Chapter Text
Mike was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them, so when Quinny dropped him an email asking for a 9am meeting, he knew what was coming. It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard mutterings behind computer screens about him being too nice about the team, too unwilling to criticize. Pointing out that the Phillies were winning, and winning a lot, didn’t seem to make any difference.
“Take a seat, Michael.” Quinny gestured to a brand new chair that Mike noticed was significantly less comfortable than the one on the other side of the desk. Figures Quinny would be the kind of asshole who would try and psych people out from the start – he was the kind of asshole who had written his name on a piece of paper and tacked it over the vacant name slot on the office door rather than wait the two days for the official one to turn up.
Mike sat down and just managed to curb the urge to roll his eyes when Quinny hitched his pant leg and perched on the corner of his desk, scrabbling a little as he tried to keep purchase, ass sliding on the never-used surface.
“We’ve been talking.” Quinny’s mouth was twisted in what it was clear he thought a supportive smile looked like. Mike was pretty sure Quinny didn’t know what supportive meant, so he couldn’t judge him too harshly for flying blind. “We think we have a great opportunity for you.”
Mike had known it was coming, but it was still a gut-punch. Quinny had been out for him ever since he got the promotion from assistant sports editor to King Of The Show. He’d lost count of the number of fights they’d had on the floor, Quinny’s “People don’t want to read about their team winning all the time, Michael” in that condescending tone that made Mike want to strangle him, and Mike’s “Pretty sure people want exactly that” stock answer.
“It’s a hockey position, just like you want.” Quinny made a face that suggested he thought he was making Mike’s dream come true. And yeah, maybe he would have been seven years ago. Mike had been working the baseball beat, first as an intern, then a stringer, before getting the full-time gig, for eight years. He’d built up a rapport with the Phillies, with the manager and the players. Hell, he was friends with some of them! Mike fucking loved his job and Quinny knew it.
“Is there a problem with my work?” Mike ground out past the heavy weight in his chest. Quinny tilted his head like the idea horrified him and Mike stretched his hands out on his knees to stop them balling into fists.
“Mike! Not at all! You are one of our most valuable reporters – that’s actually why we chose you. We’ve bought out a paper in Columbus, and the hockey beat has been promoted. Upstairs were trying to figure out who we could hire, and I said well, here’s an idea! They loved it.” He leaned back, and his smile was smug. He knew he had Mike beat. Mike could rage and argue and fight, but it wasn’t going to make any difference.
In the end, the writing had been on the wall from the minute Quinny had gotten word of his promotion. Mike left the office with a handshake, an “exciting new opportunity” in buttfuck, Ohio and a week to pack his shit and get going. Naturally, he went back to his apartment, packed Arnold and a duffel into his truck and headed home.
It was easier to look at it philosophically sitting on the porch with his dad, drinking a cold beer and watching the bugs lazily wheeling in the steadily falling dark, Arnold snoring at his feet.
“Well, you could look at it as an opportunity.”
“To what? Cover a shitty hockey team no one cares about in a city no one cares about?” Mike took a long swallow, resting the sweating bottle on his knee where it seeped a cold circle low on his thigh.
“You do want to cover hockey,” his dad pointed out and he wasn’t wrong. Mike had wanted that since it’d become clear that actually playing at any level worth note wasn’t in the cards for him. He figured being close to the ice was a decent enough substitute for not actually being on it. It wasn’t really, the yearning never really went away, but Mike could lie to himself as well as anyone.
“If I’m going to cover a shitty hockey team, I’d prefer one in a decent city so I could spend my time doing something other than sitting at home questioning all my life choices.”
His dad snorted at that, and Mike allowed himself a small smile. He was a grown man, but there was still a little thrill at making his parents laugh.
“There could be other reasons,” his dad offered, and his eyes flicked briefly to Mike’s wrist. For a man so practical, Mike was endlessly surprised how willing his dad was to look to fate and destiny when it came to wrist-names.
“If I’m supposed to find them in Ohio, I think I’m better off without,” Mike answered, and his dad laughed proper.
“So judgemental,” he chided, “must be from your mother’s side.”
The next afternoon, his cell buzzed with an unknown number. Mike's mom had been hovering restlessly near his shoulder since he’d stumbled into the kitchen that morning, and given the way her hand twitched toward the phone, he figured he was about to find out why.
“Mikey!” His cousin’s voice screeched through the earpiece and Mike winced, pulling it away until Tommy had finished. It had been a couple years since they’d talked, but Mike would know that voice anywhere.
“Don’t call me that,” he replied, a rote answer from too much time spent needling each other growing up.
“Is that any way to speak to someone about to offer you the chance to avoid Columbus?”
Mike bit back an easy retort about Tommy’s sexual health because his mother was listening.
“What’s up,” he went with instead, settling into the sofa and - ignoring his mom’s dirty look - flicking through the sports channels as Tommy caught him up on his life and the “trip of a lifetime” he was planning with his girlfriend.
“And that’s where you come in.”
“Hmm?” Mike made a noncommittal noise, one eye on ESPN.
“Turn the tv off, you rude fuck, this is important.”
