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It won’t be the end of the world if it never happens, he’ll just mourn it forever and that’s something he’ll have to live with. But it’s not like they could be together anyway. Geno deserves to be able to go back to his motherland, the place where he grew up, the place his parents still reside. He doesn’t deserve for Sidney to keep him here in Pittsburgh forever. No matter how much he wishes he could wrap the Russian man up in his arms and put him in the passenger seat of his car as he drives the both of them up to his place in Nova Scotia, he can’t. He can’t do that to anyone, let alone the man he loves.
It’ll be alright eventually, the sting won’t be so noticeable once he’s off by the water. When the trees and animals who have been his friends for what feels like forever let him talk their ears off once again. He’ll let his longings be carried off into the wind if only for a while. Then they shall return to him when the wind meets him in Pittsburgh yet again. It’s the same cycle year over year, he’s done it for twenty and he can make it twenty-one.
He feels bad for Kathy, everyone thinks that she’s crazy for being with a man who hasn’t proposed to her after so many years together. She tells him she’s fine playing his beard, she had figured it out before he truly did, and it’s not like he’s ever stopped her from getting what she needs.
Yet, he still feels bad that her reputation is tied to his, that she’s helping him secretly parent a child that isn’t hers. That she was the one to rub his back as he sobbed over Geno not remembering that night, and then again after finding out the real consequences of it when it was too late for him to do anything about it. Not that he would have done anything to get rid of something so innocent, so pure, so Geno. He had been twenty-three, stupid and naive. He had sworn up and down that he could push down the feelings of yearning that he had held for his teammate.
He was wrong, and by that time Kathy had confronted him about her own observations, how he never seemed to look at women the way he looked at men. Specifically one man, one six foot five lanky Russian man. He had broken down in her arms and she agreed to stay with him under one condition: they could both have other partners but they wouldn’t do hook ups or one night stands. He turned out to be the one that broke their agreement, sleeping with Geno one time drunk before they played the first real game of the 2010-11 season against the Flyers. After landing himself in the hospital with a concussion during the winter classic they had told him the news of his condition.
He loves Benjamin and he knows Geno would love their son if he knew about him at all, but now it’s been so long and he’s been so private that it feels harder to tell him than say nothing at all. The other guys talk about their kids so openly, yet he remains silent.
Ben plays hockey for a local U15 team under the last name Kindel, and for as recognizable as Sidney is he’s found that it’s not too hard to disguise himself among the other hockey dads to watch his kid play. As Ben gets older, the more and more he looks like Geno. Sidney can tell he won’t be as tall as his other father, but he’s got this look in his eye and if humor was genetic he’d be a spitting image of the Russian. Of course at a certain age he had to break the news to his son that Kathy wasn’t his biological mother, that he was in fact the one who carried him for nine months, and then fed him for even more after the fact.
His plan is to keep this a secret for as long as he’s playing hockey and for as long as it takes for Ben to grow up, he doesn’t want the press digging into their lives any more than they already do. Things don’t last forever and at the end of the day secrets do have to come out, it’s just unfortunate that he doesn’t have complete control over the situation.
Kathy has had to rush out of town for a last minute family emergency. Normally this would be fine, Ben is at a friend's house having a sleepover and Sidney has taken the opportunity to finally host the guys at his house again like they have been begging him for ages. They are sitting around the firepit laughing at each other's stories from over the years when his phone starts ringing.
It’s Ben.
He picks up the phone no questions asked, his son wouldn’t be calling him for no reason. Not from a friend’s house, and definitely not this late at night. “Hey bud, what’s going on?”
“Dad, I wanna go home.” His son sounds close to tears and he feels frozen in his chair. If the guys still surround him he would be none the wiser. Right now the only thing he can focus on is the scared quiver in Ben’s voice, and his paternal instinct to fix the situation and save his son from whatever is going on.
“Ok kid, we can make that happen. Are you safe right now?”
“Yeah, I’m safe dad.” He hiccups. He stands up from his chair and starts reaching to find his keys.
“Ok Ben, I need you to tell me exactly where you are and I need you to stay put till I get there. Alright?”
“I’m at Bryce’s house. Can you stay on the phone with me dad?”
“Yeah bud. I’ll stay on the phone with you the entire time.” He reassures his son as he rushes to his car, quickly pulling out of the driveway to get to Ben as fast as he can.
The drive in theory should take fifteen minutes but he makes it in five. He tells Ben as he’s pulling into the street and by the time he’s pulling up in front of the house his son is primed and ready by the front door. He sprints down the drive to climb into the front seat of Sid’s car, throwing his stuff in the back as an afterthought. After pulling away and turning off the other kid’s street he turns to face his son and asks, “so are you going to explain to me what this was all about?”
