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Life in the Marner-Matthews household in the summer went something like this: Mitch would extricate himself from their sleepy pile of blankets and limbs first. He’d start the coffeemaker before heading out for a run. Auston would be roused from sleep by the smell of coffee and the pitiful meows of a starving cat and the petulant whines of her two dog companions.
He’d be showered and working his way through his second cup of coffee and a stack of toast by the time Mitch returned. Steph would still be sleeping, now buried in a small mountain of pillows and satiated pets; she’d be the last to wake when Mitch gently shook her after his shower.
Steph would kiss Auston and Mitch goodbye before their carpool to the gym and their summer training schedule, and she’d have the house to herself while she got ready for her day at the veterinary office.
It was a good system. No one fought over shower time, and mostly everyone got up on time, fed, and out the door.
Unless Mitch overslept, which was when the system failed catastrophically.
Auston reflected on this while sharing what he was pretty sure was the least sexy shared shower anyone had ever taken.
Steph’s hair was piled on her head with soap bubbles, and she was digging through the shower shelf as Auston tried to shave under the spray.
“Where the fuck is my razor?” Steph demanded, producing a comb and an unexpected rubber duck. “Auston, are you--”
“This is mine,” Auston said, stroking the disposable razor across his cheeks without the aid of a mirror. “Fuck, ow.”
“It’s pink. Yours is orange.”
“Found it under the sink, my blades were getting rusty. Shit, am I bleeding?” Auston clutched at his chin, wrinkling his nose in a scowl.
“Only a little. When you’re done, I’m using that for my legs.”
“Fantastic.”
Steph made a face, rubbing soap across her shoulders. Auston took a second to lament that he couldn’t appreciate her breasts as they deserved to be appreciated at this moment. “Auston, I need to rinse my hair--”
“I’m using it!”
“You’re shaving your face!”
“And rinsing my hair!”
“You’re hogging the showerhead!”
“This wouldn’t be a problem if we’d woken up on time, swear to god, we’re all going to be late--”
“Not my fault!” Mitch called from the sink, where he was brushing his teeth. “Arya, Arya, no!”
Arya attempted to clear the glass shower door and ended up smack in the middle of Steph and Auston’s shower.
While trying to protect his bits and Steph from a very angry and very damp cat, Auston decided he’d been wrong before. This was the least sexy shared shower anyone had ever taken.
No thanks to Arya, they mostly managed to make it out the door before the whole morning was wasted.
Auston drove while Mitch tried to wrangle cords into his backpack and eat yogurt at the same time.
“How bad is Mo going to kill us?”
“He’s still in the honeymoon phase.”
“How bad is Babs going to kill us?”
“We’re not that late.”
They were that late, screeching in just in time to avoid missing the all hands meeting entirely. Mo gave them completely unimpressed glares as they practically sprinted into the locker room, tripping over cables (Mitch) and their own feet (Auston).
Life was chaotic, but Auston wouldn’t have it any other way.
--
Here was the thing.
Their relationship wasn’t exactly public knowledge. To the fans, of course, the Marners were married and Auston was a bachelor with his own apartment. The thing was then that only Mitch's parents knew.
Auston’s parents suspected that he was dating someone, but they didn’t know it was two people. Steph’s parents didn’t know about Auston at all. Mitch’s parents were surprisingly okay with the Marner-Matthews triad.
Here was the other thing: Steph’s parents had the habit of dropping by their daughter’s house unannounced.
So that was how Auston found himself standing in the kitchen in his boxers with a cat draped over his shoulders like a scarf, talking to Steph’s parents.
He kind of wanted to die a little bit.
“Yeah, I moved in about three months ago,” he said, trying to ignore Arya’s purring. The cat was completely oblivious to the awkwardness. “Yeah, the guest room is...my room now? If we’d known you were coming, I’d have found a friend’s house to crash out at for a bit.”
That was a bald-faced lie: the only part of the guest room Auston ever used was the closet. Auston wasn’t about to admit that to the senior LaChances, though, since that would mean admitting he shared Steph and Mitch’s bed.
“Here, why don’t you sit on the couch for a bit and I’ll call Steph. She and Mitch are grocery shopping--we ran out of kitty food this morning and I thought we were going to have a rebellion.”
Steph and Mitch were also dropping by a sex shop, but Auston wasn’t admitting to that either. He left the senior LaChances downstairs and bolted for the guest room.
