#kevin hayes x reader

[infinitegalahad]

SOMEWHERE IN TRIBECA (PART ONE)

Pairing: Jimmy Vesey x Female! Indentifying Reader Summary: It took Jimmy a second, and it sent him into shock. Chills overtook his body. God, Jimmy felt fucking old, and like a damn dirty dog.  He tried, tried to say no, but he couldn’t. He sent her a rose and threw his phone down.  Not even a minute later, Jimmy’s phone buzzed. Immediately flipping it over and bracing for the worst, he saw the notification that he thought was fake.  (Y/n) liked you! Match to return the conversation.  Word Count: 3.3k Warnings: Age gap, mentions of trauma, depression, and alcoholism/alcohol abuse. Notes: This idea has been infecting my mind for months on end. There's been a lack of Vesey content, and given my expierences this year, I had to contribute them! To myself and Jimmy Vesey, of course. This chapter starts out a little slow, but the buildup is there (and Kevin and Brady being the best bros to ever exist). Things will definitely pick up next chapter, I promise. Idk anyone watched the game tonight, but NO QUIT IN NEW YORK. AND WE DEMAND MORE VESEY CONTENT. I promise to go in more about what the hell happened in my life soon, in another note! Tomorrow since I wanna read some fanfiction and go to bed lol. And Here is a playlist for the story. I recommend listening to Secret Garden by Bruce Springsteen and Duckworth by Kendrick Lamar for the best vibes of this story. . Anyways enjoy!! :) Taglist | Masterlist

Jimmy had been sitting a whole thirty minutes in a corner until somebody noticed him. 

Jimmy didn’t want to be there, but he really didn’t want to be there. Even before Kevin’s and Katya’s wedding, he had spent so many days drinking and socializing. Not that he had an issue with it, but nothing was new and interesting with him, minus being thrown around the country before landing back in New York. With his new contract, he was secured in New York. No more jumping around, for at least another two years. 

And of course, it had to be Kevin four beers deep. He dragged himself over from one edge of the table to another, draping an arm around Jimmy. Jimmy, of course, threw his phone down at sight. 

“You need to meet somebody,” Kevin bluntly stated, as if Jimmy didn’t know that. Jimmy looked around the table to see the gaggle of Rangers, ex-Rangers, and Philadelphia players, all with wives or girlfriends. 

“I’m trying,” Jimmy quietly said, not making eye contact as he held his beer. 

“Well, you need to try harder,” Kevin said, slinging an arm around Jimmy. You’re telling me you can’t find anybody?” 

Jimmy sighed and shrugged his shoulders, looking at Kevin with a helpless look. He wanted to crack a joke, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He knew there was a sadness in his eyes. He felt like he had most of everything, even though it was perfect, but he lacked one thing; somebody else. 

Here he is, as a thirty-year-old, still in the same boat he was at eighteen. After years of one serious relationship, a few hookups here and there in between moving teams, and another serious relationship that devastated him, Jimmy felt like couldn’t catch a break, nor could he catch one. 

Jimmy shook his head and took a swig of his beer. He had been keeping count, and it was his first one of the night. It wouldn’t be his last, but that was for later. He didn’t like getting drunk, especially around other people. Years of drinking he thought would have taught him to hold it, and he can, just not his emotions. Those always manage to come out. Everybody at the table knew that since they had seen it. 

Secret Garden lowly played in the background of Blue Ribbon, matching the quaint and hipster ambiance of the SoHo restaurant. 

Kevin was an asshole, but he was a loveable asshole. Jimmy was a brother to him, and he knew when and when to not make fun of him. He patted Jimmy’s shoulder and brought him close. He didn’t make a big deal of Jimmy’s loneliness, which Jimmy thanked him for. He simply sat and closed his eyes, feeling lightly tipsy as he listened to the low melody of the lyrics. He had tickets for a Bruce Springsteen Concert Labor Day Weekend, which was literally next weekend, and yet no one to go with. 

When that stupid lonely emotion started to make him feel heavy and shitty, Jimmy sighed and pulled his seat out. 

“I need to piss,” Jimmy mumbled to Kevin and patted his shoulder. He made a quick escape to the bathroom, needing a moment to pull himself together. 

Kevin wanted to go after him, but he knew JImmy needed his time. Out of the whole table, Jimmy was the only guy without a partner. And as much as Kevin loved him, it was point blank obvious before, during, and even after the wedding. Everybody was aware of it, and whale they did what they could, nothing budged, and nor would Jimmy. 

The other guys had dates, but that was different. Jimmy came, per usual, empty handed. From what Kevin knew, he hadn’t been out on the market since he his breakup with Madison. Jimmy didn’t like to talk about her or how it ended. Of course, he had moved past it, but some of the past was holding him back. 

Kevin looked down and saw Jimmy’s caseless iPhone on the counter. The screen was bright under the hardwood table, and Kevin’s thoughts were racing. He didn’t know if it was the beers talking or him, but a minute later Jimmy’s phone was in his hand. It showed off his Hinge profile, which Kevin partly didn’t want to see, but was also incredibly curious. 

In good old Jimmy Vesey nature, in between the zoomed photos and short prompt responses, it lacked character and information. No wonder he was having no luck; his presentation on daring apps was awful,

“Kevin, what the fuck?” 

Nearly pissing himself as a grown map, Kevin held the phone to his chest and swung over to see a topple of gorgeous salt and pepper hair; it was Brady. With a furrowed eyebrow and flushed cheeks, Brady gave a confused expression both at whatever he and Kevin just witnessed. 

Brady held his hand out, and Kevin let out a sad sigh. He handed it over, and Brady took a few seconds to scroll, making both disgusted and cringed faces at Jimmy’s profile. 

“My best trait is being chill?” Brady cringed.

“It’s better than his first photo being of him–at Harvard,” Kevin put his head into his hands, “Oy vey.” 

“I love Jimmy, but this is not a good look,” Brady said as he scrolled through his profile again. 

“What’s not a good look?” Katya said as she came behind. He saw Kevin and Brady loudly moping and throwing a phone around. 

Kevin and Brady helplessly looked at Katya, and Kevin handed her Jimmy’s phone. Takenaback, Katya took the phone. She was blinded up the bright and cracked screen of purple and white, but quickly adjusted to the profile. Taking her time as she scrolled through, she also too had a face of disgust.

“Oh wow, that is…” Katya said, trying to formulate words, “This is not good.”

“Oh believe us, we know,” Brady sighed as he pushed back his hair. 

“He couldn’t even get a date–” Kevin moped as he fell back into the table, “A damn date! Jimmy’s a fox, he can get any girl he wants–”

“--If he puts in the effort,” Brady finished Kevin’s sentence. 

Katya still stared at the screen. The photos weren’t the issue, it was just the presentation. She had known Jimmy for years. For a many who played Hockey, he was one of the better ones. He was kind but most importantly respectful. She knew his breakup had devastated him through the many long phone calls and Jimmy’s stays at there summer house, but it had almost been five years since he broke up with Madison. Especially since Jimmy was going to be in New York for a long time. 

Out with the old, and in with the new. 

“And he can do that, with some help,” Katya said as she sat between Kevin and Brady. Kevin and Brady, grab your phones. Send me every good photo of Jimmy you have right now.” 

“What are you-” Kevin asked before Katya placed a finger on his lip. 

“Best photos of Jimmy, now. Please and thank you.” 

When Jimmy came back to the table, at least five different guys and their partners were huddled together. Curious, Jimmy walked forward. Among the hushed whispers and nods, his phone was handed back to him–by Kevin, of course, who was red and all smiley. He giggled like a mischievous child, and knowing Kevin, he was up to no good. 

“What did you do?” Jimmy bluntly questioned, shoving his phone into his pocket. 

“Absolutely nothing,” Brady stated, putting his hands together. Jimmy looked down at him as Brady contained his laughter. Confused, Jimmy looked at both of them with a “what the fuck” expression. 

“You’ll see,” Kevin pointed out, “Don’t worry.”

Jimmy raised an eyebrow, “Well, I’m scared to look. And I’m very worried.”

As Kevin and Brady drunkenly laughed, Katya noticed and came over. She put a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder and reassuringly patted it. 

“Don’t listen to them,” Katya reassured, “You will be totally fine. We just…helped you out.” 

Now Jimmy was beyond fucking confused. Not to mention, he was tired. And he was feeling a lot of emotions he didn’t want to be feeling or thinking about. But the anger was outweighed by his sheer exhaustion. With a yawn, Jimmy sighed, figuring out it was a dumb prank. 

“Well, fuck the whole lot of you, I’m going home,” Jimmy announced. Acting over dramatically upset, Kevin and Brady wished him a goodbye. They laughed as well, telling him to “be careful” and “make sure to use a condom”. Jimmy scoffed and shrugged it off as teasing, primarily coming from the alcohol. After bidding his goodbye and congrats, Jimmy grunted and ordered himself an uber. The subway was not the route tonight. All he wanted to do was just get home and most importantly, be alone.

Even though he hated it. 

–

Name: Jimmy

Age: 30

Location: New York

Hometown: Boston

Occupation: Sports Professional

School: Harvard

My Ideal Date: Trying out a new recipe together at home, followed by a cozy movie night with homemade popcorn and our favorite snacks. As long as I get to be the big spoon. 

A random fact about me that surprises people…: I read a lot. My favorite way to unwind after a long day is curling up with a good book and a cup of tea. Looking for a cuddle buddy. 

I'm Looking For: Long-term, open to short-term (Monogomy)

Two Truths and a Lie: I speak Mandarin fluently, I play for a professional sports team, and I love Sushi. 

My Anthem: Crash Into Me by Dave Matthews Band

Jimmy sent you a rose. 

Name: (Y/n)

Age: 21

Location: New York

Hometown: New York

Occupation: Consultant and Law Student 

School: GW, UVA, Columbia Law School

My ideal weekend getaway destination is...: A charming bed and breakfast in a quaint coastal town, where I can spend my days exploring local shops, indulging in fresh seafood, and taking long walks along the beach.

I'm Looking For: Long-Term Relationship. No games, please. 

A random fact about me that surprises people...: Despite my innocent appearance, I have a mischievous side that loves to tease and flirt shamelessly.

My Anthem: Fire Fly by Childish Gambino

You now have a new match.

–

Jimmy got home around 9:30ish. Naturally, his growing feeling of loneliness had remained with constant reminders. The couple on the edge of the street, the doorman asking if he had been coming back from a date, and the worst of all; the damn couple in the elevator. With ti already being a small space, they couldn’t keep their hands off eachother. With Jimmy watching them unable to keep their hands off eachother, it made it all the more awkward. 

Hitting the 56th floor, Jimmy escaped. He heard giggles and shushes as the elevator silently shut. Looking back and sighing, Jimmy scoffed and dug in his pocket to grab his keys. 

He opened the door and was welcomed to a dark and unlived-in apartment illuminated by the World Trade Center and the skyline of Hoboken. As the light danced on the water, Jimmy kicked off his shoes, threw his keys into a bowl full of restaurant cards and matchboxes, and switched on the overhead lights. He wanted to rip off his clothes and simply decompress. 

A rinse-off and Corona certainly did the job for Jimmy. Slipping on a pair of boxers and an aged Harvard Men’s Hockey shirt, Jimmy took his beer and jumped into bed. The drinking was bad in college, and Jimmy thought it would go away with age, but somehow, it got worse—especially when he was alone and feeling what he called his therapist “things he didn’t want to feel.” 

Mindlessly scrolling through Netflix, he had already finished another beer. The bitter and blunt taste left a heavy taste in his mouth. He leaned back and let out a loud sigh, knowing he didn’t want another one. But he had training tomorrow, and he needed a good sleep. 

Forcing himself out of bed, Jimmy dragged himself to the kitchen. Opening the fridge and grabbing a beer, he looked at his phone for a distraction, checking his notifications. Emails, texts, and most importantly–Hinge notifications. 

He went from having two likes to fifteen, which was certainly progress. Forgetting his beer, Jimmy proceeded to scroll his matches. Expecting some hope, he found none. None of them rang a bell. Jimmy rested against the counter, resting his hand on his cheek as he mindlessly scrolled. 

Too boring, Too old, Too Familiar–

However, reaching his last match, something caught Jimmy’s attention.

It was a short yellow and lace dress, a bright smile, rosy cheeks, and dewy (y/s/c) skin. The girl posed with another group of girls, but among them, she stood out. Not just because of her dress (and how well it fit her and defined her figure), but it was how dead-drop gorgeous Jimmy thought she was. She had looked done up, but in a natural way, with soft makeup and silky curled (y/h/c) (y/h/t). Regardless, something about her intrigued Jimmy and made him feel warm inside. 

Upon further scrolling, (Y/n) was the yellow dress girl’s name. All of her photos were, as the first, beautiful. In the photos with groups, she always stood out in the best way possible. There were photos of her with friends, one of her serving in tennis, one with her diving on a beach–they all caused Jimmy to stare longer than he usually did. Not to mention, her prompts were perfect and interesting. (Y/n)  was adventurous, flirty, and full–a total minx. A mixture of gorgeous and cute, who had a fiery streak. Just what Jimmy loved. 

Not to mention, (Y/n) was smart, which made her more attractive than she already was. A political communication major, a former Divison 1 tennis player, and someone who just got her Master’s in Public Policy, she was more than accomplished.   

“Beauty and brains,” Jimmy smirked to himself, scrolling through his profile. The beer had become a pastime. 

Reaching the first photo, Jimmy scrolled to see her recent job. She was in her first year at Columbia Law School, working part-time as a consultant at one of those big think tanks. 

And she was twenty-fucking-one years old. 

It took Jimmy a second, and it sent him into shock. Chills overtook his body.

God, Jimmy felt fucking old, and like a damn dirty dog. 

He tried, tried to say no, but he couldn’t. He sent her a rose and threw his phone down. 

Not even a minute later, Jimmy’s phone buzzed. Immediately flipping it over and bracing for the worst, he saw the notification that he thought was fake. 

(Y/n) liked you! Match to return the conversation. 

(Y/n)’s profile opens, and Jimmy’s heart stops. She might be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

Through a series of speed tying to the point were his eyes blur att he small letters on the screen, Jimmy throws his phone down, again. He does it again–a stupid decision, of course. 

Jimmy: Consultant by day, law student by night, and a secret tease all the time? I think we might just be a match made in heaven. 

Nervously speeding back to his bedroom, he sat on the edge on his bed when his phone buzzed. Not even a minute later, and y/n responded. 

Y/n: Heyy Jimmy ;) Sexy, sporty, and smart? You’re a rare breed lol You’re definitely my kind of guy

In between (Y/n)’s response and her profile, Jimmy switched back and forth. Fuck, she was an absolute beauty. Inside most importantly, but also out. 

Jimmy:  You’re definitely my kind of girl. You seem fun. Why don’t we test out our chemistry? 😉 Y/n: What ideas do you have for a date? Jimmy: How about we put our brains and flirtation skills to the test over dinner sometime? Y/n: Haha damnnn Are you a Harvard exam? Because you've got me feeling all kinds of pressure 😏

A flash of white and yellow lace flashed across Jimmy’s eyes. He imagined his fingers tracing her thighs, which hugged the short edges of her dress, slowly riding up her curved thighs and-

Jimmy blinked and shook his head, distracting himself by typing up a response, red as a lovesick puppy.

Jimmy: Slow your horses, sweetheart Good thing I'm great under pressure. Let's see if you can keep up. Y/n: Haha I can you old man lol ;) Not even a hi, hello, how is your night And they say chivalry is dead lol  Jimmy:  How is your night? You’re the tease, not me.  Y/n:  And you fell into my trap lol It’s better now I’m bed with a face mask on lol, how about you? 

Jimmy felt a cool breeze as he made himself comfortable, bringing the heavy comforter over his lower body. 

Jimmy:  Not too bad, it would be better if you were right next to me.  As the little spoon, of course Y/n:  Hmmm, that is a tempting idea  You’re tall, you look like you give good cuddles Jimmy:  Anything to make you smile You have a beautiful smile, by the way Y/n: Aww, thank you ;) You’re pretty handsome, ngl   Once again you’re my type haha  Jimmy:  And you’re a dream come true I wanna know more about you, y/n Want me to order an uber? 

Fuck. It was a dumb response, but Jimmy couldn’t control himself around Y/n. He just wanted to see her in person. Not even to touch her, but to see her. If he could lucky, even hold her. Jimmy just wanted the company and the warmth, not her body. 

Y/n:  Oh wow! Not even the first date yet haha  Guess you are right, chivalry truly isn’t dead lol

With his thoughts racing, Jimmy overthought her response, which he never did with anyone. 

Jimmy:  I was joking, don’t worry. Not a dirty dog for nothing I just wanna get to know you because you are one of the most beautiful women I’ve seen on the app so far.   Y/n:  I knew it, I can tell you are a good guy don’t worry :) I wanna get to know you too, I like talking to you…a lot I’ve got some questions to ask you

Jimmy felt his cheeks go red as he smiled, hearitng all three of her messages. 

Jimmy:  And you are a good girl, straight off the bat  I like talking to you too 😌 I’m an open book. Speak to me  Y/n:  It’s about your two truths and lie I’m good at this game, but I can’t figure it out. Walk me through it? Jimmy:  And what do I get in exchange with you?  Y/n:  My company, of course! Jimmy:  Fair point, y/n.  I said dinner, but I just remembered something. Are you free on Labor Day weekend? Specifically, Sunday?  Y/n:  Yes…why ask? Jimmy: You, me, suite tickets to Bruce Springsteen at Metlife. Uber, drinks, and dinner are all on me.  Anxiously awaiting her response, (Y/n) took her time to respond, but eventually came through.  Y/n:  That doesn’t sound too bad at all  Alright, you got me  But I have one rule  Jimmy:  Talk to me, baby  Y/n:  Answer my questions nothing but truthfully?  Jimmy:  Of course, honesty is key.  What are your questions, sweetheart? Y/n:  Do you play for the New York Rangers, Mr. Hobey Baker? 

Holding the phone in his hand, Jimmy looked at the message and the time. It was just a little past eleven. When he thought his night was ending, it was only beginning. 

Jimmy:  Y/n, what time do you have to get up tomorrow? Y/n: Not early Why ask? Jimmy: I’m not a good texter. How does call sound? Y/n: Not even the first date…and I’m not saying no, at all 

Within the minute, she sent her number. 

For the first time in a while, Jimmy didn’t feel lonely. It was a change in scenery—a nice one, too. 

[kyleoreillylover]

Welcome to my Account! I am a wrestling/true crime blog that has a special love for womens wrestling, Jey Uso, Dominik Mysterio, and many others:) I take requests for WWE and NXT wrestlers. I will not take requests that are homophobic, racist, islamaphobic, anti-semetic, sexist, etc. No hate is welcome here :) My master list is below!

Series

Loyalty (ft. Jey Uso, Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, and Jimmy Uso)

CHAPTER 1- THE BEGINNING

CHAPTER 2- THE TEST

CHAPTER 3- TIME

CHAPTER 4- JEALOUSY

CHAPTER 5- CRACKS

CHAPTER 6-LOYALTY

CHAPTER 7- PART 1- THE BATTLE BEFORE THE WAR

CHAPTER 7- PART 2- THE BATTLE BEFORE THE WAR

Jey Uso

Loyalty (ft. Jey Uso, Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, and Jimmy Uso)

Attention (ft. Sami Zayn)

Show, Don't Tell 📸 (ft. Sami Zayn)

Protectors(w/Sami Zayn)

Monster (w/Roman Reigns)

𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐲 𝐁𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝, 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐡 𝐖𝐞 𝐀𝐢𝐧'𝐭 𝐚 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐞 ♡

What's it like being the female member of the Bloodline?

Keep My Hands to Myself

Beat Them or Join Them

Sami Zayn

Loyalty (ft. Jey Uso, Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, and Jimmy Uso)

Always Take Care of You (ft. Kevin Owens)

Attention (ft. Jey Uso)

Polaroids And Kisses📸

Anger Management (ft. Kevin Owens)

Show, Don't Tell 📸 (ft. Jey Uso)

Weakness

You look so Good Under Me

Protectors(w/Jey Uso)

Hotel Room(ft. Kevin Owens)

Dominik Mysterio

Proud of You

Addicted to You

Three's a Crowd (w/Carmelo Hayes)

Dominik Mysterio Headcanons

The Bloodline!Reader x Dominik Mysterio x Rhea Ripley Part 1

The Bloodline!Reader x Dominik Mysterio x Rhea Ripley Part 2

Instagram AU! Dominik Mysterio x Fem!Black!Reader

Snuggles

Rhea Ripley

The Bloodline!Reader x Dominik Mysterio x Rhea Ripley Part 1

The Bloodline!Reader x Dominik Mysterio x Rhea Ripley Part 2

Finn Balor

In Sickness and In Health

Roman Reigns

Loyalty (ft. Jey Uso, Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, and Jimmy Uso)

Monster (w/Jey Uso)

Carmelo Hayes

Relationship Headcanons

Kiss and Make up

Three's a Crowd (w/ Dominik Mysterio)

Besties with Carmelo

Instagram AU! Carmelo Hayes x Fem!Black!Reader

Tiffany Stratton

A Few More Minutes

What's it Like Dating the Center of the Universe?

Wake Up Call 🩷

Kevin Owens

Loyalty (ft. Jey Uso, Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, and Jimmy Uso)

Always Take Care of You (ft. Sami Zayn)

Hotel Room (ft. Sami Zayn)

Anger Management (ft. Sami Zayn)

Jimmy Uso

Loyalty (ft. Jey Uso, Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, and Jimmy Uso)

Kyle O'Reilly

Comfort

Undisputed Era

Fem!Reader winning the Royal Rumble

Comfort in Losing

[brockkboeserr]

if it's not you - kevin hayes

When a promotion at work calls for you to transfer back to Philadelphia, your ex-fiancé offers you the guest room of the home you used to share. What could possibly go wrong?

pairing: kevin hayes x reader

warnings: angst angst angst, relationship breakdown, talk of marriage and babies, low key plus size reader (and mention of exercise as an unhealthy coping mechanism), travis konecny sticking his nose where it doesn't belong, the over romanticization of spaghetti bolognese, smut

word count: 11k

a/n: here's the first half of a fic i've been working on for months, sorry not sorry for what i've done. in loving memory of my dearest k @danglesnipecelly who wanted either roommate kevin or ex kevin and instead i murdered her with both

Everyone you knew said it was a terrible idea.

Your mom, your best friends, the coworkers you were leaving behind, even Jimmy and Brady said it was a terrible idea. Jimmy and Brady, who share a single brain cell.

Deep down you recognize for yourself just how bad of an idea it was, but that knowledge was locked deep down beside the residual hurt and the love that you pretended had died long ago.

Maybe you were a masochist, deriving a sick sense of pleasure from torturing yourself like this. Or maybe you were just fucking stupid, naive and ignorant, unable to conceptualize all the ways things could go wrong.

Or maybe you just really missed him.

No matter the reasoning, and no matter how many people in your life tried to convince you otherwise, you were transferring to your company’s Philadelphia office, and the spare bedroom you were moving into was in the house you’d once lived in with your ex fiancé.

-

It was nothing, really, you tried to convince yourself. Just Kev being Kev, lonely what with his buddy and roommate Nolan shipped off to Vegas, and it’s not like you would find a place with cheaper rent than “free, as long as you promise to make dinner now and then.”

You can’t really explain why you reached out in the first place, with only a handful of conversations occurring in the months since you called off your engagement. Part of it was the excitement of it all, you’d gotten so caught up in it all that the second you left your boss’ office your thumb was hovering over his contact in your phone. That hadn’t been the moment you’d called him, though.

No, you’d celebrated the way you’d been forced to grow accustomed to without Kevin in your life - a drink with a few select coworkers and a phone call to your mom.

Maybe some part of you thought you owed it to him, to give him a heads up that you were returning to his city once again, a warning of sorts. Maybe you expected hesitance in his tone, a lack of warmth in his reply.

Kevin’s never really been that predictable though, and his response is nothing short of pure excitement. It’s here that he suggests you move in, at least temporarily, much to your surprise. You tell him you’ll think about it because it’s a big decision, but you’re certain you’ll tell him ‘thanks for the offer, but I have to decline.’

Certain, that is, until he ends the call uncharacteristically soft, nothing but sincerity on the tip of his tongue as he speaks, “I’m really proud of you, you know.”

You call him back the next morning and tell him you’ll do it.

-

Philly’s got an edge to it that you’ve felt drawn to since the first time you set foot in the city. You were sixteen, at some pop punk concert at the Mann your best friend had convinced you to sneak out of the house for. There was something in the air then, and for a moment, in the midst of a high energy show, with everyone around you screaming in unison, you’d felt it. A draw and a pull and a sense of belonging that you didn’t feel again in your hometown.

Not until you were a freshman at Boston College, stumbling into a cute guy with a loud laugh and a thick accent at a house party after a big hockey win.

You feel it again, pulling into the driveway of a very expensive house in a very rich neighborhood of Philly. Your house. Or at least it was, once. You remember the excitement of flying down to Philly twice, touring a dozen different houses before settling on this one. It was the bright and open kitchen that had stolen your heart the minute you’d stepped foot in it. He’d asked his teammates' opinions, but you know that even if they hadn’t all mostly agreed, he would have bought this one for you.

There was a time when Kevin would have done anything for you, if you only asked.

Your SUV is full to the brim with your clothes and the few personal effects you had kept - the majority of your things had been sold or donated when you’d committed to the transfer. It’s weird, to be parking this car in this driveway, as if you’d never taken Kevin’s grandmother’s ring off your finger, as if you’d later slipped on the wedding band to match.

Your ring finger is as bare as it has been for more than a year, though, as you flex your fingers against the steering wheel, willing yourself to move on from your thoughts. They’re not productive, they only serve to further break your own heart. You can’t let it go, though. Not here, not in front of this house. No, you need to sit in it for a moment, collect yourself, take it all in and let yourself wallow in it before you face what was once your dream home.

Kevin comes outside as you’re pulling bags from the trunk, wrapping you up in a hug that feels too real, too genuine, too meaningful. You lean into it against your better judgement, squeezing your arms around him tightly, as if you could put both of your broken pieces back together with a single hug. You have to stop yourself from telling him you missed him, certain he doesn’t want to hear about how you’ve been wallowing your way through life without him.

He has to stop himself from welcoming you home.

“You don’t have to help,” you tell him as he starts grabbing some of your bags. The look he sends you tells it all and you shrug sheepishly, “Thanks.”

With your former fiance’s help, your things are taken inside in only a few trips despite your attempts to prolong the feat. Without the distraction of hauling your things in and then scurrying back to your car, you’re forced to look around at what had once been your home. You’re not surprised to see not much has changed. Between the interior designer he’d hired and your own input, Kev had remarkably little to do with the design of the house.

As you shift side to side on your feet, feeling incredibly awkward and out of place, you spot a frame on the mantle, nestled in beside photos of his siblings and parents and nieces and nephews. The frame blends in perfectly, the exact same metal as the others around it, but you really didn’t think the subject belonged anymore.

Because the photograph contains your and Kevin’s smiling faces, his arms wrapped around your shoulders with your hands settled on his forearms, the sparkling ring glinting on your ring finger, with a beautiful sun setting over Cape Cod.

“It was my favorite,” he says simply and something inside of you breaks. It all kind of hits you then, not for the first time certainly, but it hits you all the same. That photo shouldn’t be the only one that contained you in this living room; there should be beautiful pictures of a wedding day, of you in white and Kevin in his best suit. Of his nieces and nephews in flower girl dresses and little ring bearer suits. Of a little baby boy or girl of your own.

It’s too much and you can’t keep the facade up any longer.

“I’m gonna go start putting things away,” you lie, quickly turning and rushing past him before he can see the telltale look of despair on your face.

“Do you want me to order take out tonight? I can get from that Italian place you like.” It’s an olive branch and a peace offering and an honest to goodness suggestion all rolled into one and you know you shouldn’t be acting like this. You know that if you couldn’t handle it, can’t handle it, you shouldn’t be here at all.

And so you pause in the doorway, still unable to look back at him. “Sure Kev, you know what I like.” It slips out, the easy casualness of it all because it’s how you used to answer when he’d posit the question of what you wanted from whatever restaurant you were ordering from. It was a comfort, really, that he knew you so well he didn’t have to think twice about getting you something you’d enjoy.

It makes the moment feel even heavier than it needs to, even heavier than it had a moment ago when you’d spotted that old familiar photo on the mantel. You don’t know how to take it back, though, don’t know how to explain that you didn’t mean it that way. The silence stretches between the two of you awkwardly in ways it hadn’t ever really in the entirety of your relationship. Even when things were falling apart it hadn’t ever really felt like this.

Like you were two strangers and not people with a long and drawn out history.

You won’t look at him, but he can’t stop the way his eyes track your every move, your words rattling around in his brain. Did he know what you liked? Or did you change your favorite pasta dish like you’d changed the address on your driver's license? Was it still penne alla vodka or did you prefer alfredo now? Did you still take sugar and cream in your coffee or had you kicked the caffeine habit entirely?

For a long time he’d thought about what it would be like for you to step foot back in this house, your presence filling the empty rooms in a way no one had been able to since you’d left. He’d tried, letting Patty move in, and then the girls who’d treated his front door like it was revolving rather than made of wood.

With the door to the spare bedroom clicking behind you softly, you toss yourself onto the unmade bed and cry. You cry for the past, you cry for the present, but most of all you cry for the future that you’d both robbed yourselves of.

When he knocks later to let you know the food has arrived - as if you hadn’t heard the doorbell and the subsequent booming nature of his voice - you’ve stopped crying but your face feels puffy. Kevin has the good sense to not mention it as you move with practiced ease around each other. The silverware is in the same spot it always has been, and so are the glasses. Even the Brita water filter is in the same spot in the refrigerator and it all makes your heart ache more.

Not for the first time, as you sit across from the man you thought you would get to love forever, you wonder what the fuck you’re doing here.

Kevin notices. Of course he fucking notices, what with the way he can’t tear his eyes off of you and the way he used to know you better than the back of his hand. He knew what you looked like first thing in the morning and he knew what you looked like with happy tears streaming down your face the night he’d proposed and he knew what you looked like with your bags packed, shutting the door behind you for the last time.

He notices but he doesn’t do anything because it’s not his place. It’s not his job to anticipate your feelings when you aren’t capable of verbalizing them or to reassure you that your fears are unfounded. Not anymore and it hasn’t been for a long time. He hates that it’s no longer his job or his place and he hates that you’re both in this position and more than anything he hates that you left him and this is what it’s all come to. You home but not really home, only here because of the very job that had torn you apart to begin with.

His heart is heavy and yours is too as you stare at each other from across the too large dining table, both wondering if you were making a mistake as large as the one you’d made when you’d let each other go.

-

Really, living with Kevin in a totally platonic, non-romantic way is both harder and easier than you thought.

It’s harder because you had grossly underestimated how badly being near him would make you want him. You should have known the dull ache in not being his anything anymore would only grow and multiply when the temptation to touch him increased with every interaction. Once a throbbing pain you could ignore by throwing yourself into the job you had chosen over him, now it was constant, unyielding and unforgiving - sharp reminders of what choosing yourself had cost you.

In some ways, it’s so similar to before, the feelings still bubbling under the surface but never boiling over. In the early days after your breakup you’d wondered if you would love him forever despite it all. In a cold and bare apartment in the middle of New York City you knew you would, heart aching and face tear stained. You’re reminded of the hurt in those moments as the weeks pass. Truthfully you don’t remember how to be his friend. For the majority of your adult life he’d been your best friend, sure, but he’d been your best friend in the way only a romantic partner can be.

And yet it’s not the same because in those quiet moments where once you would have leaned into the comfort of his embrace, you find yourself violently ripping away. Because even though your brain is well aware of all the hurt and the need for things like boundaries and space, your body is several steps and many years behind.

It feels wrong to see him soft and warm in the morning light of the kitchen without slipping in behind him and wrapping your arms around his body, your body nearly giving into the urge of its own accord before you can shake the feeling off and head for the coffee pot instead. It’s downright torture to walk past the back of the couch without slipping a hand into his hair and pressing your lips to his cheek.

The feeling is mutual, even if you don’t know it, as he has to resist the urge to press his body against yours while you reach on your tip toes for something in the cupboard or stand at the sink, washing dishes.

