Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Rose Landry, Alexei Rozanov | Andrei Rozanov, Grigori Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Team Ensemble (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

POV Shane Hollander, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, A Tuna-Melt Remix, Because Russia, The Because Russia is Implied, Bromance, Character Study, Coming Out, Denial of Feelings, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends with Benefits, Getting Together, Grigori Rozanov Haunts the Narrative, Ilya Rozanov Makes Tuna Melts, Internalized Homophobia, Pining, Pining While Fucking, Public Relations, Russia, Self-Denial, Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov Situationship, Situationships, the cottage, (Not That Cottage), (Also That Cottage), The Psychological Horror of Being Cared For, The Situationship to Friends-With-Benefits to Boyfriends Pipeline, Author Doesn’t Fuck With Third Act Breakups

Language:

English

Collections:

In this glass house we are free, & it feels like medication

Stats:

Published: 2026-07-24 Completed: 2026-09-11 Words: 73,195 Chapters: 13/13

Beneficiaries

Summary

Following an afternoon of sex and tuna melts, Shane goes searching for the explicit rules of what being 'friends with benefits' entails. In his humble opinion, they're nailing it.

Once friendship is on the table, Shane reconsiders the usefulness and immutability of the public rivalry narrative. Surely the NHL can make just as much money from a bromance as it can from a rivalry?

A missed call from J.J., a dinner at All-Stars, and an ill-considered mad dash to the airport send Shane's season in a very different direction to the disciplined three-peat he'd been planning back in October.

---

"This rivalry thing: it was everyone else who said we hated each other off the ice. There’s no rule that says we have to keep doing that forever.” Shane stared outside, past the blinding billboards and down at the streets below. “It was nice. Hanging out, last time.”

He knew what it looked like when Rozanov shut down, when he closed himself off and pushed the world away. He’d finish the conversation abruptly, curt, clipped, and retreat. So Shane knew he’d won when Rozanov finally answered with: “Are we six years old, Hollander? Asking if I want to play in sandbox with you?"

Notes

Housekeeping! My WIP tagging philosophy is to add new ones with each chapter. Also, the ol' outline (whatever you're imagining: it's less professional than that) is sitting at somewhere between ten and fourteen chapters. I'm calling this ten twelve thirteen to start with under the assumption it's better to underpromise and overdeliver (insert dick joke here).

---

If you’re a fic downloader, this work is available to download as an epub with workskin formatting via this Google Drive.

Chapter 1

Rozanov didn’t taste the same. Normally there was a precise tang to him. The chocolate milk he drank after a game – sugar and cocoa and a filmy gloss of dairy fat – hardened in place by the dessicating effect of a post-game cigarette, either celebratory or commiseratory, layering in bitter ash and a metallic cloy, and the failed attempt at cancelling it out, the icy mint of the gum he chewed afterwards so he could pretend Shane was overreacting when he said he could taste the tar and nicotine. It wasn’t a nice taste, per se – in fact, Shane kind of always wished Rozanov tasted otherwise – but it was familiar. It was known. It had become so familiar that he hadn’t registered until now that he’d been associating it with his own arousal.

Today was the opposite of familiar. Today, Rozanov tasted of nothing. Or, rather, he tasted identical to how Shane’s own mouth tasted; or so Shane assumed: he couldn’t taste a thing. Aspartame, and oily tuna, and creamy cheese. That’s what someone else would taste on Rozanov. Svetlana, if she came waltzing in right now.

Did he cook for Svetlana too? Had she stood naked by his side in the kitchen and giggled and wrapped her arms around him while they stood in front of the oven and waited for their sandwiches to cook?

Being naked in a kitchen sounded like such a bad idea that it should be all kinds of illegal. But he wouldn’t put it past Rozanov.

When Shane pushed his tongue upwards, he could feel that Rozanov had matching abrasions across the roof of his mouth, scratches from the hard crust of bread on both of their soft palettes. Shane could do that because he was on top, he was taller, he was driving here. Fuck Svetlana. Fuck all the other women. Shane was going to be the best, the greatest, the benchmark for every fucking handjob Rozanov ever received from here on out. He was going to ruin Rozanov’s conception of handjobs alogether, he was going to rewrite the goddamn record book. That’s what they did, wasn’t it? Looked at each other and twitched a single muscle in their jaws and knew what the other was saying: that was pretty impressive, but I can do better; and then they fucking did do it better. Again and again and again.

Spit – Rozanov’s spit, warm and singularly not disgusting – lubed them up enough so Shane’s hand could fly, all the gentle-careful-not-too-much-friction forgotten, just more-more, faster-faster, soaring, racing, accelerating. His stomach swooped, both from pleasure and the anticipation of so much more pleasure on the horizon, and he knew Rozanov felt the same, from the way his mouth hung open and the total cessation of his breathing for one, two seconds, and the way his whole body was vibrating when his lungs kicked in again, hunting for an angle that satisfied the more-more-more that Shane wanted too.

The difference between jerking off and a handjob was fucking insane. How the fuck did the change in mechanics justify such a disproportion of gratification? It was basically the same fucking thing: hand on a dick. Shane was familiar with the percentages game, he’d watched Moneyball, he was an elite athlete, ‘basically’ was not the same as ‘identical.’ A one percent improvement can make all the difference, if it’s the right one percent. And Rozanov’s wide-strained eyes and ropy shoulders and hot damp breaths were worth a lot more than one percent.

The difference between jerking off and jerking off using Rozanov’s dick, knowing that squeeze of pressure was Rozanov’s own cock tight against his own, knowing that Rozanov was seconds away from coming: there was no fucking comparison at all.

Shane was so fucking close, but he was determined to wait it out this time, to outlast Rozanov for once. There was a groan he knew so well, the one that Rozanov let out that always reverberated in the middle section of Shane’s spine, and transmitted rumbles right into the back of his rib cage. He was going to hold the fuck on until it was that sound to push him over the edge.

Rozanov’s throat locked open and his tongue made a tiny little clack and he choked out “Sha— … shit,” and followed it with a burst of cum and that groan that Shane was waiting for, and Shane couldn’t hold off a millisecond longer, and let himself go, while Rozanov pecked at Shane’s bottom lip.

“Fuuuuuuuuck,” Shane groaned, coaxing the last of it out.

“Shit,” Rozanov agreed, in between kisses. Not frantic, devouring, starving kisses like they had before they fucked. Little bird-like sips. All lip, no mouth.

He hadn’t really ‘got’ kissing before Rozanov. It felt phatic to him, separate from sex and want and hunger, all I-guess-we-can-if-you-like-it, and this-seems-to-be-what-other-people-expect, and this-is-a-really-weird-thing-to-do-if-we-stop-and-think-about-it.

With Rozanov, there was never any ‘thinking’ about it. There was nothing like being kissed by Rozanov. Thank fuck he didn’t have the same hang-ups as the other guys Shane had slept with, who thought it was strange to kiss a hook up.

He was already kissing Rozanov back before he’d even fully finished, dry lip prints across cheekbones, jaw, ear. Shane didn’t think about it at all, it just felt right. He tried to never think too hard about what was right and what was wrong when it came to what he did with Rozanov. Every conclusion he drew was more intractable than when he started.

“Fuck. I’ll get a cloth,” he said, around another two kisses that Rozanov pushed against his mouth, even while he spoke.

For as long as they were fucking, in the bed or on the couch, Shane could pretend this was a particularly luxurious hotel, that this was any other Boston and Montreal game day. That illusion evaporated as soon as Shane tucked himself back into Rozanov’s spare sweatpants and walked up Rozanov’s floating staircase and walked through Rozanov’s bedroom – very much not hotel-antiseptic, not with one bedside table drowning beneath a phone charger and magnesium supplements and hydration tablets and earbuds and Chapstick and, where they’d left them, a box of condoms and lube – and into Rozanov’s ensuite, fully stocked with things that, if Shane decanted and pipetted them into an admixture of just the right quantities, would make an approximation of Rozanov’s scent. If this were a hotel, the spare washcloths would be folded neatly on the vanity, or hung on a hook installed specifically for the purpose of hanging spare washcloths, not kept in the second drawer down on the right.

It was really really hard not to think about if it was right or wrong to be doing this, here, in Rozanov’s fucking house with its impersonally ultra-stylish furniture and fittings that’d look dated in about four months.

“I should keep you here, like a maid,” Rozanov smirked, alleviating Shane’s queasy seasickness. This was known. This was safe.

“Fuck off.”

“Very mouthy for a maid. Very rude.”

He hated how Rozanov made him smile. Except he didn’t, not really. He hated how smiling made him feel like he was losing. To hide it, he smothered Rozanov’s face with the clean side of the damp cloth and half-heartedly batted away his flailing arms, until they settled again on Shane’s hips. It hadn’t been strictly necessary to straddle Rozanov’s thighs in order to wipe the cum off his chest, but it was very slightly easier from this angle. Shane was all about the percentage game, after all.

“So I guess … should I go?”

“Ah, no. We said stay, yes? I am not done with you yet.”

It was wrong for Shane to be so thrilled to hear Rozanov wanted more. So fucking effervescent, his lungs so over-inflated they felt buoyant, pressing against his chest. It terrified him.

“I don’t think I can … y’know. Again. Yet.”

“So? We can watch game,” Rozanov gestured at the television they’d left on, “we can eat dinner. Hang out. Like, ah, friends?”

Every instinct in Shane’s body was telling him: yes, was telling him: kiss him, and the deafening volume of it was an ambulance siren, warning: DANGER DANGER EMERGENCY. He slid off Rozanov’s lap, intending to retreat into the couch’s corner, to put his back up against something solid, but instead Rozanov tucked him under an arm, head pressed against Rozanov’s freshly washed chest, and it was solid and bracing and the malfeasance was even more dangerous.

“Friends?”

“You are familiar with the concept? Friends?” Rozanov clicked his fingers with the hand that wasn’t currently rubbing the crown of Shane’s head. “Ah, now I understand! You have not heard of this before —”

“Fuck off!”

“— when not the rink, Montreal puts you in, ah … kriogennyj? Like, freezer?”

“Kriog … you mean ‘cryogenics?’”

“Yes! Exactly! They freeze you between games, yes?”

“Fuck you, you dick. I have friends.”

Rozanov blew a raspberry. “Liar,” he said, but his hand was still cupping Shane’s skull.

Sometimes they sat or lay like this, skin on skin or hands on bodies, for one or two or ten minutes after they fucked, while they caught their breaths. That was a thing they did. They didn’t do it after they’d wiped themselves clean. And Shane sure as fuck didn’t do this kind of contact – even in his head, he hesitated to call it ‘cuddling’ – with his friends.

Shane didn’t like new things. Mainly because he wasn’t sure if he was doing them right.

“Is no big deal, Hollander. What do you do, night before game? Eat boring food, watch boring TV? You do that here, and maybe I will suck your cock in between.”

How the fuck did Rozanov make everything sound so fucking simple? So obvious? Did he never catastrophize about consequences, or did he assess them and decide he simply didn’t care?

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Rozanov pulled forward to bump up the volume of the Toronto and Buffalo game. When he settled back, he pulled Shane into his chest again. Shane desperately wanted to look up, to see if he’d made Rozanov smile by agreeing to stay. He didn’t. If he did, and if Rozanov was smiling, he’d say something fucking stupid, so monumentally stupid he’d ruin it all, like: this is really nice. Or: if we’re friends, can I text you sometimes when I want to hear your opinion? Or, most stupid of all: I wasn’t entirely truthful. I hardly ever sleep with women anymore.

Instead, he watched the goddamn game. “Their defensive work sucks.”

“Yes. Buffalo have no business with this much possession.”

“They can’t even keep a turnover going for one pass.”

“Do you think Kent throws a tantrum if they do not pass to him?”

“Oh, for sure. He probably goes straight to the coach’s office and smashes a chair against the wall.”

One singular huff of laughter pulsed through Rozanov’s chest, nudging against Shane’s skull. It felt good, way too good, to have Rozanov laugh with him, not at him. So he tried for a double: “Someone should tell him if he wasn’t so fucking slow, maybe they’d pass to him more.”

Shane never bitched like that to anyone else on his team, because Kent was faster than all of them except Shane. And maybe, on a good day, J.J. It was allowed here, now, no hurt feelings for the two players who’d won the All-Stars’ Fastest Skater every year that either of them were entered.

Rozanov chuckled again. Fuck. Shane could get addicted to this feeling. He was already addicted to Rozanov’s dick and Rozanov’s mouth. This could be a bridge too far.

“Maybe i— oh, HIGH!” Rozanov shouted, in unison with Shane, who’d pulled his head up to yell “HIGH STICK!” at a particularly egregious foul from Toronto’s right winger.

Rozanov stood while they were muzzled into the sin bin and Shane was adrift again. He had to calm the fuck down. Friends. He knew how to be friends with someone without an overreliance on their bare chest.

“Water? More ginger ale? Coke?”

“Water, thanks.”

“Vodka? Beer? Champagne?” Rozanov continued. “Whiskey? Grappa? Rum? Tequila? Gi—”

Shane threw a cushion at his face.

“Such an asshole,” Rozanov muttered, padding over to the kitchen, flinging the cushion back at Shane.

Should he move over on the couch? Create more distance? Did he want more distance? Would Rozanov want more distance? If this were Hayden there’d be a metre of upholstery between them, that’s what friends did. But he liked having Rozanov pressed up against him, he liked the solidity and warmth of relaxed muscle against his side. That wasn’t weird, right? Wasn’t wrong? It was just … bodies. Just a body he was comfortable with. It could be any body. If he’d spent years hooking up with someone else, some regular Boston girl, he’d feel comfortable around her body too.

Rozanov plopped back down, just where he’d been before, hip against hip, and handed Shane a glass of water.

“Thanks.”

“Maybe you should be taking a sip before thanks. Maybe I got you vodka.”

“Maybe I’d thank you even if was vodka.”

“So Canadian,” Rozanov sighed, as if it were a terminal disease.

It, obviously, wasn’t vodka, because Rozanov was an asshole but wasn’t a just-a-joke-bro flavor of douchebag. Shane put the glass on a coaster and leaned back on the couch, waiting to see if Rozanov put his arm around Shane again.

He didn’t. Not in the power play, not in the intermission, not once in the final third. Shane thought it’d probably be alright if he took the lead, if he leaned into Rozanov’s chest (or, possibly even better: if he pulled Rozanov onto his own chest – now there was a thought that made Shane’s heart rate really fly), but he was deeply unsure about the permissible boundaries of (maybe(?)-)friends-who-fuck. He’d let Rozanov take the lead, at least until Shane could do some private research into twenty-first century etiquette without the threat of Rozanov catching a glimpse of Shane’s phone screen and mocking him to kingdom come. Friends-who-fuck was a dynamic Rozanov would already be familiar with. That was a fact. A fact with the name ‘Svetlana.’

The game finished with them still hip-to-hip, shoulder-to-shoulder, bicep-to-bicep, thigh-to-thigh, marooned on an island together atop a couch that was wider than Shane’s childhood bedroom. The sun had set, and only the light of the gas fire lit the room once Rozanov switched the television off.

If Shane wasn’t Shane, if he was some woman Rozanov invited over and cooked for and sat side-by-side with, this would almost be romantic. He was about to turn to Rozanov and quip about whether he did this kind of low-light, bare-chest, sex-laden extravaganza with all his friends, when Rozanov butted his chin against Shane’s shoulder and stood. “What are your rules for night before a game?”

“What?”

“Come on, Hollander. I am sure you have some boring routine, yes? Must eat twenty raw almonds and soft-boiled egg and go to bed at eight or something. Am I close?”

“No.” Except he was, kinda. Asshole.

“Well, what is it?” Rozanov clicked his fingers. “Stupid yoga? Standing on your head?”

“Fuck off,” but he was laughing, so it didn’t mean much. “I just do, like … normal shit. Low-impact cardio. Carbs, protein. Sleep.”

“Was that so fucking hard? What first? Gym?”

“Sure.”

“What shoe size?”

“What?”

The eye-rolling was deeply unfair. Was Shane supposed to be instantly on-board with the notion that Rozanov had an entire fucking inventory of shoes in all sizes lying around in his cupboards? “Your shoes, Hollander. What size?”

“Um. Ten?”

“Good. Yes. I think I have some. Gym is down there.”

Rozanov left in the other direction, back up the stairs. He reached without looking as he passed the wall, elbowing on a light switch. No romantic aura anymore – surely Rozanov didn’t ask the girls he wooed down to the gym for some light cardio. If Shane squinted at this whole scenario, he could almost pretend he was hanging out with Hayden. Or maybe J.J., given the lack of infants. Just chilling at his friend’s place. This was fine. This was totally fine. He was just a dude, same as any other dude Shane shared a gym with.

And the gym was like any other gym. Better than a hotel’s, sparser than a rink’s. No Boston logos framed on the walls, or headshots of Rozanov (not that Shane really expected that, but: at the same time he wouldn’t have been totally shocked if Rozanov had framed pictures of himself up), nothing to remind Shane he was in the home of the guy he was fucking.

“Lucky lucky.” Rozanov came out of fucking nowhere, silent as a panther. If he noticed Shane jumping out of his skin, he didn’t mention it. For once. He probably hadn’t noticed. “I have spares. Were a gift, for, ah … for someone. They don’t need them. Size ten.”

He thrust a shoebox at Shane, topped by neatly folded shorts and a tank. All Adidas, all smelling like Rozanov’s laundry service’s detergent and industrial dryers. It was easy not to get too hung up on how much he liked that smell, nor how he should really be wearing Reebok and Nike, because he was all hung up on who in the ever-loving fuck this other mystery man could be. Was Rozanov fucking another guy?

“What?” he asked, when he noticed Rozanov was waiting for an answer to a question Shane hadn’t listened to.

“Bike or treadmill?”

“I should go. I — you probably have your own pre-game routine, yeah? I don’t want – I don’t need to … intrude.”

“Ugh, Hollander. Stop having a panic attack.”

“I’m not,” Shane snapped. “This is j—”

“It’s a simple fucking question. Bike? Treadmill?”

Rozanov was so fucking blithe about this, leaning against the wall and scratching his stupid, beautiful nose. Fuck.

“What do you normally do? Night before? You should pick first.”

“Oh my God. You are the guest, yes? You pick. And I do not care, anyway, I switch.”

Fuck. Switch. Fuck. He remembered the guy in Mexico, staring at Shane’s dick after he’d pulled his shorts off and laid on the one-night-only Marriott bed: “Whoa. You ever like to switch?”

It wasn’t his first time wondering if Rozanov slept with other men. He’d never thought about whether Rozanov let other men fuck him. “Bike,” he answered, mainly out of desperation to stop Rozanov from impatiently staring at him.

“Blyat. Ostyn’.”

There were many situations in Shane’s life that he hadn’t grasped the first time around. Tiny little body language clues that someone was sick to death of him dissecting what made San Francisco’s power play quite so lethal. A change in vocal pitch that suggested a woman wanted to fuck him. The tonal shift in the locker room after Olsson slept with Gagnon’s ex. The way he’d stuck to his honesty-is-the-best-policy doctrine even when he’d bluntly broken things off with Jessica. Someone usually called him out on it, either kindly or rudely, or he noticed something hadn’t gone quite right, and then he’d do a little research or call his dad. He’d analyze and identify the issue and tweak how he’d act next time. It wasn’t the aberrant failures that frustrated him, it was the momentary confusion when he learned he was doing something wrong. The not-knowing.

So he fucking loathed how Rozanov muttered or groaned or shouted in Russian and flat out refused to provide a translation. Even when the intended message was clear – like right now, with his put-upon grunt – Shane wanted the detail, the nuance. Every time it happened, he resolved to start secretly learning Russian; and every morning afterwards, he felt too ridiculous to commit to it.

When Rozanov returned from changing into his own gear, he found Shane in head-to-toe Adidas, hammering the hated shoes against the stationary bike pedals. “Chill the fuck out, Hollander. Is this ‘light’ cardio? You are trying to pull a calf?”

Fucking dick. Shane hated that he was right. He turned the resistance down, and stopped pedalling for a moment to accept the water bottle Rozanov handed him. Maybe it was that, the small act of filling a second bottle from the tap, or maybe it was the brush of fingers against fingers, or maybe it was the leftover irritation of untranslated Russian, or maybe it was imagining Svetlana lolling on Rozanov’s couch, that made Shane spit out: “Who were these shoes for?”

He felt like an absolute fool as soon as the words tripped out, and turned his gaze back to his feet, realigning the pedals and finding a resistance that would make his heart pump without burning out.

“My brother,” Rozanov answered, across the beep of treadmill buttons. “I always get extra pairs. To send back to him.”

“Right.” Shane waited for Rozanov to come up to speed, which had almost nothing to do with wanting to suppress any outward displays of the relief he was feeling. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“Mm.”

“Does he visit?”

“Never.”

“Right. Is that, like … a visa thing?”

“No. Is because he hates me.”

Jesus. Shane had never wished for a sibling, not ever, and even that had been under the assumption they’d be, at a minimum, cordial. A permanent tie to someone you hated sounded like his worst nightmare. “Sorry.”

“Shut up, Hollander. You are doing me a favor, stealing shoes. Now I do not have to call him. Maybe I always give you my extra sneakers? Mr Size Ten?”

Shane sneaked a glance over at him, but Rozanov was staring straight ahead. “I can’t wear Adidas.”

“Ah, yes. Good boy wears his good boy Reeboks.”

“Shut up.”

“Match with his good boy Rolex.”

“Shut up.” It earned him a smile, in profile. “Jealous?”

“Pfft. No. You want music? TV? What do you do, at home?”

“I normally watch strategy tape.”

“Ah. We can put on the screen? Watch Boston destroy New Jersey?”

“It was 2–1, that’s not destroying.”

“Better than losing to New Jersey 2–0.”

It landed like a fucking orgasm, hearing Rozanov recalling the scoreline of the last Montreal–New Jersey game, which had been a whole nine months ago. He remembered Wilson in the locker room last week, when they’d been discussing the Puffins’ goalies, who hadn’t been able to remember the scoreline of their last game against Pittsburgh despite the fact it’d been the goddamn playoffs. He bit down on the inside of his cheek, to stop from beaming like a girl who’d been invited to prom. “I’m the one who won the fucking Cup.”

“Ah, is this what you mean by ‘strategy’ tape? You just watch yourself demolish poor Minnesota again and again?”

“No.”

“Because I think, normally, it means watching your opponents.”

“I know what it means —”

“But if you are scared of watching me?”

“— you fucking asshole.”

“Maybe first we can watch Boston destroy New Jersey, and you will tell me how you will beat us. And then we can watch Cup final, and I will tell you how I will beat you. While I fuck your mouth, so you cannot talk back.”

Shane pretended he was flushing from exertion, which was only mildly less embarrassing given the easy, loping cadence of his legs. “Big words from someone who lost to Winnepeg.”

“I did not lose. I scored hat trick. Kohn was the idiot who let in four goals.”

“Whatever, Rozanov.”

In the end, they settled on watching Detroit host Nashville, and the mutually pleasant hobby of tearing Nashville’s second and third lines to shreds. For long stretches at a time – two minutes, five minutes – Shane was almost able to forget that Rozanov was Rozanov, that he wasn’t a bitchier version of Hayden, or a more insightful version of J.J. It was useful, actually, to have a companion to train alongside, to be able to do the Talk Test without speaking aloud in an empty room like a sociopath. Every now and then they tested their heart rates and talked shit about who could push their wattage higher without going over 120 bpm.

If Shane liked it more than he should, he could remind himself that they were test-driving this notion of being friends. It wasn’t weird to enjoy spending time with a friend. He had trouble, normally, making friends; he should be happy to have a new one. Even if it was Rozanov.

“You want to shower before dinner?” Rozanov asked in the second intermission, as both their timers ticked over to the one hour mark.

If Shane could get his head around the byzantine rules of these kinds of situations (he was hoping for some helpful clues online; he sure as shit wasn’t going to call his dad for this one), this friends-who-fuck thing could be pretty ideal. He suspected there might be spatial cues he could use to navigate the bifurcation in the meantime. Gym: friends. Shower: who-fuck; based on the way Rozanov had hauled Shane’s head back by his hair and stuck his tongue down his throat and hadn’t let go all the way up two flights of stairs and knelt down to suck Shane off as soon as the water was hot. Kitchen: friends, with the notable asterisk of how Rozanov had crowded behind Shane with a hand on his shoulder when he’d swung the fridge doors open and asked Shane to pick which of the prepped meal-service options would fit his macros (perhaps it was a European or a Slavic thing, this kind of friendly masculine affection. It made it hard to judge how to act accordingly).

Watching television on the couch didn’t fit neatly either way, since they seemed to veer from friends to who-fuck as required. Or perhaps it wasn’t so much veering as some other category entirely. Shane hated things that couldn’t be categorized. But it steadfastly refused to fit: they weren’t kissing or fucking, certainly. Shovelling chicken and rice and spinach and chickpeas and sweet potatoes into their mouths while they watched Arizona and New York was definitely a friends thing, he’d been doing that with his friends or his teammates ever since he was thirteen. But, again: they were too close together, knees knocking whenever either of them shifted. After Rozanov cleared the dishes away, he threw a pillow next to Shane’s thigh and stretched out on the couch, one hand resting just above Shane’s knee.

Shane was too preoccupied with self-reflection to freak out about this. Much. Rozanov glided with such effortless insouciance across these boundaries, knowing just when and how to transition from one to the other. He’d obviously had practice. Shane was just trying his level best to color inside the lines, to not fuck this up by kissing Rozanov during a friends moment, hard as it was with this birds-eye view of his lips and his hair and the television’s LED screen washing his cheekbones in blues and whites.

“Bed?” Rozanov asked, as soon as the final period ended, a last minute push by Arizona to tie the game ending in flurried failure.

“You still want me to stay?”

“Ah, yes.” The ‘duh, you idiot’ was implied.

To prove his point, Rozanov lifted his head from the pillow and pressed his open mouth over Shane’s dick, the heat and faint humidity pushing through cotton and elastane, and one of his hands crept up, underneath the shirt Shane was wearing. Right. Shane knew how to handle this half of their game.

He slid his fingers into Rozanov’s hair and twisted, curls springing messily between knuckles, and used them as an anchor to force his face in harder. “Prove it.”

Hauled off the couch, Shane was bullied upstairs, any chance at retreat cut off by Rozanov plastered to his back, hands on his ass, his hips, his dick, his spine, his neck, his shoulders, his hair, his pecs, his belly. Hands fucking everywhere, like Rozanov had grown another four limbs in the interim of thirty-eight paces. Shane felt them all and wanted more, wanted Rozanov to sprout an extra mouth too, so he could keep the current one where it was, firmly affixed to the left side of Shane’s neck, exactly where hairline met nape, and still kiss him back.

Rozanov raced towards the bed without any deceleration, slamming Shane’s shins into the mattress and pushing him down.

“Off, off, off,” Rozanov ordered, except it was more akin to narration than a command, already tugging the borrowed pants Shane had on down to his ankles. “You’re still fucking loose, aren’t you?”

This was a big drawcard for this friends-who-fuck situation, having a multiple-rounds kind of day, for sure. He could have handled Rozanov thrusting straight in, right now, no more prep than a whisper of lube. It would’ve stung, but only in the good way. He knew that pain from experience, from the occasions when Rozanov had fucked him in Montreal and left him wanting to repeat it immediately, when he’d driven home and pulled out a dildo for a solo round two, and used the ache to pretend it wasn’t shameful.

He folded himself backwards, into Prasarita Balasana, and heard Rozanov’s knees collapse to the floor.

He’d better not use a sore knee as an excuse if he loses tomorrow, Shane thought, before tongue kissed his hole, and the arousal spread from his dick to his ass to his gut to his brain, and he stopped thinking about tomorrow. That’s how it normally went with Rozanov. That’s why his resolutions to stop always failed.

Saliva oozed downwards, mixing with the hand Rozanov was using to cup Shane’s balls, and from time-to-time, assess his desperation by squeezing his dick. “You fucking want it, don’t you?”

“Yes. Fuck. Yes, please.”

“So desperate.” He dived back in for more, more circling, more licking, more ass flesh grabbed more tightly in his spare hand.

Shane knew the rules of this game, after all these years, and knew that begging, categorically, was not losing. Begging was a step he took on the way to winning. “Please. Fuck, please, please, fuck me already.”

“Hmm. I am still deciding,” Rozanov murmured. “I am not sure you want it enough.”

“I do, I do, I do, I do,” Shane repeated, whining continually, constantly, his rapacity a hair-trigger away from pinning Rozanov down and sitting on his cock, until Rozanov had one hand on his hip and was pushing in; not fast, but not hesitant. Like he knew Shane would never say ‘stop,’ and Shane honestly couldn’t think of a scenario where he would.

