#jess garcia

When Jeremy said they were getting dinner Jess was expecting tacos or power bowls from the place they’ve ordered from an embarrassing amount of times since Jeremy moved in — well, less embarrassing than if Jeremy gave into Jess’s pleas and they were getting pizza and burgers and shit, but still kind of sad level — not a legit sit-down restaurant.

And not just sit-down meaning ‘you sit on a chair and a waiter serves you’, which can run the gamut from hole in the wall to fine dining, but full on ambience up the wazoo — meaning you can’t see shit it’s so dimly lit — waitstaff in suits, all murmurs and tinkling cutlery and people sipping no doubt way overpriced wine.

They’re not dressed right for the place, t-shirts and shorts and fucking cast and walking boot, but maybe a name was dropped or they got recognized. More likely they took pity on two walking wounded dudes. Like, ‘hey, clearly they’ve been dealt a shit enough hand, I don’t have the heart to not let them eat expensive food’. Or, most likely of all, they’re too damn used to tourists showing up in their best sandaled fanny-pack attire, and they are tired. They are so tired. 

Jess would put his money on that one.

Jeremy definitely is pale enough to pass for a tourist who just got there. He’s barely seen the sun since he blocked that shot, except for those occasional clomps he convinces Jess to go on. Jess decides to take him on more clomps in the immediate future. Or just take him to a park and let him get some sun. It can’t be good for him. The first time he gets outside again he’s going to go pink immediately.

Jess focuses on the menu, and not imagining Jeremy pink in any scenario whatsoever, from sunburned to blushing to — oh look. Salmon. Yum.

“If you told me we were going somewhere nice I would have put pants on,” Jess says. Ooh, herb roasted chicken. Also yum.

“Do you have any that fit over your cast?” Jeremy asks.

Point for Waxman. He does, but tear aways are barely meant for the gym, let alone this place. They should have stayed in the 90s where they belonged. Jess says, owning multiple pairs. At least he’s not one of those monsters who owns pants that zip off into shorts.

“I’d have brushed my hair at least,” Jess says. When he looks up from the menu — five kinds of steak, boring after years and years of steakhouses — Jeremy’s smiling.

He brushed his hair at some point, tamed it from the morning floof Jess isn’t physically equipped to handle. He’s no more dressed up than Jess is, but he still looks right sitting there, like he fits. Maybe because he’s wearing a shirt with an actual collar — polo shirt definitely beats t-shirt in short-sleeved formality contest hands down — maybe because he looks so confident people just believe in whatever he wants to do. Jess believes him.

“Your hair looks great,” Jeremy says, then looks down at his own menu. “Chicken looks good.”

“Yeah,” Jess says.

Jeremy’s pink when they leave. The wine, probably — they split a bottle over the chicken they both ordered, and it’s gone to Jess’ head in a way that beer doesn’t, gone to Jeremy’s cheeks. 

They’re slow — hard enough to get around usually with a broken leg. Add some wine and trying not to run into every table on his way out, and Jess has his hands full. It’s easier for Jeremy, who doesn’t have to navigate with crutches, but he stays right by Jess, nudging a chair someone’s left pushed away from the table out of Jess’ way, escorts him out with a hand on his back. It’s cool outside after the closed hush of inside, bracing. Jess looks at Jeremy, who has his nose in his phone. It isn’t just his cheeks blushing red from the wine, the color crawls down his throat, into the the open collar of his shirt.

“Five minutes,” Jeremy says, tucking his phone into his pocket, and Jess spends the entire time overanalyzing how close Jeremy stands as they wait. If they were on a couch this would be pressed shoulder to knee territory, but with Jess’ crutches, it’s only the occasional arm brush.

“Why dinner out?” Jess brings himself to ask only when they’re in the back of the Uber. His crutches are in the trunk, but the middle seat’s a bridge between them.

“Thought it’d be nice,” Jeremy says, and Jess spends the rest of the drive trying to figure out what the hell that means. He isn’t even close to deciding on an answer when they get dropped off and all his attention has to go, once again, on getting around. Life is an obstacle course and Jess is a sad mouse who just wants some damn cheese.

Jeremy goes first, the way he always does, so he can hold every door open for Jess to clomp through, and Jess tries not to get fixated on the fact the back of his neck’s flushed too, the way he wants to touch it, feel the heat of it under the curve of his palm. Breaking himself worse by tripping over his own crutches because he wanted to touch someone’s neck sounds like a very sad thing he would never live down, even in his own head.

Please be a normal person and just look at his ass, Jess glumly tells himself, but once again, he needs to stop listening to his own advice. It’s bad advice. Terrible advice. Those are flattering shorts. Not that Jeremy’s ass needs flattering shorts, it is very much a —

There is just — lots of touching when you’re an injured hockey player. Jess cannot overstate the touching.

There’s lots of touching when you’re a non-injured hockey player too, to be fair. If you don’t like being touched team sports are emphatically not the way to go, especially not at the level where meet and greets and fans wanting pictures with you becomes a thing. Whole lot of hugging. Jess doesn’t mind it. Hard to, at that point. Even if he had minded, he’d be thoroughly desensitized to it by now.