It’s easier in that you breathe a little easier in his presence, sleep a little better too. Being around him is as natural as breathing, probably too natural if you were honest with yourself. You catch yourself leaning in a little too much to his innocent touches, slipping up and almost telling him you love him when you say goodnight or he leaves for a string of away games, nearly curling up against his side when he puts a movie on in the living room.

Although sometimes sleep doesn’t come that easy. Not when you spend half the night tossing and turning, micro analyzing every interaction with the man asleep only feet away from you. From the smallest touches to the accidental slip ups that have you stuttering out an apology neither of you are sure you mean, you go through every second of it and wonder how you could have done things differently. On nights like this the guilt threatens to eat you up from the inside out. You run through hundreds of scenarios in your head, from the sweetest reunions to the harshest endings, ones where you sever the ties so completely you can never come back from it.

These nights are the worst when you have to haul your ass out of bed early in the morning to get to the office for eight.

Several months into calling what used to be your spare room home, luckily for you, isn’t one of those nights, but it doesn’t mean the exhaustion seeping into your bones is lessened any as the clock reads several minutes past two a.m. You toss onto your left side, then your right, then on your back, huffing and puffing with the energy of each turn. The pillow is fluffed and turned to the cold side multiple times as the minutes pass and pass. You count sheep, recite the alphabet backwards and forwards, even put on ambient music and then a sleep podcast.

Nothing helps, and you grow more and more exhausted. Until your sleep addled brain decides the best course of action is to slip into the bed that used to be yours.

The house is quiet and dark as you sneak down the hallway, feet cold and silent against the hardwood floor that you’d hated when you’d first moved in. “I like carpet,” you’d grumbled. Kev had only laughed, pressing his lips to yours and promising you that he’d buy you all the area rugs you could possibly want.

Kev doesn’t say anything now as you slip into the master bedroom, not until you’re pausing a few steps away from the bed with so many memories attached to it. Of you moaning and writhing beneath the sheets, of midnight kisses when he got back from a game at home, of lazy Sundays and breakfast in bed - even if the toast had been burnt and the coffee cold.

The comforter is different, but you should have expected that. There’s less pillows, but you should have expected that too. You were the pillow monster after all, adamant that you needed more than the customary two.

He wakes with a fright, and you’re reminded of when he made you sleep with the lights on after watching the first Paranormal Activity in theaters. “I don’t care how much I love you, if you were ever just standing at the foot of the bed watching me sleep I’d kick you in the face.”

“S’wrong?” he slurs, voice heavy with sleep the way you remember it being in the morning, warm and soft, gooey like honey.

You feel so foolish then, you had no business waltzing into this bedroom. What were you expecting, really? It wasn’t his job to make sure you had a good night’s rest. Not that he had when you were dating, more often keeping you up late into the early hours of the morning with his head between your thighs.

“I couldn’t sleep,” you admit, before shaking your head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come in here. I-” You move to leave the room and pretend you’d never opened that door, but his large hand comes up to encircle your wrist.

“C’mere,” he says, using that grip to pull you in closer. You go willingly, slipping into bed beside him and letting him pull you into his chest. You fall asleep seconds after closing your eyes, drifting even closer in your slumber.

You wake up first, comfortable and warm and secure, but you sneak out before he even has a chance to wake.

He thinks he dreamt the whole thing.

-

Though your relationship with Kevin had been born out of a chance encounter at a house party, it had really developed around food. Your early dates had been dinners after hockey games, you in his jersey and he always wearing a backwards BC hat, legs linked under the table. Sometimes his teammates wouldn’t pick up on his very obvious social cues that it wasn’t an open invitation, and you’d have to squish between Kev and Johnny on one side of a faded booth.

Later, the venue became the kitchen. That’s not to say the two of you didn’t enjoy a nice night out together, or didn’t indulge in more than your fair share of take out, because you certainly did.

It’s just, you’d grown up with your parents cooking together in the kitchen, witnessed many sweet moments of adoration and love - even if things weren’t always perfect with their marriage, they never missed cooking Sunday dinner together. It was one of the things you were most grateful for in your childhood, and something you’d always vowed to make part of your future relationships.

Of course with his hockey career, Sunday wasn’t always feasible, and neither was a strict once a week schedule, but you’d always leaned into the moments you could.

Kevin wasn’t ever really the best cook, absolutely spoiled by his mom’s skills in the kitchen and then the dining plan at BC and then you’d taken it upon yourself to make sure he was always well fed. What he lacked in skill though he absolutely made up for in enthusiasm and willingness to be bossed around by you.

“I like when you tell me what to do,” he’d smirked at you once during the first years in New York together, dutifully cutting vegetables for your casserole.

And then you’d fallen in love with this very kitchen, with its marble detailing and offwhite cabinetry and gold handles. The built in butcher block and the sink in the island, the stainless steel, french-door refrigerator and matching stove. Enough space for you and Kevin to cook together in harmony while your own children could look on in awe at how much their parents loved each other.

You’d envisioned all those moments here in that kitchen and then you’d watched them disappear like smoke.

Now you were half a year into living with Kevin, still dancing around the feelings you never let go of, picturing some other woman cooking with him at the kitchen island, their children watching them the way you always thought yours would.

-

It was an accident, you repeat to yourself over and over again. That mantra on a loop as you sit on your bed in Kevin’s guest room, trying and failing to keep your breathing even. The problem is you can still taste his lips on your tongue, can feel his stubble beneath your hand and the ghost of his touch on your hips.

It was an accident, the way his hands found the skin just above your jeans as he attempted to move past you in the kitchen. The way your body lit up under his touch, the way you leaned into it all. Muscle memory, really, as your lips met his right around the time your hands slid up his shoulders to cup his face.

It was an accident, how you stepped even closer, pressing the entire length of your body against his. The growl deep in his chest as he held you tightly to him. The slip of his tongue inside your mouth, the scrape of your teeth against his lips.

And then nothing, as you’d stepped back in a panic with eyes wide and chest heaving.

You’d turned and ran back to the sanctity of this bedroom, your untouched plate of food entirely forgotten.

The sound of the front door is not easily mistaken, and soon you realize you’re all alone in the house. Suddenly there’s only one person you want to hear from.

Grabbing your phone, you slump to the ground with your back against the closet door, knees pulled to your chest while you hear the familiar sound of the dial tone.

“Hello?”

You sigh, the familiar voice of one of your oldest friends like music to your ears. “Jimmy?”

The background noise fades as you can only assume he’s separated himself from whoever he was with. He says your name softly, an edge of confusion laced within it, “Are you okay?”

You sigh again. The truth is, you’re not even sure if you’re okay or not. Being near Kevin is as good for your soul as it is harmful to your heart. Unadulterated pleasure at being witness to his bedhead in the morning once again, sweatpants hung low on his hips as he leaves the bedroom you’d once shared, yet the sharpest pain as you try to exist together in this house, yet so, so apart. Every day you break your heart, yet every day you heal a bit of it too.

“I’m not going to say I told you so,” he says minutes later after you’ve gotten everything you needed to say off your chest.

You groan a little, Jimmy’s always been a bit of a know-it-all. “Stupid Harvard,” you grumble under your breath. He laughs, not at all offended and very used to the chirps.

“You know I love you, but...”

“But you told me so,” you sigh again. “I don’t know what to do Jimmy.”

“Talk to him. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Truthfully, there’s a long list of worst case scenarios, and you’ve already run them in your head a hundred times.

Kevin doesn’t come home until darkness has descended on Philly. In the meantime you’ve had two mental breakdowns and ten imaginary arguments with him in your head. You’ve written down every important point you want to say four times, the four pieces of paper crumpled in the garbage can more than enough proof of that.

You’re sitting on the couch when he comes in, your entire body freezing as you brace for a fight. It never comes, though. Kevin acts like nothing’s wrong, like he didn't have his tongue down your throat only a few hours ago. He’s picture perfect normal, asking you if you want to order take out tonight or if you’d already taken something out for supper. You stumble through your responses but he never breaks.

It hurts more than you thought it would, certainly far more than it would have if he had yelled and screamed the minute he walked through the door. He even sits down on the other end of the couch, arm outstretched and entire body looking so welcoming, so enticing. As if you could just curl up against him like you used to do so many nights before.

You don’t, though. You stay scrunched up on your little corner of the couch, body rigid and face emotionless until you give in and go to bed alone, with far more questions than answers.

-

Right when things started going wrong, you’d taken up running. Truthfully it was more of a brisk walk interspersed with moments of sprinting that usually left you out of breath and cursing yourself for not being more in shape. It had been silly, a way for you to attempt to fit into the mold of the stereotypical WAG. Part of you thought if you were just able to get in shape, shed a few pounds, that you would be able to save your relationship.

It’s stupid, now that you look back on it, but you’d been so convinced that your size was going to be the downfall of your relationship. If you could only push past your hurt and your ego, you’d realize it was a breakdown in communication above anything else.

Regardless, you’d kept up with it, slowly turning into more of a runner and less of a walker. It hadn’t done much for slimming you down, but you felt healthier, didn’t feel like your heart was going to burst out of your chest or like you’d never pull enough air into your lungs ever again after a short jaunt.

You find yourself running again, a strange sense of nostalgia and heartbreak washing over you as you make the same old, familiar trail around the neighborhood. More houses have come up, some have come down, new cars and new families all around reminding you that while your world may have ended in the brick house four blocks away, it had continued to spin for everyone else.

When you return, Kevin’s just leaving for practice. The air is thick with tension and awkward energy as you carefully dance around one another. The desire to shower is so strong, but as he steps into his shoes you can’t help but blurt out, “Are we not going to talk about it?”

He looks alarmed, face frozen in the expression it had been before you spoke, but his eyes told the wildest tale all on their own. You’re sure your eyes match his own - wild, crazy, disbelieving. Where he had been unable to believe you’d just asked that, you’d been just as bewildered that the words had actually left your mouth.

“What?” he says stupidly.

You gulp and run a hand over your forehead, before repeating yourself. “Are we really not going to talk about it?”

His jaw clicks as he ponders your words, eyes sliding to the box under the television that reads the time. “I’m sorry, I-” he pauses, words perched at the very tip of his tongue, “I have to get to practice.”

“Right,” you nod slowly, “Well have fun with that.” You turn on your heel and head in the direction of the guest bathroom, determined to wash off not only the sweat of your run, but the awkward tension of the conversation from your skin.

-

Weeks pass without any more slip ups, but without any more explanation, either.

Somehow, you get better at shoving your feelings down, even as Kevin does nothing to help quell them. You gain more comfort in your position at work, you grow and learn and thrive, even as the little voice in the back of your head reminds you the only reason you’ve made it this far is because you let Kevin go.

Slowly, Kevin’s life reintegrates with yours. It starts with a few of the boys lingering in the doorway when picking Kev up for the bus or the plane, new eyes curious and old stares hardened against you. An errant happy hour after work sees Kevin meeting your new subordinates and coworkers as well as your friend Emily who you referred to jokingly as your ‘work wife’ when the two of you had been dating. He waves off all your apologies, far more concerned with getting you home safely than anything else, and when he tells Em it was good to see her, you think he means it.

From there, the boys start to make more frequent appearances at the house, as you imagine they’ve been doing in the time you’ve been gone. Their hesitancy gives you pause, makes you feel like maybe you’re interfering with Kev’s life - a brick wall where there used to be a doorway.

Soon, it’s not uncommon for at least one Flyer or two to be hanging around in some capacity. They’re all polite enough, offering you a smile and a greeting. Of them all, G is probably the most genuine, telling you a bit about his kids and always reminding you Ryanne would love to see you.

You can’t step back into that world though, certainly not when you are neither wife nor girlfriend, but rather the pathetic ex being shown more kindness than you think you deserve. And so you always smile, but decline any efforts to include you and hide in your room until they leave.

Travis isn’t so friendly.

From the first time he sets his eyes on you once again, there’s nothing but contempt behind them. It’s such a startling difference from how he existed in your memory - friendly, kind, excitable. Now his stare is burning and unsettling.

You do your best to ignore it, hiding away in your room and only coming out when necessary.

It’s like Travis is lying in wait as he all but pounces on you when you leave the sanctity of the guest room an hour or two after getting home. “Travis,” you state politely while trying to edge around him toward the kitchen and a glass of water. He replies with your name in a tone far less cordial. Something about it all has the hair on the back of your neck standing up and your body moving into a defensive position; you’re pretty sure you’re in for a fight whether you want one or not.

“What do you want Teeks?” you ask after a minute long staredown that feels like an eternity. There’s no mistaking the way his jaw clenches as his nickname leaves your lips.

“You can’t keep hurting him like this,” he says simply. Your posture relaxes when you realize you’re not in for a verbal lashing, but then you’re confused. Hurting him? By simply existing?

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t act so surprised or confused. You know exactly what you’re doing,” he replies, but doesn’t elaborate further, shouting that he’s coming when someone calls for him. Travis walks backwards a few steps, his eyes never leaving yours before he’s shaking his head and rejoining the others.

You can’t stop thinking about it though, the conversation replaying over and over in your mind. What exactly did Travis think you were doing, and why was it hurting Kevin? Was your presence really that toxic, your existence here, in this house, that painful? You can read between the lines, fluent in the art of never saying what you mean, and so you know that Travis (and likely everyone else) thinks you have ulterior motives, like it’s fun for you or some sort of game the way you dance around Kevin, lost in the memory of what it’s like to have him and lose him.

And so you pull away even further. Gone are the nights spent separately but together on the couch. Conveniently, work picks up around the same time, giving you the out of late nights in the office where you return so exhausted you do nothing but shower and fall into bed.

You start looking for apartments to rent once again.

It works for a time. Kevin’s busy being a superstar, you’re busy avoiding him - the perfect scenario, really. But he’s not stupid, he knows something is going on, that there’s something you’re not telling him.

“You’re not holding up your end of the bargain, you know,” he states offhandedly on one of the rare occasions he has to speak with you before you flee in the morning. You pause with your hand on the coffee pot and turn to him with your eyebrows raised. “Home cooked dinner, remember?”

Gulping, you turn back to the task at hand, fixing up your travel mug of coffee just the way you like it. With a tone that feels clipped and forced, you reply, “Right, how about tomorrow night?”

“It’s a date.”

-

“Something smells good,” Kevin’s loud voice breaks the silence you’d been cooking in.

You shrug, stirring the sauce briefly before pulling a noodle from the pot to test. He can’t help the smile that breaks out upon watching your face scrunch up thoughtfully before you sigh, “Needs another minute. Think you can set the table?”

He does as he’s told; he always was the type to ask ‘how high’ when you told him to jump.

“Tastes good, too,” he states later while sitting across from you at the dining table the two of you only ever used when his mom was in town. There’s an open bottle of wine on the table between you, but you can’t help but shift your eyes toward the wine rack behind him, thinking you’ll likely need another soon.

“It’s just spaghetti bolognese,” you shrug self-deprecatingly. It’s not like it took a whole lot of effort, or like you’d slaved away all day at it.

He appreciates it all the same though, smiling genuinely at you before softly speaking, “It always reminds me of sophomore year.”

Though the memory of being so in love during your college years is a painful one now, what with how it all ended, it still brings a thoughtful smile to your face. You had hated living on campus, your freshman year roommate was a total snob and you despised the lack of privacy, and so you’d rented an apartment nearby sophomore year with a few friends you’d met in an intro econ class. Kev had spent all his free time at your apartment rather than his own space, not that you had minded.

To celebrate your first anniversary, you’d sexiled your roommates and made him the very meal you were now eating.

For a moment you’re embarrassed, it’s not that you’d exactly forgotten the memory, but it hadn’t been on your mind as you’d started cooking. It was just quick and easy, and in all honesty, you’d probably be able to make it in your sleep by now. He doesn’t bug you, though, doesn’t say anything stupid or make you feel like you were in the wrong.

It’s quiet then, the only sound being your playlist quietly playing through the speaker in the kitchen from where you’d forgotten to stop it. Quiet, that is until he opens his mouth.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” It’s a statement, not a question, but you freeze with your fork midair just the same.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” you reply, prim and proper, hoping he lets it go. That wasn’t really Kevin’s style, though, not until the last few months before the end of your relationship. When he’d let you speak in half truths and responded in kind, if either of you spoke at all. Before then, he was a straight-to-the-point, never go to sleep angry kind of guy, and so you knew your hopes were unfounded.

“Cut the shit.” His body language mirrors his tone of voice, shoulders slumped and expression melancholy.

“Nothing, work’s just picked up and I’m a little stressed about some deadlines. No big deal.” You avoid his eyes, carefully twirling some spaghetti around your fork.

He says your name with such conviction that you almost break, bottom lip twitching with the desire to pout. You swallow down whatever you might have said alongside a bite of your food. A low growl leaves his throat then, alongside the slamming of his fist on the dinner table, the silverware rattling in response. You flinch, but finally meet his eyes and is that not what he had wanted? “What’s. Going. On?” His words are short, and his temper is too, but beneath it all is a desire to know that you’re okay.

Part of you wonders if it would be better to double down. To insist that he’s crazy, that nothing’s wrong. It calls back a bit too strongly to the last set of fights between the two of you right before you left with your bags backed and an empty ring finger. When you danced around the truth, hinting and implying and speaking in tongues rather than admit your insecurities. There were many nights in the time since where you wondered if you’d just dug in a little deeper, let him in a little closer, if things wouldn’t have ended up the way they did.

Another part of you kind of wants to hash it all out, right here, right now. Inside of you is that sweet eighteen year old who fell in love with a gentle giant at a house party and she’s practically begging on her knees for you to let her speak. To let her carve out the heart that still beats for him and place it neatly on the table for him to take. You can’t though. Not while the you with her bags packed and the shattered pieces of her heart stuck together with a shoddy bandaid stands in front screaming to get out of here.

And then there’s you, as you are, sitting at this dinner table that holds so many memories - the first night in the new house, birthdays, anniversaries, the laughter of his nieces and nephews. You are sad that it’s come to this, broken at the idea of the distance between you expanding far past the length of the dining room table, confused that now he’s choosing to talk about it when it was fine for months to skirt around the issues.

“Now you wanna talk about it?” you can’t help but snap. Kevin reacts like you’ve slapped him, flinching and grimacing and you know you haven’t been wrong that it was purposeful the way he’s avoided it all.

It doesn’t temper his attitude though, his grip on his fork only tightening as he speaks through a tense jaw, “Yeah, I do. So talk.” And you really want to latch onto the anger and the hurt you feel licking up your spine and wield words like a knife. But what right do you have to do that? To throw things back at him. He’s not your fiance, not even your boyfriend anymore. Just an ex with a big heart, letting you stay in the house you picked out until you find your own brick house with a bright open concept kitchen and someone new to cook dinner with in it.

And so you decide to be a little vulnerable. Sighing, you ask, “Do you regret letting me stay?”

Though the syllables are anything but complex, the question is not an easy one and neither is the answer. He’s silent for long enough that you start to wonder if you’ve said something wrong. He lets a hand run down his face, squeezing his chin for a second. “Why are you asking me that?” Kevin might not be the man warming your bed every night anymore, but he still knows you better than anyone else and he’s sure there’s something more going on here than a little doubt and insecurity.

“Can you please just answer the question?” you snap again. You’d feel bad about it, but you can’t feel anything beyond the anxiety that’s causing your heart to race in your chest.

“No, I don’t,” he says finally and you really don’t know if the emotion you feel is relief or grief. They’re so similar, sisters not twins in the way they both cause your jaw to unclench, your shoulders to drop.

“Why don’t you regret it?”

His expression falls just the tiniest amount further, and if you didn’t know every line of his face so intimately, you probably wouldn’t notice. “I’m only going to ask you one more time,” he speaks through a clenched jaw, “Why are you asking me all this?”

You swallow hard then, the image of Travis with a snarled mouth just outside your door so clear in your mind. “Travis said something,” you admit softly. He curses softly under his breath, rising from his chair and crossing the space between you quickly before pulling you up along with him. The weight of your hands in his is as comforting and grounding as you remember, though you focus your gaze on where your limbs are linked. He squeezes your fingers, not enough to hurt, but enough to make you look up into his eyes.

“His heart’s in the right place,” he says and you can’t find it in yours to disagree. You know that Kev was as broken by the break up as you were and you know that you left the mess for the likes of Trav and Nolan and everyone else to clean. The thing is, you know this and you’ve already been feeling guilty about this, but to have such a harsh reminder thrown in your face hit you that much harder. “None of this has been easy for me, you know. Nothing has, not since... well...” Not since you left. “But I will always want what is best for you and that’s why I invited you to stay and that’s why I want you to keep staying here.”

You feel it, all the words unspoken between you, all the hurt and the anguish and the yearning. You feel it, and yet you allow him to pull you in for a heavy hug, one where his every emotion pours out of every inch of his skin. Squeezing him tightly right back, you listen to the steady rhythm of his heart, inhale the heady scent of his aftershave, memorize the feel of him all around you, invading every single one of your senses.

“We’re okay right? You still mean a lot to me and I don’t ever want us to feel like strangers.” You may not have Kevin in the way you used to, but you can’t ever go back to watching his life from the sidelines. It’s another sliver of vulnerability and he swallows it up greedily. One hand slides to the underside of your jaw, cradling your face in his large hand as he tilts your head backwards just a smidge. He presses his lips to your forehead in a motion that you feel all the way down to the tips of your toes.

“We’re okay, baby. We’re okay.” The pet name slips out without much thought from him, but he doesn’t take it back and you don’t make a big deal out of it.

And you are okay. You resume watching tv on the couch separately but together, the inches between you slowly fading until you find yourself resting your head on his shoulder while some terrible action flick plays on. The home cooked dinners ramp up too, a mix of old and new favorites enjoyed at the dining table, with good conversation and even better laughter. Somehow, Ryanne even convinces you to come to a few home games, and it doesn’t even make you feel that strange or that much of an outsider - especially not after a cold beer during warmups and a cuddly Gav on your lap for most of the game.

You’re okay but you’re not okay because you do all these things as a side character in his life. No longer are you a starring cast member of the Kevin Hayes Show, the smarter half of the A plotline. You’re a C plot at best, a minor background character who delivers the punchline that is your new relationship or lack thereof. There are no hands on thighs or asses or breasts when you sit on the couch together, no pretext or motive behind watching the film like there once was. When you cook those dinners, you don’t have to ward off wandering hands and stolen kisses that distract you long enough for the smoke detector to start beeping. Ryanne is a friend but so is Kevin and the family box doesn’t hold the same comfort it once did.

It’s still hard and it still hurts, but you’re navigating a life with Kevin that isn’t a life with Kevin. Not the kind you’d always imagined and dreamed of, that is.

-

It’s an old habit, the way you pull your favorite navy suit of his from his closet, hanging it carefully on the hook on the back of his door. You used to do this, before; set out a suit for him to wear for his game while he was at morning skate. There’s no real explanation for why you do it now, except, maybe, that it feels right to do so. Like maybe you could lean into it for a moment and pretend that nothing had ever gone wrong, that you’d never been hurt.

That feeling doesn’t last long, not as you return to the living room and curl up on the couch, old reruns of some sitcom playing on tv while you pretend you’re not waiting for him to come home.

Home.

What a strange word, with an even stranger connotation. Once this house had been your home, the bedroom he now sleeps alone in had once contained your shared bed, his closet that is no longer full once held your work clothes alongside his suits, his ensuite once boasted your toothbrush alongside his. And then it had been cruelly taken from you, the very rug you now stand on had been pulled from beneath your feet. It had been your doing as much as it had been his, of course, but the point remains the same. This was no longer your house, so when did it become home to you once again?

Although, was it the brick and mortar that felt like home or was it the person?

You don’t have much time to dwell on it before he’s back, time fading as he grabs a bite to eat and then heads to his room for a nap. Once upon a time, he would have begged you to join him, probably copping a feel in the process. Once upon a time, you used to fall asleep with your head on his chest.

When he emerges a while later, you have to pretend like you’re not caught up in the memory of it all by the sight of him in that suit. Like you don’t remember the press of that belt buckle into your stomach, or the slide of those lapels under your fingertips. He thanks you with that big dumb grin of his, pressing a kiss to the top of your head as he leaves for the arena.

You don’t go to the game; he’d never invited you to and you were still too stuck on how to co-exist within this space without crossing boundaries that it never even occurred to you to ask instead, but that doesn’t stop you from watching from the couch. The sweater you wear is old, nearly a decade old in fact, a souvenir from the first year you’d known Kevin. It’s a Boston College hoodie, the maroon and gold lettering long since faded, something you’d borrowed from him when you were still ‘just friends’ and hadn’t ever given back. Not even when you left him.

The game is a good one, you think, even though you’ve only got eyes for number thirteen. Some time between the first and second periods, you’d cracked a bottle of wine, and by the time Kevin comes home, you’re well on your way to downing a second bottle. It’s late, and if you’d been sleeping you’re certain you would have woken up from the sound of him bustling through the door.

“Jesus, you didn’t drive here did you?” you snap as he trips over his own discarded loafers.

“Ubered,” he shrugs, before he’s lighting up with a grin. “You really do care.”

“Of course I care, Kev,” you reply earnestly, and all traces of laughter are gone immediately from his face. There’s a tension then, and you’re not sure if it rests in the weight of your words and their implication, or if the tension has existed here all along. Truthfully it’s likely a mix of the two, but you don’t dwell on it as you lift from your spot on the couch and approach him. There’s no mistaking the look in his eyes as he takes in the sweater you’re wearing, his old number on the sleeve.

The stubble on his cheek looks so inviting to your tipsy mind, your fingertips flexing with your desire to cup his jaw. You come together, then, unsure of who exactly took the first step forward. It doesn’t really matter though, not with your entire being caged within his arms. It’s gentler than you can remember ever being with Kevin before, almost as if you’re both parcels stamped ‘fragile, handle with care’ and one wrong move will result in pieces of shattered glass on the hardwood floor. It’s intimate and warm and comforting, your head pressed against his chest, like not a single other thing matters in the world.

As you pull apart you press a chaste kiss to his adams apple where the top button of his shirt has been undone. It’s like something is set off within you from just that simple touch, as you suddenly feel the urge to kiss every inch of his skin. Slowly and methodically, you unbutton the rest of the way down, kissing the newly revealed flesh after every one comes undone. It’s gentle and reverent, the way you practically worship at the altar of his body.

He lets you do it without any sort of protest or movement, hands awkwardly dropped at his sides until you reach the last button and pull the bottom of his shirt to untuck it. It’s like something has awoken in him too, as he reaches for you, pulling you up to him where he’s leaned in as well. One hand cups your cheek, thumb gently rubbing at your cheekbone, while the other tangles in your hair as your lips meet. He tastes like beer and honey, and on anyone else it would be a strange combination, but you can’t get enough of it even as your hands slide his shirt off his shoulders.

As the garment drops to the floor, Kevin’s reaching for your sweatshirt, calloused fingertips brushing against your skin as he helps you take it off, the kiss breaking for only the time it takes for the offending item to leave your body. From there he walks you to his bedroom with practiced ease, and if his tongue hadn’t been down your throat, you might have allowed yourself to wallow in the hurt that comes with the knowledge of how he’d gotten all that practice.

As it stands, you can barely remember your own name, so caught up in the feel of his bare chest and the gentle roll of his hips against your own.

You’re overcome with emotion when he lays you down so gently, so carefully, against the sheets of his unmade bed. His kiss is soft and sweet, but yet still so inexplicably heavy you feel it all over your body. He’s gentle still as he makes his way down your body, ridding you of your leggings and underwear and settling between your thighs.

There’s a reverent look on his eyes as he presses gentle kisses from your knee to your inner thigh, and you can’t help the way his name falls from your lips, pleading. He smiles up at you then, a tender grin on his face as he says, “Yeah, baby, I know what you need.” And he does, finally pressing his mouth to the ache between your thighs. You sigh contently, the feeling one you’d sorely missed all these months, curling one hand into the hair atop his head and lacing the other with his fingers on your hip.

He coaxes you through one gentle orgasm and then another, humming and moaning against you in clear pleasure, asking and pleading for you to ‘give him one more’.

When he pulls back from your body, chin gleaming and chest heaving, you instinctively begin to turn onto your stomach, into his favorite position to have you in. He stops you, one hand sliding to cup your chin as he presses his lips to yours solidly, “Wanna see you.”

It sends a rush of longing through you, and so you settle further into his pillows, wrapping your arms around him and reeling him in. It’s a stretch as he fills you, little whines escaping your lips until he’s fully sheathed within you. You’d be content to lie here forever like this with him, but moments later he’s pulling your leg to wrap around his waist while he slowly begins to move.

There’s a moment, though, of almost full clarity as your hands tangle in his hair while your head is thrown back. He pauses, eyes boring into your very soul, open mouths doing nothing but passing air into each other’s lungs. He’s not moving but you feel him, every inch of his body and mind and love and it’s everything you could never say, every word you likely never would. It’s everything and he’s everything and you never want the moment to end.

It does, with a flex of his hips and your nails scratching at his scalp, his chain hovering and dragging over your breasts as you find salvation together. “You were fuckin’ made for me,” he groans into the skin of your neck, kissing and sucking and biting.

You fall asleep in his arms, sweaty and tired and content in a way you’ve been a thousand times before, the way it should always be.

-

The harsh morning rays of the sun tell a different story. You come into consciousness with the feeling of being completely encapsulated by another’s warmth. On instinct, you press back against his still naked body, preening as his arm tightens around your waist in return.

Until you remember this isn’t your bed or your home and the man asleep next to you isn’t your fiancé anymore. Guilt and shame and self-loathing bubble in your gut as the harsh realization settles in. It descends into panic as you try to plot your way out of the hole you dug with your bare hands.

It all only worsens as Kevin begins to stir, a mumbled ‘morning’ in your ear that you feel like a buzz of electricity down your spine. It would be so easy to lean back into the warmth of his body, the comforting weight of his hands, the soft press of his lips to your skin.

But none of that is yours to want anymore.

Kevin’s more than a little disoriented, as sleep lets him shake free of her clutches, he comes to a few realizations of his own. You’re here, in this bed you’d once shared. Your naked frame is pressed to his own and the scent of your shampoo is everywhere. For the briefest of moments he lets himself hope, lets himself believe that this is the moment he’s been waiting for, the one where you come home to him and you stay. In this bed, in these sheets, in this home. But you’re not replying to his morning greeting, and then you’re pulling from his embrace, movements jilted and awkward and hurried. “What-”

“This was a mistake,” you blurt out, hopping back into your pants and eyes frantically searching for your shirt. The memory of your sweatshirt hitting the ground in the kitchen has you squeezing your eyes shut for a moment before you’re slipping on a hoodie of his that was lying on the chair.

He sits up in bed, the sheet falling to pool at his waist and you have to force your eyes to remain above his shoulders. Truthfully, it’s not that difficult considering your eyes are focused on the wall behind him. He’s a little defensive, and a lot indignant as he all but asks you to repeat yourself. “A mistake? You’re gonna call this a mistake?”

“Yes, a mistake. You were just lonely and horny and that’s my fault because I've just been hanging around here like your shadow.” It’s the best you can come up with, some half-cocked explanation with more holes in it than a screen door. It’s flimsy like one too, rattling in the wind that is Kevin’s anger.

He gets up, slipping on a pair of underwear and stalking towards you with an unreadable look in his eye. “Horny and lonely? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Horny and lonely, Kevin. And- And if you need me to leave the house so you can pick up, I can do that or- or I’ll stay in my room and-“

“What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t want to ‘pick up’.” He sounds disgusted with the idea, disgusted with the way you’re talking right now but you can’t stop yourself.

“Well clearly you should be, there’s no other explanation for last night.” You’re doubling down on your bullshit, unwilling and unable to listen to the voice inside of you that is screaming your love for him. It had been long buried, tucked beneath the hurt and the sadness and the anger, but last night had brought it to the surface. Everything about Kevin is so drawing to you, from the soft warmth of his body to the hard expression on his face, but you swallow it down.

“No other explanation?” He shakes his head in disbelief, the image of you in bed next to him quickly lighting up in flames, pooling into ash at his feet. “Tell me the fucking truth.”

You inhale sharply and he knows he’s hit his mark. It’s satisfying, the way he cuts through your bullshit, but the satisfaction doesn’t last. Because while he’s thinking about everything that could go right, you’re still hung up on everything that went wrong. On the last few months of your relationship, but especially on that final fight that nailed the very last nail in the coffin.

For a minute you’re back in this house, a few rooms over, a little younger.