Mitch picked up on the third ring. “So there’s this weird blue thing Steph found--”
“Your in-laws are here,” Auston hissed. He scrabbled in the closet for a clean shirt that wasn’t Leafs merch. If he was shorter, he’d grab one of Mitch’s button-downs, but he’d look ridiculous if he did.
“My what are where ?”
“Your in-laws are here and judging by their luggage they’re moving in .”
“Fuck.”
Auston could hear Steph in the background and a small scuffle as the phone changed hands. “Auston? What’s going on?”
“Your parents are here and I was in my boxers in the kitchen .”
“Give them coffee,” she said briskly. “We’ll be back in half an hour. Talk about the season and the cat and the dogs. You’ll be fine.”
“I’m meeting your parents,” Auston said a little hysterically. “Steph, bring all the alcohol.”
“Only if you’re good.” Steph hung up unceremoniously.
Auston bit back a half dozen curses and went to serve coffee to the senior LaChances.
Steph’s parents turned out to be plenty nice. Mrs LaChance had a bag of treats that she lavished on the dogs, meaning she was quickly buried in a pile of fur. Arya sniffed the dog treats disdainfully and stalked off to sulk on top of the fridge. Mr LaChance made plenty of small talk until Steph and Mitch returned.
“Mom, Dad, you have to give us warning,” Steph said, kissing her mother hello and giving her father a big hug. “Auston moved in--you remember Auston, right, Dad?--and we don’t have the guest room anymore. We can set up an air mattress in the office, but--”
Auston escaped to help Mitch bring in the groceries.
“They liked dropping by. It was super common when they lived half an hour away, but we never expected them to try it here since city traffic is so awful,” Mitch said apologetically, passing Auston a bag heavy with two gallons of milk.
“And they don’t know I’m dating either of you.”
“Well, no. But I imagine Steph will let it slip sooner or later. They want grandbabies.”
“Are you planning on giving them grandbabies?”
“Oh, eventually.”
That was kind of it for Auston. He sat through a bit of conversation with the four Marners and then made a break for the Carricks.
Cees wasn’t Auston’s first choice for an emotional crisis, but he was the teammate most likely to be supportive and not chirp him until he died of old age.
Auston sat on the Carrick’s front porch until Lexi’s car pulled into the driveway.
“Auston?” she called, locking the car with her key fob. She had her purse slung over one shoulder and looked utterly confused as to why Auston was sitting on her front porch at four pm on a Saturday in midsummer. Or at all, for that matter. “Is everything okay?”
“No,” Auston said, and burst into tears.
Lexi helped him up and ushered him into the house.
As it turned out, Cees had been working in the backyard on a carpentry project--something involving multiple shades of wood stain, apparently--and hadn’t heard the doorbell. He came in, dusting sawdust out of his hair, just as Lexi set a mug of coffee in front of a still sobbing Auston.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I have no idea.” Lexi gave Cees a look, a married person look. The kind that Mitch and Steph shared. Auston cried a little harder.
So this wasn’t how Auston pictured his weekend going.
Eventually he stopped crying long enough to get the whole story out. At the end of it, Cees nodded and let Auston stay in his guest room with the Carrick’s two dogs.
“Are you upset about the kids thing or the parents thing?” Lexi asked, when she dropped off an armful of blankets to the guest room.
“Both, I guess?”
Lexi hummed. “Admittedly it’s a little shitty of them to leave you out of a decision that big, but maybe they assumed you were on board. Call Mitch and let him know where you are. I bet they’re worried.”
“I can go somewhere else--” Auston started.
“You’re staying with us,” Lexi said firmly. “Fights happen with couples--or triads, I guess--and you need time to cool off and think for a bit. Just let them know you won’t be coming home.”
“They’ve got Steph’s parents over.”
“And they’re dating you.”
Auston didn’t end up calling Mitch or Steph.
On Monday he caught a ride into the gym with Cees after a Sunday spent trying to help Cees with his carpentry project, a set of bookshelves for the very guest room Auston was staying in. Mitch and Steph were waiting at Auston’s stall, sipping coffee and chatting with Willy. Auston stopped short and would have made a break for it if Cees and Brownie hadn’t started bickering right in Auston’s escape route.
