Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Alicia arranged for a cab to pick Kent up at the Zimmermann house and bring him to the airport. With Jack still in a coma, neither she nor Bob had the energy to drive, and Kent couldn’t blame them. He wouldn’t be leaving if he had any choice in the matter, but rookie camp waited for no one—not even the guy who’d gone first in the draft three nights ago.

The final farewell didn’t even seem real. The scenario Kent had imagined a dozen different times was finally here, but missing a crucial piece he had never pictured it taking place without: Jack.

But then Alicia enveloped him in a bear hug, squeezing his shoulders like she could never bring herself to let go. And then she did anyway, stepping back to look at him with tears in her eyes.

Kent knew that this moment was definitely unforgiving reality.

She tried to smile at him, but couldn’t quite manage it. “Call us as soon as you land,” she reminded him, her voice now trembling. “We want to be sure you get there safely.”

“I promise,” Kent replied, trying to smile back in turn. Both the words and the actions seemed hollow.

Bob hugged him tightly as well, the warm tobacco and leather scent of his luxury aftershave filling Kent’s nostrils and reminding him that the Zimmermanns were only at the house for a shower and change of clothes before going back to the hospital to wait for news. Seeing him off and saying goodbye was almost an afterthought.

“You take care of yourself,” he told Kent with red-rimmed eyes. He hesitated for a moment, and then unstrapped the Rolex gleaming at his wrist, the one that Kent had helped him pick out from his extensive collection to wear to his anniversary dinner with Alicia. That had been where the two of them were when they’d gotten the call from the hospital front desk after Kent had handed over his phone and sobbed out their names; he himself had been crying too hard to speak at that point.

Bob must not have remembered to take it off before this moment, not with everything that had happened, Kent realized. But now, Bob held out the watch, offering it to him. 

“You’ll need at least one solid piece to really stand out at business meetings,” he advised Kent, a hint of playfulness entering his tone for the first time in days. “And that damn hat of yours doesn’t count,” he added, giving Kent’s hair a brief but affectionate ruffle.

The face of the Rolex glinted in the sunlight as Kent strapped it on, sitting more heavily on his arm than any of the cheap plastic watches he’d owned before, the metal pressing into his skin almost like a weight chained to his wrist. But a rush of gratitude still quickly surged up inside of him, briefly overpowering the numb shock, and he was sure to thank Bob before it faded entirely.     

“I appreciate it,” he told Bob, his voice grating roughly out of his throat. “Thanks.”

He tried not to imagine if Bob had planned some type of gesture like this one, but for saying goodbye at the airport instead, and for Jack rather than Kent. 

Bob held the back door of the cab open for Kent to slide inside, and Kent did so, blinking as his eyes struggled to adjust from the bright summer sun to the car’s dim interior. 

“Whatever you need, we’re still here, Kent,” Alicia told him, her voice marginally steadier than before. “No matter what happens.”

The “what” in question went unsaid, but it hung in the air around them, too afraid to speak their collective worst fear for the eventual outcome of Jack’s hospitalization. 

“I know,” Kent said, pushing down the sudden swelling in his throat. “I know you are.”

But isn’t seeing believing?, he wished he could say, but he didn’t. He knew it was selfish to want Bob and Alicia when Jack needed them. When they needed and wanted to be with Jack. He could never take them from him.

Even so, he desperately wanted them—or anyone else—with him. He just wanted someone in his corner. The thousands of miles of the journey to Vegas stretched out endlessly before him, and his stomach twisted into a tight, icy knot as it registered that he’d be starting it completely alone.

With the last goodbye put to rest, the driver started the car’s engine and pulled away from the Zimmermann mansion. The cab began slowly navigating the curves of the long, winding driveway before turning onto the main road, where it started picking up speed.

Fragments of light flashed through the car’s window, piercing Kent’s eyes, and he tried to pretend that the sun’s rays were the reason for the tears he could no longer hold back.  

It wasn’t exactly a cakewalk to pretend he was excited about rookie camp when he might be notified of his boyfriend’s death at any given moment, but Kent knew he had to put in the effort regardless. But trying to fake it was easier said than done. His existence was a constant state of worry: that Jack might die, that he might be smiling when he shouldn’t have be and seem callous, that a publicity shot might catch him frowning at the wrong moment and cement him as a petulant child. When he moved from room to room, whispers and sideways glances from staff and other prospects alike followed him wherever he went. And as if management wanted to pour bleach into his wounds, instead of letting him join his potential teammates for the rookie bonding activity, PR decided to pull him in for “individualized media training.”

On the Fourth of July, the rest of the guys got to visit the Henderson Lion Sanctuary for a behind-the-scenes tour followed by dinner with the animals. Meanwhile, Kent spent his birthday stuck in what basically amounted to an interrogation session with both the PR director and assistant PR director. National holiday be damned, they gathered a gleaming executive conference room with austere, modern furnishings and a far wall composed almost entirely of windows, offering a spectacular view of the slowly awakening Strip.

“And you’re sure that you weren’t using drugs with Jack the night that he overdosed?” Breighlynne, the leggy blonde assistant PR director, asked him for the umpteenth time. “To clarify, that’s the night prior to the draft.”

As if Kent needed reminding of when Jack had overdosed. As if he hadn’t gone through the draft with the knowledge of what Jack had tried to do to himself crushing down onto him.

But it would be pointless to snap at her. It would only convince them that he had something to hide.

“No,” Kent said again, firm but not too firm. “I’d had a beer or two. But that’s it.”

“And you’re absolutely, one hundred percent, completely beyond a doubt sure?” Breighlynne asked, like a skeptical parent trying to coax the truth out of a recalcitrant child. 

Seemingly coiffed and poised at all hours, Breighlynne looked like every TV marketing exec’s idea of the professional empowered woman. Carefully highlighted golden hair was swept into an elegant updo, while a glacier blue tailored business jacket and skirt emphasized her tall and slender figure, and what were no doubt designer stiletto heels graced her feet. Her makeup was a careful bridgework across her face, precisely structured to be noticeable but not overly so, with pale pink gloss gleaming on beestung lips and frosty silver-white eyeshadow drawing attention to her wide cerulean eyes. 

She looked utterly flawless, almost too much so to be an actual human, but definitely like she belonged in front of the cameras. Kent instinctively didn’t trust her.

“No drugs,” Kent stated flatly. “He didn’t overdose on coke or anything. It was his anxiety meds.” An image seeped into his mind, of opening the door to the bathroom and finding Jack’s prone body, his face tinged gray and lips blue, surrounded by tiny white pills like an unholy halo.

At his response, she momentarily quirked a perfectly pencilled eyebrow at him, but quickly smoothed over her expression and tried a different tactic. 

“What about coke?” she pressed, leaning forward until Kent was tempted to check if he could look down her V-neck blouse. “Have you ever used it?”

Is water wet? Or are they just naïve? Kent shrugged. “I mean, I played in the CJHL. You’d find more coke in one of their locker rooms than in Scarface’s entire mansion.”

The answer brought Breighlynne to raise both eyebrows this time, and she swapped a glance with Chaz, the head of PR. 

In his early forties, with gelled dark hair that was probably dyed and a smile that was both artificially white and just plain artificial, Chaz looked like he could easily be the weatherman for a national news station. And he acted just as smarmy. 

“So. Coke,” he said, clasping his hands and then spreading them against in a partial shrug, aiming that fake smile directly at Kent. “Anyone . . . see you do it?”

“Only ever at parties, when everyone else was,” Kent said honestly. Too many loser boyfriends of his mom had been waist-deep and drowning in their addictions for him to ever want to use regularly. Not to mention his mom herself. Even when he’d just started, he’d tried his best to tamp down on his social use, never wanting it to develop into a habit.

Nevertheless, Breighlynne and Chaz did not look impressed, their pretend playfulness vanishing as pragmatism took first priority—but then again, it was what they were hired for. 

“We’ll have to start preparations,” Chaz said to Breighlynne. “An anti-drug advocacy campaign, a regular presence at fundraisers for drug prevention programs. Maybe an appearance at a law enforcement conference to speak on peer pressure among teenagers to use drugs?” 

“And we need to have a speech prepared,” Breighlynne added as she nodded in agreement. “In case any photos or videos of him with any illicit materials surface. We can tie it into the advocacy—say that it was an irresponsible period of his life that he left behind when he became a pro athlete and that he now regrets. And if he’s the face of an anti-drug campaign, we can say that he began condemning drug use as soon as he found a national platform to speak out.”

They were both ignoring Kent now, focusing only on the problem he’d presented to them. And Kent couldn’t blame them for it, not really, but fuck if it wasn’t exhausting to be constantly considered a problem.

Chaz glanced at his iPhone—the latest model. “Christ, it’s nearly eight. Let’s come up with our plan of attack over dinner.”

They each began gathering up their papers and snapping the clasps shut on their briefcases, and Breighlynne exited the conference room without acknowledging Kent again. While Chaz almost did the same, at the last minute he turned, opening up his briefcase again to extract a bundle of black fabric and toss it Kent’s way.

“Almost forgot,” he said conversationally as Kent snagged it out of midair and held it up in front of him. “Hot off the official press. Management thought you were ready for it.” He sent Kent an appraising look, as if anticipating the exact kind of trouble the sudden gift would bring. “Learn to live the brand, Parson.”

With that, he exited the room, his footsteps echoing off the tile floor before the door swung shut again and cut off the sound.

Now completely alone, Kent spread the piece of fabric out on the table before him and gazed down at it, an official Las Vegas Aces jersey staring back up at him. Briefly, he flipped the top half of the torso down to double check that it actually had his name. 

At the draft, the Aces had been so sure they’d pick Jack that instead of bringing along the typical nameless jersey with a velcro nameplate to easily swap, they’d had an official Zimmermann jersey ready to go. But there hadn’t even been a nameplate for Kent. That night, he’d donned a blank jersey—just another reminder that Jack was meant to be there instead of him, that Kent was stepping into the spot that his best friend had left vacant when he’d tried to kill himself.

But this jersey is his beyond a doubt. Parson, number ninety, Las Vegas Aces.

As colors from both the sunset and artificial light began flooding the evening sky, Kent studied the jersey, trying to convince himself that it was real and that it was deserved, that the guilt coiling within like a snake readying to strike was just grief’s latest edition. 

But it was a useless effort, because now that Breighlynne and Chaz had brought up the events of last week, memories of finding Jack sprawled out on the floor, halfway dead by his own decision, bombarded his brain. The images were as fresh and razor sharp as they’d been as he’d sat sobbing in the hospital waiting room on his own, Bob and Alicia not yet arrived, begging every deity out there to let Jack live and recover, hockey be damned. 

It was strange. When he’d been in Montreal, the people closest to him, the people he was surrounded by, were all immeasurably worried for Jack. But here in Vegas, no cared about Jack or even Kent, just the tone of Kent’s press.

Welcome to the NHL, he supposed.

Staring at the jersey, Kent noticed that the numbers seemed to take on a new shape the longer that he looked at them. The zero seemed like a desolate void, entirely empty of life or meaning. In contrast, the nine looked like a figure doubled over in unimaginable pain, a person wounded so grievously they could barely remain upright.  

He sat there, watching the numbers and waiting for the shape to change again as night fell completely and Vegas’s artificial world came to life outside. 

Rookie camp lurched along like a shambling zombie, and Kent’s days were mostly filled by his fellow prospects gawking at him like some kind of sideshow attraction, forgetting that when he managed to make them laugh with a joke or a smartass response, and then them gawking again when they remembered just a few seconds later who he was and what had happened to him. Worse was that he had no free time—early mornings and late nights were devoted to endless sessions of the Aces’ front office figureheads hammering in their “family-friendly” values and repeatedly emphasizing that they didn’t tolerate drug abuse amongst their players. 

One thought sustained Kent throughout his entire time there. It helped him push forward the overheard conversations about how he was the one to get Jack hooked on drugs and helped him bite down wiseass remarks to front office guys that would do nothing but mark him as even more of a potential locker room problem.

He could fix this. He could do his best, prove himself to the team and management and the League in general. And once he secured his place, he’d have the pull to land Jack a spot on the team, too.

They could still be Parson and Zimmermann, taking the League by storm together, just like they were supposed to have done to begin with. And then Kent wouldn’t have to lie awake at night, agonizing over what else he could have done to help Jack, how he should have been able to read the signs of his impending overdose, that he should have been enough to stop Jack from overdosing in the first place.

The idea of being able to fix it all, to make everything right between himself and the Zimmermann family ( his family) kept him going until the very last night of rookie camp, when Kent received a call that Jack had emerged from his overdose and that there didn’t appear to be any permanent damage so far.

At first, ecstasy flooded through Kent, and it was as if the weight of the world had evaporated off of his shoulders. He collapsed down onto his hotel bed, overcome with relief, barely able to speak, just pressing his phone to his ear with a shaking hand.

But the relief was short-lived as Bob continued to explain.

“Kenny, it’s . . . a bit chaotic here,” he hedged. “More than would be good for you. And Jack . . . he needs time to cope with what’s happened.”

You mean with what he did to himself, Kent bit back, and then immediately was filled with guilt for even thinking as much.

“I’ve just had your agent and a few folks from the Aces on the line, and we all agreed that it would be best if you stayed out in Vegas,” Bob went on. “So you can adjust to life there. Instead of . . .” a heavy sigh crackled over the connection. “Instead of getting bogged down by what’s going on here.”

The revelation stunned Kent, leaving him barely able to form the words. “You’re saying . . .” he swallowed. “You’re saying that it’s already been decided? That I’m going to be staying in Vegas and not coming home? No one even asked me about this!”

“There’s more for you there than here,” Bob told him, sounding very tired. “Your future is in Vegas with your team. You’ll always have a place with us, Kent, but now . . . now you should be thinking about yourself, not Jack, not life in Drummondville.”

“What if I want to come back?” Kent asked, hating that his tone was so close to pleading.

A long pause ensued, and despair began trickling through Kent that Bob had ended the call, but then he spoke again, his voice audibly strained.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” Bob said softly, as if the low tone was the only way he could manage to talk. “You know I consider you my own, Kenny. And I’ve already destroyed one of my sons’ lives. Please—please—” his voice caught on what might have been a sob. “Please don’t let me think I’ve ruined your future, too. At least for right now, you belong in Vegas. There’s nothing anyone can give you in Montreal, not with things as they are.”

An argument swelled within Kent, and he wanted to open his mouth and prove his case, but he couldn’t do that, not with their lives as fractured as they already were.

“I understand,” he rasped out instead, and he both did and he didn’t. “Can I talk to Jack?” He wanted—needed—to hear his voice, to know he was okay. The voicemail box on his phone had gone full  the day after news of his OD had broken, and it hadn’t been cleared since. Kent couldn’t even listen to Jack’s voice as he asked the called to “please leave a message” anymore.

There was another very long pause. 

“I don’t think he’s ready for that right now,” Bob replied, sounding as if he was choosing his words very carefully. “I don’t know when—listen, I’ll let him know, and when he’s able to talk, he’ll call you, all right?”

Something deep within Kent shattered when he heard that. Now he knew, with certainty, that he wouldn’t be able to fix things between himself and Jack, that there would be no Parson and Zimmermann, just Parson.

Why doesn’t he want to talk to me? he wanted to ask, even though he knew it was selfish. Isn’t he thinking about me? Didn’t he ask about me? Doesn’t he have to know that I’m the one who found him?

But he just said, “I understand,” again, and this time, he didn’t mean it at all.      

Alicia spoke to him as well. “This won’t be forever,” she promised him. “We can make things right again, you’ll see. We’ll call and chat and keep in touch. And sooner or later, we’ll all be together again.”

Kent swallowed down the urge to point out that he’d wanted to do that but couldn’t, and obligingly went through the motions of saying goodbye. When the call disconnected, he sat there on his bed, barely able to believe how thoroughly life had fucked him over. Again.

Seized by the urge to move, he launched himself up from the bed to pace, but got sick of that by three turns around the room. He sat down again, desperately looking around the room for a target, a distraction, anything to focus his anger on. Then he spotted the mini-bar and strode toward it, ripping open the door and gazing at the assemblage of alcohol within without really seeing it.

He would never do any of this again, Kent resolved, his heart thrumming in his chest with a surge of adrenaline. Never try to find a family, never try to find people he loved and who loved him back. If the Zimmermanns, the people who rescued him from his shithole town and his mom and her revolving door of deadbeat boyfriends, couldn’t give him a family anymore, then he didn’t want anyone.

No one would ever hurt him, cut him this deep, ever again. He’d never allow it. 

Snagging the first bottle of hard liquor he saw, which happened to be fifty milliliters of Jim Beam, Kent shoved open the door to his balcony, looking over at the Strip and its dazzling lights and wishing the bottle in his hand wasn’t so small. Tears blurred his vision, falling hard and fast when he made no effort to push them back. Gazing out at the lights, he thought of all of the people that must have been awake and alive and populating the shops, restaurants, and casinos—from the families on vacation, the business-types there for conferences, and the gambling addicts blowing their last twenty bucks on one final spin of the roulette wheel.

And even amongst all of those people, he still couldn’t erase the feeling that he himself was the loneliest, sorriest SOB on the planet.  

The next few days were an endless slog of back-to-back meetings. From media training until he was sure his ears would bleed, to interrogation sessions about his “party lifestyle” by skeptical PR reps and managers that left his shoulders aching with pent-up tension, all while internally begging for Jack to call him, Kent was sure he’d discovered a fresh level of hell reserved for coked-out pro athletes. And since his agent was able to forward him some of his signing bonus thanks to the ongoing question of his living situation, Kent skipped his three o’clock to slip out to one of the multiple car dealerships off the Strip. Fuck if he was going to remain at the mercy of cabs and hired cars that a distrustful management arranged for him.

The gleam of the rows of luxury cars drew his eye more than once, and he noticed, a touch wistfully, how the light bounced off their low-slung bodies that no doubt hid powerful engines just waiting to be pushed to their limits. Still, he passed them by in favor of the Chevrolet parking lot. 

Within an hour, he was opening the door of his very own cherry red Silverado and swinging himself up into the leather-lined interior, relaxing against the plush seat with a sigh of satisfaction. Yeah, those luxury cars might look nice, but they didn’t have the four-wheel drive to carry him safely through even the ugliest of Montreal winters.

It was only when he was driving home that he remembered that he didn’t live in Montreal any longer, and that Las Vegas didn’t get snow. 

Chapter Text

Two weeks before the beginning of the preseason and an infinite amount of PR training sessions later, the suits in the front office plucked Kent out of the hotel where he’d been exiled to and whisked him off to live with a teammate at some pristine McMansion in the suburbs ( Ugh ). Any hope Kent had that the experience might not be entirely excruciating was dashed when the Beamer pulled into a ritzy neighborhood where every house was an immaculate,  gargantuan monument to blandness, each one a virtual copy of the next except for a slight variation in the shade of gravel used to replace grass for front lawns. 

The unfortunate suit selected for that particular con job, whose name was Nick or Zach or Brad or something like that, fed Kent an explanation he was sure had been carefully planned and worded by committee. “The rookie-vet housing system has been in place since the beginning of our organization, and we feel that it’s the best option for you. It’s very important to us that you have a strong support network in place when the season starts to kick into gear.”

Important for your wallets, maybe, Kent thought uncharitably, but kept that response to himself. He’d learned a lot in the past week and a half, but the most important lesson had been imparted on and then cemented within him the night before the entry draft: if he wore his heart on his sleeve, it would get stabbed. He’d tried to be Jack’s everything, spurred on by naivete and what he’d thought had been true love, and tried to let him know that no matter what place either of them had in the draft, Jack would always be the most important person in his life. 

And then Jack had responded by trying to kill himself, which all led up to how Kent now found himself en route to becoming someone else’s problem.

The whirlwind of events helped Kent reach a decision, at least. He was fucking done with trying to be anyone’s friend, trying to be liked, or even trying to be a good person. The Zimmermanns had cast him aside, unwillingly or not, and Kent wasn’t going to take the risk of that same thing ever happening again. A man could only handle so much heartbreak, and ultimately, the Aces were a business first and foremost. Teammates were paid to play, not to be his friends, and fuck if Kent even felt up to building any bridges, anyway. With his body aching from repeated late-night meetings and his head spinning from being fed approved soundbytes that management wanted to hear in interviews, the idea of spending his entire career alone and friendless didn’t even seem all that bad. 

The teammate the suit dumped Kent off onto was a vet called Teddy. His name was actually Beauregard Theodore, but according to him, “No one calls me that but my parents, since it makes me sound like some hick from goddamn Saskatchewan. Nah, bro, call me Teddy.”

A burly, imposing redhead who stood over six-four, Teddy dwarfed his slim and petite wife, and practically rendered their two little girls microscopic. In contrast, his wife Elena was a Hispanic woman with dark eyes framed by winged eyeliner, a shining curtain of straight black hair, and a skintight fitness outfit in varying shades of neon. Both of their daughters were younger versions of her, but one of them was dressed like a princess and the other as a ninja, and neither wore eyeliner.

Both Teddy and Elena hugged him hello. 

“How the hell are you?” Teddy asked as he grabbed Kent in a bear hug. He didn’t even seem offended when Kent hesitated several seconds to return it. 

“Welcome to your new home,” Elena said with a good-natured grin as she squeezed Kent tightly. 

When she leaned in to embrace him, he caught the scent of her perfume lingering on her neck. From her outfit, he would have expected some Ed Hardy fragrance or another, but instead it was something fresh and soothing and aquatic that he couldn’t quite name.

