Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
[Image Description: Matt Hudson standing on stage beside a short man with brown skin and bleach-blond hair. The shorter man is holding a guitar, while Hudson holds a microphone. He has his arm around the other man’s shoulder and leans in to press a kiss to his cheek.]
@EmosaurusBex: Can’t believe ACTUAL MATT HUDSON showed up to duet with Mike Drop and I WAS THERE TO WITNESS IT!! Fucking magical, and let me tell you, the CHEMISTRY between those two?
@TagMeInCoach: Have you seen their insta stories? Definite Vibes
—Instagram, December 22nd, 2022
Nick always thought that now he’s older, more mature, he’d be a little less pathetic in his heartbreak.
Turns out he was wrong about that one.
He feels like shit. He slept like ass and the flight had turbulence and half his team are being cranky little assholes about being away so much this close to Christmas. Nick has had A Day and he’s still got to play hockey later. He should be making better choices for himself.
But Nick Tiernan is not known for making sensible decisions. So he lies on the bed in his hotel room in Detroit, scrolling through Matt’s Instagram tags, pausing on every picture of him with his arm around some hot musician or celebrity, reading the insinuations in the comments.
Is it on purpose? Is he showing off all the other fuckbuddies he has, to make it clear to Nick that things were never that serious?
No. Matt’s not that petty. Not like Nick, whose social media in the last week has been thirst traps and team parties, aggressively trying to prove how fine and not-heartbroken he is.
So sue him, he wants Matt to feel bad. Just a little bit, at least.
Deep down, though, he knows it’s his own fault. If he weren’t so scared of losing his reputation, so needy for the adoration of the hockey world, he could be out. He could win Matt over, prove he’s ready for a real relationship.
Except that would be another lie, wouldn’t it?
He’s not, not even a little bit. Without even getting into the whole Connor situation, Nick cannot imagine a world in which he’s not allowed to play NHL hockey.
Cannot imagine the slurs and sneers and hits he would take if he did manage to stay in the game, somehow.
The respect he’d lose—from his teammates, his opponents, his fans.
Call him shallow, but … hockey is his entire life, and he’s not ready to be done yet.
He grimaces, running a hand through his hair and shoving his phone under the pillow.
It’s a good thing he’s perfected his act already. He’s going to need it.
Nick stops going on social media, except to make regular Kat-mandated posts to please the algorithm gods. It makes it easier than trying to scroll through the seemingly endless flood of Sticks+Stones content his feed wants to thrust in his face.
True to his promise of space, Matt has not contacted him since the day he left. Nick’s not exactly feeling festive, either.
But he’s the captain, so it’s his job to get his team focused and on their A-game. If he’s going to make hockey his whole damn life, he thinks wryly, then he’s going to quit neglecting his teammates in favor of moping over a boy and be the leader they need.
“I know it’s tough, guys,” Nick says in the locker room before the game. “We just gotta get through this game, and then we’ll be on the red-eye home. Christmas isn’t over yet. You won’t miss the important parts.”
“Not all of us,” GJ says with a pointed look. They’re all well aware of how frustrated he is at missing the first half of Hanukkah.
“Hockey is what it is,” Hugsy points out ruefully, scrubbing a hand over his beard. “We knew this when we signed up. Schedule just dealt us a shitty hand this year.” Roadies either side of Christmas, and not even anywhere close to home. Boston and goddamn Calgary. Joy.
“I’m sorry,” Nick offers. “I know you all miss your kids. I get it.”
“But you don’t, though,” Hacker bites out. “You don’t have kids, Trix. Don’t have a family to miss over the holidays.”
“What the fuck, man! I still have a family! You think I don’t miss my sister every damn year?”
“Not the same as missing kids, though. Or a partner,” Bam-Bam joins in, sneering.
“You don’t have a girl waiting at home for you.
You never do.” There’s something knowing, something malicious in his gaze, and it makes Nick take an uneasy step back.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Marco’s head snap up.
“My personal life is none of your goddamn business, Burrows,” Nick snarls, standing there with one sock still clipped to his garter while the other bunches at his ankle, acid-hot adrenaline racing through him and making his stomach bubble.
“Ooh, did I hit a nerve?” Bam-Bam smirks at him, eyeing him with a hint of disgust. Like he understands exactly why Nick doesn’t have a wife or girlfriend to spend Christmas with.
“Get your head outta your ass and that ass on the ice,” Marco cuts in, on his feet now.
“I get that you’re pissed. I am too. This sucks, and Boston sucks, but it is what it is and if you don’t like it, I’m sure Tony can find some other idiot who wants to get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to wear knife shoes eighty-two nights of the year.
” He eyes the grumbling players down, a pointed reminder of exactly what their sacrifice affords them.
Bam-Bam scoffs but gets back to dressing for the game.
The tension slowly disperses, everywhere except in Nick’s shoulders.
“C’mon, man,” Hugsy murmurs, nudging him gently. “You know how they get. It’s just hot air.”
“Yeah.” Nick’s on autopilot as he gets dressed, thoughts churning—he can’t keep on like this forever. Sooner or later, the fact that he’s always single is going to become more suspicious than sad, and more pricks than just Bam-Bam will start to draw conclusions.
But that’s not a problem for right now; he needs to focus on the game.
