Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Ilya Rozanov, Original Female Character(s), Shane Hollander

Additional Tags:

POV Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau Finds Out About Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Show!Cliff, basically my take on the events of The Long Game if Ilya and Cliff are as close as the show makes them seem, Spoilers for Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), the OC is the cool big sister i gave cliff to teach him to talk about feelings with his bros, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hockey typical homophobic and sexist language, but Cliff does Learn, Show!Svetlana is mentioned but does not show up, Uses Show Team Names

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-13 Words: 11,785 Chapters: 1/1

my best friend's new best friend

Summary

Roz couldn’t take three hours off when he was in Boston to see Cliff, but somehow managed to kick off a whole ass friendship with his worst enemy when the guy lived two hours away? Make that make sense! As far as Cliff knew, Hollander didn’t even like any of the things that Roz liked – partying or clubbing or drinking. What did Hollander have that Cliff didn’t? Besides a second Cup? And several MVP awards? And multiple broken records?

Oh god. Had Roz picked Hollander as his new best friend because he was better than Cliff at hockey?

--

Cliff is very proud to be Ilya Rozanov's best friend (or at least his best male friend). But then Ilya moves to Ottawa, dodges Cliff's attempts to hang out and, oh yeah, suddenly announces a close friendship with a guy he's hated for most of a decade. This would be much simpler to deal with if Cliff had any idea how to talk to Roz about feelings. Or how to talk about feelings at all.

Notes

It took Cliff Marleau about eight months to decide Ilya Rozanov was his best friend.

Maybe realize was a better word than decide, actually. He didn’t make an active choice or anything. He just woke up one day hungover as hell on Rozanov’s couch (like he did every third or so weekend), and after a minute listening to the sound of Roz frying eggs and whistling in the kitchen he thought I’ve never had a friend like this before, and it all clicked into place.

Look, he wasn’t a chick – he hadn’t spent all of his childhood thinking about shit like best friends, alright? His big sister Eliza, however, had been obsessed with the title. There were friendship bracelets made and traded and magazine quizzes taken over and over again, mall visits dissected and sleepover invitations rescinded and re-offered. She’d once gotten into a screaming match with their mother over the order her birthday party invites went out in – certain people had to know they were in the top tier of invites, Sara couldn’t think Beth had gotten an invite first, God, Mom, you’re ruining my fucking life! She’d once cried for four hours over another friend’s MySpace Top 8, Layla ranking her lower than Jenna even though Jenna had totally talked shit about Layla’s new jacket last week, didn’t loyalty mean anything? For her, the social minefield of childhood and young adulthood had been fraught and had mattered more than anything. For her, friendships had strict rules to be adhered to, lessons to be learned, and she had made sure to impart these lessons on young Cliff as best as she could. For instance there was a marked, clear difference between a friend and a best friend. You could only ever have one of the latter, and if you weren’t your best friend’s best friend? Game over, might as well drop out of school and move out of town to die alone you fucking loser. 

Friendship had been easier for Cliff in those days – mostly he just hung out with the guys on his juniors team, and then his college team, who he liked the most. There was no hierarchy or structure. If you’d asked him at 20, he would have said best friends were exclusively a girl thing. Guys didn’t really hang out one on one that often. They didn’t talk about feelings or share secrets or braid each other’s fucking hair. They certainly did not have friendship bracelets.

Or, at least, these were things Cliff didn’t do. He realized, much later, that other boys did have best friends. That there were some guys on the team who were obviously closer to each other than they were to Cliff. He never really noticed, though, because he was always on the invite list to parties, so whatever. He didn’t need more than that. He didn’t need a best friend. He just needed friends. Duh. 

Getting the call to the majors was a dream come true. It was the ticket to the rest of his life. So what if he immediately lost touch with the guys at uni? Who cared? Friends were made to come and go and be convenient – a friend was someone you called for a good time, and that was about it. The idea that friendships could span time and distances, it all seemed absurd.

He hadn’t been the only rookie on Boston his first year, but him and the other kid – a squirrely little fuck called Briggs – didn’t really get along. Briggs had what Cliff’s mother would have called delusions of grandeur – he thought he was going to be rookie of the year, and that made every other rookie an enemy to beat, nevermind that him and Cliff were meant to be on the same team, and nevermind that one usually had to score some goals to become rookie of the year.

A thing about Cliff: he was a realist. His parents hadn’t exactly been loaded – hockey took a lot out of the monthly budget for them, and he appreciated the sacrifices they made on his behalf. In return, he could give them this much: a clear-eyed understanding of his own faults and limitations, at least as a hockey player. He was a good player, and there were days where he edged on being a great player, but he wasn’t one of those instant stars, and it was doubtful he'd ever be a household name. He was a late round draft pick padding out a team in a perpetual rebuilding mode. In a year or two or three, the Raiders would set their sights on someone better than Cliff could ever be, and Cliff would have to adapt to that guy’s playstyle or die. But Cliff was fucking adaptable. He made himself be. If he couldn’t be a star, he could be a moon orbiting one, or whatever. He played good and smart; he avoided injuries and built up a reputation for himself as the type of guy who took notes and changed what he needed to. He had an ego, but not an oversized one. He wasn’t ever going to be the top defensive scorer in the league, but his plus/minus was more plus than minus most games. These were good things. He knew that at any point in his life this could all go away – Boston could shuffle him down to fucking Providence or put him on a plane to a team that would keep him on the bench forever. A bad play could result in an injury that ended it all. He wasn’t going to let those things happen if he could help it, but he never let himself forget they were possible. 

Briggs wasn’t like that. Briggs thought he was one of the greats. And Cliff would have maybe had patience for that if he was one of the greats, but he wasn’t, so whatever. Fuck Briggs. It wasn’t like they needed to bond. It wasn’t like he was jealous of the other guys in his draft class who posted about their best friends on their teams, or whatever. Really! It wasn’t! There were a couple of Boston guys – older than him but under 30 – who let him tag along to bars with them, so it wasn’t like he was lonely or anything. He had a handful of friends and that was all he needed. It all worked out, and eventually Briggs got punted down to Providence after all to make room for a real star. 

Ilya Rozanov. 

The name was everywhere. It had been hard to ignore the build up of Ilya Rozanov, a superstar coming down the line – right next to another superstar, of course. 

Cliff wasn’t sure he’d ever heard of a pre-draft rivalry, but Rozanov and this Shane Hollander kid were sure making a show out of it. Some of the guys on the team gathered at Connors’ to watch the Prospect Cup, knowing that their number one draft pick was likely playing, and Cliff knew right away that Boston would go for the Russian. Not that Hollander was bad – he was steady, and fast, and accurate as all fuck, and he seemed to know where the puck was going to be fifteen seconds before anyone else – but he just wasn’t Boston. Boston was a team for Massholes. Rozanov would turn them into scrappers and fighters, make them fast and mean. That was what they needed. It was what they were missing. 

