Archive of Our Own

The thing between him and Will is that there is no string between them. They are both young, wild, and free which is exactly how Mack wants it. Deciding to carry something as heavy as a committed relationship while they are both barely into their twenties? Hell no. Mack lives his life and pushes himself toward his full potential without stopping, without looking back, without apologizing for any of it. 

Commitment to anything outside of hockey feels less like a sacrifice and more like a surrender and Mack does not surrender. He is competitive down to his bones. He never backs down from a challenge and he was born to win, maybe not always on the first try but always eventually, on whatever he sets his mind to. So no, a serious relationship was never on the agenda. 

Since stepping into the NHL, Mack’s life has shifted in more ways than one including the parts he keeps to himself. Not that he was ever lost about who he is or what he wants. He has known since he was young enough to know anything about himself. He had a girlfriend back then, and it was not like he had never been curious about guys either. He simply grew up early enough to understand how to go after what he wants, and that includes people.

The curiosity about men started in high school, quiet and persistent, sitting in the back of his mind while he was still with his girlfriend. He kept wondering what it would be like — many times — until one afternoon, with his teammate and he got his answer. However, that guy swore on everything he had that he would never say a word, and Mack has been grateful for that silence ever since. 

Because if his father had found out, or the scouts, or his girlfriend — everything he had spent years building would have collapsed in one afternoon. He is disciplined. He doesn’t do things that compromise his system. That incident was the exception, and he made sure it stayed buried. He found his rhythm after that, the natural window of teenage on-and-off breakups with his girlfriend gave him room to quietly explore without ever having to explain himself to anyone.

By the time he committed to BU, he had the whole thing figured out.

Boston University was not just a big NCAA program. It was the beginning of Mack understanding exactly how much power his name could hold in a room. His teammates were head over heels for him. Everyone wanted a piece of him, wanted to be near him, wanted to do whatever it took to stay in his orbit because everyone knew what Mack Celebrini was capable of, what he could carry, how far he could take a team. He did not bother hiding who he was. He never had to. He just existed and let everyone else bend around him, and they did — willingly, eagerly, every time.

The girls from the sororities wanted him on their arm. The guys on the team wanted to be his best friend or his linemate or both. And the select few people who ended up in his bed? They kept their mouths shut. Not because Mack threatened them. Because he was smart enough to only choose guys who had just as much to lose as he did. Frat boys with big family names. His teammates with professional futures on the line. Men who understood, without it ever needing to be said, that silence was the only currency that mattered between them. Mutually assured destruction is not a threat when both parties are invested in keeping it quiet. It is just an agreement. Mack built his system carefully and it worked very well. Aiden was supposed to keep him in the line when their father sent him along, but Mack has always been better at managing people than people expect. Even his own brother.

His life is an iceberg. What the outside world sees is just the surface — the golden boy, the generational talent player, the one everyone is betting on. He prefers it that way. He intends to keep it that way, for as long as he is still in this league.

The trophy collection idea started at BU. He was not conscious of it at first. It just became a pattern. The right profiles, the right people, the ones with enough going for them that being chosen by Mack felt like something worth protecting. He kept them like a private inventory, something to return to when the pressure of being extraordinary started to feel heavier than it looked from the outside. They reminded him that he was wanted. That he was winning at this too, not just hockey. Control in every corner of his life and that is the only way Mack knows how to function.

Playing for Boston University also meant inheriting one of the oldest, most suffocating rivalries in college hockey — Boston College, sitting right there on Chestnut Hill like it had something to prove. Mack had history with that program before he even stepped on the BU ice. Since his Chicago Steel days he had been going up against the Perreault-Smith-Leonard line, and that specific trio had lived rent-free in his head longer than he would ever admit. Will Smith, center, the one who matched him shift for shift and made Mack actually work for it. Gabe Perreault, who was different from the other two — they had crossed paths at a hockey camp years before, and Gabe was the kind of person who was genuinely easy to like. Ride or die, quietly loyal, the kind of friend Mack sometimes caught himself wishing he had more of outside of his own brother.

And then Ryan Leonard.

Physical, relentless, the kind of player who plays like he has a personal grievance against whoever is on the other side of the puck. Mack loved going up against him specifically because Ryan was easy to bait. A little pressure, a little trash talk, and Leonard would crack — jaw tight, composure gone, heading to the sin bin while Mack skated away with exactly what he wanted. It was almost too easy. But there was something underneath it that Mack filed away and never quite let go of, something about the way Ryan refused to back down even when he was losing, the way he played like losing was physically offensive to him. Mack recognized that. He just did not think about it too hard.

Nobody saw the Will Smith thing coming. Certainly not Mack.

One day they are rivals. The next they are teammates, and somehow, impossibly, they click immediately like the rivalry had just been two people who were supposed to be in each other's lives waiting to find the right context. Their friendship moved fast and it moved deep, and eventually it moved somewhere neither of them fully planned for. Mack is unbothered about what that thing between them became. It was not his crisis to have. While Will freaked out the way Will does, the Catholic guilt, the whole production, but they found their footing eventually, set their terms, and figured out what they were to each other. Something that did not need a label but had a weight. Somewhere between best friends and something they will not name. He respects Will more than almost anyone in his life. People who talk sideways about his Smitty in front of him should know better. He will not repeat himself on that.

What Mack cannot fully shake is the Leonard situation, specifically what happened between Leonard and Will after Will signed with San Jose instead of going back to resume what they had built at BC. There was a fallout. The details are not his to know, but the rumors made it through anyway, and Mack felt something on Will's behalf that he did not expect. Not his business. Nothing he can fix. But it settled in him anyway, somewhere adjacent to the irritation he has always felt about Leonard — that specific, particular irritation that is almost too sharp to just be disliked.

After the Olympic loss, Mack made a decision the same way he makes all his decisions completely and without hesitation. Canada. Whatever Canada needs, wherever they need him, he is there. The Men's Worlds was an automatic yes the moment San Jose was out of the playoffs. He knew he would have to go up against Will on that ice but it turned Will declined, he wanted to rest his shoulder and focus on his bulk season, which meant Gabe declined too, the way Gabe always follows Will's lead.

What Mack did not see coming was Ryan Leonard saying yes.

The moment he found out, something lit up in his chest. It felt like the redemption arc he did not know he was waiting for — not just to beat team USA, but doing it with Leonard specifically on the other side of the ice. Will's ex best friend. Will's fallout. The guy who has been sitting in the back of Mack's mind since they were teenagers. One tournament. Same environment. And Ryan Leonard is finally within reach.

Mack could not wait.

The night Canada eliminated the USA from the semi-final, the whole Canadian roster made one collective decision without anyone having to say it out loud. They were celebrating. One of the restaurants nearby had a bar running through the middle of it, half dining and half chaos, and that was enough. Everyone piled in, loud and loose and riding the kind of high that only comes from winning the game that actually matters. What none of them clocked was that the USA team had chosen the same restaurant for their own last dinner together for a quiet send-off for a tournament that ended too soon, on the wrong side of the scoreline.

The two camps kept to themselves mostly. Team Canada was too busy being victorious to notice, and Team USA was too busy grieving to care.

Macklin moved through the room the way he always did like he belonged at the center of it, because he did. His goal. His tournament. His night. Everyone wanted a piece of him and he gave it out generously, the handshakes and the laughter and the gratitude, genuine enough that nobody would ever read the boredom underneath it. But it was there. It was always there eventually, that specific restlessness that crept in when the celebration started to feel like a loop — the same congratulations, the same conversation, the same version of himself reflected back at him over and over. He was grateful. He was. He just needed to breathe air that was not saturated with his own name for five minutes.

He slipped past Minten near the edge of the crowd. They exchanged a few words before Mack excused himself with a look that said don't make it a thing. Minten nodded and told him not to get so drunk, afraid he couldn't find his way back to the hotel. Mack smiled and kept moving.

And then, like the universe had been listening, there he was.

Ryan Leonard. On the balcony, tucked into the far corner where the light was dim enough that most people would not bother looking. Most people. Mack's eyes moved across a room the way they moved across the ice — fast, precise, already knowing where everything was before he consciously registered it. Ryan Leonard was not difficult to find. That frame was impossible to miss anywhere — broad shoulders, built chest, the kind of physical presence that took up space without trying. Something about it made Mack pause, just for a second. Just long enough to let himself wonder, briefly and without guilt, what it would feel like to press himself into that.

He breathed in once. Steadied himself. This was not so different from stepping onto the ice. It’s the same click of readiness, the same instinct locking into place. Except this was not a rink and the prize at the end of this was not a scoreline.

"Hey." Mack was the one who started it, because of course he was. He always started it.

Leno surfaced from whatever he had been drowning in. His expression shifting just barely, eyebrows lifting before he could stop them. Of all the people in that restaurant, Macklin Celebrini was the last one he expected to come looking for him. What did this guy even want? Pity? The satisfaction of seeing a sore loser up close? To rub in the goal, or the scoreline, or the fact that he had Will cheering him on from wherever he was watching and Leno had — nothing? Couple points, no linemates, no reason to be at this tournament except stubbornness?

