Archive of Our Own

When Jeff knocks on the bright orange rowhouse door, he's not actually expecting anyone to answer; he hasn't been a door-to-door survey guy for very long, but he's already learned that even if they are home, most people just...won't. Still, even if he had been, he definitely would not have been expecting the guy who answers to be so goddamn fucking hot: dark curls and nice arms and an even nicer ass. And, okay, Jeff can't actually see his face because the guy's turned mostly away from him, saying to someone further inside the house, "Arnie, no," but he's willing to bet that it doesn't exactly detract much from what he can see of the rest of the package.

He's just started thinking about what all he and the hot guy could get up to if this played out like the cheesy porno scenario it so clearly resembles - if the guy's cock is as nice as his arms, Jeff would not be at all averse to sucking it - when a hockey ball comes flying at his face.

There's a split second, before his reflexes kick in and he knocks the ball out of the air, where all he can think is that's not how this is supposed to go. And maybe it would have been smarter to straight-up catch the ball, but it's a hockey ball and Jeff's got a lifetime of hockey reflexes going for him and every single one of those says catching things gets you penalties, so he knocks the ball to the ground. It lands at the hot guy's feet, bumping up against the rubber toe-cap of one of his sneakers. And a second later, a little kid waving a mini stick comes barreling into the guy's legs.

Jeff sighs - once again it's real life -1, cheesy porno scenario - 0 - but man it'd been nice while it lasted.

When he focuses on the guy again, he's dealing with the little kid, steadying him and asking, "Arnold, what'd I tell you about aiming for the door?" He sounds like he's trying to be serious about the hockey ball incident, but it's not really working.

And Arnold can clearly tell, because he looks up at the guy, says, "Not to?" and then bursts into giggles.

Jeff's not much for little kids unless they're playing Mite hockey, but, well...he might have to make an exception for Arnold. He's clearly already got skills; Jeff's mom always insisted that hockey had to be played in the basement if they couldn't play outdoors. Even when he was as young as Arnold.

The guy says, "Yes. Now stay put while I deal with - ," and keeps a hold of Arnold while he turns to look at Jeff, which turns out to be all he does for a moment. He looks Jeff up and down, silently, taking in his messenger bag, his bleached-blonde hair and tan, his polo shirt and jeans and sneakers. And then he continues, "Huh, they didn't say they were sending anybody, but I guess they did listen to me, after all."

And Jeff does not know - at all - what the fuck the hot guy is talking about. If it weren't for the little kid, he'd almost think that he'd accidentally signed up to work for some kind of weird escort service that took its cover as a survey firm really fucking seriously. But the little kid does seem to rule that out - though the guy's face definitely doesn't detract from the hotness of the overall package.

Jeff would not mind hitting that, not one bit.

His opinions on that subject appear to be irrelevant, though, because the guy is saying, "I don't know what they told you about me before they sent you out here, but I'm Mike Richards - and this is Arnold - and I need to hire a nanny because my job involves a lot of travel. Obviously, I can't leave Arnold home by himself," and his voice sounds like home.

Jeff says, on autopilot, "Jeff Carter," but his brain's stuck on Canada and not an escort service, then. Which is good, though Jeff hadn't been planning to provide live-in childcare either. And the hot guy - Mike - apparently thinks that that's why he's there, standing on his doorstep, wearing a dorky striped polo shirt, not to ask him five pages of questions about urban gardening, farmers' markets and other local food sources.

And it's not that Jeff has any objections to not having to do that - so far nobody he's run into has been just waiting for the chance to respond to the survey - but, well, nanny.

But Mike's saying, "Come on in - Arnold hasn't run screaming, yet, so you're already one up on the last two babysitters I tried, but I should probably ask you a few questions and see what Arnold thinks of you a bit more up close and personal."

Jeff's still not actually planning on becoming a nanny, but Philly in July sucks donkey balls and he can't actually bring himself to turn down the offer of a chance to get in out of the heat. He'll make up some answers to the survey himself, afterwards, if he has to. So he says, "Sounds good," and steps across the threshold into air-conditioned bliss.

***

He's not expecting it to be fun.

Nice? Yes. Refreshing? Sure. Fun? Not so much. But after Mike has offered him the bathroom and something cold to drink and a seat on a squashy plaid sofa that clearly wants to eat Jeff alive, he starts asking Jeff questions about himself. And some of them are what Jeff guesses standard interview questions are like - where's he from? how old is he? what experience does he have dealing with kids? - but mentioning Ontario and being an assistant coach for his local Mite and Squirt hockey teams is apparently all it takes to get Mike side-tracked into wanting to know about how young he started playing and whether he has thoughts on what different ages of kids can handle in terms of skills and competition and so on and so forth.

And while Jeff has to sidestep a little to not bring his Junior career into things - that's not up for discussion - it ends up not being a big deal, overall. Mike's clearly thinking about Arnold's hockey-playing future, but the kid's got at least a decade before he'll get to Junior so Mike's far more interested in Jeff's experience of Mite, Squirt, Peewee, and Bantam. Once they get talking, it turns out that Jeff has opinions about all kinds of aspects of that system that he'd never even realized he'd considered before. And between that and the fact that Jeff literally could not care less about the outcome of the interview? Fun.

Over the course of the summer, he's gotten used to using work-appropriate language, but now that the subject's hockey all bets are off. A couple times he gets so into it he finds himself having to bite back the obscenity he was about to use for emphasis, taking Mike's lead, though Mike's clearly used to swearing as much as not and not doing it in front of his kid is something he has to think about. If Jeff were actually worried about getting the job, he wouldn't be worried about not getting it on account of that, anyway.

Eventually, talking leads to demonstration - and Mike retrieves a couple adult-sized sticks, beat-up but clearly professional quality, the kind Jeff has back at home. And while neither of them are actually as long as Jeff prefers, they're not ridiculously too short, so they'll do for demonstration purposes. He can even use them to make a point about the importance of stick length. Not that Arnold will really need to care about that for a while, but one of the things he'd found himself arguing enthusiastically for was the importance of teaching the same things over and over again at each level, doing it differently each time. Arnold may not even be old enough for Mite hockey, yet, but that doesn't mean he's too young for some first lessons in the stuff they'll start him on there.

Jeff holds back from demonstrating anything else, though. Between the sticks and Mike's investment in hockey, he's beginning to get the impression that Mike plays at a bit more than the beer league level, which means that he's also a bit more likely than the average hockey fan to be able to accurately assess Jeff's skill level. And ask the sorts of questions that, if Jeff answered them, would end with his past laid out neatly in a matter of sentences. And Jeff finds himself not wanting to have to not answer Mike.

He gets Mike to do the demonstrations, coaches Arnold through hand positioning and basic stick-handling drills himself - and, again, it's fun.

It's hockey, even if there isn't any ice involved, so of course that makes it pretty great to begin with. But it's also that Arnold, in Jeff's limited experience of him, seems like a pretty awesome kid, laid-back but enthusiastic - and already interested in getting things right but not, like, going crazy about it. And that Mike's good about it, too, encouraging his kid to keep trying but not getting mad when he just doesn't have the fine motor control or whatever, yet, to do something quite right.

When he says as much to Mike, Mike tells him, "You're pretty good with him, too. You can tell you've coached Mite, but also ...." and he trails off into a vague hand gesture that doesn't really do anything to explain what else he can tell about Jeff.

Whatever it might be, it's probably not that he played Juniors, so Jeff shrugs and says, "Thanks - he's a good kid," and just hopes that the tips of his ears aren't turning red. Redder than they already are from spending so much time out in the sun. Arnold's ignoring them, anyway, in favor of staring down at the blade of his stick and the hockey ball where he's working them across the living room floor.

It's not high-quality stick-handling yet - Arnold just turned five this spring, according to Mike - but it's still cool to watch as Arnold works at it, loses the ball or sends it shooting ahead, then brings it back under control.

When they've been standing there a while, watching Arnold, Mike says, quiet, "You could stay for dinner, if you wanted - get to know Arnie a little more," like he thinks this could be going somewhere.

Jeff's not going to tell him that it's not - he doubts he'll need to, for one; probably whoever was supposed to be showing up for the interview will turn up eventually and be an actual nanny and Mike will decide to hire her, but he can't stay, regardless. He says, "Sorry, but I've gotta get back to the office," because he does. His shift is almost over and he has to turn his completed surveys in - after fake filling out one for Mike.

Mike nods, says something about how he guesses they shouldn't be fraternizing too much at this stage - and gets Arnold to say goodbye, and walks Jeff to the door. And then, when Jeff's half-way outside, already, he asks, "Let me at least get your number?" because he's clearly already gone and gotten ideas.

And Jeff, because he's a sucker, gives it to him - he's obviously not going to be calling about the job, not once he sees what an actual nanny looks like, but maybe he'll want to hang out sometime, see another Canadian face. It could happen.

***

The last thing Jeff's expecting is to be woken up by his phone the next morning, blaring out the stupid default ringtone and flashing an unknown Philly number. It's his day off, and he was planning on sleeping in, but whoever's calling has to have his number legitly, so it's probably important. He groans and smacks at the answer button.

When he gets the phone to his ear, the first thing he hears is some lady asking, "Is this Mr. Carter?"

Jeff manages to bite down on the instinct to say 'that's my dad' and asks her, "Who is this?" Maybe he missed it while he was getting the phone in place, but whatever, she can think he's slow for all he cares.

When she tells him, "Shannon, from the Nanny Network," she definitely sounds like she's saying it a second time, but Jeff does not even care one little bit, because what the fuck? Is Mike out of his mind? Jeff is not a nanny.

He tells her as much.

But Shannon just says, "Mr. Richards was very insistent. And we hadn't found anyone who fulfilled all his requirements, yet, so we agreed to contact you. To see if you were a suitable candidate."

Jeff really, really isn't. He has literally zero experience taking care of kids that doesn't involve making them run drills on the ice. And, yeah, he's certified in CPR and First Aid, because even with PT and coaching Mites and school, he'd still been going stir-crazy being back in London for Grade 12. He does not care what kind of unicorn nanny Mike is looking for - it's not him.

When he tunes back in, Shannon's asking how he ended up at Mike's to get interviewed, in the first place.

He tells her, "I was, uh, volunteering - going around knocking on people's doors to get them to fill out a survey." It's what he generally says about the survey gig when people ask, since he's not supposed to be working.

She hmms and says, "And he thought we'd sent you. Still, civic-minded is good."

That's the opposite of what Jeff wants to hear. Fuck. Mike was supposed to see what an actual nanny was like and forget about him. Not call the nanny agency up right away and say, call this number and get me the guy on the other end.

"And he said Arnold liked you. And you had experience as a coach. Normally, we expect prospective child-care providers to have taken some kind of child-development class, but we could potentially waive that in your case, since it doesn't appear to matter to Mr. Richards."

"But…," Jeff tries to protest.

"Did he mention salary and benefits?"

"No…"

"I suppose he thought you would have already been told about them. But he's being quite generous: $800/week, with daily bonuses when he's away on longer trips. Room and board included, of course. And the use of the car. And while he has quite the busy schedule, he said he'd be flexible about giving you as much time off as you wanted when he could. "

That stops Jeff in his tracks - that's twice what he's making now on the best weeks. Enough he could get some new gear - better gear. And maybe get himself a beer league to play in again. If the schedule worked out. He still doesn't really want to be a nanny, but…

Shannon's continuing blithely on, though, "But we'll have to run a background check, first. And Mr. Richards will have to see about your visa. I'll need your personal details for that. And the name of at least one reference."

Jeff gives his name and address and all the rest of it mechanically, because she asked and there's no reason for him not to answer. It's not gonna matter. Once his background check comes back, Mike'll see about his stupid foot injury that cost him his draft year and say 'no, thanks'. He's not gonna want to let some guy who can't even look after himself look after his kid.

He'd known twice what he was making had to be too good to be true - and anyway, it's not like he actually wants the job, for real.

***

Over the next couple weeks, as July turns into even hotter and more humid August, Jeff tries not to think about any of it: the money, or Mike, or hockey. But he's in Flyers country, and while they're smack-dab in the middle of baseball season and the Phillies right now, the radio sports guys are already looking ahead to football and hockey - and who might be making the teams this year. And surprise, surprise: there's Mike's name, bang in the middle of all of those discussions.

Apparently he'd done really well with the Phantoms the year before, in the playoffs - enough to help them win the Calder Cup - after his juniors team, Jeff's old team, had their Memorial Cup run ended before it even began by the Spits.

Mike also comes up because Philly's mad 'cos Pittsburgh got Crosby, so everybody's all about how their rookies can totally match up to him any day of the week. Jeff doesn't really care, except to vaguely think that the Leafs coulda used him more, in a vague hometown loyalty kind of way. He was never a huge Leafs fan - he grew up in Knights territory - but two years in south Jersey haven't turned him into a Flyers fan, anyway.

That'd be like saying he's moved here for good.

Point is that he tries not to think about it - and fails at that on the regular - but he's actually not thinking about any of it when the call comes in. It's another Philly number he doesn't recognize, despite actually being awake this time, but he answers anyway, says, "Hello?" His mom would be for sure appalled at his phone manners, but, whatever.

When Shannon tells him, "You passed the background check with flying colors, Mr. Carter - and Mr. Richards would still like to hire you. The only thing left to take care of is the small matter of your visa," well, Jeff doesn't know how to feel. Not that Shannon gives him any chance to think about, just continues, "Mr. Richards has had his lawyer draw up the appropriate contract, but you're going to have to return to Canada and visit the US Embassy in Toronto. Mr. Richards will pay for your tickets, of course."

He stands there in stunned silence afterwards, still not any more sure what to think or how to feel. He'd written off thinking about it at all as pointless - and he's still not even close to sure he wants to be a nanny. But then there's the money - it's not NHL money, or even AHL money, but it’s still more than he's ever made in his life. Even counting that one month he spent making mad tips bartending at the shore the other summer (totally under the table).

But he's still pretty sure nobody should be trusting him with the sole care of a small child, no matter how much he likes Arnold.

…though maybe it's mostly not totally sole care. Mike'll be around some of the time. And the kid'll probably go to school - and, like, hockey practice and shit (is Mike the kind of dad to make his kid take music lessons? Or play other sports besides hockey? Jeff has no fucking clue). And he's kept himself fed and alive for two years.

He's just worked his way around that chain of totally sound logic when Shannon clears her throat and says, "Mr. Carter?" in a tone that suggests that, once again, this is not even close to the first time she's tried to get his attention.

Jeff says, "Yeah?"

"Do you need more time?"

And suddenly Jeff finds that he doesn't. What the hell, if he's terrible at being a nanny, he can quit and fuck off back to Canada and let Mike get an actual trained one. And in the meantime, it probably won't be much harder than some of the other shit Jeff has done for money since he ended up in Jersey. When he tells Shannon, "Nope, I'm in. 100%," it's mostly even true.

***

A big manila envelope with the nanny agency logo on it shows up at his place a couple days later. The day after that, a courier brings another one, this time from some big-name Philly law firm. But it's the email from Mike that follows, forwarding him his flight itineraries, that makes it all feel real.

Sort-of, anyway - mostly it feels like he's dreaming, or like he's playing out scenes in a movie.

There's the scene where he gets his shit together and gives his landlord notice - not that that takes long. He's got a backpack and two duffels, one of clothes and the other of pieced together hockey gear - and most of his shit just stays in his bags, so there's not much to pack. And the shitty room he's been renting is month-to-month, paid in cash, no lease. Since he's paid up for August, telling his pothead landlord that he's leaving with most of the month to go is doing him more of a favor than anything, Jeff figures.

