Work Text:
July 2024
Montreal
It’s late by the time Troy leaves Montreal.
Hours later than he’d wanted, if he’s being honest. How, exactly, had he and Max gotten stuck with the closing-down paperwork duties? He’d have been on the road earlier, maybe even home by now, but Roz and Hollander had had to jet out early to some brand event or whatever—Rolex, Speedo, who the fuck can keep track of those two—and Roz had nominated Max and Troy behind for debrief and cleanup. But while neither he nor Max (nor Leah, for that matter) had been super happy with the last-minute change of duties, they’d all weathered it with good humor.
As Troy takes the on-ramp to the 417, he gives his reflection in the rearview mirror a tired smile. It was a good week, even if he hadn’t really wanted to be the last one leaving. The foundation’s annual hockey camps have become one of the best parts of his summers. The kids are great. Hanging out with the other coaches is great. Best of all is that he feels useful.
So fucking useless.
He grips the steering wheel a little tighter. It’s late, and he’s tired. And while he’s mostly gotten better at not listening to that little voice, that doesn’t mean it’s gone.
He sighs, scrubbing a hand across his face. At the moment, he’s what Dr. Trish would call “people-d out.” He loves the hockey camps, but they drain him. All that time around other people, putting on a smile for worried parents and eager kids, tracking and laughing along at the right parts of the other coaches’ stories, making sure he’s not too overbearing or too withdrawn or too him—well. He loves the hockey camps. And he’s exhausted.
Dr. Trish says it’s okay for both things to be true.
If you weren’t such a fucking asshole on default, maybe you wouldn’t be so exhausted by being nice to kids.
Gonna be one of those nights, huh.
“Maybe you can’t stop those thoughts, Troy,” she says, voice low and no-nonsense. He likes that about her. He’d been afraid that therapy would be all hugs and soft voices and floofy-doofy shit, but Dr. Trish is direct. Honest. It’s more helpful than he thought. “But you have a choice about how to respond to them. You can let them drag you down.”
He huffs. “Or?”
“Or you can thank the part of your brain that’s trying to protect you for doing its best, and think your next thought.”
He inhales slowly through his nose, exhales slowly through his mouth. It’s taken him months to be able to think of that voice as a part of himself that’s trying its best. He’s still not sure he buys it. Not when it’s so cruel. Not when it sounds so much like him.
But thinking his next thought? He can do that.
“You’re tall,” Ava says, nose scrunched up in that way some kids get when they’re working on a problem. She looks up, up at him, her skates bright pink and her jumper even pinker.
He chuckles. “I am.”
“He’s taller.” She points over to where Roz is running drills with a passel of older boys.
Troy nods. “He is.”
She skates a slow circle around him. He stands stock-still; he’s been in enough doctors’ offices to know when he’s being evaluated. And this girl looks more serious than the physio who evaluated his last ankle sprain.
God help the people sitting around whatever table she leads in the future.
Ava completes her slow circle and looks back up at him, face solemn and serious. “You’re tall.”
He nods again. “I am.”
Her face breaks out into a brilliant smile. “I like that you’re tall.”
He cracks up.
“I know what I’m going to write now,” Ava says with a note of authority, and skates off in the direction of the arts and crafts table, all while he keeps laughing.
He grins at the memory, hands loosening on the steering wheel. He loves those fucking hockey camps. He is useful.
And tall. And someone likes that.
His phone rings. Speaking of someone who likes him.
He steels himself and touches the icon that comes up on the dashboard screen. “Hey babe! How’s New York?” He’s glad Harris can’t see his face; hard enough to mask his tone, he’s not sure he has the energy to mask his facial expressions, too.
“Already back home actually,” Harris responds. “How’s the drive?”
Troy’s brow furrows. “Wait, you’re already back in Ottawa? I thought you were meeting with the Comms VP tonight.”
“League moved that interview to this morning.” Harris’s voice is…tight. Tense. It doesn’t sound tense, or wouldn’t to most people, but Troy knows him too well. This particular cheerful tone is feigned; the staccato cadence gives him away.
Troy’s stomach drops.
You knew this was coming, idiot.
“Oh!” Troy says, trying his best to pretend to be cheerful. “How did it go? Did you like her?”
There’s a beat, some rustling in the background. “It was fine. Listen, I know it’s late, but can you swing by the rink before you go home?” Another beat. “My, uh, something’s going on with my truck.”
It’s all Troy can do to keep his breathing level. Why is he back in Ottawa already? Why did he go to the rink instead of— He tries to cut off that line of thinking, but the damage is done. Harris is at the rink because the rink also holds the management office.
Which is where you’d need to go to sign transfer paperwork.
“Yeah,” Troy says, white-knuckling the steering wheel now just to keep his voice level. “Of course, sweetheart. But I’m only just leaving Montreal now. It’ll take me like—“ he looks at the clock, then the mile marker sign he just passed “—like an hour and a half?”
There’s a beat of silence before Harris replies, “Yeah, that sounds good, bud.”
Is he distracted?
“If you wanted to grab an Uber instead, I wouldn’t—“
“No, that’s fine,” Harris says quickly—too quickly. “I’ve got a couple more things to wrap up here, so that should be perfect.”
Troy can hear rustling again, and maybe voices? There shouldn’t be anyone at the team’s offices at this time of night, especially in the off-season.
Unless management called a meeting.
“Okay. I’ll see you in a little while. Love you.”
“Love you too, Troy. So much.” The warmth in Harris’s voice does nothing to dispel the spike of dread that hits Troy as the call disconnects. He thunks his head back against the headrest.
It’s really happening.
Shit.
***
March 2021
Winnipeg
“I think I need therapy.”
He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Really. Especially not in the middle of a karaoke bar, in the fucking ass-end of Manitoba, to Ilya Rozanov, while the rest of the team are loudly celebrating their latest impossible road win.
Fuck.
Roz looks at him over the neck of his beer, bemused. “Do you.”
“I…” Troy trails off, looking away. He knew coming out tonight was a bad idea. Should’ve just stayed back at the hotel, where his stupid fucking mouth wouldn’t get him in trouble.
“I’m sure Joey’s still awake, I can call him,” Roz says, pulling out his phone to call the team’s traveling massage therapist. “What is it? Your leg? That why you missed that slapshot in the third—“
“Fuck off, Rozanov,” Troy grumbles, turning away. At the far end of the bar, Hazy’s attempting to yell the lyrics to Baby Got Back into a microphone so loud all of fucking Winnipeg can hear him. Troy’s a little surprised that Roz had even heard what he mumbled in the first place, given the sheer wall of sound coming from the little speakers.
He briefly considers taking the out, pretending it’s his leg and not his brain that’s broken. But there’s a reason Roz once called himself the most perceptive. Troy’s eyes flick back to Roz for a brief moment, only to dart away again at the shrewd look he finds on the Russian’s face. “Ah. Therapy,” Roz muses, heavier emphasis on the word. “This is good, Barrett.”
“Not the word I’d use,” he says into his beer bottle.
“Then what word? Weak?”
“Hey, fuck you, my mom—“ He whips his head around to chew Roz out, the C on his jersey be damned, but the rant dies on Troy’s lips. The amusement is gone from Roz’s expression, replaced by something Troy clocks as closer to cold anger.
Hmm.