Leno went blank. His thoughts wouldn't form properly, snagged somewhere between the sour residue of the loss and something else he hadn't anticipated — the smell of Celebrini up close. Something clean and warm and quietly expensive. Of course. The golden boy of Sidney Crosby's legacy, the young prince of Canada, and he even smelled perfect. Everything about this guy was exactly what Leno had spent years wanting for himself — to be that chosen, that appreciated, that wanted. He caught himself before the thought could go anywhere useful and filed it under not now.

He didn't want to make a scene. He was a sore loser on the inside only. Outside he still had some manners.

"Hi, Leno?" Mack tried the nickname easily, the one he had picked up from the way Will used it, testing how it landed.

"Sup." Flat. Polite enough from Leno.

"You bored in there too?"

"Needed air." Leno said it. Simple. Direct. No performance.

"Yeah. Same." Mack settled beside him at the railing like he had been invited, which he had not been, and looked out at the same view. Leno said nothing. He was not interested in being charming tonight and he was not interested in pretending he was fine with the scoreline just because a few hours had passed. He stared out at the city and let the silence sit.

The silence was the first thing that actually threw Mack off. He was used to people filling the space around him — talking too much, laughing too fast, working too hard to keep him engaged. Ryan Leonard was not doing any of that. He was just standing there. Unbothered. Like Mack's presence was something he could take or leave.

It was the most interesting thing anyone had done to him all evening.

Out of nowhere, Sam Dickinson appeared a few minutes later, because he had the emotional intelligence of someone twice his age and the social instincts to match. He read the balcony in about four seconds — two guys, loaded tension, neither of them talking — and made the very smart decision not to ask questions. He just gave the drinks for them and disappeared back inside, quietly deciding this was not his business and there would be no fight tonight, which was good enough for him. He just wanted Mack to know he was there if anything came up.

The drinks helped. They always do.

A few shots in and the stiffness between them started to crack — slowly at first, then all at once, the way tension usually breaks when alcohol and dim lighting and enough time all conspire together. The Team Canada vs Team USA thing, the BU vs BC thing, all of it started to feel less like live ammunition and more like material. They found something stupid to laugh about, the kind of laugh that sneaks up on you when you are not guarding yourself anymore and Mack felt the click of it, that specific satisfaction of finally getting through. Of someone's walls coming down because of him.

Leno was less drunk than Mack but not sober enough to be careful. He noticed the way Mack's whole face changed when he laughed — the shark-sharp smile, the easy brightness of it, the way he seemed younger and less constructed than the golden boy everybody watched on the ice. He noticed it and did not particularly want to be noticing it but there it was.

The music inside got louder. The crowd got thicker. The space between them on the balcony railing got smaller without either of them making a conscious decision about it.

Mack was drunk, not dangerously or not sloppily. He was happy. Specifically, pointedly happy to be standing next to the person who spent years living in the back of his mind as unfinished business.

Leno, clearer-headed and increasingly aware that Mack was fading fast, started doing the quiet math of the situation. The crowd inside had swallowed most of the people who might have been keeping an eye on Celebrini. Dickinson was deep in a conversation with some older fan across the room. Leno looked at Mack — bright-eyed, a little unsteady, arms starting to migrate toward Leno's shoulders with the casual physical confidence of someone who had never been told no. He offered to walk him back to his hotel. Mack texted Dickie so nobody would panic about a missing golden boy and then leaned into Leno's space like it was the most natural thing in the world.

They were more alike than Leno had wanted to admit all night. Both of them are competitive to the point of pathology. Both of them are allergic to losing. But where Will had always softened around Mack like accommodating, careful, smoothing things over before they became conflicts. But Leno did not do that. He pushed back. Leno matched him. And some hungry, restless part of Mack had been waiting for exactly that without realizing it had been waiting at all.

"You know—" Mack said this to Leno's shoulder, arms slung around his neck, grinning at nothing, "—Smitty would be so jealous if he knew we were buddies now."

He said it like it was funny. Like it was just the alcohol talking. Like it had not been sitting at the very bottom of his thoughts all night, waiting for exactly this much whiskey to surface.

Leno's brain went a little quiet.

He looked at Mack — the ridiculous smile, the way he was beaming up at Leno like Leno was the only person in his orbit right now and felt something shift in his chest. For a moment, just a moment, his presence felt like it mattered. Not to a crowd, not to a team, not to a scoreline. To this specific, impossible, infuriating person. Macklin

He filed that thought somewhere dangerous and kept walking.

The elevator at Mack's hotel swallowed them both. Mack was attached to him like something with eight arms, hands everywhere, saying things Leno couldn’t quite catch over the music still buzzing in his ears, giggling into his shoulder like they had been doing this for years.

Leno stared at the elevator doors and thought about Will Smith and told himself this was fun.

It was going to be fun.

Leno’s pov

The moment Celebrini said Smitty would be jealous of the two of them together right now, something suddenly clicked in Leno's brain like a bell going off — sharp and sudden, cutting right through the fog of the loss and the alcohol and the general misery of the last few days. It was like the sour feeling of losing to Canada had been sitting on top of something this whole time, and now that something was surfacing. An opportunity. Something shining right in front of him, practically asking to be taken.

If anyone wanted to understand how much he resented Will Smith, they would first have to understand what it felt like to call someone your best friend for more than a decade and then watch them leave everything behind. Including you. Especially you. After conversations that felt like agreements. After plans that felt mutual. The leaving hurt in a way Leno had not been prepared for, and he had been angry about being unprepared for it ever since. He had invested in that friendship the way he invested in everything he decided mattered and somewhere along the way, without ever naming it or examining it too closely, something else had been forming underneath all of that investment. Something he still could not fully look at directly. Which was probably why the leaving had hurt more than anything else ever had.

Leno started the new season on a line with James Hagens playing center instead of Will. James was good. He’s genuinely good, incredible even, well connected with both Leno and Gabe, someone who brought his own intelligence to the ice. He was a real player and Leno knew it. But he was also just another person. Just another human being who was not Will, and many times, more than Leno would ever say out loud. He caught himself wishing it was Will standing there instead. His pettiness showed in the gaps. Of course, people noticed. Even when he publicly complimented James, even when he said James was better than his previous center. He meant it. He also did not mean it. Both things lived in him at the same time and he had stopped trying to resolve the contradiction.

Do not ask him about that day. James had warned him once about dragging him into whatever mess was living between Leno and Will. Gabe had made his disapproval clear about Leno using Will's name as ammunition for his own sore loser grief. At the end of the day, Leno was still the one swallowing his feelings alone. Everyone cared about how Will would feel. Everyone made room for Will's experience of the fallout. Nobody stopped to ask whether Leno was allowed to grieve it. Nobody let him be upset in silence without treating it like pettiness. It felt like he had never won anything in his life — or at least — especially with a person named Will Smith always somewhere in the background, a gravitational pull that everyone else oriented themselves around without even noticing they were doing it.

And now the forbidden fruit was standing right in front of him.

Why would Leno let go of a chance to win something over Will Smith for once in his life?

Maybe if he slept with Celebrini it would get under Will's skin. Everyone in the NHL knew about WillMack. The league and the fans adored them — the best duo, the golden pair, the highlight reel that kept getting shared and replayed and talked about until Leno was tired of hearing his own name attached to the commentary about them. When Will left, Leno had wished, quietly and viciously, that Will would never find anyone who could give him what Leno and Gabe had given him. That nobody would just step in and fill the space like it had always been empty belonging to them.

And then destiny, being the ridiculous thing the way it was, handed Will Macklin Celebrini. Their biggest rival from BU. The guy who had been on the opposite side of every important game since Leno could remember, and somehow he and Will had clicked together like something that was always supposed to fit. Inseparable. Everyone's favorite. The kind of duo that got their own nickname and their own corner of the internet and their own highlight packages that Leno had unfortunately watched more than once in moments of weakness. 

Every time he saw them together whether on the ice, in the clips, in the interviews, something tightened in his chest that he refused to call what it actually was. He could not move on. He could not let it go. It lived inside him and ate at him quietly, and he was sick of it. Sick of them. Sick of wishing it had been him instead of Celebrini. He had known Will for more than a decade. He had never once gotten what Celebrini seemed to get just by showing up. Not even Gabe got that. Not even Will Vote. Celebrini came from nowhere and walked straight into everything Leno had wished for it.

And now Will's favorite boy(toy) was giggling in his arms. Laughing. Hanging off him like Leno was the only solid thing in the room.

How was that not going to do something to him.

He decided he would give Celebrini a choice when they got back to the hotel. He would let him choose — Leno or Will. If Celebrini chose Will, Leno would walk away and tonight would be nothing. A balcony conversation between rivals. No harm done. He was not that kind of loser, even with pettiness running hot in his chest. But if Celebrini chose him — actually chose him — then Leno was going to wreck him in every way Will never could.

He knew how Will worked. Careful with the things he cared about. Gentle with his pets. Like everything precious to him was something that might break under too much pressure.

But Mack was not Will's possession. He was not Will's pet to be handled carefully.

Tonight he was Leno's pawn. And Leno could do whatever he wanted.

