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Minyard sits in the back row of every plane, train, and automobile the team uses to travel. He doesn’t like having people at his back, and rumor has it both the back row and the arm bands were written into his contract.
For the first several weeks, he glowered at the team, arms crossed, jaw working, his hazel eyes always fixed on the exit.
Eventually, after their captain had passed his watchful perch and ducked her head to whisper something to him, he relaxed a little. As they played more games as a team, he relaxed a little. As they didn’t run away screaming from him, he relaxed a little.
He still said very little, and still sat rigid on airplanes, but it was hard to be mad at a guy that locked your goal down so tight you soared to the top of the division rankings.
Now, a month or so into the season, Minyard sits in the back, one headphone pushed off his ear so he can listen to both music and his surroundings, one foot tucked under his other knee, and the whole bus is staring at him.
In his hands he holds two —pretty sharp looking— knitting needles, and the yarn woven between them leads to a large ball of garishly orange yarn. He’s not looking at a single thing on his phone, no pattern in his bag, but the pattern is intricate with twists and turns. He knits quickly, methodically, and only stops when his phone buzzes on the seat next to him. After he texts back whoever is messaging him, he resumes his progress without a single hesitation or indication that he’s gotten off track.
Eventually, he must feel all the eyes in the bus on him, because he lifts his gaze slowly and cocks his blonde, pierced eyebrow. He smirks and goes back to his pattern.
No one says anything. No one asks him who it’s for. No one mentions it to anyone else. It was probably just a fever dream.
But the next time they travel, he’s knitting again. The garish orange is replaced by a dark charcoal. He, once again, doesn't have a pattern, but the stitches look just as complex and intricate.
They start a betting pool and try to decide who each project is for. One of the backliners asks Minyard for a hint one afternoon as they travel home from a day game, and Minyard levels an unimpressed look at the other man.
Another month goes by, and the question of the charcoal scarf is answered when Kevin Day rolls up to a press conference after one of his games, impeccably dressed with the cabled scarf tucked into his coat.
When one of the reporters bizarrely asks about it, he simply replies “Andrew made it.” And takes the next question like that didn’t absolutely rock everyone’s world.
Minyard must feel everyone’s eyes on him again the next time they’re all on the bus, because he smirks again and keeps knitting.
Slowly, as the weather cools, they start noticing that the projects Minyard works on end up with various Foxes. Matt Boyd is wearing a handsome scarf that was on Minyard’s needles at the start of all this as he arrives at a match sometime in November. Aaron Minyard shows up to one of their games wearing the sleek black fingerless gloves they watched Minyard fiddle with tiny needles to make. Nicky Hemmick is spotted in Germany a few weeks later with his fiancé and the icy blue scarf Minyard made when they had endured a particularly frustrating losing streak that coincided with Neil Josten being on the injured list for the Foxes.
As January gets closer, one of their teammates casually asks if the reddish brown cowl Minyard is making is for Neil Josten since his birthday is coming up and it would go well with Josten’s wildly auburn hair. Andrew pauses and looks at his project for a long moment and sighs.
“I hate him,” he says finally, and the teammate skitters away awkwardly.
Sure enough, the cold season passes, and Neil Josten is not spotted with a hand knit Minyard accessory at any point. Even Allison Reynolds has something by the end of the season.
“I thought he didn’t like her,” someone says when the photo is making the rounds on the teams phone screens.
“He doesn’t,” someone who sounds suspiciously like Minyard says.
The next season, Minyard knits increasingly more complex projects. He’s using multiple different colors in each project and no one really sees the same project twice. He’s done with them before they hit the road again.
This year, however, they see Neil Josten more often due to the fact he signed with their division rivals. Josten and Minyard naturally gravitate toward each other on and off the court, and their body language indicates intimate familiarity with each others movements. But their facial expressions show hostility and antagonism and something doesn’t match up.
