Page 86 of Goaltender Interference

?Gabe asked, later that day.

Everything’s fine.

OK, buddy.

Matt left for roadies.

Aiden kept himself busy.

Matt returned from roadies and played home games.

Aiden went to most of them, sat in the stands alone, or sometimes with Aino and the rest of the WAGs, and watched. Now that he had ripped the bandage off, it wasn’t as hard as he thought to watch them. Sometimes he could get into the game, sometimes he just let his mind drift. Pears sent him a meme someone made on r/NewYorkLiberty, a picture of Aiden sittingin the stands during a game the Royal had lost badly, with white impact font across his chest that said,when the royal are so bad u dissociate in self-defense.

Matt left for roadies.

Aiden kept himself busy.

Matt came home.

He did this for a few weeks.

III. WINTER

Chapter Nine

December

By this point in his career, Matt could pack for a road trip with his eyes shut. The trick was bringing more than one suit jacket, but a shirt and pants that you could reuse in order to maximize suitcase space. The other trick was folding everything up into those little zipper cases so you could stack them like Tetris blocks. These days he’d rather travel light than anything else, give himself less work and dry cleaning to do when he got home. As he was packing, Aiden lurked in the doorway of their bedroom, arms crossed over his chest, watching Matt folding.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Matt asked.

“Just thinking,” Aiden said, light brown eyes distant, like he didn’t want to, or couldn’t bring himself to, look directly at Matt.

“About what?”

“I went on the road so many times as a kid and I just... I never even thought about how much time we actually end up spending away from home.”

Matt looked up again, frowning. “It is a little crazy when you think about it. How many days we’ve both probably spent in hotels over the last three decades.”

“I didn’t mind it so much when I was playing. It was part of the Routine, even the stuff that I had to adjust.”

“You did have a really intense routine. I noticed you haven’t been doing most of that stuff anymore.”

“A lot of it was tied to the games,” Aiden said slowly, “like, they were things I’d started doing when I was young, and then it made sense to keep doing them, because I’d played a good game after doing it. And having that many steps to go through made iteasier to prepare for the mindset. And it helped me a lot after I lost you the first time, to focus on the steps even more. But now that I’m not playing...it just feels kind of hollow, and it doesn’t bring me the sense of peace it used to. So I had to dial back. And then just stop it, at least the way it used to be. I don’t evenhavethe Routine anymore. And even that’s hard. I’ve tried to find a new one, but it’s not the same.”

Matt thought about the times he and Aiden had been able to meet up before games, in New York or in Montreal, how tightly wound he had been. It was like if he adhered strictly to that routine, everything would be fine. If he couldn’t, it would take him a while to settle into playing, flailing around, even letting in bad goals, until his brain focused in on what he needed to do. “Is that part of why you’ve been so unhappy? The lack of a routine?”

Aiden didn’t answer, just came into the room and sat down on the bed next to Matt’s open suitcase. He reached out with his thumb, ran his finger along the teeth of the zipper and shuddered like someone had slipped a cold hand down the back of his shirt. “It’s hard when you’re gone,” he admitted. “I don’t want it to be, but it is. When you’re here, I can just think about you, but when you’re gone...”

“I’ll be home soon, though. And it’s not healthy for you to rely so much on me, anyway, right?”

“I know it’s not,” Aiden said, and he did the thing where his entire face shut down, all expression wiped away.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Matt said hastily. “I was just thinking, you know, wherever I end up playing next year—what are you going to do for a whole season?”

“That’s what I’ve been having a hard time thinking about.” Aiden looked down. “I don’t... I don’t know. I’ve tried to think about it, and I just don’t know.”

“Would you consider coming around more often with me? When I’m home? Maybe being around the guys would help.”

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