Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Kip Grady/Scott Hunter

Additional Tags:

Fix-It, Breaking Up & Making Up, Angst with a Happy Ending, Scott Hunter Needs a Hug

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2025-12-28 Completed: 2026-01-11 Words: 24,856 Chapters: 16/16

Everything Ends Before I Want It To

Summary

At Sochi, Scott is far from New York, and the memories carved into every inch of living space in his apartment. Here he can focus on hockey, on the game, on the promise of a greater purpose—kicking Canada’s ass—instead of moping around the Upper West Side and hating himself.
Because that’s what he’s been doing, for over a month now.

Chapter 1: Winter 2014

Chapter Notes

The winter wind whips across the streets of Sochi, chasing Scott Hunter out of the open air and into the warm interior of a cafe. The place is cosy, wood-panelled and well lit, and absolutely crawling with Olympic athletes.

He’s meeting Carter here under the pretence of a pre-game briefing, but what he actually needs is just to get out of the Olympic village, out of his room, and out of his own head.

Being in Russia has been liberating, in some ways. Here he’s far from New York, and the memories carved into every inch of living space in his apartment. Here he can focus on hockey, on the game, on the promise of a greater purpose—kicking Canada’s ass—instead of moping around the Upper West Side and hating himself.
Because that’s what he’s been doing, for over a month now.

Fall had been a revelation. Scott had, for the very first time in his life, allowed himself to pursue what he wanted. And what he’d wanted was Kip Grady. He’d had it, too, had everything. Or what he thought was everything. He’d had someone to come home to. Someone to share his bed, his home. But what he’d had was a fiction.

What he’s realised in the last few weeks is that he hadn’t shared everything with Kip. Instead he’d compartmentalised, as he is wont to do: everything organised; everything in its place. It’s how he can control things. He’d learned too young that things in life go horribly wrong. But with enough structure, with enough rules, maybe he can keep things within his grasp.

But Kip wasn’t something to be contained.

The worst part was that he had been happy. He had convinced himself that he finally had it all. Sure, the secrecy sucked, the sneaking around. The fear he’d wake up with some mornings, yawning beneath him like a black hole. The terror that someone would see him walking down the street and know, just instantly know: Hey, that’s Scott Hunter, and he loves sucking dick!

That fear was realer to him than his love for Kip. He’d let it win. He’d let Kip walk away instead of saying something—anything—to make him stay.

He hates himself for it—fucking hates himself some days.

But if he’d done it, if he’d come out, he sure as shit wouldn’t be sitting here now, captain of the US ice hockey team at the Winter Olympics. Endorsements would drop him. The league would force him out of captaincy, if not the sport altogether. He’d lose the fans. He’d lose his team. It was too much to risk.

The heating in the cafe feels smothering. He’s too warm in his Team USA jacket, he feels stifled. He undoes the zip, shrugs out of his outer layers.

The door opens with the polite tinkle of a bell, and Carter Vaughn come striding in, a swaggering flurry of fuck-you American attitude that he’s ready to shove into the face of anyone who questions him. Scott admires it: the self-assuredness that Carter carries around with him.

“Fuck me, it is colder than a witch’s left titty out there,” Carter says, dropping into the chair beside Scott.

Scott raises an eyebrow. “Just the left one?”

Carter shrugs. “You ready for the game tomorrow, man? Semi-final, and I’m ready to send Canada home crying like the little babies they are.”

Scott grins. “Readier than ever,” he says.

He hopes he musters some enthusiasm into his voice—he’s sure as shit not feeling it.

It shouldn’t be like this. He’s at the Olympics, for fuck’s sake. He should be excited. This is career-pinnacle play.

Instead, he catches sight of his reflection in the mirror each morning and feels himself hollowing out, shadows circling under his eyes because he’s not sleeping. Food tastes like nothing but he chokes it down anyway. He runs more miles on the treadmill than he needs to put in, hoping to sweat his way to absolution. Three days ago he got checked into the boards, hard, by the Slovakian team’s enforcer and he just took it, prodded his finger into his bruised flank later that night, the pain dull and muted. He looks like shit. He feels like shit, too. Which is almost certainly what he deserves.

“You okay, man?” Carter asks, looking genuinely concerned.

“Of course,” Scott says. He wants to believe it.

Carter’s eyes search his, and he tries to make himself normal. He must succeed, because Carter relaxes, leans back in his seat, drumming his hands on the tabletop.

“Hollander’s buddy was pretty amazing yesterday, right? Those figure skaters are some powerful motherfuckers,” he says.

Scott nods. “I don’t even want to attempt a quarter of what they’re doing out there.”

“Brave men,” Carter says.

Scott isn’t sure if Carter is referring to the skaters’ skills on the ice, the guts it takes to perform as a figure skater in general, or if he’s bringing it up again: the balls required to be a gay athlete here at Sochi.

It takes guts to be a gay athlete anywhere. Scott should know. He has faced it and found himself sorely lacking.

He stands up from the table, shoves his hands into his pockets.

“I’m gonna go order a drink,” he says. “You want something?”

“Yeah, man, whatever you’re having.” Carter pulls out his phone and starts tapping away. “I’ve got about fifteen minutes for you, though. Then I’m going to go and meet up with that Swedish aerial skier in told you about. Lovisa.”

He says her name like an incantation. It’s so easy for Carter. It always has been.

“I’ll be quick, then,” Scott says. He can’t even find it in him to be annoyed that Carter’s skipping out early. He’s not going to get in the way of someone else’s happiness.

He’s far too busy getting in the way of his own.

He looks over the menu at the counter, dismayed to see a variety of smoothies dominating most of the menu. Jesus Christ, he is pathetic. He can’t even order a drink at a cafe without losing his mind.

He ends up ordering a coconut water. He overpays the girl behind the counter, grabs his drink, not caring. He heads back to the table where Carter is still texting, smiling at his phone.

“Here,” Scott says, placing the coconut water down in front of Carter. “You should hydrate, if you’re going to go meet Lovisa.”

He tries to put playfulness into his tone, turn the situation into a gentle ribbing. He mostly succeeds, and Carter flips up his middle finger before swiping the bottle from the table.

“I’m going to head back to the village,” Scott says. “I want to check in with PT.”

“You still hurting from that hit last game?”

“Something like that.”

Scott taps the table in an awkward farewell, takes Carter’s lazy salute as a sign he’s fine to leave, and heads back out into the cold, empty-handed.

: : : : 

Team USA crash out in the semi-finals against Canada. Scott ignores Hollander’s chirping on the ice. He gets it: adrenaline’s high, the kid must be over the fucking moon to win big for his country.

Back in his room in the Olympic village, he packs his suitcase. There’s a bunch of stuff here to throw out: empty sports drink bottles, worthless swag from athletic brands.

He unzips his suitcase, laying it flat on his bed. He folds his Team USA T-shirts, his warm clothes, his thermals. He rolls his gloves into a ball and stuffs them inside his toque. He stacks in the novels he brought but had barely read.

He opens a smaller compartment inside the suitcase lid. Here he places the things he wants to keep. Things he’ll put somewhere safe back in his apartment. His Team USA jacket. A Sochi snow globe he’d bought, with the Olympic rings dusted with drifting snow. And lastly, washed clean and neatly folded: one pair of blue socks, dotted with a banana motif.

He trails his fingers over the socks. They’re soft from wear, starting to get thin a little around the heels.

He zips the suitcase closed.

Chapter End Notes

Sochi ice hockey results here reflect the actual standings at the 2014 Olympics, because Team USA not medalling is sadder.

Comments are very welcome here!

Chapter 2: Spring 2014

Chapter Notes

Boston is not Kip’s favourite place. For a start, he’s been conditioned his whole life to hate their sporting franchises. And second: it’s scarier than he thought it would be. 

Not like ‘dark alleys and cursed objects’ scary, although the city certainly has more than its fair share of the former. More scary in that he’s here alone, doing this alone. His whole life up until this point had been contained within five boroughs of New York City. Brooklyn born, Brooklyn raised, CUNY educated. His bedroom hasn’t changed since he was one year old and his parents moved his cot into the small single room he still inhabits—the one with old glow-in-the-dark stars on the walls, ancient blu-tack from posters long since taken down and replaced with art prints, a familiar mustiness to the carpet that he secretly hopes will never be replaced. The cot is long gone, of course, usurped by a wooden single bed that he actually still uses. 

And so, leaving New York on his own and moving to Boston on his own has been scary, if only because everything he’s held dear and familiar feels a million miles away. 

But a full ride to their art history masters program was everything he’d been working towards. He was determined to suck it up, to get it together, and to wring every ounce out of this experience that he could. 

It was cathartic, in a way. In the first few weeks after his break-up with Scott, everything had felt muted. Even opening his acceptance letter from Boston felt anticlimactic. His dad was excited about him getting into the program, and Kip could feel him trying to buoy him back up. But it was like someone had turned the color down on everything. It took him weeks to work through it.

He’d quit the smoothie shop. It was a no-brainer. After the way he’d left things, he doubted Scott would come in again, but he still didn’t want to risk it. Or just didn’t want to daily reminder of everything that’d happened over the last few months.

Instead he picked up a gig as a barista in a Brooklyn coffee place. The work was easy even if the tips sucked, he could walk there from home, and his risk of running into anyone he didn’t want to see was minimal. He’d worked hard over the end of winter, saving every cent he could, until the day came when he’d packed up his belongings and sat, numb, as his dad drove him five hours to Boston for the start of the spring semester. 

The drive had been fine. His dad had been prodding around the edges of Kip’s heartbreak for the last couple of months and was probably hoping that a few hours together in the car would give them space to talk it out, but Kip hadn’t wanted to open that can of worms. What could he even say? ‘Oh yeah, dad, I was just dating hockey superstar and all-American good boy Scott Hunter, but I didn’t want to get shoved back into the closet and I left him.’ It sounds ridiculous. And it’s also not his secret to tell. 

So instead they’d made casual conversation about the weather, the food in Boston, his graduate program, the apartment he’d secured on Craigslist. It had been fine; the familiar warmth of his dad’s patter had soothed him as they made their way north-east to Kip’s future, leaving the city and everything it held behind.

Boston has been fine so far. His course is interesting, his adviser is smart and seems to like him. He’s working as a TA for a couple of introductory undergrad courses and waiting tables a couple of nights a week. It’s enough to cover his rent and most of what he needs. He’s been here for a month now, and he’s starting to settle into some sort of pattern. Nothing as well-worn as the grooves he’s carved in New York; but maybe that’s for the best. Maybe he just needs to break new ground. 

: : : :

It’s late, but his dad has called to check in. He calls twice a week, at least. Kip misses him. 

Twenty minutes into their conversation, his dad brings it up.

“The Admirals just missed the playoffs, again.”

Kip grips the phone in his hand, feels the warm hum of the distance between here and home. 

“I don’t really follow hockey anymore, dad.” 

“Hmm. Well, it really is a shame, they’d had a good season, a few real good runs.”

Kip doesn’t respond. He doesn’t know how.

His father leaves the silence to settle, and then asks: “Kiddo, you met anyone nice there in Boston?” 

The question was inevitable—his father is nothing if not insatiable in his desire for Kip to be happy. But the question feels pointed, in its own way. His dad must have noticed something, must have wondered why his only son—who up until six months ago did not care one whit about hockey—was suddenly glued to the game, until he came home crying one night and never switched on ESPN again. God, he was so transparent.

And the thing is, his dad would have fucking loved it, would have loved Scott, not just because he’s a hockey player but because anyone could see it from the jump: Scott was a good person, a kind person; he was funny and clever and he cared about Kip in a way that would make any parent very happy to see. 

He can’t think about it any more. He begs off the phone citing coursework, but then just stares at his textbooks blankly for the better part of twenty minutes. 

He thinks about heading out, finding a bar, throwing himself into a meaningless hookup. Maybe that’s the kind of thing he needs, to exorcise Scott from his bones.

The whole thing, looking back at it objectively, was ridiculous: Scott was handsome and rich and successful and Kip was a scrub. It should never have worked. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when it did it as a doozy. 

It’s something to hang onto here, as he pulls the stack of books towards him, opens a blank page in his notebook. He hadn’t compromised on who he was. He hadn’t allowed himself to be sucked into a too-long game of charades where everyone’s doing their best ‘no homo’ impression as soon as they’re outside the walls of the apartment. He had put himself first. He should feel good about that. And maybe he will, one day, when the bruises on his heart start to fade away. Maybe he’ll be able to say: I had love, and I walked away. It will haunt me for the rest of my life, but I have my integrity. 

The truth is, he wouldn’t want it any other way. He wasn’t going to keep lying to his friends and family—especially not his dad. So the unstoppable force met the immovable object. And everyone had walked away a loser. 

He sighs, takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. Fatigue settles in like a heavy blanket over tired bones. He’s carrying too much. He knows he did the right thing, he did. And eventually he’ll stop replaying that final moment in a loop as he lies in bed at night. And after that, maybe he’ll meet someone else, someone he can walk tall with, and he’ll never look back. 

Chapter End Notes

Comments are very welcome here. ☺️

Chapter 3: Summer 2014

Chapter Notes

When your team fails to make the playoffs, summer stretches ahead interminably. Unless he wants to watch Montreal wipe the floor with Calgary (which he doesn’t, not after the way they’d knocked the Admirals out of contention at the end of the regular season), there’s nothing on TV but baseball. And the Mets are having a terrible run mid-season as usual, so not even that can lift his spirits.

Scott is bored. He misses Kip, still. It’s stupid: Kip had only been in his life for a couple of months, but he can’t even walk the length of his apartment without being set upon by ghosts. Here’s the kitchen where I made him breakfast. Here’s the couch where he left his art books, spines cracked from rereading. Here’s the shower where I had a split lip after getting high-sticked but he’d kissed me anyway, softer and with more care than I’d ever experienced before. Here’s the bed where I asked him to stay, where I dropped my guard, where I let someone fuck me for the first time, where I touched him and loved him and— 

He doesn’t let that ghost free too often. He’d never sleep. 

He tries to get out of the apartment, he really does, but to be honest he can’t even remember what he did when he wasn’t playing hockey before Kip came along. It’s like a weird black hole. There was hockey and surely something outside of the hours at the gym and the rink and in transit to away games. Then there was hockey and Kip. And now there’s just three months of oppressive New York heat, Mets management wasting the team’s potential, and the stark walls of his lonely home. 

He runs in the park. He lifts weights. He trains, he sits at home, he eats meals he doesn’t care about. July rolls around and he’s had enough. He needs to get out of here. Something has to change. 

: : : :

Reykjavik airport is smaller than he’d anticipated. It barely takes him ten minutes to clear customs and gather his bag, and then three minutes to secure a taxi. Before he knows it, he’s cruising down a two-lane road under a milky dawn sky, watching an alien landscape unfold itself in greys and greens along the horizon. 

It’d been Carter’s recommendation. He’d been last summer, had talked about it for ages. It hadn’t taken much prompting from Scott to get the details. From there it had been simple to book a package online and here he is: pulling up to a luxe hotel on the waterfront, stepping out onto the kerb to take in the landscape. The iron-blue ocean, the curve of mountains on the other side of the water that hem the town in. Not a skyscraper in sight. No traffic, no paparazzi, no oppressive city heat. The air feels fresh and still and crisp. 

