#mackperron

yes, a return visitor to mack's hotel heart! another anon called it a "going back to your exes summer", which seems rather prophetic now that we know gabe will be joining will and leno at shoulder check.

nobody will ever know you like the boy who was your best friend for a year when you were both skinned-knee teens. before you learned to thicken your skin. sweet sixteen, and mack's practiced kissing a whole lot with his girlfriend, but it never felt like this, the rush of steel on ice, cheetah and puma on the hunt together, his best guy on his wing. teammates and linemates and billet brothers, spending every minute of every day together. they called him puma because it was catchy, because mack was cheetah, hockey loves a corny bit, but secretly mack thought jayden was more like a golden retriever. cheerful, easygoing, friendly. the kind of locker room guy that mack knew he himself would never be. mack could grab the room when he tried, but it was grudging, sometimes, forced, often, and because of his hockey first, always. (golden retrievers were cheetahs' emotional support animals, at zoos. mack knew dada hadn't meant it that way, when he'd hand-picked jayden as mack's billet roommate, he'll be good for you, macklin, you need a locker room guy like him, remember, balance is important; but sometimes it felt like being the last kid picked, needing his daddy to find him a custom best friend.)

but then it had ending up being good, really good. maybe even better than eisy back at shattuck, which felt disloyal to think, but mack's never been able to stop himself from comparisons. and then mack had gone off to boston, dropped the spots for a terrier's growl, and there had been the draft, and everything had changed. they'd still text, from time to time; close friends and finsta comments and replies; but it wasn't the same as drowsy eyed drives to early morning skate, slinging their gear bags together in the back of helene's car, chipper runs and cellies on ice and the rush of feeding the puck to your guy. and then there had been the national, for mack but not for jayden, and that had been another blow. and there had been will, of course. nothing and nobody could compare to will. sometimes mack thinks that every friendship he's ever had was in preparation for will, same way you gotta practice your shot a few thousand times before it takes. a deeply unfair thought, to himself and his boys; but mack can't help it.

and how do you think he feels now, twenty and all grown up (except not at all, except half the time mack feels like he's still that gangly oversized kid, too big for his skin), reuniting with his best guy who's no longer his best guy? jayden, who did end up getting drafted, but not til the third round; jayden, still in the ncaa, a junior year transfer; jayden, who never did get that growth spurt he'd dreamed of and hoped for. and mack, as macklin celebrini, and everything that entails, these days. do you think mack is thrilled to see his old best friend again, thrilled to try their old chemistry back on for size, but it doesn't quite fit? stretch marks on their friendship, from time and distance and age, growing tight. and maybe it's bc of will and maybe it's bc of hockey and maybe it's just bc mack is no longer sixteen, but any way you cut it, it's just another thing to tuck away in the back of his locker. just another thing to skate through. so mack does, and then he showers, and then he goes home and facetimes will.

below the cut: some more pictures of cheetah and puma from back in their old hunting days, bc chicago steel-era mack makes me feel very soft. just a kid! tall for his age, and big to boot! always hunched over bc his head and his hands were too big for his body. so so young and already so talented.