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The game in Vegas had started so well.
Phil scored a good one right off the bat, but after letting in a bunch of softies, they’d come out in the second ready to get back into it. When Sidney had put in the tying goal, he’d felt certain that the next goal, and all the rest in the game, would be theirs.
And instead they’d lost by four and closed out a disastrous road trip with barely anything to show for themselves.
Sidney got through the questions from the beat reporters without too much effort, thankful he had at least scored on Flower. That was an easy topic for them to ask him about, instead of anything more complicated like the state of the team. Mostly he wanted to stop talking and go out drinking with his teammates before everyone left for the bye week.
Instead, he had to go get married.
*
Sidney had initially argued that the bet should be disqualified.
It wasn’t fair to hold him to anything he said in the first fifteen minutes after sex. That was especially true when Geno still had two fingers inside him, casually stroking in and out, thumb pressed firmly up against Sidney’s taint. He'd let his hips splay open to give Geno better access, sweat cooling on his skin while he stared up at the ceiling.
He couldn’t parse Geno’s mumbles the first time he said it. “Hmm?” Sidney turned toward him.
“You’ll be at the All-Stars,” Geno said more clearly, fingers still moving.
“Nah, it’ll be Phil.”
Geno snorted. “When they give Phil something instead of you?”
When it’s something I don’t want, Sidney thought but didn’t say. He struggled to come up with a better response. “He had a great fall.”
“Your December,” Geno replied.
Sidney couldn’t quite figure out a way to argue with that, so he fell back on his old standby. “I’ll bet you I’m right,” he said, relying on his conviction to count for more than history and points.
“Deal,” Geno said immediately, which should have worried Sidney more at the time, but Geno followed that up by twisting his fingers and kissing Sidney, all tongue and little finesse, and Sidney was suddenly too busy wishing his body could respond as fast as Geno made him want to.
He regretted that a couple of days later when the All-Star roster was announced. Amid his teammates’ congratulations and Phil gleefully calling out, “Better luck next time, Sid,” Geno’s overwhelming smugness radiated from across the dressing room. But he still didn’t know how much trouble he was in until they got home that night after the game, when Geno said, “So, you lose, so I say what I win.”
“Usually terms are discussed at the time,” Sidney said.
“Unless you make bet and then lose,” Geno said, very firmly.
“Fine,” Sidney said. Whatever it was, going along with it would cause him less grief than arguing. Sidney had known Geno a long time. He waited for Geno to give him his punishment, but Geno had gone quiet, eyes avoiding Sidney’s. “Come on, just spit it out.”
“You lose, so we get married in Vegas. After game,” Geno clarified, as if that was the part Sidney had been unclear on.
“What?”
“That’s what we bet.”
“Geno,” Sidney started, and then stopped. Geno wasn’t looking at him, and Sidney felt like he’d missed a turn about three miles earlier in this conversation. He tried to lighten the mood a bit and bring them back to a bet about the All-Stars and away from marriage. “I don’t think a bet we make right after sex should really count. I can barely even think afterwards, it’s not fair that you took advantage,” he said, smiling and letting a hint of self-mockery into his voice. He took a step toward Geno, ducking his head a little, trying to get Geno to make eye contact with him.
Geno said, “You don’t want, we won’t,” very calmly, but he still wasn’t looking at Sidney. And that wasn’t right at all. Sidney squinted at Geno, still not entirely sure how they had gotten here, but now completely certain that this was a bet he couldn’t renege on.
“A bet’s a bet,” he said, his sigh of resignation swept away by Geno finally looking at him and smiling.
*
It was one thing to keep his honour. It was another thing to have to clean up and take a shower and get dressed after a game and then go get married. And not just any game.
“We lost,” he reminded Geno as they walked down yet another endless corridor. Vegas was one giant maze, and he was definitely being led further into the center. “It’s bad luck to get married right after a loss.”
“You already lost,” Geno shot back, not slowing his stride. “That’s why we’re here.”
For a few seconds, Sidney just kept pace with Geno, thinking over how he’d really gotten here. “I had already lost twice, both the bet and being busy all next weekend.”
“Don’t be bad loser.”
Sidney didn’t even try to argue with that. “So I’m a triple loser, and now you’re making me get married in the middle of all that losing.”
Geno stopped short, still about twenty feet away from the small conference room currently doing business as a Vegas wedding chapel. “You not want ring to wear, but I get you fourth ring, don’t worry.” He winked at Sidney and started walking down the hall without waiting for him, Sidney staring at his back in shock.
“I can’t believe you said that,” Sidney half muttered to himself. He had managed to work himself up again, trying to figure out if it was okay because Geno had said it but Sidney hadn’t, by the time he stepped into the chapel and realized they weren’t alone.
He had expected to be there with a bunch of strangers, which made Sidney a little twitchy, but he'd seen enough movies to have a vague idea of what was coming. But the room was mostly empty, aside from a man he didn’t know wearing a Knights jersey and four other people Sidney knew very well.
“When Geno told me he needed a minister, I decided an Elvis was all wrong,” Flower said, beaming. Tanger and Jack were behind him laughing about something, and Geno was in the middle of what looked like a very involved conversation with Phil up near the altar.