The hotel is beautiful, his room well-appointed, with large windows overlooking the waterfront and the opera house. The sheets are expensive, the food is exquisite, and, most importantly, he doesn’t have a TV in his suite so he cant stare aimlessly at a screen for hours. 

He fills his days as best he can. He runs along the coast, he keeps on top of his training regime in the hotel gym. He soaks in the blue lagoon and the hotel’s thermal spa, the air traced with sulphur and the water scalding. He props himself up in the too-big bed and reads a Tess Gerritsen novel late into the night, dazzled by the sun that refuses to set until he figures out the black-out curtains. He goes on a whale-watching boat, sailing out into the deep, iron sea, marvelling at the grace of the huge creatures as they breach and wave. One morning, a private driver takes him to Gulfoss and he stands before the waterfall, lets the sound of it thunder around him where he stands on the viewing platform, humbled by its power. He walks endlessly through the streets of the city, drinks coffee in tiny cafes, eats hot dogs for lunch on more than one occasion without guilt because it’s a cultural experience and he’s on holiday. 

Through it all, he feels lonely. Lonelier than New York, but in a sweeter way. The pain is less sharp here. The clarity of the air brings his mind into focus. He is able, for the first time, to stop beating himself up. He wanders Laugavegur, hands stuffed into his pockets because it’s still chilly, even in summer, and marvels at the Hallsgrimkirkja, the church’s sharp angles so perfectly suited to its environment, correct in its strangeness. For the first time in a while, he’s not thinking of Kip. He sees couples eating in restaurants and he doesn’t think: that should be me. 

He buys a lopapeysa and wears it, the sweater’s wool comforting and itchy and warm. He loses himself in the fantasy of belonging. 

On his final night in the city, he leaves the hotel late in the evening and heads to Laugavegur under a light grey sky. He’s not used to it, this daylight at night; it makes him feel seen. But it is late, almost 11 o’clock, and the lights are on in small bars and a handful of restaurants that are still open along the busy main street. 

There’s a bar here he’d seen a couple of days ago on one of his walks. A glass door opens onto a flight of wooden stairs that lead down into a basement. He’d clocked it as he’d walked past: the rainbow flag stuck welcomingly by the door handle. Here, now, he feels resolute. He couldn’t do it in New York, not when it had mattered. But he can do it now, where no one knows him, close enough to the arctic circle to be anonymous. 

The bar itself is small, as most places in Reykjavik seem to be. It’s furnished in warm wood tones, small lamps and candles throwing soft light over the faces of the patrons. It’s a Friday night, and while the place isn’t exactly hopping, it’s well-populated. It seems like mostly groups of friends, men and women talking over beers. It’s normal. It’s non-threatening. He wonders, briefly, if the Kingfisher would have been like this. 

He takes a seat at the bar, pushing up the sleeves of his sweater. He orders a beer in English, apologises for not knowing Icelandic. The bartender laughs, assures him that it’s not a problem. 

He’s halfway through the beer, content to casually watch people, to take in the warmth of the place and soak it into his skin. It’s so casual here, so effortless. He feels a pang as he thinks again of the Kingfisher, of what he’d walked away from. 

“Hej,” he hears a voice beside him. “Ég held ekki að við höfum hist…”

Scott turns to see a tall man, objectively handsome, leaning against the bar next to him. His straight blond hair is cut short, his beard neat. He looks at Scott with openness, a question dancing around his friendly eyes. 

“Uh,” Scott starts. “Sorry, I, um—”

“Oh! American?” The man switches into English. 

“Canadian,” Scott lies. 

“Nice. You’re just visiting Iceland?” 

“Yeah, for the week. I’m flying out tomorrow, kind of sorry to leave.” 

The man looks at him, green eyes appraising. Then he holds out a hand for Scott to shake. He takes it. The man’s hand is dry, his grip warm. 

“Leif,” he says, shaking Scott’s hand. 

“Steve,” Scott says, shame burning through him as he lies again. 

“You’re enjoying Iceland?” 

“Very much. It’s like nowhere I’ve ever been.” 

“Have you seen much?” 

Scott shrugs. “Not as much as I’d like. Some waterfalls. Mostly I’ve been here in the city.”

“Ah, it’s sweet of you to call it that,” Leif laughs. “And yes, waterfalls. There are so many. You can’t walk ten metres in this country without seeing one. It’s a point of national pride.” 

Scott grins. “There’s more places I wanted to see, I just ran out of time. The Westfjords. Landmannalaugur.” 

Leif smiles wide. “Your pronunciation is very cute.” 

“I’m doing my best.” Scott feels his face heat. 

“You’re doing perfectly.” 

Their conversation flows easily, lightly. They have another beer each. At some point Leif shifts closer to Scott, their hands almost brushing where they rest against the bar. 

It would be easy, Scott realises, to pick this man up, to take him back to his hotel room. On some levels, he wants to. It could be healing. It could push out the memories from last year for once and for all. Leif is graceful and forgiving and here, long-limbed and handsome, quick to smile and laugh. His body language is open. It would be so easy. 

They stay until the bar closes at 2am. In a quiet street between Laugavegur and his hotel he lets Leif kiss him, the sky still light and merciless overhead. 

His flight is in ten hours. He can feel the fatigue setting over him already. The dread of returning to New York creeping back in around the edges of his thoughts. Better, then, to not think. 

He reaches one hand up, cups the back of Leif’s head, leans into the kiss. Here he is Steve, the Canadian sports reporter. Here he can have this. And this will be enough. 

Chapter End Notes

My love letter to Iceland. Comments are very welcome here! 😊

Chapter 4: Fall 2014

Chapter Notes

The second year of Kip’s masters program is far more intense than the first. His thesis has stalled, his arguments are out of reach. He spends countless hours in a carrel in the humanities library, eyes bleary behind his glasses, hand cramping from taking notes. He is a slave to his laptop and its churning, overheating battery. Some days he’s unsure what’s more complex: redefining his thesis statement or understanding what the fuck EndNote is actually doing as he tries to get on top of his bibliography. 

Boston has become less alien to him now, after six months in the city. He has friends from his coursework program, Itay and Grace, and together they build their own mythology: a bar they frequent together, a cafe they meet at regularly, movie nights at the cult theatre downtown. They’re no replacement for his New York friends. Elena texts him daily. Shawn leaves him rambling voicemails. It’s nice, the way the threads between them hold. 

He’s growing here, and learning, and becoming full with it. Knowledge has always been nourishment to him, and here he is sucking the marrow from the opportunity. He takes copious notes, challenges lecturers when he disagrees with their theses, finishes papers early, actually enjoys teaching undergrads. He had worked so hard to arrive; he won’t squander it. 

Right now he’s sitting in a corner table in his regular coffee spot, flipping desperately through his notebook as he tries to find a source for the quote he’s typed into his thesis proposal. 

Someone places a coffee cup down on the table in front of him. He looks up and sees Itay standing over him, smiling. 

“You look like you need this caffeine more than I do,” Itay says, nudging the cup forward.

Kip stops rummaging through his pages and drops the notebook. 

“You are a lifesaver,” he says, grabbing the coffee with gratitude. “Wait, you’re not giving me your coffee, are you? I can get my own.”

Itay snorts. “Of course not,” he says as he produces a second cup miraculously from behind his back. “I just said you need it more than me. Because you look like shit.” 

“Thanks.” Kip rolls his eyes, but takes the gentle ribbing.

“Everything going okay?” Itay casts his eyes over the stacks of paper haphazardly strewn over the table. 

“Yes. No. I don’t know, I’ve got my research proposal due in three days, I’m five hundred words short, and now I can’t find the reference for my main argument. I really need Dr McGill to accept the proposal so I can get started on my thesis. The whole thing is just really stressing me out, and my teaching hours are literally killing me, and I just feel the tiniest bit overwhelmed right now, which would be fine if i could just find this fucking reference—”

Itay holds up his hands, laughing to cut Kip off before he spirals into complete madness. 

“Okay, okay. I get the picture. So how can I help?”

Kip sighs, grabs the coffee from the table and wraps his fingers around the warm sides of the cup. 

“You already have,” he says. 

“Sure, that’s because I’m great,” says Itay. “Talk me through your proposal. Maybe it’ll jog your memory.” 

Kip watches as Itay folds his lanky frame into the chair opposite, happily settling in. He’s still not used to this: friends that want to hear about his research, his academic passions. 

“Okay,” he says. “So I’m looking at fin de siècle portraiture, probably Sargent. I’m really interested in the way queer artists, particularly in this era, created works that were both expression and obfuscation of identity. A presentation of who they are, but couched within their own terms, their own mediums. They’re telling the story, showing their truths, but simultaneously hiding, especially as their renown as artists grew. I want to look at this duality and how it manifests in the core of the work, the contradictions and complements of chiaroscuro in Sargent’s painting, you know.”

Kip is aware that he’s rambling, but Itay is nodding, agreeing. 

“Sounds like you want Arendt, if that’s your argument.”

“Oh, fucking of course, Arendt,” Kip mutters, scrambling through his notes again until he find the source he was looking for. “Itay, you’re a lifesaver.” 

“You would have remembered, I’m sure.” 

“No, I think I was genuinely going to go insane looking for that.” 

He finds the paper he was after, highlighted and underlined and annotated, the corner staple hanging on for dear life. 

“So, next time you buy my coffee,” Itay says. He pulls out his own laptop and lays it on the table in a spare bit of empty space. “Mind if I join you for a bit?” 

“Yeah, of course,” Kip says, trying to scrape his papers into a more orderly pile.

They work together in quiet for a while, the silence punctuated by the tapping of their keyboards and the shuffle of printed sheets. 

Chiaroscuro. Every art student’s favourite term. It’s an easy win, as a motif or technique, because it’s so prevalent. But Kip likes this analysis: not just the interplay of light and dark, but the symbolism of it. That which we bring to light, that which we choose to pull into the sun, is a distraction for the things we choose to hide in the darkness.

On the table, kip’s phone buzzes, the screen lighting up with a message. He tilts the screen towards him, and is surprised to see the sender’s name. Scott Hunter. 

He hasn’t heard from Scott in almost a year. He’s been content to let it go, as painful as that was to do. Hanging onto it, holding on to some bizarre and pointless hope, would have hurt just as much. 

He has no idea why Scott would be messaging him now, out of the blue. 

He unlocks his phone. 

As far as messages go, at the surface it seems innocuous enough. He places the phone back on the table, the screen still unlocked and open on the message, and considers it. 

He can’t get a read on it. Scott was always so forthcoming, so open with him. This message seems meek, timid. It feels wrong. It asks for nothing. Despite it all, Scott had always been able to ask for what he wanted. 

He doesn’t know how to respond. He locks the phone’s screen. He catches Itay’s questioning look, and shakes his head. Forget it, he wants to say. It’s nothing. 

He doesn’t reply to the message. It seems to burn a hole right through his mind, though. He doesn’t reply, but he can’t stop thinking about it. He drafts a dozen replies in his head but never types them, dismissing them as too accusatory, too wheedling, too perfunctory. Because the message demands no reply, he can’t bring himself to formulate one. 

The semester bobs along, weeks punctuated by classes and contact hours. His advisor approves his thesis plan. Itay and Grace start dating and he finds himself happy for them. A small pang of something sour—loneliness, regret—curdles at the back of his mind when he sees them kiss in front of him, open and easy. The feeling intensifies, its edges growing sharp, when he reads Scott’s message again, and then again, looking for meaning in the words that isn’t there. 

Kip throws himself into his research. Scott doesn’t reach out again. It hurts, but he pushes it down. The timing isn’t right. He has work to focus on. Later, he assures himself. Another time. He’s worked too hard to get here. 

Chapter End Notes

Comments are very welcome here :)

Chapter 5: Winter 2015

Chapter Notes

The Admirals season is in full swing, and it feels good. The team is working like a practised machine. Scott’s joints don’t ache like they will in March. They lose a series to Montreal—not unexpected with the way Shane Hollander has been leading his team—but they sweep Philadelphia and then Washington, before squeaking out an ugly win against Pittsburgh to close out before the winter break. 

He sees his team off the ice, fist-bumping and shoulder-slapping until the rink is empty, the home crowd’s roars echoing down the hall as he heads to the locker room. 

The room is buzzing with energy, everyone excited about the win but also about the time off. It’s not much, just their mandatory three-day break while the league shuts down for Christmas, but it makes some of the guys as giddy as kids on the last day of school. 

He heads to a bench and slips off his gloves, then unclips his helmet before placing it on the bench. He eases off his jersey, unties his shoulder pads, slips off his elbow pads before laying them all out, organized, ordered. He sits and unties his skates, left first and then right. He slides off his shorts, his oversocks, his shin guards. He reaches into his compression pants and slips the cup out of his jock. 

The room cacophonous: the clatter of equipment being stripped and dropped in for cleaning; the laughter of his team as the post-win dopamine settles over them like a haze; the hiss of the showers steaming around the corner. 

Scott stacks his equipment and drops it in the large bin for the equipment managers to clean. He bundles his dirty uniform and slips it into the laundry caddy. He runs his hands through his sweaty hair, in desperate need of a shower. 

He sits on the bench and slips off his grey Under Armour socks, revealing his blue banana socks underneath. He frowns at a small tear that’s started to show in the heel of the right sock. He runs a finger over the frayed edge, then pinches the rent fabric together. 

“Heads up, Cap!”

He looks up to see Carter lobbing something small and red at him. Despite the podcasts’ wailing and lamentations, Scott’s reflexes are still sharp, and his hand snaps up and grabs the object mid-flight. It’s soft under his hand, wrapped in red paper decorated with candy canes. 

“What’s this?” he asks, turning the package over. 

“What does it look like? It’s a Christmas present.” Carter sits across from him, his towel slung low across his hips. 

“Thanks, man,” Scott says. He slips his finger under the tape and works the gift wrapping open. 

Inside are three objects: a pair of socks, Admirals red and embroidered with hockey sticks; a spool of blue thread; and a small plastic cylinder with a delicate needle inside. 

He looks at Carter, unsure how to respond. 

“The socks aren’t a replacement,” Carter says, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Just an alternative so you don’t have to wear your others out so much outside of games. The needle and thread are from my mom. I was complaining about how you’ve worn our good luck offering into dust, how we’d be screwed this season without those things.”

“It’s science,” Scott agrees, grinning. 

“Right! So mom said someone should just patch the socks for you. She said she’d do it herself but I don’t think you can be parted from them long enough.” 

“I wouldn’t want to tempt the gods.”

“Neither. So…happy Christmas, dude.” 

Scott is touched. He runs his fingers over the gifts. It’s a lot. 

“I…uh, I didn’t get you anything,” he says. 

“Don’t sweat it, my dude,” Carter says, standing and adjusting his towel. “You’ll pay me back when we get Lord Stanley’s Cup.” 

He whips his towel off and flicks it in Scott’s direction, grinning wildly. 

“All right, all right, you animal,” Scott laughs. He feels the laugh, the smile, all the way down to the centre of himself. It feels good. It feels right. 

