ROCKET

Okay, so I definitely should've known to leave it where it lied with the defenseman. I shouldn't have tracked him down in the parking lot and I shouldn't have picked fun at him for not having friends and I shouldn't have done a hundred things I did on the first day of practice toward him that I did, in fact, do. 

Because he has not said a fucking word in a week. 12 people have been cut in that week leaving us just the right amount to head out to our first preseason game of the season. 

Assistant captain? Radio silence. 

At lunch? Not there. After practice? Not there. Team meetings? Guess what, silent. 

And now, Nico is reading off something and he's standing to her left, looking down at his feet, white hair falling over his eyes. 

I almost feel a little bad. I'd actually feel bad if he wasn't such a fucking dick. 

"Plane buddy assignments, considering we have to leave for Minnesota tomorrow morning," Nico is on a table in the cafeteria. 

I cross my fingers to get Steph but keep my eyes on the burly Scandinavian, wondering, secretly, how much protein he has to eat to keep his body like that.  

She starts reading. "Fen and Greenbean, FedEx and Mumbles, Pikachu and Sushi-" She pairs up all our Russians, and then, of course, we're at the bottom of the list. Things are looking good for Steph and I. "Steph and Paxton. Rocket and Yeti."

Paxton points at Steph from across the cafeteria. "Saggy you better not snore."

Steph flushes. "He snores!" I holler.

"Fuck!"

"It's not bad," Steph scrambles. "It's just-"

"Oh just fucking wonderful."

"Jesus, Paxy, you sleep like a victim of the black death, you'll be fine."

"Okay fair point," Paxton tries not to smile. "But Steph I will strangle you."

"Okay," Steph squeaks.

When I look to where Yeti is, his eyes are locked on mine, cold, unwavering. He gives me a shallow nod down that tells me if I try anything, he'll throttle me. 

I swallow, hard, refocusing my eyes on the floor. 

YETI

Fucking Nico. I knew she'd have something up her goddamn sleeve about this. Always. Always with that woman. 

It could not have been worse. She could not have made the decision to assign me to someone that's not going to want to talk my ear off and who I want to strangle every time he opens his mouth. She could've put me with someone else. Anyone else.

So, when he flops into the aisle seat next to me the next day, I just give him the most aggressive glare I can, then put on my headphones and pray he gets the memo: stay quiet and stay out of my goddamn business. 

He seems to understand the vibe and does the same. The plane is almost silent, it's early in the morning and I know everyone is pretty tired. 

It could be worse. 

Rocket is out cold in a couple of minutes, but I am absolutely not comfortable enough to do the same, so I read on my phone for the two-hour plane ride to Minneapolis.

The whole 'being sick' thing has died down since the first two nights home, but something about sitting here next to him is making my stomach churn. 

Rocket nudges me with his elbow, I glance over, wondering if he did it on purpose or if he's just trying to get comfortable. 

He frowns at me like he's asking a question and when he realizes I have no idea what he means, he opens his mouth. "You okay?" 

Uh. I short circuit. "Fine." 

He nods like he suddenly gets it. "You're pale." I can't tell if it's a dig or if he's concerned.

"What?" 

"Pale. You look sick." 

I frown, trying to get him to elaborate. 

"No offense, but you look like Nico dug you up and reanimated you. I can't tell if you're that sick of me that you're physically sick or if you're afraid of planes" There's the dig.

I pause. "I'm fine." 

"If you're sick, don't cough on me, I can't be getting sick during the preseason, that's a no-no." 

I pick at a hangnail, not at all planning on responding to him. 

"Alright," he sighs, settling into his sleeping position. "Tell me if it gets bad, can't be having my oh-so-friendly assistant captain throw up on me." 

I think about responding, but before I can come up with anything, he's closed his eyes.

I let my eyes rest on him, barely, just the parts of him I can see without turning my head to gawk. He's skinny but strong, the straps on his forearms defined enough to be seen despite their relaxed state. His athletic fit t-shirt is folding and falling perfectly across his stomach, landing so I can see a trace of his abs from here. His fingers are long and agile, wrapped idly around his beat up phone, veins scattered across the backs. 

It floods back to me, The rest of grief feels different once you've come to terms with it. Don't deny it, denial will kill you from the inside out.

