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The life of a rookie goes like this:

One day you're playing in the NCAA, or in a junior league, or an international league. You’re going to tournaments and U18 championships and you’re praying – if you’re religious, and even, occasionally, if you aren’t – or just plain hoping, relying on every superstition you believe in, for one moment to shine under the right eye. 

You’re 18. You have a million things to learn about life, a stuffed animal you still sleep with even though you’re embarrassed by it, and a few more inches to grow. 

And then one day, if the stars align, if God is feeling agreeable, if the superstitions pay off, you’ll be in a room of prospects getting drafted into the NHL. It’ll be a whirlwind. Everything you’ve ever worked for all leading up to this one moment, and suddenly you’re packing up the life you’ve had – not even two decades of it – and moving to a new city on your own. You leave behind everything but your hockey bag. In a few years, you won’t know all the people you once called friends. They’ll be busy fighting their way into college classes they need to graduate and applying for jobs on Indeed and you’ll be waking up at 6 am for morning training and getting your teeth replaced after a hard check to the chin. 

Life will move you too far in opposite directions and the ocean of time will swell, unrelenting, between you.

You’ll learn how to clean, how to do your own laundry, how much your body still has to grow as you’re slammed into the boards by a 6’3” 250 pound 30 year old man, squishing like Flat Stanley and trying to coordinate your still-growing limbs to recover quick enough to avoid the next hit. 

You’ll most likely get bounced down to the AHL for a bit. You’ll grow up fast in a year. You’ll set off the smoke detector more times than you can count and eventually learn about the wonders of an air fryer and a rice cooker. There will be days you wake up to find ESPN putting out an article criticizing how high in the draft you were picked, or a podcaster breaking down your game and hypothesizing that you’ll never live up to any potential anyone has ever seen in you, or a hundred anonymous people posting 14 different angles of an easy goal you missed on Twitter. You’ll get homesick in the middle of the night in a random hotel room with bruised ribs because all you want is your mom to run her hand over your forehead and tell you that you’ll be okay. 

But you won’t go home. 

This is everything you have ever dreamed about, and by sheer force of will, you will not let it become a nightmare. And if you’re lucky, you’ll have teammates there to help you keep the dream nice and sweet. 

That’s how it goes for the Ottawa Centaurs’ rookies. They don’t lose the moniker even after they finish their first season with the team, keeping the name in the face of the incoming blessing of Shane Hollander. 

It’s a slightly significant number of “rookies” on one team. Not completely out of the ordinary, but a sign of the eyebrow-raising amount of money dedicated to keeping the two biggest talents in the NHL on one team. There are grumblings in the media that they were called up too early, half a commentary on their own playing and half a continued storyline from people looking for a reason to hate the royal husbands of hockey. Before the season starts, more than a dozen men with podcasts that are a waste of airspace will run with the story that Shane and Ilya cost too much so the Ottawa Centaurs had to fill out the rest of their lines with cheap, young bodies that will bend and break under the pressures of playing in the big league.

It doesn’t matter to the rookies, though. They’re playing in the fucking NHL. 

They live in the same apartment building, next door to each other, two and two in each space. 

It’s not a question of money. All of the sudden four 19 and 20 year olds are making more money than they could have ever imagined. They’re having to do shit like meet with a financial planner and learn what investing is. Ilya keeps telling them they should talk to Shane about real estate, but they’ve all privately conferred that by the way he smirks when he says it, they should never bring it up to Shane. 

Instead, staying together is a lifeline. None of this feels real. It’s the biggest mind fuck in the world, and all the other guys on the team are years older with so much more experience under their belts. Half of them are married with children, in completely different stages of life than the rookies. They need someone close to them that understands just how insane this all is. 

Life has gone from zero to one hundred – training, games, weightlifting, nutrition, recovery. Their heads are spinning from the amount of information a new professional hockey player has to take in on top of learning how to live on their own. It’s overwhelming. 

They’re playing on the same team as Shane fucking Hollander and Ilya fucking Rozanov. They all had posters of them growing up, though Holmberg only ever had Ilya – “Stop, guys. I grew up in fucking Mass, of course I had a Rozanov poster. I would have been fucking murdered if I had Shane too.”

But eventually, little by little, the rookies find themselves becoming a part of the team. They get slotted into openings on third and fourth lines – and eventually first and second lines, “fuck yeah, Luca,” Young screams when they find out – and begin to figure out what type of character they’re meant to play on the ice. It’s a learning curve helped along by the guiding hands of coaches, trainers, and teammates.

They start to breathe a little easier, feel a little more confident. 

They know they’ve finally made it when they realize that they are capable of returning the favor for all the support they’ve received. This is their team. They’re Ottawa fucking Centaurs.

___________________

They won. They fucking won. 

It was one of those long, grinding games where the lead is miniscule, and the clock forgets to move. The rink felt less like hard ice and more like thick molasses, each movement a struggle. Young swears there were ten minutes left for an hour. The hits got bigger as the clock stood still, bodies smacking hard against the glass, and the play sloppier, the puck skittering and bouncing, unable to be held in possession. 

But they fucking won. 

It’s even sweeter that it’s against Toronto. Young treasures the look of Dallas Kent’s pissy little face when the final whistle blows. He got utterly humiliated by the Hollanov duo, floundering about on the ice, and getting shut down by Hayes in goal. 

Young clears the bench as the game ends, swarming out onto the ice. He chases LaPointe down first, grabbing the defenseman’s face and screaming in utter elation with him. More bodies slam into him in celebration, their joy ringing out over the hissing boos of an angry Toronto stadium. 

From around Haasy’s arm, haphazardly slung around his head, Young watches as Ilya, standing alone in the center of the ice, salutes the incensed crowd – his own patented version of the middle finger when they play in front of crowds that hate them. The anger swells. Holmberg is laughing in his ear, clutching at Young’s shoulders, shaking him. Barrett joins Ilya and waves at his once hometown fans. 

Yeah, Young lives for this shit. 

The traipse back into the away team locker room, hooting and hollering and all manner of inappropriately overjoyed. Off the ice, Young takes his chance to pick Haasy up, swinging him about to properly express how beautiful his goal was. It’s a testament to just how good this win feels that Haasy lets him do it with minimal slapping and protesting. 

He sets him back down as Barrett hops up onto the bench in the middle of the room and calls for everyone’s attention, yelling, “shut the fuck up.”

“We are fucking celebrating tonight,” Barrett continues as the team cheers, clapping and banging on locker doors, “we are all going out tonight. Everyone who scored is doing shots including you, Hollzy.”

