Chapter Four

October

Sometimes, even though he generally hated most people, Eric wished that he had a better social life in Boston. It was partially his own fault for being busy all of the fucking time, and also partially his own fault for being a prickly, unapproachable jackass. Once you hit a certain age, it was hard to make friends that you hadn't dragged with you from your youth. And sure, Eric had his hockey buddies, but they were scattered to all corners of the continent, some of them in Canada, some of them in America, none of them in Boston.

Sometimes, he and Petey would go out and grab a beer. As fond as he was of his colleague, Petey was also very...low energy. They had shit in common to talk about, but sometimes Eric didn't want to talk about work. It was a strange conundrum, really. When his mom was trying to set him up with girls, all he wanted to do was talk about hockey. But when he was hanging out with the boys, all he wanted to do was talk about other shit. Or play pool. Or listen to music. Or maybe that was just Eric and his contrary fucking nature again.

Sometimes, against his better judgment, he just went out alone. It was a half-hour walk if he wasn't hurrying to one of the few dive bars in the city that still felt like a dive bar, even if it had the kind of notoriety that meant you also needed to avoid hipsters while you were drinking. The walls behind the bar and in the bathroom were scribbled over with messages and caricatures and other invectives lost to time. It had pool tables, and Eric was competitive enough that if he could bully a stranger into losing a game against him, he would. The drinks were cheap. The bartenders weren't too chatty.

So he walked down Fourth Street, from South End to Southie proper. As he walked, he took a quick picture of the last lingering fall leaves clinging to the trees, the moon in the sky behind them. It was a cliché shot, but he posted it anyway before shrugging his shoulders and heading into the bar.

Whitey's was loud and crowded as it always was, and Eric elbowed his way up to the pocked and scratched wooden bar to order a whiskey and beer. While he was waiting for the bartender to come and take his tab, he glanced down the bar and did a double take. He recognized that gray fucking head, unfortunately. But he'd already paid for his drink, and he would be damned if Ryan fucking Sullivan chased him out of his bar .

If he played his cards right, maybe Sullivan wouldn't even notice.

Of course, Sullivan looked up and saw him, and narrowed his eyes. Even in the dim light of the bar, Eric noticed the line at the corner of his mouth tighten. A face that was usually laughing twisted into a frown. Sullivan slid off of the barstool and almost immediately disappeared in the crowd of taller, standing patrons. The visual effect was so funny that Eric almost laughed himself, except he had the distinct impression that Sullivan was headed his way, and he didn't want to encourage him.

"What are you doing in Southie?" Sullivan demanded.

"I live in South End. It's not that far a walk. This is one of my favorite dive bars. What are you doing in Southie?"

"I grew up here," Sullivan said. His face was a little flushed; Eric wondered how long he'd been here, how much he'd been drinking. "I was visiting my family."

Eric wasn't stupid. He could put two and two together about visiting my family and then immediately after drinking at a dive bar . "So you decided to come and get drunk instead?"

"I'm not drunk ," Sullivan said, waving his hand emphatically, and Eric grabbed it so he wouldn't smack the arm of a woman who was trying to squeeze by them.

Sullivan looked up at him sharply and flexed his hand; his skin felt very warm under Eric's fingers. He didn't pull away.

Eric let go. "Okay, toasty."

"Oh Jesus, Aronson, you are just..."

The bartender slid Eric's beer across the counter to him, and he took it with a lift of his hand in acknowledgment. "I'm what?"

"A pain in my ass," Sullivan muttered. For once, he didn't have the beaming, optimistic face that he wore around the guys at the rink. Eric wondered if he was always like this when he was alone. Whether there was a darker underbelly to his sparkling personality. Anyone who played the way he had couldn't have been all shitting rainbows and unicorns.

"That's mutual," Eric said, and Sullivan surprised him by laughing.

He had a wheezy little chuckle, as breathless as he was after repeatedly running the steps at whatever rink they happened to be playing in before every morning skate. "You really come all the way to fucking Southie to drink?"

"I like to play pool," Eric said, a little defensively.

"Yeah? Come on. One game."

It wasn't a good idea. There was not having friends in Boston, and there was belligerent pool with his boss, who had been drinking. Eric downed his entire pint in two gulps and gestured for another one. "You're on. Let's see if you can even reach the table."