: : : :

Back in his apartment, Scott is dressed in soft sweatpants and a long-sleeved Henley, sitting next to the coffee table. Next to his mug of protein hot chocolate sit his banana socks. He has YouTube open to an instructional video of basic darning stitches. He squints at the tiny eye of the needle and attempts, again, to pass the thread through the impossibly small hole. They should have improved the design on these by now, he thinks. At least so the thread stays in once you manage to get the damn thing in. 

His phone buzzes, interrupting the video. A message notification slides onto his screen. He sees the name on the alert and his hands still. 

It’s Kip. 

He hasn’t heard from Kip in a long time. He’d sent him a message a couple of months ago, one he’d agonised over for hours before sending out into the ether, only to never receive a response. 

It was fine. He was fine. The message had been sent at a particular low point, when the winding path of his emotional recovery had hit a spectacular nadir around Halloween. But he’s gotten better since then. He took the lack of response as a sign, and has been working gradually to let go. He’s looked into therapy: not to talk about Kip specifically, or his sexuality, but just to help unwind some of the tension he otherwise carries. The knots he’s tied himself into for far too long. 

He picks up his phone and opens the message app. 

He almost drops the phone in his haste to reply. 

He doesn’t know how to respond. He’s spent a long time pushing Kip’s memory away. He puts the phone down, his hand shaking. He can feel it now, the sinking feeling that accompanies his acknowledgment that he hasn’t really let go, not properly. All it’s taken is one message and he can feel it flaring up again: the warmth of Kip’s light, the depth of how much he’d loved him, all of it starting to spin out again. 

It feels nice. He sighs and scrubs a hand over his face, fingertips catching on his stubble. 

He picks up his phone again. 

Home. He hadn’t even known that Kip had left New York. Hadn’t heard where he’d gotten into grad school. The thought makes him feel ill. A year, and he knows nothing of the time that had passed.

He wants to be honest. He wants to tell Kip that he’s miserable, has been miserable all year, that he can’t stop thinking about him.

But that wouldn’t be fair. That’s not what Kip needs to hear. Scott needs to keep working on letting go, on moving past this.

He means it. It’s all he’d ever wanted.

His phone pings with again with an incoming email. He opens his email app and sees a new message from the team’s accounting department.

Scott,

Do you still want your seats for the New Year’s Eve game? Huff is looking for extras, and considering yours never get picked up, maybe we can transfer yours to his account? I can just take them out of Christopher’s name.

Let me know.

Maeve

And there’s the truth of it: he’s never let go at all. Every home game, he still has seats set aside for Kip. He pays for them every home game. Just in case Kip remembers the offer, in case he turns up. Scott looks to the stands every half time, sees the empty seats every game, but he still books them. It’s a compulsion, as much a part of his routine as his apple slices and the order he puts on his gear and those damn socks that sit on his coffee table.

Letting go of the seats would be the last step—would sever a final thread he isn’t ready to cut.

He skims again through the messages he’s just exchanged with Kip, feeling that warmth flutter through him again. He replies to Maeve.

I’ll keep one seat for new years. Huff can have the others. Keep mine aside for Christopher Grady. And for the rest of the season.

The ticket won’t be picked up, he knows. But that’s not what matters. What matters is that it’s there, waiting, should it be wanted again.

Chapter End Notes

Progress!

Comments are very welcome here. :)

Chapter 6: Spring 2015

Chapter Notes

Seven months of intensive drafting, redrafting, editing, polishing and perfecting later, and Kip’s thesis is completed, printed, and submitted for examination. 

Seven months of hard work, late nights, bad coffees just to keep his eyelids chemically propped open. Weeks and weeks of typing, referencing, and wrestling with EndNote’s integration with his word processing software. 

Dozens of meetings with his supervisor. Three seminar presentations. One thesis defence that he thinks went pretty well. 

He is done. Gloriously, finally done. 

His supervisor had hinted at the BU doctoral program, but Kip had demurred. He wants to get out into galleries. He wants to find new art that learns from its past and keeps growing the conversation. He wants to go home. 

But right now, he really wants a drink. 

He’s organised to meet Itay and Grace at The Troubadour for beers to celebrate their freedom. He’s running late, but at least this time he has a reason. He clutches his phone, the handset warm against his ear as he listens to his Dad on the other end of the line.

“I’m proud of you, Kip,” his dad says, voice colouring with emotion. “You set out to do something and you did it. I couldn’t have asked for more. You’re incredible. And, look, I’ve sent you a little somethin’ in your email, just a little gift to show you how proud I am of everything you’ve done.” 

“Dad, you didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Of course I did! Not every day your kid finished his masters. So you deserve something nice, so what?” 

“Okay, okay,” Kip laughs. “Thank you. And I love you, Dad.” 

“I love you, too, buddy. Can’t wait to have you home again.” 

Kip hangs up the phone and sits at the table, opening his laptop. He refreshes his email inbox. And there, sent from his dad, is a miraculous gift: a flexible return ticket from La Guardia to Charles de Gaulle. 

He’s going to Paris. 

It’s a big gift, and expensive one. His dad doesn’t make a ton of money. The gesture is huge, and important. 

He grabs his phone and calls his dad’s number again, heart full to bursting. 

Holy shit, he’s going to Paris. 

: : : :

“Here’s to us, and never having to smell that weird stink in the humanities library ever again!” 

Grace raises a glass of white wine, giddily happy, and takes a large swig. 

“I prayed I would never have to find its source, and I think I’m going to graduate without knowing. I’ve never been more relieved,” Kip says, sipping from his own beer. 

“I don’t know,” adds Itay. “I still want to know what cursed object is haunting the stacks. Trash monster? Reanimated corpse?” 

“Sentient, ancient cat puke,” Grace nods. 

Kip grimaces. “My money was on a shambling mound of rotten fruit. I’m just glad we never have to find out.” 

“Because we’re all masters now,” Grace says. “Masters of arts. We have mastered art. Defeated it.”

“Speak for yourself,” says Itay. “I will consider it bested once I have my doctorate, and not before.” 

“Aw, so brave,” Grace says, patting Itay lightly on the cheek. “I am so done with academia for now. I am ready to be a real person again.”

Kip is not going to lie. Graduate school has been a trip, but has been hard. He hasn’t had time to think about much outside of his studies, and he pours himself to bed each night more tired than he’s been in his life. It’s been a blessing and a curse: each semester made him feel a little crazier, but also gave him less opportunity to think about things and people he hasn’t had the time to engage with. 

Scott, specifically. 

He wasn’t sure what had driven him to message Scott over the winter break. He acknowledges that at face value it was because he’d been watching the Admirals game with his dad, and had seen Scott on the ice, had let the thought of him send a shock through his system. When he probes a little deeper, though, he sees it more clearly: he was practically glued to the armchair in his dad’s living room, fastened by supernatural force as he’d watched Scott skate up and down the ice, chasing the puck, scoring the game’s winning goal. Scott had looked…well, he’d looked really good. Strong. Kip had almost forgotten his athleticism, the raw power of his body. The intensity on his face as he shouted encouragement to his teammates. The confidence in his posture, the way he carried himself on the ice. It was, still, deeply attractive. 

This was the Scott he wanted to remember. Not the broken-hearted man he’d left standing by a kitchen island, trapped in his own gilded cage. 

As he lay in bed that night, far from Boston, mind somewhat free from his thesis for the winter break, he hadn’t been able to resist. He’d opened the door a crack, and had texted Scott. 

And he’d texted him again since then. Not a lot, not often, not promising anything. They were both so busy—Scott with the season, Kip with his study—that there wasn’t much to talk about. They’d lost their common ground. But he’d kept in touch, kept the line between them open. 

Later that night, warm with beer and camaraderie, he hugs his friends goodbye, letting their laughter and well-wishes chase him out the door of the bar. He walks back to his apartment, hands stuffed into the pockets of his light jacket. His phone buzzes under his hand. He pulls it out and sees a message from Scott. 

Kip smiles. Scott’s been busy, the Admirals have made it to the playoffs of the Eastern Conference. But he’s taken the time tonight to send this message, to think of Kip. To reach out and bridge that gap, he knows, is simultaneously repairing and destroying them both. It’s making it impossible to let go. 

He sends a reply. 

Kip snorts out a small laugh. The answer was quintessentially Scott. 

A beat, three flashing dots appear and disappear, and then appear again. 

Kip can read it for what it is. A plea, an entreaty: don’t leave again. Don’t put more distance between us. Scott is once again asking for what he wants. Even if it’s not romantic, it’s still a vulnerable request, and Kip can parse it because he feels it too, every time he unlocks his phone and reads through the message trail they’ve built over the last few months. It says: I want you closer. Come back to me. 

The string between them was never severed, although it has grown taut with time and distance. It thrums now, vibrates with something tender. A touch, an echo, an answer. A promise of something to come. 

Chapter End Notes

Look, I’m doing some hand-waving here of postgraduate study timelines for reasons of my own. Mostly to ease Kip’s suffering, because no one wants more of their masters than strictly necessary.

Chapter 7: Summer 2015

Chapter Notes

Scott pushes the door of his apartment closed and drops his gear bag on the floor near the coat rack. He sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and heads to the kitchen. He grabs a bottle of electrolyte water from the fridge, twists the lid off, gulps it down. The water is cool, impersonal. He places the half-empty bottle down on the granite countertop, and then finally stops moving for the night. He allows himself to be still. 

The game tonight had been a debacle from the beginning. There was no dignity in losing during the play-offs, but it was always worse when it was a loss that knocked the team out of contention for the cup. Some of the other guys were hitting the clubs after the game, drinking to dull the pain of the season slipping out of reach. Scott had turned down the invitations, instead going to make the required media statements that came with the C on his jersey, and then spending a disproportionate amount of time in the shower. 

After that, all he’d really wanted was to come home. He’d wanted to come home and message Kip. 

In the last couple of months, the cracked-open door between them has been creaking incrementally open. They text now, fairly regularly. Not every day, but a few times a week, schedules permitting. 

It feels…hopeful. 

Scott isn’t putting any weight on it, isn’t counting chickens or even eggs at this point. He knows that as long as his fundamental circumstances remain the same, he can lay no claim over Kip. Maybe Kip has even moved on, met someone else. Maybe he’s having a summer fling in Paris right now. Scott hasn’t asked—because it’s not his place to, and because he doesn’t think he could take the answer. It would make sense for Kip to have found someone else. Kip is inherently loveable, and has such love to give. It would be unreasonable of the universe to let that go uncelebrated. 

Scott reaches for his phone, lays it on the counter and unlocks the screen. He checks the world clock app: it’s 5am in Paris. Kip will be asleep. Or will be stumbling home from the night of his life in a Parisian gay club. Or will be in the arms of some handsome Frenchman. Scott sighs, locks the phone again. He can’t keep thinking like this. It’s not healthy, and it’s not sustainable. Kip isn’t his. Maybe they’re working their way towards something different now, something like friendship. But that comes with distance. Kip is not his, not anymore. 

He finishes the electrolyte water and puts the bottle into the recycling bin under the sink. He takes his phone to his room and plugs it in to charge. He turns up the volume on the ringer. He needs another shower. He rubs a hand over his face; his eyes feel gritty with fatigue. He needs sleep. 

He drags himself to his ensuite, runs the water hot and lets it sluice over him, cleansing the loss, the rink, the season from his skin. He dries himself with a soft Turkish cotton towel. He flosses and brushes his teeth. He pads to the bedroom and crawls between the sheets, gratefully letting sleep claim him. 

: : : :

He wakes late. He’d switched off his regular alarm: a consolation prize for his hockey season abruptly ending. The mid-morning sun is splitting through the curtains, spilling over his sheets like butter. He checks the clock: 9.27am. He feels slothful, a delightful laziness taking over him, and he stretches languidly against the pillows. He runs a hand lightly down his chest. 

The arousal that’s lazily spirally around his spine makes itself known, pulsing low in his groin. He sighs, and lowers his hand down to lightly cup his balls and sweep over his cock. 

Sex hasn’t really been on his mind lately. Between the gruelling demands of hockey and the loneliness in his personal life, he’s felt little drive. But now, with the season over, with no one relying on him for anything today, or tomorrow, or even the day after, he settles into the indulgence of the moment. 

He has time, today. 

It doesn’t take long for him to work himself to full arousal, his grip firm and familiar on his cock. He strokes himself with certainty, his free hand clutching at his chest, pinching at his nipples. He twists against the sheets, allows himself to gasp and sigh into the quiet of the room. 

He draws it out longer than usual; he has nowhere to be. And when he comes—his brows drawn together in focus; his stomach clenching—he thinks, guiltily, of Kip. 

“Fucking god damn it,” he mutters into the stillness of the room. He rolls to side and grabs the tissue box from the bedside table. He pulls out a handful with more force than strictly necessary and wipes at his stomach, his chest. “Just…fucking damn it.” 

It hadn’t been intentional. Maybe all this communication between them isn’t the best idea. It’s opening doors that should stay closed. His subconscious doesn’t need to get the wrong idea and run with it. Even saying they’re friends is a reach: he and Kip are friendly, that’s all. And the last thing he needs to do is think about his friendly ex while he’s having an orgasm. It’s rude. It’s impolite. And it’s not fair. 

His phone dings on the bedside table. 

He pads to the bathroom and flushes the tissues, washes his hands. He takes a long, hard look at himself in the mirror. What am I doing? he thinks. 

The phone chimes again. He walks to the closet, grabs a pair of boxer briefs and slides them on. He settles back onto the bed and grabs his phone. Two message notifications glare on his screen. He looks closer: they’re both from Kip. 

He sighs and thumbs the phone open. 

The first message is a photo of a Van Gogh painting—one of the few artists Scott can actually name. 

He smiles to himself, feeling a little of the guilt ebb away as he replies, replaced instead with a deep tenderness that spreads through him like syrup. 

When he and Kip had been together, almost two years ago, now, Kip had worked himself to the bone to save enough to get a head start on grad school. Whenever Scott wasn’t monopolising his time, he was working shifts at the smoothie shop or a catering gig. Scott had always been impressed. It warms him now to see Kip enjoying the fruits of his labor. 

It’s romantic as hell. Scott is a little lost for words. He’s never been an art guy. But Kip—Kip had always been ready to teach him. The idea of Kip chasing the sunlight from centuries-old paintings clenches around his heart. 

The postcard, when it arrives, is small and water-stained, but the picture on the front is clear. A painting of a garden, a riot of colour and brushstrokes. Garden at Arles, it says down one side. A Van Gogh. He smiles before flipping it over. 

On the back is a message in Kip’s cramped hand: 

Wish you were here.

Chapter End Notes

Comments are very welcome here. :)

Chapter 8: Fall 2015

Chapter Notes

The air is cool and crisp, forcing Kip to tighten his coat around the collar as he makes his way down West 19th Street to the Damon Ziegler Gallery. 

In July, he’d returned from Paris inspired. He’d applied at every gallery in the city looking for a job, praying that his expensive graduate degree would kickstart the career he’d always wanted. 

A higher power of some sort must have been listening, because he’s spent the last two months working at the Ziegler, a contemporary art gallery in the East Village. And not as an intern, either, oh no. His coffee-making days are behind him. He has the auspicious title of Junior Curator—probably one step up from “janitor”, but he’ll take it. More than that, he loves it. It’s everything he’s wanted, everything he’s worked towards. 

