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Everyone knows that Jonny is in love with Kaner, except Kaner.
He’s been able to keep it on the down low, mostly thanks to teammates who take pity on him, and management’s continuous discouragement to come out, YCP be damned.
But then they’re locked out and there’s no management to answer to, or at least that’s what Sharpy tells Jonny one night when they’ve stayed out at the bar too long.
“C’mon, Tazer,” Sharpy slurs. “It’s the perfect time, only time. And, like, we’re all so fucking bored, just tell him already, give us something to gossip about.”
“Go home, dumbass,” Jonny rolls his eyes, pushing Sharpy’s arm off his shoulders.
“Fine,” Sharpy says before downing the last of his glass. “But, for real, think about it. You might never have a chance this good.”
Jonny makes sure that Sharpy gets his ass in a cab before flagging one down for himself. He wants to shrug off what Sharpy said, but he can’t. Jonny hopes it’s the alcohol that makes him think that Sharpy had a point, because Sharpy is never right. Ever.
Jonny is heading to the rink the next morning when Kaner calls him.
“Why are you calling me?” Jonny asks instead of a greeting. “I’m almost there; you’ll see me in two seconds.”
“Nah, man, I’m not going to practice.” Kaner sounds excited. Jonny is suddenly nervous. “I’m at my agent’s office. So, you know all those offers we’ve both been getting?”
“Yeah…” Jonny strongly considers pulling over, because he feels like he’s about to have a heart attack, and he doesn’t need another stupid car accident to be chirped about.
“Yeah, so, this team in Switzerland sent in an offer this morning, and it’s really great, so, I’m taking it.”
Jonny comes very close to running a red light. “You’re going to Switzerland?” Jonny asks, unable to keep his voice from breaking. He pulls into the parking garage, which is good, because he doesn’t think he’d make it another second on the road.
“Yeah, but don’t worry, bro. They offered you the same deal!” Kaner says, misinterpreting Jonny’s distress for jealousy.
“I… Kaner, I’m not going to Switzerland.” Jonny rubs a hand over his face.
“But… we were gonna go to Europe together…” Kaner almost whimpers.
“I can’t. Not right now. I can’t give up this quickly.”
“I’m not giving up—”
“I know you aren’t,” Jonny sighs. “But I can’t go with you.”
Kaner is audibly frustrated as Jonny says goodbye, but he lets Jonny go. He sits in his car for another five minutes, doing his best to collect himself.
Eventually he drags himself out of the car and into the building, only because he’s got a group of eager guys waiting for him to spit out a few lines of motivation before making them skate themselves to exhaustion.
Constant prep for the charity game makes it thankfully easy for Jonny to ignore the whole Switzerland thing. It helps that Kaner is staying for the game, and keeping pretty quiet about the fact that he’s leaving after.
“You could still tell him, you know,” Sharpy tells him. Jonny doesn’t know if he wants to anymore.
The game is awesome, of course, how could it not be. Jonny awards himself by sleeping in on Saturday and having a few extra drinks at the bar that night with the guys.
Jonny stumbles to bed at some ungodly hour, still laughing at something Soupy yelled after him when he left the bar.
Jonny wakes up in total panic, legs tangled in his sheets and sweat beading on his chest. He doesn’t completely remember, but he’s pretty sure he’s just woken up from a nightmare involving Kaner and a gorgeous Swiss blonde.
Jonny comes very close to slipping and concussing himself in his hurry to get out of bed. He glances at the clock. Kaner’s flight departs in two hours. Jonny has just enough to time to shower the bar smell off of him and pull on a clean t-shirt before getting in the car and driving five miles over the speed limit to the airport.
Jonny has seen enough shitty romantic comedies on hotel TVs with only three channels to know that he can’t just run through the airport and into Kaner’s arms. He queues up in the ticket line, which isn’t miles long for once, and buys the first International ticket on the list. It’s to somewhere in Mexico, but whatever. Jonny’s bank account can handle it, lockout or not.
Security isn’t so easy. Jonny only has his wallet and phone, but the woman in front of him has somehow lived her entire life without entering an airport, because she’s got like seventeen water bottles and every piece of her clothing is made of metal. By the time Jonny makes it out of security and figures out what gate Kaner is at, its five minutes before take-off.
For the first time in his life, Jonny purposely forgets his heritage. He pushes down the manners his mother worked to hard to teach him, bless her heart, and positively pushes his way towards Kaner’s gate. If Jonny tramples on someone’s toes on the way, well, it’s all in the name of love, right?
Jonny isn’t going to let Kaner take off to Switzerland where he’ll meet some Swiss beauty, fall in love, settle down, and have ten super-blonde kids without at least telling Kaner how he feels. If that isn’t enough for Kaner, fine, at least Jonny can say he tried.
Finally, finally, Jonny gets to the gate. He’s trying to catch his breath and scanning the crowd of milling people for Kaner when he hears, “Tazer? What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Kaner,” Jonny pants. “Kaner, don’t get on that plane. I have to tell you something.”
“But I—” Kaner starts, but Jonny cuts him off.
“No, just, listen to me.” Jonny grabs onto Kaner’s shoulders, squeezing hard. “I love you, Patrick. I’ve loved you for longer than I can remember. I should’ve told you sooner, or not at all, whatever. I just… I wanted you to know that… before you left,” Jonny trails off. He hadn’t thought this part through. He hadn’t considered Kaner’s reaction, too focused on getting here and saying it.
“Seriously?” Kaner laughs sharply. Jonny frowns. “Took you fucking long enough,”
Kaner pulls Jonny down with a hand at the back of his neck and kisses him hard.
Jonny only breaks away when he can’t breathe anymore, but presses his forehead against Kaner’s. “We’re in the middle of O’Hare,” Kaner says quietly, laughing with disbelief.
“Yeah,” Jonny agrees, grinning.
“Just making sure you knew,” Kaner says before reaching up and kissing Jonny again.
“Don’t go to Switzerland,” Jonny mumbles against Kaner’s lips.
“Okay, I won’t,” Kaner says.
Jonny pulls back at that. “Wait, for real?”
“Oh, Jonny,” Kaner sighs dramatically. “So young and eager. If you weren’t such a competitive asshole and let me talk first, you’d know that my flight just got cancelled. But, then again, I’d never forgive myself if I kept you from making such an embarrassing public gesture. Do you think Sharpy is awake yet? I want to give him as much time as possible to come up with chirping material, it’s only polite.”
Jonny had stopped listening a few seconds in. “Your flight was cancelled?”
“Yeah,” Kaner shrugs. “It’s that stupid hurricane. Damn East Coast, fucking everything up.”
“So, you’re not going to Switzerland?”
“Nope,” Kaner grins.
Jonny closes his eyes and says a mental prayer to every deity he can think of before saying, “Let’s go home.”
Kaner kisses him again and picks up his bag. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
~fin