Rating:

Not Rated

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types, Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Scott Hunter & Ilya Rozanov, Scott Hunter & Carter Vaughn, Shane Hollander & Scott Hunter

Characters:

Yuna Hollander, Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Carter Vaughn, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Hayden Pike, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Harv Murdock (Game Changers), Frank Zullo, New York Admirals Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Vincent Lemaire

Additional Tags:

Gay Panic, Coming Out, 2009 MLH Entry Draft in Los Angeles (Game Changers), New York Admirals (Game Changers), Miscommunication, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Misunderstandings, 2011 MLH All-Star Weekend in Nashville (Game Changers), 2011 MLH Awards in Las Vegas (Game Changers), Shane Hollander's 2012 trade to the Boston Raiders, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, POV Scott Hunter (Game Changers), 2012 MLH All-Star Weekend in Ottawa (Game Changers), Scott has a little crush and he absolutely hates it, Scott Hunter Knows About Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Scott Hunter Finds Out About Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Scott Hunter Needs a Hug (Game Changers), Protective Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Top/Bottom Versatile | Switch Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Scott Hunter & Ilya Rozanov Friendship, Shane Hollander & Scott Hunter Friendship, Good Friend Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, sarcasm as a coping mechanism

Language:

English

Series:

Part 2 of Найти дорогу домой (Nayti dorogu domoy, or, find the way home)

Stats:

Published: 2026-09-19 Updated: 2026-10-25 Words: 25,015 Chapters: 6/8

This Kid is Going to Ruin My Life

Summary

Starting before then running concurrently with the events of Mr. Answer Man, this is Scott's perspective on the first three years of Shane and Ilya's growing relationship. You do not need to have read Mr. Answer Man to understand this (I hope!) but I recommend it.

Scott Hunter is 25 years old, Captain of the New York Admirals, and privately, achingly, gay. He meets Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov at the 2009 MLH draft day, and everyone involved immediately gets several wrong ideas. For the next three years, Scott has to navigate his place as a closeted gay man in the spotlight of major league hockey, while trying to protect an oblivious baby queer from an obviously straight Russian menace who can't seem to stay away.

Chapter 1: Draft Day, 2009

Chapter Summary

Scott attends the 2009 MLH Draft Day, and meets the two rookies who will change his life. Of course, he hates one of them immediately.

Scott divided his life into pieces. Before his draft day, before he was the first round pick in his year, before the Admirals signed him on, and everything that happened after. Before his parents died, and after. Before he found hockey, before hockey saved him, and everything that came after. Somewhere in the middle, there was the baby Scott who didn’t know he was gay, and the other version of Scott who came along and turned his own life upside down. He could do it with all the big decisions of his life, with the different parts of himself, with the who I am for work, for press, for sponsors, for his teammates, for his friends.

So it made sense that he sometimes thought about his life in terms of before Ilya Rozanov, and what came after. It also made sense that he hated it.

He’d be lying if he said that before Ilya Rozanov meant before the 2009 draft, because he knew about the kid before he actually met him. The Admirals had done scouting reports on the incoming draft class, even the ones they were unlikely to secure because while his team hadn’t won a Cup in far too long, they were too close, too good, to get the first few draft picks. Rozanov, like that Canadian kid Hollander, was bound to get snapped up before the Admirals had a chance. But Scott had read the reports anyway, viewed the tape, and gone back to Harv to ask for more. Somehow his coach dug up videos the kid’s agent hadn’t sent over, game tape from World Juniors the previous years and even some video from Rozanov’s team in Russia. Scott didn’t bother to get the interviews translated. He didn’t need to know the language to see the vicious elegance of Rozanov’s curves and edges, the power in his legs, the way he shouldered through the opposing team to create opportunities to score.

He didn’t need to know Russian to see the snarl on the kid’s lips. He knew the rumors that preceded Rozanov all the way to America: Rozanov’s team loved him and his opponents hated him. He was far too clever for his age, for his limited English. His eyes were bright and unnaturally sharp.

His cheekbones were just as sharp.

Scott watched the draft standing next to Harv and one of the team’s scouts, a plump older woman who knew the stats of every kid in the building without having to check her notes. Rozanov went first, the Canadian second, and third went to a future d-man, Korogyi, who was headed to the Dallas Drillers. The Admirals went 12^th, picking a backup goalie for Bennie to train up. The draft went on around them, pick after pick, into the second round, the third, the fourth, and Scott started to drift away. Harv and the scout – and fuck, Scott really needed to remember her name, she was genuinely a nice woman – talked fast, shuffling papers to update their list as kids they originally wanted were drafted to different teams. The first two rounds gave each team four minutes to make their selection, but later rounds only gave you two minutes. Two minutes to make a decision that might change your team’s trajectory over the next couple of seasons. Would definitely change the trajectory of that kid’s life.

Scott trusted his coach to do a good job, and anyway, the players chosen in the last rounds of the draft most likely wouldn’t make it out of the lower leagues anyway. They’d be sent out to the farm team, maybe called up for a few weeks if an Admiral was out with an injury, then sent back to obscurity for another season. Most never made it out. You had to be more that good to play in the MLH, you needed skill and the right personality in the locker room and a fuck ton of luck, all at the same time. The probability of any given hockey player in North America making it to the show was already fucking infinitesimal. To make it to the draft, and then to be chosen in the top three? Astounding. Impossible. Generational talents.

Scott was the number one draft pick his year. Same as Rozanov. Thank god Scott was taller; the press was going to compare the two of them from now until at least the end of the kid’s rookie season. Captain America vs Captain Russia, or some shit like that. The Red Menace vs the Red White and Blue. Scott how does it feel to have the Russian phenom hot on your heels?

It’d feel better if the hot Russian was on his knees instead was definitely a thing Scott was never going to say out loud.

Off to the side, this year’s top three were standing in front of a branded backdrop, posing with their new sweaters. Rozanov’s smile was wide and bright. Next to him, Korogyi smiled too, looking at the camera. On Rozanov’s other side, Hollander held up his own, Metros blue, the disappointment of going second slapped across his face. The photographer had to ask the kid to smile, and he tried, poor thing, but what came out was too stiff for anyone to think it was genuine.

Looking at Hollander was a different beast entirely from looking at Rozanov. Scott knew from the scouting report that the Russian was 18 but he looked at least 22, with curly brown hair that was sun-bleached gold at the top. His eyes were a deep ocean color. He had prominent moles that might have been a blemish on a lesser man but made the kid look more interesting than he probably deserved. He moved constantly, shifting to nudge Hollander’s arm over and over without looking at him, not enough to totally knock him out of the frame, but enough that Hollander grimaced a little bit each time. Scott wouldn’t have been surprised if Rozanov snapped his teeth at Hollander, trying to scare the boy away. He shook his head; that kind of macho posturing took space away from every locker room Scott had ever been in. Figures that a cocky, self-assured, far too attractive for a fucking hockey player, fucking Russian would be bullying a shy Asian kid straight out of the gate.

Hollander could barely take his eyes off the floor. He was a month older than Rozanov but looked even younger, a teenager in his father’s suit trying to stay out of the way while the adults in the room talked over him. After the photos, Hollander had ended up between a slim older Asian woman and a middle aged white guy was who was maybe Hollander’s agent? Stepfather? talking to someone from the Metros management. The kid nodded when someone spoke to him, but even from across the room, Scott could see he was barely hanging on. He didn’t look at all like a guy who’d gotten a silver medal in an international competition, been captain of his teams for the last half a decade, and had a better Corsi score during his Major Junior years than anyone else in the room. The only time Hollander looked alive was when he looked up at something on the mezzanine level. Then, his eyes got wider. He stared, probably longer than he realized, before jerking his gaze away with a little shake of his head. He’d go back to his conversation for another ten minutes before he let himself look up again.

Scott had a terrible feeling, low in his gut, that he knew what Hollander was staring at.

He took a breath, fixed his Captain smile on his face, and strode over. “Congratulations, rook,” he said as he held out his hand. Hollander snapped his face back, away from whatever he kept looking for on the second level, and plastered that half smile back onto his lips.

“Oh, yeah, thank you sir,” Hollander said as he took Scott’s hand. His hand was strong and warm, not clammy like Scott had been expecting from a kid so obviously nervous. Hollander held on a second longer, before letting go, the tips of his ears faintly pink as his eyes went back to the floor.

Scott risked a look up.

Rozanov was staring back at him. Of course it’s him, Scott thought. Rozanov’s nostrils flared as he scowled at Scott, or Hollander, or the both of them together.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Hunter,” Hollander’s mom said as she leaned toward them. “Shane had your poster on his wall all through high school, didn’t you honey?”

“Mom,” Hollander hissed. The blush spread from his ears to his cheeks.

Scott realized four things at the same time, like a car crash happening inside of his skull. The first two were Hollander was actually very pretty for a man, and Hollander was probably gay.

The third was he’s got a crush on a straight guy who’s probably aggressively homophobic.

And the fourth was fuck, hockey is going to eat Hollander alive.

“I hope it wasn’t from the year I was blond,” Scott joked quickly, tearing his eyes away from Rozanov. “My stylist convinced me I looked like a surfer, but I think I looked like an idiot.”

“No, it was… you were.” Hollander stumbled over the words. “It was good. A good. You know. Poster.” He swallowed hard. “It was fine.”

Yep, definitely gay.

Scott gave himself thirty seconds to look. Hollander was tall, like Rozanov, both of them basically six feet. Scott himself was a few inches taller but height never really mattered to him. He cared much more about muscle, definition, the kind of bodies built on smooth ice and grassy fields and in the gym. Underneath the boxy suit, Hollander had broad shoulders and thick thighs. The round swell of a hockey player’s ass filled out the back of his slacks; Scott had seen it when he watched both of the boys walk away from the photographer earlier. Hollander’s black hair looked soft, cut too short but a good color next to his golden skin. Tiny brown freckles scattered across his cheeks and nose. Cute, though they reminded Scott that the kid was, well, a fucking kid.

Hollander started talking about Scott’s stats.

Scott looked up a second time. He watched for a moment as Rozanov listened while the men around him spoke. He nodded a few times.

Then Rozanov looked down again. The moment he saw Scott, the scowl came back to his face. Rozanov stared, narrowing his eyes.

Scott turned back to Hollander. “Hey, rook, you want to come over to the bar with me for a second? I need a refill. If that’s okay with you, Mrs. Hollander?” he asked. “I can introduce you to some of the veterans you’ll be playing against when you come up.”

Hollander’s mom smiled. “Oh that’s so nice of you, Mr. Hunter,” she said. “Shane, isn’t that nice?”

“Yeah,” Hollander said with a small nod. “Totally.”

God, this kid was awkward, but it was growing on him, like Hollander had stumbled out of embarrassing and landed right in the center of adorable. Scott felt himself thicken up just a little bit, so he used the privacy of the table height and the fact that Hollander’s family had turned away from him to quickly adjust himself. (Hoping Rozanov wasn’t watching at that moment.) When Hollander excused himself to step away from the rest of the group, Scott reached out, putting one hand on the kid’s bicep to guide him in the right direction.

Hollander’s eyes flicked toward him. His dark lashes were long and delicate.

His lips were a soft pink.

Jesus.

Scott risked a look over his shoulder, but there was an empty space now where Rozanov had been standing a few minutes before.

Scott got them over to the bar without too much trouble. The kid wanted a ginger ale of all things, which just added to the feeling that Scott was somehow breaking a law by standing too close to the guy. He ordered a whiskey for himself, paid, and tried not to let his face give anything away when the bartender let his fingers drag across the back of Scott’s when he handed his card back. Scott Hunter, Captain of the New York Admirals, did not pick up strangers at a work event. Scott Hunter, Captain of the New York Admirals, hadn’t gone home with a man in the United States or Canada in the last three years. He wasn’t going to start now, with reps from every team in the league all gathered in the same building.

Not here, not now, not where everyone could see him. The weight of it pulled on his chest the way it always did. Scott took too big of a drink, hoping the burn would chase away the ice forming underneath his sternum.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rozanov flirting with a waitress. The kid’s hand was slowly trailing down her back and he leaned in, a toothy grin on his face, and took a glass of champagne off her tray with his other hand. Hollander, standing between them and facing Scott, hadn’t noticed.

Rozanov was going to break this boy’s heart, Scott was certain of it.

“Let’s take a walk,” Scott said. Hollander nodded immediately, smiling sweetly. He was a soft pup looking for direction. A baby gay, impressionable and open; a bird too soon fallen from the nest. How the fuck had this kid survived Canadian Major Juniors, an organization rumored to be even more vicious than the fucking MLH itself when it came to stamping out any sort of difference? Realizing the extent of Hollander's innocence killed whatever interest he’d had in fucking the kid. Scott liked his men manlier. Rougher. As willing to fuck Scott as to be fucked, depending on the day. Hollander needed someone to teach him… everything, probably.

Scott had no interest in giving a teenager lessons in how to take cock. But maybe he could share some of his life experience with the boy. “This way,” he said quietly, taking Hollander’s elbow to lead him out a side door, into an unused hallway. “Less of an audience, you know?”

“Sure,” Hollander said, though he didn’t sound it at all.

“I just wanted to give you some advice, rook. I think maybe we have some things in common.” Scott paused. There was a noise back the way they’d come, a door shutting loudly. “But it’s a conversation we can’t have out there.” He tugged on Hollander’s jacket, pulling him deeper into this part of the building.

“Um,” the boy said as he glanced behind them nervously, “they’re probably going to come looking for me soon.”

“Yeah, this won’t take long,” Scott said as they turned another corner. He stopped there, looking both ways to check that no one else was around. “Look, Hollander, you can let me know if I’m totally off base here, and listen man, I’m not judging you or anything okay?”

“Okay?” Hollander said. He was looking up into Scott’s eyes, with the little space between his eyebrows bunched together.

Scott took another step forward, closing the space between them. “I hope I’m not fucking this up, Christ you’re so fucking young,” he said.

“I’m an adult,” Hollander said, with a faint whine in his voice.

“Yeah, you are, and that’s great, really,” Scott said. “I just know what it’s like to be in these locker rooms, with these guys, and I’d hate to see anything happen to you before you get a chance to find your footing, you know?”

Hollander bit his lower lip for a moment. “Mr. Hunter…” he said quietly.

A sharp, accented voice cut him off. “Hollander, you are lost?” Rozanov stepped around the corner, holding a half-drunk glass of champagne in his hand. “Hunter giving you tour, empty hallways of America?”

“Fuck off, kid,” Scott snapped. “This is a private conversation.”

“Not so private as you think it is,” Rozanov said slowly. “You are good, Hollander?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Hollander replied, but he took a step away from Scott and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“I think your parents are missing you, yes?” Rozanov said. “You have nice family, maybe you go back now, okay?”

“Seriously, fuck off Rozanov,” Scott said. “We’re talking.”

“Hollander is too boring for you,” Rozanov said as he strode forward, putting himself half a foot in front of the other boy. “You talk to me, yes?”

“I, uh, I’ll see you later I guess,” Hollander said, looking between them. “See you, Mr. Hunter.”

“Good boy,” Rozanov said over his shoulder as Hollander passed him.

“Fuck off,” Hollander said as he walked away, but he sounded pleased.

Rozanov watched him disappear around the corner before turning back to Scott. “You remind me of man I knew in Russia,” he said quietly.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

The kid pursed his full lips for a second, as if he was considering his next words. “This man, he told me… how do you say?” Rozanov leaned forward, before lowering his voice. “Oh yes, he say to me, Ilya, you have very fuckable mouth.” He leaned back, grinning now, sharp white teeth. “You remind me of this man.”

Scott could feel the heat rushing to his face. “You can’t just say shit like that!” he hissed.

Rozanov smacked his lips. “I break this man’s hands, okay? Fucking pédik was too old, you understand?”

“Of course,” Scott said sarcastically. He’d heard the word before, from Russian guys he’d played in the past. It wasn’t the worst way to call him a faggot but it was pretty close. It wasn't a fucking compliment, that's for sure.

