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You know, in the grand scheme of things the North Bay game could have gone a lot worse. Could have gone a hell of a lot better too, but if you can’t win don’t play, and they sure as shit weren’t about to win that one without the rest of the studs. So, they didn’t play.
It had been easy, really. Didn’t hurt that Keller was dead chirpable. By the end of warm-up the bastard had been ready to blow like a volcano at a middle school science fair, so he’d just sprinkled that last little bit of vinegar and watched him erupt.
No game meant no loss meant no folding. Simple as that. Nat could bitch about it all she wanted, but the Board would have had to be out of their minds to blame that brawl on the Bulldogs. At the end of the day, he did what it took to make sure they wouldn’t lose.
So, it’d be real fuckin’ nice if his brain would shut the fuck up right about now.
He’d been relaxed at Peppi Panini when it was all over and done with. Calm, even! Food was good, Michaels was being less of a cunt than usual, and the post-fight adrenaline had faded to a gentle buzz that left Shoresy feeling loose-limbed and damn near serene. He could have almost fallen asleep right there in the booth with Goody tucked under his arm. Shit, wouldn’t have been the first time. Between tournaments and restaurants and travel games, he’d fallen asleep with Goody under his arm more times than he could count. Done more than that too, but it wasn’t worth dwelling on right now. Not with Goody curled up next to him, laying on his side with his back to Shoresy and the covers pulled tight under his arm as Shoresy sprawled on his back, counting imaginary stars through the popcorn ceiling.
But somewhere between the ride home and the shower and crawling into bed, something had shifted. His fatigued calm had given way to those cycling anxious thoughts he’d been fighting so hard. The ones that started in the pit of his stomach and crawled up his throat and now sat heavy on his chest in the dead of night. Stupid asshole shouldn’t have made a promise he couldn’t keep. Not good enough to keep this team going. If we fold, it’s on you. Barely even a fucking leader. You’re letting them all down.
Shoresy felt the shiver ripple through his limbs, like the nagging in the back of his mind was a fly his body was trying to shake off. He tossed and turned, rolling onto his side and then his stomach before flopping back onto his back and staring unseeing into the darkness. It was fine. It was gonna be fine. Get some sleep, day off tomorrow, maybe have a beer with the guys, and then skate hard at practice on Monday. He could do this. He had to do this.
"Settle down," Goody said, voice barely audible over the screaming in Shoresy’s brain, and boy if that didn’t just grate his nerves right now. Like, no shit he needed to settle down. He was fuckin' tired and his ribs ached from taking what he could grudgingly admit was a well-aimed punch and his brain was running a mile a minute with all the shit that went down tonight, and he was about ready to crawl out of his fuckin' skin.
"Would love to settle down, bud, but I'm finding that a wee bit difficult on account of the fate of this fuckin' team bein' on my shoulders an' all."
Goody sighed heavily, and Shoresy balled his hands into fists and rubbed them against his eyes, digging in until sparks flashed against the inside of his eyelids. He knew that he was a pain in the ass and he was being exhausting, but there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do about it at the moment. Christ, did he ever wish he could just dial it back a bit sometimes, if only for Goody’s sake right now.
He felt the mattress shift as Goody turned to face him. Gently, Goody pulled the arm closest to him away from Shoresy’s face and laid it out flat against the mattress, settling on top of it. When Shoresy cracked that eye to look at him, Goody had propped himself up on his side, cheek resting against his fist, and the bed suddenly felt a hell of a lot smaller.
“Sixteen other guys on that team,” Goody said. Shoresy couldn’t quite make out his features as his eyes readjusted to the darkness, but he could hear the patient smile in his voice, that soft smirk that would have been annoyingly patronizing on any other bastard, but on Goody was just calming somehow. Wasn’t fuckin’ fair. He shouldn’t be able to do that to a guy.
“Wasn’t any of those sixteen guys who said we’d never lose again, though.” Shoresy hated the whine in his own voice. “If we fold, that’s on me.”
“Nah.” Goody’s fingers trailed gently along Shoresy’s hairline, and Shoresy couldn’t have stopped the hitch in his breath if he wanted to. No point, really. Goody knew him better than that. Better than anyone, almost. “None of that shit with me.”
