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Tyler was laying on the horrifically uncomfortable hotel cot bed, staring up at his teenage teammates, trying to not feel like an absolute creep about it.
He’d gotten up sometime around five in the morning to piss, groaned his way back to bed with his back aching and a crick in his neck. For this, he was going to make Coach run Puppy even harder at practice the next day. He was over thirty and a professional athlete, he shouldn’t have to lay on a cot while having a sleepover with his teenage teammates.
He patted his pillow a few times, debating the likelihood of being able to snatch one more from Will’s bed to help his back, when he noticed their positions. Both boys had hands dangling over the edge of their beds, resting limply between them in the little chasm between their beds. Macklin, on his stomach, had his head turned away from Will. Will, on his back, was splayed out across his whole bed, arm in an uncomfortable looking angle off the bed, stretched towards the other.
His St. Christopher pendant was resting perfectly in the hollow of his chest, glinting in the dull light peeking through the closed curtains.
Tyler thought about the night before, Will’s giggles about the sleepover turning to solemn volunteering to call the hotel reception for a cot to be delivered.
Tyler had laughed, said, “Puppy, you better shack up with Mack if I’m staying in here.”
Will had gone beet red. Mack had avoided eye contact, too busy pulling at the comforter he was already wrapped up in, looking for a fraying thread to fiddle with. Will had just shaken his head and grabbed for the phone.
“I’ll shack with you then,” Tyler conceded after Will struggled to figure out the number to call, staring at the receiver like he didn’t fully understand it. (For a split second, Tyler wondered if he’d ever made a call on a landline before, then shook the thought off.)
“No, it’s okay. I’ll take the cot,” he had mumbled after a moment too long. Mack pulled out his phone and pretended to be disinterested in everything, but the light from the screen reflected his pink face too easily for Tyler to be convinced he wasn't cued into what was happening.
He let Will struggle with calling for the cot, then took the phone from him and called for milk and cookies, just to try and make the boys both laugh.
It worked easier than he could’ve hoped and when the cot was delivered, made himself at home before Will could complain or play the martyr. If he really wanted, Tyler had a whole hotel room that was laying empty right now. He could just go by there, instead, if he really wanted. But he fluffed his one pillow and laid down on the cot without complaint.
Eklund came by, laughed at Tyler, and took a cookie. Tyler pretended to fall asleep before Eklund left, giggling about a photo that William had taken. Tyler was struk with feeling ever so much like a father looking over his kids.
It made his stomach twist, but he didn’t think about it.
Then, waking up to pee, seeing their hands stretched out towards each other.
He wondered, was all.
And he didn’t take a pillow from Will’s bed, instead just rolled over to put his back to the boys, and tried to fall back asleep.
—
The Sharks were the first team out of playoff contention. At the same time, Tyler felt like he was in some sort of PR media circus, on podcasts and radio shows talking about the damn sleepover. He laughed it off, laughed at the picture of him on the cot, confirmed that they’d gotten cookies, blamed the rookies for them. Mack kept sending him TikToks of himself in interviews he already didn't remember doing. It made Will and Mack both giggle, so he kept it up, didn't complain about the questions.
The practice after they were eliminated from contention, Will played like he was dead on his feet, then tried to fist fight Ferraro when he checked him jokingly heading towards the bench during scrimmage.
Tyler had been on the bench guzzling water when it happened, watching Mario’s arcing descent on the poor kid, nudging into him maybe slightly too hard to be necessary. But that was Ferraro, they all knew it. Handsy and rough, like that was the only way he knew how to express his affection.
Instead of laughing it off like he’d expected, or pouting his way off the ice and to Tyler’s side, Will instead whipped around, gloves thrown to the ground, and threw himself at Mario with his right fist already swinging.
Tyler was over the boards before the fist connected, watching in slow motion as Mario, almost in shock, tossed Will to the ground and grabbed his face. Before Will could pull his fist back again or try to scramble up, Tyler got there, slid a few feet on his knees, and physically pulled Will away by the neck of his practice jersey.
