Page 69 of Home Ice Advantage

“It’s okay.” Ryan smiled when he looked up. “It’s been nice, up here with you. Seeing the city the way you see it. It really is beautiful.”

And Eric, overwhelmed again with all of the stupid things that he could have said, looked back out over the city and thought about what he would have to do on his last day. Instead, he checked his phone and whistled. “Hey, did you see? Our boys Cook and Williams are tearing it up at the All-Star game. Cook’s got a hat trick. And guess who assisted on each one?”

“I’m glad the boys are having fun,” Ryan said, and laughed. “I remember the first time I went it was a good time, and then after that, it was just...kind of a drag. I didn’t get to have the same vacation everyone else did.”

“You just have to rub in your multi-All-Star status every chance you get,” Eric said, rolling his eyes, although he was finding that he didn’t have the same kind of bitterness about it anymore. Maybe it was because now he knew Ryan, knew that he wasn’t arrogant about it. Or maybe it was knowing that despite all of the hardware, Ryan still crawled into Eric’s bed every night, got eagerly down on his knees for him.

On their last day in Montreal, they were in the bathroom. It was a small bathroom, and they had to step around each other to brush their teeth and shower in any kind of reasonable space. Eric spat some toothpaste into the sink and said, “Hey, if you want to hang out with my mom alone, or explore the city for a bit this morning, you’re welcome to do whatever you want.”

Ryan’s gray head, wet from the shower, immediately popped around the side of the curtain. “Why? What are you doing?”

“Well, I, ah, have to go to the cemetery to visit my dad. It’s not a particularly fun trip. So I understand if you’d rather do something else.”

“Are you kidding? Of course I want to be there for you. Unless...you don’t want me there?”

Eric sighed. “It’s not that I don’t want you there. Not at all. I just didn’t want you to feel at all obligated.”

“Well, trust me, you fucking idiot, I want to be there.”

“All right,” Eric said. He felt, unaccountably, relieved.

Joseph Aronson was buried at Baron de Hirsch, which was a reasonably annoying bus ride away from his parents’ house. The stones felt heavy in his coat pockets as they sat, Ryan’s thigh pressed against his in the seat next to him. Eric watched the familiar streets rolling by and it felt different, knowing he wasn’t going to be alone there this time. Rosa didn’t make the trip often herself anymore, but Ryan was undeniably there, a warm, solid presence.

The cemetery itself was nondescript, bordered by a low stone wall and sandwiched in between the residential neighborhood of ugly condo buildings that had sprung up around it. It was crowded, with rows and rows of utilitarian headstones stretching out to fill the entirety of the land. Some of the graves had beds of red and white flowers planted on them; some were just grass. All of them were stacked neatly head to toe. No sense in wasting space, when there wasn’t much of it.

Eric knew immediately where to walk to find his father’s marker. Ryan trailed along after him, like he didn’t want to get too close and make Eric uncomfortable. On instinct, Eric reached out and took his hand, briefly, even though it was risky. “It means a lot that you’re here, so don’t feel, I don’t know. Weird. Okay?”

“Got it,” Ryan said, and smiled, a little uncertain.

When they got to the gravesite, Eric took a few minutes to clear away some leaves and branches that had blown up against the stone that the cemetery workers hadn’t gotten to yet. He brushed his hand over the top of it, although there wasn’t any dirt to be found there. It had been over thirty days since he’d been to the cemetery, so he went through the blessing you said when you were coming home again. He finished, murmuring, “Baruch et adonai m’chayeh hemetim.”

And then there wasn’t anything for it but to begin, the way he always started, in French, “Hello, Papa... I’ve really missed you.”

As he placed the stones on the grave, he went through each of the cities they’d visited, told Papa a little bit about the games. He talked about how the team had been struggling but they’d figured out the power play, a little bit; he talked about how proud he was of the boys for pushing through it even when the games were tough; he talked about how Ryan had come to visit, too. He couldn’t bring himself to look behind him to see what Ryan’s face was doing, so he kept his eyes firmly forward instead. The stones formed a little row on top of the grave, and when that filled up, Eric crouched down on the cold ground, laid them at the bottom as well.

He knew Ryan was listening and he knew Ryan could probably only understand about a third of what he was saying. That was probably for the best, because Eric had started telling his dad about Ryan, too.

“I wasn’t really sure what to expect, ’Pa, but it’s been really good for me. I don’t even really know how to describe what it all means. It’s been a lonely few years, wondering whether I’d ever be able to bring someone home to meet Maman, and now here we are, and he’s meeting you, too, in a way. I wish I’d been honest with you before the end. I should have trusted you, and I will always regret that I didn’t. So this is the best I can do now. He is...well, he’s funny and smart and kind even when I don’t fucking deserve it. He’s good with the boys. He’s patient with the worst of them. Maman likes him; he was so kind to her. He’s been an open book with me since the beginning, and things are—they’re just really good. In a way I never thought I’d be able to have. And he wanted to come here with me to see you, and it means so much to me that he understands what it means, and I think maybe—”

Eric caught himself. Ryan was standing off to the side, so that he wasn’t intruding on Eric’s private moment, but close enough that he could still hear. Eric knew that he didn’t speak French fluently, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t picked up a few more words than Eric had suspected. And besides,je l’aimewasn’t difficult to translate.

Because that was the tricky thing. It had crept up on him, quietly and gradually. But it was true. Eric did love him, and it was probably the stupidest thing he could’ve done. Ryan was his boss; Ryan hadn’t signed an extension yet, despite being in constant conversation with Joe Conroy about the state of the team and what they could expect for next year; Ryan was newly divorced and had known he was queer for all of fifteen minutes while Eric had been struggling with what that meant for him as a professional hockey player for almost his entire adult life.

There were so many reasons why it was stupid, and why it wouldn’t work out, and why he was better off either saying nothing, or ending things right now.

But he also didn’t want to lose whatever they had, as undefined as it was. He hadn’t wanted that before he’d realized he was in love with Ryan Sullivan, and it was even harder to think of it after.

“Hey, Eric?” Ryan asked, and Eric realized he’d been silent, staring at his father’s grave, for probably too long. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, uh. My knees can’t really handle this anymore.”

Ryan held out his hand and Eric looked up at him and his handsome, open face, and realized, once again, what a fool he’d been not to realize before this. He took Ryan’s hand, let himself be pulled to his feet.

“Goodbye for now, Papa. I won’t be so long next time,” Eric said, his hand on the cold stone.

And together, they left for home.

Chapter Twelve

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