6: Tacofredag

the song is like not at all related to the chapter but i feel like it's the first song on Rocket's 2020 Spotify wrapped

ROCKET

So far, so good. Day two after a full day of just acclimating to being in a different timezone and being vaguely lazy. HÃ¥kon has been struggling through teaching me basic Swedish so if I get like, really lost, I'll be fine. I can officially ask where the bathroom is but that is about it.

We headed to a local rink and gym this morning to get back on summer training though both of us took it lightly out of jet lag and laziness.

Now, out of all the things I thought I'd end up doing on this fine day, meeting the bridesmaids wasn't one of them.

What I mean is: meeting the bridesmaids while drenched in sweat (both of us) and carrying our gear bags back in with us so Isa can immediately ban them to the little porch so they don't stink up the house.

HÃ¥kon is in a Wolves shirt that's sticking to his chest and back from where the pads sat and it's making every little part of him pop. My hair is tied back and soaked and I can feel it still dripping down my neck despite the three minute drive having been elapsed post the end of the workout.

"HÃ¥kon!" I hear a voice that isn't Isa's on the inside of the apartment. "You're home!"

"Uh," he glances back at me. "Yep."

The girl starts rambling at him in Swedish and I stare blankly up at him. He steps aside to let me in after him and I'm standing in a room with three other girls and Isa.

They all stare blankly at me for a moment before Isa saves my ass.

"Guys, this is Rocket, he's HÃ¥kon's second for the wedding." Isa is treading the line between friend and boyfriend very carefully, letting us decide whether or not we want to be out to these three too. HÃ¥kon taps his foot three times on the ground and I tap back twice, then three asking for his opinion, he doesn't respond.

"Uh, yeah," he clears his throat. "Guys, my boyfriend, Rocks, these are Isa's friends. Preface, he doesn't speak Swedish."

The tallest of Isa's friends' eyes go wide. "Boyfriend?" It's followed by an ear-to-ear grin. "HÃ¥kon!"

He turns red all the way up to the tips of his ears. "Yeah." It comes out real soft and shy and very very timid for a guy who currently looks like that one painting of Atlas holding up the world.

She jogs over and hops up to ruffle his hair all up and pat him on the back. "I just knew you'd join the dark side with me."

"Yeah yeah," he mumbles, smiling. "I got around to it."

"And got around to it well," she leans over and looks at me. "I'm Vera." She offers me a hand and for a moment I reconsider my whole entire sexuality for the millionth time in my life. Because, like, men, but also like, wow.

"Milos, but you can call me Rocket."

"Where are you from? I can't tell what accent that is."

I shrug. "Very diluted Czech. Most of the stuff on top is Canadian."

"Ah," she nods. "Okay, these two are Eva and Astrid." She waves at them and they wave back, deep in the midst of conversation with HÃ¥kon and Isa. "Astrid is the one with blonde hair and Eva is the one with black hair."

I have to give it to Isa, she's got an incredibly diverse group of friends for Sweden. Vera is, hot, oh my good lord. She's probably almost six feet tall and has beautiful oak skin that has me one atomic particle interaction away from asking her what in god's name she uses to clean her face. Her hair is long and poofs out into a godlike cloud that looks like you could stick like a billion pencils in and keep them all there. Or, I would do that, I'm not sure if she would do that, but if I had hair like that: pencils. Immediately.

Astrid is Swedish like HÃ¥kon and Isa, but her facial structure is different and her hair, again, is just absolutely fucking gorgeous. I'm gonna have to ask what's in their water at this point. She's got like a soft blush that doesn't look like it's from makeup but what the hell would I know, I've been raised around nothing but men and my mom my whole life and none of them know the first thing about makeup so I would have no fucking clue if if was. Anyway then there's Eva who has the softest kindest look on her face that I've ever seen on anyone. She looks like she would make you like, the best tea and say really nice things if you got sad around her and she looks like she's got a little bit of an evil side to that softness where she could also definitely get into some trouble.

"Earth to space cadet." HÃ¥kon is standing in front of me. "There you are."

I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut for a second. "Whoops."

"Mhmm," he laughs a little. "Rock paper scissors for first shower?"

"You're on." I bring my hands forward and unfortunately he wins right off the bat, not even giving me time to ask for best two out of three.

"Goddamnit," I grumble. "Now my sweat is gonna dry." I turn to the four girls at the table and decide on a glass of water.