He points at Shane who pretends like he’s being put upon, doing a great performance at rolling his eyes and acting annoyed, but Young knows him well enough now to know that he’s happy. Shane is like a cat who got the cream after a win, all cocky and satiated with a job well done. He’s never met anyone who loves to win more than Shane, including Ilya.

The husbands, like many of the other married men, are frequent skippers of the post-game drinks so they can do their own celebrating. But there are certain games on the calendar that when the Centaurs win, everyone goes out together, delighting in the idea of rubbing it in other teams’ faces when they celebrate in their own towns. 

Players divide and conquer after Barrett’s announcement – some off to the trainers and ice baths, others to the showers, others hustling out to see family and loved ones. 

The rookies all shower, letting the hot water ease sore muscles and bruised skin. Young borrows Luca’s nice hair care products and gets the same earful he always gets about buying his own. Luca keeps buying the huge versions of the bottles though, so Young has never had to worry about being able to pilfer some. 

In street clothes and sneakers, the rookies dutifully follow the vets to the club, ducking into the dimly lit space. They’re led into the roped off area for rich and famous people; Young still feels awkward being here. Most days, he can’t believe that he gets waved in by bouncers and owners to restaurants, clubs, and bars. They save tables for him and his teammates. People take photos of him and ask for his autograph. He flies private or, at worst, first class. Some days he wakes up and has to pinch himself when he remembers he plays in the NHL, making more money than he knows what to do with, and more famous than he ever thought about being.   

Food is ordered to the table so they can put something in their stomachs before the booze. On a victory night, Young takes the usual rookie route of ordering meat and grease and very little else. In general, though, his diet has become better in the last few months. Most of that is owed to the fact that Young has started taking his nutrition way more seriously. He’s eating more fruits, veggies, and lean meat than he has in the few years since he moved out of his house. 

The rookies are also learning how to cook. Ilya gifted Holmberg a stack of cookbooks for secret Santa this year to cut down on “how many times you children come over to interrupt us.” Their cooking capabilities vary wildly from Luca amazingly being the worst and Holmberg even more amazingly being the best. He’s like a mad scientist in the kitchen whipping together spices and herbs. 

But tonight, Young isn’t worried about macros or micros or vitamins or protein goals. He’s going to eat too much, drink even more, and see where the night takes him. 

The table they’re at starts to fill up with players and staff members as Young gets a plate of loaded nachos and steals wings off of LaPointe’s plate, dodging smacking hands in his mission. 

“You’re too food aggressive,” Young criticizes as he sucks the meat out from between the delicate bones of the buffalo chicken wing he thieved. 

“You make me food aggressive,” LaPointe yells back. 

“Stop fighting,” Bood interrupts, clapping both of them on the shoulders, as he makes his way past them. “You all played well tonight; don’t kill each other now.”

“Thanks, Bood,” they chorus. 

He ruffles their hair, and then walks the length of the table to slide into the empty seat next to Harris and Barrett. That’s about the time that the first round of shots hits the table. 

Young, to be honest, prefers a tequila shot. He puts a little salt on the crook of his hand, where classy rich people eat caviar, then licks it up like a goat, necks the shot, and pops a lime in his mouth. It has been his tried-and-true way. 

Now with Ilya on the team, he’s on a journey to discover that there are actually different types of vodka that aren’t just the same two handles teenagers take turns buying from the bottom shelf of the liquor store. This particular shot goes down smooth and easy. 

Then it’s enough beer to feel a little too full. Then another round of shots. Then a champagne bottle that’s popped – not by Holmberg ever since the incident where he sprayed Shane and Ilya’s ceiling. Then it’s margaritas with Luca. Then it’s another round of shots. Then Young is up on a table with his arm around LaPointe’s shoulder screaming the words to Pink Pony Club as the night stretches into the technicolored boozy haze of a damn good time. 

Young dances with his teammates, he dances with a group of girls who have impressively made their way into the VIP section. He eats more of LaPointe’s wings and sits on one of the back couches with Bood’s arm around his shoulders and Dykstra trying to explain something about basketball over the loud music before he’s pulled back onto the dance floor by Luca. 

He only stops when the pressure to piss becomes too much for him to ignore. 

“You’re going to break the seal,” Luca warns, his sweaty face close to Young’s as he says it, nose almost brushing his cheek. 

“I have to take that risk,” Young yells back, disentangling himself from Luca and winding his way through the sea of bodies, sidestepping limbs and sloshing drinks. 

The bathroom is tucked back in a dark corner down a hallway that makes a hard right turn. The music gets far enough away that Young feels like he has cotton stuffed in his ears, everything sounding muffled, even the way his shoes hit the floor. He presses on his ears, hoping to expel the sensation, and pushes the door open. 

Inside, he discovers the bathroom is not empty; Shane and Ilya are at the sinks. Young’s first instinct is to clap a hand over his eyes and rush out to give them privacy, but he stops when he realizes that nothing untoward is happening. They’re just giggling, like little kids. 

Shane is clutching at the sink counter, crouching down as his body is wracked with laughter. Ilya is leaning on the wall, one hand supporting him as his shoulders shake and tears roll down his face. 

“Hey guys,” Young says. 

“Young!” Shane cheers. He turns his head to look at him, but the movement knocks him off balance, hands scrambling at the porcelain material of the sink counter to keep from crashing to the floor. It sends both of them into harder fits of giggles. 

“Young so young,” Ilya slurs. “You can never – hic – grow up with that name.”

They’re drunk. Utterly shit faced. Not just two sheets to the wind but three or four. Young laughs at the incredulity of it. 

Shane scored twice tonight, Ilya once alongside Luca’s goal to put them up four to three to win. They did their customary shots for the goals they scored and then a handful more to boot. It’s not often that Shane lets loose mid-season to drink. He is nowhere near as strict and uptight as the media tries to paint him in an effort to make his marriage to Ilya seem ludicrous, but he doesn’t typically push past tipsy territory when the team goes out while in season. 

Tonight, though, is a good night. Last game of a road trip, huge win, on track to make playoffs, sticking it to that fucking asshole Dallas Kent. It all amounts to the rare occasion of a drunk Shane Hollander and an even drunker Ilya Rozanov to match. 

And now they’re both stumbling around in a men’s bathroom with only Young there to witness it. 

“Shane,” Ilya says, drawing out every letter of his name, “why are you down there?”

“One second, asshole. I’m trying to get up.”

“Let me – hic – help you.”