Mike sighed but did as told, standing up and moving to the front window to avoid the temptation to channel surf again.
“Alright, Tommy, you have my full and undivided attention.”
“Right then, assface,” he started, and Mike rolled his eyes, “like I was saying, me and my lady love are hitting the road.”
“Yeah yeah trip of a lifetime, I got that part. Did you want my full attention so you could brag better?”
“I’m getting there, you’re so impatient, Mikey.” Tommy laughed and Mike took a calming breath. He was starting to remember why he and Tommy didn’t see so much of each other.
“We’re looking to be out of town near on two years I’d say, but we still have interests here. Couple of places we rent out, tenants that need a landlord, a house we’d like in one piece when we get back.”
Mike was pretty sure he knew where this was going, but it was clear Tommy was having fun spinning it out, so Mike tuned him out while he ran scenarios in his head. He had enough in his savings account that he could get by a few months without an income before things got tight. California was definitely not Ohio, so that was a big plus. It even had decent hockey teams.
“I have a friend in the post office – they’re looking for people. Says he can put a word in if you’re interested. It’s not covering a baseball team, but it’s something until you figure out what you want.”
“Shit, Tommy,” Mike forced out through the sudden scratchiness of his throat. It’s not like he didn’t know his family pulled together for each other, but it was a lot when you were on the receiving end.
“You’ll be doing us a favour. Keep the house decent and save us paying an agency to manage our rentals. To be honest, it’d be a relief knowing we’re leaving everything in the hands of family, you know?”
When he got off the phone, his mom was hovering in the kitchen doorway, where she had been standing for the last fifteen minutes, drying the same glass.
“Well?” she asked, and Mike watched the anxious twist of her hands before he untangled the glass and the dishcloth from them, and gave her a hug. “I just want you to be happy,” she muttered into his shoulder.
“Yeah, Mom, I know.” He rubbed her back a long minute before stepping away. “I just need to think some things over.”
In truth, he’d made his decision on the phone. There wasn’t a contest between Ohio and California. He could work his way back into sports journalism there if he decided he wanted to.
He took a few days to work on his resignation letter, really put some thought into it, making sure it was the perfect balance between “thanks for the opportunity” and “fuck you.”
He emailed that on Thursday, feeling pretty damn pleased about it all, and the thought of Quinny’s face got him smiling right through the morning.
A few hours later, the Flyers stole his thunder by trading Jeff Carter to the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Your boy’s still in hiding. Fate must really think you’re a dickbag, huh, landing you with that shit.
Mike rolled his eyes and jammed his phone in his back pocket, grabbing the boxes from where he had them balancing on the hood of his truck. His brothers were assholes.
Ever since he moved to Philly the same year Jeff Carter was drafted, they’d been calling Jeff his boy. Mike used to get mad about it, shout about how many fucking Jeffs there were out there, but he learned over the years that no reaction was the best reaction. Carter getting traded to Ohio had made them relentless, though. His phone buzzed again, and Mike cursed the Flyers under his breath.
He was too busy relocating his whole life to LA to worry too much about a superstar hockey player acting like a whiny fucking baby, but his brothers, especially Mark, the fucker, kept sending him links to articles. Mike couldn’t explain it, but he found himself reading every one, laughing harder as each blogger got more and more baffled by Carter’s behaviour.
You should get your ass to Sea Isle, give your boy some comfort. Maybe take some tissues LOLOLOL
Mike groaned and hit the call button.
“S’up?”
“He’s not my fucking boy,” Mike snapped out, knowing even as he did it that he was going about it the wrong way, “Stop blowing up my phone, you fuck.”
Mark laughed, the loud bright laugh that meant he found something extra super funny.
“Fuck you,” Mike snapped and hung up.
It wasn’t long before Matt’s texts started filling up his inbox too. Fucking brothers.
He was waiting in an overwarm office for the supervisor to come grab him for the informal meet-up, hot and irritable in his too-heavy suit, when his phone started pinging. Mike groaned and tried to ignore it, but the incessant buzzing against his hip was driving him slowly crazy. He dug in his pocket and pulled it out, eyes flicking over the first message. It was from Matt.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!
There was another five along the same lines before Mike finally got to one that made sense.
Columbus sending their Captain to convince your boy Ohio isn’t a worse fate than herpes. Lucky you didn’t go visit or Nash would’ve had no chance!
“Mike? Richards?”
Mike jumped up, shoving his phone in his pocket as he offered a hand to shake. The guy, Dan, grinned and looked pointedly at his suit.
“Bet you’re feeling the heat in that, huh?” Dan laughed at Mike’s groan. “Can always spot a non-native.”
The meeting went pretty well. They spent a little time talking about the kind of expectations the job entailed and a lot of time talking baseball and good places to eat in LA.
“We’ll email you a log in for the written exam but I don’t think you’ll have any problems,” Dan said with a wink as he ushered Mike out of the office. “Pretty sure you’ll fit right in.”
“Thanks.” Mike shook the proffered hand, “I really appreciate it.”
Outside in the sunshine, Mike took a breath and pulled out his phone. Twenty-six messages. It buzzed in his hand, three times in quick succession.
