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rsadelleAt one time, I wanted a story where Kane gets over Toews with the Sharps. I wrote almost ten thousand words of it without ever getting to the kissing or porn, and then I got fed up with Patrick Kane and both Cinco de Kaner and the lockout totally jossed the story and I never went back to it. There are some notes at the end about what else was going to happen.
Jonny answers the phone with, "Don't tell me you're bored already."
Pat grins just to hear his voice. "Whatever, like Winnipeg is so great."
"Winnipeg is great," Jonny insists, the same way he does every time Pat insults it.
"Yeah? What's so great about it?" Pat sprawls out on his couch - the same one both he and Jonny have in Chicago; he likes it, so there was no reason to get something different for the new house - and listens to Jonny lecture him about everything there is to do in Winnipeg over the summer, from golfing to fishing. He spends most of the lecture grinning, because he is bored, and hearing Jonny talk is the best thing that's happened to him all day.
*
"You spent all season missing your family," Jonny says. "Go spend time with them."
Pat twists one of the couch cushion seams. "They're busy."
"Don't you have any friends?"
"You."
"Friends there, Kaner." Pat can almost see Jonny rolling his eyes.
"No one has the summer off anymore. They all work."
"So make some new ones. Look, I gotta go. Not all of us are losers like you."
"You wish you were like me," Pat says, and all it gets him is Jonny hanging up, so that sucks.
Pat stretches out on his back on the couch and contemplates the ceiling. It's not very interesting. There isn't much to do on a Thursday afternoon, and he can only play NHL 12 so many times.
He thumbs through his phone and stops when he gets to Sharpy's name. He hovers over it for a bit - Sharpy's probably enjoying his uninterrupted time with Abby and the baby - before he gives in and calls.
Sharpy answers on the third ring with, "PK! How's Buffalo?"
"Boring as shit. How's Chicago?"
"Glorious as always. You should have stayed here. No, honey, Daddy's phone isn't for eating."
Pat grins. "Is that Maddy? Put her on."
"I don't think she's up for real phone conversations just yet."
"I don't care. Put her on. She's better than you."
Sharpy laughs. "I'll put you on speaker. Honey, can you say hi to Kaner?"
There's a burst of meaningless syllables.
"Hi, sweetheart," Pat says. "Are you keeping Daddy busy with dirty diapers?"
Maddy babbles a little more and Sharpy says, "She sure is."
Pat laughs. "But I bet you're cute while you're doing it."
"The cutest. Isn't that right? You're the cutest baby."
Pat can't help grinning. He can almost see Sharpy rubbing his nose against Maddy's and cooing at her.
"The cutest," Sharpy says firmly.
"Who are you talking to?" Abby asks.
"Kaner," Sharpy says. "On speaker so he can talk to Maddy."
"Hi, Pat." Pat can hear the smack of her lips as she blows him a kiss. "How's your summer going?"
"Hi, Ab. Boring. How's yours?"
"Hot. Babe, I gotta go. I'm going to be late." The sound of Abby and Sharpy kissing makes Pat ache for something like that. "Sweetheart, you be good and take your nap without fussing. Pat, you can get the whole family next time."
Pat says, "Bye, Ab," over the sound of Abby kissing Maddy and walking out of the room.
Maddy keeps babbling away, and both Pat and Sharpy say things like, "Yeah?" and "Is that right?" until Sharpy takes them off speaker so they can have a grown-up conversation. Of course, their grown-up conversation consists mostly of Pat bragging about his NHL 12 skills and Sharpy countering with his perfect family as a reason why he's not as good.
"Hey, man," Sharpy finally says, "I've gotta go. Time for Maddy's nap."
"Oh, yeah, sure," Pat says.
Sharpy must be able to tell how much he doesn't want to get off the phone, because he says, "Don't sound so sad, PK. Call us tomorrow, and you can listen to as much baby babble as you can stand."
That sounds like the best thing ever to Pat. "Yeah, sure."
"Maddy, can you say bye-bye to Pat?" That doesn't get anything, and Sharpy laughs. "Guess not. Talk to you later."
"Yeah," Pat says, "later."
*
A week later, Sharpy's telling Pat about what Maddy's doing and says, "No, wait, you have to see this," and texts him a picture.
Pat twists his phone back and forth trying to figure it out. "I don't think that works as a cell phone picture." Pat's eye lands on his laptop. "I just had the best idea."
"Is this an actual best idea or the kind of best idea that's going to get someone arrested?"
"Fuck you," Pat says. "We should Skype. Then I can actually see her."
"Yes," Sharpy says. "That's an actual best idea. Maddy, don't go anywhere while Daddy grabs the laptop."
"I don't think she's going to go anywhere," Pat says.
"I want you to picture me flipping you off."
Pat laughs.
"You think I'm joking." As soon as they're on Skype, the first thing Pat sees is Sharpy's middle finger in the center of the screen.
"You dick." Pat hangs up the phone and grins into his laptop camera. "Get Maddy. She's more fun."
Sharpy moves out of view, but Pat can still hear him say, "Come here, baby. Come talk to Kaner."
"Hi, Maddy," Pat says as soon as Sharpy's in front of the camera with Maddy. "Are you tired of your daddy? Now you get to see me too."
Maddy babbles at him and reaches toward him. She gets as far as smashing her hands on the keyboard before Sharpy pulls her back a little. It doesn't stop her from reaching for Pat.
"I know," Pat says. "I'm way more exciting than Daddy. A whole new person you get to talk to." He talks to Maddy and gets babbling back for a bit, until she starts fussing and reaching away from the laptop.
"Hi, baby." Pat can hear Abby before he can see her. "Was that too much time with Daddy? Do you want Mommy now?" Abby scoops Maddy out of Sharpy's arms. "Hi, Pat. Isn't she the most beautiful baby?"
"Totally."
Abby sits on Sharpy's lap and chats with Pat for a few minutes before she says it's time for Maddy's nap. She and Sharpy exchange a look Pat can't read, and then she says goodbye and takes Maddy away.
"Hey, you okay?" Sharpy asks after a few minutes of idle chit-chat.
"Yeah," Pat says. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"You look sad," Sharpy says. He's not even joking about it. "You talk to Jonny recently?"
Pat pulls a face that he didn't mean to but can see in the box in the corner of his screen. "He's busy golfing and fishing and dating."
"Dating?" Sharpy asks.
"Amanda."
Sharpy winces. "Sorry, dude."
Pat shrugs. "Whatever."
For a moment, it looks like Sharpy's not going to let it go, but then he says, "You hear what Shawsy's been up to this summer?" and Pat doesn't have to think about Jonny and his girlfriend or whatever she is.
*
Buying a ticket to Chicago is kind of a split-second decision. Only kind of, because there's logistical stuff to closing up the house in Buffalo for a while and making time to have dinner with his family and that kind of thing. But deciding, that he does as soon as he thinks of it.
It's worth it, even just for the surprised look on Sharpy's face when he answers his door and finds Pat and his suitcase on the porch.
"PK, what are you doing here?" Sharpy steps out onto the porch and hugs him. It feels good, and Pat hangs on for a while.
"We were going to Skype," he says when he makes himself pull away, "but I thought I'd come see your ugly face in person instead."
"My face is beautiful," Sharpy says. He holds the door for Pat, lets him leave his bag in the hall, and leads him deeper into the house. "But this is the face you really wanted to see." He scoops Maddy off the floor, kisses her cheek, and hands her to Pat.
"Hi, there, Maddy." Pat hugs her close and kisses her forehead, breathes in the baby smell. "Isn't this better than a laptop screen?"
Maddy makes a "bababa" kind of noise and grabs his cheeks. To be fair to her, they are puffed out with his smile. He makes a bunch of faces at her, and she keeps laughing and babbling at him.
Pat hears the shutter noise of Sharpy's camera app, but he doesn't look up from Maddy until Abby comes in and says, "Pat." She comes over and hugs him, not very hard, but he's still holding Maddy between them. "What are you doing here?"
"I missed Chicago."
Pat's looking at her, so he sees her exchange another unreadable look with Sharpy. "Well, we're glad to have you." She leans in and nuzzles Maddy's cheek. "You're probably getting hungry, huh, baby? Let's get you a bottle, and maybe Pat will feed it to you."
In the kitchen, Abby heats up the bottle, and makes Pat sit down. "Hold her like this." She gets Maddy situated and shows Pat how to hold the bottle at the right angle.
Maddy's tiny hands grip the bottle as tightly as she can, and Pat just watches her drink. "You're a hungry kid."
"She's growing like a weed," Sharpy says.
"She's heavier." Pat kisses the top of Maddy's head, where she has just the tiniest fuzz of hair.
"You've lost weight," Abby says. "Are you staying for dinner?"
"Yeah," Pat says, answering both questions.
Sharpy comes over to stand next to Pat and squeezes the back of his neck. "You sure you're okay?"
Pat leans into the touch. "Yeah, I'm fine. Haven't really done much of my off-season training yet, you know?" He tries to smile, but it only becomes real when Maddy fusses at him for moving and he turns it on her.
Abby and Sharpy make dinner around them, chatting and comfortable. Sharpy shows Pat how to burp Maddy, and after she spits up a little, she settles in as a comfortable weight against Pat's shoulder.
Abby takes Maddy away to put her in the high chair when dinner's ready. Sharpy gets a stuffed bear from the other room, and Maddy spends most of dinner chewing on one of its ears.
"I'm going to get her to bed," Sharpy says after dinner, so Pat helps Abby with the dishes.
"You're a guest," Abby says. "You don't have to."
Pat says, "I'll feel bad if I don't," and stands next to her at the sink to rinse and put dishes in the dishwasher to dry. He does ask, "Why not just run the dishwasher?"
Abby crooks a smile at him. "We do, sometimes, but this isn't bad as chores go."
"I guess not."
When the last dishes are set out to dry and Abby's wiped down the sink and the counters, they dry their hands and then Abby puts her arms around Pat and he gets the kind of hug he didn't when he was holding Maddy earlier.
"Leaving me for him?" Sharpy asks when he comes back without Maddy.
Abby laughs and holds out her arm for Sharpy to join their hug. It's a good hug, makes Pat feel like someone other than his family cares about him.
"Come on," Sharpy says. "Let's see what's on the DVR." When Pat laughs, he adds, "Life with a baby. This is as exciting as it gets."
Pat shrugs. "Better than playing NHL 12 all day."
Abby gets control of the remote, and they watch an episode of [SOMETHING] before Sharpy and Abby are both yawning.
"We have early nights around here," Abby says. "Maddy'll be up early."
"No," Pat says, as much as he doesn't want this to end, "that's cool."
Abby and Sharpy look at each other, doing that wordless couple thing all over again.
"Get your bag," Sharpy says. "There are clean sheets in the guest room."
Pat makes a token protest, but he's all too happy to crawl into bed in their guest room. They're too far away for him to hear them, but it's nice to go to sleep and know someone else is there too.
*
Pat wakes up early and takes a quick shower before heading to the kitchen where Sharpy's making omelets while Abby feeds Maddy from a tiny jar of baby food. Abby waves at Pat, Maddy squishes her fingers in his direction, and Sharpy puts an arm around him for a quick hug.
"What do you want in your omelet?"
Pat looks at the neat piles of chopped ingredients spread out over the counter. "Whatever. No tomatoes. They get soggy."
The omelet in the pan goes to Abby, who seems to have eating and feeding Maddy at the same time down to a science, and Sharpy throws ingredients into the pan for a second one.
"What's going on today?" Pat asks once Sharpy gets to sit with them with his omelet.
Sharpy shrugs. "No plans. NHL 12 tournament?"
Pat points at him with his fork. "You're going down."
"Best of three," Abby says, "and I get winner."
"You're on."
Sharpy's omelets are good, enough that Pat accepts when Sharpy offers to make another one and split it with him. Pat helps Sharpy with the dishes while Abby gets Maddy cleaned up, and then they settle in for some NHL. Pat takes out Sharpy, but goes down in two against Abby.
Abby throws her arms up. "Bow down to the master!"
Pat tosses his controller to Sharpy. "How did you get so good at this?"
"A lot of time home alone."
Pat makes a face at her and picks up Maddy from where she's been grabbing at a bunch of toys on the floor. "It's a good thing you're here now. You have to keep Mommy too busy to get better at this."