Swear to God, the sleeping arrangements were just what made the most sense. The team needed to get Dolo and Hitch all buddy-buddy as fast as humanly possible to get that teamwork up to where it needed to be in time for that Timmers game since the old tendy had been basically a half-step above a cardboard cut-out. And it wasn’t like Shoresy’s bed was a goddamn king-size so he hadn’t much liked the idea of getting squashed in the middle of the night by an overgrown house hippo with a Shawinigan accent. So, like. That really just left him and Goody bunking together, didn’t it? Never mind anything else that might or might not have happened when they were younger. Or in the years since. Fuck off.
Goody's fingers traced across Shoresy's forehead, down his temple, and around the shell of his ear as Shoresy felt his thoughts turn to sludge.
"You know I can't fuckin' think when you're doing that, bud."
"I know."
"Well, then could you cut it out?"
“Kind of—”
“Huh?”
"Kind of seems like thinking's your problem right now," Goody said, even as he pulled his hand back and folded it against his chest.
Shoresy closed his eyes and counted each breath to settle his nerves. He could feel it, the question that had been simmering in the back of his mind ever since he'd put out the call and come back with four immediate yeses—well, two yeses, a bien sûr, and a va te faire foutre, which was somehow also a yes. In the silence of his room, the simmer became a boil, bubbling and roiling and threatening to spill over at any moment and he didn't have the energy to tamp it back down.
"Why are you here?" Shoresy asked, with none of the bite he’d meant the words to have.
"’Cause you asked me to be."
Bastard. Shoresy sighed and smacked Goody's shoulder half-heartedly. "Yeah, I know cause I asked you, asshole. I meant, like, why did you come? You and all the others. You could be anywhere else in the world, doing anything else. Instead you're freezing your balls off in the middle of a fuckin' Sudbury winter, crammed into my apartment like sardines and tryin' to help me bail out a goddamn sinking ship. So what gives?"
"’Cause you—”
“Huh?”
“‘Cause you asked me to."
Right, yeah, okay. ‘Cause that was fine and reasonable and not totally goddamn overwhelming in a completely different way than the rest of this stupid situation. Nothing better to do, he could have understood. Or ‘cause I wanted to skate. ‘Cause my lease was up. ‘Cause I needed a Dutch chomper for my Teeth of the World collection. Any of those, Shoresy could have handled better than the idea that—
"Fuck off," he said even as he wrapped both arms around Goody and pulled him close. Goody's arm draped across his waist, fingers warm and comforting against Shoresy's bare ribs. Shoresy took a deep breath and exhaled shakily, feeling that hand rise and fall with his chest. His eyes burned and he blinked fast, willing the tears away.
Never one to be louder than he absolutely had to be, Goody's voice was nearly smothered on account of the way his cheek was smushed against the crook of Shoresy's neck. "Cry if you need to. Seen it all before."
"I'm not fuckin' crying," Shoresy said wetly.
“Okay.”
Shoresy squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on his breathing, counting the seconds in and out as he tried to force the tears back into his fucking face. Infuriatingly, he felt one tear and then another roll down the side of his face. He wiped hastily at the tracks, hugging Goody tighter with his other arm.
Goody moved his hand to rest heavily over Shoresy’s heart. His thumb stroked back and forth across his chest, and Shoresy steadied himself by focusing on the lazy motion.
Goody always got it, somehow. Even when they were younger and Shoresy had been hot-headed and capricious—well, more so than he was now—the two of them had just clicked, on and off the ice. Day one, he’d watched Goody run a guy into the boards so hard his legs buckled cause the bastard had been bringing all the intensity of a CanSkate lesson for the whole fuckin’ practice; Shoresy’d known right then and there he’d go to the wall for that scruffy silent son of a bitch. Years on, it still left him a little breathless that Goody was always so willing to do the same in return.
Shoresy pressed his nose to Goody's hair, inhaled the scent of salt and sweat and whatever cheap shampoo had been on sale at Shoppers, and felt like he was home.
“I dunno if I would’ve been able to do this if you’d said no,” he whispered into Goody’s curls.
“Bullshit. Too fuckin’ stubborn not to.”
“Maybe. Wouldn’t be enjoying it half so much, though.”
Christ, he’d had more fun skating with the boys over the last couple weeks than in the rest of the Bulldogs’ season combined, even with the threat of folding hanging over his head like a guillotine. It made a difference, coming home to smoke a joint, watch some TV, and listen to the studs tell him about whatever the fuck random corner of Sudbury they were off exploring while he was at work. Sometimes Goody would slip him a takeout menu from whatever hole in the wall they’d eaten at, helpfully annotated and circled with recommendations, and Shoresy would laugh and roll his eyes and stow it safely in the kitchen drawer with the rest of them. God fuckin’ help him.
