The Helsinki Job

Shane arrived in Helsinki with a few objectives in mind.

First, and probably his prime objective, was winning gold for Canada, of course. It felt as though Shane had lived an entire lifetime since last year’s World Juniors in Regina—since then he’d been drafted, left Kingston, moved to Montreal, debuted in the MLH, scored his first pro goal, his second, his fourteenth—but the loss to Russia was at the forefront of his mind when he got to Helsinki. He wanted to redeem himself, to prove that the Metros had made the right choice in not sending him back to Kingston and in releasing him now to go to Helsinki, and the only proof he or they would accept was gold.

The other objectives were mostly minor in comparison. Shane wanted to win tournament MVP, again as good fuel for his case to Montreal. There had been an awkward bit of tension in getting them to release him. Once it was clear that Hockey Canada had made the request to Montreal, Shane had bugged his agent about it, who had then warned him that the response had been very tepid.

“Do you want me to push back on it?” Farah had asked. She sounded like she wanted to push back on it, which Shane supposed was her job as an agent; she knew Shane wanted to go, and that he wasn’t always that great about pushing back this early in his career. He worried about things like humility, gratitude, good character; he never liked to make a fuss.

But it was Farah’s job to make a fuss, and so Shane tried not to feel guilty about telling her, “Um, yeah, can you push back a little?” She pushed back, and also reached back out to Hockey Canada, specifically to an executive that used to work with Montreal’s Assistant GM in the Q, and before long Shane was called in and informed that yes, even though the good of the team was always their priority, part of that was making sure that players like Shane stayed happy, so they were considering Helsinki.

“We know you put the team first too, Shane,” Montreal’s actual GM, Denis Martineau, had told him. Martineau had famously fist-pumped when Boston left Shane on the board at the draft; it had been clipped and played repeatedly on TSN, and some draft expert talking head had exclaimed, “I think all of Montreal feels the same way as Denis Martineau here!” Shane had been sent the clip a few times; it was pretty funny and made at least a little headway into soothing his second overall resentment. Getting to play in the MLH right away did that, too.

“And we trust you not to take any unnecessary risks, play a nice, clean game; keep your head up and your wits about you, you know? You’ll be okay if you go to Helsinki?”

Shane nodded. Of course he would.

“And you will be happy, yeah? To go to Helsinki?”

There was really only one answer to that. “Yeah. I’ll be really happy.”

Martineau smiled so widely that Shane thought he might see another fist pump. He got a hard knock to his shoulder instead, some jubilant French crowed in his ear, and sent on his way with the assurance that he’d be allowed to go to Helsinki at Christmas for the WJC.

Shane wanted to prove that it wasn’t just his happiness on the line here. There was the gold, a tourney MVP; those were important objectives. He also wanted to try something called turkinpippuri (he’d written it down) because one of his Finnish teammates in Montreal had told him it was delicious. He wanted to get souvenirs for his grandparents, catch up with his Kingston teammate who’d snagged a goalie spot for Canada, and see if he could catch a glimpse of the northern lights; Lehtonen had told him that was possible, too, as long as he went out at the right time.

And the last objective, definitely not the most important, like way down on the list of reasons he really, really wanted to go to Helsinki—Shane wanted to convince Ilya Rozanov to come over to the MLH.

That had not been a reason he’d shared with anyone else, not even Farah; definitely not his mom, when she’d asked why Shane wanted to go so bad. It wasn’t important enough to talk about, or even really think about too much. Shane tried to limit his thinking about Rozanov in general.

He’d heard a lot about him, of course; the fact that he was obliterating the rest of the KHL, storming through the league like a man on a mission, was talked about as much as Rozanov’s decision to stay in Russia instead of coming over to Boston right away. It was clear, both through the player rumor mill and general hockey media, that Boston had wanted Rozanov right away, had done all they could to get him on the team as soon as possible. But at some point, late in the summer, Rozanov had signed a contract with Dynamo Moscow and his agent informed Boston he wouldn’t be joining them yet.

Shane was pissed off. All that buildup to the draft, the devastation of going second overall, Rozanov’s shit-eating grin and his psych-out session in the gym, his fake-ass “Boston is nice too?”, the endless media hype of Rozanov vs. Hollander—all that and Rozanov wouldn’t even show up. The news broke after a week of rumors Shane had stubbornly denied, certain that Rozanov would be reporting to training camp, that he’d skipped Boston’s development camp out of arrogance and geography, unable to believe it until every hockey insider was confirming it at once.

He threw his phone across his gym floor when he heard about it. Then he scrambled to pick it up and make sure it hadn’t broken because his dad had bought it for him and he was too old to not take care of his things.

He remained pissed off, though, as he went through training camp, made his debut, scored a bunch of goals, pummeled a Rozanov-free Boston Raiders team at the Garden, scored more goals, and established himself as the preeminent rookie in the league pretty quickly. The anger was allowed to simmer on the backburner through all this, and he was excited to be doing well; the Metros weren’t doing as well, more of a weak team Shane was determined to drag to .500 hockey, spending the early season on the verge of being a bubble team, and the phrase “one man show” was used enough to make Shane a bit nervous, but none of that noise ever drowned out his anger completely. The Raiders were a terrible team, bottom feeders snuffling along the floor of the division, and Shane hated them with a veracity that went over really, really well in his locker room.

The anger grew as people talked about him coasting to the Calder, about breaking rookie records, about Boston having regrets and what a redraft would look like—oh, that one really pissed him off. Shane could use some of it as fuel and took it out on the rest of the MLH, especially Boston—one of his first games back after Helsinki would be against Boston at the Garden again and he couldn’t wait, frankly, especially if he failed in that very unimportant objective of getting Rozanov to leave the KHL—but a lot of it had nowhere to go. So it just lived in Shane like a weird ghost on a season that should’ve been fun. He should’ve been thrilled.

Shane didn’t want to stay haunted by the ghost of a season that could’ve been had Rozanov played. And so he arrived in Helsinki, in very small part, to be a fucking ghostbuster.

“We’re really proud of you for taking these opportunities to make connections, Shane,” his mother told him. It was Christmas Day, they had just finished lunch at the hotel restaurant, and the first game of the tournament would take place on the next day. But before that, there would be a mixer between all the teams in one of the bigger party rooms of the hotel, and Shane had just informed his parents he would definitely be going.

“Are you sure?” his dad asked, which was probably fair; Shane imagined his mom had brought it up to try and talk him into going in the first place.

Shane said all the right things, though, about taking advantage of the chance to get off-ice facetime with these guys, many of whom would eventually be his MLH opponents or even teammates. There were a few other MLH players here, like him—an American winger from Chicago named Something Myers who was playing on his team already because they were worse than even Boston, and a Swedish centerman from Boston who’d been drafted the year before Shane and Rozanov. This center, Shane knew, was named Anton Wahlgren, nicknamed Wally or sometimes Walgreens, shot right but was excellent on weakside draws, didn’t quite know when keep the play in front of him and when to fall back defensively, and would probably be just as motivated to convince Rozanov to join him in Boston as Shane was if he wanted Shane to stop blowing past him like the Roadrunner to score goals. Well, he would still do that with Rozanov in the league, but at least Rozanov could feasibly do it back to Montreal and maybe even things out a little.

So Shane expected Wahlgren to be a key ally in his Rozanov objective. He wanted to introduce himself at the mixer, maybe soften the blow of making him look like a traffic cone on Hockey Night in Canada. He made a mental note to avoid wearing orange, then mentally struck that out because he didn’t think he’d packed anything orange.

Shane didn’t bring up Wahlgren or Something Myers to his parents; he didn’t mention anything about Boston or Rozanov, either. He said, “It’s a good group of guys here and my last chance to really hang out with them like this, so I might as well, right?” and he sounded very casual and easy about it. And his mom was proud of him, so it worked.

His dad was maybe side-eying him a little, but he didn’t ask if Shane was sure again. He just helpfully jumped in when Mom said, “Do you know what you’re going to wear? I can help you pick something out, if you want!” and told her that Shane could probably dress himself at this point.

Shane thanked his dad, hugged them both and wished them a Merry Christmas, and then spent the next few hours before the mixer agonizing over what to wear. He picked up his phone three times to ask his mom for help after all, then put it down each time because that was objectively ridiculous. Eventually he kind of blacked out and put on whatever, nothing orange, which was how most of these spirals tended to end, and he showed up to the mixer with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, and his Rozanov objective at the forefront of his mind.

“You got this,” he whispered to himself outside the double doors of the party room, and then jumped when they banged open and a few Swedish guys came out chatting with each other. None of them were Wahlgren, so Shane just returned their creepily synchronized nods, took another breath, and went inside.

The party room had some cheap Christmas decorations up, a buffet table, a speaker system playing what sounded like Finnish pop songs, and dozens of boys and middle-aged men standing around everywhere. It reminded Shane a bit of the one dance he’d been convinced to bring his high school girlfriend, except for the lack of girls, of course, and a lack of dancing, thank god.

“There you are,” someone said as soon as Shane cleared the door, and he jumped again. It was only Soupy, though, materializing at his shoulder in a suit that looked a bit small on him—Shane could see that he was wearing maple leaf socks—and a cup of what smelled like paint thinner in his hand. “Come on, I was waiting for you. Costco is here.”

Shane let himself be led, knowing better than to argue much. Andy Campbell, or Soupy as he was inevitably called by everyone in hockey, had been Shane’s teammate in Kingston and was a goalie prospect drafted by the Hammerheads. He was a gangly farm boy from Thunder Bay and his parents were apparently deeply troubled by the thought of him eventually going out to California, but he was excited about it, of course, and wanted to use this tournament to make his mark and get the Hammerheads to bring him over faster.

Soupy led him over to another gangly teenager—in a room full of them, this wasn’t hard—and introduced him. “Hollzy, remember Costco?” he asked, indicating Matti Koskinen, one of Finland’s goalies and another OHL player promised to the LA Monarchs.

“Hey man,” Shane said, because of course he remembered him; they had knocked Windsor out of last year’s playoffs and Koskinen had bashed his goalie stick over the crossbar after Shane scored a hat trick. Koskinen nodded, mouth a tight, stoic little line, and Shane couldn’t tell if that was because he was still maybe pissed about the hat trick or because he was just Finnish.

“How’s it going?” Shane tried next. That got him a shrug. Shane nodded back like this was an acceptable conversation. Koskinen was also drinking what smelled like paint thinner, and he took a sip of it while staring at Shane with very pale blue eyes.

Shane thought, but didn’t say, good talk and started looking around, hoping for an out, specifically keeping his eyes peeled for Wahlgren or Rozanov. He didn’t spy any of the Russians and assumed they weren’t here yet, but Wahlgren was standing along the far wall with a few of his teammates, and Shane zeroed in on him. Soupy, meanwhile, was carrying the conversation with Koskinen, chattering away about goalie things, and when he paused for breath, Shane jumped back in.

“Hey—do you know Anton Wahlgren?” he asked Koskinen.

Koskinen studied him carefully and took a long sip of the paint thinner drink. There was absolutely no expression on his face, which made it all the more awkward to look up at him—fuck, was he tall. He’d gotten taller since last year’s playoffs, Shane realized. Soupy, too, must have hit another growth spurt; Shane wasn’t short by any means, but both goalies towered over him, heads bent towards each other.

After an eternity, Koskinen said, “Wahlgren is Swedish.”

“Oh, I know, but—”

“I am Finnish.”

“Costco grew up an hour away from here,” Soupy told Shane, cheerful and enviously oblivious to the tension that Shane couldn’t decide if he was imagining or not. “Hey, did I tell you we finally took him to a real Costco when we were in Windsor?”

“Cool,” Shane said, and he patiently leaned over Soupy’s phone to look at pictures of Koskinen posing in front of warehouse pallets full of toilet paper, holding up a hot dog, and examining rotisserie chickens, all with the same exact lack of expression on his face.

“It was sick,” Soupy said, and Koskinen nodded, and Shane wanted the floor to open up below him just to get out of this.

Eventually, he gathered the nerve to tell them he was going to go say hi to more people. Soupy gave him a weird look, eerily reminiscent of his dad, but neither protested when Shane drifted away, waving awkwardly, and then tried to hype himself up again on the walk towards Wahlgren. He got waylaid by the buffet table when he passed Carter Vaughn, another member of his draft class, who wanted to shake his hand and offer him a slider.

“It’s made of reindeer meat,” Vaughn said in a low-ish whisper, and Shane snapped his hand back from reaching for one. “No, try it, it’s really good.”

“Have you seen any turkinpippuri?” Shane asked slowly, to do his due diligence. “I think it’s like hard licorice? My teammate said it’s really good.”

“Nah, man, but I’ll look out for it and grab you some if I see it. It’s so cool that you’re here. What’s it like in the show?”

Shane had been asked that about a dozen times already since his first Team Canada practice. He answered with his rote formula—it’s amazing, hard to believe, sometimes he has to pinch himself, he’s so lucky—but Vaughn let him get away with it, nodding so enthusiastically that Shane wondered for a brief moment if he was being made fun of. But then Vaughn seemed earnest in crowing about how Shane was tearing it up and everyone was talking about it, asking him to take it easy on Team USA, buddy, and knocking his shoulder with his own.

“In your dreams, buddy,” Shane said. He asked about how DU’s season was going and if college was hard, and at the end of it Carter Vaughn was Vaughny and Shane was Hollzy, so it was a successful interaction. By the time Shane got away, Wahlgren had migrated and was talking to different teammates, Shane thought, closer to the sound system, which seemed like a treacherous place for him to go. But he steeled himself and continued his march over, determined to make some headway.

Another treacherous part of this was that Wahlgren was annoyingly good-looking in a way that Shane almost never let himself admit about other guys. He was shorter than the goalies but solid muscle, with swoopy golden hair and intense green eyes. He tossed his head back as Shane approached, the hair doing a flip over his forehead that made Shane feel a bit warm and also angry about it, and gave Shane a half-smile as he approached.

“Hey, Hollander.”

“Hey Wahlgren,” Shane said. They shook hands about it.

“What’s up?” Wahlgren didn’t bother introducing his other teammates, all Swedes Shane didn’t really know, but just looked at him like he was trying to figure him out. That was fair because Shane was also trying to figure himself out—any way he’d imagined starting this conversation had vanished from his mind, obliterated as if he’d been the one drinking actual paint thinner. Actually, his mouth was suddenly bone-dry, and he wished he could snap his fingers and make a ginger ale materialize. Had there been ginger ale at the drinks table? That was usually the first thing Shane checked for at a party, but he’d been distracted and then dragged off by Soupy, and now—

“Hollander?” Wahlgren asked. His voice shook a little, wobbling between his accent and suppressed laughter. His teammates did a little less work to suppress theirs, but Shane was well-practiced in ignoring that, so he did. He laughed a little, too, just as wobbly.

“Ah, sorry, yeah—how’s it going, man? It’s good to see you here.”

Wahlgren’s—unfortunately perfect, what the fuck, what was Shane doing noticing that kind of thing? He locked his gaze on Wahlgren’s left shoulder as penance—eyebrows went up, as if that was weirder than anything else Shane could’ve said.

“Yeah, you too. I am surprised Montreal let you go.”

“Oh, same for Boston.” That was a lie, of course. Boston let Wahlgren go because they sucked and had no chance at playoffs.

“Yeah,” Wahlgren said with a fake chuckle, because he knew it was a lie too. His mouth twisted a little.

Shane swore internally. He’d been reading a bunch of hockey books lately, plus some self-help stuff about refining his mindset. Most of that went over his head, but right then he wished he’d read something that combined the two better, and that maybe gave him very specific advice about how to be normal with a guy he’d humiliated on the ice a non-zero amount. That would’ve been really helpful in this situation, actually. Maybe there could’ve been a bonus section about what to do when he was also unfairly hot.

Maybe Shane could write that someday, if he ever figured it out.

“Hey, so, I wanted to ask you—”

“Hey,” came a voice at his side, and it was Soupy again, Koskinen in tow, nodding at the group around them. He pressed something cold into Shane’s hand and Shane’s throat felt tight when he looked down and caught a glimpse of a plain seltzer, clearly the closest thing to ginger ale Soupy could find.

In Shane’s ear, Soupy muttered, “You had on your hostage smile, bud,” and patted his back; Shane resolved to hug him as soon as it wouldn’t be awkward to do so. “How’s everyone doing?” Soupy asked the group, and there were nods and murmurs, then actual, non-painful group conversation that made Shane feel a little less like a skydiver without a parachute.

Soupy and Koskinen scoped out a goalie in the Swedish group and got him into their little impromptu cult or whatever, and Shane took a fortifying sip of seltzer, ignored Wahlgren’s raised eyebrows on the can, and said, “I wanted to ask you about Rozanov.”

Wahlgren frowned a little. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Have you talked to him about coming over? Has he said anything about next year?”

“I never talked to him ever,” Wahlgren said. “I got here two days ago, go to practice, do Christmas Eve with my family, and then I go to this party. He’s not here?”

“No,” Shane said, looking around to make sure. But no, there were still no Russians, though the room was filling up more. Besides their group, most teams were clustered together, not mixing as much as the organizers probably wanted. Even Vaughny had been pulled back into the Americans, all sniggering together with beers and little reindeer burgers in hand.

“Ah. He’s too good for party too, yeah?” There was enough bitterness in Wahlgren’s voice to shock Shane a little, and he met those green eyes with some trepidation.

“Uh, what d’you mean?”

“He’s too good for Raiders, too good for MLH, too good for World Juniors party—I’m surprised he even comes to Helsinki.”

“Well,” Shane said, a little desperately. “I’m sure he’s—Russia probably wants to go back-to-back, right, so—”

“We will not let them,” Wahlgren said darkly. It was very clear he meant Sweden, not him and Shane. Shane swallowed down a big gulp of seltzer and the bubbles burned.

“Yeah. I mean, we won’t let them.”

“We will see.”

“But don’t you want to talk to Rozanov? See if he might—I’m sure you want him to come over—”

“I don’t care,” Wahlgren told him. He sounded and looked dead serious. “Fuck him. He can stay in Russia if he wants.”

“Don’t you want—”

“We can win without him.”

“Can you? Oh fuck, sorry,” Shane said, horrified. Wahlgren’s nostrils flared for a minute—and fuck Shane’s whole life for finding that attractive, what the hell—and then he tipped his head back—the fucking hair swoop, fuck—and laughed, hard.

“You’re hilarious, Hollander,” he said, and Soupy stopped speaking goalie for a minute to say, “Yeah, I tell people that all the time, no one believes me,” and pulled them back into the talk of the bigger group.

Shane settled into the more comfortable role of letting the conversation wash over him, his duty with Wahlgren pretty much done. It was a bust, which sucked, but it was still good information—he should probably keep Wahlgren away from Rozanov whenever possible. Really, he just had to talk to Rozanov himself. Maybe it always had to be that way; maybe the only person who could get Rozanov to come to Boston was Shane. Was that arrogant to think? Shane hoped not, because he was also starting to think this entire operation was dependent on it being true.

He sipped at his seltzer, nodded along and made a few comments about whatever the group was talking about, ate a few little hot dogs when someone brought the tray over and said he was pretty sure they weren’t reindeer, and subtly watched the door. Maybe not subtly enough, though, because he jolted hard when Soupy elbowed him and said, “Tell them what your teammate said to try, Hollzy, I can’t pronounce it.”

“Turkinpippuri,” Shane said, slow and careful. Koskinen still looked aghast, though, so it was probably terrible, and a few Swedish guys snorted, but Wahlgren looked intrigued.

“What did he say about it?”

“That I should try it because it’s delicious.”

That earned laughter loud and unsubtle enough that Soupy whipped his head around at the offenders and said, “Dude, shut up, we don’t know.”

Wahlgren hummed, sipped at his drink, and said, “Your teammate is fucking you.”

“No he’s not,” Shane all but squeaked, his face red-hot in an instant. Then he cleared his throat and said, “No, what, what are you—”

“He’s fucking with you,” said another Swede with less of an accent; Shane thought he might be playing in the Dub. He gave Wahlgren a little shove. “Do they teach you English in Boston, Ante?” Wahlgren shoved him back, laughing.

“It’s not good for you,” Koskinen told him. “Only Finns like this. You shouldn’t try.”

“Oh. I still want to, though,” Shane said, but it was drowned out a bit by the Swedes arguing amongst themselves about whether Turkisk peppar (it was the same thing, they said, when Soupy asked, but better because it was Swedish, apparently) was any good or not. It got pretty lively, with more shoving, and Shane was so distracted that he almost missed the double doors bursting open.

Almost, though, because that was when Team Russia came in.

They had all forgone the usual suits, polos or button-down shirts their teams had directed them to wear for their Team Russia puffer jackets. They moved in a cluster, casting looks around the rest of the room, and they also brought with them the only girl now in the room—someone with curly hair, wearing intimidatingly high heels, wedged between one of the coaches and, Shane realized with a hard swallow, Ilya Rozanov.

“There’s your boy,” Wahlgren murmured disdainfully, but Shane barely heard him. Rozanov was looking around the room, leaning down—just a little, the heels put the girl nearly at his height—when the girl spoke something to him. His face was set in a hard, cold sort of stare that only barely flickered when it reached Shane, just for a moment, before it moved on. It still made Shane’s heart beat a little quicker, his palm sweating around his can of seltzer.

“Not my boy,” Shane finally said, belatedly; Wahlgren had already gone back to talking about snacks with his teammates. He barely glanced at Shane again, which was good because Shane couldn’t exactly look back; he couldn’t take his eyes off Rozanov.

He wasn’t the only one. That was clear as the Russians made their way through the room, not talking to anyone but each other. They lined up near the food table, commandeering vodka, sneering at what was on offer, jostling each other and laughing. Rozanov was at the center of it and drew all the stares, though after a moment Shane considered the guys might be staring at the girl with him. He should probably do that.

“She’s hot,” Wahlgren said, though it sounded a bit begrudging. One of his teammates laughed and said something that Shane was glad was in Swedish. It was easier to ignore them, to stay focused on Rozanov. He was drinking and making faces about it, speaking only to the girl and in what looked like short, clipped sentences, not really looking at anyone or anything.

Rozanov looked the same as he had the last time Shane saw him in person, that night in the gym at the draft—his hair clouded around his head in snow-frizzed curls; his mouth pursed into his delicate cupid’s bow; he was tall and bulky, on par with Shane, though his hunched, slouchy shoulders made him look a bit smaller.

Physically, Rozanov was all the same, but Shane watched him so carefully—stupidly, probably, he knew better than to look at guys like this—that he caught some differences. He was muted, maybe, standing in that crowd as it moved around him. He looked tired, none of the bounding energy he showed off on the ice. Shane understood that, knew what it was to feel like less of a person off the ice than on it, but Rozanov had never given him that impression before. He knew it was bad, a distant concern he knew about himself but was mostly resigned to. He was not, under any circumstances, resigned to it in Rozanov.

That brought Shane back to his objective. He would have to get Rozanov alone somehow, away from his teammates and coaches, who could all prove to be obstacles in getting him to Boston. Some of them, Shane knew, were his Dynamo Moscow teammates; he recognized them from late night, terrible KHL streams on websites blasting advertisements promising him access to the sexiest chicks in his area. He moved on from them, quickly, barely wanting to admit the association to himself, and looked at the girl instead. He looked at Wahlgren, those green fucking eyes, like a Disney prince, and realized he might have a good plan for her.

“She’s Sergei Vetrov’s daughter,” one of the Swedes told them. “She’s intern with the team—whatever the fuck—”

“I bet she’s there for them to—”

“Do you know her?” Shane interrupted, sharp. It made every head turn towards him; only Soupy looked amused and a bit immune to it. Goalies were like that, though. Shane had been his captain in Kingston and that sharp, exacting tone had done exactly nothing to grab his attention.

Most of the guys echoed each other in saying no, but the guy who’d called her an intern said, “Yes; Svetlana. I said hi after practice, when she was waiting for ice for Russia.”

“Good,” Shane said, and then he gestured between him and Wahlgren. “Introduce us.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it,” Wahlgren snapped; he also had something of a captain voice, and Shane remembered he was wearing Sweden’s C here, like Shane was for Canada. He wondered if he had designs on Boston’s captaincy, someday, the way Shane had his sights set on Montreal’s. As the three of them started their way over, Shane’s eyes locked on Rozanov, he found himself thinking that Wahlgren would probably be disappointed on that front if Shane had his way and Rozanov came over.

He didn’t say that to Wahlgren, of course. And he resolved to keep himself between Rozanov and Wahlgren, just in case. It would be a delicate sort of interaction, probably not one Shane was suited to, but he was determined.

And in any case, it should be enough to toss a Disney prince at a beautiful girl and watch that take off. Wahlgren’s teammate carted them over to the Russian group, aiming for Svetlana, and introduced them to her while studiously ignoring Rozanov. Rozanov sniffed and pretended to ignore them back, though Shane caught his gaze because he was, of course, staring back at him.