Ilya stumbles off the wall, bumping into his husband. He crouches down in front of Shane and holds out his hands. Shane relaxes his death grip on the sink and takes his husband’s hands. From his crouched position, Ilya leans back, leveraging his weight to try to pull his husband up. He’s successful in getting Shane to his feet; in sacrifice, he drops to the ground, falling on his ass.

Shane cackles at him. “That’s so gross. You’re on a bathroom floor.”

“You don’t say it’s gross when I’m on my knees in the bathroom.”

“Oh my God, I’m still here,” Young decides now is the time to intervene. 

They both turn to him. 

“Young!” Ilya yells again like he’s just seeing him for the first time. 

“Do you guys think we should head back to the hotel?” Young asks, Ilya still sitting on the floor and Shane swaying precariously. They both nod. 

“Okay, I’ll call an Uber.”

He pulls out his phone and finds his Uber app. He half turns away from his teammates, trying to block out whatever drunken ramble Ilya is going on that’s making Young blush. Young is sure he would not be flexible enough to be put in that position, nor is Ilya sober enough to do any of this tonight. 

Driver called, Young works on pulling Ilya up off the floor. He’s not very helpful, leaning his full weight against Young as Young shuffles to keep his feet under that wall of muscle. He guides them both out of the bathroom and into the crowded club. Barrett spots them and cocks an eyebrow at Young in question. 

“Headed back,” Young yells to him. “Tell the others.” 

Barrett gives him a thumbs up. 

It’s a mission to get both of them outside. Ilya is more or less content to slump against Young’s shoulder, causing his body to slope down to the left under his weight, but Shane keeps trying to wander off to talk to other people. Young links Ilya and Shane’s hands together after the second time he has to chase after the greatest hockey player in the NHL to keep him tethered. 

They step out into the night just as the car pulls up. He shoves them both in the back before sliding in after them, jamming their three, big hockey bodies into the back seat. 

“Don’t throw up,” Young commands. He’s just starting to get his Uber rating up after two years of calling cars for college kids and junior hockey players who were usually as drunk as these two. 

“We won’t,” Ilya whines. “I have never done this ever.”

Shane keeps his mouth shut, his face going slightly pale as the car starts to drive. That’s about the time that Young remembers that he never got to piss. 

“Fuck,” Young groans, the pressure returning tenfold in his bladder now that he’s sitting in a moving vehicle. 

“What?” Shane asks, still holding himself perfectly still as the car snakes through traffic.

“I never got to pee.”

It’s a long 20 minutes to the hotel. Once there, Young performs the next arduous task of getting everyone out of the Uber, into the hotel, up the elevator, and to their hotel room. He slings both of their arms around his shoulders as they shuffle forward in their mission to get to bed, feeling a bit like the characters out of the Wizard of Oz on their journey down the yellow brick road. 

There’s a bit of a hold up once they get to their hotel room, which thankfully, Shane remembered. He’s sobering up more than Ilya is, but not enough to be helpful getting the room unlocked, snickering uselessly into his shoulder. Young has to shimmy their room card out of Ilya’s back pocket, something he will never speak of again. 

Once inside, he deposits them both on the bed and races into the bathroom. The relief of finally getting to pee almost makes Young stagger back. 

When he reemerges from the bathroom, he takes up position at the end of the bed, standing with his hands on his hips, becoming, in the blink of an eye, like his mother, the first and only time he got so drunk he had to call her to take him home. She had been angry that night. Years removed he knows that her rage had been born of fear. 

Young doesn’t have that same rage she did. But he is a little confused about what to do next. 

“Do I need to like, backpack you?” he asks. Shane’s sitting up patting Ilya on the arm who’s flopped over, mostly dead to the world. 

“What is this? Backpack?” Ilya asks from his position on the bed. 

“Like when guys would get too drunk in college, we’d roll them over onto their side and put a heavy backpack on them to keep them in that position so they wouldn’t choke and die on their vomit.”

Shane makes a face at Young’s description. 

“I do not get backpacked,” Ilya decides. 

“We’ll be okay, Young,” Shane agrees. 

He pushes up off the bed, wobbling a bit unsteady. He crosses the room towards Young, grabbing both his shoulders. “I just want to say,” he says, “that we’re really proud of you.”

His eyes are earnest when he says it, even through the drunken glaze. Young feels something stick in his throat at the words, and he has to swallow around the emotion. 

“For bringing you home?”

“For everything. You played so well tonight and you’re doing so well in the league.”

“Thanks, Shane,” Young croaks. 

“Really proud,” Ilya echoes from the bed, giving Young a thumbs up without sitting up. It breaks the tension in the room, Young and Shane both laughing. 

“Okay, now go back to the boys,” Shane commands, giving him a gentle shove. “You’re too young to be at the hotel this early.”

“Are you saying we’re old?” Ilya asks. 

Shane meets Young’s eyes and silently nods, holding his finger to his lips to keep it a secret between them. Young covers his mouth to keep from laughing. 

“Go,” Shane whispers, turning back to his husband. 

Young tiptoes out of the room, listening to them talk softly as he slips through the door. He checks his phone as he walks to the elevator, seeing where the rookies are off to next – the nearest gay bar, apparently, to try to help Luca fall in love. 

Young texts that he’s on his way as he calls a ride, his cheeks still feeling flushed and his shoulders hot from where Shane grabbed him. 

___________________

Playing Montreal goes one of two ways: the most fun Ilya has in a season or grievous injury. 

Unfortunately, tonight is the latter of the two options. Some could say that it’s Ilya’s fault. He’s had a lot to say about how terrible the team has become since they betrayed Shane, and he doesn’t filter his hatred for them when he talks to reporters. 

They deserve it. He begrudgingly refrains from being cruel towards Hayden and JJ for his husband’s sake, but the rest of the team is open season. He talks about their inability to command the center. Their abhorrent lack of leadership. The fact that they will now and forever remain a middling, mediocre team, clinging to the vestiges of glory that Shane bestowed upon them. 

In the lead up to their game, Ilya has had a lot to say in particular about Comeau who in an interview called Shane, “an overrated center who ruined their team’s chances at a fourth cup.” Harris might have Ilya’s Twitter currently locked because of the last Cromwell incident, but he can’t stop Ilya from saying things to journos who shove their phones and cameras in front of his face. Well, he can bodily drag Ilya away from said cameras after he calls Comeau the worst fucking hockey player the NHL has ever had the misfortune to know whose sole talents lie in disappointing his team and wife because he can’t score with either. Or something to that effect. But it doesn’t prevent him from saying the words in the first place.

