Product Placement
art blog(derogatory)
@theartofmadeline
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Mike Driver
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Three Goblin Art
if i look back, i am lost
macklin celebrini has autism
noise dept.
#extradirty
ellievsbear
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
No title available
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Cosmic Funnies
Keni
izzy's playlists!
todays bird
Today's Document
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Mexico
seen from Mexico
seen from Mexico
seen from Mexico
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
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@celebreeni
Boyfriend Texts
Macklin Celebrini x Reader
So sorry y’all I know I haven’t written anything in sooo long😭😭 here’s this, hope it can hold u off a little longer
There is one that’s slightly suggestive but other than that no warnings!!
don’t let me down
pairing bf!macklin celebrini x crosby!reader
4 times macklin and y/n soft launched their relationship, and 2 times they hard launched
genre smau
authors note lol i love smau’s. also don’t talk about how i got lazy doing comments.
y/ncrosby
liked by mackcelebrini, alexandrasaintmleux, and 231,942 others
y/ncrosby peace of mind
view all comments…
user RUE WHEN WAS THIS
user hey so point the camera a little higher pls
user leather coat from where!
y/ncrosby princess polly!!
user tysm!!😊
user MACK IN THE LIKES??
user THANK GOSH I WASN’T THE ONLY ONE WHO NOTICED
romymars come see me thanksssss
y/ncrosby i mean ig…
romymars and this is why i hate you
user LMAOOOOO
_xochitl.gomez hi my cute little gorgeous pygmy puff
y/ncrosby well hi!!
user WHO is that man.
user what about hello? how are you?
katiefang so where’s my update?
y/ncrosby have you not been reading the gc…
katiefang oh oops
pittsburghpenguins our ice princess!
e.malkin71geno and who is this man
y/ncrosby ur acting as if u didn’t have dinner with him last night.
user SO HES GENO APPROVED?
user is he sidney approved
y/ncrosby
liked by romymars, mackcelebrini and 198,271 others
y/ncrosby just beachin’ :)))
user oh so now we’re at the beach okay…
user HE HAS MUSCLESSS
user omg she’s read bttm
user how was bttm!
y/ncrosby fantastic.
romymars who’s that gorgeous girl on slide 1
y/ncrosby hi baby 🥹
user k so why is nobody talking about slide 2
kletang_58 you’re lucky your dad doesn’t have instagram.
y/ncrosby as if he wasn’t sat next to me making this post.
user SO HE’S SID APPROVED?
user omg
user i wonder how family dinners go…
user she’s so gorgeous omg
user AND MACK IS IN THE LIKES AGAIN.
user i’m starting a rumor.
user k macklin we know it’s you
mackcelebrini
liked by _willsmith2, y/ncrosby and 729,182 others
mackcelebrini no caption
_willsmith2 who tf do u think u are
mackcelebrini get out?
user he types a lot like y/n…
user bsfr.
_willsmith2 where tf is my feature?
mackcelebrini check slide 4
_willsmith2 fu
michaelmisa_ 🐐🐐
user so why is everyone ignoring slide 3
landonmarleau_ meow
mackcelebrini woof
user so are we allergic to captions or
tydellandrea53 that’s baseball
sanjosesharks that’s our 71!
user SLIDE 3 HELLO?
user normalize tagging people
tofff73 son 👌
mackcelebrini pls get out
tofff73 just remember whose house you sleepover at
mackcelebrini sorry 😕
y/ncrosby
liked by mackcelebrini, _willsmith2, and 729,192 others
y/ncrosby call me niche and cool
_willsmith2 except ur not!🩷
y/ncrosby ahahaha so funny.
_willsmith2 🩷🩷🩷
user so now will is here too okay
user so mack how ru feeling
romymars ur so niche and cool 🫰🏼
y/ncrosby at least someone recognizes it ☺️
_willsmith2 why are you lying to the poor girl
y/ncrosby get out?
user that’s exactly what mack said in his post.
user hi sweetness
user hi slide 3
user well who’s that.
charlie_celebrini hi cuteness
y/ncrosby hi i love you soooooo much
user so she’s friends with the family….
user so when’s the hard launch coming
mckennagraceful i love ur swag
y/ncrosby hi pretty girl!
robertdowneyjr cool mask kid.👍
y/ncrosby thanks!
user ur so cool and chill
y/ncrosby is that an alessi rose reference.
user oh always!
mackcelebrini
liked by y/ncrosby, _willsmith2 and 810,218 others
mackcelebrini happy 12/♾️ to the girl i love most. i love you y/n 🩵
y/ncrosby i love you
mackcelebrini i love you the most
y/ncrosby hi baby
mackcelebrini hi gorgeous
y/ncrosby mack 🥹
mackcelebrini y/n 😊
user OH MY GOSH. OH MY GOSH
user SOUND THE ALARMS.
user who’s surprised
_willsmith2 ur lucky i kept this in for so long
mackcelebrini yeah thanks ig…
user AW THE NICKNAME
user well finally
e.malkin71geno treat her well kid
user oh my gosh imagine family dinners
y/ncrosby
liked by _xochitl.gomez, mackcelebrini and 729,182 others
y/ncrosby i love my cute sleepy boyfriend! happy 12/♾️ !
mackcelebrini hi gorgeous
y/ncrosby hi baby :)
user brb shooting myself
mackcelebrini look at my gorgeous girlfriend
user if you zoom in you can see me killing myself
user they kept this a secret for a YEAR.
_willsmith2 they’re cuddling right next to me.
romymars i mean ig he’s okay
y/ncrosby it’s okay you’ll always be my n1
mackcelebrini excuse me?
y/ncrosby not now baby
user IM CRINEEEE
user cute.
charlie_celebrini stealing you
y/ncrosby okay!!
user i love them.
What Was That? | MC71
"MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up, We kissed for hours straight, well, baby, what was that? I remember saying then, "This is the best cigarette of my life" Well, I want you just like that" Word Count: 11669 Summary: You and Macklin Celebrini fall into a messy, electric almost-relationship while figuring out early adulthood in San Jose, filling your days with late night drives, hockey games, and the strange comfort of always ending up back together. When jealousy and distance finally force the truth out, you both realize the connection between you was never casual at all. Pairing: Macklin Celebrini x fem!reader Warnings: Non explicit "sex" (it's 2 paragraphs and implied), DRUGS (MDMA) no side effects/come down shown. Alcohol. Cigarettes/nicotine. Take care while reading <3 Notes:
The timeline might seem confusing lol, but it's supposed to be this season
A lot of stuff is MADE UP!!!! I did a lot of research on the bay area and such (sorry for inaccuracies on that) but a lot of stuff about Macklin himself is literally just fictionalized to fit a story I want.
Also, plz listen to the song. this is basically tightly based on the song
and some stuff may make no sense im so tired and did a quick proof read
ENJOY!!!!! I'M GOING TO SLEEP FUCK
The first time you meet Macklin Celebrini, you’re seventeen and a half and don’t know what to do with your hands. This is not because he is intimidating—statistically large, yes, and almost distractingly Canadian—but because he is grinning at you wide and lopsided, like he’s just blinked himself into being and thinks you invented sunlight.
You’re both at Cam Liao’s graduation cookout in his backyard in Los Altos, ringed by actual redwoods and several equally strong-willed aunties. There’s a wobbly folding table groaning with foil-covered trays and a cooler full of cheap sparkling waters because Cam’s family is obsessed with hydration. Macklin’s hovering nearby, all six foot of him, guarding the broccoli salad with the intensity of a raccoon protecting its garbage. He wears a faded Canucks t-shirt and shorts that show too much thigh, and he laughs at everything like someone whose body is constantly betraying him.
He’s only lived in California for a year, his dad’s career teleporting the family down from Vancouver because “the Bay’s got better winters for knees.” Macklin tells you this within minutes of meeting you, and you nod, and he keeps talking, so you keep nodding, and then you’re telling him that you’re NorCal born and bred, your mom’s family from Fremont, your dad’s from Millbrae, and that most days you can’t imagine leaving, like your bones have a favourite zip code. This earns a thoughtful hum from Macklin, then an earnest: “I think that’s beautiful,” which is not what people usually say when you tell them about your extended family’s take on city loyalty.
You float through the rest of senior summer in a blur, and Macklin floats with you. He’s somehow always around—blinking at the daylight, ducking his head into conversations, quietly offering you pieces of his day. The two of you are the youngest in most friend groups, the only ones from your year who didn’t go straight to college. You work a hodgepodge of jobs: Jamba Juice (very briefly), pet daycare (less briefly, mostly because dogs like you), then a consignment store for locally sourced “athleisure.” Macklin trains every day, sometimes twice, at an ice rink off 101 that’s colder than most walk-in freezers. You joke that you’re the only person in California who wears extra layers for fun. You build a friendship out of memes, inside jokes, and the kind of text thread that scrolls beyond the point of remembering why it started.
The thing with Macklin is, he never seems to expect much from you, but you start wanting to surprise him anyway.
There’s an evening in July when the two of you end up at the In-N-Out on El Camino, waiting for your order. He leans across the Formica table, eyes pale green and weirdly intimate, and asks if you ever think about the future. You almost laugh, but he’s chewing on the question like it’s a jagged toothpick, so you say yes, sometimes, and that mostly you picture yourself in other peoples’ kitchens, putting the finishing touches on something they’ll never be able to recreate.
He tells you that he’s always known he’d play hockey, always: “I can’t remember a time I didn’t think about it,” he says. “But sometimes I wonder if that’s, like, boring. Like, what if the rest of my life is just: hockey, then nothing.” You nod, for real this time, and decide not to mention the hockey aunties at Cam’s barbecue or the time he got punched in the face by a kid in Berkeley and just shrugged it off, calling it “a little drama for once.”
When the order finally comes, Macklin insists on eating outside even though it’s after nine and kind of freezing. He removes the lid from his milkshake, dips his fries, and makes a face when you laugh at him.
“Shut up,” he says. “It’s the only way.”
The way he says this makes you feel seen, in a way that’s not spotlight, but more like someone found your most embarrassing playlist and played it for you, alone. You chase that feeling, unconsciously, all summer.
You turn nineteen in March. By then, Macklin’s gone for most of the week, playing for the Sharks and “living the dream” in suburban San Jose, where he rents a room from a retired hockey legend with a beard like a vintage mop. Still, whenever he’s back, he texts you: Want to hit Señor Sisig? New season of Succession? I’ll bring ice cream, you bring existential dread. It becomes the rhythm of your days, forming a gentle pressure around your choices. For the first time since graduation, you feel okay not moving away from home.
Now it’s August again, and you’re unloading milk crates from the trunk of your rusted Corolla, getting ready to move into your first real apartment with furniture that’s at least sixty percent hand-me-down. You don’t know exactly what’s coming. You only know it’s not college, not for you—not yet, or maybe not ever. And in the pale blue dusk, with Macklin on speaker, walking you through the steps of Ikea assembly (“use the mini hammer, trust me”), you think maybe the future isn’t a single direction, but a series of rediscovered places. Like kitchens: never quite yours, but always familiar, always somewhere to start over.
The next day, Macklin actually shows up at 8 a.m. as promised, unshaven and blinking, carrying a box of Cheez-Its and a single red rose that he plunks into your empty Brita pitcher. He claims it’s a “housewarming tradition back home,” and you let it pass even though you’re pretty sure it’s just something he saw in a romcom once.