He was staring so hard that it was a bit jarring when Svetlana said, “Shane Hollander,” and held out her hand, limp and palm down like an aristocrat or something.

“Oh,” Shane said, and he took her hand and shook it like he would any other hockey player. Wahlgren snorted, which was a little unfair; was he supposed to kiss it? That wasn’t happening. “Hey. Nice to meet you.”

“It is very nice to meet you too,” Svetlana said, her mouth twitched into a small smile, English careful but firm. Her eyes sparkled at him. Shane spent some time trying to figure out if these things added up to flirting, but then Wahlgren cleared his throat loudly and asked Svetlana what she was drinking—that was flirting, Shane was pretty sure—and Rozanov said something that sounded pissy in Russian and walked off.

“Oh, hey,” Shane said, and he made a move to go after him, but Svetlana spoke to him again and it would be way too rude to walk off midsentence. Probably. Shane tried to tell himself he cared.

“I saw you play in Boston a few weeks ago,” Svetlana told him. She made a face at Wahlgren. “Both of you.”

“Sorry,” Shane lied to Wahlgren, which made Svetlana laugh. Wahlgren looked like he’d swallowed a lemon.

“No you’re not.”

“No I’m not.” Shane managed a humble sort of grimace and shrug combo, which made Svetlana laugh again. She put her hand on his arm in a few light pats and Shane willed himself to chill and not hide behind Wahlgren.

“You live in Boston?” Wahlgren asked; he looked like he wouldn’t mind it if Shane hid behind him.

“Sometimes. I am thinking of going to school there, but—it depends.” Svetlana was the one that looked now, when made Shane feel okay about following her gaze—Rozanov was now standing across the room with one of the Russian coaches in his ear, upper lip curled as he listened, his eyes distant.

It would be a great time to get going, head over there and rescue Rozanov from a conversation he clearly didn’t want to be in. Shane could pay it forward; how many conversations had he been rescued from in his life? But Svetlana kept talking to both of them, with a keen focus on Shane, and once he learned she was Rozanov’s childhood friend—because Wahlgren asked, of course—he couldn’t afford to run away from her. He listened, answered her questions, threw in some compliments about Wahlgren just to be nice, and even tried some little toasts with smoked salmon on them because she recommended them.

By the time Wahlgren finally managed to capture Svetlana’s entire attention and they wandered off together, Rozanov was talking to a different coach—Pelly, one of Team Canada’s assistant coaches, who Shane remembered had worked for Boston last season. Rozanov looked less pained to be in this conversation but was still nodding more than speaking, his eyes still a bit dull. They widened as Shane drew near, though, and a spark of something that could be panic flashed through them as Shane got close enough to hear them.

“—and I guess it’s always a good thing to get to live with family, you know, but there’s no reason they cannot come to Boston with you. You live with your father, yes?” Pelly said, cheerful. He smelled like he’d had a beer or two already.

“Yes,” Rozanov said, but he was grimacing, and Shane could understand that a bit. His mom lived with him in Montreal, just temporarily, she said, because he hadn’t wanted to billet with any of the older guys on the team, but his parents thought he was way too young to live on his own. It was annoying, if not atypical, and Shane clung to it being temporary, to proving to his mom that he could be responsible and live on his own just fine after this season. “Sorry, I should—”

“Ah, there he is,” Pelly interrupted, pointing at Shane and then slapping him on the shoulder when he was in reach. “Here’s one guy that doesn’t want you over in the show, eh?”

“No,” Shane blurted out, then realized that made it sound like he was agreeing and shook his head. “I mean, yeah, I—”

“No, no, I keep up, kiddo; it’s a clear shot for you to the Calder without this one. Maybe playoffs.” Pelly gave him an exaggerated wink. “You should see him at practice, Roz, he’s an animal out there. Unbelievable.”

Rozanov gave them both a small smile, lips pressed hard together and barely curved upwards. Close to him now, Shane could take better stock of the blue of his eyes and the sharp lines of his face; he could remember the brightness they held back at the draft, where all his features seemed to vibrate with joy. Even in the gym, when they—when their fingers—when he would just look at Shane, the same as he’s looking now, there was an intensity that Shane had never felt before.

And fair being fair, he could admit it was way worse than just thinking Wahlgren was hot. Wahlgren was hot in the way that a dozen guys in magazines and on TV were hot. He was hot in a way that never looked back at Shane the same way.

Rozanov looked back, Shane was sure. That was fucking terrifying, but it was also kind of addicting.

“I am sorry,” Rozanov said, directed at Pelly even though he kept looking at Shane. His English seemed stiffer in his mouth than it had been six months ago. “I must go—was good to talk, Coach Pelletier—” He mangled the name in a way that made Shane fight down a smile, annoyed with himself for being charmed; after months of listening to the way KHL commentators pronounced Rozanov, though, compared to North Americans, he supposed it was fair. “—but my team, you know—”

“Oh, go ahead,” Pelly said, waving at him. “You two will see enough of each other this tournament, I’m sure. Hey, crush the rest of your group, you know, so we see you in the knockout round, yes?”

“Yes,” Rozanov said, nodding eagerly. “Bye.” He hurried off then, folded back into Russian teammates as if climbing over a wall, before Shane could stutter out even one protest.

Pelly chuckled after him. “I know what you think, Hollander, but he’s a good kid, really. I hope he figures it out for next year.”

“I hope so too,” Shane said, and at Pelly’s look, insisted, “No, really! I want to be the best by beating the best.”

That made Pelly laugh, and he ruffled Shane’s hair. Shane tried not to hate it. “Oh, Shane, you’re a good kid too. No easy ways out.”

“If it were easy, it wouldn’t be as fun.”

“And he speaks media, too! Câlisse, they must love you back home. Good for us. You go ahead, too, have a beer before we get to work tomorrow.”

Never one to disobey his coaches, Shane went off, though he didn’t have a beer. He went back to Soupy and Koskinen, now talking to Canadians, while trying to subtly track Rozanov around the room. He wasn’t going to give up, no way, not when this would be his best chance to catch Rozanov for a while. They were in different groups, playing at different arenas; this really was the best time to mix.

It was still hard, though. Once his teammates had him, Shane found it impossible to slip away. In theory, he didn’t exactly mind this—his teammates were guys he’d grown up with, guys on the precipice of making it like he was, even if he was a little further ahead; they were all his buddies, and he really was excited to have this chance with them. He said it a dozen times that night and meant it every time: he couldn’t wait to crush the Czech Republic in their first game tomorrow.

But he had multiple objectives here in Helsinki, and only one seemed like it was slipping through his fingers a bit. Shane watched Rozanov, probably way too much, but the only teammate observant enough to notice was Soupy, who only said, “This is one of your hockey freak things, right? Okay, man,” and let him be because he was also a hockey freak, a goalie freak, which was arguably worse.

Rozanov seemed to pointedly not watch him back. He talked to Svetlana and a few teammates in what looked like short, clipped sentences, and otherwise just drank vodka and brooded. He had teammates or coaches around him at all times but spent most of those times slouched against the wall, letting it all happen around him. Shane knew how that went, could recognize it easily, but it still seemed wrong for Rozanov.

At one point, Vaughny rejoined Shane and convinced him to try a reindeer slider. Shane finally agreed, if reluctantly; he kept his ears sharp for any jokes about eating dogs and shit, but there was nothing, everyone tipsy and cheery at him. He ate the slider, which was delicious, and submitted to back pats from Koskinen, the most animated he’d been all night, while the rest of the Canadians rushed to try sliders before they ran out.

Once that was done, Shane looked around for Rozanov again and found him missing. In the flurry of reindeer mania, Shane slipped away with only Soupy’s eyes after him and wandered around the room. He ducked Svetlana’s stare, went utterly unnoticed by Wahlgren talking to her, and once he confirmed Rozanov wasn’t in the room, he steeled himself, took a breath, and followed a hunch outside.

And there he was, of course, standing around the back of the hotel in the small parking lot. The sun had gone down hours ago so it was true dark out and a single flickering light posted on the back wall of the building lit Rozanov up, standing alone a few steps out from the wall, hunched over what Shane was certain was a cigarette.

The door snapped shut behind Shane with a loud, squeaky thump, and he winced. Rozanov’s shoulders went up around his ears, his puffer crinkling. In the light from the wall, the deep blue, red and white stripes seemed to glow, and the light shone through his curls like a halo. Shane shook his head at himself, mouthed you got this one more time, and stepped forward.

“Hey,” he said, coming up beside Rozanov and standing shoulder to shoulder, though he made sure they didn’t touch.

Rozanov didn’t look at him. He remained staring down at the unlit cigarette in his hands, though his lips quirked into a smile.

“Shane Hollander,” he said, slow and drawling. “You are here for more handshakes?”

That took Shane a minute, before he remembered last year, in Regina. He chuckled, shaking his head. “Nah, I mean. I’m good. I just wanted to talk to you.” He watched the side of Rozanov’s face, like he had all night. On this side of the light, backlit now, his profile was a bit fuzzy, dimmed, but still as striking as it had been back in June. It still made his heart pound a little, way worse than Wahlgren.

Rozanov let out a deep breath through his nose, like he was tired. Shane tried not to feel offended, especially when Rozanov said, “So talk.”

“Uh. Okay? I mean, how’s it—how’s it going, dude?”

“Is going good, dude.”

“Fine, okay.” Shane chuckled at himself again, because it felt better than feeling laughed at when Rozanov hadn’t even done any laughing yet. “How is it playing in Russia? I guess it’s nice to be playing for your hometown, right, and it seems like—I mean, I heard you’re doing really well—”

“More points than you,” Rozanov said. Annoyance flared inside Shane, somewhere deep and hot and excited. His heart pounded more.

“You keep track of my points?”

“I hear things, you know. Even when I don’t want.” Rozanov shrugged. “Sometimes I hear you even when it does not matter anymore.”

That didn’t sound good. “Well, it still matters, right? You’ll have to catch up with me next year, so, you’d better keep track. No one cares about more points in a shitty league.”

“Hm,” Rozanov said, and he finally looked at Shane, his eyes flashing. “You don’t care?”

“I don’t. Talk to me when you come over and we can play best on best.”

“Maybe.” That was tossed out with a grimace, and Rozanov looked away again. Shane’s annoyance flared again, less hot and excited and more petulant. He wanted to demand that Rozanov look at him, now. He wanted to use the captain voice and have that work.

“You’re coming over next year, right?” Silence, thin and nerve-wracking, met Shane’s question, and he swallowed hard and tried to push his way past it. “I mean, fuck, Boston would be thrilled if you came over tomorrow, but at the very least you have to be thinking that—”

“I don’t know, Hollander,” Rozanov cut in. “If this is what you talk about, I’m going.”

“No, you—of course this is what I want to talk about. Fuck off. Tell me you’re coming over next year.”

“You are reporter now?” Rozanov looked at him again, anger tightening his features up. Shane thrilled at the sight. “You write book? Enough.”

“Look, just—are you actually happy playing over here? I thought we—I thought you wanted—you were first overall, man.”

“Ah, I see. You are still bad loser.”

“Fuck off, it’s not about that—”

“Poor number two, have to beg number one for—”

“Fuck off!” Shane yelled, swinging around so they weren’t side by side but face to face. He stepped in close, so close he could smell the vodka, the unsmoked cigarette, an awful cologne underneath all of it. Cold clung to both of them, surrounded them, not as blisteringly awful as on the prairie last year but still cold as shit this deep into winter, like they could’ve been standing toe to toe on the ice. They should’ve been standing on the ice together; why was it Anton Wahlgren across the faceoff dot instead, strong on his weakside but weak on the puck when Shane bullied it away from him?

“You want to talk,” Rozanov told him, smirking meanly. “We talk. You lose last year, you lose at draft—why are you here, hm? You play in MLH already; why you come to Helsinki for stupid juniors game?”

“You’re a fucking dick,” Shane said. “Are you seriously going to tell me this is what you want? What happened, huh? You pussied out after the draft? Realized you couldn’t hack it? Fuck that.”

Rozanov leaned in so close their noses practically touched; Shane had to all but cross his eyes to keep glaring at him. “I’m pussy? No, no—you are the one begging me.”

“I’m not begging, you’re the one who—you’re a fucking waste!” Shane shoved Rozanov away from him, breathing gone harsh, and Rozanov stumbled back, laughing and shaking his head.

“Fuck off, Hollander,” he said. His voice broke a little on Shane’s name, and the laughter didn’t reach his eyes or even his voice; he stalked away clutching his unlit cigarette, slammed the hotel door after him without looking back.

“Fuck!” Shane yelled, left there in the Helsinki parking lot, alone.

The good news was that Shane had a very easy and convenient outlet for all the frustration and rage his failure at the mixer left him with: he got to lead Team Canada in absolutely rinsing the Czech Republic in their game the next day.

“Let’s fucking go, boys!” Shane called as they filed out onto the ice for that first tournament game, familiar teammate eyes locking onto his and giving him affirming nods. He barely had to raise his voice, only had to pound at the maple leaf on his chest a few times to get his point across, then start a brutal drive against the shell-shocked first Czech line right off the opening faceoff.

He scored a goal on his next shift and by then it felt like the whole team was buzzing hard enough to run through a wall. They ran them over in the end, 8-1, video game numbers, because neither Shane nor their head coach, Kyle McLaren, let anyone ease up for the sake of the score differential.

When it was done, McLaren knocked Shane right on the maple leaf and said, “Jesus, Hollzy; what’d the Czechs ever do to you?”

Shane only shrugged. “They got in my way.”

Every teammate who overheard that hooted and hollered about it and made for a raucous locker room. Shane stripped, showered, spat out some soundbites when Pelly shoved him in front of a few international mics, and met up with his parents for a late dinner.

They talked about the game and Shane listened, he really did, he even talked back, but it still felt like the conversation happened around him. A few tables away in the hotel restaurant, Soupy sat with his own parents, a bit glum because he hadn’t gotten the shutout, never mind that they were raving about him. He had his glasses on because his contacts always dried his eyes out by the end of a game and he sat with his cheek in his hand, as removed from dinner as Shane was, though not, Shane knew, for the same reason.

The families converged on the way upstairs, letting the boys huddle up in the elevator before they lost their parents to their own floor, and kept going up to theirs. “You’re nuts, Hollzy,” Soupy told him on the walk to their rooms, across the hall from each other; Soupy was rooming with the third stringer goalie, which Shane privately thought was a little dangerous because they didn’t know each other too well and they were kind of in competition, and who ever knew if you had a sweetheart goalie like Soupy or an evil goalie on your hands, but Soupy seemed fine with it.

“I know,” Shane said. “Why now, though?”

“A performance like that and you’re still not happy. How much better can you actually play?”

“It’s the first game. Job’s not done. Job’s barely even started.” That made Soupy laugh, which Shane had been going for; he grinned privately to himself. “And you should speak for yourself. You were fucking amazing out there, Soups.”

Soupy just waved at him. “It would’ve been nice to keep the shutout, though. Fuck Rezek.”

“Fuck Rezek,” Shane agreed. He remembered, against his will, that Rezek was pretty hot, then refused to think about it anymore. “Okay, I’m beat. Night, man.”

It wasn’t entirely true—he was physically tired, yes, but mentally still buzzing, like he hadn’t run through a thick enough wall. There was one particular wall he wanted to get through, or maybe he wanted to climb it—no, bad, he just wanted Rozanov in the MLH to play hockey against him. Beating the Czechs posed the same frustration as demolishing a Rozanov-free Raiders team; they weren’t the best. Rezek, the only goalscorer, hot or not, wasn’t anything close to Rozanov.

Soupy agreed, though, which is why they were friends, and they both turned to their respective doors to head to bed. Shane’s door opened just as he raised his keycard and his roommate, Jason Wright, loped out dressed in sweats and slides.

“Oh, hey,” he told the two of them. “Petey’s got a wrestling tourney going in 617, if you’re interested.”

“After a game?” Soupy asked, ignoring that Wrighter rolled his eyes. Shane got it, though; if he was still buzzing, he’d bet the rest of the boys were still buzzing. He wouldn’t mind getting tossed around a shitty Helsinki hotel room by his teammates for a bit, actually. In fact, there might even be some more opportunity here.

Wrighter looked at Shane expectantly and he pretended to think on it until he could figure out the least gay way to suggest his opportunity idea. “The Russians are a floor up, right?” he asked. He knew their team played at the other arena in the group stage, but he was fairly sure they were all in the same hotel.

Both Wrighter and Soupy looked at him like he’d asked the question in Russian. “Uh, I guess?” Wrighter said.

“Do you think a few of them would join? Pad out the numbers and make it interesting?”

“We’ve already got a few—”

“If Rozanov joins, we can go captain on captain,” Shane said. He tried not to sweat, and failed.

“Why the fuck do you want him there?” Wrighter asked, absolutely not buying Shane’s shit.

That was fair, probably, and while Shane scrambled mentally, involuntarily sweating some more, Soupy jumped in.

“Shane has a crush—” Shane began to have a heart attack. “—on the intern, you know. The coach’s daughter who hangs around the team? I think he just wants an audience while he kicks her boyfriend’s ass.” Shane’s heart attack fizzled out, and he added another hug onto Soupy’s tab.

“Really?” Wrighter said, which was a bit fucking rude, actually. Shane tried to glare at him.

“Yeah, man,” Shane said. “She’s hot.” Shane paused after getting that out, just in case, but no alarm sirens blared, no flashing lights appeared, and the ghost of Conn Smythe did not fly out of the floor, point at him, yell “Lying faggot!” and ban him from hockey forevermore, so he was probably in the clear.

“I guess she is. All right, Cap. I’ll see what I can do,” Wrighter told him, with one last disbelieving chuckle, but he shuffled off to the elevators like a good Team Canada soldier. Shane and Soupy watched him go, and then Soupy gave Shane a very, very unimpressed look.

“Are you coming?” Shane asked, unnecessarily. It made Soupy laugh, though, shaking his head so hard he jostled his glasses, so he counted it a win.

“Fuck off, Hollzy. Goodnight.” And he went into his room, slammed the door a little after him; Shane could hear him laughing through it.

So Shane went to room 617 on his own, knocked, got pulled in to the tune of raucous cheering from the little crowd of Canadians crammed into the room, and turned down a beer. The room was as tiny as Shane’s—they really, really didn’t need to add more people, but that wasn’t Shane’s problem—and they had shoved the two twin beds usually pressed up against the walls together to form their ring. Guys sat mostly on the floor around the beds, pillows everywhere, sheets and covers a fucking mess. Shane toed off his shoes, took a seat with his back up against the too-large TV stand, and waited.

Shane watched his right winger Aiden Casey land himself in a brutal, unbreakable headlock to third pairing defenseman Brian Moore and then purposefully lost the subsequent game of rock-paper-scissors against 3C Jamie Hill so he didn’t have to face Mooresy; guy was a 6’5” bruiser and liked to use his elbows a bit too much. He passed on facing Hillsy, too, so that a few guys booed, and Petey, their host, asked, “Who are you waiting for, Cap?”

Wrighter came in as an answer, and he only had three people with him; Shane knew instantly that none of them were Rozanov and his stomach dropped. One of them was Anton Wahlgren, for some fucking reason, and another was Svetlana, who was probably the reason, and then another Russian guy Shane didn’t know.

There was nothing Shane could do, now that Wrighter was back, but say, “Another captain,” and challenge Wahlgren. Svetlana took his place on the floor and brought the Russian guy with her; they spoke English to each other, which was probably why he was there. Wrighter gave Shane a one-armed hug, muttered, “Sorry, she said Rozanov was out,” and then, louder, “Kick his fucking ass for Canada, Hollzy!”

Shane approached the pushed together beds, stretched a little, eyed Wahlgren and his Disney prince hair, and prayed to whatever possible god loved Canada the most that he wouldn’t get a boner.

He fucking won, though, of course; there was no other option. Wahlgren was solid, a little mean, but his physical instincts were as slow as they were on the ice, and it only took a few grappling moves to get him face down across the beds in a hammerlock, Shane straddling his lower back, Wahlgren’s hands twisted up towards the back of his neck. Wahlgren swore at him harshly in Swedish down the quick count; he tipped his head all the way back so some of that silky, sweaty hair tickled Shane’s fingers and Shane jerked back so hard he almost lost the hold.

Shane dutifully ignored that otherwise, and the way he had to kneel low to keep Wahlgren locked, so that his crotch pressed up against the top of Wahlgren’s muscled ass, and all the typical lying faggot things he was used to ignoring in these situations. The count ended, Shane won, let Wahlgren up, and in a show of good sportsmanship, he said, “You can go again with Wrighter; I’m out.”

He went and sat down again between his shoes and Svetlana. “Hey,” he said, to both her and the Russian guy.

“Shane Hollander,” she said, and Shane remembered that she’d done that last night, too; so had Rozanov. He wondered if they ever talked about him like that: Shane Hollander said this, Shane Hollander did that, Shane Hollander looked hot scoring that goal. Obviously he hoped Svetlana said the last thing, he insisted to himself.

“Svetlana—Vetrova,” Shane said, pausing only a moment to remember her dad’s name and the thing Russians did with their last names and their genders. He only knew about that from watching far more KHL games than he would ever admit.

It seemed to impress Svetlana, though, who brightened, then jerked her head to her companion. “This is Pasha. He is big fan. When he heard Shane Hollander wanted Russians, he ran out the room.”

“Sveta,” Pasha hissed. He had very little accent, and through some subsequent conversation, Shane learned that he was Pavel Samitov, son of MLH legend Artem Samitov, had spent 50% of his childhood in Toronto, and he now played for his father’s hometown KHL team, Avangard Omsk. He’d been drafted by his father’s old team, the Guardians, in the third round of Shane’s draft year and, Shane noted as he finally spared him more than a glance, he looked a little like Shane, more so than his father ever had.

“Cool,” Shane said, instead of anything his mom might’ve wanted him to say. A small part of him itched to, to ask if the KHL was as brutally fucking racist as every league Shane had played in, but he didn’t because he knew the answer was probably yes and would bring down the mood. He was well-practiced in trying not to bring down the mood.

Besides, he had bigger fish to poach. “So where’s Rozanov?” Shane asked Svetlana. It occurred to him to try to sound flirty, at least attempt it, but he’d never really figured out how to do that on purpose, so he just used his normal voice. Pasha still leaned in as if the question was directed at him, and Svetlana smiled, a little sharklike, so probably it was fine.

“He was with us in his and Pasha’s room, but—I don’t think he likes Anton,” Svetlana said, nodding over at Wahlgren. “He said he would go to get air.”

“Hmm,” Shane said. He thought of the parking lot. “Got it. So he left the hotel?”

“He went up,” Svetlana said. Her eyes, brilliant and bright, sparkled at him—that, Shane knew, was flirting, or at least flirting adjacent; he’d never learned how to do that—and he told himself that she was, objectively, hot. That wasn’t a lie. He didn’t have to feel guilty for it.

He definitely felt a little guilty for only managing to wait a few more minutes of Pasha’s eager chatter to say, “Hey, so, I’m pretty tired, I might head out.”

Svetlana sparkled some more at him and Pasha looked crushed, which probably should’ve made Shane feel guilty but didn’t. To be polite, he said, “I’ll see you over in Canada, man, I’m sure we’ll play against each other a lot,” which brightened him right the fuck up, never mind that they would probably play against each other in this very tournament. He knew that wasn’t what Pasha wanted; he got that.

Shane said goodnight to the boys to more cascades of boos. He told them all to get some sleep soon because they’d have a skate tomorrow, they wanted to be well-prepared to face Kazakhstan—that made everyone laugh, including Pasha—and told Wrighter to kick everyone’s ass.

He slipped out of the room, holding his shoes, and stepped into them in the hallway. He passed Pelly heading to the elevator; they both stopped, and guilt flashed through Shane for the first time, though it was mostly for the fact that even if Pelly sent him to bed right now, he was still going to sneak back out and go up. But then Pelly put his finger to his lips and gave Shane an exaggerated wink, continuing on his way down the hall, and Shane sighed and continued onto the elevator.

The roof of the hotel was four floors up from their sixth. Shane spent the ride up hoping that Rozanov was still there, and if there was any normal way he could’ve gotten Rozanov’s room number from Svetlana just in case; probably not. He wondered what Wahlgren had said to chase him off and hoped he hadn’t done too much damage to Shane’s cause. He really, really needed to separate them whenever possible.

To his immense relief, there was a puffer-jacketed figure up on the roof, leaning his arms on the metal railing penning it in. Shane stepped out, shivering in his button-down and wishing he’d stopped to grab his coat, and looked at Rozanov from behind. It was snowing a little, tiny, dry flakes; the weather really felt like Montreal, colder and drier than home, and Shane tried to tell himself this was a good thing. It was a familiar playing field.

Rozanov didn’t move when the door closed this time. He kept looking out into the snow, down at the cars and sparse roads around them. Shane watched him for another moment, willing him to look back, sighing inwardly when he didn’t, and he stepped up to him again.

