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Rick isn't sure what to expect when Mack calls.
It isn't unusual for him to reach out. Rick has been fielding calls from his son about training and recovery since Mack was fifteen and trying to figure out how a growth spurt had changed his skating stride. But this call is different. Mack's voice is careful, almost rehearsed, like he's practiced what he wants to say before dialing. He asks if Rick would be willing to see a teammate for a treatment plan.
"Who is it?" Rick asks.
"Will."
Rick knows the name. Everyone in the hockey world knows the name. But Rick also knows something else: Mack has never once asked him to treat a teammate before. Not Toff, not Eky, not the dozen other guys Mack has played alongside over the years. Will Smith is the first.
Rick says yes without asking why.
He's already done his homework. The Sharks' medical staff sent over the diagnostic images the day before, and Rick pulled the game footage to see the mechanism of injury — a seemingly innocent reach for a puck in the corner that had sent Will's leg at an angle hips aren't designed to bend. Grade two strain, manageable but annoying, the kind of thing that lingers if you don't stay on top of it. Rick has a plan ready before Mack and Will walk through the door.
The Warriors are in Miami for the last leg of a road trip, which means the facility is mostly empty. Rick stayed behind to meet with the nutrition staff and some trainers to finalize the off-season training protocols, but that meeting isn't until after lunch.
**
Mack pushes through the door first, leaning in for a quick hug. "Hey Dad."
Will follows, moving with a slight hitch in his stride that most people wouldn't catch. Rick does.
"Nice to see you again, Will." Rick extends his hand. "I've got your imaging and I watched the clip from Thursday night. Nasty angle, but I've seen worse."
"Thanks for seeing me," Will says.
"I've already worked out a plan for you," Rick says, leading them toward the gym floor. "Nothing crazy. Some band work, a few mobility exercises, and some guided stretching. The key with hip flexors is that they don't like being ignored. You push through the discomfort, they push back harder."
"Sounds about right," Will mutters.
"Some of these exercises will require an extra set of hands. Mack's going to help you with that. I'll show him what to do, and then he can run you through the motions when you're back in San Jose."
Mack nods, already rolling up his sleeves. "Sure, just tell me what to do."
***
The gym floor is laid out in stations, each one set up with the equipment Rick needs: resistance bands anchored to the wall, a padded mat for floor work, a set of balance discs, and some dumbbells in the corner. Rick leads them through the first station for banded hip flexor stretches with Will standing facing the wall, one leg extended behind him and the band looped around his ankle.
"Keep your hips square," Rick says from a few feet away, watching Will's alignment. "Don't let the standing leg rotate out."
Mack is beside Will before Rick finishes the sentence. His hand goes to Will's hip, adjusting the angle with a gentle pressure.
"Here." Mack says, his voice low.
"Thanks." Will exhales, relaxing into the correction.
Rick watches from behind them. It's a small thing — a hand on a hip, a quiet exchange — but something about it catches his attention. Not the touch itself, but the ease of it. Mack has touched Will the way someone touches a person they know well. Not tentative, not careful. Automatic.
He moves on to the next station.
***
The wall squats come next. Will leans against the wall with his feet out in front of him, sliding down until his knees are at ninety degrees, holding the position while the band around his thighs pulls outward. It's a brutal exercise for hip flexors, and within seconds, Will's face tightens.
"Normal," Rick says, catching the question before Mack can ask it. "It's supposed to burn."
Mack's hand is already on Will's shoulder, steadying him. Will reaches up absently, his fingers finding Mack's wrist and tracing a slow line along the inside of it like it's the most natural thing in the world. Neither of them looks at each other. Neither of them seems to realize they're doing it.
Rick turns away and walks to the next station to set up the balance discs. His back is to them, but his mind isn't on the equipment.
He thinks about the phone call from weeks ago when Mack's frantic voice was begging for help after the doctored photos were leaked. Mack had slipped Will’s name in there and at the time Rick didn’t understand the correlation and Mack hadn’t been willing to explain either.
Rick had filed it away as Mack being stressed about bad press. Now, standing in this gym watching Mack's fingers rest on the back of Will's neck during a stretch, he isn't so sure.
***
They move through the stations one by one. Rick demonstrates each exercise, Mack assists, and Will performs the movements with the kind of discipline that comes from years of athletic training. But Rick isn't really watching Will anymore.
He's watching Mack.