Ben looks down sheepishly, “Bryce said that he doesn’t understand why my dad is never at our games and when I said that you do go to my games he called me a liar and asked if I even have a dad. Clearly I have a dad, I have you. And you go to my games when you can. I know you’re busy but I just don’t see what his problem is.” He takes a deep breath in before continuing, “and I know you said mom isn’t my biological mother because you carried me and you won’t tell me who my other dad is for some reason that I don’t understand. But I just don’t see why he would have to be so mean about it.” Soft tears slide down his cheeks, and he quickly rubs them away.
“How about this, I make us some hot chocolate while you grab Pucky, and we can watch The Mighty Ducks again on the couch. Does that sound good?” Ben nods his head in agreement.
It isn’t till he’s pulling up to the house that he realizes that he forgot something. Something important. All of the guys are still at his place, all of their cars are still parked along the street and in his driveway. He’s been gone maybe fifteen minutes total, not even long enough for any of them to really bat an eye. “Ok bud, your dad has made a little mistake. He might have forgotten to tell the guys to go home, so what you’re gonna do is go inside and up to your room and I’m gonna go out back and tell them to leave. Don’t forget your backpack.”
He climbs out of the car and heads for the back yard and Ben heads into the house. He rounds the corner and is immediately spotted by Kris, “hey Sid, there you are. We’ve been wondering where you went.”
“Sorry, hey guys!” He raises his voice as everyone goes silent waiting to hear what he’s about to say, “I hate to cut things short but something has come up and I’m gonna need you all to head home now.” The guys accept his answer and start packing up and leaving, giving Sid a ‘thanks for hosting’ as they leave.
Finally it’s just him and Kris in the back yard, “hey man, I just wanna say that I’m here for you. You don’t have to tell me what’s going on but just remember you’ve got the whole team behind you.”
“Thanks man,” he says as they give each other a quick hug. He heads into the house ready to make the two of them hot chocolate when he sees what might just be his worst nightmare. A six-foot-five professional hockey player and a five-foot-six thirteen year old staring at each other in nearly identical outfits. All three of them actually were matching, black shorts and a white shirt. It would be funny if Geno and Geno’s son who he doesn’t actually know he has weren’t staring at each other like they’ve seen a ghost.
Geno is the first to speak of the three of them, “Sid, I think fan broke into your kitchen.”
About the same time as Geno decides to speak, his son also decides to speak up, “dad, can he join us for the movie?” It leaves him flabbergasted. Sure, he knows that Ben knows all about Geno and his teammates, it’s not like he’s living under a rock, but it still rattles him knowing that his son is asking for his father that he doesn’t know is his father to join them for their movie.
“I think Geno probably wants to go home bud,” he wraps his arm around Ben’s shoulder while trying to send the message to Geno to leave and not ask further questions.
Geno does not get the memo, that or he purposely chose to ignore it. Realistically it’s the latter, “Sid should know by now not to speak for me. I would love to join you for movie.” Sidney sends him a glare in response.
The three of them settle in on the couch, only after Ben runs upstairs to get Pucky. Luckily for Sid it’s not enough time for Geno to ask further questions, though he can tell the man is fighting himself internally not to ask them anyway. Ben makes it most of the way through the movie before he crashes, tucked in and drooling into Sidney’s side. He excuses himself to go bring him up to his room, he knows he only has so many of these moments left and he wants to savor every last one of them.
When he gets back downstairs he’s not surprised to see Geno is still there on the couch. “Look. I can explain myself,” he gets out before the Russian has a chance to speak.
“Please do.”
“I have a son.”
“Clearly.”
“He’s yours.”
“Yes Sid I know this,” he says by instinct. “Wait. What?”
“Ben is your son, we had sex one time when we were both drunk back in 2010 and I didn’t know how to tell you. And you know how I am with my privacy and how people can get sometimes. And I just wanted to keep him safe.” Sid forces all the words out in one go, if he had even paused for a moment he’s not sure he ever would have gotten them all out.
Geno looks taken aback, “I thought you were going to tell me you were gay. Not that you keep son from me for over ten years.”
“I didn’t mean to keep it hidden for so long. It’s just that after a while it felt easier to keep hiding it than ever come out and say it and the longer that it was hidden the scarier it became to tell you.”
“Sid I miss so much of his life. I know so little about him. I think I know so little of you too. You keep so much hidden. I guess you know real me but I don’t know real you.” The older man looks heartbroken. A look of pure devastation graces his face and there’s really not much that Sidney could do to fix it.
“I want to fix things. I want you to get to know him. I want you to feel like you know me.” Sidney is pleading with him now.
“Sid you break my trust. I need time and space to think things over but I want to know him.”
“How about I give you the info for his next hockey game? You can show up, see him play, you don’t even have to talk to me at all?” He knows he’s bargaining now, anything to make the situation just a little bit better.
“Yes please send me this,” he pauses for a moment, “don’t worry space won’t be forever. I just need to think about how I am apparently a father.”
“Geno,” he takes a breath in, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know about him.”
“Ok Sid, start talking.” And that he does.