Work Text:
Starting on a new team is always pretty nerve-racking, because Kate can never gauge the amount of ‘oh shit there’s a girl here’ awkwardness until she’s actually in the dressing room with the guys.
And it’s worse now, because girls have only been allowed to play in the CHL for like, a few years, and they all have to be granted exceptional status and most of them are goalies, anyway. Kate’s one of two female forwards in the whole league, and there’s one defenseman. She hasn’t played at this level before. Most of the guys her age have been here a year already, but Kate missed out last season because of her stupid chromosomes.
Kate doesn’t have a penis, so she’s going to have to work twice as hard to prove she belongs here.
Three times as hard, to prove that she’s not here because of her dads.
There’s another girl on the Otters this year, and it’s probably not a coincidence. Not that Kate minds, really, but the league is definitely trying to put girls together on teams when they can. They nodded at each other across the room earlier in girly solidarity, and they’ll probably be pretty good friends out of self-defense, but it’s not like Kate needs to be coddled, either. She’s been the only girl on the team before, and she can totally handle it.
So far, nobody has openly ogled her or said anything to her face, but it’s probably only a matter of time. It might be partly because Max keeps looming over at the other guys when they get within three feet of her, like he thinks it’s his solemn duty as her billet brother. She really hopes that her dads didn’t have some sort of weird, scary talk with him when they dropped her off.
They’ve got one shower with a curtain that’s meant for her and Cara, but they’re sharing the locker room with the guys, and that’s good, because like ninety percent of team bonding happens when people are naked. She’s had to change in the broom cupboard before, at her last home rink, and she was never super close to the guys because of it.
So she’s prepared to see her fair share of dick, and she’s pretty prepared to slip up and forget that she’s not supposed to be tits out around a bunch of guys sooner or later. And when that happens, she’s prepared to either pretend like she doesn’t notice as they try to die of embarrassment, or give them a good slap if they stare too long. It’s just the way things are. She’s a girl in hockey, she knows the drill.
Good luck today!! Amelie texts her. You’re going to kill it out there! Love you!
…
The thing is, when Amelie says that she loves Kate, she means it. It’s just that she means it like, we’ve been best friends since the cradle.
Like, we share a team of professional hockey players who think they’re our uncles.
Like, I once told people you were my sister.
The thing is… when Kate says that she loves Amelie, she really, really does not mean it like that.
…
The other thing that Kate is waiting for, besides the first awkward, naked debacle, is the inevitable question.
“So, uh, your dad is Kent Parson, huh?”
Yup, there it is.
This time, it’s this kid Zach who asks her. His last name is Bone, which means that his hockey nickname is definitely Boner, even though nobody’s said it out loud, probably because they think that it will offend Cara and Kate or something, even though they’ve obviously both been playing with boys long enough that they’ve seen enough boners to last them a lifetime and won’t be scared off by the word.
Boys always have the fucking weirdest ideas about what a girl will find scary.
Anyway, Kate really feels for the kid, starting life with a name like that, so she just says, “Yeah,” without chewing him out like she did the one who asked her last time.
“And your other dad is Alexei Mashkov?”
“Uh-huh,” Kate says.
There are like twenty half-naked guys trying really hard to pretend like they’re not listening to the conversation. Boner is blushing, now, and he obviously can’t figure out what to say next. What do you say to that: oh, did they call to get you this spot on the team? The guys all just saw her skate. If they don’t think she’s got it, fine. She’s got a full season to prove herself.
“Sweet,” Boner finally says, when the silence has become agonizing.
Oh, yeah. Nothing has changed. Kate is going to feel right at home, here.
…
She actually had a pretty normal childhood, if she doesn’t count the part where there’s a picture on her wall of Jack Eichel holding her as a baby or that her favorite stuffed animal as a child was a gift from Sidney Crosby.
(That’s the only reason she keeps Penny the Penguin on her bed still, because it was a gift. Not because she still needs Penny. She’s mature now. Practically adult.)
If she says she grew up in Providence, which is mostly true, instead of in ice rinks (which is actually true), she had a totally normal childhood.
If people would stop asking her about the time she made her dad help her bake cupcakes for Auston Matthews even though he was on the other team, she would totally be able to convince them that she had a normal childhood. She was trying to do a nice thing, because he told her that he liked cupcakes that time he watched her for an hour when her dads were off doing important hockey things at All-Star weekend. She wouldn’t have done it if she would have known that he thought it was cute enough to tell the media about.
Plus, she was five. It’s time people just get over that.
Anyway. She had a totally normal childhood, is the point. Really. She did.
Except that, in the hockey world, having Kent Parson for a father pretty much means that nothing about her childhood can be considered normal.
…
Obviously, it takes like two days for the guys to stop being weird about her and Cara and just go back to being their normal teenage boy selves, which is code for absolutely disgusting.
They keep getting all these talks about how they’re adults now because none of them live at home, but most of them are still in high school and billeting really just means that somebody else’s mom does your laundry instead of your own.
They’re still teenage boys, and so they’re still awful. Not intentionally awful, not like, really bad people, just like they can’t stop talking about that one waitress’s tits from last night, even though it’s objectively pretty sexist and horrifying.