Cliff would have been lying if he said he wasn’t excited about Rozanov as a teammate – but he hadn’t really figured they’d be friends. He’d heard the kid was hard to deal with, that teammates pushed back against him, that he chirped aggressively, smirked too much, and was quick to throw a punch. Cliff heard that Roz partied with the children of oligarchs and Russian hockey legends and went home with a new supermodel every weekend. Granted, Cliff didn’t necessarily believe all that – some of it was myth-making for sure, and some of it was almost certainly exaggerated to further the differences between Roz and Hollander, between the cocky, flashy, arrogance of one and the stoic, media-trained politeness of the other. But Cliff figured Roz would be an asshole, and would have an ego the size of god, and would be too good for his teammates – would party on his own and isolate himself from the crowd, except on the ice. So it wasn’t like Cliff heard the news about the draft and thought alright, I’m making a new friend soon. 

He was wrong about Roz, though.

He kind of thought everyone was wrong about Roz, really. 

Roz was an asshole, Cliff could say that much, but there was something affectionate about his assholery. Or, at least maybe there was when it was directed at Cliff. Roz liked people who played good hockey and kept good company – Cliff felt he was both of those things. Rozanov was a bit rougher with the lesser guys on the team, a bit meaner, but some of that seemed showboaty too. For all that Roz would call Scott Hunter dinosaur and Shane Hollander boring he didn’t really seem to hate either of them. They weren’t exactly jokes – Cliff thought he really did mean both of those things – but they weren’t malicious either. 

They were chirps, plain and simple. Hockey lived so completely in Rozanov’s bones that it bled into his off-ice personality too. Some guys had an off switch, but not Roz – Roz was on, always.

And he and Cliff got on quick. 

It started with a single, simple invitation – Cliff asking if Roz ever wanted to grab a beer after practice, a thing offered mostly as a politeness and one he expected the guy to turn down. But Roz had said yes quickly and within a month or two the two of them were at out on the town nearly every free weekend together. They drank with abandon and picked up chicks together. They roomed together fairly consistently on the road, and that meant they went out there, too, to honky tonk bars in Nashville where Roz shamelessly hit on bachelorette parties and to clubs in New York where the music was so loud they couldn’t hear themselves think.

And then some more months passed, and one night Cliff realized at 1am that he’d left his goddamn house keys at the rink so Rozanov let Cliff crash on his couch. They fell into a routine – party all night, Cliff crashing on the couch, eggs fried in enough butter to kill them both in the morning, and then video games until they either had to be somewhere or Ilya decided he was done being social. They hung out more, sometimes just in one of their houses, not needing the bar or the club as background. They talked regularly, and texted all of the time, and had inside jokes. 

Somewhere in the mythic stretch of the first eight months of Ilya Rozanov’s career, Cliff had ended up in a situation he’d never been in before – where he hung out one-on-one with mostly one person, and where there was one person he wanted to hang out with one-on-one the most. 

A best fucking friend. 

He actually called his sister about it once he realized. Eliza had burst into laughter that edged on mean. “Men are so weird,” she said, once she was done. “But I’m happy for you, Cliff. It’s nice you have someone to talk to, at least.”

Which, alright – he and Roz didn’t really do that. Not even as the years passed and they continued to hang out more and more.

Like: they talked, sure, but not about their feelings or shit. They talked about women and cars and video games and hockey. They talked about players they hated and teams they wanted to destroy.

They did not talk about the times Cliff got a little too drunk and ended up teary-eyed at the idea of dying alone, afraid he’d never find a way to make a girl stick around longer than six months with his fucked up schedule. They did not talk about the calls from contacts in Cyrillic that Roz declined over and over again. 

They also didn’t talk about Montreal Jane, try as Cliff might. 

Roz could deny it all he wanted, but it was obvious that this chick was more than just his usual roster filler. His face got different when Montreal Jane was the girl on the other end of his phone screen. His posture too. Gone was straight-backed, shoulder-squared, cocky grin Roz; in his place was someone who actually looked like the 21-year-old kid he was, cheeks red, eyes dancing with humor, chewing on his crucifix to try and hide his grin, fingers playing absently in his hair. In Roz’s place was Ilya. And Ilya liked this chick. Really liked her. Never went out for more than a drink or two with the boys when they were in Montreal, even when they’d crushed the Metros – made his excuses and ran off. He played better in the games just before or just after seeing her. He got a sort of edgy excitement ahead of games against Montreal, even ones in Boston. The media and most of the guys chalked it up to excitement about playing Hollander, but truly Cliff was pretty sure it was this girl, all tied up in Roz’s thoughts even when he was just playing the team from her city and not actually seeing her. 

Cliff had tried to pry it out of Roz once or twice – just a joke or two, seeing if it would cause him to spill – but the kid remained elusive. He did not rise to any occasion. He said that she was no one special. Just another girl he liked to fuck. “Amazing mouth,” he’d tossed out once, with a lazy grin, and that was it.

But that was alright. Cliff wasn’t exactly a feelings guy anyway. They were men, they were hockey players – they didn’t have to talk about falling in love or anything like that. It was fine. They were best friends anyway – Cliff knew they were best friends because after they won the Cup together Roz had said as much, drunk off his ass in someone’s fucking house, not that either of them could remember who’s it was.

“Marly,” Roz had said, words slurring together. “Marly. You are. . . best friend.” He grabbed Marly’s face, a hand around his chin. “Best friend in whole fucking world! I love you, you asshole!”

“What about your girl Svetlana?” Marly had asked. He was drunk, too – that was the only reason he asked. It wasn’t like it bugged him that Roz was his best friend and Roz’s best friend was almost certainly a beautiful Russian woman he also fucked sometimes. It didn’t hurt that Roz had come back from the Olympics and something had obviously been wrong and Cliff couldn’t for the life of him get Roz to talk about it. He absolutely had not spent random sleepless nights wondering if Svetlana knew what had happened in Sochi, or if Jane knew. He never ever felt a stab of irrational jealousy that if Roz talked to someone about his feelings, it certainly wasn’t Cliff. 

Those were all stupid feelings, so Cliff just straight up refused to have them. Except when he was drunk, they’d sort of bubbled to the surface, and now here he was asking about Svetlana more directly than he ever thought he would. 

Roz had made a funny, scrunched up face. “What? No. Sveta is. . . is like family, yes? Different.”

Cliff barked a laugh. “A cousin you fuck?”

Roz shoved his face away, scowling. “Don’t be gross. The sex is just sex, it does not matter. Is separate from our,” he gestured vaguely. “Fucking English. Whatever. She is not best friend like you, yes? It is different. At very least, you are my male best friend, okay? Happy? You done being jealous?”

“I’m not jealous,” Cliff lied. Roz scoffed. And then, because he was drunk and it was true, he tacked on “you’re my best friend too.” It was stupid and corny but, fuck it. They’d just won the goddamn Cup. If there was ever a night to allow for stupid corniness, it was this one. 

“Fuck yeah Marly,” Roz had roared. “Let’s do a fucking shot!”

And that was that for the feelings talk.

— 

Time passed, and guys got traded and retired and new guys came in, but Cliff and Ilya's friendship remained steady. It was a perfect constant in Cliff's life, even as he cycled through dead-end relationships with girls he had nothing in common with and calls from his mother about settling down. All to say that, likely because they were best friends, Cliff was probably the only guy on the team who wasn’t shocked when Roz announced he was going to leave Boston.