“I don’t know what I want to do!” you shout, dragging your hands down your face. The argument isn’t a new one, in fact it’s been a recurring disagreement, ever since you were first put forward for the promotion. It’s kind of a big deal - a leadership position at your age is almost unheard of, but it was your name put forward, and your position to accept.

“I think you do, I think you’re just too much of a coward to say it out loud. There’s two choices here, baby,” the way the pet name leaves his lips is a mockery of the syllables, the frustration and the anger that’s been building for months finally coming to a head, “either you stay with me, or you take the job and go. We both know what you’re going to choose.”

You can’t help the way you go immediately on the attack, the fear of losing everything before you so great, it’s got you completely and wholly irrational. “I can’t just sit around here and raise your babies and post on instagram and have a stupid lifestyle blog. I’m sorry that I can’t be the perfect wife and go to all of your home games and decorate stupid jean jackets.”

It’s not what he’s asking you to do, not really. He’s asking for you to finally make a decision and stick to it. He knows and you know and everyone else around you knows that this is the fork in the road of your relationship. His schedule is insane enough, there’s no way you’ll be able to handle a long distance relationship. It’s less than 100 miles between your front door and New York, but it might as well be oceans away with how little you’ll see each other. And he knows, he knows this is an amazing opportunity for you, a once in a lifetime shot, and though he wants to beg you to stay, he knows he needs to let you go. He loves you more than he cares for himself and he wants your every dream to come true. Above everything, he knows you need to go to New York and you need to take this opportunity and you need to leave him behind.

He knows all this, and yet it still stings as you all but tell him you don’t want to have his children. Kev’s wanted to be a dad for as long as he can remember, and he’s wanted you to be their mom for as long as he’s known you. For the better part of a decade, he’s pictured babies, and he’s pictured you loving them and holding them and raising them. He’s pictured half of you and all the best parts of himself together. It’s a dream he’s slowly been letting go of in the time that’s passed since you first brought up the promotion, but to have it so neatly and completely taken from him is staggering.

“I never asked you for any of those things,” he argues, one hand gripping at the curls at the top of his head. “I know you’re driven and I know you’re smarter than me or anyone I know. And that’s why I know you’re going to take this job and you’re going to leave me. I want you to have everything that you want.”

“But what if what I want is you?” You’re hysterical now, though this is not a new argument, it’s never reached these levels before. You feel it, deep in your bones that this is it, that this is the end of something beautiful and magical. The relationship is slipping through your fingers, grains of sand falling and falling and falling until your hourglass is tipped over and empty.

“It’s not,” he says simply. “It’s not enough.”

There’s a final note in his voice and you know he’s not going to change his mind and you know you’re not either. Because truthfully, you were probably always going to pick the job and the future. You’d just hoped that the two of you could find compromise along the way. Although a large part of you always knew it wasn’t meant to last, that you would never be the kind of girl who was good enough to marry the likes of Kevin Hayes. No matter how much you loved him, nothing would ever change the fact that you didn’t have the look or the lifestyle or the wealthy family to fall back on. You knew that he would grow to resent all the things that once made him fall in love with you, that your contrarian ways and your ego and your goals and aspirations made you incompatible with the WAG life. You knew that when he said it wasn’t enough, he really meant you.

You don’t compromise; you accept the position and move out two weeks later.

And then you’re back here, a little older, a little wiser. And so you shake your head, backing away slowly. “It doesn’t fucking matter, Kevin. Okay? It doesn’t fucking matter because I’m still me and you’re still you and you told me that it wasn’t enough. Okay? So it doesn’t matter.” He goes to follow you but you put your hand out in an attempt to keep the distance, “Don’t. Okay? Don’t. I’ll give you your sweater back, I promise, but I need some space.”

“Okay,” his voice shakes as he speaks, “Have your space, but please come home.”

[ilyasorokinn]

hi!!

can I please request #3+ #7 from the physical affection prompt list with kevin hayes?? thanks

3. "smiling into a kiss" 7. "squishing their cheeks" (from this prompt list)

tw: babies, post-birth (is that the phrase?)

at 12:57 am, on a glorious thursday morning, blake hayes was born. he came out screaming his head off, clearly not very happy that he was removed from the warmth he was so used to.

he was taken away for tests but was quickly returned to you in a matter of moments. the nurse placed him on your chest, "hi, little guy." you smiled down at him, running a finger across his face.

"look at those cheeks." kevin cooed, reaching down and gently squishing blake's cheeks together.

you were left alone, and instead of getting the sleep you desperately needed, it was spent looking down at blake's sleeping face, "i can take him." kevin volunteered.

"no-"

"no, i'm not taking no for an answer. you get some sleep," he demanded.

you ran a finger over blake's face once more before carefully handing him over to kevin. kevin walked over to the couch and sat down, cradling blake to his chest.

a few days later, you were released from the hospital and ready to go home. when you stepped through the front door, you were greeted with the sight of your friends and family.

there were some decorations, and a banner that read "welcome home, blake".

"surprise!" they all shouted. your dog margot waited no time in running over to you. she began sniffing around the baby carrier.

"hey, hey, careful." kevin softly shooed her away so she wouldn't startle blake.

you pulled your attention away from margot, blake and kevin as you were wrapped in hugs from friends and family. everyone was introduced to blake and got their chance to hold him.

after a long day of meeting all his news grandparents, aunts, uncles, new friends, and everyone else in between, everyone started heading home, leaving you and kevin in your home.

both your parents and his were staying in town for a little longer just to help around the house, but they were in their own rooms. you and Kevin stared down at little blake, who was asleep.

"he looks like you." you elbowed him softly in the ribs.

"i think it's the hair. the hair is what really sells it." he joked. you smiled, leaning up to kiss him. you smiled, he smiled, it was the perfect moment.

taylor's night of neglect!

[laurenairay]

Unexpected - K. Hayes

Summary: After being just friends with Kevin for over four years, can you ever be anything more?

Word Count: 10.2k

Warnings: a little angst, a lot of fluff, a smidgen of smut, friends to lovers because that’s my jam

A/N: so this originally started as a blurb which got mildly out of hand and turned into this fic. I have repeated the scene from the blurb to keep the flow the same. I have no regrets. 

This is particularly inspired from Talk About by Seaforth (thanks @antoineroussel!) and Just Friends by Virginia to Vegas (thanks @broadstbroskis!)

@danglesnipecelly @princessphilly @chicagoblackhawkslover96 @himbos-on-ice @whoeverineedtobe @flybabyfly @ipuckwithhockey @antoineroussel @babytkachuks @broadstbroskis @texanstarslove @tippedbykreider @thebookofmags @horsesandhockeyplayers @denis-scorianov @lulucanwrite @rangersftflyers @notaccurateornice @pandorasbox2020 @mattytkachuk19 @whatishockey​ @no-pucks-given​ @fanfics-for-the-hockey-fan​ @troubatrain @joelsfarabee @nuenyyx @miracleonice87

*

A party was never just a simple party when Kevin Hayes was involved. Music was pounding, beer was flowing, shots were poured, and weed was an easy haze on the back porch. You had no idea what the occasion was for one of your oldest friends to be throwing this shindig, but you weren’t complaining. Hanging out with him and relaxing after a long hard day was infinitely better than sitting at home and eating cold pizza. Again.

People always teased you about being so close with Kevin, always hinting that there must be something more between you, but you just laughed it off, knowing that he would never be interested. How could he? He had the perfect hockey WAGs lining up in queues to flirt with him – and you were just his friend. You’d known each other since you both lived in Tribeca years ago, and there had never been anything to even hint at anything more than friends. He’d never flirted with you outside of his natural charm. He’d never made a move on you in the slightest. He’d never shown the smallest bit of interest in anything other than platonic – so you knew how he felt. And to be honest, his friendship was amazing and it was something you never wanted to lose, so why would you put yourself out there when you already knew what the answer would be?

No, being friends with Kevin Hayes was exactly where you were meant to be.

You’d spent a few hours with a rotating cast of Flyers and their better halves, drinking and sharing stories about your mutual friend, but it had been a while since you’d seen him. At least a couple of non-Kevin hours. So what if you got a little needy when you were drinking? How could you not want a hug from your beautiful friend? No, bad drunk brain. Crossing that line was never worth it.

You still wanted that hug though.

So bidding the other drunk partygoers adieu, you wandered about the house in search of Kevin, coming up empty in every room…until you spotted smoke outside the kitchen window. Hah, of course. You knew how much he loved to wind down with a blunt or two. His easygoing nature was one of the things you loved most about him.

Putting down your empty drink, you walked outside, spotting Kevin and Nolan lounging on the outside sofas, Nolan with a blunt in his hand.

“Hey! You’re here!” Kevin grinned.

You shook your head fondly, wafting the pungent smoke out of your face.

“I’ve been here for hours, Kev. You’ve already seen me,” you said, smiling.

Kevin pouted, and Nolan just snickered, making you laugh.

“Weed always makes you forgetful,” you mused, sitting down on the seating next to him.

“Nuh-uh I don’t forget everything,” Kevin shrugged, turning to face you properly, “Not the important things. Like the fact that I love you, you know that right?”

Your jaw dropped slightly as his words hit you. What the everloving fuck? Why would he joke like that?

“Goddamn Kev, how high are you?” you asked, frowning.

Without waiting for him to answer, you looked over at Nolan, who just shrugged.

“I don’t know, he’s pretty baked. But I’m going to let you deal with all of that,” Nolan grimaced, waving a hand in Kevin’s general direction.

You rolled your eyes as he quickly passed Kevin the blunt and walked back inside. Yeah, thanks for the help.

“Why did Patty leave?” Kevin asked, frowning.

“Because he’s allergic to emotions? I don’t know. Maybe he just knows that you’re talking shit and he doesn’t want to deal with it,” you muttered.

“I’m not talking shit,” Kevin shot back, “I love you,”

“No you don’t,” you said, rolling your eyes again.

Seriously? Where had this come from? This wasn’t fair, he couldn’t say that when you knew it wasn’t true. Where had he gotten this lot of weed from? Clearly it didn’t agree with him.

“Yes I do! I know my own feelings,” Kevin insisted.

“Right, yeah, sure you do,” you sighed.

You were neither drunk enough nor high enough for this conversation. This was…not how you expected this evening to go. And just like that, your good mood was ruined.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Kevin asked softly.

“Not even in the slightest, Kev,” you said, smiling sadly.

Of course you didn’t. Why, after all this time, would he be saying the words you most wanted to hear from him? There was no logic behind it – there was no way it could be true. He’d never ever shown any hint of this to be true.

“I’ll prove it to you,” he said firmly.

And then he placed his hand on your thigh, making you inhale sharply, the warmth of his large hand sending tingles through your body. No.

“This is not the time or place, Kevin,” you said shortly, “You are stoned out of your fucking mind,”

“You said my full name. You never say my full name,” he said sadly.

Of course that’s what he picked up out of that. Clearly he wasn’t going to get any easier to talk to…and while normally that made for some pretty fun conversation, tonight it wasn’t going to happen. And you couldn’t sit around and listen to more of this.

“I’m just going to go,” you sighed, nudging his hand off your thigh and standing upright.

“What? No!” Kevin said, eyes wide and sad.

“I can’t,” you said, forcing a smile, “I can’t stay and hear this, when I know you don’t mean it when you’re sober,”

“But…”

“I’ll send Nolan back out, okay? I’ll…talk to you later, Kev,” you said firmly, interrupting him.

Without waiting for another answer, you quickly walked back into the house, heartbeat racing in your ears and a lump in your throat. At least you didn’t have to go far to look for Nolan – he was standing just inside in the kitchen.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he frowned.

You just shook your head, smiling thinly, not wanting to go into it. “I’m going to go,”

“But he…”

“Kev will be fine – you don’t mind going back out there with him, right?” you said, interrupting.

Nolan pressed his lips together but shook his head. “No, I don’t mind,”

“Good. Good. Um, I’m sure I’ll see you around?” you offered.

Would you? Who knows. How long would you even need before you could see Kevin again without your heart aching?

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Nolan nodded.

You missed the determined look in the younger man’s eyes as you walked away, too intent on locating your jacket without giving in to the tears that were threatening to fall. Sleep, sobering up and some distance – that would help, right?

*

01:21

From: Kevin

Why did you leave?

Please come back?

~

01:57

From: Kevin

I meant it.

I swear I meant it.

Please call me.

~

03:00

Missed call – Kevin

~

10:17

From: Kevin

Fuck I fell asleep.

Are you ignoring me?

Please call me when you get this.

~

10:35

From: Kevin

I get it if you don’t love me back.

But please don’t ignore me, I can’t take that.

Please call me?

We need to talk. Please.

~

10:55

From: Kevin

Please?

~

11:00

To: Kevin

Kev, I can’t do this.

It’s too much.

Please just give me time and space.

~

11:02

From: Nolan

I’ve taken Kev’s phone off him.

His sad face is too much.

I know you asked for space and I’ll make sure he gives it to you.

But please, just think over what he said?

You know he doesn’t say shit he doesn’t mean, not when it’s important.

~

11:17

To: Nolan

Yeah, okay. I’ll think it over.

*

Mornings were generally your worst time of day. But this morning in particular was a terrible one. The slight bleurgh of lingering sleep made you feel groggy enough, but nothing that a quick shower and a slice of buttered toast couldn’t fix. No, this morning was terrible because your heart was still aching from three days ago. You still had no idea what Kevin was playing at, acting like that around you, but it hurt and you knew you weren’t going to be able to forget it any time soon. Kevin’s increasingly desperate text messages and the single message from Nolan hung over you like a bad shadow, but you knew were right about not just giving in straight away – you were still emotional enough now as it was, and you knew it wouldn’t have been a good idea to see Kevin immediately. No, space was exactly what you needed, even if it hurt.

Your second cup of coffee woke you up enough at least to not leave you in a pit of despair. Like Nolan had asked, you’d thought about Kevin’s words over and over again. His declaration of love, out of nowhere. His confusion and sadness and fucking desperation. You know he doesn’t say shit he doesn’t mean, not when it’s important. It still didn’t give you the answer, any answer. Because in your heart, there was still that little whisper of doubt, telling you it wasn’t true, not really. And unless you were 100% sure, there was no way you could take that chance, not with Kevin. His friendship was too important in your life to risk not having it at all, so if it meant needing time to get over him and drag yourself out of this swirling despair then you would take it.

Despair was for people who didn’t have a life to get on with. You had lived long enough without Kevin in your life before you’d met him, and you could damn well succeed in living without his presence for a couple of weeks or so. At least until you’d built up those walls again.

It had been three days and the struggle was real.

Around 9am, you were jolted out of your thoughts by a series of knocks on your front door. With a frown, you walked over to the entrance hallway, and peeked through the peep-hole, only to see Kevin. What the fuck? Why was he here?

He had a sad but determined look on this face, you could see that much – fuck, was he going to say he didn’t mean anything he said that night? That now he’d thought about it properly, it wasn’t real? It was bad enough hearing his emotions from him when high as a kite, but you couldn’t bear for him to admit it was fake when he was sober. But maybe it was what you deserved, seeing as you’d asked for time and space. Fuck. No, you’d definitely done the right thing for you…but had you done the right thing for Kevin?

What you did know for sure was that you couldn’t leave him standing outside, when he knew full well that you had no real plans today. He knew your schedule too well for that. So with a deep breath, you put on a smile and opened the door. There he stood, eyes warm albeit sleepy, that hair so perfectly tousled. Why did he have to hit every single tickbox on your list? How was that fair?

“Look who’s up before midday on an off-day,” you teased, “What are you doing here?”

Kevin smiled at your teasing, but it was as fake as you knew your smile was. Fuck. “I was in the neighbourhood and figured I’d see what you were up to. Mind if I come in?”

Ouch. He definitely wasn’t in the neighbourhood, he was here for one reason only. To talk. Fuck.

But you nodded, letting him past you into your apartment anyway. He’d given you three days’ space, like you’d asked, it was only fair that you let him say his piece now right?

“Coffee?” you asked, shutting the door behind him.

“Yes please,” Kevin groaned, nodding.

Your smile slipped a little as you headed to the kitchen, you heart already aching with the preparation of it being broken completely, but you managed to keep yourself together as you reached for the coffee pot, pouring him a large mug of the caffeinated lifeblood in silence.

“Here you go,” you said as cheerfully as you could manage.

“Thanks,” he said, smiling.

He sat down at the kitchen island, looking up at you with those beautiful big eyes, until you sat down opposite him.

“I still mean it, y’know,” he said bluntly.

You frowned, not understanding. “Mean what?”

“Mean what I said that night. That I love you,”

Oh God. Fuck. Your breath hitched in your throat, your lips parting in surprise. What…what was he doing?

“Kev, please don’t…”

“No, I’m going to,” Kevin interrupted, uncharacteristically solemn, “Because you seem to have some pretty incorrect ideas in your head and I need to set them straight,”

You swallowed heavily, biting your bottom lip. How were you even supposed to respond to that? Kevin saw the anxious look on your face clear as day, his own seriousness softening to a sad smile.

“Patty said you looked pretty upset when you left that night,” he said softly.

You shook your head, desperate for a sliver of control. “I wasn’t upset, I-”

“Even if he hadn’t spent the last three days ripping into me, I know you were upset. You’ve never just left like that,” Kevin said firmly.

Normally, you hated being interrupted. But in this case, you really had nothing else you could say. Nothing that you could say, not when he knew you so well.

“No, I haven’t,” you sighed, leaning back in your chair.

“I’m sorry that me confessing how I felt made you leave but I wasn’t messing around! I was trying gather the high courage to tell you, after all this time!” Kevin said desperately.

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

He was serious, wasn’t he? Of course he had to bulldoze right through, in typical Kevin Hayes style.

But Kevin took your silence the wrong way.

“How could you not have known?” he frowned.

“How could I possibly have known, Kev? I’ve seen you flirting with women before – and you’re never like that around me. How could I have known that you wanted anything more than friendship when you’ve never acted like it?” you retorted.

Kevin’s cheeks flushed, and he ducked his head briefly, before he looked back up at you. Fuck, he looked a little sad? Like...like he was about to genuinely open up his heart. Fuck.

“I always thought you weren’t interested in me. Why would you be interested in dumb stoner Kevin? I figured if I could only ever have you as a friend then I would latch onto that, because having you in my life in any way is so much better than not having you in my life at all,” he said sadly.

You had never heard him this eloquent before. To be honest, it made your heart ache all over again. But he was never like this…why now?

“Are you still high?” you asked, frowning.

Kevin laughed dryly, shaking his head. “Why do I have to be high to tell you how I feel?”

“Because that’s literally the only time you’ve ever said it before?” you said, raising an eyebrow.

Kevin groaned softly, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.

“You know meaningful stuff doesn’t come all that easily to me,” he huffed.

“I also know you’re not just Kevin-the-hockey-playing-himbo-from-Boston,” you pointed out, smiling slightly.

Kevin laughed softly. “You always have figured me out pretty well,”

“I’m just not a mind reader,” you mused.

He laughed again, nodding his head. “I guess I just…I saw you and I had to say it. I’ve liked you for years, sweetheart, ever since we lived in Tribeca. And I thought, maybe, just maybe, you getting your job transferred to Philly meant that it was finally our time. But it never happened. Maybe it was the weed. Maybe it was the weed and how beautiful you looked combined that actually took down those barriers which have kept me from blurting out my feelings in the past. But I swear to you, I meant every word,”

Sweetheart. Wow. Never had that word affected you more. You swallowed heavily, looking down at your hands. It was true that you’d always been able to read him well – and he was being so sincere right now that it had your stomach tied in knots. He really meant it, didn’t he? He really meant…that he loves you. That he’s loved you for years. Fuck.

It was everything you’d hoped to hear, and you’d spent the last three days trying to convince yourself he didn’t mean it. But he really did mean it, didn’t he?

“Say it again,” you murmured.

The grin that spread across Kevin’s lips sent a shiver up your spine.

“I love you,” he said clearly, firmly, looking directly into your eyes.

Your breath hitched in your throat, butterflies exploding in your stomach. Fuck that was so good to hear. Holy fucking shit.

“Kevin…” you whispered helplessly.

“I gotta know…because I’m holding onto a scrap of hope that you feel the same…do you…”

He trailed off, his voice a little desperate, a little lost, and you found yourself nodding like an idiot, tears springing to your eyes. If he could be brave, then so could you.

“Yes, Kev, I do. I love you so much,” you admitted.

Kevin laughed in triumph, a little incredulous, and he quickly stood up from the island, taking one large step towards you, and tugging you to stand up on your feet too.

“Fuck, fuck, can I kiss you?” he asked, happiness sparkling in his eyes.

You found yourself laughing, but nodded and clutched at his sweater, holding on in case your weak knees gave out on you. Kevin grinned, resting his forehead against yours briefly, before he closed the distance between you with a firm kiss. You couldn’t help but melt into his arms, kissing him back just as eagerly, throwing your arms around his neck a little desperately as his tongue slid against yours. His hands went to your hips and he easily picked you up to place you on the kitchen counter, and you gasped into his mouth at how effortless the motion was, moaning a little as he just stepped right in between your legs. It felt like second nature to hook your legs around his waist, pulling your bodies even closer together, earning a soft moan from the man that sent a pulse of heat right between your thighs. Fuck.

“Kev, wait, we shouldn’t…” you gasped, tilting your head back to break the kiss.

Because as much as you wanted to hop right into bed with him, you needed to let him know that this wasn’t all this was for you. It couldn’t be.

“Fuck, you gotta know this is more than sex for me, right?” Kevin groaned, eyes a little wild as he looked down at you.

How did he always know what to say?

“Again, I’m not a mind reader,” you laughed.

Kevin laughed as well, ducking his head to press gentle kisses into the soft skin of your neck.

“I want to take you out on so many dates. I want to tell my mom about you properly rather than just mention you in passing. I want to ignore Patty crowing in the locker room that he gave me the kick up the ass that I needed. I want to tell Brady and Jimmy that I finally took a chance. I want to show you off to the world as my girlfriend,” Kevin murmured between kisses, finishing with a nip to your earlobe.

Fuck. That was all that you wanted, and he was offering it up on a silver platter.

“I want that too,” you gasped, tilting your head more to the side.

You felt Kevin smile against your skin, nipping at you again before he lifted his head to look at you properly.

“Now can I kiss you again?” Kevin asked hopefully.

You laughed but nodded, threading your fingers through his messy curls. “You can kiss me any time you want,”

Kevin grinned and did just that.

*

Pulling into the practice arena, Kevin realised he still had a stupid smile on his face. He’d spent all morning at your apartment, mostly making out on the sofa with a little talking dotted throughout, and he’d only been able to tear himself away because Nolan had texted to remind him about the mandatory afternoon practice today. Obviously he would much rather have stayed with you, especially now that he knew what it was like to kiss you, how your lips felt against his, how easy it was to hold you in his arms, but if he skipped practice there would be hell to pay.

That, and he now knew how easily he could get carried away, how easily he could get lost in you. He hadn’t lied when he said that this was more than sex for him. Loving you was everything – overwhelming, all-consuming and wonderful – and there was no way he was going to let sex ruin that. As much as he already knew it would be incredible. He’d waited four years to be in your bed more than platonically, he could wait a little longer. Especially now that he knew you loved him too.

Fuck, you were finally his. He could finally call you his girlfriend. Fuck.

Kevin was so lost in his thoughts as he parked his car, that he didn’t notice a familiar figure walking up to him, and flinched as they knocked on the window. Nolan. Fuck.

“Way to give me a heart attack, baby cat,” Kevin groaned as he got out of the car.

“You made me catch a lift with Teeks last minute – now we’re even,” Nolan smirked.

Kevin just laughed, rolling his eyes as he pulled his bag out of his car and locked it. When he turned back to look at his friend, he saw that Nolan looked incredibly smug, almost unbearably so, and steeled himself for an interrogation. He hadn’t exactly been forthcoming in his text earlier to say that Nolan would have to find his own way to practice. Oops.

“Please tell me you came from your New York girl’s place,”

Hah, your New York girl. When you’d first moved job to Philadelphia, Kevin had referred to you as ‘a girl friend from New York’, to try to play it cool, to try to hide how excited he was that you were finally going to be reunited…and the name had stuck. Pretty much everyone on the team, including some who’d been traded away, referred to you as ‘your New York girl’, mainly because of how red Kevin had blushed when Claude had called you that when you’d first met the team.

The team liked teasing their usually-unflappable teammate.

You liked that Kevin talked about you in the first place.

Kevin just liked that people had always called you his.

“Yeah, I did,” Kevin shrugged, trying to play it cool.

But Nolan just rolled his eyes, not having any of it.

“You two talked right? Like, actually talked,” Nolan asked firmly.

That and other things. But Nolan didn’t need to know that. Kevin just smirked, nodding, and laughed as Nolan whooped.

“I swear to god I’m not getting those three days back, you owe me so bad. And I’m claiming victory for this matchmaking,” Nolan grinned.

“Meddling more like it,” Kevin mused, rolling his eyes, “You got the result you wanted though,”

“I did?”

“You did,”

“Fucking finally,” Nolan groaned.

“Finally what?”

Kevin turned his head to see Claude walking up behind them and winced. If Nolan kept his mouth shut then maybe Kevin had a chance of not being ridiculed for the entirety of practice…

“Hayesy ditched me to finally talk about his feelings,” Nolan smirked.

Oof.

“With your New York girl? Fucking finally,” Claude grinned.

One day that nickname would fade. One day.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Better late than never,” Kevin mused.

“Only took you a few years,” Nolan snorted.

Four long miserable years. But who was counting.

“Well I’m glad you finally took a chance. Fuck knows it’s been painful enough watching the two of you dance around each other,” Claude teased, before his face suddenly went serious, “She returned your feelings, right? Like, fuck-”

“She did,” Kevin said, interrupting, “She loves me too,”

Saying it out loud like that made him grin, earning laughter from his two teammates.

“Thank fuck for that,” Claude huffed, teasing with a grin of his own.

Thank fuck indeed.

*

From: Kevin

Dinner at mine tonight?

I’ve got that wine you like…

~

To: Kevin

You had me at wine.

What time do you want me?

~

From: Kevin

I always want you.

I’ll have food ready for 7pm.

But come over whenever!

~

To: Kevin

You ridiculous flirt.

Can’t wait to see you.

~

Kevin’s messages kept a smile on your face for the rest of your work day, and you didn’t bother going back to your apartment after work – heading straight to his place was all you could think about, so that’s all that you did. And the smile that he greeted you with when he opened the door – bright, genuine, happy – told you that you’d made the right decision.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Kevin murmured, tugging you against his body.

You couldn’t help but laugh, leaning into his hold as he shut the door behind you. “Flattery will get you everywhere,” you grinned.

Kevin grinned back. “Good to know,”

You rolled your eyes fondly, leaning up on your tiptoes to press your lips to his in a soft kiss, smiling at the happy noise he made as you embraced sweetly, your arms sliding up his chest and around his neck. Fuck, even just knowing that you could do this now, kiss him whenever you wanted, sent a shiver up your spine, let alone how good it felt to brush your tongue against his. It was like the floodgates had opened – now that you could kiss him, touch him, hold him, you never wanted to stop. You took every opportunity, and Kevin was exactly the same – maybe even more so, with the way his hands always seemed to stray to your ass.

The kisses eventually slowed to a few gentle pecks, Kevin looking a little stunned even as he tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

“Hi,” you murmured.

“Hi,” he said back, a little helplessly.

Both of you laughed, Kevin resting his forehead against yours briefly before he stepped backwards a little, taking both of your hands with his.

“I gotta finish up some dinner prep, but I can pour you a glass of wine while you wait?” he suggested.

Sweet, thoughtful man.

“That sounds perfect to me,” you nodded, squeezing his hands in agreement.

Dinner was perfect. Wonderful. Incredible. It was only a simple pasta dish, but full of vegetables and spices and flavour, and the fact that Kevin had clearly poured time and effort into making this for the two of you made it even more special. Sitting across from him at the dinner table, each talking about your days, Kevin making your sides ache with laughter…it was all you could ever have dreamed of.

Was it all too good to be true?

That niggling thought followed you to the sofa after you’d finished eating, Kevin joining you with two fresh glasses of wine. He spotted your creased forehead and frown immediately, like you feared knew he would.

“What’s that face for?” Kevin mused, raising an eyebrow.

Sometimes it was a blessing how easily he could read you. But you weren’t sure if now was one of those times. As his smile started to slip, you took a deep breath, steeling yourself. There was no point in hiding your thoughts from him. Honesty and communication were a good thing, right?

“I guess I’m just nervous, that’s all,” you admitted.

Kevin frowned to match you, his eyes immediately going serious. “Nervous? Why?”

“Things are just different now. You know that,”

Kevin’s frown immediately shifted to a smile, making your heart beat a little faster. His faith in you was mindblowing. “It’s just you and me, how it’s always been. How it always should be. Nothing’s different about that,”

But still you shook your head, smiling fondly. “I know you as Kevin-the-friend. I don’t know you as Kevin-the-boyfriend. It’s whole new territory…and I have a horrible thought in my mind saying that it’s all too good to be true,”

Kevin’s face fell again at your words, and he quickly put his wine glass on the coffee table, shaking his head as he reached out to take one of your hands in his. Your breath hitched in your throat at the emotion in his eyes, like it genuinely hurt him to hear the words that came out of your mouth, and you put your own glass down on the floor with a wince.

“Are you…having second thoughts? About…us?” he said quietly, like the words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

You quickly shook your head – you knew that wasn’t it. Not even close. But still…

“What is it then?” Kevin asked, confused.

Here goes nothing. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel real, us being together. Like I’m going to wake up and you’re going to want to only be just friends. It scares me,”

“Shit,” Kevin groaned, eyes closing briefly.

When his eyes reopened his eyes to look at you once more, the fire in his expression startled you…but also made your mouth go dry. That intensity was a good look on him, one you hadn’t seen directed your way before. Fuck.

“Sweetheart, I can’t predict the future. Hell, I can barely figure out what to make for breakfast, let alone where our relationship is going to go. But I do know one thing for certain,” he said firmly.

You swallowed heavily, letting out a shaky breath. “And what’s that?”

“That I want us to have a future. That I am all in. I’m putting my whole heart into this baby, and I just wish I knew what to do so you would believe me,”

Fuck, you did believe him. You absolutely did believe him. How could you not, when you could feel his heart so strongly?

“Kev, I…” you trailed off, a little helpless, not sure where to start.

“What can I do?” he asked, eyes a little desperate.

“I don’t know! I wish I knew. I want this to work so badly,” you murmured.

“All we can do is put the hard work in, right?” he said firmly, eyes bright and shining, “Like, if we both try with our whole hearts, then it’s got to be worth it, right? We’ve been friends for years – that isn’t going to change. We have that foundation already. Now we’re just taking that next step, learning more about each other, rather than starting something scary from scratch,”

Your eyes filled with tears at his heartfelt words, and you found yourself nodding before you could stop yourself.

“It’s still scary…but it could be scarier,” you agreed, biting your bottom lip.

Kevin nodded, smiling encouragingly, to which you let out a shaky breath.

“And no matter what, we’re in this together, yeah? We’ve got each other, more so than ever before,” he said softly.

Your eyes dropped to where his thumb ran back and forth over your hand, a small smile spreading across your lips. “I like the sound of that,”

Kevin’s shoulders seemed to relax a little, like he was letting out tension, sending a guilty pang through your body. Fuck, there you go, making him feel bad again.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled, shrinking back a little.

“Hey, no, no apologies. I’m glad you told me,” he replied, shaking his head, “I’d rather we talked about stuff like this than let it build up to something ugly, y’know?”

He had a good point – you couldn’t imagine having a nasty all-out fight with Kevin, and you didn’t want to. He was one of your oldest friends for a reason, and you didn’t want to lose that through a stupid fight, no way.

“Same goes for you too, yeah? You can…should talk to me about anything that worries you,” you said softly.

Kevin smiled, nodding. “Alright, it’s a deal,”

He reached out to pick up his wine glass from the table, holding it towards you in a ‘cheers’ motion, making you laugh. But you picked up your glass from the floor anyway, and clinked it with his, both of you taking a long drink. Kevin was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment, before he quirked a smile your way.

“Let me take you out, show you what Kevin-the-boyfriend is like,” he suggested, “Let me show you that this new thing between us is going to be something amazing,���

How could you say no to that?

