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Claude padded through the house. Still half asleep, he hadn’t bothered changing into real clothes. He’d grabbed a shirt off the floor, probably Sidney’s because it hung off his shoulders a little looser than his normally did, to pull on so that he would be wearing something other than his briefs on the off chance that Taylor or Sidney’s parents had decided to drop by that morning, but that was it.
When he reached the kitchen, he found Sidney sitting at the island. His hair was damp, so Claude figured he’d already gone for a jog and showered afterwards. There was a half-eaten bowl of oatmeal sitting near his elbow and a newspaper spread out in front of him.
“Sid,” Claude said, voice thick with sleep. He stepped close enough that he could wrap his arms around Sidney, pressing his cheek in between his shoulder blades and letting his eyes flutter shut. “I’m hungry.”
“I’m not making you pancakes again,” Sidney said. Claude felt him shift around, resting one hand over Claude’s. “Even if it’s summer, you have a diet plan. I’m not going to be responsible for you breaking it.”
Claude grumbled, “It’s not like my nutritionist is going to know if I have pancakes for breakfast every day this summer.”
“I think they’d notice if you put on fifteen pounds.”
“You’re no fun. Why’d I agree to marry you?” Claude asked.
He heard Sidney let out a small laugh. He tangled their fingers together, lifting them up to his mouth so he could press a kiss against the ring on Claude’s left finger. “Because you love me.”
“I do,” Claude agreed. He let out a soft sigh before turning his face. He pressed a kiss between Sidney’s shoulders before pulling away. “Since I love you too much to ditch you for someone willing to indulge me, I guess I’m just going to get myself some cereal.”
“Not the Reese’s Puffs,” Sidney warned.
“You are the actual worst,” Claude said. But when he reached the cereal cabinet, he pushed the box of Reese’s Puffs away in favor of the Fiber One box.
“Everything looks really good, Mama,” Claude complimented as his mother set the last dish on the table before moving to her own seat across from him. Usually his parents sat at either end of the table, but since his sister and her husband weren’t attending his parents had taken their usual spots across from Sidney and Claude.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” his mother answered, giving him a small smile. “You don’t visit very often, so I wanted to make sure to make something you’d like while you were here.”
“I’m sorry,” Claude said. When he and Sidney had decided to move in together, it had been natural for him to move to Nova Scotia considering Sidney had already owned a house. Moving to Nova Scotia, though, meant that even during the summer Claude didn’t see much of his family. He could afford to travel constantly, but he spent so much time traveling during the season that it was nice to just sit back and enjoy being home and with Sidney without having to get up and catch a flight in thirteen hours. “I’ll try to make it out here more often this summer.”
“You say that every summer,” his father said. He didn’t look annoyed by it though, just amused.
“Honestly, mon carrotte, it’s not such a big deal,” his mother said. Claude heard Sidney take the shallow breath he always took when he was trying not to laugh at Claude’s mother’s favorite nickname and shot a look at him. Sidney pressed his lips together, ensuring his silence without concealing his amusement. “You’re a grown man now. It’s only natural you’d have a life away from us. It’d be nice to see you more often, but no one is blaming you for spending more time with your boyfriend than with us.”
Claude felt it under the table as Sidney knocked his ankle against Claude’s, a silent show of support. Claude wasn’t really worried that his parents wouldn’t accept the engagement. They loved Sidney and he’d been apart of their family for a while now. He was mostly just worried his mother was going to yell at him for keeping it a secret as long as he had. He would have told her as soon as he said yes, but he’d wanted to be sure to tell her in person.
It was fine that his sister found out via twitter, but his mother needed to find out from him not from a phone call or text message.
“Actually, maman, Sidney isn’t my boyfriend anymore,” Claude said. Before his mother could jump to any conclusions, he added, “He proposed the morning after I won the cup. I said yes.”
There was a brief moment of silence before his mother’s hands came to her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes. Claude might have been more concerned if he hadn’t seen the same reaction from her when his sister’s husband had asked for their blessing.
“Oh, honey,” his mother cooed. “I’m so happy for the two of you.”
“Me too, maman,” Claude said. He reached for Sidney’s hand, twining their fingers together. The metal of Sidney’s ring was cold against Claude’s hand. “I’m really happy too.”
“Hey, have you thought about our names?” Claude asked. He was moving around the kitchen in their home in Nova Scotia, pulling out ingredients for the maple glazed salmon he was planning on making for dinner. Normally they took turns cooking, but they usually shared the duties on the weekend with Claude making the entree on Saturday and the side dishes on Sunday.