Not to say he wasn’t upset. He was, for a lot of reasons, almost all of them selfish. Roz was, after all, still his best friend – the idea of him living hours away was disheartening, even if their semi-regular party weekends and sleepovers (he could admit that's what they were, now, unburdening himself from the embarrassment of that being girly shit after Eliza reamed him a new asshole for being, direct quote, “a stupid sexist ape with rocks where his fucking brain was supposed to be”) had started happening less frequently over the years. Roz was also an amazing captain, and they were a good team – consistent playoff contenders. Another year or two and they’d probably get the Cup again, everyone agreed, they’d just had bad luck with injuries the past few goes. The city was pissed, and the rest of the team was shocked and furious. 

Cliff, though – he’d kind of seen it coming. 

Roz had been different, the 2017-2018 season. No doubt about it. It was like over the summer he’d decided he was an adult now and had gotten mature. 

He wasn’t sure what had caused Roz’s big change, but it was obvious that it had happened. Gone was the party boy – sure, he still went out sometimes, but he’d have one, maybe two drinks and vanish before the night really got going. It had left Cliff feeling a bit strange, honestly. He’d never before had the response to bar tn? be sorry, not tonight. early one for me and he didn’t really know how to feel about it. There were other things, too. Roz stopped flirting with women at the bars and buying them shots on the rare occasions he did go out. He checked his phone a lot more, smiling down at whatever he was seeing there.

So, okay: maybe Cliff had an idea of what had caused Roz’s Big Change. 

Montreal Girl. 

For all the kid had claimed that she was nothing special, Cliff knew better. He had eyes. Roz had been grinning and blushing and chewing on his crucifix about this chick since 2011 after all. The behavior had never changed. Not to mention he barely even kept a roster – there was Svetlana, obviously, then Montreal Jane, and that was about it. Some cities had semi-frequent fliers, but they were three-to-four time hookups. Not years long things. That was a rarified class. But even Svetlana had started to fade away – she still came by, sometimes, but they never flirted or made out anymore, and Cliff had seen her pick up guys a few times, which he had to imagine she wouldn’t do if she had a sure thing in Roz. 

The kicker was that Roz was still obviously hooking up with someone in Montreal. He was more conspicuous about it than ever. Used to be he’d at least come out for a drink. Now when they were in Montreal he vanished immediately with a flimsy excuse about “seeing a friend” and a lazy wave behind him. Connors had once even demanded to know who this friend was, but Roz being Roz had just smirked and said “my close personal buddy, Shane Hollander.” 

Whatever had happened the summer of 2017, Roz had definitely come back from it locked down by Jane. And, honestly, being locked down looked good on the guy. He seemed lighter, happier. It was like he was a kid again, spinning around the ice and chirping like mad. It was obvious that his father’s death had affected him, as much as he pretended it hadn’t, but that darkness that had settled over him was gone by the new season. Maybe Jane had helped him get through that and they’d come out the other side deciding to try it out?

What confused Cliff was that the relationship was still, for some reason, a secret. When asked, Roz would still insist Montreal Jane was no one, that he was a free agent, that he still loved the ladies. Cliff wondered if Roz was being cagey because it was so new. He wasn’t any more superstitious than any other professional athlete, but athletes were the most superstitious people on fucking Earth. He understood the power of deciding not to jinx something. Or maybe Roz just didn’t want to show a picture of his girlfriend to his meathead teammates and open himself up for chirping and her for the odd sexual harassment those guys always whipped out when a new WAG showed up. (This was, apparently, a form of affection, although Cliff failed to find it funny. He could hear Eliza in his head, going sexist! Fucking! Bullshit! and sort of hated himself for not saying anything when it happened.)

Still, he figured that even if Roz didn’t want to talk about Jane with the team, he’d eventually tell Cliff. Cliff was his best friend. If anyone was going to get the scoop on this girl, it would be him. It would happen whenever Roz felt settled enough in it to not jinx it anymore.

So Cliff spun his wheels all year while Roz hid his girlfriend and waited for his best friend to bring it up, one day. To say, casually, so Jane and I have made it official. To bring her to a game, maybe, or to introduce Cliff to her while they were in Montreal. 

He never did.

And when it got to be almost the playoffs and he hadn’t, that’s when Cliff started to think: oh shit. Roz is leaving Boston.

It was subtle, but Rozanov was definitely dropping hints. For instance, whenever next season came up in a nebulous way, he got oddly quiet. He didn’t comment on the draft picks or the prospects in the minors. He always had before. 

Also: as the year went on he got more contemplative. Not melancholy, god knew Roz wasn’t like that, but there was something in his speeches. They felt sort of final, to Cliff – like this was the season finale of a beloved show, the last dance.

No one else saw it coming, but Cliff knew Roz better than anyone, and he was able to make it make sense in his mind. New, serious girlfriend who lived in Canada + unrestricted free agent status = bye bye, Boston, hello Great White North. 

So when Roz told the team after they lost the playoffs that he was likely signing with another team, it wasn’t a shock.

Ottawa, though? That part was a shock.

Cliff was smart enough to know Roz wasn’t going to Montreal, even if that was where his girlfriend lived. Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov under one salary cap? Fucking forget it. Plus the Metros hated Roz, Hollander maybe most of all – trying to get them to work together would probably be a nightmare.

(Although, they’d been good at the 2017 All-Star Game, so maybe it was mostly the money to consider.)

Similarly, Toronto was probably out. Dallas Kent was a pretty penny himself, and they didn’t need more depth at center.

Ottawa, obviously, desperately did.

But they also just sucked. And Roz liked to win! Famously! Roz was a competitor. Hitching himself to a losing horse just because they paid him the most money? It was insane!

Cliff did the only thing he could think to do in this situation – he Facetimed his sister. 

“It’s got to be for Jane,” he said, explaining the whole thing. “There’s no way he’d go to somewhere so shitty if he wasn't doing it for love, or whatever. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” 

“I thought she lived in Montreal?” Eliza asked.

“That’s only two hours from Ottawa,” Cliff pointed out. “And the Metros would never take him. So maybe this was his best option. Although, ugh, why can’t she just move to Boston? Does she have some kind of job she can’t quit?”

“Maybe she’s one of those Quebecois separatists,” Eliza offered. “Like from Infinite Jest.”

“Sis, I love you,” he said back, with all sincerity, “but I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.” 

“Fair enough.” She was grinning widely, like he was a bit of an idiot. No big shock there. “You seriously don’t know what she does for work?”

“I don’t know anything about her,” Cliff had to admit. “I’ve never met her and he doesn’t really talk about her.”

Eliza just raised an eyebrow at that. “I thought you and Rozanov were best friends?” 

“I mean, we are, I know Roz better than anyone, but he doesn’t like to be, you know. Known. He has his secrets. He keeps things close. I think it’s a vulnerability thing? Or a Russian thing? I don’t know.” He shrugged. “He’s never like, opened up about her. Which I just thought was because it’s casual, but why is he not saying anything now?”

The thing was that Cliff thought Roz liked Boston. He had favorite restaurants and bars. He went to museums on the weekend. He truly, actually lived there – it wasn’t just the place where he was forced to work. If Cliff had thought at any point that Roz hadn’t liked Boston, this whole thing would make more sense – why stick around a city you don’t care about? That was what was stuck in his craw, what felt so strange. It seemed unlike Ilya to move away from Boston for no reason – and if the reason was Jane, why not just admit that? If not to the boys, at least to Cliff? Or why not ask her to move here for him? Surely that would be reasonable too? Boston would definitely pay him enough to sustain the lives of two people. 

