Page 45 of Goaltender Interference

It could have been worse, really—Aiden was surprised to find that he legitimately enjoyed spending time with Ellie, who did seem to be serious about the goalie thing. She had been playing wing, but Jessica promised she could try switching positions if she did all of her chores every single day for three months to help earn money for the pads.

It reminded Aiden, a little bit, of when he’d been younger and told his own father he wanted to play goal. Dad had marched him right outside to start firing orange street hockey balls at him to see if he’d flinch. He hadn’t, even when they’d bruised him. Dad hadn’t been a goalie when he’d played, but he’d certainly done his best to dissuade him anyway. Aiden had just been even more stubborn. It had been his mother, eventually, who broke Dad down.

Ellie said, “I’ve got twenty-three days to go, because the vacation doesn’t count,” with the kind of weird, slightly manic intensity beyond her years, that reminded Aiden more than a little of himself at that age.

Obviously, he had done a lot of work with kids over the years—from charity skates to visiting them in the wards at Mount Sinai to spending one-on-one time with a young fan who’d been with him since juniors—but with a few exceptions, this was the longest he’d talked to a kid this young that he could remember. He wasn’t sure if all of them had this much personality, or whether that was just Ellie. She asked focused questions,listened to his answers and seemed to process everything at a level far beyond her age.

When they finally said their goodbyes to Miles and his family, Ellie came up to Aiden and tugged at the hem of his shirt.

“Soup,” she said, having decided that because they were both goalies, that made them colleagues, and she could call him by his nickname, “if my mom lets me, can I send you some questions?”

“Of course.”

“Cool,” she said, beaming.

“Cool,” Aiden repeated, and ruffled her hair.

She punched him in the hand and ran back to her parents.

Aiden felt—something.Huh.

“Thanks,” Matt said, when they were finally alone, “it meant a lot to me to be able to see them today, even though I’m fucking exhausted.” He had his arms wrapped around Aiden’s waist, head resting right under Aiden’s chin. “And you wereamazing. I know it wasn’t ideal, but you were—Ellie loved you. She couldn’t stop talking about you.”

“Of course,” Aiden said. He was completely exhausted, a bit overwhelmed, and his brain wasn’t working properly. One of his hands traced the line of Matt’s shoulder blade. It was the kind of casual affection that he never would even have noticed doing ten years ago but felt significant now. It grounded him in a way that he had really fucking needed. “I enjoyed getting to know her. She’s a good kid. And—hey, you know, your birthday’s not over yet. I still owe you a homemade dinner.”

“Oh, we can just order something, it’s not a big deal.”

“No, I wasn’t really able to get you a present, so this is it, okay? If you want to take a nap or something while I work, that’s fine.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Matt said, stifling a yawn. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Go on.”

He watched Matt head into the bedroom, took a deep breath and went to the fridge. He had been slowly gathering ingredients over the last few days, preparing things that could be made ahead when Matt wasn’t home. He hid them in the back of the shelves and hoped Matt wouldn’t look too closely and figure out his plans.

He had learned years ago that Matt enjoyed meals with a lot of different options, so he planned something similar: chicken shawarma that could be eaten either as a sandwich or a salad plate. He had homemade pickles, homemade hummus and dough for pitas. It was more ambitious a meal than he usually attempted, but it wasn’t like any of it was that hard, especially considering Matt’s kitchen actually had things like grill pans now.

He spent a couple hours shaping the pita into balls and keeping a careful eye on it puffing up in the oven, making sure all of the extras were arranged in little bowls and throwing the marinated chicken on the stove.

Even though he didn’t do this often at home, it wasn’t because hecouldn’t, there was just no point in cooking like this when it was just him. When he was alone, food and eating was more about the efficiency of getting the appropriate nutrients into his body, as simply and healthily as possible. Food was part of the Routine, something else he could use to impose order on his day, and it was comforting to just eat the same thing, every day, to not have any worries or expectations or surprises.

When it was Matt...well, Aiden would do pretty much anything for him, and this was no exception. It wasn’t like it was a hardship, though. There was something calming about slicing tomatoes and onions and lettuce, something satisfying about seeing tangible results of his hard work.

The sun had gone down and Aiden was almost done carving the chicken by the time Matt slouched out of the bedroom. His hair was still messy from where it had been smashed into the pillow and he wore only a pair of threadbare sweatpants and his sleepy eyes snapped wide open when he saw the kitchen.

“Aiden—what is this?”

“Dinner,” Aiden said, a little smug. Itwasimpressive.

“What thefuck?” Matt had made his way over to the kitchen island to examine the spread. “You did all of this?”

“Yes.”

“You learnedhowmany recipes?”

“Come on, it’s been over a decade since I really cooked for you, I’ve learned a lot you didn’t get to try.”

“Aiden, this is amazing,” Matt said, pushing one of the fluffy pitas in with one finger. “I really can’t believe how much time you must have spent on this? Like fuck, man, at this rate, you should just open a restaurant.”

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