“What do you mean?” Sidney asked. He was sitting at the kitchen island, waiting until Claude had gotten the salmon started to make the roasted potatoes and peppers he was planning on adding to their dinner.
“Our names,” Claude repeated. He set the maple glaze he’d put in the fridge the previous night next to the cutting board that he’d laid their fillet’s on. “Like what we want to change them to after the wedding?”
Sidney had been looking down at the newspaper, scribbling on the crossword from that morning, but now he paused and looked up at Claude. “You want to change our names?”
“Well, yeah,” Claude said. “I don’t want to change it completely, but I think we can hyphen. It’s going to be a lot harder to fit Crosby-Giroux on a jersey, but it’s not like it’ll be the longest name in the league or anything.”
“You want my name to go first?”
“Makes more sense alphabetically and it sounds nicer,” Claude pointed out. His brow furrowed as something occurred to him and he looked over his shoulder, “Why are you so surprised by this? Did you not want to hyphen?”
“It’s not that I’m opposed to the idea,” Sidney explained, “I just didn’t think you would want to.”
“I wouldn’t want to change it completely,” Claude said. “But….I love you and while I know keeping our names wouldn’t affect how much we love each other, I like the idea of having your name attached to me. I like the idea of us sharing a name.”
“I like it too,” Sidney said. He smiled at Claude, a wide thing full of teeth and affection. “I really like Claude Crosby-Giroux.”
“Mmm, that’s pretty nice,” Claude said, feeling a grin spread over his face as he turned his face to look back down at the fish. “I think Sidney Crosby-Giroux sounds a little better though.”
“Gold is not going to be one of our wedding colors,” Claude insisted for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. He was lying stomach down on the bed, already stripped down to nothing but the briefs he was wearing to bed.
“It’s a good color,” Sidney said from the master bathroom. The door between the two rooms was open so Claude could see Sidney standing in front of the sink with his toothbrush in hand.
The two of them had been talking about their wedding colors on and off for the entire day. It’d come up the night before when they’d been at Sidney’s parents house and Trina had asked if they’d started planning the wedding details yet. Claude had remembered her question at breakfast that morning and the conversation had continued through the day, getting brought up anytime they had an idea that might work.
“It’s a Penguin color,” Claude shot back. “And if I can’t have orange, you can’t have gold.”
“Me banning orange from our wedding has nothing to do with it being a Flyer color and everything to do with it being gaudy,” Sidney pointed out as he reached for the toothpaste. “Gold, on the other hand, is a more subtle and classy color. Lots of people use it for weddings.”
“You are so full of shit right now,” Claude said.
Sidney shrugged his shoulders as he set the cap for the toothpaste aside and squeezed some onto his brush. “You can say that all you want. Doesn’t make it true.”
“You know what I can say and make true? Gold is not going to be one of our wedding colors,” Claude said. “We’re not using team colors.”
“No team colors at all?” Sidney asked, cutting a glance over at Claude as he flipped the tap on to wet his brush. “Because we could use Canada red. We’re both on it, so there’s no conflict and it’s certainly been a big part of our relationship.”
Claude thought about it as Sidney started scrubbing at his teeth, mouth foaming up with white toothpaste. Sidney had a point. Team Canada was important to them. International tournaments were the one time they got to play with each other instead of against each other. Some fans had suggested it as well, so it wasn’t a bad color choice.
“Okay,” Claude said at last. “But we can’t use the white or else we’ll never hear the end of it.”
Sidney leaned forward to spit into the sink before asking, “Okay. What do you want instead then?”
Claude hummed in thought. He point blank refused to use gold, but Sidney did have a point about the elegance of it. Metallic colors had a certain feel about them that seemed more high class.
“Silver?” Claude suggested.
“Red and silver sound good,” Sidney agreed. As he lifted his brush back to his mouth, he asked, “So we have wedding colors?”
Claude nodded, “We have wedding colors.”
“So we should have the wedding in July, right?”
Claude had been lying back in a chair on Sidney’s boat with his arms behind his head and his eyes closed as he dozed in the sun. When Sidney spoke though, he peeked his eyes open and let out a sleepy, “Huh?”
“The wedding should be in July, right?” Sidney repeated, turning in the chair was he was sitting in to look at Claude. Sidney was sitting in a lounge chair at the edge of the boat with a fishing rod next to him. Claude was a little surprised to see it wasn’t cast since the whole point of coming out was for Sidney to fish, but he also knew how strict Sidney was about talking when the line was cast.