They were kissing from the moment Mack opened his hotel room door. Mack yanked his shirt hard, trying to pull them both toward the bed. Leno was out of control. There was nothing left inside his head anymore, not since the moment he had decided this was about getting back at Will Smith by fucking Celebrini.

"How much do you want it, hmm?" Leno was trying so hard to make Mack refuse him, but oh boy, This guy was not helping at all. He was already trying to take Leno's clothes off, both of them stumbling over their own shoes. Everything was a complete mess. Leno kept slipping up in between their kisses.

Mack smelled so good. His pretty face was flushed red from the alcohol or maybe from whatever they were doing. Right now, Leno’s mind was not in a place to form sentences, which was something he wished he could fix because he needed to say something. He wanted to say something about the two of them kissing in this hotel room, about how this was heading somewhere both of them might regret later. But on his end, he had already made up his mind somewhere between the bar and the elevator. What he was not sure about was Mack. He wished he could get the words out, but Mack was not cooperating at all — kissing his lower lip, biting it, trying to suck it from his mouth like he had all the time in the world and nothing else mattered. It was fucking mind-blowing for Leno to be on the receiving end of this kind of intimacy.

"What if Smitty finds out about me?" Leno cut the corner to it. He was so wound up the urge to wreck Macklin Celebrini was crawling its way to the surface and he did not think he could hold it back much longer.

Celebrini stopped kissing him immediately. He pulled back from Leno's mouth like the question had been a current running through him. He looked Leno directly in the eyes like he was searching for something, then closed his own and rested his forehead against Leno's shoulder — weighing something, working through it, fighting the alcohol that was making every decision take twice as long.

They were standing in the middle of the room. Mack did not try to pull away. His arms stayed wrapped around Leno like he was afraid Leno would disappear if he loosened his grip. Leno felt the awkwardness of it settle around them. He had walked in here with a revenge plan running in the back of his mind, and now he was wondering what would happen if Celebrini realized what was actually going on. If Mack said no, that was fine. Perfectly fine. Maybe. But Leno was so hard right now and he needed this, and if Mack said yes — if he actually said yes — then Leno was going to wreck this guy so thoroughly that Will Smith would be a distant memory by morning.

Mack lifted his head from Leno's shoulder and looked at him again. He had made up his mind. It was written all over his face.

"Fuck Smitty—" He paused like the next part needed to be exactly right. His eyes were glossy, lit up with something that might have been tears or might have been the alcohol or might have been both. "I want you to fuck me right now."

Then he kissed along Leno's sharp jawline, down to his throat, to his shoulder, and used his tongue to unbutton his shirt which did something catastrophic to Leno's brain.

Mack got pushed onto the bed the second he unbuttoned Leno’s shirt. The shirt thing had done it. Leno came up to sit between his legs and helped strip his shirt off before pulling his jeans and boxers down in one motion — quick, feral, no patience for anything else. Mack was fully naked now but he did not feel cold at all. The opposite. He felt burning in a room he usually kept at a low temperature.

Nothing could stop Leno after that. The moment Mack's clothes were gone, he flipped him face down onto the bed and spanked his ass like it was something he had been annoyed at and was finally getting to address. His hands were everywhere. His mind had gone fully feral, locked entirely onto the goal of wrecking Macklin Celebrini in every possible way. 

He kissed down Mack's nape to his back, dragging his beard slowly along the smooth skin, raising goosebumps and pulling a small moan out of him. Leno kept going — mouth traveling all the way down to the curve of Mack's hip, sucking and biting at it like it was something to be chewed on. Mack squirmed and tried to roll himself over, wanting to turn and kiss Leno, but Leno's other hand pressed firmly down on the back of his neck and kept him from moving. Mack screamed into the pillow and kicked his feet in protest. Not because it was bad. Because it was too much and he needed Ryan Leonard to actually fuck him right now.

Leno let go because he thought he had been pressing Mack into the pillow too hard. But the moment he released him, Mack rolled over instantly and pulled Leno down into a kiss.

Leno used the opening to run his hand from Mack's chest all the way down, grabbing his cock and working it slowly. Mack twitched in his arms immediately and dug his fingers into Leno's shoulder like the grip was the only thing keeping him together. Leno was here for every second of this. He wanted to draw it out — a little punishment, paying back even a fraction of what it felt like to have Will Smith taken from him by someone who did not even have to try.

"Touch yourself for me. I want to see it." Leno said.

It came out more like an order than anything else. Mack heard it exactly that way.

He pulled himself off the bed on unsteady legs and walked to the small table in the corner of the room — the kind every hotel provided — and sat up on it, feet propped on the chair armrests, legs spread, and used his fingers to open himself up.

Leno leaned back against the headboard and stripped off his remaining clothes, watching, working himself slowly while Mack did exactly what he was told. They held eye contact across the room like it was a competition — watching to see which one of them broke first.

"Please, Leno—" Mack was close. He was already begging to come back to the bed.

"Come here."

Mack heard the permission and started moving — crawling from the end of the bed toward Leno slowly, showing every inch of himself along the way. The curve of his hip. The muscle lines across his shoulders. His back. Everything was exposed and beautiful in a way that Leno had not fully prepared himself for.

Mack climbed into his lap, lined Leno up, and sank down onto him before starting to move — arms wrapped around Leno's neck, legs propped on the mattress for leverage, setting his own rhythm. Leno just watched. Held his hips. Let him work.

For Leno. This was fucking everything. There was nothing left in his head, no revenge, no plan, no Will Smith. Just this moment, this Macklin moving above him, and the desperate need to hold onto every second of it because something in the back of his mind was already telling him there might not be another time.

They went through every position before the night was done. At one point Leno pulled Mack up from the bed entirely and moved them to the couch — bending him over the armrest, hands braced against the cushions, pounding into him at a pace that left no room for thought. Mack arched into every thrust. What a fucking slut. Leno had not known his new pawn came with a body this impressive, this flexible, this completely unashamed. He kept going until they both came and the room went quiet.

They made it back to the bed. Mack passed out almost immediately — the long day, the alcohol, the everything — and Leno lay there beside him for a moment looking at the wreckage.

Mack was completely undone. Damp hair stuck to his face, skin flushed all over, breathing slow and deep. Holy shit. Ryan Leonard stared at the ceiling and tried to figure out what had just happened to him, because something had happened that was not part of the plan.

The sex had been so good that he might be reconsidering everything.

He was supposed to be the one doing the wrecking. That had been the whole idea. But lying here in this hotel room with Celebrini passed out next to him, Leno felt something that had nothing to do with Will Smith and everything to do with the fact that he wanted this again. Maybe. Not as a pawn move. Not as revenge. Just — again. For himself.

He got up quietly. Cleaned them both up. Put his boxer back on and then stood there for a moment looking at Mack sleeping before putting the rest of his clothes on, and left his phone number on the table by the door before walking out.

The sex had been that good.

He would probably change his mind about all of it later. Maybe.

After the night between him and Leno, Mack finally achieved what he had been waiting for so long. Leno was on his shelf now, another trophy collected. But something about it did not quite settle the way it usually did. It was not like he had done something wrong he knew that but he always shared everything with Will, including who he slept with. Keeping the Leno thing from Will felt like carrying a weight he had not signed up for. He needed to tell him. But it would not be as simple as hey dude, I slept with your ex-best friend slash linemate from BC, hope you don't mind since you two aren't close anymore.

No. It was not going to be that easy.

Thinking about the chaos that was coming, Mack started to second-guess his impulsive decision to add this particular trophy to his shelf. But then he would catch himself smiling about how good it had actually been with Leonard. Well, it’s Leno now, since they were close, very close at this point.

After Worlds, his father told him he needed to rest before straightening out for camps. Rick was worried about Mack overworking his body and the long-term damage that came with it, so he suggested spending time with the family. But Aiden was at the prospects camp with the Canucks, his mom was busy with his sister, Charlie, and his dad was focused on RJ’s tournament right now. So Mack asked if he could go to Boston to spend some time with Will. Besides Vancouver and San Jose, Boston was the city he was familiar with. Will got his message and had no problem with it whatsoever. The Smith family were welcoming as always. Will even offered for Mack to stay with them but Mack politely declined. Better to keep a little distance. 

The day Mack arrived in Boston, Will picked him up from the airport, helped him check into the hotel, and took him to dinner with his family. The welcome was warm the way it always was with the Smiths, and sitting there at the table Mack could not stop turning the thing over in his head,  whether to tell Will, how to tell Will, whether tonight was even the right time at all.

They made a lot of plans together before Mack came to Boston. Colleen was fine with the boys going out and doing whatever teenagers do. She had no worries about Mack and Will together, so Will was allowed to stay the night at the hotel if they were having too much fun to call it early. Which they were, the way they always were — stuck together like glue, doing everything together, meeting up with some mutual friends. After dinner with the boys, Will and Mack headed back to Mack's hotel. They had an early plan the next morning so it made sense for Will to just stay over.

Mack decided this was the moment.

"You know." Mack started carefully, testing the water. "I ran into Leonard at Worlds."

Will raised his eyebrows, signaling that he had heard, and waited for Mack to continue.