He makes faces at Maddy for a while, lets her grab at his cheeks and his lips and his ears, while Sharpy and Abby battle it out. Abby wins, and Kaner takes the controller back from Sharpy. He loses, but this time Abby just laughs and gives her controller to Sharpy.
"If I don't," she says, "you two will never get to play each other again." She scoops Maddy off the floor and swings her in a circle. "And now it's Mommy and Maddy time. Look at Daddy and Pat, thinking they're ever going to have a chance to be as good as Mommy."
Sharpy flips her off without looking.
Pat bursts out laughing, hard enough that it affects his game. "I don't think you're supposed to do that around kids."
Sharpy shrugs. "She's too young to have the motor skills to do it herself."
Pat keeps chuckling. He loses the game too, and a second one, and then they take a break to play with Maddy and before he knows it, he's in the kitchen slicing up tomatoes for lunch.
Maddy gets half a bottle with her tiny jar of baby food, and Abby and Sharpy let Kaner give it to her.
"The novelty wears off," Sharpy says, but Pat can't imagine anything better than sitting in their kitchen with a tiny trusting baby relying on him to feed her.
"I can get out of your way," Pat offers after lunch, but Abby and Sharpy look at each other, and Abby says, "Stay as long as you want, honey." She bends over Pat and kisses his forehead. "Afternoons are usually quiet, though."
"Cool with me," Pat says, and he plays quietly on the floor with Maddy while Sharpy and Abby read or dick around on the internet or whatever it is they're doing that's not playing with the baby.
Pat takes advantage of Sharpy getting up to steal the couch, and he stretches out on it with Maddy on his chest. She falls asleep, of course, because she's a baby and it's naptime. Pat folds his hands over her back to keep her steady and watches them rise and fall with her breathing.
He must fall asleep too, because he jerks awake when something pulls Maddy away.
"It's all right," Sharpy says. "I've got her." He rests the hand not holding Maddy to his chest on Pat's shoulder. "Go back to sleep."
"I'm awake," Pat mutters.
"But you're tired." Sharpy squeezes his shoulder. "Take a nap."
Pat does and wakes up to a room that's empty and dark with the curtains closed. A glance at his phone tells him he's slept through most of the afternoon. He can hear the sounds of people in the kitchen, so that's where he goes after a pit stop in the downstairs bathroom.
"Hey, sleepyhead," Abby says. "Feel better?"
Pat stretches, and bends down to tickle Maddy in her high chair. "Yeah," he says. "I didn't think I was so tired."
Abby pats his cheek. "You have to take better care of yourself." Then she steps away and holds out a knife and an onion. "Stop flirting with the baby and make yourself useful."
Pat laughs and chops the onion the way she wants it. "I can get out of your hair, if you want."
Sharpy puts an arm around him and squeezes him close. "Stop that. You can stay as long as you want."
Pat leans into the touch. "You sure you want two kids in the house?"
"You're not a kid." Sharpy presses their foreheads together. "You grew up a lot last season. Stay if you want."
Pat nods, then forces a smile. "You might regret that when I'm still here next summer."
"We'll be happy if you're still here next summer," Abby says firmly, and she pries them apart to make Pat chop a couple of peppers.
*
Pat settles into the routine of the Sharp household over the next week. He takes his turn feeding Maddy, changing diapers, singing her to sleep. Sharpy takes him to his condo to get his car and some more clothes, but he still spends most of the time hanging around the house. It's nice. Just as laid-back as Buffalo, but less lonely.
On a day when Maddy takes a short nap and goes down for bed early, Abby breaks out a bottle of wine, Sharpy chooses a movie, and they settle down on the couch after dinner.
Pat's seen [MOVIE], so it's easy to be distracted. He finds his gaze returning, again and again, to Sharpy and Abby, cuddled together on the other end of the couch.
Abby leans forward to put her glass on the coffee table and catches his eye. She sits back and nudges Sharpy. "Babe," she says just loud enough for Pat to hear, "Pat's sad. Go make him less sad."
"I'm not-" Pat says, but it falls away under the force of both Sharpy and Abby looking at him.
Sharpy gets up, comes to Pat's end of the couch, and sits down. "C'mere, PK." He tugs at Pat until Pat's leaning against his chest with Sharpy's arms around him. "Don't be sad. You get to cuddle with one of Chicago's fifty most beautiful people."
Pat laughs and relaxes into Sharpy's hold. "I don't really get to look at you from this angle."
"My beauty transcends mere looks." Sharpy squeezes Pat close. "Bask in it and enjoy the movie."
It's nice, leaning on Sharpy. Nice to have someone he can lean on and trust that they're not going to let go. He's seen Sharpy with Maddy and Abby. He hangs on to the people he loves.
Pat lets his eyes close after a while, and just listens to the movie while he enjoys the feeling of being held, feeling the small movements of someone else's body. It's been too long since he's been this close to anyone.
"I think you put him to sleep," Abby says when the credits roll.
Pat says, "I'm awake," without bothering to open his eyes.
"Yeah, you really look it," Abby says with a laugh. Glasses clink as she picks them up, and Pat listens to her take them to the kitchen and come back, turn off the TV. He can feel her lean over them, and she kisses his cheek. "You look happier."
Pat smiles, and listens to her kiss Sharpy over his head. He should get up, let Sharpy go to bed with Abby, but he likes it here.
"Jonny is an oblivious douchebag," Sharpy says. He murmurs it into Pat's hair, so it takes a moment for him to register the words.
"He's not-"
Sharpy's arms tighten around him. "He is. I love the dude, but he is. You deserve better."
Pat takes a shuddering breath and turns his head so his cheek is resting on Sharpy's chest. "Yeah, maybe."
Sharpy lets him stay there for a while before he makes them both go to bed so they won't be dead tired when Maddy's ready to play in the morning.
*
Patrick feels better after that, more settled in himself and in the house. It helps that Sharpy says, "Vacation's over," and makes him start working out more regularly. He bulks up a little, puts on the weight he lost at the end of the season and the beginning of summer. They play street hockey in the driveway some evenings, and they go skating, sometimes with a couple of sticks and a bag of pucks and sometimes just racing across the ice until they're too tired to even laugh. Pat feels more like himself on the ice.
They take Maddy one day, and Abby comes with them. The three of them take turns doing slow circles of the rink with Maddy, and then Pat takes her so Sharpy and Abby can loop around the rink holding hands.
"Come join us," Abby says as they pass him where he's in the middle of the ice with Maddy. "Come on," she yells back to him, so he cuts across the rink to meet them on the next pass.
Pat keeps Maddy close to his chest with one hand and lets Abby take his other hand, hold onto him like he belongs there just as much as Sharpy does.
*
"Pat," Abby asks a few days later, "would you do us a favor?"
Normally, Pat would just say yes and do whatever it is, but Sharpy's smirking behind her, which means that may not be the best idea in this situation. "What do you want me to do?"
"Let us take you shopping."
"Shopping?"
"For game-day suits."
"I have suits."
"You have terrible suits," Sharpy says.
"They're not terrible."
"Oh, honey." Abby puts her hands on either side of his face. "They're terrible, and they don't fit. Let us take you shopping."
"I didn't get to be one of the fifty most beautiful Chicagoans on my face alone."
Pat cracks up. "Yes, you did." But he agrees to go shopping, so Sharpy calls his tailor - Sharpy has a tailor - and Abby calls their usual babysitter and two days later Pat finds himself in the back seat of Sharpy's car on the way to what turns out to be the most upscale store he's ever been in.
"Patrick." A guy almost as handsome as Sharpy and even better dressed comes toward them with his arms held out.
"Tom." Sharpy and Tom exchange kisses on both cheeks.
"You've brought me your lovely wife." Tom takes both of Abby's hands and kisses her cheeks. "And the other Patrick."
"Pat." Pat holds out his hand for Tom to shake.
"Tom." Tom shakes his hand and looks him up and down. "Please tell me you're here for you."
"Yeah. They think my game-day suits are terrible."
"Far be it from me to insult a customer's taste," Tom says.
Pat can't help laughing, especially when he looks past Tom and sees Sharpy and Abby grinning. "I already agreed to let them take me shopping, so let's do this."
"Wonderful." Tom claps his hands together. "This way." He takes them back to a fitting area where his assistant - a pretty woman he introduces as Claire - brings them glasses of mint ice water and Abby and Sharpy settle into a pair of comfortable looking chairs.
Pat strips and stands on the platform in the middle of the room while Tom runs a tape measure all over him.
Tom looks up at him with a grin when he hits a sensitive spot that makes Pat jerk. "There are no secrets from your tailor."
Pat chuckles. "I guess not." He glances over at Abby and Sharpy, who are both watching him with more appraising looks than he would have expected.
"What are we looking for here?" Tom asks when he has Pat's measurements. He looks from Pat to Sharpy and Abby.
Pat shrugs. "New suits?"
Sharpy and Abby both shake their heads at him. "Let's make him look good, for once," Sharpy says.
Pat flips him off, but Sharpy ignores him and keeps talking.
"Basic colors, mostly winter weight, although he'll want one or two for warmer weather, shirts to match."
"I don't think a classic cut is going to work on him," Abby says. "Something more modern, to match his personality."
"Do I get a say in this?" Pat asks.
"We've seen how you dress yourself," Sharpy says, a lazy smile on his face, "so no."
Tom and Claire wait until they're done before Tom says, "Let us pick some things out, and we'll see how they look on you."
There isn't a third chair, so Pat retrieves his glass of water from the table and sits on the edge of the platform to wait.
"Don't worry, honey," Abby says. "We're not going to let you end up in anything you hate."
Pat shrugs. He trusts them, and he's seen how Sharpy dresses. His face might have been the primary thing to get him on that list, but it wasn't the only factor.
"You really need to get outside more," Sharpy says.
Pat looks down at his chest. He is pretty pale. "We only leave the house to go to the rink."
"We can take Maddy to the lake tomorrow," Abby says.
Pat leans back on his hands. "I vote for that."
"I'm down," Sharpy says. He laces his fingers with Abby's, but they're both watching Pat. It doesn't bother him, but only because he's used to media in the locker room.
Tom and Claire wheel in an entire rack of clothes, and Pat stands up again to let them dress him. Half the things get discarded just after he puts them on, vetoed by Tom and Claire or Abby and Sharpy.
One of the combinations of suit and shirt gets a low whistle from Abby. "That's a keeper."
Pat doesn't see what's so great about it. It's just a black suit. "It's boring."
"It's a very modern cut to the lapels," Tom says, running his fingers down one of them. "Very fashionable."
Pat still doesn't see it.
"The pants make your ass look amazing," Abby says.
Pat huffs out a laugh and looks at Sharpy, who just shrugs. "She's not wrong."
Pat looks at himself in the mirror again, turns so he can see his ass. "It's still boring."
"All right," Sharpy says. "Hang on." He goes out into the main part of the store. He comes back with a tie, steps up on the platform in front of Pat, and turns his collar up to knot the tie around Pat's neck. He smoothes Pat's collar down and slides around behind him so Pat can see himself in the mirror. "Better?"
Pat has to drag his eyes up from where Sharpy's hand is hooked around his hip to see the effect of the tie. It's a black and white plaid with a stripe of turquoise down it that draws Pat's eye to his chest and makes the whole suit look like it's just a frame for the tie.
"Yeah," Pat leans back into Sharpy a little. "That's better."
Sharpy squeezes his hip and gets down from the platform so Pat can take off the suit piece by piece and hand it to Claire.
In the end, it takes the entire morning and Pat hands over his credit card to pay for an entire wardrobe of game-day suits.
"We'll call you when they're ready to pick up," Claire says. "Enjoy the rest of your day."
"Oh, I will," Pat says. He throws his arms around Sharpy and Abby's shoulders. "These two are buying me lunch."
Sharpy pushes him away laughing. "We are?"
"Yep. You made me spend a fortune on new clothes. You're buying lunch."
"It was less than your car," Sharpy says. He holds the door for Pat and Abby. "There's a place down the street we like to go."
It's too awkward to walk with his arm around Abby's shoulders, so Pat lets her go, only to have her hook her elbow through his.
"We'll buy you lunch," she says, "but after that, we're getting you some casual clothes."
Pat groans. "What's wrong with the rest of my clothes?"
"Nothing," Abby says cheerfully, "but you could look better."