He is much too cheerful for this hour. You’re still in last night’s sweats and a Sleepytime Tea t-shirt, and you only manage to brush your teeth after he’s already started stacking your boxed-up kitchen supplies in the apartment elevator.
He whistles tunelessly as he lifts, like there’s nothing more exhilarating than a 52-pound crate labeled “MISC: PANS & NONSENSE.” You roll your eyes, but you’re grateful for the help. Your new place squats just off Jackson, three stories above a pet groomer and a vape shop. The living room smells faintly like oranges and, less faintly, of the last tenant’s cherry Febreze. There are exactly four pieces of furniture: a lumpy tan couch, a mattress on the floor, a round table borrowed from your cousin’s garage, and a massive, battered TV with no remote. The rest is up to your imagination, or at least the patience to wait for the next big trash day.
Macklin marches back and forth from the parking lot like an overgrown golden retriever, arms full, hair falling in his face, never once complaining. By noon, most of your essentials are in, along with half a hockey team’s worth of promotional jerseys (“for décor!,” he says, “like real adults!”). You pause to eat Cheez-Its and tube hummus on the floor together, the two of you arrayed around a cardboard box as if it’s a family heirloom.
He gets quiet, for him, while you eat. Macklin’s chewing methodically, and you wonder if he’s thinking about the drive back, or just recalculating his next joke. Finally he nudges your knee and says, “You know you’re the first person I’ve actually helped move.”
You snort. “Not even your family?”
He shrugs. “We always paid for those guys. This feels more legit.”
You want to ask if that means he’s practicing adulthood, or if you and he are some kind of makeshift family already, but you don’t. Instead, you pick at the hummus and tell him your plan to hang up string lights, maybe even get a rug. He looks pleased.
“My parents said they might stop by tomorrow,” you say, and you know it’s a test—half expectation, half warning.
Macklin’s answer is a little too eager: “I’ll be on my best behavior. Promise.” Then he adds, “Do they know you aren't going anywhere? College, I mean.”
“They know,” you say, which is technically true. “They just think I’ll change my mind.”
He smiles, but there’s an old sadness to it. “Do you think you will?”
You don’t answer. Instead, you watch him finish the hummus, scrape the plastic with a Cheez-It, and lick his finger. Sunlight is showing up at last, painting the cardboard like honey.
You finish the rest of the boxes together. He assembles the table with his absurdly large hands, muttering about why Allen wrenches are never the right size. Every time you pass in the narrow hallway, your shoulders brush, and it’s barely anything at all—but it feels like the first and last time, every time.
When you finally collapse on opposite ends of the couch, Macklin suggests a marathon of Shark Tank. You half-jokingly ask if the real reason he helps is so you’ll always have a couch he can nap on. He grins, wide and easy, and says, “That, and you make the best instant noodles in the solar system.” You say you’ll take that as a compliment.
He falls asleep by episode two, slouched with his knees propped on the armrest. You cover him with the only blanket you own, tuck in the edges. He sleeps with his mouth a little open, his face all soft edges and sunrise stains.
You sit next to him for a while, watching his eyelid twitch, wondering if he’s dreaming of stadium lights or the sound of skates scraping ice, or if maybe you’re in there, too.
For the first time, the apartment doesn’t feel like something borrowed.
You set your phone to silent. You eat the rest of the Cheez-Its. You decide string lights can wait another day.
*** Three weeks later, you’re standing in the back aisle of the Milpitas Target at 10:30 p.m. with Macklin, who’s pacing while you compare off-brand coffee makers. The store’s empty but for a roaming posse of shelf-stockers and a couple making a loud, doomed attempt to agree on a shower curtain. Your own shower curtain, you realize, is already growing black fuzz at its hem. You add a new one to the basket. You really are someone who lives here now.
Macklin’s on his third lap, swinging a toy hockey stick he found like a conductor’s baton. He keeps bumping it against the displays, earning progressively more desperate looks from the high schoolers in red polos. If you tell him off, he’ll only get worse, so you let him do laps while you test the weight of a small air fryer, imagining all the things you’ll one day crisp.
He returns, breathless. “There’s a kid in the toy section with a blood nose. Didn’t even cry, just stood there. Total legend.”
You ask if he helped.
He shrugs. “Didn’t want to be weird. Anyway, decided on a coffee maker?”
You glance at the options. “You only drink milkshakes. This is for guests.”
Macklin points at himself. “I am a guest.” Then, quieter: “I could learn to like coffee.”
You toss the cheapest one in the red basket and move to the next aisle. He follows, less rowdy now, hockey stick trailing behind him like a misplaced cane. The store’s music is stuck on a loop of late-’00s bangers, and he hums along, off-key but committed.
At checkout, he insists on buying the shower curtain (“My contribution to civilization”) and holds it up as you walk to the car, like he’s carrying the flag of your new tiny nation. The parking lot is bright as daylight, humming with transformers, almost gentle in its emptiness. There’s nothing to do after Target except drive, so you idle in the lot, seats reclined, watching the loop of customers evaporate as closing time approaches.
Macklin’s in the passenger seat, knees wedged against the glove compartment, staring at the blue front of the store like it holds some secret only he can parse.
He turns to you, real serious: “How long until you’re sick of me?”
You blink. “There’s a lot of Target left in this city.”
He nods, satisfied, then: “You ever think about that? People just… existing on a loop? Like, the same ten places, over and over.”
You think of your parents’ kitchen, the ice rink, Cam’s back deck, the corridors of your first apartment when you come home tipsy and everything smells of someone else’s dinner. You think about the embarrassment of calling this repetition, when for so many people it’s nothing less than home.
“Routine is comforting?” you offer.
Macklin makes a face. “It’s horrifying.”
“To be clear, I’m not planning on dying here,” you clarify. “But maybe Target can be part of my loop.”
He grins, biting his lip, and rolls down the window. The night is a little sweeter in Milpitas, thinner and tinged with the scent of the bakery a few doors down. A distant siren wails and then, almost immediately, stops.
He says, out of nowhere, “Do you want to come to a game?”
This is not the question you expect. You’ve been to his games before, but only the minor league ones, long before he started making money, a few lifetimes ago. You’d stopped asking about them because it felt like entering a parallel universe, one in which Macklin belonged to everyone but you.
He sees you hesitate and barrels on: “It’s just pre-season, barely counts, but I thought—” He stops, shakes his head. “Forget it. It’s dumb.”
You say, “It’s not dumb.”
But still, you remember the last time. It’s the particular electricity of stadiums that makes your skin prickle, the echo of names on loudspeakers, the way fans look at him with ownership and hunger. You remember, too, the weird sense of trespassing that comes with seeing him in his element. You’re not sure what your place is in that world.
Maybe he senses this. He picks at a stray thread on his jacket. “If you’re busy, or if it’s—”
“I want to go,” you say, and it’s true, because whatever’s changed between you since last summer, the center of gravity always pulls you closer.
You drive him home, with the new shower curtain crunched between your seats. He leans in, one hand on the door frame, and says, “For real—thank you for tonight.”
“It was Target,” you say, half-laughing.
He only shakes his head, eyes tired but still holding some private light. “Not about Target. Just—you always make it feel less… weird.”
You don’t ask what he means. Instead, you pull away, and when you get back to your apartment, you hang the new shower curtain first thing, the plastic smell sharp and clean.
You think of Macklin’s voice, echoing in the emptiness: the same ten places, over and over. Maybe this is how a loop starts, and maybe it’s all right. Maybe you want to see where it leads.
When you crawl into bed, you catch yourself already drafting the text you’ll send him in the morning:
Let’s learn to like coffee together.
And underneath that, untyped but real—don’t ever leave this city without me.
That Friday, you find yourself wedged in the open bed of an F-150, the kind of ancient, gently corroding monster that only hockey players and construction dads still drive. There are already three bodies sprawled across the tailgate—two in practice shorts, one in cargo pants, all of them fighting for space. You are the only one not in official team gear, but nobody points it out. You wrap your ankles under a crusted wool blanket that Macklin deposited in your lap (no ceremony, just a “here—trust me, truck metal is a war crime”), and you nurse a plastic cup that tastes faintly of gasoline and something glow-in-the-dark.
A fire pit blazes in front of you, ringed by hockey boys who all look like evolutionary cousins: big hands, frozen knuckles, broad grins with sketchy dental work. There’s actually a keg, but you suspect it was purchased more for the visual than any practical need. They pass it around like a prop, performative. Everyone is talking about the game—the scraps, the goals, the one guy on Utah who needs to “cool it already.” Macklin watches you more than you watch him.
It’s pre-season, you keep reminding yourself, but the way everyone’s acting, you’d think it was the Cup. Macklin scored a goal off some poor defender’s shin, but he let his teammates slam into him and shriek like he’d shot it from centre ice. You still have the video on your phone (you didn’t post it—just sent it to him, and he said, “delete that, it’s embarrassing,” but you know he watched it at least twice). Now, in the orange glow, you feel a little contagious. At first, it was just Macklin and his too-loud friend Will, then more teammates, then assorted significant others, and now a whole circle of people you don’t recognize but who clearly recognize Macklin. You try to smile when people ask where you’re from, what you do. You give answers that feel practiced but not dishonest, and hope your voice doesn’t shake. Macklin always pulls you back into the conversation before you get too lost.
When things die down, he slouches his arm around you, as if it’s just a thing he does. As if it doesn’t make your neck tingle every single time. He tells a story about hockey camp in Kelowna, getting lost with his brother in a Canadian Tire and almost missing the bus to the airport. You lose the thread because his thigh is wedged next to yours, warm even through your jeans, and you start cataloguing the way his laugh vibrates your shoulder. When a new song starts on someone’s phone, a couple of the guys at the fire try to sing along, but none of them know the lyrics. Macklin butchers the chorus, and you’re weirdly proud of him for being so absolutely shameless. You want to say something. You don’t.
The party feels like an old sitcom rerun: everyone comfortably boxed into their roles, careful not to spill outside the lines. You’re not sure what role you’re meant to play tonight. You swig your drink, which is mostly melted ice now, and rest your cheek on Macklin’s shoulder. He shifts a little, letting you sink in. His hand finds your knee under the blanket, squeezes once. After a while, he asks, “You good?” You nod, but your ears burn. You’re not used to being on display, even in the low-calorie way of a bonfire party, and the edges of your patience are starting to fray. The blanket smells like dog, or maybe just boy, and you crave a minute to yourself. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom,” you say, extricating your legs.
He jerks his head, all good, but the moment you stand, your knees lock, and you have to grip the edge of the truck to steady yourself. No one notices, which is a relief. You wander past the fire and the makeshift camp chairs, then duck behind the line of dusty SUVs until the party is a hum at the periphery. You keep walking until you’re at the loading dock of some shuttered strip mall—a pizza place, a dry cleaner, a liquor store with steel bars over the windows.
You plop down on the lowest cement step and let the coolness seep through your jeans. You dig out a cigarette from the pack you stole from your cousin, thumb it until it feels familiar. After three clicks, your lighter finally gives in and you fill your lungs with something abrasive and chemical. It isn’t better, but it is different. You lean back against the steel door of the closed pizza place and quietly start counting backward from one hundred.
