Chapter 1

Nate

Nate gives serious thought to turning around and going home. It’s only MacDow pulling up right beside him, then waving as he heads into practice, that shames him into getting out of his car.

He was quite serious this morning, offering to skip practice and call the school and spend the day with Aidan. “Anything you like,” he’d promised. “Coney Island, or bowling, or the movies, or —”

“Dad,” Aidan had said, giving him a view of partially masticated bagel, “you said it’s no big deal, right? You’re making it a big deal.”

And what was he supposed to say to that other than: “Right.”

When he gets to the locker room, Hunter is the only one quiet. He’s sitting in his stall with his thinking face on, the one Huff and Benny call his murder face. Everyone else is buzzing about the article. Of course they are.

Nate decides to take a leaf from Hunter’s book and keep his silence, at least until they’re on the ice. He’s thwarted when Virtanen rolls in, late and smelling faintly of cigarette smoke, and slaps him on the shoulder.

“Burkey! You see Men’s Health?”

“Yep,” Nate says, and hopes that’s the end of the conversation. He already knows it’s a fruitless hope, but he hopes regardless.

“Two for the price of one, brother! Jeeeee-sus, what’re the fuckin’ odds?”

Pretty good, Nate knows. Now. After spending the time he should’ve been sleeping trying to transform himself into a pillar of knowledge. He was never going to be the parent to help out with fucking … long division (did they still teach that? What was the point, since the old adage about ‘you won’t always have a calculator’ was rapidly becoming a falsehood?), but he’d always thought he’d be the kind of dad Aidan could come to to help figure out pretty much anything else.

“And not just any two, but those two? Phwoar.”

Vaughan collapses on the bench next to Hunter after he interjects with that, like he’s been bowled over by the force of it. Hunter looks like he’s trying to remember how to do long division in his head. Or how to hide the strangled body in his trunk, if Huff and Benny’s ‘murder face’ sobriquet has anything to do with it.

“Do you think they’re together?” MacDow asks.

“You can’t assume they’re together just because they’re both LGBT,” Benny says. He’s already halfway into the bulky goalie pads.

“Glad you’re all being normal about it, at least.” Virtanen’s head emerges from his sweater.

“Hey, Hunter,” Nate tries, “you got any of the good tape left? I’m out.”

Around them, the burps and knuckles cracking and rustling of gear continue. After a long moment stretches into something approaching medically concerning, Vaughan elbows Hunter.

“Eh?”

“Good tape?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure, man.”

In an inopportune moment of multiple conversational lulls, Doyle’s voice cuts through: “— surely someone must’ve known, yeah? People like that can’t hide all the time.”

Nate bristles. He bites down on the inside of his cheek.

Janmark nudges Virtanen with his elbow. “You spoke too soon, Tanny.”

“The land of the free,” Virtanen bitches, “but as soon as someone’s gay, you all turn Russkie.”

Nate tries to give Hunter back his tape. Hunter is busy staring vaguely in Doyle’s direction like he’s about to replicate a BTK crime scene to notice, so Nate just lobs it into his stall.

In the loneliest hour, after Miranda had gone to bed with useless exhortations not to overthink this, Nate had tried to guesstimate how many times in his life he’d called someone a fairy. Or a sissy. He didn’t say fag, he wasn’t so insensitive to have that stain on him. But the others? Hundreds? Thousands?

He could really do with Hunter laying down the law today, setting out new third rails for locker room chat. Unfortunately, Hunter’s still hovering somewhere between deaf, blind, mute, and plotting a mass murder.

At thirty-three, he’s got some respect he can cash in. If it’s not going to be spent on Aidan, then what’s the fucking point of it at all?

“Yo!” he yells, loud enough for even Hunter to blink.

Well. He has the room’s attention. At least for a minute. What the fuck is he going to do with it?

“I don’t give a shit about a couple rookies from shit teams,” he starts.

This gets a laugh, even though it’s not really funny. Boston and Montreal shit the bed spectacularly over the last couple years; that’s why they got first and second pick in 2010.

“But,” he says, and has to swallow a couple of times to make himself say it, “I give a shit about my kid, and my kid’s gay. So if I hear any of you being a fucking asshole about it, I’m gonna rip off your head and shit down your neck.”

His accent rolls and deepens over the last couple words as his temper gets the better of him. This kind of shit is why his last team used to call him Billy-Bob all the fucking time.

“I had no fuckin’ idea, man,” Doyle says. Nate would quite like to punch the funereal sympathy off his zitty face, but that might not be the greatest approach to a ceasefire accord.

“Yeah, well. Now ya do.”

“Aidan? Or Noah?” Janmark asks.

“Noah’s two years old, you concussed fuck.”

Clearly desperate to glom onto another topic, less awkward and well trod, most of the team joins MacDow in insulting Janny and pulling past instances of his idiocy out of their memory banks.

Huff shoulders his way through the press of chirping hockey players to stand beside Nate.

“Well said,” he says. “Is this, uh. Recent?”

“He also read the Men’s Health article,” Nate says. He aims for dry humour, and almost gets it, except then he adds, “Don’t think he’d ever have told me otherwise,” and his voice breaks a little, and he has to pass his hand over his eyes for a second.

Huff slings an arm around his shoulders and gives him a shake. The rough affection is not as reassuring as the knowledge that no one can see his face behind Huff’s massive fucking tree trunk arm.

“Righty-o then, cunts,” Tanny says. No one objects: they know his heart's in the right place. “We'll leave being the gay phenoms to the new kids. We're gonna be the team that shows the rest of 'em we can treat gay dudes same as any normal guy.”

“You can't say 'normal' you douche,” Vaughan yells.

“Well, what am I s'posed to say?”

Hunter finally remembers the A on his chest and joins in: “Straight. You say straight. But Tanny's right: we're not gonna be assholes about this. The new rooks are out there proving gay guys can play hockey. Good for them. Now we're gonna prove winning teams can not be assholes. Got it?”

For a moment, Nate second guesses whether his sudden urge to kiss the top of Hunter's head says anything about him, before he remembers that if it does, every athlete in America would be burying a little secret.

In between grunts, he can hear Benny whisper to Huff: “Not bad from a serial killer.”

Larissa

Larissa has never been so totally pumped for the morning debrief before. Not even when it's someone's birthday and Gabs brings in cupcakes that she could legit sell for, like, eight bucks a pop. Sometimes when they're four mojitos deep on a Friday night, she tries to convince Gabs that her talents are freaking wasted doing audience research for freaking Reebok.

There’s a history of struggle in Larissa’s inbox. She’s got polls and focus groups and sales analytics going all the way back to two-thousand-and-freaking-three, including some that she’s definitely not supposed to have and which she got through means that might technically count as corporate espionage. She’s got briefs, minutes, slide decks, dashboards, all of them singing the same song. And none of the execs have heard her.

Today, that’s going to freaking change.

“Good moooooooorning, everyone,” Larissa sings, uncharacteristically upbeat but she just can't contain it. “Rory, Alex, Nessy, hello hello hello. How was spin class last night, Magda?”

“Did you get laid or something?” Gabs asks, threading a gorgeous tonal line between making everyone laugh, not inviting a verbal answer, and also begging for a subliminal wink of confirmation just between the two of them.

“I got some super news.”

