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Luca and Meri had an understanding since juniors that, while they were almost always down to hook up, they weren’t really at a point in their lives where they wanted to be in a relationship. At first it was that there were no gay players in the league—the league they dreamed of joining one day—but then Scott Hunter had changed that. Then it was that they were an ocean away, only seeing each other when Luca went back for the summer between his rookie and sophomore year, and that two players couldn’t date. Then Meri was finally called up, and Shane and Ilya were outed, and suddenly they had run out of reasons other than it was just how they were.
It seemed like everyone around him had “their” person. Troy and Harris got together rather quickly, Shane and Ilya had always really only had eyes for each other for however long they had been together, Scott and Kip were the OG gay hockey couple, and basically everyone else was very…monogamous. Or at least very early to commitment.
Maybe it was something about being younger, a newer generation, but he didn’t really see himself getting with the love of his life before he could even legally drink in the States. Yes, hockey players had the stereotype of getting married early, but they also had the stereotype of being hyper conservative and straight, so there were already barriers being broken there.
Sometimes there would be a small voice in the back of his head wondering, what if? It would be such a great love story—Meri and Luca, childhood friends called up together to the MLH on rival teams but managing to stay friends—lovers—throughout it all. Maybe there would have been a point, when Luca was seventeen, eighteen, where he would have pursued something. Scott Hunter had changed a lot in the league, but maybe Luca wasn’t brave enough to attempt to date another player.
If he thought about it too long, his thoughts would drift to a certain pre-med student that had told him in no uncertain terms that he would not get into a relationship until he got into medical school. Despite the fact that he had flirted first, had given Luca his number, had initiated so many things. Which was fine.
(Luca got the impression that the goalpost for when he was ready for commitment would continue to shift indefinitely.)
He had resigned himself to this situationship he had found himself in, and it was fine. He had no negative feelings about it at all. No feelings at all, after being surrounded by Shane and Ilya, Harris and Troy, sometimes Scott and Kip, and even occasionally Eric and Kyle. All couples that had found each other and been equally drawn to each other and just knew.
Maybe it was just that he had a long day and the tiredness that was seeping into his bones was making him more introspective. Maybe he didn’t really need to think about it too hard. Plenty of people were in their early twenties and not in a serious, long-term relationship. In the real world, he would be a fourth-year in university. He would be perfectly fine if he was single and in university but enough hockey guys were engaged or married by the time they were twenty-five that he was starting to feel like maybe he was behind. Maybe he shouldn’t have thrown himself into hockey as much as he did.
Ilya and Shane had decided to host a party just before the start of the season as a way to boost morale for their potential repeat of their previous year’s cup run. There were a few new faces, considering trades that had happened in the offseason, but plenty of familiar ones. Young was with his new girlfriend, and they were very cute together. Something about settling into his fourth year with the Centaurs had finally pushed him to pursue a relationship, and Luca was happy for him. There was no jealousy whatsoever.
Holmberg and LaPointe were up to something and while Luca would have joined in normally, he didn’t particularly feel like it. He was on his third drink, and the normally pleasant buzz was more of a dampener on his mood. He also really needed to use the bathroom.
Their house was decorated tastefully—several of their wedding pictures spotted the wall along with photos with Shane’s parents, Anya, and various other faces. Ilya had teased Shane about his proclivity to hire stylists enough that Luca could reasonably attribute the matching sets of furniture and decor to that, but there were personal touches as well. A well-worn blanket tossed over the couch in the living room, the drawings stuck to the fridge by the Pike children, a bookshelf filled with hockey books, Russian literature, and assorted knick-knacks.
Anyone could tell how in love they were just by looking around their house.
He didn’t want to go back to the party immediately after using the bathroom, and he found himself wandering up the stairs. Ilya found him on the second floor balcony of their house that overlooked the side yard. It was connected to the loft, so he didn’t like, go through their room or anything, but he still felt like he was caught in a place where he shouldn’t be. Or it could be the cig—his second of the evening—that was currently between his teeth as he attempted to light it. The lighter was on its last leg, though, so it was taking much longer than he would have liked. Too long, with the way that Ilya was looking at him with something in his face. Concern, maybe, but Luca didn’t really want to have a conversation about his bad habits right now.
