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, Zane Boodram & Ilya Rozanov, Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble & Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Zane Boodram, Ilya Rozanov, Evan Dykstra, Harris Drover, Troy Barrett, Wyatt Hayes, Shane Hollander, Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Hayden Pike, Cassie Boodram, Jackie Pike, Luca Haas

Additional Tags:

Misunderstandings, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Good Friend Hayden Pike, Supportive Ottawa Centaurs (Game Changers), (but also very confused), Zane Boodram POV, Fluff and Humor, with a sprinkle of angst, Troy Barrett is tired of being the only Centaur with common sense, Minor Troy Barrett/Harris Drover, If You Squint - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Spoilers for Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Post Tampa plane incident

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-02 Completed: 2026-04-25 Words: 21,987 Chapters: 6/6

Right idea, a little to the left

Summary

Pike was back to calling Roz by his first name. This whole thing was really weird. Zane didn’t even know they were friends. But now Hayden Pike was on the phone, asking about Rozanov like they’re best buddies, or long lost lovers. He’s begging, he’s desperate, and Zane has never been more confused in his life.

---

When Zane Boodram receives a text from his wife after their almost plane crash in Tampa, telling him to please call this number because there’s someone on the other end who desperately needs to speak to his Captain, he definitely is not expecting Hayden Pike of the Montreal Voyageurs to be the person on the other end of the call.

Whilst he tries very hard to listen to Barrett and mind his own business about the whole thing, he’s got one question that he can’t stop swirling around his head.

Are Ilya Rozanov and Hayden Pike together?

Notes

Okay essentially this is an AU where Ilya's phone is lost in the chaos of the emergency plane landing, resulting in Shane not being able to get in contact with him after reading the Instagram messages.

Mostly cause I couldn't get the idea out of my head of a freaking out Shane and Jackie and Hayden furiously trying to get in contact with anyone on the the Centaurs to get their boy on the phone with his boy.

Cue misunderstandings.

Anyway please enjoy!

Chapter 1: Please call this number

Chapter Notes

For a man who thought he was going to fall from the sky and die in a fiery explosion approximately 40 minutes ago, Zane Boodram thought he was handling this whole situation with a lot of grace. 

There’d been this moment right after the plane had first lurched that he couldn’t stop thinking about. It was before they’d all realised this wasn’t regular plane turbulence, right after Zane had fallen in the aisle of the plane, and everyone had laughed and he was going to make a somewhat tasteless joke at his own expense. 

He couldn’t remember the punchline now. 

He’d been about to say it as he got himself back into his chair, but then the plane lurched again, and then dropped like a lead balloon, his heart fell into his stomach, and immediately it was like a switch had been flipped in his brain. 

Zane liked to think he was a pragmatic man when he needed to be. Sure day to day he was generally someone people would describe as easy going, and he sure as hell didn’t take himself too seriously, but when the situation called for it he was quite good at being calm and practical. 

So, when Zane and the rest of his teammates had been presumably plummeting to their deaths, he forgot about his joke, and he compartmentalised. 

He didn’t think about Cassie, or about their unborn child. He shut that part of his brain off. 

Not because he was a cold man, or because he didn’t love her more than anything, but because none of that was going to be helpful at that moment. 

It was the same reason he didn’t scream about the fire he could see out his window like Chouinard. Not that Zane blamed him of course, if any situation called for a bit of yelling and screaming it was probably that one. 

But Zane tried to be a good man in a crisis, so after the initial drop he stopped screaming. He did the only mildly helpful thing he could think of doing, he gave muttered reassurances to those around him, tried to get as many people as possible to calm down and he got everyone to shut up and listen to the flight attendant when she was giving them instructions to prepare for landing. 

Then, when they didn’t die, once his two feet were on the tarmac of the airport in Tampa, with all his teammates uninjured and in one piece standing around him, only then did he allow himself to think about Cassie again. 

They’d been sequestered away into some private room whilst everyone had been checked over by airport medics, so he called Cass and just sobbed. He let himself feel everything he’d packed away in a box whilst he was on a plane falling out of the sky. 

And then he’d felt better, not entirely of course, but he reveled in the relieved feeling of having not died, so he told Cassie he’d loved her, but he’d let her go and call her later. 

Then he was back to being a good man in a crisis, and he went around and offered his phone to the others to make any phone calls they needed to. Quite a few people had lost a lot of their stuff in the chaos, a majority of their bags were left on the plane and he knew stuff had been broken, Luca Haas’s phone was smashed to bits and he heard the same thing had happened with Harris’s laptop. Dykstra’s phone had been left in his bag in the overhead lockers. Rozanov and the Centaurs equipment manager Dale both had dropped their phones in the chaos of the landing and nobody had time to look around the floor of the plane to find wherever they had slid off to. 

So Zane did what he could and lent out his phone. Dale had called his wife first and now Dykstra was using it to call Caitlin. 

Haasy still had to call his parents, but when he’d offered the phone to Roz he had said there wasn’t anyone to call, which was a little bit sad. 

While he waited for Dykstra to be done with his call, Zane wandered around the room, too wound up to sit down and relax. 

He considered his teammates around him, trying to figure out if there was anyone he’d yet to check in on. 

Nick Chouinard was tucked into a corner talking in a quiet voice on his phone, presumably to his wife Selena. 

Wyatt Hayes was over at the makeshift medical station they had made up, getting looked over by the airport paramedic.

Harris was also pacing, down a corridor to their left, talking to someone on the phone. 

Most of the rest of his teammates were sitting around and chatting amongst themselves. 

Barrett and Roz were both sitting as well, but had separated themselves from the rest of the bunch and were further down the back of the room. 

Coach Wiebe was nowhere to be found, but he was presumably off organising whatever the next steps were from here. 

He heard someone say something about organising a bus to take them to the hotel, but for now, everyone seemed happy to take a moment to calm down and decompress. 

Zane was doing his third or fourth lap of the room when Dykstra appeared beside him, with Zane’s phone in his outstretched hand. 

"Thanks again for letting me borrow this. Catlin would've been freaked if I couldn’t get in touch." 

Zane smiled at him.

"All good man."

"Oh, by the way, I think Cassie was texting during my call, phone was buzzing a bit." 

Sure enough, when Zane looked down he noticed a few notifications from Cassie on the homescreen. 

Zane opened up his wife’s messages  

He frowned down at the phone. She was right, this was odd. Cassie probably knew Roz the least well out of any of his teammates. She had only met Roz, like twice. Mostly on account of him never coming to their barbecues or a majority of their team hangouts. He texted her back.

Okay so the entire situation sounded very odd but he figured he’d give the number a call after Haasy had spoken to his parents but when he looked around the room to find him he realised he was already on a call with someone.

"I lent him my phone."

He jumped as Harris had appeared and started talking suddenly beside him, apparently having finished whatever phone call he had been making.

Harris put his hands up in surrender. "Sorry! Didn’t mean to spook you, I guess we’re all a little jumpy after the day we’ve had."

"All good man," he replied, and then continued frowning down at the text messages from his wife.

Harris gave him a quizzical look. "Everything all good?"

Dykstra chimed in from beside him. "Yeah man, Cassie’s okay yeah? What’d she text you that’s got you looking like that?"

Rather than try to explain, he tilted his phone over to the two of them and showed them the text exchange between himself and Cassie.

"Huh," Dykstra pouted at the phone. "Weird, but I’m intrigued."

Harris nodded along. "Yeah, I agree". He paused for a second, and then added, "Have you shown Ilya?"

All three of them looked over at Roz, who had tucked himself away in a chair in the corner. Barrett was sitting two chairs away from him, but the pair of them weren’t talking. Roz was hunched over, looking at the floor. He was bouncing his leg up and down and he kept running his hands through his hair.

He kinda looked like shit if Zane was being honest.

"Should I go talk to him? Show him the messages?"

Dykstra tilted his head as he inspected their Captain. "I don’t really know if he’s up for being bothered right now, I tried to talk to him a bit earlier but he doesn’t really seem in the mood for a chat."

Zane sighed. "Well what am I doing then? I feel like I shouldn’t just ignore this." He gestured down to his phone.

Harris hummed from beside him, "Maybe give the number a ring first? Make sure it’s not anything weird, and then you could just give the person an update, ask them to call back later, and once you know who you’re actually speaking to you can ask Ilya if he wants to chat to whoever it is."

He nodded. It wasn’t a bad plan.

"Alright, I’ll call."

He held down the number and hit call. It only rang twice before someone picked up.

"Hello?" The voice said. Male, unspecific accent, not someone Zane immediately recognised.

"Hey, this is Zane Boodram. I was asked to call this number."

" Boodram! It’s ah Hayden Pike, is Rozanov there? I really gotta–"

"Pike?" Zane interrupted. And that was not at all what he was expecting. To be honest, he’s not exactly sure who he was expecting to be on the other end of this phone call that was apparently so desperate to speak to his captain, but if he was guessing, Hayden Pike would've been bottom of the list.

Actually, he wouldn’t even be on the list because this is so entirely out of the realm of anything Zane would even begin to consider.

Beside him Harris was looking at him with a furrowed brow while Dykstra frowned at him and asked "Pike? Voyageurs Pike? Hayden Pike?"

Zane just nodded dumbly at them whilst Pike continued down the line.

"Yes, Hayden Pike, like, from the Voyageurs, we’ve met, um, y’know, I mean we play against each other, ah sometimes."

"Right," Zane responded, because he knew this, obviously, and because what he really wanted to say was "Why the fuck are you calling me," but that seemed rude, and also Zane called him for reasons he still doesn’t understand at all, so he just lets him talk.

"Anyway, he’s okay right? Ilya, I mean, he’s good? Not hurt? That's what Cassie told Jackie anyway–"

"Who’s Jackie?" Zane asked, rather than saying "Since when are you on a first name basis with my fucking Captain?" and then, because he wasn’t an asshole and for whatever reason Pike seemed really stressed about this, he added, "Also, yeah Roz is fine, or not injured or whatever."

He could hear Pike give what sounded like a relieved sigh through his phone speakers and he began speaking again, but the sound got drowned out by the whispered conversation that was slowly growing louder between Harris and Dykstra.

"—and obviously I know who Hayden Pike is, I’m a social media manager for gods sake! It is literally my job to–"

"Be quiet!" Zane gritted out, and glared at the both of them.

Only Harris had the decency to look sheepish.

Zane turned his attention back to the phone call.

"Sorry, that wasn’t to you, anyway you were saying?"

"Right, um I was just telling you about Jackie, she’s my wife. I think she spoke on the phone to your wife, Cassie right? Y’know, the WAGS they’ve got their like secret society stuff going on between them right?"

Zane ignored the somewhat strained attempt at a joke, and declined to point out that it seemed like Cassie and this Jackie person hadn’t spoken to each other once before today.

Pike continued. "I figured she’s the one who passed along my number to you. Your ah, Cassie I mean. Anyway back to Il..ah, Rozanov could you um, is he there? I really gotta talk to him man."

He looked over at Roz, sitting in his tucked away corner, his head still in his hands.

"Yeah, ah he’s okay, he’s um..."

Zane needed to figure out the best way to end this phone call as quickly as possible. Because he definitely wasn’t going over there and bothering his Captain for this.

"Look man, I’ll um tell him you checked in but now is probably not the best time for–"

"Just, please man. I’m begging you here."

And Pike sounded pained.

He genuinely appeared really upset by this whole thing, and it was throwing Zane. He didn’t know how to respond.

Pike must have taken the silence as permission to continue.

"Look Bood, please just ask him, tell Ilya I’m on the phone, I promise you, promise you, he’ll want to talk to me, I just need 5 minutes."

Pike was back to calling Roz by his first name. This whole thing was really weird. Zane didn’t even know they were friends. But now Hayden Pike was on the phone, asking about Rozanov like they were best buddies, or long lost lovers. He’s begging, he’s desperate, and Zane has never been more confused in his life.

He looked over at Rozanov again. He’d taken his head out of his hands at least, but was now leaning back staring at the ceiling.

He still kinda looked like shit, so the urge to tell Pike he could get fucked and that he wasn’t bothering Roz over this was strong.

But Pike was clearly adamant that if given the option, Roz would want to talk to him.

For Zane, it wasn’t really a choice in the end.

For whatever reason, Hayden Pike of the Montreal Voyageurs was having a crisis, and he needed to speak to Ilya Rozanov about it.

And Zane is nothing if not a good man in a crisis.

Dykstra waved his hands at him and tried to get his attention. "What’s he saying?"

Zane ignored him.

Pike was still babbling on the other end of the call when Zane cut him off.

"Alright, shut up man. I’ll go ask him."

He marched over to where Roz and Barrett were sitting. Roz clearly heard him coming, sat up straighter and teared his eyes off the ceiling.

Zane watched as Roz tried to pull himself together. Putting on a mask of someone who was not completely freaked out by the events of today.

"Bood! What is going on my friend?"

And Zane was all motivated a second ago but he’d lost a bit of steam now that he had to actually talk to his captain and find the words to explain that he had Hayden fucking Pike on the phone for him, and would Rozanov please have a chat with him, cause Pike seemed stressed and it was bumming Zane out.

"Ah hi, um, yeah hey Cap."

And Zane came up with nothing else to say beyond this.

Roz gave him a second to continue, but when Zane failed to formulate his next sentence Roz grinned at him, the teasing fake smile he does when he’s going to make fun of someone.

"Cat got your tongue?"

Zane blinked at him. Doesn’t seem like something Rozanov would say. But it definitely fits.

"It's a new saying Barrett has taught me,” he looked over at Troy. "I’m saying this correctly?"

Barrett nodded at Roz and then turned to consider Zane.

"All good Boodram? Who’s on the phone?"

Right, the phone.

The phone in his hand, with an ongoing phone call with Hayden Pike.

He ignored Barret, and looked back at Roz. "So hypothetically..."

"Hypothetically…" Roz responded, still grinning, waving his hand in front of him in a motion that clearly represented "please get to the point.”

"Hypothetically, if I told you that I had Hayden Pike on the phone right now would you have any desire to—"

And the smile fucking dropped.

Shit, Roz was gonna kill him. He never should have listened to Hayden fucking Pike.

His captain shot up out of his chair with an outstretched hand and Zane barely had time to flinch back from what he was worried was going to be a punch in the jaw.

"Give"

Despite the fact that Pike had assured him that Roz would want to talk to him, he was still surprised as anything when his captain flipped the outstretched hand with his palm facing upwards and nodded to his phone.

Zane clearly spent too long processing, because Roz repeated, slightly harsher this time.

