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Boxing Day, 2020
In Wyatt’s defense, days without hockey tend to blur together anyway. So, really, it’s not his fault it takes him two hours to realize that no one else in the world thinks Boxing Day was yesterday.
Boxing Day is today.
He finds this out when he’s halfway out the door to a morning skate: coat on, bag on shoulder, hat in hand. Lisa catches him with one foot quite literally out the door.
“Hey, babe, where are you going?” She’s still in the red plaid pajamas she wore all day yesterday until it was time to go to Bood’s.
“Uh, morning skate,” Wyatt says. Harsh wind whips in through the open door and the cold clears some of the fog from his mind. Senses sharpened, he takes in Lisa’s outfit again and vividly remembers her putting on an old t-shirt of his and black sweatpants for bed after Bood’s. “Shit, remind me what day it is?”
Remind me has become a kind of code in Wyatt’s marriage over the years. It means I need some help, but please don’t embarrass me. It means I’m sorry I forgot something simple/important/relevant.
It means I might have done today before, but I need confirmation.
Lisa, love of his life, eases the bag off his shoulder. “It’s Boxing Day,” she tells him. “We’ve got nothing to do until the party at the Boodram’s. I told Cassie we would bring dessert.”
Wyatt redirects his energy and focus without hesitation. He grins at his wife and suggests a number of ways they can kill the hours before the party. It’s the same idea he had yesterday, but it bears repeating.
***
The first time Wyatt knew for certain he was stuck in a time loop he was seven years old. In hindsight, he’s sure they’ve probably been happening since birth; but how’s a three/four/five year old supposed to know how different each day is supposed to be?
When Wyatt was seven, he woke up on a Saturday morning to find that it was actually Friday. Again. He chalked it up to a weird dream and got dressed for school.
Then Tommy Lockwood snorted milk out of his nose (both nostrils!) at lunch and Wyatt knew what was happening. That kind of thing doesn’t happen two days in a row. And if it does, the other kids definitely remember.
He was stuck in that loop for three days and he never figured out who caused it. He doesn’t always, is the thing. Sometimes the loop is too short, only one repeat and back to business as usual. Sometimes Wyatt interacts with way too many people in a twenty-four hour window to even try and narrow it down, much less help them out.
He likes to figure it out if he can. Solving a problem makes his brain calmer for a while. He’s got a system for it now and everything.
Day One: every day is a day one, technically speaking, nothing you can do here except live your life.
Day Two: recognize you have looped, re-orient yourself to your new reality.
(Most loops resolve themselves on the second day, Wyatt’s found. Those are the ones he doesn’t get answers for. He figures whoever was looping experienced crazy deja-vu and made the right changes on the first try. Good for them.)
Day Three-Five: figure out who’s looping and offer assistance if you can.
Day Five-End: solve the loop.
The longest loop of Wyatt’s life was two weeks in Toronto right before he was traded. Ironically, he figured out Troy Barrett was the one looping when, on Day Three, he exploded on Kent for not connecting a pass during the game and skated off with a satisfied half-smirk. He only did it the one time, but it looked like he thought about doing it every day. The loop had to have been about someone who wasn’t Kent, though, because after two weeks life moved on again. Wyatt didn’t reach out to help because, well, Troy was an asshole.
The starting goalie for Toronto at the time was out sick with the flu, so Wyatt played the whole game. Every day. For fourteen days. Sometimes, when reporters ask about why and how he plays so well in Ottawa, despite being Toronto’s backup, Wyatt wants to laugh in their faces and tell them he played a full game of hockey against Shane Hollander every night for two weeks without a day off and got traded not a month later. It was the longest two weeks of his life. He partially blames Troy for this. (He also cannot deny the benefits of playing the best in the league over and over and over again like some kind of masochistic training camp.)
Troy’s trying to not be an asshole in Ottawa, but Wyatt hasn’t brought up the loop yet. The only person who knows about his particular condition is Lisa, and she only knows because they got stuck in a loop together years ago.
Time loops are just a fact of life to Wyatt, insane as that sounds. He’ll happily settle in for a repeat day every couple of weeks. Chances are he’ll wake up tomorrow morning and go to regularly scheduled practice. A teammate probably pissed off their wife, which is an easily fixed problem.
***
Boxing Day, 2020
Wyatt wakes up naturally most mornings around five-thirty. Chalk it up to goalie shit or misdiagnosed ADHD or whatever you want; routines sit well in his body. This morning he rolls over and catches sight of Lisa’s red plaid pajamas in the bed next to him; one arm over the covers, the other tucked under his pillow. She’s still sound asleep; hair splayed out on the pillow, feet tangled with his under the blankets.
He pokes her cheek. “Babe,” he says. “Babe, wake up.”
“Just go on your run or whatever,” Lisa mumbles into the pillow. She does not open her eyes.
“I will, I will,” he says, squeezing her shoulder. And he does need to go on a run, regardless of the date. “Just, remind me what today’s date is first.”
That’s enough to get her to crack open her eyes. She leans up on one elbow and says, “Boxing Day. But you already knew that.”
Wyatt nods at the confirmation and leans in to press a kiss to her lips. “Thank you, love you, go back to sleep.”
He gets out of bed to go for a run and hears Lisa shuffle back down into the pillows without a fight. He doesn’t bother double-checking the date on his phone, just shoves himself into workout gear and heads out on the route he does most days around the neighborhood.
When he gets back to the house, Lisa is awake and sitting at the breakfast bar with two cups of coffee. Instead of suggesting they go back upstairs together (Day One) or chugging his coffee to go take a shower so he has time to eat before practice (Day Two), Wyatt crowds up behind his wife to kiss her behind the ear while he reaches around her with both arms for his cup.
Lisa melts back into him. “You’re looped?” she asks, casual as anything.
“Day Three,” Wyatt says.
“So you don’t know anything yet. Got any suspicions?”
