“Yeah, I called him this morning.” Nick frowns at the memory. Connor sounded so fucking defeated and it broke his heart. “We had a good talk. It sucks, y’know?” Nick’s been there, and it’s devastating to get so close but not close enough. “But… he’s got his family. Théo. The team. He’ll be okay.” It sounds dismissive, but you can’t get in your head about a loss like that. You take the time to mourn and then you get your shit together and look to the next season.
Nick just hopes he won’t be going through that whole journey himself after tomorrow night.
“How are you guys doing, anyway?” he asks, not wanting to dwell on the upcoming game any longer than he has to. “How’s the album going?”
It’s been hard, having Matt away for so long, but in a way the timing works out frustratingly well. He loses track of everything during playoffs. The only progression of time that counts is the space between one game and the next, and the blissful few days of rest between rounds that never feel long enough. Nick’s life, already pretty laser-focused, narrows down to exclude pretty much anything that isn’t hockey. And for Matt, being fully in the zone with the new album, it’s for the best. This way nobody feels neglected, both so busy with their own work.
He thinks the team is a little suspicious, the way he disappears in the evenings for some privacy. If he’s not at a rink or in a hotel room, he’s at Marco’s, or somewhere with his teammates—it’s a Dragons rule that no one goes home alone during playoffs, especially not the rookies. The rule was mostly started to make Nick feel less pathetic about moving back in with Marco when times got tough, but it works—especially with so many young guys on the team this year experiencing a deeper playoffs run for the first time. Nick doesn’t want any of his boys feeling like they don’t have anybody to lean on.
They joke about all living in each other’s pockets enough during the season, but that’s got nothing on this.
It’s nice, in a way; one of the things that always drew Nick to hockey was the camaraderie, the promise that your team would become your family, closer than siblings. For a kid who always felt alone in the middle of a crowded room, it was the answer to his prayers.
But Jesus Christ, as much as Nick loves each and every one of his teammates to death, he’s very much looking forward to not having to be with them for fifteen hours a day.
He lies back against his pillows and runs his fingers through Dolly’s fur as Matt tells him about the band’s day, laughing at the story of Joel tripping over a cactus and getting an ass fullof spines. The sound floods Nick’s body with warmth, his bones aching to reach through the screen and pull Matt into his arms.
Just ten more days, and his love will be home. He can do this.
“You need to get some sleep, babe,” Matt murmurs fondly, after the second time Nick can’t hold back a yawn. Nick groans in protest, and Matt chuckles. “You’ve got a big day tomorrow. Gotta win another game for me, yeah?”
“Yes, sir,” Nick vows with a lazy salute, winking. “You gonna be watching?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Matt promises. “I’ll have my jacket on and everything.” That makes Nick grin. Unbeknownst to him, Lindsay had arranged for a WAG jacket to be made for Matt, bearing Nick’s name and number. So far, Matt’s worn it for every game, watching from the studio and cheering him on—Nick’s good luck charm, even from so far away.
“I wanna talk to you a little longer.”
“Sorry, say that again but keep your eyes open this time,” Matt teases, earning a sleepy glare. When the musician chuckles, it washes over Nick like molten chocolate. “Go to sleep,” he repeats.
“Ugh,fine,” Nick huffs. “Love you. Night.”
“Love you too.”
Nick barely has the energy to put his iPad on the nightstand and turn off the lamp. He’s asleep before his head hits the pillow.
His arms shake as he raises the Campbell Bowl above his head, Marco and Hugsy on either side of him helping him keep the trophy aloft while Colorado file off the ice in defeat. They touched it the last two times they won, and that’s a good enough precedent for Nick; he makes sure that every member of theteam brushes their fingers on the shining metal, even the ones who look reluctant.
Superstition be damned, they haveearnedthis trophy. Their ticket to the Stanley Cup Finals—their prize for being the best team in the Western Conference.
He gets blasted in the face with champagne in the locker room, Duke holding the bottle and cackling. Several of them are crying, Nick included, and he can’t be embarrassed about it because he’s just so damn happy.
“All right!” he yells, once the chaos starts to simmer a little. “We fucking did it, boys!” They whoop and cheer, drumming their hands on the benches gleefully. “I am so proud of every one of you assholes for what you did out there tonight. What you’ve been doing all week. All month. But we’re not done yet!” More cheers, and Nick grins as he surveys them all. “I know you’re tired. I know you’re hurting. Christ knows I am, too. But we’ve just got to power through that for a little bit longer, and then we’ll have the sweetest damn off-season you boys can imagine, believe me. Twelve wins down, four more to go.”
The members of the team who have held the Stanley Cup before whoop the loudest of all, faces split with grins. “So get some rest, guys. Take tomorrow off. Regroup on Thursday at Marco’s. Listen to the trainers. Moose, get some stitches in your face, Jesus Christ, man,” he groans, staring at the man with a blood-soaked rag held to his cheek. He got a stick to the face about three minutes before the final buzzer and refused to go get treatment till the game was over. Moose laughs, waving him off.
“Barely even feel it!” he insists.
“Oh my God,” Nick says, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “You’re all insane. Let’s fucking do this! Stanley Cup, here we come, baby!”
The locker room explodes with noise once more, and Nick lets himself be bundled in half a dozen sweaty, disgusting hugs.They’re all absolute messes, in more ways than one—nobody’s in top shape at this point in the game. They’re lean and scruffy-faced and battered and bruised; there’s at least four broken bones being politely ignored, probably twice that number of strains and sprains, and Nick doesnotlike how much KT tape Patts has on his shoulder these days. Howie’s knee blew out on him in Edmonton, but he still shows up for every single game, hobbling around on crutches and pulling Picard and Noodle into top-secret goalie huddles before warm-ups.
His only comfort is knowing that the Washington guys are probably in a similar sort of state by now. No one makes it through three rounds of playoffs hockey completely unscathed.
There are four days between the end of Conference Finals and the beginning of the Stanley Cup Finals, and they pass in the blink of an eye.
Nick’s been instructed to spend as much of the day before game one as possible resting—so when Marco’s doorbell rings while no one else is home, he groans loudly, hauling himself into a sitting position on the couch he’s practically fused to after several hours binge-watching reality TV. Marco and Lindsay are out walking Marshmallow, and as tempting as it is to pretend he didn’t hear the bell, Nick can’t. It might be a teammate, freaking out about what’s ahead. It might be Jazz, coming to tell him the whole team is deathly ill and they’ll have to forfeit.
It’s probably not that. But you never know.
