Dylan Strome goes to Edmonton to deal with, like, a lot of stuff. Mostly Connor, because they're apparently bonded, or whatever.

In which Connor is terrible at being an incubus, Dylan has all the answers, and Jack finds himself falling for not one, but two, Canadians.

Society is weird in that there’s not a lot of words for someone who you love and do a lot of dating-things with and are committed to but you’re not actually dating. OR: Five times people misunderstood Connor and Dylan's friendship, and one time someone didn't.

“Why can’t I just use your witch?” whines Connor, head resting on the kitchen table while Hallsy shuffles through a manila folder labeled “curse shit.” “She just rubbed foxglove on my wrists and told me not to have sex,” says Hallsy. “It was not very helpful, and also did you know that foxglove is poisonous?” “Yeah, if you eat it,” says Connor.

Nolan shouldn’t be excited. He really shouldn’t. Most guys who have been in the league for a while don’t treat it like a big deal. It sucks, sometimes, depending on the team you get sent to and whoever got first star for them, but Nolan’s already been told that the Stars are pretty decent. Still, nobody ever seems to look forward to being chosen, but that hadn’t stopped a thrill of excitement from zipping up Nolan’s spine when the Stars team rep had called his name.

Mitch doesn't care that much about the sacrifice. Life's short, he gets to play hockey for a living, the mildly annoying parts are worth it.

Connor’s still not really sure how to handle having this kind of reputation, about it spreading past the O.

John cracks an eye open, and Thatcher is shucking off his jeans, kicking them underneath the desk. He’s wearing – well, John catches a glimpse of lace as Thatcher pulls his sweatpants back on. Tight, navy lace stretched out over his ass.

Zach thinks about all the teasing Dylan’s been doing lately, all the ways he’s taunted Zach with his dick. If he wants to get into Zach’s pants, he’s going to have to be more forward than that. Or they can keep playing this long-winded game of gay chicken. So Zach stands up, sheds his gear, and when he’s sure Dylan is looking, he drops his pants.

Jack has a huge dick. Jack is a huge dick. Unfortunately, he's also the best lay of Connie's life.

“You kissed me the night before we got drafted,” Connor says, unbuckling Jack’s belt and making light work of yanking Jack’s jeans down to his knees. With Jack’s thighs and his penchant for tight fitting pants, it’s an impressive move. “Blew me in the men’s restroom right after dinner.” “Fuck you I did not,” Jack grunts as he lifts up his hips to help Connor strip off his boxers.

“Shut the door,” says Draisaitl. “’Course you’re bossy like this,” Matthew mutters. But he shuts the door and, after a minute of hesitation, flicks the latch shut too. “McDavid gave me the talk, you know why I’m here, so if you want me to go—”

Leon hates Matthew Tkachuk. Doesn't he? So then why isn't he turning him away, despite his heat?

"Leon." Matthew says. He can't remember wanting someone like this before, never in his life, like without them he'd explode. Leon is six-plus feet of warm skin and Matthew wants to ruin him. "Leon," he says again. "I promise I'll still hate you in the morning."

Everybody knows about the bet.

Connor would give up a lot to have his soulmate write back even just their name.

"Yeah, I think it's better that way than in front of a bunch of cameras. I mean, it's better to be a little bit low key about it."

When the PR team makes them do a couples quiz for the team's YouTube channel and Connor gets every question about him right, that's when Jack has to acknowledge to himself that, yeah, maybe they've become friends. or, Jack and Connor get drafted by the Seattle Kraken.

Jack feels the metal bite into his wrist. There’s more resistance than there should be, and with a growing sense of horror, Jack looks down to see that Saader has locked him into one of the cuffs belonging to a pair of hot pink, fuzzy handcuffs. The other is around the wrist of fucking Connor McDavid.

“Hey, boys,” Nail says loudly. “Look at lovebird potentials over there.” Someone hits pause on the game, and suddenly the room is quiet, everyone staring at Ryan and Connor. Ryan rolls his eyes. “Stop it,” he says. “Just because we’ve both got marks on our hands doesn’t mean we’re going to bond to each other.”

Obviously, everybody knows that there is no blessing without a curse, or a curse without a blessing. It’s the universe’s handy little trick to keep things balanced, so that nobody can ask for too much for free, so that nobody can curse their neighbor without also doing a little good. A matched set. It just that Connor’s starting to think that he really, really did not grasp this concept when he was six years old. ... Jack’s quiet for a long moment. “I’ve never seen a curse like this,” he says finally, and Connor shakes his head, blood draining from his face. “That’s because,” he says, horror settling low in his belly. “Jack, that’s because I’m the curse.”

- Mrs Bittle insists that they all call him Mister Crappy. Shitty has no idea who they’re talking to. - The Bittles are all impressed by Dicky’s lawyer friend, because Shitty knows how to impress parents - Shitty and Coach bond over mustache grooming

The text just says, hope you’re doing well, when Jack sees it in the preview screen. That’s why he opens it. A week past his surgery, the well wishes have slowed to a trickle, but he’s still getting a sporadic few messages per day. Some of them, like this one, are from numbers he’s forgotten to save over the years. So he opens it. Only. It’s not just a text message – there’s that, the text he already saw. But also, above that... a nude.

