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"Yeah, I love you too, Luke. Thanks for calling," Quinn says as he hangs up the phone and leans back onto his couch. It's a cold, rainy day in Vancouver, and he has never hated the city more. A package from his parents sits on the coffee table in front of him, tape cut but still closed. A few days ago, his mom had called and mentioned sending it.
"I found some things in the garage that I thought you might want to have at home." She pauses for a moment, still shuffling through the shelves and swatting away spider webs. "Anything you don't feel like moving you can send back, but I know you've always liked having your stuff with you."
It's funny. Quinn has never thought of himself as a sentimental person. When cleaning out his grandparents' home, his brothers and cousins all had random books, trinkets, and dishes they claimed. Quinn said he didn't care about the stuff. He bought the house when it went up on the market anyways.
The box arrived last night, covered in fragile stickers and a shipping tracking label that must have cost a fortune. Quinn pulls it back in front of him and opens the flaps, peering inside. The first thing he sees is his old Michigan hockey sweatshirt with the hole in the cuff.
"Shit!" Quinn grabs at his wrist, letting the locker room door slam shut behind him. "Why the hell is there a nail sticking out of the handle?" None of teammates acknowledge the outburst, which while annoying, is not Quinn's biggest problem right now. He rolls up the sleeve, now with a hole in it, and looks over the gash on his arm. It's dripping slowly, getting blood all over his hand and the floor. Someone throws a wet towel at him as he opens the door again to go to the trainers' room to wash his hand off. Maybe it was meant to be helpful, but it just pisses him off more. "Oh, fuck off," he mumbles back into the room. The trainer finds Quinn ridiculous, rolling his eyes while slapping a bandage over the cut, telling him to be more careful, and shooting a text to the facilities team to fix the door.
Quinn turns the sweatshirt over, running his hand down the arm to find — the intact stitches. Not his, then. Luke's. The one that Quinn always preferred, a size bigger, fabric slightly different. The one Quinn thought Luke was just wearing on the phone. He wonders if that was intentional. If Luke switched them out the way he has every Christmas, rolling his eyes when Quinn pretends it was an accident. He shrugs it on, feeling something settle across his spine.
He reaches for the next item in the box. A photo of Jack, Luke, and himself at the lake the summer before he moved to Vancouver.
They pose for the photo at their mom's request. She's been taking the same photo of the three of them every summer, in the same spot, in the same order. Quinn always in the middle. None of them are wearing life jackets — now that Luke is sixteen, he doesn't have to anymore. Their parents hate it, but the boys have always been careful. Except for the fact as soon as his mom lowers the camera, Quinn pushes Jack off the dock.
"That's payback for stealing my shirt and then spilling food all over it!" Quinn yells through his laughter before jumping in almost on top of Jack. Luke's jump a few moments later is what breaks apart their pretend wrestling as they all get a face full of water.
After they settle, Luke grabs at Quinn's arm. "Can you please teach me how to drive the jet ski now? Mom said you could."
He laughs at the request. Neither Jack nor Quinn had to wait until they were sixteen to learn, but for some reason their parents insisted Luke couldn't drive the jet ski until he had his drivers license. "Sure, loser. But you're getting the keys."
Luke is back within five minutes, panting from his run up and down the lakehouse stairs. He hands Quinn one of the keys. Quinn hands back a life jacket and helmet. Before Luke can protest, Quinn says, "Not a question. I'm not letting you drive for the first time unprotected."
It turns out to be the correct decision as Luke hits a wave wrong, sending him flipping off the jet ski. He's fine, barely falling off before the kill switch kicks in and shuts off the motor, but Quinn still feels his heart in his throat as he watches it happen. They all wear their life jackets the rest of the summer.
He wonders if his brothers wore them this year. Quinn's not been able to visit the past couple of summers, always stuck with some not-mandatory-but-mandatory training to attend or a new rookie to welcome. As he turns over the photo to read what he knows is written there (the boys 2019), he gets hit with the feeling he's never quite able to describe. Where pride — in himself, in his family — starts feeling a little like grief. He misses his brothers. No one told him what it would be like when his siblings started to have entire lives without him. It's weird.
