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When he opens the door, Jamie’s first thought is that he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Trevor wear a scarf before.Probably he has several times, but he can’t remember it. They hadn’t ended up on that many winter road trips together, in the end. Either Jamie was hurt or Trevor was hurt, or they both were. Jamie tagged along on some of the shorter road trips while his shoulder healed, but he can’t remember if it was that cold.He’s pretty sure he’s never seen Trevor this bundled up before, though. It’s fitting — when Jamie thinks of Trevor, he thinks of him like he always was in California: warm, tan, bright. Mouth open and hands restlessly moving to keep up. Trevor would bundle up in sweats and a beanie even in the mild Anaheim winter, but they never had to bust out scarves or winter coats at home. “Dude, it is fucking freezing,” are the first words out of Trevor’s mouth. He’s got a new beanie Jamie’s never seen before — orange now — and a tan scarf wrapped around his neck, under a sweatshirt and black coat. His hands are covering his mouth while he blows warm air into them, all drama like the walk from his Uber to Jamie’s front doorstep took him through the tundra. Jamie laughs and props open the door, waving Trevor inside. Trevor waltzes into the place like he’s been there a hundred times; he barely looks around while he starts shedding his layers onto the rack Jamie keeps by the door. It’s his first time over, but Trevor had demanded Jamie give him a tour of the townhome on Facetime the day he bought it, and again the day Jamie’s stuff arrived from California, and then again after Jamie’s mom stayed for a week and helped decorate it. So Jamie figures he is actually familiar with the place.Still, Trevor walks around almost like he’s purposely refusing to acknowledge it’s his first time here. Maybe he is. Trevor’s weird about stuff like that — sensitive to the idea that there’s any part of Jamie’s life he might not know about. “It wasn’t this bad in New York,” Trevor says. The Ducks early-December roadtrip already took them through New York and Jersey, and now they have a day and a half in Philly before they’ll head to DC. The older guys always complained about how bad the roadtrips were in the Western Conference, how teams in California got shafted by bad schedules and too many back-to-backs on the road. Jamie hadn’t really minded it. “There’s a cold front, I think,” Jamie says. “It’s not usually this cold yet.” When the trade first happened, Trevor had frantically spun the positives to Jamie for weeks, as if he needed to do so for Jamie’s benefit. He raved about Joel and Cam and Torts’s tough love and the Philly food scene, which was definitely not something he knew anything about, and how he sometimes missed the seasons living in California and how much nicer of a place Jamie would be able to afford compared to Newport.Jamie knew what Trevor was doing, but it was nice anyway — thoughtful and generous in a way that sometimes surprised Jamie, still. Trevor broke his ankle and sent Jamie a Tiktok of a cool brunch spot in Fishtown the same night. Lately though, Jamie’s feeling like he has to defend Philadelphia to Trevor, who seems to have renewed his commitment to the state of California and the Ducks franchise over the summer. Jamie’s not sure what changed. Maybe it was because Trevor got more serious with his girlfriend, or maybe because the idea of forcing his way out of the team that drafted him was more fun in theory than in practice.“I’m not built for it,” Trevor says. “Blood’s gone thin.” “I guess mine’s thickened again,” Jamie says, rolling his eyes. “Did you catch the game?” Trevor asks. He wanders over to a barstool in the kitchen and sits down. Jamie stands across the counter and offers Trevor a beer from the wine fridge he’d had installed in the island. They don’t play until tomorrow night, and Jamie’s just come back from afternoon practice. “The end of it,” Jamie says. “But I saw your goal in the highlights. Not sure how it ended up there — so ugly.” Trevor grins, one of the big wide ones that splits his face and makes his eyes go crescent moon-shaped, and then bursts into motion, nearly knocking over his beer while he describes the pass from Frank that led to the goal. It’s always easy to talk to Trevor, probably because they never really stop talking. Their text thread is continuous; active enough that even if it’s dormant for a few days, they never have to send “hey” or do a perfunctory catch up before sharing whatever link or random thought they wanted to share. They Facetime, too, though that had been more frequent last year when they were both out. “So what do you want to do?” Jamie asks. “You don’t need to be back for anything today, right? There’s a couple cool spots nearby — we could grab lunch.” In truth, Jamie only knows a couple of the spots nearby, the usual ones that do good takeout he can pick up on his way home. But he’d spent the morning Googling ahead of Trevor’s arrival, made a list on his Notes app of potential options that looked cool.“I’m totally free,” Trevor says. “But maybe — it’s so freezing, like, it could be cool to just order in and chill.” It’s not that Jamie’s against what is basically always his go-to plan, but he is a bit — disappointed, maybe, that he can’t show Trevor around his neighborhood. He’s always thought that Trevor would like it.“I’m down for whatever,” Jamie says. “Whatever” turns into planting themselves on Jamie’s couch, an order of burgers between them, arguing over what to watch. Trevor is outraged to find Jamie doesn’t have any streaming services besides Netflix set up, so he starts systematically logging into his accounts on Jamie’s Smart TV.