"Don't you want to look your best?" Sharpy pulls open the door to the restaurant, flashes a smile at the hostess, and gets them a table.
Abby sits next to Sharpy on one side of the booth, with Pat on the other side. Sharpy stretches his legs out under the table so his calf rests against Pat's.
Pat spends most of lunch unsuccessfully trying to argue his way out of more shopping. He's not trying that hard, but it's fun and it makes Abby and Sharpy laugh at him.
They take casual clothes shopping no less seriously than suit shopping, and Pat ends up with an entirely new wardrobe of clothes that they then insist he get properly tailored, which means more standing still and avoiding pins.
It's a good day, though. It's nice having them care about him and tease him and choose clothes for him based on what best shows off the muscle he's been building.
In the car on the way home, Pat sits in the middle of the back seat so he can lean into the front, one hand dangling over the seat on Sharpy's shoulder, the other on Abby's. Sharpy just lets him be, but Abby reaches up to pat his hand a couple of times, and squeezes it once.
When they get home, Pat takes the things he was allowed to take home without alterations to his room to let Sharpy and Abby have some time with Maddy. He missed her too, though, so he doesn't stay away too long before he goes looking for them.
Sharpy has Maddy, and he smiles when he sees Pat. "And here's Pat. He's never going to be as good-looking as Daddy, but we're going to make sure he dresses well."
Maddy babbles at him, and Pat leans in to kiss her cheek. Sharpy puts his hand on Pat's back when he does, and doesn't let go even when Pat straightens up.
"Hi, Maddy. Did you miss us while we were gone? It was a whole day, which is a long time when you're a baby."
Maddy babbles at him some more, and Sharpy's both laughing a little and looking at Pat fondly. Pat quirks a smile at him in response.
Abby hooks her arm through Pat's. "Come on. You can feed her while Patrick and I make dinner."
Pat takes Maddy from Sharpy in the kitchen, and heats up a bottle for her while Abby and Sharpy start dinner.
"How can you stand to be away from her?" Pat looks down at Maddy's perfect, trusting face, her hands holding the bottle with only a little help from Pat to keep it at a good angle.
"Oh, honey." Abby comes over and kisses the top of his head. "It gets easier after a while."
"You think that was bad," Sharpy says, "wait until we go on a road trip."
"You're not helping." Abby takes over from Sharpy at the stove and pushes him toward Pat.
Pat looks down at Maddy so they won't be able to see just how much he can't stand the thought of that.
Sharpy's arms settle around him, crossed over Pat's collar bones. "This is why computer geeks invented Skype." He kisses the top of Pat's head too. "Well, this and an improvement on phone sex."
It startles a laugh out of Pat.
Sharpy hugs him, brushes his fingers over Maddy's cheek, and kisses the top of Pat's head again. "We'll be okay. We'll call home every day-"
"Yes, you will," Abby says.
"-and she won't forget us while we're away."
Pat leans into Sharpy's chest. "You sure?"
"She didn't forget me," Sharpy says, "and she's not going to forget you either. She loves you."
*
They take Maddy to the beach the next day, after Pat and Sharpy finish their morning workout. Pat packs sandwiches, Abby has a bag full of toys, and Sharpy gathers together blankets and a beach umbrella.
Abby puts sunblock on Maddy before she lets her down onto the blanket, and she insists on the same for the rest of them. Pat submits gracefully - he knows what happens to him in the sun - and takes the bottle from her to get her and Sharpy's backs.
Pat and Sharpy take Maddy down to the water and dip her low so she can get her toes in it, and when she starts to shy away from the cold, Pat pulls her up into his arms and lets her look out over the lake and at the people on the beach while he kicks water at Sharpy. Sharpy kicks back, and they walk a little ways down the beach kicking water at each other and people watching before they walk back and join Abby on their blanket.
Pat and Abby eat their sandwiches while Sharpy feeds Maddy from a jar of baby food she seems more interested in smearing on his chest than eating.
Pat finishes his sandwich and takes Maddy. "Are you being trouble for Daddy?" He sets her on his lap where she can see Abby and Sharpy and the beach beyond them. "You don't want to eat this? It looks yummy." He gets a few more spoonfuls into her before she starts putting her hands in it and smushing them onto his arms.
Pat grins at both Abby and Sharpy laughing at him and accepts the package of baby wipes to clean up Maddy and himself.
Maddy seems perfectly happy to be put down in the middle of the blanket with a couple of toys she can chew on, so Pat stretches out next to her and hands her other toys. Abby has a book, and Sharpy seems content to just lie down in the sun.
There's a plastic bucket and matching shovel mixed in with the rest of the toys, and while Maddy seems more interested in chewing on them than anything else, there are a couple of kids down by the lake building a sand castle, so Pat takes the bucket and shovel down and introduces himself to the kids.
"You're not very good at this," Eric says when Pat's first attempt crumbles into a pile of sand.
Pat laughs. "No, I guess not."
"You have to do it like this," Jeremy says. He packs the sand tighter into the bucket and makes Pat go closer to the water to get some more sand that's wet enough to hold together. "But not too wet," the kid lectures. "Because then it's just mud."
Under the kids' supervision, Pat makes a respectable looking addition to their sand castle complex.
"It's better at the ocean," Jeremy says, standing back to look at their structure. "There aren't tides here like there."
"We can still build a moat," Eric says, so Pat helps them dig a moat around the castle. They're just getting to the point of digging a channel from the lake to the moat when Abby comes down to see what they're doing.
"We were thinking about heading out," she says after she tells the kids they've done a great job.
Pat stands up and stretches out after spending so much time crouched down around the castle. "All right. Dudes, nice to hang with you." He high-fives Eric and Jeremy. "Thanks for letting me help."
Eric says, "You're welcome," and Jeremy says, "You're not bad for a grown-up."
Abby laughs, and Pat grins at the kids before he takes the bucket and shovel and heads up the beach with her.
"Pat's not bad for a grown-up," Abby reports to Sharpy.
Sharpy laughs and hands Maddy to Pat. "Spend some more time with the kid."
Pat bounces Maddy a little - she's starting to fuss - while Sharpy and Abby gather together and pack up their blanket full of things.
Maddy falls asleep in the car. Pat doesn't, barely, but when they get home, Sharpy pushes him inside. "You're asleep on your feet. We'll take care of this."
Pat collapses into bed and falls asleep almost immediately, tired from the afternoon spent in the sun. He wakes up sometime later to a quiet house. He wanders down the hall to Maddy's room and finds her just starting to wake up. He turns off the monitor so he won't bother Sharpy or Abby and lifts Maddy out of her crib.
"You awake?" he murmurs. Maddy makes a few smacking noises with her lips before she starts to fuss at him.
"All right," Pat says. He gets Maddy changed, talking to her all the while, and takes her past Abby and Sharpy's closed door and downstairs. He sits on the couch with her on his lap and reads her one of the baby books with lots of things for her to touch. She likes putting her hands onto the different surfaces. She starts straying from the boundaries of the book after a while, to grab onto Pat's arm, his shorts, twisting to get at the fabric of the couch.
Sharpy joins them, sitting down next to Pat and throwing an arm around him. He still looks unfairly good, even with his hair tousled from his own nap.
"Pat's more interesting than the book, huh?"
Maddy babbles and reaches toward him, so Pat scoots her over so she can grab at Sharpy's shirt too.
"Careful, sweetheart." Sharpy pulls her up so she's standing on his lap and can grab at his shirt without pulling too much.
Abby comes downstairs while Maddy's still entertained by the different textures of Sharpy's face and hair. "I was going to suggest we go out for dinner, but maybe we'll just order pizza." She sits on the other side of Pat and puts her head down on his shoulder. Sharpy moves his arm just enough to make space for her. "You all look comfy."
"Yeah, I could do without trying to take this monster out again," Sharpy says with easy affection for Maddy.
"I don't think pizza's in our training diet," Pat says, "but it sounds good anyway."
"It's still summer," Sharpy says. "And I won't tell."
Pat chuckles a little and leans into Sharpy. "You say that now, but the moment everyone's back you're going to be all, 'Oh, Kaner? He ate junk food every day.'"
Sharpy laughs and presses his cheek to Pat's forehead. "Sanctity of the house, I promise."
Abby wraps her arm across Pat's stomach. "We'll keep your secrets."
Pat puts his hand on her arm, squeezing a little, and gives his other hand to Maddy when she reaches for him.
*
Pat goes back to Buffalo for a week near the end of the summer. He needs to close up the house properly, make sure he has everything from there that he needs for the season, and it'll be nice to see his family.
Abby and Sharpy offer to take him to the airport, but he says goodbye to them at home and drives himself. Both of them hug him tight before he holds Maddy close, kisses her cheek, and tells her he loves her.
Sharpy hugs him again. "It's only a week. We won't let her forget you."
Pat holds on longer than he really needs to, but he has to get going so he does let go eventually.
When he checks his phone just before they make him turn it off for takeoff, there's a picture waiting for him, Abby, Sharpy, and Maddy all smiling. Pat sets it as his phone background before he turns his phone off.
*
His whole family meets him at the airport, and the first thing Erica says is, "When did you learn to dress yourself?"
Pat looks down at his outfit. It's nothing special, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but they're part of the wardrobe Abby and Sharpy took him shopping for. "I've been dressing myself for years," he says.
"Yeah," Erica says, "but you never looked good." She ducks away from him with a grin.
Pat does the only thing to do when confronted with that sort of commentary from his little sister and sticks his tongue out at her.
"Come on, kids," his mom says. "Let's get Pat's bags and go."
"No, really," Erica says in the car. "What happened to your sense of style?"
"It's like you got a makeover," Jessica says.
Pat laughs and confesses. "Abby and Sharpy took me shopping."
"Ha!" Erica says. "I knew you didn't figure that out on your own."
"So little faith in me. See if I dance party with you while I'm home." It's a completely idle threat, and they all know it.
They go to the family house, not Pat's place, for dinner, and Pat slips away into the backyard to check in with Abby and Sharpy.
"It's so quiet here," Sharpy says.
Pat laughs. "I'm not that loud."
"No," Sharpy admits, "but we miss you."
"I've been gone like five hours."
"We like having you here," Sharpy says, and Pat has to stare up at the darkening sky to try to put the feeling in his chest in some kind of perspective.
"Yeah," he says. "I miss you too."
Sharpy asks about his flight, and then he puts Abby and Maddy on speaker phone for a few minutes before Abby says, "Go enjoy time with your family. We'll see you in a week."
Pat hangs up and joins his family for dinner. His sisters volunteer to take him to his place after dinner. Jessica calls both shotgun and the right to choose the music, and they sing along to a mix of Bieber and Selena Gomez all the way to Pat's house.
"Dance party," Jackie says once they're in the house. "I made an awesome new playlist."
Pat hooks her iPod up to the speakers in the living room and they dance their asses off.
"I'm starving," Pat says after they're well into the playlist. "We should have gone to the store."
"There's ice cream," Jessica says, "and root beer. And some other stuff."
"Did Mom stock the place?"
"Mom and me," Jessica says.
"Sweet." Pat hugs her. "Root beer floats?"
All three girls say yes, so they leave the music playing and adjourn to the kitchen for root beer floats. Pat checks his phone while he lets the girls make their floats first. There are a couple of texts from Abby and Sharpy he answers, a few from other people. None from Jonny.
He puts the phone on the counter when it's his turn, and while he scoops ice cream into a glass, Jackie picks up his phone.
"Cute baby."
Pat can't help smiling. "Maddy," he says. "She is cute." He puts the ice cream scoop down to lean over and pull up the photos on his phone so Jackie can flip through them. There are probably things on there she shouldn't see, but she'll probably get bored before she hits them.
Jessica and Erica lean in to look over Jackie's shoulder.
Pat pours root beer over his ice cream and puts things away while they look through his phone.
"That's a lot of pictures of a baby that isn't even yours," Erica says.
Pat shrugs. "I've been staying with them, so I see her a lot."
"While we're leading normal lives," Jackie says, "you're off being a celebrity and having a threesome with your teammate and his wife."
"Jackie!" Erica says.
Pat's torn between laughing and scolding right along with Erica.
"What?" Jackie asks. "Are we not supposed to talk about the fact that you're bi? Because we all know."
Pat takes his phone out of her hands and turns it off. "It's not like that with them."