Kate takes comfort in the fact that none of them would even be able to pull her if they tried, because they’ve been living in locker rooms just like this one their entire lives which means that none of them have any game whatsoever. Personally, she’s of the opinion that they should actually consider talking to Kate or Cara about it, because they’re actual girls who may have actual helpful advice, but for right now, they’re treating them both like teammates—which is to say, like bros—which is what Kate was actually hoping for, so that’s cool.
When they wise up about needing her help, she’ll be here. For now, she can watch them flounder. That’s fine.
…
She skypes Amelie later that night, and Amelie gets a good laugh out of hearing all about those stupid boys. Kate half wishes she was still in Providence with her, going to their old high school. She half wishes that Amelie would have never quit hockey because she was definitely good enough that she could be playing with Kate right now.
Basically, all of her wishes that she could see Amelie for real instead of in her computer screen.
“I joined the lacrosse team and my dads are all spun up about it,” Amelie tells her. “I don’t know why, though, because it’s the other Canadian sport, you know? I figured Dad would be happy about that, but apparently not.”
“You just walked on to the varsity team?” Kate asks. Their lacrosse program is, like, really good.
“Yeah,” Amelie shrugs. “I mean, I had to try out, of course. It’s really fun.”
Amelie is stupid athletic. She was way better than Kate when she decided to quit hockey; in the years since, she’s been way better at pretty much everybody at field hockey, tennis, softball, and now, apparently, lacrosse.
Sure, Kate is really good at hockey. But she’s also pretty much a disaster at everything that happens off the ice. Including, obviously, falling in love with her straight best friend.
Max knocks on her door and tells her that it’s time for dinner, then. At first, Kate thought it might be way too weird to live with one of her teammates, but Max is pretty chill, if a little overprotective in the locker room. Also, he’s just as obsessed with hockey as her, which means that he doesn’t think it’s weird when Kate asks him if he wants to practice with her in the driveway, even after they get home from a real practice.
“He’s cute!” Amelie says enthusiastically. Max is probably not out of earshot, and Kate kind of wants to die. Amelie is very persistent about trying to get Kate set up with someone, and it’s basically the worst thing that’s ever happened to her.
“No,” Kate says firmly. “He’s my brother. You know, basically. Plus, I will never like a teammate. They’re smelly and loud and I know way too much about their weird problems, and it would totally screw with the team.”
“Fine,” Amelie says, and smiles. Her teeth are perfect and white and her dark hair is, like, cascading over her shoulder. She really shouldn’t look so much like her perfect looking father because she’s adopted, but somehow, she does. Maybe everybody in Quebec is just really beautiful, or something.
Kate’s forehead is breaking out, because it always gets so sweaty under her helmet. She’s got this super gnarly bruise on her left thigh and her hair is, as always, a fucking disaster.
Sure, Kate’s in the O now, but Amelie is so far out of her league that they aren’t even playing the same game. Literally.
“Gotta go,” Kate says, “Love you.” Her heart beats so loudly every time she says it, because she means it. She means it.
“Love you!” Amelie says back, because they’re best friends, and they do love each other.
But she doesn’t mean it.
…
Kate already had her gay crisis, like, last year, and it went something like this:
She’s probably not gay. She probably just only knows really annoying boys and really beautiful, amazing girls. Probably.
Can she even be gay, if her dads both are? Does that make her a cliché? Does she have gay DNA??
Anyway. She’s over that part of it now. Now, she’s just into the part of it where talking to Amelie still kind of makes her chest hurt, but now she just accepts it.
It’s really not ideal, but what else is there to do?
…
Kate skypes with her dads, like, a lot, but she’s still excited for the first game that they’re able to come up for. Her dad doesn’t have to go into work tonight because the Falconers aren’t playing, and her papa’s team of rugrats has the night off.
She’s so jittery in the locker room that Cara actually asks her if she’s okay, and Cara once didn’t notice Jonesy going full frontal, like, three feet in front of her because she zones hard before games. Kate likes Cara a hell of a lot, but she’s a goalie, which means that there’s something just a little off about her. In a good way, of course.
It’s good nerves. She feels like she could score a hat trick. She feels like she’s going to be magic on the ice, tonight. Her papa always says that she’s just like her dad, that she can always pull it out under pressure.
She doesn’t tell the rest of the team, though, because sometimes they get weird in front of famous hockey players and she really doesn’t want to psych them out before this game. Like last month, when Connor McDavid was here, and O’Malley was a mess all over the blue line and Cara was standing on her head for them and Kate practically killed herself getting that winning goal.
And, okay, yeah, the guys were also kind of weird about the fact that Connor McDavid hugged her and knew her by name and asked about her family, but it’s not like that’s her fault. They just go way back.
Anyway, Kate is totally right about being magic. She doesn’t get the hat trick, but her name is on pretty much every point the Otters put up, and they dominate, and it feels really, really good.
She barely rinses off before she’s dashing out of the locker room and it’s embarrassing, the way she practically jumps into her papa’s arms, but it’s been a long time and she really missed them both and if she tears up a little when her dad kisses the top of her head, then she’s pretty sure that can be excused.