He takes another sip of coffee. “Well, I spend most of the day with you…”
“Not me this time. Sorry, babe.”
“Then it’s someone at Bood’s tonight. We don’t see anyone else.”
Lisa smiles at him, “Alright, then we take some notes tonight.”
***
They had been dating only a year when Lisa got stuck in a loop. Being the smart and reasonable person she is, she definitely did not panic even a little when she realized what was happening. Wyatt, because he tries his best to be a good husband, will maintain that she was calm and rational until the day he dies, even if the mental picture of her wide-eyed shock lives near and dear to his heart.
Wyatt, also on Day Five of the loop, was experiencing the most mind-numbing travel day over and over. The team flew from LA to Toronto, with a layover in Vancouver, for some inane reason. They’d lost the game the night before and the endless view of beige walls and security checkpoints weren’t helping matters. The only bright spot was the fifteen minute window between both of them making it back to Wyatt’s apartment and falling asleep.
For the first four days, Lisa met him at the door. She beat him home by about ten minutes, which was just enough to change out of her scrubs and take a shower. She kissed him at the door, wet hair dripping on to a shirt pulled out of his drawer. She sat on the bathroom counter while he showered and they fell into bed together, managing maybe five minutes of conversation about their equally terrible days.
On Day Five of that loop, Wyatt, convinced he was looking for a teammate looping and not suspecting his girlfriend in the slightest, decided to get a drink of water before heading to bed. He walked into the bedroom, glass in hand, and Lisa stared at him and said, “You haven’t done that the other times.”
Wyatt was so exhausted he mumbled, “Oh, shit, sorry.”
Lisa didn’t panic, not even a little. She did let Wyatt hold her while she verbally processed it all and asked every question she could think of. Been able to really talk about it was a novel experience for Wyatt. Half the time when he figured out who was looping, he didn’t bother to explain that he was too, just offered his help. The other half were so focused on their own loops that they didn’t bother to ask Wyatt about his.
Which was fine enough, Wyatt managed.
Lisa was different, though. She asked about his systems and experiences not because they might help her end her own loop, but because she wanted to know everything about Wyatt and figure out how best to support him. He loved her already, at this point, but that was when he decided he would marry her.
It took them until Day Seven to finally figure out what was going on. Working in a hospital meant that Lisa interacted with a lot of people, and had the chance to make an impact on any number of them. In the end, it was one of the people Lisa had spent the first iterations of the loop trying to avoid.
They broke it on Day Eight when Lisa had a prolonged conversation with a patient’s mother, fighting through the woman’s prickly personality until they were both crying. She never told Wyatt the particulars of that conversation, but he knows she thinks about it all the time.
It’s a misconception, Wyatt thinks, that all the time loop movies are focused on romance and declarations of love as the way to break the loop. It’s not that it never happens, but that’s just one flavor of what Wyatt sees as just an emotional breakthrough.
Lisa’s loop was foundational to their relationship in many ways. She’s his favorite partner in crime. She knows him in a way that literally no other person on Earth does. She believes every crazy thing that comes out of his mouth. He loves her more than words.
She’s also way smarter than him, which doesn’t hurt.
***
Boxing Day, 2020
In the car on the way home from Bood’s, Lisa makes a list. There’s no point in writing it down when everything will reset anyway. “So it’s Cassie, Zane, Selena, Nick, Caitlin, Evan, Harris, Troy and Luca? No one else?”
Wyatt nods and drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Well, Nick and Evan’s kids were asleep in the guest room by the end. But yeah, that’s it. The other married guys are still traveling back from family and I think the rest of the younger guys had family fly out to visit.”
“And no one did anything different yet?”
“Not that I noticed. Conversation topics were the same but it always takes me a few loops to start memorizing everything.”
Lisa hums, “So, we’re probably looking at a marital spat. Maybe the pregnancy is getting to Cassie?”
“Bood would have kicked us all out in an instant if he thought she was uncomfortable.” Wyatt rolls his eyes, but doesn’t discount the theory entirely.
“Do you think it’s Luca?”
Wyatt snorts and says, “If it is the kid, the loop is never breaking. He’s a hurricane on the ice but I’ve barely heard him speak more than a few words.”
Lisa reaches over to grab his hand. “Alright, but we’ve got this, babe. Smallest pool of subjects in a while.”
***
Boxing Day, 2020
Wyatt rolls over. He sees red plaid pajamas and Lisa’s hair all over the pillow. He pokes her in the arm and says, “Babe. I’m looped. Day Seven.”
Lisa mumbles into the pillow, “Just go on your run or whatever.”
An hour later, sweaty from his run in the cold, Wyatt accepts a cup of coffee from Lisa at the breakfast bar. Kisses her behind the ear.
“You’re looped?” she asks.
Wyatt takes a sip of coffee and moves to sit next to her instead of draped across her back. “Yup. Just us all day until Bood’s. List is small, we’re looking at a marital fight, probably. Yesterday we ruled out anything pregnancy related.”
Lisa nods, bringing herself back up to speed. Most times when Wyatt loops, he just lets her know and they move on. Half the time, between their schedules, he won’t even see her for the duration of the loop. Those are the worst ones. So, it’s fun to play detective with her, even if she has to start from scratch every morning.
After coffee and breakfast they’re on the couch, making out to pass the rest of the morning, when Lisa suddenly pulls back. “Wait,” she says. “You said Day Seven?”
Wyatt nods, unsure where she’s going but willing to follow her without question.
“And you still don’t know who’s looping? That’s gotta be a new record.”
Wyatt shakes his head. “Not yet, but we have to be getting close. I can feel it.”
***
Boxing Day, 2020
“This is agony,” Wyatt moans into Lisa’s neck, arms reaching around her for coffee. He presses a kiss behind her ear.
“You’re looped?” she asks, leaning back into him.
“Day Fifteen and I still don’t know who’s looping, much less how to help them break it.”