He takes a breath. “My mom,” Troy starts again, calmer this time, “was in therapy for a long time after she finally left Dad. It really helped her. Said it gave her tools to deal with her anger and abandonment issues. Made a huge difference in her life, gave her the space to trust Charlie. So no.” He narrows his eyes a bit. “Not that word either.”
Roz grunts noncommittally, but the tension in his shoulders eases. “Good for your mom. Good for you, too, not being an asshole.”
Troy rolls his eyes. “Nevermi—“
“Then what word?”
Troy blinks at the interruption. “What?”
“Therapy. What word would you call it?”
He thinks for a second. “Fucked,” he finally decides, speaking into his beer. “I’d call it fucked.”
“You came out to the whole world two weeks ago,” Roz says laconically, an oasis of calm in the chaos of the bar. “Hard-launched your relationship to a cute boy. Told your father to fuck off. Is not fucked. Is natural you might want to unpack that.”
“Unpack.”
“Yes, yes, unpack,” Roz says testily, putting his phone down on the bar to gesture with his hands. “Like, take problems out of your brain the way you take those fuckass apple socks out of your travel bag—“
“Hey!”
“—and show them to someone else. Unpack. Is the right word.” Roz looks down at him imperiously, taking another sip of his beer. “You have been through many…transitions, I think, in last few months. Therapy is good for exploring this.”
Troy sighs, scrubbing a hand across his face. “That’s…that’s not it, though. Not quite.”
“No?”
Troy takes a swig of his beer. “It’s not not it, but it’s also not quite it, though nothing you said was wrong, it’s just not…it.”
Roz blinks, then scowls. After a long moment, he replies, “English is a stupid language. That sentence had five negatives and no semantic value.”
“Semantic value”? Troy wonders, not for the first time, just how smart Roz is in his first language. Smarter than Troy, at any rate, because that phrase doesn’t fucking mean anything to him.
“Barrett. What the fuck are you saying.”
Right. “Sorry. I just—“
“Are you not happy?”
“I am! I am. So happy with Harris I can’t stand it. With this team. With being out. I just…” He trails off again, picking at the label on the beer bottle.
Roz gives him a long look, and then his face shifts. “Ah. You are happy, but also not happy, yes? Like your brain is all,” and then he waves his hand in a swirl around his head. “Fucked.”
Troy nods, looking down at the bar. “I hate it,” he says quietly. “Things are finally going right for me and I still feel like this. Am I just…” He searches for the words, and this time, Roz doesn’t jump in. After a few long moments, Troy lets out a frustrated breath. “Am I too fucked up to be happy?”
“No.” Roz’s response is immediate, and more forceful than he probably meant from the slight look of surprise on his own face. “No, Barrett. You are not too fucked up to be happy.”
“Then what the fuck is wrong with me?”
Roz shrugs. “I do not know. Am not a therapist.” Troy snorts at the lightness in his tone, and Roz gives him an amused side eye that turns serious. “But you are not too fucked up to be happy.”
“How can you possibly know that?” Troy mutters.
Roz takes another long swig of his beer, then seems to decide fuck it, and chugs the rest of it down. “My father was a fuckhead,” he says. “This is the appropriate term for asshole who abuses you as a child, I am learning.”
Troy sucks in a breath. “Jesus, Roz…”
Roz waves a dismissive hand. “Not the point, Barrett. Point is, I was happy when the fucker died, but also not happy, because…is complicated, yes? Many things are complicated because life is complicated. And maybe also because my brain is like my mama’s, probably. Lies about the world sometimes. Fucks many things. So talking to someone to help unfuck those things…is like PT for strained muscle, yes?”
Troy takes a minute to absorb the sheer weight of what Roz just revealed so fucking nonchalantly. That his dad abused him. That he’s got the same depression that killed his fucking mom. “Roz,” he says again, but Roz cuts him off.
“No pity, Barrett, I do not need it and hate when people give it.” He gives Troy a hard look. “And because I have had to say this before, no, my shit does not make your fucked up problems less fucked up. The world is fucked up, and then we die, so.” He shrugs.
“That’s bleak.”
“Is Russian.” Roz gives him a toothy grin. “But. I am fucked up, and also happy. Most days. Is possible to be both. Because if world is fucked, then we laugh and fuck the world right back with every tool we have. Including therapy.”
“Including therapy.” Troy finds himself mirroring Roz’s grin, at least a little.
“Right. And,” Roz pins him with those eyes, suddenly serious again, “tell Harris.”
The grin slides back off Troy’s face. “He doesn’t need to hear this.”
“No. He doesn’t need to,” Roz agrees. “But he will want to.”
Troy looks back down at the bar, shoulders hunching instinctively.
“Troy.” He feels a big hand grip his shoulder, gentle and firm in equal measures. And he can’t help but look back up at Roz. “Trust me. He will want to know. And he will be good.”
Troy gives a slow nod.
Roz looks like he’s about to say something else, but his phone vibrates where he’s left it on the bar. His face lights up at whatever’s on the screen. As he stands to go, pocketing the phone before Troy can get a glimpse of the text, he says, “You good? Should I call Haasy over to tell you sweet boring stories about Switzerland before I go?”
Troy chuckles and shakes his head, waving a hand dismissively. “Fuck off, Roz.”
Roz grins brightly. “Yes. I will see you on the bus tomorrow, Barrett.”
As Roz starts to walk out, Troy calls over without looking, “Tell him that was an impressive bar down in the second period last night, by the way.”
He glances over to see Roz looking back, brow sky high, mouth working silently mlike nothing so much as a disgruntled catfish. A delighted grin slowly stretches across his face, though the look in his eyes reads as, This fucking stays between us.
Troy gives him a smirk and a slow nod. This whole fucking conversation stays between us.
Roz barks out a laugh, flips him off, and heads outside.
Troy turns back to the bar, grin fading as he nurses his beer. He knows therapy’s a good idea. Probably why he blurted it out. The thought of telling Harris, though, is terrifying.
***
July 2024
somewhere past Rigaud, QC
Troy doesn’t hate long car rides. He knows that some people find them boring—anytime the team has to travel by bus, the rooks (even though they’re all definitely not rookies anymore, they’re still the rooks in his head) turn into the whiniest bunch of punks imaginable—but he enjoys them. He enjoys the scenery, the gentle hum of the engine. He enjoys letting his brain turn off for a little while.
He mentioned that to Hollander once, who immediately became very concerned about whether Troy was safe to drive back to Ottawa from the cottage. Roz literally pulled him out of the room in mid-sentence.
He’s still aware of his surroundings, checking his mirrors, driving defensively. He’s not an idiot. But he likes the way his mind wanders, especially on something as scenic as the 417, from topic to topic without rhyme or reason. It’s relaxing, in an odd way.
So how’s he gonna tell you? Straight up? “It’s not you, it’s me?”
Usually.
Or maybe he’ll finally tell the truth. “This was fun, but it’s time for me to grow up. Thanks though.”
Not tonight.
It’s hard to think his next thought when each thought is some riff on why Harris flew back early from New York. It’s hard to let his mind wander while he drives when it keeps wandering back to well, this is it.
Three years, they’ve been together. Almost three-and-a-half. It hasn’t all been hugs and puppies which, Troy’s come to believe, is just a sign of how healthy it is. His relationship with Adrian had been mellow. Easy. Boring. Part of the reason he was so surprised when Adrian ended it was because they had fought so little. Troy’d thought that was a good sign.
