Chapter Text
Nolan wakes up to the sounds of scratching and soft whining, and he sighs as he realizes his dog has gotten himself shut inside Nolan's room. Again. For the third time this week.
"Buddy," Nolan sighs again, but there's a hint of a smile on his face even as he shakes his head and groans at the sight of his alarm clock reading 6:34 AM. "Give me a sec, I'll come let you out."
He gives himself a few moments to wake up a little more, and then Nolan rolls out of bed and pads over to the door.
"There you go," he mumbles as he opens the door and Winston barrels out and towards the doggy door at the back of the house, and Nolan huffs a laugh and shuffles back to bed.
He's still got a few hours before he has to be awake, and he'll be dammed if he doesn't use them to get as much sleep as possible.
~●~
When his alarm finally goes off at 9AM, Nolan is surprised to find that he was actually able to fall back asleep and stay asleep for the few hours he had left.
Stretching out with a yawn, Nolan gives his body a few minutes to fully wake up before he climbs out of bed and starts getting ready. He's got a lot to do today, more than usual, and he's been looking forward to this weekend for months now.
In a few hours he'll be making the nearly three hour drive from Hayland to the quaint town of Souris, where two days from now his sister Aimee will be getting married. He doesn't have any big reason to be heading there this soon, but he's going up early anyways because he knows Thursdays are the best time to travel anywhere by car up here and because he also just wants a night to explore the small town by himself before all of his family members get there and make it chaotic.
He loves them and their craziness, and knows that he's going to have a great time getting the chance to see and hang out with everyone, but it will still be chaotic nonetheless.
Nolan makes himself a big breakfast, which he eats out on the porch even though it's the first week of April and it's still only in the high 40's, and then he throws together a bag for the weekend and gathers Winston's things.
"Okay, bud. Ready to go to Rachel and Natalee's?"
At the mention of the couple Winston is out the door and making a beeline for Nolan's truck, which causes Nolan to scoff and roll his eyes.
"Wow, it's like you'd rather be there anyways."
Locking up, Nolan checks to make sure everything is shut and in place for the weekend and then loads up his truck, ready to make the trip and get some vacation time in. Not that he has a job to take vacation time for, but whatever.
Nolan swings by Rachel and Natalee's house- the couple who lives just off the highway on the way out of town and who have become mainly his permanent dog and house sitters and somewhat his friends- to drop Winston and Winston's things off, and then with a quick goodbye to his dog and the women Nolan's off to Souris.
~●~
Nolan pulls into the small town a little after 3pm, and it only takes him a few minutes to find the bed and breakfast Aimee booked for the family and wedding party to stay at for a few days.
He walks inside and asks if they have any of the rooms ready yet and they do, so he takes one of the single rooms and takes his stuff inside. Nolan doesn't spend long in his room, wanting to have enough time to see some of the things he wanted to see on his own, and before 3:30 he's already on his way out and headed towards the first attraction on his list.
Opting to walk everywhere while in town, Nolan leaves his truck in the parking lot at the B&B and bundles up as much as he's comfortable doing- a grey hoodie on over a long sleeved undershirt, thicker jeans, one of his pairs of boots, and a black, logoless beanie pulled on over his just-past-shoulder-length hair.
He had tried cutting it once after he retired from the NHL, wanting to see if he still liked having it short like he had before he was drafted, but he had been told rather immediately by a friend at the time that his long hair was sorely missed and was one of that friend's favorite things about Nolan's look, so Nolan had let it grow back out and then could never bring himself to cut it again even after he stopped talking to that same friend.
Nolan reaches his first destination rather quickly, a tall, wooden structure called Lookout Tower that he read would supposedly provide a full view of the town, and upon reaching the top he finds that the information was 100% correct.
The view is gorgeous, looking out over the whole town and over all of Victoria Park, and Nolan's reminded of why he loves nature so much.
He stays there for a good amount of time just sightseeing and people watching, and when he's ready to move on he heads back down to the ground and in the direction of the next thing he wanted to take a look at: a tree he read about called 'The Mystical Old Oak Tree'.
It takes him just a little bit to walk there, and when he arrives he immediately understands the thought behind calling it mystical. It's a gorgeous old oak, and as he stands and admires this tree that's way older than him, he feels a sense of calm and peace that he only ever gets when he's deep in the forest and far away from any civilization.