Passing the two-week mark, a record set by none other than Ottawa’s Resident Asshole, Troy Barrett, is what finally breaks Wyatt. He’s spent the last two weeks in Bood’s backyard having the same conversations over and over again with very little variation.
It’s essential that he isn’t causing the changes if he wants to catch the looper. The Butterfly Effect, he’s learned, is true to some extent. Wyatt changing a seat in a classroom or a line in a conversation can be enough to change the days of half a dozen people. Luckily, he can let himself be pulled along the current of the day. Repeating past actions takes less effort and energy than new ones. It’s like muscle memory; like when he gets into the zone in the net; his body running on autopilot. Helpful for sure, but boring in large amounts.
That’s changing today.
Today, he’s going to start making changes.
Later at Bood’s, he flops down on a couch next to Troy. “Do you remember, back in Toronto, our game against Montreal right before I got traded?” he asks.
Troy, holding a bottle of cider like it’s a lifeline, nods once. “Yeah, uh, it was a tough game, for sure.”
“It was tough the first time, for sure,” Wyatt says, sipping his beer. “By Day Fourteen it got a little easier.”
Troy chokes on air. “What the fuck?”
Breaking this kind of news is fun for Wyatt. Everyone reacts so differently. Lisa asked a million questions. His elderly neighbor growing up had been delighted. Troy is in good old-fashioned shock.
Wyatt keeps his tone conversational, unsuspecting. “You did that day fourteen times, right? Never did figure out what solved it.”
“I was in a fight with my-” Troy starts. “Wait, no, not important. How do you know that?”
“It’s a gift,” Wyatt says. “Or a curse, I guess. But I like to be optimistic about things. Glass half-full and all that.”
“So, you…”
“Experience every time loop that happens within social proximity of me, yes. Have since I was a kid.” He shrugs. It really isn’t a big deal to him now, if it ever was. Wyatt prides himself on being a chill guy.
Troy doesn’t look convinced but also doesn’t look confident enough to contradict what he’s hearing. Wyatt knows things he shouldn’t otherwise. “Why tell me now?” Troy settles on asking. “Why not help me a few years ago?”
Wyatt gives him a look. Troy has the decency to look ashamed.
“As to your first question,” Wyatt says. “Your loop was the longest I ever experienced. Fuck you for picking a day we played against defending Cup champion Shane Hollander by the way.”
“If it helps, I was miserable the whole time.”
“Actually, it kind of does. Anyway, your record has been broken. I’m on Day Fifteen right now.”
Troy’s eyes go wide. It makes him look younger. “Do you know who’s causing it?”
Wyatt shakes his head. “It’s driving me crazy. It has to be someone at this party and I can’t figure out who it is.”
They sit in silence for a moment, both of them scanning the small group gathered around the Boodram’s heated back deck. Typically, at this point in the night Wyatt is in the middle of a conversation with Bood and Harris about the mysterious whereabouts of their Captain. He was invited tonight, but never showed. No one’s surprised about that, though Wyatt thinks the guy could use a friend or six.
“When I was in my loop,” Troy says, taking a bracing sip of his cider. “It ended when I finally made up with my- um, my ex. We were fighting about something kind of big and it only ended well on the last day.”
“That’s how it works,” Wyatt says. “The universe decides you did it wrong or you missed an opportunity and forces you to try again. Most people get it within a day or two. If they don’t, then at least I can figure them out and try to help speed up the process.”
Troy looks down at his lap, “Yeah, sorry about that. Again.”
Wyatt waves it away. Troy’s putting in the work, you don’t need goalie eyes to see it. “Who’s your best guess?” he asks instead.
“Everyone seems pretty normal? Happy, even,” Troy says, eyes scanning their small group. “Could it be one of the kids?”
Wyatt sighs, “The only kid I’ve ever known to loop like that was me.”
***
There was a period of time in Wyatt’s childhood where he was stuck in a loop almost once a week. Teacher after teacher in his elementary school dealing with some intensely personal problems that resulted in them showing up to school in their pajamas and putting on movies to eat ice cream at their desks. No one else remembered it happening, but Wyatt was never able to unsee it.
It was around this time that the loops started to trip him up. He hadn’t developed any systems for himself, and he lost track of the days constantly. Why do your homework when you’ll get assigned the same worksheet again tomorrow? Why bother paying attention in class when you’ve memorized the lesson?
He could go three, four days at a time doing whatever he wanted. Then the loop would break and Wyatt was caught sleeping in, faking sick, missing his homework. Sometimes, he would be convinced he was looped when he wasn’t, appearing for all the world that he would lose his head if it weren’t attached to his shoulders.
He spent a lot of time in the principal’s office, the nurse’s office, the reading specialist’s office. They had varying approaches and interest levels in his case. Several parties working together eventually diagnosed him with ADHD so he could have some extra support.
Unfortunately, all the extra support in school means nothing when the diagnosis is wrong. Protesting that no, actually, it’s just that you experience time loops sometimes, doesn’t help matters. Contrary to popular belief, Wyatt doesn’t struggle with focusing, at least the first time around. Extra time on tests is nice on regular days, but during a loop it could feel like downright torture.
Fortunately, it gave him a lot of bonus hockey time. Appearing to have improved a skill overnight, when really it was drilled every day for a week, does wonders for his reputation as a talent to watch. He would probably have been a goalie anyway, considering his personality, but the position helped him mask a lot of his loops. Goalies are allowed to be weird and think out loud about the possibilities of time loops. Instead of concerning, it becomes endearing, So, Wyatt’s of the opinion that it all worked out in the end.
***
Boxing Day, 2020
Wyatt doesn’t go to Bood’s on Day Sixteen. He convinces Lisa to stay home and watch bad Christmas movies and rot on the couch instead.
***
Boxing Day, 2020
After nearly three weeks without even a hint of answer, Wyatt goes to Bood’s and drinks more beer than usual. Lisa gives him a funny look but he caught her up this morning. She knows better than anyone that this is uncharted territory.