“How did you get roped into this?” Sidney said dumbly.
“What, and miss your greatest bet loss of all time?” Jack was grinning at him.
“I still should have won it,” Sidney said, the resentment in his voice only mostly a joke.
“A fluke, nothing more,” Tanger said mockingly, and Sidney really gave up.
Flower made it worse. “If I had more time I could have gotten Celine to come sing.”
Sidney stared in horror. “But you didn’t, right?” Six hockey players could blend in a lot more effectively than Celine Dion could all by herself.
He didn’t get a concrete answer before Geno and Phil came over, their argument finally resolved. “Let’s get this done, I have a table to get to,” Phil said.
“It’s your own fault, score a bit more in December and none of us would be here,” Sidney muttered under his breath.
Geno gave Sidney a little push toward the altar. “Don’t blame Phil, you made bet.”
Sidney made his way up to the altar, for the first time really thinking about what was going to happen here. It had stayed on the back burner since he told Geno he wouldn’t renege on the bet, the idea never taking priority over the team and surviving the grind of the mid-season. Getting married in general had always felt the same way to him; he’d assumed for years that they’d get around to getting married eventually, but that brought with it so many decisions about where and when and how big, and it had never seemed worth it. The only decision that felt obvious was that it should happen during the off-season, but whenever they got to summer, they were either so busy celebrating or trying to prepare for the next season that planning a wedding never made the list.
He turned and faced Geno once they got to the altar, understanding beginning to dawn on him. The uncertainty he saw on Geno’s face only clarified his own sense that he was standing on solid ground again. He reached out and grabbed Geno’s hand.
“Okay, G?” He squeezed his hand and waited until Geno nodded back, his hand in Sidney’s suddenly firm. "Let's get married."
He expected the guy in the Knights jersey to give a variation on the wedding speech he’d heard at so many teammates’ weddings over the years, but Flower was the one who walked up to them.
“This dude has to be here for the legal stuff, but I’m going to be the one doing most of the talking,” Flower said.
“Not too much talking,” Tanger said.
“I need to talk when I can now,” Flower said. Sidney couldn’t take his eyes off of Geno, suddenly wondering how much of this entire bet was about Flower being here for it, too. “We are gathered here to witness the wedding of Sid and Geno, our friends.” A lump formed at the back of Sidney’s throat; he swallowed hard, keeping his focus on how bright Geno’s eyes looked.
The rest of the ceremony went by in a blur, each individual word Flower said blending together into something larger and more ephemeral. Sidney promised to continue to love Geno just as confidently as he knew in his heart he would be loved by Geno. When Flower asked them about rings, Sidney laughed along with the others when Geno said, “I’ll win him another one later,” but his mind was already thinking about what kind of ring Geno might actually like, one he would put back on every night after a game like Tanger always did, or a ring he could wear on his chain during the game, like the one the surgeon who fixed his jaw wore. He could find out, and give him that kind of ring, on top of however many more they managed to win together.
Kissing Geno in front of people usually felt odd to him, but by the time the ceremony ended, Sidney felt like he had been waiting to kiss Geno for his entire life. He took a half step toward Geno before Flower even finished saying, “—kiss each other,” his hands reaching up to cup Geno’s face and pull him in. He stopped kissing Geno for long enough to sign some papers that he probably should have read beforehand, but he was surrounded by friends he trusted, and if it turned out not to be real, then he’d marry Geno again as many times as he needed to.
They lost Phil to poker shortly after, and Sidney thought he was finally going to be able to spend time alone with his husband, but Tanger and Flower and Jack had other plans for them.
“You’ve only been married for twenty minutes, we all have kids and wives and so tonight we’re going out,” Jack said firmly. Sidney would have thought about protesting, but Geno knew a DJ at one of the clubs and wanted to dance, and Sidney wasn’t going to say no to that.
He couldn’t regret it, even though they were there for longer than any of the other three, because Geno looked so happy and loose, and Sidney couldn’t take his eyes off him. It was harder to keep his hands to himself, but he had a couple of rum and cokes and got his picture taken a bunch and tried to convince himself that everything had changed. And then Geno would come barreling up next to him, goofy and impossible to ignore, and he was the same person he had been for years.
“Let’s go,” he shouted over the music once he could no longer wait.
By the time they got back to the hotel, Sidney was tired enough that he thought he might just pass out. After a wedding he’d never expected, surely it wouldn’t be too strange to skip the traditional next step, at least for the first night? But once they were finally alone in their hotel room, Geno carelessly stripping out of his clothes the second the door closed behind him, Sidney found his fourth wind of the evening.
“Hey, G,” he said, a wave of affection sweeping over him at the sight of Geno's soft belly. “Thanks for asking me to marry you.”
Geno stopped moving. “I didn’t,” he said, after a moment, and started pushing his jeans halfway down his thighs.
“Not in so many words, but you asked in the way that you knew I’d have to listen to.”