“Why?”
“Playoffs can last into June. If either of us makes it to the finals we aren’t going to want to come straight off that and into putting together the last minute details of the wedding,” Sidney pointed out. “And August doesn’t work because my birthdays in the beginning and we’d be busy moving and preparing for training camp at the end.”
“July, huh?” Claude repeated. He turned the idea over in his head. He knew there were girls who spent their childhood wanting to be a winter or summer or fall bride, but despite what he’d asked on twitter Claude had never really considered it. All he could think about was how desperately he wanted to marry Sidney and how it really didn’t matter to him when that happened as long as it happened. He suggested, “In the middle? Then everyone will have cleared out before your birthday and we won’t end up having a massive party for that as well.”
“Mid-July sounds good to me,” Sidney said. “I think my mom said that summer weddings are pretty popular so we might have trouble booking a revenue, but we could always have it here.”
“What? Here?” Claude asked, a sleepy teasing grin spreading across his lips.”In the middle of the lake?”
“No, you asshole,” Sidney said with a small shake of his head, though his lips were twitching upwards. “I meant here as in at the house. We could have the ceremony here and then have the reception somewhere else so that we could leave whenever we wanted without worrying about everyone being here.”
“I like that idea,” Claude said. “We could leave the reception, come home, and have all the boring married sex we want.”
“Oh? Is the sex going to get boring the moment we get married?”
“Of course,” Claude said with a nod. He moved his hands, resting one at his side and moving one so his palm pressed against his stomach and his fingertips rested just inside his swimming trunks. “So come over here? We’ve gotta have all the exciting sex we can before we get married.”
Sidney let out a sharp burst of laughter and murmured a fond, “You’re ridiculous.”
But he stood up and stepped closer to Claude, so he considered it a win.
“This is honestly the shittiest experience of my life,” Claude complained. He was driving home after the Flyers third game of the season, using the bluetooth system built into it to talk to Danny. “It’s so fucking hard to plan anything when we have to work around everything. Like we had to look at flowers this week, but we had to do it in three different places. I went to a shop here and Sidney went to one in Pittsburgh and his mom was at one in Nova Scotia so we could make sure that they would have whatever we decided we liked. It was a clusterfuck, Danny.”
“Wedding planning's a clusterfuck even when you’re together,” Danny pointed out. He’d called to congratulate Claude on the win, a tradition from when Danny had left the Flyers that had followed them into his retirement, but there was no annoyance in his tone about the change of subject. Just a casual amusement at Claude’s expense. Claude wasn’t even surprised because Danny was a horrible friend like that. “What did you guys end up picking?”
“Poppies and white holly with some silver beading and stuff in it,” Claude answered. “I got the feeling it doesn’t actually mean something good or loving or anything because the florists were really trying to steer us away from it, but Sidney and I agreed that roses were a little too cliche.”
“I don’t think Sylvie picked anything particularly meaningful for our wedding either,” Danny said. “She just thought they looked nice.”
Claude pointed out, “You and Sylvie are divorced. I don’t really want wedding tips from you.”
“Mon ange, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Wedding flowers are not what doomed my marriage,” Danny responded. Claude heard a door on Danny’s end creak open, followed by muffled voices before Danny said, “The boy’s just walked in. They want to talk to you.”
“Put them on,” Claude said. “Your sons are way nicer than you are.”
“Whatever you say, chéri,” Danny said, his voice filled with laughter.
Claude heard the noise of the boys arguing about who was going to talk to him first before Caelan said, “Claude! Hi!”
“Hey, Caelan,” Claude greeted, smiling a bit. He could hear Danny chiding Caelan for something and Cameron kicking up a fuss in the background and wondered what Caelan had done to his younger siblings in order to ensure he got the phone first. “What’s up, bud?”
“Mom made us go to the tailor today because Cam hit another growth spurt,” Caelan said. Claude could practically hear the disgust in his voice. “I’m really happy that you're getting married, but I’m not really happy that I had to get measured for another suit.”
Claude let out a laugh of his own, amused by the image of Sylvie dragging the three boys out for new suits and the disgruntled look that would have been on all three boys faces. “Sorry, kiddo. I’m gonna be honest, though. I’m way too happy about this wedding to cancel it just because you got stuck with a few pins.”
