Archive of Our Own

Matty has been his best friend for... forever, really. Not in the "we've been friends for so long I feel like it's been forever" way or anything. He's pretty sure there are pictures from when he and Matty went skating for the first time together, both of them too bundled up to see anything but their eyes. Apparently, according to their parents, they were too busy speaking the broken version of English that only three year olds understand at each other to actually try to skate. It took Mikey and Dylan literally dragging them across the ice to get them on their feet.

So. Forever.

It's the kind of thing where he can't imagine not having Matty in his life, and it feels so wrong to even try. It's up there on the list of concepts that he'd rather never consider again.

Ryan got drafted, and he went to New York, and it was weird, but it was something he got used to. Matt committed to Canisius, and he graduated, and that was a lot more difficult. It took a while to adapt to, but Buffalo isn't that far, and he was older when he left, so all in all it wasn't that bad. Dylan went to Mercyhurst, and it's further, but he still sees him, and it isn't like he ever doesn't update him on what's going on at school. Actually, it's harder to get him to stop doing that.

And Matty got drafted to Philly.

He hasn't left, aside from camp over the summer, but it still feels wrong.

It really sucks, he thinks. Matty was his forever, and he's going to be leaving, and Ryan is going to be stuck here, in Toronto, and-

It really shouldn't have been so surprising, that he ends up right where he is.

Most baby pictures of one include the other. Matty, of course, has a couple months on him, so that isn't necessarily a hundred percent, but. Ryan has never lived a day without Matty.

Maybe that's being over-dramatic, because, like, of course there were days they didn't see each other, and this that and the other thing, but it's the principle of the matter.

It couldn't be anyone but him, really. Not now, not ever. He's pretty okay with that.

October

The party winds down pretty quickly, and before long the only people left are the Stromes, sans Ryan, who has an early flight the next morning and needed to go get some sleep. Matt carries Ditzy up the stairs to go to bed, and Dylan and Mikey go into the kitchen to eat the leftover food, which leaves just Matty and Ryan in the living room.

Ryan goes back to laying with his head in Matty’s lap, because that was really comfortable, honestly, and Matty smiles down at him and he misses this a lot.

“We used to fit on the couch a little better,” he hums, and Ryan laughs.

“We fit just fine.”

“Obviously,” Matty nods and pats Ryan’s chest. “How do you plan on getting this off?” He pokes his nose, and honestly Ryan had completely forgotten about the marker whiskers.

“I’m hoping soap will work, I guess.”

“Me too,” he laughs, “don’t you have work tomorrow?”

He hadn’t even thought about that, and he presses his face against Matty’s stomach and groans, which earns him another laugh from his friend.

They just sit there like that for a few minutes, and he may have only left for Hamilton two months ago, but it makes Ryan miss having him in Mississauga all the time. And like, yeah, it’s far from a long drive away - never really more than an hour, at most - but it’s just not the same as having him down the street.

It’s just weird that the Stromes are rarely around when he grew up with them always there, he guesses.

He finally moves so he’s looking up again, and Matty is looking down at him, like he’s thinking hard about something.

"I wanted to see you on your birthday," he says, running a hand through Ryan's hair. "But we were away that night, so-"

"I know," he plays with the hem of Matty's shirt. "It's okay."

"Sorry I missed it," and he does look it. He looks too upset about it, actually, and it makes Ryan's chest hurt.

"It's okay," he insists. "I forgot it was my birthday anyway."

His hand pauses, still carded in his hair, and Matty looks down at him, amused. "It's because you're so old."

"You're older than I am."

"Uh huh. Respect your elders, McLeod." He starts moving his hand again. "It was gonna be great."

"What was?"

"Your birthday. I was going to give you a hug and everything."

Ryan just laughs and lightly hits him in the stomach. "It doesn't have to be my birthday for you to hug me, dude."

"Hug me then," he says like it's a challenge, but he's smiling.

"If I have to," he sighs dramatically and sits up, twisting to wrap his arms around Matty’s shoulders. "This isn't very comfortable."

"That's because you're-" Matty laughs and puts his hands on Ryan's waist, moving him so he's in his lap. "You were too far away."

"Thanks," he mumbles, muffled from where he's pressed his face into his neck.

"Uh huh," Matty moves his hands to properly hold on to him. It's nice, and neither of them move.

They don't move when Dylan and Mikey walk in, either.

"What are you two even doing?" Mikey questions.

"Hugging," Ryan shrugs slightly.

"You left us out," Dylan says, and before Ryan can say anything else, there's a heavy weight on his side, followed by another on his other side. "Group hug!"

He rolls his eyes, but Matty huffs a laugh, and he can feel it against his shoulder, so it's. It's okay.

No amount of scrubbing the next morning manages to get the marker fully off his face, the faint lines still present on his reddened cheeks. At least he managed to get the dot on his nose off for the most part.

Well, he thought he had, because when Coach comes in and walks over to the bake area to talk to him, the first thing he says isn’t good morning, or whatever he needed to talk about, it’s “Ryan. What is on your face.”

“Uh. Whiskers. My brother-”

“I don’t want to know,” he shakes his head with a sigh, far too used to his employees making no sense. “Come back and talk to me when you get a minute?”

“Sure,” he shrugs.

“Oooo, you’re in trouble,” Tip teases, his tongue poking out from between his teeth.

“You are trouble.”

“You bet.”

The talk, it turns out, starts with “would you consider becoming a shift?”

He’s… shocked, a little. He’d kind of been expecting it since Coach insisted he learn to bake, and because of Nate he does know a lot about what goes on, but surely there’s someone else that would be better suited for it. Someone who’s worked here a little longer, or has more experience, or. Yeah.

“Ryan,” he says when he voices all of those concerns, “if I didn’t think you could do it, I wouldn’t ask you.”

“I guess.”

“You don’t have to decide right now, but let me know sooner rather than later.”

“Of course,” he nods rapidly. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

He talks it over with a handful of people after that, just trying to decide what to do.

Nate tells him he’s known Coach was going to ask him that for a few months, that they’ve been discussing it pretty much since late July.

“That’s why you’ve been spewing all your supervisor nonsense at me.”

“That and I needed to complain to someone.”

“You have a boyfriend for that.”

“I think you’ll do well. Think about it, okay?”

Mikey tells him pretty much the same thing, that Nate had been talking to him about it nonstop for the last week and please do it so he doesn’t have to hear about it anymore.

Judi just hugs him and tells him she’s proud.

Dylan laughs at him. “Management is a trap.”

“You’re never even here, Dyls.”

It ends up being Matty that manages to make him really consider saying yes.

“Well, you’ll be getting paid more, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And it’ll look good on, like, resumes and shit.”

So. There it is.

/

"I know you hate Halloween, but-"

"Mikey already told me to come over- I know," Nate interrupts without looking up from the muffins.

"Oh. Well we're-"

"Movies and handing out candy."

"I liked it better when I knew what was going on."

"Sorry, when was that?" Nate looks up at him, eyebrows raised. "I don't think I knew you then."

"Hey," Ryan throws a slice of cheese at him, " I am not the clueless one here."

“Speaking of clueless,” he shoves the muffins in the oven and sets the timer without looking at it, turning to Ryan. “What are you going to do about the supervisor thing?”

“I think I’m gonna tell Coach I’ll do it,” he shrugs.

“Good,” Nate says, genuine. “I was hoping you would.”

“You won’t be my boss anymore.”

“I think I’m still going to know more than you,” he laughs, and he’s most definitely correct on that one. Nate does nearly everything Coach does. He should really be assistant manager, honestly. He really already is, in every way but name.

“I guess.”

/

Nate comes over a few hours before trick or treating starts, two pizzas and Mikey’s favourite pasta in hand.

“I don’t deserve you,” Mikey sighs contentedly when he rips off a piece of the bread bowl.

“No you don’t,” Ryan agrees, getting up to get plates.

Nate, it turns out, cashed in the I bought you food for watching some actual horror movies, to Mikey’s despair.

“He’s a giant baby,” Ryan explains, and Mikey starts to protest but stops mid-sentence, knowing it’s pointless. Once the movie starts it’ll be proof enough.

Usually watching scary movies with Mikey is a special brand of entertainment, but watching horror movies with Mikey and Nate is the worst thing in the world. Those two are too goddamn much to handle, and every time the doorbell rings, Ryan couldn’t be happier for the excuse to get up.

About a half hour into it, he gets up to answer the door again expecting to see another group of kids, but instead Matty is stood on his porch.

“Trick or treat!”

“No one taller than me is allowed to get candy, sorry,” Ryan says and starts to shut the door, which earns him a laugh.

“That’s a terrible rule.”

“No it isn’t,” he moves to let Matty in the house, shutting the door behind him.

“Hey, Matty,” Mikey says from where his face is smushed against Nate’s arm. “Happy Halloween.”

“You too,” he grins.

“This is what I’ve been dealing with all night,” Ryan gestures to the tangled mess of his brother and boss.

“Why don’t you sit outside with the candy, then?”

“It’s cold and I didn’t want to sit out there alone,” he shrugs.

“Well, grab a coat, ‘cause it’s nice out, and I want to eat a piece of candy for every one we hand out.”

He wouldn’t call it nice out, but it isn’t snowing or raining or anything like that, and it would get him away from the scene in his living room, so.

Matty, true to his word, fishes out a piece of candy every time someone comes to the door, stuffing the wrappers in Ryan’s pockets instead of his own.

Something fluttery happens in his chest every time Matty gushes over a kid’s costume, and when he adds another wrapper to the too-rapidly growing mass of them in Ryan’s hoodie, and when he complains that it’s cold despite this being entirely his idea, and when he uses that as an excuse to press even closer, and. Pretty much any time he looks at him, actually.

November

Training to be a supervisor, it turns out, is a strange mix of easier than his original training was and so much more confusing. Like, on one hand, he already knows how everything in the bakery works from the moment they open until they close, not to mention he has the baking training on top of that. On the other, though, this is a lot of paperwork, and he knows this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Shift opens. Cashier settlements. Shift closes.

That’s it. That’s all he needs to learn to be able to do the absolute bare minimum that a shift does, but it still feels like it’s taking ages. It’s all repetition and simple math, but there’s still like a hundred thousand steps for each thing.

As soon as he found out, Tip immediately started referring to Ryan only as boss man, and Trent joined in, and Alex did it once before deciding he’d never do it again.

Nate, to his credit, is incredibly helpful when Ryan doesn’t want to bother Coach with littler questions, and it definitely makes it easier when Nate pulls him aside to go through everything with him when he goes to do things himself. He’s especially grateful for that, because more often than not that leads to Nate ending up leaving late.

Mikey isn’t so grateful for that, though. He can deal.

/

When the Bulldogs finally play the Steelheads again halfway through November, he texts Matty to make sure he brings him a hoodie or something to wear to the game.

There’s stuff at home have dyls bring u somethin

nah I’d rather have a new one

Want your own?

don’t be dumb matty

It’s been less than a month since he’d last seen him and while he really should be used to that by now - he used to be, he swears - he’s kind of not. And it’s really nice to see him again.

“Hey, Ry,” he smiles and waves, stopping in the middle of the conversation he was having with Dylan when he and Mikey walk over to them.

“I’m here too,” Mikey waves.

“Hi, Mikey,” he looks back to Ryan for a moment and starts digging in his bag. “So I didn’t have any clean stuff to bring you, except, you know-” he pulls his home jersey out of the corner it was folded up in “-there’s this. As long as you don’t get anything on it.”

He nods and takes it, ignoring the way Mikey and Dylan clearly stare at the jersey as it’s handed over. “Duh.”

“It’s clean,” he shrugs and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “But also it’s been in there for a couple hours, so.”

“That’s fine. Thanks,” he smiles and looks down at it, trying to decide if it’d be appropriate to put it on then, and like, the game isn’t for another couple hours, but also he could keep a better eye on it if he was wearing it. That’s a good enough point in his opinion, so he pulls it on and gives Matty a thumbs up once it’s situated.

“Looks good,” Matty grins, and Ryan can’t exactly stop looking at him, and he doesn’t look away either, and he isn’t exactly sure what’s going on, but it’s nice, anyway.

“Score for me?” He says, and he doesn’t know why.

“Will do.”

He’s a hockey fan, obviously, and he has a bunch of jerseys, and he wears them sometimes. He has a couple Leafs jerseys and both an Isles and Oilers jersey for Ryan, and they’re nice, and comfortable and everything, but. Wearing this one feels different.

He doesn’t know.

Maybe it’s just because it’s a real one or whatever, like, Matty wears this during games and it is covered in little marks and part of the bulldog’s collar is torn real , but then, he used to play, too. He has his own jerseys.

More than likely, he knows on some level, it’s not the jersey that feels different.

It’s Matty that feels different. Well not Matty, but about Matty.

That doesn’t make any sense, either.

It isn’t anything he hasn’t thought about, not recently at least, but the weight of the Strome in heavy bold letters across his shoulders feels like it might be the only thing he can pay attention to. It’s worn and heavy and a little too big and when the game starts he can see Matty out there with the other half to the set and it’s.

He thinks he might have a problem. But also, it’s fine, because Matty is his best friend and he’s just tired and none of this is weird, he’s just overthinking it. It happens.

And then Matty scores in the second, and again in the third, and the game ends 4-2 Hamilton and Matty’s first star and-

And the first thing Matty says to him when he sees him after the game was, “guess you were good luck.”

“Guess so.”

“Good thing you wore that, then,” he tugs on the sleeve of the jersey Ryan’s still wearing. “Maybe it’ll still be lucky when you aren’t there.”

“Maybe,” he nods, and Matty’s hand is so close to his hand, and he just nods again at nothing in particular.

“I do need it back, though,” Matty says, and he’s smiling and before Ryan really even registers that it’s happening he’s helping him take it off. “Games and stuff.”

“Uh huh,” he says absently, a lot colder now. “Obviously.”

“Do I even need to be here?” Mikey asks from slightly behind him. Honestly, Ryan had kinda forgotten he was with him.

Matty laughs, Ryan’s heart flutters, and he really doesn’t want to think about it.

/

The transition from training to being thrown to the sharks wasn’t a smooth one the first time, or the second with baking, so why Ryan thought the third time would be different is a mystery even to himself. He goes from having a general grasp of what he’s doing to being scheduled for two closing manager shifts - the first of which Nate ended up sticking around to the end of even though he’d opened that morning and opened the next day. He owes him big time for that thirteen hour shift.

Only having worked closing shifts, his first open on his own was just shy of being a disaster, what with trying to figure out the swing of what needed baked in what order before they open so they’d have everything on time being a whole other issue he wasn’t used to, but he managed fairly well.

Coach doesn’t schedule him for another one of those for a week, but he does take the time to make up a list of the open bake order for him, so there’s that.

He keeps telling himself he’s ready for it, that Open Two would go smoother. He’s got this.

Ryan keeps repeating that to himself, a quiet mantra, even though he doesn’t even have to bake until he’s finished up all the office stuff first. He stops after turning off the alarm, because hearing a knock at the door the moment he starts turning everything on is pretty goddamn terrifying. He walks slowly over to the door, expecting to see a coworker that maybe got there early and terrified at the thought of it being some kind of murderer or whatever.

He gets within a couple of steps of the door and realises it's Matty, and he lets out a heavy sigh. Why.

He shares that thought the moment he opens the door.

Matty, true to form, doesn't explain. "So they really made you a supervisor, huh?"

"I am definitely not supposed to let you in," he says, moving to the side, adding "we don't open for another hour," as he locks the door behind him.

"Already breaking the rules, huh?" He jokes, stuffing his hands in his pocket. "Bold."

Ryan rolls his eyes. "I have to be in the office for like, fifteen minutes. Don't touch anything."

"I don't work here. You can't tell me what to do."

"You don't work here, I can make you stand out in the cold for an hour."

"You're so cranky," Matty pouts and sits at one of the tables.

Ryan pours himself some iced coffee and hurries back into the office, going as fast as he can to make sure he gets everything done so he has enough time to bake. When he emerges twelve minutes later - a new record for him - he gets more iced coffee and speaks out into the dark dining room.

"You can bother me now, Matty."

"Nice," he hears Matty before he sees him stand up.

He leans over the glass in the bake area while Ryan gets started making the bagels.

"Is being a boss man fun?"

"No."

"Yeah, Dylan hates it."

"Paperwork is the worst thing in the world, by the way," he mumbles, shoving the bagel dough into the bin of everything topping. "Avoid it at all costs."