You don’t make it far before footsteps scuffle behind you. You tense, but it’s only Macklin. He stands a safe distance away, like he knows you might bite him if he gets too close. “I was worried you got vaporized,” he says.
You blow smoke up into the night, and hope you don’t look as raw as you feel. “Just needed a break.”
He nods, sits a few steps down, hands pressed between his knees. The silence is longer this time. “You okay?” he tries again.
“I’m fine. I just—sometimes I need to tap out.”
He looks at your cigarette. “Didn’t know you smoked.”
“Me neither,” you admit. “I’m not even good at it.”
Macklin grins, like it’s another part of the bit. You almost tell him about the time you and Cam Liao tried to smoke sage in a high school parking lot, ended up setting the car alarm off for twenty minutes and almost got suspended. Instead, you flick ash onto your shoe and ask, “Is it always like this?”
He tilts his head. “You mean… hockey?”
You gesture to the distant fire, the bodies sprawled in the backs of trucks, the endless loop of stories and beer. “The circus.”
His face goes serious for a heartbeat. “Kind of. It’s—” He searches for the word. “It’s comforting, mostly. Not always.”
“Do you like it?”
He shrugs. You watch his hands, big and gentle. “I like that I get to do it with people I care about.”
You decide that’s a good enough answer, and drop it. You then ask if he wants to try smoking, just to see if he’ll say yes. Macklin stretches out his hand with comic bravado and you laugh, but his fingers are steady, palm up, like he means it. You tap a cigarette free and pass it, then flick the lighter, holding out the flame. He leans close, lips pursed, and for a split second his eyes catch yours, some challenge or expectation in the green. There’s a clumsy suction sound as he sucks at the filter, then a pause, then an unholy fit of coughing.
You thump his back. “Poor baby,” you say, and it lands on both of you as a joke but also not. There’s enough moonlight that you don’t miss the way his cheeks flare up, heat crawling in under his skin.
“How old are you, actually?” you ask, and he grins, eyes watering, “I could be ninety right now. Internally.” He wrestles himself under control, then takes another drag, and this time it goes down easier.
He tips his head back, exhaling with exaggerated bliss. “This is the best cigarette of my life.”
You smoke together, quietly, sharing the hush of the loading dock. Macklin’s knee knocks into yours, just lightly. He hums under his breath, tuneless. You let the silence braid out, watching the patterns of headlights on the far side of the lot, neither of you in a hurry to reset the evening’s marathon of noise and bodies. Eventually he passes the cigarette back, and you finish it, crushing the butt against the concrete.
Macklin leans in closer, like he’s about to tell you a secret, or maybe just take up all the space you’re currently occupying. The beer on his breath isn’t enough to disguise something sweeter—his shampoo, maybe, or that specific teenage-boy-sweat laced with brand new detergent. He’s staring at you, but softer than usual.
“You got, um,” he says, gesturing at his own face.
You rub at your mouth. “Got what? Mustache?”
He laughs—immediate, unguarded. “No, like—here,” and he swipes at your cheekbone with the pad of his thumb, lingering. The brush of skin is ridiculously gentle. Too gentle for what it is, too careful. Your heart does something slippery and inconvenient.
You think, for a long blinking second, that he’s going to kiss you. Maybe he thinks so, too. Every molecule in you is braced for it. But then he looks away, laughs again, that old nervous tic of his, and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I should get back,” he says, voice pitched higher than normal. “Smitty’s probably burned the place down by now.”
You nod, and you mean to say something, something cool or at least finished, but he’s already up and stretching, brushing invisible dust from his shorts. He offers you a quick hand up, and even that little gesture radiates enough warmth to last a minute or two. Then he grins, wide and familiar, and you both walk back to the fire like nothing happened. Everyone’s too loud, too interested in their own drama to notice the way Macklin hovers just behind you, close enough to catch if you trip.
After that, it’s a lot of the same. Texting at midnight, memes exchanged at speeds that would humble NASA, late-night Target runs “for emergency supplies.” Sometimes you wonder if these are the years you’ll miss when you’re old enough to know what missing things feels like.
You pick up your shifts, pay the bills. The apartment gets slightly less empty with every Marketplace purchase. Your parents come by for dinner one weekend, grumbling about parking and the smell of the hallway but secretly pleased you’ve made it so far on your own. Macklin stops by halfway through dessert, sheepishly presents your mom with a bag of fancy coffee pods (“for the most hospitable family in San Jose”), and lets your dad grill him about the Sharks’ “chances this season.” They like him. But then again, everyone does.
You and Macklin become a fact of the city, a fixture. Some weeks, you barely see each other. Other times, he’ll show up at your door at 1 a.m. with leftovers from some team bonding dinner, hair still damp from a post-game shower, exhausted and a little wild-eyed. You never talk about the moment behind the pizza place. Not out loud.
It starts to rain more. You learn the sound of the gutters in your building, learn how to make the heat come on (sometimes) and the way the windows always fog at night. You think a lot about routines: why they exist, how they save people in small and stupid ways. You try every coffee shop within eight miles, and never finish an entire cup. You learn to like the taste of things you can’t quite name.
Sometimes, when you close at work and walk home in the dark, you can imagine a different future—one you didn’t sabotage before it even started. Sometimes, you light a cigarette on the steps and press call, and Macklin answers on the first ring, always.
“Best cigarette your life?" he’ll ask, and even if it’s not true, even if it never was, it still makes all the difference.
A few weeks later Macklin invites you to the Sharks Halloween party with the same casual confidence that he uses to order double cheeseburgers at drive-thrus. You say yes before you’ve even thought about what it means; you’re his default plus-one now, everyone assumes it, and neither of you correct or confirm it. You consider buying a real costume, maybe something that would flatter your nonexistent biceps, but at the last second you raid your own closet and assemble a makeshift Harley Quinn. Macklin picks you up in full goalie regalia, absurd pads and mask, and when you say “that’s lazy,” he shrugs and says, “no one expects the backup.” He keeps the mask on until you’re halfway to the party, then chucks it into the back seat and admits it’s suffocating.
The house is in Los Gatos, freshly built with more glass than walls. Half the attendees are dressed as sports icons and the other half are Disney princesses, and you realize too late that every girl here is actually wearing real makeup and not, like, CVS Halloween paint. You consider scrubbing it off in the bathroom but decide it’s funnier if you own it. Macklin disappears after five minutes, sucked into a vortex of hockey bros and their baby-faced girlfriends. You drift, cup of something blue in your hand, and end up talking to a woman dressed as a sexy Mario (“Six dollar mustache from Rite Aid, don’t touch it or it’ll melt”). You lose her to the dance floor after two songs and find yourself in the kitchen, poking at a tray of store-bought skeleton cookies.
At some point, a stranger in a hotdog suit offers you a tiny plastic baggie. You laugh at first, but he holds it up, pinched between cartoon sausage fingers. “It’s not fent,” he says, helpfully. “It’s just a light roll.” You’ve never done it before, not even at Cam’s grad parties, but something in you says tonight is a good time to try being a yes person.
You find Macklin in the back yard, downing Gatorade like it’s a dare. “This is dumb,” you say, showing him the capsule. He’s grinning, but he reads your face and says, “We’ll be fine. Promise.” For a moment you want to ask him what “fine” looks like, but he’s already taken half for himself and poured water in your hand. “Trust me,” he says, a phrase quickly becoming his catchphrase, and you do, because it’s so much easier than saying no.
You don’t know if it’s supposed to take this long, but thirty minutes later the house has melted into a kaleidoscope and Macklin is dragging you by the wrist, both of you howling with laughter into the cooled-off night. Your jaw aches from smiling too wide. There’s a moment by the pool, glass sky above and twinkle lights reflected in the ripple of water, where Macklin gestures at your face and says, “You’re glowing—like radioactive, actually.” He means it as a compliment. You hunch over, shoulders worming up as you try not to giggle out your entire skeleton.
You realize, then, that he’s still wearing most of the goalie costume, bulked out around his frame, but his hair sticks wetly to his temples. He looks flushed, a little haunted; you want to tell him he’s beautiful but it feels too easy. Someone cannonballs into the pool and soaks your shoes. Macklin yelps, then shrugs off his gloves and peels his socks inside out, slapping them to the flagstones for emphasis. “Now we’re California,” he says, and nudges you with his knee.
You wind your way to the edge of the yard together, voices fading behind you, and drop onto a patch of sodden grass. It’s quieter here, but every little thing is magnified: a moth blundering into a garden lamp, the grumble of traffic blocks away, the smell of chlorine and cut fruit tangling in your nose. Macklin is beside you, knees up, arms crossed, then not crossed, then fiddling with a strip of turf. The party inside grows muffled and unreal, a distant planet.
You rest your chin on your knees and watch Macklin fail to tear the turf. “This is weird,” you say, and mean everything at once.
He leans back and lets out a sound that’s half a sigh, half a laugh. “I know.” His eyes go soft, round. “I thought you’d hate this. Parties with, like, future non hall-of-famers.”
“I do,” you say. “But you’re here, so.” It’s out before you can catch it.
He’s staring, suddenly, with the kind of intensity that burns right through your wet lashes. Both of you are breathing in close, and the world has narrowed to a single point, a single decision. For a second you’re both afraid to move, as if any shift will cause the simulation to crash. Then something inside you sprints for the ledge. You tilt forward and Macklin does too, and your heads bump, and teeth clash, and then you’re just kissing him—hard, unpracticed, unspeakably right.
It’s nothing like the party movies. There’s no slow crescendo, no cheering onlookers. Instead, it’s a kind of electrical panic: your skin buzzing, his hands raking up your arms, your mouths finding and losing and finding each other again. Your memories fracture and double-expose: the taste of Gatorade, the smell of latex from his dumb goalie catcher, the way he grabs your shoulder and then the back of your neck, like maybe he’s drowning and has decided to take you along for the ride.
You’re both smiling against each other, almost laughing, but it never quite breaks the surface. All at once, you realize your hands have found his face, and his have drawn you close enough that you are, for all practical purposes, sitting in his lap. You want to say something—anything—but your mouth is busy, so you just let out a short, ridiculous groan that would embarrass you if you weren’t so far gone.
After, you just fall backwards, arms splayed. The world spins. Macklin lands beside you, makes a gravelly sound, and then erupts into helpless giggles. He rolls onto his side, clutches your hand, and you lie there, two kids tripping on borrowed time.
The moon is a bright coin. You feel like you could touch it, or eat it, or maybe just page it on your contacts list and see if it answers.
“Holy shit,” Macklin whispers.
You nod, because holy shit.
He rolls onto his stomach, face in the grass. “Is this—weird? Are we making it weird?”
“Yes,” you say. “But I like it.”
He lets out a soft, satisfied grunt and rests his chin on your thigh, looking up through the mess of his bangs. “I always thought the first time would be, like, way less… fluorescent.”
“Are you disappointed?” you tease.
He shakes his head, no. “This is the best cigarette of my life.”
You bark a laugh and thump him on the head.
After a while, the cold seeps in and you wander back inside. It’s late. Most of the party has coagulated onto the living room floor, strange clusters of bodies asleep or trying to be. Macklin threads his fingers into yours, but you keep it casual, letting go before the hotdog can see. You find your shoes, ignore the sticky blue cup abandoned on the counter, and make your way to the uber you called, which is parked half a block away under a jacaranda tree.
