Archive of Our Own

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The thing about being the third pick in the 2009 MLH draft is that no one remembered there was a third pick. 

Korogyi knew this. He’s known it since he was eighteen years old, standing backstage in a suit that was slightly too long in the arms, listening to Ilya Rozanov’s name get called, then Shane Hollander’s name get called, and then, finally, his own name get called to considerably less fanfare. His mother cried while his billet family screamed. Hockey Twitter said solid pick and moved on.

He’d been a solid pick his whole career.

He didn’t think about it a lot. Really, he didn’t. He was a forward for the Houston Drillers. He’d been to the playoff semi-finals twice. He had–according to an obscure, advanced stats model that Vincent found for him at two in the morning–the third-best faceoff percentage in the Western Conference.

“Third-best,” Vincent said, delighted, turning his laptop around in bed. “That’s incredible.”

“You found the one model that ranks me third,” Korogyi said.

“I found the correct model.”

Vincent Lemaire played for the Minnesota Nomads. He had a mustache that made him look like an 80’s cop show extra, a fact Korogyi pointed out regularly and that Vincent received as a compliment every single time. He was the third Rookie of the Year contender in 2011, the year Hollander edged out Rozanov, and he didn’t seem to mind being a throwaway nomination. Vincent cared deeply about forechecking strategy and wine pairings and the ethical implications of reclining a seat on an airplane, but not about his own reputation. That was the first thing Korogyi liked about him. (The second thing was the mustache, but Korogyi would take that to the grave).

They met at the All-Star Game in Toronto when they were both twenty. Vincent was sitting alone at the hotel bar drinking a piña colada in a room full of hockey players nursing bourbons. Korogyi sat next to him because every other seat was taken, or at least that’s what he told himself while walking past several empty ones.

They talked for three hours. Vincent's humor was dry, his jokes almost able to pass unnoticed. Korogyi noticed them, though, and after a while Vincent stopped trying to hide his smile.

By the second round they were interrupting each other mid-thought and finishing each other’s sentences. Korogyi found himself watching Vincent’s hands when he talked and, against his better judgment, the contours of his mustache. 

By the third round they were both drinking piña coladas. Vincent glanced at Korogyi around the enormous pineapple wedge on his rim, and something in Korogyi’s chest jumped the boards without a line change. Oh, he thought, this is going to be good.

It took them nearly a year to start dating. They lived in different cities, which didn't help, but the real delay was Korogyi, who spent a solid eight months convinced that Vincent was straight and just very European about friendship. He was not. He was, in fact, super gay, and also from Gatineau, which was in Canada.

“I’m not European,” Vincent said.

“You drink wine at lunch,” Korogyi said.

“I’m Québécois.”

“You air-kissed me on both cheeks the first time we hung out.”

“That’s a normal greeting–”

They’d been together for about a year when they decided to do it. Not come out, exactly. Their families already knew, along with their agents, who were nervous about it. They were out in all the ways that mattered except the one that would actually matter, the one that’d land them the front page of Deadspin and every hockey blog on the internet.

The first time they talked about it was during an early season road trip. Vincent’s game against the Blowers in Chicago was on Tuesday, Korogyi’s against the Otters in St. Louis was on Wednesday, and their schedules aligned for roughly eighteen hours in the middle.

They’d gotten good at this: sitting down at the start of every month with both calendars open, hunting for the seams where two lives that weren’t supposed to overlap could be pressed together. Red-eye flights on off-days, connections through cities neither of them had any reason to visit, arriving at the rink hollowed out on two hours of sleep, running on coffee that could peel paint. The effort was always absurd. There was never a question of whether it was worth it.

Vincent had ordered room service by the time Korogyi arrived. He also had a candle he’d clearly asked the front desk for burning on the nightstand.

“You got a candle,” Korogyi said, laughing.

“I created ambiance,” Vincent corrected. “Get over here.”

Korogyi got over there. The room service went cold.

Later, he sat against the headboard while Vincent lay crosswise, feet in Korogyi’s lap. Korogyi’s hands found Vincent’s ankles, his thumbs moving back and forth over the bones. “Do you think there are others like us in the league?” he asked.

“There are, what, seven hundred guys playing a full contact sport with communal showers,” Vincent turned his head on the pillow. “You want a number or a percentage?”

Korogyi squeezed his ankle. “I’m being serious.”

“So am I. Statistically, we’re probably boring.”

“So where are they?”

“Flying under the radar, same as us.” Vincent paused. “Except most of them are probably doing it alone.”

Korogyi’s hand slowed. He thought about identical hotel rooms in identical cities, with their blackout curtains and solitary king beds. Some other version of him lying alone right now with SportsCenter on mute, practicing the discipline of wanting nothing, taking up exactly as much space as the room allowed.

“We got lucky,” he said.

Vincent smiled. “The luckiest.”

Then Vincent sat up and took Korogyi by the wrist, tugging him down until they were lying face to face on the same pillow. At this angle, Vincent was mostly mustache. Koroygi wanted to get his mouth on it, but he couldn't stop picturing that other hotel room with the curtains drawn. 

“Do you ever think about how fast it happens?” he said.

“How fast what happens?”

“The hiding. Like–” Korogyi gestured vaguely. “You were fifteen. Hayden Pike stretches on the CJHL bus, and three seconds later you’re in the back row with your forehead on the glass, already knowing not to tell anyone.”

“To be fair,” Vincent said, “he had a mullet. Who wouldn’t have been ashamed.”

Korogyi didn’t laugh, and Vincent’s smile thinned. When he spoke again, the humor was gone from his voice.

“You absorb it,” he said. “The slurs. The jokes about what a guy would do to someone who looked at him wrong in the locker room. Then you’re fifteen, staring at Hayden Pike’s hip, and you think I guess that’s what I am. And the silence is automatic.”

Korogyi knew Vincent's story as well as his own by now. They’d swapped their private histories early, once they realized the other had one to share. But sometimes he was hit fresh by the image of teenage Vincent in the back of a bus, staring at nothing while a smaller life unspooled in front of him like the highway.

“So we’re all just hiding next to each other,” Korogyi said. “Could be guys on our own teams or guys we’ve played against for years. And nobody says anything, so nobody knows.”

“We’re professional athletes, baby. We’re competitive about everything, including the closet, apparently.”

Korogyi rolled over to face the ceiling. “I mean, no one’s tried anything else. It’s not like being out is even an option yet.”

“And whoever went first would have to do a whole apology tour on his knees,” Vincent said. “Which feels like the wrong posture for reassuring men you’re not interested.”

