Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
[Image Description: A group photo of the Nevada Dragons, gathered together in a dimly lit bar.
They’re all still in their game-day suits, championship caps on most of their heads.
They’re in various states of dishevelment, ties loosened and sleeves rolled up and jackets abandoned, some with their shirts unbuttoned entirely.
All of them crowd around the Stanley Cup, which appears to be filled halfway with champagne. ]
His head hurts, and his mouth tastes like something died in it.
Those are the first two things Nick registers once he wakes up. The third is that they forgot to lower the blackout blinds before going to bed last night. Sunlight beams through the window, obnoxiously bright even with his eyes closed. Nick groans in protest and buries his face in the pillows.
His movement must be enough to nudge Matt into the land of the living; the musician is half-sprawled over Nick’s back, and he reflexively curls tighter as he wakes.
“Ugh,” he grumbles against Nick’s shoulder. “What time did we go to bed last night?”
Nick has absolutely no memory of that—he knows how he got home, but everything after that is a blur. He says as much, and Matt’s low, raspy chuckle fills the room. “Aw, baby, did you drink too much?” he coos, running his fingers through Nick’s hair. “Are you still drunk?”
“Probably.” Nick rolls over to face his partner, squinting against the light. Even after partying all night, Matt looks beautiful, which is unfair because Nick feels like some kind of gutter goblin. “I need a shower.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” Matt agrees, pecking him on the forehead. “And a toothbrush, because I love you, but I am not kissing you right now.”
Nick’s too busy laughing to be offended. The way his tongue feels, he wouldn’t want to kiss him either.
In the silence that lingers while Nick tries to gather the energy to sit up, he hears the faint sounds of movement from elsewhere in the apartment. “Do you know who all’s still here?” The afterparty came back to his place for a while, but it might have moved on from there.
“No idea,” is Matt’s cheerful reply. He squeezes Nick’s hip. “How about you go make yourself human again and I’ll figure out who the stragglers are. How long until you have to be at the rink?”
Just the thought makes Nick grimace. There’s lots to be done in the aftermath of winning a cup: there’s going to be press stuff, and more celebrations, and planning for victory parades. Several of his teammates will probably not be sober again for at least a week.
And, Nick realizes, that’s not even taking into account whatever he’s going to have to face as one of the eight newly out members of the NHL.
Maybe he should just stay in bed.
Thankfully, a hot shower goes a long way to soothing his many pains—both hockey-related and alcohol-induced.
After brushing his teeth and putting some moisturizer on his poor intoxicated body, Nick does actually feel somewhat presentable.
Pulling on a pair of gym shorts and a Sticks+Stones T-shirt that might have once been Matt’s, he leaves the safety of his bedroom.
Time to see what’s become of his apartment.
There’s a pile of bodies on his couch. The other three members of the band are puppy-piled together on one end, while Motor, Sunny and Splits lie in a tangle of limbs across the remaining space.
Across the divide, Moose and Casey are loosely holding hands.
Nick’s eyebrows shoot up, and he gets a flash of memory of walking in on the two of them making out in his guest bathroom.
Interesting.
On the floor beside the couch, Mars is half propped up on a stack of cushions, with Beau’s head in their lap as the centerman sprawls on the rug, dead to the world.
In the armchair, Connor is asleep sitting up, Théo sleeping on top of him with his legs thrown over the arm, one hand loosely curled in Connor’s shirt collar.
He thought for sure that there would be more people in his apartment. He turns towards the kitchen, and the question is answered—watching Matt work the coffee machine with unfiltered gratitude in their eyes, Picard and Duke slump at the breakfast bar, still wearing the same clothes from last night.
“Morning, boys,” Nick greets quietly, though the pair of them still wince. “This everybody?”
“Marco and Lindsay are in the guest room,” Matt volunteers. “And Noodle’s asleep on your desk. Literally on it, curled up like a baby. It’s ridiculous. I took pictures.”
Nick snorts. “You’re my favorite.” He sidles in beside his boyfriend, going for a proper kiss now his breath is minty-fresh.
The coffee machine beeps, and Nick steps smoothly out of the way of the resulting chaos. Instead, he goes straight for the Gatorade in the fridge. It’s going to be days before he feels properly hydrated again.
Not least because there’s only going to be more alcohol in his future.
Very quickly, the smell of coffee starts to rouse the rest of the hungover mob. Nick raids the fridge to start breakfast and Lindsay joins him in cooking once she emerges from the guest room, her dark hair tied in a messy bun and her eyes ringed with smudges of makeup from the night before.
When Nick turns around, he sees Matt leaning against the counter, holding his iPad, and freezes.
He hasn’t checked his phone since yesterday afternoon. He’s not even sure where it is.
“Nicky, babe,” Matt murmurs, beckoning him over. “Come look at this.”
He doesn’t sound upset, but Nick still braces for the worst. There’s bound to be dozens of pictures of them kissing on the internet by now, let alone everything else. No more hiding.
It’s open to Twitter, and it takes Nick a second to realize what he’s looking at.
The hashtag #PaintYourPride is trending.
Within the tag, hundreds of people have responded in ways Nick could only have dreamed of: tweeting their support for all eight players, posting pictures of themselves with their own Pride flags painted on their skin, heckling any sports news account that tries to call the whole thing a “distraction” or a “publicity stunt.”
“Look,” Matt says, scrolling up to show the most popular tweets. Nick gapes.
It seems it’s not just the general public getting in on the hashtag.
