Chapter Text
Shane Hollander is sitting up in the stands, legs propped up on the back of the chair in front of him and hands stuffed into the pouch of his sweatshirt, face expressionless and body completely motionless except for the way his eyes dart around the ice, following the stop-start flow of the drills.
“Sort of feels like God’s watching me practice my puck handling,” Lachlan mutters to the guy next to him, who shoots him a weird look, mustache quivering as his mouth turns down. Lachlan bites at the inside of his cheek so he doesn’t make a face back at him. He’s nineteen years old now and on MLH ice. He probably shouldn’t be making faces at anyone anymore, not if he wants to prove that he’s a mature hockey player worthy of being added to Montreal’s roster, for real and for keeps this time.
But then someone snorts behind him, rough and genuine, the kind of laugh torn straight out of the chest, and Lachlan almost loses an edge on the ice trying to turn around and look.
He doesn’t recognize the guy, which is pretty par for the course when it comes to rookie camp. Everyone on the ice today is a nobody with the slimmest shot at being a somebody and a whole mountain of odds stacked against them. But at least Lachlan’s spent a year on the Magnitude with some of these guys and he recognizes a few of the other younger faces from watching this year’s draft—low picks, second and third rounders, boys destined to be sent to the AHL or the college circuit for further development. Everyone else is a stranger. This guy is a stranger, for all he looks the same age as Lachlan.
They must have just missed each other, growing up. It’s a small world, after all; hockey rinks are even smaller.
The guy blinks startlingly blue eyes at him, mouth curled up in a stubborn kind of grin, chin propped up on the blade of his stick as he looks back at Lachlan, like he’s taking his measure too.
Definitely not drafted this year; Lachlan would remember those eyes.
It’s a passing thought he ushers out of his mind before it can sink its claws in. Better to—better to not.
Just—better not.
Safer to look at the clump of angry red pimples on the guy’s chin. Smarter to notice the way his helmet’s too big for his head, sitting crooked over his hair and falling too far down into his face, covering up his thick eyebrows and the jut of his brow bone. Easier to focus on the long, proud line of his nose and the little mole just on the top of his cheekbone than to look too long at his eyes.
They’re just very blue, is all.
The guy gives him a smile, over quick, nothing more than a flash of his teeth and a quirk of his lips. Over and done in less than a second, and Lachlan doesn’t even know his name. Doesn’t know his position or where he came from or what his hair looks like underneath the shitty practice helmet.
Got a sense of humor though. Got real long legs. Got a pair of really, really blue—
“Pucey, Pelletier, you’re up!” one of the coaches calls, and Lachlan’s attention is pulled full-force and immediately back to the drill at hand. Pelletier is already snapping into motion, catching the puck Coach throws at him against his blade before skating from center ice out, eyes focused five spaces ahead of Lachlan and drawing his stick back to shoot.
So obviously, Lachlan jumps into motion too, pushing out and diagonally away from the line of forwards to where he knows Pelletier is going to put the puck.
He catches it on his stick, easy money, and takes it with him around one of the neon yellow cones laid out on the ice—then he takes it around the other one too, right in front of the net. He twists himself backward, cutting close to the edge of the second cone and switching the puck over to the other side of his stick, like he’s trying to keep it safe from some other team’s player.
It’s a little stupid, because no one’s there, right, not even another Montreal prospect in a different-colored penny. But it’s a drill, and Lachlan’s pretty sure that half the point of rookie camp is testing the players on how much they really, actually believe and commit to the shit the staff tell them to do.
Like, probably, the coaches aren’t hoping that they’ll find some overlooked generational talent on the ice today because they get paid the big bucks to find those guys young and then never let them out of their sights.
Mostly, they’re just trying to see who’s the best nobody here. And, maybe even more importantly, who’s the most coachable.
Lachlan’s so fucking coachable. Especially now that he’s here, on MLH ice—or, adjacent to MLH ice, because this isn’t the Bell Centre but the team's official practice rink, but, like, close enough when he’s skating his heart out in front of Hockey God Shane Hollander and a pack of clipboard-wielding coaches.
Lachlan’s so fucking coachable because he’s so fucking close and he wants this so fucking bad that he’d do anything to get it, to be put on the roster for more than a handful of playoff games. To be chosen, to be called up but like—for keeps. To be allowed to stay here until the ice is scored so deeply with the tracks of his skates that they’ll have to melt the whole thing down just to wash away all of his remains.
