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“Where’s my Bronco hoodie?”
Will pulled his head back out of the closet where it had been buried, waiting for a response.
“Mack, where’s my Bronco hoodie?
Still nothing.
“Baby, where’s my Bronco hoodie?”
Will practically heard Mack’s head snap up at the pet name and the muffled sound of him scrolling TikTok paused. Got him.
“I think it’s on the chair in the bedroom. I know I wore it the other day.”
Will crossed the room (nominally officially his room but theirs at this point for all practical purposes) and flipped a few other items of clothing off the chair pile until he found the hoodie. Will glanced at it to make sure there wasn’t anything on it and sniffed it quickly. Reasonably clean and, even better, still smelling vaguely of Mack’s cologne. Will hummed happily to himself and pulled it on.
Mack snorted as Will came into the living room where he was sprawled across the couch, his phone held hovering over his face in a way Will knew was going to end with it smacking him in the nose.
“You’re really wearing a Bronco hoodie to your Bronco commercial shoot? Little on the nose, Smit.”
Will huffed a bit defensively. “They told me they wanted me to just dress the way I normally would. Wanted it to feel authentic or whatever. When I told them I had this hoodie they said I should wear it.”
“Sounds like they’re just happy they’re not spending anything on wardrobe for this commercial.”
Will rolled his eyes. “Shut it, Celly. I have to leave or I’m going to be late.”
Before Will could turn to grab his keys from the bowl on the ledge that separated the living room and the entryway, Mack had flung himself off the couch and into Will’s chest, burrowing his face into his shoulder as he tugged on the front of the hoodie.
Will’s arms raised to wrap around Mack’s shoulders almost on reflex, pressing his face into Mack’s hair.
“Baby, I’ll be back by tonight.”
“Ugh but that’s almost a whole day, Will!”
Of course he’s Will again now that Mack is pouting instead of chirping him. Will shouldn’t find it as fucking adorable as he did, but it was impossible not to feel his chest puff up a bit at the reminder that Mack wanted him so much that Will being away from him for a matter of hours was enough for a low grade tantrum. Like a level two tantrum at best, but still. Mack disliked the idea of anyone or anything taking Will’s attention away from him and Will loved it.
“Babe, I know you can keep yourself occupied and I’ll bring dinner home and then you’ll have me all to yourself. Maybe from that Thai place?”
Will could feel Mack wrinkle his nose against the fabric of his hoodie, his hands relaxing and settling warm against Will’s chest where they had been wound into the fleece.
“Yeah, okay.”
Will pressed a kiss to Mack’s temple and rubbed his back for a moment before taking half a step back. “Okay. Text me if you think of something else you’d rather have.”
Mack nodded, going quiet now. For a split second Will really considered whether he could just cancel this shoot, before bundling Mack back against his chest for a minute, pressing kisses to his temple and in his hair and along his cheeks. “I love you so much. I’ll see you tonight.”
With one last real kiss, the kind of kiss that Will was only just beginning to have the ability to not let derail the rest of his day entirely, he grabbed his keys and headed out the door.
———
Will’s face hurt from smiling in the effortlessly casual way he knew how to that was not in fact effortless or casual but was the result of years of stress testing variations until he perfected it. He was leaning against the Bronco equally casually-not-casually, answering the producer’s questions in a way that he hoped seemed natural, even though it was basically a commercial and everyone knew it was a commercial and not Will just spontaneously wanting to answer questions about his car for social media.
The weather was decent, at least, not hot the way it sometimes got here in early spring, and he didn’t mind a chance to spend some time outdoors. Outdoors in this case was up in the hills walking distance away from a strip mall and a housing development in a spot that happened to look picturesque from the right angle, but he appreciated the fresh air. It was going on golden hour now and he could admit it was pretty beautiful. He would definitely rather be taking the Bronco onto the beach in Cape Cod than in the dry hills, but California, California with Mack, was starting to feel like home.
A young woman maybe only a handful of years older than Will came over with what looked awfully like a tackle box, setting it carefully on the ground in front of him.
She took out some sort of powder and moved towards Will.
“Sorry, this’ll only take a second. Just want to make sure there’s no shine as the light changes.”
She swept some powder over a few spots on his face. He had the vague thought that she was pretty, objectively speaking, followed immediately by a wave of relief that he didn’t have to convince himself he was attracted to her.
