Archive of Our Own

Nick doesn’t bother shaving after they lose Game 7; it’s been a whole two weeks, the barest taste of the playoffs, and in all honesty he knows he looks pretty much the same as he had done at the end of the season. Maybe he’s down a couple pounds, maybe he looks more tired, maybe—okay, definitely—he’s got a few more bruises, but fundamentally: nothing’s changed. Nothing but the fact he’s heading back to Minnesota as soon as they’ve cleared out their lockers and settled things to leave his apartment over summer, nothing but the fact his summer’s starting earlier than it has done in years. His first two years in the league they were one-and-done; this shouldn’t feel as disappointing or as novel as it does, but Nick puts that aside, it’s not worth dwelling on.

He goes home, spends some time with his family, takes his dog out to the park and ignores the looks that Tyler gives him when he catches Nick moping on the couch. He very deliberately doesn’t even go near the HD sports channels when they’ve got the TV on; he’s going to pretend like there’s no such thing as hockey still going on for at least a week if he can help it.

Of course, the problem with that plan is he’s in Minnesota, and the Wild actually make it to the second round.

The fact they’re playing the Hawks is—

It’s probably some kind of irony, anyway.

So Nick can’t avoid, can’t help hearing about, can’t help wondering the what-ifs, every now and then. Even though he’s settled and happy in New York, even though he knows he’s getting minutes he wouldn’t have done in Chicago for years, more time and responsibility and everything he’s always aimed for.

He sulks for a few days—his Mom’s phrasing, not that he wants to admit it—and then he’s about ready to deal with people again. That means he starts actually answering his texts, which is how he winds up getting dinner in the hotel with a bunch of the Hawks the day before game 4.

It’s kind of nice. Sort of.

They don’t actually talk about hockey at all; it’s easier all around not to. Instead, they catch up on all the gossip they hadn’t managed to exchange in New York in December, or in Chicago in March. That somehow takes them most of the way through their meal, and Nick’s pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to fall back into that rhythm, surrounded by guys he’s spent years hanging out with and knows better than almost anyone else. It’s not quite the same, not like he’s never been gone; there’s too much distance and too many games between the last time he was on the ice in a Hawks sweater for that, but it’s more comfortable than he maybe would have dared hope. It’s not like they’ve been completely out of contact, either; Nick’s had months of group texts with the Rockford guys, as scattered as they now are around the league, and he’s called Andy and Saader more than once, at least.

Dinner is good, and Nick deliberately makes a production out of ordering dessert as well, just because he can, and he weathers the expected chirping. Most of the guys say their goodbyes after that, heading up for an early night, or at least some peace and quiet on their own. By the time Nick’s just pushing the last melting piece of ice cream around on his plate it’s just him and Shawzy and Saader left, making up their own little trio for the umpteenth time. Nick can’t even begin to guess how many nights he’s spent this way; wonders if it’ll feel the same after he’s added another two or three years with the Isles, balanced against however many meals he’ll spend with Cal and Matty and the other guys there.

Once it’s just them, Shawzy spends a good ten minutes giving Nick an in-depth monologue on how the dogs are doing, with illustrations, and even though he’d sent half of the pics to Nick already anyway, it was easy enough to look like he hadn’t seen them before. The tiny smile playing around Saader’s lips suggests that Nick’s not hiding that as well as he’d thought, but he doesn’t say anything, and Andy’s absorbed enough in the story he’s telling not to notice either of them. If they were a few weeks deeper in the playoffs, Nick’s not sure even he would notice; he’s pretty sure that if they get another week or so Brandon’s beard will be at the crazy hermit stage where you can hardly see his expressions again.

Nick gives Saader a quick grin, rolling his eyes affectionately when he doesn’t think Shawzer will notice, just the same as they’ve done for years now, on the same wavelength as always. His timing is a little off with that, though, because while Saader manages to turn his laugh into a cough, ducking his face into his napkin, Shawzy looks up just in time to see Brandon’s initial reaction, and suspiciously turns back to Nick before he can quite blank his expression again.

“Oh come on, Leds,” he says, long-suffering down to his bones. “What? What do you two think is so funny? I didn’t miss you at all,” he says, which is so blatantly a lie that Nick is startled into laughing outright, which just sets Brandon off again too.

“It’s nothing,” he manages to say once he’s calmed down. “I was just laughing at the face Saader was making, okay?”

“Yeah, his face is pretty funny,” Andy agrees, pretending to look sour for all of ten seconds before he gives it up. “Hey, I’m gonna head up,” he says a few minutes later, when their conversation has trailed off, so Nick stands up to exchange hugs and fist-bumps, mutters, “Good luck, hey,” into his ear, because if it can’t be him then, well.

“Thanks man,” Shawzy says, and then he heads for the elevator, and Nick sits back down at the suddenly significantly quieter table, just him and Saader.

If it were anyone else, that might be an awkward silence, but Saader’s one of the few guys Nick’s always been equally comfortable with talking or just hanging out, and so he doesn’t think anything of it when they just sit there for a bit longer, not saying much of anything. Nick’s rattling ice cubes around his water glass contemplatively, not really thinking about anything in particular.

“Are you going to finish that?” Saader asks eventually, and Nick looks down at his plate like he’s forgotten what’s on it. There’s maybe two spoonfuls of ice cream left, if that.

“Probably not,” Nick admits, he really had ordered the dessert more to fuck with the guys than out of any serious desire to actually eat it.

Saader raises an eyebrow at him, and holds out his hand, and Nick’s shaking his head while he pushes the bowl across the table, not even bothering to say anything. Saader’s an adult, and that little ice cream isn’t really going to do any damage anyway. Not that Nick will waste any time calling him a slug if he’s even half a step slow later, of course.

He scrapes the bowl clean in about two seconds flat, and then gives Nick another one of his trademark crooked grins, the side of his mouth slantwise, cheeks pink above the mess of beard that’s already wilder than Nick’s.

“You’re welcome,” Nick says meaningfully, teasing automatically, the same way he would to Tyler; some habits just go too deep to totally shake.

“Thank you,” Saader says, very properly, if a little late, and then he pushes his sleeve back, checks the time on his watch and makes a face. “I should probably copy Andy’s example, though.”

“Right,” Nick says. It’s not late-late, but it’s solidly in the territory he’d been expecting this dinner to wrap up in. They can finish settling up the bill and he can head home, maybe catch some TV before he bothers trying to sleep. It’s not like he has to be anywhere the next morning.

“It’s not quite the same,” Saader says, a moment later, with an intonation that Nick can’t quite parse.

“Hrm?” he says, tilting his head to look at Brandon. He didn’t think he’d zoned out mid-sentence or anything.

“Watching terrible reality shows the night before a game,” Saader explains. “Like, it’s not a real superstition,” because Brandon makes a point of trying not to let himself develop any of those, Nick knows; it’s practically a superstition in and of itself. He’s terminally early any time he has a deadline, but that’s about all they were ever able to chirp him about on that level. “But it was kind of relaxing last time, I dunno.”

Nick couldn’t actually count how much shitty reality TV he’s watched through April and May and June; he’s probably seen every Survivor season finale since he was back in Eden Prairie from one hotel room or another. And the last two or three years that had stopped being a thing he did, and kind of turned into a thing him and Saader did; sprawled out on the double beds of their ubiquitous hotel rooms all across the USA and Canada. He’s lost count of how much time they’ve spent talking about nothing and making fun of the people who volunteer to let themselves be on TV for months at a time. The irony isn’t lost on Nick, of course, but at least he gets the benefit of years of experience and trainers and, more importantly, twenty-some other guys who also want the same prize and ae going to actually take some of the heat off you sometimes. He’s just as happy to be under a much dimmer spotlight, that’s for sure.

“Aww, it’s nice someone misses me,” he teases, after it’s been a little too long without either of them saying anything else. Nick’s just not sure what else to say.

“Do you want-” Brandon starts to say, at the exact same time that Nick opens his mouth again to say, “Hey, I don’t have to-”

“You first,” Nick says, when they both stop mid-sentence and exchange sheepish looks.

“You want to hang out a bit longer?” Brandon asks. “We can watch something, I just think Shawzy might flip if I try to make him watch something without talking over, you know, all of it.”

“Yeah,” Nick says, without even pausing to think about it. He’s been about to offer that exact same thing anyway, so. “I was gonna say, I don’t have to be anywhere, so sure, I can hang.”

It’s probably technically something that would be frowned on, if anyone was to ask, but Nick doesn’t think going up to Saader’s room to hang out for a bit and watch TV is exactly in the same league as bringing a hook-up back, or going out drinking, or even staying in with the mini-bar. If they were still teammates—if Nick had still been here for reasons other than seeing his family—then they’d be doing the same thing. No big deal, Nick figures.

They get an elevator to themselves, heading up to the room, and when Saader steps over to the panel to swipe his door key, Nick automatically pats his own pocket to check for his key before remembering that of course he’s not actually staying here. He’ll be driving back home whenever they’re done watching TV, he won’t be just walking down the hall.

Saader disappears into the bathroom when they get up to his room, tossing the remote onto the bed that hasn’t been slept in, and Nick kicks off his shoes by the door and climbs onto the bed, flipping the TV on and scrolling channels to find something that looks promising. He can hear water running, and when Brandon comes back it’s with a couple of the complimentary bottles of water in hand, making the face he always does when he’s just brushed his teeth and is trying to get the taste out of his mouth.

Nick takes a bottle when Saader offers, says a quiet thanks, and then looks down at the remote in his hand, ever so slightly uncomfortable in a way he can’t quite pinpoint.

“Just put whatever on,” Saader says, standing in front of his open suitcase, and starting to shrug out of his shirt and tie. It’s not the first time Nick’s seen him undress, not by a long shot. They were teammates for the better part of two years; Nick’s seen Brandon wearing six layers and complaining bitterly in Winnipeg; he’s seen him cheerfully arguing with Smitty and Shawzy in the showers wearing nothing at all; there is nothing new or different about this at all, but in some ineffable way Nick thinks to himself that he shouldn’t look, and so he fixes his gaze on the corner of the label on his water bottle, where it’s starting to peel away from the plastic. It doesn’t have any answers for him, and he manages to shake the mood off when Saader says, “C’mon, pick something already,” from the other bed, cheerful and familiar and easy.

“Don’t rush genius,” he says after a moment. “You want to be stuck with the Real Housewives of Wherever?”

“That can’t be all that’s on,” Brandon protests automatically. “C’mon, at least find CSI or something, isn’t that legally required to be airing constantly or something?”

Nick finds Criminal Minds, which is maybe a little more plot-heavy than they’d usually settle for, but they both pick the killer by the second ad break anyway, so it’s not like it matters much. The routine is more important than the content; Nick knows that well enough.

Nick’s not exactly clock-watching, but they get halfway through a second episode before he thinks that yeah, it’s time for him to head off. He struggles back to his feet, gets a little tangled in the coverlet before he manages to actually get up, and Saader just laughs at him with no mercy whatsoever.

Nick grumbles a little, but it’s mostly on automatic; he doesn’t really care, and he gets the last laugh anyway when Saader tries to stand up to say good bye and nearly does the exact same thing himself. He’s a little more graceful than Nick was, but not by much, so Nick’s already grinning by the time Brandon leans in to hug him.

“It’s good to see you,” Brandon says. “Thanks for tonight, too, that— helped.”

Nick hugs him back, maybe a little tighter than he’d normally intend to; something in Brandon’s voice had been more— more something, than usual. Nick can’t place it; Saader’s always been soft-spoken, doesn’t rush himself or make a whole lot of noise, but that had been even quieter than Nick expects from him. Almost vulnerable, maybe. That’s disconcerting, and Nick’s not sure how to react really, other than to just hug him back and says, “Hey, don’t worry about it, any time.”

Brandon leans back and quirks an eyebrow at him meaningfully, and Nick corrects himself almost immediately with, “Except if you’re playing us, obviously.”

“Just checkin’,” Brandon says, with a little grin, swallowing the end of the word like he always does; Nick’s never quite worked out if that’s a Pittsburgh thing or just a Saader thing.

“I mean, my mom and dad might be okay with it if you guys lose,” he teases, and probably Nick wouldn’t be all that upset to see the Wild win one or two at least this year either, but he’s not selling that well enough for Brandon to buy it.

“You planning on being there?” Brandon asks, almost diffidently, and Nick’s jaw goes tight before he can tell himself to relax.

“I— no,” he says. “I just. It’s hard enough watching on TV, you know?”

He’s not sure if Brandon does know; Brandon’s been to the conference finals at least for the first two years of his professional career. That first round loss to the Yotes has to feel like a blip on the radar to him. Nick’s not sure he’s ever had to sit out the better part of the playoffs. Maybe in the O, it’s not like Nick followed major junior all that closely after his own draft year, and he’s not real sure how Saginaw did. But it’s not something he really wants to explain. Brandon just nods understandingly at him and doesn’t push for more, so that’s something, at least.

“Yeah,” Brandon says, and then after a little pause, while Nick realizes they’re still touching and maybe that’s a little weird, he steps back and adds, “I gotta say I hope we don’t have to come back any time soon, but, you know. Be seeing you, Leds.”

“Of course,” Nick says, hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans, suddenly not quite sure what he should be doing with his hands. The good thing about saying hi and bye in a restaurant or in public is there’s a script for it, it doesn’t drag out and leave him floundering like this. He’s never felt this tiny curl of uncertainty in his stomach when he’s been hanging out with Brandon before, and he doesn’t like it, doesn’t know what to make of it.