Thank God for a closed practice, for no media lurking around the ice.
The team was scrambling and yelling all around him, Mario holding a hand to his nose where Will managed to connect his fist.
“What the fuck!” he was yelling around Tyler’s shoulder, but Tyler hauled himself and Will up off the ground.
“Will—” Mack was at Will’s shoulder when Tyler got him to his feet. Will’s eyes were wild and staring at Tyler, then blinked over to Mack, like he was shocked that both of them were there at his side.
Coach was at his shoulder as well, pushing Mario away, pulling Tyler as well.
“Locker room,” was all Tyler caught as he turned towards Mario, still gripping his nose, a trainer at his left.
“You okay?” he asked, voice ringing out over the suddenly silent ice. The rest of the team was huddled around, eyes frantic and wide. Everyone had come into practice carrying different weights on their shoulders at the news that they were out of the playoff race; relief at being able to stop hoping, pain from having to lose that same hope, anger, sadness, happiness, resentment.
Now, everyone was quiet and focused on Will skating quickly, quietly off the ice, on Mario letting go of his nose and nodding quickly that he wasn’t even bleeding.
Will Smith, can’t even throw a proper punch.
Coach barked for everyone to get back to it, the scrimmage having been abandoned genuinely in the middle of a play. Tyler shook out his shoulders, rolled them back under his pads.
Making his way back to the bench, he caught Mack by his jersey, the same place he’d grabbed Will’s only seconds before. Mack had been making his way towards the bench, towards the locker room.
“You’re on the ice,” he said, pulling the boy back towards center ice.
Mack made a belated motion towards the tunnel to the locker room. “Will—”
“Play the game.” Tyler pushed him again towards center ice. He wondered, belatedly, if Mack would try to fight him over that, if his nose was about to get hit as well. Matching pair, it would make him and Ferraro.
He didn’t flinch, though, even as Mack made one more little movement and he pushed him back once more.
Coach blew a whistle, Mack hesitated for a second, then turned on his skates and made his way back to his line on the ice.
Tyler blew out a breath, and retook his position on the bench, eyes drawn to Mack, ears perked for Will to come back down the tunnel and rejoin practice.
He never did.
—
Will was hunched in his stall when Tyler and the rest of the team made their way back to the locker room when ice time was over. He was still fully dressed out, pads hunched and barely fitting as he sat stock still and staring at his feet.
Mario breezed past him without a word. Most of the team quieted down at the sight of the boy, quiet murmurs the only noise to fill the space besides the shucking of jerseys and yanking of pads.
“I’m driving you home,” Tyler said, the only person to approach Will. Will didn’t glance up but his chin jutted out just a bit. It was enough of an acknowledgement for Tyler to continue on to his own stall.
Mack appeared at his shoulder. For such a loud boy, he had a scary habit of being able to sneak up on Tyler like that.
“He drove me to practice.”
“I’ll drive you both. He can get his car later.”
Mack nodded sharply and disappeared. Tyler huffed another sigh and went about shedding his pads for the rest of their practice in the gym.
Will didn’t join for that either and by the time practice was over, he wasn’t in the locker room. His stuff was gone as well, and when Tyler looked, so were the keys to his own car.
He waited for Mack to shower and change before they both trailed out to the parking lot together. Mack was silent, fiddling with the sleeves of his sweatshirt and tripping over his own feet, but Tyler left him to it in silence as they ventured out of the practice arena to find Will waiting in Tyler’s car.
He’d set himself up in the front seat, but when Tyler and Mack swung their stuff into the back and Tyler climbed into the drivers seat, there was no music playing. The AC was also snapped off in a way Tyler never had it, car radiating heat from the early afternoon San Jose sun beating down through the sunroof.
There was a joke in there, somewhere. Puppy in a hot car.
Tyler snapped the AC back on but left the music off, and peeled out of the parking lot without any fuss.