Sullivan's brown eyes narrowed and for a second, Eric felt the little thrill of competition. The same way he would have done facing him across the red line for an opening face-off while they waited for their centers to duel it out. Sullivan ran one hand through his gray hair, pushing it out of his eyes. He was a bit disheveled, like the wind and alcohol had whipped him out of the tidy persona he usually presented.

Eric thought about grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. He would have, if he had any idea what would happen next. "Let's see if you're all talk the way I think you are."

"Oh, shit. Does Ted Lasso actually have a temper?"

"Less crap, more pool," Sullivan said, firmly, and Eric thought about reaching down to ruffle his hair out of order again.

Eric took his second beer, downed that too, and followed Sullivan to the pool table. He might have been short as hell, but his body was broad and solid enough, muscular enough, that people moved out of his way instinctively.

It was the kind of bar where even though everyone had to have recognized Sullivan, no one actually approached to bother him. The most anyone did was glance at them out of the corner of their eyes, and Eric was aware, once again, that he really could not afford to do anything stupid, like trip his head coach just to see him go tumbling to the tile floor and sprawl in an undignified heap.

Sullivan moved to rack the first set of balls. Even drunk, he moved with a careful and easy economy of motion, although Eric had to snicker a little when Sullivan did need to lean forward so he could reach and position the triangle correctly. Sullivan caught him at it and his head whipped around, frown tugging the corner of his mouth down, and Eric couldn't resist.

"Should I get you a stool?"

"You can break them, and we'll go from there, how about that."

"Which rules? You want to pick stripes or solids?"

"Your choice. Whatever bar rules you usually use. I don't need to worry about who has the best setup."

"Oh, cocky, are you?"

"Competent," Sullivan corrected him, and Eric really should not have found that as attractive as he did, especially because Sullivan was so fucking self-righteous about it. He held the cue stick in one hand like it was a hockey stick, leaning over the table to peer at the angle Eric chose to take to break the rack.

The balls broke with a satisfying crack. To his eye, the stripes were better arranged, but he wasn't going to give Sullivan the satisfaction of competence by taking the easy way out. Eric took solids, and let Sullivan have the first go at it.

"I can't believe you voluntarily hang out in Southie," Sullivan said, with a disparaging snort, as he moved around the table looking for the best angle. "If I had the choice, I'd never come back here again."

"It's really not that bad," Eric said. "At all. Where else would you, Mr. Hall-of-Famer Cup Champion, be able to play pool without getting bothered for autographs every five seconds?"

"I can tell you didn't grow up here," Sullivan retorted, neatly pocketing his first ball.

"What gave it away?" Eric couldn't quite keep the smirk off of his face, and it only seemed to infuriate Sullivan further. What annoyed him was the equally neat shot and satisfying noise as Eric's ball made its way to the target, too. "Was it the fact that this place isn't as terrible as you think it is, or was it the accent?"

Sullivan didn't answer, just moved around the pool table like a shark, picking his spots, getting a better view of the lines he'd have to pick to get his next shot. As much as he hated to admit it, Eric watched him, the way his shoulders shifted visibly even under the bulky fall sweater he was wearing. The muscle of his stupid, thick thighs pulling against the legs of his pants. Sullivan played pool the same way he did everything else, with an air that would have been cocky if he wasn't so obviously enjoying the competition on its own merits.

The bar was crowded and humid, like everyone else in Southie was either avoiding their own shitty families or had simultaneously decided it was better to be lonely in a group. Even in the space around the tables, Eric kept getting shoved to the side as he waited, pushed around until he set his weight at the center and refused to move.

He had to stand too close to Sullivan, stupidly aware of the heat of Sullivan's body, the way that the hair on his arms stood a little on end where he'd rolled his sleeves up to the elbow. Couldn't help looking at Sullivan's face, the way his mouth twisted in a firm line when he was concentrating, squinting down at the table. Teeth digging into his lower lip. Couldn't entirely ignore the way he'd catch Sullivan watching him when it was his turn, the too-long stare, focused on the wrong parts of Eric's face or body.