In an instant, he was transported back to right after winning the Memorial Cup with Jack. To help them relax after the close of the season, Alicia had sent them to a luxury spa for massages, and they’d been served cucumber water in crystalline goblets while waiting. Whatever Elena’s perfume was, it smelled distinctively similar, calming and reinvigorating, like a leftover fragment from his past life where the future had been bright.

Something swelled in his throat, but he swallowed it back down.

“Thanks,” Kent managed, still slightly stunned. No one had hugged him since Bob and Alicia said goodbye to him over six weeks ago.

The front office drone drove off, and the Theodore family led Kent into their home.

To Kent’s disdain, the house was decorated in that style where everything was new but designed to look old. It was called “fancy farmhouse” or “retro rustic” or something ridiculous like that. Considering it the Abercrombie & Fitch of interior design, Kent resented the style on principle—back when he lived with his mom, they’d been in constant poverty thanks to her drug habit. That had all changed when Bob and Alicia had adopted him, but as someone who’d lived through the experience, he still hated it whenever rich people tried to pretend they were poor.

Alicia had hated the style as well, calling it “tacky as all get out.” And Kent had always trusted Alicia’s opinion above all others.

Now, Kent crossed over the threshold, looked up at the elaborate Baroque chandelier that looked like it had been left in a ditch for twenty years, glanced at the large, weathered-looking llama statue with chipping white paint that stood sentry by the staircase landing, and sighed.  

Elena invited Kent to sit down to dinner with them as soon as he was finished unpacking, but Kent could barely suppress a grimace. The last thing he needed was management trying to shove him into the mold of family man when he’d just lost the only family he’d ever known and was still desperately trying to piece them all back together. He ached to just be left alone, to have a day where no one bothered him and he could have all the time he wanted to brood.

Teddy showed Kent to one of the three guest rooms. Among the furnishings of Kent’s room was a bed of which the headboard was composed of painted vintage shutters strung with grapevines, a trio of burlap pennant banners forming the words Live, Laugh, and Love, and copious amounts of distressed wood surfaces.

After helping him carry up his belongings, Teddy left him to unpack with a friendly clap on the shoulder and an encouraging, “We’re glad you’re here, Parson.” 

Kent had to swallow a scoff. Really? You’re glad to be baby-sitting me? Because that’s the only reason why I have to live with you.  

Some of his irritation drained away, leaving exhaustion in its wake as he slumped down onto the bed and buried his face in his hands, pressing his fingers into his eyelids until he saw purple. It had been a far-flung dream, but he’d been irrationally hoping to get an apartment of his own, or at the least, live with an unmarried vet so he didn’t have to deal with anyone not involved in hockey. 

But living with a vet who was not only married but also had two little kids? Fuck, he was never going to get a moment’s peace. This was going to suck beyond belief until the final day of his rookie season, after which he would immediately move into the apartment he’d have lined up.

“You look sad.”

The plaintive statement pulled Kent back into reality, and he turned to find the older one of Teddy’s daughters standing just outside the open doorway of his room, gazing in at him, her small head tilted curiously, her hands idly fiddling with her ninja sword. 

Breathing in deep, Kent forced a smile. He figured this moment could be practice for all the PR events sure to come when he had to be patient with kids when he really didn’t want to be.

“I guess I do, huh? Lily?” he replied, hoping he’d remembered her name correctly.

He must have; the little girl brightened and moved forward into the room, seeming encouraged by the response.

“Are you sad?” she persisted, walking further into the room and clambering up onto the bed beside him.

No. I’m just pissed. But he couldn’t say that to a six-year-old—or maybe she was seven? He’d already forgotten.

Mentally, Kent weighed his options. He could lie and say he was fine, and that was what he preferred more than ever these days—it was hardly as if anyone in his life at this point actually gave a fuck about the truth. 

What the fuck, one more lie never hurt anyone.

Opening his mouth, he was surprised at the response that emerged. “Maybe a little bit.” He was even more surprised that it was the truth. 

Lily nodded solemnly, her young face unexpectedly serious. “Mommy said you might be sad a lot. And that we should listen if you ask to be left alone.”  

The innocently-repeated instructions from a little girl who clearly didn’t understand the reason for them struck Kent unexpectedly hard; he’d never anticipated that kind of consideration from anyone on the team, let alone some spoiled suburban housewife-slash-wine mom. In response, he opened his mouth and closed it several times without speaking, startled to find a lump swelling in his throat. “That’s . . . really nice of your mom.”

“I’m nice, too,” Lily declared. She scrambled off the bed. “Stay here, okay? I want to give you a present.” 

Amused in spite of himself, Kent watched her go, and just seconds after she did, another pair of dark eyes peeked around the doorframe. As soon as he spotted them, there was a small squeak of surprise, and then a pause, before the younger girl darted into the room in a blur of shimmery blue fabric and plopped down on the floor in front of him.  

“Hi-eeeee,” the second girl said, looking up at him with a mix of bashfulness and intrigue. She was a tinier copy of Lily and carried a careworn stuffed dog underneath her arm; this was the younger daughter, Maggie. She was only about a year younger than Lily, if Kent was remembering right.

“Hey,” Kent said, trying to give her a smile. He didn’t care for kids, honestly, but he figured that his life was only going to be more difficult if they thought he was mean or scary. 

Maggie didn’t say anything else, just grinned up at him and looked down at the floor before looking up at him again, and then immediately looking away when she saw he was looking at her. But she kept sneaking glances at him without speaking a word, like he was a new source of wonder for her.

But before Kent could try to speak to her and maybe make himself seem less intimidating, Lily bounded back into the room, holding a fluffy plush toy above her head in victory.

“Here you go,” she said, handing Kent the pink and purple panda bear. “This is Strawberry. ‘Berry’ is like ‘bear’, see? He’ll cheer you up. He always makes me feel better when I’m sad.”  

Kent accepted the bear, brushing his hands over the soft material. It was cheesy, but he found sudden warmth blossoming in his stomach, encouraged in spite of himself by the little girl’s kindness and her attempt to help him in the only way she knew how.

“Thank you,” he told her, a smile spreading across his face and feeling like it actually belonged there for the first time in over a week. “It’s really cool for you to share your toys with me.”

The compliment had Lily grinning widely. “You’re cool, too,” she declared, and leaped toward him with her arms outstretched. 

Before Kent knew what was happening, she’d seized him in a hug, and seconds later, he felt a weight near his knees; Maggie had glommed onto his ankles, clearly not wanting to be left out.

She smiled shyly again when he peered skeptically down at her. “Um, Kent? Kent? You can have one of my toys, too. But, um, not Beethoven—” she indicated the dog under her arm “—pea-cos he’s special. But I can show you my toybox, and, um, you can pick one out.” 

Touched in a way he didn’t know how to describe or express, Kent wasn’t sure what to say, and hoped the smile he sent down at Maggie would be enough.

“You’re a bonafide beautician, Maggie,” he said finally, defaulting back to what he knew best. “And you, too, Lily,” he added, and Lily beamed, even though Kent doubted she understood the meaning of the word.

Unwrapping her arms from his waist, Lily grabbed his hand and started to tug him out of the room, dragging Maggie along with her. “Come on, you should eat with us. Bring Berry, too—he can sit at the table!”

As Kent let the girls herd him out of the room, an inkling of hope flared to life inside of him that living with this family wouldn’t be as bad as he’d thought.

But it wasn’t about whether his time with the family was good or bad, he reminded himself. It was about not getting too attached. Jack was depending on him.

At the very least, Kent was willing to admit that Teddy and Elena weren’t as agonizingly awful as he’d anticipated. Honestly, they seemed decent and truly friendly, but also like they didn’t want to overstep any boundaries. And they didn’t act like it was awkward at all that he was living with them way before even the pre-season started. Plus, that night as he was helping with dinner, Elena even addressed his time in the Q directly, not dancing around it like some of the front office guys did.

“Is it difficult to readjust to living in the States again after spending so long in Montreal?” she asked as they worked side by side to slice peppers for a salad. “I remember being stunned once we picked up and moved here from Winnipeg—though that was more because of the temperature change,” she added dryly.

Several heartbeats passed because Kent responded, and even when he went to open his mouth, he found himself too stunned to speak at the realization of just how great of a relief it was to have someone just mention Montreal casually, like it was a normal place he’d lived. Not prying like the Aces staff had and trying to coax the truth out of him like he was some misbehaving grade school kid. Not acting like it was the site of unspeakable crimes that he and Jack committed together, like their partying in the Q had been a series of horrific acts and not the shit anybody on any juniors or college team anywhere did that nobody else ever said shit about.

No, Elena just asked him in a normal, casual conversation way. Like he was normal. Like their situation was normal.

He missed being able to talk about Montreal and the Zimmermanns like that, Kent realized abruptly. Easily, readily, without having to go over what he was about to say three times in his head out of fear of revealing too much and hurting too much and plunging Bob and Alicia back under scrutiny by accidentally casting them as bad parents or himself and Jack as codependent crackheads.

At his silence, Elena glanced over at him, her perfectly plucked eyebrows knitted in a quizzical frown. “You okay?”

Catching himself, Kent forced a smile onto his face. ( You always have to be camera-ready these days, don’t you forget that, he reminded himself bitterly.) “I’m fine. Just contemplating for the first time how I’m going to live without my Tim’s every morning.”

Teddy laughed as he eased his enormous frame past Kent with the silverware, clapping him on the shoulder as he did. “Don’t worry. We have some great local places around here.”

“And most importantly, non-corporate places,” Elena added meaningfully. “Forget your skinny chai tea mocha vanilla lattes. Basic bitches are not welcome here.” She jostled Kent playfully on the shoulder. “I know the cutest little cafe that’s safely sequestered from the hordes of Starbucks-seeking tourists. I’ll take you there this weekend.”

It was just a small offer, nothing more than a cup of coffee, but at the same time, something deep within Kent ached at the thought of it. Back in Montreal, whenever Alicia was home for a few days, he’d go out and grab coffee with her, just the two of them, since Jack didn’t drink coffee. Going out for coffee had been their own little ritual, their own one-on-one time together, and Kent had always secretly been proud that she’d wanted to spend the extra time with him. Alicia had liked the small shops, too, with her favorite spot being this earth muffin-hipster place with all kinds of tin lanterns and copper kettles dangling from the ceiling and jars of herb sprigs dotting each table.

“Thanks,” Kent replied, and the earnestness must have glimpsed through in his voice, because Elena shot him a sincere smile, her dark eyes crinkling.

Just as the entire family was about to sit down to dinner, Kent suddenly found himself unable to do so. One minute he was glancing at the girls (Lily had Berry in tow again) and then to Teddy and Elena, and then the next anger and panic had him short on breath and going rigid in his seat. 

What are you doing? he asked himself savagely. You’re playing exactly into their hands, cozying up to some people that fucking management arranged to be your new family. You’re setting yourself up for failure—these people don’t want or care about you.  

Without warning, he shoved his chair back, barely able to keep from toppling it over in the process, all but tripping over himself to get away.

“S-s-sorry,” he managed to gasp out to a very startled Elena and Teddy as he struggled to focus on any particular point in the room. “I just need to—outside.”

Without waiting for a response, he lurched from the dining room toward the sliding door in the kitchen, yanking it shut behind him before it even registered that he’d ever opened it. Stumbling over to a lounge chair on the far side of the deck that would be well out of sight from anyone sitting at the table, he barely reached it before his trembling legs gave out beneath him. Collapsing down onto the cushion, he buried his face in his hands again. 

You’re being an idiot, he told himself, knotting his fingers in his hair and tugging sharply. You’re not supposed to care about these people. They don’t care about you.  

His fingers clenched and unclenched, every muscle in his body tight like a spring that was about to give way beneath the pressure, an awful, guilty churning in his stomach.

You’re so easily manipulated, Kent berated himself. You’re forgetting about the Zimmermanns, forgetting about Jack and how much that hurt and playing right into the front office’s hands. You’re going to get yourself fucked up all over again. And Jack—Jack is depending on you. 

“Hey.”

Raising his head, Kent pushed away the fog of hurt and anger as he found Teddy taking a seat beside him on the lounge chair. Some of his anger receded, replaced by embarrassment; Christ Almighty, the entire family probably thought he was a total fucking freak.

Kent swallowed. Might as well start making amends. He was living in the man’s house, after all. 

Letting out a deep exhale, he forced himself to turn to Teddy. “Sorry about that. Just—needed a moment.”

He knew he’d never be able to explain why, never be able to put into words the sudden rebellion that had swept over him, or even his deep resentment for everything that management wanted for him, and he silently begged whatever higher power was out there that Teddy wouldn’t ask about his bizarre behavior.  

And Teddy didn’t. Much to Kent’s relief, he just gave him a smile and reached an arm around him. For a moment, he just let his hand rest on Kent’s upper arm, but when Kent didn’t pull away, he tucked his arm around Kent’s shoulders and drew him in close. It was only then, as Teddy pressed him against his warm chest, sheltering him, that Kent recognized the chill seeping into the evening air.

For a moment, silence persisted, and Kent waited tensely, dreading both whatever Teddy had to say and the prospect of speaking again. But once more, Teddy eased his worries.

“It’s fucked up, what you had to deal with,” Teddy said without preamble or judgement, and Kent swore a physical weight had been lifted off of him. 

It was just so nice for someone to acknowledge that he wasn’t fucked up, that he hadn’t fucked up, and it was just that the situation was fucked up.

So when he told Teddy, “No one else ever said that to me,” it was the truth. He stared down at his hands when he spoke, because it felt like he was sharing a life-altering secret.

Teddy only tightened his grip. “Well, I’m saying it now, okay? And I’m not afraid to say it, either. Hey, Parson, can you look up at me?”

Kent did, even though he wasn’t sure what he would see. When his gaze met Teddy’s, he searched as hard as he could for something malicious, some clue that he was lying to him, but he couldn’t find anything of the kind. Instead, Teddy’s gray eyes looked kind, even sympathetic. 

No one else from the Aces had treated Kent with the slightest bit of sympathy. They’d all had the attitude that he was some addict who was inevitably going to fuck up again, like he’d already fucked up once.

Like Jack’s OD had been his fault, and hell, it probably was.

“You take your time,” Teddy said, his eyes brimming with sincerity as he gazed at Kent. “You take your time and give yourself what you need now and deal with the rest when you’re ready. You just take your time, Parson.”

I don’t have any time to take, Kent replied silently. You don’t get it. I have to be okay. If I want a career, I have to be the role model the Aces want. I have to be the family man you want. And I have to be the person who Jack needs me to be. And out of those three, I only want the last one.

But there was no way, no way in hell that he could tell Teddy any of that.

So he just nodded and tried his best to smile. “Thanks, Ted. You’re all right.”

Teddy grinned at him. “You’re pretty all right, too.” Unhooking his arm from around Kent, he stood. “I’m going to head on back inside. You come in when you’re ready—that’s all we expect from you.”

“Sure.” Kent smiled. This time, it felt slightly less foreign on his face.

But the moment Teddy turned his back, Kent let it slide away, and he sank further into the chair’s cushions, replaying the conversation in his mind and desperately wishing that any of what Teddy had said could be true. But then he caught himself.

It doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t, he scolded himself. You’re here to play hockey. You need to help Jack.

But his inner self-smackdown was interrupted as a series of faint beeps emanated from nearby, and as Kent raised his head, perplexed, he saw the gate on the tall fence swing open and a tall, bulky dark-haired guy stride through, a folded patio umbrella propped against one shoulder. Even though he looked vaguely familiar, Kent couldn’t place him, but his build unmistakably marked him as a hockey player.

When the guy spotted Kent, surprise flashed over his face, but he quickly set the umbrella aside, learning it against the porch and crossing over to Kent.

“Hey,” he said, his hazel eyes raking up and down Kent’s body as he extended his hand. Maybe he was looking for track marks. “I’m Jeff Troy. You must be Kent Parson.”

The accent was Canadian, and with that knowledge, Kent was finally able to place the face. This stranger was Jeff Troy. Second line D-man on the Aces, which he could recall from memory after studying the roster. This guy would be one of his teammates sooner or later, depending on if Kent got sent down to the farm for development or not.

“That’s right,” Kent replied without enthusiasm, ignoring the offered hand. He wasn’t supposed to be giving a fuck about anyone right now, and there was something quite freeing about it.

After several seconds, Jeff seemingly got the hint and let his hand drop, frowning at him.

Good. Kent didn’t care about his feelings and didn’t care who knew it. 

But somehow, that didn’t stop Jeff from then sitting down in the chair right beside Kent’s, without even being invited. 

“So, uh, wow. You sure got here early,” Jeff commented, clearly fishing for a conversation in a way that Kent had always found irritating.

Kent allowed several seconds to pass before responding. “I hadn’t noticed,” he replied at last, his voice icy.

The expression on Jeff’s face was clearly unimpressed, but he still made a valiant effort at being polite. Cearly, PR training had worked on him. “That’s cool, though. I mean, more time to get to know the city, right?”

The idea hadn’t even occurred to Kent, not beyond grimly contemplating all the photo ops PR would undoubtedly drag him out to. He couldn’t think of any place he even particularly wanted to go, except maybe to a bar, so he could get super wasted.   

But before he could even consider if he wanted to inform Jeff of as much, the patio door slid open, and Elena’s petite form emerged. 

“Kent, do you want me to bring your dinner—” she cut herself off when he spotted Jeff. “Oh, hey, Swoops.” 

“Hey, El,” Jeff, or Swoops, said easily, his demeanor changing in a heartbeat. “Brought back your umbrella. And, uh, I met Kent here. Parson.” He waved in Kent’s direction, as if there was some doubt about who he meant.

“Hmm.” A brief, contemplative look flashed across Elena’s face, and then she pushed the sliding door open wider. “Swoops, you wanna join us for dinner? Kent, are you ready to come back inside?”

“Sure,” Jeff replied, casting a glance over at Kent.

“Sure,” Kent echoed, wishing he had the energy to scowl at Jeff, but instead just rising to trudge back inside the house and follow Elena to the dinner table.

It didn’t escape his notice, though, that Jeff held back and waited for him to enter the house first.

With Jack’s voicemail box full and him not answering any of Kent’s calls, Kent needed another way to reach out to him. 

Using the vintage-print stationery set carefully laid out on his bedroom’s scrollwork desk, he decided to bring back the art of letter-writing. Writing with an official Aces-branded pen, he carefully detailed to Jack all of his efforts to help secure him a place on the team as soon as Jack was ready.

Until then, Kent would just keep doing the work for both of them.

He wanted Jack to know Kent still thought of him and appreciated him. That Kent still loved him.

After all, Kent told himself as he finished his first letter and began addressing the envelope, ignoring the inkling of doubt sprouting in his chest, Jack would do the same for him.

Chapter Text

As it happened, Maggie’s birthday was right at the beginning of October, right as the hockey season was gearing up. Because Teddy would be busy training when her birthday actually arrived, the Theodore family elected to celebrate together the last weekend before the preseason started by spending a day at Vegas’s Adventuredome. Kent was invited along as well, and, knowing he needed to play his part as a family man, he obliged.

The Adventuredome, as best he could figure, was an indoor amusement park, complete with an arcade, a miniature golf course, and a rollercoaster. It was also a place where, in his prior life, Kent would have been delighted to spend a day but would have needed to drag an enthusiastic Jack along. 

He did his best to quash the thought as soon as it occurred to him, but he also made it a point to be as upbeat during the trip as possible, to the point that Elena and Teddy were passing him sidelong glances.

All in all, the day at the Adventuredome was an unexpected success, with only one meltdown from each of the kids and a rush to apologize when Maggie momentarily wandered off at the food court to another family’s table and happily chowed down on their food. Though the rides were fun, Kent’s favorite part was their stop by the arcade. Among the flashing lights and brightly colored machines, he and Elena teamed up to gun their way through the entirety of House of the Dead , and both of the girls begged him to race with them on the Arctic Thunder snowmobile game.

“Pick your racer, Kent!” Lily urged him as she swung onto the seat next to his. “I’m going to be the pink girl, Candy Ice!”

Even though both Elena and Teddy insisted Kent didn’t have to, he purchased snapbacks for both girls and himself, all of them sporting an impressively hideous Ed Hardy-esque pattern of playing cards mixed with roses. 

Knowing management wanted his fake family life to be well publicly documented, Kent readily snapped pictures of himself with the family all day, including one with himself and both girls wearing their hats while on the carousel, the brim of Maggie’s falling over her eyes. He put it up on Twitter, tagged it with his name, Teddy’s name, and the official Aces account, feeling like something of a fraud for it, but refusing to muse on the situation.

At the end of the day, when they returned home and put the girls to bed, Elena invited Kent to share a bottle of wine with her and Teddy, pouring them an oaky moscato into stemless cut-crystal glasses. Though it was a small gesture, Kent couldn’t help but feel very privileged and sophisticated for it, like he had graduated to being their equal and not some wayward charge of theirs. It was a relaxing conclusion to a successful day, and they all shared a laugh when Teddy checked his own phone and found that Kent’s post had not only been retweeted by @LasVegasAcesOfficial but had also earned the most likes and retweets of anything he’d ever posted. 

“Your hat’s a hit,” he told him, grinning. “Maybe you should make it your trademark.”

“Oh, don’t!” Elena protested immediately. “A snapback basically broadcasts to anyone who sees you that you’re a total douchebag!”

Kent chuckled at that, swirling his glass and watching the dark wine shift and sway. “In that case, maybe I should wear one all the time.”

After all, this day had been a victory, but Kent knew not all of them would be.

Hockey had never been a problem for Kent. It had been Jack’s problem, and he’d brooded about it constantly. And Kent had done his very best to soothe it away, spending long bus rides in the dark whispering reassurances to him or staying up late at a hotel after a game, long past the time he knew he should have been asleep, trying to encourage Jack that there would be other games, other chances to live up to his dad’s name.