“But what if someone just, didn’t?” Korogyi turned his head toward Vincent. “What if someone made it look like–”

He couldn’t find the word. Vincent found it for him. “Victory.”

“Exactly. Just, I’m gay, it’s great, and the whole sport has to look.”

“I see.” Vincent’s mouth curved, teasing. “You want to be famous.”

“I want to make things better,” Korogyi said. And it was true. Somewhere right now, some kid was on a team bus feeling something take shape in him and learning, almost at the same moment, how to fold it back down. Except he didn’t have to. The rules only held because no one had tested their weight. 

It was also true for reasons that were less clean. The closet and the draft told Korogyi the same thing: you’re good enough to be present, not enough to be seen. And along the way the want to matter and the want to do something that mattered started tracking the same lane. No gap between them, no way to step off one without losing the other.

But lying with Vincent next to him, the good reasons and the selfish ones didn’t feel different at all. 

“Going public would still mean a lot,” Vincent said. “It doesn’t have to be a production.”

“I know,” Korogyi said. 

“But you want a moment.”

“I want the moment. If we’re doing this, why not make it count?”

Vincent smiled, the mustache curling with it, and Korogyi loved him so much it bodied him on open ice with nothing to brace against. A year in, and Vincent could still put him flat on his back looking up at the rafters.

“Okay,” Vincent said. “Let’s change the game.”

ATTEMPT ONE: THE JERSEY (NOVEMBER 2013)

The plan came together over three weeks and sixty-nine text messages.

Korogyi would score a hat trick and, while celebrating on the ice, he’d pull off his jersey to reveal that he was wearing a Lemaire Nomads jersey underneath. An audience of twenty thousand people would have to see, plus whoever was watching on national television.

“You know you’ll get a penalty,” Vincent said on a video call at midnight, his face blue-lit by his phone screen. “Delay of game, probably. Maybe even unsportsmanlike conduct.”

“Worth it,” Korogyi said.

“And you have to actually score a hat trick first. That’s not a small ask.”

“I’m on pace for thirty goals this season.”

“Thirty-six,” Vincent said. “But you need three in one night. Against Nashville, who’s having a great season.”

“I can do it.”

“I know you can,” Vincent said, as though it were obvious. Korogyi was used to belief that arrived already narrowed: solid player, good stats, reliable if not spectacular. Vincent’s had no asterisk. He just believed in Korogyi all the way.

They had a twelve hour window in Denver–back-to-back games on the Mounts’ home ice–to hand off the jersey in person. Vincent skipped his team’s return flight and optional morning skate. Korogyi skipped pregame drinks with the guys. Both of them rearranging the margins of their professional lives for a mass market jersey Vincent could’ve mailed and a try it on he could’ve texted.

Korogyi pulled the jersey over his head. It smelled like the detergent Vincent ordered online from Québec because he claimed American detergent “smelled like it was pretending to be clean.” Korogyi had pointed out that this was the most European thing he’d ever heard. Vincent had pointed out that he wasn’t European and also that Korogyi was welcome to smell like Tide if he wanted to. Korogyi had started ordering the same brand a few months ago. Vincent had been right, it was better. It had nothing to do with how his pillow now smelled like Vincent. Nothing to do with waking up in Houston and, for a half-second before he opened his eyes, thinking he might be somewhere else. It was a laundry preference, and Korogyi was allowed to have those, too. 

The fabric felt softer than his own jerseys, though there was no reason it should. He looked down at the Nomads logo on his chest. Wrong colors, wrong city, right person. Vincent’s name was across his back, where he couldn’t see it, but tomorrow, twenty thousand people would. 

“How does it feel?” Vincent asked.

“Like I’m wearing my boyfriend’s clothes,” Korogyi said, grinning.

“You are,” Vincent grinned back. “That’s the point.”

“No, I mean,” Korogyi smoothed his hands down the front. “My girlfriend used to wear my hockey jacket all the time in high school. I knew I was supposed to feel something about seeing her in it–proud, maybe–but I didn’t. Not really.”

Vincent leaned back on his hands, eyes on Korogyi, giving him room to find the rest of it.

“I’ve never wanted to be claimed before,” Korogyi said. “I do now.”

Vincent was already moving before Korogyi finished the sentence. He crossed the room, the distance a problem he was solving, hands finding Korogyi’s face, mouth finding his mouth. Vincent’s fingers slid under the hem of the jersey, warm against Korogyi’s sides, and Korogyi thought I’m going to have to take this off before we–and then stopped thinking about sequencing entirely.

The jersey stayed on. All the way to the bed with Vincent underneath him, and into the part of the night where language gave out. At some point Vincent reached up and pressed his palm flat against the name on Korogyi's back. LEMAIRE. He held it there as Korogyi rocked into him, leaving fingerprints on something he already owned.

They had dinner delivered afterwards and ate it cross-legged on the bed. The jersey was finally off, hung carefully over a chair across the room, well out of the range of the pad thai. 

“You’re sure about this?” Vincent asked.

“Of course.”

Vincent nodded. “Whatever happens–the backlash, if it doesn’t hit the way we’re hoping–know that I’m proud of you.”

“It’ll be great,” Korogyi said. “Everyone’s going to be talking about it.”

“Okay,” Vincent said, in a tone that closed the subject. He leaned over to steal a bite of Korogyi’s noodles, one hand on Korogyi’s knee for balance. His thumb brushed against it once before he pulled away. 

Korogyi couldn’t stop looking at the jersey.

The game was a national broadcast, Drillers against Riders. Korogyi arrived at the arena three hours early because he couldn’t sit still in his apartment, and spent half an hour getting his ankle taped and re-taped until the team PT told him to stop being weird and go somewhere else. 

He got dressed slowly. His undershirt first, then his pads, then the Lemaire jersey, and finally his Drillers jersey snug on top. He felt like a nesting doll. Or like a bomb that hadn’t gone off yet.

Vincent had texted a single emoji before puck drop: 🥸

It was their emoji. It had been since their second All-Star weekend, when Vincent sent it with no context and Korogyi spent twenty minutes trying to decode it before Vincent finally sent: I’m the mustache. Now you have a way to think about me that fits in your pocket. It was stupid and Korogyi took screenshots of every single mustache he received. 

Korogyi stared at the text for a long time in his stall. The locker room was ecstatic around him, with sticks clattering and a pregame playlist blasting, while the mustache sat calm and grounding on his screen. 

He sent one back. A mustache for a mustache.

Vincent replied 💚💛Nomads colors. For luck. 

