Chapter Text
Γῐ́γνομαι ‘gínomai’ - present, indicative, middle voice, singular 1st person verb - ‘to come into being’ or more commonly rendered as ‘I become’.
It was, in point of fact, not a creeping realisation, nor did it particularly hit him all at once; rather… he just woke up in the night and knew. That was it. He loved Mack. Perhaps there had been signs before, but he had never paid much attention to them, or perhaps he just hadn't known what to look for. This thing between them had just happened; that was all there was.
That charisma he felt on the ice - that sharp, exhilarating feeling where each knew where the other was, where the other was going; they didn’t have to look or speak; they just felt it. Easy, natural. That charisma, where Will could open the bench door for him at the slightest incline in Mack’s skates, he could smack a puck between some too-slow defenseman’s legs and know Mack would be there. It became like that off the ice, too. He barely blinked, and they went from rookie camp to frustrated hand jobs in a Las Vegas hotel room, and three seasons on the ice had just… shot by. Romantic.
And the most terrifying thing for Will was that he wanted it. He could, in all likelihood, never walk away from the ice, from Mack. He’s had a couple of college girlfriends, and had liked them well enough, and he’d certainly enjoyed the sex - but he’d never had the idea it was meant to feel like this. Like he could feel the hitch in his breath, and the ghost of Mack’s lips against his neck, as Mack slid in, and be overwhelmed by the need to bury beneath his skin. To feel their chests press together uncomfortably close, to hold Mack’s sweaty back as tight as he could.
He looked down at Mack’s sleep-mussed face. In the past few years, it had become more angular and defined, had lost some of its immature softness, and if anything, had become even more handsome. Will wasn’t certain how his own pretty boy looks would age, but he was fascinated to think how Mack would look at twenty-five, or thirty-five, or fifty. Will wanted that too, wanted that chance to see him age. That thought was baffling as well; he didn’t know if that was something he’d get to have. Of course, the two of them had sat up one night and had a positively excruciating conversation, by the end of which they’d agreed that they were together, that what they had was a relationship - of sorts anyway. Mack had looked flustered and uncomfortable, and Will didn’t know how much he’d really realized about them; being younger and just generally being- well, Mack, he suspected it was less than he had.
Mack’s eyes gently fluttered open, his face so soft, so open in the room’s low light. This was helped by the tight grip he had on a San Jose ‘Sharkie’ plushie, turned as he was halfway towards Will, his head resting just below Will’s shoulder. He scrunched up his face, creasing the fine line of his brow, and in a rough voice asked: “Will…? Why’re you thinking so loud?”
The apartment had been Mack’s idea, and at first, Will had shot it clear out of the sky. Mack had looked crestfallen but moved on, whilst it was Will who found himself occasionally opening incognito tabs on Chrome just to look at two-bed condos. When he eventually told Mack about the place he’d found, Mack didn’t even have the decency to look surprised - that was it with him, it was so hard to tell if it was strategy or sheer dumb luck.
He leans into Mack’s face, where he’s trying to glare at Will through heavily lidded eyes; he looks as intimidating and as prepossessing as a newborn kitten. Sheepishly, Will places a brief kiss on Mack’s lips, who might barely be blushing in the darkened room.
“Okay, Mackie,” Will says with an easy-going affection he’s still trying to get used to. That seems to be enough for Mack, who now settles closer and puts his head carefully on Will’s chest; naturally, he still has Sharkie squished close to his own.
And it was a good apartment, not too far from the rink, nor from downtown, with two secure car parking spots, and a large living room-come-dining room, complete with beautiful picture windows and a balcony. The first day there, Mack was filled with a kind of giddy energy that was completely infectious, which led them to playing keepie-uppies with an old soccer ball in the empty space. This, as a matter of course, led to an argument as to who was actually better, which then led to fighting, to wrestling on the floor, to Will pinning Mack against the sofa and both of them violently jacking off against each other, making out with a clash of teeth and tongue.
An unfortunate result was a stain on the carpet right next to the sofa, and though Macklin vociferously denied it, Will was pretty sure it was his from that night. That mattered little when Will was the one on his knees scrubbing at the stain vigorously with whatever product he could find, swearing like a sailor at some late night hour.
Will thought the apartment was, in a way that terrified him a little, a start.
***
Mack lies with his head resting against Will’s stomach post-coitus; Will’s hoodie is rucked up his torso, and spread out widely over the expanse of open flesh, right hand brushing over Will’s skin. Will suspects he’s just on the edge of dozing off. It’s not often they get to be soft like this, especially during the season, and he only really becomes like this after sex. After Will has fucked him, Mack lets himself lie prone, arms wrapped around Will’s chest, hair tucked under Will's chin. It’s something that worries him, how hard it is for Mack to be soft, although he’s never quite able to articulate in his head exactly why. So they lay there, on Will’s bed, tucked together in companionable silence, whilst Will noncommittally searched for a film on streaming on the TV attached to the far wall, not yet willing to give up the pretence that they might watch something together.
Eventually, a faint gurgle comes from Will’s stomach, and he’s reminded of just how long ago dinner had been. And if he had heard it, Mack, with his ear smushed into his abdomen, definitely had. No wonder, given Will had pushed himself hard at practice today. Although he was only really following Mack’s lead, he seemed to be staying longer and longer each practice. Staying behind long enough for the custodians to pass from making vague passive-aggressive grumbles to actual actionable threats, and at that Mack would eventually come off the ice. Will was still becoming accustomed to this change, leaving the ice well before Mack, his instinct for not pissing off rink workers kicking in.
Will would take long showers, take his time drying off or dressing to leave, with half an eye on some stupid reel Leno had sent him or Voter’s private story. That this was becoming routine was definitely worrying Will, and it wasn’t just the extra time; Mack had been pushing himself extra hard in sprints recently, too. His ice time on game days climbing, already double Will's. The gentle tremor in Mack’s thighs once he eventually left the ice and appeared in the locker room didn’t go unnoticed by Will either.
“You know,” Will’s voice is intentionally soft and meandering, “we still have that tub of Talenti in the back of the freezer”.
Mack seemed to stiffen at the suggestion, pulling with his fingertips at the fine hair of Will’s stomach. He replies bitterly, “You mean your Talenti.”
With a smug smile, Will adds, “Sure, but I could be persuaded to share.”
“Will… you know I can’t; it's after ten, well after my calorie window has shut. And anyway, you know my macros-” Will cuts him off, well versed with this path.
“Come on, just once.” He wraps his left arm around Mack’s slouched shoulders, but Mack doesn't seem willing to budge. He tries a different front. “We still have some strawberry Halo Top somewhere…”
“Will, no. I mean, come on, man, get serious.” Mack replied, although Will could definitely hear the vague edge of misery in his tone. “Besides, that stuff tastes like cardboard. You know Dad says-”
“Fuck’s sake, Mack, don’t bring Rick into this.” Will’s tone is acrid, unable to manifest his unease as anything other than acidity. He knows what this is about: “You know he’s not actually here, right? He’s not standing in the kitchen, waiting to catch you sneaking to the freezer at midnight. He’s never gonna just show up here, one day, out of the blue. I mean, neither of our families has even been inside this place.” It was true, in the few months they’d lived together at the apartment, they’d been the only ones through the door.
“No, but…” Mack starts, with his body going rigid and his hand freezing mid-gentle caress of Will’s belly. “...Whose choice was that?”
A distant “What?” is all Will can muster, in complete confusion at the sudden change in topic, head rising off the pillow to look down at where Mack is trying to catch his eye.
Mack sounds uncertain, but pushes on. “I mean, I know we said- I mean, you said we shouldn’t tell our families about us.”
“Mack.” Will tries to sound reasonable, but his irritation is definitely rubbing off. “Do you really want your Dad to know?”
“No. I didn’t mean him. But like, what about Grace?”
“No.” is Will’s immediate response, tone flat but firm. Mack resolutely ignores the hint.
“I mean, she loves me, she even said so last time, when she was visiting what’s-his-face.”
“Lochlan,” Will supplies coolly.
“Yeah, and come on bud, she loves you, eh? I know she does.” Mack tries this sometimes, when angling for something difficult, just leaning into Canadianisms, hoping to soften Will up, or possibly just turn a raw moment of honesty into one big joke.