Sometimes Mike really wished he was an only child.
Mike’s first shift coincided with the Blue Jackets pre-season kick off. He would have loved to stop marking his days by what Jeff fucking Carter was doing with his, but his brothers had very different ideas. Somehow, they’d also managed to rope in their mom, a turn of events Mike was extremely unimpressed with. Her texts weren’t like Mark’s or Matt’s, mostly they were just updates. Bought ham for dinner. Your dad fixed that shelf in the hallway – only took three years. I see Jeff Carter finally got himself out to Columbus. Mike didn’t really know how to respond to them, especially because he couldn’t swear, so mostly he answered the family parts and ignored the Carter parts.
Nancy, an older woman with a wicked smile who had taken one look at Mike and said, “I do like ‘em cute,” with a wink, paused in showing him the most efficient way to pack his mailbag to ask, “Got yourself an over eager friend?” in a tone just shy of a leer.
Mike grimaced and yanked his phone out, flipping it to silent and shoving it back. “Jeff Carter,” he muttered without thinking.
“Ah, hockey fan huh?” Nancy nodded, and Mike unfroze. He really didn’t want to have the whole Carter conversation, so he just nodded along as she broke into a long-winded story about her wife and an altercation with an Anaheim ticket seller, watching the way she packed her bag with practiced ease and trying to replicate her as close as possible.
Kayla, a short woman with a bouncy blonde ponytail, was shadowing him on his route, showing him the ropes.
“Your hat is the most important part of your uniform.” She tapped the brim of his postal issue baseball cap with the tip of a finger. “It gets hotter than hell around here some days and you’ll be grateful for the shade. They only give you one but if you sweet talk Alma in processing, maybe take her a chocolate bar or two, and make sure you talk about needing another cap where she can hear, one’ll appear in your stall. They’ll tell you she’s a hardass, but you just need to know how to handle her. Also buy sunscreen, carry it with you, your skin will thank you for it.”
By the end of the day, Mike’s shoulders and feet were aching, his head felt like Arnold looked after a session playing with his ball and he just wanted to sit down and never get up. Kayla, by contrast, looked totally at ease and just as bouncy as she had been at 8am.
“Feeling it, huh?” Another postie grinned, Brian maybe, as Mike dumped his bag in his stall and collapsed on the bench. He didn’t bother answering, just slumped forward over his knees. Kayla patted his shoulder on her way by.
“Newbies are always this way the first few weeks. Once you get used to the walking and the carrying, you’ll be golden.”
Mike grunted, incapable of finding the energy to even move his mouth.
“Go home, get some rest. You’ll be doing it all again tomorrow!”
“Is she always that cheery?” he asked the room at large as Kayla swept out the door with a jaunty wave. He assumed the laughs he got in response were a resounding yes.
By the time he got home, Arnold was ready for his walk; then Mike had to feed them both and sort out his uniform for the next day. He debated making sandwiches to carry with him but shoved a $20 in his pants pocket in the end, unable to contemplate doing a single other thing that wasn’t showering and collapsing on his bed.
It was barely 9pm when Mike dropped on top of the sheets, finally getting a chance to just lay down and rest. He reached for his phone, remembering the way it was going crazy that morning for the first time.
He ended up falling asleep to Jeff Carter’s sullen face.
It didn’t take long to get into a routine. Get up, walk Arnold, have breakfast, get to the office for 7.45am. On the beat by 8am, deliver mail, chat with some of the locals he met on his run. Lunch by 12.30pm, more post, back to the office by 4.45pm. Home by 5.30pm, walk Arnold, eat food, watch something on tv, sometimes call his mom, sometimes trade insults with his brothers. Bed by 9pm. It wasn’t exciting, but it worked, and Mike felt he kind of enjoyed the predictability of it.
On Fridays, he went to the local TGI Friday’s with a bunch of people from work, and they ate and drank some and shot the shit, trading stories of dog bites and dodgy customers, talking about families and sports and everything else under the sun.
On his days off, Tuesdays and Sundays, Mike spent time with Arnold, letting him run the beach a couple of hours, swim in the ocean some. He did his grocery shopping, his laundry, sometimes hung out with someone from work or got a beer with Chuck or Braden, the tenants he was looking after.
It was good, steady. Different from the hectic schedule of the baseball beat, more laidback than life in Philly, definitely warmer, but Mike liked it. He could even see loving it. The pay was decent, better because he didn’t have to pay rent, so he had money to do stuff – go to baseball games, hockey games, buy fancy beers he and Braden would drink in the yard, Arnold snuffling around the back fence like a dog on a mission, Chuck making pointed remarks about beer snobs.
He was most of the way through his morning beat one Thursday late in February, cap pulled low over his eyes to avoid unwanted small talk, mind already on tomorrows TGI’s and plans for Sunday when his phone started buzzing against his hip.
It was a solid fifteen minutes before Mike got a chance to find out what the hell was up, his phone going the entire time. When he got a glance at the first text, from Mark of fucking course, Mike tipped his head back and yelled an impassioned “motherfuck!” at the cloudy sky.
The LA Kings had traded for Jeff Carter.