“Ooooooooh,” the room coos appreciatively. Larissa's on top of a freaking mountain right now, but she's going to be capital-p Professional about this. No 'I told you so,' or 'If you only listened to me sooner.' She's got the data and the story, it's a slam-dunk. Or whatever the hockey equivalent is. One day, she'll get a promotion to repping for an NBA star. Heck, maybe even after this victory.

The rest of the team filters in. Larissa sets a manilla folder in front of her and waits. Even Smarmy Josh can’t ruin her mood today.

She visualises the slack-jawed horror that Greasy Josh will probably exhibit when he realizes she’s being vindicated. It helps immensely.

“Morning all,” Antony starts once they’re all seated, extra large extra hot black coffee in his clutch, as ever. “Let’s go round, status updates.”

She’s third in line which is practically an eternity, but it gives her enough lead time to rehearse inside her head instead of listening to Magda and Rory’s pretences that they have updates, rather than just saying “Same old, same old.”

“I have an interesting update. Did anyone see the Men’s Health feature that was released last night?” Larissa begins, once it’s her turn. She tries to give her voice some heft and command, despite the inane wriggling eyebrows Vanessa’s making at her across the table.

“Obviously,” Dreadful Josh drawls.

“I haven’t read it yet,” Antony says, with a lack of self-consciousness she’s desperate to get access to once she reaches VP-level. “But the MLH rookies, yeah? Coming out?”

“Yes,” Larissa said. “I manage the Hollander account already. Now, as I’m sure you remember, we have significant data suggesting that LGBT consumer—”

Antony does everything short of groaning and rolling his eyes. Larissa is so pissed she briefly stops talking, which is her first mistake.

“Actually,” Heinous Josh says, “I had some thoughts on that front.”

“If I could just fi—”

“There’s a unique opportunity here, Antony. We’re in an interesting position to place a low-risk gamble with these two.”

When Larissa gets flustered, she goes silent. She hates it, has always hated it, but it’s more professional than opening her mouth and tears coming out, which was what happened last time she was this angry.

“There’s growing evidence of positive market sentiment for visibly gay-friendly brands,” Loathsome Josh continues, while Larissa sees white at the edges of her vision. “We could float a test balloon with Hollandy. If it doesn’t work out, cut him loose, no big loss.”

“Hollander,” she grits out, and those three syllables are enough for tears to prick at the backs of her eyes.

Gabs — Larissa will always love her for it — says, “Larissa’s already—”

“Sure,” Antony says. “You know what, Josh? Fine. Take a swing. Larissa — you’ll support him on this.”

Either the room is silent, or Larissa’s ears are ringing. Vile Josh is smirking. Half the team are looking awkwardly at her, and the other half won’t meet her eyes. She thinks, for a moment, she might rage-vomit all over her folder and the conference table.

For some reason that feels painfully un-feminist if she stops to examine it too closely, it’s the administrations of Rory that are the most validating. “That was all kinds of wrong,” he says, stopping by her desk after a minor toilet cubicle-based meltdown with Ness and Gabs. They left her alone for five minutes, then barged in to stand on the other side of the flimsy door and ideate creative new adjectives for Repulsive Josh. Ness is angling for a transfer into copywriting.

With Rory’s encouragement, she goes to have a quick sidebar with Antony, one-on-one. She prints out the email from Yuna and bears it like a shield.

She’s pretty sure it’s too late before she walks in the door, because Oily Josh is sauntering away, greasier than ever. God, she could totally stab him.

Still. She has to try.

“Hollander is my account,” she says, very diplomatically. She could be screaming. She could holler if you’d listened to me at any point in the last year we could’ve had both these kids in the most read Men’s Health spread ever in freaking rainbow Reeboks, but you didn’t, so you’d better freaking listen to me now. But instead she lays out the facts.

“I’ve done a lot of background on positioning for the queer market. I have an existing relationship with him and his agent. His mother emailed me last night, asking for a meeting to discuss his image positioning in the wake of the article. I’m the best person for this job.”

Antony smiles at her. It’s way worse than a frown, it makes her feel like there’s a big joke to which she’s the punchline, and she’s the only one who hasn’t realized it yet. “Larissa. When we try to break into new demos, we always assign a more senior team member to the campaign. It helps us avoid any pitfalls. The benefit of an experienced eye, you know.”

“He didn’t even know the client’s name.”

“And that’s exactly why you’ll be assisting him.”

Larissa is pretty sure she keeps her shit together until she gets back to her desk. The wheels don’t totally come off until she sees she has a text from Yuna Hollander:

Yuna Hollander

25 Jan 2011 at 10:48

Yuna Hollander

Who is Joshua Holsey-Hader and why is he acting like he has Shane’s account?

Nina

Nina doesn’t love putting surprise meetings in people’s calendars. She also doesn’t love useless, non-indicative names like “Quick Catch-Up.” It stokes unnecessary anxiety. Ordinarily she wouldn’t worry about David being anxious, but David has not had an ordinary week.

Alas. Needs must.

David raps his knuckles against her open door exactly one minute before the appointment is scheduled. “Hey, Nina. No news from the PBO yet.”

Nina wasn’t expecting any news from the PBO. It tends to move with the speed and grace of a drunken sloth. David knows that. Therefore, he is trying to gently hint that they don’t need to meet. Normally Nina appreciates that kind of tact, but boy howdy, it’s the wrong day for it.

“Come on in,” Nina says brightly. “Close the door, please.”

“Why do I get the feeling this isn’t about estimates?”

“Because you’re a genius, David, that’s why we pay you the big bucks.”

They laugh over that, because although he’s PM-7, they’re both well aware he could be earning a lot more in the private sector. Like: a lot.

“So you’ve had an interesting week.”

“Not really,” David says. His face is blandly pleasant. Same face he wears for audits. “It was Shane’s big moment. I didn’t have much to do with it.”

Well, at least he’s not pretending he doesn’t know what she’s really asking about. “Dave,” Nina says. “You — wait, actually, let me get this out of the way first.”

Her office is tiny, so she only has to lean in a little bit for it to feel companionable.

“If anyone, and I mean anyone, up to and including the PM, give you so much as a whiff of trouble, you email PSAC and you BCC me. We’re not letting some Big Four firm snaffle you up just because you’ve got a famous relative, you hear me?”

David laughs — a real laugh, thank goodness — and raises his hands in surrender. “I know, I know. I appreciate it, Nina, really.”

“Good. And you know, on a personal level: you’ve raised one hell of a kid.”

“I know. Lord knows how that happened. Not sure I had much to do with it.”

“You mean to tell me you didn’t project manage his moral development?” David was the point man for coordinating the Values and Ethics Working Group in the lead up to drafting the PSDPA. The team took it to its natural conclusion, asking David for input on whether the printer should be issued a formal reprimand for its inability to treat its coworkers with dignity.

David squirms a little in his chair. “So, if this isn’t on a personal level, and it’s not about the PBO …”

“Look,” Nina says, because really, she’s out of her depth here. She’s stared down senators and lobbyists and ministers and CEOs and never turned an eye lash. But that was the job. She had a whole script for that. This is awkward. “The main thing is, if we’re having a casual chat in here and neither of us writes anything down, then nothing needs to be turned up when some hotshot journalist files an optimistic ATIP, eh?”

David relaxes back into her spare chair. It’s impressive. For most people David’s size, that chair might technically violate the Geneva convention against torture. “Got it. Go on.”