Meanwhile, Kent’s problem was that he sucked at managing Jack’s feelings, and he’d sucked at so much that now Jack wasn’t around for Kent to suck at it anymore.

So when training camp started mid-September, Kent hit the ice with a weird, adrift feeling, like he was forgetting something important but couldn’t remember what. But every time he turned to reassure a Jack who wasn’t there, the fresh, gut-wrenching realization of his absence reminded him just what he was missing.

It was the strangest fucking thing not to have someone there to help after Jack had spent the past two seasons leaning on him both on the ice and off of it, and try as he might, Kent couldn’t reconcile with it.

So he started searching for a replacement. Not permanently. Just until Jack could make it to the Aces.

Initially, Kent was paired off with a bunch of different dudes, some prospects, some Aces, to see who could match his play style the best. None of them really suited him, and an almost foreign sense of frustration filled Kent as for the first time in over two years, he struggled to find a teammate who knew his plays. It wasn’t that the guys weren’t good, but none of them had Jack’s flawless instincts for where Kent would be on the ice.

It hadn’t been just Jack depending on Kent where hockey was concerned, it seemed.

There was one guy with potential, though. Kent picked him out mid-way through their third practice and knew without a doubt by the end of the fifth. His name was Scrapiani, but he went by Scrappy because of his penchant for fighting. He’d spent the past two seasons with the Aces’ farm team, but this time, he was hoping to make it to the actual League.

“Third time’s the charm, isn’t that what they say?” he’d asked with a smile that didn’t quite cover the hint of insecurity on his face.

None of the Aces’ prospects could match the chemistry Kent once had with Jack, but Scrappy was better than most. While he had the body of a brawler and wasn’t especially fast, he had a strong sense of anticipation of where Kent would be to send him the puck, and didn’t leave him stranded up by the net as often as the other guys. 

They could work on it, Kent decided, and after that fifth practice, he asked Scrappy to stay behind and work with him. He did his best to ignore the profound sense of relief when Scrappy agreed. 

They were the last round of team practices for the day, so with the rink to themselves, they spent the next hour working with each other directly, getting a more complete feel for each other’s movements and speed. And Kent could pinpoint that speed was the main issue. Scrappy knew where Kent would be; now he just needed to be able to get the puck over to him as quickly as possible. So speed drills and stickhandling it was, with Kent sometimes bringing in other guys to help with it.

At the end of preseason, they both made the official roster, Scraps on the third line, Kent on the second. 

“Congratulations,” Kent told him sincerely as Scraps stood frozen, stunned by the news. “You really deserve it, you know. Putting in all the hours that you did.”

Being able to say and mean the compliment brought Kent an unexpected rush. Suddenly, he was reminded of back in Juniors, when Jack would offer blunt criticisms of a teammate’s game, and Kent would rush in to offer a compliment, play good cop captain to Jack’s bad cop captain while also hopefully stopping the guys from thinking of Jack as a total dick.

Scrappy’s warm laugh and friendly arm slinging around his shoulders drew him back to the present. “You helped put in the hours to get me here, too,” he told Kent. 

Even though Kent wasn’t supposed to care what his teammates thought of him any longer, a warmth swelled in his stomach. Scraps had noticed. Scraps was grateful.

When was the last time Jack had noticed his help? Or appreciated it?

The thought only flashed in Kent’s mind for a second before he banished it from his brain.

Other teammates must have noticed all the time he’d spent with Scrappy, because Jeff remarked on it.

“You and Scrapiani sure spend a lot of time together,” he remarked to Kent the next day as they waited together in the trainers’ room for their turn in the ice bath.

For whatever reason, Kent’s face heated, inexplicably self-conscious and panicked. He hadn’t realized his teammates would be monitoring his schedule and progress. He’d been stupid. Of course, they’d be watching him closely. They were just like everyone else; they wanted to see if he’d live up to expectations or live down to them.

“Just trying to help out,” Kent muttered, shooting Jeff a glance that dared him to offer another comment on the matter.

But he wasn’t prepared for Jeff’s expression. Nothing on Jeff’s face was jeering or snide or snobby. Instead, Jeff had titled his head like he was studying Kent, a considering look in his hazel eyes.

Then he offered Kent a smile. “Well, you helping out worked out. Keep it up, man.”

“Yeah, sure.” Kent turned away from him, his blush refusing to subside, and he told himself it was because he didn’t like the idea of anyone watching him.

Jeff wasn’t even the only one to notice. On the drive home, Teddy mentioned it to Kent, too.

“That’s some solid work you did with Scrapiani,” he told Kent, glancing at him with clear approval. “And it really paid off. Ten-four right there.”

Instinctively, the compliment pleased Kent immensely, grateful for both Scrappy’s progress and that another teammate not only had noticed his efforts, but thought he was a good guy for going through the trouble.

Then he reminded himself that he didn’t care what his teammates thought of him. And even if he’d grown closer to Teddy over the past couple of weeks, and even if he actually liked the guy, he’d just end up hurting himself again if he let himself be tangled up in sentiment.

So he just played it cool. “Thanks,” he said offhandedly. “I’m looking forward to the season.”

“You’ll give’er,” Teddy said confidently, turning off the street and whipping his SUV into the line of the In-N-Out Burger drive-thru. “Gotta get some calories into you,” he explained at Kent’s questioning look. “And while we’re on the topic, I’m having some of the guys over later. We’re probably going to fire up the grill around six-thirty, but most of the crew should be here around seven.”

“Oh.” Kent’s stomach plummeted, and when Teddy handed him the takeout bag with two double-doubles and fries, he had no appetite.

So this was how it was, then. Teddy had been fine with Kent hanging around before the rest of the team was back in town, but now that his actual friends were around, he wanted Kent to get out of his hair. “Okay. Got it.”

You don’t care about him anyway, he reminded himself sternly, and resolved to be out of the house well before dinnertime.

Well, he had to run a few errands anyway—browse through some styles and materials for bespoke suits at the tailor management had recommended to him, and also buy some nice business casual outfits to fill the void in his wardrobe between his formal wear and his plaid. So, really, he told himself, trying to ignore the disappointment that swelled within him, Teddy kicking him out was for the best.

He called ahead to the bespoke suit shop to set up an appointment for that evening. Well before six, he slipped away from the Theodore house unnoticed, a strange kind of guilt tugging at him as the sounds of Lily and Maggie playing in the backyard drifted over to him, travelling on the dry breeze. 

Pushing the feeling aside, he swung up into his Silverado and threw it into gear, speeding off into the dimming horizon.

The tailor shop was located in one of the ritzier strip malls, the glossy, stylish kind that was old enough and sufficiently well-kept to effortlessly emanate an air of class and prestige. The interior only added to the vibe, with plush oriental carpets over gleaming hardwood, gold gilt trifold mirrors, and tufted sofas and ottomans of burnished dark leather for a classic old Hollywood atmosphere. He didn’t feel like he belonged there, but then, he didn’t feel like he belonged anywhere these days. 

Movements mechanical, he raised and lowered his arms as the seamstress instructed so she could jot down his measurements. The appointment dragged on longer than expected. Almost an hour and a half passed there before he made his way to Nordstrom's and began a fresh hunt for clothing. And as much as he tried to distract himself, Teddy’s get-together still weighed heavily on his mind.

A ferocious scowl formed on Kent’s face as he rifled through the racks of button-down shirts, only halfheartedly trying to convince himself he wasn’t the biggest fool in the world.

You knew not to want to get close to Ted or the rest of them, Kent scoffed at himself, squeezing a plastic hanger and nearly snapping it in two. You knew not to trust any of them, and you did anyway. Your feelings got hurt? Good. You deserve this.    

The thought didn’t ease the awful tightness in his throat or help his fists unclench, and Kent suddenly and desperately wanted to destroy something, to wreck one of the immaculate store displays or push over the shelves of perfectly organized shoes, just to know something was just as jumbled and mixed up and ruined as he was.

But that was what Jack did, a traior voice whispered in his head. Ruined a good thing he had because of his feelings, and you ended up stuck out here. Do you want to be like him?

The idea stopped Kent cold, as images of the agony on Alicia’s face and the sight of Bob wiping away tears with his large, scarred hands as his wedding band glinted in the dimmed light of the hospital room flashed through his mind.

Kent reached for the first shirt he saw, rubbing the sleeve between thumb and forefinger to test the material, fresh pain knifing through him. It was a shade of blue that he could easily see Alicia encouraging him to wear: C’mon, Kenny, the cornflower color goes brilliantly with your eyes!

He shoved the shirt back on the rack and immediately reached for any other color he could find.

Twenty minutes later, he stepped out into the haze of the late summer heat and glare of the evening sun, belatedly realizing that he probably should have purchased another pair of sunglasses as well. Annoyed with himself all over again, he tossed his bags of clothes into the passenger seat of his truck and slid the key in the ignition. Just as he did, his phone buzzed to life, Teddy’s name splashed across the screen.

Instantly fearing the worst, Kent answered immediately, his heart in his throat. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?” Breathing hard and fast, he wondered if this panic was the same kind that had pulsed through Bob and Alicia when they’d received the call about Jack, and then found himself startled all over again by the question.

“Nothing’s wrong.” The warmth and ease in Teddy’s voice was apparent. “Well, except that you’re not here. Where are you? The guys keep asking for you, and I don’t have a damn clue where you’re at, and I’m running out of excuses.”

“I . . .” Kent sat back in his seat, stunned, trying to tamper down the hope that surged through him. “You want me back at the house? To meet the guys?”

“Yeah? I mean, that’s why I had them over to start with,” Teddy told him, his voice turning quizzical but no less amiable.

“Oh. Uh, right. I’ll be there in twenty,” Kent replied, still stunned. “Need me to pick up anything at the store?” he asked automatically. He’d asked Bob or Alicia that every time he went out when they were cooking out that night.

“Nothing at all. Just bring yourself. You’re already more than enough,” Teddy told him, the grin apparent in his voice.

Exchanging goodbyes, Kent ended the call and then simply sat in the driver’s seat, waiting for his breathing to slow and replaying the conversation in his mind. The hurt and anger boiling within him only a short time ago were now extinguished, disbelief and a faint, daring hope rising in its place even as he cautioned himself against it.

They want me, he thought to himself, gripping and ungripping the steering wheel. Jack doesn’t want me, but this team wants me.

Teddy’s words— You’re already more than enough —echoed in his mind, and Kent started the engine of his truck.

He knew he’d be an idiot to think anything over it, that it was probably some bullshit reassurance Teddy has been coached to say. And even if it was genuine, Kent knew better than to believe him, he knew not to get too close. 

Still, vague excitement mounting within him even as his wariness fought to take over, he peeled out of the parking lot.

Even though he was well aware that the party had been specifically engineered to allow him to get to know his teammates, Kent still didn’t really feel up to any type of socializing, the whiplash from happy to sad to hopeful leaving his head spinning. So he waved hello to Teddy from a distance and then followed a trick he’d taught Jack for whenever he was feeling anxious at his parents’ parties and didn’t want to actually talk to anyone. Hang out with the kids, indulge them a bit while stopping them from accidentally killing themselves via their own stupidity, and become their hero while earning their parents’ gratitude. It always worked like a charm.

And the best part, the whole reason for the strategy in the first place, was that kids didn’t want to talk about hockey, wouldn’t upset Jack by endless comparisons to his dad or predictions for his rookie year in the NHL. No, kids just wanted to be pushed on the swings or have someone clap for them as they sped across the monkey bars. They might be a bunch of hyperactive little hellbeasts, but they were way less judgemental than the adults.

Case in point: Lily and Maggie seemed thrilled to see him and didn’t think to question where he’d been.

“Hi, Kent!” Lily exclaimed, waving at him as she pumped her legs up and down, soaring back and forth on the swings. “We missed you!”

Kent told himself that didn’t mean anything to him as he greeted them. “Hey, Lil. Hi, Mags.” 

Maggie waved but didn’t say anything, and he watched for a moment as she stood on her tiptoes, desperately reaching her hands up to grasp the trapeze’s plastic handles, but wasn’t able to bridge the gap.

“You, uh, want a hand up?” Kent asked, looking around momentarily, wondering if someone was going to warn him away, tell him it was too dangerous for a little kid like her. But everyone was too engrossed in their own beer and conversations to be paying very much attention. 

So when Maggie nodded eagerly with a shy, “Yes, please!”, Kent obligingly boosted her up so she could dangle a full foot off the ground, which she did with a victorious smile for several seconds. Then she let herself drop.

“Again?” she asked, looking up at Kent with wide dark eyes, and Kent didn’t have the heart to tell her no.

By the time Jeff wandered over and settled down in the Adirondack bench near them, Kent had lost track of the amount of times he’d lifted Maggie up to grab the trapeze to only let go seconds later. At Jeff’s arrival, however, Kent suddenly became very conscious of his presence, and found himself wondering what he must think of their little game.

Then he reminded himself that he didn’t care about Jeff and didn’t give a damn what he thought about him.

Still, he ended the endless cycle and instead directed her to the swings.

“You wanna swing with Lily?” he asked, and she replied with an enthusiastic nod. 

“You’re good with them,” Jeff commented to Kent as they both watched the two tiny girls soar up and down on the swings.

Kent just shrugged. “I guess I might as well be,” he replied disinterestedly. “I have to live with them, after all.”

Jeff gave him that look again, like he was studying him. Kent shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, trying to remind himself that he shouldn’t care what Jeff thought about him. 

“I used to be where you were,” Jeff offered up unexpectedly, and Kent was left blinking at the statement, uncertain what to take from it. 

Upon seeing Kent’s confusion, he added, “I was Teddy’s first rookie, a couple seasons back. But the girls were still really young, then, so they don’t really remember me.”

The words hit Kent like a gutpunch, memories of Bob trying to gently break the news to him that he was persona non grata in Montreal flooding his mind too rapidly to be contained.

“That really sucks,” he said with vehemence, before he could stop himself. “I’m sorry.” 

Because while Kent didn’t want to be a part of Teddy’s family, other rookies, the normal rookies, did want something like that. They were sent to live with a vet and provided a substitute family to help them feel connected to the team, even in a new city with new people. And just as management intended, most rookies grew close to both the vet and any rugrats running around the place, leaving a strong bond between all of them, albeit a deliberately engineered one.

But to lose the people who were supposed to be your new family because your actual family couldn’t be there, to know that they couldn’t and didn’t value the time you’d spent with them as much as you did, even through no fault of their own . . .

A sudden lump manifested in Kent’s throat as memories flooded his mind: going out with Bob to find their Christmas tree that year when Jack was too sick to come, Alicia showing up at the Memorial Cup final even it meant she had to rush home on a red-eye from her latest shoot, both Bob and Alicia laughing and hugging the two of them after their high school graduation ceremony.

It sucked that they had to ignore how much all of that meant to him right now. But it would suck even more if they didn’t remember it at all.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, wishing he could give Jeff something more. But what could he possibly do to help him?

Jeff just shrugged. “I’ll live,” he replied, but he smiled as his gaze swept over Kent. “I guess it’s a reminder, you know? That we shouldn’t take the people in our life for granted.”

Tell me about it, Kent thought morosely, looking away.

Then Jeff switched topics. “Hey, Teddy mentioned that you’ve seen a few of the sights, but not all of them. That true?”

Immediately, Kent bristled, and he had to tamp down the annoyance in his voice at the implication. “I haven’t been boozing around at different casinos, if that’s what you mean.”

But Jeff was unfazed. “Well, if you’re up to it, we can do something together. There’s a couple of really cool museums and stuff like that, and I can show them, if you’re into me. Uh, it. The sightseeing, I mean. And we can hit the Grand Canyon.”

The invitation left Kent stunned. He’d thought for sure that Jeff and the rest of his teammates would think Kent was some sort of boozed-up douchebag who was a liability to the team. Party Boy Parson, who never missed a chance for a good time and was overall an irresponsible douchebag. But here was Jeff, offering him a chance to hang out. 

Then it occurred to Kent just what this invitation probably was, and any goodwill toward him drained away.

Jeff was still a younger guy, still struggling to find himself on the team, even if this season was his fourth with the Aces. And no doubt he saw Kent, heard the rumors about Party Boy Parson and that his first love affair was with cocaine and his second was with Jack, and decided to be his babysitter. Use Kent’s dysfunctions and possible drug addiction to prove to the rest of the team, maybe even management, that he was leadership material. That he could wrangle the team problem child.

How fucking demeaning.

Automatically, Kent wrenched his mouth open to tell Jeff to fuck off but then snapped it closed again. 

While he might not like it, he did need to prove to the guys and to the front office that he was trustworthy, that he wasn’t some renegade cokehead who would embarrass the team. And his friendship with Jeff could testify to that—if Jeff wanted to be friends so he could prove he deserved the A, then it was only natural that everyone else would become aware of Kent’s progress, have no choice but to realize that Kent could be trusted as well.

Jeff was out to use Kent, but Kent could use him right back.

So Kent swallowed the snark and tried his best to sound amiable. 

“What day were you thinking?” he asked Jeff, and ignored the sudden swooping sensation in his stomach when Jeff’s entire face lit up with a magnificent smile.

Chapter Text

Back in Juniors, SUVs had been the ubiquitous hockey vehicle, driven by parents and players alike. Kent had been there at Jack’s sixteenth birthday when his parents had presented him with the latest Audi model, and then Kent had driven it whenever Jack had felt too keyed up after games or practice.

True to form, Jeff drove a black Escalade. 

“Do you think you’re in the Secret Service or something?” Kent snarked, but Jeff just laughed.

The road trip wasn’t bad, even though it was four hours each way. Kent had anticipated an agonizing experience, but justified it to himself that the longer he could spend with Jeff and prove he didn’t need to resort to illicit substances to function, the better off he was. 

But Jeff was surprisingly easy to talk to, overflowing with advice about which road trips were best to snag a spot of sightseeing and which ones he’d need all of his rest and concentration. He even showed mercy and let Kent switch out the Zac Brown Band CD for Shania Twain, though he first forced Kent to suffer through “Toes”.

“I love that song,” he declared unashamedly, not taking any offense at Kent’s extremely unimpressed look. “It’s one of those songs you can really jam out to. Who doesn’t like that?”

“Can I change it now?” Kent asked flatly. “Or do I have to bribe you with a PBR?”

Jeff laughed, and Kent took that as permission to swap in Shania. When he leaned closer to the CD deck, he caught the scent of Jeff’s cologne, a blend of woodsmoke and sandalwood. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell at all, and Kent found himself breathing in deeper than usual to inhale more. 

Then he refocused, mentally shaking his head at himself, and punched the shuffle option to start the music. He was rewarded with the opening guitar strains of “Gonna Getcha Good” filling the SUV.

“This your jam?” Jeff called good-naturedly over the lyrics.

An unexpected fluttering volleyed in Kent’s stomach, but he just shrugged. “Close enough,” he answered tersely.

The Canyon itself was astonishing. To be honest, Kent wasn’t anticipating much—after all, it was just a hole in the ground. But between the wind whipping frantically at his face, he could spot each layer of earth that had eroded from the Canyon, see the various reds and purples and oranges that blended together to form the various lines etched onto the massive stone walls. Most impressive of all was the Colorado River snaking through the valley below, the vibrant jade green a brilliant contrast to the muted earth hues surrounding it.

Despite his earlier skepticism, Kent could only stare in amazement, leaning against the lookout point’s railing as much as he dared, completely awestruck by the creation nature had to offer them.

“Gorgeous, huh?” Jeff grinned at him. 

“Yeah,” Kent managed, tearing his gaze from the view to smile back at Jeff. “Yeah, it is.”

“Always wanted to go rafting on that river,” Jeff said conversationally. “We did a kayaking trip through the Emerald Caves for our rookie camp trip the year I was drafted, but now my contract won’t let me near anything with white water. It’s too bad, but still not as cool as the lion thing your group did this year, I bet.”

A sudden surge of self-consciousness spiked within Kent. “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t get to go.”

Jeff stared at him. “Why the hell not?” 

Kent shrugged uneasily, turning his face to the wind and hoping Jeff couldn’t see the frustration there. “Meeting with management. They wanted to go over some media training BS.”

For a moment, there was silence. Between them, at least. A group of sorority girls nearby were squealing over a group selfie, and a particularly bratty child was whining to his parents about wanting a toy from the gift shop.

“Well, hey,” Jeff said at last, clapping Kent on the shoulder. “At least we know where our next trip will be.”

Astonishment blossomed within Kent as he tossed Jeff an assessing glance, but he saw nothing but sincerity there.

“I’d love that,” he said quietly, returning his attention to the canyon below.

An urge to repay Jeff’s kindness refused to leave Kent alone, even if he knew said was strategic rather than earnest. In the end, he ducked into the gift shop and demonstrated his prowess at the claw machine to an open-mouthed Jeff, winning him a large plushie of a some kind of  bizarre desert-based raccoon-monkey hybrid called a coatimundi. 

“You got it in one go,” Jeff said in awe, hefting his plushie as they ambled back to the car. “How’d you get so good at those? I’ve never even gotten close to nabbing anything.”  

For a moment, Kent hesitated; he rarely talked about his life before Bob and Alicia and Jack. 

“When I was growing up, my mom couldn’t drive me to practice. It didn’t work with her schedule.” Kent carefully omitted the specifics, that he’d ranked at the bottom of his mom’s list of priorities, far below her drugs and various boyfriends. Occasionally, one of her men had been interested in Kent’s hockey or was tickled enough by his talent to pay for his equipment or team membership. Then his mom would go into some kind of Norman Rockwell routine and pretend they were a family, with her and her latest man acting as proud parents of their rising hockey star son.