"Team Canada had dinner at the same place as team USA. So I kind of ended up talking to him a bit." Mack kept his voice even, watching Will out of the corner of his eye while Will stood in front of the bathroom drying his damp hair with a towel. He was reading every micro-expression, every shift in posture, trying to figure out whether to keep going or cut it off entirely.

"Mack." Will did not even look up. "Cut the crap. What's going on?"

He always knew. That was the thing about Will, he always knew when Mack was circling something. Since Will was clearly ready to hear it, Mack decided not to back down.

"I slept with him." Flat voice. Steady eyes. Watching Will's body language like his life depended on it.

"You WHAT?"

Will threw the towel onto the bed. Not violently, but with enough force that it landed with a weight to it. He had heard exactly what Mack said. He just needed to hear it again.

"C’mon. You heard me."

Will needed to sit down. He moved to the edge of the bed and sat facing Mack, who was still on the couch in his pajamas looking like he was bracing for impact. Will exhaled slowly — the exhale of a man who could already feel a headache forming behind his eyes.

He was not angry. Maybe. He just had not expected it. Not this, not Leno, and definitely not from Mack who had seemed to dislike Ryan Leonard more than almost anyone else on the planet. The idea that Mack had slept with him was so far outside anything Will had ever mapped onto their situation that his brain genuinely could not process it.

"What the hell did you get yourself into?" He exhaled again, sat back, crossed his arms, and pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose like he was manually preventing the headache from landing.

"I'm sorry." Mack meant it. Will not shouting, not going cold, just sitting there quietly processing — that was somehow worse than anger.

"Why are you sorry? We already settled things between us."

"I felt bad. I don't know. Maybe you'd hate me for it."

"Listen to me." Will looked at him directly. "I don't hate you. I just want to understand why. You can explain or not — you don't owe me anything. But I'm just asking."

"I've liked him for a while—" Mack looked at Will with something that was dangerously close to the expression he made when he was about to cry. Suddenly, he felt like a kid who had done something wrong and was waiting to find out how bad the punishment was going to be.

"And?"

"I don't know. I thought I hated him. I thought I even hated him more because of whatever happened between you two. So when I got the opportunity I just — went for it. You know. Like I was doing something for you." He looked at Will with a small, honest pout. Completely unguarded.

"Okay." Will blinked. "How exactly is sleeping with him a revenge for me?"

Mack went quiet.

"Did you actually fuck him or what?" Will snorted. He hated silences like this. He just needed the answer.

"No."

Will turned his head quickly toward Mack like he had just heard something that temporarily short-circuited his brain.

"So." Will's voice was measured. "You found him hotter than you expected, all that hatred turned into something else the moment you were drunk enough to act on it, and now here we are."

Mack said nothing. Which was the same as saying yes.

"Are you mad?" Mack still needed to hear it. He always needed to hear it.

"I might be. A little. But it doesn't matter." Will said it like he had already made peace with it and was simply reporting the conclusion. "It's not like it changes anything now."

Mack looked at him for a moment. "Can I make it up to you?"

He said it with that specific innocence in his eyes that Will had never once been able to say no to, leaning forward from the couch with his whole face doing the thing it did when Mack knew exactly what he was asking for without asking for it directly.

Will did not say anything. He just pointed his finger at the floor.

And Mack moved from the couch to the floor in front of him without hesitating, hands already finding the waistband of Will's sweats like his body knew the choreography by heart. Tonight is going to be a long night, but whatever makes Will happy, he has no problem completing that task. And before his last conscious thought fully dissolved, Will said quietly — almost to himself like he was only half serious — that maybe next time Leno should join them.

Mack smiled into what he was doing, relieved in a way that settled deep in his chest. Will was not mad. They were fine. Whatever this was between the two of them, it was not broken.

That was all that mattered. That was really all that ever mattered to him.

The weight lifted the moment Will pointed at the floor.

Not because of what followed, but because the thing Mack had been carrying since Worlds was finally out in the open and Will had looked at it and decided it was not worth being broken over. That was all he had needed. Will know. Will is still being Will about it. The relief of it settled into his chest like something clicking back into place after sitting wrong for weeks.

He slept better that night than he had since last week.

In the morning, while Will was still asleep and the Boston sunlight was doing something soft and unhurried through the hotel curtains, Mack lay on his back staring at the ceiling and let himself just — exist for a minute with the quiet of a problem solved and the particular satisfaction of being on the right side of Will Smith's patience.

Then he reached for his wallet on the table next to the bed.

The note was still in the wallet. Small, folded once, Ryan's handwriting in the kind of sharp deliberate print that somehow looked exactly like how he played hockey. Just the number. Nothing else. No name, no message, nothing that would mean anything to anyone who found it. Smart. Controlled. Very Ryan Leonard.

Mack unfolded it and looked at it for a moment.

Then he saved the number into his phone.

His father had called twice since he arrived at Boston — just to check in. Rick Celebrini had watched his son carry an entire tournament on his back and score the goal that mattered most and then come home looking like something was still unfinished inside him, and he was afraid. Afraid that pushing too hard too soon would crack something that needed time to set properly.

Mack had reassured him. He was fine. He just needed a little more time with the boys before the structure of camp pulled him back in.

That was half true.

He did miss hockey — missed it the way he always missed it when it was not immediately in front of him, like a phantom limb, like background noise that had been turned off and left the room too quiet. But the part his father did not know, and did not need to know, was that the thing currently occupying the space hockey usually held in his daily mental inventory was Ryan Leonard.

Specifically — what Will had whispered to him before everything dissolved last night.

Maybe next time Leno should join them.

Mack had smiled about it then because it was a relief and Will was not mad and that was all he had been focused on. But lying here in the morning quiet, turning it over properly, he realized it was not just a throwaway comment. This was Will. Will did not say things he did not mean. Will said exactly what he meant and then waited for the world to arrange itself accordingly, which it usually did because Will Smith was quietly the most patient person Mack had ever met and patience in the right hands was its own kind of power.

Will wanted Leno in their bed.

Will had essentially given him a mission.

Mack looked at the saved contact on his phone. The mischief arrived before he had even fully decided to act on it, warm and specific, the same feeling he got right before a play clicked into place on the ice.

He opened a new message.

Hey! This is Mack.

He sent it and put the phone face down on the mattress and waited with the patience of someone who was absolutely not patient at all.

A few hours passed.

He had checked the phone four times. Responded to two messages from Aiden about something unrelated. Eaten half a room service croissant. Watched Will wake up, shower, and start getting ready for whatever they had planned today with the completely unbothered energy of someone who had slept perfectly and was not anxiously waiting for anything.

Then his phone buzzed.

Hi. It's Leno.

Three words. Flat. Giving nothing away. Exactly Ryan Leonard.

Mack read it twice and felt something light up in his chest that he was choosing not to examine too carefully. He typed back immediately, then deleted it, then typed something else. Which was not a thing he did. He did not second-guess messages. He sent things and people responded and that was the natural order of the universe.

He sent the second version.

What Mack did not know — what he had no way of knowing from the careful neutrality of hi it's Leno — was that Leno had been waiting since the moment he walked out of that hotel room.

He had flown back to the States telling himself the number was just courtesy. A formality. The kind of thing you did. He had gone through his first two days back doing normal things and checking his phone a normal amount and definitely not wondering whether Celebrini had found the note yet or thrown it away or saved it or lost it in a jacket pocket.

He had heard through the particular osmosis of hockey social circles that Celebrini was still in Boston. With Will, obviously. Of course with Will. Leno had filed that information somewhere and moved on with his day.

He had been in Boston himself for a week now, catching up with some of the BC boys before heading home. It was fine. It was good actually. Familiar. Comfortable in the way that places you know well are comfortable even when something about them reminds you of things you are not thinking about.

He was not thinking about Macklin Celebrini.

When the message came through from an unknown number he almost did not open it. Then he read the preview on his lock screen and sat very still for a moment.

Hey! This is Mack.

The exclamation point was doing something to him that he refused to acknowledge.

He waited two hours before replying. Not because he was playing a game — he was absolutely playing a game — but because he needed the two hours to decide what version of himself was going to respond to this message. The one who had a plan. The one who had reconsidered the plan. The one who was still figuring out if those were even different people anymore.

He typed hi it's Leno and sent it before he could complicate it further.

What followed was not what Leno had expected from Macklin Celebrini, who he had assumed would be the kind of texter who said what he wanted immediately and directly because that was how he did everything else.

Instead they just — talked.

Small things at first. Leno said something about the city. Mack responded with a specific recommendation, somewhere near Fenway, very confident about it the way he was confident about everything. Ryan pushed back on the recommendation. Mack defended it. It turned into a fifteen minute argument about a restaurant that neither of them were going to because they were on opposite sides of the city and had not made any plans.

Leno realized he was smiling at his phone.

He put it face down on the table.

Picked it back up thirty seconds later.

Mack extended his stay in Boston.

He told his father he needed a few more days — the city was good for him, he was resting, he was spending time with Will and the boys, he was not thinking about hockey every second of every day which was what Rick had been asking for. His father exhaled with the specific relief of a man who had been worried and was choosing to believe the reassurance he was being given.

Mack felt a little bad about it. Maybe thirty percent bad.