For all his annoyance that came with planning a wedding in Nova Scotia when he was in Philadelphia and Sidney in Pittsburgh, Claude really was happy. All of the irritation was worth it since at the end of it he would be married to Sidney.
“Sid, come on,” Claude whined. He was standing in his kitchen early on a Saturday morning dressed in nothing but a pair bright neon green briefs that he’d worn to bed the night before. His phone was set on the docket with facetime open as he stretched up to grab a box of cereal from the cabinet above. “Do you know how much easier things would be if I could send you pictures?”
“You can send me pictures through text message,” Sidney answered. He was sitting in his gym in his Pittsburgh home, having been going through his morning workout when Claude called him. He’d been working on the bike, but he’d stopped when he’d answered Claude so now he was leaning against the bars in front of him with his phone propped up on the settings screen.
“They take forever to send then,” Claude pointed out. “And then I’d have a hundred pictures of things we didn’t actually decide to go with on my phone.”
“Aren’t snapchats super short?” Sidney said. “You want me to make a decision about our wedding after only having seen something for ten seconds?”
“Yes,” Claude said. “Because the only decision you need to make is whether or not it looks terrible. I’ll send you more pictures if you like something.”
Sidney let out a small groan, “Claude, come on. I don’t want to download a new app just so you can send me pictures for the wedding. There are way easier ways to do this.”
“You know what would make this easier? If we were in the same city! But we aren’t,” Claude said. “So take two minutes out of your day to download the app and set up an account so that we can plan our wedding and actually get married.”
“I don’t want to though.”
Putting the strawberry Special K on the counter, he glanced over so he was looking at Sidney. “But you’re going to right?”
Sidney’s shoulders heaved as he sighed. “Yeah, probably.”
“Heeeeeeeeeeeeeey boo,” Claude said, drawing the words as he answered Sidney’s facetime. The words slurred as they fell out of his mouth, his tongue heavy like cotton.
“Hey drunkard,” Sidney greeted. “How far gone are you?”
Claude looked at the table in front of him. Blinking to clear his head, he made an attempt to count the glasses in front of him. “Five.”
“Six,” Simmonds, who was sitting next to Claude corrected. He leaned over, shoving himself into Claude’s space so that Claude’s phone was capturing both of them. “Hey Sid.”
“Hi Wayne,” Sidney returned.
“Just letting you know that we’ve got him,” Simmonds said. “We’re taking advantage of the win to get drunk and play games, but I’m not drinking and neither is Raff. We’re making the little ones and the heavy drinkers crash on my floor.”
“So Claude and Jake?”
Simmonds let out a low laugh. “Don’t forget Schenner. We’ve got to round out the terrible trio.”
Sidney laughed, but before he could answer, Claude said, “You’re pretty when you laugh.” Almost immediately a red flush crawled along Sidney’s cheeks. “And when you blush. You’re just really pretty. So lucky you’re marrying me.”
“I’m lucky to be marrying you too,” Sidney said, a soft smile on his face. After a moment, he added, “Okay, I just called because he sent me a text message in unreadable French and wanted to make sure he wasn’t about to pass out in a cab.”
“Nope,” Simmonds said with a shake of his head. “I promise the only place he’s going to pass out is my floor.”
“You know, people on twitter have been making suggestions about the wedding,” Claude said. He was lying on his bed. His knees were propped up, his laptop settled against his thighs as he and Sidney skyped. “Someone said we should put a picture of your face on our cake.”
“That sounds incredibly creepy,” Sidney answered. While Claude had opted to take the call from bed, Sidney was sitting in his desk chair. He was dressed for sleep, foregoing a shirt and wearing a pair of fuzzy black pajama pants with pink hearts over them that had been a joke Valentines gift but turned out to be the softest piece of clothing either of them owned. He had pulled one leg up onto the chair with him, arms wrapped around his calf and his chin resting on his knee. There was a soft look in his eyes, like just looking at Claude through a computer screen made his day. “Let’s not do that.”
“It was a really good picture of you though,” Claude argued. “If we put it on the cake, everyone could see just how hot my husband is.”
“Well your husband happens to think his husband is pretty hot and yet he has no desire to put him on a cake.” There was a pause before Sidney added, brow furrowing a bit, “That entire sentence was confusing.”
Claude hummed in agreement. “Someone else suggested we could have hockey themed gift bags.”
Claude was expecting to be shot down immediately, but instead Sidney said, “It’s a good idea but what would we put in them? It’s not like most of our guests are very impressed by us.”