And then, as soon as that man left and she snagged a new one who couldn't care less about who Kent was or what he did in his spare time, she suddenly didn’t care anymore.

“So I’d walk to the rink early and hang out by the arcade section. My local rink had a claw machine, and one of the employees there took pity on me and showed me how to cheat the machines, so I didn’t have to pay for each try. After so many hours of practice, I perfected my technique, and now I can beat any machine I set my eyes on.”

“Should’ve known,” Jeff commented as they arrived back at his SUV. He opened the back door and carefully strapped his coatimundi into the backseat. “One thing I like about you, Parson, is that you’re not afraid to put in the work.”

The compliment was unexpected, and a pleasant warmth swept over Kent as it sank in, even as he found himself unable to meet Jeff’s gaze.

Jeff wasn’t the only of his teammates to invite Kent to hang out. Now that Kent was officially a member of the team, a few of the vets invited him out to shows on the Strip and showed him some of the less tourist-y entertainment. Javvy once spent the entire day with him touring the various car museums, from one focusing entirely on Shelbys to another exclusively featuring specialized customs and the third arranged entirely around nostalgic, old-fashioned models. Katzy invited Kent hiking with him and his family out in Red Rock Canyon, not only trusting Kent to give his eight-year-old a piggyback ride, but also offering to order him a margarita when they finished off the day at Katzy’s favorite Mexican place. (Kent declined.) 

They spotted several bighorn sheep during their hike that afternoon, and Kent snapped a photo with his phone. Knowing Jack probably wouldn’t open it if he texted it to him, he resolved to ask Teddy and Elena if he could print it out on their home computer. Then he would mail it to Jack alongside his next letter.

And Wolfenheimer, his team captain, took him to the Neon Museum, insistently snapping photos of Kent at every opportunity that presented itself, by the Stardust sign and the giant Hard Rock Cafe guitar, and even by Moulin Rouge marquee. 

“Management wants us vets to show the public that we like you,” Wolfie told him in his low, growling voice. “Gotta say, though, it’s not really hard.” 

He put an arm around Kent’s shoulders, and Kent had to fight to avoid leaning into the touch. Only the memory that his teammates were only stepping up due to obligation prevented him from returning the gesture.

But even while aware of that, he still found himself tempted.

Hockey was something Kent was ready for. He’d been born ready for it. So he was sure to let everyone know as much, killing it on the season opener and knocking in four goals to wrangle an Aces victory against the Dallas Stars. When the game was finished and Kent was shoved out in front of the media, their coach made a big show of personally presenting him with the puck, deliberately folding Kent’s fingers around the edges and sending him a meaningful glance when he noticed Kent’s grasp was limp. 

“Stunning performance,” he announced, clapping Kent enthusiastically on the back as camera bulbs flashed in a staccato around them, the frequency and intensity burning Kent’s retinas. “Parson performed well beyond our greatest expectations, and we consider his contribution a strong start to our season and show of what’s to come.”

It might have been Kent’s imagination—he was bone tired and still blinking the black spots from his vision, but he thought that a deliberate, borderline painful squeeze of his shoulder accompanied his coach’s words.   

But any musing on the subject fled his mind at the next question directed to him.

“Tonight was the highest total points you’ve ever contributed in a game,” a man with a Sportsnet microphone commented, pushing it in front of Kent’s chest. “It’s also the first game in years you’ve played without Zimmermann on your line. Do you think there’s any correlation between those two factors?”

A nuclear fury flared within Kent at the implication, and all of his media training fled from his mind. “You’re asking if Jack was holding me back?”

The reporter shrugged. “That’s not what I was going for,” he responded, but he and all the rest of them collectively leaned forward like a pack of hyenas closing in on a wounded antelope.

Kent’s stomach lurched; his hand began shaking thanks to the panic and adrenaline rocketing through his veins. He’d hoped that his achievements in the game would be enough to silence the media for just a single night, to shut down any doubts about his skills or work ethic. But instead of gunning for him directly, they’d found a different method of casting him as the villain: trying to convince him to speak poorly of Jack, to trash-talk his former teammate, boyfriend, best friend. 

Everything he’d done tonight, he’d done for Jack. He’d done it to prove himself, to prove he deserved to be here, to prove he could carve out a place for himself and a place for Jack at his side. And Kent desperately wished he could say as much, that he could admit that he still thought of Jack everyday and dreamed of when Jack would play beside him. Or at least take his calls.

But none of that was anything Kent could say. Not without looking selfish, like he put himself and his wants before the team.

“I guess you’ll have to judge that for yourself,” Kent said eventually. It was as if someone else was speaking the words when he added, “After all, between myself and Jack, I was the only one playing tonight.”

The comment brought another series of camera flashes and intrigued, excited looks from the reporters. As Kent again struggled to regain his sight, Wolfenheimer sidled up to Kent and threw an arm around his shoulder, drawing him in.

“We’re real proud of Parser,” Wolfie interjected smoothly, pulling all attention in the room toward himself. “Real glad to have him here. All of us were anticipating Zimmermann back during the draft—but that’s not news. Kent’s show tonight has all of us excited about what we can accomplish together as a team this season.”

The remark shifted the focus off Kent as the reporters eagerly converged on Wolfie, interrogating him about his hopes for what would probably be his final season. Wolfie responded affably, low-key but controlled, with a poise Kent knew management would again relentlessly attempt to drill into him.

But Wolfie kept his arm around Kent throughout the entire rest of the post-game, and Kent found himself leaning into his broad side and welcoming the weight of his arm around his shoulders without ever meaning to.

When he sat down that night to write his latest letter to Jack, he tried to remember his vacations with the Zimmermann family, his family, but was distracted by memories of Wolfie’s hands on him, and Jeff grinning at him as they sped down the highway with Shania’s upbeat twang as their soundtrack.

Even though Kent’s conversation with the reporters had been brief, the clip of his response to the question about Jack that he’d been the “only one playing” rapidly circulated throughout the hockey scene. That same night, the team was out painting the town to celebrate the win when one of the bar TVs was swiftly switched to a game recap. Up there on the screen, Kent saw his interview play twice in the span of fifteen minutes. 

“God, Don Cherry is gonna have a field day with you, huh?” Rainer asked. He was in his sophomore season and the guy Kent usually roomed with on the road,  since there were no other rookies. 

Now, he thumped Kent on the back as he chugged his beer. “Well, I guess he can just choke on those four goals you served up for us. Christ, you’re a menace, Parser. Keep it up.”

Another couple of younger guys crowded in on both sides of Kent, leaning in close as they scrutinized the footage.

“That must really blow, right?” one of them, Mads, remarked as he tore his gaze from the TV to Kent. “No pun intended. About Zimmermann and coke, I mean. Like, it wasn’t bad enough you had to cover for the guy all throughout the Q, but now they’re still asking about him.”

“Dude,” Danno, Mads’s D-partner and constant shadow, hissed as he nudged Mads in the ribs. 

“I’m just being honest!” Mads protested, swiveling back to Kent as if he anticipated some support. “Seems to me that Zimmermann was getting by on Bad Bob’s name, and our boy Parse had to cover for him that whole time. C’mon, Parson—you can’t tell me it doesn’t piss you off that you’ve been dragging Zimmermann’s useless ass around for two seasons while he got to fall back on his dad throughout all of it.”

He was my dad, too, Kent wanted to say, and instead clutched at the copper mug that held the pretentious specialty cocktail one of his teammates had shoved at him with a slap on his back and ruffle of his hair. Bob was my dad and Alicia was my mom, but now I don’t have either of them anymore, and sometimes I lie awake at night and can’t sleep no matter how much I try because I miss them so fucking much—  

Abruptly, he stood, swinging down from his barstool with enough intensity to bring a trio of concerned glances from Rainer, Danno, and Mads.

“You all right?” Danno asked with a hint of worry. 

“Going out for a smoke,” Kent told them, forcing a half smile. “Enjoy your drinks. I’ll be quick.”

A couple of more teammates threw concerned glances his way as Kent brushed past the tables the team had crowded into, and Scrappy actually stood to walk outside with him, but Kent waved him off. After staring into the glare of the spotlight all night, in this moment, he found he desperately wanted to be alone.

The bar was on the fourth story, and they’d passed a utility staircase to the roof on their way in. It was only a matter of seconds to double back and jog up the steps, but it was an eternity to Kent before he could clomp up to the top and throw open the door. He rushed out, stumbling forward like an astronaut returning to Earth, and yanked off his snapback, desperate to feel the cool desert breeze raking through his hair.

Would he ever stop fucking feeling this way? Would he get slammed with the reminder that Jack was gone, that his relationship with Alicia and Bob was reduced to a few texts or calls each month, and not feel like a fucking knife had been shoved into his ribs?

He was so fucking tired. The season had just opened, his career was just beginning, but he was so fucking tired of feeling this kind of hurt. It cut bone-deep, searing into his stomach and leaving a simmering sickness inside of him, and there was no cure for it that he knew.

Lurching over to the railing, Kent clutched at it, the metal still warm beneath his palms from the day’s heat. He gripped it as tightly as possible, heedless of his knuckles popping and his fingers aching. 

Why couldn’t anything in his life go well? So, fine, Jack ODed. But couldn’t Kent fix that? Couldn’t he play good enough, do good enough, be good enough to get Jack a second chance? Why was nothing he did ever worth anything to anyone? Would he ever be enough to be able to bring Jack to Vegas? Or would he go on racking up goals and assists only for it to never make a difference, never be able to play alongside Jack again?

A noise, wounded and strangled, rose in his throat, but he cut it off quickly when the door to the rooftop creaked again. Clamping his mouth shut, he stood very still, hoping it was some drunken couple who’d stumbled up to the roof to have sex and would leave again when they realized they didn’t have the privacy they’d planned on.

No such luck. It was Jeff.

“Hey, Parson,” he called, gravel crunching beneath his feet as he ambled closer. “Thought I saw you heading up this way.”

“You thought right.” Any coolness in his voice was diminished by his noticeably clogged voice. Kent cringed just at the sound of it.

Coming to stand beside him and leaning against the railing just an arm’s reach away, Jeff glanced at Kent for a second—but just a second. The next instant, he turned to stare at the obnoxious neon illumination of the Strip. 

“Shame about all the lights,” he remarked idly. “I could always see the stars growing up. Never missed it until I came here.” He shrugged. “Guess it shows us not to take stuff for granted, huh?”

There was probably some sort of lesson embedded into the casual remark, but Kent was through with learning for the night, too exhausted and impatient for any kind of moral of the story.

But a prickle of shame still lanced through him. Never had he thought to ask Jeff where his hometown actually was, just assumed it was somewhere in Canada from his accent.

“Where did you grow up?” he asked now, both out of guilt and due to desperation to take the focus off himself.   

Jeff kicked at a loose pebble; it skittered off their roof and clattered down onto a lower section. “Milk River, Alberta. Ever heard of it?”

“No.”

A huff of laughter escaped Jeff. “No one ever has. Probably because no one’s from there. It’s a tiny town just past the Montana border. Population is less than a thousand. I’m the first guy from there to ever get into the NHL. They put a sign up for me after I was drafted. Now, anyone who drives through there knows that it’s the home of Jeffrey Troy, defenseman to the Las Vegas Aces.”

“That must be a lot of pressure,” Kent commented. As frustrating as his situation with the Zimmermanns was, at least no one was going around erecting shrines to him. “I’d hate that.”

A look of astonishment crossed Jeff’s face. “I don’t see it that way. I’m glad they’re proud. To me, it gives me something to work towards. I know that Milk River might be in the middle of nowhere, but the people there are my people, rooting for me. Kind of grounds me in a way. Reminds me to give them something to be proud of.”

The prickle of shame deepened to a sharp sting. Instead of being grateful, Kent resented needing to work hard, to prove himself, to earn a place for Jack. Why couldn’t he be like Jeff and see it in some positive way instead of looking at life like a series of obstacles?

But it was a series of obstacles. Whenever he accomplished something worthwhile, like his goals tonight, the media just took it and twisted it until they could wring out some kind of scandal. He couldn’t win, so what was there to be proud of?

“I haven’t been stargazing in a while,” Jeff commented, clearly trying to fill the silence, but this time, Kent didn’t resent it. “Maybe we could go sometime.”

Kent hadn’t been stargazing lately, either. He and Jack had gone sometimes, slipping out between practices and after games, sometimes stealing away from their hotel after team dinners to glimpse just a snatch of the nighttime sky. The pastime had always relaxed Jack, getting him out of his head after a rough game or during one of his worse freakouts, and even as they’d sat out in the freezing cold, he’d been happy to regale Kent with stories of the various explorers who’d used the stars to navigate during their voyages.

Looking back at those moments, it was as if that life belonged to someone else.

Still, desert stargazing sounded like it could be pretty cool, and Kent not only found himself replying, “Yeah, that would be amazing!” with genuine enthusiasm, but genuinely looking forward to it. 

And when Jeff turned and grinned at him, he caught himself grinning back. 

He’s being nice because you’re his responsibility, Kent reminded himself sharply. The same reason anyone in this organization is nice to you.

Though he knew his reminder was undisputed reality, a small twinge in his chest had him realizing that a part of him wished it wasn’t.

Chapter Text

Here was Kent’s initial plan with the Theodore family: just do what he needed to do, grin and bear it and get through it, say whatever he needed to say so that he could rally support when the time arrived to sweet-talk management into extending an offer to Jack.  

None of his expectations included actually liking Teddy and his family.

Elena turned out to be a woman of her word, dragging him out for coffee when both she and he had the spare time. While it was surreal to amble along beside a person, chatting and sipping chai lattes, simply because they seemed to legitimately want to be with him and not because they were paid, Kent brushed off the feeling. Elena was a WAG, after all. Teddy’s career was her only job.

Still, Kent had to admit it was really nice of her to grab his keys and move his truck to the other side of the house on street-cleaning days, all just so he could sleep in. 

On the day of his first game, when Kent’s stomach had churned with guilt and grief for playing a game without Jack, his hands shaking too much to knot his tie, Teddy had just offered him a kind smile and wordlessly stepped closer to him, sliding the strip of fabric from Kent’s hands and finishing the job himself, waving off Kent’s stammered attempts at thanks.

And the girls. They were just—always happy to see him. They always acted like it was the most exciting thing in the world when he joined them at the breakfast table or sat down near them in the living room.

“Want to read with me?” Lily asked, scooching over closer to him on the couch, even though he hadn’t invited her. “I have a book—it’s called Lily and the Purple Plastic Purse . Lily is also my name,” she added importantly. “It’s a beautiful flower.”

Kent blinked. These days, no one really wanted to spend time with him—management did it because they were worried he could destroy their franchise and wanted to nip that in the bud, various members of the team did it because they were worried about him destroying their season, and reporters did it because they knew the public was fascinated with him and the destruction of the great Zimmermann hockey legacy.  

Lily wanting to read a book with him just because she wanted to read a book with him was . . . strange. Unexpected.

“Uh, okay,” he replied, fumbling for a response. “I guess . . . would you like me to read it to you?”

“Yeah!” Lilly nodded enthusiastically and handed him the book. And he opened it, she leaned against him so she could look at the pictures, pressing in close like it was the most normal thing in the world. It was surreal, and it was hard to remember that the hockey media right now was raising daily questions of his suitability as a role model for young children.

And then, even more surreal, there was a sudden weight on his other side as well, and he whirled to find Maggie there, her small fingers tucked in her mouth for whatever reason. He tried not to recoil as she yanked them out and grabbed his hand with her now moist one, presumably to get his attention, which she, in fact, already had.     

“Um, Kent? Can I read, too?” she asked, looking up at him with big brown eyes.

Kent shrugged. Reading to two kids wasn’t any different than reading to one.

“Sure,” he replied, and made a conscious effort not to lean away when Maggie snuggled in closer, gripping his hand tighter when her gummy fingers.

It wasn’t a bad feeling, not altogether. It was just . . . different.

Deciding not to linger on it, Kent instead opened the book and began to read it out loud, going over the acknowledgements page first. “For Will,” he read, running his finger alongside the words on the page. “The author—this guy Kevin Henkes? He wants you to know that he wrote the book for Will.”

Lily looked impressed. “Do you know Will?”

“No,” Kent replied flatly. “But the author wanted you to know that he wrote this book for Will, so I think it’s important that we all know that. I mean, he thought it was important, and he wrote the book, so I think he’d know.

Lily tilted her head, pondering. “Are all books written for somebody? Like this book is for Will?”

“Uh, I think so, yeah,” Kent said, trying to rack his brain. Most books he’d seen had some kind of dedication page, from what he could remember.

“I’m going to check all of my books,” Lily announced. “And see who they were written for.”

God, Kent hoped he hadn’t created a monster with that. Grimacing, his mind was filled by images of every book from every shelf in the household scattered across the floor. Fuck, Teddy and Elena were going to hate him. Well, that was going to happen sooner or later, probably.

He motioned to the book. “Do you still, uh, want me to tell the story?”

“Yeah!” Lily nodded eagerly. “I wanna know what happens!”  

“Me, too! Me, too!” Maggie chimed in.

Flipping to the first page, Kent cleared his throat and began to read. “ Lilly loved school. She loved the pointy pencils. She loved the squeaky chalk. And she loved the way her boots went clickety-clickety-click down the long, shiny hallways . . .”

It didn’t end there. How could it? Now that the girls thought he was the guy who read stories to them, he also became the guy who pushed them on the swings and taught them to skip rocks and played Candyland with them. He helped Maggie climb the monkey bars on the deluxe backyard swingset and helped Lily pour juice into plastic cactus-shaped cups when she decided she wanted to have a “picnic” outdoors.

The whole deal was kind of strange. Kent supposed it only made sense—like, he lived in their house, so yeah, he was going to see them and talk to them every day (less if he was on a road trip). But, like . . . he wasn’t meant to be their brother or their babysitter. He wasn’t really meant to be anything to them. 

And they weren’t meant to be anything to him.

Bob and Alicia were his family. They were the ones who’d been there for him when his useless mother had simply up and walked out on him for her latest boyfriend. And Jack the person Kent had to protect, the person he’d failed at protecting the first time. Kent wouldn’t fail him again. When Jack finished rehab, Kent would carve out a place for Jack on the Aces, and he would be able to stop worrying that he’d stolen Jack’s life by his own ambition. 

He would make everything right again. He just needed Jack to call him. 

Until Jack did that, though, Kent would just keep writing him letters.

There was only one Russian on the Aces, a hulking D-man who always tied back his shoulder-length dark hair with a bandanna, like he’d watched Rambo and never grew out of copying the style. His name was actually Konstantin Rozhdestvensky, but as Kent soon found out, the guy was an endless chatterbox, so the team just called him Yakker, or Yaks, for short. 

Boisterous and friendly, Yaks was well-liked by teammates and trainers alike, with a deep, booming laugh that seemed achingly sincere. He was someone who never hesitated to strike up a conversation with fans and put them at ease whenever and wherever he met them. His affability caught Kent off-guard: Don Cherry had led him to believe Russians were snobbish and enigmatic. Still, Kent liked Yaks even though he was doing his best not to like very many people these days, but he tried to avoid him. He tried to avoid everyone who wanted to have an actual conversation with him these days.

Except for Jeff. Kent knew where he stood with Jeff. Jeff thought he was chaos that needed to be controlled.

But Yaks seemed to realize that Kent was never around him much, because just a few weeks into the official season, he swaggered up to Kent’s stall and collapsed down to sit beside him, slinging an arm around Kent’s shoulders. 

“Parson, so good to see you,” he said, beaming, as he crowded into Kent’s space.

“Yeah, uh, you, too,” Kent choked out, his eyes watering from the intensity of Yaks’s cologne. It smelled expensive, but also overpowering, and he swore he could feel it seeping into his skin. He found himself desperately wishing one of them was wearing a shirt and that Yaks’s bare chest wasn’t pressed directly against his shoulder.

“Why are we never seeing each other, Parsnip?” Yaks went on. “Play for same team. Hang out in same lounge. But we are never talking.”

Kent could only shrug uncomfortably, overwhelmed with the unpleasant sensation of a sneeze building in his nose.

Yaks didn’t appear dissuaded by his silence, instead just patting him on the shoulder. “I see. A strong player, but a silent one. No matter. You come to my house tomorrow for lunch. I feed you, and you can talk then, maybe.”

With that, he patted Kent’s shoulder once more and then left before Kent had a chance to protest.

As such, Kent found himself climbing into Yaks’s Mercedes after practice the next day instead of Teddy’s SUV. While he didn’t feel much like talking, Yaks was more than happy to provide for the deficit. 

“You like music?” Yaks, and when Kent simply shrugged, switched on the CD player, flooding the car with Johnny Cash and his Tennessee Three.

Yaks’s house was a large, new age structure of white concrete and dark stone. The inside was decorated with a careful cultivation of glimmering glass and chrome furniture and various indecipherable pieces of abstract art on the walls. As a sharp contrast, each surface seemed to feature some kind of religious statuette, crucifix, and or votive candle. The ensuing mishmash of spirituality meets modern minimalism lent it the atmosphere of a particularly devout space station.

If said space station was inhibited solely by cats, that was. The cats, large and fluffy and in all colors imaginable, outnumbered even the statues.

“You sure you have enough cats in here?” Kent asked, casually dumping an black and white one off of the couch so he could sit down.

The creature immediately bolted over to Yaks, who didn’t hesitate to lift it into his lap as he settled into his chair. 

“Cats here need help,” he explained earnestly, beginning to stroke along the cat’s spine from neck to tail. “So, so many stray cats in Vegas. I adopt one, from shelter, where team volunteer. But then I think to self, ‘You have big house. Why not more cats?’ So I get more cats.”