Korogyi pocketed his phone. “You good?” Jalso asked, looking over.

“Yeah,” Korogyi said. “I’m great.”

He scored his first goal eight minutes into the first period, a rebound off a bad angle shot. The puck slid loose and Korogyi buried it in the net before the goalie could recover. His second was a one-timer from the right circle during the power play. The crowd jumped to its feet and Korogyi raised his stick, cameras on him from every angle.

He got the third with six minutes left in the third period, a gorgeous backhand straight into the top shelf. Hats rained onto the ice. The arena erupted and Korogyi couldn’t hear anything but his own heartbeat, couldn’t see anything but the moment finally arriving. He reached for the collar of his jersey. And then he glanced at the bench.

His teammates weren’t celebrating. They were clustered around the coach’s tablet, necks craned down, staff crowded in with them. Even in the stands, half the crowd seemed to be looking at their phones. Nobody was watching Korogyi at all. 

He dropped his hand and skated over. “What’s going on?” 

“Hollander got in a fight,” Jalo said without looking up. “With Scott Hunter, just out of nowhere after their game. There’s video.”

Korogyi looked at the tablet. Shane Hollander, golden boy of the Montreal Metros, had lunged at Scott Hunter as both teams exited the ice. Hunter fought all the time, that wasn’t news. But this was Hollander’s first fight, and it showed in everything except his punches, which landed like he meant them, until the refs pulled him away.

By the time Korogyi got back to the locker room, the footage was everywhere, every replay and hot take already going viral. Korogyi waited until his teammates cleared out before he took off his gear. He peeled off the damp Lemaire jersey slowly. It still smelled like Vincent’s detergent, but on top of that now, it smelled like him. The two of them mixed together. He shoved it into the bottom of his bag.

Vincent called twenty minutes later. Korogyi was still in his stall, showered and dressed, but not ready to leave.

“Congratulations on the hatty,” Vincent said. 

“Thanks,” Korogyi said.

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Korogyi listened to Vincent’s breathing and closed his eyes, imagining himself nestled next to Vincent on his ugly Togo couch. 

“Your last goal was incredible,” Vincent said.

“Didn’t matter.”

“I saw you reach for your collar.”

“Yeah.” Korogyi exhaled. “But no one was watching. It would have been for nothing.”

“Right,” Vincent said. And then, softer, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Korogyi was already somewhere else, the next national broadcast, the next opportunity. The jersey was still in his bag. He could use it again. 

After they hung up, Korogyi sat in the empty locker room for another few minutes, turning his phone over in his hands. He pulled up the text thread–the mustaches, the Nomads colors–and looked at it for a moment before swiping away.

He opened his calendar. Somewhere in there was another window.

ATTEMPT TWO: THE AWARDS (JUNE 2014)

They were in Korogyi’s apartment in Houston when the nominations came out. Vincent had flown in that morning. He’d checked a suitcase, which he never did, and when Korogyi asked why, Vincent unzipped it and pulled out a gym bag that clinked when he set it down.

“Provisions,” Vincent said.

He unpacked on the kitchen floor: Merlot, two wine glasses wrapped in elbow pads, a baguette, a wedge of brie, grapes, and a small jar whose label Korogyi couldn’t read because it was in French. Between them, Vincent spread a dish towel–a picnic blanket, or close enough–and gestured for Korogyi to sit.

“It’s something to do while we wait,” Vincent said, working the cork loose. The baguette was a little crushed from the flight. The brie was warm, which Vincent insisted was correct and Korogyi suspected was just what happened when you flew dairy to Texas in the summer.

“You know I own wine glasses,” he said, amused. “You’ve used them.”

“That’s not the point.” Vincent handed him a glass, letting their fingers brush. “I wanted to bring you mine.”

It was good wine, probably. Korogyi had never developed the palate to judge. But Vincent had handed it to him, and that had a way of making everything taste like the best version of itself.

“This might be the most European thing you’ve ever done,” Korogyi said.

“I’m Canadian,” Vincent replied, smiling. He refreshed his phone. “It’s up.”

The MLH had posted the Lord Talon nominations. It was the sportsmanship award, which went to players who helped opponents up after rough checks and skated away from scrums they could have made worse. Players who behaved, essentially, the way the league wanted to believe all its players behaved. Korogyi’s agent had submitted his name. He’d been trying not to care about it, because wanting a sports league to consider you a good person seemed like a silly thing to care about. And because he wasn’t sure the league would think he was a good person if it knew some essential things about him. And because he wanted it badly, and the wanting embarrassed him.

His name was third on the list.

“Baby,” Vincent said softly, grabbing his arm. “That’s you.”

Korogyi read it again, just to watch his name stay where it was. Third, as always, but this time, third meant nominated. It meant a podium if he won and a room full of people who would have to listen.

Vincent was already calling Korogyi’s mother before Korogyi could set his wine down. The two of them had bonded immediately upon meeting and had never looked back. Within a year, Vincent had her sourdough starter, her opinion on his mustache (mixed but trending positive), and an open invitation to Thanksgiving that had been extended to him personally and not, as she made clear, through Korogyi. Vincent called her once a week. Korogyi called her twice a month and got lectured about it every time by both of them.

Now, Vincent put the phone on speaker between them, and Korogyi watched him explain the nomination with his whole body, hands moving, accent thick with excitement. He was so proud of Korogyi it came off him like heat. And Korogyi sat on his kitchen floor and thought I love him.

Vincent laughed at something Korogyi’s mother said and reached for a grape, still smiling, and Korogyi knew he would have been happy here forever. With the picnic and the wine, one more person knowing, then another, the whole world small enough to fit on a dish towel. Korogyi wanted that, too. But he also wanted a stage.

After Vincent hung up, Korogyi leaned back against the cabinets and Vincent settled easily against his side. 

“If I win,” Korogyi said, “I’ll get to make a speech.”

Vincent turned his head.

“I’ll thank my coaches. I’ll thank the league. And then at the very end,” Korogyi could already see it, “I’ll say eight words: I want to thank my boyfriend Vincent Lemaire.”

They were both quiet for a moment, Vincent's weight steady against Korogyi.

“That’s if I win, though,” Korogyi said. “I might not.”

“You will,” Vincent said.

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you.” Vincent bumped his shoulder. “Practice the eight words.”

Their tuxedos matched, or rather, came as close as Vincent would allow. Exact matching, he’d been clear, was for magicians and wedding parties, two populations already overrepresented in satin. But both were navy and cut with the same clean shoulders and narrow waists. Vincent’s lapels were peaked. Korogyi’s were notched. Korogyi hadn’t understood the difference, but he enjoyed watching Vincent explain it.