“Right. Okay. Dave.” Nina takes a deep breath. “You have a level III clearance and a public link to a Russian national. Have you told CSIS yet?”

“I shouldn’t need to,” David says. “I’ve never met Rozanov myself. Shane’s the one who sees him regularly, but even that’s, what … three, maybe four times a year for games? Maybe six if you count the promotional stuff. I checked the GSP back when Shane was drafted, since he works with all sorts of foreign nationals. It doesn’t meet the threshold.”

“Sure,” Nina says. “But — okay, you remember my ex?”

David has a way of expressing a whole range of feelings with just a pair of raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, I know. Anyway, he’s on a GAC posting — doesn’t matter. The point is that Russian sportsmen at Rozanov’s level are national heroes. They have all kinds of connections. I mean, cripes, have you seen the way Putin pals around with Ovechkin?”

“You don’t th—”

She cuts him off before this gets into slanderous territory. “All I’m saying is: if one of your reports came to you and said their kid is hanging around with Dmitri Medvedev’s kid, would you tell them ‘No sweat,’ or would you tell them ‘Better safe than sorry?’”

David considers this. “I take your point.”

“Thank you. Fill out the SCF.”

“However,” David adds, “historically, P&C have been hockey fans.”

Nina waves this away. “Don’t bother with the group inbox. Do you know Étienne Perron? Transferred from CRA last year?” David does not, so Nina scribbles his name down on a post-it note and hands it over. “Go straight to him. He’s very knowledgeable, very professional, and when I asked him if he was a Centaurs fan, he thought I meant the mythical creatures.”

Petey

The alarm’s going off in Sebastian’s bedroom, and Petey’s no closer to figuring out what he’s going to say to his boys today than he was two hours ago.

Sebby’s an average winger but a good kid. Doesn’t expect special treatment, calls Petey’s wife “Mrs Mahon,” doesn’t pry to try and get an inside scoop just because he’s billeting at his coach’s house. Hollander was like that too, when he slept in that bedroom.

Of course, he’d known then that Hollander was going to be something special, in a way that Petey and Sebby never would be. He’d aged out of Major Juniors at 21 and stuck to the great passion of life by bumping around from junior coaching to junior coaching until he’d finally climbed to a level of respectability and responsibility. Sebby should aim for that too, unless he got lucky enough to get a lookie-loo in a minor pro team.

That was never going to be Hollander’s lot, that’s what made all this so baffling.

He felt like he owed Hollander. That was the worst part. At some point early on, in one of the first interminable media scrums after the draft, Hollander had been asked about his time on the National junior team. He’d mentioned Petey by name – credited him with getting the team to gold. Pure horseshit, of course. Petey knows the limits of what a coach can achieve with unexceptional players. Getting a kid like Hollander in his hands was like discovering that the ancient alchemists had been onto something, that you really could turn lead into gold after all.

And he was solid gold, there was no doubt about that. But the first question anyone was going to ask him today was: did you know? and how the heck was he supposed to answer that?

Yes was tantamount to a stamp of approval, implying he'd been fine with it all along, stood behind every word of praise he'd ever given Hollander. It was also a face-saving lie.

No was the truth, and it'd only spawn more questions. How could he not know? How could he have had this kid living in his house, eating at his table, in his car, at his rink, under his eye for four whole seasons without a clue? Weren't there signs he'd missed? Had his other teammates known? What would he have done differently if he'd been aware there was a person with that kind of predilection mingling in the showers?

Rozanov’s involvement just makes the whole thing more of a puzzle. Petey wouldn’t say he’s close to any of the Russian coaches, but they’d mingled some at world juniors. They’d talked shop. No way they’d tolerate even a hint of deviance. There can’t have been a sign.

That’s the hell of it. No matter how hard he looks for clues, he can’t find any. Every time he thinks he’s remembered something – a moment when Hollander held back or looked away or flinched – he remembers half a dozen other boys who did the same thing, and none of them turned out queer. Hell, he’s met their wives. He trains half their sons.

He shudders to think of what he’s inadvertently subjected his boys to. The time-honored rituals of team bonding, the stupid hazing games that the most senior players pass down to the juniors, just like he did when he was captaining Portage, just like what he endured: Hollander wasn’t around long enough to reach what counted as veteran age in the Major Juniors, but he’d been subjected to his fair share of horseplay when he’d joined.

Outsiders don’t get it, but these traditions are what forge a team together, bind them tightly into a cohesive unit. They’re a lesson, same way Shot-Pass-Shot drills are a lesson. They test commitment and build unity. Hollander was a consummate team player, and Petey had taken that as further evidence in favor: even the superstar kid knew he was just one man in a brotherhood.

It’s colored in a different light now. Had Hollander ever gotten off on that stuff? Of course he knew his players still did the old “hot box” game in the back of the bus, he wasn’t deaf. It’d been awkward and uncomfortable as all hell when he’d had to do it, naked and claustrophobically packed into the bus shitter with three other boys and scrambling to count up the coins the vets threw on the floor, but he survived it and they would too. The whole pansy thing shone a horrible new perspective on it. What if Hollander had liked it? Jesus. Should he be asking some of the boys?

Tammy sets a plate in front of him. “You look like you’re thinking real hard, hon.”

Petey mechanically scrapes up a forkful of eggs. “I gotta figure out what to tell the boys. I mean … they’ll have questions. Christ knows I would, if — if Gretzky or whoever turned out to be a homo.”

“Sure,” Tammy says. She tops up his coffee and sits down across from him. “Might be different questions these days than we had in the 80s, though.”

“That's true, sweetpea. Very true.”

She reaches across the table and pats his hand, their wedding rings clicking together. “You're a good man, Pete. I see you looking out for those boys. But you're not their daddy. Talking about what's right and wrong: that's a parent's job, not a coach's.”

“It's a tough call though, ain't it? When they're all away from home.”

“Well, they've got cell phones, don't they?” Tammy asks, with that half-smile that bowled him over from the day they met.

Bless her, she has a point.

Besides … who’s to say it’s even really true? If he’s remembering right — if there were never any warning signs — well, he’s heard through the grapevine that the San Jose Seadogs are planning some sort of game for gays, trying to sell more tickets. It makes sense for California, he supposes. Thinking about it, Hollander getting drafted to the fag capital of Canada … maybe this is just one more of the league’s tricks to drum up new fans. For all Petey knows, Boston is the Montreal of the States, and that’s why Rozanov got roped in.

“What'd I do without you?” he asks his lady, kissing the back of her hand.

“Starve, for one,” she laughs.

The more he considers it, the more his theory makes sense. Perfect sense. Hollander's the best he's ever seen, a champion's champion, and he was a stubborn son of a bitch, but he was always eager to please too. If the Commissioner or the Metros GM asked him to put up this charade, Petey's willing to bet Hollander would be obedient.

“Morning, Mrs Mahon. Morning, Coach.”

Sebby takes a seat at their breakfast table, rumpled and bleary.

“Eggs, hon?”

“Just the whites, please ma'am.”

He's a good boy, this Sebby. Pity about his stick handling.

“The usual today, Coach?”

However and whatever Hollander is doing and has done, no one can deny it's turned out some spectacular hockey. Decades of tradition, every hockey player in Canada can point to it and say: that's what made me the man I am today.