Scott clenched his fists, where they hung next to his thighs, just in case.

“I think you are too old to make this mistake, Hunter.” Rozanov looked him up and down as he swirled the liquid in his glass but didn’t drink it.

“I’m 25!”

“Hollander is 18.” Rozanov shook his head, as if he was disappointed.

Scott opened his mouth to argue about the age thing but it caught up with him, exactly what the Russian was saying. What he obviously knew. “You’ve got it wrong,” he said. “About both of us. Me and Hollander. You’re wrong, okay?”

“Okay,” Rozanov said, smiling again. “My English is not very good.” He shrugged. “You have good hands,” he added.

“Oh, uh, thank you?” Scott managed to get out. This kid was all over the place... Was that on purpose, or the language barrier?

Rozanov shrugged again, before finally taking a drink. “You will need them, when I get to the MHL. You will still lose of course, but it will be more fun if you show up.”

“You really are an asshole, aren’t you?” Scott said, but he was talking to the kid’s back before the sentence was finished.

“Goodbye, Scott Hunter,” Rozanov called as he walked away.

Scott slapped the nearest wall with the flat of his hand. Fuck, he thought sullenly. This kid is going to ruin my life.

Chapter 2: July 2009 to January 2011

Chapter Summary

Scott gets through the year before Shane and Ilya play for the MLH, buoyed by his secret summer vacations. Once their rookie season starts, he tries to fix his mistake from their draft day but can't connect with Shane. Ilya annoys Scott on the ice, and off of it.

This chapter takes place at the same time as chapters one through nine of Mr. Answer Man. (The next chapter will be Scott's view of the 2011 All-Star game in Nashville; Ilya’s POV of the same event happens in chapter ten of Mr. Answer Man.)

Scott got through the rest of Draft Day without speaking to either of the boys again, though Rozanov’s suspicious stare followed him until the end of the reception. And yes, Scott could admit – looking back at it – that he’d fucked up by trying to get Hollander alone to talk while Rozanov’s too-perceptive gaze was still on them both. The Russian was at the edges of the room the whole night. Scott’s awareness of him stung, a reminder that he’d inadvertently painted a target on himself and Hollander both. Guys like Rozanov were like sharks, scenting even a drop of blood in the water. Scott could handle it, he performed heterosexual masculinity so well they put him on magazine covers as one of New York’s most eligible bachelors, he’d risen to the top of every locker room he’d ever been in, but Hollander was too new. Too soft.

Rozanov was going to eat Hollander alive.

So Scott was annoyed at himself by the time he and Harv flew out of LA. They’d dissected the draft picks from their business class seats, over airplane whiskey and a forgettable in-flight meal; Harv laughed when Scott angrily described the Raider’s newest player as “an obnoxious little shit” and reminded Scott to hold on to that feeling when he met the kid again on the ice. He was irritated all through the next month as he wrapped up his obligations to the Admirals and the press junket his publicist had set up, part of the cost of carefully maintaining his image. He was practically vibrating out of his skin by the time his plane to Ibiza was boarding. It didn’t get worse while he flew over the Atlantic Ocean with a plain black baseball cap pulled low over his face, but it didn’t get better until he was actually there, off the plane, luggage retrieved, cab ride sorted, and checked into his hotel.

In the Balearic islands, no one cared who he was. The relief of being unknown leeched the stress of his real life from his skin and bones. By the time he’d showered and changed, by the time his feet hit the sand-colored bricks of the street outside his hotel, he wasn’t Scott Hunter, famous Captain of the New York Admirals anymore. He was just Scott. Wealthy enough to enjoy himself here, attractive enough to get what he wanted, average enough compared to all the other beautiful men that no one would think he was special enough to photograph without his permission. He breathed in the sea air, and relaxed.

After two weeks, he left with the memories of eight hookups: two mediocre, three more that were good enough to satisfy him, and three that were truly excellent. He’d had four blowjobs, two rounds of hand stuff in hotel showers, fucked three men, and been fucked twice. Three of the men had asked if he wanted to do this again. He did, but he couldn’t, so he kissed them goodbye then threw out the napkins and bar receipts they’d scribbled their numbers on as soon as he was out of sight. He flew back to New York loose-limbed and deliciously sore, ready to get back to work.

The stress over Hollander and Rozanov eased when he found out Montreal had decided to keep Hollander out in Kingston for another year of junior hockey. They called it “development” but it was really that the Metros had too many forwards already, and a couple of those self-indulgent pricks refused to retire. Then suddenly Rozanov wasn’t coming to Boston just yet either. Rumor was he’d had a contract already and the language barrier kept it from being clear to the Raiders’ management, or maybe the kid had signed on to a year of KHL play after he sailed through training camp in Massachusetts, but either way he was going to be on the other side of the world for another year. So Hollander was safe from him for the time being, and Scott was too.

Those wins carried Scott through the first half of the season. The Admirals were winning more than they lost. The smile he had to plaster on his face to get through questions from the press – and his own teammates trying to set him up on dates – felt real for several months. He wasn’t even asked about Rozanov as much as he’d expected; the kid being in Russia certainly helped, but on top of that it looked like the league was planning to set Rozanov and Hollander up as rivals for next season, so his fear of being compared to the Russian phenom for the rest of his career slowly fizzled out. He even managed to catch an OHL game in Pennsylvania during an off day, sitting high up in the top seats so no one recognized him. He watched Hollander skate out against the Erie Otters in an arena that barely sat 7,000 people, almost a third of the size of the Garden back home, and left feeling breathless with anticipation.

Hollander might be a duckling in real life but on the ice he was precise and ruthless, dominating every shift he took. Scott went back to the team hotel and immediately pulled Bennett aside to talk about how they were going to defend against the kid next year.

“He worries you that much?” Bennie asked. The goalie was a few years older than Scott, almost thirty, happily married to Holly (the love of his life) and one of the most stable guys Scott knew. They were the kind of best friends that knew everything about each other except the one thing Scott couldn’t tell anyone. He knew Bennie trusted his opinion.

“Yeah man,” Scott had said with a sigh. “Between him and the Russian kid, I’m worried all the time.” So they pulled up game tape from the latest International Prospect Cup on Scott’s laptop, right there in the hotel bar. Rozanov had come back from Russia for it, just last month, and Hollander was there too, leading Team Canada to the gold. By the time the night was over, they had a small crowd – their new backup goalie Tommy Andersson (no relation to the Raiders’ long time captain, Tommy Anderson with one s), their goal-tending coach Quinn Cameron, a few of their forwards and a couple of defensemen who wandered through the bar in time to get sucked in to the conversation. It felt good, the way it always did, to be a part of a team who cared enough about Scott’s opinions to take a night away from getting laid or going to sleep early, just to plan a strategy for two players who weren’t even playing in the MLH until the fall.

They made the playoffs at the end of the season, but lost in the second round, tired and bruised and ready for it all to be over. They picked up a new forward in the draft, a rookie named Carter Vaughn that Scott immediately claimed as his own. The kid was funny and amenable in a way that felt genuine, with a sunshine personality that brightened the room, and Scott knew from talking with their Coach that Vaughn would be called up to their third line as long as he didn’t absolutely choke in the pre-season. Coach was so sure of it, he asked Scott to billet the kid in New York, and Scott (who had been far lonelier than he wanted to admit) immediately agreed. They shook hands on it, he and Vaughn exchanged phone numbers, and made plans to meet up before training camp so Vaughn could move his stuff into Scott’s guest room for the year.

His vacation this summer was on Mykonos; he chose a hotel in Chora, near the best gay bars, and came back to New York two weeks later thoroughly fucked out, ready for the new season. He posted photos of pristine Spanish beaches to his social media, pics taken the previous summer, part of keeping people from figuring out where he really went each year. Next summer he’d post the shots he took one afternoon at Paradise Beach, and let folks think he was in Greece when he’d be back in Ibiza instead.

By the time his rookie moved in, Scott had put up the Spanish postcards he’d bought the year before, tucking them under magnets on his fridge, as if they were new. When Vaughn suggested they vacation together next year, with some of the other guys, Scott smiled and said, “Sure, rook, let’s think about that some more in the spring,” as if it were a real possibility. It wasn’t, Scott needed his two weeks alone, needed the chance to be himself (even in secret) to be able to survive the rest of the year in the closet, but it was nice to be asked.

It was nice to hear someone else in his kitchen when he woke up in the morning, too.

October 2010 was the start of Hollander and Rozanov’s rookie season. The league promos were everywhere, along with an ad they’d shot for CCM hockey gear, the two of them bent over their sticks, serious and stiff, staring each other down. He played against Hollander once and Rozanov twice that fall, with both of them in as second line centers, so he didn’t have to face off against either of them. Hollander had smiled and given him a little wave during warm ups, which was sweet. Rozanov scowled but kept his distance during the first game, though he scored a goal while Scott was on the bench and when he skated past to get to his own bench, the fucker looked straight at Scott and winked.

The second game against the Raiders was in Boston, a few weeks before the All-Star game. Both Rozanov and Hollander would be there in Nashville, separated by the North America vs Europe format. Scott would be captaining Hollander’s team, giving him plenty of time to get the kid alone for a redo of the conversation he’d fucked up in Los Angeles the year before. 

Rozanov must have realized that as well. He was everywhere on the ice, everywhere Scott was, slamming him into the boards or slapping his stick away to get at the puck. In the first period Rozanov only spoke to him in Russian, growling out words that sounded like water rushing over sharp rocks, fluid and harsh at the same time. In the second he found his English, but that was worse because every time their bodies connected, Rozanov ran his mouth at the same time. “Not bad for old man,” was tame, but, “is only way you can touch me,” purred into Scott’s ear when he had Rozanov pressed against the wall startled him so much he let go long enough for the kid to race off with the puck. “Looking forward to All Star game?” could have been casual conversation, if it wasn’t said when Rozanov hip checked him hard enough to bruise. And in case it wasn’t clear what he was thinking, Rozanov followed it up with, “no more hallways for Hollander, yes?”

The asshole was just trying to get into Scott’s head, he knew, and he was pissed about it, pissed off that the guy would use his assumptions about Scott’s sexuality – and Hollander’s – to win at a fucking sport. Even if he was correct, it was screwed up to chirp about something so personal. And what the fuck is his obsession with the Canadian rookie anyway?

Fine. Two can play this game.

“When Hollander and I talk he doesn’t mention you at all,” Scott said quietly, bent over the center line across from Rozanov in middle of the third period. The other man’s eyes widened angrily, but the puck dropped before he could respond. Scott stole it and raced away.

The Admirals ground out a 4-3 win, tight but a win nonetheless. The good mood in the locker room brought Scott’s shoulders down from around his ears, letting him relax into what he loved most about hockey: the family he’d built from scratch out of guys who’d found themselves playing on the same team, mostly because its where they were drafted or traded to. Which is how he found himself walking to a club in Boston with one arm over Bennett’s shoulders and the other arm around Vaughny’s, with another half dozen guys behind them.

The club was recommended by one of the d-men, a hulking guy named Frank who’d heard from a friend of a friend that it was a great spot to score puck bunnies. Scott and Frank didn’t get along, not really, opposite sides of the hockey coin when it came to personalities, but Frank was tight with Breezy, the rookie defensemen who was billeting with Frank this season, and Breezy was close with Vaughy, so their circles intersected in a new way. Frank and a couple of the guys immediately veered off to the bar, which was fine with Scott, who wanted nothing more than a comfortable chair and a good view of the dance floor.

Which currently included several Raiders. And Ilya Rozanov. Fuck.

Scott almost turned to walk out the door but Rozanov looked up from the tiny blond woman grinding against him at the same moment. He spotted Scott, and laughed, then twisted to grab another player’s arm, pointing out the Admirals standing together just off the dance floor.

“How do you wanna play it, Scotty?” Bennett asked.

“Game’s over,” Scott said, still watching Rozanov. “We’re cool if they are.”

“Got it,” Vaughny said cheerfully. “Let’s dance, baby!” He clapped Scott on the shoulder, then waded into the crowd. Rookies, Scott thought to himself, but he couldn’t help smiling.

The song changed, something slower. Rozanov was still dancing with the same girl, but he’d turned them so he was facing Scott while still having plausible deniability. He looked at Scott, then looked down at the woman, then back up again, a smirk painted on his perfect fucking lips. Well? he seemed to be saying.

Scott rolled his eyes, but he knew the drill too. In public, Scott Hunter understood who he was. He scanned the crowd for a willing partner, quickly finding a pretty brunette girl who smiled at him shyly. He put his hands in the right places, one at her hip, the other at her shoulder, and let the music do the work. By the time he worked up a sweat, he excused himself to get a beer. Melinda (Melissa?) had taken it well enough, disappearing back into the crowd with Breezy, who stepped up to take his place the second Scott passed him. That was fine, it happened, and as long as he found another girl at the bar no one would question it. He’d share a cab, make sure she was dropped off first, and get dropped off a mile from the hotel. Walking back would give him enough time for people to make their own assumptions.

Rozanov was at the bar too, toward the end where the lights were lower. The blond was gone, and Rozanov was scrolling on his phone. The soft glow from the screen lit up his face. He looked soft too, smiling gently at whatever he was reading. It wasn’t any of the ways Scott had seen Rozanov’s face before. Like this, Rozanov actually looked his age. Scott’s annoyance at him faded a bit. He was an arrogant ass, his cellies were obnoxious, and he kept running his fucking mouth – in person, in the press, even on his social media – but he was also just a fucking kid. God, when did Scott start thinking of every one of the rookies this way? He was a rookie himself only six years ago.

While the bartender poured his beer, Scott watched as another young woman approached Rozanov. She slid her hand up his arm, leaning close enough to press her breasts against him. Okay, so fine, yes, Rozanov could get it. He probably went home with a different girl every night, if the pictures Scott saw online were to be believed. Scott needed to be better about that himself. No one questioned the Russian kid’s sexuality. Most people didn’t question Scott’s either, but once in a while there were whispers about how single he was, how he didn’t bring women to the team barbecues…

“I saw Breeze with your girl,” Frank said as he sidled up next to Scott. “Tough luck, man.”

“She tried but I turned her down,” Scott lied. “One of her friends was hotter.”

“Oh yeah?” Frank asked. “Where is she then?”

“Just left. I’m gonna finish my beer and meet her back at her place,” Scott said. “She’s gotta kick out her roommate.” It was a lie based in fact so Scott hoped it was believable. It had really happened to him, not here but in Mykonos. Not with a woman of course, but one of the men Scott went home with last summer. “What about you?”

Frank sniffed, rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand. “Night’s still young, Cap.” He took a drink from the bartender and walked away.

Scott checked for his teammates, other Raiders, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to him. Even Rozanov had disappeared, probably with a woman, so Scott left a tip on the bar and slipped out the door.

“Leaving already?” a Russian accent asked as he made his way outside.

“Oh fuck off,” Scott groaned. “Why are you everywhere?”

“Is Boston,” Rozanov said. He was standing near the curb with his phone in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. “Is my town.”

“Fine. All right. I’m just tired man. Can we leave off the bullshit for a few minutes?”

Rozanov sucked on his cigarette for a moment, before blowing the smoke out through his cupid’s bow lips like a petulant teenage dragon. “Tell me what you want with Hollander.”

“Jesus, fuck, is that kid all you think about?” Scott shook his head. “He seems like a decent guy, I was just trying to help him out, okay? Whatever else you thought you saw, you were wrong.”

“Hollander is decent guy,” Rozanov agreed.

Scott was surprised. “I thought you were jealous of him.”

“Of Hollander? No, no, no,” Rozanov said quickly. “He is good player, I am better. But he is better person than me, I think.”

“Okay,” Scott said, then stopped. He wasn’t sure what to say next.