“You smell great.”
Will blinked a few times, coming back to himself, and there was a look on the girl’s face that he was pretty sure he recognized and did not want to encourage.
“Thanks! It’s my boyfriend’s cologne, he steals this hoodie a lot.”
Now, they weren’t out out but they weren’t not out. The team and their families knew and the two of them didn’t make much effort to hide it. People were so used to them being inseparable and (jokingly, but not) codependent that they could sort of hide in plain sight without changing much of anything about how they act.
But Will also didn’t say “boyfriend” out loud around more than about 30 people on the planet and even then, he could probably count on one hand the number of times the word had come out of his mouth about his own boyfriend. If he was completely honest he barely thought the word in relation to him and Mack. Not that he was having some sort of gay crisis about having a boyfriend, that had already been thoroughly handled. (There were some mutual panic attacks, but it was fine now, honestly.) But it just… didn’t feel like them? They were Will and Mack, had been for two years now, and the transition from “inseparable besties” to “Will definitely had to forcibly get Mack off his lap to be able to get out of bed this morning even though they had definitely had sex three times in the previous 24 hours” had felt sort of inconsequential once they had the most excruciatingly awkward but significant conversation of Will’s life. Not much had changed other than now they actually said I love you out loud and they fucked about it. (A lot, in every way that they could think of and in every room and practically on every surface of both of their places and soon in a place of their own, but that’s beside the point.)
And okay, it wasn’t that the sex and the I love yous didn’t matter. They did. They really did. Will, yapper extraordinaire Will, unquestionably the talker of the relationship even if Mack could get on a tear if you let him and could follow his train of thought, still didn’t have a word for the way warmth flared in his chest when he woke up with Mack draped across him, and his day was immediately going in the right direction when the first words he heard were “morning, baby” or sometimes just “I love you” out of the blue, no additional context needed, just that Mack saw him and that was the first thing he wanted to say.
But boyfriend just didn’t feel like the right word. “Boyfriend” made him think of guys Grace had dated, who she met in class or on Tinder (sometimes he wished he didn’t know his sister was on Tinder), who took her to dinner and made awkward small talk and she had to figure out whether she liked them at all to begin with over the span of a few, several hour interactions. Guys who’d get the position of boyfriend after four dates and then would turn out to be gross or stupid or rude or all three as soon as the need to impress her for no more than fours at a time passed.
That was nothing like him and Mack. He was with Mack constantly. They were together practically (and often literally) 24/7 during the season and even last offseason when they weren’t together together yet they found time to see each other and FaceTimed basically every day, sometimes multiple times a day, sometimes for hours. This offseason they had planned how to spend as much time together as possible, Mack coming to Boston before he left for Worlds, the two of them going to Halifax to train with Crosby and a bunch of Canadians who Will hoped wouldn’t want to talk about the Olympics, and then Will going to Vancouver.
And they knew everything about each other. They could talk about anything and had dealt with every kind of mood. Will had been there to pick up the pieces when Mack got back from Italy with the silver medal that was now at the furthest back bottom corner of his dresser. Mack had been there when Will got hurt, when he sat in bed crying and apologizing for how stupid it was, Mack telling him that it wasn’t stupid so forcefully Will had no choice but to believe him. (Will had also been there when Gabe elbowed Mack in the face and the category five shitstorm that ensued. They weren’t together yet then so he didn’t even get makeup sex out of it when he finally talked Mack down.)
Their whole lives were wrapped up in each other.
They were even starting to pass messages back and forth between their agents about extension negotiations ahead of any of that happening officially. Mack had suggested exhaustedly last night that they should give their agents each other’s phone numbers and tell them to talk to each other so Will and Mack could stop having to be go betweens.
That wasn’t boyfriends. Is that what people meant when they said partner? It was definitely what people meant when they said husband, and that was a thought that made a pleasantly fizzy warmth bubble up in his stomach that he filed away to deal with later.
Will suddenly realized the girl (makeup artist? production assistant? he wasn’t sure) was smiling at him like she was waiting for him to respond. Shit, she had said something about him having a boyfriend while he was daydreaming about his boyfriend.
He smiled and blinked at her slowly. “Sorry, I think I missed what you said.”