He fucked Shane like that, bent forward with his heels under his hips, and it felt so fucking good. He fucked Shane with his hips hauled up, licking and kissing every muscle on his back and leaning a shoulder down to obey Shane’s vociferous pleas to touch his cock, and it felt so fucking good. He fucked Shane standing, one foot on the bed, wrapping his arms around Shane’s chest, their necks twisted so they could attempt some imitation of kissing – tricky when Shane was panting with want and Rozanov kept cursing, first in English, then Russian, so both their mouths were too preoccupied to properly coordinate – his dick hard up against Shane’s prostate and his hands on Shane’s nipples, and it felt so fucking good. He fucked Shane face-to-face on the bed, one leg thrown over his shoulder, and Shane’s hands touching every part of Rozanov that he could reach, his dick blood-hot and screaming, and the rising rising rising ended with a sharp, steep peak that took Shane by surprise, his back arching and his free leg jackknifing around Rozanov’s thighs and his hips stuttering of their own accord. So fucking good.

Rinsing off in the shower, after, Shane considered that sex with Rozanov lasted way longer when they’d already come three times that day. This friends-who-fuck deal augured well.

“Here,” Rozanov said, throwing him a plastic-wrapped toothbrush head as they traded places between shower and sink.

He put the handle on the charging cradle and pulled the head off when he was done. Two toothbrush heads, standing side by side on the porcelain edge. He stared at them for a moment. His was banded with green, Rozanov’s with purple. Green and purple. Green and purple. Hollander and Rozanov. Easy: both in alphabetical order. That’s how he’d remember in the morning.

Towels in the basket, body under the sheets. The bed was definitely on the who-fuck side of the demarcation. Shane was hoping that extended to Rozanov’s body being wrapped around him while he slept. He hadn’t thought he’d like that, until seven hours ago when he’d woken enveloped in heat and a soothing crush.

“You want a phone charger?”

Someone should make a statue of Rozanov, and they should make their sketches in this position: standing naked in the bathroom doorway, lit only from the linen lampshade by Shane’s right ear, cheeks still flushed from sex but his dick demurely limp, shower spray clinging to tendrils of hair. Shane had met models and actors and a whole array of beautiful people and no one, male or female, held a tiny tea-light candle to Rozanov.

But, like, obviously he wasn’t going to say that. Who said that to their friends?

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Rozanov ferreted in the other bedside drawer and threw a cable out. While Shane was stretched to plug it in, Rozanov slipped into the sheets and wrapped himself around Shane’s back and Shane was so fucking pleased. He hit the lamp switch and smiled into the dark.

“You need anything? Water? Special fucking … what is it? Lavender oil?”

“What the fuck?”

“I don’t know! Helps you to sleep or something. That is a no?”

“Do you even have lavender oil?”

“I have InstaCart.”

“No. No fucking lavender oil.”

He could feel Rozanov’s mouth against his skull. Not kissing, just: there. “I thought you might be fussy bedtime sleeper. Like a baby.”

“Fuck off.”

“Mmm, no.” Rozanov pulled him in, and not to be beaten, Shane entwined his ankle between Rozanov’s feet.

“Thanks for letting me stay.”

As soon as the words came out, he knew what he was in for. Even to his own ears, it sounded like he was saying goodbye to Mrs. Wright after he’d stayed the night for Campbell’s ninth birthday party sleepover. “God, Hollander, always so fucking polite. You are so boring, you put me to sleep.”

“You don’t sound very asleep.”

An obnoxiously ostentatious faux-snore rumbled in his left ear. He jabbed an elbow backwards, and Rozanov pinned him tighter, and that’s how he fell asleep, still smiling.

Lily

22 Oct 2016 at 8:55PM

Lily

you only won because I fucked my knee dropping to the floor

Shane

I fucking KNEW you’d try and pull that excuse.

Next time, try watching game tape on the treadmill.

It’s what winners do.

Chapter 2

Lily

28 Oct 2016 at 7:26AM

Lily

https://espn.com/nhl/2016-10-25/can-hollander-drag-montreal-to-threepeat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

Shane

Where did you even learn that?

Lily

I am very educated

you know this

Shane

Do I?

Lily

you are so mean

after all the ways I have learned to make you 🍆💦

I studied hard (((((

Shane

So you’re telling me: you look at Wikipedia while we’re in bed?

That’s just poor manners.

Lily

😂

you, always with the manners

He locked his phone reflexively when he saw Gagnon stand and stretch across from him. The rest of the team was making similar sluggish moves, the practiced unhurry of people who’d spent far too much time travelling to bum rush when boarding was announced. J.J. used the opportunity to announce, at a volume audible to all of gate E68 (they were flying commerical today, a fuck-up with the charter plane, to communal disgust), that he was going to squeeze in a piss so he didn’t have to entrap himself in a closet stuffed full of everyone’s protein farts on the plane.

Shane watched a woman touch her husband on the wrist and scamper off the bathroom as well. Good call. He’d already been, as part of his own personal flight routine.

His next step was to unzip his duffle and confirm, for the fourth time, the presence and location of his passport, charging cable, headphones, and spare underwear. His luggage had been delayed a dismaying number of times, and he knew, from unfortunate experience, that these were the true requisites (he held a longstanding vendetta against American Airlines, and had enforced a symbolic small-scale boycott against them. It consisted of himself, his dad, and his mom (except when she really had no other option)).

Aberrations in his routine normally made him deeply uneasy, like the volume dial of his veins had been bumped up. Texting with Rozanov wasn’t an existing step, but he enjoyed this particular aberration. His regular routine was optimized around minimizing discomfort and stress. This new addition made him chuckle. And none of the standard steps gave him the whole-body glow of making Rozanov laugh. Or send a laugh emoji. Was Rozanov actually laughing? Maybe just a smile. Whatever. Both felt fucking good.

He’d done his research from the safety of his apartment after they’d flown home on the Saturday night after they beat – no, destroyed – Boston 2–1. While friends-who-fuck had a certain, brutally honest, je ne sais quoi to it, Shane learned that the common term was friends-with-benefits. He found it disappointingly unspecific (being friends with, say, Hayden had benefits too: a friendship-by-proxy with Jackie, hanging out with the Pike kids, becoming a godfather, an unspoken agreement to never discuss what was happening behind the hotel bathroom door when either of them took twenty-minute showers, someone he could trust not to spike his sugar-free pop with tequila at bars (something he couldn’t say for all of his teammates)), but the advantage of conventional terminology was knowing what to Google.

There were enough magazine listicles and forum posts and YouTube explainers on the topic of how to handle being friends-with-benefits that Shane had pulled out his glasses and a notepad, and made himself a list of rules. Rules were good. Rules told him what was and wasn’t allowed, and, thus, how to behave so he wouldn’t fuck this up. Rules gave him the framework to succeed or to fail, rather than flounder in the murk of not-knowingness.

1. Prioritize friendship: a day will come when you stop the ‘benefits,’ but that doesn’t mean you have to lose a friend.

2. Jealousy not allowed: unless you’ve had a conversation about monogamy, expect that your friend is seeing other people. But neither of you should brag about other hook-ups; that’s rude.

(Shane had thought about “Hot women,” and about “There is a girl here I like very much,” and wondered if those were instances of breaking the rules. He decided they were, and that that was why they’d made him sick with discomfort. It couldn’t have been jealousy, because Shane had always been extremely aware that Rozanov fucked around. A new woman every night, in every city, if the internet was to be believed).

1. Limit your encounters: don’t let a more complicated relationship creep up on you because your friend is around every night. Limit it to no more than a night or two per week.

2. Stay honest: if you catch feelings, it’s time to be brutally straight with yourself and your friend. FWBs have expiration dates, this is the signal it’s time to step up or step away.

3. Don’t stop looking for love: if your friend is the reason you don’t answer the door when romance comes knocking, that’s not a benefit. That’s closing yourself off to the opportunity to meet the love of your life.

They were pretty much nailing it. Though he wasn’t exactly hunting for her, Shane assessed he was still open to the idea of meeting the love of his life, and that the fact of Rozanov wouldn’t stop him when he did.

She’d be funny and clever. Probably loved hockey, probably could talk hockey stats and history and gossip with him. Or if she didn’t, she’d be interested to learn (it’d be a frustrating life for both of them if they couldn’t share hockey). He’d find her beautiful, whether in a conventional way, or in her own individual twist on it. She was probably driven, and successful in her own sphere of expertise. That’s how she would get him, and he would get her.

He wanted that recognition more than a white-picket fence kind of life, two-kids-and-a-dog-and-a-Canada-Strong-pass. An eye caught across a room, the promise of a laugh and a debrief later on. I see you. I get you.

His seat assignment today was 27F. 27F. Frank Mahovlich, number 27. Frank Mahovlich. Frank. Got it.

The rest of the Metros were almost on the jet bridge, but Shane was keeping vigil by J.J.’s unaccompanied bag. He didn’t know whether they were all breezily uncautious about the risks of airport terrorism, smuggling, and thievery; or if they took individualism to its natural conclusion that the consequences would be J.J.’s bad; or if they assumed Shane would act as mother hen. He truly didn’t mind. But he wondered what it’d be like, to live his life like that.

“Un gros merci,” J.J. clapped his shoulder.

“Pas de souci.”

He wandered down the aisle – Frank, Frank, Frank – past business travellers and couples and the coaching and training staff and their wranglers – Frank, Frank, Frank Mahovlich – and half his team, already headphoned up and watching television shows or their footage from last night or any of the other games that’d played while they scraped a win against Tampa Bay: Nashville–Anaheim, Washington–Edmonton, Boston–New York (Boston had won, two points to Rozanov), or old Montreal–New York games, in preparation for tomorrow. Frank Mahovlich, number 27.

Hayden stood and let Shane in, shuffling past 27D and the empty 27E to the window seat. Frank Mahovlich. He could forget that mnemonic now, though he wouldn’t. The passport, charging cable, headphones, and spare underwear were checked for the fifth time. He extracted the middle two, plus his notepad and pen, and rezipped his duffle. Hayden picked it up and stowed it without a word or a glance. Another ‘benefit’ of being his friend.

“Yo.” J.J. poked his head over from the row behind, jostling Hayden’s shoulder to get him to pull his headphones off. “Plan is to head out at six. Bar and then food.”

“And then another bar,” Shane added. Not because he was in the loop already. He just had experience with how this’d go.

“Maybe,” J.J. shrugged. Definitely. “You guys in?”

“I am, fuck yeah.”

He didn’t begrudge Hayden for it. He’d had a goal and an assist last night that deserved to be celebrated.

“Ah, maybe.”

“Maybe, maybe, always ‘maybe.’”

From the other guys, Shane was sometimes unsure if it was mocking. But this was J.J., who knew ‘maybe’ meant ‘no,’ but always asked, just in case today was one of the rare times when Shane said yes. He’d asked J.J. once, after he was totally sure they were friends, if he minded that Shane almost never came out with him, and he’d actually stopped and thought about it. Which made Shane believe him when he said that he enjoyed Shane’s company, but only when Shane wanted to hang out. When he came out of obligation, J.J. said it was like “trying to keep a conversation going with a sleepwalker.”

“Fuck off.”

“Ah, but you loooooooove me,” J.J. sang, ruffling Shane’s hair. Hayden was already tuned back into the third episode of Wolf Creek (he wasn’t allowed to watch it at home, which Shane found quietly hilarious).

There was just enough time to watch three games on the flight, if he started before take-off and cut out any ad breaks. He decided to start with last season’s Montreal–New York, to remind him how they’d won; then last night’s Monteal–Tampa Bay, to review for new strengths and weaknesses; and he’d finish with last night’s Boston–New York. To check how New York was looking this season, yes, but also as a bit of a treat. A sugar-free, fat-free dessert, like it always was, to watch Rozanov on the ice.

He didn’t see Rozanov’s assist in the second period until they were over Pennsylvania, a gorgeous dangle where he deked a shot on goal, corkscrewed two-seventy, and passed it backwards to an undefended Carmichael. Shane had done right by saving this game until last: he never would’ve studied the other games if he’d seen this first, just replayed it and replayed it, alternating between a smile and a frown.

He wasn’t the only Metro who’d been entranced by Rozanov’s dynamism and finesse (the deke, in particular, was magic-trick perfection: even on replay, Shane was so sure it’d been slapped towards the net). At Chelsea Piers, straight from LaGuardia, all luggage present and accounted for, his passport, charging cable, headphones, and spare underwear stored and checked for the sixth, seventh, and eighth times, Shane imitated that pass in the downtime between drills, ice rubbling under his blades as he spun and stopped and spun and stopped. When he rested and reset, he saw Andropov and Koch and Wilson attempting the same pastiche. Number 27, Frank Mahovlich, still rang uselessly in his head.

They were all talk about Rozanov’s pirouette in the locker room: “Fuckin’ fluke,” and “Ballet fag.” Shane knew it was because they couldn’t pull it off themselves. He judged the ones who hadn’t even tried more harshly than those who had and had failed, but kept his mouth shut. He rationed his words in the locker room beyond anodyne platitudes. Since U-13s he’d learned not to offer advice or demonstrations, not unless he was asked. That was something show-offs did. Show-offs didn’t build camaraderie, team spirit. Show-offs were vainglorious. Show-offs had targets painted on their backs, show-offs ate alone, listening to the banter of their teammates from two tables over.

But if that was true: why did Boston adore Rozanov so much?

Rozanov’s bluster seemed to override all the social conventions that Shane had fought so hard to learn and obey. No one likes a show-off. Bluntness is off-putting. Neediness makes people uncomfortable.

In service of that last one, Shane adhered to a strict rule to not double-text without an intervening period of at least three hours. Rozanov had already broken that rule four times today, and Shane wasn’t uncomfortable in the slightest.

Lily

28 Oct 2016 at 8:48AM

Lily

have you watched my assist yet?

maybe you should save it for the hotel room

was very sexy

28 Oct 2016 at 9:35AM

Lily

boarding now

too bad I cannot stay one more night in New York

I would like to watch second-best player try to copy my move

and console you afterwards 😉

28 Oct 2016 at 12:19PM

Lily

watched your game

did someone put rocks in your skates or something?

why so slow?

28 Oct 2016 at 4:52PM

Lily

🥱🥱🥱

borrrrrrrrrred

send me pic when practice is done

locker room, shower, hotel room, I am not picky

Shane

No way. You won’t delete it.

Lily

I will

I will be so good 😇

Shane

No you won’t.

Lily

this is true

you are the good one

Shane

Aren’t you at warm ups anyway?

Lily

rinks have bathrooms

did you not know this?

Shane

Fuck off.

Lily

ohhhhh you did not

this explains why you always look like you are holding on to a piss at centre ice

Shane

Fuck you.

Asshole.

Lily

is like this:

😠

“Lobby at six, boyos!” Comeau shouted. “Beers, then steak!”

Fantastic, Shane thought. One night in New York, one of the great culinary capitals of the world, and these guys were going to spend it with the same PBR and Great Plains-raised steak they could – and did – eat in any city in America. When he was feeling uncharitable, sometimes he fantasized about taking them to a vegan dégustation and filming it.

“You coming Hollzy?” Berkes nudged him.

“Ah, probably not.”

“Booooooo!” J.J. yelled, in good jest. It didn’t entirely distract him from the rolled eyes elsewhere in the room.

A jock went flying through the air and hit Couillard on the neck. “You still skipping too, Coo-Coo?”"

“I told you, I have plans.”

“Booooooo!” J.J. yelled again.

“These two are are gonna stay in and jerk each other off.”

“No, we’re gonna FaceTime your mom,” Shane snapped back.

“Leave me out of this, please,” Couillard begged, as another jock sailed past and landed by his bench. Poor kid. Shane had banned the worst of the old hazing rituals, but maybe there was a grain of truth in the notion that they toughened you up. More likely, they just hardened you into the kind of douchebag who thought it was the height of hilarity to shit in a bag, freeze it, and button it into some nineteen-year-old’s duvet to thaw out overnight.

On the bus he slid into the seat across the aisle from Couillard. This wasn’t the sport, or the team, or the moment for heart-to-hearts, but he thought at least they could present a united front against the mediocrity of overpriced flash-frozen steaks.

Lily

28 Oct 2016 at 5:27PM

Shane

What was the worst hazing you’ve seen at Boston?

Lily

just Boston?

Shane

Or anywhere, I guess.

Lily

hmmm

Boston, they used to put your clothes at centre ice while you showered

or Tiger Balm in the jock

Shane

lol yeah they did that here too.

Lily

was worse in KHL

Shane

What kind of worse?

Lily

really bad kind of worse

like that rumor about Edmonton

Shane

Ah, fuck.

Lily

did not happen to me

what about Montreal?

Shane

Worst I’ve seen was the frozen turd in the bed.

Lily

ah, yes

here it was called ‘shit the bed’

they used to get us drunk first

and in the morning try to convince us it was our own shit

Shane

Same here.

Lily

you do not allow it any more, yes?

Shane

No, it’s banned.

Lily

same

Shane

I think if they weren’t hockey players, some guys would be on their third prison sentence.

Lily

true

The floodgates of texting with Rozanov had been opened after he’d complained about banging up his knee. Shane really liked it. Probably too much. Not because it was wrong or anything, to text your friend. Just … the Rozanov of it all, the weirdness of being friends with another team captain. Of that team captain, specifically.

J.J. and Hayden were great for commiserating about the stressful tedium of roadies, and the inane stupidity of their teammates; but he couldn’t unload his frustrations with his own performance on them, or the soul-draining weariness of spending his spare time using his face to flack cologne. Not without reminding them that he had different standards for himself and them, or without rubbing it in that he was a more valuable commerical quantity. His mom was great for gossiping about the ineptitude of other teams; but he couldn’t complain to her about his schedule without insinuating he was ungrateful for her efforts, both in how she’d positioned him to be marketed, and for all the sacrifices she’d made to support him before he was drafted. He loved his dad unconditionally; but he defaulted to stoicism and aphorisms about gratitude instead of leaning into the joy of griping, whereas what Shane really wanted was to unburden himself.

With Rozanov, he didn’t feel like he had to diminish himself or his accomplishments or his frustrations to fit the audience. If Rozanov thought Shane was being an entitled egotistic prick, he’d just laugh about it. He didn’t have a leg to stand on on that count, anyway.

In the obstreperous clamor of twenty two-hundred pound men plus their retinue disembarking – carry-ons and suitcases and equipment all over the pavement, knees meeting funny bones, the back of Berkes’ backpack swung into Miitka’s face, Schneider stampeding back up the aisle against the flow of traffic to check he hadn’t left his earbuds in the seat pocket – Shane could hear plans being made to start the night with tequila shots and beer chasers. He considered telling Drapeau that his save percentage diminished, on average, four points for games played after he’d drunk tequila. He had six years of data to back it up, but Drapeau was not much of one for data-driven decisions. If he was, perhaps he’d note the correlation between Jägermeister and blow-out telephone fights with his girlfriend. At 2am. Shane had a lot of empathy for Chantal.

“What’re your plans tonight?” he asked Couillard as they shuffled down the aisle.

“You know Janmark?” Shane assumed that was rhetorical. He hoped it was rhetorical. “We used to billet together. I— we— when we play New York, we normally get dinner.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he’s really good, right?”

Shane wouldn’t go that far. Janmark was adequate. He’d never make the Olympic team, and the tendency for his knee to wobble and crash down whenever he fell presaged more than one season lost to ACL reconstructions before he retired. Still, no one liked a show-off.

“Yeah, sure. He’s looking great.”

Couillard looked well-pleased with that. Shane promptly forgot about it entirely (he could wipe that slate clean, but Frank Mahovlich was the earworm that stuck), until a wrangler had extracted his luggage from the pile, he’d signed a handful of autographs, posed for some photos, been reminded of their 11am rink departure time tomorrow, and trundled into the lobby to join the elevator queue.

“Hey Cap?” It was absurd for a twenty-year-old, five-ten, one-ninety pound defender to look so meek, but Couillard pulled it off with aplomb. “Would you like to come to dinner with us?”

“Oh. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

Couillard gushed: “Oh, no way, dude. Not at all. We’d be so … it’d be so cool if you came.”

Ugh. About the only upside to this Shane could see would be a minimization of the masturbatory jokes sent in his direction tomorrow. And they wouldn’t even be particularly off base, given he’d have the room to himself until Hayden came back. Plus he’d been looking forward to lying back and watching Boston host Detroit. Separately. To the jerking off. Mostly.

It was all downside, except for the idea of wiping the tentative hope off Couillard’s worshipful baby face, and the lack of immediately available excuses. Ah, fuck. “I mean, sure? If that’s really n—”

“No way! I’m so pumped! Oh, man, Trav’s gonna fuckin’ piss himself.”

Fantastic. It just got better and better.

Against all odds, it did, in fact, get better. First it got worse: Shane fucking detested this hotel. They were only on the seventeeth floor, not high enough to escape the noise from Times Square that buzzed through the shittily soundproofed windows (in Manhattan, a hotel skimped on the external soundproofing? Seriously?) and the LEDs from a multi-storey ad for Honda burning outside were bright enough to read the tagline with his eyes closed. The sole method of accessing the only two power outlets was to drag the nightstand forward, revealing a tapestry of dust, pockmarked by other travellers’ fingerprints. The blankets were a hideous polyester that made his throat fuzz over whenever he touched them, and if there was a fire in a six-floor radius, the blanket would probably spontaneously ignite and immolate Shane before the alarm even sounded (assuming, that is, that the smoke detectors worked. He had his doubts). Then the press of fans asking for selfies outside ate up his remaining reserves of patience, and replaced them with a self-loathing sense of ingratitude. And, finally, it took twenty-four fucking minutes to be chauffeured a mile and a half.

From the position of this incredibly low, practically subterranean, bar, he was mightily relieved that Janmark didn’t literally piss himself. The restaurant was a delightful surprise: a softly-lit, muted affair, serving organic whole-food Korean dishes. And, as a final karmic repayment, it turned out Janmark was participating in Sober October, so there were no plans to get wasted.

He considered if it would be feasible to curl up and sleep here, on the firm and plushly upholstered back banquette, with a mug of jasmine tea and a midnight snack of tteokbokki, instead of returning to the hotel. Or, more accurately: if he could swing it without having his photo taken or an employee posting about it online. First time for everything.

Mercifully, Couillard and Janmark were like ripcord-powered motorized toys. All that was required was to occasionally say something like: “How did you two meet?” or “What’s your favorite memory of Connecticut?” or “How’d you spend your summer?” and they’d be off, skittering across the floor, diversions and tangents and memories and subplots branching away with tales of fraternal love and the eternal bonds of youth.

A fan approached, almost supplicant, to sheepishly request a picture with Janmark. And then a picture with Shane and Janmark. And then a picture with Shane and Couillard and Janmark. The boys chewed his ear off about how long they’d been friends, what a pleasure it was to be able to catch up with each other, how they loved playing against each other, how Couillard was always invited to spend Thanksgiving in Nebraska with Janmark’s family, while Jaxon followed along (“with an x,” he’d explained before they signed autographs, and Shane had had to swallow his judgement of Jaxon’s parents), wide-eyed and eager, and leaning on the unused chair, not so subtly hoping for an invitation to sit down and join them.

Shane didn’t open the message from J.J. until Jaxon left, in case it was a photo of Mitty mooning the camera (there was precedent for that possibility), or J.J. ratting out Comeau’s occasional coke indulgence (again: precedent), or a super-secret strategic plan to knock the league’s socks off (he wished there was precedent), or anything else that Jaxon could see and sell to TMZ or PuckGoss or just post on the internet for a shot at converting virality into a podcast interview into media currency. None of that. It was a photo of J.J. with his arms around Vaughan and Andersson, beers clutched in hand, too-white veneers all over the place. Look who we found, J.J. captioned it.

Given it was 8:15pm and they were quite clearly still at the first bar, Shane suppressed his initial urge to ask if anyone had consumed actual food yet and responded with a simple thumbs up. Then he took a peek at the scores. Boston were down 0–1. He considered texting Rozanov, but decided that he didn’t want to be the motivational catalyst for a second-period surge.

The night dragged on. And on. He made promises to himself to stay until 9:30pm, when he could tell the boys he wanted to squeeze in a quick workout before bed. If he left then, he’d be able to manage both a half-hour on the treadmill during Boston’s third period, and a pre-bed jerk off before Hayden came stumbling back. Shane “Efficiency” Hollander. If only the world knew the truth.

Another text pinged through, lighting up his phone screen at 9:27pm. Fuck it, that was close enough. He made his excuses – received with unrestrained awe at his discipline, like it was difficult to tear himself away from Janmark and Couillard’s company, and untrammelled gratitude that he’d deigned to spend time in their presence – and made his escape. In the car, he read the message from his dad.

David Hollander (Dad)

28 Oct 2016 at 9:27PM

David Hollander (Dad)

I saw a good one tonight

The Best Nanny Dog | Unlikely Animal Friends

Look: Shane knew he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. For the most part, he was intelligent primarily by comparison, surrounded by men with underdiagnosed head trauma who’d passed each year of high school only thanks to the thumbscrews their hockey coaches had put on their school’s administration, desperate to shore up their superstar athlete’s position in next year’s team. He’d seen Stedlund pull out the calculator app to divide twenty-two in half. Jesus wept.

So while he may have been Einstein incarnate in the confines of their locker room, Shane knew he was, probably, a pretty average guy when it came to off-ice smarts. He’d treated academics as a minor, regretful, distraction to be endured in between practices, and his grades had reflected that. The unflinching high standards he held himself to when it came to hockey only extended as far as never actually failing to complete an assignment: submitting something, anything, on paper had been his definition of success.

Still, it shouldn’t have taken his neurons so long to piece together the opportunity that fate was flinging in his face.

It was only because Boston were still on the ice that he adhered to his initial plan to hit the gym, though he was sufficiently excited that he went too hard on the treadmill at first, not realizing he needed to dial it back until he stopped to watch Rozanov’s celly and found himself panting for breath. His footsteps pounded out a rhythm, and the rhythm was: Frank Mahovlich, Frank Mahovlich. When the Raiders had clinched it, 2–1, he cancelled the preprogrammed warm-down and hotfooted it back up to the seventeenth floor, where he could watch Rozanov’s hallway interview in privacy. If he happened to think of the resplendent sheen of sweat on Rozanov’s neck and the way his lips were flushed red and his helmet-flattened hair when he jerked off in the shower, that was a matter between him and God. He made sure to direct the shower spray all over the tiled floor so it wasn’t also a matter between him and the Westin’s housekeeping staff.

And then, with only minor unease, he pressed the telephone icon next to his ‘Lily’ contact for the first time ever.

He was more than half-expecting a voicemail message, but he hadn’t anticipated laughing out loud at the bluntess of Rozanov’s words, I will never listen to your voicemail, and he had to hang up in a hurry before the recording tone sounded.

The message was half-composed (Hey, no rush, but I want to talk to you about something. Can you give me a call wh) when his phone lagged for a blink, also needing to brace itself for the grand occasion of his first ever incoming call from Lily.

“Hey.”

“What is wrong?”

“What?”

“You called me.” He was using a tone Shane had heard Jackie use when she was explaining to Ruby, for the ninth time, that they couldn’t go swimming because the pool was closed. That is: Shane could hear the suppressed expletives. “You have never called me. Are you dying? Is it the end of the world?”

“Shit. Sorry. No, it’s not … I just had a — a thought? An idea. I can call later?”

“Fuck.” A brief interlude of Russian, a brief interlude of resolution to learn at least the Duolingo basics. “Okay. What is this big idea, Hollander?”

“Where are you? You’re not still …” in the locker room? In front of a camera? Anywhere someone could hear him use Shane’s name?

“Is fine. In, ah, assistant coach’s office. Just me.” And then, Shane didn’t need a video feed to know what Rozanov’s face was doing, how it was transformed into arch carnality. “Do you need me? Did you watch me win and think: ‘I cannot sleep without thinking about Rozanov’s dick?’”

“Fuck off, okay. It’s not like that.” Except it would be, now. Fucking asshole. “Lots of guys have friends on other teams, right?”

In the long pause, Shane wished he had video called, so he could try to parse whatever Rozanov’s face was doing right now. Not that it often betrayed many clues Shane was able to interpret. “I mean … yes? Wh—”

“J.J. and Vaughan, Couillard and Janmark, Michaelson an—”

“Breezy, Connors and Maloney,” Rozanov continued. “I know this, yes.”

“Okay, so what if you and I did that? Started being, like, friends? In public? It wouldn’t be a huge deal if anyone ever saw us together, we wouldn’t have to sneak around, we—”

“I think it would be pretty weird if they saw how you drop to your knees for me.”

“Shut up. I don’t mean that, I mean, like: talking. Calling. At each others’ houses. This rivalry thing: it was everyone else who said we hated each other off the ice. There’s no rule that says we have to keep doing that forever.” Shane stared outside, past the blinding billboards and down at the streets below. “It was nice. Hanging out, last time.”