“Hollander is… I don’t know how to say in English.” Rozanov took another drag from his cigarette before walking over to stub it out on the wall next to Scott’s head. “He is grown man,” Rozanov said quietly, “but with other people he is maybe… trusting too much? What is this word?”

“He’s naive?” Scott asked.

“Yes, this I think.” Rozanov narrowed his eyes. “Wrong person takes advantage, I would be very angry.”

“I’m not taking advantage of the kid,” Scott said, all the fight bled out of him now. “But out of curiosity, why do you care?”

Rozanov shrugged. “You are going home alone, old man? No beautiful woman for Scott Hunter?”

“Fuck you, you’re standing out here by yourself too.” Scott pulled his coat tighter as the chill in the night air started to creep into his skin.

“But what I have waiting for me, ooh,” Rozanov said, faking a loud moan. “An ass so fine, Hunter. You would not believe it.”

“Of course that’s all you care about,” Scott sighed. For a few minutes he’d actually thought the kid might be an okay guy, but clearly he was wrong. “Fuck ‘em and forget ‘em, right Rozanov?”

The other man scowled again. Scott was starting to think this was Rozanov’s natural state. “You do not know me,” he said slowly.

“Whatever. Just make sure you wrap it, okay? You don’t need a shotgun wedding this early in your career.”

Rozanov laughed at that. “Do not worry, old man. I am not getting anyone pregnant tonight. Or married.” His face stilled for a moment. He said something in Russian then, almost a whisper, then let out a long breath. For a moment, he almost looked sad. A cab rolled up to the curb, discharging its passengers. Rozanov gave a small salute. “Good night, Scott Hunter!” he called out, then got into the cab, and closed the door.

Scott stepped forward, waiting for the next cab to arrive. Waiting in the cold to be taken back to another fucking hotel room, to get on another fucking airplane tomorrow, to sit in another fucking locker room listening to the guys dissect their conquests from the night before. At least Rozanov had someone waiting for him, and Scott realized with a sickening twist in his belly that he was actually jealous of the rookie. Sure, Rozanov’s hookup was going to be gone in the morning, but at least he’d get to touch someone else. Feel the warmth in their skin, the muscles moving beneath his hands. And someone else was going to get to touch him back. Some warm mouth on Rozanov’s cock. Delicate fingers gripping his curly hair.

He shook his head. Scott knew what he gave up for hockey, for a world that saw guys like him as a mistake, or worse, a distraction. He made his choice, and the cold ache of loneliness during the season was the price he had to pay. But fuck Rozanov for reminding him.

Chapter 3: 2011 All-Star game in Nashville

Chapter Summary

Scott finally gets his chance to have a real conversation with Hollander, which makes him reconsider everything he thought before. He takes it out on Rozanov, and starts to regret some of his choices.

---

This chapter is Scott's view of the 2011 All-Star game in Nashville; Ilya’s POV of the same event happens in chapter ten of Mr. Answer Man.

Chapter Notes

Scott Hunter stood in the staging area just outside of the 2011 All-Star game press room, holding a thankfully empty because now it was crushed into oblivion paper coffee cup on his hand, steadily ignoring the worried goalie standing next to him, because Shane Hollander was a fucking asshole and he deserved everything Ilya Rozanov was about to do to his life. Shane fucking Hollander, baby duckling, innocent little rookie, number one most oblivious child of the MLH, was fucking flirting with Ilya Rozanov on national television as if every fucking message Scott ever tried to send his way didn’t exist. Scott’s concern didn’t exist. Had never existed, if the frankly indecent scene on the monitor in front of him was anything to go by. Hollander had called Rozanov his friend, for God’s sake. They were teasing about wearing each other’s fucking jerseys. Shane was a shade of pink normally reserved for blushing brides and guys who’d just done 30 minutes of cardio.

Judging from the reaction of the people around him, no one else fucking noticed. Well you see, Scott thought, imagining he was explaining this to a room full of his peers, as a fellow cocksucker I am intimately aware of the tell-tale signs of the homosexual mating ritual…

So that was it then. Shane Hollander was most definitely some flavor of gay, and also, as naive as Rozanov said he was. Naive enough to think he even remotely had a chance with the notorious rage-baiter of the Boston Raiders. Or stupid enough to think a guy that could somehow tell when your wife has left you or which of your teammates has fucked your sister would also somehow not use this information against him. The Shane Hollander who is currently, sweetly, blushing under the Russian’s gaze was 19 years old and had clearly never had his heart broken by falling in love with a man who can’t possibly want him back. The Ilya Rozanov sitting beside him was too smart not to have instantly seen it, to have collected it, hoarding this information until he can convert in into useful currency. A chirp when Boston needs the turnover. The right comment to the right reporter, oh so subtly leading him in the direction of an exposé, a scandal, the end of Hollander’s career. Rozanov would joke about it later, laughing while he said things like, “Oh is Hollander being gay a secret? No one tells me. I think everyone knows this, yes?” in that fucking accent before heading out to another club to pick up another woman he’d have forgotten by morning.

“You all right there, Scotty?” Bennett asked quietly.

“Yep, just fucking hate that guy,” Scott said without thinking.

“Which one?” Bennie joked, but Scott sighed and said, “Both of them, probably,” before walking away to find a trashcan, trying very hard not to think about how Rozanov’s face softened when he admitted that Hollander was most likely going to win Rookie of the Year.

As if Rozanov were, unimaginably, secretly, proud of his very public rival. Which was impossible, and yet, there was a softness to his face Scott had only seen once before, in that bar in Boston, when Rozanov was caught up in something on his phone. The farther he got away from that night the more Scott had wondered if he’d imagined that softness entirely, right up until now, when he suddenly caught it again. He wondered if anyone else in the room had any idea what they were looking at. He wondered, a half second later, if anyone had ever looked at him the way Rozanov was looking at Hollander in that interview.

Jesus, no wonder Hollander had a crush on the guy. It was really too bad the whole thing was going to end in disappointment.

“Hey, I need your help with a little project,” Scott told his friend later, when he’d finished his own interview, after he’d managed to get himself untangled from the press pack and away from an MLH staffer who wanted to go over the weekend’s schedule for the thousandth time.

“Are you breaking into or out of somewhere?” Bennie asked, completely seriously.

“More like we’re staging an intervention,” Scott replied, half smiling, half wishing he still had the coffee cup, just so he could crush it again. “We need to keep Hollander and Rozanov away from each other this weekend.” They swerved to avoid another group of players passing them in the hallway, pausing the conversation until they were out of range of being overheard.

Bennie nodded. “You think they’re going to kill each other if we don’t intervene?”

I’m pretty sure they’re going to kill me, Scott thought, but what he said was, “Something like that,” and laid out his plan.

Thanks to the event organizers including the phone numbers of every player at the All-Star Game in their welcome packets, Scott finally had an excuse to use Hollander’s (and Rozanov’s, not that he’d ever need it). He’d had numbers for them both for months, from a guy who knew a guy, the way knowledge always passed through the league. He’d asked for Rozanov’s mostly as cover, asked for Korogyi’s too just to be safe, but once he had Hollander’s number he couldn’t think of a way to start the conversation that wouldn’t freak the boy out. Hey bro I know you’re gay sounded like a threat. Don’t try to fuck the Russian Menace was probably out for the same reason, and a normal version of it – Hollander, we need to talk – was bound to create more anxiety than necessary in a kid wound as tight as Hollander obviously was. Guess what same secret, besties? made him sound like a deranged high school girl. He could have texted about a game, started with something benign, but at the end of the day he was the Captain of an opposing team randomly texting a 19 year old rookie from another country. The optics of it were never going to work out in Scott’s favor.

Not for the first time, Scott wished Vaughny had been invited this weekend. His rookie would know how to talk to Montreal’s new center, would walk up with a smile and without an agenda, throw his arms around whoever and be instantly accepted. Vaughn had a goddamn gift.

“You’re abandoning me to fly off to Bermuda for three days,” Scott had whined, laying flat out on the big leather couch in his apartment on New Year’s Day.

“Hey, nobody said you had to go to Nashville,” Vaughn replied with a laugh. “Call in sick, Scotty. The beach is waiting for us…”

Scott groaned. “Crowell would fucking kill me and Harv would probably help hide my body.”

Vaughn shrugged. “You would know, you fucking weirdo,” he said, but he was grinning when he said it. “Tell me again about the Gilgo Beach murders?”

“It’s a hobby!” Scott exclaimed. “I don’t read about murder, you know, professionally.”

“Murder books, murder podcasts – man, last night you tried to explain to the difference between serial killers and spree killers to our waitress!”

Scott threw a pillow in Vaughn’s general direction. “One day I’m gonna find a nice girl to listen to murder podcasts with and you’re gonna be jealous.” Not a girl, not a girl, not a girl, he thought, and tried very hard to ignore. “You’d rather I was Prentice, telling everyone he meets about the fucking clown classes he takes in the summer?”

“Scotty, for real, I love you,” Vaughn laughed, shaking his head, “but anyone who goes home with you after you talk about violent crime has no sense of personal safety.”

“So that’s a no on coming to Nashville with me?” Scott asked. “You can be my plus one!”

“I need at a full weekend where no one smells like a locker room, for medical reasons.” Vaughn tossed the pillow back, hitting Scott in the chest.

“You can’t get rid of the smell, man. It lives in our DNA now.”

“Seriously, Bennett’s gonna be there, it’s not like you’re going alone.” Vaughn got that look on his face, where the cheer drained out of him and what was left was more like a kindly grandmother than kid too young to drink in the States. “Is there… I mean, maybe, something you want to talk about?”

Yeah, I think I’m fucking obsessed with these two rookies because one is beautiful and vulnerable and the other one is beautiful but terrible, I might want to fuck them both but definitely I want to fuck the awful one, and I need you there to help me warn the sweet one away because I’m either going to punch the Russian kid or get drunk enough to finally put him on his knees and I can’t decide which is worse for Hollander to see me do...

“Nah, I’m good,” Scott said instead. “Enjoy your beach, man.”

He managed to get through the rest of his responsibilities for the day. Bennett had more free time, so he’d ‘accidentally run into’ Hollander a few times, thanks to the detailed schedule they’d all got (thank you, welcome packet, for making it easy to stalk the Montreal rookie). Scott got to the bar just in time to see Hollander slide onto the stool next to Rozanov.

“Hey,” Scott said as he joined them. “Having fun, rook?”

“Hi, Mr. Hunter,” Hollander said, blushing slightly. He shifted in his seat, pivoting to face Scott; Rozanov’s hand moved under the bar at the same time.

Did he have his fucking hand on Hollander’s leg?

“Rozanov,” Scott said, nodding in his direction.

“Old man,” Rozanov replied dryly. He took another drink of the beer in front of him, the one he was too young to have ordered but the bartender clearly hadn’t carded him. His full lips caught on the rim of the bottle as he pulled it away from his mouth, releasing the glass with a little pop.

Hollander rolled his eyes. “Um, did you need something sir?”

“Please, kid, don’t call him sir,” Bennie said as he joined them.

Rozanov leaned over and whispered something in Hollander’s ear. “Fuck off,” the boy said quietly, but his cheeks were pinker than before.

“We’re heading out for the team dinner,” Scott said. “You ready to go?”

“Oh, is that... already?” Hollander’s words stumbled out as he jerked his wrist up to check his watch. “I thought we had more time.”

“Better to be early instead of late,” Scott said, mentally kicking himself as soon as he said it. Fuck, he really did sound like an old man. Maybe Rozanov was on to something.

“I guess, I’ll, um… text you later?” Hollander said hesitantly, looking at Rozanov.

“Mmm, yes, later,” the Russian murmured. “You will not stay out too late, Hollander? You need, what is called, beauty sleep?”

“Right, and you can stay up all night because you’re already beautiful?” Hollander teased back.

Scott narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t sure, but it looked like Rozanov was startled by the comment.

“I will stay up for the right person,” Rozanov said back. “Beauty is not most important thing.”

“You’re planning to pick up at the team’s hotel?” Scott said, shaking his head in disbelief. “What you think you’ve got a shot at somebody’s girlfriend?”

“Maybe I brought pretty girl with me,” Rozanov drawled slowly. “Maybe I know I will get lucky. Better luck than you.”

“Okay, time to go,” Bennie said, putting one hand on Scott’s bicep.

Hollander stood up quickly. “Yep, I’m ready to go. Uh, see you, Rozanov.”

“I love to watch you leave!” Rozanov called out as they walked away.

“Asshole,” Scott muttered under his breath. “You aren’t really friends with him, are you rook?”

Hollander shoved his hands in his pockets. “We’re not exactly friends,” he said quietly.

“I knew it!” Scott realized he’d been too loud, glanced around to see if anyone was looking their way. Over his shoulder, he saw Rozanov still sitting at the bar alone, now typing something into his phone. Scott lowered his voice. “Sorry, I just knew all those comments were his way of fucking with you.”

“That’s not…” Hollander sighed. “He’s really a good guy. Some of what he says comes out wrong because he’s still learning English, but he means well.”

“You’re giving him too much credit,” Scott insisted. He looked to Bennett for support, but the goalie just shrugged.

“Maybe we take Hollander’s word for it?” Bennie said.

“Come on, man, you know the type,” Scott said. They’d reached the curb out front of the hotel, so he was searching for an open cab instead of looking at either of the men next to him. “He’s loud and cocky, he thinks with his dick, and he’s gonna either get some puck bunny pregnant or end up with syphilis. Or worse,” he added as he flagged down a taxi headed their way, “he’s gonna hate crime someone and end up transferred to an even shittier team.”

“Hey,” Hollander said firmly, “don’t fucking do that.”

Scott turned to face him. The kid’s eyebrows were folded close together, and the muscle that ran along the side of his jaw was twitching. He’d pulled himself up to his full height; Scott hadn’t noticed until then that Hollander had made himself smaller around other other people. Was he doing it in the bar too, or just as they walked out of the hotel?

“I’m just trying to watch out for you, rook.” Scott hoped his concern showed on his face.

Hollander stared back at him, determined and suddenly, unfairly, attractive at that moment. “Don’t do it by talking shit about someone I care about,” he said.

“Yeah, all right,” Scott said quietly. He pulled open the door to the waiting cab.

Bennett got in first, giving Scott a look he couldn’t decipher. Hollander paused for a moment, still looking at Scott, then sighing as he got into the car.

Scott slid in after him, carefully closing the door. They were a little too big, the three of them, to be wedged into a backseat all together like this. He gave the driver the address of the restaurant, and tried very hard not to think about the warmth of Hollander’s upper arm where it was pressed against his own. The firm heat of Hollander’s thigh.

Great, Scott thought miserably. They’re both fucking hot. Shoot me now.

Luckily, whatever tension they brought with them dissipated by the time they reached their destination. The steel in Hollander’s spine when Scott had said what he did about Rozanov had drained out of him again, leaving behind the awkward rookie from before. He checked his phone and replied to some texts, careful to keep his phone at an angle, not that Scott was really trying to invade his privacy. There was a small smile on his lips as he slid the phone back into his pocket, so the night wasn’t ruined before it got started.

Still, Hollander seemed stiffer than before, not speaking much as he shook hands with the other guys on their team. Fix it before you fuck it up further, Scott told himself. “Hey, Hollander, come sit next to me and tell me how we’re going to crush the other guys this weekend?”

“Yeah, let me get in on that too,” Anderson, the Raider’s captain, said, stepping around a defenseman from Los Angeles who’d just finished asking Hollander for his autograph for his baby cousin. “I’ve got a bet with one of mine about whether Hollander’s gonna beat his shot accuracy score tomorrow.” The older man grinned. “I saw your interview this afternoon, kid,” he said as he shook Hollander’s hand. “Thanks for that.”

“Of course, sir,” Hollander said, ducking his head, soft and shy again. “I hope you won’t be offended when I kick his ass tomorrow.” The wide grin that appeared on his face was quickly matched by Anderson’s own.

“Roz said you were funny,” Anderson laughed. “Let’s grab a seat?”

