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Sid kind of stopped giving a fuck after the second Cup win, and he turned thirty right after the third and decided his capacity for caring about anything other than hockey was officially nil.
It was a great feeling.
He fucked a bunch of guys that summer, pretty indiscreetly, and the rest of the time he trained, played golf with Nate, and received a series of inscrutable text messages from Geno.
“What does ‘you’re a snack’ mean,” he asked Nate.
Nate choked on his organic quinoa salad. “What the fuck? Who said that to you?”
“Geno,” Sid said. He scrolled down. “Then he said I’m a whole ass meal. There’s no punctuation in there, so I’m not sure if he means whole-ass or ass-meal.”
“Uhh,” Nate said. His eyebrows were climbing up his forehead. “Malkin’s texting this to you?”
“Yeah,” Sid said. “Why?”
“Who told him that?” Nate demanded. “How the fuck does he know that?”
“One of Gonch’s daughters, probably,” Sid said. “Does it mean something?”
“I’m staying out of this,” Nate said. “You can Google.”
Sid Googled. According to Urban Dictionary, Geno was hitting on him.
Well. Okay.
Sid had never turned over that rock because of all the many, many reasons it was a terrible idea to do anything with Geno that wasn’t directly proximate to hockey, but his summer of not giving a fuck apparently extended even to teammates. Geno was hot, he had been Sid’s work spouse forever, and what had been unthinkable when Sid was twenty or twenty-one seemed like the natural end result now. What was the worst that could happen? All of the dire scenarios he had lovingly envisioned crumbled apart like a really good croissant, the kind made with so much butter you could almost see the shine on it.
He texted Geno a peach emoji, largely to see what would happen.
Geno replied two days later, when Sid was lying on his couch debating the equally appealing options of jacking off or fishing.
U valid))
Urban Dictionary didn’t help him out too much that time, and anyway Sid was sort of losing patience with Geno’s weird Russian mating rituals. When are you back in Pitt?
9 Sept, Geno replied.
That wasn’t too far off. Okay. We’ll talk when you’re back
??)))
Get in Geno’s pants, Sid entered into his calendar.
+ + +
He considered that gauntlet pretty well thrown, and he didn’t worry when a couple of days passed after the 9th of September came and went. Geno was probably sleeping off his jet lag. But when he saw Geno at the golf tournament he expected a few meaningful looks, or maybe even a subtle pat to his ass when no one was looking, and instead he got the same Geno as always, flirting with no real intent behind it. He fondled Sid’s golf club, knocked his head against the brim of Sid’s cap, and wandered off to talk to Horny.
Maybe Geno had downgraded him from a snack to—what was smaller than a snack?
He tried again when the golf part was over. Geno was holding a plate of finger foods, strawberries pierced with toothpicks and little sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Sid hadn’t even realized there were hors d’oeuvres available. Geno loved free food and would pile his plate high even when he wasn’t hungry.
“You busy later?” Sid asked, real smooth.
Geno squinted at him. His mouth was full of mini quiche. “Busy?”
“You could come over,” Sid said.
“Uhh,” Geno said. “For what?”
Sid considered the possibility that Geno didn’t know what he had been texting to Sid all summer. On the one hand, Geno seemed very likely to call Sid a slut. On the other hand, Natalie Gonchar was growing up sneaky, and Geno’s grasp of English slang was limited to what he heard in the locker room. If Sid had to go on Urban Dictionary for it, Geno probably didn’t know it, either.
“Never mind,” Sid said, and Geno shrugged and speared another quiche.
No big deal. He would just have to be a little less discreet.
+ + +
The trouble with Geno was that Sid liked him. He showed up and worked hard, didn’t leave tape on the dressing room floor, and had made it blindingly evident over the years that he would back Sid up without question. He didn’t even make Sid pay any fines that he himself hadn’t administered. Loyalty was one of Sid’s favorite traits in a person. Geno was also funny, much smarter than he pretended to be, and he looked fantastic in a suit.
In other words, he was essentially perfect.
Sid was good at keeping his eyes to himself in the locker room, just as a basic survival technique, but he let himself start looking at Geno now. Geno mostly seemed confused at first, which supported Sid’s hypothesis about Natalie, and then surprised, and then, after a few days, shyly pleased. Geno had largely outgrown his shyness when he learned English, and seeing him turn pink and duck his head made Sid feel like they were kids again, only this time Sid was going to get what he wanted.
Geno’s pleased blushing was Sid’s green light. He upped the ante from some discreet locker room ogling to blatant staring in the showers, complete with careful tactical positioning. Geno always hit the showers before Sid did, out of his gear and into the change room while Sid was still suffering through a useless post-practice press scrum, which made it easy for Sid to situate himself at the next shower head over and drag his eyes along the entire soaped-up length of Geno’s body.
