#kjnb

He just--he’s not the kind of guy who does much--if anything--with his hair. Dragging a wet comb through it is the most he manages, maybe some pomade. Hair gel. Whatever. He doesn’t mind wearing it longer--especially because Kent seems to like getting her hands in it--but it’s unmanageable now, getting on his nerves. He still hasn’t found a barber in Columbus and he doesn’t have the time in between games, and frankly, if he can do it himself, why shouldn’t he?

Or that sounded fine, when he was buying the clippers. Now, with them in his hand, poised and ready, he feels a little differently.

Kent watching really isn’t helping with the pressure.

“You should,” she continues, in between snaps of her gum. “It’ll match your eyebrow scar. Makes you look tough. Rough. Like you’re part of a gang or something. Could be cool.”

“I don’t need a haircut to make me look tough.”

Kent snickers at his sour-sounding protest. “Nah, I know. We’ve all seen you throw your body around out there.” A smile sneaks over her face; crooked, playful and teasing. “You’re so tough and so hot, Blanks baby. You gotta know.”

“Brat,” Nick tells her. 

Kent says nothing--just grins--so Nick tries to ignore her. He switches the clippers on at the wall and presses the on button, making sure they’re on a low setting with the guard in place. They buzz menacingly in his hand.

He hesitates.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Kent asks. There’s a lick of amusement in her voice still that Nick pretends isn’t obvious, even as he stares at his hairline, trying to figure out where he’s meant to start. Kent twists around so she can meet his eyes in the mirror, one sandy feathered eyebrow hooked up into her hairline as she watches him struggle.

“It can’t be that hard,” Nick scoffs, even though he regrets only watching one YouTube tutorial before making this decision. It doesn’t feel like enough now. He leans forward towards the mirror and lifts his hand.

Beside him, Kent’s breath audibly catches.

“What?” he demands, forced into pausing.

“You’re just going straight in?”

Nick blinks. “Yeah? Am I not supposed to?”

Kent shrugs at him. “I dunno. Just surprised me, is all.”

“Do you know anything about men’s haircuts?”

“No,” she snorts.

“Okay, so can you let me do this, KJ?”

She visibly reels herself in and settles back to watch. Nick lifts his hand into position. Okay, so--from the sides first. In a straight up motion--? The first few centimeters are fine, but then it gets tricky, and he finds himself huffing about how to continue. He moves the clippers about, trying to decide, the steady drone filling the small bathroom.

Kent keeps quiet, until finally--

“Give them here.”

“What?”

She tuts; loudly and with clear exasperation. “This is painful. Give them here.”

“You just said you don’t know how to do this?”

“Well do you? You’re not convincing me.  And you’re never gonna be able to reach the back anyways. Give them here.”

She sticks her hand out and makes an impatient movement with her fingers. Nick frowns.

“Kent.”

“Blanks. Just give them here. You said it yourself earlier today. It’s just hair, KJ. It’ll grow back. Whatever. Give me the clippers.”

Nick thinks about saying no. About forcing Kent to leave the bathroom. But he is kinda confused about how realistically he’s going to be able to reach the back. The guy in the video managed fine, but Nick’s not sure it’s going to be as easy as he made it look.

Slowly, he hands the clippers over. Kent’s right. It’ll grow back. It’s why he’s cutting it in the first place. It’s just hair.

The victorious little smile Kent tries to smother when she closes her palm over the handle almost makes him reconsider, though.

She slips off the vanity, landing lightly on her bare feet.

“Go get a stool from the kitchen,” she orders.

Nick does as he’s told, lugging it back through his living room and down the hall. He pushes it into the center of the bathroom and sits down. Kent hums, satisfied, and then runs her fingers through his partially shorn hair, short at the sides and nowhere else. Her nails scratch against his scalp, and he can’t help the shiver it inspires.

“You have to, like--something about not following the curve.”

Kent waves him off. “Yeah, yeah. I got it. You ready?”