If Korogyi won and said the eight words, if the room went quiet and the press found them afterward, their outfits would say the rest. 

“And if you lose,” Vincent said, meeting Korogyi’s eyes in the mirror, “then we’re still two men looking hot in Zegna. There are worse tragedies.”

Vincent was barefoot in the hotel bathroom, his skin still pink from the shower. Korogyi forgot, briefly, that there was a crowd downstairs they were supposed to be getting ready for. Vincent looked good. Devastating was the word that came to mind, though Korogyi usually associated it with other things like natural disasters and shutouts, the afternoon a veteran Driller called a rookie a fag during bag skate and the coach’s correction was about the kid’s edges. Now it belonged to Vincent and to the privilege of seeing him before the room did.

The speech was in his breast pocket, the eight words at the bottom in block capitals. I want to thank my boyfriend Vincent Lemaire. He mouthed it again now, testing. Seven of those words were inert. The eighth was the pin. Pull it and the rest of the sentence detonated.

Vincent was beside Korogyi before he’d heard him cross the tile. “You’re saying it to yourself again.”

“I want it perfect.”

“It is. And it was yesterday, and the day before that.” Vincent reached past him for the cologne. “You’ve practiced enough that I could give it. And I’d kill. The whole room in tears, first player to get a standing ovation from the commissioner for blowing guys. They’d have to retire my number.”

“It’s not about the commissioner.”

“I know what it’s about, baby,” he said lightly. “Can I tell you the part I’m looking forward to, though?”

“The open bar?”

“Obviously, the open bar,” Vincent said. “But after that, just getting to walk out holding your hand.”

Korogyi thought about the step-and-repeat outside the ballroom. The bank of photographers. He wondered what the light would be like out there, whether it would catch them well. He could see it clearly: walking out together in matching navy, Vincent’s hand in his, every camera turning at once. “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

“Also, the public’s been deprived this whole time. They have no idea what they’re missing.”

Korogyi smiled. “Us?”

“My taste,” Vincent said, dragging his gaze over Korogyi head to toe. “Which, for the record, is immaculate.” He kissed him slowly, his hand curling around the back of Korogyi’s neck to pull him in. The mustache scratched faintly, and for a moment Korogyi wasn’t thinking about the speech at all.

When Vincent drew back, he caught Korogyi’s hand and turned it over, pressing something into the palm. Korogyi looked down: two silver cufflinks. Vincent was already holding his wrist up between them, sleeve open and waiting.

Korogyi turned the arm toward the light and worked the first stud through, then the second. In the mirror they looked like the photograph that would change everything. The cameras could have it later.

Korogyi sat at the Drillers’ table in the Bellagio’s crowded ballroom drinking champagne he didn’t taste, laughing at jokes he didn’t hear. The Best Goaltender winner cried. The Norris went to a guy who thanked God, his wife, and his dog, in that order. There was a lifetime achievement montage with a string quartet. Korogyi clapped when everyone clapped and checked the time on his phone.

Between the salad and the entree, he let himself look for Vincent. He found him across the room, nodding politely at a coach from the Eastern Conference. Vincent must have felt it, because he glanced up and ran a thumb over his mustache. Their shorthand: I see you. Korogyi smiled into his glass.

Then the lights shifted and a voice said, “Presenting the Lord Talon Award,” and Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov walked onstage together.

Korogyi hadn’t known they’d be presenting. Neither, from the sound of it, had anyone else. Six hundred people put down their forks to watch the league’s biggest rivals stand side by side with a script on the teleprompter and whatever was between them barely leashed.

“Hey, before we give out this award,” Rozanov read, flatly, “can I get a selfie with you?”

“Okay, fine, but hurry up,” Hollander said, slightly less wooden, but visibly annoyed.

Rozanov fished out his phone. They stood next to each other, tense as two people who had been contractually obligated to stand next to each other, then Rozanov slung his arm around Hollander’s neck and pulled him in. The room erupted. People were on their feet before the shutter went off. 

When the cheers died down enough for them to be heard, Rozanov read, “Great. Give me your number. I’ll text them to you.”

“Not a chance,” Hollander smirked on cue. Then he caught Rozanov’s eye and his face softened. Rozanov’s jaw stayed tight for a moment, but then the corner of his mouth got away from him. Hollander’s followed. They stood there smiling at each other, grudging and warm, two people losing the same argument.

The noise came back twice as loud, the entire Bellagio losing it because Hollander and Rozanov had made nice onstage. The producers let it run. Korogyi clapped along, the speech going cold in his pocket. Finally, Hollander reached for the envelope, and the room narrowed to his hand on the flap. The tear of paper. The glance at the card. The pause in which Korogyi was sure that it would be someone else.

Then Hollander called Korogyi’s name. 

He stood, weightless, his teammates’ hands warm on his shoulders, and made his way across the ballroom floor. Hollander shook his hand, then Rozanov did, and then they both left the stage in the same quick motion, already elsewhere.

The trophy was heavier than he expected. Korogyi looked out at the room, bright, enormous, filled with every person who had ever mattered to his career. This was it: the moment. He reached into his jacket, unfolded the paper, and opened his mouth to begin. Then a sign in the wings caught his eye. WRAP IT UP. 15 SECONDS.

“Thank you,” Korogyi said. “This means a lot. I want to thank my teammates–”

The music started. They were playing him off.

“My coaches,” he continued, “and everyone who–”

The music swelled. Korogyi found Vincent in the crowd, the one navy suit cut to match his. Vincent shrugged, small and conciliatory. 

“Thank you,” Korogyi said. He folded the speech back into his pocket and walked off. The eight words stayed where they were.

Backstage Korogyi found a small bathroom and locked the door. It smelled like cologne, something heavy and foreign that hadn’t had time to fade. He set the trophy on the counter next to the sink. In the mirror, he was a man in a tuxedo with slicked back hair and an award and nothing to say about it.

Someone knocked.

“Occupied,” Korogyi said.

“It’s me.”

He opened the door. Vincent slipped inside with two glasses of champagne, shutting it behind him with his heel.

For a moment, neither spoke. They stood there, shoulder to shoulder in a filthy bathroom, drinking champagne. It struck Korogyi that this was their life: everything that mattered happening in the margins. 

Korogyi tapped his glass lightly to Vincent’s. “I love you,” he said, because the door was closed and that made it possible.

“Talk to me.”

“We had everything planned.” Korogyi set his glass down. “And the headline tomorrow will be that Hollander and Rozanov took a selfie. That’s it, that's what all of it was for now.”