“You don’t hate the idea?”
“No,” Sidney answered with a small shake of his head. “Hockey means a lot to us. It’s been apart of both of our lives since we were little and it’s how we met. It’d be nice to add it into the wedding without it taking everything over, you know?”
“Yeah,” Claude agreed. He didn’t want hockey to take over the wedding, but it was an undeniable piece of them. “Well, maybe our friends aren’t impressed but my cousins would actually kill me for anything signed by you. We’ll figure out a way to make it work.”
Claude was in the middle of throwing a pair of sweatpants into his duffle, packing for a weekend in Pittsburgh since the Flyers had a few days off, when his phone started ringing.
He reached over to snag it off the nightstand and swiped his thumb along the screen to answer it without looking at the screen. He jammed it between his ear and shoulder as he bent down to grab more clothes out of his dresser.
“What’s up?” he greeted.
“Oh thank god you answered.”
Claude’s eyebrows furrowed as he tried to place the voice. After a moment, he inquired, “Kunitz?”
“Yeah,” Chris Kunitz answered.
“Why are you calling me?” Claude said. His hands tightened around the tee-shirt he’d grabbed as a pulse of worry spiked through him. “Is Sidney okay?”
“In a manner of speaking?” Kunitz answered, sounding a little unsure. Before Claude could question him, he continued, “Sid watched the kids last weekend so Dupes and I took him out for lunch as a thank you. We started asking him about the wedding and now he’s kind of...freaking out?”
“What?” Claude said, eyebrows knitting together. “You called me for that? He’s been freaking out about it all week.”
“Yeah, but this is worse than it was before?” he said. “Like he’s not just asking if you should have picked different flowers. He’s like full on panicking about the entire thing. He started rambling about whether or not you were really ready about this and talking about how devastated he was going to be if you left him at the alter.”
“Seriously?” Claude hadn’t realized Sidney was having so much anxiety about the wedding. He’d known Sidney had been stressing about some of the minor details, but he hadn’t realized it was part of a larger issue. “That was a stupid question, sorry. Is he okay now or do you need me to talk to him?”
“Duper managed to talk him down, but I don’t think it would hurt if you called him,” Kunitz admitted. “I just wanted to see if there was anyway you could make it out here soon? I thought it might help for him to be able to see you and, I don’t know, get some reassurance from you in person that you weren’t planning on leaving him.”
“I’m heading down this afternoon. I’m packing my bag right now. I’ll call him for a few minutes before I leave, though, and remind him how much I love him without making it obvious that you ratted him out,” Claude said.
“Thanks,” Kunitz said. He added, “And Claude?”
“Mmm?”
“Congratulations,” he said. “You’re good for him. I’m happy for the two of you.”
Claude felt a smile pull at his lips. For all the congratulations they got, there was always something special about ones that came from the Penguins. There was something in knowing that the Penguins were actually happy for them, knowing that Sidney’s friends weren’t just tolerating him because Sidney liked him but that they genuinely realized how happy he and Sidney were together.
“Thanks,” Claude said, making sure that his tone showed Kunitz how genuinely he meant it. “I appreciate it.”
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Claude murmured, voice soft when he saw that Sidney was waking up. He was propped up against the pillows on Sidney’s bed. When he’d moved earlier, Sidney had shifted so he was holding onto Claude’s waist with his head in his lap. Claude reached down, burying his fingers in Sidney’s hair and scratched lightly.
It was unusual for Claude to be the first awake, but given how last night had gone he wasn’t really surprised. Sidney had been exhausted once they’d finished talking, tired from having Claude coax all of his anxieties and fears about the wedding out, and Claude had been too worried about him to sleep for very long.
Sidney gave a sleepy hum, tightening his arms around Claude and rubbing his cheek against his thigh.
Claude’s lips tipped up in a small smile.
They sat there for a few minutes, Claude talking about things that had been happening in Philadelphia while Sidney dozed, before Sidney finally spoke up, asking, “What are you doing today?”
“We have an appointment to go cake testing,” Claude said. “But I’m guessing you want to go to optional skate.”
Sidney was quiet for a moment, a clear sign that Claude had hit the mark, before he said, “I don’t have to go to practice. I could take today off.”
“You are a giant liar,” Claude said, amused and fond. Bending down, he pressed a kiss to the skin just under Sidney’s ear. “I can go by myself. I’ll narrow it down to one or two, but you have to take a trip over there soon to try them out. Diet plan be damned.”