Will’s jaw tightens, his teeth squeezed together. After a couple of breaths, he replies, his voice lower than before. “You know why, Mack, I just can’t ask her to keep that sort of thing from Mom; it’d be torture for her, she would just end up telling her.”
Mack’s silence spoke volumes. So, what's wrong with that?
“Mack”, he says around a shaky inhale, “you know I can’t tell them. It's just impossible.”
“Why not?!” Mack’s voice suddenly became petulant. He gets like this sometimes, Will thought, especially when he’s tired, and he doesn’t understand something. Eky calls him Bratlin Celebrini during these moments, although never loud enough for Mack to actually hear, and the comment is usually thrown in Will’s direction anyway. Will wonders darkly, for the first time perhaps, how much Eky knows, or how much he suspects at least.
“Because I’m the only son in an Irish Catholic family, Mack. From Boston even, who plays hockey for the fucking NHL. How can you even ask that?” Will’s voice is louder, suddenly filling the quiet room. Whatever careful tenderness from before is ruined. Mack’s body has turned completely still. They lie in sullen silence, Will’s gaze fixed rigidly at the crack where the wall meets the ceiling; Mack’s gaze is still focused somewhere on Will’s navel.
After a moment, he adds quietly, “We’d have better luck telling your folks than mine anyway. Not that we would...” At this revelation, Mack suddenly sat up, legs still straddling Will, but with a start of a glare in his eyes as he looked down at Will’s face.
“No way, man, not happening”.
“Well, why not?” Will’s tone was now pushy; he felt wound up by Mack’s curt dismissal, and a little raw from the question about Grace. “They’ve got no reason not to be fine with the gay thing, or whatever. They’re not exactly religious.”
“My Dad, he just wouldn’t get it. He’d think this was just some big distraction, proper relationships - they’re for retirement, he says. You’ve gotta commit to the ice. Simple as.” Mack delivered the line like it was, but there was a little falter in his voice.
“Oh, I see.” Will leaned into the bitterness. He was committed now, but knew he might regret it later.
“It’s not part of Rick Celebrini’s big 10-point plan. To have at least one son go all the way to the Olympics, Stanley Cup, whatever else. You’ve gotta stick to the plan. It’s all worked out, hmm? Can’t have an Olympic gold and a lover, huh.”
Mack is quiet again, drops his gaze back to Will’s chest. In a little voice, he replies, “Well, officially I have neither at the moment.”
Will does his best to ignore the comment; instead of figuring out what Mack is trying to tell him, he returns to the tried-and-true method of pressing on the bruise.
“Ahh yes, well little Mack doesn’t need a private life, see? Little Mackie, he’s uh- he’s a wind-up toy. Rick turns the key, crank, crank, then puts him down on the ice, and off he zips round, scoring points, winning games. Easy as.”
“Hey Fuck you, man!” Mack’s tone was suddenly angry. He landed a punch against Will’s sternum, not hard enough to bruise, but harder than just play-fighting. That winded Will briefly; shit, maybe I am going too far. But Will was nothing but determined if he saw a chance to score.
“In fact, Rick doesn’t even have to be here; you just follow your programming so well, he doesn’t even have to wind you up anymore! You’ve got your own little Rick up here.” Will taps him on the temple. “You’d hardly need the real one.”
“Will. Stop.” Mack’s jaw is clenched shut, voice harder than he’s heard it before.
Will goes on, completely unable to stop. “Why would he even care who you’re fucking? It’s just to let off some steam, right? Better to have someone useful like Will around to get some release.” He’s never sounded like this before.
“Rick doesn’t care what you shove in your body, Mack, unless it's food; then he cares!” It’s crude and cheap, he knows, but Will has surrendered to the bitter demons of his worst nature.
At this, Mack quickly rises off the bed, where he had been still straddling Will, twisting towards the door. Victory.
Will suddenly jumps to, unwilling to let this triumph end, and there’s something more. An anxiety is creeping in that this might end up being bigger, something he can’t just walk back easily. Will gets up off the bed and grabs Mack’s wrist as he makes to leave the room, thumb pressed on the pressure point there, pulling Mack back towards him.
“Hey, no, you don’t just get to leave! We’re not done.”
“Get off me, asshole!” Mack tries to pull his wrist free, but not very hard. “Maybe he’d be fucking right, this relationship, whatever we have, it’s just a waste of fucking time.”
Will's response is fast and acrid, almost panting. “Oh, I see how it is, Rick Fucking Celbrini - right again! Thank God he’s there to run your life; he knows exactly how to solve everything. Except y’know, for you and me, which you get to ruin entirely on your own.”
Mack goes rigidly stiff for one terrifying moment. Will knows he’s gone too far, and he realises then he has absolutely no idea what Mack’s going to do.
“Fuck you, Will” is his reply in a tone he’s never heard before. Will doesn’t have time to process this as his legs are suddenly scythed out from under him, and Mack turns to make for the door. The movement is swift and strong. Oh yeah, Will thinks dimly, two hundred-pound professional hockey player.
Will’s body twists involuntarily, his torso turning as his left leg collides with his right and they both go out from under him. His rib cage strikes the firm wooden side of the bed frame, followed by his shoulder, and the agonising strike of an old injury reignited, head and neck bouncing off the side of the mattress. Fuck buying real adult furniture; if it had been IKEA, the plywood would have given way and splintered easily, at least some of the momentum would have been lost. Last time he listened to his mom about buying ‘decent furniture’.
It is all perversely similar to an overly rough check against the boards, eerily like the one Will had taken a season back, the strangeness of the same painful sensation twice. It’s when he turns his head, still reeling, to look at Mack’s slack face that he realises that Mack knows it too. Mack is seeing some twisted sort of deja vu, his face wrecked, mouth in a grimace, eyes scrunched up and watering. Will distantly remembers that Mack had not taken it particularly well the first time this had happened, making a reasonable effort to kill Wotherspoon.
Before Will can voice a complaint, a noise of pain, even an apology, Mack has turned to rush out of the room. Wordless, even as he turns to land a square punch against the wall by the bedroom door. Will looks up to see a sharp dent in the drywall, and the cheap plaster has fallen off to reveal one of the plasterboard studs underneath. After a couple of winded breaths, he hears the apartment door slam.
Will lets out a shuddering breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Upon reflection, the pain isn’t that bad, more a sort of deep ache in his shoulder, and certainly nothing like the hit on the ice. Mack wouldn’t drive when he was like this; at least, wherever he was going, he’d take an Uber, Will knew. They’d fought before, but Will had the inescapable sensation that this was something more.
***
Will had taken their game-day suits to the dry cleaners; he always thought he could achieve a pretty good job with 20 minutes and a hot iron, but Mack muttered something last week about ‘getting a clean press’ so there he was. Next, he was down to the dealership to get that rattle checked in the newish Bronco, standing there with a plastic smile on his face whilst the shift manager told him something about transmissions and shockplugs, and he just listened, unrushed. Then down to the post office for the package he had for Aunt Aileen’s birthday, then off looking for more wrapping paper. After this came a slow meander round the Macy’s in downtown, wondering if he could get his mom anything for Mother’s Day… he really had no idea.
He finally came to, standing in Lush, holding a violently coloured bath bomb in each hand, trying to gauge carefully what Grace would prefer. A pretty salesgirl stood opposite him, a wide smile on her face, as she released a spiel about the colors, scents, ‘vibes’ of each. He had wondered at first if she had recognized him, but it was probably just his face she was responding to, and he wasn’t blind. He knew he could have a certain effect on people.
Something had been said about fuchsia? Whether this was a colour, or perhaps a scent or even some sort of name, he wasn’t sure. He really had no idea what Grace would actually want, not without bringing her down here. He flashed a breezy smile to the salesgirl, whose nametag read ‘Chanelle’, and bid a hasty retreat. He found his car on the back street he had left it on and started the ignition. There was nothing else for it, time to find Mack, besides which it had been four hours - long enough surely. The rattle started up again after about 30 seconds. Time well spent then.
