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Words blur across his laptop screen. Stifling a yawn, Kip blinks and re-reads the passage.
Contemporary art offers a unique object of study for contemplating artist intent in conservation in part because the artist or those who knew the artist are available, but also because much of the art produced today no longer makes a claim of durability and fixity.
He adds a few more thoughts to his notes app and finishes Wharton’s opening statement, highlighting the last sentence in florid yellow.
“‘Should the term artist intention in the conservation of contemporary art be replaced?’” Kip reads aloud, exhaling slowly. He raises his eyebrows. “Good question.”
“Kip!”
Without looking up from the article or moving, Kip yells back, “Yeah dad!”
Before Scott—
“You need to stop referring to parts of your life as Before Scott and After Scott, like he’s Jesus,” he hears Elena say, remembering one of the many nights she had sacrificed to console him over drinks at the Kingfisher. “You will move on eventually.”
She’s right, he will move on eventually. But Kip thinks she’s wrong in thinking that he won’t always see some of his life as Before and After Scott. Even when he decides to start dating again — maybe in another year — part of Scott will always be with him.
The pretentious part of Kip, which he’s been embracing more lately now that his degree is wrapping up, could tie it into art as a whole, the idea that your experiences stay with you, intentionally or otherwise.
Before Scott, Kip had rarely eaten meals with his dad due to balancing multiple jobs and studying.
After Scott, his dad had started to insist on at least one dinner together per week, regardless of Kip’s work and school schedule. It had tortured Kip not to be honest with his dad when his dad obviously knew that something — a bad breakup — had happened and Kip hadn’t held back with any of his previous breakups.
“You got something in the mail!” his dad yells, “and it’s dinnertime.”
Yawning, Kip closes his laptop and stretches, rolling off of the couch and onto the floor. His dad is standing at the bottom of the stairs with an odd smile on his face. “It’s from the New York Admirals.”
Kip swallows. “That’s weird,” he says, taking the envelope embossed with the Admirals’ logo in the corner.
Another thing that his dad has not asked about — Kip applauds his restraint, knowing from his quizzical looks that his dad desperately wants to ask — is Kip’s brief love affair and falling out with the New York Admirals.
The envelope rips awkwardly when Kip tries to open it. There’s no note save for instructions on how to claim three tickets to the Stanley Cup Final tomorrow in the lower bowl of Madison Square Garden under the name "Christopher Grady."
Two of them are the exact same seats Scott had put aside for Kip and a friend — Elena — years ago.
Kip looks up, flexing his fingers so his hands will stop shaking. His dad watches him, a smile on his face.
“Uhm…do you want to go see the Admirals tomorrow?” Kip asks. “A guy I know had some extra tickets.” His cheeks warm the more he talks and he knows his dad catches his reaction.
A guy he knows.
A guy who is ninety-nine percent certain to be Admirals Captain Scott Hunter.
A guy who is Kip’s closeted ex-boyfriend.
Stepping forward, his dad folds Kip into a hug. He pats Kip on the back and ruffles Kip’s hair. “You didn’t have to do that for your old dad,” he says, giving Kip an easy excuse for the tickets’ existence.
Kip has no idea why Scott is sending him tickets now. Hope flutters in his chest and he coughs to cover his reaction.
“You deserve it,” Kip says seriously. “You know for putting up with me these past few years.”
“Get out,” his dad says, shoving Kip towards the dinner table. “Any dad would be fucking proud to have a son like you. I mean it.”
“Thanks.” Kip clears his throat and tucks the note into his pocket. “Do you need any help with dinner?”
_____
Kip manages to hold himself together as everyone around him starts counting down the final seconds of the third period. His dad’s giddy voice joins them, a close and personal example of exactly why Scott had chosen to stay closeted for so long.
Scott Hunter is the New York Admirals and years ago, he had broken nearly all of his rules for Kip, of all people.
All but one rule.
“Hey.”
He doesn’t realize that he’s crying until Elena wipes the tears from his eyes.
“I’m not sad,” he rasps, shocked to find that he’s not lying, for once.
Sad isn’t the right adjective for what he’s feeling right now. He’s not sure if there is a single word in the English language that’s the perfect mix of the pride, heartbreak, and understanding burning through his chest.
“You’re allowed to be,” she says, resting her head on his shoulder.
The image of Scott wrapping his hands around both ends of the Stanley Cup lights up the MSG jumbotron. Lifting the trophy in the air, Scott screams. The trophy looks heavy but a weight falls from Scott’s shoulders all the same, catharsis in every one of the tears leaking from his eyes in 4K above Kip’s head. Sweat drips down Scott’s face, hair dark and damp and pasted to his forehead in a way that somehow only makes Scott look more attractive, even with an angry red line left behind by his helmet. He beams through his scruffy playoff beard looking boyish and mature in equal measure.