He took the exit to Mack’s billet house first, even though it was technically further away than Will’s. He thought it best for everyone that he dropped Mack off first, even if he could see Mack’s silent annoyance about this in the rearview mirror.
When he pulled up to the house and put it in park, Mack leaned forward through the seats.
“Smitty—” he started, but seemed to not know where to go with that and stopped. After a few moments silence, he launched himself out of the backseat and went to grab his stuff from the trunk.
Tyler watched him make his way around the car to Will’s passenger seat window. When Will didn’t make a move for the controls, Tyler put the window down with the power bestowed on the driver in the controls on his door. Will sent him a glance of disdain at it, the most emotion that Tyler had seen in him since he’d left practice.
“Will…” Mack said, leaning in again. Tyler turned away and stared out his window, which was about as much privacy as he could give the two boys when sitting in his own car.
He didn’t hear anything else, besides rustling of fabric, couldn’t help himself from glancing back and seeing Macklin rubbing Will’s shoulder a bit awkwardly. His pointer finger jutted out and poked at Will’s cheek and Will turned away almost violently, directly into Tyler’s view.
Mack’s hand dropped from the other boy, resting on the car door.
“He’ll pick you up tomorrow, Mack,” Tyler found himself saying. They had a game the next day and Will never missed an opportunity in picking Macklin up. On days where Macklin, always in an attempt to prove that he was an adult in one way or another, drove himself to the rink, Will spent the whole day moaning about being unwanted, unneeded to whoever would listen (which always ended up being Tyler).
Mack stepped away from the car slowly, like he didn’t want to leave Will’s side.
Tyler’s stomach twisted, the same way it did when he saw their hands reaching for each other during the sleepover.
He didn’t pull away from the drive until Mack disappeared inside the house, both watching him the whole way. Mack gave a belated wave from the doorway before disappearing inside.
Will slumped with a whoosh of breath, the loss of Mack in his vicinity making him a marionette doll with his strings cut.
Tyler pulled away, set out to take a long route to Will’s.
A moment of silence passed between them before Will bit out, between his teeth, “it’s not what it looks like, you know.”
Again. Puppy baring his teeth. Tyler was nothing if not endeared.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I know what everyone thinks, okay? And it’s… it’s not. Not that.”
Will crossed his arms and stared out the passenger window. Tyler couldn’t believe that he would be turning twenty in a few days.
“Okay.”
Will was quiet.
“I know,” he added on, because ‘okay’ didn’t feel like enough.
“I’m—” Will cut himself off again. Reached and turned the AC off. Rolled up his window, like the birds chirping outside weren’t allowed to be let in on what he was saying.
“You’re?” Tyler prompted, hands gripping the steering wheel and eyes stuck on the road. San Jose around them was warm and blue, the sky with no clouds and the smell of the bay somewhere in the distance.
“I’m not,” Will said, voice echoing quiet over the sound of the road, without the sound of the AC blowing. “I’m not.”
Tyler took a hand off the wheel, pressed it onto Will’s knee, kept it there firmly even as Will tried to push it off with his hand. He kept it there, gripping the young boy’s knee, until Will stopped pushing and just left his hand on top.
By the time they reached Will’s billet house, their hands were intertwined in Will’s lap and Will had tears streaming down his face.
He didn’t wait for Tyler to fully stop the car, jumping out the second the car was slow enough, hand ripped from Tyler's. He grabbed his stuff from the back and was up the front steps and into the house before Tyler could think of what he wanted to say.
He waited, to see if he came back out.
After five minutes, he drove home, basking in the rising heat of his car, radio still shut off.
—
Will’s birthday was a quieter affair, mostly because of how exhausted the team was in the last few weeks of their season. Now that it was overly confirmed they weren’t making the playoffs, the last few games seemed to be dragging on and on.
