Sasquatch to the Moon

1: One Tap Means No

HÅKON

Rocket and I quickly learned that keeping things private and private to only us is painfully impossible.

It happened not too long after we got together, maybe a week or so. Nico knows, Paxton knows, and then Jack Thatcher, our assistant head of medical.

If we were being less fucking stupid we could have avoided the whole thing but we didn't get to have time to ourselves in the morning that day so we tried to make up for it, eventually involving me dragging him by his collar to the locker room to kiss me.

I've just got the shittiest luck in the world.

Jack Thatcher is a cool guy, I was beyond relieved that it was him and not someone else. That he was the one in the locker room and not fucking Langley or Ukkovvsky. Rocket and I would've been outed to the league faster than we could say Hozier if they were the ones in the locker room.

Instead, it was Jack. Jack's thirty years old and he works with Jorgen leading the medical department. He was in the locker room checking up on what brand of skates Fenrir uses so that he could gauge Fen's sprained ankle wrap to fit best inside his skate. He wears Bauer, if you needed to know.

Fen sprained the ankle on accident, if you ask he'll give you some run of the mill answer and it's never the same story, Gage managed to wiggle the real answer out of Nico so the whole team knows what actually happened and is just fibbing to see how extravagant of a lie he can make up about it. He's now into some deep theory about stepping on a pencil when we all know that sometimes you should watch your foot placement when having sex. Nico's embarrassed about it but is in the same boat as the rest of us finding his pencil story increasingly funny as he adds more details. 

Jack gave us a good way to get out of things and communicate to each other with taps to avoid outing ourselves.

One tap means no.

One tap on the table during an interview tells Rocket to steer clear of letting them know that we're hanging out on the side.

One tap of my stick at practice tells him I can't take the puck from where I am, that Fen is guarding me.

One tap on my leg during a ping pong night tells me he's uncomfortable with me sitting right next to him while playing Mario Kart.

One tap on my arm on the plane tells me he's uncomfortable with the conversation.

One tap of my foot against his tells him that I feel unsafe being close to him in this setting.

One tap isn't used much but it's important when it does get used.

Like now.

"Rocket, hey," I bend over to him in the locker room, final qualifying game against the Wild, if we win this we secure a spot in playoffs, even though they're still a month or so off, we'll have enough game wins to take a spot. The Bruins and the Kraken are already in, we just need to be next.

He looks up at me, then around the room.

"You're stressed, what's wrong?" I try to ask. He has to start tonight and that's something that constantly freaks him out a little bit.

He kicks his skate against my shin once.

I nod, standing up and heading back over toward my bench. I don't make eye contact with him and he doesn't with me. We both know that's not necessarily a bad thing and that's not at all signaling that we're mad at each other, it just means we're trying not to give it away and we're trying to stay safe.

One tap means no. 

***

first four chapters of part two will be posted on the first part's schedule and then it's all up in the air after that because I have to rearrange things.

next chapter up Wednesday, i'll see you then. I promise it's way longer than this.