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It's four hundred fifty three miles from Gatineau to Rimouski, and Kent feels every one of them pass, every minute of the highway that skims by beneath the bus' wheels in the infinite darkness. The signs, when they loom out of the night sky, give the distance in kilometers, of course; but Kent translates in his head out of spite. Not much else to do on a sleeping bus.
Taylor Swift is swinging in his ear for what must be the hundredth time, in this moment now capture it remember it, and Jack's sleeping, heavy and warm, on his shoulder.
He loaded Fearless onto this player for Jack. Jack likes country music; he'll put up with maybe two songs when Kent plays Britney or Rihanna, but, inexplicably, he likes this album.
And he could buy a hundred ipods if he wanted them, but he has some strange aversion to adapting new technologies; and there's no way Kent can afford an ipod. So they're stuck with this old SanDisc player that holds twenty songs, all of which Kent has heard dozens of times already, even at this point in the season.
Jack shifts in his sleep, forehead turning a bit more into Kent's chest. Kent could sit here forever like this: let the empty miles and the night stretch on and on. The light and shadows on Jack's face change as the highway's lights outside appear, then disappear, but anyway, Kent knows, Jack's face is objectively kind of funny-looking. The cheekbones Kent would have sworn allegiance to on Alicia Zimmermann's face are ill-suited to Jack's harsh square chin; her model-worthy cool ice blue eyes look too empty on him. Still, Kent can't seem to stop wanting to trace every contour of Jack's face with his eyes as the streetlights wash over it, over and over again.
Taylor Swift is singing about Romeo and Juliet again, and Kent switches the music off.
In the silence he hears Jack breathing. There's such a tender ache, somewhere around the vicinity of his heart, just a few inches from where Jack's head lies. He wants to have this by right, for real, and not just because the team bus doesn't give them anywhere else to sleep, when they play evening games in faraway cities. He wants Jack to want to sleep on him like this every night.
And he's unutterably grateful, still, to the hockey gods, to whatever demon set up the schedule of the Q, to the simple natural fact that Jack won't stay awake all night and to the good fortune that Jack's his best friend, that Jack's here, warm and breathing and beautiful, slumped sleeping against his side.
Jack had kissed him. Three days ago. He still doesn't know why. They'd had a great game, but no different from other games they'd won together, and, at the after party, Jack had found him in the upstairs bathroom and locked the door behind them and kissed him and kissed him until the corners of Kent's lips felt raw, till he didn't know which way was up or down, till his hands were in Jack's hair and Jack's hands were on his thighs and they were grinding against each other, too, kissing, if you want to call it that, with their whole bodies, though Kent can't recall any moment when he decided to do any of those things, but he remembers every second of them happening, and then they were gasping and shuddering against each other and then Jack left.
Jack wouldn't speak to Kent for the rest of that night. He flinched away from Kent's hand on the back of his neck the next day, the sort of casual touch Kent uses on everyone; but he'd seemed normal at practice, aside from that. He wouldn't share seats with Kent on the ride to Gatineau, which is fine, cause he doesn't always, because sometimes he's out sick anyway, and Kent's a popular guy, and other people are always willing to sit with him.
He hadn't touched Kent for three days, and Kent felt its absence, and wondered how this could ever be worth those wonderful ten minutes in the bathroom. Then on the ice in Gatineau after he'd scored off Kent's assist he'd skated right in to grab Kent and spin him around the way he always did, bright and happy and untroubled, and in the locker room he was back to normal again.
Leaning casually, half-naked, over Kent, who was the same: a familiar half-heaven half-hell, both sides of it only sharpened by all the events of the last few days.
And now he's sleeping on Kent's shoulder, as the endless miles wear away, as Kent tries to commit this to memory, as if he could ever forget it. There's too many hours left til they get home, at any reasonable rate of travel. Kent wishes that he could sleep, too, like the rest of he bus, like he does every other road trip.
He can't let go of the staring, though, and also he can't relax enough.
Jack moves again. This time his eyes blink open. Too late for Kent to pretend he was doing anything other than creepily watching his best friend sleep.
"Kenny," Jack says. "You're awake?"
"Yeah." Kent would shrug, but he doesn't want to jostle Jack's head. "Can't sleep. You should go back to sleep, though."
Jack frowns. "You know you'll be dead on your feet in practice tomorrow if you don't sleep now. Here - come on." He sits up off Kent's shoulder and side, rolls his neck for a second, and then slumps against the bus window on the other side of him. It's the other one of two ways they usually sleep on the bus. When Kent still doesn't move after a second, Jack pulls him over to lean on him, a mirror image of what their position had looked like several minutes ago. "Okay? Now let's sleep."
Kent nods, and yawns. He hadn't thought he could sleep tonight; but Jack's arm over his shoulder again, Jack's chest under his cheek, shared warmth, and, above all, Jack telling him to? Is too much, apparently, to resist. The last thing he thinks before he falls asleep is that he wants to stay awake long enough to appreciate this moment, too, and then he's out like a light. As he's drifting off and maybe dreaming he thinks Jack touches his hair.