Scott followed them to a table, one of several pushed close together to accommodate the three dozen players, wives, and girlfriends. The conversation drifted away from the Russian kid before the appetizers were brought out, but Hollander kept up his part of the conversation, offering stats and insightful opinions about any other player mentioned.

“He’s kind of dry but he’s also right,” Bennett whispered as he leaned toward Scott. Hollander had just cleanly laid out all of the major problems with Washington’s current roster while also delivering a line that was hilarious once everyone realized it was a joke. “Did you know?”

“I’ve heard he’s got an incredible hockey brain but it’s different to see it up close,” Scott whispered back. “That thing about Zullo’s stats the last three years? I didn’t even know that.”

“I know you’ve got a problem with the other kid, but this one might be a bigger problem for us.” Bennie shrugged. “Think about it.”

Scott nodded. He’d been thinking about Hollander all through dinner. He just hadn’t decided how he felt yet.

After dinner, Scott hooked an arm around the kid’s shoulder and dragged him up to the rooftop bar, where the guys took over the lounge area. Scott watched as the group ebbed and flowed, but the blush never came back to Hollander’s cheeks. He was quieter at some moments than others, and seemed more nervous with some of the louder guys, but if Scott didn’t know better, nothing about Hollander’s performance tonight would have set off his gaydar. It was just a feeling then, a tickle at the back of his brain, telling him this was a performance, exactly the kind of pretending to fit in that Scott did every day.

The bar started to empty out as the night went on. What was left of their group brought their drinks out to the patio, where they spread out across all of the reclining chairs. Bennett had excused himself an hour before, needing to call home before he passed out. Anderson was gone as well, after saying something to Hollander that Scott didn’t hear, clapping the kid on the shoulder the way bros always did. There was a language to touching in hockey, simultaneously allowing more than outsiders would expect and carefully regulating what was acceptable, what wasn’t too homo for the sport. Hollander seemed to navigate it by not initiating any touch at all.

Scott thought about living like that, for a moment, but groaned. He needed more than he got. He couldn’t imagine going through his whole career without anyone’s hands on him. Without the gentle musky scent of another man’s skin against his lips.

“Do you have a special someone, Hollander?”

The kid looked up from his phone at that, the small smile on his lips illuminated by the screen’s blue light. “What?”

“You know,” Scott said, waving his hand, “someone waiting at home for you?”

“Not at home, no,” Hollander said, but he giggled at that, a small private sound.

“It’s too late to be texting your mom, right?”

Hollander shook his head, the smile still on his face. “I was just telling him I was talking to you,” he said. “He thought I would be in bed by now.”

That can be arranged, Scott thought. Jesus, I need to get laid. He dragged his hand over his face. “Your dad?”

“Ew, no,” Hollander laughed. “Ilya.” He whispered the name, as if anyone around them would care.

Scott thought for a second. Was that name male or female? It sounded ethnic, some flavor of European…

“It’s fine, he’s still with his team too,” Hollander said, looking back at his phone.

No…. “Are you talking about Rozanov?” Scott asked with a mouth that was suddenly dry.

“He’s stuck at a bar with a couple of the Finnish guys,” Hollander said, as if this was reasonable information for two rival players to share with each other. “I might be drunk,” he added in the same tone.

“Shit, yeah it’s…” Scott lifted his wrist to check the time. “Fuck, it’s after 1 AM. I’ll walk you back to your room.”

“O-kay,” Hollander said softly, giggling to himself again, but he managed to hold on to his phone when Scott grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the chair. They made their way to the elevator, waving at a few die hards who were staying behind until the bar closed.

“Look, kid,” Scott said slowly, once they were in the elevator. “I think you and I have a lot in common.”

“That’s nice,” Hollander said. “I told him you’re nice.” He leaned against Scott’s shoulder.

“Yeah, thanks. I’m just trying to help you, okay?”

“O-kay,” Hollander repeated, but this time Scott caught the hint of an accent he couldn’t identify. “Do you ever get lonely, Mr. Hunter?”

“Please, kid, you gotta call me Scott. And yeah, fuck, of course I do.” Scott’s hand was moving before he could stop it, but he managed to keep himself from stroking the kid’s cheek. He settled for patting him on the head instead. “But you can’t chase after the wrong guy just because you’re lonely,” he said.

“I won’t do that.” Hollander shook his head, straightening up stiffly. “I’m not hitting on you.”

“Fuck, kid, no, I don’t think that!”

The elevator opened, and Hollander stumbled out, turning his head until he decided on a direction. Scott followed him until they got to a door the boy seemed to recognize. He pulled out a key card, and after a few tries, managed to get the lock open. “I can’t invite you in,” Hollander said. His eyes were wide; he looked nervous and vulnerable at the same time.

His dark brown eyes were glassy. Scott realized, again, that Hollander was gorgeous. In another life, the guy could’ve been a model.

“I have a person,” he added quietly. “It’s a secret.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Scott assured him. “But you don’t have a relationship, rook. You have a crush. If you really want to find someone, I can give you some advice. You know, stuff that’s worked for me, with hockey and everything. But chasing after Rozanov isn’t going to end well.”

Hollander’s face fell. “I have to go to bed now,” he whispered.

“Yeah, okay. See you tomorrow.”

The door shut behind him as Hollander disappeared into the room. Scott leaned against the wall for a minute, resting his head against the mottled hotel wallpaper. At least I tried, he thought.

He went back to his room, feeling a little like the whole evening had been a waste of time. It only got worse as he stepped off the elevator and saw fucking Rozanov using his key card to open the room next door to his own.

The kid laughed when he saw Hunter walk up. “Of course,” Rozanov said, shaking his head. “You are stalking me now?”

“Fuck you, I don’t assign the rooms,” Scott snapped back. “Just fucking keep it down, at least.”

“Oh, Hunter, you pretend you don’t want to know what it sounds like when I come,” Rozanov purred. “Maybe tomorrow I let you listen.”

“You are seriously fucked up,” Scott said tiredly. The worst part was the guy wasn’t wrong. It’d been months since he’d heard those noises from anyone but himself, alone in his bedroom on nights Vaughny was out. It made him bitter, so he reached for the only thing he thought might hurt the kid. “I just put Hollander to bed, I don’t need to deal with you too.”

Rozanov’s face changed in an instant. His nostrils flared, his upper lip curled. He spat out Russian words Scott didn’t even try to understand.

“Yeah, yeah, goodnight Rozanov,” Scott called as he went into his room, leaving the angry rookie out in the hallway alone.

Leaning against the hotel door, he wished he could feel triumph at poking the Russian bear, but all he felt was regret.

That feeling held on through the next morning. Hollander apologized during the breakfast buffet line, unable to remember the last few hours of the night, but certain he’d done something wrong. Scott reassured him, which worked well enough that they had breakfast together, but Scott kept looking past the Canadian to where Rozanov sat on the other side of the room, staring daggers in their direction.

If he didn’t know any better – if he ignored all of the kid’s fucked up comments, starting with their draft day – then maybe, maybe, Scott could read this whole thing another way.

Maybe what Hollander felt wasn’t one sided at all.

And maybe Scott was the one being an asshole here.

He shook his head, and tried to focus on what Hollander was saying about one of the Russian goalies they’d be going up against. There was no way Rozanov was anything but straight, right?

But the kid wasn’t watching them like he was studying the opposing team. He was watching them like Scott had taken something from him, something personal.

The afternoon flew by. Bennett came second in the shot defense competition; Rozanov won the speed skating competition then broke Scott’s record for accuracy. Luckily, he only held the new record for a few minutes before Hollander set a new one, grinning widely when he realized he’d won. Scott was talking with a guy from Vancouver when he caught Hollander talking across the divider.

Then Rozanov whispered something as he skated by.

“What did he want?” Scott asked.

Hollander shrugged. “Just chirping. You know.”

“Yeah, that guy’s an ass,” Scott tried, just to see where Hollander was about it today.

“Sure,” the kid replied, but there was no weight to it.

“Thanks for not letting him beat my record for more than a minute,” Scott said.

Hollander smiled then, before looking out at the ice. “Happy to help.”

“You’re lucky you’re not rooming next to the guy.”

That got Hollander’s attention. “Oh yeah?”

“Rozanov came back in the middle of the night.”

Hollander frowned. “So did we, right? I kind of remember that.”

“Yeah, but you were drinking beers with a bunch of veterans, talking about Fenwick stats and PDOs. Who knows what he got up to?”

Scott was fairly sure Hollander knew exactly what Rozanov had been up to.

“Probably the same thing,” Hollander said. “Their team had dinner and drinks too.”

“Right, the Finnish guys,” Scott prompted.

“Right,” Hollander agreed.

“Dinner break, then we’re back in 60, got it?” a coach yelled.

Hollander nodded and hopped the boards without saying anything else, skating back toward their locker room.

Practice was fine. They were preparing for an All-Star game, the points didn’t count for anything, most of the guys would rather be on a real vacation instead, and half the players were captains of their own teams, so the coaches didn’t push too hard. The biggest problem was getting the egos out of the way to form cohesive lines. Scott was happy to see Hollander took direction well, settling into the third line center position without any argument. He had no doubt the league would make sure his other half took the same position on the European team.

He tried to get Hollander’s attention at dinner, but the kid was focused. He ate quickly, practically fleeing the hotel restaurant when he was done.

Scott sighed, watching him go. There's still one more day, he thought, though at this point, he wasn't sure what else he could say. 

He wasn't even sure if he was helping Hollander anymore, or hurting them both. All three of them, maybe. And there was no way to know for certain without a conversation that was going to out at least two of the people involved. The price for being wrong was too big to try.

Dinner dragged on longer than he’d hoped; he was tired, not just from practice but the whole weekend, the drinks last night, the Hollander-Rozanov of it all. The hallway was empty when he got back to his room. He took a quick shower before collapsing on his bed, and fell asleep on top of the covers.

Alone.

Again.

Chapter End Notes

skargasm has been making covers for the work in this series! Check all out here; the cover they made for this story is here. They're so cute! (Thank you, skargasm!)

Next up... the 2011 MLH Awards in Vegas! Scott finds out exactly what Shane and Ilya's relationship really is...

Chapter 4: 2011 MLH Awards in Vegas (part 1)

Chapter Summary

Scott finishes his season in a slump. He heads to Vegas, immediately sees Rozanov, and can't stop himself from being grumpy about it. He runs into a few more Raiders in the hotel bar, and gets another side to the Hollander/Rozanov story. Rather than spend the rest of his night with hockey players, he heads out onto the Strip, and ends up where he least expects to be.

He's lonely. He's gay. He's 27 years old. He's really fucking tired.

This part of Scott's story overlaps with Chapter 16 of Mr. Answer Man. (The second half is in the next chapter.)

Chapter Notes

I finally get to do one of those AO3 curse posts! I got sick, then recovered, then had a minor medical procedure with general anesthesia, then slept for 24 hours, then went to a mural painting community event where I painted a little flower and a little snake, sitting on the ground for probably too long, because I stood up without realizing one of my legs stopped working. Just, oops, can't hold yourself up! So I fell down. Then I stretched, got feeling back in my leg, stood again, success! Except no, that only worked until I tried walking forward, when I immediately put my foot down wrong because I couldn't feel it, and fell down again. A line of bruises and a few naps later, I'm just now getting back on track.

Hey are you following me on Threads? I talk about my fics there a lot, including notes on what I'm writing next. I've been getting a lot of pressure to write more, faster, now, so I've paused my other fics to give me time to wrap up things I think of as "outstanding" in my head. Gotta pay my debts, deliver on my promises. So you're getting Scott's POV story now, then I'll wrap up Rate of Exchange, and YUNA HOLLANDER TERRIFYING HOCKEY WITCH which should be done by the end of the month. After that I've got a one-shot for Halloween, and I'll go back to posting regular chapters for my other 3 WIPS (Shane's POV story, my Lovecraftian story, and the Alpha/Omega crime family caper). Going forward, I'm not going to have so many open WIPs at a time. It's how I write (thanks, ADHD) but I'll wait until I have completed stories to drop all at once I think. That's how I did Who Do I Have To Fight, Rozanov, and that turned out really well.

Also I updated the cover art for this story! I like it much better. If you haven't seen it yet, check Chapter One :D

The Admirals were at the top of the Eastern Conference going into February, second only to the Raiders, and just above the Metros. By the end of the month, the Metros had moved up a spot, mainly because of Hollander’s goal scoring. In March, the Admirals dropped down another two places, falling below Pittsburgh and DC.

The press blamed Scott, saying his energy levels flagged in the early part of the year. They said he was downright lethargic by the end of the regular season. Blamed his lack of goals for a decline in team morale that didn’t reflect the Admirals locker room, but from the outside? Sure, maybe. Looking back on it all, Scott could see where they were coming from. By the end of April, they were 8^th in the conference. They made it to playoffs largely because the points they’d scored in the fall and winter, but after one round they lost the Eastern Conference Quarter-Finals to DC. His knee hurt. His shoulder was held together with tape. There was a hairline fracture in two of his ribs, thanks to a particularly nasty check from one of the fucking Russians in DC, the one he knew for a fact was hanging out with Putin during the off-season. Homophobic bastard pretended to be apolitical – oh I can’t say too much about Russian politics, I will still go home when I retire, but please like me American audience that pays my salary, I only call players cocksuckers on the ice because my translation skills are poor –

Yeah, fuck you too Ivan Vanko, Scott had thought, watching the guy’s press conference after the Admirals were out of the series. And okay, as an insult, it maybe wasn’t the best, but that the was first movie villain Scott had thought of at the time. Oh no, alert the press, Scott Hunter likes comic book movies on long flights! Please focus on his poor choices in cinematic entertainment, and not on who he likes to fuck in his spare time! It’s okay to be gay for an American superhero, right?

Carter Vaughn had caught him sighing, half out of his compression gear, watching the press conference in the locker room.

“Hey, so I was thinking I could come with you to Vegas?” he said, half a smile on his face. “I believe you owe me a plus one…”

“Yeah?” Scott had perked up at that. “You want to go watch the world’s most boring awards show and eat dry chicken with me?”

“Well, when you say it like that Scotty, how could I say no?” Vaugny bumped Scott’s shoulder with his own, then got roped into settling an argument between Huff and Leberg about whether Jamaican girls were easier than Haitian girls. It didn’t matter to them that Vaughn was neither Jamaican or Haitian, in the same way that it didn’t matter that Huff just got married last year. It was hockey talk. Bros being bros. No one ever meant anything by it, unless they did. It was chirping or gossip or fuck off talk, unless someone actually had it out for you, but you couldn’t know until someone made it a thing.

“I’m American, man, fuck you,” Vaughn had said with a laugh, his first week in the locker room, and no one had asked anything else. He said it so easy, lighthearted, like he’d heard the same joke a million times and was still slightly charmed by being asked.

Scott thought about having to say, “I’m straight, fuck you,” with a laugh every time he introduced himself to a new room, to new players. Even if he didn’t say it out loud, wasn’t that exactly what he was doing by not telling them the truth? Every season. Every game. Every time he suited up next to two dozen guys who barely knew anything about him that was real, who trusted him to lead them in a sport where one missed pass could mean the game, and one wrong hit could end a career?

“I wouldn’t know,” he’d said when Leberg asked for his opinion. “My last girlfriend was Swedish.” There had been a blond woman, an actress whose claim to fame was a mermaid show she did as a teenager. A year ago, half a dozen very public dates where they could be photographed leaving restaurants and bookstores while she was in the running for a part in a movie where she’d play a hockey WAG in a dramatic role. Oh my god thank you, you’re doing me such a favor, she’d said, holding his hand as they walked through Dumbo after brunch one Sunday, a week before she found out the role went to another actress and she flew off to England to reconnect with her rock star ex.

Fuck, the actress was actually Australian, wasn’t she?