The pay is not terrible, either. He’s moved out of Brooklyn. It had been hard to readjust after living alone in Boston. He loves his dad, but he loves not spending forty-five minutes on the L train every morning even more. So now he has his own place: a neat one-bedroom in Chelsea that he pays far too much for, but it’s his. He’s decorated the space in green tones, art prints and brass accents and too many indoor plants. It’s nice. It has decent lighting. It feels cosy and organic and permanent. It’s what he’s wanted for a long time. 

The cool November air nips at him again, chasing him inside the gallery’s heavy glass doors. 

“Morning!” he calls out into the space, his voice bouncing off the high ceilings. 

Footsteps echo from deeper in the gallery, and Jean-Luc, the exhibition manager, steps out. 

“We have a slight emergency.” 

“Oh?” Kip slips his messenger bag off his shoulder and starts to shrug out of his coat. “What can I do?”

Jean-Luc beckons and then heads into the office at the back of the gallery. Kip follows him, stopping to hang his coat on the rack by the door. He drops his bag onto his desk and then makes his way over to Jean-Luc. 

“Bien, Christopher. We have six weeks until the new exhibit.” 

Kip nods, very aware. This upcoming exhibit—a collection of emerging artists built around a theme of fairy tales—has been consuming his thoughts since he started this job. He’s spent countless hours emailing artists’ agents, planning out floor space, dealing with contractors to rearrange walls. It’s been a trial by fire, and he’s loved every minute of it. 

“Well, we have a tiny problem,” says Jean-Luc. “Willam Handler has been cancelled.” 

Handler has been the centrepiece of the exhibit, his oil paintings of dark forests framing the narrative of the space. 

“What did he do?” Kip asks. 

“Posted some shit about World AIDS Day on Twitter. People called him out, he doubled down, and now we have had to cancel his contract under our morality clause. I won’t have the work of a homophobe on the walls of this gallery.” 

Jean-Luc flicks a piece of imaginary lint from the sleeve of his cardigan. 

“Probably the right call,” says Kip, although he is now panicking internally about how they’re going to fill the gap. “What’s the plan?” 

Jean-Luc sniffs. “I need you to stop in at an artist’s atelier in Nolita. They’ve been on my watchlist for a while, and I think they may be right to replace Handler’s painting. You’ll need to go this morning. We can’t sleep on this, or we’ll all be fucked. I trust your eye.” 

Kip glows with the compliment. 

“No problem,” he says. “What’s the address?” 

An art emergency. An actual art emergency. He can’t believe this is his job. 

: : : :

Two weeks later, Kip is reviewing the proofs from the graphic designer for the exhibit’s advertising, leaning his elbow against his desk and propping up his chin in his hand. This is the fourth time he’s looked at these images today. He is driving himself crazy. He just needs to choose the graphics to print. He doesn’t even have to do that, actually—he just needs to pick his favourite and then let Jean-Luc decide. It feels like a lot is riding on this, though. Like he’s distilled the success of the whole exhibit into this one tiny choice. 

He has the printers on standby. His social media posts are drafted and ready to send. The collection they’ve curated is beautiful: impasto oil paintings, glasswork, sculpture, watercolor. He’s done well. Jean-Luc is happy. The gallery owner is happy. The caterers are booked. The wine order is in. 

This is the culmination of everything he’s been working towards. It’s exciting. It makes him feel hopeful. Elena and his dad are jazzed, already at length talking about coming to the opening night. He can sense their pride when he talks to them about it. Or, possible in Elena’s case, pride mixed with relief that he’s finally going to launch the exhibit and stop talking her ear off about it. 

There’s one other person he’d like to invite to the show. Scott—who’d never been much of an art guy—dominates Kip’s thoughts every time he imagines what the show will be like. He tries to visualise opening night: the public reception, his sense of pride. But mostly he just thinks about what it would be like to see Scott walk in, to see him here in this space Kip’s curated, to have him within arm’s reach. 

Since he got back from Paris, their texting has shifted into a comfortable place, messages coming daily, thoughts they share growing deeper and more personal. They’re building something again, he can feel it. 

He can also feel Scott keeping him at a distance. A couple of times Kip has left openings in the conversation: a slight space where an invitation would easily nestle, although it never eventuated. It could have been simple: No, I haven’t tried that restaurant, we should go together. Or Yes, I would love to see your new place. Or Would you like to come to my next home game?

He’s tired of leaving so much unsaid. They’ve come this far, rebuilding something between them. So why put down the mortar now, when the stones are begging to be placed? He wonders if Scott feels it, too. 

He scrolls through the poster design options again, then forwards them to Jean-Luc with a quick note: option 5 and 2 are my favourites, in that order. 

He picks up his phone and opens his messages. He’s halfway through typing a text to Scott to invite him to the show, when it hits him. He’s tired of the distance, even if it’s necessary. He wants to hear Scott’s voice. 

Scott answers on the third ring. It’s loud in the background, metal doors slamming and voices rumbling. Kip checks the time: Scott is probably at practice. He declines to acknowledge the fact that he still knows Scott’s schedule. 

“Hey,” Scott says on the other end of the line, and Kip freezes. He had forgotten how Scott sounds. The depth of his timbre, the openness of his tone. 

It’s been just shy of two years since he’s heard Scott’s voice, and the reality of it now, in just one simple word of greeting, is making his stomach flip. 

“Hey,” he replies, a smile breaking out unbidden. “Is this a bad time?” 

“No, of course not. I’m just wrapping up practice.” 

“I can call back if—”

“No! No. It’s, uh…it’s nice to near you.” Scott’s voice softens as he says it. “Was there a reason, or did you just want to talk? I can do that, you’ll just have to  give me five to get out of the locker room.” 

It would be nice, to just talk with Scott again. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it. 

“No, it’s okay,” he says. “I just wanted to say that a show I’ve been working on is opening in January. And if you wanted, you’d be very welcome to come along.” 

“Oh yeah? What date?” 

“January 12th.”

He hears a beat, and then Scott speaks again, sounding disheartened. “Ah, sorry. Away series in Winnipeg.” 

“Oh! That’s okay. That’s fine.” Kip can’t help but feel disappointed. “It’s running for a couple of months. You should come and check it out when you’re back, then. I can give you an unsanctioned audio tour.” 

Scott huffs out a laugh. “Okay, yes. I would love that. I would love that very much.” 

They farewell each other, Kip citing work and Scott needing to wrangle his team out of the rink. 

Kip disconnects the call, hugs his phone to his chest. He can still feel the rumble of Scott’s voice echoing in his ear. A phantom hum. A welcome bass note. 

This doesn’t need to change anything, he decides. The status quo is okay. The status quo is stable, dependable, non-threatening. 

He picks at his thumbnail. He refreshes his inbox. He knows that he’s lying. 

He doesn’t want the status quo. He wants glorious movement toward something new. 

Chapter End Notes

Comments are very welcome here :)

Chapter 9: Winter 2016

Scott checks his hair in the mirror for the hundredth time, and adjusts the button on his shirt: does it up to the collar, unbuttons it again. He feels nervous. He shoots his cuffs. He wonders if he should trim his beard again. Kip had always liked his beard. Not that it matters anymore, he chastises himself. This is a friendly invitation. To see Kip’s gallery. As friends. 

It’s taken him too long to get to the gallery, he knows that. Between his punishing schedule and his cowardice, six weeks have passed since Kip’s invitation. 

He can do this. Even if the idea of seeing Kip again is causing him to break out in a light sweat. His stomach is churning. He has genuine butterflies in his chest—or is about to have a heart attack. 

There’s nothing riding on this, he reminds himself. It will just be nice to see him again. That will be enough. 

He calls a truce with his reflection and heads to the door, swiping his keys and wallet from the bowl by the door, slipping them into his coat. He calls the car service, and then idles in the entryway for five minutes. He checks his phone, has a couple of attempts at level 65 of Candy Crush before putting his phone away in disgust. 

It doesn’t soothe his nerves. If anything they get worse as he stares out the car window at the gray city streets sliding by. The car draws closer to the East Village, and he feels his heart rate tick up another notch. 

The gallery, when he arrives, is a beautiful space. He pushes through the heavy glass door and is instantly struck by the loftiness of the ceiling, the spray of colour from the large canvases lining the wall. He takes in the painting, the thick layers of oil paint, the riot of pigment stretching out across the canvas. It is, he realises, a tree: textural and living, its branches pointing, curved fingers and leaves leading his eye along the wall to…

Kip emerges from around a corner. He spots Scott, and stops. 

He knew Scott was coming. They’d messaged about it, more than once. Scott had even checked in again this morning. 

But no amount of preparation could have prepared Scott for this. 

Kip looks incredible. He’s grown a little, seems to carry himself a little differently. It’s confidence, Scott realises with clarity. Kip has grown up. 

He’s also grown more handsome, as impossible as the idea would have sounded an hour ago. His hair is still thick and curly. His perpetual stubble is still a dark contrast to his fair skin. His eyes seem to honest-to-god sparkle, Scott notices, and crinkle at the edges when he smiles broadly. 

“You’re here,” Kip says, and his voice is even more perfect in person than it was on the phone last month. 

“I’m here,” Scott says. “It’s, uh. It’s great to see you.” 

Kip smiles, steps forward. “It’s great to see you, too.” 

Scott wants to hug him, just to gather him up in his arms. He’d thought it would be okay to see Kip again, after two years apart. But it’s not. It’s not okay. It’s uncorking every feeling he’d worked so hard to tamp down, and he feels himself unspooling. 

“I’m glad you made it,” Kip says. He’s almost level with Scott now, but still holding himself at a remove. His eyes are roaming over Scott’s face, and Scott feels himself inadequate under the appraisal. 

“Well, I wanted to see the magic in person,” Scott says. 

“Magic? I don’t know about that. Turns out art is more hard work than anything. I’ve never sent so many emails in my life.” 

Scott laughs lightly. “The mystique is gone?” 

“Oh, absolutely. I’ve seen how the sausage is made. I’ve logged the catering expenses in a spreadsheet. I’ve talked a crying ceramicist out of the bathroom. That ship has sailed.” 

Scott gestures around the gallery. “This is all amazing, though.” 

“Oh, you haven’t even seen a fraction of it. Come on, I seem to recall offering you a tour.” 

: : : :

The art is amazing, as far as Scott’s untrained eye can understand it. What’s even better is Kip: his enthusiasm, his knowledge, his passion. When they’d been together, Scott had kept Kip to himself. He’d never experience this—Kip—outside the walls of his apartment. He’d been a fool to miss out. There couldn’t be anything better than this. Kip is radiant. 

Scott is self-aware enough to realise that he’s heading into dangerous territory. Over the hour he spends in the gallery, he feels his carefully constructed walls disassemble brick by brick. He has been stupid. He has made a terrible mistake. He could have had all of this. He wants all of this again. Or, no: he wants this for the first time. It feels so easy to be here with Kip. Even if the room had been full of people, he still would have wanted this. 

He’d never expected an art gallery in the East Village to be his personal Road to Damascus, but the floor is littered with scales. He sees clearly. He can see it all. 

After the tour, they chat comfortably near the large canvases at the entrance. The walls here are glass, but he doesn’t care. 

“Do you have plans after this?” he asks. “I was wondering if you wanted to get some dinner.” 

Kip’s face grows serious. “I can’t, Scott.” 

Scott nods, his gut twisting. “I have no right to ask you,” he starts. 

“No, no! Not that. I just already have plans.” 

Kip looks squarely at Scott. He seems to consider for a moment, before he says: “It’s my birthday today.” 

Scott wants to cringe. How could he forget? 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t remember.”

“I didn’t expect you to.” Kip shrugs, like it’s not Scott’s job anymore to remember things like birthdays, or anniversaries, or favourite colors. 

“Still,” Scott says. 

“Look. I’m actually meeting up with some friends in a couple of hours. They’re doing a party for me at The Kingfisher.” 

The déjà vu needles Scott, he feels the floor tilting under him. 

Kip hesitates, then says, “You should come, if you want.” 

Scott can’t answer, tongue-tied and unprepared. Kip smiles at him sadly. 

“Another time, then,” he says. 

When they part, Kip kisses Scott on the cheek, quietly and quickly. It feels so easy. It feels like everything he’s ever wanted, and like a fraction of what he desires.

He sits in the back of the car heading back to his apartment, and he expects his mind to be reeling. What surprises him is the calm. The quiet certainty that he needs to change. He can’t keep living his life like this, because his life is a lie. The moral safety used to outweigh everything else, but now it just seems flimsy. The idea of once again walking away from Kip, from everything he wants, from a real and authentic life makes him feel unwell. 

He can’t keep living in half-measures. Even if it can’t be Kip, even if that life is no longer a possibility, he owes it to himself. 

He checks the time when he gets inside the apartment. It’s late in the afternoon, but not too late. He dials his agent. 

“Scott, how’s it going?” Michael is calm, Michael is a professional. Michael will be able to handle this. 

“Uh,” Scott starts. He steels himself. He deserves this. “I need to talk to you about something.”  

Chapter 10: Spring 2016

Chapter Notes

April brings rain. Tonight it is drizzling, the water tumbling in occasional rivulets down the windows of The Kingfisher. Inside, Kip is warm, dry, and slightly tipsy. 

He sits at the bar, sandwiched between Elena and Shawn, a half-drunk glass of beer leaving condensation rings on the polished wood in front of him. A hockey game is on the TV—not an Admirals game, but it seems like the bar’s hockey reputation had stuck even after he’d stopped asking for it to be put on.

He takes another swallow of beer. It’s a Tuesday, and he has work in the morning, but it doesn’t really matter right now. Right now, he is happy.

He’s in a flow state at work, finally overcoming his impostor syndrome and working on the curation of his third exhibit. He’s here, back in a bar that he loves, which is walking distance from his apartment, sharing casual body heat with two of the people that he adores most in the world. And things with Scott are…well, they just are. They call now, they text. Scott has stopped by the gallery twice more, always on a weekday afternoon when it’s quiet, always alone. Something between them is blossoming, he can feel it. But he’s still not sure, not yet, if he wants to let it bloom. The reality of the situation hasn’t changed: Scott is not out, can’t be out, won’t be. Whatever is between them can’t flourish like that. Acknowledging leaves him feeling bruised somewhere below his sternum. 

Elena excuses herself to go to the bathroom. On the TV, highlights from the recent NHL All-Star game loop. Kip considers asking Kyle to turn down the volume, but the bartender is nowhere to be seen. 

When Elena returns, she slides back onto her barstool and fixes Kip with a pointed look. 

“Soooo,” she says, dragging it out with an exaggerated drawl. “What’s going on with you and Scott Hunter?”

“Nothing,” Kip says. It’s a reflexive denial, even if it is true, It’s a lie he has been conditioned to spin. “We’re friendly. We’re in touch. He comes to the gallery. There’s nothing much to report.” 

“Friends, huh?” Elena says, looking incredulous. 

“Yes,” Kip assures her. “Friends.”

“Mhmm. Because last time I checked, friends definitely looked at each other like that.” 

She motions over Kip’s shoulder at the street-facing window. On the other side of the glass, he sees something miraculous: Scott stands in the light rain, looking through the window at Kip. Dumbstruck, Kip raises a hand and waves. Scott waves back, teeth flashing in a quick and nervous smile. 

“What the fuck?” Kip asks under his breath. 