Eklund offered to host everyone for Will. Quite a sight, seeing twenty odd hockey players shoved into William’s one bedroom apartment, but Will seemed to be enjoying his time. Someone had given him a bottle of wine that he was holding by the neck and drinking all by himself, a move that proved his age and his profession all in one, given how expensive Tyler was sure the bottle was and how careless Will was being in drinking it straight from the glass.
Mack was flitting around the party, halfway to wasted himself as the older guys seemed to find it funny to press beers into his hands and see how flushed they could get his cheeks. Not that it took much, Tyler groused, but still. He was glad to see both of them relaxed.
The party (which was never fully a party, just the guys hanging out with more chirps to Will than would be normal) ebbed and flowed as the night went on. They’d played a game the night before, got their asses whipped by Ovechkin and the Caps on his damn tirade towards the record, so everyone wasn’t in the best mood possible, but given they didn’t have to play until Thursday everyone was happy for the chance to drink freely.
Tyler snuck up on Will as he was finishing off his bottle of wine, setting the empty glass on the floor and sending it immediately toppling over and rolling under the couch.
“Oops,” he said out loud and completely to himself. He looked up in surprise when Tyler huffed a laugh.
They hadn’t really spoken since the car ride, past what was necessary in their profession. Will had still been sending Tyler meaningless TikToks, but Tyler would be more concerned if those stopped altogether.
“This spot taken?” Tyler asked, nodding to the empty bit of couch next to where Will had spread himself out. Teammates had been down and up in the spot all night, all finding Will to wish him a happy birthday and mumble to him about this, that, and other things. Everyone was more or less aware of how hard Will (and Mack, and all the young players) were taking their exceedingly early dismissal from the playoffs, so everyone was doing their best to placate the hard emotions. Tyler had even caught glimpse of Ferraro and Will huddled together and whispering earlier, before Will had made it halfway through his bottle, so he was sure they’d made up.
“Only for you,” Will said, giggling slightly. The blush on his cheeks was high, practically his whole face was blotchy red. Tyler took a seat next to him and couldn’t help but picture those little religious angels.
Cherubs, or whatever they were called.
As he settled in, Will watched him, then took the beer from his hand. He examined the label (a European brand that Eklund was fond of) and then took a swig, grimacing almost immediately. Tyler couldn’t help but openly laugh. “Not a fan?”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Could’ve told you that, bud,” Tyler said, taking his own sip. It was already lukewarm, which wasn’t great, but he was sure even if it was cold Will wouldn’t like it.
“I never drank before coming here, y’know,” Will said under his breath, quickly, like it was a secret he was dying to get out.
Tyler raised an eyebrow. This was hardly the first gathering that they’d had where Will had been bestowed drinks of some kind, usually in the form of outings to local bars that turned blind eyes to the younger players or barbecues at teammate’s houses. Hell, he was pretty sure he remembered a particular photo of Will and his dad that had to be taken down because he had a damn White Claw in it.
“Like, I was too scared in college. I was, like… extra underage, and also try’na be, like. Here. So I didn’t want the police to come after me,” Will was mumbling, slowly leaning into Tyler’s side. Tyler adjusted so that Will could rest fully on him without having the lean forward, and Will took that as a sign to drape himself across Tyler, eyes closed and breath warm against Tyler’s neck.
Out of the corner of his eye, Tyler could see Mack, in an animated conversation with Collin and Eklund, head turned to watch them. His eyes met Tyler’s and glanced away quickly, nervous and fleeting.
Tyler wondered.
Will was still mumbling something in Tyler’s neck, so he shouldered him a bit and asked him to speak up. Will leaned up, just enough for his lips to be sort of level with Tyler’s ear, and mumbled, “thanks for not telling anyone.”
He dropped his head back onto Tyler’s shoulder before Tyler could figure out a response. He wasn’t one hundred percent positive what Will was referring to — the car ride, the crying, the implications.
Mack turned towards them again, and Tyler tried to smile. It felt like a grimace.
Mack turned away quickly.