And before he knows it, that cuts to him on the plane back to Canada, for the first time since last Christmas - and riding in first class for the first time ever.

Even as, like, a montage or whatever it's called, being back in London isn't any less weird than it usually is. It's weird being at home and having his parents want to know where he's going. It's weird seeing guys he grew up with, who're mostly going to uni or trying to make it in hockey - and definitely none of whom are trying to get a job as a nanny in America for an actual pro hockey player - and trying to hang out like he never blew his chance at going pro and fucked off to the U.S.

Probably none of them actually care, the way they mostly seem to want to know if people in Jersey are actually all in the mob like on The Sopranos.

There's the interview scene, where nobody talks about the year of foot surgeries and PT and watching his dreams die, but it's clear that they know - they call him a former hockey player and talk about his new direction in life. Sure, they never betray any sympathy for him, overtly, but when he walks out with a promise that his passport, along with his new employment visa, will be returned to him in a matter of days, well. He's pretty sure that's as good as saying we're sorry that your career was cut short.

Jeff's pretty sure he wouldn't have qualified for it, otherwise.

After that there's another montage, flicking through his last few days in London, catching him picking through his things and deciding whether he wants to take any of it back to the U.S. All his Greyhounds stuff, that stays - no way is he going to chance betraying himself to Mike that way - but he grabs the handful of books he'd liked as a kid, thinking maybe Arnold would like them, too, and along with them, his Super NES and all its NHL game cartridges.

Probably Arnold's not old enough yet to think the graphics are terrible, right?

He's grown enough in the past two years that not a lot of the other clothes he left behind are worth anything to him - and when he clomps down the stairs with a garbage bag full of worn-out t-shirts and too-short jeans, his mom looks up from writing an email and asks, "You cleaned? On your own?" looking like she can't quite believe her eyes.

Which, fair enough - the Jeff who left London for the Jersey Shore had to be bribed or threatened into cleaning much of anything, much less clearing out his closet on purpose; he guesses he learned something somewhere in two years of living out of a duffel. But he's not about to admit that to his mom, so he just shrugs and says, "None of this fits anymore."

Then the scene changes to the day his passport comes in the mail - and his parents taking him out to dinner. The food's a lot nicer than he mostly could afford to eat in Jersey - but that reminds him that he's going to have a pro hockey player's food budget at his disposal, and then his brain stumbles over the fact that he's gonna have to cook whatever they buy with that budget; his contract says so.

He finds himself asking his mom, "Could you send me, like, some easy recipes? Like, stuff that kids like." Sure, he did okay cooking for himself, but he's pretty sure he was pickier when he was a kid.

His parents share a look over that, one of those parent smiles that's practically in code, but his mom just says, "Be watching your email, kid," and goes back to telling his dad a story about some guy at her work.

And then, somehow, it's switched back to the airport drop-off lane, and him pulling his bags out of the trunk, one more than he arrived with, saying goodbye and promising to call or email.

***

He's not expecting the hand-made sign that greets him when he gets through arrivals in Philly. It's clearly Arnold's handiwork, four big, wobbly letters that mostly spell out his name in brightly coloured paint, followed by a smiley exclamation point. Just about all of Arnold that shows around it are his hands and sneakered feet.

Mike, who's standing next to Arnold wearing fuck-off shades and a Flyers hat, gives Jeff a dorky little wave - like Jeff could possibly have missed them after the sign?

Jeff manfully resists the urge to roll his eyes and walks over to them - Mike's still hot, but the more Jeff sees, the more clear it becomes that he's nothing even close to cool. A good dad, from what Jeff's seen, so far, sure, but if Arnold isn't gonna turn out to be a total dork, he'd better have gotten some better material from his mom. Whoever that might turn out to be.

Right now, he's wondering if he shoulda worn something more professional - or less, like, is the paint on the sign even dry; should he be worried about his jeans?

When Jeff finally gets in range for a handshake, Mike already has his hand out and is saying, "Jeff, good to see you again!" while Arnold hangs back. Which suddenly reminds Jeff that he's only ever actually met the kid once; everything else about Jeff becoming his nanny got handled by the agency.

But, hell, he at least knows this drill from Mites - as soon as he gets done shaking Mike's hand, he drops down to Arnold's level and says, "Hey, buddy - I'm Jeff. What do you want me to call you?" going for his best encouraging smile.

It must work at least a little, maybe reminding Arnold that there was a reason he was so excited to paint the big sign he's holding, because he smiles shyly and says, "I'm Arnie! Doncha remember from b'fore?"

Jeff plays along, says, "I remember meeting an Arnold…," like he doesn't know perfectly well who Arnie is.

Arnie creeps closer and whispers, "That's my big boy name," like he's telling Jeff some big secret.

And Jeff says, "Ohhhh, I see. Gotta keep that one secret," just to see if he can make Arnie laugh.

It works - Arnie giggles, and it's echoed by Mike's chuckle as he says, "How 'bout we get going? If everything works out, I'm gonna be spending way more time in this airport than anyone's ever wanted to soon."

So they go - collect Jeff's three bags, walk them out to where Mike's parked his SUV, and set off for Old Town Philadelphia.

***

The front door is still as orange as Jeff remembers it being - Flyers orange, he thinks, now, and wonders why he didn't see it for the sign it clearly was at the time. But they don't enter that way. Mike pokes at a remote control fob thing and the garage door to the right rises until the SUV can slip in below it, then slides back down after them. When they pull in, Jeff discovers it's just a carport, rather than a full garage, open at the back to the garden area that runs the rest of the length of the side of the house. Still, making sure to have a covered place to park the car once winter comes proves Mike's priorities as a Canadian are in order.

Jeff says, "No shoveling the car off in the winter. I like it."

And Mike grins and replies, "Still gotta shovel from the side door to the car, but I got my fill of digging cars out growing up in Kenora."

Arnie gets himself out of his carseat - and, shit, Jeff's gonna have to deal with that a bunch - and takes off running circles around the garden while Jeff and Mike get Jeff's bags out of the back and carry them in the double doors that lead in from the garden.

Once they've made it inside, out of the heat, Mike says, "You've seen the first floor before - kitchen, living and dining, half bath down the hall. Laundry's down in the basement, along with the big entertainment set-up. But, if I guess right, the first place you're gonna want to see is your room," and takes off for the upstairs.

The stairs turn out to be steep enough that walking up them allows Jeff to see straight up past the landing to the flight that leads to the third floor.

Mike confirms that that's his floor, then continues, "You're here on the second, sharing with Arnie. Not literally, except the bathroom - he's got the front bedroom. You're in the suite at the back."

And he's not kidding about the suite thing - if the room came with its own bathroom, it would be nice enough to be in some fancy hotel. As it is, Jeff finds himself stopping in his tracks to stare at his surroundings. There's a rug woven in some vaguely geometric design, on the floor of the front room, partly covered by a loveseat and armchair, all in greys and tans and black. They're arranged across from a fireplace with a huge flat-screen TV hanging above it. And when he unsticks himself enough to explore further, he finds a big bed, wall of low dressers, and pair of bedside tables filling the other room. Add in the desk and chair combo tucked into the alcove next to the door and the small closet under the stairs and, well. It's more than enough for Jeff's needs.

Hell, he could fit all his stuff in the back half with the bed without even trying; it's bigger than the last place he rented all on its own.

And sure, it said in the contract that Mike had to provide him with his own private, furnished room. But Jeff read the whole damn thing three times over before his meeting with the consulate people and there wasn't anything in there about TVs bigger than anything Jeff's family has ever owned. Or a bed the size of a small island. He'd have been well within his rights to stick Jeff with family cast-offs - or a mismatched Craigslist haul.

When he turns back around to find Mike lounging in the doorway, watching him check out the room, it's instinct to say, "Jeez, did you buy out IKEA?"

Mike shrugs, looking sheepish, and says, "My mom made me outfit the entire house. I mostly had opinions about couches and my room, so, like, half the stuff in the kitchen I have no idea what it does or what it's called. Good luck with that, by the way," and then, apparently as an afterthought, "I hope you don't hate orange…"

There hasn't been much orange that Jeff has seen, aside from the comforter on his bed, which is printed in a mix of orange and grey and black - so he guesses that's what Mike's referring to. It's not entirely Jeff's style, but he's also slept under worse in his career in renting South Jersey spare rooms. He still tells Mike, "Sucks to be you if I do." Gotta keep him guessing.

Mike rolls his eyes and says, "Someone should go check on Arnie - make sure you still have a kid to take care - so I'll just leave you to it," with another one of those hand gestures that have yet to mean anything to Jeff.

Jeff guesses he might as well unpack.

***

For dinner that night, Mike declares they're walking over to South Street to start Jeff's education in the art of the cheesesteak. And, okay, Jeff has had a cheesesteak before. He's had a lot of cheesesteaks, to be perfectly honest. He's eaten his way through most of the many pizza and 'steak restaurants of South Jersey. He's even had at least one cooked on South Street, though fuck if he can remember which place he ate at.

He doesn't bother arguing, though, because Arnie has run to get his sneakers - and after his trip back to Ontario, a 'steak actually sounds nice.

Outside, it's hot, still, the humidity making it swampy. Jeff's t-shirt starts sticking to his back a block in. Mike's explaining how they spent July eating their way through all the cheesesteak places on South Street and, like, rating them. There's a bunch of stuff about who has the best steak and who wins on toppings and where the bread is the best, but Jeff's not actually bothering to listen to it for real. He'll eat a 'steak from wherever they end up and it'll probably be fine. Anyway, someone's got to keep an eye on Arnie - the kid refuses to have his hand held - and it's clearly not gonna be Mike.

When they roll up to that evening's place, it turns out to a streetside counter with a guy leaning out the window to take their order: a steak and wiz for Arnie, a pizza steak for Jeff - and something with actual vegetables in it for Mike (because apparently the team nutritionist has been bugging the rookies about eating more of them).

Arnie stands there sucking down this weird grape-lemon drink while they wait for their steaks to be ready - and Jeff keeps one eye on him and one on the people wandering past. He's not big on just hanging around people-watching - he's learned more than enough about a random sampling of people over the past couple years to think there's any particular mystery to strangers - but the South Street crowd at least has a bit of a visual interest factor going for it. And Arnie seems enchanted.

He's apparently had enough manners drilled into him to know that pointing is rude, but it's clear that he'd be up for it otherwise, the way he's making comments to Mike in between slurping down his juice and gesturing excitedly with his free hand.

When their 'steaks are ready, they walk down to the park by the river to eat them. There's nowhere to sit but the grass, but none of them are fussy. And in no time at all they're sitting there licking the last traces of steak juice off their fingers. Arnie stalls out partway through his - and settles in to provide commentary on the new batch of passersby while his dad finishes it off.

By the time they start walking back to the house, Jeff's thinking that maybe this will be okay, for real.

***

He's not ready for any of it.

When Mike leaves the first morning after Jeff arrives, he offers up a wad of cash and the vague instruction to 'maybe go somewhere with Arnie'. And Jeff's not entirely unfamiliar with Philly, but he's never had a need to know where in it you're supposed to go with kids. Plus, he obviously has even less of an idea where Mike might've already taken Arnie. Or what the hell might actually keep the kid's interest for more than 15 minutes - besides hockey.

He can't even remember what the hell he'd liked to do in the summer as a kid besides swim or play street hockey.

By the time Arnie wanders downstairs, Jeff's up to only one suggestion: the Zoo (based on a vague memory of going to the one in Toronto). He figures Arnie won't hate it too much, anyway. Like, aren't animals one of those things kids love pretty universally?

They might be, but before that comes getting Arnie out of the house.

First, they're out of his favorite cereal (Jeff mentally adds a grocery stop to their plans for the day). Next his favorite shirt is dirty (he got paint on it making the welcome sign). And finally there's the battle over how much stuff he's allowed to bring with him on their day out (he seems intent on outfitting himself for an Arctic Expedition).

Selling him on an egg sandwich isn't that hard, but the t-shirt compromise is as hard-fought as any negotiation Jeff's ever been part of - and he only gets Arnie out of the house with a small backpack and one stuffed animal by telling him they're not taking the car.

Not taking the car turns out to be more of an endeavour than Jeff was expecting. He finds them a bus stop to wait at without too much trouble - one of the things he did notice on their walk to dinner the night before - but then there's waiting for it, which involves another of Arnie's running commentaries on everything and everybody around them. And then the bus gets there and they get on - and Jeff's casual inquiry as to whether the Zoo is on this route makes the driver practically start crying with laughter, before finally explaining that they've got both a subway and a trolley ride ahead of them.

He's sitting there, feeling dumb and thinking maybe he should've just ignored Mike's suggestion and stayed home when Arnie tugs on his t-shirt and asks is he can pull the cord for their stop - and, well, apparently one of them doesn't mind the addition to the day's plans.

Arnie gets even more excited about the transfer from bus to subway - and from subway to trolley. Jeff has to grab at the back of his t-shirt to stop him just dashing down the stairs leading underground without him. And again to keep him from wandering up and down the car on the subway. And that's only not a problem on the trolley because there's enough going by outside to keep Arnie's full attention. He's fascinated by the faregates and the station attendants' booths and the tracks the subway and trolley cars ride on. By the time they're crossing the river on the trolley, Jeff's beginning to wonder if the Zoo can actually live up to the excitement of getting there.

Probably the most exciting part ends up being the ice cream, but they stand in front of the polar bear habitat watching the bears paddle and dive and roll for long enough that Jeff eventually ends up asking Arnie if he wants to move on.

"No - I want to swim with them," is not the answer he was expecting to get.

"Not gonna happen - but maybe we can go swimming somewhere else?" Which, probably there's somewhere to swim they can get to easily. There's gotta be. Philly gets too hot for that to be wrong.

"Okay," is all he gets out of Arnie, but they do move on, see some other animals, penguins and otters and elephants, the giant tortoises and big cats and monkeys.

By the time they leave, Arnie's dragging enough that he lets Jeff take him by the hand and doesn't try and run ahead. The trolley and subway and bus all still fascinate him, though. And by the time they make it back to their neighborhood, he's perked up enough to want to carry the basket on their trip to the market for his cereal.

The pool turns out to be south of them, but a lot closer than the zoo, so they walk there the next day and spend the afternoon splashing about for free - Arnie swims okay, for being a five-year-old who grew up around lakes, but Jeff finds himself thinking maybe he should have lessons? anyway; it's a little bit weird, like something Mike should be thinking instead of him.

He probably would've stuck to winding the summer down at the pool, too, if Arnie hadn't specifically requested they go somewhere they had to 'take things' to get to. So Thursday sees them setting out for the Please Touch Museum, courtesy of a recommendation out of a local magazine for parents Jeff grabbed on their most recent trip to the market. It's not exactly cheap, but it's supposed to be, like, kid heaven - and it definitely involves at least one transfer, so Jeff figures that's what Mike's money is there for and goes for it.

Jeff can't even be surprised when their bus-subway-trolley trip ends with them walking through the front doors and Arnie making a beeline for...a bus.

Of-fucking-course there's a bus. And now that Jeff knows that, it pretty much doesn't matter what else there is to see there. Arnie's going to want to stay there until Jeff tears him away. So he guesses he's gonna be sitting somewhere, watching, until Arnie's done.

So he parks himself on a bench and settles in to wait, totally ignoring pretty much everybody else there - and that's how it goes until someone finally decides they don't feel like ignoring him.

"It really is a museum for kids. Which one's yours?" The question's coming from a youngish woman in shorts and a Phillies t-shirt - and it throws Jeff, because none of them are his, not really.

But he gets it together enough to tell her, "The one who's decided nobody gets to drive the bus but him," and point out Arnie, in his striped t-shirt, behind the wheel exactly as advertised.