There doesn’t seem to be much else to say, so Nick just pats his pockets quickly to check he’s still got his phone and wallet and keys. He walks over to the door and scuffs his shoes back on, pretty sure he’s not missing anything.

He pauses with his hand on the door and looks back over his shoulder to see Brandon sitting in the middle of his bed, with the faintest of frowns creasing his forehead. Nick wants to make that go away, compelled to leave him smiling at least, so he adds a “Good luck,” quiet enough that Brandon can hear him but it shouldn’t disturb anyone else. “Kick some ass tomorrow, yeah? I’ll be watching.”

“You bet,” Brandon says, and then he gives Nick that soft, crooked smile again, and Nick feels warmth bloom in his chest, hugs the satisfaction of getting that moment to himself.

Brandon had looked a lot less tense when Nick left than he had done earlier in the evening for sure. Call it Nick’s good deed for the day, although probably some of the guys he trains with wouldn’t use quite those words. Whatever, he’s allowed to still have friends on other teams.

Even considering that, something about the evening feels ever so slightly unfinished, like a thread dangling that’s going to nag at him until he can figure it out. Nick’s turning that thought over to try and find the loose edges as he makes his way back down the hall to the elevator when he’s interrupted by the sound of a door opening, fast, with a thump as it hits the doorstop and rebounds, the latch clicking but not quite catching.

He stops in his tracks; just in time, too, because Shawzy comes barreling out of his room, plastic ice bucket in hand, and wearing a t-shirt and boxers that Nick knows him well enough to guess he’d pulled on just long enough to leave his room.

“Do you do anything at a normal person’s speed?” Nick asks, mostly rhetorically. Some habits really do die hard, and giving Shawzy shit is absolutely one of them.

“Leds,” Shawzy says, with a grin. “That was fast.” Nick blinks, and decides it’s probably better not to ask why Shawzy doesn’t seem surprised to see him. “Heading home?”

“Uh, yeah,” Nick says, giving him a one-shouldered shrug. “Try to get some sleep tonight, huh?”

“You bet,” Shawzy says. “Hope you told Saader the same thing.”

“Sure,” Nick says. “I should go, so, uh, see you later, Shawzy, g’night.”

“You have never been smooth,” Shawzy informs him, and without pausing, he just turns and heads up the hall to the ice machine. That leaves Nick to just stare at his retreating back, decide it’s probably not worth asking or arguing about, and walk back to the elevator himself.

It’s an easy drive home after that; the traffic even lighter since he’d killed a few extra hours hanging out with Saader, and Nick just goes to bed without really thinking much more about anything. Maybe he’ll see who else is in town and find some of the guys to hang out with, he hasn’t really seen any of them since he’d got in from New York. That’ll definitely take his mind off the post-season.

* * *

Nick doesn’t see Saader—or any of the Hawks—again until it’s summer proper, and even then, it’s only briefly; he’s in Chicago to see Shawzy and Chaunette, so of course he’s going to get drinks with any of the Hawks who’re still in town when they can make their schedules match up. They’re not quite at the stage where the Cup’s bar-hopping everywhere with them any more, which means both that Nick can actually go out without feeling incredibly out of place, and that by that stage most of them are just starting to recover enough from their first round of hangovers to start drinking again.

They head out to one of their favorite bars to meet Saader the first night Nick’s in town, and as usual Saader’s on time, or at least earlier than they are. Nick raises a hand to wave as when they see him, sees Saader grin back at them both. Andy eels his way up to the bar and gets the bartender’s attention easily enough, and he gives Nick a little shove, says, “Go over, I’ve got this,” before turning back to order. Shawzy’s more than capable of juggling a whole three drinks, so Nick leaves him to it and does as instructed.

Saader’s still got the ridiculous beard that he’d finished out the Final with, and his hair is longer than Nick’s ever seen it, curling around his neck, past his collar. It makes Nick all the more conscious of his own bare face, freshly shaved after he’d decided summer was too damn hot for a full beard when he wasn’t spending half his time indoors in a rink. Nick knows what’s expected of him, though, so when he settles into the booth beside him, he just gives him a companionable shoulder bump, and says, “What, no manbun today?”

“Aw, fuck off,” Saader says to him, although he’s a little pink in the cheeks, which could easily just be from the fact that summer’s settling over the city or that he’s already a drink or two in. “Didn’t know you were following our press,” he adds, and Nick has to give him that one.

“Kind of hard to avoid it,” he says, and when Saader raises an eyebrow he says, “Okay, fine, I was watching. Congrats, yeah?”

It’s maybe more sincerity than he really wants to be going with when he’s still sober, but Saader seems to get that he means it and just grins at him, crooked and happy, a little sunburned from the parade still, and says, “Thanks, man.”

They don’t really talk about it after that, or when Shawzy gets back with drinks, either; they just talk idly about their plans for the summer, exchanging news and gossip about mutual friends, talking shit with the habit of long familiarity. Nick could almost feel like he’d never left in some ways, except now half the stories he’s telling are peopled with a different cast, guys he now knows well, that Saader and Shawzy don’t. It doesn’t feel half as awkward as it might, and it’s not like that’s ever stopped any of them before; he’s probably heard a dozen stories about shit the Ice Dogs got up to, more than once in some instances. He was pretty sure that some of them were a little exaggerated, but Andy has never been one to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

One drink turns into quite a few more, and miraculously they’re even getting mostly ignored by the rest of the bar, although Nick privately thinks the fact there’s only three of them instead of a huge group and the world’s most conspicuous trophy probably helps there. He’s pretty sure Shawzy had to sign a few autographs at the bar, but that’s been about it.

The world is starting to get pleasantly fuzzy around the edges when Shawzy gets up—to hit the bathroom, something, Nick’s not totally sure—and Nick doesn’t even notice at first that he hasn’t come back until Saader stops mid-sentence, frowns, and then digs his phone out of his pocket to check the time.

“Should we go check if he fell in?” he jokes, and Nick realizes abruptly that it’s just been the two of them for the last while, that he’s almost finished the beer he’d got up for right after Shawzy wandered off.

“Text him first?” Nick suggests, but he’s the one who pulls out his phone to do it; he’s meant to be sleeping in his old room, in his own bed, technically, since he’d never bothered getting it shipped out to Long Island after moving out, and that means if Shawzy’s fucked off somewhere then Nick doesn’t want to have to wake him or Chaunette up to get let in. It might be his old room, but his old keys are god only knows where.

His phone chirps in his hand a moment later, so Shawzy’s fine, at least, and when Nick thumbs the message open it just reads, “Figured we’d get some alone time while you guys catch up” and then there’s a string of emoji after that which are either vaguely obscene or just plain weird. Nick’s not sure why Shawzy apparently hasn’t had enough alone time lately—the season’s been over for like ten days now—but he’s not going to cockblock him.

“Guess I can crash with Saader,” he types, tilting his phone so Brandon can read both the message and his reply, and when he nods agreement, Nick presses send.

“Should we head out?” Nick asks him, a little later, leaning heavily into him. He’s pretty sure usually the floor in the bar is level, which is a hint that he should probably cut himself off soon, but it’s summer and he’s just pleasantly warm all over, enjoying wearing short sleeves and not carrying a coat and drinking cold beer.

“Mmmm, probably,” Saader says, right by Nick’s ear, and he’s a solid line of warmth along Nick’s side, slouching into him as they sit. Saader can hold his liquor pretty well normally, but Nick wouldn’t be surprised if his liver’s crying uncle by this point.

He doesn’t move, and neither does Brandon, and they end up sitting and drinking in companionable silence for a good while more, till Nick puts his empty bottle down on the table too-carefully, and thinks about how good his bed is gonna feel, and how he’s pretty sure he’s going to need to take a leak some time soon, and all of those things are going to be a lot easier to accomplish in Brandon’s apartment than in a vaguely shady Wrigleyville bar.

“Okay,” he says, and shuffles out of the booth, pleasantly surprised that he doesn’t feel any more unsteady than he had done before that last drink. The fact they’ve stuck to beer and haven’t graduated to shots this time is probably for the best, really. “Let’s go, c’mon Saader.”

Brandon gives him a sunny smile, and gets to his feet, only swaying a little before he steadies, and yeah, they’ll be fine, they’re not going to have any trouble getting a cab. Nick’s drunk-sat enough teammates in his time to have a good grasp of when he’s in danger of having to fork over a clean-up fee, and neither of them are even close to there.

It doesn’t take long at all to get back into the city to Brandon’s apartment, and Nick’s struck again by how familiar all of this is. He’s crashed at Brandon’s place often enough over the last couple years, is almost as comfortable there as he is at his old place. Admittedly he doesn’t have a change of clothes or his phone charger, but Brandon’s organized and a good host, he can probably just grab something from him.

Nick kicks off his shoes into the pile with Brandon’s by the door, and heads straight to the bathroom off the guest room. He’s feeling a lot better—and significantly more sober—by the time he washes his hands and cleans up a little. He squints at himself in the mirror; his eyes are a little red, and his hair’s standing on end in a way that he doesn’t usually manage even if he’s trying, but he doesn’t look bad, definitely less tired than he’d been after the series against the Caps.

He swallows, licks his lips, runs his tongue along the backs of his teeth and grimaces; he misses his toothbrush more than anything by this point in the sobering up process. He digs half-heartedly through the shelves under the vanity in case there’s a fresh one in there, but can’t find anything more than a bunch of decorative soaps and a few hand towels. The next drawer down turns up a half empty tube of conditioner and some liquid soap, and of all things, a bottle of lube, but there’s neither toothpaste nor a brush in there. The one downside to flying privately more often than they do commercial is it’s not like any of them tend to accumulate the free toiletries kits they used to give out on planes and in some of the nicer hotels. Nick’s family’s guest room when he was growing up had been well stocked with them, crappy plastic toothbrushes wrapped in paper, and miniature shampoo and conditioner bottles that seemed to reproduce without human intercession.

There’s nothing for it but to go ask Brandon; he’ll doubtless have something in his own bathroom, either a new toothbrush Nick can snag or one of the travel size ones he must keep for anyone he brings home. Nick’s pretty sure that Brandon’s the type of guy to make sure he has that stuff.

His bedroom door is still open and the light is on, so Nick doesn’t feel any qualms about walking right in.

“Hey, Saader,” he says softly from the doorway, and Brandon steps out of his bathroom, already down to just his shorts. He must have stripped off the second they’d walked in the door, just about.

“Leds?” he replies. “You forget where the bed is?”

“Nah,” Nick says easily. “Just wanted to borrow a toothbrush. And your phone charger, maybe? I gotta head back to Shawzy’s pretty early tomorrow.”

“Oh, sure,” Brandon says, and he ducks back into the bathroom, comes back with a toothbrush still in its wrapper and tosses it to Nick.

Nick fields it easily enough, picks the cardboard backing off, and then realizes, “Uh, toothpaste?”

“Just use my bathroom,” Brandon says with a shrug. “It’s in the cup there.”

“Thanks,” Nick says, shooting him a quick grin, and he does as instructed. He drops the toothbrush back in the cup beside Brandon’s—beside Saader’s—on automatic, flipping the light off as he goes.

“All good?” Saader asks him sleepily, and Nick says, “Yeah,” and then corrects himself to, “Wait, no. Uh, charger?”

Saader reaches over to his nightstand without even looking, and then makes a comical face of dismay when he doesn’t find whatever he’s looking for.

“Uh, one sec,” he says, and pulls the drawer open, peering in for a long moment and then shutting it a little too fast. Nick wasn’t even trying to look, but the tips of Saader’s ears are red, enough that Nick can see even in the dim light of the lamp by his bed, clearly spotting something he’s embarrassed about. Like Nick doesn’t know half the guys he knows have porn or whatever stashed somewhere close at hand, even with smartphones and wifi and the internet.

“I think I left it—somewhere,” Saader says, still looking sheepish. “I just used Nordy’s earlier, I was gonna buy a new one if I couldn’t find it tonight and I forgot.” He doesn’t say—doesn’t need to—that he’s probably got about five stashed around his apartment somewhere, it’s just a matter of laying hands on them, and Nick can sympathize.

“Maybe I should get an Uber or something?” he says, checking his phone. He’s got like 10% battery left, that’s probably enough to get back to Shawzy’s. He can buy breakfast to apologize or something, although god, the idea of waiting for a car—of going back downstairs and having to move much further—is pretty daunting.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Saader says, shrugging, and Nick can’t help but see the play of light over his shoulders, his eyes darker than usual in the low light, beard obscuring his mouth until there’s the faintest flash of white teeth as he speaks, slurring more than usual with tiredness and his current blood-alcohol level. “Just crash in here, I’ve got an alarm clock. What time do you need to go?”

Nick opens his mouth to tell Saader not to be ridiculous, but what actually comes out is, “Okay, uh, like seven? Maybe seven thirty.” Nick can get ready fast if he needs to, and that extra thirty minutes seems like a necessary indulgence. He’s probably not going to be hungover, but better safe than sorry.

“Sure,” Saader says, and he futzes with the clock on his nightstand for a few seconds, muttering out loud to himself as he double-checks that he’s not mixing up AM and PM, which makes Nick grin to himself, although he doesn’t say anything more than that.