He didn’t speak first, waiting some more, wanting that first move. When he was no longer certain he was going to get it, and when he was wondering how much longer he could hold out, Rozanov finally sighed out in a puff of snowy air and said, “You, again?”

“Me again,” Shane said, immensely cheered to be acknowledged. “Congrats on the win against Latvia.”

“Hm. You are being nice again. You did not learn this last year?”

“Fuck you.” Shane raised his chin, today’s victory thrumming under his skin, Wahlgren trapped beneath his body flashing through his memory. “I can be as nice as I want. We’re going to win this year.”

Rozanov chuckled and nodded very slowly. “Okay. Yes, sure you will.”

“We are. Did you happen to hear about Canada’s score today?”

“I don’t give a shit about Canada’s score, Hollander. I care when we get out of groups. Right now, Canada is nothing.” He finally glanced over at Shane and narrowed his eyes at him hugging himself. “Canada will stay nothing if you freeze to death.”

“I’ll be fine. Montreal is just as cold.” Shane stopped hugging himself quite so tightly and tried to relax. “Actually, it gets colder than Boston.”

Rozanov whipped his head to face forward again. “Oh.”

“Yeah. I mean, we played there in November, so maybe it just hadn’t gotten that cold yet, but I think the average temp in winter is only like negative 1. I mean, I’ve heard that.”

“You heard that?” Rozanov asked, sneaking a glance over at him. His lips twitched and called Shane’s attention to a snowflake melting on his top lip. It took everything Shane had not to stare at it.

“Yeah. I like hearing about, um, weather? You know.”

“Okay, Hollander,” Rozanov said with a snort. He shook his head. “Is why you come out here, no jacket, yes? To see weather?”

“Sure,” Shane said, because they both knew why he’d come out here. Rozanov snorted again and Shane tried not to go a little crazy with pride.

They fell quiet for a moment. The snow dotted around them, still too light to be truly bothersome, but pretty against the dark sky. Soupy told him that Costco had told him that some Finnish guys hang out under sun lamps during the winter because they wouldn’t get enough sun otherwise. “Like lizards?” Shane asked, totally serious because he couldn’t stop picturing Costco doing goalie stretches out on a rock in a terrarium, but Soupy laughed like it was an amazing joke. “Just like lizards, yeah,” he said, grinning hard at Shane.

Finally, Rozanov broke first again. “You know I’m out here?” he asked, and when Shane just stared at him, shameless, he pressed his mouth shut for a moment. “How?”

“Svetlana said you went up,” Shane said. “She’s really nice. And, um, hot.”

He didn’t have time to worry about the alarms or the Conn Smythe ghost or even getting struck down by lightning, out here in the open, because Rozanov just laughed at him immediately, much more decisively than he had so far. “Hey!” Shane said, torn between panicked, offended, and some hysterical laughter of his own. “She is!”

“Yes, I know this,” Rozanov said. That killed any possibility of Shane’s laughter and he felt like he’d downed a flat, warm ginger ale. “Is funny to hear you say.”

“Why is that funny?”

It was Rozanov’s turn to stare, eyes wide, eyebrows raised. The expression said why do you think? and Shane could understand it perfectly, no translation needed. It pissed him right off.

“Oh fuck off, Rozanov. You don’t know shit.”

“No, sorry,” Rozanov said, in that same tone as the night of the draft. It just made Shane angrier. “I’m out here first.” Then he winked, big and dramatic and mocking, and added, “First like in draft,” with an infuriating snicker.

The snicker completely left his voice when Shane snapped back, “Yeah, and look where that got you.”

Rozanov said something that sounded nasty in Russian. His fingers twitched, and Shane noticed the little paper cup he’d been using as an ashtray for the first time; he made a face at it without even meaning to. Instead of lighting up again, Rozanov sighed noisily and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Is cold,” he said eventually, nodding at Shane. “Going to get sick.”

“It’s not that cold,” Shane said.

“Should go inside,” Rozanov said, like Shane hadn’t spoken. Shane’s temper ticked up again.

“I’ll go where I want to go. It’s pretty great, actually, doing that.”

“Fuck you, Hollander.” This was muttered, none of Rozanov’s usual explosiveness, and it only made Shane angrier.

“No; fuck you. What are you doing?”

“I am just standing, fuck, in my own business—not doing anything—innocent—”

“What are you doing in Russia?” Shane shouted, unable to keep it at bay.

Rozanov gave him a nasty little grin. “We are in Helsinki, Hollander. Is Finland, not Russia. Do not tell Finnish people we are in Russia, they hate—”

“Fuck, shut up, you know what I mean. Fuck!” Shane kicked at the railing as an angry shiver ran through him. He hunched over it, the cold suddenly menacing. Part of him wanted to go back inside and a bigger part of him would rather die, couldn’t stand to go back in without getting something out of Rozanov.

He jumped when he felt something puffy brush against his arm, and stared in utter shock as he registered Rozanov handing his jacket over.

“Take,” he told Shane, and when Shane kept staring at him, he sighed noisily again, muttered more indignant Russian, and then moved close enough to drape the jacket over Shane’s shoulders. Shane allowed all of this as if he were not quite in his body anymore; as if he might be floating above this rooftop, watching the scene below.

“Is too cold,” Rozanov murmured, still close, drawing the edges of the puffer jacket together at Shane’s throat.

“Colder than Moscow?” Shane asked in a gravelly whisper, looking into Rozanov’s eyes. He still couldn’t quite believe this was happening, like it just hadn’t hit him—like maybe he was back in the gym, water bottle pressed into his hand, Rozanov’s fingers touching his, Shane looking at him and Rozanov looking back the way no one else ever did. He looked at Shane like that then, and Shane watched his throat bob as he took a hard swallow; not water this time, but whatever he didn’t want to say.

“I am where—it’s where I have to be,” Rozanov told Shane. At least he sounded pretty sad about it. That didn’t really help with Shane’s anger—he wouldn’t be sad if he was in Boston, would he?—and as if he knew that, Rozanov added, “It’s home.”

“You were first overall,” Shane said, because he was pathetic. Rozanov didn’t call him out for it, though.

He gave Shane a grimacing sort of smile, a shrug, and said, “Sorry,” like he did back in the gym, in almost the same tone. Almost, but not quite—there was something real in the apology, resigned to truth. Shane swallowed down some of his own anger, some of the urge to grab Rozanov and—and shake him, that’s what he wanted to do, that’s why he was leaning in, wrapped in Rozanov’s jacket. He was going to shake him, make him see sense, to know, like Shane knew, that they were supposed to do this together, that somehow it all mattered less without Rozanov.

Shane leaned in; so did Rozanov. His eyes were nowhere but Shane’s mouth. His hands were still on the edges of Shane’s borrowed jacket, pulling him in slowly by his own country’s colors—

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Shane yelped as he realized he was wearing a fucking Team Russia jacket. He jerked back and wriggled out of it in a move that would’ve done wonders down in room 617, then thrust it back at Rozanov, helpfully shoving him further away with it. “Oh my god, I’m not—we can’t—I can’t—”

“Relax, Hollander,” Rozanov said, maybe going for soothing but utterly failing. He had on his wry, jerkass sort of smirk, like Shane was totally hilarious to him. “Don’t panic.”

“Fuck you, I’m not panicking!” Shane said, in utter panic.

“Just breathe—”

“I’m going to bed!” Shane told him, as if he couldn’t sound like any more of a complete loser. Rozanov chuckled at him to complete the picture, and Shane threw his hands up and started marching off, back towards the roof entrance.

Rozanov called something to him in Russian that sounded like “spooky mochi”, so Shane mostly ignored it, but at the last minute he looked over his shoulder and called back, “Get the fuck to Boston, Rozanov.”

He shoved himself through the door. As it started to swing closed behind him, panic still rushing through his ears, Shane barely heard Rozanov answer: “I can’t.”

 

“Why d’you think he said it like that?” Shane asked Soupy.

They were scarfing down their standard pregame chicken and pasta in the lunchroom at the rink before their game against Germany, having dismantled Kazakhstan to the ridiculous tune of 15-0 the day before. The score was crazy enough for Shane to almost feel bad about taking out his frustrations with Rozanov on them; almost.

Some of the frustration had also come from his own team, specifically Hillsy. Before that game, Wrighter had clapped Shane on the shoulder and said, “Go easy on them today, eh? We don’t want you banned from another country,” because they’d been crowing that Shane could never set foot in the Czech Republic without being tried for brutal hockey crimes.

“Not a chance,” Shane said, like everyone expected him to. And in the midst of the majority shouts of affirmation and approval, Hillsy had to go and say, “They won’t ban him; he’s practically one of them.”

“One of who?” Shane asked immediately, even though he knew. Everyone knew; Hillsy didn’t need to point at his fucking eyes. He sure did, though, and a bunch of guys groaned at him. Soupy was already dutifully balling up some tape to throw.

“I mean, they look—”

“I’m Canadian,” Shane said. He stood up, in his skates and Canada red and white, and loomed over Hillsy, sitting down in his stall, dropping his arms from pointing at his eyes. Shane lifted his own hand and put it on his maple leafed chest, right underneath his C. “You forget what team you’re on, Hillsy?”

“No, man, it was just a joke, jeez.”

“What team is he on?” Shane called out to the room.

There was no hesitation. “Cap’s team!” Soupy lobbed his tape ball then; it smacked Hillsy right in the temple, dead on, with an embarrassing thwack. Hillsy flinched smaller and then sat there, slumped, until Shane moved back and yelled, “That’s fucking right!” and told his team to show the Kazakhs exactly what they were made of. And, well. They beat them 15-0, so. It probably was a little mean, but that was how the group stage went sometimes.

And in the lunchroom the next day, Soupy gulped back some of his spaghetti and said, “Oh, we’re talking about this again?”

“Yeah,” Shane said through a mouthful of his own spaghetti. Soupy gave him a look but Shane knew it was because of the subject matter, not talking with his mouth full. It was gross, sure, but it was also a relief to get to do it; his mom would’ve already called him out for it back home, and before that he’d have been too polite to do it at dinner with his billet family.

Living with his mom was all about getting used to constantly being in her orbit again and also adjusting to only having his dad around when he had time away from his work in Ottawa. Eating in general was an adjustment without Shane’s dad; neither Shane nor Yuna were all that good in the kitchen, and they’d both sworn to take the fact that they’d had to look up how to cook hot dogs without a grill to their graves.

“Great,” Soupy said. “More Rozanov.”

“Hey, Soups, what does Costco put on his pasta again?”

“I told you, he puts ketchup, it’s disgusting—oh fuck you, all right. What did he say again?”

Soupy had been the one to ask about how it went with Rozanov, and Shane had told him bits and pieces about the scene on the rooftop. Not about the jacket, or the closeness, or what Rozanov’s lips looked like even in the dry cold, the snow—soft, somehow, like they’d feel nice pressed against Shane’s. He didn’t say any of that shit because it didn’t matter. What mattered was—

“He said he can’t go to Boston,” Shane reminded Soupy. “What’s that supposed to mean? Boston owns his rights, right, so if he signs his ELC with them—”

“Maybe he can’t while he’s under contract with his KHL team?” Soupy said. “It’s probably different than back home, right?”

“There has to be some kind of agreement, though; players come over all the time,” Shane said. He wished he hadn’t agreed with his mom that springing for international data on his phone would be a stupid idea; the thing was practically a brick, useless for looking stuff like this up. His mom would probably know, even if she didn’t know about the hot dogs, so he needed to figure out a not suspicious way to ask her.

“I think it’s usually after the KHL season ends, though. So maybe it is the contract.”

“That’s bullshit. We can fix that. I mean, Rozanov’s agent could fix that.” Shane just barely refrained from saying that he could get his mom to fix it. Like, she definitely could, but maybe that wasn’t a normal thing to admit.

Not that any bit of this was normal, and Soupy definitely knew that. But, as Shane had discovered was just the way of simple farm boy goalies from Thunder Bay who had the coloring of a stalk of wheat, Soupy had a high tolerance for Shane’s lack of normal.

“Look, maybe you should chill out a bit,” Soupy told him, very tolerantly. “I know this is, like, a new obsession of yours, but hunting him down all over Helsinki and yelling at him to go to Boston probably isn’t the way to go.”

There was probably some logic to that, Shane could admit, but it was drowned out a bit by Shane’s own logic: hunting people down and yelling at them to do stuff, when Shane was willing to try that, was pretty much always the way to go. People usually did what Shane told them to. Even in Montreal, where Shane wasn’t always as eager to speak up, the guys usually did do as he said when he told them to do something. He could out-stubborn his mom more than half the time and his dad was a bit of a pushover, which they all lovingly acknowledged as a family. So Soupy’s point didn’t really make sense in Shane logic.

As Shane thought about it, he couldn’t remember the last time someone told him no. Maybe it was Rozanov, and even then, he hadn’t gotten an outright denial, just deflection and evasion. Shane could work with that. Shane would work with that.

“Or not,” Soupy muttered over whatever was happening on Shane’s face. It was probably a little scary, Shane could acknowledge that. He felt a flicker of sympathy for Team Germany, about to be subjected to whatever his face was doing, knowing what he’d already done to the Czech Republic and Kazakhstan.

The empty chair next to Shane that Wrighter had been sitting in scraped a bit as someone pulled it out, and Shane knew from the amount of space taken up who it had to be.

“Hey, Hillsy,” Shane said easily. Hillsy stayed rigid next to him and Soupy glared across at him, but Shane just gave Hillsy a nod to convey no hard feelings.

It didn’t help; Hillsy looked like he was standing in front of a firing squad. “Hey, Cap. I just wanted to say—”

“It’s all good. Don’t mention it.”

“But really, I should tell you—”

“Hillsy, I’m serious. Drop it.” These things were always best left dropped. Shane had dropped so, so many things over the years; a random Team Canada teammate that would take years to make the show being a racist dickhead was basically nothing.

“All right,” Hillsy said with a long blown-out breath. “It’s dropped. We’re cool, right?”

“We’re cool,” Shane said. They fist-bumped each other, and Shane smiled and added, “Just remember who the fuck you’re talking to next time.”

Hillsy laughed nervously, agreed hastily, and all but ran away from their side of the table, the chair scraping again. Shane finished up his spaghetti and thought about all the endless racist fodder he’d handled and dropped. Ilya Rozanov should not have been this much of a challenge; he wasn’t even racist, just a dick.

“So,” Soupy said, scraping his plate of sauce. “Thoughts on chilling out?”

Shane pretended to think about it. “I gotta say, Soupy, it’s not looking good.”

“Got it. Great.”

Luckily for Soupy, there wasn’t actually that much time to go full tilt at Rozanov the way Shane wanted to. Shane and his team charged through the group stage, handling Germany with a much kinder 5-1 win—the word ‘good sportsmanship’ was tossed around a bit, which was probably nastier for the Germans to hear than a harsher beating on the scoreboard—and then they spent their next day off at the other arena, watching Russia thump Slovakia.

Somehow, there was no time during that scenario to confront Rozanov and yell at him some more, though Shane really wanted to. Instead, he had to content himself with watching Rozanov play hockey. At least it was really, really good hockey.

Soupy, sitting next to him with his feet up on the empty seat in front of him, whistled at the conclusion of a breakaway that made the entire arena first hold its breath and then explode when the puck hit the back of the net, the Slovakian goalie slumped over his front, and Rozanov skated into a fist pump down on one knee sort of celly.

“Damn,” he said. Shane bit his lip and hunched over his lap a little, just in case; there was a warmth in his lower belly that he didn’t trust himself to have in public. “You really, really want that guy in the MLH?”

“Yes,” Shane said through gritted teeth, hunching over harder. He watched as Rozanov’s teammates swarmed him, as the Slovakians skated around all miserable. The goalie looked like he specifically wanted to crawl into a hole and die, and Shane unkindly thought that’s what you get when you bite that hard on Rozanov’s fancy deke. Shane knew what he was going to do, where he was going to shoot, the whole length of the breakaway. It was kid stuff; it pissed him off.

Soupy, of course, had more sympathy for the goalie than Shane did. “Wow. I don’t want to face him, you know.”

“Well, you’re not in the MLH,” Shane said without really thinking about it. Then he thought about it. “I mean, yet. Yet!”

But Soupy was laughing, head tilted back and glasses askew. “You are such a fucking dick, man. How’d you get that nice guy reputation? You’re an actual asshole.”

“I’m not! You know what I meant.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m just saying—he seems like he’s having a good time with his Russian guys. Maybe he said he can’t come over to Boston because he doesn’t want to.”

“No,” Shane said. There was zero doubt in his mind; he’d replayed Rozanov’s last words on the rooftop over and over in his head since he’d heard them—Rozanov said can’t. Not I won’t.

“It’s not completely out of the question, you know. Some guys aren’t ready to leave home.”

“Yeah? Do you miss Thunder Bay, Soups?”

“Fuck no. Fuck, don’t let my parents hear you say that.” Soupy looked around wildly and Shane grinned, pretending to help for a minute before he locked his eyes back on Rozanov. It was just the Team Canada players in this section, though, scattered around in the upper bowl. And Shane watched Rozanov on the bench, squirting water into his mouth, standing up and swiveling in place in his skates, waiting for his next shift. He didn’t joke around with any of his teammates, didn’t even seem to talk to them much—except, Shane realized, peering closer, to a figure he vaguely recognized, number 22 in white, Samitov. Pasha, Shane knew, and he squinted at them, trying to understand the shape of their words.

“Hey, what do you think they’re saying down there?” Shane asked. Soupy leaned forward and squinted, too, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“Oh, hm—I think—no, that’s not right, but maybe—I can just make it out—”

“What?”

“I think it’s ‘Shane Hollander is fucking asshole’,” Soupy said in an exaggeratedly deep Russian accent. “Wow. Truer words have never been spoken—hey!” Soupy broke into raucous laughter as Shane thumped him hard in the side, aiming for the soft spots in his ribcage, and then they spent the next few minutes shoving and elbowing at each other until Coach called out, “Boys, enough!”

“Sorry,” they called back simultaneously, and then went back to watching.

And then, a few quiet moments later—after Rozanov had scored another fucking goal and this time did the stupid archer celly, drawing an invisible string back on an invisible bow and launching his stick across the ice like an arrow, to the rabid delight of his teammates and the fans—Shane asked, “Do you think they were speaking English?”

Soupy answered by shoving his whole palm in Shane’s face and going, “Gloveless face wash!” like that was even a thing. Shane had to abandon this line of questioning to defend his face’s honor, and he didn’t really get to think about it again until the next day.

It was New Year’s Eve, the last day of groups, and Team Canada met their first real challenge of what Shane was coming to realize was a bit of a Mickey Mouse group: Team USA. They still beat them, of course, and Shane scored a cherry on top sort of hat trick to say goodbye to what had been a cakewalk of a group stage, but the US still knocked in four goals to Canada’s seven, the most any other team had scored against them.

Soupy was down in the dumps about it, even though Shane tried to reassure him that all the guys who scored on him were top prospects, real blue chippers, especially Shane’s new buddy Vaughny. “He’s still a milk drinker, though,” Shane added when he got a little too complimentary, just in case anyone else could hear in his voice that he’d thought Vaughny’s goal was really, really hot.

Vaughny had offered up more than just a hot goal, though; he’d also told Shane some crucial information when they’d talked during warmups. “The Russians are taking over the hotel restaurant for their New Year’s party,” Vaughny said.

The Russians in question had already lost earlier that day, getting tuned up pretty bad by Sweden, 5-0. Shane had watched it on the TV in his hotel room when he was supposed to be napping, Wrighter in the next bed over with a pillow on his head. He’d watched Wahlgren win faceoff after faceoff against Rozanov, the Swedish coach chasing that matchup, watched him score a lucky ass goal on an absolute gift of a rebound right on his blade, and watched Rozanov slowly grow furious in the mounting loss. He watched as Rozanov tossed Wahlgren away from his goalie a bit too roughly, snarling something at him with their faces inches away from each other, and he adjusted his pants and checked the other bed to make sure Wrighter was still asleep.

Shane didn’t think the Russians would be in much of a party mood, except—“New Year’s Eve is like a huge deal for them,” Vaughny told him. “It’s like Christmas to them.”

“Oh, cool,” Shane said, filing that away in a corner of his brain that was starting to feel like a squirrel’s hoard of Russian fact-nuts. No one could know about it—and even he put an emphasis on the nuts part—and he didn’t know what to do with this information otherwise.

Vaughny rolled his eyes at him, but it was good-natured and friendly. A little sparkly, maybe. Shane could never tell for sure. “So—we should crash it. You, me, couple of guys from your team, couple of guys from mine—”

“Yeah,” Shane said, mad he hadn’t even thought of that. They’d agreed quickly, wished each other a good game, and then Shane ran over Vaughny’s team like they deserved, finished up groups leading the tournament in goals and points, and spared a bit of time to console Soupy and then tell him what they were doing tonight.

Soupy, Wrighter, and a few others were on board quickly and easily enough. A harder sell was his parents, who he had sort of promised to ring in the new year with at the hotel bar. Part of the allure of parents at World Juniors—and Shane knew he was lucky as hell for having them with him here; he’d looked but hadn’t seen the bald guy he knew to be Rozanov’s dad at the Russia-Slovakia game, so he figured he hadn’t made the trip—was getting to spend the winter holidays together. When Shane told his parents he wanted to go again, that had been part of the pitch.

But he’d already spent an off-day with them in the city with the Campbells, who made Soupy walk between them whenever they went across a busy street and crossed themselves when Shane stepped off the curb a little ways down from the pedestrian path. They’d all rode the SkyWheel together—the Campbells prayed then, too—took pictures with the Sibelius Monument, and ate a bunch of pickled things at a place that specialized in pickled things. It was a good day, even though Shane hadn’t gotten a chance to try that candy.

Shane met up with his parents with the memory of that day locked and loaded, ready to make his case. But as soon as he said, “Hey, so, there’s this party tonight—” his mom interrupted with, “Oh! You should go!”

Shane had to take a quiet minute to recalibrate. He caught his dad’s amused eye as Mom amended, “If you want to, of course—I know you don’t get to see these friends all that often anymore, now that you’re playing for Montreal—” There was a dreamy sort of quality to her voice whenever she said those words, which was, of course, a lot. “—and you get to see us all the time, so go to the party!”

She basically shouted the last part of that, and now Shane had to join his dad in hiding a too-obvious smile. Her excitement was funny, even though the joke was a little bit at his expense—he’d forgotten, in preparing his case, that he was somewhat of a loser who didn’t actually like parties all that much, enough to absolutely thrill his mother over the sheer thought of him attending one; this would be his second of the tournament, too, so he was really on a roll—and once again he felt really, really lucky that they were here.

“Are you sure?” Shane asked, just to be a good son. His mom all but cooed at him, insisting that yes, she was sure, but his dad clocked him with an eyeroll and ruffled his hair up as punishment.

“Have fun, kiddo. We’ll have a drink with the Campbells.” Shane hugged them both and headed back to his own room, though he wasn’t quite far enough away not to hear when his mom said, “Do we really have to—if that woman tries to talk me into joining their church one more time—”

Shane walked away grinning hard, lucky.

This time, there was no stressing about what to wear—he picked out his best suit, the new one he’d gotten for Metro gameday walk-ins. It was a deep, inky black set over a crisp white shirt, all of it really well fitted by the Italian tailor on Boulevard St-Laurent that a bunch of his teammates had recommended because he was an expert at fitting hockey butts. The tailor, Giovanni, had encouraged him to wear the shirt open collared, a few buttons undone, and that was how Shane decided to go tonight. Looking at himself in the mirror, he felt a bit like he was wearing a costume, emulating someone much more stylish than he could ever be, but he couldn’t find it in him to miss his usual hoodies and sweats too much. This outfit had a purpose; it was an important tool on his mission.

With the knockout round upon them, this party might be the last time Shane could really talk to Rozanov unless they were lining up against each other for a faceoff. Shane would have to prioritize beating Rozanov at that point; there was no other choice. Canada came first. So this party was really his big shot. It was a breakaway in the dying minutes of OT. Shane had to pick the right corner, the correct angle, the perfect fake—everything had to go right.

So when he was dressed, Shane sat down in his room and just kind of waited for it to be time to crash the party.

He was genuinely startled when Wrighter put a hand on his shoulder and shook him a little. “You in there, Cap?” he asked. He was wearing a polo shirt tucked into what Shane suspected were the only slacks he’d brought to Helsinki. Shane hadn’t even noticed him come in or noticed him changing enough to pointedly look away from him.

“Yeah,” Shane said, ducking his head. “I’m here.”

“You sure? You were just kind of sitting there, vibrating for a while. I was about to get Soupy to see if he could find your reboot button.” Wrighter chuckled at his own joke. His brown hair had been slicked back with equal parts water and gel.

“I’m good. You ready to meet the others?”

“For sure. Let’s go steal some of that good vodka!” Wrighter shook Shane’s shoulder again, this time in excitement, and they walked out together to meet the guys down in the lobby.