So he believes the shit out of keeping the puck safe from the opposing team’s ghost defensemen, tugging his stick in close to his body around the far end of the cone and then letting it slip out to the very tip of the blade as he gets closer to the net. He fakes out the imaginary goalie, fakes out himself, and fires it back to Pelletier, who takes it around the back of the net before sending it to him again so he can sink it in, pretty and perfect.
Feels good, because it always feels good when passes connect and pucks slide into goal. Lachlan wouldn’t have—like, if it didn’t feel good, even just a fake goal, even just pretend-points, then he’d probably, like. Be somewhere else by now. In a classroom. On summer break. At the beach with his family or shitting away his vacation in a friend’s basement playing Chel or CoD or Mario.
But he fucking loves the game and he loves the ice and the sound a puck makes when he sends it into the back of the net. He loves the way that when he reaches his glove out to Pelletier, the guy’s already ready to tap him in return, like a cleanly completed drill is worth celebrating.
It is, because it has to be. Because every guy on the ice with him right now believes just as much as he does.
So he bumps fists with the other winger and then skates to the back of the line to wait his turn to run the drill again.
He glances up at the stands where Hollander’s still sitting, watching the ice like they’re all just little bugs to him. Then he glances towards the coaches, who have their clipboards out and heads tilted together as they study the next two guys running the same drill.
Then he looks down the line, twisting his head back until he can find the guy from before, the grinner. He’s standing in a loose clump of guys a little separate from the forwards, leaning up on his stick and chatting with a brick wall of a man. It makes him look smaller than Lachlan thinks he probably is, but Lachlan’s shit at pinpointing other people’s heights and weights. Doesn’t have the eye for it outside of recognizing what’s objectively big and therefore to be avoided and what’s something more like—
The grinner is looking at him again. He’s not smiling anymore, obviously, or at least he’s not smiling like he was before, but his eyes are just as, like. Blue.
Which is—
Better to not.
Lachlan forces his attention away, back to where it should be. He knows the guy up in front of the net right now, a right wing from the Magnitude that sat out the last half of the season with a shit shoulder. Owen Kitchen. He’s a fucking fridge, which gives him an edge in his defensive play, but it slows him down where it counts.
That’s something Lachlan’s got going for him at least. He’s always been one of the fastest skaters on the ice. Light and reactive, all narrow shoulders and a trim build that’s just scraping six feet—or, alright, an inch or two away from six feet depending on who’s doing the measuring.
Problem is, though, the Metros already have speed. Hollander’s the fastest player in the fucking league, and Pike and Boiderau’s stats are fucking baller too. So maybe the Metros don’t need a player like Lachlan. Maybe they need someone more like Kitchen, who’s not just huge but also fucking good, power behind every move he makes on the ice.
Kitchy’s goal could probably slam another hole into the weave of the net if he put all his strength behind it. Is that what the Metros are after? Can’t be a fucking drawback, at least. Can’t be—
“Look, man,” someone mutters into his ear, sharp elbow jabbing into his shoulder just at the edge of his pads and startling Lachlan out of his thoughts. He blinks sideways and then blinks again when he sees the grinner there beside him now, hovering just to his right. The guy nudges him again, tilts his chin up, and Lachlan follows his eyes to the stands.
Hayden Pike has joined Hollander, crammed into the small seat beside him, feet up on the chair in front of him and arms stretched out behind. Lachlan blinks and then squints harder at the pair of them. Hollander’s got something in his hands now.
It’s a fucking sandwich, he realizes a second later when Hollander takes a bite. Pike’s brought him a fucking sandwich to nibble on while Lachlan and company’s out here sweating and dying and leaping through hoops on the ice below them.
“Saint Peter,” the grinner says, bumping their shoulders together, grinning. He has a gap in between his two front teeth, and when he smiles, Lachlan can just see the flash of his tongue.
Not that he’s looking or anything. It’s just noticeable. So noticeable that Lachlan has to take a second for the words to sink into his mind and then another second for them to make sense. He looks back up into the stands, at Hollander and Pike, Hockey Jesus and, apparently, Hockey Saint Peter.
It’s so ridiculous and so unexpected and so fucking funny even if it’s not really, probably, not really actually that funny at all, but it makes Lachlan let out his really awful laugh, the one everyone always makes fun of him for because it sounds like a wheeze, like someone’s punching him repeatedly in the fucking chest or something.
The grinner just grins though, maybe a little proud, and Lachlan definitely needs to figure out his name.