“You could ask him,” Eliza said. “I know you always say you’re not ‘feelings guys’, but you could be. Maybe you should be.”

Cliff had sighed. “Yeah,” he said, finally. “Maybe you’re right.” 

He decided that the next time he saw Roz in person, he’d say it – he’d say why did you move to Ottawa and was it for Jane and if so why the hell can’t we just meet her already?

But then he didn’t see Roz.

For, like, a full year. 

And, alright – it was hard not to take that personally. 

They texted still – usually about their teams, about hockey, the usual shit. But when Boston was in Ottawa for a game, or vice versa, Roz always had an excuse. He was tired, or he was nursing a vague injury, or his Coach was pissed because he’d been going out too much. Privately, Cliff wondered if Roz was just going home or back to his hotel and Facetiming with Jane. Which, whatever, Cliff wouldn’t have even been upset about that, except Roz felt the need to lie.

Plus, there was the whole Shane Hollander thing.

Cliff had been taken aback by the announcement of their joint foundation. By the announcement of their friendship. Roz couldn’t take three hours off when he was in Boston to see Cliff, but somehow managed to kick off a whole ass friendship with his worst enemy when the guy lived two hours away? Make that make sense! As far as Cliff knew, Hollander didn’t even like any of the things that Roz liked – partying or clubbing or drinking. Except, he realized with a sinking feeling, Roz had stopped doing a lot of those things, that last year in Boston. Had been pulling away. Shit, was that a sign? Was Cliff supposed to realize that Roz had matured beyond the clubs and tried to do other stuff with him? Were he and Hollander, like, going to museums together or in a fucking book club or something? 

The worst part was that Hollander seemed to know Roz better than Cliff did. Hollander knew about his mother – knew her name, knew that she’d been depressed, that she’d killed herself. Cliff had been friends with Ilya for years and had resigned himself to the fact that Roz simply wasn't a guy who talked about his past – that his demons were his own, and he didn’t share them. He didn’t want to talk about his father or his brother. Cliff knew his mother was dead, but that had been mostly guesswork. 

But somehow, within a year of living in Ottawa, Roz and fucking Hollander were buddy-buddy enough that Roz was just telling the guy these things. Cliff had spent years keeping every shared bit of information about Ilya tucked preciously into his heart like a treasure, and Roz was just giving them away to HOLLANDER!

He wondered what a drunk Ilya would say now, if Cliff asked if they were best friends. If Ilya would smile and say, “well, you’re very nice, but you are no Hollander.”

What did Hollander have that Cliff didn’t? Besides a second Cup? And several MVP awards? And multiple broken records?

Oh god. Had Roz picked Hollander as his new best friend because he was better than Cliff at hockey? 

“You’re being a bit of a baby,” Eliza said, when Cliff called to bitch to her about the Irina Foundation announcement. 

“I’m not being a baby,” he said back. “My best friend went and got another best friend. I’m allowed to be upset. You were upset by this shit all the time when we were kids.” 

“When we were kids being operative there, bud," Eliza said. "That whole shit about only having one best friend is very tween, you know? You two live in different countries now. He's allowed to be close to someone else without it meaning he doesn't want to be close to you anymore."

"Okay, but then why is he ducking all my invites to hang out? Why does he barely text me back?" Cliff was running a hand through his hair, feeling a bit silly but still quite worked up. "This isn't how best friends treat each other, I don't think."

"Jesus," Eliza said. "Is this how I sounded back then? I was annoying as hell." He opened his mouth to tell her to fuck off, but she kept going before he could. "Why don’t you – and I know this is crazy, so bear with me – just text Ilya about it?” He could practically hear her rolling her eyes on the other end of the phone. “I’m sure he doesn't mean anything about any of it. He's probably just busy, and it's all just bad scheduling and stupid misunderstandings."

Cliff frowned. "But that still doesn't explain the Hollander thing."

Eliza sighed. "Yet another thing you could simply ask him about?" She let that sit for a second before sighing again. "You said they were big rivals, right? So maybe it's not even a real friendship at all. Maybe it’s all a PR stunt or something.”

Cliff had thought that, actually, but discredited it rather quickly. “Roz doesn’t give a shit about that stuff. It never mattered to him that the press thought he was an ass. Plus, the Foundation being about his mom and stuff. . . I don’t know, I don’t think he’d use that for image rehab, or whatever. He never talked to me about her, I don’t think he’d tell the world without really thinking it through.” He scoffed. “Except he told Hollander.”

Eliza sighed heavily. “Okay then, well maybe it’s just a timing thing. You said he has a girlfriend, right? Maybe she taught him about opening up and talking about his feelings or whatever, and Hollander was just there at the right time to have those conversations? Whereas when you and him hung out everyday, you both apparently just communicated exclusively in grunts, hockey lingo, and rankings of women's bodies.”

"Hey, that's not fair, we never ranked women. I'm not that gross." He thought about the rest of her sentence for a second. It would make sense, he supposed – Roz locking it down with Jane would put him more in touch with his sensitive side or whatever. 

God, Eliza was so reasonable. Sometimes it kind of pissed him off. 

"Cliff," his sister said, firmly. "All I can offer you are guesses. You want to know the truth, you just gotta talk to Rozanov, okay? I mean really talk. About your feelings. You have to try, or you have to accept not knowing for the rest of your life."

She was definitely right. He knew that. But he couldn’t bring himself to confront Roz over text. He just knew it wouldn’t go right – that Roz would dodge and swerve and deflect. Or, worse, just not answer at all, the silence stretching thin between them until Cliff gave up and changed the subject. Also, frankly, he had no idea how to even start that text conversation. A link to the press conference with Hollander and a needy, pathetic, have you replaced me? Is it because he had the most points in the league last year? At least in person he thought there might be a way to ease into it naturally. In person, maybe Roz would mention Hollander or the foundation in passing, allowing Cliff to cut in and say hey, so what's up with that anyway? Since when do you two hang out? And then they could have a totally normal conversation, with just the barest hint of feelings, and Roz would never have to know that Cliff was, apparently, a deeply insecure loser who needed to be reassured that his best friend did, in fact, still like him.

So he decided to wait Rozanov out, and talk to him when they saw each other again in person. Eventually Roz would have to cave and say yes to a beer, right? Eventually he’d miss Cliff enough to want to see him again.

Right? 

Except, then Cliff did see Roz in person – and he still chickened out.

He’d been delighted when Roz had texted to ask if he wanted to coach at the Game Changers camp. It felt like a sure sign, glowing neon, that said Ilya Rozanov and Cliff Marleau Are Still Friends. He thought it would be a fun summer, too – figured he and Roz would spend most of the day shooting the shit and chirping each other, like they always had on ice, and that after camp adjourned for the night the two of them and maybe a few of the other guys would head to the bar and decompress over a beer or two. And there, finally they could have their chat. 

It wasn’t like camp wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t what Cliff thought it would be.

For one, Roz kind of blew him off the whole time. 

For fucking Hollander. 

