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Henri gulped. He opened his mouth to ask, only to be immediately cut off.

“Alexei’s being a dick,” Dylan grumbled as he shoved his phone back into his pocket, message unread and unanswered. “He wants me to meet his fiancée while I’m in town and that’s like…a fucking lot. And he wanted to do it before the game, like that’s not psychological warfare.”

Henri looked around, hoping no one was listening because now that Dylan had started, it seemed he couldn’t stop. Luckily, everyone was too wrapped up in their own activities to notice their captain slowly unraveling.

“What the fuck am I supposed to say?” Dylan continued. At least he kept his voice low, though it only made it come out as a growl. “No, I don’t want to meet your probably lovely fiancée because I’m pissed at you? No, I don’t want to spend my precious few hours in Chicago dealing with your immature ass? How can I say no without being an asshole when I already agreed to be one of his stupid groomsmen?”

Henri briefly saw red. Groomsman? Sokolov had the gall to ask that of Dylan? While he was annoyed that Dylan had agreed, of fucking course he had. Dylan was fundamentally a kind person who would stand next to any of his friends who asked. And at the end of the day, Dylan still considered Sokolov a friend.

A really shitty friend, in Henri’s opinion.

“I could come with you,” Henri offered, though he knew that was a bad idea all around. It had been a Bad Idea the first time on their home turf. Bringing an emotional support teammate to drinks while meeting someone’s fiancée was a Worse Idea. Bringing your current fuck buddy as backup to hang out with your former fuck buddy was The Worst Idea. But Henri would endure the awkwardness for Dylan’s sake (and do his best not to be passive-aggressive as much as possible).

Dylan shook his head. He let out a long breath through his nose. “He specifically said not to bring anyone.”

“Me? Or anyone at all?”

Dylan rolled his eyes. “He didn’t name names, but he definitely doesn’t want you there. But there’s not a person on this team I could bring who wouldn’t make it worse. Nover would just spend the whole night being bitchy to him, and Knoxxy would try to sucker punch him. Big Rigg would probably spill a drink on him. And Alexei knows all that.”

It was impressive how much violence one man could inspire. Henri didn’t know what to offer. The only other solution was for Dylan to not go. This was Dylan Everett, though, who’d never say no to a friend. He’d maybe never said no to Alexei Sokolov. And this whole thing between them, whatever it had been and become, it wasn’t for Henri to decide how Dylan handled it.

“Are you seeing him before the game?” Henri did agree that seemed…intentional. What those intentions might be was less clear.

“Fuck that,” Dylan said. He no longer sounded angry, just tired. “I said we can meet up after the game or not at all.”

“After?” Their game was late on a Thursday night, and they had an early flight on Friday. Was he supposed to be supportive right now or point out how fucking emotionally and physically wiped out Dylan was likely to be for the rest of this road trip because he was bending over backwards to accommodate⁠—

He pinched his side to stop himself from going too far down that path.

If Dylan felt any of the same concerns, he didn’t show them. Instead, he waved a hand. “I’m not seeing him before the game. We’ve got team stuff, and I’m not throwing around my name to get out of it for him. I’m free after the game, and only after. He gets the hour or two when we’re both too fucking exhausted to do anything more than have a couple drinks while we pretend we’re still half of what we used to be.”

Henri supposed that was the trade-off. Inconveniencing himself so that he took back some control and inconvenienced Sokolov.

He wished he could reach over. Rub the back of Dylan’s neck or squeeze his arm or hold his hand or kiss him or or or or…so many things that were impossible on a crowded plane surrounded by their teammates and coaches. So he did the only things allowed them. He nodded in understanding and pressed his leg against Dylan’s.

Dylan relaxed into the barely adequate touch. “Thanks,” he mouthed. He looked and sounded so small. Already seemed so drained.

But Dylan had stood up for Henri in LA; he’d do his best to return the favor in Chicago.

CHAPTER 50

They arrived in Chicago and were whisked away to the rink for a practice. Henri hated when this happened. He already had to stretch out after a flight, and going right onto the ice an hour later was stressful for his legs. But he went easy on himself and quadrupled his recovery efforts as soon as he was allowed off the ice.

The team went to a fancy restaurant in downtown Chicago for a team dinner, the whole place shut down and the tables rearranged for the players, coaches, and trainers. As the last one out of the rink, he’d lost his usual seat on the bus next to Dylan. It was Novak next to him, a smile plastered on his face, but eyes full of barely contained anger. Dylan looked pale, tired, resigned. He wouldn’t look at Henri as he passed, and Novak spoke too lowly and quickly for Henri to catch any of it.

Though it wasn’t hard to guess what—who they were talking about.

Well, at least Henri had an ally. He and Novak had no doubt different but overlapping reasons to dislike Sokolov, but as Dylan’s friend of several years who’d witnessed the whole debacle firsthand, Novak could take certain…liberties in how he discussed things with Dylan.

Henri ended up next to Jack Holloway, one of the younger wingers, who spent the whole bus ride naming every building and neighborhood they passed by. Henri hoped the kid was from Chicago; otherwise he needed to get a life.

When he got off the bus, he found Dylan waiting for him off to the side, hands deep in his pockets and that frown back on his face. Not as pronounced as on the plane, thankfully. Though not anything like his usual self, not until he caught sight of Henri; then he lit up.

“Baps! You gotta save me from Nover. Sit with me at dinner.”

Hardly needing a reason, they fell into step and followed everyone else inside. Luckily, no one wanted to talk hockey. That was the fun thing about team dinners like this. They lived and breathed hockey so much, it could easily overtake everything else. Having a team dinner at a nice restaurant gave them a distraction, an avenue for conversation that wasn’t about playoffs or points or tomorrow’s game. It was just the guys goofing off and being far more human than Henri was used to feeling around teammates.

And it delighted him to experience it with Dylan there. He got to see Dylan shed some of that captain burden to joke with the younger players, the ones who idolized Dylan too much to push about the game or Sokolov. The ones so excited to hang out with a hockey legend—even if it was a hockey legend they literally played with and saw every other day—that they were happy to listen to Dylan go off about his failed attempt to learn surfing, the time he coached a youth baseball team for charity despite knowing nothing about baseball (“Less than nothing,” Dylan corrected.), or the pinball machine he was hoping to buy from an arcade in Albuquerque.