But injured is lots of different touching. Not that Jess isn’t used to training staff, medical, physio, masseuses. Hell, he’s gotten worked on while talking strategy with a dude getting a massage a foot away from him, hockey talk occasionally interrupted by plaintive groans whenever a knot got worked out. That kind of maintenance is the absolute bare minimum needed to get through a season as long and as tough as the NHL season is. Just part of the job.

So actually, now that Jess is thinking about it, there honestly isn’t any more touching than usual in his life right now. Less touching, actually, because he’s not with the team, and that’s where the vast majority of the touching comes from — fist bumps and secret handshakes and back pats, cellies and face washes and ass slaps, elbows in the side, hands clapped on the shoulder, one-armed hugs. He gets a lot of those when he does see his teammates, if a little gentler than usual, but he’s not seeing them often.

So scratch like literally everything. There is a moderate amount of touching involved when you’re an injured hockey player, mild in comparison to when you’re a healthy hockey player. Except, well. The exception.

Jeremy touches Jess a lot and Jess is not handling it very well.

There. There it is.

The thing is — the thing is Jess doesn’t know whether he means anything by it, or it’s the way Jeremy is with everyone, or not everyone but is with team, or not even team but is with anyone he’s living with. Jess is filling all sorts of boxes right now — teammate, roommate, fellow hobbler, maybe friend? — and any of those categories could be a ‘hey I will absently touch this person’ categories.

Especially the fellow hobbler thing.  Easier to get around when you’ve got someone to lean on. Literally. They’re each other’s support through this process, emotionally and physically. That’s enough to make anyone more touchy than they might otherwise be. And Jess doesn’t even know if this is ‘more touchy’. Jeremy wasn’t with the team all that long before Jess went down. He didn’t know the guy beyond like ‘hey dude’ status in the room. Maybe Jeremy’s the most huggy person in the entire world and since Jess is the one he sees most, by far, Jess is the equivalent of like, a stuffed animal. Not even. Jess is a throw pillow. A throw pillow to Jeremy. That’s it.

Jeremy has very long eyelashes. Dark too — his hair’s that kind of middle brown that you can’t even give a name to other than ‘like. brown’ because it is the most brown that brown can be, but his lashes are coal black. A sort of smudgy gray black, like ashes, so much so that whenever Jeremy rubs his eyes Jess half expects the color to come away on his hands.

Jess does not think he’s ever reached the point of trying to categorize the color of someone’s eyelashes before. It’s not good. He doesn’t recommend it.

“Do I have something—“ Jeremy says, and it’s all Jess can do not to make a plaintive noise as Jeremy shifts away, and Jess’s side feels abruptly cold everywhere Jeremy had been pressed against him. Which was apparently everywhere, now that he isn’t.

“Uh,” Jess says. It’s frankly incredible Jeremy doesn’t ask that more, considering how much time Jess feels like he spends staring at him in a manner that is almost certainly creepy. “Eyelash. Um. You’re good now though.”

“What’s that thing about eyelashes and wishes?” Jeremy asks.

“No clue, bro,” Jess says. The ‘bro’ comes out weak. Feeble. No bro feelings have ruined him.

Jeremy gets up with a lot of fanfare for like, standing up. There’s stretching and a groan and — the man has a fucking broken foot, Garcia. Of course getting up is a chore. Jess legit needs a full minute to go from horizontal to vertical right now, complete with careful calculation of the best tack to take to avoid whimpering as he does so.

“We need to do something,” Jeremy says.

“Think you just did,” Jess says weakly. “Judging by all the noise.”

“C’mon, dinner,” Jeremy says. “My treat.”

“No,” Jess says feebly, but he takes Jeremy’s proffered hand. And then his other hand, because both are needed to lever Jess off the couch and onto his crutches. Jess holds the crutches still so they don’t sneak away from Jess just as he needs them — he has an antagonistic relationship with these crutches at this point —  and patiently waits by the door while Jess gets one sandal on. Once again, thank fuck he’s a Bolt. He can’t imagine the pain in the ass it’d be if he was trying to get into winter boots. Well, boot and cast. Doomed to slip at the very sight of ice on the sidewalks. He doubts even Jeremy could get him outside then.

And thank fuck for this building and its beautiful elevators. Jeremy orders an Uber while they wait for it, and Jess resumes staring like a creep without meaning to. He’s got a nick at the corner of his jaw, where sideburn gives to clean-shaven face — Jess genuinely has no idea how he has the energy to bother shaving every day right now. It’s not like they see anyone but each other most of the time, and fuck knows Jess won’t judge.  

“Five minutes,” Jeremy says as the elevator doors open. They get into the little box, too big to force proximity, really, certainly no more proximity than the way they were pressed together on the couch, but it still feels small, closed in. Jeremy’s shoulder brushes his, even though it doesn’t need to. Small box, rectangle of the lobby, warm courtyard outside, them making their slow way through each set of doors, and Jess doesn’t think he stops looking at Jeremy once, even though he tries. He really is trying, not that you can tell.

“Where are we going, anyway?” Jess asks, maybe too belatedly.