He knew what it looked like when Rozanov shut down, when he closed himself off and pushed the world away. He’d finish the conversation abruptly, curt, clipped, and retreat. So Shane knew he’d won when Rozanov finally answered with: “Are we six years old, Hollander? Asking if I want to play in sandbox with you?”

Chapter 3

Considering the tremendous weight of what had come before: the league’s marketing, the advertising campaigns, the podcasts, the think pieces, the media commentary, the pressers, the unhinged fan takes, the uninformed opinions of their teammates, five years of All-Stars games, every award they’d both been nominated for, the scoring races, all of it; it took surprisingly little effort to unmake their enmity. One phone call, two Instagram posts, four comments, and a half-day in Toronto. Wham, bam, nothing to it.

The public had, predictably, eaten it up with a spoon. None more so than the Metros, who offered to coach Shane in the intricacies of Mario Kart, despite the fact he was better than all of them, and that it’d be a more significant weight off his mind if they practiced their fucking passing instead.

When they were both scheduled to play in Toronto, two nights apart, Shane arranged to delay his flight eight hours, and Rozanov arranged to arrive six hours early. They met at The Hospital for Sick Children, laden with jerseys and ball caps and Sharpies, and tailed by some local press plus the photographers from the Metros’ and Raiders’ charity divisions. He always felt awkward and stilted making conversation with kids whose surname wasn’t ‘Pike,’ but Rozanov was such a natural that Shane was able to slip in sideways, expanding the archways left open when Rozanov asked about the kids’ favorite sports and teams and books and movies, putting them in hysterics when he pretended he’d never even heard of baseball. Shane and the giggling kids mimed it out for him, over protestations that these Canadians were playing a practical joke with this fake sport.

Beyond the hated brother, Shane had no idea about the rest of Rozanov’s family. Did he have young siblings? Nieces and nephews? Would he bite Shane’s head off for asking? He decided not to get the answer to that while they were standing in front of four cameras and the children from the long-stay ward.

The pinnacle of the day had been the much-fêted face-off. Their characters were chosen by applause-o-meter from the crowd of kids: Donkey Kong for Shane, Yoshi for Rozanov. There was never any question that they were playing to win: Koopa shells and banana peels were deployed plentifully and strategically, to the high-pitched screams of their audience. Rozanov tried to kick the controller out of Shane’s hands when he lagged behind in the final lap (Shane heard one kid solemnly say: “Mom said we’re not allowed to do that”), but Shane fought valiantly on, and was declared the victor. One of the nurses brought out a cardboard crown as his prize, which fucking delighted Rozanov. He took a selfie of them for Instagram, and insisted Shane wear it.

As they’d always planned, the loser donated $100k to the SickKids Foundation, and the winner got to announce they’d match it. In a carefully choreographed act of nonchalance within earshot of the freelancer sent from the Toronto Star, Rozanov quietly admitted it’d been fun, and Shane asked if he was interested in going to get a coffee. It took a Herculean effort not to stare at Rozanov’s lips while he sipped his flat white – at an outdoor table, for maximum publicity – and, despite Shane’s misgivings, Rozanov also managed to restrain himself from overt innuendo for sixty minutes. Instead they had talked of the Western Conference, of how they always seemed to have a day off in St. Louis and never in California, of the Cardinals, of why America was good at women’s soccer and terrible at men’s, of the other sports they’d played as kids. He only thought about kissing Rozanov every two minutes. It was a triumphant success, surreptitiously papped and added to the Star’s write-up as a gossipy sidebar.

The league was silent until the fans’ frenzy reached fever-pitch: a BuzzFeed article listing nineteen speculative ideas of what Hollander and Rozanov might have talked about, and then they pounced with a video on the official NHL accounts, highlighting inter-team friendships across the league. His PR agent forwarded a list of promotional requests a mile long.

The Metros viewed the whole thing as a baffling imbroglio. Hayden, bless him, acted as the inadvertent Good Samaritan by asking Shane in the locker room what they’d actually talked about, spinning off Miitka on a rant about the paucity of soccer development (“No! Not ‘soccer,’ futbol!”) in North America. Shane figured that, plus smashing Rozanov into the boards next time they played would be enough to bring them around from considering their friendship a mésalliance.

In the intervening four weeks before Boston came to Montreal, they’d talked on the phone twice more. First to quiz each other about what the fuck was going on with Filipov, who they’d both just watched, in separate cities on separate couches and on separate screens, fucking steamroll a linesman to the extent he’d had to be stretchered off. Rozanov thought he had anger issues. Shane thought he had drug issues. They both thought he was wildly overpaid for doing a fat lot of fuck all. They stayed on the line with their respective televisions turned down low – Shane ignoring incoming calls from J.J. and increasingly frantic texts about some movie stars at his friend’s bar – until the game ended, and wound up listening to each other jerk off. Shane was pretty well hooked on the friends-with-benefits arrangement. It was almost a perfect night.

When Rozanov called again, weeks later, Shane had thought they were down for a repeat. Instead they had an odd conversation Shane was still unable to make hide nor hair of. Rozanov had grumbled something about “a shitty fucking day,” even though Boston had beaten Buffalo the night before, and instructed Shane to tell him all about his day. And he had meant all about: the ingredients in his smoothie, the route he’d taken for his jog, which drills he’d practiced, the weights he’d lifted. And then, when there were no more details to be mined, Rozanov said “Thanks, Hollander,” and hung up the phone.

If the opportunity came up, Shane might ask him about it tonight. Today. Tomorrow. Whatever. Any of the above: Montreal were hosting Boston, they’d flown in this afternoon, playing tomorrow, and Shane had invited Rozanov to stay with him. Both the teams’ marketing leads had colluded and made Shane and Rozanov film a promotional skit for the game featuring Shane standing at the airport holding a ‘Rozanov' sign, a bottle of Escuminac syrup tied with black and gold ribbons, and a balloon that Rozanov tied around his wrist, deadly serious, while the rest of the Raiders in the background collapsed in hysterics. Rozanov was joining the team for practice skate then coming over to “play video games.”

It was perfectly logical for Shane to be feeling nervy. He’d had friends around, yes, but never normally to stay. In his bed. After fucking. At least twice. It’d be the same level of anxiety if a woman was coming over, if he’d ended up agreeing to one of Hayden’s blind dates and developed a friends-with-benefits kind of agreement with her.

He wondered, abstractly, while he tidied away the mess that accumulated between housekeeper visits: empty vitamin bottles and scrunched up receipts and abandoned water glasses, and simultaneously pushed cushions askew and shoved a kitchen stool out of regimental alignment so it wouldn’t look as though he’d spent twenty minutes putting his apartment in display-home condition; how do people generally manage to find themselves a friend-with-benefits? Were they friends first, who had two tequilas too many and tried hooking up? Or people who dated who realized they didn’t like each other that much? Or were they like him and Rozanov, who spent enough time fucking that the incidental conversations summed into something like comfort, whereby they found themselves enjoying the pre-fuck and post-fuck moments too?

Somehow he doubted most people took quite so many years to figure it out, but, hey: most people probably slept with people in their own cities and didn’t have to cram in stolen blowjobs in between visiting forty-odd cities in a six-month stretch.

For all he was counting down the minutes, he still halfway leapt out of his skin when the intercom buzzed. “Guess who?” Rozanov deadpanned into the camera.

Shane felt … something, when Rozanov stepped in his door. Actually, he felt a great many things, because there was the same relief and renewed anticipation and hunger and bitter fear that he always felt when he saw Rozanov, and laid on top of that was some preemptive defensiveness about however his apartment was going to be mocked. It was the presence of Rozanov’s duffle bag that stirred up something Shane couldn’t identify. Something heart-stopping. Something heart-hurting.

“Shoes off? Yes?”

“Ah, yeah.”

He didn’t have to do a whole lot of talking for a while after that. Rozanov pulled him in, greedy, hunting, and Shane slotted under his arm just so, frantic now to make a mess of the bedroom he’d fluffed and smoothed and stocked with lube and a new sleeve of condoms. He tasted like he was supposed to, of a cigarette and gum, and his nose was cold but thawing rapidly. Shane led the way backwards, pulling Rozanov along by his waistband and his other hand curled around the edge of Rozanov’s face, all hard bones and blunt-edged half-day-old facial prickle. Shane shoved him on the bed, and before Rozanov had a chance to take charge – this was Shane’s house, for God’s sake, Shane’s bedroom, if he couldn’t take the lead here, when could he? – he freed Rozanov’s dick and swallowed it whole.

“Oh, my … fuck, Hollander,” Rozanov moaned, his cock stiffening into Shane’s throat, pressing hard against his soft palate and flooding his mouth with spit. Shane shoved a hand up, under a t-shirt, under a sweater, and a – Jesus, he hadn’t even let Rozanov take his jacket off. No matter, he found what he wanted: handfuls of muscle, burrs of chest hair, a pulse ticking wildly under his thumb, pressing down on the frozen strain of Rozanov’s neck. With one hand pushing him down, and one hand gripping a handful of ass, Shane let his mouth ease up, spilling saliva everywhere, dripping onto Rozanov’s jeans.

Who gives a fuck, he thought. I can wash and dry them. Because he’d staying here. With me. And even though jealousy was forbidden, he wanted to be a better fuck than Svetlana, a better friend than Svetlana, a better goddamn launderer than Svetlana. He wanted to be the one Rozanov wanted the most.

He went to town, sloppy and groaning, tight and teasing, licking and gripping and digging his fingers into delts and glutes, forcing praise out of Rozanov’s plush lips, then English curses, then lustrous, shiny Russian, the same timbre as a motherfucking medal, not even stopping after Rozanov switched back to English, pawing at Shane’s shoulders, “Off, too good,” instead sitting his knees on Rozanov’s thighs and clutching his ass in tighter, sucking his dick in further, licking it inside his mouth, letting the frantic tugs at his hair hurt, because he was Shane Fucking Hollander and he played through discomfort, he fought through pain, he’d do anything to win.

It probably wasn’t in the spirit of friends-with-benefits to feel totally sated without getting to come yourself, but, fuck it, he was. He didn’t need to come when he was dizzy off the high of making Rozanov jizz down his throat, yowling with frustration and satisfaction.

“Oh, Hollander,” Rozanov clucked, commiseratory, using a thumb to wipe the spit from Shane’s face. “You are in so much trouble.”

He’d always been a good kid, and then a good adult. It wasn’t a choice. Nothing stabbed in his gut like the knowledge he’d disappointed someone: his parents, his coaches, his teammates, and, later, his fans. The Metros’ sports psychologist said it was his superpower, how he channelled failure into discipline, and also his Achilles heel, how he didn’t grant himself the grace of a bad day. Only Rozanov knew the side of him that liked the trouble, that hungered to be disobedient, because being naked with Rozanov, behind a three-inch locked door and an access-restricted penthouse elevator button and two fob swipes to get into the building was the only circumstance where being bad didn’t disappoint anyone.

Case in point: Rozanov stripped him off and sucked his dick until he was bucking – not that that took so long – then flipped him over and teased his hole until he thought he might die from it, but that was only the beginning. Being bad meant Rozanov pulled his fingers out and sat on Shane’s back, pinning his arms down until Shane relented and told him the dildos were in the plastic box in the last drawer down on the right-hand side of his walk-in closet. Being bad meant being brought to the edge again and again, with a dildo against his prostate and Rozanov’s tongue against his cock, until he was begging, pleading, for Rozanov to just fucking hit him already, slap his face, get his punishment done so he could get his reward.

Being bad meant Rozanov held his hands down and sucked him off until he came, then immediately flipped him and pressed his face into the mattress and fucked him, his dick hardening again despite the screech of too-much-pleasure turned to pain, Shane saying words, any words, he couldn’t remember and it didn’t fucking matter so long as Rozanov kept talking back – his voice as much of the arousal as his dick, his hands, his mouth – until Shane, impossibly, came again, babbling in fucking Latin for all he knew, Rozanov’s hand squeezing the back of his neck and following with a shout of “Fuck!”

“Okay?”

“Oke,” Shane mimicked, his smile hopelessly soft. Every muscle in his body had no more strength than an overcooked noodle.

“Shower?”

“You first. It’s in … over there. You can use the … soap, and stuff. There’s … towels on th—”

Rozanov cut him off with one finger under his slack chin, tilting his face up to kiss him. “I know how to use a bathroom, Shane.”

“Fuck off.”

“Okay.” Rozanov slapped his ass on the way past. He could feel it jiggling, no tension, all goo under thin skin.

The word didn’t reach him until the rippling stopped, until the water ran through the pipes and he could hear Rozanov whistling. Shane. Shane. He didn’t know what to feel, what he should feel, but he felt it all, and didn’t want to be feeling it in front of Rozanov.

From the relative safety of one of the guest showers, the hot water evened him out without providing any kind of clarity. Shane. He called Hayden by his name. And J.J. There was no reason for this to feel shattering. Except it did, it did feel shattering, like standing on a pier and being shoved from behind into the water, his flailing limbs cracking a calm surface. Was it the name? Or was it the duffle bag standing next to his shoe rack? Or was it Rozanov’s broad, spotted back, stained with pink stigmata from where he’d stood under hot water, and his hand poking at Shane’s espresso machine in Shane’s kitchen? What was wrong here?

“Shane, I make coffee, okay?” Rozanov called to him. “Marly has the same model, I can use it. This kitchen is much better than stupid sex condo.”

“Since when do you call me ‘Shane?’”

He turned to face Shane then, as beautiful as he’d ever been, in soft flannel pants and thick ribbed socks and an aggressive, affronted lour. “Since you call me ‘Ilya.’”

A red face, a matching befuddled forehead, and an overwhelming awareness of his bare, damp feet against the heated floorboards. He was frozen in the cataclysm, wrapped in just a towel while Ilya Rozanov’s index finger hovered over the button for a long black in Shane’s kitchen. Where he ate his oats and stretched his arms over the island bench to loosen his lats. “I didn’t.”

“Ah, no, you did.” Rozanov turned back, judging the pour and rubbing at his nose. “Did I fuck you so good you forgot?”

“What?”

Shane could tell he was smiling just from the sound of his voice, just from the change in angle of the back of his ears. “Wooooooooow. Should we do concussion checks? You really cannot remember?”

“Fuck off already.”

“I will never forget. You said: ‘Please, please, Ilya,’ begging me so pretty to touch your dick.”

Now that he heard it … maybe Shane could remember something like that? The rubber bounce of -ya tripping off his tongue before he’d gasped at the touch? He mouthed it to himself, silently, searching for familiarity, matching the rounded curve of Il- and the punchiness of -ya to the expanse of bare shoulders in front of him. It seemed to fit.

“Sorry. Was that, like … was that okay? We don’t, normally …”

Rozanov tutted and rolled his eyes, but he also slid over, big dorky skating motions schwoop-schwoop with his thick socks across the floorboards, and rubbed his thumb over the half a smile it pulled out of Shane. “Moy durachok. You say ‘Please, please, Ilya,’ I do anything you want. Yes? Is okay.”

“What does that mean? That Russian word?”

“Nuh-uh. What are the magic words?”

Shane sighed. He could feel himself flushing, but he forced his eyes straight ahead and kept his chin level. “Please, please, Ilya: what does that word mean?”

Alright. He could admit it. It felt good to say ‘Ilya,’ to have the power to coax dimples out from Rozanov’s cheeks.

“I will tell you, Shane. Only this one time, because you beg so nicely for it.” Shane tried to shove him, but Rozanov caught his waist on the back-step and hauled their hips together. He kissed along Shane’s jaw, up to the lobe of his ear, and murmured: “Means ‘fool.’”

“Oh, fuck you,” Shane laughed, getting an elbow into Rozanov’s solar plexus before he stole the towel wrapped around Shane’s waist. That left him open to being pantsed, and Shane sprinted back to the bedroom while Rozanov was stuck hobbled and fumbling through the living room.

It was a Thursday, no hockey until the evening, so they played FIFA on the Xbox, an outstanding grudge match overdue since their rounds at the children’s hospital, when Rozanov had attempted to save face in defeat by declaring: “Hollander sucks at FIFA. Is true, he told me.”

“The next World Cup’s in Russia, isn’t it?”

Rozanov was toggling between Bayern Munich and Juventus, and had been for at least a solid minute. “Yes. 2018. They try to make Russia seem all modern, so friendly-friendly. Putin should not have fucked around in Crimea, now it is just a waste of money.”

He was about ninety percent sure that was the most words he’d ever heard Rozanov say about Russia. “Will you go? It’s in the summer, isn’t it?”

“Ah. Maybe? Probably. Svetlana’s father is sports minister, she will get good tickets.”

Svetlana, Svetlana, Svetlana. He had to swallow a scowl and the impulse to ask if Svetlana gave better blow jobs. “And your family? Do they like soccer?”

“No.” Rozanov stopped deliberating, and opted for Juventus. “Are you ready to go home crying?”

“I am home, idiot.”

“Good practice for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow you’ll go home crying.”

“Ah, so you do not want me to come here after the game? I should go back to hotel or the airport?” Rozanov stared him down, so infuriatingly cocky that Shane was tempted to say yes, that’s right, don’t come back here, just for the satisfaction of being contrary. “You have other people who could fuck you like that tomorrow night? Make you forget what you say?”

God, this was going to be a whole fucking thing, wasn’t it. “Maybe I do.”

“Hmm.”

Rozanov looked at him, for a long second, and Shane was sure he could tell he was lying. Then he snapped his neck back around and started the match, and Shane felt like shit about it. It was all murky, curious jealousy that he wasn’t permitted to feel, and unearned self-consciousness (he did have sex with other people, just not the stupidly prodigous quantities that Rozanov did), and the tender ache of imagining Rozanov not kissing him senseless after a game. Growing pains, he diagnosed. Figuring out how to go from people-who-fucked to friends (who fucked).

He sat on it until Ilya-Juventus had possession, making a play into Shane-Madrid’s third along the right wing. “What I meant was: when Boston loses tomorrow, you should come back here crying.”

It worked like he’d wanted it to, a split second lag when his defender could intercept the dribble and send it flying back up the pitch. “Oh, you are fucking dead, Hollander! You are such an asshole!”

“You snooze, you lose.”

“Yes, like you will sleep when I kill you.”

It devolved from there into something approaching familiarity, into puerile squabbling and shit-talking and trying to tackle each other while maintaining possession and passionate outraged rants about the referees and smug crowing and so much laughing, more laughing than the apartment had ever been witness to. Shane thought of it sinking into the walls, staining the paint like the nicotine-yellow he saw at the grosser class of hotels when he’d played in Major Juniors, recoloring his home. It didn’t feel right that Rozanov would walk out of here without leaving a sign of his presence, festooned along the cornices. Shane needed something to remind him of Rozanov’s huffs, sounding like they’d been drawn out of him forcibly, to tap the memory when he was here alone.

“I win!” Rozanov cried, arms raised in victory, despite the two times he’d paused the screen to stand and pace while he decried the artificial ref’s “fucking obvious” bias towards Madrid. “What is my reward?”

“Juventus is overpowered in this edition,” Shane sniffed. “It’s rigged.”

“You chose first! I give you the first pick, and now you say: ‘Oh, Ilya, you cheater.’ Why the fuck did you not choose Juventus?”

“I like to win fairly.”

“Bozhe moy, Hollander. Is not fucking hGH, this is Xbox. I want my reward.”

Rozanov had his hands splayed out and his shoulders up around his ears, indignant, and Shane gave serious consideration to pinning those hands down and riding Rozanov’s cock, but he landed on the other option. “Hang on, I have a present for you. Just … wait there.”

“Ah, no. Magic words.”

“What?”

“You need magic words, Shane. To boss me around, Shane.”

As sarcastic and sexless as he could make it, Shane droned: “Please, please, Ilya, sit the fuck down and stay there.”

“Hmph. Okay. I want my present now.”

In his walk-in closet, on a roll-out shelf that was probably designed for jewellery for the hypothetical woman who shared the master bedroom – Shane had never had it replaced in case he met his future wife tomorrow – the paper crown from the Hospital for Sick Children was displayed. Resplendent on mauve velvet, like a crown should be kept, regardless of its value. Which was zero. Unless he autographed it, then it’d go for a few hundred bucks.

But Rozanov knew its real value too, his eyes lighting up like Shane had walked out holding the Koh-i-Noor diamond. He would’ve liked to have taken a photo right there: the fluff of Rozanov’s curls sticking up around the base, the Scotch tape peeling along the seam, gold star stickers lining the scalloped top, Rozanov in the regal posture of a recently coronated king (missing the robe, but the sceptre replaced by an Xbox controller). It would’ve been a perfect follow-up on Instagram, if it weren’t for the fact of Rozanov’s naked chest.

“You like it?”

“Yes. Very good. Better if you’re on your knees, but … is fine.” He wobbled his hand, so-so.

Shane felt more secure in the porous boundaries of friends-with-benefits now. The switch could happen anywhere (in private), anytime (if they were alone), so long as he followed the implicit rules he’d made explicit by writing them down for himself (and then locking that notebook in his study safe, impossible for Rozanov to stumble upon and read and laugh at).

“Maybe we should work out first?” he proposed, thinking of the corona of sinking sun out the window behind Rozanov’s crowned head, and also of the post-workout shower blowjobs they’d had last time.

The first half went to plan, Rozanov on the bike, Shane on the erg, BPMs hoving around 110, but they didn’t make it to the shower. Instead, Rozanov declared he had a different idea for his victory prize, and stripped Shane down and held him steady with an arm across his chest, fingers plucking at his right nipple, and jerked him off in front of the gym mirror, both of them staring at the reflection of the clutch of knuckles around Shane’s leaking dick. Rozanov’s lips were swollen, blushed redder than Shane’s face when Shane came all over the mirror and the interlocking rubber tiles. It was intoxicating. He dropped to his knees right then, right there, cum on the floor rubbing onto his ankle, so he could keep Rozanov’s groans going, the shower too far away, too long of an interlude to survive. Wiping cum from his lips, Shane suggested they check their heart rates again, and Rozanov’s astonished laugh was worth the minor setback of ‘losing’ by three beats per minute.

The pucks dropped at 7pm. When Shane asked him if he wanted to watch Carolina–Ottawa, Rozanov gave a lip curl that made Shane chuckle, and he keyed up St. Louis–New York, like he was always planning to. They posited theories about why Scott Hunter always tanked halfway through a season: the tapering effects of off-season doping, seasonal vitamin D deficiency, shoddy recovery routines, reverse vampirism. When Shane suggested Hunter rigged results as part of a betting pool deal with mafia blackmailers, Rozanov spat a lentil clear across the coffee table.

“Was that enough to eat? Want another drink?”

Some reptilian part of his social conditioning – probably from being raised in Canada – had convinced him he should be able to offer Rozanov a beverage beyond Shane’s workaday water and Canada Dry. Another tic – this one more likely attributable to the groans of his teammates when he ordered sparkling water at bars – insisted he should stock something alcoholic. And yet another voice – this one definitely due to his parents, asking guests clustered around the kitchen “What’s your poison?” – made him buy more than one brand of beer.

There were now six cans of sugarless Coke, six bottles of Busch, and four Asahis in the fridge, plus the two open bottles collecting condensation in front of them. He wondered what the shelf-life of Coke was: did it ever expire? They’d sit in his fridge forever, or until Rozanov visited enough times to drink them all. Or until Ruby and Jade became teenagers. He liked the idea of himself as a cool uncle, taking the girls out shopping then allowing them to run riot in his apartment. He’d let them drag all the guest mattresses together, build a mattress room. When he’d been a kid, he’d always wanted to do that.

“No, I am good. Thank you for the food. Not as bad as I thought you would eat. Maybe just nice to eat something different, you know?”

Shane did know. He’d eaten this specific meal, turkey burgers with mujaddara and peppers about a thousand times. It was probably why the dinner he’d had on Rozanov’s couch had tasted so good: even if it was just chicken and rice, again, he was so inured to his own, mass-produced, specifically seasoned version of chicken and rice that arrived on his doorstep in a refrigerated box twice a week that even the slightest alteration in salt and spices made a world of difference.

He hoped he hadn’t made a fool of himself when he’d practically gawped at Rozanov making tuna melts. He’d decided long ago that balancing macros and home cooking weren’t worth the mental toll. And now he was twenty-five and could barely cook a hot dog.

“It’s okay if you need to smoke, by the way,” he said as he stood and collected their plates. “You can go on the balcony.”

Rozanov frowned. “Is this a trick? You will lock me outside all night, yes?”

“No! I just … I know you smoke. I’m trying to be a good host.”

“Shane Hollander, such an asshole he is even trying to beat me at hosting,” Rozanov tutted, one half of his crocodile grin coming out. Shane decided not to mention that he’d considered buying an ashtray for this exact moment, before determining that Rozanov would tease the shit out of him for it. He planned ahead, so sue him.

From the kitchen, he couldn’t hear the click and whoosh of the lighter, the sliding doors totally soundproofed, but he caught the moment of brief illumination. For a heartbeat, he remembered them at seventeen, the last time he’d watched Rozanov light up, and felt something nostalgic. How long it’d taken them to get to this healthy place (cigarettes notwithstanding); finally friends, finally being honest with each other.

When he returned for the final third, smelling of ash and artificial mint, Shane curled himself into a ball and nestled into Rozanov’s side. “Want a brownie?”

“Obviously. If I ever say no, take me to the hospital.”

Shane offered him the plate. He’d unwrapped them from their packaging to hide the fact they were made with avocados and quinoa flour, and the ruined taste buds from the cigarette ought to do the rest. He ate his too: the fat from dessert and the carbs from one beer were factored into his macros.

When he pictured what his life might be like when he got married, Shane had envisioned all the compromises that would need to be made to his downtime. Losing his sphere of personal space on the couch, accommodating her dinner ideas, arguing about what to watch on television. But what if it was like this? Someone else to laugh at St. Louis’ missed pass with, someone with beautiful hair he could let his fingers tangle in at the base of their neck, someone with a routine that slotted alongside his, without clashing. And then, when the game finished, someone he could straddle and kiss and fuck, right there, on the couch, before they brushed their teeth in tandem and went to bed and let their ankles interlock before they fell asleep.

J.J. had invited the whole team out clubbing after the game tomorrow. Fat fucking chance, Shane thought, watching Rozanov point at Martin’s janky slapshot with one hand, the other glued to Shane’s thigh. Like hell he’d skip another night like this.

Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

He was a complete and utter fucking fool. Rozanov had been right, when he called Shane whatever that Russian word was. Fool. Idiot. A stupid, blind moron. A stupid, blind, gay moron.

Lily

29 Jan 2017 at 8:51PM

Lily

ready??

been waiting foreverrrrrrrr 👿

Lily

hello? I saw you come in

Lily

are you ok?

Lily

????

He was not okay, he was not okay in the fucking slightest. He’d ruined his whole fucking life, had been doing it for years and years, and only now it’d caught up to him, stuck in, of all places, goddamn Florida, surrounded by people who could never ever find out what he was hiding, except for the one person who’d understand, who was, oh-so fucking conveniently, also the one person he couldn’t bring himself to face.

It was supposed to be a triumphant night. A weekend of low-key, breezy hockey and light beer; captaining his Eastern Conference team to a victory no one gave much of a shit about but would enjoy lording over the Western Conference regardless; playing not just with Rozanov for the first time ever, playing with him on the same line, flying so goddamn high, feathered wings on his skates; Rozanov everywhere he turned his head; Rozanov and him playing like they had high-powered magnets in their sticks, curving, slicing, pulling the puck between them; Rozanov smacking his lips to Shane’s helmet; Shane upping the antics by jumping onto Rozanov’s back for the next celly, letting Rozanov spin him in a circle; sneaking into each others’ rooms at night, trading kisses and blowjobs and sweat and giggles. It was supposed to be a perfect little holiday. And, of all the people he hadn’t planned for, it was Rose fucking Landry who’d ruined it, making him relax and laugh and then, casually, ending life as Shane fucking knew it.

No. That wasn’t right. He’d ruined his own life. Rose just made him see it.

It had started like this:

Back in November, while Shane lay on his couch with his phone set to speaker next to his face, watching the replay of Filipov’s attack on a linesman and listening to Rozanov try to guess how long the suspension might be (twenty-four games, in the end, though it was being appealed), J.J. was schmoozing with movie stars at his friend’s bar. He’d offered Rose game tickets, and they’d swapped numbers to keep in touch.

Back in December, while Shane was manhandling Rozanov onto his bed and wrestling for who was going to be on top, nobody crying despite Boston clinching victory from the jaws of defeat in the Bell Centre, J.J. took a scraggle of teammates out to Ciel, where he’d invited Rose too, and they’d spent the whole night dancing without leaving a whisper of space between them, giggling into each others’ ears, and bailing early, hand-in-hand.