"So we can talk about the fact that you're bi?"
Pat leans his elbows on the counter and wraps both hands around his glass. "There isn't really anything to talk about."
"You mean you and Jonny aren't?" Jackie asks with an indeterminate hand gesture.
"No." Pat keeps his voice even and his grip on his root beer float means his hands won't give him away.
"Huh," Jackie says. "I would have thought you were hitting that."
Pat nearly chokes on his root beer, and this time he says, "Jackie!" just half a second behind Erica.
"Oh, come on," Jackie says. "We're all adults."
"I don't think," Jessica says, because she's the one you really have to watch out for, "that you really want to turn this into a discussion of who any of us are hooking up with."
Jackie points at Erica. "You said you wouldn't tell them!"
"I didn't," Erica says, at the same time Jessica says, "She didn't. Mom spilled."
"Mom knows?" Jackie fairly shrieks.
Pat relaxes his death grip on his glass. "How come I'm the only one who doesn't know what we're talking about?"
Jackie says, "It's nothing," Erica raises her eyebrows to convey how much that isn't true, and Jessica says, "The women of this family still have some secrets."
Despite rigorous questioning, Pat doesn't get the answer to who Jackie's been hooking up with, aside from Erica's "No hockey players" assurances.
*
Pat talks to Abby and Sharpy every day he's in Buffalo, between packing up whatever he wants from the Buffalo house during the season and hanging out with his family and friends who make time for him when he's only there for a week.
He talks to Jonny once, a conversation full of Amanda and fishing and detailed questioning about Pat's summer training schedule.
"Yes, Captain," Pat says, rolling his eyes even though Jonny can't see him, "I'm ready for the season." When they hang up, he flexes and sends Jonny a picture of his bicep. He takes the radio silence he gets in return to mean Jonny's not impressed.
*
Pat's anxious by the time he comes down the escalator to baggage claim. He's more than ready to get his bags and get home. To Sharpy and Abby's, to Maddy. He thinks that's all it is when his eye is drawn to a couple with a baby at the bottom of the escalator, but he blinks and it really is them, all three of them smiling and coming to meet him.
Abby gets to him first and pulls him in for a tight hug.
Pat holds on just as tight. "What are you doing here?"
"We missed you," she says. "I won the right of first hug in the coin toss." She takes Maddy and Pat gets just as tight a hug from Sharpy.
"That means you're last," Pat says, reaching for Maddy. She babbles at him and pulls at the collar of his shirt.
"Yeah," Abby says, "but you get to hang onto her now. Come point out your bags and we'll make Patrick get them."
"Why me?"
"You're the muscle," Abby says.
"I thought I was the face."
Abby laughs. "You can be both."
Pat looks up from Maddy. "What does that make me?"
"Definitely not the brains," Sharpy says.
Pat would shove him if he didn't have Maddy.
"No," Abby says. "I'm the brains." She puts her hand on Pat's cheek. "You're just our Pat."
Pat's breath stutters, and picks up again, and then he has to point out his bags for Sharpy to grab.
Abby eyes the collection of bags and then takes Maddy from Pat. "I'll take her. Patrick can go with you."
They split up in the elevator, because they parked on a different level than Pat did, and Abby leans up to kiss Sharpy's lips and Pat's cheek.
"You look good," Sharpy says when he and Pat are settled in the car. "Good week?"
"Yeah, it was fun." Pat grins. "They all had more time for me when I was only there for a little while. Something's going on with Jackie that they won't tell me about, but Erica says it's under control." He glances over to find Sharpy just watching him. "I'm glad to be home," Pat says. "I missed you."
"We missed you." Sharpy waits for Pat to hand over his card to pay for parking before asking, "You hear from Toes?"
Pat makes a face. "He spent like twenty minutes asking about my training."
Sharpy squeezes Pat's upper arm. "Your training's fine. Did he say when he's getting in?"
"Thursday." Pat glances at Sharpy, who's still watching him. "Amanda might move to Chicago."
Sharpy's fingers flex, digging into Pat's arm, before he lets go.
"My sisters asked if I was hooking up with him," Pat says, and in the next breath, "Do you think I can trick Jackie into telling me who she's hooking up with?"
"Maybe," Sharpy says, and Pat doesn't turn to see what might be on his face, "but you have to ask yourself, do you really want to know?"
Pat considers that for a moment. "Depends on who it is, I guess. Erica said it's not a hockey player."
Sharpy makes a considering sound. "You could ask Abby what she thinks. She might have ideas on how to get her to talk."
Pat grins. "Or we can just hand her Maddy next time she comes to visit and ask while she's distracted."
"We probably shouldn't use the baby that way," Sharpy says, but when Pat looks over, Sharpy has the look on his face that he gets when he's planning something. "It might work though."
Pat laughs. "Think it'll work on anyone else? We could get all kinds of secrets out of people."
"Stalberg's beauty regimen."
"I think he's naturally that pretty."
"Who got voted one of the most beautiful Chicagoans?"
Pat rolls his eyes. "I didn't say he was prettier than you, just that it was natural."
"My beauty's all natural too."
"You forget," Pat says, "I've seen your collection of hair products." He points at Sharpy without taking his eyes off the road. "And I know they're not all Abby's."
It feels good, chirping Sharpy and making him laugh. In twenty minutes, they'll be home and he can unpack into his room in their house and settle back into the cooking and taking care of Maddy routines he missed while he was in Buffalo.
*
Pat's unloading the dishwasher, idly thinking about going to the grocery store - he wants mashed potatoes but Sharpy made the last of the potatoes into potato salad two days ago - when Jonny calls him.
"Where are you?"
"Chicago," Pat says. "Where are you?"
"Chicago," Jonny says. "Your condo."
"Oh. Yeah, no, I'm at Sharpy's. You should come over."
There's a moment of silence before Jonny says, "Okay," and hangs up.
Pat finishes unloading the dishwasher before he wanders out into the living room. "I told Jonny to come over."
Abby and Sharpy look at each other, and Abby says, "It's your house too."
Pat leans over the back of the couch to make faces at Maddy where she's sitting on Sharpy's lap. Maddy laughs and grabs at him, and he spends the time it takes until Jonny rings the doorbell making her laugh.
Jonny hugs him when Pat answers the door. It's good. It's good because it's a good, solid hug, and Jonny is one of his closest friends and one of the hottest people Pat knows. But it's not the same. It's not as intense, and it doesn't leave Pat with the same need to be as close to Jonny as possible for as long as possible the way his hugs used to.
Pat takes Jonny into the living room where Abby hugs him while Sharpy puts Maddy down before gripping Jonny in a hug big enough to lift him off his feet.
"What the," Jonny glances at Maddy and finishes, "heck?"
Sharpy lets him down. "Just showing you there's no reason to question my training methods." He throws his arm over Pat's shoulders. "I got him all bulked up for the season."
Pat laughs and leans into Sharpy.
Jonny folds his arms over his chest. "Have you been practicing with your conditioning?"
Sharpy rolls his eyes. "Yes, o Captain my Captain. On the ice and in the driveway."
"The garage door will never be the same," Abby says.
Jonny laughs and uncrosses his arms. "Good. We're going to have a good season this year, no excuses."
"We're not going to let you down," Pat says.
"I didn't think you were. I was thinking we could grab some dinner. You want in?" he asks Abby and Sharpy.
They exchange a long look that includes Abby glancing at Maddy before Sharpy says, "No, you two have a good time."
Jonny nods at both of them and Pat picks up Maddy to kiss her cheek before they leave.
Pat makes Jonny drive, and Jonny asks, "Where are we going?" when he pulls out of the driveway.
"Somewhere with mashed potatoes," Pat says, both because he wants them and because it puts a hilariously pinched look on Jonny's face.
"You should be eating protein."
"So I'll eat a piece of cow with my potatoes. Come on, I've been craving them all day."
"And you couldn't have had them for lunch?" Jonny chirps Pat about his eating habits the whole way, but Pat gets his mashed potatoes.
They trade stories over dinner, Jonny telling him about spending time in the great outdoors and Pat relaying the potential for trouble that is Jackie hooking up with someone he doesn't know about. Neither one of them wants to stop talking so they go out after dinner, to a bar they haven't been to before where they order drinks and get left alone.
They're both too drunk to drive by the time they finally get out of there. Pat's not wasted, but he's drunk enough to be sloppy, and he throws his arms around Jonny on the sidewalk outside, but just because Jonny's his friend. He'd still bang Jonny given half a chance, but it's not the same desperate want from before the summer.
"You're my best friend."
Jonny laughs and hugs him back. "Sure."
"No really. I love you, man."
"All right," Jonny says. Pat pouts at him until his face cracks into a smile and he says, "Love you too, Kaner." Then he steps around Pat and opens the door of the cab that pulls up. "Get in the cab so we can go home."
"You take that one," Pat says, feeling generous. He'd like to get home and fall into bed, but he doesn't mind if Jonny goes first.
Jonny rolls his eyes. "You live two blocks away. I think we can share a cab."
"Oh," Pat says, "no. I'm going back to Sharpy's."
"You're too drunk to drive," Jon says. "Your car will be fine there until tomorrow."
Pat frowns at him. "No," he says. "I've been staying with them."
Then it's Jonny's turn to frown. "Since when?"
Pat shrugs. "Most of the summer."
Jonny shakes his head. "Kaner, you can't just-"
"They don't mind," Pat says. "It's fine. Go home. I'll get the next cab."
Jonny climbs into the cab but says, "This isn't over," before he pulls the door shut.
Pat never thought it was, but at least he can delay whatever Jonny has to say about it. If he waits long enough, it should move down the list of things Jonny thinks are important to talk to him about.
*
There's some kind of behind the scenes negotiation that goes on between Sharpy, Jonny, and Duncs that results in Sharpy inviting everyone over for a pre-season party. They have the whole thing catered, and Pat pores over menus with Abby while Sharpy suggests they order all the things most likely to cause Jonny to have a coronary. They compromise and get only half that sort of thing and half healthy options.
Pat's managed to see a couple of people, but having the whole team together is great. The party starts early enough that Maddy's still up, and she gets passed from person to person for a while until she starts to fuss and Pat takes her from Bryan.
"Was his face scaring you?" he says to her. "His face does that."
Maddy calms down a little once Pat has her, but it's enough to draw both Abby and Sharpy to her and Pat, and once they're there, Jonny wanders over too.
"You let him have the baby?" Jonny asks. "Now you'll never get rid of him."
Abby puts her arm around Pat and kisses his cheek. "Why would we want to?"
Pat leans into Abby's arm and bounces Maddy a little. "Maddy Grace," he sings to her, "has such a pretty face." It works to quiet Maddy a bit, but she's still unhappy. "Is it your bedtime? I bet it is." He looks at Abby and Sharpy. "I can-"
"No," Abby says. "I'll take her. You go spend time with your other babies."
Pat laughs. "They're all grown up. Not like you," he says to Maddy. "You're my favorite baby." He kisses her cheek and lets Sharpy take her to say goodnight before Abby takes her to her room, and then he does as told and heads over to Shawsy, Jimmy, and Dylan.
"Did I just hear you tell Sharpy's kid you like her better than us?" Shawsy asks.
"I do like her better than you," Pat says. "She's better looking and she doesn't throw up on me nearly as often." He grins and ducks the hit Jimmy aims at him.
"You been hanging out here a lot?" Dylan asks.
"Yeah."
"He's staying here," Jonny says, and Pat didn't even notice him joining them.
"They letting you crash on the couch?" Shawsy asks.
"Hey," Pat says, pointing at him, "I have my own room and everything."
"You have your own condo and everything," Jonny says.
Pat shrugs. "I like it here."
"You know you can hire people to cook for you," Jonny says. "You don't have to live with other people just to get fed."
"Oh, fuck you, Mr. I Make Omelets," Pat says, but he can't help laughing. "I help cook."
Shawsy puts his hand on Pat's arm. "If you want to cook and clean and change diapers, I'm sure someone would hire you to be their manny."
Pat laughs, and it turns into a shoving match that Pat's careful not to let push them into anything breakable.
*
[Then there would be kissing, dating - Pat staying home with Maddy while Sharpy and Abby go out, Sharpy taking Pat to lunch after they work out, Abby making Pat take him out to dinner, as well as the three of them going out - and then shared naps, also in varying twosomes as well as the three of them together, and then eventually the three of them living happily ever after together.]