“Auston!” Mitch cried, bouncing forward to give him a kiss. “Hey!”
“My parents went home,” Steph said, grinning. “Adequately warned off of not giving us warning. We missed you on Sunday, though. Arya especially. It’s all clear for you to come back, even though you never had to leave in the first place. We put them on an air mattress in the office. It worked out fine.” Steph stretched up on her tiptoes to kiss Auston, then leaned over to give Mitch one too. “Right, I’m gonna head to work and I’ll pick you both up at fiveish. We only brought the one car to drop my parents off at the airport,” she explained to Auston, then was out the door.
Auston sat at his stall after a kiss from Mitch too, and tried to tune out the sound of Mitch joking with the Connors.
The Marners were a married couple, they didn’t deserve to have to hide a third of their relationship. They deserved to have kids without needing to explain who the weird guy sharing their bed was. They didn’t deserve to have to hide the way they lived from the majority of their fanbase; Mitch didn’t have to fake disgruntlement when people made Auston/Mitch fanfic, because he was married.
If the Marners didn’t see that, Auston would have to make them see it. So he hatched a plan: Operation Break Up With the Marners.
--
Step one was to make regular lunch plans without Mitch. The first day, he went to get lunch with Freddie, Mo, and Jake before Mitch could disentangle himself from the stationary bike. Jake suggested a barbecue place a vet had apparently taken him to on his first day. Auston found himself ordering a salad with his food and dipping some of the lettuce in ketchup, something he’d never have done before dating Mitch.
Well, he could keep habits from a dead relationship, right?
In spite, he put a little more ketchup on the plate.
It took him a while to wean himself off of lunch with Mitch. He started eating separately only one day out of three, and then two out of three. It’d take a while to get up to three out of three, especially since Mitch seemed to have caught on and was actively making sure he got to Auston before Auston could abscond with someone else for lunch.
Step two was also going to take some time. He needed to separate Arya from the Marners’ dogs, so she wouldn’t miss having two other animals around when they inevitably moved out. He might have to get her a friend since she liked cuddling with Zipper so much. He bookmarked the adoption page from the Toronto pet shelter and started picking Arya up whenever she went to lie in the same spot as one of the other animals.
“Arya, no!” he yelped when he picked her up for the third time that day and she tried to escape. Her claws were sharper than he’d remembered. Mitch probably hadn’t cut the cat’s claws this week.
Shit, that was another thing for the list: learn how to cut Arya’s claws. Step two-point-five, then.
“You okay?” Steph asked, leaning around the corner.
“Arya doesn’t love me anymore,” he said, pouting. He set Arya down when she went for his face, and she immediately bounded off to a patch of sunlight to groom herself.
“You’re bleeding!” she said and disappeared to fetch a handful of band-aids and the rubbing alcohol. Auston braced himself for the sting as she cleaned them. “Idiot. Don’t mess with the cats when they’re snoozing.”
“She wasn’t snoozing,” he grumbled. “Can’t a man want quality time with his cat?”
“He can have quality time with Steph,” she suggested and dragged him over to the couch to make out with her until Mitch stumbled across them.
That kind of led to step three: pretending not to notice Mitch’s kicked puppy face or Steph’s quiet concern when Auston started to pull away. It was hard not to notice, not when they both were so happy whenever he cuddled into their sides or made out with them on the couch, or any kind of affection at all, really. But neither of them said anything, so Auston pushed forward with step four, which was moving back into his own place. He started slowly migrating all of his shirts and pants back over, restocked the kitchen with his diet staples and the fancy cat food Steph had gotten Arya hooked on.
Step five was really a sum part of all the other steps, backing away from the Marners’ physical affection, from hugs to kisses to sex. That was...a lot harder than Auston expected it would be. He slipped up a couple of times but reminding himself it was for the better usually worked out. He ‘accidentally’ fell asleep on the couch, or waking up late at night and migrating to the guest room, so as ‘not to wake’ Steph and Mitch.
That usually just made the kicked puppy faces worse, honestly.
Step six was making sure everything was ready to go, from his personal belongings quietly migrating out of the Marner house to double-checking that Arya still fit in her carrier. She was getting a little chubby what with all the treats Mitch gave her.