She tells him, "Mine's the one ringing the bell every five seconds and then apologizing because she didn't mean that stop, sorry," doing an imitation of what Jeff guesses is supposed to be the kid.

It gets a laugh out of him, exactly as intended.

But he doesn't have to contribute anything, just let her keep talking, saying,"Thank god school starts week after next. I don't know how she isn't bored of this place yet…," which is a damn good thing, since Jeff's too busy thinking shit, has Mike done anything to get Arnie ready for school? to come up with any kind of sensible reply.

***

It turns out that, yes, Mike has taken care of the basics; when Jeff asks, he confirms that he got Arnie registered to attend kindergarten at the local public school. Arnie already has a bag to carry his school stuff in - it's been carrying his stuffed bear all around Philly. So probably he just needs pencils and crayons and stuff, which should be pretty easy to get, right?

Then, over the weekend, he discovers the notice about Arnie's need for a school uniform in a pile of mail Mike's clearly been picking the bills out of and otherwise ignoring. Mentioning it to Mike gets a credit card shoved his way, along with instructions to take Arnie somewhere that sells uniform pieces and regular kids' clothes, since Mike only packed his summer clothes when he brought him to Philly. And also he kinda thinks the kid has grown.

A little bit of research suggests they try Chestnut Street, if they don't want to head out of the city, so he indulges Arnie's new-found love of public transit and points them in that direction.

When they get there, Jeff's game-plan is to find the nearest department store (there's supposed to be a Lord & Taylor) or kids' clothing shop, but then Arnie stops in the street and points at H&M and says, "That one. I want to go to that one."

It's not what Jeff would've expected a little kid from bumfuck Ontario to pick, not even a little - particularly not one who'd spent the summer running around in basic t-shirts and cargo shorts - but in the short time Jeff's spent nannying, if Arnie's proved one thing it's that he's going to do just fine at living in the city. Better even than his dad, probably. So he shrugs and tells Arnie, "Sure."

If nothing else, it should be cheaper than Lord & Taylor - not that Mike appears to care.

In the boys section, Arnie makes Jeff read the dress code to him again - and then dives in, piling up slim fit black chinos, plain white button-downs, black dress shoes and socks, a black leather belt and a couple of plaid ties while Jeff just stands there, watching him stride between the racks dividing and conquering. Once Arnie's handed his first pile over, he goes back for a cardigan and a few woolen crew-necks in neutral colors. Altogether, it's a wardrobe fit for an NHL game day - and Jeff doesn't quite know what to make of Arnie's enthusiasm for it.

But he can't say he's surprised when Arnie asks, "Can I pick out some other stuff, too?" like he's asking to go wild in a candy store.

He certainly manages the clothing equivalent: by the time they leave, he also has one of just about every skinny pant that comes in his size, a stack of new slim-fit graphic tees, a few more cardigans, a ridiculous selection of colourful socks, a purple hoodie and a pair of checked canvas slip-ons - and Jeff is feeling like he's done the shopping equivalent of double-shifting.

Oh the bus home, squashed into a two-seater with all their bags, Arnie says, "Can I get a wool coat, like dad's?" and Jeff wonders can we maybe order that one?

***

Jeff stands by what he'd said back in July when he went through with his unexpected interview for the hell of it: most five year olds will be fine starting their hockey careers in their local rink's house Mite 1 program. They're all learning basic skating and hockey skills; they can worry about the quality of their competition later. So when Mike comes home complaining, later that week, about how the competitive Mite teams the older guys suggested he get Arnie on are all filled - and have been for months - he just says it again.

Mike, who's slumped into one of the stools at the breakfast bar, drinking a beer while Jeff empties the dishwasher, says, "I don't know why they think I need their advice - or would even fucking want it. It's not like this shit did me any good."

Jeff doesn't say anything to that - by the way he figures it, Mike's just a two years bigger version of the guy Jeff was two years ago, and he wouldn't have been interested in listening then, either; he'd been sure he'd screwed things up beyond fixing and nothing anybody could say could stop him from making sure that was true.

"If they just wanted to help me practice shit, I might take them up on it, but it's all, you should look at this school, or put your kid into that league, or get yourself some new suits. Fucking bullshit. My suits are fine."

And Jeff really has no dog in this fight - one of the things he likes best about nannying so far is the part where he can pretty much live in jeans and t-shirts and sneakers - so all he says is, "If Coach isn't saying anything, then you're probably okay, anyway."

"It'd be PR, probably - but nobody's said shit except them, so fuck it," Mike says, picking at the label on his bottle. "I might not have officially made it, yet, but that doesn't make 'em any better than me."

Jeff's not touching that one - whether Mike means it, or is just putting up a front, it's on him to figure out how to get along with the vets. So he just repeats, "So I'll find a local house program to put Arnie in," then adds, "And if PR does say something about your suits, you can deal with that, then."

"Yeah, okay," Mike says, tipping his beer nearly upside down to drain the last of it into his mouth and sliding off his stool to drop it into the garbage. "Night." And then he's thumping his way upstairs.

Looks like Jeff has his marching orders: figure out which rink is their local and get Arnie signed up.

Rizzo. It's not exactly an encouraging name, but Jeff isn't exactly about to back down, so he follows the instructions he got and calls to sign Arnie up. He ends the call thinking, well, that's definitely local - and with his marching orders to send in a check to pay the registration fee and show up on the appointed date to pick up Arnie's equipment. And make sure he has properly fitting skates.

It feels a bit like home.

When Jeff reports all this to Mike, Mike decides that Arnie should get one more trip out to Voorhees before school starts. He leaves the car with Jeff and arranges to ride in with one of the other guys - and Jeff doesn't bother arguing. He doesn't know who all is in town already - Mike's mentioned some, but not all, of them while telling stories about his training regimen - but the chances of there being anybody who'd recognize him being towed around by a small child seem pretty low. Anyway, he figures Arnie will be interested in seeing what his dad's been up to and they can solve the skates problem at the same time.

Arnie apparently has skates back in Kenora, but the way he's been growing, well, it's just as well they're getting him new ones.

Jeff wears a hat, anyway. And the most boring t-shirt he owns. He really doesn't want to get into anything with anybody if it does turn out that there's somebody there who'd recognize him three years older.

***

Jeff went to their assigned Meet The Teacher evening in place of Mike, but nothing could have prepared him for Arnie's first morning of school.

First, there's the discovery that Arnie really and truly despises mornings when not allowed to wake up on his own schedule. He doesn't have any sort of alarm clock - why doesn't he have an alarm clock? - and isn't moved in the slightest by the sun shining in through his room's two windows. He even sleeps right through his dad leaving for his first day of training camp. When the clock on the microwave is telling Jeff they need to be out the door in ten minutes, it becomes clear that it's gonna be up to him to pry Arnie out of his bed.

He bounds up the stairs, taking them two at a time, comes swinging around the end of the bannister - and marches down the hall into Arnie's room.

Arnie is a peaceful lump beneath his comforter, a tuft of dark curls just visible at the top edge - but the way Jeff figures it, he doesn't have time to work up to things slowly. He grabs Arnie up in a bundle, marches into the bathroom with him, and unrolls him out of his covers in the bathtub, directly beneath the showerhead. Then he turns on the water.

That gets a shriek out of Arnie, followed by a seriously disgruntled expression.

Jeff shuts off the water and tells him, "Time to get ready for school, buckaroo. Go get dressed," then stands there waiting until Arnie has pulled himself up using the side of the tub and clambered out.

He doesn't bother standing over the kid while he gets dressed, just takes the bedding downstairs with him so Arnie definitely can't go back to bed and digs a Pop-Tart out of the cupboard for him to eat while they walk to school. The soggy bowl of cereal goes down the garbage disposal - and after that there's just watching the clock tick down. Finally, with a minute to spare, there's the sound of feet coming thumping down the stairs.

When Arnie enters the kitchen, his hair's still damp, but he's dressed except for his shoes and the plaid bow-tie he's holding - and not just dressed, but so neatly put together that you'd never know he put his clothes on in, like, six minutes.

Sighing, Jeff trades him the Pop-Tart for the bow-tie, and tells him, "Eat. If we make it there with any time to spare, we'll see about the tie," then shoos him toward the front entrance and the shoe and coat racks.

Arnie makes a face at the Pop-Tart, but whatever - it's blueberry, which is almost like a real breakfast, so he can eat it and like it, and Jeff gives no fucks otherwise. If he wants something else for breakfast, well, he can get up in time to have it. Today, all Jeff cares about is not being late his first time dropping Arnie off.

Normally he wouldn't, but this first day, Jeff makes Arnie hold his hand on the walk to school. Arnie trails crumbs down the street on the way, but he keeps moving - and doesn't complain about the Pop-Tart, aside from making more faces at it as he eats it. In a minor moment of miraculousness, they even make it to the school ahead of schedule.

"You know how to find Ms. P's room, right?" Jeff says, as he kneels in front of Arnie, struggling with the fucking bow-tie.

That gets him a nod and an, "Of course," from Arnie - and jeez, where did this kid come from? Mike's kind of a sarcastic asshole, but Jeff doesn't think he's ever seen him do sassy.

A minute later he decides that, fucking finally, he can declare the bowtie defeated - and kneels back and gets out his phone. Maybe Mike won't care, but he remembers his mom taking a picture of him every year on the first day of school, so Jeff'll do it, even if it's just a shitty cameraphone job. Arnie had been fidgeting, but he stills with the camera pointed at him and all things considered the picture comes out okay.

Then he's telling Arnie he'll see him at the end of the day and sending him into the building - and standing on the sidewalk, afterwards, thinking time to go buy the kid an alarm clock, because Jeff is not fucking down with tomorrow being a repeat of today.

***

Mike isn't there when Jeff walks Arnie back from school - which, okay, isn't surprising; Mike just had his first day of training camp and Jeff wouldn't know, but he bets there's a lot of reasons a guy might end up staying late: one of the trainers or team doctors wanting to check him over again; one of the coaches wanting to talk to him about something; some team bonding thing. The point is, there's no reason to not just give Arnie his after-school snack and break out the mini-sticks (in the garden - Jeff's not going to be the cause of any hockey balls ending up places they're not supposed to be) and just not say anything about it. There's no question that Mike'll be home for dinner.

He isn't home for dinner.

So Jeff feeds Arnie Kraft Dinner and chicken tenders and peas, lets him have ice cream for dessert and watch an episode of some cartoon about teddy bears that come to life. When he puts Arnie to bed, he remembers to set the new alarm - and that distracts Arnie from the fact that his dad isn't there. It's not late, only 8:30 - Mike could still be having dinner with teammates, easy - but Jeff still finds himself getting annoyed that he couldn't manage to be here to hear about his kid's first day of school, like Jeff was.

And he's only the one getting paid to care about Arnie.

Whatever, it isn't his job to make sure Mike has a great relationship with his kid. He's just here to make sure Arnie has food and clean clothes and baths - and goes to school and bed and hockey practice. As long as he, personally, isn't hurting the kid, it really isn't any of his business what Mike does or doesn't do.

Even if he thinks he'd do it differently, if he were Arnie's dad.

***

Mike doesn't return before Jeff goes to bed that night - and he's heading out the door again when Jeff comes down the next morning - but life goes on. Mike may be burning the candle at both ends in the name of team bonding, but Jeff has decided to officially Not Care. After all, he's started getting better at mornings with Arnie. And he eventually figured out that there's no winning the night-time battle - Arnie's clearly a night-owl, even at five, and there's nothing to do but put him to bed at a reasonable time and hope he falls asleep eventually. He's even settling into the rhythms of laundry and meals and walks to and from school.

Maybe most surprising, is how much he's getting into reading aloud to Arnie.

It's partially self-defense, for sure - aside from the weekly parent-child activity, the main thing kindergarten requires of kids outside of school is logging a bunch of reading time each month, and in Arnie's case that still means being read to. He's not the kind of kid you can read to sleep - finishing one book just leads to a request to start another, and Jeff has yet to find his limit - so that means afternoon reading marathons, curled up in the chair in Jeff's room. And that Jeff's discovered that doing all the different voices is fun - and also (and he's really not telling anyone this, because what the fuck) that there's something about cuddling a little kid that just leaves him feeling better about life afterwards.

In the middle of all of the adjustment, equipment pick-up night at Rizzo's suddenly looms up out of nowhere.

To put it simply: it's a zoo. When Jeff walks into the combined waiting and change room with Arnie, there're already hordes of parents stuffed into it, waiting with their kids to get handed the equipment they're going to get awfully familiar with over the course of the season, since nobody expects Mites to be able to dress themselves. And Jeff's not a naturally patient kind of guy, okay, but he can wait for his - or Arnie's - name to be called with the best of them; he's certainly done this enough times from the other end. And anyway he's gotta keep an eye on Arnie.

That kid's seemed entirely too interested in exploring the rest of the room ever since they arrived at the rink.

Apparently just thinking that was a bad idea, though, because when Jeff checks afterward, his stomach drops at the discovery that Arnie's actually managed to slip his watch and disappear into the crowd. He scans the room for him, of course, but there's lots of kids in graphic tees, lots of dark-haired kids, lots of kids right about Arnie's height. They're all five or maybe six; there's not that much variation.

The only comfort he's got is that probably Arnie won't decide to leave the rink entirely, so he might as well just keep waiting for their equipment and look for Arnie for real once the crowd has thinned out some.

He distracts himself by paying attention to the guys at the front of the room going over how the program's run, laying down the rules in thick Philly accents. And he does have to pay attention. None of the stuff they're saying is particularly out of the ordinary, but the specific details matter. Though it's only interesting because the pair of guys laying things out have enough personality for five.

Still, time to pass out the equipment can't come soon enough.

Finally, it does - and eventually he even hears them call for the right Richards. Then it's a quick trip across the room, an even quicker signature on the gear sign-out list - and finally a step off to the side. He's not expecting to attract any attention when he starts checking the soundness of the pile of obviously used gear at all the usual points of failure. And yet he's still in the middle of a thorough strap check when someone taps him on the shoulder - and he turns around to discover a guy in a Rizzo's windbreaker standing there.

"You know what you're doing," the guy says.

"Yeah," Jeff agrees, warily.

"Well, we don't usually pick people out of line like this, but there's no such thing as too many sets of hands at a Mites practice."

Jeff laughs because, yeah, that's true, "Two-to-one works out pretty well, in my experience."

"You coached Mites, then?" the guy asks, and Jeff can practically hear the gleam in the his eye sharpening.

"Assistant, but yeah," Jeff says with a shrug.

"Well, kid, how 'bout doing that again here? Name's John," the guy - John - says, sticking out his hand.

Jeff gives it a firm shake and says, "Jeff. And, well, I'll be hanging around in the cold one way or another - might as well do it on skates." His feet - and skating - should be up to that. Of course, that's when Arnie reappears, racing by at the head of a pack of small children, and Jeff has to yell after him to stop.

While Arnie's still making his way over to Jeff, John says, "Good to have you on board - I'll leave you to making sure it all fits," and shakes Jeff's hand again - and then he's vanishing back into the crowd.

And Jeff is left standing there thinking well, seems like hockey's gonna get me back after all; it's just assistant coaching in a house Mites program, but it's not nothing..

***

The first time Mike makes it to dinner after Jeff's arrival is a surprise to everyone. He's there, standing in the kitchen drinking a glass of milk, when Jeff gets back from the store with Arnie, sent home from training camp early - to rest - and having actually listened for a wonder. Jeff's expecting him to wander off and watch TV or something, but instead he sits at the breakfast bar while Jeff peels potatoes and makes Arnie snap the ends off green beans. And doesn't offer to help - the idea doesn't even seem to occur to him. Which, to be fair, it wouldn't have occurred to Jeff, either, before he'd lived alone and had to fend for himself.