Vincent didn’t answer right away. He leaned back against the sink and took a drink, his eyes still on Korogyi. The silence went on long enough that Korogyi became aware of applause from the ballroom flattening itself against the walls, of his own hand resting on the trophy. Vincent had the look he got on the ice when he could see the whole sheet at once, every lane open. He turned it on Korogyi now, waiting for him to find one. Part of Korogyi wanted to skip ahead to whatever Vincent had worked out. Most of him wanted to stay where he was, though, in a room no one would think to look, with the one person who did.

“You won the Lord Talon,” Vincent said. “Everyone’s going out after. Same clubs, same parties. We can show up together, actually together, and you’re out by morning.”

Vincent considered him. “Or post the speech on Instagram. You still wrote it.” He set his glass down. “Or I can take you back upstairs. The plan was speech, press, then I keep you up all night. I’m still very prepared to do my part.”

Korogyi turned the trophy a quarter inch on the counter, squaring it to nothing.

“You have options,” Vincent said. “Real ones. And you’re in here worrying about Shane Hollander’s headline.”

Korogyi didn’t have an answer for that.

Vincent reached up as if to fix Korogyi’s collar, then didn’t. He left his hand at the side of Korogyi’s neck instead, his thumb resting just below his jawline. Neither of them moved until Vincent ran his thumb along his mustache once, almost absent-mindedly. Korogyi understood: I see you. Even here. 

When Vincent drew back, his hand slipped down Korogyi’s chest, smoothing the front of his jacket like that had been the point all along. “Come on,” he said. “We should get back before someone notices we’re both gone.”

“Let them notice.”

“Not yet.” The corner of Vincent’s mouth lifted, almost a smile. “Apparently we’re waiting for a bigger audience.”

Vincent collected the two empty glasses in one hand and opened the door. A wave of applause washed in–someone else’s moment–as Vincent stepped out. Korogyi stood alone in the bathroom before checking his own reflection, then he touched the speech through his jacket and followed. There would be other stages. He could regroup.

Korogyi regrouped for over two years.

He didn’t stop wanting the moment, but life kept happening, forcing it onto the backburner. There were contract negotiations, a coaching change in Houston, Vincent’s knee.

Vincent went down on a nothing play during a mid-season game against the Detroit Cruisers. A tangle behind the net that looked routine until it wasn’t. Korogyi was in Houston, watching on his phone in the trainers’ room after practice, and he saw it in real time: the awkward twist, the buckle, the long, awful pause where Vincent stayed on the ice and didn’t get up.

ACL. Surgery. Eight months of recovery, minimum.

Korogyi flew out to Minnesota. He learned the names of Vincent’s physical therapists, the exact sequence of his rehab rotation, and, inevitably, Vincent’s ice pack doctrine.

The pharmacy kinds weren’t offensive so much as pointless. Gel packs were too shapeless, and therefore a last resort. Clay packs made it to a cautious middle tier. “They hold the line,” Vincent admitted once, like he was discussing a defenseman with a decent plus-minus.

The only one Vincent spoke about without qualification was a compression wrap he’d ordered from Finland after what he called research and what Korogyi had watched happen in under three minutes on his phone. It had a sleeve, proper straps, and instructions Vincent couldn’t read but refused to throw away.

“You can tell,” Vincent said, tapping the page lightly, “when something has been designed with intention.”

“You have no idea what that says.”

“I have a sense.”

Korogyi spent as much time as he could with Vincent, racking up miles on flights that barely justified the hours in the air through the early weeks, when Vincent couldn’t do much beyond lie on the couch and watch hockey he couldn’t play. Korogyi kept flying back through the middle stretch, too, when the pain dulled and settled in.

By then, the Drillers had started asking questions. He gave them just enough to close the door: something ongoing with family, too sensitive to press. 

“You look like a depressed flamingo,” Korogyi said in the spring, watching Vincent navigate his condo on crutches.

“Flamingos stand on one leg by choice.” Vincent countered, resettling his balance. “I’m being held hostage by an orthopedic surgeon and a man who won’t let me walk up stairs unsupervised.”

“You almost fell down the stairs yesterday.”

“I didn’t almost fall. I changed edges. I’m an elite athlete, remember?”

“You grabbed the railing with both hands and yelled tabarnak.”

“Edgework's an art.”

Korogyi made dinner. He did the dishes. He slept curled around Vincent on the ugly couch because the bed was too hard to get in and out of, and woke every time Vincent shifted, checking on him.

Going back to Houston was the worst part. Korogyi found himself calling three times a day about nothing, sending articles about stretches Vincent’s PT had already assigned. Once he overnighted a stuffed flamingo in a tiny Nomads jersey he had found online. Vincent named it Jean-Claude and referred to it as his “emotional support bird” in a tone so deadpan it looped all the way back around to sincere.

The recovery months passed slowly inside them, quickly in retrospect. Vincent graduated from crutches to a brace to careful skating to less careful skating. He called Korogyi after every session, reporting his range of motion and steadiness. He never said it hurt. Korogyi heard it anyway, though, in the brief delays before Vincent assured him he was making progress.

By summer, Vincent was skating full sessions. It was the off-season, and finally Korogyi didn’t have to ration his time. He stayed in Minnesota. They did Vincent’s PT stretches together on the living room floor. Vincent because he had to, Korogyi because he said his hamstrings could use it, both of them knowing it was really just about being on the same floor at the same time. 

By September, Vincent was cleared for full contact. Come October, Korogyi was firmly back in Houston, halfway through a game tape with a beer going warm on the coffee table, when his phone buzzed.

“They’re starting me,” Vincent said, his car’s engine thrumming faintly in the background. “Our first home game of the season is Sunday. I’m playing first line.”

“Are you serious?” Korogyi set the remote down. “Vincent, that’s–”

“I know.” Vincent laughed, bright and loose with eight months of patience finally paying off. “My brother-in-law drafted me to his fantasy team out of solidarity. Now he might actually see a return on the investment.”

“You’re going to destroy his league.”

“I’m going to deliver a tasteful number of fantasy points. His league will survive.”

A warm pause settled between them.

“I want you there,” Vincent said. 

“Of course. I can catch a flight after morning skate–”

“No, I mean,” Vincent exhaled and restarted. “I want you in the team suite with my parents and Marie. My uncle’s flying in from Laval, so it’s already becoming a whole thing.”

Korogyi stared at the condensation sliding down his beer.