Step seven was actually breaking up with the Marners. Or it would be if Auston could bring himself to do it. He’d found a nice condo near the practice arena, only a ten-minute drive from a couple of other guys. It was out in the suburbs instead off the city proper, but he'd grown used to quiet evenings. He had most of his stuff there already and was pretty sure the Marners hadn’t quite caught on yet. It was even all set up for Arya, with a litter box and a cat tree, and plenty of new toys for her to play with. He just had to...make as clean a break as he could.
So he took Arya in her carrier and left his key on the table and went to his new home.
It felt huge and empty, even though it was only the three rooms and filled with all kinds of boxes. It lacked Steph and Mitch, he supposed, which was why it felt so big and empty. He was used to a bed filled with three people, and now he only had himself. The sheets on his bed were stiff and cool, nothing like the soft jersey sheets Steph insisted on. Arya wandered the apartment, mrowling pitifully and looking for Zipper until she finally burrowed herself under the blankets with Auston. She gnawed on his hand sadly, the way she did when Zipper was being particularly stubborn about her grooming him.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “We’ll go to the shelter and find you a sister tomorrow, okay? She’ll be even better than Zipper.”
The next day, they didn’t go to the shelter. Auston didn’t feel like leaving his bed, so he didn’t. He called in to their gym, citing a need for a vacation day. He stayed home and ignored his phone, and played with Arya.
“It’s best for everyone,” he said.
She mrowed as if she didn’t believe him.
--
Apparently leaving in the middle of the night with Arya was not the best choice for breaking up with the Marners.
“What the fuck ?” Mitch roared, as pissed as Auston had ever seen him. Auston shrunk back into his seat. “Did you break up with us by sneaking out in the middle of the fucking night? You fuck .”
Out of the corner of his eye, Auston saw Trevor put his phone down and make a break for the open door. He started to follow, but Mitch practically body slammed him back down into the chair. Mitch was as in Auston’s face as was physically possible, and refused to budge.
“No, you don’t get to fucking run away again, not fucking again. Take your goddamn key and break up with us like a considerate fucking adult. I can’t fucking believe you.”
Mitch chucked the key at Auston and stormed out of the locker room.
So Auston waited until Mitch huffed off home, and left his key in Mitch’s locker.
Thus began the great game of key tag.
Auston found it tucked into the side pocket of his backpack, along with a sticky note filled with frowny faces. He figured it was written by Mitch, since Steph never wrote in gel pen, much less pink gel pen.
He taped the key to the bottom of Mitch’s left skate.
Mitch dropped the key into Auston’s post-workout smoothie, something Auston didn't discover until he’d finished the smoothie and found the key dripping in pink goo.
It finally got to the point where someone--Auston suspected a very fed up JT--reported them to HR.
HR Margaret, who they got sent to, looked soundly unimpressed with both of them.
“We don’t usually do personnel disputes,” she said. “Please resolve this so I can go back to payroll and filming permits.”
“He started it,” Mitch said immediately.
Auston threw the key at him.
Margaret put her head down on her desk. “Children. This team is filled with children.”
“Highly gifted toddlers,” Auston quipped and ducked as the key whizzed towards his face. “I broke up with Mitch and he’s not respecting it--”
“You vanished in the middle of the night!”
Auston bristled. “I was dropping hints for like two weeks, how did you not--”
“You left in the middle of the night--”
“You and Steph want kids and didn’t tell me--”
“The middle of the fucking night--”
“ And your parents--”
“We thought you wanted kids with us--”
“--they don’t even know we’re dating!”
“Of course they know we’re dating!” Mitch finally shouted. His face was really red.
Auston shut up and cast a quick glance at Margaret, who still had her head on the desk.
“We told them when they visited a couple of weeks ago! They wanted to meet you properly, but you fucked off to god knows where and didn’t tell us where you were !”
“Because you never said you wanted them to know--”
“Because you were shy about it! You knew Steph accidentally let it slip to her parents and freaked the fuck out, so we kept it quiet for you!”
“Okay!” Margaret interrupted. “We’re going to play a game. It’s going to involve tequila because I am not dealing with this without alcohol.”
“Now?” Auston and Mitch said at the same time.
“Yeah. Now,” Margaret said firmly. “It’s called Fair/Unfair. You both get to say a statement and reply to the other only with fair or unfair. For example, you feel upset. Fair/unfair?”
“Fair,” grumbled Mitch and Auston together. They immediately glared at each other.
“Mitch, you start.”