All week, it felt as if all Mike heard was Jeff Carter’s damn name. Most of his regulars had an opinion on the Kings and whether Carter was a smart trade (“they need a solid goal scorer”) or a dumb one (“all that cap space on a grown-ass man who sulked for eight months”). His brothers were gleeful, there was no other word for it. Matt had gotten his hands on photoshop, and if Mike never saw another wedding photo with his and Carter’s faces superimposed on top, it’d be too damn soon. His mom kept texting him updates which he still didn’t know how to respond to; someone needs to take that young man suit shopping – those pant legs are a travesty and I do like Jeff Carter’s hair, very styled, I wonder if he blow dries. Even his dad sent a cryptic text that involved too many repetitions of ‘fate’ for Mike to be comfortable with.
After a few days, Mike just stopped responding (though not to his mom because there was no way she’d tolerate that behaviour, and the last thing he wanted was her visiting and making pointed comments about Carter in person). Rather than give up, Mark and Matt started leaving voicemails.
“You’re taking it too fucking far,” he snarled into his phone, finally cracking on Mark’s fourth call that day. “It’s not fucking funny anymore, let it go.”
“Good to hear from you too, bro,” Mark replied, sounding far too unconcerned for Mike’s liking. Mike ground his teeth and made a concerted effort not to throw his phone on the ground and stomp on it.
“Mark,” he warned. Mike was on a thin fucking thread with all this Carter bullshit. He was done with the jokes and the texts and the voicemails and the emails.
“Alright, alright,” Mark placated him, and Mike counted to ten behind his squeezed-shut eyes. “It was just a joke, but if you think we’ve taken it too far, we’ll back off, okay?”
“Yeah,” Mike said, surprised. Mark was not the kind of guy to back off when he found a button to press. Usually he just mashed it until it short-circuited.
“Look, Mike,” Mark started, and Mike blew out a huff of frustration. “We’re just saying, maybe you should just check if it’s Carter. Before you bite my head off,” he threw in fast when Mike took a breath to yell, “you both ended up in Philly at the same time, you both should have been in Ohio at the same time and now you’re both in LA at the same time? Maybe Dad’s right, maybe fate is trying to tell you something.”
They were both quiet for a long minute, before Mark added, “he wears a wristguard,” in a soft, almost apologetic, voice.
Mike had been seven when his wrist-name started to appear, a faint smudge almost like a bruise at first, coalescing over a period of eight months into a clear, precise Jeff that spanned the width of his wrist. As Mike grew, his wrist grew, making the Jeff seem smaller and more pronounced.
His dad came with him to buy a wristguard, Mom saying, “Your dad will know what’s best.” It made sense since his dad was the only other person in the family to need a wristguard. (Mike hadn’t gotten the implications of that for a while.)
Wrist-names weren’t uncommon, precisely, but they were far from the norm. For the years before puberty, Jeff mostly meant an extra hour of school twice a week, sitting through video presentations and filling in boring worksheets. After puberty, it meant a whole extra class of just him and seven other people, filled with lectures about consent and entitlement and platonic relationships versus sexual relationships. It was horrifying for a teenager with the amount of hormones surging through his body that Mike had.
(His first girlfriend didn’t have a wrist-name. Mike always kissed the empty space whenever they were making out. It made her giggle.)
For a while, Mike resented his Jeff. Like being a teenager wasn’t bad enough, he was now a teenager people whispered about behind their books. He heard all sorts of rumours about himself, people making up wild stories about true love and soul bonds and being together forever.
It scared the shit out of him.
Chuck was a huge Kings fan, so Mike knew all about the 4-2 win over Anaheim. He knew all about Carter’s two goals. It’s also how he knew the Kings had walked into the bar - from the way Chuck’s face went slack with hero worship.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” Chuck whisper-yelled, fingers curling around Mike’s forearm, blanching the skin white. A quick glance showed that Braden was suffering the same fate. “Those are Kings players. Those are fucking Kings players!”
“Bro, chill,” Braden tried, receiving an incredulous look for his trouble, before Chuck went back to fanboying in a decidedly not quiet voice.
“That’s Dustin Brown! That’s Anze Kopitar! That’s Wayne Simmonds! Oh fuck, that’s Jeff Carter!” Chuck’s eyes went wide before a disturbingly determined expression settled over his face. Mike tried to recoil but Chuck still had his arm in a death grip. “I should go say congratulations. He scored two goals.”
“Weren’t you just bitching about how poor a trade that was two days ago?” Braden asked, at the same time Mike snapped, “No, you fucking shouldn’t.”
Chuck shook them both off with a withering glare at Braden that made Mike very grateful he didn’t live with them, and marched over to where the hostess was seating the Kings' party. Mike cringed, expecting a car crash, but the guys were surprisingly welcoming. Mike guessed winning would do that to an athlete.
“Is he still over there?” Braden hissed, “Do we need to grab his coat before he gets thrown out?”
Mike, who had been trying hard not to look in that general direction, risked a glance over and Chuck was bearing down on them, Brown, Kopitar and Jeff fucking Carter in tow. Mike bounced out of the booth so fast he nearly toppled the table.