But it didn’t matter; the conversation had moved on, Scott Hunter had reminded his teammates that he did, in fact, perform heterosexuality as well as the next guy, oh my god thank you. No wonder he was fucking tired by the time the season was halfway through.

After their last game, Scott shifted into recovery and vacation prep. Getting more sleep, cutting down on cardio but doing more strength training, eating to put muscle back on. Prepping for his annual summer vacation meant spending time with his teammates, and especially being seen spending time with his teammates. Golfing with Huff and Bennett. Taking Breezy and Andersson to see the Statue of Liberty. Michelin star restaurants with Vaughn because it turned out the kid was a food snob on top of being picky about whiskey – just luck that he was drafted at 20 and turned 21 two months into his rookie year, so he’d had months of legal drinking in New York City to refine his palate. Maybe that’s why the Admirals rookie didn’t really feel like one. Not compared to those other two kids.

Hollander and Rozanov were both barely 18 when Scott had met them at their draft, and were barely 20 now, according to the Russian kid’s Twitter post about it, which was picked up by hockey news entirely because he’d managed to go after Hollander at the same time.

@ilyaroz81 Happy 20^th birthday to me, old man Hollander turned 20 WEEKS ago, maybe as present to me he will work on his weak backhand? Prize for my youth and beauty??

Who the fuck chirps their rival while announcing their own birthday? At least Hollander had enough self-respect not to reply. But that was last week. This week, Scott was in Vegas with some of his closest friends. He was going to spend as much time as possible not thinking about Rozanov at all.

“We’re checking in,” Scott told the man behind the hotel counter. “Uh, separately,” he quickly corrected. “Should be rooms for Hunter and Vaughn.” They’d flown together, would spend most of their time together this weekend, but sharing a room was a step too far. The man tapped at his computer for a minute, confirmed their information, then handed them each their key cards.

Vaughn nudged his shoulder; ten feet away from them, Ilya Rozanov was flirting with the woman checking him in. Of course he was. “I can already feel your blood pressure going up,” he said. “Your weird thing with him and Hollzy gonna take up a lot of time this weekend?”

“I don’t have a weird thing,” Scott said, lowering his voice. “He just… pisses me off.”

“Right, Cap. You definitely don’t get in a real bitchy mood whenever they’re in the building.” Vaughn rolled his eyes. “I’ll take stroll through the bar, see who else is here already. You heading up for a nap?”

“Fuck yes,” Scott moaned. He’d spent probably too much time on the plane talking about his plan to check in, then check out. “Three days in a hotel with no game and no roommate? I’m gonna nap so hard, buddy.”

“Love to hear it,” Vaughny said with a laugh. “Text me when you want to get dinner.” He strolled away, his big Admirals-branded duffle bag hanging from one shoulder.

Rozanov was heading toward an open elevator.

Scott considered, for half a second, letting him go. Taking the next one. Getting through the weekend without thinking too much about either of the Wonder Twins. Protecting his peace of mind. But he’d seen proof, just now with the woman who’d had her hand on his arm while he smiled like she was another perk of the hotel, like extra towels and a mint on the pillow. Rozanov was obviously still Rozanov, and Hollander deserved better than to have a crush on a guy like that.

It wasn’t an obsession. He just felt… protective. That’s all.

Scott rushed into the elevator dragging his black hard-sided suitcase behind him. “Rook,” he said, nodding at Rozanov, who was standing with his back against the mirrored wall. “We better not be next to each other again,” he added, then mentally kicked himself. Way to start a conversation, he thought.

“I do not assign hotel rooms, Hunter,” the kid replied. The long fingers of one of his hands tapped on the handle of his own suitcase. “I have other job, playing hockey? Maybe you have heard of it?”

Scott leaned over and hit ‘8’. Rozanov grinned and tapped the button for ‘10’. “There, you are safe from rooming next to sexy Russian. Too bad, so sad for you.” He made a fake crying face then, fists twisting against his sharp cheekbones.

“Ha ha,” Scott said sarcastically. The elevator started to climb. And then, just because the other guy had been a dick too, he added, “I can’t wait until Hollander gets here.”

Rozanov stilled at that. “Oh, yeah? Why is that, Hunter?”

Scott grinned, showing his teeth. “He’s the only one of you rooks I actually want to spend time with.”

Rozanov’s face tightened. “Hollander is too young for you,” he said quietly.

“What the hell does that mean?” But the elevator beeped then, doors sliding open at the eighth floor. Scott stared for a moment, then walked away, shaking his head. He was barely five years older than Rozanov, yet the kid acted like Scott was old enough to make just being in the same room as Hollander into a federal crime. Okay, fine, seven years, but still. No one would question their ages if he did want to make a move on the Canadian rookie – not that he did! because hockey, not their birth dates! – but ever since their draft day Rozanov looked at Scott like he was a predator waiting to kidnap a child off the streets, and it irritated the shit out of him.

Scott knew guys that didn’t take no for an answer. It was insulting to suggest he was one of them.

“I’ll tell Hollander you’re looking for him,” Rozanov called out just before the door shut. I’ll get to him before you will didn’t need to be said out loud. The Russian’s next step might as well be pissing on Hollander to mark his territory; he already wasn’t being subtle about whatever the hell they had going on. Enemies? Lovers? Weirdly possessive rivals?

“Fucking asshole,” Scott muttered as he walked down the hallway.

The bed was comfortable but he tossed and turned anyway. He’d done all the usual hotel steps: unpacked, showered, jerked off in the shower while thinking about a young Keanu Reeves (My Own Private Idaho, not Bill & Ted) then collapsed on top of the covers. The room was warm enough for the AC to kick in, a faint whine of forced air.

Without warning, he suddenly missed hockey. Here, where the air was dry and thin, he missed the smell of fresh ice in New York. Lying in his hotel room wearing only a loose pair of boxers, he missed the tight press of his gear, wrapping him and supporting him, the compression layer clinging to his muscles, the pads protecting his soft places, the skates making him taller. Geared up, Scott felt untouchable.

Here, alone, all he could feel were the ways in which no one had touched him for a long time.

When he blinked his eyes open again, the sun was much lower in the sky. The ever-present lights of Vegas were already on, but now were starting to stand out in greater contrast, against a sky that wasn’t black yet but leaning into a darker shade of blue. He rubbed his face before fumbling for his phone.

Scott: Getting up now, where are you?

He trusted Vaughny to get back to him soon enough. His tuxedo for tomorrow night was hanging in the closet next to a few other pieces he considered his “hockey fancy clothes”. Nothing like what he wore in Ibiza or Greece, where he favored loose summery fits, mostly unbuttoned tops and shorts that showed off his muscular ass. Tonight he dressed in brown slacks cut slimmer than the ones he bought last year, and a cream and tan striped sweater from Perry Ellis’s summer collection, something the saleswoman assured him would look “sporty”. It might be too warm to wear out on the Strip but his plan for tonight was dinner and drinks with whoever was around.

Down in the hotel bar, he checked his phone again while the bartender pulled him an IPA with a little too much foam. Nothing from Vaughn yet; he didn’t want to rush the kid, so he put the phone away just as the Captain of the Boston Raiders spotted him from the other end of the bar.

“Scott Hunter,” the older man said as he approached, reaching out for a handshake with his free hand. “Good to see you, man.”

“Tommy Anderson,” Scott said with a smile, taking the other man’s hand. “Tough season.”

“Always,” Anderson agreed. “You seen my rook around?”

“Rozanov? Yeah, we checked in at the same time. You lose track of him already?”

“Nah, he’s probably following Hollander around somewhere,” Anderson said calmly. “We’ll run into ‘em eventually.”

“You don’t have a problem with that? The way he is with Hollander?”

The Raiders Captain narrowed his eyes. “Should I? They’re good kids. They keep each other out of trouble.”

Scott huffed. “Hollander is, sure, but you know Rozanov better than anyone. He’s a menace. Hollander needs to find a better class of friend.”

“Rozy fucking worships that kid,” Anderson said. “I know they’re hyped up as rivals but you of all people should know better than to buy that shit.” He leaned closer. “Don’t be a dick, Hunter.”

“I’m just looking out for him!”

“Who, Hollander?” Anderson paused for a moment, then laughed. “Man, you have no idea.”

“I know Rozanov is an annoying little shit who chirps his way through every game and takes home a different woman every night. Hollander’s gonna get his heart broken if he keeps thinking they’re actually friends.” Or anything else, Scott thought.

Anderson took a drink, swallowing down the rest of it, the square ice cube bumping against his lips. He set it down on the bar. “You don’t know shit, Hunter,” he said quietly. “You need to stay out of their business.”

Before Scott could reply, another of the Raiders walked up with a beer bottle in his hand. He was slightly taller than Scott, with dark hair styled to sit higher on top of his head. He wore grey slacks with a white long sleeve polo shirt. “Hey Hunter, Cap,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“Hey Marleau,” Scott said, holding out his hand. The other man shook it, firm and warm.

“Hunter was just telling me his opinion about Rozy,” Anderson said. “Him being friends with Hollander and all.”

“Oh yeah?” Marleau looked at Hunter. “Anything I need to worry about?”

“I’m really not trying to start anything,” Scott said. “I know you gotta defend your teammate. Let’s just leave it, okay?”

“Well, now I’m curious,” Marleau said with a sharp grin. “You got something to say, say it.”

“I just think they’re very different people,” Scott said, trying to be diplomatic.

Marleau shrugged. “Not really.”

Anderson waved his hand in Marleau’s direction, raising one eyebrow. See?

“Hollzy’s funny as hell,” Marleau continued. “For as much as he’s dealing with, he’s got a good head on his shoulders. And Roz would probably kill for him, so… what’s your problem, exactly?”

“Have you ever even talked to Hollander?” Scott asked. “Outside of a game?”

“Sure,” Marleau said.

“He comes to Boston to hang out with Rozanov,” Anderson said, looking over at his teammate, who nodded. “We all had dinner with him a couple months ago.”

“Oh, the sushi place,” Marleau groaned. “Fuck, that place was good. We gotta go back.”

“Not if you and Vic are gonna have that same fucking argument again,” Anderson said, bumping Marleau with his shoulder.

“You’re serious?” Scott asked.

Marleau looked at him, no longer smiling. “How many Michelin stars a restaurant has is a global indicator of culinary excellence.”

“No, I mean, about Hollander,” Scott said. He glanced around, but no one else was close enough to overhear. “He visits Rozanov in Boston?”

“You don’t visit your friends?” Marleau asked. “It’s no big deal. Hollzy stays in Boston, Roz hangs out in Montreal. He’s got a chick there he’s real serious about, I think they’re all friends.”

“Rozanov has a girl in Montreal and Hollander knows about it?” Scott sighed. “Well. Fuck.”

“That a problem?” Anderson asked.

“No,” Scott said quickly. “Good for him.” Just not for Hollander. “Hard to believe a guy like that is settling down already, though.”

“A guy like what?” Marleau said as he stepped forward.

Anderson put a hand up. “There’s always a rumor,” he said. “I hear all kinds of shit. I hear shit about you, too,” he said, looking at Scott. “You wouldn’t want me to believe everything I hear, right?”

Scott’s stomach flipped. “Right,” he said faintly.

“A lot of things people talk about, there’s nothing wrong with. As long as no one’s trying to start shit with me, I say we all just mind our own fucking business,” the older man said. “Yeah?”

“Fuck yeah,” Marleau said, a little threateningly.

Scott nodded. “Yeah, sounds good.”

“All right, good to catch up, we got a reservation,” Anderson said, taking Marleau by the elbow. “Later, Hunter.”

His phone buzzed, a text from Vaughn with the address of a nice steakhouse nearby and the names of a few other players who’d be joining them. He was no longer interested. He left his half-drunk beer behind and walked out through the hotel lobby. The hot air hit him like a heavy d-man, knocking him back a step. He pushed forward anyway, picking a direction at random.

A block away from the hotel, Scott stripped off his sweater, instantly more comfortable in only his white undershirt. He was sweating a little, enough to be aware of it. The sidewalk was packed with people, walking quickly to their destination, or stopping you to hand out a flyer, a post card. Scott declined most of them with a wave, but a particularly forceful man in a slinky rose colored outfit pushed a flyer into his hand. He took it without thinking, stumbling away from the man who stared after him with a smile on his pink-painted lips.

He kept walking.

The phone in his pocket buzzed a few times, but Scott ignored it. He didn’t have a destination in mind, he just needed this – the movement. His feet carrying him away from the hotel, from the conversation with Anderson, from the Hollander and Rozanov of it all.

He considered the facts: Hollander was probably gay, closeted, and naive enough to have a crush or friendship or a crush and a friendship with a player on another team. He was quiet and professional to the press, made it through his entire rookie year without getting into a single fight on the ice, and he was genuinely, unfortunately, beautiful. His face, yes, but his skating too. Unless something took him out, knock on wood, the kid was going to be a real star of the league. The last two years had solidified Scott’s surety where Hollander was concerned. Where he got stuck was fucking Rozanov.

Maybe he was right about the kid. Maybe he wasn't, and he'd spent all this time worrying about two people who were perfectly happy with... whatever they were doing. Or maybe he was wrong about it all, and they were nothing more than friends the way he was friends with Bennett and Vaughn. 

The whole thing felt like a weight he didn't want to carry anymore. 

The flyer was still in his hand. He stopped at a street corner, waiting for the light to turn green. The flyer was crumpled slightly, from where Scott had gripped it tightly. He unfolded it carefully.

He knew, before he looked at it, what it advertised. The knowledge was there in his chest before he had a chance to read the flyer, built from the man dressed in pink and the certain belief that anyone who looked at him would know what kind of entertainment he'd want on a night out in Vegas. Scott glanced around, finding the street signs, and looked back over his shoulder at the nearest numbered building. The club wasn’t far away at all.

The lights changed.

Scott stayed where he was.

The flow of people didn’t stop. The crowd parted, moving around him like Scott was a rock in a stream, and they were the water folding around him. He was tall, he was young and rich and handsome, he was the Captain of the New York Admirals hockey team, he was standing on a street corner in Las Vegas, with neon colors dancing across his skin, and he realized in that moment that absolutely no one gave a fuck. No one passing by gave him a second look.

He turned left. His destination appeared the way everything did in Vegas, a mirage of bright lights that got more solid as he got closer. The line was moving quickly, men paired up or alone, laughing and smiling as they showed their IDs and received a stamp on their wrists in return.

Scott paused in front of the bouncer, turning to look behind him. He didn’t see anyone he knew, but the fear crept up into his throat all the same. How would he explain that he, Scott Hunter, the MLH’s Captain America, was going into a gay bar on purpose? He wiped away the sweat threatening to drip from his forehead.

“Hey,” the bouncer said. He was a huge barrel of a man, dressed in black leather; he had a tattoo on the side of his neck, just under where his buzz cut began. “It’s pretty dark in there.”

“What?” Scott asked, confused. He could see through the open door – into the club, just enough to see the entrance immediately cut right, so the only thing visible was a red wall.

“It’s dark inside,” the bouncer said again. “In case you were worried about it.”

“It’s dark in there,” Scott repeated slowly. “Which means, what exactly?”

“It means no one cares, man. People just want to have a good time. You drink, maybe you dance, you go home. I couldn't pick you out of a lineup, you feel me?”

Scott nodded, swallowing against a mouth gone too dry, and pulled out his wallet.

Chapter 5: 2011 MLH Awards in Vegas (part 2)

Chapter Summary

Scott finds out.

This chapter takes place concurrently with Chapter 16 of Mr. Answer Man, if you want to read along.

Chapter Notes

Scott walked the Strip sometime after the sun had come up. He was in no rush. He wished for a pair of sunglasses to ease his transition from the dark interior of the club to the flat white brightness of the sunlit desert in summer, but there was something about it that felt refreshing too. The city itself was dirty. Scott was sweat-soaked through his white undershirt, his hair mussed from too many different pairs of hands, face scrubbed in one of the bathrooms and probably a little pink from it. The light felt like it was gently burning the dirt away. If he walked for long enough, Scott would emerge at the other end, weightless and perfectly clean.