It's still annoying - and Jeff pointedly ignores him while he peels the entire bag of potatoes and listens to Arnie talk about what he wants to do for the second week's do-with-an-adult activity, which is supposed to be some kind of art project about...trees, maybe the ones in their neighborhood in particular?

Jeff doesn't claim to understand what Arnie's school thinks it's doing, really, though if it actually is the trees in their neighborhood specifically, then maybe there's some sort of ongoing learning about the place where you live theme? Whatever. All Jeff needs to worry about is taking a walk with Arnie to collect leaves, and maybe helping him glue them to something? Jeff's not a crafts type person, but he guesses he can handle making sure Arnie doesn't glue anything to himself - Arnie's got enough ideas and enthusiasm for both of them.

When he sneaks the occasional look at Mike, Mike's got his phone out, texting, every time.

But he sticks around while Jeff boils the potatoes and mashes them, steams the green beans in the microwave. Which means he's there to try out Jeff's first attempt at meatloaf and mashed potatoes. He's working from his mom's recipe, which makes two loaves - and while he'd been thinking that would mean a second dinner, plus meatloaf sandwiches, now he's glad that that means an entire loaf for Mike to devour.

He can't imagine Mike eats less than Jeff had at sixteen.

Usually, when it's just Jeff and Arnie, they sit at the breakfast bar to eat, but three people makes the table worth it, so Jeff sets Arnie to setting out plates and glasses and silverware - and feels like his mom, a bit. More than usual, anyway. This leads to him digging out a platter and a couple of bowls from the cupboards Mike's mom stocked, like somehow Mike being there for dinner means Jeff needs to pretend he doesn't just serve things straight from the pot usually.

Like Mike'll even care - or notice.

When Jeff gets the last of the food on the table and announces that dinner is ready, Mike looks up from his phone long enough to say, "Cool," then finishes tapping out a message. And then he goes to the fridge to get himself a beer and ask, "Want one?"

Jeff shrugs and says, "Sure," then returns to getting Arnie set at the table; he's still short enough that Jeff had to find something for him to sit on in order for him to be level with it.

He's just got Arnie seated when Mike ambles over and says, "Hey, this looks good," like it's maybe a surprise that Jeff successfully made, like, a full meal, like maybe he thinks Jeff has been spending the grocery money on Pop-Tarts and takeout.

To be fair, Jeff does feed Arnie a fair amount of Kraft Dinner and he's still a bit surprised that the meatloaf came out looking as good as it did, but his mom explained the recipe in extra small words for him, so he figures he had less room to mess it up too badly. Though it still might not taste great; he hasn't had any way to test for that. He still can't let Mike's chirping pass unchallenged, though, so he says, "It's my mom's meatloaf - so, duh."

Mike says, "Okay, okay - can we eat now?" and then they're dishing out the food and settling in to eat.

Arnie wants his mashed potatoes on top of his meatloaf, because apparently Mike's mom makes hers with a mashed potato crust - which Jeff thinks is a little weird, but whatever, it's not a hardship to put meatloaf on his plate first and then dump a scoop of potato on top of it, with a spoonful of beans on the side. And Jeff almost expects Mike to want the same, but he just cuts himself half of one of the loaves and nearly fills the rest of his plate with potato, his spoonful of beans looking more like an afterthought. Jeff goes for a more balanced approach - half meatloaf, and then a quarter each of poatoes and green beans; he'd bet that he doesn't like vegetables any more than Mike does, but after the time he nearly got scurvy, he's made a point of eating more, whether he likes them or not.

Arnie's either well-trained or a genuine fan - Jeff's found that he eats most of the common ones without any fuss.

It's mostly quiet at the table as they settle in to work their way through the contents of their plates, even Arnie gone quiet in favor of meatloaf and mash. Mike eats like a machine, in that way that hockey players tend to, steadily stuffing as many calories into himself as possible; his meatloaf vanishes, then the potatoes - and finally the beans. But after he's refilled his plate with the other half of the loaf, another mound of potatoes, and a few more beans, Mike pauses.

"Fu...dging Picard," he says, barely swerving away from 'fucking', then continues, "never watches where he's going; he's gonna get sent down next, I bet - and he'll deserve it," with a kind of grim satisfaction at the idea that makes it clear that the guy had something to do with why Mike was home early and showing no signs of disappearing for an evening out.

"He doesn't skate with his head up?" Arnie asks, sounding scandalized - only one weekend of practices in, and he considers that the height of hockey wisdom.

Jeff finds himself sharing a look with Mike over Arnie's head as they both try not to laugh, but it's Mike who tells him, "Not as much as he should, buddy. He's too busy looking at the puck."

"But Coach John says we're all gonna have to learn to stick-handle without looking - didn't he do Mites?" is Arnie's next question, like the only way he can conceive of a professional hockey player not being able to do this basic thing is if they missed being taught it.

It's getting harder and harder not to laugh, but Jeff manages to hold it together enough to say, "He probably did."

Mike adds, "He just thinks he doesn't have to," and just from the way he says it, Jeff can hear his grudge hardening.

He cuts in to ask, "Are you supposed to be icing or anything?"

"When i go upstairs," Mike says, making a face, "and I can look after myself - I haven't needed someone to put my bandaids on for me in a loooong time."

***

Jeff puts his foot down about taking Arnie to watch the Flyers home opener in person. There will be other games, weekend games, where it won't matter if they keep Arnie out stupidly late, but this time it's a weeknight - and Arnie's hard enough to get up in the morning without encouraging his night owlishness. So watching it sitting on the couch in Jeff's front room, it is.

Arnie puts on his pajamas and brushes his teeth beforehand, and curls up excitedly on the couch next to Jeff -and when his dad opens the second by scoring he shrieks and flails and comes shooting out of his seat, directly at Jeff.

The deal is that he goes to bed during the second intermission, even if he's not sleepy. When the second ticks down its final seconds and Jeff calls time, Arnie protests a bit, but let's Jeff carry him down the hall to his room, slide him carefully into the bottom bunk and tuck him in anyway. He got to watch his dad score his first NHL goal, so Jeff figures he saw the important part.

But Arnie still makes him promise to tell him all about it in the morning, before he's allowed to return to watch to the bitter end, as Jagr and the Rangers come back to extinguish the Flyers' hopes.

He's not even a little bit surprised when Mike comes home swearing vengeance on them. If there's one thing Jeff has learned about the guy in the short time he's known him - that isn't about his relationship with his kid - it's that he's quick to decide he likes you, and equally quick to form a grudge. It woulda been a lot more surprising if he had let the results of this first game just roll off his back.

Jeff's sitting at the breakfast bar when he gets in, slowly drinking the single beer he's willing to allow himself while he's alone with Arnie - and which he figures he deserves after surviving the evening.

Mike doesn't say hi or anything, just goes directly for the refrigerator and grabs a pair of beers for himself - plus a bag of pretzels from the stash on top of it, which Jeff guesses answers the question of whether he went out with his guys after the game - then sits down on the stool next to Jeff's. He drinks his way silently through the first beer and a good chunk of the pretzels - and it's not an awkward silence, Mike's radiating annoyance too obviously for that, but it unexpectedly leaves Jeff wanting to do something about it, anyway. He may not like everything he knows about Mike, but he certainly knows from the post-loss blues.

So he says, keeping it light, "I might have to start wearing a helmet when I watch games with your kid."

It gets Mike looking up from his bottle like it's supposed to - and asking, "Why's that?" like he maybe has a guess at the answer, but he's willing to listen to Jeff's explanation, anyway. No smile, yet, but even neutral's an improvement on the look he came in sporting.

Jeff awards himself points for that and says, "Because he celebrates like you do - just throws himself at whoever's nearest."

Mike quirks a half-smile at that and nods, says, "And he's pointier than me - I know," and then, after a moment of contemplative silence, "But what better way to learn than by example," like he can't conceive of there being a better example than himself. And, okay, Jeff might want to argue with him on that point, particularly on the subject of spending time with your kid, but the time for that sure as fuck isn't now.

Stroking Mike's ego isn't exactly high on his list of priorities right now, either, but the guy did just score his first NHL goal in his first NHL game - and that would deserve some acknowledgement no matter who was doing it, so Jeff says, grudgingly, "It was a pretty nice goal."

And that gets Mike smiling full-on, and saying, "Fuck the Rags - we'll get 'em next time. Hell, I'll score a hattie if that's what it takes." Jeff can practically hear him thinking about practicing extra - and studying game tape, doing whatever it takes to learn how to solve Lundqvist more than once a game.

Fuck, the guy's sitting in his own kitchen and he's practically back at the rink - and Jeff's probably just guaranteed that they'll see even less of him than they did already; he hadn't really thought that was possible.

***

The day Jeff comes downstairs and finds Arnie's vanished from the man-eating plaid couch, well, the first thing he does is check the entire house from top to bottom. He didn't think they were playing hide-and-seek, but there's lots of little out of the way corners a five year old could end up in without really intending to hide. Arnie's not in any of them, though.

When further searching doesn't turn him up anywhere in the courtyard or out in the carport, well, there's nothing for it but to take to the streets, as far as Jeff is concerned.

Outside, Arnie isn't sitting on the stoop with a book, or racing along the sidewalk beyond it. Or anywhere in sight of the house, even. Then it occurs to Jeff that there's a corner store a block up from their street, and Arnie might have decided he wanted to to get himself a treat - and that he was a big boy who didn't need Jeff to walk him there, even though he's not actually allowed to go places all by himself.

But walking to the store doesn't get him any new information, either - he's not hiding behind a tree or a mailbox on the way there - and they haven't seen Arnie there since the last time he stopped in with Jeff.

It's like Arnie's disappeared into thin air. And, okay, he's pretty good at that, at vanishing while Jeff's back is turned, but he's still only five; he shouldn't have been able to get that far from the house, not under his own power… And that's when it hits Jeff: of course he's not under his own power. He probably took a token from the household supply and got on a bus. And now he's probably heading north towards the rest of the Philly transit system.

Jeff's sprinting back towards the house before he's even finished thinking this, grabbing the car keys and getting the car out, off to intercept Arnie at their Market-Broad Street line station - because he bets that even if Arnie remembered a token, he probably didn't remember money for a transfer.

One frantic drive up #th Street - and a frustrating search for parking - later, Jeff descends the stairs into the station on the side they usually enter, and spots his truant kid, sitting by the station master's kiosk, looking sad. When he opens his mouth and he finds himself saying, "Don't you ever do that again, do you hear me, Arnold? You had me so worried," it's like watching a portrait of his own dad striding across the tiled station floor.

Arnie just says, "But I was gonna go to the museum - an' I know how to do that!"

And Jeff can practically hear him thinking it, that he coulda made it there and back before anybody missed him, easy. But all he does is shake his head and say, "Clearly not well enough, you don't. And you definitely don't get to go now," and make Arnie hold his hand on the way out to the car.

It leaves Arnie mutinous, but Jeff doesn't really care, since he's not about to reward that kind of behavior.

He doesn't think anything of it, beyond that he'd better start keeping the bus tokens out of Arnie's reach - Arnie's a pretty independent five year old, after all. And his love of public transit hasn't waned with exposure. If anything, he's become even more attached to it, insisting on taking it whenever possible.

Frequently even when driving would be far more convenient.

Declarations that his Gramma didn't do it that way don't faze Jeff particularly, either - the further into the school year they get, the more likely they are to run up against something Jeff does differently to how Arnie's used to. He's willing to go with some of it, even - drizzling a smiley face in maple syrup on Arnie's oatmeal on days he's on time for breakfast is easy enough - and has no problem telling Arnie things are just going to be different when he isn't. He's not trying to win any homemaker of the year awards, here.

But when Arnie starts protesting that he doesn't want to go to school; can't he please stay home and spend the day with Jeff?, when Jeff tries to leave him at school in the mornings like usual, Jeff's first thought is to wonder what's changed at school. Up to this point, Arnie's showed every sign of liking it a lot more than Jeff remembers ever doing, himself. So, he tries asking, first.

Arnie, unusually, clams up and just keeps repeating that he doesn't want to go.

Jeff makes him, anyway - and he doesn't seem any worse for it when he comes home every day, so Jeff doesn't think he's making it worse, anyway, whatever it is. He still arranges to see Arnie's teacher, Ms. P, though. It certainly can't hurt to get a professional opinion on the matter.

When he asks, though, she just shakes her head and says, "Arnie's a delight to have in class. And he's doing just fine - whatever it is that's bothering him, I doubt it's about school."

And that leaves Jeff at a loss - if not wanting to go to school isn't about school, well, he certainly doesn't know what it is about. That's the kind of child-related riddle he has no experience in solving, and no idea where to start with. Which would be why he decides to call in the cavalry.

When he's gotten Shannon on the phone and explained the situation, he concludes his summary of events by saying, "I thought you were going to realize, at some point - any point at all - during the screening process that I knew fucking nothing about kids and not. Let. Me. Do. It."

"You know enough to know you need advice," is not what he was expecting her to say to that. At all. But she sounds like she means it - and like she's used to fielding phone-calls from nannies up against the unexpected and incomprehensible.

Jeff still can't help but say, "Yeah, well, it's common sense to think, when a kid suddenly starts not wanting to be dropped off at school, and you check, and there's nothing wrong with school - school's fine - that maybe there's something weird going on."

Shannon says, tone even,"Plenty of people would write that off as the kid just wanting to skip."

And that makes Jeff laugh, because, as he tells her,"Nah - you want to skip, you don't even let 'em get you out of the house. Or out of bed. At school's way too late." He knows this, anyway - he didn't do it too often, since no school meant no hockey in his mom's book. But he does know how to do it right.

And he can't see her, but Jeff thinks he might've actually gotten a smile out of her at that - she sounds a bit like she's smiling, anyway, when she says, "Well, I can't tell you what specifically it is in Arnold's case - Mr. Richards only sketched out the essentials of his background for us - but it's not uncommon for children his age to experience separation anxiety over going to school. And that he's suffering from it now rather than immediately at the start of the school year suggests to me that he has become attached to you enough to worry that you might go away," and then, after a thoughtful sort of pause, adds, "Still, the combination of behaviors Arnold is exhibiting makes me think that talking to Mr. Richards might prove useful."

Jeff's not sure that'll be true - for all that it's clear that Mike does love his kid, Jeff's not sure that he knows particularly much about him - but he thanks Shannon for putting up with him and gets ready to make the attempt.

***

He's still up, watching guys who aren't the Flyers play hockey, when Mike gets in that night. Jeff's sitting on the couch in his room, with the volume on low, because Arnie. He doesn't get up in the night very often, but when he does, it's best for everybody if Jeff is somewhere nearby. Which, Jeff doesn't remember that part of being a kid - and he doesn't want to ask his mom - but it's one of the many things he's given up on questioning at this point.

It's just not worth it.

When he hears the door open and shut downstairs, the pause afterwards is expected - Mike's taking off his shoes and hanging up his coat, maybe double-checking he locked the door behind himself or stopping to get a glass of water from the kitchen - and so is Mike coming thumping up the stairs a bit later. He's betting with himself over whether Mike will see his light on and decide to say goodnight or not, when the footsteps pause outside his doorway. Jeff figures it's only polite to turn around - it's only a commercial break, anyway, and not even a good one - plus, he does have a plan to carry out.

"You suck," is not the greeting he was expecting from Mike, but it is very Mike all the same.

Jeff fights down the urge to say 'only if you ask nicely', because that's not how this whole employer-employee thing works. He sticks with, "Okay. Why?"