"Give me the phone, now Boodram."

Zane doesn't think his captain had ever looked so serious in his life.

He handed Roz the phone.

Zane had gained more questions than answers from this interaction.

Listening to what Roz says into the phone doesn’t really give Zane any more hints as to what the fuck is going on.

"Pike, wheres—…Yes, fine fine, is he—…Okay okay, yes okay now please."

He couldn’t make out what Pike was saying to Roz, but from the muffled noise he could hear he could tell that whatever conversation they were having was hurried, and Pike was doing most of the talking.

Roz paused and then spoke into the phone, in a much softer voice than he had been speaking previously.

"Lyubimy? Ty v poryadke?"

Was that Russian? It sounded like Russian. Does Hayden Pike speak Russian?

There were more muffled replies from the phone, but Zane couldn’t tell if it was in Russian or English.

Roz seemed to very suddenly remember he had an audience. He brought his head up, locked eyes with Zane and looked between him, Dykstra, Harris and Barrett.

"Hold on. I need…Give me a second,” Roz spoke into the phone, reverting back to English.

Roz’s eyes returned to Barrett and the pair of them seemed to have some kind of wordless conversation, which ended with Barrett jerking his head toward the corridor where Harris had previously been pacing and making his phone call.

Rozanov nodded once, and then marched off exactly where Barrett had directed him.

They all watched him walk off and stood there for a moment, saying nothing, dumbfounded.

Dykstra was the first to break the silence.

"So that was Hayden Pike on the phone?"

"Yep," Zane told him, confirming what everyone already knew.

"And he wanted to speak to Rozanov?"

"Also yes."

Dykstra hummed at this.

"Did we know they were friends?" Harris asked.

Dykstra responds to this question with a question of his own.

"Are they friends?"

Zane considered his very strange phone call with Hayden Pike before speaking.

"They’re definitely…something."

At this, Barrett chimed in for the first time.

"We shouldn’t be, um, speculating here, I think… I mean I think we should like, give him some privacy with the whole…something."

Harris nodded at this. "Yeah, Troy's right. I agree. We should let him tell us what’s going on when he’s ready."

Nobody else spoke, but nobody made a move to leave either. All four of them continued standing in a pack, watching Rozanov.

Zane felt the itch to find something to fill the silence. He was once again stuck on the joke he was going to make on the plane. What was the punchline? He needed it now more than ever.

It was at this moment that Wyatt Hayes walked over, having finished his medical checkup.

Hayes looked between the four of them, and then over at their Captain pacing in the corridor on the phone.

"Who’s Rozy talking to?"

Zane laughed incredulously.

"I’ll bet you a million dollars you’ll never guess Hayes."

Chapter End Notes

Please let me know your thoughts! I live for comments.

Also if you're wondering why Ilya wasn't trying to get in contact with Shane, it's because he can't think of any way to be able to do so without raising suspicion, at least until he can get to some privacy in his hotel. IMO at this point in the story Ilya would want more than anything to talk to Shane, but he'd assume Shane wouldn't want him to do anything to jeopardise what they have and potentially out them.

Meanwhile poor Shane is freaking out offscreen in a Hotel room in Washington with Hayden, so he does not care at all about what this is going to look like from the Centaurs POV.

Next Chap will be out within the week, with many more misunderstandings and a reveal to follow (should be able to wrap it up with just one more I think). Thanks for reading.

Chapter 2: Please play six degrees of Ilya Rozanov with me

Chapter Notes

Hello! Does anyone remember last week when I said that this would be wrapped up in one more chapter? Yeah turns out I'm a lying liar who lies, Sorry!

Chapter count has now been updated to 4, it might be done in 3, we'll see, but yeah, probably 4.

This was originally gonna be a one-shot. Story has run away from me a bit, as it tends to.

Anyway, please enjoy!

“...and then Roz walks back over, hands me back the phone and just says, “thank-you for phone, bus is here, we should go” and walks off, with absolutely no explanation.”

Zane hears Cassie hum at this, with the tinny sound coming through his phone's loudspeaker as he paces his hotel room.

“Did nobody ask him any follow up questions? Like on the bus or when you guys got back to the hotel?”

“Well yeah, obviously, Dykstra, Hayes and I tried to interrogate him on the ride back, and he was so cagey about it, and oh, get this, when he eventually did tell us why Pike wanted to speak with him, he goes, “Oh he just wanted to ask some questions about this years camp.”

“Camp?”

“Yeah like the kids camps Roz does in the summer with Hollander, Pike does them too I guess, probably cause he’s friends with Hollander.”

“Right”

“Anyway, point is, that story is like, so incredibly bullshit obviously, we know that, and he must know that we know that, so like, I just don’t get all the secrecy.”

Zane flops down on the bed, the adrenaline of the day finally starting to wear off. He shouldn’t have drank so much with the guys at the hotel bar, but Coach had given them the all clear for it, and it had been nice to let go and decompress with all the guys, and check in with everyone as well.

He had also wanted to speak to Rozanov. Zane thought he’d maybe have more luck getting information on what exactly was the deal with him and Hayden Pike from a less sober version of his Captain, but the man hadn’t stuck around long. He had a couple beers, drank them all very quickly, spoke briefly to Barrett and had one more drink with him, and then disappeared, presumably going up to his hotel room for the night.

Barrett had followed suit not long after.

Zane had stayed a bit longer, and had a couple more drinks, something he was beginning to regret now. He groans with his head in his hands, and he’s about to tell Cassie he should let her go so he can get some sleep when she speaks up again.

“I’m going to be honest here, after the phone call I had, I kind of assumed it’d be Rozanov’s secret girlfriend's phone number.”

And yeah, maybe Zane had thought that too for a bit. Zane had often shared his theories about his captain's secret girlfriend with his wife. The way he always had mysterious plans and never came to any team hangouts. The way he was supposedly this playboy, but Zane had never seen him actually pick up any girls, even when he occasionally went out with the team after away games. The way he always seemed to be texting someone, but would get all cagey about it if any of his teammates asked about it.

So yeah, Zane is about 85% sure Rozanov has a girlfriend that he isn’t telling anyone about. He doesn’t ever say anything about it, because clearly Cap wants to keep it private, but Zane knows.

So, when Zane first read those texts from his wife, he did consider that it could have something to do with Roz’s mystery woman. But why would Pike’s wife know her? And what did she say on the phone to Cassie to make her think that’s whose phone number it was? Why did she not tell Cassie it was her husband's phone number?

Zane still had a lot of questions about this whole situation.

“Okay I feel like we sort of skipped over the phone call you had with Pike’s wife. What exactly did she say? How did she even get your number?”

“Well y’know Jenna, Jenna Reid?”

“Sure,” Zane said. Jenna Reid was an old friend of Cassie’s from university. She was great, Zane really liked her. She also happened to be the wife of Buffalo player Samuel Reid. He was less great, and Zane didn’t really like him.

“So apparently, and I only got this story from Jenna when I spoke to her after the first phone call with Jackie Pike, but Jackie asked in the Voyageurs WAGs group chat if anyone had the numbers of any Centaurs players or their partners, and nobody did or at least nobody that did was responding, so Morgan Sharma messages, and–“

“Wait, who’s Morgan Sharma?”

“She’s Michael Blee’s girlfriend.”

Blee, Zane did know. Nice enough guy. He used to play for Buffalo, but he’d gotten traded to Montreal last year.

Jackie continues on, “Morgan messages the group chat, and says, “I don't know anyone on the Centaurs, but I know Jenna Reid is good friends with Cassie Boodram, so I can try and get her number from Jenna for you.” So Morgan messages Jenna, gets my number, gives it to Jackie, and well you know the rest.”

“So wait a second, Pike wants to get in contact with Rozanov, so he talks to his wife, who then talks to Michael Blee’s girlfriend, who talks to Jenna Reid, who gives her your phone number so Jackie can call you, so that you can give me Hayden Pike’s phone number so that I can call him and give the phone to Rozanov.”

“Yep, pretty much.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“It’s all very six degrees of Kevin Bacon.”

Zane maybe should’ve given Pike a bit more credit for his ‘secret society of WAGs’ joke.

Cassie continues on, “I mean what Jackie really wanted was your phone number, I’m assuming so she could pass it on to her husband so he could call you, but we ended up compromising on the whole me passing the number along thing.”

This actually surprised Zane, so much that he chuckles a little. “Wait so she called you, asked for my phone number, and you just told her no?”

Cassie sounds indignant as she explains, “I’d never met the woman! It was a very strange phone call, so I told her I wasn’t giving my husband’s phone number out to some random person cold-calling me out of the blue, no matter who she said she was.”

Zane laughs, a real full belly one this time. “Damn Baby! Cold as ice. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Cassie huffs, “In my defense my husband had almost just died in a plane crash, and I was very stressed out, okay?”

“Hey, no need to defend yourself to me, it’s sexy. I’m picturing you now-”

“Sweetheart, not the time.”

Damn. “Sorry, sorry, back to your story, how does this end up with the “compromise” of me having Hayden Pike’s phone number?”

Cassie sighs. “Well after I said no, she just asked about Ilya, wanted to know that he was okay, said that was why she wanted your phone number, to check on him, so I just told her that you had told me that nobody was injured, she kept apologizing for bothering me, but she was still really pushing for your phone number and she started talking about how she actually knows Ilya quite well from those charity camps, y’know the ones you said Ilya mentioned after the phone call.”

“There is no way in hell all these phone calls were about kids summer hockey camps.” Zane grumbles.

“I know, trust me I don't buy it either, but anyway, apparently Jackie helps out at these camps, like she does admin or something she was saying.”

“Yeah, yeah that actually maybe makes sense, like I said before, I think Pike and Hollander are like, best friends.”

“Anyway she was saying there were “people” that I probably don’t know but that were close with Ilya in a “personal sense”, whatever that means, and they couldn’t get in contact with him and when she was telling me everything she sounded really upset and I kinda felt bad for snapping at her earlier, so I told her that I’d pass her number along to you and get you to give her a call for an update and maybe also so she could talk to Ilya.”

Wait a second. “Her number? Not her husband’s?”

He hears his wife laugh softly down the line, “If you would let me finish Darling.”

“Sorry, sorry, continue.”

“Well after that she said, “Is it okay if I give you someone else’s number and you can get your husband to call them.” And so I ask her, obviously, who’s number it is and who it is that needs to speak to Ilya so badly, and she gave me the most vague and long winded non-answer of all time.”

The more Cassie has talked the more Zane had come to realise how similar the 2 phone calls the pair of them had had with both Pike’s were. There seemed to be this ever present veil of secrecy covering this whole situation that Zane still couldn’t quite figure out.

Cassie continued, “And before I had a chance to like, interrogate her on these details she was straight back into the pleading and just asking me to please get this phone number and a working phone to Ilya however I can, and by this point we’d been on the phone for like 10 minutes so I just told her to send me the number and I’d pass it along.”

“And then?”

“And then I hung up and texted you.”

“And she’s not been in contact since?”

“Nope”

“Weird”

“So weird,” Cassie agrees.

Zane put his head in his hands again. “Why would she not just say it was her husband's phone number? This is so bizarre.”

“Do you think..?” Cassie pauses, and Zane knows her well enough to figure out that she’s very carefully considering her choice of words here. “Do you remember what I said earlier? About whose number I thought Jackie was giving me?”

Zane makes a sharp inhale. He knows where Cassie is going with this. He’d been dancing around it, but it was the idea that had been bouncing about in his head since the phone call.

He’d been ignoring it, because it didn’t make sense, for a million different reasons, because Hayden Pike was married, he had kids. Because he was a man. Because Jackie Pike made the first phone call for god's sake. She wouldn’t do that for her husbands secret… whatever

And yet…

Zane’s not a bigot, far from it, he knows being with a woman doesn't mean you couldn’t also be with a man.

He knows that bisexuality is a thing, that sexuality is fluid. He knows many gay guys have or had wives.

He knows that despite his reputation, he’d not seen Rozanov with a woman in the entire time he’d been playing for the Centaurs.

He knows that Roz never comes out with them after home games, but sometimes does after away games.

Zane also knows, even if he had only realised it today when thinking back on it, that that sometimes is never after an away game in Montreal.

He knows they are hockey players, and that it was complicated, that it would be complicated, whatever it was.

He saw his captain's face when he told him who was on the phone, and saw his desperation to get on that phone call. He also saw his captain's face when he was standing in that corridor talking to Pike on the phone.

Zane knows that face. Zane probably had the exact same one when he first called Cassie after the landing.

It all paints a picture, it all seems to point to one thing.

He’s sure Cassie has painted the exact same picture in her mind, and he knows exactly what question she is about to ask. The same question that had been plaguing him since about half way through his conversation with Pike, when Pike had first called Roz by his first name.

“Do you think Rozanov’s secret girlfriend could be Hayden Pike?”

And, though he can’t speak the words out loud when presented with it, Zane only had one answer to that question.

Yes.

I do.

Chapter End Notes

Please let me know what you think! I loved reading peoples thoughts on the first chapter:)

This was originally going to be a very short phone call just to establish what had happened between Jackie and Cassie, but I was just having too much fun with the two of these guys gossiping and it ballooned.

Chapter 3: Please tell me I'm not crazy

Chapter Notes

Okay this is kinda where the book canon timeline goes out the window. I’ve had both Role Model and The Long Game open to their respective plane scenes and aftermath whilst I’ve been writing this and despite this being an AU, I have tried to be so minutely specific with details down to when Zane falls, who yells out what during the crash, and what order Ilya has his drinks in. (If you’re wondering, it’s beer first (The Long Game), then whisky and a chat with Troy before going to his hotel room (Role Model) ). Not that anyone probably cares but at least I know I’ve put in the effort.

That being said, I feel like my story kinda derails if I make them have their 12pm iHop breakfast and go to the beach. I considered making everyone else go and Zane and Ilya both stay at the hotel, but it just didn’t feel realistic.

So, this is like, a proper AU from here (not that it wasn’t already but y’know). This chapter begins morning after the plane crash, and we’re keeping basically everything from Role Model up until this point, which does get lightly hinted at in this chapter (if you know, you know). So they still have the day off, but from the morning onwards I’m ditching book timeline. The Long Game basically entirely skips this day so it’s pretty easy to disregard this also.

Anyway, sorry for War and Peace in the AN, definitely not required reading, but I like a yap.

Enjoy the Chapter!

Zane was up relatively early when you considered how much he’d drunk the night before, but for whatever reason he’d always been an early riser after a big night.

Cassie had looked into it once for him, apparently it was fairly common, something to do with sleep cycles being messed up whilst your body tries to process and get rid of the alcohol in your system.