Shane pretends to huff at Ilya when he sees the aftermath of the interview in the locker room the next day, but he thinks his husband is secretly pleased. He rides him hard enough that night that Ilya knows even if Shane wasn’t actually happy about him talking shit to the cameras, he’s at least forgiven him for it.

That interview, though, lingers in the background as the game against Montreal progresses. They’re murdering the Voyageurs, but with how the game is going, you wouldn’t know unless you saw the score board. The hits, the fights, the penalty minutes that are being racked up make it seem like a close game that’s just about to tip over into overtime. 

Ilya finds himself right at the center of most of the chaos throughout the game. He drops his gloves, he assists his husband for two of three of his goals for a hattrick, he’s chirping the shit out of any Voyageur within earshot, including Pike because when they’re on the ice there is no one who’s off limits. 

With only five minutes left on the clock, Ilya has allowed his mind to drift, just a little, from the situation at hand. Shane is going to be so heated after this game. He’ll be in the throes of ecstasy from the hat trick and simmering with righteous rage at the shit his old teammates have been saying. Maybe they’ll visit the trophy room again – Ilya got more mirrors installed recently. Or maybe he’ll spread his husband out on their nice, silk sheets and eat him out until he can’t speak anymore. Or maybe they’ll see if Shane can go three for three and come once for each goal he’s scored. Or maybe –

He’s on his back, looking up at the roof of their arena. 

There’s a moment where Ilya isn’t sure how he ended up here, or where he is. The crowd is screaming and booing. His face hurts. His back hurts. His shoulders hurt. He needs to get up. He tells his body to get up, but it doesn’t move. And then there’s a weight kneeling on Ilya’s chest and a fist driving into his jaw. His helmet comes off, the hand connects with vicious precision, spittle coats Ilya’s face as someone screams. Between the pain and the surprise, Ilya can just make out Comeau’s red, screeching face hovering over him. 

There’s a moment where Ilya wonders if the NHL would let him die like this. 

Then the weight is yanked off of Ilya’s chest. He turns to the side, coughing painfully, disrupting what feels like bruised or broken ribs. 

From where he’s laying, he gets a front row seat to the spectacle of Holmberg wailing on Comeau. The rookie punches his helmet clean off, blood splattering on the ice and across Holmberg’s jersey. Over the cheering of the crowd, Ilya can make out Holmberg yelling, “don’t fucking touch him.”

Then there’s a familiar hand on Ilya’s shoulder and Shane’s concerned face blocks out the view. 

The refs are the ones to pull Holmberg away from Comeau. Medics come out onto the ice to take Ilya and Comeau away. The worst part about this whole affair is that it has completely ruined all of Ilya’s plans for the night. He resigns himself to a hospital stay, a very concerned husband, and an even more concerned Yuna and David. Depending on the severity of the concussion, Ilya might be able to convince Shane to give him a healing blowjob tomorrow to celebrate their win and the fact that he’s still alive, but he’s not thrilled at his chances. 

It ends up being four whole days before Shane so much as looks at Ilya sexually. It’s a bad concussion with Ilya suffering through debilitating headaches and blinking in pain at any light. On top of that, he has a broken nose, two chipped teeth, and bruised ribs. It’s enough pain to put Ilya out of the mood even with Shane looking so unfairly hot and domestic. 

On the fifth day he’s home, Ilya watches the video of the hit on a phone he’s stolen while Shane’s showering after his run. It’s a bad hit. Comeau came up on Ilya’s blindside as he was looking to receive a pass and threw his elbow clean into Ilya’s nose, then slammed him to the ground. The look on Comeau’s face as he continued to hit Ilya when he was down on the ground is haunting. He doesn’t look at the comment section – doesn’t want to know what people are saying. 

Hockey has always been a dangerous sport, but this was the first time Ilya was confronted with just how dangerous. Or it was the first time Ilya was confronted with just how much he stood to lose if he died on that ice or was permanently injured. It scared him. Riding in the ambulance with Shane clutching his hand, Ilya was terrified. He would barter with God and trade it all, every second of hockey, if it just meant being able to live with Shane.

It’s not the first time that Ilya has wondered how much longer he has left in him with this league. He has things he wants to do with Shane; he wants to be a dad with Shane, he wants to travel with Shane, he wants to grow old and grumpy and sit in rocking chairs on the porch with Shane. When will it stop being worth putting off those dreams for so long?

The video Ilya found is longer than just his hit. Ilya also gets to watch Holmberg try to murder Comeau in response. It’s a funny match up. Holmberg is four inches shorter and probably thirty pounds lighter than Comeau but that doesn’t stop the kid from lifting him off of Ilya and hurling him to the ice. The commentators are absolutely shocked at the whole show. 

Both Holmberg and Comeau are suspended. Part of Ilya wonders if it was any other player Holmberg was defending if the league would have penalized him. 

“Stop watching that,” Shane’s voice comes from behind him. Ilya doesn’t even have the decency to look guilty as his husband comes around the couch, hair still wet from the shower. 

“Gimme kiss,” Ilya commands and Shane obeys with a sweet smile. 

He’s just pulling back when their doorbell rings. 

“Are you expecting anyone?” Shane asks. 

Ilya shakes his head. He listens to Shane’s footsteps walking to their front door, then the lock turning and Shane opening the door. Then he hears Holmberg’s voice, a little unsure and awkward. 

The rookie steps into the living room shoulder to shoulder with a girl, the elusive Maggie, Ilya presumes. She’s holding a tray covered in tinfoil and Holmberg has a bowl in his hands. They both hover in the entranceway of the room like they’re not sure whether to come in or leave. 

“Hi,” Holmberg eventually says, “I just wanted to come see how you were.”

“I’m good, Bergy,” Ilya answers. “What did you bring?”

“Oh,” Holmberg brightens, “Maggie and I made tomato soup and grilled cheese, so we thought we’d bring some over for you guys.”

“Hi, I’m Maggie,” Maggie steps forward to say, holding her hand out to Ilya to shake. She has a strong grip to match her broad set of shoulders with tattoos up and down her arms. 

“It’s nice to meet you. You were at the game?”

“Yeah,” she laughs. “My first in person game and I got to watch him beat the shit out of some fuckhead.”

“Maggie,” Holmberg groans, “I told you it was my first fight. It won’t happen each time.”

“You enjoyed it then?” Ilya asks, ignoring Holmberg in the background.

“Definitely.”

Ilya hums in approval. Shane reappears then, taking the food from the two of them with repeated thank-yous and you-shouldn’t-haves. Ilya thinks they very much should have; he won’t believe Bergy knows how to cook until he tastes it with his own tongue. 