He fights with Harris. They’ve fought about money. They’ve fought about sex. Once, they fought about kitchen utensils, which turned into a fight about money, which was somehow a fight about sex at its core. They’ve even fought about fighting, which ended when Harris realized Troy believed that any fighting was inherently unhealthy and straight up laughed at him. “Bud, I fight with you because I love you,” Harris had said, eyes twinkling, “because living with another person is hard. You’re worth fighting for.” He’d grinned. “And with.”
As much as fighting with the man he loves sucks, their fights are never fights like the way Troy’s mom and dad would fight. With Harris, it’s more like…like a grueling workout, he supposes. Not something you look forward to, but also not something you give up on halfway through, because the end result somehow leaves you better than you started. So, not all hugs and puppies.
Though, it’s Harris. There also have been a lot of hugs and puppies.
Hugs and puppies were never gonna stop the inevitable, fuckhead.
That’s why telling Harris about therapy had ended up being so easy. Harris, with none of the pity or judgement Troy had feared, revealed he’d been to therapy more than once. “Consequence of growing up in and out of hospitals,” Harris had said so nonchalantly that he’d instantly dispelled any of Troy’s worries about it. It’s why “fighting well” was so important to Harris; it was a tool he himself had learned in therapy. He never asked Troy about his sessions with Dr. Trish, but always held space for Troy to tell him whatever he wanted about them.
Giving you the tools to cope with his inevitable departure. Because he’s better than you, dipwad.
Troy’s eyes drift toward the Ottawa River as the 417 wends briefly closer to it again, the fading sunset reflecting off its rushing waters. Harris hadn’t been doing that.
At least, not intentionally. Right?
Troy sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. Thank you, brain, for protecting me and preparing me for the future, but I’ve got this. Harris cared about him. Cares about him. In hundreds of ways, big and small. He knows better than Troy knows himself and has proven it over and over again. Whatever the reason he’s back from New York early, he won’t be as callous as Adrian had been.
Troy breathes out, long and slow. Think your next thought.
***
May 2022
Ottawa
“Hey bud? You home?” Harris calls from downstairs over the noise of Chiron’s greeting barks.
“Yeah!” Troy calls out from their bedroom, toweling his hair off. “Be down in a minute!”
He can hear Harris coming up the stairs, though, even as he’s in the middle of pulling on a clean pair of shorts. Harris doesn’t stop at the bedroom door either, instead rushing in and giving Troy a huge hug.
“Oh!” Troy says in surprise, arms wrapping instinctively around Harris. “Uh, hi, babe. Everything alright?”
“Are you alright?” Harris asks, the sound muffled against Troy’s pecs.
Troy pulls Harris slightly away and looks at him, brow furrowed. Harris hasn’t been crying, but he does look extremely worried. “I’m fine, Harris. What’s going on? You’re scaring me a bit, babe.”
Harris gives him a wan smile. “No, I’m fine, I’m fine, I just wanted to make sure you—“ He cuts himself off, blowing out a breath. “You haven’t been on Instagram yet today, have you?”
Troy shakes his head. “Just got back from a long run. Why?” His heart beats faster. “What happened? Did someone die? Is—“
“No, no, it’s not—“ Harris looks up at Troy with a slightly sad smile. “I’m sorry. It’s probably not a big deal. I just wanted to make sure you were alright and be here if you needed me.”
Harris leads a very confused Troy to sit down on the edge of the bed. He fiddles with something on his phone for a moment, giving Troy time to admire just how beautiful his boyfriend is, even when he’s worried like this. “Okay, prepare yourself, bud,” Harris says, “and remember, I’m here for you.” He hands Troy his phone.
Troy stares at the picture Harris has pulled up for a moment. “Oh. Adrian’s wedding.”
Troy swipes carefully through the carousel. He knew it was happening—not just because that’s why Adrian dumped him in the first place, but because the tabloid coverage has been so thorough that even Troy, Internet hermit that he is, knew it was coming up. Interviews, pictorial spreads, countdown reels, brand collaborations. Whatever Adrian’s paying his publicist, it’s working. But even with all that coverage, Troy had still somehow missed that last weekend was the actual wedding day.
The bed creaks as Harris sits down next to Troy, wrapping his arms around him. “I’m sorry, babe. Are you okay?”
“Well,” Troy muses thoughtfully, continuing to swipe, “at least I don’t look like an emaciated cauliflower on my wedding day.” He stops on a picture of Adrian in front of the altar, raising his bouquet like an athlete lifting a trophy. “I mean, look at that pantsuit.” He swipes again to a close-up of Adrian, posing like he’s on fucking Drag Race or something. “The flare of those slacks makes him look like he has cankles.”
He feels Harris inhale sharply next to him. He turns his head to see his sweet, sensitive boyfriend with a look of absolute wonder on his face. “Troy Barrett,” he says softly, a huge grin slowly breaking across his face, “are you being catty?”
Troy flushes beet red, ducking his head in embarrassment. “I mean, uh—“
“Because the first thing I said to Gen when I saw that post was, ‘Those mid-thigh rose-colored ruffles on his white flared pants make him look like an angry jellyfish.’”
Troy bursts into laughter. “He does!” Troy giggles. “That flowy top makes him look like—“ And his hand imitates the motion of a jellyfish while he makes a sound that can only be described as mlorp glorp.
Harris buries his head in Troy’s shoulder, the sound of his laughter the most beautiful thing Troy’s heard today. Harris grips Troy’s face in his hands and draws him into a long, fierce kiss. “I love you so fucking much.”
“Love you too,” Troy says happily. He knocks his forehead against Harris’s. “You were really worried about me?”
Harris gives him a sheepish grin. “Yeah. I know how much he hurt you, and I just…yeah. Might’ve panicked a little bit at your reaction. Sorry.”
“No sorries. That was incredibly sweet of you. A year ago, you might’ve been right to worry, but now?” Troy gives Harris another kiss, slower this time. When he draws back, he looks right into Harris’s eyes and smiles. “Fuck that guy. I won.”
Harris smiles beautifully back at him. “Yeah,” he says. And after a beat, the smile becoming a smirk, he continues, “Especially because you’re not wearing so much blush that your face looks like a baboon’s ass.”
Troy loses it. “It does! It really does!” he gets out between peals of laughter. “Oh fuck, that’s such an awful look.”
“The venue’s not much better,” Harris laughs, reaching over to swipe back a few pictures. “Do you see those centerpieces?”
Troy squints. “Those are…grapes? Who the fuck puts grapes in a floral centerpiece?”
“Someone who shot for ‘expensive’ and hit ‘trashy,’” Harris muses.
“Adrian in a fucking nutshell.” Troy chuckles, swiping again. “Well, at our wedding, we’re not going to have fucking grapes on—“
He stops suddenly, his brain catching up to his mouth. He’d been having so much fun tearing Adrian to shreds, he had gotten lost in the moment and wasn’t thinking. He registers how still and silent Harris has suddenly gotten next to him.
Fuck.
They’ve never talked about this. Not really. They’ve only been dating for eighteen months, that’s not long enough to be talking marriage. And…
He needs to do better than you.
