Archive of Our Own

Jonny is eight when Maman first tells him that he’s going to get married. It’s a well duh moment because everyone gets married eventually, but Maman only sighs and says, no, not like that. Jonny doesn’t ask any more questions, not even five years later when he’s taken all the way to Buffalo to meet his fiancé.

Patrick is five, a pale, pudgy little thing with big blue eyes, loose blond curls, and chubby, fat, cheeks.

Patrick’s birthday party is at a local ice rink. Jonny laces up his own skates before helping Patrick into his own, and then takes his hand to do a few lazy laps with him around the rink. Somewhere along the line Patrick stops, dead serious, head tilted to the side in the most adorable way, like a lost, confused puppy, determined to get an answer out of Jonny.

He blinks up at him and asks point-blank if they’re going to get married one day. Jonny says yes, even going as far as to pinky-promise because Patrick is only a kid. Patrick is satisfied with the answer, nodding before taking Jonny’s hand again to continue their skate. He sniffles pitifully when it’s time for Jonny to leave, failing miserably to hide his tears.

It hurts Jonny’s heart a little to say goodbye. There’s no doubt that Patrick is the cutest little kid that he’s ever seen, even compared to his little sister who waddles after them on unsteady feet. Patrick’s wobbling lower lip is hard to ignore, especially combined with his baby blues. He looks legitimately upset to see Jonny go as he waves from the doorway to the rink, clutching his mother’s hand. The whole day seems like some sort of elaborate, horrible joke that the adults in their lives are playing on Patrick; they’ve convinced the kid that he’s actually going to grow up and marry Jonny one day.

On the drive to the airport, Maman turns around in her seat to smile kindly at him, even though the smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She spent all day speaking quietly with Mrs. Kane in a corner as Dad and Mr. Kane took care of David and Patrick’s little sister, Erica.

She looks quite sad as she examines his face. “Patrick is a darling, isn’t he?”

“He’s cute.”

Maman nods, smiling again. The sadness on her face makes him feel uneasy. There’s something that she knows that he doesn’t. He doesn’t like it. Maman has always said that they share secrets, not keep them. “What’s wrong?”

Maman frowns, lips tight together as they turn down. “Nothing, darling,” she lies. There’s something obviously wrong that she’s not telling him. She turns around in her seat, but she continues to look at him in the rearview mirror. “There are some things that are our duty, and we must do them.” She sounds like a character out of Hamlet, spewing Shakespearean about burden and honor. “You’re going to marry Patrick one day.”

Jonny can’t help the upturn of his nose. He’s never been able to keep his emotions off his face. “He’s five.”

“That’s why your mother said one day,” Dad offers. He’s also looking at Jonny in the rearview mirror. David is lucky. He’s fallen asleep and doesn’t have to face this scrutiny. “When he’s eighteen.”

This a joke, but his parents aren’t laughing. The car’s stopped at a stoplight, and they continue to look at him in the mirror, faces void of any laughter.

“He’s five,” Jonny stresses.

His parents continue to look grim. The light turns green and Dad tears his eyes away to look at the road. Maman sighs, turning her head to look out the window. “It’s your turn to carry on our traditions, Jonathan.”

Jonny waits for more but neither Maman or Dad say anything else. Not when they’re unloading the car at the airport, or when TSA is checking their passports, or even on the plane.

They don’t ever mention Patrick by name again.

Sometimes the Kanes come up in hushed conversation when his parents think he’s not listening. A lot of their talk is about a contract—legal mumble jumble that he doesn’t quite understand. He knows they’re discussing his duty, but he’s fourteen and Patrick is six, and he hasn’t seen the kid in a year and Patrick’s name is never mentioned outright. His parents are joking.

Jonny stops paying attention to his parents’ hushed conversations once he turns sixteen. It’s been three years since he met Patrick, and his parents haven’t whispered about a contract in more than a year. Above all, he has more important things to worry about: school, his friends, hockey.

There are scouts showing up at his games, and talk about playing in World Juniors. If he can make it to Juniors then he can make it to the NHL, and that matters more than some mysterious contract or the cruel joke that his parents are playing on one unsuspecting Patrick Kane.

It’s just barely eleven when Jonny finally lets himself into his apartment after suffering through a brutal round of post-game media questions, all centered around his team’s 2-10 ass whopping and his supposed offensive inability. He’s grumpy, eyes heavy from not only physical exhaustion but mental too—everything the team does wrong seems to land squarely on his shoulders and only his shoulders—and fails to notice the blond-haired teenager in pajamas sitting at his kitchen island, smiling nervously at him until it’s too late.

He nearly shits himself when the kid clears his throat.

“What the fuck.”

The teenager frowns, looking concerned, eyebrows knitting together. “Jonny?”

“How the fuck did you get in here?” Jonny can’t help the shrillness of his voice. There is a stranger. Inside of his home. Possibly waiting to kill him.

The teenager’s eyebrows knit together as he shrugs and pushes away from the island. “Your mom gave me a fob and a house key.”

Jonny doesn’t believe that for a minute. Maman has a copy of his keys and the fob for the building for when her and Dad come to visit, but she wouldn’t be stupid enough to make a copy and give it to a total stranger.

The kid’s probably been stalking him for weeks, finding out his schedule, which apartment is his. He probably followed someone into the building and then somehow picked the lock to get into his unit. As soon as the police escort this kid out, Jonny’s marching straight down to the management office and tearing them a new one for their lack of promised security.

The kid gives Jonny an odd look, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. “Did Ms. Andrée not tell you that I was coming?”

“No,” Jonny says icily, past frightened and right into pissed off now.

The kid tilts his head to the side in a way that seems strangely familiar, like Jonny’s seen that head tilt somewhere before, but he can’t quite place where. A meet-and-greet maybe, perhaps even through the glass during warmups. Wherever he’s seen the kid, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the kid shouldn’t be here, in his home. “I’m calling the police.”

The boy frowns. “Don’t you remember me?”

Jonny narrows his eyes, squinting. There is something about this kid. It’s nagging at the back of his skull annoyingly. “No, not really.”

The boy frowns even harder, beginning to look, quite frankly, pissed. “It’s me, you asshole,” he says, nostrils flaring. “Patrick.”

Jonny reaches slowly into his pocket for his phone, well aware that Patrick is closer to the kitchen knives than he is.

“Patrick,” the kid tries. “Patrick Kane.”

Oh.

Oh shit.

That head tilt. Those big blue eyes and blond curls and the gap between his teeth. Even thirteen years later, Jonny still remembers that little, soft, head tilt.

“You forgot!” Patrick yells, mouth agape with shock. “You forgot that I’m your fiancé!”

It’s not that Jonny forgot—it’s more like he thought this entire time that Maman had made the engagement up, that the whole conversation in the car on the way to the airport had been some weird, figment of his imagination. No one’s even mentioned Patrick since he was drafted, and that was more than eight years ago. “Fiancé,” he says, letting the word roll off his tongue as Patrick stares him down, mouth set in an irritated, straight line.

“Fiancé,” Patrick agrees. “You might have forgotten—”

“I didn’t forget.”

Patrick looks ready to slap him, but he squeezes his hand into a fist instead. “I haven’t.”

“And?”

“And,” Patrick repeats angrily, almost shouting, “we’re getting married, Jonathan Bryan Toews! You promised.”

“First of all,” says Jonny, a headache forming right at the back of his eyes. He’s exhausted, is always exhausted these days, and there’s irritation crawling up the back of his neck, red hot and simmering. “I didn’t promise, my mother did. Secondly, we’re not getting married.”

Patrick sucks in a deep breath, arms at his sides, eyes narrowed angrily, everything about his stance saying that he’s ready for a fight. “We. Are. Getting. Married.” He emphasizes each word angrily with a poke to Jonny’s chest, looking unfazed by Jonny’s irritation, even when Jonny stops leaning against the kitchen island and stands straight up, looming over him. “We’re getting married,” he growls again before he turns sharply on his heels, stomping through the condo to the master bedroom, leaving Jonny stuck in place by the utter audacity.

It takes Jonny a minute to understand what just happened. “We are not getting married!” he yells as he storms into his own bedroom, momentarily shocked again to find Patrick in his bed, some of his clothes laid across the sofa in the sitting area, the pictures on the bedside drawers rearranged. He’s made himself at home, the little shit. “What are you—get out!”

“No!” Patrick shouts, doing the complete opposite and sinking down into the sheets, arms crossed against his chest, reminiscent of a child.

Jonny tries to see reason before he sees anger, but something in him just snaps.

He grabs the covers, flinging them off before grabbing Patrick by the ankles, trying to drag him out of bed. Patrick yelps in shock, arms flying this way and out, trying to pull his knees up as Jonny tugs him down, but he’s like a beanstalk compared to Jonny, and its easy to get him to the edge of the bed. Jonny almost has him out before Patrick wraps his arms around his neck, digging his sharp little nails into the skin of his shoulders and clinging. “No!” he yells just as Jonny grunts, “fucking little shit.”

“You promised!” Patrick wails, knees up to his chest, ankles still in Jonny’s hands, nails still dug into his skin.

“I did not promise!” Jonny growls, letting go of Patrick’s ankles in hopes that Patrick will let go in return, but Patrick doesn’t, just wraps his legs around Jonny’s waist, locking his ankles against his back so he can’t get away.

“You did!”

“I didn’t!”

“You promised me on my birthday!” Patrick fumes, large, blue eyes glaring right into the depths of Jonny’s soul, determined. “You came to my birthday party and you held my hand and you promised that we were going to get married!”

The memory comes roaring back into Jonny’s head like a bull on a rampage. He remembers everything vividly; Patrick’s chubby cheeks, the feel of his tiny hand in his, the way Patrick had tried so hard to hide his tears when it was time to say goodbye.

“You were five.”

Patrick continues to glare. “You pinky-promised.”

Jonny is annoyed into silence. He glares back at Patrick, just as furious.

“We’ve been engaged since I was a baby,” Patrick says, very quietly.

“It’s tradition,” he tries, when Jonny doesn’t say anything.

“It’s bullshit,” Jonny grunts.

Patrick finally removes his nails from Jonny’s flesh. “I think there’s a contract somewhere.”

“Of course there is,” Jonny sighs. Patrick still hasn’t unlocked his legs from around his waist, and he probably won’t, not until Jonny breaks them off or worse, relents.

“You’ve always known that you would have to marry me,” Patrick says conversationally, licking his lips, mouth soft. He bats his pretty little eyelashes at Jonny, suspiciously calm and sweet now. “It’s always been that way.”

A Toews has always married a Kane, as far back as anyone can remember, even as far back as before their families left the old countries of Europe. Back then it had been to keep their old, tired, bloodlines pure, but after a few centuries of constant inbreeding resulting in the complete opposite of that, it had become tradition to “marry” a Toews firstborn son to a Kane firstborn son only to muddle the bloodline. No kids could come from that sort of marriage, at least not kids that were both a Toews and a Kane by blood, giving diversity to their bloodlines. The marriages had never been legal, more a tradition than anything else, until now.

“Please,” Patrick begs, reaching out to touch Jonny’s elbow gently. His face has softened, plump mouth lax, curls fanning out across the mattress like a halo. He’s trying that tactic now. “You’re my fiancé, Jonny.”

Jonny scrubs his hands over his face, throwing his head back annoyedly before he gives in, suddenly too exhausted to fight with this little shit anymore. In the morning, he’ll call Maman about this supposed contract. Once he has it in his hands, he’ll have his lawyer comb through it and find him a way out of this mess. Whatever contract exists was signed by his parents, when he wasn’t a legal, consenting adult. It can’t be that hard to break. “I’m your fiancé.”

Patrick smiles, finally removing his legs from around his waist. He watches as Jonny steps back, grabbing the sheets and dumping them on the bed, not caring if Patrick’s in the way or not. He continues to watch as Jonny shimmies out of his shorts and socks and climbs into bed, too drained to head across to the guest room, not that he should have to, seeing as this is his bed. He’s too dog-tired to put up another fight with Patrick too, so he just settles down on his side, back to the teenager.

Jonny wakes the next morning blessedly alone.

Patrick’s clothes are missing from the sofa, and the shower’s been used, but the teenager has long left the bedroom.

By the smells wafting in from under the bedroom door, he’s found his way around Jonny’s kitchen.

It smells good, whatever he’s making, but Jonny ignores the smells to settle on the sofa, idly scrolling through his contacts until he gets to the one person who can resolve all of this.

Maman picks up on the second ring. “Hello?” Her voice is tinged with slight panic. It’s early, barely even eight. Jonny stopped calling this early after the team slapped the ‘C’ on his chest.

“Maman,” he says, trying not to sound panicked, or get angry. She’s his mother, after all, and only wants the best for him, most of the time, anyway. “When were you going to tell me about—” he stops, sighing deeply. “Patrick’s here, Maman.”

Maman is quiet on the other end. “Oh, my darling.”

“I thought you were joking,” Jonny says. “This whole time I thought—you actually think that I’m going to marry him? He’s a child.”

“He’s eighteen,” Maman corrects, voice calm.

“We’ve talked about this before,” she continues, believing that their curt, clipped conversation on a clear night driving to the Buffalo Niagara International Airport was sufficient enough. It wasn’t. “I reminded you when you were drafted too, remember?”

He remembers that conversation faintly. Everything had been so quick after his name had been called; interview after interview, picture after picture. He had only had time to speak to his parents between each sound bite, sparse and quick before he was being moved onto the next thing. Maman had told him, reminded him, really, about Patrick.

Patrick. His fiancé who had only been ten at the time and who he hadn’t seen in five years. Patrick, who was too young, Maman had said. It was inappropriate, she had insisted, for Jonny to have a friendship with his fiancé, especially now that he would be in the spotlight. People wouldn’t understand their traditions.

People won’t understand their traditions now.

People still do it, he knows. It’s not even a culture thing sometimes. It’s just two families deciding that their children should marry for one reason or another. But the problem for them is that Jonny’s eight years older than his fiancé, and he’s going to look like a giant, dirty, pervert when this eventually gets out, because it will. He tries to keep his personal life contained, but it’s hard when he’s the face of a franchise, the fucking captain of all people. Someone’s going to leak the marriage certificate. Someone’s going to find Patrick’s social media. Hell, Jonny’s going to have to bring him to family skate and Cup wins and charity fundraisers.

He’s not even mad that he has to marry a guy. That’s not the problem. That’s actually, probably, the least of their problems at this point. No. He’s angry because he has to marry a teenager who’s a complete and utter stranger, and possibly a little crazy, or even Stockholm Syndromed, if his instance on getting married is anything to go by. He’s angry because he knows that his parents are intelligent people, and whatever contract they signed is sealed-tight and he can’t get out of this without his family facing grievous, extreme, consequences.

He rubs the space between his eyes, quiet. “You didn’t even tell me that he was coming.”

“I know, I’m sorry, but I thought—” Maman pauses, choosing her next words carefully. “You haven’t dated someone in so long. I thought that you were getting prepared for Patrick.”

Jonny nearly bites through his lip to keep from snapping at her.

Maman sighs. “Donna, that’s Patrick’s mother, asked me to make keys to give to Patrick, in case you forgot or didn’t have time. Patrick wanted to surprise you. You have to be—Jonny, he’s been told his whole life that you’re his fiancé. You must be patient with him. He’s applying for schools in Chicago, just to be close to you.”

“He’s not even out of high school!?”

“Don’t raise your voice with me,” Maman scolds. “He graduated early last spring. He’s smart, Jonny. He wants to be a veterinarian.”

The bedroom door opens before Jonny can reply. Patrick’s arms are crossed against his chest, spatula held in his fist threateningly. “Your breakfast is getting cold,” he says.

Jonny looks at him for a long moment. “Maman, I have to go,” he finally says, hanging up after a quick goodbye.

Patrick watches as he gets up, refusing to move away from the door and let Jonny pass. “I’m going to UIC in August, after the wedding.”

Jonny looms over him, but Patrick refuses to budge, holding his ground. “We don’t have to do this, you know.”

“Oh, no,” Patrick says, face blank. “We have to do this.” He gives Jonny a mocking, tight-lipped smile before he turns on his heel, stalking his way to the kitchen.

The breakfast Patrick’s made is surprisingly pretty good, with bacon and eggs and fresh cut strawberries. There’s toast and skim milk too, and Patrick looks almost sheepish as Jonny begrudgingly shoves eggs and toast into his mouth.

“It’s good,” he says, when Patrick’s staring starts to get creepy.

Patrick’s shoulders droop in relief.

“Were you actually worried that I wasn’t going to like the food?”

Patrick’s shoulders rise again. He’s like a chihuahua on a very short leash; cute from afar, but the closer you get, the more aggressive he gets. “I just want to be a good husband, unlike you.”

“Listen, you little shit,” Jonny says, putting down his knife and fork and making Patrick bristle. “Maybe I don’t want this marriage,” Patrick’s lips go into a thin, angry line, “but I’m not going to be a bad husband.”

Patrick’s gaze is hard and cold. “Then what kind of husband are you going to be?”

“I don’t know,” Jonny admits, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. Who even knows that shit? Who goes into a marriage determined to be a certain type of husband? “I don’t know,” he repeats, “but I’m not going to be an asshole to you, or hit you, or keep you from going to whatever veterinarian school that you want. I’ll treat you the way that you treat me.”

That answer seems to pacify Patrick. His shoulders relax as he begins to eat his own breakfast, glancing up at Jonny from time to time. He doesn’t say anything else, not even when he’s standing next to Jonny, drying the dishes as Jonny cleans them.

He breaks the silence as Jonny starts to put the dishes away. “I was told my whole life that we were going to get married.” His eyes are soft, almost sad as he looks at Jonny. He looks so young standing there, twisting his fingers nervously. “Weren’t you told the same?”

Jonny feels a little bit like an asshole. Patrick’s been told his whole life that he’s his fiancé, and that they’ll be married until death does them part. Possibly, Patrick’s even had some sort of hand in planning their upcoming nuptials.

Maman had said to be patient. Had hinted that Patrick’s entire life has been shaped around this marriage, which is honestly—well. It’s a bit sad.

“The last time anyone mentioned you was when I was drafted,” Jonny replies honestly. Patrick’s face falls, although he hides it well. “My mom said that it was, uh, inappropriate for me to have any sort of relationship with you, seeing as I was eighteen and you were, you know, ten. That was it. I thought that that my parents were kidding, or at least had changed their minds about the whole thing, but this whole time they thought that I knew. I haven’t dated anyone in a while, so my mom thought that I was preparing for our wedding, and that’s why she failed to mention anything about making you copies of the keys to this place. She said that you wanted to surprise me.”

Patrick’s face continues to fall. What he was expecting from Jonny, Jonny doesn’t know. Flowers, maybe. A fiancé welcoming him with open arms perhaps. There’s been a serious lack of communication on everyone’s part. “No one can force you down that aisle, Patrick.”

“I didn’t apply for any other schools,” Patrick says quietly. “It’s—it’s tradition.”

“You can live with me, while you go to school. We don’t have to—”

“It’s tradition,” Patrick insists, his voice regaining its usual snappiness. He shakes his head as if to get rid of the sadness, sharp blue eyes landing on Jonny, gaze stern. “Our wedding is on the 8th of August at the Fort Gary Hotel at 3pm sharp.”

Jonny lifts his eyebrows. “We’re getting married in Winnipeg?”