“How are you, Bergy?” Shane asks as the two kids continue to loiter in the living room.

“Don’t worry about the suspension,” Ilya adds, “it’s just one game. If Wiebe gives you any shit for it, tell us.”

Holmberg shakes his head. “No, it’s fine. Wiebe already talked to me about it.” He hesitates, then adds “I was just really worried about you.”

Oh. It’s a weird sensation, getting concern from a rookie. Ilya hasn’t been active in the groupchat due to his concussion, but he wonders now what everyone else has been saying. Shane puts a hand on Ilya’s shoulder. He’s been hiding his worry too, but Ilya remembers the flashes of the fear in his eyes from the moments he was conscious in the hospital. 

Ilya’s been the renegade on his teams since he was drafted at 18, bragging to the press that he was going to score 50 goals in his first season and becoming known as the best chirper in the league. He’s taken big hits, but everyone always knew that was the price of the game. They’d laugh as he bared his teeth in a wicked smile with missing teeth and bloody gums. He was the hot shot. The shit stirrer. The menace. People didn’t worry about him; they just dismissed it as Ilya being Ilya.

He’s something else, now. He knows the rookies call Shane and him the parents of the team, but he hadn’t realized how much he began to internalize that role. And now he’s got a rookie at his door making sure he’s okay. An Ilya at 20 years old would have laughed at this life he’s leading now. But in his 30s, Ilya is stupidly happy to see how much people care about him.

“I’m good, Bergy,” Ilya reassures him. “I’ll be out for a bit, but you won’t keep me away for that long.”

Holmberg lets out a relieved sigh. 

“Why don’t you stay for dinner?” Shane offers. “We can try your soup.”

“Yeah,” Holmberg cheers. “It’s really good. Sort of spicy too.”

The soup, it turns out, is good. Ilya drinks three bowls of it and then regrets being so full. Holmberg has also made very thin grilled cheese sandwiches that are crispy and melty and so, so good. Ilya could eat a million of them.

By the time Maggie and Holmberg leave, Ilya’s feeling that languidity you get after a big meal. His eyes are heavy, and the edges of a headache are just creeping in. Shane guides him up to bed with gentle hands. They shower together, the intimacy making Ilya feel warm inside as he rests his head against Shane’s shoulder and lets Shane wash his back. Then he’s being bundled up into cozy pajamas and tucked into bed. 

Shane reads by the dim light of the kindle in their dark room before he sleeps. Ilya, unable to read or look at his phone, contents himself with laying against his husband's chest listening to the even pattern of his breathing and the slow beat of his heart. How many more years? Two? Three? Shane has more, he knows that. But Ilya’s knees are starting to hurt and he’s racking up more concussions than he would like now that he’s become old and boring alongside his husband. 

There’s a life after hockey. As he starts to drift off to sleep the last thought in his mind is the image of that life with no more broken teeth and bruised ribs. With friends and family and loved ones and his husband by his side, always. 

___________________

LaPointe is new to doing pressers. Since he started to get good minutes on the Centaurs, especially, and unfortunately, since Chouinard tore his groin three weeks ago and is still taking time to rehab the muscle before getting back on the ice, he’s found himself in front of the cameras more often. More often meaning at all – no one had any interest in interviewing him before when he rode the bench for most of the game. 

LaPointe does not think of himself as the most verbose or eloquent speaker. He knows out of all the rookies, Luca hates being interviewed the most, owing primarily to the fact that he’s never being interviewed in his first language. Holmberg and Young shrug it off easier, giddy and goofy in front of the cameras like it’s a natural place to be. 

When he’s in front of the camera, LaPointe is off kilter. He never knows what to do with his hands. He’s pretty sure he’s always doing something weird with his face, uncomfortably aware of each and every minute muscle around his eyebrows and mouth as he tries to school his face into its natural setting. But what is its natural setting? LaPointe can never remember. 

The sports journalists are like fire ant colonies, clambering to climb up and over each other to ask the athletes their question first. The questions come spitting out, nipping and biting at all the soft spots to make the athlete squeal and squirm, leaving little red welts when they fuck up their answers. Why did you play terribly? How do you feel playing so terribly? What’s it like to be a loser? Or they dredge up the strangest stat they can find – You were the 2nd player ever to hit the puck twice off the post in a three minute time span. How do you feel about that? – and expect you to have some response to it.

It’s a game to LaPointe to see how fast he can get through these things when he gets cornered by microphones, cameras, and a million questions. He keeps his face stony and answers in single words or stripped down phrases. It earns him this reputation of being stoic in the press, or robotic when people are trying to be nasty about how he talks.

That’s not LaPointe’s fault, though. No one asks him any interesting questions like how is the DnD campaign that he’s been running for the last six months going, and has it been helping with team camaraderie on the ice? (Yes and no – some people get a little too competitive and want to attack everything in sight even when the rest of the group disagrees). Or what was it like to be taken under Shane Hollander’s wing and be taught by him personally? (A dream come true that LaPointe is still half waiting for the day he wakes up from). 

Instead, it’s just the same couple of questions that LaPointe can answer by route, zoning out as he follows his script. The faster he gets through this with his Harris approved talking points, the faster he gets back to the locker room with the rest of the boys. He’ll take the accusations of being lifeless and boring as long as it gets him done and home. 

And then LaPointe accidentally goes viral. 

It’s after a game against Buffalo – Buffalo, they win 5-0, it’s an easy game, why the hell was the presser after so contentious? Maybe that’s why LaPointe gets so caught off guard by the question. Ilya was the one that left him to the reporter colony, saying something about having to go check on his captain and abandoning LaPointe to get bitten red and itchy by the ant-like journalists. 

“How do you think the team played?” A man in a backwards, black baseball cap yells. 

“Good.” LaPointe answers. 

“How do you feel about your minutes?” One of the few women calls. 

“I’m very happy with how I’ve been progressing.”

“What does the team have to do to make playoffs?”

“Exactly what we’re doing right now.”

“How horrible is it to play with a married couple who can’t keep their hands off each other long enough to captain this team?”

What?

LaPointe buffers like an old computer. He can practically hear the fan turn on in between his ears, trying to cool down his brain as it frantically gets up to speed with the question that was just asked. 

The journalist who asked it is off to LaPointe’s right. He’s another generic white man in a polo shirt, brandishing a microphone. He has this smug look on his face, smirking and wicked. Everyone else turns to stare at him, the silence languishing as LaPointe tries to shake himself out of the trance he was in answering all the usual questions. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he goes with. 

