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The text comes in at 11:11 pm, just after Matthew’s finally given in to his rumbling stomach and started boiling water for the pasta. He makes himself close out of Instagram and Tiktok and fills the pot, salts it and starts chopping onions, like the little instruction sheet has ordered him to.Get a food delivery service deal, some of the guys said, it’ll be a great idea. Sponsorship money, Barty the CPA said. My tired goddamn arms make enough money to not cook, he’d said. But then, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to cook for that date of yours you still haven’t brought home to meet us, Mom had said.So he’d done it anyway, sorta bemused by his mom’s and his own chef daydreams, and definitely gotten in over his head.Matthew turns the burner to medium-high and picks up his phone from the island.
Call in 45?
It reads.“Hmm,” he says out loud and looks through to his living room where ESPN is still rolling the evening NHL highlights.He texts back, sure, i think i can clear my busy schedule
Asshole
you like my asshole 😘I’m on the bus 🌚
So, you’re gonna stop sexting me? Rude.
No I just can’t send pics, connor is dead beside me. Might be incrimminated.
Matthew laughs out loud, sends back a kinda shitty selfie of him biting his tongue in the kitchen.Don’t burn the water, Leon says.Which is unfair because the one time he did do that at Leon’s house, it was because Leon came into the kitchen, pulled down Matthew’s joggers and finger fucked him into oblivion against the counter.Can’t, he sends back to Leon. Don’t have you here to distract me 👻Sure, that’s why, Leon replies, then, ✌ couldn’t resist ,you were still wet inside.Heat thrums down Matthew’s spine. He clenches his ass on nothing, leaning against the counters and just replies with, we should repeat, ruin one of my pans.Yeah, Leon says, empty of tone.Matthew tries not to read into it.And then Leon’s probably off doing some tired Oilers commiserating on the way to their hotel in Carolina. Matthew busies himself with putting the pasta in the water and starting on cleaning the salmon. The instructions tell him he should have turned on the oven about 20 minutes ago so he does that belatedly.“Get fucked,” he tells the sheet of paper.At least cleaning the fish and slopping it with oil and spices isn’t hard. The mountain of peas is also a nice easy no-prep situation. He reads through the rest of the recipe just in case there’s something else waiting to trip him up and sure enough he needs to have the garlic grated before the onions. He maneuvers his way through the rest of the recipe without any more difficulty, absently posting to social a quick ad to cover his ass, thinking of Brady’s voice saying ‘ca-ching, ca-ching’ in his ear and chuckling over it enough that Matthew sends Brady a reminder that his zero game against the Devils is still better than a minus. By the time he’s hooking his leg into one of his barstools to sit down and eat, his phone starts ringing.The first thing Matthew hears when the call connects is Leon muttering.“Scheiße, scheiße. Scheiß — ” he exhales hard, “— e.”“Cute,” Matthew tells him, because it is, Leon all annoyed and puffed up like a long haired cat hissing at the world. At least, when he’s not hissing at Matthew.“Hit my foot on this goddamn entry table.”“There’s always a table in the entryway in suites,” he tsks and takes a large bite of salmon and supposedly healthy white sauce. It’s good, but maybe not worth like an hour of work. “They put them there for everyone to put things on. You know that.”“I think — “ and Leon’s off, complaining about the table in a way that’s pretty patently clear it’s not about the table at all. Pretty patently clear it’s about the 7-2 score dropping the Oilers into a 8-7 record. It’s not the worst, but.But.There’s not a whole lot that Matthew can offer to that. Leon doesn’t get preoccupied with their stats in a big way, is more confident in a more competent way that almost everyone Matthew’s ever dated. But lately, lately it's like everything is simply one thing too many, like Leon’s trying not to care and the world simply won’t let him. Matthew knew the trade would put a couple thousand miles of distance between them, but he hadn’t thought it would be quite like this. Like maybe a chunk of ice from the rink made it into their bed, something that vaults impossibly between frozen and sharp and thawing in the heat of their bodies and now they both have to learn how to live and lie with this seeping impossibility between them. Matthew tugs his hoodie closer around himself.Then again, it could just be that Leon’s tired and he’ll be perfectly pleasant and soft when Matthew sees him tomorrow. Leon’s like that, too. A walking Snickers ad. Says shit when he’s tired or worn out and it's not like he doesn’t mean it, but he’s not trying to be mean about it.The trouble is, Matthew likes him just fine when he’s mean. Likes it when the thing between them is hot and aggressive instead of cold and brittle.He hasn’t figured out what this all means for them. How they’re gonna sort it out.But he also doesn’t regret it.“Stupid wobbly,” Leon tells him, voice suddenly loud like Leon’s tucked him in between his cheek and shoulder, “ding.”“Ankle’s stiff today?” Matthew asks. He takes a bite while Leon goes distant for a moment, some shuffling noises filtering across the line. Two hours ago, Matthew was on the couch, a beer in between his fingers, half watching the Oilers, half fucking around on his phone, feeling the size of his house acutely after Barky and the guys cleared out. In the game, Leon’s turn circumference had been big, bigger than normal. 