It was frustrating, a little, but at least it meant he could always get his day started no matter what he’d been doing the night before. Definitely didn’t make the hangover any better though.

He was glad they had a day off, they all needed it after the stress of the previous 24 hours. The hotel had one of those crappy buffet breakfast things, and normally he skipped these and went out to find something decent to eat, but Zane didn’t feel up to going anywhere today, and he wasn’t sleeping anymore anyways, so he figured he’d head down and check it out.

Zane’s head was pounding on the lift down to the buffet and he was regretting not having some ibuprofen or something before he came down, but before long he was staring down about eight bain maries and trying to decide between some sad looking hash browns and sad looking bacon.

He fills his plate mindlessly and is about to go find a place to sit down and nurse this hangover when he sees a couple of the guys have had the same idea as him and have already found a good corner table to hide out.

Wyatt notices him looking and calls out, “Boodram! Come sit.”

Wyatt being there he probably should have suspected, he had always been an early riser, although he was surprised to see Barrett sitting across from him, who he was pretty sure was the kind of guy who usually liked a bit more of a sleep in.

Maybe he had the same sleep thing after drinking that Zane did. Although Zane didn’t think Barrett had drank that much, he’d certainly drunk less than Zane, and he’d left far earlier too. He doesn’t lift his head or acknowledge Zane at all as he walks over, so maybe he’d drunk more than he thought and was nursing a hangover.

When Zane gets over there and sits down, he claps Hayes on the shoulder.

“Should’ve guessed you’d be first up, you’d never let a hangover keep you from breakfast.”

Wyatt speaks through a mouthful of pancakes, “Yes it’s called the most important meal of the day for a reason, but Barrett actually beat me down here today, I’ll get him tomorrow."

Troy looks how Zane feels, so he must be right about his drinking theory. It’s probably the hangover.

“Morning Barrett.”

And he just hums in response.

Zane shoots Wyatt a look and raises his eyebrows, which leads the other man to lean over and whisper to him, “He’s quiet today.”

“I can hear you y’know.” Barrett snaps.

Zane laughs a little. “Ah so he speaks! Hangover hit you bad?”

“Something like that,” Barrett grumbles, as he shoves a spoonful of some kind of cereal into his mouth.

Zane chats with Wyatt as they eat slowly. Neither of them bring up what happened yesterday, planes and phone calls included, and it’s kind of nice to turn his mind elsewhere.

But he is itching to talk to someone about the whole Rozanov/Pike situation, so he texts Dykstra, who he knows will either be awake or waking up soon. A bunch of their stuff that had been left on the plane was brought to the hotel late last night, so Zane is hoping Dykstra’s bag with his phone in it was amongst the returned items.

It takes Dykstra another 15 minutes before he’s joined them. He says hi to everyone and starts ribbing Barrett about being grouchy.

Zane really wants to talk out what he’d figured out on the phone with Cassie. But he realises looking at their table that there’s one person missing from their group yesterday.

“Yo Barrett you seen Harris this morning?”

Troy frowns at him “No, What? I’ve been with you guys all morning? When would I have seen him? Why would I have seen him?”

“Alright man! Calm down, it’s just a question.” Damn Barrett really did wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

Zane considers texting Harris as well, but it’s still early and he doesn’t want to wake him, so they’ll just have to have the debrief without him.

Zane is about to bring it up when Wyatt calls out beside him, “Haasy! Over here, come join the early risers!”

Zane turns to look behind him and sure enough walking towards their table carrying a plate of what looks like way too much scrambled eggs for a person to eat in one sitting, is Luca Haas.

“Morning guys!” he says, far too chipper for this early in the morning in Zane’s humble opinion.

“The others still sleeping?” Dykstra asks him.

“Yeah, Holmberg and LaPointe are both still sleeping off last night, I don’t think they’ll be down before this breakfast thing closes.”

This slightly complicates things. Luca is a good kid, but Zane had sort of wanted to have this conversation only with people that already knew about the situation. He doesn’t want to like, out Pike and Rozanov or anything, but also this was almost killing him to not talk about.

Whilst Zane sits considering if telling their Rookie about the phone call yesterday is a betrayal to his Captain, Dykstra beats him to it.

“So that phone call from Pike yesterday, that was weird as anything right?”

Troy responds almost immediately, “I really don’t think we should be talking about this.”

“Wait what phone call?” Haas asks.

Zane sighs, and listens to Dykstra summarize what happened yesterday for Haasy’s sake, from the texts, to the call with Pike, to Rozanov’s excuses on the bus back.

Well, cats out of the bag now.

Dykstra turns to the rest of the table when he’s done with the story. “There’s no way any of us believe that story about the summer camps right? So…what do we think it was about?”

Troy once again cuts in first. “What I think is that we should mind our own business about the whole thing.”

This is the most Barrett has spoken all morning.

“Yeah but it’s Roz,” Dykstra says, “If this was anyone else he’d be all up in their business cracking jokes about the whole situation. We deserve to gossip about this a bit.”

Barrett frowns, and Zane sighs. Both Barrett and Dykstra make good points, and Zane considers whether it’s really fair to tell the guys about what he and Cassie talked about on the phone.

Zane’s burning curiosity wins out in the end. He explains to the table what Cassie told him last night, and what was said during her phone call with Jackie Pike. And then when he’s almost done, he gets to the part of this that he knows the rest of the guys are gonna bite down on, the bit that he’s really wanted to talk about this whole time.

“…So I guess at this point Cassie and I started to wonder if Pike and Roz might be like…a thing?”

The table is quiet for a moment, before Dykstra breaks the silence.

“Okay I was waiting for someone else to say it, but yeah, I totally have also been wondering that.”

Troy puts his head in his hands, “I get the distinct feeling that nobody is going to listen to me about this.”

Luca tilts his head and says, “Wait I’m clearly missing something here.”

“A thing, like together, romantically,” Wyatt explains.

Zane continues, “Cassie and I have kind of thought for a while that Rozanov had a secret girlfriend.”

Wyatt perks up at this. “Yeah I’ve also thought that.”

Dykstra pouts. “Wait what? Damn and neither of you told me?”

“I mean it makes sense, he’s always on his phone and gets weird if we ask who he’s texting. It would also explain the not coming to team hangouts thing.” Luca says.

“Right, okay, so we think Hayden Pike is the secret girlfriend?” Dykstra asks.

Zane watches as Barrett lays his head on the table and groans.

Zane ignores him and turns to Dykstra, “Yeah, maybe, I think so, but the thing that’s throwing me about this whole thing is Pike’s wife.”

Dykstra laughs, “Oh so you’ve never heard of a gay guy being married to a woman before? You’ve never heard of a hockey player cheating on his wife?”

Zane smiles back, “No obviously, I know that but like, she was the one who called Cassie and gave her Pike’s number, and she basically had to beg Cassie to do it. Why would she want so badly for her husband to be able to speak to the guy he’s cheating on her with?”

Luca chimes in, “Maybe they’re in a throuple?”

“A throuple?” Zane asks.

Luca continues excitedly, “Yeah a throuple. It’s this thing where basically three people get together and-”

Zane interrupts him, “I know what a throuple is. Roz isn’t in a throuple with Hayden Pike and his wife.”

At least Zane doesn’t think so, because, well, if that were true, wouldn’t she want to speak to Rozanov as well, why would she be so adamant on giving Cassie her husband’s number rather than her own.

Wyatt hums, “I figure they have some kind of agreement about the whole thing. She probably knows he’s gay and they have an understanding about it,” he says.

Dykstra nods, “I mean yeah, they’ve got a couple kids right?”

“Exactly, like, as long as he still provides for her, and is a good father to the kids, she lets him go off and I don’t know, have nice gay sex and be boyfriends with Rozanov,” Wyatt says.

Barrett makes a sound like he’s been shot.

“I don’t think I’ve ever got gay vibes from Pike,” Luca says.

“Yeah but it’s not like any of us have ever got gay vibes from Rozanov either,” Dykstra counters.

Wyatt pulls a face. “Well… I don’t know about that”

This gets Zane’s attention. “You thought Roz was gay? Like before yesterday?”

“I don’t know, probably more like bisexual or something? I’ve considered it at least.”

“Really? What do you know that we don’t?” Dykstra asks.

Wyatt waves his arm at that, “Nothing, nothing, it’s mostly the secret girlfriend thing, like when I’ve thought about why he’d have so much secrecy around the whole thing, I have considered for a while if the secret girlfriend might actually be a secret boyfriend.”

Zane is about to tell Wyatt that his logic makes sense when the man in question continues his train of thought. 

“Also, sometimes I think he looks at guys.”

And Zane had definitely not noticed that. 

“Looking at people makes you gay?” Haasy asks, with a hint of alarm.

Wyatt shakes his head. “No I mean looks looks at guys, y’know what I’m saying.”

“No, not really.”

Dykstra laughs, “We’ll tell you when you’re older Haasy.”

“No shut up, I know what you mean by looks and looks looks, but I’m just saying I don’t know how you think you can tell the difference.” 

“Goalies see everything Rookie, everything,” Wyatt says. 

Zane tries to get back on the main point. “Okay so Roz is probably maybe bisexual, and Hayden Pike what? Bi, gay? Maybe cheating on his wife but maybe it’s not cheating cause she probably knows about it?”

“See this is why we need Harris here, he’d have a better idea,” says Dykstra.    

Barrett still has his head in his hands when he asks, “And why exactly would he have a better idea?”

“Look Barrett, we’re a bunch of straight guys y’know, it’d be good to get an alternate perspective from, like, an expert in the field,” explains Dykstra. 

“An expert in the field??” Barrett cries. 

“Someone with a better gaydar,” Wyatt chimes in, as though that was the part Barrett was confused about. 

“Troy, have you seen him this morning?” Dykstra asks.

Troy bristles at this, “What? Why does everyone keep asking me? Why would I specifically have seen him?”

Okay, so Troy had clearly woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Or maybe he and Harris got into a fight or something? 

Dykstra raises his eyebrow at Troy, “Because you guys are friends..?”

Barrett sighs and stands up from the table, “I’m going out for a run, need to clear my head,” he then pauses before walking off and adds, “If Harris were here he would tell you all the exact same thing I’ve been telling you. We shouldn’t speculate about this sort of stuff, it’s none of our business.” And with that, he’s gone. 

Barrett’s words clearly do hold some weight to the others, because it kind of puts an end to the conversation there. 

Wyatt starts talking about their next game against Tampa, and then Dykstra is telling Haasy a story about the last time he was in Florida that Zane laughs along with but is pretty sure is at least 80% made up.  

A couple more people from the team end up joining them. Chouinard’s there, Boyle too. Different people go back to the buffet and refill their plates a couple of times, and they eat breakfast and chat about nothing. 

It’s like everything goes back to their regular scheduled programming. 

Eventually Wyatt leaves, followed not long after by Dykstra. Holmberg actually does end up making it down before the thing closes, and chats with Haasy, the pair of them end up smuggling some pastries in their pockets to take upstairs for LaPointe and Young for when they finally wake up. 

Meanwhile Zane just…stays. 

Nobody seems as stuck on this as he is.  

He watches Dale the equipment manager and Coach Wiebe talk, but can’t bring himself to engage. 

Not when he knows what he knows. Or at least suspects. 

In truth, Zane mostly sticks around so long because he’s hoping Rozanov will come down. He wants to talk to him about this. He needs clarity. 

Time blurs, and all of a sudden it’s 11:20 in the morning and the staff are giving a 10 minute warning for the buffet, and Zane realises he’s been sitting here for 4 and a half hours. 

Harris had finally come down as well only 5 minutes prior. So Zane watches him quickly grab some last minute food to pile on his plate. He’d asked about Barrett when he got here, Zane had told him about the run, but didn’t mention the bad mood. 

Maybe Harris could fix him if they talked. 

As Zane watches Harris butter his toast, he so badly wants to use these last 10 minutes of buffet breakfast to ask him about Roz and Pike. 

But he considers what Troy had said to them, right before he left, and the words get stuck in his throat. 

Zane thinks better of it, and says nothing. 

When he’s kicked out of the buffet breakfast after almost 5 hours, he finds himself out the front of Rozanov's hotel room. 

It’s instinctual, he doesn’t even know what he’s going to say to him, but they definitely need to talk. 

He knocks on the door. 

No answer.  

Surely he’s gotta be awake by now. 

He calls out to him, and bangs again. 

No response. 

He must have gone out. 

Zane huffs, and leaves, but he doesn’t go back to his room. He wanders down to the lobby of the hotel and just sort of waits. 

He doesn’t exactly know why he does. 

At least, he’s pretending he doesn’t. 

Zane doesn’t feel up for going anywhere right now, but he just doesn't really want to be completely alone. He knows if he goes up to his room, he’ll just be sitting on his bed and spiraling thinking about it.

So hotel lobby it is. 

He can sit here, catch up on emails, and scroll instagram. This is also the perfect spot to engage in one of his favourite pastimes. 

People watching. 

He watches people come and go from the hotel, and wonders about their lives and what they’re doing. He eavesdrops on parts of their conversations as they walk past, and makes up stories in his head about what they’re talking about.

It’s actually quite nice to just sit and think about something other than Ilya Rozanov and Hayden Pike.  

But, if Zane is being honest with himself he also knows in his heart of hearts that there’s another motivating factor in his decision to hang out here in the lobby. 

He’s really hoping to get a glimpse of Roz coming or going, so they can talk.  

It’s mostly the others he ends up seeing. 

The rookies all say goodbye to him as they leave to go do minigolf of all things. 

Wyatt tries to tempt Zane to go out with him, Dykstra, and Chouinard for some late lunch, but he just tells them to go without him. 

He waves Coach Wiebe out when he goes to catch up with some people he knows locally. 

He almost misses Barrett coming back inside. 

He’s still in his workout gear, and he’s taking his headphones off when Zane walks up to him. 

“Don’t tell me you were running that whole time, your legs will fall off.” 

Barrett startles a bit, and seems surprised to see him. “No, I sat on the beach for a bit, had a swim, Florida you know?”

Zane smiles at him, “All good man” and then, because he’s feeling brave he adds, “You feel any better?”

Barrett, somewhat surprisingly, returns his smile “Yeah, heaps better, just needed to clear my head. Sorry, I know I was a bit uh, snappy at breakfast.” Then, almost too casually, he adds, "You seen Harris at all?”

“Yeah he came down to breakfast after you left.” He watches Barrett’s face carefully. “You should give him a call or something. He asked after you, I told him you were going off on a run.”

