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Sorry if I’m interrupting we can chat later

Dylan

You are not the same as the elderly neighbors who still think of me as the ten year old boy who used to shovel their driveways

I am more than happy to talk to you anytime

Tonight especially

Oh ok good :)

Merry xmas

How’s Quebec?

Cold but it didn’t snow

I don’t want to be a twenty-five year old boy who has to shovel the neighbor’s driveway if I can help it

lol

I bet you’d look cute though

In a toque with a snow shovel

What kind of weird fantasies do you have

So many

You have time to video chat??

Yes I think so

His phone lit up with an incoming video chat request, and Henri hesitated. He looked around his bedroom, which suddenly felt cramped and childish. Not dirty, thankfully, so he took a fortifying breath and accepted the chat.

“Henri.” Dylan’s grin, as boyish as ever. His cheeks were rosy from what looked like a fresh sunburn. Would he look like that after a weekend on the lake?

“Dylan.” He was so distracted drinking in the sight of him that it took him a moment to realize something wasn’t right. He frowned and stared at the background, recognizing nothing about the room behind Dylan. “Where are you?”

“Huh?” Dylan looked around as if he didn’t know where he was. Adorable. “Oh, this is the guest room at my parents’ place.” He held up his phone and did a slow tour of the room. It was very…beachy. Not very Dylan at all, with its dainty furniture and framed paintings of beach scenes with real starfish glued on.

“I didn’t realize you were going to visit your parents.” Of course, Henri hadn’t been clear on his timeline for visiting his father, either. They needed to learn to talk better, recalibrate so they weren’t so far out they were only talking about hockey but not so zoomed in it was just how much they wanted to get their hands on each other.

“I, uh, decided to visit once I realized how long you’d be out of town.”

“Oh.” Oh no, was Henri’s heart expanding or shattering? Maybe it’d just stopped entirely, or crawled out of his chest and escaped.

Ah. This was why they weren’t good at talking yet. Dylan implied he’d changed all his plans because of Henri, and Henri could hardly stand it.

“Show me your room,” Dylan begged. “This is your for real room, right? That you grew up in?”

“Yes. My family has lived here since I was five, I think.”

“They move for hockey?”

“Isn’t that the only reason anyone ever moves?”

“Seems like. C’mon, show me.”