Nick squares his shoulders. “Go ahead.”

Kent works quietly, and with great concentration. It’s a familiar expression--tongue caught between her teeth, putting pressure on her full, pink bottom lip; slim eyebrows dragged down into a pinch, a wrinkle between her eyes he likes to set his thumb against, just to tease her. 

The buzz of the clippers swirls around them, and his hair falls in chunks to his shoulders, drifting down. He tries not to be alarmed. Like this, sat on the stool, he can’t see the mirror, or what Kent’s doing.

“How’s it--?”

Kent shushes him. “Shut up, I’ve gotta focus.”

It feels like she’s shearing him like a sheep, in long pulls of the clippers. Nick feels a little nervous. He bites at his tongue. Maybe it’s fine. Maybe Kent’s better at this than he thinks. Maybe--

A few more minutes pass. She goes back to a few areas. The clippers drag against his skull. He feels lighter. Kent keeps on putting her hand on his head to pull him about, getting him to tip his chin at different angles, brushing against the nape of his neck. Her fingertips are cool on his jaw when she yanks his head sideways and her strong grip is distracting.

Nick’s not going to say it’s a nice experience--nothing like being basically given spa treatment at a good barber’s--but it’s not without its appeal. He keeps getting caught on the tight pursed bud of Kent’s mouth, all the focus held so tight there.

It doesn’t take that long, really, before Kent’s stepping away to survey her handiwork.

The first bad sign is the way her mouth...unravels. Wobbling into an expression close to a smile, but not quite. Like she’s trying to keep it pinned and failing.

Nick pulls a hand through his newly short hair. It feels--well. Short. Kinda...bristly? Rough against his fingers. Blunt.

“Kent,” he says. Very carefully.

Her smile wobbles again, and this time it wins. “It looks fine,” she declares, a little too aggressively.

Immediately, Nick pushes himself up and twists to look in the mirror. At first glance it doesn’t look too bad, but on closer inspection, when he leans in...

“KJ,” he groans.

“It’s fine! So it’s a little uneven in places--”

“A little?” Nick yelps. “KJ!”

“It’s fine! You’re fine! It’s just hair!”

Nick drags his fingers through the back, by his nape. He can’t see it and he’s not sure he wants to, from the way it feels. Kent’s face is a little pink when he glares at her through the mirror, which means she’s not entirely unembarrassed here. It’s somewhat satisfying.

He opens his mouth to say something, but it’s too late now, anyway. He closes it again.

“It doesn’t look bad,” Kent tries, which is an adjustment from ‘fine’ although Nick can’t tell in which direction, with the double negative. “You’ve got a cute enough face to pull it off. A good jaw.”

“Don’t try and flatter me,” he grunts.

“I’m not!” she huffs. “Jeez, take a compliment. You’re good. Nobody will even notice. It’s totally fine.”

Nick knows that’s a lie, but he allows it to soothe him anyway. Kent’s hands on his shoulders spin him around, before she bends to kiss him. Her fingers are still cool against his neck where she splays them, enticing him to give up the fight. 

It’s a good distraction. Nick almost forgets the haircut when he’s backing Kent into the vanity, biting down on her bottom lip to make her breath hitch.

He remembers as soon as Kent pulls away and--unmistakably--winces, though.

“I’m going to kill you,” Nick says, matter-of-factly.

Kent breaks into a grin.

“You want dropping home?” he asks, when Kent’s settled herself in, phone out, already thumbing through instagram. 

“Nah,” she says without looking up from her screen, “thought we could chill at yours for a bit?”

“Sure,” Nick agrees, “if you want.” He can’t remember what state he left his apartment in–whether there’s food in the fridge, or any beer left from the six-pack he bought earlier in the week. Maybe Kent’s looking for a consolation drink. It would suck if Nick couldn’t offer it to her. 