The drive is quiet, except for the hum of the heater and the driver's thumb tapping the steering wheel. When you reach your apartment, neither of you say anything. You’re both raw, and everything feels like a possible ending. Macklin follows you up the stairs, shoes in hand, and when you unlock the door, he hovers on the threshold, suddenly shy.
You beckon him in. He nods, breathes deep, and closes the door behind him. You toss your stuff on the bed and then just stand there, blinking at each other in the dim kitchen. You would laugh, but your mouth is dry. You want him to come closer but you don’t know how to say it, how to keep it from feeling like a dare.
It’s Macklin who breaks the spell. He crosses the room in three long strides and wraps you up, arms winding tight around your waist, face buried in your hair. This time, you don’t have to guess what happens next. You rest your head on his shoulder, feeling his pulse against your cheek. He whispers something, muffled, and you think it might be “please,” but you’re not sure if that’s for you or just the ceiling or maybe every version of himself that ever hesitated. He lets you go first, but you stay.
You could sleep together, right now, but you don't. You just sit on the mattress, knees touching, bodies angled towards each other like you’re plotting a secret. He tells you a story about a peewee game in Winnipeg, how the hotel lost power and all the team parents had to get drunk by candlelight. You tell him about your first actual job, how you almost set a microwave on fire by forgetting to remove a foil lid. He listens, rapt, like every word is a tiny pearl and you’re the oyster god.
You lie down, side by side, staring at the old water stain on your ceiling. Your hands keep drifting together, unconsciously, then pulling away. You hear the clock on your counter tick. It’s so gentle, the hush of it.
After a while, he reaches for you, his fingers tracing the outline of your palm. “This is okay?” he murmurs, like there’s still a chance you’ll revoke the whole night.
You squeeze. “Yeah. This is really okay.”
You fall asleep to the sound of his breath, steady and real, and in the morning, you wake up and he’s still there, lying on his back, mouth open, his hair bruise-blue in the first light. He’s drooling a little, and you find this strangely thrilling. You touch his face, soft, and he half-wakes, blinking at you like he’s never seen you before.
“Hey,” you say.
“Hey,” he says back, and breaks into a smile.
You lean in and kiss him, and this time, it’s the opposite of panic. It’s slow. Sweet. You could get addicted to it.
The rest of the world is waking up, but for once, you’re not in a rush. You let yourself settle into the mattress, legs tangled, just breathing in the new shape of the day. Nothing has to be decided yet. There’s still time before the loop closes, before the next wild party or late-night Target run or call from your mom about “real futures.”
You stay like that for a long, long time, until the sun moves high enough that the old water stain glows like a halo. When Macklin finally gets up, he sticks a post-it on your fridge and draws a star next to your name. It’s not poetry, but it’s something.
You’re both a little wrecked, a little bashful. But when he leaves, you know he’ll be back, and the knowledge sits in your chest like low-grade electricity, a warm, pulsing surge.
You look at yourself in the bathroom mirror and see the smudged makeup, wild hair, and a mouth not quite your own. But your eyes are clear, maybe the clearest they’ve ever been.
You wash your face, finish the rest of the coffee, and open your front door onto the world, no mask, no script. Maybe you’re ready for whatever comes next. Or maybe it doesn’t matter what comes next.
You keep waiting for the next morning. For the text with too many emojis, for Macklin’s face on your cracked phone screen, for him to appear at your door with an apology and a bag of breakfast carbs. That’s how it works, the pattern. The first time you stole his hoodie and didn’t return it for weeks, he’d shown up like a lost Saint Bernard and half-sulked, half begged until you agreed to a truce at the nearest taqueria. The cycle always resets, and you’re addicted to the relief of reunion.
But this time, there’s no ping. No surprise visit. Just static.
At first, you think maybe it’s a game of chicken, so you message him the way you always would: a meme, then a TikTok, then a “got any plans for lunch?" You get a thumbs up, then nothing. The hours smear. You remember he once told you that training camp was “like being a goldfish in a blender—loud, pointless, maybe fatal.” You hope it’s just that, and not the more dangerous possibility: that he’s already decided you’re too much.
You throw yourself into work, into the comfort of 9-to-5 repetition. You start walking everywhere, wear out the heels of your shoes on city sidewalks until your body hums with the exhaustion of it. You agree to every dinner, every happy hour, every “let’s catch up!” from college dropouts and high school ghosts. You laugh too loudly, tip too much, ignore the warning lights on your car and in your own heart. You try on versions of yourself the way other people try on dresses: what if you liked gin, what if you played pick-up soccer, what if you started sleeping with the window open.
It’s a Thursday at a bar in downtown San Jose that finally does you in. You’re with Nisha from the store and two of her friends from State, one of whom is tall and razor-cut pretty in a way that feels designed for TV. There’s a trivia night, loud and dumb, and you surprise yourself by knowing exactly how many siblings Taylor Swift has. The boy—his name is Luka, probably—leans in close when he talks to you, smelling of laundry detergent and something like baking soda, and you realize you don’t know if you want to kiss him, or just be the sort of person who could.
You’re waiting at the bar, shoving your elbows onto the sticky rail and holding your number like a raffle ticket, when something in the submerged part of your brain catches a familiar pull. The air vibrates before your eyes verify it: Macklin, all kinetic swagger and neon confidence, emerges from the patio with Will and the Swede in tow. He’s in a navy blue sweatshirt, a backwards-branded cap, and that certain stride that marks out a professional athlete in any zip code. The whole group is a moving billboard of inside jokes and unshed boyhood, and you suddenly feel like you’re in the wrong decade, the wrong sitcom, possibly even the wrong life.
He clocks you immediately—his eyes are searchlights, always have been—but just as quickly, he neutralizes into game face, breaking his gaze a hair too fast. Your own crowd is not so discreet. You see Nisha’s eyebrow arc, see the Swede nudge Will, see Luka’s hand inch higher along your back like a groping elevator. It’s all so staged you could sell tickets.
Macklin’s approach is pure theater: way too loud, way too easy, his arm crashing over your shoulders as if he’s about to deliver a noogie, not a greeting. He says hi to Nisha, to Luka, even to the bartender, and then turns to you with a smile so gummy and wide it could be a dare. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says, mock scandalized, “since when do you hang out at dive bars on a weeknight?”
You match his energy, too proud and too practiced not to. “Since always,” you say, “but you’re usually too busy with your Zamboni cult to notice.”
He does a pantomimed gasp, lifts his free hand to his heart. “Wow. Hurtful. And here I thought we had a thing.”
“It’s called codependency,” you say, and he laughs, but it’s hollow. Even Luka notices, because his arm tenses around your waist, and his chin juts forward at Macklin in a way you’ve seen in a million nature documentaries.
The Swede and Will are already at the other end of the bar, ordering rounds, but Macklin doesn’t follow. He lingers, shifting his weight from foot to foot, not exactly making eye contact. He reaches past you for a napkin, and in that half-second, you smell his sweat, his deodorant, the aftershock of whatever protein shake he’s addicted to. It’s a time capsule of every locker room hug, every post-game collapse on your floor, every late-night run for curly fries when the world felt like it could tip over if either of you let go.
You sense him watching Luka, measuring, calibrating, and for a moment you want to shake Macklin by the shoulders, scream that you’re not a child, that you’re allowed to have hands on your own body. But you don’t, because the point was always that he’d do it first.
He says, “You going to introduce me? Or are you just collecting boys to prove a point?”
You shoot him a look, half-sincere, half-pleading. “Luka, this is Macklin. We go way back.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard,” Luka says, his voice toneless, and they shake hands with a little too much pressure on the squeeze.
Macklin ruffles your hair again, this time with just the tips of his fingers. It’s almost tender, or would be, if he wasn’t deliberately making it a scene. “Play nice,” he says, and then he’s gone, gliding down the bar to join his own crowd, his body language a perfect imitation of someone who isn’t watching you every few seconds in the distorted reflection of a Miller Lite mirror.
You try to lose yourself in trivia and cheap beer, but it’s like every neon bulb is aimed directly at you. The music is too loud, and you can’t follow the questions, and Nisha keeps asking if you’re okay, which makes you not okay. You wonder what Macklin is telling the Swede, if he’s retelling the story about the time you tried to make a soufflé and it exploded, or the night you both got locked on the roof of the rec center and had to shout until security came. You remember every version, all the different ways he’s made you the punchline and the favorite in the same breath.
Luka keeps trying to talk to you, but you can’t stop glancing sideways, can’t stop mapping Macklin’s every movement. You wonder if this is what jealousy feels like, or if it’s more accurate to call it withdrawal. You’re used to being seen, being special, and now you’re just an extra in his new episode. You try to make yourself interesting, laugh a little too hard at Luka’s jokes, but your ears are tuned to that certain pitch Macklin uses when he’s trying to make you jealous. You realize, with a kind of sick awe, that he knows exactly what he’s doing, and so do you, and so does everyone else.
It gets late. You try to make out with Luka in the corner booth, but his tongue is too eager and it makes you want to gag. You catch Macklin watching, just for a second, and he looks away so fast it’s almost a flinch. You feel like a monster, or maybe just a mirror.
At last call, you pile into the cold with your group. Macklin is outside, swaying from how intoxicated he is, and you have to walk right past him to get to your ride. He nods at you, all business, and says, “Night, kiddo,” as if that’s ever been your name.
“Night,” you reply, and you try to sound angry, but it comes out sad.
The Uber is stuffy, Luka too handsy, Nisha passed out on her own shoulder. You text Macklin once—just a period, a digital cough—but he doesn’t answer. You end up at home, tipsy and furious, and you throw yourself onto your bed and scream into the pillow. You want to forget him, but the mattress holds his shape, and you can still smell his shirt on your own skin.
The next day is worse. You drag yourself to work, grind through tasks, fake-smile at your manager, and every empty second is filled with the absence of him. You keep your phone within reach, even though you’ve turned off notifications. At lunch, you scroll through old photos: him in a Halloween costume, him with whipped cream up his nose, him asleep on the couch with your parent's cat on his head. Each one is an artifact, proof that something happened and that, in some universe, you mattered.
You try to go out again that night, but it’s not as fun. Luka texts, but you ignore it. It’s like your social battery is fried, and you keep thinking about Macklin’s face at the bar, the way he didn’t look at you, and it makes everything else taste like cardboard.
You call your mom, just for background noise, but even she senses something is off. “Are you eating enough?” she asks, as if that’s the hinge the whole world swings on.
“Sure,” you lie. “Everything’s good.”
“Are you seeing anyone special?” she asks, and you almost laugh at the cruelty of timing.
You tell her you’re busy, that you’ll call back on Sunday. She makes you promise, so you do.
That night, you lie awake and try to remember the last time you felt wanted, not just needed. The thought gnaws at you, keeps you up. You decide it’s better to be alone than to be an extra in someone else’s highlight reel, but the words taste sour.
By Saturday, the weather has turned. The rain comes in steady sheets, loud against the window, and you sleep in until noon. When you wake up, you half expect to see Macklin sitting on your couch, eating your cereal and making fun of your taste in movies. But he isn’t there. You walk around the apartment, unsure of what to do with your hands. You try to read, try to nap, but you can’t settle.