There was a time that she thought her dad didn’t want her to play hockey, because he was always weird and reluctant to sign her up for bigger, badder teams. But then she cried to Papa about it and they all sat down and talked about it—“I never wanted to push you into this,” Dad had said. “If you want to play, I will support you one hundred percent, but I want to make sure you know that we will love you just as much if you don’t want to. It’s your decision.”
There are a lot of hockey families out there, and it’s only part nepotism. The other part is just the way that it works its way into your bloodstream and makes you ache with it.
So yeah, her dads are pretty stupid proud of her, and it’s, like, the most embarrassing thing ever, except for how it’s also pretty great. Like how Papa is always the loudest one in the crowd, but he’s not mean like some hockey dads. He’s coached little kids for long enough that he’s just really loudly supportive and always finds something good about her game, even that time she scored on her own net, and doesn’t criticize her about the bad. And like how her dad wears one of her jerseys to every game, even though none of the teams she’s ever played for actually sell jerseys to wear, which means that he’s custom ordering them.
Super embarrassing.
When Boner comes out of the locker room and sees her dads, his eyes practically fall out of his head.
“Um, Dad, Papa, this is…” And Kate suddenly realizes that even though she’s seventeen and they’re all familiar with locker room language… she is never going to be able to say the word ‘boner’ in front of her fathers. “Zach,” she finishes, a little lamely. “My liney.”
“Hey, good game,” Dad says, and shakes his hand. Kate’s a little worried that Boner is about to faint, especially when Dad starts in on his game—he can’t help it, he’s a hockey analyst, and Kate would usually stop him except for how Boner is probably drooling with all the advice he’s getting, and he got her an assist tonight, so she lets it happen.
“You are the best player on this team, Katyushka,” Papa says, and her throat aches a little. It’s been so long since she’s gotten to speak Russian with him—when they skype, they speak English because even though Dad understands most of what they say after so many years, he still can barely speak a word, and Papa never lets him forget it.
“Thanks, Papa, but it’s a good team. They’re all good.”
“And you like it here, you are happy? Truly?”
“Yes, Papa. I’m very happy.”
Papa tugs her into another hug, and she feels tiny against him. She’d always hoped she would be a little taller, but the Parson genes won out. They always seem to. Papa used to seem like a giant to her, like a hero. He doesn’t seem so giant anymore, but he’s still big and strong and tall and his arms are her favorite place to be. “Jack and Eric and Amelie came over for dinner the other night. They all wanted to send their regards, and Amelie says that the next time we come visit you, she’s hiding in our suitcases.”
Kate just… really does not want to cry in front of Boner. She pulls away a little reluctantly, but then Dad’s hugging her, Boner still looking stunned over his shoulder, which kind of makes her want to cry even more. “We’re taking you and your billet family to dinner, okay, Katie?”
She narrows her eyes at Boner over dad’s shoulder. Nobody is allowed to call her Katie, except for Dad. She is not a Katie anywhere except in his arms. She’s a Kate—the sound is hard, like skates on ice. Katie is a little girl.
Kate is an athlete.
She really hopes she’s able to communicate this all in her angry squint, but if that doesn’t work, she’s more than willing to find another way to communicate it. Like with her fists.
Luckily, Max doesn’t seem quite as star struck as Boner when they get to dinner, and his parents are pretty blasé as well. It’s just a nice dinner with two families, and it’s only awkward when Dad asks Max what his plans are for the future.
Because in June, Max is going to be sitting in a big room, waiting to get drafted.
And Kate… well. Kate is never going to be drafted.
She takes a gulp of water to try to swallow the anger at it all. It only half works.
…
Amelie is the only one who knows how much Kate aches to play in the NHL. She doesn’t even tell her dads, because it’s not fair to them either. They’ve given her everything she’s ever wanted, but even they can’t give her this.
She wants it so badly she has dreams of it—stepping onto NHL ice with her name on her back, the crowd roaring for her.
People say every year that the NHL is bound to follow after the CHL sooner or later, and finally let women play for real. It’s just that Kate is afraid it will be so much later that she’ll miss her chance, and she thinks that could maybe kill her.
But she’ll be okay. She’ll play in college, probably wear a jersey for Team USA a few times. Maybe she could go pro in a women’s league somewhere. She can play hockey for a long while, yet.
She’ll just never play in the NHL.
…
“What schools have you applied for?” Amelie asks her, voice tinny over the speaker. She keeps braiding her long hair, undoing it, pulling it over the opposite shoulder. Braiding it again.
Kate is mesmerized.
“Um, all the big hockey ones,” Kate finally says. “My grades are okay but I’ll probably need a scholarship somewhere.”
She doesn’t need a scholarship somewhere. Her dads are sitting on enough NHL money that her grandkids won’t need a scholarship somewhere, and Amelie is in the same boat, but she nods anyway. They both want scholarships, because they both hate it when their parents’ money or influence gets them something they might not deserve.
“What about Samwell?” Amelie asks. “I applied there. The lacrosse program is pretty great and my dads are both alumni, they never stop talking about how good it was. I think one of their old friends coaches the women’s team, you could ask them to put you in contact.”