“No kidding,” Kent said, watching two cats bat at the fake leaves of their jungle-themed cat tree.

As he spoke, yet another cat appeared, leaping up onto his lap with the alacrity of a pouncing tiger. Ignoring his startled flinch, it settled across his thighs, stretching out and purring contentedly.

“She be like you!” Yaks exclaimed in delight from where he now sat draped with three cats total. “You should get cat, Parson. Rescue one.”

Right. Kent wasn’t fit to rescue anyone these days. He’d tried to save Jack, tried to be his everything, tether him to the outside world, and live life for them both—and look how that had ended.

Helpless despair and anger welled within him, and he fought it down as he desperately sought to end the conversation.

“I’ve never had Russian food before,” Kent commented, changing the subject. “You mind if I bring this up in an interview some time? Make myself look like a cultured addicted instead of just scumbag addict?”

He hadn’t intended to say the last part, especially not with such bitterness. He blanched, glancing at Yaks to see his reaction, but Yaks didn’t seem concerned

Instead, he snorted. “Who said I be cooking Russian?”

Kent stared. “I—just—you’re Russian.”

“I have sophisticated palate,” Yaks informed him, quirking an eyebrow. “I read recipes. Today I have Hawaiian dish. And you eat lots,” he added, surveying Kent’s form critically. “Too skinny. Canadians did not care well for you,” he noted with a disapproving frown.

“Hawaiian?” Kent repeated, dumbfounded as he tried to reconcile Yaks’s choice. “Seriously?”

“They have nice food,” Yaks said stoutly. “Like that even rice be tangy and sweet. Should go there sometime, if you never,” he added. “Beautiful beaches. Surf fantastic. I’ve went there for summer after rookie year. Three summers ago.”

The comment brought Kent to pause in the middle of stroking the cat’s neck. It twisted to look up at him indignantly, but he didn’t pay any attention.

“This is only your fourth season in the US?” he asked, shocked. 

“Third,” Yaks corrected him. “First season in Canada.”

Kent could barely believe it. “But your English!” he exclaimed, awed. “You’re so fluent. And your accent isn’t strong at all. Did you learn it in school back in Russia?”

“Pssh.” Yaks rolled his eyes and waved a hand at the idea. “I start learning at seventeen. Knew then that I would play in US. Do not want to be big, scary Russian guy who do not  talk. Taught myself to talk all the time, talk with all people. Help to learn English that way.” A trace of bitterness slipped into his smile. “Now, snobby Canadians do not say I am scary. Now they say I’m having too much fun. I’m not focus on game, not helping team, they say. Fuck them,” he added cheerfully.

The explanation left Kent scowling.

“Doesn’t it piss you off?” he burst out before he could stop himself. “That you were forced to change just for the sake of stopping gossip?” Something burned hot in his chest, tightening in his throat. “Why should you have to make up for other people being assholes? It’s not right, it’s not fair-especially when you hadn’t even done anything!”

His voice had been growing louder with each question, and Kent clamped his jaw shut before he could say anything else, embarrassed by his sudden outburst. But a covert glance at Yaks revealed an expression that was more thoughtful that confused or scornful.

“Do not think it change. Thought I was to steal their insults. Stop them from ever being hurt me. Call me “mysterious Russian”, but then anyone who know me know it’s not me. Then old Canadian is the idiot.”

“Better an idiot than a coke fiend,” Kent said with a sigh before he could stop himself.

A thoughtful look flitted across Yaks’s face. “Annoy you? When people say you use drugs?”

“It wouldn’t annoy me if everyone around me weren’t so hellbent on believing it,” Kent growled. Management might have toned down his PR work when Teddy has reached out about his concerns and Wolfe had backed him, but it still ate away at Kent that the higher-ups had allowed it to reach that point. The staff of his own team didn’t trust him, and no matter what Kent did for them, their opinion that he was some rabid dog in need of muzzling never seemed to change.

As if sensing his distress, an immensely fluffy calico cat butted its head against Kent’s shoulder, purring like a buzzsaw all the while. When he reached out to stroke its spine, the animal flopped over onto his lap to join the other one, content to collapse there and be adored.

“I do everything everyone asks,” he said, and even he was caught off-guard by the bitterness and defeat in his voice. “Fucking everything. And none of it matters. Nothing changes. It’s like motherfucking Animal Farm , where the only reward for good work is more work.”

For a moment, Yaks considered him, ice blue eyes narrowed in thought, and Kent wondered if he was about to be told to shut up and stop bitching.

“We not be who media tell us to be, Parson,” he said eventually. “And guys smart enough not to believe it. They see you are different than rumor. I know this.”

Carefully removing all the cats from his body, he stood and walked over to clap Kent on the back. 

“Come,” he said jovially. “You rookie, you need being eating. We piss off Canadians by feeding you better than they did. Then we say it in interview—that unfriendly Russian took care of you when Canadians did not.”

Kent snorted in spite of himself, his black mood fading, and he found himself grinning at Yaks.

“Only if I can tell them what a showboat you are in the kitchen,” he teased, and was struck by a sense of immense reward when Yaks laughed with him.

Chapter Text

PR hadn’t been lying when they’d mentioned they intended to launch an anti-drug advocacy campaign starring Kent. Other players got roped in sometimes, mostly Wolfie and the As and other team leadership. Occasionally the younger guys.

But Kent was the standard main feature, and it was clear to everyone on the team or anyone who had the barest understanding of the way the NHL functioned that he was being punished for partying during Juniors. Instead of getting to sleep late and then grab brunch with some of his younger teammates, or grab a beer and just chill at the house of an older one, he was at a conference or “luncheon” (he never fucking got enough to eat, and those meeting rooms were always goddamn freezing and then served cold sandwiches and salads). There, as cameras flashed and reporters recorded soundbytes, he read some speech, pre-approved and written by someone else, to a room full of bureaucrats, urging them to finance more anti-drug measures. It was like LVA’s personal war on drugs, except it was more of a war waged by management to salvage his reputation. 

“Christ, I hope that the front office is, like, letting you snort one line for every PR event you do,” Mads told Kent sincerely one time after they’d both finished filming an anti-drug PSA.

“Kind of you to say,” Kent replied, struggling to filter the sarcasm from his voice. The remark was thoughtful, but not in the way he wanted.

While Kent tried not to be angry about every moment of his spare time being decided by other people, it fucking infuriated him. PR wanted to file down his jagged edges, smooth away his broken pieces, until he was some kind of harmless, huggable All-American Boy-style hockey player.

God, someone in the front office probably got off on thinking about him like that. Got hard at the thought of this idealized fantasy version of him and not the real him. And then they did their damndest to force him to live this fantasy. 

And the worst part was that Kent didn’t have a choice. If he wanted Jack here by his side one day, he had to smile and play nice, pretend all of this bullshit was fine with him, because he needed management to trust him, trust his judgement.

All of the anti-drug events went about as well as standing in the bright lights before an assembly of bureaucrats and reciting a speech that bad-mouthed the very boyfriend he was trying to reconnect with could go, but it was the questions from reporters afterward that drained him. Everyone was clamoring to ask about his “motivation” for advocating for anti-drugs programs—as though it was some kind of mystery and not an event that had made national headlines just a few months ago.

The process was utterly fucking draining. Bob had warned he and Jack both that rookie year would be exhausting, that they’d be constantly hungry and tired from the season’s grind and needing to stay focused on their performance, that they couldn’t risk going out to drink every night even when they were invited. 

“Your first season can define your career,” he’d informed them bluntly. And he’d won the Cup with Montreal his rookie year and three successive seasons after that, so Kent figured he’d had a point.

One night after some anti-drug something (photoshoot, fundraiser, they all fucking blended together), Kent stumbled back to the Theodore house more exhausted than he thought humanly possible. People always talked about being weary to the bone, but Kent felt his tiredness pressing onto his skin like a Chinese handcuff. His skin itched with weariness, and when he went to scratch at his arm, his flesh ached at the slight pressure of his fingers. As he walked, his legs shook beneath him, and he fumbled with his house key as he tried to unlock the front door. Twice he dropped it, and each time when he went to retrieve it, he thought he might collapse from the dizzying rush of blood to his head.

When he finally dragged himself across the threshold, Teddy took one look at him and ushered him to the couch. 

“Jesus fuck, Kent,” he breathed, even though Lily and Maggie sitting with Elena at the kitchen table as she reviewed their homework. “Sit down before you fall down, Christ.”

Kent didn’t even have the energy to object as Elena joined them, pressing a hand to his forehead and exchanging an alarmed look with Teddy. 

“No fever,” she said with a voice of determined calm, even as an uncertain frown wrinkled her forehead. “What’s the matter, Kent? Are you sick? Are you hurt?” 

“Just tired,” Kent croaked, wanting nothing more to tell them both to quit making a fuss but unable to string the words together. “Really fucking tired.”

Neither Teddy nor Elena looked particularly convinced, but Elena smoothed a hand across his hair in a gesture that was both familiar and foreign at once.

“You stay here,” she told Kent. “Teddy’s going to stay with you, okay? I’m going to grab you something to eat and drink. But you have to sit here on the couch. Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” Kent said, wanting to tell her that she didn’t need to talk to him like he was one of her kids, but too overwhelmed by how soft and comfortable the couch was. 

“Okay.” Elena touched his shoulder, and then she was gone. 

But Teddy was still there, and that was nice. He was really comfortable, too, and Kent leaned against him, just for a moment, because he was empty and tired and dizzy, and all he wanted to do was nap— 

A sudden jolt knocked him back into awareness. Teddy was shaking him gently back the shoulder.

“Not yet, Kent,” he said. “You think to get something to eat and drink before you can sleep, okay? You’ll thank me later, I promise.”

Kent went to nod, but the simple motion had his pulse pounding through his veins, and with a mighty effort, he managed to rasp out, “Yeah. I got it,” instead.

High-pitched chattering buzzed from the kitchen, but Kent couldn’t focus on the individual words. The sounds blurred and warped in his ears, and he did his best to block it out. 

Then the cool, calming aroma of fresh melon and cucumbers floated beneath his nose. He cracked his eyes open to find Elena setting down a plate of warm food on the coffee table beside the couch and settling in on his other side. For a moment, he was confused about the lack of cucumbers or melons, but then he realized it had just been Elena’s perfume.

“I’ve got your Gatorade,” she told him, a calmness in her voice that didn’t match the alarm in her eyes. “Here.”

She wrapped his fingers around the bottle, closing her hand over his and uncrewed the cap. The drink was cold from the fridge, and he wanted to shiver from the chill, but he didn’t have the energy.

“Slow sips,” Elena instructed him as she helped him lift the bottle to his lips.

Kent had to struggle not to choke on the liquid, but it was still difficult to not chug it down; until this moment, he hadn’t registered that he was incredibly parched.

“Just like that.” Teddy’s voice was soft and warm, and Kent wanted to bury himself in it. Gentle fingers stroked at the nape of his neck, a soothing balm to his aching muscles. “Drink it down to the label, and then we’re gonna move on to getting you some food, huh?”

The only gesture Kent could summon was a tiny nod, and as he concentrated on the task Teddy had named, there was a sudden motion in front of him and then a warm weight on each of his ankles. When he could focus his eyes, Kent realized that Lily and Maggie had joined them, gazing up at him with round, frightened eyes.

“Girls,” Teddy said with a sigh, “didn’t your mom tell you to wait in the kitchen?”

“I certainly did,” Elena remarked wryly.

“We wanted to be with Kent,” Lily said stubbornly. “You said he’s not feeling well. We want to help him feel better.” 

“Are you gonna be okay, Kent?” Maggie asked, looking at him worriedly.

Never before had Kent considered just how very young she was, but with how very scared she was right now, it was impossible to ignore. A sudden urge seized him to protect her and Lily just as their parents were protecting him right now.  

Summoning all of his strength, he forced the corners of his mouth up into a smile. 

“’Course I’ll be,” he told her hoarsely. “Your mom and dad are taking good care of me. You and Lily can stay with me, if you want.”

At that, both the girls clutched his ankles harder, and as Teddy’s arm tightened around his shoulders, Elena’s arm came to wrap around them as well.

Letting out a deep breath, Kent let himself relax into the family’s collective embrace, an undeniable feeling of safety and contentedness settling over him like a comforting blanket.

As he allowed his exhaustion to overtake him, he realized that for the first time since arriving in the Theodore household, he felt like he was part of the family. 

The next day, Kent slept through his alarm, and it was Teddy who had to rouse him for practice, waving off Kent’s apologies when he tried to offer them.

“No big deal, Parse,” he said affably as he swung behind the wheel of his SUV. “But I wanted you to know that I called PR already. Told them they needed to scale things back. Wolfie told them the same thing when I explained about you.”

Kent blinked several times, unable to disguise his surprise. “You did that for me? Wolfie did that for me?” 

Nothing could have floored him more. His reputation was the team’s fuck-up, but now a vet and his captain were willing to go out on a limb for him?

“Sure did,” Teddy said easily, reaching out to squeeze the back of Kent’s neck before rummaging in a brown paper bag and bringing out a blueberry bagel laden with peanut butter. “You need someone to stand up for you, you just say the word. Now, here, take your breakfast and eat up. You need to keep pounding the calories.”

Kent was glad to have the excuse to eat, because then he didn’t have to explain the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat.

Chapter Text

Though Kent was the only rookie on the roster, a bunch of the younger guys usually asked him to hit the town with them. Sometimes Kent took them up on it, but most times, he didn’t, preferring to skip over the louder, adrenaline-fueled clubs in favor of hitting the low-key bars preferred by the older players.

The favorite haunt of the vets was a brewpub near the financial district called the King’s Crown. With a classic bar of polished hardwood that gleamed under the subdued but warm yellow lighting and decor that was mainly industrial with just a few hints of glitz and glamour spritzed throughout the room, the establishment was Kent’s newly preferred combination of modern but low-key. The place wasn’t ritzy enough to need to worry about anonymity, but it was slick and stylish enough that Kent never got tired of going there. And there was something oddly comforting about being crowded into a booth beside two of his hulking teammates and being jostled by their shoulders every time they took a swig from their beer. 

Maybe he just ached for contact now that Jack was gone.

(But Kent could fix things. If he played well enough, if he worked hard enough, he could prove he belonged here, and he could win Jack a place here, too.)

To Kent’s surprise, Jeff tagged along with Kent and the vets, joining them at their regular hangout more often than when he went with the younger guys. Kent wasn’t quite sure why. He went along with the vets because he had something to prove, because he wanted to show them he could handle his liquor and didn’t spend his off hours with hookers and blow. What Jeff got out of it, he had no idea.

Nevertheless, every time Jeff got squashed into a booth beside him, he turned to Kent and shot him a brilliant smile.

And sometimes, Kent found himself smiling back.

One particular night as a group of the Aces were about to saunter into the Crown, a middle-aged man in a Pittsburgh Penguins T-Shirt and wearing his sunglasses backwards around his head shoved in between them.

“Wolfenheimer, right?” he asked Wolfie, and before Wolfie could respond, turned to the rest of their teammates. “Hey, you’re all Aces. Mind getting a photo?” Without waiting for permission from any of them, he thrusted his phone at Kent. “Snap a pic for us, won’t you?”

Bemused, Kent accepted the phone, switched to camera mode and snapped a couple of photos, barely able to hold back a snicker at some of the flummoxed faces of his older teammates.

“Just stellar,” Backwards-Sunglasses Penguins fan declared carelessly, snatching his phone back from Kent after a few shots. “The guy in my CrossFit group will never fucking believe I saw all of you. Good luck with your season—that Pierson kid is really lighting the ice straight up.”

Without thanking any of them, he strode off, both he and his sunglasses vanishing into the night crowd.

“Jesus, what a douche,” Wolfie said distastefully, shaking his head, but he smiled when he glanced at Kent. “But good job with the photos, there, Pierson.”

Kent snorted. “No, no, Pierson is the hockey guy. I’m the camera guy.” He thumped Wolfie on the back, and then did the same to Katzy beside him. “I’m in charge of capturing your beautiful mugs.”

“Only ours,” Katzy agreed, smirking at the rest of the group. “None of the rest of these ugly motherfuckers.”

He was met with a chorus of protests and answering insults, but in the midst of it, Kent noticed a couple of the other vets sending speculative glances his way. But before he could muse on it, Wolfie fell back beside him, swiping off his snapback and skimming his hands lightly through Kent’s hair before replacing it again. 

“You’re all right, you know that?” he said to Kent without elaborating. “Don’t let anyone tell you different, kid.”

And with that, he caught up to the other vets further ahead.

“You’re more than all right,” Jeff said to Kent softly as they stepped into the Crown’s dim lighting. “You’re fantastic. A real class act.”

Kent’s stomach fluttered, and he looked away, cursing the sudden heat beneath his skin. A blush ignited in his face, crawling across his cheeks and down his neck. “Don’t say that in public, or Don Cherry will have your citizenship revoked.”

Jeff flashed him a grin as he once again made certain to cram in next to Kent as they slid into their usual booth. “Gotta say, I wouldn’t mind being exiled from the True North for you.”

Kent flushed further; he was sure it must have been obvious even in the dark bar, especially when Jeff pressed his warm, solid thigh into his own. Though Kent tried to center himself by drawing in a deep breath, he only breathed in the comforting scent of Jeff’s cologne, sandalwood and smoke filling his senses. 

The exchange replayed in Kent’s mind for hours afterward, but he was sure to leave it out entirely when he composed that week’s letter to Jack.

After Kent had barely stumbled home to the Theodore household that night, Teddy had mentioned speaking to management about letting up on Kent. But after a few weeks, Kent began to suspect Teddy might have also put in a word to the team about looking out for him.

The first instance came just after the season began, when Kent discovered that it wasn’t just the reporters who were willing to use Jack’s overdose against him. 

It was Penguins v. Aces, and Kent just secured their fifth goal of the night. The Penguins were down by three; tensions were high, their frustration almost enough to melt the ice. 

After accepting the standard hugs and helmet pats from his teammates, Kent turned to skate away, but a jeer in Quebec French grabbed his attention.

“[[You’re very fast, Parson, I can say that,]]” Number Fifty-Eight, a Pens defenseman, told him. “[[Too bad you’re not as fast when it comes to calling the ambulance.”]] The upper lip of his immensely punchable face curled into a smirk. “[[Unless that was intentional on your part, eh?]]”

Initially, Kent had resolved to simply skate away, but at that last remark, he whirled around, determined to give Number Fifty-Eight what he was asking for. Just as he moved to rip off his gloves, one of the vets, Katzy, manifested out of nowhere to grab Kent by the scruff of his neck and steer him away.

“Leave it, Parse,” Katzy advised him, ushering Kent out of clobbering range of Number Fifty-Eight.  

“But I—” 

“Leave it,” Katzy told him, his tone firm.

Gritting his teeth, Kent complied, wondering if it was worth it to risk a hooking penalty next time he was down at the Pens’ goal.

But he needn’t have bothered, because with six minutes left of play, Katzy slammed Number Fifty-Eight face-first against the boards.

“When I say ‘leave it’, I mean ‘leave it to me’,” Katzy explained to Kent on his way to the penalty box.

“I didn’t know you spoke French,” Kent commented to him as the team gathered for bowls of post-game pasta.

“Oh, I don’t,” Katzy informed him with a wave of his hand. “But when you’ve been chirping dudes as long as I have, you can recognize when someone has crossed the line.” He assessed Kent with a knowing gaze. “Figured whatever that jackass said, it was pretty vile, so I thought I’d give him what was coming.”

Heat rose in Kent’s face at his teammate’s scrutiny, but he forced himself to meet his gaze all the same. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“It’s what teammates do,” Katzy replied easily. “Eat your pasta.”

 A week later found Kent breaking from his usual habits and hanging out at some trendy new bar with the younger players. But even as he slid into the gleaming chrome barstool at the counter back-lit with violet neon, a strangely distant sense of woozieness seeped through him as a dull ache started to pound away at the base of his skull. With a grimace, he dropped his head into his hands, trying to push back the faint sensation of illness that was creeping down his throat.

“Look alive, Parser,” Mads advised him, pressing a glass of some suspiciously vivid multi-layered drink into his hands. “And hey, if you don’t, take a sip, and it’ll get your blood pumping.” 

Not actually wanting the drink but not having a better idea, Kent automatically lifted the glass to his lips, and then almost gagged on some cocktail that managed to be both intensely sweet and unexpectedly bitter. The liquor burned all the way down his throat and churned violently in his stomach, and he slammed the glass back on the countertop, gasping for breath. 

On his other side, Javier, a teammate with several years on them both, glanced up from his phone to stare at Kent quizzically. “You good, rookie?”

Several heartbeats passed before Kent realized Javvy was addressing him. When he did, he couldn’t remember the question and instead just stared at him in confusion.

The response evidently didn’t satisfy Javvy; with lightning speed, he snagged Kent’s wrist, feeling his pulse for several seconds and frowning. “Did you take something?”

“He just needs a drink,” Mads insisted, but Javvy shook his head.

“Get that shit away from him,” Javvy ordered, flagging down the bartender. “I think he’s dehydrated. Miss, could we get a special drink here? Half orange juice, half water?”

The bartender, a busty young woman wearing a skimpy black halter top and wine-red lipstick, took one look at Kent and immediately produced the requested beverage, complete with a straw. She then stationed herself nearby, not hovering but within earshot, obviously anticipating an emergency that would require further assistance and ready to leap at that call. Mads remained as well, and he did hover.

But Javvy was calm as he leaned in, holding the glass and pushing the straw between Kent’s lips. “Drink. Get those electrolytes back into balance.”