You consider texting him something honest—something like, I miss you, or, Please just tell me what I did—but you know that’s not the script. Instead, you send Nisha a meme about ducks and let her talk you into getting brunch. You order an omelet and barely touch it.
Later, you wander the mall by yourself, just to be surrounded by other people’s noise. You buy socks you don’t need, try on sunglasses you won’t wear, and stare at the couples holding hands in the food court. You wonder how many of them are pretending, how many are just waiting to be seen by the one person who isn’t there.
At home, you put on music and clean the kitchen until your knuckles sting. You want to scrub out whatever part of you still hopes he’ll show up. You want to be immune.
That night, you dream of Macklin. In the dream, he’s skating on a frozen pond, but every time you try to step out onto the ice, it cracks and you fall through. You wake up gasping.
Sunday is for chores and self care and pretending you have it together. You FaceTime your mom, let her talk about book club and the neighbour’s new puppy, and you smile when you’re supposed to. You promise to visit “soon.” You hang up and walk around the block, letting the rain drench your shoulders.
You don’t talk to Macklin until Wednesday, when he comes by your apartment at a time that is neither convenient nor respectful. He texts a one-word heads up—”Downstairs”—and you know, even before opening the door, that he wants to fight. Rain beads on his jacket, his hair plastered flat. He looks taller in the hallway, more angular, as if distance sharpened him at the edges.
He steps inside, toeing off his shoes and shaking the water from his ears. “Hey,” he says, as if it’s every other night, as if there’s not a week’s worth of mold growing on your conversations.
You say hey back, monotone. You want to offer him a drink, a towel, an exit, but he’s already standing sentinel in the kitchen doorway, arms bracketed, jaw flexing. He eyes the pile of unopened mail on the counter, the same stack that’s been accumulating since you stopped needing to prove the apartment was “homey.” He sighs, like someone deflating a beach ball.
“You seeing Luka now?” he asks, voice cartoon-casual.
You let the question hang, uncooperative. “Didn’t know I had to book time a month out. I thought we were…” You wave a hand, gesturing at the mess between you.
He laughs, one sharp syllable. “We were what? You literally ghosted me.”
“No, Mack, I texted you—”
“Yeah,” he says, “you texted a meme.” He says meme like a curse word. “That’s not talking. That’s not…” He trails off, catching himself, and you see it then: the terror shining under the anger.
You want to say something measured, maybe apologize, but the furnace is already lit. “You’re the one who stopped showing up. You disappear for days, then act like it’s my fault for not orbiting you.”
He puts both hands on the counter, knuckles whitening. When he speaks, he’s quieter. “I can’t do this if you’re just going to—” He pauses again, like he’s in a penalty box and the whole world is watching. “I don’t want to be the thing you regret later.”
You bark a laugh, ugly and bright. “Were you planning to say that before or after you accused me of cheating?”
He leans in, close enough that you can see the sleep deprivation tucked under his eyes. “I don’t care about Luka. He’s a nothing. What I care about is you acting like none of this means anything.”
For a second, you both freeze. If the city building caught fire right now, you’d both burn out of spite.
You turn away first, busy yourself with the dirty mugs in the sink. “I didn’t ask for a boyfriend, Mack. I just—”
He interrupts, voice brittle. “No. But you asked for me.”
You almost drop the mug. The truth of it is so exposed you have to look at your feet.
He’s at the door now, hand on the knob. “I don’t care if we ever call it anything. But don’t pretend it’s not real.” His voice is pulse-steady.
When the buzzer goes at SAP Center and the Sharks clinch a 3-2 win, you’re at home alone, huddled on your bed, streaming the postgame interviews with the kind of masochism usually reserved for dentist appointments and tax prep. Macklin’s helmet hair is especially creative tonight, artfully squashed in a way that’s almost comical. The reporter asks him the usual questions: What was the mood in the locker room? How did it feel to set up the game-winner? What do you eat for breakfast? Macklin’s tongue trips a little on the answers—you know the tics even through the screen—and he keeps glancing off-camera, as if searching for an escape hatch.
You text him good game, not even expecting an answer. You’re in that weird, queasy zone between hunger and sleep when someone pounds on your apartment door. It’s nearly midnight and you debate letting it ring out, but the knock comes again, sharper, and you stuff your feet into slides and open up.
Macklin stands there, still in a stupid Sharks Hockey hoodie, hair damp, skin raw around the cheeks. He’s holding a crumpled paper bag, a red bruise blooming under his left eye, and the stadium light blue from the corridor behind him. His hand shakes a little as he fists the edge of your door frame.
“Sorry,” he says, short of breath, and you can’t tell if he ran here or if that’s just the punch of adrenaline still winding down. “I had to—can I come in?”
You let him in because of course you do.
He drops the bag on your counter and sidesteps his shoes. He doesn’t talk, just drags a hand over his face and paces the kitchen like he’s doing laps for time. After a minute of this, you can’t take it. “Did I forget to pay the ransom on your emotional support Gatorade?” you ask, trying for light. It lands with a thunk.
He turns, rubbing his thumb over the bruise like he just noticed it. “Is it that obvious?”
“In the dark? Not really.” You half-smile, then drop it when his expression doesn’t change. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” he says, then, “actually, everything.” He pulls at the hem of his hoodie, twisting it into a rope. “I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s, like, retrograde. The harder I try to focus on the game, the more I just—” He exhales, hard, and for the first time since you met him, he actually looks scared.
You want to fold him up. Instead, you run cold water and push a mug across the counter as a peace offering.
He drinks, hands trembling. “I thought if I played it off, it’d go away. But then when I saw you with—” he stops, shakes his head. “Forget it. I just—” He bites at the inside of his cheek. “I’m so fucking tired of pretending like it’s just a bit, or a party trick, or whatever.”
You rest your arms on the counter, heart mutinous in your chest. “You’re the one who bailed.”
“I know,” he says, instant. “It’s because I couldn’t handle it.”
The confession sits between you, thick and alive.
You clear your throat, hating that you’re the one who has to go first. “When you didn’t call, I thought it was because you regretted it. That you’d sobered up and realized kissing me was a mistake.”
He shakes his head, ferocious. “It fucked me up. In a good way, but—I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never—” He searches your face, desperate, “I’ve never wanted anything this much and I don’t know what to do with it. I’m built for, like…momentum, not feelings.”
“Oh,” you say. It’s not enough, so you say it again, but softer. “Oh.” And then: “I’m sorry.”
He laughs, brittle. “Don’t be. I think I’m making it worse.”
“I don’t think you are,” you say, and you mean it.
You stand there for a while, the kitchen light blue and underwater, the whole world condensed to the six feet between you. You don’t know where to start, or even what the right next move is. You only know that if you don’t do something, you’ll both explode.
“Are we still polyamorous for pints, or—” you start, but Macklin crosses the kitchen and crushes you into his arms before the joke finishes.
He’s freezing, but his hands are everywhere, cupping your face, sliding down your back, clutching you like the ship’s going down. Your lips crash and miss, then slot together, soft and frantic. He smells like sweat, and the acrid ghost of blood, and something underneath it all that might just be the inside of every hockey rink in North America—plastic, metal, the sharp tang of ambition.
You stumble backward, drumming into the countertop. He laughs into your mouth, then it’s just teeth, and tongue, and the impossible relief of being wanted.
“I thought you would hate me,” he says between gasps, “if I told you how much I needed you.”
You shake your head, meaning: I didn’t want to risk it either. Meaning: I’m not going anywhere.
He kisses you again, this time slower, more careful. You fist the back of his sweatshirt, dragging him in like gravity. He lets you anchor him, lets himself settle for the first time. When you pull away, even for air, he rests his forehead against yours and glances at your mouth, like he’s considering memorizing it.
“I don’t want to do the stupid breakup,” he mutters, half loathing himself for the admission, half daring you to slap him down.
“Then don’t.” You say it with as much gentleness as you can, which still isn’t much. “Just be with me.”
He laughs, a sound so giddy and raw you feel it in your molars.
You lead him to the bed, strip off his battered hoodie, exposing the bruise and the constellation of puck scars across his arms. He flinches, but lets you touch the swelling at his cheek; you press a bag of frozen edamame (the only ice pack you own) to his face. He grins through it, eyes rimmed red.
“This is going to be so embarrassing in the morning,” he says, voice gone faint and childish.
“It’s already embarrassing,” you remind him.
He reaches for you, not even pretending to hesitate. When you crawl onto his lap, knees bracketing his thighs, he looks at you like he’s seeing a planet for the first time. No one’s ever looked at you this way before—not like you’re a puzzle, or a dare, but like you’re a rest stop on the world’s longest highway and he’s been driving for days just to reach you.
Your hands tangle in his hair, and he closes his eyes, exhales through his nose. “You’re shaking,” he says.
You are, but you don’t care. “So are you.”
He lets out a weird, broken laugh, then kisses you again, and this time it’s less frantic, but more: he puts everything into it, so much that it feels like something dangerous pulled from a vault. His hands cup your hips with too much force, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear. You breathe through your nose, tasting the ice and the salt and the unspeakable, dizzy relief.
You remember, abruptly, every time he ever came to you: wet and bruised in high school, half-dressed in your parents’ kitchen, asleep on cheap carpet after a party neither of you belonged at. How you’d always been the safe house. You want, so desperately, to be that for him now.
The world narrows and so do you. It’s a comedy of errors: his shirt stuck over his head, your foot caught in a blanket, the edamame splitting its bag and rolling across the floor. But when you’re pressed together, heat and bone and wild, the embarrassment softens into something brand new. He’s not careful with you—he’s hungry, a little reckless, but always aware of your hands, your pulse, your soft, frantic yes with every inch he gives you.
After, when you’re spent and sticky and half-sobbing with the effort of it, you lay side by side on the bed, limbs tangled, the world spinning into its quiet.
He turns to you, half-lidded, nose still swollen. “Should I say something, or just let you start making fun of me now?”
You bury your face in his shoulder, laughing because it’s safer than anything else. “You could say thank you.”
He shrugs, but it’s the best shrug you’ve ever seen. “Thank you.” He kisses your hair, then rests his chin on the crown of your head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
And you believe him, for once, because you can feel every beat of his heart under your ear, fast and impossibly alive.
In the blue TV light, your city looks different—smaller, maybe, but more precious. You close your eyes, and you’re floating, buoyed by the certainty that someone out there loves you enough to run four blocks in the rain, enough to admit he can’t be alone in his own gravity.
The next morning, you wake with your face tucked against Macklin’s neck, his arm locked over your waist, your breaths synced in a slow, tidal rhythm. He runs hotter than anyone should, which means the blanket is a joke, crumpled down past your knees, but you stay like that anyway—tangled, unmoving, as if letting go will pop the bubble of what you made in the dark.
You’re the first one to stir. Not out of obligation, or panic, but the weird, silent urge to absorb this new reality before the rest of the world claims it. You move your head a fraction, just enough to see the blue morning through the slats of your blinds, the rectangles of sun falling across Macklin’s bare shoulder. There’s a bruise already blooming at the edge of his collarbone, a lovebite that you half-remember creating. You graze it with your finger, feather-light, and he murmurs something in his sleep—nothing comprehensible, but soft, almost melodic.