28 games against the guy and Matthew knows him. Leon missed a pass or five. Clunky, like. Matthew doesn’t say anything about that.Doesn’t have to.They both know.“Ankle’s shit today,” Leon says, finally and he sounds the kinda tired – slurring his consonants like they’re too heavy to drag around – that makes Matthew wanna push him down on a bed and lay on top of him.Matthew makes a nonverbal sound of comfort as he pulls the pasta over the salmon. He takes a bite and he thinks about the shape of Leon’s ankle bone peaking out from under the hem of his sweatpants when he lays in bed. Presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth like that’ll mimic the feeling of kissing Leon’s delicate skin, the hot swell of Leon’s ankle under his lips when it's sprained, working his way up Leon’s gorgeous legs. Doesn’t say that, either.“Don’t you mean ankle’s scheiße today?” Matthew asks, swirling his fork in the sauce.“Du bist —““Alright, alright,” Matthew cuts him off before he can really get going, smiling around his fork. “Here’s more fun: want me to have anything ready for when you arrive tomorrow?” Like myself? Matthew thinks, tonguing his lip.“Assuming I’m going to break curfew for you?” Leon’s own grin comes through the phone line, turns his words round and comforting so that it takes Matthew a second to parse through them.He raises his eyebrow where Leon can’t see it and asks, “are you arriving in the evening after all? They changed your flight?”“No,” Leon says slowly.“Then how is it breaking curfew?”“Ah . . . weil.”“Because?” Matthew should really get more credit for picking up German.“Because it was the line that popped into my head. It should be illegal to have English words happen after midnight. Fuck.”There’s a clatter over the line, a huff of air.Matthew laughs, enjoying for once not being the one speaking out-of-sorts. “Oh babe, you’re so out of it,” he takes another bite while Leon runs some water and clangs around what must be the bathroom, not that Matthew can see it. “If you Facetime’d me, we could really make this conversation nonverbal. No need for English at all.”“Too tired.”Matthew swirls the salmon into the sauce, picks up a small noodle and five peas, reminds himself to blame Brady for his inability to eat one thing on his plate at one time. Doesn’t say anything.“Got into Carolina at 1 AM. Didn’t get to the hotel,” Leon yawns for emphasis, “until 3:30. Practice at the rink in the morning, then the game."The way he says ‘hotel’ is cute. “I know,” Matthew says after a long moment of chewing and swirling. “You texted me.”“Why’re you mad then?” Leon says, around his toothbrush.“I’m not,” Matthew says, stuffing his mouth with peas and fish.“Uh-huh,” Leon says and then gags a little on his toothbrush. The sound of it sends a shudder down Matthew’s spine.“Ugh,” he says over the line, “video me back when you’re done with your beauty routine.” He hangs up on Leon making a complaining noise.He’ll get over it.While he’s waiting for Leon to call back, Matthews chomps through the rest of the meal, puts away his leftovers and chirps Benny back in the team chat where they’re talking about press call tomorrow. He’s ready for the questions about Quick. Probably. Doesn’t matter even if he isn’t, really. He drops into the couch and watches ESPN extol about PK Subban’s new analyst gig. Like that surprises anyone.Finally, Leon calls back. Still not on video.“Is there a reason you’re being a dickhead?” Matthew asks him, answering.Leon’s been ruminating, that much is obvious, since he doesn’t even bite back, just says, “outplayed doesn’t cut it.”“You’re just being killed on turnovers,” Matthew says, like that’s a ‘just’ statement. He kicks his foot against the couch.“’Just’,” Leon snorts. “That and SOG and goaltending, sure.”“Really such a small proportion of the game.”“Ha,” Leon says, real fucking dry, “thanks Second in the Atlantic.”Matthew grins. “Yeah, second in the Atlantic.” It feels good. Feels like some kind of fucking vindication. Like he’s a part of a different kind of beast, one that’s chomping at the bit to win. He stretches out, feels a bit more magnanimous when he says, “your second wasn’t so bad —““Fuck the second period. Connor set me up perfect,” Leon exhales, “I was right fucking there.” And there he is, tipping back into morose.“You hit post,” Matthew says, because he knows that riles Leon up and he’d always much rather see Leon snapping at someone else than berating himself.“Speaking of being a dickhead.”“Well, we could be talking about other dickheads, but you won’t video call me, so I guess we’ll never know.”“So you are mad,” Leon says, his neat little head shimmy of a way of getting under Matthew’s skin.“Would you stop saying that? I’m not.”“Are,” Leon says.“Not.”Finally Matthew’s phone vibrates with a Facetime request. He taps it open and gets to see Leon already in his hotel sheets, bare chested because he’s a freak who runs superhumanly hot. He always looks good, that’s nothing new. But Matthew still likes seeing it, the barely there lines of his chest hair and the nice width of his shoulders, his scruffy chin, bright eyes and expressive face.Leon raises an eyebrow, watching Matthew watch him and Matthew slumps back into the couch, holding the phone up at a distance to let Leon look him over as well. His simple purple t-shirt and athletic shorts rucked up high as he slumps down. He fucking loves being able to wear flip-flops everywhere. It’s like 70 degrees in November. He’s wringing it for all it’s worth. Judging by the slow simmer of Leon’s eyes, he appreciates the sight of Matthew’s bare thighs, too.