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It’s a good thing Joey doesn’t need Scratch’s advice about the whole proposal, considering he’s going to be on the receiving end of it. Well, maybe Joey needs it, and he certainly would like it, because Scratch is a very good advice giver, but surprise is kind of an important factor, and asking Scratch’s opinion would kind of blow that.
But Joey really needs some advice, because the rings are arriving in five days, and he is not ready. At all.
He considers asking Trigger, then nixes that idea. Even if he didn’t squeal to Scratch — and he absolutely would — Joey can’t see him being very helpful. Trigger does not seem the marrying type. Or the romance type. Or like, the type that wouldn’t take it deeply personally that Joey was one-upping him in the Scratch Best Friend Contest by bringing paperwork into it.
Casey is also not the marrying or romance kind, and would be the first to tell him that if he asked for her input. She’d be supportive, he knows, she loves Scratch like a brother-in-law already, so making that official would get two Casey thumbs up. But she lands in ‘support’, not ‘advisory role’. Ditto his parents — still happily married almost thirty years in, so Joey guesses maybe they’d have some advice, but like — nah. Parents get told after. That’s the rules. The rules Joey has just made up on the spot.
Owen’s a well-adjusted, stable person. Like, not even just compared to Joey’s teammates, which is an extremely low bar to clear. And Joey already knows he’s pro-proposal, so —
*
“Be my gay mentor,” Joey says.
“Okay,” Owen says. “But only if you buy me a drink. It has been a week.”
“Two drinks,” Joey says. “No, three.”
“If you want to keep negotiating on my behalf, please feel free,” Owen says.
“Four drinks,” Joey decides. Bad week plus gay mentor deserves at least four drinks.
“Not all at once!” Owen calls after Joey’s retreating back.
“Want to tell me about your week?” Joey asks when he returns with the first round.
“That’s okay,” Owen says. “One of those weeks I’d rather forget. Tell me what I’m gay mentoring you about.”
“The proposal,” Joey says.
Owen grins. “You actually know better than me about proposal level gay relationships, but I’m happy to advise.”
“The rings are coming next week,” Joey says. “Wednesday. So. Proposal imminent.”
“Are you freaking out?” Owen asks.
“No,” Joey says.
Owen takes a sip of his drink.
“Yes,” Joey says. “Very much so.”
“Second thoughts?” Owen asks.
Joey shakes his head. “Just nerves, I think. I’m like. For sure, for this. And I think Scratch is like, for sure? But I’m not uh—“
“Sure?” Owen asks.
“Yeah,” Joey says. “Also like, I kind of don’t trust our asshole teammates not to heckle me through the entire proposal, which might kind of kill the mood.”
“Wait, you’re proposing in front of the team?” Owen asks.
“Yeah,” Joey says. “After the ring ceremony.”
“Maybe proposing should be a private thing?” Owen asks. “Like, make him a nice dinner—“
Joey scoffs. “Scratch would take McDonald’s over anything I make any day.”
“Buy him McDonald's—“
“I am not proposing over McDonald’s!” Joey says. “And it’s — I promised him a Cup, you know? Like, obviously that wasn’t all me, it was a team effort, but when we got together I promised him a Cup. And it just feels right to do it with the ring we worked our asses off for.”
“I never said don’t do it with the Stanley Cup ring,” Owen says. “I think that’s a really sweet idea, truly. Just maybe don’t do it at the ring ceremony.”
Joey scoffs.
“What now?” Owen asks.
“You seem to think I have much more self-control than I do,” Joey says.
“You’ve already waited this long,” Owen asks.
“Because I had to wait for the ring,” Joey says. “Can’t propose with the ring if I don’t have it.”
“And you can’t wait another—“ Owen says. “Please stop scoffing at me.”
“Sorry,” Joey says. “But you have to admit the amount of scoffing happening is a good argument in favor of my lack of self-control.”
“I’ve seen your diet plan,” Owen says. “And your workout regimen. Your self-control’s superhuman, honestly.”
Joey waves a dismissive hand. “That stuff’s easy.”
“Only sounding more superhuman as you speak,” Owen says. “I know you want to do it there, but isn’t that kind of — a big event? What if the media gets ahold of it? You said Scratch doesn’t want to be out to the public.”
“Won’t do it when media’s there,” Joey says. “They have to leave us alone eventually. You’re not being very supportive of my plan.”
“Sorry!” Owen says. “I just — public proposals freak me out. I always worry that someone’s saying yes just because they don’t want to embarrass their boyfriend or girlfriend in public. And like, themselves. It has to be absolutely mortifying to turn someone down in front of a crowd.”
Joey stares at him.
“Oh no,” Owen says. “Not that — I’m not worried that Scratch will say no! I’m just biased against them, I guess. Oh, Joey, stop looking at me like that, he’s not going to say no.”
*
Scratch is going to say no.
Scratch is going to say no, and he will not laugh in Joey’s face, because Laurel’s right, he’s not a laugh-in-facer, but instead he’ll be mortified, and maybe he’ll actually say yes, just because they’re in front of the Scouts, but then take it back later, and they’ll walk in unengaged and broken up and everyone will pity them. Pity. Them.
