Again, this is a double update, go read the first one if you haven't or this is gonna make NO sense. 

note at the bottom for new years, i just wanna thank y'all. 

HÅKON, MARCH 10th. 

It doesn't matter. He doesn't know. I shouldn't expect him to know because I haven't told him. It doesn't matter. He doesn't know.

I stare down at the text message from my sister.

ISA: GRATTIS PÅ FÖDELSEDAGEN!

"He doesn't know, that's your fault." I remind myself again. "If you had told him and he had forgotten it would be different."

I turn around and walk back toward my bedroom, peeking my head in to see him there, curled up and fast asleep in my sheets.

Some smaller part of me reminds me that it's widely available information on the internet, that the Wolves account posted about it and so did Fenrir on his story.

It hurts. More than I want it too. More than it ever has even when my parents started forgetting about it.

You've only been together two weeks. It doesn't matter. He just doesn't know. You never told him. It's your fault for expecting something to happen. It's your fault for wanting something. You would've hated the attention anyway.

I stare at his little sleeping expression and watch his lips move, forming little words under his breath.

It's not like it mattered anyway. People forget my birthday all the time. I stopped telling people because then it just hurt when they forgot about it. I didn't tell him for the same reason.

It's just another fucking day.

I leave the room and work my way down the stairs to the kitchen, finding myself a glass of water and the window, looking out onto the sad, snowy, frozen, street.

March tenth. The day I turned 26.

ROCKET

Getting out of the house was a good move despite it being one in the morning. I need space to think but thinking isn't working right now because honestly I have no idea what just happened.

"Rocket?" Steph picks up. "Dude, I'm eating dinner. What fucking time is it there?"

"One am." I mumble, my voice immediately cracks.

He pauses. "Are you crying?"

"No, not really." I respond, scrubbing my eyes. "Okay, yeah, fine, a little."

"What happened? I thought you were with Håkon?" There's a scuffle on the other side. "Yeah, Aug, I'm gonna step out for just a second, m'sorry."

I rub my eyes a little harder. "If you're eating dinner with her you can go, I really don't-"

"Not important." Steph responds. "What the fuck happened?"

"I don't, I don't know." I sit down on a bench by the sidewalk and put my head in my hands. "One minute we're making out and then the next we're arguing." that's a lie and I know that's a lie.

"You know you can just tell me, right?" He responds. "I'm not gonna care and you already know every single detail about the whole debacle with August down to the sexual shit, so it doesn't matter."

"That's the problem," I mumble. "It's this whole thing with us, he knows I haven't had sex before and I know I want to and I know that it's a stupid embarrassing fact about me that I hate, so I keep asking and I didn't know what his hold up was because we've been together for five months now and he just told me that he thinks I don't want to do it with him but just to do it to get over that personal problem of mine and then the whole thing devolved into him not trusting me and then all the way down into him thinking that I act too much like his therapist and too little like his boyfriend and that he thinks I'm getting a power trip off his improvement over time?"

Steph takes a long moment with that. "Wow, okay."

"M'sorry, I should just-"

"No." He stops me. "No you shouldn't just go."

"I-"

"What you need to do, and don't get mad at me if this goes badly because it sounds like he's really not on a good note with you, is you need to go back in there after you take a couple minutes to think about what you're gonna say and you're gonna sit down and say it. That's the best way to fix that right now. You need to explain whatever intent you have with that sex thing because even if it is personal he needs to know and you need to explain anything related to the therapist thing? I don't care if what is going on with you is going to hurt him, okay? You need to go back there and be completely fucking honest with him. All the way honest. You hear me? He needs to know goddamn everything that's happening with you."

Steph pulls in a long breath to keep talking. "You can go as far with that as you want to, you can go back in there and explain why you are who you are and what caused that or you could go back in and explain just the stuff around today but you need to be fucking honest with him. He needs to know everything. Yeti sounds like he's having some relationship trust issues and that's fine, you're gonna see that with each other because neither of you have done this before and both of you are flighty. Does that make sense?"