Cliff tried. Really. He tried. But it seemed like no matter what he did, if Hollander was in the room Roz was drawn to him like a moth to a lamp. He’d skate away from conversations to bug Hollander; he’d put all his best chirping into Hollander’s technique and his deeply awkward coaching style. And, look, Roz’s fucking love languge was chirps! Cliff knew what that meant.

Worst, most of the other guys did go out for drinks afterwards – even Leah Campbell and her husband went out – but Roz never did. 

(Hollander never did either, but Cliff figured that was to be expected. He’d seen the guy have a beer, like, once at an All-Star Game, and he only barely seemed to enjoy it.)

The worst thing was that Cliff had a feeling he knew why Roz was ditching out on the drinks. Jane. The camps were a week in Ottawa and a week in Montreal – there was no way that Roz’s girl wasn’t there with him. But she never showed up to camp, and Roz never brought her up. When he bailed he claimed he was tired or had a meeting with his agent. He never said sorry, my girlfriend is making dinner.

God, did he not want Cliff to meet her? Eliza had said he could be a bit of a sexist moron sometimes. He didn’t mean to be, but it was hard, alright? He spent 95% of his life surrounded by guys with less than three brain cells to rub together, half of whom took the term locker room talk to its most extreme endpoint. It, like, desensitized him to shit, or whatever. 

He racked his brain, trying to think of something he might have said that would have made Roz think that Cliff would chirp the guy’s girlfriend, but he came up blank. Maybe just that Cliff had never really been a girlfriend guy? That Cliff and Roz had spent so much time together picking up girls? Did Roz really think that meant Cliff wouldn’t be happy for him?

He wondered, with a queasy feeling in his stomach, if Hollander had met Jane. If Hollander knew what she looked like. If Hollander had a boyfriend, maybe, and he and that guy and Roz and Jane did double dates or whatever.

(He’d had heard the rumors Hollander was gay for years, but he’d dismissed them as locker room talk for the most part. But then he’d gotten to camp and seen Ryan Price and Leah Campbell and Max Riley and thought, well, maybe there was some truth there. 

Okay, also he’d overheard Boiziau trying to set Shane up with some dude he’d met at the gym, which helped. Truthfully he didn’t really care. It didn’t really matter how the guy scored off-ice when he was scoring a goal per game on average on ice, like a monster. Cliff had priorities, alright?)

He tried to do some poking around, but it was hard to gauge who at Game Changers Roz would be close to. Cliff nixed talking to Hollander directly – the dude wasn’t the best at picking up social cues and would probably accidentally spill everything to Roz without meaning to. Hayes and Roz were on Ottawa together, but Hazy hadn’t been much help, only cryptically saying that it seemed like Ilya had other places to be a lot. 

He’d even gotten desperate enough to ask Ryan Price, because he knew that Price and Roz had bonded a bit when the guy was on the Raiders. Price had balked, gone pale, and said “why are you asking me?” before making an excuse and beating a hasty retreat. 

So, okay, maybe Price and Roz weren’t that close.

So, okay, maybe Cliff and Roz weren’t that close.

Maybe Roz’s drunken declaration after the Cup win all those years ago had been just that – drunken nonsense. Maybe Roz had just been in his cups and in his feelings and had said it to say it, the way Cliff always heard drunk girls in clubs go no, babe, I love YOU! at each other. Maybe, in the end, whatever connection Cliff thought the two of them had was mostly in his head, and for Roz Cliff was just a nice guy who he got drunk with. Someone easy to leave behind once they stopped playing together. 

He left the camps feeling stupid and dejected. He didn’t even want to call Eliza about it, because he knew she’d call him out for not actually talking to Roz – but he didn’t want to force the conversation and have Roz confirm all his worst fears. So he decided to just let it go, like Roz apparently had. To text a little less. To accept that whatever nice, great thing they might have had, it was gone now.

Then, midway through the 2020-2021 season the entire Ottawa Centaurs team almost died in a plane crash.

By the time the news had reached Cliff, it was already obvious that everyone had lived – the Centaurs had posted on their official accounts, and everyone had moved on to talking about the incident as a near miss. So Cliff knew Roz was alive. But when he went to check his phone, he saw no texts from the man – no confirmation of this fact. Nothing. He felt abruptly isolated. 

He allowed himself exactly fifteen minutes to feel stupid and sorry and self-pitying, and then remembered he was a fucking grown-ass man and thought fuck it. A voice in his head suspiciously like Eliza’s offered you should have just talked to him. 

Well. They’d talk now. They’d talk now because Cliff had liked having a best friend, and he wasn’t going to let Rozanov decide that they weren’t anymore. 

Hearteningly, Roz picked up on the third ring.

“Marly?” He sounded baffled, like he had no idea why Cliff would be calling him.

“Why the fuck do I have to hear you almost died from the goddamn news, man?” he snapped, not bothering with pleasantries. “What happened to you’re my best friend, Marly? Your best friend doesn’t even get a phone call when you almost die?”

Roz sighed deeply. Cliff could practically picture the clench of his jaw – the way it always looked when Roz was frustrated or angry or didn’t quite know what to say. “Marly. I am sorry. It has been a crazy fucking day, I–”

“Did you call Hollander?” Cliff asked, stupidly. 

There was a long, agonizing silence on the other end. Cliff wished he could see Roz’s face – he had no idea what the blankness between them meant without an expression to clue him in. Finally, Roz spoke. “I. . . what?”

“Shane Hollander. Did you call him? Your fucking new best friend?”

Another pause of silence and then a strange, shaky laugh – a noise Cliff had never, ever heard Rozanov make before. “Shit. I – Cliff, you don’t understand. It’s. . . Shane is not my best friend.”

“Did you call him?” Cliff demanded again. He wasn’t sure why. He just needed to know. “Or text him, even?”

Silence, again, for about ten seconds. “Yes. I – well, Shane called me, really. But yes, we have spoken.” He sighed. “It’s just – it's the foundation, Marly–”

“You’re telling me you almost died in a plane crash and Hollander called you to discuss your charity work?” He rolled his eyes, even though Roz couldn’t see him. “I know people call him a robot but he’s not actually heartless, come on, I’ve met the fucking guy.”

“You are right, it wasn’t about charity, it was. . .He called me,” Roz said again, sounding a little indignant. “Like you called me. This is not – you are not in a competition with Shane. It is different.”

“Like Svetlana was different?” Cliff asked. “Except she’s your childhood best friend, and Hollander is a guy you hated until like two years ago.”

“It is not like Sveta,” Roz said, firmly. “It’s. . . it’s different from that too.”

“How?” Cliff demanded. “Because the way I see it, you moved out of Boston and dropped me out of your fucking life entirely man! You and I don’t talk anymore. You never told me about your mother. Hollander knows that shit, for some fucking reason, but I never got to know? Not after years on the same team together? And now you blow me off when you’re in Boston and when I’m in Ottawa? You barely ever text me back? We don’t fucking talk man!” 

“Marly, did we ever really talk?” Roz was sounding less frustrated now, but his voice had taken on a tone that Cliff couldn’t read properly though the phone. There was a shuffling noise, like he was pacing back and forth, maybe, and another sigh. “About girls and clubs and hockey yes, but we were not – we did not have heart to hearts, or whatever. This is. . .” he trailed off, sounding frustrated. “This is not what we do.”