“Yeah maybe, uh I should probably have a shower first.”

“Yeah all good man,” Zane says, and waves him off. 

Barrett turns to head towards the elevators, but then seems to think better of it and turns back to Zane. “Hey, um, I was just wondering, was Pike with anyone?” 

Zane tilts his head at him “What?”

“Yesterday on the phone call, was there anyone else there? Like, was he speaking to anyone else whilst he was on the call with you?”

Zane chuckles, “Ohhh, so the rest of us should stop speculating and need to stop talking about this, but when you have a question it’s all fair game.”

Barrett's smile drops, and he cringes a bit, “Yeah, right, sorry, yeah never mind.” 

Zane grimaces, shit, clearly the run and a swim hadn’t completely fixed whatever was getting Troy down, he’d kind of forgotten that he was in a sensitive mood this morning. 

He tries to recover. “Nah, man I’m just teasing, but to answer your question, ah no? At least not that I noticed. I’m pretty sure he was alone. His wife was in Montreal, at least that’s what she told Cassie, and the Voyageurs had a game in like Washington, so I’m guessing he was just like at the hotel on his own.”

Troy hums, and has a thoughtful look. 

“Why do you ask?”

Troy clams up at this, “Oh, um nothing…you were right, I shouldn’t be like…just forgot I said anything.” 

And with that Barrett tries to slink away, walls back up. 

Zane calls out to him, “Do you know something? Something you’re not sharing with the class?”

Barrett just turns and shakes his head, “I don’t know anything, gotta go shower, talk to you later!”

And he’s gone again. 

Barrett knows something, Zane is so sure Barrett knows something. 

Another person with Pike? Why would he be asking about that? 

Maybe Barrett was more on board with the throuple theory than he was pretending to be. 

At 3.30pm with not one sign of Rozanov, Zane’s about to have him labeled as a missing person. He texts the others and asks about Roz, but nobody’s seen him all day. Wyatt apparently invited him out for the same late lunch he had invited Zane to, and he’d ignored his messages. 

Zane tries to call him. It rings out. 

Zane considers for the first time that Rozanov is probably avoiding them all. In fact, he thinks there’s a good chance he’d never left his hotel room to begin with, and Zane has been sitting in the lobby for hours like an idiot for no reason. 

He only begins to spiral when he starts thinking about the why. 

Rozanov has to know based on their reactions yesterday that they don’t believe the story he gave them. Zane doesn’t know why, but it’s only just hitting him now what this must mean for Roz. This is a secret relationship, and now half of his teammates know about it. 

Roz must know that they know. Or that they at least suspect. He’s not stupid, and when you consider how suspicious they all were yesterday on the bus, how could he not know that they know. 

What if Roz thinks they’re upset with him about this? Or that they’ll hold this against him? What if Roz thinks they’ll tell other people, or spread it to ESPN?

He’s been so entirely selfish with the whole way he’s been thinking about this all morning. He’s been letting his own curiosity and need for answers be the driving force behind all his decisions. 

Fuck, maybe he should’ve listened to Barrett this morning. Rozanov’s probably upstairs locked in his room freaking out. He’s probably worried that Zane is like homophobic, and that he’s gonna out him and Pike in the press. 

Zane regrets so badly not saying something supportive yesterday when he figured it out. He just grilled him for more information on the bus. He was a terrible friend. 

Zane has to speak to him. Has to reassure him that he’s supportive. That he’s an ally. That he’s happy for him and Pike, and he won’t tell anyone about it. 

He’s going back up to his room, and he’s not gonna stop knocking until Rozanov lets him in. 

Chapter End Notes

Yeah I know….sorry for the cliff hanger. Only one chapter left of the main story though, (followed by the epilogue).

Also thank you guys so much for the lovely comments on last chapter. They definitely motivated me to get this out much earlier than I would have otherwise.

Chapter 4: Please stop knocking

Chapter Notes

What we’ve all been waiting for….

Also I did some slight editing on the last chapter because I realised I’m an idiot and I had Zane texting Dysktra and calling Ilya (when both of their phones were left on the plane, the whole starting point for this fic). So I added a line about the fact that a bunch of their stuff from the plane had been returned to the hotel late last night.

Zane has been banging on the door for about 2 minutes when he considers again that maybe Rozanov really isn’t in his room. 

Well banging is a strong word, it’s more like, he knocks a couple times, waits 20-30 seconds, and then knocks again. 

He wants Roz to open the door, sure, but he doesn’t want anyone in the adjoining hotel rooms to call security on him for disrupting the peace. 

It’s whilst he’s pausing and considering all this that he hears some shuffling from inside the room. 

Bingo. He’s definitely in there. 

He knocks again, louder this time, “Rozanov I know you’re in there, I can hear you, it’s Bood, I just wanna talk.” 

He hears more shuffling from inside, and maybe some whispered talking, but it’s hard to tell through the door. 

Roz doesn’t answer. 

Zane sighs, he leans his head in close to the door, so he doesn’t have to yell what he’s going to say next. 

“I know you probably don’t want to, but we really should talk buddy, because…”

He steels himself. 

“Because, I think I’ve probably figured some stuff out, about what was maybe going on with that phone call yesterday.”

He hears more shuffling from inside, and it sounds like Rozanov has moved himself closer to the door. 

He’s getting somewhere then. 

Zane continues, “And I think you probably know that I’ve maybe figured some stuff out, and I’m guessing you’re in there freaking out about it, probably, so I think we should talk. And I really want to—“

The door opens. 

Rozanov is standing in front of him. 

Well, sort of. He’s not stepped out into the corridor, or opened the door completely, so about half of Rozanov is standing in front of him, but it’s a start. 

“What do you think you’ve figured out, Boodram?” Rozanov asks, through the crack in the door. 

Zane blinks at him, he looks from side to side, the corridor is empty, but this is a hotel, and that could change any minute. 

He looks back to Rozanov, “Do you really want to have this conversation out here?” 

He seems to consider the question and he opens the door slightly more to poke his head out and look down the corridor in the same manner Zane just had. 

“No, you’re right...bad idea, okay just, just give me a second, don’t move,” and with that Rozanov slams the door in his face. 

Zane stares at the door for a moment, wondering if Roz is actually going to come back or if this is some kind of weird distraction technique and he is going to have to start knocking again in a couple of minutes. 

Zane stands there with his hands in his pockets, and after around 2 minutes Rozanov opens the door again, fully this time, and ushers him inside. 

Zane notes as he walks in that Rozanov's room is much bigger than the one Zane is in. The layout of the room is very familiar of course, the door to the ensuite is immediately to his left when he walks in, and there's a short corridor down to where the bed is, same as his, but where Zane’s room ends just past the bed, this room continues, with a small kitchenette to one side and a three seater couch with a matching arm chair sitting in front of a TV to the other. 

Must be captain privileges. 

Zane goes to sit in the armchair, and Roz takes a seat in the middle of the couch. Neither of them say anything for a moment. 

Roz breaks the silence. 

“Okay, you have five minutes, you talk, after that you leave my hotel room, yes?” 

“Okay, yeah that’s fine,” Zane replies, and takes a deep breath before continuing. “First thing I want to say is sorry, for yesterday.”

Roz tilts his head at him, “Sorry?”

“Yes, I want to apologise, mostly for grilling you on the bus back from the airport.”

“You want to apologise…for the bus?” 

Zane nods at him, “Yeah, that wasn’t really cool, I should’ve left it alone, it wasn't my place to say anything.”

Rozanov just blinks at him, not responding, so Zane continues, “And Barrett tried to talk to me about it this morning, but I wasn’t really listening to what he was saying–” 

“Barrett said something to you about this?” Rozanov interrupts, and he looks panicked, “About me? He told you things?”  

Zane goes to reassure him. “No, no, he didn’t like, tell me anything, I just mean, he kept saying that I, well, that everyone, should mind their own business about the whole thing.” 

This seems to settle Rozanov’s nerves, “Ah, okay.” 

"So I take it Barrett knows then?” Zane asks. 

Roz shakes his head, “No, Barrett knows nothing, forget Barrett, we’re talking about you.” 

Zane sighs, and with a hint of exasperation he says, “Actually man, I’m pretty sure we’re talking about you.” 

Roz looks at him sharply, “No we’re talking about you, about what you know, or maybe what you think you know.”

The icy tone in Rozanov's words has Zane looking at him properly for the first time in a while. 

Rozanov is breathing heavy. His eyes are darting around the room, and they keep finding the door, like he’s wanting to get out and escape this conversation. He’s scared.

Zane is fucking this up. Time to change tactics. 

“You know I’m your friend, yeah?” 

Roz shrugs and nods at him. 

“I know we’re not as close as like you and Hayes probably…and like, you and Barrett have got this new thing going and you clearly trust him and that’s great too…but you’re my friend, and you’re my captain. I care about you, and I respect you, and nothing is going to change that.” 

Roz just groans at this, which Zane tries not to get offended by. 

“Boodram,” Rozanov says, meeting his eyes again, less sharp, and more pleading, “What exactly do you know?” 

And Roz is just completely not getting it, what Zane is trying to tell him. He’s focusing on the wrong things. 

“That’s not what I came here for, to like talk specifics and interrogate you again, or like, try to get answers. I just want to tell you that I support you, and I’m not gonna say anything to anyone about—“

Roz waves his arms at him, and cuts him off. “Yes, very nice sentiment, but…Bood, please, that’s what I want right now, specifics, I just want you to tell me exactly what you know.” 

Zane frowns, “What, do you want like a list?” 

Rozanov makes a somewhat contemplative face, then nods, “Yes, sure, list is good.”

Which, okay, Zane will, if Rozanov really wants him too, but that’s not really the conversation he’d come here to have.  

He tries one more time to get back on track, “Roz it doesn’t matter what I know—“ 

“Yes, it does, it matters to me, it matters very much to me, this is me and my life and my…” 

Rozanov sighs, he seems to be struggling to find the words to say what he wants to. 

“Bood, there are… I cannot talk to you about this until I know what you know, I have many things to… there are…it’s not just me I think about.” 

Zane nods at him, “Yeah, there’s other people to consider here, I know.” 

And well, if this is really what Roz wants, who’s Zane to refuse him. 

“Okay, well, if I’m doing a list, first thing is probably that I think there’s a good chance that you’re not like 100% straight,” Zane says. 

Roz has his poker face on, “Okay,” he says.

Zane continues, “Cassie and I, and ah Wyatt too apparently, have thought for a while that you had a secret girlfriend, it was one of the running theories for why you’re always too busy for group hangouts.”

Zane pauses whilst he considers his next words. 

“I’d always wondered, like, why the whole thing was such a big secret, clearly there was some complicating factor that I didn’t know about, and so yeah, mostly after yesterday, with that phone call, we kinda figured out that the secret girlfriend was actually a secret boyfriend.” 

Rozanov keeps glancing up the corridor past Zane whilst he talks, like he’s checking out the front door to the hotel room still considering his grand escape from this conversation. 

Despite how uncomfortable he looks, Rozanov doesn't ask Zane to stop, so he continues on.

“And maybe part of the reason it’s complicated is not just because it's a guy, but because it's a guy on another team. Another hockey player.” 

Zane doesn’t really know if he should add the next bit, but Roz had asked for specifics, so he does. 

“Potentially a certain Voyageurs player, that you may or may not have spoken to on the phone yesterday.”

There’s a brief pause, before Roz quietly says, “Maybe” and fidgets around again, looking at the door, “Maybe” he repeats.  

It’s not exactly a full confirmation, but it’s close enough. 

Zane watches as Rozanov runs his hands through his hair. 

“Fuck, was hoping maybe you wouldn’t put it together.” 

Zane goes to reassure him, “Buddy I’m not asking you for anything here, I’m not looking for you to confirm or deny anything, and I will never talk about this ever again if you don’t want me to, but I’m telling you that I’m with you, for whatever this is exactly.”

Roz nods at him and asks, “You have ah questions I guess, concerns?” 

Zane shrugs, “No concerns, questions for sure, but I’m not here for that.” 

Roz smiles at this a bit, “Ask. Maybe I answer, maybe I don’t.” 

Well okay, maybe one or two questions can’t hurt, if Roz is willing. 

“Okay. Is he part of the reason you signed with Ottawa?” Zane asks. 

Roz nods, “It was maybe a few factors…but yes, he was the main, most important one.” 

“Wow, okay.” 

Zane had partially been expecting that, I mean it’s why he’d asked. But the confirmation from Rozanov still holds weight. 

His second question though, will probably hold more. 

“Do you love him?” He asks.

“Yes,” Roz responds immediately, grinning. “More than anything.” 

“Well, that’s the bit that matters then,” Zane says, and returns his smile. “I’m happy for you.” 

“That’s it?” Rozanov asks, “No other questions?” 

Zane shrugs. “Look Roz, I’m not gonna pretend I’m not curious as hell here, but I meant what I said earlier, I’m not here to interrogate you. I just, you’re my Captain, I respect you, and I trust you and I follow you. In the game and beyond.”

Before he has time to think better of it, Zane adds, “And I know the same goes for the other guys too okay?”

And that was maybe not the right thing to say. The reminder that other people also know about this seems to sober Rozanov, the soft smile he’d had drops and he’s back to his Captain face. 

“Which other guys, specifically?” Roz asks, “Who else knows this, what you’ve figured out?”

Zane hums, “Ah, well Dykstra and Harris were with with me when I was speaking on the phone to Pike, and then y’know we came up to you and Barrett was there too, which you know obviously, so yeah there’s him, and then also Hayes, cause he came over and joined us when you were having your phone call and asked what was going on so…”

And this is the one he feels a little bad about, but in the name of honesty, he powers through. 

“Um, also Haasy now too actually? Sorry but ah he was down at breakfast with us this morning when we were talking about it, so, yeah. Sorry we shouldn’t have been talking about it, we were just like curious I guess.”

Roz is nodding at him, and he doesn’t look too mad, which Zane is hoping is a good sign. 

“You aren’t mad at me?” Roz asks, “The others aren’t upset? For the lying, for keeping secrets?”

Zane is surprised Roz had even considered this a possibility. 

“No, no, I couldn’t be mad at you for this, not at all. You’re allowed to have your secrets, especially when they’re to protect yourself, and y’know others.” 

Zane continues, trying to reassure Rozanov. “The other guys feel the same, nobody’s mad, maybe a little curious for sure, but everyone was really supportive about the whole thing when we were talking about it.” 