“Thanks,” Nick says, newly aware of how awkward it is to be standing right beside Saader’s bed, still fully dressed, swaying a little with tiredness and the last lingering effects of however many beers they’d drunk.

“It’s cool,” Saader says, and then he looks down, shrugs a shoulder diffidently, adds, “Uh, I’m pretty sure I put new sheets on a couple days ago, so they shouldn’t be too bad.”

“I’ve crashed in other guys dorm rooms sometimes, Saader,” Nick says with a shrug. “Pretty sure your sheets have to be pristine in comparison, don’t worry about it.”

“Right,” Saader says. “Anyway, if you need something just come, like, wake me up or whatever, yeah?” and then he starts to walk towards the door and Nick blinks, because, wait, what?

“Saader?” he says, frowning, and Brandon stops in the doorway, silhouetted against the hall light that Nick hadn’t remembered to turn off before coming in to talk to him.

“What?” Brandon says, brows drawn together in a frown.

“Where are you going?” Nick asks. He’s pretty sure it’s not just the beer, he’s genuinely confused right now.

“I was… going to sleep in the guest room?” Brandon says, trailing off uncertainly, like it’s a suggestion.

“I’m not kicking you out of your bed,” Nick protests. “You hate that mattress, didn’t you say that’s why you switched out the guest room last season?”

“Um, yeah,” Brandon says. “It’s just one night, I’m sure I’ll live.”

This is kind of dumb, and Nick’s not even sure why he’s making a big deal out of it, but it just seems unfair to make Brandon sleep in an uncomfortable bed just because Nick didn’t remember to charge his phone up before going out and making early plans. If anyone should be suffering, it’s Nick. But making Brandon set an alarm to wake Nick up in the other room seems even ruder, which means—

The solution is obvious, really, when Nick thinks about it.

“Dude, you have a fucking king size—”

“California King,” Brandon corrects, and Nick just rolls his eyes at him and keeps talking.

“Whatever. We can share, I’ll get out of your hair early, and you’ll probably just sleep right through the alarm anyway.”

This is not Nick’s first experience with trying to get Brandon up early in the morning; for anything outside of hockey or hockey-related commitments it’s pretty much a hands-down losing experience for all concerned.

“I, uhh,” Brandon starts to say, and Nick realizes that he’s being pretty presumptuous here, just because Nick’s used to sharing a bed with buddies when they’re short of space or too wasted to go home or whatever doesn’t mean that he’s down with it. Nick doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable, so he opens his mouth to take it back, offer to just take his chances with his phone battery, but then Brandon seems to come to a decision himself, and says, “Okay, sure, it’s fine.”

“Great,” Nick says, and he peels out of his shirt and pants without waiting for another word. He’s so ready to be horizontal, and he’s feeling slow and bleary enough that he’s pretty sure he’ll be asleep within minutes. It’s been a longer day than he was quite planning. He really had somehow expected to be back at Shawzy’s place some time before midnight. It’s clearly either been too long since he’s been out partying, or he’s getting old.

Brandon crawls underneath the covers while Nick’s peeling off his socks, stretching out on what’s clearly his usual side of the bed, and that’s great, that saves Nick from having to ask, so once he’s down to his boxers he just walks over to the other side and slides under the sheet. Lying down is fucking awesome, Nick needs to work more naps into his summer schedule again.

“You better not fucking steal the covers, right?” Brandon says, sounding as sleepy as Nick feels.

He doesn’t even dignify that with an answer, just mumbles something that he hopes sounds like “Nah,” but his pillow is soft and the mattress is firm, and Nick’s warm and loose and comfortable, and he’s pretty sure he falls asleep before Brandon even flicks the lamp off.

* * *

The alarm the next morning is a rude awakening in every way possible. Nick surfaces blearily, vaguely aware that there’s something he should be doing, but it probably wasn’t trying to climb over top of Brandon—fast asleep, dead to the world, not even twitching—to hit the snooze button on his alarm clock.

Nick’s not sure how Brandon gets up in the mornings during the season if he can sleep through this, let alone how he goes from being this deeply asleep to generally being early anywhere he has to be. Maybe he turns it up louder or something.

“Fuck, you’re heavy,” Brandon mumbles, his eyes still closed, and oh, maybe that answers that, since apparently he’s awake after all.

“Sorry, shit,” Nick says, acutely aware of how much of his upper body is sprawled over Brandon’s chest, and he rolls back to his side of the bed with a decided lack of grace. He’s not at his best first thing in the morning either.

“Guess I don’t need to ask if you’re working out again yet, huh?” Brandon jokes quietly, and Nick bites his lip. Brandon’s just joking, just making the most obvious joke, and Nick knows that, but it still feels— Something. It’s unsettling, and Nick’s not sure he wants to think too much about why.

“You know me,” Nick says after a moment, and when he sneaks a glance over to Brandon—head comfortably in the middle of his pillow, hair a mess, eyes still closed—he’s smiling, just a little, the smallest quirk to the corner of his lips.

“Yeah,” Brandon agrees, and they both lie there for a minute or two, not really needing to say anything else.

Nick’s caught again by the sensation that he’s missing something, that he’s missing out, and it can’t be that he’s missed this, because—they’d never had this. Quiet mornings talking and laughing in bed have never been what he and Brandon did, however much they might’ve lived in each other’s pockets when Nick was still in Chicago. He’s fallen asleep on Brandon before, sure, but that’s always been on couches or airplane seats or wherever; they’ve never even roomed together on the road. But something about it feels so right that Nick almost wants to just give up on his existing plans, snuggle up against Brandon’s side and go right back to sleep. It would be so good.

Nick knows he should sit up, climb out of bed and get on with his day, but he makes a deal with himself all the same; five more minutes, and then he can get moving. There’s enough light coming in around the corners of Brandon’s curtains that he can see just fine, the sun up high already, summer warmth creeping through the city.

“Doing a great job there on that getting up thing,” Brandon says, rolling onto his side to look at Nick, blinking slowly while his eyes focus.

He should probably make a joke there about how Brandon’s the lazybones who’s going to spend half the morning in bed; Nick knows him well enough to put money on that guess, but Brandon’s earned every minute of his summer, has everything to look forward to. Brandon didn’t crash out in the first round of the playoffs, another year without even a series win for the fans. When he’s being more reasonable about it, Nick knows that that’s not all on him, they all could have been better, but he’s going to let that unfinished feeling motivate him, let it power him through another season and hopefully a better post-season.

“Shut up,” Nick says, weakly, but he grins back at Brandon all the same. It’s hard not to.

“Feeling okay this morning?” Brandon asks, and Nick takes a quick mental tally, stretches out, arms over his head, twists his hips and tenses and relaxes his quads. Considering how much they’d drunk he feels remarkably good.

“Yeah,” he says, and raises an eyebrow. “You?”

Brandon doesn’t stretch out, instead he kicks lightly at Nick’s ankle, his foot warm where it connects with his skin, his shin crossed over Nick’s calf muscle.

“Same here. You don’t snore or steal the covers, by the way, very considerate.”

“I’ll have to use you as a reference next time I try to sleep with someone then,” Nick jokes automatically, and then realizes what he’s implying a split-second past the point where he can call the words back.

“Any time,” Brandon says, not seeming flustered in the slightest, even though Nick’s face feels hot and his stomach is unsettled in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with a hangover.

Nick can’t seem to look away from him, or move, and it’s only because he’s focused so tightly on Brandon’s expression that he catches the moment when Brandon’s gaze drops, to—Nick’s stomach swoops, half sick, half excited—his mouth, he’s almost certain that Brandon is staring at his mouth, and like he’s been hardwired to it, Nick licks his lips, watches Brandon track that too.

It makes his breath catch in his throat, the possibility unfolding before him like it’s something he’s been aching for, instead of an idle thought at moments he could wave off as being all in his head, imaginary, the product of too much time on the road and too much time since he’s gotten laid. Nick knows he likes guys, has known for years, and he’s mostly been very careful to keep that away from his friendships and teammates, because there’s too much on the line to get stupid about someone, however well he gets on with them. However much he might like them.

He and Brandon are just friends, they’ve always just been friends, and Nick’s always been able to tell himself those moments of frozen possibility where he’s inevitably started to ask himself ‘what if’ were just that, isolated moments and brief fantasies. He doesn’t even let himself think about guys he plays with when he’s jerking off, or at least mostly he doesn’t; there might have been one or two slip-ups he tries not to think about in the cold light of day and mostly manages to make himself forget about.

It’s hard to do that now, though; Nick’s holding his breath, looking back at Brandon, searching his expression for any clear indication of what he’s thinking. Nick has to be imagining it, and he needs to stop, because Brandon wouldn’t—Brandon isn’t into him like that, Nick would know, this is obviously just some kind of temporary insanity. The world’s weirdest hangover. Something.

Brandon’s eyes flutter closed again, and he takes a slow breath in, turns his face into the pillow again, and that’s what Nick needs, that’s enough to get him out of bed and moving. Brandon’s going back to sleep, and Nick’s going to get dressed and call a cab and go out for brunch, and neither of them is going to remember this the next time they get to hang out. Nick doesn’t think he’ll be back in Chicago over the off-season, resolves a little guiltily to avoid finding a reason to come back, too, and that means by the time the Hawks are in New York next—or vice versa—everything will be perfectly normal again.

“There’s a towel by the shower for you,” Brandon mumbles, half his words aimed more at the mattress than at Nick; he’s rolled almost the whole way over, starfishing out on his belly across the half of the mattress that Nick’s just abandoned. And that’s just fucking typical, too; half-asleep and giving every indication of passing out again any moment Brandon’s still being a gracious host.

When Nick investigates, closing the bathroom door carefully behind him so the light and noise will be blocked out a bit, there is indeed a fresh towel folded on the sink. Nick would probably have woken up if Brandon had stirred at all, he’s a light sleeper unless he’s a lot drunker than he had been last night, which means Brandon had laid it out for him before they’d even gone to bed. Sometimes he’s so considerate it almost makes Nick a little mad; it’s hard to tell what’s Brandon being Brandon and what might be more meaningful. Sometimes Nick almost itches with the need to push his buttons just to see what’ll make him snap. He’s managed it a few times, which was bizarrely reassuring in some ways.

The shower runs hot almost immediately, and Nick sighs in relief as the water hits his back, loosening up his shoulders again; holding himself so still while he tried to talk himself down again had undone a lot of the good work that sleeping with Brandon had done in the first place.

And he needs to stop thinking about it like that; they’re just friends and Nick shouldn’t do this, can’t do this. Though even with that in the forefront of his mind, it’s difficult to think of a reason not to let himself have one tiny, harmless reaction.

It’s easy enough to justify himself, too. He was still half hard, and waking up next to Brandon hadn’t exactly discouraged his morning wood. Brandon had been warm and rumpled and sleepy and thoroughly appealing, close enough to touch. He’d managed to forget, in the last year, how good Brandon looked with the beard, even as wild as it is after four rounds of playoff games. Nick’s pretty sure he’s trimmed it a bit since, at least, though. Whatever it is, it’s really working for Nick. If he could have reached out to touch him, if he’d dared, if he’d known whether doing so would be welcome—Nick hisses as his fingers curl around his dick, strokes himself as fast as he can bear. He can feel heat building in his chest, tension coiling around his backbone, balls tight and aching. He doesn’t have to worry about being overheard, the noise of the shower will more than cover any sound he’s likely to make, but he closes his eyes all the same, hypersensitive, mouth open, so that the sound of his ragged breathing echoes louder in his ears. It’s easier that way to focus on how it feels, his other hand braced against the shower wall, face pressed into his forearm, thinking about Brandon asleep in the other room, about how it would be if Brandon was watching him, was touching him. Water trickles down the back of his neck, droplets of water or sweat curling forward and along his hairline, dripping off his chin. He swallows back the gasp as he starts to come, dick pulsing in his loose grip, streaking come on his skin for a few seconds before he turns back into the spray of water, rinsing clean.

He doesn’t quite catch his breath until he’s toweling dry, hurrying himself through the rest of his usual morning routine so that it wouldn’t be noticeable how long he’d taken in there if Brandon wasn’t actually asleep again. He squints at himself in the bathroom mirror, uses a corner of the towel to wipe it off. He’s got a noticeable five o’clock shadow, which is as expected; he forgot to ask Brandon for a razor, and maybe he’ll just grow his beard back again early anyway. He’ll pass muster at brunch, either way.

He wraps the towel around his waist long enough to go back into the bedroom and retrieve his clothes, considers carrying them into the bathroom but reminds himself that they’ve shared locker rooms for years. Acting any differently to that would be the thing that stands out, that makes it weird, so he drops the towel and pulls his jeans back on. If he’s lucky, he’ll have time to grab clean underwear and a different shirt from Shawzy’s; he doesn’t look too obviously like he’s in last night’s clothes at least, though.

Nick pauses for a moment in the doorway of Brandon’s room, tossing up whether he should say anything else. To every observation, Brandon looks asleep, face turned into the pillow, sheets pulled up high.

“Thanks,” he says softly, testing the waters, and Brandon blinks one eye open, half smiles at him.

“Any time,” he replies, and Nick grins back at him, lifts one hand in an abbreviated wave and says, “Catch you later. I’ll lock up on my way out.”

“Cool,” Brandon says, voice still rough, though Nick can’t tell if that’s from the early morning, the late night drinking, or the fact it’s probably been a good ten days of late night—if not all night—drinking for him now. He’s definitely got some sleep to catch up on.