Nick is going to say yes dumbass, his phone says. His phone knows nothing. What do phones know. Absolutely nothing.
Stop ignoring my texts. his phone adds. Joey duly ignores it.
Ring ring., his phone says, and as Joey frowns down at it, perplexed, it starts to buzz in his hand.
“Stop texting me lies,” Joey hisses.
“Joey,” Casey says. “Talk to Tate.”
Joey squints. “Why?”
“Just do it,” Casey says. “You’ll feel better. Just say ‘Tate, what do you think about me proposing to Nick’ and see what he says.”
“Why,” Joey says.
“Just do it,” Casey repeats.
*
“Tate,” Joey says.
“Jesus, Money,” Willy says, grasping his chest all dramatically. “Don’t jump a guy in the parking lot.”
“I didn’t jump you,” Joey says. “I swooped. Tate.”
“Please don’t say my name,” Willy says. “It’s weird and wrong and I don’t like it.”
“Willy,” Joey amends. “What do you think about me proposing to Scratch?”
“Ohmygod,” Willy says.
“Is that a good—“ Joey says.
“Ohmygod,” Willy repeats. “Are you going to do it with the Cup ring? You have to do it with the Cup ring.”
“I am,” Joey says. “Cup ring is the plan.”
“Ohmygod,” Willy says.
“Please stop saying that,” Joey says. “Also like, take a breath, dude.”
Willy takes a deep breath.
“Ohmygod.”
Well, at least he listened to half of what Joey said.
“Do you think he’d say yes?” Joey asks.
“Without a single solitary doubt,” Willy says immediately.
Joey considers. “Can you check?”
“Like — bring the subject up in practice or something?” Willy asks.
“Yeah,” Joey says. “Just like, a general check on how he feels about marriage? Just in case he has some super anti-marriage views he’s literally never told me about? Or if he isn’t anti-marriage but is anti-marriage to me? Or—”
“Are you freaking out?” Willy asks.
“I am freaking out so bad,” Joey admits. “But I really wanna marry him, and the Cup ring is like—“
“—the perfect proposal, I know,” Willy says, like maybe he has also had dreams about proposing with a Cup ring. “I’ll bring it up with him, see what he says.”
“You have to be subtle though,” Joey says. “You can’t just go up to him all, ‘hey Scratch, how do you feel about marrying your main man Money?’”
Willy gives him a look, all, ‘you do not get to lecture me about subtlety’, which is — fair. Fair look from Willy.
“Tell him your cousin’s friend’s brother’s getting married or something,” Joey says. “Complain about how many weddings you get invited to. Then slip it in.”
“I get invited to so many weddings,” Willy says. Joey knows. An unfortunate side-effect of Willy befriending everyone he meets is that his offseason is half training, half weddings. And he always seems to be in the wedding party too.
“Do this for me and you’ll be invited to another,” Joey says. Unless Scratch says no. “Maybe.”
Willy rolls his eyes. “Like you wouldn’t invite me,” he says. “I’m literally the reason you got together.”
“Nu uh,” Joey says.
Willy gives him another unimpressed look.
“Mostly nu uh,” Joey says.
“Not even moderately ‘nu uh’,” Willy says, then, “Why do you two always get me talking like a little kid, I swear.”
“There’s no age limit on ‘nu uh’,” Joey says. And if there is, there shouldn’t be. It’s great. “Go ask.”
“It’s so nice to have a friend you know isn’t using you for—“ Willy says, then, “Hey,” when Joey pokes him.
“Go,” Joey says. “I am having a minor crisis about this.”
“Minor?” Willy asks.
“Moderate,” Joey says. “Maybe major. Go go go.”
Willy goes about two feet before pausing. “Are you not coming for practice?” he asks, squinty. “Are you having a crisis so big you’re not coming to practice?”
“It’s optional,” Joey says.
“Yeah but optional doesn’t mean optional to you,” Willy says. “I don’t remember you ever missing a practice. Is this crisis going to impact the team?”
“Not if you ask Scratch about it already,” Joey asks.
“But — practice?” Willy splutters. “Are you — are you coming?”
“Yeah,” Joey says. “I just gotta — go buy some tea. Because I told Scratch I was running errands. And getting tea. And not communing in parking lots.”
“Gotcha,” Willy says. “Go quick though.”
“It’s like half an hour until practice,” Joey says. That’s the nice thing about finding Willy to corner him — you always know you’ll get him alone, because he’s the first one there and the last one to leave.
“Quick, though,” Willy says, steely eyed.
“Fine, I’m going,” Joey says.
Joey gets like maybe two sips of tea in before practice starts, which kind of blows. He reminds himself that the tea was not real tea, but alibi tea, and that makes it a little better, but —
It was hibiscus.
“Farewell,” Joey whispers as he pours it down the sink, then goes to get dressed, giving Willy a speaking look on the way. He didn’t pour out his tea for Willy to forget to ask Scratch. The clock is ticking.