Kent goes back to swiping through insta stories, while Nick tries to escape the snag of traffic out of the arena. Beside him, Kent seems focussed on her phone, which is buzzing at an alarming rate. Nick can feel his own phone jumping against his thigh in his pocket. Kent’s scrolling through the messages, but not answering any of them, as usual. 

“Sucks that McTavish was out and couldn’t play tonight,” he says, when they’re turning out onto the street. “I know you were looking forward to playing him. I’m sorry.”

Kent doesn’t respond right away, which isn’t unusual, but Nick starts to think she’s ignored him in favor of back-scrolling Twitter. When he glances over to check, Kent’s looking at him, mouth ticked up into a smirk. It’s not an unfamiliar expression for her, that’s for sure, but Nick doesn’t know what he’s said to deserve it.

“What?” he asks, shifting his hands self-consciously on the wheel. 

Kent snorts. “Sorry, were you?”

“Huh?”

“Sorry enough to dump a Ducks player into my lap about it. What did Lundestrom ever do to you, huh? Last time I checked, he didn’t wear number 37. If you were jealous about me seeing Mac last night you should have just said. You didn’t need to murder a Duck about it.”

Nick freezes. Kent’s voice is flatly teasing, dry and drawling. He misses the lane change and the exit they were supposed to take. He sees Kent’s smirking face glitch and then twist into something triumphant. 

“God. You were jealous.”

“No,” Nick says, trying to both figure out how he’s going to get back on route here, both the car and the conversation. “I was finishing a check. It has nothing to do with McTavish.”

“Nothing to do with Mase. Got it,” Kent replies archly. When Nick glances back over, her phone’s in her lap and she’s looking at him, biting down on a smile. He feels vaguely like he’s in trouble here. 

“He wasn’t even playing,” he protests. “What did you do to him last night anyway? To put him out with a LBI?”

“Cut his dick off,” she returns, voice completely flat. 

For a second, Nick’s brain shudders, a jolt running through him, and then he laughs. 

“You’re terrifying, Kent Johnson.”

Kent grins, wonky and shark wide. “And you’re not as innocent as you like to make out.”

Nick managed to thread them back around to find an alternative route home. It’s going to take longer, which right now feels like a bad idea. He’s really not sure how to put a label on the energy currently filling the front seat, ricocheting between them. 

“So if you didn’t cut McTavish’s dick off, what happened?”

Kent’s smile flickers again. “He was allergic to whatever he ate at dinner. Tough break.”

“Allergic? To what?”

“I don’t know.” She waves her hand. “Something. I didn’t exactly ask for details. He started feeling sick right before he got back to his hotel. I tapped out.”

So, she and McTavish didn’t—

“Oh. Well. That’s unfortunate. I hope he’s feeling better.” 

It’s a lot easier to feel magnanimous now, and Kent raises an eyebrow at him, amused, like she knows exactly what he’s thinking. 

“Yeah.”

“Have you heard from him—”

Kent cuts him off. “Blanks. You don’t have to talk about Mac. Honest.”

When all Nick does is flex his hands on the wheel again and try to look calm and unbothered, Kent makes a small noise—something like frustration, or a huff of laughter, or maybe caught in between the two. 

“Blanks, you bodied a guy into my lap. And then you scored a goal right after.”

Nick nods. He did do that; Kent’s correct. He was wound up and gunning for every angle he got, and it wasn’t all inspired by watching Kent slip away to go to dinner with McTavish the evening before, and maybe he refused to even acknowledge that as part of it when he was out on the ice, but to say it wasn’t in the back of his head, at least a little, would be a lie. The rest was just pure adrenaline from the game. The usual chip on his shoulder pushing him forward. He wasn’t looking to particularly impress Kent, honestly wasn’t even really fully consciously aware she was behind the bench when he went after Lundestrom, but he’s also always half looking to impress Kent anyway. Like he has to prove to her that he’s worth having tagging along for this ride since Michigan. 