“There’s a dinner to welcome me back after, with the owners, coaching staff, a few of the guys.” Vincent’s tone stayed light. “Management told me to bring my family. You should come. Eat something expensive, watch me pretend to be humbled by toasts.”

“That sounds nice,” Korogyi said.

“It will be.”

“And everyone there. They’d they’d see me with you, with your family and–”

“Some of them would probably figure it out, yeah. My parents aren’t exactly subtle, and Marie introduced you to her coworker as my lover at her wedding.” Vincent paused. “But if anyone puts it together, let them. We’ve been planning to go public anyway. I want the people who matter to me there, and you’re at the top of that list by a pretty significant margin.”

Korogyi heard what Vincent was saying. He also saw the seam in it where a narrative could fit. Vincent’s first game back and the emotion of it. With enough cameras, just being there could become the moment. 

He pulled up the MLH schedule on his phone. 

“The game’s Sunday afternoon,” Korogyi said. “Montreal and Boston are playing then.”

“Okay?”

“It’s their first matchup of the season. The last two teams to win the Cup going head to head. Plus, the whole Hollander and Rozanov rivalry angle. Every network’s going to carry it.”

Vincent didn’t respond. The quiet on the line sounded like the same one from earlier, but now it had turned to face Korogyi.

“Minnesota versus Calgary isn’t getting a primetime broadcast,” he continued. “It’s two minutes on local news, maybe an MLH Network mention if you score. I want to be there. I do. But if we’re going to let people see us–if this is how we go public–shouldn’t it be on a night when the league’s watching? Otherwise we come out to, what, your uncle from Laval and a couple of assistant coaches?”

“We’re talking about two different things,” Vincent said. The give in his voice was gone. “I invited you to be with me on one of the biggest nights of my career.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Sure. That the dinner where my team is celebrating the fact that I can still play hockey isn’t worth attending unless ESPN is there to film it.”

“I’m saying if people are going to find out–”

“I’m not asking for people to find out. I’m asking for you to show up.”

“I want to, but we only get one shot at this. It has to count.”

“For who? You keep acting like the only version of coming out that would matter is the one that would trend on Twitter,” Vincent said. “That’s not about changing anything. That’s about being seen doing it.”

The sentence hung in the air. Korogyi couldn’t catch it. He wouldn’t have had anywhere to put it if he could.

Korogyi’s jaw tightened. “That’s not fair.”

A short, dismissive sound came through the line. “No,” Vincent said. “It’s just not flattering.”

Korogyi looked back at the frozen frame of game tape on his screen: himself, mid-stride, going nowhere.

Vincent exhaled, the edge leaving him all at once. “I want someone watching to see us and know they’re not alone. That hockey doesn’t get to push them out or make them smaller. I believe in that. I always have.” Korogyi could hear the car shift faintly under Vincent, leather rustling through the line. “But if that’s the point,” he went on, “then why can’t we just be that? Why can’t we just be together openly, without fanfare?”

Korogyi didn’t answer.

“I want my boyfriend at my game,” Vincent said, simpler now. “Because I asked and it matters to me.” He took a breath. “Those things should be complementary. Being out and together, that’s the statement. You’re the one forcing them to compete.”

Neither of them spoke. Vincent cut his car’s engine and background noise dropped out, narrowing the space of the call until it felt almost intimate. Nonetheless, Korogyi felt the distance between him and Vincent assert itself. It had always been a matter of logistics, something measured in miles and solved with a ticket. Tonight it felt foundational, like they’d slipped out of alignment.

“Don’t answer now,” Vincent said. “Just think about it. I thought this call was going to go a little differently. You’d tell me I was incredible. Maybe we’d celebrate. Really commit to the victory lap.”

Despite everything, Korogyi laughed. “You are incredible, for the record.”

“Thanks. A little late, but the message’s still strong,” Vincent said, voice softening. He breathed out, and Korogyi heard the seat creak as he leaned back into it. “I had a good day until about ten minutes ago. My knee works, I’m on the first line. I’d like to get back to feeling good about that.”

“You should.”

“I will. Tomorrow. When you call me.”

“Okay.”

“And put the beer bottle in the recycling before it leaves another ring.”

Korogyi looked down at his coffee table. “How’d you–”

“I know you,” Vincent said, and hung up.

The apartment was quiet. Korogyi sat with the phone on his thigh. On the table, the bottle had already left its ring. He picked it up and carried it to the recycling, because that, at least, was an instruction he knew how to follow. When he came back, the mark was still there, pale and stubborn on the wood. He rubbed at it with his sleeve until the fabric went damp.

It changed almost nothing.

Korogyi called Vincent the next afternoon to say he couldn’t come.

He’d been up since five, analyzing the decision like game tape, looking for an angle that justified a choice he’d already made. He told Vincent it wasn’t the right night. That if they were going to do this, it needed to be visible. Actually visible.

They went back and forth. Vincent said something about Korogyi’s priorities. Then his thin skin. Then his delusions of grandeur. Vincent didn’t usually argue like this. His style was to land one clean hit and skate away, but he wasn’t skating away now. He drove Korogyi into the boards and held him there.

So Korogyi fought back, talking over Vincent about stakes and scale, accusing him of not giving a shit about what really mattered.

“If we do it Sunday, it’s nothing,” Korogyi said. “A few seconds of stadium B-roll and some steak with your family. That’s just a nice night people forget.”

Vincent was quiet for a long time after that. The silence was worse than the yelling. 

“Maybe we should take some space,” he said, flatly.

“Fine,” Korogyi said, too quickly, and hung up before he could hear anything else. 

He stood in his kitchen holding his phone. The screen said six minutes, twelve seconds. That didn’t seem like enough time to ruin something.

The first day of their break was fine.

Korogyi went to morning skate still running hot from the call. He moved well on the ice, with clean edges and quick hands. The coaches said he looked dangerous. He was wound tight, playing 

The team gym had SportsCenter on. Korogyi logged two minutes on the stationary bike before it became the Ilya Rozanov show. Highlights from Boston’s first game of the season, speculation on the scoring race, an interview clip where he promised to “make Hollander’s life very difficult this year” with a grin so impish the reporter forgot her next question. Korogyi’s grip went white on the handlebars until he made Jalo change the channel.

He checked his phone constantly, in the car, in the shower with wet hands, in the middle of a conversation he’d stopped paying attention to. Vincent hadn’t texted. Korogyi told himself this was normal, that they were taking space, that space was healthy and mature and what people in their twenties did when things got difficult. He didn’t believe it, but he thought it was important to have a position.