“Nice work today,” he said, staring at the frankly jaw-dropping curve of Geno’s ass. Hockey was full of good asses, and Sid considered himself something of a connoisseur, but Geno’s was remarkable even in the crowded field of the NHL.
Geno didn’t respond. Sid reluctantly tore his eyes away from Geno’s ass. Geno was flushed all the way down to his nipples. He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and met Sid’s gaze.
“You wanna come over?” Sid asked.
“I’m busy,” Geno said, which was a blatant lie. He was probably just going home to watch people play video games on YouTube.
So he wanted to play hard to get: that was fine. Sid could be patient.
He tried again a couple of days later. Jen had bullied Geno into talking to the press for once, and he was still undressing when Sid made it into the change room after his own scrum, standing at his stall and working his shorts down over his ass.
Sid stopped and watched, being as obvious about it as he could. Geno ignored him, but his ears turned red, which was a good sign.
“You looked great out there,” Sid said.
Geno stepped out of his shorts and straightened and turned to face Sid, his eyebrows raised challengingly. “Out there, or in here?”
“Both,” Sid said. He took a step closer, encouraged.
“Hmm,” Geno said. He moved in, looming suddenly the way he could, naked except for his shower slides, coming in hot and backing Sid up against the door, his hands braced on either side of Sid’s head.
This wasn’t really how Sid had imagined this going, but he wasn’t opposed. He set a cautious hand on Geno’s hip that became less cautious when Geno stared down at him and didn’t pull away. Sid could smell him, sweaty after skating, and the scent of it made his mouth water.
“You watch me,” Geno said.
Sid put his other hand on Geno’s other hip and tugged him in. “You don’t like it?”
Geno breathed in and out. His mouth was inches away from Sid’s, and Sid realized his heart was pounding, like he was nervous or something. Geno’s dark eyes dropped to Sid’s mouth and slid away, and darted back up to Sid’s eyes. “Sid,” he said quietly.
“Yeah,” Sid said. “I think you like it.”
Geno didn’t reply. He ducked his head to nose at Sid’s ear and then hovered there, breathing, probably waiting to see how Sid would react.
Sid felt like his whole body was made out of fire. He tilted his head to the side encouragingly, giving Geno more room to work. Geno rubbed his nose against the sensitive skin behind Sid’s ear, and then replaced his nose with his mouth, layering a few soft toe-curling kisses along the line of Sid’s throat.
Geno sucked lightly, and Sid was about to grab him for real and take full advantage of the empty change room when Geno pulled away and stepped back.
“Need to shower,” Geno said, a little bit sheepish, running a hand over his head.
“Seriously?” Sid said, pulse throbbing in his temples and his groin. “You’re just gonna—”
Geno grinned, showing roughly three quarters of his teeth. “Bye, Sid,” he said, and shuffled off toward the showers.
“Oh my God,” Sid said to the empty room. Geno was a tease.
+ + +
He held a cookout a few days later, before the season started. It was a good excuse to have Geno over; he couldn’t wriggle out of anything Sid pitched as team bonding. He had the A. He had to at least show up and eat a burger.
He showed up wearing those dumb camo jorts that Sid liked way more than he wanted to, and a Penguins cap jammed backwards on his head. Sid watched him take a lap around the back yard, filching crudités off everyone’s plates and saying something to Phil that made Phil’s voice rise in an outraged yelp. Business as usual.
Sid was manning the grill and wouldn’t abandon it even to pull some smooth moves on Geno. But he didn’t have to: Geno drifted closer, eating and yapping, and Sid caught his gaze and tilted his head in a come-here gesture, knowing that Geno would probably contrarily ignore him. Like a cat, he never wanted to come on command.
This time he did, although he took a long circuitous route to prove that he was only coming over because he wanted to and not because Sid had summoned him. He sidled in next to Sid at the grill and took the tongs from Sid’s hand and clicked them together a few times, grinning. “You need help?”
“I’ve got it under control,” Sid said, helping himself to a long look at the way Geno’s well-worn shirt clung to his shoulders and chest. He took his summer training way more seriously now than he had when he was younger, and it showed.
“Good, feed me,” Geno said, and relinquished the tongs.
Sid rolled his eyes. “Burger or hot dog?”
“Mm, hot dog,” Geno said, and stood right there to eat so that Sid was forced to watch as Geno expertly fellated the hot dog, bun and all.
“Taste good,” Geno said, after he had eaten the last bite, and flashed Sid a shit-eating grin and wandered off.