Outside, he sees Scott nod to himself and jam his hands into the pockets of his windbreaker. He walks, just out of sight, and then the door is opening with the welcoming jingle of a bell, the door is opening onto the wet street outside, rain-filled potholes shimmering under streetlights, the door is opening and Scott Hunter is walking in. 

Kip is agog. Scott looks around nervously and then spots Kip, relief flooding his face. Kip chances a look to either side: Elena and Shawn are similarly stunned. Scott is a lot to take in, he supposes. Tall, incredibly handsome, his mind traitorously supplies. 

Scott comes up to the bar and motions at an empty bar stool. 

“Is, uh. Is this seat free?” he asks, and all the three of them can do it shake their heads softly and watch as Scott slides onto the stool, tucking his feet onto the footrest. 

He looks at Kip, vulnerability and determination written across his face. 

Kip wants to kiss him. He could absolutely kiss him, he’s so proud, so pleased. 

Instead, he pulls himself together. He introduces Elena and Shawn. Scott shakes their hands warmly, says “Elena, of course, how could I forget?” 

Then Scott looks at the television, says “That was a good game.” 

Kip looks at the screen and is struck by the supreme irony of a highlight reel of Scott’s appearance in the All-Star game showing as Scott sits here beside him, finally, unbelievably, in the Kingfisher. 

: : : :

The rain has started up in earnest, but inside the bar is warm. It is a perfect bubble of warmth and joy and relief, and Kip wants to hold it cupped in his hands and protect it forever. 

The four of them gravitate to a booth, squashed in and cosy and close. Scott is charming, and polite, and buys everyone a round of drinks, and then another. He regales Kip’s friends with stories about hockey games, about lost teeth and miraculous goals and road game hijinks. Mostly he listens, attentive and curious and warm. He smiles a lot, and Kip had forgotten the power of that smile, the way it can dazzle. 

Scott makes no moves on Kip, lays no claim. The only evidence of their connection is demonstrated in the way Scott presses their knees together as they sit side by side on the bench seat. He does it quietly, without fanfare, under the table. But the warmth of his leg is real, is undeniably there. 

At 10 o’clock Kip announces that he has to leave, to a chorus of boos and a thrown paper straw wrapper from Shawn. He laughs, holds up his hands in placation. 

Scott stands up beside him, clearing his throat. 

“I probably need to head home as well,” he says. “It was lovely meeting you.” 

He nods to Shawn and Elena, who smile warmly back

Kip heads for the door, thanking Kyle on the way out. He feels Scott follow him, a nervous shadow. 

 Outside on the street, the rain has stopped, leaving the sidewalk and asphalt agleam. 

Scott looks anxious as they stand outside on the sidewalk. 

“Can I call a car to get you home?” he asks, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

“I actually don’t live far from here,” Kip says. “I was planning to walk, now that the rain has stopped.”

Scott nods slowly. 

“Can I walk with you?” he asks. 

Kip considers. In all his time with Scott, and then the time without him, walking down the street together was something they have never done. He surprises himself with how much he wants it now. 

He nods. “Sure.” 

They walk companionably through the streets, idly chatting about the bar, Kip’s friends. 

“How did you know I’d be there?” Kip asks.

Scott gives an embarrassed laugh. 

“I walk past a lot, would you believe? Over the last couple of months.” He pauses. “Carter lives nearby. I started taking him up on his offers of hanging out, grabbing dinner, watching a replay. He’s probably getting sick of me, actually. But afterwards I’ll…I walk past. I walk past a lot and I look in the window and I hope that I’ll see you. Psyching myself up to come in. Game face on, you know.” 

Scott sounds a little embarrassed, and Kip feels for him. But he’s also confused. 

“Why didn’t you just call me? If you wanted to see me, you could have just asked.”

Scott shakes his head. “No. Look, I’m not one for making grand gestures. But I still think about how we left things. I think about it all the time. I think about how I was too much of a coward to meet you halfway, to come onto your home turf and be present for you. And I can’t stand it.”

Kip’s stomach swoops unpleasantly. He doesn’t want Scott to still be hurting over what happened. It’s been too long; the wounds should be healed.

“So here I am,” Scott continues. “I’m trying to be better. To be a little braver. Not as any attempt to win you back, or as an apology for the way I was before. I’m doing it for me, really. I need to redeem myself for me.”

Kip lets the words wash over him, leaving him raw. When they were together, he’d been content to keep Scott’s secret. He was never going to force Scott to be out, or admit anything he wasn’t confortable saying. But what had broken his heart was the possibility that Scott was denying himself: the life, the whole life lived with his whole chest. He’d wanted Scott to change things for himself. 

And now, on this rainy street in Gramercy Park, he feels it, feels the wind of change whip past them both, carrying hope and possibility in its wake. 

He reaches out, lets his hand brush Scott’s as they walk. Scott turns his palm, lets their fingers interlock, then break apart; their elbows brush and then part. Their shoulders knock together, something sparking and glinting with each slight touch. 

These gentle points of contact buoy them through the streets until they’re outside Kip’s apartment building, sheltered in the dark lee of the brickwork. Kip turns to Scott, and Scott’s eyes are dark and intense, determined and focused on Kip like lasers. 

Scott looks at him, a question in the tilt of his head. Kip inhales, waits. Scott ducks forward, just a little, his face looming close, his perfect nose and worried brow and gorgeous mouth tipping closer. Kip’s closing his eyes, feels Scott’s breath ghost against his lips, and—

A car alarm blares down the block, startling them apart. 

Scott looks around, eyes alert. 

Kip reaches out a hand, places it on Scott’s forearm, soothing him. 

“Come inside,” he says. “I think we need to talk.”

: : : :

They do talk, mostly. Scott takes his time looking around Kip’s small living room, commenting on how lovely the space is. Kip offers coffee, moving into the efficient kitchen to start the machine. 

Scott folds himself up on Kip’s leather couch, one leg bouncing nervously as he seems to steel himself.

“So, I came out to my agent,” he says. 

Kip almost drops the mug he’s holding.

“You what?”

“I came out. To my agent, not to anyone else. Not yet. But I will. Michael and I talked it through, came up with a plan.”

Kip is stunned. 

“Was he…okay about it?” he asks. 

Scott nods. “Surprisingly. I think that’s why I pay him so much, though. Sports agents almost certainly have to deal with way worse shit than someone on their books being gay.”

“There’s probably a playbook for the usual horrors, though,” Kip says. “I don’t imagine this is something he’s got contingencies for.”

“No. He’s asked me to keep it under wraps for now. To see how the season goes. It was…” He trails off, his eyes looking suspiciously wet. “It was the hardest conversation I have ever had.”

Kip abandons the coffee and goes to sit beside Scott on the couch. 

“But you did it,” he says.

Scott nods, then smiles. “Yeah,” he says, and his voice is thick—with sadness but also with pride, with relief. “I did it. I couldn’t keep going the way I was. It was killing me, it was too much.”

He turns to face Kip fully. “I didn’t do it for you, you know. I’m not putting that kind of pressure on you. I did it for me. I did it to get some control over my life. I thought that hiding who I am was control, but it wasn’t. It was just letting this big, horrible lie take over my life. I’d fooled myself into thinking that was okay. But then…you came along, and you were a life raft in the fucked up storm. I clung to you too tight, I get that. I was going to drag you under with me. I’m glad that you walked away. For you, I’m glad for you.” 

Kip’s face is burning, his eyes are burning. He reaches out and clasps Scott’s hand, and Scott’s skin is burning, too. Everything is too warm, too much. 

“It was a very unfair situation,” Kip says. “I didn’t like that I walked away.”

“You did the right thing,” Scott says. “I’m going to change things, though. We’re working on a plan, a timeline. I’ve got two years of hockey left, maybe three. If I can’t come out to the world in that time, I can at least be honest with my team, my friends, my coach. And I’m not doing it for you, Kip, it’s not going to change your mind or—”

Kip doesn’t let him finish. He launches himself forward, hands coming up to grasp at Scott’s head, to bury his fingers in Scott’s hair, as he brings their mouths together in an aching kiss. 

It’s everything. It’s everything and it’s too much and it’s not enough. For two and a half years he has been pushing all of this down, all the regret and the pain and the driving desire for second chances. And now here Scott sits, a miracle, having found his own way to the light. 

Scott makes a surprised and pleased noise into the kiss, hands gripping Kip’s shoulders, lips parting as the kiss deepens into something richer, and stronger, and hungrier; something powered by two years of distance and desire. 

I’m sorry, Kip pours into the kiss, hooking an arm around Scott’s neck and pulling him closer. He squeezes Scott’s bicep, rubs his knuckles over Scott’s knee, sighs into the kiss with deep relief. Scott’s arm wraps around his waist, thumb brushing the small of his back, the other hand sliding to cup Kip’s cheek, fingers trembling. 

I’m sorry it hurt so much, Kip prays into each kiss, each sigh, each shared breath, but I’m so glad you’re finally here. 

Chapter End Notes

I just watched the end of episode 5 again, sitting here and crying in my room. What is wrong with me? Are you all similarly afflicted?

Chapter 11: Summer 2016

Chapter Notes

I’m increasing my rating to explicit from here, I think. They just won’t. Stop. Boning.

It’s mid-July, and New York is sweltering. Even this early in the morning, it’s easy to tell it’s going to be a hundred-degree day. 

The sun spills like honey over Scott’s bedsheets, molten and yellow over olive linen, warming Scott’s toes, his knees, his thighs, spreading up and over Kip’s flank where he’s straddling Scott’s hips, gloriously naked. 

They’re kissing, unhurried. The summer warmth and the end of hockey season leave them with no obligations this Sunday. Instead, they can luxuriate. 

Scott could do this for hours: kiss Kip, open-mouthed and buoyed on a simmering want, arousal rolling like molasses through his body as they take their time. 

They don’t speak; they don’t need to. They do smile, though. It’s like they haven’t been able to stop smiling in the last couple of months. 

This feeling—lust, limerence, love—is not new to them. But it is different this time. This time it has no countdown. This time it flares open with promise. 

Above him, Kip rolls his hips again and deepens the kiss, a hint of desperation singing in alongside the need and warmth and joy. Scott groans, frees one hand from where Kip has pinned him to the bedsheets, and reaches down between them, wrapping his hand around them both, stroking them together. 

It’s perfect, it’s everything. The heat and the pressure of their cocks as he clasps them, the sticky-sweet slip of precome easing his hand. He wants to look, wants to see it, but he can’t stop kissing Kip. Even when Kip starts to moan and his hips stutter, when his fingers tighten around Scott’s wrist that he’s still pressing down into the mattress. He kisses Kip slow and deep, unhurried and open as Kip comes, panting and sighing into Scott’s mouth, Scott’s own orgasm chasing just behind. 

The sun is warm and forgiving outside the large windows. Dust motes float on an updraft, caught in the light. And in here, in this room for two, the sun’s light casts their bodies anew. 

Later, in the kitchen, over coffee and eggs, Kip sits on a bar stool at the kitchen island, turns and pulls Scott between his knees. They’re barely dressed, just boxer briefs and bed head. Scott leans in, presses light kisses to Kip’s cheek, his eyebrow, the shell of his ear. 

It’s so easy. 

Three months ago, they had been brought back together in a tangle of honesty and hope. Scott hadn’t lied when he’d said he was coming out for his own sake, that he didn’t want anything in return. He hadn’t expected that Kip would lean forward and kiss him; he hadn’t dared to. When it had happened, the relief had poured out of him like water from a burst dam. 

They’ve fallen back together as easily has clasping hands. They fit around each other, within each other, like two nesting bowls, cracked and patched kintsugi, but all the more beautiful for the gleam. 

Three months of this. Of giddiness and late nights, kissing and breakfast, touching and fucking and relearning the hard and soft parts of each other. 

It should feel tentative—the bruise should still be tender—but it isn’t. 

There’s more parity in their relationship now. Scott comes home from games, high on a win, to find Kip on his couch. He carries Kip over his shoulder, laughter bouncing off the walls of his too-big apartment, and takes him to pieces in his too-big bed. That hasn’t changed. 

But now there are new places where they can be together. He spends non-game nights at Kip’s place, reading together in bed or cooking team-dietitian-approved meals, or making love. He’s wanted to mark every available surface in Kip’s apartment, free and uncontained. Make a hundred memories outside their original bubble. He thinks they’re making good progress: on the couch; the bed; a memorable night where Kip fucked him on the parquet floor, desperate and raw, a splinter digging into his back, Kip’s knees bruised the next morning. 

It is altogether lovely, a wonder. 

Here, this morning, he will make good on his promises. He needs to show Kip that he is ready, that his momentum hasn’t stalled. That he means it. 

“What time’s he coming over again?” Kip asks, leaning back and running his fingers over the lines of Scott’s shoulders. He digs his thumbs into Scott’s trapezius, working out invisible tension. 

“Lunch time. Around noon.” 

Kip looks at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Okay, you’ve got an hour. I’ll get out of your hair.” 

Scott grabs Kip’s hand, kisses his palm. 

“You don’t have to do this today, you know” Kip says. 

“Yes, I do,” he murmurs into Kip’s hand. “Because I love you.”

“And you love yourself,” Kip corrects. 

“And I love myself.” Scott wants to roll his eyes, but he doesn’t. He sits with the earnestness. He believes it, because Kip does, too. 

: : : : 

Just after noon, Scott lets Carter Vaughn into his apartment. 

Carter has been here before, but not frequently. Scott has always been careful about sharing his space as a way of protecting his secrets. But that needs to change. 

“Woah-ho, new TV?” Carter shoves a four-pack of kombucha into Scott’s hands and heads to the sofa. “Damn, that thing is huge.” 

It’s a pretty big television. He had bought it a year ago ostensibly to get better detail while watching replays, to better isolate flaws in his team’s and opponents’ games. And if it had filled the space, made his apartment feel less empty, then that was a win, too. 

“Yeah, it is a little ridiculous,” he says, going to put the drinks in his fridge. 

“No way, seeing Hollander’s weak backhand this big is gonna be awesome.” 

Scott takes a seat on the couch. He clears his throat. May as well rip the bandaid off. 

Carter is looking for the remote, reaching to scoop it off the coffee table, when Scott says into the room: “Vaughnny, I’m gay.” 

He thought it would be harder to say. He watches as Carter places the remote gently back on the table. 

“You’re gay?” 

“Yes. I was gonna do a speech, but…I just wanted to stop lying to you.” Scott wants to do something with his hands, pick at a loose thread on a throw pillow, but he holds steady. 

Carter nods slowly. Then stops. Meets Scott’s gaze. 

“Cool,” he says with a shrug. 

“Cool?” 

“Yeah, man. That’s cool. You, uh…you told anyone else?”

“My agent. That’s it. It’s not…I’m not out, out. I’m just…things have changed, and I can’t. I can’t keep lying for the rest of my life.” 

Scott swallows. Carter comes and sits next to him on the couch. 

“Hey, man. Your life, your rules. You don’t owe me anything. But I’m glad you told me. I’ve got your back, on the ice and everywhere else.” 

Scott feels weak-kneed with relief. He’s glad he’s sitting. 

“Plus, this is actually a good thing for me,” Carter says. 

“Oh?” 