"So..." Vera pipes up, looking over at me while I get myself some water. "Are we getting details or do you not wanna share, because that's okay too, but I just wanna know how you managed to snag him through like a hundred closet doors."

I grin, sitting up at one of the stools on the counter and looking at all four of them. "It was an accident, really, my best friend and I got traded together but he got younger sister duty and then a girlfriend on top of that so I was kinda pulling a loner stunt without him. I thought he was cute so I buddied up like an asshole and wouldn't leave him alone." Isa is smiling softly, knowing exactly where this is going. "We got close and I got drunk a couple days before christmas and accidentally came out to him, whoops, three days later we're making out and subsequently burning a batch of cookies to a crisp."

I clear my throat and take a sip of water. "That night was a little bit more fun and then in the morning we kinda wandered around the city, he had a breakdown just after noon and we broke up."

They're all confused by that. "And we got to work. He was absolutely in a horrible spot mentally and had the worst internalized homophobia of anyone I've ever met, which meant probably not so good things for me, so we called it off and started talking through all that because I'll be honest, I wasn't ready either. About a month before playoffs he yanks me into a side office in the rink and we decide that we're definitely sick of the no-dating rule and now we're here."

Vera raises her hand. "How do you keep it down with the hockey thing, like, what do you do during season?"

I puff out my cheeks. "It's delicate, basically. We both know that one slip-up will cost our careers so everything stays as fucking quiet as it can be. We've got rules and boundaries but it's been messy accidentally. Five or so guys on the team know and that's the limit."

They all kinda nod a little at that.

"Sounds like it sucks." Vera says.

I shrug. "It sucks, yeah, but I'd take don't ask don't tell and the closed doors over nothing. It's just how it has to be right now. Maybe in a hundred years someone will be able to bring their boyfriend to games or something but I know for a fact that I'd get hate-crimed within ten minutes if I so much as came out to the full team." I let out a soft laugh. "There's three of us, on the team, I mean."

They frown. Isa is the one to raise her voice. "Three?"

I nod. "Three. Me, HÃ¥kon, and one other. I won't out him to you but there's three. I'd be willing to put money on there being at least five, maybe seven I can think of off the top of my head. It's all over the league too, I can't count how many players live with a male roommate when they make enough to definitely get their own place. Big names too, guys that never have girls anywhere near them, guys that do but they live in other countries, guys like me that have one weird high school ex that still beards for them when they need them to." I sigh, stretching my arms out across the counter. "Tragedy, really, sexuality. Always has been."

"M'back, what'd I miss?" HÃ¥kon wanders out of the back room that we're staying in, hoodie settled across his shoulders, sweatpants on.

"Nothing much," I respond, tapping the counter three times with my nail. He responds with a gentle nod and I stand up off my chair, hooking his collar with my finger and giving him a little kiss before heading toward the bathroom, the taste of his lips lingering on mine.

I shower just about as quickly as he did but when I appear from the bathroom they're on a completely different topic.

"Still, I personally think it's a great idea." Vera is saying. I sit down on the stool next to HÃ¥kon, his arms are stretched out in the same way mine were and this position allows his hand to circle over and touch my far arm, running up and down my shirt sleeve.

"But we have things we need to be doing this weekend, plans, I want a jump start on all the-"

Vera is arguing with Isa. "Isa you're stretched so thin at this point you're going to burn out."

"There's things I need to be doing!"

Vera snaps back in Swedish and I turn to HÃ¥kon, watching how he responds to this. He stays idly in the middle of the argument. Astrid and Eva pipe up, clearly agreeing with Vera but not in english.

"HÃ¥k," I mumble. "The fuck-"

"Vera is saying that Isa needs to take a weekend off and Isa is arguing against it." He mumbles into my hair before giving me a little kiss and picking his head back up again.

I nod. "Ah,"

They're all four going back and forth now, Isa clearly resisting but losing arguments.

I pick up HÃ¥kon's hand in mine, brushing my thumb over his scarred knuckles and battered fingers. He does me one better, slipping that hand down to my wrist, maybe only a week out of its brace, and starts rubbing across the tight muscle on the back.

"HÃ¥kon, Rocket, tie breaker." Astrid looks up at us. "Should we all take Friday off and go spend the weekend in Oslo?"

I look at HÃ¥kon who looks right back.

"We don't have much to do anyway." I say. "I mean, we're just here, but also hell fucking yes I'd love to go to Oslo."

"Sold," Vera smacks the table like an auction judge. "You're taking tomorrow off and the seven of us are going to Oslo for two days."