The second day was worse. He went through his routines, but felt only intermittently present for them. The team’s social media coordinator found him after practice and asked if he wanted to do a quick video for Instagram, something about favorite pregame snacks. Korogyi looked at her. Whatever was on his face made her take a small step back.

“You know what,” she said, “we’re good. I’ll grab someone else.”

He almost called Vincent that night. Got as far as pulling up the number, his finger hovering over the button, the call right there if he wanted to make it. But everything Korogyi imagined saying sounded like either an apology or an argument, and he wasn’t ready for the apology because he wasn’t ready to give up the argument. He could see the shape of this: a circle. He kept walking it, sure the next lap would be the one that finally made sense.

The third day was when things stopped being manageable.

Korogyi woke up and his first thought was Vincent isn’t here. It was stupid–Vincent was never there during the regular season. He was in Minnesota, in his own room, with his own sheets that probably smelled like Korogyi because they’d been importing the same Québécois detergent for years. Usually, though, Vincent being far away wasn’t the same as Vincent being gone. Now it was. Korogyi’s sheets smelled like him and his whole bed had become a haunting.

Later, on the ice, the game got away from him. Korogyi botched two zone entries in the first period, then gave the puck away at the blue line and watched it come back as a two-on-one. By the second, he was pulled off of the power play. He sat on the bench, completely useless, and thought about Minnesota. 

Korogyi drove home with the radio off. He couldn’t sleep, and ended up staring into his open fridge in the early morning. There was a bottle of wine Vincent had left chilling ages ago, some Gamay he’d been excited about, extolling the vineyard’s soil composition and low-intervention philosophy. Korogyi had nodded along without retaining any of it, but he remembered Vincent’s hands on the bottle, the care he’d taken setting it on the shelf while saying we’ll open it next time. 

He closed the fridge. Whatever he’d been looking for wasn’t in there.

On day four, he wrote eleven texts. 

One tried to explain everything. How the visibility wasn’t vanity, or wasn’t just vanity, or maybe it was vanity, but the useful kind. He got three paragraphs in, read it back, and didn’t like what he saw. He deleted it. 

Another said My mom asked for your sourdough pancake recipe. She said you’d know which one.

Delete. 

I miss your opinions on everything.

Delete.

Another was just 🥸. He stared at it long enough that his screen dimmed. He tapped it awake then started some more before deleting it.

The eleventh said I’m sorry. I love you. Please. 

Korogyi didn’t send that one either because he fell asleep on the kitchen floor. The tile was cool and his bed was unbearable and his body had decided, without consulting him, to tap out.

He woke at three with a dead phone and a sore back, and understood that this was the worst stretch of his life. It was worse than playing six weeks on a fractured ankle. Worse, even, than the three weeks in juniors after his teammates found out, when their passes stopped coming and they stopped saving seats for him on the bus. 

Those had been things that happened to him, all he had to do was wait them out. This was something he’d built. And now he had to stay in it.

Korogyi sat on his couch Sunday with the Nomads-Plows game on ESPN+. There was a packed stadium in Minneapolis, but it wasn’t the real game and everyone knew it. The Metros-Raiders matchup was the one with the network slot and the studio desk. It was Hollander and Rozanov again, still, always. The rivalry that had eaten professional hockey whole and showed no signs of being full.

The broadcast opened on warmups. Vincent was already on the ice, skating easy loops near center, and the sight of him caught Korogyi flat-footed. The camera stayed with Vincent for a few more seconds before cutting to a wide shot of the crowd.

“Lemaire’s back on the ice tonight after almost a half season’s absence,” one commentator said. “Full ACL reconstruction, great story.”

“It really is. The Western fanbase has been waiting for this.” The broadcast jumped back to Vincent as he took a practice shot. “And speaking of waiting, we’re about thirty minutes out from puck drop in Boston. Have you been thinking about that one?”

And the commentators were gone. They were supposed to be talking about Minnesota playing Calgary. Instead they talked over the warmups about Rozanov’s off-season training and Hollander’s diet. Vincent skated in the background, uncaptioned, while the two men discussed someone else’s game. Korogyi watched him anyway. He looked good. Eight months of recovery had compressed into movement that seemed effortless, which was always the hardest thing to achieve and the easiest to overlook.

Korogyi hadn’t overlooked any of it. He knew which PT exercises Vincent hated. He knew the hierarchy of ice packs and the set of Vincent’s jaw that meant his knee hurt even though he wasn’t going to say anything about it. Vincent remembered Korogyi’s faceoff percentages like other people remembered anniversaries. From Minnesota, he fretted over the rings forming on Korogyi’s coffee table. And over the years, Korogyi had started doing it too. He could have drawn the shape of Vincent from memory. He had, in a sense, been drawing it for years.

The broadcast cut to the family suite. Opening night on home ice meant the whole section was packed with the people the cameras never lingered on, wives, girlfriends, parents, babies overdressed in team merch, everyone adjacent to the ice and essential to the people on it. The Lemaires had taken up half the seats. A whole delegation in matching jerseys, everyone leaning forward like the game had already started.

Vincent scored a wrister from the high slot in the second period. The bench mobbed him as the broadcast showed the replay.

“Nice to see Lemaire find the back of the net in his first game back,” a commentator said.

“Absolutely. And–oh, we’re getting word Hollander just completed a hat trick in Boston, so let’s–”

Korogyi didn’t hear the rest. He was grinning at the screen like an idiot, alone on his couch in Houston, watching Vincent get his helmet tapped by teammates and thinking that’s my guy, that’s my guy, that’s my guy. 

Minnesota won 4–2. The postgame interview in the locker room went to the team captain, a burly Newfoundlander with a missing front tooth and a thousand-yard stare. He talked about team effort and staying focused, and the reporter nodded in all the right places. Behind him, barely in the frame, Vincent stood at his stall, laughing at something a teammate had said. 

The camera panned left and Korogyi almost missed it.

Jean-Claude was on the shelf above Vincent’s stall, propped between a roll of tape and a water bottle. The asking hadn’t worked and neither had the argument, but still Vincent had found a way to carry Korogyi into the room.

So Korogyi turned off the TV and bought his plane ticket.

When Korogyi climbed out of the cab, the cold hit him immediately. He’d packed in under three minutes and left the house in a t-shirt and slides, a decision made for one climate and punished by another. He didn’t care. He’d already spent the week caring too much about the wrong things.

Vincent's condo was all clean lines and dark brick, the kind of place that screamed my owner subscribes to the New Yorker and has a hot take ready to go on Adam Gopnik’s latest piece. Korogyi stood on the front step, his toes beginning to go numb, thinking about how much he loved the stupid building. 