“Well maybe we should,” Cliff said. 

That hung between them for a long moment. “I never thought you would want to,” is what Roz said, finally. “I thought you would think that was,” and here he made a complicated noise in the back of his throat, “gay.”

Which. Yeah. Shit. 

Maybe that was fair. 

Eliza would say it too, sometimes, when they spoke on the phone. Would snap you know that I hate when you do that Neanderthal shit when he said something a little sexist or homophobic. He didn’t really mean it, was the thing. Cliff’s mother was awesome, and his sister was obviously a badass, and he respected them both. When Scott Hunter kissed his boyfriend on the ice, Cliff didn’t feel disgust or hatred or any of that – he just felt happy for the guy. He thought everyone really did deserve to find love, no matter who they found it with. He didn’t think it was bad to be a woman, or be gay – he just hung around a certain class of guy who talked a certain way. Bitch and cocksucker had slipped into his vocabulary by the time he was ten years old. He used them the same way he used asshole and motherfucker, but that didn’t necessarily matter. Couple the way he spoke with his height and his burliness and the culture he surrounded himself with and, yeah. You got an idea about him. That maybe he was the type of guy who’d give out a black eye if he thought someone was eying him up in the showers. That he was the type of guy who thought trying to talk about how people felt was fucking gay, in a bad way. 

He wanted to say I thought you knew me better than that to Roz, but he had the sudden, sinking feeling that they’d both sort of fucked this whole friendship thing up. That Cliff, in trying not to pry too hard past things that obviously made Roz uncomfortable, had accidentally presented himself as someone who didn’t care or want to know; that Roz, thinking Cliff indifferent, had decided that their friendship wouldn’t survive the distance, or wouldn’t survive Roz having a long-term girlfriend and abandoning the clubs, and had given up trying. 

He thought, for the first time, that maybe he’d been Roz’s first best friend, too – or his first male best friend, anyway – and that neither of them had really known what they were doing, and had accidentally stunted themselves by following a stupid script about masculinity that neither of them really gave a shit about in the end. 

“I don’t,” is what he said, finally. “Think it’s gay. Or, like. Have a problem if it is gay, whatever.” He tugged a hand through his hair, feeling frustrated. “I fucking miss you, man. Boston’s not the same without you. I want to get a beer and bitch about all these stupid motherfuckers they make me play with. I want to ask about you. And know about you. I want to know how Ottawa is, and if you and Hollander are actually friends or it’s all weird PR, and I–” he took a deep breath. “I want to hear about your fucking girlfriend, man. And don’t tell me you don’t have one, because I know you do. I know you, man. You moved to Ottawa for your Montreal Chick.” He winced, practically hearing Eliza sneer CHICK? Are you a fucking IDIOT? in his ear. “Sorry, Montreal, uh. . . woman.”

Roz laughed a bit wetly on the other side of the phone. The only time Marly had ever seen Roz near tears was when they won the Cup. But the guy had almost died today, and now Marly was sort of forcing their friendship into an emotional reckoning, so maybe it was fair enough. “Such a feminist, Marly,” Roz said, a little teasingly. “Okay. Boston is in Ottawa next month. After game, you come to my house. We have a beer. We talk. No bullshit.”

“No bullshit,” Cliff said, letting out a long breath. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s do it.” He paused. “I’m glad you didn’t die, man.”

Roz laughed again, even wetter. “Me too, Marly. For so many reasons. So, so many reasons.”

— 

So, in the middle of February, Cliff found himself on the doorstep of Roz’s house in Ottawa, feeling strangely nervous. It was almost like he was going on a date. Except it was nothing like that – it was him having a beer with a guy he’d probably had a million beers with before.

Roz opened the door quickly, and the smile he shot Cliff was very genuine. “Marly. It is good to see you. Come on in.”

Cliff couldn’t stop himself from grabbing Roz and pulling him into a hug. Roz didn’t even stiffen – he let himself be pulled, and laughed as he patted Cliff’s shoulder gamely. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I missed you, too. I am sorry I have been distant, but. . .” he pulled away to meet Cliff’s eye. “I have a good reason. I will tell you, when we are inside.”

Cliff followed Roz into the house and sat on the couch when told to. Rozanov disappeared for a minute into the kitchen. He was gone for an oddly long time – longer than grabbing two beers should, in theory, take – and when he came back he had an expression on his face that Cliff had exclusively seen him have on the ice. A psych-up expression. An expression like he was going into war.

“Jesus, man,” he said. “What the hell are you gonna tell me?”

Roz handed him a beer and sat across from him, perched on the edge of a coffee table instead of the couch, apparently so he could make direct eye contact. He took a long sip of a beer and then a deep breath before speaking. “On the phone,” he said, a bit haltingly, “you said you knew me.” He was picking at the label of his beer bottle, an oddly out of character display of nervousness. “You do not.”

Cliff felt a flash of hurt at that. For Roz to so easily dismiss him, to write off their friendship, was surprising. He knew they weren’t as close anymore, but he thought this was a step to fixing that, at least. But here was Rozanov, as he always was: shutting Cliff out. Keeping things to himself.

Rozanov must have seen the hurt, because he spoke quickly. “No, shit, I am saying it wrong, I’m not – you are my friend, Cliff.” An odd sense of relief, at that. “You are my friend and I . . . you have been a good friend to me. My best friend, truly. I meant that. When I had no one in this country, not really, I had you. And I appreciated that. And I cared about you. Care about you.” He sighed again. “You do not know me because I have. . . not wanted to be known.”

“I know,” Cliff said, as gently as he could manage. “I didn’t know you had a brother for a year, Roz. You can be a bit of a brick wall when you want to be. I mean, I tried sometimes – to ask about your family and your stuff – but you always shut me down. I just thought you were uncomfortable about that stuff.” He shrugged. “So we didn’t really talk. But I do know you, I think. At, like, your core or whatever.”

“There is something you don’t know,” Roz said. “Something. . . important. Very important. I did not tell you because I was afraid. And also because it’s, it’s not just my. . .” He blew out a frustrated breath. Cliff couldn’t quite tell if English was failing him or if it was just a tough enough conversation that it seemed impossible to start. 

“Whatever it is man, we’re friends,” Cliff said, with as much firmness as he could muster. “Nothing could change that. I meant it when I said I missed you. You are, and always will be my best friend too. I promise.”

Oddly, Rozanov seemed to study him after that – to be really studying the lines of Cliff’s face, like he was looking for some sort of lie, or trick. 

Cliff wondered how fucked up Roz’s childhood had to be for him to immediately doubt a declaration of support and unconditional love – for him to always be looking for the fingers crossed behind someone’s back. 

Whatever Cliff’s face looked like, it passed muster, because Rozanov started talking again, voice a little steader, shoulders steeled in something like determination. “On the phone you said you knew I moved to Ottawa for love. My Montreal Girl.” And here he smirked, just a bit. “Or my Montreal Chick, as you said. You were right.”

Cliff scoffed. “No shit.”

“But,” Ilya continued, ignoring that interjection, “I did not want to tell you at the time because – because it is complicated. You are right that. . . that Jane matters to me. That I moved here for Jane. They are. . . the most important person in my life.” He smiled, here, a little bashfully, and pulled his chain from inside his shirt. On the chain, next to his crucifix, was a ring. “We are getting married.”