“Some may say that smoking is bad for you,” he said evenly. “Not me, of course, but some.”
“Right.” Ah, finally. The first inhale was pleasantly sharp, as always. “Because you famously care about smoking.”
He laughed. “Well. Married life has made me boring. A very boring Canadian.”
Luca held it out, offering. Ilya shook his head, then paused, considering, then took it. “So boring.”
“Yes, well. Shane doesn’t need to know,” he said after exhaling, handing it back to Luca who tapped it to shake off the ashes. “And if he finds out, well…”
“Ew. I did not need to know that.” He took another long drag.
“Boy troubles?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you are very nosy?”
Ilya shrugged. “I am perceptive. And yes, nosy. This has nothing to do with the second-line center for the Admirals, I am sure.”
“Like. No. Maybe. I don’t know.” He waited for Luca to continue. “No offense to you guys, but sometimes it’s hard being around so many couples. Like, Troy and Harris are very sweet, and you and Shane are great, but sometimes it feels like everyone else has everything together.”
“Ah.”
“It’s fine,” he said hastily. “It’s not a big deal. I’m just thinking too much about it.”
Ilya gave him a look that said he thought he was full of shit. He definitely was, but he didn’t need to confront that on a Saturday night. “It took Shane and me a very long time to get together. Even if we are amazing and perfect and the best hockey couple now—” Luca rolled his eyes, “—it was not like that for a very long time. Some people stay with high school sweethearts, most do not. You will also find your person, but you also have a good family here, yes? First and second best hockey players, baby rookies, Hazy and Bood and Choui and Evs. Lots of good people here.”
“Yeah. I know.” Luca sighed. “Sometimes…I know that Hunter did a lot to change the league, and then Barrett and you and Shane—even if you guys didn’t really mean to—I think I still feel behind? Or, not behind, really, but…” He shrugged, unable to find the words to say what he felt.
He had a good family back home and supportive sisters that he didn’t even really need to come out to, and he had plenty of friends outside of hockey that loudly showed their queerness. Luca was easily the most culturally queer person on this team, maybe rivaling Harris, and so it wasn’t even a struggle of accepting himself or figuring himself out. It felt selfish, almost, to have such a trivial struggle of finding a boyfriend.
Or maybe this is what they were all working towards—the queer players in the MLH being able to worry over the timeline of their relationship status instead of being deathly afraid of ever being in the position of having to choose between their love for hockey and their love in their relationship.
“Maybe it is different now, the problems in the league,” Ilya allowed, “but change is good. Especially from before.”
“Yeah. I don’t think I could handle the league before you guys came out.”
There was a sad look that briefly flashed on Ilya’s face before he schooled his expression into something more neutral. “And that is probably for the best. I love hockey, but…there are bad parts that are hard to ignore sometimes.”
“Yeah. Sorry to make it all about me. I think,” he exhaled slowly. “I just think about things too much sometimes.”
“Sometimes is okay, but if it happens more than sometimes, you talk to someone, yes?” He held Luca’s gaze until he nodded half-heartedly. “Okay. Now put that out before it gets into my clothes and you get us both in trouble.”
Luca’s peaceful sketching in the quiet of his living room was interrupted by his phone buzzing. Normally he was a silent and do not disturb warrior, but after an incident where someone had been stranded on the road for several hours because the only number he had memorized was Luca’s for some reason (not pointed at LaPointe or anything), he had been making an effort to be more contactable or whatever.
“Yes, Pointy?” An unfathomable screech nearly burst his eardrum and caused him to drop his phone. “Oh my fucking god, what is wrong with you?” More clattering, banging, and another scream from the line continued, and he considered just hanging up and protecting his peace.
“Sorry, fucking Bergy had my phone,” he grumbled. “Don’t ask why.”
“I wasn’t going to, but now that you say that…”
“Anyways! Guess who just got the barista’s number?”
“Hm. Bergy? Or Young?”
“Fuck you, Haas.”
Luca grinned at the scowl he could imagine so clearly on his face. “Well. You are the one who called me.” He could faintly hear Holmberg agreeing with him in the background. “Maybe it was too much to expect you to have a proper thought put together this time.”
“I’m transferring teams immediately.”
Luca tsked. “Past the trade deadline, unfortunately.”