"I have an agent to deal with that for me," Matty shrugs, and when Ryan lifts his head to give him an unimpressed look, he sees his tongue is sticking out a little.

"I really hate you."

"Can't say I blame you," he shrugs.

The door opens, and Ryan greets Tip as he puts the bagels into the oven.

"Hey, Ry- you don't work here."

"Nope," Matty says, popping the p.

"Y'know what, whatever," Tip dismisses and walks off.

"Does anyone here care about anything?" Matty laughs.

"Honestly, no, not really."

"Hey Ry bread?"

"What?"

"Will you bake for me sometime?"

He stops spraying the sheet pan to look up at Matty, who has his chin resting on his hands and a small smile on his face.

"Only if you pay me," he deadpans and goes back to what he was doing.

"Love is dead," Matty shakes his head. "I can't believe this."

"Yup, and I killed it,” he nods. “Sorry to ruin it for everyone because you can’t read the side of a cake mix box.”

Tip snorts a laugh when he opens the egg cooker and sprays it down. “Damn, Ry.”

“I come to support you at your workplace and you just bring up one of my greatest failures like it’s nothing? I’m hurt,” Matty pouts, and when Ryan looks up at him, he reaches over the glass and touches a finger to Ryan’s nose.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than be here at four thirty?” he laughs, turning slightly red.

He looks like he considers it for a second. “Better than you? Nah.”

Tip drops an egg.

Matty waves a hand, saying something about first dibs on a blueberry muffin before walking back into the dining room, plopping down at a booth behind the little wall in front of the line.

“Who is that?” Tip asks, cleaning up the egg with a rubber glove and oven cleaner - too lazy to go get a rag, apparently.

“Dylan’s brother.”

“That’s not- whatever.”

The moment the lights come up in the dining room and Owen goes to unlock the doors, Matty appears by the bake area again, grinning too-wide.

“Muffin?”

“You’re a child,” Ryan laughs and takes one from the rack, hissing a little when he bumps the hot sheet pan below it. Nothing he’s not used to, but his friend looks slightly concerned when he turns, so he just shrugs.

“You get used to it.”

“How?”

He thinks about it for a second while he walks down to the register, sliding the muffin across the counter.

“It’s like getting used to hits, I guess.”

“Seems different.”

He raises an arm and points to a fading burn right by his elbow from the oven shelf, and shows his other wrist that’s a fresh bright red from kettle water the day before.

“It’s part of the job.”

“Ow,” he gently takes his hand and presses a kiss to his arm, right below where the wrist burn stops. “There.”

“Thanks,” he stutters, not taking his hand back.

Mikey and Nate walk in hand in hand, because apparently Nate must have been hanging around at CVS until he got off work, and Ryan just barely hears Tip mutter what sounds like “fucking McLeods” from where he’s pouring a cup of coffee.

December

Ryan hadn't been feeling great the past couple of days, starting with an annoyingly persistent scratchy throat that somehow simultaneously slowly and too-quickly developed into this.

His alarm goes off and it makes his ears ring, and the thought of moving hurts, but also, he has to, because he’s gotta get ready for work, and then go work all day, and-

bas

You know you don’t have to be in until 7 right why are you awake at 4

He sighs and thinks about it for a second. Does he want to go to work? Absolutely not. Should he? Yeah.

I’m so fucking sick and I don’t know if I can come in today

Nate, who should absolutely be driving right now - better be at a red light, Bastian - replies immediately.

Then don’t worry about it. Tip is in this morning and we can handle it until Trent gets here.

are u sure

Yeah ryan don’t worry about it

That sounds great, fantastic, amazing, but.

I can’t leave you without anyone to cover for me

We’ll be fine

no I’ll need to come in

Ryan.

He’s glad Nate would let him stay home - he’d seen how he’s been over the past handful of days, but he can’t leave them out to dry like that. So he hauls himself out of bed even though he has another two hours to sleep. Anything to make getting through the day easier.

"Jesus Christ, Ryan," Tip mutters when he walks over to him, "Nate wasn't fucking around when he said you were dying, eh?"

Ryan just shakes his head, because he's pretty sure if he talks, he'll start coughing and then never stop. His throat can only take so much more of that shit before he starts clawing at it.

"I think we're good, buddy," Nate rests a hand on his shoulder. "Go sit in the back and I'll call you if we really need you, okay?"

He nods and picks up a milk crate before he walks into the back, tosses it to the floor, and sits on it, resting his forehead on the cold prep table. This is really fucking miserable, but it's what he had to do.

Honestly, he just wants to talk to Matty, but it's barely after seven in the morning.

being sick is the worst

He pockets his phone and sighs, which just causes another coughing fit, and everything is just all around pretty terrible. It feels like someone is beating him over the head with a frying pan every couple seconds, and he can hear them getting busy, but he can't bring himself to get up and help. It's definitely for the best that he doesn't.

Nate and Tip, to their credit, handle it well and don't bother him.

Sick? The reply comes what feels like hours later, but it's only been twenty minutes.

yeah. why are u awake

Dunno. Sorry u feel shitty tho

thanks

He puts his phone on the table when Nate comes back to talk to him, and he's really hoping he doesn't have to do anything, because after sitting on a milk crate for so long when he already felt terrible has ruined his confidence in his legs' ability to function properly.

"Hey, Trent is going to come in at eight and Alex is probably going to get here early as usual, so if we need him I'll have him clock in. Just go home when Trent gets here, okay?"

Ryan's thankful for Nate pretty often, but he's probably never been as thankful for him as he is in that moment.

"Thank you," he tries to say, but it comes out too raspy and quiet and it makes his throat hurt even more. Nate looks sympathetic.

"No problem. I told you you didn't need to come in."

He just shrugs, because he doesn't have it in him to voice that yeah, he did, because that's like, his job, and what it they got really busy? He couldn't just leave Nate and Tip alone like that. Not in good conscience.

"Let me know if you need anything. Ibuprofen helps sore throats a lot."

"Took some. Tea?"

"Sure. What kind."

"Green."

"I'll be right back," Nate says and rubs between his shoulders for a second before going back up to the front to get the drink.

He checks his phone again and puts his head back down against the metal table.

Are u at work?

yeah but it's ok. I love nate

I'm telling Mikey

don't care. he was mine first

Now I am definitely telling Mikey

Nate comes back and sets the tea on the table, hurrying back over to the oven when the timer goes off.

The tea helps a lot, and three minutes later he gets a text from Mikey that's just a screenshot of that conversation that obviously came from Matty's phone followed by ???

relax I don’t want ur nerd

He's halfway through the cup when Trent walks past him to go hang his coat, and Ryan stands immediately, really just wanting to get out of there and go back to bed. His legs do mostly work still, it turns out.

"I'm telling Coach what's going on later, okay. I'm going to take your shift tomorrow, stay home."

"Maybe I will take you from Mikey," he says, and it doesn't kill his throat, and it doesn't sound like he's smoked two packs a day for forty years, so the tea apparently really helped.

"Don't think so," Nate laughs.

"Please get the fuck out of here," Tip shoves at his shoulder. "If I get sick I'm going to kill you."

"Love you too."

" Go home, Ryan ."

"See you later," his voice cracks in the middle of it, and they laugh at him, so he just flips them off on the way out.

thanks for that , he texts Matty

I told you I'd do it

His phone buzzes again after he starts the car, and he figures he'd better check it before he gets home and passes out, forgetting it completely. It's Matty again.

What time r u done at work?

going home now

Good. Get some sleep.

I plan to, thanks mom

He cranks the heat up in the car and pulls out of the parking lot, very ready to finally get some actual rest for the first time since he'd gotten sick. He really does owe Nate his life for this one. He doesn't find out later how much he really owes him, considering he'd be working on not only his day off, but his birthday to boot.

Ryan plugs his phone in the moment he gets into his bedroom, putting it on the pillow next to him. He's asleep within five minutes, not even bothering to change out of his work jeans and t-shirt.

He only wakes up once around three when Judi comes into his room to check on him and make him drink an entire bottle of Gatorade and change into actual pjs. He knows he should really eat, but he's just not hungry, mostly still tired, so she lets him go after that. It's not even that difficult to go back to sleep even though he'd been out for hours.

The next time he wakes up, it's a lot less pleasant. His phone won't stop vibrating, and he doesn't even know what time it is, but he's also pretty sure that no one should be awake and trying to contact him unless it was some kind of emergency. Or it's Coach or Nate and he has to go into work after all. That would really, really fucking suck.

Turns out, he discovers when he unlocks his phone, it was just Matty. Of course.

Ry wake up

Hey come on

If I bring you soup will you let me in

Ryan blinks at his phone and like, he’d ignore it if it were anyone else. A glance at the time - just after three thirty in the morning - says that would be received as a no. But. This is Matty.

This is Matty and he can’t not respond in general, but, also, if he doesn’t let him in, he’ll just come in anyway. Or throw stuff at his window again. Maybe this time he’d actually manage to get the right window.

Obviously, though, the best solution is to avoid all of that altogether. The light of his screen is giving him a headache, so Ryan calls him, and he picks up on the second ring.

“Hey, Ry.”

“It’s three in the morning.”

“Almost four.”

“That’s not better.”

“Whatever. You sound like shit.”

“Thanks.”

Matty laughs and there’s a loud beep on the other end. “So will you let me bring you soup?”

Ryan would love that on like, every level, really. But, “don’t you have a game tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“Please tell me you’ve slept.”

There’s a long pause before Matty replies. “It’s chicken noodle.”

“Matthew.”

“Ryan.”

“Go to bed.”

“Well, I already heated up the soup, so, too late.”

Ryan sighs and buries his face in his pillow and, if his laughter is anything to go off of, Matty knows that’s exactly what he did.

“I’ll be there in thirty.”

He sits up, which just makes him cough for a solid fifteen seconds. “You don’t have to, and it isn’t a thirty minute drive.”

“It is if it’s before four in the morning and there’s a sick kid that needs soup.”

He ignores the kid thing. “Please be careful.”

“I’m always careful. Front door open?”

“Should be.”

“Okay, I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay.”

Matty’s there twenty-eight minutes later. Ryan only knows this because he’d spent the entire time just staring at the clock on his dresser, since his phone screen even at its most dim was still too bright to look at for any period of time.

His door creaks open, and Matty walks in, shuts the door behind him, and shrugs off his coat.

“Hey,” he says as he hangs it on the doorknob.

Ryan goes to respond, but he just sneezes instead.

“Light?” Matty asks, pausing by the light switch.

He shakes his head even though he probably can’t see him. “No. Headache.”

“Okay.”

“Be careful ‘cause I think Ditzy might be in here.” He yawns and it makes his throat hurt, and a little whine escapes him before he can stop it.

“God,” Matty whispers and Ryan squints while he uses his phone to make sure he doesn’t step on the cat on his way over to the bed. He puts a thermos on the table beside it and sits down right next to Ryan, wrapping an arm around him. Ryan, instinctively, leans into it.

“I don’t want you to get sick,” he says, but he doesn’t move.

“If I do will you bring me soup.”

“Probably not at four in the morning.”

“What kind of friend are you?”

“The sensible kind,” he sighs, mentally debating on whether or not it would be worth reaching for the thermos. “And one that obeys traffic laws.”

“I could have gotten here faster,” Matty laughs and brushes Ryan’s hair away from his face, “but I didn’t want you to freak out.”

“Thanks for that, I guess.”

“How bad is it?”

“Your driving? On a scale of one to ten I’d say fuckin’ terrifying.”

“You’re an asshole,” he says, but it’s amused. “I meant like, the cold or whatever. You really do sound like shit.”

“I feel like it.” Frankly, Ryan’s tired and his head is so stuffed it feels like he’s underwater and also like he was punched in the face, so forgive him for not caring enough to stop himself for adding, “but it’s better now that you’re here.”

“I’m the best Tylenol,” Matty replies, but it’s really quiet, and Ryan really wishes it wasn’t so dark so he could see him better, but he’s also not feeling well enough to turn on any lights yet.

“Please, you cause headaches, not alleviate them.”

“That hurts, Ry bread. I’m hurt.”

He doesn’t even get the chance to respond before Matty kisses his temple and his brain just turns to static.

“Better now?”

“Yeah.” He can barely breathe. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

Ryan wishes that were true.

They sit there in silence for a while, Matty rubbing soothing circles on his shoulder, and he really is starting to feel a little bit better. It’s nice, and he’s really glad his friend is there, but also… he does have a game and should probably be sleeping.

As though he could read Ryan’s mind, he yawns beside him and shifts a little. “I should probably head back.”

He wants to agree, because he does, but also? It’s really early, Matty is obviously tired, and probably shouldn’t be driving.

“You can sleep here so you don’t have to drive right now. I don’t know, like, where, though. I’m sure the couch is fine, or I can give you a pillow and-”

“Ry. We’ve shared a bed before.”

“I don’t want to get you sick.”

“I don’t think it matters at this point.”

He has a point, and Ryan’s tired, and incredibly comfortable, and Matty is like, really warm, and he doesn’t get to see him very often, and this is just really nice, and-

“Okay.”

“Unless you’d rather I-”

“No, you’re keeping me warm.”

Matty laughs quietly and moves so he can get under the comforter too, and like, it takes probably only five seconds, but Ryan hates the loss of contact immediately. They get situated pretty quickly, though, and Ryan’s got his head on Matty’s shoulder - that will probably kill his arm, he thinks - and it’s just. It feels right.

“I didn’t eat the soup,” he thinks out loud.

“That’s okay, you can eat it later. It’s a little early for soup, anyway.”

“No kidding. Also,” he picks his head up, “we should probably move unless you want me to drool like, all over you. I can’t breathe out of my nose.”

“Comfy,” Matty shrugs slightly, “don’t care.”

“Charming.”

“I try.”

Ryan puts his head back down, nuzzling into his shoulder a little bit. “Thanks for this. Love you.”

“Love you too, Ry-” he gently kisses the top of his head “-now shut up so we can sleep.”

He doesn’t know when or why Matty decided to kiss him this much - twice isn’t that much, really, but it’s the principle of the thing - but he isn’t going to complain. At all.

Ryan presses a kiss to his shoulder, just because he can do that, apparently. “G’night.”

“Night.”

He wakes up at noon, alone, and he wonders if maybe that was all a weird dream, but Matty’s shirt is folded up on his dresser, so evidently it wasn’t. He can’t think of any conceivable reason for him to have left his shirt, and it looks like there’s a piece of paper sitting on it, so he manages - after some struggle - to get out of bed to check it out.

Borrowed a shirt bc you weren’t kidding about the drool. You can wash this one. Also I put the soup in the fridge.

He laughs and sets the note to the side, and he’s just. Really thankful for Matty.

And if he holds the shirt in his hands for a minute or two before he puts it in the laundry basket, well, who’s there to tell?

/

Matty went to Mississauga after his game the night before they played the Steelheads again, and Ryan didn’t know that until he texts him the morning of the game.

I just got back from skate come over I miss u

I saw you four days ago

Yes but you were sick so it doesn’t count

While his logic there is flawed at best, Ryan wasn’t even considering not taking him up on that. Granted, he literally just got home from work and just got changed into a t-shirt and sweats to take a nap, but still. Not going to pass seeing Matty up.

ok omw

He doesn’t bother putting on a jacket, and he doesn’t feel like using up gas to drive what’s more or less just around the corner, and Matty chides him for it the moment he opens the door.

“Where’s your coat, Ryan?” he asks, one hand on his hip, and Ryan can’t help but laugh at that.

“At home, mother.”

“You were just sick and you’re only wearing-” he stops, and his hand drops from his side “-my shirt?”

He looks down at it and then back up at his friend, because he did not, one, mean to, and two, even realise.

“Apparently.”

Ryan doesn’t think he’s making up the pink that looks like it’s starting to spread across Matty’s cheeks, but he also doesn’t want to think about it at all, either, so he just pushes past him and into the house.

Oscar pokes his head up when he walks into the living room, and Ryan leans down to scratch his ears.

“Hey, buddy.”

“Honestly,” Matty says from behind him, “I’m too tired to, like, do anything, I just wanted to see you.”

His chest warms because, well, yeah. That’s exactly why he’s here.

“Me too,” he shrugs.

“We can just watch a movie, then?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I’m gonna go get a blanket. Want one?”

“Nah,” Ryan says, knowing they’re just going to end up sharing one anyway. “I’m good.”

“Okay,” Matty hands him the controller and turns to go upstairs, “look for something.”