Mack hovers. Not in a nervous way, but in a way that suggests he's positioned himself as Will's first line of defense. When Will grimaces during a banded leg raise, Mack is there immediately, hand on his thigh, asking Rick if that range of motion is normal. When Will shifts his weight unevenly during a single-leg balance drill, Mack's hand is on his lower back before the wobble can become a fall. When Will's jaw tightens during a deep hip flexor stretch, Mack crouches in front of him and speaks quietly, too quietly for Rick to hear, and whatever he says makes Will's shoulders drop.
Rick has been around athletes his entire career. He's seen teammates help each other through rehab a thousand times. But this isn't that. This is something else. The touches are too intimate. The eye contact is too sustained. The way Mack leans into Will's space when they talk isn't the way you lean into a friend. It's the way you lean into someone whose proximity you need.
And Will lets him. He too leans into it. His hand finds Mack's arm during a break between stations and stays there. He tilts his head toward Mack when they speak, like Mack is the only other person in the room. When they laugh, and they do laugh a few times, it's the kind of quiet, private laughter that doesn't invite anyone else in.
Rick has seen his son around dozens of teammates over the years. He's never seen him look at any of them like this.
***
After running through all the stations, Rick steps back.
"You guys did great. Will, you move well for someone who's been compensating for a week. Mack, you've got good hands, just make sure you're not overcorrecting. Let him find his own balance before you adjust."
"Got it," Mack says.
"I've got a call I need to take in my office. Why don't you two run through the circuit one more time on your own? Work at your own pace. Will, if anything feels sharp, not sore, stop."
Will nods.
Rick walks to his office, a glass-walled room tucked into the corner of the gym. He closes the door but leaves the blinds open — not fully, just enough to see out. He sits down at his desk, picks up the phone, and dials into his conference call with the Warriors' front office.
He doesn't hear a word of it.
Through the gap in the blinds, he watches Mack and Will move through the circuit again. Without Rick's supervision, something shifts. The formality drops. Mack is less technician and more caretaker, his hands on Will's body with a familiarity that goes beyond instruction. He guides Will into stretches with a gentleness that looks almost reverent, one hand on Will's lower back, the other on his hip, easing him into positions that would have been uncomfortable without the support.
They talk while they move. Rick can't hear the words, but he can see the rhythm of it, the back-and-forth, the pauses, the small smiles. At one point, Mack says something that makes Will roll his eyes, and Mack grins and pushes Will's shoulder, and Will pushes back, and they both laugh, and it's so easy, so effortless, that Rick feels something tighten in his chest.
Then Will lies down on the mat for a supine hip flexor extension stretch, one leg pulled back toward his chest. Mack kneels beside him, one hand on Will's knee, the other guiding his ankle, and as he leans down to adjust the angle, his face passes close to Will's extended leg. Close enough that his lips brush against Will's ankle. It isn't a kiss. It's completely accidental. But Mack doesn't jerk back or flinch or do any of the things a person does when they accidentally touch someone in a way that feels too intimate. He just keeps adjusting Will's leg like nothing has happened.
Because for him, nothing has.
Rick’s heart hammers against his ribs, the phone pressed to his ear, the conference call droning on about salary cap implications he couldn't repeat if his life depended on it.
He sits there for a moment, staring at the wall. His mouth is dry. His palms are damp.
He isn't mistaken. He isn't reading into it. He isn't seeing what he wants to see. This is something real.
Rick ends the call without saying goodbye and dials his wife.
She picks up on the second ring. "Hey, honey."
"Robyn, Mack's here."
"Okay." A pause. "Everything okay? What's going on?"
Rick leans back in his chair and presses a hand over his eyes. "Has Mack ever told you he's gay? Or bi? Or anything like that?"
Silence on the other end. Then: "No. He's never talked to me about that. Why?"
"He's only ever dated girls," Rick says, more to himself than to her.
"Well, yes, but it's been a while since he's mentioned anyone at all."
"I know."
"Rick, what is going on?"
He tells her. All of it. The touching. The hovering. The wrist. The ankle. The way Mack looks at Will like the rest of the room has disappeared. The way Will leans into it like it's the most natural thing in the world.
When he finishes, the silence on the line is long enough that he checks to make sure they're still connected.
"Rick," she says finally, "It’s Mack and Will. Everyone knows they’re close. Are you sure you're not just — I mean, they're hockey players. They're physical. They touch each other all the time."