“I’d like that,” you grinned, relaxing into the sofa a bit more, “I already know I love Kevin-the-friend…so I think I need to meet Kevin-the-boyfriend properly,”

And as stupid as it felt saying those words out loud, you knew you were right – you needed to see this next stage in your relationship clearly, to banish away those niggling doubts. It was still Kevin, right? Just…more.

Kevin stretched his leg out onto the sofa, nudging your hip with his foot with a big smile on his face, nudging nudging nudging until you gripped his ankle tightly with your free hand, raising an eyebrow. All you got in return was his eyebrows wiggling at you, a stupid grin on his face.

“This is going to be great, you’ll see,” Kevin said cheerfully.

You were counting on it.

*

A first date was always something to be nervous about, right? Shaky hands, pounding heart, butterflies in the stomach, sweaty palms…it was all natural, right? Because you were experiencing all of these things while you got ready for your date with Kevin.

But was it truly nerves? You weren’t nervous as in apprehensive. No, not at all. Any time you spent with Kevin was always full of warmth and laughter, even when you were just friends, and you knew that tonight would be so different. No, it was nervous as in excited. Nervous butterflies? Shaky giddiness? Whatever it was, it was more than a little overwhelming, but it only took one glance at the last text Kevin sent you to keep a smile on your face.

~

From: Kevin

I can’t wait to see you, beautiful 💖

~

Simple, but effective. He always knew what to do and say, even when he didn’t know he was doing it. So instead of getting cold feet or freaking out, all you did was put on your favourite playlist and bop around while you got yourself ready. You’d already gotten your usual leg and bikini wax this morning, having planned to wear a slinky black dress with bare legs, and as soon as you shimmied into the dress you knew it was the right choice. Figure hugging without being clingy, sexy as well as classy – a little black dress is a classic for a reason. After putting on a little makeup and a pair of your favourite heels, you were ready.

Kevin had insisted on picking you up so he could drive the two of you to the restaurant, rather than meeting there, and he arrived to yours right on time. But as you opened the front door of your apartment to greet him, his face was a little stunned, and he was uncharacteristically silent. Huh.

“Everything okay, Kev?” you asked hesitantly.

He quickly nodded, the stunned look on his face slipping into a wide smile.

“You just look so beautiful. Caught me off guard,” he shrugged.

You felt your cheeks heat up with warmth, and you batted your hand at his chest, making him laugh. Ridiculous man.

“Well, you scrub up pretty well yourself,” you teased.

A crisp white button-up shirt, a nice fitted pair of jeans and tailored jacket? Such a good look on him. Kevin just grinned at your words, ducking his head to kiss you softly, making your breath hitch in your throat. Yeah, this was going to be a good night.

“Ready to go?” he asked, as he broke the embrace.

“Yeah, let me just grab a jacket,”

The drive to the restaurant was short and smooth – a Spanish tapas place, on recommendation from Claude – and you were shown to your table immediately, Kevin pulling out your chair for you with a bright smile on his face.

“Welcome! Here are your menus – would you like to see the drinks menu too, or do you know what you would like?”

You looked from the waiter to Kevin with a shrug, to see him looking at you with a hopeful smile. Huh. He already planned this out, didn’t he? So you just nodded at him and smiled back.

“Can we have a glass of Rosado each?” Kevin asked, smiling effortlessly.

“Of course, I will be back momentarily,”

As the waiter walked away, you raised an eyebrow at Kevin, who just shrugged a little bashfully.

“I never have any clue which wine goes with what. So I asked Claude when he recommended this place – a few of the guys around us chimed in with their thoughts too, and apparently Rosado goes with tomato-y garlic-y things. I figured that’s the majority of what we’d be eating, so I hope that’s okay” Kevin explained.

The fact that he had put so much thought into tonight, asking his friends and really researching, made your heart clench, and it was all you could do to nod. He really was so sweet – no-one had ever put in this much effort for you before.

A silence fell over you for a moment, not awkward, but still not fully comfortable, until you looked at Kevin and the both of you huffed out a laugh.

“This is weird, right?” you giggled.

“Nah, not if we don’t let it be,” he shrugged, smiling.

His ease and nonchalance was something to be jealous of, that much was true.

“So confident, Mr Hayes,” you mused, raising an eyebrow.

“Easy to be confident when I’ve got the most beautiful person in the room sitting opposite me,” he replied smoothly.

Oh so smooth.

“Kev…” you groaned, hiding your face with a hand.

“Come on, I’ve been wanting to say these things for years! Indulge me,” he teased.

Years. The very thought of it sent a shiver down your spine.

“You think I haven’t had my moments of weakness? Where I’ve thought about us over the years?” you asked simply, raising an eyebrow as you lowered your hand back into your lap.

Kevin inhaled sharply, making you smile. Good.

“I like that you have. Thought about us, I mean. I just can’t believe how stupid we’ve been. We’ve wasted so much time,” Kevin sighed.

You reached across the table, resting your hand on top of his with a smile. “We’re here now, right? That’s all that matters,”

“Yeah exactly,” he nodded.

Then he bit his bottom lip, as if he was hesitating on something, making you smile a little more.

“What is it, Kev?” you asked softly.

He stayed silent for another beat or two, before he looked at you intensely.

“I see my future with you, sweetheart,” he blurted. Oh wow. “And yeah, maybe that’s too soon to say, but this isn’t some brand new fresh thing – this has been building for years, and now that we’re finally together, it just feels so right, y’know?”

Your heart clenched at his sweet words, and you couldn’t stop the smile that spread across your lips. Fuck. Who knew a hockey player could be so open and in touch with their feelings? Well, it was Kevin after all. Might as well speak your own thoughts too.

“It does feel so right. I’ve never felt anything for anyone like I feel for you,” you admitted.

Kevin’s answering smile was a little stunned and a little helpless. “Fuck, same. Same for me,”

You ignored the butterflies filling your stomach, looking down at the menu in front of you to stop your smile going stupid. What was it about this man that made you feel so different? His honesty? His smile? His laugh? Fuck, all of that and more. All you did know was that you didn’t want it to stop.

The date continued on to become the best date you had ever been on. Not that you were surprised – it was Kevin after all, and you already knew there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do if it would make you smile. And you were quickly learning how true it was for you too. Having all that adoration, that attention, that smile focused solely on you? It was addictive, and you didn’t want it directed towards anyone else. You wanted his whole heart, you knew that much already, and you could only hope that he wanted the same from you.

Both of you only had one glass of wine with your food, as Kevin was driving you home, and by the time the two of you had reached the front door of your apartment (Kevin had insisted on walking you to your front door, even though it was an apartment building), you felt giddy. Giddy and ridiculous and unbelievably happy. This was it, this was what you had been waiting for. This moment, this knowledge, that same confidence in this thing with Kevin that he’d had all along. You only wished it hadn’t taken you so long.

But you were here now, that’s all that mattered. You and Kevin, together. As it should be.

As you unlocked your front door, you felt yourself pausing in the doorway, Kevin making a questioning noise as you stopped moving. You bit your bottom lip gently, before taking a deep breath to steel your nerves. “Do you want to come in?” you asked, looking up into those beautiful blue eyes.

Kevin’s lips parted in surprise, a stunned expression filling his face.

“Like, come in come in?” he asked, voice a little breathy.

The sheer want in his voice made you shiver, and you knew you’d made the right decision in asking him. You could basically taste the tension between you as you nodded slowly, Kevin swaying forward as if he couldn’t help himself.

But then he stopped, freezing still, making you frown.

“Are you sure? Like, it’s not too soon?” he forced out, eyes a little wild.

So you quickly shook your head, smiling at him checking.

“Kev, it’s us, right?”

He’d been saying it for weeks, that being together was just a next step in your strong foundation of friendship, so both of you giving in to that obvious desire wouldn’t ruin anything at all. You wanted him…he wanted you…so why not take things up another notch?

“Yeah, it’s us. Endgame, baby,” Kevin grinned.

And just like that, the tension burst like a balloon, making you laugh. Yeah, this was the man you were in love with alright.

“Come on loverboy,” you laughed, rolling your eyes fondly, “Let’s not give my neighbours a show,”

Kevin smirked, wiggling his eyebrows as he followed you into your apartment, making you laugh all over again. There was none of that nervous apprehension you’d felt with other guys before – it was all just excitement, fizzing and buzzing through your skin, and your mind swirled with ideas.

Stripping him down slowly, piece by piece.

Getting your mouth on him, every inch of his body, especially his cock.

Having him pin you down on your bed, all gorgeous 6ft5 of him surrounding you in the best way.

Fuck.

“I’ve been thinking about getting my hands on you since I saw you in that dress,”

Kevin’s soft words tore you out of your lustful thoughts, and you moaned softly at the shiver it sent up your spine. Fuck yes, you were getting laid tonight and it was going to be good.

“Then how about you get your hands on me?” you suggested, corner of your lips lifting up in a smirk.

He wasted no time in pressing you into the nearest wall, barely making it out of the entrance hallway, and you laughed as his hands went straight to your ass.

“Feeling better?” you mused, toying with the top button of his shirt.

This wasn’t a fiery desperate rush, crashing about, rough and riling up – no this was a slow build-up of lust and want, much like your relationship had been a slow build-up. No, this was a slow seduction, sweet and all-consuming, bodies moving in sync and taking what they wanted. And you couldn’t fucking wait.

“Hmm, a little,” Kevin grinned back.

“Only a little huh?” you teased.

“Oh I have a few ideas of what could help,” he murmured.

The flash of heat in his eyes sent a flare of heat through your body, and you couldn’t help but to dart your tongue out to wet your bottom lip, Kevin’s eyes tracking the motion, making you smile. But you had no time to tease him before he took your lips in a kiss, making you whimper at how quickly it got heated before Kevin broke away with a gasp, leaving your head spinning.

“So that’s one idea,” he grinned.

Oh fuck, this man was going to ruin you. But not before you ruined him a little bit first.

“What’s your next idea?” you breathed.

Kevin just grinned, stepping backwards a little bit, making you whine before you could stop yourself.

“Stay right where you are, beautiful. Keep your eyes on me,”

That you could do. You dramatically placed your hands against the wall, making him laugh as he dropped his jacket carelessly to the floor, and his fingers went to the top button of his shirt. He kept his eyes on you as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his strong broad chest inch by inch until he was able to drop it to the floor, leaving him in just his jeans. Fuck. You would never be able to get enough of the sight of him like this, let alone the touch (and you couldn’t wait for the taste) – the strength in his shoulders, his chest, his core, his arms…fuck.

“Get back over here,” you said, voice low and rough.

Kevin inhaled sharply, and he wasted no time in stumbling back over to you, arms caging you in against the wall in a way that made you want.

“Great second idea. What’s next?” you breathed.

Fuck. This was winding you up and up and up and you knew the night had barely even started.

“I want…can I taste you?” he blurted.

What? But before you could ask what he meant, Kevin dropped to his knees, making you gasp. Oh fuck. Oh yes.

“You want to be on your knees for me?” you asked, swallowing heavily.

“Yeah, so bad,” Kevin nodded, a little desperate.

Well how could you say no to that?

Biting your bottom lip, you reached up under your dress, hooking your fingers into the sides of your panties and tugging them down. Kevin whined as his view was blocked by the skirt of your dress but you just grinned. This was the least he deserved for stripping his shirt off so slowly. You let your panties drop to the floor when they were past the thickness of your thighs and slowly stepped out of them, kicking them to one side.

His move.

Kevin’s eyes were wide and dark as he raised his hands to rest on your thighs, lips slightly parted.

“Please, can I?” he murmured, thumbs brushing under the skirt hem.

Fuck. This was all too much, the desire, his patience, his asking. Bring it on.

“Yeah, go ahead,” you nodded, inhaling sharply.

He slowly dragged the skirt of your dress up to your hips, moaning softly under his breath when you were revealed bare to him. One of his hands bunched up the dress to hold it in place, the other placed large and firm on your thigh, and his thumb lightly stroked over the wetness in your folds…before he stopped.

Kevin looked up at you, wordless asking one last time. And you just nodded, too overwhelmed in the moment to utter any words, your heart racing at the very sight of him kneeling so comfortably between your thighs. With a smile, he shuffled a little closer to you, ducking his head to place a reverent kiss to your clit, making you gasp, earning a soft laugh.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” Kevin mumbled, mostly to himself.

Then he ducked his head down and dove right in, tongue running over your folds in a wide stripe, his tongue flicking at your clit in a way that made you gasp. Fuck. How was he so good at this, straight off the bat? You could feel him smirking against your skin, before his tongue flicked at your clit again, and you couldn’t stop your hips bucking to chase the feeling. Fuck. The hand holding your dress out of the way adjusted to rest across your hips, pinning you to the wall, as his tongue ran back and forth over your core, gathering and tasting your wetness, dipping in and out of you, making you clench down on nothing. You didn’t hold back the soft moans that spilled from your lips, your body trembling with how good he made you feel. But as you clenched down empty again, you knew you could feel even better.

“More, Kev, please?” you begged.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” he groaned, resting his forehead against your hip.

You giggled, pushing his hair out of his eyes so he would look up at you.

“I want more,” you said firmly, eyes holding his in challenge.

And fuck did he rise to the challenge.

Kevin buried his face back between your thighs, eagerly running his tongue back and forth over you, into you, winding you up higher and higher, until he backed off to just sucking on your clit. Then you realised why he’d changed tactic, as his fingers moved to trail through your folds. With a fingertip teasing at your entrance, Kevin looked up at you, those big blue eyes questioning, and it was all you could do to nod. Leisurely Kevin slid a finger into you, letting you get used to the intrusion before he started to move it, gentle and slow, sending sparks up your spine and making your eyes clench shut. Then his teeth scraped over your clit and you wailed at the electricity that shot through your body, eyes flying open to glare down at him, wild and weak-kneed. Kevin’s eyes just sparkled with laughter, and he wasted no time in sliding in a second finger, sucking at your clit in the same rhythm in which he fucked his fingers into you. Fuck. You could feel a familiar heat start to build and you moaned – it wasn’t fair how quickly he learned the cues of your body.

Two can play at that game.

“You look so good on your knees for me,” you breathed, running your fingers through his messy hair.

Kevin’s eyes flashed with fire as he moaned at your words, sending a shockwave through you, making you gasp. Good. He leaned back slightly, tongue darting out over his swollen lips, before he smirked.

“You look so good with my fingers inside you,” he rasped back, curling both fingers over and over again in a come hither motion, “Going to look even better on my cock,”

Game, set, and match. Fuck. You cried out as the onslaught of his fingers sent you crashing through your high, Kevin smirking before he returned his tongue to lick between the two digits, prolonging the wave of pleasure until you were shaking and overwhelmed. Kevin backed off a little bit, leaning back to sit on his heels, but his face radiated smugness, of a job well done, even as the hard line of his cock strained against the denim of his jeans.

It was all you could do to fall to your knees to join him, straddling his lap lightly as you fought to regain control over your breathing, his hands going straight to your hips where your dress had fallen back down.

“Fuck, Kev,” you said with a shaky laugh.

He just smirked, wiggling his eyebrows, making you laugh for real. Ridiculous man. Without saying another word, you rested one hand against his bare chest, lifting the other hand to cup his face. You stroked your thumb over the wetness lingering on his bottom lip, before pressing down lightly on that lip to get him to open his mouth, and Kevin took the hint straight away, accepting your thumb into his mouth. You couldn’t take your eyes away from the sight of him closing his plush lips around it, sucking the wetness away, the same wetness that was still between your thighs.

Then his teeth scraped over the pad of your thumb, imitating his treatment of your clit, making you moan and clench down on nothing, even more evident where your thighs were spread across his lips.

“You’re such a tease,” you gasped, pulling your thumb free.

“Not a tease if I’m planning on following through,” Kevin said simply, smirk still playing with his expression.

The intensity in his eyes paired with the way his hands squeezed your hips sent a shiver up your spine, and you let a small smirk of your own drift across your lips.

“Hmm, yes, you said something about how good I’ll look with your cock inside me?” you murmured.

The noise that tore from Kevin’s throat was barely human, more feral than anything else, and the want in his eyes sent a wave of heat through your body. Fuck, yes.

“Fuck, yes,” he groaned, “I know I just said it in the heat of the moment, but do you…do you want…”

“Yeah, Kev, I want,” you nodded quickly.

Kevin all but growled. “Hook your legs around my waist,” he said firmly.

What?

And then you felt his abs tense, as Kevin anchored himself to stand up from the floor with you in his arms, and you shrieked as you hurried to do as he said, hooking your ankles together against the swell of his ass.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” you breathed, arms firmly around his neck as he held you securely.

It was all you could do not to think about how your bare core was pressed against his abs. Fuck.

“Yeah?” he smirked.

You rolled your eyes fondly. “Take me to bed, Kev,”

Kevin swallowed heavily, his eyes flashing dark and serious.

“Yes ma’am,”

*

A party was never just a simple party when Kevin Hayes was involved. Music was pounding, beer was flowing, shots were poured, and weed was an easy haze on the back porch. At all the parties he’d thrown like this in the past, you’d always drifted to and from him, flitting from group to group just like he did, always separate. But this time, no – this time you were sitting on the sofa with his arm wrapped around your waist, leaning into his body because now you could.

And fuck did it feel good.

“So, tell us, how does it feel to be finally be called Kevin’s girl, rather than Kevin’s New York girl?” Claude grinned.

Ah yes, that nickname. Finally, it could die.

“Feels pretty fucking sweet actually,” you said simply.

Everyone on the sofas around you burst into laughter, and you could feel the rumble of Kevin’s own laughter deep in his chest. You couldn’t help but look up at him with a smile, earning an adoring smile back, as well as a soft kiss. Yeah, this was exactly where you wanted to be. 

 “How did you two actually meet?” Ryanne asked, smiling, “Like, I know you’ve been friends for years…but how?”

You found yourself smiling as you looked back up at Kevin, and he smiled down at you. It was true, you really had been friends with him for years at this point. And your first meeting was pretty funny.

“Go ahead,” Kevin shrugged.

His loss.

“Alright, so it went like this…”

~

Sunday night was grocery run night – and this week was no different. You walked into the lobby of your apartment building with both your arms full, trying to figure out how you were going to call the elevator, when you noticed a very tall guy already waiting, the elevator call button pressed. Huh, that solved that problem.

He smiled as you stopped next to him, giving you a little nod. “Hey,”

Holy shit this guy is hot. No, not the time. Tall…hot…great smile…no, focus. Be cool.

“Oh hey, you’re one of the new guys, right?” you smiled, tilting your head to look up at him.

“Yeah, I’m Kevin. I just got a place with my buddies Jimmy and Brady. A couple of floors up from you, right?”

Oh wow. He froze as your eyes widened in surprise, and groaned.

“I swear I’m not a creep?” he offered, wincing, “I’m just really good with faces,”

For some reason, you believed him. Call it intuition, or vibes, or whatever. This guy was being genuine. Huh.

“I guess I’ll have to take your word for it,” you teased.

His shoulders slumped a little as if releasing tension, making you smile. As if by fate, the elevator pinged its arrival, and Kevin gestured for you to enter first before following you in.

“So,”

“So,”

You couldn’t help but laugh as you spoke in unison, Kevin just grinning. Oops.

“Go ahead,” you mused.

“I was going to say, if you fancy meeting my other flatmates too, we’re having a little housewarming of sorts. Like, a bunch of our friends are coming over, sort of a drop in and out whenever time kind of thing. It’d be nice to meet you properly, and show you I’m not actually a weirdo? Friday, if you’re free?”

Oh wow. That was really…sweet? Sure, it could blow up in your face, and he could actually be a creep…but again, those intuitive vibes were saying he wasn’t. And it definitely beats sitting at home and eating cold pizza. Again.

And damn, if his flatmates looked anything like him? Eye candy for days.

“Friday huh? I could do Friday,” you said simply, trying to keep your cool.

His answering smile let you know you’d made the right decision.

~

“…and after that, we became really good friends, all four of us. He never flirted with me after that time in the elevator and I tried my hardest not to flirt with him. I stayed in touch with Kev when he went to the Jets and then here to the Flyers, and he was one of the first people I got in contact with when my job moved me to Philadelphia. And then everything changed a few weeks ago. The rest is history,” you shrugged.

Kevin grinned, although he definitely had a blush on his cheeks.

“You were such a creep,” Claude said, laughing.

Kevin blushed a little fiercer. “It just came out! Of course I noticed the prettiest girl in the building – that was the least awful way I could’ve said it,”

You rolled your eyes as his friends hooted and jeered, although you felt your cheeks heat up with warmth.

“Just couldn’t help yourself, huh?” you teased.

“I got there in the end, didn’t I?” he shot back with a dramatic wink.

“Only took you a few years,” Nolan snorted.

Kevin just grinned, unashamed.

It may have taken a few years, but Kevin was right – you had gotten there in the end. All the years of self-doubt and insecurity, thinking you’d never be more than just friends, had resulted in a beautiful – if unexpected – relationship. A build-up of such a solid foundation of friendship over the past four years had already given you the opportunity to learn so much about him – and you couldn’t wait to learn even more. To learn about Kevin, the boyfriend. And, maybe even more than that, if you were lucky. Yes, unexpected as this may have been, you were in this for the long haul. And you couldn’t wait.

[nugnthopkns]

i wish i could disappear

word count: 3.6k

warnings: explicit!fem reader, cursing, feelings of anxiety due to social media harassment, invasion of privacy that border on stalking

recommended listening: brutal | olivia rodrigo

series masterpost: here

a/n: and we're off to the races!! i love this album and olivia so much. there's a shoutout to goon by tobias jesso jr. in here bc it's my favourite album to cry to lmao (highly recommend giving it a listen!). i'm on the fence about this one but am posting it anyways because i don't think i can make it any better

How the fuck do people find your social media?

All of your accounts are private and Kevin makes sure to never tag you on the rare occasion he posts a picture of the two of you together. The wives and girlfriends who have public accounts make sure to never post about you, and you’re careful not to comment on posts often. You’re a private person and though you understand that due to the nature of your relationship with Kevin you intrigue some fans, you don’t want to give them more than you have to.

Despite making no attempt to open up to the public or media, every day you wake up with hundreds of follow requests from complete strangers. At first it was a little exciting knowing that people were curious about your life but after years of the same routine it’s become draining. It takes you nearly twenty minutes each day to weed through them and accept only the people you know personally. Kevin doesn’t actually know how many people want to catch a glimpse of your daily life because you do your best to keep it from him. Knowing would only bring him stress, and you want him to be able to focus on winning games and loving you with his entire heart.

☼☼☼☼

The phone on your desk rings loudly, pulling your attention away from the computer screen that has way too many numbers on it for your liking. The finance department needed someone to proof their audit before sending it away and since you’re the only one in human relations that has a business degree the job landed on your shoulders. Eager to take a break, you pick it up and press the receiver against your ear.

“Hello?”

The voice on the other side laughs gently, but you immediately know it’s Kevin. “Hi sweetheart,” he says warmly, “How’s work?”

“Fine I guess. It’s work, Kev. Nothing terribly exciting happens here,” you explain but continue to fill him in on all the coffee pot gossip you got this morning. Kevin listens as you complain about forgetting your lunch on the counter and chuckles at how upset the situation makes you.

“What if I told you I’m outside your window with a burrito bowl?”

Excited at the possibility of seeing your boyfriend before dinnertime, you whip towards the window and spot Kevin on the sidewalk, waving like an idiot despite knowing your office is on the fifth floor. You hang up quickly after telling him you’ll be down in two minutes and let the receptionist know you’re stepping out for lunch. There’s a line for the elevator so you head to the stairwell, taking them two at a time in your haste. You’re crossing the street to the small park where Kevin has set up a picnic before your co-workers are even out the door.

You plop down on the blanket beside Kevin and lean into him. He presses a sweet kiss to your forehead before passing you the food he brought. You take a bite, sighing at the taste. Kevin knows you better than you know yourself and knew exactly what to get that would satisfy your mounting hunger.

“Thanks babe,” you smile, holding up your fork and offering him a bite. He takes it graciously but makes a face. “What’s the matter?” you laugh as you take the utensil back.

“I fucking hate avocado.”

The two of you eat in relative silence, speaking only when you remember a detail from your morning. Kevin tells you about the drills he’s going to lead at practice in the afternoon and what he plans on cooking for dinner since he’ll be home before you. You insist you can whip something up when you get home but Kevin shakes his head. He reminds you that relationships are give and take, and that you’ve made dinner the past three nights because he had a string of games. You manage to reach a compromise that has you doing the dishes before you have to return to work.

Kevin insists on walking you back to your office even though you protest vehemently. Your relationship is far from secret, and has been the topic of workplace gossip more times than you can count, but after five years you’ve learned to ignore most of it. However, you don’t want your co-workers to think you flaunt your NHL player boyfriend to prove you’re better than them. They all love Kevin, and a couple of them congratulate him on last night’s goal as he follows you down the hall. A few of the newer hires stare in awe and shake his hand, completely blown away that one of Philadelphia’s biggest stars is asking how they like their jobs.

“Pretty soon they’re going to approach you to do PR for us,” you chuckle as you flip the light on and close the door of your office.

His laughter echoes off the walls as a pair of strong arms find a home around your waist. “It would be kind of fun to hear myself crush those radio commercials.”

“Since when do you listen to the radio?”

“Checkmate,” Kevin sighs, pulling you closer. He kisses you quickly, not wanting to give a show to anyone who could be walking past, but it still sends you reeling. You don’t want him to pull away and kiss him again.

You get your way for a few more moments and then Kevin’s leaving with a promise to not burn the house down and wishes for a good rest of the day. Focussed on giving the audit its final once-over you don’t bother pulling your phone from the drawer you had placed it in when you got to work that morning. You turn up the small radio at the corner of your desk and get to work scanning the document for errors. There’s a mistake halfway through that skews the rest of the data and fixing it takes a bit of time, but it isn’t a huge deal. You have nothing else to do except answer a few emails and organize meetings for after the weekend.

An hour or so later you’ve completed all your tasks and debate what to do. It’s too early to leave for the day, so you decide to kill time by checking your phone. You’re expecting a few notifications, perhaps two or three memes in the group chat you share with your friends, but not the hundreds that greet you.

The majority of them are instagram notifications, and assuming they’re just more fans requesting a follow you ignore them, instead heading to your text messages. There’s a picture from Kevin of a dog he found walking home and another from your mom asking why you haven’t called home in a few weeks. However the one from Claude’s wife is the one that piques your curiosity.

Just a heads up that someone posted a pic of you and Kev to one of those stupid wag pages. I filed a request for Instagram to take it down but it’s gotten a lot of traction. Sorry :((

Your heartbeat increases rapidly and a million thoughts fly through your head at a rapid speed. Fingers shaking, you respond with a thanks and open up the dreaded app. You don’t see it immediately, your feed being full of photos belonging to friends and family, but it’s in your messages almost two hundred times. Many of them have text attached and you know there will be a comment about your relationship regardless of which one you open.

Tapping on the most recent message you brace yourself for the worst. The new window opens a photo someone took of you and Kevin while eating lunch in the park across from your office not even three hours prior. It’s grainy and the camera angle is strange, but you’re eating and Kevin is looking somewhere out of frame. The accompanying caption reads Kev and his girlfriend out for lunch today! Follow @philllywagupdates for more :).

You let out a sigh of relief – it could have been a lot worse. Personal pictures of yourself have made it onto pages like that before and most of them they’re paired with mean-spirited captions about your appearance or other trivial matters. Assuming you’re in the clear, you head back to the page of the original message to thank the person for bringing the post to your attention. However, the message accompanying the post is anything but positive.

He can’t even fucking look at you. It’s only a matter of time before he leaves you

The blood in your veins runs cold. You know it’s not true – Kevin’s made it clear you’re the one and truthfully you’re just waiting for a ring – but it doesn’t stop the sting you feel. What could possess someone to say such horrible things? You decide not to respond despite, possibly opening another can of worms with the seen function, and close the app. Leaning back in your office chair you focus on anything but your phone, looking out the window at passersby while regaining your breath. It works for a while, but eventually not knowing what others said eats away at you. You go through every single message to see hundreds of similar comments to the first, with only a few saying they’re glad you’re happy or how posting the picture is a violation of your privacy.

By the time you’re finished your spirit has been crushed. However, it’s also an acceptable time to start the weekend – at least no one in the office will have to see you cry. Things are hastily packed into your bag and you wave a few quick goodbyes before once again taking the stairs. You curse yourself for deciding to walk to work that morning and set off in the direction of home wiping away tears. The last thing you need right now is for someone to recognize you, but you have to get home. Tobias Jesso Jr plays at much too loud a volume through your headphones and Kevin will most certainly remind you it’s bad for your hearing, but the melancholy piano riffs of Goon overpower the thoughts swirling around your head.

Do people really feel that way about me?

Are my friends just too nice to stop inviting me places?

Does Kevin really feel trapped?

Hundreds of similar sentiments and situations cross your mind as you stumble through the streets of downtown Philadelphia, but you force them as far back as possible before opening the door to the apartment you share with Kevin. Hoping to slip inside undetected, you take your shoes off slowly and throw your jacket on the end table instead of hanging it in the closet. Your plan fails somehow and Kevin hears you, greeting you in a goofy apron covered in flour.

“Hey sweetheart,” he smiles, but it drops once your eyes meet and he sees the hurt on your face. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing,” you insist, trying to step around him in pursuit of the bathroom.

Kevin doesn’t buy it and sees right through your feeble words. “It’s not nothing if you’re this upset. If you don’t want to talk now that’s fine, but I think you should get it off your chest.”

You know he’s right, but you also know you can’t tell him the true cause of your despair. “Just some work stuff,” you sigh. “The audit got all fucked up and I had to fix it even though it’s not my job.”

It’s not technically a lie, which makes you feel better, and Kevin buys it. He presses a sweet kiss to your lips in sympathy. “Go take a shower and the gnocchi should be ready by the time you’re done. We can spend the night cuddling on the couch.”

“And watching Selling Sunset?”

“We can watch whatever you want sweetheart,” he chuckles. You part from him with a final kiss and head to the bathroom. Hopefully the steam from the water will carry away the negativity brought on by that damn post.

☼☼☼☼

Time passes but the hateful comments on social media don’t stop. In fact, you’re pretty sure they get worse. It’s so bad that you’ve deleted every app except facebook because you need it for work. Kevin doesn’t notice your abstinence from social media, but he picks up on how you spend more time criticizing yourself or staring off into space. When he pushes you either brush him off or feed some bullshit excuse about how work is getting you down. You know he doesn’t believe you but trusts you enough to come to him when you’re ready to talk.

You aren’t sure if you’ll ever be able to tell Kevin what’s been going on. There’s been scrutiny from social media before, when you first started dating, but it quieted down after the initial media frenzy. He helped you through that but it’s different this time around. Never before have you had strangers tell you your life is worthless or that your boyfriend should end your relationship. Some of the other wags notice your absence on instagram but chalk it up to you just taking a break. They reach out via the group chat and send wishes to see you at the next home game. It’s nice to know they care, but the voice in your head that has grown much larger in recent weeks tells you they don’t truly mean it. This leads you to decline the invite as politely as possible, citing extended work hours for your absence. In reality you’re too anxious to be anywhere that isn’t home or work, petrified someone is going to post something that will add fuel to the flames of those who interrogate you.

It’s another Friday afternoon, and you’re leaving the office early once again. There’s a small craft exhibition taking place around the corner from work and today is the last day it’s open. You had been meaning to go all week, hoping to find something small to add to Kevin’s birthday gift. As you step out of the building there’s a small group of young women, who don’t look old enough to have graduated college, standing off to the side. It fills you with dread, worried that somehow someone found out where you work and the insults are going to start occurring verbally, but you force yourself to be rational. You work fairly close to one of the artsier districts in the city and it’s more than likely they just want to find a cute mural to take pictures in front of.

You pass by and swear you hear them snicker, but you remind yourself you’ve just been jumpy lately. When they peel from their place on the wall and follow behind at a distance you think the coincidences are running out. It seems a little too strange how their movements line up with yours, and you go down a few winding side streets in an attempt to lose them. Part of you feels ridiculous because what group of barely legal girls would track a full-blown adult around a city of nearly two million people, but your life is currently strange enough you can’t be sure. They don’t follow you, and by the time you reach the market your heart rate has returned to normal.