Really, he doesn’t care what they watch, because the movie isn’t the point of being here, and he’s absolutely going to fall asleep before it ends, anyway. So he picks the first thing that doesn’t look like what he does watch of it will make his brain melt, and presses play when Matty gets back downstairs, sitting so close to him that he was nearly sitting on him.

“What’d you pick?” he tosses the blanket over both of them.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly, and Matty bumps their shoulders together.

“Well, I guess we’ll be surprised.”

The title card rolls, and Matty grabs his hand under the blanket, and Ryan squeezes it, and they don’t mention it.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking about it, though, because it’s the only thing he can focus on even as he finds himself leaning more and more against Matty until his head is resting on his shoulder and he can barely keep his eyes open.

“Tired?” Matty whispers, and Ryan nods slightly. “Me too.”

He rests his cheek against Ryan’s head and rubs his thumb back and forth across the back of his hand, and it’s comforting enough that, despite how the angle his neck is at should be uncomfortable, he finds himself really struggling to stay awake.

And he knows that it’s weird, okay, like, he’s hyper aware of that fact, but he can’t help but wish they were laying down on the couch watching the movie, tangled together under the blanket and Ryan could rest his head on Matty’s chest instead of his shoulder, and it would be warm and more comfortable for both of them when they fall asleep, and.

And when he falls asleep, he dreams of just that.

He dreams of Matty letting go of his hand, of him wrapping an arm around his shoulder, “hey, c’mere,” of being tugged just so - of laying on top of his friend and falling asleep completely wrapped up in warmth and familiarity, and-

He wakes up with a pain in his neck and a sweaty hand in his, but frankly? With the way Matty is looking at him when he finally moves, it’s like, the next best thing.

“I have to get ready for the game,” he says quietly, running his free hand through Ryan’s hair.

He hadn’t realised he’d been out for that long, and that also means Matty didn’t move which couldn’t have been comfortable, and “did you sleep?”

“Yeah,” he smiles, fond. “You’re a good pillow, I guess.”

“I doubt that,” Ryan laughs lightly, still mostly asleep.

“Well, you smell good, at least.”

“It’s the muffins,” he says, and Matty laughs, and Ryan wonders how long that it’s been one of his favourite sounds. It’s probably been that way for a while.

Matty gives him an older Bulldogs hoodie when he goes to leave, and Ryan promises to wear it to the game.

“I could use your good luck again.”

He doesn’t score this time, but he gets an assist, and Hamilton wins again, and he hugs Ryan after the game - all smiles - so it’s a good day anyway.

“I’ll see you in a week,” he says into Ryan’s shoulder.

“I’ll be here.”

/

Coach asks him and Nate about it first, and the resounding yes from them results in a notice being put up on the corkboard, right next to the schedule:

Sign here if you want to have a holiday party.

The paper is filled in within a week. And so they start planning.

/

The first day Matty gets home for the break they have for Christmas, he once again bothers Ryan before they even open. He’s not complaining.

Tip still doesn’t care.

They do try their best to spend time together while he’s home, but Ryan’s hours are… a lot right now, with the holidays and everything. It kind of sucks, because his only real actual day off that isn’t Christmas Eve and Christmas is the last day Matty is spending in Mississauga before he has to go back to Hamilton.

Matty’s solution to that, apparently, is to spend far more time in the bakery than any one person should need to.

“So you’re sure you won’t bake for me?” he asks, leaning over the glass again, evidently unable to let that go.

“I’m making the cookies for Christmas this year,” he says, “you can have some of those.”

Matty cheers too loud and draws the attention of at least half of the customers in the dining area.

Ryan gives him a look, and he shrugs.

“Worth it.”

/

The holiday party ends up being all of the employees that could make it - which seems to be everyone but Trent - sat around in the dining room, the tables pushed together as they eat the leftover baked goods from the day, but it’s a lot of fun, and Coach passes out little gift bags that have small gifts like goofy pens in them. Nic, Tip, and Alex put on an improvised “show” with their pens, while Dylan and Nate try to influence it from the audience, and Ryan can’t believe these are his friends.

He wouldn’t change a thing.

/

Both Christmas Eve and Christmas itself are, as always, a blur of friends and family and travelling and big dinners, and it’s all very fun, but it leaves Ryan dead tired. As much as he loves the holidays, this year he was more excited for the day after them, because he finally got to spend a day with his best friend.

He didn’t really think it would start as early as it does, given his phone rings on his porch within fifteen minutes of waking up.

“Let’s build a snowman,” Matty says the moment he answers his phone.

“Good morning,” he laughs.

“Morning. Let’s build a snowman.”

“Are you serious?”

“Do I have to start singing at you,” Matty asks, and he starts humming that song, and Ryan really doesn’t think he can take that.

“If I agree will you not do that?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes,” he sits up and stretches, “we can build a snowman.”

“Good, because I’m on your porch and it’s cold.”

“Oh my god, Matty, come in.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” and Ryan wants to say that he couldn’t have known that he needed to, but Matty hangs up before he can.

He tosses his phone onto his bed next to him, and he hears the front door close followed by heavy footsteps coming up the stairs.

Matty appears in his doorway, his toque covered in snow and his nose red, and Ryan can’t help but just laugh at him. “What if I hadn’t answered my phone?”

“Then I would have come in to wake you up anyway,” he shrugs and walks over and sits down next to Ryan.

“You’re the worst.”

“Nah,” he grins, “but I can be.”

“What does-” Ryan yelps when Matty presses a cold hand to his cheek.

Matty laughs, doubled over, which just makes it all the easier for Ryan to shove him off his bed. He just lays there as he settles down and kicks Ryan’s leg. “C’mon, get ready. We have a snowman to build.”

“Why do you want to build a snowman so badly?” He asks, but he gets up and pulls a sweater on anyway.

“We haven’t in a couple of years,” Matty says, sitting up and leaning against the bed. “And I missed you and it could be fun.”

He contemplates changing out of his pajama pants, but decides to just pull a pair of sweats on over them. “Didn’t we make one last year?”

“No, Dyls and Mikey did. We threw snowballs at it.”

“Oh, right.” He can’t help but smile at the memory. “Well Mikey is out with Nate right now, so I think ours will be safe for a while.”

“It’s definitely gonna be collateral damage.”

“I mean,” he turns to his friend as he shrugs on his jacket, “not if we ruin it first.”

“You want to hurt our son? Ryan,” Matty clutches his chest dramatically. “I can’t believe you.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “No, I just didn’t want Dylan and Mikey to get the satisfaction.”

“Oh,” Matty stands up. “That’s a good idea, then.”

He walks over and helps Ryan put on his scarf even though he definitely did not need to do that, and his knuckles rest against his chest, lingering there. Ryan can’t stop staring at him, and Matty is just staring at his own hands, and it kind of feels like everything around them has frozen entirely. Ryan nearly gasps when he looks up and their eyes meet, and Matty is smiling and Ryan kind of hates how much this is affecting him.

Matty presses into his chest with his knuckles and lets go of the scarf, turning to walk out the door. “Let’s gooo!”

He rolls his eyes and follows him out, wondering how the hell he got so fond of this actual loser.

There isn’t enough snow to build an actual proper snowman, really, and he says as much, to which Matty waves a hand dismissively.

“We’ll make do.”

The process of trying to actually make the snowman was harder than he remembered, and the lack of snow didn't make it any easier. Not to mention they kept getting distracted by throwing snowballs at each other every couple minutes, and there was the time Matty shoved snow down his shirt and he chased him around until they slipped and fell and ended up in a laughing pile, and Ryan put a handful of snow in his face which was really close to his, and-

They end up with a small and lumpy mostly-snowman shaped mass of snow that Matty presses pebbles and a stick into to make a face.

"It looks like Dylan," Matty muses. "It's just missing a Lakers hat."

"I don't think I have any," Ryan sticks his hands in his pockets. It's a shame, really, because the idea of that monstrosity wearing a hat to make it look like Dylan is pretty hilarious.

"Damn."

"Let's take a picture of it, and then we can take it out," Ryan picks up a stick and holds it like it's a sword, and that earns a laugh from his friend.

"Better, let's take a picture with it. Family portrait." Matty shakes the phone in his hand for emphasis.

Ryan rolls his eyes, but they get in position, kneeling on either side of it, and Matty holds up two fingers behind his head with the hand that isn't holding his phone. He takes the picture, and he leans over to look at it.

It's pretty cute.

Matty must think so too, because he sets it as his lock screen.

"I can't believe he has to die," Matty pats the snowman's head after he pockets his phone. "He doesn't deserve it."

"Nope," Ryan shakes his head and picks up the stick he'd pretended was a weapon earlier. "He is a war criminal, Matty."

"No," he gasps. "What has he done?"

"Unthinkable things. He must pay for them."

"Where did we go wrong? We should have given him more chocolate milk when he was younger."

"What would that have changed?" Ryan asks, laughing.

"Don't tell me having more chocolate milk wouldn't make a childhood better," Matty bumps their shoulders together. "Maybe he wouldn't have taken this path."

"I guess so. Sorry you didn't get enough chocolate milk as a child, bud."

“I can’t watch,” Matty says, dramatically throwing an arm over his eyes and leaning into Ryan to the point he almost stumbles over. “It’s too much.”

He shrugs him off with a laugh, lining up his swing with the stick. “I feel like I should be quoting Game of Thrones here.”

“Do you think the reason the people of Westeros are like that is because they don’t have chocolate milk?”

“What is with you and chocolate milk?” Ryan laughs.

“I’m thirsty.”

Ryan swings the makeshift sword at the snowman and it breaks on contact with the snow instead of actually doing any damage, and after a moment of just staring at it, Matty just kicks it over.

“Time for hot chocolate.”

He starts walking toward the house and Ryan shakes his head, following suit. His friend is so fucking weird.

Not that he’d have it any other way, of course.

Ditzy follows them into the kitchen, rubbing against Matty's legs the moment they stop at the counter. She starts purring as soon as he leans down to pet her.

"I think she just loves Matts," Ryan muses and scoops her up when she steps away from him for a moment. He holds her to his chest and kisses her nose.

"A good choice," Matty scratches under her chin. "She knows what's up."

"One day she'll realise the error of her ways. Won't you, D?"

"I guess I'll just have to win her over, then," he says, and then he's standing really close and he kisses the cat's head, but he doesn't step back, and the air feels way too thick for Ryan to breathe.

"Yeah."

The look on his friend's face when he looks back up at him is strange, his smile very slight, and it makes his stomach flip.

“So,” he swallows, nearly out of breath, “you grab the mugs and I’ll find the marshmallows?”

Matty’s expression does something weird before settling on slightly amused. “You’ll find the marshmallows? Don’t you live here?”

“Matt hides them sometimes,” he shrugs and sets Ditzy back down on the ground when she starts twisting around. “Never well, but he tries.”

“You guys make no sense,” Matty shakes his head and moves easily around the kitchen to gather two mugs and the hot chocolate mix, while Ryan tries not to think about the fact that he knows where everything is.

Because of course he does. He’s been in this house a million times. Get it together, Ry.

By the time he finds them - behind the cereal? Really, Matthew? - Matty’s pretty much finished making the drinks himself.

“Where would I be without you?” he jokes, setting the bag on the counter next to the mugs Matty’s stirring.

“A few more minutes away from having a drink, I guess,” he grins and slides one of the mugs over. “Besides, you never make it right.”

“That was one time.”

“One time too many,” Matty stuffs a handful of marshmallows into his mouth before putting any in his drink, smiling with puffed out cheeks, and Ryan feels like his heart might have just melted a little. He can’t stop himself from poking one of his cheeks, and Matty throws one of the marshmallows at him.

“Outside?” he asks, even though he knows the answer will be yes. They always sit on the porch to drink their hot chocolate as though the point of drinking it wasn’t to warm up from being out there in the first place.

Matty picks up his mug and nods, his mouth still too full to speak.

Neither of them really thought about it, just sat on the porch between the chairs, shoulders pressed up against each other. Part of it is probably habit from their older brothers stealing the seats all the time when they were younger, but mostly the chairs are too far apart.

Matty lets his head rest against Ryan's, and neither of them say anything for a while, just sipping at their hot chocolate.

"I'm glad you're here," Ryan says.

Matty sets his hand on his knee, and he can feel how warm it is from the mug through his sweats. "Me too."

He sets his mug down beside him and leans more into his friend, putting his head on his shoulder. "I'm going to miss you," he shivers and Matty wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in even more.

"I think I'll have another year here," he says, quiet, like he simultaneously does and doesn't want it to be true. "We have time."

He wants to ask what it is they have time for, but part of him feels like, on some level, he knows.

"Yeah."

"Hey," he squeezes Ryan's shoulder and waits to continue until he looks at him. "We're good."

"Yeah," Ryan repeats, smiling slightly.

"And when I go-"

"You know where to find me," he murmurs.

Matty smiles, and there's a lot hidden in it, that much Ryan can tell. What exactly that is, though, is a mystery.

"What are you thinking about?"

"You," he half shrugs and moves the hand from Ryan's shoulder to the back of his head, tugging lightly on his hair.

And it's- this isn't the first time he's kissed Matty, okay? Technically speaking at least. There were a couple of dares in middle school - that was an easy way to make money when neither of them cared, and then that one time at a neighbour's birthday party that they don't really talk about.

It is, though, the first time it feels real. Which, yeah, objectively makes no sense, but it's true.

Matty’s hands are warm, and so are the places they're still pressed together - a sharp contrast from the bitter cold around them, and it tastes like the hot chocolate they've abandoned, and.

Ryan feels like, a lot.

They separate and Matty presses their foreheads together, the little puff of air that was probably supposed to be a laugh momentarily visible between their mouths.

"I think I was supposed to ask to do that."

"It's okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe I should ask, just for good measure," he grins. "Can I kiss you?"

Ryan laughs this time, nodding. "Yeah, Matty."

"Awesome."

It quickly gets to be too cold outside to stay out there much longer, and Matty has to go back to Hamilton in a couple of hours, which really sucks.

"I can skip practice today," Matty says as they put their mugs in the sink.

"No," Ryan shakes his head, because they both know he couldn't - and wouldn't - do that.

He goes to respond, but yawns instead, and Ryan smiles softly. He reaches over and pulls Matty’s beanie off.

"Nap time?"

"Nah, I can stay awake," he shakes his head. "It's fine."

Ryan rolls his eyes and takes Matt by the hand, dragging him over to the stairs. "You know I don't care, dude."

"I hardly got to even see you, Ry."

"I know, I was there."

"Funny," he deadpans, watching Ryan hang up his jacket and scarf once they get up to his room.

"Thanks. I try," he runs a hand through his hair and sits on his bed.

He reaches out and Matty walks over to him, grabbing the outstretched hands in his own and letting them swing between them.

"C'mon, nap with me," Ryan squeezes his hands. "Don't be grumpy Matt at practice."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he laughs. "I'm never grumpy."

"Uh huh," Ryan nods. "Sure."

Matty rolls his eyes, but he takes off his jacket and hangs it on the doorknob before coming back and sliding into the bed next to Ryan, both of them trying to get comfortable under the pile of blankets.

"What time do you have to leave?"

"Five?" Matty guesses.

"Alarm for four?"

"Okay."

Ryan nods and sets the alarm, rolling over to put his phone on his bedside table. When he rolls back over, Matty leans in to kiss him again, just a quick little peck, and neither of them are able to stop smiling.

"Why today?" Ryan asks before he can stop himself.

Matty just shrugs. "Didn't want to wait anymore."

Ryan can feel his face heat up, and he moves closer to him, tucking his head under his chin so Matty couldn't see it. He wraps his arms around him and holds on tight, and it's the most comfortable Ryan has felt in a while.

Later, Mikey and Nate get home, pausing in his doorway, and he's just awake enough to mutter "hi guys."

They share a look, then look back at him.

"Hey, Ry," Nate waves and they keep walking.

He falls asleep with the fading sound of their conversation as they continue down the hallway and Matty's steady heartbeat filling his ears.

People talk about that one moment, the one they get where they realise they love someone, or that they want to marry them, or whatever the case may be. And maybe he just missed it, but Ryan's pretty sure he never had The Moment with Matty.

There just wasn't any one moment where he felt so profoundly different about him that it changed how he felt, or whatever.

It makes him feel a little like he's misreading himself, or Matty, or just everything in general.