Good for J.J. Even Shane knew who Rose Landry was. Even Shane’s dad knew who Rose Landry was (well, not her name exactly. She was “that woman from the big movie … you know, the blue chameleon. You know. She did that fantastic film when she was a kid, the one your mother loved. With the sick grandmother?” Shane had been shaking with silent laughter the entire time). J.J. was handsome, tall, fit, funny, talented, well-dressed, and well-spoken. He deserved the sudden spotlight, the slew of listicles that were really just one listicle, retitled and recycled into variations of Facts We Knew About Rose Landry’s New Hockey Beau, and tended to use adjectives like ‘dreamy,’ ‘gorgeous,’ and ‘yowza’ – a word that had an equivalent effect in Shane’s brain to the sound of rubbing polystyrene. He’d called Shane to celebrate sponsorship offers rolling in from Gatorade and New Balance, and Shane was beyond thrilled that J.J. was finally getting his chance to really shine.

J.J. had wandered around in a pinch-me daze for a week, not even bragging to the team – though they’d more than made up for it, wolf-whistles and howling and two and a half whispered homilies to her tits, before Hayden smacked Wilson on the head and reminded them all about the sanctity of the no-objectifying-your-teammates’-WAGs rule, even if the WAG in question was a movie star – too busy bent over his phone, a grin smooshed into his fist, or sprinting out of practice at the first chance he got.

Shane wanted to meet her, of course. Not because she was Rose Landry. He wanted to meet his friend’s girlfriend, he wanted to hear whether she appreciated all the quirks that endeared J.J. to Shane, he wanted to warn her about J.J.’s tendency to drool on shoulders during flights. J.J. had mentioned she was a big hockey fan, and although Shane took that with a mammoth pinch of salt, he was curious to learn whether she was a neophyte convert, a fair weather playoffs watcher, or a weekend hockey fan.

They’d been all wrapped up in each other for the remaining two weeks of December that Rose had been filming in Montreal. J.J. had said they were “busy.” Shane assumed that meant they were having sex seven times a night, and, honestly, had no desire to interrupt that, nor any of the drive-by drop-in twenty-four hour fuck-a-thons whenever Rose swung by Montreal in the new year.

To no one’s surprise, Shane was chosen in the first round of the All-Stars draft, continuing a six year streak. And thanks to common cause between NHL fans who were Rose fans, and Rose fans who were J.J.-curious, J.J. made it in on the second round. Since Rose was headed to New York for Fashion Week anyway, she decided to drop by in Florida. That was how J.J. had put it, desperately casual, like saying that sentence out loud wasn’t clearly a fucking wet dream of his.

He met her, very briefly – just one handshake in a long circuit of handshakes – on Friday evening, at the hotel bar. Directly after him, she’d been introduced to Rozanov, sitting to Shane’s left, before being whisked on to every other player and wife pretending not to be staring. He and Rozanov were sitting on stools, sipping Coronas and debating whether the NHL had put them on the same team to lean into the ‘rivals-turned-friends’ angle, or whether it’d been to see if any latent underlying friction would blow up into a quarrel once they were forced to skate together. It was a moot point of distinction: the league would make “a money-mountain out of a molehill,” as Rozanov said, to Shane’s snort-laugh delight.

The Metros were still in leery disbelief about this friendship situation, even after Shane had walloped Rozanov on the ice hard enough to leave a beautiful purple bruise on his shoulder, visible to anyone with eyes when he did his post-game press outside the locker room, fading to yellow by his next interview in Buffalo. Visible because, of course, Rozanov had faced the cameras with his obligatory boredom and obligatory shirtlessness. The cocky shit, Shane had thought, watching it on replay, remembering licking at that bruise after the game while he sat in Rozanov’s lap and fumbled with his belt.

It was a welcome change to be among a new coterie of players, ones who weren’t as threated by the off-ice cooling of their rivalry. Ones who openly goggled at them when they plonked down at the bar next to each other; or loitered close by, pretending to be fascinated by their phones, eavesdropping on Shane and Rozanov’s conversation about the IOC’s announcement that one of the 2008 Jamaican relay team had taken methylhexanamine, causing Usain Bolt to be stripped of a medal, and a comparison of their own supplement regimes; or brashly approaching them, confirming that this was, indeed, “for real,” and not just a public relations campaign the league had forced upon them.

In the wake of Rose Landry, sweeping through a crowd of ex-models and clingy arrivistes and thirty-odd hockey players who you wouldn’t think were C- and D-list famous themselves judging by their distinct lack of poise when she entered the bar, Shane and Rozanov slipped out to the players’ lounge. It was a very early dinner, but they had plans they intended to keep. As such, the only other occupants were a few families with young kids, and the too-tween-to-be-impressed-by-anything twins of Winnipeg’s defender – last seen at the bar ordering his wife a third daiquiri. Rozanov joined the twins without being invited, quizzing them on what apps were “cool,” and baiting them out of apathy by teasing their taste in video games.

Shane left first, Rozanov returning to the bar for a final beer before they rendezvoused in Shane’s room, where he’d lain stroking himself to the thought of Rozanov fucking him prone on the bed, fast and deep, with his hands roughly tugging at Shane’s hair, arching his neck backwards so his Adam’s apple bulged out and his throat constricted; until Rozanov arrived and turned fantasy to reality.

The cottage had been designed to provide Shane with the retreat of his highest fantasies: solitude, privacy, nature, access to his parents without having to live with them, the ability to tie up his skates and hit a rink whenever he pleased. Everyone else could keep their Cabo and their Bahamas and their Hamptons and Aspen, more power to them. He liked what he liked, and that was the lake, his lake, with its wind-whipped waves and its silence.

But if there was a way to build this, to extend All-Stars weekend to stretch over the length of a summer, he’d skip some time at the lake. A long deep fucked-out sleep, a casual game of three-on-three scrimmage in the morning, a half-nap-half-perve on the poolside recliner with Rozanov splashing about nearby, some peacocking and shit-talking and eye-rolling during the Skills Competition, a few drills with the Eastern Conference team – his first time sharing a jersey with Rozanov, every pass electric – a celebratory beer, even the dumb footage the league shot of him and Rozanov playing poker with Vaughan and Martinez, then a light dinner, and an ‘early bedtime’ so they could fit in multiple rounds before Shane really did want to go to bed. It was perfect. Rozanov, his friend; Rozanov, his hook-up; Rozanov, his teammate; all three were present and accessible.

J.J. had asked him, while they watched the goaltending competition, if he wanted to get dinner with him and Rose on Sunday night. “Just the three of us, hey? I want you two to meet properly, outside of all this camera bullshit.”

The restaurant served ‘a New American molecular gastronomy homage to French cuisine.’ Shane hated it on spec. The cavernous, concreted, chi-chi space and unbelievably uncomfortable chairs did the opposite of improving the situation.

He stood when Rose and J.J. approached, and held out his hand. “Hi again. I’m Shane.”

She stared at him for a moment, before she laughed and shook his hand, pulling him in for a hug. “Yeah, no shit!”

He liked her immediately, feeling relaxed at the sheer onslaught of her conviviality. Rose carried the conversation while he found his sea legs, babbling on end about what a big hockey fan she was, pretending she was ratting out J.J. to his captain for diet-related crimes when she relayed how she’d tempted him with double-cooked fries the night they met, congratulating Shane on his “like, gorgeous” goal in the game.

They’d both been born into hockey-mania, unlike J.J. who hadn’t watched a single minute of hockey before he strapped on skates for the first time at a classmate’s birthday party. She’d never played, but held season tickets in both Michigan and LA, and not only knew Shane’s cumulative points total for the season, but also how many he’d stacked up last season. J.J. stretched an arm over the back of her chair and shot Shane a look that was equal parts smugness and disbelief.

“She’s too good for you, man,” Shane said.

“Betrayal! I brought you here to talk me up!”

“The stats don’t lie.”

“Question,” Rose cut in. “Speaking of stats, J.J. says you’re the man to talk to about Corsi versus Fenwick versus xG.”

Well, she had asked. He was still explicating the preamble stage of his thesis, laying out the different circumstances in which each was useful, Rose bafflingly still paying attention – long past the point his audience normally tuned out – when the server dropped by with the soup course, announcing it with a weirdly theatrical flair involving long dramatic ellipses that Shane kept interpreting as the end of the interruption.

“A rich, chilled Yukon Gold potato soup, infused with truffles, both white and black: white truffle oil from Alba, Italy, and black truffle jus from the Périgórd region of France. …”

“Thank you. So, because t—”

“Served with a sphere of hot poached potato, cooked in our house-made butter, topped with chives and smoked sea salt. …”

“Great. Bec—”

“To consume,” the server continued, and across the table, J.J. was almost combusting with a partially successful attempt to not laugh. Rose was devotedly staring at the server, but her lips were clamped shut tightly enough that she had a hint of double-chin, “drop the hot potato into the cold, and drink the dish in one go. Bon appétit.”

“Thank you,” she managed, with great grace, then caught Shane’s eye and started giggling, which set Shane off, which set J.J. off, and all three of them had to wipe tears from their eyes before they could be trusted with eating.

“I think,” Rose said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin for non-existent traces of potato soup, “I prefer Fenwick. I like that it takes into account the effect of a strong defense: what’s the point in counting a hundred shots on goal if they go straight into the opponent’s pads?”

That wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t the whole story, and Shane bit back his first instinct to tell her she was talking out of her ass like he would in a locker room or if he were texting Rozanov (or, come to think of it, his dad). “I think that’s an understandable position for a Detroit fan.”

“Oh! Did he just call my team shot-blocking little bitches?”

“No! Th—”

“He did,” J.J. confirmed, the bastard. “That’s Hollzy-speak for ‘well done picking the only stat that makes you look good.’”

“No, I—”

“Shane.” Rose reached over and patted his hand. “They are shot-blocking little bitches, and you’re right to say it.”

Oh, she was delightful. “Where’s your loyalty, hey?”

“Isn’t it more loyal to still support them when they can’t do anything but block? Hey! Wanna trade? We could do with some star forward power …”

J.J. gasped. “Betrayal! On all sides now! You keep your mitts off my Hollzy.”

“Relax, babe. You can trade too.” She rubbed J.J.’s thigh and kissed his cheek, a matte patina of beige-brown lipstick adhering to his stubble.

Shane cleared his throat. “Anyway. Rose, where do you find the time to watch so much hockey?”

“I did this movie a couple years ago. X-Squad? Have you … “ Shane nodded. He’d seen it. He thought it was expensively produced trash, but had learned not to actually say that kind of thing after the blow-up of his friendship with Peter in Timbits. “Yeah, that one. Anyway, make-up took seven hours every day, no joke. And it turns out they only shot five seasons of Extreme Couponing – like, hello, the greatest show of all time? – so I needed a new thing to watch before I literally went insane.”

“I think she’s seen more games than you, Cap.”

“Oh, shut up. Don’t believe him, Shane, that’s an exaggeration. But I did watch a lot. A lot.”

“You’re filming the sequel now, yeah? Are you still —”

Rose slapped her hand on the table. “God, yes, more than ever. Name another sport that produces seven hours of footage every. Single. Day. And, you know, I swore to God I wouldn’t do this role again, not after I had to repaint my entire fucking house last time, but —”

“Wait, Ro,” J.J. interrupted. “So, Hollzy, Rose came to visit a few weeks ago, right, on a shooting break. And when she leaves I find these weird spots all over my house … like a blue, kinda green splodge on the walls? And I’m all like: ‘oh my fuck, I’ve got fucking mould in here, that’s so embarrassing,’ I’m calling cleaners, I’m calling exterminators, I’m calling my friggin’ mom.”

Rose buried her face in her hands and groaned. “Whenever I do these fucking movies I leave a trail of paint behind me.”

“Like Hansel and Gretel?” Shane asked, laughing.

“More like fucking Tobias Fünke.” And, when she saw that both Shane and J.J. were roaring, she quipped: “‘I blue myself!’ But, I swear, it takes seven hours to put it on, and if I had to spend another five minutes getting it off at the end of the day, I would lit-er-al-ly go postal.”

Over cotton candy foie gras, they recounted their favorite Arrested Development lines (required viewing for the Montreal locker room) and Rose described her time working on a pilot with Alia Shawkat. Over pearls of tomato reduction with caviar and two perfect conches of baby lettuce leaf per plate, J.J., doing a fine job of acting as the glue in their trio, set up Rose and Shane to compare their most deranged fan and stalker stories, and it was such a delightful relief to talk to someone who got it: the sense of guilt that came bundled alongside the bone-weary desperation to push everyone away and have just one late-night trip to Pharmaprix that didn’t require photographs. Over lamb fillet served atop a bed of lavender with a coffee mug of mushroom cappuccino, they nit-picked the Western Conference, leading Rose to a scathing diatribe on Vancouver’s pathetic penalty kills. By the time they were picking at their Chardonnay snow-cones, Shane was, to his surprise, not sick to death of being polite and gracious like he normally was after two hours making conversation. He felt like he’d known Rose forever.

He was, however, still starving hungry, and twitching to get out of the hideous acoustics. J.J., being J.J., proposed heading out after their final course of lychee jelly and brie schmear and finding a place that served tortilla chips and beer, and Shane was enjoying himself enough to accept.

Once J.J. had left for the bathrooms, Rose reached over grabbed Shane’s forearm. “I’m so, so happy I met you, I had a great time. Wanna be friends?”

“What are we, in third grade?” Shane asked, even as he thought: oh my God, why can’t everyone be this direct?

“Tell you what, if we were in third grade, I’d’ve made you a friendship bracelet.”

“So, what, all this hoopla and I don’t even get a piece of string out of it?”

“I’ll bring you one next time I’m in Montreal?”

“Deal.” He shook her hand, and she turned it into a pinkie promise. “I had a great time too.”

“Careful now. In third grade I would’ve asked if you wanted to go steady with me.” Rose laughed, loud and pretty and head-turning, free of any affectation, doing a better job of lighting up the restaurant than the dingy Edison bulbs. “I asked all the cute boys to go steady with me in elementary school. I was a right little slut.”

“What the hell did I miss?!”

“I’ll tell you later.” Rose winked at J.J. and slipped off to the bathroom herself.

“So?”

“‘So?’” Shane repeated. “What do you mean ‘so?’ You know she’s great, you lucky asshole.”

“I know, I know.” J.J. had the same grin on he’d been wearing whenever his phone pinged over the last six weeks. “I’ve been saying my prayers lately, trying to stay on God’s good side, ‘cause he did me a solid, right?”

“For sure, bro.”

“And I knew you two would get along. Not to be, like, a dick, man, but I’ve been thanking God I met her first, yeah?”

“How’s that?”

“Well, here’s this person: gorgeous, and famous, and talented, and hockey-mad, and funny, and kinda bitchy. And that’s Rose, yeah, but it’s also you, right? Like, fuck, if you’d come to Le Tambour that night, poor me never would’ve had a chance.”

There was a particular subset of people in the world who did geography projects in, say, grade five or six or seven, on the theme of natural disasters. A certain, smaller, subset of those people were born around 1991. Some of those once-students had been what was now called ‘anxious,’ but at that time and at that age were called ‘worrywarts.’ Those students had paid particular attention to the warning signs of incoming disaster, and what to do when catastrophe struck.

Those former kids were at the appropriate age to be skimming newspapers in 2005, since they didn’t have smartphones yet and the internet was going through a stage where it was something you started and finished, and, thus, boredom needed to be attended to. Some of those teenagers, Shane among them, had happened upon the news that ten-year-old Tilly Smith had saved the lives of a hundred people in Phuket by recognizing the signs of an imminent tsunami, and had thought: this is vindication, and would now never, ever, be convinced that vigilance was overrated, and would also never, ever, forget to scan the waterline at beaches.

Like Tilly Smith, Shane could read the warning signs, and they felt like a drop in his gut, like the frothing, gurgling water being pulled out to sea. A cortisol spike of tremendous, record-breaking scale was imminent, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“I always thought you’d end up with someone like Rose, y’know? Hey, maybe she has a friend who’s into hockey too.”

“What’s that, Jay? Trying to get rid of me so soon?”

“No, no, never!” J.J. grasped the hand Rose was slinking over his chest. “Thinking about Hollzy here.”

“Is the hockey a hard requirement? I’ve got loads of friends wh—”

Shane stood, the chair shrieking on the floor. “Sorry guys, I’ve … I’m not really feeling super … good. You t—”

“Hey, whoa whoa. Are you okay? Should we take you back?”

“No! No, no. I’m … it’s fine, yeah? You two should go, I’m just gonna …”

“Put your fucking wallet away, you idiot. My treat. You get it next time.”

“You sure? It’s really no —”

“Man, get the fuck out of here,” J.J. barked.

“Sorry Rose. I’m just not … I don’t feel right.”

“Hey: no. Totally fine. I’ll see you in Montreal?”

“Yes,” Shane nodded. He could feel the sweat pooling now, the clock ticking. “Looking forward to it. You two have a good night!”

And he was out, stumbling into the night, ordering a ride, praying no one was watching him, but making every one of his muscles and tendons and organs strive to keep the trembling invisible in case they were. His hands were beyond control, shoved in his pockets, and his heart he couldn’t force to slow down. He forbid himself from thinking, expending all his brainpower on identifying the make of each car his ride passed, clutching onto his composure by a hangnail. Ignore the hotel bar, don’t look around, up the lift, breathing shallowly, nine floors, eight floors, smile to the old couple, six floors, five floors, breathe, you fucking idiot, four floors, three floors, two floors, “You have a lovely night,” just fucking wait, WAIT, you’re so close now.

The door shut and the wave broke over him, he was drowning in it. All the thoughts he hadn’t been thinking that he had been thinking, bubbling away in the undertow.

This love of his life, this hypothetical woman. Someone who got him, someone he could laugh with. Someone he talked hockey to, someone he could bring home for Christmas, someone whose jewellery would sit in the upholstered drawers of his walk-in closet. She’d be beautiful and smart and talented and driven. She’d be Rose fucking Landry.

But he didn’t want Rose Landry. He wanted to talk to her, sure, to have little in-jokes and text message conversations and summer cookouts and brunch. He didn’t want to kiss her. He didn’t want to fuck her. He didn’t want to shut the front door of his apartment at night, saying goodbye to the last of his guests, and be faced with Rose on the couch, waiting for a cuddle.

He didn’t want Rose because he was fucking gay. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

There would never be this wife, this love of his life. He would never have a woman sitting in his seats at the Bell Centre, he’d never ask Jackie to add his girlfriend to the WAG chat. He’d never rock up to one of the infrequent lunches with his cousins and aunts and uncles with a woman in tow, he’d never see his mom kiss his girlfriend’s cheeks and remind her to share that recipe they’d been talking about over dinner, he’d never get increasingly panicked text messages about what to buy his dad for Christmas. He’d never be gifted a pee-soaked stick with two bright lines, he’d never buy a pregnancy pillow for her aching back, he’d never rest his head to her full belly and murmur to his future baby that he loved them already.

The bereft grief was present, and gutting, and so pure, but in a ribbon running alongside it there was relief. Shane had always disagreed with the saying ‘no news is better than bad news.’ Fuck that. Certainty was better than uncertainty, always. It was the not-knowingness that wrecked him.

Now there was an answer, a label, a new set of standards for himself. He wasn’t failing at liking women. He wasn’t supposed to.

Maybe this box would fit him better than the old one. Maybe it was Shane-shaped. Maybe the indentations were moulded in a way that accommodated being friends-with-benefits with Rozanov and a hook up in LA and a quickie in Mexico and the way he always preferred women to blow him, rather than fucking them. Maybe he’d never have to worry about what that said about him ever again.

That was all fine and dandy for someone else. Someone who wasn’t an NHL player, a seven-time All-Star, captain of the Eastern Conference side, captain of the Montreal Metros, two-time Stanley Cup winner, Rookie of the Year, Olympic Silver medallist, Hart Trophy winner, Rocket Richard winner, marquee promotional face of the league. He couldn’t be gay and play hockey. It wasn’t done, there was no latitude for this kind of being, not with the men he played with.

The stupid polyester Hawaiian-print shirt Rozanov had presented him with on arrival– insisting it’d be a big laugh if they matched for the weekend – was saturated, sweat dripping down his shoulder blades and his sides, damper than if he’d used it as a towel. He struggled with the buttons and one popped off in the desperate fumble. Logically, he knew it was a simple matter of reattachment – literally a child’s task – and all it was an indictment of was the quality of fabrication in whichever sweatshop it’d been outsourced to. Bangladesh, according to the label.

Knowing it logically didn’t help at all. The button flying under the hotel bed was the final straw, hiccups strangling his throat, his wet eyes finally leaking down his cheeks, sticking along his jaw. He’d fucked it all up. He’d fucked everything up. He couldn’t have both, he couldn’t be both. He wasn’t supposed to be like this.

He wanted a hug from his dad. He wanted his mom to say it’d be alright and actually believe her. He wanted Rozanov to rail him so hard he forgot which province or state he was in. He wanted to be fine and breezy and sitting in a bar with J.J. He wanted to be the only soul around for a mile in any direction, sitting on his pier with his knees drawn up. Instead, he was in fucking Florida. Shirtless and sweat-soaked and cried out, curled in a ball on cheap hotel sheets, surrounded on all sides by thin drywall and men who thought drinking cocktails was too girly.

J.J. Boiziau

29 Jan 2017 at 8:48PM

J.J. Boiziau

get back okay?

Shane

Yep!

No one could know. His mom would want him to be the trailblazer – again – without knowing half the shit that got thrown around in locker rooms and group chats. His dad, though he’d never say it, would nurse a broken heart for Shane’s struggles. His friends would – probably? – be cool with it, but did he really want to risk that? What benefit would come from being honest with them? His team, the league … he didn’t know, exactly, what they’d do if they knew. But it wouldn’t be good. It wouldn’t be good for anyone.

The only person he could tell was Rozanov. Who knew he slept with dudes, sure, but didn’t know he didn’t want to sleep with women. Rozanov, who was incapable of stringing together a dozen words if four of them weren’t teasing Shane. Rozanov, who was so confident and secure and ballsy. Rozanov, he was sure, would laugh at him for the lateness of this conclusion, would wilfully diminish its sigificance, would be bewildered at the grief and relief and fear it was wreaking. He could almost hear it: the incredulous snort, the “What’s the big fucking deal?”

Lily

29 Jan 2017 at 8:51PM

Lily

ready??

been waiting foreverrrrrrrr 👿

Lily

hello? I saw you come in

Lily

are you ok?

Lily

????

Shane

Hey, sorry.

I’m fine.

Lily

ok good

coming upstairs now

Shane

Wait.

I just want to be alone tonight.

Lily

ah

so you have found a pretty woman?

prettier than me 😢

Shane

No.

Lily

so no problem

I will come, make you come

and then leave you to do silent meditation upside down yoga or whatever

Shane

No, sorry.

I just don’t want to see anyone.

Lily

you are having a panic attack?

what happened?

Shane

Nothing happened.

His phone lit up with an incoming call from Rozanov. He silenced it. This was exactly why he couldn’t face Rozanov tonight. He wasn’t sure if he was only this transparent to Rozanov, or if everyone saw right through him and only Rozanov lacked the manners to politely ignore his dissembling.

When the call rang out, and no ellipses of message composing appeared, he let the phone drop to the mattress and rested his head on folded arms. Taking stock. Yoga wasn’t the worst idea. Maybe shock his system first with a cold shower, then warm and soothe it with a flow. He was no longer hungry at all, but he should choke down some more protein. He’d reassess afterwards if he should break out his emergency ZzzQuil. He was leery of building up a tolerance to diphenhydramine, but as things stood, he might not sleep at all without it.

Someone knocked at the door, sending his cortisol through the roof. Again.

“Room service!”

“Go away Rozanov!” he shouted back.

Lily

Shane

Nothing happened.

Lily

what, you cannot even say hello?

Shane

Please, just leave me alone.

Chapter End Notes

Me, reading your comments on the last chapter: The reports of Rose Landry's death erasure have been greatly exaggerated.

Chapter 5

The worst part wasn’t being benched. It wasn’t even being forbidden from strapping on skates. It wasn’t the surgery or the pain. It wasn’t the injury itself, though it was particularly rankling that it hadn’t been acquired on ice. He’d gone to spend Monday afternoon with the Pikes, both to catch up with Hayden after the bye week and to soothe his frayed nerves by spending some wholesome time with kids who adored him and didn’t give half a shit that he was an NHL star. When he’d seen Ruby teetering on her training bike on their plowed street and had lunged to catch her, slipping and landing at a terrible angle on his left wrist, knowing immediately that that pain was not right, the worst part was this: he hadn’t even needed to make that grandiose abortive leap at all. Ruby had wobbled back the other way, righting herself, and pedalled on, happy as a clam.

Knowing what handling Shane was like, the team doctor printed out a medical study between the smoking-gun MRI and the orthopaedic consult. In a cohort of 125 athletes, conservative injury management yielded zero union complications, with a return to sport after 3–6 months. Surgical intervention yielded a 92% success rate, the 8% attributable to persons with comorbidities, and a return to sport after 1.5–4 months.

He fractured his scaphoid on Monday, had it diagnosed that evening, and was recovering from the surgery by Wednesday morning. God knows what kind of strings were pulled for that kind of turnaround. Or was that standard? He didn’t fucking know, he’d never been on LTIR before. He assumed Montreal was on the hunt for a centre to trade in who could help prevent their division spot slipping beneath wild card slots until April, but, really, he didn’t know. Those conversations didn’t include him. Even if he’d been invited, he wouldn’t have had much to add. He wasn’t sure such a centre existed.

For ten days: elevate the wrist. Ice it. Keep the dressings clean and dry. Take the pain medication and the anti-inflammatories at four-hour intervals and the strong ones before bed. Don’t lift anything heavier than a mug of coffee, even with his functional hand. Do not drive. And don’t, under any circumstances – for the love of God, Hollander – slip and fall.

There was a lot of don’ts and hardly any dos. At the ten-day mark he could expect some range-of-motion physiotherapy exercises (fancy lingo for “wriggling your fingers,” the team doctor assured him), but until then it was all: sit still and wait, dethroned from his apogee, and watch the odds of a three-peat melt away second by second. He had to buy an e-reader because all his books were stupid hardcovers and weighed over two pounds. He watched a season of Extreme Couponing and texted Rose and J.J. about it. That took four hours. One thousand and four (at best) to go before he could skate again.

His mom drove him home from the hospital with a bag of pill bottles and spare dressings and a waterproof cast protector and a printed sheet of post-op instructions. And a Notes file on her phone, an almost verbatim transcription of the doctor’s discharge speech, which was itself an almost exact replica of the printed version. It was nice of her, and it also set his teeth on edge.

Then she went to Simons and bought him half a dozen sets of pure cotton button-up pyjamas, so he could change without jostling his wrist; and to Linen Chest to buy extra pillows for elevation and a wrap-around nursing cushion to keep his hips in alignment for the weeks of sitting that were going to replace anything of interest in his calendar; to Jean Coutu to buy a pill organizer and two bottles of dry shampoo and a jumbo package of wet wipes and a hundred single-use floss picks; and, ingeniously, to Kim Phat to buy a chopstick rest. Shane pointed out that he already had a set of them, with matching lacquered chopsticks and soup spoons, and she demonstrated that this one had little grooves in it so the chopsticks couldn’t roll. She marched into his ensuite, rested his toothbrush head in the groove, and squeezed the toothpaste on one-handed. He had to give it to her, that was inspired.

While he sat on the couch, she bagged his laundry for the service to collect, unboxed his meal delivery, and pre-made his spare duvet with new sheets so he could swap them over at his leisure. It was lovely of her. He was going insane.

She was prepared to stay through the rest of the week, but the next morning he convinced her it’d be a good idea to have a few days alone to figure out where the gaps in his self-sufficiency were. Yes, Mom, Hayden and Jackie and J.J. were on call. Yes, I won’t over-extend myself. Yes, good idea, I can renew my passport during the downtime. Yes, you and Dad should visit on the weekend, that’d be great. Yes, I’ll download the Sudoku app you and Dad use and add you as friends. Yes, bring some jigsaws, why not. Yes, Mom, love you too, drive safe, text me when you get home, thank you for everything, bye bye.

He made himself coffee and carried it to the couch and managed six whole pages of Eric Whitehead’s biography of Cyclone Taylor before he realized he wasn’t actually absorbing anything. He’d read God-only-knows how many books about players’ lives, coaches’ lives, GMs’ lives, strategy, team dynamics, the nascent years of the league, lockouts, NHL culture, the business behemoth behind the game, Olympics shenanigans, sports psychology, nutrition, recovery philosophies, legendary Cup runs, and at least seven different books that covered the Richard Riot. The ones that didn’t waffle on for too long about families and weddings and the births of their children had always been his favorites. And now, he wondered: had any of the “lifelong bachelors,” or the “single-minded intensity, to the exclusion of all else” that he’d admired and identified with … had they been code words for ‘gay?’ Were they like him?