The other seventy percent was occupied by the increasingly interesting text conversation with Ryan Leonard and the very specific plan he was constructing for how to make Will's offhand comment into something real. He was going to be Will's good boy about this. He was going to deliver Ryan Leonard into their orbit the way Will had suggested without suggesting, which was exactly the kind of thing Mack was built for.

He just needed Leno to be in the same room first.

He picked up his phone.

So are you actually in Boston or are you already gone.

Not a question. A test.

He waited.

Still in Boston.

Leno's reply came back in eleven minutes which was the fastest he had responded to anything in three days. Mack noted that without commenting on it.

Why.

Not a question. Also a test. They were both doing this — the back and forth of two people who communicated primarily through what they did not say directly. Mack found it entertaining in a way he had not expected. Most people were easier to read than this. Most people gave themselves away within the first few exchanges. Leno was still making him work for it on day four and that was — something. He was not going to think about what kind of thing right now.

Come to the hotel tomorrow. We'll get food together.

He sent the address before Leno could ask for it. Then he put his phone down and looked at Will who was sitting across the room reading something on his laptop with the completely peaceful energy of a man who had no idea what Mack was engineering from the other side of the room.

Except Will always knew. That was the thing about Will.

"You have that face." Will said without looking up.

"I have a lot of faces."

"The one where you've decided something." Will turned a page. "The hockey face but for regular life."

Mack said nothing. Which was confirmation enough.

Will's mouth moved at the corner. He kept reading.

Mack's phone buzzed.

What time.

He smiled at the ceiling.

The next afternoon Will had plans that had existed before Mack extended his stay — lunch with some of his mother's friends, the kind of obligation Will honored without complaint because that was the kind of person he was. He had offered to cancel. Mack had told him not to with the generous ease of someone who needed him gone for four hours and was grateful for the natural cover.

They rode down in the elevator together. In the lobby Will stopped and checked his pockets with the mild focus of someone running a quick inventory.

"Keys." He patted his jacket. "Phone." His back pocket. He looked around.

"Charger's in the car." Mack said.

"Right." Will nodded. He seemed unbothered about it, which meant he was going to leave it and come back later, which was fine, which was not a problem. Mack's plan had a four hour window and the charger was not in the window.

Will kissed the side of his head at the lobby door. "I’ll be back soon."

He said it lightly. The way he said most things that meant more than they sounded like. Mack watched the car pull out and stood in the lobby for a moment doing absolutely nothing suspicious before going back upstairs.

He showered. Put on the shirt. Set the room temperature exactly the way he liked it, which was cold enough that other people always commented on it. He made the bed, which he did not usually do in hotels, and then sat on the end of it and looked at his phone.

Downstairs Leno had texted four minutes ago.

Mack went down to get him.

Leno's pov

He had told himself three different stories about why he was doing this on the drive over.

The first was that it was just food. Mack had mentioned food and Leno was a person who ate food and there was nothing remarkable about two former rivals getting a meal in a city they both happened to be in. This story lasted until he pulled into the hotel parking lot and became impossible to maintain in the face of the obvious facts.

The second was that this was still, in some residual way, about Will. That showing up here was a continuation of the same logic he had started with in Europe. This story had been getting harder to believe for several days and by the time he was standing in the hotel lobby it had effectively dissolved. He was not here about Will Smith. He had not been here about Will Smith since approximately the second day of texting when Leno had laughed at something Mack said and then sat alone in his room feeling genuinely good about it and been unable to locate Will Smith anywhere in that feeling.

The third story was the true one and it was the simplest and it was the one he had been avoiding because simple true things had a way of becoming complicated once you acknowledged them.

He wanted to be here. That was it. He just wanted to be here.

He was standing near the entrance with his hands in his jacket pockets when the elevator opened and Mack walked out and Leno had a moment of hating how immediately his attention reorganized itself around this guy. The white shirt. The way he moved. The smile that arrived just a half second too early to be casual.

"You came." Mack said.

"I said I would."

"You also said I was wrong about the restaurant."

"You are wrong about the restaurant. I looked it up."

Mack tilted his head toward the elevator. "Come up for a minute. I need to grab my wallet."

Leno followed him into the elevator and told himself this was still about food right up until the moment the doors closed and Mack was standing close enough that Leno could smell him and the food story became the least convincing thing he had ever tried to believe.

The room was quiet and cold and organized in the specific way of someone who needed their environment to reflect the order inside their head. Leno stood near the door. A key on the nightstand. The window showing Boston gray and mid-afternoon. A charger cable coiled on the desk that did not look like it belonged to Mack.

He registered all of this in the background while Mack crossed to the desk drawer looking for his wallet.

"Was Smitty here?"

It came out flatter than he meant it to. Mack looked up and did the thing with his eyes — the fast complete scan that Leno had started to recognize as Mack actually paying attention rather than just looking.

"He had lunch with his family." Mack said. "He'll be back later."

Ryan turned the word later over.

"You knew he'd be gone."

"I knew he had lunch." Mack found his wallet. Turned to face him fully. "That's not the same thing."

It was completely the same thing and the particular way Mack said it — calm, unbothered, not quite smiling — made something in Leno's chest do something inconvenient.

He should have kept the distance. Should have stayed near the door and maintained the fiction that this was a food visit between former rivals who had happened to sleep together once in Europe and were now adults about it.

He crossed the room instead.

Mack kissed him like he had been waiting for Leno to stop overthinking it. Which he probably had been. Leno had one hand in his hair and the other at the back of his neck and for a moment there was nothing in his head at all — no plan, no Will, no game, no careful inventory of what this meant or did not mean. Just this. Just Mack. Just the specific relief of being somewhere he had been telling himself he should not go.

They were still kissing when the door opened.

Will's pov

Will realized about the charger wasn't in the car at the traffic light two blocks from the restaurant.

He had turned around with the mild inconvenience of someone who had nowhere urgent to be and driven back to the hotel and taken the elevator up and knocked once — a courtesy, not a question — before using the second key card.

Mack had Ryan Leonard against the wall near the window.

Will stood in the doorway for a moment. Leno saw him first. Leno's expression did the thing Will had been half expecting — the complicated flash of someone calculating damage in real time, hands frozen, body going very still in the particular way of someone who had been caught and did not yet know what they had been caught doing wrong.

Mack turned around.

Will held up the charger cable.

"Forgot this."

He walked to the desk. Unplugged it. Wound it around his hand with the unhurried attention of someone completing a small task. The room was quiet except for the city outside the window and the specific silence of two people waiting to find out what happened next.

Will straightened up and looked at Leno.

Leno looked back at him. Still not moving. Still doing the math. Still somewhere between fight and flight and neither.

Will looked at the charger in his hand. Then at Mack. Then Leno was still against the wall.

"Maybe I should tell mom I got sick." He said it simply. Not a question. Not asking permission. Just reporting a decision he had already made while driving back to the hotel.

He sat on the end of the bed and opened his phone to send the message and gave them both the deliberate gift of his inattention. Looking down. Creating space. The king of the room pretending not to be.

Leno looked at him for a moment.

Then he looked at Mack.

Mack was watching him with that expression, the one that was half patience and half something that looked a lot like a dare. He had calculated this whole afternoon. The hotel. The timing. The wallet he definitely already knew where it was. And now Will was sitting six feet away on the end of the bed looking at his phone and Mack was looking at Leno like he was waiting to see what Leno was going to do with that.

Leno had come to Boston with something to prove.

Will sitting there unbothered, scrolling his phone, canceling his lunch like the situation was entirely unremarkable. It was not the reaction Leno had been built for. He had wanted friction. Had wanted Will to feel something sharp and specific the way Leno had been feeling something sharp and specific for months.

The quiet acceptance was worse than anger would have been.

So Leno took Mack's face in both hands, and kissed him.

Not the way he had been kissing him before Will walked in — not the private thing, the honest thing, the one that had nothing to do with anyone else in the world. This was different. This was Leno kissing Mack with full awareness that Will Smith was six feet away and could look up at any moment and Leno wanted him to look up. Wanted him to see it. Wanted something to land.

Mack made a small sound and kissed him back immediately with no hesitation, just Mack meeting him exactly where he was with that specific unhesitating certainty that Leno still had not fully gotten used to. His hands found Leno's jacket. Pulled. Like being watched was not a problem. Like being watched was maybe the point.

Because for Mack it probably was the point. Leno understood this distantly, in the back of his head where the part of him that was still thinking lived. Mack enjoyed this. The performance of it, the charge of it, the particular satisfaction of being wanted visibly by two people in the same room. The control freak who collected people was currently being collected by the moment and finding it completely acceptable.

Leno kissed him harder.

And then heard absolutely nothing from the direction of the bed.

No sharp intake of breath. No shift of weight. No phone being set down with intention. Nothing.

He pulled back from Mack enough to look.

Will was not on the phone anymore. He was watching. The corner of his mouth had done something small and private that was almost a smile, the kind that was not for anyone in the room, the kind that meant he had seen exactly what Leno had done and had filed it somewhere and found it — not threatening. Not painful. Quietly, insufferably amusing.

Leno stared at him.

