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Shane was in the whole grain aisle of the grocery store when his phone screen lit up with J.J.’s name. Shane put the two types of quinoa he had been trying to decide between back on the shelf.
“Capitaine!” J.J.’s booming voice greeted him as if he was on speaker. It had been over two seasons since Shane signed with Ottawa, but J.J. insisted on calling him Capitaine still.
“Hi J.J., what’s up?”
“What’s up with you, hat trick against Toronto yesterday! Crisse, what are they feeding you in Ottawa?”
“Today? Quinoa, probably,” Shane joked. Over the past years, Shane had made himself learn to not put too much focus on every little thing he ate, but he still liked to mostly adhere to a macrobiotic meal plan. Only mostly, though. There were things to be gained from the occasional indulgence, too.
“Hah! That won’t help you against us next week! We’re going to trounce you!”
After the move, Shane had expected there to be a lingering awkwardness at discussing Montreal or Ottawa with J.J.—and that was the case with Hayden, them more or less skillfully skirting around most hockey topics as best as they could, ending up recycling the same three safe topics instead. But not with J.J. If J.J. had any qualms about past issues, he was determined to work through them as if there weren’t any qualms at all.
Shane snorted. “In your dreams. Your defense is shit.”
J.J. tsked. He was part of that defense and most certainly not shit, but it wasn’t much of a secret that Montreal’s GMs and coaches had spent the past years building their team too much around offense. Shane wasn’t one to complain though; it made his job easier, after all. “Tell that to the coaches, silvouplè.”
“Yes, I’ll be sure to give the opponent’s coaches some tips, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.” Shane balanced his phone between his ear and shoulder and grabbed the red quinoa rather than the white one he usually went for before pushing his shopping cart further down the aisle.
“You can tell me all the things I did wrong next week at Djon-Djon’s!” It had become tradition to meet up after games against the Voyageurs there. It was one of Shane’s more preferred locales in Montreal, lowkey atmosphere and minimal chance of run-ins with Montreal fans that still had lingering resentments towards Shane.
“Hayden and I might drag some rooks with us. Have to raise them right. Are other Centaurs coming?”
“Yeah, some of the team will probably come too.” Most of the younger Cens players would probably rather find a club, but a few of the players, including his Ilya of course, liked to accompany Shane when meeting up with his old teammates.
“Fin, Hayes owes me a DVD!” And J.J. was also always a natural at finding and embracing common ground with basically any person.
“I’ll make sure to remind him, then.”
“Euh, no need, I can hound him myself, I’ll call him later.” Shane heard some kind of beeping on the other end of the line—J.J. was probably in his car, driving to somewhere right now. “None of the other Voyageurs will come, I think, but eh, their loss.”
Shane was pretty sure J.J. didn't believe in ignoring or circumventing problems, he believed in marching right through them until they ceased to exist. After the whole fan mail debacle, Shane had learned that J.J. was also good at blocking Shane from trying to circumvent. One of the reasons why he made such a good defenseman, even if the Voyageurs didn’t make use of that enough.
Shane nodded, even though J.J. couldn’t see. He didn’t really fancy small talk with the likes of Comeau or Drapeau anyways. The people he needed and wanted to be in the clear with had come to him ages ago and he didn’t really want to forgive anyone else. “Our gain. They can cry about the Cens beating them to their wives, if they haven’t left their sorry asses yet.”
J.J. snorted. “I would say that your husband is rubbing off on you, but I know you’ve always been an asshole, Capitaine.”
Friendship with J.J. was easy to come by and Shane treasured it—he needed easy friendships. And he was grateful that J.J. was determined to uphold it, most of all with random spontaneous phone calls such as this one. Between Ilya and J.J., Shane had accepted that there wasn’t really friendship to be found, but still a respect that had built over time. It was more than he had hoped for a few years ago, but Shane had learned that there was always more to hope for than he had thought. “You know it. Looking forward to seeing you soon.”
“Me too, you better believe! It's been weeks, we have much to talk about, you and I, much has happened!”