I'm not in denial that I'm gay. I've gotten over that. I've- I'm there. Maybe I'm in bargaining, or guilt. Or anger. Probably guilt. 

He's giving more expressions in his sleep than I've ever seen on anyone before. Little scrunches of his nose, furrows of his eyebrows, a twist in his lips here and there. The more expressions he makes, the longer I find myself watching. When his lips pull, you can see a full set of straight teeth, sharp on his canines, I would bet getting bitten by him would hurt like a bitch, but I hope he doesn't bite me. His lips are full but not big, well rounded and evenly sized, but he's still slavic, so they don't make too much of an appearance on his face. His skin is phenomenal, completely unmarked except a few acne scars by his hairline on his cheekbone and a little nick out of the skin on the end of his nose, an old cut, perhaps. His jaw is sharp, same as his nose, two harsh lines, both coming to almost complete points. His brow is just about as defined and when his face is resting, his cheekbones the same. However, the second he smiles, and he smiles all the time, every harsh line softens up and gets so warm that you can't help but smile back.

The trip to Minnesota is short, considering we're a private flight, we get to go direct, Regina to Twin Cities, it takes two and a half hours. Rocket sleeps the entire time, which is alright, I guess.

But then, of course, it kinda takes a turn for the worse: I have to wake him up. And, I don't catch myself before I start so I can make sure I'm being sort of a dick to him while I do it. I can't just... I can't be a dick to him while he's sleeping. He's got to be awake and cohesive before I feel comfortable being mean. Then, at least, he knows context. 

I start by poking his arm.

"Rocket." I mumble, putting a hand on his shoulder and shaking. I'll give him credit, when I first met him I wondered how he could even keep up with us because he seems to lack any muscle weight, now that I've got a pretty decent grip on his shoulder, apparently he just doesn't bulk up.

"Rocket, get up." I don't want to poke his nose but that's the thing that gets Paxton up. I hold off for a second, watching the rest of the guys start to yawn and get up to grab their stuff out of the overheads. 

"Rocket." I hopelessly shake one last time, then pull back. He's either dead or pulling my leg. I look around for assistance, but Steph is already leaning over the seat in front of me. "Just punch him. That normally works." 

"I'm not- what? I'm not gonna punch him." 

"Great, I will, and if we're lucky he'll just cuss a bunch and then wake up." Steph grins like a maniac, hopping out of his seat and before I can stop him, gives Rocket a good snap to the stomach. 

You might think that I've heard enough swearing in my life for it to seem completely normal, you know, working daily with professional athletes normalizes hearing most swears in the english language on a minute by minute basis. Not to mention I know how to curse in Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, French, Dutch, German (thanks Fen), Spanish (Greenie), somewhat in Hungarian, British English (Also Fen) and now, thanks to Rocket Stojanovič, I know every single swear front to back in every apparent form in the Czech language, however I don't know what noises were words or just syllables: Czech is damn near impossible to understand for anyone but a native speaker. 

It was impressive though, the volume of words he managed to blurt out in the four or five seconds he spent recovering from Steph's wake up call. 

ROCKET

Oh, the woes of a hockey locker room. Steph's next to me, for some reason, which is weird, but I guess that's because Paxton likes being on the very very end?

Whatever.

"Alright, I had MVP for last game last season, therefore I summered with it," Greenie stands up and waves at all of us. "Actually, Jackie had a fair good time making fun of this hat, it appeared once or twice... after sundown- as a joke." What the hell-fuck does THAT mean. He plops the ratty chicken hat on his head. "Anyway, so I get to choose MVP for this game, and I honestly didn't decide until right now, but I'm choosing one of the new guys because he's been super cool for the last couple days and seems super friendly and awesome," Steph. He's picking Steph. Fucking angel child all the goddamn time. "Saggy, get your ass up here."

Steph breaks into a grin and Greenie baseball pitches the hat at him. He's in just the pants and shin guards half of his gear, the undershirt hanging around his neck. Steph is built, that's for sure. His abs pinch in around his belly button in just that one way, his chest visibly flexes when he lifts the hat onto his head, it's impressive. Everything is just so cut and pretty.

I'll blame the crush I had on him in the OHL for that moment. 

