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Ishir rolled his eyes. His big eyes, long eyelashes, and high cheekbones had given him the unfair reputation of being ‘pretty.’ “Sorry not all of us can be ruggedly handsome,” Ishir grumbled.
Zee preened exaggeratedly. He had a sort of boyish charm to his face, thick lips with eyes that glittered. His proportions were old-school defenceman, though—broad-chested with thick thighs and a right hook that had left more than one person’s teeth rattling.
By the time the end of the off-season rolled around, they had signed a lease on a two-bedroom in Williamsburg with a view of the water. It was teeth-achingly expensive, but, well…they could afford it.
Before Ishir knew what was happening, he was walking through Ikea with Zee, inspecting an orange-velvet-covered bench.
“What would we even use this for?” Ishir protested.
“To sit on so we can take off our shoes or whatever. Duh.”
“I don’t think we need that.”
“You have novision.” Zee wrote down the item number, because of course he did.
They ended up buying way too much stuff and spending the next day arguing while they tried to build it all.
“This literally makes no sense,” Zee said, holding the instructions.
“You’re holding it the wrong way ’round.”
“I know that,” Zee hissed, flipping the booklet over.
They got it done eventually, Zee too stubborn to ask for outside help and Ishir patient enough to indulge him.
They celebrated with pizza from Da Nonna Rosa, eating way too much.
“It’s fine,” Zee groaned even as he clutched his stomach. “This was a last hurrah. It’s meal-plan food from here on out. We’re not doing that again.”
They were absolutely doing that again.
Usually, Ishir would meet with whatever teammate was already in New York as soon as he arrived. Maybe Zee wouldn’t have minded that, as social as he was, but Ishir decided to have it just be the two of them for the first couple of days and showed him some areas of Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan.
It was a change of pace from their usual dynamic.
They’d met when they were eleven and were still blueprints of the people they’d become. By a lucky twist of fate, they’d landed on the same teams until they were eighteen and separated by the NHL draft.
Zee had enjoyed being in the thick of it since he was little, making friends easily. He fit into hockey culture perfectly—loud and talkative, ready to joke around or join in on a prank.
Ishir had been the opposite. He’d been quiet and shy and so anxious he’d developed obsessive-compulsive rituals he’d had to adhere to before games or be debilitated with terror. Ishir was lucky his parents had put him in therapy early on, giving him the skills to tolerate and eventually diminish a lot of those anxieties.
It had also been a relief to meet Zee and have him shrug off Ishir’s strange ways. If Ishir insisted they walk a particular route to the locker room, winding through the arena, Zee would smile and take it as an opportunity to talk Ishir’s ear off. If Ishir said he had to do a number of warm-up exercises in a particular order, there Zee was, joining in.
By the time Ishir was fifteen, the rituals were more mental than physical. He’d have to think certain thoughts in a certain order so as to feel his mind was intact. He had a piece of laminated paper he’d silently read sentences from, holding them in his head and then letting them go until he was ready to hit the ice.
Ishir remembered with perfect clarity the time he’d misplaced that piece of paper and had freaked out so badly he’d started shaking. How humiliating it had been to be that weak. To be so out of control.
Zee had been the one to soothe him. He’d found a notebook and a pen and written down the lines from memory.
“Come on, we can do this,” he’d assured, and dragged him to a closet. “Okay, now close your eyes. We’re gonna, like, transfer the soul of your old piece of paper into this new one. Hold it tight. See how it’s special? It’s from both of us, now.” Zee had stood close, his voice a balm.
Somehow, it had worked.
Ishir’s other teammates made fun of him, though it was mostly light-heartedly. Zee, though, never said a mocking word.
It was no wonder Ishir had fallen for him. Zee was the first person he’d ever come out to—because ‘I’m in love with you’ wasn’t a possibility, but ‘I like Alphas’ was.
It had burst out of him after Zee had once again been asking him about Omegas, how he never hooked up with them, how he barely kissed them at parties, how they were all over him and Ishir didn’t seem to care.
