime? They have Linemate Willy all season as an appetizer. Linemate Willy isn’t full on Playoff Willy, but he’s still pretty intense. Joey declines.
“You decline,” Coach says.
“Uh huh,” Joey says. “I decline.”
Coach blinks at him.
Joey blinks back.
“Just to make sure I’m getting this straight—“ Coach says, then, “Oh shit, is it offensive if I say that? ‘Getting things straight’?”
“Nope,” Joey says. “You’re all good.”
“Okay, good,” Coach says. “So just to be clear — you don’t want me putting you on the first line. In the preseason, or at all.”
“Exactly,” Joey says.
“Well,” Coach says. “Too fucking bad.”
“That was offensive,” Joey tells him.
“It was meant to be,” Coach says. “Get the fuck out of my office, Munroe.”
Joey slumps out of his office. That did not go well, but mostly as expected. He tried, at least. Doomed to 82 plus games of Willy at his intense-ist.
I miss you Joey texts Shithead, along with a sadface.
i miss u to $!!! Shithead texts back.
*
Joey had been having a grand old time worrying about proposing to Scratch, and waiting for the rings, and knowing that waiting for the rings is also waiting to propose to Scratch, his brain has been stuck in a whole loop, it is tiring, but that has to be put aside while Joey does his absolute best to sabotage his chances of being on the first line.
He whines. He wheedles. He does not play poorly, even though that would be the most successful strategy, because he is physically incapable for performing with anything less than full effort. It is a curse.
Also Willy would know. He would know, and he would kill him.
*
“What scares you about this?” Laurel asks, after very patiently listening to Joey bitch for most of the seassion. Joey guesses that has earned her a question. He’s like a genie. A therapy genie. Or the sphinx. Though he thinks that’s riddles, not questions.
“I told you!” Joey says. “Willy is a monster. A monster.”
“What really scares you about this?” Laurel asks.
Joey picks at a loose thread on his shorts.
“Joey?” Laurel gently prods.
“Willy’s the best hockey player I’ve ever known,” Joey says. “And I’m not just saying that because he’s my friend and teammate, you know? He’s like, future first ballot hall of famer. That good. In fifteen years there’s going to be a player on every team wearing his number because they grew up idolising him. We wouldn’t have won the Cup without him. We wouldn’t have gotten as far any other year without him, in the postseason and because he put up points like crazy to make sure we had home-ice advantage and all that.”
Laurel makes a ‘go on’ sound.
“And it’s still not good enough for some people,” Joey says. “I legit can’t blame Willy for being like, as scary as he is when he gets all Playoff Willy, because he could have a four point game and people will be focusing on why he didn’t have five points. He’s so fucking good, he’s scary good, and people still shit on him.”
“I like being like, I dunno,” Joey says. “Fan favorite of dudes who pay attention to weird metrics that like, matter, but not as much as they think they do. I like being the guy who doesn’t do the flashy shit. My team knows what I can do. My coaches know what I can do. They appreciate it. I get put on the first line and everyone’s going to be like ‘dude can’t put up Shithead’s numbers, what a loser’, even though that’s not what I’m there to do.”
“You’re afraid of failing,” Laurel says.
“I’m not even,” Joey says, laughing a little bitterly. “I’m afraid of doing well, but everyone telling me that’s failing anyway. Fuck, I hate this. I just want to play hockey and hang out with my buds and mercilessly humiliate my opponents but they keep ruining it with like, cameras and media and fans with opinions that have no evidence to back them up and shit.”
Laurel’s smiling. “Mercilessly humiliate your opponents?” she asks.
“Willy’s already corrupted me,” Joey says. “It isn’t even the legit season yet and I’m bloodthirsty. Bloodthirsty.’
“What else is scaring you?” Laurel asks.
Joey picks at his shorts some more as Laurel waits.
“There’s a pretty big difference between like, middle six dude on a very good but very small market team who gets outed,” Joey says. “And a first liner on the defending Cup champs being openly gay. Like, it’s — I couldn’t even handle the shit they were saying before, I had to like, delete every social media account I had, get Scratch to put those website blockers on my phone and laptop because I couldn’t trust myself not to go looking and get into this like, complete shit spiral. And that’s when I was like, a nobody, comparatively speaking. I don’t fucking blame Willy for keeping shit — fuck. You didn’t hear that.”
“Everything you say in here is strictly confidential,” Laurel says.
“You still didn’t hear it,” Joey says.
“I didn’t hear it,” Laurel agrees.
“They’re gonna want me to do like, interviews,” Joey says. “They’re going to do some fucking spotlight or something, ‘dude good at hockey despite sucking dick’. I saw that shit with Lapointe, I swear they treat it like, ‘dude who recovered from cancer’, ‘dude who lost important person tragically’, ‘dude isn’t interested in women’. It’s like. Fuck, may as well just give me the Masterton for my perseverance in continuing to not be interested in women. I feel like it’s going to take ten fucking minutes before I accidentally drag Scratch out with me. And he doesn’t want to be. And I don’t blame him, and I don’t want him to be out because people haven’t gotten over this shit yet.”
“Ah,” Laurel says.
“Don’t ah,” Joey says. “No ‘ah’. Don’t do your therapeutic eureka stuff. I haven’t had a breakthrough.”
“Save the breakthrough for next week?” Laurel asks, so Joey guesses the hour’s over.
“Apparently,” Joey says.
“You’re a good hockey player, Joey,” Laurel says. “You know that.”
“I do,” Joey says. He does.
“When you read negative things about Willy’s play,” Laurel says. “Or your play. What’s your reaction?”
“That they’re talking out of their asses,” Joey says.
“Hm,” Laurel says, which is up there with ‘ah’ in annoying therapist sounds, and then tells him their time is up before he can ask her what that ‘hm’ is supposed to mean.
*
“Wintermelon,” Scratch says, waving at the bubble tea in the console as Joey gets in the car. “I had no idea what the fuck it was, so I looked it up and it said it tasted bland as hell, so I figured it was right up your boring alley.”
“I love you, you know that?” Joey asks.
Scratch slides his sunglasses down as Joey belts himself in. “Intense session?” he asks.
Joey shrugs. “Just bitched about first line stuff,” he says.
“Thank fuck someone actually gets paid to listen to you bitch about it, because I don’t,” Scratch mutters, and laughs when Joey punches his shoulder.
“But you know that I love you, right?” Joey asks.
“Yeah Money, not a doubt in my mind,” Scratch says.
“Okay,” Joey says. “Okay good.”
“You know that’s mutual,” Scratch says.
“Yeah,” Joey says.
“Okay,” Scratch says. “Good. Drink your wintermelon and tell me how crap it tastes.”
Joey takes a sip. “It’s good,” he says.
“Of course you’d fucking say that,” Scratch mutters to himself, and Joey smiles at him, the pinch of his brows as he pulls out of the parking space, the hinge of his jaw with a few days worth of stubble, the curl that’s gone rogue over his sunglasses, the flex of his tanned arms, flash of stupid tattoo under the sleeve of his t-shirt, flash of white gold of his watch hit by the light, flash of tongue when they stop at a red light and he takes a sip of whatever sugary shit he got for himself, licking a droplet of it from his bottom lip.
“The intense staring that’s happening in my peripheral vision is both disconcerting and creepy as fuck, Money,” Scratch tells him. “But you do what feels right to you, bud.”
Joey smiles, takes a sip of his drink, and keeps his eyes on him.