Page 103 of Goaltender Interference

“Wow,” Aiden deadpanned. “Pretty sad life, considering.”

“Actually, it’s been awesome. But when we could skate together, it was like the two best parts of it were finally together...you know?”

“Yeah. I do. And it was satisfying as hell to save all of those shots on you.”

“Joke was on you,” Matt replied, taking the empty plate away from him, “I was just using you as a study for shootouts.”

Aiden gave him a sour look. “We were about even on those, all things considered, after that first one where youdistractedme.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“You didn’t have to. You were just you. I haveeyes, Matthew,” Aiden said, and Matt couldn’t help it, he leaned down to kiss him again, his mouth that tasted of black coffee and cashew and burnt toast.

Aiden did come with him to practice, let Matt rest his hand on his knee as they drove across the bridge to the practice facility.They wouldn’t be able to skate together today—Aiden still didn’t have his own gear, but they could take care of that, Matt thought, already trying to figure out how to get it packed and shipped from New York—but having Aiden in the stands would be a novelty.

It felt right, having him there. Usually, the practices were open to the public, but the lower stands were blocked off and spectators had to congregate by the glass on the upper level. Because Aiden was Matt’s guest, he had made it through the usual security, and was sitting on the bleacher, closer to the ice. Not in the front row, of course, but he was noticeable anyway, in his dark hoodie and leggings, scrolling through something on his phone so he didn’t need to look up at the team as they came through the tunnel and the door to start warming up.

The team didn’t fail to notice, either. Cormier skated up to him. “Cap? Everything cool?”

“Yeah,” Matt said, and looked over at the stands, where Aiden was watching them, a little nervously. Before Aiden had left, again, he’d been around the team, he’d been part of the group chat, but Matt had never reallysaidit. Saying it would’ve made it real; saying it might’ve shone a light on something that wasn’t ready to be revealed. All of that was over now. “My boyfriend decided he wanted to watch us skate after all.”

Boyfriendsounded pretty stupid, considering what Aiden was to him,had beento him over the decades. But it was the only word he had.

Cormier tilted his head to the side, like he was processing the information. He was a big kid from a small town in rural Quebec, and he had a slow, thoughtful way of speaking in English that made him seem a lot older than his twenty-three years. He’d spent a few years in the minor leagues, but he wasn’t going back anytime soon. “It’s still weird to me. Not that youhave a boyfriend. Just that it’shim. You are both...probably going to the Hall of Fame.”

“That’s abigpresumption,” Matt said, embarrassed. He wasn’t used to it when the rookies said things like that to him, even though he knew that he was kind of a legend to them, for finally bringing home another Cup to Montreal. “A really, really big presumption.”

Cormier shook his head, green eyes crinkled in a smile. “I don’t think so. I mean, if you guys combined your trophy room, it would probably be... I don’t know. Maybe you’d need two rooms. It is difficult to wrap my head around.”

“If you think it’s strange for you, you can imagine how I felt when it happened to me.” It was strangely—good to be able to talk about it like this, in the open, again. He’d felt the same sense of relief when they’d started telling their teams the first time around. The weight of secrecy lifted. Except this time, he didn’t need to worry about it all crashing down around him. “Come on, Rémi, better get in place for the drills before Coach Roy’s ready.”

Aiden was still watching him, and when he saw that Matt was looking back, he smiled.

Even though he’d made the decision to stay, it wasn’t any easier when Matt left for road trips. The empty condo was too quiet. It wasn’t like Aiden hadnothingto do: he was still keeping things together, cooking, seeing Dr. Gauthier. Something about leaving and then coming back had been like a light going off in his head.

It wasn’t just his relationship with Matt that he’d had one foot out the door for, it was therapy, too. When he told Dr. Gauthier that he’d been avoiding really trying because he was terrified of what it would mean if he fucked things up anyway, she justsmiled at him, the kind of serene smile that wouldn’t have been out of place on the ice.

“It was important that you had this realization yourself,” she said. “I am proud of you, Aiden.”

“Yeah, so,” he said, and swallowed. “Also I think...maybe I want to look into medication? I don’t know if it’s going to be right for me. Or a conceivable long-term solution. But until I can feel a little more...even.”

“That’s absolutely something we can explore together. I can refer you to a colleague of mine who can prescribe.”

“Thank you.” The clawing fear was still there, of the unknown, of failure. But he’d told Matt he was going to do everything he could to be better, and the fact was: he just didn’t know if he could dig himself out of this hole with willpower alone.

“Of course,” Dr. Gauthier said, and then looked down at her notebook. “Is there anything else you’d like to discuss today?”

“The short list, or the long list?” Aiden asked, and settled in for the session.

Later that night after the game, Matt’s familiar face on video chat made something clench in his chest, but he forced it down and made himself smile. “Hey, Matty. How’s the knee?”

“Holding up,” Matt said, with a little grimace. He was already in the bed, shadowed in the dim hotel lights, surrounded by crumpled sheets. It was insane, how good he looked to Aiden just then, the broad expanse of his shoulders and chest, bruised and battered. “I’m probably going to need another round of steroid injections and Toradol if it keeps up like this, though.”

“Don’t push yourself,” Aiden said, even though he knew it was useless. He’d played through so many of those nagging injuries himself, and Matt was even more stubborn about his Iron Man streak than Aiden had been. “If you need to sit, you should tell them you need to sit.”

Matt laughed, the exhausted, adrenaline rush of a laugh you had sometimes after a game. He was half-sitting and half-lying in the pile of pillows, and Aiden wished more than anything that he could be there, that he could curl his body like a comma against Matt’s. “Baby, it’s my contract year. I’m not going to tell them I need to sit.”

“About that,” Aiden said. He swallowed again. His mouth felt dry, which was funny, because his palms were suddenly sweating. “I know it’s not the best time to talk about this, but...are you thinking about next season? Still?”

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