Embarrassingly, Zane realises that this is a bit of a white lie, they’d more been speculating and gossiping than voicing support. But he knows the others, he knew they would be, and he’d talk to them all right after he was done with Roz, he’d get them all on the same page. 

Rozanov nods at him again, “Okay…okay, good, yes this is, this is good then.” 

Zane smiles at him, “Look Cap, I don’t know what exactly the situation is, and I don’t need to know but whatever it is, I’m glad you have people y’know?” 

Zane pauses, before adding, “And y'know with the whole lying thing..”

Roz flinches a bit at this, but Zane thinks this is important to say, so he powers through. 

“Yesterday, right after we landed, when I asked you if you wanted to borrow my phone, you told me that there wasn’t anyone to call.” He looks up to meet Rozanov's eyes, “That wasn’t…That made me a bit sad, to hear, so, I’m really glad that was a lie.” 

Roz and him just stare at each other for a moment. The silence not awkward, but grounding. Comforting. 

“I’m glad you’ve got people,” Zane tells him. “Someone who cares enough to call.” 

Rozanov opens his mouth to speak, but before he has a chance to say anything they’re interrupted by a knock at the door. 

Both Roz and him turn to look down the corridor. 

When he looks to Rozanov, about to ask him if he’s going to go answer it, Zane realises a couple of things in quick succession. 

His first realisation is that Roz isn’t actually looking at the front door to the hotel room. He’s looking in the same general direction, sure, but his eyes are more turned towards the right hand side of the corridor.  

The second realisation is that what he just heard was not the sound of knocking on the door to this hotel room (Zane would know, he’s spent a good amount of time knocking at it today). The door is a heavy wood, and it makes a deep sound. This knocking sounded more soft, also like it was coming from closer, and maybe a sharper noise, like the sound of someone knocking at a door made of more hollow wood. 

This leads him to the third realisation. The knocking sound has come from the door to the ensuite bathroom. 

Which leads him very quickly to the fourth and most important realisation. 

There is someone hiding in the bathroom of Rozanov’s hotel room. 

When it all hits him, Zane’s somewhat disappointed in himself that he didn’t figure it out sooner. The nervous energy Roz has had the whole time he’s been here. The frequent glancing to the door. 

He’s not been looking at the front door for an escape.  

He’s been looking at the bathroom door. 

That his secret boyfriend is clearly on the other side of.  

Zane loses any sense of decorum as he speaks, “Oh shit! Is Pike like, here?” 

At this, Rozanov breaks his staring contest with the door.  

“Pike?” he asks. 

Zane doesn’t really know what to do here. “He can like, come out, if you guys want,” he says. 

“Come out?” Rozanov says, and Zane doesn’t understand his tone. 

“Not like, come out come out..” Zane replies, “..just like, come out of the bathroom. You don’t have to hide him in there.” 

Zane nods, somewhat proud of himself, he is a little thrown, sure, but he thinks he’s handling this with a lot of grace. 

Rozanov, on the other hand, is not.  

He looks somewhat crazed. 

“Pike?” He repeats. “You think Hayden Pike is in my bathroom.” 

“Yeah?” Zane says, unsure if Roz is being obtuse on purpose. Does he want Zane to just pretend he didn’t hear the knocking? 

Roz says his next words slowly, like he’s talking to a small child. “Why do you think Hayden Pike is in my bathroom?” 

Did they not just have this conversation? Does Rozanov really want Zane to spell it out again? 

“Cause you and him are like, dating?” Zane says, “Seeing each other? I don’t know what we’re calling it exactly.”

Rozanov is staring at him now, unblinking. 

Shit, what if it’s not Pike in there. What if it’s some other hookup, Zane had assumed it was like exclusive between the two of them, but what if he’s wrong. 

“Or maybe not Pike, I guess, maybe some other guy or girl or whatever, I’m not judging, I mean you did say you loved him so I assumed…” 

And fuck Roz looks like he’s about to have a panic attack now. 

Abort. Abort.  

Zane shouldn’t have brought up the love thing. 

He tries to backpedal. 

“Not that that means you have to be exclusive or anything, I’m not judging.” 

“I said I loved him?” Roz chokes out, his eyes wild, breathing heavy.  

Is Rozanov having a stroke right now, it’s like he’s forgotten the entirety of the conversation they’d just been having. “I mean yeah? Before, when I asked? I’m really confused right now man.” 

“You’re confused!!” Roz yells at him, as he gets up and walks towards the bed. 

He flops himself down on it, and groans into his hands. 

“Oh my god, oh my god, no no.” 

Zane stands up from the armchair, and watches Rozanov. 

“Oh shit…Hayden Pike?” Roz says, sounding pained. 

He then starts muttering to himself in Russian. Zane can’t understand a word of it, obviously, but he can clearly hear Roz say “Pike” and “Boodram” a few times, so he knows that he’s talking about this. 

“I don’t speak Russian buddy,” Zane tries, but he gets no response. 

Zane does not know what has prompted this absolute freak out from Rozanov. He had thought their conversation was going well. 

Should Zane leave? Give his Captain a chance to sort things out with whatever Pike/Not Pike person is in the bathroom. 

He’s about to ask if Roz wants him to go when another three steady knocks come from the bathroom door. Much louder this time. 

Rozanov sits up from the bed and glances between the door to the bathroom and Zane. He seems to also not know what to do here. 

Zane tries to help him out. 

“I think he wants you to let him out maybe?...Or actually probably he wants you to go in there, cause you haven’t, like, locked him in there right?” 

“What kind of bathroom door locks from the outside Bood? No he is not locked in,” Roz snaps at him. 

Well, at least Roz is admitting someone is in there. 

He continues staring at the door, not moving from where he’s sat on the bed. It’s almost as though Rozanov thinks if he glares at the problem for long enough it will disappear. 

Zane tries again, “Look either way, I feel like maybe you should go over there.” 

Rozanov doesn’t look at him, but he does respond properly this time. 

“I think yes, probably.”  

Zane watches as his Captain rises from the bed and walks over to the bathroom door.

“Give me 2 minutes. Do not fucking move”, he calls out over his shoulder, and with that, Roz opens the bathroom door and quickly steps inside before shutting it again. 

Zane stands awkwardly by the bed, he doesn’t know if he should go back to the chair or just sit down on the bed. 

Roz had told him not to move, but he probably didn’t mean it so literally. 

He hears muffled whispers from inside the bathroom, and part of him wants to walk closer to see if he can make anything out, but he manages to restrain himself. 

He bounces on his heels as he waits for Roz and whoever the hell he’s got in there to be finished. 

After around 5 minutes, the whispers stop. 

Zane stills as he watches the door handle move. 

The door opens and out walks Rozanov and 

Shane Hollander?

Hollander looks...different. More relaxed than he’s ever appeared to Zane. 

It’s odd seeing him outside of his Voyageurs gear. 

He’s wearing a pair of athletic shorts, and a green hoodie that Zane knows belongs to Rozanov. Hollander is smiling at Zane sheepishly as he walks into the room behind Roz.  

“Hey Boodram,” Hollander says to him, “How are you doing man?”

Zane blinks. Okay, smalltalk. Sure, Zane can do that. 

“Yeah, Hollander, I’m alright, and yourself?”

Hollander nods, “Yeah I’m not bad.”

Roz scoffs, looking between the two of them, “Yes, lovely weather we are having,” he adds, the words dripping with sarcasm. 

Zane ignores him. He wants to ask the pair what the fuck exactly is going on. Ask why Roz had Shane Hollander hiding in his bathroom. He doesn’t. 

Instead, he asks, “Weren’t you like, just in Washington?” As though that is the thing that is weird about this situation. 

Hollander scratches at the back of his head, and doesn’t meet his eyes. “Ah, yeah, no yeah I was, yesterday” he tells him. “I rented a car” 

He rented a car? 

“You drove here from Washington?” Zane asks. 

“Yup.”

“Long drive” Zane comments.

“Yeah, 13 hours, give or take, but only took me a little over 12 actually, I got in at like 4am, and traffic isn’t that bad in the middle of the night,” Hollander tells him. 

Zane lets the words sink in. 

He collates information together in his head like puzzle pieces. 

Rozanov had just heavily implied that he was dating a player on the Montreal Voyageurs. 

Roz’s former arch rival turned personal friend Shane Hollander, had rented a car and drove all through yesterday afternoon and into the night to meet up with him.

Shane Hollander, Captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, who Zane had heard some rumors about potentially being gay, was here, in Rozanov’s hotel room. 

Shane Hollander had presumably been in this hotel room, alone with Roz since about 4am this morning. 

A hotel room with one bed, and suspiciously rumpled sheets. 

Zane will admit that sometimes he is not the smartest or most observant person, but he’s not a complete idiot. 

He can, on occasion, add two and two and get four. 

He bites the bullet, and asks the question. 

“So you two are..?”

“Together, yes.” Roz says, “He is my boyfriend.”

“Wow…crazy” is all Zane can think of to say. 

Roz snorts at him. “Wow, crazy?” 

Right. Zane can do better than that. 

He tries again, “Thank you for telling me,” he says. 

“I’m happy for you Cap,” he adds. 

Roz smiles at him, then reaches over to hold Hollander’s hand. “Lets go sit down, hm? We can talk.”

Zane nods, and the three of them walk past the bed to the sitting area. Hollander and Roz take the couch, and Zane sits on the armchair. 

Zane watches Roz and Hollander, legs touching on the couch, Roz with his arm gently placed behind Hollander's back. 

It’s quite a picture. 

Rozanov breaks the silence. 

“Hollander was lonely in the bathroom, got bored of staring lovingly at my toothbrush, so he thought he’d join us.” 

Hollander shoves into Rozanov’s side, “Would you shut up,” he says, “That’s not why I wanted to come out.”

Hollander readjusts himself on the couch, tilting his body so he’s facing Zane.  

“I heard basically all of what you were saying,” Hollander tells him. “Sorry to eavesdrop, but I mean, you were pretty insistent on coming in, and I couldn’t exactly sneak out the window.” 

Zane gives him a small smile. “All good man,” he says. 

Hollander continues, “I wanted to come out to thank-you, for what you were saying to Ilya about being supportive of his relationship and everything, and um…all that stuff about y’know, having people? That was…it was nice to hear, as said person.” 

Hollander looks to Rozanov briefly, and gives him a small smile, before returning his attention to Zane. 

“I figured it’d be better if I came out and we could just like get everything out into the open y’know, no real point hiding if you’d figured everything out.” 

Zane nods at him. 

Hollander continues, “I mean I needed to speak to Ilya about it first before just like, barging out, so that's why I knocked…and then after that I obviously heard what you said about Hayden.” 

Rozanov groans into his hands as Hollander tries to hold back a laugh. 

“And well at that point I felt the need to come out to clear up any misunderstandings…So, can I ask why exactly you thought Ilya was dating Hayden?”

Hollander is grinning at him now, but Roz hasn’t removed his head from his hands. 

“Well, basically,” Zane begins, “Yesterday, after the almost plane crash, I got Pike’s number sent to me because he apparently desperately needed to speak to Roz, so I called him and I tried to tell him to take a hike, but then he was super insistent that he had to talk to Roz, and-” He turns to Rozanov, “Cap you grabbed my phone so fast when I told you it was him on the call.” 

Roz gives him a sour look. 

Zane continues, “And then, I mean you probably heard me talking about the secret girlfriend theory, so yeah, we kinda figured it was probably him.” 

“Pike is married!” Roz cries out, “To a woman! He has 40 children!” 

“He has four kids, Ilya. You know this. I don’t know why you think it’s fun to pretend you don’t know this,” Hollander says. 

Zane tries to justify his thought process to Rozanov. 

“Gay guys can be married to women, y’know. You and Pike, it’s not that crazy,” he tells him. 

But from the looks that Hollander and Roz are giving him, maybe it is. 

“It made sense at the time,” Zane says, somewhat defensively. “I mean less so now that I’m explaining it, but it’s not like you were giving us any hints y’know, like Roz buddy, if you had seen your face when you were on that phone call, you’d…You were talking to Hollander, for like, most of that phone call, weren't you?”

Hollander nods at him sheepishly. “Yeah, he was.” 

Everything seems to click into place for Zane. “So the call, yesterday, that was all about you? Pike was just another middle man.”

“Ah yeah, well, when everything was happening with the plane Ilya had messaged me on instagram some really heartfelt, but also kind of scary stuff,” Hollander explains. “And obviously with what happened with Ilya’s phone, I couldn’t get in contact with him afterwards, and I don’t know if you saw or anything but the press was being vague as hell about what had actually happened and if everyone was okay, so I was just kind of like, freaking out in my hotel room in Washington after the game.” 

Zane tries to imagine what it would have been like for Cassie yesterday if she hadn’t been able to talk to him right after. If she’d been relying on press updates for news. If nobody even knew to contact her to tell her that he was alright. 

He feels sick at the thought of it. 

“So, Hayden, who is a good friend of mine and knows about Ilya and I, obviously, was like, trying to get in contact with anyone on the Centaurs so I could speak to Ilya,” Hollander tells him. 

“Hence the phone call,” Zane says. 

“Hence the phone call,” Hollander parrots back. “So yeah, sorry about that, I’d have tried getting someone on the phone myself but I was a bit busy hyperventilating in the corner.”

Rozanov, who has been nodding along beside Hollander, adds, “Once Pike got me on the phone he put Shane on pretty quickly after, so it’s him I was actually talking to.” 

“Wow,” Zane says. “That now makes perfect sense. Kind of makes the Hayden Pike theory a bit silly in hindsight.”  

“Yes, very very stupid” Rozanov tells him. 

“It’s not that stupid,” Zane says. “All of us could at least tell you were talking to someone you loved on the phone, you can’t blame us for jumping to conclusions when we had the wrong guy.” 

“All of us?” Hollander asks. 

Zane cringes a bit, and somewhat guiltily explains, “Yeah…sorry, me, Dykstra, Hayes, Haasy and Barrett were all kind of theorising this morning.” 

Roz groans again, “The others all think I am with Hayden Pike?” 

“Well maybe not Barrett actually, he wasn’t exactly clear—” 

Oh my god. 

Was Pike with anyone?

Was there anyone else there?

Barrett was asking about Hollander. He knew Pike was calling for Hollander. 

“I’m an idiot, I’m an idiot,” Zane says. “Okay so Barrett definitely knows about you two.” 

“Mmm, sort of,” Roz explains, “He knows about me being bisexual, and he guessed about Shane. I didn’t confirm or deny at the time, but, yes he has probably figured it out by now.” 

Roz looks at Hollander and adds, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay” Hollander tells Roz. “You should invite him up, tell him properly.” 