But also, he thinks when the alarm goes off and he wakes up, still tucked up against his best friend as he slowly blinks awake, that's kind of bullshit. Like maybe he didn't have that One Moment, but he's had a thousand littler ones. They all matter the same amount to him.

He can't exactly pinpoint the time where the way he loved Matty - because he's always loved Matty - shifted into whatever it is now. But he knows that it did, and that's kind of what matters.

"What?" Matty smiles fondly, his voice soft with sleep.

"I love you."

"I love you too, Ry."

They've said it what feels like a million times - and maybe they have, Ryan's too tired to figure out if that's even mathematically possible. It's probably not - and maybe Matt still means it in the other way, their normal way.

But Ryan doesn't. And that's kind of a first.

And he hasn't had the one earth shattering moment, but this, he thinks, might be as close as he gets.

"We should probably get up."

"Nah," Matty squeezes him a little. "We have an hour."

Ryan rolls his eyes and props his chin up on Matty’s chest. "You have to leave in an hour."

"Shh," he pushes his face, "don't say the L word."

"That is definitely not the L word."

"It's an L word."

"Technically, yeah."

He hears Mikey before he sees him when he shouts "cuddle pile!" and flops down on the bed beside Matty, followed shortly by Nate landing on Ryan's other side.

"Hey, Matty?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I say the L word now?"

Matty laughs, and Mikey stares at Ryan in disbelief, "can you say what now?"

"Sure, Ry."

He looks at his brother. "Leave."

"That's not the L word," Nate says.

"That's what I said."

"Hey Nate," Mikey props his head up on his hand.

"Yeah?"

"What's the L word then?" He asks, his tongue poking out between his teeth.

Ryan practically feels Nate roll his eyes behind him. "I love you."

"Aw, I love you too."

"Can you two not be like this in my bed, please," he groans, burying his face in Matty's neck. "I sleep here."

/

The day Alex walked right into the back office as soon as he clocked in, only finally emerging a half hour later raised a lot of questions, and the more he thought about it, it shouldn't have been much of a surprise when he gathered Ryan, Nate, and Nic together when the ten o'clock rush ended to let them know he'd just put in his two weeks. Well, technically, it was a little longer than two weeks, given that his last day would be the end of January. He'd been talking about moving to northern New York for so long at this point that Ryan was honestly a little shocked that it hadn't happened sooner. Still, knowing something would eventually happen and being actually faced with it are two completely different things.

It's... a lot to take in. He's known Alex for a while, considering he and Mikey were friends in high school, so, on a personal level, he's going to miss him. On an "I work here and I'm going to be losing one of my best coworkers - wait. Employee. That's still weird - when we're already short-staffed" level, he's incredibly fucking stressed out. He knows he and Nate are going to need to talk to Coach about it, and the two of them are likely going to have to discuss how they're going to pick up the slack, and-

Right. Focus on Alex for right now. It's more important.

"You said the end of January?" He asks as Nate drapes himself over Alex's entire back.

"Yeah. The thirty-first is my last day," he nods, and pats Nate's arm that's across his chest. "You'll be okay, Nater."

"You're leaving us."

"In over a month."

"Still!"

/

"Do you have any plans for New Year's?" Tip asks him the moment he steps behind the counter.

"I was just talking to Nate about that, actually."

"Oh. Do you? Does he?"

"Neither of us do, no. He was probably just going to come over or something. We're working on it," he shrugs and watches Tip make his coffee.

"Lame. Both of you have plans now. Mikey, too. Be at my apartment at nine." With that, he disappears into the back, shouting "Nater!" presumably to tell him the same thing.

That makes everything a lot easier, really. He kind of misses just hanging out with the Stromes on New Years, but it's whatever. Everyone's gotta grow up at some point. Still, it's nice to have plans, even if he doesn't have any idea where Tip lives or what the invite actually entails. He'd probably get details later. Probably.

He doesn't get the chance to talk to him about it, though, and New Year's doesn't come up again until he's talking to Nate about the guy that'll be coming in to fix the hot chocolate machine when Nic pokes his head into the dish area.

"Hey," he stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks over to them.

"Can you do the dishes when you get a chance?" Ryan gestures to the full sink.

"You sound like Nate."

"That's my job now," he shrugs, and Nate snorts.

"I'll get 'em. Gotta clock in first."

"Okay," Nate nods and turns back to Ryan. "So if he comes in and I'm not-"

"Can I interrupt?"

"You just did," Ryan points out.

"Right. Do either of you have plans for Sunday night? We're having a party at the apartment."

Nate and Ryan just share a look. He was really pretty sure that Nic would be at Tip's thing, and he's glad he isn't the only one that thinks it's weird that he wouldn't be. He's a little concerned that maybe something happened, but the more pressing problem is telling him that they - apparently - have plans.

Tip peeks around the corner. "Yo, I already told them to come."

"Oh," Nic says. "Okay cool."

"Wait, I thought it was at Tip's apartment?" Nate looks between the two of them, and honestly Ryan's as lost as he is.

"Yeah," Nic nods. "It's at our apartment."

"Our?" They say at the same time.

"Jinx," Tip calls out as he walks back up to the front when the front door opens.

"Yeah? Did you not know that?"

"No," Ryan shakes his head. "Why would we know that."

"Dunno. Gonna go clock in."

With that, he leaves, and Nate whispers "what the fuck." Ryan just shrugs, and they relocate to dry storage to continue talking so Nic can do the dishes.

He waits around for the half hour after his shift ends for Nate to be able to leave, and they head back to his house together, immediately sitting on either side of Mikey on the couch when they get there.

“You have plans for Sunday.” Nate says.

“Do I?”

“Yeah,” Ryan nods. “Tip invited us over, and then Nic did. Turns out they’re roommates.”

“Oh my god,” Mikey whispers, unable to contain his stupid grin when he continues, “they were roommates.”

The next day he's able to get more information regarding the party out of Tip when it's just the two of them before open. Besides Tip and Nic and the people he's going with, the only other person he's likely to know is Alex, but there's going to be a lot of others too. Ryan's never been in their apartment, but he's a little concerned that they're going to have enough space for that many people to breathe.

/

He has off Sunday, like always, and spends most of the morning on the phone with Matty.

"Pretty fuckin' unfair that I get to actually kiss you on New Years. Except that I don't," Matty groans.

Ryan puts the phone between his shoulder and his ear so he can open the can of ravioli he's been meaning to eat for like a week. "Trust me, I know."

"Well, I hate it."

"Noted."

"What are your fun New Years plans? I'm gonna try to live through you, since I'll just be on the bus if we don't make it back by midnight.”

"Well," he takes his phone and moves it to his other ear, holding it with one hand while he shakes the ravioli into his bowl. "My coworkers that live together are throwing a party, so Nate, Mikey, and I are gonna go to that."

"You sound so old. Coworkers' party."

"Sure. Anyway I'm going to go to the party, and then I'm gonna kiss every boy at midnight."

"Every boy?"

"Every one."

"Sounds like a bad plan when your brother and his boyfriend are going to be there."

He sets the can down on the counter. "They don't count, asshole."

"You said every boy."

"You are the worst person on this planet."

"Oh yeah, definitely."

Ryan puts the bowl in the microwave and shakes his head. "How do I put up with you?"

"Dunno. Glad you do, though."

"Someone has to, I guess."

He just watches the bowl spin around, and neither of them say anything for a couple minutes. He's got a mouthful of ravioli when Matty finally breaks the silence, speaking quietly enough that Ryan barely makes out what he said.

"You're not, like, actually going to kiss someone at midnight, are you?"

He swallows and it burns his throat on the way down which is pretty damn uncomfortable. "No Matty, of course I'm not."

"Okay."

"I wish I was spending the night with you," he sighs and pokes at the contents of his bowl with his fork.

"Me too."

"I can call you," he realises suddenly, dropping his fork. "Like, just before midnight, y'know? We can still ring in the new year together or whatever."

"That sounds perfect."

Not long after that Matty has to go, because they were getting close to the arena, and Nate makes his way downstairs, hair a mess and work uniform wrinkled from sleeping in it since he got there after his shift ended.

“Morning, sleeping beauty.”

“You and your brother are the same person,” he says, pointing a banana he pulled out of the bowl of fruit at him.

“Don’t insult me like that, dude.”

“We’re leaving at nine,” he shrugs instead of responding to that and goes back upstairs.

That gives him time to listen to Matty’s game while he gets ready and it… isn’t the best. He winces as they walk into the apartment and he pulls his headphones out, the game just ending 7-3 in Niagara’s favour.

Tip crashes into him, nearly knocking him into Nate. “Hey! You losers made it!”

“Unfortunately.”

“Shush,” he presses a finger to Ryan’s lips. “No negativity allowed.”

“We might as well just make him leave, then,” Alex laughs, appearing by his side.

“I hate both of you.”

“See.”

They’re given the most brief tour of the small apartment and introduced to some of the people that were there - “more people are coming later I promise” - and finally shown where the drinks are.

Owen vanishes after that, and they grab their beverages - water for Nate, soda for Ryan, and some cheap beer for Mikey.

Tip, it turns out, wasn’t lying about more people showing up, because the closer they got to midnight, the more it seemed like the flow of people steadied, and he couldn’t help but wonder where they hell they even found all of these people.

It, at the very least, means there’s always something funny happening, so there’s that.

At 11:58, his phone rings, and when Nate gives him a questioning look, he shrugs. “Gotta go take this. I’ll be back.”

He answers it while he tries to remember where the bathroom is from Tip’s directions over two hours prior.

“Hey.”

“Hey. Are you sure that it’s okay that I-”

“Don’t,” Ryan stops him, pulling the bathroom door shut behind him, just glad it wasn’t occupied. “There’s no one here I’d rather talk to than you.”

Maybe that was more sappy than intended, but he meant it, so.

“If you’re sure.”

“Of course. Sorry about your game.”

“Me too.”

They just sit there in silence, not really having much more to say.

He can hear everyone chanting as the seconds tick down. Ten, nine, eight-

“Hey, Ryan?”

Six, five, four-

“Yeah?”

Two-

January

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Happy new year.”

“You too.”

Not for the first time that night he wishes Matty had been able to make the trip from Hamilton out to the apartment for the night. Honestly, and he isn’t sure why he hadn’t considered it before, he probably could have just gone over to Hamilton himself and just spent the holiday with Matty.

When he voices those thoughts, Matty laughs. “I think I’m less fun than a party with your friends, Ry. And I only just got back.”

“Clearly you don’t know my friends.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ve been in the bakery, like, five times ever and it’s complete chaos. You can’t tell me everyone in one place plus more people isn’t at least hilarious.”

He has a point there, at least. Even if it isn't everyone from work. Far from it, really.

“Yeah, but-” someone knocks on the door, stopping him mid-sentence. “One second,” Ryan says toward the door and curses under his breath.

“Gotta go?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Have fun, love you.”

“Love you too.”

He hangs up and leans against the sink for a moment, tucking his phone into his pocket with a sigh.

It’s hard not to be… annoyed? Is annoyed the right word? Whatever it is, Ryan just hates that he’s spent at least a small portion of time around midnight the past few years on New Year’s thinking about kissing Matty at the end of the countdown. Especially last year when he was drunk and leaning his entire weight against Ryan on the couch, rambling about who even knows what.

And this year was his chance, he thinks, like an actual real honest to god chance and he still didn’t get to have that.

The person knocks again, louder this time, and he runs a hand over his face, pushing off the sink, not quite ready to go back to the party. This is what he gets for choosing to hide out in the bathroom instead of like, the hallway or something.

The moment he steps out of the bathroom and appears in the entrance to the living room, Alex throws an arm around his shoulder. "Dude, you fucking missed it."

"Midnight happens every day, so-"

"No, dude," he shakes him slightly. "Nic kissed Tip."

Honestly, he finds that entirely unsurprising. Those two have the actual strangest friendship - like, if he didn't know them any better he'd assume they would be engaged by the end of 2019, but he does know them, so. Well, really, he'd heard them debating the merits of getting married for the financial benefits more than once, so he supposes he could still expect that of them. Who knows anymore.

"That surprises you?"

"I guess not," he shrugs. "You still missed it."

"I guess."

"I think someone got it on video, though, 'cause a bunch of these idiots bet them they wouldn't do it."

Ryan thinks about how many times he and Matty were on their end of that. Kissing someone is easy money in general, so why people so consistently think that people that close to each other wouldn't do it is so stunning to him. Well, maybe he just hangs out with the outlier crowd there, and most people wouldn't kiss their friend for money. That's possible.

"Do they not know them, or what?"

Alex laughs and drags them over to a group of people he doesn't really know all that well, read: at all, except for the one that looks... vaguely familiar. Okay, more than vaguely, he's just pretty sure that that's not-

"Hey Kappy, where's Willy?"

"Dunno. Think he went to get another drink."

"You're useless."

"Obviously," Kappy rolls his eyes and looks at Ryan. "Hey."

"Hi," he offers a half-wave, still trying to process the fact that this is like, actually happening. He's lived close to Toronto his whole life, and his best friends are either in the NHL or have friends in the league, so it isn't like it's unusual for him to see players around or whatever, he just wasn't expecting to see one of the Marlies here. Sue him for being caught off guard. "Nowhere better to be than these losers'-" he points a thumb in the general direction of Tip sitting on Nic on a kitchen chair "-apartment on New Years?"

"Oh yeah," he nods, looking amused, "but that one's-" he nods his head toward Alex "-brother whined at me for four hours until I agreed to come here."

He'd only met Willy a handful of times, and met is a strong term for it, but, still. "He didn't think it would be more fun to go literally anywhere else?"

Not that this hasn't been fun or that he doesn't love his friends, but, like, if he's friends with Kapanen who apparently got invited to other places, those places had to be more interesting.

"See that's what I-" he stops when Willy walks up next to them, drink in hand. "He agrees with me."

"About what?"

Alex interrupts before any more can be said, because he did have a point in coming over here in the first place. "Will, do you know if anyone got Nic and Owen on video?"

"Probably," he shrugs. "Why?"

"I really don't even need to see it," Ryan points out. "I don't actually care."

Alex huffs and pushes his shoulder. “You're no fun. Go back to your brother and his boyfriend.”

“I'm the most fun,” he says at the same time Kapanen snorts “you're one to talk.”

Not dwelling on that for any longer than necessary, Ryan turns and tries to find where Nate and Mikey ended up. The apartment is not even close to large and there's not all that many people, so it shouldn't be so difficult.

Eventually he finds them sitting on the floor between the couch and wall, Mikey sitting in Nate’s lap with two drinks in his hands.

“What the fuck are you two doing.”

Mikey looks between the arm of the couch and the wall, to one of his drinks, then back up at Ryan. “...Small.”

He looks helplessly at Nate for a better explanation, and Nate sighs, looking at Mikey in a way that was supposed to be long-suffering but was just as grossly fond as it always is.

“He insisted he needed to also have my drinks because I work tomorrow. Today. Whatever.”

“Right.”

“Your whiskey is so sweet, Nater.”

“It’s apple juice, Mikey.”

“Oh.”

He rolls his eyes and looks back to Ryan. “Phone call go okay?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Must have been pretty important that you missed midnight.”

“I guess,” he shrugs, trying his best not to turn red. He scratches at the back of his neck. “Are you good to drive us home soon, then, or-”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” he says and takes the red cup that had alcohol in it out of Mikey’s hand, downing it in one go.

“Hey!”

/

Ryan isn't paying attention to what's going on in the rest of the bakery, too focused on the nonsense that Nate's been spewing at him for five minutes. He really does miss not being a supervisor, like, more than he would have thought he would. This sucks.

"-so when the order comes in I need you to put the truck away and run over the invoice with me before I enter it into the-"

"Hey," a familiar voice says behind him, "can I talk to a supervisor?"

Nate rolls his eyes, but he's got an amused grin.

Ryan turns around and his heart skips a beat when he sees Matty.

"People never ask to speak to a supervisor, they always say manager," Nate laughs.

"But I wanted to talk to a supervisor," Matty shrugs.

Ryan turns back to Nate. "I'm gonna go eat. I'll be twenty unless we get busy."

"I'll talk to you later, then. Find me when you're done."

Nate walks off and Ryan takes a muffin from where they're cooling instead of from the display case. "You saved me from dealing with paperwork and shit."

"So, from doing your job? Pretty sure that's not a good thing."

"Any time I have a valid reason to not be doing work is a good thing."

"I feel like that's not true, but I don't have a job, so how would I know," Matty shrugs and follows Ryan down the line so he can meet him at the end of the counter.