Scrolling through, Nick sees coming-out tweets from at least a dozen hockey players from various North American leagues.
Among them are four NHL players—two Nick knew about but who refused when he told them about the project, one who’s married to a woman but coming out as bi, and one that makes his eyes widen.
A player for Anaheim that Nick only knows in passing, grinning in a selfie with yellow, white, purple and black stripes painted across his cheeks.
“Guess I stealthed so hard I missed the invite! #PaintYourPride #HeTheyPronounsPls” the tweet reads.
There’s already over a thousand likes on it, but Nick taps the heart all the same.
Thanks to Nick’s little art project, the closet doors have been well and truly shattered in the hockey world.
Matt shows him tweets from kids in Junior leagues and college hockey, and even various European leagues, where the post seems to be making the rounds thanks to Connor’s old teammates.
Even the women’s leagues have joined in the fun, jokingly congratulating men’s hockey on finally catching up.
“Conn,” Nick calls, looking up. “Sunny. C’mere.”
The pair approach warily. Nick grins at them, trying to express how utterly incredible what he has to show them is, since all the words seem to have escaped him. He hands over the iPad, watching their shock and awe as they take in the impact of what they’ve done.
“Your phone’s been ringing non-stop all morning,” Matt tells him, producing the device from the pocket of his pajama pants. Nick must look confused, for he smirks. “You gave it to me at the club to look after because Kat wouldn’t let you post pictures of us making out to Instagram.”
“Huh.” Yeah, that fits with his blurry memories.
“Wait, did I imagine things or did you guys promise to write us a goal song for next season?” The only outrage Nick’s teammates felt over his relationship was the fact that he’d been secretly dating a rockstar all year and yet they were still lighting the lamp to a fucking Katy Perry song.
Matt chuckles. “We did do that.”
“And we’re absolutely holding you to it,” Marco warns from the breakfast bar. Nick grins—that’s going to be awesome.
He takes his phone back, swearing at the number of notifications blinking up at him. “Jesus Christ.” That’s going to take so long to deal with.
Trepidation swirling in his stomach, Nick opens the last avenue of public overwhelm: his Instagram account. The last post of his is a series of three photos from the shoot with Bianca, posted with a link to the article, from when Kat had his phone during the game.
He discovers, however, that most of his notifications are not coming from that. Instead, they’re coming from a photo he’s been tagged in. He clicks through, bracing for a picture of him and Matt on ice with God knows what in the comments. His breath catches in his throat.
The picture was posted to Matt’s account, at around 11 p.m. the night before—after the game, but before the party got too rowdy.
It’s a picture Nick’s never seen before, of him and Matt in the kitchen of Marco’s house, oblivious to the world around them.
In it, Nick’s perched on the counter, their legs tangled together as Matt leans into his space.
Matt has one hand settled on Nick’s side while the other gently cups Nick’s chin; it looks like he’s tilting Nick’s head to better study the bruises on his face, and there’s so much love in his eyes visible even on the small screen, it makes Nick’s heart skip a beat.
Below the picture, there’s a caption.
@RiverSticksBand: Not good enough at hockey to be an NHL star, so I decided to date one instead ;) But all jokes aside, I am SO proud of @NicksTrix9 for winning his third cup, and more importantly, for being brave enough to share his truth with the world. Love you so much, baby
“I, uh, hope that wasn’t overstepping,” Matt murmurs. He’s pressed against Nick’s shoulder, looking at him with guarded brown eyes. “But I figured after you kissed me on ice, it was fair game.”
“God,” Nick whispers, emotion thick in his throat. “You sap.” Matt chuckles, cracking a tentative grin. “Not overstepping. Not even a little. I—Hang on.”
With the lightning-fast fingers of a kid raised on touchscreens, Nick has a photo of his own posted to Instagram in under a minute.
It’s not one of the make-out photos Kat forbid him from posting the night before, but it is a picture of them kissing, sort of.
It’s a selfie of them on Nick’s couch, Nick very clearly sitting in Matt’s lap, his lips pressed to Matt’s cheek in a kiss that’s more of a smile.
In it you can see Matt’s arm curled around his back, and the musician himself has his eyes closed and a grin tugging at his lips.
@NicksTrix9: Confirming it here, before anyone starts getting their hopes up that I might be single ;) Very much taken, very much in love with @RiverSticksBand, sorry to disappoint but can you blame me? #MyBoyfriendIsHotterThanYours #ImWithTheBand
Watching over his shoulder, Matt laughs, kissing his temple solidly. “Now who’s the sap?”
“Both of you are disgusting,” Marco announces, interrupting their little moment by thrusting a plate of food under Nick’s nose. “Now sit down and eat something. We’ve gotta sober up to get drunk again later.”
They all squeeze into the living room together, phones and tablets out as every single one of them starts to catch up on the last twelve hours of the internet.
Calls to parents and partners and siblings are made, hangovers slowly drain away, and every now and then one of them will look up and grin stupidly at the Stanley Cup sitting by the balcony window, Dolly curled up in the bowl like it’s just another cat tree.
Nick’s life is going to be unbearably chaotic for the next month or so. It maybe wasn’t the best idea to combine a cup win with one of the most groundbreaking revelations the world of professional hockey has ever seen. But he can’t bring himself to regret it.
Later, he’s going to go out for a walk, and he’s going to hold Matt’s hand in public. And no matter how many shitty interviews he has to do, how many homophobes he has to block online, or how many people tell him he’s ruining the integrity of the NHL, it’ll all be worth it, just for that.