Kate did apply for Samwell, because she knew that Amelie would. They have a decent women’s program, but she could do better. Will, with the way she’s playing.
But Amelie will probably go there, and she’ll never do better than Amelie.
“Yeah, I’ll think about it,” Kate says. “Tell me about your week? I miss you.”
…
She finally goes home for Christmas, a long blessed break away from Erie to spend with Dad and Papa and with Amelie.
Especially with Amelie.
There’s a party tonight! Amelie texts her. I want to go with you, Katie : )
(So, okay. There are two people allowed to call her Katie.)
Kate would honestly rather just curl up with Amelie and watch a movie, but she can handle a party if Amelie is going. They went to the same high school for three years, she’ll still know people from there.
Amelie comes over to help her get ready since Kate barely knows mascara from her left toe, and the first thing she does is hug Kate for like five minutes, which is about a million minutes too short.
Then she does something to make Kate’s hair look actually nice, instead of like she just rolled out of bed ten years after the world ended, which is how it normally looks. She squeezes Kate into a dress and lines her eyes, and…
“You look really pretty!” Amelie tells her.
“Um, thanks,” Kate says, because Amelie looks a thousand times better and always will. She’s all tall and curvy and she’s got this fantastic ass and a pretty phenomenal pair of tits and… Kate really has to breathe.
And stop spending so much time with the guys in the locker room, because their constant chatter is making her all pervy.
Everybody brightens when Amelie walks into the room, but they also all look suddenly kind of drab and unattractive next to her, which is quite a trick. She’s one of the most popular girls at school, and Kate had always just drifted in her periphery, which was fine, because nobody could stop watching her when she played hockey. It’s not just that Amelie is attractive, it’s that she’s also genuinely one of the nicest people that Kate knows.
It’s, like, really unfair. There should probably be a cosmic rule that if you’re always the most beautiful person in the room, you also can’t be the best. You should only get one or the other.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work this way, because Kate is frequently unattractive or bitchy or both.
It’s nice, for a while, because she really misses Amelie and the way that Amelie is sitting so close to her and laughing is… Kate has to work really hard not to put an arm around her waist. She’s not drinking tonight, but Amelie is somehow making a red plastic cup look like it belongs on the cover of Vogue, so it shouldn’t be too surprising when this tall guy starts making small talk with her.
Kate’s fine over here chatting about the Hawk’s defense with Matty. He’s a good kid and a good player and they always got along well. And Amelie seems pretty happy with her male model over there, so.
That’s good. Really.
“I think I’m gonna go,” Kate tells her, after watching it is making her practically break out in hives. “Do you still need a ride home?”
“Oh, it’s okay!” Amelie says. She doesn’t seem too drunk, but Kate feels like maybe she shouldn’t leave her here anyway. She also feels like if she watches Amelie kiss this guy like Amelie’s probably going to in a minute, Kate will kind of want to die, so. “I’ll just sleep here at Marissa’s! I’ll be fine, promise.”
“Okay,” Kate says. “Text me if you need anything.”
“I will,” Amelie says, and kisses her on the cheek. It’s happened before, the way that Amelie sometimes hits just a little too close to her mouth. There’s no reason that Kate’s face should burn, except that maybe…
But she turns back at the front door, and Amelie is definitely kissing that guy, so, yeah. Kate was definitely right about how shitty that was going to feel.
…
Dad’s on the computer in the living room when she gets home, and she can hear Papa chattering away in Russian in the den. Dad’s wearing the glasses that he still tries to insist he doesn’t need, except that Papa always tells him that he looks professorial in them, and then Aunt Jess always protests that she is a professor and they definitely don’t wear dumb glasses like that, and then Papa always says, “No, I mean like movie professor. Hot professor,” and then they kiss.
It’s objectively kind of cute. It’s also disgusting and horrifying because no one girl should ever be forced to watch her parents kiss each other as much as Kate is forced to.
It’s not that late, Kate realizes. It only took a few hours to make her feel really stupid in this dress, with this shit all over her face and her hair all fancy from Amelie’s hands. Why bother even trying, when it will never matter?
“Hey Katie,” Dad calls absently. “Did you have a good time?”
He looks up from his laptop just before she manages to make her face broadcast something besides devastation, and he shuts it immediately. “Katie, what’s the matter?”
She falls onto the couch next to him, and he opens his arms for her. “Oh, baby,” he says, and she’s definitely going to get eyeshadow all over his shirt because she’s crying into his chest now and she’s practically grown, she lives away from home now, but when she opens her mouth, the only thing that comes out is, “Daddy,” all shaky and kind of clogged up from all the liquid on her face. She hasn’t called him that since, like first grade, but now she can’t stop. “Daddy,” she sobs again.
“Did something happen, baby? Are you hurt?” He tries to get a look at her face, but she won’t budge. She might never move again. She can just sit on the couch with her dad forever, and then nothing can ever feel like this again. That would be okay.
“No,” she says, finally. “I’m not hurt.”
She’s kind of cried out, for now. She might cry again later, but right now she just feels… sort of bleak.
It almost helps to remind herself that it’s not her fault that Amelie will never love her back. It’s just that she’s a girl. It would probably be worse to be rejected because Amelie just didn’t like her or something, but… it’s just that Kate’s a girl. Neither one of them can help that.