“Question,” Auston interjected. “Where does the tequila come in?”
“When I start taking shots to get through today,” Margaret said. “Mitch?”
“You…really like hockey,” Mitch said, waffling out a softball.
“Fair. You hate playing on a line with Willy..”
“Unfair, completely unfair.” Mitch cracked a smile. “Okay, maybe a little fair. Um. Uh, you feel upset.”
“Fair. You and Steph want kids.”
Mitch looked only vaguely guilty. “Fair. You’re scared of people knowing you’re in a relationship.”
Auston bit his lip. “Unfair.”
“How is that—”
“Rules of the game,” Margaret interjected. “You can clarify with your next Fair/Unfair.”
Mitch looked like he wanted to argue, but then again he usually did these days. “Steph is upset.”
“Unfair. She’s fucking pissed .” Mitch barely hesitated before barreling into his next question. “You’re afraid of people knowing you’re in a relationship with a married couple.”
“…Fair. You didn’t want to tell your parents.”
“Unfair. You didn’t want to tell your parents.”
“Fair. You decided you wanted kids without me.”
Mitch’s eyebrows dipped down in confusion. “Clarification?”
“I’ll allow it,” Margaret said. She’d produced three shot glasses and a bottle of tequila from somewhere.
“We made the decision without you, or that we want kids without you?”
“Both?”
“Uh. Fair, then unfair, then.” Mitch leaned forward, meeting Auston’s eyes. “You love us.”
Auston dropped his gaze. “Fair.”
“Well, then,” Margaret said. “Shots for everyone, and then I am going to go sit outside while you two talk. Unless I hear yelling, in which case I’m going to get Jack and the company Taser.”
“We have a company Taser?” Mitch asked, way too interested, as Auston asked “which Jack?”
“Cooper, probably,” Margaret said. “Please don’t kill each other. The paperwork would be a nightmare.”
“Well, it’d be your problem,” Auston joked. He ducked the pen Margaret threw at him. “What, we’d be dead.”
Margaret threw back a shot and then left the room.
“So,” Mitch said.
“So.”
“We should probably talk to Steph?”
“Um. Yeah. I guess?”
So Mitch brought Auston back to the house.
“Steph’s here,” he said as he unlocked the door.
Sure enough, Steph was waiting in the kitchen. She had her hands braced on her hips. “You’re a dickwad.”
“I’ve been informed.”
“You could’ve just talked to us.”
Auston slouched down a little. “I mean. You’ve met me, right?”
That caused Steph to snort out a giggle. “Yeah, okay, fair point. It took you six months to realize you were dating us.”
“To be fair,” Auston started. Mitch cuffed him upside the head.
“So how do we fix this?” he said, sitting at the table. “Auston, do you really want to break up with us?”
Auston hesitated. “Kind of?”
“Explain the kind of.”
So Auston did. He explained about how they were married to each other and he was the extra, and how they wanted kids and he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to reproduce, and how he was scared of telling his parents when both Steph’s and Mitch’s knew. He explained about thinking this would be easier for everyone.
At the end of it, Steph was glaring. “Well, all of that’s stupid,” she said.
“Um,” Auston said.
“We want kids with you. If you don’t want kids, okay, that’s a discussion we’ll table for further down the road. We’ve got time.”
“Um,” Auston said again.
“You’d be Dad Auston, and Mitch would be Dad Mitch. Or Papa. He looks like a Papa, doesn’t he?”
“They’d still be your kids, not mine.”
Mitch cuffed Auston upside the head again. Auston rubbed at the spot, pouting. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“Hoping to knock some sense into you.” Mitch sighed. “Look, Steph and I have been together forever. A decade, right, Steph?”
“Nine years. Close enough.”
“Yeah. And it feels so natural and normal to have you here, we…forget you haven’t always been part of our relationship.”
“You kind of have been,” Steph added. “You met at World Juniors ages ago, right? So you’ve been around forever, and Mitchy was crushing hard for so long—you’ve got to tell us if we’re overwhelming you.”
“I don’t--”
“Steph and I have been together for ten years--”
“You don’t have to remind me,” Auston said grouchily.
“No, I mean--you’re not the extra. It’s just--we’ve had every conversation about everything. And we’ve known you for so long--” Steph sighed. “I’m mad you didn’t go to prom with us.”