“Hell yeah, less competition for me now. Clean sweep at the puck bunnies without Captain Hunter taking their attention.” 

It’s a deflection, it’s a lifeline. Scott takes it. He laughs. 

“Although,” Carter continues, “it’s not really competition these days—the chicks stop being into you when you turn nine hundred.” 

He takes the razzing—it’s normal, it’s perfect. 

Carter stops, scratches the back of his neck. “You met someone.” 

It’s a statement, not a question. Scott nods. 

“I did.” 

Carter reaches out, slaps Scott on the knee hard enough to sting. “Fuckin’ happy for you, man. When you’re ready, get him in the WAG WhatsApp. They’ll lose their minds.” 

The idea of it, the reality of Kip being part of their hockey family, of him joining Scott on the ice after a big win just like all the other loved ones…he can’t say he hasn’t thought about it. Hearing Carter mention it so casually feels surreal. That one day that could be his life. 

“Now,” says Carter, somehow knowing the right thing to do, to say, “are we watching this game or not?”

Chapter 12: Fall 2016

Chapter Notes

Ever since hearing Kip say “schlep”, I can’t shake the idea of him being Jewish. Plus I just love rosh hashanah.

It’s early October, and the car service drops Kip and Scott off on the sidewalk outside the Grady family home in Brooklyn. 

He’s not nervous, not exactly. Scott has met Kip’s dad before, over two not-at-all awkward lunches in Kip’s apartment.

George Grady could be effusive in his praise for Kip at the best of times, but seeing his life-long-Admirals-fan father meet legendary team captain Scott Hunter had been a trip. 

“My boy,” he’d said after Scott had left. “My boy is dating Scott Hunter.” He’d shaken his head in disbelief. 

And then, “I guess that explains why you suddenly knew what a deke was.” 

Three years ago, it had taken remarkable self control not to tell his dad everything, especially when his relationship with Scott had gone out with a whimper. The two of them had been a tight unit his whole life, that foundation only growing stronger after Kip’s mom passed away eight years ago. 

Not being honest with his dad had hurt. It had been the biggest relief to come clean. And the small thrill from seeing his dad’s jaw drop in disbelief when he’d seen Scott standing in Kip’s kitchen had kinda been worth the price of admission. 

This is, however, the first time he’s brought Scott home. 

It’s rosh hashanah, and he has the good challah from Zabar’s tucked under one arm. 

“I didn’t know you were Jewish,” Scott had said when he’d posed the invitation to dinner. “How did I not know?”

Kip had shrugged. “I’m a high holy days Jew. My mom was Jewish, dad didn’t even convert. I eat bacon. It hasn’t really come up, I guess. But rosh hashanah is special. I want you to be there.” 

It was special. It was something of his mother that he clung onto, among so many other memories. But this one—candlelight, laughter, apples dipped in honey—was precious. 

Here, now, George Grady buzzes them up to the apartment, opening the door before they’ve even finished climbing the stairs and pulling them both into a crushing hug. 

“My boys!” He squeezes them both, and it’s a tight fit, Kip’s head almost knocking into Scott’s, Scott huffing out a laugh that lets Kip know he’s partially embarrassed but mostly very pleased. 

“Come in, come in, it’s almost sundown. Oh, leave your shoes on, Scott, it doesn’t matter. Or take them off! Make yourself at home.” 

If Kip didn’t know better, he’d say his dad was a little nervous. 

He gets it. Scott sometimes seems to inhabit another plane of existence: car service, private elevator to his loft, face on the front page of the New York Post. It can be intimidating. 

But the Scott that is here this evening is toeing off his shoes, hanging his coat on the wooden rack by the door, looking soft and approachable in a grey cable knit sweater. 

“Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Come and sit, tell me what’s been happening.” 

They take seats around the wooden dining table, Kip taking the challah out of its bag to lay it on its plate. Sesame seeds cling to his fingertips, and he shakes them off onto the tablecloth. His dad brings him a bottle of wine, which he opens and decants into their glasses. 

During dinner, Kip’s dad is beaming. Kip suspects it has less to do with having an MLH player in his dining room and more because Kip is happy. And when Kip is happy, George is irrepressible. 

“More chicken, Scott?” George asks, already shovelling extra food onto Scott’s plate. “You athletes probably need to eat a lot to keep up with all that work you’re doing.” 

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Scott says. “Everything is delicious, thank you.” 

“Oh, don’t thank me! These are all Sarah’s recipes.” 

It makes Kip heart ache, the way his dad sometimes talks about his mother like she’s just in the next room. 

“Yep, these are her traditions,” George continues. “And Kip’s, of course. I’m just the schmuck who’s along for the ride. And the food.” 

“A schmuck with a remarkable grasp of Yiddish insults,” Kip says. 

“Well, you gotta keep things interesting, kiddo.” 

Scott is laughing, relaxed and perfect like he’s been here all along. It feels so right to have him here. 

After dinner they dip apples in honey, making wishes for a sweet new year. Kip looks to Scott, sees him lick a drop of honey from his thumb, and thinks: I already have everything I need. 

: : : :

Later, after George shoos them from the kitchen and refuses to let them help with the dishes, Kip leads Scott upstairs. 

“Oh my god, look at you,” he hears, and turns to see Scott grinning at a series of childhood photos of Kip that line the staircase wall. 

“Those are really irrelevant,” Kip says, reaching for Scott’s hand to pull him away. 

“Oh no. I think you’ll find these are highly relevant to my interests.” 

A playful teasing tone has entered Scott’s voice, and he leans forward to inspect a particularly embarrassing photo of Kip, ten years old and chubby, posing beside a lopsided snowman. 

“God, please don’t commit these to memory.” 

“Oh, too late, buddy. My mental image of you is being rebuilt as we speak.” 

Kip reaches again, snags Scott’s elbow. “Come on. I wanna show you my room.” 

A giddiness has overtaken him, some combination of being back in his childhood home (yes, and the home where he spent the first half of his twenties) and the fact that Scott is here. He pulls Scott by the elbow, slides his hand down to wind their fingers together, and tugs Scott up onto the landing. 

Kip’s room has remained relatively unchanged during the years since he left for Boston. The art prints on the walls look a little dusty, and he’d forgotten that his comforter was that particular shade of green. 

Scott is spinning slowly in place, taking the room in. It is surreal, seeing him here. 

Scott ducks to look out the window, at the uninspiring dark street outside. He turns and leans back against Kip’s old wooden desk, which creaks ominously below him. 

“C’mere,” he says softly, holding a hand out in invitation. 

Kip goes to him. Scott winds an arm around the back of Kip’s shoulders and pulls him in. Kip’s hands come to rest at Scott’s waist. 

The kiss is tender and slow, sweet from the honey they’d eaten downstairs. Scott splays a hand over Kip’s ribs, thumb brushing softly against his chest. 

“So this is where you grew up,” Scott says, pulling back and looking around the room with soft eyes. 

“Since I was annoying enough to be kicked out of my parents’ room at one year old,” Kip says. 

Scott looks around the small space. “I can picture you here.”

“Yes. Here is the window I used to stare out of and daydream about Jonathan Taylor Thomas as a folorn ten-year-old. Here is the bed where I had a sexual awakening reading Catcher in the Rye.”

“Really?”

“I could fix him, Scott.” 

“That’s kinda sad,” but Scott’s eyes are laughing anyway. He keeps his hands on Kip’s sides, slowly rubbing against his tshirt. His hands are huge, warm. It feels nice. Kip kisses him again. 

“I’ve never done this, you know,” Scott murmurs. 

“You’ve never seduced anyone in their childhood bedroom?”

“No, I’ve never—wait, is that what we’re doing here?”

Kip looks over his shoulder at the door they’ve left ajar. “Umm. It could be?” 

Scott laughs, soft and rich. He pushes off the desk, slips past Kip and nudges the door closed with a quiet snick. 

“What did you have in mind?” Scott asks, walking slowly back towards Kip, his gaze dark. 

“Hmm.” Kip taps his chin in mock thoughtfulness. “I think, in the spirit of things, that teenage Christopher would be exceptionally, overwhelmingly pleased to see someone like you in his bed.” 

“Oh yeah?” Scott loses his nonchalance as he practically hurries to the wooden bed frame, already pulling his sweater over his head. His tshirt underneath is soft and rumpled. He lounges back against the comforter, his long legs dangling over the side. He looks perfect. 

Kip crawls on top of him, making the mattress groan and the old springs complain beneath them. 

“Yeah,” he says, sliding a hand up under Scott’s shirt, feeling his stomach muscles jump. He kisses Scott’s neck, hungrily, nipping at the soft skin. 

He feels Scott’s hands slide up the back of his shirt, running over his back. Scott bends a knee, propping his foot on the mattress and pressing his leg between Kip’s thighs. 

It’s not explicitly horny, but it could be. Kip’s never had this either: hooking up with someone in his bedroom, his dad just downstairs. It’s juvenile, and it’s stupidly hot. 

“Fuck, Scott,” he whispers, crawling closer, catching his mouth in an open kiss, pressing his groin into Scott’s thigh. He moves to kiss Scott’s neck again, feeling arousal starting to lazily spiral in his gut. 

“Call me Holden,” Scott whispers, and Kip bites him, hard. 

“Ow, fuck,” Scott laughs. 

“Don’t be mean,” Kip scolds. 

“Never. C’mere.” 

He goes. 

They end up a ridiculous tableau: two grown men half-falling off the twin bed, making out like teenagers. It’s silly and it’s sexy and intimate, the quiet of the room holding its breath, holding in its memories as they create more, together. 

Their clothes stay on—they are both very aware that they’re not alone, as evidenced by the loud whir of the bean grinder downstairs and George calling up to see if they want coffee. They take a moment to collect themselves, to cool down, before heading downstairs. 

They leave with leftovers pressed into their hands, effusive hugs from George and promises to come for dinner again soon. 

“And Scott,” George says as he sees them to the door. “Kip told me not to ask, but sometimes the kid doesn’t know what’s good for him. Any time you got spare tickets to an Admirals game floating around, I can definitely give them a good home.”

Scott laughs, and it’s so easy. 

“Any time,” he says. “I’ve got tickets in Kip’s name at the Garden. You can give his name at will call.” 

George grabs Scott’s hand in a firm shake, then looks pointedly at Kip. 

“Keep this one,” he says. 

As the car service drives them back to Manhattan, Kip reaches over and clasps Scott’s hand. Scott grins at him, turns his palm and slides their fingers together. 

“So,” Kip says, drawing it out. “You’ve left tickets for me?” 

Scott flushes, he can see it even in the semi-darkness of the car. 

“I may have.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“It didn’t come up. I had practically forgotten.” 

“Forgotten? How long have you had these tickets saved for?” 

Scott clears his throat. “Uh. Three years. I’ve had tickets in your name for three years.” 

The reality of it hits Kip like a ton of bricks. Scott had never stopped waiting for him. 

He picks up their joined hands, kisses all over Scott’s knuckles, each one an apology, a promise, an affirmation. 

They ride in silence, but there’s nothing sad about it. It settles over them like a dream, a kiss. Sweet, and new, and holy. 

Chapter 13: Winter 2016/2017

It’s 11.45pm on New Year’s Eve, and Scott is uncomfortable. His suit feels too tight, like the noise of the club is physically pressing into him. Even through the walls of the VIP room he’s currently in, the thudding bass and is like an assault weapon on his senses. 

He’s not a club guy. Hell, he’s barely a bar guy. He’s a ‘stay at home and listen to The National while drinking maybe one (1) Japanese whisky’ guy. 

But the team had been determined, and after their spectacular win against Boston tonight he feels like they’ve all deserved it. 

Plus, he has another asset in his corner tonight: Kip has come along with him. 

They’d talked about it, at length, over multiple days. 

“You really don’t need to do that,” Kip had said, tucked against Scott’s side on the sofa. “Seriously, I love that you want to try, that you’re feeling more comfortable, but you don’t need that kind of pressure on you. I’m happy with the way things are right now.”

‘Right now’ meant this: Scott was out to Kip’s friends and family, his agent and coach, and a mere handful of guys on the team. Carter knew, and he’d come out to Bennett and Huff at the start of the season. Each time was hard, but keeping it inside was harder. 

He needn’t have worried. His hockey has actually improved. He’s scoring more than he had in the last few years. 

Maybe the weight off his shoulders allows him to skate easier. 

The rest of it will come, with time. His agent Michael has developed an actual ten-point strategy. He’s collected signatures on NDAs from Scott’s teammates who know, which has kind of put a damper on the whole ‘trust’ thing, but he gets it. Meanwhile, Michael put together a timeline and everything. Two more seasons after this one, knock wood. Then he’ll retire. And then he’ll come clean. 

Not like, living quietly and fading away, like he’d always thought was the best he could hope for. Michael wants to get ahead of it. To make a statement. Create a little controlled chaos. It won’t matter too much to the league, if he’s retired. No on-ice repercussions. He can still set a good example, but from a safe distance. And then he and Kip can just be…Scott and Kip.

For the meantime, though, he at least has Kip here with him tonight. He hadn’t taken much convincing, in the end. 

“Fine,” he’d said. “But only because I find your hockey captain persona incredibly sexy.” 

Kip is here just as a friend, outwardly. It’s not unusual—big celebrations like this often involve plus-ones, girlfriends, friends. No one seems to notice anything he’s not ready for them to see, and Kip’s presence is accepted as easily as anyone else’s. Apart from the moment when Breezy slaps Scott on the shoulder and says “fuck, Cap, I didn’t think you actually had any friends,” it feels easy. A glimpse of something normal. A future where he can have this. 

And besides, he can always make Breezy pay at practice in a couple of days. 

The night has been surprisingly pleasant. Upon arrival, Huff had left the VIP and returned with a tray of shot glasses and several bottles of Belvedere, and things had progressed from there. Scott has kept an eye on Kip, watching as he’s drawn into conversation with Carter and Bennett, knowing that he’s in safe hands. 

He and Kip have fortnightly dinners at Kip’s dad’s house, when Scott’s schedule permits. But this is the first time he’s seeing Kip among Scott’s family. 

Kip looks a little guarded, which is not unsurprising considering the intensity of fifteen sweaty, buoyant professional athletes in a small room. But as the evening goes on and the clock creeps closer to midnight, the room thins out as his team head into the main club to dance, or set up at the bar, or meet women. 

As Scott understands it, based largely on his single teammates’ enthusiasm, New Year’s Eve is the ideal time to meet women. 

He wouldn’t know. All night he’s been drifting towards Kip, checking in and then drawn away again into a ribald conversation with someone else. Now, with the room empty, he circles closer like a drowsy moth. The vodka hasn’t helped. They’ve only been here for ninety minutes, but that’s been more than enough time for him to get a bit of a buzz on. 

“You look…really hot,” Scott says. He can’t help it, Kip looks good. He’s wearing a petrol-blue suit, the top buttons of his shirt undone. 

Kip ducks his head, laughs. “You look drunk.” 

He’s not, though. He just feels…loose. Something about having Kip here, outside of the confines of a private home, mingling with his hockey family. It’s nice. It’s better than nice. 

Kip pats the empty space next to him on the bench seat. “Get over here, you brute.”

Scott huffs out a laugh, then makes a show of strong-arming a couple of chairs out of the way, sliding in next to Kip, their thighs pressed together under the drinks-strewn table. 