He knew that he’d be at Toff’s at least. Mack was a creature of habit, usually anyway. Still, he was a little unnerved; this didn't happen often. When Mack got angry, after a shitty game, pushy defense from the opposition, a rough check on the boards - it was Will who could draw him away, calm him down. Not always with sex, though Will did have a track record of that working if nothing else did. When Mack was angry at Will, however, well, Mack seemed to have no idea what to do. He did not deal well with being angry at Will; it came unnaturally to him, like the concept was the wrong shape for his head. Yet still he seemed to have just enough teenage angst to propel him on. Will suspected that in lieu of any other plan and to avoid possibly smashing up Will’s windshield (again) he would decamp to Toff and Cat’s.
When he pulled into their double-wide driveway, he saw Toff step out of the house to greet him, wearing basketball shorts, socks, slides, and a stormy expression. Stormier than he had expected, really.
“Smitty, what the fuck have you done? It’s bad this time.” Toff said in place of a greeting.
Will’s face fell. “Look, it wasn't really anything… Nothing important anyway.” He sighed, already defeated. “Just something about his Dad - about him being too- too much…”.
“Ah,” says Toff. That would be it then.
Toff motioned towards the “Look, get your ass inside then, and we’ll sort this out.”
“How bad is he?” Will ventured after a beat of silence as they entered the house.
“Well, he burst in here, ranted Cat’s ear off for 30 minutes about stupid NHL shit, beat me at three games of Chel then ate half a leftover lasagna, from the tray, with a spoon, standing up.” Toff sighed and continued. “Then he flopped down in front of a rerun of Bridesmaids and fell asleep after 15 minutes.”
“Yeah, he’s been pushing himself hard, extra gym sessions and stuff. He seemed really tired yesterday.” Will knew this was bad; if it took all that to bring Mack down, he was seriously wound tight. From the unimpressed look Toff was giving him, Will suspected he knew it too.
“Listen, Kibble, this was rough. Whatever you said, whatever you’ve been doing, you’ve gotta sort it out. This can’t keep happening. We always wanna support you two, but you've got to talk to each other. I mean, you can’t keep blowing up at each other.”
Will's mouth turned muleish. What did Toff know about him and Mack? I mean, really know about their relationship, the thought flashed through his mind, hot and angry. Nothing, he thought with a creeping chill in his mind; Toff knew nothing about it because neither of them had told them anything. Is this what it would always feel like, he wondered briefly. He chewed his lip and didn’t reply.
By now, Toff had steered him with an arm slung over his shoulder into the kitchen, where Cat was waiting. He knew the instant he saw a glint of steel in her gaze that it was a trap. She jabbed with some force against his ribcage.
“I don’t know what you said exactly, Will, but you have to stop this. I mean, what can you have possibly said to each other to get like this? You’re practically stitched together. And I’ve heard the chirps you give each other, no holds barred. I just don’t get it.”
Will is stunned by this sudden barrage; he’s never quite seen her like this. She was feisty - he got why Toff loved her. But it was slowly dawning on him that this might be bigger than he had assumed; he and Mack might have to say something more than vague platitudes and promises to hug it out. Without protest on Will’s part, she pushed him firmly into a chair at the kitchen table, and left no argument.
“Which is why you two are going to sit here,” indicating Will's seat and the one next to it “and actually talk it out.”
“And we,” she says whilst rising and stepping back, “are going to sit opposite and make sure you actually do. And intervene if you actually start to draw blood.”
“Ty, wake Mack up for me, get his ass in here.” She says, turning to her husband, before stealing her unusually stern face back on Will.
***
So it was that Will sat next to Mack, an awkward distance between them, with Mack resolutely not meeting Will’s gaze. He felt sweaty and uncomfortable, the bright light of the kitchen suddenly too harsh, too clinical.
“Look, man,” Mack continued, addressing Toff, his palms open but facing each other on the table, clearly aiming for placating but instead straying into clearly irritated. “We’ll just talk this out; we always do. So I needed some time to cool off - big deal! You guys didn't need to overreact like this.”
Will audibly drew breath through his teeth. Wrong choice, he thought. Mack was never good at being diplomatic; he always came off as awkward or insincere at best, and he didn’t have much talent in reading people; that was more Will’s realm anyway.
“Enough,” said Cat with clear frustration; it wasn’t a shout, but it wasn’t far off either. “Just tell us what you could have been arguing about to get like this. We don’t get it.” And then suddenly she became quieter, more vulnerable. “We just want to help…” her voice trailing off. “Why won’t you let us?”
This was bad, this was really bad. Will could feel his resolve failing. For the first time, perhaps in a long time, he wondered could we just tell them? He felt the earth subside, his chair sinking through the floor. He was familiar enough with his own head to know he was terrified by the thought.
“Will just said some shit about my dad again,” Mack said after a beat, and then quieter, “... stuff he had said before. About him controlling me, or- or being too… anyway, it was stupid. I was stupid, I overreacted, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Cat asked. Arms crossed, eyebrow raised, stern-faced. Evidently, to Cat at least, that was not all.
Mack stiffened, and in a horrifying moment, Will realized Mack was going to say it. He would actually tell her about the fight - the real fight. About coming out to their families, about being together, about whatever it was they meant to each other.
“We… w- we…” Mack stutters.
No. No. They’d agreed.
Cat softens suddenly, shoulders dropping. Toff does two, unconsciously following his wife’s lead. “Oh honey,” she says, tone pleading and quiet. “Please tell us, we only want to help.”
She catches Mack’s eyes; he seems to stiffen even more. After a beat, she says. “Whatever it is, we’ll understand. Whatever you say to us here, it stays with us, doesn’t go beyond these walls, I promise.” At this, Toff leans forward, resting a supportive hand on her petite frame, his face abrasively neutral, reassuring. Mack’s gaze shoots down.
He was going to tell them, Fuck. Worse yet, Will felt struck dumb, even as his mouth opened slightly in an effort to say anything.
Mack turned his gaze up to Will then, and he was somehow even more dumbfounded. But what he found on Mack’s face wasn’t panic but a glint of the determination he was more used to seeing on the ice. An uncanny feeling overtook him, the feeling when they perfectly connected some pass, scored, all the time communicating without words or touch or look, each knew exactly where the other was. Will couldn’t resist him then, he never could; it was like being pulled into orbit.
Mack drew fresh breath, looking down to the tabletop and running his hands through the parting on his hair, raising his eyes to Cat and Toff’s to speak plainly. “We argued about something else.” A pause. “We argued about er- I guess it’s like… coming out.”
There it was. Disfigured monster hauled on the surgeon’s table. Mack seemed to pick up steam. “Because we’re… together, like as a couple. It’s not really that new; it’s been happening for a while, but- but now we think we might have to tell people. That we should tell people.” The room was deathly silent.
Will wondered in that moment if this was what it felt like to be flayed alive. Stripping skin from bone and muscle. However, Mack seemed undeterred by the silence. He can see an opening about to form, the goalie’s legs beginning to spread, and he moves for it without thinking, always anticipating the puck.
“We were arguing about whose family to tell first; I was saying Will's because-” Mack pushed on, and suddenly Will's brain was firing on all cylinders again. The argument resurfacing, bringing all the old feelings.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Will interrupted. “We said, no- we agreed to tell your family first. On account of me being the only son in an Irish Catholic Family. Ya’know from Boston.”
Case dismissed, your honour, with prejudice. He could hear Mack’s rushed intake of breath, his face turning towards him, contorting in a refute. Here we are, Will thought; this was familiar, bickering in front of Cat and Toff felt preternatural.
“Stop… Stop!” Cat’s voice broke through the familiar rhythm of a Mack and Will argument.
“Wait, rewind a minute. You mean to say that…” Her eyes dart between them, then widen comically.
“Ty,” she says, turning to him. “You stay here, watch them. I mean really watch them. Don’t let them get out of their seats or move or whatever. I need to go to the garage.”
Will sat in silence, thoughts completely interrupted; whatever had been happening between him and Mack was suddenly broken by this complete non-sequiter. The only reassuring thing was that Toff seemed equally perplexed, turning to stare at his wife’s rapidly retreating figure, though he was notably not moving away from his position looming over the table.
“What the-” came Mack’s soft response.
Within a minute or two, Cat came bursting into the room again, holding some dusty, partially rolled-up banner. She thrusts past the still stunned Toff and the boys, turns to a shelving unit on a wall near the table, and carefully unravels the poster, sticking each end up with a small piece of tack. She turns to face their slack faces, a brilliant smile on her face. “There.” She declares, like a general over a victorious field.