He can deal with that dilemma over Christmas—his festive season recently got a whole lot emptier, after all.
With Dolly at the Perez household snuggled happily between her two feline loves, Nick doesn’t bother gathering her up to go home when they finally land in Vegas, hours before sunrise.
He just drags himself upstairs to the guest room that is practically his, strips down to his boxers, and passes the fuck out for another five hours.
When he does get up, Lindsay doesn’t even let him pretend he’s going back to his place any time soon.
She shoves him down onto the couch, thrusts a mug of heavily spiked hot chocolate into his hands, and curls up between him and Marco to watch some cheesy Christmas rom-com.
They like to mock the terrible clichés, even though nine times out of ten Lindsay is sniffling at the romantic ending anyway.
She’s not alone, this time. Nick feels his eyes itch and his chest tighten as he watches the couple on screen meet in a magical, perfect kiss, having made it through the shenanigans and miscommunications that all of these movies seemed to have, while some old white guy with a beard who had somehow been pivotal to the whole thing winks into the camera before it fades to black.
If only it were that simple.
But his life is not a Christmas movie. It’s not any kind of movie—he and Matt aren’t in love, and Santa isn’t real, and there is no magic that will fix what Nick has broken.
Without hockey to distract him, Nick falls back into bad habits, his phone often in hand and his thumbs just slipping their way to Matt’s Instagram.
Matt’s Christmas certainly looks like it’s straight out of a Hallmark movie: his three siblings are home with their spouses and kids, and they all went to see Santa at a Christmas tree farm even though the tree at his parents’ house has been up since after Thanksgiving; they went carol singing to raise some money for the homeless shelter his mom volunteers at—videos of that end up on YouTube, once people realize that an actual professional singer has joined the group, and Nick gets surprisingly choked up at watching Matt do a beautiful a cappella rendition of “The First Noel,” Santa hat perched jauntily on his head and black wool coat buttoned tight to his throat.
His gloves have skeleton hands on them like they’re from Hot Topic circa 2005. It’s nauseatingly endearing.
Nick’s melancholy Instagram-stalking is disrupted by a pointy elbow digging deep into his ribs. He yelps, and Lindsay cackles. “Come on,” she prompts, tugging him in closer. On her other side, Marco has his iPad on his lap. “Family phone call time.”
Nick groans, but her grip on his arm is too tight to escape.
Before he can complain, the screen is filling with familiar faces: Marco’s parents are hosting half the kids on their ranch in Arizona, and they all try and cajole the three of them into hopping in the car and making the drive.
“You can still make it by Christmas morning!” Mama Perez—the only name she will allow Nick to call her—insists jovially, eggnog in hand.
“Mama, we love you, but none of us is sober enough to drive right now,” Lindsay tells her, and a crackling array of laughs pours through the speakers.
Nick’s spent Christmas with them before—twice now—and he’s pretty sure Marco’s older brothers think the three of them have some kind of polyamory situation going on, just like their cats.
But even if they do think that, they’re all still welcoming of him, slotting him right in with the mess of in-laws and grandkids and everyone else that makes up a Perez family gathering.
Personally, Nick prefers that to the last time he went back to his mom’s for Christmas, sitting through an awkward dinner with her and Amy and Trevor and Trevor’s two kids—who he had never met before that day—getting asked why he couldn’t just “apply for a transfer” to a New York team like they were different branches of the same department store.
They’re all in good spirits when they hang up the call, and Lindsay declares that she wants to bake Christmas cookies, which goes exactly as you’d expect for three drunk people, only one of whom has any talent in baking.
It takes twice as long to clean up as it did to make the cookies in the first place, and they’re exhausted but triumphant when they return to the living room with the platter held proudly above Lindsay’s head.
The cats have claimed the armchair and Dolly looks up at Nick, her chin propped on Billy’s shoulder while Mandy’s fluffy tail drapes across both of them like a blanket.
“I can’t believe I’m jealous of my cat,” he remarks, taking a picture of the three intertwined felines.
He almost texts it to Matt out of reflex, then pauses.
Hell. He’s gonna have to break the seal eventually.
With the courage of alcohol buzzing in his veins, he forges onwards, sending the picture with a simple,
Nick
Merry Christmas, hope you’re having a good time.
He has to stop himself adding emojis; he doesn’t think they’re in that kind of place right now.
To his surprise, Matt texts back almost immediately.
Matt
Aww, cuties. Thought you’d be elsewhere for Christmas, but glad you’re getting rest.
What’s that supposed to mean? Was he expecting Nick to be out clubbing, finding some anonymous fuck for the night?
He stares at the message, quietly hoping another one might come through. But his phone is silent, and the screen soon goes dark. Nick sighs, slumping onto the couch beside Marco, letting his head flop onto his best friend’s shoulder.
He doesn’t have it in him right now to worry about deciphering that message for some hidden meaning.
He’s achy, and tipsy, and so damn tired of letting the hollow feeling in his chest consume what little festive joy he can scrape together.
He drops his phone to the carpet before he can do something stupid—like send some cheesy text about how all he wants for Christmas is Matt to be with him.
Instead, he shoves all thoughts of Matt Hudson from his mind and focuses on his best friends, and how grateful he is to have them in his life. That’s what Christmas is really for, right?