It’s weird, Wyatt thinks, that Lisa only ever remembers Wyatt on the last day of a loop. She knows him on a regular day and she knows him at the end of the cycle, but she misses all the middle parts. He counts himself lucky to know every version of her, even the ones she doesn’t know herself.
Like now, she sits next to him on a lounger, tucked under his arm. She’s listening to Selena’s daycare nightmare story for the first time, but Wyatt could recite it backwards at this point. He’s heard it, well, maybe twenty times? It’s starting to get hard to keep count of the days and he’s skipped the party at least once.
Still. It’s more than enough to know the exact moment Selena cries out, “….the little brat bit MY kid!”
At the next lull in the conversation, fueled by alcohol and frustration, Wyatt says, “So, which one of you is stuck in a time loop?”
Lisa blinks up at him with surprise and concern written all over her face. Across the circle, Troy chokes on air. Right, Wyatt thinks, this loop he hasn’t told Troy he knows anything.
The rest of the group laughs. Bood claps him on the shoulder and says, “Good one, Hazy.” The conversation moves on after that. Wyatt’s outburst is just a funny blip in the conversation.
Wyatt sighs and finishes his drink. Lisa traces a comforting pattern on the back of his hand. There’s always tomorrow, he thinks with a sigh.
***
Boxing Day, 2020
Wyatt rolls over and sees red plaid pajamas and brown hair splayed over the pillow.
“Just go on your run or whatever,” Lisa says, not opening her eyes.
Wyatt runs the route without thinking, without even trying to change anything. He lets himself be pulled along the current of the day.
Two cups of coffee on the breakfast bar. Arms around his wife.
“You’re looped?” He kisses her behind the ear in answer.
There’s something comforting in the routine, anyway.
***
Boxing Day, 2020
Wyatt lost track of the days a while ago. Every so often he blows off the party and goes to the rink instead to run drills and get back on the ice. He’s never gone this long without hockey, loop or no loop, and he’s starting to worry about his performance in the first game back after the loop ends. There will be at least one practice, but he doesn’t want to lose the muscle memory that comes from simply being on the ice.
He gets back from the rink earlier today than some of his practice days. Unsurprisingly, Lisa is curled up on the couch reading something on her tablet. He feels bad leaving her when it’s her first time experiencing Boxing Day and she would probably rather be together, but their marriage wouldn’t have survived this long without Lisa’s understanding.
Besides, Wyatt thinks wryly, he’ll make it up to her tomorrow.
He drops a kiss on her forehead and settles next to her on the couch. “There’s still time for us to make it to the party,” Lisa says. Wyatt opens his mouth to protest but she beats him to it. “I know, you said you’ve been looped so long that you don’t want to go. We don’t have to go if you’re really against it, but if you go shower and change now we’ll get there with plenty of time.”
Wyatt doesn’t want to go, actually, but he knows Lisa does. And this is the first time he’s tried to blow it off that she’s said she wanted to go. Lisa may not remember every loop but Wyatt does, and suddenly he feels terrible for suggesting she forgo a party she was excited about.
They roll up to the Boodram house half an hour later than usual, party in full swing. They settle in with drinks and food, and are bestowed with light chirps and exaggerated winks as to what made them late. They’re not completely off-base; it did in theory save them time to shower together.
Not long after, Cassie’s phone lights up on the little table in front of her. “Babe,” she calls across the deck, to her husband, “Can you get my phone?”
Bood hands Luca an iced tea with a pointed look and comes over to grab her phone so she doesn’t have to reach over her ever-growing baby bump.
“Thank you,” she says, accepting a peck on the lips. Then her brow furrows, “Someone’s at the door? I thought everyone was here.”
Bood gets up to get the door and comes back with Ilya Rozanov. Wyatt’s mouth drops open and Lisa squeezes his knee. He shuts his mouth and tries to steady his now racing heart. Something different. And Wyatt wanted to skip the party tonight. He thinks this must be what heroin feels like.
In the flurry of “Hey Roz, welcome to the party!” and drinks and food and claps on the shoulder that Ilya’s receiving, no one notices Wyatt’s reaction.
Ilya looks bad, to put it frankly. He’s got a strung out look to his eyes and a hesitation to his movements that are completely at odds with the way he carries himself in a locker room or on the ice. It’s the look of a man haunted by something. It’s the look of a man stuck in a time loop, probably, if Wyatt’s experience is anything to go on.
And it has to be him, Wyatt thinks. In thirty, forty, fifty, however-the-fuck many loops, Ilya hasn’t shown up to the party one time. The universe wants him here. If he weren’t supposed to be here, Wyatt wouldn’t know about the loop.
He’s pretty sure that’s how it works, anyway. It’s not like he was handed some all-knowing guide on the rules and regulations of time loops. (He dreams about that manual.) Either Wyatt only knows about loops when he shares the day with the looper, or the only people to ever loop are already in Wyatt’s social circle. It’s got to be the former, his brilliant wife insists, because the odds of the latter don’t make statistical sense. As if anything about Wyatt’s condition makes sense.
Point is, Wyatt is nearly positive Ilya Rozanov is caught in the world’s longest time loop. And by the looks of it, he’s going through a particular hellish time with it.
“Are you going to say something?” Lisa asks, nudging him.
“I don’t know,” Wyatt whispers. “What if he freaks out and bolts and we’re stuck for longer?”
“You told me Troy handled it fine when you told him.”
“Yeah, but his loop was almost two years ago. Being in the middle of one is different.”
Wyatt still hasn’t made up his mind when Ilya drags a chair over and drops down heavily. He leans against his knees and says, “Hazy, you read comic books, yes?”
“Yup, sure do. Why? Someone gift you one for Christmas?” Wyatt has no idea where this is going, and surprises himself with the game-time decision to act normally.