“Mom suggested that you might not want to be in Chicago during your summer break.”

“And you?” Jonny asks. “What do you want?”

Patrick blinks, momentarily startled by the question, but he recovers quickly, lifting his chin defiantly. “A husband that’s not an ass.” And then he storms off dramatically, like he’s wont to do, leaving Jonny standing there to sigh irritably.

Jonny lets Patrick cool off in the entertainment room for half an hour before he sweeps in, taking the remote control right out his hand.

“Relationships are a two-way street.”

Patrick glares, snorting like a bull.

“You can’t make a statement and then storm off dramatically.”

Patrick mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like I can too. Jonny grunts, rolling his eyes. “Listen, neither of us actually want this marriage.” Jonny lifts his finger, halting the retort Patrick was about to send his way. “We’re going to go through with it because we’re both idiots bound by family honor. But, if we’re going to make this work, we have to communicate.”

They’ve both failed spectacularly so far, but they have to get their shit together if they want this sham of a marriage to even remotely come close to working. They have to be on the same page, at the same paragraph sometimes, if they both want to make to it through the next how many years of their married lives without being miserable.

Patrick stops glaring at him and starts glaring at the wall instead. “You make me so angry sometimes.”

“We’ve only been in the same house together for less than twelve hours.”

Patrick’s bottom lip is protruding in a pout, eyes still on the wall, like the child that he is. “You still make me angry.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not a ray of sunshine yourself,” Jonny says, stepping into Patrick’s line of vision.

Patrick continues to pout, but he does finally look at Jonny from under the long sweep of his eyelashes. “I’m not expecting for you to love me, you know.” His head tilts to the side, a bad habit, probably leftover from when he was a kid. He’d been so cute back when he was five, when he still had baby fat and had looked at Jonny like Jonny had hung the moon. If Jonny cocks his head and squints, he can still see some of that cuteness poking through, especially when Patrick sniffs and draws attention to his button-like nose. “I just want you to like me.”

It’s his honesty that makes Jonny sigh and give a weak, nearly fond smile as he settles into an armchair. “I like you, sort of, but I don’t think you like me very much, either.”

Patrick shrugs, still pouting, making it obvious that Jonny’s going to have to lead the way on this whole communicating with each other thing, even though he’s never been good at it in any of his relationships, ever. “It’s going to be hard for us. I’m away a lot, and even when I’m home, I’m still training. I don’t have a lot of free time, and people sometimes recognize me, and they’re going to start recognizing you too, once our engagement gets out, because it will. If I were you, I would make all of my social media private now, especially if you don’t want people snooping around, because they will snoop. Eventually you’re going to be able to google your name and find out that somehow, everyone on the internet knows everything about you.”

“We’re going to have to be on the same page because I know we’ve been engaged for eighteen years,” Jonny continues, grimacing. Eighteen years. They’ve been engaged a whole eighteen fucking years. “But I haven’t mentioned you to any of my friends—don’t look at me like that, I didn’t know—so they’re going to ask a lot of questions, be really judgmental, and will probably never stop being suspicious. We’re going to have to work together here, and that means you can’t storm away every time I say something that you don’t like.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t say things that I don’t like,” Patrick mumbles, which makes Jonny rolls his eyes, exasperated.

“Patrick—”

“I don’t know how to do this,” Patrick interrupts, speaking so quickly that his words jumble together. “I’ve never been in a relationship before. I wasn’t—there wasn’t any point.”

Jonny is suddenly very sad, angry, and annoyed. The sadness comes from the fact that Patrick has never been allowed to experience, stupid, young, love, the anger from the fact that Patrick’s whole life has been shaped and executed around this fraudulent marriage, and the annoyance from the fact that Jonny is now responsible for shaping Patrick’s life experiences. He has to be kind always, loving, reasonable, the level-headed adult in this entire situation because Patrick doesn’t know any better. He doesn’t know how relationships work, how he’s supposed to be treated.

Jonny could easily take advantage of him. Abuse and manipulate him, and Patrick would be none the wiser because he’s young and naïve, wrapped up in fucking tradition.

“Every relationship is different,” Jonny finally says, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. He manages it because Patrick’s face doesn’t change much. He stops pouting though, looking hopeful and just a tad bit lost, but he doesn’t recoil or attempt to storm off. “First, we probably should work on being friends.”

Patrick swallows, and then nods, smiling with all of his teeth, exposing a little gap between his two front incisors.

The first thing they decide to do as friends is take a trip down to the Loop. Patrick only let himself into Jonny’s apartment a few hours before he got home, and he’s never been to Chicago before, despite having to plan his whole life around the city. Jonny’s been to the Loop a hundred times, and he tries to avoid the place if necessary, but it seemed a little unfair to send Patrick down there by himself. Anyways, they’re trying to get to know each other, and spending some time outside of the apartment will do both of them some good, hopefully.

Patrick’s excited to ride in Jonny’s Tesla, marveling at the interior. “I don’t have a job,” he says off-handedly as Jonny grunts and reverses out of his parking spot. “My parents used to give me an allowance.”

It takes Jonny a few seconds to understand what Patrick’s said. “You need money,” he says, harsher than he means to be.

Patrick can’t storm off, but he can slide down in his seat, turning his head away to look out the window and refusing to speak.

Jonny frowns, pulling into traffic. It’s only a short drive down, fifteen minutes tops, and they spend it in silence. It’s a Wednesday, so it’s easy to find a spot. “I’ll call my bank after lunch and get you added to my account.”

“I don’t want to freeload off of you,” Patrick says, still refusing to look at him, but at least he’s talking. “I know you’ve worked really hard for your money, but I can’t help you pay any bills or anything, not until I become a doctor.”

Jonny wonders, absently, if the Kanes would have still insisted on their engagement if Jonny were a janitor, or a school teacher. A part of him can’t help but be suspicious. He has more money than he knows what to do with sometimes, even after he ends up donating a good portion of it to charity, but there’s still something irksome about becoming Patrick’s sole provider.

Even after Patrick hopefully completes his studies, he’ll never be Jonny’s financial equal, which is perfectly fine, understandable, Jonny has never expected that from a partner, but he’d at least be able to stand on his own two feet if something ever happened and he wasn’t able to access Jonny’s assets.

But right now, Patrick is an unemployed eighteen-year-old with at least eight more years of school to get through and whose chances of making anything higher than minimum wage are slim to none. With university starting in August, juggling a full time job and a full time class schedule won’t be impossible, but it won’t be damn easy, either. Patrick’s financial stability all lands on Jonny’s shoulders.

God, he’s going to have to call his lawyer and talk about a prenup.

“I’m sorry,” Patrick says, very, very quietly.

Jonny shuts the car off. “Let’s just check out the Bean.”

Patrick walks behind him as they make their way down the street, hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat, obviously made uncomfortable by their short conversation. Jonny slows down the closer they get, until Patrick can catch up. “We’ll get this shit figured out.”

Patrick shrugs, avoiding meeting his gaze, which is his new thing that he’s doing instead of storming away, which is just as equally as annoying as his little tantrums, but he does reach out, stuffing his gloved fingers into the crook of Jonny’s arm. “I would marry you if you were a fry cook.”

“You’re marrying me because there’s a contract that says that we have to or we’ll face grievous consequences.” It comes out bitter, but he doesn’t shrug Patrick’s fingers away. They’ll be required to kiss in nine months’ time. Might as well do a little touching to make the kiss less awkward than it needs to be.

“Stop being an asshole,” Patrick says, squeezing Jonny’s arm. “I’m trying to say that I’d still be fighting tooth and nail for our marriage, even if you weren’t a millionaire.”

There’s a crowd around the Bean as usual. Patrick doesn’t want his picture taken with it, but he does take out his phone and snap a few photos. Jonny can’t help but notice that he hasn’t set any of his social media to private yet. “Why are you fighting so hard for this? And don’t say tradition.”

Patrick goes quiet, and Jonny’s sure that he’s not going to get an answer, but eventually the kid shrugs. “I don’t know anything else.”

“You could, you know. Know something else.”

Patrick’s nose is red from the cold, and his cheeks are slowly turning the same color. His hair and ears are stuffed up under a hat, somehow making his blue eyes look bigger. “I plan on keeping my vows,” he says, looking away again. He’s not very good at making eye contact, not when conversations start to get uncomfortable. “I hope that you’d want to keep yours too, but I understand if you don’t.”

Jonny doesn’t know what to say to that. Having sex with Patrick wouldn’t be a hardship. The kid’s soft all over, pretty. He’d probably make pretty noises as he gets fucked too, but their marriage isn’t one of love, it’s one of convenience. They’re getting married because they have to, not because they want to. If Patrick wanted to stray from their marriage, Jonny would willingly turn a blind eye. He only hopes that Patrick would do the same for him. “Let’s just work on being friends for now.”

Patrick’s face falls, but only for a second. He schools his face into passiveness, tugging on Jonny’s arm. “I want sushi for lunch.”

They find a place just a little ways from the car. Patrick’s quiet as he eats, stuffing his face full of expensive seafood until he finally has enough and decides to speak. “Can I come to games?”

“Games?”

“The home games.” Patrick glances sideways out of the corner of his eye to where a couple have recognized Jonny but are being nice enough not to bother him. “I used to go to Sabres games with my dad.”

“Yeah, no problem, I’ll get you a pass so you can get in without a ticket. You’ll have to sit in the family suite, unless there’s a specific game that you want to go to. I can get a seat reserved for you if you let me know beforehand.” Jonny’s gotten passes made for former girlfriends before. It shouldn’t be a problem with front office, except that they might ask questions, specifically ones like who Patrick is and what relation he is to Jonny. Front office likes to know these things for security, and so that they can include the players’ significant others in things, interview them, show off their charity work. He’s going to have to list Patrick as his fiancé eventually.

Explaining his sudden engagement to front office won’t be as bad as sitting in the family suite with Dayna and Abby subtly judging him from a distance, though.

It’s better to pull the band-aid off all in one go. Submerge both of them in a million-and-one questions in one fatal swoop. “There’s a game tomorrow, if you want to come.”

“Tomorrow?” Patrick repeats, eyes getting a bit wide in excitement. He’s trying not to sound and look too hopeful, but he’s failing miserably. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” Jonny shrugs. “Might as well introduce you to front office sooner than later.”

Patrick fiddles with his chopsticks. “Thank you,” he says, not looking at Jonny, but he’s smiling, cheeks flushed.

Patrick doesn’t want to see any more landmarks after lunch. It’s cold, and windy, and despite the sun, quite miserable, so they head back to the apartment. “I’ll make dinner in a couple of hours,” he announces before he disappears into Jonny’s bedroom to change his clothes. He’s made himself quite at home in there already.

“There are two other rooms for you to sleep in, you know,” Jonny tries when Patrick eventually wanders back into the living room in a shirt and sweatpants that are too big on him, hem dragging on the floor.

Patrick narrows his eyes into dangerous slits of anger, a fair indication that if Jonny tries to drag him out of his bed that they’re going to have a repeat of last night. “We’re engaged. We’re supposed to sleep in the same bed, and anyway, the bed’s too big for us to even touch. You didn’t even notice when I got up this morning.”

“That was only because I was exhausted.”

Patrick lifts his eyebrows, collapsing non-gracefully onto the other end of the sofa. “Ms. Andrée said that you’re usually an early riser, even during the summer.”

Jonny’s suspicious of any conversation that his mom has had with Patrick about him, especially since she’s never had any conversation with him about Patrick. He’s even more suspicious that he’s never spoken with either of the Kanes, and probably won’t speak to them until the wedding. It’s all very suspicious. “I don’t like wasting my off days.”

Patrick goes quiet, fiddling with the drawstrings on his sweatpants as Jonny takes out his phone to check his email. “Do you still like it?”

“Still like what?”

“Playing hockey. Do you still like playing hockey?”

Jonny glances up from his phone to look at Patrick. He’s still playing with the drawstrings of his sweatpants, but it looks more like something he’s doing out of boredom, not out of avoidance. “I still love it. Don’t think I’ll ever stop loving it.”

“I watched your draft year,” Patrick says off-handedly, finally leaving his drawstrings alone to reach for the remote. With no school and no job and no money yet, Jonny suspects that Patrick’s going to be spending a lot of time right here, watching a lot of TV. “I was really mad that the Blues were too dumb to draft you first, and the Penguins too. I thought you deserved a better team than the Hawks.”

Jonny lifts an eyebrow. “And the Blues and Pens were somehow better?”

Patrick grimaces. “I was mad that you weren’t drafted first overall, like you deserved.”

Jonny can imagine Patrick at ten, still a bit chubby, that baby fat never really gone, glaring so hard at the TV like he could make it explode with his mind when first Johnson, and then Staal, were called before Jonny, and then getting so frustrated and angry at everything and storming away. “You still upset about it?”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “The Blackhawks are okay.”

“Says the kid who wants to go to their home games.”

Patrick sneers at him, but it lacks his usual ferocity. “What else am I supposed to do?”

Without any money, Patrick can’t do much but walk around the neighborhood or stay in and watch TV. It’ll be hard for him to make any friends, not until school starts, and that’s nine months away. Maybe once their suspicions wane, Abby and Dayna will take him under their wings, but Jonny can’t see the three of them sharing any life experiences and becoming close.

The next nine months of Patrick’s life seem unfairly lonely.

Maybe he should get Patrick a pet of some sort. He’s always wanted a dog, but never had the time to take care of it. Patrick plans to be a veterinarian. He’ll need the practice.

“Here,” Jonny says, digging his wallet out of his pocket. Maman had said that Patrick was smart, and hopefully that intelligence comes with a set of common sense and morals. “Take my card. It’s a debit, so I doubt anyone will try and I.D. you if you use it. We’ll go to the bank tomorrow, get you added to my account so you’ll have a card of your own. Just don’t get too crazy with anything.”

There are fail-safes on Jonny’s account, purchases that can’t be made or purchases that he’ll be alerted to ASAP, the usual security measures but ten times more intense since he’s sitting on well over ten million dollars. He doubts that Patrick will be able to rack up too much, not if he doesn’t want Jonny to cut him off permanently.

“I know better than that,” Patrick snaps, but his ears turn pink, probably embarrassed by his own behavior. He looks at Jonny as he takes the card, an improvement from his usual avoidance. “I—thank you. I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Patrick goes quiet again, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; comfortable silence with another person is something that Jonny enjoys, but he can’t help but feel a bit awkward, sitting in his living room with his teenage fiancé, absentmindedly watching a nature documentary about the plains of Africa. The silence between them isn’t built from intimacy and familiarity. It’s built from uncomfortableness.

“When do I get my Tesla?”

“Your what?”

“My Tesla,” Patrick repeats, still watching the documentary, but there’s a little grin tugging at the corner of his lips. “I can’t be Jonathan Toews’ fiancé and take an Uber everywhere.”

Jonny snorts out a laugh while shaking his head. “We’ll see about getting you a car.”

Patrick looks at him this time. “Wait, really?”

Jonny shrugs. “Not right now. Maybe in a few weeks, when you’re used to the city.”

Patrick is trying not to smile, trying not to get is hopes up probably, and Jonny can’t blame him. He’d be pretty damn excited too, if he was eighteen and nine months away from marrying a millionaire.

They fall back into silence, this time a little more comfortable than before. Patrick likes the Discovery channel, and Jonny doesn’t mind, as long as what they’re watching isn’t about hockey. He loves the sport, will always love it, but on the days where he doesn’t have to play or train or be Captain Jonathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks, he likes to disengage, let his mind rest.

Eventually Patrick does get up and make dinner as promised. He’s a pretty good cook, which is kind of odd, seeing as Patrick is a teenager, and yeah, that doesn’t mean that Patrick can’t cook, but it’s strange that he does. Strange and suspicious.

“You like to cook.” It’s a statement, not a question, meant to make light conversation as they eat their steak and potatoes, but Patrick gives him an annoyed look, eyes narrowed. Surprisingly, he’s not snappish when he responds.

“I took classes.”

Ah, there it is.

Classes. Patrick took cooking classes, and Jonny doesn’t think that he took them out of interest.

He woke up early and made Jonny breakfast despite how awful he was to him the night before. He made them both dinner tonight despite the fact that Jonny is a grown man, more than capable of making his own food.

He’s been trained to be some sort of semblance of a good, stay-at-home husband, whatever that means. He’ll probably start doing the laundry and cleaning the house only because someone, somewhere, told him that that was what it meant to be a good husband. Someone, somewhere told him that he would have to carry the weight of domesticity solely on his shoulders.

If Patrick actually enjoys cooking and cleaning, then Jonny doesn’t want to take that away from him, but he doesn’t want Patrick to think that he has to do those things. “You don’t have to cook unless you want to.”

Patrick looks at him, knife and fork clutched in his hands tightly. He looks like he’s making a great effort not to slam his silverware down and storm off. He gets so easily relied up sometimes that Jonny’s actually a little concerned about his blood pressure. All that anger in such a little body can’t be good for him.

“I like to cook,” Patrick finally says, voice even, although Jonny can see that he’s still clutching his silverware in a death-grip. Maybe they’ll have to re-evaluate the whole not storming off thing to help Patrick disperse some of his anger.

“Okay,” Jonny says, ending the conversation there. There’s no point in discussing the issue further, not now at least. Patrick at least knows that he doesn’t have to cook, and hopefully is telling the truth about liking to.

They do the dishes together, Jonny washing, Patrick drying, before they settle on the couch to finish watching the nature documentary. Jonny heads to bed first, settling down a full hour before Patrick crawls into bed, back to Jonny, breathing quietly until he falls asleep.

It’s a quarter after six when Jonny wakes, Patrick buried under the covers, his forehead pressed into Jonny’s hip. How he managed to get all the way across the bed and under the sheets, Jonny doesn’t know, but there he is, breathing warm air onto his hip, curled up tight in a defensive ball.

Jonny turns on the light on the bedside table, illuminating the room in a soft glow, giving him a better look at his sleeping fiancé. Patrick’s hair is a bird’s nest of a mess, curls sticking up every which way while still somehow managing to cling to his forehead. His features are soft in sleep, lips parted slightly to inhale and exhale. He looks peaceful and not like he could wake up at any second and scratch Jonny’s eyes out.

Jonny extracts himself slowly as to not risk the attack on his eyeballs. Patrick sighs in his sleep, scouting just a little bit over to take the warm spot. Jonny pulls the covers back up over him and leaves him to sleep. He’s not surprised when he finds Patrick still hidden under the covers and snoring lightly when he’s done with his shower.

They don’t have anywhere to be until at least three, so he leaves Patrick alone to sleep as much as he needs while he runs out to do an early morning yoga session down at his favorite studio and pick up some breakfast. By the time he returns, Patrick still isn’t awake, but it’s only a little after eight and it’s not like Patrick needs to be up.

Around nine Patrick finally wanders out of the bedroom, hair still a mess and blurry-eyed. “You got doughnuts,” he yawns, eyeing the doughnuts Jonny’s put out on a plate hungrily while struggling to climb gracefully into a seat at the island.

Jonny hides his smile behind his coffee cup. Patrick is actually quite cute when sleepy and relatively defenseless. “Just for you.”

He’s eaten all the plain doughnuts and left the ones covered in chocolate and sprinkles for Patrick. Patrick eyes the doughnuts critically, but then decides that they must not be poisoned. Unsurprisingly, he takes the doughnut covered with the most sprinkles.

