Declared

He married him to keep his place. Now the club wants it in writing.

Declan Revitt has the card, the contract and a new season. Nick Botelho, the equipment manager he married so he could keep playing, has the best-run room in the conference. Half the dressing room has worked out what they are. Nobody has said it.

Then the general manager puts one page on her desk. Staff in a relationship with a player put it in writing, to her and to Human Resources, both names signed. Or Nick goes to the farm club in Pennsylvania, two hours east, and somebody else sharpens Declan's skates.

A shovel nobody on staff has ever held. A father in Sheffield who has never met his son's husband. A room full of men deciding, one by one, what they already know.

And one January morning, with the team in California, there's a car across the street on Huron Street at ten to seven that Nick doesn't know. The man at the door has a quiet voice and a card on a lanyard.

"We're here about the arrangement."

The government wants to know if it's real. This time the whole room gets to answer.

Marriage of convenience, now for real · a closeted British defenceman · the equipment manager he married · a government at the door · found family in the dressing room · explicit (M/M) · one couple across three books · the trilogy's happy ever after