“Oh, baby,” Dad sighs into her hair. He really, really hates it when she cries.
“I miss you,” she says after a while. It’s not really why she’s crying, but it’s true. She misses being able to be like this more, back when it was normal that all she wanted to do was hug her dads. Now she’s moved away and people expect her to hate her parents, or something, because apparently that’s just what teenagers do. It’s kind of awful.
“Me too, Katie,” Dad says. She’s kind of drowsing now, all leaned up against him. Her face must be a mess. Papa comes into the room then, and says something too low for Kate to make out, and then he sits on the other side of her and puts his big warm hand on her back.
He used to carry her to bed when she fell asleep like this. He used to tuck the covers tight around her toes and sing her a Russian lullaby and check for monsters in her closet.
“Katya,” he sighs. “Oh, my sweet Katyushka.”
He does carry her to bed again, tonight. He’s still a giant, still her hero.
Her face is a mess, but she just holds Penny the Penguin and falls asleep and promises herself that she’ll wash it all off tomorrow.
…
Kate is chirping Boner about the shitty haircut he just got when the doorbell rings.
She doesn’t feel so distraught this morning—she washed the makeup off her face and the hairspray out of her hair, and she just feels kind of resigned.
She can live very happily in her backwards caps and her sneakers and play hockey, and Amelie can go be beautiful with tall boys and they can just be best friends. Kate just needs to get over this. That’s all.
“It’s Amelie,” Dad says, after he knocks on her door. He looks really worried, and Kate kind of wishes she had just gone to her room last night, because she hates that wrinkle on his forehead just like he hates watching her cry.
“I brought your favorite muffins,” Amelie says, peering around Dad. She looks really worried, too, plus she got Bitty to make Kate muffins, which probably means that Dad had called her last night to ask if Kate was okay because that’s the only person he knew she was at the party with.
Shit. She really should not have cried on her dad last night.
“Bitty made them special for you,” Amelie says, waving the plate in her direction. Kate thinks about how weird it is that Amelie calls her own father ‘Bitty’ to distract from how impossible it is that Amelie still looks perfect in a sweatshirt just like she did last night in her little dress. But then, Amelie also calls her grandpa ‘Coach’—not the grandpa that Amelie shares with Kate, they both just call him Grandpa Bob, because one of Kate’s actual grandpas lives in Russia and the other hasn’t been part of the family since Dad was a baby, so Amelie promised Kate a long time ago to share her grandpa with Kate so that they could both have one.
Anyway.
“You can come in,” Kate says, trying to sound breezy. She still kind of feels like shit, but the muffins are really good. Uncle Bitty is like Martha Stewart, but without the jail time. And with better fashion sense.
“Are you okay?” Amelie asks gently. “Your dad said you were kind of upset last night. I’m sorry, I should have left with you.”
“Oh, I’m fine,” Kate says. “Just… you know, got homesick. Hit me suddenly.”
“But you are home, Katie,” Amelie says.
Kate shoves another muffin in her mouth. Amelie has very good manners, and won’t expect Kate to talk around a muffin.
“I brought my skates,” Amelie breezes on, “Let’s play shinny, eh?”
Amelie still calls her hat a toque, even though she’s never lived anywhere but Providence, and the word still makes Kate laugh. This is good, out on the ice. Hockey always makes her feel better.
It’s really unfair, how Amelie can still give Kate a challenge, even though she stopped playing, like, two years ago. It’s also really hot, or it would have been yesterday. Kate is not thinking about Amelie like that anymore. Really. She’s not.
The air is cold against Kate’s cheeks, and she’s sure she looks like a wreck, all sweaty and panting, but Amelie coasts to a stop beside her and looks like she stepped out of a hockey photoshoot, or something.
“How could you ever give this up?” Kate wonders aloud, when she’s got her breath back, and Amelie smiles at her.
“You mean why did I quit?”
“I guess. I mean… hockey, you know? You can play every single sport, but you’re never going to find one that’s better.”
Kate almost doesn’t expect an answer, or she maybe expects Amelie to say it’s too hard to live up to her dad, her grandpa. She really, really, does not expect Amelie to laugh and say, “Because of you, Katie.”
It hits her like a punch to the chest, like a check to the boards, like two d-men bearing down on her. Amelie might have said she cut her leg off because of Kate, how rotten it makes her feel inside.
“No,” Kate croaks. Amelie reaches for her, and she lurches back.
“It’s good, Katie, it was good,” Amelie tries to reassure. “I didn’t mean because… I just mean, look how much you love this. I see it every time I watch you play. When we were on the same team, it was there every time you stepped onto the ice. Practice was never work for you, every game was the best game ever, because you love hockey so much. And I… I like hockey, a lot. But I don’t have that, not like you do. And hockey deserves people who love it that much, and I deserve to find that thing for me. It’s just not hockey.”
It’s not hockey, Amelie says, and Kate hears, it’s not you.
“It’s a good thing for me, Katie,” Amelie says.
“I think I’m ready to stop,” Kate says. “I think I need to be done.”
