Thrown Off the Ice

by Taylor Fitzpatrick

He has Liam, though, and maybe that’s not much, maybe that’s not enough, but in this moment, it suits him just fine.

“I love you,” Liam says, and hangs up before he can hear, once again, Mike not saying it back.

“You cool with me telling the guys I have a boyfriend?” Liam asks, and then before Mike can say anything, “I live with you, telling me I’m not your boyfriend is actively deluded at this point, Michael.”

It’s an objectively stupid moment that Mike realizes he’s going to be stuck with Liam for the rest of his life.

Kid can sink a puck through a goalie’s legs from thirty feet away but can’t cut a tomato without carnage ensuing. It makes no fucking sense.

I love you so fucking much, he doesn’t say, but he thinks it so goddamn hard he’s pretty sure Liam hears it anyway.