It’s simple enough to flip the lock on Brandon’s front door so it’ll catch and lock behind him as he goes out; Nick pats his pockets one last time to check he’s got his phone, not that it’s anything more than a very expensive piece of useless plastic until he can get back to his old place and charge it again. Luckily he looks respectable enough to be able to hail a cab off the street; it would’ve been pretty fucking embarrassing to have to buzz back into Brandon’s apartment and ask to use his phone to call an Uber or whatever.

Shawzy doesn’t have much to say when he lets Nick in, grunts a good morning and then blinks at him, says, “Didn’t you even take another shirt?”

Nick gives him a look. “Uh, no. I was expecting to come back here?” He doesn’t think he’d given Shawzy the impression he wasn’t going to be using his old room the couple days he’s in town, but it’s entirely possible they’d discussed something that Nick’s now forgetting.

“Huh,” Shawzy says, cryptically, and then he heads back into his room to finish getting ready, leaving Nick standing there feeling like he has, once again, missed something.

Nothing weird comes up when they’re at brunch, or even for the rest of the time Nick’s in Chicago, so by the time he’s packing to leave—and finally picking up all the last odds and ends he’d had cluttering up the apartment that had gotten missed when he’d had the movers come through for it—he’s managed to put it out of his mind.

“Make sure you stop by next time you’re in town,” Chaunette says to him when they’re saying their goodbyes, and Nick hugs her, and says, “Of course,” because that’s never been in doubt. Shawzy’s practically Nick’s second younger and occasionally less annoying brother by this point. They don’t have to still play together for that, even though Nick knows from experience that that just means he gets twice as much shit from Shawzy on the ice as anyone else does.

“Yeah,” Shawzy says, grinning easily behind his sunglasses—he’s putting off the inevitable hangover by just staying low-level drunk as long as he can, or so he claims. “Don’t be a stranger, even if Saader is more fun than us.”

“Right,” Nick says slowly. He should probably ask Shawzy to explain whatever that means, because Nick can put two and two together and get ‘Shawzy being weird about him hanging out with Saader’, and now that Nick is thinking about it, it feels like maybe Shawzy’s disappearing act the other night was more deliberate than he’d guessed.

He wonders for a second if Shawzy realized he’s—attracted to Brandon is probably the safest way to describe it—and uneasily wonders whether that’s what he’s hinting at. It’s not like Nick was going to actually make a move on him. He’d rather not mess up their friendship, and he has no idea how Brandon would even react if he did.

“Later, guys,” is what Nick does manage to say then, and he figures he can think about it later.

They’ll probably all hang out next time the Isles are in Chicago—unless they’re stuck with inconvenient scheduling—and either Shawzy will realize nothing’s changed, or Nick can figure out whatever else is going on in his head. It’s not like it’s the kind of thing he wants to bring up over text, and they don’t exactly do the whole feelings thing unless they’re a lot drunker than they’ve been at any point over the past couple of days, that’s for sure.

After Nick gets back to his place in Minneapolis, he determinedly doesn’t let himself think any more about it. It’s the off season; he has training to do and time off to enjoy, and a lot of friends back in town to catch up with.

He spends some time down at the lake with Mikey and Brady, sees Bjugs and a few of the other guys he’s been playing with and against pretty much since middle school, and everything is ticking along just like it always does; a summer more or less like any other.

He tries to ignore most of the speculation swirling through the media leading up to the draft. It’s not going to concern him this year, because Nick has a new contract and he’s about as sure as anyone could possibly be that he’s safe, that the organization are committed to keeping him. The front office will do what they can to improve the team, and Nick’ll look forward to meeting whoever the new guys in the room will be, and they’ll see how much better they can all be.

Nick opens up Twitter the day before free agency opens, not thinking about much more than maybe putting up a picture from the last gig he’d been to with Jason and Mikey, maybe. It’s not like he really spends a lot of time doing that kind of social media stuff.

And then right there at the top, he sees Bob McKenzie’s familiar picture and “CHI traded Saad—” and a bunch of other details, and for a moment Nick can’t even think, because wait, what?

He drops onto the couch and flicks the TV on, goes straight to the NHL Network, because maybe he misread, but no, they’ve got it too; Brandon Saad traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets, with a few others included in the deal on each side, a couple of the guys Nick half-knows from Rockford to fill it out.

At least when he got traded, Nick pretty much knew it was coming. He’d been warned, he’d been braced for it. And to a certain extent—a pretty large extent, even if it had sort of sucked to see his ex-teammates win another Cup without him—he was relieved. He’s a better fit for the Islanders and he knows it, but Brandon couldn’t have seen this coming at all. Everyone, Nick and most of the guys he knows included, had pretty much banked on Saader being part of the core for years to come.

He pulls up their last text conversation on his phone, and just stares at the screen for a moment. He’s been there, he should know what to say; remembers the messages he got from Saader and all the rest of the guys, and he’d appreciated it.

Eventually he manages to clear his head enough to say something, says that he’s just heard and wishes Brandon good luck in Columbus, congratulations and sympathy all in one. He opens up the group text with Smitty and Mo and Pirri and a few of the other guys, adds Brandon and just sends “welcome to the club :/”.

Hopefully if Brandon’s freaking out he’ll call, he knows Nick’s been there, that he could talk to him or even Smitty, maybe. Nick’s struck by another thought and pulls his phone back out of his pocket to message Shawzer, and he doesn’t need to work too hard on what to say there, just types out, “sucks, man, I just heard :(”

His phone buzzes in his hand a minute later, but it’s just Shawzy, two or three messages in quick succession. The first one says, “wait what?” “did I get traded?” and then twenty seconds later—enough time to log onto the internet himself—just “fuck”.

It’s a business, they all know that, but sometimes—

Sometimes it really sucks.

Nick has to tell himself firmly that it’s probably not exactly a silver lining for Brandon that he’s back in the same conference as Nick is. Maybe they can catch up a little more often, at least.

He gives it a couple of days, but Brandon doesn’t actually reply.

Nick tells himself not to be weird about it; his phone’s probably been blowing up with everyone he knows and their reactions, and if it’s anything like it was for Nick—and it’s probably even more dramatic for Saader—then he’ll be run off his feet dealing with his agent and his new team and all the media and other shit. Plus whatever’s involved in moving all of his stuff from Chicago to Ohio. Nick can wait, Nick’s not going anywhere.

It’s easy enough to get wrapped up in his own routines and not think too much about it for a couple of weeks, anyway. Nick’s got a lot going on, him and Brandon will catch up whenever they catch up, it’s not a big deal.

* * *

Nick’s not keeping track exactly, but he’s been keeping an eye out for when Brandon’s Cup day is, figures that whatever interviews or whatever comes out then will give him an idea of where Brandon’s head is at. It’s right before that when Brandon does actually text him back, just a quick, “Hey” and when Nick replies, he gets back, “Skype?”

It won’t be the first time they’ve caught up that way; Nick’s Facetimed him a few times over the last year, and he’s still in the most recent contacts on Nick’s computer when he opens up Skype. They’d talked a lot before the playoffs, and a bunch when Nick had been hurt, too. He’d been bored and frustrated and missing what was meant to be his first game back against the Hawks had pretty much sucked. Saader had been sympathetic, though mostly what he’d done was just make fun of Nick a whole lot. It had helped, anyway. So hopefully he can return the favor.

“Hey,” Nick says, as the video opens up, and he hopes he manages to cover his initial moment of shock, because the Brandon grinning back at him looks very different to the one he’d left half-asleep in his Chicago apartment a couple weeks ago.

Brandon’s cut his hair, just about buzzed it back to nothing, and he’s shaved, barely even has five o’clock shadow, and Nick knows how fast his beard comes in. It makes sense when he thinks about it; cutting his ties in the most obvious way possible, a fresh start. Nick blinks again and tells himself to let it go. It’s not like he’s not going to see Brandon with a ridiculous playoff beard again; hell, they could even be matched up against each other. And given the tear that Columbus had been on to close out the season that could happen sooner rather than later.

“Hi,” Brandon says, and he leans back, settling against the cushions of his couch.

Nick’s not quite sure what to say. They’ve never really had trouble talking to each other, him and Brandon had clicked pretty much straight away, and they’ve spent more time hanging out together in their downtime than Nick’s spent with anyone else but Shawzy. It should be easier than it is to just fall back into that, but Nick’s not sure he should be the first person to mention the metaphorical elephant in the room.

“How’s your summer going?” Brandon asks, after a moment. “You know how mine is,” and he grimaces for a moment, self-deprecating, and then shakes it off, his expression clearing into his usual cheerful half-smile.

“Same old, same old,” Nick says, which probably wasn’t the best choice of words, but he’s stuck with it now. “Gotta start ramping up workouts again, I guess, but we’ve spent some time down at the lake, you know.”

“You get the boat out?” Brandon asks, and that sidetracks them for a while, talking boats and fishing and trading stories of dumb shit their friends have been doing on jetskis just like always.

Nick’s lost track of time by the point where Brandon looks down, startles, and says, “Oh man, I should get going.”

“That’s cool,” Nick says. “It was good talking to you, yeah? I guess I’ll see you in October. We can get dinner or something, maybe?”

“Sure,” Brandon says easily. “You guys don’t have a back to back either, so we can definitely do something.”

“Awesome,” Nick says, and they say goodbye, get back to their respective days.

It’s not until he’s trying to fall asleep that night that Nick realizes that Brandon hadn’t questioned his off-the-top of his head knowledge of the first time they’d be playing each other. And that Brandon had to have looked at the Islanders schedule, too.

It’s probably something he’d do for any of the guys he’s friends with, Nick tells himself. Brandon’s just that kind of guy.

That doesn’t mean Nick doesn’t appreciate it, though; fond warmth stealing through his chest, satisfied and pleased all at once.

* * *

Nick’s not quite expecting the way that conversation sticks at the front of his mind for days after. They hadn’t even talked about anything much, but he finds himself picking up his phone to message Brandon regularly, sending him dumb pictures and complaining about how annoying the commute to his gym is. Brandon replies pretty much every time, with his version of the same stuff, and the occasional picture of the guys he’s working out with too. He’s in Pittsburgh again after the first burst of media and signing in Columbus, so mostly what that means is Nick chirping him about how many of the Pens Brandon’s hanging around.

“What, you don’t want me to scout Crosby for you too?” Brandon sends him back one afternoon, and Nick laughs, because he knows exactly the way Brandon would have said that, too.

“Like we need the help,” Nick replies, feeling pretty confident in that. It’s a solid chirp.

Brandon takes a couple hours to get back to him after that, and then it’s just with a picture of his coffee cup, name creatively misspelled.

“Weak,” Nick messages him back, and obviously Brandon doesn’t have anything else going on, because the bubble that lets him know he’s typing a response already pops right up.

“Takes one to know one,” Brandon says.

“Ten year olds are embarrassed by that chirp,” Nick sends him, and that’s enough to start them off again for a couple of hours, just talking shit, exactly the same as if this was any other summer.

Brandon takes a couple days with his family down in the Carolinas near the end of the off-season, and he lets Nick know they’ll be out of cell coverage for the weekend, so it’s not exactly a surprise when he doesn’t hear anything from him for almost three days. What is a surprise is how much he finds himself missing the stupid six or seven word exchanges they’ve been having regularly for weeks now.

What’s almost worse is the selfie Brandon sends him and probably everyone else he knows after he gets back; grinning broadly with a couple of decent-sized fish on his string, his shoulders going pink with sunburn, eyes squinting a little at the camera in the sun, hair just starting to get longer again. It hits Nick like a puck to the gut; he doesn’t just miss talking to Brandon, seeing a friend he cares about, who just so happens to also be a pretty attractive guy… he misses everything, the essential Brandon-ness of him, and that means—

Nick’s in bigger trouble than he’d thought.

* * *

The last minute rush of training and packing and getting all of his stuff ready to shift from Minnesota back to Long Island takes up most of Nick’s time and energy for the first half of September. It’s a relief to get back into New York and start getting ready for the season, everything more familiar this time, even if there are some pretty big changes. It maybe helps that Barclays is new for all of them, Nick thinks; at least he knows most of his teammates this time, has close friends already, people to get dinner with and play cards on the plane with, people to—as they start working on new habits and routines—talk to on the train.

It’s actually kind of a kick taking the train in the mornings, talking to the fans who’re brave enough to interrupt and ask for an autograph or a picture, and he doesn’t mind it, most of the time. Matty and Clutter both get more of that than he does, at least, which Nick suspects has a lot to do with their obvious approachability, the way they’re both so much more familiar to the fanbase, and, probably, more than a little to do with how much the Islanders fans appreciate their E=MC² line. It doesn’t stop him giving them shit for it, at any rate.

He’s still talking to Brandon about as much as he had done over the summer. He commiserates with his struggles in finding his way around a new city, and makes fun of him just a little for how he’s still acting twice as old as he actually is, settling down and buying a house, already. Jesus, Nick can’t imagine doing that just yet, although he gets it; it’s a smarter financial choice for Brandon, if nothing else. It’s still a pretty fucking dramatic change from the apartment Brandon had been renting in Chicago, whether or not he admits that to Nick.

Brandon takes a puck to the face one day during training camp, just as they’re all starting to get preseason games under way, and the picture he sends Nick is pretty gruesome. Nick’s been there, and that’s going to be a solid three or four hours in a dentist’s chair. He doesn’t envy that one bit.