He rang the doorbell, but the condo stayed dark. Shoving his hands under his arms, he ran through scenarios: Vincent was asleep, Vincent was in the shower, Vincent had somehow sensed through the walls that it was Korogyi and decided the front step was exactly where he belonged.

Korogyi rang again. Eventually, a light came on inside, followed by footsteps, slow, but getting closer. The door opened. Vincent was in sweatpants and an old t-shirt, his hair flat on one side. He squinted at the daylight, then at Korogyi, then at the slides.

For a moment neither of them said anything. There was just the cold morning, the space between them, and the fact that Korogyi was in Minnesota, which was either the best or worst decision he’d made all week, and the week had been competitive.

“I saw Jean-Claude,” Korogyi said.

Vincent blinked. “What?”

“During the postgame. He was on your shelf.”

Vincent paused. “The camera caught that?”

“You brought him to the arena.”

“He’s my emotional support bird, I can’t just bench him. Union rules.”

The joke hung between them. “I should’ve been there,” Korogyi said. 

“Yeah,” Vincent said. “You should have.”

He leaned in the doorway regarding Korogyi. Korogyi held his gaze and waited for the verdict. 

Vincent’s eyes dropped to the slides. “Texas.”

“Texas,” Korogyi agreed. 

“I have coffee on,” Vincent said, and stepped aside.

The warmth hit him first. Then the condo resolved around him: the lamp in the foyer with the switch that stuck, the painting where they’d mounted it too low. Korogyi had a toothbrush in the ensuite, a drawer, a working knowledge of every cabinet. He’d accumulated himself here, piece by piece, and now he followed Vincent to the kitchen, feeling completely at home, but knowing that told him nothing about whether he was.

Vincent rested against the island, arms crossed. Open ice, puck on Korogyi’s stick.

“I watched the game,” Korogyi said.

“I figured.”

“You were incredible. The goal in the second–”

“I don’t need a scouting report.”

Korogyi looked down at his hands. They were still cold. “I don’t need any of it,” he said. “The moment, the cameras. None of it. I just need you.”

Vincent pushed off the counter and crossed to the coffee maker. Korogyi noticed his knee in the movement. Vincent’s old calculation of weight and consequence, the body still negotiating with what it lost. Vincent pulled down a mug–one mug–and poured.

“Just telling people,” Vincent said. “No spectacle, no credit. Your equipment manager finds out and asks if you want pride tape on your stick.” He took a sip. “You’d hate that.”

“I’d hate losing you more.”

Vincent laughed, mostly air. “Don’t turn this into you being afraid I’ll leave. That’s not what happened. My family was there, and you weren’t, because being with me at a table would’ve blown your plan to announce me on a jumbotron.” 

“Our plan,” Korogyi said. The correction was a weak backcheck at best, but Vincent had sent Korogyi to the box alone, and he refused to serve the penalty by himself. “We’ve been building this together.”

“Yeah, we have,” Vincent said. “So where were you last night?”

Korogyi didn’t answer fast enough.

“I wanted you at my game, and you made me beg for it like it was unreasonable.”

“I wasn’t trying to–”

“I know what you were trying to do,” Vincent said. “That’s the problem. You were trying to make us matter. I needed you to remember that we already did.”

Korogyi opened his mouth. The defense was still there and the apology right behind it, both true, but neither helpful. “I don’t know how to want it the right amount,” he said.

Vincent didn’t respond.

“I can’t turn it off,” Korogyi continued. “I’ve tried. This week, I tried. And all I did was lie on my kitchen floor and miss you and think about the plan at the same time. I’m missing you and I’m still scheming. What kind of person does that?”

“You,” Vincent said, not unkindly.

“Yeah.” Korogyi said. “Me.”

Vincent looked at him for a long time, the whole sheet, every lane, and Korogyi felt like the only one on it. Then he went back to the coffee maker. He poured a second mug, walked it around the island, and set it in front of Korogyi. They were quiet for a while as the room repressurized.

“You were going to say something,” Vincent said. “About the goal in the second.”

“It was a great goal.”

“The goalie was cheating left, so the angle was generous.”

“The goalie was cheating left because you made him cheat left. You set it up with the fake in the first and he was overcorrecting the whole period. It was–” Korogyi stopped. Vincent was watching him. “What.”

“Nothing.” Vincent took a sip of his coffee. “Keep scouting.”

Korogyi almost smiled. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“You said that.”

“I’ll keep saying it.”

Vincent looked at him over the lip of the mug. “How about you just don’t miss the next one.”

Korogyi nodded. “I won’t.”

Vincent finished his coffee, placed the mug in the sink, and walked out of the kitchen. Korogyi stayed at the counter. The condo narrated Vincent’s movements for him: hallway, living room, chair.

“Come here,” Vincent called.

Korogyi followed. Vincent was at the desk, laptop open, a blank Google Doc on the screen. He’d already typed the title: Operation: The Moment.

He backspaced, retyped it. Operation: THE Moment.

“All caps,” Korogyi said from the doorway.

“It’s emphatic.” Vincent created a subheading called “Attempt #3” and colored it green before leaning back in his chair, self-possessed as an architect unveiling a building. “Green means go. Red means it didn’t work. We keep trying until something’s green.”

“You're serious about this.”

“We're serious about this. I made a title and a color scheme, but the rest has to be us.” Vincent was already typing again. “Houston and Minnesota are both going to be good this season, so there’s going to be a stage. We’ll also need a Hollander contingency. He generates a three-day news cycle every time he ties his skates and Rozanov generates another watching him do it.”

“Vincent.” Korogyi looked at the screen, at the cursor blinking under one green subheading. Operation: THE Moment. He kept looking, not ready to turn to Vincent yet. He tried to find a sentence equal to the document. What came out was: “Holy shit.”

Vincent smiled and Korogyi crossed the room. He put his hands on Vincent’s shoulders and leaned down into his hair. 

“We’re doing this, baby.” Vincent tilted his head up. “But you smell like an airport and now I’m making plans for the next several hours that require you to be cleaner than this.” 

By the time Korogyi came back from the shower Vincent had migrated to the couch. When he sat down Vincent’s feet found his lap, the way they always did, and Korogyi’s hands found Vincent’s ankles, the way they always did. He looked at Vincent, at his sweatpants and still-flat mustache. Nothing about the tableau was remarkable except the person at the other end of it, looking back at him.

Korogyi didn’t say anything. He just held on.

There was a Google Doc now, with a title and two authors. It even had a color scheme. But Korogyi could return to it later. For this moment, his hands were full.