A little above the tops of Will and Mack’s heads, Cat was only five feet two mind, was the banner. In slightly faded but still bright letters, it reads: “GAY IS OKAY”. Will and Mack, perfectly in sync, eyes comically wide, turn to face each other in aghast horror.
“Where did you even get that? What in the He-” Mack asks
Will overtakes him with “Is that from the 90’s?!”
Cat’s smile is still radiant in the face of their disbelief. “Yep! Remember when we found that old craft store downtown, the Mom-and-Pop one?” She asks, turning to Toff’s astonished face, clearly barely keeping up. Cat ploughs on regardless. “Well anyway, I was back there a couple of months back and looking for some stuff for my nieces in a pile of old stock and found it. I just thought it was neat! Kind of retro, no?” She turned from face to face, expecting some sort of recognition.
Mack was struck dumb; Will, however, wasn’t.
“Why the fuck would you get that? Who did you think it was for?” Voice hotter than needed. It was just that he could feel the sweat prickling under his collar, the questions starting to whirl round his brain. Had Cat suspected something? Had she known already? Had she-
“Hey!” Will is freed from his spiral by Toff’s booming voice, suddenly irate. “You do not talk to my wife like that. That’s not fair. She wanted to do something kind and supportive, and you don’t get to be pissy about it cause you’re catholic, or fucking our future MVP or whatever.”
Toff at least had the decency to wince when he realized what he’d said.
After the merest pause, he continued, calming himself. “Do you know how many rookies walk through that door?” indicating behind him to the door down the hall. “I want them to feel supported, whoever they are, wherever they come from.”
Will is reminded of the ‘A’ Toff still wore on his tarp. He better understands why he gets to wear it at that moment, and perhaps why Will doesn’t, despite his popularity with the team and fans.
“I’m sorry, look I’m sorry, okay.” Will stammers out, lifting his gaze to Cat and Toff. “I didn’t really mean it like-”
He gets cut off by Toff’s second wind. “Why’d you say that? Did you think we wouldn’t support it? Support you?” The ‘you two’ seemed heavily implied. “We go to pride parades, and throw pucks for fans on pride nights, and use the rainbow tape.” He releases his breath and turns with unexpected anguish to look between Will and Mack.
“Why would you think you couldn’t tell us?”
Cat has carefully put a palm on his shoulder, appeasing or reassuring Will isn’t sure.
Will wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Of all the ways this could have gone, he hadn’t expected this one. He was even more surprised when it was Mack that spoke up first.
“I don’t think you get how hard it is, how much it takes out of you, when you have to hide wha- whatever it is that me and him have.” Eyes now fixed solidly on Will. “It fu- screws you up inside.” He corrects, Polite Canadian Mack Will thinks. “You get paranoid, you think everyone can tell….” His eyes scan Toff and Cat’s faces.
“...Or maybe even worse, that no one can tell at all.”
And it’s the last part that worries Will: How long has Mack felt like this? Has he been wanting to tell people for months and just held onto it?
Cat is the one to break the tension. “Thank you,” she says with a warm smile. “For telling us, for letting us be the first to know.” Her face turned to look at Will's now. “Even if that’s not exactly what you planned when you came here today.”
“It’s okay.” Will eventually acquiesces. “We sort of figured we’d have to tell you soon enough. And we’d want you to be some of the first to know.” He adds quickly, and is met with Toff’s warm smile, outburst forgotten. It’s not strictly true, but probably the right thing to say regardless. “I think maybe we should get back now,” He suggests with a small smile turned to Mack, who returns it after a beat.
“Yes, of course. But you’re both welcome here anytime. I hope you know that, however you are, by yourselves or… together.” Cat responds as if it’s that simple. Perhaps it is, Will wonders. “But,” she adds quickly, “you have to come to dinner next week, just us four. No arguing. Think of it as a double date!” she says with glee.
Will tries to hide the panic he feels at that particular concept, but out of the corner of his eye, he can see Mack blush, with the edge of a smile across his angular face. That was it then.
They’re only at the end of the side road in Toffoli’s development when Mack turns to him. “I’m still angry with you," he says. Will lifts his eyes to the interior of the car’s roof, the familiar sound of the rattle still present. Okay, angry, but not so angry that he couldn't resist telling Will how he feels. He can work with that.
***
The Sharks grind through the last couple of games of the season, and there's little joy in it. This year they had almost looked set to take the wildcard slot for the playoffs but… no dice. Will knows Hockey is a cruel mistress and can be capricious, but Mack seems to be taking it harder than he thought he should. Not for the first time, Will wonders if he had ever really learnt that lesson; perhaps he’s naive about everything he loves.
Life for just the two of them remains much the same, and Will is maybe a little surprised. Mack is a little taciturn for a few days, but eventually mellows out and melts into Will’s embrace again. Especially after Toff shoots them both a wink after a brutal crushing by the Knights and informs them they’re invited to dinner on Saturday, Cat’s orders. Will can’t help but wonder if it will be more double date or more shovel talk. If it is the latter, which of them would be receiving it? He was pretty sure of the answer. Mack was the one that everyone actually liked, young and fresh and honest, the face of a franchise. He tried to ignore a little twinge of despair at this train of thought.
Will has barely been out of the shower for five minutes, Mack stepping into the steam-filled room right as he exits, placing a passing kiss on his cheek, before his Mom gives him a call. He really can’t ignore this one; she’d rang when he’d been at Whole Foods earlier and whilst he’d been deadlifting at the gym. Besides which, as he reminds himself, he really does love her. He answers the call.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Will! You know I’ve been trying to reach you all day. I know you’re run ragged these days, but I hope you’re not too busy to talk to me!”
“No, Mom, of course not, but we- Mack and me, I mean, we have to go out; we’re having dinner at the T-” Will is suddenly cut off.
“Oh, with Mack’s family again? How wonderful! You know-” She steamrolls right past him.
“Ah no, Mom, with Toff - and Cat, you remember them right…?” His mind trailed back to her comment: why would she assume that?
“Anyway, you know I only had dinner with the Celebrinis a couple of times, right?” he added with a nervous laugh. And it was true, he had only been to Livermore with Mack once or twice, despite plenty of invitations from Robyn. Mack still went to these semi-regular family dinners, but for Will, it had felt all too real, some sort of meet the parents oh-here’s-my-roommate-he’s-a-great-winger-also-he-rails-me-on-wining-game-
nights. He’d panicked and said he couldn’t do them anymore, and they’d agreed that going to them was just too suspicious.
Well, he’d thought that’s what had happened, but now he’s worried that’s just what he said and Mack had nodded along, biting along the edge of a thumbnail. He was increasingly aware there was another Mack out there, one that wanted something he couldn’t give.
“Yes, of course, sweetheart,” she added appeasingly. She knows him well enough to know when to move on. “I just wanted to remind you about Aoife’s wedding? In Ireland, the one in August. I hope you can still come.” After a barely perceptible pause, she continues, “And of course you get a plus-one if you w-.”
Will, terrified by where this was going, interjects, “Yeah, Mom, I'll see if I can. Summer training and all. Look, I really do gotta-”
“Okay, okay, I hear you loud and clear. I’ll let you go. Oh! And don’t forget Grace is coming in a couple of weeks to see Lochlan. Remember: be nice. I think she wants you to meet!” and with a teasing tone, she says, “Try to be pleasant and charming, not your usual self.”
“Ha- okay, Mom, will do.” After a heartbeat, he adds, “Love you.”
“Love you too.” She drops the call.
Lochlan, right, him. Will thinks back to when Grace had first introduced the concept to him over the phone.
“What kind of a name is Lochlan anyway? Loads-of-Lochs? It’s ridiculous,” Will had derided. Grace replied in a pointed tone, but not without humour, “I don’t know Will, what kind of name is Macklin anyway?” And Will was struck with complete, dumb silence. Grace, with a sigh at evidently having stooped so low, moved on. “Anyway… Lochlan, he’ll be free by Friday afternoon, and then we’re gonna…”
Will goes to find something clean, and possibly even ironed, to wear for tonight.