The party wound down as night fell. Sid took all of his grilling shit into the kitchen and found Geno in there scraping the last of the guacamole out of the dish with his finger.
“You’re disgusting,” Sid said, more amused than actually disgusted.
Geno sucked his finger into his mouth. He didn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed. “I don’t waste.”
“Well, help me clean up,” Sid said, which was Geno’s cue to invent some excuse about how he’d left the oven on at home. Sid had attended a lot of parties with Geno over the years, and he’d never once seen Geno do any cleaning up.
But Geno stayed. He helped Sid load the dishwasher and put leftovers away, standing too close, smiling a lot, brushing his fingers against Sid’s way more than he actually needed to.
Sid wasn’t made out of stone. There was only so much he could take. Geno was a flirt, he had been flirting with Sid for years without meaning anything by it, but he had sucked on Sid’s throat at the rink four days ago, and there was only one way to interpret that.
“Geno,” he said, and Geno looked over, a serving bowl in his hands. Sid got a generous fistful of Geno’s shirt and tugged him down, and slid his lips over the patchy stubble along Geno’s jaw. “Hey, G.”
Geno set the bowl on the counter and turned to face Sid. He cupped Sid’s face in his hands. He didn’t look like he was fucking around or teasing.
“You’re a whole meal,” Sid said. “You’re a buffet.”
“Sid, you talk too much,” Geno said, and lowered his head for a kiss.
+ + +
Sid had three Cups, and he had largely stopped caring what other people thought. He wanted to play good hockey, and he wanted to fuck Geno, and maybe do a lot of other things with Geno, like everything, the whole enchilada, as Phil liked to say.
“Come over later,” he said to Geno before their first game of the season, and Geno smiled at him, somehow both cocky and shy. They lost that game, but Sid texted Geno from the parking deck before he drove home: Come over
Geno came over, and they had sex for the second time, their hands on each other, kissing and kissing until Geno came with a groan and Sid pushed him over onto his back and rubbed off on him. Geno wrapped his arms around Sid’s neck and his legs around Sid’s hips and it had never been like this with anyone else, he had never felt the way he did when he was with Geno.
“How was that?” Sid asked after, when they had cleaned up a little and were lying tangled together, Sid’s head on Geno’s shoulder.
“Eh,” Geno said, and wobbled his hand from side to side.
Sid hid his smile against Geno’s neck. “You’re an asshole.”
“I don’t pump your tires,” Geno said. “You get Sully for that, he loves you, think you best player—”
“Please don’t ever talk about Sully when we’re in bed,” Sid said.
Geno laughed softly and ran his hands over Sid’s back. “Okay. I promise.”
Sid started to drift off, warm and close in the dark of his bedroom, but then he remembered the question he’d been wanting to ask Geno for weeks. He turned his head to kiss the cap of Geno’s shoulder. “You still awake?”
“Mm,” Geno said. “Little bit.”
“Why did you text me that stuff this summer?” Sid asked. “You know. That shit about me being a snack.”
“Gonch’s daughter tell me,” Geno said. “You know. Natalie.”
“Yeah, I figured that much,” Sid said. “But why?”
Geno groaned. “Sid, it’s late—”
“No way,” Sid said. Geno trying to wriggle out of talking about it was a sure sign that he was embarrassed, which was a sure sign that Sid was about to uncover the delicious mortifying truth. He pushed up onto one elbow and looked down at Geno’s face, almost totally invisible with the curtains drawn. “Tell me.”
Geno’s exasperated sigh made Sid grin. “She think I have—you know, crush. So she tell me what to text you.”
Sid’s grin widened. “A crush.”
“Okay, I’m tired, let’s sleep now,” Geno said, and reached up blindly in the dark to drag Sid’s head back down to his shoulder.
+ + +
Sid woke up first in the morning and went downstairs to make breakfast: turkey sausage, frozen blackberries that he thawed in the microwave, and pancakes, which Geno liked to slather with jam and fold in half like a taco. Geno had been curled on his side, drawn up into a surprisingly small huddle, and Sid had paused at the side of the bed to very gently kiss his temple and the curve of his cheekbone, feeling his heart melt like a pat of butter on a slice of hot bread. Geno deserved a good breakfast, and then maybe a blowjob before they had to leave for the rink.
He was plating the final pancake when Geno came into the kitchen, wearing a pair of Sid’s basketball shorts and nothing else, scratching at his belly. “Smell good,” Geno said, and came over to drop a kiss on Sid’s bare shoulder.
“The food’s ready,” Sid said. He turned his head to look up at Geno’s face. “And I made coffee, if you want some.”
“Good,” Geno said. His smile made Sid feel like he had hung the moon in the sky for Geno’s approval. “Let’s eat together.”