“That sucks man,” he texts him, and all he gets back from Brandon is a series of sad-face emojis.

The preseason schedule takes over pretty much everything by that point, though, and so Nick doesn’t get much of a chance to check in with him again for a few days. The Islanders start okay, win both their first two games in Brooklyn, but then they get solidly trounced in their last few games, half their division giving them fits. Nick gets dinner with Matty and Cal a few times, and they all bitch companionably about the whole day room thing, but he figures they’ll get used to it pretty fast. It’ll be fine.

Opening the season with a back-to-back against the Hawks isn’t ideal; losing both those games is even less ideal. It’s not the triumphant return Nick was kind of hoping for in the UC, that’s for damn sure. They bounce back for the next game, though, start getting a nice little streak going, and Nick’s immersed enough in his own routine that he doesn’t really pick up that the Jackets are having a rough go of it until the point where it’s an unavoidable talking point across the board in the media.

It’s not really Nick’s business at all, and frankly it should be good for him; they’re in the same division, no friends on the ice, but he does cringe sympathetically when the losing streak hits five, and then six.

“You still free for dinner tomorrow?” he messages Brandon, the night before the Islanders are due to fly out to Ohio.

It’s giving him an out: if he wants to see Nick then Nick will be there; if he’d rather keep his head down until the Jackets can work things out—Nick is hoping not until after the Isles are in town, naturally—then Nick will respect that. He can’t say he’s ever been there; they’d had some pretty fucking bad stretches with the Hawks, but nothing like this, not to start a brand new season.

“Fuck, yes, I’ll send you an address tomorrow,” Brandon replies, almost immediately, and Nick’s shoulders loosen, some of the tension in his back fading out.

It would’ve sucked to only see Brandon on the ice, even leaving aside everything else. Even if he wasn’t complicating his own life unnecessarily by being a little too happy at the idea of seeing him, it would still be good to get dinner or say hi. They’ve spent the better part of two long seasons hanging out almost daily, in the A and up in the show; Nick had found it kind of disorienting his first year with the Isles just how much he missed Saader and Shawzy and the other guys.

He hadn’t been sure how much he would, with vivid memories of his first couple years with the Hawks where he hadn’t been in one city long enough to see anyone almost daily, let alone people he clicked that well with, but. It was definitely a change, that was for sure.

“Social life all sorted, huh?” Hamonic jokes as Nick slides his phone back into his pockets.

He elbows Nick in the ribs meaningfully, and Nick grins back, rolling with it.

“Yeah, ditching you losers after we get in tomorrow night,” he says.

“Oh please, like you can do better than us,” Cal says, without missing a beat.

“Like that’s hard,” Nick says, and he has to duck away from a rain of balls of tape from everyone in earshot who’d decided to pretend to be offended by that one.

* * *

The address Brandon sends him proves to be for a steak restaurant, pretty close to the arena and therefore to the hotel, too; Nick pulls up directions on his phone and decides to walk it. It’s warm enough, or at least above freezing, and he’s pretty much there at the exact time they’d agreed to meet.

Brandon, of course, is already there, and he stands up to hug Nick easily, as comfortable as ever. Nick had been worried that—he’s not sure what, really, but that something would have changed or been off, but this is nothing new at all.

“You look better than the last time I saw you,” Nick says, not second-guessing himself, and when Brandon just raises an eyebrow in query, Nick taps his jaw, bares his teeth.

“Oh, right,” Brandon says, laughing ruefully, his voice soft as ever in the loud restaurant. Nick keeps catching himself leaning forward just a little, just to make sure he can hear him. “That. You know, I’d almost forgotten?”

“Jeez,” Nick says, “I didn’t realize it was that bad,” and there it is, he’s brought it up without even meaning to. He’d been planning on giving Brandon a break from having to talk or think about how his hockey team inexplicably couldn’t seem to play well enough to scrape even a point yet, he’s got to be sick to death of discussing that. “Uh,” he adds, but then he can’t even think of a way to walk that back without making it even worse, god, he’s an asshole.

“Tell me about it,” Brandon says, lightly—too lightly—and then he deftly changes the subject, asks Nick about how they’re finding Barclays, what new albums Brandon should check out, whether he’s totally sold out as a Nets fan now.

Brandon already knows which artists Nick likes, and he’s probably heard them too, from guys on his own team if not from Nick; he knows a lot of those guys are into country too, and Brandon will pretty much listen to anything, but Nick humors him and rattles off what’s been in high rotation on his iPod lately, and then goes right back on the attack by pointing out Brandon probably has to be a Cavs fan now, so it’s not like he can talk.

They get back onto more familiar ground that way, and dinner’s good; decent food, a glass of wine, and Nick’s more relaxed than he’s been in a while by the time they wrap it up with a friendly argument over who’s paying.

Brandon wins that one—or loses it, maybe—by virtue of being on home ice, so to speak, and hands over his card, signing the bill with his usual scrawl. Nick gets a little hypnotized watching his hand move, and better then than tomorrow, for sure, but it’s still more leeway than he should be giving himself. Though apparently telling himself that isn’t enough to get him to stop, and he digs himself even deeper when Brandon pushes back the cuff of his shirt to check the time and says, “Hey, want to come check out my new place?”

It’s early enough that Nick’s going to have no trouble getting back in time for curfew, even if Brandon lived way out in the sticks, which he knows he doesn’t. He says yes without even pausing to think about it, happy to get a little more time. Brandon’s car is still the same one he’d had in Chicago, which Nick would’ve guessed if he’d stopped to think about it. That just adds to the overwhelming sense of familiarity, though, as Nick settles into the passenger seat the same way he’s done a hundred times before, zoning out and letting Brandon navigate, his hands loosely at ten and two on the wheel, focus on the road, just pausing to address the odd remark to Nick. The city lights flick by outside the windows, and it feels like only minutes later that he’s pulling into a driveway, the house right in the middle of the section, porch light on and welcoming, a typical two-point-four-kids-and-a-dog type of home. All it’s missing is the white picket fence.

That sours in Nick’s stomach just a little, and he has to push back against the feeling; Brandon wants to show him his new house, Nick needs to get his act together and be a good friend, not be jealous of the ghosts of imaginary girlfriends past and future.

“It’s nice,” he says, after Brandon gives him the nickel tour, and he even manages to mean it; Brandon hasn’t been here long but he’s managed to put enough of himself into the place that it feels like his, already, even around all the touches that Nick can recognize with a professional eye as having been set up initially by a decorator. Brandon’s put time and money into this already, he’s settled. Nick’s done much the same in New York, if he’s being honest. There’s no point in having this much space in the city, but in a year or two he probably should look into buying his place, or something similar.

“Thanks,” Brandon says easily, and points Nick to the couch. “I’ll be right back,” he calls over his shoulder, and vanishes in the direction of the kitchen.

When he comes back, it’s with two bottles of beer dangling between his fingers, condensation beading on the glass, tops off. He offers Nick to one with a raised eyebrow, a silent enquiry, and Nick just nods his thanks, takes it from him.

It’s one of Nick’s favorite beers, actually, and he’s not sure whether that means Brandon stocked up specially or that he’s finally managed to get at least one other person to share his taste.

He waits a couple of seconds for Brandon to sit down by him and put his feet up on the coffee table; if he is then Nick’s clearly welcome to do the same. They just sit there for a minute or two, and Nick’s acutely conscious of Brandon’s shoulder maybe an inch away from his, his thigh radiating warmth, almost touching Nick’s. They probably didn’t need to sit this close, but Nick’s not going to be the first one to move, he’s not going to make it weird if Brandon hasn’t noticed.

Brandon leans forward to grab the remote off the table, and he flicks the TV on, pulls up an episode of Deadliest Catch. He elbows Nick in the ribs, asks, “Cool with watching this?” and Nick says “Sure,” even though he’s pretty sure he’s seen this one before.

Nick can feel himself relaxing even more the longer they sit there, not saying much of anything, falling right back into the easy back-and-forth it seems like they’ve always had, and before he’s quite expecting it he finds himself tipping his head back to finish the beer, sets the empty bottle down on the coffee table by his ankles.

“You need anything else?” Brandon asks, and when Nick looks over at him, he can see the level of liquid in Brandon’s bottle has hardly dropped at all. Either he’s drinking incredibly slow or he’s not really feeling it. Nick lets himself look a while longer, gaze caught by the reflected light from the TV flickering over Brandon’s features, making him look a little fuzzy around the edges.

“No, I’m fine,” Nick says belatedly, realizing Brandon’s still waiting on a reply, is now twisting to look at him. He’s not sure if Brandon caught him staring, if he’d notice or think anything of it. It makes Nick itchy, uncomfortable, makes him want to squirm all of a sudden, the ease he’d had earlier deserting him completely.

“Okay,” Brandon says, not buying it, but also not pushing, and he turns back to the TV.

Nick lets his gaze shift back to the TV as well, but he’s not taking any of it in anymore, the yelling from the guys on the boat going in one ear and out the other while he tries to get himself to settle down. He can’t stop second-guessing himself; maybe he had read something in Brandon’s face just now, maybe if he kept looking it would be welcome, rather than a horribly awkward punctuation to their friendship. Or is he just telling himself what he wants to hear? He can’t stop worrying at the what-if’s nagging at the edges of his mind any more than he can stop picking at the outside seam of his jeans, hands restless by his side.

“Oh my god,” Brandon says a few minutes later. “You’re almost as bad as Shawzy today, stop,” and Nick realizes that he’s also been tapping his fingers on the outside of his thigh, a nervous habit he can usually squelch before anyone else catches him.

Brandon suits words to actions and reaches over to stop him too, his hand covering Nick’s, and it works, because Nick stills, but it also absolutely doesn’t, because now Brandon has his fingers trapped, both their hands pressed firmly to his leg. Nick swallows hard and firmly tells himself to stop acting weird, but he’s overly conscious of every breath Brandon’s taking in, every tiny movement of his body, the fact he still hasn’t stopped touching Nick.

“Are you okay?” Brandon asks, and Nick turns his head to look him in the eyes, grey-blue in the low light, brows drawn together, warm affection in his tone and every part of his body language.

“No,” Nick says, much too honestly, and he can’t even blame the beer for it, because it’s all him, the same instinct he listens to when it comes to judging whether to pinch in or to hang back and hug the blue line. He can see something change in Brandon’s face, recognition, and Nick takes a deep breath in and then throws caution to the winds, leans in just enough to press his mouth to Brandon’s.

Brandon’s hand tightens over his, but he doesn’t jerk back, he doesn’t move away at all. He just freezes for a long, heart-stopping moment, and Nick’s about to tear himself away and start apologizing frantically when Brandon sighs and melts into him, lips parted, breathing fast.

It’s hardly even a kiss at first, just their faces too close together, and Nick can feel the warmth of Brandon’s breath against his lips, on his skin through the beard, the lightest discernible pressure. Brandon’s lips are a little dry, the skin catching against Nick’s where he’s in the same condition, too much time indoors and in the dry and the cold, even if it’s not quite winter outside yet, not for real. His mouth is hot, though, and Nick leans into him some more, kisses as carefully as he can, slow and deliberate. It’s silly, maybe, but Nick can’t stop remembering the way his mouth had been all cut up weeks ago, and so he’s careful as he explores Brandon’s mouth, traces the flat edges of his teeth with his tongue, tries not to push.

Brandon pulls away finally, all in a rush, inhaling sharply, and Nick’s eyes open—when had he closed them?—to see Brandon, looking wilder and more uncertain than he can ever remember him seeming, and Nick remembers when he was a quiet, nervous eighteen year old, standing in the corner of the locker room, wide-eyed. He’s always had this undercurrent of maturity though, the quiet poise that draws people to him, that attracts responsibility whereever he goes, even if he’s not the oldest or the most experienced. Nick had picked up on it then, and he’s feeling it again now; Brandon’s freaking out a little, and he’s unsure of himself, but he’s about to try to turn himself inside out in an attempt to make sure everything’s okay for Nick.

And that’s—

Nick doesn’t deserve that; Nick just made a move on him, out of practically nowhere, and just because Brandon kissed him back at first, that still doesn’t mean it was a good idea, or even an allowably-bad one.

Nick’s on his feet before he’s even finished thinking it through, but he can’t look Brandon in the eye. He’s reduced to staring down at his own feet, helplessly noting the color of Brandon’s carpet and the fact he should get his shoes polished again some time soon.  

“I should get back to the hotel,” he says, tries to keep his tone even, not to sound like he’s hyperventilating just a little.

“You—uh, okay,” Brandon says, and there’s a pause and then he’s standing too.

“I can get a cab,” Nick says, pretty sure that spending more time in an enclosed space with Brandon right then is a bad idea, and Jesus, fuck, what had he even been thinking? What could have possessed him?

“No, it’s fine, I’ll drive you,” Brandon says, and then he’s vanishing again, keys jingling in his hand when he comes back from the hall, stepping into a pair of sandals by the door.

The drive back to the hotel is just as quick as the drive to Brandon’s house had been in the first place; he really hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told Nick how close he was. It is, however, not even close to as comfortable, and Nick feels every second weigh on him, compounding his mistakes. If he was smoother maybe he’d be able to talk his way out of this, but every time he reaches for the words there’s nothing there but faint panic and a virtually-overwhelming urge to just throw himself in again head first and damn the consequences.