By the time the party started truly breaking up, twenty minutes before midnight but feeling like three a.m. to the athletes who rarely went to bed past eleven, Will was asleep and drooling on Tyler’s shoulder.
Eklund offered the couch for them both, but Tyler knew that if he slept on a couch in the same month span as a goddamn hotel cot, all for one kid, he would never be able to look himself in the mirror again, so he shook Will awake and got him standing before could think differently.
He left the few adults left to handle the Ubers for everyone else, got Will’s feet into shoes and his own address pulled up on Uber before he could really think much of it. No one seemed to be batting an eye at Will leaving with Tyler, except Mack who was still gazing at them across the room, while halfheartedly debating a two-stop Uber with Collin.
Tyler went to step outside, but Will tugged away from Tyler and stumbled his way across the room. Tyler (and the lingering teammates) watched Will gather Macklin up in a hug, too soft for anybody to be watching, too open for anybody to really question anything, even though Tyler was sure everybody saw it as normal.
They were Mack and Will, anyway. WillandMack. Nothing unusual here.
He stumbled his way back across the apartment to Tyler, ducking under his arm and out the door without much of a goodbye to anybody else.
“Man, I hosted for that guy and I didn't even get a goodbye!” Eklund said, breaking the tension, leaving everyone giggling and sighing and yawning once again.
Tyler and Mack stared at each other from across the room, not laughing.
Tyler followed Will out the door and shut it behind himself quietly.
—
Will didn’t question the Uber going to Tyler’s house instead of his own.
He followed Tyler inside, took his shoes off and tucked them next to Tyler’s on the shoe rack. Followed Tyler upstairs, sat on the edge of Tyler’s bed as he rifled through his dresser for some clothes. Tyler tossed him some clean boxers as well as a t-shirt, wondering blankly if that was maybe too intimate, but Will stripped freely and didn’t seem to mind either way. Tyler followed suit quickly, pulling on his own new boxers and different t-shirt in tandem with Will.
When the shirt got over his head, Tyler blinked back into the room to see Will staring at his now covered stomach. Will blinked himself out of it, looking up at Tyler.
Tyler thought about how easy it would be to step across the room, how much smaller Will looked perched on the edge of his bed.
Tyler stepped into the bathroom and Will followed. He watched Tyler brush his teeth, glancing around at the different products on the counter, examining the different pain killers in his medicine cabinet. When Tyler spit out the toothpaste and rinsed the brush, Will took it from him to brush his own teeth.
Tyler took the time to examine him, shrouded in Tyler’s clothes, staring at himself in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. Tyler couldn’t doubt that he was a professional athlete, had the build of one. The difference from him in the summer to now was shocking, but under it all, he was still the young boy that Tyler had met. He'd been nineteen with a bite to his voice, a chip on his shoulder, a point to prove. Knuckles never bloodied, acne on his cheeks shining. The only difference now was his passing birthday and the memory of red-bruised knuckles from hitting his own teammate.
Tyler couldn’t help but look at him and see him as something even more simple: a twenty year old kid, scared and alone. Away from family, blond haired and bright eyed, leaning on his best friend and failing at his first year in the job he’s wanted since he was five.
Will spit out the toothpaste, rinsed his mouth with some water straight from the tap, leaning over to lap at it from the faucet. When he straightened up, a rivulet of water ran down his chin, along with a streak of frothy toothpaste.
Tyler reached out, wiping it away with his thumb. Will watched him in the mirror.
Tyler wiped his hand on a towel and led them back into his bedroom.
He sat on the edge of his bed. Will watched him from the doorway to the bathroom. He flicked the light off, so he was no longer illuminated from the back, only from the lamp on Tyler’s bedside table.
He was in college the year before, Tyler reminded himself. He’d never drank until eight months ago.
It was his twentieth birthday.
