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When Jack signs his contract, it’s him and Georgia and his agent and a woman from PR in the room. His parents wanted to come with him, but he had to do this on his own.
His signature looks strange against the white paper. Too stark, too real. Six years after his entry draft, and here he is, signing with an NHL team. Everyone shakes hands, and his agent bustles off to somewhere else he has to be, and the PR lady—Amanda—clears her throat.
“I don’t ask to pry, Mr. Zimmermann. But speaking from a PR standpoint, I’ve come to realize how beneficial it can be to have to have a backup strategy in mind, in case of some sort of foreseeable issue. So if you do think there’s anything we should be aware of, anything that could impact your career, it’s best that you tell us now.” She exchanges a look with Georgia which Jack takes to mean that they’ve seen things.
“You know about the, uh, rehab?” Jack asks. Pretty much everyone knows about the rehab, but.
“Ah,” Amanda says, and blushes. “Yes.”
“It wasn’t illegal drugs,” Jack says awkwardly. She might already know, Georgia certainly does, but he really doesn’t need his new team to worry about his fictional cocaine problems. “And I don’t have those issues anymore.”
“Right,” Amanda says, and taps away on her laptop. She glances at Georgia. “Anything else?”
He thinks of his signature on those papers. It’s happened, he’s safe. They can’t turn him away, now that he’s signed, and that’s the only fact that gives him the courage to open his mouth. “You should probably know I’m married,” he says in a rush.
“I’m sorry,” Georgia says slowly, like she thinks she misheard him. “You said you’re… married?”
Amanda raises her eyebrows and taps something onto her keyboard. “That’s good to know, Mr. Zimmermann, but I’m sure you know that many of our players are married.”
“Right, but this is… different.” Jack says.
“Jack,” Georgia says, “Why did you never mention this before? Do I know your wife?”
“I’m sure you do,” Jack says carefully, “Only… it’s not a wife. It’s Kent Parson.”
…
Jack is politely asked to wait in the conference room while Amanda goes to breathe into a paper bag and Georgia goes to scream into a sink full of water.
Or, at least, Jack assumes they’re both doing something like that based on the way they blanched once they realized that he was very serious about being married. To a man. Who is also an NHL player.
Jack drops his head onto his folded arms.
Amanda returns with a mug the size of her head, and Georgia returns with a paralegal named Steve.
“Look,” Jack says, before everyone even finishes sitting down. “I realize this is… not ideal. But I would really appreciate it if you could keep this to yourselves. The only people who know are me and Kent, and I think I can speak for both of us when I say we’d like to keep it that way. The only reason I really told you is that I’m going to be filing for divorce, and I thought that this team had a right to know because it concerns another team. Well, sort of.”
“Wait,” Georgia says, as Paralegal Steve starts muttering to himself and typing frantically, “You just told us you were married, and now you’re getting divorced?”
“I didn’t just get married,” Jack explains. “I’ve been married since 2009. But I don’t want to be married anymore. So I’m filing for divorce.”
“And where did this marriage occur?” Paralegal Steve asks.
“Um, Toronto. Ontario.”
There’s more furious typing, before Paralegal Steve says almost sadly, “They have the certificate on file. It’s real.”
“I know it’s real,” Jack says patiently. Or, well, he’s trying to be patient. He doesn’t think about his marriage much, and it’s freaking him out, too. Twenty-four and a divorcé. “If it wasn’t real, I wouldn’t need a divorce.”
“Okay,” Georgia says firmly. “Because this is potentially newsworthy, I’d like to keep this in-house. I’ll ask our lawyer to handle this if that’s alright with you, Jack. In the meantime, I’ll get the Aces on the phone, and ask them to fly their legal team out with Kent. I think it will be easier to have everyone sit down together and hash this out and sign the papers all at once rather than faxing documents across the country all year. If we do this right, this will be over before the season begins. Agreed?”
Jack nods. Amanda nods. Paralegal Steve is still typing.
“Excellent,” Georgia says.
…
It’s easier to get Kent to agree to fly to Providence, Rhode Island, than Jack would have expected. This might be partly because he’s already back in Buffalo with his family after the Aces fell out of the playoffs in the Western Conference Finals.
They meet two days after Kent’s birthday—his only condition in coming down to Providence, that it be after the Fourth of July.
Jack expects it to be awkward to see Kent again, and it is, a little. Their last meeting didn’t go well, and neither did the one before that. One of those was mostly Kent’s fault, the other was almost entirely Jack’s.
They’ve never talked about their marriage together. A month after it happened, they were suddenly living across the country from each other and Jack stopped answering his phone when Kent called. Even when Kent was begging Jack to come to Las Vegas, he didn’t bring up their marriage. Jack is suddenly very aware of that.
Kent and his lawyer—the Aces’ lawyer—are the only ones in the room when Jack arrives, and the lawyer is in the corner on his phone, looking tense.
“Hey, Zimms,” Kent says, when Jack sees him. He stands, like he wants to shake Jack’s hand or hug him, but he does neither. “Um, congratulations. On signing.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Jack says, and doesn’t know what to say next. Does he apologize for the divorce? Kent doesn’t look that upset, but Jack knows better than anyone how well he can hide his hurt.
They both sit back down, after a long moment of silence. With the table between them, Jack feels so far from Kent that they may as well still be on opposite sides of the country.
Georgia throws open the door with a face like thunder, a brisk looking woman in a suit trailing behind her. They both exchange significant looks with Kent’s lawyer, who suddenly hangs up his phone mid-conversation.
“What?” Jack asks.
“There’s been a complication,” Georgia says, and drops into the chair next to Jack’s.
Jack meets Kent’s eyes over the table. “What does that mean?” Kent asks slowly.
Georgia blows out a breath. “As you may know, the NHL is currently embroiled in a player safety lawsuit. Last night, the league released a few thousand related emails under orders from a judge in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, this was one of those emails.”
She slides them both a piece of paper. Falconers GM to Aces GM. The body of the email is a discussion of a recent fight between two players, an inquiry about the family, a standing invitation to golf.
“Christ,” Kent says.
Below the signature: P.S. Just got word of the Zimmermann/Parson marriage. Please call so we can discuss in person.
Jack can feel the blood draining from his face. He blinks, and reads it again, but the words are still there.
“Mr. Sanderson is incredibly apologetic and embarrassed,” Georgia says, looking down. “Obviously, he believed this was a private note and that nobody else would ever read it. But the fact remains…”
“Thousands of people have read this by now,” Kent says, as Amanda pushes open the door. She looks frazzled.
“Yes,” Georgia says softly.
“There have been articles written,” Amanda says. “Marriage certificates are legally in the public records, and after the emails were released somebody went out and found yours. No less than ten major news outlets are already running this story.”
Jack tries to focus on his breathing, because he absolutely cannot have an anxiety attack right now. He meets Kent’s eyes again, and sees the moment that Kent realizes that he’s going to have to handle this, because Jack can’t.
“So what do we do now?” Kent asks.
“We believe that there are two real options here,” Georgia explains. “Of course, if you wish to continue with the divorce process, we will all assist you. It can be done by the end of the day. But…”
“But we’ve already been outed, either way,” Kent says bleakly.
Just breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
Amanda clears her throat. “I think it’s my responsibility to warn you, the publicity of a divorce could be very bad for your careers. With people following this story, there’s no chance it would be missed, and filing for divorce at this point could be perceived as a publicity stunt, or make you both look immature and irresponsible. At worst, it could appear homophobic. I understand that it isn’t fair, but it’s July. This is the only news in hockey at the moment, and people will ride this story for all it’s worth.”
She takes a deep breath. “My professional advice to you both would be to postpone the divorce. If you wait even a few months, the story can be buried by real hockey news once the season starts. Better yet, wait until the midst of playoffs when it will be the last thing on anyone’s mind.”
The room is deadly quiet.
Kent’s lawyer clears his throat. “I want to make it clear that there are no legal obstacles to the divorce. You’ve been living apart for more than a year, which is cause in Ontario. With no custody issues and no shared finances or property, the separation agreement should be fairly simple. We could even have it drawn up today and you can both wait to sign until you agree that you’re ready.”
“We’ll give you both a moment to discuss this,” Georgia says, when it’s clear that nobody else is going to speak. “Again, the Falconers organization is incredibly sorry for this. We want to make it clear that we support you both, and Aces management said the same when I spoke with them. Whatever your decision, we’ll do our best to help you through this.”
…
Neither of them speak for a very long moment. Jack once would have known what Kent was thinking just by glancing at him, but now when he finally summons the courage to look up, Kent’s staring unseeingly at his hands, face like stone.