***
Blessedly, dinner with the Toffs was not at all what he thought it would be. When Cat had joked about date night, he was worried it would all be too much, too strange, too stilled. Instead, it was like any other time they spent together: warm, easy-going. He was not unaware that with Mack next to him, so many things seemed to be easier. He was also not unaware of the wine glass Cat had given him, which she seemed to refill at the merest suggestion that he might take a sip from it. Will was secretly grateful; he knew she was just trying to get him to relax a little, and he appreciated that she was trying to make him feel like an adult, trying to make this date night feel more like a date night out in the real world, not just your Alternate’s kitchen. Mack had quickly declined when offered, which Cat accepted easily. Will could just not quite puzzle out why, especially given Mack’s proclivity for underage drinking in the off-season, no matter how humiliating his track record had been there. One day, he really would have to show him a proper keg stand. Or how to drink Guinness.
“Come on then, boys, what’re the summer plans?” Cat pushes, whilst deftly opening a second bottle.
Will opens his mouth but is unsure where to start; he’s suddenly aware of how little they’ve discussed things, especially about him and Mack together. Don’t couples usually want to spend their summers with each other? Mack seemed to read his hesitation for what it was and jumped in.
“Will’s off to Lexington, off to do some studying at BU. Says he still wants to get his degree in the off-season. Complete academic weapon!” If Will didn’t know better, Mack sounded… proud. The first place Mack’s mind went to was to praise Will. He was starting to feel a little raw.
Mack ploughs on, telling Cat about his plans: training at the rink in Van with Connor, his Dad’s training regimen, another stint at Worlds, the elusive possibility of another week in Nova Scotia with Crosby. Cat smiles encouragingly.
Will is listening to Mack, but Toff is busy examining Will’s face as he does so. “Bet you'll miss him whilst you’re apart, eh?” he asks him in a low voice. “Why don’t you get him down to Mass for a few days in the summer, take a breather from your studies? Get him to chill out on the training?”
Will would be a cold, hard, lying bastard if he didn’t admit to the joy that filled him at that thought. Taking Mack round Lex again, or to little coffee shops, stupid college bars, low-lit restaurants. But it was ridiculous. What would he even tell his folks? Or Grace? He doubted even his ability to lie through that.
Will tunes back into Mack mid-sentence “... and anyway, I don’t think he feels okay with that. I’m so bad about lying to people about this stuff.” He gives a false little chuckle and then turns to face Will, face open.
Cat tries to intercede tenderly. “You know… Your guys’ relationship - it’s just yours, right? You don’t have to share it, you don’t owe it to anyone.” She pauses. “But for me, the feelings that I have for Ty…” She turns to meet his knowing smile, “What we have together - I can’t imagine not wanting to share that with the people I love.”
An expansive silence follows. Mack keeps glancing at Will’s temple, but the latter does not meet his eyes.
Unabated, Cat pushes on, “... Is it that you think the team won’t get it? Or think differently of you? Or your families won’t accept it? …. You know that’s not true, right?” She turns to him, “Will, your mom loves you, there’s no way-”
“No... You… just don’t get it.” Will snaps; even he is surprised by his sharpness. He calms himself and deflates a little; he knows Cat’s only trying to help them, support them. “It’s just different, sorry.”
Another short moment of silence. “Okay, okay, I won’t push then,” Cat adds softly, with a generous smile. “Just know that Ty and I, we’re always in your corner.” At this, she threads their hands together.
“Thanks,” Will says, surprised by the sincerity in his own voice. The moment is only slightly disrupted when Mack adds in a quiet, distant voice. “I won’t tell anyone without Smitty anyway.” Will suddenly lifts his eyes to Mack’s face.
“We’re a team, him and me. 71 and 2, going all the way. Together.” Mack says it like it's just some concrete, certain thing, one broad palm resting on Will’s knee.
Will hears Toff say, with a smile, “That’s what it means to be in a relationship. Wherever you get to, you get there together.”
***
Will tossed Mack the keys to the Bronco, his unsaid request for Mack to drive. Once they’re through the apartment door, he makes another quiet request, slipping a kiss behind Mack’s ear, asking him to fuck him that night. Will was feeling raw and uncertain; he just needed something real, something visceral. Mack, being Mack, delivered with limitless enthusiasm. He took Will apart bit by bit, leaned Will into the mattress, and trailed kisses down his neck. Afterwards, they lay together, Mack eventually moving down to place his head gingerly on Will’s chest. He does look at Mack when he asks the question that’s been bouncing around his head for the last hour.
“Did… did you mean it? When you said we’d only tell people together? Like, when I’m ready.”
Mack’s voice is sleepy and a little delayed. “Duh, yeah, of course.” Will just lies there, letting his thoughts wash over him.
Mack’s breathing evens out, and Will thinks he’s been asleep for a few minutes when he hears him continue. “That’s what Toff said it means, being a team… being a couple.” It was almost tragic, the way Mack still possessed the earnest belief in what the vets told him; that had died in Will long ago.
***
It’s early on a Monday morning, and Will is slowly moving around the apartment, poking helplessly at the malfunctioning coffee machine, unable to register what Error 249 could possibly mean. Mack was still lying in Will’s bed, only in his boxers, and probably would remain there until Will could present him with something hot, brown, and preferably caffeinated. They had an optional skate later on, but Will knew that Mack would be dead set on going. He suspected this had something to do with an impromptu call from Rick a few days prior; Mack had ignored Will's protests and taken the call out of the apartment balcony, the sliding glass door firmly shut. Will decided this time to keep tight-lipped.
A bright buzzing cuts through the apartment. After a moment, Mack shouted from the bedroom, “Who the fuck is that?”
“No idea, babe.” Will moved to the intercom, and he almost dropped the phone when he heard the voice on the other end of the line.
“Hey… It’s Aiden.” And then quieter, “Can you let me in? I can explain, but let me in first. I’m so fuckin’ tired, man.”
Will replaces the receiver and rushes to the open door of his bedroom. “Mack, Mack, get up now. It’s Aiden.” His voice restrained and tense, trying not to hint at the bile he could feel rising up his throat.
And for the first time in a long while, Will sees a look of genuine panic cross Mack’s face. He even looks a little pallid. “What? Why’s he here? How is he here?”
Will thinks fast. “Look, I don’t know, but it’s gonna look really suspicious if we don’t let him in. Worse than just letting him up here.”
“Okay, yeah…” Mack nods, absolutely trusting.
The buzzer rings again.
“Just- just get dressed, and I’ll let him up, okay?”
Will answers the call and tells Aiden to come up. After a few moments of feeling his blood pump hard, he hears a solid knock at the door.
Aiden looks tired, bone tired. His hair is mussed, his clothes creased, and wearing his glasses. Will notes he’s only carrying a small backpack.
“Hey, look, I’m really sorry an’ all, I can explain, I swear I just need to crash first; that’s all.” Voice slurred with exhaustion, he turns to look bleary-eyed at Will. “I just took a red-eye from Boston to get here, and it was a bitch. Just point me to Mack’s room, Smitt, I’ll crash in his bed.”
Before Will can even respond, Aiden has turned to the far wall and is looking between the two doors, each marked ‘2’ and ‘71’ with neat little wooden plaques. They’d been a present from his mom, apparently; she got them made at some cute stall on Cape Cod. Mack had insisted they put them up, and had naturally won. By the time Will catches up to him, Aiden is already opening the door to ‘71’ with the kind of arrogance possessed only by big brothers.
“Ha, Mackie’s made his bed for once,” he says before flopping down on it. Will knows damn well that’s not the case. Mack’s bed is made because he’d slept in Will’s last night, and the night before.
“Hey, shut the door, Smitty,” Aiden says, then with perhaps some realization of where he was. “... Sorry, I don’t wanna be an ass man, but I’ll explain once I’ve had some sleep.”
Will walks out the room and pulls the door closed behind. He and Mack share an anxious look.
***
By the time Aiden reemerges two hours later, it’s dangerously close to practice time, and Will has spent considerable effort trying not to chew his nails. Mack seems much calmer than Will had thought he’d be; the only clue to any anxiety in his mind was the three loads of laundry he was suddenly fascinated in doing.
“Hey, man,” Aiden says as he finds Will on the sofa, going to dap him up. His voice is a little quieter now, but he definitely looks tired. Mack comes into the room. Aiden turns to him with a teasing tone that sounds a little hollow. “Dude, where’s your white noise machine mom got you? I couldn’t see it in your room, and that thing was like crazy expensive.”