Petey drains his mug and nods. “Not changing a goddamn thing.”

Gord

Hockey commentating is easy for Gord in the same way media scrums were easy back in the day. He has a list of shit he cannot say which he faithfully avoids. Then he has maybe ten things he can say basically whenever, each with five or six variations on the phrasing, that he can mix and match as needed. He only needs to engage his brain if something really weird happens.

Speak of the fucking devil.

The easiest method to shore up some talking points is to go over how it's been handled before. That's fucking useless when the weirdness is sufficiently oddball that people are throwing around the words unprecedented and ground-breaking.

Unprecedented is a good one, actually. He jots that down.

Grasping for a baseline to riff off, Gord searches “first gay NFL player,” and “first gay NBA player.” Useless. There's less than a handful of dudes who came out as queer, and only then after they retired, not when they were baby-faced little phenoms.

He writes down queer on the other list.

Really quite desperate at this stage, he searches for “gay MLB player.” He knows about Billy Bean, of course, but he'd never even heard of Glenn Burke. Halfway down his Wikipedia page, Gord shakes his head and resets. Burke's no good to him either.

Glancing over at his list, he crosses out queer. That's okay again now, isn't it?

Fuck this, he doesn't even know the vocabulary here. He re-writes it in between the two lists, puts a big ol' circle around it, and a series of question marks.

His phone buzzes like an angry beetle. He opens his desk draw, puts his phone inside, and closes it. Firmly. Decisively.

Gord has a vague memory of corporate sending around some links to virtual guides about all this at some point. He’d ignored it, because he was pretty sure it was going to boil down to be a professional and don’t be an asshole, but maybe that was a mistake, because now …

He reluctantly opens Outlook and starts scrolling.

'Respect in the Workplace.' 'WorkWell.' 'You Have 8 Training Modules Due For Completion by 11/15/2010.' This shit's useless, pardon his French. How many ways can someone rephrase: 'Don't call the interns sweetheart, and if you pinch someone's ass, don't be surprised when you get fired.'

His wife works at a non-profit. He knows there's better training out there, 'cause Alison's yapped about it over dinner before.

“Hey, J-Man,” he says, directing it over the cubicle wall towards Judd. “I wouldn’t bother you but you’re the only asshole here. Have we got some email about inclusive language training or something?”

“Yah, that rings a bell, G-Unit. I swear I saw that come in. Prolly deleted it though.”

Gord tries searching “inclusive language”. Outlook thinks for a long time and then shows him nothing.

“Fuckssake,” he mutters. “Time to call in the big guns, I guess.”

He squints at the table of names and phone numbers he printed and blutacked to the wall next to his computer when they first moved into this office. Hopefully they’re not too out of date.

Benjamin's Lync status is green. His little message reads 'Energy. Excellence. Empowerment. Let's go team!' Gord closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before he puts the headset on and rings him.

“Howdy Gord, how can I help you?”

“Hey there Benjamin, I'm trying to track down some information, I could swear I saw an email about, ah ... inclusive language? Good language? Something like that?”

“Ohhh,” Benjamin says. “This about those hockey boys?”

This is why Gord doesn’t usually bother with the rest of the corporation. Those hockey boys, as if they’re not doing for the MLH what Jordan did for the NBA. Christ on a cracker.

“Yeah,” he says, instead of all that. “I figure they’re gonna come up.”

“Best to be prepared! Now, I don't think we've run that particular module in a couple of years, let me just take a little looksie ...”

Now, look: Gord doesn't quite know how to put it, and he wouldn't just come out and say it, but from the sound of his voice, it's blatantly obvious to him that Benjamin himself is gay. Of the flaming hot variety. There's little he enjoys less than spending his time immersing himself on the corporate side of the sports broadcasting business, but if there's any chance he could take a mallet to the professional veneer of Benjamin and get him to just tell Gord what words to say, he'd take the dude out to a drag club, or whatever his poison is.

“No, I didn't think so. Bad luck there. Tell you what though, we could schedule in a new training seminar? Our external partners run one on Respectful, Supportive, and Inclusive Phrasing?”

“Yes. Thanks, that sounds perfect.”

“Not a worry, Gord. Now, when would suit you? I can see Maribel's got a spot open in three weeks, but it is quite early on a Monday?”

Three weeks? Aw, hell. Gord scrapes his fingers through what little is left of his hair.

“Any chance we could grab some of the, uh, materials today? Just as a refresher. Since this is time sensitive.”

“To-day?” Benjamin clicks his tongue. “Well, I can certainly ask around, but Maribel’s out on site in Charlotte … and she’s our go-between for the training company, so …”

“Listen, Benjamin,” Gord says. “I know I’m just a washed-up jock with a few too many concussions—”

“Now, see, that’s a great example of what we don’t say.”

Gord tramples right over him. “Right before I retired, there was an incident with one of our call-ups. Now, everyone gets hazed in hockey, but this kid, well, a rumour went around about him being gay. Didn’t matter that he was married to a woman. Didn’t matter that he had kids. Long story short, he was hazed so bad he quit the sport. And that was a straight American guy from a nice white-bread family.”

Across from him, Judd is pale and silent, staring at his hands. Gord will have to apologise for dredging that up, later.

“I retired in 2009,” Gord adds.

The line crackles, and there’s a sound like maybe Benjamin sucked air through his teeth.

“Now, these two boys have done something unprecedented,” Gord says. “And on top of that, one’s ESL and one’s biracial. They’re about to get a whole parade of nasty shit said to and about them on purpose. Could you please arrange someone to come down and make sure we don’t contribute on accident.”

“Give me ten minutes.” Benjamin’s voice is crisp and sharp again. “I’m going to give Maribel a heads up to schedule something formal ASAP, and cancel the rest of my morning.”

“Appreciate it.”

“If you could book us a meeting room?”

“Of course.” He doesn’t actually know how to do that, but someone within shouting earshot will.

“And, could you remind me of who heads up the hockey division at the moment?”

“Bo. Bo Thorpe.”

“Bo … Thorpe …” Benjamin repeats back. “Fantastic. We’ll be having some words about the many, many times this training’s been declined in the past.”

Chapter 2

The Metros bye week is right before All-Stars this year, so Shane is already in Ottawa the day the Men’s Health article drops. Rozanov’s bye week is after All-Stars, so he still has to play the Raiders @ Centaurs game twenty hours after go-live. Shane doesn’t envy him. He’s structured his whole day around not having to deal with the article, and he’s still a nervous wreck.

Shane got over the discomfort of watching himself on tape many many years ago, able to separate out the need to improve with the need to avoid looking at the way his face looks constipated and beet-red when he’s focusing on the ice. But there’s never been a particular need to watch his pressers: they’re adequate, and adequate is more than fine as far as he’s concerned. That’s why he doesn’t read the article himself. He just accepts his mom’s feedback that he spoke well during the interview, that it all looks good, and hunkers down with the outdoor battle ropes his dad installed for his fourteenth birthday for a long set, strategically scheduled to last throughout the publication deadline.

He almost makes it through dinner.

His phone and laptop are firmly switched off and put away. The TV is playing a taped match – the gold medal game from Vancouver, which feels pointed, but Shane can’t quite decode what his mom is trying to say with that. They sit down to miso-glazed salmon and eggplant with wild rice and Wakame salad, and Shane has successfully avoided knowing anything about how he’s perceived.