A shower and yoga and a solid night’s sleep had soothed him out of the emotional irrationality of his Tampa Bay wobbly. So he was gay, big whoop. Didn’t make him wrong. Or bad. Just meant he’d been judging himself against the incorrect rubric.

From his new, enlightened state, he thought he was actually doing a fucking fantastic job of being a gay NHL player. He hadn’t forced himself into a passionless heterosexual marriage at twenty-one, with a dog and a girl and a boy who’d bear whatever kind of mental scars resulted from having a dad who secretly trawled Grindr and a mom who would eventually file for divorce after she found dick pics in his text messages. He’d been cultivated an image of above-reproach, scandal-free, overtly-masculine sexuality by his talent agency, and paired it with a hyperfocus on the game, not the fame. Everyone already thought he was a hopeless case, married to the rink. And best of all, he’d found a friend he could have mind-blowing casual sex with, who couldn’t ruin Shane’s life without ruining his own too.

Shane’s own biography, when it was written, would describe his unwavering dedication to the sport. Unblinking, undiminished focus, the entire span of his career. Maybe he’d come out after he retired – it wasn’t 1917, being gay wasn’t a crime – or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he could just fade into the crowd, one more middle-aged gay man searching for the love of his life. Hardly newsworthy.

In the meantime, he’d make do with infrequent dalliances with Rozanov, and frequent solo sessions. There was something deliciously taboo – the good kind of bad, the non-disappointing kind – about the idea of getting himself off while the sun was still in the eastern half of the sky. LTIR. Prescribed rest. Not like he had anything else to be doing.

The whole thing was a bit of a kerfuffle with just one hand. Although: thank fuck he’d injured his left, not his right. Even so, he had to be frustratingly careful not to put himself in a position where he could inadvertently fall. Given his right hand was preoccupied loosening himself up, the instinct would be to stick his left hand out.

Possibly the only thing more embarrassing than being discovered drooling and mindless and desperate for Rozanov’s dick was this: fucking himself on a suction-cupped dildo attached to his wooden floors, working hand on his dick, a porno on his laptop, and his cast-bound wrist resting on the bed. Ridiculous. Even so, it was fucking hot to imagine Rozanov lying naked on the duvet, his chin resting on his palm, pretending he was cool and unruffled while he watched Shane fuck himself, even while his dick hardened and his lips parted. He’d tell Shane he had to fuck himself harder if he wanted to get railed tonight. Or maybe he’d swing his legs over the edge and proffer up his cock for Shane to lean forward and suck. Fuck.

That was the fantasy he came to, dreaming of being stuck pinned between a dildo and Rozanov’s dick in his mouth. Would Rozanov do that, if Shane brought it up? He liked his odds: Rozanov had been smug as sin when he’d pawed through Shane’s box of toys.

In the post-nut coherence, there was an absence of the usual cloud of shame that settled. He didn’t have to feel like that anymore. He was gay. Of course he liked getting off to the idea of sucking the cock of one of the hottest men on the planet. In fact, he’d be shocked if he was the only gay dude around who fantasized about Rozanov railing him. Just look at the guy.

But in its place, there was an uncomfortable twinge of concern. He’d texted Rozanov not long before he fractured his wrist. Understandably, he’d been a bit preoccupied since then. But he was pretty sure Rozanov hadn’t messaged him back. It hadn’t been important, just a link to the results of the FISU winter games, joking about how Russia may have creamed Latvia 7–1, but that hadn’t even been the blowout of the day, with Canada steamrolling the UK 14–0.

Shane frowned at his unlocked phone. Rozanov hadn’t replied. That was unlike him.

He did a quick, harried job of cleaning up and talked himself down from increasingly plausible and decreasingly dire catastrophes (Rozanov lying in a ditch, Rozanov’s phone being stolen, Rozanov not wanting to talk to Shane now he was out for two months). Then he confirmed what he’d already memorized: Boston were on their first day of a four-day break. It was his normal meal-time, but anxiety had stolen his appetite and, besides, he didn’t have to gorge himself on calories now he was benched. So instead he stared down the part of himself that was trembling, and reminded it that he and Rozanov were friends, right? Of course he was allowed to call him.

“Hollander? What is wrong?”

“Is this how you always answer your phone?”

“What?”

“The first time we called? Remember?”

He didn’t need to see Rozanov’s face to be able to match the sound of his sigh to the dead-eyed frown he must have on. Shane didn’t like that at all. It scared him whenever Rozanov sounded like the weight of the world was crushing his bones. “No,” he said, with devastating asperity.

“From New York? When I — you know what, it doesn’t matter. Are you … is everything okay?”

“You are the one with the fucked up wrist, yes? Or was it me?”

“Pretty sure it’s me.” Shane chuckled, weakly, to dead silence. “So y—”

“Oh my God, Hollander, what do you want from me? Hmm?”

“I j—”

“First, you tell me to fuck off, ‘leave me alone,’” Rozanov pitched his voice up and made a cruel attempt at an accent, “and then you are sending me results for stupid children’s hockey tournament, and then I hear nothing about whatever the fuck happened to have you fucking benched for the season, and then you call and ask if I am okay?”

“Shit.”

“You want me to leave you alone: fine. I am leaving you alone. No problems.”

Shit shit shit. “I don’t want that.”

Rozanov stopped for a breath, and when he spoke again, Shane was almost positive he wasn’t truly angry anymore. “Well, this is not what you said.”

“I know. Li—”

“I have it here, in text message. Proof.”

“Will you shut up for, like, two seconds? I didn’t mean forever, okay? I was just … I had a shitty night that night.”

“Shitty like, how? Accidentally ate one extra gram of fats?”

Oh, thank fuck. Bitchy, rude Rozanov was a normal state of affairs. Resentful Rozanov put his sympathetic nervous system at DEFCON 1. “Yeah, just like you get when someone makes you wear a shirt.”

“I mean, it is a crime to deprive the people. Not everyone has Speedo billboards.”

This was it, this was how they were supposed to be. He could banish his catastrophizing. “Would you give that a rest? It’s been two years.”

“And, still, I have never seen you swimming. Very rude.”

“I’m not swimming in Boston Harbor in a Speedo until they install water heaters.”

Down the line, he could hear the sounds of Rozanov rearranging himself. Shane could picture him, recumbent on the couch, ankles crossed on the armrest. He assumed Rozanov was at home and alone. Hollander and Rozanov may be allowed to call each other or get wrapped up in conversation in public, but they didn’t do shit like air their dirty laundry in front of others.

“So. Shane. What happened to your wrist?”

“Scaphoid fracture.”

Rozanov hissed. “Ah. Fuck.”

“Yeah. I’m hoping I’ll be back for the last weeks of the season, but …”

“But, yes. Hard to say. You did the surgery?”

“Yep.”

“And now you are being Good Boy Shane Hollander? Doing your physio?”

“No physio for ten days, and then just twitching my fingers for six weeks. You worried about me, Rozanov?” He said it teasingly, but realized once it was out that, if their situations were reversed, of course he’d be worried about Rozanov. All his best games were against Boston. He’d probably text Rozanov three times a day to nag him about doing his rehab.

“Of course not. I am worried that when I win every award this year, there will be little asterisk footnote on Wikipedia, saying Hollander was out for half the season.”

“‘Every’ award? You gonna go for the Vezina this year? The Norris?”

“Hmm, no. Maybe just scoring awards this year. Next year, you and I will switch to goaltending.”

“Will we?”

“Yes. Keep things spicy, you know? Try something new.”

“Yeah, sure. I’m just trying to imagine the headlines.”

“Oh, I know this. ‘Rozanov becomes first ever player to win Art Ross and Vezina.’”

“I was thinking more like: ‘Rozanov and Hollander announce goaltender ambitions, then committed to psychiatric ward.’”

Rozanov laughed, so clear and sharp. Shane felt the sound of it inside him, falling through his body like confetti, all the way down to his toes. “‘New goalies Rozanov and Hollander traded to fucking … Cardiff.’”

“Ouch, man,” Shane sucked a breath through his teeth. “Wales? That’s low.”

“Ah, no problem, we will work our way back up. Baby goalies in Wales, then transfer to Sweden, win a silly Swedish cup —”

“It’s called the Le Mat.”

“— get — gospodi, Hollander, what the fuck? Why do you even bother to know this?”

“So it’ll come in handy when we play for, ah, Gothenburg?”

“What, you already speak Swedish too?”

“Don’t they speak English there?”

“I mean, better English than in Boston, this is true.”

“So: we’ll be fine. A few seasons in Gothenburg, then we’ll come back and sign to …”

“Ottawa.”

Shane was grinning moronically. “Look, you’re joking, but that’s my home town.”

Rozanov scoffed. “Oh, news flash: Shane Hollander is from Ottawa. You think I don’t know this? Listen: no team has more shots on goal against them than Ottawa. Vezina and Jennings will be ours.”

“You’re on, Rozanov.”

“It’s a deal.”

He was smiling at the walls like an idiot, but no one was there to see him. It was a sweet daydream, him and Rozanov, alone against the world.

“How did you break your wrist? Is there a player I need to kill for you?”

“No, no player.”

“Coaching staff? I can still do it, but will be harder to make it look like an accident.”

“It was a four-year-old girl.”

He’d never heard Rozanov laugh quite so loud or long or hard. The phone speakers couldn’t handle it, distorting and clipping the sheer onslaught of noise coming down the line. God, he wished he was there, sitting next to Rozanov on the couch, so he could snap a picture of the moment: the creased lines around his mouth and the symmetry of his flushed cheeks and if there were tears in his eyes. Shane was laughing too, infected and so fucking pleased with himself to have this kind of power. If he were in Boston, he’d shove a hand into Rozanov’s chest and topple both of them backwards on the couch and feel the shake of Rozanov’s ribs against his ear.

When he spoke actual words again, Rozanov’s voice was all wheezy. “Oh my God. Shane. My abs hurt.”

“I’ll send you an invoice for my PT fees.”

“Ah, wow. Fuck. Oh, that was very good. Okay, I do not normally bully little children, but maybe I will make an exception, just this time. Did you crash a little baby league? Start a brawl with some four-year-old who was offside?”

“Funny, I think that sounds more like you.”

“Me? No, no, I am a very peaceful man, pacifist, I would never fight on ice. Or did another team sabotage you? Like Nancy Kerrigan, but this time they send in a child to karate chop your wrist?”

“Where do you even come up with this mad shit?”

“Who the fuck doesn’t know about Nancy Kerrigan? Tonya Harding? Tell me you have never thought about taking a bat to Kent’s knee.”

“I’ve never thought about taking a bat to Kent’s knee.”

“Pfft. Liar.”

“Anyway,” Shane cut in before Rozanov could press further, because he may not have considered clubbing Kent, but he had been gripped by an impulse to break his nose, “No retribution required. I just —”

“‘Retribution?’ This means …”

“Oh, like: revenge? Anyway, I slipped trying to catch one of Hayden’s kids when she was falling off her bike.”

“Ah, so you are like movie hero, throwing yourself into danger,” Rozanov said, snidely theatrical.

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Was she alright?”

“She’s fine.” He decided to omit that she hadn’t actually crashed.

“Well, I suppose she can live. For now.”

“Generous.”

“Yes, I am very kind.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a joke, Hollander.”

“Whatever. I saw you at the Children’s Hospital, remember? You are nice.”

“No.”

“Like a big teddy bear.”

“No!”

He could feel his heart fluttering with glee. This was a goldmine he could tap at forever. “A giant puppy dog.”

“No! Stop this! You slander me.”

“I’ve got a looot of free time coming up. Maybe I could give a tell-all interview about how nice Ilya Rozanov is.”

“You do this, I sue you. Careful, Hollander: I am a very rich man.”

“I thought you spent every dollar on those stupid cars?”

“Oh! You asshole! You apologize to my babies. I bet you cannot even drive now.”

His grotesque cast was resting on a throne of pillows, mocking him just like Rozanov. “No driving, no drinking, no skating, no lifting, no exercise. Fucking sucks.”

“It is strange.” Rozanov sounded oddly affected. “I did not think it was possible. For you to become even more boring. But now …”

“You normally take a dump on cripples?”

“Yes, actually. You can ask Carmy. When he did his ACL, I called him, every day: ‘Even tiny toddlers can stand on two feet, what is taking you so long?’”

“Pretty sure toddlers already have a functional ACL.”

“Hmm, no. Poor excuse. Hey, when Carmy was out, the trainers told him to play Chel. Good for keeping instincts. Can you do that? Or …”

“No moving my thumb for six weeks.”

“Jesus. What the fuck can you do?”

“So far: fuck all.”

“Ah.” Shane thought it was sympathetic, for a moment. “So you will be jerking off, what? Eight times a day? Nine?”

“Har-har.”

“Oh, so: more?”

“Fuck off.”

“You will get so bored, with your little dildo —”

“Dude.”

“— and your boring porn – does Mr Good Boy even watch porn?”

“Of course I fu—”

“Probably so tame, you probably come before they get their dick out.”

“I do n—”

“But when you are all sad and desperate, all crying become you can’t get yourself off for the tenth time —”

“Jesus, Rozanov.”

“You should video call me. We make a deal: you put on a show, I will help you get off.”

Shane made an involuntary half-gasp-half-choking sound that was wholly mortifying. That sounded way, way too good.

“Have I blown your mind? What, has Shane Hollander never heard of phone sex before?”

“Fuck off. We’ve had phone sex before.”

“Then: no problem. You will call?”

“I … yeah. Yeah, okay.”

“Very believable, Shane. This is not sounding confident.”

“I’ll call, okay?”

“No, I do not believe you. Instead, I will call. I have massage soon, but tonight, yes? After we watch how bad the Metros are without Captain Hollander.”

He wondered if that ‘we’ meant Rozanov-and-his-teammates, or Rozanov-and-Svetlana, or, what he was hoping for, Rozanov-and-Shane. He wondered if he could stay on the phone with Rozanov the whole game, bickering about bad line calls and Montreal’s chances of holding on until April. He wondered if they’d really play as poorly as the pundits seemed to rate them now he wasn’t on the first line. “They’ll be great.”

“No they won’t.”

He could hear the cocky half-smile in Rozanov’s voice, and in the comfortable silence that followed, it made him smile too. That, plus the tingling-bursty feeling in his chest at the thought of a plan to watch Rozanov stroke his cock tonight. His left wrist throbbed and showering was a stupidly frustrating ordeal and he wouldn’t hit the ice for two months, and none of that had changed, but it had been diluted.

“So tha—”

“When y—”

“You go.”

“No, you go.”

“No no. It’s not important.”

“Stop being so fucking polite. Talk.”

He scrunched up his face. “I was just gonna say, like: thanks.” Ugh. “For talking. This is … nice.” Ughhh. “And sorry that I made you think … in Tampa. It was just that night. I don’t want you to leave me alone.” Ughhhhh.

“Well, we make a big, ah, song about being ‘friends,’ yes? Important narrative.”

“Shut up.” Rozanov had been mocking the word ‘narrative’ for the last three months.

“I think phone calls are a normal part of being friends. I know you don’t know this, because you have no friends —”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“— but I promise, is normal.”

“Whatever. Thanks, anyway.”

The pause lasted two breaths. He wondered if he’d have to try and drag it out of Rozanov, whatever he’d been about to say earlier. It was hard to tell without seeing his face, if he was working up to something or just bored. Shane knew the signs of Rozanov figuring out what to say. Sometimes his tongue moved inside his closed mouth, like he was practicing the words in English.

“When you had shitty night, in Tampa. Was that, ah, panic attack?”

“You call everything a panic attack.”

“No, you have panic attack over everything.”

“I do not.”

“Do too. I am rubber you are glue.” Shane was too weirded out by the sudden emergence of a Western childhood rhyme to interrupt Rozanov and tell him he was doing it wrong. “So, yes? What was ‘shitty?’”

“I guess … yeah? It kind of was? Maybe not ‘panic’ but, like … yeah. Okay. Panic attack.”

“Mm.” The silence stretched. He considered telling Rozanov about his realization. It’d be easier without having to look at his face. But he wanted him there, in the flesh. When he said the word out loud for the first time, he wanted to be sitting in the cage of Rozanov’s legs, chest pressed along his back, chin digging into his traps, arms hemming him in. He didn’t particularly want to hear Rozanov laugh at him for taking so long to put two and two together, but when he did, he wanted to feel a contradictory squeeze of comfort. For all he enjoyed having Rozanov, his friend, to talk to, there was a different level of solace available in Rozanov’s body. “What is helping, when you have a panic attack?”

“I dunno.” Not being forced to face you, the guy I fuck, laughing at me for freaking out about fucking guys. “I just, like, wait it out? Have a shower?”

“Mm. When I am having a … a bad day. In the head. Sometimes it is good to be distracted.”

“Distracted like what?”

“Well, running is good. But I guess you cannot do that with the panicking. Or sex, of course. Or sometimes, just, listen to someone else talk. Even if it is very boring.”

Shane had been so locked in on how completely unhelpful it would’ve been to either surround himself in the player-crowded hotel gym or get thoroughly railed on Rozanov’s dick while he’d been actively spiralling about the obliteration of his once-attainable conventional fantasies, that it took him a moment to actually listen to what Rozanov was saying. “You have bad days? Like … panic attacks?”

“No. No no no, this is your thing. But, you know, some days it is harder to … I don’t know. Some days it is harder. So, I am saying … for next time, you can call me, yes? Is okay.”

“I dunno, Rozanov. It’s not … I can’t really talk. When it’s like that. And I’m no fun, you don’t wa—”

“Shane. Is no big deal. You already do this for me, before, anyway. You just text me, you say: ‘Please, please, Ilya, talk to me,’ and I will call and tell you every tiny little boring thing I do that day. I will even let you calculate my macros, if you behave.”

“I’m not your nutritionist.”

“Yes, this is what I tell you. But still: ‘Ilya, too much fat; Ilya, HFCS is so bad!’ You are worse than team nutritionist.”

“Fuck off. Pop-Tarts are a terrible breakfast. It was game day!”

“It was All-Stars. Not a real game.”

Some enthusiastic NHL media intern had managed to record that exchange on his phone camera, a few spots behind them in the breakfast buffet line, and had edited it into a behind-the-scenes unscripted (and uncontracted) peek into the Hollander-Rozanov bromance beyond the scheduled clips. Shane’s publicist was having to put her foot down about any kind of “exculpatory promotion” from Shane: apparently the NHL had been put under pressure from Kellogg’s, an official sponsor, for a compensatory action to fix reputational damage. Like hell he’d be snapped with Pop-Tarts in his shopping cart or shill on camera with Tony the Tiger. Surely the image of Rozanov loading a plate with Frosted Confetti Cupcake Pop-Tarts and going on to carve up the ice was more than enough to balance out Shane’s disrespect of ultra-processed foods.

“Is that what was going on the other month? When you were asking about my day? You were … bad?”

“Yes. I mean, it was not so bad. Not panic. But my head was all …. And it is very difficult to be thinking other thoughts when Shane Hollander is going on and on about this boring book he is reading and how he packs his suitcase and how he is going to buy codeine before road trip because it is prescription in America an—”

“And that … that was helpful?”

“I guess. Yes. I think so.”

The idea of Rozanov, noted miscreant, having a bad day. It made him stressed just to think about it. What could possibly reach through that hard shell and shake up Rozanov’s insides? He’d seen him frustrated and cold and dismissive, gleeful and light and laughing, focused and lethal and precise. Rozanov and needing help didn’t go together at all.

He wanted to ask. Obviously. What the fuck kind of threat was there in the world that could perturb Rozanov? But turnabout was fair play, and he wasn’t going to do this gay confession on the phone. He’d save it as an in-person treat, use his crisis to make Rozanov laugh after Shane extracted whatever secret burdens Rozanov was carrying.

“Well, you can call me too. Again. When you have a hard day. Okay?”

“Yes, yes. Fine. Okay.”

It was stupid, because he already mattered to a lot of people. His team, the staff, the fans, his friends, his family, his parents. This was a different kind of mattering. Being the person someone would call when things weren’t great. In fact, fuck, he’d already been that person and wasn’t percipient enough to clock it. His spine lengthened at least a few inches. Shane was the guy Rozanov called on a bad day. And the guy who could make him laugh on a good one. He was fucking invincible right now, fibreglass-cast-based evidence to the contrary or not.

“So I’ve been reading a book about Cyclone Taylor?”

“No! La-la-la-la-la! I can’t hear you!”

“Alright, alright. I’ll save it. Next time.”

“Do not threaten me, Hollander. I will break your other wrist. Look, I have to go, in a minute. Massage time. But, I will call you tonight?”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye, Shane.”

He was hungry now. He could eat something, then read for a bit, then maybe watch a movie, and then it’d only be a few hours before the puck dropped and he could talk to Rozanov again. That was achievable. That was something to put on his theoretical calendar and look forward to.

“Bye, Ilya.”

Chapter 6

The fans and the league and the sponsors (perhaps not Kellogg’s) were delighted to see Shane rinkside. Within forty-five minutes of his hideous fibreglass cast being removed and replaced by a state-of-the-art custom-fit waterproof half-forearm brace, the Montreal comms team announced he would join the Metros for their roadie starting in two days, making stops in Colorado, St. Louis, Arizona, and Boston. The tweet got fourteen thousand likes. The Sit Down, Shutout podcast rush-produced an episode to analyze what kind of injury he might have sustained based on the style of brace he was wearing. Gatorade tweeted a picture of a Glacier Freeze bottle styled in a miniature Hollander jersey, complete with a gauze bandage taped anthropomorphically on the plastic and tagged him. Ilya sent him the link and added: “looks just like you.” Shane’s dad said exactly the same thing.

Within twenty-four hours, the team and the coaches and trainers understood that this was a huge mistake.

Conventional wisdom stated there was value in injured players remaining embedded in the team; to preserve existing dynamics, to prevent isolation, to keep the hunger alive, and to make sure whoever was benched wasn’t being a stupid, reckless idiot during recovery (Laine’s foray into day trading and Oxy addiction during his knee reconstruction recovery had been successfully buried, at the cost of many new grey hairs for the PR team). Shane had never been on LTIR before, and the Metros had never had to support Shane through surgery rehab before, so it was really no one in particular’s fault. It was just that the conventional wisdom didn’t apply here.

The team played orders of magnitude worse with their surly-faced captain noting every imperfect play. Shane was itching to jump on and score the damn goals himself, one-armed if necessary. The ACs complained to Theriault that Shane was giving contradictory strategic advice. Whenever he had to argue a decision with a ref, Hayden kept glancing over at Shane with an apologetic grimace. The trainers shooed him away from gyms for fear that they’d be the fireable scapegoat if Montreal’s Favorite Son tripped and fell, or got whacked by an errant barbell in friendly fire. He felt like screaming every time Andropov and Hayden failed to connect a pass. The second line centre they traded in from Seattle damn near fainted away when he had to play in front of Shane. The muscles in his face ached from the effort of maintaining brittle poise in front of the television camera that was directly aimed at him for the entire duration of each game, and they still found facial twitches to screenshot and turn into memes.

Before they flew out of DVT, Theriault pulled him aside and they mutually agreed that Shane wouldn’t grace the team with his presence at games for the duration of his time on the bench. But not until they flew out of Boston. For appearance’s sake.

They took a hideous red-eye charter to Massachusetts and landed at eight in the morning on no more than five hours of sleep. Hayden looked like he might cry with relief when Shane informed him he’d have the hotel room to himself, that Rozanov had invited Shane over to hang out and grab a nap in his spare room. “Black out blinds,” Shane bragged, and high-tailed it before Hayden could invite himself around too.

Ilya espaliered him against the front door and held his jaw and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him some more, until Shane was panting, pressing his dick into the thigh Ilya had planted between his legs, his functional hand twisting fabric at the back of Ilya’s tee. “I have to go to morning skate,” he whispered into Shane’s ear and then he fucking licked it, Shane’s scream at least an octave higher than was dignified. Ilya cackled and smacked Shane’s ass. “Go to sleep. You look like shit.”

Fucking dick. Shane followed him into the mudroom and held the garage door open, stealing a kiss as Ilya flowed past. I love you, he didn’t say, watching Ilya fold his legs into a tasteless metallic gold Aston Martin whose roof barely reached his waist. I love you, he thought, directed at the concentration clustered around Ilya’s eyebrows as he patted around in the centre console. He winked at Shane before he slid his sunglasses on and reversed out. I love you.

His phone rang before he’d passed the kitchen. “Why are you not asleep yet?”

“Maybe ‘cause some asshole woke me up?”

He’d spent a lot of time on the phone in his initial ten days of post-op recovery. Either his mom or his dad called every day, when they weren’t visiting in person, for a quick fifteen-minute status update and a gentle prod about talking to a sports psychologist about his rehabilitation mindset and the latest gossip from Valérie down the street, number one-twenty-six, who was failing to sell her house for way more than it was worth. Hayden called on his drives home from practice, opening every conversation with: “Let’s not talk about the team, how’re you, man?” yet somehow every time it devolved into a laundry list of complaints and frustrations about corralling this group of men into something cohesive. J.J. called, consistently at the most inconvenient times, with some weird sixth sense for whenever Shane was on the can or just drifting off for a nap or trying to wrap his fucking cast in a waterproof bag. His cousin Kelly, who he liked but wasn’t particularly close with, called with an offer to whisk him away from the public eye and come stay with her on PEI if he needed a break, and they ended up talking for three hours, more time than he’d spent with her since they were six and eleven. Rose didn’t call but she texted as if their message thread were an extension of her stream of consciousness, in a way that Shane found overwhelming until he muted her chat and only sporadically checked in.

And Ilya called. Or Shane called him. First once a day, then twice, then almost constantly, from waking until sleeping, whenever Ilya was in Boston and they were both at home they were either already on the phone or waiting for the other to get off the line with someone else. Hearing Ilya’s voice in his ear had become his new baseline of expectations for how life was supposed to go.

“Oh, Shane, you wound me. Am I not a good host? I open my house to you, I put nice sheets on the bed, I —”

“Did you do that? Or your housekeeper?”

“Ah, no, I put nice sheets on the bed. And I call to tell you there is stupid lavender oil spray and earplugs in the side table. You are such an asshole.”

Shane dropped his duffle inside the bedroom door. The sheets did look laundry-fresh. “When’re you back?”

“Ah, eleven thirty? Maybe before. Quick skate, then meeting. Should not take long. Any fucker can beat Montreal these days, I hear.”

“Didn’t hear it from me.”

“I do not need to. Because I have eyes. You are in bed?”

“Almost.”

“Good. You sleep, and I will wake you when I come home. Later, Hollander.”

“See you soon.”

Love you would’ve been so easy to append. He could’ve blurted it out and hung up the phone and thrown it at the wall hard enough to shatter, so Ilya couldn’t call him back. What would he do if Shane had said it? Skipped practice and broken speed limits to get back here and kiss Shane senseless? Called the cops about an intruder in his home? Deleted Shane’s number and bought a new house and never looked Shane in the eye again?

What a difference four months made. The last time Shane had wandered around this house, he’d been so uneasy, so uncomfortable with what this proximity to Ilya’s real life meant – as opposed to the dark and stolen hours they’d normally spent together, the un-real life – and how he was supposed to handle it. Now he wanted to gorge himself on it, to open every drawer and note every brand in the pantry and understand every decision Ilya made about what to fill his home with and where he put each thing. He wanted to pull Ilya’s hoodies off their clothes hangers and check the laundry labels and inhale the smell and sew them together into a quilt and cover himself in it to sleep. Caution was a distant notion, he was greedy for more Ilya, more, in a way he’d always been when they fucked, and now wanted in every single detail of the entirety of Ilya’s twenty-five-and-a-half years of life.

Black-out blinds were an easy decision. Earplugs were not. Did he want the chance to hear the garage door slam shut and attune his ears to the approaching footsteps before Ilya poked his head into the bedroom? Or did he want to blink awake all at once to find Ilya’s hand on his thigh?

He went without. The guiding principle was: what would give him more of Ilya? No earplugs would mean an opportunity to hear Ilya at his solitary ease, exposure to the humdrum routine of arriving home. The same tenet meant he rinsed off the air travel in the shower but didn’t open himself up in preparation to get fucked. He wanted more, not less: more fingers, more mouth, more time spent feeling Ilya’s breath on his skin.

Shane had nursed some twee romantic notion that he wouldn’t be able to sleep until Ilya returned, tossing and turning or trembling with excitement for two and a half hours of anticipation. None of that. After so many years on buses and planes, his body was adept at ignoring anticipation, even if this time it was translated from anticipation of the game to that of the heart. He fell asleep in moments. If he dreamed, he had no recollection of it.

“Shane. Myshonok. Shaaaaaaaane.”