“The game doesn’t start until seven, but I have to be at the UC by five,” Jonny explains as Patrick chews away happily. “We’ll head to the bank around four.”

“‘kay,” is all Patrick says when he’s done eating, surprisingly chipper this morning, but Jonny decides not to question it. He can still feel the marks left from Patrick’s tiny claws when he rolls his shoulders. They’ll need to get through the majority of the day on relatively good terms if either of them wants to survive the hell that’s waiting for them tonight. Front office won’t be mad about the engagement, just disappointed and confused, but Sharpy and Seabs will both probably want to choke Jonny out and who knows if Patrick will even make it out of the family suite alive after facing down both Abby and Dayna.

Patrick spends most of the day in the bedroom playing on his laptop while Jonny patters about the apartment, watering his plants and watching golf. The only time they speak is when Jonny has to change into his game-day suit and Patrick refuses to leave the room.

“We’re going to be married. I have to see you naked some time.”

“I don’t have to get naked to get into my suit,” Jonny says, narrowing his eyes.

Patrick doesn’t look up from his phone. “Then what’s the problem?”

“Privacy,” Jonny tries.

“Don’t you get naked in the locker room?”

“You’re a little pervert, you know that?” Jonny says as he gives in and strips off his shirt. Patrick only grins at him, tip of his tongue poking out between his teeth. It’s hard to tell if he’s in a good mood and being playful, or if he’s in one of his irritable moods and changed tactics from refusing to speak to making Jonny’s life uncomfortable.

The little shit does advert his gaze when Jonny drops his pants, having some semblance of home-training. He keeps his eyes on his phone until Jonny’s fully dressed and shrugging on his suit jacket. “Can’t wait to be married.”

“Don’t have to be married to see each other naked,” Jonny mumbles, eyeing Patrick, who’s still lazing around in his sweatpants. Patrick frowns, but Jonny lifts his eyebrows, waiting.

They stay there, staring each other down until Patrick cracks, scrambling off the bed to drop his pants. He’s not wearing any underwear, and he’s red all over as he steps into his jeans, even on his pale, thick thighs. “You’re the pervert,” he mumbles, ears red hot, cheeks pink as he zips himself up.

“You started it,” Jonny says, giving in to childish tendency.

Patrick grumpily pulls on his socks before stomping away.

Jonny follows after him, laughing.

Patrick is quiet and grumpy the whole way to the bank and through the process of getting him added to Jonny’s account, although he’s as polite and as charming as can be to the bank employees. Jonny’s personal banker doesn’t ask any invasive questions about their relationship, which is great, because Jonny shouldn’t have to answer any questions for at least another hour.

He hasn’t felt nervous rolling up to the UC since he was a rookie, but he starts to feel the unfamiliar butterflies in his stomach the closer they get. It’s not answering front office’s questions that’s making him nervous. That part won’t be particularly difficult. He doesn’t cause them any real trouble, and it’s not like they can tell him no, or keep him from marrying Patrick. The worse they can do is distance themselves and “forget” to invite Patrick to family events.

It’s the scrutiny from Seabs and Sharpy that’s making Jonny feel nervous as he bypasses security and drives onto the player’s lot. He considers them his brothers, his best friends, his family, and he knows that they’re not going to roll over and take this news easily, despite Jonny’s protests that he’ll be happy. They’d never be outright cruel to Patrick, but they’ll always look at him with suspicion.

Patrick is mystified as they walk through the underbelly of the UC and towards the front office. “How do you not get lost down here?”

“We get used to it,” Jonny replies absentmindedly, a hand on Patrick’s lower back to guide him this way and that.

Millie in the front office takes Patrick aside to make a copy of his driver’s license and get started on making him an all-access pass while Jonny goes off to meet with Jessica, who handles all public relations.

Jessica, predictably, is at first shocked, then concerned, and understandably, annoyed. “We won’t make any sort of announcement,” she says, tight-lipped as she types away at her computer, probably sending an email off to Bowman and Jeremy, “but I’m sure the news will get out sooner than later.” Jonny nods along. “We’ll restrict interview questions to only hockey related topics, as usual, but I expect that there will be numerous questions about first, your sexuality, and secondly, Mr. Kane’s age and your relationship from outside reporters. It will be up to you to decide how, and if, you want to answer.” She stops typing, securing Jonny with an imposing gaze. “We, as always, will support you and Mr. Kane in any way that we can.” That’s a dismissal if Jonny’s ever heard one, so he smiles, collecting his coat, before bidding her farewell.

Patrick’s all set by the time Jonny’s done talking with Jessica. “They take it okay?” he asks, looking concerned as he fiddles with his pass.

“As best as they can,” Jonny mutters, hand going to Patrick’s lower back again to guide him towards the suites. It’s still early, but the rest of the team will be arriving soon, and Patrick can’t be hanging around the locker room as everyone’s trying to get ready for the game. Nothing’s open down at the concourse yet, so he can’t eat, or even look into the shops down there, even though he’d never actually have to buy any merchandise. All he can do is exit the UC and entertain himself at a restaurant or sit in the family suite and fiddle on his phone until other people show up.

Patrick opts to stay in the family suite. If he’s nervous to meet the families, he doesn’t show it. “It’s a bunch of moms and kids. They love me.”

“Right,” says Jonny, doubting that Abby and Dayna are going to love him right off the bat. “Dayna usually brings the kids down to the locker room after the game, so just follow her lead.”

He leaves Patrick to his own devices after sending a quick prayer up that Abby and Dayna don’t tear the kid apart.

Jonny should really be the one to tell Sharpy and Seabs about Patrick, but he already knows that Abby and Dayna will do the work for him. The very second that Patrick introduces himself as his fiancé, they’ll have their phones out, texting their respective husbands, thus, taking some of the awkward work away from Jonny.

Sharpy doesn’t tend to check his phone much in general, and neither does Seabs, especially not while they’re doing their usual game-day prep, and they don’t check their phones during intermission either, unless they’re expecting an important message.

He has at least another three hours, give or take, before shit hits the fan. They probably won’t even notice Patrick if he goes down to the ice for warmups. He’ll just be another fan, sitting just a little too close to their families. Perhaps even a new teammate’s boyfriend—it’s happened before, and the team’s been as loud or as quiet about him as their teammate has asked them to be—or someone’s girlfriend’s brother.

Patrick does go down for warmups. He’s sitting next to Dayna, smiling and chatting away, sometimes talking to Carter or Mackenzie. Surprisingly, he’s bought himself a jersey, Jonny’s jersey, the sleeves too long but the perfect length to tug on when he’s trying to pretend like he’s not nervous. Jonny tries not to watch him too much, but it’s hard not to. He threw Patrick to the wolves, and he just wants to make sure that he’s okay.

No one mentions Patrick when they head back to the locker room. Everyone thinks that Patrick is someone else’s brother or boyfriend, and no one’s going to mention him, not until he’s introduced to the group.

The game goes surprisingly well. They beat the Wild 3-1, securing two points and their place at the top of the Central division, the best record they’ve had for the past two seasons. Jonny’s happy as he disperses his after game high-fives and gives his speech and doesn’t even feel annoyed when Lazerus asks him a bullshit question about his production.

He manages, remarkably, to forget that his brand new fiancé that he’s only really known for a day and a half is sitting in the family suite.

He only remembers when first Sharpy, and then Seabs, sit down on either side of him. The locker room is completely empty except for the three of them, which means that both Seabs and Sharpy have checked their phones and have found out about Patrick.

“Dayna says that there’s an eighteen-year-old kid in the family suite introducing himself as your fiancé,” Seabs says, stretching his legs out in front of him while not looking at Jonny. “Don’t know how that’s possible, seeing as you haven’t been dating anyone.”

“Don’t have to introduce us to everyone you put your dick in, Toe-ez,” Sharpy says, knocking their shoulders together. “But I think we should have known about this one, since Abby says that the kid just turned eighteen three days ago.”

Huh. When Maman had said that Patrick would come live with him when he turned eighteen, he didn’t know that she meant literally when he turned eighteen. They’ll have to do something to celebrate. “I’m not a pervert.”

“So you just started dating this kid three days ago and decided to pop the question?” Seabs has his dad voice on, the one he only uses on Jonny when he thinks that he’s being an idiot.

“We’ve been engaged for eighteen years, actually,” Jonny corrects, trying not to sound annoyed. They’re looking out for him, like big brothers, and it might be annoying now, but he does appreciate it. They love him, that’s all, in their own, weird way. “Our families have always married each other, starting back in the old days, but our bloodlines started getting interbred, so after our families immigrated to North America, it was a first born son to a first born son. It was never legal, you know. Not until now.”

Sharpy laughs, in a disbelieving way. “You’re fucking kidding me, Toews.”

“I’m fucking not. We’ve been engaged since he popped out the womb. There’s a contract that can’t be broken. We’re getting married on August 8th at the Fort Gary Hotel, 3pm sharp. I’ll make sure you get your invitations in the mail.”

“You’re shitting me,” Seabs says, doing an awkward I-can’t-believe-this laugh. “You can’t—”

“I can,” Jonny interrupts. “And I am.”

“You’ve been engaged for eighteen years and you’ve never once mentioned this kid—”

“Patrick.”

“You never once mentioned Patrick,” Sharpy drawls. “I thought you wanted to marry that one girl a few years ago? Charlotte?”

This was the part that Jonny was hoping to skip over. Admitting any lapse in judgement to Seabs and Sharpy is always a rollercoaster of emotional torment. “There’s eight years between us, you know? Mom and Dad, they would only mention him in passing every few years. The last time they even mentioned Patrick was when I was drafted. Thought it was one of those things that was never going to happen.”

“But now it’s happening and you’re just going along with it?” Seabs’ voice doesn’t exactly rise, but it’s starting to get there.

“I’m not changing my mind, Patrick isn’t going anywhere, and I would really appreciate it if you’d just tell me ‘congratulations’ and not be a dick about it!”

The room goes uncomfortably quiet. After a moment Sharpy breaks that quiet with a heavy sigh. “You’re really something else, kid, you know that?” He knocks their shoulders together roughly before standing and ruffling Jonny’s hair playfully. Sharpy’s trying really hard not to look disappointed, but Jonny can see his frustration in the same way that he can see Seabs trying not to angrily shrug on his coat. They’re both being surprisingly calm and reasonable about this, which just means that somewhere down the line they’re both going to lose their shit.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” Jonny says just as Dayna and the kids tumble into the room, Patrick following closely behind although he hesitates at the doors, looking around the room with wide eyes.

“Abby’s waiting in the car with the kids,” Dayna says to Sharpy before setting her warm gaze on Jonny. Unlike Seabs, she’s a master at hiding her true feelings behind a warm smile. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she says, voice too low for anyone else to hear.

Jonny looks over her shoulder at Patrick, who’s trying very hard to put on a brave face as he shakes hands with Seabs and then Sharpy. He laughs nervously at something Seabs says before desperately looking over at Jonny to save him.

“I know what I’m doing,” Jonny says, with just as equally as fake of a smile before kissing Dayna on the cheek.

“Let’s go,” he says when he approaches Patrick, hand on his lower back to guide him out of the room without saying goodbye. He’s annoyed and he’s exhausted and he doesn’t want to deal with anyone, not anymore.

“They seemed … nice,” Patrick tries when they get to the car.

“Yeah, well, we caught them in a good mood,” Jonny mumbles as he puts the car in to drive.

Patrick is blessedly quiet for the rest of the ride home, and he stays quiet in the elevator ride up too, playing with the sleeves of his jersey. Jonny watches him in the glass reflection. “Don’t tell me you actually bought that.”

“Couldn’t just demand that they give it to me,” Patrick grumbles, gaining back some of that ferocity that he managed to lose in the past few hours. He muscles his way into the apartment before Jonny, immediately heading to the bedroom to presumably get ready for the night. Jonny patters about the kitchen, giving Patrick some privacy before he decides to call it a night.

Patrick is already in bed, curled up on the far side. Jonny feels like teasing him about staying on his side of the bed, but it’s a fleeting idea that soon disappears when Patrick sets his steely gaze on him. “What?” he snaps.

Jonny doesn’t dignify him with a response. Instead he changes out of his suit, hanging it neatly in the closet before brushing his teeth and climbing into bed. Patrick is dozing lightly, little snores filling the room. It only takes a few minutes for him to turn in his sleep, maneuvering closer and closer to Jonny as the minutes tick by.

By the time Jonny’s closing his eyes, Patrick is under the covers, nose pressed up against his hip.

Patrick doesn’t seem to have any friends in Chicago yet, so it’s just the two of them when they go out for brunch on Sunday. They Uber to Atwood, which immediately makes Patrick suspicious. He becomes even more suspicious when Jonny talks to the owner and a mimosa appears in front of him, no questions asked.

“Did you pay the owner to let me drink?” he asks, eyes narrowed, but he takes a sip anyway, trying to look judgmental but failing miserably.

“No,” Jonny lies, going for innocent. “Just don’t throw up in the bathroom.”

Patrick continues to drink his mimosa with suspicion, but he loosens up by his third one, eyes bright and a little drunk. He’s happy as he eats his chicken and waffles, dancing a little in his seat.

It makes Jonny smile behind his spritzer. Patrick has these moments when he’s actually quite enjoyable and cute, but apparently they only happen when he’s sleepy or drunk.

“What?” he says when he catches Jonny looking, for once not snappish. He looks legitimately curious, ears and cheeks pink.

“You’re cute when you’re not trying to claw my back out or snapping at me for things that I can’t control.”

Patrick takes a long sip of his mimosa (through a straw, which he asked for halfway through his second one). “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know who you want me to be.”

“I just want you to be yourself.”

Patrick looks away and down at his empty plate. “What if you don’t like me?” When he looks up his eyes are a little watery, lower lip wobbling. He’s an emotional drunk, apparently. Jonny should try to be reassuring in this moment, but he can’t help but smile. Patrick is a brat, but he’s also a little adorable.

“Don’t laugh at me, Jonny,” Patrick says, sniffling when the waiter discreetly take his plate away.

“I’m not,” Jonny smiles. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

“You’re cute like this.”

Patrick’s lower lip stops wobbling as his clavicles start to turn pink. “You think I’m cute?”

“Yeah, when you’re being nice.”

“I’m always nice,” Patrick mumbles.

Jonny lifts his eyebrows.

Patrick frowns, lower lip beginning to wobble again. “I can be nice.”

“You can be.”

“Is that what you want?” Patrick looks very lost as he speaks, eyes wide.

“I want you to be you.”

“And if you don’t like me?”

Jonny sighs, taking a long sip of his drink. “I’m not going to like you all the time.” Patrick’s face falls, doing an extremely accurate impersonation of a kicked puppy. “And you’re not going to like me all the time either. But we’re going to meet somewhere in the middle, and we are somehow, some way, going to make this work. Now, stop looking like someone kicked your dog and start smiling because here comes dessert.”

Dessert is a large chocolate cupcake with sparklers and a mound of white icing. Patrick smiles wide and bright when he sees it, tucking his curls behind his ears to blow out his candles.

“I know you only know my birthday ‘cause Abby told you,” he says, twirling a large piece of cupcake on his fork. He leans on the table, lifting his eyebrow, or at least that’s what Jonny thinks he’s trying to do. “Thank you.”

Patrick manages to eat the whole cupcake by himself before throwing up in the bathroom, brown goo and orange juice coming up all at once. He cries a little, tears at the corner of his eyes until Jonny wipes them away with toilet paper and the promise of ice cream.

They hold hands walking down Michigan Avenue—we’re fiancés Jonny, we’re supposed to hold hands—because Patrick wants to see Grant Park, despite the snow. He’s well-aware of the people looking at them as they walk, but he keeps quiet and his head held high, even when someone obviously takes a photo of them.

Their relationship will be splashed all over TMZ and Deadspin and probably ESPN in a few hours. The media will find out Patrick’s full name and age in minutes. They’ll talk about how he just turned eighteen, how Jonny is a pervert until the Blackhawks release a statement on his behalf, and then there will be lot of talk about outdated traditions and human trafficking.

They’ll cycle through the news for a couple days, maybe a week before another Kardashian scandal or a rookie decides to do something stupid. Jonny will achieve eighty points by the end of the season, they’ll have a deep Cup run, and fans will forgive him for Patrick.

“They’re taking photos because you’re so pretty,” Jonny says when Patrick starts to get twitchy, bottom lip wobbling from anger rather from a pout. The mimosas are clearing his system, leaving him levelheaded, or at least as levelheaded as an eighteen-year-old ball of angry energy can be.

His comment snaps Patrick out of his approaching tantrum. “What?”

Jonny smiles, blowing hot air onto his fingers. “They keep taking pictures because you’re so pretty.”

Patrick pulls a face, all annoyance and disgust, but his ears are pink, and Jonny knows that it’s not just from the cold. “Fuck off,” he finally says, turning away from a statue to stuff his fingers into the crook of Jonny’s arm, resting them on the curve of his elbow. “I want to go home now.”

“Yes dear,” Jonny sighs, pulling out his phone to order the Uber.

Patrick’s ears, somehow, manage to get even redder.

Shit hits the fan exactly two hours later.

As expected, their elicited affair is all over TMZ, Deadspin, ESPN, and even CNN. The Blackhawks have released a statement on their behalf, explaining the deep-seeded connection and history between their two families, but people are, understandably, equal parts disgusted and fascinated. Anchors debate back and forth over the validity of their arrangement, if Jonny can be arrested for statutory rape. He can’t, of course, because he’s never once done anything sexual with Patrick.

Patrick switches back and forth between the channels, bowl of popcorn in his lap. He’s taking his personal information being exposed to the entire world fairly well, but that’s probably only because he’s not the one being accused of being a child molester. “Should I say something?”

“About what?” Jonny flicks through his phone, trying not to make faces at the comments online. He should just delete all of his social apps and Google alerts for the next week to save himself the embarrassment, but it’s hard not to be curious.

Patrick huffs annoyedly, waving the remote at the TV. “About this. They’re saying that you—” Jonny raises his eyebrows, waiting for Patrick to say it. Patrick grunts, high-pitched in annoyance. “—took advantage of me.”

“Did I?”

“Don’t be an ass,” Patrick snaps. “They’re accusing you of being a child molester!”

Jonny sighs, setting his phone down. “Listen, I appreciate your concern for my reputation, but sometimes it’s better that you don’t say anything.”

“And let people think that you hurt me?”

“Patrick.” Jonny puts sternness in his voice as he leans forward, looking Patrick dead in the eye as he speaks. “You could shout from the rooftops and show a decree signed by God himself saying that I’ve never touched you and that I forgot that you even existed until a couple of days ago, and there would still be people on the mountain top across from you screaming the absolute opposite.”

Patrick glares, jaw clenched tight, fists in tight balls, but he settles back onto the couch, setting his hard gaze on the TV. Jonny watches him for a moment, amazed that Patrick doesn’t actually explode from all of his pent up anger, before sighing deeply and moving seats. Their knees bump together comfortably.

“Some dumb shit is going to say that they don’t eat pussy and everyone is going to forget about us.”

Patrick continues to look forward, but he’s trying not to smile. He stays quiet, flipping through the channels until he lands on the Sabres game. “Do you?”

Jonny knows exactly what Patrick is asking, but he likes to make him squirm when he can. “Do I what?”

Patrick rolls his eyes as he finally looks at Jonny. “Do you eat pussy?” The tips of his ears are pink.

“Do you?”

