my favorite part about mack’s childhood crush on bedsy is how connor was always so nice and gentle to mack growing up but mack seemed awkward and too scared to accept connor’s attempts to connect beyond surface level stuff, and they only ended up getting closer once mack was in the nhl and had shifted his attention to will. so i can see will being jealous about one of mack’s first loves eventually becoming one of mack’s closest friends who mack trains with all the time and spends most of the summer with, even though mack doesn’t see it that way and is just happy to have moved past that and think of bedsy as a friend
yesss exactly!! bedsy and mack obviously ran in similar circles and interacted quite a bit over the years (and they’ve been liking each other’s instagram photos since 2020), but baby mack seemed a bit shier and more awkward, as his friends from that era seemed to always say that mack was a really sweet kid but quiet and kept his head down until you got to know him, and that’s when yaplin would come out. but a huge theme seems to be that all the people who got closest to him (cole, jayden, shane, greener, and will) all had to pursue him first and make the first move. the only person mack seemed to chase first was lane
we all know mack started playing as a defender because he idolized aiden, but my friends and i have this headcanon that he remained as a forward when rick and his coach switched him because he idolized bedsy. like he’d see the way bedsy played and was able to carry his team in a different way and thought, “sorry, aiden, i wanna be like him now instead”
and mack probably told will about his switch to forward when they were first bonding during dev camp, and since will never forgets anything and remembers every little detail mack tells him and can read mack like a book, will probably inferred the part about mack’s crush, even if mack didn’t explicitly disclose it. so when mack texts him excitedly over that first summer about how he’s gotten so much closer to bedsy and they’re spending all their time together and getting photographed training together and playing golf together and going to engagement parties together, will has to clench his jaw and pretend that’s fine. it’s fine if his crush is getting close to someone he used to love. will is soooo okay with that, uh huh, not pissed one bit
meanwhile mack doesn’t even think of it like that, he loves will now and just really enjoys being bedsy’s friend (he loves being around people who are as hockey obsessed as he is), but it’ll take a while for will and mack to get on the same page lmao. their dumbass pining means they spend far too much time thinking their love is unrequited