"Thanks, Greenie, honestly this is a weird entry to the whole group, but that's fine because you guys are sure one hell of a lot better than the guys in Boston, yikes," he slaps the sweaty ratty chicken on his head. "Jilly is going to have a good time making fun of me for this one."

I glance around the rest of the guys who all seem to be in mutual agreement on this. I'm not jealous of Steph for this, hell, I didn't play tonight so what were they going to give it to me for? 'Stojanovič! For looking fly and making sure everyone had water and jokes on the bench' They're not going to slap me on the back and say 'best morale booster and bench warmer!' no, not gonna happen up here. 

It's just that Steph is ridiculously predictable. I mean, look at him. Who doesn't want to be his friend? And what the hell does that make me? Everyone's best friend's other best friend? The one they skip over to be friends with the other guy? Yeah, exactly right, but I love Steph (not like that, well, not like that anymore) and he's my best friend in the world. I'd be lost without him. 

He drops back down next to me, elbowing me in the side and giving me a full grin. "How much d'ya wanna bet this thing has had lice in it at least once." He says it under his breath so the chatter in the locker room covers up the noise. 

Apparently not completely covers it up, there's a deep timber from Steph's other side. "Before we were relevant, my first season, we had an outbreak because of that thing." Yeti leans in on our conversation and I fix my attention on him, pale skin, white hair, stunning blue eyes and white eyelashes. "The guys who had shorter hair like I do just shaved it off to get rid of the lice, but the guys that liked their hair where it was had to do the full treatment plan." He's got his hand up by his mouth, pretending like he's got a reason for it there. I tilt my head, trying to see around it. 

"No fucking way, how bad did it get?" Steph warily goes to lift the ratty chicken hat off his head, happily joking with the linemate he just played an entire game with, potentially one of the best pairings I've ever seen him in.  

Yeti shrugs, reaching across his body to disassemble out of his elbow pads. His preoccupation with that activity means his hand is gone from his mouth. "Coaching staff got it, they passed it to med staff, up to media staff, we even gave it to one of the janitors. They almost had us all quarantine to get it gone." He tips his head down to laugh and I catch a glimpse of his mouth, teeth. He's got two front teeth and then on his left side, he's missing the next two down the arch. Of fucking course he's missing teeth. With all that fighting it would take a god to keep them. 

"The media staff? Oh god was everyone just rubbing their heads against each other's?" Steph seems rather appalled. 

"Not directly." He runs a hand through his own hair, starch white. Either he's got a violent case of Swedish blonde or he greyed and went white young.  "We also had a massive cheating scandal between staff that year, the assistant coach before the guy before Nico, so two coaches ago, his wife was having sex with the head of social media, also a girl. That was a wreck and didn't end well, I mean, the guy went off and tried to seduce her sister instead, blah blah, but that was how the lice went from the coaching staff to the media staff." 

I'm gaping at him. "What happened to the two girls? I mean, hopefully they told that assistant coach to fuck off, right? Who gets cheated on and then tries to fuck the sister? Go for something more classy, fuck the mother."

Steph chokes on his tongue between us. "Rocket!" He tries to scold me but he's laughing. 

Yeti's expression goes somewhat dead, laugh mostly disappeared, "you sound like you've had experience." It's flatter than ten day old soda. 

"I don't, I know a guy that does though," I attempt to revive it but his eyes are steady and unyielding. 

Steph's rolling. "Don't tell me that's Antonio Lefebvre from world juniors." 

Yeti is staring wide-eyed at Steph. "The Antonio Lefebvre?" The bvre on Lefebvre (le-ferve) rushes with a slight whistle from his missing teeth.

Steph laughs, "why, did you play with him in the IIHF too?" 

He shakes his head. "No, I played against his older brother, Etienne. But what happened?"

Steph sucks in a deep breath, "Tony got into a nasty cheating break up with his girlfriend of the time and seduced her divorcee mother before her mother knew they had broken up." 

He's stunned. "Just when I thought Wilhelm fucking his cousin's girlfriend was bad." 

"So back to the lice? What happened with all that?" Steph stops us from going down the nasty train which would've involved mentioning his father and his mother's best friend.

"Oh, yeah, they eventually got it under control, killed most of the lice, but the wife and the media head got married and moved to rural France and have a cottage now."  