“Are you having a good time?” Scott asks. He slides a hand along the back of the seat, dropping his fingers onto Kip’s shoulder.

“Hmm. Better now,” Kip says, leaning into him just slightly. 

He leans over and kisses Scott on the cheek. 

“I love you,” Kip says, matter of fact. 

“I love you, too.” 

They say it all the time, now; they’ve been saying it for months. This time around they’d waited, more cautious and less desperate than the last time they’ve been together. But they’d said it, each nervous and a little scared but ready. And it just feels so right, so normal. He should be able to do this, they should be able to be together wherever they want. 

Just two more years, he tells himself. Remember the ten-point plan. 

The ten-point plan does not feel hugely relevant when Kip is looking at him with those warm, brown eyes, his face just inches away, his body heat radiating into the air-conditioned room. 

Scott ducks his head, glides his nose along Kip’s cheek, breathing him in. 

“Babe, this is not the best idea,” Kip says, but he’s smiling. 

“I don’t care,” Scott says, tipping Kip’s chin with his fingers and kissing him on the mouth. 

Kip melts under him, and Scott finds it’s true: in this moment, he doesn’t actually care. They’re alone, the door is closed, and no one is coming back this close to midnight. He’s left his sense of self-preservation wherever he dropped his suit coat half an hour ago. 

Scott cups Kip’s face with two hands now, deepening the kiss, parting his lips and letting their tongues meet in a sweet slide. Kip makes a contented sound and grasps at Scott’s shirt, twisting his fingers in the fabric. 

He starts out with a sense of control, but within minutes he has quickly abandoned it. There’s something so compelling about Kip like this: here, available, dressed a little like James Bond. 

He should probably tell him. He breaks the kiss. He runs his fingers over Kip’s lapels, squeezes Kip’s biceps. 

“You are just…so hot. You look like James Bond.” 

Kip snorts out a laugh. “Does that make you my Bond Girl?” 

“I’ll be whatever you want me to be,” Scott says, leaning in and kissing Kip again, his focus drawn to the single point where their mouths meet, hot and slick. 

And maybe he is a little drunker than he’d like, but the clock is ticking towards midnight, they have the room to themselves, and he can’t believe he gets to have this. 

Fuck, it is hot in this room; either that, or he’s just starting to get very worked up. 

He kisses Kip with more urgency, his hands slipping down to grip Kip’s belt loops, tugging their bodies closer together. 

“Is this a good idea?” Kip gasps against Scott’s mouth. 

“This is always a good idea.”

He shifts one hand to knuckle at Kip’s fly, thrilling at the feel of Kip’s arousal. Just knowing that Kip is turned on spikes the heat in his gut. His own erection presses uncomfortably against his fly. 

It hadn’t taken him much to get going, he realises giddily. It never does with Kip. 

“You sure?” Kip asks softly, as Scott starts to undo the button on Kip’s pants. 

“So sure. Are you?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Kip breathes. He reaches for Scott’s belt but Scott grabs his wrists, pins them to Kip’s sides. 

“Let me. Please.” 

Kip lets him. 

It ends up kind of frantic and messy, Scott swallowing Kip’s moans as his hand works fast and steady over Kip’s cock. They’re mostly shielded by the table, but it’s still risky should anyone walk in. The thrill is an exceptional aphrodisiac. Scott is so fucking hard, so turned on he’s seeing spots against the backs of his eyelids. 

Through it all they don’t stop kissing; he can’t stop kissing Kip, open-mouthed and hungry, devouring him. He wants more of him; he’ll never get enough. 

They hear the crowd outside counting down to midnight, the bass dropping and the cheers erupting as 2017 begins. 

Here, in this moment, Kip comes with a whine, spilling over Scott’s knuckles, the back of his hand. He watches, dazed, as Scott raises his hand to his mouth, licks the spend from his fingers. It’s the filthiest Scott’s ever felt, and he loves it, feels it send another wave of pleasure coursing through him. 

Kip looks debauched, ruined, cheeks pink and eyes glittering, and he did that, Scott did that to him. Here, where anyone could have seen. 

Kip reaches for him, pulls him in by the back of the neck, kisses him frantically, his tongue in Scott’s mouth. Kip barely touches him, just a grind of his palm onto Scott’s erection, and then he’s coming, hot and wet in his pants. 

“Fuck!” Scott groans, like the air’s been punched out of him. 

They’re both breathing heavily. Kip smiles at him, a wicked little smile that he doesn’t get to see nearly often enough. 

“Happy New Year,” Kip lilts in a soft sing-song. 

Scott barks out a laugh, then gestures at himself incredulously. 

“Sorry about that,” he says, but he’s not, not really. “Can we get out of here?” 

“Yes,” Kip says. “Home. Shower. And then you can fuck me.” 

Scott’s never found his belongings so quickly. 

They sneak out, gratefully not running into anyone they know. Kip’s hand is solid and real in Scott’s grasp. 

They hail a taxi, pouring themselves into the back seat. Their hands are still intertwined.

“Where you headin’?” the driver barks. 

Scott looks at Kip. “Home?”

“Home.” And Kip looks so warm, so perfect and permanent and achingly beautiful, Scott thinks his heart might burst. 

“Chelsea, please,” he tells the driver. 

Kip smiles, pleased, and squeezes his hand. Home.

Chapter 14: Spring 2017

Chapter Notes

Spring blooms forth with kindness, with acts of love, with promises breathed into each other’s skin. They circle firmly in each other’s orbits: Kip comes to the occasional hockey game with his dad; Scott has become a more regular feature at the Kingfisher, when his schedule permits. 

Kip likes seeing him there, comfortable and safe. He likes it when Scott kisses him here, gentle and quick in the darkened bar.

This is where they are tonight, a Friday, after a spectacular home-game win from the Admirals against Pittsburgh. It had been kind of surreal, watching the game on the bar’s TV, seeing Scott’s obligatory post-game interview, and then ninety minutes later seeing Scott himself enter the bar, his bag heavy over his shoulder, his smile a quiet thrill. 

Now, deeper into the evening, it’s getting late. Kip looks down at the beer he’s been nursing for the last forty minutes. 

“Has it really been a year?” Elena asks, sliding into the bar stool next to Kip. 

Kip would do the math, but he already knows. It’s early April. 

“Almost. In three days, it will be a year.” 

“Plus two and a half years of pining.”

“I wasn’t pining!” Kip laughs. 

Elena gives him a pointed look, chewing on the straw in her gin and tonic. 

“Okay, maybe a little,” he concedes. “But it’s different now.”

“Ha! You’re telling me.” 

“Better.”

“Again. We can all see it.” She pinches his cheek with one hand and he can’t help but smile into it. “I’m proud of you.” 

Kip wants to demur, to push against the kindness in her voice. Elena has always had his best interests at heart, but it’s usually couched in thirteen layers of irony and a pair of combat boots. To see her be genuine about this, about him, feels kind of weird. 

“I didn’t think he’d fit in, but would you look at that,” Elena says. She nods at the other end of the bar where Scott is involved in an animated discussion with Shawn. Shawn is talking a lot with his hands. Scott is laughing, his posture open, at ease. 

“Have you forgiven him?” Kip asks. They haven’t really talked much about it, but he suddenly needs to know in order to secure his own contentment. 

“I’m not sure. I probably have, but... It sucked, Kip. Seeing you like that, knowing what it was costing you to keep him.”

“The cost of losing him was a lot, too, you know.” 

“I know.” She reaches out and taps the back of his hand. “I guess if you made it back to each other, it was meant to be. I still have to ask, because I’ll kick his ass if it isn’t: are you sure it’s different this time?”

She is still so fiercely protective of him, and he’s grateful for it. 

He thinks of the ten-step plan, Scott’s commitment to being here in Kip’s spaces and Kip’s life, with Kip’s people. The way Scott has moved his clothes, his toothbrush, his phone charger, a stack of books into Kip’s apartment. The openness in Scott’s face as he catches Kip’s eye across the bar tonight, smiling broadly, comfortable and warm. 

“It is,” he says, certain of it. 

He likes it, all of it: being cared for and caring for Scott in return. He wonders if things would have been different if he’d met Scott when they were younger, when Scott’s body was more ready to take the constant pummeling of professional ice hockey. He wonders if Scott would have been as ready for their relationship as he is now. 

It’s a lifeline, this idea of retirement. Scott will turn thirty-six this summer. He’s been playing hockey for over two decades. It’s not a forgiving sport. Kip hates the bruises that come with it, the occasional split lip. He catalogues the injuries Scott’s received over his career, and it makes him feel sick. Scott’s two front teeth are veneers, he’d been surprised to find out. Two broken wrists, three concussions, a dislocated shoulder, a torn ACL. A cracked rib in his final year of college. A fractured collarbone at twenty-five. The sport is violent and unrelenting. They’re lucky nothing serious has happened since they’ve been together—he doesn’t know if he could take it. 

One night while Scott was asleep he’d gone down a rabbit-hole of googling Clint Malarchuk, reading articles and then watching the footage on a loop, unable to look away until Scott had rolled over, eyes opening blearily, and then sitting up in horror when he’d seen what was on Kip’s phone. He’d tugged the phone out of Kip’s hands, locked the screen, and tossed it out of reach amongst the sheets. They’d talked about it in hushed tones, Scott holding him close and assuring him that it was a freak accident, that it would never happen again. They’d fallen asleep together, eventually, caught in a tangle of limbs, Kip’s head against Scott’s chest where he could listen to the unstopping beat of his heart. 

And so he does what he can: he massages Scott’s tight muscles and takes care with his sore joints. He cooks food with ingredients for bone strength and joint elasticity, makes Scott smoothies with purported superfoods that he knows probably don’t actually do anything special. He keeps ice compression packs in his freezer and he knows how hard the game is on a body that’s been throwing itself up and down the ice for as long as Scott’s has.

Another year. Maybe two. 

But despite all of that, he knows how much Scott loves his sport. The thrill, the joy, the focus, the elation, the disappointment—it’s all palpable, carried in on a draft after practice and game nights along with the the rink-specific smell of ammonia and fresh snow. Scott loves the stats, the plays, the replays. He’s seen Scott calculate a corsi number more than once, has tried to follow along with multiple explanations of the formulae before giving up. He’d never thought he’d end up with a boyfriend who gets up from the couch and honest-to-god shouts during a televised sporting match, but here he is. And he loves it—all of it. 

In the Kingfisher, Scott sidles up next to Kip, swaying into his space. He orders a club soda, saying “thank you, Kyle” like part of a practiced chorus. He sips his drink and places his arm around Kip’s shoulders, leaning to kiss Kip on the cheek. He does it again, then kisses the corner of Kip’s smile. This part of the bar is quiet, mostly empty; they go largely unseen, save Shawn, who walks past and jokingly hisses at them to get a room. 

Kip thinks again about the ten-step plan, which starts with “come out to coaches” and ends ambitiously with “Sports Illustrated sexiest athlete cover”. They’re barely three steps in, but Kip thinks he would be happy if they stopped here. 

When he was young and an undergrad at CUNY, he’d been active in the college’s LGBT society. There’d been a seminar he’d attended once that had talked about coming out—not that it had ever been an issue for him. He remembers one speaker—a public health educator from the city’s AIDS council—who’d talked about the idea of ‘inviting in’. For some people, he’d explained, inviting in is the beginning of coming out. You tell trusted people, people who matter most, people who are safest. After that you can work on coming out more broadly, more publicly—or not. 

He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but it’s clicked lately. It’s clicked when he’s watched Scott talking animatedly about the All Star game with Kip’s dad at the dining room table. It’s clicked when he’s heard Scott on the phone to Carter, saying “I’m at Kip’s place now, but I’ll see you at practice.” It clicks here, now, seeing Scott relaxed and easy in a queer space, surrounded by people who love and accept him. 

Scott noses at Kip’s neck, breathing him in.

“What’re you thinking so hard about?” he murmurs. 

“Nothing,” Kip says, turning his head and kissing Scott sweetly on the mouth. “I just love you. That’s all.” 

“I love you, too,” Scott says, and he kisses him again. “Can we get outta here? I’m beat.” 

Kip nods. “Yeah. Of course.” 

They make their farewells and leave, hands dropping before they step out onto the street. But the warmth lingers, and, for now, it is enough. 

Chapter End Notes

Of course, what happened to Clint Malarchuk did happen again, at least twice. To Richard Zednik in 2008 (who, like Malarchuk, survived). And to Adam Johnson in 2023 - he tragically passed away on the ice. May his memory be for a blessing.

Chapter 15: Summer 2017

The last few weeks have been crazy. Scott is playing the best hockey of his life, buoying his team to greater heights alongside him. 

On the ice at Madison Square Garden, he skates like he’s on air. The seconds count down, the Admirals are ahead with no chance of being caught, and he is mere seconds away from bringing home the Stanley Cup. 

The buzzer sounds. He’s done it. The Admirals are taking home the cup for the first time in almost thirty years. He’s so fucking proud of his team, overjoyed for them and with them as he gets cleaned up in an enormous group hug, all limbs and torsos and sweat knocking together, carrying each other across the ice. 

It’s deafening inside the arena, the home crowd are a wild beast—and why shouldn’t they be? They’ve waited long enough. 

He makes sure to commit every moment to memory: shaking the commissioner’s hand, hoisting the Cup overhead to take his victory lap. He’s never felt like this in his life: the culmination of years of work, thousands of hours of scraping and fighting and analysing and sweating and bleeding for this sport, and he is finally here. 

And then it fizzles, just a little. The rink is filling with his teammates’ families, loved ones. And he stands, once again, alone. The pain of it has softened over the years, it’s not enough to take the edge of the fact that he just won the goddamn Stanley Cup; but the pain is there, a dull blade against his ribs. 

But it strikes him: this time he’s not alone. Kip is here, with his dad and Elena. Kip is here, watching safely and anonymously from the stands. 

He searches for him in the crowd, eyes scanning for the seats that had for so many years been empty. They’re not empty tonight; they’re full with his future. 

He looks again to his team celebrating with their loved ones. And he wants that. He wants it more than he’s wanted anything. 

He skates over to the boards. His eyes seek Kip out like a laser. He breathes out, hard, steeling himself. If he does this, he changes everything. If he does this, his carefully constructed life explodes. But maybe that what he needs. 

Fuck the ten-point plan, he thinks. 

Guided by the thread between them, which hums and thrills with electric possibility, he waves Kip down. 

“Yes, you. Come.” 

He knows Kip can’t hear him over the roar of the crowd, but he has to say it, has to vocalise it, his voice surprisingly sure. 

It feels like it takes Kip an eternity to reach the boards. Scott looks around at the arena, the lights, the crowd. Millions of people are watching this moment. He is expecting nerves but he feels calm. This is right. This is the time. 

Fuck, he can’t believe he’s going to do this. 

Kip arrives, looking adorably confused, tentative, but he’s reaching out for Scott to help him over the boards. His hand is hot and sweaty in Scott’s as he leads Kip out onto the ice. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Kip says, and Scott can tell that he means it. That he would let them leave things here, let Scott take his time, let this moment be celebrated with them apart for as long as Scott needs. 

It only steels him further. 

