Page 28 of Goaltender Interference

I’m at the gym. Be back around 11. There’s coffee, bread and cashew butter in the kitchen. If you want to go out there’s a spare key that’s yours too.

Aiden stared at the note, then set it back down on the table.

He drank some coffee and made his toast and wandered around the condo, like he could gather some kind of idea about Matt’s life through context clues. The fridge was covered in family pictures of Matt’s parents and his brother, Miles, and Miles’ wife and their two adorable children. Teammates from various events: Matt and the Royal during their first Cup celebration, Matt shirtless and drenched in beer in the locker room, screaming with triumphant joy, Aatos Saarinen riding on Matt’s broad shoulders.

There was some art hanging on the walls, but Aiden couldn’t tell if he liked it or not. It was modern and minimalist and reminded him, a little, of the times they’d gone to the MoMA together. Even now, those were bittersweet memories, ones he wasn’t sure if he wanted to revisit. He poked around in the kitchen, and it seemed like Matt wasn’t lying about learning to cook—even if he was, there was a good variety of equipment.

By the time Matt made it home, sweaty and disheveled from the gym, Aiden had unpacked his clothes. He had showered and trimmed his beard back into something resembling normal length, the closer shave he wore during his later playing seasons. It didn’t make him feel any better, really, but it did make Matt smile when he saw it.

“Got tired of the mountain man look?”

“Just wanted to feel a little more human.”

“Good.”

While Matt showered, Aiden put together a lunch for both of them, mostly leftovers. It struck him again how this was something he’d done a hundred times over the summer in thepast, without even thinking about it. Even though Matt could’ve eaten at the practice facilities, he had always liked that Aiden cared enough to feed him at home. He looked down at the plates, frowning, and wondered what the hell he was trying to accomplish here.

It turned out that what Matt was trying to accomplish, at least, was to distract Aiden. To some extent, it worked. Although he was still training for the season, he folded Aiden into his life seamlessly with a guest pass to the gym owned by his personal trainer and a standing invitation to work out together.

After a day or two of balancing his concerns about the Montreal media and stir-craziness from being stuck inside, Aiden gave in and went. That would end, of course, once Matt started going back to Brossard full-time when the season started. But it would do for now. It felt good to lift again, felt good to have his muscles aching. As far as he could tell, no one really noticed him there, which was a relief. But he was so awfully aware of Matt that it was also the opposite of a relief.

Every time he spotted Matt on the bench, or waited to trade off on the deadlift platform, Aiden had to try not to look at the way the muscles shifted under Matt’s skin, the frown of intense concentration he had when he was reaching the end of a set and hitting his limits and forcing his way through them. Every time Matt gave him that same heated look, from the corner of his eye, Aiden had to pretend it didn’t affect him.

Don’t make it fucking weird,Aiden admonished himself, repeatedly, and every time, he made it weird. His thoughts rattling around inside his own head, screaming.

Aiden tried to find ways to keep himself busy. While Matt was on a call with his agent, Aiden went out and wandered around the neighborhood, found a grocery store and picked up a few things for the fridge and pantry.

He made Matt dinner, pan-seared salmon and farro and vegetables, ignoring the teasingwow, is this five meals you can do now?It was an earned jibe: during their first relationship, Aiden had taught himself to cook, but had often eaten the same thing, over and over again. It had been easier. Comforting. Matt, of course, hadn’t seen it that way, but he’d accepted it the same way he’d accepted all of Aiden’s little quirks. Because Aiden had always been luckier than he’d deserved.

The situation in Montreal was sometimes nice. Aiden could pretend his life wasn’t a disaster, at least for small segments of the day. The other times he was just as aware of the mess he had made of it as ever. It was worse because he wanted to touch Matt so badly he almost felt nauseous about it. Wanted to shake him and ask,what are you thinking, what do you want from meso badly that he could scream it.

Aiden started to settle into a holding pattern of life in Montreal. He got tired of repeatedly having to wash his one or two shirts and bought some more clothes, which ended up in Matt’s closet instead of the guest room. Matt glanced sideways at him when he hung the first shirt but didn’t say anything.

Aiden finished reading the books he’d intended to read before his attention span vacated the premises. He cooked and cleaned. His body started to feel like it used to right before a season started, rested and exercised and ready for anything, except there was nowhere to turn that energytoward.

In the beginning, before anything had gone wrong, Aiden had found the long silences he shared with Matt comforting. They hadn’t needed to say anything; it was enough to know Matt was there and if they wanted to speak, there would be the time to do it. It was enough to spend time in the same space together and know neither of them felt like they had to fill it. The same pauses now just made him anxious, fidgety. Wondering what the hell he was doing here.

Sometimes he caught Matt watching him, during those silences, from the corner of his eye.

“What?” Aiden asked one night as he washed the dishes from dinner.

“It’s you—you’re just different.”

“Yeah, well, that happens when you get old.” Aiden put the bowl he’d been washing into the rack to dry. He wiped his hands on the towel.

“That’s not what I meant. You’re just more... I don’t know.”

Aiden sighed, the force of his breath flipping a hanging strand of hair up into the air. “Well, you haven’t changed at all. Still trying to figure me out?”

Matt looked away. There was a flush of red on his cheekbones. “I could never figure you out. I spent years trying, and it wasn’t—Jesus, never mind.”

“I mean, whatareyou trying to find? The cheat code?”

“No, I just... Aiden, we haven’t talked in years. You know? It’s like I can still seesomeof the boy I knew, but you’re not the same, and it’s just gotten so complicated.”

“I’m not complicated. The same as I’ve always been,” Aiden said, unable to quite keep the bitterness from his voice. “Except I’m not a goalie anymore.”

“Oh, no. That’s one thing that’s never going to change, even if you’re not playing in the show. You’realwaysgoing to be a goalie.”

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