“Would’ve ended up with a shittier roommate, that’s for sure.”
Shoresy scoffed, wiping a tear track from his temple. “God, we’re feeling a little cocky, aren’t we? You don’t even know who was next on my list.”
“Probably some greasy fucker who snores like a jet engine. Or, like, who’re those little weasels down in Letterkenny you were always bitchin’ to me about?”
“Oh, don’t even fuckin’ start with me about those bastards,” Shoresy hissed, catching himself as he got just a little too loud. No need to wake up the whole house just cause Goody was making him think about a goddamn waking nightmare. “I’d burn my fuckin’ place down before I’d let ‘em within fifty feet of Big Sexy.”
He could feel Goody shake with silent laughter in his arms. “Bird’s unbelievable.”
“The bird is unbelievable, and he’s smarter than both those dumbasses put together. Besides, snoring wouldn’t be any worse than the shit I already put up with for you.”
Goody lifted his head to look Shoresy in the eye. “Fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means you whistle through that gap when you don’t have your jib in. ‘S like sleeping next to a fuckin’ songbird. I can never tell if it’s morning or not. It’s like—” Shoresy whistled a high, quiet note through his teeth, losing it almost immediately as he started to laugh. “Wait, hang on, hang on, I got this. It’s just—”
Shoresy inhaled again, and immediately a hand covered his mouth. He swatted it away, but Goody grabbed his arm and tried to pin it to the bed while he brought his other hand up to cover Shoresy’s mouth again. They grappled as quietly as they could manage, between hushed whispers of “shh” and “bastard” and “shut the fuck up, idiot” before Goody finally got a solid hold on each of Shoresy’s wrists and pushed him heavily into the mattress.
“Fucker,” Goody said, affectionate and low as he panted softly. Shoresy could feel the rise and fall of Goody’s chest where it pressed against his own.
Shoresy stared up at him in the darkness. Through the curtains, the streetlights cast a warm glow that cut the darkness and caught the glimmer of mischief that sparkled in Goody’s eyes. His grin was easy and infectious, and Shoresy had been weak for it for longer than he cared to admit.
“You gonna kiss me or what?”
“When you’re—”
“Huh?”
“When you’re bein’ a dick? God, always such a bastard.”
Flexing his wrists under each of Goody’s palms, Shoresy smirked. “Suit yourself, then,” he said, and whistled again.
Goody took the bait.
The first kiss was firm and graceless. A challenge, and Shoresy was never one to back down. Goody pinned him hard, with hands and chest and lips and Shoresy pushed himself up eagerly to meet him. Goody’s beard was rough against his own, but his lips were warm and soft. Rhythm always came effortlessly to the two of them. Always had. Shoresy felt himself sink easily into the familiar feel of him.
Shoresy shook a hand free to grab at the back of Goody’s neck, pulling him impossibly closer as he opened his mouth at the first touch of Goody’s tongue. He tasted like Shoresy’s toothpaste, and Shoresy felt a flash of possessive excitement race through him. Mine, if just for a moment. Goody’s hand cupped his cheek, thumb pressing on his cheek bone as he swallowed Shoresy’s quiet, breathy gasps.
Shifting to tangle their legs more comfortably, Goody released his other hand and gave Shoresy’s earlobe a quick tug before boxing him in with both arms. Shoresy grinned against his mouth. “Always— with the fuckin’— ears,” he whispered between kisses, and Goody laughed above him. He sucked softly on Shoresy’s bottom lip and pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose before pulling back slightly to catch his breath. Shoresy whined at the loss, even as his head spun just a little bit.
Call him a sucker, but there wasn’t really a word for Goody other than beautiful. His lips were swollen, pupils blown wide, his expression open and placid as he looked down at Shoresy with easy affection. Shoresy cupped his face with both hands, and Goody turned to kiss the centre of his palm.
He stroked his right hand down the length of Goody's throat, fingertips trailing across his tattoos. The one along his collarbone was familiar, wrapping across the curve of his shoulder and down his back. Shoresy had dragged his tongue along it way back when it first healed, and more times than he could count since then, once Goody’d stopped being so paranoid about him sucking the ink out of his fucking skin.
The words etched across his ribs were newer, fresh and dark, but he didn’t flinch when Shoresy dragged blunt nails across the lettering, didn’t pull him back the way he’d done for ages with the others. Months healed at least. Probably longer. It had been so long.