“Ah, no. Russian Christmas is in January,” Ilya says, pulling a face like the concept of a December Christmas is personally insulting to him. “But, no, I have a question I think you can answer.”
“Much as I love to hear my husband talk superheroes,” Lisa says with a smile. “I think I’m going to see if any of the girls want to talk about anything else.”
Wyatt smiles at her and puts a sweet kiss on the back of her hand before she walks away. The thing is, Lisa is as big a comics nerd as he is. This is her way of giving Wyatt a minute alone with Ilya to see what’s really going on. She knows Wyatt will fill her in later.
“Alright, let’s talk comics,” he says once Lisa joins Caitlin on the other side of the deck. “Avengers? X-Squad? What are we talking?”
Ilya looks around to confirm everyone else is in their own conversations. Then he says, “Which superhero lives the same day over and over and over? Like in that stupid movie about the rat that Dillon watches on planes.”
“Groundhog. And yeah, so, there’s not really anyone in any sort of comic that experiences that, but give me a little more to work with. Something going on with you?” Wyatt might have an idea where this is going, and tries to contain his excitement.
“It sounds crazy, but it has been Boxing Day for months. Every day I wake up, have stupid fight with Sh- with my…partner, go to sleep and wake up just to do it all again. I have tried everything and it keeps happening.”
“Not crazy,” Wyatt reassures him. “But clearly you haven’t tried everything if you haven’t broken it. Luckily for you, I’m the guy for this.”
Wyatt tells Ilya everything after that. He wasn’t planning on it, but the haunted, desperate look in his eyes broke Wyatt’s resolve pretty quickly.
(Okay, not everything. Ilya doesn’t need to know about every single loop Wyatt’s been stuck in. But they cover the basics.)
Ilya gets on board with Wyatt’s truth with alarming speed. Weeks living the same day over and over again will do that, he thinks.
It’s a heated enough conversation that most of the party leaves them to it, even though Wyatt knows Harris is vibrating out of his seat holding back from asking Ilya how his holiday break has been.
Wyatt learns that Ilya has a long term partner (!) who came to town to visit for Christmas (!!) because their parents live in Ottawa (!!!) and today before the party they had a big blowout fight (!!!!). Dots are connecting in Wyatt’s mind with all the new information about his elusive Captain. Namely, the lack of pronouns and secret relationship. Obviously, plenty of people’s parents live in Ottawa but…
But nothing. Wyatt shoves his theories to the back of his mind. What matters is breaking this loop so he and Ilya both can avoid going completely crazy.
“What was the fight about, exactly?” Wyatt asks later. The sun has set and the kids are asleep in the guest room. He knows the rhythms of this party like the back of his hand and they don’t have much time left before they would be overstaying their welcome.
Ilya fidgets with the cross around his neck. “Was about the party. I wanted them to come, which is something you can’t do in a secret relationship, even if you don’t say you are dating. But also, we both said other things.”
“Other things?”
“Other things like would you choose me over hockey, and get out of my house,” Ilya says with a flat tone, like he’s heard the phrases a thousand times over and the words have begun to lose meaning.
“Well, I’m no couple’s therapist but maybe you need to get past that and try to fix the root problem. Don’t kick them out, maybe? As a start?”
“Ah, how do you know I was not kicked out? You assume I did the kicking?” There’s a wicked grin on Ilya’s face that doesn’t meet his eyes. Wyatt fixes him with a look. Ilya deflates and says, “Fine, fine. It’s a good plan. Tomorrow we will talk and I will not kick anyone out of my house. Thank you, Wyatt.”
Wyatt nods. “Make sure you come to Bood’s tomorrow if you can. Or, like, text me. It’ll keep you sane and we can workshop if it doesn’t work.”
***
Boxing Day, 2020
Red plaid pajamas. Two cups of coffee. Kiss behind the ear.
Familiar patterns, but Wyatt feels alive for the first time in weeks. He fills Lisa in on everything on the couch after breakfast and shoots a text to Ilya that he’s rooting for him.
This Boxing Day is sweet and lovely and Wyatt is excited to go to the party. It feels novel, like a new day. For the first time in a while he’s not completely sure how his conversations are going to go.
Most of the party goes by with its regular rhythms; daycare nightmare, switching Haas off beer, Troy looking uncomfortable but trying nonetheless. Then, Ilya waltzes in with a “Yes, yes, I am here. Where is Wyatt?”
Bood gestures to where he and Lisa are sitting. Lisa excuses herself to give them a minute. Ilya sits down and sighs heavily.
“What happened?” Wyatt asks.
“Well I didn’t say get out of my house this time, but he still left,” Ilya says.
Wyatt schools his face and doesn’t react to the pronoun he knows Ilya slipped in using. (It does confirm some of Wyatt’s suspicions.) “So you still fought?” he asks.
Ilya nods. “Lately all we do is fight or fuck.” He runs a hand through his hair, “As soon as he leaves I regret it but I can’t stop in the moment.”
“Have you tried saying that?”
***
Boxing Day, 2020
Wyatt gets a text from Ilya right as he and Lisa get to the party.
Ilya: He did not leave!!!!
***
Boxing Day, 2020
Every time Ilya arrives at the Boxing Day party, everyone is surprised. They try to be polite about it, of course, but Ilya almost never comes to these things.
Wyatt obviously knows why now. A secret boyfriend actually explains a lot of Ilya’s behavior the last few years, starting with the unprecedented move to Ottawa, of all places.
Wyatt’s also used to the rhythms of a loop, and isn’t thrown by the world around him having the same reactions day after day. Ilya on the other hand…
“It’s fucking stupid,” he says, after pushing through well-meaning friends to join Wyatt in what has, in Wyatt’s mind, become his corner of the deck.
“It’s their first time experiencing today. You just have to roll past it.”
Ilya makes a displeased noise. “Wasting my time. Don’t they know I’m on a very important mission?”