…
She goes back to the Otters without seeing Amelie again. Or rather, they see each other—family dinners, a charity benefit, once again on the ice for the annual big New Year’s shinny, this time with all of their dads and Grandpa Bob and as many spare players as they can round up.
But they don’t really see each other.
It’s chill. She has Max here, and Cara, and Boner.
More importantly, she’s got hockey.
…
College acceptance letters start rolling in early in the New Year, and Kate dreads opening each one. Each one is an acceptance, is the thing—she hopes it’s not because they saw her name and forgot about her as a person, but it’s probably the case. Katherine Mashkova Parson—accepted.
Max doesn’t get letters, and neither do any of the other guys on their team, because they’re all playing in Juniors and aren’t eligible for the NCAA anyway and are going to be drafted, so what’s the point? Kate is only grandfathered in because girls literally couldn’t play pro hockey before college until, like last year.
But she and Cara go through their letters together, so that’s nice. She’s not Amelie, but. It’s nice.
She’s spoiled for choice, spoiled being the operative word.
At least reporters start asking her about her college plans, instead of about her gay dads like they always did before.
It’s just… Kate sometimes forgets that her dads are icons, and not just in the hockey world. Obviously, she knows that they were the first players to come out, which was a big deal. Hell, she was a pretty big deal when she was born, a few years after Dad retired but a few years before Papa did, and there are contentious news clippings to prove it.
“FIRST GAY BABY IN CUP,” one infamous headline reads, right above the picture of one year old Kate perched in the Cup after Papa’s last playoff win. Kate actually kind of likes the picture, and it turns out that they were right, about her being gay, but since that was a shot in the dark she definitely gets why people freaked about the headline.
The point is, she knows that her dads are gay, but she never knows what to say when people ask her about it. Is she supposed to talk about how she hardly ever sees her grandparents, because they’re Russian? About how much her papa misses home, but about how he can never go back there, and if (when) she ever visits, it will have to be without him? About how some of Dad’s former teammates burned bridges when he told them who he loved?
Kate and Amelie made a pact to never read their dads’ press, after one horrifying afternoon spent googling, but it’s not like she doesn’t hear it anyway.
Whatever. The college questions are easier to answer, because “I haven’t made a decision yet” is both true and acceptable.
…
The CHL is putting on an outdoor game, this year. It’s pretty much a shameless publicity stunt, which is especially obvious because both of the teams invited have the most girls in the league.
Well. Not like two girls a piece out of a thirty man roster is exactly cutting edge, but. Baby steps.
Her dads tell her that the whole family is coming out, and they mean the whole family. Both of them, Aunt Jess, Grandma Parson. Plus Uncle Jeff and Aunt Alice, which is great because Kate never sees them and they’re her godparents and also Aunt Alice once carried Kate in her uterus for nine months, so Kate kind of owes them both. Uncle Jack and Uncle Bitty and Grandpa Bob and Alicia, too. Half the old Falconers guard, even though most of them have retired, because they’re Kate’s team, even more than Amelie’s. They’re the same age, but Kate got a two year head start, before Amelie was adopted.
And Amelie. Of course.
…
Amelie breaks into the locker room before the game, except how breaking in is really easy because there are no locks and no security.
“Hi, Katie,” she says, and hugs her tight, and Kate can’t help but hug her back. Really, it’s automatic, even though she kind of wishes that it wasn’t.
Boner is naked, and O’Malley is wearing his pants on his head and whooping like he’s deranged and Amelie doesn’t even blink at them, and Kate…
Fuck.
Kate loves her so goddamn much.
“I brought eyeblack,” Amelie says conspiratorially. “Because you look totally badass without it, so imagine how you’re going to look with it.”
Her fingers are all gentle against Kate’s cheek when she swipes it there, and then she does the rest of the team like she’s one of them, and Kate aches at the way Amelie kisses the clean part of her cheek before she has to leave to go sit with the rest of them.
“I can’t believe Amelie Zimmermann is your friend,” O’Malley says all dreamily. Kate really hopes that she doesn’t look this stupid when she thinks about Amelie, but she probably does. “She’s so hot.”
“Fuck off,” Kate says cheerfully, and they take the ice.
She fucking wins it for them, of course she does, with a hat trick to boot.
Amelie’s eyes are on her, so how could she not?
…
Kate spends a long time looking at herself in the mirror, after the game. She doesn’t usually think about her body that much—it’s a perfectly good body, because it plays good hockey. That’s all she needs it to do, really. She usually doesn’t focus on how it looks.
But Amelie was wearing her jersey, earlier, and she looked so much better in it than Kate ever has, and now Kate can’t stop thinking about how pretty Amelie is, dark hair tucked into a beanie and big eyes gleaming. About how different they are.
People always tell Kate that she looks like her dad, and she figures they mean that she looks like Aunt Jess, who is her bio-mom, technically speaking. She’s never been able to figure out how she can look like two objectively attractive people and still be so… plain.
She’s shorter than she’d like to be and is pretty built, which is good for hockey but is not so good for being considered an attractive woman. Her hair never behaves itself and she’s got these stupid freckles all along her nose and cheeks, and she didn’t even get Dad’s kaleidoscope eyes; there, she’s all Papa, brown-eyed and ordinary.
