It was late afternoon and most of the Harriers were still sprawled out in the O’Shea basement. Some people had left but the core of the team was hanging out, reluctant to let the moment end.

Brunch had been over for hours, though there was more food to pick at, and Tanner had returned to his spot on the couch with his head in Leif’s lap.

Tanner kept messing with the loose edge of the bandage that covered the new tattoo on his thigh.

“Stop it,” Leif said with a laugh, taking Tanner’s hand. “Don’t mess with that.”

“Seriously,” Crawford grumbled. “It’s not even at the itchy stage yet.”

“I know but I wanna see it.”

Connor squinted at him. “Why is it on your thigh? I thought we all got our Cup art on our shoulders.”

Tanner blinked. “We did?”

Around the room, a bunch of guys lazily agreed.

“Mine’s on my shoulder,” Jesse said with a shrug. He turned and pulled up his T-shirt, revealing a skin-colored bandage just like the one Tanner had on his thigh, but bigger.

“Huh,” Tanner said frowning at his. “That’s weird.”

“You’ve got one on your shoulder too,” Leif said with a laugh. “Don’t you remember? You got two tattoos that night.”

“I did?” Tanner sat up and peered over his shoulder.

Leif gently tapped the spot.

Huh, it was a little sore, kinda like a bruise, so Tanner hadn’t really thought anything about it. He was honestly a little sore everywhere and he’d just figured it was playoffs and whatever he’d gotten up to during the Cup celebrations.

“You got two as well, Luke,” Sebastian said, looking amused. “You don’t remember that either?”

“What? No.” Crawford dragged a hand over his face. Despite the food and the cups of coffee and water and electrolytes, he still looked rough.

Probably because he’s so old, Tanner decided.

Crawford looked down at his forearm and frowned at the bandage there. “Huh. So I did.”

Everyone was silent while Crawford peeled the bandage off.

“Wait, I thought we had to leave it on?” Tanner said, confused.

“There are two layers,” Crawford said gruffly. “I assume Jacob put the skin-colored one on over the clear film to protect it from the sun since he knew we were all gonna be at the parade and doing a shit job of taking care of them.”

“Oh. That makes sense,” Tanner said.

Crawford frowned down at his arm. “LC + TC = BFFS 4EVER,” he said slowly. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

It took Tanner a second, but when it hit, he cackled. “Luke Crawford plus Tanner Clayton equals best friends forever. Duh.”

Crawford let out a low, pained groan. “Fuck! You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

Tanner, who was carefully peeling up the outer layer of his own bandage, cackled again, although it was pretty much drowned out by the sound of choking laughter going around the room.

Under Tanner, Leif’s body shook too, like he was laughing but trying to stay quiet about it.

Tanner inspected his tattoo. It said TC + LC = BFFS 4EVER inside a little heart.

“Hey, does yours have a heart?” he asked Crawford.

“No,” he said with a frown. “It’s just the words, which are fuckin’ bad enough.”

Across the room, someone let out a howl that was quickly muffled.

Crawford glared at his boyfriend. “No. Fuck no. This can’t be happening. Why didn’t you stop this?”

Sebastian snickered. “Hey, I was lobbying for you to get a Rockets tattoo.”

Leif chuckled.

“Never.” Crawford scowled at the fresh ink on his forearm again. “Fuck. Guess it could actually be worse than this dumb thing.”

“You’ll treasure this and you know it,” Tanner shot back. He glanced up at his boyfriend. “Did you know about this?”

Leif shook his head. “I didn’t go into the tattoo shop with you guys.”

“There are laws about tattooing drunk people,” Crawford groused. “I’m gonna fuckin’ sue this dude. I knew I shouldn’t have gone with anyone but my guy in Vegas.”

Sebastian laughed. “The Cup tattoos were your idea, and you had Jacob working on the designs almost the second you won it. You called him from the locker room, and you had the whole damn team record a video stating that they wanted them. Granted, they were all covered in beer by then, but I actually think everyone was wearing more than they’d managed to drink at that point. I don’t know if the video would hold up in a court of law, but …”

Crawford grunted. “Well, fine. But that was for the Cup tattoos. Not this shit.” He gestured at his arm with a disgusted look.

Sebastian held up his hands, palms out. “I tried to suggest you wait on that one, but you insisted. Said you wanted to commemorate the win.”

“Crawford’s never used that word in his life,” Tanner said with a laugh.

“At least I know what it fuckin’ means, unlike you,” Crawford shot back.

Sebastian rolled his eyes. “You both know what I mean. Maybe you used the word celebrate. I don’t remember. We can check the video though.”

“There’s video?” Tanner sat up, interested.

“Yeah, let me pull it up.” Sebastian grabbed his phone from his pocket.

Tanner got up and sat on the couch, squeezing in between Sebastian and Luke.

Crawford gave him an annoyed look. Tanner smiled at him.