Jonny answers the phone with, "Don't tell me you're bored already."
Pat grins just to hear his voice. "Whatever, like Winnipeg is so great."
"Winnipeg is great," Jonny insists, the same way he does every time Pat insults it.
"Yeah? What's so great about it?" Pat sprawls out on his couch - the same one both he and Jonny have in Chicago; he likes it, so there was no reason to get something different for the new house - and listens to Jonny lecture him about everything there is to do in Winnipeg over the summer, from golfing to fishing. He spends most of the lecture grinning, because he is bored, and hearing Jonny talk is the best thing that's happened to him all day.
*
"You spent all season missing your family," Jonny says. "Go spend time with them."
Pat twists one of the couch cushion seams. "They're busy."
"Don't you have any friends?"
"You."
"Friends there, Kaner." Pat can almost see Jonny rolling his eyes.
"No one has the summer off anymore. They all work."
"So make some new ones. Look, I gotta go. Not all of us are losers like you."
"You wish you were like me," Pat says, and all it gets him is Jonny hanging up, so that sucks.
Pat stretches out on his back on the couch and contemplates the ceiling. It's not very interesting. There isn't much to do on a Thursday afternoon, and he can only play NHL 12 so many times.
He thumbs through his phone and stops when he gets to Sharpy's name. He hovers over it for a bit - Sharpy's probably enjoying his uninterrupted time with Abby and the baby - before he gives in and calls.
Sharpy answers on the third ring with, "PK! How's Buffalo?"
"Boring as shit. How's Chicago?"
"Glorious as always. You should have stayed here. No, honey, Daddy's phone isn't for eating."
Pat grins. "Is that Maddy? Put her on."
"I don't think she's up for real phone conversations just yet."
"I don't care. Put her on. She's better than you."
Sharpy laughs. "I'll put you on speaker. Honey, can you say hi to Kaner?"
There's a burst of meaningless syllables.
"Hi, sweetheart," Pat says. "Are you keeping Daddy busy with dirty diapers?"
Maddy babbles a little more and Sharpy says, "She sure is."
Pat laughs. "But I bet you're cute while you're doing it."
"The cutest. Isn't that right? You're the cutest baby."
Pat can't help grinning. He can almost see Sharpy rubbing his nose against Maddy's and cooing at her.
"The cutest," Sharpy says firmly.
"Who are you talking to?" Abby asks.
"Kaner," Sharpy says. "On speaker so he can talk to Maddy."
"Hi, Pat." Pat can hear the smack of her lips as she blows him a kiss. "How's your summer going?"
"Hi, Ab. Boring. How's yours?"
"Hot. Babe, I gotta go. I'm going to be late." The sound of Abby and Sharpy kissing makes Pat ache for something like that. "Sweetheart, you be good and take your nap without fussing. Pat, you can get the whole family next time."
Pat says, "Bye, Ab," over the sound of Abby kissing Maddy and walking out of the room.
Maddy keeps babbling away, and both Pat and Sharpy say things like, "Yeah?" and "Is that right?" until Sharpy takes them off speaker so they can have a grown-up conversation. Of course, their grown-up conversation consists mostly of Pat bragging about his NHL 12 skills and Sharpy countering with his perfect family as a reason why he's not as good.
"Hey, man," Sharpy finally says, "I've gotta go. Time for Maddy's nap."
"Oh, yeah, sure," Pat says.
Sharpy must be able to tell how much he doesn't want to get off the phone, because he says, "Don't sound so sad, PK. Call us tomorrow, and you can listen to as much baby babble as you can stand."
That sounds like the best thing ever to Pat. "Yeah, sure."
"Maddy, can you say bye-bye to Pat?" That doesn't get anything, and Sharpy laughs. "Guess not. Talk to you later."
"Yeah," Pat says, "later."
*
A week later, Sharpy's telling Pat about what Maddy's doing and says, "No, wait, you have to see this," and texts him a picture.
Pat twists his phone back and forth trying to figure it out. "I don't think that works as a cell phone picture." Pat's eye lands on his laptop. "I just had the best idea."
"Is this an actual best idea or the kind of best idea that's going to get someone arrested?"
"Fuck you," Pat says. "We should Skype. Then I can actually see her."
"Yes," Sharpy says. "That's an actual best idea. Maddy, don't go anywhere while Daddy grabs the laptop."
"I don't think she's going to go anywhere," Pat says.
"I want you to picture me flipping you off."
Pat laughs.
"You think I'm joking." As soon as they're on Skype, the first thing Pat sees is Sharpy's middle finger in the center of the screen.
"You dick." Pat hangs up the phone and grins into his laptop camera. "Get Maddy. She's more fun."
Sharpy moves out of view, but Pat can still hear him say, "Come here, baby. Come talk to Kaner."
"Hi, Maddy," Pat says as soon as Sharpy's in front of the camera with Maddy. "Are you tired of your daddy? Now you get to see me too."
Maddy babbles at him and reaches toward him. She gets as far as smashing her hands on the keyboard before Sharpy pulls her back a little. It doesn't stop her from reaching for Pat.
"I know," Pat says. "I'm way more exciting than Daddy. A whole new person you get to talk to." He talks to Maddy and gets babbling back for a bit, until she starts fussing and reaching away from the laptop.
"Hi, baby." Pat can hear Abby before he can see her. "Was that too much time with Daddy? Do you want Mommy now?" Abby scoops Maddy out of Sharpy's arms. "Hi, Pat. Isn't she the most beautiful baby?"
"Totally."
Abby sits on Sharpy's lap and chats with Pat for a few minutes before she says it's time for Maddy's nap. She and Sharpy exchange a look Pat can't read, and then she says goodbye and takes Maddy away.
"Hey, you okay?" Sharpy asks after a few minutes of idle chit-chat.
"Yeah," Pat says. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"You look sad," Sharpy says. He's not even joking about it. "You talk to Jonny recently?"
Pat pulls a face that he didn't mean to but can see in the box in the corner of his screen. "He's busy golfing and fishing and dating."
"Dating?" Sharpy asks.
"Amanda."
Sharpy winces. "Sorry, dude."
Pat shrugs. "Whatever."
For a moment, it looks like Sharpy's not going to let it go, but then he says, "You hear what Shawsy's been up to this summer?" and Pat doesn't have to think about Jonny and his girlfriend or whatever she is.
*
Buying a ticket to Chicago is kind of a split-second decision. Only kind of, because there's logistical stuff to closing up the house in Buffalo for a while and making time to have dinner with his family and that kind of thing. But deciding, that he does as soon as he thinks of it.
It's worth it, even just for the surprised look on Sharpy's face when he answers his door and finds Pat and his suitcase on the porch.
"PK, what are you doing here?" Sharpy steps out onto the porch and hugs him. It feels good, and Pat hangs on for a while.
"We were going to Skype," he says when he makes himself pull away, "but I thought I'd come see your ugly face in person instead."
"My face is beautiful," Sharpy says. He holds the door for Pat, lets him leave his bag in the hall, and leads him deeper into the house. "But this is the face you really wanted to see." He scoops Maddy off the floor, kisses her cheek, and hands her to Pat.
"Hi, there, Maddy." Pat hugs her close and kisses her forehead, breathes in the baby smell. "Isn't this better than a laptop screen?"
Maddy makes a "bababa" kind of noise and grabs his cheeks. To be fair to her, they are puffed out with his smile. He makes a bunch of faces at her, and she keeps laughing and babbling at him.
Pat hears the shutter noise of Sharpy's camera app, but he doesn't look up from Maddy until Abby comes in and says, "Pat." She comes over and hugs him, not very hard, but he's still holding Maddy between them. "What are you doing here?"
"I missed Chicago."
Pat's looking at her, so he sees her exchange another unreadable look with Sharpy. "Well, we're glad to have you." She leans in and nuzzles Maddy's cheek. "You're probably getting hungry, huh, baby? Let's get you a bottle, and maybe Pat will feed it to you."
In the kitchen, Abby heats up the bottle, and makes Pat sit down. "Hold her like this." She gets Maddy situated and shows Pat how to hold the bottle at the right angle.
Maddy's tiny hands grip the bottle as tightly as she can, and Pat just watches her drink. "You're a hungry kid."
"She's growing like a weed," Sharpy says.
"She's heavier." Pat kisses the top of Maddy's head, where she has just the tiniest fuzz of hair.
"You've lost weight," Abby says. "Are you staying for dinner?"
"Yeah," Pat says, answering both questions.
Sharpy comes over to stand next to Pat and squeezes the back of his neck. "You sure you're okay?"
Pat leans into the touch. "Yeah, I'm fine. Haven't really done much of my off-season training yet, you know?" He tries to smile, but it only becomes real when Maddy fusses at him for moving and he turns it on her.
Abby and Sharpy make dinner around them, chatting and comfortable. Sharpy shows Pat how to burp Maddy, and after she spits up a little, she settles in as a comfortable weight against Pat's shoulder.
Abby takes Maddy away to put her in the high chair when dinner's ready. Sharpy gets a stuffed bear from the other room, and Maddy spends most of dinner chewing on one of its ears.
"I'm going to get her to bed," Sharpy says after dinner, so Pat helps Abby with the dishes.
"You're a guest," Abby says. "You don't have to."
Pat says, "I'll feel bad if I don't," and stands next to her at the sink to rinse and put dishes in the dishwasher to dry. He does ask, "Why not just run the dishwasher?"
Abby crooks a smile at him. "We do, sometimes, but this isn't bad as chores go."
"I guess not."
When the last dishes are set out to dry and Abby's wiped down the sink and the counters, they dry their hands and then Abby puts her arms around Pat and he gets the kind of hug he didn't when he was holding Maddy earlier.
"Leaving me for him?" Sharpy asks when he comes back without Maddy.
Abby laughs and holds out her arm for Sharpy to join their hug. It's a good hug, makes Pat feel like someone other than his family cares about him.
"Come on," Sharpy says. "Let's see what's on the DVR." When Pat laughs, he adds, "Life with a baby. This is as exciting as it gets."
Pat shrugs. "Better than playing NHL 12 all day."
Abby gets control of the remote, and they watch an episode of [SOMETHING] before Sharpy and Abby are both yawning.
"We have early nights around here," Abby says. "Maddy'll be up early."
"No," Pat says, as much as he doesn't want this to end, "that's cool."
Abby and Sharpy look at each other, doing that wordless couple thing all over again.
"Get your bag," Sharpy says. "There are clean sheets in the guest room."
Pat makes a token protest, but he's all too happy to crawl into bed in their guest room. They're too far away for him to hear them, but it's nice to go to sleep and know someone else is there too.
*
Pat wakes up early and takes a quick shower before heading to the kitchen where Sharpy's making omelets while Abby feeds Maddy from a tiny jar of baby food. Abby waves at Pat, Maddy squishes her fingers in his direction, and Sharpy puts an arm around him for a quick hug.
"What do you want in your omelet?"
Pat looks at the neat piles of chopped ingredients spread out over the counter. "Whatever. No tomatoes. They get soggy."
The omelet in the pan goes to Abby, who seems to have eating and feeding Maddy at the same time down to a science, and Sharpy throws ingredients into the pan for a second one.
"What's going on today?" Pat asks once Sharpy gets to sit with them with his omelet.
Sharpy shrugs. "No plans. NHL 12 tournament?"
Pat points at him with his fork. "You're going down."
"Best of three," Abby says, "and I get winner."
"You're on."
Sharpy's omelets are good, enough that Pat accepts when Sharpy offers to make another one and split it with him. Pat helps Sharpy with the dishes while Abby gets Maddy cleaned up, and then they settle in for some NHL. Pat takes out Sharpy, but goes down in two against Abby.
Abby throws her arms up. "Bow down to the master!"
Pat tosses his controller to Sharpy. "How did you get so good at this?"
"A lot of time home alone."
Pat makes a face at her and picks up Maddy from where she's been grabbing at a bunch of toys on the floor. "It's a good thing you're here now. You have to keep Mommy too busy to get better at this."
He makes faces at Maddy for a while, lets her grab at his cheeks and his lips and his ears, while Sharpy and Abby battle it out. Abby wins, and Kaner takes the controller back from Sharpy. He loses, but this time Abby just laughs and gives her controller to Sharpy.