I stare down at my toes. "Yeah."

"Okay? You're good? You got it under control? I swear to god if I see you back in Canada I'm buying your plane ticket back to Sweden. I don't have time for you two to end it. I've not met a lot of guys, a lot of people for that matter, who work with you in this way, okay, he's rare, keep him."

I laugh lightly under my breath. "Yeah, yeah. I got it."

"Great, now go do that, m'gonna head back to dinner, alright?"

"Alright."

"Bye."

"M'bye." He hangs up and I'm left on the park bench going over everything that was said.

Especially one specific thing.

I turn on my data for the internet and look something up.

Håkon Leonardo Rex

Håkon Rex is a Swedish professional ice hockey left defenseman and alternate captain for the Regina Wolves of the National Hockey League. Rex was born in Uppsala, Sweden and grew up in Lagga. He was selected 32nd overall in the entry draft 8 years ago. Wikipedia.

Born: March 10th (age: 26 years)

Height: 6'6"

NHL team: Regina Wolves

National Team: Sweden

NHL Draft: 32nd overall, Regina Wolves

Current Teams: Regina Wolves (#74 / left defense)

There it is. From earlier. "I'm twenty six and I should not have had sex before now."

I look up at the street lights and the road and the fog and everything.

He's twenty six.

His birthday is on March tenth. Two weeks after we started dating. He knew mine. I didn't know his.

He knew all that about me and all I know about him is his past.

I set my head down in my hands and rake them through my way-too-long hair. Suddenly, without Steph telling me it's going to be fine, with the wind raking through my thin shirt, with everything, the waterworks start again.

I pull my body up off the bench, counting the cracked slabs of sidewalk on my way back toward Isa and Leo's cute little house with the grey front door and blue paint. I put my hand on the handle and push it open, clicking the lock behind me, staying quiet.

His footsteps are creaking upstairs, so I stay still in the mudroom, toeing my feet out of my converse, regretting not putting on socks before shoes, but, frankly, I hate socks.

I leave them next to the door, next to his boots, on the other side are Isa's nikes, Leo's dress shoes, and a scarf that's fallen off the hook. I bend over in a haze, picking it up and slipping it back over the hook.

It's gone quiet upstairs so I step up into the kitchen, dropping my firebirds jacket on a chair, right where I picked it up before going outside. I set my phone down too, it makes a little click against the countertop, so I pick it up and make the noise again.

From there, I drag myself across the kitchen to the stairs, climbing slowly as if I can just put off seeing him.

I do put off seeing him. I go and brush my teeth first, staring at his little retainer sitting on the counter in its case, his toothbrush next to it. I bring myself to look up at myself in the mirror, my eyes are bloodshot, making dull grey look bright green. My hair is a wreck, like I just rubbed a balloon over it, my jaw is scrappy with shadow. I lean closer, running my finger across the little acne scars at the top of my cheekbones, from far enough away they go away, a little closer they just look like freckles, but maybe they're bad enough close up that he didn't-

I stop myself by force, pulling my face back from the mirror, shutting my eyes, forcing my hands away. I stopped messing with my skin two years ago and I can't start again, not now. He doesn't have that type of control over me. I refuse to let him have that type of control over me.

I go to the bathroom one last time and somewhere between the door into the bathroom and the door out, creaking both times, I decide that it's not worth it to talk to him tonight, I'll do it over breakfast when I'm not an emotional wreck and when he's simmered down a little. I don't want to poke the bear tonight. I'd love to say I'm not scared of him but it's times like these where I remember the easy natural rotation of his core and shoulders, driving his arm, his fist. He's not like that anywhere but on the ice but it still scares me, knowing he can. Not only can, because I can drive a punch like that, but does.