She stares at herself for a long, long moment; at the stupid way her nose turns up at the end, at the stupid scar on her chin from last January, at her stupid, stocky legs.
Then she pulls her parka on, one of her caps backwards over her messy hair.
She can accept that she doesn’t look like Amelie and never will. Really, she can, because she can win a hockey game and because as soon as she leaves this room there are going to be about twenty people who want to hug her for it, not to mention her teammates.
She doesn’t need to be the hot girl, because even if she was, Amelie would still never want her back.
She can just be a winner, instead. She can live with that.
…
They’re on the road, which means that Kate should probably go up to her hotel room and brush her teeth and fall asleep in the opposite bed from Cara like she always does on the road.
But Amelie has her own room at the same hotel because her dad thought it would be a nice surprise for them to get to have a sleepover like they always used to, and how is Kate supposed to say no to that?
Amelie sleeps in these tiny shorts and this tiny little T-shirt, no bra. If Kate was Amelie’s best friend, like she’s supposed to be, she would never notice, except that she’s basically obsessed with her and she can’t stop staring at Amelie’s hard nipples, at the lower curve of her ass where it peeks out of her shorts when she bends over.
She’s so, so fucked. It’s really bad for her health.
Kate didn’t know that she would be sleeping in the same room as Amelie, so she has this old nightgown that she’s had for like five years that she’s half grown out of and no other option. Every time she moves, her ass falls out the bottom or her tits fall out the top, but… she’s trying.
Besides, Amelie has seen her wear this thing before, because it’s so old that it’s the softest thing Kate owns, which is why she keeps it at all, and Amelie is her best friend and does not care what Kate wears to bed because she, unlike Kate, is not completely obsessed with the shape of her best friend’s mouth.
And then Amelie comes back from brushing her teeth and climbs into the same bed as Kate—even though there is a perfectly good one that’s empty across the room—and Kate pretty much has a heart attack then and there.
“You’re so good out there, Katie,” Amelie murmurs. She reaches out to clutch Kate’s free hand, but… it doesn’t mean anything. They’ve held hands before. It’s fine, really. “I can never take my eyes off of you.”
Kate shivers, mostly because Amelie’s breath is, like, tickling her neck, but Amelie must think she’s cold, because she squirms in closer. Their bare knees touch.
Kate kind of wants to say thanks, but it would probably sound pretty conceited, after her hat-trick, so she doesn’t say anything.
Amelie just looks at her, for a long moment. It’s kind of disconcerting. “Do you ever think about…” She says, and doesn’t finish.
Do you ever think about us? Kate thinks, wildly. That’s what she would say. Or, do you ever think about kissing me?
But if she said that, Amelie would probably leave.
“Where have you gotten acceptance letters,” Kate whispers finally. It’s safe ground.
“I think it’s probably Samwell, for me,” Amelie says. She’s still holding Kate’s hand. Kate thinks about the Samwell envelope back at her billet’s place. Full ride. “Are you thinking about going there, still?”
“Yeah,” Kate says honestly. “I’m thinking about it.”
“Good,” Amelie whispers. “I miss you so much, Katie. I think about being with you again all the time.”
Kate swallows. Amelie’s eyes are closed, halfway to sleep, but Kate is throbbing with the touch of her hand, of her bare thigh. If she pressed fingers between her legs right now, they’d pull away wet. And Amelie has no idea, is just laying here with her friend, thinking everything is normal. Kate feels sick with herself.
She rolls over, but that’s not any better, the way Amelie is pressed up behind her, hips into Kate’s ass.
“Me too,” Kate says, more honest than she’s ever been. “I think about that, too.”
…
O’Malley’s billet parents are gone for the night when the team rolls back into Erie, so of course he decides to throw them a victory party.
Kate might normally protest, but tonight she wants to get drunk on vodka and forget that she’s supposed to be the voice of reason on this team and forget the way Amelie’s eyes looked when she opened them in the morning, inches away from Kate’s.
Yup. A shot or six sound really good right now.
She finds her way to Boner and kind of curls up against him on the couch.
“How are you alive,” he mutters. “I just saw you drink, like… a lot. Like, so much.”
“I’m half Russian,” she informs him. His eyes are kind of dark, but, like, in a good way. Also, his name is Boner. Kate finds this very, very funny, and so she laughs at him for a while.
“I think I like you,” Boner says to her.
“I think I’m gay,” she says. She really wishes that she could like him back. She really wishes that she could lean over and kiss him. His lips look like they would be nice to kiss. He’s got a nice face, like, objectively speaking. Her life would be so much easier if she could just… want to kiss him.
But she doesn’t.
“Huh,” he says. Kate’s not sorry, really, but she’s prepared to say it, until… “That’s really hot,” Boner says.
Fucking teenage boys.
He’s nice to lay on, though. Kate might keep him around.
…
Uncle Jack is the one she goes to for, like, deep advice. Dad’s pretty much got her back whenever she needs him, and Papa is the guy when she just needs some comfort, but Uncle Jack has the pensive, big-life-decision look down pat.
Unfortunately, she can’t see that look over the phone, even though it would probably help.