"Exactly," Ryan points at him with the muffin, "so shush."

"Don't shush me on my birthday."

"You deserved it."

They sit down at a table in the corner, and Matty immediately hooks their ankles together under the table.

"I didn't get you a present," he mumbles into his muffin, kind of ashamed. He'd really wanted to, honest, it was just a matter of finding something, and then buying it, and, yeah.

"It's okay," Matty shrugs it off. "You're here."

"At work?"

"Shut up," he laughs. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah. So how was your morning?"

"I'd rather you got the day off than Dylan, but, you know."

"You absolutely do not wish that," Ryan shakes his head, because he knows Matty, and he knows he gets to see Dylan even less often than they get to see each other. It's why he agreed to take the shift in the first place.

"Yeah."

Ryan takes another bite of his muffin, and usually he's fine with sitting in silence with his friends - it's comfortable and familiar - but he's like, literally on the clock here.

"How's your season?" He asks, even though he knows the answer.

Matty just gives him a look. "When did we get to small talk?"

"Just miss you. Don't wanna waste time,” he shrugs and it sounds really ridiculous out loud.

"I just saw you like two weeks ago," he says with a small smile. "How could you possibly miss me that much."

"Shut up, I got used to you being around here and bothering me. It was terrible."

"I bet." He reaches across the table and squeezes Ryan's wrist. "Miss you too."

They just smile at each other for a moment, and Ryan tosses another piece of muffin into his mouth. "You're so old."

"Sure am, so watch yourself, young man."

Ryan rolls his eyes. "Sorry, grandpa."

"That's what I thought," he nods, and Ryan throws a blueberry at him, laughing when it hits him square in the forehead.

"It's unfair to throw things at me when I have nothing to throw at you, Ryan."

"It's unfair to be mean to me when I'm at work."

"You're getting paid for me to be mean to you, though."

"I guess."

"I didn't get to hug you on your birthday," he says, playing with his sleeves instead of looking at Ryan, "and I don't get to on mine either."

"Why not? I'm literally right here."

"You're at work?"

"Okay? I can hug you at work."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, Matty," he laughs. "Trust me, Mikey and Nate are so much worse all the time."

"Still?"

"I wish I could say no, I really do."

"Gross."

"You have no idea."

About seven cars pull up at one time and Ryan sighs, letting his head hit the table. Can't people just not do this this one time? Of course their time was getting cut short.

"I have to go back to work," he sighs when they start to come in. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Matty says, but he looks as saddened by it as Ryan, which is comforting but also pretty upsetting.

They get up from the table and Ryan wraps him in a tight hug, whispering "I love you" into his shoulder.

"I love you too," he responds, just as quietly.

They separate, and Ryan balls up the paper from the muffin. "Happy birthday."

"I'll call you after the game?"

"Of course."

He tries not to be too bitter when the customers pile in and Matty offers him a slight wave as he leaves, but he can’t really help it.

Not for the first time he wishes he could actually go watch Matty’s games or at the very least stream them, but he, as usual, just ends up listening to it while playing mindless games on his phone, smiling to himself when the game ends and the Bulldogs win 3-2.

Ryan opens his laptop just four minutes before the Skype ringtone blares from its speakers, so used to receiving the call after games that he knows nearly exactly how much time it takes from the buzzer to Matty getting home just on instinct.

He wraps a blanket around his shoulders and sits up, pulling the laptop into his lap when he presses answer and waits for the video to connect.

"Hey," Matty says, still shifting around in his bed, pulling his covers up to his chin.

"Hey. Good game tonight."

"Thanks," he smiles. "Wish you were there."

"Me too."

"Speaking of," he sits up higher. "Come to Hamilton?"

"If I have a night off and can get out to a game, then-"

"No, I mean-" he takes a deep breath "- like, come stay with me for a couple of days. My billet parents are really cool- you've met them before, right?"

"Yeah, kinda."

"Well they'd definitely be okay with it. They both work during the day anyway so they wouldn't even be around to be annoyed by your face or whatever."

Ryan lets that sink in for a moment. Matty wants him to stay with him. In Hamilton. For a few days. Like. Days. He looks so hopeful, but also kind of nervous, which is dumb, because of course Ryan would love to take any chance he gets to spend time with him. But also.

It's something that's been in the back of his mind for the past week and a half: he just doesn't have any idea what it is that they're doing. At all, really. And this - it's a lot.

He must be taking too long to respond, because Matty looks disappointed and sinks into his bed a little bit. "Or not, I mean, you're busy and shit, I get it."

"I didn't say anything."

"I know."

"You know I want to spend time with you, Matty."

He brightens up a little bit at that. "So?"

Ryan thinks for a moment, and bites at his lip. "I can't say right now. Obviously I want to, just dunno if I can."

"Okay," Matty nods. "You sure it's okay, though?"

Not really. "Yeah. I have to work tomorrow, though, so I should go to bed."

"Right. Just let me know?"

"Sure. G'night."

"Night. Love you."

"Love you too."

He ends the call and tosses his laptop to the foot of his bed, burying his face in his hands. He really, really does love Matty - more than he'd have thought imaginable, probably - and he doesn't doubt that he does love him too, he just isn't sure that it is in the same way. It's pretty terrifying to think about in every conceivable way, that he still loves him in the 'we've been friends forever and we're basically family' way.

Realistically it's probably a stupid concern to have, but the pine tree he can barely see outside through the dark is taunting him.

He gets up to shut his curtains and crawls back into bed, but he doesn't fall asleep for hours, still.

He Skypes Matty a few days later on his day off, sitting at the kitchen island with his laptop in front of him while they both eat cereal and mess around on their phones in relative silence. With pretty much anyone else this would feel weird, probably, but with Matty it's nice. It's like he gets to have his company even though he's not actually there. It's a comforting feeling.

Well, it was.

“So do you know if you're gonna come down here yet?” Matty asks through a mouthful of what's probably Lucky Charms.

Ryan sighs and lets his spoon fall into his bowl with a little clink.

“Oh,” Matty breathes out before he can even speak, looking down into his bowl as he swirls around the marshmallows Ryan knows he left in the bowl to eat last like he always has.

“I didn't say anything.”

“You didn't have to,” he shrugs with one shoulder and stabs into the bowl. Ryan stays silent until he hears the small ting of the spoon breaking through the marshmallow, hitting the bottom of the bowl.

“Matty-”

“It's okay, Ry bread.” He looks back up at the camera with a weak smile, and Ryan hates it. “I know you're busy.”

“Matt can I talk, please?” he asks with a little more heat behind it than intended, because he's not mad at Matty, not even annoyed per say, just. Well. It's a lot of emotions he's going to have to unpack after his best friend stops looking like Ryan kicked his dog.

It does the job, though, and Matty nods, tight-lipped.

“I haven't seen Coach in a while,” he lies, “so I haven't had the chance to ask. I don't know when the next time I work with him is, either.”

“Oh,” he says again, stuffing a spoonful of now soggy marshmallows in his mouth.

“I told you I want to and I meant it.”

He did. He really did mean it, even if he's also debating it.

“I know, but-”

“I love you,” he says as a means to change the subject and reinforce what he'd said. “You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” he nods with a more genuine smile this time. “I love you too.”

“I promise I'll let you know as soon as I know, okay?”

As soon as I make up my mind, he means but doesn't say.

“I know. I'm sorry.”

Ryan doesn't know how to express that he shouldn't be, that he's the one that should be apologising. A simple ‘I'm working on it’ or ‘not sure’ would have sufficed, but instead he'd reacted the way he did. And as glad as he is to be talking to Matty, now he kind of just wants to sulk, so he knows he's not going to be good company.

Even though it's very obviously not the time to do so, he glances at the corner of his screen to pretend to be looking at something.

“My laptop is going to die so I'll call you back later?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, see you.”

“Bye, Ry.”

Ryan waves and shuts his laptop, immediately resting his forehead on it with a possibly overly dramatic sigh.

He really, really has to figure out his shit before he ruins something good before he even has the chance to have it in the first place.

"Is there something going on with you and Matty?" Mikey asks from the doorway to the kitchen, making Ryan nearly fall out of his seat. "Like, that's fine, but-"

"I don't know," he interrupts before the spiel can get any longer. And that's not a lie, because that's the whole problem, isn't it? He doesn't know how much of that Mikey saw, or if he's asking if they're fighting, or - based on the ‘that's fine, but’ - if he's asking the exact thing Ryan has been wondering himself. Either way, the response works.

He doesn't know if he just managed to cause tension, like it feels like he has, or if they are a thing, or whatever. God, this sucks.

Mikey walks over to him, leaning against the island with one arm. "You don't know?"

He shakes his head, and he must look worse for wear - which, yeah, he certainly feels it - because Mikey pulls him in and hugs him, and like, he loves his brother a lot.

“Thanks,” he mumbles into his shoulder. It's good to know he's got someone in his corner - not that it was ever of any doubt that Mikey would be, no matter what. Still, he thinks when Mikey pulls away, grabs a bottle of Dr. Pepper and goes back upstairs, he's probably going to limit his conversations about Matty with his brothers to that one.

Sure, Mikey came to him with his stuff about Nate, but that was different.

This is different.

/

Coach pulls Ryan and Nate aside to let them know he's hired the two most recent applicants, so they should both be done training around the time Alex leaves which is a relief, since they'll have someone to cover his hours, and an additional set of hands, but they're still kind of understaffed. One thing at a time, Ryan supposes.

Nate nudges his shoulder and gestures to Trent. "I hope you handle these two a little better."

"Fuck you, I was tired."

"Do I want to know?" Coach asks, and Ryan shakes his head.

"Probably not."

"You're right, I don't," he pats both of their shoulders and tells them to go back to work.

"I hate you, I hope you know that," Ryan tells Nate as they make their way back to the front of the store.

The new hires start the next day, and Ryan is to train them in opens while Nate runs the shift and helps him out when he gets the chance. It's a Monday, so they probably won't be all that busy, anyway.

He's in the middle of starting to prepare the coffee so showing them will be faster when one of them walks in, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans.

"Hey," Ryan holds out a hand. "I'm Ryan."

"Right," he nods, shaking his hand and gesturing to his name tag with his free hand. "I see that. I'm Jacob."

"Cool. Can you put a filter on top of the coffee grounds after I pour them? It'll get done faster."

"Sure," he shrugs, and Ryan hands him the stack of coffee filters.

They've just finished the last one when the other gets there.

"Sorry I'm late," he runs a hand through his hair, "I swear I'm never like this. Five is just a little early."

Ryan glances at the clock, and it's only two after five, so it's really not a big deal.

"You're fine," he shrugs and wipes the coffee grounds stuck to his hands off on his pants. "It happens."

"I'm Jacob," he holds out a hand.

"Please tell me you're kidding," Ryan says without thinking, and Slightly Taller Dark Haired Jacob slowly lowers his hand.

"No?"

"Wait, fuck, sorry," he runs a hand over his face, "that was shitty. It's just," he gestures to the Other Jacob, who pats his own chest.

"That's also my name."

"Oh."

This is going to get confusing.

"Hey," Nate walks over to them, "I have three minutes before Baxter yells at me, so I figured I'd come over here and make sure Ryan isn't being the worst."

"This is Nate," he gestures to him instead of responding to that, "we all hate him."

Nate just wipes his cinnamon covered gloves across Ryan's cheeks, grinning. "I'm your favourite."

He tries his best to get it all off his face, but he knows it's pretty pointless. "No. Wrong McLeod."

"Nope."

"Yep. Anyway," Ryan turns back to the Jacobs, the shorter one looking amused, while the other looks just confused and maybe vaguely uncomfortable. "You only missed prepping the coffee, but it'll come up a thousand times later, so you're fine. Brewing it's pretty easy, you just-" he puts the grounds into the machine and presses the button "-like that. Always make a full pot, not the half."

He hands each of them a different flavour and steps to the side to let them do it.

"Look at you," Nate wraps his arm around Ryan's shoulder, "my little baby cloud grew up so fast."

"I've worked here for seven months, Nate."

"Whatever."

The oven timer goes off, so Ryan shoves at Nate's side. "Go see your boyfriend and leave me alone."

"You're being so mean. I'm telling Mikey."

"Good, I'll tell him to fuck off too."

Nate pats his cheek again before going back to the bake area, and he wipes at his face yet again - still to no avail.

"Sorry about that, but you're gonna have to get used to it, honestly."

Both of the Jacobs nod, and Ryan starts to take them through the rest of the open shift tasks.

Tip's scheduled to start at open instead of seven thirty that day so Ryan would have a little help, so he walks in as Ryan is trying to give them a basic rundown of the register before people start to come in.

"How's it goin', Ry?"

"Pretty smoothly."

Tip nods and clocks in before addressing the two people hovering behind Ryan. "'Sup, I'm Tip, and I'm the coolest person here."

"That is absolutely not true," Nate says as he walks past to get the water pitcher.

"That's not what Mikey said last night!" He says, as though that makes any actual sense.

"Dude," Ryan punches his arm, "please don't."

He just shrugs, the giant grin on his face says enough about how little he's sorry about it. "Anyway. You are?"

"Jacob," they say at the same time, and Tip squints at them.

"Nope. Not on my watch.”

"What does that mean?" Taller Cute Jacob asks slowly.

"By the end of the day, neither of you are gonna be Jacob."

"Pretty sure we still will," Shorter Pretty Jacob states with a short laugh. "Unless you can somehow manage to legally change our names without us knowing."

"You know what I meant, pretty boy," Tip says, patting his chest.

"I'll make it easier on you, my best friend calls me Mo."

"Why?" Ryan asks, even though that's like, none of his business.

"He didn't want to call me Jacob and my last name is Moverare."

"He didn't want to call you your name?"

"He's also Jacob."

"There are too fucking many Jacobs in Mississauga," Tip sighs and a customer walks in, and it's a regular, so he goes off to work on her order.

At least Ryan doesn't have to try to come up with any more ways to try to separate the Jacobs in his mind.

"Does this mean I get to be Jacob, then?" Not Mo asks.

"Knowing Owen, no, no you don't," Ryan shakes his head and shows them both how to ring up the customer when Tip brings her order down.

Throughout the next hour or so, they spend most of their time around the register and drinks, and he explains that they try not to rush anyone when they first get there because of how hectic it gets, so they shouldn't really expect to get too overwhelmed for a while. Jacob looked relieved at that, and Ryan can relate. The dead hour starts soon after that, so he takes them back to where the schedule is, so he can go over the people they'll be working with, considering how everyone that works here can be so much to handle, it'll be good to get them prepared.

It more or less boils down to this.

Nic: harmless and entertaining, is a disaster whenever he's with Tip

Dylan: only shows up on the weekends because he's at school, everyone chirps him constantly but it's all in good fun, and he takes it well

Nate: well, you met Nate. He's just like that all the time

Adam: honestly he'd never really worked with him, so, he can't help there, sorry

Trent: mostly does his own thing but he's chill

"-and then Tip. The biggest warning I can give you with him is he will throw shit at you so just. Be ready for that I guess. We love him, though."

Jacob nods, staring at the list of names on the schedule as though it was a study guide for a test he has in two minutes. Mo just laughs, and when the other two look at him, confused, shrugs.

"It seems like this is going to be an adventure."

"We're like a family," Nate walks over to them, wiping the suds from the dishes off his hands with a rag. "Coach only hires people he knows will fit in, so I'm sure you're going to be just fine."

"Coach?" Jacob asks, brows stitched together, and Nate and Ryan laugh.

/

Jacob is starting to get trained for Alex's afternoon shifts, so that leaves Mo to still get trained for the opens with Ryan and Nate. The fact that there's just one trainee and he's getting the hang of things so quickly means that Tip is back to coming in a little later until they can all go back to their usual shifts. It's their first day with just the two of them on the line for the first two hours, and it's a Friday morning, so it'll certainly be a good test.

Mo doesn't seem worried, and neither does Ryan. He's sure they'll be fine.

He’s in the back talking to Nate about the order that needs placed while Mo sets up the line, and his phone goes off in his pocket the same time Nate’s lights up on the desk. Assuming it was something from Coach, they both unlock their phones, only to be met with a text from Nic.

who works today

Nate sighs and puts his phone down. “You tell him, I gotta-” the oven goes off “-that.”

we’re here and so is mo why

no but like who else

tip

I know That

Ryan stares at the wall for a second before looking back down at his phone.

you.

you’re no help. listen everyone has to kiss tipsy today

sorry what

Nate comes back and sits down at the desk, “I can’t tell if we need to order forks today or if we’d be good until Wednesday, so-”

“Oh my god,” Ryan says when Nic sends a screenshot - kiss a ginger day written in bold letters with today’s date.