Several minutes passed before Kent could drain the glass, and while he only felt marginally better after he’d done so, he at least was able to talk now.

“Better?” Javvy asked briskly.

“Better,” Kent agreed, his voice still hoarse.

“Thank fucking Christ,” Mads said, sagging in relief.

“Seems like you’re just fucking exhausted. You should have a sober night,” Javvy told Kent bluntly. “You probably could use it.”

Though Kent expected the familiar flush of shame and anger to set in, none arrived. Maybe it was the lack of condemnation on Javvy’s part, but he couldn’t summon up anything besides relief and gratitude.

So he nodded without protest, and Mads slipped off his stool to stand beside him. 

“I’ll help you back to our booth,” he offered guiltily, and Kent accepted.   

But the simplest, kindest act came from Jeff one time when they sat together on the team plane. The air conditioning was intense, and the sweatshirt Kent had donned before the flight wasn’t enough to stop him from shivering. The air was cool enough that he couldn’t sleep, and he needed to clench his teeth to stop them from chattering.

Then there was a faint rustle, and Jeff’s voice drifted out of the darkness. “Hey. You up for sharing my blanket?”

Stunned, Kent opened and closed his mouth several times before he could formulate a response. 

“Yeah,” he managed at last. “That would be cool. I mean, if it’s okay with you.”

“I got you, bro,” Jeff murmured sleepily, and shifted momentarily before flapping his puffy throw up and then settling it over them both.

“Thanks,” Kent said quietly. Even though he couldn’t even catch Jeff’s gaze in the darkness, his face was burning for a reason he couldn’t name.

“No problem,” Jeff told him softly. 

Within moments, his breathing had evened out again, and he was back to sleep. Just as Kent was concentrating on relaxing, a warm weight dropped against his shoulder, and it registered that Jeff was leaning against him and resting his head there. 

And Kent was more than content to let him do so, drifting off to sleep even while very conscious of Jeff right there beside him.

Even while he’d been warned that his first year in the league would be exhausting, Kent was caught off-guard by the speed at which the games and practices blurred by, the main division between them only the constant search for food and sleep. It seemed like he was always either in the process of searching for his next meal or nap, or if he wasn’t, he was already en route to one of the rinks. The constant travel also wreaked havoc with his sleep schedule, and oftentimes when the plane returned to Vegas in the early morning, he remained frustratingly awake even when Teddy went upstairs for a few more hours of rest.

Before he had fully registered that the season had launched into full swing, December was already upon them, and it became impossible to avoid the constant stream of reminders for the holiday season. Christmas loomed over him, the cheerful carols and sparkling decorations threatening to drag him into a dour mood at the slightest glimpse of them.

Early on, Elena and Teddy invited him to stay with them for the holidays.

“It’s perfectly fine,” Elena told him early one morning as they sipped their coffee together, just after Kent and Teddy had returned from an Eastern roadie. She seemed to be awake at odd hours just as Kent was whenever he was feeling restless. “We don’t expect you to travel for the holidays. We want you here. And the girls will be delighted.”

A strange choking sensation mounted in Kent’s throat, and it strained his voice when he talked. “Generous of you.” 

He didn’t mean it sarcastically, but it still sounded that way, and he flushed, turning to apologize. 

But instead of snapping at him, Elena merely shot him a sad smile and reached out to grip his hand as warm sunlight streamed in through the French windows, blurring his vision and bathing the room in a honey-hued glow.

“You need someone to be,” she said simply.

While Kent wanted to protest, the kindness in her dark eyes halted the words in his mouth, and with an uncomfortable twisting in his stomach, he realized he wanted to accept what she was offering.

So he only nodded, and sat with her in silent camaraderie as they enjoyed the sunrise together.

On Christmas Eve, Kent woke up and immediately wished he hadn’t. These days, he could never get enough sleep or get to sleep when he needed it. But today in particular both his limbs and his head ached with weariness—and he hadn’t even stood up yet. 

Probably he hadn’t slept well enough, Kent figured. He’d fallen asleep reviewing a list of line changes he wanted to experiment with for the next few practices. Injuries were beginning to plague the team, and while his liney served him well for now, he wanted both of them to be versatile if circumstances forced them to make changes.

Hauling himself out of bed, he could have sworn the room wavered around him as he stood, and for several seconds, he couldn’t remember why he’d risen in the first place. Eventually, as his gaze wandered around the room and landed on his playbook, it came back to him, and, blinking away his fatigue the best he could, he staggered over to the bathroom to splash some water on his face and hopefully drag himself back together.

But as he continued through his routine, he noticed his movements were sluggish, and he needed to steady himself several times just to yank on his sweats. Dizziness threatened to pull him down as he exited his bedroom, and to be honest, he was tempted to crawl back to bed, but the team already had enough issues with injuries at the moment. Wimping out wasn’t an option; besides, even if they had their best lines intact at the moment, Kent would have wanted to prove to the team that he belonged with them, that he was tough enough to stick with them.

When he reached the staircase, the downward slant of the stairs wobbled and shifted in front of his eyes, but Kent shoved forward, brushing a hand in front of his face as began his descent.

Just one foot in front of the other, he told himself, and in the next instant, the walls spun around him and he toppled down the staircase, collapsing in a heap on the landing right by the beat-to-hell llama statue.

Fuck. Staring groggily up at the ceiling, vaguely aware of the sound of footsteps rushing toward him, Kent closed his eyes, vowing he would open them again to speak to the person when they arrived.

When he did open his eyes again, Kent found himself lying on the enormous cushy sectional couch in the family room, a soft throw blanket tucked around his torso. Staring at the glimmering Christmas tree, decorated tastefully in blue, silver, and gold, Kent struggled to comprehend how he’d arrived there.

“Oh, thank God you’re awake.” Elena’s voice floated across to him, and then she was beside the couch, looking down and studying him critically. Her typically immaculate hair had been shoved back into a sloppy ponytail, and she still wore flannel pajamas instead of her standard New Jersey neon workout gear. “How are you doing? You were pretty out of it when Teddy and I dragged you over here, but you remembered what team you played for and what your current stats are.”

“I think—” Kent’s voice grated out of his throat, raspy and unrecognizable. “I think I’m sick.”

Elena huffed gently at him, perching delicately on the couch next to him. “You idiot. We know you’re sick. Teddy will tell your coach, don’t worry. If you can’t walk, it’s not like you could skate.”

“Should still try,” Kent muttered, trying to find the willpower to push off of the very cushy couch and stand, but Elena nixed the idea before he could move.

“The only thing you’re going to try to do is drink this.” She held up a bottle of some kind of red liquid, and it was several seconds before Kent realized it was Gatorade. “Think you can drink?”

“Yeah,” Kent croaked, as it registered that he was parched. 

“Good.” Elena moved to help him sit up, but Kent flinched back. “You okay?”

 “Fine,” Kent said automatically, to which Elena snorted. Embarrassed and frazzled, he tried to explain. “You don’t have to help me. You’ve already done enough. You shouldn’t have to, like, wait on me and pamper me and stuff. I can do it on my own.”

Elena rolled her eyes at him. “For the love of God, Kent. No one’s going to revoke my ‘Strong Woman’ card for not letting some teenager die of dehydration on my couch. Now, come on, let me help.”

Too tired to protest, Kent let her maneuver him into a sitting position, trying to help as best he could. But going from horizontal to vertical brought on a splitting headache, and he gulped down the Gatorade as fast as possible. Elena insisted he needed to drink half the bottle before he could lie down again. 

“All right,” she said, tucking the blanket back over him as he sank down to lie on the couch again. “That’s your electrolytes done with for now. Think you could handle some food? Gotta keep your strength up.”

Kent groaned. All he wanted to do was sleep. “You’re worse than your husband.” 

“This is why we got married,” Elena snarked back. “So we could hold rookies hostage on our couch and force them to eat and drink. Don’t try to go anywhere. I’ll fix you something light, okay?”

“You don’t have to go to any trouble—” Kent attempted to protest, but Elena was already rolling her eyes and huffing at him again. 

“I’m bringing you food,” she informed him. “I don’t care if you feel like you’re being spoiled, I call it being a decent human being. I’ll be back in a few minutes. You can rest until then.”

Trying to fall back to sleep, Kent closed his eyes, waiting for unconsciousness to take him. Instead, there was a flurry of whispers, and then a gummy hand was poking his cheek. Cracking open his eyes, he found Lily and Maggie eagerly awaiting him.

“Are you sick?” Maggie asked him. “Mommy says you’re sick.”

“Pretty sick, yeah,” Kent told them, unable to even feign partial enthusiasm.

“Can I read to you?” Lily asked, dark eyes wide and sincere as she held out one of her picture books. “You always read to me.”

“I can help!” Maggie offered. “I can talk about the pictures so you get to close your eyes. Mommy says that rest is important.”

A spark of warmth blazed just a touch brighter in Kent’s chest, and his throat grew tight in a way that had nothing to do with his illness. Even when he was in no condition to play with them or otherwise entertain, the girls wanted to be with him. Even though Christmas Eve offered up limitless excitement and opportunities for them, the two of them were choosing him.

A memory briefly surfaced in his brain of the first Christmas he’d spent with Bob, Alicia, and Jack when he was sixteen. They’d accepted him into their routines and traditions without question, and never in his life had any kind of gesture meant more. He’d been beyond thrilled, since he’d never had a true Christmas before, not when he was with his mom and braced for the one thing that would undoubtedly set her off.

Now, similar emotions buzzed within him, but he was too tired and unwell to grasp onto them. Instead, he simply pushed them aside in favor of scooching over on the couch and patting the space beside him. 

“What would I do without the two of you?” he wheezed out, trying his best and failing to smile.

But Lily and Maggie both beamed at him and clambered up beside him, crowding in tight to cuddle against him.

“This is my oldest book,” Lily said reverently, showing him the cover and smoothing her hand across its glossy surface. “I got it for my christening,” she added with pride.

“I like looking at all the animals,” Maggie confided in Kent. “There’s this one goat who looks really mean and scary, but I’ll cover him with my hand when we get to that page so you don’t get scared.”

“Let’s start the story. It’s called Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm. I looked and looked for that page about who it was written for, just like you showed me, but I couldn’t find it. So I’m going to pretend that it’s dedicated to our animal friends,” Lily declared.

Kent’s lips twitched, and he settled in to listen as Maggie and Lily settled in beside him, two warm, dense weights gainst his chilled, aching body.

His first Christmas in Vegas was spent mostly by dozing on the couch and gradually regaining his strength, watching the Christmas lights gleam as Lily and Maggie took turns entertaining him. 

Still, Kent couldn’t find himself to mind very much, especially when Teddy and Elena gathered with them as well, all of them crowding around him in a protective circle, like he was someone valuable and worth protecting.

Chapter Text

Being selected for the Olympics wasn’t that much of a surprise. Well, it sounded arrogant to say that out loud, but it was true. 

Management and coaches alike warned him it might happen even despite his age and his inexperience. The point streak he’d sustained throughout the first dozen games of the season caught the hockey world’s attention right away, and even after it had broken, the eyes on him hadn’t begun looking elsewhere. And honestly? With the assists he’d been making recently, there wasn’t any reason they should. Team USA snapping him up had been almost too predictable, like it was the latest box to be checked off on his journey as a hockey prodigy.

But his team was happy for him—hell, they were amazed for him.

“I honestly think you could win,” Scrappy told him in earnest. He was the third teammate Kent told, right after Teddy and Jeff.

“Just imagine if you came hold with the gold,” Mads said feverishly, as if already envisioning it. “You’d wipe those smug smiles straight off Crosby and Toews’s faces.”

“You’re Canadian. You’re supposed to be rooting for them,” Kent informed him, amused. 

“You’re our teammate,” Danno said staunchly. “We’re rooting for you.”

“I root, too,” Yaks added as he passed by, clapping Kent on the back. “Little Parse prove to Canada he belong on team, hmm?”

But the reaction that bolstered Kent the most was Jeff’s.

“Don’t tell any of my countrymen,” Jeff warned Kent. “But . . .” he tossed him a grin. “I’ve got my fingers crossed that you have the gold when you get back here.”

The confession ignited a distinct heat beneath Kent’s skin that he recognized but couldn’t place. Still, he knew enough to tell it wasn’t unpleasant. Just . . . noticeable.

And he couldn’t help but wonder for a moment what it would be like to have that smile aimed his way for real, without Jeff only pretending to like him to prove himself. It would be nice for it to be real.

But it wasn’t, and Kent couldn’t do anything about it.

Throughout the weeks leading up to the Games, he tried to ignore the question lingering in his mind if Jack would be playing for Team Canada if he hadn’t needed to drop out of the draft. But the thought needled away at him at odd moments on the flight over to Vancouver and then even more during his press rounds. 

The media was eager to gather quotes from him on being picked for the national team despite his relative youth, and they liked to pair him with the only other hockey player even close to Kent’s age, a guy from his draft year named Alexei Mashkov who went to the Falcs. Unlike Kent, Mashkov wasn’t originally intended to play at the Olympics, but several members of the Russian team had to drop out of the roster due to injuries, and Mashkov apparently was the next best choice. Or he wasn’t; the pundits seemed pretty split on his addition to the lineup. 

It made sense that the two of them were expected to do interviews together, Kent supposed, given the recent peace between their countries (for now, at least). With the US and Russia pretending to be friends for the moment, naturally it would fall to himself and Mashkov to fake being bosom buddies who were brimming with compliments for each other. Even if, in reality, Mashkov was a wealthy Russkie from a family of snotty celebrity athletes who would sooner sneer at someone of Kent’s background than offer any kindness.

Fucking rich people. The single unifier amongst them across the globe was that they were all a bunch of snobs. 

Still, Mashkov didn’t seem like a snob—he mostly seemed befuddled and more than slightly overwhelmed by all the reporters speaking to them. Almost every question had to be repeated or reworded at least twice before Mashkov was able to respond. 

“Your father was a five-time winner of the Soviet Cup and two-time Russian Superleague champion,” a woman with a Sportsnet microphone said to Mashkov. “However, due to a variety of circumstances, he was never able to compete at the Olympics. You’ve been selected during your first season in the NHL. Do you see this as a way you can continue your father’s legacy?”

A sharp ache pierced through Kent at the question, lancing from his heart to his fingertips, coursing through every inch of his being. In a different universe, maybe one where life was reasonable or just a little bit more fair, it would be Jack sitting beside him at the Olympics and being asked about his father’s legacy, not some Russian stranger. 

Jack would hate that, the traitor voice in Kent’s head whispered. He’d hate being asked about his father, he’d already have that weighing him down the entire time he was here.

Mashkov didn’t seem thrilled by the question either. “Would you . . . being repeat question?” he asked haltingly. 

Kent had lost track of the number of times he’d requested that. Frankly, he was surprised Mashkov’s English wasn’t better; it wasn’t as if he couldn’t have afforded lessons growing up.

The next question was for Kent. “How did your family react when you told them that you’d been selected for the national team?”

Kent answered automatically; he’d rehearsed his response to this question and similar ones (unlike Mashkov, probably). “I phoned Bob and Alicia right away. Alicia was on a break from set, but she still took the call so she could get excited about it with me. And Bob already knew it was going to happen, so he wasn’t really surprised, but he congratulated me and was thrilled that I had this opportunity. They’re both proud of me, and I can’t wait to go ahead and make them proud in return.”

But just as he finished speaking, he found himself second-guessing his reply. He’d called Bob and Alicia, sure, and yeah, they’d been happy for him. But what sprung into his mind now was how his teammates had encouraged him and cheered him on even though he was playing for an opposing team. How the Theodores had responded to his invitation.

“You’re leaving? Where are you going?” Lily had asked, her expression crestfallen, and Kent had rushed to reassure her that it was only temporary. He hadn’t even hesitated.

“We’ll miss you!” Maggie had told him, her dark eyes huge and sincere.

 “I knew they’d pick you,” Teddy had said with certainty when Kent had first told him. “I’ve never seen a kid willing to put in the work the way you are.”

“I’ll miss our morning coffee,” Elena had said, her manner heartfelt. And then, no less heartfelt, she’d added, “But carry on, wayward son, and kick ass.”

Suddenly, Kent found himself wishing he’d talked about them instead, talked about the warmth that filled his chest at the thought of them even despite telling himself he should know better by now.

But he was dragged out of his thoughts by the next question directed at Mashkov. 

“Given historic tensions between the United States and Russia, if President Obama were to offer an invitation to the White House in the event of a Russian hockey team victory, would you be willing to attend?” another reporter asked, thrusting his recorder in Mashkov’s face.

Good God, a political question. Kent had been lucky enough to avoid them so far. Mashov might have money, but it seemed like he didn’t have Kent’s good fortune. He had the smarts to hesitate before answering, though, seeming to recognize the loaded grenade before him even if he didn’t know how to react to it, glancing silently and desperately from one reporter to another as if searching for a savior.

As much as Kent wanted to sit back and enjoy the show without lifting a finger to help, he couldn’t help but picture Yaks here in Mashkov’s place, struggling to answer a question designed to be inflammatory in a language he already clearly struggled with. He tried to suppress his conscience by reminding himself that he shouldn’t be attached to Yaks in the first place, and that Yaks’s English was so good he wouldn’t have had a problem, but it didn’t work. 

Instead, he just found himself picturing Jack here instead of Mashkov, struggling to respond to yet another question about his dad. Kent knew he would have dove into the fray to help him without a moment’s hesitation.

He’d rescued Jack; he always had. He was still trying to rescue him.

But in this moment, there was no Jack to rescue. There was only Mashkov. 

And fuck, even though Kent knew better, he wanted to rescue him. Not that Mashkov would have ever done the same. (Fucking rich people.)

Still, Kent consoled himself, trying to be a good person might be thankless and particularly hopeless for him, but at least he knew going in that a hoity-toity rich bastard like Mashkov would never be grateful anyway. 

So Kent did what Kent Parson did best: think fast so he could be suave and marketable.

“You know, Mashkov and I were actually discussing that earlier, in light of the recently improved US-Russia relations,” Kent interjected smoothly, drawing all eyes to himself, including Mashkov’s. “We both agreed that if either of us received an invitation from the other country’s leaders, we’d accept it in spirit of honoring the reset proposed by our governments this past summer. Both the US and Russia are exploring a mutual trust in decreasing our nuclear weapons. And therefore, it’s only reasonable to expect that as representatives of our respective countries, we’d be willing to display that trust as well. Isn’t that right, Mashy?”

Mashkov just stared at him, expression befuddled, and Kent had to fight against the temptation to roll his eyes and instead held Mashkov’s gaze determinedly, trying to convey a message. I’ve just saved your ass. Now nod your head enthusiastically, you dick.

Eventually, Mashkov nodded slowly. “We be honoring countries,” he said, painstakingly sounding out each syllable. “Parson be right.”

Thank God. Relief surged through Kent, and he found himself surprised by its intensity considering he didn’t give a damn about Mashkov. But playing white knight, well, it just—it seemed natural, somehow. Like it fit.

Like he should be trying to be a good person instead of trying not to be one.

You helped one rich Russian dude, Kent reminded himself, irritated. You’re not exactly on the list for the Nobel Peace Prize.

But he went back and forth with himself about it throughout the remainder of the interview, and by the time it ended, he eagerly exited the press room. No sooner had he entered the corridor again, however, did Mashkov, following him, grab his shoulder. Steeling himself for some kind of dispute about his interview answer, Kent pushed back his shoulders and whirled in his direction, waiting for Mashkov to make the first move.

But Mashkov didn’t seem ready to fight, instead offering Kent a sheepish smile. “I’m be thank for help. So much talk . . . can be very a lot, very fast.”

“You’re welcome,” Kent told him, even though he was still skeptical why Mashkov was lingering. Was he fresh out of peasants to oppress or something and in search of fresh entertainment?

Mashkov nodded, awkwardly fiddling with his hands; he clasped them in front of him, and then put them in his pockets, and then took them again, like he didn’t know quite what to do with himself. “Would you like . . . go launch?” he asked eventually.

Frowning, Kent repeated the words in his head, struggling to whittle through Mashkov’s heavily-accented English and make sense of what he was asking.  

Mashkov seemed to recognize his confusion. “Launch,” he repeated. “You be knowing, like . . .” using a hand, he mimed eating from a utensil. “Food.”

Kent blinked. “You want me to go and have lunch with you?”

Mashkov gave a shy shrug. “If you are not being planned. I am wanting to practice speak English—so there be less of that for me.” He sheepishly motioned back toward the press room. 

Suddenly, Kent found himself struck by an unexpected rush of sympathy for Mashkov, for being expected to interview in a language he could barely speak or understand, to be reduced to have to use hand gestures just to communicate. While they might have nothing else in common, Kent at least understood what it was like to be grilled by the press, to have to paste on a calm smile while inwardly panicking you were going to say the wrong thing.

“Lunch sounds phenomenal,” he replied firmly, surprised by the vigor in his own voice. “C’mon, let’s find someplace to eat where no jackasses are going to pester us about the Warsaw Pact.”

With that, he looped an arm around Mashkov’s back (he couldn’t reach his shoulders) surprising even himself with his boldness.  For a moment, Mashkov seemed surprised as well, but then he reciprocated, crowding in on Kent slightly so he could pull him closer, clearly glad to have him there. The unexpected show of affection had slivers of warmth igniting in Kent’s chest, and though he never would have predicted it, they had a nice meal together, limited communication interfering plenty but never ruining the mood. When it ended, they made plans to eat together again the next day, and when that meal finished as well, they arranged for another dinner together.