And then, like God Himself has reached down and decided to do him a solid, a whistle blows from the center line and the one of the AHL coaches calls for the forwards to fall back to give the d-men rookies room to skate.
“Calhoun, Crawford, get in here,” the coach shouts, and the grinner jerks forward, called to attention. Like some sort of spell’s been broken or bubble’s been popped, he’s skating back towards the defense cohort as the assistant starts explaining the mechanics of whatever the drill’s supposed to be, not even looking back over his shoulder at him once.
Calhoun, huh.
Or Crawford, maybe, but Lachlan thinks Calhoun fits him better. Sounds right. Matches something in those blue eyes and that gap-toothed grin.
But what does Lachlan know?
Not much, apparently.
“Hey, y’all got spare napkins down there?” Hank Crawford leans around the bulk of Mikhail Savchuk’s shoulders to ask, and Lachlan’s digging into the bottom of his Chipotle bag and forking over the two thin weak-ass napkins he was given without a second’s hesitation. “Thanks, bud,” Crawford says, grinning at him.
It’s a different smile, off the ice, but it’s the same gap in his teeth. Same blue eyes. He’s got a red line arching over his forehead, an indent from the helmet, and even though it’s mostly hidden by the fall of his curling hair, Lachlan can see it because Lachlan’s looking.
Lachlan’s not supposed to be looking, because the smart thing to do is to not look, but Lachlan’s pretty much a fucking idiot most of the time, ask anyone.
Anyway, there’s nothing bad about noticing things about his prospective future teammates. That’s good form, actually. That could be, like, the thing that sets him apart from everyone else if he can find a way to let the coaches know how much he cares about, like, locker room dynamics and being a team player and stuff.
He’s even got a little bit of a list going, sitting crowded around a table at Chipotle with a handful of the guys after camp’s done for the day:
Kitchy runs an instagram account dedicated to reviewing bad action movies; Savchuk’s favorite genre of music is country; Hank usually goes by Crawford, even though his first name is actually just Hank and not Henry, which is apparently what Hank is usually short for, and his middle name is Colton, which Lachlan thinks sounds pretty cool. Hank also has a younger sister named Merritt, who’s about to start her last year of high school back in Georgia, which is where Hank—Crawford—is from.
Pelletier is married. Calhoun is allergic to peanuts; Hank—Crawford—doesn’t actually have any allergies, really, but he doesn’t like dogs or blue cheese, so he tells people he’s allergic to both and most of the time people just sorta believe him, no questions asked, because he has the kind of face that makes you want to believe him, which isn’t something Hank—Crawford—says, but something Lachlan is picking up on from talking to the guy, even if Savchuk’s sitting in between them the whole time.
Hank—Crawford, Crawford—’s number is 8 but it used to be 48. He wanted to join a fraternity when he started college in Denver two years ago, because his brother, Campbell, had been a Sigma Chi, but he was worried about not having enough time for hockey, so in the end, he didn’t, but he made a bunch of friends with the frat bros anyway so he could get into the parties without having to fork over a bunch of cash or spend time he could be on the ice helping with the clean up. Pelletier’s girl is a paramedic. Savchuk owns a cat he domesticated from an alleyway or something. The most important thing in Crawford’s life is probably, like, hockey. Which—respect. Lachlan knows how that goes, man.
Savchuk started learning English by watching really old cartoons of Batman and Robin. Crawford’s more of a Marvel guy, but he fucks with Batman because who the fuck doesn’t like Batman?
Crawford runs his hands through his hair four times when they’re just sitting there, shooting the shit after they’ve all finished eating. When he raises his arm up and then down, the collar of his shirt shifts and Lachlan can just see the glint of the gold chain around his neck. Cool. Crawford wears gold jewelry. It works with his skin tone, Lachlan thinks. That’s something his mom’s always saying that Lachlan just doesn’t fucking understand, all that shit about skin and undertones and metals. Girl shit like that, he just doesn’t care about. The cross he has around his neck is silver, that’s all he knows.
He wonders if Crawford’s got a cross too, or if it’s just a chain. He hadn’t looked in the locker room after they got off the ice, because of fucking course he hadn’t. He knows better than that, he’s not a—
“Oh, man, I dunno, don’t ask me that,” Crawford groans in response to something Calhoun says, carding his hand through his hair. “You think I was, like—going to class? Fuck that, man. All I know is they gave me the two-year degree; fuck if I know what it says I studied.”