“Well,” Leon says, voice smudged, “we were only talking about me.”“I’m not mad,” Matthew says for the last time. His chest feels weirdly compressed, so he moves, kicking up a leg over the arm of his couch and propping the phone on its side on the couch, between him and the flickering T.V., so he doesn’t have to hold the phone up anymore.Leon’s cheek is smushed into the pillows. When he talks, the pillow case catches on his lips a bit, stark in the phone light. Matthew rubs his thumb on the side of his phone case, remembering smearing chapstick across Leon’s lips in the dead of Alberta winter and making a mess kissing him afterwards, waxy and mint flavored.“How are you, then?”“Fine,” Matthew says. “Great.”“Uh-huh.”“I am.”“Fourth time,” Leon says, out of nowhere, like that’s what they’ve been talking about. Like that’s what he thinks Matthew is mad about. Matthew's not, because he’s not mad at anything. That’s Leon’s job, to get pissy at shit and lash out. Matthew moves on. Matthew moves to Florida after they have a tense, not-quite-fight about Matthew not being in Alberta anymore. Matthew gets suspended for bullshit for the fourth time, his first month with the Panthers.Matthew focuses on the slash of Leon’s nose, reminds himself how it feels smushed against his stomach, when Leon kisses his cock awake on the rare mornings they don’t have to be somewhere at the ass-crack of dawn.“Stop knowing my stats,” Matthew finally says.Knows it's not convincing in any way. Doesn’t want to talk about this but can’t bring himself to say that for some stupid, God knows reason why. He grinds his jaw, looks somewhere beyond the phone.“Nein,” Leon says around a yawn. “Stop watching my games, eh?” He sounds like he does when he’s stepping back from the puck drop, like when he knows something’s not right. You’re not always right, Matthew thinks at his head and then he thinks and that’s unlikely. He doesn’t seem capable of stopping. He’s tried. Then, quietly, like Leon’s pressing it into Matthew’s neck, he mumbles, “glad it ends before Saturday.”It sends a small shiver down Matthew’s arms, drains the frustration out of him like Leon’s pulled the stopper on the sink of him. He drops his own cheek to the couch, pulls the phone close so it only gets half his face and murmurs, “me too. Would’ve sucked.”“Only two games where we get to rough each other up and you miss one’f em, ja,” Leon smiles, canine peeking over his lip.Matthew wants to get his tongue on it. The phone screen takes up the whole of his vision, smothers out the T.V. and makes him feel suffused in the drowsy accent of Leon’s voice, swaying between them like the ship sails Matthew can track across the horizon from his back porch, if he squints into the sun for long enough.“Are you taking up fighting now?” Matthew asks him, can’t help smiling back, thumb rubbing over the phone case again, “got yourself a hooking charge and decided to go all in?”“I suck,” Leon exhales and Matthew laughs, “at fighting.”He doesn’t really, if he wants it bad enough. “You just don’t see the point.”Leon shakes his head against the pillows, but it’s not a no. His hair is long right now, swooping all over in his post-game quick wash mess. Tomorrow, Matthew’s gonna get his hands in it, haul Leon in so his throat flutters around Matthew’s dick. Maybe after their shower, Leon will let him put some leave-in conditioner in it and then Leon will smell like Matthew and his hair will be stupidly soft.Leon peeks open an eye at Matthew and his smile gets bigger against the pillows like he knows what Matthew’s thinking.They breathe deep and even together for a moment.“Connor’s,” Leon’s finger slips over part of the camera as he wiggles into the pillows, “looking forward to seeing Ekblad.”Matthew rolls his eyes, wonders where Leon’s mind’s at that this is where he’s gone. “Aaron’s a nice guy.”“Ja?” Leon asks sleepily, “how nice?”“Nicer than you,” Matthew chirps. “He’d have sexted me on the bus.”Leon yawns and his jaw cracks. He mutters something in German Matthew doesn’t know, can’t catch. Sleep is finally pushing Leon’s eyelids down. They flutter once, twice and Leon says, “morg’n,” and then pulls the phone in against his chest like it’s Matthew’s body he’s hugging. It pricks the soft, cavity-sticking thing in Matthew’s own chest. Makes him inhale hard. Makes him think about tomorrow. Makes him think about Leon’s house, the blue-grey of his sheets and the sound of him humming in the morning to German pop radio.Around Matthew, his house settles back into quiet.“Schlaf gut,” he whispers.Leon mumbles something and exhales loudly.Matthew taps the end call button and stretches to drop his phone onto the coffee table in front of him. The silence of his house closes in, big and heavy and unfamiliar. He flips the sound on and the announcers’ voices bounce around the room, sharp and jolting. The vaulted ceilings always seem like they catch shadows and twine dark noise waves around the room. He watches EPSN parade analysts across the screen. When they get to the Panthers, he closes his eyes and lets the light flicker behind his eyelids. Sees Leon’s sleeping face there, a Polaroid burned into his retina. Thinks maybe he’s stared too long at the sun, afterall.