Nick’s not stupid; Nick knows there’d be consequences, there always are. That’s why he’s never let himself do this before.

Brandon pulls into the drive, parks, and turns to look at Nick. He’s still frowning, absently chewing on his bottom lip, and Nick starts guiltily when he catches himself focusing on that. Brandon doesn’t seem to notice, this time.

“Look, Leds, I’m sorry—” he starts to say, but Nick can’t just sit there and hear this right now, selfishly tells himself they can have this conversation another day when he’s braced for it, so he just says, “Thanks for dinner, see you tomorrow,” and retreats.

He glances back over his shoulder just before getting into the hotel lobby, and Brandon’s still sitting there, staring back at him with a determinedly neutral expression. Nick swallows hard, hopes his face isn’t a dead giveaway that something is going on.

He gets back to his room without running into any of his teammates, which is one small mercy. He puts the TV on and tries to just immerse himself in that distraction, hoping that’ll turn his brain off long enough that he can fall asleep as soon as he turns the lights out.

His phone buzzes with texts a couple of times, a “Can we talk about this?” and then, “Seriously, Leds, answer your phone.”

Nick picks up his phone long enough to type, “Can we do this later?” and after a long pause Brandon sends back, “I guess.”

He’ll take it.

* * *

He feels short of sleep the next morning, despite the fact he’d gone to bed at his usual time; despite the fact he hadn’t really had enough to drink to be worth noting either. It makes him half a step slower than usual, and he’s going to have to pick that up by the time the puck drops, because getting in and out with two points is the most important thing he’s going to be involved in. At least, it better be, he thinks.

They don’t see any of the Jackets hanging around after the Isles are done with the ice, and Nick is relieved more than anything else. In the usual course of events he’d expect Brandon at least to hang around for a bit after, maybe some of the other guys who’ve played with his teammates before, who know them off the ice as well as on, but he can’t say he’s sorry to skip that. His afternoon nap feels like more of a return to normal, and he feels steadier and more like himself again by the time they’re skating out onto the ice at Nationwide. There’s a restlessness in the building that doesn’t come entirely from the fans, and when Nick looks across the red line at the home side he gets the uncomfortable feeling that this game is going to be a rough one.

He’s right, in a way. It is. For the Jackets.

Nick’s never going to regret a win, and he’s proud they get to help Jaro post a shutout, too, good and early in the season to boot, but by the time the post-game adrenaline is starting to wear off he can’t help feeling bad for Brandon at least. He’d been mostly his usual self the night before, but there’d been an underlying tension, the faint brittleness whenever their conversation had edged too close to hockey that Nick’s never seen in him before, not when they were down three to Detroit, not when they’d lost the conference final, not even that one bad losing streak a few years back.

There’s nothing Nick could do other than be, like, supportive and shit, and he’s managed to fuck that up pretty good anyway. He stews over everything for a couple days, and even though he knows the logical answer is to just talk to Brandon already, he can’t seem to actually bring himself to do that, which means that, logically, the best thing Nick can do is get a second opinion.

He would talk to the guys he’s tight with in New York—they’re usually his first port of call for most problems these days—but he can’t seem to do that, either. Sometimes it’s hard to forget that he’s pretty much the only one who isn’t happily married or at least engaged, and sometimes that shoehorns in a little more distance, even as much as he likes and trusts them. It’s just easier to talk to someone he’s always been on solid ground with, someone who he’s seen through as many tragic romantic mishaps as he’s had to experience himself.

Which means that what he actually does as soon as he gets home after practice is to text Andy. He thinks he’ll play it vague, if he can, but he’s not exactly holding his breath.

“Hey, can I talk to you about something?” he types, and Andy must be home, because he sends back a “Sure, go nuts” about half a minute after Nick finally managed to hit ‘send’. Not that that really helps him much in trying to work out how to even explain this whole shitshow.

“I fucked up,” is what he actually sends, after trying and deleting six different versions of essentially the same message.

“Wtf did you do???” Shawzer sends back, and then right on the heels of that, “this is dumb, CALL ME.”

Nick pauses for a moment before doing anything else, because there’s no going back once he admits this, he can’t, like, wipe it out of Shawzy’s head any more than he can out of his own. That’s scary all on its own, but it’s also another thought that’s not getting him anywhere new, and he has to admit that he’s being ridiculous, he needs to get it together. He sits up straighter and hits the little icon on his screen to call Andy instead of just sending him more texts.

“So what did you do?” Shawzy asks, not even letting Nick get a word in first.

“Hi, hello, how are you?” Nick says pointedly, and Shawzy just snorts.

“I’m fine, you clearly want to talk, so spill it. How much trouble are you in, Leds?”

“I made things weird with Saader,” he admits.

There’s a longer pause, where he expects Andy to come back demanding more information, or just straight up move to chirping him for it, but what does eventually come back is much more measured than he’s used to getting from Andy. Nick must have struck him in some kind of mood, too.

“So why are you talking to me and not him?” Andy asks.

Nick’s pretty sure the answer to that is, “Because this is easier”, and that’s almost enough to shame him into just calling Brandon already anyway.

“So come on, what’d you do anyway?” Andy asks. “You’re not that kinky, it can’t be asking for weird shit in bed.”

Nick is lost for words, because that was about the last thing he’d ever have expected Andy to say. Also, kind of insulted.

“What?” he manages to say, after a moment, and it comes out more high-pitched than he’d like.

“What?” Andy repeats, having the gall to sound like he’s the one who’s surprised that Nick doesn’t understand him.

“I didn’t—we’re not, I’m not sleeping with him. What the fuck, Shawzy? Also, you don’t know what I, um.” Nick’s not sure anyone wins an argument about what counts as kinky. Probably better to just let that one go. Especially since the bigger problem is that Andy thinks him and Brandon are—

“Please, we lived together how long?” Andy says dismissively. “I know what you like.”

Nick a little bit just wants to crawl inside his couch and die.

“Whatever,” Nick says. “That’s not the point.”

“Wait,” Andy says, like he’s just realized that he missed the more important part of what Nick was saying. “What do you mean you’re not banging?”

“What I said!” Nick says. “Why would you assume that?”

“I’ve met you?” Andy says. “Come on, you guys have always—we just figured, you know? You were in his hotel room the night before a playoff game! You go home with him, like, half the time.”

“It was just easier sometimes,” Nick protests.

“Right,” Andy says. “Whatever you have to tell yourself, Leds. You wanna try and tell me you don’t want him, then?”

Nick deflates. He can’t argue that, that’s the whole fucking problem right there. He just hadn’t realized Andy already knew that. He’d kind of been hoping to skate through this massively awkward conversation while keeping it very light on detail. Stupid of him, really.

“Yeah,” Nick says, and maybe it should be more of a relief than it is to admit that out loud at last. Because he has to know, he adds, “Fuck, was it that obvious?”

“Uh, yeah,” Andy replies and Nick feels his cheeks go hot.

He’d thought Andy was just joking every time he’d waxed eloquent about his and Saader’s so-called bromance. He’d thought he had this under control.

“You. Showered. Together.” Andy adds pointedly, and Nick tries to sink even more into his couch cushions, even though he’s alone in his apartment and there isn’t actually anyone looking at him.

“I’ve showered with you,” Nick argues, futilely no doubt, but he’s compelled to try, at least.

“Yeah, but you don’t want to bone me,” Andy replies instantly.

“Thank god for that,” Nick says, maybe not quietly enough, because Andy squawks in outrage.

“But if that’s not your problem, then what the fuck happened?” Andy asks, going back to sounding about as serious as he ever does.

Nick sighs. “We got dinner when we were in Columbus the other day,” he starts.

“And?” Andy says pointedly.

“And then he asked if I wanted to see his new house, so I said sure—” Nick says.

“Smooth, Saader,” Andy interrupts, and Nick just ignores him, keeps talking like he didn’t say anything. Now that he’s started, he finds that he does actually want to tell someone, and at least Andy’s safe.

“So we hung out some more, you know, watched TV for a bit,” Nick goes on.

“Really living the wild life there, Leds,” Shawzy says, snorting. “C’mon, get to the good stuff.”

Okay, so while he has no fear of Andy spilling this to anyone he shouldn’t, he should also have remembered that of course he was also going to give Nick shit for literally everything. Nick sighs again.

“We made out,” he admits. “I mean. I kissed him.”

He shouldn’t be this tongue-tied, Nick thinks. It’s so fucking embarrassing that he’s having this conversation in the first place, that this is an actual problem in his life. He’s almost 25, he should be better at all this stuff already.

“And then he ran screaming?” Andy asks, and Nick can picture the look on his face, smart-ass grin, eyebrow raised, foot tapping impatiently while he waits for Nick to ‘fess up.

“Not exactly?” Nick says, hedging it.

“So you made out and then you ran screaming?” Andy lets that sit there for a couple of seconds without obvious judgment, but Nick’s squirming all the same. He kind of figures that’s what Shawzy’s intending, too.

“I freaked out,” Nick admits.

“So what were you trying to do, then?” Andy asks, a lot more gently than Nick’s expecting. He must sound pretty pathetic. “Why start that?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Nick says. That’s kind of the problem. This time it’s Andy who sighs, heavily, the sound echoing down the phone line into Nick’s ears.

“Look,” Andy says. “Gimme the best case scenario here, okay? What was your game plan?”

“He said, ‘sorry’ and I bailed,” Nick says. There’s not a lot of good places Nick can go with that, even if Brandon had kissed him back to start with. He’s still not sure how to get from the let him down gently place that Brandon’s apparently in back to being friends. “I just don’t want things to be weird with him, you know? I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Well, you could try talking to him,” Andy says, pointedly.

“Like he’d want to,” Nick says.

“Do you want a pity party, or do you want advice?” Andy asks, blunt as ever.

Nick takes a deep breath. He knows what the answer to that has to be. “Advice.” Normally he’d maybe tease Shawzer a bit over the idea of him giving Nick relationship advice, but it’s pretty fucking clear that Andy’s doing a lot better on that front than Nick has done, well, ever.

“You gotta make the first move,” Andy says. “You started this, and then you left him twisting in the wind. Figure out what you want, and then pick up the phone.”

It’s not like Nick needed to feel worse about that, but he probably had that coming.

“I don’t want him to be sorry, I want—” Nick trails off mid-sentence, because admitting this out loud is hard, okay, even if he’s pretty sure that, for once, Shawzy’s not going to make fun. “I wanted to do it again.”

“Maybe you should tell him that, dude,” Shawzy says, way too patiently, like it’s not the first or second time he’s said as much, and, like. Nick zones out on the phone sometimes but not that badly, which means he’s sharper than he intends to be when he asks, “Wait, has he been talking to you too?”

“I’m not answering that,” Shawzy says, which makes him a good friend, but also means the answer is “yes”, and—Nick’s not sure what to make of that. He knows what he would like to make of that, but that doesn’t mean there’s really anything there. He wants there to be, though.

“Wait, why the hell did you think we were sleeping together if you’ve been talking to him?” Nick asks.

“Yeah, have you ever tried to get Saader to talk about something when he didn’t want to?” Andy asks. “All I got out of him was that he’s pissed at you.”

Nick can’t say he hasn’t earned that.

“Right,” Nick says after another moment’s thought. “I’m gonna, um. Go. Figure out how to fix that.”

“Have fun and remember to use protection,” Shawzy says, and Nick just says, “You’re a dick,” and then, “But thanks,” before he hangs up.

So Shawzy thinks there’s hope, at least. That’s… mostly comforting.

* * *

It takes him another day or so to actually call Brandon, although that’s also due to trying to figure out a time that’ll work for both of their schedules; Nick’s not going to try and do this on a game day, whatever happens.

“Can we talk later?” he messages Brandon in the morning, crossing his fingers he’s managed to hit somewhere between when Brandon was going to be awake and when he’d have practice or something.

“You’re talking to me now?” Brandon replies promptly, and Nick cringes, but yeah, he deserved that and he knows it.

“I’m sorry,” he sends back. “I can explain if you want to hear it.”

“We could Skype after lunch?” Brandon suggests, and that’s almost better than Nick was expecting. Sure, it’s going to suck if Brandon tells him to fuck off, or if he’s not actually interested after all, but he could’ve done that much more easily over text, so maybe Nick hasn’t actually screwed up irreparably after all. He tells himself not to get his hopes up, though.

“Sure,” Nick says.

In an attempt to try and turn his brain off after that, he spends the better part of the rest of his morning in the gym, following a routine he doesn’t have to put any thought into. If nothing else, it gives him something to focus on and to work off the nerves that persist in tying his stomach in knots just thinking about having this conversation with Brandon after all.

He’s only middlingly successful at that, and he’s still tense and more than a little twitchy when he settles down on his couch with his laptop open, waiting for the little icon to change color when Brandon gets back. He’s showered and changed, and he’d looked about the same as normal when he caught sight of himself in the mirror afterward, but now he’s wondering if he should’ve made an extra effort, somehow. It’s a bit late for that now though, and then the video call comes through anyway, so Nick tries to just stop over-thinking it.

“Hey,” Brandon says cautiously, and he looks—he looks good, Nick can’t help but noticing that, even if he maybe shouldn’t. A little tired, maybe, and about as tense as Nick feels, but it’s a relief to see him all the same.

“Hi,” Nick says. They don’t have a whole lot of time, which means Nick can’t work his way up to what he has to say, he’s going to have to dive right in. “I’m sorry about the other night.”