Patrick turns even pinker, mouth opening and closing.

“Have you ever fucked a girl, Patrick?”

“It wasn’t as great as I thought it was going to be,” Patrick admits, voice quiet and honest. “I thought it would last longer.”

Jonny snorts a laugh, smiling. “Everyone thinks it’s going to last longer than it does.”

Patrick shifts around, tucking his toes under his thigh to look at Jonny, leaning his elbow against the back of the couch and resting his head against his palm. “Mom told me that I was supposed to stay a virgin until I was married, but I didn’t think it counted if I fucked a girl because I would be marrying a guy anyway.”

“Usually people do anal to stay virgins, but I guess it works the other way around for you, eh?”

Patrick shrugs, still very pink, but he’s trying to play it cool. Maybe a calm, collected, shy teenager is who Patrick really is. Jonny appreciates tenacity, but jesus. “Will we do that?”

Jonny could make Patrick squirm. Should make him squirm. But he doesn’t. “Fuck?”

Patrick’s eyes go a bit wide, mouth parted dreamily. “Are we going to fuck, Jonny?”

If this were a movie, it would be the perfect time for Jonny to lean over and kiss him. To take him to the bedroom and show him the answer. But this isn’t a movie. This is their real life, and right now they’re facing a scandal while tittering on the edge between just tolerating each other and maybe becoming friends.

Time. They need time. “Maybe,” he settles on, tipping forward to kiss Patrick on the forehead, chaste. He smiles when Patrick blinks his eyes open and glares at him.

“You’re an ass.” Patrick stands, but he doesn’t storm away. Instead he grabs Jonny’s sleeve, tugging. “Let’s go to bed.”

Jonny follows.

There’s a public outcry following the announcement that Jonny’s going to mary a fresh-faced—extremely fresh-faced—eighteen-year-old teenager. The NHL has no option but to launch a private investigation into the allegations of statutory rape and child sex trafficking against Jonny and put him on an indefinite suspension.

Patrick spends most of the week long suspension being irrationally angry about the whole thing, especially when private investigators and even Chicago PD’s special victims unit come to question him. Jonny can’t be present for any of the enquiry, so he’s expelled to Seabs’ and Sharpy’s houses during the questioning, where he’s judged silently and not so silently.

He’s questioned by the police and private investigators too, having to reveal every intimate detail about his life with Patrick, which isn’t particularly juicy, just annoying. He forks over his phone and his laptop so that the investigators can comb through them for any communication and grooming between them, but when nothing is revealed, his stuff is promptly returned to him.

The investigation amounts to nothing but a frustrating, week long suspension for Jonny and absolutely no validity to the allegations. The NHL issues their findings and a formal apology to Jonny before lifting his suspension. That’s the last Jonny hears of any uproar over his engagement, because his first night back officially off suspension, he scores a hattrick and leaves the game with seven points.

Patrick is at the game, decked out obnoxiously in Jonny’s jersey and a Blackhawks’ knit hat, sticking out like a sore thumb sitting between Dayna and Abby. The jersey and the hat are too big on him, making him look younger than he actually is. He’s dressed the way that he is just to piss people off because he’s petty.

Jonny enjoys the pettiness. He can’t be petty himself, not while the Engagement Scandal™ is still fresh on everyone’s mind, so he’s stuck living through Patrick, who sneaks into the locker room with the media during the frenzy and stands in the back smiling prettily. He knows that he’ll be mentioned in their articles, in their tweets, even as an off-hand remark. The beats must know deep down that right now no one is reading their articles for their inane, sometimes truly inaccurate analytics; people are reading for juicy gossip, and the figure at the center of that gossip is standing right behind them, completely off limits.

“You think you’re funny, eh?” Jonny says when the media scrum is over, hand on Patrick’s lower back as he leads him out of the room.

Patrick smiles, secretive and playful. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

That’s completely untrue, but Jonny’s too amused to argue. He keeps his hand on Patrick’s lower back as they walk the maze towards the player parking lot. By now, Patrick knows the way, but Jonny likes the feel of the jersey under his fingers. It’s soft, undamaged from sweat and grime. Rarely does he touch a jersey longer than the time it takes for him to shrug one on.

Patrick doesn’t seem to mind the touch. Sometimes he even moves into it, purposefully standing in front of Jonny so that his fingers brush against his back. At home they don’t touch, except for at night when Patrick shifts in his sleep, mouth pressing hot against Jonny’s hipbone. Jonny doesn’t mention those times in the light of day. It would embarrass Patrick.

Patrick hangs his jersey neatly in the closet when they get home, right next to the jersey Jonny wears for PR events.

“Surprised you didn’t buy a Seabrook one just to piss me off.”

“I’m not marrying Brent,” Patrick mumbles, throwing off his sweater before ridding himself of his pants. Jonny hasn’t seen him completely naked since the first time he dropped his pants, but he’s not shy about walking around in his underwear now.

He still flushes red when he sees Jonny in his boxer briefs.

Patrick crawls into bed, not clinging to the edge, but nowhere close to Jonny, even though he’ll make his way across in his sleep. “He’s not as good as you.”

That’s an unfair statement, as Jonny’s job and Seabs’ job are two different set of responsibilities, but he’ll take the compliment, as backhanded as it might be.

“Canadians are really dumb,” Patrick yawns. It’s only 11pm, and it’s not like he just played a full hockey game. Jonny can’t imagine how tiring it must be to spend all day lounging around.

He opens his mouth to retort something about Americans, but Patrick shakes his head. “You should have been captain, all those times. Not Crosby.”

“That’s not—”

“Even when those people were accusing you of being a dirty old pervert, they were still waxing poetic about you as a captain. No one would do that for Crosby.”

“You sure about that?”

Patrick nods, before turning over onto his side, back to Jonny. Jonny’s not even gone down to sleep when Patrick shifts over slowly, burying under the covers, hot air against his hip.

With the engagement scandal swept under the rug, there’s nothing for them to do but concentrate on building a budding friendship so that their marriage doesn’t go down in flames. There are a lot of subjects they need to discuss, but those subjects can wait. Right now, they need to work on being a united, functioning, front.

Patrick is still a spitfire ball of energy, but he’s calmed down enough that he doesn’t go into a dizzying whirl of anger at a drop of a hat. He was defensive before, but he’s warmed to Jonny in little ways. He’s warmer with his smiles, quicker not to roll his eyes at Jonny’s jokes. A little less suspicious when Jonny is being nice to him. He still gets flustered and quiet when they land on a subject of conversation that makes him uncomfortable, but they’re making progress.

That progress almost comes to a screeching halt when it’s time to decorate the Christmas tree.

“That’s a fake tree.” Patrick’s voice isn’t shrill, but it’s bordering on it.

Jonny continues to drag the box out of storage. “I’ve always had a fake tree.”

Patrick’s face goes frighteningly blank. It’s a new tick that he’s developed when he thinks that Jonny is being stupid and is trying to come to terms with the man that he’s marrying. “I’ve always had a real tree.”

Jonny shrugs, starting to unbox the monstrosity. Fake has always been easier, especially with such a grueling work schedule. His parents gave him the tree that he has now. It’s sentimental.

Patrick’s face goes blank again, but he starts breathing through his nostrils like a bull. “It’s not Christmas unless it’s real.”

Jonny’s never cared about what kind of tree he’s had until this very moment. He feels insulted, like all of his Christmas traditions are being spat on. He narrows his eyes in annoyance, trying to keep his voice even. “Fake is better.”

Patrick’s whole body is thrumming with anger. This is a weird hill for him to die on, but he looks just about ready to fight to the death. Jonny just watches him, holding the very top of his tree in his fist.

They have a standoff, neither of them saying a word, just glaring at each other in anger, before it’s Patrick who surprisingly breaks the silence. “There are two living areas,” he says evenly. “Why don’t we have a fake,” he just barely manages not to spit the word out, “and a real one?”

That, actually, isn’t such a bad idea. “Where’s the fake one going?”

There are two living areas in the condo, both right off the kitchen, but one is smaller with only enough room for a small sofa and the fireplace. The other is much bigger, connected to the dining room and offering stellar views of Lake Michigan.

Patrick huffs annoyedly. “The fake tree can go in the main living area, I guess.”

“That’s awfully considerate of you.”

Patrick lifts his head, nose high in the air. “Next year, their won’t be a fake tree at all.” He turns on his heel, waltzing the little ways to the sofa in the main living area, before flopping facedown unceremoniously, flipping on the TV. He watches Jonny set up the tree, only rousing himself when the very last piece is in place.

As much as he dislikes Jonny’s choice in tree, he has nothing to say about his decorations. He holds up each ornament, examining it before handing it over for Jonny to place on the tree. “I’ll get the tree while you’re in Arizona, but I want to buy the ornaments together.”

Jonny still hasn’t forked over the money for Patrick’s own car, but he has let Patrick drive his around the block a few times. Patrick is an alright driver except for the fact that he can’t parallel park. The pine needles will probably scratch the roof of the car, but they’re compromising, and it’s not like the scratches can’t be buffed out. “Yeah?”

“It will be nice to pick something together since everything is yours.” There’s no bitterness, no resentment in Patrick’s statement, just truth. Everything in the apartment except for the clothes he brought with him and his few electronics belong to Jonny. This is Jonny’s apartment. His home.

Jonny feels immensely guilty. Besides the addition of Patrick to his life, nothing has actually changed. He still has his friends, his career, his home. And Patrick? Patrick has none of those things.

He lives in a bubble of a world created by their engagement. He has no friends that Jonny is aware of. Sometimes he goes to museums and the aquarium, if Jonny’s bank statements are anything to go by, but most of the time he stays at home.

It must be such a lonely existence.

Patrick is quiet as they continue to decorate, but he outright demands that they go to Target to pick out their decorations when they’re finished. Even without the tree, he still wants the decorations for the tree, and others too. They don’t have a roof to decorate, but they do have a wraparound terrace. Patrick wants to put Christmas lights on the railing and those light-up reindeer people put in their front yards. Jonny thinks that it will look tacky, being the only unit with reindeer, but Patrick has every right to decorate their home how he sees fit.

Patrick makes Jonny push the cart, holding onto the handle too until they hit the Christmas aisles. He’s gone in a flash of an eye, weaving between people and leaving Jonny in the dust. It’s the quickest Jonny’s ever seen him move.

Jonny decides to stay in one spot. He doesn’t care what ornaments they put on the stupid real tree. It’s not the important one, and his tree is decorated exactly how he wants it.

Patrick soon returns, arms full of packages of ornaments. “I think blue and silver will look nice.”

It takes Jonny a minute to realize that Patrick is actually asking his opinion. “Yeah.”

Patrick frowns. He dumps the packages in the cart before grabbing Jonny’s hand, tugging him in the direction that he just came. They stop in front of a row of Christmas bulbs, even though Patrick just picked some out. “I want to do this together,” he says, still holding Jonny’s hand. Their fingers aren’t clasped together, just palm to palm.

Jonny really, really could not care less what ornaments go on Patrick’s tree, but Patrick is trying. “I like blue and silver, but a light blue. The glitter ones are nice.”

“Okay,” Patrick agrees, letting go of Jonny’s hand to put back the bright blue bulbs. “Our wedding colors are gray and blue, but not bright blue. It’s a light blue, lighter than this, and the gray too.”

Oh.

Jonny hasn’t been thinking about wedding colors. Or wedding things.

“Have you been planning our wedding?”

Patrick shrugs. “Just the little things. It’s mostly our moms. They let me pick one of the colors. They won’t let me pick the cake flavor, but the both of us could strong-arm them.”

“Do you want to plan the wedding?”

Patrick scrunches his face. “What do you mean?”

Their wedding might be an arranged one, but it’s still their wedding. Jonny really can’t be held accountable for stupidly dropping the ball on wedding arrangements, seeing as he didn’t even know about it, but he should still have some say. They should have some say.

“It’s our wedding.”

Patrick looks very, very confused. “Our wedding.”

Jonny moves out the way for a mom and her kids, pushing the cart around the corner where it’s a little less crowded. There are at least two people in this store who will recognize them, and he’d rather not have any sort of “marriage woes” blasted all over gossip websites. “Is the wedding what you want?”

“You’re bringing this up again?” Patrick’s voice is low, but its angry too. “We’re getting married, whether you—”

“I mean,” Jonny interrupts, “do you like the flower arrangements or are we having them just because our moms picked them? Do you like the venue? Do you want a big wedding?”

“Oh,” Patrick says, playing with his hands nervously. “I,” he shrugs. “It’s just been easier to let them do everything. They’ve picked nice things.”

Jonny feels stupidly angry. Not one damn person in his family, not even his own mother, had mentioned the wedding that they’ve obviously been planning. Obviously he knew eventually that there would be a wedding, but what did they expect him to do? Just show up on the day and just grin and bear it?

Maybe it is easier just to let their mothers plan the whole thing, but it feels like everything is it out of his control.

“We haven’t sent out the save the dates yet,” Patrick tries, taking Jonny’s hand, running his thumb over his knuckles. “We can change the venue. And the date. I want to keep the colors, though.”

Their mothers would be devastated. Incredibly pissed, actually. Jonny’s not typically a vindictive person, but if their families are going to force them into this marriage, they’re going to do it right. And they’re going to do it their way. “Okay.”

Patrick raises his eyebrows, looking skeptical. “Okay?”

“Let’s call some venues tonight.”

Patrick still looks skeptical. “Okay,” he agrees, but he smiles before he tips forward, kissing the corner of Jonny’s mouth. It’s chaste and sweet, the most affectionate he’s ever been, and then he turns his head away, cheeks going red. “You’ve sidelined getting the decorations, you ass,” it’s a term of endearment now, apparently. “All the good ones are going to be gone.” He takes a hold of a corner of the cart, tugging it forward towards the outdoor decorations, trying but failing to be huffy.

“Sorry, darling,” Jonny says, just to watch Patrick trip over his own two feet.

Maman is suspiciously okay with them “cancelling” their wedding arrangements to make new ones. “I’m just glad that you’re taking interest in this, sweetheart.” It takes a lot for Jonny not to bite out that he would have sooner, if she had only just told him.

It’s Donna who has an issue.

She’s suspicious that Jonny’s trying to back out of the wedding, that he’s not holding up his part of the contract. It’s ridiculous. Jonny just went through weeks of public scrutiny that could have ended his career over their engagement. It would be stupid to try and back out now.

She doesn’t make Patrick cry, but she gets pretty damn close to it. His eyes are watery as he paces back and forth, arguing with her before going quiet, repeating this cycle over and over again until he finally cries, “It’s what I want!” and hangs up.

He collapses on the couch, stuffing his face into a cushion. “I hate her.”

Jonny reaches over, placing his hand on Patrick’s head comfortingly. He expects for Patrick to knock it away, but instead he turns his head into Jonny’s touch. “She’s your mother. You don’t hate her.”

Patrick sniffles. “I want to get married at Union Station. It fits 700 people.”

Jonny smooths his thumb back and forth across Patrick’s forehead. Patrick still doesn’t do anything to push his hand away. He likes it, Jonny thinks, but doesn’t know how to ask for it. “We don’t know 700 people.”

“The balcony fits 250,” Patrick mumbles into the pillow.

“Why do you know that?”

“Because I looked it up on the way home.”

Jonny’s been to Union Station once, eight years ago when he first arrived in Chicago. It was massive and old, marble everywhere. Overwhelming is the right word for it. They don’t know 700 people. They don’t need a venue that could fit 700 people.

“I went there yesterday,” says Patrick, looking up at Jonny through his eyelashes. “You know, just for something to do. I really liked it.” Jonny shouldn’t give in. Shouldn’t spoil the little brat. He hasn’t stepped foot inside the place in eight years. He knows it’s going to cost an arm and a leg for just one day. They’ll need to hire a wedding planner, just to handle all of the arrangements.

“Okay,” he relents.

Patrick sits up quickly, grinning from ear to ear. “Thank you,” he laughs happily, tipping forward to give Jonny a peck on the lips. When he pulls back, his eyes are wide, hopeful, cheeks a rosy pink. “I—”

“Hey,” Jonny cuts in, reaching out to swipe his thumb across Patrick’s swollen bottom lip. “It’s okay.” He cups Patrick’s face, tugging him forward, pressing their lips together in something longer than a peck. It’s not what Jonny would consider a real kiss. It only lasts three seconds, but it’s long enough to make Patrick go a little huffy, ears red, cheeks flaming as he turns away, flopping down on the sofa with his head in Jonny’s lap.

Patrick’s admitted to fucking girls, so it can’t be that he’s really that shy. He’s the one who initiated this new step in their young relationship, so he can’t be uncomfortable. Embarrassed, maybe.

A kid with a crush, most likely.

Jonny rests his hand on Patrick’s head, digging his fingers into his soft curls, swiping his thumb back and forth against his scalp. It’s been a year, maybe a bit longer, since he’s had anyone in his life. He’s always liked companionship, has always gotten pretty lonely without it, and maybe that’s why he’s accepted his fate as a married man so easily. If they can get their shit together, Patrick can offer him a lifetime of easy companionship.

Patrick falls asleep there, right on Jonny’s lap. It’s not far off from how they usually sleep, except Patrick is actually aware of it. He’s snoring lightly by the time Jonny wants to call it a night, and it feels a lot like waking a puppy when Jonny jostles him awake. He’s grumpy, but too tired to really put up a fight, just follows along behind Jonny, two fingers wrapped around Jonny’s thumb.

He’s sleep-drunk by the time they crawl into bed and doesn’t even pretend to go to the other side of the bed, just waits for Jonny to settle down before he’s scurrying under the covers like some sort of mongoose, nose pressed against Jonny’s side.

Patrick manages to get his tree and secure Union Station for the weekend after their original wedding date, but he’s still not happy when Jonny comes home from Arizona, not even when Jonny absentmindedly greets him with a quick kiss. He looks miserable as he sits there, twiddling his phone between his hands. Something is obviously bothering him.

Jonny tries to bring up the whole cooking thing again during dinner, just to get a rise out of him, but Patrick only shrugs and twirls his spaghetti on his fork. Jonny tries to bring up the housework that Patrick is so obviously doing despite being gently reminded that he doesn’t have to do it, and still, nothing.

Jonny pinches him just to get a response.

“Ow, you dick!”

“Darling,” Jonny purrs.

Patrick grimaces while somehow managing to pout.

“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

Patrick sets his fork down. He frowns, turning his head to look at his tree. He’s only put the lights on, but he has the rest of the decorations sitting on the coffee table. “I miss my family. We always decorate the tree together.”

Homesickness was bound to kick in sooner than later, especially around the holidays. Patrick stayed in Chicago for Thanksgiving, opting to spend the holiday with Jonny instead of flying back to Buffalo. They haven’t discussed their Christmas plans yet, except for the trees. Jonny’s family always comes to him, and he doesn’t see that changing this year. “Why don’t you go home for Christmas?”

Patrick shakes his head, picking up his fork to play with his pasta again. “It’s our first Christmas together.”

The Kanes are not Jonny’s in-laws by choice. He’s met them once, when he was thirteen. They hadn’t left any great impression on him. He’s annoyed with Donna for insinuating that he was trying to get out of their engagement, but he doesn’t dislike her. “Why doesn’t your family come here for Christmas?”

Patrick lifts his head, eyes wide, his face so hopeful. “Really?”