Mack rapidly turned to look at Will, absolute panic in his eyes. “I- uhm-”. Will knew damn well where that was too: it was in Will’s room. He had to intervene before Mack attempted some diabolical lie.
“Look, Aid,” he says, trying to derail the conversation completely, “it’s not like we mind - but why the fuck are you here?”
Aiden looks briefly taken aback, previous thoughts dropped. So much like Mack, Will thought; all it took was Will being a bit of an asshole, and he was distracted.
Aiden lets out a puff of air, turns to look between the two of them, then slouches down on the nearest armrest of the sofa, looking at his feet for a moment or two. “I’m… I’m here to talk to Dad. It’s not good news… for him anyway. I’m gonna go see them tomorrow; they don’t know I’m coming.” He turns a hard gaze up to Mack, “and please don’t tell them.”
“B- but why?” Mack is mystified. “Why just show up like that - like a sort of ambush.”
Oh no, accusations - not the right track to take with a Celebrini.
“No! No, it’s not like that; look, it’s gonna be really hard to tell him as it is.” Aiden lets out a frustrated noise, “You just wouldn’t get what I have to say. I fucking knew you wouldn’t get it.” The disappointment clear in his tone.
“Hey, come on Aid, this isn’t fair! You know Dad says-”
“Mack!” Will interrupts, half shouting to cut through Mack's increasingly hostile tone.
“We have to get going now if we’re gonna make the skate today. Aiden can stay here and chill, and maybe we can go out and get Chipper and a beer later?” he adds, not really a suggestion. Aiden nods, and then, after a beat, so does Mack, who disappears off to grab his skate bag.
Practice is pretty normal, all things considered. But Will notices that it does take half an hour or so for Mack to relax properly, the tense line of his shoulders finally dropping after a round of power drills. By the time Mack comes back into the locker room a couple of hours later, he looks relaxed and calm, damp hair still sticking to his nape and temples, Will’s eyes dropping lower to his exposed torso. He looks alarmingly like post-coitus Mack; Will feels a blush creep up his neck. After a moment, Mack seems to clock his reaction, and a gummy, lascivious grin springs across his face. Too bad Aiden’s still waiting for them at home. Fuck. Will debates his chances of giving Mack a passenger-seat blow job in the SAP players’ parking lot, but it's probably not worth risking their careers over.
Will drives them back home with a semi the whole way, and from the smirk on Mack’s face, he knows as much. They bundle Aiden into the car and hit up Chipotle on the way downtown. It was basically inevitable that they would end up at one of the rougher bars in town that wasn’t so hot on carding everyone or clocking Mack’s fake ID. Unfortunately, of said dive bars, ‘Murphy’s’ is the only one open on a Monday night. One of the plasticky Irish bars with the neo shamrock on the front. Probably not the best place to hook Mack on the Guinness then, oh well.
Once both Will and Aiden are on their second bottle, Mack stops absent-mindedly nursing his beer and goes to the bathroom. Will takes the opportunity for what it is. “Come on, man, Mack’s not here, just tell me what you’re going to Livermore for.”
Aiden looks at him but can’t quite meet his eyes. “It’s Dad- I’m gonna tell him that…” he struggles on, “well next year-“
It dawns on Will bright and sudden. “Holy Shit, you’re quitting the game.”
“I- yeah…” Aiden admits defeat. “Look, the Canucks have been stringing me along, and I’m good but,” his eyes flick across to the men’s toilets, “not good enough. I don’t think I ever will be in truth… and that’s okay.” he soldiers on. “Really, Smitt, I’ve made peace with it and Rachel- she’s gonna be staying to do her Master's. And me and her - we just feel like such a team; everything is just so easy with her, we understand each other. I don’t wanna upend my life with her to move back to Van - if I’m lucky, it’ll be Van. You get me?”
Yeah, I probably do, he thinks.
“So I looked at applying for med schools, and well, my GPA was good, and I just… got a place.” He gave Will a tight-lipped smile, but strangely it wasn’t an unhappy one. “And Rachel kept saying I’d have to tell Dad my new plan at some point, and she was right, of course. So I just… booked a flight yesterday, and thought maybe if I crashed with you guys then I could tell Mackie too.”
After a pause, he admitted. “I got RJ to give me your address; he says he found it on some old letter Mack left on his desk.” Ah, well, that answered that; nothing like snooping through your older sibling’s stuff.
“Yeah, I get why that could be difficult with Rick,” Will replied stiltedly, and after a brief hesitation added, “... and Mack.” He was struck with an unusual bout of compassion. “Well, I could probably tell Mack, if you can’t, I mean.”
“Could you?” Aiden definitely looked relieved.
“Ha, yeah, I’ve got some good ways of giving Mack bad news.” Yeah, like plowing him into the mattress afterwards.
Aiden responded with a grin, “Thanks man, you’re a real friend to him - and to me. You’re not so bad, y’know, for a BC guy.” He laughed easily. And at that moment some part of Will wished that Aiden knew what he and Mack were to each other. Will wondered how much their lives together hinged on hockey; what would be left without it?
Late in the afternoon on the next day, in an uncharacteristically domestic move, Will and Mack waved Aiden off into his Uber to Livermore. Once the car had disappeared out of sight, Will wrapped an arm around Mack’s waist, Mack instinctively dropping his head to Will’s shoulder. They headed inside. Will had absolutely no idea how he was going to break Aiden’s news to Mack.
***
Mack’s ringtone was bright and sharp, the pre-set one from the manufacturer with the artificial telephone bell sound, unbelievably grating at the best of times. Will had repeatedly chirped him for not changing it, but he never did. Will never cursed it more than he did now, however, as the sound cut through layers of muggy sleep. Unfortunately, “Hmmf-” was about all Will could express at the moment.
Mack pulled his body up to rest against the head of the bed, awkwardly squishing Will’s outstretched arm in the process from where it had wrapped around Mack’s broad back in sleep. This earned another muffled complaint from Will in the process, and Mack winced in sympathy. He reached out to his blaring phone, briefly glanced at the caller ID before quickly swiping accept. Will’s consciousness was rapidly gaining further footing - who the hell would be ringing now?
A sentiment Mack expressed directly: “What the fuck is it?” Voice still rough with sleep, customary Canadian politeness not present now. After a few beats of silence from the other side of the line, he asks with a much softer tone, “RJ? What is it? Why have you called me at…” briefly pulling the phone away from his ear to squint at the bright screen in the darkened room “... two in the morning… on a Tuesday?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Will could hear the kid stutter. Mack had accidentally turned the speaker on in his barely awake state; he’d done that before, too. “It’s just I had to ask- it’s been on my mind all night, and I can’t let it go. I-I have to ask…” RJ trails off.
With a brief sigh and scratch to his forehead, Mack prompts, “Look, it’s okay, I’m up now, just ask away.” After another brief pause, “... Please.”
After an audible hitching breath, it rushes out of RJ, “Would it be okay if one day I quit hockey- I mean, would you still- would it all be okay, woul- wouldn’t be mad or-or”. His tone was panicked, rushed, and almost on the verge of tears. RJ seemed to Will at that moment a lot younger than sixteen. The line of Mack’s mouth was upturned, clearly distressed despite his drowsiness. Why was RJ calling him at God knows when to ask that? He wondered momentarily if this was some big-brother thing he wouldn’t quite understand.
“Hey, hey,” was Mack’s first response. “Where’s all this coming from? Why are you ringing me in the middle of the night, asking if it’s okay if you quit hockey?”
“It’s just- just that Aiden showed up tonight without telling anyone.” RJ managed round yet more heaving breaths. Dear God, the kid was worked up, must have been thinking about this for hours. “He didn’t even text ahead that he was coming. Just showed up at the doorstep in an Uber, said he’d caught some red-eye from Boston, then crashed at yours- I mean yours and Smitty’s.” Will wasn’t entirely sure of the importance of that last part; something there bothered him.
“Yeah… that’s right, he did.” Mack’s tone was calm and warm now, gently encouraging. He sounded a lot like Robyn in these sorts of moments.
“And he didn’t say why he was here, just sat on the sofa with his elbows crossed on his legs, not looking at us. Then mom said that maybe we could eat dinner, and then he could tell us. So we did, and then- and then he turned to Dad and said he wanted quits. Didn’t even ask or anything, just said that he wanted to quit the ice - to quit hockey!” RJ had enough sense of the dramatic remaining to pause at this revelation.