For a minute, you’re content to watch him. You memorize the sleep-creased lines beside his eyes, the way his eyelashes tangle, the exact geometry of his mouth, slack with dream. His hair is a disaster, tufts askew, one cowlick spiraling up like a beacon. You could draw a map of every scar and weird mole, if someone asked, but for now you just look. You don’t want to break the spell, but you’re also starving, and the heat of his body is not exactly making it easier to ignore the sticky places and aches. You shift, just enough to wriggle free, and Macklin’s arm tightens instinctively—but then he lets go, and his hand lands limp on the sheet.
You steal a hoodie from the foot of the bed, which turns out to be yours, and shuffle to the bathroom, where you stare at your reflection for a long, unblinking minute. You look the same, but not really. Your eyes are puffy, your mouth is a little swollen, and there are—you count—three separate hickies forming under your jaw. You run cool water, scrub your face, and watch the red marks fade to peach and then revive again. You’re a walking crime scene, except you wouldn’t report it if you could.
You pad to the kitchen, feet cold on the tile, and put on water for coffee. The apartment is silent, except for the radiator’s occasional wet cough, and outside the city is just beginning to thrum awake. You don’t want to think about what happens next—if there is a next, or if you’re supposed to treat this like a vacation from your regularly scheduled loneliness. You pour grounds for two, just in case.
He appears at the threshold a few minutes later, blinking, hair worse than before, wearing nothing but boxers and a sheepish grin. “Is it legal to feel this bad and this good at the same time?” he asks, eyes half-lidded, voice a fresh rasp.
You shrug, careful not to smile too wide. “You tell me, athlete.”
He slumps into a kitchen chair, scratching his thigh. “Pretty sure I pulled every muscle in my back. Worth it.” He surveys the countertop, as if it will reveal the secrets of the universe, then looks up at you through his lashes. “Do you have any food that isn’t granola or ramen?”
You shake your head. “We live on the edge in this apartment.” You set a mug in front of him and watch as he wraps both hands around it, like he’s never encountered warmth before. He takes a sip, grimaces, but keeps drinking.
You lean against the counter, mug in hand, realizing this—whatever this is—feels more dangerous than anything that happened last night. You’re supposed to play it cool, let him set the speed, but you’re already forty miles past the exit for normal. He watches you over the rim of the mug, mouth twitching, and you can tell he’s thinking too much.
“So,” you say, and the word vibrates in the air a little. “What do we do now?”
Macklin shrugs, his default. “I don’t know. I thought maybe we’d do this,” he gestures to the kitchen, “and then…do it all again.” He looks up, nervous for the first time. “Unless you want to walk it back, in which case, I can get hit by a bus and solve the problem.”
You set your coffee down and cross the two feet between you, fold yourself into his lap. He makes a surprised little sound, then wraps both arms around your waist and buries his nose in your shoulder. You breathe him in, the coffee and sweat and your own skin mingled into something permanent.
“You’re not going anywhere,” you say, vetoing the possibility, and he laughs against your collarbone.
“‘Kay,” he mumbles, and you shiver at the feeling of his voice on your skin.
You eat granola out of the bag, straight out of the bag, because it feels right for the morning after the universe got rebuilt. Macklin insists on feeding you the clusters with the most chocolate bits, because “it’s good for brain recovery.” You call him an idiot, and he agrees, and then you say you wouldn’t change anything. He blinks at that, takes your hand under the table, and covers it with both of his.
You sit like this a long time, until the sun is strong enough to stream streaks across the sticky table, and the coffee is tepid and half-finished. There’s a giddy, reckless silence between you, a sense that if you talk too loudly the spell will snap.
Eventually, Macklin suggests taking your coffee to the fire escape. You grab a blanket (clean, for once), and he follows, steps deliberate and careful. He holds the window for you and climbs out after, then sits with his knees up and his feet braced on the painted iron slats. You fold yourself down beside him, knees touching, blanket draped over both your shoulders.
The city scrapes at the edges of your vision: sirens blurring, delivery vans hissing by, the steady thrum of everyone except you rushing somewhere. Out here, the sky is bare and the air smells faintly of rain, and neither of you says anything for a while.
You pass a cigarette, the last one in the pack, back and forth, letting the ritual do all the work. The sun warms your faces and you lean against his side, your heart calm, the kind of calm that used to spook you. Macklin kicks the fire escape with his heel and says, “Can we do this forever?”
You laugh, sputter out a cloud of nothing. “We can probably do it for at least a week.”
He nudges your leg, harder this time. “I’m serious. I don’t want this to go away. Even if you meet someone who’s better at…feelings, or whatever.”
You nudge him back. “Statistically impossible. You’re the best at feelings.”
It’s not a lie, not anymore. He smiles, and you see every version of him in the lines around his eyes: the kid at the barbecue, the sweat-soaked mess at hockey camp, the world’s softest ex-goldfish.
You’re suddenly aware, in the bright clarity of morning, that both of you have no idea what you’re doing. There’s no script for this, no precedent, and you’re both equally likely to fuck it up. And you’re okay with that. For once, the possibility of things falling apart doesn’t make you want to run; it makes you want to stick around and see how much you can build before they do.
“I don’t know what we are,” you say, “but I don’t care.”
He kisses the side of your head, solid and certain. “Same.”
A minute passes. Two. The cigarette burns down, and you flick it into the alley, watching the spiral of ash vanish into sunlight.
“Hey,” Macklin says, grinning now, “wanna get brunch?”
You snort. “We don’t even have real pants on.”
He shrugs, then kisses you again, and his mouth tastes like ash and cereal and hope.
You think: this is the best cigarette of my life. And it is.
okay so what the hell
Almost
Macklin Celebrini x Reader
wc: 5.5k
Summary: 5 times you and Mack were almost something, and the 1 time you finally were
Macklin Celebrini has always been yours.
Not officially. Not in a way you could ever explain without sounding ridiculous. Just… yours.
He’s the kid who used to show up at your house without knocking, letting himself in like he lived there. The one who tracked grass and snow and chaos through your kitchen while your parents just laughed and told him to wipe his feet.
The one who convinced you to climb too-tall trees, who wiped out on purpose just to make you laugh, who always, always, looked for you first in a crowd, even before he looked for his parents.
When you were little, people used to ask if you were siblings.
When you got older, they stopped asking that. Instead, they’d glance between you with knowing smiles, like they were waiting for something the two of you hadn’t figured out yet.
You never knew what to say.
Because what were you supposed to say? That Mack was your best friend?
That he knew how you took your coffee before you even started drinking coffee?
That he could read your moods in half a second, like you were written in a language only he understood?
That sometimes he looked at you a little too long, and sometimes you felt it a little too strong, and neither of you ever said anything about it?
There were moments. So many moments. The kind that lingered just a second too long.
Hands brushing and not pulling away right away. Late-night conversations that got a little too quiet, a little too real.
The kind where something could’ve happened. But didn’t.
Because you’d laugh it off. Or he’d make a joke. Or life would move, and you’d move with it, and whatever it was would stay unspoken.
You grew up like that. Side by side. Always close. Never quite crossing the line.
⊱ —————- °.• ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ •.° —————— ⊰
1 - when he left for juniors
It doesn’t feel real until you’re sitting on the hood of his car. The metal is warm from the sun, your hands flat against it, grounding yourself in something steady while everything else feels like it’s shifting.
Macklin is pacing in front of you.
He’s been doing that for ten minutes. Too much energy, nowhere to put it. Kicking at rocks, adjusting the same sleeve over and over, running his hands through his hair until it sticks up even worse than usual.
“You’re gonna wear a hole in my driveway,” you say, laughing slightly.
“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, not stopping, “I’m fucking nervous.”
“You? Nervous?” you tease lightly. “That’s new.”
He huffs a laugh. “Shut up.”
But he’s smiling. He always smiles around you, even now. Even when he’s leaving.
“It’s not that far,” he says for what feels like the tenth time. “You can visit. I’ll visit. It’s basically the same.”
You shake your head, softer this time.
“It’s not the same, Mack.”
He slows. Stops pacing. Looks at you. Really looks at you.
And something in his expression shifts, like he’s finally hearing what you’ve been trying not to say.
“Oh,” he says quietly.
“Yeah.”
The silence that follows is heavier than anything that’s been said. Because this is the first real change.
The first time your lives are pulling in different directions. The first time “later” actually means distance.
He steps closer without thinking about it. You don’t move. Your knees brush his waist, just barely.
Close enough to matter.
Your breath catches.
“I mean…” he starts, but his voice sounds different now. Less sure. “We’ll still talk all the time. I’ll call you. I’ll text. I’ll—”
“I know,” you say.
But that’s not what this is about.
He knows that too. Because he goes quiet again.
His hands come up, then hesitate, like he’s not sure if he should touch you.
That’s new.
Mack has never hesitated with you.
“Hey,” you say softly.
His eyes flick up to yours. And there it is. That moment. The one that’s been building for years without either of you naming it.
The air feels different. Thicker. Like everything is holding its breath.
“I think I—” he starts.
Your heart jumps. This is it. This is finally—
Your phone buzzes. Loud. Sharp. Wrong.
You both flinch. The spell breaks instantly.
You stare at each other for a second, like maybe you can still find your way back to that moment.
But it’s gone.
Mack exhales, running a hand through his hair again, stepping back like he needs space from something he almost did.
“Right,” he says, a little too quickly. “I should… finish packing.”
“Yeah,” you say, even though you don’t want him to go.
Not like this.
He nods, but he doesn’t leave right away. Just stands there. Like he’s trying to decide something.
Then he steps forward again and pulls you into a hug. Tight. Warmer than usual. Longer than usual.
You cling to him without thinking, your face pressed into his hoodie, memorizing the way it feels.
“I’m gonna miss you,” he says into your hair.
Your throat tightens and your eyes start to water.
“I’m gonna miss you too.”
He pulls back, but not all the way. Still close. Still right there.
“You better answer when I call,” he adds, trying to lighten it.
You smile, even though your chest aches. “You better actually call.”
“I will,” he promises.
And the thing about Mack is that he means it when he says it. He just doesn’t always follow through the way he wants to.
He hesitates one last time. Like he’s thinking about saying something else. Doing something else.
But instead, he just smiles at you. Soft. Familiar. Safe.
“I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Yeah,” you say.
But it doesn’t feel soon. It feels like the start of something else.
Something you’re not ready for.
He gets in his car and you stay in the driveway until his car disappears. Until the quiet settles in.
And only then you let yourself think about what almost happened. And how, somehow, you already miss him more than you expected.
⊱ —————- °.• ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ •.° —————— ⊰
2 - prom night
Mack shows up late to prom. Of course he does.
He’s on a break from juniors and just had to come see all his old hockey buddies. And, of course, you.
You’re sitting at a table near the edge of the dance floor, heels kicked off under your chair, absently tracing the rim of a plastic cup while your date laughs with his friends somewhere across the room. You stopped looking for him twenty minutes ago.
This is exactly when Macklin shows up.
“Hey—”
You look up, and there he is. Slightly out of breath, tie crooked, hair a mess like he ran his hands through it the entire drive over.
Like he rushed.
For you.
“You’re late,” you say, but there’s no real bite to it.
“I know,” he says, wincing. “I was practicing and lost track of time and I—” He gestures vaguely. “I came as fast as I could.”