“I’m sorry,” Jack says finally, and Kent jolts.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, Kent. This whole marriage was my idea. And now…”
“That’s stupid, Jack. We both did this. And now we’re both going to have to deal with this so…” Kent raises and drops one shoulder. “I obviously wish this hadn’t happened, but it did. So what are we going to do now?”
Jack closes his eyes. He’s already starting his career as a draft drop-out with a substance issue—he’s not eager to start it as one of the first out men in professional hockey, too. But that choice has been taken from him.
“Why didn’t you ask for a divorce before?” Kent asks softly. “I’m just. I’ve been wondering. I figured it was coming, I just figured it was coming years ago.”
Because he didn’t want to have to tell his parents. Because it was easy to forget that he was married when he didn’t see his husband more than once every few years. Because Jack used to take the ring out of the drawer and slide it onto his finger when he couldn’t sleep.
“Why didn’t you?” He asks, instead of saying any one of these things, any one of the other paltry excuses he’s come up with laying in his own bed, staring at the ceiling this past week.
It’s barely a real marriage. They were only together for a month after it happened. Only for those thirty-four days, plus a few more.
It could be undone so easily. It could be like it never happened.
It doesn’t really change the fact that somewhere in the world, there’s a piece of paper with both of their names signed at the bottom.
Certificate of Marriage.
It’s not as if Jack can just blame Kent.
“I’ll do anything,” Kent had said, trying to convince Jack he meant it when he said that nothing would have to change between them after the draft. “I love you, Jack, I’m not going to leave you. How can I prove that to you?”
“Marry me,” Jack had said, and in the morning he’d been too ashamed to tell Kent he’d only said it because he was drunk. In the morning, Kent was still wearing the thread Jack had tied around his finger, so he’d remember.
They did it in Ontario, on a night off from a road trip a week before they won the Memorial Cup. Kent did his research, and getting married in Quebec was an arduous process, but it was easy for them in Toronto. They were over eighteen, and when they went to the courthouse to sign the papers, the clerk served as their witness.
Jack bought both rings, because Kent didn’t have the money and because Jack begged him not to tell his mother and so he couldn’t ask for it. They were simple, just two gold bands. Kent slipped his onto the chain around his neck when they left the hotel the next morning. Jack kept his in a ring box in the back of his nightstand drawer.
Even at Samwell, Jack kept his ring in the back of his nightstand drawer.
It’s easy to want to be divorced. It’s easy to know that it’s the right decision, certainly for Jack, probably for both of them.
But it’s harder than it should be to finally do it after all these years, when Kent is six feet away and looking at Jack like that across the table.
“Because you said you didn’t want to hear from me,” Kent says. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t listen to that. I’m sorry that I came to see you, Jack. I just…” He shakes his head, doesn’t finish.
“I know,” Jack says. “I get it, I mean… I forgive you. And I’m sorry I cut you off. I know it must have seemed cruel.”
Kent looks at him then, in what feels like the first time in years, since they were standing across from each other and saying ‘I do.’ Like he sees Jack. It’s terrifying.
“Christ,” Kent says finally. “This could have been done a week ago. I really should have skipped my birthday party.”
…
“So, have you decided what you’d like to do?” Georgia asks them, when she returns. It’s been almost an hour, but they haven’t moved. They’ve barely spoken.
Kent reaches up and touches his chain, an old, familiar stress gesture. He wears his St. Christopher’s medal on it, and his wedding ring. Or at least, he used to. Maybe things have changed.
“Whatever Jack wants,” Kent says finally. “I’ll do whatever Jack wants.”
Jack swallows. He feels as though his world has been ripped apart, and yet Kent has so much more to lose: even if things go badly for Jack, he has both his parents, his Samwell friends. Kent’s whole world is in Las Vegas, and losing the respect of his team would kill him. He’s an establishment in the league, and Jack’s career hasn’t even started. It won’t be easy, to start this way, but Kent’s so far up on a pedestal that the fall could kill him.
“Let’s stay married,” Jack says. Kent’s eyes close in what Jack can recognize as relief, and he’s almost proud that he made the right decision, that Kent agrees. “At least for a little while.”
…
Kent gives the press conference, because Jack is still shit in front of the media.
He looks confident when he sits behind the microphones, wearing a nice suit, hair tamed back. He very carefully reads the announcement they’d drafted up with Amanda, and only the way he tugs at his chain belies his calm exterior.
Yes, we’re married. No, we’re not ashamed. Yes, I’m gay. No, I don’t believe that this will affect my game.
Jack would be trembling up there, especially once Kent has to start fielding questions, but Kent answers them all coolly and sticks to the party line and Jack has never appreciated him so much.
“Will you be requesting a trade to play with your husband?” One journalist asks him. Husband.
“No,” Kent answers. “I’m very happy in Las Vegas with the Aces, and I believe we’ve built a great team and will continue to contend in the future. And the Falconers are, of course, extremely lucky to have Jack with them, and I know he will be a great addition to their team.”
“Are you aware that you’re the first players to come out as gay in the NHL? How does that feel?”
“We both recognize that it is a big step and that we have come into the public eye because of this, but there is nothing wrong with being gay and there is nothing wrong with our marriage. If we can help other hockey players or fans accept themselves for who they are, that’s something we would be honored to do. We’re proud of our relationship and we know that we have the full support of both of our teams.”
“Why did you hide it for so long, then?”
Kent sighs. “We did not hide our relationship because we are ashamed of it. Jack and I both enjoy leading private lives and ask that fans and media respect that so we are still able to do so in the future.”
“What will happen when you play each other?” Someone pipes up from the back.
“What always happens,” Kent says, and laughs a little. He looks charming, easygoing. “We value our relationship, but we are both professional hockey players and our careers are very important to us. When our teams meet, we will play as we do in every other hockey game.”
Finally, Amanda ushers Kent out, even though the reporters keep shouting after them. Kent walks into the room a moment later, eyes wide and panicked, looking almost nothing like the man who had just been on the TV screen. “That was good,” Jack says lamely.
Kent collapses into a chair. “That wasn’t even the hard part,” he mutters darkly. “Now we have to talk to our parents.”
…
Jack’s always nervous before going into a new dressing room with a new team, but he’s never felt like this before. This time, he’s not only the new guy, a rookie six years too old. He’s also the gay guy.
The married, gay guy.
He almost wishes Kent was still here to take the heat off of him like he’s been doing for the past month—taking every phone call, answering every interview question, standing next to Jack when he had no choice but to speak—but he has his own camp to report to, back in Vegas, and Jack has to do this on his own. It’s time he started to learn to handle this without Kent, because in six months, he won’t have him anymore.
Everyone’s quiet while he finds his stall, settles his stuff in, but it doesn’t seem like a hostile silence. At least, he thinks not.
Finally, Mashkov comes over and claps him on the back. “Welcome to team, rookie!”
“Yeah, um, thanks,” Jack says. He can’t tell if Mashkov is being nice because he’s wearing the C, or because he’s actually nice. He seems nice. He’s also Russian, which might mean he’s not okay with gay guys, or might have nothing to do with it.
“Your husband is telling you about me, yes?” He says cheerfully. Well. That answers that. “I play with Parsnip rookie year, we very old friends! He never tell me he married, though. I’m call him and yell, later.”
Jack doesn’t really know what to say to that—Kent hasn’t said anything to him about Mashkov, because Kent and Jack don’t speak.
Didn’t speak.
“Parson’s a good dude,” Robinson says. “And it sucks, that you guys were outed like that. Just saying. And there won’t be any problems in this dressing room, right guys?”
There’s a low murmur of assent.
“Guys might be assholes out there, but we’re all good with it. Let us know if there are any problems, and we can teach them a little something about respect.”
“Um,” Jack says, “Yeah, thanks.” He sounds like a broken record.
“Alright, boys,” Coach says then, barging through the door. “Zamboni’s off the ice, let’s go. Good to have you with us, Zimmermann.”
“Zamboni,” Mashkov says slowly, and then points at him. “Zimmboni!!”
And then they all stop talking about how Jack is married to a man, because they all start chirping him, instead. Zimmboni, Christ. It’s going to stick, too.
…
There’s a media scrum after practice, and Jack is going to have to work at getting used to this, especially since he’s currently the story.
Now, though, he’s tired and overwhelmed and hungry and feels a little bit like a deer in the headlights with all these cameras in his face.
“Are you prepared to play against your husband in November?” Somebody asks, and Jack’s first instinct is to say, “He’s not my husband.”
It’s probably in his imagination, the way the room falls quiet.