Then his dad asks, “Have you heard from Ilya at all?”

Shane shrugs. “Not really. We just text now and then.” His parents don’t need to know about the contents of those texts. If his phone wasn’t already off, Shane might smash it with a hammer. Being gay is one thing, but this … weird aberration with Rozanov is not something he ever wants to discuss with another living soul. “I’ll probably catch him at All-Stars.” Assuming the league lets them go.

“I called him this afternoon,” his mom says. “He seemed pretty calm. For him.”

A flake of salmon goes down his windpipe, and a piece of rice is somewhere behind his sinuses. He drains his water between hacking up his lungs.

His dad thunks his back, which helps, and then ruins it by saying, “We should’ve had him around for dinner. Did Boston fly in today?”

Yes, Shane answers, in the safety of his own head, where he also keeps a list of cities where the Raiders are playing. To his regret, he knows when Rozanov arrived this afternoon, where he’s staying tonight, and when he’ll fly out after the game tomorrow.

“Yeah,” his mom says. And, right when he thinks this can’t get any worse, she adds: “I invited him, but he said he didn’t want to intrude on family time.”

Please, please, let this fish kill him. Let there be a food-borne parasite, let him asphyxiate, let him develop a spontaneous allergic reaction at the age of nineteen …

“That’s considerate.” His dad wallops Shane again. “Have you heard from his father?”

No luck. Shane manages to get enough oxygen in his airways to wheeze: “What are you talking about?”

“Well, honey,” his mom says, “when he decided to come out—”

“When he fucking what?”

“Ah.” His dad’s hand stops thumping and rests on Shane’s shoulder. “He didn’t tell you.”

“No he fucking didn’t. And neither did you!”

His mom takes a sip of wine. She’s buying time. And exchanging impenetrable parent-communication glances with his dad. “I’m sorry, Shane. I assumed you two talked about it.”

“So … he …” when, what, where, why, who, how are swirling, but they’re all based on an assumption, and, as the Hollander clan has learned today, sometimes assumptions aren’t fucking true. “I knew they'd interview him but – I – he – he got outed too?”

His dad watches Shane as if he might start choking again. It’s not totally unfair. Shane might prefer choking to this conversation.

“After you told him what the interview was for,” his mom says, “he approached me and asked if it would help if two hockey players came out instead of one. I did try to make sure he’d thought it through,” she adds, preemptively defensive.

She’s right to have her elbows up. “And – and—” Shane doesn’t even know how to finish that sentence. And … you said YES? You just LET him? None of you thought to TELL me? What ELSE did he tell you?

He shakily reaches for his water. It’s empty. His dad refills it for him from the big Brita pitcher.

“It was a nice gesture,” his dad says. “Helped lean into the rivalry stuff. The league will look real stupid if they’re anything other than supportive now.”

“But you already knew he’s bisexual, right?” his mom asks, leaning in.

First on his kill list is Rozanov, but there’s room for a whole lot more, and his mom seems intent on working her way up the rankings. “Yeah, he mentioned it.” Well, I mean, he caveats, not in so many words, but it was kinda implicit after he sucked my dick. Jesus. Even the inside thoughts are getting hysterical.

Oh God. Oh fuck fuckity fucking fuck. It’s too much to hope for that his mom hasn’t put two and two together and come up with Shane and Rozanov, sittin’ in a tree. F-U-C-K-I-N-G. He folds himself in half and stares intently at the dinner table, one nose length away from his eyeballs.

“I guess I don’t understand what the big deal is.” His mom sounds impatient.

“Give him a minute, hon.” His dad hands rubs circles over his thoracic spine. “C’mon, bud. Breathe.”

Shane breathes.

Rozanov is already in Ottawa. Shane’s going to find him and wring his stupid neck. Now. Tonight.

The plan helps.

“I’m going to go lie down,” he says, instead of saying I’m going to pretend to seduce Rozanov, and once his guard is down, I’m gonna kick him in the balls so hard he tastes his own grandchildren.

He’ll have to sneak out. If he goes out the front door, his parents will know he’s going to see Rozanov and speculate about whether he’s getting dicked down. Shane will have to move himself to the top of his kill list, and his face will turn a colour previously only observed on the surface of the sun.

---

Ilya Rozanov

23 Jan 2011 at 10:31AM

Ilya Rozanov

you have plans for big day?

will be @ ott

Shane Hollander

Spending the day with my family and my phone off.

Ilya Rozanov

good, will stop you panicking

see you at all stars ))))))

24 Jan 2011 at 8:39PM

Shane Hollander

Changed my mind. What room are you in?

---

Ilya’s never been so delighted to be alone in a hotel room catching up on Grey’s Anatomy. Feller disappeared to a bar after a perfunctory attempt at getting Ilya to join him; Ilya’s heart is too rabbity to drink in public tonight. Besides, all Amundsen needed was to sniff the cork, and then he’d be shouting all the questions the journalists were too professional to pose at Ilya from across the dance floor. So do you take it up the ass? Have you been looking at our dicks this whole time? Between you and Hollander, who would bend who?

No, thank you. Ilya can live without.

He’d told Feller he had plans and left them intentionally vague. Whatever Feller had been thinking was less sad than the truth: scroll VK, re-read Hollander’s interview answers, and jerk off in the shower. But one text message later, things are looking up. Primarily his dick.

Hollander thinks he’s being so subtle, but Ilya can tell there’s something eating at him even through the texts. Ilya can’t wait to take him apart about it.

The knock comes just as Ilya is towelling off from his planned shower-and-jerk-off, moved up on the schedule to avoid coming as soon as he gets Hollander spread out in front of him. Perfect timing; Ilya answers, water still dripping down his chest from his curls, irradiant orange Gosha Rubchinskiy waistband dangerously low around his hips.

Hollander audibly swallows. Ilya grins.

He’d planned what he was going to say during his pre-shower cigarette (why waste the chance before he washes off all his other smells): So desperate you cannot wait five days?

Ilya gets as far as “So d—” before Hollander has both hands wrapped around his biceps and smashes him into the wall. If God was good, Hollander would follow it up by sticking his tongue down Ilya’s throat, or – better yet – dropping to his knees and opening up his mouth. Pliant and earnest and so so eager. Ilya had been pinching himself since July.

He’d learned long ago that God was not good, He was a bastard with a mean streak and a gallows sense of humor. Hollander rattles him against the wall, gripping him hard enough to actually hurt a bit, and spits out: “What the fuck?” which is pretty much the moment Ilya learns he doesn’t mind being thrown around a room by a pretty boy. Everyone’s learning new things today.

“This is new for you, Hollander,” Ilya says appreciatively.

Hollander shoves him against the wall again. Ilya spreads his legs enough to grind against one of Hollander’s thick thighs.

“You didn’t tell me,” Hollander growls.

Is Hollander angling for some kind of role play? Too bad if so; Ilya has no idea what he wants. Aside from the obvious. “Tell you what?”

“Men’s Health.” He’s so whiny. Ilya’s been regretting how quickly they rushed things in Toronto and during the Men’s Health shoot. He should’ve made Hollander beg until he cried. He will, one day. Looks like it won’t be today. “You didn’t tell me you’d come out.”

“What, I am supposed to send all my interviews to you for approval? I do not think you want to be my PA, but if you like …”

“Fuck off.”