“Sid—”
“I’m so glad,” Sidney interrupted him, and Geno made a soft noise and hastily kicked off his jeans, walking over to Sidney in his underwear and kissing him hard. Sidney couldn’t split his focus from Geno’s mouth to take his own clothes off effectively, so after unzipping his pants and getting his shoes off he stopped trying, his only goal to press as close to Geno as he could.
Finally Geno pulled away, getting his underwear off and sprawling out on the bed before Sidney could attempt to grab him back. “Hurry up,” Geno said, and Sidney didn’t bother undoing more than one button before pulling his shirt up over his head, stomping out of his jeans while he did. Geno watched him intently, one hand idly stroking over his dick, while Sidney crawled up onto the bed and between his legs, and Geno lifted them and held Sidney there, ankles crossing behind Sidney’s back.
“It’s like that, is it?” Sidney asked, smiling, and Geno just nodded back at him. Sidney only liked getting fucked when he had plenty of time to prepare himself, but Geno was more mercurial—when he wanted it, he wanted it, no matter how inconvenient, and there was no real rhyme or reason to why or when, at least not that Sidney could see. But he wasn’t about to object.
He leaned in to kiss Geno, one hand sweeping under Geno’s body down to his ass, pulling him up as he rubbed against him. “Let me go get my bag.”
Geno broke away, shaking his head. “In here.” He gestured to the bedside table, and Sidney realized that just because he hadn’t been thinking of tonight as their wedding night until now didn’t mean that Geno hadn’t. He opened the drawer and grabbed the bottle of lube, kneeling up as Geno let his knees fall open, his entire body on display for Sidney.
He watched Geno’s face as he coaxed one finger inside, his other hand stroking over Geno’s belly, careful to keep his touch firm and not accidentally tickle him. Geno’s head was turned to one side, eyes closed and mouth open as he took short breaths in, like he was trying to catch something just out of reach. Sidney bent down to mouth over Geno’s cock when he stretched a second finger in, dipping down to his soft balls as he pressed up with the tips of his fingers. Geno’s hips were rocking upwards with every thrust of his fingers, and Sidney thought about adding a third but then decided he couldn’t wait. “You ready?” He was already pulling out his fingers as Geno nodded, turning his face up to him while Sidney got a pillow under his ass and braced himself over Geno.
Sidney bent over to kiss Geno as he slowly pressed inside, feeling Geno’s body make way for him like he had been for years, Geno’s hands tight around his biceps. He broke the kiss and rested his forehead against Geno’s when he finally bottomed out, giving Geno a moment. When Geno finally pulled against his arms Sidney knelt up a bit, getting one hand on the inside of Geno’s knee and pressing his hips further open as he started to thrust.
Fucking Geno always felt all consuming, like if he stopped to think about himself for even a minute he’d miss something vital he needed to see. Geno was so expressive in his body, pulling Sidney closer and making it clear when Sidney was doing exactly what he wanted, and on his face, where every sensation played out like a secret message just for Sidney, and with his voice, constantly asking for what he wanted in words and sounds. All Sidney had to do was keep up, which he prided himself on, working to last for as long as Geno wanted him to.
But this time that felt harder than normal, every twitch and moan and look from Geno drawing him closer; if he had ever been in control, he’d definitely lost it. “Fuck, Geno, I can’t,” he panted out and then stopped, needing to kiss Geno and then pulling back again. “God, I love you,” he gasped, the words pulled out of him, and Geno moaned and got his hand on his cock, stroking the head while Sidney just tried to hold on. He let out a triumphant noise, a short hard exhalation when Geno finally came, and he collapsed over Geno, tucking his face against Geno’s neck while he felt Geno’s orgasm around him. Sidney came a few thrusts later, the adrenaline of the last twelve hours suddenly bleeding out of him, and he clutched at Geno’s arms and shoulders and face, kissing him everywhere he could reach until he slipped out of Geno’s body.
He kept lying there, feeling Geno’s heartbeat through his ribs, until Geno gently rolled them over, arranging Sidney onto his back and flinging one arm over Sidney’s chest. They shouldn’t just go to sleep, but it had been a long night, and Sidney was past caring.
Just before he was about to drift off, he heard Geno say, “Need to tell rest of team.”
Sidney nodded. “Once we’re back in Pittsburgh.” They were quiet for a moment, and Sidney thought about something else that had been on the back burner for a while. “Taylor’s going to kill me.” He couldn’t really bring himself to care, but he was sure he would at some point. Maybe.
“Mama, too.”
Sidney was quiet for a moment. “We could—”
“Time to plan second wedding tomorrow,” Geno said firmly, shifting ever so slightly closer to Sidney, his face half buried in his pillow. Sidney had no idea how he could sleep on his belly like that—his neck hurt just thinking about it—but Geno sprawled out like a starfish whenever he was given half a chance. Sidney loved him so much it hurt.
“Sorry next weekend will cut our week short,” Sidney said softly.
Geno made one of the small sounds that meant he was a minute, max, from passing out. “Why I made the bet. No vacation. Mean.”
“I was the one who made the bet,” Sidney said, smiling.
“Okay,” Geno said. “I won.”