“On the ice,” he quickly amends. “We’re players first out there. So that’s how I’m looking at the matchup, just as one against another talented NHL team. We don’t play against individual players, and this is no different.”
He almost thinks he’s gotten away with it, too, until Robinson—Thirdy—whistles at him once the media have been herded out. “Shit, man,” he says, “My wife would kick my ass if I said something like that about her on national TV. You have a lot of groveling in your future, dude.”
Until he wakes up the next morning and the headline is: ‘Jack Zimmermann on Kent Parson: “He’s not my husband out there.”’
Until Amanda corners him on his way into practice and sighs deeply in his general direction. “You’re going to have to work harder to sell this,” she tells him.
“I don’t like pretending,” Jack says stiffly. “I’m not good at it.”
“You’re not pretending,” she reminds him. “You are married to him. He is your husband.”
So what if they’re not pretending to be married, Jack thinks a little nastily as he changes, they’re still pretending to be happily married.
Fucking perfect.
…
Jack watches the Aces’ home opener, and tells himself that it’s to scout.
When they play the national anthem, the camera lingers on Kent as he lifts the ring to his mouth and kisses it.
After all the stupid articles, after all the stupid interview questions, after Jack’s own stupid comment last week…
It’s a statement and everyone knows it.
The Aces win, a 4-0 shutout.
Jack bites his lip for a long moment.
Nice game, he texts, once it’s over.
…
The Aces are having a hot start to the season; the Falconers a decent one. It wouldn’t matter how either of them are playing, Jack realizes, because he still gets asked about Kent every game and assumes the reverse is true, as well.
They still don’t talk much, so he wouldn’t know for certain. More than before, but it was a low baseline; even for the few weeks that Kent stayed in Providence to help with the first waves of the media, he stayed in a hotel and only saw Jack when they met up to do interviews. Jack still texts Kent occasionally if he catches part of one his games on TV, and sometimes Kent texts him, too, just little things: tips on his game, occasional congratulations, once, a picture of his cat.
It still doesn’t feel like they’re married, but Jack doesn’t say that out loud anymore.
Maybe this is why, when the team is about to leave for their West Coast road trip, first stop Las Vegas, Jack lets Tater talk him into asking Kent out with the team after the game—“You know all our wives,” Thirdy adds helpfully. “It’s only fair that we meet your hubby, too.”
“Um,” Jack says, and remembers Amanda telling him that he’s going to have to work to sell this. To his team, especially, it turns out. “Okay.”
“I’m text Parsnip now!” Tater says happily, and Snowy snorts at them all.
“It’s the first time he’s going to see his husband in three months and you can’t understand why he doesn’t want to share him with you ugly fuckers?” Snowy asks. “What a bunch of fucking cock blocks.”
The thing is… it might actually be a pretty good excuse, to not have to publicly party with Kent, except for how Jack’s blushing just thinking about it. Oh, yeah, I can’t go out with you guys. I’m going to have sex with my husband.
There are about eight pairs of eyes on him. He can’t bring himself to say it out loud.
“No, it’s fine,” he says. “Let’s all get a drink. Should be fun.”
…
Jack can’t figure out why Tater keeps nudging him during warm-ups, until Thirdy finally sighs and says, “Zimmboni, I think there’s someone who wants to see you.”
Kent’s standing at center ice, helmet under his arm. He doesn’t look nervous to other people, probably, except Jack still recognizes the tense way he’s holding himself from before high stakes games back in the Q.
“Uh,” Jack says, and skates up to him. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Kent says quietly. “So this is really weird. And there’s like a million people watching us, so I figured maybe we should like…”
Right. Usually people acknowledge their spouses in public. “You’re better at this than I am,” Jack blurts, and Kent raises his eyebrows. “The faking it part, I mean.”
“It’s not… really fake.” Kent says. “I mean, I guess the part where you have to pretend to be in love with me is, but. Like, we are really married.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jack says. He does know. Intimately.
“Okay, well, this is probably long enough to get the rumor mill spinning, so,” Kent says, and puts on his helmet.
He hesitates for a moment, and Jack feels it too—they should do something more than just skate away, but Jack’s not going to kiss him or something out in the open like this, and they’re not going to shake hands. Even Jack knows that would be weird.
“Just,” Kent sighs, and then leans in to tap his helmet against Jack’s. It’s not overly intimate—Jack does it with his teammates every game—but Kent lingers a moment too long, gets an arm around his waist. It edges it over to something closer to normal for a couple. Or, at least, a couple who wears hockey pads. “Have a good game, Zimms.”
“Yeah, Kenny,” Jack says, and pats Kent’s helmet as they pull apart. “You, too.”
…
There’s a scrum close to the end of the second, and it’s mostly a coincidence that Kent’s closest when Jack slides to a stop, watching the refs try to break it up.
Mostly.
“Guess you still got it,” Kent says, and yeah, it was nice to score in the first with Kent out on the ice again, even if they’re wearing different jerseys now. Maybe especially because they’re wearing different jerseys.
Might have been nicer if Kent didn’t score himself five minutes later, but.
“Really?” Jack says lightly. “You’re looking a little slow tonight.”
“Your faceoff percentage is pitiful,” Kent says as the refs send one of his guys off to the box, but when they both skate away to resume play, they’re smiling.
…
Jack’s pretty mortified when the travel coordinator comes in to tell him that they’re making an exception to curfew for him, that he can stay with his husband tonight instead of at the hotel.
It doesn’t really get much better when Jack and Tater and Thirdy and Snowy finally find their way over to the table where Kent and one of his As are sitting in the bar that Tater gave the cab driver the address to.
Because they’re all looking at him like… yeah, he’s probably going to have to kiss Kent hello, now that they’re not wearing helmets. Luckily, Kent is still handling all of this better than he is—he stands and brushes his lips over Jack’s quickly enough that Jack barely feels it, and then says “Hey guys, you all know Swoops?” Before any of the guys can chirp them.
“Hey,” Swoops nods at them, “Good game.”
“Better for you!” Tater says cheerfully. “I go buy drinks now?”
“We’ll get them, Tater,” Kent says and tugs Jack up to the bar with him.
“You know they’re talking about us, right?” Jack asks him, and when he looks over his shoulder, Tater is definitely saying something to Swoops and then looking over at them.
“Yeah, them and everyone else in the world,” Kent sighs. “Beer okay?”
When Jack nods, Kent orders six of them and then sighs when the bartender turns away to fill the order. “Okay, so. I just wanted to make sure that you were, like, okay with this? I’m not going to hang all over you or anything, but the guys are going to think it’s weird if we don’t sit by each other or leave together, so… just, if there’s anything you’re not cool with, you can tell me.”
I’m not really cool with two professional hockey teams trying to play wingman for me and my estranged husband, Jack thinks, but he also knows that this is not the time.
“I’m supposed to stay with you tonight,” Jack says, because there’s probably not going to be a better time, “I got permission to break curfew, so.”
“Um,” Kent says, and fumbles for his wallet when the bartender brings their tray over for them. “Okay, I can put you in the guest room, I guess.”
“Thanks,” Jack says. “You are good at this. The, like, couple stuff.” He doesn’t say the fake couple stuff, but he’s thinking it.
“Yeah, well,” Kent says, and looks down. The part where you have to pretend to be in love with me is fake, he’d said earlier. Not, the part where we have to pretend to be in love with each other. The difference feels stark, suddenly—Jack’s suspected before that Kent might not be over it, what happened between them, but… “Like you said before, I’m good at pretending,” Kent finishes brightly, and takes the tray with him when he heads back to the table.
…
Jack’s greeted with a chorus of wolf whistles when he boards the plane the next morning, and he takes the first seat he can find to get away from it.
“How was night?” Tater asks him, sliding in next to him.
Kent had driven them back to his apartment silently and made the spare bed up for him silently and then they’d gone to bed. Silently.
When Jack woke up, Kent had already made enough coffee for the both of them and was slumped in front of his computer, scrolling through an article; when he was finished, he’d wordlessly nudged the laptop over in front of Jack.
HUSBANDS ZIMMERMANN AND PARSON MEET FOR FIRST TIME IN REGULAR SEASON
Jack had scrolled through slowly—there was a picture of them at center ice during warmups, heads tipped together; one of those moving picture things of them laughing during that scrum; a dark, blurry picture someone must have taken of them sitting next to each other at the bar.
“Well, people are buying it,” Kent had said. Jack had thought of the divorce papers back in his own apartment, all drawn up and ready to be signed, had wondered if Kent’s were around somewhere. Jack had made the decision about postponing the divorce; it seems only fair that Kent should choose when they actually do it, but when he said this, Kent had frowned deeply.