“Why would I do that?” Rozanov asks, “You don’t like Troy Barrett.”

Hollander bristles at this. 

“What do you mean? I barely know Barrett,” he says. 

Roz smiles at Hollander. 

“Okay, maybe you don’t not like Troy, but you are jealous of Troy.”

“Ilya...” Hollander warns. 

“Maybe instead of being jealous of my friend Troy Barrett, you should instead be jealous of your friend Hayden Pike, I hear me and him are having an illicit affair,” Roz tells him. 

“Ilya, stop deflecting,” Hollander says. 

Rozanov puts his hands up in surrender. 

“Okay, sorry sorry.”  

“My point is, you like Barrett, he’s your friend, and you trust him, that’s what’s important, and besides like you said, he almost certainly already knows, and we’re telling Boodram now, so we should tell Barrett properly.”

Hollander stands up, and begins pacing the room. Rozanov follows him. 

“And the other guys too, the ones who think you’re dating Hayden. Wyatt, Dykstra and Haas, let’s invite them up,” Hollander says.  

“What?” Rozanov asks, and looks to Zane, like he’s searching for backup. As if Zane is going to be able to help him at all with this.  

“You told me once you wanted to tell Wyatt, and it doesn’t make sense to tell him, Barrett, Boodram and not the other two.” 

Hollander points at Zane. 

“Boodram, do you have all their numbers? Could you set up, like, a group text and invite them all up here?” 

“Like right now?” Zane asks, standing up from his armchair. He looks at Rozanov. He now also needs backup. 

“Shane…” Rozanov says. 

Hollander ignores him, and turns to Zane, “Yeah now, is there anyone I’m forgetting?”

“I mean there’s Harris,” Zane says slowly, crumbling under the pressure. “I don’t know what he thinks cause I didn’t speak to him, but he knows about the phone call with Pike yesterday.” 

Hollander nods, “Right, the social media guy, I mean he’s gay right? We can definitely tell him.”  

Before he can think better of it Zane chimes in, “If we’re inviting anyone who knows about the phone call, then I should tell you Haasy probably told the other rookies. They all gossip.” 

“Okay well they can come too.” 

Rozanov glares at him. 

“Dykstra might have told Chouinard,” Zane adds. “They went to lunch today, with Hayes.”

“We are not far from the whole team at this point!” Rozanov says. 

“You’re right.” Hollander turns to Zane, “Just invite the whole team up.” 

Hollander gestures to the room, “It’s actually a good sized hotel room really, much better than what the Voyageurs usually give me, so I think we’ll all fit.” 

Roz walks up to Hollander, and puts his hands on his shoulders. “Moya lyubov, I don’t know if you are thinking the best right now, it’s been a stressful 24 hours. Maybe we should wait and talk about it, if we want to tell more people, tomorrow." 

“Ilya, I’m thinking better than I have in years,” Hollander tells him. “I love you, I want to be with you, forever. You’re my everything, and I could’ve lost you yesterday.”

Zane feels kind of like he’s intruding on something here. 

“I know I was worried before, about people knowing, but if the last 24 hours have taught me anything, it’s that I don’t actually care about any of that. I care about you. People not knowing about us meant I couldn’t talk to you when everything happened. I had to have Hayden jump through all these hoops just to get you on the phone. If people know, I don’t have to worry about that sort of stuff. God forbid if something ever happens to you, at least there’ll be people who know to contact me.” 

Rozanov is staring at Hollander, and he looks almost like he’s about to cry. 

Zane has never seen anything like this. 

Hollander continues, “I want people to know who you are to me. That I love you. That you’re mine. Besides, would you rather your whole team thinking you’re having an affair with Hayden?”

“Well, we weren’t set on it being an affair exactly,” Zane adds, unhelpfully, completely ruining the moment and derailing Hollander’s heartfelt love confession. 

“We discussed the idea of some kind of arrangement, or like a throuple,” he adds. 

Why is he still talking?

“A throuple?” Roz asks. 

Hollander explains it to him. “It’s where there’s like, three people in a romantic relationship instead of two.” 

Rozanov turns back to Zane. “You thought Pike, Shane and I are in a relationship together?” 

Zane opens his mouth to explain, but Hollander beats him to it.

“No I think he probably means you, Hayden and Jackie.”

They both look at Zane. He nods. 

“Cause it’s not really an affair if Jackie’s involved also,” Hollander says.

“Yeah that was Haasy’s logic, but I think I was more team arrangement to be honest.” Zane replies. 

Rozanov growls at him, “Jackie, okay, would be more likely than Hayden Pike. She is actually nice, only bad thing about Jackie Pike is her husband.” 

Zane laughs, “In hindsight, what's going on here–” he points between Rozanov and Hollander, “-Makes way more sense than anything we managed to come up with.” 

As Zane looks at the pair of them a question pops into his mind. 

“How long exactly, have you two been a thing?” he asks. 

Roz laughs at this, “You would never guess Boodram, you would never guess.” 

Zane watches the pair of them share a look, smiling. 

Fuck, they clearly love each other. 

How nobody else had managed to figure this out was crazy. 

“Why don’t we do like, dinner,” Zane says. 

“Dinner?” Hollander asks. 

“Yeah, like, a team dinner.” 

Rozanov and Hollander look at him quizzically, so he goes on to explain. 

“Look, this doesn’t have to go beyond this room if you don’t want it to,” he says, “And y’know if you’re that bothered by the Hayden Pike stuff, I can tell everyone that we were wrong about the whole thing, I’ll make up something, I can get everyone on board, easy. But…” 

He pauses, briefly, half for dramatic effect, half to consider his wording. 

“If you guys want to tell people, if you want to tell the team, I can get everyone together tonight for a mandatory team dinner. Hotel has private function rooms. It's midweek, I’m sure I can organise getting one for us. I’ll order takeout, there’s a Mexican place nearby. You bring Hollander and tell everyone,” he says.

He can’t tell if Hollander and Rozanov hate the idea, so he quickly adds, “But only, only if you guys want.”

“I want,” Hollander says, immediately. 

He looks at Rozanov. 

Roz takes a breath in. 

He says nothing for a few seconds, and Zane is a little worried he’s not gonna agree.

“Okay,” Zane hears, softer than he’s ever heard Rozanov speak, “I want this as well.” 

Hollander beams. 

Roz claps his hands together, “Dinner, yes okay, lets do.”

Chapter End Notes

Sorry for the wait on this one guys. At just over 6000 words, this is the longest chapter yet, it just completely got away from me.

Also Chapter count has updated again!

The dinner was originally meant to be here also, but this scene ended up being much longer than I had thought it would be, so I figured people would prefer if I got this out now rather than having to wait whilst I wrote the dinner scene.

So basically, with the new plan, there should be one more main chapter, and then the epilogue.

Also, shoutout to BrilliantHijinx for guessing about Shane being with Ilya in the hotel room. Clues were there, but your comment made me laugh.

Thank you guys so much for all your comments, hearing your guy’s thoughts on this is one of the best things about putting this out there.

Chapter 5: Please don’t ask me anymore questions until they get here

Chapter Notes

Team dinner! Team dinner! Team dinner!

It’s actually rather easy to organise the whole thing in the end. 

Especially when he has Shane Hollander’s credit card to put down and charge everything to. 

They’d decided it would be easier for Zane to handle all the logistics and for Roz and Hollander to stay up in the room until he had everything sorted. 

The hotel had empty function rooms he could rent out.

They had a couple really big ones, for like, weddings and stuff he guessed, but there was a good medium sized one, with a long table already set up in it, which was probably usually more for birthdays and the like, but it seemed like it would work perfectly for the dinner they were planning. 

Zane just had to sign a couple forms, give them Hollander’s card and it was all sorted. 

When he called the Mexican restaurant to give them a couple hours of heads up so they could hopefully accommodate such a large order, they had initially said they didn’t do deliveries, so Zane thought they’d have to send a few people down to get it all. 

But when the owner figured out how much they were going to be spending, and that they were at the hotel just around the corner from the restaurant, she’d said that she would send a couple of the wait staff to bring it all over.  

He told her to add a sizable tip to the bill for the staff. 

Hollander could definitely afford it. 

The team was easy to organise, just one message in the Cens players group chat, and a second one to Harris. That was the list they’d agreed on, just the other players and Harris for now. Roz said he’d organise a meeting to tell Coach Wiebe and some of the higher ups in a slightly more official sense a bit later when they were back home. 

So here he was, wringing his hands together whilst various teammates made their way into the room and interrogated him on the nature of this mandatory team dinner. 

“Okay what’s actually the deal with this?” Hayes questions, sitting down at one of the chairs opposite to Zane. 

Zane shrugs, not meeting his eyes, “It’s just dinner, I just thought it’d be nice to all get together for a meal.”

“Okay but why have we rented a room at the hotel?” Dykstra counters. “Why not just go to a restaurant?” 

Zane waves his hand at him, “It’s, y’know, more private, won’t have anyone coming up to us and asking for pictures and stuff.” 

Zane pulls his phone out of his pocket, checking it for the 10th time in the last 5 minutes. He’s waiting on a ‘we’re coming now’ text from Hollander that he does not want to miss. Nothing yet. 

“And Cap is definitely coming?” Hayes says, “Cause he’s been ignoring everyone all day.” 

“Yes, he’s coming, he and I talked, this was half his idea.”

Dykstra perks up at this. 

“Wait, did you talk to him about like, you know who, y’know what we were talking about this morning.” 

Troy gives an exasperated sigh. “This again?” he asks, “I thought I told you guys to leave this alone.”

Young jumps in, “Wait, are we talking about the phone call yesterday with Hayden Pike?” 

Barrett shoots Haasy a dirty look. 

Zane knew that kid couldn’t be trusted not to blab. 

Wyatt laughs, “Clearly Haasy didn’t get the memo Barrett.” 

Zane goes to shush them, but before he gets the chance Harris perks up from the other end of the table. 

“Guys, Troy is right, we should leave it alone, have a nice dinner together as a team, and forget about Hayden Pike. If Ilya wants to talk about anything, he will, if not, we should respect his privacy and leave it alone.” 

“Wait, I’m so confused, What does Hayden Pike have to do with anything?” Chouinard asks. 

“Nothing, absolutely nothing.” Zane tells him, with a somewhat defensive edge to his words. 

“You sure about that?” Dykstra asks. 

“Completely” Zane says, and looks between Hayes, Dykstra and Haasy, “Look, we misinterpreted the situation, big time, trust me, listen to Harris, forget Hayden Pike.” 

Dykstra shrugs, but puts his hands up in surrender. “Alright man, I trust you.” 

Hayes is still looking at him somewhat suspiciously. 

“So this is just dinner?” He asks. “No ulterior motives?”

“Just dinner” Zane lies.

“What are we having?” Holmberg asks. 

At least this question is lighter, it doesn’t freak Zane out as much. 

“Mexican,” he says. “I’m getting it delivered.”

“And why didn’t we just go to the Mexican place?” LaPointe asks. “It’s literally around the corner.” 

“Alright, no more questions!” Zane tells them. “We’re here now, food is coming, if anyone is annoyed about the way I organized this, you should have done it yourselves.”

He gets a few chuckles at this, and it seems to get everyone to leave him alone. 

As the rest of the team resumes talking amongst themselves, Zane pulls his phone out of his pocket to check it again. 

Still nothing. 

“Hmmm this is curious,” Barrett says to him, startling Zane as he slides into the chair next to him. 

Zane shoves his phone back into his pocket. 

Barrett’s looking at him with a smirk on his face, and Zane doesn’t dignify his comment with a response, so Barrett leans in much closer and whispers to him, “You know something.” 

Zane scoffs. 

“Oh I know something do I, Mr was there anyone else there?” Zane hisses at him, before looking briefly around to make sure nobody else heard. 

Barrett laughs in his hands as Zane continues to whisper to him. “You couldn’t have given me a bit of a hint? So I looked like less of an idiot.”

Barrett laughs. “Hey I feel like the anyone else thing was a bit of a hint.” He shrugs, “Besides, it wasn't really mine to share.” 

“Fair,” Zane concedes. 

“Also there’s no way you figured it out on your own, so what happened? Did you walk in on the two of them?” 

“No! God, why would you assume that? How do you even know he’s–”

Zane cuts himself off. He’s gotta learn to stop running his mouth. He has no idea how Rozanov and Hollander kept this under wraps for as long as they did. He’s barely lasted 3 hours and is already cracking under the pressure. 

Barrett laughs. “Roz has been in his hotel room, ALL day.” 

“Also,” Barrett leans in closer again. “Voyageurs had a training session today, there was a short clip of them skating around posted on the team instagram.”

Barrett smiles before whispering, “You have one guess as to the person who was noticeably absent from that video.” 

“You little stalker, Jesus Christ,” Zane laughs. 

Barrett shrugs at him. “I just pay attention.” 

“It wasn’t even on purpose,” he continues. “Harris and I were just talking about how other teams run their social pages or whatever, like, differences and similarities to what he does with ours, he was showing me examples.”

“So you two made up then?” Zane says, the words tumbling out before he can think better of them.  

“What?” Barrett says, his teasing smile slipping off his face. 

Ah shit. Here he goes, running his mouth again. He’d forgotten the whole Harris and Troy disagreement was something he’d figured out and not something either of them had actually told him. 

“Oh, um,” Zane starts, “I thought you guys might have had, like, a fight or something, you were being a little um, weird and I guess, jumpy this morning when anyone asked you about him.”

“What? No. What do you…Weird how?” Troy stammers. 

“Just like–”

Barrett cuts him off before he can actually start speaking. 

“Actually y’know what it’s fine, you’re right I was in just generally a weird mood this morning, y’know after yesterday, I was just all snappy, nothing to do with Harris.” 

Barrett changes the subject. “Anyway, forget all that, back to Roz and y’know. They’re coming to dinner, both of them, that’s what this is, yeah?” 

“Mmmmm” Zane says, smiling at him. “Probably not mine to share.”

Troy snorts, “Okay Bood” he says, “fair play.”

Zane watches him get up and sit down in the chair next to Harris. 

They’ve definitely made up then.  

His phone buzzes in his pocket, twice in quick succession. 

Shit, he hadn’t really prepared for having to say anything to anyone. He was kind of relying on the two of them to come down and do all the talking. 

But Rozanov is probably right. A bit of a heads up is not a bad idea. Zane just hopes he doesn’t have to navigate many questions about it. 

“Yo, I gotta say something!” He yells out, getting everyone’s attention. “Roz is on his way down, he’s ah bringing a friend, so don’t be weird.” 