“About what happened, or…?” Brandon asks, and there’s enough uncertainty in his tone that Nick feels like even more of an asshole.

“For not, uh. Talking to you at the time. I kind of freaked out,” he says. “I know, that doesn’t make it any better, but that’s why I bailed on you.” Nick pauses, and takes a deep breath, because no matter what, that was the apology he had to make, needed to say. The rest of this, that’s where he’s really putting himself on the line. And if Brandon’s not interested, if he just wants to pretend none of this ever happened, then Nick will go along with that, too. He’d rather still be friends than anything else. But if he’s right, if there is something more there… then he’s lost his appetite for acting like he doesn’t want to pursue that.

“Thanks,” Brandon says quietly. “Uh, apology accepted.”

“That’s not everything,” Nick says, and his stomach is in sick knots, and maybe the reason he’s never done this before isn’t just that he wanted to keep focused, it’s that he kind of feels like he’s going to puke. “I also wanted—I mean, I’m sorry if you didn’t mean to kiss me, but I got the impression that you were, um, into it, and, so I thought—”

Nick trails off into nothing at that point, because he’s not sure he’s going to be able to figure out how to say this after all, and maybe he should’ve practiced this part of what he was going to say a few times rather than just blurting it all out. And also because when he does look up at Brandon’s face on his computer screen, it’s to see that Brandon’s lip is twitching and he’s a hairsbreadth away from laughing outright.

Nick scowls. He’s not certain Brandon is interested back, but he didn’t think he’d laugh at him. Brandon seems to pick that up, because he goes poker-faced and serious again a second later, mumbles a “Sorry,” of his own.

They just look at each other for a moment, and Nick’s starting to feel that tiny curl of hope in his chest again, warm and tempting, and fuck, he really wants this to work out.

“Um, Leds,” Brandon starts to say, and then he corrects himself, “Nick. Are you, um, trying to ask me out?”

“Yeah,” Nick says. “Uh, is it working?”

Brandon grins at him, dimples and all, and that goes straight to, well. Straight to Nick’s head and also to other parts of him. “Your odds are pretty good, let’s put it that way.”

Nick grins back, almost light-headed with relief, happiness bubbling through him. This was almost, well, not easy, but so much better than he was expecting it to go.

“Awesome,” Nick says. “I mean, I don’t want to make things weird, but I was really hoping you felt that way.”

“Probably would’ve gone better if you’d said something sooner,” Brandon says, only a little pointedly. “I was pretty sure you were flirting, but the part where you ran away right after making a move was a mixed fucking message, you know?”

“Yeah,” Nick says. “Um, sorry again.”

Brandon gives him a steady look, shrugs and says, “We’re working it out now, right?”

This is going even better than Nick had dared hope, almost, but Brandon’s taking this so well that it’s also kind of making Nick think he’s missed something.

“You seems really calm about this,” Nick says carefully. “I mean, I’m not complaining, but—we’ve been friends how long, and this is kind of a big change, right?”

Does Brandon think Nick just wants to hook up, or something? Not that he’d want to say no to that if it’s all he can get, but he should probably make sure they’re really on the same page now, instead of letting themselves get even messier than they are right now.

“I’ve had a few days to think about it,” Brandon says. “You weren’t exactly subtle, Leds.”

“So we can get dinner or something again next time we’re in the same city?” Nick asks carefully. They’re going to have to take this slow by definition; they live in different states, they’re always on the road or working, it’s not going to be easy.

“You’re here next, right?” Brandon says, and when Nick nods, he adds, “So this time when you come back to my place I won’t have to figure out an excuse to get you to stay longer.”

“Wait, what?” Nick says.

Brandon looks a little sheepish this time. “Is ‘want to come check out my place’ not a come-on in Minnesota? I thought we were flirting but I was never sure until you actually went for it, you know?” And then Nick had chickened out and fled back to his hotel room, instead of, if he’s reading Brandon right here, actually getting some. If not getting laid, at least getting to see and touch Brandon more than he had done. Shit, he’s such an idiot.

“God, I wish we were in town again before December,” Nick says, with feeling. He’s not sure how he’s going to last the six or seven weeks till then.

“Me too,” Brandon says, and Nick shivers because Brandon’s tone is promising a lot.

Something buzzes off screen on Brandon’s end of the call, and he looks away, picks up his phone and makes a face.

“I kinda have to go,” he says.

“Yeah, that’s cool,” Nick says. “Uh, it was good to see you?”

“You too,” Brandon says. “Message me or whatever, yeah?”

“You bet,” Nick says, and then they say goodbye.

Nick closes his computer up and sets it back on the coffee table, stretches out on his couch and digs his toes in under the cushion at the back, getting comfortable. Maybe he can just nap there, he’s warm and totally relaxed for the first time in days, it feels like.

* * *

Nick’s still cautious when he starts texting Brandon again that afternoon, doesn’t want to come on too strong or push his luck, but they seem to pick up right where they’d left off, to the point that Nick’s on his phone so much over the next few days that he gets chirped hard by half his team.

It’s hard to do anything more than just grin stupidly even when they’re giving him shit, because now the goofy pictures and trivial comments he and Brandon are texting back and forth about are getting broken up occasionally with stuff like Brandon taking a selfie right after his pregame nap, shoulders bare, sleepy grin on his face and the comment, “Wish you were here”.

That makes Nick go hot and cold all over, although Brandon’s timing could be better, because Nick needs to go get ready for his own game, rather than lie in his own bed and think about how good it would be to bite down on Brandon’s collarbone, or how Brandon’s five o’clock shadow would feel, scraping over Nick’s skin.

He winds up jerking off a lot more than usual.

And because it’s only fair, he ends up telling Brandon about that, too, which sets off a chain of messages that get more and more explicit until Nick is curled against the window of the bus, trying frantically not to blush, sweating hard and hoping no one’s going to lean over the seat behind him to read his phone screen to see what has him so quiet. It probably doesn’t quite count as phone sex if Nick doesn’t get off on it until four or five hours later, but it’s close enough, and it has him itching to get through the next few weeks as fast as they can, counting down the days till he can see Brandon.

He’s heading home after running errands one morning near the end of the month, sitting in stop-go traffic on the Expressway when he hears his phone buzz with an incoming message.

He doesn’t think much of it at the time, and he almost forgets to look when he parks up outside his place, but something makes him dig through his coat pockets to check his phone before going inside. He doesn’t really have any other plans for the day, had been idly thinking about getting dinner with some of the guys, but hadn’t actually got so far as planning that yet.

They’re all close enough that last minute plans work out fine most of the time anyway, unless they’re heading into Manhattan or somewhere outside of Long Island. The Isles are in the middle of a short homestand anyway, and they could certainly stand to celebrate Jaro’s shutout some more. They’d all been pretty wiped after three games in four days, especially with travel on the back-to-back, and the celebration the night before had been muted, to say the least.

Those plans go right out the window when Nick thumbs open the message, though; it’s Brandon, who is, if Nick remembers the schedule correctly, playing the Devils later in the day. And he’s asking if Nick has plans for Wednesday.

“Not as far as I know,” Nick sends him back. He tries not to get his hopes up, but if all Brandon wanted was to make plans to Facetime each other or whatever, he’s pretty sure he’d have led with that.

His phone rings then, and Nick picks it up a split-second later, jamming it between his ear and shoulder as he figures he should probably not just keep sitting in the car for this conversation.

“Hey,” he says warmly, and Brandon sounds so close, soft-spoken and familiar in his ear as he says hi right back.

“So,” Brandon says. “Turns out we’re just sticking around Newark tomorrow, there’s a thing with the plane,” Brandon’s vague about it, probably didn’t bother getting any more details himself, so Nick doesn’t ask either. “And so they figured it wasn’t worth going back to Columbus for like half a day before the next roadie. So.”

“So,” Nick repeats. “By sticking around Newark, you mean…?”

Nick has never before had particularly strong positive thoughts about the New Jersey Devils, but right then he’s deeply grateful that they exist, especially if Brandon’s saying what he thinks he’s saying.

“Totally free morning,” Brandon replies, and he might sound just like he always does, but Nick knows him well enough to pick up the hints of excitement in his tone; Brandon’s as thrilled about this as Nick is.

“Me too,” Nick says, and it’s a relief to unlock his door and dump his bag in the hall then, before wandering into the living room to sit down and keep talking to Brandon. “Normally I’d invite you over here, but it’s probably safer if, uh.” Nick stumbles to a halt then, realizing he’s about to invite himself into Brandon’s hotel room, and maybe he should let Brandon offer if that’s on the table or not.

“Yeah, traffic, I know. Better if you come here,” Brandon says. “I’m not rooming with anyone this year, though, so…”

“So you wanna risk it, then?” Nick asks, suddenly deeply glad he lives alone now, that there’s no one to judge the ridiculously huge grin he knows has taken over his face. Holy shit, he gets to see Brandon tomorrow.

“Yeah,” Brandon says, without hesitation, and Nick knows that this doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, or that it’s going to be perfect, or even that it’s going to work, but it’s everything he could’ve asked for.

* * *

Nick’s the one who’s early the next morning; nerves and anticipation working together to get him out of his place even earlier than he probably needed to be, and he ends up downstairs in the hotel lobby a good half an hour before Brandon’s expecting him. There’s enough people milling about the check-in desk that he doesn’t feel too conspicuous, but he’d rather not hang around in public longer than he has to, so he finds a quiet corner and pulls his phone out, sending Brandon a quick “Hey, I’m here whenever you’re set” message.

Brandon’s reassuringly prompt to reply, like he was up as early as Nick was, maybe, for probably much the same reasons. Nick’s a little nervous about how this is going to go; he’s trying not to expect too much, but there’s something about meeting his—whatever they are to each other, they haven’t actually gotten as far as defining that yet—about meeting someone in a hotel room that puts sex right in the forefront of Nick’s mind. He doesn’t think he’s the only one, either.

Everything they’ve tried over the phone and with the internet has been hot, Nick’s got no worries on that score, he knows they’ve got chemistry. But it’s a pretty big unknown to still have between them, and considering they won’t get to see each other again for a good five or six weeks after this, the risk of what happens if things don’t go well is also weighing on Nick’s mind. Which is great; performance anxiety is the last thing either of them needs. Lucky they’re used to high pressure situations, really.

Brandon steps out of the hotel elevator a minute or two later; he’s wearing dark slacks but has a team jacket zipped up on top, somewhere between dressy and casual. Nick gets up, ignoring the butterflies in his stomach, and it’s reassuringly normal when Brandon reaches out to give him a quick hug.

“Hi,” Nick murmurs, right by Brandon’s ear, quiet enough that he’s the only one who could hear, and the faintest shiver ripples along his spine when Brandon says, “Hey, Leds,” in much the same tone.

They drift apart a moment later, and Nick can’t help himself, gives Brandon an appreciative head to toe look, hopes he’s not as obvious as he suspects he is when his gaze gets back up to meet Brandon’s.

“We should probably head up, huh?” Brandon says. “Uh, unless you want something to eat first, or-?”

They could probably even get breakfast in the hotel restaurant; meeting up with old teammates is common enough that even if they ran into some of the other Jackets they probably wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. Nick doesn’t want to do that, though, because even if this is a free pass, a couple of hours they couldn’t have expected to have, he’d rather get to spend them in the privacy of Brandon’s hotel room. Even if all they do is talk, he’d just rather not have an audience.

Although, given the way Brandon’s hands had lingered during the hug, Nick’s pretty sure they’re not just going to talk.

“I’ve already eaten,” Nick says. “You?”

“Yeah, I had breakfast already,” Brandon says, and he looks a little sheepish when Nick raises an eyebrow and says, “Up early, huh?”

“Come on, I’m on the eighth floor,” Brandon says, rather than responding to Nick’s comment, and he just turns to head back to the elevator, casual as anything.

Nick follows, and they step out of the way of a family with a bunch of bags on a luggage cart, exchanging a grin as they try to keep out of their way when they get off the elevator on the floor right before Brandon’s.

The hotel room, when they get to it, looks exactly the same as every other hotel room Nick’s ever been in. Hell, he could’ve been in this exact same room in the past himself; he’s never paid much attention to exactly which hotel they’re in and for all he knows the Hawks had stayed there whenever they’d been in Jersey, too.

Brandon pushes the door closed behind Nick and flips the security bar over so that no one can bust in on them even if they had a spare key, not that Nick’s expecting that to happen.

“Hey,” Nick says again, and he makes himself comfortable sitting down on the bed that’s unrumpled and still made, facing Brandon when he settles down opposite him.

“Thanks for, you know. Meeting me,” Brandon says, breaking the silence that had settled over them while they’d sat there just looking at each other. It’s not quite awkward, not really, they know each other too well for that, but Nick’s caught by enough hesitation about comprehensively, irrevocably changing their status quo that he can’t bring himself to make the first move, not this time.

“Any time,” Nick says automatically, and then corrects himself. “Well, pretty much any time.”

“Close enough,” Brandon says. “Uh, I guess we should talk?” He doesn’t look thrilled at the idea, and Nick’s right there with him, honestly.

“Or we could talk later and try that whole sleeping together thing again?” Nick suggests.

Brandon snorts. “You’ve already slept with me. Like, more than once.”

