Work Text:
Nights as a hockey wife can be exciting… but they can also be mind-numbing. Even if Hayden is gone, life keeps going. School and dance practice and peewee hockey and doctors appointments and life… just keeps going. Jackie knew this. It’s not a surprise. The days stay busy and the nights creep on, until suddenly, the chaos melts and it’s just her in a big house.
At first, she felt lonely, losing the only other person capable of communicating in sentences for chunks of the month… but she made it work. She made a routine. Kids asleep or at least quiet enough to let them lie to her face about it later. Dinner damage reset. The monotony of cleaning. Electrolytes in water. Lists for the next day, the next week, made and remade to something like satisfaction. Hair in a cap. Shower. Body lotion. The same ratty Metros shirt she’s worn on the first night of Hayden’s trips for years now. Granny panties. Fluffy socks. Skincare routine including that incredible French goop Gina turned her on to. Her phone buzzes as she’s applying it, cutting into her moment to enjoy the scent mixing into the steam of her shower. Rarely anyone texts her this late who isn’t Hayden, so she figures he can wait a minute for the goop to do its goopy work.
She wipes her hand on her shirt to open the text as her other hand reaches for her water. It doesn’t get there.
The image in the text is lewd. Filthy.
Her husband’s face, mouth open, lips red and raw, dripping with... something. Snot. Drool. Thick globs glisten from his chin. A broad, rough hand is holding Hayden’s jaw with much smaller hands clasping desperately at a sinewy wrist. His expression is nothing short of gone.
She smiles. Picks up her water bottle and leans back in the bed.
Play nice, she texts back.
The other party’s typing bubbles flicker. One-handed texting, no doubt. Im not done w him.
Show me.
The images pop through, the angles creative and perfectly personal. Steady hands on hockey sticks don’t always translate to steady hands when holding a phone, and she loves them all the more for the blurs and terrible tremors. The live feature is her hero. Hayden on his knees goes from still-life to something deliciously alive, beautiful, his green eyes big and blinking as he visibly swallows whatever was in his mouth. The camera swings away only for the next image to come in. Her sweet man, the father of her children, pressing his face into a fuzzy, firm belly. The live clip shows him barely pulling back, lips stretched and full.
Her hand moves from water bottle to between her legs, pressing against herself absently as the images come in. There’s a lull, just for a bit, but she’s not worried. She’s the opposite of rushed. Languid, even. She scrolls back to the first photo and restarts the flow through them.
He’s always been beautiful. Long lashes framing big, happy eyes. A ready smile on lips that begged to be kissed. Soft brown hair that falls perfectly, even with someone’s hand fisted in it. Hayden Pike always ranks pretty high on all the lists put out on cutest hockey players, and Jackie preens appropriately enough about them. What those listicles could never reach, what no one could ever truly understand... is that this is when he is nothing short of art to her.
Well, that’s not true.
There’s another person who gets it.
The phone buzzes with a text this time, rather than more art. Boo hiss, etc.. Hes begging for it.
You know the rules, Marley. Can’t fuck him before a game.
Stupid rule. Like pouty teenagers, these grown, brutal men.
You both play better. You bc you wanna fuck him, him bc he wants you to. She sends the text, grinning, then thinks on it for a moment before adding: He can’t skate for shit after taking you.
Damn rite
She glances at the clock on her phone and texts, gently frustrated at being the only adult in a room she’s not even in. Get him off and put him to bed. Roz prob back soon.
What should I use?
Hands. I want more pictures.
Yes maam. One metro slut comin up.
God, she loved it when he went to Boston.
Some of the WAGS worried about their menfolk in a city notorious for its seedy underbelly and marriage-shattering nightlife. The paranoid group texts from new girls were sweet, and she did what she could to soften their fears. Honestly, its a shame she couldn't truly share her cheat-code for never stressing.
It's not like she can really tell them that all she had to do was let her guy say yes to a boyfriend on the other team who will send hot pictures of them ruining each other.
She gets a series of pictures in a burst, most of them in that "Hayden ruined" genre... but the last one is different. It's dark, the lighting coming from just the window and the night-world of Boston, the blue glazing over a sweet shot of Hayden tucked into the hotel bed, smiling up at the camera with that same massive hand cradling his face. The arrangement is largely physical, true... but she can't help the contentment-tinged ache in her heart. There's love there. Maybe not the same capital-L love the two of them built through the years and kids... but that doesn't mean the stroke of a thumb over Hayden's flushed cheek in the live clip isn't love. It is, and she's glad for it.
She turns off her own light, the last text of hes in. hedin back and the things it leaves unsaid a perfect nightcap.
Hayden may not be home with her, but at least there, there's a home to be had.