“What the fuck?” Braden yelped, grabbing the edge to stop their drinks ending up on the floor but Mike was too busy retreating to apologise.
“Hey! Hey, Mike!” he heard Chuck call at his back but he just made an apologetic face, waved his arm vaguely, avoided looking at Carter and disappeared into the safety of the crowd.
An hour later, he was chatting to a pretty dark-eyed Target worker named Josh at the back bar and feeling less like a fucking idiot. Josh’s smile had flirt baked into it, and he kept touching Mike’s hip. Mike was just about to ask him if he wanted to head out when a hand landed on his shoulder and he turned around to Jeff Carter’s drunk face.
“You’re Chad’s friend,” he slurred, swaying enough that Mike reached out to grab his arm, keep him upright because the last thing he needed was his mom getting a picture of him with an unconscious Jeff Carter at his feet.
“Chuck,” Mike corrected although it was clear Carter wasn’t listening. Instead, he was staring pretty intently at Mike’s mouth.
“Never got to meet you,” Carter managed eventually, after a long uncomfortable pause. He swayed again, thumping into Mike’s body, solid and sweating through his thin shirt. Josh made a disgruntled noise near Mike’s shoulder, reminding him of his evening’s goal.
“Well, it was nice to meet you,” Mike announced, loud and firm, manhandling Carter until he was mostly standing and out of Mike’s personal space. He turned back to Josh, hoping to soothe his pout, preferably with his dick, when Jeff grabbed at him again, stumbling into his back. It was only the fact that Mike consistently worked out that kept them both from hitting the floor.
“Wait, wait!” Jeff’s breath was hot on Mike’s ear, fingers clutching at his sides, “I need to ask you something.”
“I’m really sorry, can you just wait until I’ve deposited him somewhere?” Mike asked Josh, making sure to sound as apologetic as possible. Josh huffed and shrugged one shoulder, insolent and stroppy, and Mike was pretty sure he’d just bombed out on a sure thing. It made him a bit rougher with Carter than he probably needed to be.
“Let’s go,” he snapped, yanking Carter back towards the front bar where his teammates could deal with his drunk ass, but Carter was dragging his feet, tugging at Mike’s shirt like a little kid.
“What?” Mike yelled, swinging round, nearly knocking Carter on his butt. “What is it?” he continued in a quieter tone when a few people around them stopped to stare. Jeff leaned in, closer than Mike felt speech really warranted.
“You’re really hot,” Jeff murmured, and Mike was hit with a wash of alcohol on his breath. “Is this you?”
Mike looked down at where Jeff was tugging at his shirt sleeve, fingers clumsy with alcohol, and it felt a bit like when time slows down in a movie. Jeff revealed a black wristguard, shot through with yellow, which he managed to unsnap after four tries, and then he presented his wrist to Mike with a drunken grin.
The after-image of his own name, an untidy scrawled Mike, danced behind his eyelids as Jeff’s expression slid vacant and he bent at the waist, vomiting all over Mike’s shoes. All Mike could think was his brothers were gonna rag on him until the end of time.
“Why would I know where Jeff Carter lives?” Chuck asked, looking around like Braden would have the answers. Mike breathed heavily through his nose, trying to indicate with his eyes that the bouncer at his shoulder wasn’t really interested in rhetorical questions.
“His teammates all seem to have vanished and I need to take him home,” Mike gritted out, one hundred percent done with the evening, “Do you know or do I need to try and call someone?”
“Oh, call someone on his cell!” Braden pointed out and looked really proud when Mike aggressively rubbed his head.
“This is why you’re my favourite,” he called over his shoulder, ignoring Chuck’s offended squeak and his follow-up, “Wait, is he taking Jeff Carter home?”
It was cool outside, hovering on not-quite cold, but Carter took the opportunity to octopus himself over Mike’s back, tucking his fingers into the front pockets of Mike’s jeans.
“I need your cellphone,” Mike tried, but Carter just made a contented noise and rubbed his nose in Mike’s curls. Mike resisted the urge to junk punch him.
When it became clear Jeff had zero intention of untangling himself, Mike twisted his wrist around and spent an awkward few minutes retrieving Carter’s cell from his back pocket. He thumbed straight to recent calls and hit the button.
“Carts, I’m gonna kick your ass, I swear to God,” Dustin fucking Brown grumbled in Mike’s ear and Mike allowed himself a very small, Chuck-like, fanboy moment before getting on with the task at hand.
“Hi, is this Dustin Brown?”
“Who the fuck is this?” The voice in Mike’s ear suddenly sounded a lot more alert.
“This is Mike Richards, I have Jeff Carter with me.”
At the sound of his name, Carter made a little pleased sound and there was a hand far too close to Mike’s dick for his liking. After a minor scuffle which left Jeff pouting against Mike’s neck but his hands comfortably above the waist, Mike got the phone back to his ear.
“What the fuck is going on?” Dustin squawked, “Where’s Jeff? Put him on?”
“Yeah, he’s not really in a talking mood right now,” Mike replied, using his free hand to shove Jeff’s head away from where he was mouthing sloppily at Mike’s shoulder.