She laughed and bent down to click the tackle box of makeup closed. “It’s okay, I just said your boyfriend must be a gem. I share clothes with my girlfriend all the time. Twice the closet options, but honestly I do it half the time just because I like smelling her on my clothes all day.”
Will laughed, a genuine smile breaking out on his face, blue eyes twinkling in the early evening light. “So it’s not just me? Good to know. This was my hoodie originally and I swear most of the ones he usually wears now were mine originally, but I let him do it because when I take them back they’ll still smell like him for days. Also I can’t say no to him anyway.”
She grinned back and elbowed him playfully. “That’s how they get you. Next thing you know you’re driving across town to get the ‘right’ matcha.”
“Oh way too late for that. I’m bringing home Thai food from a place that’s totally out of the way to make up for being gone today.”
They were both laughing then, Will’s shoulders relaxing and the ache in his cheeks dulling even though he was smiling wider than he had all afternoon.
The girl glanced over her shoulder and nodded quickly at someone in the distance. “Oops sorry, they’re staring at me, I think they want to get one more take in before the light’s gone. I’m Addison, by the way. Tell your boyfriend I said he’s got a good one.”
“Thanks, Addison. I’ll tell him. Tell your girlfriend the same.”
When they were done, the director said that the last take was by far the best and “you seem like you really settled in there.”
———
Will made his way home not too long after, having waded through traffic somehow both directions to get their dinner and then head home. He elbowed the front door open with his arms full with the takeout bag, a Thai iced tea for him and a completely ill-advised Vietnamese iced coffee for Mack just to make him especially happy.
“I’m ho—“
Before he could finish his sentence Mack came around the corner, grabbing the bag from Will’s hand and forcing himself close to him around the drink holder.
Will laughed and twisted to set the drinks down without moving Mack, taking the bag out of his hand and setting it down with the drinks so Will could get his arms all the way around him.
“Hi, baby. How was your day?” Will’s voice was muffled where he had pressed his face into Mack’s hair.
“M’fine. Stupid waste of a perfectly good day without you here.” Mack’s face was pushed as far into Will’s sweatshirt as was possible, his hands tugging fussily at the bottom hem.
Will pressed a kiss to Mack’s temple and slowly extricated himself from his grip, reaching for the bag of takeout with one hand and managing to wrap his other arm around Mack’s shoulders at the same time he picked up the drink holder.
“Come on, I got you a coffee as a thank you.”
Mack beamed as he reached to take the drinks from Will’s hand, going to flop onto the couch and immediately yanking the paper off the straw, taking a long sip of his coffee with a sigh that before they were together would have haunted Will when he got into bed later.
“Oh my god why don’t I get to have these all the time?”
Will elbowed him playfully as he sat down, the two of them opening takeout containers and setting them out on the coffee table pulled up to the couch, both of them picking bites from the handful of open containers. This kind of boring domesticity, sharing takeout that he didn’t have to ask to know what he should order, coming home to Mack in (yet another) of his hoodies, always got to Will. He missed his family and his dog but now he knew he’d miss Mack just as much when he left Will in Boston for Worlds. His family wasn’t all in Boston anymore.
“I met a nice girl today.”
In Will’s defense, he was tired. Under ordinary circumstances he knew to phrase that differently, add some caveats and footnotes to head off any questions about just what this girl’s intentions were, but it had been a long day and he was still in his head.
“A girl?” Mack’s eyes were narrowed, half his lower lip obscured where he was suddenly chewing on it.
Shit. Will wanted to laugh but he really knew better.
“The makeup artist, or some kind of assistant, I’m not totally sure what her like job title was, but she was cool. I uh, I told her about you.”
He really hadn’t thought about it at the time, but he realized now Mack might not appreciate Will casually outing himself to near complete strangers, even if he never mentioned Mack’s name. He looked at Mack, preparing to have to start de-escalating the freakout over his fuck up, but that wasn’t what he saw at all. Mack was smiling a smile Will thought might be reserved just for him, small and soft, sweet in a different way than the high wattage gummy smile people were used to from Mack.
“Yeah? What did you tell her?” Mack’s voice was soft now, too. Everything about him mellowed.
“She told me I smelled good and I told her it was because my boyfriend had been wearing my hoodie.”
Mack’s forehead creased, the urge to pout fighting with his obvious pleasure at Will thinking about him all day.