Or maybe he was still halfway drunk.

He found his hotel sooner than he meant to, realizing as he almost passed by that it was familiar, so he took a hard right into the lobby before his brain caught up with what his feet were doing. Like all high-end Vegas hotels, it was spotless and functioning regardless of the hour, making it harder for Scott to tell what time it actually was. He had a watch, of course, and a phone in his pocket, but his curiosity wasn’t as strong as his desire to stay in this moment for as long as he could. He felt soft inside, strong outside, warm and loose in a way he usually had to leave the country to find. Usually, this feeling started to wear off by the time his plane was mid-flight over the Atlantic, but here, now, this morning, the distance between the safety of the dark and his return to the light was only a handful of blocks, walked at a leisurely pace on long muscular legs.

Which was why, when he saw Hollander and Rozanov get off the elevator together, he didn’t even mind. Hollander was in front, one hand behind him as he pulled Rozanov down the hallway toward the hotel restaurant. Rozanov, behind but keeping up, had his head thrown back in a whine, obviously complaining, but his fingers were intertwined with Hollander’s. They wore similar outfits, with Rozanov in black, as usual, while Hollander wore white and grey. Swishy running shorts in soft fabrics, sleeveless tees (Rozanov’s used to be a regular shirt until someone cut the sides off), carrying towels and water bottles in their free hands. Probably planning to hit the gym after the breakfast buffet. The Canadian was laughing, and the Russian, done complaining, had dipped his head to watch Hollander’s juicy ass as they disappeared around a corner.

Good for them, Scott thought as he tapped the button to call an elevator of his own, though if asked he wouldn’t have been able to say what he was praising. Just that it felt nice to see the two boys together. He had no interest in interrogating that feeling further.

He found Carter Vaughn and Eric Bennett walking away from his hotel room door as he stepped off the elevator on his floor. “Hey man,” Vaughy said with a laugh. “We were just saying you must be in the shower since you couldn’t hear us.”

“Not yet,” Scott replied. “Where are you off to?”

“We were gonna go downstairs for breakfast, you want to join?” Bennie asked.

Scott thought of Hollander and Rozanov, up so early, probably hoping they’d could do a normal thing like eat together in public on a weekend where every other MLH player was getting drunk and sleeping in. “How ‘bout you come hang while I get cleaned up, then we can go to find a diner? I need strong black coffee and a fat stack of buttermilk pancakes before I can think about moving any more.”

Vaughn cocked his head. “And just where were you last night, young man?”

“Fuck you, it’s none of your business, and if you buy me breakfast I’ll tell you everything,” Scott said, grinning. Bennie rolled his eyes, looked at Vaughn, and shrugged.

“I’m down,” Vaughn said, as they reached Scott’s door again and he dug out his key card to get it open. “Was last night a solo activity or did you have company?”

The door beeped; Scott held it open so his friends could enter first. “I went to a club, I didn’t spend the entire night alone, and details will require maple syrup. And butter. Oh, and hash browns…” He moaned quietly at the idea, his stomach rumbling.

Bennie sighed. “That’s too many carbs for me to start the day, Captain.”

“Yeah well you’re 30 now and I have been dancing for…” Scott paused, finally checking his watch. It was 6:10 AM. “About 10 hours.” His mouth felt sticky now. The sweat on his skin had cooled. “Fuck, I need a shower. Can one of you have room service send up Gatorade or something? And fruit. Strawberries, if they have it, or blueberries.” He peeled off his shirt, dropping it onto the floor.

“On it,” Vaughn called out. “Bennett, you want anything now?”

Scott let the bathroom door click shut behind him.

The shower had helped. The strawberries did too, even though he had to fend off two large hockey players who insisted on taking their share whenever he paused to drink from the bottle of green apple Gatorade which had arrived, hilariously, with a goblet glass full of ice. Scott finished it off with his damp towel still around his waist, while Bennie went through his closet and Vaughn shouted advice, until they’d all three managed to get Scott into a khaki shorts-and-button up fit suitable for the desert heat. The concierge gave them directions to a popular 24 hour diner a few blocks away. By the time they’d ordered, tucked into a corner booth between a pair of drunk newlyweds on one side and a few tired drag queens on the other side, Scott felt like himself again. He noticed his walls coming back up as he sipped his coffee.

“All right, the tax has been paid, the people demand entertainment,” Vaughny said. “Tell us about the person you went home with.”

Scott’s mouth was already open before he clocked the vague choice of words. “I didn’t actually leave the club,” he said, wondering how far he could get before he’d have to lie.

Bennett blew on his tea. “Is this story going to make me think less of you?” he asked.

“Everyone was sober enough to consent and over 21, I promise.”

“Carry on then,” Bennie said, rolling one hand in the air like a king allowing his jester to continue.

So he told them about leaving the hotel to stretch his legs, planning to wander for a bit then come back. He mentioned the people on the street pushing fliers at him for various kinds of entertainment, some things seedier than others, but one was for a nearby club and he found himself standing outside. He talked about the music, the drinks – he’d tried a fruity whiskey concoction he couldn’t remember the name of but planned to try to recreate – and the dance floor, which was crowded enough to be fun but not so crowded he had to worry that someone could steal his wallet without him noticing. Between mouthfuls of fried potato, he told them a beautiful person had taken his hand, leading him into a bathroom where he got an incredible blowjob, through a condom of course, before going back out to dance for several more hours. Carter took the conversation from there, filling them in on the guys he’d had dinner with, and how he ended up playing Mario Kart in the penthouse with a bunch of guys from Vancouver. Bennett had gone to bed early to call his wife, who was away this week on a trip with her college roommates. Holly had been around less this year, Scott realized. He wondered how to bring that up, or whether he even should.

By the time they paid their check, the bottom had dropped out of his energy. He let himself be led back to his room, gently undressed by friendly hands, then, blissfully, he was asleep.

Past Scott was a genius, he thought as he turned off the buzzing alarm on his phone. The sun was still out, filtered by gauzy hotel curtains, and he had managed almost eight hours of sleep with plenty of time to eat something better than awards show chicken before he was due downstairs. He’d been invited to a group chat for players at some point, which currently showed a bunch of guys were ordering Thai food to one of the Raiders’ room; Vaugh and Bennett had already confirmed their orders. Scott texted his request with a minute to spare. He was in the elevator when Hollander texted sorry my parents are in town, next time.

Before he could put the phone back in his pocket Rozanov had texted getting dick sucked before have to put on sexy tux, followed by a string of nonsense letters in the next text. A moment later, as Scott stepped off the elevator, the Russian texted just a joke sorry! I am going to order room service but thank you for the invitation. Scott sighed, pocketed his phone, and knocked on the door to Marleau’s room.

They made it halfway through dinner, eight large hockey players crammed into a room with two queen beds and a single desk chair, before anyone mentioned Rozanov or Hollander out loud. It was, surprising even to him, not Scott who brought them up.

“Anyone here think maybe that Hollander kid is secretly an asshole?” one of Vancouver’s wingers asked.

“Where the fuck does that come from?” Marleau shot back, a bemused look on his face. “LeMaire literally just asked about Colorado’s defensive shift at the end of the season.”

“I know, I know,” the Vancouver guy said, waving a spring roll at the Raider. Smitty, they were calling him, though his last name wasn’t Smith. Traded out from one of the Florida teams in 2010, solidly average number of points this year though more assists than goals. “I was thinking about it already. Sorry, kid,” he said to LeMaire, who shrugged.

“I don’t really know him,” he said. “We’re up for the same award, that’s it.”

“And good for you, kid,” Anderson said. “You’re gonna lose, but real good job making it this far.”

LeMaire blushed but nodded. “I know but my mom’s convinced if I don’t get it, it’s rigged. She can’t believe a Chinese guy or a Russian guy could play better than an American. I told her, if I was better I wouldn’t have been drafted to Minnesota, but you know how moms are.”

There was a susurrus of little grunts as everyone agreed, even Scott, who hadn’t known how moms were for the last 15 years since he’d lost his own. Dead moms didn’t belong in hockey.

“Hollander’s not Chinese though,” someone said. Scott looked for the voice, found a hulking redhead sitting cross-legged on the floor near the foot of the bed. A defenseman though Scott couldn’t remember his name. He was in his second year, maybe? And he’d been traded last summer, so he’d already been on two different MLH teams in two years, which wasn’t unheard of but also didn’t bode well for the guy.

“You know him, Price?” Smitty asked.

Right, Price. Scott remembered. Ryan Price. Stayed on his junior team for a few years before being called up by… Carolina, for the 2009-2010 season, and was with Columbus now.

Price shrugged. “No.”

“He’s right, though,” Scott found himself saying. “Hollander’s Canadian. His mom or his grandparents are Japanese I’m pretty sure, but the kid’s from Ottawa.” He looked around at the now-silent room. “Hollander played for Kingston last year before the Metros called him up,” he added, as if that proved his point.

“You stalk all the rookies or just that one?” Smitty laughed.

“Oh, Cap knows everyone’s stats,” Vaughn said with a wide smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I bet he knows your shots on goal for the season – it went down a lot from last year, right?”

“Fuck you,” Smitty groaned, but the tension was gone.

The conversation shifted again, to Vancouver’s cup run, stories about what some of the guys did with it on their cup days, until Marleau spoke up suddenly. “Wait, why is Hollander an asshole?”

“He has to be, right?” Smitty said. “To be friends with your Russian kid. Like how everyone knows Kent and Barrett are tight, and they’re both dicks.”

“So you’re saying Rozanov is an asshole and by the transitive property of hockey bros, Hollander must also be an asshole?” Bennie asked. He was perched on the room’s single chair, half-eaten plate of veggie pad thai on his lap.

“Yeah,” Smitty, nodding as if this made perfect sense.

“No,” Scott said immediately. “Believe me, they are very different people.”

“You just hate Roz,” Marleau argued. “You’ve made that fucking clear, Hunter.”

“I…” Scott sighed. “Look, I don’t hate the kid. I’m… I don’t know. I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, okay? Your team loves him, Hollander likes him,” god I hope it isn’t love, I hope it’s just a stupid fucking crush, “he must not be all bad, right? But you have to admit he’s an asshole on the ice.”

“On the ice,” Anderson said. “Yeah, I admit the kid runs his mouth but he’s fucking good at it. He’s smart about it. Not like Kent and Barrett, is he?”

“I don’t get the difference,” Baldwin said. He was the other Vancouver player in the room, who Scott recognized on sight but hadn’t spent a lot of time with.

“Kent told me the colored boy printer was running low on ink when I was born,” Vaughn said.

“When did that fucking happen?” Scott asked, sitting up straighter.

“Two Toronto games ago,” Vaughn said. Before Scott could say anything else, Vaugn raised his hand and added, “Just let it go, man.”

“Kent called me a faggot for skipping a game the night my niece was born,” Marleau said. “My sister had a high risk pregnancy. She could have lost the baby, or worse.”

Anderson reached over, putting his hand on Marleau’s shoulder. “You did the right thing, going to her.”

The bigger man nodded. “I know, it’s still fucked up.”

“Barrett said goalies are too gay to get off their knees,” Bennie said. “Which doesn’t even make sense, a regulation net is four feet tall. You can’t fit in it if you’re standing up.”

“Roz never says shit like that,” Marleau said, looking at Scott. “He’ll chirp you about your plays, and yeah, he’ll get in your face if you hit your girl, but like, when he’s flirting with guys on the ice it’s just to wind ‘em up. He doesn’t give a shit if you’re gay. He’s… what do you call it?”

“European?” LeMaire suggested.

“Well… yeah, I guess.” Marleau shrugged. “I don’t know the word I’m looking for. But you get my point.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Scott agreed. “It is different.”

“So Hollander’s not secretly an asshole?” Smitty asked.

“Maybe neither of them are,” Vaughn said.

The room was quiet for a few minutes then, as the guys finished their food. 

“Okay, but I did hear Hollander was gay,” Smitty said. “From one of the Metros,” he added quickly. “Not, you know, Kent.”

“Keep that shit to yourself,” Anderson growled. “You don’t see any of those dicks here, do you?”

“Is he, though?” LeMaire asked.

“No one is gay in hockey,” Baldwin said.

“There’s no one out in hockey,” Vaughn corrected. “There have to be queer men playing right now. It’s statistics. Like the percentage of people with blue eyes in the world. There’s more than 700 players on active rosters. It’d be impossible if none of them were gay.”

“I don’t buy that,” Smitty said, slow, like he was thinking about it. “Maybe in the juniors. By the time you get to the big show, it’s… how do you say it? Natural selection?”

“That’s not true,” said a quiet voice from the floor. Price, who picked up his almost-empty drink and slurped it down while everyone stared at him. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What?”

“There are gay guys in the MLH?” Smitty asked. He looked at his teammate for a second, then looked back. “Real, out, everyone knows about it, gay dudes?”

“Yeah,” Price said. “A bunch more who aren’t out, too. Does it matter?”

“You can’t say shit like that,” Scott said, and yes, he could hear it, the way his voice pitched up, higher, and the rush of blood in his ears was too loud, loud enough for them to hear it too maybe. They were all looking at him now, here it was, exactly what he’d always been worried about: that in the moment, in a conversation like this, everyone could see him for what he was.

“It’s fine with me,” Vaughn said. “My sister’s a lesbian.”

“Hey, I have one of those too, nice,” Marleau said, holding his fist out for a bump. Their fingers met, two guys connecting over their gay sisters, in a hotel room full of hockey players, and no one was making a joke about wanting to watch.

Price stood then, unfolding himself from the floor, getting taller and taller until he was towering over them all. “Thanks for inviting me,” he said. “It was nice meeting everyone.” He left then, taking his trash with him.

“I didn’t know about your sister,” Scott said to Carter, carefully keeping his voice low, as the other guys started to clean up the room.

“Now you do,” the other man said. “That okay?”

“Yeah, of course, obviously,” Scott hurried to reply. “But don’t you think it’s different from a guy coming out in the room?”

“I think if a guy doesn’t feel safe coming out in our room, we need a better room,” Vaughn said loudly.

“You’re in New York,” LeMaire said, then looked sheepish when he realized other people could hear him. Something crossed his face. “It’s different for you. I’m not a fucking faggot but I can’t even say it doesn’t bother me in my room. I’d be bounced down so fast I wouldn’t have time to pack.”

“This shit doesn’t change if we don’t speak up about it,” Vaughn said.

“You can’t ask a fucking rookie to put their career on the line,” Baldwin said. “Fuck, we just won the cup and I’m not getting dragged into that conversation.”

“I’m a fucking rookie,” Vaughny pointed out, and Scott could see he was getting angry then, but Marleau groaned and said, “Why do we keep forgetting that?” so the rest of the guys laughed, the conversation over.

“You can’t let it bother you,” Bennie said in the elevator, to Scott or Vaughn, or both of them, Scott wasn’t sure. Vaughny nodded and pressed the button for his floor.

“See you in a bit,” he said as he stepped off on the 9^th floor.

Scott gave Bennie a little salute as he got off the next floor down. Bennett threw his hand out, holding the elevator door for a moment. “You good, Scotty?”

Eric Bennett was his oldest and closest friend on the team. Bennie took Scott under his wing during Scott’s rookie year, taught him about the locker room, which bars would let you in if you were an Admiral even before he was 21, where to find an apartment, which part of town to avoid after a bad loss. If he could talk to anyone, it was him.

“Never better,” Scott lied. “I’ll meet you down there.”

The show was fine. It was stupid, the way they made players act in poorly written skits to entertain the attendees in between handing out the actual awards, and the food was terrible, but it was the last professional requirement of the season before Scott could get away from it all for a few weeks. He’d given a speech, because the league told him he had to, and they gave him the Mark Messier Leadership Award, which he didn’t particularly feel he deserved. The work he did with the charity that paid for him to play hockey after his parents died wasn’t something he did to be noticed. It was a debt he owed, one that could never fully be repaid.