“Let’s burn that bridge when we get there,” he’d said. “Come on, you’re going to be late for your flight.”
They hadn’t spoken on the ride to the airport.
“It was good,” Jack lies.
“You don’t look like was good,” Tater prods. “I need to tell Parsnip take better care of husband?”
“No,” Jack sighs. “Kent does enough.”
…
Jack gets off the ice after practice and there are five texts in a row from Kent:
911
Call asap
Emergency
Big problem
I’m serious, Jack
“Trouble in paradise?” Thirdy asks, catching a glimpse of Jack’s face.
“Um,” Jack says, and then dials, because Kent can be a little overdramatic, but this is big, even for him. “Hi, Kenny? What’s wrong?”
“Oh, hi, Zimms,” Kent says, “Nice of you to make time for me in your busy schedule.”
“I had practice,” Jack says, and rolls his eyes at Thirdy. “What is it?”
“Um, it’s that my mom is going to spend Christmas with your parents?”
“Wait, what?” Jack says, “Why would she spend it with them when you’re going to be there?”
“Jack,” Kent says, and it takes him a long moment before he realizes.
“Oh, shit,” Jack says.
Everything okay? Thirdy mouths at him, and Jack just… everything is not okay. He pushes out of the dressing room before his teammates can listen to more of this train wreck.
“Yeah,” Kent says. “Apparently they’re all fed up that they were kept in the dark for seven years, and have collectively decided that a family holiday—and I do mean a family holiday, Jack, they even invited Jess—is just the solution to that problem.”
“Shit,” Jack says again. “We can’t…”
“Not without doing some serious explaining,” Kent says. “I think we’re just… going to have to do this.”
“Well.” Jack says. That’s that, then.
“See you in December,” Kent grunts, and then hangs up.
…
“Jess was telling me about her new boyfriend,” Jack says, when he makes his way up to their room. Their room, because his parent think that they’re married. Or, rather, that they’re happily married.
And they’re both in hot water, right now, and don’t have much room to argue.
“Ugh,” Kent says. He’s cradling a bottle of nice scotch and a crystal glass and lounging in bed and he looks like a bad Vogue advertisement, which Jack would know, because there are a dozen bad Vogue advertisements hanging on the wall downstairs.
“He sounds nice,” Jack says, trying to sound neutral. The silence was excruciating last time they spent the night in the same building—even this half-conversation is better. He wants to change into his pajamas, but he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to take his clothes off in front of Kent. They’re in strange, new territory here.
“He is nice,” Kent says grudgingly. “I just have to hate him on principle. I mean, I’m happy for her. She found a good guy who likes her and wants to meet her family and make plans for the future.” He sighs, and takes a sip from his glass. “That’s not easy to do, for those of us with serious daddy issues.”
“Um,” Jack says, and then takes off his shirt because it’s easier to do than try to answer that.
“Sorry,” Kent sighs. “I didn’t mean to say that. Your mom kept refilling my wine glass at dinner, so I’m a little... Anyway. He seems like a good dude, plus he’s automatically scared of both of us because we’re pro athletes, so we still have leverage, at least for a little while.”
“Does your mom like him?” Jack asks, and debates sliding into the bed. It’s a big bed. They could probably stay on their own sides, barely touch each other.
“Yeah,” Kent says. He produces a clean glass, pours a finger, hands it to Jack. “Although, Jess is also currently winning the favorite sibling conversation because she didn’t elope and hide it for seven years. So…”
Jack takes the glass and clinks it against Kent’s, a little awkwardly. He takes a slow sip. The scotch always reminds him of his father—the smoky scent, the warmth it burns through him, the way his father would hold the glass when he drank with his friends.
“Did your mom ever date again?” Jack asks suddenly, and then blushes. “After your dad…”
“Um, no,” Kent says, abruptly serious. “I always kinda thought she would, eventually, but she never has.”
“Sorry,” Jack says.
“I think she’s still in love with him,” Kent says dully. “My dad, I mean. And I used to really hate her for that, which made me feel all guilty, because she’s my mom and I love her and she did everything for me. But the guy was a scumbag when he was around and leaving us may have been the best thing he ever did for me and Jess, you know? But she’s never moved on. And I think a part of her still loves him, but I… I think I understand that now.”
He doesn’t say it out loud, that Kent understands it because he also fell in love with a guy who married him and then left him behind, but he doesn’t really have to. Jack swallows, hard. He knows Kent still loves him. He knows that. He wishes he didn’t sometimes, but…
“Can you inherit bad habits?” Kent says softly, and finishes his glass.
Jack thinks of all the nights his mother spent tucking him in alone while his father was off playing hockey, the times his father played through an injury just to be on the ice. The way his mother will give until she’s hollow, how she always pushed herself just a little too hard early in her career.
Jack takes Kent’s empty glass from him, puts it on the table.
“Yeah, I think so.” He says. “Let’s sleep now, okay?”
Kent still curls up the same way as he used to across the bed, feet over on Jack’s side, hands fisted against his own chest. His hair falls against his forehead in just the same way, and when Jack reaches over to brush it out of his closed eyes, it feels just the same.
…
They play each other again, in Providence this time—“Don’t worry,” Snowy tells him. “I got the guys to back off a little. You two can just have a night to yourselves.” He claps Jack on the back, a little paternally.
“Great,” Jack sighs. He’s going to have to buy another set of sheets to make up the bare mattress in his guest room.
He does—and nice ones, too, so Kent won’t bitch about it—and he also buys a bag of the expensive free-trade whatever coffee he’d noticed on Kent’s counter last time.
“Nice place,” Kent says. He looks tired, and he’s got four stitches along his jawline from a high-sticking in his last game.
“I made up a bed for you,” Jack says, and leads the way.
“Thanks,” Kent says, and drops his duffle on the foot of the bed. “Um, no offense, Zimms, but… I kind of need to go to bed, like, right this instant. Not that I don’t want to hang out or whatever, but.”
“Yeah, no worries,” Jack says. He kind of doesn’t really want to hang out with Kent right now, either, but it’s mostly because he just lost to Kent’s team, again, and he’s taking it harder than he should be.
Kent’s up before him in the morning, just like last time, maybe because Jack had laid awake and stared at his ceiling for hours last night before he could finally sleep. He’s got his back to Jack, wearing a threadbare blue t-shirt that Jack knows has the Oceanic logo printed on the front, because he’s pretty sure it used to be his.
It’s not intentional, Jack thinks, and takes a deep breath. It doesn’t mean anything.
“Morning,” Jack says, but Kent doesn’t turn around. When Jack draws up behind him, he sees what Kent is looking down at: it’s, fuck, it’s the divorce papers. Jack had been looking at them the other day, for the millionth time since July, and hadn’t tucked them back in the drawer.
“You haven’t signed them,” Kent says, and sounds almost surprised. Jack wishes that didn’t hurt, and doesn’t know why it does, really.
“I thought we agreed, not until the playoffs,” Jack says.
“Well, yeah,” Kent says, “But I kind of figured you’d signed them, like, first thing, and were just going to wait to send them, or something.”
“No,” Jack says.
“Has something changed?” Kent asks. “Do you…” He narrows his eyes, but it’s playful when he shoves Jack and says, “You can’t have custody of my cat, if that’s what you’re holding out for. Take my money, but don’t take Kit Purrson.”
“No,” Jack says again, and watches the way Kent moves easily over to his coffee pot and makes enough for the both of them. “No, nothing’s changed.”
…
The Falconers fall out of the playoffs in the first round, but… the Falconers make it to the playoffs, so Jack’s willing to take that. For now.
The Aces are knocked out in the Conference Finals, and Kent calls him the next day—“So, we’re gonna do this, then?” He asks, his voice sounding dull on the other end of the line.
Jack looks down at the spread of papers in front of him, at the blank line where his signature will go. Just like that, unmarried. He’s wearing his ring on his left finger—he doesn’t usually, and it feels a little strange there. He twists it, pulls it off.
“This is what we said, right?” Kent says, when the silence drags on for too long, “During playoffs.”
He slides the ring back on. “We have to go to the World Cup in September,” Jack says suddenly. “Both of us. And this isn’t… it will be quieter, for a while, because of the playoffs, but as soon as those are over, we’re going to be the story again. I don’t want to be the story at the World Cup, I don’t want it to be some weird international scandal. I’ve never… it’s my first time playing for Team Canada, and we all know you’re going to be captain for the US. It’s already going to be crazy enough.”
“So you’re saying we wait,” Kent says.
“Will it change anything?” Jack asks. “I think it will just save us a lot of trouble. Unless…” Shit. “Unless you’re, you know, seeing someone? If you want the divorce now, whenever, we can do that. We don’t have to wait.”