Auston blinked at the sudden change in subject. “What?”
“I’m mad you didn’t go to prom with us, and then I remember we didn’t know you then.” She met his gaze head-on, her eyes a bright, warm brown. “You’re so important to us, you--well, you complete us. You make us better. It’s so natural to have you here, as our boyfriend, as part of this--well. We forget that you haven’t always been our Auston. You weren’t there for prom, even if it feels like you were. Does that make sense?”
“I mean. Kind of?”
Mitch reached across the table and linked his fingers with Auston’s. Steph laid her hand on top. “We love you. We were idiots.”
“I’m not arguing.”
“You were an idiot too. You should have told us how you were feeling.”
“I’ve never been good at that.”
“Well, apparently neither are we, so that's something to work towards.”
“So I guess--now we decide if this is something we want to try putting back together?” Mitch looked at Auston, hopeful. “You know we both want to date you still. We want you back with us.”
“But it kind of requires all three of us to make it a relationship,” Steph added. “If you don’t want to, then--well, then we won’t push it. I won’t see you much, but I know Mitch will try to give you the space you need at work. Make it as clean a break as necessary.”
Auston looked down. “I don’t know if I like all this pressure on me.”
“So--take a day or two. Sort it out. Get back to us with an answer.”
“I mean, I want to date you. I love you both. Kind of a ridiculous amount. I just--I don’t know how to not feel like the extra. You’re married to each other. I’m just--I’m your boyfriend.”
The corner of Steph’s mouth quirked up. “I don’t know how to fix that either. Maybe--well, maybe you want to talk to Jack. Eichel, I mean. He’s dating a couple, so maybe he can help you with whatever’s going on in your head, ‘cause he’s probably been there too.”
“I might do that.”
Steph picked up Auston’s hand, kissed his knuckles. Mitch held his hand out for a kiss too, but Steph just gave him a fist bump with their linked hands.
Auston started giggling, then Steph did too. Mitch was the last to break down and join them, but all three of them were laughing in the kitchen.
Auston wondered what he’d done to deserve them, and their forgiveness, and wondered if he was going to accept it.
--
“So I hear you’ve gone and fucked things up with your marrieds.”
Auston blinked at his phone. “You know we’re supposed to be discussing travel plans for Demko’s wedding.”
“I’ve already booked everything, it’s routine at this point,” Jack Eichel said. “Same flights, same time, frequent flyer numbers booked in, same hotels, etc. Everything is sorted, so why anyone thought we needed to talk about travel plans I don’t actually know. So, back to the hot gossip. Your marrieds?”
“How do you actually know this, I’m pretty sure we never told anyone--”
“Samson has a sixth sense for other polys. And Mitch asked advice on how to woo you. Also, Amanda and Steph text, so when we got about nine million sad texts, it wasn’t hard to put stuff together.”
Auston sighed. “Can we do this later?”
“Dodging the question.”
“No, seriously, I have stuff to do.”
“Like your marrieds?”
“I hate you.”
“Yeah, but I’m also your only reliable source of advice at the moment.”
“Can you call back in 20 minutes? I’m kind of in a public place.”
“Sure. You’d better pick up, or I’m calling Patty.”
“You’re gonna get Dad involved?”
“I will pay you money to say that to his face.”
Auston snorted. “Ten minutes?”
“Ten minutes.”
It took only two minutes to save his work and disentangle from everything; it took another five to find a quiet place to take Jack’s call. He sat and waited for the remaining three until his phone chimed.
He answered on the first ring.
“So tell me what’s going on,” Jack said.
Auston told him everything, from how he hadn’t realized he’d practically been dating the Marners; to their successful half-year of dating to them asking him to move in; to the three months of bliss. That took only a few minutes. Explaining why he’d started to break up with the Marners and the process of actually doing the breakup, that took a little longer.
At the end, Jack sighed. “I'm not sure why, but I think all triads have this issue.”
“Yeah?”
“It sounds almost the same as when I first started dating Amanda and Samson.”
“Really?”
“Mmhm. Minus the cat and the kids, of course. Amanda refuses to let a tiny human grow in her womb and adoption would be...tricky with three of us. But starting to wonder if your married couple is just keeping you around for the lulz--”
“Did you just, in all seriousness, use the word lulz ?”