His eyes sprung open as much as they could – about three millimetres – and he took it all in at once: the blinds drawn partway open, letting pale winter light leech into the room, painting it in greyscale. A hard crack of dried drool down his chin, plucking at the downy hair on his face when he shifted his jaw. The flat palm on his bare left bicep, rubbing up and down. And Ilya. Ilya, Ilya, Ilya, so magnificent Shane didn’t know how he’d ever managed to keep his wits in this presence: standing by the bed, ubiquitously bare-chested, wiry brown bristle below his navel burrowing under the waistband of his sweatpants, a Rorschach blot of purple-peach bruise mottling his ribs, kinesio tape wrapped across his right shoulder failing to blend with his golden-hued skin, leaning slightly forward so the cross he always wore danced free in the air before his collarbones.

Shane smiled, treacle-slow. He was just so fucking beautiful. “Hi.”

“Hello Hollander.” Ilya smiled too. Not the big one, not the dimples and teeth. A little wry thing, deniable. Shane knew Ilya was laughing at him on the inside and he gave not a single shit about it. He loved that Ilya poked and teased him, he was a whore for any scrap of attention he could win. It wasn’t the cruel teasing of the junior locker rooms when it came from Ilya, not a shared glance with a third-party saying: get a load of this loser. Ilya thought Shane was ridiculous and still stayed on the phone for hours, each trying to convince the other of the objective correctness of their tier-ranking of the best team mascots.

Ilya clambered atop him, the sheets cutting a garotte across Shane’s chest and twisting around his legs in the most hideously claustrophobic manner, but Ilya’s elbows were either side of his face and Ilya’s mouth was nibbling on his lips and then he opened up, forgetting all about the fucking sheets, and they were kissing, long fingers scrunched in his hair, the tips of their tongues searching for contact – tongue, lip, teeth, all of it – and Ilya smelled like he’d rushed his cool-down, jumping into the shower before his body was finished sweating, and it drove Shane fucking feral. He wanted Ilya covered in sweat, damp and foul with it, his hair stained two shades darker and his ears turning pink. Sweaty Ilya meant sex or hockey, or, actually, sex and hockey, and for Shane they were a flywheel, uncontrolled escalation of admiration and envy and desire and competition.

His legs were trapped but his arms weren’t, so he reached his right hand down and grabbed the meat of Ilya’s ass, holding him in place and grinding upwards. A marvellous trick, how it made Ilya’s chest rumble and his hips thrust and his forehead butt against Shane’s.

“Greedy. So desperate, waiting in my bed.”

“Mmm,” Shane agreed, already halfway to blissed out just from a fucking kiss. It was a good effort, because what he wanted to say was: you like that? Tie me to your bed and only let me out for hockey, let me always be waiting for you.

Ilya kissed down his throat, the centre of his ribcage, and Shane lost his grip on Ilya’s ass when he reached Shane’s stomach, the tangled sheets rucking down as he went. He didn’t comment on the three weeks of atrophy of Shane’s muscles: maybe injuries were too sad for chirping? Maybe he loved Shane back and didn’t want to upset him? Maybe, maybe, maybe Shane had a hope.

“Already so hard. You’re so easy, Hollander. Were you dreaming of this, hmm? Waking up with my mouth on your dick?”

He was licking Shane’s cock like a fucking pornstar with a lollipop, big long swipes across the underside so Shane could tilt his head down and watch the show. Ilya’s eyes were gleaming, locked unblinking on Shane’s. He was the luckiest son of a bitch in the world.

“You’re pretty fucking easy too, Rozanov. Were you hard at practice?”

“Ah, no. No, I forgot you were here, actually. I just came upstairs for a nap.” Shane laughed, loud and short, coming out of his throat like a strangled bird cry. Ilya’s teeth flashed white for a moment, then hid again behind his more tempered smile. “What? Is true!”

“Fucking liar.”

The worst thing – perhaps the only bad thing – about a reclining blowjob was the inability to see Ilya’s face. Just the bounce of his hair and a flash of eyelashes and lips with each pass, warm and wet and fucking glorious. He understood why Ilya liked Shane on his knees, where there was room to lean back and get a view from a more generous angle. Normally he only reciprocated that position in the shower; would he move now, if Shane asked him?

Fuck. Too late. His hand was already shoving Shane’s thighs apart, stroking into the cleft of his ass. Whatever. Shane wouldn’t change a thing.

I love you, he could’ve whispered, hidden by the squishy-squelch of lube as Ilya popped the first knuckle in. I fucking love you, he could’ve hissed, when his hips jumped at the first pass of his prostate, Ilya shoving them violently back into the mattress. I love you, he could’ve sobbed, with two fingers in his hole and Ilya’s teeth clamped down on a mouthful of Shane’s adductor.

He had a carefully considered plan, scripted and practiced, to sit Ilya down after they’d fucked and after they’d showered and after they’d eaten something. He’d lead with the gay thing, make Ilya laugh, probably tease him for all the women he’d disappointed (not that there were so many, really). Then he’d say: “I think I’m in love with you,” a precisely crafted statement to allow them both wriggle room, but nevertheless not a lie. And then he’d have to play it by ear, depending on whether Ilya recoiled – in which case he’d walk it back, just a little, leave him with enough doubt about its veracity that it wouldn’t devolve into an eviction – or whether Ilya went stony – in which case, if his nerve held, he’d climb into Ilya’s lap and kiss him, make him confront it – or whether Ilya reciprocated – in which case he’d be so fucking happy he hadn’t even dared to plan beyond getting as close to Ilya’s skin as was possible short of surgical attachment. In any case, he had the email address for their TSN contact ready, if he needed to emergency cancel the pre-game segment they had planned for him and Ilya tonight.

It was impossible to preclude the chance that Ilya would cut him off forever. He was hopeful he could swing things so, at a minimum, they’d continue as friends-with-benefits. But he couldn’t be certain. He’d never been in love before. He didn’t know how to do this.

That’s what drove him – the risk this’d be the last time they ever fucked – to tug Ilya’s hips forward when Ilya reared up to reach for the condoms, and sit up half-way and wrap his lips around his cock. He sucked it in, further, uncomfortably further, turning his eyes damp with the gag, listening to Ilya’s choked-off curses spit into his scalp. He couldn’t skip this, his favorite step, if this was the last time. He had to feel how his tongue and his throat could make Ilya throb and thrash and remember the free-floating glory of being the one who could reduce him to this.

Strong hands wrenched Shane’s neck back. “Fucking hell. Shane. Don’t you want this dick fucking you? You are too greedy, you cannot have both.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay, fuck me. Please.”

“You ask so nicely. Poor, desperate Shane.” He tore open a condom and Shane got in position, cradling his braced left arm against his chest so he wouldn’t be tempted to put weight on it as he rolled onto all-fours. “No, no. You want to fucking break it again?” Ilya put a pillow under Shane’s chin and pressed his shoulders down, manipulating his elbows out to bear the brunt of impact. “Okay?”

“Okay. Good. Great. Please, fuck me, please.”

No matter how much he wanted to not think about this maybe being the last time, he couldn’t forget it. Not even in the breathless age when Ilya notched his dick, nor when he pushed in and Shane’s body deliquesced into a goo of want. “Harder,” he grunted, when Ilya started thrusting and it wasn’t even half as rough as normal. “I’m not gonna fucking break another bone.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“Fuck you.”

Ilya shifted to one hand and shoved his fingers into Shane’s mouth. “No talking. Only your pretty moans.”

He sucked them, eager, so fucking eager for Ilya, any part of him, and they both got what they wanted when Ilya dragged his cock all the way out and shoved it back in in a single snap, gurgling groans of bliss spilling out of Shane’s throat, through Ilya’s fingers, and egging him on, more-more. He fucked Shane properly, the way he wanted, all sweat and racing heartbeats, Shane’s free cock swinging with each bump, Ilya’s shins heavily pinning his calves down. If he’d had his way, they would’ve shut the blinds and got rid of the clocks and kept it going all afternoon and all night, keeping him so close he’d be almost crying for hours and hours. But that was impossible, this was just their first fuck of the day; Ilya pulled his fingers free after what felt like no time at all, and wrapped them around Shane’s dick and came just after Shane did, his hole clinging desperately on for just a little more, please.

Collapsing on their sides, Ilya lifted Shane’s braced wrist up and let it rest against his chest. “Doesn’t hurt?”

“Nah.”

“Next time you ride me. Hands free.”

“Mmk.”

“You are so agreeable after you come. Tell me, who is the better hockey player?”

“Me.”

His heart ached when Ilya signed, a hefty weight of disappointment behind his pursed lips. “Wrong again, Hollander. Did you hit your head?”

“Fuck you.”

“Just did.” Ilya pinched his cheek. “Need me to carry you to the shower, cripple?”

“Mmno.” Shane rolled, right into the mess. “Ugh. Forgot the towel.”

“Forget forgetting the fucking towel. I will change the sheets later. Come, come.”

Ilya corralled him into a shared shower with jibes about how fucking uncoordinated he was, how he couldn’t even wash himself properly one-handed. He only made the most minimal protestations for the sake of his fast-ablating dignity. Life was better with Ilya’s steady hard hands: one wrapped around Shane’s waist and the other rubbing soap across his skin. He let Ilya towel him dry and watch, so stern, as Shane strapped his wrist back into the brace.

The limit turned out to be dressing.

“I’ve been doing this on my own for three weeks,” Shane snapped.

“Shut the fuck up and lift up your fucking foot,” Ilya snarled, kneeling at Shane’s toes with underwear spread between his hands. “You want to be slipping and break your other hand? Do it at your own house.”

“I’m not gonna slip.”

“No, you won’t, because you will let me fucking help you.”

Ilya wrenched up Shane’s foot and threaded it through the fabric. Shane flicked his earlobe. Ilya pinched his calf. Shane put a foot on Ilya’s shoulder and shoved him back on his ass. Ilya reached up to dig a finger into his armpit and tickled him, ignoring Shane’s hysterical pleas for mercy, and somehow they ended up with the underwear lying limp between his ankles, naked and fresh and kissing, limbs tangled, I love you pressed silently into Ilya’s lips.

“You are hungry.” Ilya stated it as fact. His stupid fucking stomach, reaching new decibel heights.

“I’m always fucking hungry.”

“I know. You have been complaining for weeks, on and on. And when you start training again, I am sure I will hear it all over: ‘Oh, Ilya, I have to eat so much now, it is horrible.’ Come on.”

He followed Ilya down the stairs, into the kitchen, in front of the fridge. “I have to do pasta. Game day. You want pasta?”

“Sure. Just o—”

“Just one, I know, I know. Poor starving Shane.” Ilya loaded three trays into the microwave and leaned against the bench. “No problems with new passport, then?”

“Obviously.”

“Maybe you sneaked in with fake ID, I don’t know.”

“The photo wasn’t that bad.”

“Ah, no,” Ilya spluttered. “It was that bad. You look like completely different person. Like someone wearing a Shane Hollander Halloween mask.”

Shane’s mom used his injury downtime to hound him about renewing his passport. He still had a few empty pages, but given he’d have to do it sooner or later and given he’d been climbing the fucking walls, he did. The photo was shit, of course, in the noble tradition of passport photos, all serial killer eyes and a horrible flash that turned his skin sallow. He’d texted it to Ilya, who seemed to feel this was a personal affront.

When the new passport was ready, he’d put the old one in his safe. And in that safe, he’d found a list of how to be friends-with-benefits, still secure from when he’d hidden it from Ilya back in December. He’d reread it, put it down, and Googled ‘how to tell if you’re in love.’

They had no more than a few mouthfuls, Shane mentally rerunning his confession script as he chewed, when Ilya’s phone rang, buzzing on the granite. Полина.

When Ilya didn’t lunge to snatch it up, Shane looked over at him. He was as still as a cliff face. Shane wasn’t entirely sold he was breathing. “You can take it. Want me to go?”

“No. Wait.” Ilya pounced on it and walked away, Shane only catching a snatch of “Da? Chto?” as Ilya stomped into the foyer. Open plan living wasn’t particularly conducive to private telephone conversations, but it was much the same because Shane couldn’t speak a fucking word of Russian beyond privet and spasibo. He’d learned ‘please’ and ‘goodbye’ too, before Sochi, but they were long gone now.

The one word he could pick up during the call was “fuck,” let out with explosive softness, a thumb tack in a bicycle tire. He thought, maybe, Ilya’s voice was soft and curt, but what did he really know? Was tone conveyed the same way in Russian? Fuck, he really was going to enrol in a language course this time. Ilya could be running through a stand-up routine with Svetlana and Shane’d be none the wiser.

When the conversation stopped and Ilya didn’t return, Shane left the kitchen stool and crept around the corner. Ilya’s forehead was resting on the glass, a patch of condensation under his nostrils. Eyes closed. Phone dangling in a limp hand. Whatever that was, it’d left him utterly defeated.

“Ilya?” Shane thought he might be sick with the emetic worry that was churning. That’d really help the situation. Regurgitated pasta all over the windows.

Ilya lifted a single forefinger and exhaled. He opened his eyes and dialled another number.

“Hey, coach. I got a bad phone call, from home …. Yes, my father. He has been very sick. I did not say, because it is sickness that is, ah, many years …. Yes, long term.”

What the fuck was Shane supposed to do now? Ilya hadn’t told him to go away. Did he want Shane here? How did he ameliorate this? How did he not make things worse?

“My father’s wife, she says the doctor says he is at the end. Few days, hard to be sure …. I should go, if that is ….”

Fuck it. Shane walked forward and stood alongside him, reaching for Ilya’s hand and weaving their fingers together. Ilya dropped it immediately, then must have regretted it, realigning their fingers and squeezing with an arm wrestle grip.

“I think it will be a week, maybe two? If he … if there is a funeral, I should …. No, not indefinite, I …. Okay. Yes, I will be back as soon as I can …. Yes. Fine. I will call …. Not yet, she called only maybe two minutes ago. I will book plane next …. No, not alone, ah, Hollander is here, actually. Came to hang out, and …. Well, he still has one good wrist …. Yes, I will tell him. Thank you …. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Bye.”

Shane lifted their joined fists and kissed Ilya’s knuckles. “I’m so sorry.”

“Ah. Is okay. I have been waiting for that call for a year.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Nobody knows. Is not a big deal. Coach said to tell you to help me pack bags. I think he wants to ruin your recovery.”

His voice was so flat and tight, but across his chest, Shane could see his right thumb shaking, scrolling through BOS departures on his phone.

“I’ll help you pack.”

“Fuck off, Hollander, I can pack my own fucking suitcase. Much faster with two hands, you know.”

“Is there a flight?”

“Not direct. One to Paris, five-ten. I will change there.”

“Want me to cancel TSN?”

“Yes. Please.”

He had to disentangle their hands to manage it, tapping out an email with his one good thumb. Family emergency, he said. We’ll need to reschedule. He considered and reconsidered that ‘we,’ the ambiguity of Hollander-and-Rozanov, or Hollander-and-Hollander’s-PR-team. Let TSN figure it out.

“Okay. I will pack.”

“I can help.”

“No. Eat your lunch.”

Ilya still wouldn’t look at him, pivoting away to bound upstairs. He felt like a fucking baby, being hurt by this, now, when Ilya’s dad was dying, but he couldn’t logic himself out of the feeling. Shane wanted to hold him, rock him side-to-side, be the guy Ilya leaned on.

One more forkful of pasta was all he managed before he decided he didn’t need to force-feed himself today. There was no game on the horizon to load for. He scraped the rest into the bin, and loaded the plate into the dishwasher. That was something he could do.

Shane opened the fridge and moved all of Ilya’s ready-meals into the freezer. He poured the milk down the sink and dumped the yogurt. The cheese was good for another two weeks, he left that, but the bananas on the bench were already ripe, so they went in the freezer too. The crisper held a half a pepper and a bag of spinach that wouldn’t keep. Ilya’s barely-touched lunch was tossed. It took him five drawer attempts to locate the dishwasher tablets, and a fucking slapstick farce to re-line the garbage can with one hand. The microwave clock read 1:53.

Ilya came clattering down, a backpack over his shoulder, a suitcase in one hand, and Shane’s duffle in the other. “I just need my apartment key, then I go,” he said, dumping everything without grace and zipping towards the study.

“Want me to call you a car?”

“No, I can do it.”

He finally looked at Shane when he returned, standing there at the base of the stairs, bags at his feet. He had the tense eyes and straight mouth that Shane associated with rejection, with being told to fuck off with sincerity, but Ilya rubbed his arm and held his jaw with a hand.

“Maybe Metros have a chance now?”

“Fuck off, Rozanov. I don’t give a shit about that.”

“You say this now, but …”

“You’ll call me, right? When you can?”

“Yes. Sure. I will call.”

Shane didn’t believe him for a second. He’d have to call Ilya instead. The first thing he did when he climbed into the Uber was look up the time difference between Moscow and Montreal. If he woke up early, he could call Ilya by Moscow lunch, or any time afterwards.

It didn’t feel like enough. He wanted to put food in the microwave and bring him coffees. He wanted to run to the door when Ilya got back from the hospital and hold him hard so Ilya could go limp and boneless and let Shane bear the weight. He wanted to make sure Ilya had clean socks, and, if there was a funeral, remove the lint from his black suit and shine his shoes. If Ilya was going to cry, he wanted it to saturate his own sleeve and to kiss Ilya’s head, not listen to it down the line from another continent, or, even worse, be asleep at the wrong time and leave Ilya alone in his grief.

They were crawling across the river, nearing the Garden, only twelve minutes out, when Shane unzipped his duffle and checked his passport, charging cable, headphones, and spare underwear (which he was actually wearing, so: yesterday’s underwear). “Hey,” he leaned forward towards the driver. “I’m gonna change my destination.”

“Ya gotta do it in the app.”

“Right.”

Cell service dropped, reliably as always, in the Callahan Tunnel. He spent the entire time fiddling with the Velcro on his brace and picturing those febrile scenes in movies, running through the airport and kissing the girl. Not that he’d be doing that. Ilya wasn’t a girl, for one. And he wasn’t so stupid to be outing them both at Logan on a random Monday afternoon. But he was going to find Ilya. He was going to find him and tell him he loved him, just not in so few words. His strength coach was big on visualization. He visualized a tear in Ilya’s eye, the moment he’d recognize that Shane was the one for him, the moment he’d be so overcome with love he’d lean down to kiss Shane, only stopped by Shane’s outstretched cautious hand, the moment they’d sit down together on the plane and let the edges of their hands brush together.

A one-way business class ticket to Paris set him back four thousand dollars and change, and he checked in online as the car pulled up at Departures. Ilya would’ve gone straight through, but he texted him anyway, asking if he’d arrived. After three excruciating minutes without a reply, he hit the TSA line, propelled forward by the intoxicating allure of chutzpah.

If he were a gambling man – and he was, actually, raised on endless rounds of blackjack and poker with his parents at their cottage over the summer, playing with Smarties as chips – he’d bet Ilya would be in the lounge, neat vodka in his hand. But he couldn’t risk some goose chase: Ilya in the bathroom when Shane checked the bar, Shane rushing back and forth from the gate to Duty Free, missing Ilya by a moment every time. He found their gate and plonked himself into a too-hard too-small plastic seat. He checked his passport, charging cable, headphones, and yesterday’s underwear.

Ilya Rozanov

20 Feb 2017 at 2:47PM

Shane

Are you at the airport yet?

20 Feb 2017 3:14PM

Shane

I’m at the gate.

Not your house gate.

The airport gate.

E16.

Ilya appeared eight minutes later, not sprinting, but not not sprinting. His face went through at least five permutations of expressions when Shane stood up and waved.

“Hollander. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m gonna come with you.”

“Jesus fu—”

“No, listen.” Ilya was standing military-straight and still. The discipline made it seem like perhaps he was suppressing the urge to murder Shane with his bare hands. “Let me come. I don’t have to, like … I’m not gonna intrude with your family. I can just be your … friend. If that’s what you want. Or we can just do … like, what we did this morning. But I wanna be there.”

“You ca—”

“You won’t have to entertain me or anything. I can, just … I’ll stay at a hotel. And if you need a break, or you want to hang out, or someone to talk to, or, y’know, anything, I’ll be there. Just let me —”

“Hollander,” Ilya cut in. Shane watched him swallow; maybe he was so rigid because the alternative was to crumble. Lord fucking knows Shane would’ve been in pieces already. “You have lost your mind. You cannot do this.”

“I can do this. I’m booked on the flight, I’ve got a letter saying I can fly, I don’t have physio for weeks, I can’t play for months anyway, I’m not even supposed to go to the fucking games anymore, I can’t just … sit at home while you’re … there.”

“Sh—”

His last line of attack to inveigle his way on board: “Please, please, Ilya.”

“Fuck,” Ilya swore, and looked up at the ceiling. “You are fucking crazy, Hollander.”

If they’d been alone, Shane would’ve held him, and maybe Ilya could’ve let go, let tears fall, buried his face in Shane’s neck. At least the gate was sparsely populated, with an hour to go until boarding opened, but there was still a family right there, the kids blowing bubbles on the windows and pointing at planes, and a pair of young men sleeping on the floor with their backpacks for pillows, and a hodge-podge of other travellers, scrolling on their phones. In their presence, all he could do was watch Ilya blink and a pinkness rise and slowly fade across his upturned cheekbones.

“You know you need a visa, yes?”

“Do I?”

“Oh my God,” Ilya rolled his eyes, and it felt the same as a kiss. “Yes? Come on, Shane, aren’t you the goody Canadian? Would be a great look to get deported, no?”

“Can I get one online?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know? I have the passport.”

Ilya didn’t even pretend not to stare at Shane’s screen while he searched for the answer. He fucking knew that visualization shit was nonsense.

“Shit.”

“Mm.”

“Shit. Fuck. Okay. I’ll figure it out, yeah? I’ll get there.”

“Ah, Hollander. The one time you try not being boring.”

Chapter 7

Shane booked his spot on AC804 only nine hours before it was scheduled to depart, so he didn’t have the luxury of being choosy about seat selection. He couldn’t for the life of him come up with a method to remember seat 8A, one of the only two remaining business class seats left, both the shitty ones directly in front of the galley that separated them from economy.

Applying for a Russian tourist visa was straightforward, albeit tedious, except for the need to receive an ‘invitation’ from a tour group or hotel. Ilya hadn’t seemed phased by it in the slightest, just shrugged and suggested it was a way to line more pockets, then returned to his phone. Shane had been in the process of making a hotel reservation when Ilya had shoved his phone in Shane’s face and made him enter his details into a dubious looking form. Two minutes later, he had an ‘official’ invitation in his inbox. Apparently, this was how it was done by those who knew to skirt the system. Ilya called him a sucker for trying to play by the mandated rules.

With an hour to go until boarding, they spent most of the time backtracking through Shane’s inboxes and entering every single time he’d crossed an international border for the last ten years, Ilya trying to talk him out of the application at regular intervals. He filed it online right there, sitting at gate E19 – they’d shifted to an empty one once other passengers began to arrive – before he back-slapped Ilya goodbye, a quick one, reminding himself it was temporary, and biting his fucking lip to stop from blurting out I love you, I love you, and wended his way back landside. Then he pulled out the big guns, the strongest weapon he had left when he couldn’t hit a puck: the notoriety his mom and MKTG had built for him.

The woman who answered his call at the Russian Embassy in Ottawa was abso-fucking-lutely aware of who “Hi there, my name is Shane Hollander” was, and he played it to his advantage, explaining how he needed to get to Moscow as soon as possible to support his good personal friend through a private family crisis, maybe she’d heard of him, Ilya Rozanov? She literally gasped, straight out of a soap, and kept him waiting on the line for fifteen minutes while she, presumably, hustled through the offices to find who to cow into submission. Nina promised they were prioritizing it internally, and that she’d call him with an update before she left for the day. He spent four minutes effusively thanking her to make sure she would.

That, plus dropping off his paperwork and ninety minutes the next morning sitting in a waiting room at the Russian Consulate General in Montreal, was all it took to get a visa glued into his brand-new passport. He assumed some photographers would be tipped off that he’d be arriving at Sheremetyevo soon, as an additional cost of doing business, and still considered that he’d won the bargain. The flight was booked before he left the building.

Seven hours to Copenhagen, three hours to Moscow. He still didn’t know a lick of Russian.

He’d called his coach, he’d called Hayden, he’d called his parents, he’d called Nina, he’d called Ilya once he landed in Paris. In the morning, he’d called Ilya in Moscow, he’d called Nina again, he’d called his surgeon, he’d called the team doctor, he’d called J.J., he’d called Ilya with his flight details, he’d called his physiotherapist, he’d called Farah, he’d called Celine from MKTG, he’d called Nina once more for karma, to thank her for all her assistance, he’d called his parents again, he’d called his housekeeping service, he’d called customer service at Scotiabank, he’d called an Uber, and he’d called Ilya before he went to sleep. For a boy who’d once feared and loathed telephone calls, he thought he might actually be quite good in a crisis.

All he had to do now was be very, extremely, punctiliously clear about the permissible limits here. To everyone else, he was Ilya’s friend. Best friend. The kind of friend who thought nothing of being a rock of support in a family crisis. No one would have an issue accepting that spin, judging by Celine’s reaction. Perhaps surprising to some, the speed of their bromance, but Farah and Celine had been blithe, and Hayden and J.J. had made loud noises in the team group chat about how they knew Shane would do the same for any of them too, so it was palatable, at a minimum. To Ilya, he was a friend-with-benefits, and the benefits could range from sex to ironing to attending a funeral, as required.

To Shane, he was there to hold up the man he was in love with, without complicating what was going to be a fucking shit time with confessions of feelings or love or undying devotion. Ilya didn’t need that headfuck, he didn’t need to be thinking about Shane at all. That was his rule. Shane was there to take care of Ilya, not the other way around.

The flight attendant took his cleared plate of fruit salad and sorbet, and replaced it promptly with a cup of mint tea. “Anything else, Mr Hollander?” she asked. “The lights will dim shortly.”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

He’d already reset his Rolex to Moscow time, and taken a melatonin dose when he first sat down in 8A. It was just after four in the morning in Russia. If he managed four or five hours now, he could hang on for the rest of the day.

In the sparse minutes it took him to fall asleep, he finally devised an aide-mémoire for his seat assignment, far too late to be useful. A was the first letter of the alphabet. If he converted it to a number, it’d be 1. 81. He was such a fucking sap, he’d have to take this to his grave.

As expected, there were people holding expensive cameras at Sheremetyevo. Not even trying to be subtle about it, though thankfully not all up in his personal space. He didn’t look at them, and followed the taxi pictograms. There, by the rank, was Ilya, wearing two jackets and a toque and gloves, smoking a cigarette.

“I told you I’d catch a cab.”

“Taxi driver would take one look at you and charge forty thousand rubles.”

“How much is that in dollars?”

“That question is exactly why I come to pick you up.” Ilya lifted his sunglasses, showing tired, tired eyes. “Hello Hollander.”

“Hey, Ilya.”

He kept his hands to himself in the car, eyes straight ahead. He would not fuck this up. In public, they were friends and nothing more. Friends didn’t hold hands (or braces) on the gear stick, or press a kiss to each others’ shoulders. But friends did ask: “How’s your dad?”

“Bad. Very bad.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Mm.” Shane refused to needle, allowing Ilya his reticence, focusing instead on the ten-lane highway they were merging onto. Ilya drove, steady, and didn’t continue until they passed a sign for the Moscow Canal – invisible from the car, blinded out by fencing. “I should not have come. He is not eating, not talking, only awake for one, two hours per day. I make no difference.”

“Of course you do. He’s your dad. I’m sure he knows you’re here. He’d be happy to know that.”

Ilya sighed. “My father is not like your father.”

“You don’t know my dad.”

“I know enough, Hollander.”

He spat it out like it was intended to sting, and it did. Fucking fat lot of comfort Shane was bringing to the table here. He mulled it over, watching the road signs in both Cyrillic and Latin scripts whiz by. Precise, determined Ilya exaggerated, all braggadocio and swagger. Funny, silly Ilya exaggerated, all tragicomic jest. It’d been a long drought since he’d seen prickly, saturnine Ilya, but from what he could remember, this one didn’t exaggerate. This one had sharp eyes and a mean tongue and exuded a do-not-touch force field that Shane had been taught to run from, before they were friends.

On the whole, he decided Ilya wasn’t exaggerating, and that Shane was absolutely out of his depth with whatever kind of family dynamic he was skimming the surface of here.

“I don’t know your dad. But if you wanna tell me about him, I’ll listen.”

It’d been ten minutes since either of them spoke, and Ilya’s voice came out rasping. “Maybe.”

“Or I can just read to you, out loud. I brought my most boring books.”

A surprised enfilade of laughter broke free from Ilya. Shane risked a glance over to see him smiling. “I will dump you at the border.”

“Someone told me it’s good to be distracted. When you have hard days.”

“Not me. I would never say this.”

“No, of course not. That’d be so boring.”