“I will,” Sidney agreed. Shifting around, he moved so the back of his head was against Claude’s thigh and they were looking right at each other. “I’m sorry. This is like the one thing we had planned to do together and I’m bailing on you.”
“It’s okay,” Claude said with a small shrug. “Planning this wedding hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park, but I don’t mind it either. It’ll be over soon enough and then we’ll be married. I think that’s a pretty fair trade off.”
“Me too,” Sidney said. He reached up, setting his hand on Claude’s neck to pull him down to him. They kissed for a quick moment. When they pulled apart, Sidney tipped forward to bump their foreheads together. His voice was breathy and affectionate as he murmured, “I’m really excited to be married to you.”
Claude lounged on the couch, his knees bent and his laptop settled against his thigh. His phone was plugged into the stereo. The volume was turned down low, keeping it in the background more than he was actually listening to it, and he could hear Sidney moving around in the bathroom as he got ready for practice.
He drummed his fingers against the space to the right of his trackpad in thought.
He’d booked them a two person cake tasting since Sidney was supposed to go with him, but Sidney had always preferred to be on the ice after a long day. Though their conversation last night had been necessary and put Sidney’s mind at rest, it’d been emotionally exhausting. Claude understood that about him. It didn’t make any sense to hold it against him. But now Claude had a two person appointment and all of his friends were five hours away in Philadelphia.
He really didn’t want to go cake shopping by himself.
Scrolling through his twitter feed, he looked for any hint that someone he knew might be around the city. As he was scrolling, looking at things other people in the league had said as well as seeing what was going on in the lives of his friends from back home, he spotted a post Casey had made about having a rare day off of work.
Casey was a big fan of the Flyers. She’d made a few responses to his tweets that had turned into full blown conversations. Claude had followed her a while back because he liked her. She was good-hearted and fun. They DMed occasionally, nothing big but Claude had congratulated her on a promotion and asked a few times if she had any recommendations for things to do in Pittsburgh when he was in town but Sidney was busy with the Penguins. She’d made some really good suggestions based on her favorite places in the city.
Claude hummed softly to himself as he pulled up a message box.
“Hey,” Sidney called. Claude looked up from the message he’d been typing, to find Sidney standing in the doorway to the living room. His toothbrush hung from his mouth. “Do you want to go out for breakfast? You can just drop me off at practice after and I’ll get a ride back from one of the others.”
“Sure,” Claude agreed.
“The omelet place down the street?”
“Sounds good! Let me send this then I’ll go put real clothes on.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
Claude hummed around the fork in his mouth. He glanced up at Casey.
She was sitting across from him at the table with a forkful of the same cake he’d been tasting. Her brown hair was tied up in a bun and the way she had it twisted highlighted the pastel blue streaks in her hair. She was watching Claude with eyes only a few shades darker than her hair, thoughtful and considering.
“As long as you wouldn’t get upset if I chose not to answer.”
“Of course not,” Casey said. “It’s your life. It would be silly to get upset just because you didn’t want to share something personal with me.”
Claude smiled at her. “Go ahead then.”
“How did you and Sidney meet?” Casey asked. “You guys have done interviews for some LGBT magazines before about your relationship, but you’ve never really talked about how it started. I’m just curious how you ended up here, you know?”
Claude sucked the last traces of the cake on his fork, plain vanilla but with a delicious cotton candy frosting, and licked his lips to chase the last traces of the frosting on his lips. He told her, “I told him his team sucked and if he was going to hop on the Crosby bandwagon he could’ve at least bought a Penguins jersey.”
“What?” Casey said, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion.
Claude hummed, smiling as he thought about it. He reached forward, slicing his fork through a coconut cake with key lime filling and white buttercream fluff frosting. “He came to see Rimouski play against Gatineau during my first year with them. He’d only just been drafted, you know, and even though he hit it off with the Penguins he didn’t have any really close friends with them so he came to see some of the younger guys.”
“Did you know it was him?”
He shook his head as he scooped up the cake he’d separated. “I had no idea. I was a little drunk off winning and too young to know when to keep my mouth shut. I had ducked out to get a candy bar from the vending machine while I waited for everyone to finish changing and when I got back I just saw him waiting by the locker room. He had his back towards me, though, so I just kind of shouted it at him. Realized who he was when he turned to face me though.”
“And he took that...well?”