"As they should," I try again to be part of the conversation. "Some day me and my future h-" Steph drops his skate on my foot just in time. "Ouch!" I put a little drama in it to hopefully cover that blunder. "...wife will move off to rural nowhere and raise a hoard of goats on a mountainside." 

Yeti frowns at that, opening his mouth to respond but deciding against it at first. "You want to be a goat farmer?" 

I shake my head, grinning. "Herder, Rex." 

"Right, herder. You're going to herd goats." 

YETI

The plane we're on now is more of a red-eye type thing. Minnesota to Tampa, it took off late at night after our afternoon preseason kickoff. Everyone is mostly asleep except for the back of the plane. They're playing something.

"What's up big man," Paxton flops into the seat next to me. "They've traded the goalies, Rocket's back there playing UNO with Steph."

"Awesome," I sigh. "I don't like him." Goat herding??? GOAT herding? 

"He's just a goalie, we're all weird," Paxy shrugs. "I like him, he's happy." 

I shrug, "pisses me off." 

"Well, yeah, you're allergic to anyone that's slightly fun," Paxton elbows my side. "Tell it how it is or don't tell it." 

"I'm telling it how it is: I don't like him. He's annoying." 

"He's adorable." 

"Annoying." 

"Listen, I don't know what's up with you, but you've been punchy since you got home, so either you tell me what your parents did to you this time or you chill it." 

"I'm fucking fine, get off my ass." 

"God, that's exactly what I mean," Paxton scoffs. "get off my ass." He mocks.

"Pax." 

"What fucking happened, dude? What is it?" 

"I'm fine," I hiss at him. "If you ask another question I'll take the other goalie back. I don't give a fuck. At least he keeps quiet." 

"Yeah, because you scare the shit out of the poor boy," Pax snorts. "It won't kill you to be nice to him." 

I grit my teeth. 

"So," he sets his hand on my thigh and I go tense all the way through. "Tell me what happened?" 

The ease in his tone is too much. Paxton has known me since I was eighteen, we were in the same draft year. He knows me sometimes better than I expect him to. 

I push my tongue against the gap in my teeth, "my sister got engaged." 

He raises his eyebrows, "that's good, isn't it? She's been with Leo forever." 

"It's fucking fine, I'm happy for her." 

"But? Yeti you and I both know you're not like this because of that." 

My jaw goes tense. Any more questions and he's going to make me crack my remaining teeth. I try to spell it out in my head. I don't even know. "Just-"

"They're still mean to you, huh? You're twenty-five, Yets, just don't go home, okay? I'm here all summer, you can even stay with me if you feel lonely. We can, I dunno, watch reruns of games or something. Just don't go home next year." 

I choke and cough it out, facing the window, "I don't wanna talk about it anymore." 

"That's alright," he puts his hand on my arm. "But please, Håkon, you're not alone out here." 

"Gage," it falls from my mouth a little to breathy, a little to broken, "please." 

"Alright, yeah, I'll let it lie," he's quiet for a few moments before: "well, I'm going to knock out, you too?"

"Yeah," I nod and set my head against the sidewall of the plane knowing I won't be falling asleep here. Not now. Not after that. 

Fen pulls my hair from behind me about a half hour later.

"Whitey," he leans over my seat. "What do you think about them, you know, Saggy,"

I shrug and rub my head where he grabbed my hair, then habitually put my hand up next to my mouth, hiding my teeth. "I like Steph, he seems like a great kid. You know how I feel about the goalie, the other three just, I don't know. I feel like they'll get minors scratched, they're not up with us at all. We might get to keep Fed-Ex, you know, Packard."

"That's what I was thinking." He sighs. "Rocket isn't really near our goal skill level, but Paikkala has basically been unheard of this whole season, so he's on."

"Yeah, we need him." And I need to figure him out. Steph was easy, he's an open book. Rocket makes no sense.

"Ah, alright, that's it, I just wanted to know what you thought."

"Greenie, can you flip around," Nico waves at Greenbean in the seat next to Fen. "Just for a couple of minutes?"

"Hey Sunshine, you look like you've got something evil up your sleeve," Fen slips his hand around Nico's ear and kisses her real soft right here. I watch it.

I have to admit, I'm jealous.

"THAT'S PDA." Paxton, who I thought was asleep,