Page 105 of Goaltender Interference

Gabe cocked one eyebrow. “Okay. Hey. We probably shouldn’t be talking like this, huh? I don’t want to get to know the guy whose ass I’m gonna kick in like twenty minutes.”

“Shit,” Matt said, and laughed. “You sure have a high opinion of yourself.”

“Earned,” Gabe said. He smiled, and Matt could see immediately why Aiden was so fond of the kid. “Okay. Just as long as you know what you got yourself into.”

The game was a tough one. No matter how hard he tried, Matt couldn’t get one past Gabe, and it was clear that Gabe was taking no small amount of satisfaction in blanking him. The rest of the team stepped up, though: it was a nail-biter that went down to OT. And then one of Gabe’s teammates banged in a rebound past Fourns, an angle he had no chance of reaching, while Matt watched from the bench.

He sighed, watching the Libs come out to congratulate Gabe and give him his hugs and helmet taps. Matt could give him that one: Gabe might’ve won the game, but Matt had the guy.

“What’re you smiling about, Safy?” Jammer asked. “Welost.”

“Oh...nothing. Just looking forward to going home, you know?”

The last game in Long Island was agony to get through, because at this point all Matt wanted was to be home with Aiden. It had been a long time since he’d been so eager to justget homeafter a roadie, and he still wasn’t sure if that washaving someone waiting, or whether he was just getting old and tired. Aiden had been weirdly squirrelly in text messages, kept saying that he was busy and couldn’t talk. So the fact that he was getting cross-checked in front of the net by Tyler Gallant, one of the Railers’ big d-men, wasn’t really helping matters.

By the time the plane had landed in YUL and Matt had driven himself home, he was almost bursting with how much he wanted to see Aiden, to touch him, to hold him.

When he opened the door, Aiden was waiting, looking weirdly nervous and shy for someone who’d basically moved himself into Matt’s life months ago, whatever hiccups they’d had along the way. Matt couldn’t stop staring at him: it was still surreal, that he was back here. He was so fucking happy, and still part of him was terrified that Aiden was going to disappear again.

“Aidy?” Matt said. “Is everything okay?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s fine. I just—well, I got you something? Made you something? I hope you aren’t upset with the walls. I don’t have a security deposit to pay you back or anything.”

“What are you—” Matt started, and then he turned and saw the wall. “What... Jesus, Aiden. You didallof this?”

“I hope you like it,” Aiden mumbled, unable to look him in the eye.

Matt’s condo had always had a lived-in, comfortable feel, but it was a little impersonal. He had his pictures from the Cup celebration and some family photos on the fridge, but most of the art that he’d hung on the walls was the kind of stuff you could buy off of the shelf in Homesense. It wasn’t as empty and soulless as Aiden’s pristine brownstone, but it was reflective of the fact that throughout the years, Matt’s life had been...kind of empty.

The wall was the opposite of that now.

While he’d been gone, Aiden had made prints of photos, in varying sizes, and framed and hung them. Just looking at thecollection, Matt could feel his heart beating faster, his hands shaking a little. It wasn’t the effort that Aiden had gone through, but the pictures he’d chosen.

They were pictures of Aiden, and Matt, and Matt and Aiden together, from the very beginning when they’d first started hanging out in the offseason through a selfie Aiden had taken of the two of them from last week. Seeing them all laid out like that was overwhelming: he almost couldn’t make his feet work so he could go look at them closer. Seeing them all laid out like that just reminded him how fucking young they’d been when they first got together, how old they were now and how Aiden was still the most important person in the fucking world to him.

“Do you like it?” Aiden said again, sounding worried.

“Aidy,” Matt said, and turned to him. There wasn’t anything he could do except kiss him: swallow up Aiden’s surprised little gasp in his mouth, stroke his thumbs along the line of Aiden’s face, his soft beard and his equally soft mouth. “Aidy, I love it.”

“Oh,” Aiden said, flushed. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t sure if it was too much.”

The oldest picture was one that Matt remembered well. It was after the first playoff series they had dueled each other: Aiden had kept the Libs in it, and Matt had been the only one on the Royal who seemed like he could score on him. The Libs had ultimately won the series, and they had met in the handshake line after. Aiden had said,nice try.He’d meant it as a compliment, of course, even if it hadn’t come off that way. In retrospect it was insane that Matt hadn’t immediately realized that he’d fallen in love basically at first sight, he could see how stunned he looked in the photo of the two of them clasping hands.

There were others.

A selfie in a hotel room at their first All-Star Game.

Matt assembling IKEA furniture in the apartment Aiden had gotten in their first offseason together.

The two of them in London, a daring kiss stolen in an empty side street.

The first night that Aiden had taken Matt to meet his teammates in New York, and they’d spent the whole night chirping him until Matt, in a drunken, righteous fury, had ripped them all a new one, a defense Aiden hadn’t needed but had certainly shown his appreciation for later that night. In the picture, Aiden sat with Matt’s arm over his shoulder in the dark, crowded bar, just enough plausible deniability so that the embrace wouldn’t be noticeable. Matt still remembered how fast his heart had been beating, how sweaty his palms had been, how warm Aiden felt melting against his side. He’d felt like everyone was staring at him and it hadn’t mattered at all.

Their legs tangled together in a hammock during one of those island getaways over the summer, when it felt like the whole world outside of their hotel room didn’t exist.

The more recent pictures. A lot of them.

The sunset from Matt’s condo roof deck.

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