In one smooth motion, Shoresy rolled them and settled on top, straddling Goody’s hips and propping himself up on his forearms. The bruise across his ribs ached from the sudden movement, but he breathed through the momentary pain and buried it as if he was simply panting from everything else they’d been up to. Goody’s hands were warm against the small of his back.
God, he’d missed Goody so much. He should have called more. Texted more. Made more of an effort to actually get down and see him for Christ’s sake. Goody’d been barely four hours away when Shoresy was in Letterkenny. Less, if you didn’t give a fuck about the OPP.
Little late to fix those failures now, but he sure as hell knew how to make it up to him.
Neither of them were hard yet, but there was an easy solution for that. Shoresy gave his hips a gentle roll as he dipped down to nip along the column of Goody’s throat. Goody’s fingers cupped the back of Shoresy’s head and threaded through his hair. Shoresy shuddered under the familiar touch.
Slowly, Goody’s fingers tightened, and he tugged steadily until Shoresy got the message and pulled back. Shoresy planted a hand awkwardly on the mattress as he sat up enough to meet Goody’s eyes. Goody held him still and studied his face carefully, eyebrows knit in concentration as he searched for whatever it was he was looking for.
The seconds ticked slowly. Shoresy twisted his fingers in the sheets and fought the urge to swat him away.
“What?” Shoresy muttered, growing increasingly unsteady under the weight of Goody’s thoughtful gaze. It was fine. He was fucking fine. Little sore, little tired, and his stupid brain was starting to pick up steam again the longer he had to sit still and be stared at, but what the fuck was the problem?
"Do you actually wanna fuck, or d'you just think you should?"
Shit. Shoresy dropped his forehead to Goody’s sternum to hide the flush of shame that coloured his cheeks. "I just wanna be good to you."
"You’re always good to me. Don’t have to prove anything here,” Goody said, brushing loose strands back from Shoresy’s forehead before carding his fingers through his hair. Shoresy wanted to close his eyes and sink into the rhythm of his touch, but it wasn’t supposed to be about him. He should be—
“Let me just—”
Goody pressed his fingertips to the bruise blossoming across Shoresy’s ribs. The dull ache immediately flared hot and raced across his side, sharp and biting. Shoresy gritted his teeth and tucked his face into the crook of Goody’s neck, trying not to hiss through the pain.
“It’s literally nothing. I’ve fucked with worse. Fucked you with worse.” Petulant, spoiled child. Throwing a tantrum like an asshole. No wonder he doesn’t want to—
“Another time,” Goody said simply, and he rubbed a hand soothingly along Shoresy’s flank as he spoke. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Shoresy bristled his own transparency. Real fuckin’ annoying, to be seen through like he'd built a window where he'd been sure there was a wall. “Fuck you.”
“I know. Just shut up and kiss me.”
Goody’s hand cradled his face as he pulled him in for another kiss. Tender this time, with none of their earlier frantic hunger. His fingers traced meaningless patterns up and down Shoresy's spine, and Shoresy felt his racing heart start to slow.
He still couldn't shake the feeling that he was a bit of a fuck-up, even as Goody curled his fingers in his hair and tilted Shoresy's head to chase a better angle. Shoresy let him set the pace and matched him beat for beat, filling each kiss with a decade of promises that he hoped he could keep this time. Goody held him close and answered in kind.
Gradually, the fatigue of the day set in, and long kisses slowed to little more than a chaste and lazy press of lips. When Goody did a piss-poor job smothering a yawn into a kiss on Shoresy's cheek, Shoresy gave him one final peck before pulling back. He rested his chin on his friend's chest, watching him from under heavy lids.
Goody's fingers were feather-light along the shell of his ear, and he gave the lobe another quick tug. "Missed you," he said quietly. His fingers traced the shape of Shoresy's brow before he leaned in to kiss the middle of his forehead.
Shoresy sighed at the touch. "Missed you too, bud."
"You should come home more. Don't stay gone so long next time."
"Not sure what you're talkin' about, seeing as how we aren't even from the same fuckin' town. And you're the one who came to my home an' all." As much as anywhere was home, really. Sudbury was as good as the next place. Maybe even better than most. Better for sure, now, what with home coming to him.
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah," Shoresy said, pressing a kiss to the hollow of Goody's throat. "Yeah, I know what you mean."
Lacing their fingers together, Shoresy put an ear to Goody's chest, listened to the steady beat of his heart, and slowly felt his mind go blank.