Will slowly made his way across the room towards Tyler. First, it seemed on purpose, seemed confident, but the closer he got, the more nervous his movements became. Tyler could see his hands were twitching at his sides, his breath was rattling and uncertain in his chest.
He came to a stop in front of Tyler, his knees bracketed by Tyler’s. He brought shaking hands up to rest on Tyler’s shoulders, looking down at him, blond hair framing his face, eyes flicking all around Tyler’s.
Slowly, he crept a hand up and to Tyler’s mouth, thumb pressing softly against Tyler’s lips. Tyler sat still, let Will’s fingertips trace over his entire face. He ran his thumb along the path of his lips, bottom then top then bottom again, then trailed his pointer finger across his jawline, up and down his cheekbone. He stroked over Tyler’s eyebrow bones, brushed soft pads of fingers across his eyelashes and the bridge of his nose, eventually landing back on his lips.
Tyler blinked his eyes open. Hadn’t realized he’d fully closed them.
When Will leaned in, Tyler allowed for the ghost of his lips to cross his, barely even a touch but a whisper of air between them. Will’s eyes were screwed shut, now, face contorted in agony, in relief.
Tyler brought a hand up to his curls, held him in place. Pushed, just enough, to get Will down onto his knees in front of him, not fully moving their faces away from each other as Will’s hands fell to grip Tyler’s legs. Ghosted his lips across the same path that Will’s fingers had followed; lips ghosting his jaw to his cheeks, forehead and eyes and nose. At his lips again, Tyler allowed for the briefest press, the briefest swipe of tongue, across the younger boy’s mouth. Will opened, panting slightly, and Tyler just barely pressed inside, only for the sparest of seconds.
Then he leaned away.
Will, on his knees in front of him, hands clasped on Tyler’s thighs, not moving. Eyes closed, mouth open just slightly, breath heavy and deep and noisy in the room around them.
Tyler had a horrifying image of Will praying.
“Will,” he whispered, reverent in the shrouded dark of the night.
He thought of Will with bruised knuckles after hitting Ferraro. Will watching Mack during games, during practices. Will’s crying silently in Tyler’s car. Will’s hand, stretched out to Mack during a sleepover. Will’s refusal to share a bed. Will, sitting in a hot car, waiting for Mack and Tyler together. Will’s St. Christopher pendant, hanging between his shoulders, a weight that was pulling him down.
Will blinked his eyes open. They were welling with tears before he could even fully look at Tyler.
Tyler brushed a hand through Will’s curls, unruly and knotted under his fingers. He tried to not pull on a knot, left his hand intertwined in the long strands.
Will dropped his forehead to Tyler’s knee and began to weep, to sob.
Tyler kept his hand on his head and let him.
—
The sun was shining through Tyler’s curtains the next morning. Sheer enough to keep most of the strong light out, Tyler was awoken to the yellowish glow across this room and a heat pressed against his back.
At some point in the night, they’d migrated from where they’d fallen asleep, Tyler holding Will in his arms. Now, Will was pressed against Tyler, chin against Tyler’s shoulder and arms snug around Tyler’s waist.
Tyler didn’t mind it, even if he was roasting under the comforter and Will’s body heat combined.
After a few moments, however, he urged himself up and out of Will’s arms, padding across the carpet to the bathroom. Will stayed asleep, curling in on himself on the bed, into the warm spot that Tyler had just vacated.
Tyler relieved himself then headed downstairs. His routine wasn’t one that he deviated from too much, yet found himself integrating two recipients into every normal step. He fished out a second coffee mug, brewed enough for the both of them. Four pieces of toast to his usual two, six eggs to his usual three.
He’d half expected to hear Will before he’d finished breakfast, but as he plated everything he still heard nothing, so he found a tray and padded back upstairs with the plates and mugs all in hand.
He found Will in the same spot, and set the breakfast down on his end table, urging Will back over on his back and crawling back in bed, settling against the pillows with his phone in hand.