Nolan stays there for almost an hour, and he's actually a little surprised when he realizes that the sun is well on it's way to setting for the day. Glancing at his phone, the clock reads 5:37 PM, and he supposes it's time to check out one of the food places he'd read about and wanted to try.
It's a roughly twenty minute walk back to where the bed and breakfast is, and from there it only takes him a few minutes to find a place called Woodfire Deli and decide to stay and eat there.
He orders a whole "Canuck Pizza", partly because it sounds good and partly because the reminder it brings of hockey makes him smile, and settles in at a window table to eat and watch the sunset while also watching the people strolling by.
It's been an almost perfect day, and as that thought crosses his mind Nolan is already thinking that it's rare for him to go a whole day without something being at least a little off when everything in his body goes still and he freezes.
Moving his head slowly, Nolan's eyes search for the man he'd just seen sit down at a bench across the street, and in the light of the street lamps illuminating the strip of road they're on he swears he's staring at an exact replica of Travis Konecny- or at least what he thinks Travis might look like now.
He's so caught up in the absurdity of it all that he doesn't realize how long he's been staring, but it occurs to him that it's been a little too long when someone walks by the Deli window and interrupts his view of the doppelganger.
Nolan blinks and shakes his head, and a disbelieving laugh puffs out through his lips.
There's no way that's actually Travis. Because why would he be here? Last Nolan knew, Travis was still living in London with his wife and kids after retiring from the NHL himself. So unless they had decided to take a family trip to Souris, Manitoba at the same time Nolan happened to be here, there was no way that the man sitting almost directly across from Nolan on the other side of the street could be Travis Konecny.
Until he looks up and makes eye contact with Nolan, and his eyes go wide with recognition and something else Nolan can't read.
Well, shit.
~●~●~●~
Travis has been in Souris, Manitoba for almost a week now, and on his last night in town he decides to go for an early evening walk down the strip where he's tried all but one of the places that sell food and alcohol.
He's enjoyed his time here, and he's glad his impromptu decision to up and leave his house for a week to just get away led him to such a cute little place. He'll have to bring the kids here next time he has them for more than a weekend.
It's a little after 6 PM by the time he gets to the street he's looking for from the motel he's been staying at on the edge of town, and he takes his time walking down it as he watches the last gleams of orange and red light fade from the sky along with the sun.
He has a distant thought that it's been too long since he last watched a sunset with anyone other than his kids and occasionally his ex-wife and her new husband, but he pushes the thought away before it can take precedence in his mind. He's had too many thoughts about wanting to find love again recently, and it's part of the reason he needed to get away from his solitude and be around people in the first place. He doesn't need to be thinking of that again now when he'll have plenty of time to wallow once he's home again.
Travis wanders around for about forty-five minutes, and as he reaches a bench on the side of the road he's on he decides to sit down and take a look at the online menu for the one bar he still hasn't been to. He would just go in, but he doesn't want to just walk in without knowing if he'll even want anything there.
He spends a few minutes scrolling through their food menu, and he's pretty okay with what he sees so he decides to check what's on tap before making a final decision. He likes a few of the drinks they have available, and when he reaches the end of the page he sees something that almost makes him laugh.
It seems that at 7:30 tonight- and he does check the date just to make sure- the very bar he's been looking at will be showing one of the final NHL games of the season, which just so happens to be between the Jets and Flyers.
He does let out a soft snort of laughter after a second, and he decides then and there that he'll go ahead and hit up the bar tonight. Might do him a little good to reminisce a little and watch his old team play.
Travis slips his phone back in his pocket and makes to stand and head towards the bar, but then he looks directly ahead and makes eye contact with someone sitting by a window at Woodfire Deli who looks alarmingly like an older version of Nolan Patrick, and it makes him pause.
It only takes a moment for his brain to catch up with what he's seeing, and as the man registers that Travis is looking at him Travis realizes that it is Nolan, and his eyes go wide while his heart stutters painfully with a pang of disbelieving hope in his chest.