“Yes, you do,” the journalist eggs him on, “you can tell us. Is it awkward being in the showers with them knowing that they’re probably looking at you? I mean, isn’t that how they first got together?”

“The locker room we have on the Centaurs is one of the best –”

“I mean if it was me, I would be pretty disgusted. Especially with you young players in the locker room. We have no idea what’s happening in there.”

Something sharp and vicious ticks in LaPointe’s chest. His throat feels tight. When he gets like this, so angry, so frustrated, he has the unfortunate tendency to cry. LaPointe locks his trembling jaw and blinks hard to not show that emotion in front of this journalist. He doesn’t deserve to see Lapointe so affected by his words. 

He takes a deep breath and lets it out. Ever since Ilya spoke candidly about seeing a therapist, LaPointe has taken to talking with one too. She’s been helping him with his anxiety and his insecurities on the ice. Shane can work wonders watching film with him and practicing his puck handling, but Megan is the one that’s coached him through what to do once he does fuck up on the ice and has to recover. Her advice on how to calm himself down comes back to him at this moment. One deep breath in, one long breath out. 

“Shane and Ilya are two of the greatest players and leaders the NHL has ever seen,” he says. “That’s my captain and my teammate you’re talking about right now, and I stand behind them no matter what. They have built this team up from where it was to a possible Stanley Cup winning team in just two years. We owe everything to them. They have made me into a better player and a better man. They are my idols. If I could be anything in this league, I would want to be exactly like them. The only person that is being disgusting right now is you for even insinuating they would do anything like that. I am the luckiest person in this league because I was able to start my career playing with them.”

LaPointe sucks in another deep breath. The cameras all push in, shoving to get closer to LaPointe’s face. The journalists creep up, snapping their mandibles and clicking their pens. His hands won’t stop shaking. Something is buzzing in his ears, getting louder as his vision swims and the anger pounds in his head. 

“I’m done,” he declares, extricating himself from the swarming group. 

By the time he slams his way into the locker room, the clip of his interview has been posted everywhere, circulating around Instagram and Tik Tok within minutes. It’s up on Reddit too; LaPointe does not ever want to open that thread and see what they say about him. 

See, this is why LaPointe tries to stay quiet. He’s gone and monologued about Shane and Ilya; he’s probably brought more attention to the hate they get and fucked it up some way. But fuck, he can’t let anyone speak about his teammates like that. He should have killed that fuck ass journalist. 

“Hey,” Shane says, and that’s the only warning LaPointe gets before he’s pulled into a hug by Ilya and then passed over to Shane. 

“Sorry,” LaPointe mumbles. 

Shane blinks at him, confused. “Why are you sorry?”

“I wasn’t sure if I embarrassed you.”

“No, no,” Ilya is quick to say. “We are sorry you were embarrassed by the question.”

“I wasn’t embarrassed by the question, I was angry they would have ever said anything like that about you.”

“That’s why we’re trying to thank you. For standing up for us,” Shane says.

LaPointe nods, Shane’s words finally penetrating, making the anxiety and adrenaline thrumming under his skin quiet down. “Right, of course. I’d do it for anyone on this team, but you guys really do mean a lot to us all.”

He gets another hug for that.

“You’re a good kid,” Shane says, so open and earnest it makes LaPointe want to look away. “We’re so happy to have you as our teammate too.”

Ilya squeezes his shoulders. “Thank you,” he says, and sounds more serious than LaPointe has ever heard him. 

And then he’s released to wander his way to the showers. The rookies are still in there, washing up after the game.

“Dude,” Young yells, when he spots LaPointe, “you’re, like, famous.”

“Fuck off,” LaPointe grumbles. 

“You’re everywhere, Pointy,” Holmberg adds. “You’re like hockey Jesus now. People are making edits with your speech.”

“No they aren’t.”

“They will.”

“Yeah, they will because that’s Holmberg’s plan when we get home,” Luca jokes, sending the rookies into peals of laughter. 

“You can’t pretend you don’t love us anymore,” Young adds over the noise. “You act all stoic, but we know now that you love us.” He drags out the word teasingly, wiggling his eyebrows to get the guys to laugh again.

LaPointe tips his head back and lets the water run warm down his body. He smiles. Fuck the robot accusations; he wants everyone to know he will defend the fuck out of anyone on this team. That’s his whole job. 

___________________

When Shane gets asked by reporters what he expects out of his first season with the Centaurs, he gives his typical, Harris-approved answer about finding his rhythm on a new team, looking forward to playing with Ilya instead of against him, and bringing to the team his experience as a Stanley Cup champion. 

What he wants to say is he expects to win his fourth cup this season. 

Yeah, it’s partly sappy. Shane is so in love with his husband he feels crazy about it sometimes. He’ll be sitting in the locker room and then, like a light flips on in his head, he’ll remember that the man he married is there with him and he doesn’t have to hide any part of how much he loves him. He’ll spot Ilya on the ice or in the showers or at home laying on their couch and be overcome with this persistent, irrational desire to flay him open, crawl under his skin, and burrow next to his heart. He wants to live there. He wants to bite and scratch and kiss and lick and eat Ilya whole. And then Ilya will look up and see Shane standing there, and Shane just knows Ilya feels exactly the same way. 

So, it would be nice to win a cup with him. 

But the other part of this expectation comes from the fact that Shane wants to stand on the ice at the end of the season with the cup in his hands and scream ‘fuck you’ to every fucking person who has disparaged Shane in the last year. No, not just the last year, at every moment in his life. He wants them to watch him become the greatest of all time.

Shane wants so much. They call him humble. They call him the polite Canadian boy. They talk about him like he’s a precious, little thing that got tricked into falling in love with Ilya. 

They don’t know that sometimes Shane feels like a boa constrictor. He’ll unhinge his jaw and devour every record, every slip of glory this league has to offer, stuffing himself full and bulging out with all that he has achieved. He wants to break the number of goals scored, the number of assists, the number of Stanley Cups won by a single player. He wants to suffocate everyone else in the running. Shane wants the NHL to be inextricable from him. Every time some new kid comes along, ten, fifteen, fifty years down the line, he wants it to be him that they all get compared to and fall short of.

Ilya loves this part of him. He gets this glint in his eye, bends Shane over the chair of their trophy room, and fucks him in front of the evidence of his success. It’s euphoric. He finally has someone who can keep up with his appetite. 

So all in all, it’s not a surprise to Shane that they end up in a playoff run in his first season. It’s the expectation. Sure, Shane will tell the cameras he’s just happy the team is playing well, and that they can just be proud of what they’ve accomplished so far, but it’s not enough. Shane wants that cup. 