“Then what is the problem?” Ilya asks, actually puzzled, not toying with his food this time. “Why are you all …” there isn’t an English word that adequately captures the hilarity of Hollander’s pissed off glare, so he just imitates it instead.

He watches Hollander flounder. Hollander doesn’t give much away, but there are hints in where his eyes go, in how swiftly he blinks, the tension around his mouth.

Hollander studies Ilya’s face but cannot meet his eyes. When they do make eye contact, Hollander immediately looks at his shoes instead, the muscles of his jaw working. “I just … I – I don’t like being out of the loop?” His shoulders slump fractionally.

If he had to guess, Ilya would say Hollander really doesn’t know why he’s in such a shitty mood.

Ilya’s not going to be the one to tell him. Despite the intensity of his stare, neither are Hollander’s shoes. “Ah, I am understand. You are jealous.”

“I’m – what?”

“You are jealous,” Ilya says, obnoxiously condescending. He’s aiming for another squish of force behind Hollander’s pinioning, but, alas: God is also a withholding bitch. “I have stolen special Hollander crown. And now, bozhe moy, so many texts from sexy men, all begging to suck my dick. You had to hurry to get here first, yes?”

Hollander flushes deeply. Ilya tries to reach up and touch his face, entranced, but the movement seems to snap Hollander out of it; he catches Ilya’s wrist and pins it to the wall. Ilya exhales hard, flexing against the grip.

Then Hollander pauses. Shuffles awkwardly on the spot. Ilya glances down and realizes that Shane Hollander has stopped in the middle of what could have been the hottest experience of their lives – well, Hollander’s life, at least – so he can take off his shoes.

Ilya tries to turn his smile into something arch, or at the very least, mocking, but it’s a hopeless case: he’s so fucking endeared by Hollander’s little oddities. He tsks. “Bad for the shoes, not to untie them. Do not need another excuse to get dropped by big brand, yes? Here, I will …”

He wriggles out of Hollander’s grasp and bends down, pulling at his laces. Hollander reads the play like nobody else, so presumably it’s his own fault for failing to predict what Ilya’s planning. Either than or it’s an invitation.

Right shoelace still in hand, Ilya angles his head up to look at Hollander’s big satin-finish eyes and juts his jaw into the crotch of Hollander’s jeans. “Better?” he purrs.

Hollander gasps gratifyingly as Ilya goes to his knees. Sighs as Ilya nuzzles against his hard cock. Ilya makes him wait as he finishes unlacing his Reeboks, then gets his hands on Hollander’s hips and pushes once, hard, so Hollander stumbles backwards and sits on Ilya’s bed.

“Wait, fuck, I came here to fucking kill you,” Hollander pants.

Too late, how sad. Ilya’s already reaching for Hollander’s fly. “Okay. First we do this, then you kill me.”

Hollander’s dick springs free, hard and shiny. Oh, Hollander. Ilya’s learning there always seems to be some pathetic protestations. He remembers from the last two times that it was a perfect mouthful, just enough to make him really work for it to fit it all in at once.

“And then, after you kill me,” Ilya kisses the head, chastely, no tongue, and even that’s enough to get Hollander’s hips twitching, “we can talk about interviews.”

There’s no objection, so Ilya swallows him down, Hollander’s groan zapping directly into Ilya’s own dick. He’s drooling onto the denim, but that’s Hollander’s problem to deal with. Ilya’s problem is not coming in his fucking sweatpants just from the little jerks and taps of Hollander’s dick at the back of his throat, and that’s more than enough to be dealing with.

He tugs at Hollander’s waistband until he can fit a hand between denim and skin. His palm cradles Hollander’s hip the way plants cradle their budding flowers. It’s not enough. Nothing is ever enough for Ilya. He pushes, greedy for more skin, more contact. Hollander’s fingers card through Ilya’s hair. Ilya’s fingers grope Hollander’s ass, then press further in.

There have been days when Ilya’s certain that he’s so insubstantial he’s made of smoke and a trick of the light, that if he looked in the mirror all he’d see would be a reflection of the back of the bathroom door. It helps to hear his name on someone else’s lips. It helps to hear Hollander’s clack in the back of his throat when Ilya brushes against the cleft of his ass and the vowel-less plosive sound he makes when Ilya teases a single knuckle against his hole. They’re the kind of noises that can make a man walk taller.

“Fuck,” Hollander says. He sounds desperate. “Wait, Rozanov, just – waitwaitwait—”

Ilya eases back. He rests his chin on Hollander’s thigh and looks up at him through his lashes. He does not move his hands. “Yes?”

Hollander almost mewls. His whole body is taut.

“I don’t – this … I … not that. Not tonight.”

And, well, hasn’t Hollander said more than he intended to? Not tonight isn’t no. Not tonight is let’s do this again sometime soon. It’s actually even fucking hotter, imagining Hollander putting together a plan of action, all the prerequisites he has to check off before he lets Ilya splay him out and fill him up.

He’d told Ilya, in the hotel the night before the shoot, he hadn’t even gotten off that night at the Halloween party. Rounded first base, then gotten outed for his trouble. Terrible luck. For him, not for Ilya, who’d gotten him off twice to help make up for it.

“Not tonight.” It costs him nothing to say it. It costs him something to work his hands out of Hollander’s jeans, but he’s paid back when Hollander yanks his own shirt off. Ilya peels the jeans down and crawls up Hollander’s body, pinning him to the mattress the way Hollander had pinned him to the wall earlier.

Hollander tips his head back, giving Ilya access to acres of skin glossed with sweat. There’s a hint of stubble forming along his jaw, just enough texture to make Ilya shiver.

Fuck. Jerking off was useless. Ilya could come just from rubbing up against Hollander, still in his pants. He wouldn’t even mind.

Reaching down between their hips, Ilya hefts Hollander’s balls in the meat of his palm and rubs a finger across his taint. From his position, cheekbones micrometres away from Hollander’s throat, he can feel that Hollander stops breathing. Good. That means he’s not thinking about anything else.

“But you liked, yes?”

“Yeah.”

There’s something wistful and rosy about the way he says it, like what they do together is daubed in watercolors, not electric blue and gaudy gold and the drab eggshell of hotel rooms. He’s so fucking addicted to the unexpected choices Hollander makes.

Ilya kisses him. Drinks that sweetness from his mouth. Grinds their hips together until Hollander is gasping and clutching at him, then slides down Hollander’s body. Hollander’s cock kicks and Ilya kisses it, sucks it into his mouth. This time he does not relent, not until Hollander shakes and moans and falls apart under him.

He’s fucking cock drunk and pathetic, lapping his tongue at Hollander’s soft underside, his own dick humping the bone of Hollander’s knee. Give him another twenty seconds and he could come like this. The taste of cum on his tongue and a patella against his cock and the wrinkles across the bedspread where Hollander’s fingers have clutched and released; just imagine how pathetic Ilya would be if he hadn’t jerked off in the shower.

Hollander, because he’s a good, decent boy, saves him the indignity. Hollander, because he’s a terrible loser, shoves Ilya to his back with about twice as much force is necessary. Ilya goes easily, languidly unfurling his limbs like a plant looking towards the sunlight.