Anytime Troy gets even close to thinking about this, that little voice starts screaming in his head. Not just the usual song and dance about how Troy’s not good enough for anything. No, this is worse, because it’s true: Harris doesn’t deserve to be stuck with him forever. It’s the one topic he won’t bring up with Dr. Trish, because he knows what she’ll say, and he knows she’ll be wrong. Troy would marry Harris in a heartbeat, but every time he thinks about a ring on Harris’s finger, it looks more like a cage. He knows Harris will move on someday, find a man more worthy of all that he is. Troy will be here as long as Harris wants him. And after that?
Well. He’s gotten so much more happiness in the last year and a half than he’s ever deserved.
He steels himself and cautiously turns towards the silent Harris. Harris’s face is frozen, wide grin halfway to slipping off his face, tears in the crinkled corners of his eyes that might have been from the laughter but probably not.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
You’re too much for him.
No shit. How do I—
Harris rescues him, though, because of course he does. One hand gently lands on Troy’s, his frozen mask of a face melting into a soft smile. “No. Our wedding won’t have grapes on the table.”
Troy’s heart twists, but whether in hope or in sorrow, he deliberately chooses not to examine. Instead, he draws Harris into another kiss, Harris’s phone dropping from Troy’s hand to the floor, Troy stopping the conversation from going any further with his tongue and hands and teeth.
This Instagram sideshow of a wedding never mattered. Adrian lost the power to break Troy’s heart a long time ago. But Harris…
Even Troy’s broken brain can’t protect him from that.
***
July 2024
Ottawa
It’s dark by the time Troy gets to the rink.
Of course it fucking is. It’s 9:45 pm on a random Friday in the middle of July. No one’s even here, the dim security lights over Lot 6 illuminating the bare handful of cars presumably belonging to the few security guards on duty—and Harris’s truck. He parks next to it, exhausted from the drive and his spinning brain. At a certain point, he’d stopped trying to think his next thought, because every thought was harsher than the last.
If the inevitable’s here, there’s nothing to do about it. Worrying won’t help anyone.
It really fucking sucks when the voice that speaks in his dad’s voice uses his dad’s actual words.
Troy does his best to blank his mind by glancing over at Harris’s truck, idly wondering what’s wrong with it. Harris has had it as long as they’ve been together, but it doesn’t seem that old. Maybe it’s the transmission?
Troy knows nothing about cars. He’s just heard that’s something that goes wrong.
here, babe. parked next to the truck. take ur time
He drums his fingers lightly on the steering wheel, watching the three dots pop up that indicate Harris is typing. They stop. Then start again. Then stop again.
Troy cocks an eyebrow. Harris isn’t usually this careful about sending a text.
I’ll be another few minutes! comes the reply a full minute of dots-and-then-no-dots later. Come wait with me?
He’s avoiding you. Why would he want to come home with you?
He loves me. He literally asked me to come inside.
Troy blows a breath out. Even if this is the beginning of the end, he’s going to savor the time he’s got left. He’s tired. A little sweaty. A little down. Of course he’s gonna go wait with his fucking boyfriend.
He hops out of his car and starts heading toward the staff entrance. When he gets around the other side of Harris’s truck, though, he stops. And stares. At the life-sized chalk drawing on the pavement of the parking lot.
Of him.
What the actual fuck?
He recognizes the pose. An action shot from last season’s playoffs, right as he’s netting a goal—stick out, shoulders squared, face locked in. Harris called it his “Mona Lisa” moment and keeps a framed copy on his desk.
This is not a framed photo. It’s a chalk drawing. Like, in chalk. Someone drew that photo—a blown-up version of that photo—in chalk, on the parking lot, next to Harris’s truck.
Troy’s brain feels a little bit like it’s skating over rough ice.
There’s a trail of electric tea lights leading away from the chalk portrait, a flickering path leading toward the building.
That’s…interesting.
He takes his phone out. babe, whats with the chalk drawing and the lights??
He stares at the chat for a full minute, maybe two. The dancing dots never reappear.
Hmm.
With no other options, he follows the path of tea lights inside the building, doing his level best not to think his next thought.
***
May 2024
Ottawa
“Why do we need new pictures for the playoffs again?” Troy grumbles, tugging on the collar of his jersey.
“Directive from the front office.” Gen adjusts the lens for the third time since he sat down.
He tries and fails not to roll his eyes. “We just took new pictures before the season started. And before playoffs last year. Why can’t they just—“
“I don’t ask questions, I just do my job,” she bites back, seemingly doing everything she can to avoid looking at him.
Troy cocks an eyebrow. That’s unusual. Even the first time they met, when all she knew about him was that he was an asshole who’d been traded because he accused one of the league’s star players of sexual assault, Gen had been way more chatty than this. “Everything alright, Gen?”
“Fine, Barrett,” she responds in a tone that definitely does not sound fine. “Just sit there and it’ll be over soon, alright?”
He blinks and nods. “Alright.”
He sits on the stool, brow furrowed, as she snaps the camera with cold precision. After the requisite number of shots, she nods. “Done.”
“Okay.” He slides off the stool, lingering at the door before he leaves. “You sure you’re—“
“How could you be so selfish?”
He blinks. “Excuse me?”
She looks surprised—not at him, but at herself, like she hadn’t meant to say that. He watches the struggle play out on her face for a moment before she clearly decides, Fuck it. “You heard me.”
“I…did, but I don’t understand.” He spreads his hands in a gesture of helplessness, grasping at how he might’ve fucked up. “I’m sorry I was rude about the pictures…?”
She rolls her eyes, grasping the bridge of her nose. “That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.”
“I really don’t.”
“A promotion like that comes around once in a lifetime, I can’t believe you would—“
“Promotion?” He furrows his brow. “I didn’t know you were being promoted. Congratulations…?”
“Not me, dumbass, Ha—“ She stops, mid-syllable, at the confusion on his face. “Oh shit. You really don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?” His heart starts beating faster. He’s maybe not the most quick on the uptake, but even he recognizes the first syllable of his boyfriend’s name. “Did Harris get a job offer?”
Gen’s face goes pale. “Shit. No. I mean…shit, sorry, I didn’t—“
Troy turns and races out of the room.
He’s hiding something from you. He doesn’t trust you.
He charges down the corridor, past the confused Holmberg who’s waiting to get his picture taken next, then takes the stairs up to the offices two at a time.
Why would he want to celebrate a milestone with you? He’s moving on to bigger and better things.
He marches into the offices, past reception, past any other vaguely-human-shaped blob, his brain completely turned off except for one thought.
You’re not worth telling.
He throws open Harris’s office door without knocking.
Harris looks up from his computer suddenly, smile dropping instantly from his face. “Hi babe, what’s—“
“Why the fuck did I have to find out from Gen that you’ve been offered a promotion?” Troy shuts the door behind him harder than he intends to, chest heaving like he just ran a marathon.
Harris blanches a bit. “Troy, bud, take a breath. Are you alright? You—“
“Harris.”
Harris sighs. “Knew I shouldn’t have told her,” he mutters.
“Harris.”
“It’s not a promotion, Troy. It’s not even—“
“Then what is it?”
“It’s not even an offer,” Harris continues, talking over him, “it’s an interview. A potential interview from a headhunter.”
“For what?”
“It doesn’t matter, I—“
“For what, Harris?” Troy crosses his arms and stares him down.