They were evenly matched, for the most part. A few fouls set Sullivan behind. A push from behind while he was lining up set Eric's ball careening off at the wrong angle. Sullivan didn't crow triumphantly at him either, just watched, intent, like he was plotting the trajectory of a particularly bad-angle wrister from behind the net. Even though he swayed a little as he walked, he still had a hell of a shot. It was satisfying, watching him play, Eric realized with a little jolt. He had let his guard down, and every time his arm brushed against Eric's or his hip jostled Eric out of place, it threw him off of his game.

In between turns, Eric wove his way back up to the bar for drinks, Sullivan bristling when Eric warned him not to cheat while he was gone.

"Is this what you do with your spare time?" Sullivan asked when he returned, and Eric did a double take because the question had sounded so sincere.

"Nah. I watch a lot of hockey, you know."

Sullivan laughed, and Eric felt the frisson of annoyance and frustration that he always had when Sullivan smiled. "No shit."

They had wound down to Eric's last ball, and the eight ball. He said, "Five ball, right corner."

"Oh, confident," Sullivan drawled.

"No, competent," Eric corrected him. He wondered if there was a berachah for not embarrassing yourself in front of your annoying fucking boss. There were a lot of weirdly specific ones, but probably not that specific. He muttered a little encouragement to the ball, anyway, before he sent it careening into the right corner pocket.

"Goddamnit," Sullivan exclaimed.

"See?" Eric couldn't resist. "And I didn't even take the best setup."

Sullivan's head whipped around with the kind of energy that a hawk had. He wasn't glaring, exactly, but there was a very intense focus, a frustration vibrating out of him. Eric thought, smugly, good . Instead, he said, "We ever decide on a bet?"

"No," Sullivan said, and folded his arms over his broad chest. "And at this point, I don't think you should get to pick the forfeit. That's cheating."

"I won fair and square, you obnoxious little—"

"I'll buy you dinner on the road," Sullivan cut him off firmly.

"Are you kidding?" Eric started. The last thing he wanted was to spend time with Sullivan outside of work. Especially in an unfamiliar city, where he couldn't escape. Sullivan's whiskey-brown eyes were looking at him. His eyebrows drew down in a frown. He was leaning forward a little, into Eric's personal space. A few more inches and he'd practically be in Eric's arms. Eric wondered how it would feel, his sturdy body pressed against Eric's. He wondered—

No. He had to stop thinking like that. He had to be normal about Sullivan, no matter what he looked like, no matter how oblivious he was to the distance between them. Somehow, Eric's mouth was saying, "Fine, whatever."

"Okay," Sullivan said. For some reason Eric had the distinct impression that he was being laughed at. "It's a bet." Sullivan glanced up at the glowing TV screens over the bar, which were playing the Patriots game. "Ah, shit. It's almost midnight already... I should go."

Eric frowned at the empty glasses stacked up neatly on the table next to him. They had a flight to catch early the next day, and he'd been here in a dive bar, wasting time talking shit with a coworker he hated. "Yeah, same."

He didn't look at Sullivan when they settled the tab. He didn't look at Sullivan when they left the bar and, without further conversation, went on their separate ways. He realized that he didn't even know where Sullivan was staying. Whether he was living out of a hotel, whether he'd already figured out an apartment. It wasn't his business, and he didn't care.

Falling asleep that night, knowing what he knew.

Even the victory felt hollow.

Ryan had always loved road games. You didn't necessarily get the chance to see another city if the timing wasn't perfect, but he liked the excitement of knowing that he was going to be in a new place for a few days.

He'd liked being on the plane with the boys, shooting the shit about nothing or playing cards or pranking anyone who was dumb enough to fall asleep while the majority of the team was still awake. He'd liked the excitement of heavy steps down the bus stairs, knowing you were heading into enemy territory. He'd liked hotels, even when he'd had to have a roommate, enjoyed the crisp clean sheets and heading down bright and early to see what was available at the hotel buffet. He'd liked playing in other teams' barns, especially when they'd win it, savoring the satisfaction of watching faces fall and the crowd go silent.

It turned out that the excitement was still there, just tempered, as a coach. He stood waiting for the guys to corral themselves onto the bus to the airport, watching the rookies goofing off and knocking each other's hats to the ground, some of the older guys texting their wives, the equipment managers hauling the last few boxes of gear before the team would start loading their own bags.