Kitchy guffaws and bumps his shoulder up against Crawford’s. “Should have just gone straight into the league, man,” he says, and Crawford shrugs, one shoulder, a quick up and down. He’s smiling, but it’s small and sly and not at all like the grin from before, when they were both on the ice.
“What, like you did?” he asks, one thick eyebrow quirked up and the guys go ooh and Calhoun snorts out a laugh that only sounds a little too small and awkward to fill up the sudden silence around the table.
It feels like the pressure in the room changes just slightly. Just a little bit.
The truth is, of course, that all of them have dedicated their lives so far to hockey, which really means dedicating their lives to the MLH, the league that controls the sport they’ve loved since they were kids. And none of them are in it yet. Not actually. Not really. Close enough to fucking taste it. Closer than spitting distance. But not there yet.
Lachlan and Kitchy and Savchuk and Pelletier have been on Montreal’s AHL team since they were drafted; Calhoun’s baby-blue new to the whole show, drafted 47th overall in June and with shit odds of going anywhere but sideways to the Magnitude where Lachlan’s been keeping the seat warm for him. Crawford’s been playing the NCAA circuit the past few years, studying who the fuck knows what apparently.
None of them have technically made the MLH yet.
Not all of them will, either.
“More pussy in the A,” Kitchy says, and Crawford’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. Lachlan sort of wants to blink or look away, strike up another conversation with Savchuk or something but he can’t.
“Less ice time,” is all Crawford says, and that’s not even, like, true, probably. Like objectively, Lachlan isn’t sure that’s true, but he’s not a stats guy. He just knows how exhausted his body feels at the end of every game, how it feels like he’s being choked to fucking death beneath the weight of all of his fucking ice time. He can’t imagine more of it.
But it’s worth it, always has been. Because ice time with the Magnitude means the coaches are interested in you, and the AHL coaches being interested means the MLH coaches are going to be interested too, because, as far as Lachlan can figure, MLH coaches are a lot like younger siblings in that they want exactly what they see the AHL coaches have, if it looks shiny and fun enough to be worth playing with.
But maybe Crawford’s been, like, drowning in ice time out in Denver. Maybe he’s living the dream out there, pussy and ice time and frat parties and stupid liberal arts classes he doesn’t attend.
It sounds sort of nice, but hey, like. Lachlan can’t pretend he wishes he’d gone the NCAA route. Not when last season ended the way last season did.
Maybe Crawford’s got his name on a fancy diploma, but Lachlan’s name is on the Stanley fucking Cup.
Like—yeah, on a technicality, because he’d played three games in the second series against the Carolina Canines and then one game against the Admirals in the Conference Final before playing a show-stopping, groundbreaking three whole minutes in the Stanley Cup Finals’ fifth game against Seattle.
All you gotta do to get your name on the Cup is just play half the regular season on the winning team or play at least one shift in at least one of the games in the Stanley Cup Final series.
Easy as pie, when you put it like that. You don’t even have to score.
Lachlan fucking didn’t, that’s for sure.
Would have been a weight off his fucking back if he had, he thinks. Like—maybe then he’d know, for sure, that they’d want him back. Like—people keep count of goals and stuff. Assists. That’s the whole basis of a hockey game, counting the points. They’re fucking visible and every one matters. But who the fuck is keeping track of, like, creation of opportunities or some shit?
And obviously—some people are. The crazy stats nerds and the guys in the suits who get paid to read off the nitty-gritty details post-game. And the podcasters, and, like, maybe the average Montreal fan, too, because the average Montreal fan is fucking feral about the Metros.
But are the coaches? Do the coaches know about all the fucking opportunities Lachlan created during his ice time, or was that just something Hayden fucking Pike had told him while ruffling his hair in the locker room post-game five against New York?
Lachlan doesn’t fucking know.
“Yo, dude, c’mon, man,” Kitchy shoves at his shoulder, and Lachlan blinks back into the present. The guys are moving, shifting, standing and slinging on their jackets, trash piled up in the center of the table. Kitchy’s behind him now, arms crossed like he has places to be even though their schedules are clear for the rest of day.
Crawford’s already up near the glass doors of the store, tossing away the remnants of his burrito bowl and talking about something that’s got him smiling down at Pelletier, hand rubbing along the back of his neck.
Lachlan’s on his feet in a heartbeat, shoving his trash up against the base of their little trash mountain. It wobbles sort of ominously, but he’s already turning away and clapping Kitchy on the shoulder. “I’m beat, dude, must've spaced,” he says by way of apology, even though he feels wired in a way he’s never really felt before outside of a hockey rink. “My b, what’s the plan?”