Kent huffs. “I’m not seeing anyone, Jack. Christ, can you imagine that conversation, though? ‘Yeah, technically I’m married, but we’re mostly estranged, but we’re also pretending that everything’s fine. So you want to get a drink sometime?’”
Jack has to laugh at that, a little, because their situation is… It’s a little ridiculous, objectively. Jack knows this.
“Alright, so, we’re still married then,” Kent says. “Hey, Zimms. Happy anniversary.”
Jack glances over at the calendar—it’s not today, but it’s soon. Next week. “Seven years,” he says, almost to himself.
“Yeah,” Kent says, and then they’re both quiet for a long moment. “Well. See you on the ice, I guess.”
…
On their actual anniversary, Jack wakes up to a delivery man with twelve roses for him and a text from Kent. The flowers are mostly a joke, Jack thinks. Still, he finds a dusty vase his mom must have bought for him and fills it with water and prods them until they look pretty nice.
The text is just a link to an article Deadspin put together with pretty much every picture of the two of them that has ever been seen by the public, including the ones from their last few games. Again, Jack thinks it’s mostly mean to be a joke, but he scrolls through slowly, eyes lingering on some of the older pictures, the ones he hasn’t seen in years.
Thanks for the roses, he finally texts Kent back. He feels a little bad—he should have gotten Kent something, too, or he should at least should try to order him something now. He doesn’t.
Seven years is supposed to be copper and wool according to that weird official anniversary list but I didn’t know wtf to do with that so, Kent sends him back.
Jack doesn’t have a twitter. He does have an Instagram account that he hasn’t used in two years with only a handful of followers, but he figures that Kent went to the trouble of sending him flowers, so he carefully stages a shot of the arrangement that he’s happy with the composition of, even though he still doesn’t like using his phone camera, and uploads it when his phone asks him for a photo.
He stares at the little box that says “write a caption” for a long time. Finally, he just tags Kent’s own, much more famous, account, and clicks post.
They’re supposed to sell it, after all.
…
Jack gains about 10,000 followers over the next hour when Kent ‘likes’ the photo.
Tater comments: haha Zimmboni I think parsnip too good for you )))))))
Jack knows it’s a joke, of course, just a friendly chirp between teammates. It doesn’t make him feel a whole lot better about the whole not-getting-Kent-a-gift thing, though.
…
Kent texts him another link the next morning, some fluff site cooing about the flowers. This time he says, lol Jack don’t feed the beast!
Jack shouldn’t read the article, probably. He does anyway.
At the end, the author says: Kent’s birthday is, of course, next month… and we’re expecting more cuteness from this hockey power couple then!!
…
Kent goes quiet for a long time over the phone when Jack tells him he bought a plane ticket to be in Vegas over Kent’s birthday.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Kent says slowly. Jack’s a little taken aback, honestly, how hesitant Kent sounds. Kent’s the one who’s more invested in this relationship, so Jack thought it might be a nice surprise, that it was his turn to do something for them.
Although, now that Jack thinks about it, still on the line with him, Kent’s the more invested one in this relationship, so he might be wary that Jack is doing something for them.
“I’m not American,” Jack says, “It’s not my holiday, I don’t have plans. I thought it might be a nice vacation. Plus, you know, we’re still supposed to be selling this, right? It might look weird if we’re not together on your birthday.”
“Right,” Kent says. “We’re still faking it. Of course.”
“I can cancel, if—”
“No,” Kent says, “Just… send me your schedule. I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
…
Kent picks him up at the airport.
He drives them to a brunch place off the strip and they’re both quiet until a hungover looking guy in a turtleneck—in Vegas, in July—approaches them and says, “Holy shit dude, you’re the owner of that cat.”
“Um,” Kent says. Jack stuffs a strawberry in his mouth. “Yes?”
“Can I have your autograph? But like, from Kit? Could you make it out from Kit?”
“Um,” Kent says again, but he gamely pulls a sharpie out and draws a little paw print and then, after a glance up at Jack, a lopsided cat face outline.
“Thanks, bro,” the guys says enthusiastically, and wanders away.
Jack waits until he’s in the parking lot before he starts laughing.
“It happens more often than you’d think,” Kent says drily, but his lips twitch in the way that means he’s fighting back a smile.
It’s more normal, after that. As normal as it can get for them, at least.
…
They’re going clubbing, which was Swoop’s idea, or so Kent says. It’s not on the Strip, at least, if the way Kent blanches at that when Jack asks is any indication.
Swoops brings his wife, who Kent assures Jack is way out of his league. “Alice has a PhD,” Kent tells him when they’re in the cab on the way to wherever Swoops told them to be, “Jeff is punching way above his weight class. Him and I have that in common.”
“Um,” Jack says, and Kent laughs a little. He’s a little flushed, maybe from the glass they had of the whiskey Jack’s dad sent with him when he told his parents he was meeting up with Kent. There was a card, too, which Jack didn’t read but which made Kent smile bashfully.
“Joking,” Kent says a little stiffly now.
“Sure,” Jack says. “I’m the reacher here, clearly,” and Kent actually laughs at that, if only because he’s surprised that Jack knows what a reacher is.
Jack has maybe underestimated how popular Kent is in Las Vegas, because when they walk in, the DJ announces that he’s arrived and the whole club sings him ‘Happy Birthday.’
Kent waves gamely, and then punches Swoops a little too hard in the arm when he comes over.
“Hi,” Jack says to Swoops’ wife as he and Kent have some sort of furiously whispered argument against the bar.
They don’t have to buy a drink all night, which is probably bad, because Jack gets a little drunker than he means to. He’s so worried that he’s going to spill their secret that when a girl totters over and says, “Hi, I just had to come say that I’m your biggest fan and I think that you both make the cutest couple and I just think you’re so brave,” Jack blurts out, “Thanks, I’m really lucky to have such a great husband.”
“Uh,” Kent says, and pushes Jack’s half-finished beer an inch away from him on the table pointedly. Jack puts his arm around Kent’s shoulders. “Thanks, that’s, uh, that’s very sweet of you. Do you want, like, a picture or something?”
Alice takes it for them, and smiles softly at Jack when the girl finishes hugging Kent and goes back to her friends, beaming. “I think it’s really sweet that you flew out to see Kent,” she says, when Kent and Swoops have left to get another round. “I know Kent is kind of hard to read, but he misses you a lot during the season. It must have been really hard to have been outed like that, but I think it’s important you’re letting him know you’re proud of him. He’s been hiding for a long time.”
Over at the bar, Kent is laughing at something Swoops is saying, face open, looking as young as he did when Jack slid that ring on his finger. Abruptly, Jack misses him, too, misses the way they were and all the moments they’ve missed: all the games Kent never knew Jack was watching, all the times they never faced off, all of Kent’s birthdays where he went to sleep thinking Jack hated him.
“Yeah,” Jack says, even though he knows it’s not enough.
They come back with the drinks then, but Jack thinks Kent’s right, that he’s had enough. “C’mon,” Swoops bellows over the music, “We’re dancing!”
…
Jack doesn’t really dance, but he doesn’t really need to. He just needs to stand here and sway a little with the music.
Kent’s bigger than he was back in the Q, broader and better muscled. He still fits along Jack’s front in just the same way.
Jack puts his hands on Kent’s hips, tentative. He can’t see the expression on Kent’s face with his back to Jack like this, but he can see the way Swoops is looking at him, so he lets one arm slide around Kent’s waist and lets Kent lead, because he has better rhythm anyway.
He gets a little lost in the music and in all the drinks he’s had and in the way that Kent’s ass feels pressed against him; when Kent finally turns in his arms to face him, Jack’s only not embarrassed that he’s hard because he can feel that Kent is, too.
“Jack,” Kent says, and his cheeks are still flushed and he still looks like the boy that Jack once asked to marry him.
Someone is pointing a camera phone at them, Jack can see it over Kent’s shoulder. People have been all night, but he’s still hyperaware of it, still forgets that they’re out, now. There’s nothing left to hide. Kent is still wearing Jack’s ring, even if it’s not on his finger.
Jack doesn’t have to bend as far as he remembers, when he kisses Kent.
His mouth is hot when it opens under Jack’s, he still has the same way of licking at Jack’s tongue, still makes the same sound. Neither of them pull back until Swoops shouts jokingly, “Get a room!”
Kent’s eyes are wide, pupils blown. Jack only knows he’s upset because he stutters, when he says, “I… I need some air.”