"If I don't," she says, "you two will never get to play each other again." She scoops Maddy off the floor and swings her in a circle. "And now it's Mommy and Maddy time. Look at Daddy and Pat, thinking they're ever going to have a chance to be as good as Mommy."
Sharpy flips her off without looking.
Pat bursts out laughing, hard enough that it affects his game. "I don't think you're supposed to do that around kids."
Sharpy shrugs. "She's too young to have the motor skills to do it herself."
Pat keeps chuckling. He loses the game too, and a second one, and then they take a break to play with Maddy and before he knows it, he's in the kitchen slicing up tomatoes for lunch.
Maddy gets half a bottle with her tiny jar of baby food, and Abby and Sharpy let Kaner give it to her.
"The novelty wears off," Sharpy says, but Pat can't imagine anything better than sitting in their kitchen with a tiny trusting baby relying on him to feed her.
"I can get out of your way," Pat offers after lunch, but Abby and Sharpy look at each other, and Abby says, "Stay as long as you want, honey." She bends over Pat and kisses his forehead. "Afternoons are usually quiet, though."
"Cool with me," Pat says, and he plays quietly on the floor with Maddy while Sharpy and Abby read or dick around on the internet or whatever it is they're doing that's not playing with the baby.
Pat takes advantage of Sharpy getting up to steal the couch, and he stretches out on it with Maddy on his chest. She falls asleep, of course, because she's a baby and it's naptime. Pat folds his hands over her back to keep her steady and watches them rise and fall with her breathing.
He must fall asleep too, because he jerks awake when something pulls Maddy away.
"It's all right," Sharpy says. "I've got her." He rests the hand not holding Maddy to his chest on Pat's shoulder. "Go back to sleep."
"I'm awake," Pat mutters.
"But you're tired." Sharpy squeezes his shoulder. "Take a nap."
Pat does and wakes up to a room that's empty and dark with the curtains closed. A glance at his phone tells him he's slept through most of the afternoon. He can hear the sounds of people in the kitchen, so that's where he goes after a pit stop in the downstairs bathroom.
"Hey, sleepyhead," Abby says. "Feel better?"
Pat stretches, and bends down to tickle Maddy in her high chair. "Yeah," he says. "I didn't think I was so tired."
Abby pats his cheek. "You have to take better care of yourself." Then she steps away and holds out a knife and an onion. "Stop flirting with the baby and make yourself useful."
Pat laughs and chops the onion the way she wants it. "I can get out of your hair, if you want."
Sharpy puts an arm around him and squeezes him close. "Stop that. You can stay as long as you want."
Pat leans into the touch. "You sure you want two kids in the house?"
"You're not a kid." Sharpy presses their foreheads together. "You grew up a lot last season. Stay if you want."
Pat nods, then forces a smile. "You might regret that when I'm still here next summer."
"We'll be happy if you're still here next summer," Abby says firmly, and she pries them apart to make Pat chop a couple of peppers.
*
Pat settles into the routine of the Sharp household over the next week. He takes his turn feeding Maddy, changing diapers, singing her to sleep. Sharpy takes him to his condo to get his car and some more clothes, but he still spends most of the time hanging around the house. It's nice. Just as laid-back as Buffalo, but less lonely.
On a day when Maddy takes a short nap and goes down for bed early, Abby breaks out a bottle of wine, Sharpy chooses a movie, and they settle down on the couch after dinner.
Pat's seen [MOVIE], so it's easy to be distracted. He finds his gaze returning, again and again, to Sharpy and Abby, cuddled together on the other end of the couch.
Abby leans forward to put her glass on the coffee table and catches his eye. She sits back and nudges Sharpy. "Babe," she says just loud enough for Pat to hear, "Pat's sad. Go make him less sad."
"I'm not-" Pat says, but it falls away under the force of both Sharpy and Abby looking at him.
Sharpy gets up, comes to Pat's end of the couch, and sits down. "C'mere, PK." He tugs at Pat until Pat's leaning against his chest with Sharpy's arms around him. "Don't be sad. You get to cuddle with one of Chicago's fifty most beautiful people."
Pat laughs and relaxes into Sharpy's hold. "I don't really get to look at you from this angle."
"My beauty transcends mere looks." Sharpy squeezes Pat close. "Bask in it and enjoy the movie."
It's nice, leaning on Sharpy. Nice to have someone he can lean on and trust that they're not going to let go. He's seen Sharpy with Maddy and Abby. He hangs on to the people he loves.
Pat lets his eyes close after a while, and just listens to the movie while he enjoys the feeling of being held, feeling the small movements of someone else's body. It's been too long since he's been this close to anyone.
"I think you put him to sleep," Abby says when the credits roll.
Pat says, "I'm awake," without bothering to open his eyes.
"Yeah, you really look it," Abby says with a laugh. Glasses clink as she picks them up, and Pat listens to her take them to the kitchen and come back, turn off the TV. He can feel her lean over them, and she kisses his cheek. "You look happier."
Pat smiles, and listens to her kiss Sharpy over his head. He should get up, let Sharpy go to bed with Abby, but he likes it here.
"Jonny is an oblivious douchebag," Sharpy says. He murmurs it into Pat's hair, so it takes a moment for him to register the words.
"He's not-"
Sharpy's arms tighten around him. "He is. I love the dude, but he is. You deserve better."
Pat takes a shuddering breath and turns his head so his cheek is resting on Sharpy's chest. "Yeah, maybe."
Sharpy lets him stay there for a while before he makes them both go to bed so they won't be dead tired when Maddy's ready to play in the morning.
*
Patrick feels better after that, more settled in himself and in the house. It helps that Sharpy says, "Vacation's over," and makes him start working out more regularly. He bulks up a little, puts on the weight he lost at the end of the season and the beginning of summer. They play street hockey in the driveway some evenings, and they go skating, sometimes with a couple of sticks and a bag of pucks and sometimes just racing across the ice until they're too tired to even laugh. Pat feels more like himself on the ice.
They take Maddy one day, and Abby comes with them. The three of them take turns doing slow circles of the rink with Maddy, and then Pat takes her so Sharpy and Abby can loop around the rink holding hands.
"Come join us," Abby says as they pass him where he's in the middle of the ice with Maddy. "Come on," she yells back to him, so he cuts across the rink to meet them on the next pass.
Pat keeps Maddy close to his chest with one hand and lets Abby take his other hand, hold onto him like he belongs there just as much as Sharpy does.
*
"Pat," Abby asks a few days later, "would you do us a favor?"
Normally, Pat would just say yes and do whatever it is, but Sharpy's smirking behind her, which means that may not be the best idea in this situation. "What do you want me to do?"
"Let us take you shopping."
"Shopping?"
"For game-day suits."
"I have suits."
"You have terrible suits," Sharpy says.
"They're not terrible."
"Oh, honey." Abby puts her hands on either side of his face. "They're terrible, and they don't fit. Let us take you shopping."
"I didn't get to be one of the fifty most beautiful Chicagoans on my face alone."
Pat cracks up. "Yes, you did." But he agrees to go shopping, so Sharpy calls his tailor - Sharpy has a tailor - and Abby calls their usual babysitter and two days later Pat finds himself in the back seat of Sharpy's car on the way to what turns out to be the most upscale store he's ever been in.
"Patrick." A guy almost as handsome as Sharpy and even better dressed comes toward them with his arms held out.
"Tom." Sharpy and Tom exchange kisses on both cheeks.
"You've brought me your lovely wife." Tom takes both of Abby's hands and kisses her cheeks. "And the other Patrick."
"Pat." Pat holds out his hand for Tom to shake.
"Tom." Tom shakes his hand and looks him up and down. "Please tell me you're here for you."
"Yeah. They think my game-day suits are terrible."
"Far be it from me to insult a customer's taste," Tom says.
Pat can't help laughing, especially when he looks past Tom and sees Sharpy and Abby grinning. "I already agreed to let them take me shopping, so let's do this."
"Wonderful." Tom claps his hands together. "This way." He takes them back to a fitting area where his assistant - a pretty woman he introduces as Claire - brings them glasses of mint ice water and Abby and Sharpy settle into a pair of comfortable looking chairs.
Pat strips and stands on the platform in the middle of the room while Tom runs a tape measure all over him.
Tom looks up at him with a grin when he hits a sensitive spot that makes Pat jerk. "There are no secrets from your tailor."
Pat chuckles. "I guess not." He glances over at Abby and Sharpy, who are both watching him with more appraising looks than he would have expected.
"What are we looking for here?" Tom asks when he has Pat's measurements. He looks from Pat to Sharpy and Abby.
Pat shrugs. "New suits?"
Sharpy and Abby both shake their heads at him. "Let's make him look good, for once," Sharpy says.
Pat flips him off, but Sharpy ignores him and keeps talking.
"Basic colors, mostly winter weight, although he'll want one or two for warmer weather, shirts to match."
"I don't think a classic cut is going to work on him," Abby says. "Something more modern, to match his personality."
"Do I get a say in this?" Pat asks.
"We've seen how you dress yourself," Sharpy says, a lazy smile on his face, "so no."
Tom and Claire wait until they're done before Tom says, "Let us pick some things out, and we'll see how they look on you."
There isn't a third chair, so Pat retrieves his glass of water from the table and sits on the edge of the platform to wait.
"Don't worry, honey," Abby says. "We're not going to let you end up in anything you hate."
Pat shrugs. He trusts them, and he's seen how Sharpy dresses. His face might have been the primary thing to get him on that list, but it wasn't the only factor.
"You really need to get outside more," Sharpy says.
Pat looks down at his chest. He is pretty pale. "We only leave the house to go to the rink."
"We can take Maddy to the lake tomorrow," Abby says.
Pat leans back on his hands. "I vote for that."
"I'm down," Sharpy says. He laces his fingers with Abby's, but they're both watching Pat. It doesn't bother him, but only because he's used to media in the locker room.
Tom and Claire wheel in an entire rack of clothes, and Pat stands up again to let them dress him. Half the things get discarded just after he puts them on, vetoed by Tom and Claire or Abby and Sharpy.
One of the combinations of suit and shirt gets a low whistle from Abby. "That's a keeper."
Pat doesn't see what's so great about it. It's just a black suit. "It's boring."
"It's a very modern cut to the lapels," Tom says, running his fingers down one of them. "Very fashionable."
Pat still doesn't see it.
"The pants make your ass look amazing," Abby says.
Pat huffs out a laugh and looks at Sharpy, who just shrugs. "She's not wrong."
Pat looks at himself in the mirror again, turns so he can see his ass. "It's still boring."
"All right," Sharpy says. "Hang on." He goes out into the main part of the store. He comes back with a tie, steps up on the platform in front of Pat, and turns his collar up to knot the tie around Pat's neck. He smoothes Pat's collar down and slides around behind him so Pat can see himself in the mirror. "Better?"
Pat has to drag his eyes up from where Sharpy's hand is hooked around his hip to see the effect of the tie. It's a black and white plaid with a stripe of turquoise down it that draws Pat's eye to his chest and makes the whole suit look like it's just a frame for the tie.
"Yeah," Pat leans back into Sharpy a little. "That's better."
Sharpy squeezes his hip and gets down from the platform so Pat can take off the suit piece by piece and hand it to Claire.
In the end, it takes the entire morning and Pat hands over his credit card to pay for an entire wardrobe of game-day suits.
"We'll call you when they're ready to pick up," Claire says. "Enjoy the rest of your day."
"Oh, I will," Pat says. He throws his arms around Sharpy and Abby's shoulders. "These two are buying me lunch."
Sharpy pushes him away laughing. "We are?"
"Yep. You made me spend a fortune on new clothes. You're buying lunch."
"It was less than your car," Sharpy says. He holds the door for Pat and Abby. "There's a place down the street we like to go."
It's too awkward to walk with his arm around Abby's shoulders, so Pat lets her go, only to have her hook her elbow through his.
"We'll buy you lunch," she says, "but after that, we're getting you some casual clothes."
Pat groans. "What's wrong with the rest of my clothes?"
"Nothing," Abby says cheerfully, "but you could look better."
"Don't you want to look your best?" Sharpy pulls open the door to the restaurant, flashes a smile at the hostess, and gets them a table.
Abby sits next to Sharpy on one side of the booth, with Pat on the other side. Sharpy stretches his legs out under the table so his calf rests against Pat's.