When Kent left Vancouver, it was with a first-place medal and all of the accompanying acclaim for scoring “the golden goal” at Vancouver. The media was already calling him “the golden boy from Sin City” on the TV and radio when Elena picked him up from the airport, and Kent couldn’t help but grin and grip his medal when he first heard the nickname. Even so, the first thing he did when he got back from the airport was hand his medal over and let Lily and Maggie take turns wearing it. 

“It’s just like the medal Leia gave Luke for blowing up the Death Star!” Lily enthused as Maggie tried to glimpse her reflection in the gleaming surface.

Kent laughed, ruffling her hair before Teddy crushed him into a bear hug. As he wholeheartedly returned the embrace, his phone buzzed with a new message, and when he checked, he found two new texts waiting for him. The first was from Alexei, checking to make sure Kent got home all right, and the second was from Jeff.

Glad you’re back, it read. Missed you. Won you a prize in a claw machine. Attached was a picture of a little lion plush toy. And then in a follow-up, he’d added, Games weren’t the same without you.

Kent grinned, slipping the phone into his pocket so he could break up the scuffle between Lily and Maggie about whose turn it was with the medal.

Despite all his wonder and worry about Jack, even an Olympic victory hardly seemed important. He had people who cared about him in Vegas. He’d been able to find a new friend in Russia. Who the fuck needed a medal? Now that he was back, he felt lighter, like he could laugh and smile and mean it again, like Tom Hanks in Castaway when he’d finally escaped the island and made it back to civilization.

And when he flipped the light switch that night and crawled into bed, a realization struck him: not once since receiving his invitation to the Olympics had he written a letter to Jack.

Chapter Text

Something Kent couldn’t quite name or explain shifted within himself when he got back from Vancouver, and he found himself spending more time with the guys, going out more and finally accepting invitations to just swing by someone else’s house and chill. Before, it had seemed too personal and exactly the kind of interaction he’d been looking to avoid. But now it just seemed natural, and he tried to go whenever an invitation was offered as long as he didn’t feel too worn out. 

Still, most of the time when teammates his age were gathered around the XBox and frantically battling it out on the TV screen, he found himself sitting back and leaning up against one of them. The first time had been an accident; he’d closed his eyes and accidentally drifted off against Mads’s shoulder. When he’d been jostled awake, at first Kent’s face had burned in embarrassment, but to his relief, Mads hadn’t minded.  

“No big deal, man,” he’d said, waving Kent off. “Probably better for you, anyway. Choose cuddling, not coke.”

Danno had snorted. “Yeah, Mads is just happy he gets to be the official pillow of the Aces’ first Olympic champion. It’s the best thing he’s ever done for the team.”

“Fuck you, man,” Mads replied, tossing a pillow his way, and Kent had grinned, happy to be in the midst of the camaraderie.

Frequently, Jeff ended up sitting beside him, putting an arm around Kent’s shoulders so he could lean in. He always smiled at Kent when he did, and Kent found himself smiling back. Curling up on the couch with Jeff rapidly became their own personal ritual, and Kent was comforted to know that no matter whose house they were at, Jeff would always be there to hold him. The contact was something Kent hadn’t realized he’d been missing until then.

It wasn’t Jack, but now Kent couldn’t remember a time he actually wanted it to be.

At first glance, the envelope seemed totally innocuous, nestled neatly in between one of Elena’s running magazines and the cell phone bill Kent’s carrier insisted on sending him even though he opted for automatic monthly deductions. With its thick and cream-colored paper and shape that was more of a square than a rectangle, Kent was expecting a thank-you card from whatever non-profit which he most recently donated either time or money to. He ripped it open while listening to Lily’s rant about her first-grade teacher. 

“—so I told her that flowers can so be blue! But Mrs. Shametz said there were no blue flowers. Then she made me write my name on the board!”

“Did you tell her your house has blue flowers right in the backyard?” Kent asked, jerking his head in the general direction of the hydrangea bush.

“I know! I said! But she didn’t believe me.” Lily puffed out her cheeks in annoyance.

“You could take her some flowers,” Kent suggested as he withdrew the envelope’s contents, frowning when he saw that it was a folded piece of paper instead of a card. “Just as, you know, a casual present. A thank-you present for being such a kind and caring teacher.”

Elena laughed out loud at that, setting down the polka-dot brush as she finally finished untangling the knot in Maggie’s hair. “Coming in clutch with the passive-aggressiveness there, aren’t we?” she teased, shooting Kent a sly smile. “But Kent’s right, Lily, it’s not fair that your teacher had you write your name on the board for that. And you were right about the blue flowers, too.”

Unfolding the paper with sudden trepidation, Kent found a typed letter directly addressed to himself. He was about to settle in to read it, but a tug on his jeans revealed that Maggie had crawled over to his feet and was waiting with her arms outstretched.

“Hi-eeeeeee,” she said, grinning up at him, and Kent didn’t hesitate to scoop the five-year-old up and let her burrow into his lap. 

Maggie stretched her hands to his neck and began playing with the leather cord necklace he was wearing, but Kent only vaguely registered her movements as he skimmed over the typeface. Then he went back and reread the entire letter again, just to be sure he hadn’t missed anything. Just to be sure he understood what it was telling him.

But even after that, he couldn’t quite comprehend the new reality the words created for him.

Suddenly, the house was weighing down around him, and Kent felt too big for his skin, as though with any moment his skeleton would burst out and just leave it behind as a husk. He itched for action, for movement, to be anywhere else but this low-key domestic setting.

Just as Teddy ambled into the room with a couple of DVD cases, Kent lifted Maggie out of his lap and sprung up to leave, his mouth dry and his heart pounding as he stuffed the letter into his jeans.

“I forgot I had to do something,” he said abruptly. “I have to go.”

He didn’t wait for a response—Teddy and Elena weren’t his parents, just a vet teammate and his wife, so it wasn’t as though he answered to them—and instead just blazed out of the room and toward the door, trying and failing to ignore the guilt that pierced through him at Lily’s dismayed cry of, “But you’re gonna miss the movie!”

“Be home by curfew!” Teddy called after him, and Kent gave a shout of confirmation before solidly closing the front door behind him and hastening across the Theodores’ pristine front lawn.

He needed to get out of here. Needed to get away from this picture-perfect suburban neighborhood with its immaculate McMansions, needed to get away from the reminder that he never would have picked this place to live.

Needed to get away from the reminder that he was just a guest.

The red pickup waiting for him on the curb earned him endless scorn from his teammates (“You get a signing bonus most guys only dream about, and you go out and buy a fucking Silverado ?”), but from the moment Kent had glimpsed the Nevada landscape, he’d known he’d wanted a car he could take out into the desert.

And he was itching to do just that at this very moment.

Whipping his truck around in a reckless U-turn that sent the little HOA slip on his windshield fluttering to the asphalt, Kent peeled out of the neighborhood. Spurred by the letter from Jack burning a hole in his pocket, searing past the denim and into his skin, he left the Theodores behind to enjoy family movie night without the stray they’d taken in.

As he tore away from the suburbs and toward the desert, fragments of Jack’s writing pierced through his mind, sharp enough to leave him actually wincing.

I don’t think you were ever capable of realizing that the moments you were smiling the most, I was at the absolute lowest point in my life.

“Wasn’t capable,” Kent snarled out loud as he swerved around to overtake a gold Mercury putting along at ten miles under the speed limit (probably a senior citizen). “Wasn’t capable?!” 

After all the nights he’d spent reassuring Jack that yes, of course, he’d go first in the draft, of course he’d prove that he could live up to his dad’s reputation, of course he and Kent could continue to date despite living thousands of miles apart from each other, now Jack was telling him he wasn’t capable of realizing Jack’s feelings?

“Fuck you, buddy!” Kent spat, blaring on the horn as the green minivan in front of him took about five years to make its right hand turn despite having a clear shot the whole way. “Not capable?! You’re the one who shoved a bottle of pills down your own throat!”

The minivan finally completed its turn. If there were kids inside, they were probably ready for college by now.

Kids. Parents.

Fresh anger surged through Kent at the thought.

You have no idea what it was like to be constantly competing with you for my own parents’ attention.

“You weren’t!” Kent exploded, pounding on the steering wheel with both hands and earning a blast of a horn himself as he almost veered into oncoming traffic. “It was always you, Jack. They were always there for you, not me!”

It was the truth; Bob and Alicia might have taken in Kent prior to Juniors when it was discovered his mom had simply up and left with her latest boyfriend and he had no one else, but they’d never had less time for Jack because of it. And sure, maybe Kent meshed with Alicia more than Jack did, and maybe his personality was more like Bob’s than Jack’s was, but it wasn’t as if he’d stolen them away from him. He and Jack had played on the same team, on the same line. So what if Bob and Alicia had come to games to watch them both instead of just Jack? It didn’t actually make a difference.

Besides, Kent knew for a fact that Jack didn’t even want his parents at games most of the time. 

“Sucks that they couldn’t make it,” Kent had once told Jack conversationally, back when they were sixteen. Blizzards across the US had grounded Alicia and Bob’s plane as they tried to return from Alicia’s latest movie premiere. 

Jack had just shrugged. “I prefer it when they’re not here,” he’d admitted. “It’s less distracting for me.”

Kent had simply sat there, stunned that Jack had two parents who were honestly interested in him and his activities and yet didn’t want them around.

Now, when his life was divided into two separate halves, with Jack’s overdose serving as the dividing marker, he could look back with a little more sympathy, understand a little bit better about the pressure weighing Jack down.

Still didn’t mean he bought into these lines of bullshit Jack had sent to him, though.

Anger continued to boil within Kent, his fingers tightening on the wheel until his knuckles went white. He didn’t even realize he’d closed his eyes until he opened them again, his heart leaping into his throat as he realized the cars ahead of him were halted for a red light and he was barreling toward them at full speed. Slamming his brakes, tires squealing in protest, he just barely managed to avoid rear-ending the Volvo in front of him, earning a reprieve as the light changed to green again and the cars started moving forward just as his truck jolted to a halt. 

Still, his hands trembled violently as he shifted back into gear, and Kent was well aware that the near miss was a glaring warning sign he needed to get off the road. Forget the desert; if he went on like he was, he was going to get someone killed. New tension coiling in his shoulders, his jaw still clenched in anger, he resolved to hop off the main roads as soon as possible. He needed to fill up the truck’s tank, anyway.

Fifteen minutes later found him at a colossal gas station, fueling up his truck and himself after a reminder text from Teddy to make sure he was getting his nighttime protein in. The message didn’t mention anything about Kent’s abrupt decision to skip out on movie night, but Kent couldn’t help but feel like it was somehow a condemnation all the same. 

Tucking his phone away in a fruitless attempt to put it onto his mind, he concentrated on eating his jerky and sipping from his water bottle, a sad, grimy imitation of a roadside picnic. Sitting on the lowered tailgate of his truck, he listened to the metallic hiss and fizzle of the flickering fluorescent light ten feet above him, observing the reappearing and disappearing fragments of shadows it threw across the stained cement below. When he got tired of that, he watched the cars stream onto the interstate, a flood of red tail light flares against the darkening horizon. He thought briefly about following them, about diving into his truck and roaring off somewhere, anywhere.

But if Jack’s letter was clear about one thing, it was that Kent didn’t have a place anywhere but in Vegas, that he’d never had a home with the Zimmermanns in Drummondville as he thought he did.

When I look back at the time you and I spent together, I realize those were some of the worst moments of my life.

It shouldn’t have hurt to see that, shouldn’t have sped up his pulse till his hands were shaking with adrenaline, shouldn’t have his breath bursting out of his throat like Jack had just punched him in the stomach. By now he knew that Jack didn’t give a damn about his feelings; if he had, he would have texted Kent and thanks him for the Christmas presents he sent to him and his family, called and congratulated him on winning the gold for Team USA at the Vancouver Olympics last month, or returned any one of the dozens of voicemails Kent had left for him during his time at training camp before he realized that Jack was never going to call back. 

And Kent was annoyed with himself, the player who’d won the Olympics for his team, the leading point scorer in the Pacific division (and he was coming for Crosby next, no mistake about it), the top draft pick who was more than making good on his name, for still hurting. If anything, he should be able to clench his jaw and swallow the pain and get over it.

But he couldn’t, and the knowledge of all his successes was like a dash of bleach into his wounds than any kind of remedy, because he knew he would have happily shared his victories with Jack. Or, if it were an option, he would have given them all up and settle for mediocrity if it meant having Jack at his side again. 

And now Kent had this letter to prove to himself that he was an idiot for it.

Once he’d finished gassing up his truck, a growing sense of hollowness in his stomach told Kent the jerky hadn’t been a sufficient dinner for a hockey player. Resolving to find some actual food, he fished his phone out of his pocket and ignored the texts and calls from Teddy and Elena, but with a jolt, quickly responded to a few questioning ones from Jeff. He’d entirely forgotten that they were supposed to hang out once movie night with the girls had finished up. Now, after a quick exchange, they agreed to meet up at a specialty taco place that was a favorite of the team.

The restaurant was of the “traditional with a twist” hipster variety, and instead of the traditional colorful decor associated with Mexican restaurants, the wallpaper featured black and white Dia De Los Muertos skulls, the only color the occasional flower included on the pattern. Figuring the least he could do to apologize for keeping Jeff waiting was to make sure dinner was waiting for him, Kent went ahead and ordered a platter featuring each of the specialty tacos and then sunk into a corner both, sipping at an elderberry margarita and staring at the wall until the black outline blended with the white skulls to form gray.

“ ’Sup, man?” came a cheerful voice, knocking Kent out of his reverie, and he swiveled his head to find Jeff had arrived.

Though Jeff had been smiling widely, the expression dimmed as he caught a full glimpse of Kent. 

“Jesus,” he breathed. “You look—” he tried a last-minute attempt at tact. “Not great,” he finished lamely.    

“I feel like shit,” Kent said bluntly, too tired and frustrated to pretend otherwise, even if Jeff was reporting to management. He gestured at the bench across from him. “Sit down, have a taco.”

There was a brief moment of hesitation, and then Jeff tentatively sat down, forgoing the other side of the booth in favor of sitting beside Kent.

The choice surprised Kent, but he didn’t give enough of a damn to remark on it.

“Did something happen?” Jeff asked quietly. “No one’s said anything in our team text, so . . . bad news from home?” 

Silence ensued as Kent contemplated the question, taking a moody swig of his margarita. Was his home with the Zimmermanns? They’d effectively decided for him that it wasn’t, but only a few months ago, he would have emphatically insisted that there was no place he’d rather be than with them in Montreal. But now he couldn’t say, and not just because of the hurt and bitterness storming within him brought on by Jack’s letter. Even if he hadn’t opened it and learned its contents, Montreal didn’t hold the prime place in his heart it once had.

And yet, Jack’s letter still stung. 

He didn’t look at Jeff when he answered, instead staring at the taco he’d taken one single bite out of before realizing that in spite of his growling hunger, it was too painful to swallow.

“You always hear people talk about ‘one step forward, two steps back,’ ” he said finally. “But I don’t think that covers what’s happening with me. I take one step forward, and then someone or something leaps out at me and shoves me back so far I end up all the way past the starting line. And the worst part is that no one fucking realizes it. Everyone just thinks it’s my fault, that I’m not trying enough, that I’m not doing enough—” his mind whirled with thoughts of Jack’s letter and all the accusations it contained, “—all because I can’t fucking read people’s minds or the future. I try, and I try, and I try, but no one gives a damn, because it doesn’t work out like they expected it to. I’m breaking my back to try to be enough for everyone else, and everyone still thinks I’m the world’s biggest fuckup.”   

His voice cracked during the last sentence, and to Kent’s mortification, he realized he was embarrassingly close to tears. As he struggled to swallow, struggled to bottle up his pain and anger and shove it safely away, Jeff very gently curled an arm around his shoulder.

“You’re enough for me,” Jeff said softly.

Self-consciousness prickled through Kent—sure, teammates hugged him all the time, but he couldn’t remember the last time someone had actually held him. But he was desperate for comfort. He wanted someone to tell him that life would go on without Jack or Bob and Alicia, that it was all right his life was in tatters, that it could be mended. He wanted someone to reassure him that he wasn’t a fool for spending the past six months trying to salvage a relationship with his one-time boyfriend and best friend who he only now realized wanted nothing more to do with him.

So he allowed Jeff to wrap his arms around him and let himself lean and rest his forehead against Jeff’s shoulder. For the first time, he was very aware that Jeff had nearly six inches on him, but he didn’t feel threatened by it at all. Instead, for some inexplicable reason, the knowledge of Jeff’s size helped him feel . . . safe.

Protected, almost.

Trying to put himself at ease, Kent did his best to relax into the embrace, breathing in the scent of sandalwood and woodsmoke that clung to Jeff’s neck, concentrating on the warmth of his skin emanating through his shirt. He thought that maybe if he stayed still enough, he could hear the beating of Jeff’s heart.

But then Jeff moved. Not just moved, he leaned in and lightly brushed his lips over Kent’s temple.

A few seconds passed before Kent realized it had been a kiss. Barely a kiss, but a kiss all the same.

In that instant, he shot backward. “What in the actual fuck.” His voice was so flat it wasn’t even a question.

An array of emotion flashed across Jeff’s features, guilt most prominent of them all. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—”

“You kissed me,” Kent said, voice still flat. “Why the fuck did you kiss me?”

Jeff stared at him. “I thought you knew. I mean, we spend all of this time together, so I thought—”

“But I’m not—you weren’t—you think I’m a douchebag!” Kent accused him, his mind racing and his pulse thrumming through his veins. “You’re only spending time with me so you can look like leadership material to management!”

“What?” Open hurt was evident on Jeff’s face. “What the fuck—is that what you think of me?”

Guilt flooded through Kent, along with confusion and skepticism, and most bewilderingly of all, hope. “Isn’t that what’s going on?”

“No.” Jeff tossed him a glance of utter astonishment and shook his head. “That’s never what’s been going on. I wasn’t sure about you at first, just like everyone else wasn’t sure, but after I saw you putting in all those hours with Scrappy, I figured you were all right. That’s why I asked you to road trip to the Grand Canyon with me. That’s why I’ve been hanging out with the vets at the Crown—because that’s where you are.” 

“What?” The words washed over Kent, but he couldn’t comprehend them.

“You really thought I didn’t like you?” Jeff asked desperately. “Was it something I did? Because all along, I just wanted to be around you, and—look, I like being around you, okay? You’re a good guy, no matter what anyone says.” He hesitated for a moment, and then plowed on. “And I’m sorry that I kissed you—I don’t know what I was doing. But it’s fine if you don’t like it.”

But Kent had liked it. He had liked being held and kissed by Jeff, being treated like he was precious. He wanted more.

Even as Jack’s letter still scalded his skin through the pocket of his jeans.      

What was he doing? Bouncing from one failed romance straight to another attempt? 

“I gotta go,” he said mechanically, crushing down a spontaneous desire to bury his face in Jeff’s shoulder again. “Let me out, I need to pay the waitress.”

Still trying to make amends, Jeff moved aside so Kent could exit the booth, speaking rapidly as he did, but the blood pounding in his ears drowned out whatever Jeff was trying to say. Spotting his waitress by another table, Kent wordlessly slipped her a fifty and then strode toward the door, ignoring Jeff’s worried call after him.

Kent might never drive his Silverado through the snow, but the truck was good for one thing: he could charge down desert roads with abandon, drive until the asphalt gave way to mere dust, and push forward until anyone else might have turned around. And that was what he did, just drove until he reached a lonely stretch where he knew no one else would even have reason to pass by. When he swung down out of the truck cab, the Vegas lights were a glittering jewel on the horizon, but if he turned around he could look up at the inky night sky and pretend that it wasn’t there. 

It had been forever since he’d been stargazing, Kent realized with a fierce pang that had him drawing in a sharp breath. Back in Montreal, he and Jack could slip off into the backyard anytime, curl up against each other in an attempt to fend off the night’s chill, and pick out every constellation. But in Vegas, most of the time, the light from the Strip bleached out the stars, and he’d almost forgotten they were there at all. 

Now, Kent climbed onto the hood of his truck, clambering up gracelessly so he could stretch out and lean back onto the windshield. The only defense against the desert wind ruffling his T-shirt was the faint heat emanating from the car’s engine, but he refused to let it bother him, instead concentrating on the patterns of stars lining the sky. He could spot Ursa Major without a problem, and Ursa Minor was there, too, and he thought he could maybe pick out a few points of Orion. Beyond that, nothing else was visible, the glare of the Vegas lights too strong even all the way out here. 

A fresh wave of disappointment flooded him; if nothing else, he would have at least been able to still keep up his hobbies from his old life, but now even that seemed like it had been taken from him.

Only for now, though, Kent told himself. You can go camping somewhere and see them. You could take Jeff and—

As the thought registered, his pulse thundered through his veins and his entire body tensed. The idea slipped into his mind so easily, as if it was something that could actually happen, like it wasn’t some far-flung fantasy of someone who was thoroughly fucked up as Kent was.

Shaking his head at himself, he fished his pocket out of his phone, tapping at the screen and automatically raising Jack’s number. Back when he’d first arrived in Vegas, it had been the first one listed in his contacts thanks to the frequency of his calls. But now it had fallen well below any of Kent’s teammates or management.

As always, Kent raised his thumb to punch the button, but then he paused. He knew he needed to listen to the message, knew he needed to remind himself of what he’d lost and what he’d be losing again if he tried to start anything with Jeff. 

But he didn’t fucking want to. He was tired of being miserable, tired of telling himself it was wrong to like people on his team, tired of forcing himself to hurt over and over in the name of stopping future hurt.

He was just . . . really fucking tired. And tired of Jack in particular.

Kent had loved him. He knew it and he’d always known it. A part of him would always regret not having the life he’d dreamed of with Jack, of meeting on ice as rivals and challenging each other, pushing each other to their very fiercest play, their deepest limits, only to them meet up for dinner at a fancy restaurant or wild sex at an elegant hotel afterward. 