“What?”

“Not you, just,” he shakes his head and gestures to Nate’s phone.

Nate gives him the ‘tired of your shit’ supervisor look he’s really perfected recently, but he picks it up and reads through the messages anyway, starting to type immediately, and Ryan watches the ensuing conversation happen on his own phone.

I’m not making mo do it

cmon bas please

No

please

Nicolas.

“Full name, Nate? Power move.”

nathan.

It’s almost time to actually open and they don’t have time to do this, so Ryan takes it into his own hands.

I’ll tell him but I won’t make him

“Traitor,” Nate says as Nic replies thanks cloud

He does explain all of this to Mo when he gets back to the front, and he laughs and says he’ll do it.

The early morning goes pretty smoothly and it looks like Mo is going to be good to start taking opens on his own soon, which is frankly a relief. Honestly, if he’s handling Friday mornings well like this so early, he’ll be good.

Tip gets there, his usual too-cheery self for so early in the morning, and Ryan can’t help but wonder if he knows about Nic’s plan. It’s pretty empty, the only customers in the dining room, so he figures he might as well get his over with now.

“Nic dragged me to CVS at two in the morning because he wanted to bother your brother,” he says after clocking in, “which isn’t fair because he gets to sleep in and I didn’t.”

“Sorry to hear that bud,” he says and pats Tip’s shoulder before leaning in and kissing his cheek.

He sputters, but before he can even recover, Mo appears and takes his hand, bringing it up to his lips and kissing his knuckles.

“Good morning, Owen."

Ryan has seen Tip go red many times, but he doesn’t think he’s ever seen him this bright.

“Mornin,’ Mo,” he says and hurries off to the back to hang up his jacket.

The moment he’s out of sight, Ryan and Mo find themselves doubled over with laughter, and when Nate looks over at them, confused, Ryan mouths ‘your turn,’ to him.

Nate’s turn doesn’t come for a while, because he’s stuck baking for a good portion of the morning, and once it dies down and he walks over to Tip, Ryan gets his phone ready, because he knows it’s coming.

With no words, Nate just grabs Tip’s face with both hands and presses a quick little kiss to his nose.

“You too?” Tip asks, laughing.

Ryan sends the picture to Mikey.

It takes exactly thirteen minutes for Nate to smack him with a wet dish rag.

“Stop starting shit you fuck.”

“Love you Nater.”

“I bet.”

As always, everything dies down around one, so the four of them are stood around in the little hallway to the back, while Mo tells a story about his roommate managing to spill pepper all over their entire kitchen. Nate is on door watch even though they’d all be able to hear it, and when it does finally open and Tip pushes off the wall to go to the front, he’s waved off.

“Nic,” he explains.

Tip looks relieved.

“Hey Tipsy,” Nic greets him, walking past everyone else. “How was your day?”

“Weird, because everyone is-”

Nic interrupts him by just leaning down and kissing him, one hand under his chin, tilting his face up.

“I’m never going to understand you two,” Ryan sighs, shaking his head.

“Of course this was your fault,” Tip smacks Nic’s chest when he pulls away. “I hate you.”

“Happy kiss a ginger day!”

/

He’s really just minding his own damn business, so the fact that he can’t stop thinking about going to Hamilton and Matty in general and what if it’s happening again, and. Fuck. He can’t exactly keep putting off deciding whether or not to go or else he’s going to make things worse, but also? If any of this was easy he wouldn’t have spent the last two hours at least staring up at his ceiling as though the answers to his problems would just spell themselves out in the white paint.

It’s- He needs help on this one.

Not that that’s news, really.

"I'm stealing your boyfriend for a couple minutes," Ryan says, walking into Mikey's room. He grabs Nate's wrist and pulls, and he goes without question.

Mikey blinks. "What?"

"I'll return him shortly."

Nate, to his credit, only asks any questions when they get to Ryan's room and the door is shut. "Was I just kidnapped."

"Borrowed, really," he sits on his bed and puts his face in his hands. "I need help and I can't talk to Mikey about it."

"What about Matt?" Nate sits down next to him. "Not that I won't help or-"

"Not Matt. Don't ask about the Stromes either."

"I'm confused."

“Can I just,” he sighs, “can I tell you a story?”

“Is it a good story?”

“Not really.”

“Oh,” Nate nods. “I’m all ears.”

"It was a couple of years ago," he swallows and runs a hand down his face.

"How many?"

"I don't know? Four, maybe. I think we were fourteen." Mostly he'd tried to forget about it, and honestly had done a pretty good job until recently. "Is that important?"

"It could be," Nate shrugs, and Ryan supposes he might be right. In that Nate way of his.

"These neighbours were having a party, and a bunch of the little kids were playing hide and seek. They wanted us to play too, and Matty couldn't say no to them, so we ended up getting dragged into it. It was actually fun, in retrospect, but it got a little old pretty fast."

"Yeah, I imagine."

"So Matty said we needed to find a good enough hiding spot that they wouldn't find us until they moved on."

"That isn't how kids work."

"That's what I said," Ryan laughs. He brings his knees up to his chest and hugs them there. "But we went with that plan anyway. They have this big tree in the yard, and- actually-" he gets up and walks over to the window, pulling the curtain back "-that pine tree over there."

He's always kind of hated having it within sight of his bedroom, especially right after the fact.

"Right," Nate says, mostly just to show he's still paying attention.

"Well, we climbed the tree," he lets the curtain fall back and leans against the wall beside the window. "Really high up, until we were pretty sure the branches were too small to hold us."

"Pine trees aren't great to climb."

Ryan rolls his eyes. "They only had one tree."

"I was just saying."

"I dunno, but. We were up there for a while, and the kids didn't find us, and," he takes a deep breath, "and he kissed me."

"Oh."

He just shrugs.

"Why are you telling me this?" Nate asks, and he makes a face after he does. "That sounded bad, I meant like-"

"Because we never talked about it," Ryan interrupts before he can ramble for too long. He sits back down on the bed, leaning up against the headboard. "I never understood that."

"I'm sorry."

"Nothing you can do."

"I guess not."

He can't look directly at Nate, instead staring at the window even though it's covered. "I'm just worried that it's happening again."

"You're- that. Again?" Nate stumbles, articulate as ever. "What do you mean?"

"I, uh." This, it turns out it a lot harder to talk about than he'd thought. Not that he doesn't trust Nate, obviously he does, considering he hadn't told anyone else about the party thing, but. This is real, like now real. Which is a lot different. "It happened again just after Christmas, and we haven't-"

"Almost a month ago?"

"Well yeah, I guess, but it was like, not a one time th-"

"Wait. More than once."

"Yeah. Uh. A lot, actually."

He finally looks over at Nate again, who is squinting at the ceiling like there's something written up there that's just too small to be able to read.

"New Years," he says without looking away from the ceiling. “The phone.”

"Yeah."

"That makes sense."

"And it's good, you know, but we haven't," he rubs nervously at the back of his neck. "We haven't discussed it. So I don't know what's happening, and I don't," he stops himself with a huff.

"That's... a lot."

"Do you see why I needed to talk to you now?"

"What are you going to do?" Nate asks.

"I wish I knew." This isn't exactly a situation he'd expected to end up in, even after the first time it'd happened. History repeating itself and all that. "He wants me to spend a couple days in Hamilton with him."

"Do you want to?"

"More than anything."

Nate hums, then asks "are you going to," because he knows those are different things.

"I don't know," he groans and covers his face with his hands. "This fucking sucks."

"I think," he pats Ryan's knee a couple of times, "-wait. Do you want advice?"

"As long as it isn't Tip Advice, I'll take it."

Nate laughs and shakes his head. "Good call. Definitely not Tip Advice. Maybe go. Talk when you get there."

"What if I'm like, reading it wrong?" Ryan pinches the bridge of his nose and makes an annoyed noise. "I sound like I'm in middle school."

"It's okay," Nate assures him, and it doesn't make him feel less dumb, but it does help a little bit. "Why do you think you're reading it wrong?"

"I like him, Nate. I mean, a lot. If I go to Hamilton and I bring it up and I make a mess of things, then I have to live with that."

"If you don't go and you never clear the air you'll have to live with that, too."

"When did you get good at advice? I had to pretty much force you to date Mikey a couple months ago."

Nate shrugs with one shoulder. "More practice, I guess."

"Okay, gross, get out of my room."

"You brought it up!"

"Technically."

He feels a lot better having gotten all that off his chest, and Nate's advice isn't terrible, so now he has a legitimate plan that he can worry over instead of just worrying in general. That's an improvement, of sorts. He really is thankful for Nate, as usual.

"Don't. Don't tell Mikey, okay? Please."

"I wouldn't. Obviously you kidnapped me to talk about bakery business," Nate grins.

Ryan sits up straighter and puts on his best businessman voice. "Of course. Bagel sales are down, Nathan, and it is imperative we find out why."

Both of them devolve into laughter for a minute after that, and once he finally catches his breath, Ryan pokes Nate's leg with his foot. "Thanks, Nater."

"Anytime, Ry bread."

Nate pats his knee and gets up, going back to Mikey’s room, and honestly, he feels a lot better. Still nervous, still doesn’t really have any answers about Matty, but he has a place to start, so, it’s better.

Before he can second guess himself Ryan texts him, not even letting himself read over it before hitting send.

sorry it took so long bc I didn’t know what days I could take off but I’m gonna fill out the form tomorrow

Matty, who should absolutely be doing something right now, because Ryan is pretty sure he should be at practice or at the very least getting ready for it, responds before he can even put his phone down.

!!!!

And then-

I’ll call you when I get home?

yeah

It really feels like a weight has been lifted off his chest, and he still hasn’t even done anything, yet.

"I miss you," Matty complains the moment the video connects. "This sucks."

"I'm working on it," Ryan laughs, "and I miss you too."

"Do you have any ideas?”

"After Mikey's birthday?"

"That's so far away."

"It's like, two and a half weeks. I do have to request the days off, you know."

"Yeah. Why'd you have to get a job? This sucks," Matty huffs and crosses his arms.

"Hey, I stayed in Missy, not you."

"I didn't exactly have a choice."

"I didn't say you did."

"Is this a fight? Are we fighting?"

"I don't think so."

"Good. Because this would be a pretty fuckin' stupid fight," Matty laughs and hugs a pillow to his chest, resting his chin on it. "Like, I love you and I wish we didn't have to go through all this."

"It isn't the easiest thing in the world," Ryan admits. "I liked you better forty minutes closer."

"Me too," he nods, and they just smile at each other for a moment. "But right after- you think you can do that?"

"Probably? No one really needs off in February and it's far enough away Coach will have an easier time actually getting the time off. Is that okay with you? No away games?"

"You don't know my schedule?" Matty jokes. "I'm hurt."

"Yeah sorry I forgot I was supposed to tattoo it on the back of my eyelids. I forgot to do that."

"You're an asshole."

"I try."

"You're good at it. And nah, we aren't away until the sixteenth I think." The grin on his face widens and he looks so downright excited it does a lot to Ryan's heart. "God, this is happening."

"Maybe. I still have to get the days off, and permission, and you have to ask your billets, so-"

"You really do hate fun, don't you."

Ryan shrugs. "Just being realistic."

"Well stop it. I want to be excited to see your dumb face."

"You're looking at it right now."

"Yeah, but it's all pixel-y. Not the same."

“No,” he smiles, fond. “I guess it’s not.”

He can’t find it in him to care that he knows he’s making Mikey’s ‘I’m looking at Nate’ face, not when Matty is looking at him in the same way. This - going to Hamilton… it’s the right choice. He can tell that much at the very least.

From there it’s just a matter of getting everything in order, which is frankly a lot easier than he thought it would be.

Ryan tells more than asks his parents about it - which, they trust him, he’s an adult, and it’s Matty, so. They’re fine with it. The only conversation that happened with them was mostly the usual “be a good guest” spiel, which he expected.

He’s morning supervisor the next day, so he puts his name on the request off sheet for the four days after Mikey’s birthday the moment he gets there. No one is probably asking off in the first week of February, but for some reason he’d convinced himself that if he waited until the end of the day or something, someone else would have asked for that.

He does see, though, that Nate had requested off the third. Of course he did.

/

He’s never truly dreaded the thought of going to work before, but here he is, and his coworkers definitely don’t help that notion when he arrives.

"Welcome to Sundays!" Nic cheers the moment Ryan walks in the door.

"I'm gonna hate this, right?" He asks Alex when he clocks in. "I've heard the horror stories."

"You're here just in time, actually," Alex nods. "Church next door lets out in fifteen."

"Great."

He really hates starting in the middle of the morning as is, and Sundays are always talked about like they're doomsday, and apparently the big rush is about to start. He pours himself a cup of coffee and goes into the back to take off his jacket and mentally prepare for a moment. Nate is sitting on the empty shelf in the dry storage, eating a bagel.

"What are you doing."

"I have ten minutes to sit before I have to bake for the next four hours straight," Nate looks so defeated it hurts. "I told you, this sucks."

He just pats his shoulder before shrugging off his jacket.

"Isn't Dyls supposed to be in in like three hours?"

"Yeah, but he can't bake at Sunday Speed."

"Oh god."

"Yup."

"Well, what do you need me to do?"

"Keep up."

Frankly, that was the scariest possible way Nate could have responded to that.

He sees what he means, though, when they suddenly have a line to the door a couple minutes later, and it's all hands on deck until around one when it finally dies down.

He collapses onto the milk crate beside the bake area, making an entirely too helpless sound that earns him a - mostly - sympathetic hum from Nate. Ryan never realised what he went through every week, like, sure, he’d complained to him and Mikey and anyone who would listen all the time, but living that nightmare was a whole different story.

“I’m never going to bake on a Sunday,” he vows, letting his head fall back against the glass behind him. “Never.”

“You won’t,” Nate shrugs, not looking away from the kettle. “You aren’t fast enough.”

Normally he’d protest something like that, because he has gotten a whole lot better at baking since he started doing it more - he’s better than Dylan at the very least, but he saw what just happened. There is no way he could keep up with that.

“Thank god.”

“But-”

“Please, please don’t finish that sentence.”

He knows Nate well enough to know that it would only end in some variant of “you’re gonna have to learn” or some shit, which, yeah, he knows that. For now he’d like to live in blissful ignorance and denial and enjoy his Sundays off, thank you very much.

“Who do I close with today?” Dyls asks, using Ryan’s head as an elbow rest.

“I don’t know,” Nate holds up his sesame seed covered hands, “I’ve been a little busy.”

“Don’t need to be like that,” he huffs and pushes off Ryan’s head, which didn’t feel great.

“Ow.”

“You’ll be fine,” he walks over to where the schedule is hanging, “don’t be a baby. Which schedule is it?”

“The one with today’s date on it,” Ryan laughs, standing up to walk over and help Dylan read, apparently.

“Why is everyone so cranky?” he asks the ceiling before looking back down at the papers. “Adam is gonna get here when you leave, Ry bread.”

“Okay,” he shrugs, because that isn’t information he needs, really.

"Holy shit," Dylan says when he looks at the new schedule hanging beside that week’s, "Ry, you know you have four days off next week?"

"Yeah?" He responds slowly, and he and Nate exchange a panicked look before Dylan turns around.

"Lucky." He pushes Ryan’s chest half-heartedly.

"I requested the days off, so not really," he shrugs and snaps his mouth shut when he realises he definitely should have just let that go. Nate looks sympathetic, but he just goes back to baking instead of helping him out of his corner.

"What are you doing for four days?"

"Spending some time with a friend." Technically not a lie.
"Dude, what friend," Dylan laughs, "all your friends work here."

"That hurts, Dyls," he clutches his chest, "how could you?" Part of him is hoping this'll be enough to get the topic to stay changed, but-

"Fine, not all of them, because-" Dylan narrows his eyes at him, and Ryan really cannot believe this is happening. He starts to grin, though, and pokes Ryan in the chest, "unless you got a girl or something."

"Yeah," he laughs, relieved. "Something like that."

"Hey! Way to go!" He punches him in the shoulder and Ryan just rolls his eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm uh- we're kinda keeping it lowkey I guess? See if it works out first," and that's like, not the truth, but it isn't also by definition a lie, because he doesn't really know what they're doing.