…
Jack finds him out front propped up against the building. The desert air is still warm, though it’s been dark for hours, and Kent is pink with exertion and arousal. He’s holding an unlit cigarette in his hand, though Jack’s never seen him smoke.
For some reason it’s this that bothers him the most; when Kent sees him looking, he lets it drop to the ground, crushes it under his heel. “Someone asked if I wanted one and I just…” He says, shrugs.
He shouldn’t have kissed Kent. Part of him was faking for the cameras, part of him was trapped a million years ago… most of him just wanted to. But he shouldn’t have done it. They’re still… Jack doesn’t know, and that’s the problem. He doesn’t know what they are. Somewhere between enemies and strangers and friends and lovers and spouses, only he doesn’t know where.
They’re messy. Always have been, always will be.
“I can’t figure you out,” Kent says bleakly. Something about him seems suddenly fragile. “I used to think I knew you, but… I just.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack says. It was a mistake, and he knows it, but he doesn’t quite regret it. That’s Kent for him, in a nutshell.
“First you marry me, then you stop talking to me completely. For six years. And then you ask for a divorce, which I’m happy to give you, but then you come here and you take me out and you… kiss me in public. Jack, I’m… you have to stop messing with me like this.”
“I…” Jack says, but he doesn’t know how to finish. He doesn’t want to mess with Kent, but he…
He doesn’t know what he wants.
“It’s my birthday,” Kent says, a little sadly, in the same defeated voice he used to say, “but I love you” whenever Jack used to push him away, back in juniors. “It’s my birthday,” He says again, like that’s Jack’s worst offense. Not that he pushed Kent, not that he hurt him; that it happened on a special day.
He knows better what Kent sounds like when he’s like this, when Jack’s just hurt him, than what he sounds like when he laughs. In fact, he thinks, he can’t remember the last time he heard Kent laugh, or saw him really smile. Not in person, or at least, not at anything Jack said.
Kent’s eyes are dark under the dim lights outside of the club. His lips are swollen and pink looking from where Jack bit into them, and he can’t think of a thing to say. Over Kent’s shoulder, Jack can see Swoops approaching, and when he slings an arm around Kent’s neck and pulls him into a sideways embrace, Jack lets him drag Kent back inside.
Better for Kent to be around someone besides Jack right now, anyway. It’s his birthday, and he deserves to have a good time.
…
It takes a long time for Jack to work up the courage to come out of Kent’s guest room and face him, the next morning. When he does, Kent’s on the couch, computer on his lap and Kit on top of that.
“Hey,” he says mildly, when he sees Jack, “There’s coffee in the kitchen.”
Jack takes a mug, if only because he needs to talk to Kent and can’t imagine doing it without caffeine in his system.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Jack says, when he sits on the chair that matches the couch Kent is slumped into. “I… shouldn’t have done that.”
Kent shoves his laptop aside, but keeps the cat. “It’s fine,” he says.
“I upset you. And I know that things are complicated with us, and I made that worse.”
Kent is quiet for a long moment. He closes his eyes and buries his face in Kit’s fur, and even when she meows, she doesn’t try to escape him. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been friends,” Kent says finally. “Probably as long as we’ve been married. Maybe we should try to start there, you know? I mean, we’re always going to be in each other’s careers and lives. It might be easier, later, if we can talk to each other. Even after the divorce.”
The Divorce. Kent says it like a proper noun, like a foregone conclusion. Jack misses him, and he’s two feet away.
“Okay,” Jack says, after a bracing sip of coffee. “Let’s be friends.”
Kent smiles at him. It’s not his real smile; it’s too tentative, a little too small. Better than nothing.
“Your birthday is in a month,” Kent says. “Seems only fair that I come to see you.”
…
Jack hugs him in the airport when he picks Kent up, and it’s not as awkward between them as it was in Vegas. They’ve been texting a lot, talked on the phone once or twice. Mostly, Jack is surprised by how familiar Kent seems still, surprised that it still feels like he knows him.
They go with Jack’s parents to a family dinner, and Kent feels like one of the family. Jack’s dad takes him out on the balcony back at Jack’s place afterwards, and they talk for a long time. Jack almost wishes he knew what they were saying—he’s getting better about his dad all the time, but seeing him like this with Kent, a hand on his shoulder, still twinges at the part of him that always feared that his dad would rather have had Kent for a son.
Or, well, not even Kent, in particular. Just anyone else.
“Things are going well?” His mom asks him. “You two seem happy, but I’m sure it’s hard with your schedules, living so far apart and after all you’ve been through. God knows it was hard enough with your father’s job even when we lived in the same house.”
“Things are good, maman,” he tells her. They are good, as good as they can be, probably, considering.
“I think it’s important he knows he’s family,” his mom says quietly. “He had such a hard time growing up and moving away so young, and Karen did everything she possibly could, of course, but she always worried about him with no father. She was always so grateful to your dad for taking Kent under his wing. I know that probably made things harder for you.”
Jack bites his lip, feels suddenly selfish. Even when he didn’t particularly like his own father, he didn’t want to share him with Kent. He’d known, of course, that Kent didn’t have one himself. He’d never thought about what it might have felt like to Kent, that he wasn’t allowed to talk to Jack’s, either, even when they were best friends. Even after they were fucking—or dating, as Kent thought—even after they got married.
“Anyway,” his mom says. “I just wanted to check in, Jack. I’m so happy you’re happy together, and I know Karen feels the same. You both deserve it so much.”
And there’s that, too—their parents are friends, their families are close and getting closer. It’s going to break more than one relationship apart, when they finally sign those divorce papers.
Jack had held Kent’s hand on the way back from dinner tonight. There’s a picture on his phone that his mother took, a candid from behind. The look on Kent’s face is impossibly soft.
Jack catches his eye through the window, sees the moment Kent realizes he’s watching him and his dad chat, and smiles at him a little tentatively.
Jack tries to smile back, tries to telegraph with his face that it’s okay, now, that he wants Kent to have a father, too. If only for a little while.
Jack’s parents stay the night, and so Kent sleeps in his bed. They lie closer than they did at Christmas, more comfortable in each other’s space. Kent drifts off first; when he gets tired of staring at the dark ceiling, Jack pulls out his phone and stares at that picture of them together, instead.
He can’t remember what he said, to make Kent look at him like that. Maybe it was nothing, just a trick of the light, or the moment when Kent was telling him a funny story about an Aces barbeque. Maybe that’s just the way Kent looks at him.
He posts it on Instagram, no caption, just Kent’s username.
He turns his phone off and rolls over, nose against the back of Kent’s neck. He sleeps like that.
…
They don’t want to be the story going into the World Cup of Hockey.
Obviously, they are anyway; some twisted Romeo and Juliet narrative the media dreams up.
Jack answers more questions about Kent than he has in his life, which is really saying something; mostly he repeats the old ‘on the ice we’re just hockey players’ line and hopes he doesn’t make the same horrible husband soundbite mistakes again.
Kent, of course, is as charming with the reporters as ever: “I’ll root for him until we have to play each other and then again afterwards,” he tells one. Someone asks him if he has one of Jack’s jersey, and he says “no comment” but blushes in a way that leads everyone to believe that he not only owns it, but probably wears it to bed, or something.
Jack’s giving an interview—with Jonathan Toews—when Kent comes and kisses his cheek, easy as anything. “Sorry for interrupting,” he says to everyone, and moves along his way. Jack stutters for the next three minutes and Tazer only smiles like he thinks it’s cute, or something, and when Jack wakes up the next morning the video clip is trending on twitter, which he knows because Kent texts it to him.
So if Jack hadn’t been texting Kent all summer—if they weren’t friends—he would never know how nervous Kent is for the tournament, how shaky he feels about his teammates and the staff and how uncertain he is about their chances.
But they are friends, so he does know.
…
USA loses—not only loses, but is pretty abjectly humiliated—and Jack tells a reporter that he doesn’t care.
That’s actually not what he tells the reporter, of course, but that’s what it ends up sounding like. He knows it, and so do the other guys in the locker room, because a few of the guys from the GTA slip him the names of the best local flower shops, and bakeries, and classy restaurants, which Jack understands very clearly to mean that even virtual strangers think he needs to go apologize to his husband.
Jack knocks on his door after the media finally lets him go, and Kent opens it and looks shattered.
“No offense, Zimms, but you’re kind of the last person I want to see right now.”
“I’m your husband,” Jack says a little helplessly. A week ago, that had been starting to feel like a good thing.
“Oh?” Kent says, and leans against the doorway. He still won’t let Jack inside. “I thought you were just a player on another team who did your job.”