"Not like this. Not like this, Robyn."
He turns toward the blinds. Through the gap, Mack is helping Will off the mat, one hand on his lower back, the other steadying his elbow. Will says something and Mack laughs and the way Mack looks at him when he does it makes Rick's throat tighten.
"You should see him, Robyn." His voice drops, almost to a whisper, like he's afraid someone might hear. "The way he is with Will. It’s so tender. I've never seen him like that with anyone. I didn't even know he had that in him."
He watches Mack kneel down in front of Will to adjust a band around his ankle. Will's hand drops to the top of Mack's head and Mack doesn't flinch or stiffen. He just keeps working like it's the most normal thing in the world.
"And the way Will looks at him," Rick mutters under his breath, his eyes still on the blinds. "If that isn't love, I don't know what is."
The words come out quiet. He doesn't know if he's talking to Robyn anymore or just thinking out loud.
"I don't even recognize this kid, Robyn."
The line is quiet for a long moment as Robyn takes it in.
"Have I failed him as a parent?" The words come out before Rick can stop them. "Why didn't I see this before? And why didn't I make him comfortable enough to tell me? What kind of parent doesn't know their own kid?"
"Rick, stop." Her voice is firm now. "You can't blame yourself for this. It's probably all new to him. He's just figuring himself out. Mack will tell us when he's ready. All we can do is love him and support him and make sure he knows that."
"Love him and support him," Rick repeats.
"That's right. He's our son. Nothing changes that."
Rick closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. "What if he never tells us?"
"He will."
Rick exhales slowly. "Okay. You're right. You're right."
"Don't stress over it, Rick. He'll tell us on his own time. I gotta drop off now. I love you."
"I love you too."
He hangs up and sits in the quiet office for a long time, staring at the boys through the blinds, getting lost in his thoughts again.
***
When he walks back onto the gym floor, Mack and Will have moved to the stationary bikes. Will is pedaling slowly, working through the range of motion Rick has prescribed, and Mack is on the bike next to him, not exercising, just sitting there, one foot on the pedal, turning it lazily while they talk.
"Will, have you got any questions about the program before you head out?"
Will looks up. "How often should I be doing the banded stretches?"
"Every day. Twice a day if you can tolerate it. Morning and before bed. The key is consistency."
"Got it."
Rick nods. Before he can say anything else, the gym door opens and one of the Warriors' communications staff pokes her head in.
"Hey, Rick, you got a minute? We need to finalize the press release for the summer league announcement."
Rick glances at Mack and Will. He doesn't want them to leave. Not yet and not like this with everything sitting heavy and unspoken between them.
"Mack, can you wait here for a minute? I'll be right back."
"Sure."
Rick follows the communications staffer down the hall, his mind still in the gym. The conversation with his wife has helped, but it hasn't settled him. He needs to say something to Mack. He doesn't know what, but he needs Mack to know that he — that things are — that regardless of what he's seen, nothing between them would—
"Rick? You with me?"
"Yeah. Sorry. What were you saying?"
***
It takes twelve minutes. Twelve minutes of smiling and nodding and approving language he barely reads while his mind replays the image of Mack's lips brushing Will's ankle in an empty gym. When it's over, he walks back to the gym at a pace that is almost too fast.
Mack is still on the bike next to Will. They're laughing about something. Mack's head is thrown back, Will grinning and shaking his head. When they see Rick, the laughter fades but the warmth doesn't.
"Mack, can I see you in my office for a second?"
"Yeah, sure."
In the office, Rick closes the door. Mack stands on the other side of the desk, hands in his pockets, looking like a player waiting for a coach to tell him he's been traded.
Rick doesn't know how to start. He's been thinking about it for twelve minutes and he still doesn't have words. So he just says what comes out.
"I love you."
Mack blinks. "I — okay?"
"I don't say it enough. And I want you to know that you can always come to me. For anything. Whatever you're dealing with, whatever you need, whatever you're carrying. I'm here. I’m your father. I will always be here and I want you to know that.
Mack stares at him. His brow furrows, confused, searching Rick's face for something.
"Dad, are you okay? Are you sick? Is there something wrong?"
"No, no. I'm fine. I'm healthy. I just —" Rick exhales. "I feel like I haven't been there for you. In all the ways a parent should be there for their kid. And I want to fix that."