The first few stalls have little to catch your eye, but a few rows in you find a leatherworker who makes adorable wallets. Kevin’s is ridiculously old and falling apart at the seams – his mom bought it for him before the two of you got together. You think a new one will make a perfect addition to the concert tickets you already bought and browse the table for something simple and elegant. A deep brown one with tan braiding around the edges catches your eye and you know it’s the one for Kevin. Checking the price to make sure you have enough cash in your wallet, you approach the shop owner to purchase. The older man has a kind smile that reaches his eyes as he thanks you for purchasing from him.

“No, thank you for making something so beautiful!” you gush. “My boyfriend is going to love it.”

It’s then you hear it – snickering accompanied by the click of a camera. You look over your shoulder to see the same group of girls from before laughing as they huddle over a cell phone, no doubt already starting to broadcast the photo across the internet. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes but you refuse to let them fall. Those girls don’t deserve to see their mission accomplished, but the longer they laugh at you the harder it is to swallow your feelings.

Head held high, you thank the owner one more time before holding your head high and walking past the group. The only way out is past them so you hold your breath and pray they don’t notice you. Unfortunately you aren’t that lucky, and one of them looks up just as you come into earshot.

“If Kevin doesn’t leave you after that sorry excuse for a gift I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” she sneers.

Another one chimes in, “You’re honestly so pathetic.” They all cackle in amusement, and you speed up. The tears flow freely now, and you call an uber even though it will be a ridiculous amount of money. You just want to get home.

The uber driver doesn’t say anything when you get in, though you know it’s strange to be bawling your eyes out at four in the afternoon. You can’t help it – weeks of keeping all the hate to yourself finally got to you and being followed with the sole intent of ridicule is the final straw. At one red light he silently passes you a box of tissues, which you accept gratefully.

Luckily the lobby of your apartment complex is empty and you manage to get to your floor without encountering a familiar face. There’s a few hours until Kevin gets home from his final roadtrip of the season, and if you play your cards right you can get all the tears out and be as normal as possible before he comes through the door. You don’t even bother to put anything away, just head straight to the bathroom to slump against the tub. Sobs rack your body and you lose all sense of time. All you can feel is the hurt you’ve been holding in releasing itself and soaking the material of your blouse.

Kevin finds you laying in the position hours later. He tripped over your shoes coming in the door and immediately knew something was wrong – you always place them neatly on the rack in the closet upon arriving home. Peering through the quiet house for a hint at where you are, he sees the bathroom light on and makes a beeline for the room. It breaks his heart to see you like this, and even more so because he doesn’t know what spurred it on.

“Sweetheart, hey,” he coos, maneuvering his body to sit beside you and pull you into his lap. “What’s the matter?”

You bury your head in his shoulder and clutch the material of his dress shirt as you cry harder at the sound of his voice. Kevin takes your reaction in stride, rubbing circles on your back and working on evening out your breath. He doesn’t pressure you to speak and provides the stability you desperately crave as the world around you spins. An unknown amount of time passes before your tears run out, but spend it all on the bathroom floor curled into Kevin.

“I guess I should have told you sooner,” you mumble, “But I didn’t want to bother you.”

Concern laces Kevin’s features and his eyebrows knit together. “Tell me what?”

“I, uh, have been the subject of some internet hate for the past little bit,” you say sheepishly. It feels stupid to not have told him now, but you can’t change that. “But you were really busy with the season and I wanted to make sure your head was completely focused on the game so I just dealt with it myself. I deleted the apps and tried my best to go about my life. And then today after work I was followed by some people and they said some really hurtful stuff and shit became a little too real.”

“I’m so fucking sorry.”

It’s your turn to be confused. “Why are you sorry Kev? You're Not the one sending me death threats.”

He tucks a loose strand of hair back into your ponytail. “Maybe not, but I still made you feel like you couldn’t talk to me about what was going on. What kind of partner am I?”

“The best one,” you say confidently. “It’s okay, I’m okay. I just want to forget about it right now. Can we just disappear for a little bit?”

Kevin wraps his arms around you tighter, as if he can engulf you to protect from the cruel outside world. “We can do whatever you want. If you want to get out of the city for a bit if you want, or just spend the next few days here away from prying eyes.”

“I love you.”

You say it because you mean it, and if you could scream it from the rooftops you would. Kevin is incredibly easy to love, even when you make it difficult for him to love you back. You know another much longer conversation is coming about everything that has happened recently because communication is the only way to solve problems and Kevin deserves that, but you’re thankful he’s willing to put it to rest for a few more moments.

He cracks a smile for the first time since he’s been home and kisses the crown of your head. “I love you too sweetheart,” he whispers, “Always and forever.”

Things are far from over and though you still never want to show your face in public ever again, you know that Kevin is going to do whatever he can to make things better and that’s enough for you.

☼☼☼☼

taglist: @ricohenrique @tortito @boqvistsbabe @iwantahockeyhimbo @himbos-on-ice @2manytabsopen if you want to be added just shoot me an ask :)

[broadstflyers]

Congrats on 1 year! I love seeing your energy and positivity on my dash 😊

How about 💐 with Kevin Hayes please? I’d love to know what he would do for Valentines Day 🥰

aw, thank you so much! that is so appreciated. thank you so much for your request 🥰

💐: send me a player and i'll tell you about how i think they'd celebrate valentine's day with you

-------------

one word comes to my mind when i think of kevin hayes: goofy.

so, naturally, valentine's day is a lovely mixture of romance and pure goof.

why can i see him wearing a pink headband with hearts springing out of it?

and of course he bought some for you too, lol

so basically, he wakes you up like a kid on christmas, because he's just so excited

"come on, come on, get up, I have so many things we're gonna do today"

"5 more minutes, kev, please," you groan

he huffs, "fine. i know how you like your sleep."

so he takes those 5 (maybe 10 minutes) to put out your favorite flowers and a box of chocolates (or favorite candy), of course with that goofy headband on his head and yours as a gift

you slip out of bed and throw on a robe and pad into the kitchen

so you didn't see that goofy headband, but when you do, you cannot help but burst out laughing

that smile of yours, he just can't get enough of it. he's so happy he made you laugh

you can't help but run up to him and give him a giant hug. you love how silly he is

"here," he says as he reaches for your headband.

he gently places it on your head

fast forward, yes, the both of you wear your ridiculous headbands out in public. and you're loving every single second of it.

you walk hand and hand as you visit the aquarium (you both love to see the dolphins)

you shake your head gently to get the hearts to spring, and as a beautiful dolphin swims by, it seems to love the show and stops to watch you and kevin's hearts

maybe you got a few kids around you to chuckle :)

and it made the day even more special

come celebrate one year with me!

[hockeyboistrash]

that night | k.h

summary: a wedding, a pregnancy test, and a bunch of nosey hockey players. what could possibly go wrong?

The venue was perfect for Jenny’s and Corey's wedding. It was classic but not over the top. There was also enough room for the whole Flyers organisation and the bride and groom's family. While Travis suggested having orange as the colour, Jen decided against that and instead chose a nice shade of purple, which you were grateful for being a bridesmaid and all.

A glass of champagne was put in your hand at some point but you put it down as soon as you saw Carter trying to get your attention. You were friends with some of the younger players on the team but you were more like an older sibling than anything else. You went over to him and he lead you to the downstairs bathroom where Travis and Nolan were. You sent the latter a questioning look who only responded with a shrug.

"Okay, why are you three hanging around in the bathroom? And why am I here?" You asked, folding your arms across your chest and glaring at the three of them when no one said anything.

"Well we may have overheard Corey freaking out about the wedding and then I found this." Travis said showing the pink stick in his hand. "We thought that maybe it’s Jenny's."

"I’m going to stop you right there. Firstly, you do know someone’s peed on that, right?" You started making him drop the stick and scrunch up his face in disgust. "And secondly, you shouldn’t speculate who's it is. No one is going to say anything, got it?" They all nodded, not wanting to have your wrath if they didn’t listen to you. You shooed them out of the bathroom, staying in there yourself for a moment. This was the last thing you needed on top of keeping the wedding on track.

After taking a breather you left the bathroom bumping into Kevin. "Is there a reason why you four were in there together?" He asked, a huge grin on his face. It was one you couldn’t help but reciprocate.

"I don’t even know myself." You said with a little laugh and Kevin joined in. His laugh warmed your chest, it was probably one of your favourite sounds. Once the laughter died down you sighed and the stress you were feeling was apparent.

"Here. You look like you could use this." Kevin said handing you his drink.

"I can’t." You hesitated. "I can relax tomorrow once all of this is over but thank you."

"At least slow down a little. Everything looks perfect." He assured you, putting his hand on your arm.

You sent him a tired smile placing your own hand over his, appreciating the contact. "I’ll try."

"Y/N..." Kevin started and you knew what he wanted to talk about but you weren’t ready for that conversation and in the middle of the wedding weekend was the worst place to have it.

"I’ve got to check on the kitchen, Kev." You told him before leaving him alone in the hallway. You weren’t denying that you were avoiding him. The inevitable conversation was one that you were going to push for as long as you can.

When Kevin came to Philadelphia and to the team you became fast friends. It wasn’t a friendship like you had with the younger players. They were more like your brothers whereas you were in love with Kevin. It was a cliche, you knew that, yet you couldn’t help it. You had fallen for him hard but you never said anything because you didn’t want to ruin your friendship. This year hit differently when Kevin told you his plans of going to Boston over the summer. You knew it was going to happen, he did it last year. This time though you were going to miss him.

He came over the night before he had to leave for the airport. The two of you had dinner and now were watching a film, not that you were paying attention to it. He had is arm wrapped around you, pulling you so you were curled up next to him. It felt very domestic.

"What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?" Kevin asked, looking down at you with that goofy grin you love so much. Heat rose to your cheek at the thought of him catching you glancing at him throughout the evening.

"Just thinking about how quiet my apartment will be with you in Boston for the summer." You laughed.

"Take that back." He gasped although you could tell he was trying to hold back his own laughter.

"Make me." You grinned and Kevin saw that as a challenge as he started tickling you. Both of your laughter filled the apartment. It ended up with you laying on the couch with Kevin on top of you, his arms either side of you.

The alcohol you had earlier paired with the position you were now in had your inhibitions clouded. You looked up to see Kevin looking down at you with so much love in his eyes, or at least that’s what you perceived it to be. You wrapped your arms around the back of his neck and leaned forward, softly pressing a kiss onto his lips. He didn’t pull away, in fact he kissed you harder. Neither of you pulled away until you both needed air.

"Are you sure about this?" Kevin asked and you nodded. He placed his hands under your thighs so he was holding you as he carried you to your bedroom. Laying on your bed, he started undressing you, pressing kisses up your stomach and to your neck then lips.

You ended up snuggled into Kevin's side, his arm around you, mirrored to how you were on the couch. "I’m going to miss you." You mumbled in your sleepy state.

"I’ll miss you too, Y/N/N." He returned before falling asleep himself.

The next morning the space beside you was empty and cold. You couldn’t help but have a sinking feeling in your stomach when you saw that Kevin was gone before you woke up. The thought of him regretting last night plagued your thoughts until you saw a text from him.

You looked peaceful sleeping so I didn’t want to wake you. Call you when I land.

He also sent a picture of him on his flight pouting with the caption 'missing you already'.

Kevin did call when he landed and got settled back home but he didn’t mention the night before. Mind you, you didn’t either. It was a two way street so you could have easily said something yet you felt something holding you back, maybe it was thought of losing him as your friend and not having him in your life.

It was easier to hide behind a phone than seeing him in person. All the feelings you have suppressed from that night came back at full force. You missed the way he held you, the way his kisses felt. Being at a wedding surrounded by your friends didn’t help. This was the last place you wanted to talk.

Thankfully the pregnancy test that was found wasn’t brought up until after the ceremony. The toasts have been done and everyone was chatting amongst themselves having a good time, dancing stupidly to the dj for their Instagram stories. The bride and groom however were standing in the hallway just off to the side of the main room with you and a few others.

"Why didn’t you tell me?" Corey asked.

"Tell you what?" Jen replied confused as to what he was on about.

"That you’re pregnant." He said and everyone’s eyes widened. Yours for a different reason though as you had told Travis to shut his big mouth about it.

"Because I’m not. Where is this coming from?"

"Teeks said he found a pregnancy test and-" He started before getting interrupted. While they were having this conversation you sent a glare to the young forward in question.

"Oh so if TK said it must be true?" Jen asked sarcastically. "And you, why did you just assume it was mine?" Travis shrugged at that and was about to say something when you sighed, having had enough. You shut your eyes momentarily feeling the start of a headache coming.

"It’s mine, okay?" You blurted out and silence fell upon the group. Everyone’s eyes were on you but it was Kevin's you felt drilling into you. It wasn’t confusion like everyone else’s but rather concern. "So can we please just drop it and carry on with this reception." You pleaded. Jen nodded along with the others before they headed back into the main room. You didn’t follow them though but rather made your way outside, tears threatening to fall.

You knew without looking that Kevin followed you outside. He didn’t say anything and instead wrapped his arms around you, letting you cry into his chest. The two of you stood like that in silence until you ran out of tears and you stayed like that with your head on his chest.

"I’m not pregnant." You mumbled. Kevin was surprised momentarily that you spoke up, certain that he’d have to try and get you to speak. "It was a false positive."

"Why didn’t you tell me?" He asked carefully. You knew what he was asking so he didn’t need to elaborate.

"I- I was scared." You admitted. You moved so you were looking at him but still had your arms wrapped around his waist. "We didn’t talk about that night and I didn’t want to ruin our friendship."

Kevin nodded, taking a moment to think about how he wanted to say this. "That night wasn’t just a one time thing for me, Y/N. I hated that I had to leave the next day especially without talking to you about it. Then I called you and I was too much of a wimp to say anything because like you I was fucking scared. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. Just know that I love you and have done since I first met you."

"I love you too, Kev." You said, leaning up to softly kiss him.

[going-full-shmoo]

Can you do a Kevin Hayes friends you lover blurb when he was in college?

Here you go anon! I had to do some research, but thanks to one lovely @likeshootingstarsinthenightsky I was able to do it! Hope you like it.

REQUEST HERE / RULES

it was year three of your college career at Boston College, and you were getting very close to murdering your roommate

any other time, the two of you got along swimmingly, and you had formed a pretty tight bond

however, they had recently gotten a new boyfriend, and since then, they have literally not spent a single moment apart

like, they were practically attached

this was at least the 20th time that you walked in on the two of them making out on your roommates bed, literally looking like they were about to suck each other’s faces off

the first time you walked in, you screamed and ran away

now, you just walked in and started going about your business

you were sitting on your own bed, working on an assignment, when they finally separated thirty minutes later

“Oh hey, you’re back” your roommate spoke, still breathless from the face-sucking they had been doing moments earlier

“Yep. I’ve been working on my analysis for abnormal psych, and I’ve actually gotten quite a bit done” you murmured in reply, barely taking your focus off the laptop in front of you

“You know”, the boyfriend finally addresses you, “I have a friend who would be perfect for you”

“Huh, is that so” you mumble, once again not focusing on them

“Yeah, we play on the school’s hockey team together. Nice guy. I think you’d really like him”

“Oh my god, we should do a double date!” your friend added “(Y/N) what do you think?”

“Yeah sure whatever” you responded, once again more focused on your analysis than the conversation that was happening

“Great! Friday night! Let’s go out for dinner and a movie!”

you hummed in agreement not fully realizing what you just agreed to until Friday arrived

you were once again sitting on your bed just scrolling through twitter because procrastination, when your roommate comes back in

“Why aren’t you ready? We’re meeting with the boys in like, fifteen minutes!” they yelled at you

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“You agreed to do a double date with my boyfriend and one of his friends tonight!”

“I NEVER AGREED TO THAT”

“YES YOU DID”

you spent the next five minutes arguing before they forced an outfit into your hands, doing their best to quickly make your face and hair look presentable

“You are not going to spoil this night for us,” you heard your roommate utter “Plus, boo told me that his friend is like, totally perfect for you”

you just mutter under your breath because you cannot believe that you ended up in this situation

cut to you and your roommate waiting outside the movie theater, with the tickets to see the newest movie that just came out, About Time

obviously a rom com, and very obviously your roommates choice

you see your roommates boyfriend walking up, a very tall, sweet looking guy following behind him

as soon as he gets a look at your roommate, the boyfriend runs up and scoops them up in his arms, spinning them around and covering them with kisses

you internally gag because once again, they literally cannot keep their hands off each other

“So while they are sucking face, I guess I should introduce myself, I’m (Y/N), the roommate I’m sure you were told about”

“Kevin. It’s nice to meet you. And yeah he mentioned you. All good things, I promise”

“Well I’m glad he notices somethings because honestly I feel like they are always so engrossed with each other its hard for them to focus on anything else” you joke

and thankfully, Kevin laughs with you

eventually your roommate and their boyfriend separate for long enough for the four of you to go into the theater and find your seats

you and Kevin end up sitting in the row behind your roommate and the boyfriend because they wanted to “be alone” and “let you too get to know each other”

this, you had learned, was code for “we are going to grossly make out for the entire movie without stopping”

you and Kevin just sat behind them, uncomfortable at first, before you ended up bursting into a fit of giggles

“We are only two minutes into this movie and I swear they are already attached” he leaned over and whispered to you

“You should see them in our dorm” you whispered back, leading to more giggles

“You wanna get out of here” Kevin managed to get out after cooling off for a moment

you nodded at him, and the two of you quietly crept out of the theater

once you were outside, the two of you burst out into laughter

“Well that was awkward” you laughed

“I know, right? Like, what was the point of bringing us along if they were just gonna make out the entire time”

“I have no idea either,” you responded. “Wanna get some ice cream or something?”

“Yeah, lets do it”

the two of you made your way over to the ice cream shop, the bell ringing as you walked in

the two of you ordered, and Kevin insisted on paying no matter how hard you fought him on it

he made sure to wait and grab both of your orders for you so you could go and sit and relax

you had no idea how long the two of you sat inside that place, just talking and eating your ice cream

you were there long after you had both finished, and even up until the manager kicked the two of you out

you were sure that your roommate and their boyfriend were long gone at this point

you hated to say it, but they were right - Kevin was amazing

he was sweet, a bit dorky, kind, and made you laugh like no one you had met before

and the fact that he was just as interested in you and didn’t complain when you started to ramble on about your studies?

you could see yourself with someone like him

as he walked you back to your dorm, you wrapped your arm around his, bringing him close so you could get warm

he didn’t budge or complain, just smiled at you like it was the most normal thing in the world

“You know we should make this a normal thing”

“Make what a normal thing, Kevin”

“Ditching our friends so they can go swallow each other while we go and have fun”

you laugh, but nod

“I agree, we should make this a normal thing”

“What do you say, double date dinner Sunday night?”

“You sure your boy Tom Brady won’t mind you skipping a game?” you joked with him knowing that he would do anything to make sure that he saw his favorite (and your least favorite) team play

“For you, it would be worth it” he smiled shyly as the two of you got up to your door

“Then…its a date” you smiled bashfully back

he started to bring you in for a hug, which you gladly accepted

his embrace was warm, and you wished that something more went along with it, but you weren’t ready for that yet

the two of you said your goodbyes after getting each other’s numbers

that night you dreamed about the next time you would see him

little did you know that it was going to be the start of something even more than that

but you would never give your roommate the satisfaction of telling them they were right…that was for later

[colemccassidy]

his world or yours pt. 2 || kevin hayes

part 1 || masterlist

Author’s Note: I hadn’t originally planned on writing a part 2 for this. Then, someone sent me an anonymous ask. They said they liked part 1 but asked if I was going to write a part 2 because part 1 was really sad. Them asking that gave me inspiration to write this. I experimented with how I wrote it, so I hope it’s still written well enough. GIF credit goes to nylanders!! (Appropriate GIF lmao).

Warnings: Same mention of alcohol/drinking as the first part. Once again, if you need to avoid that, that’s understandable. That’s why I’m warning about it.

Word Count: 647 (short boi)

Based On: Her World or Mine by Michael Ray

Additional: As per the first one, the only hint of the gender of the reader is tied to the mention of the wedding dress. Like I said with the first part, wedding dresses can honestly be worn by anyone. So, the reader can really be whatever gender you want them to be. Hope that’s okay and makes sense!! Also hope you enjoy this!!

The first thing Kevin had done after he had broken up with you was deleted your number out of his phone. That’s what Nolan told you. What Nolan didn’t tell you was that Kevin wrote the number on a piece of paper and put it in his wallet. He wanted to have it handy in case you called him.

Nolan told you that Kevin threw your engagement picture from Mexico in the trash. What Nolan didn’t tell you was that it only stayed there for a couple of hours. Kevin fished it out and tacked it back onto the fridge where it belonged. Nolan didn’t tell you that Kevin whispered I love you to it whenever he opened the fridge. Didn’t tell you that he would occasionally talk to the picture like it was really you.

When you found out Kevin had no reaction to the song that was supposed to be your wedding song, you had holed up in your room for a week and not talked to anyone. What Nolan and the rest of Kevin’s teammates hadn’t told you was that Kevin went out and broke three of his sticks at practice. That he shot a puck with so much anger that he shattered one of the panes of glass behind the net. Everyone on Kevin’s team had agreed you weren’t to find out until Kevin was ready to tell you.

Every time Kevin went out drinking with the team, the pictures and videos the team sent the group chat portrayed Kevin as a responsible drinker. That’s what the team wanted you to think. Behind the pictures and videos, Kevin drank. He would wallow about the relationship to anyone on the team that would listen, all while throwing back drink after drink. Nolan never told you that when Kevin woke up hungover his first instinct would be to call out for you. Much like he had whenever he woke up hungover during the 5 years you dated.

No one told you that Kevin couldn’t stand sleeping in his apartment. He couldn’t stand being alone after being with you for 5 years. He would often crash at the house or apartment of whatever teammate was feeling the most generous that day. You weren’t told that on the days he did sleep at his apartment that he would cry himself to sleep because the bed was missing someone.

Nolan knew how much you wanted to call Kevin and ask to give the relationship a second chance. What Nolan didn’t reveal to you was that Kevin wanted to do the same thing. Kevin wanted to tell you that you meant the world to him; that you were who he wanted to spend his life with. He wanted to tell you he loved you and that you were all he could think about.

You had mentioned to Nolan how you were constantly thinking about the fact that you and Kevin had had your life planned out. That you were now flabbergasted as to what happened to change that. Nolan had nodded along and sympathized with you. What he hadn’t told you was that Kevin felt exactly the same way. Kevin was prepared to have a white-picket-fence life with you. The two or three children, the one or two dogs; everything. 

Kevin had gone ahead and had your wedding dress made; he needed something that reminded him of you. You were none the wiser because Nolan nor any of Kevin’s other teammates had told you this detail.

Your life had shattered into a million pieces and you were scrambling to survive. Kevin’s life had shattered into a million pieces and he was scrambling to survive. The only problem is you were none the wiser to that fact. There was only one fact that you were wiser too, no matter how wrong it was.

Kevin had moved on and you hadn’t.

[infinitegalahad]

SOMEWHERE IN TRIBECA (SNEAK PEAK)

Pairing: Jimmy Vesey x Female Indentifying! Reader

Summary: In the world of online dating, you, a washed-up division one athlete getting her law degree, find yourself entangled with Jimmy Vesey, a hockey player who is half your age.

Word Count: 240

Warnings: Not for now, but massiveeee age difference. Will get into more details/tw's in the official release.

Notes: Phew! This is my first real piece of work in over nine months. College is a fucking place, people. Lots of good and bad happened. I'm gonna be posting about my disappearance in a life update soon. I'm going to be super busy this summer, but I need a distraction from my two jobs and the awful humidity. Oh, and the Rangers Playoff because WHAT is going on. Anywaysss, enjoy this little snippet! Add yourself to the taglist if you wanna hear more; chapter one should be out by tonight! :)

Taglist | Masterlist

Name: Jimmy

Age: 30

Location: New York

Hometown: Boston

Occupation: Sports Professional

School: Harvard

My Ideal Date: Trying out a new recipe together at home, followed by a cozy movie night with homemade popcorn and our favorite snacks. As long as I get to be the big spoon. 

A random fact about me that surprises people…: I read a lot. My favorite way to unwind after a long day is curling up with a good book and a cup of tea. Looking for a cuddle buddy. 

I'm Looking For: Long-term, open to short-term (Monogomy)

Two Truths and a Lie: I speak Mandarin fluently, I play for a professional sports team, and I love Sushi. 

My Anthem: Crash Into Me by Dave Matthews Band

(Y/n) and Jimmy, you'd two be the most compatible.

Name: (Y/n)

Age: 21

Location: New York

Hometown: New York

Occupation: Consultant and Law Student 

School: GW, UVA, Columbia Law School

My ideal weekend getaway destination is...: A charming bed and breakfast in a quaint coastal town, where I can spend my days exploring local shops, indulging in fresh seafood, and taking long walks along the beach. And most importantly, with someone else.

I'm Looking For: Firguing out my dating goals

A random fact about me that surprises people...: Despite my innocent appearance, I have a mischievous side that loves to tease and flirt shamelessly.

My Anthem: Fire Fly by Childish Gambino

Jimmy sent you a rose. 

You now have a new match.

[brockkboeserr]

it's not anyone - kevin hayes

When a promotion at work calls for you to transfer back to Philadelphia, your ex-fiancé offers you the guest room of the home you used to share. What could possibly go wrong?

pairing: kevin hayes x reader

warnings: angst angst angst, relationship breakdown, talk of marriage and babies, low key plus size reader (and mention of exercise as an unhealthy coping mechanism), travis konecny still sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, the over romanticization of spaghetti bolognese

word count: 10.1k

a/n: and here is the second part (that i am queueing up at 8:17 am bc i forgot to do it last night whoops). thank yall for the love and support but an especially big thank you to my sweet k @danglesnipecelly for without whom this fic would not exist or be nearly this long or sad

Space, as it turns out, is you packing a bag and checking into a hotel for a week.

It was space you wanted and space you received, going to sleep and waking up alone, and it’s clarity you seek but not necessarily clarity you find. At first it isn’t that bad, you’d had months and months of practice living without him after all. You’d survived the cold winter winds without him at your side, and you’d overcome the warmth of the sun without those treasured weeks spent on the Cape. This is different, though. At least then you’d had miles and hours and distance.

Now Kevin’s a fifteen minute car ride but you can’t bring yourself to make the trip.

Because things hadn’t changed. Not really. Kevin was still Kevin and you still weren’t the kind of girl who marries him and has the happy ending. You were the girl who had to prove her intelligence and competence, who had to overcome the initial dismissive glances that were always thrown her way. You had aspirations and dreams and goals taller than the Empire State Building, and you were never going to stop until you got what you wanted.

Problem is, at some point, it was Kevin and a life and a future and that home that became what you wanted. And at some point you realized that you might have given it all up for him, if he had asked you to pass on that promotion, you might have said okay. That was terrifying enough in and of itself, but in the end it didn’t even matter, because he had said it wasn’t enough. That you weren’t enough.

And so you’d gone, tail tucked between your legs and left hand ring finger bare, and you’d taken the position and you’d thrown yourself into work even further than you had before. You now had two things to prove: that you were worth it, and that losing Kevin was worth it too.

You couldn’t really say the former wasn’t true - two years later and you were in a senior leadership role, head of several projects and by all accounts thriving professionally. And yet when the opportunity presented itself to transfer back here, you hadn’t hesitated. Because no matter what you achieved professionally, you still hadn’t been able to prove the latter half of that statement.

The entire situation has your stomach in knots for the majority of the week. The feeling doesn’t subside, not when you’re scrolling through ads looking for an apartment to rent, not when your largest project to date is presented to the board as a resounding success. To the outside world, it’s a series of small victories, and your work team prepares to head out for a round of drinks Friday after work. Emily gives you a knowing look as you shake your head and tell her you won’t be able to make it. She knows you’re going to head for your hotel room where you can continue to beat yourself up over all of your mistakes in peace, and so they all leave you alone in your office, their excited voices carrying long after they’ve left.

You stay a bit longer, wrapping up a few things here and there before flicking off the light and preparing to head back to your hotel room where you plan to lay face down on the soft bed for a few hours before ordering takeout and ultimately going to bed alone.

The universe has other plans. That is, if the universe was 5 foot 10, standing outside of your office building wearing a sheepish smile and named Travis.

Frankly, you’re not in the mood for his shit or his shenanigans, whichever he’s here to provide. It’s been a long week, a long and lonely week, and you really just want to sleep until things get better. It’s like he can sense your desires, obnoxiously stepping in front of you to block you from running past him. You step left and he steps right, you go to move forward and he does too. Finally you snap, “Can I help you?”

He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t startle or crack. He just shrugs, “I need to talk to you.”

Swallowing down the hurt of your last encounter you shake your head subtly, “I think you’ve said more than enough to me, Travis. Now let me by.” He doesn’t budge though, actions as annoying as ever, and so you spin on your heel, turning and heading in the opposite direction. Sure it’ll take an extra few minutes to reach your car, but the sidestepping a confrontation is worth it.

Except he’s calling your name again, voice getting louder by the second, until he finally shouts out into the Philadelphia air, “I’m sorry!”

That’s enough to stop you in your tracks, hesitating on the cracked sidewalk. It gives him the opportunity to catch up to you. Despite your business casual outfit, you’d managed to put distance between you two. “I’m sorry,” he repeats himself, “It wasn’t fair of me to say that to you.”

“No it wasn’t,” you agree readily, but don’t offer anything further. Truthfully you’re confused, you don’t know what would have made him have such a complete turn around in his opinion of you and your motives or lack thereof. That conversation was months ago, and so much had happened since.

“You just - You don’t know what it was like, picking up the pieces when you left.” And you know that you left a mess for him to clean up, like you know that but the focus is only ever on how you broke Kevin. No one ever wants to talk about how he broke you too.

“Don’t know what it was like? I lived it, Travis. You don’t know what it was like. I didn’t just lose Kevin, I lost everyone. I left behind everything, and had to throw myself into my job to convince myself that it had been worth it. And it wasn’t, and then I came back and I am just doing the best I can here, okay?”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and the three syllables are really starting to grate on your nerves. Your mom once said that a thousand ‘I’m sorry’s were worthless unless accompanied by changed behavior. “He didn’t tell us what happened then, and he won’t tell anyone now. Just keeps saying that he fucked up and didn’t think you were coming back this time. Talk to him.”

“Go home, Teeks,” is all you can think to say, bundling up in your coat and swiftly walking past him.

-

In the end, it’s nothing but pure spite for Travis that keeps you from returning to Kevin’s front door until Sunday. It was space you asked for and space you received but you found in the loneliness of that hotel room it wasn’t really space you wanted. If you’re honest with yourself, really honest with yourself, you realize it’s Kevin you want. It’s always Kevin, in whatever way he’ll have you. The want and the need is so visceral it’s almost painful, drumming through your veins and pumping through your blood.

You want him so badly, but you resign yourself to the fact that it will only ever be as a friend.

When the door opens to reveal a quiet, relieved Kev, you almost wish you hadn’t stayed away. The feeling lingers as he pulls you into his arms, squeezing a touch harder than necessary.

The hug turns awkward quickly, all traces of comfort lost as he clears his throat and steps back out of your space.

“Why are you home?”

And isn’t that the million dollar question. What has changed since you scampered out of your once shared bedroom with an ache between your thighs but an even larger ache in your heart? Nothing really. He’s still Kevin, the person you loved with the fire and passion of a thousand exploding suns. The person you still love. And you’re still just you, the person who will never be worthy of him.

You know that you make things worse by being here, you know that he hurts just as bad as you did, know that it hurts all the more with your presence in the home built upon your shared hopes and dreams. You know that he loves you, but you know that he also told you it didn’t matter.

Kevin tries, he really tries to not let the seed of hope you had planted in his chest when you let him back into your heart, soul and body take root but he’s a simple man. He loves you, wants you to come home and stay this time. For real, though. Not in his guest bedroom, not on the fringes of his life, but in your bedroom and in his arms. He wants to put that ring back on your finger, but right now especially, he wants you to say all those same things back to him.

It’s why he deflates when you tell him it was Travis. He deflates but then he lets the anger fill him once more. He meant it when he said that Travis means well, that he’s trying to protect Kevin’s heart from more heartbreak. It’s why he cornered you in the first place, why his eyes grew dark and suspicious whenever they met yours. It’s why Travis told you to come home.

Kevin doesn’t want it to be Travis meddling in your business, sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. He wants it to be you and he wants it to be him and he wants it to be you both together.