Ilya can’t believe this ravenous man stripping his sweatpants is the same boy who told him to fuck off in the showers after the CCM shoot. He can’t believe no one snapped Hollander up at that party, took him home and put him through his paces; they left Hollander to do that by himself, and now Ilya reaps the fruit of their failures. Hollander sucks his dick like Ilya’s orgasm will win him the Cup.

Hollander’s a quick study. Last time, he’d swallowed Ilya’s cum like Ilya had done to him in Toronto. He’d laughed at the way Hollander rubbed his tongue across his teeth, like he was judging the vintage of a wine. Last time, he’d reached a hand upwards to scratch at Ilya’s chest. This time, he tucks both hands under Ilya’s ass and squeezes hard, immobilizing his hips.

If anyone ever tells Hollander that he needs to rile less easily, Ilya will hunt them down and make them regret it.

“Good boy,” Ilya croons, because fuck, someone has to tell him. Ilya’s a Good Samaritan. “Such a good little cocksucker. So desperate, hmm?”

He’d planned something to say, hadn’t he? Hollander’s tongue sliding under his foreskin and into his slit derail all thought, all memory. Ilya succumbs.

Trying to outlast his attentions is fucking hopeless. And why bother? Maybe he can sweet talk Hollander into a second round. Maybe he can hustle him into a shared shower. Maybe he can finger him for real, catalogue the polyphony of tones Hollander makes when he’s being speared open. Maybe he can wait until Hollander’s on the verge of coming undone, then make him promise to come to Ilya’s room this weekend.

Oh, yes, that’s what he was planning on saying. Five days. All-Stars. He opens his mouth to chirp, but all that comes out is a rumble and then his cum is mashing itself into the hidden pinkness of Hollander’s palate.

They’re both panting, almost steaming with exertion in the cool of the Brookstreet Hotel’s least expensive room. Hollander lands beside him on the bed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Ilya knits their limbs together and draws Hollander in to lick the taste out of his mouth.

Some time later, Hollander mutters, “Still mad at you,” from near Ilya’s armpit.

“So mad you had to sneak out of your parents’ house and suck my brain out through my dick?”

“How’d you know I sneaked out?”

He smiles. Thinks about suppressing it, rationalizes that Hollander can’t see his face from this angle. Because you just admitted it. “My name is Shane Hollander,” he mocks. “I tell my parents: ‘Good night, sleep well, I will be out seeing other very famous very sexy hockey player who you know likes sucking dick.’ Hollander, I think you would rather die.”

Shane groans and turns his face further into Ilya’s side. His eyelashes tickle against the tender skin between Ilya’s ribs. “It’s not really sneaking. I left a note.”

Ilya is utterly charmed by the image of careful, serious Shane Hollander drafting a clear but totally non-descriptive missive to his parents so they wouldn’t worry. There is no way he didn’t miss the mark entirely. If Yuna finds the note before Shane gets home, she's going to think he’s been kidnapped.

“I left you notes too. Did you really not understand what I was saying? When I was texting?”

Shane huffs. His head has been putting Ilya’s arm to sleep, but it’s lonely when he sits up and snuffles out for his jeans. He returns with his phone in his hand and settles back into Ilya’s collarbone. It’s too raw to examine why Ilya likes that quite so much.

Holding his phone aloft, angled so both of them can see, Shane scrolls backwards through their texting thread.

---

Ilya Rozanov

9 January 2011 at 8:22PM

Ilya Rozanov

feeling nervous?

Shane Hollander

Trying not to.

Ilya Rozanov

me too

Shane Hollander

Why would you be nervous?

Ilya Rozanov

you are right, my dick is too huge to be worried ))))

Shane Hollander

You’re an asshole.

Ilya Rozanov

😉

14 January 2011 at 4:14PM

Ilya Rozanov

just finished my interview

Shane Hollander

I didn’t realize they were talking to you too?

Ilya Rozanov

what, you thought they would write 4000 words about how wonderful and brave Shane Hollander is

and then just add one sentence: by the way, Ilya Rozanov sucks dick too

Shane Hollander

🙄

lol

18 January 2011 at 2:56PM

Ilya Rozanov

are you worried about your team?

Shane Hollander

Kinda.

I think they’ll be okay?

Ilya Rozanov

I think mine will be okay too

are you going to tell them first?

Shane Hollander

No.

Ilya Rozanov

me neither

Shane Hollander

lol why would you be telling them?

Ilya Rozanov

ouch (((((

---

Shane didn’t realize that his anger was actually just shame until, having been briefly stunned by his orgasm, it roused itself again while he read these text messages. He’s going to remember this every time some jackass comments on his high hockey IQ. No one’s ever tested his real IQ. Shane might be an idiot.

“Then they sent proof copy last week,” Rozanov adds, as if the texts aren’t appallingly clear. “You did not read?”

“My mom read it and said it was fine.” Shane closes his eyes and pushes his nose into Rozanov’s chest. “Fuck. Sorry.”

“And your mom did not tell you either? We talked about it.”

“Yeah, right, what the fuck is up with that?” Shane asks, glad for one final piece of driftwood he can cling onto and be righteously pissy about. “Since when do you talk to my mom?”

“Since she messages me saying: ‘Oh, Ilya, my Shane misses you sooo mu—’”

Shane clambers on top and smothers Rozanov’s terrible beautiful mouth. “Do you even know how to shut the fuck up and be serious? For once?”

Rozanov drags his tongue along Shane’s fingers. Shane takes his hand back before Rozanov can start sucking them into his mouth. He knows where that road leads and it’s not to answers.

He glares at Rozanov, who rolls his eyes.

“My agent was dogshit, okay? Yuna tell me, ‘Ilyusha, you are too handsome for terrible management. I fix for you.’ And then, since you were coming out, I told her I could, also.”

It makes a horrible sort of sense. Shane loves his mom. She’s pathologically incapable of remaining an innocent bystander when she witnesses incompetence. And she did mention how shitty Rozanov’s agent was. But he hadn’t realized that would lead to – well. This.

“So you wanted to … do it together?” Shane hears himself right as soon as the words are too late to take back. “I mean —”

“Yes —”

“— come out together.”

“— I want to do it.” Rozanov rolls his hips upwards.

“Fuck off,” he says, directing it towards both Rozanov’s leer and his own hardening dick, who doesn’t much care for Shane’s agenda.

Still, Shane lets himself sink down a little heavier on top of Rozanov. His dick isn’t wrong.

Shane struggles for the words he wants, absently swatting away Rozanov’s busy hands. “Look,” he says at last. “I don’t know why you did it …”

“No?” Rozanov props himself up on his elbows, levelling Shane with an arctic stare. Shane’s seen MLH veterans flinch before that look. “You cannot think of any reason at all?”

“Were you trying to be, like … nice? So I didn’t have to be alone?” Rozanov looks like Shane just called his backhand overrated, but he did, after all, say any reason.

“Eww. No, Hollander. No, I just hear that second-best rookie is trying to get more famous for something I did first, and I think: ‘No way, he is not stealing my thing.’”

Shane relaxes. Maybe a little too much, actually. He’s all sprawled over Rozanov’s chest now. Rozanov cups the back of Shane’s head in one big hand, so he must not mind.

“Okay. Well. Even if it – if that was the reason. I’m grateful not to be alone in this.”