The plan is, apparently, that Pelleteir is from Montreal, so he knows a couple of good places nearby for a drink, and Kitchy and Savchuk and Calhoun are happy to go along. They’ve got an early morning tomorrow, filming material for the Metros’ social media team and then a mid-afternoon scrimmage, but the good thing about drinking at three in the afternoon is that you’re most likely going to be passed out and under the covers way before curfew.
“This guy’s going back to the hotel though,” Kitchen complains, clapping his hand around the ball of Crawford’s shoulder and then just leaving his arm there, stretched out across his back. He shakes him slightly and Crawford is rolling his eyes and smiling again. The indent on his forehead is mostly all gone now. “Some of us need more beauty rest than others, eh?”
Crawford’s all relaxed beneath Kitchen’s hands, elbowing him back and laughing that actually, some of them must have skated harder than others at camp, which makes Savchuk say something rude about Crawford’s stamina, which sets all the guys off in peels of laughter so loud that a woman just outside the shop hesitates with her hand on the door.
“Pardon us, miss,” Crawford says the moment he notices her too, freeing himself from Kitchen’s hold and opening the door for her. And, like, anyone else and Lachlan’d call bullshit, right, because who the fuck says pardon and miss anymore?
But it sounds genuine as fuck in Crawford’s low and slow Deep South accent. Real fucking gentlemanly. Lachlan wonders if he’d consider giving out lessons. He’s still got enough Texas in his voice that sometimes he feels like a sleazy cowboy on ice skates out in Laval when he says ma’am, which sucks because his mom would book an international flight in a heartbeat just to tear him a new one if she caught wind that he wasn’t using his ma’am’s and sir’s.
The sun’s so bright when they get out onto the sidewalk that Crawford’s pulling out a pair of sunglasses from his joggers. Kitchy and Calhoun do the same thing as Pelletier starts making serious noises about this one place a ten minute drive away that apparently only serves beer in Metros colors.
Drinking blue beer sounds sort of gross, if Lachlan’s being honest. And Crawford’s got his arms stretched out over his head in an exaggerated yawn, already saying something about how he’ll see them all bright and early tomorrow morning, and like.
The thing is, Lachlan already knows these guys. At least a few of them. The ones from the Mag. He’s played with them and drank with them and picked up with them back in Laval and on the road. He doesn’t need to go out with them and whatever other rookie can be coaxed into linking up to know how the night will end: he could probably write the script and get the timing of everything, down to the jokes and the laughs that will follow them, just exactly right.
And it’s always fun, don’t get him wrong. Going out with the boys, getting wasted and over-served by indulgent bartenders, shooting the shit about girls and goals and the league and their chances. It’s always fun because the boys are team, and team is always fun. Team is well-trodden ground. Full of jokes and beats and bits that Lachlan knows like the back of his hand.
Thing is though, he doesn’t know a single thing about Crawford.
And, like. Blue beer sounds fucking disgusting.
So the decision’s easy to make in the end.
“Gonna head back too, actually,” he says, and Kitchy puts his hand up to his chest like he’s just been shot. But it doesn’t matter, cause Crawford’s smiling at him from across the little circle they make, and that’s—that’s cool. New and cool and unknown, and Lachlan’s body feels electric with it.
Exhaustion has never been more difficult to fake, but at least no one’s looking too closely. Why the fuck would they?
Still, Lachlan waits until the guys have crossed the street to wait for their Uber and he and Crawford have started in the other direction before he even looks sideways at the other boy.
“You really tired?” Lachlan asks, because maybe the guys don’t have a reason to look too closely, but he’s always been a bit nosey. Ask anyone.
“Eh,” Crawford says, glancing at Lachlan and then away. He raises his hand and tilts it back and forth like so-so.
He’s still wearing the sunglasses, so Lachlan can’t see his eyes. That’s probably for the best, all things considered. Lachlan tugs at his chain, thumbs over the cross pendant and makes sure it’s centered against his chest.
Probably for the best.
“I mean, honestly?” Crawford asks, and it takes a second for Lachlan to remember his own question. They stop at a crosswalk, wait for the light. There’s a group of schoolgirls next to them, all of them wearing different versions of the same private school uniform. It’s a nice area, the neighborhood where the team’s put them up. Lachlan can tell by the blazers of the uniforms but also by the way the rowhouses look almost too perfect to be real, like they’ve accidentally stumbled onto a movie set instead of an actual street.