A modest crowd of Americans, Canadians, and one specific Finn affectionately referred to as Costco headed into the hotel restaurant, ignoring the sign posted outside of it that said Closed for private event in English and Finnish. There was no one there to enforce it, anyway; the only barriers were really the dirty looks that the Russian coaches shot them when they all strolled right in, Shane and Vaughny leading the way.

The party was already in full swing, about 40 minutes to midnight. The team was scattered all around, mostly wearing suits and shirts with lots of buttons undone—Shane noted this and immediately felt smug, sending a mental grazie across the ocean to Giovanni—and joined by what were probably family members in more glittery clothes. Russian music blared across a dancefloor that had been cleared of dining tables, and every single person in view had a glass of something that Shane strongly suspected smelled like paint thinner. Lights flashed and twinkled overhead, silverware clinked against plates, and cheerful, vivid Russian was spoken loudly over the music.

It was terrible, Shane knew. Possibly his worst nightmare. Soupy immediately put a hand on his back to rub it, leaning in to whisper, “You sure this is worth it, buddy?”

“Absolutely,” Shane said without hesitation.

“We should set up some kind of signal for when you want out. Like, do a loon call and we’ll bail. You, me and Costco can go get more pickled shit. He can take us in his parents’ van and everything, it’ll be fun.”

“I’m not doing a loon call, Soups. It’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?” Soupy’s voice was grave enough that Shane looked at him, though not for long—over Soupy’s shoulder he’d spotted Svetlana, Pasha, fucking Wahlgren, and already looking back at him, Rozanov. He was slouched against the wall off the dancefloor, Pasha chattering at him, but he didn’t spare Pasha a glance—he was staring hard at Shane. He had on a nice suit, too, black like Shane’s but over a gaudy silver shirt that sparkled in all the light, with more buttons open than Shane had dared. His hair was combed wet, darker, and Shane took in these details as if looking at a painting in a museum that he didn’t quite understand but knew he wanted to keep looking at.

Shane stared back at Rozanov, long enough that Soupy sighed and patted his back a few times. “Yeah, you’re sure,” Soupy muttered, and then he left with Costco to hunt down some food.

“Do you need rebooting again?” Wrighter asked, but Shane shook his head firmly.

“Nope. I’m going to talk to—Svetlana.”

“Oh hell yeah, get in there, Hollzy!”

Wrighter high-fived Shane, which set off a chain reaction when his teammates and Vaughny had to get in on that. By the time Shane finished high-fiving the group, his palm stung and Rozanov had moved—he was sitting at a table with teammates Shane didn’t know, while Wahlgren and Svetlana danced. He was looking at Shane from the side of his gaze, clocking that he was already moving determinedly towards him—he tensed, as if to get up again, and Shane sped up, hands fisted in his pockets.

He was almost there when a friendly, eager voice sounded right behind him, and a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Hollander!” said Pasha, grinning hard. “You crashed the gate! I hoped you would. Do you want to meet my father?”

Shane really, really did not want to. He knew he should, hockey freak that he was; Artem Samitov was an absolute legend, a beast of a center who had his own patented flying elbow move and the stats to back it up. He’d won the Art Ross three times, two MVPs, and a Conn Smythe the only time he’d brought Toronto to the Cup, even though they hadn’t won it—a fact that pleased Shane as a former Ottawan and a current Montrealer. There was a version of Shane that would absolutely love to meet Artem Samitov and pick his hockey brain for a bit.

And there was a shittier version of Shane that couldn’t help but think he’d get another chance to meet Samitov someday, at an awards show or another league event; he might not get another chance to see out his mission with Rozanov.

Before he could condense all of that into a polite and somehow normal denial, Pasha said, “He really wants to meet you; come on!” and just started towing Shane over to the table where his family was sitting. Shane was somewhat used to being towed around parties—usually by his mom—and some sort of polite, good Canadian boy instinct unfortunately took over and allowed himself to be led, like a fucking dog.

Samitov sat next to a woman who looked almost as Asian as Shane’s mom and maybe half her age; he was ignoring her to wolf down meat skewers and knock back alarming amounts of vodka.

“Shane Hollander!” he boomed when Pasha and Shane neared, and Shane nodded and reached out a hand to shake.

His hand was shaken, and then it was used to tug him down into the seat next to Samitov. Pasha sat down next to Shane, pretty much penning him in. Both male Samitovs launched into eager discussion of Shane’s tournament, which was described as “epic” by the younger and “unbelievable, fuck” by the elder.

“Do not tell anyone this,” Samitov shouted for anyone to hear, after a while of breaking down the group games in a way that truly scratched an itch in Shane’s own hockey brain, even though he wanted to go find Rozanov; he couldn’t keep as close an eye on him as he wanted to without being impolite. “But you will wipe the floor with the Russians. Sorry, Pavlusha, but it is true. I pray only for Swedes to take you out first.”

“That’s not happening,” Shane said, with an instinctual glare over at Wahlgren. It made Samitov laugh.

“Russians have only one answer for you. Maybe he is better, too,” Samitov said, and Shane jerked back into full attention of the conversation immediately.

“Are you talking about Rozanov? He’s not better than me.”

Samitov laughed again, delighted. “Maybe; maybe not. He is on worse team in harder group so far. And he beat you last year in Regina.” Samitov’s accent was funny, mostly Russian, but forcefully Canadian on a word like Regina. He’d even said Toronto with only one t. And yet Shane, annoyed as he was, could barely hear him.

“I don’t care how he plays in Regina or Helsinki or Russia. He can prove he’s better by facing me in the MLH. Until then, there’s no question I’ve got him beat.” Shane said all this as matter-of-factly as it felt to him; it still made Samitov laugh.

“No, it’s true, it’s true—ah, you can’t tell, but I know—MLH is only real league. They tell you here they want to play at home, they want to bring glory for Russia—it’s lies, Hollander. You use the Russian league to get to the big league, or you can’t make it. My Pavlusha knows this; he is still learning, getting better, but he will go to Toronto someday. And I think Rozanov knows this too.”

Samitov finally lowered his voice a little; on Shane’s other side, Pasha leaned in and hissed, “Papa, no, hush—” but Samitov talked over his son.

“This is why Rozanov asks my Pavlusha to help him practice English. He knows, too. So you will find out someday, for sure, who is better.” Samitov gave him a big, exaggerated wink. “It’s a secret, but I think will be you, Hollander. Ah, it makes me so proud, someone who look like us—different, of course, we are Russian too, but his mother is Siberian Tatar and I am little bit too, so for Pavlusha to see—it’s good for him. I’m glad you are friends. You can protect each other; his elbow is not like mine, you see.”

Pasha let out a stream of chastising Russian, then, throwing it over Shane’s head. Samitov threw some back, and father and son bickered while Mrs. Samitova ignored them politely, ignored Shane, too—and Shane barely registered it all. All he could hear, think, understand was that Rozanov was asking Pasha to help him practice English.

Rozanov said he can’t go to Boston. He was practicing English. He looked miserable at this tournament unless he was scoring goals or talking to Svetlana. These were all essential pieces of this mission, crucial data. He needed to use it all, right now, before his chance was gone.

Shane stood up and made excuses, and the Samitovs let him go because it was close to midnight, anyway. Players and families were standing, clustering together. Shane fought his way around them, making a loop around the room and not finding Rozanov anywhere. He met Svetlana’s eyes, now standing with her father and the other Russian coaches, Wahlgren stiff at her shoulder like a bronze statue, but Svetlana only shook her head when Shane started to hurry towards her. Shane took that to mean she didn’t know where Rozanov was and so he started searching, a slightly frantic energy overtaking him.

He checked the parking lot first, breathing in the crisp, cold air so deeply that his lungs stung. It was a nice break from the stifling, loud and oppressive atmosphere of the party, but it wasn’t for long—Rozanov was nowhere to be found. Shane hurried back inside and got in the elevator, leaping out of it before the doors had opened entirely and scooting out onto the roof, which was similarly empty.

Shane was out of known places to look, then, so he started looking everywhere. He took the elevator back down to the Russians’ floor and started calling out, “Rozanov! Get out here! I want to talk to you! Rozanov!” and banging on all the doors until one popped open and revealed the wrong shade of blond hair, a Russian teammate without a shirt snarling at Shane.

“Rozanov?” Shane asked, pronouncing it right and everything. The guy just yelled at him some more in Russian, until a girl—equally blonde, probably someone else’s sister, wrapped in a sheet—poked her head out around his side and said, “Not here! Go away!”

He had no choice but to take their word for it, and he went dejectedly back down towards the restaurant. It was even closer to midnight and the buzz of the party seemed to reach an excited fever pitch, the music louder and the voices to match. The thought of going back into that wall of noise and crowd seemed unbearable to Shane, especially knowing Rozanov wasn’t even there. He thought of poking his head in just to do a loon call but decided to duck into the bathroom and take a moment to breathe before resuming his search instead. Shane Hollander wasn’t a fucking quitter.

Shane shoved the bathroom door open and let it swing shut behind him. And then he stopped, frozen in place, because Rozanov was bent over one of the sinks, shoulders up around his ears, mouth turned down into a frown.

“It’s almost midnight,” Shane said. It was somehow the only thing he could think to say. He was sweaty and still shaken up from running around like a madman, trying to find Rozanov, and here Rozanov was, right before his eyes, and that was what he said.

Rozanov snorted, which was fair. “Who cares?”

“Russians do. Vaughny said that New Year’s Eve is like your Christmas—”

“Yes, I fucking know this, Hollander, why are you telling me what is like for Russians?” Rozanov stood up straight and wiped at his face. He glared at himself in the mirror for a moment, then turned to direct the glare at Shane.

“Sorry,” Shane said, though he knew he didn’t sound it. He was flustered, trying to take stock of what he’d meant to say—all the tools in his arsenal for this mission, all he had to take his final, perfect shot. He took a shuddery breath and said, “Pasha’s dad said—”

“Pasha? You are best friends now?” Rozanov said, snappish and mean. It was startling, even though it shouldn’t have been.

“Uh, I just—that’s how Svetlana introduced him. His dad calls him Pavlusha, I guess, so—”

“Oh, so part of the family, yes? Is good for you, see what good Russian family is like.”

“Oh yeah? Where’s your good Russian family?” Shane snapped.

He hadn’t realized that there had been some openness to Rozanov’s face until it completely disappeared in that moment. Rozanov said something dark in Russian and started advancing towards the door. Shane had no choice but to back up enough to block it, holding his arms out as Rozanov’s nostrils flared.

“Move,” Rozanov said. Shane shook his head.

“No, just—listen, okay—”

“You will move or I will move you.”

Shane’s lower belly tightened at the thought of that, dammit, but he shook his head again, more frantic this time. “Just wait. Let me say what I came to say.”

“You say so much. You chase me around, you yell at me for Boston—enough. Move out of the way, Hollander, now.”

“I’m not moving,” Shane said. Rozanov spoke more Russian, spitting it out with frustration and disgust, and then he advanced again, and Shane had to grapple with him to stop him.

By some miracle, Shane’s determination and will to succeed overrode his inner pervert and drove him towards a win. Wrestling with Rozanov was an entirely different beast than Wahlgren, though—he was stronger, faster, and though he spent the entire time presumably cursing in Russian, he never faltered or got distracted or gave up any ground. They locked arms like horns, scuffling and jamming elbows at each other’s soft spots; somehow, Rozanov knew all of his. Shane felt a brief moment of regret that he hadn’t gotten Samitov to teach him the flying elbow move, then let it go to finally shove Rozanov all the way back into the side of the nearest sink.

“Just stop, all right!” Shane said through Rozanov’s swearing. “Hear me out!”

“I hear you all over hotel, I am done—”

“You said you can’t go to Boston. What the fuck does that mean?” Shane shouted; it echoed around the empty bathroom.

Rozanov sneered at him. He had a red mark on the side of his neck from where Shane had jabbed at him, and his face was pink and splotchy with exertion. “Is my bad English. I don’t know—”

“Pavel Artyomovich Samitov’s father told me he’s helping you practice English,” Shane said, whipping it out like a knife, triumphant. Rozanov actually flinched back a little. “So don’t lie to me about bad English. What did you mean?”

“Let it go, Hollander.”

“I fucking won’t.”

Behind them, as if from a greater distance than was real, the countdown to midnight had started in the restaurant. The majority of voices were counting down in Russian, but Shane could hear the exuberant party crashers filling in with English as he and Rozanov stared each other down.

Nine—eight—syem—shest—five—

Rozanov swallowed; he clenched his fists. He looked at utter war with himself, and Shane didn’t like it. He’d much rather Rozanov be at war with him.

“Tell me,” Shane said, softer than he’d meant to, but unable to help it.

And Rozanov sighed. He looked up at the ceiling, looked at a leaky sink in the corner, a urinal with a half-eroded cake in it, his own shiny shoes—anything but Shane. And then, as the restaurant exploded into cheers heard through the door—AH-DEEN—Rozanov squared his shoulders and looked Shane in the eye.

“They take my passport.”

 

In the early hours of 2010, Shane sat Rozanov down on Jason Wright’s twin bed and said, “Stay here, hold on.”

He went through his designated drawers and pulled out a long gym sock, then went out and tied it on the door handle of his room. He tested his knot for stability, tugged on the sock a few times to be sure—he’d never done this before, though he knew the protocol—and then shut the door with a decisive snap.

“Okay, we should be good now, so let’s go through this again—what?” he asked when he turned around and saw Rozanov smirking into his palm.

Rozanov coughed around a chuckle, looked around the small hotel room with undeniably sparkly eyes, and said, “This is not what I think we do when you bring me up to hotel room.”

“What did you think we’d—oh, fuck off!” Shane said. He could feel himself blushing furiously and he sat himself very purposefully on his own bed to keep some distance. “This isn’t about that!”

“No?” Rozanov said. He did another cough-laugh. Shane kicked one of the shoes he’d toed off at him, and it knocked into his shin, which only made Rozanov laugh harder, wriggling on the bed. He kicked his own shoe back, but it just rolled harmlessly over the little space between the beds.

“No. This is about hockey.”

Rozanov nodded slowly, holding his arms up, fingers spread and palms out. “Okay, okay. We talk hockey, then.”

“Yeah. It’s just better to talk here than in the bathroom—” Not long after midnight, one of Vaughny’s teammates had stumbled into where they were sitting on the floor, blinked at them a few times, said, “Hollander? That you?” then shrugged and went to piss by Rozanov’s head. That had them hustling out of the bathroom, though Shane grabbed Rozanov so he couldn’t go far—he towed him to the elevator and up to his own room, enjoying being the tow-er for once. “—and that’s the only reason we’re up here. Nothing else.”

“Okay,” Rozanov said again. He looked like he didn’t believe Shane. Shane didn’t necessarily believe Shane, but he was choosing to ignore that.

“So, take me through it again—they got you to sign the contract first, right?”

Rozanov’s humor fled, though he didn’t shut down this time. He just ducked his head like a kicked puppy, his usual stance when talking about this, and nodded. “Yes. My agent tells me we have meeting, I think it’s about Boston contract—but we go talk to Dynamo front office. My father is there, my brother, my stepmother—Dynamo manager tells me family is important.” Rozanov spat out that last bit and Shane filed that away in the squirrel hoard; he resolved not to ask about Rozanov’s family any more than was practically necessary from now on.

“Fucking assholes,” Shane said instead, still as appalled at this story as when Rozanov had first reluctantly stuttered it out in the bathroom.

“Yes, I know this.”

“You need a new agent.”

“I know. But where I get in Russia?”

“I have an idea, but—tell me the rest. About the passport.”

“Fine. So, they close door and keep me in room for hours. They tell me about all this money, first line on team, so much better than Boston—and I say no, over and over. Everyone tell me this is better, for Russia—my agent says is only for year, to learn, get better for Boston. Still I say no. Boston wants me now, I say, and I want to go. But then my father, he—”

Rozanov broke off, and this is the part of the story he’d gotten up to in the bathroom, before the American had interrupted. He looked haunted again, enough that Shane almost regretted the separate beds. He reached out with a socked foot, not kicking this time but gentle, and nudged Rozanov’s shin with his toes. Rozanov jumped a little, looked up at him through his lashes—Shane fought hard not to manspread to give himself more room—and then sighed.

“My father says—he tells me I should. Gives good reason. Okay, I say, finally; I sign contract for one year. One year only. Everyone is happy, we have drinks and food and music, is big party. I don’t want, but—what can I do? Is family.” Rozanov shrugged and wiped at his nose.

“Yeah,” Shane said. “I get it. I hate disappointing my parents. I’d probably have done the same thing as you.” That was a bit of a lie—Shane could only imagine the insane tantrum-meltdown he’d have in Rozanov’s situation, not to mention the absolutely epic, window-shattering screaming fight he’d have with his mom in such a scenario—and he thought Rozanov could tell from the sly way he looked at Shane again. But he also seemed to appreciate the sentiment, at least, nodding at him and soldiering on.

“Yes. So—I think is okay, just one year, my agent says Boston is fine, so I believe him. Stupid.”

“You’re not stupid,” Shane had to cut in. “You trusted your agent just like any of us do. I trust my agent with my life.”

Rozanov muttered something distinctly Russian and annoyed under his breath, then shook his head. “My agent is Papa’s friend. His wife is stepmother’s cousin. Too—together? Close? Connected.”

“Yeah,” Shane said, seeing the problem immediately. Agents could become family friends—with the way Farah and Yuna tended to chat whenever they met up, he felt that was a distinct possibility in his own arrangement—but they shouldn’t start out that way.

“I go to training camp, all is fine, but then they call me in for other meeting at the end, before first game. This time is team, coach, and agent,” Rozanov told him, speeding up a little, like he just wanted to get it all out. “They tell me, ah, they need my passport. Is team rule.”

“Bullshit,” Shane burst out. “You told them to fuck off, right? That’s complete bullshit.”

Rozanov gave him a wry smile. “Yes, I say to fuck off. They say—I can’t play if I don’t give. Agent, coach, manager—all the same story. I fight with them. I tell them I am here, I am in Russia—I need passport to play, yes? We go to Belarus, Latvia, Kazakhstan—I need to cross. They say is fine, they give to me when I need to cross, but they hold it. They say they hold everyone’s passport for safety.”

“That’s not—no team would—Jesus Christ, Rozanov,” Shane said, completely appalled again. “I’m so fucking sorry. That’s so fucked up.”

“I have to give. What else can I do? And they give it to cross, give it to come to Helsinki, but they take back every time or I’m on bench. I have to play, you know? Can’t play in Boston, have to play for Dynamo.” Rozanov sniffed, head ducked again—he looked embarrassed this time, and Shane realized he probably wasn’t helping by staring at him in shock and horror.

“So they have it now?” Shane asked. His gentle tone probably didn’t help, either; Rozanov didn’t meet his eyes. But he nodded, sadly.

“Yes. Assistant coach for Russia is same for Moscow; he has it. I think—I think they never give it back. They never want me to go to Boston. Already they talk about next contract—”

“No!” Shane all but yelped. He was too horrified to be embarrassed about it; it got Rozanov to look at him, at least, a small smile on his face. “You can’t!”

“If they have passport, keep passport, what can I do?” Rozanov shrugged, like that was that. Like he wasn’t fucking talking to Shane Hollander.

Shane stood up. There was very little room to pace, but he gave it a good shot, thumping around in his socks, bumping his knee into the bedframe, crossing the short distance to the dresser and then turning back to do it again. His head was filled with what felt like too many thoughts at once, suffused in far too many feelings—anger, worry, frustration, and sheer fucking determination over it all.

“Okay, first,” Shane said, speaking as the thoughts arranged themselves into some semblance of order in real time. “Your agent is fired, right now. I don’t care whose cousin his wife is, he’s gotta go.”

Rozanov looked amused. He leaned back on his palms on the bed, looking up at Shane with that crooked little smile. “Okay. He is gone. Sure, Hollander.”

“I’m serious. I’ll get you in touch with my agent; I’m sure she’ll take you on. She can get in contact with Boston—that’s second, by the way. Boston will have to make all the immigration arrangements for you, get you under contract, all the stuff that should’ve happened in the summer. They can make it work.” Shane nodded, privately promising that Farah would make them make it work.

And Rozanov still just looked amused; he even rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes—I sign with magic Canadian agent who gets me magic contract with Boston—”

“It’ll be a standard ELC, don’t get too excited—what’s the issue?” Rozanov was ducking eye contact again, and Shane squinted at him. “Do you really think Boston won’t move heaven and Earth to get you there?”

Rozanov’s silence was answer enough. Now it was Shane’s turn to let out a chuckle, high and disbelieving. “Are you serious? You were first overall!” Saying it didn’t even make Shane throw up in his mouth that much, and yet Rozanov was shaking his head like he couldn’t appreciate that.

“I don’t talk to them in—months and months. I don’t know what my agent said to them. He probably said I hate them, never want to play for them—”

“Oh my god, who the fuck cares what some shitty agent said to them?” Shane said. “They’ll fall all over themselves to get you on the team. Do you even realize the kind of clown show season they’re having? It’s pathetic.”

“I don’t care,” Rozanov said. He tried to sound bored, clearly, but his jaw had tightened, and Shane could tell he cared very much.

“Bullshit. You obviously do. They need you!” He bit back a particularly pathetic I need you and rushed ahead. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter what you believe; they’ll make it happen. So the third thing we need to do is—”

“Stop,” Rozanov told him. He stood up, hunched in the small space, and glared at Shane. “Stop saying this. I can’t do this.”

“Of course you can,” Shane said. He chuckled again, meaner this time. “I told you, I’ll get Farah involved, she can get all the ducks in a row while we’re here—”

“I can’t pay her,” Rozanov hissed out, furious and flushed. “Dynamo is—they pay me into account, but my father, my brother, is their account too, and—they take. I can’t—”

“No offense, Rozanov, but I fucking hate your family,” Shane spat, and then he took a moment to breathe through his rage. “Look, it’s whatever. Agents work on commission, anyway, so Farah will get a percentage of your contract. It’s not a big deal. And if we can make our move now—which, I think we have to, considering the passport—I’ll just buy your plane ticket—”

“No!” Rozanov shouted, looking really pissed off. Shane got pissed off right back.

“Yes! For fuck’s sake, it’s a plane ticket, not a yacht. And that’s only if Boston doesn’t send their owner’s private fucking jet to get you—this is really not an issue, dude.”

Rozanov kept shaking his head, like he still couldn’t believe in any of this. Which was fucking dumb, though Shane refrained from saying so out loud. “No, no, I can’t ask—”

“You’re not asking! Fuck, I’m not asking, either.” Shane deflated, then, running back through his plan, realizing that he was just piling this onto Rozanov. He did this sometimes, just kind of steamrolled through once his brain latched onto something, and he’d kind of been doing that this whole time in Helsinki. Maybe, in the very wise words of Soupy, he should chill out for a minute. Maybe he should actually make sure Rozanov knew he had a choice in all this.

“I’m sorry,” he said, which shocked Rozanov out of whatever flustered denials he was continuing to make. “I know I’m being—sorry, I get like this. You don’t have to do this, obviously, if you don’t want to. I don’t want to be like, um, your team and your family. You get to choose.”

Rozanov just kind of stared at him after that, long enough that Shane fidgeted and then had to sit down on his bed again, just for something to do. He sat and withstood being stared at, until the bed dipped beside him and Rozanov sat down, too, close enough for their sides to press together.

“You are not,” Rozanov said quietly. “You’re not like them.”

“I’m just saying—if we do this, things might be, ah, weird with Russia for a while afterwards. With your family, too. It’ll be kind of dramatic.”

Rozanov gave a little laugh. He had a nice laugh when it wasn’t mean, surprisingly soft. Shane listed into him a little before he snapped himself out of it and sat up straight. “I am dramatic. I like.”

“No shit,” Shane said, laughing too. They met each other’s eyes for a moment, careful and nice, for once, before Rozanov sighed and deflated a little.

“Even if we do, get magic agent and magic contract and magic plane and I run away—I need passport.”

“You want to do this?” Shane had to ask, double-checking. “You want to come to Boston and play in the MLH?”

“Of course I do,” Rozanov said with a huff. “You think I like it in Russia, stuck in my father’s house, my family take all my money, on shit team, shit league, while fuckhead Swede plays in my spot on my team in Boston? Fuck no. I want to go, Hollander. It’s my dream.”

And Shane grinned, reassured. He gave Rozanov a firm, sure nod. “Okay, good. That’s the third thing, then.”

“What third thing?”

“We’ll have to steal your passport back,” Shane said.

Rozanov did one of those long silences again, like he was slowly translating what Shane had just said. He wondered which word he was having the most trouble with; was it steal? Clearly he knew passport.

Then Rozanov ended the silence by laughing, running his hand through his hair. “Okay,” he said, nodding with that infuriating smirk on his face. “Sure, yes, we do this.”

“We do,” Shane said, forgetting himself. “We can do it. We just have to figure out where your assistant coach keeps the passport.”