“Here it is,” Sebastian said, holding the phone out. The rest of the team scrambled up from where they’d been relaxing, crowding behind the couch and leaning in.

Tanner took the phone and hit Play, holding it out so everyone could see.

The camera panned over the inside of a tattoo shop. It was filled with Harriers players and several tattoo artists working on them. Other guys were sprawled in chairs nearby and Luke and Tanner faced the camera. They both looked like they’d been out having fun, but they were both clear-eyed and smiling. Not cross-eyed or swaying like they were really drunk.

“Alright,” Crawford shouted. “I just gotta say, this is the best fucking team! And I’ve got the best fucking partner a defenseman could ask for!”

He hooked an arm around Tanner’s neck and gave him a noogie. “So we gotta commemorate this shit!”

“Ha!” Crawford said in real life. “Told you!”

Back on the screen, Tanner watched himself beam at Luke. “Hey! I know what we should get!” he said. “TC + LC = BFFS 4EVER inside a little heart.”

The camera wobbled a little like Sebastian was laughing while trying to hold it steady.

“The fuck does that mean?” Luke asked on the screen.

“Tanner Clayton plus Luke Crawford equals best friends forever,” Tanner replied cheerfully. “It’s perfect.”

“No fuckin’ way,” Luke said.

“C’mon,” Tanner begged. “Please. You’re leaving and I’m gonna miss you.”

Crawford sighed. “I told you, I’ll be behind the bar at O’Neill’s. You’ll know where to find me.”

“Yeah, but someday I’m going to New York to be with Leif and this way we can keep our friendship with us wherever we go!”

“You could always get a Rockets tattoo to remember him by,” Sebastian said with a choked laugh.

“Fuck no!” Crawford glowered at the camera. “Fuck! Absolutely fucking not.”

“See, my idea isn’t so bad,” Tanner said with a grin.

“Ugh, fine. Whatever. We’ll get it done. But no hearts!”

“I want a heart!” Tanner said.

Off the screen, a guy said. “I can do one version with a heart, the other as just text, if you want.”

“If I do this, my initials go first,” Crawford said, narrowing his eyes.

“Yours go first on your tattoo, mine go first on mine,” Tanner countered.

“Deal.” They shook on it.

“You sure you don’t want to wait?” Sebastian asked. “I know you had the Cup ones planned out but this is kind of impulsive and—”

“I want it,” Crawford said firmly. “Clayton’s right. This is the end of our run together. We should have something to remember it by.”

The video ended and Tanner realized his eyes were watering. “Fuck. You do love me,” he whispered.
Next to him, Crawford sighed. “You’re alright, kid. I guess I will miss you.”

“Where are you both going?” Jesse asked slowly as if he was just realizing what Tanner and Luke had said.

“Uhh,” Tanner said, because shit was out of the bag now. Whoops.

Crawford sighed again. “Alright. Everyone take a seat. We gotta talk.”

After Crawford told the team about his retirement and plan to buy O’Neill’s pub, Jesse frowned and nodded. “Well, that makes sense. We’ll miss having you on the team, but we get it. Or, at least I do.”

Everyone nodded.

“Yeah, but what about you leaving?” Connor said, frowning at Tanner. “What’s that about?”

“Uhh, well,” Tanner said. “I just talked about this with Gavin earlier, but I requested a trade to New York.”

“Shit,” Graham whispered.

“I know,” Tanner said. “It sucks. But, uh, I really want to be with Leif, you know?”

He glanced around. “You get it, right? You wouldn’t want to only see your person a handful of times during the season either.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Rafe said, looking at Mickey.

“I don’t,” Anker said, but he waved his hand. “I just assume this is something I’ll never understand, but I get that it’s what you want.”

Tanner nodded. He supposed it would be hard for someone who was aromantic and asexual to understand.

“I mean, what I really want is for Leif to come here,” he said. “But it isn’t possible and we all know it. So the only choice is for me to go there. I’m really gonna miss you guys though.”

“Gonna miss you too,” Jesse said, walking across the carpeted floor on his knees so he could hug Tanner.
The team piled on to give both Tanner and Luke hugs and no one let go until Crawford groaned.

“Fuck off already,” he said, shoving someone away. “Let a man breathe.”

But he looked suspiciously red around the eyes and Tanner didn’t think it was because he had a hazy memory of smoking weed with him at some point last night.

“Shit. It’s the end of an era,” Jesse said quietly.

“And the start of a new one,” Tanner said, equally quiet. “But the good news is, you’ll never be able to forget me now, huh?”

He nudged Crawford in the ribs.

He grunted and shoved back with his shoulder. “I could get this shit covered up, you know?”

“You could,” Tanner agreed with a laugh. “But you won’t.”

Crawford was quiet for a second. “No, I won’t,” he finally said.

“Because we’re best friends for-ever,” Tanner said in a singsong voice.

Luke tried to smother him with a pillow.