“Oh my god, shut up. But I got her number! Her name is Anaïs, and she’s studying chemistry,” he said dreamily.
“Oh, you’re so fucking whipped already.”
There was more shuffling, then Holmberg’s voice popped through. “Like we don’t see you texting your boy all the fucking time.”
Luca shifted the phone to between his chin and shoulder while he packed up his supplies. No point trying to sketch now. “No, you don’t actually. Because I’m too busy actually scoring.”
“I’m literally not even a forward? What the fuck?”
“Not with that points per game average, you’re not. And who says that is the type of scoring I was talking about?”
Holmberg squawked while LaPointe cackled. “Not enough people know how much of an asshole you are,” he muttered, and Luca grinned. For all the babying the team did of him—which only got old sometimes—it definitely let him get away with more than the other young team members.
“Let Pointy go text her. I know you forgot.”
There was a suspiciously long pause before the hang up tone clicked. “Fucker,” Luca said affectionately.
And if Luca spent the rest of the day curled up on his sofa contemplating his utter lack of relationships, it was no one’s business. (Pomme was absolutely judging him, though.)
Oliver hadn’t really texted him back since the mic’d up video against the Admirals a few months ago. Well. More like six months ago. He had accepted that that was probably not going to go anywhere. Like. Mostly. If he could get into a situationship in the first place, he could accept the end of it in a slightly graceful manner.
“Dude, what the fuck is up with you?”
Okay, apparently not. “Thanks, Troy. I’m really feeling the love on this team,” he said, rolling his eyes.
Troy huffed at him. It was a bit silly, considering he was flopped with his limbs sprawled across the same couch that Luca was on. “You know what I meant.”
They were in Shane and Ilya’s house for their monthly “gay” (Ilya would protest that descriptor, and Luca didn’t want to get into the discourse about gay as an umbrella term that included bisexual) dinner with Troy and Harris. There was one rookie that Ilya got a “bisexual feeling” about, and his gaydar had never steered him wrong after Scott Hunter came out, but it was still the MLH. And so it stayed the five of them.
The dinner was brought to them by the local Italian place that Luca had particularly taken a liking to and that many of them frequented. It reminded him of a friend’s mom’s cooking, and that was always nice when the all-too-familiar pang of homesickness burrowed its way back into his ribcage. It was also good, cheap, and close to the rink.
They had finished the dinner quite quickly—as they always did, considering the four professional hockey players—and now Harris was attempting to set up a board game with very little success while Luca (and now Troy) lazed around on the very comfortable couch and Shane and Ilya rinsed off the dishes for the dishwasher.
“There is so much love on this team,” Ilya agreed. “Lots of gay and bisexual love.”
“Says the only bisexual on this team.”
“For now!” He pointed his fork at Harris menacingly who raised his hands in surrender and laughed. “There is absolutely another bisexual on this team. I can feel it.”
“Uh huh,” Shane said, amused. “I’m sure you think you can feel something.”
“It might be the old age creeping in.” Luca loved the little rush that came from the horrified look on people’s faces when he said something that brought the other person’s attention to just how large an age gap was between them. It was great for chirping and for his entertainment. Granted, some of the younger rookies were starting to do it to him, so maybe it would start to bite him in the ass (à la Ilya Rozanov right now), but he still had many, many years to have that become an issue.
Ilya gasped dramatically. “I can’t believe I’m being attacked in my own home by my own husband. Shane, this is betrayal.”
“Somehow, I think you might just survive this.”
“Luca, you have to share the details. It might just help my heartbreak after my husband just told me he does not love me anymore,” Ilya sniffed. Shane rolled his eyes. “You came to us for boy troubles before, yes?”
“You went to them before you came to me?” Harris sounded almost offended. “No offense or anything to you guys, but Luca. They have had the least normal relationship out of everyone I know. And I know multiple very messy lesbians.”
“You don’t even know the actual timeline of it. Or events,” Shane said, narrowing his eyes.
“Right,” Troy drawled. “We don’t have a list of referenced events to create a timeline at all.”
“I hate this team.” Luca could agree with Shane’s sentiment, right now.
“We keep losing track of this conversation. Luca, gay, messy relationship, sad?” Luca was going to strangle Ilya one of these days. Shane might help him, too, if he timed it right. RIP Ilya Rozanov, a rage-baiter and a bitch to his very last breath.