I trudge back to the room, bending over my suitcase and breathing in hard, trying not to sniffle. I pull off my long sleeve shirt and pull on an old shirt of mine, worn out cotton, the type that doesn't stress me out. I steer clear of the shirt I've been sleeping in here, his old IIHF Sweden shirt. I only don't put it on because when I look up at his still figure on the bed, he's not wearing my old Boston shirt, which he sleeps in a lot for someone who swears he hates the shirt because it's Bruins merch. It's in slow rotation with another shirt of mine, my old Michigan Hockey shirt that I got while being slightly recruited by University of Michigan during my junior year. They didn't really go after me, I was in the OHL already, but they gave me a shot.

It hurts to see Rex across his own back instead of my name. It tells me this isn't an easy-fix argument. This isn't just our Tuesday morning coffee or tea argument. This isn't gonna blow over.

I decide after putting them on that the fabric of my shorts is going to be too much to handle. So, following his lead, I only leave on my boxers.

He's on his side.

He never sleeps on his side, not without me, that is. He'll sleep on his side when I've got him in a spoon, he likes that, likes it when I fidget with the hem of his shirt while falling asleep, likes the way my legs knot up with his, likes it when I kiss the back of his neck and likes it when I play with his hair. That's the only time he sleeps on his side. Otherwise he sleeps on his back, pulling me up onto his chest, my nose against his neck, leg slung over his hips. Then his most frequented sleeping position, his stomach, one arm around my waist, one under whatever he's got his head on, recently, it's been my chest; his leg slots between mine, the other stretched out, most of the time his toes sort of hang over the end.

Sleeping with him is, sometimes, the best part of my day. When things are shit, I know I can go home and he'll be there, just as warm and comfortable as he was when I got up, his arms just as welcoming, his covers just as heavy, breath just about as even. I know he'll wake me up in the morning with a kiss before telling me the weirdest thing he heard me say during the night. He grounds the hell out of me with that, his hands knotted up with mine, soft breathing on my neck, all of it, it brings me back to being myself, it's like he sets his head on my chest and sucks all my anxiety right out, leaving a little kiss when he's done.

I stare at him for a long moment before setting my knee on the bed, the springs creaking. His hair is white, too long, everything I love. His beard is somewhat untrimmed, left after playoffs because I like the way it tickles. His shoulders are burrowed down in the sheets, the shirt he's wearing is stretched from the peak of one shoulder blade to the other.

I slip my legs under the sheets, cold on my side, warmer as I get closer to him, though I don't dare let my toe touch his calf.

I roll away, staring at the little red glow of the alarm clock, stewing in my misery and growing self-loathing.

I can't handle it after watching the clock tick slowly onward. I can't do it, knowing every second that passes is too many of him being angry with me. I can't let him go to sleep mad because what if. What if he doesn't wake up. What if something awful happens and I have to go back to Canada and it's months before he comes home and by the time he's back he's forgotten about me or his feelings have changed. What if he's sitting there thinking about the best way to tell me to go home in the morning. What if I die in the middle of the night and I die with him pissed at me and thinking that I only want to use him for personal gain. I can't handle it.

So I sit up and hold out my hand, staring at it, then the spot on his shoulder I wanted to touch. I reach forward a little more, then push through my fear, setting my hand on his arm. 

***

leaving it like this is almost like borderline worse than leaving it like last chapter. 

anyway

just wanted to drop in and say: happy 2021. this year i've achieved more than I ever dreamed of, I started off with just over 1k reads on Post Olympic if I'm remembering right, and now I've got a hundred or so followers and over 200k reads on Plie and Clout after just starting to post that in February. I've written most of this book and most of the next all in 2020, I've written side projects and i guess it's just been all sorts of wild. 

I thank you guys for being here the whole time or most of the time or some of the time, or even just for right now. I never ever ever thought I'd end up here but i'm beyond thankful. 

thanks, again, (and sorry about this new years chapter catastrophe, monday's isn't much better) 

that's all

-rabid