“Yes, we look up on internet, of course—”

“Or we ask Svetlana, whose dad is a coach, if you remember that—”

“Of course I know Svetlana’s dad is a coach!” Rozanov said. “Even if know where, though, how do we—”

“We break in,” Shane said, losing his patience. He’d meant it when he told Rozanov he wasn’t stupid, so the dumb and incredulous act was starting to wear thin. Especially because it all seemed like a joke at his expense.

“Break in,” Rozanov said slowly. “What is this? What do we break?”

“Like—we find out where he keeps the passport and, um, break the lock?” Shane mimed what he hoped was a lock breaking motion, with an invisible crowbar and everything. “We can do it. It might be tricky if it’s in his hotel room, but I’m sure we can manage. Your coaches have offices at the other arena too, right? Ours do. We’re moving over to that one, too, so it’ll be easier if he keeps it there.”

Rozanov stared at him like he’d grown an extra head. “You are serious? We just—we break, we steal, and this is just—fine to you?”

Shane ran it all back in his head, just in case he was steamrolling again, but nothing stood out as particularly unreasonable. The passport thing was the main obstacle to getting Rozanov to the MLH, so it needed to be dealt with accordingly. There was no issue of morality, in Shane’s mind; the passport was essentially stolen to begin with, so they were just stealing it back.

So he shrugged and said, “Yeah? What’s the big deal?”

“You ever steal something before?” Rozanov asked.

Now it was Shane’s turn to stare at him. “I grew up playing hockey. I’ve stolen gloves, helmets, sticks, UnderArmour, jocks—so many fucking jocks, man—”

“Who are you?” Rozanov said, though he sounded delighted now, his smirk spreading into a grin across his face.

“You know what hockey’s like; it’s eat or be eaten,” Shane said. He did not elaborate that he’d grown up particularly low on the food chain when he was young, even as good as he was; he didn’t tell Rozanov that he’d gotten older and made sure nothing worse than stealing someone’s mitts and putting shaving cream in them happened in the dressing rooms he led. And he was sure he didn’t have to tell Rozanov that there was so much worse that could happen to you in a dressing room, that having some of your stuff go missing or get messed with was kittens and rainbows compared to other stuff.

“And what if we get caught?” Rozanov asked, one eyebrow raised in challenge. Shane rose to it without thinking. “Get in trouble—get banned, ooh, by IIHF, poor Canada—”

“My mom would fix it,” Shane said, again without thinking. He cringed as it caught up with him, how stupid he sounded—but really, it was the truth. Sure, he would get a crazy long lecture about responsibility and being a good role model and making sure that all the kids who looked up to him actually saw something worth looking at, but that would happen after she’d stepped in and smoothed it all over and probably became best friends with the IIHF’s president’s cat or something.

He waited for Rozanov to laugh at him—anyone would, really, it would be fair—but instead he just looked at Shane with a little frown for a moment, then nodded.

“So you are master thief,” Rozanov said. “Okay. You are boss, yes? Captain of mission?”

“Well, obviously,” Shane said. “I don’t see you overflowing with—”

He’d been about to say ideas, but he was cut off both by an energized knocking at his door and the rising tide of sheer, unadulterated panic it induced.

“Hollzy!” said the voice that accompanied the pounding. “Open up!” It was Soupy, proven by the slurred loon call he attempted next.

“What the fuck was that?” Rozanov hissed, but Shane was too busy standing up and losing his fucking mind to explain.

“Oh my god,” he hissed back. “Oh my god, he’s—and you’re in here—”

“Hollander,” Rozanov said lowly as Soupy kept banging on the door.

“Hollzy,” he called; it was followed up, much to Shane’s horror, by the voice of Carter Vaughn, calling out, “You okay, man? You disappeared!”

“Oh my fucking god,” Shane said, doubling over. “They’re gonna—you’re in my room, we’re alone—”

“Hollander, stop,” Rozanov told him, standing up and grabbing him by each arm. He gave him a little shake.

“No, what if they know—”

“Know what?”

“Hollzy, my buddy Ryan said he saw you with Rozanov; we just want to make sure you’re not dead!” Vaughny yelled, spiking Shane’s fear.

“Rozanov,” Shane wheezed, desperate. “What do we do?”

Rozanov shook him again, gentler this time. He stepped close enough and kept it up so that it was almost like he was rocking him; it would be nice, Shane thought, if he didn’t feel like he was about to die.

“Hollander,” Rozanov said very firmly. “We do nothing. We are not doing anything; just talk.”

“But we’re—”

“You are wearing clothes, yes?” Rozanov cut in. Shane looked down frantically, just in case, and nodded when he confirmed that yes, he was wearing clothes. When he looked back up again, Rozanov was smiling at him, eyes crinkled up a bit. “I am wearing clothes too. Is okay.”

“I know you don’t have a chick in there!” Soupy yelled with scary timing. “Svetlana’s with Wahlgren! Open up!”

That made Rozanov spit out what had to be Russian curses; this close together, Shane could feel them against his neck. It grounded him, somehow, reminded him of how Rozanov talked on the ice. The rocking was helping too.

Shane grasped for some of his equilibrium, gulped down a breath, and then called out, “Fuck off, Soupy! I could have a chick in here!”

There was a distinct silence outside the door that Shane really, really did not care for. Rozanov muffled a laugh against Shane’s neck, which gave Shane license to shove him back in the small space. Rozanov shuffled sideways, dropping onto Shane’s bed, back to smiling up at him, as Shane marched over to the door and swung it open.

Soupy poked his head into the room and made a big show of looking all around. His eyes landed on Rozanov, and he raised his pale eyebrows and said, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Fuck you,” Shane said, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked behind Soupy, at Vaughny. “Hey, I’m fine. Rozanov and I were just—”

“—sucking each other’s dicks,” Rozanov cut in. When Shane turned to glare at him, he was fucking miming it. Shane wanted to knock him down on the bed and—strangle him, mostly. Probably that was all he wanted to do.

Neither Soupy nor Vaughny blinked, just pushed their way into the small room, and somehow the obvious joke, and the acceptance of the joke, calmed Shane down a little. Maybe the presence of more guys did that, too. Now this was just a normal hockey hangout, guys being dudes, nothing gay here. Maybe they could wrestle.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Vaughny asked, which had the added advantage of making Rozanov stop his stupid pantomime and scowl over at them.

“Hollander is fine, Vaughn. Am not big bad wolf,” Rozanov said sullenly.

“Yeah, he’s all bark, no bite,” Shane said, making Rozanov’s scowl deepen.

“I will show you how I bi—”

“So are you getting out of Russia or what, man?” Soupy interrupted, helping himself to Wrighter’s bed and sprawling out. Vaughny sat next to Soupy and Rozanov tugged Shane’s arm until he fell into place beside him. Shane made sure to put a straight amount of distance between them and Rozanov filled it right up, jaw set in defiance; he turned his withering expression on Soupy and shrugged.

“I am in Helsinki, is in Finland, you know—”

“God, find a new joke,” Shane said. And he looked at Soupy, who was unfazed by Rozanov’s posturing and looked genuinely curious, maybe a little invested, purely because Shane was. He looked at Vaughny; they’d been friends for a handful of days and Vaughny had come to rescue him from Rozanov’s evil clutches. They were good people. And they would probably be helpful people, so he made an executive decision as the Master Thief and Captain of the Mission.

“We need to steal Rozanov’s passport back from his coach,” Shane said. Rozanov physically recoiled from him, solving the space issue, and said what were probably all sorts of nasty, horrible things to him in Russian, but Shane ignored him and gave them a very basic rundown of the situation. Rozanov even tried to get up and leave, once, but Shane clamped down on him and kept him in place and even resolved to climb on top of him—under the guise of wrestling, of course—if he tried to leave again. To his disappointment, Rozanov stayed put.

It all worked out, anyway. Soupy and Vaughny looked suitably appalled by the whole thing, and Vaughny stopped looking at Rozanov like he might be a dangerous criminal and started looking like he felt sorry for him, which was probably worse in Rozanov’s view.

“That’s awful, man,” Vaughny said. “Fuck those guys.”

“So what’s the plan?” Soupy asked, straight down to business. “Do we know where the passport is? Any ideas for extraction?”

Rozanov looked bewildered, but Shane knew Soupy too well to question this. “We don’t know exactly, yet; I’m hoping it’s at the office at the other arena, where Russia’s been playing. Svetlana can help us figure it out for sure, right?” Shane asked Rozanov.

Though he seemed reluctant, Rozanov nodded. “Yes, is good idea. She will help.”

“We could use someone who knows the arena well,” Soupy said, and Shane fought not to roll his eyes because he knew what was coming. “Costco has played there, in the summer and before he went to Windsor. He can help.”

“Who the fuck is Costco?” Rozanov asked, bewildered again.

“Koskinen, Finnish goalie—I don’t know, Soups. How many more people should we bring into this?”

“He also has his parents’ minivan,” Soupy told him. Vaughny whistled, like that was impressive.

“Nice, getaway car,” he said with an enthusiastic nod. Shane had to concede the point, and he nodded, too.

“Fine. But just Costco—no one else. Me, Rozanov, you two, Svetlana, and Costco. That’s the crew.”

“Yeah, I’m in,” Vaughny said; he high-fived Shane again. Soupy did that, too. Shane looked at Rozanov expectantly, hand raised, and waited him out until he sighed and reached his hand up to slap at Shane’s. It tingled, and Shane fought back a shiver.

“You all are crazy,” Rozanov told them, but his voice broke a little and he ducked his head for his next words. “But you think—maybe we really can—”

“We can do it,” Shane said, zero doubt in his mind. It did feel good when Vaughny said, “Yeah, man, we got you,” and Soupy added, “Piece of cake, really.”

“Cake? Where is cake?” Rozanov asked, his eyes too knowing, sparkling at Shane even while the other guys kept talking to him to explain the idiom. Shane held his gaze, sitting pressed up against him on the bed, and settled in to further plan the mission to secure the freedom of the rival he was promised.

Shane paced outside of the hotel’s business center, guarding the door. On the other side of it, he could hear Rozanov answering questions in short, quiet sentences, either his English or his nerve fading as the conversation went on. He’d looked nervous when Shane had passed him his phone, and Shane had heard him take a very deep breath before saying, “Hello, Mrs. Farah,” as Shane ducked out to give him some privacy.

He checked his watch, trying to reassure himself that he still had an hour to allow for that privacy. He did; the bus to take them from the hotel to the arena for pregame warmups wouldn’t arrive for that long. Still, Shane hoped they’d hurry up in there, and Rozanov would come out with good news.

Rozanov had already gotten some good news that day, and the day before—Russia had beaten the Czech Republic in the Quarterfinals yesterday and, just that early afternoon, had beaten the US in their Semifinal to advance to the Final. Shane and Team Canada would have to beat Sweden to meet Russia there, and he fully planned to, of course—as soon as all of this was tied up and Rozanov could give Shane his phone back.

This was just how the timing had worked out, really; Shane was just as committed to leading Canada to victory as he was to the Rozanov-Boston mission. He’d even napped instead of watching Russia’s game, and so when it was time to take another call from Farah and finally get Rozanov in touch with her, Shane had snuck down to the business center in his pajamas, eyes still a little gummy with sleep, yawning into his fist while he waited for her to call. Rozanov smiled at him a few times, soft and definitely teasing him, and when Shane snapped at him to quit it, he’d began whistling innocently and fucking around with the fax machine.

Then Farah called, Shane talked to her again and explained that yes, he was serious, this was all real, Ilya Rozanov really did need her help and wanted to be her client, yes he was right here and available to talk—and he’d stepped out for his guard duty.

The hall outside the business center was deserted and quiet, but it was still a massive relief when Rozanov poked his head out of the door and said, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Shane said, scurrying back inside. The business center was less a center and more a small room with three chunky computers, a DSL router, the fax machine, the most disgusting carpet he’d ever seen, and a printer on some rickety Ikea tables. Rozanov sat at the edge of one of the tables, which creaked dangerously under his weight. Shane stood in front of him, his own nerves picking up. “Uh, how’d it go?”

Rozanov swallowed hard, looked down, and Shane’s stomach plummeted. He was already mentally scripting the phone call he’d have with Farah to fix whatever the fuck had gone wrong, whatever ridiculous anomoly had occurred to further prevent Rozanov from going to Boston.

He had just started practicing the perfect chilly, professional bitch tone his mom had graciously taught him when Rozanov said, “Is, um, all good. Boston wants me. They are working on paperwork with Farah, send me contract to sign, tell me to come as soon as I can, they will do visa—is all okay.”

Rozanov sounded utterly disbelieving, even though this was exactly what Shane had promised him would happen and what he’d set out to very carefully arrange. “Okay?” Shane said, and when Rozanov kept his head ducked, shook it a little, Shane decided to chance breaking the shitty table and moved to lean beside him. “That’s good, right? Rozanov?”

“Is good,” Rozanov said, but it was accompanied by a mysterious sniffle, and Shane finally recognized the tightness in Rozanov’s voice, the careful, almost frozen set to his face. He was trying not to cry.

“Hey, it’s great,” Shane said all in a rush, reaching up to awkwardly pat Rozanov’s back. He really didn’t want him to cry. He had absolutely no idea what the fuck to do if Rozanov cried. “This is happening. I told you!”

“You did,” Rozanov agreed, though Shane’s bright tone didn’t curtail another sniffle. Shit. “Is just—I can’t believe.”

“It’s real. It’s actually happening. Believe it, man.”

“We still have to steal passport,” Rozanov reminded him. He finally managed to press his mouth into a sly smile. “I didn’t tell Mrs. Farah—”

“Good, yeah, that was the plan,” Shane said. “She’d blow the whole thing up if she found about that, send someone after your coach—” Realistically, that someone would probably be Yuna Hollander. And it wasn’t that Shane didn’t think his mother would get results; in fact, he thought she might be too effective and cause an international incident, get them all banned from Russia, maybe. Shane had 2014 Sochi Olympics dreams and therefore wanted to avoid that nuclear option. “—so yeah, I think it’s better if we handle this ourselves.”

He said this with full confidence, partly in all honesty, and partly because it made Rozanov’s smile widen.

“Yes. Master Thief will handle.”

“We have a whole crew,” Shane reminded him. It was true. Svetlana expected to have the exact location of the passport by that night, after Canada’s game; they’d all planned to meet up in her room, since she was the only one without a roommate. Unfortunately that meant including Wahlgren in on the whole plan, which neither Shane nor Rozanov liked very much, but Svetlana insisted and they really needed her, so nobody was willing to argue with her about it.

Soupy and Costco were working on some decoy thing for the night of the heist, which they’d tentatively planned for the night before the Final. Costco had also promised the use of his parents’ Volkswagen Tauron in transporting them all from the hotel to the arena in the dead of night. Vaughny was on board for stealth, vibes, and muscle—he’d flexed his biceps to demonstrate this last offer, which made Shane blush and Rozanov scowl—or whatever else was needed.

So Shane thought they had a pretty good crew, even having to include Wahlgren. Things were working out as he’d imagined they would, which felt satisfying. Even if Rozanov still couldn’t believe it, Shane could. He’d be confident enough for both of them, if that’s what Rozanov needed.

Rozanov certainly looked like he had some thoughts to share about their crew; he had a wicked look in his eyes as he opened his mouth again, presumably to insult the others. Shane really, really did not mind this. But before he could say anything, Shane’s phone buzzed on the table between them, and they both looked down at it.

It was Shane who recognized the area code, and he smiled. “I think it’s for you,” he said, handing the phone back to Rozanov and enjoying his puzzled look.

“Why?”

“That’s a Boston number, man; answer it,” Shane told him. And he watched as Rozanov got nervous again, paling a little, before he braced himself and brought the phone to his ear.

If he had to work even harder not to cry as that phone call went on, well, Shane pretended not to notice. That was the polite thing to do, and it saved Shane from having to figure out how to comfort his heist partner and soon-to-be MLH rival.

Eventually, Shane had to leave his phone with Rozanov, who was still using it and grimacing apologetically at Shane while a Boston Raiders exec yelled excitedly in his ear. He cupped his palm over the speaker and whispered, “Make Sweden cry,” while dragging one finger across his throat and then giving him a thumbs up. Shane translated this to mean good luck in Rozanov and nodded determinedly.

Then he went and followed Rozanov’s directive.

Okay, he didn’t think anyone on Team Sweden actually cried; Wahlgren for sure didn’t, though after the game he’d had, Shane wouldn’t have blamed him. He did look at Shane like Shane had ran over his entire family with his car, which he supposed was the real-world equivalent to the hockey crimes Shane had committed against him.

The problem with Wahlgren—which Shane doubted he’d like to hear about but that he hoped some coach on Team Sweden or the Raiders would sit him down and tell him someday; or not, that would be fine too—was that he was trying very hard to be Ilya Rozanov, but he was not Ilya Rozanov. It probably wasn’t even his fault; Boston actually really needed him to be Ilya Rozanov, but he just wasn’t. He wasn’t fast enough and didn’t have anywhere close to the same offensive instincts. He’d eaten up the assignment against Rozanov well because he’d concentrated on shutting him down and taking advantage of his frustration, but up against Shane he wanted to try to out-smart him and out-skate him, and that was simply not going to happen.

Wahlgren would probably be a really good shutdown 3C someday or maybe, with more development, a decent two-way 2C, if he stopped trying to score fancy trick shots his brain and hands couldn’t connect on. Since Shane didn’t have that problem, he skated circles around him, potted two goals and factored in on the other three that Canada scored, and showed Wahlgren who actually belonged in the MLH and who could use a little more time in the oven.

“Good game,” Shane said cheerfully at the end of it. Wahlgren gave him a furious look, and Shane was relieved to find he didn’t think it was all that hot. The shitty hockey had really dulled some of Wahlgren’s shine.

And after that good game, Shane had to meet back up with Wahlgren in Svetlana’s room to plan their mission. He refused to let Wahlgren’s bad mood sour his own because he loved planning sessions like this, and Costco had even promised to bring a few boxes of Finnish pizza for them to try, so he was excited. There was also the fact that Rozanov was waiting for Shane outside his room, ignoring the strange and mildly threatening looks he was getting from other Team Canada guys—except for Soupy, who waved at him brightly. He was crouched against the wall, holding Shane’s phone, and he stood up and handed it back to him fully charged.

“I will pay back for international calls,” Rozanov told him, grave and serious, and Shane rolled his eyes.

“Don’t be stupid. Thanks for charging it.”

“Don’t thank me, you—your mother text you 12 times.”

“Oh, she must’ve liked my game, that’s not even that much,” Shane said, preening a little. Rozanov smiled at him, soft enough for a moment that Shane was grateful Wrighter had gone inside (though he suspected he was listening at the door, probably because Shane would be doing the same thing if Wrighter’s archrival were out here waiting for him).

Then Rozanov cleared his throat and said, “Raiders get me ticket on your flight to New Jersey.” He said this very carefully, looking a little confused, like he had heard of such a place but never truly believed it existed. Shane thought that was fair; he mostly just thought of New Jersey as an extension of New York with worse food.

All that mattered was that Rozanov had a plane ticket to the US, that he would be leaving with the rest of the players sharing the plane back to North America, and that he would be getting to Boston eventually. New Jersey was actually a great place if you wanted to get to other places.

“That’s amazing!” Shane said. With the win still thrumming through his blood and now this news, he felt like he might reach some sort of happiness overload soon. When he was a kid, sometimes he’d get too excited or hyped up about something—usually hockey—to the point of shaking and getting overstimulated, and his dad would say, “Go do circles in the yard, buddy,” and he’d go outside and run around in circles in the yard. It always helped. He wondered if he could get away with running around in circles in this hallway.

Rozanov grinned at him, boyish and happy, too. “Yes, is good. So we steal passport, then I beat you in gold medal game, then we fly to America together. Good plan?”

“I have some notes,” Shane said. “I just hope you’re ready for silver. Don’t worry; you can cry on my shoulder on the plane.”

“Russians do not cry on anything; not shoulders, elbows, ass—”

“Yeah, no, you can’t cry on my ass on the plane. My parents will be there,” Shane said. Then he ran that back in his head and closed his eyes in despair; when he opened them again, Rozanov’s lips were pressed tightly together, his eyes dancing, and he valiantly held back a laugh. He did not, however, hold back on directing his gaze around Shane’s side to look at said ass. Shane shoved himself back against the door.

“Is okay,” Rozanov said eventually, only laughing a little underneath the words. “It won’t happen for two reasons. One is that Russians do not cry, I already tell you this. Two is that we will win gold, so it will be Canadians who cry. Don’t worry, you can cry on my ass. I’m nice guy.”

“Stop it,” Shane told him, giving him a shove, though his voice shook with laughter, too. “That’s not happening. None of that is happening.”

“We will see.” Rozanov nodded, then kicked at the ugly carpeting beneath them for a minute. He lowered his voice and said, “Boston was so happy I come.”

“I told you they would be!”

“Yes, yes, Shane Hollander knows everything; Shane Hollander is Master Knower, Master Thief—”

“Shh, keep your voice down!”

“—Master Silver Medalist—”

“Fuck off!” Shane said, and he shoved Rozanov again. Rozanov shoved him back and they scuffled for a bit in the hallway until Wrighter opened the door and said, “You good, Cap? Need some backup?” like the good teammate he was. Shane tried very hard not to tell him to fuck off, too.

“I’m good,” Shane said, breathing hard, also maybe half-hard. Rozanov looked down, like he could hear Shane’s boner, and grinned before he said, “See you later, Hollander,” and walked off like he owned the floor.

“I’m good,” Shane repeated when Wrighter kept looking at him like he didn’t believe him. Technically, he was right to be doubtful. Shane didn’t just feel good.

Shane felt fucking great.

 

The pizza Costco brought had salami and tuna on it, which he promised was delicious. Vaughny recoiled like he’d just been told the sauce was arsenic, Svetlana called him a pussy and claimed a whole box to herself, Wahlgren was unfazed, Rozanov clearly hid any disgust he might’ve had so as not to get called a pussy or get shown up by Wahlgren, Soupy pretended to find it delicious even though he was green for every bite, and Shane braced himself, decided to be brave, and wound up really liking it. This made him even more confident he would like turkinpippuri, if he could ever find a moment to finally try it.

They arranged themselves on the floor between the two twin beds—one that Svetlana used to sleep, and one that was absolutely covered with her clothes—and passed the pizza around, munched on it with varying degrees of enjoyment, and then Svetlana cleared her throat and shared her intel.

“Passport is at arena office—” Shane and Soupy both let out a small cheer at that; it was really the best location they could’ve hoped for, even if it still presented challenges. “—somewhere safe there, my father says. I ask where they keep important papers, documents and things, and he says this is so they don’t lose them.” She took a smug bite of her pizza, though Shane noticed she had subtly removed most of the tuna from hers.

“I have maybe a dumb question,” Vaughny said; he even raised his hand. “Can you not just ask your dad to get the passport for Roz?”

“You are right, Vaughn,” Rozanov said, which made Vaughny brighten up until he added, “Is very dumb question.”

“Papa thinks it is good for Russian players to play in Russia,” Svetlana said more diplomatically. Shane nudged Rozanov with his elbow and mouthed at him to be nice. Rozanov just stuck his tongue out at him and then shoved tuna pizza into his mouth.

“Maybe he has a point,” Wahlgren muttered. Everyone turned to look at him; Svetlana’s puff of curls whipped him in the face. Shane gripped his pizza so hard that the thin crust crumpled in his fingers.

“Oh yeah? You having a good time playing in Sweden, Walgreens?” Shane snapped. Rozanov snorted, nudged him, and mouthed be nice at him; Shane rolled his eyes back.

“It’s not the same,” Wahlgren said. “I am older; last year I played in Swedish League and it was good. It’s okay to take time and get better at home. Leaving your team in the middle of the season seems very, um, irresponsible, too.”

“Aww,” Rozanov said, lifting his chin in Wahlgren’s direction and fitting on a vicious smirk. “You don’t want to be teammates yet? Too bad; I am coming. Will be on flight with you to the state of New Jersey, America.”

Wahlgren grimaced at that. Costco leaned over to Soupy and whispered something in his ear; Soupy listened, then nodded and said, “Yeah, they have Costco in New Jersey, too. If we have time, we can go.”

“Look,” Shane told Wahlgren when he started to snap back at Rozanov. “This is happening, man. If you don’t want to help, you can go, but you’re not going to stop it.”

“I want to help,” Wahlgren said, with a look at Svetlana.

Svetlana nodded in approval. “Yes. He is helping. Enough fighting about it.”

“Tell him that,” Shane said. He felt about seven years old, and Svetlana gave him a look that said he sounded like it, too, but he couldn’t stop himself. “If you want to keep fighting, we can push the beds together and work it out like we did last time, but I figured you’d be tired of losing to me.”

“You will what,” Rozanov said, all of his amusement leaving his face at once. Shane didn’t know what he was upset about, but Soupy scrambled to say, “Wrestling, they were wrestling!” and Svetlana cackled and said, “Yes, it was hot,” and the conversation kind of devolved into chaos until Costco started rifling through his backpack, pulled out a big sheet of paper, and threw it down onto the floor in the middle of them, over several pizza boxes.