“Look, Kent, I—”
“I know that’s not… not fair, okay?” Kent says, and closes his eyes. He hadn’t cried on camera earlier, but Jack thinks he’s been crying since. “I know that’s what you say as a hockey player and even as a friend, but I just… I needed you to be my husband. For just one interview.”
He pushes away and moves back inside, and Jack catches the door before it locks him out and follows him in. Kent’s suitcase is on the bed, mostly packed, and the TV is playing World Cup coverage on mute. Jack reaches over and turns it off.
Kent is folding his shirts up, refusing to look at him. Jack sits on the bed next to the suitcase.
“As your husband,” Jack says slowly. He knows he’s not good at this, but he wants to be. He wants to learn. “And as a hockey player. You were the best player on that ice whenever you were out there. Always are.”
It’s hard for Jack to admit to that sometimes, as a competitor, to acknowledge that Kent is better than him. Maybe in a year or two, it won’t be true, but Kent has more NHL experience, a few Cups under his belt, an Olympic Gold Medal. His hockey fascinates Jack, challenges him, excites him. He can let Kent have this, because he knows that his hockey does the same for Kent, and some days that feels like enough.
Kent snorts, and tucks a pair of balled up socks into the corner of his bag. There are more clean clothes being packed than there should be, because Kent thought he would be here longer.
“You are not USA Hockey,” Jack says firmly. “I know they put you in that position, but that was unfair and unrealistic. You and I both know that one good player cannot carry a team. They set you up to fail, and you surpassed their expectations of you, and it is not your fault that it wasn’t enough to get the win, okay?”
“It wasn’t a game!” Kent snaps, “It wasn’t one win. We got fucking swept. It was humiliating. And it is on me, because I’m captain, and because I’m the name, and because I couldn’t fucking put it away.”
“It’s a team game,” Jack says. “You played beautiful hockey, but it’s a team game.”
He pulls Kent’s hands away from where they’re worrying at the collar of a plaid shirt, until Kent is standing in front of Jack, until Kent looks at him.
“Kenny. This is not on you,” Jack says firmly, and Kent sighs.
“I know. I know that what you’re saying is true, okay? I just need to be angry about it for a while.”
“Okay,” Jack says, and pulls Kent closer until Jack can get his arms around him, can press his face into Kent’s chest and feel his heartbeat. He feels Kent’s hands come down onto his shoulders, and for a moment, Kent squeezes him hard, digs his nails in through Jack’s shirt. “Fuck,” he whispers, and then he gentles his fingers, cards his fingers through Jack’s hair, climbs on his lap and presses his face against Jack’s neck like he always used to, nose snugged up under his jaw.
“Fuck,” Kent says again, and his face is wet, and Jack just holds him and breathes.
…
Jack sees the news alert on one of his off nights, right before they leave on a two week road trip.
The Aces were playing in Boston; Jack makes the hour drive in twenty-eight minutes.
“I’m looking for a patient?” Jack asks the first employee he sees. “Kent Parson?”
“Yes, he’s in post-op. Family only, sir,” the nurse says. She’s wearing green scrubs, and all Jack can think is that the last time he saw Kent, in that hotel room in Toronto, his eyes looked just that color.
“I know,” Jack says breathlessly. He ran up four flights of stairs, he realizes. The elevator was too slow. “I am family. I’m his husband.”
She blinks at him. He doesn’t know how he’ll prove it if she asks—they don’t have the same last name; it’s not as if he carries a copy of his marriage license around with him. She could google him, probably. “Well, okay,” she says finally. “Room 1423. Just down this hall here.”
Kent’s eyelashes look very long against his cheek. He’s got a cast on his left wrist.
Jack sits next to his bed for almost two hours before he finally blinks awake, fielding texts from his family and from Kent’s, from both their teammates, from a few of his college teammates, even.
“Jack?” He asks groggily, and Jack hates the surprise in his voice, that Jack came to see him.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Your team won.”
“Okay,” Kent says, and closes his eyes again. “They said eight weeks, Jack. I’m going to miss two months.”
“You’ll be back for the playoffs,” Jack tries to soothe. “Swoops promised me personally your team would get there.”
“Thanks,” Kent says. He’s fading fast; when he reaches for Jack with his good hand, Jack takes it. He kisses it, once, and Kent’s eyes flutter back open.
“I have to leave soon,” Jack confesses, “We’re leaving on a road trip in the morning. Your mom is coming but she had to catch a flight. She called a while ago, she’ll be here soon. You should sleep, okay? You need the rest.”
“Kay,” Kent says. He’s nodding off already. “Love you, Zimms.”
…
Jack’s almost late for his flight the next morning. Coach glares at him until he says, “I had to see Kent in Boston last night.” Then Coach just clears his throat a little awkwardly and says, “Hope he gets better soon. Hell of a player.”
Tater pats his shoulder when he sits next to Jack on the plane. “Parsnip okay?” He asks.
It’s a complicated question. “Eight weeks,” Jack says, “But he will be.”
“Sucks,” Thirdy tells him when they’re in the hotel elevator. “I can’t imagine having to leave Carrie if she was in the hospital. They should have given you leave.”
They might have, if Jack had asked. He’s not sure what it says about him, that it didn’t even cross his mind.
“Kent wouldn’t want that,” Jack says, but that makes it sound like Kent’s dead, or something, so Jack says, “I mean, he understands, you know? And his mom’s there. But I do feel bad, leaving him.”
In some ways, it’s the most honest he’s been with his teammates about his relationship in almost two years. Thirdy claps him on the back. “Let us know if there’s anything we can do,” he says. “For either of you.”
…
Kent’s well enough to fly back to Vegas before the Falconers return to the East Coast, and so Jack has to call him, the night he gets back home.
He’s not a particularly good patient, Jack doesn’t think, but he says he’s off the worst of his pain meds and is fine living alone and so Jack has no choice but to believe him, really.
Well. He texts Swoops, too, to make sure, but he says the same.
“They said you came to see me in the hospital,” Kent says once Jack’s stopped bullying him about his PT. “I mean, I kind of remember? But it’s pretty fuzzy.”
“I did,” Jack said, “You were in the hospital, Kenny, of course I came down. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay for longer.”
“It’s okay,” Kent says, “Thanks for coming down at all. I didn’t do anything embarrassing, right? I mean, they have all those videos of people acting super weird post-surgery but you were the only one there besides, like, the nurses obviously, so I figured I was probably safe on the video front.”
“You said you loved me,” Jack blurts, and then adds, “But you were on a lot of pain medication, so.”
There’s an interminable moment of silence between them. “I do love you, Zimms,” Kent says finally, like it’s been ripped out of him. “I did then. I never stopped.”
Jack breathes harshly. “Kent.” It’s not as though he didn’t know, is the thing. It’s just… maybe he didn’t know what it would feel like, to hear Kent say it out loud. To wonder what it means.
“I know you didn’t,” Ken says, “And I know you don’t now. That’s… that’s fine. But I do, and I feel like you never understood that, and if nothing else I just want you to know that. Not to, like, use against you, I just. You deserve to know.”
“It’s not that I didn’t love you, Kent,” Jack says, throat aching. “I did, I think, in a lot of ways. But I—”
“Look, I understand you were…”
“I was sick, Kent.”
“I know. I get that. I do. I just… I married you because I was desperately in love with you, okay? It was gross, how much I loved you. Maybe I didn’t tell you at the time, or maybe I did but I didn’t make you understand, but it doesn’t matter now. I know it was stupid. I know we were too young. I know that. Hell, if I heard some eighteen year old telling me they were going to get married, I would think they were crazy. But I did love you, Zimms. That’s why I married you. And I know that’s not why you married me. And that’s… you know, that’s okay. I just need a little time to come to terms with that, is all. The friends thing is good, you know? Obviously the cold break didn’t work, so maybe this will. To get over you.”
“Kent,” Jack says again. “I… I don’t know if I can make this better. I care for you. I did then. But you’re right, I didn’t love you back then, Kent. I spent so much time wishing that I could, wishing that I did. And I did care for you, please never think that I didn’t. But you’re right, I didn’t love you. I couldn’t. But. I’m better now, or getting better, at least, and I think I could love you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But I could fall in love with you, Kent.” He thinks about not saying the last part. He thinks about Kent, alone and injured and telling his husband that he loves him, even if he’s the only one, and he says it anyway because he’s tired of not being honest: “I’m already falling.”
It’s February. Jack’s living in Providence, Rhode Island, and he’s got a husband who he just told he might fall in love with, one day. There’s snow falling outside his window and his apartment smells like the lemon solution his cleaning service uses. He feels somehow like he’s going to remember all these things, when he thinks back on this moment.