“Literally no they do not. That’s part of a time loop.”
Ilya waves his hand. “Stupid part of a time loop.”
Wyatt sighs, “So did he leave again today? Why are you here?”
Ilya leans back in his seat and says, “Three days! I got him to stay for three days! And we are still stuck in this loop. Today I let him leave so I could come here.”
“Well, then we need a different tactic,” Wyatt says. “Tell me, what’s the perfect version of today?”
“Crowell calls me personally and says we win the Stanley Cup even though we’re bottom of the conference.”
Wyatt glares at him.
Ilya squints back at him. “Okay, fine. Well, probably the morning stays the same. We wake up, we fuck. Then, he comes here with me and I just introduce him as my friend who’s in town visiting his parents for Christmas.” He frowns. “Well, no. A perfect day and we would make out in front of the team and it would be so good that everyone forgets about Scott Hunter forever. But, I would be happy just to have him here.”
Wyatt thinks that’s kind of sad, actually. Even in his wildest fantasies, Ilya is considering hiding his relationship. But it’s obvious he doesn’t really want to. Wyatt thinks all the hiding might be what’s slowly stealing the light from his eyes.
He can’t say that, though. He feels a little guilty even thinking it. Instead he says, “Well that’s your answer. Original desires are very important. It’s not always the case, but a lot of loops break when you finally let yourself have the thing you want. It might break if you can convince him to join you here.”
“But I can’t get him here,” Ilya says. “That’s what the stupid fight is about! He’ll never agree to come.”
“I take it he’s closeted?” Wyatt asks. He suspects as much, but he wants to be sure.
Ilya gives him a look that can’t read as anything but don’t ask stupid questions.
“Right, right. Is there anything that would make him feel comfortable?”
Ilya shakes his head, frustration bubbling over into a sharp tone. “Nothing,” he says. “Maybe if he knew that everyone would be calm and normal and not suspect even a single thing. But…”
“But?”
Ilya shrugs, “There’s no way to guarantee that. It’s not worth trying.”
Wyatt doesn’t believe that. And not just because he wants the loop to break. He’s not completely sure of the identity of the mystery boyfriend (and if his guesses are correct, holy shit Ilya), but Wyatt knows this team. Sure, he’s only in his second season with them, but this is a good group of guys. It’s a cliche, but they’re more than teammates. They’re friends, family even.
Would they react? Of course. They’re incapable of being anything but loud and obnoxious with their love. But Wyatt has no doubts they would be nothing less than friendly and open, even if all they think is that their captain brought a friend along.
Actually, Wyatt thinks, most of them would be thrilled to have real-life, actual proof that Ilya Rozanov regularly speaks to someone not on the Centaurs.
Despite his certainty, Wyatt doesn’t have a solution. He wishes he did.
***
Three years before he met Lisa, Wyatt Hayes spent most of his time living in squalor.
Okay, so that might be a bit of a stretch, but the hockey house on campus was disgusting. Officially, five of them lived there. Unofficially, there was a rotating cast of characters numbering in the low twenties. If the dishes were scraped clean, that was a big win.
His college team was middling in their conference, but Wyatt liked college on the whole. College students are especially prone to time loops. It’s the coming of age of it all. Luckily, none of them were particularly long. Still, with all the doubled and tripled days, Wyatt estimates he spent at least an extra year there.
The worst part about college was the impossibility of finding out who exactly was looping at any given time. He had really started to hone his understanding of his abilities at this time. Walking around campus meant crossing paths with sometimes hundreds of people. Even a twelve second pass on a sidewalk was enough to trigger Wyatt into the loop.
He learned his lesson from childhood, and mostly stayed on top of his assignments. Most loops were a day, maybe two. Which wasn’t long enough to risk ditching responsibilities. He still had a reputation for not knowing what the date was with any reliability, but Wyatt took wins where he could get them.
Darren was a defenseman on the team and lived in the room across the hall from Wyatt. He was a decent player and friend, if much less bothered by the general mess and clutter they lived in.
Wyatt hadn’t even realized he was looped (weekends in the spring were notoriously difficult to keep track of) when Darren sat down on the couch next to him early one afternoon. He’d sighed and said, “Hey, Hayes, you ever get like crazy deja vu? Like you swore you’re done the whole day before but you must have just dreamed it?”
Wyatt put down the controller to whatever gaming system was currently working (they cycled through them with some speed) and said, “Sure, sometimes.”
Darren heaved a sigh of relief and said, “Okay, cool, cool. That’s good to know. Um, can I run something by you?”
Within a few minutes of conversation, Wyatt learned that Darren wanted to ask a girl in his afternoon math class out. She was funny and smart and didn’t make Darren feel like an idiot for the kinds of questions he asked. He swore he had a dream last night where he thought about it but didn’t follow through.
Wyatt nodded through the entire explanation and refrained from explaining that Darren probably had actually lived that and not followed through. He bit back saying that this was a second chance and if he screwed it up they would be back here tomorrow. Instead he offered, “You should ask her out, man. What do you have to lose?”
Darren and that girl, Julia, got married six months ago. Wyatt and Lisa went to the wedding. It was beautiful.
***
Boxing Day, 2020
Wyatt calls Ilya after breakfast, too excited to wait another minute.
Ilya picks up with a whisper, “Hazy, is something wrong?”
“I figured it out!”
“Figured what out?” Ilya asks. Wyatt can hear a man’s voice in the background, too faint to make out entirely.
“If you put me on speaker, I can talk about the party and encourage you to bring anyone who’s in town. I’ll hype up the team and then your mystery man will hear and be convinced to come!” Wyatt’s so sure of this plan.
Ilya groans, “What if it doesn’t work?”
“What do you have to lose at this point?”
That’s enough to convince Ilya to try it. He doesn’t sound convinced but Wyatt doesn’t need that, he just needs him to try. They scrap the plan for today, Wyatt’s impromptu call apparently not “setting the mood” for the plan.