Other reasons, too. Like the fascination he’s developed over the last few months with Kent’s bottom lip; the full pinkness of it. The way it’s currently dented with her teeth marks where she’s smirking at him too hard. 

“I guess. Yeah. I did.”

“So we’re not talking about Mason right now,” she announces.

“Okay?”

Nick swings into the road his apartment building’s on, but he’s aware of Kent staring at him. He feels hot around his hoodie collar. She’s twisted around in the front seat, facing him.

“Blanks, that was insane.”

“It was a good shift,” he allows. He’s not—Kent’s so fickle. There’s a difference from saying he had a good game, to whatever he thinks might be written on her face right now, if he lets himself look. 

“Do you need me to spell it out to you?” she says, as Nick pulls into the parking space. 

Yes, he thinks. I wish you would. Please spell out to me exactly what happened with Mason McTavish at World Juniors, who ended it, if it even ended, what went on with Owen post Olympics at Michigan, and maybe, while Kent was talking, she could explain how she feels about him. Nick would love to know. Because Kent hasn’t given him a morsel before this, and he thinks he’s about to experience whiplash harder than anything he could gain from a game-time injury and he’s already feeling preemptively dizzy about it. 

And that’s if what he wants to happen, happens. Kent could also just get out of the car and pretend this conversation, or at least the weird tone of it, never existed. If she feels like it’s not worth the effort. If she changes her mind. He feels like that’s possible, too.

“I think you should,” he says, trying to sound confident and cool. He’s 24 years old. Mature. Kent shouldn’t get under his skin like this. 

Kent huffs again, and yep—definitely annoyed. 

“Nick.”

“Kent,” he volleys. 

He can be patient. He can wait her out. 

She struggles. Another harshly exhaled breath. And then—

“Are you going to invite me upstairs to your apartment, or not?”

“I thought you’d already invited yourself,” he points out, just in time before the blood rushes to his ears, and he can’t do anything else but watch the way Kent shakes her head, ponytail swinging, and unclips her belt, with fingers that are fumbling just as much as his own.

They take the stairs. Nick watches Kent climb in front of him—a tense silence between them. She doesn’t look round. 

Kent has him up against his apartment door the instant second they’re inside though, muscling into his space, fingers scrabbling against the soft material of his hoodie. Nick’s back hits the door, and he can’t figure out if Kent’s trying to take the hoodie off him or burrow into his chest, somehow. All this before he even kisses her. 

“KJ—”

She makes a wounded, frustrated noise and pauses, just long enough that Nick can push her away a few centimeters. Her face is full of rushed impatience, but there’s a sharp kind of honesty in her eyes when he meets them that nearly takes him out at the knees. Kent wants him. She does. 

He pulls away and Kent uses that as an opportunity to take off her own hoodie instead, wriggling out of the sleeves like a live wire. She drops it to the ground and then goes back for her shirt too, yanking it over her head unceremoniously, until she’s standing in front of Nick in her bra, tight against her small chest; face expectant, but also defiant. There in the fixed slight upwards turn to her mouth, the sharp way she’s raking her eyes over him. 

“Your turn,” she demands. 

But this isn’t strip poker, and Nick has been thinking about her mouth for too long to let her get away with doing it like this. 

He reaches out to snag her wrist and reels her back in. He has to tip his head up to kiss her, and also reach up to pull her down, palm pressed to her jaw. He thinks he takes her by surprise because Kent opens up for him beautifully, a mumbled interruption dying in her throat as she swallows his tongue instead, hot and eager. He bites down on her bottom lip, just a gentle tug, but Kent growls and presses herself ever closer, flattening herself up against him. 

She works a fist into his hoodie again. “Nick. C’mon.”

Kent steps back to let him take it off. There’s energy thrumming behind her stillness, like there always is when she’s concentrating on something—getting herself under control. When he’s bare chested, Kent’s eyes flare. She looks like she wants to eat him alive. Nick would let her, probably. 