What is a surprise to Shane is when they wind up in overtime in their fifth game against the Admirals in the first round – up three to one on games and trying to end this series quickly to get rest for the next round – both he and Ilya are on the bench. 

Shane can, theoretically, play. 

Ilya’s nursing a bad knee that’s gotten worse as the season stretches, so he’s been out for longer. Their plan now that it’s flaring up is to keep him off the ice through the rest of this round and the next round so he can come back and be there to help the team in the finals. Shane, on the other hand, took a stick to the hand in a bizarre series of events and now can’t move three of his fingers. He can play through it, though. He has played through worse. He’ll be perfectly fine for their next game.

But Coach Wiebe wants the trainer to look at it, and Shane can see the concern in his eyes. 

“I don’t want it to get worse and regret it down the line,” he says. “We need you to have a functioning hand for the next round, especially if Ilya is sitting.”

Shane’s body feels like a live wire, trembling under his need to tell his coach to forget his hand and put him back in. Shane needs this. He needs this victory now. If it’s not him on the ice, who else can he trust to ensure they move on?

“First shift with Haas in the center,” Coach Wiebe says, “Barrett and Young on either side of him. Bood will be up on the next shift with Dillon. We’ll see how we have to adjust.”

There’s nodding from the team, everyone focused on the win. It’s so close. Shane can almost reach out and touch the next round, but this is where playoff runs go off the rails for teams. They relax too much, thinking they’re close enough to victory, and then they lose sight of it completely. 

Luca stands from next to Shane on the bench, pulling his helmet on. He claps Shane on the shoulder. Shane looks up at him, ready to give him a pep talk, calm his nerves, reassure him that it’s going to be alright. 

But when Shane meets his eye, Luca looks as calm as anything, and the words die in his mouth. “We got this,” Luca says with his lopsided grin. Then he hoists himself over the rail and skates out to center ice. 

Young steps up next and does the same. Hand on Shane’s shoulder, a serious nod. Then he’s off to take his spot too, smacking Luca on the shoulder as he skates by in a silent, slightly violent, way of support. 

They don’t look like rookies anymore. The thought ping pongs through Shane’s head as he joins the rest of the boys in leaning forward and banging on the boards, urging their team on. The puck drops and Luca steals it cleanly. 

There’s none of that nervousness blighting their skating. Luca zips down the ice and snaps a pass clean to Young who handles it with ease and sends it blasting back across the ice to Barrett. They move with the confidence of players far older than them.  

Shane was in his first playoff overtime at 18. He remembers every game he’s played, but that one stands out clearer than the others. He was the team’s leading goal scorer, everything resting on his shoulders, and they lost. They slumped out of their playoff run with very little ado. The sound of the crowd, the feel of the puck bouncing awkwardly off his stick as he missed his shot on goal, the commiseration from his teammates might as well be tattooed under his skin. 

Watching these kids play now is like a portal through time. This is what Shane must have looked like taking his rightful place on the ice. This is how he would have moved. That’s the pass he would have played. It’s weirdly nostalgic. 

The noise of the crowd sounds muffled as he watches them move together, the sounds of their skates and the crack of their passes amplified instead. Shane is breathless. That’s the hit he would have taken. At that age, Shane couldn’t even admit to himself he was gay. Hell, he was too scared to even consider the possibility, even though he was fucking Ilya already. He was skating through OTs, the top goal scorer on their team, and so alone. 

Time blurs. He’s 18 and he’s 31. He’s taking the ice with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He needs to win. He’s always looking to see where Ilya is. Shane blinks. 

He sees the pass and the goal seconds before it happens. Young gets the puck in their own end and takes off towards goal. He beats one defender and sends the puck to Luca who pauses for a moment. Just when it looks like he’s about to shoot, he passes it onto Barrett who just has to tap it in.

The team roars, leaping out on the ice to celebrate. The slam into each other, cheering and clapping. Shane gets an arm around Luca and he’s holding the new up and coming talent and he’s holding himself thirteen years ago. The emotion swells and Shane has to bury his face in his husband’s shoulder next to stop whatever feeling is churning uncomfortably in his gut. 

Shane’s one of the last ones in the locker room after the game. Ilya’s down with the trainers again getting his knee looked at, and Shane is leaning back against the lockers trying to piece together everything he’s feeling. 

He’s so lost in thought that when he hears the sound of someone clearing their throat, he jumps so high he almost tumbles off his seat. 

“Sorry,” Luca says, “I thought you saw me.”

“No, sorry,” Shane says, heart rate coming back down, “you played really well tonight.”

“It felt good. Really good,” Luca says. His face is all lit up, beaming like a kid on Christmas. Shane must have looked that happy at that age. With Hayden, probably, or when he won his first Cup. He hopes he looked that happy at some point.

“I’m so proud of you and Young stepping up.”

Luca nods, edging his way towards his locker. “Yeah. We’ve been clicking these last few months. I’m really happy I’m getting more reps in the center.”

“You deserve them. You guys are going to carry this team long after Ilya and I are gone.”

Luca turns red at that, his ears and cheeks flushing. He ducks his head to finish packing up his locker. “Thanks, Shane. You have no idea how much it means to me to hear that. Especially from you.”

Shane smiles. “I’m so glad I got to play with you, Luca.”

Luca might combust if Shane keeps going. He sort of wants to, just to see how red the kid can turn. But he relents.

“Are you going out to celebrate?” he asks instead. 

Luca swings his backpack up onto his shoulder. “Yeah, we are. Holmberg is making us dinner and then we’ll head out.”

“Good. Have fun.”

“Thanks, Shane,” Luca says again. 

He heads out of the locker room then. Shane listens to his footsteps trail down the hall and then to some indistinguishable conversation he has. He must be talking to Ilya. Even if Shane can’t make out the words, he can still recognize his husband’s voice. 

Ilya saunters into the locker room, making a bee line to Shane. He plants a heavy, wet kiss on Shane’s lip and flops down on the bench next to him. 

“What did they say about your knee?” he asks. 

Ilya shrugs. “I have to do exercises. I will join you in your sexy stretches in the morning.”

“I keep telling you to join me. You never listen.”

Ilya snaps his teeth at Shane, pretending to bite his shoulder in response. Shane laughs, snagging his husband’s jaw and bringing him close enough to kiss again. 

“The kids played well today,” Shane says when he pulls away. 

“They played super well. Haasy and Young look good with Troy.”