I frown, looking around the room. "Seven?"

"Leo's going, that's the bribe." Vera says. "She'll go anywhere as long as Leo is there. We just have to get him on board."

"Good luck, he's got a project going out-" Isa starts, interrupted by, speak of the devil, Leo, coming home from work. "Ah, Leo."

"Hi," he looks around. "The whole gang is here. Hey what do you guys say about heading off to the mountains this weekend to destress? I'd bring some of the guys too but Kaz and Petar are off in Germany for work."

"Ha!" Vera points at Isa. "We were just trying to convince her to come to Oslo with us to go on like a two day bender then come home."

"So, mountains or Oslo?" He looks around at us. "Nevermind, pause that thought, Isa, are you on board with this?"

She sighs.

"Because I'm not going if you're not absolutely sure you want to."

"No, I want to, I'm just worried about all the stuff we have to do." She sighs.

"I know it seems like a ton but I swear we'll be alright to take a break for one weekend." He sets his hand on her head, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "I know what you're thinking because I'm feeling it too, but I don't want to see you push yourself to the edge."

She lets out a long sigh, leaning her head against his shoulder. "Yeah, alright. Oslo or the mountains?"

We all look around at each other, I turn to HÃ¥kon, kinda excited about both ideas.

"I dunno, I was kinda in the mood to party around a lot of people, I still need a date to your wedding." Eva pipes up. "I vote Oslo."

I pull HÃ¥kon's collar. "Norway isn't known for hockey."

He frowns. "It's still Scandinavia."

"No, HÃ¥k," I mumble. "Norway doesn't pay attention to hockey."

His eyebrows shoot up. "Are you-"

"I'm saying it could be, like, normal."

His mouth opens for a moment, then shuts again, before he can respond to me, he sits up. "We're in for Oslo."

We look to the remaining four.

"Oslo." Vera smacks her hand on the table like a gavel. "We could get tacos if we leave early enough on Friday."

"Tacofredag." HÃ¥kon pipes up. I stare up at him, confused.

"What the-"

"Taco Friday." He responds to just me, everyone else keeps discussing. "It's a cultural thing."

That basically runs me over with a truck. "A what?"

HÃ¥kon seems offended that I don't know about this. "You know, tacofredag. Please don't tell me you've never heard of this."

I stare right back at him. "Ah, no. It's like, taco Tuesday with us but that's like a phrase not a thing."

HÃ¥kon lets out a groan. "It's like this whole thing, Norway eats the second most tacos worldwide behind literally Mexico."

"There's only five million of them." I hiss in response, trying to keep my voice down while the others organize details.

HÃ¥kon just nods like this makes complete sense.

"So like, just straight up Mexican tacos. In Norway. Every Friday." I confirm.

"No," he responds.

"What the fuck do you mean no?"

"I mean, kinda, like it's the same concept but it's different." He's still looking at me like he's pleasantly humored by my lack of knowledge about this. "A lot more fish and a lot less spice."

"Fucking fish?" I reach up and grab the front of his hoodie, giving him a shake. "FISH?"

"Oh, buddy," he responds. "You like fish, right?"

"I mean, yeah, to a certain extent but in tacos? Really?"

HÃ¥kon purses his lips, trying not to laugh. "You seriously haven't ever had fish tacos?"

"No? By god what type of Scandinavian hedonistic-"

"Shh," HÃ¥kon laughs. "You know I have no idea what hedonistic means and yes, fish, in tacos. But I swear I think you'll like Norwegian tacos."

"How long am I here for?" I ask.

HÃ¥kon smiles. "Trying to get rid of me so quickly?"

"No, you're just making it sound like I'm about to eat nothing but fish for six weeks."

He leans in and gives me a kiss on the forehead. "You learn to like it."

"Swedish bastard."

"Mhmm."

***

alright, real quick, three things:

one: i use a school computer and they installed a monitoring program on our computers to keep track of what we're doing on them off the school networks. Of course, this means wattpad is on the scratch list somewhat. It works but like very very beta so everything from here until I manage to convince one of my family member's to give me one of two ancient laptops we have, things might get choppy.

two: des rocs just released what he's calling his 'final ep' and i'm not,,,,, no,,, not okay. sir you need to write music until I die I swear I will listen to every last pluck of that damn guitar you don't get to just quit on me no no no.

three: yes tacofredag exists but i'm not norwegian so i have no idea how like actually culturally potent it is.

-rabid