Bennett won the Vezina, which got a loud round of applause. The Lady Byng went to a guy from Utah. Korogyi, the number three draft pick from Hollander and Rozanov’s year who’d been called up right away, was up for the James Norris, which was a surprise for a guy in his second year in the MLH, but lost it to a defenseman from Columbus. (Not Price, though.) Then it was time for the Calder Award. The announcer called out their names as their faces appeared on the big screen behind her.

“The nominees for Rookie of the Year are Shane Hollander, the Montreal Metros, Vincent LeMaire, the Minnesota Nomads, and Ilya Rozanov, the Boston Raiders… and the Rookie of the Year is… Shane Hollander!”

As the applause was dying down, Rozanov stood up and put two fingers in his mouth to whistle at Hollander. The crowd laughed. Hollander grinned in Rozanov’s direction for a second before turning to face the audience, his serious media face settling over his gorgeous features. He thanked the league, his team, his parents, and the friends he’d made along the way. The room laughed again, quietly and stiffly, as if there was a sign above Hollander’s head calling for it. He finished up, stepping off stage and walking directly into his mother’s arms.

The smile on Scott’s face tightened for a moment. He glanced around, wanting to look at anything else. He found Rozanov watching Hollander, not with the resentment he might have expected, but something softer and sadder.

Rozanov didn’t have any family with him either.

After the ceremony, players and league officials lingered in the room. Scott made his way over to Hollander, joining the line of people congratulating him. Mrs. Hollander introduced her husband, the plain-looking man Scott remembered from the draft; several things made much more sense after that. Mr. Hollander – David, he’d insisted on being called – was a nice Canadian man who seemed genuinely proud of his son, and surprisingly comfortable at an event where he also didn’t seem to have any interest in networking or schmoozing or whatever else it was parents did at these things.

“My dad was a goalie for McGill,” Hollander said, but he was looking away from them.

Scott was sure without turning his head that he knew exactly who Hollander was searching for. “Let me introduce you to our goalie, Eric Bennet,” he said to David instead. “He’d love to meet you.”

By the time they got downstairs – after Hollander had made his grand entrance, walking down the open staircase with the Calder lifted above his head while the crowd erupted with “Rook! Rook! Rook!” – Scott found him standing next to the bar with his phone in one hand and a clear drink in the other.

“That better be ginger ale, rook,” he joked. And then, because it was suddenly killing him to see them standing so far apart while in the same room, he asked, “Where’s your boy?” It’s okay, tell me, I’m safe, you can tell me, please don’t let me be alone with this.

“He’s not,” Hollander stumbled over the words. “We’re not.”

“I just meant, because you know,” Scott replied, equally awkward about it. “It’s always Hollander and Rozanov.”

Hollander sucked his fat bottom lip into his mouth.

“Why don’t you get him over here?” Scott said gently. “Us old fucks want to do some shots with the rooks.” It was a small lie, because he’d only thought it in that moment, but an easy one. There were always guys up for a round at these things.

“Yes sir,” Hollander said as a smile spread across his lovely face.

Scott turned to wave over a few of the guys. Vaughn was there in an instant, along with Bennett and the Vancouver players from dinner. A couple of the others joined them once the word spread that alcohol was involved. He turned back to Hollander, and okay, maybe he was trying to get a glimpse of the boy’s phone, but he saw Rozanov approaching.

“I knew your boy would get you over here,” he called out as he put a hand on Hollander’s shoulder, biting the inside of his mouth to keep from smiling at the way Rozanov’s eyes narrowed.

“I, uh, I told him you weren’t my boy,” Hollander said nervously.

Rozanov looked at Scott’s hand where it was touching Hollander, then up at Scott. “Oh, did you?” he said.

Scott tousled the Canadian’s hair playfully. “Ok you fucks, line up for shots!” he called out, while Hollander tried to brush his hair back into place. Rozanov put one hand on the back of Hollander’s neck, though he was watching Scott’s face when he did it.

Hollander took a deep breath.

One of the guys suggested tequila, which Rozanov immediately argued with, but before Scott could say something Vaughny clapped them both on the back at the same time and laughed. “Fuck yeah, Rozanov! Finally someone to keep these uncultured swine from leading us astray.” Vaugny turned to the bartender and ordered up two shots of top shelf vodka for each of them. Scott rolled his eyes but pulled his card from his wallet and handed across the bar. The guys lined up to the bar, tossing the first one back as a group. They took the second shot on their own time, with Rozanov grabbing for his at the same time Scott did, but a few of the others waiting a moment before downing their own.

“Fuck yes,” someone yelled further down the line. “One more?” Scott waved at the bartender, and a third shot was put in front of each of them.

LeMaire held his shot out; Scott grinned and clinked their glasses together. When he turned back, Hollander and Rozanov were leaning close to each other.

“Uh, we’re gonna go to the…” Hollander said when he saw Scott looking but then paused, glancing back at Rozanov.

“Roof,” the Russian kid said.

“Right, to see the view,” Hollander agreed, but Rozanov said, “To smoke,” at the same time.

“Right,” Scott said, already buzzing. He turned his body to give them a chance to escape unseen, putting himself between the other two rookies. He wanted to go back to the club from last night, but this time maybe he’d take Vaughny with him, bring him into the dark with him, to say this is me do you still want to be friends? while they sipped that cranberry orange whiskey drink he couldn’t remember the name of and talked about Vaughn’s lesbian sister. He wanted to bring LeMaire with them, to say I’m one of them but I’m one of you too, I’m a faggot but I’m also a hockey player, we could make all the rooms safe if we tried.

He wanted to find Ryan Price, who had disappeared after the ceremony, to reach up as high as he could to shake Price’s humongous shoulders, and say tell me who else it is I can’t be alone anymore please I don’t want to be alone here any longer.

Scott always fucking wanted. He didn’t do any of those things, he never would, the best he could do was let Hollander and Rozanov slip away into the dark. He switched to beer and smiled at the right part of the conversation but kept his wanting trapped behind his teeth, swallowing it down.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, had to look down, into Mrs. Hollander’s warm brown eyes. “Have you seen Shane?” she asked, and it took him a moment to realize who she meant.

“Bathroom, I think,” he said. “Want me to tell him you’re looking for him?” He slipped one hand into his pocket, fingers wrapped around his phone, in case.

“No, we’re heading to bed. I’m sure he’s having fun with his friends,” she said. She lifted the glass award she held in one hand. “If he forgets you can let him know I have this.”

“Can do,” Scott replied, nodding eagerly. “Not a problem. I’m sure he’s keeping out of trouble,” he added before he could stop himself.

She tilted her head slightly before nodding. “Of course,” she said smoothly. “Goodnight, Mr. Hunter.”

“Hollander’s mom scares me a little bit,” LeMaire said. Scott jumped, not realizing the kid was that close until his hot breath skated over Scott’s cheek. “She’s got a very coach vibe, like she’s gonna make me do bag skates if I can’t recite the alphabet backwards fast enough.”

“That’s… huh,” Scott said, because how could this possibly be the way they trained rookies in Minnesota?

“Where is Hollander?” LeMaire asked, the words slurring together a little bit. He leaned on Vaughn, resting his head on Vaughny’s shoulder.

“We should find him,” Vaugny said. “I like that kid.”

“Me too!” LeMaire gasped. “I wanna find Hollander. Carter, help me find Hollander.”

“Downstairs,” Scott blurted out. “He went to the restaurant. For, um, fries.”

“Fries!” Vaughn said, too loudly. “I love fries.”

“Do you think Rozanov is there too? We should get all the rookies together and eat french fries,” LeMaire said happily.

“Yes, I definitely think they are together,” Scott said. He glanced up, caught Bennie’s eyes, and waved him over. “Hey, Bennett, these guys are gonna go downstairs and get french fries. Can you keep an eye on them?”

The goalie stepped forward, laughing. “Come on little buddies,” he said sweetly. “Let’s get some carbs to soak up those shots, okay?”

“Hollander is downstairs,” LeMaire said. “He’s eating french fries.”

“Rozanov is there too,” Vaughny said confidently. “Do you even eat french fries, Eric?”

Scott slipped away as Vaughn made a whining sound that was probably about Bennett confirming he did not, in fact, eat any kind of fried starch. He made it to the elevators before the others did, quickly hitting the up button and getting to the first available car. Finding the roof was easy enough. He pushed through the doors, not sure if he hoped to find them or if he hoped they’d already headed back to their own rooms for the night…

And nearly walked straight into Hollander’s chest. “Oh, hey, there you are,” Scott said, startled enough to take a step back. “I was just... looking for you. Make sure you were okay. Big night for you.” Also people noticed you and your rival-slash-buddy disappeared at the same time.

Rozanov stepped forward, his voice sharp and dangerous. “You were looking for me too, Hunter?”

Scott’s eyes snapped over to him; how did he explain that he was trying to help, now, to someone who’d been sure for two years that Scott was his enemy? “Uh, sure man,” he said lamely. Ok, fuck, Scott, make conversation instead of being an idiot. “What are you guys still doing up here? It's been a while.”

“He's smoking,” Hollander said, but Rozanov said, “The view,” at the same time.

Oh, that’s not obvious at all. “Yeah I heard the view was great up here,” Scott said, mentally scrambling. What the fuck did should he say? His mouth was suddenly dry, his lips too, parched in the dry Vegas air and from the way his heart was racing.

“Well, come take a look at it then,” Rozanov said loudly, waving his hand at the scene behind him.

“Jesus, what’s your problem kid?” Scott snapped.

“Nothing, Hunter, you want view here is fucking view!”

“I get you lost tonight, Rozanov, but you don’t have to take it out on me and Hollander,” Scott said.

“He’s not,” Hollander replied. “It’s not like that.”

“We were leaving,” Rozanov said, moving to stand next to his friend.

Scott took a deep breath. The way he saw it, he could let this spiral out until one of them was throwing punches or both of the kids took off, never to trust him again. Or, he could claw this back from the edge.

He took the part of him that wanted to clench his fist and shoved it down deep.

He suggested getting another drink but Rozanov said no. Then he suggested going back to the party, but Hollander was tired of people, and yeah, so was Scott, no harm in being done with that. Eventually he got them sitting in a couple of nearby deck chairs, with Rozanov perched on the arm of Hollander’s chair. The image of a Russian eagle appeared in Scott’s head, a barely domesticated bird of prey, something huge and golden and breathtaking, on the arm of his trainer. One of those Mongolian hunters who spent their lives taking care of their bird, and couldn’t survive without it.

God, it was fucking beautiful to think about.

He brought up the Calder, because what else was he supposed to say? Hey, is there maybe a chance that you two aren’t just friends and Hollander doesn’t just have a crush on his rival but actually you’re fucking soulmates or something? And watched them banter over who deserved it more, each one of them arguing in favor of the other. Then asked about Russia, because he wanted to include Rozanov, make it clear he wasn’t asking about Hollander’s award to make the other kid feel bad, but Hollander laughed like a little kid and Scott had no idea what the fuck to do next.

Eventually he said, “You know, I keep waiting for you two to punch each other,” because he needed to say something, because he was growing desperate with wanting to know, with every sweet comment and every unimaginably gentle way Rozanov was watching Hollander’s face. He wanted so bad he could feel it in his bones.

“We tell people Rozanov and Hollander are friends, no one believes,” the Russian kid said with a shrug. He patted his pockets until he found his lighter. “I need a cigarette,” he said, nudging Hollander with his elbow. “You want I go over there?”

How could this possibly be the same kid who Twitter had voted most likely to be punched in the face a month ago?

Hollander shook his head again. “There’s no… no smoking sign here,” he said with a grin. “You know, because… we’re. You know.”

“We are outside?” Rozanov asked.

“Nooo,” Hollander said. “You know, the smoking sign. Hello, I am Shane Hollander.”

“Ah, yes,” the other boy said, his face brightening as he remembered something. “I must be Ilya Rozanov. And I did beat you.”

Jesus Christ, they have in-jokes?

Hollander smiled, wide and syrupy sweet, like Christmas morning. “Yeah, but I’m still nice, asshole,” he said.

“Yes, you are,” Rozanov agreed. He got out a cigarette, lit it, and took a drag. He blew smoke out of the other side of his mouth, away from his friend.

They talked about Canada then, about Hollander’s plans for the summer. Scott threw out an invite, thinking of how Vaugny had said he wanted to hang out with the kid, which would probably still be true when he was sober again tomorrow. Had he done enough to make Vaughn’s rookie year feel like a real introduction to the team? He was so solid, so friendly and certain of who he was – much more than Scott had been at that age – people kept forgetting he was really just like Hollander and Rozanov and LeMaire. Vaughn was new to this, too.

“Yes, Hollander, let the dinosaur take you to visit his dinosaur friends in the museum. You can collect fossils instead of playing hockey.” Rozanov said bitterly as he took another drag off his cigarette.

“The fuck is your problem with me, kid?” Scott asked. He’d thought they were all getting along, but no, Rozanov was still fucking Rozanov, to everyone but Hollander. A wave of tiredness rolled over him. His sleep schedule was completely out of whack, he was up on the fucking roof with a rookie who clearly didn’t want him to be there, trying to protect him and his gay friend from – what, Scott wasn’t entirely sure of, but it wasn’t going to be good. The mounting evidence suggested whatever was going on between them wasn’t entirely one sided, and the ache at that idea was wedged between Scott’s ribs like a knife.

He was tired of being pulled in all directions by his own fucking feelings. He very nearly got up then, was going to abandon the boys to their own bad decisions, but then Hollander, for no reason what so ever, decided now was when they needed to talk about Japanese cats.

And Rozanov? Fucking melted. But Hollander was drunk, it was obvious, which presented Scott with an entirely different problem. Rozanov was already reaching out to take the boy’s hand, to take drunk Hollander back to his room, which would have been fine if it was anyone else, but Smitty from Vancouver had said I did hear Hollander was gay and LeMaire said Rozanov was European because he didn’t have another word for what Rozanov maybe was, and two beautiful young men who might not be entirely straight could not disappear together into a hotel full of MLH players without the kind of rumors that might never be forgotten.

The three of them were only going to survive hockey by keeping everyone in the dark.

“I’m not letting you take him when he’s like this,” Scott said.

“The fuck does that mean?” Rozanov asked angrily, but before Scott could explain, Hollander was being soft and cute again. It helped, long enough to get the kid into the elevator, the three of them going because that, Scott could explain to anyone who asked. Rozanov had to be a dick about it though, arguing with Scott’s presence, trying to interrupt Hollander when Scott asked for his room key, asked what floor he was on. It was frustrating, and he couldn’t understand why the guy was so fucking determined to get in the way when Scott was only trying to help them both.

Until they were standing in front of Hollander’s room that was also Rozanov’s room, judging by their matching key cards, and Scott was pushing his way into the room with them. Just to see.

Just to be sure.

Because there it was, right in front of his fucking face, everything he wanted and could never have, what hockey would never let any of them have. Except there was Rozanov and Hollander in a hotel room with one bed, two fucking rookies, and a history that couldn’t have been built in one weekend. The kind of understanding that had Rozanov putting Hollander into the right clothes, making him drink water, helping him get out of his bow tie and suit jacket, the kind of softness that said this isn’t a one night stand, this isn’t two drunk kids making a mistake, this is a fucking relationship and you fucking missed it.

“This isn’t what I expected,” Scott said. He wanted to apologize, not that Rozanov would hear it for what it was. He wanted to say me too, I’m here, I’m like you but the words died in his throat. He thought Rozanov might have already figured it out on his own. “Whatever this is, you two need to be a lot more fucking subtle,” he said instead. “You’re sharing a room for fuck’s sake.”

He wanted to protect them and he wanted to be them and it was all starting to piss him off.

“Everyone thinks we hate each other,” Rozanov replied. “You did.”