It’s the sort of place that makes Lachlan feel like he needs to walk on his tiptoes. Not leave any fingerprints. It’s the sort of place that makes him feel like he’s going to break out into hives, which is a mind-fuck considering he grew up wearing a uniform pretty much exactly like those girls’.
Minus the skirt though. Obviously.
“I mean,” Lachlan says slowly, “Like. Preferably, I guess. Yeah?”
Crawford rubs at the back of his neck and grins, sheepish maybe. “Gotta call my little sister,” he confesses, lingering on the corner for a second so some guy in a suit with a phone pressed to his ear can power-walk past them the second the crosswalk sign flickers green. “She’s been begging for an update and I promised I’d talk to her tonight.”
“That’s cool, man,” Lachlan says automatically. Crawford’s sister is named Merritt and she’s about to be a senior back in Georgia, which he knows because Crawford said as much earlier. But now he’s not sure if that’s something he’s supposed to have remembered or not.
Does he look like a douche if he pretends not to remember? Does he look like a creepy would-be sister fucker if he mentions that he remembers?
And more importantly, why the fuck does he even care?
“Fuck off, it’s not,” Crawford laughs, raising his eyebrows over the edge of the sunglasses, like, you really trying to say that?
Which—sort of fair, because if any of the other guys told him they were bowing out of a night on the town with the boys in favor of calling their little sister to gossip, Lachlan would be first in line to make fun of their ass til the cows came home, but, like—
Lachlan’s ducked out of a night with the guys just to walk in the same direction as Hank Crawford for seven minutes, so.
He’s not being particularly cool right now either, big picture wise.
But he’s nothing if not a guy who commits everything he is to everything he does, so it’s a no-brainer to double down and argue back, “Nah, man, family’s fucking important, right, I get it. It’s cool you’re, like…” he shrugs, trails off and tangles his fingers along the line of his chain again, gives it another gentle tug.
Actually, like—really, honestly, it is pretty cool. That Crawford’s a good big brother like that. That he’s the kind of man that puts family stuff ahead of team stuff, hockey stuff. The kind of brother that, like, remembers he has a little sister even if he’s in Canada and she’s in Georgia. Pretty cool of Crawford, to prioritize his family like that.
Most of the guys in the league will say shit about how important that stuff is to them, but they’re all talk with no follow-through. Quick to thank their wives in their speeches, quicker to forget about them on the road. That kind of thing.
But that’s like—so fucking transparent, Lachlan thinks. You only ever really notice if someone’s a good brother if you have a shitty one. Same goes for family, for the most part, and that’s not—that’s all a little too much, for this early in the day, for being this sober, for standing on some random street corner in Montreal.
So he trails off, waves his hand and says, sort of like a non sequitur, or at least a misdirect, “They all in Georgia for you, yeah? Your family?”
Crawford hesitates for a beat, and then he says with a tiny shrug, tiny smile, “Most. Got an older brother deployed out in Germany with the service. Can’t call him though, time zones are fucked.”
Lachlan whistles out through his teeth. Germany’s far, for sure. He doesn’t know shit about time zones in Europe, but he knows Germany's pretty fucking far away. You could tell him that it’s already middle of the night over there and he’d believe it.
“What about you?” Crawford asks him suddenly. Hotel’s in sight. Lachlan can’t remember where he put his keycard. It’s definitely in one of his pockets but he’s got like twelve pockets on these cargo pants and he’s going to look like a fucking idiot pawing all over his legs trying to find it.
Wait, maybe he doesn’t have it at all. He’s rooming with Savchuk, maybe he just assumed they’d go back to the room together because why the fuck would Lachlan come back earlier? Obviously he didn’t see Hank fucking Crawford coming.
“Huh?” he startles when Crawford nudges at him, insistent. They’re shoulder to shoulder now, entering the hotel lobby, and Crawford’s got a few inches on him but not as many as Lachlan had thought, back on the ice. Guy’s probably never had to lie about his measurements on a medical form, but he’s not nearly as broad and imposing as Kitchy. Outside of his gear, he’s more spindly than he’d looked. Lachlan could probably take him in a fight now that he’s thinking about it. Lachlan’s shoulders are definitely broader, like. Proportionally.
“You coming back to the room cause you need to call your brother?” Crawford asks, slipping his sunglasses up into his hair now that they’re indoors. They pause in the lobby, linger next to the configuration of fancy, comfortable looking furniture that no one’s probably ever actually sat in.