Pat spends most of lunch unsuccessfully trying to argue his way out of more shopping. He's not trying that hard, but it's fun and it makes Abby and Sharpy laugh at him.
They take casual clothes shopping no less seriously than suit shopping, and Pat ends up with an entirely new wardrobe of clothes that they then insist he get properly tailored, which means more standing still and avoiding pins.
It's a good day, though. It's nice having them care about him and tease him and choose clothes for him based on what best shows off the muscle he's been building.
In the car on the way home, Pat sits in the middle of the back seat so he can lean into the front, one hand dangling over the seat on Sharpy's shoulder, the other on Abby's. Sharpy just lets him be, but Abby reaches up to pat his hand a couple of times, and squeezes it once.
When they get home, Pat takes the things he was allowed to take home without alterations to his room to let Sharpy and Abby have some time with Maddy. He missed her too, though, so he doesn't stay away too long before he goes looking for them.
Sharpy has Maddy, and he smiles when he sees Pat. "And here's Pat. He's never going to be as good-looking as Daddy, but we're going to make sure he dresses well."
Maddy babbles at him, and Pat leans in to kiss her cheek. Sharpy puts his hand on Pat's back when he does, and doesn't let go even when Pat straightens up.
"Hi, Maddy. Did you miss us while we were gone? It was a whole day, which is a long time when you're a baby."
Maddy babbles at him some more, and Sharpy's both laughing a little and looking at Pat fondly. Pat quirks a smile at him in response.
Abby hooks her arm through Pat's. "Come on. You can feed her while Patrick and I make dinner."
Pat takes Maddy from Sharpy in the kitchen, and heats up a bottle for her while Abby and Sharpy start dinner.
"How can you stand to be away from her?" Pat looks down at Maddy's perfect, trusting face, her hands holding the bottle with only a little help from Pat to keep it at a good angle.
"Oh, honey." Abby comes over and kisses the top of his head. "It gets easier after a while."
"You think that was bad," Sharpy says, "wait until we go on a road trip."
"You're not helping." Abby takes over from Sharpy at the stove and pushes him toward Pat.
Pat looks down at Maddy so they won't be able to see just how much he can't stand the thought of that.
Sharpy's arms settle around him, crossed over Pat's collar bones. "This is why computer geeks invented Skype." He kisses the top of Pat's head too. "Well, this and an improvement on phone sex."
It startles a laugh out of Pat.
Sharpy hugs him, brushes his fingers over Maddy's cheek, and kisses the top of Pat's head again. "We'll be okay. We'll call home every day-"
"Yes, you will," Abby says.
"-and she won't forget us while we're away."
Pat leans into Sharpy's chest. "You sure?"
"She didn't forget me," Sharpy says, "and she's not going to forget you either. She loves you."
*
They take Maddy to the beach the next day, after Pat and Sharpy finish their morning workout. Pat packs sandwiches, Abby has a bag full of toys, and Sharpy gathers together blankets and a beach umbrella.
Abby puts sunblock on Maddy before she lets her down onto the blanket, and she insists on the same for the rest of them. Pat submits gracefully - he knows what happens to him in the sun - and takes the bottle from her to get her and Sharpy's backs.
Pat and Sharpy take Maddy down to the water and dip her low so she can get her toes in it, and when she starts to shy away from the cold, Pat pulls her up into his arms and lets her look out over the lake and at the people on the beach while he kicks water at Sharpy. Sharpy kicks back, and they walk a little ways down the beach kicking water at each other and people watching before they walk back and join Abby on their blanket.
Pat and Abby eat their sandwiches while Sharpy feeds Maddy from a jar of baby food she seems more interested in smearing on his chest than eating.
Pat finishes his sandwich and takes Maddy. "Are you being trouble for Daddy?" He sets her on his lap where she can see Abby and Sharpy and the beach beyond them. "You don't want to eat this? It looks yummy." He gets a few more spoonfuls into her before she starts putting her hands in it and smushing them onto his arms.
Pat grins at both Abby and Sharpy laughing at him and accepts the package of baby wipes to clean up Maddy and himself.
Maddy seems perfectly happy to be put down in the middle of the blanket with a couple of toys she can chew on, so Pat stretches out next to her and hands her other toys. Abby has a book, and Sharpy seems content to just lie down in the sun.
There's a plastic bucket and matching shovel mixed in with the rest of the toys, and while Maddy seems more interested in chewing on them than anything else, there are a couple of kids down by the lake building a sand castle, so Pat takes the bucket and shovel down and introduces himself to the kids.
"You're not very good at this," Eric says when Pat's first attempt crumbles into a pile of sand.
Pat laughs. "No, I guess not."
"You have to do it like this," Jeremy says. He packs the sand tighter into the bucket and makes Pat go closer to the water to get some more sand that's wet enough to hold together. "But not too wet," the kid lectures. "Because then it's just mud."
Under the kids' supervision, Pat makes a respectable looking addition to their sand castle complex.
"It's better at the ocean," Jeremy says, standing back to look at their structure. "There aren't tides here like there."
"We can still build a moat," Eric says, so Pat helps them dig a moat around the castle. They're just getting to the point of digging a channel from the lake to the moat when Abby comes down to see what they're doing.
"We were thinking about heading out," she says after she tells the kids they've done a great job.
Pat stands up and stretches out after spending so much time crouched down around the castle. "All right. Dudes, nice to hang with you." He high-fives Eric and Jeremy. "Thanks for letting me help."
Eric says, "You're welcome," and Jeremy says, "You're not bad for a grown-up."
Abby laughs, and Pat grins at the kids before he takes the bucket and shovel and heads up the beach with her.
"Pat's not bad for a grown-up," Abby reports to Sharpy.
Sharpy laughs and hands Maddy to Pat. "Spend some more time with the kid."
Pat bounces Maddy a little - she's starting to fuss - while Sharpy and Abby gather together and pack up their blanket full of things.
Maddy falls asleep in the car. Pat doesn't, barely, but when they get home, Sharpy pushes him inside. "You're asleep on your feet. We'll take care of this."
Pat collapses into bed and falls asleep almost immediately, tired from the afternoon spent in the sun. He wakes up sometime later to a quiet house. He wanders down the hall to Maddy's room and finds her just starting to wake up. He turns off the monitor so he won't bother Sharpy or Abby and lifts Maddy out of her crib.
"You awake?" he murmurs. Maddy makes a few smacking noises with her lips before she starts to fuss at him.
"All right," Pat says. He gets Maddy changed, talking to her all the while, and takes her past Abby and Sharpy's closed door and downstairs. He sits on the couch with her on his lap and reads her one of the baby books with lots of things for her to touch. She likes putting her hands onto the different surfaces. She starts straying from the boundaries of the book after a while, to grab onto Pat's arm, his shorts, twisting to get at the fabric of the couch.
Sharpy joins them, sitting down next to Pat and throwing an arm around him. He still looks unfairly good, even with his hair tousled from his own nap.
"Pat's more interesting than the book, huh?"
Maddy babbles and reaches toward him, so Pat scoots her over so she can grab at Sharpy's shirt too.
"Careful, sweetheart." Sharpy pulls her up so she's standing on his lap and can grab at his shirt without pulling too much.
Abby comes downstairs while Maddy's still entertained by the different textures of Sharpy's face and hair. "I was going to suggest we go out for dinner, but maybe we'll just order pizza." She sits on the other side of Pat and puts her head down on his shoulder. Sharpy moves his arm just enough to make space for her. "You all look comfy."
"Yeah, I could do without trying to take this monster out again," Sharpy says with easy affection for Maddy.
"I don't think pizza's in our training diet," Pat says, "but it sounds good anyway."
"It's still summer," Sharpy says. "And I won't tell."
Pat chuckles a little and leans into Sharpy. "You say that now, but the moment everyone's back you're going to be all, 'Oh, Kaner? He ate junk food every day.'"
Sharpy laughs and presses his cheek to Pat's forehead. "Sanctity of the house, I promise."
Abby wraps her arm across Pat's stomach. "We'll keep your secrets."
Pat puts his hand on her arm, squeezing a little, and gives his other hand to Maddy when she reaches for him.
*
Pat goes back to Buffalo for a week near the end of the summer. He needs to close up the house properly, make sure he has everything from there that he needs for the season, and it'll be nice to see his family.
Abby and Sharpy offer to take him to the airport, but he says goodbye to them at home and drives himself. Both of them hug him tight before he holds Maddy close, kisses her cheek, and tells her he loves her.
Sharpy hugs him again. "It's only a week. We won't let her forget you."
Pat holds on longer than he really needs to, but he has to get going so he does let go eventually.
When he checks his phone just before they make him turn it off for takeoff, there's a picture waiting for him, Abby, Sharpy, and Maddy all smiling. Pat sets it as his phone background before he turns his phone off.
*
His whole family meets him at the airport, and the first thing Erica says is, "When did you learn to dress yourself?"
Pat looks down at his outfit. It's nothing special, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but they're part of the wardrobe Abby and Sharpy took him shopping for. "I've been dressing myself for years," he says.
"Yeah," Erica says, "but you never looked good." She ducks away from him with a grin.
Pat does the only thing to do when confronted with that sort of commentary from his little sister and sticks his tongue out at her.
"Come on, kids," his mom says. "Let's get Pat's bags and go."
"No, really," Erica says in the car. "What happened to your sense of style?"
"It's like you got a makeover," Jessica says.
Pat laughs and confesses. "Abby and Sharpy took me shopping."
"Ha!" Erica says. "I knew you didn't figure that out on your own."
"So little faith in me. See if I dance party with you while I'm home." It's a completely idle threat, and they all know it.
They go to the family house, not Pat's place, for dinner, and Pat slips away into the backyard to check in with Abby and Sharpy.
"It's so quiet here," Sharpy says.
Pat laughs. "I'm not that loud."
"No," Sharpy admits, "but we miss you."
"I've been gone like five hours."
"We like having you here," Sharpy says, and Pat has to stare up at the darkening sky to try to put the feeling in his chest in some kind of perspective.
"Yeah," he says. "I miss you too."
Sharpy asks about his flight, and then he puts Abby and Maddy on speaker phone for a few minutes before Abby says, "Go enjoy time with your family. We'll see you in a week."
Pat hangs up and joins his family for dinner. His sisters volunteer to take him to his place after dinner. Jessica calls both shotgun and the right to choose the music, and they sing along to a mix of Bieber and Selena Gomez all the way to Pat's house.
"Dance party," Jackie says once they're in the house. "I made an awesome new playlist."
Pat hooks her iPod up to the speakers in the living room and they dance their asses off.
"I'm starving," Pat says after they're well into the playlist. "We should have gone to the store."
"There's ice cream," Jessica says, "and root beer. And some other stuff."
"Did Mom stock the place?"
"Mom and me," Jessica says.
"Sweet." Pat hugs her. "Root beer floats?"
All three girls say yes, so they leave the music playing and adjourn to the kitchen for root beer floats. Pat checks his phone while he lets the girls make their floats first. There are a couple of texts from Abby and Sharpy he answers, a few from other people. None from Jonny.
He puts the phone on the counter when it's his turn, and while he scoops ice cream into a glass, Jackie picks up his phone.
"Cute baby."
Pat can't help smiling. "Maddy," he says. "She is cute." He puts the ice cream scoop down to lean over and pull up the photos on his phone so Jackie can flip through them. There are probably things on there she shouldn't see, but she'll probably get bored before she hits them.
Jessica and Erica lean in to look over Jackie's shoulder.
Pat pours root beer over his ice cream and puts things away while they look through his phone.
"That's a lot of pictures of a baby that isn't even yours," Erica says.
Pat shrugs. "I've been staying with them, so I see her a lot."
"While we're leading normal lives," Jackie says, "you're off being a celebrity and having a threesome with your teammate and his wife."
"Jackie!" Erica says.
Pat's torn between laughing and scolding right along with Erica.
"What?" Jackie asks. "Are we not supposed to talk about the fact that you're bi? Because we all know."
Pat takes his phone out of her hands and turns it off. "It's not like that with them."
"So we can talk about the fact that you're bi?"
Pat leans his elbows on the counter and wraps both hands around his glass. "There isn't really anything to talk about."
"You mean you and Jonny aren't?" Jackie asks with an indeterminate hand gesture.
"No." Pat keeps his voice even and his grip on his root beer float means his hands won't give him away.