“A friend?” Hayes asks him. 

And Zane pointedly ignores him. 

“And you’re sure this doesn’t have anything to do with what we talked about this morning?” Dykstra says. 

Zane ignores that one too. 

“What kind of friend does Rozanov have in Tampa, Florida?” Holmberg asks. 

Maybe if Zane doesn’t say anything and refuses to meet their eyes they’ll all get bored and shut up. 

“Is Roz seriously bringing a hookup down to team dinner?” LaPointe whines. 

Okay so it’s getting worse. 

“Hey! I just said, don’t be weird. This...” Zane says, frantically pointing between them all, “...is exactly the kind of weird I’m talking about, so let's cut it out.”

The others take the hint and stop interrogating him, but Zane still spends the next 5 minutes quietly panicking, glancing to the door every 5 seconds and bouncing his leg up and down.

Zane’s holding his breath when the door opens. 

Wyatt Hayes watches Hollander and Roz walk in, his eyes darting furiously between the pair of them with his mouth wide open in stunned silence. Nobody else on the table has noticed them yet. 

Hayes looks at Zane briefly, but intensely, with a slight tilt to his eyebrow. 

Zane can tell he’s looking for confirmation of what he’s just figured out. 

Zane doesn’t know if he gives it, but Hayes very quickly returns his eyes to Hollander and Roz. 

“Roz! You’re alive!” Dykstra says, and then takes note of the man standing next to him, “and you’ve brought Shane Hollander with you?”

Dykstra looks at Zane, a puzzled expression on his face. Clearly not having figured out what it seems Hayes already has. 

“Yes, well, cannot have team dinner without Captain.” Rozanov tells them. “I also bring a rival Captain to keep you on your toes,” he jokes. 

Dykstra gives a strained laugh. “Okay…” he starts, “Sure, but what is act–”

Hayes clears his throat, cutting Dykstra off. “Hey Hollander, how are you doing man?” He asks. 

Hollander nods at him, “Yeah I’m alright Hayes, and yourself?”

“Yeah I’m great, it’s good to see you.” 

Zane hears Young whisper to LaPointe, Holmberg and Haasy beside him, “I’m so confused right now.” 

From the looks most of the other guys are giving each other around the table, Zane can guess it’s a somewhat shared sentiment. 

“Hollander weren’t you like, just in Washington?” Chouinard asks. 

“Well, yeah I was but–”

Dykstra jumps in again, “Yeah why are you in Florida.”

Roz has a pinched look on his face, he seems offended by the interruption. 

Hollander, on the other hand, takes it in stride, “Good question. I’m here to see Ilya, actually,” he says, turning to the man beside him and putting his hand on his shoulder. 

This explanation leads to more puzzled looks from his teammates, and Zane can tell looking at Roz that he’s getting more and more frustrated the more questions they’re getting. They haven't even sat down yet. 

Zane resists the urge to yell out “I told you all not to be weird.” 

“Y’know when Bood said you were bringing a friend down this is not at all what I was expecting,” LaPointe says. 

“Why not?” Rozanov snaps, defensively. “You all know I am friends with Shane Hollander. I have a charity with him, I have known him for over 12 years. Bood tells you I am bringing a friend to dinner, so I bring my friend Shane Hollander, nothing surprising.”

Dykstra scoffs, for some reason not taking the edge in Rozanov's tone as a hint to drop it.  “Yeah but this is–” 

“Evan shut up” Hayes says, as he makes what Zane assumes is a move to kick him under the table. 

“Guys! Let's all just calm down for a second.” Harris calls out, trying to defuse some of the tension. “Ilya, sit down, introduce me to your friend. I know who he is obviously, but we’ve never met, and I’m sure he doesn’t know who I am, so, introductions.”

“No need,” Hollander says as he and Roz sit down at two empty chairs Zane had purposefully kept free for them. “You’re Harris right? You run the Centaurs social media. Ilya has told me a lot about you, I’m Shane…ah Hollander.”

Hollander sticks his hand out across the table and Harris shakes it. 

“Nice to meet you,” Harris tells Hollander. 

He then tilts his head to Roz. “You really talk about me to your friends?” He asks. 

“Of course,” Rozanov responds. “Have to put the photos I send of Chiron in context.” 

“You send Hollander photos of Harris’s dog?” Haasy asks. 

“It’s Chiron! Everyone deserves to see Chiron.” Rozanov tells him. 

“So, Hollander...”  Chouinard starts. “Any particular reason you’ve come all the way to Florida in the middle of the season when the Voyageurs aren’t playing here for weeks? It can’t just be to see Roz right?”

“Well, actually, um…Ilya?” Hollander says, looking to Rozanov beside him. 

The pair share some sort of wordless conversation with their eyes. Hollander jerks his head towards the table. Roz jerks his head towards Hollander, and then the table. 

Ah, Hollander wants Rozanov to be the one to tell the team. Rozanov wants Hollander to do it. 

Makes sense. 

Roz sighs. 

Clearly Hollander wins the silent argument. 

Rozanov gestures around to the team. “Well, yesterday we were in an almost plane crash, you all remember this?” 

Everyone nods and murmurs in agreement, other than Holmberg, who says, “I don’t know if I’d call it an almost plane crash. I feel like it was more of an emergency landing.”

“Do we really want to debate semantics right now?” Hayes responds.

“No we do not, Roz, ignore him, you lot...”  Dykstra says, pointing to the rookies, “...focus”, he turns back to Roz. “What does the not plane crash have to do with Hollander being here?” 

Zane wants to laugh at him. He’s a dog with a bone. 

“Well...” Roz starts, “Shane was very glad I didn’t die in a fiery explosion, and he missed me terribly, so he came here to see me, we have been together all day.”  

Zane looks at the confused faces of his teammates. 

God they are so dumb. Was Zane really this dumb this time yesterday?

“Hollander, I’m assuming there’s some other reason you’re in town that Roz is conveniently leaving out of his story, care to confirm or deny anything he’s just said?” Chouinard asks. 

“Yeah, no other reason, it’s mostly true, I rented a car and drove up here after speaking to Ilya yesterday,” Hollander tells them. 

Zane’s still watching his teammates, waiting for the rest of them to catch on. This comment from Shane seems to do it for Harris, as a look of realisation appears on his face. Zane watches him nudge Barrett beside him to try and get his attention. 

Barrett pointedly ignores him. 

“Roz…” Dykstra starts. 

“Yes?” 

“What the fuck is going on here”

Roz smiles at him, “Mmmmmm, ask Barrett.”

Barrett startles at this, and a look of pure panic appears on his face. “Nope, absolutely not, do not ask Barrett.” 

Roz laughs and Hollander beside him sighs and says, “Ilya, leave Barrett alone, can you stop torturing them and give them the real answer?” 

Rozanov pouts at him. “Moy lyubimyy, why won’t you just let me have my fun, huh?” 

Hollander and Roz are smiling at each other with such fondness that Zane is completely baffled that the rest of the team haven’t figured this out yet. 

“Oh fuck,” Dyskstra says, as he locks eyes with Zane. 

Took you long enough, Zane thinks. 

Rozanov smiles as he reaches his hand up from under the table, and links it with Hollander’s. 

“Shane is my boyfriend,” he tells them. “We are together. I did not tell you because it is a secret, for probably obvious reasons, Russia, and homophobia and the league.” 

Roz looks somewhat nervous, but he’s hiding it well. Zane sees Hollander squeeze his hand and nod for him to continue. 

“We are getting sick of hiding, me and Shane, so we’ve decided to maybe start telling some more people, people we trust.” 

“I think this is a pretty good team, and I trust you guys with this, so I wanted to share this bit of my life with you. It’s still a secret for now, so I hope you won’t go and tell anyone else but, to answer all your questions, Shane Hollander is my boyfriend, that’s why he’s here.” 

Zane looks around at his teammates, in varying states of shock.

Hayes breaks the silence, smiling at the pair of them. “This makes so much more sense than what we thought was going on.”

“Absolutely,” Dykstra agrees. “In hindsight probably super obvious.”  

“Wait, so you’re not dating Hayden Pike?” Haasy asks. 

Well maybe not obvious to everyone. 

Rozanov puts his head in his hands and groans. Hollander just laughs at him. 

Young is poking Haas in his side. “You thought Hayden Pike and Cap were dating? You didn’t tell me that,” he whines.

“Yeah way to tell half the story,” Holmberg adds. 

Well Zane had to give Haasy credit for leaving that part out of his gossiping. 

“I didn’t know Cap was gay? Did everyone else know he was gay? Was I meant to know? Did someone tell me and I wasn’t paying attention?” LaPointe babbles, mostly to Haasy, Holmberg and Young. 

Harris clears his throat loudly, quieting the room. 

“Thank-you for telling us Ilya.” He says, and then gestures around the room looking pointedly at the others. “We are all really happy for you.” 

At this, everyone seems to remember to act somewhat like people again. They all talk over each other, saying different variations of  “yes absolutely," “of course,” “we’re so happy for you.”

Zane also hears Dykstra loudly call out “I’m an ally!”, because he’s an idiot.  

Both Roz and Hollander laugh at this, and it does actually succeed in breaking some of the tension in the room. 

“Okay, Mr ally,” Roz says, “If I tell you your country music is homophobic, does that mean I don’t have to hear it in the locker room anymore?” 

“You wish!” Dyskra laughs. 

“We all wish,” Barrett adds. 

“And LaPointe I am bisexual, for the record.” Rozanov says. “Shane is super gay though.”

“Ilya, will you please stop saying it like that, I am just regular gay.”

“Do many other people know about this?” Hayes asks. “About you two?” 

“A few people,” Hollander tells him, “My parents, and a couple of my friends, Hayden Pike and his wife, Rose Laundry.” 

“Rose Laundry? Like the movie star? Isn’t she your ex?” Dykstra asks. 

Hollander shrugs, “She’s a good friend”, he explains. 

“Also Ryan Price, and his boyfriend,” Rozanov adds. 

Hollander nods, “Yeah them too.”

At this, Hayes pokes a finger into Rozanov’s shoulder, “You told Price and not me?” 

Hollander groans as Roz laughs and explains. “We did not tell him so much, more like he walked in on us making out at camp.”

“Wait like at the last camp?” Hayes asks. “In August?”

“Mmmm no, camp year before.”  

“Year before?” Hayes questions. “Damn, how long has this been going on between you two?” 

“Yeah you never really told me when I asked you,” Zane says.

"A while,” Hollander responds, somewhat coyly.  

“And what is a while exactly?” Hayes asks. 

“Mmmm, depends how you define it,” Roz says. “We were not exclusive or hmmm…” 

“Official,” Hollander finishes.

“Yes, not official for a long time.”

“So when was it official?” Zane asks. 

“2017, after Scott Hunter's cup win.”

“That long?” Zane says. 

“Wait so how long was it going on non-officially before that,” Hayes asks.

Rozanov smiles at him, “2010,” he says. 

Zane short circuits at this. “This has been going on since your Rookie season?” He asks. 

“The summer before actually,” Hollander replies, grinning at Rozanov like he’s making some kind of inside joke. 

“Wait, so are you telling me–”

“Okay!” Roz cuts him off. “I am starving and sick of questions, I see many bags of food over there that 2 men brought in whilst you were interrogating me and my boyfriend, let's put them on the table and eat, yes?”

Dinner is, despite all the starting theatrics, a fairly uneventful affair. 

The initial shock of Rozanov’s big reveal wears off pretty quickly, and most of the team just seems excited by the concept of speaking to Roz’s significant other. 

The novelty of that person being Hockey Superstar Shane Hollander isn’t lost. The rookies in particular all fawn around Hollander most of the night, hanging on his every word. 

They somehow manage to polish off the frankly insane amount of Mexican food that Zane had ordered and end up milling about the room, all chatting. 

Someone gets music playing from a speaker somewhere and Zane convinces the hotel staff to keep supplying them with drinks. 

Zane doesn’t stick with Roz and Hollander the whole evening, but he does keep the corner of his eye on them for most of it. 

They don’t leave each other's side. 

Roz is happier than Zane has ever seen him. 

When it’s been a few hours and people start heading off Zane watches Barrett walk over and say something to Roz, putting his hand on his shoulder. Roz smiles and pulls Barrett into a bear hug, whispering in his ear. 

It’s somewhat unwilling, but Barrett doesn’t pull away. 

When Zane announces to the room that he’s about to head up to bed himself, everyone else just calls out their goodbyes and goodnights but Hollander walks over to him and claps him on his shoulder. 

“Hey, Boodram. Thank-you for organising this whole thing, seriously.” He says. “You’re a really good friend to Ilya and I know this meant a lot to him, and to me too.” 

“Of course, I’d do anything for my Captain.” Zane smiles at him. “And it’s also been really nice to get to meet the real Shane Hollander.” 

Hollander nods and returns to Rozanov’s side, and Zane goes to grab his phone from the table. 

When Zane walks out he glances behind him and sees Haasy enthusiastically telling Hollander and Rozanov a story, the two pressed to each other's sides. Hollander is nodding along politely to Haas, but Roz is not bothering to look engaged at all. 

He’s just staring at his boyfriend, smiling. 

Those two are going to be fine, Zane thinks to himself. 

He can’t wait to tell Cassie. 

Chapter End Notes

And this is the end of the main story guys! Please let me know what you think.

This is has ballooned into something much bigger than the oneshot I'd originally planned, so thank you for all joining me on the journey.

Just the epilogue left to go now. :)

Chapter 6: Epilogue

Chapter Notes

And here’s my little epilogue :). So sorry for the wait on this, work has been a lot busier lately and personal motivation has been lower after I’d finished the main story, but it’s all done now. Thank you all for reading, I’ve had so much fun writing this.

Months, the birth of a child, one unfortunate FanMail video, and a failed cup run later, Zane is standing next to Cassie in his team Captain’s backyard, having just watched the wedding of the century. 

Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander. 

Married. Husbands.

He couldn’t be happier for them. 

He and Cassie make the rounds, chatting to people as they walk around. Basically the entire team is here, so he has a lot of people he can talk to. 

Zane does notice that not many of the Voyageurs seem to have turned up. He thinks they should’ve made more of an effort, but at least Hollander’s a Centaur now. They look after their own. 

Speaking of Hollander, and Voyageurs players that are decent enough to actually be here, Cassie seems to be making her way over to Zane’s new teammate, who has Hayden Pike and a woman he hasn’t met standing beside him. 

Zane jogs over to join her. It’s probably on him to open the conversation here as he doesn’t think Cassie has actually met either of them yet. 