Shane hums in agreement, leaning his hand against his husband’s shoulder. Ilya wraps his arm around Shane and pets the hairs around Shane’s ear. 

“It’s funny watching them play. It made me think of us as rookies.”

“When we were having our torrid affair?”

Shane pulls off of Ilya’s shoulder to look at him. “Who taught you that word?”

“I was watching some weird soap opera thing with David the other week.”

“Don’t let him make you watch weird shows.”

“No,” Ilya yells, aghast, “I love the show. There are cowboys and murders and torrid affairs. It’s very good. We watch while doing the puzzle.”

Shane snorts and leans his head back against Ilya. “Yeah, I guess,” he says, picking back up the conversation thread. “We were just so young. Do you ever think about that?”

Ilya’s hand keeps fussing with the hair and the top of Shane’s ear, like a fidget toy Ilya is playing with. “Yeah,” he says, “sometimes. It was fun then. The clubs and the games and being a kid. Having two knees that worked.”

Ilya pauses and Shane hums, prompting him to say more. 

“It’s more fun now. I think I didn’t know that I was lonely then. I’m not missing anything anymore now. Not always looking for something.”

“Yeah,” Shane agrees.  

Ilya’s hand pauses, and Shane feels lips press against his head. “I’m really proud of this team,” Ilya whispers, “And I’m so happy you’re here.”

“Me too,” Shane says. “I’m proud of what we’ll leave behind when we’re done. This team. The Irina Foundation.”

“They’ll put our jerseys next to each other in the rafters.”

Shane smiles and squeezes Ilya’s thigh. They’ll look good up there. They were meant to hang together for eternity. Everyone will know about the dynasty they created. Everyone will talk about the records they broke. They’ll do it together. Shane pulls off of Ilya’s shoulder again.

“What else did the doctor say about your knee?”

Ilya’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “What do you mean by this?”

“Did you ask about rigorous activity?”

Ilya drops his eyebrows and his mouth curls into a lascivious grin. “You mean sex, yes? I did not ask because I didn’t want him to say no.”

Shane groans. “You have to ask.” He stands and holds out his hand to Ilya to join him. “But tomorrow. We can pretend we don’t know it hurts tonight.”

“Oh good,” Ilya says, using Shane’s outstretched hand to pull him closer instead of standing, bullying his knee between his legs, “because we have to celebrate, yes?”

Shane licks his lips and glances down at where Ilya’s tongue is curling around his sharp canines. Shane wants to be held down and bitten tonight. What a way to celebrate getting to the next round. 

“Yeah,” Shane says, “take me home.”

___________________

The last season you get called a rookie goes like this:

You’ve just won the Stanley Cup. You can’t believe it. Even when you watch your captain do the first lap around the ice with the cup and then hand it off to his husband you can’t believe it. Even at the after party, dancing with your teammates and laughing, you can’t believe it. Even when you’re drunk out of your mind watching Shane fucking Hollander desperately hold onto the back of his husband’s pants to keep him from tipping off the side of the parade float you’re on as he and Bood, arm and arm and shirtless, scream-sing whatever song is playing and wave at the adoring crowds below, you can’t believe it. 

You’re not sure where Ilya’s shirt has gone. Hell, you’re not sure where your shirt has gone. 

The world had a million and one things to say about your team, few of them were good things. And you proved every one of them wrong. You have a place on the ice and swagger in your step and you now know for a fact that you’re fucking great at hockey. 

You can’t wait for the next season to start. You know how to cook now. You aren’t going to be a teenager anymore next year. When you finally get back to your shared apartment you’ll collapse on the couch and think you never want to move again until the first hockey practice of the next season. 

At least, that’s how Luca feels. 

He stretches out on his couch that he shares with Young. LaPointe and Holmberg are over as they are nearly every night, but there is a palpable joy hanging over the whole apartment. Luca is somehow both hungover and still sort of drunk from the weekend of celebrating. He thinks he’ll smell like vodka for days to come even though he’s just showered. 

They won’t be rookies anymore next season. They are legitimate, fully fledged members of the Centaurs. Hell, they all have a Stanley Cup to their name now. There will be new kids coming up that they’ll become guides for just as their teammates have helped them through the last few years. 

And what an insane first two years for them. Not only have they turned a losing team into champions, but they’ve also made headway into changing the whole attitude of men’s hockey. Or, at least, they’ve built their own pocket of safety in this space. Luca cannot wait to coach this summer at camp to bring that safe space to other kids who are just like him. 

No one would have ever believed this would happen for the NHL. Or certainly not before Scott Hunter made history in 2017. Now, Ilya and Shane made out while holding the Stanley Cup and that photo made the cover of the Athletic with a beautiful profile of their relationship and lives. And the comments on that post were filled with support and love for the Centaurs. Who could have imagined that?

“I still can’t believe it,” Holmberg says for the millionth time. 

“Fucking believe it!” Young yells from the kitchen where he’s making nachos. “We’re fucking Stanley Cup champions.”

He still has his dad’s baseball cap on; he clung to it even as his shirt went missing on the parade float. He turned to Luca at one point on the float, eyes wet and smile watery, and said, I wanted to bring him with me to the parade. Luca smiles at the image of him dancing around the kitchen, the last song they played in the car still stuck in his head. 

LaPointe vaults over the side of the couch Luca’s draped on, landing on his calves. Luca lets out a dramatic oof at the sudden weight. He smacks Luca’s back like a drum. “Sit up. Let’s watch.”

“What are we watching?”

Young and Holmberg both yell at the same time, “Lord of the Rings” and “Not Lord of the Rings.”

“I vote Evil Dead,” Lapointe says, picking up the remote. LaPointe is the only one that actually pays for the streaming services they share so he is usually the defacto chooser of the movies. He and Luca are also the two that are serious about their Letterboxd accounts, so they have much more sway in the movie choices while Holmberg and Young get subjected to a range of films. They’re good sports about it. 

“I’m going to fall asleep,” is Luca’s choice for the night, pulling his feet out from under LaPointe and curling up. He really could fall asleep. It sounds like a great idea now that he’s not inhaling liquor and dancing on a moving vehicle through the streets as people cheer for him. 

“Not to Evil Dead,” LaPointe promises. 

Young and Holmberg join them on the couch, squishing Luca into sitting up to make room. He gets to share a plate of nachos and a bowl of popcorn, and he is handed his own cold beer. Hair of the dog, Holmberg swears by it even though cracking it open makes Luca semi nauseous. 

Halfway through the movie, Holmberg whispers, “guys. I’m really happy for us.”

Luca laughs. “Yeah. Me too.”