“Holy shit, Roz!” Cliff was grinning – he couldn’t help himself. Someone had locked down Ilya Rozanov – Ilya Rozanov was getting married! Unbelievable stuff. He wanted Roz to be happy. He knew Montreal Jane had made him happy. He was glad Ilya wasn’t stopping himself from having that, anymore, the way he always seemed to in Boston. “I’m happy for you, man. I gotta meet this chick, she must be legendary.” He winced. “Shit, sorry, not chick. Oh, whatever, you know what I mean. I have to meet her. Is she here?” 

Ilya’s smile faltered a bit. “There is a reason you have not met Jane – that I have not introduced you. That it is a secret that we are even together.”

It would be a lie to say that Cliff had not wondered a lot over the years what the reason for the secrecy around the Montreal Girl could be. Connors used to joke that she was probably fat and old, but Cliff knew that Roz wasn’t a guy who’d be ashamed of how his girlfriend looked – if he thought she was hot, she was hot, end of story. After Roz gotten so upset about Rose Landry dating Shane Hollander, he’d come up with another theory – that she was someone famous. Roz had seemed irrationally jealous those first few weeks, and while most people took it as him being mad his rival had pulled Rose Fucking Landry, Cliff thought maybe it was something deeper. That Hollander had found a way to be out and about with his famous girl while Roz couldn’t be. Connors had at one point thought Jane was Rose Landry, but she didn’t live in Montreal, so that couldn’t be it. And anyway she never really seemed like Roz’s type, a bit too “good girl next door” for the guy. One of the rookies had suggested she was some sort of KPop star – they apparently had very strict dating rules – but what fucking KPop stars lived in Montreal?

Eventually, Cliff had just decided that Jane was a private person. That she didn’t care to be in the public spotlight – a thing that dating Ilya Rozanov, particularly at that time in his career, was sure to bring her into. Maybe she had a religious family who would disapprove of Roz’s lifestyle choices, or maybe she had the type of family that expected her to marry someone in whatever culture they were in, and not a Russian like Roz – there was a guy on the team a few years ago who’s family in Finland was incredibly pissed off he’d decided to marry and have a baby with an American, which had always felt stupid to Cliff. Or maybe Jane had the type of job where dating Rozanov would be frowned upon. Another long floated suggestion had been that she worked for the Metros in some capacity, or that she was a sports journalist – in both of those cases, she could be in serious trouble for dating a player, so it made sense to keep it down low. 

Cliff had ultimately decided to stop guessing. He did know Roz – he knew the way Roz hid things and kept them tucked close to his chest; he knew the way he deflected and postured and pretended. If Ilya wanted to tell Cliff, then he would, and no amount of needling or guessing would get it out of him any earlier.

So here was the moment for it, then. Cliff had only had to wait a decade. Hah! And his sister said he wasn’t patient. 

“Jane is not Jane,” Rozanov said. “She is not she. My Montreal Girl . . . he has always been a man.”

Woah.

Truthfully, the first thought that crossed Cliff’s mind was I am a fucking idiot. They were all fucking idiots. All of the guessing and prodding and not once had anyone ever even suggested that it was for the simple fact that Roz’s secret girlfriend was actually a secret boyfriend.

Then he cut himself some slack. Because there were reasons they didn’t think that.

“So you’re gay?” he blurted. He was aware it was not his most put together moment. He could picture Eliza giving him a withering glare for it and apologized to her in his head. “Not that I care! That’s fucking – that’s awesome, dude, like I’m a total ally! I think Scott Hunter’s great!” Holy fuck, why did he say that? 

Judging by the look on Roz’s face, he was thinking the same thing.

Cliff kept talking, for some goddamn reason. “I just didn’t know, you know? I mean, all those women – was that, like, just for show, or–”

“I am bisexual,” Ilya cut in, apparently out of mercy. He looked a bit like he was trying not to laugh now. “I like both.”

“But, I mean, I never saw you take a dude home before.”

Roz raised an eyebrow like Cliff was being an idiot. “Yes, Marleau, you never saw me pick up a man in front of my professional hockey teammates in the 2010s. You will never guess why.”

“Oh, yeah, right, homophobia,” he said. The Eliza in his brain was glaring even harder now. This was like when he briefly forgot about racism and thought that guy in the grocery store who was following him and St. Simon around was just trying to get their autographs. 

God, was he stupid? 

“Yes, homophobia,” Roz said, fully grinning now. “But also, honestly I am maybe more interested in women than in men, generally. Except my Jane, who is, of course, love of my life.”

Oh, well that sort of melted Cliff’s heart, really. “Damn, you’re really gone on this guy.”

“Completely,” Rozanov agreed. There was no mocking or teasing in his tone – he really meant it. “He is most beautiful person I have ever met. Inside and out. That he even gives me time of day is a miracle.”

“That's awesome, man,” Cliff said, warmly. “Engaged! So I guess that means you’re coming out, huh? Why didn’t you do it with Barrett – didn’t want to steal his spotlight?” Troy Barrett had come out at a Pride Night game only a week or so earlier. Cliff had been, admittedly, quite shocked that the dude who once called him a pussy bitch on the ice and who had been known for years as Dallas Kent’s Right Hand Man apparently had a boyfriend now, but he supposed it made it easier to hide being gay when you had a reputation for being a homophobic asshole. A thought occurred to him, then. “And, wait, shit – what about Russia? Aren’t they, like, pretty bad about this stuff?”

A look of sadness flashed across Roz’s face, there for a second and then gone again. “I have not been back to Russia since my father died. That was same year that, uh, Jane and I decided to try and become serious. Big year. Without my father, there was no reason to return to Russia, which took that hurdle away.” He clenched his jaw, a little, and then relaxed, letting a big, shit-eating grin fall over his face instead. “And your apparent favorite player Scott Hunter came out, which changed things too.”

“I do support him!” Cliff said, laughing – it was obvious Roz didn’t want to talk about his father. A part of Cliff wondered if he should push, but, well – they were new to this whole talking thing. Baby steps. They could start with the happy boyfriend talk for now and move to serious stuff in a few months when they both had gotten used to it. “Also, you know, now that I know you’re gay you don’t have to keep saying Jane. I don’t think anyone is listening in on us in your house, dude.”

“Bisexual,” Ilya said, kicking Cliff’s ankle lightly – a pointed correction made lightly, which Cliff heard.

“Bisexual,” he corrected.

“This is other thing,” Rozanov continued. “More players have come out, but – Jane and I, we have kept it secret because it will be a big story. He is. . . also famous.”

Well shit. Turned out the guys were right about that after all. Mentally, he awarded the long forgotten pool money to himself – in the end it was probably around $150 that he thought Connors ultimately made off with when he got transferred to Colorado and forgot to divest the earnings. “How famous we talking?” Cliff asked. Because, sue him, he wanted to know! 

“Very,” Rozanov said, still grinning. “And he is also very private.” His smile slipped, just a little. “When we come out it will affect both of us. We were going to wait until retirement, but then,” he shrugged. “You almost die in a plane crash, maybe it makes your boyfriend realize waiting is stupid.” 