“Oh, uh,” Lachlan says. The question’s sort of fucking ridiculous.
But Crawford sounds earnest about it, like he doesn’t know all the ways that it’s a stupid fucking question, an imaginary scenario with absolutely no basis in reality.
Truth is, Lachlan can’t remember the last time he called Rowan on the phone. Must have been years ago, if it ever happened at all.
Crawford’s face is open though, and curious, and his eyes are just as blue as the last time Lachlan checked, and it’s weird and uncomfortable, the way that Lachlan sort of wants to meet that openness with honesty in return.
Like, maybe he could laugh and make a joke about it if Crawford was already smirking, or maybe it’d be a different conversation altogether if Crawford mentioned his brother the way most people mention Rowan to him, always framed in the context of the league. Always Rowan and then his team, or his stats, or his jersey number. Always Rowan Pucey, star center for the Florida Pantheon, entwined so completely with the league that there’s nothing left of him just for Lachlan.
But Crawford’s said it all simple, all open-ended, like he knows and he doesn’t really care. Your brother, that’s the kind of shit only Lachlan’s mom says.
And it throws him off a little bit, the way everything about Crawford so far has thrown him off. So he laughs, too honest and too transparent, and he says, “Yeah, uh, no. We don’t really do that shit.”
Crawford nods slowly, like he’s considering the words or his next words or something in between.
“I think he’s in the Bahamas anyway,” Lachlan adds for no good reason. “He’s been—like, all over since the Pantheon got swept by the Blazers.”
Crawford nods again, all heavy eyebrows and relaxed shoulders. Looking at him straight on like this, the gold chain’s easier to see, peeking just out of the loose line of Crawford’s collar.
“And it’s just rookie camp, you know,” Lachlan says, too casual, like it’s no big deal. Like rookie camp’s something that happens every day, just another event to get through, an obligation on the calendar that can only be put off for so long, like a dentist appointment or a visit to the hairdresser. Like rookie camp is really, actually just anything, just something he can take for granted.
Crawford blinks and frowns, and Lachlan’s tongue is suddenly tripping over itself trying to course correct because—yeah, that’s an asshole thing to say, isn’t it? Especially when he doesn’t even fucking believe it.
“I mean,” he goes to say, to explain, but he runs into a brick wall pretty soon. There’s not a good way to say what he means. What he means is too complicated, he thinks. Too—rotten and twisted and white-hot to be explained in a hotel lobby at three in the afternoon on a Thursday.
It’s just—
It’s like.
Alright, so it’s like.
The problem with being the youngest in a hockey family is that every achievement you’ve ever gotten close to, someone else has already won. His dad’s got three Stanley Cup rings and his brother’s got a name no hockey pundit can keep out of their mouth, and they’ve got a whole house of trophies between them already.
And somewhere in that mess, Lachlan’s supposed to think rookie camp’s a big deal? It’s just what’s expected of him. It’s been on the agenda since he put on a pair of skates at three years old. It’s the least he can fucking do, getting the invitation to rookie camp after going so late in the draft, after dicking around with the Magnitude for a year when Rowan went straight to the big leagues when he was Lachlan's age.
And sure, it’s not like there’d be actual hell to pay or anything, if Lachlan wasn’t selected for training camp and then the Metros’ roster.
But there’d be a price.
So it’s just rookie camp, because rookie camp’s expected from a Pucey. Sure, it’s some of the most important hockey Lachlan’s ever fucking played in his life, participating in these imaginary drills against ghost-opponents and sweating his heart out on the ice trying to get Shane Hollander to keep looking at him, all the while wondering if either him or Pike even fucking—remembers Lachlan from the Cup run and wondering if it means anything that he can’t tell if they do or not.
But it’s just rookie camp.
Call his brother? Because of rookie camp? Fuck, like. Rowan hadn’t even called after Lachlan lifted the Cup.
“Sure, I guess so,” Crawford finally says, and now his smile is a little rueful, a little self-deprecating, which is a terrible thing to witness and even worse to be the reason for. “Rookie camp must be small potatoes when you’ve touched the Cup, huh?”
Lachlan winces, because damn. Crawford definitely thinks he’s an asshole.
Suddenly that’s the last thing Lachlan wants in the entire world, for this guy who holds doors open for strangers and throws away his trash and makes plans to call his sister and laughs at terrible jokes on the ice and makes worse jokes in return to think Lachlan’s a douchebag.