Tomorrow (hopefully their last Boxing Day for at least a year), Wyatt will call after Ilya sends him the bat signal. If Wyatt does his job right, Ilya’s mystery boyfriend will feel relaxed and reassured and welcome to join them at Bood’s in the evening.
Today, Ilya declares he won’t go to Bood’s. He is going to convince his man to stay and they are going to have marathon sex. Wyatt is happy for his friend, but could have been spared the details.
That said, those are exactly his plans with Lisa for the day.
***
Boxing Day, 2020
Red plaid pajamas. Hair all over the pillow.
As much as Wyatt wants to break this loop (and he really wants to break it), he never gets tired of starting his day like this. She’s beautiful, dead to the world as she is. Wyatt is a lucky man.
He pokes her arms and she mumbles out, “Just go on your run or whatever.”
He could skip waking her up before his run. He doesn’t need confirmation of the day at this point, and Lisa doesn’t really wake up enough to know he’s going. Still, it’s endearing and Wyatt likes starting his morning like this.
Two cups of coffee on the breakfast bar when he gets back. His face stings in the warm of their house after the bitter cold outside. Lisa slides a mug towards him as he presses a kiss to the back of her ear.
“You’re looped?” she asks, like Wyatt knew she would.
He eagerly catches her up on the whole saga; the loop, the duration, the things they’ve tried to break it, the plan for today. He skirts around the secret boyfriend part as best he can, since it’s not his secret to tell. Lisa listens with rapt attention, letting him get the whole thing out before peppering him with questions.
Her first is of course, “Do you think this friend of his is maybe more than a friend? It would explain a lot.” So, he goes back to retrace the explanation with the gaps filled in. He swears Lisa to secrecy unnecessarily. She promises to keep her lips sealed and gives him a look that says I’ve kept your big crazy secret for nearly a decade, I can handle one secret boyfriend. She’s right, of course, which is why he loves her.
Lisa loves the plan, and tells him more than once she hopes today is the last day. “I want to remember you being this excited,” she says in explanation, pressing a kiss to his lips.
It’s nearly lunchtime when Wyatt gets a text from Ilya. He refrains from making a sex joke because this is serious, if they pull this off they’ll be free from the longest loop of Wyatt’s life.
Ilya: 🦇
Wyatt gets comfortable on the couch with Lisa. They ran over talking points all morning, but decided against a script. Wyatt doesn’t want it to feel forced. He’s going for breezy, spontaneous, friendly.
He calls Ilya and puts the phone on speaker.
“Wyatt? Is everything okay?” Ilya answers in his Concerned Captain Voice. Good, Wyatt thinks, he’s in character.
“Oh, yeah for sure. Just wanted to say Happy Boxing Day!” Wyatt says. He and Lisa are grinning at each other and it’s coming through his voice. “I know a bunch of the guys were talking in the group chat but I wanted to see if you were coming to Bood’s tonight? I can’t remember if you came last year but I know you’re super busy on your days off.”
“Ah, maybe. I will have to see,” he says. Wyatt can hear shuffling noises in the background. Sheets on a bed, maybe? Or someone putting on a coat?
Wyatt keeps going. “It’s super chill. Bood grills a bunch of food and, well, normally Cassie throws herself into playing host, but with the pregnancy I think she’s letting Selena handle most of that this year. It’s not the whole team either. A lot of the guys with kids are traveling and I think some of the younger guys have people visiting. So, you know, smaller group.”
Ilya makes a noncommittal sound. There’s clinking on the other end now. Wyatt thinks maybe it’s plates on a counter?
“And Luca will be there! He’s a good kid, even if he is still totally starstruck by you, man. Hey, come to the party and get yourself the gift of some hero worship, yeah?”
Ilya laughs. Then says softly, “No, no, I will get it. Just sit.”
Wyatt takes a breath. Showtime. “Oh, shit. Do you have someone staying with you? You shouldn’t have let me interrupt your day.”
“It’s fine, Hazy.”
“So you do have someone there? I don’t want to pry but you should totally bring them to the party. Bood means it when he says open invite and I’m sure he’d love to meet your friend from Russia or whatever.”
Ilya laughs again, much more reserved than before. “Ah, not a friend from Russia.”
“Well friend from wherever, then. You know this team by now, hell technically you’ve been here longer than I have. The guys are chill and everyone loves to socialize. Seriously, the more the merrier.”
There’s more murmuring on the other end, low and serious. Wyatt can’t make out any of the words, and he knows that’s on purpose. Finally Ilya speaks into the phone again and says, “Thank you for the invitation, Wyatt. I- we will see if we can make it.”
“Sounds good man! I’ll see you later!” Wyatt says and he ends the call.
The house is quiet for a beat. Then Lisa asks, “Do you think it worked?”
“I have no idea,” Wyatt says honestly. “Ilya is hard to read on a good day and today is…”
He trails off, not really sure how to color this loop in his mind. He couldn’t guess at the number of days if he tried. He knows Ilya stopped counting earlier than he did. Lisa seems to understand, though. She settles against him and tells him again that she hopes this is the day that sticks. She hasn’t said it any other day this loop, which tickles something in the back of Wyatt’s mind. Maybe the length of this one was really affecting him more than he realized. He hopes her new sentiment is a sign that things are progressing in the right direction.
They get to Bood’s perfectly on time. Wyatt grabs the same beer out of the cooler that he always grabs. This, he knows he could change, but finds he doesn’t want to. Lisa sits with Cassie and asks the same pregnancy update questions she always does. Selena complains about the kids’ daycare. Harris and Troy sit suspiciously close to one another. (That’s a problem for another time. Wyatt can only handle so many things at once.)
Like clockwork, Wyatt finds himself on his couch in the corner of the deck with Lisa when Cassie’s phone lights up. She calls her husband over to get it for her, and he does, dropping a kiss to her lips.
