Chapter Text
It all started very much by accident. It was a home game against Toronto, the puck was loose in center ice after a pass from Toronto had gone awry and Cliff was the closest, so he skated after it and passed it to Rozanov. Or at least he tried to.
What actually happened was he missed the puck entirely and without the impact he'd expected, his stick had flown up and hit Söderström right in the face. The Toronto forward immediately grabbed his own face and started rubbing hard at the small nick to his cheek, managing to draw a couple drops of blood, which he showed to the ref, because of course he did. Bastard.
Next thing Cliff knew he was being marched to the penalty box for a double minor.
They were up 2-0 in the game. It wasn't the end of the world, but it certainly wasn't ideal.
Cliff sat back, sighing and readied himself to watch Boston kill the penalty. Toronto's power play was weak, and everyone knew it. It was a relief but didn't make four minutes in the box any less boring.
And then he caught sight of the attendant.
Cliff had never paid particular attention to the penalty box attendants before. They were usually older, with some experience in the minor leagues and happy to have a job which mostly involved them watching a game in the evenings. This guy was different.
He was younger for starters, maybe around Cliff's age, with blond hair, very blue eyes, and a bored expression on his face.
He was also hot.
"You not enjoying the game?" Cliff asked before he could stop himself.
The attendant did not respond.
Cliff tried again.
"I'm Cliff Marleau," he said, thrusting his hand towards the attendant for him to shake before thinking better of it and pulling it back (his hand had been in his glove and was now warm and sweaty and he did not want this hot penalty box attendant to think he was gross. He was also very aware that the attendant knew he was going to be sweaty because he was playing hockey, but that was unimportant.)
The attendant looked at him then, raised a single, perfectly groomed eyebrow, and smiled slightly. Just a quick quirk of the lips, but Cliff felt his stomach twist.
"I know," hot attendant replied, and turned back to the game.
Contrary to popular (Rozanov's) belief, Cliff was not an idiot. He knew the signs of when someone was interested in talking to him, and hot attendant clearly wasn't. He was also, however, hot enough that at this point Cliff didn't care and was willing to carry on trying to get a conversation going. Or at the very least get another look at those eyes. He had three and a half minutes, and he was not going to waste it.
"Are you a Guardians fan or something? You don't seem to be enjoying the game much." Cliff could deal with a Toronto fan. His mother always said he had the gift of the gab, and he was confident in his abilities to make hot attendant see the light and turn to Boston. He was not prepared for hot attendant's actual response which was another small smile and "Voyageurs".
Fuck. Gifted or not, Cliff could never talk a Voyageurs fan into liking Boston. It was impossible. He had tried.
He frowned and watched Hammersmith's attempt at a short-handed breakaway goal which was easily knocked away by Hayes. Cliff didn't understand why Hayes was their back-up. Kid's good.
"Why are you a Voyageurs fan when you live in Boston and work for the Raiders?"
"How do you know I live in Boston?"
Hot attendant was clearly an idiot. I mean of course he was, he was a Voyageurs fan, but he was now just being extra stupid.
"Forgive me for assuming you lived here rather than flew in just to look bored in a penalty box."
Hot attendant's cheeks colored prettily at that.
"I grew up in Montreal. My parents moved here a while back and then my mom got sick, so I moved to help look after her. I only work here because it's just a few evenings a week so I can still look after her most of the time. So, I'm a Voyageurs fan from birth. And Shane Hollander's hot which helps."
Cliff spluttered, "Shane Hollander is not hot!" (Shane Hollander was kind of hot, but Rozanov was his captain and would never forgive him if he said that).
Hot attendant turned to look at him properly with those blue, blue eyes. "He is."
"Nope."
"He is! You just can't see it because you're straight."
"I am definitely not straight, and Shane Hollander is definitely not hot!"
Cliff wasn't in the habit of announcing his sexuality to everyone. Hockey was not an accepting sport, but hot attendant was hot and was either extremely secure in his masculinity or, more likely, not straight himself, so Cliff figured it was okay.
Hot attendant blushed again at that, turning away again and Cliff smiled to himself a little and pretended it was to do with Carmy knocking the puck down the ice and out of their zone instead of how pretty his attendant was when he blushed like that.
"I'm sorry about your mom."
Hot attendant shrugged. "It's fine. She's… she's not doing great, but it's been that way for a while now, so I'm used to it."
"Still sucks though," Cliff responded, and hot attendant nodded.
"Yeah. It does."
They sit in silence for a while before hot attendant turns to him again "I'm sorry for assuming you were straight."
"Nah, I get it. Hockey is… hockey, and I'm pretty private with it. Only Conny and Roz know, and they only know because they've witnessed me spectacularly drunk and rambling about it."
Hot attendant laughed slightly and Cliff felt unreasonably proud of himself for making that happen.
"Thank you for trusting me then. It must be tough being in a sport with no openly queer players."
"It's not awful. I'm bi so..."
"So, the plan's just to find a nice girl to settle down with and hide a massive part of yourself forever?"
"Yeah, pretty much. I'm not sure I fancy being a trailblazer."
Hot attendant nodded. "That makes sense. Can't be easy though."
Cliff shrugged and then nodded "I suppose, but it could also be much harder."
He began to pull on his gloves as he watched the final few seconds of the Guardian's power play dwindle away.
"As nice as it was chatting to you, I hope I don't see you again." Cliff said, producing another laugh from the hot attendant.
"I hope you do," he responded, jokingly "I always enjoy seeing Boston lose."
Cliff heart stuttered ridiculously at that. It was embarrassing to be so attracted to a man praying for his team's downfall. He stuck his tongue out at the attendant who laughed again.
"Y'know, usually when someone tells you their name it's polite to tell them yours."
The hot attendant opened the door.
"Hayden," he said.
Cliff smiled and jumped out onto the ice.