@NevadaDragons: Next stop: Playoffs! #LetsGoDragons #StanleyCupPlayoffs2023
—Instagram, March 19th, 2023
Whatever frustration Nick feels at being kept apart from Matt, he pours it into his hockey, and it pays off. A win in Colorado nets them the last two points they need to secure a spot in the playoffs. Tears stream from Nick’s eyes as his teammates slam into him in celebration, and he’s not sure if they’re tears of joy or just pure relief.
He wants to see Matt so badly it hurts. But his boyfriend—he’s pretty sure he can use that word now—won’t make it back to Vegas until hours after the team do. Matt texts him after the game, a message full of exclamation points and celebratory emojis, a half-dozen hearts in various colors tacked onto the end. Nick spends half the flight home looking at it with a dazed, lovestruck expression on his face for which Marco chirps him relentlessly.
Tony and Jazz boot them all off the plane with the instruction to get some rest, and Nick wishes such a thing were possible—he feels like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin.
He bids goodbye to Howie, who’s already planning the party they’re going to have tomorrow, and is just about to turn towards his car when someone calls his name.
“Hey, can I, uh, get a ride?” It’s Sunny, who looks uncharacteristically nervous, his hand white-knuckle tight around the handle of his suitcase.
Nick’s captain-sense starts tingling in the back of his mind. “Sure, man. C’mon.” They fall into step together across the parking lot. “You hungry?”
“Nah, I ate on the plane.” Sunny’s usual bounce is out of his step, and sure that could just be tiredness, but Nick doubts it. Something is up with his rookie.
Nick doesn’t push. He keeps the music turned down low on the drive in case Sunny wants to talk. Sure enough, after a few minutes of fidgeting, he clears his throat. “So, uh… You and Matt.”
Oh, it’s that conversation.
So much has happened since that night at the bar, Nick has forgotten they never really talked about it.
“Does he ever put pressure on you to, y’know, come out?”
Okay, that’s not what Nick was expecting. “Never,” he says honestly. “He’s, like, disgustingly respectful and shit about it. Even when it causes problems.” He catches Sunny’s frown out of the corner of his eye. “Wait, are you asking because you’re gonna, like, shovel-talk him or something?”
“What? No!” Sunny snorts incredulously, then sobers. “I… so, it’s like—” He lets out a big sigh, taking off his sunglasses. “Mars is non-binary,” he blurts out, and…oh.
“And how do you feel about that?” Nick says, trying to keep his face neutral and his eyes on the road.
“I’m happy for her—Them,” he corrects. “Mars says they don’t really give a shit about pronouns but, like, I want to try.” Sunny runs a hand through his hair. “I love them, no matter what. Mars… they’re my person, y’know?”
Yeah, Nick is pretty sure he does, actually.
“But,” Sunny continues, stress bleeding into his voice as it cracks, “they’re getting more comfortable in their identity and, like, what that means for them, and that’s so fucking great. I’ve never seen Mars happier. I want to be supportive. Except I’m a fucking pro hockey player, so somehow my relationship is everybody else’s business, and they can’t—Everything Mars does somehow reflects on me.” Sunny looks up with a hollow smile. “It’s bullshit, y’know? Like, they are their own person. If they were datingliterallyanybody else, they’d be able to explore their identity however the hell they want and it wouldn’t be a big deal. But because they’re datingme, I’m getting thirty comments a day on Instagram saying my girlfriend looks like a dyke ever since she cut her hair.”
“What the fuck!” Nick spits out, but Sunny just shakes his head.
“I told Kat, I blocked them, it’s whatever,” he says with a sigh. “It’s just, like… I’m scared, right? Because Iwantto be supportive, I really do, but… Mars digging into their identity has made me do a little digging too, and, uh, there’s a lot I’ve been ignoring for… kind of my whole life.”
Does that mean what Nick thinks it means? He opens his mouth to ask—something, he’s not exactly sure yet—but Sunny’s already talking.
“So, yeah, there’s that. And that’sfine. But… it would be shitty of me to just tell Mars to keeppretendingfor as long as I’m playing. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that. They say they don’t mind, but…”
“It’s still not fair on them to have to hide themselves for your sake,” Nick finishes knowingly. Sunny gives a frantic nod.
“Exactly! I can’t put that on them. I love them too much for that. But I love hockey.” When he meets Nick’s gaze this time, it’s with tears welling in his eyes. “I don’t want to have to give up hockey for Mars. But Ican’tgive up Mars for hockey. At the end of the day, it’s just a fucking game.”
God, isn’t that the truth?
Nick takes a moment to think before he speaks, aware of just how much weight his next words will have. So, he chooses to use someone else’s.
“Matt always tells me that even when you care about someone, you don’t get to dictate their coming-out journey. It’s personal, and everyone goes at their own pace, and it’s not, like, just one moment. Although going public for me and you would probably cover most of the bases, huh?” he jokes, feeling a spark of victory when Sunny snickers. “So yeah, it’s a little more complicated when one person’s progress on that journey kinda speeds it up for somebody else, but you don’t have to put a labelon anything you’re not ready for, man. And Mars loves the hell out of you, so I’m sure if you just talk to them about it, you’ll figure something out. Coming out as any level of trans sounds scary as shit and they probably don’t wanna just go straight from zero to one hundred either.”
“They’re out to their friends,” Sunny confirms. “I don’t think they’re ready to be out at school or anything yet, but I don’t want to be the one holding them back when they are.”
“That doesn’t mean you need to speedrun your own damn identity crisis,” Nick ribs lightly. “It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to keep using straight if you want. It’s okay to just pick ‘queer’ and stick with that—that’s what Matt did. And it’s more than okay to tell anyone butting their nose in your business to fuck off. No matter what Kat says about being polite online.”