“I did, so fuck you. Look,” Jack said. “Have Mitch and Steph done anything to actively exclude you? And I know you felt excluded, but I mean really done anything to actively exclude you. Sneak behind your back? Go on dates without you, and without telling you?”
Auston thought about it. “No, I don't think.”
“How about big decisions?”
“They adopted Zipper before me. And they want kids.”
“You don't? Did you tell them that?”
Auston shook his head and then remembered he was on the phone. “Their plan included me, though. They assumed I'd be...up for it.”
“So there was a communication problem. But they weren't planning without you.”
“They're still married to each other. And I'm. Not.”
“Well,” Jack said. “Yeah. Sucks, doesn't it?”
There was a moment of silence. “Oh, shit. Did you want to get married?”
“Oh, God no. My mom would be a nightmare about wedding planning. And she’s got my sisters.”
“So what's the issue?”
“They're--Mitch and Steph share a name. They're the Marners. It's the Marners and Auston. There's like, tax stuff they can do together. If they wanna separate they have to tell the government. And like, technically, I can't be any of that to them. Like, dating them, that's legal, but marrying them is...not possible. Even if we were Mormons.”
Jack didn't speak for a moment. “Makes sense. I never wanted to get married. But I did have a moment of worry over the fact that they were together before dating me. In the end--it matters. And it's okay that you feel like that. But would you rather they got divorced?”
“No, I--is it selfish if I say yes, a little bit?”
“Maybe,” Jack said. “But does it matter? People are selfish. Steph and Mitch are married to each other. Despite that, they sought you out. They said you're nice, but I also love him . Are you really upset that they're married, or are you worried they'll stop loving you and still love each other?”
Auston hung up. His phone rang immediately, Jack calling back, but he didn't pick up.
Jack had hit Auston’s feelings dead on, and Auston didn't know how he wanted to feel about that. He definitely didn't want to talk about it.
--
3:16 PM Missed Call--Mitch Marner
3:20 PM Missed Call--Steph Marner
3:21 PM Missed Call--Jack Eichel
3:22 PM Missed Call--Jack Eichel
3:23 PM Missed Call--Jack Eichel
3:27 PM Missed Call--Samson Reinhart
--
Auston should have expected Steph to show up an hour into his sulk. Mitch and Auston were close on the road; they were still road roommates after all, and they worked together. Mitch and Steph had a history of years before they knew Auston. But there was a kinship between Auston and Steph that led them to sit together in companionable quiet on the boys’ days off. As bright as his feelings for Mitch burned, Auston loved Steph steadily and unfalteringly.
“You know, it’d be easier if you’d talk to us,” Steph said, dropping her purse down on the table next to Auston. “This whole hiding and not answering the phone is getting kind of old, ‘Toes.”
Steph was the only person alive who called Auston Toes and wouldn’t get decked for it; when they’d first started dating one-on-one without Mitch, she’d admitted she’d always been a little jealous of their hockey nicknames. Auston had started calling her ‘Knees’; Steph had retaliated by calling him ‘Toes’ and the rest was history.
“No Mitch?”
“He’s walking the dogs,” Steph admitted. “He’d get kicked out of here in about fifteen seconds flat.”
Here was Kitten and the Bear, the one place in Toronto Auston had managed to never get stopped for an autograph. He wasn’t sure if it was because no one thought Auston Matthews, Toronto Maple Leaf, would be getting high tea at a boutique jam shop, or if it was because the owner was a dyed-in-the-wool baseball fan who could give two shits about hockey as long as Auston paid his tab on time. He and Steph ended up there plenty; enough that Steph didn’t even glance at the menu when a server came up to ask if she needed anything.
“So,” she said, after she’d asked for mint tea and a fresh plate of scones. “How do we make this work?”
Auston picked at his scone, shredding it into fine crumbs. “I don’t know?”
“I thought we were doing okay,” she continued. “And then we weren’t, and then you freaked out again after you talked to Jack.”
“I’m just--trying to figure some things out,” Auston admitted. “It’s...been a weird week.”
“I can imagine.” She raised an eyebrow at him, reaching across the table for the pot of apricot jam. “So how do we make it less weird?”
“You still want to put up with my everything?”
Steph snorted. “Auston, I’d put up with a lot of things for an ass of your caliber. And,” she added, when she saw him flinch a little. “For the way you make me laugh, and the way you’ll dance with Mitch even though somehow both of you have two left feet, and how I could be complete without either you or Mitch but I never want to be.” She sighed. “I guess we didn’t make that clear enough.”
