I Left The Lights On So You Stumble In Devotion

Evgeni woke up, no longer comfortably asleep with Sidney in his arms. In fact, Sidney wasn’t even in his bed anymore. He was pacing back and forth his room, trying his hardest to haul on a pair of sweatpants. Without any questions being asked, Sidney shook his head at Evgeni and held up his finger as if to say ‘hold on’; and he did. It was becoming a bit nagging at him, though, watching as Sidney fussed around his bedroom.

“Get dressed.” ordered Sidney, tossing Evgeni his still wet t-shirt followed by his jeans and his boxers.

“What?”

“Mario’s outside the door waiting for me.” said Sidney clearly, hauling on a pair of socks over his feet. “You’ve got to go. We’ve got to make up a story. We‘ve got to hurry, we‘ve got to catch a flight in a few hours.”

“I don‘t know.” Evgeni shrugged at Sidney as he passed by the bed again on one of his quickened paces, steadily piecing back together his clothing in his hands.

Evgeni should’ve been worried, especially since he was the one who would probably not be able to handle the idea of someone discovering their ‘secret‘; but Evgeni just found himself watching Sidney scurry back and forth across his bedroom. There was some sort of grace about his movements, the muscles in his legs caused his shorts to look incredibly tight against him. The scrunching of his nose made his lips look bigger, more luscious.

“I’ll make up something.” Sidney sighed before fixing his hair again with his hands, it looked more messy than it had before. “Come on, Geno.”

Mario was dressed casually, looking extremely energetic from someone who’d just gotten home from an early flight. Evgeni followed directly behind Sidney, feeling slightly uncomfortable in the same wet clothes he’d worn the night before. He nearly had himself convinced that Mario somehow knew everything, the entire story behind his wet clothes.

“Sidney, up so late.” said Mario cheerfully, before taking notice to Evgeni standing stiffly behind him. “Geno, over so early.”

“Yeah, he fell asleep.” Sidney’s tongue flicked over his lips nervously. “In my bed. We were tired from practice.”

Mario frowned and shrugged at Sidney, “Okay.”

“Hello.” said Evgeni, feeling as though his hands were twitching while they awkwardly ached at his sides.

“Hey Geno,” Mario fumbled around with some papers before handing some to Sidney. Business stuff, Evgeni assumed. “You’ve got to make sure everybody’s worked up after practice today. If you can get a three game lead tonight, it’d be a good advantage for the series.”

“We worked out a few kinks last night.” said Sidney seriously, folding his arms into his chest while ignoring a wide-eyed Evgeni next to him. “At practice, I mean. We’ve been practicing for the power play.” Sidney was nodding as he spoke to Mario, almost as if he were reassuring himself. “It’s going good too, eh Geno?”

“What?”

“The power play, it’s getting better.” reminded Sidney, his eyes darting over in a threatening manner.

“Oh.” Evgeni paused, nodding himself at Mario. “Power play getting good. Team play good, Sidney play good.”

“Yeah, yeah.” said Mario, he wasn’t paying much attention to Evgeni or Sidney anymore as he focused on more papers he‘d been reading. “You’re playing great, good job. Dynamic duo.”

Sidney and Evgeni eyed each other, both slyly smiling as Mario sat unnoticed and uninformed between them. Dynamic duo indeed.

***

With another three points added to his name, Evgeni once again felt himself hiding a self-satisfied grin. He swore to himself that he’d have half of his face eaten if he continued to help carry his team so well in the finals, finding his tongue licking at the tender spots on his cheek as he skated off of the ice.

Six to two in the third period and it was over, the Pittsburgh Penguins taking a three to zero lead in the Eastern Conference finals. It felt like 2008 all over again, except this time they were better and stronger and more experienced. They knew how to expect and deal with failure but they also knew how to remain hopeful even when everything says it’s over; this is why they knew that even though they were the winners walking through the halls of the stadium, there was still enough time for Carolina to come back from all of their losses.

Evgeni was a bit hesitant as he made his way out of the stadium, hoping that none of the serious Carolina fans were waiting somewhere to jump him. He kept thinking about Max’s playful warnings, scowling to himself for actually thinking even for a second that Max would be right about something.

His hotel room seemed empty, probably because Gonchar was gone out somewhere to talk on the phone with his family. It must’ve been something private if he didn’t want Evgeni to hear, Sergei’s bags weren’t even in the room. Evgeni frowned as he sat on his bed, staring over at the empty one next to him.

Then there was a knock at the door that nearly frightened him; he’d created an entire story in his head involving Gonchar now. He slowly walked to the door, cautiously holding it open with his hands.

“New roommate.”

Brooks Orpik pushed open the door, ignoring the confused look on Evgeni’s face. Evgeni waited, still standing next to the door which he tried to close but kept missing, his focus was on Brooks throwing his bags onto the floor where Gonchar’s usually laid.

“Gonch is out with his family, they’re here in Carolina.” stated Brooks, throwing himself on the bed next to the window, where Evgeni usually slept. “So now you’re stuck with me.”

He looked over at Evgeni with his wide eyes, throwing another pillow underneath his head; he looked too comfortable and relaxed to be questioned in bad English, so Evgeni just closed the door.

The night continued to move on slowly, Evgeni unable to make conversation with Brooks as he sat quietly watching boring late night shows on television.

“You’re oddly quiet.”

“Don’t know what to say.”

“Liar.” Brooks yawned, crossing his arms and he shifted down lower in the bed. “I can’t imagine what you’d be like if you actually knew English.”

“Different.”

Brooks laughed roughly, scraping his hand across his scruffy beard. It felt a lot different having him in a bed next to him than Sidney, there wasn’t any tension between them at all.

Evgeni and Brooks weren’t even that close, Brooks was one of the few people on the team that he held few conversations with. He supposed it was because Brooks was a defenseman, and he was a forward; they didn’t have to have many conversations when he was trying to fly past him at practices.

“What happened between you and Gronk?”

Evgeni tilted his head over his pillow, eyeing Brooks awkwardly from the few feet that lay between them in their beds.

“What?”

“I heard you were the one to turn beat his face in and turn it purple.” said Brooks bluntly, shrugging his shoulders. “Why?”

“Drunk.” muttered Evgeni, eyes darting back towards the television.

“There were stories going around for a while.” Brooks was back to watching the television again now, this eased Evgeni up. “Thought you should know.”

“Stories?”

“Yeah, bullshit rumours. Probably one of the guys being jealous about that hat trick or something.” Brooks snorted, moving one of his hands to scratch his forearms. He looked so casual. “Who gives a shit, right?”

“Right.” Evgeni smiled to himself as he rolled over on his bed, finding himself extraordinarily happy that nobody suspected anything anymore.