Mike grumbles some more, but eventually admits, "You fucking cock-blocked me and you weren't even there."

"...how?" because Jeff can't see it, not without a little effort on Mike's part.

There's a little bit of stalling to wait out, but Mike eventually admits, "The girl I was talking to thought you were my boyfriend."

And, really, what can Jeff say to that, except, "Which means you brought me up in the first place. I think that counts as cock-blocking yourself, dude."

"I just said how nice it was to get to go out and let loose - and how it was good you were around to look after Arnie. She didn't stick around for me to explain you were the nanny," and Mike sounds disgusted about that.

Jeff cracks up - that's just so fucking classic; only Mike would manage to sink his own chances by admitting to being a...semi-responsible dad.

Mike growls, "It's not funny."

"It kinda is," is just about all Jeff can get out between gulping air trying to stop laughing. And, fuck, it is. Mike'll see it, eventually, even if he can't now. Probably. Once he stops acting like a cat who fell in water.

But right now is clearly not the time to bring up his kid's issues and the causes thereof - not that Jeff minds too much; he's kinda looking forward to telling Mike when he wanders down to the kitchen in the morning.

***

It goes over about as well as Jeff thought it would - Mike says, "Oh, fuck you," like he doesn't get chirped far worse on a daily basis and glares at Jeff over his second mug of coffee.

And Jeff has to say, "No, really, I need to talk to you about something - about Arnie." Because apparently he hasn't lost his touch for selling a chirp.

Mike clearly wasn't expecting that; he says, "Yeah?" all wary, like people wanting to talk to him about Arnie usually means bad things. And, well, that tells Jeff a lot right there.

He forges right ahead, though, explaining what's been going on with Mike's kid to Mike - and concluding with his phone call to Shannon and her advice.

There's a long pause then, while Mike...thinks, Jeff guesses, or maybe figures out how to say what he's thinking, but eventually he says, "I figure you've already done the math, so you know that I was fifteen when Arnie was born. His mom was sixteen, and I still don't understand why she kept him. I mean, he's a great kid, but her parents didn't want her to. She told me that when she told me about him. But she did - and they were willing to help her with him if it meant she stayed in school and went to university. Until she went to university."

He's laying out the basic facts of it like saying it all is taking effort - he clearly doesn't ever talk about it - and he's wrong that Jeff had done the math on it, not that Jeff's gonna say that.

Not that it matters, since Mike just continues, "We were just a summer fling - a stupid summer romance, even, maybe, - and I didn't think anything when she didn't come back to Kenora the next couple summers. Then she showed up with Arnie and told us that we had to take him. I was playing in the O already, with the Rangers - and, okay, you probably know this, but there's fuckall in the O close to Kenora - hell, if the Dub would've taken me, I coulda been closer to home than I could get in the O. But my parents insisted - I might not be able to see him much, but they were gonna get me as close as possible - and that was that, I ended up with a trade to the Soo. Arnie was two, then - and he lived in Kenora the past three years, with my mom and dad taking care of him."

Jeff has no clue whether he should think Arnie would really remember living anywhere but Philly or Kenora - he doesn't remember if he remembered anything about being two when he was five - but even if he doesn't really, Jeff bets it's there in the background, and that it feels like a lot bigger thing than moving twice in three years does when you get older.

"He's here with me, now, because, well, my mom says that if I'm old enough to play pro, I can figure out how to take care of my kid, too. And that's where you come in," Mike says, and then stops to think for a minute before adding, "I don't really have any idea why he wouldn't want to go to school besides it being school, though."

But Jeff apparently does know, now, as he tells Mike, "He likes it here better than Kenora." Even though you're never around, he doesn't add. That isn't going to matter much, one way or another, when it comes to how he's going to convince Arnie he's staying, after all.

Even though Mike looks hopeful as he says, "That's good, right?"

And Jeff nods, because getting into it more than that is not something either of them has time for right now.

***

Figuring out how to convince Arnie he's not going anywhere turns out to be even harder than Jeff had expected. He doesn't remember worrying about that kind of thing when he was a kid, or what his parents did when he was worried about school or hockey. Plus, he's got no reason to doubt that he and Arnie are in Philly to stay, at least until the end of the school year. His contract says so - and as long as he has Jeff, Mike has no reason to send Arnie anywhere.

It's not like he has to do much of anything but play hockey and keep the paychecks coming.

That's all reason, though - and as far as Jeff knows, there isn't any reason for what Arnie's worried about except 'it happened before, so it could happen again'. And Arnie's got a mind of his own, so just telling him 'it's not gonna happen' probably won't be enough to counter that. Jeff's still gonna have to make him talk about it eventually, though, because he doesn't think either of them is actually enjoying the way things are working right now.

He just wishes he had a plan for what he was going to do after.

He puts worrying about it aside to cook turkey legs and mashed potatoes and gravy for three on American Thanksgiving - then ends up serving for two when Mike vanishes to watch sports at some guy named Sharpy's apartment. He and Arnie eat on the couch in Jeff's room, watching movies all afternoon, and Arnie only says something about how his grandma does things once. It's pretty okay, even if Mike is a dick for ditching them in favor of yet more bonding with his teammates.

Of course, Arnie goes right back to resisting going to school the following week, but it's a bit tempered because it's almost December and there's apparently some kind of holiday show coming up that Arnie's excited about being in - even if he seems to think letting Jeff know he's excited would be bad luck.

It's pretty sad, if Jeff's being honest. Like, he was never into things like school concerts when he was a kid, but if Arnie is, well, Jeff wants him to feel like he can be openly excited about that. Unfortunately, he still doesn't have any idea how to get it through to the kid that nobody's sending him anywhere any time soon.

Or at least he doesn't until the following week, when he's once again futzing about in the kitchen after Arnie's gone to bed - and Mike comes home and drops onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar.

He's looking pretty rough, like he went out and partied a little harder than he usually does the night before a game, but it wasn't a party. He sounds rough, too, when he says,"Beer?" and then tacks on a, "Please," dredged up by habit or instinct.

Jeff considers cutting him off, but Mike doesn't actually seem drunk, just a bit worse for wear - and stinking like he brought the bar home with him - so he grabs a pair of bottles out of the fridge and pops their caps off, puts one down in front of Mike and takes a pull from his, waits for Mike to work up to whatever it is he wants another beer for or drink it and wander off to bed.

Mike drinks enough that Jeff's thinking it's going to be option number two, but then he just out and says, most of the way through the bottle, "Trades fucking suck," and then, after another swig, "Gotta lock that shit down when I can - I'm getting to like it here."

And Jeff still doesn't even know whose trade Mike's drinking in honor of - though if he had to guess, he'd go with that guy, Sharp, Mike spent Thanksgiving with - but it doesn't actually matter, because he's just given Jeff an idea, one that might solve the Arnie problem, so he doesn't ask, doesn't say anything but, "Yeah," and cheerses his bottle in Mike's direction.

Mike doesn't seem to want to say anything else - and of course he doesn't ask about Arnie; when does he ever - but Jeff's okay with standing there in silence, drinking his beer and watching Mike finish his, then throw out his bottle and head up to his room. He stands there in the middle of the kitchen, after, nursing the end of his bottle and trying to figure out what he's gonna need to make his idea work. Probably he can't get access to Mike's contract, but working from his own should be good enough, right?

Well, it'd better be - it's more than time to get this shit sorted out.

***

When he drops Arnie off at school the next day, and Arnie starts protesting that he doesn't want to go, Jeff cuts him off, says, "Just go, okay? I've got a surprise for you, for after - but you only get it if you go," and amazingly it works to get Arnie nodding and heading inside.

He puts just about everything else aside for the day so he can concentrate on reading over his contract and figuring out what the one he's writing for Arnie has to say. It's harder than he was thinking it would be - even after multiple readings, the legal language is a mouthful - but it's also kinda fun, like fitting together the parts of a play. But eventually, after a lot of deleting and rewriting, he has a page of official-sounding language that says, among other things, that Arnie's not going anywhere unless he says he wants to.

Then it's time to take a shower and put on dress clothes for the first time since August - and even layer on the nice wool coat he'd ordered for himself when he bought Arnie's.

Jeff heard Mike come in for his pregame nap while he was in the shower - and he's gone before Mike wakes up again, off to get the contract printed out on official-looking paper and buy a fancy pen and a leather folder; he's gotta do this right if he wants Arnie to really buy in. He made the reservation first thing after getting home that morning. Now all he has to do is pick up Arnie and whisk him away for an afternoon of showing him how important he is.

The first thing Arnie asks when he walks out of school and sees how Jeff is dressed is, "Where are we going?"

All Jeff says is, "You'll see when we get there. Surprise, remember?" before whisking Arnie off in a cab.

They get dropped off outside the kind of restaurant where important men make deals in the backs of deep booths - and the desserts are amazing. The cab ride got Arnie into the spirit of things, and he steps onto the sidewalk looking excited to find out what they're going to do next. When they get inside and have their coats taken by a guy in a three piece suit, and then get whisked off to a reserved table, offered menus, and left to make up their minds in private, well, Jeff can't help but feel pleased at the reaction he's getting.

Across the table from him, Arnie's looking wide-eyed as he stares at the menu in front of him, flicks his eyes up at Jeff, then drops them to the menu again, like he can't quite decide where the answers are.

Jeff tells him, "Decide what you want to drink - and then I was figuring we could get dessert, unless you want something else…"

And that's apparently all the instruction Arnie needs to get his menu open on the table and start trying to figure out what it says. A little while after that, their waiter goes to fetch a ginger ale for Arnie and a pint of beer for Jeff. While they're waiting for him to come back, he tries to get Arnie to tell him a little about his day - and doesn't that just about say it all: Arnie never used to need prodding to talk about school.

He waits until their drinks get there to actually bring up the point of the surprise, though, for fortification - and to ease Arnie into it; but when he's had a couple swallows of his beer, he slides his leather folder onto the table and says, "Okay, I'm not any good at this, but even I managed to figure out you were...concerned about something." The 'concerned' is on purpose - The Princess Bride was one of the things they watched on TV on Thanksgiving.

Arnie's starting to look worried, like he's not sure he's gonna like where this is going, so Jeff hurries to add, "I think I've got a pretty good guess as to what that is - and if I'm right, I also brought something with me that I think will help. So, uh, am I right that you've been worrying that your dad's gonna send you back to live with your grandparents?"

Jeff doesn't get an answer right away, but the look on Arnie's face right after Jeff asks says it all - Jeff's got it in one, all thanks to Shannon - so he doesn't make Arnie actually say it, just asks, "So, you know how your dad signed something that said he'd play hockey for the Flyers? And they'd pay him to do it? That's called a contract. I signed one with your dad when I came here to take care of you." Not that Mike's been great about honoring all of it, but Jeff's turned that into a badge of honor. He and Arnie do just fine all on their own.

He'll take a day off when Arnie can stay home by himself.

There's more to explain to Arnie, anyway, since Jeff seems to have gotten his interest. "So, what I figured was that it might help if we signed a contract, too, giving you a No Movement Clause - your dad doesn't even have one of those - so you'd only go back to live with your grandparents during the school year if you decided you wanted to. Though we'd all still have to move if the Flyers traded him to a different city."

"You promise?" and, fuck, the look on Arnie's face - Jeff's mad he didn't come up with this sooner.

All he can do now is say, as serious as possible, "Yeah, kiddo - that's what a contract means: that the people signing it promise to do whatever it says they're supposed to."

"So what do I hafta promise?" Arnie asks, clearly still looking for the catch.

And that's the easy part, explaining to Arnie about how he just has to keep going to school, and telling Jeff when he's sad or sick, and not trying to run off on his own. It's all stuff he's supposed to do anyway, nothing hard or extra, just the rules of his life laid out in black ink, with a place at the bottom for each of them to sign. And once Jeff has brought out his fancy new pen and helped Arnie print his name, then signed his own on the next line over, well, then it's time to celebrate with the dessert Jeff promised.

When their waiter has walked off with an order for one chocolate mousse and one mixed berry tarte a la mode, Jeff raises his glass and clinks it against Arnie's, toasting to Arnie getting his first contract.

***

The Arnie who heads into school the next day is a changed kid - waving goodbye to Jeff and taking off for Ms. P's room, just like he had at the beginning of the year. When Jeff picks him up afterwards, Arnie hands him a sheet of paper, what turns out to be a printed announcement about the holiday show. And for the first time in weeks he looks excited to be excited about it.

When Arnie turned out to not only not object to having to take music class, but to genuinely enjoy it, Jeff shrugged and didn't bother thinking about it any further. He liked music just fine, but he remembered suffering through that kind of thing in grade school, doing the absolute minimum amount of mouthing along required to not get in trouble with the school music teacher. Catching Arnie humming bits of unfamiliar songs, well, that sure never would've happened to Jeff, but it seemed to make Arnie happy, so...that was that.

He hadn't thought any more about it, that is, until Arnie had mentioned the holiday show - and he hadn't cared until Arnie handed him the announcement with the concert dates and Jeff compared it to Mike's game schedule and discovered that Mike would be in Columbus the day of the show.

Jeff had no idea if Arnie had ever been in any kind of school show before - if he had, he hadn't bothered to mention it - but even if he had, his dad had definitely never been there for them; Junior hockey season aligned pretty neatly with the school year. So, like, prior to this year, he obviously wouldn't have expected much of anything from Mike as far as being at things. But now that they're living together...fuck.

Jeff keeps that last thought to himself and sticks to asking Arnie, "Is there anything else we need to do to get you ready?"

"Ms. P. said we all had to bring cookies. Doesn't it say that on the note?"

And, yes - yes, it does. Two dozen cookies for after the show. He could get store-bought, but he's heard about the stuff moms send in for class birthday parties. It's gotta be home-made. And here Jeff is with no idea how to bake pretty much anything that didn't come out of the freezer section.

"Yeah. Well, guess you and me are gonna learn how to make 'em." It'll be a good distraction while he figures out how to deal with the Mike situation, anyway.

***

Jeff is covered in five different colors of frosting. There is flour on his jeans, sugar crusted over the frosting - and something unidentifiable gumming up his nails. And yet Arnie has somehow come through without getting anything on anything except his apron or his hands. It's a miracle that Jeff figures must somehow be related to his ability to come home from school as neatly dressed as he was when he left the house in the morning.

Not all the cookies have been so lucky.

There's an entire tray of burnt ones because Jeff actually believed the recipe and didn't check them early the first time. Next to it is a mound of cookie pieces from the tray Arnie sent crashing off the counter and an assortment of other minor accidents. Jeff has plans involving cookie sundaes once they finish with the baking.

Right now, the plan is to keep frosting until they have two dozen cookies fit for public consumption.

***

In the end, he just doesn't tell Mike.

Partly, that's because Mike is barely around between when Jeff gets the announcement and the day of the concert - he has two games, and practice on all the days he doesn't have a game, and he hasn't started going out with the guys any less as the season goes on, even if Sharp has been shipped off to somewhere else. And partly, or so he tells himself, it's because he doesn't want to distract Mike. But mostly it's because he doesn't see any point; even if Mike were going to be in town, he'd probably be off doing something else, and Jeff would still be left going by himself.

So he might as well save his breath for things actually worth saying, save his energy for dressing up for Arnie and making sure he gets video of all the things Arnie is part of.

On the day of the show, he drops Arnie off in the morning, same as usual, then goes home and does his normal school day things, working out and catching up on laundry and checking that they have all the ingredients for dinner (god, who knew he'd be thinking about that kind of thing on the regular when he signed on for this gig?). When it gets closer to lunchtime, he makes sure the cookies are on a real plate and covered in tinfoil - and changes into nicer clothes - and eats a sandwich.