There's more than one reason that Jack wanted to go first.

Being a star athlete changes you.

"How about," Connor says, real low and warm, dangerous and tempting. Jack's stomach drops straight through the floor. "I'll let you blow me, and we'll worry about labels later."

"So you're gonna take me to prom, huh," Dylan says, testing the words out in his mouth. "Which one?" "Not McDowell's," Connor says, like he's given it a lot of thought. He probably has. Jesus. "Ideally we'll still be in the playoffs, so we won't have time." "Ideally," Dylan echoes, and takes another bite of burrito to calm himself. Whatever, it's not like prom's a huge deal to either of them. They could go as buddies. People do that. "What should I wear?" If anything, Connor just grins wider.

When Tom Wilson hits Brian Dumoulin a little high and knocks him out of the game, he knows he should apologize. Tom Wilson has a unique way of saying sorry.

Sex bonding for chemistry has never been fun for Kris. He’ll take a knot, but he’s not going to beg for it. He’s not going to roll over and make it easy. Kris may be an Omega, but he’s an alpha in bed. Lucky for him, he finally has a D partner that understands.

Once you play your first NHL game, your captain gets to take your virginity. That's the way it's always been. It's tradition. How can John say no to tradition? How can John say no to Sidney Crosby?

Pierre-Luc Dubois normally hates losing. He loses the hockey game, 7-2 against Pittsburgh, and that sucks. He loses his fight against Crosby, and that really sucks. He loses his dignity on the Pens' locker room floor, and... Maybe that doesn't suck as much as he thought it would.

He's Hank's. The whole team is.

“That was so good,” Willie tells him, and he gets that heat in his stomach again. "You're so good."

"You can't skip a heat," Dicky says. "If you could I'd schedule mine for bye week and the offseason every time." "It's like, some pills to delay it, for game day, and then to make it happen faster, after," Miro tries to explain. "I took those once," Tyler calls from inside the trainer's room, where he's getting an ice pack strapped to his hip, "during the 2013 playoffs. They're a fucking trip, but they do the trick. Better make sure you've got an alpha who can handle it."

"We've got a special request tonight," the PR rep says, clipboard in hand. The way she says it, you can hear the implied capital letters: Special Request, the publicly friendly way to say some fans shelled out a lot of cash to watch you fuck.

"The bond's fucked up, boys," Jamie says. There are nods around the room, from all the vets. "We gotta fix it." He says it like it's a general statement, like collectively they're all going to do something to fix it. Jason knows it's really directed at him.

In any case that's old news now. Roman is in Europe and Miro isn't assigned to anyone anymore. He chose to be with Roope, and Roope is a possessive kind of dom. He hasn't brought anyone else into their bed in the year they've been together, and Miro is okay with that. He likes belonging to Roope. But it's not like he never thinks about it. And today, he's thinking about it.

When the lights come back on after the Pride Tape presentation and the boys start to stir, Connor looks at Ebs, sitting on the floor in front of him, and he says, without thinking, "Is this about me?" Everyone within earshot freezes.

Mitch’s heart is freezing over. It takes him exactly one year, seventeen days, five hours, and thirteen minutes to notice.

nice hatty, the text says. No capitalization, no emojis, nothing. Jack doesn’t even have the number saved in his phone. Originally that was out of pettiness, but what it actually means is Jack has Connor McDavid’s number memorized without even having tried. Apparently that’s what happens after a year and change of seeing it pop up on his lockscreen. It’s not even like McDavid texts him that often. Once they’d gone three months without speaking. Which is fine. They’re not really friends, exactly. They are sort of coworkers, and they have eaten each other’s cum, but they’re not, like, friends.

If Connor was a good person - if he was a Good Simple Boring Canadian Boy - he wouldn’t watch his best friend get fucked by his older brother.

“Shower again.” Alex says, popping the top off his bottle and taking a long pull. He stares Dylan down while he does it, and fuck. That's not playing fair. “Why?” Dylan asks, because fuck, they need to talk about whatever is happening here. “Because I told you to.”

This mission isn't going anywhere close to plan, and Mace is never again trusting Obi-Wan when he says it will.

“So, like, a couple of the guys here know, now,” Alex says. “About our whole --” he waves his hand absently. Our whole soulbonded thing. You know, casual, is what's not said, but Dylan can fill in the blanks pretty well.

Dylan and Alex agree to be in a promo video for the Winter Classic. There's... a lot of footage that had to be cut out.

“Did, uh,” Jamie asks, “did this ever happen when you played this game with Brownie?” “Nope,” Tyler says.

Jamie’s always known his girlfriend has a dirty mind.

“Wait, so you’ve all tried it?” Jonny asks.

Mitch doesn’t quite believe it when he finds the dress.

c: i agree, the natural progression of auston getting injured is for him to start lactating and get milked by matt martin in a car park (“Oh, kid. You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”)