“I got map,” he said in that even, unbothered tone of his. Shane peered down and confirmed that yes, that was a map of the arena; all of the entrances were circled in red marker, and there was a red X over the office off Russia’s designated locker room.

“This is huge,” Shane said. God, he loved goalies; Costco just shrugged and went back to scarfing down pizza. “Okay, these are the front doors here; I have a feeling they’ll be locked up the tightest, so we should probably plan to try to break in at this entrance here. It’s the closest to the office. Does anyone have a crowbar?”

Everyone stared at Shane, and no one wanted to give him what was probably the obvious news that they hadn’t brought a crowbar to World Juniors. That was fair, even if Shane still felt frustrated. Why hadn’t he thought to bring a crowbar to World Juniors?

Vaughny put his hand up in the air again. “I don’t, but I can go get one. I’m sure there’s a Home Depot around somewhere.”

“I do not know Home Depot, but I will take you to tool store,” Costco said dutifully. Vaughny reached over and high-fived him.

“Awesome,” Shane said. Vaughny beamed; Costco nodded stoically. “Okay, so. We break in at this entrance, we sneak in—Costco, Vaughny, can you get flashlights too? We should keep the lights off. Get to the locker room. Svetlana, can you—”

“I will not be going,” Svetlana announced. Rozanov said something in Russian that Shane strongly suspected meant pussy. Svetlana smacked him on the back of the head for it in answer. “No, I am your intel, your inside woman, but I am not on the heist team. Anton will represent me.” She ran her fingers through Wahlgren’s hair, making him roll his head back and close his eyes for a moment.

“Um. Why?” Shane asked bravely.

“Because when you get caught, you will say we never had this conversation. You were never in this room, actually we have never talked to each other ever in our lives,” Svetlana said. “You see, I still like my father—”

“Sveta,” Rozanov barked.

“—and I care if I ever see him again, because he is not total asshole, he just likes Russia. But I like Ilyusha and I want him to go to Boston. So I will help in secret.”

That all sounded very reasonable to Shane, and he nodded. “Yeah, okay, fair enough. We’re not going to get caught, though.”

Svetlana grinned at him, all sparkly again. “We will see. Carter Vaughn, you should be careful, too.”

Vaughny frowned, tilting his head like a confused puppy. “Why? What does my dad have to do with it?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Svetlana said, and she gestured between them. “If we are with them, and we all get caught, who do you think will get blame?”

“Oh, yeah. Whatever, it’ll be fine—”

“Why would you get the blame?” Shane asked, frowning. “I’ll take responsibility; it’s my idea.”

Svetlana and Vaughny both looked at him, then at each other, then back at him. For the first time since they’d started hanging out at that party, the smile Vaughny gave him was strained. “Ah, don’t worry about it, Hollzy. It’s okay, we won’t get caught.”

“He should worry about it,” Svetlana said. “What, you think he shouldn’t know about racism?”

Shane flushed hot as the realization of what she meant, and he felt doubly embarrassed. No one else in the room seemed to be able to look at Svetlana or Vaughny in that moment, not in the fact of their similar skin tones or Svetlana’s defiant expression, but Shane made himself, thinking of what his mom would want him to say, and of Pasha and what he should say. You can protect each other, Samitov said, and wasn’t this kind of the same thing?

“You’re right,” Shane said. “Vaughny, if you don’t want to come—”

“No way, man,” Vaughny said, looking annoyed for the first time. “I’m going. I’m not a chicken.”

“I’m not saying you are, but—”

“But shut up. I’m going. It’ll be fine because we won’t get caught; I trust you, Hollzy.”

“We won’t get caught,” Shane agreed, though Vaughny’s trust made his stomach a little wobbly, and the stakes seemed higher than ever.

Svetlana seemed to note this, because she studied him and nodded, then firmly moved the conversation along. “Either way, you give Anton my job.”

Shane peered at Wahlgren and decided he would probably fit the role he’d picked out for Svetlana pretty well anyway. “Okay. Wahlgren, you’ll be the lookout, and if any security guys come by, you’ll have to charm them into leaving us alone. Think you can handle that?”

Wahlgren gave his hair a requisite toss and nodded. “I can do it. No problem.”

“Good. Soupy and Costco, you’ll pull off whatever decoy you’re planning in the locker room—”

“We’re spray-painting ‘Canada Rules’ above the stalls,” Soupy said excitedly. “Perfect decoy the night before the game, so Russia can come in and get psyched out. It’s for a good cause,” he told Rozanov’s scowl.

“You think this will work?” Rozanov said, shaking his head. “Is kiddie prank, nothing. Gives us good material, more motivation to win. I can’t wait to see.”

“You’re not spray-painting,” Shane told Soupy, which earned him a look of true betrayal until Shane continued, “Get some kind of banner or canvas, something you can hang, at the tool store, that way they can just take it down and we don’t damage the arena. It sends the same message anyway, we can dodge property damage charges if we do get caught—which we won’t, but still—and we don’t have to make some innocent janitor have to scrub the tag off.”

Everyone did that quiet and staring at him thing for a minute. Wahlgren broke the quiet to mutter, “Pussy,” and Svetlana smacked him this time; Rozanov reached over and did the same, much harder, which would’ve turned into a smack fight if Svetlana didn’t move between them and keep them forcibly apart.

Then Soupy said, “See, this is why you’re the captain, man. Jesus Christ, no one’s doing it like you,” and Vaughny said, “You know, I heard what they say, but it’s just now hitting me: you are a really decent guy, Hollzy,” and even Costco fit on some approximation of a smile and said, “I like you, Shane Hollander,” which somehow felt like the most glowing praise of all.

As was typical in moments like these, Shane shrunk a little into the floor, felt himself flush with embarrassment, and said, “Guys, stop, it’s not a big deal. Let’s keep going over the plan.”

Sometimes this worked and people stopped embarrassing him, but Soupy and Vaughny ignored him to start talking with each other about how great Shane was, and they didn’t stop until Rozanov put his fingers in his mouth, whistled shrilly, and said, “Okay, enough, he said stop! Hollander’s ego does not need this!” which actually worked way better.

“Thanks,” Shane said. Rozanov looked horrified, as he usually did at being thanked, and Shane moved on quickly before he could yell at him for it. “Okay, so me, Rozanov, and Vaughny will search the office for the passport. Hopefully it’s just in a filing cabinet or a desk drawer, but with three of us I’m sure we can find it fast.”

“It’s a good plan,” Svetlana said; Shane tried not to shrink again. “If you don’t get caught, will be perfect.”

“I think we can do it,” Shane told the group. This prompted a chorus of hell yeah’s and high-fives, like they were hyping up for a game, and Shane let them at it while he finished the last of his pizza and leaned back against the clothes bed.

Rozanov watched him, a small smile on his face; it was starting to become familiar because he kept smiling at Shane like that. Shane smiled back, soft and satisfied, full of good pizza and good company and an excellent plan to achieve his important objective.

“Tomorrow night?” Rozanov said. His voice was low, and he only looked at Shane, but the other guys agreed. For a brief, mean moment, Shane wished they were alone in the room, that he and Rozanov were the only two in this. That maybe they could clear the clothes off the second bed, wrestle a little, and if Shane’s thigh slipped in between Rozanov’s, if Rozanov accidentally squeezed his ass, well, that was just how wrestling was.

But obviously Shane couldn’t talk about any of that, even if the way Rozanov was looking at him now suggested he might want to hear it. He shouldn’t even have been thinking of it, Shane reminded himself.

So he swallowed hard and, as the captain of the mission, said, “Yeah. Tomorrow night.”

Shane couldn’t wait.

Before they could steal Rozanov’s passport, there was hockey to play and watch.

Finland played in the fifth-place playoff as the early afternoon game; before that, Costco had taken Vaughny to the tool store in the minivan, telling his parents he needed supplies for some goalie ritual. The ritual, fake as it was, worked enough for Finland to win and Costco to pitch a shutout; Shane and Soupy cheered him on hard from the TV at the hotel bar, drinking seltzers and Gatorade.

Then Team Canada bussed over to the arena to watch the bronze medal game in person. Shane idly noted that Team Russia did the same; he saw Rozanov with Svetlana, waiting to get on their team bus at the same time as Canada got on theirs. They met each other’s eyes, once, but Rozanov seemed distracted, looking around the parking lot, letting his teammates go ahead of him.

Shane wondered a bit about the scene until Rozanov appeared again, a few minutes into the first period, leading Svetlana and now Pasha into a row that was very clearly in the Team Canada section. He said, “Get up, yes, let us through,” to Shane’s teammates, ignoring their protests and confusion and filing over into the three empty seats between Shane and the other guys, Soupy on his other side.

“Hi?” Shane said when Rozanov sat down next to him. Pasha sat between him and Svetlana and leaned all the way over Rozanov to say, “Hey, Hollander!”

“Are you lost?” Soupy asked, though he didn’t sound truly annoyed; he looked amused, eyeing the three Russians and the stares of the Canadians around them like he’d just switched a sitcom on the TV.

“Nope,” Rozanov said, getting comfy in his seat. He stared straight ahead at the ice, where Sweden was leading the US by an early goal.

No further explanation was forthcoming until first intermission, when Pasha and Svetlana got up—making the row of Canadians get up for them again—to go get snacks. Rozanov watched them leave, leaned in to Shane, and told him lowly, “Teammates tell Pasha wrong time to leave for bus. They try to leave him there.”

Anger rushed through Shane in a flash, quick and startling in its intensity. He glared over at the Team Russia section, the group of guys laughing and nudging each other like they weren’t actually giant losers.

“Fuck them, those assholes,” Shane said. He was surprised when Rozanov nodded.

“Is so stupid—they pretend they like him to ask about his dad, but when his back is turned they say he is not Russian enough, too Canadian, too—” He looked at Shane and pressed his lips together tightly; the anger on his face was gratifying, warming, and—unfortunately—absurdly hot.

“Yeah,” Shane said through gritted teeth. “I know all about that.”

“You are not the same, ah, Asian as him, right?” Rozanov asked, still angry but a little unsure.

“No. He’s Siberian Tatar, from his mom; my mom is Japanese. It’s not the same at all. But—” Shane faltered, as he always did when this kind of thing came up. He couldn’t say what he wanted to, which was that it really didn’t matter to white people. That Rozanov even asked was more consideration than either of them were probably used to.

“Switch seats with me,” Shane said decisively. Rozanov got up, though he frowned in confusion; they both ignored Soupy going, “Hey, what?” as they shuffled around each other.

When Pasha and Svetlana came back, Shane leaned in and asked Pasha, “Who do you have?”

“Oh, it’s Sweden,” Pasha said. He wordlessly offered Shane popcorn and Shane accepted. “They have been beasts all tournament. Except against you,” he added, and Shane grinned and knocked Rozanov’s reaching arm away to protect their popcorn. They talked for the rest of the game, Svetlana adding her extremely spirited and incisive commentary. Rozanov accused Shane of stealing his friends, grinning through every word; Soupy wound up talking Rozanov’s ear off and it took Shane a while to realize they were discussing Costco the store instead of Costco the goalie.

“I want to go,” Rozanov told Shane, practically vibrating in his seat with excitement. “I must try—um—baker chicken.”

“Chicken bake,” Soupy piped up. Rozanov nodded eagerly.

“Yes. This chicken bake. It sounds unreal.”

“It’s not good,” Shane said; he nudged Pasha, who leaned towards him to listen. “Have you ever had a Costco chicken bake?”

“Yes! I was addicted when I was a kid. And my mom loved all the samples; she tried to give the workers a loonie every time she tried one at first because she couldn’t believe they were free,” Pasha told him. Shane smiled at the image and thought of his own mom, ranting to his dad on the way home from one of their trips to Costco that she couldn’t understand their business model and they were leaving so much money on the table.

“Chicken bake is disgusting,” Svetlana said, and Shane reached over to give her a high-five, as Rozanov began interrogating Soupy and Pasha about the concept of free samples. “But the pizza is good, I must say this.”

“My dad once ate so much Costco pizza that he puked on the deck,” Shane said, to a chorus of groans. “My mom hosed it off and heckled him the whole time. He can’t even look at it anymore.”

“Do you have his stomach or your mom’s?” Soupy asked. “Because I’m still worried about you trying that turkey pepper candy shit.”

“At this rate, I don’t know when that’ll happen,” Shane told him, a little bummed. There just didn’t seem to be time; after this, there would be dinner with his parents, the passport heist, and then the gold medal game tomorrow. They would fly to New Jersey first thing in the morning the following day, and he had no idea when he would ever get back to Finland. Of course, if he went home with Rozanov and a gold medal in tow, he’d have gotten most of what he came for, the important stuff, so it didn’t really matter.

“What is this?” Rozanov demanded to know, looking between Soupy and Shane. “Turkey pepper?”

They explained about Shane’s goal to try turkinpippuri, that Costco the goalie had warned him against it, and how he hadn’t had the time to go and find it. “I’ve been a little busy,” Shane said. Then he became alarmed when Rozanov looked stricken, like he’d had a hand in depriving Shane of the candy he wanted to try. “No, it’s fine! I meant busy with hockey!” he added, but Rozanov still looked horribly guilty.

“It’s not good,” Pasha told Shane. Rozanov scowled at him.

“If Hollander wants to try, he will try. I will get it for you.”

“That’s okay,” Shane insisted, because when would Rozanov have the time? He had the exact same schedule as Shane.

Rozanov shook his head. “You will try, Hollander. End of book.”

“Story,” Pasha said, a gentle but practiced correction. Rozanov scowled at him again and tried to mess up his dark hair, leaning much more of his body over Shane than he probably needed to to get to him. Shane found he didn’t mind in the least.

Sweden did beat the US, but the US—especially Vaughny, much to Shane’s delight—put up a great fight and made them sweat in the end. Wahlgren and Vaughny had what seemed like an amiable enough bro hug in the handshake line and Svetlana wolf-whistled at them boldly, so Shane was hopeful they could put aside differences for that night’s heist.

“See you tomorrow,” Shane told Pasha and Rozanov when they had to separate for their respective busses; he let his eyes linger on Rozanov’s with significance because of course they had their own plans, but Pasha broke into it by giving him a bro hug, too.

“Good luck,” Pasha said. He winked at Shane. “You will need it.”

“I don’t think so; I make my own luck,” Shane said.

Rozanov groaned at that and said, “So boring, Hollander,” but he was smiling when he gave Shane a quick hug, too, hand spread and pressed hard against his back, warm and insistent. Shane took in his scent, the cold air of yet another parking lot, salt and butter from the popcorn he’d managed to steal, the hint of sweat under his winter layers, and tried not to count the seconds in the hug. His eyes drifted closed for a minute, which was embarrassing.

“Later,” Rozanov breathed into Shane’s ear, and for a moment Shane forgot that he meant they would be back at this arena later tonight, breaking into it to secure Rozanov’s future. He imagined, instead, that Rozanov was promising to knock on his door later that night. Wrighter would be gone somewhere, and Shane would put another sock on the doorknob, and no one else would knock on it. Maybe they would push the beds together, or not even bother; maybe they would squeeze onto one twin bed, always pressed against each other because there was no room, breathing into each’s spaces, grabbing at each other’s clothes, laughing and shaking and touching and—

Wrestling, Shane told himself sternly, as Rozanov pulled away, too quickly and yet after a small eternity all the same. They would be wrestling, not anything else.

 

In the deep, full dark of the Helsinki night, a beige Volkswagen Tauron rolled into a shadowy parking space by the eastern entrance of Hartwell Arena.

Soupy and Shane got out first, looking around carefully, before telling the other occupants of the minivan that the coast was clear. They all crept out and, keeping to the shadows, made their way over to the entrance that Shane had picked out.

Shane was dressed entirely in black, head to toe, a fact that had made Rozanov burst out laughing when he first got into the minivan and saw him. “Master Thief!” he’d crowed, delighted. But when they were sitting alone in the middle row, Rozanov leaned over a little and whispered, “You look pretty.”

“Shut up,” Shane said automatically. He felt himself blush.

“No, is true. Black is good color for you.”

“Leave me alone.” Rozanov didn’t, of course; he stayed close to Shane, squeezed in the middle seat even though he had the rest of the row to stretch out, teasing him and making him laugh. Shane felt so warm it was almost a relief to get out of the minivan and into the cold night air.

Everyone else was wearing their normal athleticwear, though Vaughny had gamely offered to go change; Shane snapped at him not to bother and felt only a little bad. But if they got caught, it wasn’t going to be because of Shane’s clothes; it would be because of Soupy or Wahlgren’s golden bright hair, or maybe Costco’s incandescently pale skin, or Rozanov’s blue, white, and fucking red puffer jacket.

Most of the guys in the group had the good sense to go slow through the parking lot, but Rozanov released a huffy sigh at one point and strolled ahead of them, ignoring Shane’s hissing at him to stop. He reached the entrance first, peered down at it, then blew out a raspberry.

“We have problem,” Rozanov told Shane gravely as he hustled to catch up, driven by annoyance.

“Yeah, the problem is that you’re going to get us caught—”

“Bigger problem, Hollander. Look at door.” Rozanov pointed helpfully, which only pissed Shane off more.

“Yeah, dickhead, that’s what the crowbar is—oh,” Shane said as he looked at the door, and the heavy, padlocked chain keeping the entrance closed. “Fuck.”

“Fuck,” Rozanov agreed, and then everyone caught up and reached the same conclusion.

Vaughny gave it a valiant try with the crowbar he hadn’t let go of since getting into the minivan, but all that did was cause a lot of heavy metal jangling and noise that made Shane start to freak out until Rozanov made him stop.

“Okay,” Shane said, trying to think. “Costco, any chance you and Vaughny thought to get bolt cutters at the tool store?”

Costco gave Shane a witheringly unimpressed look, which was genuinely impressive given that there was very little expression on his face, as usual. Shane just knew somehow. Vaughny looked crushed, though, hanging his head.

“I’m sorry, man. We should have thought of it.”

“No, I should have,” Shane said, frustrated with himself.

“Let’s try other entrance,” Wahlgren said, putting his two hands out in placation. Shane and Rozanov both gave him suspicious looks, but it was basically their only next move, so the group quietly shuffled off to the other, farther entrance they’d identified on the map.

It was the same there, too, with nothing for the crowbar to do; Shane didn’t let Vaughny try his idea of making Soupy hold the chain taut while he bashed at it with the crowbar because he didn’t want Soupy to lose a hand. Rozanov said, “Wahlgren can do it,” and Shane started to agree before he remembered himself and sternly said no one should do it.

There was only one move left, and that was the front entrance. Shane had a feeling about it, and was correct—the big double doors weren’t padlocked because there was a security guard watching them from the ticket booth. They approached from around the side of a square annex of the mostly circular building, a layer down from the taller roof above. Shane noted it had windows right behind it and it wasn’t too great a jump from the snow-covered bushes on the ground, plus it was out of sight of the guard; it would make a good emergency exit if they had to make a break for it.

They would have to get in first, though, and Shane instructed Costco and Soupy to hide their banner, Vaughny and Rozanov to hide the crowbar and their flashlights, and then clapped Wahlgren on the back.

“Okay, this is your moment,” he told Wahlgren. “Go to the guard’s booth over there and ask if he’ll let us in. Tell him we just want to get in some ice time before the big game tomorrow; we made friends at this tournament and we know it’ll be our last chance to hang out before we all leave. Do that little hair flip thing you do, and make your eyes all wide, yeah, like—”

“No, this is stupid,” Rozanov cut in, at the same time that Costco shook his head firmly and said, “Not him.”

Shane ignored Rozanov but looked at Costco with a frown. “Why not him? I mean, look at him.”

He hadn’t meant to say that, exactly—Rozanov hissed out what Shane was increasingly starting to think was the Russian word for fuck; he’d have to ask Pasha sometime—but Vaughny and Soupy both nodded like they got what Shane meant, so he tried not to worry so much. Costco shook his head again, though.

“He’s Swedish. Guard is Finnish. It’s no good.”

“Fuck that, I can talk to Finnish guard,” Wahlgren said, chest puffed out. He started to march forward but Costco stopped him with his arm.

“No. Big hockey rivalry, and guard is older, it’s not like now—” and then Costco finished the rest of that in another language, probably Swedish, because Wahlgren answered back in the same language, and they argued for a bit until Wahlgren huffed out, “Fine!” in English and kicked at the ground.

“You don’t like each other but you speak his language?” Vaughny asked Costco, who only shrugged.

“Sweden and Finland is like brothers who fight. Still brothers, but fight. I don’t think guard will care about brothers. Send someone else.”

“It should be the next most, um, good-looking person,” Shane said. He ignored Wahlgren’s smug grin and Rozanov’s cursing to look right at Rozanov, worried about his next proposition. “So, obviously that’s—”

“You,” said Soupy, Costco, Vaughny, and even Wahlgren. Shane gaped at them and Rozanov cursed loud enough that Shane had to shush him; Rozanov responded by trying to shove Shane behind him so the others couldn’t see him, which was ridiculous.

“Me?” Shane asked, poking his head around Rozanov’s side to gape some more. “What are you even talking about?”

“Yes, stop talking,” Rozanov said, still shoving at Shane.

“No, is true; it should be you, Shane,” Costco said. “Best-looking—”

“He’s a manrocket,” Vaughny stage-whispered to no one, earning himself his own shove from Rozanov.

“—and good guy. Guard will trust. Swedish, no; American, no, he hates; Russian, no, he hates the most. But Canadian? Is perfect.”

“I’m a little uncomfortable with how prejudiced this guard is,” Shane said. “What if he’s racist? Maybe Soupy should go.”

“No way, man; I’m a worse liar than you,” Soupy protested.

“I’m not a bad liar—”

“You are terrible liar,” Rozanov said, but he had a small smile on his face. “I think Costco is right; it should be you, Hollander. Who can say no to you?”

Shane looked around the group, still somewhat surprised to see them nodding in an apparent consensus. When he landed on Costco, he just shrugged again.

“We are all here,” Costco said plainly, as if that proved his entire point.

And, well, it kind of did. So Shane took a deep breath, straightened the black toque he’d borrowed from Wrighter, withstood his own backslaps and “You got this!” hissed at him, Rozanov giving him a little shake with the hand lingering on his shoulder, and marched forward towards the ticket booth.

The guard was lounging in a chair with his feet up on the desk, a little radio on next to him, reading a newspaper and yawning. He had white hair, a stubbly white beard, and little silver glasses. When Shane got close enough, he could read his name tag as Jori. The newspaper lowered as Shane approached, but Jori didn’t put his feet down.

“Um, hi,” Shane said. He tried to do a Wahlgren hair flip, but his bangs were too short and his toque was in the way. “How are you?”

Jori did not answer; he just stared at Shane with very pale, almost translucent blue eyes, utterly stoic like he could be Costco’s grandfather.

“I’m doing well,” Shane said automatically, then inwardly cursed at himself. “Um, I wanted to ask you—”

“Prank?” Jori the guard said suddenly, sounding impatient. Shane blinked at him.

“I’m sorry?”

“You want to go in for prank?”

Shane got it, then, and hesitated, saying, “Well—”

“You here to prank Russia, I let you in,” Jori said. “Be careful inside, is other guard who is not so nice, but fuck Russia. Beat them tomorrow, yes, Shane Hollander?”

Jori reached down and then a jangling noise sounded. Shane couldn’t believe his ears or his eyes when a set of keys appeared in the little slot to pass cash and tickets through. Shane reached out, slowly, afraid this might be a trick, but snatched the keys up without issue. Jori nodded at him.

“Thank you?” Shane said. Jori nodded again.

“Beat Russia,” he reminded him, and Shane nodded determinedly back.

“Yeah, of course, I will.”

He started to back away, hardly daring to breathe, and froze immediately when Jori said, “Wait.”

Shane waited while Jori pulled out two World Juniors programs from somewhere in the booth, then a marker. “Sign,” he told Shane, who scrambled to do so. “One for my grandson, he will go crazy. One for Ebay.”

Shane huffed a little laugh, which Jori did not join in or respond to, so Shane had no idea if that was a joke or not. He decided he didn’t really care and signed the programs hurriedly before shoving them back through the slot.

“There you go. Um, thank you so much; I promise we won’t do any damage, just—”

But Jori had tucked the programs into his jacket and picked up his newspaper again. He even turned the radio up. “Yes, go, do prank. Just beat Russia, Hollander, only thanks I want.”

“I will,” Shane said, more determined than ever. Then he ran back to his group of friends.

“Got the keys,” he told them, and shushed them when they whooped. “New cover story, though; Rozanov, go put your jacket back in the minivan—” Rozanov took off immediately, ignoring Costco, who had to grumble and run after him with the car keys. Shane turned to Vaughny. “Keep the crowbar hidden, okay, I promised him we wouldn’t do any damage, but Soupy, you can keep the banner out, it’s better for our story. He wants us to prank Russia.”