“Dad just sat there, all stony-faced, like he gets. Then he asked where this was coming from? Why did he want to quit when he was so close? And then- then he asked if this was to do with Rachel.” Will drew breath at this. Definitely the wrong tactic there, Will thought.
“After that, they just started shouting, or Aiden did anyway, and Dad got all sort of tight like he does, was asking him about his Canucks and contract stuff- and then Mom tried to help, but it was not good, Mack. I think he’s staying here tonight, but he says he’s got a flight back tomorrow morning. Says he’s not going to the Canucks, says that he’s got like- a place at med school in Connecticut instead.” RJ’s voice was calmer now, but he was still in a rush to get it all out, it seemed.
“... What?” Mack's voice was weak, bound with genuine confusion, “Why would he want to quit?!” RJ seemed unperturbed by this and bounded on. “So I just couldn’t help thinking: wha- what if one day I want to quit too? What if I hated it, or I got like- a girlfriend or something. Please, Mackie, please. I stayed up until they all went to sleep. I didn’t know who else to ask. Tell me, Mackie.”
Mack took a deep breath. Will knew exactly what he was going to say; of course, Mack would say it's okay. He hasn’t got a non-fraternal bone in his goddam body. “RJ, that would be okay. Of course it would. Mom, Dad, all of us- we’d still love you…”
“Oh, okay,” RJ’s voice suddenly pitched much higher, laced with emotion. Will reached over and a steady palm on top of the meat of Mack’s thigh. His eyes flicked to Will’s in gratitude, the merest appearance of a tired smile.
“Sorry… sorry,” came RJ’s voice, now turned regretful. “I know it’s late, I just couldn’t stop thinking.”
“It’s okay, RJ, don’t worry, I was awake thanks to Will’s snoring anyway.” Lie obvious, but RJ doesn’t seem to notice.
“Hey!” Will protests.
“Oh! I didn’t realize you guys were sharing a room on a roadie - I thought you were at home tonight.”
“I- uh- we…” Mack's eyes met Will’s in panic. This was such a stupid slip, and Christ’s sake, Mack was a shitty liar too. Why’d that have to happen now when they were both half-sleep - in fact, that was probably why.
RJ seemed to have moved on, his mind wandering somewhere else. “Do you think… do you think it’d be okay if you wanted to quit, Mack? If one day you just said ‘enough is enough’, you met someone- or- or you just couldn’t keep playing? Would it be okay too?”
“What? Why?” Mack’s voice suddenly crowded with astonishment and confusion. “RJ, that's different. You know it’s different for me, I’m an NHL player, I got things- Dad would- People would-”
“Why?” RJ responds quickly, “Why’s it so different for you than Aiden or me?” Voice filled with teenage petulance. Ah, yes, Will thinks, he definitely seems sixteen now.
Mack deflates and answers placatingly. “Look, we'll talk about this another time, okay? It’s the middle of the night, let’s just both go to sleep.”
“Okay, okay. ‘Night… Love you, Bro.”
“Love you too, bud.” There was a faint smile on Mack's face.
“Oh, and tell Smitty that goal last game was nasty, the way it just slipped past-”
“Will do, go to sleep, buddy.” Mack ended the call.
Mack turned to Will, a smile already starting to fall.
“Well, what can I say? Kid’s got great taste. Game recognizes game.” Will says, plastering on a wide grin. It does not have its intended effect. Instead, Mack’s brow crimps in confusion and his expression darkens.
“Man, I just don’t get it. Why would Aiden want to quit? Why would anyone?”
Will just sighs. God, it really never has crossed your mind, has it? He had always wondered. He pulls himself up and slips out from under the sheets. Standing, he reaches out a hand to Mack, face still riddled with confusion.
“Come on,” he says, “let’s have some of that herbal tea shit my mom sent. Says it helps her when she can’t sleep.” Will walks out to the kitchen and fills the electric kettle. After the tea arrived, Mack had insisted they go out and buy one, and although he never verbalized it, Will thought it was rather sweet in a way. He knew Colleen would appreciate it - if she could know.
Mack followed behind languidly; he sat himself down on the sofa, and sank deep into the cushions. A few minutes later, Will joined him, carrying two steaming mugs and putting them down on the coffee table in front of Mack. Then he too sank deep into the sofa cushions, leaning his side against Mack’s warm flank. After a hesitation, he committed to the bit and pulled his arm over Mack’s shoulders in a way he knew he liked.
After a put-upon sigh, Mack continues his spiel. “I still don’t get it, I mean, the Canucks have drafted him, even if they’ve not taken him yet. Why would Aid want to quit when he’s so close…” After a little thought, he turns to Will. “Is this why he just showed up here, why he went to Livermore?”
“Did- did you know?” He implores Will. Ah, that’s it then; Mack’s eyes have him pinned, and Will ponders if stigmata are less painful.
“I didn’t know… but I sort of guessed as much. Then he… er- he told me." Will says, not breaking eye contact with Mack.
“Fuuuuck…” Mack exhaled. Then asked in a much smaller voice, “...why didn’t he tell me? Did he think he couldn’t tell me… but could tell you?” That stings a little, and logically, Will knows that Mack didn’t mean it to, but it hurts nonetheless. “I’m his brother and all.”
“Babe,” Will whispers the pet name even inside their apartment, and pulls their foreheads together. “I think that’s probably why he felt he couldn’t.”
But Will knows there was probably another reason, one to do with Rick. Mack might try to take Rick’s side, or worse still, stop Aiden from going altogether. Aiden had suspected that Mack would be completely unable to come off the tracks of thought Rick had laid out for him. Will was eerily familiar with that particular doubt.
Eventually, Mack seemed to settle, the whirling in his mind slowing down, and his form sinking deeper and deeper into the sofa, body growing heavier where it lay against Will’s side. Will then moved them both back to bed, leaving the tea discarded after only a couple of sips, playfully prodding Mack in the ribs back to the room. Mack falls back into bed, and eventually his breathing evens out. Will stretches back too, but is unable to fall back into sleep so easily. Aiden had done it then, really bitten the bullet, had admitted to Rick - and himself - that he wanted something else, something different. And Mack, in typical Mack fashion, had found it utterly incomprehensible. For a while now, Will had wondered, when he was feeling some narcissistic self-pity, if Mack would choose Hockey over him. That thought was a dead end, and he knew it; Will knew he could never bring himself to make Mack choose.
Will was suddenly struck in that moment with the desolate realization that without Hockey, there was no bond between Mack and him. As far as their families knew anyway, and as far as friends or fans or random participants in sports trivia knew, if they broke up… they would be just teammates. Perhaps it was good they had told Cat and Toff then. Still, the thought was crushing some deep part of himself. All the bonding, and jokes, and laughter, and sex - and love - would be nothing. Nothing to ever show for it. The greatest feeling he had ever had in his life, and just … no one would know. They’d been so careful, and their reward was to have nothing to show for it.
***
Will takes the Bronco to pick up Grace from Mineta. He had invited Mack along, but he’d said something about the need for ‘Smith sibling bonding’, and Will had been secretly relieved.
Grace looks well, bright smile, warm tan, and is in good spirits. First thing she does, after the hug that is, is start pulling at his curls and marvelling at how long they are, but she does concede in the end that they look good; they suit him. This seemed to be her overall consensus about San Jose: that it suited him, although exactly why he was never sure. It was at that moment she chose to drop this particular bomb:
“So, my Airbnb for tonight and tomorrow fell through… But I figured I could just stay with you two.” What?
“Grace, I don’t know I th-” he was completely stuck for a good reason to refuse. One Grace would actually buy anyway; she seemed to know this.
“Come on! And Mackie will love it.” That much was probably true. Dammit, how had she known to play that particular card? He felt his hands start to sweat against the steering wheel.
“In fact, I asked him already, and he said it would be fine.”
“What? When?” was Will’s astonished response.
“I DM’ed him on Insta while waiting for your slow-ass to pick me up.” Even more shocking: Mack actually remembered his Instagram password. “Anyway, I’ll stay with Lochlan in San Fran on Saturday, so I’ll only be in your hair in a couple of days.” With this, she pulled at another lock by his temple, still admiring its new length.