Wyatt is practically buzzing with adrenaline. He hasn’t felt like this since taking the ice as a starting goalie in Juniors; giddy and nervous instead of calm and peaceful.
Lisa squeezes his hand and whispers, “Now?”
“Moment of truth,” he whispers back.
Cassie’s brow furrows, “Someone’s at the door? I thought everyone was here.”
Bood heads back inside and returns a few (agonizing) minutes later with a loud, “You will never fucking believe who’s here!”
Dykstra sits up and squints, “You banish them inside the house already, Bood? Why’d you come back alone?”
Bood, grinning at his own plan, steps to the side and reveals Ilya Rozanov. The group of the back deck cheers. Wyatt joins in, searching Ilya’s face for a clue as to how this is going. As always, the man is hard to read, but the fact that he’s going along with Bood’s shenanigans feels more positive than the half dozen times he’s bypassed everyone to stop over and sit with Wyatt.
“Thank you, thank you,” Ilya says, grinning. “I, ah, brought a friend with me. He will be out here in a second and I know everyone will be very normal about it, yes?”
Most of the guys roll their eyes good-naturedly. Luca squeaks out a “Yes, Cap.” Wyatt feels the anticipation of getting confirmation of his suspicious bubble up in his chest.
“You left him inside?” Cassie asks. “Zane, what the hell kind of host are you?”
“He had to use the bathroom!” Bood says, throwing his hands up.
Wyatt watches Ilya check over his shoulder. He’s grinning and joking with the team, but there’s a tightness around his eyes that betrays his nerves.
Moments later, Shane Hollander himself steps through the door onto the patio.
Wyatt has exactly two and a half seconds of silence to think to himself I knew it and holy shit Ilya before the back deck explodes into noise.
“Is that Shane fucking Hollander?” Chouinard asks.
Dykstra’s mouth has dropped open. Next to him, Caitlin is laughing, “Haven’t you met before? You play Montreal like four times a year?”
“I mean, you don’t get to talk much on the ice. And, like, that’s Shane fucking Hollander.”
Luca and Troy both look pale. Harris is on his feet, hand outstretched. Selena and Cassie are trading shocked expressions with Lisa, who is squeezing Wyatt’s hand so hard he thinks she’s going to break bones.
“You all promised normal!” Ilya’s voice cuts through the noise. “This is my friend, Shane. You might know him as second best hockey player in the league.”
Wyatt takes mercy on them, “What brings you to Ottawa, Hollander?”
Shane shrugs, “My parents live here and Ilya and I were doing some foundation work while I’m in town. He mentioned an open invitation but if this is strictly a team thing…”
Bood cuts him off, and starts moving him towards the food, “It is absolutely not. A friend of Ilya’s is a friend of mine. Let’s get you some food.”
A while later, after the initial hype has calmed some and everyone has met and spoken to Shane fucking Hollander (“really, just Shane is fine”), Wyatt finds himself sitting next to Ilya in a perfect repetition of the second half of this loop. Except, this time, Shane sits in the chair next to him, talking quietly to a very starstruck Luca Haas.
“Hey,” says Wyatt. “For what it’s worth, I like this for you.”
Ilya arches a brow at him but says nothing.
Wyatt chooses his words carefully. “You seem lighter today than you have in the whole time I’ve known you. If the two things are connected, then I’m happy for you, man.”
Ilya swallows and says, “Thank you. Do you think we did it? Can we have tomorrow now?”
“I hope so,” Wyatt says, taking a sip of his beer. “After all this, I think you deserve as many tomorrows as you can get.”
***
December 27th, 2020
Wyatt rolls over to see Lisa’s hair all over the pillow. She’s wearing an old t-shirt of his, the neck all stretched out and the fabric worn and soft, and a pair of black sweatpants. It’s not as cute as the red set, she explained last night as they climbed into bed, but it’s much more comfortable.
The memory brings Wyatt up short. Yesterday. He could cry. There’s a true yesterday again.
He pokes Lisa awake. She groans and doesn’t open her eyes.
“Babe,” he says, grin threatening to split his face wide open. “Remind me what day it is today?”
That wakes her up. “You broke the loop?”
He nods and feels tears threatening at the corners of his eyes. “I think so. Holy shit, that was a long one.”
“Welcome back to the timeline, baby,” Lisa says, leaning in to kiss him. “I meant what I said yesterday, I wanted to remember your excitement.”
“That might be my favorite word,” Wyatt murmurs against her lips. “Yesterday.”
***
December 27th, 2020
Across town, Ilya Rozanov wakes up to find Shane Hollander in his bed, naked, though that’s nothing new. He lies still, as though he can hide from the truth of the day that is hurtling his way if he doesn’t move.
Shane is a heavy sleeper, always has been, but this morning he wakes without an alarm or Ilya’s interference. It’s as though he knows something is potentially wrong, and couldn’t sleep knowing there was a problem to be fixed. Ilya loves him so much sometimes he can’t breathe with it.
Ilya’s done a thousand versions of this morning, and he’s starting to worry he doesn’t have another thousand left in him. Sometimes he thinks he leaves a little part of himself in every day he repeats, and soon there won’t be anything left.
But then Shane rolls over, sleep-warm and mussed, and says, “Hey, what’s wrong? You look like you’re bracing for impact.”
Ilya traces a finger up and down Shane’s bicep because he can. “It’s nothing,” he lies. He presses a kiss to Shane’s mouth. “I’m already sad about you leaving.” And at least that’s half-true, anyway.
“I know, me too,” Shane says. “We never have enough time.” They kiss again, unhurried, because they can. “But yesterday was fun, at the party. I’m glad you convinced me to go.”
It’s the second best thing Shane has ever said, Ilya thinks. Right behind Holy shit, I love you so much. Ilya doesn’t try to stop himself from crying, happy tears spilling over without warning. He’ll figure out what to tell Shane about that later, right now he just needs to hold him.