“Damn,” Wahlgren muttered, looking extremely sour. “Koskinen was right.”

“Of course,” Costco said, running back up to them with a jacketless Rozanov. “I know Finns.”

“Here,” Shane said, taking off Wrighter’s black toque and handing it to Rozanov. “Put this on. We need to hide you; he knows hockey players, so if he sees you here, the story won’t make sense. And we still have to be careful, he said there’s another guard inside who’s not as nice.”

Shane and Vaughny spent some time poking Rozanov’s curls inside the toque until Rozanov lost patience and batted Vaughny away. Shane pulled back, too, but Rozanov said, “No, you missed,” and pointed at one curl hanging out by his ear. Shane tucked it in carefully and tried to ignore the smug look on Rozanov’s face, the way he leaned up to stroke the side of the toque. He didn’t tell him it belonged to Wrighter.

“Come on,” Shane said, and the group walked right up to the front entrance of the arena, unlocked the doors, and strode in. Jori the guard never looked up from his newspaper.

Inside, most of the lights but a few were turned off, and they moved carefully in shadows, Costco and Vaughny each with a flashlight. Rozanov took the lead, then, bringing them over to the Russian team’s locker room, and Shane and Soupy kept a careful eye out for the other, less nice guard, but they arrived without incident.

The door was locked, but though Vaughny surged forward with the crowbar and Soupy offered to unlock it with a credit card trick he saw on YouTube, Shane reminded them all he had keys and tried a few to find the right one. The door was unlocked and they stepped in, also without incident.

“Okay,” Shane whispered. “We stick to the original plan here. Wahlgren, you’re still lookout.”

“Shouldn’t you be lookout, since you are nice Canadian and I am evil Swede?” Wahlgren said, rolling his eyes.

“Go, Wahlgren, before I beat your ass,” Rozanov barked. Wahlgren’s eyes flared hot and he stepped up close to Rozanov, but Shane quickly got between them and pushed Wahlgren towards the door.

“Please, man, just—if the guard comes, offer him an autograph,” Shane said. “You’re in the MLH.” That worked, at least, and Wahlgren backed off with a disdainful huff, stepping out into the hallway. Soupy and Costco were already at work unfurling their banner, so Shane, Vaughny and Rozanov headed for the coaches’ office.

This door was also locked, and it took Shane a while for him to realize he didn’t have this key; probably the coaches had it. Vaughny made an excited noise and whipped out the crowbar again, but Shane called Soupy over and said, “Your credit card trick won’t damage the door, right?” and let him at it, giving Vaughny an apologetic pat on the shoulder.

And then they were in the coaches’ office and Shane could hardly believe how easy it had all been.

“Let’s be quick,” he said. “I’ll check the desk, Rozanov checks the filing cabinet, Vaughny—”

“Should I check that?” Vaughny asked, pointing with the crowbar at a fucking safe on a cabinet behind the desk. Fuck.

Shane stared at the safe while Rozanov cursed heartily at it in Russian. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. And of course the passport would be in there; what could be safer than a safe? It was literally in the name of it.

Vaughny was all but licking his lips with the crowbar, but Shane wasn’t even sure that would work, so he tried a few easy number combinations first. When that didn’t work, he told everyone to stay completely quiet and held his ear against the safe while he turned the lock dial, trying to listen for the right clicks like they did in heist movies.

That didn’t work either, and Shane said, “Jesus Christ, this is impossible,” after a while of trying and failing. He stood up straight, looked at Vaughny, and said, “Okay, let’s try it.”

“We are big strong hockey men,” Rozanov said as Vaughny got to work wedging the tip of the crowbar into the smallest opening at the door of the safe. “We can do it.”

They took turns, in the end, because Vaughny couldn’t do it, and despite Rozanov’s bragging, he couldn’t do it either. Shane tried, putting all his strength into leveraging the safe open, but it didn’t even wobble; it was locked too airtight for the crowbar to get much purchase, and even when it could get wedged in solidly enough, it did nothing to make the heavy metal budge.

By then, Costco and Soupy came in to see what was taking so long, and Costco said, “You are doing wrong. We have to try other way; is physics,” and directed them to lift the safe off its cabinet and set it down on the floor by the desk. This took three of them, which made the whole thing feel more hopeless—how were they going to get the safe open if they could barely lift it?—but Costco seemed to know what he was talking about and jammed the crowbar into the safe’s door slot as hard as he could, sticking out of it horizontally with the safe on its back.

“Roz, you are biggest,” Costco said, and Rozanov was in the middle of preening about that when he added, “You have to jump.”

“What? Jump where?”

“Jump onto the crowbar from the desk; maybe force open it up,” Costco told him, and Shane got it.

“I’ll do it,” he said, beginning to climb onto the desk, but Rozanov stopped him.

“No, I’m biggest. I do it.”

“You’re, like, barely heavier than me, and I’m a little taller, so—”

“Is weight that matters, not height! And you are not taller than me, Hollander.”

“Yes I am, just let me—” While they argued, Vaughny pushed past them, climbed onto the desk, took a deep breath, and jumped.

It took precision and dexterity to stomp the crowbar, but he did it. The door actually bent a little, which Costco declared a good sign—“It is not steel all the way through, I think only plated,” he told them, examining it closely. “Cheap. I think we can get it. Keep going.”

They put the crowbar back in place. Rozanov said, “You go next, tiny, I loose it up for you,” and then did his jump. The door bent a little more. They kept going like this, all of them taking a turn, Shane and Rozanov continuing to argue about who was taller, until Shane was waiting for his turn and had enough of Rozanov’s shit and started rustling through one of the desk drawers for a ruler to end this once and for all.

And he froze, staring at the opened drawer, just as the fucking safe door popped open after Rozanov’s last jump, the lock breaking with a loud, metallic snap.

Everyone cheered, and Rozanov actually hugged Costco so hard he picked him up off his feet, which was hilarious considering how much taller Costco was. He went eagerly into the safe, and Shane could only let the earliest signs of a frown start to show on his face before he held up what he’d found in the desk.

“So, we probably should have checked the desk first,” Shane said, with Rozanov’s passport in hand.

“Jesus Christ,” Soupy said, and Rozanov said whatever the Russian equivalent was. Vaughny started laughing, though, looking between the passport and the broken safe, doubling over, and soon they’d all joined him, leaning into each other, breathless with the effort and ridiculousness of the entire endeavor.

When they calmed down enough, Shane reached out and handed Rozanov the passport, smiling softly. “I think this belongs to you,” Shane said.

Rozanov took the passport and swallowed hard, staring down at it for a moment. He flipped through to the picture page, which was probably a good call, and then just held it in both hands like it was something precious, which of course it was. He looked like he didn’t know what to say, and everyone let him be emotional for a second without looking at him—except for Shane, who couldn’t really bring himself to look away.

Still, Rozanov didn’t seem to mind. He only grimaced when he asked, “More passports in there?” and Shane shook his head sadly. “Of course. I know, of course, but—”

“Yeah,” Shane said. “But it’s okay now.”

“Yes,” Rozanov said quietly. “Is okay.”

“Well, now there’s another one,” Soupy said, dropping something into the drawer. When everyone looked over, he shrugged and pointed at Costco. “He made it; he said we need a decoy so they don’t realize it’s stolen. I don’t think it’ll hold up if anyone looks at it too long, but hopefully they’ll just hand it to you when you go through customs, and you can swap it for the real one and then run off to our flight.”

Rozanov’s eyes shone as he looked at Costco like he might pick him up and swing him around again. “Costco, I think you are genius, and we will be friends forever.”

“I should’ve thought of that,” Shane said. “You are a genius, man. We’d be dead without you.”

Costco simply shrugged, in his very Costco way. “It’s okay. I want to play the best when I make it to MLH, like you, Shane, and Roz. Is whole point, is my dream. We all have same dream.”

They all stood there thinking about that for a minute. Shane’s throat felt tight, and he had to clear it before he could speak again. “Yeah. You’re right. And Rozanov’s right, too. We’re all friends now, forever.”

That earned some solemn nods, backslaps, and then Rozanov said, “Okay, enough, cry like little babies, let’s go now,” and got them all moving again.

They put the safe back on the cabinet but couldn’t get it to close again, and Shane got out his wallet and started pulling euros out until Rozanov grabbed his wrist to stop him.

“What are you doing?” he hissed as Shane put the money in the safe.

“Paying for the safe we broke?” Shane said. Rozanov stared at him for a few moments, jaw twitching, before he squeezed Shane’s arm and let it go with a heavy breath.

“I pay you back.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Shane told him, already moving out of the office. Rozanov stopped him again, with a word this time.

“Shane,” he said, and Shane felt it go all the way through him like a slapshot to his padding, vibrating through the layers of his clothes and body and blood and desire until it was all he was aware of.

“Ilya?” Shane asked eventually, cautiously. The other guys had gone ahead to the locker room, but they might as well have gone to Antarctica for how much attention Shane could pay them. Not with Rozanov—Ilya, if Shane was Shane—looking at him like that.

“I can never pay you back for all,” Ilya said, gesturing around them. “Never, in million years.”

“You don’t have to—”

“But I will pay back money, all of it. For phone, safe, crowbar, flashlight, everything. Will buy you new car. Costco’s parents too, nice one, I swear—”

Shane started to deny that, vehemently, genuinely alarmed Ilya was being serious, but then he remembered some of the worst details of this whole situation and forced himself to swallow it all back.

“Well,” Shane said. “It’ll be your money, so you can do whatever you want with it.”

It was worth it for how Ilya’s face lit up at that, how excited he looked, grinning with all his teeth. Shane tamped down any trepidation and instead relaxed into Ilya’s joy.

They walked into the locker room together, grinning harder when they spotted the terrible, red and white CANADA RULES banner hanging over the locker stalls. Ilya groaned, shaking his head, but didn’t drop his smile, not even when Shane squinted and caught sight of the much smaller Suomi too message written under the terribly drawn maple leaf.

“Isn’t that sending mixed messages a bit?” he asked Costco. Costco, predictably, only shrugged.

“Maybe, but is true.”

“Is true,” Rozanov insisted. “From this day on, Matti Koskinen, Russia and Finland are friends. I have decided this.”

“Yeah, sure,” Costco said, laughing. “Whatever you say.”

“I do say this. And so are Russia and Canada, Russia and US—but maybe not Russia and Sweden—”

As if to prove his point, the door to the locker room burst open before any of them could clear it, and a guard who was very much not Jori stood outside of it, shining a flashlight in at them.

“What?” he barked. “Why you here? How you get in?”

Everyone stood frozen for a moment. Shane got it together enough to start to step forward, hoping against hope that his luck with Jori would hold here, though he couldn’t keep Jori’s warning out of his mind. But Costco stepped further forward, shaking his head briefly at Shane, and started speaking in Finnish.

At first, it sounded like they were having a fairly normal conversation. The guard stepped into the locker room and stopped shining his flashlight directly on them, which was nice. Then, the Finnish turned heated, volleying back and forth and getting harsher by the minute, until there was more yelling than not yelling.

Shane was so caught up in the Finnish of it all that it took him a second to realize it when Costco shouted, “Run!” in English. Thankfully Ilya was on it and he grabbed Shane by the arm and ran with him, Soupy and Vaughny following.

They hurtled out of the locker room, though Shane paused to make sure Costco was following—and he was, now yelling at them, “Faster, faster, go!” because the guard was hot on his heels, still yelling in Finnish. They all ran faster.

It was Vaughny who shouted, “Where’s Wahlgren?” and Shane, unfortunately, answered, “Who cares?” just as Wahlgren ran up to them from a side hallway, red-faced and sweating.

“Where were you?” Shane yelled at him, unrepentant.

“I heard noise, went to see, then I heard guard—”

“No, more like you heard the guard and ran away, you pussy,” Soupy snarled, giving Wahlgren a shove that almost took them both out.

“Stop, it doesn’t matter, let’s just—follow me!” Shane said, remembering the annex roof. Running towards the front entrance would take them right in the path of the guard, and they couldn’t be sure he hadn’t called the police or other backup.

Shane led the group up the first flight of stairs he saw and then raced towards the western side of the building, all the way to the first set of doors he could tell would face the top of the annex. He shoved one door open and stood at it, ushering everyone inside ahead of him, throwing himself in when he saw the guard running down the hallway at them. He slammed the door shut, locked it, then grappled for and successfully grabbed the crowbar from Vaughny before jamming it into the handles for good measure.

“The window!” Shane gasped, jumping when the door started to rattle. They were in some kind of conference room, big windows curtained against the streetlights outside, but wrenching a curtain back told Shane he’d chosen correctly; the window opened right out to the roof of the annex.

He and Vaughny yanked the window open and then started ushering the guys through again. Soupy and Costco filed out, and then Vaughny went when Shane shouted, “Go!” and then they paused only when Ilya approached and said, “You go first, Shane.”

“No way,” Shane said. “Go, it’s fine!”

“No, I will not, you will—”

“Oh my god, just go! Go!” Wahlgren shouted, shoving at Ilya and pushing him out the window ahead of him. They tumbled out together, Wahlgren dropping onto Ilya before they leapt up to get away from each other.

Shane followed as the door gave another huge rattle, Finnish screaming sounding through it. He shut the window after him, carefully, and then turned to face the guys out in the cold Helsinki night, standing around the roof.

“What now?” Soupy asked.

“This isn’t that high up,” Shane said, pointing at the edge. “I think we can all make the jump, and there are snowy bushes we can land on.” The Finnish yelling could now be heard through the closed window, which was alarming enough to send Wahlgren across towards the edge, even if the others were hesitating.

“Wait,” said Ilya when Shane gestured for them to go.

“I swear it’ll be fine,” Shane said. “If you want, I’ll go first and catch you—”

“No,” Ilya said. He closed his eyes a moment, letting out his breath in a puff of mist; he was patting around his pants, his hoodie, and shaking his head. “Passport is—it’s gone.”

The utter silence that followed that was devastating. Nobody moved except Wahlgren, still heading for the roof’s edge. Even the Finnish yells died down for a minute, though they started up again eventually. Shane idly thought that Jori had been right; that guard was not nice. And then he processed what Ilya had said.

“Did you drop it?” Soupy asked, aghast. “Do we go back inside to try and find it? Jesus, if that psycho in there breaks in—”

“No, I put it deep in pocket, I have hand on it whole time except when I go out window—” Ilya started, and Shane’s brain came online again as everything clicked into place.

“Stop,” Shane yelled. Four heads turned to look at him, confused, but the person he was speaking to did not listen. “Stop, Wahlgren, and give it back!”

Wahlgren did stop, but it was only to swivel around and give Shane a look, green eyes soft, wide and exaggeratedly confused. He even did a fucking hair flip, and Shane tightened his hands into fists at his side. “I don’t know what—”

“Give us back the fucking passport,” Shane said, stepping forward as Wahlgren blinked, still trying to look innocent. Shane bought absolutely none of it, and as the other guys caught on, they all turned to face him, too, with what were probably similar expressions of fury that Shane wore.

“I don’t have passport,” Wahlgren said. He had his hand in his fucking pocket. Shane wanted to kill him. “I don’t—”

“Shut the fuck up and give it back,” Ilya said, stepping up beside Shane. “What is this? You hate me so much?”

Wahlgren’s mouth twisted unpleasantly, and he shook his head. “I don’t hate you. We will be teammates.”

“Yes, we will, so you have to—”

“Next year,” Wahlgren said, and he held up the goddamn passport and took another step back to the edge of the roof. “It’s wrong to go now, Rozanov, mess up team chemistry—”

“What team chemistry?” Shane asked. “You guys fucking suck!”

“—skip development, get special treatment, take my spot and everything I have earned—”

“You’re insane,” Shane told him. “It’s not your spot. Wahlgren, give it the fuck back or I will—”

“What?” Wahlgren taunted, grinning at him, Disney prince bright in the cold dark air. “What will you do, Hollander?”

“I will—” Ilya started, but he stopped when Shane took off running.

It wasn’t like a check on the ice, Shane knew; it had to be more like wrestling. He lowered his hips and knees and launched himself at Wahlgren’s legs, slamming him backwards at full force. Too much force, it turned out—Wahlgren went flying, not onto his back, but over the edge of the rooftop.

And Shane, now holding onto Wahlgren’s torso with every wrestling instinct he possessed, went with him.

It took a few minutes for Shane to get his bearings. That was probably because there was yelling all around him—right in his ear, someone was groaning and yelling in Swedish, and up above there were people screaming his name. It was a lot all at once, and so it was a little while before Shane sat up on top of Wahlgren and realized he was fine.

Wahlgren had taken the brunt of the fall and they’d landed in the bushes, so it really was fine. Shane was maybe a little shaken, and he had some scratches on his face from the bushes. Wahlgren looked okay, too, groans and all; he was okay enough to be presumably calling Shane every possible insult the Swedish language had. Maybe he was inventing some, too.

Just in case, Shane asked, “You okay?” because he didn’t want to really injure Wahlgren, he just wanted the passport.

“You are fucking crazy,” Wahlgren spat at him, so Shane took that as a yes and rolled off him and out of the bushes.

He saw the passport on the ground and lunged for it just a loud thump sounded nearby, and then another.

“Shane!” Ilya shouted, much closer now. He lunged, too, dropping the rest of his way to his knees on the ground next to Shane, reaching for him and patting him down frantically. “Shane, you are hurt, you—”

“I got it,” Shane said, and he rolled over to sit up a little and held up the passport. “It’s okay, Ilya, I got it back.”

“Shane,” Ilya said, and it echoed around them—all of Soupy, Costco, and Vaughny had joined them off the roof and were standing over them. “I don’t care—”

“What?” Shane yelped.

“I mean—argh—of course I do care, but you fall, you—you are hurt?”

“I’m fine.” Shane sat up a little more to prove this, brushing some snowy greenery off his black clothes. “I told you, it wasn’t that far of a drop, and there were bushes—you all just did the same jump!”

“You fall,” Ilya insisted; he wouldn’t stop touching Shane, as if searching him for injury. Shane didn’t really mind, though he did idly worry that they only had a few more minutes before this got too gay to explain away. Considering how worried everyone else looked, he wondered if they’d even care.

“I kind of, uh, flew—though I didn’t mean to—”

“Shut up, Hollzy,” Soupy said. He looked as angry as Shane had ever seen him, though everyone else still looked scared. “Are you okay? For real?”

“For real,” Shane said, and he stood up all the way, taking Ilya with him because Ilya simply wouldn’t let go of him. He muttered in Russian, ran his fingers through Shane’s hair—dislodging more leaves—cursed softly, took off the borrowed toque, and pulled it over Shane’s head.

“You look cold,” he said when Shane gave him a look.

“I’m fine,” Shane told Ilya, then looked at the rest of the group pointedly. “Seriously, we should get out of here before—”

A bright light shone on all of them in that moment, and Shane had to duck his head and squint into it. Ilya cursed again and threw himself in front of Shane, spinning around to look at the source of the light. The others looked, too, as best they could, and there was some Finnish spoken, which was alarming, until Shane recognized the voice and squinted around Ilya.

“Jori! I have your keys.”

“Give them,” Jori said, and Shane tossed them over. “You are okay?”

“I’m fine,” Shane said for the millionth time. Jori narrowed his eyes at him.

“You sure? Autograph worth more if you are dead.”

“What did you say—” Ilya snapped, starting forward, but Shane grabbed him and held him still.

“I’m sure, I swear it.”

Jori looked around at the group, narrowed his eyes at Ilya—he said something questioning in Finnish that made Costco wince—and then shone the light on Wahlgren, who had just crawled out of the bushes.

“He is okay?” Jori asked.

The guys gave a collective shrug, and Costco said, “He is Swedish.”

“Okay. Get out and take him with you. You are never here.”

“Exactly,” Shane said, and he started dragging Ilya away while Costco and Vaughny reluctantly went to deal with Wahlgren.

“I don’t like this,” Ilya said as they hurried to the minivan, reaching up to touch Shane’s cheek. It was right underneath the worst scratch from the bush, but he was gentle and tender, and looked genuinely distressed about it.

“It’s literally just a scratch,” Shane said.

“No, it’s no good. It goes through—ah—” He broke into a Russian word, sounding frustrated, and touched the same spot again, so soft Shane wanted to close his eyes and lean into it.

It understandably took him a minute to get what Ilya meant, and when he realized he blurted out, “D’you mean my freckles?”

“Yes. I like them,” Ilya said, with a little pout on his face, like he had no idea what that expression and word combo was doing to Shane’s poor heart at that very moment. Shane almost stopped walking, wanting to slow down and stay in this heart-pounding feeling for longer, and he thought maybe Ilya might want to, too.

But when they did slow down, a slight shove from behind them reminded them they weren’t alone, and Soupy said, “Come on, let’s get out of here,” and Shane had to admit that was probably the right call.

There were two small delays when they all got to the minivan. First, they weren’t sure what to do with Wahlgren, who was completely fine, by the way. “Leave him,” Ilya snarled, and Soupy vehemently agreed, but Shane said, “No, Jori said to take him—Wahlgren, get in the trunk.”

“Seriously?” Wahlgren said. He had a branch sticking out of his Disney prince hair, because no one had helped him brush it off. “First you try to kill me, then you put me in trunk?”

“It’s that or you walk back to the hotel,” Shane told him.

That decided it for Wahlgren, who huffed and groaned but climbed into the trunk of the minivan. Costco slammed the door shut on him.

The second delay happened after Vaughny had climbed into the back, Costco had gotten in the driver’s seat, and Shane got in the middle row. Ilya tried to climb in after him, like they’d sat on the way there, but Soupy stopped him with a hand on his chest and said, “Nope, no, I have a bone to pick with this guy. Get up front.”

Ilya scowled at him. “Bone pick? What is this?”

“It means I need to talk to him. Go, Roz.”

Shane knew there was no way Ilya would go without intervention—he had puffed up, ready for a fight—so he leaned out of the minivan and said, “Hey, it’s fine, just sit with Costco. And here.”

He pushed the passport at Ilya, who took it with another devastating pout. “But I want—”

“We’ll catch up back at the hotel,” Shane said. He hoped that didn’t sound like he meant it to to anyone but Ilya. Probably it did, because Soupy sighed and dropped his head back, looking up at the sky tiredly. But whatever, it worked and got Ilya in the passenger seat, and Soupy shoved in next to Shane.

It was still hours before the sun would come up in Helsinki, and they drove for a few quiet minutes in the darkness until Soupy turned to Shane and said, “What the fuck is wrong with you, man? You almost gave me a heart attack!”

“Yeah, same,” Vaughny piped up from the back.

“Same,” said Ilya, who hadn’t stopped looking back at him.

“Same,” echoed Costco.

“Fucking same,” Wahlgren said from the trunk.

“Shut the fuck up, Walgreens!” Soupy yelled, before turning back to Shane.

Shane had little to defend himself with. He shrugged. “I’m fine, all right? I needed to get the passport back, and the guard could’ve broken in at any moment—”

“So you took a running leap off a fucking building? You could’ve died!”

“It wasn’t that high up! And I landed on Wahlgren. It’s fine, Soups.”

“It’s really not. It’s completely fucking insane. I’m so mad at you right now.”

“What do you want me to say?” Shane asked, though he knew; he just wasn’t willing to say it. He wasn’t sorry and didn’t want to lie that he was. He would’ve done it a hundred times to get that passport back. He wasn’t injured, never intended to get injured, and he’d solved the problem in the short time they had to solve it. There was no way he was sorry.

Soupy just glared at him, hard, then slumped back in his seat with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked out the window instead of at Shane, and they dropped back into a tense silence. Ilya tried to switch on the radio and Costco slapped his hand away, and for once Shane wished there was some music on, just to break the tension.

Shane looked out the window, too, but didn’t really register the trees and buildings they passed by; it was too dark out, anyway. He thought, instead, about how scared everyone looked when he was on the ground, how desperately they’d all shouted his name from the roof, not caring who heard them or if they got caught. He felt something oily and unpleasant fill him up inside, something like guilt, and he sighed and dropped his head against the glass of his window.

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” he said eventually to the minivan at large, though he looked over at Soupy. Soupy looked back at him, thawing a little, and then punched him lightly on the shoulder.

“That’s as good as I’m going to get from you, eh?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Fine, I’ll take it. But never do anything like that again, you psycho.”

“I’ll try not to,” Shane said, then quickly amended, “Okay no, I won’t,” when Soupy’s face twisted up again.

“And you hold on to that fucking passport, Roz,” Soupy called up ahead, which sent Ilya into bickering to defend himself and insult Wahlgren. That brought the non-trunk habitants of the minivan back into alignment and chatter and laughter filled the space, a certain giddiness floating above their heads as they realized they had done it, they’d pulled off their heist, and they’d made it out mostly unscathed.

As the chatter picked up, Soupy slid over and lowered his voice way down, only for Shane. “I won’t keep arguing, but that was a crazy fucking thing to do just to get your rival over to the MLH, you know.”