Willy rolls his eyes at him, then gives him two thumbs up, and Joey’s pleased to see Willy wander over to Scratch a few minutes later, looking un-suspicious, at least to Joey’s eyes, then he has to look down and focus on his skate laces because staring at them the entire time they talk is probably a giveaway. But he looks under his lashes. He looks under his lashes really hard, until Limbo starts giving him weird looks, then he stops, because if a goalie is giving you weird looks, you are being conspicuously strange. Or normal, actually, but. Joey is probably not acting normal.
“So what did Scratch—“ Joey says when they get on the ice.
Willy turns slowly towards him. “It’s practice time, Joey,” he says. “Is this more important than practice time?”
“Yes,” Joey says.
“No!” Willy says. “It is not.”
“Yes it is,” Joey mutters, but Willy refuses to tell him a single solitary thing. He’s the worst linemate ever. Joey would like to defect.
Joey looks longingly down the ice, until he gets an elbow to the side.
“Stop looking at the second line like that,” Willy hisses.
'I miss you,' Joey mouths at them.
*
“Stop jumping me!” Willy shrieks when Joey emerges from the corner of the parking lot he’s been hiding in. Scratch was confused but supportive of Joey’s lunch plans with Willy, possibly because Joey has been bitching about what an insufferable linemate Willy is since training camp, but Willy takes so damn long to arrive Joey probably should have said they were getting dinner instead.
“Report,” Joey says.
“Hm?” Willy asks.
“Report!” Joey says.
“Oh,” Willy says. “I said that whenever you two get hitched it better be in the offseason, and he better clear it with me beforehand, because you know, all those weddings I get invited to, and—“
Joey makes ‘get on with it’ gestures.
“It’s called setting things up, Munroe!”
“Set up faster!” Joey says. “Or I’m going to assume his answer was something like ‘why the hell would I marry Money, what am I, an idiot?”
“Do you honestly think Scratch would say that?” Willy asks. “Ever?”
“No,” Joey says weakly.
“Well, he didn’t,” Willy says. “He just said obviously it’d be in the offseason, because you can’t do a big wedding during the season and his mom would kill him if you guys did something small, and that I had a giant ego for assuming you guys would plan your wedding around my schedule.”
“That is a big ego move,” Joey says. And Irene would definitely murder him if they did something small, judging by the size of Ana’s wedding. Alex’s wedding was before Joey’s time, but apparently it was just as big.
“It was a lure!” Willy says. “A trap laid! I do this for you and all I get is insulted!”
“Did he say anything else?” Joey asks impatiently. “Other than about your huge ego?”
“My ego accurately reflects my attributes,” Willy mutters, and to be fair, it probably does. He has some pretty good attributes to back up that monstrously large ego.
“Scratch!” Joey reminds him.
“He got distracted by Boulder throwing something at him, and then he was too busy finding things to throw back at him to keep talking,” Willy says. Sounds like Scratch. “But I think it’s pretty notable he said it all like it was, you know, something to do in the future? It was very concrete, like he thought it was inevitable. It wasn’t ‘if we get married’, it was ‘when we get married’.”
“We used to say that about the Cup too, though,” Joey says. “Well before we won it.”
“And you shouldn’t have,” Willy hisses, a hint of Playoff Willy slipping out. “And people only talk that way about good future things. Things they’re hoping for. Nobody’s going around saying ‘when I go bankrupt’ or ‘when we get knocked out of the playoffs, or ‘when tax season finally rolls around again’.”
“Accountants,” Joey argues.
Willy snorts. “I’m just saying he seemed pretty comfortable about the idea,” he says. “It sounded like he’d thought it through. He mentioned his mom’s reaction and everything.”
“Irene’s first instinct with Nick is usually murder,” Joey says. “Doesn’t take much thought.”
“Well,” Willy says. “Good luck with your future mother-in-law?”
Joey smiles down at his hands. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ll probably need it.”
Years of Irene putting things that aren’t in his diet plan on his plate and telling him he’s way too skinny and needs to eat more lest he fade away, despite the fact he’s at his ideal weight, following the guidance of multiple nutritionists. Years of it.
He’ll deal.
“So I’m pretty sure you’re all good on the proposal front,” Willy says. “Were you planning on proposing when we all get the rings, or are you waiting? I just — I’m good at keeping secrets, but it’s — I need to know how long I’m holding onto it. If you’re waiting for his birthday, or Christmas, or—”
“I was thinking of doing it right after the ring ceremony,” Joey says. “Do you think it’d be a bad idea to propose around the guys?”
“I think it’d be an absolutely horrible idea,” Willy says.
“Oh,” Joey says.
“But also you should do it,” Willy says.
“Yeah?” Joey asks.
Willy nods.
“Well then,” Joey says. “Okay.”
“Ohmygod,” Willy says, then hugs Joey so tight he can barely breathe.
“I guess you’ll make room in your schedule for the wedding, then?” Joey manages.
“Absolutely,” Willy says. “Two people are required for this touching moment, Money.”
“Okay, okay,” Joey says, and hugs him back.
“Ohmygod,” Willy says one last time, and Joey has to agree.