Will met his eyes. Held them for a moment with that steady unbothered gaze that Leno was starting to understand was not performed. Was not a defense mechanism. Was just — Will. Will who had already processed this, already made room for it, already decided how he felt about it before Leno had even arrived at the hotel today.

Will met his eyes and held them and did not look away.

That was the thing that decided it for Leno. Not Mack's hands still pulling at his jacket. Not the charged quiet of the room or the city gray through the curtains or the particular way this afternoon had been building toward exactly this moment since Mack had texted come to the hotel three days into a conversation that was supposed to be about nothing.

It was Will holding eye contact with the specific patience of someone who had nowhere else to be and nothing to prove and was simply waiting to see what Leno was going to do next.

Leno turned back to Mack and kissed him.

Mack made a sound against his mouth that was half surprise and half something that was not surprise at all.

Behind them Will did not move. Leno heard nothing — no shift of weight, no intake of breath, no phone being set down. Just the city outside and the quiet of the room and the deliberate nothing of Will Smith deciding not to react.

Leno pulled back enough to look at Mack. Mack looked back at him flushed and bright-eyed and completely unbothered by the fact that Will was sitting in a chair six feet away watching this happen. More than unbothered. Lit up by it. The control freak who needed everything managed and contained was currently sprawled across a hotel bed being completely unmanaged and finding it excellent.

That was — something. Leno filed it for later.

He looked up.

Will had not moved from the chair. One leg crossed over the other. Hands loose in his lap. Watching with the attentive calm of someone at a game they had paid good money to see and intended to watch properly.

Not wounded. Not performing composure over wounds. Just watching. Choosing to be here.

Leno held his gaze for a moment. Then he looked back down at Mack and decided if Will Smith wanted a show then Ryan Leonard was going to give him one worth watching.

He took his time.

That was the first decision — calculated, the same way Leno approached anything he wanted to win. He was not going to rush this. He was going to be thorough in a way that required Will to sit in that chair and watch every single second of it.

Mack responded in the way Leno had suspected he might — with that barely-contained energy of someone whose control was slipping in a way they were choosing not to stop. His hands were in Leno's hair, at his shoulders, moving with the restless need of someone who wanted to steer and was being denied the wheel. Leno noticed this and did not give it back.

"Lenny—" Mack said quietly. Not loud enough for the room. Just for him.

Leno looked up at him. Mack's face was flushed, eyes dark, bottom lip caught between his teeth in a way that was doing something to Leno's ability to think clearly. He looked undone. The composed golden boy who managed every room he walked into was currently failing to manage this one and was completely fine about it.

Leno kissed the corner of his jaw. Felt him exhale.

He was aware of Will the whole time. Not intrusively and not the way he had been aware of Will in Europe when awareness meant strategy. Just present. The soft sound of Will shifting slightly in the chair. The particular quality of attention from that direction that Leno had started to be able to feel without looking.

He looked anyway.

Will's expression had changed by small degrees. Still composed. Still that unbothered steady gaze. But something had moved behind it that Will was not working very hard to hide, something that was not pain exactly but was in the territory adjacent to pain. The territory of caring about someone enough that watching them be wanted by someone else lands somewhere real even when you have already decided to be fine about it.

He was not fine about it the way a person who felt nothing was fine. He was fine about it the way a person who felt it and chose this anyway was fine.

Leno stared at him for a second too long.

Mack pulled his attention back with both hands.

The room got quieter as it went on. The city outside did its indifferent city thing. The light through the curtains shifted by degrees toward evening.

Leno was aware of the moment things changed in the chair — not dramatically, not a gasp or a flinch, just a quality of stillness that was different from the stillness before. More held. Will sitting very still in the way of someone managing something internal with the full resource of their composure.

Mack said Leno's name.

Not Will's. Leno's — pulled out of him without thought, just where his head was, just the honest answer to what was happening, and Leno felt it land in his chest somewhere.

He looked at Will.

Will's expression had done something. Small. Private. The corner of his mouth had moved in that way Leno had been cataloguing since he walked into this hotel room — the almost-smile that was not for the room, that meant something had landed somewhere Will kept things that mattered.

It was fond.

Not jealous. Not wounded. Not composure stretched over something breaking underneath. Just fond. The specific warmth of someone watching a person they loved get something they needed.

Leno went completely still.

He came here to take something from Will Smith.

The thought arrived with the particular clarity of things that have been true for a long time finally being looked at directly.

He did not consider that Will Smith might have wanted him to.

Mack made a sound that required Leno's attention and Leno gave it, but the thought kept running underneath everything. Quiet and devastating and reorganizing things.

Will had not been hurt by anything. Will had absorbed it and made space and then whispered something to Mack before they fell asleep and set the whole summer in motion. Will had looked at Leno showing up in this hotel room and canceled lunch with his mother and sat down in that chair and watched with those steady eyes that were not performing anything.

Will had wanted this.

Not in a wounded way, not in a I will endure this way. In the way of someone who wanted it andd told Mack to find a way to deliver it that required almost no effort because Will Smith did not exert effort. Things arranged themselves. People arrived where Will needed them. Leno had spent months resenting this quality in him and was now lying in Will's hotel room understanding for the first time that the arranging was not effortless — it was just invisible. The effort was in patience. In the choosing. Sitting in a chair watching something difficult and deciding it was worth it because the person on the bed mattered more than the discomfort.

That was not winning without trying.

That was winning by being willing to feel things that other people could not hold.

Leno looked at Will one more time.

Will looked back. The same small private thing is still in his expression. He did not look away and he did not pretend and he did not perform anything. He just looked at Leno with the steady attention of someone who had already decided and was not interested in revisiting the decision.

Leno understood then what he had not been able to see from the outside.

He was not a pawn. He had never been a pawn. Pawns did not get looked at like that.

He was something Will had made room for. Something Will had chosen to welcome into a thing that already existed and already mattered. That was not losing. That was something Leno did not have a clean word for yet and was not ready to name.

Then he looked back down at Mack. Mack was watching him with both of them, the dare and the patience,and something underneath both of those things that was quieter and more real and that Leno recognized because he had the same thing sitting in his own chest right now trying not to be obvious about how much space it was taking up.

Leno stopped thinking about Will Smith.

Not because Will stopped mattering. Because in this specific moment, in this specific hotel room, with the evening light coming through the curtains and Mack's hands in his hair, Will was already where he was supposed to be. They all were. 

Leno's focus was on Mack now. He kissed along from Mack's lips down to his throat, taking his time. Leno took Mack's shirt off and the rest of his clothes with it, the way they had both gotten surprisingly used to doing since that one night in Europe. Mack was willing and completely cooperative, which was its own kind of thing. A little while later they were both naked in the cold air of the room but neither of them felt it. They were both too hot for what was coming.

Leno moved himself up close to the headboard and positioned Mack in the middle of the bed, angled toward Will. Mack looked drunk already — lost in the moment, eyes heavy, crying out Leno's name just to ask for a kiss. From the chair, Will snorted quietly. He met Leno's eyes with a smirk that said — plainly, without words — and what exactly are you going to do with that.

Leno took the provocation seriously.

He went down to Mack's chest, sucking at his nipples while working a finger inside him to open him up. Mack squirmed across the bed, hands grabbing at the sheets like they were the only solid thing available. He was sensitive — beautifully sensitive — and Leno had already catalogued exactly where his weaknesses were and had no hesitation about going straight for them.

In the back of Mack's mind, underneath the heat of it, his control freak brain was running a quiet victory lap. He had delivered Leno to their bed within days of receiving the mission from Will. That was impressive even by his own standards. The grabbing food together had been a solid cover, and he had genuinely just wanted to meet Leno more, which was why they had ended up back in the room. What had not been in the plan was Will cmoing back for his charger and walking in on them. But it did not matter anymore. Will was in the chair. Watching. And that specific knowledge was making Mack so hard he could barely think straight.

Leno stroked Mack's hip lightly, pulling him out of the trance. He leaned close to his ear, loud enough for the chair to hear and said "Get on your knees, baby."

Mack got up immediately. Like he had been waiting for the instruction. He pressed his chest and forearms into the mattress and arched his hips up for Leno without hesitation, completely lost in the feeling, eyes shut, face pushed into the sheets.

Leno tapped Mack's cheek very gently. Just enough. "Look at him."

He said it as he started to push inside, and Mack forced his eyes open, half focused on Will, and half rolling back from the stretch of Leno finally seated deep inside him. This position made it too deep to concentrate on anything properly. Mack's mouth fell open on every thrust, Leno's name spilling out of him over and over, pulling his focus entirely away from the man who still watching from the chair.

It was obvious what was happening under Will's pants. He was hard and not particularly trying to hide it. Leno looked up at him mid-thrust with a smirk sitting in the corner of his mouth.

"Do you like watching me fuck him, Smitty?"

Will looked up and met his eyes. Then, without saying a word, he unbuttoned his shirt, slid his pants down, and got himself out. It’s hard already, like he had been waiting behind that composure longer than he was willing to admit.

He held Leno's gaze. Then switched to watching Mack arch his back into every thrust. His boy was so beautiful like this. Genuinely, embarrassingly beautiful. Will felt a specific pride about it that he did not bother to hide from himself.