“Why did you want me to come home?” you ask quietly, giving him the chance to say everything that’s on his mind. You know he loves you, you know you love him, and he knows the very same. But he can’t say those words. He can’t say them because you’re not here to rekindle your love, you’re here because Travis told you to come home. And you ended your engagement for a reason, for two damn good reasons, and yeah one of them might have been solved by your new promotion and job relocation but that doesn’t fix the rest.

He can’t tell you the truth, but he can apologize. “I’m sorry,” he says, but you’re sick of apologies. You’re sick of feeling like this, you’re sick of having him but not having him, you’re sick of feeling like a stranger in your own home. You pull back, not quite leaving the warmth of his presence but no longer allowing yourself to stand mere inches away from pressing against him, ready to tell him that and a whole lot more.

The expression on his face stops you. It’s largely unreadable, but somewhere beneath the surface it reads sad.

And so you whisper, “I’m sorry, too,” and let yourself step back into the comfort of his arms.

-

Being Kevin’s friend is an extraordinary study in patience and torture. He’s right there but he’s not at the same time; so close but so far away. The distance between you is only accentuated by the physical distance during the season. You have no claim on him, nor any stake in his behavior other than to play the part of concerned friend. It doesn’t stop your heart from sinking as you spot him in the corner of some of the boys’ insta stories, partying it up in another city, getting cozy with some girl who isn’t you.

It’s embarrassing and it’s childish, but you go out that night and find someone to take you home. It’s not some revenge thing, though. You don’t gloat about it to Kevin when he comes home, don’t rub it in his face or make it abundantly clear. The way his eyes follow you throughout the room make you believe that he knows anyway.

You don’t talk about it, don’t want to talk about it. Don’t want to feed him some line about you both being grown adults who can be with whoever they wanna be with, when your heart knows the truth is you’re lonely, but it’s not strangers you meet in bars that you want to be with.

It’s a sick cycle that you both run through, chasing the high of feeling someone else’s attention on you. Proving over and over again that you’re both capable of moving on, even as you sit side by side in the deepest mud, tires spinning and ultimately going nowhere.

-

The thing about buying your dream house at the end of a cul de sac, with thoughts and plans of a beautiful family at the forefront of your mind, is that you end up purchasing a house large enough to fit that beautiful family.

And when one of Kevin’s oldest and closest friends is traded to Philly… one of those extra bedrooms is offered to and accepted by him.

“Just like old times,” Keith says, bags dropped at the front door, pulling you and Kevin in for a group hug. And it is, just like old times, just like those early years in New York, the boys’ friendship healing the jagged edges of Kev’s broken heart in a way you’re not able to do just yet.

But it also isn’t like old times, as you head to sleep alone and wake up alone and curl up on your own side of the couch alone. Keith’s teasing grin and knowing looks aren’t as jarring as the ruthless way he used to torment you and Kevin when you used to be stuck to his side like glue.

“You’ve gotta stop buying these,” Keith mentions offhandedly one quiet Saturday morning, devouring sour patch kids by the handful. You only briefly look up from your laptop where you’re playing a bit of catch up - you’d gone to the game last night rather than finish your deliverable and you were paying for it by missing out on your usual Saturday morning sleep in - with a scowl on your face.

“No one said you had to eat all of them,” you reply delicately, nose upturned ever so slightly before you return your attention to the screen in front of you. “Besides I didn’t buy any of that.” By that, you mean the horrendous and absolutely not professional athlete diet plan (or white collar VP diet plan for that matter) approved hoard of candy that seems to be almost magical in its inability to dwindle in supply.

“Kevin doesn’t even like sour candy,” is mumbled behind a full mouth of candy, but you work out the meaning all the same.

Kevin doesn’t even like sour candy rings in your ears on repeat the rest of the weekend.

-

Keith’s presence in your home - in Kevin’s home - only serves to further remind you that none of this situation is normal. It’s the look in his eye and the words on the tip of his tongue that you quiet with a single sharp glance. It’s Keith witnessing every awkward moment that you try so hard to ignore - every weird half-touch, every mumbled apology, every lingering and coded glance.

He sees you making Kev a cup of coffee just the way he likes it and setting it aside for him so that it’ll be the perfect temperature when he wakes up for morning skate twenty minutes after you leave from work with your own coffee mug in hand. He sees your eyes lingering on the photo still at the center of all the frames on the mantle whenever you watch tv, flickering over to where Kev sits on the couch beside him every so often.

He sees the hot shame that blooms throughout your entire body when you come home early one morning, dress and hair askew and bright red mark on your neck you fail to cover beneath your hand when you spot them both at the kitchen table. The way you stumble through an excuse and flee into the sanctity of the guest bedroom. The clench of Kevin’s jaw and the shake of his hands and the scrape of the plate on the table, eggs untouched as he claims he lost his appetite.

It’s a strange dance he is the spectator to, of the two of you so clearly as in love with each other as you were in New York and yet neither of you doing a damn thing about it. Teasing the two of you used to be one of his favorite things - is there anything out there half as enjoyable as reducing Kevin to a blushing bumbling idiot, stumbling over his words at being caught making out with his girlfriend at the bar? And yet there’s nothing fun about the torture you put each other, and everyone else around you, through.

Keith’s known Kevin a long time, since they were kids in Dorchester, and so he has no problem interrogating him one morning, driving home together after an early skate. Kevin shuts it down quickly though, both hands gripping the wheel tightly and gaze focused on the horizon ahead, he only says it’s a lot more complicated than it seems.

Funnily enough, you say damn near the same thing when he interrogates you too.

Keith’s not the only one frustrated with your lack of a relationship status. As you and Kevin rebuilt your friendship, so too did you rebuild your friendship with his teammates and significant others. Despite his earlier reservations, Travis is about ten more pouty Kevin practices away from tossing the two of you in the locker room and locking the door.

Ryanne is sweet but not at all subtle in her insinuations and you swear she hands off her children into Kevin’s entirely capable hands often for no reason other than to see if she can get you to break.

Just like Travis alone, they all have good intentions and they all want what they think is best for you, but they just don’t have the full story. Only an idiot would believe that the feelings weren’t there anymore for either of you. There’s too much lingering in those glances and those half touches and in all that history.

But that history is not in black and white and neither is the future and most certainly not the present.

Because you can love him and love him and love him - and you do! - but it’ll never be enough. Because it’s not enough and you’re not enough and your love isn’t enough.

After all, isn’t that one of the last things Kevin said to you before you gave back his grandmother’s ring?

-

You don’t think you’ll ever cook for Kevin in that big beautiful kitchen without remembering sophomore year and the good times and New York and the first months of bliss here.

The longing isn’t as painful or as deep now as it used to be in New York alone, cooking dinners for one in a cramped galley style kitchen in a Manhattan apartment. Nor the intensity of those first few months back in this house without the matching ring.

It’s still there, though, locked down deep beside all the words you want to say but fear you never will.

He has no obligation to, but Kevin likes to help you cook still. And still asks how high when you tell him to jump, albeit without the press of hands or lips to skin attached to the response. He makes an alright line cook, certainly no sous chef, as he dutifully prepares whatever you’ve asked of him alongside you in the kitchen.

Keith’s got some chirp for the two of you, one that makes Kevin throw his head back in a full belly guffaw while you angrily point the knife you’d just been cutting vegetables for the salad with and threaten to let him starve.

Kevin’s pretty good at one thing independently of you though, and that’s grilling. The kitchen backs out onto the deck through a set of elegant french doors. They give you a front row seat to the way his arms flex as he flips the steaks, the way his full pout closes over the lip of the dripping beer bottle, the way his hand pulls off his backwards cap before running through his hair and putting it back into place.

Unfortunately, the open style of the living room and kitchen give Keith a front row seat to you and the way your eyes don’t leave Kevin through the door. It’s his chuckle that snaps you out of it, and your death glare that makes him quiet.

Kevin sees it all, sees the way you shove one of his oldest friends, sees you laugh and joke and pout. And it makes him want. And it makes him wish. And it makes him wonder.

It makes him want you and it makes him wish he’d fought for you harder and it makes him wonder where you would be if you both had. He wonders if you’d be married by now, if you’d proudly wear a wedding band alongside the engagement ring. If there’d be children running around, beautiful like their mama and loud just like him. Maybe you would be pregnant now, hand resting on your growing belly and cursing the additional two children in the house you called your husband and his friend.

But then he remembers that wasn’t something you had wanted, not with him.

No, the longing isn’t as painful or as constant, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still exist. Or that Kevin doesn’t feel it too.

-

Girls night gets a little out of hand when the guy Emily’s been seeing posts another girl on his story in a way that is clearly not at all platonic. It leads to several rounds of shots between reassurances that she can do so much better than Dave in sales and some two stepping that was more akin to a centipede learning to waltz than a country-western dance.

What had intended to be a relaxed night with your core group of friends and coworkers quickly spirals, vodka sodas get downed like they're water alone while plain glasses of water are rebuked as if you’d all been offered pure cyanide in a cup. The night blurs, but you think you dance on a table or two and almost get into a brawl with some guy who won’t take no for an answer from a girl you’ve genuinely never met before.

It’s somewhere between learning all about Kelsey, as you’d discovered her name was, and the town she grew up in before listening to her speak about her loser ex-boyfriend that has you missing Kevin. It’s sad, really, the way you all but deflate in your chair even as your friends cheer Kelsey on in her retelling of a particularly nasty fight.

“Call him,” Emily nudges you a little while later, but you shake your head defiantly. You weren’t about to ruin girls night all because you couldn’t stop thinking about your ex. It was kind of the antithesis of all that the night had turned out to be.

You manage another few hours, trying your absolute best to keep the pout off your face and you succeed for a time, you really do. Honestly you think you’re doing a good job of staying engaged, clinking shot glasses and going to the bathroom in a small group. But then Emily’s reappearing at your side again, a little less gentle in her nudging as she almost sends you sprawling to the floor. “Call him.”

“No.” You’re forceful in your delivery but you don’t really think Emily’s even paying attention. Suddenly she seems stone cold sober, which absolutely was not the point of tonight after instagram had brought everything crashing down.

“Gimme your phone,” she demands, while the other girls crowd around you and giggle, demanding you do what Em says.

“No!” You move to shove your phone in your bra where you’re reasonably certain she won’t follow, not in public at least, but she’s got much better reflexes than you and manages to pull it from your grasp without much of a fight.

Before you know it she’s dialing the phone and speaking to the one person you haven’t been able to keep your mind off all night.“Hi Kevin, it’s Emily. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah she wants you to come get her. Uh huh. Do you think you could give the rest of us a ride home too? It’s kinda late to uber. Uh huh. Okay see you soon.”

You would lament the fact that she’d done it at all if you weren’t tired and missing the warmth of his embrace.

When he texts to let you know he’s outside and then calls when that text remains unanswered and unopened, you pretend you don’t feel the subtle buzzing of your phone. As if you could just ignore him long enough and he would go away.

“You didn’t have to come,” you mumble embarrassedly, eyes focused on the tattered drink menu in front of you instead of his tall frame as he’d had to come into the bar to find you.

He says your name so earnestly you have no choice but to look up at him. “Of course I did, you know I did.”

You don’t say much else, too wrapped up in the quiet moment in the middle of a loud bar before Emily and your new friend Kelsey are guiding you out of the bar, Kevin not too far behind you.

You don’t say much else but you think about it all on the way home, mind running in a million different directions at once. Your friendship, your relationship, all the fights, all the insecurities, the end of everything and the beginning you wonder if you’re heading towards. Ultimately, you don’t get very far, falling asleep in the passenger seat and missing the drop off of every one of your friends.

Kev’s hands are gentle as they attempt to rouse you awake. You can still taste the tequila on your tongue, with the hazy fog of the strong liquor still lingering too, a quiet whine rising from the back of your throat. His chuckle is warm and comforting, familiar like the memory of your grandmother’s love, before it disappears with the slam of the driver's side door. You sigh back into the cool leather seat, sure he’s left you behind in peace until the cooler night air reaches your face from where he’s opened your door too.

His quiet chuckles turn into subdued laughter as you fight off his hands struggling to unbuckle your seatbelt, slurring something about being warm and comfy. “C’mon baby, bed’s even warmer and comfier,” he says, surprised when his words register as some kind of logic in your drunk state causing you to stop fighting. You’re a lot more compliant, going easily as he pulls your cold hands into his and tugs you out of the car.

Kevin guides you into the house, carefully helping you navigate the hazards of his home while you lean into his side, before dropping you off briefly at the kitchen table with a glass of water and a promise to be right back. Your vision’s a little hazy and the room’s a little spinny and you don’t want water, you want Kevin and the big bed you used to sleep in late on Sunday mornings whenever you could in. And so you wander into the room that used to be yours, a familiar path you could walk with your eyes closed, one you all but did.

The room is quiet for the moment and the bed looks so warm and inviting, you almost cross the space between and slide beneath the sheets. You only almost do it because at some point during your recognition and remembrance that those sheets aren’t the ones you’d picked out, Kevin has left the ensuite and is staring at you with a look of pure longing on his face.

It’s a bit like a bucket of ice cold water is dumped on you then, every trace of alcohol leaving your system with a single glance. It had been so easy. So easy to find your way into this room and almost into that bed. So easy for him to leave bed himself and come get you from the bar. Easy and right and what you both deserve.

And he sees it. Everything you’re not saying now, everything you haven’t been able to say thus far. He sees it all and he wants it, wants you. But it’s not you anymore and it’s not him anymore and it’s certainly not you and him together anymore.

“I’m sorry,” you say, “I didn’t mean-”

You’re just friends. Two friends with a lot of history who hurt each other over and over again and are sorry for it all. Two friends who go to sleep alone.

That night your dreams are clear but you don’t remember a single detail when you wake up alone other than that Kevin’s voice featured heavily in all of them.

-

“Looks like you had fun in Vegas,” you state nonchalantly, feigning disinterest as you stir the pot literally and figuratively. It’s an innocent enough statement out of context, just a friend making a remark about another friend’s mini vacation in the city of sin.

Except it wasn’t a vacation but the middle stop on a three game roadie and your intentions are anything but innocent. It’s hurt that fuels you and the strangest sense of betrayal even though you have no right to feel either of those things anymore. You’ve been trying, but you can’t get the image of Kevin’s large hands on some other girl’s waist out of your head.

It’s not fair, not when you have no claim to him other than your broken heart, not when you’ve had someone else’s hands on your own waist in turn.

Even if it’s his hands you want on your body, even if it’s his presence your body gravitates to, even if the future you want is the future you were building together.

“Yeah…” he says slowly, voice low and calm as though he was speaking to a cornered animal. He knows you know why Vegas was fun, the way he appeared in the background of someone’s insta story.

You know it’s not fair and you know you don’t have a right and above anything else you don’t actually want to start a fight. You don’t want to jeopardize the friendship you’ve built with him,

the strides you’ve taken together to reduce the awkwardness and return some of the banter. And so you shake your head a little and turn your back to him as you refocus your attention on the boiling pot in front of you.

“You don’t get to do that.” It’s authoritative the way he speaks, though you hear his own hurt beneath it all.

“I know,” you reply quietly.

“It’s not fair,” he continues, all but urging you to look at him with his tone of voice.

You can’t, though. Can't face him to see the look you know is resting on his face. You can only nod, speaking again, “I know.”

“Look at me please.”

You do, finally, but not before reducing the heat of the stove and putting the lid on the pot to simmer. There’s a pull in your stomach as you look into his eyes, guilt mixing in with the hurt in your heart. You want to wrap yourself around him, push all of your broken pieces back together in the safety of his arms, tell him you love him and you want him.

“I’m sorry,” you say instead, but you’re sick of apologies and so is he. You wish you could bathe in the warmth of his love like you had for so many years, but you both made your beds and now you had to lie in them alone.

“I don’t want you to be sorry anymore,” he says and he means it. He doesn’t want you plagued with feelings of guilt and hurt, doesn’t want you to have to make reparations when those emotions twist and turn until you’ve done or said something you regret.

“I don’t know how to stop being sorry.” Sorry for picking a fight when you know you shouldn’t have. Sorry for hurting him and you at every turn. Sorry for moving into this house once again but even sorrier for having left it. Sorry for the state of your relationship, a decent friendship to be sure but not the deep, all encompassing love you’d enjoyed for so long. Sorry that you and your love and your future were never enough.

Staring at him you see it all, see that it’s your actions and inaction that have caused so much hurt alongside the words he once spoke to you. You also see a way out, though it’s not a good solution, but a cowardly one.

“I should move out.” For real this time. Not an empty threat thrown about, not a reaction to a meddling friend, not a dark thought had in the middle of the night in a cold bed all alone. A real answer, a course of action, a promise.

“How many times-“ His initial reaction is frustration, but it’s not necessarily at you, more of a knee jerk reaction to the panic of losing you once again. Kevin knows that if you move out he doesn’t just lose your continued presence in this house you’ve made feel like a home again, but you both also lose all the progress you’ve made together. He knows that while absence may make the heart grow fonder, it also allows you the opportunity to pull away for good. “I don’t want that, baby. I don’t want you to go.”

The pet name slips out once again but you’re too focused on the gentle steps he’s taking toward you. One hand flies to your chest to try and soothe your own panic you feel as every emotion pours into your body while the other flies up to halt his motions. “I don’t want to go either.”

One benefit to the strides you’d made together is the way honesty comes a little easier, words falling untroubled from your lips.

“Then don’t.” It sounds so simple, stay here forever, but it’s not that simple is it? Because one day he’s going to find someone who is enough, whose love is worth fighting for, worth asking to stay. “Don’t leave me again.”

There’s so much unsaid in the words between you, but you really don’t want to leave. Maybe it’s wrong, maybe it’s weird or strange or unorthodox, but you don’t want to leave him or this kitchen or this house.

“I don’t know how to do this without you,” you stammer out as you enter his space. He opens for you in turn, pulling you into his body and wrapping his arms around you tightly.

“You don’t have to.”

Not yet, anyway.

-

The end of the season brings a result that no one wanted, and a team barbeque at the Konecny’s household that you manage to get an invite to as a consequence of your renewed friendship with the team. It’s going well, the sun is a welcome warmth on your face and the sundress you’d chosen to wear fits the way you like it to. Baby Konecny is in your arms while you chat amicably with his mom until the sound of something breaking has her rushing off momentarily.

“You can’t do that,” Kevin says as he sidles up beside you, his large hand coming to rest on the baby’s head briefly before sliding down his back and then dropping to his side.

“What?” you ask in surprise, shaken from the image of Kevin holding a tiny baby to his chest you’d gotten lost in.

“You can’t just hold Teeks’ kid,” he clarifies and it sends your heart plummeting down into the depths of your stomach. You hadn’t meant any harm, when Karly asked if you wanted to hold her son, you found you couldn’t deny her, or yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you stammer out, eyes wildly looking for one of the baby’s parents, wondering if you’d find Travis glaring at you like he had done when he’d cornered you months ago. “I didn’t mean to overstep any boundaries.”

Kevin can see the panic in your eyes, the tension in your shoulders and hurries to explain himself. “That’s not it. There’s nothing wrong with you holding him.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

He sighs, running a hand through his hair, tugging on the ends briefly before schooling his features once again. “Because it makes me want things I can’t have.”

Your heart stops then, surely he couldn’t be implying what you think he is. He couldn’t be saying that you were the thing he wanted but couldn’t have. “Kevin.” There’s a desperation in your tone that reflects the desperation swirling in his gut and it spurs him on.

“I wanted all that with you,” he motions at the baby and then the beautiful backyard you’re standing in. His voice drops to a lower volume, “I still want it with you. And I’m sorry I said that, I know we’re just friends and I know you never wanted that with me but I couldn’t keep it in any longer.”

“Kevin.” You say his name once again but he shakes his head, so sure of his own convictions that you don’t know if you’ll be able to get through to him, and walks away from you. You’re quick to hand off the baby to his mom and then you’re searching for Kev in the depths of the Konecny household.

He’s on the front porch, hands tightly gripping the railing. His knuckles grow even whiter as you take your place beside him. “I always wanted all of this with you,” you admit quietly.

“Don’t,” he chokes out, as if the single syllable holds every bit of hurt he’s been holding onto since you left. “You made it clear when you left that you didn’t want to have my kids. And that’s okay, I’m not mad anymore. I want you to have everything you want and nothing you don’t. And I’m going to get over it okay? We’re going to be friends and we’re going to be fine.”

“I never said that,” you reply, shaking your head. He goes to rebut you, but you let a bit of the anger take over as you pull back from his side. “I would never say that because that’s not what I wanted. I wanted you and the babies and that beautiful house we picked out together. You’re the one who didn’t want me. You’re the one who didn’t ask me to stay. You’re the one who said I wasn’t enough.”

It’s the first time your respective truths are laid out for the both of you to see. The hurt and the arguments and the misguided views of what the other wanted hang in the balance between you. Finally he sees the truth.

He wanted you and you wanted him and somewhere along the way everything had gotten so fucked up that you’d both lost it all.

You don’t realize you’re crying until his large thumbs are wiping away the tear tracks down your cheeks. His voice is a lot softer, much of the edge gone from his tone. “I didn’t ask you to stay because I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t take your dreams away from you. It was me who wasn’t worth it.”

Your head tips back in a futile attempt to stop the tears from spilling from your watery eyes. Realizing this is the closest thing to honesty your relationship has had in a long time, you decide there’s no point in pussyfooting along the truth. “There would have been other promotions, other jobs, other opportunities! For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be someone important. I wanted to climb the corporate ladder and mean something. And then I met you, and the only thing I wanted was to be important to you, to mean something to you.”

“You were,” his hands go to grip your face and yours move to grip his forearms. “You are.”

“Then why aren’t we together? Why did we let ourselves fall apart?”

“Because we lost faith. We stopped listening to each other and started projecting our own insecurities. You didn’t think you were enough for me and I didn’t think I was either.” There’s a lot of truth in his words, a lot of buried insecurities finally being unearthed as you dig up the casket of your failed relationship.

“I just want to love you,” you beg, squeezing your hands where they rest on his arms. “Will you let me?”

The way your lips meet finally isn’t fireworks, there’s no thunder or background music track. It’s home, warm and secure and safe. It’s a kiss first thing when you wake up, morning breath and all. It’s a reunion after a string of away games, flinging your body into his waiting arms and letting him kiss every inch of your skin. It’s Kevin and it’s you and it’s love.

You leave the party without saying goodbye and you let him show you just how deeply his love for you runs beneath his skin. Kissing him is so much sweeter without the weight of guilt and regret holding you back. He holds you and kisses you and loves you and tries to put the broken pieces of both of you back together. He pushes and pulls and presses and you go willingly, giving into him and every emotion you’ve been neglecting.

In the morning, you wake in his arms but you swallow down the fear this time, staying until he wakes too.

“I can feel you staring at me,” he says lowly, voice heavy with the last dregs of sleep. It makes you laugh, curling into his bare chest and hiding your face in his neck.

Still, you can’t help but ask, “what are you gonna do about it?”, the words spoken against his skin. Your quiet, morning laughter turns into shrieks as he abruptly flips you both, digging his fingers into your sides until you cry for mercy.

“You bought me candy,” you say, pushing his hair back with one hand.

He doesn’t deny it, smirk turning soft as he rebutts, “and you set out my suits on game days.”

“Why did you do that?” You have to ask him, need him to say out loud the things you know in your heart to be true.

“Because I love you.” He says it so simply, so matter of factly. As if you’d asked him the color of the sky or which mascot in the NHL was his favorite (as if there were any answer other than Gritty).

He stills above you, body hovering over your own while you stare into his eyes. There’s a lot of love swimming in there and it gives you pause, the tiniest cracks in your happiness and self-esteem forming as your traitorous mind fixates on a single fact. One second that very same look of love had been written across his face, and the next it hadn’t been enough. A few ‘I’m sorry’s and sex didn’t magically make all of your issues go away, otherwise you would have been okay months ago.

Kevin sees it - the doubt and the questions and the anxiety, he sees the fear in your eyes and the desire to run. He sees it all, but it doesn’t make him angry this time. This time, he knows you’re looking for reassurance. This time, he knows this isn’t a reflection of him or his love, nor an indication of some kind of moral failing for either of you. This time, he presses his lips to yours softly before pulling back and speaking quietly into the calm of your bedroom.

“I love you and I want you. All of you. Your mind.” He presses a kiss to your forehead. “Your body.” And then your neck. “Your heart.” Your chest. “All of it. Always.” You pull him down to kiss you this time, hoping the press of your lips convey every word they can’t form between them.

“I’m so scared you’re going to wake up and realize that I’m not enough, that we’re not enough,” you admit softly. He opens his mouth to argue, but you cup his face and continue. “I’m never going to be anything other than who I am.”

“You will always be enough, we will always be enough.”

And you believe him. It’s not a magical cure, no easy fix. His words don’t take away your worries or fears, they still creep in insidiously when you’re alone, but they help. The words are ones you will hold close to your chest, calling upon them when things get tough and allowing them to curl up and take root in your heart.

“If it’s not you, it’s not anyone, Kev. I don’t want anyone else.” He feels the same, and he tells you not only with his words, but with his body too, pressing you deeper into the mattress.

The morning is spent in bed, full of love and kisses and wandering hands and gentle reassurances. Truth be told, you probably would have spent all day in bed if you could, but the rumbling of both your stomachs has you seeking out something quick before returning to the sheets and each other.

Later, you’re curled up on the couch - Kevin in his usual spot, arm extended over the back, and you curled up so tightly with him that neither of you are quite sure where he ends and you begin. You’re half in a daze, not at all focused on what is playing on the tv, when you have the urge to kiss him. For so long you’d denied yourself the pleasure, but now you were able to do it whenever you wanted and so you do.

Perking up a little, you look behind you into the open space of your dream kitchen. There must be something written across the lines of your face, because when you turn back to him he’s got a smile on his.

“Cook with me.” You frame it as an invitation, a question of sorts, but the way you jump up and pull him with you reveals it to be nothing more than an order. He goes willingly, and if he were asked, he would admit that there wasn’t a place in heaven or hell he wouldn’t follow you to.

Soon, a playlist sounds through the kitchen and a half bottle of wine has been poured. Kevin is dutifully chopping vegetables for you while you flit about the kitchen grabbing ingredients and beginning to saute things in a pan. You’re happy, incredibly so, in a way you hadn’t been in what felt like decades. Not since the last time you felt this free in this kitchen.

Kevin can’t keep his eyes off you, which may be a bit of a health hazard considering the size and sharpness of the knife he’s holding, but he doesn’t mind and truthfully neither do you. Everything about this feels so right, so familiar. Sliding up behind you, he wraps his arms around your midriff, smiling into your shoulder as you lean back into him in return.

“I’ve missed you,” he speaks softly against your skin. And although your first reaction is to argue, to tell him you’ve been here for months, you know what he means. Because you’ve missed him just the same. For so long he’s been here but not here, close enough to feel but not to touch. You only smile, breaking free of him long enough to continue the next steps in the recipe you know by heart.

Spaghetti bolognese.

-

You don’t mean to keep it a secret from everyone, it just never comes up. Like, there’s no perfect time to just stand on a bar table and announce to the entire world that you’re in love with one Kevin Hayes. You don’t mean to keep it a secret, but the longer it goes unannounced, the more fun you have with it.

Keith figures it out first, for no reason other than his continued presence in both of your lives and the other spare bedroom.

Monday morning has your alarm ringing at an hour that Kevin considers offensive. He tells you so, groaning deeply and caging you in his arms and burrowing his face in your neck. Well versed in the art of escaping Kevin’s arms early in the morning, you only laugh, kissing the side of his head once and sliding out of his chokehold.The shower you take is quick and hot, and by the time you reenter the bedroom, Kevin’s replaced you with a pillow. You’d be offended if he wasn’t so damn cute, and if you hadn’t already taken a picture for future blackmail use.

“How long have you been sleeping there?” Keith’s staring at you with eyes wide open and mouth hanging ajar as he witnesses you quietly leave the master bedroom.

You only smirk, patting his cheek once. “Few weeks now, bud.” Somehow his shocked expression only deepens, and you cackle as you make your cup of coffee and Kevin’s before slipping out the door.

Travis is the next to accidentally stumble upon the new status of your relationship. It’s in the locker room after an optional morning skate. Teeks is plotting with Joel to finally enact his plan to shove the both of you in this very locker room and lose the key. Unfortunately for him, neither being quiet nor being subtle are exactly in his wheelhouse

“I really need you to stop meddling in my love life, Tiki Bar.” Kevin says, grasping Travis on the shoulder. Joel takes his cue to leave, scrambling off the bench and leaving behind his shoes which he will eventually have to come back for, tail between his legs. “Besides, no need to lock us in this room when the lock on our bedroom works just fine.”

Travis can only stare as Kevin keeps walking, booming laughter following him out of the room.

And then Ryanne finds out from G who found out from Travis. Only a few hours later, everyone knows too. It’s nice then, to slide into a cracked vinyl booth in the back of a bar after a game you’d had to work through, pressing your thigh to his and your lips too, with the cheers of his teammates and significant others as background noise.

Jimmy must hear it through the grapevine that is the NHL, worse than any small town coffee shop full of retirees with nothing better to do than trade the latest gossip floating around. He’s sweet when he calls you, although the entire conversation is undercut with the obvious tension and worry in his voice.

It subsides though, when he’s not even able to fully get the question of whether you’re happy out before you’re emphatically assuring him that you both are.

-

It’s killing him.

Watching you hold his teammate’s babies and laugh and smile talking to his teammate’s wives. Seeing you flit about team events and family boxes and the locker room after games. Kissing you sweetly goodbye as you go over to Karly and Teek’s to play with their son and help her with wedding planning.

It’s killing him because it should be your baby and your wedding and the last name you wear on jerseys should be hyphenated alongside your own. Kevin wouldn’t trade the last few months for anything, even if you took the long way around, even if the months and years prior were full of heartbreak. He wouldn’t trade them because as a result you wake up in his arms and cook together in your kitchen and curl your entire body around him on nights spent on the couch.

But it should be you, with the pretty little diamond ring on your finger and your wedding photos blown up on canvas. It should be you on his health insurance and with Mrs. as a moniker. It should be you, round with child or maybe holding a newborn or chasing after a toddler who just learned the word no.

It should be you, but it’s not and though it is both your faults and yet neither is truly at fault, Kevin feels it especially when G refers offhandedly to Ryanne as his wife, and Teeks gets to use the word fiancée, and all he gets to say is you.

Because you’re more than just some girlfriend or some hookup or some girl who warms his bed. You’re his past and his present and his future. You’re everything he wants and more than that everything he needs and though there’s no one word to encapsulate it all, he thinks wife is a start.

His grandmother’s ring is still in the little velvet box where it has sat since leaving your finger, safely tucked away in a drawer when he’s not pulling it out to inspect it, as if some tiny detail about the stone or the band had changed since he’d last looked. It’s a beautiful ring certainly, but it looked far better on your left hand ring finger than tucked in amongst black velvet. He remembers the look on your face when you’d choked out a ‘yes’ through your sobs, remembers the way you would stop and stare at it whenever you thought he wasn’t looking, remembers the way it glimmered and gleamed when the light hit it just right.

He almost asks you to put it back on a thousand times. When you’re cooking together in the kitchen, music softly playing and your body moving in time with the beat. After a string of away games, slipping into bed with you, whispering “it’s only me,” when you stirred.

There are a thousand times and a thousand moments but none of them feel right, none of them feel large enough or worthy enough of it. He builds it up in his head so much, so transfixed on the idea of you wearing the ring that he drives himself crazy.

And it is crazy, at least a little bit, isn’t it? If one of the boys had approached him and said they were thinking about asking the girl they’d been seeing for a few months to marry them, he would tell them to reconsider and if they wouldn’t, then to get a prenup. But you’re not just some girl, and though it’s only been a few months since you’d both allowed yourself to be honest and stepped across that imaginary line you’d drawn in the sand between you, there was an entire decade of loving you before that.

Kevin looks at you and sees the very love he feels deeply in his heart reflected back in your eyes and it doesn’t feel so crazy anymore.

Six months after getting back together he just can’t help it any longer. There was a home game tonight that you hadn’t been able to make because you needed to work late to finish a project. When he slips in the door, he finds you fast asleep on the couch, a bright orange Hayes jersey engulfing your frame and a mostly drunk glass of wine sitting on a coaster on the coffee table. He remembers how adamant you were that he used a coaster the first time he came over to your dorm, your little speech and your hands on your hips and the way he was sure he wanted to bear witness to your ranting for the rest of his life.