So the three of them spent most of Friday together, and it felt good and perhaps a little terrifying to see how well Grace and Mack could get on. Will was feeling increasingly on edge. Before practice, they went to some little independent coffee shop, and he and Grace got some stupid, ridiculous lattes that cost an outrageous $9 each, but Mack didn’t even chirp at the price, too busy telling Grace about Charlie’s latest tournament. Grace was fully engaged with the drama about the latest opponent and a smashed racket. That was the thing about her, she just loved people; it came so effortlessly to her. As a teen, he realized they both possessed the same Smith patented charm, only he thought she used hers for good - well, most of the time.
After conditioning training, they end up meeting up again to wander around some mall downtown, Will trailing behind the other two as they chat away, not certain of how to act in this new dynamic he has only really noticed today. Mack insists they go to some Ethiopian joint Will had found on TikTok and had tried out last week. Mack even insists on recreating the massive order of little dishes that Will had described to him before. Will noticed, however, that Mack seemed only to eat some of the simple chicken stew and the spinach, but remembering the last fight about food, he tries to avoid saying anything.
This, unfortunately, did not mean that Grace didn’t notice. “Mack, try this one! Or that one,” indicating another, she snaps at Will, “Hey! Leave some for Mack.”
Mack’s face falls suddenly, his shoulders tense. “It’s okay, I can’t really eat those anyway… they don’t fit in my macros.” Voice stilted and awkward.
“Come on, it’s just o-”
“Grace,” Will adds in a low voice. She takes a moment to glance between Will and Mack, and seems to understand there’s something a little deeper happening here, adeptly changing the subject.
Mack absolutely insists on paying for the meal, giving Grace a wink with a “my treat”, before glancing up at Will, who is astonished - he’s usually so awkward around girls. Will feels a blush start and has no idea how to respond; worryingly, Grace seems to catch this with a little curious look.
It’s as they’re walking to the car that Grace looks down at her phone and swears loudly. Will and Mack turn round in alarm. She gives them a little apologetic smile.
“Sorry, it’s Lochlan… says there’s some sort of emergency, he has to be at the office all day tomorrow.” She reads more texts on her phone and adds with relief, “But he can still make it to dinner.”
After a moment's thought, she continues, “Hey, why don’t we go round San Fran tomorrow - just us three, play tourists for a bit?” Her smile is bright only in the way it is when she wants something.
“No.” Will tries for a quick shut-down, but is unsuccessful.
“Oh, come on Will, why not?”
Mack then turns to him, his face broad and open, a gummy grin on full display. “Yeah, Will, why not?” And Will is utterly unable to resist.
***
So it is that they get up bright and early to play tourists for the day. Grace appears to have found some sort of itinerary online with vaguely militaristic timings. After taking selfies in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, crawling up Lombard Street (and back down), riding historic streetcars and walking about twenty thousand steps, they end up meandering into the Castro, Grace insisting they find some Mexican fusion restaurant Lochlan had recommended. Her gaze passes briefly onto a pride banner above the restaurant door.
As they’re walking to an empty booth, she asks, with a nonchalance Will is pretty sure is fake. “Have you heard from Gráinne?” Will shakes his head. “Apparently, she’s got a girlfriend now! Super cool girl, goes to Oberlin. They met through friends at Sarah Lawrence or something.”
Mack asks, intrigued. “Oh, who’s that?”
“One of our cousins,” Grace replies breezily. “One of Trisha’s.”
“Oh… and is she like a lesbian or something? Like er- bisexual or….”
“I don’t actually know. I think she just says she’s queer. She just told us she was dating a girl now, and that was that really.”
After a moment, Mack responds softly, “Good for her.” He turns away to look out the restaurant window, not making eye contact with Will. Grace, however, looks directly at Will, and he has the uncanny feeling he's being X-rayed.
***
Lochlan was handsome for sure, tall with sandy hair, and greeted Will with a genuine smile. “Hey man, nice to meet you!” giving him a warm hug. “Where’s Mack? I thought he was joining us. Grace has said so much about the two of you.”
“Has she?” He desperately, desperately tried to keep his voice flat. “He’s busy tonight, unfortunately, gone to his little brother’s hockey match.”
Bullshit. What had really happened was that Will had used the time that Grace was taking a shower to tell Mack, to beg Mack, not to come tonight; to go to some local match RJ had instead. Mack had looked actually very hurt by this, and kept pushing Will for an answer as to why. Eventually he broke and told him the truth, that it was just too much, too much couple-y behaviour, that Grace would know. Mack had looked unhappy but just nodded, and that seemed to be it. If Grace spotted the change in mood from earlier, she chooses to ignore it, and expressed some disappointment when Mack said he couldn’t make it but didn’t question it. Will felt nauseated by making them enact this little farce for an audience of one.
“Ah, a shame then.”
And Will really did like Lochlan; he was affable and amusing, asking all sorts of questions about hockey, about their lives growing up. About Mom and his aunts and cousins, about Grandpa and Ireland and Aoife's wedding. Hardly surprising given he was Grace’s plus-one. His mind once again turned to Mack, desperately wishing he was by his side; he could be a surprisingly good judge of character when he paid attention. Except when it came to Will, he thought despondently: Will he always overestimated.
***
Will drives back to San Jose alone. Mack is already home when he gets back, lying on Will’s bed, dressed only in plaid pajama pants and flicking through his phone, with reels playing at full volume. He suspects that this is Mack trying to signal that he forgives him for shoving him off to RJ.
“Hey, bud.” Will draws as he slides up beside Mack, having dumped his shoes off in the hall, wrapping an arm around his waist and his lips pressed delicately to his neck. Mack gives out an involuntary little shudder.
“Ugh, don’t call me ‘bud’ when you’re trying to sex me up, Smitt.”
“I’m not doing anything.” He protests, albeit weakly.
“I can feel your hard dick against my hip, asshole.”
“Oh! I see how it is, I can’t call you bud, but you can call me an asshole.” The consternation naturally descends into more insults, followed by wrestling, which in turn leads to fucking. It was at least a very well-worn path for them, and Will was reminded of how natural things felt with Mack.
“Will?”
“Hmm…?” Will was staring blankly at some Sharks team email on his phone but not taking it in.
“Do you like girls?”
Will looked up in alarm. “Do you think I’ve got my eye on someone?!”
“I’m not saying this right,” Mack said, grimacing. “I mean, know that you and I have this thing, and we’re like exclusive or whatever…” God, Will remembered that conversation a few months back; it had been excruciating to get through at the time, but he had felt relief afterwards.
“But do you like girls too, I mean?”
“What do you mean ‘too’?”
“Well, I know you like… boys - I mean, you like me obviously. But do you like girls too?”
“Mack, where's this coming from? Who said I liked boys?”
Mack stares at him like he’s a little stupid, then slowly says, “Uh, well, you know, I am a boy…”
“Okay, okay, there’s you, I guess. But you’re the only boy I’ve ever had like… a relationship with.” Lord, that word felt hard to say. And he wasn’t even sure that was strictly true either. In college and in the program, he and Leno had- a couple of times, well more than a couple of times in fact, had-
“Mack, are you asking if I’m like bi or some shit?”
Silence hung in the air for a brief moment. “Yeah, I am, Will.” His face was open and honest.
“Why? I mean, it’s not like I can come out - why’s it matter?”
Mack was pensive again, and looked like he was chewing the inside of his cheek. “I guess it doesn’t then…” he concedes. He lies back down and rests his face on Will’s shoulder. He’s quiet for a few minutes.
“But… isn’t that sort of painful?” Mack asks. “Not telling anyone, not telling people who you are. It’s- it’s like you never get to be the person you could be.” he yawns and settles into the mattress.
Just when he seems to be on the edge of sleep, Will hears quietly: “You can’t mean something to people… if- if they don’t know who you are.”
***
Grace is barely back in Boston three days when she calls.
“Will, Will.” She sounds slightly breathless. “It’s… it’s grandpa, he died this morning. He just- Aileen went in to see him and found him in his chair, looking out to the yard. It was a stroke, apparently.” Here she lets out a little sob.
“Mom and Dad, we’re all going to Chicago as soon as we can for the funeral… Will, you’ve gotta get to Chicago…”
***