You raise an eyebrow. “You came straight from the rink to prom?”
He glances down at himself. “I changed. Mostly.”
You laugh despite yourself. God, you missed him.
“Well,” you say, standing and smoothing your dress, “you missed everything.”
“Good,” he says immediately.
You blink. “Good?”
“Yeah.” He grins, reaching for your hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Means I still get the best part.”
Before you can respond, he’s pulling you toward the dance floor.
“Macklin—”
“Trust me,” he says over his shoulder.
You always do.
The music is loud, upbeat, and chaotic, but so is he.
He spins you too fast. You almost trip. He catches you, laughing, one hand steady at your waist.
“Careful,” you say, breathless.
“Never,” he shoots back.
You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling. Actually smiling. For the first time all night.
He doesn’t care that people are watching. Doesn’t care that he’s a little off-beat or that his tie is still crooked or that you’re both slightly out of sync.
He just dances with you like nothing else matters. Like you are the reason he came.
At some point, you’re both laughing too hard to keep up with the music.
“You’re terrible at this,” you tell him.
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m incredible,” he insists. “You’re just hard to keep up with.”
“Please—”
He spins you again, unnecessarily dramatic this time, and when you stumble into him, his hands land on your waist to steady you.
And this time neither of you pull away.
The song changes. Slower. Softer.
The energy in the room shifts, couples naturally drawing closer, movements less chaotic, more intentional.
Mack hesitates. Just for a second. Like he’s giving you an out.
You don’t take it.
So his hands stay where they are. Yours slide up to his shoulders. And suddenly you’re slow dancing with Mack.
It’s quieter here.
Not physically, the music is still playing, people are still talking, but everything feels muffled, distant. Like you’re in your own little space.
“You clean up okay,” you tease softly.
“Wow,” he says. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
You huff a laugh, but your heart is racing.
“You look really pretty,” he adds, more serious now.
Your breath catches.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” His gaze lingers on your face, softer than you’ve ever seen it. “I mean… I always think you do, but… tonight’s kinda unfair.”
You look down, suddenly shy in a way you never are with him.
“That’s new,” you murmur.
“What is?”
“You being nice to me.”
“I’m always nice to you.”
You raise an eyebrow. “You literally shoved me into a snowbank last time I saw you”
“That was different. That was funny.”
You laugh again, but it fades quicker this time. Because he’s still looking at you like that. Like there’s something he’s trying to figure out how to say.
“I kinda—” he starts, then stops.
Your heart stutters.
“What?” you ask quietly.
He exhales, nervous now. Actually nervous.
“I kinda wish I’d asked you first,” he admits.
The words settle between you. Heavy. Important.
Your fingers tighten slightly against his shoulders.
“Mack…”
“I mean…not just for this,” he adds quickly, stumbling a little over his words. “Like, I just—” He laughs under his breath. “I don’t know. I think about it sometimes. What it’d be like if we just… did this. For real.”
You don’t know what to say.
Because you’ve thought about it too. More than you should have. More than you ever admitted.
The music swells around you. And you realize you’re closer than you’ve ever been.
His eyes flick down to your lips.
“Mack,” you whisper.
“Yeah?”
You don’t move away. Neither does he.
But then you pull back just slightly. Not all the way. Just enough to breathe.
“Don’t say things you can’t follow through on,” you say softly.
It’s not harsh. It’s honest. It lands.
He stills.
The realization hits him in real time, that this isn’t just a moment for you. That it means something.
That it would change things.
“Oh,” he says quietly.
You give him a small, almost apologetic smile.
“I don’t want this to just be prom,” you add.
He swallows.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, okay.”
The moment shifts. Not gone. But… paused. Set aside.
He squeezes your hand instead.
“C’mon,” he says, softer now. “One more song?”
You nod. And you dance with him for the rest of the night.
⊱ —————- °.• ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ •.° —————— ⊰
3 - when he left for boston
This goodbye feels different. Not like juniors, where it still felt temporary. This feels like a step into something bigger. More permanent.
Like the space between you is about to stretch in a way you’re not sure how to fix.
You’re in his room, sitting cross-legged on the floor while he packs. Or… attempts to.
“Okay, be honest,” he says, holding up two hoodies. “This one or this one?”
You don’t even look up. “You’re bringing both.”
He sighs. “That wasn’t the question.”
“It is now.”
He tosses one at you anyway. It lands in your lap.
“You’re impossible,” you say.
“Yeah,” he grins. “But you like me.”
The words are easy. Too easy. You’ve said versions of that to each other your whole lives.
But this time it lingers.
You glance up. He’s already looking at you.
“Oh,” he says, softer now.
You look back down at the hoodie, smoothing the fabric like it suddenly requires your full attention.
“You’re really going,” you say.
“Yeah.”
“For real this time.”
He nods, quieter now.
There’s a pause.
Then he drops down onto the floor across from you, close enough that your knees almost touch.
“I don’t know what it’s gonna be like,” he admits.
“What?”
“Not seeing you all the time.”
Your chest tightens.
“You’ll be busy,” you say. “Classes, hockey, new people—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
You look at him. Really look at him. He looks… unsure.
That’s new.
Mack is never unsure.
“I mean,” he tries again, “yeah, I’ll be busy. But that’s not—” He exhales. “You’re still the first person I want to tell things to. That doesn’t just… go away.”
Your heart twists.
“It won’t,” you say quietly.
“But what if it does?” he presses. “What if I get used to not being around you?”
You don’t have an answer for that. Because the truth is that you’re scared of the same thing.
“I don’t want that,” he adds.
“Me neither.”
The room feels smaller suddenly. Like everything is narrowing down to just this.
He leans forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to say,” he admits.
Your breath catches.
“What?”
He hesitates. Laughs nervously.
“I had this whole plan,” he says. “Like, I was gonna say it before I left for juniors, but then I didn’t. And then I was gonna say it at prom, but—” He glances at you. “You kind of shut that down.”
You wince. “Sorry.”
“No, you were right,” he says quickly. “You were. I just—” He shakes his head. “I keep waiting for the perfect time, and it never feels like the right moment.”
“Maybe there isn’t one,” you say.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I’m starting to think that.”
Your heart is pounding now. Because you know. You know what he’s about to say.
And part of you wants it. And part of you is terrified of what happens after.
“Mack…” you start.
“I think I—”
His phone buzzes on the bed behind him. He ignores it and restarts what he was saying.
“I think I—”
It buzzes again. Longer this time. More insistent.
He groans, leaning back and grabbing it.
“My parents,” he mutters. “They’re probably making sure I have everything.”
You let out a small breath you didn’t realize you were holding.
“Answer it,” you say.
He looks at you for a second. Like he knows something just slipped away again.
Then he sighs and answers, turning slightly away as he talks.
You sit there, staring at the hoodie in your lap. At the words that almost got said. Again.
When he hangs up, the moment is gone. Packed away with everything else.
“I’ll call you when I get there,” he says.
“You better.”
“I will,” he promises.
And he does.
⊱ —————- °.• ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ •.° —————— ⊰
4 - the night he got drafted
The room is too loud.
That’s your first thought.
Too many people, too many voices, too much excitement packed into one space that suddenly feels too small to hold all of it.
The TV is on, analysts talking over each other, the draft ticker crawling across the bottom of the screen. Every few seconds, someone shushes the room — only for the noise to build right back up again.
You’re standing near the back. Not in the center of it. Not next to his family.
Just… close enough. Close enough to see him.
Macklin is across the room, surrounded by people. His parents, friends, neighbors, people who’ve known him forever and people who suddenly want to.
He’s smiling, but it’s tighter than usual. Nervous. Excited. Overwhelmed.
Every once in a while, he glances up. You notice. You always notice.
And every time your eyes meet, he relaxes just a little. Like you’re anchoring him without even trying.
“First pick coming up,” someone says.
The room quiets instantly. Your heart starts pounding, even though it’s not your name they’re about to call.
But it kind of feels like it is.
You grip your cup a little tighter. Across the room, Macklin runs a hand through his hair — once, twice — then drops it, exhaling sharply.
His dad says something to him. His mom squeezes his shoulder. But his eyes find you again.
And this time, they don’t look away.
The name is called. His name.
Everything explodes. Cheers. Shouting. People jumping to their feet. You barely register it.
Because Mack, Mack is already moving.
Through the crowd, past everyone else, like there’s only one place he needs to be. You.
He reaches you in seconds, pulling you into a hug so tight it knocks the air out of your lungs.
“Did that just happen?” he says, voice half-laughing, half-breathless.
You clutch onto him, laughing into his shoulder. “Yeah, Mack. It did.”
He lifts you slightly off the ground without thinking, spinning you once before setting you back down, but he doesn’t let go.
Not right away.
When he finally pulls back, his hands stay on your arms, like he’s making sure you’re actually there.
“I was looking for you,” he says.
Your chest tightens.
“I know. I’m right here.”
His expression softens. Relief. Something deeper. Something familiar.
Everything around you fades again, the noise, the people, the cameras starting to shift toward him.
It’s just this. Just him. Just you.
“I wouldn’t be here without you,” he says quietly.
You shake your head immediately. “That’s not true.”
“It is,” he insists. “You… you’ve been there for all of it. Before any of this.” He gestures vaguely around the room. “Before anyone else cared.”
Your throat tightens.
“You would’ve gotten here anyway.”
“Yeah,” he says. “But it wouldn’t have been the same.”
The words land heavier than anything else in the room.
His grip on your arms tightens slightly. His gaze drops to your lips.
Your breath catches. The moment shifts. Again. But this time it feels stronger. More certain. Like neither of you can pretend you don’t see it anymore.
“Mack…” you whisper.
“Yeah?”
He leans in. Slowly. Like he’s giving you time to stop him.
You don’t. You never do.
Because this isn’t just a moment. This is years of moments stacking on top of each other, finally tipping forward.
“I’ve been trying to say something for a while,” he murmurs.
Your heart is racing so fast it almost hurts.
“What?” you ask softly.
He hesitates. Right there. Right before the edge.
“Okay, Macklin, we need you—now.”
A voice cuts in, firm and urgent. A media coordinator, already halfway pulling him back toward reality.
The room rushes back in all at once. The noise. The people. The moment, snapped clean in half.
Mack closes his eyes briefly, like he’s physically in pain.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mutters.
You laugh softly, even though it aches. “Go.”
He doesn’t move.
“Mack.”
“I’ll be right back,” he says quickly. “Don’t go anywhere.”
You both know how this goes. Still, you nod.
“Okay.”
His hand lingers on your arm for just a second longer before he lets go. Then he’s gone.
Pulled into cameras, interviews, flashes of light and noise and everything he’s worked for.
You watch him from across the room. Watch him smile. Answer questions. Live in this moment.
⊱ —————- °.• ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ •.° —————— ⊰
5 - his first time back from san jose
You almost don’t recognize him at first. Not because he looks completely different, but because he carries himself differently now.
A little more confident. A little more… certain. Like he knows who he is in a way he didn’t before.
But the second he sees you everything else falls away.
“Hey!”
He says it the same way he always has.
Like it’s been too long. Like it matters. Like you matter.
You barely have time to react before he’s pulling you into a hug, lifting you off your feet for a second like he used to.
“Hi, Mack,” you laugh, gripping his shoulders.
“I missed you,” he says, immediate and unfiltered.
