#post-retirement

Leo had never seen someone work as hard as Finn O’Hara. He saw it in the straight line of Finn’s back and the solid set of his shoulders, even when he was calm. He saw it in everything he did—in love and, up until recently, in hockey. He was unequivocal dedication, embodied.

He was sure Finn would say the same about him; he was sweet like that, pretty face and prettier words that were always so honest they made Leo’s ribs hurt with the pounding of his heart. Finn liked to call him brave. Leo had started believing it after the last decade had proven it true in more ways than he cared to count.

And, Christ, Leo counted everything. Endless cycles of goals-assists-saves-loss-win-horror-victory that left him bolting upright at two o’clock in the morning well into his first season of retirement. Netminders kept perfect track of the game and every player coming at them. Remus’ mental playbook of every player in the NHL was only uncanny because he was out of the goal. Leo still remembered the tics and tells of most everyone he’d ever faced.

But what was there to count, now? Beautiful mornings? Those happened every day, though he hadn’t been awake for sunrise in three blessed years. Exotic vacations? He had a wonderful time on their honeymoon (all three of them), but he’d always prefer visiting one of their families.

The pan sizzled softly when he flipped the bagel with a practiced flick of the wrist. Leo smiled to himself. Maybe he should start counting Finn’s annual bacon-egg-and-cheese total. He’d probably come up with the same number if he bought a calendar and ticked the days by hand.

Finn’s commitment to his mid-morning snack was rivaled only by his unwavering passion for bodice-ripper novels, and the evidence of said passion filled their kitchen with a flurry of furious clicking while Leo slid the bagel carefully onto a plate.

See, Leo thought it was a joke, at first. A funny little prank Finn was playing on his new rookie roommate, tucking raunchy paperbacks into the bookshelf between Brontë and Dickens to make him blush. Har-dee-har-har, you got me, I’m such a prude.

Finn had not been joking.

And then it was endearing, like all the other Finn-isms of which he was so fond. It was just…such a silly hobby for an athlete—a former frat boy, no less!—to have in an environment like the NHL. It felt absurdly right that Finn, with his big smile and open heart, would unabashedly love books with oil-paint cover art of a lady fainting into the arms of a conveniently topless bodybuilder. Leo had tucked it into his heart and let it lie.

Finn retired.

Finn was utterly horrific at sitting still.

Finn started with Marie Adkins’ 1942 classic A Rogue for a Lady and ended with Eleanora Zimmerman’s yet-unpublished installment of Zoe Cross’ Cross-Continental Affairs: Volume III, officially clearing the romance collections of all three public libraries near them. His whoop of joy when Ms. Zimmerman answered his email inquiry with a PDF of her manuscript had startled Logan so bad he spilled coffee across the kitchen island and into his lap.

But reading—devouring—the books wasn’t enough. Finn’s systematic rip-through of every literary soap opera he could get his hands on came with an elaborate Goodreads account as well as a nightly debrief.

Leo fucking loved it. Listening to Finn parse out his opinions like an Ivy League lecturer quickly became the best part of his day, especially when the season wound down. It was permanence and consistency while his head whirled with thoughts of this one, just this one single last year and then I’ll really be done, this time for sure. Finn loved hockey like everything else: with no holds barred. He left it, and he was okay. More than okay—he was thriving.

But no hobby was without its faults.

So fucking stupid, Finn had muttered with a sharp shake of his head. I just can’t. It’s a disappointing plot and, worst of all, it’s poorly paced.

Leo and Logan had shared a look across their spaghetti. Finn could give no greater insult to books known for their overdramatic style than ‘poorly paced’.

Well, Logan had said, carefully, almost casually. We all know you’d write it better.

Damn right I would, was Finn’s forceful answer as he stabbed a noodle onto his fork.

Then do it.

Leo had to admit even now that he hadn’t expected that. Perhaps he should have, from Logan. There’s an issue? Solve it. His ‘no more running, no more bullshit’ oath when they were first starting latched into most things he did.

Finn had wavered about it for three days. Once (and only once) he nudged Leo awake at 7:30 in the morning, still sweaty from his run, to ask him if he thought publishing under his real name was a bad idea. He had been forced to mull that one over on his own when Leo banned him from post-shower, mid-coffee cuddles for the crime of dripping sweat onto his pillow.

Finn decided to start writing a book on a Thursday morning in the middle of March, bought a new notebook and a nice pen, and promptly didn’t write a word until his birthday in August.

I’m a failure, he had moaned into Leo’s chest, half-suffocated by the thick fabric of his hoodie. I’m so stupid.