Who is he kidding? No probably about it.

“Fucking hell,” she hisses, before resuming her position from before, pressed up close. This time, though, she drags her mouth over his jaw and down his neck, hot kisses with just enough scrape of teeth to make him feel crazy. She’s going to leave a mark. Nick’s so fucking hard about it already. When she gets to his shoulder, to the ball of hard muscle he’s been tensing since he realized she was following him out of the locker room, she sinks down. 

Nick hisses. His dick jumps. “KJ.”

She ignores him. He works a hand round to her back, feeling for the clasp of the bra. It takes him two tries before he gets it off her, and Kent treats it as an inconvenience more than anything, having to slip out of it instead of keep working at the bruise she’s making, but when he has her nipple in between his finger and thumb, he gets his payback just fine.

The next morning, when he finally checks the group chat, Kent’s face is screenshot and zoomed in on million times, at the moment Nick sent the Ducks player flying towards her. 

Lmao KJ keep it in your pants Briss had written.

Young love is so beautiful. From Nolan, of course.

Kent lifts her chin from where she’s got it propped on his shoulder to see what he’s looking at, and when she realizes, she promptly turns her face back towards his collarbone and bites down. Nick jumps like a fish on a hook. 

“Kent! Ow.”

“Don’t reply. Don’t say a word.”

nm x jt

The lights of the house opposite are warm postage stamps in the dark. The bulb out here on the porch broke months ago and nobody got around to changing it, so the outline of Nolan’s face is hazy. They’re back-lit, at least, by the lights of the house leaking through the blinds; Phil and Grano in the living room watching a hockey game. Nolan’s posted herself up on the railing, swigging on a beer, while Jacob sits on the chair they dragged out from the kitchen.

She immediately regrets the question she asked. She would never usually pry, but they’ve been out here a while and Jacob’s usual self-control has been loosened by the alcohol and the soupy unseasonable warmth of the early spring evening. Nolan’s in cut off jeans shorts and a shirt she must have cropped herself, jagged hem and roughly scooped out deep arm holes. Jacob’s eyes keep catching through the dark on the way the loose material moves when she does; the flashes of warm skin dipping in and out of shadow as she talks. 

Nolan’s bark of laughter echoes down the quiet street. 

“I mean, sure, the intention bothers me, when they’re flinging it around on the ice like that. But the word? No.”

She doesn’t sound offended—just amused at Jacob’s question. Jacob feels like a kid, trying to navigate awkward conversations with her parents again after her first sex-ed lesson at school. Only they never covered any of this.

She wishes they had. 

“It doesn’t?”

Jacob sees the way Nolan smiles—wide and sharp. If she didn’t know better, she’d call it predatory.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she says, after another swallow of beer, shaking out her shaggy hair. Jacob watches her throat flex. “They need to keep it out of their mouths. It’s not theirs, and they’re fucking homophobes. But I’m not afraid of using it. I’m a dyke. Dykiest dyke around. They’re not wrong. Just don’t appreciate the sentiment, you know?”

When Jacob struggles to think of a good reply, Nolan jumps in again. “You’ve wanted to ask me that for a while, haven’t you?”

Jacob flushes at the teasing in her voice. There are a lot of things she’s been thinking about for a while now.

---

kj x nb

Kent has her phone propped up against the cereal box. 

Owen’s already in the gym in Buffalo, talking to Kent from the exercise bike. She’s got Kent in the cupholder. Kent would prefer to have this conversation not in public, but she’s got a limited time window before practice and a pressing issue to discuss. 

“It happened again,” she announces, when Owen’s stopped fucking around with her headphones and is actually paying attention. 

“Again? I thought you said it was a fluke? 

“Well it fucking wasn’t, I guess.”

Owen reaches up to tighten her fluffy ponytail—her hair always looks perfect, even mid-workout. Of course. “Like. The same thing?” she asks, sounding curious. “Or, like—different?”