“Look,” Mike cut Dustin’s sentence off, “I just need his address so I can drop his ass home.”
“I really don’t know why you think I’m gonna give Jeff’s address out to some dude who just calls me up. I don’t know you. You might have stolen his phone. You might be trying to rob him! Do I need to call the cops?”
Mike turned the phone so the camera lens was on him and Jeff, took a quick photo and hit send. He heard the notification ping on Dustin’s end when he got the phone back to his ear.
“There, now you have a picture of me. Can I have his address now?”
Dustin took a few moments to open the message, but it was clear from his gale of laughter when he did. Mike tried to wait him out. When that didn’t work, he growled, “This is really helpful, thanks.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Dustin gasped, “I just…Jeff fucking Carter, man.”
Mike agreed with the sentiment, but for very different reasons.
Carter’s apartment, when they finally got there the wrong side of 2am, was … well, it was fucking depressing is what it was. Half-unpacked boxes all over the place, clothes strewn across the living-room, bathroom and bedroom and the kitchen had a grand total of two mugs and a pint glass.
Mike filled the pint glass with water and ferried it back to Carter’s bedroom, where Carter was still sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing. Mike set the glass on the nightstand and reached for Jeff’s belt.
“Yeah?” Jeff murmured, slow with alcohol, sounding pleased. Before Mike could correct him, he was tugged between Carter’s gargantuan thighs.
“Yeah, no,” Mike said firmly, untangling himself and placing Carter’s hands back on the bed. “I’m helping you take off your pants and your shoes because they are gross and covered in vomit, then you are going to bed and I am going home.”
Mike bent down and untied Carter’s shoes, trying not to think about how he could have been in this position at home with Josh for a much better reason than untying laces.
Jeff pouted some but didn’t try to touch Mike again, pliant and easy in Mike’s grip. When he got Jeff down to just boxers, trying very hard not to admire the slopes of his body, Mike tugged back the comforter and shoved him down onto the pillow.
“Drink water in the morning,” he threw out, turning to leave. A hand on his wrist stopped him. Jeff’s fingers were just above the line of his wristguard, and he stared at it a while before meeting Mike’s eyes.
“Is it mine?” he asked, voice quiet in the dark. Mike couldn’t bring himself to lie so he nodded, fast.
“Can I see?”
Mike took a quick breath, and unclasped the guard before he changed his mind. No one had seen his wrist-name outside of family since it appeared.
Jeff took his wrist in a gentle grip, turning it this way and that until he was satisfied. He lay back on the pillow, tugging Mike’s wrist with him. Before Mike could say or do anything, Jeff pressed a lingering kiss where his name stained Mike’s skin and closed his eyes, breath evening out quick, dropping into sleep with the suddenness of the deeply inebriated.
It was a moment before Mike gathered himself and tugged his arm from Jeff’s grip, slow though, so as not to wake him. He made his way through the dark apartment, pausing with his hand on the front door before cursing under his breath and turning back to scrawl his name and number on the white board pinned to Carter’s fridge door.
Mike spent three days glued to his phone and longer still jumping every time it buzzed - enough that people at work ribbed him gently for it. For weeks it buzzed with news about Jeff Carter, but it never buzzed because of him.
When the tickets for game seven of the Stanley Cup finals landed on Mike’s hall mat, he threw them in the trash. Then he fetched them back out because he wasn’t a fucking idiot.
“I work Mondays,” Mike repeated, staring at the tickets on his kitchen counter, Matt next to him and seemingly just as mesmerised.
“Guess I picked a good time to visit, then, huh?”
They both went back to staring for a while because Mike loved hockey, but he never seriously thought he’d see tickets to the Cup final. It was annoying as fuck that he wouldn’t be able to actually go.
“You mean you won’t go,” Matt pointed out without taking his eyes off the tickets, like they might disappear if he did. Mike opened his mouth to dispute that but Matt shoved a hand in his face. “It’s the Stanley Cup finals. You could find a way if you wanted.”
“I don’t want,” Mike snapped, throat tight with the lie. He did want, he totally did, but not at Jeff fucking Carter’s expense.
“Call Dad, he might be able to get down for it,” Matt suggested, and Mike thought it was a good idea. His dad and Matt could go, then Mike could spend some time with them – his dad always liked the beach and complained he never got there often enough.
“Are you gonna tell Mark?” Matt asked later, on the porch next to Mike, watching Braden wrestle with Arnold while Chuck fretted like the grandad he was. Mike smiled into his beer.
“Call it payback for all the torture.”
Matt chuckled then swivelled to Mike, eyes wide.
“And if I wasn’t here?”
Mike shrugged, careful not to make eye contact. Matt squawked, outraged, and Mike finally lost his poker face when Arnold took that moment to bounce, over-excited and puppyish, taking out both Braden and Chuck. Mike laughed hard, and everything felt a little less shitty.
Mike called his dad that evening, leaving it late enough that he knew his dad would be home from his Sunday backgammon and beer night.
“So I have a ticket to the Stanley Cup final,” Mike started, no preamble, and his dad, bless him, didn’t ask questions, just dutifully looked up flight times. It became apparent pretty quickly that there wasn’t going to be enough time for his dad to make the journey without paying an arm and a leg and Mike found himself more disappointed than he had expected.