“Dude, what have you been watching?” Trevor asks while he plugs in the password for Hulu.Jamie shrugs. He feels awkward the way he does when anybody asks him what he’s up to outside of hockey or what he likes best about Philly. He never knows what to say. His days after practice or games are kind of a blur. He likes Philly a lot. It was easier to fill his days in Anaheim, sure, but then he’d been there longer. He knew the older guys and their WAGs well enough to get invited to random plans. He had Mason. And — Trevor was there. If Jamie’s life seems comparably empty in Philly, the last person he’d want to clue in to that fact is Trevor. Eventually they settle on some true crime doc that apparently all the guys on the Ducks are talking about.They go quiet for a while. They’ve seen each other a few times since the trade — at Max’s wedding in June, and again in Toronto near the end of summer when Trevor had some ad to film and Jamie met him for lunch. Max’s wedding doesn’t really count because Trevor had been seated with the couples; Jamie had done more catching up with Mason there.There’d been no opportunity for awkwardness at the wedding. In Toronto, there’d been a second near the end as they said goodbye, but they were in public so it wasn’t that bad.With a whole evening in front of them, Jamie’s a little in his head about it. He wishes Mason wasn’t out so he could’ve joined them today.Trevor’s lounged on the chaise of Jamie’s sectional, one leg hooked over the arm and the other carelessly sprawled toward where Jamie’s sitting on the other side of the couch. The black hoodie he’s wearing is riding up a bit, exposing a bit of golden skin low on his stomach. Jamie flexes his fingers and looks away.“Why’d she text him in the first place?” Trevor says disbelievingly. “He was so fucking creepy.” “Yeah,” Jamie agrees. He hasn’t been paying enough attention to argue.“Dude, are you even watching?” Trevor asks. “Too busy texting the UPenn girls?” Jamie had been scrolling aimlessly on Instagram, actually, but he huffs and tosses his phone down on the couch. For someone so chronically online Trevor can be pissy when Jamie’s on his phone too much. “How are they, anyway? The Philly girls?” “A lot like the California girls,” Jamie says. “Maybe a little more — I don’t know.” He laughs and hopes it doesn’t sound nervous. “No come on,” Trevor says. His eyes light up — sparkle. “ A little more what?” “Available,” Jamie says. “Like, they care more about hockey. Obviously.” “God, just say you’re drowning in pussy,” Trevor says. It’s not like they’ve never talked about their hookups before, but Jamie feels wrong-footed here. It’s true he’s hooked up more in Philly than he ever did in California but he doesn’t want it to come across like he’s overcompensating for what happened.Jamie looks at Trevor and Trevor’s looking back, biting his lip, and not for the first time Jamie thinks it’d be less awkward if they’d just fucking — blown each other, or something, instead of what actually happened.The truth of it — alone in a Nashville hotel room at 2am, Jamie shaky with shock and nerves, Trevor furiously pacing the room, alternating between smashing something in his phone keyboard and looking up and blurting out some random thought — feels somehow worse.Jamie shoving his slides in his suitcase. Trevor saying, “Fuck him, you know, I swear he’s doing this because he fucking hates me” — as if Jamie was just a pawn to use to manipulate Trevor and not a player, a person, in his own right; Trevor making it about himself and Jamie unable to do anything but shove him, half playful and half angry for real. Trevor against the wall, looking at Jamie with red-rimmed eyes and letting out a tearful little gasp, a sound so embarrassing Jamie would be haunted by it, if he’d been the one to make it.Trevor lunging at him, Trevor’s lips on his, Trevor’s wet cheeks pressed against Jamie’s jaw, Trevor’s neck under Jamie’s teeth. Trevor’s hands everywhere, and then, just as quickly, gone. Jamie had seen Trevor charm himself out of hundreds of awkward situations by then. He’d seen Trevor get teary-eyed at charity events and collect himself; seen him get so pissed he broke his stick in half in the tunnel. He’d never seen Trevor flee a scene before.Jamie hadn’t slept at all that night. It felt cosmically unfair that he would lose his friendship with Trevor the same day his entire life was upended, and it wasn’t even his fucking fault. Of course, he hadn’t lost his friendship with Trevor. The next morning, before sunrise, Trevor was down in the hotel lobby to see Jamie off with Mason, hugging him tightly and telling him to text updates all day. Things with Trevor only changed insofar as everything in Jamie’s life changed after that. They texted every day, or close to it. Trevor tried to keep their Snap streak alive and Jamie did his best not to spoil it. They never mentioned what happened. At first Jamie had been terrified Trevor would bring it up. Now he worries Trevor never will. “Drowning might be an exaggeration,” Jamie says. He shoves at Trevor’s leg, and Trevor laughs, letting his leg sprawl even closer to Jamie, like he’s daring Jamie to keep touching him. Jamie won’t, though, and Trevor doesn’t move any closer after that. Jamie gets up to grab them a couple more beers. He takes a deep breath in the kitchen that Trevor can’t see, and then flops back down on the couch. “Glad you’re here,” he says. “Yeah, same,” Trevor says, and smiles.