“Have we considered that Luca might not want to share?” Shane said, finally drying his hands and joining the other three on the large sofa, although on the other corner. “Even if we really, really want to know about the events happening in our good friend’s life—”
Luca’s jaw dropped. “Shane, no. I can’t believe it. Ilya and Troy, I can understand, but you?”
Ilya and Troy immediately started to protest while Shane grinned. Harris was laughing at the offended look on his boyfriend’s face, and probably Luca’s misfortune. He was subtly evil like that. “You’re saying all of this like I don’t know exactly how much flirting had to be edited out of your mic’d up video against the Admirals. You know we had to push the post date because it took forever?”
Never mind. Harris was just fucking outright evil. Luca at least had the decency to duck his head at that despite that. “Sorry about that. But, to be fair, I barely even flirted back. I have respect for mic’d up videos.”
“Uh-huh,” Troy said dryly. He needed to count his fucking days.
“Besides, it’s literally not even like that. Meri and I are just friends,” he continued, ignoring the looks that everyone in the room were giving him. “Oh my god, you could at least pretend to believe me.”
“We’ll believe you if we actually see you come out with us after next week’s game,” Troy said daily.
“I personally don’t flirt with my friends and then go out to a bar with them and then go home with them, generally, but that could just be me,” Harris offered. He should probably start counting them with Troy, if Luca had anything to do about it.
“Yeah, well. Sometimes people do that in their 20s, Harris. Isn’t that right, Ilya?”
Now it was Ilya’s turn to avoid eye contact with the room. “I mean, yes. This does happen sometimes. I suppose.”
Harris burst out laughing. “Sometimes I forget that you jocks can be so messy. Anything that you want to share with the class, Ilya?”
The conversation was successfully diverted from his love life and towards Ilya’s messy past, and Luca was grateful.
Meri and him had had something of a flirtatious past, especially when they first met—that was definitely true. But both had also tacitly agreed that being in an actual relationship wasn’t in the cards for that in juniors. They had. There was no reason he could—or should—think that there could be something between them beyond that.
Besides, he probably should get over Oliver who still hadn’t texted him back.
“Haasy.”
“Meri.”
“You literally always play center, why are you here?”
“My day is going great, thank you for asking. I know, crazy weather we have today, so much stormy weather. No, I don’t have any plans tonight, what a coincidence.”
“You’re so fucking annoying, oh my god.”
“So much complaining. Maybe this is why you have not scored any goals yet, peut-être.”
“You literally didn’t even answer my question.”
“And you haven’t had any shots on goal.”
The elbowing penalty Luca got a few minutes later was fucking worth it.
“You literally stink.”
Luca scowled. “This is my fourth shift, fucking relax.”
Meri grinned. He loved getting under Luca’s skin, and while he knew this, there was something about him that always made Luca rise to the bait.
“I’m just saying.”
“Do you want to fight?”
“Funny that you’re starting this one considering how the last scrum went.”
“You fucking cheated and you know that.”
“How do you cheat in a fight? It’s a fight?”
“You would know better than me.”
“So, any plans for my prize once you lose? I was thinking I could come over, you could get on your knees, or you could get on top…I’m not particular.”
Luca scowled. It was almost the end of the first period and the Admirals had already managed to get two goals while also shutting out Ottawa. One had been from Meri early on in the period and the other was from Hunter—just a few moments ago—but while the latter was a good sport about it and didn’t chirp nearly as much, Luca was fighting the urge to drop his gloves against the former.
“Shut the fuck up,” he hissed. None of their teammates were close enough to hear him, but he knew that he was trying to get in his head right before the puck drop. Shane was at center ice facing off against a different center than normal, since Meri was here bothering Luca.
He hummed. “Mm, that feels like something that you will be doing later instead.”
Shane got possession of the puck, and they were off.
“So what was that?” Hayes asked. “You and Meri seemed pretty cozied up, eh?”
They were in the locker room getting some water and stretching out before Weibe came in to give them some pointers before the next period. It was Dykstra’s turn to be the victim for a mid-game interview, so he was unfortunately having to deal with the media.