And then it's showtime.

The actual show is fancier than anything Jeff was ever a part of when he was Arnie's age, not that Jeff really cares. He's pretty much there to see Arnie sing and tell him he did good afterwards. And one bunch of little kids singing sounds pretty much like any other bunch as far as he's concerned. Probably the only upsides are that they don't sing anything Jeff actively hates - and that Arnie looks super fucking happy up there on stage, singing his heart out.

And he'd kind of been thinking it already, but by the time Arnie's class files offstage, Jeff is thinking fiercely, Mike had better not get himself traded - Arnie's too happy here, which is probably a dumb thing for him to be thinking, but he's not sure he can stop; he's gotten himself in too deep.

When Arnie comes flying at his legs, afterwards, yelling, "Jeff!" like Jeff hadn't just dropped him off at school that morning, well, all he can do is hug Arnie back. There isn't anyone else there to do it, and… he wants to, fuck his life.

He's just gonna ignore everybody saying things like, "You're doing such a good job with him."

***

Mike only tells him his parents are coming for Christmas a week ahead of time, which, Jeff has long since figured out, is pretty much standard Mike, when he remembers to tell Jeff things at all. Not that he actually minds this time, since Mike's mom and dad showing up probably means he won't have to figure out an entire Christmas dinner all by himself. Thanksgiving was okay, but Jeff's still no great shakes as a cook and asking Arnie what he wanted had just resulted in a 'just like gramma made it'.

Well, now he can have exactly that.

When the Richardses get in from Kenora, Mike's off in Pittsburgh with the team - maybe having morning skate, but Jeff doesn't actually know - and so Jeff gets put on airport duty. He follows Arnie's lead and makes a sign - though his is just Sharpie and posterboard - but sticks to standing by the car in the pick-up lane with it. And he doesn't have long to wait - about fifteen minutes after their flight is supposed to have landed, the Richardses appear.

Not that Jeff knows it's them right away - Mike didn't actually think to show him a picture or anything - but they see his sign and head towards it, and then Jeff can see it, that Mike's dad is a taller, heavier, greyer version of him and he got his height and his smile from his mom.

"You must be Jeff - I'm Irene, and this is Norm," she says, and then goes in for a mom hug, before passing him off to shake Mike's dad's - Norm's - hand.

"It's not very often you see a boy nannying - or even baby-sitting - but I'm not surprised at all that Mike chose a good Canadian boy to look after Arnie. Can't have him forgetting where he came from, can we?"

And Jeff is probably not actually as good a Canadian boy as she's imagining, but he's happy to agree that, no, it wouldn't do for Arnie to forget his Canadian roots. And usher them into the car. And drive them back to the house, where they're taking over the basement for the week and a half they're staying. It all feels like passing some sort of test he hadn't known he was taking.

He wasn't expecting to feel at loose ends while the Richardses were there, but, well, it turns out that Arnie was taking up pretty much all of his life, and while Jeff gets to keep a few pieces of that routine (mostly involving hockey practice), the Richardses slide in and take over pretty much everything else, and it leaves Jeff not entirely sure of what he's supposed to do.

He tries going out to a bar, that first night, and it's okay, but he ends the evening feeling like he would've had a better time doing something else. The hockey on the TV is fine, but normal adult sports fans seem weird after getting used to watching with a five year old. And picking up just seems like it would be awkward, since there's no way he'd feel right taking someone back to the house while Mike's parents are there and Arnie's just down the hall.

At least there's plenty of last minute shopping to occupy himself with the next day, running errands for Irene and finding exactly the right thing to give Mike; the question of what you're supposed to get your employer when you're celebrating with his family has proved surprisingly difficult to answer.

And then, somehow it's Christmas Eve and Jeff finds himself being hustled off to a carol service at a neighborhood church, standing there next to Mike in the sweater Mike gave him to wear to the Flyers holiday party, listening to people sing all the songs he remembers from his childhood. That flashes forward to Arnie hanging a clearly homemade stocking by the fireplace in the living room - and setting out the last of their clumsily iced cookies - before being put to bed by his grandparents. There's the part you never see as a child, where the four adults sneak about the house extracting presents from all sorts of hiding places and piling them under the tree. And then, suddenly, it's morning.

He's as surprised as anyone when Arnie chooses him for the honor of being woken first, sneaking into Jeff's room to throw himself onto the bed, just after dawn, and yell 'Merry Christmas' with all the volume his little lungs can muster, but less surprised by being able to convince Arnie to lay there quietly, waiting for the rest of the house to wake up; the kid may be excited, but he's still not a morning person.

When the smell of frying bacon drifts up the stairs, he gives in, gets up and puts on a hoodie and his slippers - makes Arnie put on his slippers and robe, as well - and heads down. Both of Mike's parents are in the kitchen - Norm's mixing a bowl of something while Irene tends the full griddle of bacon - and Jeff manages a mumbled 'Merry Christmas' on his way to the partially full coffee maker. Behind him, Arnie chatters excitedly to his gramma about waffles for breakfast and what Santa might have brought him. It's nothing and everything like Christmas with his own parents.

They have the promised waffles when Mike finally makes it downstairs - follow that up with an orgy of present-opening - and once Arnie is settled underneath the tree, playing with his new toys, they start the cooking marathon that making Christmas dinner entails.

After that, Jeff's not expecting any problems out of sitting down to eat all the food they've prepared. Maybe he should be - that's when the family always starts arguing in Christmas movies - but Mike and his parents mostly seem to get along and Jeff certainly isn't about to start anything, so he's just. Not. And there aren't at first - they spoon up bowls of what's apparently a traditional Richards family Christmas soup, pass the ham and potatoes and green beans, go back for seconds, all with the silent contentment of people enjoying a really good meal. Arnie pipes up occasionally, but conversation doesn't really kick in until they're all down to the chasing a stray greenbean or two around their plates stage.

And even that doesn't seem like it'll be a problem until Irene up and says, "Who would have thought a son of yours would be such a singer? He was telling us all about his school's holiday concert the other day and, really, it's just too bad your schedule didn't let you go."

Mike manages to say, "Definitely a surprise," and, "yeah, I would've liked to be there, but when hockey calls…," and not sound too off, but Jeff can tell he's feeling wrong-footed, and he can't imagine that Mike's parents can't see that, too.

Which, well, fuck.

***

Jeff's in the kitchen, scavenging a piece of midnight pie - he doesn't have to be on Arnie watch in the morning, since the grandparents are here - when Mike wanders in. The look on his face promises nothing good will come of them remaining in the same place, right now, but Jeff has no fucks left to give. If Mike want to pick a fight, Jeff'll pick one right back - and then eat an even larger slice of no fucks given pie.

He bets it'll taste even better that way.

Mike doesn't disappoint - he settles on one of the stools at the breakfast bar and dives right in, saying sarcastically, "Thanks for making me look like an idiot in front of my parents earlier - you're supposed to tell me that kind of shit. Hell, I'm pretty sure it's in your contract, even."

And Jeff's pretty sure it isn't, actually - holiday shows your kid's in don't fall under vital information, no matter how much the kid in question cares about them - but he's not gonna argue about that. No, there's more important shit to set Mike straight about, like, "First off, I kinda doubt that you being bad at this is a surprise to your parents. And, secondly, whatever, you weren't going to be there; there was no way you could be there. You flew out to Columbis the day before. Hell, you were probably eating lunch - or maybe taking your pre-game nap - when he was onstage. What difference did you not knowing make?"

"None, okay? Not one tiny little bit. But I still would've wanted to know," Mike says, or, well, shout-whispers, sounding fucking petulant.

That gets Jeff hissing back, "Would you have? Would you really? How was I supposed to know that? You're barely ever around...and when you are, you're usually sleeping. Or raiding the fridge at midnight. When your kid's asleep."

"I'm still Arnie's dad."

'He'd probably agree, but I'd say your credit card has done most of the work since I got here."

"It's fucking hard work being a rookie in the show - not that you'd know anything about that."

"And it's fucking hard work taking care of a kid - not that you'd know anything about that," Jeff echoes. He knows that's not entirely true, even as he's saying it; Mike kept Arnie alive just fine over the summer, even if he did it by shipping him off on playdates as often as possible. Still, Jeff bets Mike has no idea what he's actually paying Jeff to do.

"You wanna switch places, then? Oh, wait - you can't; the Flyers didn't draft you."

Mike clearly doesn't know that he's said anything - and Jeff doesn't want to get into it (his mom would be so proud), so he just says, "You're right - I can't. But you can act more like you're actually Arnie's dad. Make a little time for him. Fuck, I don't think you've even played mini-sticks with him once since I got here."

That seems to get to Mike, like failing to play hockey with his kid is actually a benchmark of fatherhood that means something to him. Which, well, good. The way Jeff sees it, it's about time something got through to Mike.

"We've got a video of the performance, if you want to see it

***

It's not like Mike wakes up the day after Christmas and suddenly turns into dad of the year. He's still a professional hockey player, still busy, still a 20-year-old dude who's new to having a kid. And the Flyers take off on a ten game road-trip on the 26th, besides.

And yet, despite all that, Jeff still finds himself even more at loose ends - Arnie's off school for the week after Christmas and his grandparents are monopolizing his time, and aside from a load or two of laundry, there isn't actually much Jeff has to do.

He watches hockey, of course, because he always watches hockey. The first three road games he stays in for, mostly watching from his room, though he finally accepts the older Richardses' invitation to joins them and Arnie for the third game. But on New Year's Eve, after Jeff returns from hockey practice with Arnie, Mike's parents make it clear they're planning a quiet evening in with Arnie - and that they expect Jeff to go out and act his age and find a party.

So watching from a bar it is, then - but a different one than he tried the last time.

Probably, at twenty, Jeff should still want to go find somewhere with an open bar and hot, willing people to pick up for a kiss at midnight (and hopefully more), but mostly he just wants to drink beer and watch the game. Maybe talk some shit about the Caps. He wouldn't turn it down if somebody wanted to hook up, but it's not the goal, not with nowhere to take anybody if they don't have a place of their own to offer.

He's been getting by on just his own hand all Fall - he can probably keep making that work until a good opportunity comes along.

That doesn't mean he's not going to put a little effort into getting dressed, though - not a lot, just a nicer pair of sneakers and the jeans that make his ass look the best and the Richards jersey Mike got him for Christmas, but still, enough that he doesn't look like a complete shrub. When he's giving his hair one last check in the mirror by the coat-rack (another of the things Mike only has because his mom picked out most of the stuff in the house), he finds himself grinning at his reflection, because, yeah, he could do alright if he felt like it. He just doesn't know if he feels like putting in that effort.

Then Arnie runs in from the living room and throws himself at Jeff, and plants a kiss on Jeff's cheek, and shouts, "Happy New Year," and he's completely overwhelmed this ridiculously dumb feeling of not wanting to go spend the evening with other people.

The plan calls for exactly that, though, so he hugs Arnie and drops a kiss on the top of his head and says, "Happy New Year, kiddo. I'll see you in the morning."

Arnie shakes his head and says, "I'm gonna stay up so I can see you before I go to bed," which Jeff absolutely believes he'll try to do, but whether he succeeds...that depends on how Jeff's evening goes and how willing his grandparents are to let him get away with it.

He just laughs and says, "We'll see," before hugging Arnie again and heading out.

His evening out starts about the way he expected it to, sitting on a stool with an okay view of one of the TVs showing the game and downing a couple shots, then ordering a beer to get him through the first. It's an okay game to be watching in a crowd, too, with the Caps and Flyers trading penalties all through the period and Forsberg scoring the only goal of the first off off the Flyers second PP. The second proves to be just a turned up version of the first, complete with even more penalties and three more goals that leave the score knotted when the second intermission comes. When Ovechkin scores the Caps' first goal, nearly 30 minutes in, Jeff's more than ready to join the crowd in booing him.

He doesn't really interact with anybody else but the bartender until halfway through the third, when the Caps tie it up again and he hears his groan echoed from the stool next to his, and when he turns to see who's there, the guy says, "Fuck, if they were gonna suck tonight, couldn't it at least be the fun kind?"

It startles a laugh out of Jeff, because that's not the way dick-sucking usually comes up when hockey fans are involved, so he replies in kind, "Well, they sure as fuck owe Nittymaki one, at least." Because they do; the fact that the Caps have /only/ scored three is absolutely all on him.

The guy nods. "They got the scoring part down okay, but…"

"...but they need more D," Jeff says, finishing the thought. And this is what he's been missing - for all that none of what they're saying is deep, it's still more discussion of what the Flyers should be doing than he ever gets out of watching games with Arnie. Also, he's thinking this might be flirting. Which would be okay with him - from what he can see, the guy is pretty well put together.

And there's a good chance he's checking Jeff out, too.

"And on that note - I'm Jeff," he says

"Matt," the guy - Matt - replies, then groans as yet another Flyer takes a penalty. "If they get out of this period without the Caps scoring again, well, they won't just owe Nittymaki one."

"Fucking Ovechkin," Jeff agrees. The guy's only in his first season, but it's clear the Caps got exactly what they were hoping for; he's even giving Crosby more than a run for his money, as the NHL is constantly saying in their fucking commercials.

Matt doesn't say anything to that, just nods - because what is there to say? The Flyers have Mike, but Mike isn't Crosby or Ovechkin or any of the other guys who are tearing through their rookie seasons. He isn't doing badly - he can absolutely be a game-changer - he just isn't ever going to be in the Calder conversation, for real.

So they watch in silence while the Flyers take yet another penalty and the period winds down without any further scoring - and then it's the break before overtime.

Jeff says to Matt, "Think I'm gonna take a piss," because he does need to, three beers in, but he also wants to see what Matt will do.

What he does is say, "Beer'll do that to you," and slide down off his stool when Jeff does - so maybe this is going where Jeff thought it might be.

It's not a big bar - the men's room only has a stall and a urinal and a sink in it - so it's easy enough for them to both slip in at the same time, slide the bolt on the door home, take care of business...

...and then come together against the bathroom door. There's no finesse to it, just a brief meeting of eyes before jerseys are pushed aside and jeans unbuttoned. When Jeff slides a hand into Matt's boxers, wraps it around Matt's cock and discovers he's cut, he pulls back long enough to spit into his palm, then goes back to work, matching the rhythm Matt's got going. It's all about as easy as this kind of thing ever is, no expectation that this will last past the moment.

And a lot better than fucking his own hand - Jeff hadn't realized how much he'd missed getting off with another person until he was crowded into Matt's space, stripping his cock hard and fast, but boy does he; he comes to the thought if Mike's serious about spending more time with Arnie, well, maybe I can get out and get some occasionally.

Matt follows a few strokes later, and then they're cleaning up and heading out, back into the bar and the New Year's Eve crowd. It's nowhere near midnight, but the game's over and Jeff finds that he's done, ready to go home and round out the night with a beer in the privacy of his own room. He got what he came for already.

So when Matt suggests that maybe he'll see Jeff around, Jeff just says, "Maybe." He's not committing to anything, even hanging out, when he doesn't know how things are going to go on the Mike front from here on out.

***

The first couple weeks of January, after Mike's parents go back to Kenora and their rink, aren't all that different from the ones that led up to Christmas. Arnie goes back to school, settling right back into the routine of it. Jeff resumes cooking duties and spending all his time looking after Arnie. And, well, life goes on.

He's not admitting it to anyone, but the time off while Mike's parents were around has left him feeling, well, refreshed.