At his shoulder, Jesse Keen, one of the veteran left wingers who'd been there through the previous administration's entire tenure, had his arms folded over his chest as he watched. He was frowning. Keen hadn't impressed Ryan very much in the small sample size.

In the previous lineup, Keen had been a defensive specialist, skating heavy minutes on the penalty kill and rounding out a third line that could do a little bit of everything. He'd never broken fifty points, but he'd been a reliable source of secondary scoring. He had yet to make it onto the scoreboard this season. Ryan wasn't up his ass about it, but he was keeping an eye on the situation. Sometimes this was just bad luck, sometimes it was a confidence issue, sometimes it was some other thing working its way in and wreaking havoc on a guy's game.

"Everything good, Keen?"

"Oh, yeah," Keen said. He had the kind of nondescript face that your eyes skated right over, and thick hair cut in a way that reminded Ryan a little bit of Wolverine. "I mean, would like a little more ice time, if you're asking sincerely."

Ryan blinked at him.

"Joking," Keen said, in a way that indicated that he was not, actually, joking.

Ryan made another mental note to keep an eye on him. He hadn't expected everyone to immediately fall in line to the new way of doing things, but Keen hadn't had a point yet so far that season. He had been smiling that same determined, brittle smile about it, but Ryan had the feeling that ice time was going to be an issue. Same as deployment. He had started the season determined to kill everyone with kindness, but that depended on the personnel.

This was a circular little not-quite-road trip, starting in Columbus, swinging through Pittsburgh, stopping in New York, and then up to Toronto, with some time to head home and do laundry in between.

Columbus was the kind of city that had a bad rap, but that Ryan had always enjoyed. The city was the kind of place you could legitimately describe as up-and-coming, and the Battery's goal cannon was one of a kind. It was especially funny watching the rookies, and some of the veterans, jump. Aronson hadn't specified where he wanted Ryan to pay the forfeit, so Ryan had decided to get it out of the way as quickly as possible and before he'd have to pay Toronto prices.

As the team went up the ramp to the plane, Ryan turned to Aronson and said, "I made reservations in Columbus for the night before the game."

Aronson turned an unimpressed brown stare at him. "Columbus? Really?"

"Hey, they have nice places there," Ryan said, feeling a little defensive. "We can't all be from Montreal."

"I feel," Aronson said, his lip twitching in an effort to hide the smirk, "like you're just trying to avoid paying New York or Toronto prices."

" You didn't specify," Ryan said, lifting his chin. "Columbus is a perfectly nice town with an underrated food scene."

"Gentlemen..." Petey said, slinging his arms around both of their shoulders, "we have a two-hour flight ahead of us and I get migraines on flights. Can we all agree to chill the fuck out? Eh? Eh?"

"Yeah, sure," Aronson said, flicking his fingers against Petey's wrist until Petey released him.

On the plane, the boys spread out in their preferred places. Ryan took note of the way that groups broke up: Cook and Williams sat together like always, but they'd roped Davey the goalie into their little group and were already pulling out the deck of cards. Some of the veteran d-men congregated around Afanasyev, toward the middle of the plane; they were all taking out their masks and earplugs for what looked to be a group nap.

And the coaches ended up in the front, in a group of four seats separated by a table in the middle. Petey immediately took one side, lifted the chair divider, and flopped down on his back.

"You're going to have to buckle yourself in," Aronson told him.

Petey said, "Bite me."

"My biting days are behind me," Aronson protested, and narrowed his eyes when Ryan laughed.

Somewhat against his will, Ryan settled into a seat next to Aronson, and pulled out his iPad and notes to start reviewing shit ahead of the game. The Battery were another one of those perennial bottom-feeder teams, no matter what big splashes they made in free agency. It was tough to keep players, but maybe not so much now that they'd shuffled the coaching staff around. They were already riddled by injury, with a few stars starting the season on LTIR.

Next to him, Aronson pulled out one of the yellow legal pads he was always carrying around and set it down on the table. Ryan could see out of the corner of his eye the sketchy diagrams and chicken scratch scrawl that passed for Aronson's handwriting—most of it was in French. He couldn't take too close a look, though, because by that time, the flight attendant had come out to the aisle to give them the usual talk about staying seated when the lights were on and buckling their seat belts securely. Some of the older guys were already snoring.