"Cool," Dylan nods and walks up to the front.

Ryan doesn't move - can't, really. That was a little too close for comfort.

Nate walks back and holds out his arms, and Ryan shakes his head, but takes the offered hug anyway.

"It's going to be okay," Nate whispers.

Ryan just nods against his shoulder. He kind of doesn't deserve Nate.

/

The thirty-first comes too quickly.

Alex walks in, and he’s tearing up already, and Nate immediately pulls him into a hug after he clocks in.

“Weren’t you supposed to leave a half hour ago?”

“I clocked out, but I wasn’t going to miss you.”

Ryan takes the oven mitts off his hands after pushing the tray of muffins onto the rack and walks over to them.

“You’re moving Friday, right?”

“Yeah,” Alex nods. “I’m almost done packing.”

“Gonna be weird without you here,” he says honestly.

“You’ll be okay, you’ve got Iggy and Mo.”

“Iggy?” Nate asks, finally letting him go.

“Jacob. Adam calls him that, usually.”

“Oh.”

“Besides,” Alex pours himself a cup of coffee, “Willy’s still in Toronto.”

“Not a fair trade,” Ryan laughs, and Alex laughs with him.

“He has cooler friends, though.”

“Shut up,” Nate says, pulling his jacket on. “You know you love us.”

Ryan’s closing with Alex, and when it’s time for Alex to go, he walks back into the office and looks around it before finally settling on Ryan.

“Anything else you need me to do?”

“Stay safe in New York,” he says. “We’ll always be here.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” he smiles, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“Of course.”

February

Dylan texts him and Nate at eleven on Mikey’s birthday, just a picture of the office and fuck you guys. It didn’t feel worth explaining that he’d be working that shift even if Nate hadn’t requested off.

Nate insisted they do something for him because of the candles and balloon Ryan got from him, and Ryan insisted that he just took those from work and they could only give him java sleeves and napkins.

So Nate bought him an actual present, and Ryan gave him a bag with java sleeves and napkins. It had a piece of coffee cake under that, though, so it wasn’t a total dick move. Honest.

Who even buys actual presents, anyway?

The day is nice enough, and Nate only spends some of it complaining that he was around for both of their birthdays, but Ryan didn’t bother coming into work on his. He’s coming to terms with the fact that that’ll never be let go. He can see it now - he lets his weird brother-in-law give a speech at his wedding, and the first thing out of his mouth is “even though you made me work on my twentieth birthday…”

Maybe he’d bring it up at their stupid wedding instead. Steal his thunder in advance.

“What is your face doing,” Nate laughs and pokes his cheek.

“I’m writing my best man speech,” he says and pokes Nate back, “I can’t wait to talk about how terrible you are in front of everyone.”

Nate turns bright red, and so does Mikey, but that’s from laughter.

He spends his night packing up his clothes for the next few days, and it kind of feels like his hands are buzzing more and more with every thing he stuffs into a bag.

He gets another text from Dylan and he assumes it’s going to be more complaining about needing to work, but instead it reads don’t have too much fun this week ;)

Ryan’s stomach turns, and he very much so does not want to think about this at all.

haha I’ll be good

There’s, like, a hundred thousand feelings going on all at once in his head the next morning as he throws his bag into the backseat of his car and says his goodbyes to his parents and a still very confused Mikey, who had only been given the explanation of ‘visiting a friend.’ He’s excited, because he hadn’t seen Matty in weeks. He’s pretty terrified, not wanting to go out there only to be told it’s nothing, or whatever. Okay, so maybe it’s mostly just two feelings, but they’re big enough that it feels like a hundred thousand. The point stands.

He gets into the car and takes a deep breath, and the leaving rn text he sends Matty is immediately met with a string of heart emojis. That settles his nerves pretty well, and he replies in kind before finally pulling out of his driveway.

The entire drive over he maybe plays the radio too loudly, trying to let it drown out any anxieties he could be having. And it works, mostly, but he doesn’t miss the dirty look from an old lady in the car next to him at a red light.

The drive was really like the shortest it had ever been since he left so early, but it also kind of felt like an eternity.

where should I park?

Driveway. On the left

see u in a sec

!!!!

He parks the car and throws his bag over his shoulder, and he totally considers just standing in the driveway forever, like, if he doesn’t go up to the front door he never has to face the reality of the situation and he can just live out his days frozen in time when he’s excited and things feel good. Like the knowledge that Matty is in that house is so nice, he’s so close, but. Yeah.

Ryan adjusts the strap on his shoulder and makes his way up to the porch, and now he has to knock, and he doesn’t remember visiting friends ever being this hard? All he has to do is just. Lift his hand. And hit the door.

He doesn’t have to, though, because he hears footsteps on the other side and-

It's really nice to see Matty again, and the sentiment seems to be returned, considering the moment the door is opened he's being embraced. "Hey," he sighs into his shoulder.

"Hi."

"What took you so long?" He jokes, pulling him inside and shutting the door behind him. "It's been like three weeks."

"Some of us have jobs."

"Excuse you," Matty grabs him by the wrist and leads him into a different room. "Dealing with you is a full time job.”

"You'd think you'd be used to that by now."

They stop in the entryway to the living room, Matty leaning against the wall. He lets his grip loosen until his hand slides down so it's holding Ryan's and he swings their arms slightly. "Never said I wasn't."

Ryan rolls his eyes and he wants to kiss him, but - as stupid as it may sound, even to him - he isn't sure if he's allowed. Instead he puts his free hand on Matty’s hip and squeezes.

He thinks for a brief moment that Matty's going to kiss him, then, but a voice comes from the living room that makes him jump.

"That the boyfriend?"

Ryan lets his hand fall from where it rested, but lets the other one be held as he turns to see the source of the voice.

Whoever it was was leaning over the back of the couch, an Xbox controller in hand, looking amused.

"I- he- yeah. This is Ryan," Matty nods, looking a little red. "Ryan, Bitsy."

"Yo," Bitsy lifts two fingers as a greeting. "Is he any better at chel than you?"

"No," they say at the same time.

"Lame."

They argue over who should pair off for the next game, debating on whether or not Matty and Ryan should be on one team and have the man advantage or if Ryan should join Bitsy to try to bring him down a bit - “I am not that bad, asshole” - until they end up just switching to playing Fortnite.

He didn’t, like, forget that Matty’s friend had referred to him as his boyfriend - to which Matty agreed, but it was pretty easy to let it escape to the back of his mind while they played. Well, until Bitsy shoved Ryan’s shoulder after he made it out of a tricky situation, grinning at Matty.

“Your boy isn’t half bad!”

“I’m right here,” Ryan laughs half-heartedly, because that kind of brought everything back to the forefront of his mind.

The way he looks at it, this means one of - at minimum - two things. Either Matty talks about him to his teammates or he’d at the very least told this one that Ryan would be coming over by telling him he was his boyfriend.

Boyfriend.

His stomach does a little flip, and his character goes down because he hadn’t noticed the person behind him.

“Fuck,” he makes a face and passes the controller to Matty, who pats his shoulder sympathetically.

Boyfriend.

Matty leans against him, curling up slightly, and that can’t be very comfortable and it definitely means he’s looking at the screen at a weird angle, so he’ll probably be out soon, but Ryan wraps an arm around his shoulders, anyway.

Boyfriend.

Ryan looks down at him, and his tongue is poking out of his mouth slightly in concentration, and he really likes the sound of that word.

After Bitsy leaves, the two go to Matty's room, not without stopping to chat with his billet parents and thanking them for letting him stay for a couple days, of course.

Matty sits on his bed, Ryan stood in front of him, and he wraps his arms around his waist. "Hey," he smiles up at him, and he looks so fond Ryan could, like, melt, probably.

"Hey."

"You called me your boyfriend," Ryan says at the same time Matty asks, "can I kiss you yet?"

"Yeah?" Matty’s face falls. "Was that a problem? I know we didn't, like, talk about it or anything. Sorry, I thought-"

"Stop," Ryan shakes his head, "I, uh. I liked it."

"Oh," Matty says and he starts to look excited, but it's like he's holding himself back. Just in case. Ryan kind of hates it.

He leans down, cupping Matty’s face with one hand, and presses a kiss to his nose. "I was just caught off guard."

Matty laughs and it's like, arguably the best sound in the world at that moment. He thinks he gets why Mikey like making Nate laugh so much, now.

"So? Boyfriend?"

"If you want," he nods and sits down next to him. "Because, I mean, I definitely do."

"Wow," Matty breathes and leans in to kiss him briefly. "Of course I do."

And it's- that's definitely not the end of the conversation they need to have about this, but it soothes Ryan's nerves nonetheless. "Love you."

"Love you more," Matty smirks.

"Hmm, I doubt that."

"Nope."

"Yup."

"Bite me, McLeod."

"I'll consider it."

"Ryan," he laughs, shoving his face away and falling back onto the bed.

He looks at Matty, laying there laughing, red with it, one hand covering his face and it’s not a moment of realisation, per say, because, like, he already knows he loves Matty. He may have been questioning how the other felt but it’s not - it wasn’t really even on the table to think that he didn’t love his best friend. Because he does. Like, a lot.

But something about that makes something click in his brain, and while it really doesn’t feel like anything has actually technically changed, it also kind of feels like everything shifted all at once. But he’s still the same Ryan, and Matty is still the same Matty, and he still really really loves him. It’s kind of overwhelming.

“I love you,” he says, because he can’t not.

“You already said that,” Matty moves his hand and grins, smiling up at him, and, yeah.

Ryan thinks this might be The Moment.

He’s pretty okay with that.

“I’ll probably say it again.”

“Well, I hope so.”

“Do you?”

Matty reaches out for him, and he happily obliges, finally laying next to him. “I wouldn’t want to be the only one to say it for like, the rest of forever.”

And Ryan doesn’t- he doesn’t want to touch that. Forever . He wonders if maybe this was Matty’s Moment too. Is it usually the same time for both people? Probably not. But then, the two of them have been on the same wavelength for pretty much their whole lives, so it wouldn’t be that weird.

“The only one to say what?”

Matty huffs like he’s frustrated, but he won’t stop smiling. “I love you, idiot.”

“You probably will be the only one to say that, actually, because that isn’t very nice, and I could never be not nice.”

“You’re an asshole,” Matty laughs, and he kisses him, and Ryan kind of can’t imagine being anywhere else in that moment.

/

Ryan insisted he could stay behind and find something to do, or go get something to eat or just go wander around Hamilton for a while, but Matty convinced him to come along to his practice. Convinced is a strong word for “asked once and Ryan couldn’t say no” but that’s… kind of being convinced, isn’t it?

Regardless, he’s sitting alone in the stands on his phone, and Bitsy skates over to him, poking at the glass.

“You’re not some kind of spy for the Steelheads, are you?”

The only person he even remotely knows on that team is Gibson, and that’s through Nate, so he couldn’t be if he wanted to.

“Nah.”

“You better not be,” he does the ‘I’m watching you’ motion and a teammate drags him away while Matty laughs from the other side of the ice.

He shouldn’t be able to hear it, not from that far away, but it feels like he can.

Matty waves, and he waves back, and watching the practice makes him miss hockey in a way watching games doesn’t manage to even touch. He hadn’t expected that, and when he voices that in the car on the way back to the house, Matty smiles softly at him and promises they can go staking the next day.

They don’t really do anything else but go out to dinner, and Ryan gets a strawberry milkshake, and Matty tells the waiter that he’s done, and Ryan knows what he’s doing.

He lets him have some of the milkshake anyway.

“Chocolate would have been better.”

“Nothing stopped you from getting a chocolate one.”

Matty shrugs and moves the straw back to his side of the shake.

They fall asleep that night tangled together for the second night in a row, and Ryan can feel Matty’s even breaths against his cheek, and he could get used to this.

He definitely would miss it, once he goes back to Missy and doesn’t have it anymore.

But he can ignore that for now.

/

Ryan is very much so not in skate all day shape. He isn’t out of shape, really, but skating with Matty - racing him pretty much any time the rink cleared up enough that they wouldn’t be in danger of hitting anyone - for hours most definitely took a lot out of him.

Matty laughs at him when he’s nearly falling asleep in the car.

“Shut up, some of us have day jobs,” he mumbles.

“What does that have to do with this?”

“...tired.”

If anyone had told him that this was really all they did over the time Ryan spent in Hamilton, he might have thought they must have just wasted the small amount of time they managed to squeeze in. But while it might not have been a lot, it felt like a lot. It, at the very least, made him feel a lot. Spending the rest of the day laying around in bed on their phones, occasionally exchanging lazy kisses - it’s better than trying to pack a hundred things into four days. Three and a half, really.

When Matty finally plugs his phone in and rolls over, turning off his lamp, muttering “night little bug, love you,” as he pulls the comforter up to his chin, Ryan’s heart… hurts.

“I love you too.”

He can be pretty sure that since the whole boyfriend thing - not to mention the past few days in general - he shouldn't really be actually worried about whether or not Matty means his “I love you’s” in the same way he does but also… He can’t be sure, right? They still never talked about it, and Ryan doesn’t want to, like, stir shit up just because their situation isn’t exactly how things usually go. It’s also kind of making him feel weird, though, and he’s definitely just overthinking things, because he always does, and-

“Ryan,” Matty rolls over so he’s laying half on top of him, and he continues, speaking into his collarbone. His breath is too warm. “You are thinking so loud.”

“You do like me, right,” he says, carding a hand through his hair. He really hadn’t meant to say it, but a glance at the clock says it’s two twelve in the morning, so can he really be blamed for it? He votes that no, he cannot.

“No, I hate you, which is why you’re sleeping in my bed for the third day in a row,” he deadpans, muffled because he refuses to lift his head. “You’re the worst and I kiss your stupid face so often because I feel bad for you.”

“Matty,” he insists and tugs lightly on his hair in an attempt to get him to look at him, and he feels bad, because he has a game that day, and he really should be sleeping right now.

“Ryan,” he sighs and props himself up on his elbows. “Why would I lie to you?”

“I’m kind of hoping you just were, because otherwise this would suck.”

“Shut up,” he huffs a laugh and goes back to being serious. “What makes you think I don’t like you? That’s like, the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Nothing, I just-”

“If I’m doing something that makes you feel like I-”

“You’re not,” Ryan presses, because he’s not. Not in any way.

“Then what’s wrong, Ry?”

He thinks for a moment, trying to pinpoint the actual exact problem, which, isn’t very easy when he’s this tired. He settles on “I don’t know where we stand, I guess.”

“I’ll tell you where I stand, okay?”

Ryan nods.

“I’m not going to like, wax poetic or anything, because I am way too fuckin’ tired to even try that,” he starts. He grabs his wrist and holds it firmly against his own chest. “I love you, more than anything, probably. I love you more than I love hockey, okay, and hockey has pretty much always held the number one spot. But I dunno, I’ve won a lot of games, important ones. Nothing like Stanley Cup big, but they’re important. And winning is probably one of the best feelings in the world, but it’s not the best. The best, by far, is like, any time you’re around.”

And Ryan could probably fucking cry, and he might be, really.

“I-”

“And that’s not even the half of it.”

He doesn’t know what exactly it is that he did that he gets to have this, because on no level does he deserve Matt Strome.

“You said you weren’t gonna be poetic.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You definitely were.”

“If I turned that in as a poem Mr. Sinning would have failed me for sure.”

Ryan shakes his head and his eyes are definitely watering now. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Matty says and gets down off his elbows, resting his forehead against Ryan’s neck. “Believe me now?”

“I never didn’t,” because that wasn’t the problem. That was never the problem.

“‘Night, Ry bread.”

“G’night.”

/

"I don't think," Ryan says in the morning, laying half on top of Matty, "I could have ever made it very far with anyone but you."

"Why?" he asks, reaching up to run a hand through Ryan's hair, pushing it out of his face only for it to fall right back.

"You're-" he thinks for a minute, and his stomach does a little flip when he finishes with, "home."

"Home."

"I guess, yeah."

"You guess?"

He shrugs and lays down properly, his head resting on Matty’s shoulder. "I guess."

"You're home too, I think."

"You think?"

He nods and wraps an arm around Ryan's shoulder, speaking quietly, "when I get back to Missy, every time since I left for Hamilton on day one, my first thought is I'm finally close to you again. 'Cause it's home, but only because you're there."

He presses a light kiss to his boyfriend's collarbone. "Yeah. Yeah that's it."

"Yeah."

"I just don't think anyone else could make me feel like that, so. Just you."