“No way, no,” Lachlan’s blurting out even though he doesn’t know where to go from here. What comes next. He’s flying blind. “It’s, uh. I mean—it’s more like, you know…” he tugs at his necklace again, wrapping his fingers along the edges of the small cross. “When your dad’s touched the Cup, it’s…small potatoes. Or whatever.”
He trails off, disjointed, discombobulated. Too much, too honest, too early, too transparent. It’s three in the afternoon and they’re standing in the hotel lobby, and Lachlan’s never said that shit to anyone.
Except now he has.
Crawford blinks down at him and then he turns his head away, lips pursing out in consideration. Lachlan doesn’t even want to know what he’s thinking, except he really fucking does at the same time. How the fuck is that fair?
“You want to grab a drink?” Crawford asks, and the question startles Lachlan so bad his mouth actually drops open.
“Uh,” he says. “What?”
“I mean, if you’re not doing anything,” Crawford adds quickly, eyes cutting back to him and then down to his torn-up shoes. “Or if you’re not too tired, I don’t know—like your plans for the—evenin’ or nothing, but Mare can wait a bit, it’s early there too. If you're free. For a drink.”
Right, because Crawford thinks Lachlan came back to the hotel for a reason. A good reason. Like because he’s tired from camp or because he has some obligation or another. And sure, Lachlan could confess that he’d just made a spur of the moment decision to follow Crawford back instead of hanging with the boys, but like—no thanks.
Like—really. No thanks.
“Just a catch-up dinner with Hollander and Pike later,” Lachlan jokes, and Crawford’s eyes bug out for a second, like he really actually believes him. “I’m kidding,” he’s quick to clarify. “Pretty sure they don’t know me from Adam.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Crawford says, and he’s smiling again. Lachlan doesn’t know what to do with it, with his smile. “You don’t strike me as someone people just forget.”
“Oh,” Lachlan says. It’s—like, embarrassing, the way the words hit him. Right in the guts, a dirty one-two punch, like maybe Crawford majored in boxing back in Denver. “Well,” he says, toying with the smooth edge of the cross around his neck again. “I mean, I guess I did win them a Cup,” he jokes, and it’s a joke because he didn’t even net them a fucking secondary assist.
Crawford laughs, this big, happy sound that makes his shoulders concave forward with the force of it. He grins back at Lachlan, eyes crinkling at the corners, and it’s the same smile from back on the ice. Like Lachlan’s taken him by surprise too; like he didn’t see him coming either. “I mean, I know you’re joking,” he says, all slow and Southern and genuine. “But I watched the whole final series obviously, and you created a shit ton of opportunities for the team, dude. Pike’s goal in the third period of Game Five? Wouldn’t have had the puck if you hadn’t gotten it from Seattle against the boards the minute just before.”
“Oh,” Lachlan says, and it’s not what he wants to say because it’s not much of anything conversationally-wise. He should probably say something more, something like thank you. He should probably make a joke, tell Crawford no one’s keeping track of opportunity creation, they’re tracking goals and assists. He should probably shrug off the compliment, duck out of the sudden intensity of the moment.
For fuck’s sake, it’s three in the afternoon and Lachlan doesn’t know how to breathe normally around the tightness that’s spreading through his chest. Maybe—maybe if someone else had told him that before, he’d know what to do with it.
But Rowan hadn’t even called him when he lifted the Cup, and his father had—well. Hadn’t said that, about opportunities. About Pike’s goal.
Crawford jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Hotel bar’s open,” he says. “If you wanna.”
And that’s—like. It’s simple, when it’s put like that. When it’s just if you wanna.
Because, yeah. Lachlan wants to.
“After you,” he says, and Crawford grins back and starts heading towards the other side of the lobby, where a hotel employee in a silk vest is setting up the bar. It’s simple to follow in Crawford’s wake. It’s easy, too. Like Crawford’s just created an opportunity and Lachlan’s jumping on the puck before someone can come out of nowhere and steal it away.
That’s how it feels, taking the seat next to Crawford and looking at the drink menu the bartender puts in front of him as if he’s going to order anything but the cheapest beer. It feels like he’s just caught a no-look pass, like he’s hurtling towards an empty net. Like he’s already scored, like the crowd’s already cheering his name.
Not to get ahead of himself or anything, of course. But he sort of feels like he’s already won. And he’s a hockey player, a professional athlete with his name on the fucking Stanley Cup. He already knows that there’s no better feeling in the entire world than winning.