“Might have to put your sisters and David up in a hotel nearby, since my parents and David usually use the guest rooms, but I’m sure he won’t mind giving the room up for your parents.”

Patrick is smiling now, bright and wide. “My sisters and I usually sleep on the floor in the living room on Christmas Eve, you know, so we can catch Santa.”

“Yeah?” Jonny smiles. “You catch him yet?”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “You can’t catch Santa Claus, dumbass. He’s too smart to get caught.”

Jonny laughs, rolling his eyes. “You’re ridiculous,” he says, but he can’t keep from smiling. Patrick grins at him, tilting his head to the side as he dances happily in his seat.

Patrick wants to decorate his tree straight away, so they forgo their usual routine of hand-washing and hand-drying and shove everything into the dishwasher. Jonny sits on the sofa, removing bulbs from their packages and handing them over to Patrick, who hangs them delicately, arranged perfectly so that no two same bulbs are next to each other. He’s methodical, pulling on his bottom lip with his teeth every time he steps back to survey his work. Jonny is the one to put the star on the top of the tree, leaning it this way and that until Patrick declares it perfect.

He disappears momentarily to return with presents, wrapped, of course, in blue and silver paper, arranging them so that they sit just perfectly under the tree. “I just want everything to look nice,” he explains, using his toe to scoot a particularly large present a fraction of an inch.

Jonny thinks it’s a little obsessive, but he keeps his comments to himself, deciding that it’s better not to rile Patrick up, not now at least. They’re getting along spectacularly. “Whatever makes you happy, dear.”

Patrick only smiles, taking a snapshot of his handiwork.

Over the next few weeks, Patrick slowly transforms their home into a Christmas wonderland. He hangs garlands across the fireplace alongside their stockings, and even around the front door to emphasis their front door reef. There are Christmas lights around the railing on the terrace, and the deer do look tacky, but Patrick is happy, blasting Christmas music and baking gingerbread cookies.

It’s a little much for Jonny, with all the snowmen and peppermint and festive pillows, but Patrick is happy almost every day. It’s not hard to deduct that Christmas is his favorite holiday. He likes it so much that he’s even willing to wrap Jonny’s presents for him, but refuses to do the actual shopping, especially when it comes to finding presents for his own family.

Jonny knows little to nothing about the Kanes, despite them being his future in-laws. He knows that Patrick has three sisters that he’s close to, and that Patrick Sr. does something with cars, but other than that, there’s not much he’s been able to gleam from the few times that Patrick’s brought them up in conversation.

It’s hard to shop for people you know nothing about.

Jonny settles on jewelry. Patrick promises that all of his sisters wear earrings, and that his mom is fond of bracelets. His dad doesn’t typically wear a watch, but he will, Patrick insists, if Jonny gives him one as a present. He’s earnest in his suggestions, obvious in how much he wants their first joint Christmas to go off without a hitch. It doesn’t actually matter if their families get along, or if the Kanes like Jonny or not, but Jonny goes along with the suggestions.

Patrick tags along to help Jonny choose, but he frowns when they arrive at Tiffany’s. “Kay’s will do just fine, Jonny.”

Jonny usually doesn’t like to splurge, but it is Christmas, and these are his future in-laws. It doesn’t matter if they like him or not, but it sure as hell will probably make his life easier if they do. “I want to make a good first impression.”

Patrick frowns even harder. “Tiffany’s is expensive.”

Jonny hesitates to open the door. “It’s a good thing that I have a lot of money.”

Patrick’s frown turns into a glare, eyes sharp. “Money doesn’t buy love.”

A sales associate is discreetly watching them through the store window. Jonny sighs, placing his hand on Patrick’s lower back to guide him away from the front door. “Why are you making a big deal about this?”

“It’s a lot of money!” Patrick snaps, looking away when a guy walking past turns his head to look at them. He lowers his voice. “I know I suggested this, but not Tiffany’s. It’s a lot of money, Jonny.”

Jonny takes his hands out of his pocket, cupping Patrick’s face with both of his hands. He’s learnt in the past few weeks that Patrick likes to be touched, to be comforted. He still doesn’t know how to ask for it except to hold Jonny’s hand or peck him on the mouth. Sometimes he kind of melts when Jonny touches him, calming down just enough that Jonny can reason with him. “I’m not trying to buy your family’s love. I don’t mind spending this money on them. I want to spend the money. If I had a problem, we’d be at the mall kiosk right now.”

Patrick is pouting, which means that Jonny’s done the trick, for now, at least. When he sees the price tags he might work himself up again. “There’s nothing wrong with getting jewelry at the mall kiosk.”

“There’s not,” Jonny agrees. “But we’re here now, and I need you to help me. I don’t know if your mom likes rose gold or not.”

“She wouldn’t let me marry you if you bought her rose gold,” Patrick mumbles.

Jonny huffs a short laugh. “C’mon,” he says, guiding Patrick back towards the door.

Patrick gets uncomfortable in the store, overwhelmed by the amount of choices, even though he’s trying very hard not to stare at the price tags. He sips at the champagne offered to him quicker than Jonny would like, jittering his leg nervously. Jonny puts a hand on his thigh, squeezing reassuringly. “No rose gold, eh?”

“No rose gold,” Patrick agrees, forcing a close-lipped smile.

Jonny dismisses the sales associate with a well-placed give us a minute. When the associate leaves, he hooks his ankle around Patrick’s, trying not to sigh with annoyance. “You okay?”

Patrick eyes are wide as he looks around the store. “This is my life now.” Jonny lifts his eyebrows, at a lost. “I can walk into any store and buy whatever I want.”

It had been overwhelming, the first time a paycheck had cleared into Jonny’s bank account. It had been more money than he had ever seen in his entire life, and he had kept refreshing the page over and over again, wondering if it was real and fearing that someone would take it away from him. His first real big purchase had been a brand new, flashy, BMW, all cash, that he immediately regretted. No one should have given him that much money at eighteen.

Patrick now has access to well over ten times the amount of money Jonny first had eight years ago. He could probably buy every diamond in this store and not make that much of a dent in Jonny’s bank account. It’s an overwhelming feeling to go from having to ask mom and dad for an allowance to being able to buy whatever you want, whenever you want.

None of this money is actually Patrick’s. He’s been conservative in his purchase, only buying groceries and admittance into the Art Institute and the Natural History Museum. Jonny has never once told him that he wasn’t allowed to buy whatever he wants, but he’s still been reserved. The only big purchase he’s made is the down payment for their wedding venue.

All of this time, he could have gone out and purchased that Tesla that he’s always wanted.

(Jonny hopes that he won’t, since he has one already purchased and still sitting on the lot right now, waiting for him to discreetly move it into the spare parking spot in the building just in time for Christmas.)

“You can,” Jonny agrees, surveying the room. “But you won’t.”

Patrick deflates, shoulders drooping. “It’s just really overwhelming.”

“I know,” Jonny says, knocking their shoulders together, “but you can buy whatever you want, Patrick.”

Patrick scowls from under his eyelashes. “I know.”

“Darling,” Jonny exhales, exasperated as the sales associate starts to make their way back over. “Whatever you want.”

Patrick looks at him long and hard. He searches the side of Jonny’s face for a long moment before he leans over, kissing his cheek. “You’re a good man, Jonathan Toews.”

“Hmm,” Jonny hums, squeezing Patrick’s thigh softly. “I know.”

Patrick exhales a loud huff, rolling his eyes, but he lets Jonny’s hand rest on his thigh and starts to take more interest in shopping. He selects a diamond bracelet in platinum for his mom and then a set of diamond studs for each of his sister’s before helping Jonny pick out a simple, diamond necklace for his own mother. He pretends to be very busy on his phone when the discussion of payment comes up.

He’s the same way when they head to Rolex to find a watch for Patrick Sr. He’s less nervous and drinks his champagne slower, but he turns away when Jonny hands his black card over. One day he’ll find something that he really wants and will get over blanching at the price tags.

They head to Dylan’s afterward where Patrick doesn’t bat an eyelash as he fills a shopping basket with candy.

Jonny watches in abject horror. “The root canal from your rotting teeth is going to cost me more than our trip to Tiffany’s.”

Patrick ignores him to add yet another lollipop to his collection.

Somehow, the Hawks manage to strike gold with the Christmas schedule.

Their last away game before the break lands on the 21st against Colorado, and they’re not away again until the 27th against the Islanders. They have a home game with the Devils the night before Christmas Eve, but it’s a relatively good schedule that lets the team be at home for nearly a week.

Jonny’s family flies in on the 20th. Maman is very impressed with Patrick’s decorations, taking pictures to send to the extended family group chat. They have dinner together in the condo, Dad giving Patrick some tips on how to cut tomatoes better while David criticizes Jonny’s tree.

Jonny’s in Colorado by the time Patrick’s family arrives the following day. The two families take a selfie together, sending it to Jonny and wishing him luck before ghosting him. They decide amongst themselves that it’s better for Patrick’s sisters and David to stay in the condo, while their parents stay in the Ritz. It will make it easier for the Kane siblings to sleep on the living room floor on Christmas Eve and wait up for Santa.

Everyone is in the condo when Jonny arrives home late, sore off a brutal loss to the Avalanche. Patrick greets him like he usual does despite the presence of his sisters and parents, leaning over the back of the sofa to give Jonny a soft kiss.

It’s awkward to be introduced to his in-laws for the first time. Patrick Sr is short and stout, bald while Donna is taller, hair and eyes dark. Patrick’s sisters look like a carbon copies of each other, all dark hair and big, wide smiles. They’re nice people, brandishing big grins and hugs and treating Jonny like he’s a part of the family. It’s still very awkward, but it’s late too, and everyone would rather head to bed than stand around talking.

It’s just a little less uncomfortable the next morning. David thinks that this whole arranged marriage thing is some bullshit, but he’s taken to Patrick and likes him enough to ruffle his hair playfully from time to time. Patrick’s sisters don’t really seem to know what to make of Jonny, but they’re sweet enough, especially Jackie, the youngest.

She’s only seven, and she takes to Jonny right away, wanting to sit next to him during breakfast and on the couch when they settle down to watch a marathon of cheesy Lifetime Christmas movies. Jonny doesn’t mind. He likes kids, especially the ones who are old enough to have conversations but not old enough to have an attitude. Jackie asks a lot of questions, but they’re innocent and inquisitive, and it’s nice to be asked about other things than hockey. She wants to to sit next to him when they go out for dinner too, despite Patrick insisting that Jonny’s really lame.

“He snores,” Patrick moans. “And he makes me watch golf.”

“I thought you liked golf?” says Donna.

Patrick gets all huffy, shaking his head. “I do not!”

Jonny leans closer to Jackie, whispering into her ear. “Sometimes he changes the channel to golf.”

Jackie giggles. When Patrick sets his gaze on her, she politely stuffs a piece of bread into her mouth, batting her eyelashes innocently.

After dinner, they take a short stroll down Michigan Avenue. Patrick’s up front joking around with Erica and David while Jessica trails behind to walk with their parents. Jackie takes the opportunity to hold Jonny’s hand. “I’m glad you’re my new brother, Jonny.”

It’s sweet enough that Jonny stops to give her a hug, swooping her up into his arms. She laughs, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I’m glad you’re my new sister, Jackie.” He turns his head, catching Patrick looking at him as Erica snaps a picture. Patrick’s face is soft, affectionate.

Jonny smiles and Patrick smiles right back.

The whole family decides to go to the game the night before Christmas Eve, all decked out in Toews jerseys. Jackie wants Jonny to sign the back of hers, just so she can look cool and tell people that she’s met him.

“Everyone’s going to know that you’re Jonny’s sister-in-law,” Jessica says with a roll of her eyes, always somehow annoyed by her little sister, but Jonny signs the jersey anyway and holds Jackie’s hand through the underbelly as he gives the Kanes a tour.

They beat the Devils 7-5, which is a good way to end before the break. Everyone is in a good mood, and with the team sitting at second in the Central and five points ahead of the Wild, they’re not looking over their shoulders and thinking about work during the holiday. Jackie and Patrick reenact all the goals in the locker room after the media’s cleared out using Jonny’s sticks and Crow’s pads as Jonny introduces the Seabrooks and the Sharps to his new in-laws.

Meeting the Kanes seems to reassure Seabs and Sharpy that Jonny isn’t a complete idiot, especially with his own family standing right there beside them. Maman talks to Abby and Dayna quietly in a corner, probably trying to comfort them about the wedding while Dad and David chat between the rest of the team, Patrick Sr. joining in from time to time.

It’s late by the time the team and families clear out of the locker room. Jackie falls asleep in the car on the way home, so Jonny carries her from the car and to the guest room, leaving Jessica and Erica to get her situated for bed.

Patrick still stays on his side of the bed and scoots unconsciously over in his sleep, but tonight he does the opposite, settling down closer to Jonny. They’re not touching, but there’s not over a foot between them like usual. “Thank you for being nice to Jackie. I know she can be really annoying sometimes.”

It hasn’t been a hardship dealing with Jackie. She’d probably be pretty annoying if he had to deal with her every day, like kids are known to be. “I like her,” he insists. “She’s cute.”

“That’s ‘cause she’s not your sister,” Patrick grumbles. “She’s stolen my fiancé.”

“You jealous?”

Patrick doesn’t reply, just huffs.

He’s right there, so close. He’s been sleeping with his nose pressed against Jonny’s hip since he got here. They kiss sometimes, brief and quick, and when Jackie’s not around, they’re always holding hands. Patrick isn’t the angry ball of defensive energy he used to be.

Jonny reaches out in the dark. He snags Patrick easily on the hip, eliciting a faint gasp from him before he drags him over, managing to roll them onto their sides, spooning. “I promise to hold your hand all day tomorrow.”

Patrick doesn’t reply. He’s hot all over, stiff. Jonny opens his arms to let him go, but Patrick grabs him by the wrists, closing his arms again. “Don’t get gross about it,” he mumbles, relaxing into Jonny’s grip. It’s too dark to see, but Jonny knows that he’s flushed all over.

Jonny smiles into the dark, kissing the back of Patrick’s neck. Patrick takes a sharp breath. “I said don’t get gross about it.”

Jonny smiles again, wrapping his arm tighter around Patrick’s waist.

In their sleep Patrick manages to rearrange himself, sprawling between Jonny’s legs, drooling on his chest. It’s nearly impossible for Jonny to detangle himself, especially when Patrick looks at him with soft, sleepy, blue eyes, curls a mess, but he has to. Patrick is crushing his morning wood, and he has to get out of the house and collect Patrick’s most important present before everyone is awake.

Jackie is up when Jonny sneaks out of his room, sitting at the island eating Capn Crunch. She smiles happily at him, offering him a bite of her cereal. “Merry Christmas Jonny.”

“It’s not Christmas yet,” Jonny says, taking the bite even though the milk will probably upset his stomach. “You want to come get Patrick’s present with me?”

Jackie’s eyes get wide. “Just you and me?”

Jonny nods. “Just you and me.”

Jackie is gung-ho, scurrying into the guest room to put her socks and slippers on. She’s still in her pajamas, but they wrap her up tight in one of Jonny’s sweaters and her jacket, and he carries her down to the car. Patrick’s new car is sitting prettily next to Jonny’s, sleek and black. Tesla was nice enough to sneak it in during the game. He’ll sneak down tomorrow and put the bow hidden in the backseat on it. “Is it a big present?”

“It’s kind of small, but it’s going to get big.”

Jackie purses her lips together, thinking hard. “Is it pink?”

“It’s black and white.”

“Did you get Patrick a cow?” Jackie giggles happily, cracking herself up.

He didn’t get Patrick a cow, but he did get him an animal, a fluffy, small, black and white puppy he adopted from the shelter a week ago, and who’s been living at Bollig’s house for the past week, just to keep the surprise a secret.

Jackie nearly screams when she sees the puppy, but she holds it together, taking him from Brandon’s hands happily. Dannah was nice enough to wash the puppy and put a giant red bow around his neck. “I love him,” Jackie declares.

“He’s Patrick’s, remember?” Jonny reminds her gently.

“But I still love him,” Jackie insists.

She holds the puppy—the shelter named him Oscar, but it’s ultimately up to Patrick to decide to stick to that name or not—the whole way home in her lap, kissing him and telling him how cute he is.

“Patrick!” she yells as soon as they enter the apartment. It’s quiet, meaning that everyone’s still asleep or at least still in their room. “Patrick, Jonny has a present for you!” She waits a moment before handing Jonny Oscar. “You should hold him, since he’s your present.” She smiles before taking a big breath. “PATRICK!”

There’s a loud bang, a few choice curse words, and then Patrick stumbles into the living room, hair wild, eyes narrowed in on Jackie, looking ready to take her out. “Jackie.”

Jackie only grins, unfazed by his anger. “Jonny has a present for you.”

“Jonny has a present for me,” Patrick repeats, voice sounding calm, but he hasn’t once looked at Jonny, or the puppy in his arms. Patrick is actually raging inside.

“Yep,” Jackie says, still unfazed. “Look.”

Patrick narrows his eyes at her, but he slowly lifts his head. His expression goes from instant kill mode to small child seeing a puppy for the first time. He doesn’t quite scream, but he gets close to it, scrambling across the living room to get to Jonny. “That’s a puppy.”

“It is,” Jonny agrees, handing Oscar over. “His name is Oscar.”

Oscar whines, wagging his tail excitedly. He’s all fluff, mostly black with white spots, a mutt through and through. He probably won’t get any bigger than 20lbs, or so the shelter claims.

“You got me a puppy,” Patrick says, letting Oscar lick his face, still bewildered.

“I did.”

Patrick smiles, big and wide, kissing the top of Oscar’s head before handing him over to Jackie. Jackie runs off with him, probably off to wake her sisters and then David up with the brand new puppy. Patrick watches her go before he turns on his heel to face Jonny, face blank of emotion. “I don’t like dogs.”

Jonny’s face drops. “I—”

Patrick sets him with a stone-hard gaze, angry. “Why did you get me a puppy?”

Maybe he should have subtly asked if a puppy was something that Patrick would be interested in having. Patrick always stops to say ‘hi’ to any dog he sees when they’re walking down the street. He had just assumed that a puppy would be something that Patrick would enjoy having around. “I thought you would be lonely once your family left.”

Patrick stares hard, and then all of his anger seems to disappear. He shrugs before sighing, tipping forward to kiss the corner of Jonny’s mouth. “I wish you would have talked to me about Oscar, but I guess I can learn to like him.”

“Christmas presents are supposed to be kept secret.”

“I know,” Patrick mumbles, mouth settling into a thin pout, “but now I have a puppy to take care of. Please tell me you bought pee pads?”

Jonny did buy pee pads, and everything under the sun the shelter suggested he buy. He’s never owned a dog before, let alone a puppy, but he brought top-notch, best reviewed stuff. He even has a Chewy account, just because. Oscar won’t want for anything.

Patrick spreads the pee pads across the apartment before arranging Oscar’s food and water bowls in the kitchen, and his little box of toys in the living room. He stuffs the expensive down feather bed that Jonny bought back into the linen closest where Jonny was hiding everything. “He’ll be sleeping with us,” he insists, despite claiming that he isn’t fond of dogs. Jonny suspects that he was initially being difficult just to be difficult.

Oscar wreaks havoc throughout the day like puppies are won’t to do, peeing on the floor and not on his pee pads and chewing up an expensive pair of Jonny’s dress shoes, but he’s a puppy, and he’s cute, so everything can be forgiven.