By now the highway had become an arterial, buildings pressing in on either side of them. Ilya turned to look at him, and Shane was so sure that if they’d been inside, Ilya would’ve kissed him or tackled him or grabbed him by the jaw and squished his cheeks together. He was wearing that quietly delighted grin that turned Shane into fucking putty and made him want to snap a photo and put it on the internet and say: look what I can do to Ilya Fucking Rozanov.

“Tell me: did you pack any interesting books? Detective stories? Mysteries? Have you heard of these genres?”

“No, I don’t think I know those. What’re they?”

“Oh, he is a comedian now, I see.”

They were passing through a hideous snarl of an intersection, lanes and ramps and train tracks and a bypass overhead, a man weaving among the idling cars selling charging cords and coffee – Shane in the middle of avowing to himself that he’d never ever attempt to drive in Russia – as Ilya explained that Moscow’s big roads were arranged in concentric wheels and spokes, when his mom texted him.

“Shit. I was supposed to tell Mom when I got in a taxi.”

“Thirty minutes in Moscow, and you have already been kidnapped for ransom. Tell her I want half a million dollars.”

“That’d get you, what? Two of those Gucci shirts?”

Ilya turned and looked Shane over with a sneer. “You are telling me about fashion?”

The Family Hollander

22 Feb 2017 at 8:47AM

Shane

Landed in Copenhagen 🛬

22 Feb 2017 at 12:04PM

Shane

Just about to take off. I’ll keep you posted.

David Hollander (Dad)

We’re tracking your flight

22 Feb 2017 at 3:13PM

David Hollander (Dad)

Добро пожаловать в Москву!

Welcome to Moscow!

(Don’t show that to a Russian, I used Google Translate)

Shane

Landed!

I’ll let you know when I’m in a taxi.

22 Feb 2017 at 4:12PM

Yuna Hollander (Mom)

Did you make it into a taxi okay?

Shane

Shit, sorry. All good!

Rozanov came to pick me up.

We’re almost there, I think.

Yuna Hollander (Mom)

👍

Say hi from us

Shane

He says I’ve been kidnapped and it’ll cost you half a million dollars to get me back.

Yuna Hollander (Mom)

If he throws in the television rights to the kidnapping story, he’s got a deal

“Mom says hi.”

“Hello Yuna.”

“She also says she’ll pay the half a mill if you throw in the TV rights.”

“Yuna drives a hard bargain. Tell her I will reconsider my demands.”

The Family Hollander

Yuna Hollander (Mom)

If he throws in the television rights to the kidnapping story, he’s got a deal

Shane

He says hi to you too.

Like Hayden and like J.J., his parents had been quick to get on board with the idea that Shane and Ilya might actually have a broad base of common ground to build a friendship on. There had been one hesitation from his mom, one objection that: “I thought you hated him?” and all it took was: “Nah, he’s actually pretty funny,” and he didn’t have to hear about it again.

Any latent reluctance was demolished once Ilya had called one afternoon when she’d come to visit during his convalescence.

“My mom’s here,” Shane had said, first thing, in case Ilya was intending this to head in a more gratifying direction.

“Who is it?” she called out, barging over, as Shane watched Ilya’s eyes snap from deer-in-the-headlights to enthusiastically-polite, a posture he wouldn’t have been familiar with if it weren’t for their trip to Toronto. He’d rib the shit out of Ilya for it later.

“Hello, Mrs Hollander. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

The two-and-a-half of them (his mom kept being drawn in, then scurrying away, saying “Oh, sorry, I’ll leave you two to it”) had small talked for fifteen minutes about Boston’s overtime loss to San Jose (“They’re looking good this year,” his mom said, dropping the pretence she wasn’t listening), the second half of the new Walking Dead season premiering tomorrow night, and if Shane had watched the YouTube video Ilya had sent him, a documentary about how they’d drilled the Channel Tunnel (a weird tangent they’d gotten onto the night before), before Ilya said: “And did you ask your doctor if exercise bike is okay?” an ongoing disagreement whereby Shane insisted non-load bearing exercise was fine, and Ilya insisted it was fine if he got sign-off from a professional who didn’t have a vested interest in propping up the Metros’ chances of a playoffs appearance.

With that, Ilya had stumbled blindly into an alliance with Yuna, who had been carping the same opinion, and he would forever after be deemed a “good egg.” Low as that bar might sound, not a single one of his OHL teammates in Kingston had made the cut. Ilya was in highly rarefied company.

Before he called his dad to tell him he was jaunting off to Russia as soon as bureaucratically possible, Shane had had to take ten very deep breaths. The decision to call his dad had been a weighted gamble: Shane thought he’d be pragmatically practical and his mom would be frantically over-cautious. As luck turned out, his dad was in the study, so his mom picked up the phone, but he’d read them back-to-front anyway. She was unquestioningly supportive, and was entirely focused on Ilya’s emotional well-being and how Shane might access heavy strength painkillers if his wrist acted up. His dad, on the other hand, sent him links to the official GAC travel advisories, kidnap and ransom insurance, and a blog post by a privacy activist with step-by-step instructions to clear data off his phone. The advisory’s language about targeted harassment of gay travellers in combination with his message history with Ilya sent Shane off to buy a brand new phone for the trip. He hated hearing “I told you so.” Vigilance was never overrated.

Ilya turned them onto a boulevard, four- and five- and six-story edifices set close to the street. A park lined the middle of the road, bracketed by streetcars, and embraced by bare trees as tall as the rooftops. Everything was dusted dirty white.

“This is us,” Ilya said, turning left again. Us. Shane wanted to pocket that feeling.

The building was an old eight-story beauty, frilled with Art Deco ironwork and gorgeous conical lights that gleamed dimly in the fog and reflected into the smoked-glass foyer. “Wow,” Shane muttered.

“Mr Real Estate.”

“Fuck off.”

Inside, the apartment itself was smaller than Shane anticipated, and also far, far more tasteful. All dark timber and teal-toned finishes, the fittings and furniture in geometric shapes and ziggurats, chrome and brass and velvet. Gauze curtains were pulled back to frame the grey blurred sky.

“This place is gorgeous.”

“What? You sound surprised?”

“I am.”

“Oh, Mr Real Estate, Mr Asshole,” Ilya scoffed.

“It’s just so … different. To your place in Boston.”

“Ah, so: you hate my house?”

“Oh, fuck you,” Shane snorted. Although, Ilya wasn’t totally wrong. The Boston house was a very nice version of the dime-a-dozen millionaire’s homes architectural firms spat out day after day. He didn’t hate it, but he didn’t love it.

“Yes please,” Ilya said, and Shane was so fucking gone he was already racing forwards, knowing what Ilya would say, wrapping his arms around Ilya’s back where he was leaning against the front door. “Fuck, Hollander, don’t break your fucking wrist again.”

“It’s fine.” He dug the plastic brace harder into Ilya’s lats. There had to be a way to make Ilya understand Shane was here, he was steady, he would be the crutch Ilya could safely lean on without crumbling. Fucked up wrist notwithstanding, he had two strong legs that could hold them both up, through whatever shit Ilya had to manage.

His arm curled over Shane’s right shoulder, like it always did when they kissed, and he nudged Shane’s face upwards with his nose and pressed their lips together, both of them open-mouthed and ready. Even on another continent, they were still them, the way they had been since they were nineteen. The patterns held. Ilya tasted of cigarettes and gum.

“You are fucking … insane.”

Shane kissed along his throat. “Yeah, you keep saying that.”

“You keep being insane. Who the fuck comes to Moscow in February? Is the worst month.”

“Boring Canadians.”

“With weak backhands.”

Shane’s mouth opened to object, but Ilya seized the opportunity to tilt his head back by a fistful of hair and shut him up with a kiss of renewed aggression. He grabbed Ilya’s fucking consummate ass with his good hand and hauled their hips together, dick grinding on polyester on cotton on denim on polyester on dick. It was too much between them, still, even though Ilya’s chest was rumbling, and Shane was about to start peeling back layers, strip their cocks free in the warm dry air and collapse on his knees, when a phone rang.

“Fuck.” Ilya was a totally different being in the space of a breath: wan and dour, standing tall and rigid. His face had no expression at all. Shane took four huge steps backwards and let Ilya fumble desperately in his pocket for the phone. “Da?”

He didn’t understand another word, but he still wandered away to stop himself from awkwardly staring at Ilya’s face, trying to read a conversation to which he wasn’t invited. The couch looked incredibly comfortable. If he sat down, now, at five in the afternoon, he wouldn’t get up again until morning.

“Hollander, I have to go,” Ilya rushed in. “It’s my turn with my father. Dasha must leave to pick up Yeya.”

The identities of Dasha and Yeya were an enigma to him, but this wasn’t the moment to force Ilya into a genealogical history. “Yep. I’m good, you go.”

“The bedroom is there,” Ilya gestured behind him, “and the bathroom is there,” he was now bearing an uncanny resemblance to a flight attendant pointing out the emergency exits, “the TV is … fuck. Okay, this is the remote, but for Netfl—”

“Ilya. I can figure it out.”

“Fine. Yes. Whatever. Shower, sleep, I will bring home food, okay?”

“Okay.” He had no intention of making Ilya do that, but he’d save telling him that until it was a fait accompli.

“Keys are on your bed table.” Your. Us. Shane shouldn’t be so fucking happy when a man was dying. “WiFi … fuck, I’ll text it to you.”

“Rozanov. Go.”

“I’ll be back maybe ten, ten thirty?”

“Go!”

“So bossy,” Ilya muttered, tying up his shoes. “Try not to burn down my apartment while I am gone?”

“No promises.”

He gave Shane the finger on his way out the door. Shane loved him so fucking much. He stood there, grinning at the door knob like an absolute idiot.

If he sat down, he was doomed. He had to keep repeating that to himself: the couch was calling his name, the darkening sky was lulling his senses. In the shower, he set a phone alarm for three minutes and forced himself to turn the water off when it sounded, no matter how soothing it was. A long shower was a reward, once he’d assessed what was urgent and addressed it.

He’d looked up ‘how to support partner when parent is dying’ in the Uber between the Russian Consulate General and the Best Buy at Centre Eaton, on his way to buy a new phone. Using the word ‘partner’ gave him the most illicit, guilty thrill. He hoped, he hoped, he hoped. After Moscow. He could hold onto his hope for that long.

Apart from his physical presence, and non-judgmental emotional support, the next best thing the internet advised him to do was to handle the quotidian. Bills and chores and keeping them plied with sustenance and water. He was itching to do that for Ilya, become an unseen hand. When Ilya was ready to look, he’d see that Shane had written I love you, I love you all over his bones.

Ilya’s suitcase was split open on the master bedroom floor and its contents strewn in a surrounding puddle. That went on the list. The bed was unmade. That went on the list too. Shane was relieved to see keys on a round, crenellated side table: he hadn’t really thought Ilya would relegate him to the guest room, but … he’d thought about whether he would. The kitchen was a fucking disaster. Not because it was messy, because it was the opposite. There was half an individual bottle of Coke, three kinds of mustard, an unopened jar of jam, and salt and pepper shakers. He knew this kind of kitchen: it was what greeted him at the cottage on the first day of summer, before he started unpacking.

It wasn’t that cold, seven below, but the wind was rapacious. He dressed warmly, tenderly covering his braced left hand with a mitten and stood at the front door, amping himself up. Yes, there were ten ways he could wind up dead in a ditch. Yes, there were a thousand ways he could make a total fool of himself, wandering out into an unknown city where he couldn’t communicate a word. The former was unlikely, and the latter wasn’t consequential beyond his own hurt feelings. Five, four, three, two, one: and he left the apartment.

There was a mall about half a mile of rabbit-warren streets away. He made it there without drama, and located what looked like a decent grocery store. The aisle signs were in both Russian and English, which was handy, but he didn’t even know how to pronounce the name of the store. He should’ve started learning Russian seven years ago.

If he’d had a car, he would’ve bought a metric ton of food. Limited as he was to what he could carry over one shoulder (at least the two-pound limit had been lifted), he collected, over the course of six inefficient meandering laps of the store: two cans of Coke, tea bags, ground coffee, a tub of yogurt, a bag of muesli, four microwave meals of beef stir-fry and noodles, two tubs of what he was mostly confident was barley soup, a carton of eggs, and a bag of chips (the picture of a lobster intrigued him enough to justify the trans fats). The customers were the same customers as everywhere: weary people on their way home from work. The woman in front of him at the cashier bought a bag of frozen shrimp dumplings and a candy bar.

He was trudging back, only mildly bruised by the beleaguered sigh of the cashier when he apologized for not understanding Russian, when it began to reach critical mass online that Shane Hollander had been spotted arriving in Moscow. His mom texted first, with a ‘Heads up!’ shortly followed by Celine, confirming she’d publish the pre-agreed statement within the hour. Then J.J. chimed in to say Shane looked like a movie star in the airport pap shots, and Hayden sent a meme he’d found on Twitter: In Soviet Russia, ice carves up Shane Hollander, with a picture of him in Arrivals annotated by an arrow pointing at his wrist brace.

The couch was still calling, but he stood in Ilya’s kitchen and scrolled the comments. No one was suggesting this was a clandestine gay love affair. As Celine had predicted, the internet largely seemed to take this as evidence that Shane was just a really decent guy, a bro for the ages, with a smattering of diehards who viewed this as a betrayal of team loyalty, and some parasocial weirdos who were overly involved in the undisclosed nature of his wrist injury and whether being in Moscow would affect his rehabilitation. The statement, when it was posted, was written to reassure that demographic.

Rose texted, in her typical frantic avalanche of notifications, while he was brewing himself a tea and not looking at the couch.

Rose Landry

22 Feb 2017 at 6:44PM

Rose Landry

MOSCOW

RUSSIA

?!?!?!?!

You are such a dark horse Mr Hollander

Tell your agency to get you a sponsorship with SK-II or something cause how in the hell does your skin look so good after flying???

Drop the routine, hook a girl up

You’re there for Rozanov, right?

Rumor mill is that his dad’s super ill

Whoops, accidentally spitting bars lol

I KNEW you’re be a ride or die kind of friend

Glad I locked you down immediately

Give him my love

In the least weird way possible

Is that possible?

But also tell him if he wants to stay there until AFTER Boston play Detroit next month I would personally appreciate it

How’s Moscow treating you so far?

Have you got yourself a tracksuit and a fur hat?

Shane

I’m not planning on that, no lol.

Rose Landry

At least get me and JJ a photo of you hunting a bear??

It’s practically a visa requirement for rich tourists isn’t it?

Shane

How am I supposed to hunt a bear with only one hand?

Rose Landry

Oh shit, good point

Shane

Moscow’s very beautiful.

At least the five streets I’ve seen so far.

Rose Landry

Hope you get time to see some sights

In between hospitals or funerals or whatever

Shane

Not sure.

I’ll send you pictures if I do!

Rose Landry

I see you

Not confirming Rozanov’s “family emergency”

You’re a pro aren't you?

Anyway

YES PHOTOS PLEASE

Also

I’m shooting for the next six days

aka being covering in blue paint for seven hours and then looking ultra serious and pretending to have a conversation with a tennis ball on a stick

Which means I’ve got nothing to do between the hours of 2am and 9am except watch how much the Metros suck without you

Shane

Didn’t they beat Detroit two weeks ago?

Without me?

Rose Landry

SHUSH

Google tells me that’s equivalent to 12-7pm in Moscow

Call anytime if you want company!

If Rozanov’s off doing whatever he’s doing

Shane

I will.

That’s really nice of you 🙂

Rose Landry

No it’s not

I’m entirely self-interested here

I’M SO BORED

I’M BEGGING YOU

AMUSE ME

Shane

I’ll call you tomorrow!

Rose Landry

I fucking love you

Alright gotta go pretend a green screen is a space ship or whatever

Chat later!

The tea and the promise of another, more indulgent, shower powered him through making the bed and closing the curtains and unpacking both his and Ilya’s suitcases. He spent twenty minutes washing himself until his skin itched from hot water and sent Ilya a text saying not to worry about food and then he couldn’t take the lassitude any longer, slumping down on the couch and closing his eyes before he could even figure out how to switch the television to Netflix.

Unlike two days ago – fuck, how had it only been two days? – he woke when the front door opened. “‘Lya?” he slurred, pulling his head up, but no Ilya appeared. Shane found him standing in the bedroom doorway, looking at the bed.

“I thought you would be sleeping.”

“I was. On the couch.”

“You did not have to …” Ilya waved his hand at the space where his luggage had been. Why wouldn’t he look at Shane?”

“I wanted to. I hope that’s okay.” Ilya wasn’t giving him any indication if he was angry or sad. Had Shane crossed a line? He did that, sometimes, without realizing. “I just … I wanted to make things a little easier. For you. And there’s food? If you wanna eat? It’s not special, j— Rozanov?”

The tip of Ilya’s nose lifted straight up, pointing at the ceiling. He couldn’t tell from behind which it was: a prayer for patience with this rude houseguest or a bone-weary sigh.

“Hey.” Shane reached forward, his fingertips on Ilya’s arm. And then he got his answer, Ilya snapping around to hold Shane’s jaw in both hands, their foreheads nudging, Ilya pulling reserves of energy from fuck-knows-where to kiss him like it was the first time again, like they hadn’t seen each other in months instead of hours, like there was a clock ticking and he had to make the most of it. It stole Shane’s breath for a heartbeat, before he slid into the challenge, pressing back into Ilya’s mouth and grazing teeth against his lip. He used his good hand to cup Ilya’s dick through the jeans and squeeze it, hard, rough, working to force his favorite noises from the back of Ilya’s throat.

“Hollander – fuck. Fuck. I want to fuck you.”

“I wanna ride.”

Ilya let him, laid himself out on a towel on top of the sheets and held onto Shane’s ass, spreading it as he lowered himself onto Ilya’s cock. Shane gripped the bed head one-handed for leverage and pumped his thighs as hard as he could, heart soaring, blood racing, sweat beading everywhere, striving now not for perfection, not for an individual gold, but to make it so good that Ilya couldn’t think about anything else but this, to wreathe him from the rest of the world and force it to stand back, just for a few minutes.

His perfect, perfect lips were trembling and he was cursing and calling Shane’s name and his jaw tipped back, such a beautiful long line of neck that Shane could never resist. Shane curved his spine, still holding the suede edge of the frame for dear life, and lowered his mouth to Ilya’s neck, kissing into the hollow, right above his necklace. Here he could feel the vibration of the groans, and the “Up, come here,” pulsing into his mouth as well as his ears before he kissed his way up to Ilya’s face.

Ilya held Shane’s hips, hard, indents on the bone, and hauled them grinding down and simultaneously thrust upwards. He swore he could feel Ilya’s dick all the way up into his lungs, punching a fucked-out gasp out of his lips. There was a furrow between Ilya’s brows; “More,” Shane begged, before Ilya could ask if he was okay. “Please, fuck, that’s so good. Holy fuck, Ilya, don’t stop.”

Even though Shane was seeing stars with every thrust, Ilya came first, vibrating under Shane’s thighs. He hauled Shane up the bed and said: “Fuck my mouth,” opening wide, all shiny-lipped and wet-tongued and pink. Shane wished he could’ve done that for hours, not the scant seconds before Ilya fingered Shane’s hole and he came all over Ilya’s tongue.

Ilya had insisted on going straight to bed after they cleaned up, and Shane was too exhausted to put up a fight beyond asking exactly once if he could get Ilya some food or tea. He fell asleep with the lights still on.

And snapped awake at 2am, clear as a whistle, sharp as a tack, ready to begin the day. Alone in the bed, he could see Ilya out on the balcony through a gap in the curtains.

“Hey. Couldn’t sleep?” Fuck, it was freezing without a shirt.

“I got a text. I thought, maybe, about my father, but it was only my brother. Asking for money.”

“What for?”

“Who fucking knows. Something to snort.” He watched Ilya light up again, and didn’t say a word. Eventually, he continued: “I have been back for one and a half days. One and a half days, I have not even seen Alexei, just texts. Alexei wants money, Dasha says she wants money to send Yeya to a better school and for a nanny and a new car, Polina tells me she will be destitute after father dies, that he would want me to help her – he’s not even fucking dead yet. Lev says: ‘Ilyukha, you must send us money for flights to the funeral, we cannot afford this.’ What funeral? He is still breathing! This is not normal, right, Shane? Your family does not do this too?”

He was so fucking beautiful, even in his apoplexy, gnashing and sneering and gesticulating with a lit cigarette in the curl of his fingers. “No, they don’t.”

“No, because they are not fucking parasites, yes? My family, they do not even like me. I am just … walking fucking bankomat.”

“I like you.”

Ilya exhaled. “You are Canadian. You like everyone.”

“Ilya.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Go to bed, Shane.”

“Come back inside. I’ll read to you.”

Shane bought the top-selling book on the Thriller charts while Ilya had a piss, and dimmed the backlight of his e-reader.

“You brought your glasses. Very sexy.”

“Get the fuck in here already.”

Ilya burrowed under the sheets and pressed his freezing face to Shane’s thigh. If this was the only good he could achieve by strong-arming his coach and his doctor and his physio and the Russian Embassy into letting him follow Ilya to Moscow, sitting in bed in the middle of the night and reading John Grisham out loud in the hopes of giving Ilya a moment’s respite, his hand on the back of Ilya’s head, it would be fucking worth it, a million times worth it. He rubbed his thumb into Ilya’s curls, where the melted snow had turned them damp, and began to read.

Chapter 8

Chapter Notes

Grigori Vasilyevich Rozanov died at 3:30pm on February 25th, 2017. After Ilya, the nurses, and the doctors, Shane was the next person to hear the news.

For the last two days, he’d bought a couple of sandwiches and a Coke and booked a ride to the K+31 hospice facility. There, he’d forced Ilya to come and sit in a frozen park with him for half an hour, their breaths turning to frost. Ilya didn’t talk, just chewed his sandwich endlessly. Shane would’ve held his hand if he could, but he couldn’t. Instead he sat by Ilya’s side and did his wrist exercises and watched the people around them walk and talk and kiss and wait for the bus and pile onto the bus and leave on the bus. There were little piles of sunflower seed shells all over the ground, and he pondered how it was that they were always there when he never actually saw someone eating sunflower seeds.

Ilya called him at quarter to four on the third day and said: “Don’t come today. My father just died.”

“I’m so sorry, Ilya.”

“I do not know when I can leave. I have to call the others, and they will come here, probably, and the … the funeral, and then … I do not even know what happens next. Today.”

“Hey. Hey. That’s okay. The nurses, they’ll help, right? With what to do now.”

“Yes, I guess. Probably.”

It was the atonal flatness of Ilya’s voice that shredded into Shane’s heart. Ilya had the most incredible voice, the most beautiful, unique way of speaking, every syllable a song. This was a skint imitation of his Ilya, reduced to its most base functions. “Okay, so, you’re gonna call Polina. And Dasha? Or Alexei?”

“Probably Dasha. Alexei will be at work.”

“Okay, good. Then you’re gonna ask the nurses what happens next.”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re gonna go outside and have a cigarette.”

“Shane Hollander.” There he was, his Ilya. Even in these circumstances, the victory made Shane smile. “Is this an order? Captain Hollander orders fellow player to smoke? I think you will be, ah, cancelled. On Twitter.”

“I fucking dare you.”

“And what else does Bossy Hollander say I should do? Go sky-diving?”

“Fuck off. No, you’re going to fucking call me, okay? If you want someone there who actually gives a shit about you. I’ll be there.”

Ilya sighed. “Okay, Shane. Fine. I will not need to call, but: whatever. I know you like being all, fucking, Superman or whatever.”

“Good.”

“Fine.”

“Okay?”

“Yes.”

“Alright.”

“I should go.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of them hung up.

“Do you want me to come now?” Shane asked.

“No. No, it is fine. Okay. Bye.”

The call cut before he could respond.

Ilya got home not long before eight. Shane met him at the door and, despite his dry eyes, held him so fucking tight, the kind of way Shane would want to be held by Ilya if his dad had died. He bundled him into the shower and laid out sweats for him to wear and didn’t even nag about the need to eat, just brewed two cups of tea and set them on the coffee table and laid on the couch, with open legs for Ilya to crawl between and rest his head on Shane’s belly. Shane covered them both with a blanket and turned the television down low and watched as Ilya, etiolated, finally slept. Even his eyelashes seemed exhausted, nestled deep against his pale cheeks, weightily pinned down.

He lost Ilya to the phone the next day. The one phone Ilya possessed was insufficient: it rang and rang and chimed off the hook. There were uncles and cousins asking for help booking plane and train tickets; the mortician; the priest; cold calls from funereal services; his brother and his stepmother with contradictory and ever-changing demands for the memorial; a lawyer; Dasha asking if he was going to come see Yeya – at least, for one, polite enough to only ask for money in person; details about the flowers; his father’s old friends, given Ilya’s number by Polina, offering commiserations and memories and asking if Ilya could stand them an additional wake in their home towns, since they were too old and poor to travel; text messages of flight numbers and arrival times, angling for an offer of a pick-up; complaints about the prices of hotels.

Marooned without Russian, all Shane could do was brew pot after pot after pot of coffee, offer fruitlessly to run interference with the English-speaking relatives, struggle through organizing to have their suits picked up for express dry-cleaning, and duck out to buy Ilya more cigarettes. Ilya reeked of fresh and stale smoke, but Shane saw it for what it was: a way for Ilya to tether himself to some kind of relief while he forced himself through the gauntlet, dignified and upright despite the clamor and grabbing hands. He reached for Shane in the afternoon and sucked his dick dry, which Shane recognized as another kind of relief and so, so eagerly reciprocated. But that kind of relief couldn’t be replicated while fielding phone calls from his aunt.

In the morning, he found Ilya in the kitchen, scribbling on paper with one hand scrunched in his hair.

“What’s that?”

“Everything I have to fucking do today.”

The list was Shane’s kind of hell: unordered, unprioritized, not even keeping within the ruled lines of the notepad. Not only that but it was huge, covering the entire page. He hooked his chin on Ilya’s shoulder. “Coffee?”

“Yes. Please. All of it.”

“Like: twenty litres?”

“More, Shane, even this is not enough for today.”

“Let’s start with one pot.”

“You are so cruel to me,” Ilya sighed.

Shane busied himself with the kettle and pot, and swung a bowl of muesli over the counter. He didn’t say anything congratulatory when Ilya, still texting with one hand, picked up the spoon and started shovelling it in his mouth, too delighted to risk breaking the spell.

“Anything I can take off your list?”

“No, it is all … I have to do it. But you must meet Sveta, or she will murder me.”

You are his friend, Shane reminded himself. You are his friend-with-benefits. You have no fucking right to want to corner Svetlana out of his life. “When does she get in?” he asked, as coolly as he could make it.

“Two. Then we are meeting at the church, for the panikhida at, ah —” Ilya frowned at his notes and scribbled something out. “Four thirty. Fuck. I thought I would have time to take the photograph and medals to the restaurant.”

“I’ll do it.” He’d already learned the pre-funeral service was only for close family, and that Svetlana fell under that definition, having first met Ilya’s father when she was six hours old. She was going to have to be the second coming of Mario Lemieux for there to be a chance of Shane forgiving her.

“No, it is fine. I can …” Ilya’s fingers curled tighter in his hair. “If I—”

“Ilya. I can do it.”

He peered up at Shane, wincing. “This is okay?”

“Obviously. Duh. No problem.”

“Yes. Okay. Thank you, Hollander.”

“Of course.” Shane refilled their coffee cups and felt fit to fucking burst, sunbeams gleaming out of his chest. The nauseous anticipation of having to navigate a solo conversation with restaurant staff who may or may not speak English was present, but quashed under the thrill of actually fucking doing something for Ilya. “Is Svetlana staying here? Do you want me to move my stuff?”

“What?” Ilya looked at him like he was speaking Portuguese.

“I can move into the guest room, if you need … you know. The space,” he finished, limply, unable to say the actual words. If you want Svetlana to share your bed instead.

Ilya spoke slowly, like he thought Shane might have brain damage: “Sveta has her own apartment.”

“Ah. Yeah. Cool.” Maybe he did have brain damage. Of course she did.

“When you meet her, do not offer this. She will move in and take advantage of this nice Canadian boy and make you stay up all night talking about fucking … secondary assists.”

“Sometimes they’re valid.”

“Do not fucking start now,” Ilya groaned. “There is no causation!”

“There can be, if they actua— wait, wait!” Shane protested, Ilya rounding the bench in a wrestling crouch.

“Put the coffee down, Hollander.”

He only just managed to put it aside, avoiding spilling it all over the parquetry by a breath, before Ilya got his shoulder into Shane’s core and hoisted him up, hands on the backs of his thighs and flopping over Ilya’s back.

“This isn’t fucking fair. I can’t do this to you until my wrist heals.”

“I like to press my advantages. Life’s not fair, Shane.” Ilya grabbed a handful of his ass. “But I will make it up to you. We c— fucking fuck. Blyad’!” He eased Shane back to earth and picked up his phone. “Da?”