Harris sinks back into his chair and blows out a breath. “Senior Social Media Director.” A beat. “For the league front office.”
“Holy shit, Harris,” Troy says, forcing himself to smile even as the bottom drops out of his stomach. “That’s…that’s fucking amazing!”
“No, it’s—“
“I mean, of course they want you, you’ve single-handedly put Ottawa on the fucking map, you’re so—“
“Troy, no, I—“
“—fucking good at what you do! I’m so fucking proud of you, babe, you’re—“
“I’m not fucking taking the job, Troy.”
Troy recoils at the anger in Harris’s voice, maybe angrier than he’s ever heard him. Harris just doesn’t get angry. Frustrated, sure, and annoyed. But angry?
Harris visibly calms himself down, releasing the tension in his shoulders and the death-grip he has on his chair. He looks up at Troy and gives him a small smile. “Sorry. That was…” He turns away. “Sorry.”
“No, Harris, I…” Troy sits down in the chair in front of Harris’s desk. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—“
Harris waves him off. “No, you’re okay.”
Troy waits a moment for Harris to collect himself. “Can I ask…I mean, that’s your dream job. Why not interview for it?”
Harris finally looks back at him, tears running down his face. Shit. Shit shit shit. “It’s based out of the New York office. I’d have to…”
You knew this would happen one day. He’s too good to stay with you forever.
They sit there for a few long moments, staring at each other through the vacuum of silence. Strangely, Troy doesn’t feel how he always thought he’d feel when this moment inevitably came. He’s not mad, he’s not sobbing.
He’s just numb.
Do one right thing in your life, fuckhead. You gonna be the weight around his neck? You really gonna be that selfish?
Troy forces himself up, out of the chair, around the desk. He pulls Harris to his feet and into as fierce and strong a hug as he can manage, hoping Harris will read it as comfort, knowing it’s more that he wants to feel as much of Harris as possible in the time he’s got left. “Take the interview,” he says into Harris’s neck.
“No, Troy, I—“
“Harris.” He pulls back. Harris looks miserable.
See? You ruin everything.
Troy gives him a smile, as bright as he can. It burns like a brand on his face, but for Harris, he can do this. “It’s just an interview. It’s not a commitment, it’s just an interview. You’re so good at what you do, so fucking good, and you deserve the best—“
Harris puts his hand on Troy’s chest and tries to break in, “I have the best—“
“You deserve the best,” Troy firmly says over him, “and you deserve to hear other people say that you’re the best.”
Harris looks at him with those big, beautiful eyes. “It’s really okay?”
No.
“Of course it is, babe.” Never has a lie been easier to tell.
“Okay.” Harris nods. “Okay. It’s just an interview. It’s not a commitment.” He chuckles, wiping a hand across his face. “If nothing else, maybe I can use it to get the owners here to give me a better salary.”
“There he is.” Troy holds Harris’s face in his hands for a moment, then pulls him back into another hug. “I am so, so fucking proud of you, Harris. I’m glad you told me.”
Harris just sinks deeper into the hug.
But Troy, numb as he is, can barely feel it.
***
July 2024
Ottawa
He follows the lights down the corridor, through the stairwell into the bowels of the complex. This is a very weird way to break up with someone, Troy thinks, or at least to tell them you’re moving away. Troy had thought of doing something for Harris as a sort of going-away present, because there’s no doubt in his mind that Harris would get the job. He’s perfect, and perfect for it. It’s the next logical step in his career. Why wouldn’t he take it?
So Troy’s been spinning his head for the last few weeks, trying to come up with something that would be as amazing a coda to Harris’s time in Ottawa as Harris himself is, even going so far as to ask the other coaches at the hockey camp if they’d come by their house tomorrow for a congratulations party. Roz’d nipped that in the bud, though, telling Troy about the joint brand thing that he and Hollander needed to get to right after the last day. Troy hadn’t had a chance yet to come up with something else. And now he’s out of time.
A life-sized chalk drawing had never been a part of Troy’s plan, though. Nor, truthfully, had tea lights. Beer and people had been the extent of his thought process, because party planning is not remotely in his wheelhouse.
Neither is whatever the fuck is happening in this hallway.
He follows the trail of tea lights slowly, heart beating faster. He knows this route like the back of his hand, walks it before every home game and the dozens of practices around them. The dressing room?
Sure enough, the trail of tea lights ends at the dressing room door. “Hello?” he calls into the darkened dressing room. “Harris? Are you—“
He rounds the corner and stops, inhaling sharply. Most of the lights in the room are dimmed, or off, but the light directly over his stall is shining Ike a spotlight. 17–Barrett, Troy, sparkles the familiar plaque at the top, but that’s where the familiarity ends, because his entire stall—top to bottom, side to side—is blanketed in photos. “Harris?” he calls out again, voice giving out slightly halfway through, eyes locked onto his stall.
It’s beautiful.
It should look like a mishmash of color, the chaos of a newsprint comic page used as wrapping paper, but of course it doesn’t because Harris—and this has to be Harris, the visual cohesion too well done for it to be anyone else—has arranged it just so. It’s breathtaking.
Troy walks towards it, slowly, eyes darting around the display, trying to take in every detail at once. The sheer number of photos strikes him, and as he gets closer, he can see they’re all of him. Him with Hazy, and Roz, and coach. Him on the ice in full dress, and another in just pads in the locker room. Him with kids at the hockey camp, and signing shirts in front of the Centre, and volunteering at the women’s shelter. Candid shots, too. He moves closer, his fingertips tracing one shot of him at a coffee shop, head ducked mid-laugh, sideburns longer than he’s worn in two years. Another is more recent, midday on the Rideau, his arms outstretched like he’s mid-pirouette. Hundred and hundreds of pictures, arranged so carefully, so artfully, that they tell a story.
He swallows roughly, blinking back the burning in his eyes. This is a very, very weird goodbye present.
At the bottom of his stall, there’s a single framed picture of him and Harris—the only picture of Harris in the entire display. It’s a selfie of the two of them at the orchard, but not one Troy’s ever seen. It takes him a moment to recognize the paint on his own face and the glitter strewn through Harris’s beard. The Halloween party last year, Troy thinks. The Drovers had had the whole team over, games and apple-bobbing and face painting for the kids, every kind of apple-based drink and dessert imaginable, outdoor karaoke and even an axe-throwing cage brought in from somewhere. Troy remembers thinking for the thousandth time how different Ottawa is to Toronto. How much closer. How much better.
In front of the framed picture are a pair of Troy’s skates with a red ribbon tied around them. Troy’s got half a dozen pairs of skates, the byproduct of playing hockey and life in a place that’s frozen solid five months of the year. He’s got his professional-grade Bauers that only ever touch NHL-level ice. He’s got a few CCM pairs for hockey camp and playing pickup games. Somewhere in the depths of his closet are the Grafs he used back in college.
These are the K2s.
***
December 2020
Ottawa
“Absolutely not.”
“No, really, my skates are just back at the hotel, let me go—“
“Troy.”
Troy rolls his eyes, exasperated at the cheerfully stern face in front of him. “I literally own skates for a living,” he says, a little lamely.
“And I’m not letting Wiebe chew me out because you messed up your $900 precision-engineered top-of-the-line hockey skates on some shitty canal ice.” Harris grins. “Plus, these have cute little beavers on them!”