“Worse,” Kent huffs. “It was—Jesus it was like something out of those 80s romance books you’re always reading. The ones with the fucking princesses.”

“Duchesses,” Owen corrects, even as she blushes nearly scarlet. Kent found her secret stash of them the first year of college and read one out of curiosity. Lots of virgins being devirginized in castles and ballrooms and dimly lit libraries. And the guy was always some respectful but also dirty, built dude who was god’s gift to sex, apparently. Kent must have internalized that book harder than she first thought. 

“Sometimes countesses, and—” Owen continues, but Kent cuts her off. 

“Yeah, one of those. Whatever. It was a whole thing.”

Kent woke up covered in sweat, with her hand creeping towards her pajama waistband, and a giddy, unbalanced feeling that stopped her from going back to sleep for hours. 

“Do you think it means anything?”

Owen’s eyes are wide. Kent would love to be able to scoff and say no, but there’s a reason she’s having this conversation over breakfast. She’s a little panicked, maybe.

“I wish he’d stop fucking wandering around shirtless all the time,” she says instead. “Maybe that would help. Like. So I don’t have the visuals.”

“You play hockey together. I don’t think that’s possible,” Owen supplies, just as Kent’s phone buzzes with a text. Nick’s outside to drive her to practice. 

“I gotta go,” she tells Owen, jamming her thumb on the end call button unceremoniously. 

Nick’s waiting on the drive for her. When she slips in beside him, he hands her an iced coffee he bought on the way over, Her heated seat is already on. Nick’s shoulders look great in the hoodie he’s wearing. 

“Good morning,” he says, smiling at her—like he always does. 

Kent groans.

---

rm x nm

When Rutger had a boyfriend, she had plans for Spring Break. Now Rutger has no boyfriend, and therefore—no plans for Spring Break. It feels kind of shitty, watching all her friends packing their bags to catch flights or go back home (and even shittier to watch Johnny pack her bags to go home with Luca) but now Rutger’s stuck in Ann Arbor for the week. Her parents are away, even if she did want to go back to Nebraska—which she doesn’t—and Braeden already canceled the air bnb and the flights. So. She’s stuck.

She mopes around the first evening, watching early 2000s romcoms in her room under a blanket and letting herself cry at all the swooping, romantic endings. On the second evening, Moyle texts her. 

Heard u were still around So am I Free if u need a friend to hang

When she texts back (immediately) yes, she expects to go hang at the Senior House, or meet him for dinner at Chipotle or something. Instead, Nolan pitches up at her dorm room door an hour later, poking around at her stuff—her pink bed sheets and the mini gallery wall she now needs to rearrange. There are big gaps where all the pictures of Braeden used to be.

“Cute, Roger,” he says, picking up one of the ornaments from her shelf and inspecting it. It’s a little bottle of sand from the vacation she took with Braeden last summer. Crap. She probably needs to trash that too. There’s a little label around the neck. Rutger sees Nolan read the mushy message she remembers neatly writing out, and then slowly put it back down. She expects a comment, but he doesn’t make one. 

It’s kind of awkward, actually. Nolan feels way too big for her tiny dorm room. And it’s not like there’s much to do, other than continue her movie marathon from before. 

When she says so, mostly joking, Nolan shrugs. “Fine by me.”

Which is how she ends up watching How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days, with Nolan pressed up next to her on her narrow loft bed, her laptop balanced on both of their legs. It’s a good job Rutger’s seen the movie a hundred times already, because she absolutely isn’t paying attention. 

Halfway through, Nolan twists his head towards her.

“Roger. Are you watching this?”

“Uhm. Not really?” she admits. 

Nolan slams the lid of her laptop. “Great.”

She squeaks when he rolls towards her and presses her back into her mattress. Rutger blinks up at him, eyes wide. “Nolan?”

“Jesus Christ, this is a really bad idea,” he says, mostly to himself.