The fact that Rozanov was right didn’t make him feel better. Scott did the only smart thing he had left, walking out of the room before he could make any of it worse.

The group chat was buzzing his phone. He turned it off in the elevator, uninterested.

By the time the morning sun rose over Vegas, Scott was already on his way to the airport.

Chapter End Notes

One day, Scott's going to remember that dinner in Marleau's hotel room, count the number of queer players who were in the room with him, and have to go lie down on the floor until the dizziness passes.

And yes, you and I both know Scott deserves sunshine. He's not going to figure that out for a few more years though, until a certain smoothie boy makes him feel like risking the light is better than dying in the dark. We're going to hold his hand until he gets there.

Chapter 6: Fall/Winter 2011

Chapter Summary

Scott accidentally learns more about Rozanov than he should have. He starts thinking about how to make hockey safe for the queer players he knows about. Hollander's upcoming trade is announced, and Scott wants him in New York.

The preseason game where several Raiders went to see Shane play takes place in Chapter 19 of Mr. Answer Man.

Chapter Notes

Previously on THIS KID IS GOING TO RUIN MY LIFE: Scott Hunter attends the 2010 Draft Day in Los Angeles, where he immediately clocks that Shane Hollander might be gay. In his friendly attempt to give the kid some advice about being closeted while playing in the MLH, he seems to have pissed off Ilya Rozanov for no reason. Over the next year, Rozanov insults him, Hollander intrigues him, and both the rookies confuse the hell out of him. Hollander probably has a crush on the very straight Russian who seems to be working his way through the women of Boston. Rozanov keeps suggesting Hunter is chasing after Hollander and is far too old for the kid. (Although, hey! Scott is only 7 years older than them. It's so rude.) Scott tries to talk to Hollander again at the 2011 All Star game, which doesn't go well - Hollander can't take a hint but Rozanov is staring daggers at him and a couple of the older Raiders seem to think Scott is the problem. FINALLY Scott has a chance to clear the air at the 2011 MLH Awards in Vegas, but discovers that he's been wrong about several things all at once.

It wasn’t that Scott was running away. It was more that he’d stupidly put himself into a situation where he was going to out himself, or Shane Hollander, or Ilya fucking Rozanov, if he stuck around to have the conversation with Hollander that he’d threatened promised when Rozanov was undoing the other boy’s tie and making sure he drank water in a hotel room in Vegas with only one bed. It’s not running away, he told himself for the fifth time as he left a cash tip on the night table and quickly glanced around to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything in his room. Rebooking his flight so he could use his earlier flight time as an excuse was a brilliant, wonderful plan. It was simple, believable, and most importantly, he could get out before anyone else noticed he was gone.

There was only one major flaw in this plan, it turned out: Ilya fucking Rozanov himself.

Scott had been checking out when Rozanov strolled past him in the hotel lobby, head down, a black Raiders cap pulled low over his forehead, pulling his black rolling suitcase behind him. The kid hadn’t even looked up as he passed the counter, so he hadn’t seen Scott, who watched him walk through the marble lobby and out the glass doors. Scott smiled at the desk clerk, handed over his keys, checked the time on his phone and compared it to the time on his watch, then walked as slowly as he thought he could get away with toward the door. His lone suitcase didn’t have everything he’d want for two weeks in Friedrichshain but he planned to shop during the day and hit the clubs at night. He texted a reminder to Bennett to grab his garment bag from the front desk; he’d needed a tux for last night’s awards, but wasn’t going to bring it with him to Berlin.

No, it was better to travel light. Get in, fuck and get fucked, get out before someone recognized him.

He briefly wondered what it would be like to go on vacation with someone who’d notice whether he’d packed everything. Someone who cared if he left before the sun came up.

Finally, once Scott was sure Rozanov had disappeared from the front of the hotel, he stepped outside and hailed a cab. The sun rose ahead of them as the car moved closer to the airport, a little to the left which kept Scott from being blinded by the light, but the driver slipped his sunglasses on. The streets weren’t empty, not even at 5:30 in the morning, but they made good time. So good, in fact, that as Scott was grabbing his suitcase from the trunk, he spotted Rozanov pulling open the door to Terminal 3. He sighed, closed the trunk a little too hard, and checked his watch again. He had time to spare, really – his flight wasn’t leaving until just after 10, but international flights were always more of a hassle. Scott walked slowly, again, trying to find the right balance between “not in a rush” and “suspicious”. He got lucky at the ticket counter, when Rozanov slipped into the express line for United, while Scott had to walk to find the longer line for British Airways. The Russian turned in his luggage and disappeared before Scott made it to the ticket counter; as far as he could tell, Rozanov still hadn’t seen him.

“Fuck me,” Scott muttered to himself as he caught up to the kid again when they both headed into Concourse E. He held back, pretending to check his phone, as Rozanov glanced at the departures board, nodding when the next flight to Dulles came up before walking away. Scott’s own flight to London (where he’d connect with another flight to Berlin) was leaving from a gate far enough away from Rozanov’s that he thought he’d be safe now.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said when he saw the kid head onto the tram to the D gates, exactly where Scott was going too. “I’m a fucking stalker.”

The woman who stepped into the car beside him raised her eyebrows in shock.

“No, I’m not,” Scott said, shaking his head. “I just meant, I keep running into one of my coworkers. On accident,” he added, when she didn’t seem satisfied with his answer. He pulled out his wide media smile, and tried again. “There’s no stalking here, it’s just one of those days.”

She made a little snorting sound, and took a seat on the opposite end of the car.

Because God was punishing him personally, Scott stepped off the tram in time to see Rozanov duck into the high end lounge for travelers of a certain financial status. Scott let his head fall back as he stared at the ceiling for a moment. Really? he thought. Haven’t I suffered enough?

It occurred to him suddenly that he didn’t actually know why he was avoiding the guy. Sure, he didn’t want to talk about last night, didn’t want to get into a conversation with Rozanov of all people about something as delicate as maybe, possibly, trying to find a way a way to keep guys like him safe in the dark corners of the MLH, but probably Rozanov wouldn’t want to talk about that either. Maybe they could bump into each other, here in the airport. Two guys with the same job who happened to be in the same place, for a few hours before their flights to different destinations. They could have breakfast in the lounge, their salaries and black cards making the morning a tiny bit easier. They could talk about baseball or movies or Russian politics or… okay, not that last one. But they could talk, like casually-acquainted adults. It might even be nice.

He sighed again, resigned to it.

He had checked in at the desk, showed his boarding pass and all of that, ready to go find Rozanov, when he spotted him sitting in one of the dark little booths, just past the curved part of the wall. Scott put on his happy face, grabbed the handle of his suitcase, took two steps forward, then… faltered. Because Ilya Rozanov, the Russian Bear, that fucking menace, was sitting by himself at a table, with his hand across his own mouth, looking at the wall. The lights were low but enough that Scott could see the glistening moisture on Rozanov’s cheeks. He held his phone in his hand, but wasn’t looking at it.

The kid was crying alone in a goddamn airport.

Scott stepped quickly over to the wall, sitting in one of the bench seats, behind a thin divider. If he stuck his head out, he’d be able to see Rozanov, but if he didn’t, the Russian wouldn’t see anything more than Scott’s legs. He pulled out his own phone, but had no idea who to call. Hollander? Vaughn? Not that he could explain enough about the situation to get Vaughny’s advice in the first place, not that he even knew for sure that Rozanov was crying over leaving Hollander behind, but fuck, what else could it be? Eric would probably be awake, but what could he possibly know about a situation like this? And what would Hollander say, if Scott told him I accidentally stalked your gay (bisexual?) lover into the Vegas airport anyway?

He didn’t have the words to say that he’s floored by the idea Rozanov cared enough to cry, because that meant what Hollander and Rozanov have wasn’t simply one night in a hotel room. It had to be bigger and more precious than that, going on for who knows how long... big enough to miss, to long for and be heartbroken over, which makes it incredibly fucking dangerous. Did those boys even understand the risk?

Scott looked down at his own trembling hands.

“Can I bring you a menu?” a young woman asked. The blond waitress had appeared out of nowhere, so Scott leaned forward, stealing a moment to peak around the divider. Rozanov was still not looking at anything, but he was rubbing his eyes now, probably trying to hide his tears.

He leaned back again before nodding at her. “Yes, please, and can I start with a cup of coffee and a whiskey on the rocks?”

If she cared that Scott Hunter was ordering a drink at 6 in the morning, it didn’t show on her face. “Do you have a preference for your whiskey, sir?”

“Do you have… uh… Yamazaki?” he asked, hoping he was remembering Vaughn’s latest liquor rant correctly.

Her smile tightened. “I’m sorry, we don’t carry anything that rare,” she said, “but if you’re open to new things, I can recommend the Mellow Corn. It’s a bonded straight corn whiskey that’s probably the best choice from what’s available right now.”

“Great, thanks, I’ll take it.” He smiled as she nodded her head and walked toward the bar. He honestly had no idea what the difference between them was, but told himself he’d ask Vaughn when he got home.

Over the next hour he ate a goat cheese frittata alongside a glass of whiskey the color of butter. In between bites, he snuck glances at Rozanov. The frittata was excellent. The whiskey was strange, tasting a bit like if bubblegum came in corn flavor with the hot bite of booze. The Russian was hunched over his phone and his own cup of coffee, oblivious to the fact that his mortal enemy-slash-fellow gay hockey player was sitting a 100 feet away. At some point though, Rozanov disappeared. The lounge had other amenities – he might have gone to the bar, or booked one of the showers. It didn’t matter, because if Scott asked the waitress to help find him, he really would stalking the guy, and because he’d missed his chance to casually bump into him.

The feeling that he’d lost the chance to do something meaningful stuck with him for the rest of his vacation.

On the flight home, Scott texted Vaughn to suggest the kid stay with him for another year. Before his plane touched down in New York he got back a photograph of his own living room window, his own dark blue curtains parted to let in the sunlight and the view of Central Park in early August. Along with it is a single line of text: oh no the hardship. Scott grinned as he pocketed the phone, assuming – rightly, he confirmed later that night – Vaughn was agreeing to be his roommate for another year. As the plane slowly approached the terminal, he thought again about bubbles, and darkness, and how to create a safe space in the midst of hockey. Not coming out, god no, never that, but little pockets of freedom where the guys on the outside edges would look the other way. Maybe one of those pockets could be in New York. Maybe another one could be in Montreal, or Boston, or some little village halfway in between.

He’d texted Hollander from Germany. Short, polite, an invitation to drinks the next time the Metros played the Admirals. Hollander agreed without asking questions or offering anything of his own.

He’d called Ryan Price one night at 3 AM. Had asked him, once the guy believed it really was Scott Hunter on the phone, how do you know, are you sure there are others? He was drunk enough to call but not too drunk to understand when Price said, “Have a great summer, Mr. Hunter,” and hung up the phone.

He didn’t bother trying to talk to Rozanov.

Summer training transitioned into preseason. Vaughn told the whiskey story in the locker room more times than Scott liked – the one were Captain Hunter didn’t know the difference between a $20,000 bottle of Yamazaki 1984 and a $20 bottle of Mellow Corn – but the guys laughed with him instead of at him, so it was all right. They got distracted when half a dozen Boston Raiders showed up to a Metros game wearing Hollander’s jersey, spawning weeks of half-baked conspiracies. Were the Raiders trying to poach Hollander? Was this some sort of hazing ritual? Were they threatening the Metros, or had someone, on either of their teams, fucked up in a way that was sure to become national news, so the public spectacle of six Raiders at a Metros game was meant to distract people? Maybe it was a combination of reasons. But Scott saw the photo of Rozanov standing up, cheering, grinning the same way he did when his own team won, and he knew.

Ilya Rozanov was in love with Shane Hollander.

The panic that sunk its claws into Scott’s chest at the idea someone else might see those photos and realize the same thing didn’t let go of him for weeks.

The rumors about Hollander started in October. He and Rozanov were both Alternate Captains now, an obvious move from both teams considering how popular they’d both been during their rookie seasons. He knew, the vague way you remember when you’re told a fact that doesn’t matter as much to you as it does to the person who told you, that their jerseys were selling almost as well as Scott’s own. He was still winning, but the league cared about merch and ticket sales nearly as much as it cared about goals scored, so it was worth keeping an eye on. Yet the Metros weren’t treating their golden boy the way the Raiders spoke about theirs. Boston loved Rozanov. Montreal on the other hand…

“He’s getting a lot of ice time,” Bennie said, sitting next to Scott at a sports bar. They’d had a free night, there was a quiet place near the arena, and the Metros were playing San Francisco.

“Yeah,” Scott had replied. “Does it look to you like it’s too much?”

“Yeah,” Bennie agreed. “What can you do?”

There wasn’t an answer; Scott didn’t give one and Bennie hadn’t been expecting one. The kid played for a different team. He wasn’t their problem.

Except Hollander and Rozanov were his problem. Just not for the reasons anyone would expect, and not in a way anyone else knew.

Scott sighed, and ordered another beer.

A week later Bennett leaned over the aisle of the plane they were on to whisper that he’d reached out to the Metros goalie. Hollander, it seemed, was a problem for Montreal too – arrogant, stand offish, disrespectful to veteran players. Not a good fit for the locker room.

“Do you believe that?” Scott whispered back.

Bennie didn’t hesitate. “No,” he said. “It sounds like what you say when you’re planning to get rid of a guy. For anyone else on that team, maybe, but Hollander? I don’t buy it.”

Goosebumps prickled at Scott’s skin, running down his arms. Hollander was a beast on the ice, smart and fast, regularly putting up more than his share of points. He’d won the Calder last year. Montreal’s fans loved him. There was no reason to get rid of him, unless… Unless the Metros knew.

Harv pulled him aside after practice a week later.

“We’re thinking about making a trade,” his coach said.

“Hollander would make a great addition to the team,” Scott replied before he could stop himself.

“So you know already.” Harv scowled, shaking his head. “Fuckass Metros.”

“Do we have a chance?”

“Hollander’s reportedly got a short list of teams he’d be willing to go, and don’t get me started on what Montreal must have done to put him in a position where that’d even be up to him, but yeah, we’re on the list.” Harv rubbed his chin. “Some of the things I’ve heard… I don’t like the idea of bringing in a problem.”

“He won’t be a problem,” Scott promised. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“All right,” Harv said. “I’ll make some calls.”

The Admirals play well through December and into January. The guys are giving Scott too much credit, though he’s scoring better than usual, is happier than usual. “It’s a team sport,” he reminds them but it doesn’t matter, the story in the locker room spills out into the media, and management is happy when the press decides Scott’s superior leadership is behind their string of wins. Really it’s because Scott loves the idea of getting Shane Hollander on his team, has been dreaming of having someone else like him in the room, a friend who’d understand. He’s over the little infatuation he had on both Hollander and Rozanov, feels stupid over having those feelings in the first place, but he recognizes the despair behind it if he lets himself think about it. And anyway he’s never been the kind of guy to want someone who’d already given their heart to someone else.

With Hollander in New York, and Vaughn on their side, maybe they can tell a few of the others. Bennett would protect them, Scott thinks. It’s not the whole team, but it’s enough for a bubble. One small safe piece of the dark.

Chapter End Notes

This story has been SO HARD to write. It's like pulling teeth and punching myself in the gut at the same time. It doesn't help that I've been going through a really rough six months and that's not getting better any time soon. Writing miserable repressed perpetually-confused Scott Hunter is not making my life any better, but I really do think it's an important part of this set of stories and I've been pushing myself to get through writing this. We're nearly at the end though, and I think the payoff will be worth it.

Also I updated the cover, which is posted at the beginning of Chapter 1, a few weeks ago. If you haven't seen it already, go check it out!

Next up: Scott gets a visit from the Russian menace. The chapter count went up, only because the "final" chapter was much longer than the others in this story and I know folks like a consistent reading experience. But I still aim to have it done before the end of the month, because I have a special Halloween story I want to get out by the 31st :)