“Well I hope she felt silly trying to hit on you after that.”
Will laughed and shook his head, setting his fork down and reaching for Mack’s to do the same before pulling him into his arms.
“She wasn’t hitting on me, she has a girlfriend. And we got to talking about how much we secretly like it when our partners steal our clothes and how we’ll do anything for them.”
Mack had crawled into Will’s lap, green eyes practically glowing now. Will pressed a kiss at the corner of each of his eyes.
“It made me realize I kind of never call you my boyfriend. Or, like, even think it.”
Mack shrugged barely noticeably as he settled himself solidly straddling Will’s lap, his cheek pressed into his shoulder. “I’m your Mack. You’re my Will. Makes more sense than anything else.”
Will nodded, threading his fingers through the hair at the nape of Mack’s neck, getting a pleased hum in response. Mack had this way of making things seem simple that hit Will in a soft part of his heart that probably had Mack’s name on it by now. Mack might get fussy and he could be jealous at times, and Will had had to learn not to be careless with the insecurities that got hidden by Mack’s usual confidence, but they were Will and Mack. Will was his Will. That was it.
“Who needs a boyfriend when I have a Mack?”
“Hey don’t get any ideas, you have a boyfriend, too! Don’t go telling anyone that you don’t have a boyfriend.”
Will shook his head, fighting a laugh before sinking back completely into the couch, tugging Mack with him where he was still pressed against him.
“I think I have a partner more than a boyfriend.”
Mack was only mostly paying attention, his hand having made its way under Will’s hoodie and his eyes fluttering closed contentedly every few seconds as Will’s nails scratched along his scalp.
“Why partner?”
Will ran one hand along Mack’s back slowly as he thought, the closeness making his brain start to feel warm and pleasantly foggy.
“Our whole lives are tangled together. I mean yeah we’re getting a place together but I don’t even mean that. Everything I think about doing, I think about doing it with you.” Will was babbling now, but it felt good. “I don’t want to spend the whole offseason in Boston because I don’t want to be away from you. It’s starting to not feel like home because you’re not there.”
Mack lifted his head and looked at Will, green eyes warm and almost gold with it, and then he was on him.
They had kissed plenty of times. They kissed almost constantly sometimes when they weren’t otherwise busy. They were all good, but some of them were kisses Will would play on repeat after in his head.
Mack’s mouth was warm and he tasted like coffee and Will wondered dimly how just kissing his boyfriend, his partner, his Mack could be this good? Mack’s hands found their way further up under Will’s hoodie and the t-shirt underneath, combining with Will’s rapidly overheating brain to make him shudder and gasp faintly, licking into Mack’s mouth.
Mack pulled away just long enough to get his mouth on Will’s neck, tugging at the collar of his hoodie to be able to sink his teeth into Will’s shoulder, and Will moaned almost pathetically, one hand tangling in Mack’s hair.
“Fuck, you’re gonna leave a mark again and I’m never gonna hear the end of it.” Will’s voice was breathy and labored and completely unconvincing that he actually minded. He in fact could not possibly mind less, not when Mack was alternating between bruising bites along Will’s shoulder and neck and soothing the sting with the warmth of his tongue. Not when he knew he would see the spray of purple and red over his skin in the mirror the next morning and feel hot all over again at the memory and at the stark, visible proof that he was Mack’s. Mack could have anyone, could have as many anyones as he could ever want, and he wanted Will so badly he wanted to mark him, and was pawing at Will’s hoodie and already grinding against his thigh desperately.
Will blinked slowly through the haze of his own lust, suddenly focused on the way Mack was moving against him, the way his breath was coming faster on his neck. Will brushed his hand along Mack’s jaw lightly, tilting his chin up to press his lips against his lightly, voice breathing into the tiny space between them. “Shh, I’ve got you, baby. You were so good for me today, let me take care of you.”
Mack preened at the praise, sliding his fingers into Will’s curls and tugging until all Will could do was find his mouth again, panting against his lips more than kissing as Mack pulled at his hair again.
“Fucking stop doing that or I’m not going to let you come.”
Mack whined and pressed his face against Will’s neck again, Will hissing as his mouth found spots where bruises were already starting to bloom. “Yes you will.”