But another part of him, a stronger part, knew it wasn’t just that he couldn’t have that life any longer, but that he didn’t want that life any longer. 

He wanted Jeff, who raced out of the club to check on him, worried for him in a way Jack hadn’t been in almost a year. He wanted Yaks, who doted on him and worried if he had enough to eat. He wanted Scrappy, who trusted Kent to help him and believed in Kent’s talents in turn, and Katzy, who cheerfully boarded anyone who gave Kent too much shit on the ice. He wanted Wolfie, who stood by him when he needed it. He wanted Teddy and Elena and Maggie and Lily, who seemed to want him back and never held his moodiness against him.

He didn’t want that life in Montreal, or life in the NHL with Jack by his side, Kent realized. Not anymore. He wanted this life. This life he’d built with the Aces, without Jack. He’d done his best to pretend he shouldn’t, he’d done his best to convince himself that he was a fool for it. But he couldn’t keep fighting, and he didn’t want to.

And these people wanted him. 

And Jeff wanted him. Jeff had praised him, he’d kissed him, he’d brought him out to the Grand Canyon, brought him to see the lions when Kent had told him he hadn’t been able to go with the rest of the rookies.

Jeff treated him like he mattered. He didn’t ignore Kent for months at a time. He didn’t expect Kent to live solely as his liney or his emotional support boyfriend.

Did Kent want him?

Adrenaline surged in Kent’s veins as he realized he didn’t know the answer, not right away. Thoughts and emotions about Jack, Bob, and Alicia whirled and collided in his brain—anger at them all for leaving him alone out here, an unwilling understanding about why they needed the space and thought he should move on, and an ever-simmering desperation to one day reconnect with all of them, to restore all of his happy memories with them into being a happy existence with them.

But maybe Bob had been right. Kent did need to move on in some way, and he had—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought about Jack signing to the Aces. He couldn’t remember the last moment he’d consciously wished for Bob or Alicia rather than Teddy or Elena.

What he wanted was permission, Kent realized. Permission to move on, permission to start over. What he wanted was for someone to tell him that he didn’t need to feel guilty anymore.

But Bob had done so, right before the end of Kent’s rookie camp, urging him to let go of Jack and embrace his life with his teammates.

And Kent had done so, even when he hadn’t meant to. He could have isolated himself, he could have refused Jeff’s invitations, he could have brushed off Lily and Maggie—but he hadn’t.

He wanted this life. He wanted to start over. 

“I want this life,” he murmured, his words stolen away by the whisper of the night wind. “I want my life.”

Because it was his. His old life in Montreal had been wiped away the moment Jack had swallowed those pills. But he’d forged a new life for himself with people who cared.

“I want my life,” he repeated, firmer and louder.

The only response the desert had for him were the distant yips of a coyote echoing against canyon walls and the faint call of an owl carried along by the breeze, almost overwhelmed by the rattle and rasp of dry limbs from the few trees scattered nearby. When he breathed in, he could taste the fresh herbal tang of the creosote leaves in the air.

But Kent didn’t need an answer. He’d already found one on his own, and he no longer needed anyone’s permission.

Somewhere nearby, a creature skittered across a rock, the muted scraping of its claws amplified by the stillness of the desert. A dozen yards away, the faint outlines of several mule deer stood, barely visible against an outcropping as they crept out of the shadows to nibble at the chaparral.

Out here, Kent was utterly alone. But now, immersed in his newfound peace, he found he didn’t mind.

It was nearing midnight when Kent finally arrived back at the Theodore house. After finally reaching his conclusion, he’d remained out in the desert for another couple of hours, planning what he would say to Jeff and how he would explain his actions.

He’d also enjoyed feeling good about himself, serene and certain and reconciled with his life and his decisions for the first time in ages.

Due to the late hour, he was quiet when he unlocked the front door and crept over the threshold, not wanting to awake any of the house’s sleeping occupants. To his surprise, he could hear faint voices speaking quietly further inside, with a distinct note of worry and stress even with the hushed volume. 

Curious, Kent ambled into the kitchen, where Teddy and Elena sat at the distressed wood table, both looking more worn and older than he’d ever seen them.

“Hey,” he said, walking into the room. “What’s going on?”

In an instant, both of their heads snapped in his direction, and in the next, both of them were out of their chairs and scrambling to seize him in a hug. 

“Jesus fuck me,” Teddy breathed as he wrapped Kent in a rib-crushing hug. “Thank Christ. Thank fucking Christ.”

“Where the hell have you been?” Elena exclaimed. Her typically immaculate eyeliner was smudged, and instead of her typical fitness wear, she was clad I. sturdy jeans and a sweatshirt, like she was about to go hiking outside. “It’s been hours, and no one’s heard from you!”

Bewildered, Kent tried to extract himself from their grasps, then remembered to be polite and return their hugs, and then did extract himself. “Wait, what? What happened?”

Teddy scoffed at him and then drew him into a fresh hug. “ ‘What happened?’ What happened is that for almost four fucking hours, no one could find you. You ran out of here like a bat out of hell, met up with Jeff, and then ran out on him, and then wouldn’t answer your phone when he tried to text and call. And when he realized you weren’t picking up, he freaked out and called us.”

Elena swallowed, looking away. “He said something about you being upset and running off, that he tried to talk and wouldn’t, just ran off again. He said he’d never seen you like that before—he said you were really upset—” her face crumbled.   

Teddy put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into the hug. “So I asked in the group text if anyone had heard from you, and no one had. So everyone was trying to call you—Katzy even called Robinson on the Falcs to get ahold of Mashkov and see if he’d heard from you, and he hadn’t. I—” his voice cracked. “You weren’t picking up anything, no one knew anything except that you were really upset, so we thought—”

Realization dawned on Kent. “You thought I ran off to kill myself.”

“No.” Elena wiped at her eyes, but her voice was steady. “We just were worried. We didn’t know what had happened. We didn’t think anything . . .” she broke off, shaking her head as if warding off a dark thought, but then leaned into Kent, pressing a hand to the back of his neck. “We’re just glad you’re safe.”

“Fuck, that reminds me.” Teddy reluctantly withdrew from the hug, fumbling for his phone. “Let me text the guys and let them know you’re back. Danno and Mads were convinced you’d either gotten coked up someplace or run off to join a cult in California.”

Kent let out a half-laugh, half-scoff, but he couldn’t suppress the guilt rising within him. Never had he thought his brief disappearance would rile up his team or worry Teddy and Elena. 

“I’m sorry,” he said honestly. “I just needed some time to myself. I didn’t think you guys would be bringing in search and rescue for me. Nice of you, though.”

A strange tinge of guilt needled into him at their obvious concern; not just for making them worry, but for all the moments when he’d wanted to consider them his family, when he’d ached to think of them that way but stubbornly insisted he shouldn’t.

He’d been afraid. Afraid of regaining a family to lose them all over again, afraid he’d somehow damn himself to never hearing from Bob, Alicia, or Jack again if he dared accept the kindness offered to him.

But he was done with being afraid. 

“I’ll put something in the group text, too,” Kent offered, wanting to show them that he cared and understood the alarm he’d unintentionally caused. “And I’ll send something to Mashkov and Jeff, let them know it’s all okay.” 

A hint of a smile tugged at Elena’s lips for the first time since Kent had arrived home. “Once you do that, care to join us for some midnight wine time? I feel like all of us could use some time to decompress.”

“I’d like nothing better,” Kent replied, the sincerity of his voice striking even him, and but for the first time since arriving in Vegas, he didn’t reprimand himself for it.

It was okay, he reminded himself. It was okay to be vulnerable with these people. Elena, Teddy, Maggie, Lily, Jeff, Alexei—all of them cared for him.

“I’m just going to go up and change my shirt.” It was covered in desert dust. “I’ll be right back down,” he promised, and summoned a smile for them. “No more disappearing acts tonight, I promise.”

“I’ll have words for you if there are,” Elena said dryly, turning in the direction of the wine armoire, and Teddy reluctantly let them both out of his large, freckled arms.

Hustling up the U-shaped staircase, Kent was almost too preoccupied with planning his explanation to Jeff that he didn’t realize Lily and Maggie were waiting at the top of the stairs until he was practically on top of them.

“The hell—what are you two still doing up?” he hissed to them, barely remembering to keep his voice low. “You should have been asleep hours ago, it’s late!”

“Don’t be mad,” Maggie pleaded, twisting her hands in her Sonic the Hedgehog -print pajamas. “We just wanted to see you.”

“We missed you,” Lily said, her face pinched in an uncharacteristic frown. “We kept asking where you were, and Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t say.”

“We were scared,” Maggie said, her voice quavering. 

“So we waited up until you came back.” Lily hefted up a stack of picture books beside her. “While you were gone, I looked through all these books and found out who the books were written for. And I promised that as long as you got back, I’d show you each one, so you could see what you taught me.”

A strange feeling somewhere between abject guilt and enormous affection overwhelmed him, and he stooped down to hug both of the girls. 

“You don’t need to promise me anything,” he said, his voice tight with the onslaught of emotions. “I’m promising you that I won’t run off and scare you guys or your parents like that again, okay?”

“Okay,” the girls chorused softly, and they both hugged him back tightly, latching on like a couple of baby sloths who used Gorilla Glue as hair gel.

Kent escorted them back to their room, carrying the stack of books with him, only for Lily to glance at him hopefully when she climbed back into her rocket ship bed. 

“Just one story?” she asked hopefully. 

“Pleeeeease?” Maggie begged with puppy dog eyes.

“Just one,” Kent warned, perching on the edge of her bed. “You both should be asleep, it’s a school night.”

But obvious affection overwhelmed any sternness in his voice, and Lily darted forward to select one of the books from the stack, and Maggie hopped onto Lily’s bed to join them, burrowing into Kent’s side just as she always did. 

With his new promise to the girls, he didn’t keep his word to Teddy and Elena to come right back downstairs. Eventually, they found him finishing Officer Buckle and Gloria as both girls drifted off to sleep.

“Sorry,” he whispered sheepishly as he closed the door softly behind him. “They were awake when I got up here, and I wanted to get them back to sleep.”

But Elena just smiled. “It’s fine, Kent. Thank you for checking in on them.”

Teddy put an arm around Kent’s shoulders. “Now that everything’s settled, how about we relax with some wine?”

Something warm and comforting enveloped Kent, and as he smiled back at them, he realized it was a strong, unshakeable sense of belonging.

“I’d like that,” he said, feeling that at long last, he could be honest with himself and the people around him. “I’d like that very much.”

There was one teammate to whom simple texts wouldn’t suffice, and Kent was well-aware of it. Opting to give both himself and Jeff some space for the next few days, Kent kept his distance until the final night of their next road trip, where he nabbed him on his way to his room just before curfew.

“Got a minute?” Kent asked him, and Jeff obliged, peeling off from Wolfie and Katzy, who exchanged a knowing look and continued on their way.

The team’s block of rooms attached to a private courtyard that had been staunchly ignored by them all in favor of the hotel’s bar and lounge, but Kent led Jeff to it now, not wanting their discussion to be overheard. Only when they were safely ensconced among the freesia bushes, the nearby fountain burbling cheerfully the palm fronds rustling gently, did he address the elephant in the room.

“I’m sorry,” he said without preamble. “For running off when I met you at the restaurant. You were trying to be nice to me when I needed someone. I didn’t mean to freak out on you, but I did. So. I’m sorry. You deserved the benefit of the doubt.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Jeff insisted. “You were pretty messed up that night even before I tried to kiss you. I should haven’t—I didn’t mean to hurt you. I took advantage of you when you were in a bad place, and that wasn’t right.”

The reciprocal apology caught Kent off-guard—and he couldn’t help but remember all the times Jack should have apologized but hadn’t. Then he pushed Jack out of his mind.

“Well, it was barely a kiss,” Kent pointed out, feeling obligated to prevent Jeff from blaming himself. “Basically, you touched your lips to my forehead. I mean, I accept your apology if that makes you happy, but it’s not like any war crimes went down here.”

For a moment, Jeff hesitated. It seemed like he wanted to say something else, but Kent couldn’t be sure in the dim courtyard, where the only illumination was the glow of the hotel halls and a few scattered safety lamps.

“Thanks,” Jeff said eventually. “But, um . . . did you really think I was only hanging out with you to spy on you for management? Was that—was that a thing with you? Because it wasn’t a thing with me,” he added hurriedly. “Was it something I did that made you think that?”

Though he opened his mouth to reply, Kent found himself snapping his jaw shut again as he considered the question. Why had he ever suspected Jeff hadn’t wanted to actually be around him?

“I don’t think it was anything that you did,” Kent said slowly, searching the recesses of his memory. “I just think that when you started showing me around and taking me sightseeing, I was in a really bad place. Everyone was suspicious of me, and because of that, I was suspicious of them. I made some snap judgments on people that turned out really wrong,” he admitted, recalling his unfairness to not just Jeff, but also Teddy and Elena. “And since I was being shoved into all of these anti-drug seminars by management, I took it for granted that the entire team thought I was a junkie. And when you showed an interest in hanging out with me, it just seemed like a natural conclusion. I didn’t think anyone really wanted me around—so I didn’t think you did, either.”

“I always did,” Jeff said, and there was no mistaking the fervency in his voice. “I liked being with you. You’re a cool guy—the way you help our teammates, how chill you are with douchebag fans like that Pens guy, how nice you are to Lily and Maggie—you’re worth being around. I want you to know that. I never had to fake wanting to be with you.”

His words rang out in the otherwise quiet courtyard, spoken with a confidence unheard in their conversation until now. Noting his vehemence, Kent decided to lay his cards on the table. 

“Regarding the kiss,” he said, trying to keep his tone as casual as possible. “Where do you want to go from here?”

Jeff looked away, studying a weather-beaten statue of a frog with intensity unseen anywhere else but the ice on game day. “We don’t have to go anywhere. I don’t want to make things weird. Between us, I mean.”

Taking another gamble, Kent stepped closer, slinging an arm around Jeff’s shoulders, breathing in the . “Yeah, but . . . what if I want it to go somewhere?”

Whirling around, Jeff’s gaze snapped to his and latched on, his face still in shadow but visible hope gleaming faintly in his eyes. “Do you?” he asked, with almost painful earnestness.

“I do,” Kent affirmed. “I liked it when I could pretend we were real friends. But we don’t have to be just friends now that I know it’s real. Hanging out with you was fun, got my mind off things. I want to go back to that. I might not—” Thoughts of Jack flitted through his mind, but Kent let go of them, picturing them as pages scattered away by a whirlwind. “I might not be ready for a full relationship just yet, but if you wanted to do something casual, just to try things out between us, then I’m game.” 

Surprise was apparent in Jeff’s tone even if Kent couldn’t fully read his face. “You mean it?”

“More than I meant to bash in Kris Letang’s face that one time,” Kent promised.

“We can do both,” Jeff said happily, and he went to pull Kent into a kiss, then abruptly stopped, instead just drawing Kent into an awkward type of one-armed hug.

“You can kiss me, you know,” Kent informed him dryly. “I’m not going to run away this time.”

“This is fine,” Jeff insisted, to which Kent snorted.

“If you’re going to be this much of a proper gentleman,” Kent ribbed him, “then I fully expect you to start fighting for my honor out on the ice.”

He was rewarded with Jeff letting out a genuine laugh and the arm around his shoulders tightening, pulling him closer until he was snugly settled into Jeff’s side.

Epilogue

When Kent had dreamed of draft night, he’d dreamed of Jack being at his side, no matter which one of them had gone first. 

When he had dreamed of going off for rookie week, he’d dreamed of being able to say goodbye to Jack.

When he had dreamed of winning the Stanley Cup, he dreamed of Jack being on his team to share the victory with him.

None of those dreams had come true.

But as puck skittered off of his stick and straight into the back of the Hawks’ net a split second before the final buzzer sounded, Kent realized that none of those dreams were his, not anymore.

The Blackhawks goalie ripped off his mask and hurled against the boards in frustration, just as Danno and Mads surged forward, almost knocking Kent off balance as they seized him in a boisterous hug. 

“You did it!” Mads yelled directly in Kent’s ear. “You crazy cokehead bastard, I knew you could!”

“You beauty!” Danno exclaimed. “Fucking marry me, Parson, you fucking beaut! You got us the Cup! We got the Cup!”

More teammates clustered around them as the crowd roared, screams, yells, and cheers echoing throughout the arena and fading into dim background noise. Time slowed and sped up as dozens of pairs of arms tried to reach for Kent at once. Wolfie shoved his way to the front, yanking off Kent’s helmet so he could clutch Kent to his chest.

“Fucking finally!” Wolfie crowed. “My last year and I’ve goddamn made it! We did it! You did it!” He gripped Kent in a fierce, exuberant embrace even as other teammates leaned in to shout into Kent’s ear.

“Good on you, Parse!” Katzy enthused, voice already strained from whooping in victory. “You’re our champion rookie!”

“Golden Boy from Sin City!” Javvy cheered, thumping Kent on the back in a half-dozen quick karate chops. “You’re gold to us!” 

It was unreal. Every second was unreal. The atmosphere was beyond elated, a new level of excitement and energy that Kent didn’t have the words to describe. All around him, teammates were hugging, laughing, crying, cheering, all with a frantic, disbelieving joy. But Kent himself was strangely frozen. 

He was happy. He knew he was happy. Bob and Alicia had flown in to watch the Final, and as Kent watched, the WAGs and kids were being led onto the ice to join the celebration. While he couldn’t spot Elena or Maggie or Lily, he knew they were there, so he lifted his hand to wave, and in a split-second decision, decided to skate over to meet them.

Just as he went to separate himself from his teammates and skate off, a bare hand snagged his own, and Kent whirled to find Jeff looking at him, helmet still on despite the fray.

For a moment, neither moved, and Kent stared at him, paralyzed, opening his mouth to speak only for the words to never reach his tongue. His heart thudded, and his brain demanded action. 

But what should he do?

As he looked into Jeff’s hazel eyes, saw his own nervous excitement and uncertainty mirrored there, he knew his answer.

In one fluid movement, he knocked off Jeff’s helmet so he could reach forward and caress his cheek, feel the slick sweat running down his face and matting his dark hair. For a moment, he just let his hand rest there, but in the next, he surged forward and grabbed Jeff in a desperate kiss.

His lips collided with Jeff’s, and Kent instinctively went to lean back from the impact, but Jeff’s hand flew forward to keep him close, locking him into place. The kiss softened at first, a light, slow brush of their lips, but then it deepened to electrifying intensity, with both of Jeff’s arms drifting to grasp Kent’s waist as best he could through the bulk of his pads. 

It occurred to Kent then that he could reach back to Jeff, so he did, trying to fold his arms across Jeff’s armored shoulders and draw him nearer, reveling in the contact. In spite of their kiss, he couldn’t escape the feeling that he’d been drowning but now had finally broken the surface and could drink in oxygen once more. Jeff’s mouth was warm and sweet on his, eager and affectionate without ever being demanding, and all Kent wanted was to bask in the relief of letting himself choose to be happy. The contact between them was limited thanks to their gear, but the way Jeff clutched at him, trying again and again to gather Kent close in spite of that, spoke of a promise Kent himself wanted nothing more than to keep.

He wanted nothing more than this moment, this knowledge that he was truly and sincerely wanted. 

All the naysayers, all the predictions that Jack would have gone first if he’d been around, all the speculation that Jack could have put up better numbers than him—nobody would care about that anymore.

But more importantly: Kent didn’t care.

He wrapped his arm tightly around Jeff’s shoulders, holding him as close as he could, breathing in the last vestiges of his smoky sandalwood cologne before it was overwhelmed by sweat. Kent knew he was grinning like an idiot, but he was unable to stop smiling. Heat flared in his face and crawled down his neck, no doubt deepening the flush of exhaustion already there, but warmth unfurled in the pit of his stomach, spreading to every inch of his body in a happy glow.

Elena rushed toward them both, shouting something happily, her words lost to the din surrounding them. But she was smiling widely, and when Teddy intercepted her when she’d almost reached them, scooping her up and spinning her around, she threw back her head in laughter, dark hair gleaming under the lights. 

Maggie and Lily clambered across the ice as well, and Kent instinctively picked up Maggie and cuddled her, wanting to get her out of the path of any boisterous teammates. Gratifyingly, Jeff did the same for Lily, and Kent sent a genuine smile his way in thanks. No sooner had he done so before Maggie grabbed his face, still with her gummy hands, pointing at Lily’s jersey, and Kent realized that while Elena and Maggie were wearing Teddy’s name and number, Lily was wearing his own. A boyoutant laugh burst out of him at the sight, and Lily blew him a kiss as Maggie nuzzled against him.    

A dazzling glare shot sparks across Kent’s vision, and he turned to find Wolfie hefting the Cup, laughing like a madman as he held it above his head.

Kent had scored the winning goal, and soon it would be his turn to hold the Cup. An elated thrill zipped through him at the thought, still intermingled with disbelief.

But then Teddy joined them, Elena tucked beneath his one arm, and without hesitation, he tucked Kent beneath his other. And without a moment’s hesitation, Jeff sidled nearer so he could still be as close as possible to Kent. When Kent met his gaze, he found a type of liquid softness waiting for him in Jeff’s eyes, and the sight spurred a sense of excitement and happiness through him that had nothing to do with their Cup win.

The Cup’s gleam caught Kent’s eye again, and he turned away from it, instead settling in to rest his head on Jeff’s shoulder as best he could.

There would be time to hold the Cup later. For now, he just wanted to hold his family close and be held by them in turn.