“Yes. Yes, I do,” he says, with more certainty than he’s said anything in his life. Because he does need to do it: he needs Kip with him, here, now, in the greatest moment of his life and every moment to come. 

He glides out towards centre ice, holding Kip’s hand in a firm grip, feeling slightly apologetic as Kip slips a little on the ice. He stops and turns, grabs Kip’s other hand to help hold him steady. 

Kip looks overwhelmed, but his gaze is fixed on Scott’s face. He’s not looking at the cameras, the crowds. They centre themselves on each other. This is all that matters. 

“I don’t want to do this without you,” Scott starts. “I want to share this with you, want to share my life with you. I want everyone to see it, to see you, to see how much I love you. I just…” 

He shakes his head slightly, and then he blows his old life to smithereens. 

He pours everything into the kiss: the relief, the gratitude, the regret, the apology. The hope. The promise. The crowd is roaring around them, reaching a fever pitch, but he’s soaring, floating right out of his skates and into the stratosphere. 

“I love you so fucking much,” he says, resting their foreheads together. 

“I love you, too,” Kip answers, simple and perfect and complete. 

Scott kisses him again, so happy he could burst. He wraps Kip in his arms, drops his head to Kip’s shoulder, holding him as close as he can. 

He’s done it. No more hiding. They deserve sunshine. 

: : : : 

The rest is an insane blur: the press shoving microphones into his face before he even gets off the ice; the crowd screaming; the locker room a buzz, sticky and loud with sprayed champagne and a chorus of excitement. Scott’s phone is blowing up (including several calls from his agent), but he ignores it. He doesn’t let go of Kip for a second until he goes to shower, and he does that as quickly as he can. He leaves Kip in Carter’s care in the locker room, instructing him to lock down his social media profiles as fast as he can. 

He’s very aware of the position he’s put Kip in. He’s just gone from museum curator to surprise boyfriend of a professional athlete on the most important night of his career, in the most public way possible. He needs to protect him. In the morning, he’ll call Michael, fast-track those steps of the plan. They’ll issue a statement, something official but low on detail. The NHL will be furious, more likely than not. He’ll let his publicist deal with that. His key goal now will be protecting Kip’s identity, his privacy. It’ll be impossible, in this day and age. But he’ll need to do what he can. 

When he reemerges into the locker room, clean and dressed, Kip is sitting on a bench looking small. Somewhat terrified. But also looking proud. He gives Scott a quick, small smile, but his eyes are shining, and Scott knows that they’re going to be able to tackle whatever comes next. They’ll face it together. 

He takes Kip’s hand and pulls him to his feet, then shoulders his gear bag. 

“You ready to get out of here?” he asks. 

Kip swallows, nods, and asks: “What do I have to be ready for out there?”

“Cameras, more than likely. Reporters will be waiting. They’ll be loud, but just ignore them as best as you can. You don’t need to say anything. Just keep hold of my hand, and we’ll get to the car. In case they follow us, we’ll go to my place. The car can drop us in the service entrance.”

Kip nods, like he’d never even considered there would be logistics involved. 

Scott hates how nervous he looks. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, rubbing his thumb along the soft skin of Kip’s cheek. “I didn’t mean to—“

Kip grabs his hand, squeezing so tight he’s worried his bones will crack. 

“You have nothing—nothing—to apologise for. I am here with you, and I am proud of you, and I love you.” 

The relief is sweet. They’ll get through this. They’re going to be okay. 

“I love you, too,” Scott says. “Now, let’s go home.” 

: : : : 

Leaving the Garden was an ordeal, but the still and quiet of the ride back to Scott’s apartment is soothing. The silence between them thickens as they draw closer, but it’s not unpleasant—instead it thrums with possibility. With anticipation. 

Kip holds tight to Scott’s hand, tracing circles on his palm with the tip of one finger as the car glides through the dark streets. It’s a distraction, a simple one, but one that ends up sending Scott’s nerves zinging from this single point of contact straight to his groin. 

In the elevator, Scott splays a hand possessively over Kip’s hip, drawing him close. Kip practically melts against him, but Scott can feel his heart beating where they’re pressed together. By the time they arrive at Scott’s front door, they’re both trembling with adrenaline, with want. 

They barely make it inside before Kip is crowding Scott up against the back of the door. 

“You are incredible,” he says, kissing Scott hard and hungry. “You’re amazing.” Another searing kiss. “And you’re the bravest person I have ever known.” 

“I did it for you,” Scott murmurs before leaning in to kiss Kip again, and he sort of means it but it’s not quite right.

“No you didn’t,” Kip says, somehow knowing, right there with the answers. He pulls Scott’s shirttail out of the waistband of his pants, sliding his hands underneath, hot like brands against Scott’s skin. “You did it for you. I’m so proud of you.” 

Scott feels a deep wave of emotion crest within him, tightening his throat, stinging at his eyes. He pushes it away, for now—he has more important things to attend to. 

They come together in a flurry of movement and want, their mouths meeting in kisses that seem to grow hotter, wetter, hungrier each time they come together. Scott is shoving Kip’s jacket down and off, rucking his shirt up and over his head, running his hands over the hot planes of Kip’s chest, his back. 

Kip has worked a hand inside Scott’s pants, stroking his cock, making him hard, his tongue licking into Scott’s mouth. 

Scott needs more, so much more tonight. And he trusts Kip to give him everything he craves.

Kip drops to his knees right there in the entryway, yanking Scott’s pants and boxers down around his thighs. His mouth is hot and wet and he’s moaning around Scott’s cock, his hands pressing Scott’s hips back into the unforgiving timber of the door. 

It’s heaven. It’s somehow better than any time they’ve done this before, riding high on the urgency of their want, the adrenaline and dopamine from the night’s events driving them both a little wild. Scott drops his head back against the door with a soft thunk, reaches and sinks his fingers into Kip’s curls. 

He could let Kip do this forever, or at least until he comes, upon which he’ll gratefully return the favor, but there’s more he wants. He uses his grip in Kip’s hair to pull his head back, staring down at Kip’s perfect face: his cheeks flushed, his lips swollen and wet, his eyes dark with desire. 

“Bedroom,” Scott says, and they make their way through the dark of the apartment, still kissing, stopping to tug at one another’s clothes, leaving a trail of shed skins in their wake. 

There’s a catharsis underlying the urgency; a chrysalis shed, as they emerge wet-winged and pleated together. 

Scott pulls Kip down on top of him on the bed, their gloriously bare skin pressing together, the friction like fire. 

“I need you to fuck me,” Scott says, and he means it. He needs it, thinks he might burst with how much he wants it. Wants Kip, the man who brought him to the precipice of his own constructed identity and waiting patiently for him to crack the glass and walk out on his own. 

“Yes, yeah,” Kip whispers. “Fuck, will you be good for me? I’ll make you feel so good.” 

Scott shivers, adrenaline skittering along his arms. Kip knows him. Kip knows what he needs: to let go, to release everything he’s carried since he pulled Kip onto the ice tonight and took the world on his shoulders. 

“Please,” he says, and even just begging draws a moan out from deep in his chest. “Please.” 

Kip opens him slowly, reverently, first with his tongue and then his fingers, lube and saliva dripping onto the sheets. Kip kisses his neck, tells him: “You’re so good, you’re perfect,” his voice adoring. His fingers glide and curl, relentless pressure on Scott’s prostate with every pass, until he has a fourth finger teasing at Scott’s rim and Scott’s almost weeping with want, from the care with which Kip handles him. 

“I’m going to fuck you now,” Kip says, withdrawing his hand and slicking himself with more lube. Scott lies back on the sheets, floating, flushed from his neck to his navel. He draws his legs apart but Kip is already there, hands firm and demanding as he holds Scott open, his cock hard and heavy and thick. Scott’s mouth waters just looking at it, he wants so much, wants to taste and fuck and be taken. The need rushes in, and he loses himself in the waves. 

Kip pushes in, and Scott flies apart. 

The glide of Kip’s cock is relentless pleasure, heightened by the smoothness and heat where their skin meets: arms and hips and thighs converging in silken brushes. Scott sighs, moans, wants to sink his teeth into Kip’s neck. 

It’s not enough, but it’s too much. Scott reaches down to take himself in hand, but Kip grabs his wrists, pushing them back against the mattress. 

“Just take me,” he whispers into the meagre space between their parted mouths. “Can you just take it?” 

The question is overwhelming, and Scott answers with a nod, a sob: “Yes, I can, I can take it, fuck—”

And he does. He lets Kip manhandle him into place, turning him onto his side, holding one leg aloft as he crowds against Scott’s back and slides back inside him. The angle is better now, deeper, and he groans at the sensation, the fullness, the depth. Kip’s other arm cradles Scott’s head, and Scott turns, bites and kisses at Kip’s bicep, until Kip’s arm curves around and presses against Scott’s chest, holding him still and steady. 

He feels so safe, so held and whole and cared for. He feels complete. 

Kip keeps rolling into him, steady and strong, nailing the perfect places inside him until Scott is seeing spots, everything white-hot and boiling inside him, a full-body wave cresting. 

“Oh, fuck, Kip,” he moans, desperation tinging the edges of his voice. 

Kip’s breath is hot against his cheek, his neck, his ear. He’s everywhere, touching Scott all over—his chest, his sides, the back of his knee, everywhere except where he needs it most—hands hot and desperate and Scott is helpless, free, adored. Tears prick at his eyes, and he turns his head, sinking his teeth again into the hard muscle of Kip’s bicep, grounding himself. 

“Will you come for me like this?” Kip asks, and Scott’s nodding or maybe shaking his head, he can’t tell, he’s wild and so desperate to please, to give Kip what he’s asking for. 

“You’re so good,” Kip croons, squeezing Scott’s chest, digging his fingers into Scott’s thigh, opening him wider, fucking him harder, using him—

And then Scott is coming, staining the sheets, untouched. His breath comes ragged, a raw groan escaping his throat. 

Kip drops Scott’s leg, rolls him onto his front, and fucks into him hard, three times, four, before coming with a wet pulse deep inside, his fingers digging into Scott’s shoulder blades. 

The room settles around them, heavy and comforting. Kip pulls Scott into his arms, kisses him, strokes his cheeks, his forehead, his collarbones. 

“You’re perfect,” he whispers. “Thank you.” 

Scott clings to him, feels something ineffable and a little painful rise in his throat. He feels raw and reborn. He feels incredible.

“I love you,” he whispers. 

“I love you, too,” Kip replies. 

Eventually they’ll clean themselves up, tuck each other under the sheets and sleep, weightless and relieved. But for now it remains enough to hold each other, hands pressed against sweaty skin, legs twined, lips meeting in a kiss that effervesces, whispering of a brighter future—together. 

Chapter 16: Fall 2017

Chapter Notes

Leaves fall red and orange in New York as the seasons march on. Life moves apace, carrying them buoyed in its arms. 

Summer had been intense: too many interviews, op-eds, think pieces. Slurs and hateful comments left on social media posts, which they try to ignore. Scott’s agent, by some miracle, does get a long-form article and interview in Sports Illustrated, which is largely complementary. He also poses for a cover story for Out, which makes Kip’s friends laugh, but not unkindly. 

There have been ripples from what he did. A minor league hockey prospect came out in September, “inspired by the bravery of Scott Hunter”. A major league baseball player sent Scott a DM, saying he couldn’t come out publicly as bisexual but he needed to tell someone who would understand. His agent forwards him emails from fans, young fans, who feel like they can breathe a little easier in the sport they love thanks to what he did. 

Each time makes him want to cry. The pain and the shame of being closeted for so long was terrible. He would never wish it on anyone else. 

He would have liked a leisurely summer break with Kip, but the time they could have been celebrating and enjoying on another had been eaten by the machine, and then pre-season training had rolled around, and then before they knew it Scott was back doing the one thing he loved almost as much as he loves Kip: playing hockey as captain of the New York Admirals.

One more season. Maybe two. 

Scott comes back from practice to find Kip asleep on the couch, glasses on, a book folded open against his chest. He stops and watches him, just for a moment. This is the peace they deserve. 

He crouches down beside the couch, gently touches Kip’s shoulder, nudging him awake. Kip sits up, sleep-mussed and soft, leaning up on his elbow and sliding his glasses off. 

“Hey,” he says, reaching out to knead a hand on Scott’s shoulder. “How was practice?”

The familiarity of the question rolls between them, a well-worn groove in their record. It never fails to surprise Scott: how easily they built these pathways, these practices; how simply they choreographed the two-step of their lives together. 

“Good,” he says. “I’m glad to be back here, though. With you.” 

Kip looks at him like he’s going to call him a sap or something, but he leans over instead, hovers over Kip on the couch and kisses the smirk off his face. 

He crowds into Kip’s space, slots in behind him on the couch, wraps his arm around Kip’s waist. His thumb rubs circles on the soft fabric of Kip’s t-shirt. It’s nice. 

“Well, I’ve spent far too much of my day on Zillow,” Kip says. “I think I’m going cross-eyed.” 

They’re looking for a new place, a home they can build together. Somewhere they can have a fresh start. It’s been Kip’s demand: he wants to contribute, to be an equal partner. Scott’s place is too fancy. Kip’s place is too small. So they’re compromising, looking for something they can buy together. Morningside Heights, East Harlem. Kip’s been thinking about applying to the doctoral program at Columbia. It would make sense. 

It won’t take much for Scott to pack up his apartment. The decor was impersonal, there had never been much of himself here. What he’ll take with him are memories, a foundation on which to build more, together. Somewhere new. Somewhere that’s theirs. 

He’s still finding his footing being out. He has a therapist now, one he can actually be honest with, and it helps. They’re picking apart his rusted armour. It will keep getting easier. Tonight, he’ll take Kip out to dinner. He’s going to hold Kip’s hand across the table, kiss him on the street outside the restaurant. Be with him, truly with him, wherever he can. He’s ready for the world to see. 

He remembers the conversation he had with Michael, his agent, right after they’d won the cup and he’d accelerated the ten-step plan into hyperdrive. 

“I can handle this, I’m honoured to handle it. But you’d better be sure, Scott,” Michael had said. “Like, married-in-the-next-two-years sure.” 

Scott, for his part, wondered if he had to wait that long.

He has a ring box in his dresser, tucked under a pair of blue-and-banana socks.

They’ve talked about it, about the future they want together. About what comes next. About what Scott will do with his time and money after he retires. If they should get a place with spare bedrooms, a home to fill with more love. An older child, perhaps, like he was when his parents died: lost and afraid, needing stability and care. A closing of the loop. A future not mired in the past. 

In the morning, Kip will attend a second-round interview for a collection manager position at the Frick. Contentment radiates from him in waves. 

All his life, Scott never thought he could have this: a certain kind of life, this rich and fulfilling love. To hold it now in the palms of his hands, he wants to protect it; he is in awe of it; he is satisfied by it. He is, for the first time in his life, truly happy. 

Everything is falling into place, he thinks, and the thought doesn’t scare him, not even a bit. Instead he relaxes, smiles as Kip tuns in his arms and kisses him softly. 

Peace settles. A door swings wide and lets sunlight spill in, warm and rolling and real. And it’s more than enough—it’s everything.  

Chapter End Notes

Thanks so much for joining me on this looooong ride. Writing this has made me very happy. Thanks for all the cheerleading along the way, I have really appreciated it.