By the time they’re spreading out couch cushions and blankets over the living room floor to start the wait for Santa, Patrick’s given up all pretenses of pretending like he doesn’t like Oscar. He’s been very patient with Jackie, letting her hold Oscar and take him for quick walks together, but he claims Oscar right away as they settle down onto the cushions.

Jonny takes the open space on Patrick’s right, left open for him by Jessica. Oscar’s pretty much asleep, but he rolls over, wedging himself between Jonny and Patrick, little wet nose pressed against Jonny’s side, doing a fairly good impression of Patrick. Patrick doesn’t even make it through the Grinch before he’s following after Oscar, trying to press himself as close to Jonny as possible. Erica, blurry-eyed and tired, wakes up just enough to snap a picture of all three of them, cooing obnoxiously before David playful hits her on the head with a pillow and tells her to shut up.

Jonny and David stay awake the longest, making sure that Jackie, the only one who still believes in Santa, is truly asleep before they eat some cookies and drink some milk and then quietly spread out the gifts from Santa underneath both trees.

Patrick’s on Jonny as soon as he’s back in the nest of blankets, almost squishing Oscar in his effort to mold himself to Jonny’s side.

David watches with an amused look from his place on the couch. He’s been solid these past few days, accepting Patrick and his sisters quite easily. Whatever qualms he has about the upcoming marriage, he’s respectfully kept to himself and out of earshot of the Kanes. “You actually like the kid, don’t you?”

Jonny hasn’t sat down and mapped out his feelings for Patrick, but he knows in this moment that ‘like’ isn’t a strong enough word to describe his complex feelings for the kid. He used to be annoyed by Patrick, exasperated by his defensiveness and the way he was just dropped into his lap, but now that annoyance has morphed into a certain type of fondness where he’s acutely aware that there would be an aching hole in his life without him. The hole would of course eventually heal, but Jonny knows that he would feel it for a while. “He’s okay, I guess.”

David lifts his eyebrows in the best impression of the ‘sure Jan’ meme that Shawzer always sends to the team group chat. “Whatever you say, bro.”

Jonny grunts, sinking lower to get more comfortable. Patrick immediately tightens his grip on him in his sleep, like he’s afraid that Jonny’s going to sneak out from under him. He presses his nose right under Jonny’s chin, sniffling in his sleep. Jonny wraps his arm tight around his waist, dragging him closer.

Oscar wakes him the next morning by trying to eat the snot out of his nose and whining pathetically until Jonny, grumpy and tired, slides on his shoes and coat and takes him down to walk around the block. It’s snowing and cold and miserable even for Christmas, but Oscar is quick to do his business and doesn’t mind the pitstop on the way back up so Jonny can put the bow on Patrick’s new car.

He lets Oscar do the dirty work of waking everyone up as he gets started on brewing coffee. Oscar’s persistence works on everyone except for Patrick, who bats the dog away and mutters a not so nice fuck off, repeating the obscenity when Jackie tries to rouse him too.

“I want to open my presents!” Jackie whines, looking ready to stomp her feet and throw a tantrum. Erica is able to pacify her with a gingerbread cookie, a treat that she’s not supposed to have so early in the morning. Their parents aren’t here yet either, and that reminder from Jessica combined with helping David start on some bacon tames her for the time being.

It would probably be better to let Patrick sleep through the present opening and get his full twelve hours of unnecessary sleep because a grumpy Patrick is a particularly mean one, but he’s sort of in the way, and Jonny wants to show him the car before things start to get busy. Patrick’s determined to make what he calls a ‘bomb ass’ Christmas dinner with the help of his mom and future mother-in-law, and making enough food to feed nine people is no simple task.

Patrick makes a truly angry noise when Jonny crouches down next to him, poking him gently in the side. “It’s Christmas, love,” he tries, but Patrick turns his head away, trying to roll over and away. “I have another present for you.”

“I don’t want another fucking dog,” Patrick bites, sounding close to an angry raccoon, looking the part too when he opens his eyes into dangerous slits and tries to glare into the depths of Jonny’s soul. He even sneers, baring his teeth.

Jonny stays sweet with him. “It’s in the parking garage.”

Patrick’s attitude immediately begins to change. He stops sneering, mouth settling into an inquisitive pout instead. “The garage?”

“The garage,” Jonny repeats.

“Is it a car?”

Jonny sits up, giving Patrick some space. Oscar takes the opportunity to squeeze between them, stuffing his snout into Patrick’s face. “You have to come see.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Patrick says, but he rolls away, grabbing Oscar and getting up. He disappears into their bedroom, returning dressed in one of Jonny’s sweaters and a pair of stretchy leggings. The sweater is too big, falling off his shoulder. “Big sweaters are warmer,” he says, cheeks red and face defiant when Jonny can’t keep the fond, bemused look off his face. There’s something about Patrick in his clothes that makes Jonny’s heart swell a little like the Grinch.

Patrick pretends to be displeased the whole elevator ride down, holding Oscar and kissing his head, despite insisting that he doesn’t actually like the dog. Jonny offers to take Oscar back to the shelter tomorrow, but Patrick clutches the fluff ball tighter and tells him to fuck off.

Jonny rolls his eyes as the elevator comes to a stop. “It’s Christmas, you can at least try to be nice to me.” He covers Patrick’s eyes with his hands, nudging him forward gently towards their parking spots.

“I’m always nice,” Patrick retorts, failing at trying not to smile. He knows he has a car waiting for him, Jonny pretty much made that obvious, but it’s the anticipation of what type of car that’s making him childishly giddy. He’s also a teenager about to receive his first car ever, and he knows that it’s going to be a ridiculously nice one too.

Jonny snorts, guiding Patrick to the car. “Keep your eyes closed,” he instructs, removing his hands before taking Oscar. Oscar yips excitedly, licking his jaw as he takes the keys from his pocket and remote starts the car. The car purrs to life, headlights illuminating the dimly lit garage.

Jonny hooks his chin over Patrick’s shoulder, careful not to squish Oscar between them. “Go on,” he says quietly before kissing Patrick’s cheek.

Patrick doesn’t exactly gasp, but he comes close to it, smiling wide like he’s never seen anything better. He turns his head, and it’s awkward and probably uncomfortable for him, but he hits Jonny with the full force of his smile, eyes wide and happy. “Thank you,” he whispers, searching Jonny’s face before his eyes flutter shut and he closes the space between them, pressing their mouths together.

Their kisses are brief, simple things that last no more than a few seconds, but today Patrick is more insistent, parting his mouth in a sigh, inviting Jonny to make the kiss deeper. Jonny moans his confusion, placing a hand on Patrick’s hip as he drags his tongue across Patrick’s bottom lip. He’s just about to use his grip on Patrick’s hip to turn him, push him up against the car when Oscar decides that he’s had enough, yelping loudly between them, catching Jonny on the jaw with a claw as he tries to wiggle out of his grip.

“Fucking dog,” Jonny growls as he breaks away, resisting the temptation to drop Oscar. He’s tiny, and he’d break a leg from this height, but it’s really hard not to just let go.

Patrick is pink all over, but for once he’s not shying away. He takes Oscar, smiling over the top of the dog’s head. “We could always take him back to the shelter.”

Jonny rolls his eyes. “I should have gotten a cat,” he says as he leans forward to scratch between Oscar’s ears.

Patrick smiles, attempting to lean forward to kiss Jonny again, but Oscar yelps, once again trying to get between them. He licks Patrick’s nose repeatedly, his tail wagging away happily. “We should go back upstairs.”

Jonny shrugs, crossing his arms against his chest. It’s cold in the garage, and all he has on is jeans and a sweater. But he knows a good way to warm up. “There are people upstairs.”

“There are,” Patrick agrees, trying to hide his smile behind Oscar’s head. “They’re probably wondering where we went.”

Jonny nods, trying to keep his face passive. “Maybe.”

Patrick is still smiling. “As much as I would like to make out with you on top of my brand new car,” he says nonchalantly, but the pink of his nose and his collarbones has only gotten deeper, “I’m starting to get really cold.” He’s shivering as he pulls Oscar closer to his chest for extra warmth.

“Come on then,” Jonny says, opening his arms for him. Patrick comes easily, letting Jonny wrap him up and rub at his back to warm him before he sets his hand on his lower back, guiding him to the elevators.

Their parents have arrived by the time they make it back upstairs, decked out embarrassingly in near-matching Christmas sweaters. It’s enough to even make Jonny frown, who’s used to Maman being a little overzealous in her enthusiasm. “Jonny bought me a car,” Patrick announces to the assembled group as he sets Oscar down. “It’s really nice.”

“We’ve been waiting to open presents,” Jackie says accusingly from her place on the floor, surrounded by presents, uncaring about the car.

“Sorry,” Jonny apologizes as he takes a seat in an open armchair, not actually sincere in his apology. If it hadn’t been so cold, he would have made their families wait hours as he pressed Patrick into the hood of his car.

“Yeah, sorry,” Patrick agrees, boldly sitting on Jonny’s lap. He holds his chin high like he’s daring someone to call him out on his newfound familiarity with Jonny, but when he’s ignored in favor of passing out presents, he sags in relief, all the fight leaving him, only sitting up again when he’s handed some presents to open. He’s a solid weight on Jonny’s lap, refusing to move, even when Jonny’s legs start to go a little numb. He’s happy there, holding his new sweaters and Sabres gear, only shifting away when his sisters and Donna come to kiss Jonny on the cheek as a thank you for their jewelry.

“Are you going to help us make dinner, or are you going to sit there all day?” Donna teases, ruffling Patrick’s hair playfully.

“I guess I can help,” Patrick mumbles, taking Donna’s offered hand to get off Jonny’s lap.

Jonny follows to volunteer his help. He knows that Patrick wants to take this opportunity to bond better with Maman, but he still feels uncomfortable with Patrick taking on the “womanly” duties in their household. Patrick has more time to cook and clean than he does, but that doesn’t mean that he has to. Jonny wants them to be equals.

Maman puts him on potato peeling duty, a familiar chore he’s had since he was a kid. He sits at the island with his potatoes and a bowl for the peels, peeling the potatoes much slower than he usually would so he can watch Patrick maneuver around the kitchen with Maman and Donna.

Patrick dances around the kitchen like a pro, cutting this, chopping that, sprinkling seasoning here and there as he keeps an eye on the Christmas ham. He shares soft glances with Jonny over cups of hot chocolate and breaks to take Oscar out for walks.

Dinner ends up being one of the best dinners Jonny’s ever had. Patrick’s always been one hell of a cook, Jonny will always give him that, but dinner just feels different. For the past eight years it’s just been the four of them, Jonny’s work schedule making it near-impossible and even pointless at times to fly back to Winnipeg for Christmas. It’s always been nice having the family around, and Maman is a mean cook herself, but this Christmas dinner is louder, more vibrant, more homely with all nine of them stuffed around the table, a puppy under their feet begging for scraps.

It’s—it’s just nice that their families have meshed together so well in such little time. This is what Christmases are going to be like for the foreseeable future, and maybe in a couple years, after Patrick’s finished school, there might even be a kid or two sitting at the table. They’ll need a bigger place, maybe even a townhouse down on Oak Street with enough room for 2.5 kids and a buddy for Oscar.

Patrick squeezes his thigh under the table, laughing at something Dad says, looking lively and happy and oh—oh is that fondness already sneaking further and further over into a category Jonny refuses to even think about.

They retire early, with Patrick insisting that both he and Oscar are tired, and that Jonny is needed to help put the puppy to bed. “He’s more authoritative than I am,” he maintains as both David and Erica look at him with a twisted mouth and raised eyebrows, letting him know that they both know that he’s spewing bullshit, but they thankfully keep their mouths shut.

Patrick is lying straight through his teeth. As soon as the bedroom door is firmly shut and locked, he makes a nest out of blankets for Oscar on the floor right next to the bed. Oscar, not being a filthy liar, nestles right down on one of Jonny’s expensive throw pillows and promptly falls asleep.

“Oh thank god,” Patrick says before he’s on Jonny, smashing their mouths together uncomfortably. It takes Jonny by surprise, drawing a stunned humph! out of him before he’s able to wrangle Patrick about the hips and tilt his head enough so that their mouths slot together perfectly.

Patrick is a bit of a sloppy kisser, only experienced enough to please another teenager, but he’s eager, clutching at Jonny’s sweater and whimpering into his mouth when Jonny drags his tongue across his gums.

The noise he makes when Jonny skillfully backs him onto the bed is enough to make Jonny’s jeans suddenly feel a size too small. He pulls back and Patrick tries to follow, fingers dug into his sweater, lips red and eyes looking like Jonny actually took Oscar back to the pound.

“Hey,” Jonny says, cupping Patrick’s chin to drag his thumb across his swollen bottom lip. He likes to talk as much as the next guy, which means not at all, but he’s the mature one in this situation, and he has to make sure that they’re on the same page here about what’s going on; he can already see that Patrick’s starting to sport a chubby through his leggings.

Jonny isn’t opposed to swapping spits and handsys like a bunch of teenagers, but there’s been a lot of shifts in their relationship in just one day, and he doesn’t want Patrick waking up tomorrow confused and pissy.

“Hey,” Patrick breathes back, sweater falling off his shoulder obscenely.

Jonny keeps his touch and his voice gentle. “Moving a little fast here, eh Peeks?”

Patrick’s pink all over. “My fiancé’s hot and I’m horny,” he shrugs.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Patrick nods, licking his lips. He frowns, looking at Jonny’s collarbone instead of his face. “Do you not want to?”

“Just want to make sure that we’re on the same page here, Patrick.”

Patrick lifts his eyes. “And what page are we on?”

He’s nervous, but nothing that makes Jonny feel nervous in return. The kid’s not a virgin, and he knows what he’s getting himself into, even though Jonny’s not going to fuck him tonight. They’re not ready for that, not yet, maybe not ever. “We’re going to swap spit like a bunch of teenagers until you come in your shorts.”

Patrick snorts, rolling his eyes. “I am a teenager.”

“Yeah,” Jonny agrees in a long breath. “You are.”

“Fuck you,” Patrick says, lacking any heat, “I’m going to make you come in your shorts,” and then he pushes himself up before Jonny can reply, pressing their mouths together with a moan as his arms wrap around Jonny’s shoulders, dragging him down.

Jonny gets his hands under Patrick’s sweater, running his thumbs over the skin just above his hips. His skin is warm and soft to the touch, and he moans into Jonny’s mouth at the feeling of his hands on him. He hooks his leg over Jonny’s hip, grinding up against him as Jonny licks into his mouth, making breathy little noises every time they separate for air.

He makes a pained noise when Jonny pulls away to shimmy out of his jeans. He watches Jonny with heavy eyes, licking his lips and swallowing visibly when Jonny gets rid of his shirt too. His fingers snake out quickly, nails scratching down Jonny’s chest and through the trail of fuzz that disappears below the waistband of his boxer briefs. He hesitates before his fingers drag just the bit lower, ghost like as they follow the long shape of Jonny’s dick.

Jonny opens his mouth in a breathy moan, watching Patrick’s fingers get more bold. Patrick grips him through his briefs, jerking his hand gently, but the material of the briefs is too rough. Jonny hisses and Patrick recoils. “Sorry.”

Jonny moves forward, capturing Patrick’s mouth in a kiss as he gets his hands on the waistband of his leggings, tugging. Patrick’s cock pops free as soon as his leggings get under his ass, head pink and wet. Jonny tugs the leggings the rest of the way off before he wraps his hand around Patrick’s cock, balancing on one arm to kiss him and swipe his thumb over the head, using the precome there as lubricant.

Patrick moans against his mouth, hands grasping at Jonny’s neck and his shoulders and the back of his head, desperate when Jonny starts to move his hand. He falls back against the pillows when Jonny twists his wrist cruelly, mouth parting open in a pretty ‘o’, sweater still hanging off his shoulder.

He looks like he’s starring in a softcore porn.

He spreads his legs wide when Jonny pulls his hand away to spit into his palm, exposing the most private part of himself so shamelessly, despite every limb of his being tinted a rosy pink. It would be so easy to reach into the drawer and grab the lube and condoms and fuck him into the mattress—the kid is so tempting, spread open like a whore—but Jonny resists, spitting into his palm one more time to get his hand nice and wet before wrapping it around Patrick’s dick.

Patrick groans, fucking up into Jonny’s grip, teeth dug into his bottom lip. His thighs start to shake as he gets closer, nearly biting straight through his lip when Jonny closes his lips around a nipple, sucking and teasing the nub between his teeth.

“Jonny,” Patrick moans, back arching when Jonny switches sides, biting hard enough to leave a bruise. “Jonny.”

Jonny moans against Patrick’s skin, flicking his tongue against the nub between his teeth as he pumps his hand. Patrick fucks up into his fist, mouth open prettily as he pants and moans. His nails scratch at Jonny shoulders, at his arms, at anywhere they can touch as Jonny sucks hickeys onto his pecs and bites meanly at his nipples until he can’t take it anymore, lurching forward near violently to dig his teeth into the junction between Jonny’s neck and shoulder as he comes.

Jonny works him through it until Patrick’s sweet moans turn pitiful. He wipes his hand on his discarded shirt before using it to wipe the sweat from Patrick’s brow. Patrick falls back into the pillows, listless and useless, arms flopping out as he lands, mouth still parted as he breathes heavily.

“Exhausted already?” Jonny jokes as he tips forward, kissing Patrick soft and gentle.

Patrick makes a tiny noise, shaking his head. “Gimme a minute,” he mumbles, gasping against Jonny’s mouth when Jonny presses his weight down, the material of his briefs catching on his oversensitive cock.

“You’re a teenager,” Jonny laughs, lifting his hips to give Patrick some relief. “You’re supposed to have a recovery period of a rabbit.”

“Shut up,” Patrick grumbles, licking his lips as Jonny pulls away to remove his briefs. His mouth looks like sin, lips pink and shiny from spit, perfectly fuckable. He’d probably choke so good on a dick, look so good with come splattered all over his face.

“Turn over,” Jonny commands, hand on Patrick’s hip, guiding him. Patrick does as asked, but he’s confused, looking over his shoulder nervously as he settles onto his hands and knees. “Jonny?” he says shakily as Jonny reaches into the drawer to take out the lube.

Jonny pushes his hands between Patrick’s legs, spreading them wide before he runs his hands up and down his thighs soothingly. “It’s okay,” he reassures, leaning forward to kiss the dip of his spine. “Just gonna fuck between your thighs, that okay?”

“Only my thighs?” Patrick’s voice is still shaky, nervous. He’s putting a lot of trust in Jonny right now, a lot of trust that Jonny hasn’t earned yet and could easily destroy. He has nearly fifty pounds on him, could easily hold Patrick down and take what he wants, but Jonny’s not that type of guy. If he says he’s only going to fuck between Patrick’s thighs, he’s only going to fuck his thighs as promised.

“Won’t touch you anywhere but here,” Jonny promises, ghosting his fingers up and down the soft skin between Patrick’s legs. “I’ll only kiss you here,” he says, kissing down Patrick’s spine and the swell of his ass. “Won’t do anything you don’t want me to do, Peeks.”

“Okay,” Patrick agrees, dropping down on to his elbows, ass in the air, tempting. God, he’d probably make such sweet noises as Jonny eats his ass.

That’s probably too much for tonight. He promised only to kiss Patrick’s ass, not eat it like a cupcake.