“Romantic,” Cliff said.

“Very,” Rozanov agreed, with an embarrassingly lovesick sigh. Cliff didn’t give him shit for it, though. It was honestly kind of nice to see. Roz hadn’t had it easy, Cliff knew that – the kid deserved something good in his life. 

“You gonna tell me who it is, or am I gonna have to guess?”

Cliff was teasing, but pure delight lit upon Roz’s face. In many ways, he was still such a kid at heart – he loved games. “I bet you can guess! I will even give you hints. Every hint you need I will get less impressed though.”

“Alright, alright,” Cliff said with a laugh. “Is it someone I’ve heard of?”

“Definitely someone you have heard of,” Roz said, voice firm.

“Someone I’m a fan of?”

Ilya waved his hand from left to right in a little comme ci, comme ça movement. “Someone you respect, I will say. But probably not a fan of. Perhaps someone you actually find kind of annoying.”

Cliff furrowed his brow, confused. “I respect them but find them annoying? How does that make sense?” Ilya grinned enigmatically and did not answer, the fucker. “Alright, fine. How about. . . what does he do? Is he a singer, an actor?”

“He is a professional athlete,” Roz said, easily. “Like me.”

Okay now Cliff was baffled. “How the hell did you have time to meet another professional athlete? The only people you know are–” he cut himself off, the realization setting in. “Holy shit, it’s another player?” Ilya nodded. “Christ, Roz, you don’t do anything by half-measures, do you?”

Roz smiled again. “I do not,” he said. He said it like this, in and of itself was a hint.

It hit Cliff like a brick. Like a truck. Like a truck filled with bricks, that then knocked him into a brick wall. Jane, a professional hockey player who lived in Montreal, who played for Montreal, who Cliff respected but was not a fan of, who was a private person whose reveal would cause the most drama possible. 

“It’s Shane Hollander,” Cliff said. He was too slack jawed to even feel triumphant. “Montreal Jane is Shane fucking Hollander?” 

Ilya’s grin was blinding. Cliff had truly never seen him so happy. “My Shane,” he cooed, saccharine-sweet. “Second best player in the league but first in my heart.” 

Cliff slumped back on the couch, still reeling a bit. Because – well because. “You’ve been texting Montreal Jane since 2011,” he said, dumbly. “You’ve – the rivalry was never real?”

“You know it was mostly PR Marleau, come on,” Roz said dismissively, taking a sip of his beer. “We never really hated each other. But we were very competitive – we still are.” He shrugged. “Shane brings out my best on the ice. He is only person in the world who could match me. How could I not fall in love with him? We are equals in every way. And he is very beautiful, and kind, and secretly very funny.”

Shit. When Rozanov said it like that it did make sense.

“This is gonna break the internet,” Cliff said, feeling oddly serious about it. “Shit, it might break the league. I’ve heard Crowell hates Scott Hunter’s guts.”

“Yes,” Ilya said, serious again, now. “He told Shane not to come out earlier this season. But, like I said – I almost died in a plane crash. Sort of put things into perspective for both of us. I do not care if Roger Crowell hates me.”

“What if he stops you from playing?” Cliff asked. Then he shook the thought of his head. “No, you’d sue him, duh. But teams could – I mean, I’ve heard about the Metros man, they’re the ones spreading that rumor that Hollander is gay. Gilbert Comeau is a fucking asshole. What the hell is Hollander going to do?”

Roz shrugged, here, looking a little sheepish. “We have not really talked about that part. Shane is free agent this summer though, and I. . .” he trailed off.

“You want him to come to Ottawa,” Cliff finished. Because no shit. Even the two hour difference between Montreal and Ottawa felt gigantic to Cliff, who'd once had a girl dump him because she lived in Duxbury and didn't want to have to drive. Not to mention all the time they must be apart due to different schedules, conflicting road trips. Shit. How the hell had they done it? 

“Ottawa has been good to me,” Roz said, simply. “They are a good team. Good people. Welcoming.” He paused. “And obviously together we would be unstoppable hockey dynasty and would win twelve Cups.”

“Obviously,” Cliff said, rolling his eyes. 

They sat in companionable silence for a minute. Cliff was still reeling, a bit. Roz seemed contemplative. 

“He suggested I tell you,” Roz finally said. “His parents know about us. And Hayden Pike. And Ryan Price. And Rose Landry.”

Oh, well that explained Price's weird-ass behavior at camp. He thought Cliff suspected something.

Wait.

“Rose Landry?”

Ilya rolled his eyes. “Yes, she and Shane are friends now.” He shifted in his chair, looking uncomfortable. “Svetlana knows, too. She guessed, really. Knows me too well. But. . . no one else. Shane said. . .” He stopped, looking deeply embarrassed to be admitting this. “Shane said I should tell you because you are my closest friend in the league. And I. . . I know I pulled away. When I left.” He flexed his jaw again. “I thought. . . I don’t know, I was being stupid. Thought you would hate me for leaving. Thought I was letting Boston down. And then Ottawa were such losers, and I was embarrassed. Thought I couldn’t explain it – that I had left for love. That you find this to be. . . not good. Not masculine.”

“Gay,” Cliff said, softly. He felt awful, like he’d let Roz down, even though he hadn’t known he was doing it. “I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me, man.”

Roz shrugged again. “I did not make it easy for you either. I pulled away. When you said you wanted to talk, I was glad. I missed you too. And when I told Shane that you and I were going to meet up he told me. . . told me I could tell you about us. If I thought you were a good guy. Wouldn’t tell.” He paused and leveled Cliff with a serious look. “You cannot tell, Cliff. Shane wants to. . . he has a narrative. A plan. You tell anyone–”

“I wouldn’t,” Cliff cut in. “Jesus, Roz, of course not. Your secrets are my secrets.”

“Thank you,” Roz said back, very sincerely. 

“Shane Hollander,” Cliff said, still half in disbelief. “My God.”

Roz grinned. “I told you on phone Shane was not my best friend. It is different.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Very different.”

“Yeah, no shit. And I guess no shit he’d be the first person you called after you almost died.” 

Roz’s expression got a bit serious again, and he shrugged. “I texted him when I thought plane was going down. He is first person I think of in the morning and last person I think of at night. He is my soulmate, if those are real.”

“Wow, man. That’s.” Cliff grinned, feeling abruptly, stupidly happy for his best friend. “That’s fucking awesome, Roz. I’m really happy for you.” 

Roz grinned back. “Thank you, Marly.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I am glad to see you. To talk to you. I am sorry about all the distance. It has been tough. To hide Shane. I love him so much – I think it is very obvious. And no one can know, so,” he shrugged, like this was just the way of the world. “It wasn’t about you, really. It was all me.”

“It’s okay man,” Cliff said, genuinely meaning it. “As long as you don’t do any stupid bullshit like that again.” He jabbed a finger in Roz’s direction. “You and I are doing phone calls now, buddy. I want to hear about all your stupid wedded bliss and stuff.”

“Of course,” Roz said. “Any time.”

“And also,” Cliff cut in, “I expect to be the best man at your wedding.”

Roz burst into delighted laughter. “Marly, buddy,” he said. “What are you doing in July?”

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cover for my best friend's new best friend by gravollet