Will laughed softly, working his hand between them to press the heel of his hand against Mack’s cock. “Yeah I will.”
Mack was arching into his hand now, teeth tugging at Will’s ear. “Please, god please touch me.”
Mack saying please like that, openly needy and vulnerable, was enough to make Will frantic to touch him. Will moved his hand long enough to work his way into Mack’s pants, Mack’s whine at the momentary loss of contact bleeding into a punched out moan as Will wrapped his hand around his cock. Somewhere in the recesses of his brain Will was grateful Mack was wearing sweats because he didn’t think he had the will power or the sense to have gotten his pants off if god forbid they had a button.
Mack was already so wet with precome that Will’s hand slid easily, dragging his nail just barely along the vein on the underside of his cock, knowing it would make Mack arch into his touch and make a series of needy, pleading little whines that made Will’s blood simmer, dimly aware that his own cock was now achingly hard. Will pressed on the small of Mack’s back with his free hand, shifting him just enough for Mack’s thigh to press against his own cock, gasping brokenly at the contact.
It took remarkable restraint to stay focused on his hand on Mack’s cock and not the pressure of his thigh between Will’s legs, but this was the only situation in which Will had any restraint when it came to Mack. He wanted to make his sweet boy who had been so patient today fall apart so he could put him back together.
Will focused on the pace of his hand on Mack’s cock, breathing open mouthed against his temple, listening as Mack’s moans and pleading drifted into a sustained, breathless whine as his hips began to stutter into Will’s touch.
“Come for me, baby. That’s it. That’s my good boy.”
Mack came almost instantly, hot and thick against Will’s hand, his thighs straining before he melted against Will’s chest, mumbling a string of “Will” and “I love you” and “so much” into his neck.
Will slid his hand out of Mack’s pants, wiping it on his hoodie with an internal shrug. As his hand came up to run through Mack’s hair soothingly, his other hand rubbing up and down his back, Will became dimly aware of wetness in his pants.
Well, damn. Let it never be said that he wasn’t genuinely that into taking care of his boy.
Mack hummed dreamily, still clearly floaty from his orgasm, nuzzling his cheek against Will’s shoulder. “Give me a sec then let me take care of you.”
Will laughed a bit sheepishly. “Uh, no need. I’m handled.”
Mack lifted his head, eyes suddenly bright. “You got off just from getting me off?”
“Shut up, you don’t know what kind of noises you make and you kept biting me.”
Mack lifted his hand to brush against Will’s cheek, his eyes soft again. “Will, that’s so fucking hot.”
Now it was Will’s turn to preen, flushing faintly and brushing kisses over Mack’s cheeks.
“You’re so fucking hot. And I love you. Also we’re disgusting, we should get up before you turn into my personal weighted blanket again.”
Mack sighed and shook his head. “I know but I don’t wanna get up. You killed me. I’m dead. You’ll have to carry me.”
Will poked his side playfully. “I can’t believe I want to spend the rest of my life with such a pain.”
Mack looked up at Will with those stupid, beautiful doe eyes. “You want to spend the rest of your life with me?”
“That’s your takeaway from that, Macklin?”
Mack wrinkled his nose. “Don’t call me that.”
Will laughed fondly, pulling Mack close again and tucking his chin over his shoulder. “It’s your name.”
Mack huffed, his voice pitching to a whine. “But you don’t call me that!”
Will smiled and nuzzled into his neck, something warm and fizzy in his stomach again. “Okay, baby.”
Mack made a pleased noise and melted completely against Will’s chest, preening again at the attention. “That’s better.”
“Okay, seriously, shower time and then bed.”
Mack wrinkled his nose and whined noncommittally, not actually fighting it as Will lifted him off his lap.
They showered, changing into clean comfy clothes, Will in one of Mack’s many Team Canada shirts, Mack in a BC shirt of Will’s that had fit normally the first time he borrowed it and was now bordering on obscene across Mack’s shoulders. Will put the leftovers in the fridge, Mack turned on the white noise machine and the fan and flipped Will’s pillow so the coolest side was facing up, and they climbed into bed.
Mack’s head was pillowed on Will’s chest, Will’s arms around him and his fingers threading slowly through his hair.
“Goodnight, baby.”
Mack hummed, already half asleep. “Goodnight, Willy.”
Yeah, Will really could do this for the rest of his life.