You don’t move while he kicks off his shoes and loses his suit jacket, nor when he carefully slips past the couch to head for the bedroom, finding the velvet box with ease. Still you sleep, even as he crouches down by your head, running a hand through your hair and kissing your forehead. No, it’s not until he’s gently whispering your name that you stir.

“Good game, baby,” you speak, voice heavy with exhaustion in a way that makes his heart clench. He smiles and thanks you, kissing you softly before letting one knee fall to the ground beneath him while he balances on the other leg. “What are you doing?”

You know, though. The look in his eye, the familiar ring box in his hand, his knee on the carpet. Sleep still has her clutches in you, but it doesn’t stop you from sitting up and covering your mouth with both hands.

When Kevin asks if you’ll put his grandmother’s ring back on you can only nod.

And when he follows up his first question with, “Will you wear the matching band?”, you stare at him in a mix of confusion and shock and a current of excitement on top of it all. “I think we’ve waited long enough, I don’t want to waste another minute.” There are a lot of words unsaid, too heavy to be spoken aloud in the quiet dark but you feel them all the same. It’s been a very long time and there’s nothing more you want in the world at this moment than to be his wife.

“Don’t you think it’s too soon? Or too fast?” You don’t speak the words aloud but you’re also asking if he really thinks you’ll be enough this time.

You don’t speak the words, but he hears them all the same, the sweet smile on his face more convincing than anything he could possibly say but he tries anyway. “I have loved you for more than a decade already, and I plan to love you the rest of my life. I’ve wanted to be your husband since you spilled that beer on me the first night we met.”

You say yes.

With very little planning and even less thought, the next morning you pledge to love this man for the rest of your life and he does too. It’s a short and sweet ceremony in front of a justice of the peace, no flash, no pomp and circumstance, but it’s perfect because the man beside you is perfect. You don’t tell a single soul, the only witness to your marriage a very excited Keith who promises to not tell anyone before you’re able to - which, of course, means that the entire team and probably a handful of guys Kevin grew up with know immediately.

“Now what?” Kev asks, eyes fixated on the sparkling diamond on your left hand ring finger alongside the dainty wedding band, the ring combination that should have been there all along.

You smile, pulling that hand from his line of sight in order to rest it against his cheek. The cool metal is a comfort to the flush on his face that accompanies his wide grin. “Now we go get lunch and you get to explain to your mom that we got married and didn’t tell anyone we were doing it.”

There’s incoherent screaming coming from his iPhone while you happily pick away at your lunch. Ordinarily you’d probably be embarrassed by the commotion, as the other patrons sitting on the patio of the restaurant try, and fail, to look disinterested in the spectacle. Kev takes it all in stride, his smile never faltering as he ‘mhmm’ and ‘yep’s his way through the conversation. Finally his grin turns a little softer as he asks, “You wanna talk to her?”

You almost choke, frantically waving your hands while you try to finish chewing but he shoves the phone to your ear.

“Hey, ma.” You’re pretty sure she bursts into tears if she hasn’t already, inundating you with a million and one questions and thoughts and concerns. You answer her slowly, hitting each point one by one, line by line. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you sooner and I’m sorry we didn’t get to have the big wedding, but we can still have a big party to celebrate together.” That gets her going on another tangent, and you lift your eyes to meet Kevin’s smile, kicking his foot under the table with your own. “Of course we’ll have it in Boston, that’s where it all started after all.”

Years later, when you’ve got a little boy and little girl of your own, they sit in that big, beautiful kitchen of yours, while their mom and dad cook dinner as in love as they were on their wedding day, just like you always hoped they would.

[ilyasorokinn]

peppering their face in kisses and giggly cuddles with kevin hayes ? 🥺 thank you, babes<3

5. "giggly cuddles" 19. "peppering their face in kisses" (from this prompt list)

the only difference between morning-kevin and night-kevin was he was more clingy than usual. he would hold you, hostage, in bed before you absolutely had to go.

this morning was no different. you were both awake, and he had you wrapped up in his arms like a vice, unrelenting and unwilling to let you go.

"dude, i gotta go." you laughed, trying to pull away.

"i'm not letting you go, dude." he peppered kisses across your face and neck.

"stop," you giggled, trying to pull away from him.

"never." he peppered more kisses on your neck, tickling your neck with his beard.

"kevin..." you spoke more firmly. he pulled away with a pout.

"i don't want you to leave me."

"i'll be back later. i'm only working a half-day." you reminded him.

"that's too long." he shook his head, wrapping his arms around you tighter.

"i love you." you kissed his head.

"i love you, too." he continued to pout.

eventually, kevin let you up (after a lot of begging and some deal-making), and you quickly ran around your home, rushing to get ready.

later that afternoon, true to our word, you walked back through the doors to your home and were immediately engulfed in a hug.

"i was only gone for a few hours," you mumbled.

"a few hours too long." kevin smiled happily, "now we can spend the entire day together."

"we do this anyway."

"you know, i'm trying to do something nice." he joked.

taylor's night of neglect!

[laurenairay]

4. “I love you.” “No you don’t” with Kevin Hayes please!🖤

Thanks for requesting this one @danglesnipecelly – I haven’t written for Hayesy before so I hope I did him justice! What I originally wrote for a response to this prompt ended up being nearly 5k, so this is actually just a snippet of it - should I post the full thing?

Also tagging @princessphilly

“I love you.” “No you don’t”

*

No-one threw a party like your old friend Kevin Hayes. Even more so now that a work transfer had moved you to Philadelphia. Tonight’s party was no different than usual – lots of drinks, some ill-advised dancing, and side-splitting laughter. You’d spent a few hours with a rotating cast of Flyers and their better halves, drinking and sharing stories about your mutual friend, but it had been a while since you’d seen him. At least a couple of non-Kevin hours. So what if you got a little needy when you were drinking? How could you not want a hug from your beautiful friend? No, bad drunk brain. Crossing that line was never worth it.

You still wanted that hug though.

So bidding the other drunk partygoers adieu, you wandered about the house in search of Kevin, coming up empty in every room…until you spotted smoke outside the kitchen window. Hah, of course. You knew how much he loved to wind down with a blunt or two. His easygoing nature was one of the things you loved most about him.

Putting down your empty drink, you walked outside, spotting Kevin and Nolan lounging on the outside sofas, Nolan with a blunt in his hand

“Hey! You’re here!” Kevin grinned.

You shook your head fondly, wafting the pungent smoke out of your face.

“I’ve been here for hours, Kev. You’ve already seen me,” you said, smiling.

Kevin pouted, and Nolan just snickered, making you laugh.

“Weed always makes you forgetful,” you mused, sitting down on the seating next to him.

“Nuh-uh I don’t forget everything,” Kevin shrugged, turning to face you properly, “Not the important things. Like the fact that I love you, you know that right?”

Your jaw dropped slightly as his words hit you. What the everloving fuck? Why would he joke like that?

“Goddamn Kev, how high are you?” you asked, frowning.

Without waiting for him to answer, you looked over at Nolan, who just shrugged.

“I don’t know, he’s pretty baked. But I’m going to let you deal with all of that,” Nolan grimaced, waving a hand in Kevin’s general direction.

You rolled your eyes as he quickly passed Kevin the blunt and walked back inside. Yeah, thanks for the help.

“Why did Patty leave?” Kevin asked, frowning.

“Because he’s allergic to emotions? I don’t know. Maybe he just knows that you’re talking shit and he doesn’t want to deal with it,” you muttered.

“I’m not talking shit,” Kevin shot back, “I love you,”

“No you don’t,” you said, rolling your eyes again.

Seriously? Where had this come from? This wasn’t fair, he couldn’t say that when you knew it wasn’t true. Where had he gotten this lot of weed from? Clearly it didn’t agree with him.

“Yes I do! I know my own feelings,” Kevin insisted.

“Right, yeah, sure you do,” you sighed.

You were neither drunk enough nor high enough for this conversation. This was…not how you expected this evening to go. And just like that, your good mood was ruined.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Kevin asked softly.

“Not even in the slightest, Kev,” you said, smiling sadly.

Of course you didn’t. Why, after all this time, would he be saying the words you most wanted to hear from him? There was no logic behind it – there was no way it could be true. He’d never ever shown any hint of this to be true.

“I’ll prove it to you,” he said firmly.

And then he placed his hand on your thigh, making you inhale sharply, the warmth of his large hand sending tingles through your body. No.

“This is not the time or place, Kevin,” you said shortly, “You are stoned out of your fucking mind,”

“You said my full name. You never say my full name,” he said sadly.

Of course that’s what he picked up out of that. Clearly he wasn’t going to get any easier to talk to…and while normally that made for some pretty fun conversation, tonight it wasn’t going to happen. And you couldn’t sit around and listen to more of this.

“I’m just going to go,” you sighed, nudging his hand off your thigh and standing upright.

“What? No!” Kevin said, eyes wide and sad.

“I can’t,” you said, forcing a smile, “I can’t stay and hear this, when I know you don’t mean it when you’re sober,”

“But…”

“I’ll send Nolan back out, okay? I’ll…talk to you later, Kev,” you said firmly, interrupting him.

Without waiting for another answer, you quickly walked back into the house, heartbeat racing in your ears and a lump in your throat. At least you didn’t have to go far to look for Nolan – he was standing just inside in the kitchen.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he frowned.

You just shook your head, smiling thinly, not wanting to go into it. “I’m going to go,”

“But he…”

“Kev will be fine – you don’t mind going back out there with him, right?” you said, interrupting.

Nolan pressed his lips together but shook his head. “No, I don’t mind,”

“Good. Good. Um, I’m sure I’ll see you around?” you offered.

Would you? Who knows. How long would you even need before you could see Kevin again without your heart aching?

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Nolan nodded.

You missed the determined look in the younger man’s eyes as you walked away, too intent on locating your jacket. Sleep, sobering up and some distance – that would help, right?

[nugnthopkns]

don’t say you miss me

word count: 5.5k

warnings: explicit!fem reader, references to sex but nothing explicit, cursing, recreational drug use (marijuana), alcohol consumption, there is no happy ending

recommended listening: overnight | maggie rogers

series masterpost: here

a/n: second installment of hiiapl! little overnight inspired ditty that i’m actually pretty proud of. i’m having so much fun with this it’s insane

You had never meant to get attached.

It was a lot easier said than done – especially with Kevin. He was loud and obnoxious, sure, but it was part of his charm. When you first met him, outside a club in downtown Winnipeg, you were blown away by his duality. He had been so loud with his group but quietly brought you a bottle of water after you puked on the sidewalk. After insisting you take his number so you could let him know you got home safely, Kevin convinced you to go to dinner with him. One meal turned into several and before you knew it you were engaged in a casual fling with the Winnipeg Jets’ newest centre. It was mostly sex, with the ocasional interaction outside of the bedroom, but something about Kevin made it feel like more than just a hookup. Over the few months you slept together your feelings shifted, and you began to harbour a rather large crush.

Just when you were going to take the leap and talk to Kevin about getting serious fate reared its ugly head. After only being in Winnipeg for six months, electing to not return to Massechusettes right away after the Jets playoff run finished, Kevin was traded out of the city. The news split your heart in two – there was no way the two of you could become a couple. Though long distance could have been an option, you weren’t going to ask him to commit to that. Being a professional athlete is tough as is, and having a girlfriend a six hour flight away was extra stress you refused to put on Kevin. 

The last night you spent with Kevin was emotional. Lots of tears were shed, mostly from you. You knew he was compartmentalizing it all and trying to not let you know how much the trade was affecting him. Whenever the two of you had talked about hockey, Kevin was always quick to mention how much he loved Winnipeg and how much he wanted to stay. Neither of you talked much, too focussed on wallowing in sadness and committing each other’s bodies to memory. He left the next morning, and there was a silent agreement that whatever the two of you had was over. It was fun while it lasted but now you both have to be adults and get on with life. 

☼☼☼☼

Nearly six months later you consider yourself to be getting on with life just fine. You’ve got a better paying job, a new apartment, and enthusiastically throw yourself into any project that’s presented. To others, however, you’re barely hanging on. Any time you get a text notification, you hold your breath until a name flashes that isn’t Kevin’s. A notification from Instagram saying he viewed your story makes your heart beat three times as fast. You constantly check for updates on how he’s playing, and watch as many Flyers games media blackouts will allow just to catch a glimpse of his face. No matter how hard you try, you just can’t shake Kevin Hayes. 

“They’ll be in town this weekend,” your best friend Rachel says. “Are you gonna reach out to him?”

You nearly drop the carton of chinese food you’re eating on the floor. “I didn’t know that,” you stammer, trying to make your surprise believable. Kevin will be back in Winnipeg for the first time since being traded. You knew this already, of course, because you have the Flyers scheduled imprinted in your memory.

She narrows her eyes at you. “Don’t fucking lie to me. You knew they were coming to town. The NHL app stays open on your phone at all times.”

Caught in your lie, you can do nothing but duck your head. You’ve thought a lot about what you’re going to do. Should you send him a text, let him know you’re available after the game? Or should you ignore him completely and make it seem as though you’re doing much better than you are?

“I don’t know Rach. I’ve never had a sort of ex come back to the city he left me in.”

“He didn’t necessarily want to leave you,” Rachel points out. “He got traded. If you want my two cents, I don’t think you should give him a call. You need to move on, not stay stuck in the past.”

Your friend is right, and you know that’s what you should do. Moving on from Kevin would be easier if you didn’t try to contact him. He hasn’t reached out to you so you assume you’re the only one in the relationship still struggling to come to terms with his departure. You struggle with the decision until puck drop, but ultimately decide against texting him. It simply wouldn’t be beneficial for your fragile heart. 

A small group of friends has gathered at Rachel’s to watch the game. You’re lucky, or unlucky, to run with a crowd of die-hard Jets fans who get together any time they play, whether it’s at someone’s house or a sports bar around the corner from the arena. Though you tried your best to get out of it tonight, making up any excuse you can think of to stay at home and sob quietly into a pillow, Rachel knows better than to let you be alone and forces you to be in attendance. 

It’s a pretty quiet game with the Jets dominating the first two periods. The Flyers are sluggish, not connecting passes and taking far too many penalties. You’re pretty sure Winnipeg has it in the bag when the puck drops for the final twenty minutes of play, so you turn your attention away from the television, picking up a conversation with Christina, the girl your friend Tyler brought along. 

Some choice words must have been said to the Flyers in the intermission because they come out swinging. Before you can comprehend what’s happening, they’ve tied the game. The period is full of contact, with multiple players from each team spending time in the penalty box. Your attention is once again returned to the large screen for the final few minutes, and your jaw drops as you watch Kevin dangle through the Jets defence to sink the puck into the back of the net. It turns out to be the game winning goal, and you sit in silence as your friends pay up the money they lost in bets and check their updated fantasy pool standings. Maybe you should text him. 

“Don’t fucking do it,” you hear Rachel whisper in your ear. Your other friends know of your past with Kevin, they were around and spent some time with him, but they don’t know how much you were still holding on. Everyone besides Rachel assumes you’re alright – that Kevin is just a blip in your past. 

You roll your eyes and sigh, but tuck your phone back into the pocket of your jeans. It stays there – out of sight, out of mind – until it buzzes some time later. Expecting it to be your mother hounding you for not calling in a while, you pull it out. A message from Kevin flashes and you go whiter than a ghost. 

Taking the boys out celebrating the big win. You in? 

The words, so casual, feel like a punch to the stomach. Why the months of radio silence just to ask to see him like you’re friends? Making sure that no one is paying attention to you, you quickly type out a reply. 

That’s not a good idea and you know it Kevin. 

You send the message and immediately turn off your phone. This way you won’t have to deal with the aftermath until much later. You allow other things to hold your attention and don’t head home until you’re so tired that it will be impossible for you to think about Kevin’s text. 

When you power your phone back up in the morning, you’re shocked to find that Kevin never responded. He obviously didn’t care too much about your absence, and part of you wonders if he was just being polite. It doesn’t make sense, but instead of letting your brain overthink the lack of response you throw yourself headfirst into cleaning your apartment. Hours later it’s spotless, and you slump onto the couch in a pile of exhaustion. You check your social media notifications, a few mentions from your friends about the shenanigans you all got up to the night before and your sister tagging you in a post letting you know she’d like to visit a specific beach the next time she comes to visit. Kevin’s profile photo sits at the top of your instagram feed, and before you can stop yourself you click to view his story. 

It’s a snapshot of his teammates with bright smiles on their faces. Each of them is holding a can of beer, and a few look as though they shared a joint before entering the establishment. The photo is captioned ‘glad to be back in winterpeg’ and is accompanied by a couple of snowflake emojis. Your heart clenches inside your chest – it hurts more than you thought it would to see him enjoying himself as though he has no bittersweet feelings about being back. It would be beneficial to unfollow Kevin, but you can’t force yourself to pull the metaphorical trigger and completely cut him from your life. 

Kevin leaves the next day for Vancouver. You know this because you watch his story yet again, and curse yourself for grasping at straws. Why must he have such a strong hold on you after so long? A call to Rachel has her driving to your place in minutes, ready to hold you while you cry and distract you from the pain that still lingers from his first departure.

☼☼☼☼

It’s easier to forget Kevin without him being in the city – you do your best, and eventually it sort of sticks.

He no longer crosses your mind every few days. You go weeks, sometimes a month or two, without thinking about him. It’s nice to no longer get sad when you enter a bar you frequented with him or wince when someone mentions how he’s playing. It also helps that he never returns to Winnipeg. 

There’s no reason for him to. The Flyers don’t play another away game against the Jets the rest of season, and as far as you know he doesn’t frequently talk to his old teammates. Your life fades into a quiet routine you come to love dearly. The world feels balanced for the first time since Kevin left and you’re nothing but thankful. 

Life moves on, and you find yourself succeeding in your career – so much so that you’re quickly offered a promotion. The change increases your workload and doesn’t leave you much of a life outside of work, but it doesn’t matter much to you. It’s a welcome distraction and keeps thoughts of Kevin out of your mind. No one comments on your genuine improvement, but you know they can see it. Rachel is proud, and she’s told you exactly once. It’s all you’ll get out of her so you take it and roll with it. The rest of the regular season passes without you so much as knowing, or caring, and before you know it there’s a notification for an article saying the Flyers were eliminated in the second round. For the first time you find it really hard to care.

☼☼☼☼

Summers in Winnipeg are your favourite. The city is warm for the first time all year and the flowers look beautiful in full bloom. With the promotion you’re afforded more vacation time, which you plan to take full advantage. There’s nothing you love more than hanging with friends in the sun, soaking up the rays, and casually drinking. 

The days bleed into one another in the way that all good summers should, and before you realize it it’s your last day at work for a week. It will be nice to be free from workplace constraints for a while, and your friends have the time off as well. The group of you are heading to a cabin on Falcon Lake where you’re sure lots of partying will take place. You suggested getting farther away, but settled on the area in case Tyler’s sister goes into labour. He’s a very family oriented person and offered to watch his nephew when the time comes. 

Four o’clock comes faster than you ever could have imagined, and you cheerfully wave goodbye to your co-workers. Some complain of your ability to leave during the busiest season of the year, but most of them wish you well. You put an immense amount of work into your job regardless of the quarter and know you deserve the break. If you don’t stop at the grocery store on your way you’ll be in trouble since you’re in charge of all the breakfasts and you currently only have a half-eaten loaf of bread that could go stale any day. 

You’re in the cereal aisle, deciding whether or not you really need Honey Nut Cheerios for the trip, when you hear his unforgettable voice. It’s loud and booming and brings back so many feelings that you’ve learned to repress that you turn on your heel and head to the nearest self checkout despite only gathering half the items on your list.

Back in your car, you dial Rachel’s number and try to regulate your breathing. 

“Hello?”

You don’t bother with any formalities. “Kevin is here.”

“In Winnipeg?” she asks, more than a tad confused. “Why would he be in Winnipeg?”

The interior of the Ford Escape you drive feels too small, so you crack a window and peel out of the parking space. Rachel’s voice reverberates throughout the car thanks to the bluetooth system. “I don’t fucking know, but he’s here.”

“I don’t think that’s possible Y/N,” Rachel says, always the realist. “He lives in Boston. What would he be doing in Winnipeg in the middle of July?”

You aren’t sure, and make sure to tell her so. “But it was him,” you swear. “He was in the grocery store.” You stop at a red light, placing your blinker on and checking both ways before turning right. A few more minutes and you’d be safely tucked away in your apartment, away from the world and the possibility of running into Kevin.

“There’s like a hundred tall gingers in the city babe, you didn’t see him.”

“You’re right, I didn’t see him,” you agree. “I heard him. How many tall gingers are there in Winnipeg with Boston accents?”

“Oh fuck. I’m coming over.” With that, Rachel hangs up, and you pull into the parking garage. You sit in silence for a minute or two before deciding your shaking legs can hold you upright. Perhaps you weren’t as over Kevin as you thought. 

Rachel spends the rest of the afternoon and evening with you, ensuring you don’t do anything stupid and letting you spew all your feelings, both good and bad. More than one bottle of wine is consumed, but you have more than enough time to nurse a hangover. If you play your cards right through the week this won’t be the only time you do it either. 

You wake up on top of your pristine sheets, Rachel grumbling beside you – she’s never been as good at holding her alcohol.

“What time is it?”

The alarm clock on your bedside table flashes a few numbers and you have to stare at them for a minute before you comprehend them. “Just after eight,” you say, sitting up. Surprisingly, you feel fine. Maybe the crippling weight of your feelings for Kevin cancels out the hangover you most definitely should be feeling. 

“We need to get going. Gotta pack the car and hit the road. I’m the one who needs to get the keys so we have to be there before everyone else,” she sighs, grumbling something else under her breath as her feet hit the floor. 

You just laugh at her and head into the kitchen. While Rachel showers you make coffee and pack the food into the ancient cooler your father gave you when you moved out many moons ago. It has served its purpose on several trips like this – you’ll be sad to see it go eventually. You switch places with Rachel, and once you’re feeling refreshed the two of you stuff your trunk and hit the road. 

The drive is rather uneventful, with the both of you sitting in silence, and it doesn’t take you long to approach your destination. Rachel is a poor navigator so you’re tasked with figuring out where you’re going and making sure you get there, but it could be worse. You have a general sense of where you’re going. Getting the keys is painless and you get to work unpacking your overloaded SUV.

“Do you think there will be other people around we can party with?” Rachel asks as you close the trunk for the last time. 

You shrug. “Don’t know Rach. It doesn’t look like it.”

She drops it, agreeing with you, and you separate to unpack your personal belongings. The cabin is large enough that no one has to share a room, which you’re grateful for. Though you love your friends dearly, they don’t always know what personal space is. At some point in the afternoon the rest of the group trickles in, and by dinner you’ve all settled and are ready to party. 

Tyler figures out how to use the ancient barbeque and sets to work cooking the burgers. Everyone else gets side dishes ready or sets the table, with Christine starting a bonfire. You don’t know her well, only having met her a few times, but your friend seems to be infatuated with her. She fits in great with the group so you aren’t worried about any awkward tension. Dinner passes in a fit of giggles and shouts, and once the dishes are done you can relax fully. 

The beer you grab from the fridge on your way out the door makes your insides fuzzy in the best way possible. By the fire, surrounded by those who care about you the most, you feel at peace. You’re yet to think about the sudden reappearance of Kevin in Winnipeg, and you’d like to keep it that way. Someone grabs the beat up acoustic guitar you found in the living room and thrusts it in your direction. You’d taught yourself to play in college, and it comes in handy for times like this. 

“I refuse to play Wonderwall,” you laugh, shooting pointed looks at each and every person sitting around you. 

“Come on Y/N,” Rachel groans. “Just once?”

“Fuck off.”

You don’t mean it, of course, and strum the opening chords with a grimace on your face. Tyler counts everyone in and they sing for you, which is appreciated. You might be decent at playing, but your singing voice is one that shouldn’t see the light of day if it can be helped. It’s more fun than you imagined it could be so one song turns into three, and before you know it your makeshift jamboree attracts the attention of the neighbours you didn’t know existed. 

Applause erupts from behind you, and you flush enough that your cheeks warm significantly. “You guys are so good I hate to disrupt the rhythm,” a deep voice says, “But do you mind if a buddy and I join you? We’re a little lonely by ourselves next door.”

Tyler’s out of his seat in a heartbeat, jumping up to pat the man on the back. “Of course man, come on over! I’m Tyler, and that’s Rachel, Christine, Marshall, and Y/N.”

You all wave politely, and the mystery guest introduces himself. “Nice you meet you guys. I’m Nolan.”

It’s then you get a good look at who you’re speaking to. He seems to be a few years younger than you, maybe early twenties, and he has a face you just can’t place. Maybe you’ve seen him around Winnipeg – the city is small enough that you can often spot the same faces in a crowd. “I’ll just yell at him to come over and we can get the party started,” Nolan explains, “Kev, bud, come on over! And bring a couple beers.”

All the blood rushes from your fingers at the name. You shake them intensely, willing your circulatory system to function properly again. If you had to hazard a guess there’s probably a million people in Manitoba named Kevin. There’s no reason for it to be Kevin Hayes. You’re most certainly still spooked from your near encounter with him yesterday. 

“Fuck Patty, you couldn’t come back and grab your own?” the emerging figure grumbles in the vocal stylings you’ll have imprinted on your heart until your dying day. Kevin is here, and if you don’t leave in the next few seconds you’ll be face to face with him for the first time in over a year. 

You stand abruptly, not stopping to explain your hasty exit to anyone, and practically run into the house. The door slams behind you and you do your best to make your heart rate return to normal. Tyler shouts something you can’t quite comprehend, but you know it’s probably some sort of reconnection greeting. He’d met Kevin a couple of times while the two of you were together and had gotten along with him well. 

“Hey,” Rachel whispers, “You good?”

You hadn’t heard her come in. “Not really,” you admit. “I mean like I knew he was in town but never in a million years did I think he’d crash my fucking vacation.”

She nods in agreement. “What do you want to do?”

“Stay in here forever?” An eye roll is sent your way but you choose to ignore it. “I’m serious Rach, I can’t go back out there, at least not tonight. Every time I think I’m over him he finds a way to make me realize I’m just faking.”

“I know,” Rachel says simply. She really does – as your best friend she’s privy to your every thought on the matter. After making sure that you'll be okay she heads back outside, armed with an excuse for your early departure. 

You spend the rest of the night tucked under the covers, listening to the laughter of your friends outside, no doubt in your mind that Kevin is the source for most of it. He’s always been good at commanding an audience. Thoughts swim freely in your brain, most of them occupied by Kevin in some capacity. Was tonight just a one off? Will you have to eventually face him? What will you say? Eventually sleep comes, though it’s fitful and fleeting. 

☼☼☼☼

You do your best to avoid Kevin, and it works for a day or two. Tyler has stricken up a friendship with the athlete, and spends more time with him and Nolan than your group. You don’t mind all that much because they typically are out on Nolan’s boat or lounging in their cabin, but every night the group reconvenes at your firepit. The excuses are starting to run out – there’s only so many times you can say you have heat exhaustion before someone stops believing you.

“Y/N, Kevin hasn’t even mentioned you,” Tyler whines one night after dinner. “It won’t be awkward. We only have a few days left, please spend time with us?”

“I’m spending plenty of time with you,” you grumble. “You promise he won’t say anything?”

Tyler shoots you a smile that lets you know he knows that he’s broken down your resolve. “Why would he? If he was going to do it he would have already.”

You aren’t sure if that makes you feel better or worse. You’re glad he’s faring better than you, but on the other hand you wish he’d at least make an effort to inquire into your well-being. Maybe it was simply proof that you were still holding onto something that didn’t mean much of anything. Eventually you’d have to face the music, whether it be with Kevin or someone in the future, so you make the decision to try and at least get used to seeing former flames in social settings. 

“You’re rolling my joints tonight asshole,” you grumble, shoving your sock clad feet into a pair of worn out sandals. 

There’s a small commotion, mostly in excitement at your begrudging agreement, and you roll your eyes as you grab what is destined to be your first of many beers from the fridge. Rachel slides up beside you on the way out the door and squeezes your hand, letting you know she’s ready to support you no matter what happens. It’s comforting, and the nerves in your stomach settle a small amount. 

Marshall is already outside, helping Nolan start the fire. They seem to be extremely similar and you’re glad they can seek each other out when the rest of the group gets too rambunctious. The rest of your party filters out of the house and takes up residence in the adirondack chairs. Kevin doesn’t appear to be around, so you allow yourself to speak freely, loud and unabashed. 

“No I’m telling you,” you insist, trying to convince Nolan your stance on Jack Antonoff is correct. “Jack is literally responsible for reinventing pop production.”

He laughs at how into the conversation you are. “Why the fuck should I care?”

“Because you fucking listen to Lorde!” 

Someone else is laughing along with you and it nearly stops you in your tracks. At some point Kevin had joined the party, but you hadn’t noticed. Knowing that he was listening makes you suddenly self conscious, and you wrap your sweater tighter around your shoulders. Nolan can tell you’re uncomfortable and does his best to relieve the tension. 

“Kev, do you wanna run back and grab the weed?” he asks. 

The auburn haired man pulls a baggie out of his hoodie pocket. “Got it right here baby cat,” he grins. “And it’s ready to go. You got a light?”

Nolan tosses him the lighter and Kevin expertly puts the joint between his parted lips. He lets the smoke fill his lungs before exhaling, and you watch him more intently than you should. You’re thrown back to the memories of Kevin’s apartment downtown, where you’d smoke in content silence after a night of passionate sex. The scenes flash in your mind and you’re overcome with melancholia. You had been so happy in the moment, and now you’re in a similar situation but feel nothing. Other than sharing in your laughter, Kevin is yet to say anything to you. 

You must have been lost in your thoughts, because Kevin is staring at you with a quizzical expression. “Y/N? Do you want a hit?”

It takes you a second to snap out of your daze, but to cautiously take the lit joint from his hand. “Thank you Kevin,” you say, voice timid. It’s the first time you’ve spoken to him since he left Winnipeg for the first time. 

He shoots you a dazzling smile and your insides threaten to turn to mush. No matter how hard you’ve tried to convince yourself you over him, that you’ve moved on from Kevin, you know you’re wrong. Kevin Hayes will have some sort of hold on you until you die. To distract yourself from the overwhelming amount of emotion you inhale deeply, hoping that the buzz smoking will bring can clear your mind. You really don’t want to think about what you lost when he’s right in front of you. 

The three of you sit in silence, passing the joint in a circle, and listen to the conversation your friends are engaged in. Marshall ropes Nolan into a game of cornhole and he goes begrudgingly. As he stands he sends you a sympathetic look, and you know that he’s familiar with your history with Kevin. It doesn’t surprise you – Kevin isn’t exactly one to keep secrets. 

“So,” Kevin says once it’s just the two of you, “How have you been?”

You do your best to swallow the lump in your throat. “I’ve been good. Work has been crazy lately, so this break has been really nice.”

He presses, and you indulge him in a conversation about your new job, though it can barely be considered that now. Everything is surface level – you’re afraid of letting Kevin in too much. Though your fling may have been brief, it didn’t make his departure or the lack of contact any easier. He tells you about his life in Philadelphia and how much he loves it there. Before you can stop yourself, you ask him a loaded question. 

“Do you like it more than Winnipeg?”

Kevin falters. It takes both of you a moment to process what you said. Not one to lie, he answers truthfully. “Yeah.” It comes out in a sort of deflated sigh. “But I miss –”

“Don’t say it,” you rush, trying hard to keep your voice down. “You don’t mean it.”

An embittered huff comes from him, and you watch carefully as he peels the worn ball cap off his head and tugs on his curls. “I do,” he insists. “I absolutely miss you.”

You no longer care who can hear you. “If you missed me, you would have texted. Called. Anything,” you say cooly. Everyone else has clued in to the fact that something is going on between you and Kevin, and have migrated inside in an attempt to give you privacy.

“I did. You’re the one who said it wasn’t a good idea to see each other again.”

“Because it had been over half a year!” you shriek. “And it had been radio silence before then. You left Kevin, and I’m not blaming you. I know it’s your job. But you left and it was so fucking hard, and it stung because you didn’t even try. So when you hit me up after that game I knew I had to say no. Because no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise, I’m still so in love with you that if you asked I’d uproot my life and follow you to Philly. I don’t want to be that girl.”