Kip remembers calling hockey players — Scott — hot lumberjacks during one of Scott’s first few visits to Straw+Berry to test the waters and it’s this idiotic memory that accompanies the sob clawing its way up and out of his throat in a choked-off gasp.
He’ll have to apologize later for the way he knows he’s crushing Elena’s fingers in his grip, desperately holding onto her like her steady presence will keep the tears at the corners of his eyes from falling.
It doesn’t.
He loosens his grip and then intertwines their fingers together, squeezing her hand again. She bumps their shoulders together. Warmth from his father’s arm envelopes Kip as he brings Kip into a tight hug, his own eyes filled with tears of joy.
The camera keeps going to Scott, still wide-eyed and bewildered as he skates lazily around while the rest of his teammates move towards a flood of people shakily stepping onto the ice.
“They let people on the ice?” He blurts out, watching as the two crowds meet each other, a sea of red jerseys and what look like players’ wives and children and parents. Carter Vaughn jumps into the arms of a woman who is definitely not prepared for 200-plus pounds of hockey player to meet her in full force. They both tumble to the ice, laughing and crying and kissing each other furiously.
“When they win the Stanley Cup they do!” his dad says. “Friends and family of the players.”
Kip chokes on another sob.
Scott looks up up from the ice, facing in their direction. He shakes his head and rubbing his hands on his pants as he talks to himself. Kip smiles through his tears. He doesn’t know if Scott has been told whether someone used his tickets or not, but Kip stares back at Scott, tears freely falling down Kip’s cheeks.
A frisson of excitement — an automatic response that has memories of their time together playing through Kip’s mind like a film reel — electrifies Kip’s body when Scott’s eyes lock onto his.
Scott shakes his head again and then tosses it back behind his shoulder towards the mass of his teammates. He raises his hand and waves wildly.
“Go!” Elena says, shoving him in the direction of the end of their row.
Stumbling over someone’s feet, Kip mumbles apologies to their row-mates as he shuffles towards the stairs. His eyes don’t leave Scott’s. When he looks up at the Jumbotron again, Kip sees himself on it and then the camera pans back to Scott, an odd look on Scott’s face like he’s trying to hold back a smile, but it’s peeking out anyway at the corners of his mouth underneath his playoff beard.
Kip grips the railing to steady himself. Pausing on the stairs, he blinks at Scott, who is now throwing his arms in the air like an idiot.
A laugh bubbles up and out of Kip’s throat. Scott’s giddiness cuts through any apprehension Kip may have had and he walks down slowly, like Scott is pulling him towards the ice.
Scott reaches over and takes his hand to help Kip over the barrier. It’s warm and callused and damp with sweat.
“You don’t have to do this,” Kip blurts out, trailing awkwardly in his shoes behind Scott’s graceful strides.
He doesn’t even know what “this” is, or what Scott has planned. Part of Kip thinks he’s still sitting in the stands between Elena and his father with his own personal cocktail of conflicting emotions roiling in the pit of his stomach, his hands clapping automatically to celebrate Scott Hunter, who is somehow his ex-boyfriend, winning the Stanley Cup.
“Yes,” Scott says, “yes I do.”
When Scott turns Kip around to face him, Kip inhales sharply at the look in Scott’s eyes. It’s one he’s seen so many times before — over post-sex smoothies in Scott’s ridiculous apartment, through half-lidded eyes on rare sleepy mornings, from across the room at the Equinox Gala — and Kip swallows.
Scott doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself. His right hand tightens around Kip’s and he breathes out a few times like he’s steeling himself for something. “You came,” he says, voice cracking with disbelief, like Kip being there is somehow even more unlikely to Scott than winning the championship Scott has been chasing this entire time. “I’m…I…”
He leans forward.
The first kiss is desperate. Kip’s hand immediately wraps around the back of Scott’s neck, stroking Scott’s earlobe because he knows it drives Scott crazy. He feels Scott’s hand tugging at his hair. Their noses mash against each other awkwardly and Scott cries into Kip’s mouth.
When Scott pulls away he laughs in disbelief, pressing their foreheads together before kissing Kip more soundly.
“I love you so fucking much,” he breathes into Kip’s face. Scott's breath is awful, sour and stale from the game and whatever sponsored sports drink he's been having on the bench.
Kip loves it, loves him.
“I love you too.”
Scott kisses him again, still laughing. "I kept the socks. Wore them underneath my grey ones for every game."
Kip is certain there's an entire stadium surrounding them. They're probably cheering, booing, mouths open in surprise and shock. Somewhere his dad and Elena are watching with disbelief and hopefully happiness respectively.
“Guess they were lucky after all,” Kip says idiotically, his mouth starting to hurt from how much he’s grinning. Scott's hand is warm and firm, even from the thick fabric of Kip's jacket, as he guides Kip to the rest of his team.