Kent’s breathing is a little wet sounding on the other end of the phone.
“Jack,” he says.
“I don’t know if that makes things better,” Jack says, and he feels like he might cry, too. “Maybe that makes things worse. But I’m just saying… maybe you don’t have to get over me. Maybe I’d rather get, you know, under you instead.”
It makes Kent laugh, at least, which is better than the alternative. “I, um,” he says. “Okay. So I guess I can try to… not fall out of love with you, then?”
“Okay,” Jack agrees, and they stay on the phone for three more hours.
…
Jack’s already on the couch in Kent’s apartment, Kit purring happily in his lap, when Kent gets back from playing the first two road games of the first round.
“Hey,” Kent says a little cautiously, when he sees Jack there. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other in person since the hospital—it’s different than seeing his face over the screen of Jack’s laptop Skyping every night. He didn’t anticipate how much different it would feel, though.
“Good games,” Jack tells him, because they’ll always be able to talk about hockey together, if nothing else. Kent smiles at him, comes to sit on the couch.
“You’re still sure you’re okay staying here for the next few months?” Kent asks him. Kent’s family will come later, Jack’s too, depending on how far the Aces go, but Jack wants to be here for all of it. He wants to be here as a friend, as a partner, hell, even as a hockey player.
He just wants to be with Kent. They’ve spent so much time apart.
“I’m sure,” Jack tells him, and reaches over to take his hand.
…
Kent comes home slightly tipsy after the Aces make the Cup finals—not drunk, not this late in the playoffs, but happily buzzed off a beer with Swoops.
He comes very unsubtly through the door to the bedroom, clinks a glass of water down on the nightstand and forgets to close the bathroom door when he turns the light on.
“Sorry,” he whispers, when he finally crawls into bed. Jack’s been awake waiting for him, but he thinks it’s almost charming, how sheepish Kent is.
“S’okay,” he says, and pulls Kent into his arms, tucks his head under Jack’s chin. “Love you,” he says drowsily.
Kent elbows him in the ribs, and Jack pulls back, rubbing at them.
“Jack,” Kent says, eyes wide, and then Jack realizes what he said. “You can’t say that unless you—”
“I do,” Jack says, and he means it. He kisses Kent, just once, very softly. “I do love you.”
Kent smiles like he’s already won the Stanley Cup. “Love you, too, Jack,” he says.
…
“Hey,” Jack says, when Kent skates over to him. Both of their families are here, too, but Kent comes straight to him and Jack opens his arms and lets Kent come home.
“Hey!” Kent says. He’s covered in sweat and his face is red and his pads make him feel awkward and bulky in Jack’s arms. “Okay, so I’ve always kind of had this dream and after I let my mom cry on me, you’re going to help me with it, okay?”
“Sure,” Jack says. He’d agree to anything for Kent right now, probably.
Karen does cry on Kent, and Jess doesn’t, but she can’t stop laughing. Jack’s dad holds him for a long moment and whispers something in his ear that makes Kent tear up. Five years ago, even one, it would have made Jack sick with jealousy. Now, it makes Jack smile. They have the same family now. A father who loves them both.
“Okay, come on,” Kent says to Jack when he’s finished with their families.
He skates over, says a few words to the teammate who’s holding the Cup, and takes it back with a smile.
“You know I can’t touch that thing,” Jack warns. He loves Kent, but there are limits.
“You don’t have to. I’ve just…” Kent exhales sharply. “This is the third time I’ve lifted this Cup now.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jack says, and he almost laughs.
“And I’ve kissed this trophy every time. But I’ve never kissed anyone under it. I’ve never gotten to do that.”
Jack reaches out, and touches the chain around Kent’s neck, where he knows his ring is hanging.
“Okay,” Jack says, and can’t help but grin. “And then you get to help me with something, deal?”
“Sure,” Kent says, and beams at him.
“Hoist that baby up, Kenny,” Jack says, and when Kent does, Jack moves in, careful not to touch the Cup, slides one hand around the back of Kent’s neck. There are people everywhere, cameras. Jack never kisses Kent in public. He’s Jack’s husband, and Jack’s never kissed him in public; at least, not like this, not when he knew how he felt and how Kent felt and how they feel together.
Jack presses his lips against Kent’s, slides his other hand around Kent’s back and pulls him in closer, licks into his mouth. When he pulls away, Kent’s trembling, and Jack chuckles.
“This thing is heavy,” Kent mutters at him, and sets it back down on the ice. “And you wanted to ask me something anyway, you jackass. Pun intended.”
Jack fumbles for the clasp of Kent’s chain. “You know we’re coming up on a decade.”
“Eight years last month,” Kent says, as Jack unclasps the chain and lets the ring slide into his hand.
“Yeah,” Jack says roughly. He takes Kent’s left hand. “I don’t want a divorce, Kent. I want to stay married. I want to get to ten years. I want to get to twenty. I just…”
“Jack,” Kent says softly. Jack looks down at the ring in his hand.
“I asked you to marry me once, Kent, and I did it all wrong.”
“We both did it wrong, Jack.”
“But I can’t ask you to marry me again. I can’t do that part over. But I want to ask you… Kenny, will you, um, stay married to me?” Jack holds up the ring a little sheepishly. It’s been eight years, and it’s dulled and scratched and rubbed to a shine where Kent kisses it before every game. “And I can get you a new one of these.”
“Don’t take my wedding ring away!” Kent says. “I love that ring. And I love you, Zimms. And I will not un-marry you. Obviously.”
“Okay,” Jack says, and laughs, and slides the ring onto Kent’s finger. “But I’m still getting you a ring. Maybe for ten years. You can keep the old one. You can have a whole collection if you want. I don’t care. Just. Marry me. Again. Still.”
“Yeah, Zimms,” Kent says, and kisses him again.
“Champagne in the locker room, lovebirds.” Swoops yells, skating by them, and Kent pulls back.
“Let’s go get drunk and celebrate our not-divorce,” Kent says. “Plus, it will help you forget that there’s probably going to be a picture of us kissing on the front page of NHL.com tomorrow.”
…
The picture is on the front of NHL.com in the morning, the picture of Kent holding the Stanley Cup high in the air while Jack leans in and kisses him under it.
The picture is on the front cover of the sports section of the newspaper.
The picture is on the TV when Jack turns it on when he’s making Kent coffee in the morning.
Jack sets the mug on Kent’s nightstand, and sits on the edge of the bed where Kent is still burrowed under his comforter. His hair is a wreck and his left hand has a wedding band on it.
“Kenny,” Jack says softly, and cards a hand through his hair. “I brought you coffee, Kenny, wake up.”
Kent makes an inhuman sound and then cracks one eye open. “Coffee,” he grunts.
“Yeah,” Jack says, and coaxes him upright enough to hand him the mug. “So, there’s a photo of us kissing on pretty much every sports site on the internet right now.”
“Really?” Kent says, and actually perks up. “Let me see it!”
Jack sighs, and pulls it up on his phone.
“It’s a good picture,” Kent says, and then catches the look on Jack’s face. “What, Jack, it is a good picture! I mean, we don’t have wedding pictures, but this is almost as good! This is a Stanley Cup picture, plus a recommitment picture. I don’t care what you say. I like it. I might get it framed.”
“Kent,” Jack sighs.
“Jack,” Kent says, abruptly serious. He sighs, and when he looks back at Jack, he looks almost tentative. “I know you don’t like PDA. And that’s fine. I don’t either, really, except that I’ve never had the chance to have PDA because you’re the only person I’ve ever been with for more than a night and I would never make you uncomfortable because I do know that you don’t like PDA and until last year we were both in the closet anyway. So. You don’t have to like that picture. But, please. Please just let me have this.”
Jack takes the mug from him and puts it back on the table, lies down until Kent’s forced to slide into the middle of the mattress to make room for him. “Okay, you’re right. I don’t like PDA. But I do like you. I love you. And I love that picture. And I can prove it to you, but um. You have to help me make a Twitter account first.”
“Jack,” Kent says, and then he starts to laugh.
“I don’t know how!” Jack protests, but Kent’s shaking with silent laughter and when he finally looks at Jack, his eyes are bright with tears.
“Okay,” Kent says, and takes Jack’s phone from him. “Let’s do this.”
…
jzimmermann1: The last time I saw you lift a Cup, we’d been married for a week and I couldn’t tell a soul. Eight years later, I get to watch you win the hardest trophy in sports, and I get to kiss you under it because I’m lucky enough to tell the whole world that we’re married.
Jzimmermann1: As a hockey player, as a friend, as a partner: I’ve never been prouder to call you my trophy husband. Love you, Kenny.