“It’s okay, Chuck’ll love the ticket.” Mike tried not to let disappointment show in his voice but he was pretty unsuccessful if the huff his dad let out was any indication.
“You know,” his dad says, “me and your mom have been talking about me visiting, getting some sun on these old bones. I can get a flight next week, spend a couple of days there. You can show me this beach of yours.”
“I’d like that,” Mike admitted, feeling stupid and young and like he really just wanted to hang out with his dad. “I’ll see if I can move a few shifts around at work.”
Mike was a wreck all Monday. Nancy threw him worried glances every time he was in her vicinity and Ron offered him a Godiva truffle. Since Ron hoarded chocolate like a dragon on a pile of gold, Mike figured he must have looked like absolute shit.
By the time he got home, Mike was wound tighter than Arnold when he spotted a squirrel. Matt and Chuck were already decked out in black and white, neither of them able to sit still longer than a few minutes at a time. Their frenetic energy just made Mike worse and he eventually escaped with Arnold to the beach to avoid snapping and starting an unnecessary fight.
He got back, Arnold practically crawling he was so exhausted, just as Matt and Chuck were heading out.
“Mark says fuck you,” Matt called cheerfully over his shoulder while Chuck waved with the hand not clutching Matt’s shoulder in a death grip. Mike wasn’t surprised Mark found out, Matt was always shit at keeping secrets, but he avoided his phone anyway.
By 8pm the condo was quiet save for Arnold’s steady snores. Mike usually found the silence peaceful but tonight everything made him feel like he was jumping out of his skin. He hovered near the sofa for a long minute, eyeing the tv, before making an abrupt turn and heading to his bedroom.
He put in earplugs for the first time since his first year in Philly and fell asleep surprisingly easily given the circumstances. Not that it made any difference. He still woke up at 5.30am and the Kings had still won the Stanley Cup.
The Kings were every-fucking-where. Mike couldn’t escape them. They were in Matt and Chuck’s hung-over jubilance, all over the goddamn news, the main topic of conversation at work. Mike ignored the internet, didn’t turn the tv on and refused to engage in any Kings-related conversation, and yet Jeff Carter’s grinning face kept ambushing him from congratulation posters in people’s windows and discarded sports pages. It was exhausting.
Thursday was a new level of pain in the ass. Kings fans swarmed LA and Mike couldn’t move without seeing one. He knew it was the Cup parade and had prepared himself as much as he could, but the sheer number of 77 jerseys was overwhelming.
“You okay?” Nancy asked when Mike trudged in at the end of his shift, hunched down under his cap, a stress headache blooming at the base of his neck. Mike grunted, but her hand on his arm, a gentle touch, stilled him. Mike glanced up and recognised her expression – his mom had been wearing the same when they skyped Wednesday night.
“You don’t look so good, sweetness.” Nancy withdrew her hand, but Mike could still feel it, the ghost of warmth pressed into his skin, leaving concern behind. “And that’s the first time you’ve made eye contact with anyone all week.”
Mike felt his whole body sag. He was just tired. He didn’t know how to explain it without spilling the whole story, and he really didn’t think his workplace was the place for that kind of breakdown.
“Okay, you and me, let’s go.”
The fact that Brian and Nia took his stuff without a word and Dan patted his back and told Nancy over his head that he’d clock them out spoke volumes.
Mike stared into his beer for forty-five minutes--letting Nancy’s voice wash over him as she talked about her wife’s futile argument with the neighbour who was letting her dog pee in their rose bushes--trying to figure out why he felt so fucked up over this Jeff Carter thing. It wasn’t like Mike had ever bought into the whole wrist-name song and dance, so the fact that Carter had deigned not to call him shouldn’t be a big fucking deal.
“You wanna talk about it?”
Turned out that yeah, Mike really fucking did. By the time he finished, Nancy had finished her beer and most of the nachos she’d ordered so they weren’t “drinking like teenagers at 5:30 on a weekday.”
“Well,” Nancy offered, then fell silent again, eyes cast somewhere by the ceiling. Mike felt like someone had cut his strings, like the force of the words he’d been keeping in was what had been holding him up. He stared down into the beer he’d drunk no more than a few sips of. “I had a cousin with a wrist-name. Found hers at fifteen, some church camp retreat she went to every year. Nice boy, name of Denny. Never seen a more tumultuous relationship in my life.”
Mike shrugged because Nancy had fallen silent and he felt like something was required, finger tracing the spiral print on his beer mat, the words swirling into the tail of a green-haired mermaid who smiled coyly up at him.
“They broke up at nineteen. Went their own ways. It was for the best at the time. All they did was fight. Like dogs over a bone, they were.”
Mike nodded. That sounded about what he’d expect.
“Thing was, they met up again in their thirties. Coincidence rather than on purpose. Been married going on fifteen years now.”
Mike raised his head, surprised despite himself. Nancy shrugged and smiled at him, a small thing, part reassuring and part chiding.
“Sometimes life can do what it does but people just aren’t ready.”