No, baby, you’re not stupid, Leo had soothed. It was a little hard to breathe with the full weight of him splayed useless across Leo’s body, but that was nothing new.

I’ll never write a word. I’m cursed to keep reading forever and being mad about shitty romance with bad, boring characters. The 70s did it best.

Leo remembered sighing in sympathy. But they’re all straight.

But they’re all fucking straight! Finn had groaned. He didn’t move from his puddle of misery and writer’s block until Logan came home and knocked on the back of his head with a pack of pre-sharpened pencils and a cow-print composition book.

Goodreads reviews became graphite smudged on Finn’s hands and cheeks. Small spiral notebooks cropped up around the house, and eventually settled as Finn’s stalwart companions on his morning jogs. When the pencils wore down to nubs, he bought the crappiest pen Leo had ever seen in his life—when that ran dry, he bought another, and a third, and then all the notebooks grew into a teetering tower on Finn’s desk overnight.

A stapler followed, and red pens.

March rolled around again and the tapping of Finn’s laptop became a comforting ‘hello’ when Leo came home from practice. Finn didn’t talk about his book, but Leo didn’t mind. As long as Finn was happy, he could be patient, even if curiosity chewed at him day and night.

When do I get to read it? Leo had finally begged in the heat of June, turning over in bed four nights after his final NHL game. He was restless already and hardly sleeping. He needed something other than endings to occupy his mind.

Finn had smiled at him. The point of his nose pressed to Leo’s. I sent the manuscript out last week. The first copy is yours, Peanut.

Leo had kissed him for that most thoroughly.

“Hello, there.”

Leo smiled into a hidden freckle behind his ear and wrapped his arms around Finn’s chest, giving him a squeeze. “Hey.”

“This for me?”

“You sound surprised.”

“Yeah.” Finn’s head rested back on his shoulder. Leo took the weight happily. “But not really. Ugh, my eyes hurt.”

“Wear your glasses.”

“I wore them yesterday.”

“Didn’t realize they had a recharge time.”

“You know, plastic and glass can be really high-tech these days.”

Leo covered Finn’s eyes with one palm; his lashes fluttered and his chest shook with a laugh. “Glasses,” he insisted, dragging his hand up to Finn’s forehead to tilt his face all the way up and meet his gaze. “Keep this shit up and I’m not putting special sauce on your bagel sandwiches anymore.”

Finn’s soft doe eyes went bright. “What special sauce?”

Leo quirked a brow at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“C’mon, that’s not—”

“Glasses or I eat it and you never, ever get to try it.”

Finn gasped. “You’re starving me.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“Fucker.”

“You’re just mad yours never turn out as good as mine.”

“Poltergeist.”

“It’s because you don’t heat the pan enough.”

“I do!” Finn protested, sitting up and turning sideways in his chair to face him. “I did everything right when you showed me. It doesn’t taste right.”

Leo shrugged. “You’re cursed. Sucks to suck.”

Finn groaned and thumped his forehead against Leo’s collarbone. The hair at the back of his head was soft when Leo scratched through it; the muscles of Finn’s neck relaxed on a slow exhale.

“Same or new?”

“New,” Finn mumbled.

Leo hummed. For three weeks, he had been waiting for Finn to scatter his attention to the handful of ideas that had been left in the void. He refused to send books to his publisher until he could read them aloud to his captive audience of two without turning five shades of red and blowing a frustrated raspberry at the draft. Many had not yet passed that test. “From your list?”

“Nah.”

He nuzzled his nose into the top of Finn’s head. “ ‘S it about, then?”

“A prince.” Finn raised his head slightly. A kiss found the neckline of Leo’s shirt. “And a knight.” A second alit on his bicep, lingering long enough to feel his lips move. “And the sun.”

“That’s cheating,” Leo whispered through his smile. “You’re not supposed to write about us.”

“The New York Times bestseller list disagrees.” Finn lifted his head. His nose scrunched. Confidence rouged his cheeks, and Leo wasn’t a writer, but he’d pen poetry about that any time. “My self-imposed rules can wait. I have a good feeling about this one.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Finn raised his eyebrows and leaned close like he had a secret. The plate with his cooling sandwich chimed at a tap from his pen. “It’s funny. Something tells me they’re gonna end up together in the end.”

Leo looked at him for a long moment, then darted a kiss to the bridge of Finn's nose. "Are you putting porn in it?"

"Are you going to let me eat my bacon-egg-and-cheese with the special sauce that you made because you love me so much and you think I'm so cute and sexy?"

"Yes."

"Sunshine, I will write all the porn you want."