In the other hand, Leno thinking that fucking Mack in front of him would make Will lose his composure was — sweet. A little baby moves, but Will was fond of him for it. He knew exactly how much Mack loved to please him, the same way Will loved to give him things to be pleased about. Mack was obedient for him in the most genuine way, not performance, just love and having Leno in their bed was not an accident or a coincidence. It was Mack delivering exactly what Will had asked for in exactly the way only Mack could manage. His boy was going to be rewarded properly later. Will was already planning it.

As for Leno — that brat was going to be taught some new things about attitude. Will would get to that.

Right now, listening to Mack moan was doing too much to him to maintain total stillness and he gave up pretending otherwise, hand moving slowly while he watched.

Leno felt something shift in Will's expression, something private and mischievous, and bent forward, chest pressed to Mack's back, skin to skin, and whispered something directly into his ear. Whatever it was made Mack moan louder. Leno straightened back up and moved one hand from Mack's hip to his hair, pulling his head up so he had no choice but to face forward.

"Look how hard he is watching me fuck you, Macklin."

Mack's eyes found Will across the room and immediately he cried out Will's name instead. His weight shifted, one elbow dropping so his hand could reach underneath himself but Leno saw it coming and pulled his hand away, dropping his pace at the same time until Mack was whining from the loss of friction and the desperate need of being so close with nowhere to go.

"Please, Leno — I'm close—" Mack was crying into the mattress.

"You cum on my dick or you don't cum." Leno said it flat and sharp and meant every word.

Mack whined, frustrated and wrecked, and arched himself up enough to look at Will with wide desperate eyes and started calling his name like Will was going to help him.

Leno resumed his pace. Hard. Immediate. "You think he's going to fuck you, hmm?" He punctuated each word with a thrust. "Too bad. I'm still inside you."

"Will please — Leno please—" Mack was too far gone to know what he was asking for anymore.

Leno looked at Will across the room.

"Come here, Smitty. He needs you."

He said it simply. Mack had taken everything Leno had given him without complaint and he deserved something soft alongside the brutal, especially from the person who knew exactly how to give it to him.

Will climbed onto the bed and sat in front of Mack. He leaned down and kissed his temple, one hand moving to soothe him, stroking his hair back, quiet and steady while Leno kept moving behind him. Mack made a sound that was completely wrecked and completely relieved at the same time.

It did not take long after that.

Mack came with Leno still inside him, clenching tight, and Leno followed immediately after the squeeze of it pulling him over the edge before he had time to draw it out any further. Mack dropped forward and took Will’s cock into his mouth and worked him until Will came.

Afterward Leno pulled back slowly. He ran his hands across Mack's back, dragging his beard lightly along the skin he knew was sensitive, feeling him twitch and shiver underneath the touch. Then he used his tongue to clean up Mack’s hole which made Mack whining all over again, oversensitive and completely undone, collapsing fully into Will's arms.

Will held him.

Leno looked at the two of them from where he was. Will quiet and steady, Mack completely wrecked and held carefully and felt the chess board click into final focus around him.

He had come into this room with a plan. He had executed it. He had taken Mack apart in front of Will Smith and made Will hard and made Will come onto the bed and made Will watch every second of it.

And Will had kissed Mack's temple.

That was it. That was the whole of Will's response to everything Leno had done tonight. Not anger, not jealousy, not fracture. Just tenderness. The specific tenderness of someone who loved a person so well that watching them be wanted by someone else could coexist with warmth rather than threat.

Leno had not wounded Will Smith.

He had given Will's boy a very good night.

Will looked up then and met his eyes over the top of Mack's head. That small private expression was back — the fond one, the insufferable one, the one that said Leno was predictable and known and accounted for and welcome anyway.

Leno held his gaze.

He had spent months wanting to beat Will Smith at something.

He was beginning to understand that Will Smith did not play the games Ryan Leonard knew how to win.

Afterward the room was quiet. Mack had gone still the way he only went still when he was actually at rest and just breathing. Leno lay next to him and looked at the ceiling and felt the particular exhaustion of someone who had been carrying something heavy for a long time and had just been allowed to set it down.

He heard Will move.

Then footsteps. The water was being poured from the counter bar. Will came back out and set a glass of water on the nightstand next to Mack without saying anything, the automatic gesture of someone who knew this person completely, who knew exactly what was needed without being asked. He set a second glass on Leno's side of the bed.

Then he sat back down on the couch.

Leno looked at the glass of water.

Then at Will, who had picked up his phone again and was looking at it with the attention of a man who had nowhere to be and nothing to prove and had already decided that tonight was exactly what it was supposed to be.

Leno thought about the chess board.

He had arrived at this game thinking he knew the pieces. Thinking he had clocked the board, understood the positions, identified the player he was up against. He had made his opening move and waited for the counter.

Will Smith had brought him a glass of water.

That was not a chess move. That was not strategy or leverage or a counter to anything Leno had done. That was just — Will. Being exactly who he was in a room that now included Leno because Leno had kept showing up and Will had kept making space and at some point those two things together had become something neither of them had a name for yet.

Leno reached for the glass.

Drank.

Set it back down.

In the bed beside him Mack made a small sound and turned toward him the way people turn toward warmth when they are half asleep, one hand finding Leno's arm and staying there without gripping, just resting.

Leno did not move away.

Across the room Will looked up from his phone. Met Leno's eyes over the distance of the quiet room. Held them for a moment with that steady gaze that Leno had spent months misreading as indifference and was only now understanding was the opposite. It was the specific steadiness of someone who felt things deeply enough that they had learned to hold them carefully.

Neither of them said anything.

The city moved outside the window. The evening settled.

Lenon was beginning to understand that Will Smith did not play the games he knew how to win.

Because Will was not a player.

Will was never a player.

Leno had walked into this summer thinking he was running a game against Will Smith by picking pieces, making moves, positioning himself for a strike that would finally land somewhere that hurt. He had been so focused on the board that he had not stopped to look at who was sitting across from it.

Nobody was sitting across from it.

Will Smith was the board.

He had been the board this whole time, the thing everything else moved across, the structure that made the game possible, the surface that held all the pieces without belonging to any of them. You could not beat the board. You could not wound it or outmaneuver it or take something from it. You could only play on it. And the board did not lose when a piece moved. It just — held it. Made room. Let it go where it needed to go.

Leno looked at Will and then Mack. He realized Mack was the one who delivered him to this room, to this bed, to this specific moment. Maybe because Will had whispered something to him and Mack had taken it as a mission and executed it with the focused competence of someone who controlled every corner of every situation he walked into.

Will had not chased Leno. Had not fought for anything. Had not needed to.

He had just waited. Patient as a board waiting for pieces to find their squares.

And Ryan Leonard, who had come into this summer furious and strategic and absolutely certain he was the one running a play, had moved exactly where Will Smith needed him to go.

Not because Will had forced it.

Because it was where Leno had always been heading. He just could not see the board from inside the game.

Will met his eyes one more time across the quiet room.

Ryan looked back at him and felt the last of the anger dissolve — not into forgiveness exactly, not into surrender. Into something quieter than both. The specific peace of a person who has finally stopped fighting the wrong thing and can feel how much energy that was costing them.

He was a piece on Will Smith's board.

And the board had made room for him.

That was going to have to be enough.

Later during the night, Will stepped into the bed again. He slept between Leno and Mack. He was sleeping on the same pillow as Mack while Leno had his back turned toward him.

However, Will woke up to the feeling of something moving between his legs. He pulled the blanket up, trying to become more conscious from whatever was disturbing his beauty sleep from last night, only to see Leno licking his dick like he’d been thirsting for it for years.

Will was too high to shut his mouth before letting a moan slip out. He panicked and looked aside to see Mack still asleep. Will pulled the blanket aside and leaned himself up to watch Leno giving him a blowjob. Fucking hell. This is such a beautiful moment to wake up to.

He started hissing when Leno did tricks with his tongue on his shaft. The small shiny tongue licking all the way up to the tip of his cock. Damn it. He was close. He was about to cum.

Leno, who was busy working his magic in the early morning, started realizing that Will was waking up. He glanced up and made eye contact with Will while trying his best to suck his dick like there would never be another chance for him to touch Will again.

Will leaned up to sit, putting one hand down for leverage while moving the other to touch Leno’s hair, brushing the damp strands sticking around his forehead away. Leno is the kind of beauty Will couldn’t even describe. He moved his hand down to Leno’s nape, guiding him up and down like a signal that he was close.

Leno was completely focused on making Will cum. The eye contact between them made something flutter around Will’s stomach like butterflies until he pushed Leno’s throat down and started fucking into his mouth, cumming inside like giving a reward to his good boy.

Leno slipped Will’s cock out of his mouth and tried to wipe the corner of his lips before leaning forward to kiss him hungrily. They got drunk in each other’s moment, completely forgetting Mack was sleeping right beside them.

“Not here,” Will whispered quietly into Leno’s ear because he didn’t want to disturb Mack’s sleep. He pulled Leno up from the bed and headed toward the massive bathroom in their hotel room.