It's all completely normal until Mike gets back from his road-trip and announces that he got tickets for the game that weekend for Jeff and Arnie - a special weekend game treat - complete with a trip to the locker room afterwards. He sounds excited about it, proud to have thought of this thing to surprise his kid with, but Jeff tries to get out of the special locker room trip, anyway. Because, as he explains to Mike, "It'll be weird. I'm not actually family..."

"You're the nanny. You think the guys are gonna give you shit about that?"

Jeff hadn't actually considered that possibility - and is now feeling dumb for not having done so - because he was so worried about somebody recognizing him that it never even occurred to him; but he nods emphatically, now, because that's legit. He knows hockey players, and giving a guy shit for doing a girl's job is just about their speed when it comes to humor. And he really would prefer that that guy didn't have to be him.

Mike isn't about to just let it go, though, apparently, because the next thing he says is not anything like 'okay' or 'guess we can go without you', no - that would be too nice. Instead, he comes out with, "Don't think you can take it, huh?"

And Jeff knows, technically, that he doesn't have to rise to that challenge. He's overdue some time off; he could just decline the invitation to the game entirely, claim a prior commitment, say he has a date. It could even be true, in theory.

In practice, though, he's pretty fucking sure Mike would see right through any such attempt, because prior to Mike issuing the invitation in the first place - or at least prior to his parents' arrival - Jeff would've been expecting to have to be on Arnie duty that night, and it's not like he's had much of a chance to meet anybody new since then.

It doesn't look like Mike's gonna give him a chance to do it, anyway, not when he's following his first attempt at giving Jeff shit about it with, "Seriously, what red-blooded Canadian boy tries to turn down the chance to see the inside of an NHL locker room?"

Which, well, there's the part where Jeff is maybe not so red-blooded as Mike thinks he is, what with the whole sometimes liking guys thing - and also the part where he would've jumped at the chance a couple years ago, Before - but he can't say any of that to Mike, not right now, anyway, so he just resigns himself to another round of hiding under hats and behind Arnie and tells him, "You make a compelling argument. Because clearly not a single one, ever - including me - would even consider doing such a thing."

Mike smiles a dorky victory grin at that - and that's it until the day of the game.

***

Obviously going to the game, itself, is cool - Jeff hasn't gotten to watch NHL hockey up close and personal like this since before he started playing in the O and the seats Mike got them are fucking sweet. It would be cooler, of course, if that were him on the ice. Probably he'd be in the AHL, of course, but if he had somehow made it to the NHL already, he'd be centering the fourth line or something, since he's Mike's age and Mike definitely hasn't cracked the top six.

It's a slow-starting game, where the first penalty doesn't get called until nearly halfway through the first - and the Flyers don't manage to do anything with it. But then, nobody scores until the waning minutes of the period, when the Avs make their second power play count. The second's barely started when the Avs score again, then follow that up by giving the Flyers two power plays. They fail to convert on the first one, but squeak a goal in just before the second one ends - and make Wachovia Center erupt.

When Arnie throws himself bodily at Jeff, same as he does every time something exciting happens when they're watching on the couch at home, well, there's a moment where Jeff is so completely surprised he almost doesn't catch him - but he does, in the end, and finds himself feeling reassured, though of what, he's not entirely sure…

Somehow, the Flyers manage to take three more penalties but not get scored on to close out the second. But Colorado gets a third, sandwiched between penalties, only a few minutes into the third. And it takes the Flyers most of the rest of the period to bring it within one, and then tie it up - and it stays that way until the buzzer ending the period sounds. OT brings no change in score - though Arnie does change seats to climb into Jeff's lap - until it's almost gone to the shootout. And then the Avs put a nail in it with three-quarters of a minute to go.

The Flyers deflate - and Jeff guesses that that's about as good as he's going to get for a locker room that won't be inclined to notice him under the circumstances.

He's still worried about Eager, but he'd be more worried if it weren't for the Flyers hat and Richards sweater Mike gave him. To be fair, he gave everybody Richards stuff. And Jeff does get it, being so proud and amazed that you just want everybody to feel that way, too; if his parents hadn't already bought Greyhounds jerseys, long before Christmas, Jeff probably woulda used part of his stipend for that, his rookie year.

And then felt dumb when he didn't even get to come back to the team the following year, he'd messed his feet up so bad.

Standing in the hall, outside the locker room, waiting to get the okay to come in, he feels a bit less sure about it all - but, hell, he's grown more than a few inches since he was sixteen, and on top of that he's got a good crop of winter scruff going. He's not recognizable. Here and now, he's just one more fan - who happens to be Mike's nanny.

They're let in once the reporters are done - and Eager is still there, lounging in his stall in his UnderArmour, shooting the shit with some of the rest of the guys.

Fortunately for Jeff, he doesn't pay any attention to them when they make their entrance. And after that, Arnie provides a solid distraction in the form of an excited kid fan, getting passed around by some of the older guys to get signatures on the back of his oversized jersey and get told stories, even though he's not really up to asking questions. Which isn't surprising, considering the excitement of the moment.

Eager wanders off to take a shower eventually, but Jeff continues hiding behind his hat and scruff while keeping an eye on Arnie.

In the end, for most of the time they're there, the hardest part turns out to be keeping his mouth shut when the talk turns to hockey near enough to him that it's almost weirder that he isn't joining in than it would be if he did. And then Eager wanders back out of the dressing room, game day suit mostly back in place - and maybe it's just that the locker room is a lot emptier than it had been before, but he actually notices them, where they're standing by Mike's stall, waiting for him to reappear.

And because he is, in fact, a good Canadian boy - despite the number of penalties he's apparently been racking up with the Phantoms - he stops to talk to Arnie, says, "Hi, I'm Ben - I don't think we were introduced earlier."

Arnie responds for both of them, introducing Jeff as 'Jeff, who takes care of me', while Jeff, himself huddles deeper into his hat and scruff - and is grateful to him for not actually calling him the nanny.

Not that that saves him from getting a 'manny' joke made in his direction, but he still appreciates the effort.

***

Things carry on from there without too much variation. Mike gets them tickets to a few more games and they become semi-regulars in the post-home game locker room. Arnie cycles through school and Mites and transit adventures, interspersed with evenings watching hockey and afternoons being read to. Jeff learns to cook more things.

He doesn't get much more time off, but he does get some.

One of those days finds him standing in the kitchen making sandwiches when Mike gets back from practice with Arnie. He's got Arnie's half-done - the peanut butter and banana half - and is working on the ham and cheese half. There's a pile of carrot sticks and a bunch of grapes on the plate, too. He'll make big, piles of meat and cheese sandwiches for him and Mike when he's done.

And there Mike comes, busting into the middle of this with Arnie's hand in one hand and Arnie's hockey bag in the other.

The bag gets dropped by the basement stairs - Mike's at least well-trained enough to know that that's headed for the laundry immediately - while Arnie escapes to scramble up onto one of the counter stools and watch as Jeff finishes layering ham and cheese between two halves of a slice of rye. He's got a look about him that Jeff knows well, the one that says practice was long and that food should be inside of me already. Fortunately, mustard is the only thing standing between Arnie and his lunch at this point, so Jeff squirts some onto the top of sandwich, slaps the top half of the bread into place - and slides the plate of food across the counter to Arnie.

"Fin'ly!" is all he says before diving in, inhaling half the peanut butter-and-banana in about two bites.

Maybe it's not such a good thing that Jeff doesn't care, particularly, if Arnie minds his manners most of the time, but, whatever - he remembers being that kind of after-practice hungry and he'll take food getting eaten over an actual thank you any day of the week and twice after Sunday practice. And when he glances Mike's way, thinking that he should ask what kind of sandwich Mike's in the mood for, he finds Mike looking at Arnie in a way that makes it plain he's thinking similar things to Jeff. If he'd had any lingering worries about his job security, after Christmas, well, it sure looks like he doesn't have anything to worry about in the way of Arnie's behavior getting him in trouble, anyway.

He's not about to have a moment with his boss, though, no matter how hot he might still find him, so Jeff just says, "And what're you in the mood for?" like there couldn't possibly have been anything there to notice in the first place.

Mike decides he wants roast beef - which does sound pretty good - so Jeff gets out a couple of the long Italian rolls they've started getting from a local bakery, divides a pound of thin-sliced between them, adds cheddar and horseradish mustard, lettuce and tomato - and settles them at the counter with a pair of beers. Arnie inhales the last of his grapes just as they're settling in to eat - and gets excused to drag his hockey bag downstairs and air out the contents. And then it's just the two of them sitting there, digging into their sandwiches.

When Mike's about two-thirds of the way through his, he pauses, sandwich hovering above his plate, chuckles, and says, "So, I showed up to pick Arnie up from practice - which, I guess you're allowed to go to your official visa check-in and leave me to chase after my kid...but, anyway, I got there in time to watch the end of practice, y'know, hiding under a hat and scarf and sunglasses and, like, the whole nine yards. And then practice ended and Arnie came off the ice and spotted me and was all Daddy! and…," there's another pause, accompanied by a sheepish laugh, then, "It was really cute, y'know? Hell, I guess you'd know better than anybody."

And Jeff nods, because, he's mostly immune to Arnie's charms at this point, but Arnie in his full gear, skating all out, that occasionally still gets to him - it's probably programmed into hockey players or something; how should he know what Hockey Canada gets up to?

Not that Mike seems to need his input on the subject, since he just carries on a moment later, saying, "We went into the changing area together - and I helped him get his skates and his gear off. And, fuck, that shit is tiny - it's hard to believe that they're gonna grow up and be our size, for real. And then, then, while I was still helping Arnie get his things packed up, one of the coaches came up to me and was all 'your kid is pretty good' - which, obviously- and also 'Why you keepin' your nanny from going pro?'. And, let me tell you, that was about the last thing I woulda ever expected to be being asked. Like, I know you got roped into helping keep 'em in line during practice, but they're still just learning basic stick-handling and shit, right?" And then he laughs, all aren't I the funniest thing you've heard all week.

Jeff's frozen, though, because, yeah, the other guys doing the coaching joke around about his hands and how he's wasted teaching kids Arnie's age. But Jeff hadn't ever thought anything of it, figured it was chirping, same as they all chirp each other about something. To find out that they've been serious about it this whole time, serious enough to say something to Mike, well, fuck.

"Stick-handling, yeah - and they're working on learning to skate backwards. Gotta see which of them might actually be any use as D when they get to the point of playing actual positions."

"Okay, then. Just so we're clear on that," and then he slides off his stool and takes his plate to the sink, laughing to himself on and off the whole way.

***

Even though Mike's been around even more due to the Olympic break, Jeff's still not expecting it - at all - when Mike corners him in the kitchen, a week later, and reminds him that he's always welcome to use the home gym set-up in the basement. And that if he wants to schedule time to go running around the neighborhood - or along the river - Mike would be happy (really!) to work with him to make that happen. He's out the door with his coffee a couple minutes later, leaving Jeff standing there, wondering whether he meant anything more than the obvious by any of that.

Because Jeff has been using the home gym and going running while Arnie's at school - sometimes he even goes for his run on his way to pick Arnie up or back from dropping him off - so if Mike thinks he could stand to be in better shape, it's not for lack of Jeff trying; and unlike Mike, all Jeff's job requires of him is that he be in good enough shape to keep up with Arnie, and he's doing just fine by that measure, so Mike can fuck right off with his comparisons.

Jeff isn't a professional hockey player. He doesn't get paid to work out. End of story.

Still, there's a part of him who's still standing on the front step, staring at Mike's ass and thinking about the things he could do it, like he had the day they met - and it wants Mike to be attracted to him, no matter how bad an idea that would be under the circumstances.

He doesn't let himself stop to think about it overmuch right then - Arnie's alarm is due to go off any minute, and there's oatmeal to make, a lunch to finish packing. And then he's got to get the kid to school. Anyway, he's not a brooding kind of guy - if Mike wants him to shape up more, he can say so directly.

He'll absolutely cop to sulking - it's how he ended up in Jersey, in the first place - but not brooding.

When Arnie's been fed and seen skipping into school - he still likes it a lot more than Jeff remembers doing - Jeff stands there in the chilly Philly sunshine, considering: does he want to do his usual run, or switch it up, maybe get a little more mileage in? He's not the only person who dropped a kid off while wearing workout clothes - but he can say that he isn't part of the jogging stroller crowd, at least - and he doesn't run with the school moms group. They'd probably let him, if he wanted in, but he figures for all that he's taking care of Arnie, there's still stuff about being a mom he doesn't actually want to know.

He's learned enough of that already, without going looking for it.

So today he's just going to run his regular route and go about his day. He's not going to let Mike get to him, whatever Mike thinks he's doing. Jeff's already doing plenty, considering the weather.

That resolution lasts until Jeff gets in , in his running clothes and Mike's in the kitchen, digging through the fridge, and he looks up and says, "I was thinking, and it occurred to me that I could get you ice time at SkateZone if you wanted it."

At which point Jeff decides that the better part of valor is, in fact, not saying anything and just heading upstairs to get a shower. He's gotten away with yelling at Mike before, but it's probably better if he spaces that kind of thing out. Particularly since whatever Mike thinks he's doing, he probably thinks he's being helpful.

He sticks to that plan, just barely, through the end of the Olympic break - but he never expected he'd be so glad to see Mike go back to being out of the house as he is when Mike leaves for New York at the end of the month.

***

He's a little less glad Mike's gone the night Arnie throws up on him and the blanket and the couch - and, well, really just everywhere within spewing radius. But he figures it was probably a long time coming. Arnie's gotten through most of the winter without catching more than a minor cold. Whatever was coming to make up for that was clearly gonna be spectacular.

And this, between the puking and the rushing Arnie to the bathroom and the crying, definitely is.

Arnie goes into the tub, first off. Then Jeff strips out of his dirty clothes - and gets Arnie out of the pajamas he'd been wearing - and turns the water on to warm. Not smelling like vomit seems like a decent priority to him, based on his experience of his share of hungover mornings.

Plus, if Arnie's not done throwing up, he can just rinse the rest down the drain as he spits it out.

Round one is definitely not all Arnie has in store. They end up sitting there until the warm water runs out, Jeff waiting the kid out - every time he thinks Arnie's done, he throws up a little more. None of it's nearly as bad as the stuff Jeff still needs to clean up in his room, but it's something. It'd feel a bit like he'd managed to wander into the middle of the pea soup scene in The Exorcist if Arnie had gone in for some head spinning. Though, cleaning up half-digested KD still isn't going to be any fun.

When the hot water eventually runs out, Jeff bundles Arnie out of the tub and into a clean set of pajamas - and sets him up in bed with a bucket nearby, just in case.

Then he tells Arnie, "I've gotta go clean up, kiddo," because he does; the couch is already gonna be gross and letting it sit overnight? Nope, not happening. He knows what lies that way and it's nothing good.

Arnie makes a face at that - he's not a super-squeamish kid, but as he'd confessed while they were hanging out in the bathroom, he 'hates throwing up the most'.

Jeff ruffles his curls and says, "I'll be back before you know it - think you'll be able to keep anything down by then?" because he remembers a little from when he was sick when he was a kid, and his mom always gave him ginger ale and crackers. He can probably at least pull off the crackers, maybe some...coke? Or, oh, Gatorade - they have plenty of that.

The question makes Arnie look dubious, but Jeff figures he can bring some up anyway, and if Arnie doesn't want it immediately, he probably will eventually, like, in the middle of the night, so win-win.

He's maybe not back before Arnie knows it, but clean-up is as uneventful as it ever is - nothing's gotten too ground in - and after he's put their dirty clothes and the towels in the washer, he returns, as promised. Arnie's still awake, of course - not even an epic puking session is enough to knock this kid out early. And when Jeff shows him the blue Gatorade, he actually looks interested.