All of Josten’s teasing and bite seems to fuel Minyard, and sometimes the game revolves around just the two of them. They win as much as they lose against Josten’s team, but Minyard shuts out almost all of Josten’s attempts. The losses usually come once Minyard isn’t in front of the goal and Josten is allowed to demonize their back-up goalie.
Still, despite the more frequent Josten sightings this season, he doesn’t show up with anything off Minyard’s needles. David Wymack now has multiple knitted scarves in Fox colors. Robin Cross has a matching hat, gloves, and scarf set. Even Moreau and Knox seem to have been spotted with something Minyard has knitted, and they didn’t even play with him.
It’s so obvious at this point that even the press has picked up on Minyard’s hobby. One of the more prominent exy magazines tries to get Minyard in for an interview but he declines so they run an article about “Men Who Knit”. People guess at Minyard’s favorite yarn and needles to use. And any article or tweet that mentions the knitting usually gets around to the Minyard/Josten rivalry by way of mentioning the fact that Neil Josten has not been seen wearing anything Minyard has created. The press even asks about it after a game.
“The only player from your college days you haven’t knitted anything for seems to be Josten,” one man remarks.
“Is there a question in there somewhere?” Minyard drawls.
“Why nothing for Josten?”
Minyard shrugs. “I’m not making these things for them. I just like to keep my hands busy, and they like going through my piles of finished objects.”
“So Josten doesn’t like anything you make?”
Minyard shrugs again.
“You’ll have to ask him,” he says, and doesn’t take any more questions on the matter.
Neil Josten throws his head back and laughs when he’s asked about it a few weeks later.
“He knows what I think,” he answers and the press seem to understand that’s all they’re getting from him.
There’s several articles about the cryptic exchange that light up the exy blogs and Twitter threads the weeks after. Several people speculate they had a falling out shortly before Minyard’s graduation.
They get knocked out of playoff contention mostly because of Josten, and the sneer Minyard levels at him when Josten salutes him at the buzzer is uncomfortable and unsettling. Minyard pulls out a much larger quantity of yarn than he usually uses and starts knitting something large and dark blue on the plane home.
Two days after Matt Boyd and Kevin Day face off against each other in the championships, a trade is announced that sends the exy world into a tailspin. Neil Josten is headed from the Charleston Crowns to the Boston Blue Jackets and they trade two strikers and a backliner to get him.
He scurries up to Minyard at their first practice and says something low and quiet that makes Minyard’s eyes glint.
For all the antagonism that Josten displays at press conferences and as an opponent, his teammates immediately love him. He makes almost everyone laugh with his quick wit and his lost puppy look and vicious scars make everyone want to defend him on the court. The team even hears Minyard’s voice more in the first month after the Josten trade than they did any time in the past two seasons. Even if it’s only to tell Josten how much Minyard can’t stand the man.
There might be a rumor going around that someone saw them leave practice together in Minyard’s Maserati, but that seems absurd the way Minyard keeps leveling death glares at the redhead.
Their first road trip though, something happens that makes the whole bus stare towards the back for the first time in almost two years. Josten walks straight to the back of the bus and sits down next to Minyard. The blonde man doesn’t look surprised, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t glare at him. He just slides over to let Josten sit next to him.
Their shoulders touch and Minyard doesn’t say a word.
Eventually, the whole bus holding their breath, Josten puts his hand on Minyard’s arm and waits for him to stop his knitting. Several people gasp.
“Explain this one to me again,” Josten says and the whole bus waits for Minyard’s response.
Minyard looks at him.
“Get your own hobby,” he says cooly.
Josten grins and they fall silent again. Shoulders touching. Knees touching. Minyard knits. Josten watches. Their chests rise and fall in tandem.
Josten proudly displays some knitting needles and some very knobby looking yarn on the bus on their way home.
“That yarn is hideous,” Minyard deadpans. “It looks squeaky.”
Josten manages to make a very holey and misshapen thing by the end of their bus ride, and declares that knitting really isn’t for him.