Another night he’ll make Patrick come on his tongue.

He pulls his hands away, covering his fingers with lube before slipping them between Patrick’s legs again. Patrick shakes as Jonny runs his fingers up and down his thighs, peering over the curve of his shoulder, eyes wide.

Jonny removes his hands, making a show of it to cover his cock in more lube. “Just tell me if you want me to stop,” he says, bracing one hand on Patrick’s hip as he guides his cock to his thighs.

It’s nothing like pushing into a hot, wet, hole, but Patrick’s skin is soft, and after a few shallow thrusts he gets his legs together, squeezing just tight enough to give some resistance but not enough to make it impossible. He continues to make his sweet noises too, cock slowly springing back to life as Jonny’s dick bumps against his sac on every thrust in.

He pushes back against Jonny’s thrusts, mouth falling open as he reaches between his legs to grasp his cock. Jonny’s not even fucking his thighs that hard, but it’s obvious that Patrick’s getting off on being on his hands and knees, pretending to get the life fucked out of him. He’s going to feel so good when Jonny actually gets him on his cock, tight and wet, mouth agape, eyes rolling back, unable to get a hand on himself because Jonny will be fucking him so good he won’t be able to think about anything but the cock in his ass.

Jonny comes at the mental image, holding Patrick’s hips as he slams his cock in, coming all over his thighs and Patrick’s cock too, sparks of light flashing behind his eyelids, toes curling until he comes back to himself, sliding away from Patrick easily. Patrick flips onto his back, meeting Jonny’s eyes as he jerks himself the rest of the way, still looking like he’s starring in a softcore porn.

Jonny finds his shirt he discarded earlier, using it to wipe away Patrick’s come from between his thighs and from his hand before throwing it on the floor where Oscar will probably find it and tear it up, the poor, unsuspecting thing. He grabs the dog too, knowing already that he’s going to wake him up at the ass crack of dawn far before he needs to even be awake.

Patrick refuses to get out of his sweater, instead taking Oscar and cuddling the barely awake puppy as he watches Jonny pull back the covers, all of a sudden going shy. Jonny gets under the covers, making himself comfortable before he opens his arms, inviting Patrick in. “Don’t get shy on me now, Peeks. I’ve already seen the most private parts of you and we didn’t even fuck.”

Patrick goes even redder, but he does crawl under the covers, trying to mold himself to Jonny immediately, Oscar wedged somewhere between them. “Last time I did this the girl said thanks, kissed me on the cheek, and took a Gatorade on her way out.”

It’s really hard to keep from laughing, but Jonny manages it. “What was she, a sex worker?”

“She was a girl I met at some party,” Patrick yawns, managing to stuff his face into Jonny’s neck. “I was really drunk and told her all about you, and how we were going to get married, and how worried I was that I was still a virgin. I gave her my number and one day she just came over and we fucked. Never heard from her again.”

“Nothing wrong with being a virgin, Peeks.”

“Well, I didn’t know you’d want to do these things with me, and I don’t…” he pauses, shifting his weight, voice going small. “I’m not breaking my vows, and I—I don’t expect you to keep yours, but I just…” Jonny can feel him twiddling his thumbs nervously, “I just didn’t want to die a virgin.”

Jonny slings his arm around Patrick’s hip, feeling his eyelashes sweep across his neck as he pulls him closer. A month ago he would have embraced an open marriage, but now they’ve crossed an emotional line that can’t be uncrossed. Even if he doesn’t love Patrick, he can’t imagine him at home, waiting up for him like some sort of good little househusband while he’s out fucking around and having a whole other life.

It would be so embarrassing for Patrick to have that leaked to the media; to have such controversy surrounding their marriage only for Jonny to “cheat” on him. Jonny couldn’t do that to him.

“I’m going to keep my vows,” he says, but Patrick is already asleep, snoring away alongside Oscar.

As Jonny suspected, when their families part ways to return home, Patrick is angry and upset.

Jonny isn’t there to comfort him; Jeremy had the team fly out right after the game against the Islanders, so Patrick is left all alone after he drops his family off at the airport. Jonny only knows how upset he is because Patrick actually calls him, trying very hard not to cry over the line as he tells Jonny that their apartment is now empty. He sounds devastated, sniffling between every other word. He’s so brutally lonely, even with Oscar, that it actually makes Jonny want to quit his job and fly home.

He can’t quit, so he does the next best thing: he calls Abby.

Abby has always been very accepting of new team member’s significant others. She’s been distant with Patrick only because she disagrees with Jonny’s choice to go along with the marriage, but she says poor thing softly over the phone when Jonny tells her how lonely Patrick is. She agrees to get in contact with Patrick and invite him out for coffee with the girls. It’s not the friend group that Patrick was probably hoping for, but it’s at least an olive branch.

Coffee appears to go well because Patrick spends his New Year’s with Abby and the other wives and girlfriends. He’s tagged in a group photo, smiling bright and happy, holding Oscar in his lap while everyone else has a kid or two. It’s a real smile, one of his big, happy ones where he’s showing his teeth and not the closed-lip one he does when he’s trying to be happy.

By the time Jonny finally gets home on New Year’s Day after a few days of away games, it’s been decided that the Sharp girls and McKenzie are going to be the flower girls at their wedding. “They are your nieces,” Patrick shrugs after the big announcement. “Jackie was originally going to be the flower girl, but she let that go as soon as I told her that she could be a groomslady.”

Jonny nods slowly, understandably a bit confused. “Groomslady?”

Patrick shrugs. “I’m not a bride so I don’t have bridesmaids, but my sisters are going to be my groomsmen. But they’re not men, so we landed on groomsladies instead.”

Jonny doesn’t try pressing on why Patrick hasn’t asked any of his friends to be his groomsmen. He’s sure that Patrick has friends back home—he mentions them on and off—but they’re either not as close as he’s letting on, or they just don’t want to be in the wedding, for obvious reasons Jonny can’t quite fault them for.

“Oh,” Jonny agrees, nodding. “Makes sense.”

“Erica’s my groomslady of honor,” Patrick continues, giving Jonny a long look. “Have you asked David to be your best man yet?”

“Um,” Jonny says.

Patrick’s face goes startlingly blank. He hasn’t given Jonny this you’re an idiot look in over two weeks. Jonny forgot how weird it actually is. “Have you asked Brent to be a groomsman, or Patrick yet?”

Hearing his teammates real names actually makes Jonny cringe, just a little. Their given names are actually quite horrible, except for Sharpy’s, but he only gets points because he shares the name with Patrick. “Not yet.”

Patrick’s face manages, somehow, to go even blanker. Jonny tries to smooth things over before he manages to combust. “I’ll ask them tomorrow, sweetheart,” he promises, walking around the island to grasp Patrick’s hips, trying to distract him. “Now, can I have my New Year’s kiss?”

“No,” Patrick mumbles, blankness falling away as he pouts, but he gives in anyway, cupping Jonny’s face to share a kiss.

Jonny does as Patrick asks, making sure that David knows that he’s his best man and awkwardly asking Seabs and Sharpy to be his groomsmen. Sharpy and Seabs are awful about it, teasing him relentlessly and pretending like they’re only doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, but Jonny knows that deep down they’d probably be really hurt if he passed them over.

Patrick takes the reigns on wedding planning, even getting a little offended when Jonny suggests hiring a wedding planner to help. Jonny has some idea what goes into planning a wedding—he’s not a complete idiot, despite what Patrick thinks sometimes—and he knows it can be a whirlwind of stress. Patrick needs to hire a caterer and a florist and a DJ, decide on the flower and seating arrangements, find somewhere to rent the chair and tables from, and do a million other things that seem extremely stressful.

Patrick’s determined to do it all by himself, without the help of a planner. He claims that the whole process is less stressful for him since he only has Oscar to care for and nothing else to worry about, but it still makes Jonny a little uneasy to leave everything to Patrick, only because he doesn’t want him to become obsessed with making the wedding perfect. He tries to help as much as he can, calling and arranging meetings with the florist and bakery, but there’s only so much that he can do. A majority of their games in January are away games with travel days in-between, making it difficult to make arrangements.

They have eight months to go until the wedding, and not everything needs to be done right this second, but that’s how Patrick wants things done.

To say that Jonny is happy for the reprieve of the bye-week is an understatement.

He’s been going to Cabo ever since the NHL instated the bye-week. He always books a suite with ocean views at the same resort, spending his days relaxing on the beach and playing copious amounts of golf, sometimes joining the other guys who’ve decided to come down for a round or two and maybe dinner.

Patrick is excited for the trip. He’s never truly been out of the country (he’s adamant that Canada doesn’t count, since it’s Canada) or stayed in a five-star resort. He forgets about wedding planning and starts their vacation planning instead, overly enthusiastic to go whale watching and horseback riding. Jonny’s done all of these things before, but he doesn’t mind doing them again; Patrick’s enthusiasm spreads like wildfire.

The first thing Patrick does after they check into the suite is step out onto the terrace, barefoot. He spins around with Oscar, who he refused to leave at home, laughing happily. “Do you think we can see the whales from here?”

Jonny’s never seen whales from the terrace before, but crushing Patrick’s hopes and dreams on their first day seems counterintuitive to having a good vacation; his ability to hold a grudge and stay angry is quite impressive. “We’ll definitely see them from here.”

It’s evening, too late to actually see whales, but they head down to the beach anyway. Patrick’s been to beaches by the lake, but he’s never been to a real beach. An actual beach with waves. He wades knee-deep into the water with Oscar, dipping the puppy in up to his chest. Oscar looks back at Jonny on dryland, ears back and looking utterly betrayed, but he’s not panicking. He and Patrick have an understanding; if Patrick says it’s okay, then the dog believes that it’s okay.

Patrick even lets go of Oscar at one point, letting him swim a little distance with his hands on either side of him to swoop him up real quick if anything happens.

When they finally return to the beach, the bottom of Patrick’s shorts and his shirt are soaking wet. Oscar looks like a black and white drowned rat, big brown eyes looking like they’re bulging out of his head, but he greets Jonny with an excited yip, wagging his tail proudly. Patrick carries him back to the suite so he doesn’t turn into a drowned rat covered in sand.

He strips out of his own clothes to wash the puppy of sea salt in the outside shower, as naked as the day he was born, unabashed. Since Christmas he’s been a lot more open about showing off his body, a little less shy. They’ve had sex a few more times, but nothing too serious; just more thigh fucking and hand jobs. Jonny wants to get his dick in him, but Patrick gets real nervous when his hands travel down low. He’s not ready to have his back blown out yet, so Jonny doesn’t push the issue.

They wake early the next morning to have breakfast on the terrace. It’s hot during the day, but chilly at night and during the early morning. Patrick drapes himself in one of Jonny’s sweaters, his favorite thing to steal right out of his closet. They always fall off his shoulder, but he refuses to longue in anything that isn’t Jonny’s.

He smiles happily at Jonny across the table as he feeds Oscar bacon. “I want to go whale watching today,” he says, the with you left hanging in the air. He looks at Jonny from under the sweep of his eyelashes, waiting patiently for either acceptance or rejection.

Jonny had plans to hit the studio for a long yoga session and then a round of golf. “I’ll call the concierge to book our tickets.”

Patrick beams brighter than the sun.

The week in Cabo flies away in what feels like a second.

Patrick is happy throughout their stay, dragging Jonny along to snorkel and whale watch and take Oscar on long, cliché walks on the beach. He plays one round of golf before he decides that it’s too boring for his tastes and decides to spend the time while Jonny’s golfing lounging by the pool. He doesn’t like to do new things like tequila tasting and horseback riding without Jonny; it seems to make him nervous to do things alone.

On their last night, Patrick picks moodily at his meal, looking like a put-out, teenage, spoilt brat with Oscar sitting on his lap. Dogs usually aren’t allowed in the restaurant, but Jonny’s been coming here for years, and even though he doesn’t think of himself as anything special, the black AMEX he handed over to the guest service agent upon check-in guarantees him privileges other guest don’t get.

He doesn’t tell Patrick that dogs aren’t usually allowed in the restaurant; the kid’s still gets uncomfortable about money.

It’s plainly obvious that Patrick doesn’t want to go back to Chicago. He hasn’t exactly been miserable there, but it’s lonely for him, even with Abby and Dayna’s newfound friendship. He doesn’t have much in common with them, or the other guys’ girlfriends, either. He’s too young to go out to the clubs with them or to drink at Sunday brunch, unless Jonny pulls some strings, and it can’t be fun being the only guy.

“Your face will stay like that if you keep frowning.”

Patrick stops frowning to pout. “It’s nice here.”

“We can always come back, you know.”

Patrick ignores him to feed Oscar some of his chicken. The dog’s eaten nothing but steak and chicken from room service the entire week, and he hasn’t eaten any of the expensive dog food Jonny bought for him since his first night home because Patrick cooks him special food. Jonny suspects that all of that protein and special homemade chicken and rice is why the puppy who isn’t supposed to get any bigger than twenty pounds is already creeping near thirty at only three months old.

Pretty soon Patrick won’t be able to carry the dog everywhere he goes, though he’ll try.

“It’s been nice that it’s just been the two of us.” Oscar whines pathetically. “The two of us and Oscar.”

“It’s just the three of us back home,” Jonny says carefully.

Patrick looks at him with annoyance. He’s been a perfectly cheery, reasonable human being this entire week, prone to sweet smiles and laughs. It’s been nice to see him so happy, but Jonny actually misses his chihuahua-like tendency to snarl whenever someone looks at him. That unfounded tenacity of his is what makes him so damn charming sometimes. He sets his mouth into an annoyed line, staring at Jonny with barely concealed contempt. “It feels like we’ve been on our honeymoon.”

Jonny takes a swig of his beer to hide his smile, but the jester fails; he’s overly fond, and has a growing suspicion that Patrick is acutely aware of that fondness. Just this morning he batted his sweet little eyelashes prettily and convinced Jonny to go ride camels.

Camels.

Smelly, stinking, spitting, camels.

Patrick is still looking at him, mouth in an angry pout. Jonny can only grin at him. “I’ll take you somewhere nicer for our honeymoon.”

Suspicion wipes away the angry pout. “Nicer than this?”

Jonny nods, reaching across the table to feed Oscar a piece of his steak. “A villa on the beach in the Bahamas. Just you and me.” Oscar’s ears go back, whining. “And Oscar.”

The smile that creeps across Patrick’s face is lovely, bright and happy. His nose and cheeks are sunburnt, bright red and blotchy, but he still looks handsome in his loose, white shirt that’s open to reveal his usually pale chest, now a light brown from days spent lounging in the sun. There’s a hickey where his neck meets his shoulder, left there from Jonny’s mouth. He’s doing nothing to hide it.

Jonny fixes his eyes on the bruise. “On the other hand, we might have to leave Oscar at home.”

Patrick lowers his eyes, trying to play for shy but coming across as flirty. “Why would we do that?”

Teasing Patrick is one of Jonny’s favorite past times. Patrick always gets embarrassed, ears and collarbones going bright pink as he tells Jonny to fuck off and stop being an asshole. Sometimes he gets so riled up by Jonny’s teasing that he sputters and stomps about, which gets Oscar riled up in return. They have to lock the dog in the closet any time they have sex because Patrick’s noises make Oscar go crazy. “It wouldn’t be fair to keep him locked in the closet the whole time.”

Patrick chokes on his drink, ears and chest going red. “I’m not spending our whole honeymoon in bed with you!”

Jonny only lifts his eyebrows. “That’s the point of a honeymoon, you know.”

“I know what the point of a honeymoon is!” Patrick is starting to get riled up now, the redness of his cheeks looking worse as he gets heated. Oscar turns in his arms, trying to lick his face to calm him down. “I want to do other things too, like ride horses on the beach!”

“Horses won’t be the only thing you’ll be riding,” Jonny comments quietly.

Patrick is stunned into silence, eyes so wide that he looks much like an owl before the spell is broken. “You!” he sputters, gaining the attention of the tables nearby. “I can’t believe—you pervert!” He’s so red now that he resembles a tomato.

All Jonny can do is laugh as Patrick continues to sputter.

It takes several days after their return from Cabo for Patrick’s mopiness to go away.

He complains relentlessly about the cold like he didn’t spend his entire life living somewhere with the same climate, insisting that Jonny needs to be traded somewhere warmer like California. It makes Jonny’s skin crawl to even hear a suggestion that he become something as gross as an Anaheim Duck; he contemplates calling off the wedding altogether. He can’t have a husband who even thinks that the Ducks are a respectable team to play for. He’d break his own ankles and end his entire career if Bowman ever did something as rude as trade him to Anaheim.

Not that Bowman would ever trade him. Jonny likes to stay humble and not beep his own horn and let his head grow too big, but even when he’s going through a goal drought, he’s still holding the team up and making the plays to get his teammates goals. He captained this team from dead last in the league year after year to winning the Cup three years in a row. They’re sitting at the top of the league right now, first in Central and in the West.

If the Blackhawks don’t build him a statue outside the UC he might riot.

Patrick sends him a listing for a million dollar house in Tampa while Jonny’s on a road trip to Western Canada. He has an edible arrangement arranged to be delivered to their apartment for Valentine’s Day because Patrick really, really loves fruit, but he contemplates cancelling it and telling Patrick to move out. Tampa’s not as bad as Anaheim, but as his fiancé, Patrick should be looking for houses in Chicago; Jonny isn’t going anywhere, no matter who tries to make him move.

“You’re uninvited to anything to do with Lord Stanley,” is the first thing Jonny says when Patrick answers the phone.

Patrick hums across the line. “It’s too cold for Oscar and I in Chicago.”

“You’re from Buffalo.”

“Our feet get cold when we go for walks.”

“You’re fucking ridiculous.”

Patrick laughs, light and airy. “Maman won’t let you ban me from any festivities. She likes me more than you.”

Hearing Patrick refer to Maman as Maman makes Jonny’s breath hitch. It’s what normal people do when their marriage hasn’t been arranged for them. “Yeah, well, Donna likes me better,” he mumbles, unable to come up with anything better. He can practically hear Patrick’s eye roll.

“Whatever,” Patrick laughs. “I’ll see when you get home.” He hesitates, breath hitching for a second too long. It makes Jonny worry. “Just win tonight. No one actually likes the Canucks.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jonny agrees, waiting a moment for Patrick to say something else, but Patrick hangs up quickly. It only takes a minute after their call ends for a message to come through, this time with a listing for a row house in the Gold Coast, not too far from where they live now. oscar wants a yard

The listing doesn’t actually have a yard, and the only two places that don’t look like they came from the 80s is the kitchen and one bathroom. It’s hideous, and Jonny would rather shell out three times what the house is listed for for something more modern and updated, but if the abomination is what Patrick wants, then he’ll give in to Patrick’s heart’s desire.

whatever oscar wants Jonny sends back.

Patrick immediately floods him with listings.

By mid-March, Patrick has finalized the guest list and sent out save the dates while somehow also simultaneously dragging Jonny to every open house in Chicago. Nothing seems to please him, not even when Jonny convinces him to look at higher-priced places. He’s picky, unhappy with the flooring or the color of the walls in the bathroom.

His pickiness is actually quite annoying. It’s playoff push time, and Jonny’s already exhausted from the grueling regular season. Some days he just wants to sit in the house and relax instead of being dragged around the greater Chicago area looking at houses that Patrick ends up disliking anyway, but no matter how annoying Jonny finds the whole process, he’s wrapped around Patrick’s finger, and dutifully goes along, keeping his annoyed comments to himself.