Troy looks at the K2s in Harris’s hands, then out the window of the little shop they’re arguing in. It’s such a silly argument, he thinks, eyes tracking the groups of happy skaters making their way up and down the Rideau Canal. So silly. It’s only been…what, a week? ten days? since he got traded to the middle of fucking nowhere, and he deserves the awkwardness he’s gotten in the locker room and the stifling silence that suffocates his hotel room. He should’ve done more. He should’ve done it sooner. He should’ve been less of a raging asshole for the entirety of his career. That he still gets to be on the ice at all is a fucking miracle, so he’ll take the punishment of being sent to the NHL’s equivalent of Siberia and say thank you.
But this kind, cheerful, bearded little man is convinced that Troy needs to see his city. Convinced that Troy is worth showing his city off to. Troy can’t remember the last time someone was this openly, unguardedly nice to him. Certainly wasn’t the Guardians’ social media director. Fuck, does he even remember the Guardian’s social media director’s name? One more point in the asshole category.
But Harris—Troy doesn’t think he’ll forget Harris’s name, not if Harris himself seems to have anything to say about it—Harris doesn’t think he’s an asshole. Or, at least, he’s polite enough not to say it. So the least that Troy can do is go back and get his own fucking skates. It shouldn’t even be an argument. So what if most of his stuff’s still in storage because he can’t hear himself up to finding a more permanent place to live? So what if he’s been achingly lonely, dark thoughts constantly whirling through his broken brain since the moment he left Toronto? So what if the only time his head is clear is when his new team’s social media manager happens to be around? He can still go get the one pair of skates he has in the equipment bag wedged in between the hotel wall and his bed. Harris doesn’t need to—
He turns his head. Harris is already buying the K2s.
Troy chooses not to think too much about how he feels about that.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Troy grumbles when Harris comes back over.
“I invited you out to see the sights!” Harris says, eyes bright. “What kind of friend would I be if I left you on the side of the canal, cold and alone, bereft of my company?”
Troy opens his mouth to respond and gets stuck on one word. Friend. It’s been…a very long time since he’s had one of those. A real one, anyway.
“Now here,” Harris continues, thrusting the skates into Troy’s empty hands, “get these on.” His eyes twinkle. “I think you’re really going to like Patterson Creek.”
Harris walks away to start lacing up his own skates, but Troy stays at the window for a moment longer. He holds the K2s like they’re the most prized possession he owns, the garish red-and-yellow colour scheme an absolute nightmare to behold, the cartoon beaver waving at him excitedly from the toe of the boot.
Yeah. Definitely not thinking at all about what holding these skates makes him feel.
***
July 2024
Ottawa
Troy stares at the K2s at the bottom of the display in his locker. At the red ribbon tied around them. At the little note that says, Wear me!
This…doesn’t feel like a goodbye.
He sits, starts putting on his skates. The ice in the arena should be off for the summer, he thinks, pulling the laces tight on his right skate first, then the left. The PWHL ended last month. There was a concert here last week, and…what, like a monster truck rally in a few days? The Centre’s too valuable of a space to stay empty when the Centaurs are off-season. Of course the ice doesn’t stay on year-round.
So why is he continuing to lace up his skates?
He finds himself finishing his pre-game ritual, even though these aren’t his game-day skates, the locker room is empty, and the season doesn’t even fucking start for months. It’s just habit. He kicks the toe of his right K2 against the back of his left. Touches the nameplate above his stall. Looks back down at the picture of Harris.
Walks out into the hallway to the rink, heart beating as fast as it had during the playoffs.
The tunnel to the ice is plastered with posters. Hand-drawn, garishly-colored posters. Dozens. Most of them, but not all, clearly made by kids. Some have cartoon portraits of Troy, recognizable by his dark hair and the number scribbled on his jersey; they’re all similar, as if drawn off the same example. Others say things in huge block letters. “He’s so good at goals!” “Coach Troy listens really well.” “He’s the BEST coach.”
“I like that he’s tall.” Troy has to stop at this one for a minute.
These are from camp. It’s obvious, but entirely surprising. Hollander had told the coaches they were introducing an arts-and-crafts table “to practice manual dexterity” and “instill collaborative practices.” Troy had barely nodded along at that part; art is so far from one of his skills that he relegated that area of the camp to the bottom of his List of Camp Things, right after “emergency contacts” and “stocking toilet paper.” He figured that’s what Luca was there for.
He’d never considered this.
He touches Ava’s poster with reverence, and continues down the hallway. He can hear crowd noise. Somehow. He drags a hand through his hair, briefly considering the idea that he’s fallen asleep on the 417. The parking lot was mostly empty when he parked, wasn’t it? And it’s almost 10 pm on a Friday night that he knows the Centre has nothing scheduled.
But he can hear the crowd noise. Feel the chill coming from the rink.
He steels himself, and walks out of the tunnel.
The first thing he notices is that the ice is, in fact, on. The second thing he notices is that the arena is, in fact, empty.
The third thing he notices is the path of rose petals across the ice.
He stands at the lip of the rink for just a moment. The crowd noise is being pumped in through the speakers, pre-recorded from past games. They do this at practices sometimes, prepping rookies to listen for play calls over the din of the home crowd. Usually, though, the Jumbotron over centre ice is turned off. Right now, it says his name in big, block letters.
He takes a breath and steps onto the ice. Immediately, the crowd noise gets louder, deafening. But the feeling of new ice under his feet, even in the K2s, settles him. Whatever’s happening right now—and he is very, very consciously not thinking about what’s happening right now—falls away a little as his body settles into the familiar stance of skating. He never feels more grounded than he does on ice, any ice, doesn’t matter where. Even during the worst of Toronto, with Dallas muttering threats in his ear and the weight of everything he was hiding breaking his soul, the ice had been his happy place.
He skates a slow trail across the ice, following the path of rose petals from the players’ tunnel to one of the doors in the boards opposite. Someone’s laid rubber mats up the stairs, the trail of petals stopping at—
At the Drover family seats.
His breath hitches.
***
October 2023
Ottawa
“Incredible game last night, Troy!”
“Thanks, Sam.” After two years. Troy’s finally stopped stuttering over Mr. Drover’s first name, though he still hasn’t stopped thinking of him as Mr. Drover. He sets the pie down on the counter and crosses his arms. “And thanks for coming, too.”
“You really need to stop thanking us for coming,” Mrs. Drover—fuck, Marlene—scolds as she bustles by, taking a casserole out of the oven.
“Yeah, you’re not the only reason we have season tickets,” Anna says, popping past Troy to snag a butter tart off the counter behind him.
“Hey!” Harris swats her on the back of the head. “Yes he is!”
She dodges his next strike with a mischievous grin. “Nah. Ilya’s hotter.”
“You—“
Harris chases Anna out of the kitchen as the whole family, Troy included, laughs. It’s been a long time since the energetic chaos of the Drover household has overwhelmed him. It’s wholly different to how he grew up, but he’s learning—from Dr. Trish, and from Harris—that differences in family systems can be okay.
And he is very, very okay with this.
“They’re both right, you know,” Sam says while he slices bread on the counter.
Troy chuckles. “Yeah. You guys have had season tickets since long before I got traded here.”
