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He had been wrong, that was all.

Really fucking wrong.

“You don’t look fine,” Hal started, but Jed interrupted.

“Drop it, okay? Fucking leave it alone for once. I’m tired, and I need to nap before the game.”

And he closed his eyes so he couldn’t see the reproving expression on Hal’s face or his stupid phone with Ridder’s stupid fucking request for Jed to keep an eye on his own fucking—whatever they were. It didn’t help. He couldn’t get the memory of Remy’s teasing brown eyes out of his head.

Jed was unpacking and failing at listening to a guided meditation when Remy texted again.

Remy

Hi

Sorry I didn’t text earlier

Turned out Lil was admitted to the hospital but she’ll be ok

I’ll see you soon x

Jed’s heart jumped, but fuck that. Sorry I didn’t text earlier is what you’d say to your teammate who’s asking you a stupid question like where to go out for dinner in St. Louis. Not what you say to your—whoever Jed thought he was.

Your boyfriend. Your person.

Yeah, he’d thought he was Remy’s person. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. And even though it felt like he was giving himself away by not responding, he didn’t reply, because he didn’t trust himself not to say something he couldn’t take back.

Something like, Call me, because I’m pretty fucking upset, but I still need to hear that you’re okay.

He also wasn’t ready to hear Remy’s reason for talking to Mike and not him. He needed to figure out if he could keep doing this when he and Remy were so clearly not on the same page, and that wasn’t going to happen in the four hours before a big game.

Jed reminded himself that if he needed to think about anything right now, it was being unshakeable. That was his entire reputation as a goalie, the reason Colorado had given him a five-year contract. He wasn’t going to throw that away.

So when he got on the bus a few hours later, he didn’t look around. Instead, he dropped into the first empty seat he came to without noticing whether Remy was there or not. (Who was he fucking kidding. Remy wasn’t there.) Hal—who’d apparently been waiting by the door of the bus with Coach so he could sit next to Jed—told him that Remy was getting himself to the arena separately, and then let Jed stew in silence.

When the team filed into the visitors’ locker room to get dressed for practice, Remy was already there as promised, sitting on the bench looking rumpled and tired and so damn good. Jed couldn’t think like that, though, even if his instinct was to pull Remy into his arms and bury his face in Remy’s hair, and even though he could see Remy looking across the room like that’s exactly what he wanted.

“Hi.” Remy gave Jed a tentative smile as he approached, because they always sat in the same order in the locker room. Jed couldn’t mess up the team vibes, no matter how unprepared he was to talk to Remy right now. But even greeting Remy seemed like a big ask, so he nodded and turned to his gear.

“Hey,” Remy said from behind him. “Are we okay?” And then, while Jed fumbled with his pads, “I’m sorry if I worried you. I was in the hospital with Lily, and I forgot my charger, and I didn’t have a chance to buy a new one until this morning. And then I figured you were already traveling and I’d see you here.”

Well, Jed couldn’t ignore that without looking like a complete jerk. He could respond civilly.

“Yeah, I heard about the hospital. From Ridder, who told me that Lily will be okay, which I was glad to hear.”

Maybe civilly had been a stretch. And yeah, he heard how he sounded like a petulant teenager, and he hated it. It felt like he was picking a fight. He didn’t pick fights. Not with people he whatever’d with. Never with Remy.

“Mike texted you?” Remy sounded surprised.

Jed didn’t answer this time. He couldn’t think about it more before the game. “Let’s not do this right now, okay? Can we talk after the game? I need to stretch.”

“Yeah, sure.” Remy wasn’t quite able to keep the hurt out of his voice. Well, Jed would deal with it later, when he was feeling less petulant teenager and more successful professional goaltender who’d been happy living alone for his entire adult life and didn’t need a whatever.

It wasn’t Jed’s best game of the season, but it wasn’t his worst, either. Montreal was always a challenge, and that made it easier to switch on the analytical part of his brain that took in positions and angles and which bodies were where on the ice, and lock the rest of it away.

Remy didn’t try talking to him again. He shot Jed a few more puzzled looks from the bench during the first period, but then seemed to pull himself into the same headspace Jed was in, lasered in on the game. They were playing his old team, after all. Jed knew it was important to Remy to make a good showing, and even though Jed was still angry, he was also proud when Remy scored in the third period and cemented the Blizzards’ victory.

That made it hurt more after the game, though, as the adrenaline started to subside, and all Jed had to think about were his stretches and how best to ignore his teammates while he did his cooldown on the bike. Remy stayed out of his way, which he was grateful for.