The outburst leaves you gasping for breath. Never before had you spilled heartache so fast – with a sort of reckless abandon. Anytime you’ve had these types of conversations you’ve been calm and collected. You’re currently the farthest thing from it. 

Kevin’s expression softens, and a sadness fills his eyes. “I was scared,” he begins, “Because for the first time in my life I was with someone I could see spending the rest of my life with. Sure, we weren’t serious, but I was going to take it there. Then I got traded and the plans I had went to shit and I was too scared to do anything about it. So I let you slip away.”

Silence fills the space between you. You don’t know what to say, so you focus on unraveling the loose thread from the hem of your cardigan. Kevin shuffles in his seat awkwardly. “Where do we, uh, go from here?”

The question shocks you. To the best of your understanding, you had made it perfectly clear where your relationship was headed. “Nowhere,” you breathe. “You head back to Philly, meet another girl, and fall in love. I stay here, do my job, and learn to be content with myself.”

“There’s no room for us in your little plan?”

“We’ve run our course Kev. As much as I still love you, will always love you, we’re too fundamentally different for us both to really be happy in a relationship. You have to know that.”

He nods. “I do.” With that, Kevin rises from the chair, gives you a sad smile, and leaves. You assume he’s calling it a night, and you wish to do the same. Finally having that conversation was exhausting and all you want to do is sleep for the next twelve hours. 

☼☼☼☼

The rest of the trip passes without you seeing Kevin again. He and Nolan left early the morning after your conversation, and you do your best to enjoy yourself. Part of your brain makes you believe you’re the reason they left, though Tyler tells you otherwise. No one asks about what happened between you two, not even Rachel, and you return to the city determined to start anew. Eventually you break the cycle of obsessing over Kevin’s stats, and take it upon yourself to unfollow him on social media. Life goes on. 

Things never really get easier. You still find yourself grieving the loss of Kevin, late at night when you can’t sleep, but are confident in your decision to say goodbye for good. Time heals everything, and eventually you’ll be okay. 

☼☼☼☼

taglist: @jamiedrysdales​ @kiedhara​ @tortito​ @boqvistsbabe​ @iwantahockeyhimbo​ if you want to be added just shoot me an ask :)

[skjeinon]

blue shirts - brady skjei

brady skjei x reader

warnings: smut!! use of “princess” a lot. cursing and big brothers best friend. over all mostly a cute fic, unprotected sex and a lot of praise

word count: 6700

summary: circa 2017, jimmy veseys little sister comes to visit him in new york for a week, having to stay in brady’s room due to the fact that ideally he has the biggest one. kevin hayes can cook, that’s important. (watch the kevin, jimmy and brady part of the winter classic video linked here, it helps stuff make so much sense)

my flight had been delayed 3 times due to snow in new york and i was just praying that it would clear sooner rather than later so my trip to see my brother hadn’t been cut any shorter.

growing up, me and jimmy didn’t get along the best but after he graduated, it was like a flip was switched and we were best friends, and the moment he was drafted to the new york rangers, i knew i’d have a ball when visiting him in the big apple.

i moved out west for college, never getting to play hockey on my own time, meaning him and i had our average 1 on 1 playing outing when we were together and then he’d show me every fancy restaurant he’d go to with his friends and so on, but just after his first few months settling into new york, he had moved in with one of his guys on the team.. then with another.

i had to admit, i was proud of him for being grown up and renting some really nice apartment to live in with his best friends, proof that he was successful as a hockey player and that he was finally making big boy purchases but god was it awful just the first time to go and stay with him at the first apartment.

this would be my first time staying in the apartment with him, kevin hayes and brady skjei.

the flight had finally been no longer delayed and i was told that the games for the next day or so would be cancelled meaning the moment jimmy picked me up, it was brother sister bonding time, stopping at the local corner store, getting food for us and the boys before we drove back home. the streets definitely weren’t empty, but driving in the snow was a lot easier when there was less people crowding the roads.

we had gotten to the apartment but before we had gotten out jimmys voice pierced my thoughts

“hey, put on a jacket before you get out. you’ll be cold walking upstairs and getting your bags.” he reached behind his seat, aimlessly grabbing one before letting me pull it over my frame, opening the door to his car. walking out i shivered, noting what he told me and walking with him into the building.

“staying safe jimmy?” the man at the front desk asked him.

“as always.” he smiled as we walked to the elevator. i leaned against his shoulder as we finally got to the apartment with a duffle bag, backpack, and plastic bag in hand.

“IM BACK” he yelled, his voice bounced off the walls as we heard two pairs of footsteps bound down the stairs.

“god damn, you guys are quick.”

“i’m hungry! you promised food!” kevin threw his hands up in defeat before brady had even said anything. his eyes were on me, and i got a little scared as he walked over to me, his frame towering over my own.

“hey, that’s my jacket.” he spoke, pointing at the hoodie i was practically drowning in.

“okay? i get no hi or hello?“ i squinted at him, shrugging and shaking my head a little.

“hi, hello y/n, you’re wearing my jacket. i just wanted to inform you.”

“your best-“

“hey! stop it you two. eat your damn food.”

and i looked up at jimmy who had snapped at us, literally and metaphorically, his hand reached out to snap before he pointed at the food.

something i hadn’t mentioned about brady is that there was some weird tension between us. i don’t know if he just saw me as innocent and stupid or if he just didn’t like me, or maybe i just don’t like him.. either way, he’s never been necessarily super nice to me, which is so weird cause he’s the nicest person i know. he’s always seemed jealous when i’m around chris or mika and he never just seems the same as he does with jimmy and what i know of, kevin.

me and jimmy sat next to each other, my eyes dragging on brady as we ate, and it was slow and agonizing to just sit there and stare holes into each other until i could finally get up and go grab my stuff from the car.

i walked out and jimmy sent brady after me to help, saying “i need to clean up.” and brady could feel his whole body roll its eyes.

brady threw on his jacket and chased after me, seeing me outside as snow began to fall again.

he walked out, seeing me standing at the back of jimmy’s car, with the trunk opened.

“hey, let me grab your bag.” he shouted, jogging over to me to see how the snow had began to fall, covering my hair and the shoulders of the hoodie i was wearing.

“no it’s fine i got it.” i hummed.

“if you don’t let me grab the damn bag your brother is gonna be upset.”

i stood there for a moment before i reluctantly handed him the bag. the two of us stepped back as i pulled the trunk shut, walking with him back inside.

the elevator ride up was uncomfortable.. we stood in silence but close to one another, trying to gain warmth without touching.

“you’re from massachusetts, whyre you so cold?” he asked, looking down at me, a shiver coming over me.

“well i’ve been living in california for nearly three years now, i got used to the weather..” i sounded defensive, almost snapping at him when i said it.

he felt guilty for not remembering, but at the same time, he tried his hardest to forget you everytime you’d go back out west.

when stepping out of the elevator, we walked back to the apartment and stepped inside, pulling off our shoes, as they were wet from the snow and pulling off the jackets we both wore, him taking his own back from my hands as i took it off.

“i uh, i think you’re staying in my room while you’re here. i have a couch i can sleep on, you’ll stay in my bed.” brady said, walking with my bag to the staircase, speaking as i went to walk over to my brother.

“okay, thank you.” i smiled at him.

“oh wow.. i didn’t think me making him get your bags would actually work.” jimmys voice flooded my thoughts.

“shut up, jimmy.”

once i had been shown around the apartment, properly introduced to kevin, and shown where i’d sleep, i was quietly getting settled in the dark side room off of brady’s bed room.

“yknow this may be a fire hazard.” i said to him, through the door.

“i know!” he let out a laugh through a short cry, setting up a bed area on the large couch in the main part of his bedroom. i shut the door for a moment, changing into some more comfortable clothes. pajama pants and a hoodie from the college i go to, and i walked out, seeing him laying on the couch, sprawled out like a child.

“are you sure you’re comfortable ?” i asked, his eyes moving up to meet mine.

“yeah, i’m all good.” he had a small smile on his face. i could feel the way his eyes were dragging on me, staring at the change of clothing. i wondered what thoughts flooded his big dumb head as i nodded, walking to go downstairs to the living room again.

sitting there, i talked with jimmy about plans for the week, telling me that he had gotten me tickets to come see the games.

“we’re home all week, since our away game yesterday was cancelled. i dont know what’s going to be open , but i know things will definitely start to be open again tomorrow because .. it’s new york and places never close.”

we talked, writing down an itinerary, and while we talked, i took a picture of him, tagging him on my instagram story.

the boys had a pretty active fanbase, especially brady, and i just knew people would go crazy seeing me back with jimmy, knowing jimmy was living in the same apartment with brady.

that night, i had gotten a text from chris who hadn’t talked to me in a while but last time he did i felt my heart almost implode. something about him was that he was charming, kind, humble and funny, he was from massachusetts, could speak a billion languages and i could feel myself weak in the knees when i spoke to him. i was sitting upstairs on the couch when i got it and my face lit up, smiling as i texted him back.

i could feel brady’s foot against my side.

“who ya texting..” he smiled, his eyes were

hooded. he was tired, watching TV and i was only awake just to surpass the jet lag.

“oh no one…”

“nope it’s someone.”

“fine, it’s chris.”

“kreids?”

“yeah?”

his voice changed, he sounded a little

jealous but he shrugged and relaxed back into his spot. i looked back at my phone, chris saying something along the lines of ‘hey we should get dinner while you’re here and catch up.’

“whatre you talking about..” he hummed after a few minutes.

“he wants to get dinner this week” i spoke, staring at my screen, wondering how he knew about me being back since he didn’t have social media. i guess he found out through mika?

“mh. okay.” he sounded even more jealous but i ignored it, getting up to go to bed. “it’s late, i’m gonna go try and sleep. goodnight skjeisy”

“good night, y/n” he said, giving me a short wave.

he had been laying on the couch in his pajamas, or whatever you call how a man sleeps, but shirtless and in a pair of those damn plaid pajama pants. it was freezing and the windows in his big room didn’t help but somehow he wasn’t cold, and i had asked him a few times if he was but he shook his head.

i almost gasped every time i looked at him.. there were moments where i hated him but i swear i would do anything to touch him. i don’t try to think about him that way but when he’s laying so close.. it’s hard not to.

i laid in his bed, his sheets smelled like him and i swear this was when i knew this would be the hardest week of my life, it feels like that every time.

—————————

the next morning, i woke up freezing, seeing i had knocked my blankets off the bed. the freezing cold had knocked me awake and there was a failed attempt to fall back asleep , but soon after that i gave up and stretched, getting up to go brush my teeth and make my way downstairs.

as i stepped out of the side room, i looked at brady as he was still sleeping, his upper half uncovered while he slept.

my lower lip was caught under my teeth as i chewed the pink skin, holding in whatever dirty thought over came me.

“god damnit i hate him.” i mumbled quietly before i walked out, walking to the bathroom in silence. i heard footsteps behind me , causing me to turn to see kevin.

“goodmorning kevin” i smiled, and he smiled back. he was a bad early guy, meaning he was just dragging down the hallway as he also had the same intentions, brushing teeth and going downstairs.

“goodmorning.” he mumbled.

“i just have to brush my teeth-“

“so do i , i’ll just join you.” he shrugged, the bathroom was big enough for the both of us so i scrambled through my things, grabbing my toothbrush and tooth paste. him and i mirrored each other, besides his large frame. he was tall and towered over everyone in the apartment, but especially me. his hair was held back with a headband and with my toothbrush in my mouth i asked him

“growing your hair out?”

while this was our first time properly meeting and getting to know each other, i had seen him at dinners and parties and in photos before, i could tell a clear change in his hair.

“mhm, i’ll probably cut it again” he said, looking down at me in the reflection of the mirror.

we both spit into the sink at the same time, wiping our mouths before using mouthwash momentarily. the two of us hissed at the sting, smiling at each other before walking out.

we both walked downstairs, he allowed me to go first, and as i walked down, jimmy was laying on the couch, staring at his phone.

“goodmorning jimmy.” i smiled, walking into the kitchen.

i ventured through the cabinets, finding a mug to get coffee, leaning against the counter after pouring it, staring out of the window.

“what do you usually eat for breakfast?” kevin’s voice came from behind the door of the fridge. my eyes shot to meet his as he peaked out from behind the door.

“oh- anything is fine.” i smiled.

“you sure?” he asked, and i nodded before i walked over to the couch, pulling jimmys phone from his hands.

“sit up.” he was taking up the whole couch and i just wanted to sit down to look at the list we had made the night before.

sitting down, i stared at the list as i heard brady make his way down the stairs, bidding us a goodmorning. i stayed silent, only focusing on the fact that he had pulled a shirt on. a tight one , but a shirt.

“you not gonna say anything?” jimmy spoke, his voice was sarcastic.

“huh? oh- sorry. what did you say?” i turned to look at him, my cheeks pink.

“what were you gonna say, you came over here and picked up the list, did you have something to say?”

“o-oh, yeah. i was going to tell you that chris said he wanted to have dinner with me some time this week.” i pointed to the list of things to do, and he nodded.

“oooh little sis pulling game? look at you.” he laughed, a smile on his face.

my cheeks darkened, this time out of embarrassment. i felt the seat on the other side of me dip, and i turned to see

brady sitting next to me.

“gimme the list.” his voice was rough and sleep still filled it, as his calloused hands reached out for it.

“mhm.” i hummed, giving it to him.

kevin was in the kitchen, humming as he cooked breakfast for the four of us. brady’s dark eyes scanned over the list, in his head trying to figure out what simple plans he could butt his way into just to see you…

no- just to hangout on his time off.

“here.” he spoke softly, handing the list back to me, his eyes on my face as he handed the list back. i took it, and looked back at jimmy.

“i’m sure we can make dinner with chris work..” he smiled, leaning back. his eyes met brady’s, brady quickly having looked away from me to meet his eyes.

jimmy didn’t think anything of it until he thought ..

‘wait why is he staring at my sister.’ and his eyes went wide as he looked at brady once more.

brady looked back at him like a deer in the headlights, covering his face as he stood

up to go help kevin in the kitchen.

brady would never admit it, mostly just cause he couldn’t but the reason he treated you with a snarky, rude, sarcastic act was because he didn’t want to face the fact that he was absolutely in love with jimmy veseys little sister. he wiped her from his memory everytime she’d leave, she’d come back, and he’d remember that this is how he’s supposed to act, like a transparent asshole. he’s been much more comfortable since i got here though. the touching and soft conversations without yelling at each other. i would wonder what had gotten into him but i crave his validation too much to make him revert back.

breakfast was finished, and me and jimmy were encouraged to come get food and eat. i practically jumped from my seat as i heard the opportunity for food.

“thank you, kevin.” i smiled, taking a plate from his hand. he smiled back, his boyish charm taking over as his cheeks tinted a little. he didn’t feel any way about it, but he thought it was sweet.

we all sat, and ate. we didn’t talk , but after we finished, me and jimmy cleaned up while brady and kevin went upstairs, brady taking a shower while i washed the dishes down.

i was humming to myself before jimmy began to speak, handing me the plates.

“hey.. while you’re with brady, can you at least try to not.. um. i don’t know- like-“

“SPIT IT OUT JIMMY.” i snapped at him.

“well- the look he was giving you earlier-“

“oh my god. that boy is annoyed by my every move, jimbo, it’s fine.” i rolled my eyes, finishing the dishes .

“i’m gonna go get ready.” i looked at him before i began my way up to the bedroom, walking in and sitting on the couch as i contemplated what i was going to wear, as the weather was still freezing but i’m sure i didn’t pack anything nearly appropriate enough for the weather.

i heard the door open as i stared at my phone, brady walking in with a towel around his waist and his hand in his hair, the other holding the towel up- he stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes wide as he saw me sitting down… facing him.

i didn’t look up until i heard him stop walking, causing our eyes to meet… then they suddenly weren’t

“c-can you.. um get out so i can change..” he tried not to panic, trying not to make a big deal out of it as i sat there, watching him in awe. his hair messy, his chest and stomach and he looked so soft and-

i nodded, speed walking into the side room to pick an outfit, struggling while all i could think about was him- i felt gross, but he looks so good. he looked nice to cuddle and hug.. and-

knock knock

“you can come out now.”

i put a shirt down and walked to the door, looking up at him.

“can .. do you have any warm clothes i can borrow?” i spoke, sounding a bit nervous.

“yeah, there’s a bunch of clothes on the rack over here and there’s some in storage boxes over there.” he pointed to the storage behind me, in the room. “go crazy.” he smiled. “is that all?”

“yeah.. thank you.” i smiled back. butterflies filled my stomach when he smiled at me.. he had me absolutely weak in the knees.

i dug through his clothes until i found an old jersey, being one of his. it clearly felt like a brand new jersey and i realized it was probably something he had bought for a gift for someone and never gave it. it had tags and stuff still on it, but jerseys are warm and i love them so i was going to take it and pull it on.

the 2015 labels on the tag were blatant so i knew it wasn’t for someone new as i grabbed some jeans and tight little black shirt to go underneath the jersey. i wore a black set to match underneath, i had no one to impress but being comfortable and fashionable is always necessary.

i took a shower, dried my hair and did my daily routine before i pulled on the clothes, drowning in the jersey, probably 2 sizes too big for me. as i walked out, i passed hayes and he stopped me

“where’d you get that jersey from?”

“uh.. brady’s clothes-“

he nodded, looking at the 76 and SKJEI plastered across my back as i walked into the bedroom to put my stuff away.

i had finished getting ready and brady was sitting on the couch when he finally acknowledged me.

“hey, i like your jersey.” he smiled, a short laugh leaving him.

“hey thanks.” i sat down on the couch, opposite to him as we had waited for jimmy to finish getting ready.

while we sat together, i could almost feel him staring at me and i just .. wanted to ask him what he wanted. but instead..

“where do you think would be a good place to get dinner with chris at?” i said, staring at my phone while he put his down, laying it in his lap.

“hm.. i dunno. i’m sure he knows some good places.” he took this as an excuse to look at me without it seeming sly.

“yeah but i trust your judgement enough.” i finally looked over at him, pressing for an answer but he looked… annoyed. oh god.

“yknow.. if you liked chris so much, why don’t you just wear his jersey, y/n”

my jaw dropped-

“SO YOU ARE JEALOUS-“

“NO IM NOT, PSH WHAT??”

“yes you are.” i stood up-

“no i’m not.” and so did he.

“yes you are, that’s why you act this way.” i stepped closer.

“act what way?” he tilted his head.

“THIS WAY, you’ve acted this way every time i’ve come to new york! you just act like an asshole cause you’re jealous. next thing,

you’re gonna be jealous of kevin!” i placed my hands on my hips, my eyes not leaving his as he struggled to think of something better to say.

“do you feel the same way?” he asked the question but it almost felt like a statement.

“yes, of course brady. you’ve been teasing me since i was 18, don’t act like i don’t have any reason not to. you’re tall, hot and play hockey for go-“

his hands were on my face before his lips crashed into mine.

“shut up” he quickly breathed against my lips.

he moved me back, sitting me on the couch, parting from the kiss

“you’re not going to dinner with chris. not without me, or jimmy or all three of us.” his hair was messy, falling over his face as he looked down at me. i nodded, practically being put in my place by him.

“we’re also going to continue this later, your brother is gonna walk in here any moment telling us we gotta go.” he spoke as he sat back down, picking up his phone again.

and as he sat down, the door began to open, jimmy poking his head in.

“did i hear yelling?”

“no.” the two of us turned to look at him in sync. my cheeks were red but jimmy ignored it as he nodded, telling us to “come on.”

the two of us jumped up, walking out together as we joined kevin downstairs. we all left the house together, standing next to jimmy as we walked out, our shoes crunched in the little bit of snow still on the sidewalk.

“i don’t understand why you guys had your games cancelled.. this is easily accessible.”

i spoke, my hands tucked into my pockets.

“well, their flight kept getting pushed back or cancelled, so we had to postpone the game. that was our only game this week besides sundays.” jimmy shrugged, thinking about how they would’ve played tampa this week.

i nodded, keeping my head low in the scarf wrapped around my neck. we had walked a while, stopping to get coffee in some small cafe before we walked down to central park.

“you wanna skate?” jimmy asked, looking down at me.

i nodded , causing him to smile. he looked around at the boys and they shrugged, willing to also join.

“awh we should’ve brought our skates.”

when skating at the park, we stayed there for hours. for a bunch of guys who do it for a living, they seem to really enjoy it when it’s not to get paid. they had gotten noticed a few times, and the jersey i wore didn’t help draw attention away from them.

‘hey, i love your jersey, go rags’

i’d hear before a gasp , and someone saying hi to brady, kevin or jimmy.

but now it was late in the afternoon and kevin was hungry so we decided to finally leave and get dinner at some local diner, pleasing the appetite of 3 big men and a smaller, less athletic girl.

i sat across from brady as we ate, my eyes shifting from my hands to his hands to his eyes while they all spoke, talking about some girl they had met last time they went to boston. i tuned out the conversation, having no interest in anything but the way brady looked, sitting in front of me.

it felt late when we had finally left to go home, being that we had been out all day, the late start to the day getting under our feet.

the moment we got home, i went upstairs and took off my boots, taking off the jersey for a moment just to pull off the shirt underneath it. walking upstairs brady had told me to not take off the jersey, he liked it on me, so i listened. i pulled on some

more comfortable pants and walked out, still wearing his jersey. he looked at me from the couch, having changed quickly, probably faster than i did. he was wearing a hoodie and a pair of grey sweats.

“you wanna hangout with me and jimmy downstairs?” i asked, he shrugged, looking back at his phone.

walking back downstairs, sitting with jimmy felt dreadful, when the words brady had spoken to me before we left played on rewind in my head. we crossed off skating in central off the list of things to do and i sat there, impatient with the way brady was acting, almost like it was nonchalant even though he had seemed so eager to get his hands on me beforehand.

“hey, i think i’m gonna hit the hay early, we can get up and do something tomorrow.” i spoke , standing up, stretching as i did so.

“we still have practice tomorrow? but it’ll be around ten am, you wanna come?”

jimmy said, looking up at me.

“eh, i’ll think about it. if i’m up, i’m up.” i shrugged as i leaned down to give him a kiss on top of the head. “goodnight.”

“goodnight, y/n”

walking back into the room, i saw him sat up, his eyes meeting mine as i walked in.

“you don’t seem very eager to ‘continue this later.’” i walked over to him, tilting my head.

“someone’s gotten worked up, huh?” he said, reaching out for my hand. i sighed, placing my hand in his, he pulled me closer.

“cmere.” he said, patting his lap. he gently pulled me closer, straddling him, my knees resting on either side of his thighs. his hands laid on my sides, fingers rubbing me gently as i placed my arms around his neck.

“is this what you want?” he asked me, his pupils blown wide in the dim room, only lit by the lamp in the corner. i nodded, placing my hand on his neck to pull him closer, placing my lips on his.

the kiss was gentle, as i felt his hands move, coming down to squeeze my thighs, pulling me closer against his own hips. a soft gasp left me as the thin fabric of my leggings left nothing to the imagination. i could feel him against me, causing my heart to race as the kissing slowly turned into messy making out.

“brady…” i mumbled against his lips, my hips slowly grinding against his.

“yeah, princess?”

“i.. mhh i want you to touch me..” breathing each other’s air as our noses touched, i felt his hands slowly come up my waist.

his hands, came up under my breasts, cupping them.

“i don’t want to take off the jersey..”

“then don’t” i giggled, our faces close as he looked down at his hands pressing against the soft, blue fabric.

“then how should i touch you baby” his eyes met mine again, he examined my face. flushed and red.

“cmon… you know, brady.”

“no, tell me princess.” he said, his hands coming down to my thighs again. he took my legs and wrapped them around his waist, picking me up, carrying me to the side room.

he gently laid me down onto the bed and looked down at me.

“im still waiting.“ he looked at me, crossing his arms over his chest.

“i-i want you to touch my pussy..” my cheeks were red, as he had pushed me into embarrassment.

“yeah there you go, baby.” he smiled, leaning down, he pulled his shirt off before he brought his hands down to the waist of my leggings. he slowly pulled them off, dragging his calloused palms over my legs. i did an inner victory dance as i remembered i had worn a matching set, but by the way he liked the jersey on me, i doubt he’d ever find out.

“you okay with this?” he spoke softly, breaking the tension for a moment.

i nodded, “yeah..” i smiled.

he nodded , leaning over to place a kiss against my lips before his hand came down, his fingers slowly dragging through my folds. my breath shuttered as he touched me, his face was close, nose brushing against mine, as he wanted to hear my noises while he teased me.

“i bet you’ve been thinking about this all day, haven’t you?” he mumbled. a small sound of approval left me.

my arms came up, wrapping around his neck as i felt his thumb press against my clit. i shivered a little, my hips pressing to his hand.

“brady..” i spoke under my breath, soft moans escaping my lips while his fingers continued to tease me.

“yeah baby? do you want more?”

“yes.. please..”

his middle finger dragged through my folds again before he entered me, causing me to pull him closer, a gasp escaping my lips.

“don’t be too loud” whether or not i had made much noise, he didn’t want to risk any of them walking in, especially my older brother.

“i-i’m trying..” his pace was slow but increased, his hands were large, and equally his fingers were thick and long. “mh.. brady.. please give me more” my gasps were hot against his, until he moved

down, his face in my neck. he gently placed messy kisses over my warm skin, careful not to bite or suck too hard, preventing hickeys that anyone else could see.

he slowly pushed in his ring finger, filing me while his thumb drew perfect circles onto my sensitive clit.

“you okay?” he whispered as he neared my ear, kissing my neck,

“yes” i spoke through a breathy voice, holding back noises as his pace increased, bringing me closer to the edge.

“i want you to cum on my fingers, okay princess?” his voice came out low and raspy. i nodded as my hips pressed to his hand, my back arching as he pushed me further.

“please, brady i’m so close..”

he looked down at me for a moment, finally his lips met mine again. he wanted to keep me quiet as i came, his fingers picking up the pace.

suddenly i felt that buildup break, my nails digging into his back as i tried to hold back my moans from his touch. a white hot sensation flooded my senses.

he positioned himself between my legs, watching me laid out in front of him.

“you look so good in that jersey..”

“mhh do i?” i spoke, my voice was tired and weak.

i looked down to see how hard he was in those sweats.

“yeah you do, baby.” he leaned down , kissing me again. i pushed my hands between my legs, gently running them up his thighs, finding his cock, hard in those dreadful sweats. pulling away from the kiss , looked down at him in my hands.

“can you take off the pants… please?” i looked up at him with puppy dog eyes, causing him to sigh, pulling off his sweatpants with rough hands.

“brady. boxers too.” my hands, still reached out, dropped with expression.

he pulled off his boxers, cheeks red as i saw him for the first time.

i was almost drooling at the sight of him, his hair messy and fallen around his face, while his stomach was squishy while he was still fit, his thighs were thick and strong and there was nothing disappointing about his dick- which really wasn’t expected in the first place, but made it more exciting.

my tongue rested against my lower lip as i bit down on it, concentrated on touching him before he had asked if he could fuck me.

“y/n, can.. i fuck you..” he sounded guilty, looking down at me, enjoying my time as i wrapped my hands around his cock.

“y-yes.” i looked up at him, my cheeks red at the question.

“then turn over, ass in the air.”

i nodded, his hands coming to my hips as he helped turn me over. he pushed my face down into the pillows of his bed.

“i want you to try and stay quiet this time.” a soft chuckle slipped through his words. i felt like i could cum just on his voice..

“yes sir” i mumbled through the sheets.

he got comfortable, making sure everything was okay before the tip of his cock was pressed against me.

“hey uh.. are you on the pill?”

“mhm..”

“good to know. can i cum inside?”

“mhm.”

he nodded, his hand gently placed on my hip, feeling as he began to spread his precum over my cunt, causing me to shiver before he let out a soft groan.

i got impatient, my hips shifting slightly, before he tightened his grip on them to still me.

“cmon baby.” he mumbled, before he entered me, slowly pushing into me as i gripped the pillow my face was planted into. a cry leaving my throat.

“f-fuck.. princess..” he threw his head out, slowly entering me until he was bottomed out. he wasn’t too big, he was thick and it was like he fit perfectly while he had stretched me out.

“you’re so fucking tight ohh my god.” he began mumbling small groans of praise, as i could hear his voice break with heavy pants.

he slowly began to move, getting the encouragement from my walls around him.

slow and steady as he began fucking me, both hands on my hips, gripping tight, trying to stay composed.

he had almost pulled out before he pulled my hips back against his, resulting in a loud moan from me into the pillow.

my knuckles were white as i gripped the sheets, trying not to be too loud. he had leaned over me, taking my hair and pushing it to the side as he began to fuck into me.

“you look so good wearing my name..”

even he couldn’t hold back the noises he was making, groans were loud as he began to hit down on his touch between mouthfuls of praises.

“baby.. fuck.. who does this pussy belong to??”

his hand came down, pressing against my back, arching it down so he can hit a better angle. his cock brushing over my g-spot, leaving me shaking.

“y-you..” i could barely form words as he destroyed me, leaving me helpless when he asked me.

“who? say my name.. say it, princess.” his hand absentmindedly traced over the number while he continued to pummel into me.

“b-brady.. it belongs to you- FUCK-“ my face was smothered by the pillow once more, muffling my loud noises. “my pussy belongs to you, brady.”

“good girl… good fucking girl..”

i could feel myself chasing my orgasm, trying hard not to allow myself to cum on his cock without him, but even he could feel it by the way i clenched around him.

“brady.. m’ gonna fucking cum”

“me too.. shit me too..” his hands came to my hips, his thumbs rubbing over my ass as he tightly gripped my hips, enough to bruise. one hand moved down, his thumb pressing to my clit as his pace began to falter, causing me to see stars as he touched the sensitive bud. i could feel myself coming closer, my vision blurring as the sound of incoherent mumbles of the both of us turn into the sound of our skin slapping until our orgasm struck through us, my juices coating his thighs as his cum filled my cunt.

as we both came down from our highs, he was leaned over me, his cock still buried deep inside of me.

“fuck.. you feel so good i don’t want to pull out.”

“brady..” i laughed, feeling the weight of his frame on my own. “get up, loser.”

he reluctantly pulled himself up, pulling out to see how his cum dripped from me.

“mhh.. look at that..”

“s-stopp..” i mumbled, cheeks burning with embarrassment, pushing my face back into the pillow.

brady helped me lay down, wiping away at my thighs with his shirt before he pulled his boxers back on.

“you probably don’t wanna wear that jersey while we sleep, let me get it off of you.”

i rolled over and sat up slightly, raising my arms in the air. the blissed out look on my face made him let out a soft chuckle. he got out of bed and grabbed a hoodie of his, handing it to me as i pulled off my bra. i pulled it over my body and he looked through my things, finding a pair of panties to give me

“these okay?”

i nodded and he handed them to me, as i put them on he stood at the edge of the bed. i was tired , my eyes were heavy as i looked up at him. i reached my arms out.

“please… sleep with me, brady..”

“i can’t.”

“please…” i stuck out my bottom lip, trying to fool him into feeling bad

“….” he thought about it. “fine.”

he got into bed with me, slowly getting comfortable as i pressed my body against his. he wrapped his arms around my waist, our legs intertwined as i pushed my face into his chest, falling asleep.

“goodnight, princess.” he mumbled.

“goodnight, brady…”

you don’t even want to hear the stern talking to that i got from jimmy the next morning when he walked into brady’s room to not see brady on the couch and in his own bed instead.

he wasn’t mad… yes he was. he was mad at brady. he was mad cause he couldn’t trust the guy to spend a week with his little sister like he had in past times of visiting. he trusted that brady could love you and please you but he also knew that you lived in california, wouldn’t move to new york just for him and what if you only liked brady for the sex you just had. which you didn’t.

“y/n…you just-“

“jimmy, i’ve had a love hate relationship with brady ever since i first met him. have you ever seen how he reacted to when i talked about guys? especially chris? cmon jimmy, open your eyes please.” an audible sigh left him.

“fine.” he grumbled, knowing even if he wanted to, he couldn’t stop either of you, as you were both grown adults.

the rest of the day, kevin ripped on brady and jimmy held in whatever anger he wanted it take out on brady for getting with his sister. he just wanted to protect her, it’s what older brothers do.

when leaving the rink after practice, i was there to pick them up, and as we left, i leaned up to kiss brady on the cheek, all of us piling into the car with their gear. this was going to be a fun week in new york…