He laughs at the next item. It's from a mindfulness exercise they had to do in the NTDP, back when Quinn was nothing more than a kid with a dream.
It's the third week in the Program, and Quinn has never felt this tired. The late nights and early practices, mixed with an intensity he's never experienced from the coaching staff, is wearing him down. So now, sitting in this conference room as a lady gives a presentation on the importance of setting goals and visualizing success, Quinn rolls his eyes. His every movement is controlled, careful eyes analyzing his body as the team changes in the hallways, food portions measured out to the exact gram, weekly check-ins that feel a lot like sitting in a courtroom. His current goal is to survive the season without ending up hating hockey.
"Now, what I'm going to have you do is write out what you want life to be like in five years," the woman says, passing out little strips of paper and tiny boxes. "Really picture yourself achieving these things as you fold up the paper and put them in your box."
Quinn isn't sure he believes in manifestation or fate or anything bigger than himself. He's not willing to risk it though. He writes.
Now, beyond the five year mark, the box still hasn't been opened. He doesn't bother reading it; too much of his time in the program is tainted with the shit they had to go through, and he doesn't want to read how naive his younger self had been about how his life would turn out. Maybe one day.
Another item, this time a hat Jack gave him. Quinn was wondering where it had gone. The logo is unfamiliar still, and he reaches for his phone to look it up. Quinn can't help but feel bad for forgetting.
The Hughes family has a tradition of going to a new restaurant the first weekend of August. No maps allowed, just flipping a coin at every intersection and driving in the direction it decides until they arrive at a restaurant. Sometimes they end up two hours away, and sometimes the food sucks, but it doesn't matter, because they are together. It's August again, and Quinn is with his brothers in New Jersey.
"Okay, boys! You know what time it is?" The three of them are piled into the car - Jack driving, Quinn in the front seat, and Luke in the back, sitting in the middle seat and blocking the rearview mirror from being remotely useful. Quinn actually has no idea what time it is.
Jack hands him a coin and smirks at him from across the center console. "You may have moved across the country from us, but you can't escape the coin."
Quinn laughs, but it comes out strangled. He is the oldest, the one who should remember the traditions and carry them out. He doesn't say anything other than, "Crank the car, dude," and flips the coin. They land at a steakhouse in Livingston after an hour of Luke and Quinn taking turns to see who could flip the coin in the air more times before it landed. Everything feels simple in a newly unfamiliar way.
Quinn pulls out his first ever hockey goal puck next. It's from nearly two decades ago, when he was on a team with people he can no longer remember and skates he couldn't tie himself. He remembers the feeling though. How his coach gave him a pat on the helmet and his teammates tapped their sticks against the boards. Throughout the rest of his hockey career, Quinn has tried to hold on to that feeling. He pushed himself, hard, always chasing something that feel the same. It's a memory that's remained virtually untouched by the grey that has followed Quinn into adulthood. The puck though? That's a different story.
"You don't have to act like you're excited."
Quinn looks up from the open suitcase at his feet, a stack of badly folded t-shirts balanced on one arm. "Luke, what are you talking about? I am excited."
"I know." He's leaned on the doorframe with his arms crossed tight, almost like he's giving himself a hug. "I mean you don't have to act like you're not sad too."
Quinn lets out a quiet scoff as he uncomfortably answers, "I'm not acting like anything."
"I'm just saying, you're leaving in two days and everyone keeps talking about how cool it is that you're going to Vancouver and how crazy it is that you're in the NHL, and no one talks about…" He waves at the room nonsensically before crossing his arms again. "The rest of it."
"It's a good thing."
"I know."
"So, what's the problem?"
Luke shrugs helplessly. "It feel like every time something amazing happens to you, you leave. It was weekends away, then the development team, then Michigan." He pushes off the door frame and walks further into the room. "I'm so used to getting to see you at least a few times a month, and now you're leaving me for real."
Quinn doesn't know what to say. He tries, "I'll still come home."
"It's not the same."
"I'm still your brother."
"That's not what I mean! Why do you always have to have an answer?" Luke's voice rises for the first time. "Why can't you just admit that this sucks?"