Ryan's ears popped as the plane gained altitude, and he rubbed the side of his head absently. On screen, he watched his defenseman and the fourth line completely losing defensive zone coverage and allowing a goal against in an almost comical series of miscommunications.

Under Leclerc, they had had a complicated system of zone coverage. Petey and Ryan had worked out that they would be better served taking it man-to-man, but that also required practice and training to make sure that the players knew how to make the judgment calls necessary to actually pull it off. That would be a teachable moment before the Battery game. It was encouraging that some of the players had already come to him to ask for extra video review time: whatever you had to say about the talent level, you couldn't fault the effort.

Strangely, Ryan couldn't relax and concentrate on his work the way he had always been able to do. He'd flown on planes like this for the majority of his life, and he couldn't ever remember being so weirdly aware of the guy sitting next to him. Usually it was the unspoken rules of the road: you made sure your arms and legs weren't overlapping, the same way you didn't look where you shouldn't in the locker room. It wasn't even like Aronson's arm was drifting.

Ryan was just very aware of where it was resting in relation to his own arm. He shivered, although the plane wasn't cold.

He frowned at the armrest and Aronson's elbow. Aronson had rolled his sleeves up again, and Ryan could see his forearms, the thick, dark curly hair that went right up to the edge of his wrist. He wondered what it felt like, if it was soft or scratchy or—

Aronson caught him looking, eyebrows lowering. "What are you looking at?"

"Do you still think in French?"

"What do you—" Aronson started, surprised, then stopped. "It was what I grew up speaking at home. But I've been away long enough that it's mostly English." His eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"You write all of your notes in French, so I was just curious."

"It's so nosy assholes like you can't spy on 'em."

"Aronson, we're literally coworkers."

"So?"

"So, we're supposed to be on the same page."

Aronson leveled one of those blank brown gazes at him, eyebrows drawn down over the rims of his glasses. "Are we?"

From his vantage point on the opposite side of the table, hidden beneath the edge, Petey said, "Don't take it personally, Sully. Roney's just like this."

"Like what?" Aronson demanded, the pen balanced in his hand like a dagger.

They couldn't see Petey's face, but the smile in his voice was almost audible. "Nuh-uh, I'm not giving you that fight. Come on. Migraine, yeah? Chill. Out."

Ryan realized it was sound advice. He also realized it was easier said than done. He slipped his earbuds in, connected them to the iPad, and turned the volume up. It was easier to listen to the sounds of skates on ice than it was to pay attention to the very bony elbow, still encroaching on his personal space, or the nearness of Aronson's lanky frame, radiating like a space heater.

Thankfully, the flight wasn't long, and by the time they had disembarked, the equipment staff had unloaded all of the bags and the team had made its way through the airport, Ryan felt a little more like himself.

He walked at the end of the line, watching the way the players were interacting with each other, filing things away for future reference. Who was at the center of it all, who was a problem, who was getting jokingly bullied by the older players. While he was watching, he caught a glimpse of Aronson, ducking down to pick up a pebble from the stretch of concrete outside of the arrivals terminal before slipping it into his pocket.

Ryan frowned. What a weird fucking thing to do. He wondered what on earth Aronson would want with the little chip of concrete, which wasn't even really an actual rock. But it wasn't like he could ask. He turned his attention away from Aronson and onto the team. His real responsibility.

Eric realized the error he had made in allowing Sullivan to buy him dinner as a forfeit. And then again, the error he had made in not setting any boundaries around it.

First of all, it meant that he actually had to spend time with Sullivan outside of work. Second of all, it meant that Sullivan had picked the city and the place, which meant that Eric had been dragged out to dinner in Columbus, Ohio, of all places, to a restaurant that was half-exposed beams that had been bolted on top of the regular ceiling and half glass separating the inside parts of the restaurant. There were fancy chandeliers made of delicate strung-glass crystals and a large glass wine cellar.

Eric glared at all of it as he followed Sullivan to the front desk. "Really?" he hissed out of the corner of his mouth. The waiters wore bow ties and pale green suspenders and aprons that matched the chandeliers, and the whole effect was ridiculous.