“No one likes a pedant,” Nick says, but that’s a blatant lie, because he likes Brandon a whole lot, even if he is making fun rather than touching Nick already. Then again, maybe Nick’s trying to take this too fast, even if they’ve been doing foreplay by cell phone for a good week or two now.

Or maybe he’s not, because Brandon’s the one who makes the move this time, just saying, “Okay, just say if you want something different.”

Nick’s been thinking about this for weeks—longer, even, if he counts the vague fantasies he tried not to have too often—and it’s still almost surprising when Brandon unzips his jacket and peels off the t-shirt that’s all he was wearing underneath it. Nick’s gaze tracks from his shoulders down over his chest, noting the dusting of hair, the pale pink-brown of his nipples, the definition of his abs, the thin strip of fabric visible under the waistband of his slacks, his briefs a paler color than his pants. He gets caught on that visual for a moment, before inevitably letting his eyes go further south, where Brandon’s slacks are pretty much hiding nothing. It’s suddenly hard to swallow, and Nick is definitely too far away from him.

“This is good,” Nick manages to say, trying not to just blatantly stare at Brandon’s dick.

He’s not all that successful. He’s been half-hard for what feels like half the morning, and knowing that Brandon is too, seeing such clear evidence that Brandon wants this as much as he does is all it takes to get him the rest of the way there. His jeans are abruptly far too tight, the room too hot, and Nick wants nothing so much as to just strip off then and there, get Brandon’s hands and eyes and mouth on him in turn.

“Can you just come here already,” Brandon says, scrambling back into the middle of the mattress, impatiently kicking the tangle of sheets and coverlet down to the foot of the bed, his eyes glued on Nick.

Brandon’s flat on his back by the time Nick manages to join him, his hands going right for Brandon’s zipper while Brandon tugs Nick’s shirt out from underneath his own waistband, starts trying to shove it up and off.

“You couldn’t lose some of this first?” Brandon complains, giving up on both Nick’s shirt and his jeans, just shoving one hand down the back of his pants to grab his ass, and Nick swallows an embarrassing moan at that.

“You’re still wearing pants,” Nick points out, because he’s not the only one who’s overdressed, but he doesn’t get to follow that point through to any sort of conclusion, because Brandon gets his other hand around the back of his neck. His thumb strokes lightly over the skin of his throat, brushing up towards his jaw, and it’s so easy to let Brandon direct him, tugging his face down until they’re even closer, breathing each other in.

“Try this again?” Brandon asks, so softly, and his breath is warm on Nick’s lips, his mouth hot when he opens it against Nick’s.

For a long while Nick forgets about doing anything other than just kissing, getting lost in how Brandon tastes and feels. His hands still on Brandon’s sides, just noting the warmth of his skin, the solid muscle underneath, the way his chest moves as he breathes, steady and even.

Brandon lets his head fall back onto the mattress after a few minutes, breathing heavily, blinking as he looks up at Nick. He licks his lips, and Nick feels a hot rush of affection and desire, wants nothing more than to stay in this little bubble of just the two of them. Maybe with fewer clothes, though.

“Yeah, that’s still good,” Nick manages to say, his voice slightly croaky. He’s having trouble catching his breath, just a little.

“I wouldn’t mind more practice,” Brandon says, picking up the joke and running with it.

Nick leans in and kisses him again, and it’s less overwhelming this time, but still so good that Nick doesn’t want to pull away, even though the angle they’re on is kind of mashing his nose against Brandon’s, and he’s caught Nick’s lip with his teeth a couple times. Brandon does that again, and Nick thinks, 'no, that’s on purpose', and starts imagining Brandon doing that same thing other places.

That just turns him on even more, and he’s almost panting when he pulls away from Brandon’s mouth the next time, gets up on his elbows and says, “Can we get naked? I really want to touch you more.”

Brandon doesn’t hesitate at all, his jaw set firm and eyes dark and serious, gray shading towards green today, Nick can’t help but note.

“Yeah,” he says, and then adds, “Nick, you gotta move first.”

Nick laughs and says, “Right,” rolling off Brandon, and staring up at the cream-colored ceiling for a second while he gets his breathing back under control.

He sits up then, pulls his shirt up and over his head; Brandon had got about halfway there before he’d given up, and it’s bunched up weirdly anyway. When he looks back Brandon is sitting up too, hands resting on the button at the top of his slacks, like he’s waiting for Nick’s attention. Nick raises an eyebrow, questioning, but he gets it; he wants to watch, and Brandon knows it.

Brandon pops the button, drags the zipper down, doesn’t even try to hide the faint sigh of relief as he tugs his pants and underwear further down, carefully maneuvering the fabric over his dick. The way he has to squirm to get everything down past his knees and off is completely undignified, and maybe next time Nick will laugh, he’s pretty sure that sex with Brandon is going to be fun and funny, sometimes, but this time all he can do is stare, trying to look his fill.

“Come on, you now,” Brandon says, even more obviously impatient now, intent on Nick, and in a rush all the pent-up arousal he’s feeling hits home, twists up in his gut and makes him blush, face hot and ears red.

Nick scrambles back to his feet beside the bed, it’s going to be easier that way, and yanks his own zipper down, presses his hand over his dick for a moment just to take the edge off, and then drops his pants and underwear, stepping out of them before he gets a knee on the bed again.

He’s expecting to reach out for Brandon, maybe crawl on top of him again; he’d felt so good under Nick with two layers of clothing between them, it would have to be even better now they’re both actually naked, but Brandon reaches out for him instead. Nick lets him guide them both back down onto the sheets, and Brandon’s the one who winds up on top this time, settling his weight carefully over Nick’s thighs, leaning forward to run his hands lightly up from Nick’s hips to his shoulders, leaving goosebumps in his wake.

Nick’s had a lot of filthy thoughts about Brandon’s hands over the years. It would be hard not to, the way he stickhandles, the way he moves on the ice, a big man with soft hands, but those thoughts pale before the reality that is Brandon carefully touching him, determined and goal-oriented in all the best possible ways.

Brandon leans forward to kiss him again and Nick sinks into that, too, lets his eyes close and his hands settle on Brandon’s hips, thumbs stroking in over the curve of bone.

With his eyes closed, he doesn’t realize Brandon’s moving again until he’s already in motion, his weight shifting on top of Nick, his lips dragging up Nick’s throat, working back up to his jaw line. Brandon hasn’t shaved this morning, judging by the stubble that he can feel rasping over his skin, the good kind of friction that Nick had forgotten how much he likes.

Brandon sits up again then, laughing a little, and he rubs the back of his hand over his mouth thoughtfully while he looks down at Nick and quirks a smile, laughing at himself, maybe.

“The beard is hot,” Brandon says. “Don’t get me wrong. But also kind of inconvenient, right now,” and he reaches out to run his thumb along Nick’s jaw from the point of his chin back towards his ear, tugging just a little on it as the pad of his thumb catches against the hair.

Brandon stops when his thumb hits the hinge of Nick’s jaw and instead curls his fingers around his neck, sinking them into the hair behind his ear, pulling just a little there, too. Nick’s more into that than he expected to be.

“What you’re doing is working for me,” Nick says, maybe too honestly.

His skin feels thin and over-sensitized where Brandon’s rubbed his cheek against it, and he can’t tell whether he wants more of that or just to get Brandon’s hands moving on him again, too. He liked how Brandon had looked with a beard, and he likes how he looks clean-shaven, too; and this in-between thing is stupidly hot in an entirely different way, too, or maybe Nick’s just not that picky. Maybe he just likes Brandon a whole lot, no matter what.

“Same,” Brandon says, and he looks so serious, intent on watching his hands move on Nick, and it’s driving him crazy, the slow, steady escalation; Nick feels like he’s been hard for years now.

“Fuck,” Nick breathes, after Brandon leans in and kisses him again, his whole body pressed against Nick’s now, heavy and hot and mobile, pushing him down into the bed.

He’s so turned on that he’s pretty sure he’s going to last, like, a minute whenever Brandon gets a hand on him. If Brandon gets a hand on him. Nick’s losing track of time and of everything he’d been planning to do or say, wholly caught up in the moment, focused entirely on sensation.

It’s almost a shock when he remembers that he can actually move as well, it’s not like Brandon’s got him tied down or anything—and honestly, that’s a conversation Nick’s open to having some other time too, he’s pretty sure Brandon will be just fine with that—and so Nick gets one hand low on Brandon’s ass, digging his fingers in to get his attention, leaving his other hand curved around his hip still.

“Something you want?” Brandon pants, and leans in to suck a mark right at the base of Nick’s throat, just high enough he’s going to have to be careful which shirts he wears for the next week, and that makes him shudder all over again.

“Brandon,” Nick whines, and digs his fingers into Brandon’s glutes tighter. “Fuck, please, come on.”

“I’m gonna blow you next time,” Brandon promises, and Nick shudders again, pictures that and has to swallow hard. “This is okay, right?” he asks, just before he finally, finally gets his hand on his dick.

“Yeah, oh fuck, yeah,” Nick says, because Brandon’s hand on his dick is even better than arching up to try and rub off against Brandon with them lined up like this. Heat’s licking up along Nick’s spine, and he can feel his attention pulling inward, tight and yearning, close already, just from this. Something about the sensation helps him focus, teetering right on the edge, and with sudden clarity he manages to slide his palm down Brandon’s stomach, wraps his fingers around Brandon’s dick in turn and asks, “Is this okay, can I?”

“Fuck, yes,” Brandon says, and his movements stutter for a second, like his worldview is rearranging abruptly too.

Getting his hand on Brandon’s dick somehow helps Nick push his own orgasm back a little, gives him something else to think about and focus on. Brandon’s dick is blood-warm, soft thin skin that feels good under his fingers, and it clearly feels good for Brandon too; when Nick’s palm brushes over the head of his dick he can feel the drip of pre-come, smearing over his hand and down Brandon’s shaft, momentarily slicking the movement of Nick’s fingers. Brandon’s moaning under his breath, too, so low that he can only just hear it, and that goes right through him, winds him up even more.

Brandon’s hand tightens on Nick in response, stripping his dick faster, closer to the way Nick jerks himself off. That’s apparently all he needs, because all his muscles lock up in a flash, leaving him hanging for a split-second before he’s arching up and coming under Brandon, getting them both filthy. Nick sags back into the mattress and breathes heavily for a few seconds, blinking hard.

By the time Nick’s got enough fine motor control back to do anything more than lie there and shake, Brandon’s breathing hard and positively squirming on top of him, his face buried in the side of Nick’s collar, lips hot and cheek scratching against his shoulder, breathing warm and humid against his skin. Brandon’s moving in jerky, constricted motions, his dick caught between their bodies, rubbing off on Nick’s hip.

Nick shakes off the afterglow and gets his hand back on Brandon then, stroking tight and fast, thumb working under the head. It doesn’t take much longer after that for Brandon to freeze up and then come hard, his back arching, and he bites down hard on the meat of Nick’s shoulder, muffling whatever sound he’d been about to make. Nick’s cock jerks a little at that, like his body’s trying its hardest to get it up again, because fuck, that had been so hot, but all he can do is just lie there and try to remember how to breathe.

It probably makes sense, he thinks, long minutes later, sweaty and disheveled and absolutely disinclined to do anything like moving to change that, that Brandon tried not to make any noise. Nick hadn’t exactly been quiet, hadn’t thought to be, and this is a hotel, the walls are probably pretty fucking thin, and so maybe even if whoever’s beside them could hear the unmistakable sex noises, there’s at least some good plausible deniability for Brandon still.

Brandon rolls off him and lands flat on his back, his side pressed up against Nick’s, and he’s breathing just as hard. When Nick turns his head to look he’s grinning and his hair’s a disaster where Nick had got his hands in it at some point earlier. They’re both sweaty and filthy and this is honestly the best thing that’s happened to Nick in months.

“You want to shower or something?” Nick asks, five or fifteen minutes later, he’s not sure which. He’s regained the power of speech, at any rate.

“Maybe when I can feel my hands again,” Brandon says, pitching his voice as low as Nick had, but regardless of how gross they both are by then, he just curls into Nick, presses closer to him.

“I’m really glad we did this,” Nick says, and then feels his cheeks go hot, because that’s true, but he also didn’t quite mean it like that. “I mean. This was a good idea, I’m glad whatever happened with your travel, you know. Happened.”

“Me too,” Brandon says, yawning. Nick could absolutely go for a nap about now, too.

“How much longer do we have?” Nick asks, hesitantly. He almost doesn’t want to, but just because he doesn’t want reality to intrude isn’t going to do anything to stop it doing so.

Brandon cracks one eye open and turns to look at the illuminated clock on the nightstand. “We’ve got about ninety minutes still,” he says. “Maybe two hours?”

“Awesome,” Nick says, and lets his eyes close. Napping is so happening. And then they can have whatever relationship talk they need to have after that.

“Thanks for making the trek over,” Brandon says, still quietly, right by his ear.

“Any time,” Nick says. “I’m glad I, uh—” he pauses, but there’s no getting around it, not really. “Glad I came.”

Brandon bites back laughter, and when Nick opens one eye to check his lips are twitching, fighting back a smile at the accidental euphemism.

“You can get me first next time,” Brandon says, and Nick just says, “Deal,” and lets himself relax all over, giving in to the creeping drowsiness that’s been threatening ever since he’d gotten off.

They can probably manage a whole bunch of other firsts next time too, he thinks, and falls asleep tangled up with Brandon like that.