“Yes, Neil,” Minyard says exasperated. “So you’ve said every time you’ve asked me to teach you.”
Josten bounds off the bus, cackling, and Minyard follows, shaking his head. He almost looks like he’s smiling. The rest of the bus exchanges glances to make sure they aren’t hallucinating.
In the end, it should have all been more obvious. But the pieces finally click together when Josten gets checked into the glass by a backliner twice his size and goes down without even trying to catch himself. Minyard is out of the goal before the whistle blows and sprinting toward Josten’s still form. The trainers go to them both and Minyard holds up a hand. His other reaches down to gently unbuckle Josten’s helmet. He leans close to Josten’s ear and says something no one else seems to hear, before Josten stirs. Minyard nods to the trainers then and blonde hair and red hair disappear behind several tense looking figures.
Josten gets hauled off the court sitting up on a stretcher and Minyard promptly gets himself ejected before following the medics out. They lose spectacularly.
Josten spends a night in the hospital. Minyard supposedly stays with him. Josten has bruised ribs, a fractured nose, and a nasty concussion which puts him on the injured list for at least a week.
On the second day back, still benched but coming to court to watch, he climbs out of Minyard’s Maserati wearing a deep blue sweater. Blue like the one Minyard started just a few days before the Josten trade was announced. Like the one that matches their team colors.
“Josten!” One of their backup goalies squawks. “Did Minyard finally take pity on you and knit you something?”
Josten looks down at the sweater and back up at the goalie.
And maybe it’s the concussion. Or maybe it’s the way Minyard threw himself across the court to get to him. But Josten says, “‘Ndrew’s been knitting me stuff for years.”
And then he does not elaborate. Minyard scoffs and places a hand on the small of his back and leads him inside to the court. Josten leans into him and lets Minyard take him.
Several people gawk.
He arrives again via the Maserati on game night wearing a sweater that has clearly been lovingly knit for him and him only. The yoke has little exy racquets and helmets, an exy goal, orange paw prints, gold crowns for his last team, and blue stars for this one.
They win the game, even without Josten. Josten isn’t even on press duty, but the reporters still turn to him in his baggy running shorts and hand knit sweater, splint still taped across his bruised nose.
Minyard tips back in his chair and crosses his arms. He raises both eyebrows at Josten and Josten salutes him.
“I will take one question about the sweater,” Josten announces.
“Who kni—“ someone starts to say and is cut off by a shush from someone else.
“When did he finally give you something?” Someone else yells out. “It’s been years now.”
Josten grins.
“When he started knitting,” he says casually. “I have a very ugly sweater he knit for me back in college.”
Minyard scoffs, and everyone can hear it because the room is silent. They turn to him.
“They were always for Neil,” he says. “He just ran out of space in our drawers.”
The articles the next day speculate about when the Minyard/Josten rivalry turned to roommates, to bromance and Josten laughs and laughs when he passes the article to Minyard on the bus.
Minyard rolls his eyes and tugs at Josten’s sweater, before laying his hand across the back of Josten’s neck. A small smile twitches up at one corner of his mouth as he reads.
“How many times do you think we’ll have to say it?” Josten asks. “You spend years knitting me things when you missed me, you admit I ran out of space in our drawers, and they still don’t get it.”
“Maybe we should just print our marriage certificate in the next issue of your dumb exy magazines,” Minyard quips back.
“Only if we get to put it in your dumb knitting magazines too.”
Minyard rolls his eyes again and Josten presses his face (a kiss??) into his blonde hair. Minyard pulls out his knitting, and Josten curls into Minyard’s side. The matching chains around their necks suddenly make a little more sense as something gold glints under their shirts.
The bus erupts into a cacophony of questions, but Josten and Minyard are clearly done talking. They stay wrapped in each other's bubble for the rest of the drive, leaving their captain and coaches and trainers to berate the rest of the team for missing what has been right in front of them for the last two seasons.