“No,” Claude said. He lifted his fork to his mouth, biting the piece of cake off. It was light and fluffy, good for a summer wedding. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the key lime though. “We ended up arguing for like five minutes before one of my teammates sent a message to my shitty flip phone letting me know that I had to hurry up.”
“Then?” Casey asked. She was leaning forward, clearly intrigued by the story even though she already knew that it ended with them together.
“I gave him my number.”
“After arguing with him for five minutes?”
“Yup,” Claude said. “I’d just won so I was pretty confident and Sidney was really cute back then. I mean, did you see those curls?” Casey let out a small laugh as she nodded. “I wasn’t really expecting him to message me or anything, though. It was a pleasant surprise when he did.”
“Do you know why he did?”
“He told me he just found the whole encounter kind of refreshing. He’d been having a weird year. He was in a new place with new people. The Penguins were expecting a lot out of him and he was trying his best to meet those expectations. Having someone who was willing to fight with him the way I did was nice.” Claude reached out, pushing the small plate the cake sample was on towards her. “Try this and let me know how you feel about the key lime.”
She pulled the plate closer to her as she said, “So he liked you even though you yelled at him the first time you met?”
“Not the smartest choice he’s ever made,” Claude said. “But I think it’s turned out okay, don’t you?”
“Claude, you’ve really got to get Sidney to pick a best man,” Tanger said. “I’ve got to know whether I can wear my best suit or if I have to actively try not to be more attractive than him.”
The regular season was wrapping up and both Philadelphia teams had made it into the playoffs. So a collection of their closest friends in Pittsburgh had gotten together to have a nice dinner and relax together before everything kicked into gear.
Having finished their dinner, most of them were gathered around the kitchen table with drinks as they chatted. Tanger and Flower were sitting together on one side of the table while Catherine and Veronique had chosen to sit across from their husbands. Geno sat on Tanger’s right with Anna at his side. Claude was sat across from Anna, but with two empty chairs between him and Catherine. Sidney had been sitting next to him, with Alex sandwiched between him and Catherine since he’d wanted to sit by Uncle Sid, but Sidney had taken the kids down to the media room so they could play.
“Excuse you,” Flower interrupted before Claude could say anything. “Why would you be his best man? He could pick me.”
“He’s not going to pick either of you,” Claude piped in.
“What?” Tanger said. “Is he picking Geno because I think that I’d be a way better best man then Geno.”
“No,” Claude said. “He’s not picking a guy. He’s going to pick Taylor. He wants her up there with him.”
“Taylor?” Catherine cut in. Looking over at him, she asked, “She isn’t going to be your flower girl?”
“No,” Claude answered with a shake of his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Sidney leaning against the doorway. They watched each other for a moment before Sidney inclined his head, a silent go ahead. Claude looked to his side to see Veronique and said, “Sid and I were actually hoping Estelle would want to be our flower girl.”
“Oh!” Veronique said. “Really?”
“Yeah, of course,” Claude said. “My niece is really the only young family we have that we’re super close too and she’s a little young so I don’t think she’d really enjoy it. But you guys are our family as well and we know she’d love to do it.”
“She would,” Vero agreed. She gave Claude a small, sweet, smile, “I’ll ask her tonight, but I highly doubt she’s going to say no.”
“And,” Claude said, shifting his gaze to Catherine, “we would have asked for Alex to be our ring bearer, but I promised Cameron he could do it when he was younger.”
“Damn,” Tanger said. “Danny’s fucking retired and he still managed to get one pass me.”
“I can’t do this anymore,” Sidney said. He slumped down, reaching up to dig his palms into his eyes.
“No,” Claude said. He held one of the small name cards out towards Sidney, “You don’t get to quit now. Not when we’re so close to being done.”
“We’ve been doing this for three hours,” Sidney whined.
“And it’s only going to take maybe thirty more minutes.”
“That’s what you said an hour ago,” Sidney complained. “Then you decided we had to move your grandmother completely away from the table we put all of our close friends at.”
“My grandmother would have a heart attack if she found out how many of our friends had children out of wedlock,” Claude answered. “Not to mention we put all of our friends from Team Canada right there too! Can you imagine how she would have reacted to Hallsy, Ebs, and Nuge? My grandmother can’t die at our wedding, Sidney.”
Sidney let out a loud groan. He let himself rock forward so he could rest on the table.
“Don’t do that!” Claude exclaimed. “You’re going to push cards and then we’re going to have to redo all of it.”