Well, maybe Luca should have volunteered so that he didn’t have to deal with the onslaught of questions that his team had about every interaction they saw between him and Meri. He rolled his eyes, wrapping his stick with tape more aggressively. He had somehow lost his favorite tape and had to use Ilya’s.
“Fuck off, Hazy. He was being a dick.”
“Ooh,” Holmberg snickered. “Little Haasy’s claws are coming out.”
“I’ll fucking bite you.”
“Believe me, he will,” Young said, shuddering. “You don’t want to see him after you accidentally eat his ice cream. That was a rough two weeks.”
“I have a rotation! You literally never even buy Ben and Jerry’s, why would you eat an entire pint that you find in the freezer?”
“God forbid a man has urges?”
“You can’t fuck with a man’s ice cream rotation,” Bood said wisely, nodding. “I think I had some of Cassie’s Cherry Garcia when she was pregnant once; I think it took me like, two weeks to manage to make it up to her.”
“Rookie mistake,” Chouinard agreed, wincing in sympathy. “Never eat anything without consulting the wife.”
“Or you just have two fridges so that nothing can be mixed up,” Ilya grinned. “You know, Shane always tries to steal my food. It’s so difficult, living with a thief.”
“What the fuck?” Shane’s incredulous look had half the locker room cracking up, and even Luca huffed out a laugh. “I have never once wanted to eat the shit that you manage to find. I’ve never even heard of half of those chemicals and ingredients until you brought them into our house.”
“Ooh, someone’s sleeping on the couch tonight,” someone said in a singsong-y voice.
“As-fucking-if,” LaPointe said, shuddering. “We’ve all had to share a hotel room wall with them.”
“Truly traumatizing,” Young agreed. “I think you’d have to surgically separate the two.”
Luca hated the images that flashed into his mind at that statement.
“What’s really traumatizing out here is being shut out and New York being up by two goals and we haven’t even started the second period,” Weibe said, and everyone straightened up and turned to face him. “Let’s get some pucks in the back of the net, eh?”
Sometime in the third period, Luca found himself at the edge of the scrum being scruffed and pulled away by Hayes.
“What—”
“Leave the fighting to the idiots,” he said dryly. “Can’t have your pretty face being messed up this early on.”
“I wasn’t even in the middle of it!” he protested. “Come on!”
Meri skated up to them lazily, grinning widely at the scene in front of him. “Aw, poor baby, getting pulled away from the fight so quickly?”
Luca’s face went hot and he felt his stomach flip in the way it always did when Meri talked to him like that. (No, they were not going to look deeper into that at all.) He distantly heard Holmberg shouting, “You’re literally fucking forty-five, go home you old fuck! You’re turning this rink into a funeral home!”
“Sounds exciting over there,” Meri said, cocking his head. Evidently he too heard what Bergy said.
“We wouldn’t know, now would we?”
“At least I chose not to get into it. You know, can’t damage the goods.”
Luca rolled his eyes so hard his head started to hurt. (Maybe it was from the hit against the boards in the second period, but he wasn’t going to think about that very hard either.)
“We need to go out to a fucking club or something,” Young complained. “This is ridiculous. We shouldn’t be tied down already. Pointy and Bergy are always on their phones talking to their girls. We’re too young for this.”
LaPointe opened his mouth, no doubt to make a terrible joke playing on words, but Luca cut in before. “I would agree except for the saddening lack of nightlife here. Next game, yeah?”
Holmberg frowned. He had a particularly rough time this game, with two out of the four of the goals scored against them were during his shifts. “I don’t think we would want to go out tonight anyways. I might just crash.”
“The babies grow up so quickly,” Chouinard said wistfully. “I remember when I started to stay in instead of going out.”
“Now look at what you’ve done, Bergy,” Young said. “We’re lumped in with these old fucks.”
Waves of protests erupted around the locker room, but no one could really muster up the energy to truly engage. Some of the fourth liners were already out of their gear and halfway out the door while Hayes was flopped on the floor, everything off except for his knee pads which were comically large against the rest of him.
He contemplated texting Meri to come over, paused, and decided against it. The game was exhausting, and Luca just wanted to go home and crash too. He could catch up on all of his subscriptions that he hadn’t had time to go through this past week.
“Do you have any plans tonight?” Luca asked, and Shane shook his head.