As he's handing the food over, he tells Arnie, "It's actually bedtime, now, kiddo - so get whatever you can manage down and then we'll be brushing your teeth and coming right back here." He hadn't realized how much time had passed while they were sitting in the bathroom until he got a look at the clock on the box in his room.

"Do y'know how the game turned out?" Arnie asks then, around a mouthful of Saltine.

And of course that's his first thought, now - unfortunately, all Jeff can say is, "Not sure - I think it's still the 3rd."

Arnie makes sad noises at that, but shoves another cracker into his mouth and washes it down with careful sips of Gatorade. He doesn't protest the trip to the bathroom - he's already rinsed his mouth out, but Jeff bets he can see the value in going at it with his toothbrush, too. And he lets Jeff lead him back to bed after without any protest.

Then, of course, he says, "Stay?" all big-eyed and pleading. And Jeff doesn't quite know what Arnie thinks he'll be good for that the bucket - and the supplies on the shelf at the head of the bed - aren't already providing, but throwing up does suck so Jeff doesn't bother asking.

The one miracle of the entire evening is that that seems to be it.

Arnie doesn't fall asleep quickly - when does he ever? - but the bucket sits by the side of the bed, empty, and Jeff ends up sliding into half-sleep, just sitting there in the dark at Arnie's side. He doesn't fall fully asleep, too alert to the possibility of more throwing up, but he's still surprised to discover enough time has passed for the game to be over and all the post-game stuff to be done, when Mike pokes his head into the room.

Mike smiles, a small, intimate one, like seeing Jeff sitting next to his kid's bed, half-asleep, is a nice thing to come home to, and says, "We won."

"Sorry we didn't see it," Jeff says, yawning, "I was fighting the Battle of Puke...River, here."

"Need me to do anything?"

Jeff shakes his head, and says, "He's not going to school tomorrow - might get the other kids sick - so I can sit up with him, no problem. But you've got another game to win." The fact that Mike even offered, well, maybe it isn't surprising now, but it would've been a couple months ago. What a long fucking way he's come.

"You gonna get some sleep?"

"Eventually. If he stays asleep a while longer. Might go catch the highlights in the meantime. Gotta see if you rated a mention." He does show up pretty regularly, given the rookie season he's having; the guys talking him up back in the summer hadn't been wrong about that.

***

Mostly, when Mike gets back from a weekday home game, Jeff'll be sitting up in his room, watching highlights or fucking around on the internet - sometimes he'll end up on the man-eating plaid couch, though, and every once in a while Mike'll find him in the kitchen, hunting a midnight snack or staring into the refrigerator thinking about his shopping list. His fucking never-ending shopping list. Definitely nobody ever warned him about that when he was getting into this.

This particular night is a kitchen night.

Not such a typical one, though. Sure, Jeff started out staring into the fridge, looking for something he actually wanted to eat. But his first try at opening up tupperware had turned up something he was pretty sure hadn't started out green. And it had only gotten worse from there, as he'd found himself compelled to check everything else. He's not sure how food is managing to go bad in a household containing one hockey player, one ex-hockey player, and one five-year-old with a healthy appetite. But apparently it is - and pretty spectacularly.

He has the sink full of newly-emptied containers to prove it.

When Mike wanders in, in a toque and half-undone dress shirt, Jeff still hasn't gotten his snack - he's feeling less like even wants one, to be honest; he's really not a squeamish guy, but some of the colours the food had turned...no. He does not want to be reminded of that. Mike makes a pretty good distraction, as rumpled and flushed as he is. Yeah.

That's possibly turned into staring a bit too much, though, if the way Mike is saying, "You've been busy," is anything to go by.

"Apparently we're good at forgetting about leftovers. My mom may have had a point with Leftover Fridays when I was a kid." They hadn't been necessary when he was a teenager; he remembers her complaining about him eating anything that wasn't nailed down. Which, maybe the neverending grocery list shouldn't have been such a surprise. Mike and he are basically overgrown teenagers, themselves.

And, yet, all the food gone bad.

Mike actually looks guilty about it, like he's hearing ghosts of parental lectures past on the subject of wasting food, too. "They feed us a lot at the rink. And, uh, it's not that I'm not ever hungry at home. But I'm never sure what you have plans for. So I just make sandwiches."

That makes Jeff laugh. "I almost never have plans for it. Obviously. If I did we wouldn't have this problem. So just fucking eat stuff. If you accidentally eat dinner, there's always another box of KD."

"Is there anything left in there to eat, then? I had food after the game…," Mike says, sounding hopeful.

"But you're a bottomless pit. And, yeah, there's some leftover spaghetti and meatballs. You know what? I think I'll have some myself."

And somehow that turns into them sitting at the counter together, companionably demolishing bowls of reheated pasta and talking about their days. It hurts less and less these days to hear Mike talk about life in the NHL, now that Jeff knows just how much work goes into keeping a place on the team - and what you might have to give up to do it. Besides, telling Arnie stories is never not fun.

Like how, today, Arnie left school wearing a plaster pin he'd molded and painted in art class - shaped like...some kind of bird and painted bright orange.

Mike laughs when Jeff tells him and says, "Tell him to make me one. I bet I could get away with wearing it on my gameday suit."

And when Jeff says he thinks they've moved on to, like, printmaking or some shit - he never really knows, the way the school does art - he laughs at Mike's pout and says, "He'd probably give you his if you asked." Because Arnie totally would. He's got the sharing part of Kindergarten completely down.

That gets Mike shaking his head, though - and saying, "He can keep it. Just as long as he wears it to school on game days. Bring me luck."

"That good a night tonight, huh?" Jeff says, even though he knows the answer, mostly. Mike hadn't had a hat-trick or anything, but his name had definitely made the score-sheet. And he'd had a positive impact pretty much everywhere. Jeff hadn't really thought he was a superstitious guy, but who knows? Maybe when it's your kid, it's different.

Mike shrugs - and says with a smile, "Something like that," so maybe he doesn't really know either.

He guesses there's a lot of that in kids.

***

When Jeff finally hits his breaking point and says, "You can fucking stop trying to get me hockey back!" it comes out as yelling, which is not what Jeff was planning, but not entirely unexpected either, given Mike. Still, he dials it back to emphatic, says, "I'm... okay like this. I am." And somehow it's true, even though he hadn't known it until then.

He breathes out, braces himself against the kitchen counter - somehow they always end up doing this in the kitchen - stares down at his hands for a beat or two, then looks back up at Mike.

Mike, for a miracle, has stayed silent, though from the look on his face that hasn't come easy. Jeff takes advantage and continues where he left off, though, says, "Yeah, everyone said I was really good, that I was going places. And I did want that, as much as any kid ever has. But I fucked it up - nobody stopped me, sure, but I didn't give 'em a chance to try, either. And so here I am.

Could I do it? Could I come back from that at this point. Probably. At least enough to play in the ECHL, maybe the A. But I lost four years of development time. And I've got a life that isn't hockey, now."

"I miss it so bad it hurts, sometimes - don't get me wrong - but somewhere in there I made my peace with my choices." He's not saying, in so many words, that Arnie did it, but he definitely helped. By being himself - and being interested in things besides hockey.

Mike's been looking like it was getting harder and harder to not burst out into, well, probably protests, if Jeff had to guess, the more Jeff said, but he's...deflated, now, like Jeff admitting to how he felt countered every argument he was going to make. In the end, all he says is, "Sucks."

"Yeah. Yeah, it does," Jeff agrees. Because that does, in fact, just about sum it up. And it also somehow means he's standing in the middle of Mike's kitchen, feeling a swelling surge of affection for the asshole and his general inability to express his emotions.

If it were Arnie, Jeff would be offering him a hug, but Jeff's pretty sure you're not supposed to cuddle your boss, even if you've just yelled at him...and he's never acted much like he's in charge.

Instead, making a bit of a peace offering, he says, "If you ever get a free day again, you can take me skating." Because he really wouldn't mind getting to skate with somebody over the age of 6, just for fun.

Mike grins and says, "It's a...deal," like Jeff giving him even this one small thing he can do makes him feel better. The little hesitation, the pause, does make Jeff wonder for a moment what he might have been thinking of saying instead, but it's probably never going to matter. Mike will never manage to find a time they're both free before the season's over. His schedule will be way too crowded - Jeff's seen it.

***

But, by some miracle of almost-playoffs scheduling, Mike actually has the afternoon of Arnie's birthday off, so he's able to come along when Jeff takes Arnie back to Please Touch. Jeff had asked Arnie if he wanted to have a party with some of the kids from school or Mites, but he'd turned it down in favor of two rounds of cupcakes and an afternoon where he got to choose everything they did. And Jeff can't say he's not glad he doesn't have to ride herd on however many small children an actual party might have meant.

Herding both Arnie and Mike around Philly on public transit is enough of a challenge all on its own, not least because he'd had to talk Mike out of taking the car.

By the time they've transferred from the bus to the subway, Mike seems to get it a little better, though. Which Jeff puts down to Arnie being glued to the bus window the whole trip and getting so excited when Jeff let him handle his own transfer he practically floated. He's not subtle about letting everybody know when he likes a thing, but at least he's stopped roaming the aisles.

Mike's stayed pretty quiet so far, following their lead, so when he turns to Jeff, Jeff definitely isn't expecting the smile, or for MIke to say, "He really loves the city, huh," like he doesn't quite get why a kid Arnie's age would, but he doesn't mind.

Jeff nods and says, "I've barely used the car all year - any time we go somewhere, he always wants to walk or take a bus if we can. One Saturday, when you were on a roadie, he talked me into spending the afternoon riding a few of the trolleys."

"What - does he want to be able to say he's ridden all of it?" Mike asks, and he sounds like he means it as a joke, but -

"He has a poster of the SEPTA system in his room - so probably," Jeff tells him, shrugging. He made his peace with Arnie's hobby as soon as he realized that any time they were spending time on transit he didn't come up with something else for them to do. And anyway, it turns out that riding buses is kind of fun when you don't have a destination or a deadline.

"As long as he still wants to play hockey," Mike says, sounding more like a dad than he usually does, as he shares this one opinion about what his kid does.

And Jeff doesn't ever forget that he's just taking care of Arnie - hell, he's glad that he didn't get a girl pregnant before he even turned 15 - but sometimes the facts of the situation do kind of fade into the background. So it's a little jarring to be brought up short by this. He tamps down on his reaction, though, because this is Arnie's day. So all he says is, "No problem with that so far."

The rest of the trip to the museum passes without incident. Jeff's not feeling talkative, but Mike can, in general, talk enough for both of them, so it evens out. And anyway, Arnie's enjoying the novelty of taking the trip with the both of them so much that saying anything else feels superfluous.

What Jeff isn't expecting is how he'll feel when they've entered the museum and Mike's paid and Arnie's made his usual beeline for the bus - and Mike's joined him on one of the benches with a good view of that exhibit.

It's just, okay, the first time he came here with Arnie, he really hadn't known what he was doing. He'd picked the museum at random and hoped like hell that it would work. And it had, but Jeff had spent the entire trip feeling like somebody was going to walk up to him and say something like you're not really his parent or you don't belong here. This trip, even with Mike sitting beside him, there's no question - he may not actually be Arnie's parent, Arnie's dad, but he belongs. And he bets people walking past and noticing them think they're together, just like all the other sets of parents shepherding kids around the museum.

Mike, of course, is just watching Arnie play, not experiencing ridiculous emotions like Jeff is, but when Jeff turns to him, he gets the kind of smile in return that makes Jeff think maybe...

***

In the end, Jeff is right that Mike won't be able to find time to take him skating before the end of the season, but not that it's never going to happen. In the rush to the end of the season and the crush of the playoffs, he's barely around. But once the Flyers get bounced in the first round, he comes home and flops down on the squashy plaid couch in the living room.

It makes Jeff think of the first time he'd sat on it, back the previous summer, when he'd never even considered the idea of being a nanny - it seems so impossibly long ago now.

He grabs a pair of beers out of the fridge, gets their caps off, heads for the couch to plop down beside Mike - and offer him one of the beers. Mike takes it and clinks it against Jeff's bottle, wordlessly, before taking a long, deep pull from it. There really isn't much to say: most of the games were relatively close, but this one, the Sabres fucking slammed the Flyers. Still, there's comfort to be found in drinking silently together.

When he's drained every last drop from his bottle, Mike drops his head back and says, wryly, "I've got time to go skating now." And he laughs, but not like he actually thinks that's funny.

"Guess you do," Jeff says, and takes another swig of beer before adding, "Got a date in mind?"

"I was thinking maybe we could go Friday? All I want to do tomorrow is sleep - and Thursday's locker clean-out…"

"So, Friday while Arnie's at school?" Jeff asks, just to confirm it. And then, once Mike's nodded, says, "It's a date."

It doesn't actually get a smile out of Mike, not a real one, but his mouth twitches, like the reflex was there, so Jeff's calling it a win.

The next day, Mike emerges from his room twice, to shovel leftovers into his face and then shamble back to bed and sleep some more. The day after that, he's gone all day, wrapping up the season and going for drinks with some of the guys after. But on Friday, he joins Arnie at the breakfast bar for cereal and eggs, and joins Jeff in walking Arnie to school - and then, on the way back to the house to get their skates, says, "So, I got us some ice-time at SkateZone - figured being a pro ought to be good for something in the off-season."

Jeff nods and says, "Might as well use it if you've got it." He doesn't say it's too bad they can't go skating at Rizzo, but it is.

Midday, the trip across the river is an easy one - and the lot at SkateZone is relatively empty. When Mike checks in with the rink manager, they get let into one of the changing rooms to switch their shoes for skates. And then it's the moment of truth, when Jeff steps out onto the ice for the first time since February and finds out how he stacks up next to an NHLer.

And he flies - he pushes off hard, strokes, strokes again, leans into the first turn and then the second - and then he's barrelling back towards the other end.

When he looks over towards the entrance to the dressing room, Mike's just standing there, watching him go, and smiling. And fuck that asshole - as soon as Jeff gets back over there, he's got a challenge to issue. He doesn't have time for any of this sappy shit.

Mike beats him to the punch, though, says as Jeff approaches him, "Very nice - but can you still skate backwards?"

Jeff rolls his eyes at that, but switches his direction, anyway, as he's skating past Mike - what he's not expecting is for Mike to reach out and grab his hands and start skating, too, matching Jeff forward stride to backwards stride. Most people only skate like this if one of them is just learning or wobbly - or they're a guy and a girl on a date, but Mike's definitely not a beginner and this isn't a date. Jeff's pretty sure, anyway.

And even if were, it definitely wouldn't stop him saying, "Decided to be the girl, huh?"

That gets Mike rolling his eyes and saying, "I did promise to skate with you - and I figured you'd make a fuss if I made you skate like I am." Which is remarkably good reasoning on his part.

"Oh, I see how it is - you're getting lazy in the off-season."

"Would you like me to do the towing instead? It could be arranged…"

And, yeah, Jeff thinks, this probably does count as flirting, in some weird, stunted way. He guesses it's time to cut his speed, lengthen his strides, see if Mike is planning on setting a mood. It's almost the end of the school-year; if he's wrong, or this doesn't work out, it won't be the end of the world.

Mike's holding eye-contact - and, yeah, they seem to have finally arrived at the moment Jeff's been avoiding all year, where Mike's going to push him up against the glass and Jeff's going to go willingly - and he might, finally, get to find out how the cheesy porno scenario plays out (if Arnie doesn't interrupt them).

He's even getting the part where Mike mumbles, "Stay - you gotta stay," against his mouth.

Jeff's probably going to say 'yes' when he gets a chance - somebody's gotta take care of Arnie.