"Me too."

They doze back off, shifting into that weird half-asleep but still kind of aware state until the alarm to wake then up at a reasonable time goes off.

"I love you so much," Matty mumbles against his jaw, pressing a light kiss to it. "Don't leave today."

"I have work tomorrow," the logical part of him says despite every other part of him wanting to take him up on that.

"Then leave tomorrow."

"I'd have to leave at like, three in the morning," he tilts his head when Matty moves down to press more little kisses to his neck. "Not fun."

"You don't work two hours from here, you could leave after four."

"We don't all drive like you." What would have been a laugh turns into more of a gasp when Matty nips at his neck. "I hate you."

"You love me."

Ryan hums, and his "I'll consider it," just earns him a slightly less gentle bite to the same spot.

"Sure, get back to me on that one." He moves away, and Ryan immediately squeezes his wrist, because, like, that felt really nice.

"Definitely love you."

"Figures," Matty laughs. "I think you're just using me for the attention."

"Obviously. Why else would I keep you around?"

"For my delightful company."

"That's one way to put it, I-," Matty bites him again, effectively stopping that train of thought. "God.”

"This is okay, right?" He asks, kissing the spot he doesn't seem to want to leave alone. Not that Ryan particularly wants him to, either. "I should've asked."

"No, no, you're good."

"I try."

Ryan just nods and tilts his head even more. Like, he can feel Matty's breath on his neck and it's. Great. He liked it better when his mouth was there, though.

"No sarcastic response to that?" Matty laughs, and the warmth of it is a lot to handle. "The world is ending."

"You'd bite me if I did," because that seems to be how this morning has gone.

"I thought you said it was okay?"

"Mhm."

"Ryan," he sits up and puts a hand on Ryan's chest. "Don't lie to me or anything, okay, if you don't-"

"Hey," he squeezes his wrist again, "I didn't. I wouldn't."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Okay. Love you."

"Love you too," Ryan says, and he really wants to kiss his dumb boyfriend, so he pulls him down and does just that.

Matty goes back to laying down next to him and he really hates that he has to go home so soon. The past couple of days have been really good. Like, stupidly good. He'd be more articulate than that, but his brain is pretty much.. mush.

"What's up," he questions when Ryan turns his head to look at him.

He just smiles and shakes his head, and Matty smiles back, and he'd live in this moment forever if he could, probably.

"Remember when we were little," Matty starts and runs a hand through Ryan's hair once, "and we had those Mcleod-Strome sleepovers?"

"We still have those."

"And I think we were like, eleven-"

"Does that count as little?"

"That was seven years ago, Ry."

"Right."

"Anyway, and I didn't bring my stuffed bear because Dylan told me I was too old."

"Yeah. That was dumb." Sometimes Ryan still sleeps with his stuffed puppy. Nothing wrong with that.

"Uh huh. But I couldn't sleep and-"

"-and I said I'd be your bear for the night," Ryan finishes, because he remembers that night, now. He'd done it because Matty not being able to sleep made it much harder for him to sleep, but whatever. It wasn't the worst thing in the world.

"Yeah."

"What about it?"

"You're just the best teddy bear I've had, I guess."

"You're such an idiot," Ryan laughs and kisses his nose.

"I'm okay with that."

"Me too."

He doesn't really want to get up yet, and evidently neither does Matty, who noses at his neck until he moves his head again. "You know English," he says, amused, "you can use your mouth once in a while."

"I'm trying to," Matty mumbles, and he runs his tongue over the spot from earlier, which feels. Weird. Not unwelcome, but.

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

"But this is more fun."

He can't argue with that, really, but he also doesn't want to just sit there while Matty gives him attention. "What are you doing today?"

"This."

He rolls his eyes. "You're so difficult."

"Thanks," he hums, and when he presses his lips to the spot again, Ryan can't help but wonder if he knows he has like, an entire neck. It's pretty sensitive, though, from all the attention it's gotten, so it's nothing he'd actually complain about.

"It wasn't-" he starts, but he's stopped dead in his tracks when Matty starts lightly sucking on his neck. His mind blanks. "Fuck."

He stretches as best as he can to make it easier on him, because this is a lot and he's pretty sure he just whined, which, like, what the fuck, and-

His stomach growls. Loudly.

Matty laughs, pressing his forehead against Ryan's shoulder. "Oh my god, Ry."

He's pouting, he knows he is, but Matty won't stop laughing, and it makes it better, but it still sucks.

"Breakfast time," Matty sits up and pats Ryan's chest twice. "Let's go."

“What do you want to eat?” he asks, opening some of the cabinets above the counter. “There’s like, cereal and-”

“I feel like there’s probably the exact same food as there’s been the past few days,” he teases, and Matty turns and smacks him lightly in the stomach.

“Don’t be an ass.”

“You must be dating the wrong person,” Ryan grins and grabs his wrist, pulling him closer. “Your mistake.”

“Obviously,” he rolls his eyes and turns to face the cabinets again. “I guess I could make eggs and-”

Ryan tugs on his wrist again and Matty pauses, feigning annoyance. “What?”

“C’mere.”

“I’m trying to be a good host and make you breakfast.”

“Or you could kiss me instead,” he squeezes his wrist lightly, “‘cause I’d like that.”

Matty looks up at the ceiling with a long-suffering sigh, but he pulls his arm back, bringing Ryan with it.

“Don’t know how I put up with you,” he smiles before leaning in and kissing him, and this is one thing Ryan doubts he’d ever grow tired of. It seems completely and totally impossible.

Then, suddenly, he’s being lifted, and Matty sets him on the counter and pulls back, smug.

He feels a strange combination of flustered and embarrassed, because, like, his boyfriend just picked him up, and that’s a lot, but also, now he’s just sitting on the counter while Matty gets eggs out of the refrigerator.

“Why.”

“Because I could and it got you to stop.”

Ryan sticks his bottom lip out slightly, and Matty taps it with one finger, and he can’t help but smile at him.

He doesn’t get down while Matty makes the eggs and toast, instead kicking at him any time he walks anywhere near him.

He hums when he cooks. Ryan doesn’t know how he didn’t know that before.

They eat in relative silence, sitting across from each other at the kitchen table with their ankles hooked together under it, and it just sucks that he has to go home today - that he can’t have this every day. Because, like, he wants that. Really badly.

Wants these lazy mornings and sitting on counters and humming while cooking and the smell of coffee wafting his way when Matty blows on his mug to get it to cool down.

It’s dumb to think about, he knows, because as much as he loves Matty and knows that Matty loves him, he also knows that it’s unrealistic. He can’t help it though - can’t help but think about an apartment in Philly. Theirs.

He’ll be staying here, when Matty makes the team, probably.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, setting his fork on his plate. “Are you okay?”

“Just gonna miss you,” he shrugs, meaning then more so than when he goes home later in the day.

“I’m gonna miss you too,” he reaches across the table and squeezes Ryan’s free hand, and it makes him feel a little better, at least.

He stuffs the last bite of egg in his mouth and stands up, stretching.

“Okay if I shower?”

“Please do,” Matty points a triangle of toast at him, “you’re smelly.”

Ryan sticks his tongue out at him and goes back into Matty’s room, just trying to find the last set of clean clothes he’d packed. He looks for the shirt for a solid five minutes before just deciding to look for it after he gets out, because it isn’t like he needs it to walk down the hallway.

When he looks in the mirror, he’s shocked by the already darkening mark at the base of his neck. Mostly, he thinks as he lightly pushes on it, he didn’t think it would actually show. It’s… a lot.

He pointedly doesn’t think about it or look in the mirror when he gets dressed, which really only means his hair is going to suffer for the day. It’s not like he’s going anywhere, anyway.

“Matty,” he shouts down the hallways the moment he steps out of the bathroom, “where’d my shirt go?”

“Isn’t it in your bag?”

“No?” he starts walking toward the living room, pausing at the foot of the stairs. “Are you s-”

There’s a knock at the door.

“Can you get that?” Matty says, leaning over the arm of the couch so he can grin at Ryan.

“This isn’t my house.”

“Please? You’re closer.”

“You’re the laziest person I know,” he sighs and opens the door, immediately slamming it shut in a panic the moment he see who’s on the porch.

"Who was it?" Matty asks, appearing in the doorway.

"Mikey and Dyls," he responds, automatic, without looking away from the door.

There's a brief silence before Matty grabs his wrist. "Ryan."

"Hmm."

"Let them in."

It isn't an unreasonable thing to request, by any standard, but his brain really short circuited when he saw them standing out there, and he's still trying to come down from that. Matty huffs and pulls his hand off the doorknob and opens it himself.

"Come in."

Dylan and Mikey look about as shaken as Ryan feels, so there's that, at least. They step inside and just stand there as Matty shuts the door.

"'Sup?" He questions once he stands beside Ryan again.

Dylan finally speaks after a moment, "man, I have so many questions."

"Ryan, you. You've got, uh," Mikey rubs at his own neck right where the mark is on Ryan's.

Fuck, he'd completely forgotten about that. He feels his face heat up as he covers it with one hand.

"Matty. Shirt." He still hasn't gotten an answer to that.

"Did you check the bed?"

"Yeah."

"Then I don't know, just take one of mine. I'll probably find it later."

"Will I get it back?"

"Which one was it?"

"No idea."

Matty hums. "Probably not."

"Great."

"What the fuck is happening here," Dylan interrupts, looking between the two of them. "I am so confused."

Honestly, for a second there he'd kinda forgotten that their brothers are there. But they are, and he still doesn't have a shirt on, and-

"What else is new."

-and he's glad at least Matty still has it in him to be snarky. He takes this moment to turn and go upstairs, wanting to take them three at a time to escape but simultaneously not wanting to look like he wants to do that.

Ryan still can't find the clean shirt anywhere, so he does relent to just taking a hoodie - that should cover up the bruise a little better than a t-shirt, at least - and pulling that on. It's Matty's favourite Bulldogs hoodie, but he can deal with him borrowing it for a minute.

When he gets back downstairs, it's just Matty in the entryway, shifting nervously on his feet.

"They leave?"

"No, living room," he shakes his head and lowers his voice. "You okay?"

"Dunno yet. Are you?"

"I can be."

"Matty-"

"Don't worry about it," he smiles, and it isn't like, real, he can tell that much, but it is still nice to see. He returns it, and it probably looks about as fake. It's the thought that counts.

"I love you," Ryan barely whispers, not wanting their brothers to hear. Not because he didn't want them to know, or that he was, like, ashamed or anything. He just wanted the moment to be theirs.

"I love you too," he's just as quiet, and he presses a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. "Time to face the firing squad."

"I think they're two short, so we're in luck."

"Pretty sure that just means we have to do it again. Not better."

"One step at a time, man," Ryan laughs and takes Matty's hand to squeeze it. He lets go, but Matty just takes it again.

He's definitely glad for that when they step foot in the living room and Mikey and Dylan are both on their phones. They turn their screens to them as soon as they're spotted, and.

"Hi Matt. Hi Ryan." Matty offers a half wave, and Ryan feels a little bit like he might throw up.

"So much for being short, huh?"

"Whatever this is better be good because you woke me up," Matt complains.

"I told you it was an emergency meeting," Mikey says, "I meant it."

"This is hardly an emergency," Ryan sighs and he and Matty make their way to a chair, squishing onto it together. Matty is half in his lap, but it isn't like he cares. Mostly he just hopes his leg doesn't fall asleep.

Dylan shakes his head. "No, it is definitely an emergency. There's another chair right there, by the way."

"I know," Matty nods slowly. "I live here. But thanks for letting me know."

"Why'd you call me, Dyls," Ryan's eating what he can only assume is cereal. "I just wanna eat my breakfast."

"And I would like to go back to sleep," Matt nods in agreement.

"Well," Mikey starts, but neither of them say anything, presumably because they don't even know why they called them. It's not like they told them anything.

Matty squeezes his hand to get Ryan to look over at him, and there's a question in the look he's giving him, and he just shrugs, because why not. He only has a moment to reflect on the fact that they're able to do that - talk with no words - now, apparently, because Matty leans over to press a quick kiss to his lips.

"Man, come on," Dylan groans at the same time Matt says "what am I looking at."

"This is the emergency?" Ryan says through a mouthful of cereal. "Okay."

"I think I'm supposed to give some kind of big brother speech but I love both of you, so just. Don't be idiots. I'll kick both of your asses." Matt says.

"What he said," Ryan nods. "Can I go now?"

"I hate you. Yeah, you can eat your old people cereal in peace now, bye loser," Dylan ends the call and pockets his phone with a huff.

"I'm gonna go back to sleep now."

"Wait-" Mikey says quickly before Matt can hang up.

"What?"

"Did you give Nate a big brother speech?"

"Of course."

"Oh god," he covers his face.

"Yup. Bye." He hangs up, and Mikey looks nine kinds of terrified.

"I hate both of you, just so you know," Matty rests his head on Ryan's shoulder and points a finger at them.

"How long has this been a thing?" Dylan asks, looking like it pains him to do so.

Matty lifts his head back up to look at Ryan. "December or Thursday?"

"I don't know," he says honestly. He hadn't thought about it. "Maybe Thursday."

"I guess technically, yeah." He looks back at Dylan and Mikey. "Thursday. But only officially."

"What the fuck," Dylan says quietly.

"Okay," Mikey nods slowly to himself. "That makes sense."

"It does?" Dyls looks at him, completely stunned.

"Yeah."

"Nope. Nothing makes sense."

"Are you okay, Dyls?" Matty asks, and it sounds the slightest bit hurt, and Ryan feels like he needs to be asking Matty that same question. "Because, like-"

"No, no! Hey," he holds out both of his hands in front of him, "I'm happy for you, just. Need a minute."

"Oh."

"Seriously," he lowers his hands and folds them in his lap. "I'm good. It's good."

"Yeah," Matty agrees, looking at Ryan. "It's good."

"We can go," Mikey says, standing up. "If you want."

"I really don't care," Ryan shrugs. And he kind of does, because this is his last day in Hamilton, and he just wants to spend it with Matty. On the same note, though, Dylan and Mikey drove all the way out here, and it's pretty rare that they all get to hang out, and it is kind of important to him that the two of them get used to the whole idea that he and Matty are dating. So either way he's fine with it.

"Me neither. We didn't really have any plans, so," Matty shrugs.

Mikey sits back down, and that seems to answer that for all of them.

"I need some water," Dylan says, standing up.

"I'll get you some," Matty pats Ryan's knee before using it as leverage to get up and lead his brother into the kitchen, leaving Ryan and Mikey in the living room.

"Figured it out, I guess?" Mikey asks.

"Yeah."

"Good."

"Yeah."

Dylan's laughing when he comes back in, a glass of water in hand, and Matty follows suit, his face red. Ryan just grins at him as he walks back over to the chair. He sits down the way he had been sitting before he got up, but he presses his face into Ryan's neck.

Both McLeods give Dylan - who's still howling with laughter - a questioning look, but it earns them no explanation.

He runs a hand through Matty's hair, and this moment is just really important to him. His last day here got interrupted, but it's not ruined or anything. Their brothers know, and they're all okay with it, and Matty's here, pressed against his side, hiding his face for whatever reason. It's oddly perfect, in their own way. Dylan's laughing finally dies down, and Matty moves, a small smile on his face as he looks at Ryan.

When it comes down to it, he thinks, he'd give up everything for Matty, probably. Granted, he doesn't really have all that much, but there isn't anything he could fathom ever having that would be worth more to him than Matty is. Maybe in some other timeline, in some other universe, he sticks with hockey and gets drafted and makes it into the NHL, but maybe in that timeline, that universe, he doesn't get to have this.

He'd get the ice under his feet and the puck on his stick and the roar of a passionate crowd, but he wouldn't have gentle kisses and quiet words and warm hands in his.

That's kind of the saddest thing he can think of, really.

So he'll let Matty have that, have both, because, like, he fucking deserves it. Matty can have the ice under his feet and the puck on his stick and everything that comes along with living the dream of making the NHL, and Ryan will be along every step of the way if he'll let him.

And when he gets home, when he steps away from all that?

He'll have gentle kisses and quiet words and warm hands in his and everything else he could ever want, and that's what matters, in the end.

Ryan doesn't get both, not in this timeline, maybe not in any, but he's okay with it. He doesn't need both.

He just needs Matty, and he has him.

He can't really complain.

"If you two don't stop looking at each other like that, I'm going to throw up on the carpet," Dylan says.

Matty throws a coaster at him.