“I missed you too.”
He sets you down, but his hands linger at your sides for just a second longer than necessary.
Then he steps back, taking you in.
“You look the same,” he says.
You raise an eyebrow. “Wow. Thanks.”
“No, I mean—” He laughs, shaking his head. “In a good way. Like… familiar.”
You soften slightly. “You don’t.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You look… older.”
“Better?” he asks, hopeful.
You pretend to think about it. “Debatable.”
He scoffs. “Wow. I come all the way back and this is the treatment I get?”
“You love it.”
“I do,” he admits easily.
That part hasn’t changed. Nothing between you really has. And somehow that’s the problem.
The night passes in a blur of people, laughter, stories. He’s constantly being pulled in different directions, everyone wanting a piece of him now.
But every time you look up he’s already looking at you. Like he needs to make sure you’re still there.
Later, when it finally quiets down, you end up where you always do.
The dock.
Feet dangling over the water, the air cooler now, the noise of the party far enough away that it feels like a different world.
For a while, neither of you says anything. Just sitting. Just being. Like no time has passed at all.
“You ever think about it?” he asks finally.
You glance over. “About what?”
“Us.”
The word lands heavier than it should. You look back out at the water.
“Mack…”
“No, seriously,” he says, turning toward you. “Every time I leave, I think about it. And every time I come back, it’s like—” He exhales. “It’s like nothing changed. Like we’re still right here.”
Your chest tightens.
“Yeah,” you admit.
“And I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
You let out a small, humorless laugh. “Probably both.”
He nods slowly.
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Silence settles again. But it’s not empty. It’s full of everything you’re not saying.
“At some point,” you say quietly, “we have to either do something about it… or stop.”
He looks at you. Really looks at you. Like he’s trying to figure out which one you want.
“Do you want to stop?” he asks.
The question catches you off guard.
“No,” you say immediately.
“Then why do we keep acting like we should?”
You don’t have a good answer. Because the truth is you’re scared. Of losing him. Of changing what this is. Of it not working.
“I don’t know,” you admit.
He leans back on his hands, staring up at the sky.
“I keep thinking I’ll figure it out,” he says. “Like, I’ll get to a place where it makes sense. Where the timing isn’t terrible.”
You glance at him. “And?”
“And I don’t think that place exists.”
You let that sink in. Because you’ve been thinking the same thing.
His phone buzzes beside him on the dock. He doesn’t pick it up right away. Just lets it sit there, lighting up the space between you.
“You gonna get that?” you ask.
He exhales. “I should.”
“But you don’t want to.”
He glances at you. “Not right now.”
Your heart stumbles. For a second it feels like he might actually choose this. Choose you.
But then the phone buzzes again. A call this time. More insistent. It’s like reality creeping back in.
He groans, grabbing it and glancing at the screen. “Coach.”
Of course.
You smile faintly. “Go.”
He hesitates.
“I’ll call you later,” he says.
You meet his eyes. You both know. He still says it anyway.
“Yeah,” you reply softly.
He stands, lingering for just a second like he wants to say something else. Do something else. But he doesn’t.
He just gives you that same familiar smile and walks away.
You sit there a little longer after he’s gone. Staring out at the water.
Thinking about everything you almost said. Everything he almost did.
And how somehow, after all this time, you’re still right here.
⊱ —————- °.• ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ •.° —————— ⊰
6 - the night you almost let him go
It’s quiet. That’s the first thing you notice. No crowd. No music. No voices overlapping, no constant pull of people needing something from him.
Just a late-night diner, half-empty, fluorescent lights humming softly overhead, the faint clink of dishes from the kitchen in the background.
You’ve been here a hundred times before. With him. After games. After long days. After nothing in particular.
Mack is sitting across from you, elbows on the table, hands wrapped around a cup of coffee he hasn’t touched.
He’s been staring at it for a while. Which is how you know something’s wrong.
Mack doesn’t sit still like this.
“What?” you ask finally.
He looks up. There’s no grin waiting. No easy joke to deflect. Just something heavier.
“I think I messed this up.”
Your stomach drops.
“Messed what up?”
He lets out a breath, glancing down again before meeting your eyes.
“Us.”
The word hangs there. Uncomfortable. Undefined. Accurate.
You lean back slightly, crossing your arms without meaning to.
“Us isn’t really a thing you can mess up,” you say. “It’s not… anything.”
The second the words leave your mouth, you regret them. Because you see it — the way they land. The way something in his expression tightens.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “That’s kind of the problem.”
Silence stretches between you. Thick. Heavy with everything you’ve both been avoiding for years.
“I kept thinking there’d be a right time,” he continues. “Like, when things slowed down. When I wasn’t gone all the time. When I could actually… be here.”
You don’t interrupt. You’ve heard versions of this before.
“And every time I came back,” he says, “it was like nothing changed. Like we just picked up where we left off.” He huffs out a small laugh. “Which felt great. Until I realized it also meant we weren’t going anywhere.”
Your chest tightens.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he adds, softer now.
“You won’t,” you say automatically.
“But I might,” he presses. “If we keep doing this.”
You look at him. Really look at him.
He’s not joking. He’s not brushing this off. He’s… scared.
“If we keep almost choosing each other,” he says, “eventually one of us is gonna choose something else. Or someone else. And then what?”
The thought hits harder than you expect. Because you’ve tried not to think about that part.
“I don’t want that,” he says.
“Neither do I.”
“Then why are we still here?” he asks.
You don’t have an answer. Because the truth is you’ve been just as responsible for this as he has.
Avoiding it. Deflecting. Protecting what you have instead of risking it for something more.
“Maybe,” you say slowly, carefully, “this is just what we are.”
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe we’re just…” You hesitate. “Not meant to be more than this.”
The words feel wrong. Even as you say them. But they’re safe. Safer than risking everything.
Mack goes very still.
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s realistic,” you argue, even though your voice is betraying you. “Mack, it’s been years. We’ve had so many chances—”
“I know,” he cuts in. “I know that. You don’t have to remind me.”
“Then what are we doing?” you ask, a little sharper now. “Because I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep wondering every time you leave if that was the last time we were almost something.”
He flinches slightly at that.
Good, you think. Because it’s true.
“I thought waiting would make it easier,” he admits. “Like, if I just got through the next thing, or the next season, or the next move, then I’d come back and it would finally make sense.”
“And did it?” you ask.
“No.” His voice is quiet. Honest. “It just made me realize I was running out of time to stop being an idiot.”
That almost makes you laugh. Almost. But it fades quickly. Because this isn’t funny. This is everything.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he says again, like he needs you to understand.
“You’re not losing me,” you insist.
“But I am if you decide this isn’t worth trying.”
The words land square in your chest. Because that’s exactly what you’re doing. Choosing the safer option. Choosing to walk away before something can break.
“Maybe it’s better that way,” you say, even though it hurts. “Maybe we’re just meant to almost be.”
He shakes his head immediately.
“No.”
“Mack—”
“No,” he repeats, more firmly now. “I’m not accepting that.”
His expression shifts as he speaks. Not angry. Determined. Because something in him has finally snapped into place.
“I’ve been in love with you for years.”
Everything stops. The hum of the lights. The clatter from the kitchen. Your own breathing.
You just stare at him. Because he said it. He actually said it.
“I tried to ignore it at first,” he continues, like now that it’s out, he can’t stop. “Told myself it was just because we grew up together. That it’d go away.”
It didn’t. You can tell.
“Then I thought maybe I should wait,” he says. “Until I had more time. Until I could do it right. Until I wasn’t leaving all the time.”
You swallow hard.
“Mack…”
“But there is no perfect version of this,” he says, leaning forward now, eyes locked on yours. “There’s no version where the timing suddenly makes sense and everything lines up. There’s just this. There’s just us. And whether we’re finally gonna do something about it or keep pretending we don’t feel it.”
Your heart is racing so fast it feels unsteady.
“I don’t want almost anymore,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to keep leaving things unsaid. I don’t want to keep coming back and wondering if I missed my chance again.”
He exhales, softer now.
“I want you.”
The words hit differently this time. Not rushed. Not interrupted. Not almost. Real.
“Even if it’s messy,” he adds. “Even if the timing still sucks. Even if we have to figure it out long distance sometimes.” A small, nervous smile tugs at his mouth. “Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had to figure something out.”
You let out a shaky breath. Because he’s right. You’ve always figured things out together.
“Just don’t walk away from me,” he says. “Not because we were too scared to try.”
The silence that follows feels endless. Years of memories pressing in. Every almost. Every interrupted moment. Every version of this that never got to finish.
And for the first time, nothing stops you.
You look at him. Really look at him.
At the boy who grew up in your kitchen.
At the one who always looked for you first.
At the one who kept almost choosing you, and then the one who finally did.
“You’re so late,” you whisper.
His lips twitch. “I know.”
“You should’ve said that years ago.”
“I know.”
You shake your head slightly, a small, disbelieving laugh slipping out.
“You’re actually the worst.”
“I’ve been told,” he says.
A beat. Then, softer,
“But I’m yours.”
The words settle between you. Different now. Not assumed. Chosen.
Your chest tightens. Because this is the part where you decide. Stay safe. Or finally take the risk.
You lean forward slowly. Your heart pounding so hard you’re sure he can hear it.
His breath catches, like he’s not entirely sure you’re actually going to do it. Like even now, he’s waiting for the interruption. For the almost.
But there isn’t one. There’s just you. And him. And years of waiting.
“You’re not allowed to take it back,” you murmur.
“I won’t.”
“You’re not allowed to disappear when it gets hard.”
“I won’t.”
“You’re not allowed to turn this into another almost.”
His voice is steady this time.
“I won’t.”
That’s all you need. And then you close the distance. And this time you don’t stop.
Long af but I hope you enjoy it!! I’ve been working on this one for the past few days and I love it sm
he’s so pretty:/
lee i’m sorry but this is the only thing in my brain rn
GOT ME FUCKED THE FUCK UP HOLY SHIT HES PERFECT
june 4th, 2023 <<<<
my brain still can fully process this picture.
LIKE THIS???? JACK NEXT TO LUCA???? AND ETHAN???? AND ADAM???? AND FUCKING MARK????????
this is my fav part because nick is js cheesin in the back 😭😭😭
nicks dad follows me but not nicks gf. what in the actual fuck. HE DOESNT EVEN FOLLOWS NICKS FRIENDS AT UMICH LIKE WTF WHY AM I SPECIAL????
NOT GRANOS DAD 😭😭😭
this is what michigans roster is looking like!! this was before the draft, so they suspected adam being put on the roster again, but we all know he’s going to columbus. i saw another post about this that wasn’t the full roster, but here’s the full one for those who were wondering!!!
I CANT BRHEBSBSBSNSBD
I WANNA BE BACK IN CALI 🧍♂️
currently thinking abt how my fav is literally 25 and in college (we love him regardless tho!!)
luke girls watching jack and quinn girls get fed with this bauer content
this is literally me
bff appreciation !! (all he did was see my dm and like it twice, but i love him sm)
i fucking love nick granowicz
NO BECAUSE I LOVE NICK GRANOWICZ SOOOOO FUCKINGGGGG MUCH LIKE GET MY BOY SOME ATTENTION, IVE EDITED HIM LIKE 20+ TIMESSSS