Auston stirred his tea.
Steph kept watching him, and spread jam on the scone she’d neatly split in half.
“Thanks, Mia,” she said, when Mia dropped off her tea and the second plate of scones. “No, I’m serious. I want you around, and since I haven’t said it right, I’ll say it now. I want you around if I get pregnant or if I don’t. If you want to contribute to our kids’ genepools, I’m good with that. I honestly think your offspring will probably kick me less than any of Mitch’s. I want to be with you when you and Mitch lift the Cup, and I want to be with you when they retire your number, and I want you to be with me when I start my own veterinary practice, and I want you to be there when I retire, and I want us to be old together. I love you so, so much, Auston.”
“And Mitch?”
She shook her head, smiling wryly. “If you doubt the way Mitch loves you, I don’t know what to tell you but to talk to him. From what he’s told me, he wants what you want. I think if he could he’d bundle the both of us up and keep us forever, but he also doesn’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Auston considered that. “Sounds like Mitch.”
“So where do you stand?” Steph asked. “I’d like to keep you forever, and as certainly as I can say without Mitch saying it himself, he’d like to keep you forever, so--do you want to keep us?”
“I mean, obviously.”
“Not necessarily, considering you went and moved out on us.”
“You never asked me to move in,” Auston said. “I just realized I didn’t ever go home. We still haven’t talked about kids together. It kind of feels like I’m along for the ride while you guys make all the decisions. So--we have to fix that. Somehow.”
“Talking more. We can do that.” Steph took a sip of her tea. “You going to come home?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Fair.” Steph leaned back in her chair. “I think it’s fixable, if we all put in the work.”
Auston snorted. “Are we going to give Mitch homework?”
“He’ll love that. Maybe we all need a little homework. A little recalibration.” Steph smiled at Auston, and it was the kind of smile that spread across her face and crinkled her eyes. It was the kind of smile Steph liked to bitch would leave lines on her face and which always made Mitch kiss at the corners of her eyes, crooning some love song about loving the way she smiled.
It made something in his chest ease, a knot he hadn’t realized he’d been holding there.
“So tell me about the vet clinic,” he said, knowing it was an abrupt change of topic and knowing Steph wouldn’t care. “Did Hellbeast come back?”
“No, but there’s a new Hellbeast,” Steph started. “Okay, so let me tell you about this cat. He’s sixteen years old, a former street cat, and we found fucking BB pellets in his X-rays, but he’s been a house cat for the last like, twelve years. We got him into the clinic and….”
--
“So,” Jack said, bumping his shoulder against Auston’s at Demko’s wedding. “All worked out?”
“We’re getting there,” Auston said. “Told my parents a couple of weeks ago.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d it go?”
“Better than I thought,” Auston admitted. “My mom was a little confused, but she’s wrapping her head around it. My dad didn’t really get it, but he’s been texting me updates as he reads books about polyamory, so I guess he’s trying. I haven’t told my sisters yet.”
“Progress.”
“Mm.”
Jack turned to lean against the table, an easy smile spreading across his face. “I’m glad you’re working stuff out with your marrieds, Matts.”
“It’s a process.”
“All relationships are.” Jack took a pull of his beer. “Samson says hi, by the way.”
“He didn’t come with you?”
“Nah. I’m here solo.” Jack shimmied a little. “Single and ready to mingle.”
“Taken and probably going to bed early,” Auston countered.
“Nah, I fully plan to see how much of a dent I can make in Demko’s open bar.” Jack grinned and clapped a hand to Auston’s shoulder. “Keep me updated on your marrieds. I’m invested now.”
“Well, we’ll probably be pretty boring from here on out.”
“That’s the best way to be. Alright, I’ll let you get back to your marrieds now.”
Auston rolled his eyes. “They’re not even here.”
“Like you’re not texting them every chance you get.”
Auston thought of the snapchats he absolutely was sending, and the ones he was getting back; Mitch was at another wedding and Steph was having a spa weekend on her own. The sappy grin on his face was apparently enough for Jack, who faked gagging and headed off with a smirk.
Auston pulled out his phone.
CANADIANS
AUSTON
I love you guys
MITCH
<3 <3 <3
STEPH
Love you too