By the start of April, Patrick still hasn’t narrowed his search down to what house he actually wants. Playoffs are literally around the corner, and Jonny doesn’t have the energy or time to look at houses. What time he does have is reserved for practice and training and putting what effort he can into being a decent human being and not ignoring his increasingly more and more stressed out fiancé who’s bitten his bottom lip raw from chewing on it nervously.

Jonny holds Patrick’s head still with one hand on his chin as he smears healing lip balm across Patrick’s bottom lip with his thumb. Patrick is more than capable of doing this for himself, but the problem is that he doesn’t. He chews and chews and pulls at his lips for hours at a time until they’re swollen and red and bleeding, and if he remembers to put on the balm, his lips are so sensitive and the skin so raw that it stings painfully. Jonny has to hold him still and put the balm on for him in an attempt to keep Patrick’s lips from getting infected or from getting any more blisters.

Most of the very important wedding details are in place. They have a caterer, and the DJ, along with a cake and the flower arrangements settled. Their suits will be ready for the day, and Donna’s been kind enough to get Patrick’s sisters dresses all arranged. It’s the seating arrangement that’s causing Patrick the most nerves: they have a venue that seats 700, but their guest list maxes out at 150, leaving too much unnecessary space to work with. Patrick wants everything to flow nicely, but the problem is that it isn’t.

“At least we’ll have a big dance floor.”

Patrick gives him an unimpressed, angry look while he tries very hard not to chew on his lip or lick away the balm, mostly highly dissatisfied with Jonny’s playoff beard, but rarely finding Jonny’s nonchalant attitude towards their wedding impressive. He likes Jonny’s stubble, especially when he rubs his cheeks against the inside of his thighs, teasing him, but he hates Jonny’s playoff beard. He keeps putting bad energy into the air by hoping the beard will be gone soon. Playoffs haven’t even officially started yet.

“You don’t even dance,” Patrick says, his lisp more prominent now that his lips are swollen and blistered.

Jonny scoffs jokingly. Sometimes he can get Patrick out of his stressed out mood by playfully distracting him. “Yes I do.”

Jonny’s playfulness does the trick; Patrick’s face scrunches in disbelief. “Since when?”

“Since always.”

Patrick rolls his eyes hard enough it looks like he might actually hurt himself. Jonny’s bones ache in the worse way, but keeping Patrick from unintentionally hurting himself is more important than resting. He grabs Patrick gently around the waist, pulling him close so that their chests press together. “We haven’t practiced our first dance yet.”

“We haven’t even picked our song,” Patrick grumbles.

“I know,” Jonny murmurs, taking Patrick’s hand in his own, hand on his hip as he sways them back and forth. Patrick goes along with it, letting Jonny take the lead as he turns his head to rest it against his chest. He pretends to be grumpy sometimes just because he doesn’t want Jonny to think that he actually likes him, which he does. He just likes to play hard to get and doesn’t like to admit that all of Jonny’s teasing makes him happy. “I don’t want it to be something cheesy,” Patrick mumbles.

“Nothing cheesy,” Jonny agrees, failing to hide a yawn.

Patrick goes quiet, breathing deeply as they move back and forth in the quiet of the kitchen, Oscar lying peacefully at their feet. Jonny closes his eyes, exhausted and drained, feeling sleepy with the continued swaying.

“Jonny?” Patrick’s voice breaks the silence.

The only thing keeping Jonny standing at this point is Patrick, who’s baring most of his weight remarkably well. “Hm?”

“Can we have a love song?”

Jonny doesn’t bother to open his eyes. “Thought you didn’t want cheesy.”

“I think it will be nice to have a love song.”

Jonny blinks his eyes open slowly, Patrick’s head is still resting against his chest. If they weren’t dancing, he’d be full body pressed against Jonny like he does in his sleep, trying to mold them together as one. “We can have a love song.”

Patrick yawns against his chest, rubbing his eye tiredly. “Let’s go to bed, Jonny.”

Jonny’s more than willing. Patrick is on him as soon as his head hits the pillow, curling up between his legs to sprawl across his chest like a giant house cat. He tucks himself close, button nose pressed into Jonny’s throat despite how much he hates his beard, his soft breaths tickling the skin there. Jonny pulls him in close, one arm swung loosely over his waist while the other rests on the gentle swell of his ass.

Oscar lays his soft head across their ankles, tail thumping happily against the mattress.

By the time playoffs officially start a week later, Patrick’s lips look they’ve been through a warzone, and he’s started a new habit of scratching absentmindedly at the skin on his wrist. They’ve agreed to put off searching for a house until after the wedding to relieve Patrick of some of his stress, but the playoffs have brought up this new twitch; he’s nervous for Jonny, not that he actually needs to be.

Playoffs are always rough, and they do make Jonny nervous, but he’s learnt to channel that nervous energy into fuel to make plays and score goals. He appreciates that Patrick has taken a keen interest in his work and wants the Cup at the end, but the thing is, this is his work, and it doesn’t need to effect Patrick.

Jonny bribes the workers at the Blackhawks store downtown to pull wrist warmers out of storage and then promptly forces Patrick into them. It’s April and too hot, but with home ice advantage against the Blues in the first round, and Patrick insisting on coming to every single game, he has to do something to stop Patrick from nervously scratching at his wrist.

Patrick is highly unpleased by the warmers, grumbling about how he’s not a kid that Jonny needs to dress and can take care of himself, but he keeps the warmers on, and according to Abby, makes an effort not to bite at his lips, although he refuses to put more balm on until after the game when Jonny can do it for him.

“Not a kid, eh?” Jonny teases as he smears a heavy amount of balm across Patrick’s bottom lip, freshly showered and still in his underwear. He hasn’t even met with media yet to discuss their win, but when Patrick wants his attention, he gets it.

Whipped, Sharpy insists. He’s fucking whipped.

Patrick doesn’t dignify him with a response, just tries very hard not to draw his bottom lip between his teeth. He’s trying at least, but there are blisters on the inside of his mouth now from where’s he’s been biting the skin across from his teeth instead, which is just as bad as the lip biting. His mouth is sore all over, and Jonny’s worried that soon enough he’ll stop being able to eat; the nervous chewing has gotten that bad.

Jonny doesn’t know what it is. Patrick took over planning all the way back in December, and he would have expected this sort of anxiety-fueled tick to start back then, when everything was brand new and unsettled, not now, when things are paid for, on the books, set in stone now, months before the wedding. Hell, even the dreaded seating arrangement has finally been figured out thanks to Maman, who suggested small tree saplings to fill the space that they’ll bury later in a local park.

There should be nothing wedding related stressing Patrick out right this moment, and yet, his mouth looks like he was attacked by a really small shark.

Jonny was going to reach out to Maman and Donna and ask them to take over the remainder of what needed to be done to help calm Patrick down, but Jonny has a nagging, eerie feeling that Patrick actually isn’t stressed about the actual, physical wedding. He has a suspicion that deep down Patrick’s anxiety revolves around what the wedding actually means—he’ll be tied to Jonny for forever, with no way out, because the contract between their families is binding without means for divorce.

Jonny’s looked the contract over with his lawyer and a fine-tooth comb. There are tremendous financial burdens placed upon both their parents that would cripple them if he and Patrick were to break the contract. Jonny’s sure that their parents respect each other enough to never actually sue for breach of contract, but Patrick is a stubborn little thing that dug his teeth and nails dangerously hard into this tradition. The amount of shame brought upon him by their marriage failing or never coming to fruition would emotionally cripple him.

In simple terms, Patrick is having cold feet.

Deep down, he’s afraid to walk down the aisle. He’s afraid to disappoint his parents, their guests, Jonny. He’s been adamant about this wedding from day one. He can’t back out.

But he can, though.

Jonny wouldn’t hold it against him if Patrick left him waiting at the altar. He’s eighteen and frightened and should never be made to feel like shit because he doesn’t know what he wants.

“You have to do your interviews,” Patrick says after Jonny’s spent too long running his thumb back and forth across his bottom lip, lost in thought. “Everyone’s waiting on you, Jonny.” He’s smiling, but the longer Jonny looks at him, the more he can see that there’s bags starting to form under his eyes, and little pinpricks of tears he hasn’t shed.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jonny breathes. He can’t kiss Patrick because it hurts him, but he kisses his cheek instead. “I’ll see you at home.”

“‘Kay,” Patrick agrees, even though his smile doesn’t meet his eyes.

The problem with playoffs, after the mental and physical brutality, the grueling schedule, and the non-stop media frenzy and pressure from well-meaning but overbearing fans, is that they’re highly distracting.

Jonny’s job is to captain his team through a grueling six month regular season and then hopefully through another eight weeks of brutality with a measly four days in-between to somehow manage to rest, train, and practice.

Jonny has to keep his own morale up along with twenty other players’. It’s an emotionally and physically strenuous time for him, and he’s notorious for putting his whole into hockey hockey hockey and ignoring everything else. The payoff is worth it to hold Lord Stanley in his hands and cement himself in history books, but he’s an emotionally stunted asshole in the meantime.

He should be concentrating on Patrick’s well-being and getting him the help that he needs to work through his emotions in a healthy, positive way, but instead he’s too busy handing the Ducks their asses on a silver plate to do the right thing.

By the time he’s ripping Lord Stanley right out the hands of the Flyers for the second time in less than ten years, Patrick looks about ready to have a full blown breakdown. Their wedding is three days under the two month mark, everything has been paid for, guests have booked their rooms, and invitations have gone out that can’t be taken back.

When Jonny goes to kiss him to celebrate the win, the state of Patrick smacks him so hard in the face that he recoils. No one else seems to notice it, but Patrick looks tired and thin, mouth swollen even though he’s trying really, really hard to smile. He’s been trying so hard these past few weeks to keep it together, but the added pressure from both their families has worn him down.

“Congratulations,” he says, trying so hard to keep it together.

Jonny cups his face, swiping his thumbs back and forth under his eyes, smiling and trying to reassure him that everything will be alright.

He decides right there and then that they’re cancelling the wedding.

Jonny fails to mention that they’re cancelling the wedding until after the parade is over and the whole city has sobered up.

Patrick managed to make it through the week long celebrations with the help of alcohol and Jonny staying by his side, strategically moving all conversations away from wedding related topics and onto things Patrick finds much more enjoyable: Gordon Ramsey, Oscar and all things puppies, arguing with people that peppermint, wintermint, and spearmint are all not the same thing.

Jonny’s actually convinced that maybe Patrick’s gotten over his cold feet and will be okay as long as he takes the handles on any wedding-related stuff until the day, but Patrick proves him wrong by having a full-blown panic attack the week after the Cup win as they’re packing for a quick trip back to Winnipeg. Patrick’s flinging his left hand about, adamant about how he’d rather cut it off than ever permanently live in a place as “lame” as Canada, when he stops suddenly and realizes that they don’t have rings.

They did everything but find rings.

The attack starts with Patrick taking a few, harsh breaths until he’s having difficulty breathing, hands and fingers numb as his hands shake uncontrollably. All Jonny can do is get him to sit on the bed and try to coach him into taking deep breaths until the worst of the attack seems to subside and Patrick’s able to take a sip of water from a glass.

“I forgot the rings!” he cries just as Jonny kneels in front of him, cups his face, and says, “I’m cancelling the wedding.”

That almost throws Patrick right back into another attack.

Jonny holds his head still, forcing Patrick to look him in the eye as he says as steadily as possible, “I’m not cancelling because I don’t love you.”

Patrick’s face is crumbling, but he manages to choke out, “You love me?”

Love is a very strong word, but Jonny can’t think of anything else that would describe cancelling a $100,000 wedding only because you don’t want your fiancé to needlessly suffer under emotional stress and still want to marry them, just later, when they’re not inadvertently hurting themselves from all the stress. He might not be in love with the kid, but he still loves him. “Yeah, you idiot, I love you.”

“Oh,” says Patrick very quietly.

Jonny smiles reassuringly, running his thumb gently across Patrick’s bottom lip. Patrick flinches from the pain. “I know you don’t want to marry me.”

Patrick shakes his head, face beginning to crumble again. “I do!”

“Yeah?” Jonny says, smiling disbelieving. “Then why did you bite your lips raw there, babe?”

“Pre-wedding jitters,” Patrick insists, but there’s defeat in his voice. He frowns, looking crushed as he looks around the room before his eyes fall back on Jonny’s face. “150 invitations have gone out.”

“All of Philadelphia society will be there?”

Patrick tries hard not to smile, but he gives in, as small and weak as it is. “Don’t make fun of me Jonny.”

“I’m trying not to babe, but I hate when you’re sad. You look like Oscar when I accidentally tread on him in the morning.”

Patrick shakes his head. “We can’t cancel. All that money wasted, Jonny.”

Jonny stops kneeling to sit on the bed next to him. “I don’t mean to brag, but I am worth ninety million dollars, darling.”

“You sound like an asshole when you say stuff like that,” Patrick sniffles. “What about the contract? And school. I didn’t apply to anywhere else.”

“I’m cancelling the wedding, not our engagement, Patrick.”

“You’re still going to marry me?”

“Yes,” Jonny insists, standing up to cup Patrick’s face and kiss him despite the pain it will cause him. “When you’re ready, my love.”

Patrick closes his eyes, taking in the moment before his eyes flutter open. “Maman and Mom are going to be so mad.”

Jonny kisses his forehead softly. “I’ll deal with them, you just finish packing.” Patrick nods shakily, reaching for the shirt he dropped when he started to have his panic attack. Jonny watches him for a moment before turning his back to start the first of a long list of cancellation emails to venues. He’ll wait to call their mothers when he’s sure that they won’t kill him.

“Jonny?” Patrick asks from where he’s packing, sounding for the first time in weeks like his old self, some of his anxiety lifted off his shoulders momentarily.

“Yeah, babe?” Jonny says without turning around.

“Don’t cancel our honeymoon. I still want to ride horses on the beach in the Bahamas.”

Jonny puts his phone away, turning to finally look at Patrick again. He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. “Horses won’t be the only thing you’ll be riding.”

Patrick hits him in the face with a pair of socks.

Patrick grabs Jonny’s hand just as he’s about to head back to the bar, pulling him from the crowd quickly without anyone noticing. “Come on, Mr. Toews.”

He laughs as he drags Jonny through the hallways and up a back stairwell until they reach the top floor, stumbling into the hall. Jonny pins him against the wall, thigh between his legs as he kisses him and his hands fumble to get his zipper open.

“Not here,” Patrick resists breathlessly, managing to wiggle away and down the hallway before Jonny can catch him. He smiles flirtatiously as he pulls the room key out of his pocket, his smile turning wicked as he gets the door open and slips inside.

Jonny follows like a dog to a bone, stopping the door with his foot before it closes. Patrick reaches out from the darkness, dragging him in and letting the door slam behind him.

They kiss up against the wall, fingers scrambling at each other’s clothes until they’re both down to their briefs. It’s easy for Jonny to get his hands down the back of Patrick’s shorts, cupping a perky cheek before his fingers search between his cheeks, finding where Patrick is wet and open. “When did you do this?” he asks between kisses, slipping his finger inside of Patrick to the first knuckle.

Patrick gasps against his mouth, arms around his shoulders as he pulls Jonny’s bottom lip between his teeth. “While you were cutting it up on the dance floor with Jackie.”

“Little slut,” Jonny grunts, pulling Patrick from the wall only to deposit him on the bed. He takes one ankle in hand, bending Patrick’s leg as he reaches for his underwear, dragging the briefs down Patrick’s pale thighs before throwing them over his shoulder.

Patrick frees his leg with a yank, grinning like a fool as Jonny gets rid of his own underwear. He waits for Jonny to crawl the rest of the way onto the bed before attacking him, biting at his throat and his chest, sucking a hickey onto his pec before he wrestles him onto his back. “Aren’t you glad that I changed the venue for the third time?” he says as he straddles Jonny’s hips.

Jonny reaches under the pillow where he knows Patrick hid the lube. He covers his cock in a generous amount before taking hold of Patrick’s hip, fingers sticky and wet. “Cost me more than Union Station.”

Patrick grins, all that guilt he used to have over using Jonny’s money long gone. He raises up, bracing both hands on Jonny’s shoulders as he sinks back slowly on his cock, mouth parted open prettily, making the sweetest noise until Jonny’s fully seated inside him. It almost makes Jonny laugh, to think that only two years ago Patrick used to freeze up like a deer in headlights anytime his fingers would run down the crack of his ass. Now he takes Jonny’s cock like God himself molded him for this one purpose.

“Can’t believe I…,” Patrick starts, bringing his knees together as he slowly works up, leaving only the tip of Jonny’s cock inside of him before he settles back down, adjusting to the girth, “… I only wanted to ride horses on our first honeymoon.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jonny grunts, hand dug into the sheets to resist thrusting up into Patrick until he’s ready. It wasn’t like he was suffering from a case of the blue balls, but jesus.

Patrick grins down at him, rotating his hips.

“You think you’re funny, don’t you?” says Jonny, taking his hand off the sheet to hold Patrick’s hips with both. He gives Patrick a moment to laugh before he lifts him, thrusting up into his willing body. Patrick gasps, throwing his head back, fingernails biting into the skin of Jonny’s shoulders. Jonny fucks up into him, watching the way his mouth opens prettily, eyes heavy as he takes what Jonny gives him until he gets his wits about him and thrusts back against Jonny, chasing his cock every time Jonny pulls out.

When Patrick starts to get close he leans forward, capturing Jonny’s mouth in a kiss, lips chapped and a little broken from chewing, but he laughs happily, the sound turning into a moan when Jonny tugs at his hair and thrusts shallowly into him. “I love you Mr. Toews,” he breathes against Jonny’s mouth.

“Stop being cheesy, Mr. Toews,” Jonny grunts.

Patrick throws his head back and laughs, the noise cutting off into a surprised gasp when Jonny sits up and grabs him around the waist, tipping him backwards on to his back. Patrick spreads his legs open wide, arms clutching Jonny’s shoulders so that he can’t go anywhere, keeping him close as they share the same breath between kisses as Jonny fucks into him.

He comes first, nails leaving crescent moons in Jonny’s skin as he moans, eyes closed and always beautiful in the throes of passion. Jonny watches him come apart, grinding his teeth against the tight grip of Patrick’s body, managing a few more thrusts before his own orgasm sneaks up on him, making him go dumb behind the eyes.

He collapses on top of Patrick, cock buried deep inside of him as he breathes heavily into Patrick’s neck, eyes closed, lulled by Patrick’s soft fingers running softly down his back. When he gets his head back on straight he pulls out, kissing away the soft noise Patrick makes.

Jonny finds his briefs, using them to wipe gently between Patrick’s thighs before cleaning his cock and throwing the briefs away. Patrick welcomes him back with open arms, enveloping Jonny in a hug and only making a little fuss when Jonny crushes him under his weight. He strokes Jonny’s hair comfortingly as he gets his breath under control. “I love you, Jonny.”

Jonny sits up, kissing Patrick softly. “You better. Cost me a hundred grand to marry you, twice.”

Patrick pouts, lips swollen. He cups Jonny’s face, searching his eyes before he lifts his knees, using them to knock Jonny off the bed and onto his ass on the floor. “You’re an asshole,” he says before Jonny grabs his wrist, dragging him onto the floor.

Patrick goes down laughing.