It was the kind of place that, if he was a different kind of person, he'd be documenting for an Instagram post later on. He could see diners beyond doing just that, the flash of phone cameras here and there. Eric, however, wasn't the kind of guy who took pictures of his food unless he was cooking it at home. He had some shame.

"The food's great," Sullivan said, with a shrug. He was smiling at the hostess, turning on every ounce of stupid twinkly-eyed charm he had. "Hello, we had a reservation for two under Sullivan?"

The woman, a pretty blonde, smiled back, the kind of irresistible reflex that people seemed to have when faced with the full force of Sullivan's personality. "Of course," she said. "Right this way."

It was the kind of place that would take your coat for you, but Eric stubbornly kept his on until they got to the seat and slung it over the back of his chair. Sullivan shot him a look, and Eric looked back, all fake innocence. Eventually, Sullivan seemed to decide it wasn't worth it, and sat down without commenting on the coat situation at all.

"You know," Sullivan said. "You're getting a free dinner out of this. You don't have to look like you're facing the firing squad."

"I have to look at those bow ties and suspenders every time they come over here. That's bad enough."

"All right, old man," Sullivan said, but the corner of his mouth was twitching like he was trying not to laugh.

It only made Eric more annoyed, so he covered his frustration by looking down at the dinner options. The menu actually didn't look half-bad, even if it did have ridiculous description choices like tuna ribbons .

Eric was still busy frowning at the various options when the waiter made his way over. He was a very young man with the freshly scrubbed look, red cheeks, and somewhat ostentatious earrings of someone who'd made his way from a small town to the big city and decided that, fuck it, now that he was here, he was going to be himself. Eric's initial inclination to be sarcastic at him wilted under the force of his earnest smile.

"Welcome to the Guild House," the server said, "my name is Cayde, and I will be taking care of you tonight."

"Great," Sullivan said, smiling back. "Thank you so much."

"Have you dined with us before?"

"I've been a few times, but this is his first."

"Well, if you let me, I'll explain the menu," Cayde started, and Eric immediately tuned him out.

He kept half an eye on Sullivan and the waiter as they chatted about the raw dishes and the appetizers and the wine list. He pinched the bridge of his nose and frowned at delicate scrolling print. It was frustrating that everything did sound good, but he'd dawdled too long: when he looked up, he found that Sullivan had already ordered several appetizers for the table, and Cayde was smiling widely as he looked from Sullivan to Eric, taking in Sullivan's pleasant, oblivious grin and Eric's thundercloud of a scowl.

"Your partner has picked out some excellent options, I assure you," Cayde said cheerfully, as he turned to leave. "The tuna ribbons are my personal favorite."

Eric started to say he's not my partner but caught himself when Sullivan looked back at him. He waited until Cayde had moved on to the next table, but before he could say anything, Sullivan cut him off.

"Now," he said, pointing the butter knife he'd been holding in Eric's general direction. As far as threats went, it was vaguely comical. "Do you want to tell me why you've been such a damn buzzkill at practice?"

"I don't know what you mean," Eric lied.

"I'm trying to make the practices fun for the guys. Something that they can look forward to, that's not rote, that's not boring . And you're in there glaring at them like—like some kind of bird of prey, and it's not the vibe that I'm looking for."

"A bird of prey?" Eric asked, laughing. "Wow, Sullivan, who would've thought you had some poetry in you."

Sullivan's eyes narrowed and he pointed the knife at Eric again. "Look, I know it's not what you were used to with Leclerc. It's probably not even what you were used to when you were playing. But like I said before, we're supposed to be on the same page, and I need you to work with me if this is going to be effective."

Eric was torn between the boiling frustration that had been simmering in the pit of his stomach since Conroy had hired Sullivan, and the opposing natural tug toward him. It was easy to see why Sullivan had been as vital to the Desperadoes as he'd been. He said everything so fucking earnestly, putting his whole stomach into it. Those big brown eyes narrowed, focused and intent. And despite Eric's inclination to dislike him he was charismatic as hell.