Mike’s dad flew in Saturday night, and Mike picked him up at the airport, hugging a little tighter and a little longer than he usually might. He’d managed to switch out Monday with Kosihan on the condition that Mike cover his shift next Tuesday so he could see his kid’s play, so Mike had three free days to hang with his dad.
“I missed you too,” his dad laughed, finally extricating himself with one final tight squeeze, “but some of us haven’t eaten in six hours and are ready to fell a moose.”
Mike took him to the little restaurant he and Braden had stumbled across one night, and they talked about nothing over perfectly grilled steak and seasoned fries.
Sunday they hung out on the deck and shot the shit with Braden and Chuck, his dad soaking up the sun. Mike could tell his dad had questions, but he was letting it lie for now, and Mike was taking the reprieve – it wouldn’t last.
Being poked in the face with the end of a fishing rod at 6am on a Monday morning was something Mike could have done without, but his dad had given him two days to mope, so he couldn’t complain too much.
“Guh?” he asked, eyes still gluey with exhaustion, trying to blink his dad into focus. Arnold’s bark was all the warning he got before 75lbs of Labrador landed on his stomach. That woke him up.
“We’re leaving in thirty minutes,” his dad called over his shoulder, supremely unsympathetic to Mike’s plight, Arnold scrambling to follow him, the traitor. Mike groaned and rolled out of bed.
The pier was busy enough that Mike and his dad were just two more tourists, which, Mike figured, was probably his dad’s intention all along. It was hard to fuss, though, with the sun on his back and a massive coffee by his knee, the rocking waves mesmerising him just a little.
“Are we going to talk about Jeff Carter?” his dad asked, eyes cast out over the water. Mike sighed.
“Yeah, yeah, I guess we are.”
Still, they fished for close to an hour in silence, Mike getting his thoughts together and his dad used to letting him work himself out.
“You know about Jeff Carter then,” Mike offered eventually. His dad snorted.
“Stanley Cup Final tickets,” he pointed out, and yeah, that was a definite give away.
“Mark…” Mike started, frowning because there should definitely have been some crowing from that quarter. In fact, Mike would have expected Mark to drive up to better mock him in person.
“Your mother threatened to instagram that video of him losing his shorts on the waterslide at Disney World if he so much as thought about you and Carter at the same time.”
Mike laughed because that had been a great day out.
“It’s dumb,” he followed up, gesturing in a way that made his rod jump hard. “I don’t even know why I care.”
“Don’t you?” his dad said mildly. Mike scowled at the ocean.
“I never told you about my name.”
Mike jumped because that had always been…not taboo exactly but not talked about. He glanced down at his dad’s wrist, the guard there old and worn from use, a little greying around the edges but still good. He was unable to tear his eyes away as his dad calmly unsnapped the guard and let it fall away.
Freida
“It was different back in my day. We didn’t wear guards with any real regularity. We were excited to find our names.”
Mike nodded to show he was listening, but he couldn’t stop staring at the pale strip of skin and the faded but precise cursive that stretched across it, not too fancy and leaning a little to the left.
“Summer of…oh…seventy-two, I’d say,” he paused, so far in his own head that Mike didn’t push. “Hotter than hell, that summer, we were all sweltering. Spent a lot of time at the local pool. That’s where I met Freida’s mama.”
There was a long moment where everything seemed quiet to Mike, muted somehow. His dad ran his thumb over the name without looking, a practiced move.
“Some crazy lady grabbed my arm, right under the diving board. I can still feel her fingers sometimes, digging right into the bone. Freida died in a horse jumping accident a few weeks before.”
Mike had known it must have been something like that, something drastic, but it still felt like something was clawing at his throat. He made a choking noise, and his dad patted his knee before settling the guard back in place, covering his Freida again.
It was a long time before Mike could speak.
“Do you wonder if it’d be different had she…” He trailed off, unable to say it out loud even though it was clearly an old hurt on his dad, well-worn with age.
“It’s always a wonder what it would be like.” His dad shrugged, eyes still on the horizon.
“If she was…I mean, you and Mom…”
“Me and your mom would still be me and your mom,” his dad said firmly, reaching over to squeeze his knee tight, “that’s never a question. But it does feel like I’m missing something, a best friend that I never got the chance to have.”
Mike breathed for a while, watching his dad’s hands as they re-baited his rod and re-cast his line, competent and familiar.
“I didn’t think I’d get rejected.” He didn’t mean to say it but it slipped out with the setting sun. Once out, it didn’t feel as embarrassing as he was expecting. His dad sighed.
“Not sure you did, son.”
The drive home was quiet save the occasional instruction from the truck’s built-in GPS Mike still hadn’t worked out how to turn off, both of them lost in thought. Mike glanced at his dad from the corner of his eye, wondering if the faraway gaze was contemplating a best friend gone before the connection was even made. Mike tried to imagine it and had to dig his fingers into his thigh to stop himself spiraling downward.
They pulled into the driveway, and Mike was so busy avoiding Chuck’s ugly lawn ornaments that he didn’t notice until his dad poked him across the center console. Mike looked up, startled, and followed the line of his dad’s nod.
To Jeff Carter sitting on his front stoop.