The man's- Nolan's- eyes go wide in response and he looks away quickly, his cheeks flaming red and his body going rigid, and- Travis has never met anybody with cheeks like Nolan's, his rosacea making it impossible for him to ever hide a blush, and before he knows what he's doing Travis is up and walking across the street towards the Deli.
He opens the front door and takes a tentative step through, turning towards the table Nolan is sitting at and cautiously opening his mouth to speak.
"Nolan?"
~●~
Hearing that voice is all Nolan needs to know that this is definitely the same Travis Konecny, and he can't help but stare wide-eyed as he nods.
"Yeah- Travis?"
Travis' heart nearly does a flip at hearing that voice again, and his face breaks into a huge grin.
"Yeah! Holy shit, dude, what the hell are you doing here?"
He walks over to stand across from Nolan on the other side of the table he's at, and he thinks it's kinda cute how Nolan is still staring at him with wide, shocked eyes.
"I'm in town for a wedding, my sister's getting married on Saturday." His brain reminds him of why he thought Travis would definitely not be here, and his brow furrows. "What about you? Are Karly and the kids with you?"
Travis remembers in that moment that he and Nolan hadn't been in contact for quite some time when everything happened with Karly, and the ache from missing his best friend that had dulled over the years returns to his chest and hits him hard.
"Ah, no, um- we actually...Karly and I got a divorce, about four years ago."
Nolan was certainly not expecting to hear that, and his eyebrows go up in surprise.
"What? What happened?"
Travis huffs a humorless laugh and shrugs a shoulder. He can tell Nolan why they got a divorce, but not what caused the why.
"Well, we, um. We just kind of fell out of love? We- well, I didn't really have romantic feelings for her anymore and she sensed that, so we talked about it and decided to get a divorce."
Nolan looks incredibly apologetic, like it was his fault or something- and ha, that makes Travis' heart twist- and Travis hurries to finish explaining.
"It was amicable, though, and she's doing fine now. Wonderfully, actually, she's remarried and everything to a really great guy, they already have a son together. And I get to see my kids every few weekends during the school year and for a few weeks at a time during the summer. And of course on holidays."
There's a moment of pause during which Nolan seems to be taking everything in, and because Travis has never been good with even remotely awkward silence he decides to keep talking.
"Did you know Rhett is fourteen now? He's in high school and everything. And Quinn just turned eleven, she just started sixth grade. You got to meet Quinn, right? I think she was born before you-" Travis was about to say, before you up and left, but he catches himself at the last second and clears his throat. "Before you moved."
Nolan feels a twinge in his chest as Travis seems to catch himself before mentioning his move, and he knows they both know that it was more than just him moving. Nolan has never quite forgiven himself for just up and leaving Philadelphia where he had lived in an apartment down the street from Travis and Karly's neighborhood for almost a year after leaving the NHL, and he doesn't know if he ever will.
He hadn't told them he was planning on moving back to Winnipeg, and he had done that on purpose, because he knew that Travis would be able to make him stay; but he had needed to go for that very same reason, and the sudden move and physical absence had put a strain on their friendship. Nolan didn't see any of the family in person after that, and communication between them slowly died. Two years later, Nolan moved out of his parent's house to where he now was in Hayland, and he hadn't spoken to Travis or Karly since.
"Yeah, um," Nolan nods and avoids holding Travis' gaze with his own, "She was just around a year old when I- when I moved back to Winnipeg."
Travis nods, and he gets the feeling that this is going in a direction that will most likely lead to them either yelling at each other and getting defensive, which would make things awkward, or possibly running out of things to talk to in the moment, which would also make things awkward.
That's when Travis gets an idea, and he perks up.
"Hey, I was heading to a bar just up the street for some food and a drink, and I saw they're showing a Flyers and Jets game tonight. You wanna join me and watch our old team? See if they've gotten any better?"
He looks at Nolan with a familiar expression, eyes slightly squinted and shining with mirth and a pleading hope while his lips twist into a lopsided grin, and Nolan's heart does a funny move in his chest.
Funny in that it feels an awful lot like how his heart used to jump whenever Travis gave him any kind of positive attention, which really isn't funny at all.
But just like back then, Nolan finds he's still not able to say no to Travis when he looks at him like that, not even after all these years, and so he shrugs a shoulder and smiles back at the man.
"Sounds like fun."