“I have to send in an acceptance for college soon,” Kate tells him. The other thing is, of course, that her dads did not go to college. She loves them, but they do not really understand this decision.
“What are your options?” Uncle Jack asks.
“Um, Harvard, Minnesota, and, um, Samwell.”
Amelie sent in her acceptance letter to Samwell yesterday. This does not make Kate’s decision any easier.
And Kate really does not want to live in Minnesota. “Actually, not Minnesota. The program’s good, but…”
“But it’s in Minnesota,” Uncle Jack says. “What does your dad say?”
Kate breathes, in, out. “Papa says whatever I want.” In, out. “And dad says the same, except… he says I should make a choice for myself. That I shouldn’t try to make the decision because of… somebody else. That I need to do what’s best for me.”
What he actually said was that Kate’s too young to build her life around someone else, which logically, Kate agrees with. She doesn’t say this to Uncle Jack, though, because Dad was talking about Jack a little and Amelie a little, and both are kind of awkward to admit out loud to Uncle Jack.
“Hmm,” Uncle Jack says.
It’s like… Kate sometimes feels like she shouldn’t know about how Dad and Uncle Jack used to be. What they went through, in the CHL, at the same age that she is now. Parents aren’t supposed to have messy pasts and exes and skeletons in the closet. They’re just supposed to be parents.
“I think that’s good advice,” Uncle Jack says finally. “Kate, it’s your future and your career. Don’t think about what other people want. Think about what you want.”
I want your daughter, Kate thinks.
“Thanks, Uncle Jack,” she says out loud.
…
Kate fucking lifts the Memorial Cup, and some twisted, desperate part of her thinks, try and let them keep me out of the NHL now.
The rest of her just smiles, because she just won the Memorial Cup.
A first of her own. First girl to lift the Memorial Cup. Well, physically, at least. She’ll happily share the honor with Cara.
In a month, twenty of these guys are going to be drafted. Kate grabs Cara by the back of the jersey, hugs her hard. They both deserve that chance, too, and it makes her want to scream that they’re never going to get it.
“I’m going to Wisconsin,” Cara tells her with wet eyes. She’s Canadian. The next time they share ice, they’re going to be wearing opposing jerseys. They’re never going to be like this again.
“You’re going to fucking kill it,” Kate tells her fiercely. This is her girl. This is her goalie. Someone takes a picture of them like this, folded together at center ice while the boys all scream around them. They’re probably going to run it with some sappy fucking title about women overcoming the odds or about how this is the last time they’re ever going to be considered equal to these guys, though maybe not in so many words.
“Otters forever,” Cara tells her.
“Fucking right,” Kate says, and gives her a squeeze, and lets her go.
…
She tries not to get all sentimental in the locker room, but it only half works. They’ll keep in touch, sure, until they don’t—until all these guys are playing in the big league and Kate’s just that girl they knew, once, back in the O.
She never thought she’d be sad about the last time she would see Boner’s, um, boner, and yet here she is.
But it’s okay, because Dad’s out there, and Papa, and Uncle Jack, and either Samwell or Harvard.
And Amelie. Either her, or… well. Something else.
…
Kate wakes in her own bed back in Providence, and Amelie is curled up there, too.
She bites her bottom lip. There’s a lock of hair falling across Amelie’s cheek—she could move it, maybe, could run a finger through her hair. Just once.
She almost does, until Amelie opens her eyes. “Hey,” she says, too alert for this early in the morning, “Congratulations on winning the Memorial Cup, bigshot. I wish I could have been there.”
“You had finals,” Kate says softly. So did she, but she turned them in early, because of hockey.
Amelie watches her for a long moment. Their faces are very close together, and Kate can’t help but notice the long catch of Amelie’s eyelashes across the pillow, the soft pout that her mouth makes.
“I’m going to Harvard,” Kate tells her. She likes the program, the coach, the girls. She likes the idea of making her own way there, where neither of her dads have been. She likes the idea of being an Ivy League graduate, pretentious as it makes her feel.
“I know,” Amelie says softly. “I knew you would. And I’m… I’m going to come see you all the time, Katie.”
“Okay,” Kate agrees easily. Maybe one day, she’ll meet another girl who makes her want to watch her sleeping face for hours. Maybe. One day. Like, in ten years, or something, when she’s finally over Amelie. It’s going to take a while. She’s not kidding herself there.
“Really,” Amelie says, and nudges her face closer. They touch noses. They used to do this a lot, as kids, but it never felt like this. “I’m going to come see you. All the time.”
“Okay,” Kate tries to say again. Except…
Except Amelie is kissing her, then, nothing but a brush of her lips, until she opens her mouth and it’s suddenly so much more than that.
“Really,” Amelie says again, more insistently. “All the time.”
They kiss again, again, again. Kate pulls her close, arm around her waist, and Amelie sighs, pushes a thigh between hers.
“Okay,” Kate laughs into her mouth, lips swollen, core buzzing. “Okay.”
Amelie tumbles them over, laughs into her throat. “Katie,” she says tenderly. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting.”
“I do,” Kate promises, and kisses her again. Fuck college, she might just do this forever instead. “I really, really do.”