Mack's confusion doesn't clear, but it softens. He nods slowly, like he's accepting something he doesn't fully understand.
"Okay. Thanks. I love you too."
"Good. That's — yeah. Okay."
“So, you are not dying?” Mack needs to clarify one last time.
“Not dying.” Rick confirms.
Mack lingers for a moment, like he wants to say something else but he doesn't. He opens the office door, thanking his dad for his time and exercise plan and steps out.
Will is lingering by the gym door. He offers Rick a small wave, and holds it there for a beat.
"Thanks for everything, Mr. Celebrini. I owe you one."
Rick nods. "Take care of that hip, Will."
"I will."
Then Mack and Will walk out together, and Rick stands in the doorway of his office, watching them disappear down the hallway.
In the hallway, Will falls into step beside Mack.
"What did he want?"
"Nothing, really. He just told me he loves me and that I can come to him for anything."
Will slows his pace. "That's it?"
"Yeah. It was weird. I asked him if he was sick."
"Why would you ask him that?"
"Because who just says that out of nowhere? I thought he was dying or something."
Will is quiet for a moment. They push through the front doors into the parking lot. Mack fishes for his keys, but Will stops walking.
"Mack."
"Yeah?"
"Your dad knows."
Mack stops. "What? No, he doesn't. He was just being — ."
"He must’ve picked up on a vibe or something."
Mack stares at him. "Well, if he did, he didn't say anything."
"He didn't have to. The whole conversation was him trying to tell you without actually saying it. He's giving you an out."
"An out?"
"A chance to tell him on your terms."
Mack is quiet for a long moment, keys dangling from his fingers, his face cycling through something unreadable.
"He doesn't know," Mack says finally.
Will looks at him with an expression that is equal parts soft and exhausted. "Okay."
He doesn't argue. He just turns and walks toward the passenger side of the car.
***
Rick sits at his desk, tapping a pen against the surface. The gym is quiet. He stares at the pen, not seeing it, his mind running through everything he should have said and didn't and might never get the chance to say for a long while.
Then he hears footsteps and when he looks up, Mack and Will are standing in the open doorway of his office.
Hand in hand.
Mack's face is pale. His jaw is set, but his eyes are wide and scared in a way Rick has never seen — not after a loss, not after an injury, not even during the Olympics. This is different. This is the kind of scared that comes from standing on the edge of something you can't take back.
Will looks terrified too, but he's standing there. His hand is in Mack's, and he isn't pulling away.
Rick sets the pen down.
“Dad, I -” The words catch in Mack’s throat and he stops as Rick stands up and walks around the desk. Mack swallows hard, his Adam's apple bobbing, his fingers tightening around Will's. Rick can see both of them shaking in the way their shoulders hold tension and their breathing is too controlled.
Rick doesn't say anything.
He pulls Mack into a hug.
It isn't tentative or awkward. It's firm and full, one arm around Mack's shoulders and the other cradling the back of his head, and he holds him the way he held him when Mack was eight and came home crying because a kid at school said he'd never make it. He presses a kiss to the top of Mack's head and smooths his hand down his back.
And something breaks open in Rick's chest. Not pain but the opposite. Something he hasn't felt in years. Since Mack was small enough to carry, maybe. Since before hockey became a career and Mack became a product and every conversation between them started to feel like a performance review. Rick has spent so long being the guy who fixes bodies that he forgot what it feels like to just hold his son. To be the place Mack comes to when something is too heavy to carry alone.
Rick holds him tighter. He’d lift him up and cradle Mack in his arms once more if he could. His eyes burn and he blinks hard, but it doesn't help — a tear slips out anyway, tracking down his cheek and into Mack's hair where neither of them can see it.
"I know," he murmurs against Mack's temple.
Mack exhales — a ragged, shuddering breath — and his grip on Rick's shirt tightens, and he buries his face into his father's shoulder.
Rick pulls back just enough to look at Will, who is standing there with an expression like he isn't sure he's allowed to be part of this moment. Rick reaches out and grabs Will's shoulder and pulls him in.
Will stiffens for a split second.
"I've always said you were the perfect partner for him on the ice," Rick says, his voice rough. “I trust you’ll be the same off ice."
Will huffs a small laugh. The tension in his body dissolves, and he leans into the embrace, and the three of them stand there holding each other in the middle of an empty gym.
Rick presses another kiss to Mack’s temple.
"I love you kid. No matter what."