Will shifted back over almost instantaneously, face pressed into Tyler’s stomach, and stayed asleep for almost a half an hour more. Tyler ate his toast, sipped his coffee, and watched him.
He woke slowly, like the sun.
Like a cat searching for warmth, he stretched his body, languid and sleep-ridden, further into the warmth of Tyler, legs twisting with his own under the covers, hands roaming across Tyler’s naval and down his hip.
Tyler could see the moment he realized where he was, what he was doing. Tyler could feel his whole body, fingertips to toes, stop at once, freeze their movements, tense with anticipation. His fingers twitched on Tyler’s hip, his breath stuttering against Tyler’s stomach where his face was still pressed.
Tyler dropped a hand into Will’s hair, feeling him let out a gust of breath slowly at the touch.
Tyler finished his toast and let Will find the courage to sit up on his own, blinking in the orange light of the morning, eyes red rimmed and tired looking in the early sun. as he sat up, he pulled the comforter with him, a gust of cool air into their warm pocket of sleep.
Will made an aborted movement to get out of bed, but Tyler stopped him with a hand on his wrist and a gesture to the toast and coffee on the side table.
He passed it over when Will settled, back against the pillows, fingers flexing in his own lap.
“Thank you,” Will mumbled quietly, as he ate his toast.
Tyler let him sit and think for the time being. He watched him slowly eat the toast, tiny bites like a child after being sick. Thought about the night before, the smell of wine on Will’s breath, the ghost of his lips across his.
The glances from Mack, as they left Eklund’s house.
“You’ll feel better,” Tyler said after a moment of silence, Will’s slow chewing the only noise in the bedroom, “if you talk about it.”
Will shifted, paused his chewing for only a second.
The bedroom, coated in orange and gold, felt like a safe haven from the rest of the world. Gone were the hockey players and the general managers, the posters around the city and the Twitter hockey experts.
It was just them, Tyler and Will. Toff and Puppy.
Tyler reached a hand and threaded it in Will’s hair, keeping him grounded. Will shivered under the touch, under the coolness of the AC. Swallowed his bite of toast and took a generous sip from his lukewarm coffee.
Then he started to talk, voice hoarse and scratchy, eyes still red rimmed with unshed tears still threatening to fall. Tyler played with his hair and listened.
The idea of God trailed instantly into the bedroom. God and his watchful eyes, Will and his teammate, his best friend. Sharing hotel rooms on the road, sharing cars on the way to the arena. The terrifying understanding that they were meant to save the team in some way, that Mack was still eighteen and had the weight of the world on his shoulders. That Will sat with him, across hotel rooms and locker rooms, during car rides and Chel tourneys, watching and understanding. The ghost of Mack’s lips on Will’s. The dreams Will couldn’t stop of something more. The feeling of his pendant hanging heavy, next to his heart. The images of young Will, twelve and thirteen and fourteen, sitting in confession, being told things that Tyler didn't dare repeat to anyone, anger spiking deep in his chest at Will's hollow breath.
As he talked, Tyler let his hand fall to Will’s side, grabbing his own. They were steady, then. The golden light, Tyler, and the cherub boy, sitting and confessing in the early morning.
When Will had nothing left to say, he fell quiet. Tyler didn’t feel the need to say anything in response, just took the empty plate and mug from the boy, setting it to the side, gathering him up in the warmth of the covers again.
Hands roaming Will’s back, brushing lightly through his hair. Will, solid in his arms, no longer shaking or tense, letting it happen, letting himself be cared for, be loved. It wasn't perfect, nothing was fixed. But even so, Will felt a little bit lighter in his arms. Tyler wanted to bask in it, wrap him up in his comforter and never let him leave, for fear of him growing tense again.
“I’m sorry for last night,” Will said quietly as Tyler worshipped his body, hands roaming up and down his arms, his back, his hips.
“Don’t be.” Tyler brushed hands over his shoulders and back into his hair, pulling the boy ever closer to him. Ghosted his lips across Will's temples, not the same as last night but as reverent as before.