“We were maybe going to have dinner with my parents, but I think that I’m pretty wiped.”
“Yeah, it was a rough game.”
“You did good, though. A goal and an assist?” Shane nodded. “Pretty fucking good.”
“Thanks,” he said, grinning. Even now, getting a compliment from the Shane Hollander had him wanting to kick his feet and giggle. But he was so cool about it. Very nonchalant.
“Luca, stop looking at my husband with heart eyes,” Ilya called from across the locker room, and he groaned while the rest of the room laughed. “Only I’m allowed to do that.”
Nevermind, he hated gay people.
His apartment was perfect, if he did say so himself.
He had a dark brown couch that was perfect to sink into at the end of a long day, a beautiful blue rug that was great for floor time, and huge windows that let in a ton of natural light. His sister sent him three Pinterest boards to choose from to create an aesthetic for his new apartment, and once he did, she had free reign over his credit card. If Hanna wasn’t already an economist for the government, she would have had an amazing career in interior design.
It wasn’t anything crazy, either. Yes, he made quite a good amount of money from his rookie contract, and he would get even more once it was up, but Hanna and his mother had made sure to instill good financial sense into him. Two bedrooms—one for him and one for guests (and Pomme’s litter box)—was more than enough. She had several cat trees, scratchers, and what was basically a parkour route across the walls of the living room that extended into the hallway. His building was quite close to the rink, right next to Young, and very quiet. He also had a number lock for his building, the elevator, and his apartment which was particularly great for him since he had lost three sets back home in Switzerland before his parents had given up and just left a set under the doormat.
"Pomme, où t’es? Je suis là (Pomme, where are you? I'm here)", he called out, dropping his bag and turning to close the door and flick on the lights. T'as faim encore?" (Are you hungry still?)
"Je ne sais pas si elle a faim, mais moi, je suis affamé (I don't know if she's hungry, but I personally am starving)", someone said, and Luca shrieked ungracefully, tripping over his bag and managing to fall hard on his elbow.
“Fuck! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You know how to make a guy feel so welcome.”
Luca was going to go to jail for murder before he ever saw anything beyond his ELC. At least he wasn’t needed for a Centaurs rebuild anymore, he would’ve felt guilty.
“Laurent Meriguet, if you don’t start explaining how the fuck you knew my door code in the next five seconds your parents are going to have to start figuring out flower arrangements for your funeral.” He rubbed his elbow which was no doubt bruising already, glaring at the intruder that was just lazing on his couch, as comfortable as Luca should be right now instead of wondering what he was doing here. Had he showered? “Now.”
“Please, as if we haven’t basically grown up together,” Meri scoffed. “You use the same passcode for everything.”
“I do not!”
“So you’re telling me that if I try to get into your phone right now, it wouldn’t be 112481.”
The audacity of this man. “No, actually.”
“Or 184211?”
“…God forbid a man tries to have some sort of consistency in his life.”
“You are a hacker’s wet dream.”
“And you’d know about that, wouldn’t you, you fucking freak.”
“Well if you had actually checked your phone before driving home, you would have seen my text saying that I’m going to be waiting at your house.” He flopped further on the couch, nearly going upside down.
“No, please. Make yourself at home,” Luca said sarcastically, draping his suit jacket on the barstool by the kitchen island.
“Where’s Pomme?” he said, rolling off the couch and standing up to look around. “I didn’t see her.”
As if she was aware of her name being called—even though Luca wasn’t sure that she was aware of anything, to be honest—she crawled out from under the sofa.
“Aww,” Meri cooed, slowly crouching and outstretching his hand. She trilled softly, pushing her check into his hand. Luca had the strongest urge to pick her up and squeeze her.
“Meow,” he said, doing the former (unfortunately not the latter) and holding her like a baby in his arms. She was getting bigger now and he now needed two hands to properly hold her instead of just one. “Did you miss me? Are there any thoughts up there?”
She slowly blinked.
“I want a cat so fucking bad,” Meri sighed wistfully. “But I barely even remember to feed myself even with the nutritionist and chef.”
“No, she would never let you forget to feed her. Luckily she got her can before I left for the game. Otherwise I’m sure we would get a noise complaint about her from the neighbors.” Luca kissed her head once, then four more times for good measure, before tossing her gently on the sofa. “Be free.”