Quinn's frustrated now, abandoning his packing to fully stand and face his brother. "This is my job, Luke. I've worked my whole life for this. I thought you were happy for me."
"I am!" His voice cracks, "I'm happy for you and I'm mad at you and I'm going to miss you, and I don't know why those things can't all be true at the same time."
"You think this is easy for me?" Quinn's voice is sharp, the syllables wound tight around his tongue. He's still trying to not hurt his brother's feelings.
"I think that hockey always wins! That you would choose it over everything and everyone else!" Luke picks up the closest thing to him and tosses it at Quinn. It hits him in the shoulder and drops onto the carpet with a thud. Both of them stare at the puck on the floor.
The words Luke threw his way hurt more than the puck did. Quinn opens up his mouth, searching for a way to explain the sacrifices he's made to get to this moment.
Luke cuts him off. "Shit, Quinny, I wasn't trying to hit you."
He picks the puck off the floor, rubbing his hand over the rubber edge and the tiny signature he left. He watches the look on Luke's face — the anger gone, replaced by panic morphing into regret, then sadness. Quinn knows if he throws the puck back, no matter how gently, he'll spend the rest of his life wishing he hadn't. He turns away and channels every part of anger, guilt, and fear that has nowhere to go into his arm as he hurls the puck into the wall. It slams into the drywall, making them both jump before it clamors to the floor, a fresh chip carved into the edge.
"I didn't…" Luke is crying now, voice barely loud enough for Quinn to hear him. "I didn't mean it; I'm sorry."
Quinn keeps staring at the wall. "I know."
Years later, Quinn is sure Luke doesn't remember the argument. He knows he didn't mean it then, wouldn't mean it now, but sometimes, he can hear Luke's words still cutting through the air. Still feels like his success is weighed down by the fact he found it across the country in a space that had no room for anyone but himself. Luke, who looked up to him and followed in Quinn's footsteps all the way to Michigan, couldn't follow him here. Quinn was used to being independent. He was getting used to how that independence was isolating.
The last thing in the box is exactly what Quinn would expect his mom to send. A notebook he hauled around his entire high school years. It matches the ones that still live across his shelves, on his nightstand, and tucked into his bag. The team chirps him all the time for pulling out his notebook to jot down random recommendations, schedule changes, and gameplay reviews. Quinn has learned over the years that his memory is terrible, probably a product of one too many concussions or some undiagnosed ADHD. If he doesn't write something down, it quickly slips his memory. While he's certainly just as bought into the digital world as anyone else, he can't refute how much he appreciates having a physical notebook. Quinn flips through it, smirking at the things his sixteen year old self felt was important. One page is worn thinner than the rest, dogeared and starting to rip. It's a schedule of sorts, but it doesn't make any sense to Quinn years later.
pick up Jack from practice T/Th/F/S
Luke - Games on Wednesdays and Sundays @ 530
mom works late on Fridays and dad has to go to colorado every other week
The graphite on the page is smudged terribly from being thumbed across hundreds of times. Quinn remembers flipping to it all the time, making sure he know where everyone was going to be. His own life shifted ever so slightly to fit in time to support his brothers. It was hard, even then, with Quinn juggling scouts, practices, and games. He did what he could. He still does, in some ways. The Devils schedule saved in a separate calendar on his phone; Newark in his weather app. Even when his brothers' stopped being at home, they didn't stop being his home. Quinn thinks about leaving Vancouver sometimes, when the locker room rifts get extra nasty or he's feeling particularly alone. He's considered how he could go back to being "The oldest Hughes boy," roped in with his brothers as a unit, do not separate. It's not realistic though. Even in the worst moments, Quinn knows it would hurt less to let go of being the perfect older brother than to give up the rest of himself.
A piece of paper falls out of the back of the notebook as he closes it. Folded carefully, a scribbled p.s. open me! on a post-it note on top.
Quinn smooths it flat and takes a deep breath that comes out a little shaky.
Jack and Luke's handwriting sprawls across the page, the different colors competing for attention and leaving behind a mess of doodles and exclamation points.
We will call you, but you're a sap, so sent this to mom to add.
Wish you were here, we really do miss you.
Happy Birthday, Quinny. Love you.