He wasn’t the right person, he knew that. He wasn’t what Will wanted, not with the shining sun waiting to get into his passenger seat later that same day.
But in the glow of the early morning light, filtered through his curtains, he could be this. For now.
—
Will left around midday, instructions to talk to Mack in his mind.
Tyler cleaned his house.
—
The season ended with as little fanfare as possible. The younger boys' parents all in town, celebrating their milestones. The older players licking their wounds and trying to keep positive for the next season.
People stopped mentioning the sleepover to Tyler in interviews.
Tyler thought about where he was going on break, escaping the soon to be stifling heat of California for the Canadian wilderness as he usually did. The pangs of guilt, deep in his chest, were not enough to deter him, just put it off enough to see that everyone was alright.
He’d heard rumblings of Will and Mack getting a place together, finally moving out of their billet homes. He didn’t ask if it was too soon, if it was a codependency thing or something else entirely.
Instead, he hosted the young boys at his house a few days following their end of season team party, supplied them with some beer (to Will’s chagrin and Mack’s joy), and helped them search Zillow and apartments.com for places that would be downright ridiculous for two teenagers to be looking at if not for their insane profession and more or less satisfaction that they wouldn't be leaving this city anytime soon.
He watched from the couch as Will and Mack did their dance around each other, giggling and laughing, hands rough on each other’s shoulders in a way that only teenagers (or, freshly twenty year olds) could do to signify any sort of real love between them.
When the sun set and the boys’ eyes started to droop, they found themselves taking up mantle next to Tyler, Will on his left and Mack on his right, warm lines of heat on both sides of him.
Tyler wondered if he should offer to move over so they could sit next to each other.
He thought about them having their own place together, their car rides and shared hotel rooms, and he didn’t move.
Mack turned on some violent movie that he’d wanted to watch. Twenty minutes in, just as it was getting good, Will stole the remote from Mack's lap and turned on Clueless instead, buying it on Tyler’s Amazon over renting it, a side grin and giggle when Tyler didn’t stop him.
“Should we get a dog?” Mack asked over Tyler’s shoulder, scrolling through TikTok as the movie played. He showed them both a TikTok of some tiny mutt with three legs running around a yard with some brain-rot song playing in the background.
“Maybe move in first then talk about lifelong commitments,” Tyler groused and Mack giggled, shifting closer.
“You should get a dog, then we could come and visit,” Will said, leaning into Tyler’s side some more, easy grin on his lips, eyes sparkling at the prospect.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you. All the fun of seeing a dog with no responsibility.” Tyler pulled him in closer, arm around his shoulders.
"I'd help!" Will insisted, burrowing into Tyler's chest, easy and warm and unabashed. Tyler couldn't see Mack's face without making it obvious, but he knew that whatever was happening with Tyler and Will was different than what was happening with Mack.
As the movie continued, he felt Mack set his phone down and shift, a warm line across Tyler’s side, leg thrown over Tyler's in a bid to get as close as possible. It was a bit awkward for him to reach his arms around both boys at the same time, but he did so to hear them both sigh in content and snuggle in closer, heads bowed together while resting on Tyler's shoulders.
He played with the chain of Will’s pendant at the base of his neck, rubbed his hands along Mack’s shoulder and upper arm.
They all trailed off to sleep eventually and Tyler awoke to the movie credits, warmth on both sides, and Will and Mack’s hands intertwined on top of Tyler’s stomach.
He pulled them closer and closed his eyes again. Wondered if he was crazy to consider getting a dog just because Will asked him to.
Let himself fall back asleep with the boys on both sides of him, kept close by his own arms, safe on his couch. Dreamt of a puppy, of Mack and Will chasing it around the yard, laughs loud and bright in Tyler’s ears.
When he awoke, the sun was shining through the curtains of his living room, TV long shut off, house quiet in the early morning.
Tyler was alone.
He went to make himself some toast and coffee.