“Hollander, congratulations man, you put on a great show.” 

Hollander smiles at him. “Thank-you for being here, seriously. You know Hayden?” He asks, pointing to the man beside him. 

Pike scoffs. “Of course we know each other, Christ Shane. Boodram, how are you doing man? How’s the new baby?”

“Yeah, he’s doing great. First night with a babysitter, so we’ll see how he goes. We’ve both been glued to our phones a bit, we told her to call if there’s any issues.” 

He feels Cassie poke him in the ribs. 

Right, introductions.

 “And, this is my wife Cassie. Cassie, this is Shane Hollander and Hayden Pike.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Hollander says.

“Likewise,” Pike adds.

Cassie nods at both of them. “Thank-you so much for having us. It was such a lovely service.”

Zane tries not to feel awkward talking to Pike, but there’s a level of unease that comes with it following the whole misunderstanding he had about him and Rozanov. 

He’s only really seen Pike once since Tampa, at playoffs. They didn’t talk then about the phone call, or the misunderstanding and ensuing chaos it caused. Pike hasn’t brought it up with him, so Zane assumes he doesn’t know. 

Zane would really like to keep it that way. 

“Have you met Jackie?” Hollander asks, gesturing to the woman standing next to Hayden Pike. 

She looks at him and Cassie, “No we haven’t, nice to meet you, I’m Jackie, Hayden’s wife.”

“Right, nice to meet you too,” he says, giving her a nod. “Zane Boodram.”

Cassie smiles at her. “Well Jackie, I’m Cassie, it’s nice to meet you properly, in person.” 

Jackie laughs. “Yes, probably a more normal introduction than our somewhat unfortunate phone call.”

Hollander tilts his head between the two parties. 

“Huh? When did you two speak on the phone?”

Pike raises his eyebrows at this. “Wait, you don’t know about what happened?” 

Fuck, Zane thinks. 

Pike puts his hand on Hollander’s shoulder. “Shane, buddy, how did you think I got in contact with Boodram to get you on the phone to Ilya after the almost plane crash?”

“Emergency landing,” Zane corrects on instinct.

“Semantics,” Pike tells him, waving his hand dismissively. 

Hollander pouts a little, considering. “Well, um, I know you called Bood and like, asked to speak to Ilya. I figured you got his number from JJ or something? Or like, JJ got it from Wyatt, I don’t know I didn’t really think that much about it.”

Pike laughs. “Well we didn’t want to involve JJ. He’d ask too many fucking questions.”

Hollander nods at this. “Fair.”

“Okay, well when you were freaking out in the hotel, and I was trying to calm you down, I texted Jacks to try and get the number of anyone on the Centaurs so we could call and get an update on Ilya and hopefully get you on the phone with him.” Pike explains.  

Pike’s wife nods, “I texted the metro WAGs chat, Morgan gave me the number of someone who’s friends with Cassie, I texted her, got Cassie’s number, called Cassie, and then begged and pleaded until she gave Zane Hayden’s number.” 

Jackie turns to Cassie and continues, “Which I am very sorry about by the way, all the weirdness I mean, but the situation called for it.”

Cassie laughs. “Well, I for one should apologise for sort of implying you were some kind of stalker, but in my defense without context it did kind of read like that at the time.” 

They all laugh at this, and Zane thinks for a second that it’s not gonna get brought up.  

He’s gonna get away with this.

It’s then when Hollander drops the bomb. 

“Well all of that weirdness probably explains a bit more clearly why you thought Hayden and Ilya were dating.” 

Boom. 

“What!?” Pike cries, whilst Zane puts his head in his hands and groans.  

Hollander laughs, “Oh yeah I forgot that I didn’t tell you about that.” 

“Boodram, you gotta tell me what the hell he’s talking about right now.” 

Zane sighs. “Look it made sense at the time with the information I had okay?”

Pike shakes his head at him. “I’m gonna need more than that man.”

Zane cringes, and tries to give them the short version. “Look I couldn’t really figure out why you were that desperate to get Roz on the phone, I mean you were practically begging me. And then once Roz found out it was you he was also just as desperate to get on the phone call. We also knew that maybe Roz had like someone y’know, so with the whole phone call thing it didn’t seem that crazy that that someone could maybe be you.”

“No, that’s completely crazy,” Pike tells him. “That is insane. Rozanov and I hate each other. I’m married-” He gestures at his wife beside him, “-to a woman.” 

“Y’know, some gay guys marry women. It happens. Hollander’s gay and he dated Rose Laundry!”

“Yeah, for all of 5 minutes! I have 4 kids with Jackie.”

Hollander whacks Pike on the shoulder. “Hey, leave me alone!”

Pike doesn’t seem to pay him much mind, instead he turns to his wife, presumably looking for backup. Jackie Pike does not seem to share her husband's outrage at this reveal. In fact she seems to be stifling her laughter behind her hands. 

“This is not funny babe.”

“Yes it is,” Hollander says, grinning. 

“C’mon it is a little funny,” Jackie says. “I can kind of see why they might have jumped to that conclusion.”

“Thank-you,” Zane grumbles. 

Jackie turns to him and Cassie. “Although, did you really think I was trying that hard to get in contact with the guy my husband was cheating on me with?” 

Zane looks at Cassie. She gives Jackie an embarrassed shrug and grimaces. “I sort of assumed you guys had some kind of arrangement.”

“Arrangement!?” Pike cries. 

Cassie gestures to Jackie and continues on, “I mean, on the phone you gave me this weird speech about a person or people who knew Ilya in a personal way and were talking all about the charity camp stuff saying you did admin work and you knew Ilya quite well from that…and then you gave me your husband’s phone number, but you didn’t tell me it was your husbands phone number. Which was really weird without context y’know?”

Jackie nods. “Okay, yeah that’s fair.”

Cassie continues, “And so yeah, I thought you were your husband's beard, and you were trying to cover for him.”

Pike makes a sound like a stuck pig. 

When he looks over, Zane finds that Hollander has fallen over laughing. In his wedding suit. “Admin work? Jackie you can barely navigate a word document, let alone an excel spreadsheet.” 

Jackie and Cassie are both giggling and don’t look far off joining Hollander on the ground. 

Pike keeps oscillating between covering his face with his hands and staring at Zane and Cassie with utter disbelief. 

Jackie explains, mostly to Shane on the ground, who is still uncontrollably laughing, “I was trying to come up with a good cover story for why I knew Ilya! And, I was very stressed out! The camps were the only real public connection between you two, and I couldn’t exactly tell her I was helping with the hockey side of things. So, admin, y’know? And she’d already decided I was a stalker, so then I was just trying to get her to pity me enough to give me the phone number. I was trying to be a good friend Shane. You really wanted to talk to Ilya, you were so upset.” 

Shane sobers a bit at this. “Yeah I was,” he says. 

At this Rozanov appears, “What is happening, why is my husband on the floor?”

As Roz pulls Hollander up from the ground Pike pokes him in the shoulder. 

“Boodram thought you and I were dating! Did you know about this?” 

Roz pulls a face. “Ugh, yes, but I’ve been trying to forget, block it out from my memory. My team is very stupid sometimes.”

“Wait, your team? You’re telling me the whole team thought this?”

Trust Rozanov to run his mouth. 

“Not the whole team,” Zane explains, “Just like, a few of us, we talked about it.”

“You talked about it.”

“It was just a theory, and not everyone was convinced about it either, I mean Barrett didn’t even–”

“Barrett didn’t what? You lot gossiping about me?” Barrett says, walking over with Harris at his side. Clearly they’d been following after Roz. 

Exactly what Zane needs here. Two more people to tell him he’s an idiot. 

Rozanov stretches his arm out to Barrett. “Yes, terrible gossip. Please save me from this conversation.” 

Yes Barrett, please save us all. 

He raises an eyebrow at Zane quizzically. 

“We were just telling Pike about the little misunderstanding about him and Rozanov back in Tampa.”

“Little misunderstanding? Is that what we’re calling it?” Pike asks incredulously. 

Barrett nods. “Ah yes, I tried very hard to shut down the crazy conspiracy theories.” He nods over to Rozanov, “For your sake buddy.”

“Yes Barrett is the only one here getting a piece of wedding cake. All of the rest of you can starve.” 

“Ilya, be nice,” Hollander warns. 

Zane scoffs. “Barrett was cheating! He had insider information, he already knew about you guys!”

“Wait what?” Harris asks, turning sharply towards Barrett. 

Barrett raises his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t! I mean I sort of didn’t, I suspected, I guess.” 

Harris raises his eyebrows at this. He was clearly just as in the dark about this as everyone else. 

“Elaborate.” 

Troy sighs. “I knew about Roz, he came out to me after I came out to him, and Hollander? I’d heard, like rumours, I guess, about you, sorry.” 

“All good man. Wasn’t exactly a secret.”  

Barrett continues, “So yeah, those two were close, both queer, and I’d suspected Roz was in a relationship, so I figured that maybe there was something going on there.” 

Zane raises his eyebrows at him. “Only maybe?” 

“I mean well, after the phone call from Pike, I a little more than suspected, yeah.”

Harris pushes into Barrett's shoulder. “I cannot believe you didn’t tell me this. This is exactly the kind of gossip you’re meant to share with your boyfriend.”

Barrett shrugs at him. “Well we weren’t boyfriends at the time. It wasn’t really mine to share.”

“Okay fair, but after that, once we fully got together and everyone knew about it anyway, you totally should have told me that you knew before Tampa.”

Barrett sighs. “I mean, in my defense, there was a lot going on at the time; the plane, me and you, the Dallas Kent of it all, me coming out to the world, not to mention the FanMail and subsequent shitshow–Thank-you for that one Pike!”

“It was an accident!” he cries.

Barrett ignores him and shrugs at Harris. “So yeah, with all of that going on I kind of just forgot, I guess.”

Harris blinks at him, “You forgot??”

“No, I mean, not forgot forgot, just… I wasn’t thinking about it, Roz’s love life, he seemed happy, so it just wasn’t something I was worried about, I guess.”

Harris smiles at him. “That’s actually quite sweet really.”

“Besides, you could've figured it out yourself.” Barrett teases. “It’s not my fault you’ve got a terrible gaydar.” 

“I do not!” Harris cries. “What do you mean?”

“It took me pining after you and bringing you coffee and just sitting in your office for like months before you even got a hint that I might be gay.” 

Roz laughs and tells the group, “Yes, the whole thing was very hard to watch, very embarrassing for you both.”

Barrett ignores him and continues on, “And, even when we did finally hook up, you naturally assumed that you were my gay awakening and thought I’d never been with a guy before.”

“Wow, was Troy that bad in bed?” Rozanov teases. 

“Shut up Ilya,” Harris says, and shoves Barrett again. “I didn’t assume! I asked. I was being considerate. I thought you might be like freaking out, you kind of ran out after.” 

Roz laughs, “Wow, was Harris that bad in bed?” 

“Shut up Ilya!” The pair of them say in unison. There’s no heat behind it though, and they're both grinning as they make fun of each other. 

They’re nauseatingly perfect together. 

It’s then when a thought occurs to Zane. 

“Wait, when did all of this happen exactly?” He asks.

Troy tilts his head at him. “What?”

“When did you two actually get together?” 

Harris laughs. 

Barrett shakes his head at him. “Nope, shut up, we’re not talking about this. Back to Pike and Roz.”

“You brought it up!” Zane whines. “Is it when I’m thinking it is?”

Barrett sighs as Harris tells him, “It was in Tampa, night after the almost plane crash- or, wait, what did we agree we were calling it?” 

“Emergency landing,” Zane and Barrett say in unison. 

Zane grins at him. “That’s why you were both being so weird! I thought you two had a fight or something.”  

Barrett grins sheepishly. “Yeah, no, I was just kinda...getting my shit together, I guess.” 

Zane nods, and gestures around to the group. “So a lot of getting shit together that weekend then huh?”  

Ilya butts in again, “Yes, yes, plane crash was very significant for the gay lovelives of the Centaurs.”

“Emergency landing!” Zane calls out, and this time he has Barrett, Harris, Hollander AND Jackie Pike joining in. 

“Hey, can we get back to me please?” Pike asks. “Ilya, your team thought we were having an affair.” 

Roz groans. “Yes, I know, it's horrifying. What exactly do you not understand about blocking from my memory.”

“What about you Shane? What the hell man? I’m your best friend. You should’ve told me.”

Hollander raises his hands in surrender, “Hey, like Barrett said, there was a lot going on at the time. It slipped my mind.”  

Pike claps his hands together. “Okay, I’ve thought about it. Boodram I think we gotta have a fight.”

“What?” Zane cries. 

Roz looks delighted at this idea. “Yes! You get him Bood.”

“Hayden, you're not having a fight at my wedding.” Hollander tells him. 

“Please? Just like, a quick one.”

“No,” Hollander says at the same time Jackie tells him, "Absolutely not.”

Pike pouts. “Okay, well next time we’re on the ice then?”

Shit.

Zane does not want to have a fight, even on ice. 

He usually leaves that shit to Roz. 

Zane’s gotta shift some blame here.

“Y’know Haasy thought you guys were in a throuple.” 

Pike blinks at him. “I’m sorry what?”

“Y’know like you and Roz and Jackie were a thing.”

“He thought Rozanov and my wife were dating?”

“Like, with you as well. All three of you. Together.” Zane clarifies. 

 Pike seems to ignore this aspect, as he stares into the astral plane. “Ilya and Jackie…Ilya and Jackie,” Zane hears him mutter under his breath. 

Zane may have miscalculated here. 

“Okay,” Pike says as he turns away from Zane and appears to break out of his trance. “Shane?” he says.

“Yeah buddy.”

“I think I gotta go kill Luca Haas.”

“Hayden…” Jackie warns. 

Hollander tries pleading.

“Please don’t do that. Not at my wedding.” 

But Pike is not listening, and Zane watches as he storms off, presumably to go find poor Haasy. 

Hollander and Jackie are right on his heels. 

Rozanov follows after them, cackling. 

Barrett shakes his head at Zane. “That was mean.” 

Zane shrugs, “I’m sure he’ll be fine.” 

He is not sure about that at all. 

At least it’s not Zane on the chopping block anymore. 

Sorry Luca, it was nice knowing you.

Chapter End Notes

This chapter ended up being a little more about Harris and Troy than it probably had any justification to be, but I love them so I couldn’t help it. They’ve been brewing in the background of this fic and I needed the closure. I wanted to thank everyone so much for reading this, your comments have been so lovely. Apologies again for the big delay on this last one, I hope it was worth the wait. :)