“And proud of it,” Sam says resolutely. “It was one of the few things that got us all through Harris’s heart troubles. I don’t care how bad that team record gets, they’ll always get money from me. ‘Bout the only thing that made Harris smile for a while.”
Troy nods silently, face clouding. He doesn’t enjoy thinking too much about Harris’s childhood—partially because Harris doesn’t like to dwell on it, and partially because it just makes Troy so sad. The thought of little Harris, in pain, lonely, toughing it out just so he’d be healthy enough to see the Centaurs play? Well. Troy’s not made of stone.
“Though,” Sam continues conversationally as he slices more bread, Troy instantly recognizing the Drover-about-to-be-a-shithead tone that creeps in, “Harris has had a lot more to smile about lately.”
Troy’s face flushes, the way it always does when one of Harris’s parents pulls this. “I hope so, Mr— Sam.”
Sam gives him a sidelong look. “Almost gotcha.”
“Almost means not quite,” Troy banters back, parroting one of the Drovers’ own sayings at him.
Sam chuckles. “Be that as it may.” He scrapes the bread into a basket and hands it to Troy. “The number of seats we reserve has changed over the years. Down one when ma passed. Up two when the girls got married.” He locks eyes with Troy. “Wouldn’t mind adding one more. You know?”
He smiles softly and steps around Troy to take the rest of the butter tarts out to the table, leaving Troy to clutch the basket of bread like a lifeline, heart suddenly racing.
It takes him a moment to compose himself.
***
July 2024
Ottawa
Troy awkwardly climbs the stairs in his K2s. The chair next to Sam’s usual seat is wrapped in color, a cacophony of ribbons up the back and down the armrests. It couldn’t be clearer what Troy’s supposed to do.
He does his level best not to think about the fact that this seat is one in addition to the Drovers’ usual season tickets.
The crowd noise fades out as he sits down. The screens of the Jumbotron darken along with the lights. For a moment, all Troy can see is the afterimage of his own name and jersey number. All he can hear is the thudding of his own heartbeat.
Then.
“What do I admire about Troy?”
A voice.
“He’s a killer wing. Dude’s a beast.”
The Jumbotron fades in to show Bood barbecuing, the Centaurs partying in the background.
“He has this, like, sixth sense for where you’re gonna be on the ice. Fucking dream to play on a line with.”
Troy recognizes the technique. He’s been in dozens of Harris’s social media videos since he was traded to Ottawa: what’s your favorite sports drink, tell us your weirdest pregame ritual, hold this baby and try not to look uncomfortable. Harris tried to explain The Algorithm to him once and Troy’s eyes immediately glazed over. He’s very glad his boyfriend is good at “driving content” or whatever—the Centaurs’ popularity isn’t just because of the team’s win/loss record—but it’s as unfamiliar to him as a desert is to a fish. All he knows is that when Harris points a camera at him and asks a question, he answers it.
Except Harris isn’t the one who does those social media videos anymore, not since he was promoted to Comms Director.
And Troy’s never been the topic before.
He grips the armrest of the chair, thumb worrying one of the ribbons wrapped around it.
The video cuts to Hazy—not in Bood’s backyard. In a bar?
“Oh, Troy?” Hazy grins. “I really admire how much he’s grown.”
Troy’s stomach twists the way it always does when he thinks about Toronto. He tries to distract himself by figuring out where the bar is. Not local. Out west? American, maybe? When did he record this?
“It takes a big man to own your behavior, but Troy went further. Like, the number of voices he’s lifted up since he got here?” Hazy makes an impressed sound. “I’ve been in Ottawa longer than he has and I’d never heard of some these organizations before he posted about them. Like, did you know the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce did a study on the ‘Troy Barrett effect’? Every organization he promotes…”
Hazy’s voice fades away as he launches into a cheerful rant, gentle music underscoring the video as it continues.
“Troy Barrett is my best friend and a fucking cool dude.” Roz snaps and does finger-guns at the camera, standing on his back porch.
Beside him, Hollander rolls his eyes and sighs. “That’s not…I don’t think that’s what—“
“Is perfect!” Ilya retorts. “He is very cool. Sturdy. Stable.” He pauses for a second. “It sounds like I am—“
“You’re describing ice, not a person.” Hollander looks at the camera. “What I admire about Troy,” he says, glancing back at Roz in a way that suggests he’s ‘won’ the prompt, “is how fearless he is.”
“Being fearless is fucking cool!”
Hollander ignores his husband, ghost of a smile curving his lips. “I know— well, I don’t. I don’t know what it was like for him Toronto. But I do know it must’ve taken a lot of courage to call out Kent—“
“Fucking asshole.”
“—and just as much courage to come out.” Hollander ducks his chin a little. “If I hadn’t already proposed to Ilya, I think Troy might’ve been the thing that pushed me to be more open about our relationship.” He twines his fingers with Roz’s. “It was that inspiring.”
The two share a soft look. “You are a big sap, solnishko,” Roz says, eyes glittering.
The camera cuts to Haas, then Chewie, then Coach Wiebe. Then to Gen, and then to Janine at the women’s shelter, and then to Alicia, one of the moms at the hockey camp. Short clips of person after person after person, all of them talking about what Troy has done for them, or what they admire about Troy, or why they think Troy is a good person. Troy very nearly loses it when Sam and Marlene show up, and then again when his own fucking mom does. It is overwhelming.
The last clip is Harris. A selfie. In the background, Troy can see the hustle and bustle of a city. New York. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to end this video for months,” he says into the camera, slightly breathless as he makes his way around people on the sidewalk, “and I think I’ve run out of time.” Troy can see how Harris’s eyes are brimming, how big and bright his smile shines, and thinks, not for the first time, how beautiful this man is. “So, um, meet me down on the ice, and maybe you can help me figure it out?” He kisses the camera, and the video fades to black.
Troy’s eyes slowly drift down from the screen, following the line of the spotlight that fades up at centre ice.
Harris.
For a long moment, Troy can’t move. The phone call. Coming back early from New York. The chalk drawing, and tea lights, and his stall, and the K2s and posters and ribbons on an empty seat and that video. And now Harris, smiling patiently up at him, like he’ll wait there forever for Troy if that’s what Troy wants.
Troy’s hand trembles as he pushes up out of the seat. He grips the railing, making his way slowly back down to the ice, eyes locked on Harris the whole time, afraid that if he blinks, Harris will disappear.
Troy thinks, for the very first time, that maybe Harris won’t.
Troy glides slowly across the rink towards Harris, breaking through the line of rose petals to meet him in the spotlight at centre ice.
“Hi,” Harris says, eyes bright and shining and a little red.
“Harris,” Troy whispers. He can’t try for anything louder, he just can’t. “I…I don’t…why?”
“I think you know why, bud.” Harris smiles at him, eyes crinkled, head slightly tilted. He reaches up and cups Troy’s cheek, thumb gently stroking the little bit of stubble there.
Troy lets out a great shuddering breath, face crumpling even as he leans instinctively into Harris’s touch. Sweet, kind, beautiful Harris, who deserves everything. So much more than Troy could ever give him, even at his best, and Troy’s never once been at his best, especially not now with his heart racing and his chest heaving and two breaths away from losing it because he’s just not worth this, definitely not worth all this trouble, not worth the pictures and the signs and the video and turning on the fucking ice and—
“Hey.” The pressure of Harris’s hand on his cheek increases ever-so-slightly, just enough to ground him, bring him out of the spiral. He refocuses on Harris’s face, the crinkle at the corners of his eyes, the smile that hasn’t dimmed for even a moment. “Stay with me here, okay?”