Rozanov hums drowsily beneath him. One of his hands starts a slow, gentle stroke down Shane’s spine. “If you really want to say thank you …”

“I had plans to kick you in the balls. I didn’t, so, there’s your ‘thank you.’”

It’s a weak chirp. Shane’s oozing over Rozanov’s chest like melted cheese, and his dick is twitching in the dell of Rozanov’s hips. He hasn’t been able to unwind this much in weeks and weeks. No magnesium bath has been anywhere as close to the kind of soothe that Rozanov’s fingertips and soapy scent give him.

Uninspired though it is, by protesting he’s dispensed with the necessary foreplay, and now he’s free to fall into it, using his nose to trace up Rozanov’s throat until he finds lips cocked in an unimpressed smile.

It’s easy. It’s always been easy, kissing Rozanov, even when it shouldn’t be. Or when Shane wishes it wasn’t. But what does he have to worry about now? The scariest part is done. He can just let it be easy.

Shane works his way down Rozanov’s neck, nuzzling up into his stubble. Rozanov makes a low, pleased sound. Then another, when Shane lips at his earlobe.

Rozanov sets a hand on Shane’s butt cheek, kneading lightly at the muscle. “Do you ever touch yourself here?”

His mind is a field of static, fizzing with options of which lies to choose and which truths to tell. “Um … yeah. Sometimes. I guess.”

It’s enough of an admission to draw Rozanov’s attention to it, a red cape flapping in the wind. “And you like it?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Fuck the matador metaphor, Shane’s face is about the same hue.

“And?” Rozanov asks, eyebrows most of the way up to his hairline. “You like it when I did it?”

Shane squirms. “Was that not obvious?” It felt obvious. Even just the brush of Rozanov’s knuckle had sparked a fire in his guts.

“Mm, but you stopped me.”

“Yeah, because hotels have thin walls and your team could be back whenever—”

“Not whenever. We have time.” Rozanov grips Shane’s hips and guides them into an easy roll. “Not to fuck that way, maybe, but time to see if you like, hmm?”

“I know I like it.” His voice comes out breathy; he’s already lost, which is more than half the battle.

“Good. So: we try. I want to see you.”

Shane interprets that as a directive to roll off and lie back, but he’s no sooner got his weight onto one knee when Rozanov inches his finger towards Shane’s hole and slips it in. It’s not enough to really do anything, but the shock of it sends his hand scrambling up Rozanov’s chest, hunting for balance.

“Shit, Rozanov!”

“No, that is other thing you use this for. Right now, you say: fuck, Ilya.”

Rozanov’s finger pulls out, traces circles around his rim, and Shane trembles. “Fuck! I–Ilya …” his voice trails off into a long exhale as Ilya presses in again. Shane sinks his fingers into the meat of Rozanov’s pecs.

Rozanov’s jaw falls open. “Oh, fuck. Very good. Da, you still like?”

“Yes. Yes, yes, yes.” Like is the wrong dialect entirely. They need to invent new words for how Shane feels right now. Ilya’s finger nudges at him again, and this time, this time, it pushes in deeper and curls inward.

Shane could almost fucking faint from it. His whole pelvis is on fire, tingly and sharp. Rozanov’s eyes don’t stray from his face for a single second, which could be awkward as hell, if Rozanov wasn’t panting himself, lips flushed and heavy.

“Maybe you will have time to practice, yes?” Ilya strokes against something that makes Shane’s spine arch. “For your bye week. See what else you like.”

“Fffffuck you, oh my god, Ilya.” Shane’s hips are working without his say so, rocking so that Ilya’s finger can slide deeper. Shane works a hand between them and gets his fingers around Ilya’s dick. Starts to stroke.

It’s almost as gratifying as whatever magic Rozanov’s performing down there, watching how his blink stays shut for a moment too long, and a stain like red wine on carpet seeps across his face. “Ah, fuck, yes, Shane.”

If he lets his head hang loose, he can reach Ilya’s mouth and still buck onto Ilya’s hand. He does. Bites at the pillow of lip and chases his tongue inside. Beneath his splayed left hand, he can feel the thunder in Rozanov’s lungs.

Shane ruts frantically against the taut belly beneath him, gasping for air against his mouth. The sweat and precome mingle between them until they’re sliding together like seals. Ilya shifts, changes the angle, and that’s all it takes. Shane’s orgasm feels like it’s forced out of him, driven from hiding by the movement of the finger inside him. He stifles whatever sounds he might make in Ilya’s mouth before he goes utterly boneless. Based on the heat and wetness spreading between their bellies, Ilya must have come. No thanks to Shane, by the end.

“Bozhe moy. Shane.” Ilya grips Shane’s chin and draws him into another devouring kiss.

Everyone in the world (or: the hockey world, which to Shane is close enough to the same thing) is going to wake up tomorrow and assume Shane gets off from taking it up the ass. Good to find out they’ll only be half-wrong. One time he’s gonna get Ilya alone alone, without a second twin bed in the room, with some much thicker walls around him, and banish the final shreds of bad assumptions.

But not tonight. “I should go,” he murmurs into Ilya’s jaw.

“Okay.” His arms band around Shane’s back, fixing him in place. “Good luck trying to leave.”

Shane doesn’t fight it. There’s something soothing about the pressure of being held like this.

“Roomie,” he points out. “Team. There’s not enough nightlife in Ottawa for them to be gone much longer.”

Ilya sighs deeply. “Fine, fine.” He takes another kiss, as if in payment. Then another, and another. If it wasn’t for the itch of rapidly-drying cum on his belly, Shane would be tempted to melt into it, but the grossness is stronger than the heat between them. At least, now that his dick is out of commission for a couple of hours.

He hoists himself up and makes tracks to the bathroom, using his bare hand and cold water to get rid of the worst of it. Rozanov’s voice is loud enough to be heard clearly above the faucet: “‘Rozanov is obviously an incredible player. For me, personally, I find that motivating, not threatening. There’s nothing I enjoy more than beating him.’”

“Are you fucking quoting me?”

“Do you think they knew what ’beating’ was really meaning?”

“Fuck off,” Shane says. If it comes out affectionate, no one else needs to know.

Rozanov muscles in beside him to take his turn sluicing off the mess. “You don’t want me to fuck off. You are sooooo grateful to have me.”

Shane really is. It’s awful. He grabs for Rozanov’s neck and pulls him in for one last, messy kiss. Their teeth bump together awkwardly, but then Shane gets his tongue into Rozanov’s mouth and it’s so fucking good.

“I’ll see you on Friday, yeah?”

He needs Rozanov to say yes, because he’s still a little worried the league will retract his – their – invitations to All-Stars, but if Rozanov says this is how it will be, then that’s how it’ll be. There’s some spacetime-fabric morphing that happens in his proximity.

“Yes. Pity I fly to Boston after game, tomorrow, or …”

“Yeah.” Shane dresses himself again and tries not to feel so bereft at having the idea of consecutive nights with Rozanov given and immediately taken away. “Okay, I’m leaving!”

Rozanov saunters out, still butt-naked, and delivers a kiss to the corner of his mouth alongside a slap on his flank. “Okay.”

He’s almost gone, hand on the doorknob, when Rozanov says: “Hey Shane?” When he turns around, Rozanov looks so isolated, sitting on the bed by himself. Shane’s tempted to run back over for another last kiss. And then, much less tempted when Rozanov grins and says: “Happy Gay Day.”