Sidney lifted his head. He looked at Claude for a moment before suggesting, “Let’s just elope.”
“Too late for that,” Claude objected. He reached forward, setting the card in his hand on top of Sidney’s head. “Come on. We’ve got to figure out where we can put Ovi and have him scandalize the least amount of people.”
“I don't wanna know, know, know, know. Who's taking you home, home, home, home,” Claude sung. He was in the kitchen in their home in Nova Scotia, making himself lunch. His phone was just out of his reach, sitting on the other side of the island and connected to the small speakers they kept there. He set the plate holding his grilled chicken tenders on the counter before reaching to open the silverware drawer under the island to grab a knife. “I'm loving you so, so, so, so. The way I used to love you, oh.”
“Hey.” Claude looked over his shoulder to find Sidney standing in the doorway. Claude had heard him come back from his run a while ago, so he wasn’t surprised to see Sidney standing there in a pair of khaki shorts. He hadn’t put a shirt on, just wrapping a towel around his shoulders. “What are you making?”
“Just a salad,” Claude said. “You want one?”
Sidney let out a soft hum as he crossed the room. He leaned against the island, reaching over to pluck a piece of cut chicken from the plate. He licked his lips after he’d swallowed before saying, “No, thanks. I’m not that hungry.”
Focusing back on the chicken he was cutting, Claude picked the song up, “Is it better now that I'm not around? My friends are actin' strange, they don't bring up your name. Are you happy now?” Hearing a soft laugh, he looked up to find Sidney looking at him with a look that was soft and amused. He raised an eyebrow, “What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing,” Sidney dismissed. “I was just thinking about how we’re going to be married this time next week.”
“That a problem?”
Sidney shook his head. “The opposite in fact. I’m pretty excited to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Claude felt something warm and content settle in his chest.
“Pretty excited to be spending mine with you,” Claude returned. He leaned over the counter to press a quick peck against Sidney’s lips. “I love you.”
“So,” Danny said, drawing the vowel out for a few seconds. Claude had been looking down at his plate, a little more focused on spinning his fettuccine around his fork in a way that wouldn’t end with him having to slurp any of them up, but he glanced up at his friend. “How are you feeling?”
Claude’s eyebrows knitted together as he answered, “Hungry….?”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Danny said. Claude felt a sharp kick at his shin and jerked back instinctively. He glared at Danny as he reached down to rub at it, but before he could say anything Danny was saying, “You’re getting married in two days. How are you feeling?”
“I feel fine,” Claude said. As he straightened up, he said, “I feel like I should be nervous, but I’m just not. I mean….I think I was a few months ago, but Sidney and I have talked about this entire thing a hundred times since we got engaged. Not just about the planning, but about how excited we are to be marrying each other.”
“You don’t have to be nervous,” Danny said. “It’s not a requirement, Claude. I just wanted to make sure you were holding up okay.”
“I’ll be holding up better if you let me eat before we go back and Trina recruits us to carry the chairs out to the lake.”
“At least you just have to carry them,” Danny said. As he reached for the turkey club sitting on his plate, he added, “I have to actually set them up.”
“You have three minions to help you.”
“Sons.”
“Sons, minions, same thing.”
Claude stood at the front of the aisle, chewing on his lip and fidgeting with his cuffs. Danny and his brother-in-law stood by his side, whispering about something. Claude was glad neither of them were trying to talk to him. He was a mess of excited energy and he didn’t have any idea what he would have said if he tried talking to them.
Sidney wasn’t standing next to him yet, but Taylor and Geno were. When Claude would glance over, Taylor would flash him a small knowing smile. Like she knew he was waiting to be able to look over to find Sidney there and found it wildly amusing.
He had just caught her eye again when he heard the music start up.
Neither of them had had any sentimental attachment to walking down the aisle, not the way Claude’s sister had when she got married, so they’d changed things up. They’d started with both of their wedding parties already standing at the altar, waiting. Claude had come down the aisle after, because he’d won the coin toss.
So when he looked up now, his eyes caught immediately on Sidney standing by himself at the end of the aisle. He’d seen Sidney in suits before, but somehow knowing that the suit Sidney was wearing now was his wedding suit and that when he reached the end of the aisle they were going to be married was enough to punch the air straight out of Claude’s lungs.
Sidney’s eyes caught Claude’s, practically twinkling, and a small smile fell over his lips.
Claude couldn’t help returning it.
He couldn’t wait to be married to Sidney.