Troy puts his own hand over Harris’s on his cheek, trying desperately to remain in this moment, and nods. “You’re supposed to be in New York.”
“I know. I came home.”
“Harris—“
“I tried.” Harris’s smile fades. “I did. Because you asked me to.”
“That’s not—“
“Troy.” Harris brushes a lock of hair off of Troy’s forehead with his other hand, studying his face. “You have to know by now I would do just about anything for you. You asked me to take it seriously, because you didn’t want me to resent you. And you were right. Even though…” He sighs. “The whole time I was in New York, the whole I time I was talking to Carrie about the position, you know what I was thinking about? This place. This team. My life here. And how I’m not done here yet.”
“But—“
Harris puts a gentle finger from his free hand on Troy’s lips and gives him a mischievous smile. “It was a great offer. Incredible. And maybe, in a different world, I might even have taken it. But in this world, the Ottawa Centaurs are the talk of the league. The talk of the whole sports world. Why would I want to leave that? Especially when…” He brushes the finger across Troy’s lips, down his jaw, resting his hand over Troy’s heart. “Especially when the reason I love this team so much is you.”
Troy’s breath hitches.
“I love you, Troy.” Harris’s bright smile shifts just slightly, eyes shimmering. “And I think that sometimes it’s hard for you to believe that. Because your dad taught you that people who say they love you will lie to you.” His thumb wraps up and around Troy’s, holding on tightly. “So I wanted you to see that it’s not just me. It’s so, so many people who love you, who think you’re worth it. So many that you can’t ever believe that it’s not true. And I promise—“ his voice drops a little, firmer, stronger “—I promise I will keep showing you that, overwhelming that voice in your head with so much love you won’t remember there was ever anything else.”
Promise. Harris is the type of man who keeps his promises. Troy’s chest hitches again, and the hand over his heart gently moves with him.
“And it’s just us here,” Harris continues, “because I know you get self-conscious.” His smile widens a little, his shithead-Drover smile. “Even though you came out about as loudly and proudly as I’ve ever seen anyone do, I know you don’t like when people stare. I’d shout this from every rooftop in Ottawa if I could, I would’ve done this in the middle of the fucking Stanley Cup, but that’s me. For you? It’s just us.”
Troy is openly sobbing now, trying desperately to control himself, knowing he doesn’t have to. This man—this sweet, bearded, best-in-the-whole-world man—knows Troy better than anyone. So well that this moment couldn’t be more perfect, even if Troy’s a mess. Maybe especially because Troy’s a mess.
“And we’re here,” Harris says, voice barely above a whisper, “because this is where you thrive. This is the place that brought you to me. This is where you’re home.” He takes a deep breath. “And I want my home to be with you.”
He gently pulls his hand out of Troy’s grasp and kneels down in front of him.
“Troy Barrett. Will you—“
Troy tackles him to the ice, careful of the blades of their skates, careful of Harris’s head, careful of Harris’s heart, twisting so that he lands on his back with Harris crushed on top of his chest and he’s laughing and sobbing and kissing him, kissing Harris, and it doesn’t fucking matter that the wetness of the ice is seeping through his shirt because he doesn’t feel the cold, he doesn’t feel numb anymore, he feels so fucking happy that he could burst because Harris isn’t leaving, he’s staying, somehow he’s staying and he’ll be here with Troy. With Troy.
In all his life, in all his dreary imaginings, in all the years of fighting with the little voice inside of him that told him constantly that he wasn’t worth other people’s attention in order to protect him from a world where people always leave, did he ever think he could be this happy.
And now he gets to be. Forever.
When it feels like the tears have ebbed and the laughter has calmed and he’s able to concentrate again, Harris is laying on top of him, fingers tracing idle whorls along Troy’s jaw, an amused grin in his bright, wet eyes. “I didn’t finish my question, you know.”
Troy laughs. “Fuck. Yes, sorry. Here.” He pushes them both back up into an awkward half-sitting half-kneeling position, the ice hard and wet under his knee, Harris’s leg still somehow on top of his foot, his torso braced against Harris, their hands tangled together in between their chests.
It’s absurdly uncomfortable and the only place Troy wants to be.
“Okay,” he says, grinning like an absolute fool, “ask me again.”
Harris grins back, breathtakingly beautiful. “Troy Barrett, will you marry me?”
“Yes!” Troy shouts almost before Harris gets the last word, sending Harris into a fit of giggles. “Yes, of fucking course I’ll marry you!” He tackles Harris again, more kisses and more laughter and fewer tears this time—though not none—and then growls in his ear, “Again. Ask me again.”
Harris looks up at him, back flush against the ice, wonder in his eyes. “Will you marry me?”
“I will never—“ he kisses Harris’s cheek “—ever—“ he kisses Harris’s other cheek “—get over hearing you ask that.” He kisses Harris’s forehead. “Yes, I will fucking marry you. I am the luckiest fucking—“ He breaks off, the tears suddenly flowing again.
Harris cups his face in one ice-cold hand and smiles softly, thumb gently stroking his cheek. “Me too.”
He draws Troy down into another kiss, slow, heated, and Troy pours into it every ounce of fear and worry and pain and regret that Harris has transmuted somehow into pure love. Because he sees Troy. Because he’s choosing Troy. Because he thinks Troy’s worth it.
Troy doesn’t think he’s ever felt so light.
He pulls back finally, forearms freezing where they’re braced on the ice, jeans soaked through. “I can’t believe you did all—“
“Can we fucking come out now? We’ve been waiting for fucking forever!”
Harris looks up at him apologetically. “I, um, did have some help.”
Troy chuckles. “You mean you weren’t able to run the Jumbotron and be down on the ice at the same time?”
“Well, I—“
Troy cuts him off with another kiss. Then, still staring at Harris with a smile, he yells, “Yeah, fine, come on out, jackass!”
Troy turns his head towards the visitors’ tunnel as Roz gleefully runs out onto the ice and tackles them, followed by Hollander and half the team, Luca’s cheeks smudged with chalk, Bood’s hands covered in papercuts, Hazy ambling down the stairs from the tech booth. “You fucker,” Troy laughs at the bottom of the loud pile into Roz’s ear, “you tricked me into doing so much fucking paperwork tonight.”
Roz waggles his eyebrows. “Worth it though, yes?”
Troy can only grin.
The celebration lasts into the night, the team swapping stories about Harris’s plan and how hard it was to hide it, what they each did to help, ragging on each other for who cried the most in the locker room while they were waiting. Hollander apologizes profusely for lying about the reason they left camp early; Roz pulls him away mid-sentence. Roz brags about being the reason the ice is on and tut-tuts when Harris explains his plan to pay Roz back for the expense. Harris FaceTimes his family at the orchard and tells the story to loud, knowing cheering; Troy does the same with his mom and spends most of the time crying on the line with her. On and on, a whirl of energy and laughter and kindness, Troy’s broken brain feeling a little less broken for now by the sheer amount of love Harris has surrounded him with.
And for the first time in a long while, that voice is completely, comfortably silent.
It is very late by the time Troy leaves the rink. With his fiancé.