“I know,” Shane said. He didn’t quite get what Soupy meant until Soupy kept staring at him, his eyebrows raised, and then he maybe got it too well and blushed hot. “I mean—”

“I thought this was just one of your nutbar hockey things, but like—” Soupy’s voice became a bare whisper, almost a breath. “Is it?”

“I—I don’t know, I mean—I just—”

“It’s okay,” Soupy said, reading Shane’s panic quickly, firming up his voice to be soothing. “Hey, it’s fine—”

“Is it?” Shane asked in a very small voice, unable to help it. He had a horrible moment to think of Soupy’s parents, about hell, which he didn’t even believe in, but still had to worry about when it came to his best friend from Thunder Bay.

“It is,” Soupy said immediately, no hesitation. His volume rose just a little bit, reassuring and kind, somehow oblivious to the relief coursing through Shane. “It really is, Shane, even if it’s—if you don’t know—you’ll figure it out, you know?”

“Yeah,” Shane said, trying to be reassured. He knew, then, that they were attracting more attention, that this conversation wasn’t just theirs anymore—Ilya was looking back at him, worried, and the chatter had dropped. “We can stop—”

“It’s all right not to know,” Soupy said, way too loud now. Shane slapped at him, shaking his head, but Soupy just slapped him back and kept going. “Like, don’t tell my parents, but I’m probably still figuring things out too.”

“Soupy, shut up.”

“I know you’re a big shot MLHer now, but we’re all still just kids, technically. Kids that just pulled off something crazy, for sure, but—”

“Hey, can you not—”

“What? I’m just saying—like I’m pretty sure I’m into girls—”

“Andy,” Shane hissed; he felt like he was going to explode.

“—but like, my actual sexuality might be into girls, but I’ll do whatever Shane Hollander asks of me.”

There was a brief silence following this proclamation, during which Shane seriously thought about hurling himself up into the front, grabbing the wheel from Costco, and driving his parents’ Volkswagen Tauron straight off the road.

Then Vaughny said, “Oh, same.”

“What,” said Ilya, turning his head to glare back at him and Soupy both.

“Same,” Costco chimed in, which meant Ilya had to swivel his head to the side, like an owl. Shane put his face in his hands and didn’t know if it was to capture laughter or pure hysterical fear or both.

And fucking Wahlgren, all the way from the trunk, said, “Yes, same,” like a supreme douchebag, and somehow that made the laughter win out.

“What,” Ilya yelled, turning all the way in his seat now, getting tangled up in his seatbelt as he tried to go on his knees. “What did you just say, fuckhead? Costco, stop the car, I will kill him—I will throw you off cliff, Wahlgren, you—” That was the end of English and Shane’s sanity as he dissolved into uncontrollable laughter, doubled over in his seat.

Soon everyone joined him but Ilya and Wahlgren, who were still screaming at each other very unproductively in Russian and Swedish, and the moment passed without anything really figured out or well-defined, but Shane still felt like it was mostly okay, at least inside this minivan, which was better than nowhere.

 

The hotel lobby was empty and they’d needed to use a keycard to get in, but that worked in their favor. Shane let the other guys go ahead and hung back with Ilya; when the elevator opened, they both hesitated, even as Vaughny held the door open for them.

“Um,” Shane said. Hunched in the corner of the elevator, Wahlgren said something in Swedish that made Costco hit him. “I think we’ll take the next one.”

“What d’you mean? There’s plenty of room,” Vaughny said.

Ilya rolled his eyes, reached out, and gave Vaughny a gentle—for him, so it still knocked him halfway across the elevator car—shove away from the door.

“Goodnight,” Ilya said, waving as the doors started to close. “Thank you for help. I love you. Not you, Wahlgren, you piece of shit. I will tell Sveta everything.”

“Goodnight!” Shane called to the closed doors. Then they stood there, and Shane really didn’t know where to go. The roof was too cold; the parking lot was too cold. The bathroom was too gross. Shane’s room had Wrighter and Ilya’s had Pasha, who were both probably sound asleep, getting in their good, pregame eight hours. That’s what Shane should’ve been doing, or as close as he could, but he couldn’t bring himself to just go to sleep.

“Should’ve kept keys to ugly minivan,” Ilya said, clearly going through the same thought process. Shane laughed and caught Ilya’s proud little smile. He smiled back, and it occurred to him he could actually just sit out in the hallway all night with Ilya, that he wouldn’t mind the lost sleep or the discomfort, as long as they were there together.

The thought made his face feel hot, and Ilya’s smile widened a bit when he saw it. Shane busied himself by checking the time on his phone, wincing at the late hour, and then putting it out of his head when the phone reminded him of something.

“Business center?” Shane asked. Ilya beamed at him.

Ilya took Shane’s hand at some point in the empty hallway, where Shane had paced while Ilya talked to the arrangers of his future. He squeezed it tight and only let it go when they discovered the door locked and Shane had to try Soupy’s YouTube trick, getting them in quickly and quietly. Ilya groaned a little, and Shane looked back at him in the dark of the room.

“What?”

“So hot,” Ilya whispered, like it was a secret. And of course it was. They sat on the floor next to each other, in the dark, on the horrible, dirty carpet that Shane tried not to think about. That was a secret, too, all of this was: the way the room was small enough that their thighs had to touch, their backs against the rickety little table legs, and the way they looked at each other and didn’t stop.

They were going to kiss, Shane realized. That was the biggest secret, he knew, and maybe the scariest, but also the most exciting. At some point, he was going to pluck up the courage to kiss Ilya Rozanov, or maybe Ilya would kiss him first. Probably that one. Maybe they would do more than kiss. The thought made Shane’s palms a little sweaty, and he wiped them off on his black sweatpants. Ilya took his hand again, though he frowned down at it, which didn’t seem very conducive to kissing.

“What?” Shane asked, inelegant and blunt. It made Ilya’s frown shrink a little, at least.

“You scared me,” he told Shane. “When you fall, I thought—”

“I’m fine, I told you,” Shane said, a little frustrated with having to rehash it again.

Ilya nodded, ducking his head, and sniffed. “I know, I know, but—fuck, would never forgive Wahlgren if you got hurt. I want to kill him when you fall.”

“Well, he’s an asshole, so that’s okay.”

“He is,” Ilya agreed, nodding again. But then he made a face, grimacing. “Ugh, but—I think I do have to forgive him, soon.”

Shane got that pretty quickly. He’d forgiven a lot of people for a lot of shit over the years. That was just hockey. “Yeah. You’ll be teammates. You don’t have to be friends, but—”

“—but he will be good, I think, maybe. If he stops being asshole. He was good in our game, you know, did not let me move, breathing on my neck—I think if he does this to other teams, stops trying to play like me, we will be good—”

Shane didn’t let him finish the sentence. He didn’t even say, “Good, sure, but not better than Montreal,” which he did think to do. It was only a brief flash, fleeting and secondary, immediately consumed by another, baser impulse to lurch to the side and kiss Ilya on the mouth, hard.

“That’s so hot,” he mumbled against Ilya’s lips, pressing his own lips in tight. It was probably a pretty bad kiss; Ilya’s mouth was a little open, most likely in surprise, and Shane hadn’t quite worked up enough courage or horniness to slip him any tongue. Shane kept at it, though, because he wasn’t a quitter, and his experience with kissing told him it would get better eventually. That felt inevitable too. He’d never kissed a guy before, and he had a feeling—

Yeah, there; Ilya got his mouth up to speed on things and answered the kiss. He deepened it, hands going up around Shane’s ribs, moving him to get a better angle, and then it was so hard and frantic and consuming that Shane had to crawl into Ilya’s lap, seeking more closeness.

Ilya had none of Shane’s hesitance about tongue and soon it was less like kissing and more like getting his face eaten, in the best possible way. Shane grasped, gasped, and wondered how he’d been afraid of this even moments ago. It was all he wanted, now, and why not go for it like he went for everything else? The reasons not to seemed far away, outside of this business center, across the ocean, maybe; they didn’t seem to exist here in Helsinki, at least not right now.

Shane squirmed with that thought and sunk further into the kiss, giving over to what felt like weeks and months of desire. He felt like the same version of himself that had tackled Wahlgren off a rooftop, hurtling into his own want face first.

“Fuck,” said Ilya, rumbling it into his mouth. “You’re so—” Shane didn’t let him finish, licking the thought up, kissing it off his lips; Shane knew what he was, anyway, in that precise moment, if only then.

They kissed for a while like they had all the time in the world. It felt like that, even though Shane knew it wasn’t true, that they did need to sleep at some point. He just refused to sleep without this kiss, or the next one, or this final one—each kiss refused to be the last and Shane felt like he was lost in it and utterly, completely found at the same time.

In Ilya’s lap it was impossible to ignore that they were both hard. Shane used to like kissing as its own thing, tried to enjoy it for as long as possible so all the awkwardness and discomfort that inevitably came after could be put off. Now, though, he felt excited, buzzing with an anticipation that wasn’t overrun with anxiety, that was more like the moments of walking down the tunnel to skate out onto the ice—he squirmed with it and made Ilya groan, made their hips push against each other, and Shane grinned into the latest kiss until it seamlessly became another.

Ilya’s hands drifted down from where they’d been clutching at Shane’s ribs. They went to his hips, the waistband of his black heist pants, and he broke the kiss to look at Shane like there was a question he needed to ask. Shane tried to chase the kiss, grumbled when Ilya ducked out of reach, and met his eyes.

“What?”

“Is okay?” Ilya asked, though he was smiling helplessly, his eyes sparkling brighter than anyone else had managed all tournament.

“Yeah, course, it’s good,” Shane babbled, impatient, and then it occurred to him, just as Ilya’s hand was snaking down the front of his pants—“Oh, can I touch you too?”

“Yes,” Ilya said. His voice shook with laughter, but Shane was fairly certain he wasn’t being mean. If he was trying to be mean, dropping his forehead against Shane’s, closing his eyes, and whispering, “Touch me,” in this breathy, sexy voice really sent mixed signals.

“Yeah,” Shane said, probably not as sexy, even if it still made Ilya groan. He wormed his hand down Ilya’s pants, fingered the waistband of his underwear for only a moment before his eagerness took over. And then he touched Ilya’s dick where it was hard and warm, touched him where he’d never touched another guy before. Ilya groaned again, and faltered in his own deft movements; he cupped his hand over the front of Shane’s boxer briefs and just kind of held it there. For some reason it drove Shane crazy.

Shane held him back and got brave enough to stroke, jerky little movements. The angle was horrible, but Ilya still made noises like it was porn, breathing harshly against Shane’s cheek. He pressed the heel of his hand into Shane’s dick, hard and maybe a little mean this time, but Shane’s eyes rolled back in his head and he panted thickly, grinding back into it.

Ilya moved them, then, cursing lowly in Russian, and he pushed Shane back and started to go with him. Shane went, still panting, and only flinched when it got into his head that he was being spread out against this disgusting carpet. Ilya caught it and froze.

“Shane? Okay?”

“Yeah,” Shane whined, but he was keeping his head up so his borrowed toque wouldn’t touch the carpet, and it was killing his neck a little.

“What is wrong?” Ilya asked, a little frantic now.

There was nothing else to do but admit, “The carpet, s’gross,” and refrain from admitting that he’d let Ilya jerk him off on a pile of post-practice hockey gear as long as he could jerk him off back. He didn’t say that, though he thought it. Ilya huffed out a laugh, and used one of his hands first to cradle the back of Shane’s head, keeping it off the carpet. Then he took his hand off Shane’s covered dick—Shane let out an embarrassing whimper, a devastated “No,” drawn out too long—and squirmed out of his Team Russia puffer jacket, and spread it out on the floor below Shane.

“Better?” he asked as he laid Shane down over it, hovered above him, kissed his cheeks and his chin and his nose before Shane grabbed his face and pushed their mouths together. Shane kissed the hell out of him in answer, and he squeezed his dick, and Ilya made a desperate noise against his lips and put his hand back in Shane’s pants, where—as far as Shane was concerned—it belonged.

“Fuck,” Ilya said, drawn out like Shane’s no. “I think yes, is better.” He sounded smug, though his smirk cracked when Shane stroked him a little harder.

Ilya held himself over Shane with one hand and jerked him off with the other, spreading an unprecedented amount of precome all over the front of Shane’s briefs until everything was slick, noisy, stomach-clenching and a little humiliating. Shane jerked him right back, though it wasn’t as wet, and gathered his braincells in order only long enough to spit in his own hand before getting it back on Ilya’s dick—also where it belonged.

They huffed and writhed against each other, wrists twisting and bumping, thighs shaking. Shane got annoyed with how long Ilya was holding the position, showing off, and slung a leg up over his ass to bring him down. The drop made them both make too much noise; Ilya buried a shout into Shane’s hair and Shane moaned happily under his weight, pleasure zipped out to his tingling fingers and toes.

It was the weight that made him come, choking out, “Oh god, Ilya, please,” with no notion of what he was pleading for. Ilya kissed him again, so maybe it was that; he kissed him through making a mess of his pants, of Ilya’s fist. Ilya ground down on him, making the mess worse, and Shane could only bask in it because it was more weight, hard and perfect.

Ilya whimpered out, “Fuck, Shane,” when Shane squeezed his orgasm out of him, cradling Ilya’s thrusting hips with his legs. They stayed slumped against each other, panting, until Shane said, “Gross,” and pulled his hand out covered with come.

“Shane,” Ilya said, laughing it out. He made a show of sucking on two of Shane’s fingers, even though Shane said, “Ew, Ilya, don’t!” and didn’t move his hand even a centimeter away. Then he did the same to his own hand, putting on a fake thoughtful look, like he was comparing the tastes, and Shane shoved at him, laughing so hard his stomach hurt.

“Want to try?” Ilya asked, looking down at Shane and smiling so hard it looked like it hurt, too. Shane smiled back even as he shook his head.

“No way.”

“You are sure?” Ilya cut off Shane’s assurances by licking into his mouth, kissing him like he was eating him again, and Shane kissed back with a sigh, tasted them both, and even licked his lips afterwards to make Ilya laugh.

They laughed together in the dark, sticky and giddy, pressed against each other. Shane thought he could stay here forever until he thought of the gold medal game, the sleep they needed to get, the future they had to wake up for.

“I’m still going to kick your ass tomorrow,” Shane said, just in case Ilya had any doubts. Ilya beamed at him, but shook his head.

“You can try, Number Two, but you will fail. I’m Number One for good reason.”

“Shut up. You’re going to lose.”

“I don’t think so. But don’t worry.” Ilya leaned to press another kiss against Shane’s mouth, bump their noses together, brush his eyelashes across Shane’s freckles. “Rematch soon in Montreal, yes?”

“Yes,” Shane said, too happy to answer any other way.

Shane would have to test this properly when he got home, but he thought the gold medal felt lighter than silver.

He thought about this as he stood in the Helsinki airport, near the open door the rest of his team, coaches, friends, parents, and everyone else taking the same flight back to North America had filed through to board. There was a United employee waiting with a frozen smile on her face, and Pelly had stuck around, too, unwilling to be bullied the way Shane had bullied his parents into boarding without him. The plane was waiting, the crew was probably really pissed off, not to mention all the passengers—but Ilya hadn’t shown up yet, so it couldn’t leave.

“Shane,” Pelly said for what felt like the millionth time. He’d started this waiting period by calling him Hollzy, then Hollander, and now Shane in that soft, consoling voice Shane did not fucking want to listen to. “Come on, buddy, we have to let the plane go now. It is so late.”

“No,” Shane said. He had his arms crossed over his chest and he knew he looked like a petulant child. He felt like one, too, but there was no way he was letting this plane leave without Ilya Rozanov on it. “He’ll be here, we just have to wait a few more minutes.”

They’d known from the start that it would be tight. Farah had advised Ilya to keep the Russian team in the dark about his plans until the very last moment, which meant going to the airport with them for their own short flight to Moscow and then breaking away from them once he was through customs. From there, he would book it to the gate on his ticket and get on the chartered United flight to Newark with everyone else.

That’s what Ilya had promised Shane he would do, a few times—once before the sun was up, that morning of the gold medal game; once during warmups before the game, when Shane skated up to him and said, “Tell me the plan again,” because he needed to hear it. Ilya leaned in close, made sure no one else was all that close, and laid it out.

He’d promised again in the handshake line, sort of, mouth twisted ruefully, eyes heavy with the loss but caught on Shane’s anyway. It would be the last handshake line they’d have unless both Montreal and Boston somehow made the playoffs, so Shane made the most of it, gripping Ilya’s hand hard in his and thinking about how they’d gripped each other’s dicks just a few hours ago. He grinned wide with victory.

“Rematch in Montreal?” Shane murmured, with Ilya’s hand in his. Ilya’s mouth quirked in some approximation of a smile, like he was biting down on it, and his eyes lit up before he could close them.

“Yes,” Ilya said, he promised. He squeezed Shane’s hand and let it go. Their teams moved them along and Shane got swept up in the business of winning, in accepting the tournament MVP and a gold medal around his neck. He lost a few hours to celebrations, the locker room an explosion of cheers and beers and music and then his parents’ arms around him, celebrating with him, heads knocking together in their hugs. Soupy’s parents took pictures. And through it all, Shane thought of Ilya’s hand in his, the promise he’d made.

He consoled himself with that promise in the airport, even as Pelly sighed noisily and paced around him.

“Kid,” Pelly said, accent thick with irritation. “Come on. It’s not the end, you know—he can get on another flight—”

“Not if they’ve done something,” Shane said, clenching his fists. He’d wanted to go and find Ilya, but Pelly told him they would leave him here, too, if he walked away from the gate. Shane said that was fine and he’d figure it out, and Pelly got so mad that he’d called his bluff that he’d started calling him Hollander for a while.

“Who is this ‘they’? Russia? Shane, this is not a spy movie, you know.”

“You don’t understand. He had to run away from them; they don’t want to let him go. He’s defecting. It’s exactly like a spy movie, actually,” Shane told him. “They probably figured it out and stopped him somehow. I need to go—”

“Or he just overslept,” Pelly cut in before they could restart that argument. Shane glared at him. He thought about taking off running anyway, fairly certain that Pelly couldn’t catch up with him—but if his mom found out and got off the plane, she certainly could and there would be hell to pay. He clenched his fists again instead, but resolved to give it a few more minutes before it came to that.

“He didn’t,” Shane said. “He wouldn’t do that. You don’t know what this means to him.”

“Even if it’s true, we have to go. There are rules, schedules, we cannot just stay here—”

“Wait.” Shane moved away from the gate a little, staring down the bustling terminal. It had been just a glimpse, and for a moment he thought he was imagining things—but then—

“This is what I’m telling you, Shane. We cannot wait. We have to go, now—do not make me get your parents out here to—”

“Wait!” Shane yelled, jumping in place. “He’s there, he’s coming!”

Because there was Ilya Rozanov, duffle bag slung over one shoulder, racing down the terminal like he was being chased. It took Shane a moment to realize he was being chased—an older man in a tracksuit that Shane recognized as a Russian assistant coach was chasing him. Ilya had a decent amount of ground on him, legs pumping, but the coach was furious, yelling and speeding up, reaching out—

“I have to help him!” Shane said, and he tried to run at Ilya. Pelly grabbed him, though, and held him in place, shaking his head.

“No way, stay here. Do not get in the middle of this Russian business. If you get hurt, I will have to murder that man or I will not be allowed back to Canada, and even then it’s pointless because your mother will just murder me—”

“Coach, let me go—Ilya! Ilya, keep going! We’re holding the plane for you!”

Ilya kept going. He was breathing hard and grinning wildly, somehow, his eyes blazing and his curls completely askew. Red-faced, sweating, wearing that fucking Russia puffer that he and Shane had had sex on just yesterday morning; he was one of the most beautiful sights Shane had ever laid eyes on.

The Russian coach, probably the one they’d robbed, also kept going, unfortunately. He was yelling angry Russian words that Shane could only guess at, drawing stares and gasps from the other people in the terminal. Shane’s heart leapt as the coach lunged forward, reaching out, almost reaching the strap of Ilya’s bag—

And then the coach was flung sideways by a sudden flying elbow. Pavel Artyomovich Samitov appeared as if from thin air and knocked the Russian coach into a display of Moomin toys, grinning triumphantly.

“Go, Ilyukha! Go to New Jersey and America! See the wonders of Newark Airport and eat your chicken bakes!” Pasha pumped two fists in the air to punctuate these remarks, and Ilya pumped one in return without looking back.

He kept running, even when he was steps from Shane, who managed to break out of Pelly’s hold and lunge towards him. They slammed into each other, laughing and yelling different things—Ilya was saying, “Sorry, sorry, I was stupid, I stop and he saw, sorry,” and Shane babbled back, “I know, it’s okay, I knew you’d make it, I wouldn’t let the plane leave,” and they held onto each other way too tight for public, but couldn’t really care.

“Fuck’s sake,” Pelly said, and then he grabbed them both by the scruffs of their necks and started frog-marching them to the gate. “Come on. Will that other kid be okay? He just took out his fucking coach—do not ever think of doing that to Michel Theriault, Shane, he will gut you—”

Shane looked back, breathless, but Pasha was standing with his dad, who was absolutely laughing his ass off at the coach picking himself up from a pile of stuffed hippo-like trolls. They both waved at Shane, and Shane waved wildly back.

“Thank you, Pasha! We’ll see you in our division!” Shane yelled, exuberant. Pelly cursed him out in French and shoved him through the door, where the United employee looked very, very relieved.

They boarded the plane to a mix of cheers—namely from people like Soupy, Vaughny, and Costco, all sitting together—and frustrated groans and complaints over the wait. Shane ignored the groans and grinned at his friends, making a beeline for them, and only paused to tell his parents, “It’s okay, I’ll explain later, sorry,” as he passed their confused faces.

“Hello,” Ilya said over his shoulder, beaming. He thanked every flight attendant they passed for holding the plane, high-fived Soupy, let Vaughny stand up and hug him hard, and didn’t stop smiling even when Vaughny said, “Man, the 30 for 30 about this whole thing is going to be epic,” and he didn’t understand what that meant.

“Later,” Shane promised, and he shoved Ilya into a row behind Soupy and Costco, grabbed his bag, threw it in the overhead, and sat down next to him. He fastened his seatbelt, tightened Ilya’s, made sure his phone was on airplane mode, and settled in his seat feeling like he’d just run and won a fucking marathon.

Shane didn’t really relax until they went through the entire takeoff process. He sat, jiggling both legs, extending them so Ilya couldn’t get out of the row without climbing over him, clenching both armrests and ignoring Ilya’s complaints that he was hogging the middle one, until they were wheels up, steadily making their way to cruising altitude. Shane’s ears popped and he let out a deep breath before he turned to look fully at Ilya.

“We did it,” Shane told him, giddy and thrilled. Ilya laughed, nodded vigorously.

“Yes. Yes. I am coming to New Jersey.”

“You’re coming to the MLH,” Shane said. He could barely believe it.

“I am coming to beat you, yes.”

“Well, that’s not happening.”

“Yes it is. But don’t worry; we are friends now,” Ilya told him, and he put his hand over his heart. “I will let you cry on my ass.”

Shane shoved him, laughing. Ilya shoved him back. They wrestled a little in their seats, drawing more looks; his mom looked back at him and seemed caught between amusement and annoyance, like she’d wished for Shane to make friends on a cursed monkey’s paw and this was what had happened. Shane had meant his promise to explain; he would have to because Ilya was right. They were friends and his parents would have to know all about that. They were friends and rivals, friends and—and something else, maybe, whatever you called guys that jerked each other off and maybe did other stuff, too, Shane hoped. But friends for sure; there was time, as the wise Soupy Campbell once said, to figure all the rest out.

Mid-wrestling, Ilya suddenly gasped and froze. He pulled back to dig in his pockets and Shane allowed the draw and waited him out.

“I almost forget,” Ilya said. “I stopped for this, almost get caught for this, and do not even give you.”

“You stopped to get something for me?” Shane asked, a little outraged. He gave Ilya one last shove, but Ilya just grinned at him and shook a plastic candy bag in his face.

“Worth it for your turkey pepper,” Ilya said, and pushed the bag in Shane’s hands.

And there it was, a little blue packet, with a yellow sign on it and letters that said Tyrkisk Peber, which the lady in the store had assured Ilya was exactly what he was looking for when he asked. Shane ripped it open and poured a few little black hard candies into his palm, staring at them for a second. It felt momentous, somehow, as weighty as winning MVP, winning gold, and winning Ilya Rozanov.

“You’ll try it too, right?” Shane asked, and Ilya nodded eagerly and picked one up. “Together?”

“Yes,” Ilya said, and they each tossed one of the candies into their mouths and sucked once, twice.

Ilya spit it out before the third suck. Shane started laughing so hard his eyes teared up, though the candy probably helped.

“Fuck, no, this is—Shane, do not, is poison, I get wrong thing—”

“This is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted,” Shane said, but he couldn’t stop laughing enough to spit it out.