"Huh," Jackie says. "I would have thought you were hitting that."
Pat nearly chokes on his root beer, and this time he says, "Jackie!" just half a second behind Erica.
"Oh, come on," Jackie says. "We're all adults."
"I don't think," Jessica says, because she's the one you really have to watch out for, "that you really want to turn this into a discussion of who any of us are hooking up with."
Jackie points at Erica. "You said you wouldn't tell them!"
"I didn't," Erica says, at the same time Jessica says, "She didn't. Mom spilled."
"Mom knows?" Jackie fairly shrieks.
Pat relaxes his death grip on his glass. "How come I'm the only one who doesn't know what we're talking about?"
Jackie says, "It's nothing," Erica raises her eyebrows to convey how much that isn't true, and Jessica says, "The women of this family still have some secrets."
Despite rigorous questioning, Pat doesn't get the answer to who Jackie's been hooking up with, aside from Erica's "No hockey players" assurances.
*
Pat talks to Abby and Sharpy every day he's in Buffalo, between packing up whatever he wants from the Buffalo house during the season and hanging out with his family and friends who make time for him when he's only there for a week.
He talks to Jonny once, a conversation full of Amanda and fishing and detailed questioning about Pat's summer training schedule.
"Yes, Captain," Pat says, rolling his eyes even though Jonny can't see him, "I'm ready for the season." When they hang up, he flexes and sends Jonny a picture of his bicep. He takes the radio silence he gets in return to mean Jonny's not impressed.
*
Pat's anxious by the time he comes down the escalator to baggage claim. He's more than ready to get his bags and get home. To Sharpy and Abby's, to Maddy. He thinks that's all it is when his eye is drawn to a couple with a baby at the bottom of the escalator, but he blinks and it really is them, all three of them smiling and coming to meet him.
Abby gets to him first and pulls him in for a tight hug.
Pat holds on just as tight. "What are you doing here?"
"We missed you," she says. "I won the right of first hug in the coin toss." She takes Maddy and Pat gets just as tight a hug from Sharpy.
"That means you're last," Pat says, reaching for Maddy. She babbles at him and pulls at the collar of his shirt.
"Yeah," Abby says, "but you get to hang onto her now. Come point out your bags and we'll make Patrick get them."
"Why me?"
"You're the muscle," Abby says.
"I thought I was the face."
Abby laughs. "You can be both."
Pat looks up from Maddy. "What does that make me?"
"Definitely not the brains," Sharpy says.
Pat would shove him if he didn't have Maddy.
"No," Abby says. "I'm the brains." She puts her hand on Pat's cheek. "You're just our Pat."
Pat's breath stutters, and picks up again, and then he has to point out his bags for Sharpy to grab.
Abby eyes the collection of bags and then takes Maddy from Pat. "I'll take her. Patrick can go with you."
They split up in the elevator, because they parked on a different level than Pat did, and Abby leans up to kiss Sharpy's lips and Pat's cheek.
"You look good," Sharpy says when he and Pat are settled in the car. "Good week?"
"Yeah, it was fun." Pat grins. "They all had more time for me when I was only there for a little while. Something's going on with Jackie that they won't tell me about, but Erica says it's under control." He glances over to find Sharpy just watching him. "I'm glad to be home," Pat says. "I missed you."
"We missed you." Sharpy waits for Pat to hand over his card to pay for parking before asking, "You hear from Toes?"
Pat makes a face. "He spent like twenty minutes asking about my training."
Sharpy squeezes Pat's upper arm. "Your training's fine. Did he say when he's getting in?"
"Thursday." Pat glances at Sharpy, who's still watching him. "Amanda might move to Chicago."
Sharpy's fingers flex, digging into Pat's arm, before he lets go.
"My sisters asked if I was hooking up with him," Pat says, and in the next breath, "Do you think I can trick Jackie into telling me who she's hooking up with?"
"Maybe," Sharpy says, and Pat doesn't turn to see what might be on his face, "but you have to ask yourself, do you really want to know?"
Pat considers that for a moment. "Depends on who it is, I guess. Erica said it's not a hockey player."
Sharpy makes a considering sound. "You could ask Abby what she thinks. She might have ideas on how to get her to talk."
Pat grins. "Or we can just hand her Maddy next time she comes to visit and ask while she's distracted."
"We probably shouldn't use the baby that way," Sharpy says, but when Pat looks over, Sharpy has the look on his face that he gets when he's planning something. "It might work though."
Pat laughs. "Think it'll work on anyone else? We could get all kinds of secrets out of people."
"Stalberg's beauty regimen."
"I think he's naturally that pretty."
"Who got voted one of the most beautiful Chicagoans?"
Pat rolls his eyes. "I didn't say he was prettier than you, just that it was natural."
"My beauty's all natural too."
"You forget," Pat says, "I've seen your collection of hair products." He points at Sharpy without taking his eyes off the road. "And I know they're not all Abby's."
It feels good, chirping Sharpy and making him laugh. In twenty minutes, they'll be home and he can unpack into his room in their house and settle back into the cooking and taking care of Maddy routines he missed while he was in Buffalo.
*
Pat's unloading the dishwasher, idly thinking about going to the grocery store - he wants mashed potatoes but Sharpy made the last of the potatoes into potato salad two days ago - when Jonny calls him.
"Where are you?"
"Chicago," Pat says. "Where are you?"
"Chicago," Jonny says. "Your condo."
"Oh. Yeah, no, I'm at Sharpy's. You should come over."
There's a moment of silence before Jonny says, "Okay," and hangs up.
Pat finishes unloading the dishwasher before he wanders out into the living room. "I told Jonny to come over."
Abby and Sharpy look at each other, and Abby says, "It's your house too."
Pat leans over the back of the couch to make faces at Maddy where she's sitting on Sharpy's lap. Maddy laughs and grabs at him, and he spends the time it takes until Jonny rings the doorbell making her laugh.
Jonny hugs him when Pat answers the door. It's good. It's good because it's a good, solid hug, and Jonny is one of his closest friends and one of the hottest people Pat knows. But it's not the same. It's not as intense, and it doesn't leave Pat with the same need to be as close to Jonny as possible for as long as possible the way his hugs used to.
Pat takes Jonny into the living room where Abby hugs him while Sharpy puts Maddy down before gripping Jonny in a hug big enough to lift him off his feet.
"What the," Jonny glances at Maddy and finishes, "heck?"
Sharpy lets him down. "Just showing you there's no reason to question my training methods." He throws his arm over Pat's shoulders. "I got him all bulked up for the season."
Pat laughs and leans into Sharpy.
Jonny folds his arms over his chest. "Have you been practicing with your conditioning?"
Sharpy rolls his eyes. "Yes, o Captain my Captain. On the ice and in the driveway."
"The garage door will never be the same," Abby says.
Jonny laughs and uncrosses his arms. "Good. We're going to have a good season this year, no excuses."
"We're not going to let you down," Pat says.
"I didn't think you were. I was thinking we could grab some dinner. You want in?" he asks Abby and Sharpy.
They exchange a long look that includes Abby glancing at Maddy before Sharpy says, "No, you two have a good time."
Jonny nods at both of them and Pat picks up Maddy to kiss her cheek before they leave.
Pat makes Jonny drive, and Jonny asks, "Where are we going?" when he pulls out of the driveway.
"Somewhere with mashed potatoes," Pat says, both because he wants them and because it puts a hilariously pinched look on Jonny's face.
"You should be eating protein."
"So I'll eat a piece of cow with my potatoes. Come on, I've been craving them all day."
"And you couldn't have had them for lunch?" Jonny chirps Pat about his eating habits the whole way, but Pat gets his mashed potatoes.
They trade stories over dinner, Jonny telling him about spending time in the great outdoors and Pat relaying the potential for trouble that is Jackie hooking up with someone he doesn't know about. Neither one of them wants to stop talking so they go out after dinner, to a bar they haven't been to before where they order drinks and get left alone.
They're both too drunk to drive by the time they finally get out of there. Pat's not wasted, but he's drunk enough to be sloppy, and he throws his arms around Jonny on the sidewalk outside, but just because Jonny's his friend. He'd still bang Jonny given half a chance, but it's not the same desperate want from before the summer.
"You're my best friend."
Jonny laughs and hugs him back. "Sure."
"No really. I love you, man."
"All right," Jonny says. Pat pouts at him until his face cracks into a smile and he says, "Love you too, Kaner." Then he steps around Pat and opens the door of the cab that pulls up. "Get in the cab so we can go home."
"You take that one," Pat says, feeling generous. He'd like to get home and fall into bed, but he doesn't mind if Jonny goes first.
Jonny rolls his eyes. "You live two blocks away. I think we can share a cab."
"Oh," Pat says, "no. I'm going back to Sharpy's."
"You're too drunk to drive," Jon says. "Your car will be fine there until tomorrow."
Pat frowns at him. "No," he says. "I've been staying with them."
Then it's Jonny's turn to frown. "Since when?"
Pat shrugs. "Most of the summer."
Jonny shakes his head. "Kaner, you can't just-"
"They don't mind," Pat says. "It's fine. Go home. I'll get the next cab."
Jonny climbs into the cab but says, "This isn't over," before he pulls the door shut.
Pat never thought it was, but at least he can delay whatever Jonny has to say about it. If he waits long enough, it should move down the list of things Jonny thinks are important to talk to him about.
*
There's some kind of behind the scenes negotiation that goes on between Sharpy, Jonny, and Duncs that results in Sharpy inviting everyone over for a pre-season party. They have the whole thing catered, and Pat pores over menus with Abby while Sharpy suggests they order all the things most likely to cause Jonny to have a coronary. They compromise and get only half that sort of thing and half healthy options.
Pat's managed to see a couple of people, but having the whole team together is great. The party starts early enough that Maddy's still up, and she gets passed from person to person for a while until she starts to fuss and Pat takes her from Bryan.
"Was his face scaring you?" he says to her. "His face does that."
Maddy calms down a little once Pat has her, but it's enough to draw both Abby and Sharpy to her and Pat, and once they're there, Jonny wanders over too.
"You let him have the baby?" Jonny asks. "Now you'll never get rid of him."
Abby puts her arm around Pat and kisses his cheek. "Why would we want to?"
Pat leans into Abby's arm and bounces Maddy a little. "Maddy Grace," he sings to her, "has such a pretty face." It works to quiet Maddy a bit, but she's still unhappy. "Is it your bedtime? I bet it is." He looks at Abby and Sharpy. "I can-"
"No," Abby says. "I'll take her. You go spend time with your other babies."
Pat laughs. "They're all grown up. Not like you," he says to Maddy. "You're my favorite baby." He kisses her cheek and lets Sharpy take her to say goodnight before Abby takes her to her room, and then he does as told and heads over to Shawsy, Jimmy, and Dylan.
"Did I just hear you tell Sharpy's kid you like her better than us?" Shawsy asks.
"I do like her better than you," Pat says. "She's better looking and she doesn't throw up on me nearly as often." He grins and ducks the hit Jimmy aims at him.
"You been hanging out here a lot?" Dylan asks.
"Yeah."
"He's staying here," Jonny says, and Pat didn't even notice him joining them.
"They letting you crash on the couch?" Shawsy asks.
"Hey," Pat says, pointing at him, "I have my own room and everything."
"You have your own condo and everything," Jonny says.
Pat shrugs. "I like it here."
"You know you can hire people to cook for you," Jonny says. "You don't have to live with other people just to get fed."
"Oh, fuck you, Mr. I Make Omelets," Pat says, but he can't help laughing. "I help cook."
Shawsy puts his hand on Pat's arm. "If you want to cook and clean and change diapers, I'm sure someone would hire you to be their manny."
Pat laughs, and it turns into a shoving match that Pat's careful not to let push them into anything breakable.
*
[Then there would be kissing, dating - Pat staying home with Maddy while Sharpy and Abby go out, Sharpy taking Pat to lunch after they work out, Abby making Pat take him out to dinner, as well as the three of them going out - and then shared naps, also in varying twosomes as well as the three of them together, and then eventually the three of them living happily ever after together.]
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-14 04:26 pm (UTC)I love the domesticity in this - and the hints that things are moving relationshipwards, even if Pat's not yet putting it together, gave me all the Feels
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-14 04:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-19 02:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-19 04:21 pm (UTC)