“She’s the most perfect cat I’ve ever seen. Of course she’s a brown cat, too,” Meri said, laughing.
“Huh?” Luca stole Meri’s spot on the couch—his couch, really, so it was all his spot—and he gasped dramatically at the betrayal. “What could this possibly mean?”
“Like you don’t have a thing for dark hair,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Makes sense that your cat would fit the aesthetic you have going on.”
“Okay, Pinterest warrior.”
Meri rolled his eyes, pushing Luca’s shoulders so that he landed on his back. He brought his elbows underneath him so he could more easily look up to make eye contact with him. “We all saw the tabloids with that one model. Anthony? Tyler? Something, I couldn’t remember.”
Luca snickered. Meri had always gotten a bit jealous about the other people that he had seen Luca around, even back in juniors. “Don’t act like you don’t remember Andrew’s name.”
“Eh, it wasn’t very memorable,” he said, smirking as he bracketed his knees around Luca’s hips. His breath hitched. “Clearly wasn’t to you either.”
“I mean, he’s all the way in Los Angeles, it would be quite out of the way to hook up with him tonight, but—” his words were cut off by Meri suddenly closing the distance between them, and suddenly he’s forgotten what he wanted to say. His mouth parted and Meri took advantage of it, drawing out a soft gasp from Luca.
“What, a post-game cig?” Luca breathed into the little air left between them. “Someone’s unoriginal.”
“I may have picked up something from you after all,” Meri said, grinning, and then returned to kissing Luca. His elbows gave out from under him and he fell further back on the couch, letting his hands drift down and untucking Meri’s own dress shirt so he could slide his hands underneath.
One of Meri’s hands found its way into Luca’s curls, tugging at them in a way that forced his chin up. Meri kissed the side of Luca’s mouth, then his jaw, working his way down to his neck where he sucked, hard, and fuck that was going to leave a bruise. “You— you always leave so many fucking hickeys.”
Meri snickered. “Don’t act like you don’t like them.”
“I—” His words were choked off by a sharp nip. “Fuck.”
“What was that?” he said innocently. Luca attempted to flip them over, bucking his hips up and attempting to get any leverage, but the couch was far too narrow for anything like that to happen.
“Bed,” he managed to get out—a miracle, really, between Meri’s mouth at his neck, one hand in his hair, and another attempting to undo his belt. “This couch is—it’s way too small for two, fucking, hockey players.”
“Fuck, you’re right,” he groaned, clearly miffed by his plans being derailed by the unfortunate reality of needing to change locations. He got off of Luca, allowing him to sit up as well. The blood rushed from Luca’s head, making him slightly lightheaded; he didn’t even get a moment to adjust before Meri’s hand wrapped around his tie, pulling him up off the couch and towards the guest bedroom. He stumbled along, short of breath and already planning to get back at Meri for the hickeys that were no doubt already forming.
Luca woke up warm and sore in all the right ways. It was far too bright in the bedroom, unfortunately. He must have forgotten to close the curtains before falling asleep, but he couldn’t be blamed for that. He had slightly more…compelling things to do last night. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes—or at least attempted to, since his arms were trapped under someone’s arm slung over waist.
“Meri,” he whispered. “Meriguet. Laurent.”
The man did not stir.
“Laurent Timo Meriguet, wake up.”
He did not wake up. Luca sighed, closing his eyes and resigning himself to his fate of having to attempt to go back to sleep in a far too bright room.
Somehow, he couldn’t find it in himself to complain and actually wake Meri up.
This time, when his team chirped him about his hickeys, he rolled his eyes and chirped back, delighting in the ensuing laughter. It was nice to have a supportive team, as nosy as they were. Maybe teenage Meri and Luca would have tried harder to try to see if they could be something back then, but somehow Luca knows that it couldn’t have ever worked out then. Too much pressure, too many eyes on them, and there were only one or two out players. Certainly no players together.
Now, though. Maybe it would be okay if he loosened up, flirted back more in front of their teams. He could only imagine the face that Hunter would have made once he saw Meri—and more important, Meri’s neck—at the airport this afternoon. Ilya would be so proud of him, traumatizing a dinosaur.