"I just—look, Sullivan, it's not just me. It's the older guys, too. Some of them haven't been thrilled about the adjustments. And at a certain point you just can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Cayde brought out some of the appetizers and Eric glared at the tuna ribbons. They were arranged in a flower shape on a bed of smashed avocado and paper-thin slices of radish. They were garnished with micro greens. The effect was ridiculous, the kind of fussy food that Eric had always felt the urge to just push over with his fork.

"What are you talking about?" Sullivan asked. He was frowning, now, his chin jutting out stubbornly. "We both learned that way. That's how we both made it through all of those years of play. I was constantly teaching myself shit. If I hadn't, I never would have gotten as far as I did."

"Maybe you did," Eric said. The worst part about the whole thing was that the tuna was actually delicious. He chewed and swallowed, furious.

"What do you mean, maybe you did? You played a long time, too."

"I'm not—" Eric didn't want to say it here, when Cayde was smiling at them and bringing out more dishes. Didn't want to say the worst things he thought sometimes, about toiling away so long, fighting every other night and bruising his knuckles and blacking his eyes, no Cup to show for it. "I'm not like you."

Sullivan looked at him intently, like Eric was one of the roster players on one of his teams, the kind of guy he would have motivated by reading the roster before heading out onto the ice. He leaned forward a little, shifting to try to get closer, his whole body tense and focused solely on Eric. Eric thought for a wild, insane second that Sullivan was going to try to take his hand. Under the table, his foot bumped against Eric's; just the simple contact sent a shock up his spine.

Sullivan flinched, like he had felt it too, but said, "We were both undrafted. We both worked our way—"

"We are nothing. Nothing. Alike."

They both had to pause because Cayde hovered at the edge of the table, looking very concerned. "Um, I'm very sorry to interrupt, but I wondered if you might want to put in an order for your main dishes? Or if I could bring you another bottle of wine?"

Eric blinked.

He hadn't looked too closely at the menu. He'd grown up in a kosher household, but once he went away to live with a billet family, he'd fallen out of the habit. It was fucking difficult—almost impossible—to keep kosher when you were one of the few Jews in the league, and the team didn't even think about trying to billet you in an appropriate home.

He'd never really managed to get back in the habit again. But he still thought about it every time he ordered something made with lobster broth, every time he ate pork or a cheeseburger.

His mother wasn't very judgmental about the way he lived his life, but he knew that she was always secretly disappointed. The same way she probably would have been disappointed about other things he hadn't told her, like the fact that he was perfectly fine dating Danielle from shul, but he'd really preferred David.

"I'll—uh—the sea bass?" he said, after a second.

Cayde nodded, and then smiled brightly at Sullivan. "And for you, sir?"

Sullivan frowned and said, "I'll do...the halibut, thanks." He very studiously did not look at Eric, frowning, instead, at the woodgrain of the table.

Cayde glanced from one of them to the other, like he was trying to figure something out. "You know what? I think maybe the occasion calls for some wine, really. Can I show you the list?"

"No, it's okay," Sullivans said, and winked. "We both have to work late tomorrow."

Eric could almost see Cayde's sigh of relief, the way his whole body relaxed, and he realized something kind of horrific. That fucking kid thought they were there together together. And Sullivan. Stupid, oblivious Sullivan. He had no fucking clue.

Eric imagined the floor opening up underneath him, swallowing him without a second thought. That would have been preferable to tuna ribbons and a very fresh-faced young queer kid assuming that he was dating his boss . His obnoxious, optimistic boss who said shit like it's not the vibe I'm looking for and seriously meant it.

"You okay?" Sullivan asked, his eyebrows raised.

"Fine," Eric said, and put his head down and concentrated on demolishing the rest of the oyster mushrooms that Sullivan had ordered for him.

He carefully minded his own fucking business for the rest of the dinner. He didn't argue. He didn't snap. But it didn't help. Toward the end of the evening, Cayde came sweeping back in with a wink for Ryan and a grand flourish: a torte and a poppy cake, to split.

"Complimentary," he said, beaming. "I just wanted you to end your night on the sweetest note you could."

Sullivan looked at him, bemused. Eric kept his mouth firmly fucking shut, even when Sullivan, calculating the tip and scrawling his signature on the bill, said, "The waiter was nice, but do you think the conversation was a little odd?"

"All in your head," Eric said, curtly, and counted down the seconds until he could flee.