They were messy and tangled around each other, kissing while stumbling toward the bathroom, trying their best not to bother Mack. Will swung Leno onto the bathroom counter as soon as they reached it. He lifted Leno onto the sink and immediately started kissing him again, hungry and desperate, while Leno couldn’t stop moaning from the way Will touched him.

Leno felt like a live wire everywhere around his body. He was already hard from giving Will a blowjob, and now he needed to release himself too.

“Will—” Leno was so sensitive he couldn’t even form a proper thought about what he wanted anymore while Will stayed busy licking and biting the area between his neck and shoulder worse than a fucking dog. Like a vampire trying to suck Leno’s soul out through his neck.

Without another word from Leno, Will pulled back to look at how messy he was under his spell. Then he started pulling Leno’s boxers down, kissing from his chest to his stomach while both hands pinched at Leno’s tits like they could somehow produce milk.

Leno couldn’t stop moaning anymore. Fuck Mack. He didn’t care if they woke him up. He’d be welcome to join if he wanted anyway.

Will used the moment Leno got lost in his thought to slide a finger inside him, trying to find the spot that gave him pleasure. The second Will added another finger to help him get used to the stretch and prepare him for something bigger, he hit the spot that made Leno jerk in his arms and bite down on Will’s shoulder just to stop the sounds trying to spill out of him.

“Are you ready?” Will kissed Leno’s temple, trying to calm him down a little from how overwhelming everything felt.

“Fuck me,” Leno breathed out desperately. He didn’t even know what he was saying anymore. All he knew was that he needed something inside him.

The moment Will pushed his dick inside and started moving, he bent down to grab both of Leno’s legs and rested them against the sink while thrusting deeper.

It was too deep. This position made everything hit too deep. Leno felt too much all at once, so oversensitive it almost made him want to cry from the way Will kept hitting his most sensitive spot over and over again.

Mack woke up from one of the best nights of sleep he’d had in a while. He was still sleepy and about to fall back asleep until he heard a moan coming from the bathroom. He shifted aside to check the bed and realized neither Will nor Leno were there anymore.

Damn it. He didn’t even need to look to know what those fuckers were doing in the bathroom right now.

Leno closed his eyes and tried to breathe before he ended up screaming like a bitch. His chin rested on top of Will’s head while Will stayed buried inside him, standing upright and turning them in front of the bathroom mirror.

Then Leno opened his eyes again and saw Mack standing there watching them, looking shocked. Or maybe still half asleep.

Will noticed Leno losing focus and glanced up at the mirror only to catch Mack staring at both of them fucking against the sink. He could tell Mack wanted to say something, but his boy looked just as enchanted by Leno’s eye contact.

“Mack. Go get a chair.” Will wasn’t about to waste a moment between the three of them.

Mack grabbed the office chair the hotel provided in every room and dragged it in front of the bathroom door. He was so obedient for Will. He already knew exactly what Will wanted at this moment.

Seeing Leno wrapped around Will’s neck, trying to match the rhythm of his thrusts, was hot as fuck. The reddened face and teary eyes looking like he was about to break did something deep inside Mack’s stomach. Maybe because Will was always gentle with him, but seeing him fuck Leno into pieces was something completely new.

“Good boy. Now touch yourself for me.” Will ordered Mack, wanting to show Leno exactly what he could do and the kind of control he had over Mack.

Without hesitation, Mack spread his legs over the chair armrests and started touching himself exactly the way Will told him to. Even while listening to Will, though, his focus stayed completely on Leno. He wanted Leno to see what he could do.

Lickinghis fingers before moving them down to open himself in front of Leno was something he wasn’t shy about at all.

But Leno was about to lose his fucking mind.

Will was fucking him like he was trying to get him pregnant while Mack touched himself like he wanted Leno to fuck him instead of those stupid fingers. Damn it. Will had him pounding against the sink now while Mack moaned his name like there was nothing else in his mind besides wanting Leno inside him.

“Leno. I’m close—” Mack cried out while working himself faster, pumping two fingers in and out of himself while gagging around them, his entire body flushed red.

It hit something powerful inside Leno. He’d already been hard since giving Will that blowjob, and now he was getting pounded into the mirror while watching the beautiful boy in front of him cry out his name. Fuck it. Leno needed to cum right now.

“Look at him. He wants you so bad, Lenny, but you can’t go there because I’m still inside you.” Will cursed the words right into Leno’s ear, punctuating every sentence with another hard thrust. He did exactly what Leno did last night.

From the mirror, he could see Mack staring right back at them. Saliva dripped from Mack’s mouth from gagging on his fingers, and that sight alone made Will start moving faster and rougher into Leno like he was fucking both of them at the same time.

Mack looked angelic like this. Beautiful. The second he realized he had Will’s attention, he started moaning Will’s name instead of Leno’s.

“Mack. Are you close, hmm?” Will asked with a smirk he wasn’t even trying to hide.

“Will, please— I want—I wanna cum.” Mack sounded half crying and half begging.

“How do you wanna cum, baby?” Will teased, completely unwilling to let him off easy. He already had Leno moaning in his arms while Mack begged for permission to cum. And people still wondered about his alter ego when nobody knew what happened behind closed doors.

“I want Leno, please.” Mack admitted honestly, almost scared he’d upset Will. But no. Will loved when Mack was honest about what he wanted.

Leno finally regained enough composure to look at Will.

“Do you want to help him, Leno?” Will pinched at Leno’s tits again like he was provoking him to choose who to focus on first.

Leno practically melted right there on the sink. His mouth opened like he wanted to answer, but no words came out because he was too close already.

Will suddenly changed positions, pulling Leno off the sink and bending him over it instead. His hands gripped tightly at Leno’s hips while he controlled every rhythm between them.

“Mack. Come sit on the sink baby. Let Leno help you.”

The second Will spoke, Mack closed his legs and shakily stood from the chair, walking closer while Will kept pounding into Leno.

Mack climbed onto the sink in front of them exactly the way Will told him to. He could see how hard Leno was trying to stay still while getting drunk off Will’s movements. Mack spread his legs and Leno immediately pushed his fingers inside him, pumping them in and out trying to make him cum.

Will watched them both with mischief burning in his eyes.

He worked Leno up until his whole body twitched from the overload, moaning Will’s name while simultaneously fingering Mack. The sight in front of him was too much. Mack finally came all over Leno’s fingers. Later, both Will and Leno also came at the same time.

The bathroom grew loud with all three of them panting and trying to catch their breath. Leno leaned forward to kiss Mack’s forehead gently while Will bent down to kiss Leno’s hip.

Then, after finally letting Leno go, Will walked over to Mack, bit down on his lower lip once, and left the bathroom.

The bathroom door stayed open behind them. They heard the quiet sounds of the hotel room, the soft click of the curtain, the rustling of sheets, Will settling back into the bed.

Then silence.

Mack stayed wrapping around Leno on the cold tile, cheek pressed against his shoulder, breathing slowly returning to something resembling normal. His hands were loose around Leno's waist. Not gripping. More like resting. Like they had found somewhere to be and decided to stay.

Will had walked out.

Not because he was finished with them. Not because he was hurt or dismissed or retreating. Because Mack gave what Will had been building toward since the night he whispered something quiet into Mack's ear before they both fell asleep. This was the outcome Will had been patient enough to wait for. Mack brought Leno into the room and let Will sat in the chair and watched the pieces move exactly where they needed to go.

Leno looked down at Mack.

Mack also looked up at him with those eyes that were still slightly glassy, still slightly wrecked, still carrying the particular brightness of someone who had been thoroughly undone and was not bothered about it at all. His hair was a disaster. His skin was still flushed. He looked like someone who had been taken apart and put back together again. He looked like he was exactly where he wanted to be.

"He's not coming back in, is he." Leno said it quietly. Not a question.

"No." Mack said it simply. No grief in it. No apology. Just fact. "He got what he wanted."

Leno sat with that for a moment.

"What did he want?"

Mack looked at him with the expression of someone who had known the answer for longer than he had been willing to say it out loud. 

"This." Mack said. Just that. No elaboration.

Will had wanted to have both Mack and Leno.

He had engineered it from a whisper in a dark room knowing about the deepest secret of Mack's fucking freak behavior. The Trophy Collection. He had been patient enough to let it find its own shape. He sat in a chair and watched it happen and then walked out because his presence was no longer what the moment needed.

Will Smith had given Mack a mission to get Ryan Leonard for both of them.

He is the king who had never needed the board to bow to him, Who had built the whole game just to watch it play and found that entirely sufficient.

"We should go back to bed." Mack said. His voice was quiet and slightly rough and completely unbothered.

"Yeah." Leno said.

Neither of them moved for another minute.

Then Mack untangled himself first — slowly, unhurried, rolling to his feet with the careful movements of someone whose body had been through something and was taking stock. He held out a hand.

They walked back into the bedroom together. Will was on his side, breathing even. The light from outside is hidden by the dark curtain. The bed was large enough for all three of them.

Mack climbed in on Will's side, settling close without disturbing him, easy and familiar. Leno stood at the edge for a moment looking at the two of them. Mack was already half asleep, Will still and steady, the particular warmth of people who had been in each other's orbit long enough that proximity felt like its own kind of language.

And he realized he would never win anything over Will Smith at all.