Shane straightened his tee and watched all the joy drain from Ilya’s face. He pulled the scribbled notes over the bench and pinched between his eyes. There was no way for Shane to tell what he was arguing about, but he knew Ilya was arguing: the irritated hunch of his shoulder; the way he threw down his words; the flick of his wrist when he punctuated with his hand, an open palm asking: what the fuck do you want me to do about it?

“Alexei?” Shane asked once he’d hung up.

“Polina. She — First, she tells me, in Boston, that my father wanted me here, that he asked for me, even though he is not fucking speaking for I do not even know how long. And now, only now, she says he put together a box of things for me to take, before it got bad. I have to pick it up today, she says, she is tidying before all the visitors arrive.” He followed Ilya out to the east-facing balcony, with its view of rooftops and church spires, and watched the trail of Ilya’s newly lit cigarette join them in the sky. “Never mind I am doing everything else. Always: more, more, Ilya. What the fuck do I want with a box of his shit? I do not think I even fucking believe her, if he really said these things.”

Ilya leaned his head back to thump against the glass panel. “I’ll pick it up,” Shane said.

“No, Shane: it is not important.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Ilya,” he said, firmly, borrowing his captain voice for a minute. “Jesus Christ. Just let me pick it up.”

Ilya scowled at him, and he couldn’t tell if he was about to get kissed or tackled or shoved or a cold, frozen shoulder. But then the phone rang, again, with a question from one of his father’s ex-colleagues about whether the restaurant for the wake was wheelchair-friendly, and they implicitly left the matter closed.

In the early afternoon, Shane took a ride across town and deposited a framed portrait of Grigori and an array of medals to the manager at a beautiful iron and brick and glass restaurant on the riverbank. He was young and tourist-focused enough to speak English well, and assured Shane that he would spare no precaution to take care of every detail of the memorial. And then he asked for a photo and an autograph. Shane obliged.

Back in a car, headed north-west to an address he could see on the map wasn’t too far from the private hospice where Ilya’s dad had died. He triple-checked the address before he walked through the door and was waved up to the seventh floor by the concierge.

Facts he knew about Polina: Ilya referred to her in English as ‘my father’s wife,’ not ‘my stepmother,’ which felt pointed, given how fluent he was. She was the one who’d called Ilya when his dad was dying. She seemed deeply, deeply concerned with acquiring Ilya’s ongoing financial sponsorship. She and Alexei had equally strident opposing opinions about who should be invited and how things should be conducted for the funeral, and made the conflict Ilya’s problem to deal with. She’d taken the night shift when Grigori was admitted to palliative care, sleeping in the second bed of his private room, which Shane had found heartbreaking and devoted until Ilya informed him that the nurses said she’d only begun to do this after Ilya arrived in Moscow. She’d studied in London, he learned this morning, when he asked Ilya if she spoke English. “I don’t know, we speak in Russian. She should though. Or she bought her degree in England, one or the other.”

That is: he knocked on her door predisposed to intensely dislike her, and firmly resolved not to show it outwardly. He almost ruined his first impression, when the door swung open on a stylishly coiffed woman no older than her early-forties, and was about to ask: I’m looking for Polina, are you her daughter? Before he could, she grasped his hand and said: “Hello Mr Hollander, I am Polina. Please, come in,” and kissed his astonished cheeks three times.

The apartment was grandiose in scale, with double-height ceilings and enormous chandeliers. And ruined by the most hideously overwrought attempt at baroque Shane had even seen: an explosion of acanthus leaf patterns, every oversized furniture leg finishing with a scroll, stucco painted gold, a cheval in each room, carved woodwork as far as the eye could see. It was deeply unfair of him to cast aspersions in this way, but it was true: it made him like her even less.

“Sit, sit,” she commanded, gesturing at a high-backed sofa. “I will bring tea.”

She clattered back in with a tray of Wedgwood and all the accoutrements. “Milk? Cream?”

“No, thank you. I take it black.”

“Like a proper Russian boy,” she smiled.

“I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs Rozanov.”

“Please: Polina.”

“Polina. Call me Shane.”

“Tell me, Shane, how is our Ilya? I do worry about him.”

Do you. Do you really? he thought. “He’s holding up.”

“He is lucky to have such a good friend, to support him.”

He shrugged. “He’s a good friend to me too.”

“Is he?” Her eyes darted all over his face, like she was searching for the lie. “That is good to hear. He got in such fights when he was younger.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. All the time. The boys at school, the boys at hockey. Alexei, of course. Grisha. And me. But that was to be expected, for the stepmother.” She gave a tinkling, knowing laugh. Shane smiled at her, hating the implication that he was on her side. “He had a trying time, of course, with his mother. But he was very difficult for my husband. He always hoped Ilya would find a better influence, a good friend, like yourself. Not come home with the, ah, black eyes. Or arrested, gospodi.”

“Ilya was arrested? When was that?”

“Almost arrested. Close, but: no. My husband’s colleagues at the police station helped him, let him come home. He must have been, let me see … fifteen? I believe? The drugs, they get children so young.” She shook her head in consternation.

He made a noncommittal sort of “Mm” sound. It should go without saying that Shane wasn’t pro-teenage-drug-use. But there was something weirdly sanctimonious about that attitude coming from her. She’d have been, what, all of thirty, thirty-two at the time?

And: Christ. Shane had gotten exceptional status and joined the OHL at fifteen. Fighting and drugs were standard practice in the Major Juniors. If his mom hadn’t moved with him to Kingston, he probably wouldn’t have been able to stick it out. When he got home, he was going to give her one hell of a hug.

“It was very difficult for my husband,” Polina continued, interrupting Shane’s seething. “Especially after Ilya’s mother, God rest her soul.”

“His mother?” he asked, politely, subordinating the vice in his guts. He’d assumed Ilya’s parents had divorced. He’d assumed Ilya’s mother was lumped in with the money-seeking graspers who’d been blowing up his phone, just with sufficient tact to lay low during her ex-husband’s passing. But: God rest her soul?

Polina crossed herself. “An accident, poor thing. A medication overdose. All the boys took it hard, but Ilya? So young. He needed a mother. But he was so angry when we married. Maybe, now … I hope we can lean on each other. Family is the most important thing, do you agree?”

“Of course. That must have been hard for you and Mr Rozanov,” he said, nodding. He was only capable of devoting half a brain cell to listening and responding to Polina’s ongoing ingratiating polemic. He didn’t like to split his focus so much, because he didn’t seem to possess the same innate instinct that others did for social nuance, but that was all he could give her right now, while he was falling to pieces on the inside.

His Ilya. His poor, poor Ilya. Shane didn’t know what he’d do without his dad, now, at twenty-five, let alone without either of his parents. And to be without his mom at all since he was a teenager? He’d never have made it through Major Juniors, that was for sure. Probably would have crashed and burned without her there, always steady. And what if his dad hadn’t been his dad, had been the kind of man whose son didn’t think he was loved and wanted? Who remarried someone barely fifteen years Shane’s senior? Shane would be a fucking wreck. Not a generational talent, not a Stanley Cup winning captain at two days shy of twenty-three, not moving to a new continent at nineteen and becoming an instant fucking superstar.

Ilya was so strong, so fucking strong. For all his playful complaints and brash boasts, he’d never bragged or whined about the things that’d shaped him, and could’ve ruined him. Shane could never match up to that, no matter the stats or the trophies, no matter what the pundits said. They didn’t know his Ilya.

And neither did this woman, this pleasant-faced, even-keeled, demure shark, looking to shake down her stepson – no: her deceased husband’s son. Shane couldn’t stand it anymore, pretending to feign sympathy. His Ilya was running himself ragged, being torn into pieces by all the greedy hands. Polina was here, manicured, sipping tea at her leisure and pretending she gave half a shit about Ilya’s future well-being. Why the fuck was he here at all? Ilya had been right, there was absolutely no need for this errand to be run today. The apartment didn’t need tidying, it was fucking housecleaner spotless and sparse. Except for the grotesquely florid embellishments.

“I should get going,” Shane said, once Polina reached a natural pausing point in her screed about how very much Grigori had wanted to help Ilya. It tasted money-sour. “Ilya’s expecting me.”

“Of course. Come with me? Grisha was very insistent – it wasn’t long before the end, but he was himself. Ah.” She opened the door of a pristine oak and marble study, and frowned at his braced arm. “I should have thought of this. Can you carry things?”

“It’s fine,” he said, itching to leave, complaisance fraying. “I c—”

“Oh, I know, we can put it in a suitcase. If you could just return it befo—”

“Really, Polina, it’s fine.” He hoisted the box onto his right hip with one hand, and prayed he wouldn’t be photographed. To appease unwarranted concern from spinning into a backlash, he’d already had to post a picture online of him video calling his physiotherapist, assuring fans his presence overseas wasn’t impacting his recovery. Damiano was a good sport about it, but the ‘ongoing monitoring’ had consisted of: “Keep wriggling your fingers and please don’t fall over.”

“Oh, be careful, please. I’ll get the doors.” She fluttered around him. “There is a form in there for the, ah, notarius: Alexei and I have already submitted ours, would you be so kind to remind Ilya to file it before he leaves?”

“Of course.”

“When does he leave? Have you decided yet?”

As soon as fucking possible, I imagine, Shane thought. “He’s calling his coach this afternoon.”

“Please talk to him about staying for the ninth day panikhida. Grigori would want that.”

“Yes, of course.” No way. “Thank you for the tea. It was lovely to meet you.”

“Do sleduyushchey vstrechi, Shane. Give my love to Ilya.”

Polina kissed him goodbye and he was free of their hideous colloquoy, head swirling and throat swelling and the side of the cardboard box digging into his hip. Oh, Ilya.

Ilya, phone pinned between his ear and his shoulder, peevishly yanking the box out of Shane’s arm when he walked in the door, using his eyes and his mouth and his hands to silently suggest that the box was way bigger than he’d expected, and that Shane was a fucking idiot for carrying it up on his own. I love you, Shane could’ve said. I’m your idiot.

“Was okay?” Ilya asked, once he’d ended the call.

“All good.”

“Polina was not awful?”

“Well, yeah, she was fine. I didn’t like her, though.”

A smile sneaked up Ilya’s cheeks, sly and delighted. “Oh, call ESPN: Shane Hollander has an opinion.”

“Call TSN: Ilya Rozanov is a dick.”

“Call TMZ: Ilya Rozanov has a huge dick.”

“You’re terrible.” And I fucking love you. Shane passed Ilya the coffee grounds and nestled behind him, closed mouth on his shoulder, chest snug across his back.

“What messages were you given? That she will starve to nothing without ten thousand dollars a month?”

“Not quite. You know: that family’s so important, and she’s so worried about you.” Ilya scoffed. “She wanted to ask you to stay for another week, for the next memorial. And something about a form? In the box?”

Ilya reached for the kettle, not moving his legs, still holding Shane’s hand across his chest. “The notary? She has been on and on about that.”

There had been so much coffee for the last two days, the scent of yet another pot was making Shane queasy. And so was saying this: “She told me that your mom died.”

He dropped Shane’s hand. “That was not for her to be telling you.”

“I know.”

“I do not want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t.”

“Ilya.” Shane kissed his neck. “We won’t.”

They stood there, a wrapped pair, Ilya expending far more focus than was necessary on pouring boiling water and watching it drip through. “Mama was not like everyone else. Mama was good.”

“I wish she was here.” Both unselfishly and selfishly. He wanted Ilya to have her, and he wanted her too, to trace all his favorite parts of Ilya back up the family tree.

“Me too. She w—” Ilya shoved away, reaching for his buzzing phone. “Da? … Ah, hi. Thank you for calling.” He switched it to speaker and put it down on the bench, pulling coffee cups from the cabinet.

“… the whole team sends their condolences. How’re you holding up?”

“I am fine. Funeral is tomorrow.”

“Geez. That’s fast.”

“Is normal here. Anyway, I can fly out night after, be back for road trip.”

“Yeah, about that. I want you to take another week.”

“What? Coach, I am fine!”

Yeah, you’re really selling that, Shane tried to communicate with raised eyebrows. The yelling totally helps.

“Look, Roz: we’re six weeks out from the playoffs. First in the division. This roadie’s a piece of piss. Winnipeg: easy, Columbus: no biggie, Montreal: cakewalk, with Hollander out, an—”

“Ah, Hollander is here. You are on speaker.”

“— oh, hey Hollander.”

“Hey, Coach LeClair,” Shane called out.

“Anyway, no offense Hollander, but, Montreal: cakewalk. And Ottawa —” LeClair made a snorting sound that was not at all complimentary. “We don’t need ya.”

“B—”

“I’m resting you, St-Simon, Hammy, and Feller. It’s not personal, Roz, we’re almost a lock and I’m gonna give the other lines some practice stepping up. You can come if you wanna, but you’ll be watching from the bench. If I were you, I’d take a vacation. Rest that shoulder some more. I want you fighting fit to power through until June.”

Shane hid his mouth in his hand.

“You there, Roz? Hollander, what’s he doing?”

“Well, he looks like he’s about to explode.”

“Excellent, fantastic,” LeClair said cheerily. “Roz: bottle that feeling, I want it for the playoffs. You focus on getting through tomorrow, then I don’t wanna see your pale ass ‘til we’re back in Boston on the ninth. Our condolences again, Ilya. You rest up. You too, Hollander.”

“Yes Coach.”

“In fact, maybe you should sit out ‘til September?”

“Not a chance.”

“Had to try.”

Ilya snorted. “Goodbye Coach.”

“Bye boys!”

Ilya led Shane to the shower and stripped him bare and manhandled him inside, rough hands and bruising grips and shoving him against the cold tiles. “I’m not the one who benched you,” Shane said, knowing he was baiting and being completely, one thousand percent on board with Ilya upping his aggression in retaliation.

“Shut your mouth, Hollander,” Ilya sneered, and used one hand to wedge Shane’s chin up, stuck in position between Ilya’s palm and the ivory tiles. The other collected their dicks together.

He jerked them off furiously, biting at Shane’s nipples, hard and fast and wrathful. Shane longed to kiss him, to sink his teeth into Ilya’s lips, but he was pinioned, at Ilya’s mercy, and Ilya never let their mouths get closer than half an inch apart. With his free hand Shane sank his nails into Ilya’s hair and held on for dear fucking life. I fucking love you like this, he could’ve spat, don’t ever stop.

If he looked down, Shane could see their cocks rubbing together, stiff and red under Ilya’s twisting hand and it was fucking hot, but what made him come was Ilya’s face: his mouth open, the lower lip falling forward, his blushed cheeks and pink ears, and the entranced look he had whenever he looked down, like after all he’d seen and done, it was the simple sight of both their dicks in one hand that was the hottest view of all.

Shane finished with a garbled moan, and Ilya followed a moment later, resting his forehead against Shane’s. Once his hold had relaxed, Shane tilted his jaw forwards and found Ilya’s mouth, just to confirm that kissing was still permitted. It was. They finished off like that, mouths together while they soaped and rinsed.

He wasn’t his Ilya afterwards, dressing in a charcoal cashmere knit, sober-faced and permeating dread into whichever room he stood in.

“I have to go,” he said at last.

Shane loved him, but he was grateful this Ilya was on a countdown clock, the seconds slipping until the panikhida ended. He didn’t rise to kiss him goodbye, he didn’t think this Ilya would welcome it. “I’ll see you later.”

“Bye Shane.”

He vacillated once he was alone. His presence was good for his Ilya, he was sure of that, able to make him smile and sleep and groan and lean into Shane’s touches. This Ilya, the Ilya he had to be around his family: he didn’t know how to help him as a friend and nothing more. This Ilya didn’t seem to want or need friendship. This Ilya was a stone pillar. Was Shane only invited to spend time with this Ilya out of pity or propriety? Was Shane’s presence with this Ilya just another burden to be borne?

Ilya Rozanov

27 Feb 2017 at 5:03PM

Shane

Just checking if you still want me to come?

I get it if you don’t.

27 Feb 2017 at 5:49PM

Ilya Rozanov

I thought you would already be here (((

hurry up or Sveta will kill me

They couldn’t have picked a more difficult venue for Shane to locate. Through a courtyard full of trash cans to an unmarked door with a buzzer, where he had to wait awkwardly for a staff member to collect him (or get robbed at knifepoint, whichever happened first). Ilya and Svetlana were already settled in, ensconced in a plush dark corner with a bottle of wine.

His heart leapt: this was his Ilya back, expansive hands moving while he spoke; leaning back in his chair with his long legs lounging, not unnaturally stiff; color dancing across his cheeks. And then it fell: this wasn’t his Ilya. It was hers.

So deeply engrossed in conversation, their heads nestled together, neither of them noticed Shane until he approached, waving, horrified at his own gaucherie. “Hey.”

“Hollander, what the fuck?” Ilya frowned, gesturing at the empty armchair. “You should have told me you were here, I would have come to fetch you.”

Svetlana whacked his arm. “Don’t be rude, Ilyusha. Hello Shane,” – she made a meal out of it, painted lips rolling around the dzh like a grape to be savoured – “I am Svetlana.”

“Lovely to meet you,” he lied, for the second time that day, leaning over to peck her proffered cheek.

“I have heard so much about you. I am your biggest fan. Apart from Ilya, I think.”

“Ah, no, I think you mean Shane’s mother. You want tea? Or beer, or wine, or whatever. They have many teas here.”

Ilya and Svetlana explained to him that the bar had once been a Chinese tea house, and was now renowned for its tea-based cocktails. The somewhat off-putting East Asian decor paired with white as fuck bartenders now seemed a bit less fetishistic. He watched them together, comfortably close, giving Shane the broad strokes of the church service, and reminding himself of all the ways he wanted Ilya and couldn’t have him. When people looked at him and Ilya together, they saw two men who shared a profession and the mutual experience of trying to be the greatest. When people looked at Ilya and Svetlana together, they’d assume these two were fucking.

She was fucking gorgeous too, everything Shane wasn’t: lithe and sharp-edged and gregarious. He hated her, he hated her, but just as much, he wished he was her, incisive and warm and teasing, like meeting new people and carrying the conversation was nothing to her at all.

His half of the dialogue was abrupt and taut, he knew that, and wished it wasn’t, but that was the best he could fake it tonight. If only she knew what he really wanted to say: stay the fuck away from my guy, she’d be impressed with how much restraint he was showing.

She asked about his wrist. They ate cucumber and sesame salad. She probed him on his playoffs predictions. They ate fried eggplant. She shared her analysis of the Western Conference likelihoods. They ate shrimp with creamy miso sauce. She asked how he’d reform video review. They ate golden braised chicken, fragrant with ginger. She described her ideal acquisition plan if she were Winnipeg’s GM.

If she’d been anyone else in the world, he would have found a way to hire her.

When she excused herself to the bathroom, Ilya leaned forward on his elbows. “Shane? What is wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Ilya didn’t move a muscle, except for one pointed blink of his eyes.

“Nothing.”

“Let’s make a deal. You will stop lying, and I will stop smoking.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Ty menya besish’,” Ilya huffed, which Shane didn’t understand, but he was pretty sure he got the gist.

They sat in sullen silence until Svetlana came back and clapped her lovely, fine-boned hands with their unbitten nails together. “Okay. Off to bed. We have a long shitty day tomorrow. Put your fucking card away, I paid already.”

She kissed Shane on the cheek with more warmth than he deserved before he climbed into the car. “I’m glad you’re here, Shane,” she whispered in his ear. And, at a more conversational level: “I will see you tomorrow, okay? Sleep well.”

The air between them was wrong the whole ride home. He didn’t know how to fix it. He should’ve been better at this. He’d failed to be the friend he was supposed to be, who could do what Ilya needed him to do. Here goes Shane Hollander, fucking up another friendship, but it was a million times worse, because this was the friendship, the one he needed to be something more.

As soon as Ilya opened the door, Shane went into the bathroom and let the tears well up over his eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he told himself, making fists out of his hands, pushing his bitten nails into his palms. Get a fucking grip. This is Ilya’s shitty trip, not yours. Remember? You’re here to take care of him, not the other way round.

But then he opened the door and Ilya was standing there, arms folded, waiting for him, and all his calming work was undone.

“You are having a panic attack.”

“No I’m not.”

“Ah, yes, you are.”

“Fuck off, Rozanov.”

Ilya trailed him into the bedroom. “Then what is the fucking problem? Did I do something wrong? Did Sveta?” Whatever Shane’s face did, Ilya read him far too easily. “Ah. Sveta. I should have fucking … what did she say? Hmm? C’mon, tell me. Did s— What is this? No?”

“No. It’s not her fault.” His eyes were wet, which he couldn’t wipe without drawing attention to them, but he gave it his all to keep his voice level. “It’s my fault.”

“What is your fault?”

He’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t say the words until Ilya’s father was prayed over and sung to and buried and mourned and they were no longer in Russia. But he had to say something, no lies were coming to him. “I want you too much.”

“Shane. We cannot do this.”

“I know.” Stupid, stupid, stupid. There was no way he could look at Ilya right now. He kept his eyes on his knees.

“It is … impossible.”

If he was brave enough to hear the answer, he would’ve asked why. “Okay.”

“Fucking fuck,” Ilya swore.

“I’m sorry.”

Ilya’s hand shoved Shane’s head up. Oh, his Ilya, eyes pinched with concern. “No sorry. Come on. Up. Get under the covers.”

He thought Ilya was going to fuck him, hard and stinging and no room for other feelings, and he would have loved it, even if it’d keep him on the verge of crying before, during, and after. Instead, once they were down to their underwear, Ilya spread his big wingspin out, pulling Shane onto the pillow of his left pec, and cradled his skull in the crook of an elbow. “Where is your book thingy?”

Fantastic. He’d given Ilya the keys to his own destruction. His eyes stung and his heart hurt, a physical affliction, as Ilya made a fuss of securing Shane’s wrist brace across his chest and running his fingers through Shane’s hair.

“The first courthouse built by the taxpayers of Brunswick County burned to the ground,” he began, Shane’s head rising and falling with his chest as he spoke. Tears dislodged with each inhale, then spilled freely of their own accord. Shane hooked his brain to the words Ilya was saying now, not the we cannot do this that was circling his guts like a predator. “The second one was blown away.”

His beautiful Ilya, who gave and gave and gave, even now, even when everyone around had their hands in his pockets, he still gave Shane this, the gift of his warm limbs and deep voice and his lips making stopovers in Shane’s hair and the focus of his brain at converting written English to spoken. At some point, Shane’s heart rate slowed and his breathing deepened and he fell asleep, Ilya still reading, even though it should’ve been impossible.

And jerked awake. Alone. In a panic. Although he had no idea why. Nothing was wrong. Was it?

Ilya wasn’t in bed with him anymore. Nor out on the bedroom balcony. Shane’s phone read 1:47. Where was he? What was wrong?

Underneath the door frame, a lambent strip glowed. He opened the door and followed it, a moth to the low domed tessellated table lamp in the living room that Shane had been plotting to put in his luggage and steal before they left.

The living room was a bomb site: an empty heavyweight banker’s box, framed pictures, a Bible, an open jewellery box, a pair of women’s skates, newspaper clippings, two D-ring binders, an unfinished piece of knitting, and pages and pages of unlined paper, smothered in blocky black-inked handwriting. And in the middle, sitting cross-legged and bare-chested, as ever, was Ilya. Sobbing.

Chapter End Notes

Lovely people, I'm now pretty confident that the final chapter count is going to be thirteen.

I'm sorry I’m having major ADHD avoidance responding to comments, but know I read and treasure and give my iPad a little kiss on top of each and every one. I see some of you fretting about the disparity of how incredibly down-bad they are and the number of chapters remaining to go, so I've added my most favourite tag: Author Doesn’t Fuck With Third Act Breakups. Hugs and kisses xo

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I accidentally deleted the initial upload of this chapter ... along with all your beautiful comments, my beloved readers. I will take this shame to my grave.

Chapter 9

Chapter Notes

14 December 2016 г.

Dear Ilya,

If you are reading this, I have departed this life. I have asked Polina to ensure you receive these belongings of your mother’s upon my passing, as a matter of urgency.

From time to time, I have felt your mother’s presence over the last twelve years. I hope you have felt it too. If I were her, I would spend a great deal of time watching over you.

There are things I wish to tell her, but she does not visit me so often. I have written them down in the pages that follow, and I am entrusting them to you so that she will have a chance to intersect with them. Are you laughing at me? I think your mother would be too.

Laughter or not, my final request of you is this: please do not discard this letter. A childish notion, I know, but I ask it of you. She deserves an explanation, and this is the only way I can conceive to give it to her, by entrusting it to her son.

You deserve an explanation too, Ilyusha. You will find one in my letter to your mother, if you care to read it. The decision is yours. You have heard many words from me over your life, and many of those I regret. I will not force you to listen to more, though I do not regret the ones that follow.

My Ilyusha, I can still see you as a pale-haired boy, all elbows and knees. How far you have come. I hope you are proud of yourself. Your mother would be, and I am too.

Please take care of yourself, my son. You are deserving of happiness and contentment. Find it and cherish it. The years I spent with you and your brother and your mother, all four of us together, have been the greatest of my life. May you find your own idyll, and may yours last much longer than mine.

With love,

Your father

25 August 2016 г.

My dear Irina,

I feel your presence still, from time to time. I am sure you would laugh at that: look at this old man approaching the end, ready now to accept the unscientific. And you would be right! Do you remember those discussions we used to have, about God and religion, when you would argue that faith costs nothing but might reward beyond measure? I do hope you were right. I feel ashamed, now, at how I countered that blind faith is what led to the end of the Union. But not too bad, because I remember how hard you laughed, so hard that it made me laugh too. I enjoy those memories.

You may not be aware, because I do not feel you around very often (I do not blame you: I am a boring old man, and you have two sons and a granddaughter to watch over instead), but they have diagnosed me with dementia. I am not so stubborn to deny that I am terrified.

It is the confusion that terrifies me the most. Dying is a new experience, one I cannot control, so what is there to fear? It may be painful or it may not be. It will be clear when we get there. But the confusion is today, and it will only get worse.

The priest has assured me that in the afterlife, God will lift my disease from me. I do not know. I do not know yet if I believe in the God of his church and yours, or if there is some other nebulous world after death, or perhaps nothing at all. Have I been a repentant enough man to qualify for heaven, if life after death is only for good souls, such as yours?

I have always tried to prepare for all eventualities. Do you remember the nights we stayed up, talking the possibilities over? Should we apply to migrate to a more western Soviet? To stay with the police or move into the grey markets? Who would hold the power when the dust settled? Do I make nice with this colonel, or that up and coming captain? Would Yeltsin capitulate or cede? I recall the day after the Ostankino Television Tower, when you would not talk to me until I answered your question: ‘If they tell you to shoot the People’s Deputies, would you?’ I think I called you something cruel, in my frustration. Weak. Naive. I am sorry for that. It was a good question, and I am glad we did not have to find out the answer. I hope it would have been ‘no,’ but it is hard to know with certainty.

I digress. Not the symptom of a witless old fool, not yet, just the ramblings of an old man. I treasure being able to remember, now that I know I will not be able to forever. This is why I write to you, my Irinushka. If the priest is wrong, if I cannot remember these stories in the next life, you will need me to justify many actions I will not be able to recall. I will do so now, so if your spirit deigns to visit in my final years, you can have the answers you deserve.

Where do I begin? What is the beginning? I could go back to my boyhood, to my father, to the war. That is not the beginning though, is it? How many fathers back must we travel?

I will not do that. It is getting late for that kind of justification. And if we meet again, you will not let me forget it, will you? ‘Grisha, you had a weak hand, does not mean you had to play it.’ You are right, of course. These are my own sins.

The beginning: Irinushka, I am sorry I did not understand your illness. Dasha, Alexei’s wife – I am sure you have watched her – has explained the depression to me: that it is a sickness in the brain, not a tiredness or a deficiency of spirit. ‘Like your sickness,’ she said to me.

All the times I told you to keep going, to try harder, that the boys depended on you: I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry. I wish there was a way I could try it again. The threat and the consequences of failure have always motivated me, I thought it would for you too. How wrong I was, and how many years I stole from you. You knew how to nurture and tend to a grudge – do you remember Mrs Burdakova (Mrs Perdakova, you called her, pinching your nose to make Alyoshka laugh), who did jumping jacks when she could not sleep? Until you climbed the stairs one night and said that if she was awake, she may as well watch over Ilyushenka, screaming with colic. I hope you consider my own sickness in the brain adequate penance, my own colicky baby in return. If not, I will gladly take any punishment you mete out.

When you left us, I told everyone it was an accident. You were a pragmatist – we had to be – so I am sure you understand why I had to. I did not believe, but you did. It would have mattered to you, to receive your final blessings and the Church rites. And because it mattered to you, it mattered to me, and if God takes issue with that, I thought it would hardly make a difference: if His infinite mercy could not extend to absolving your sin, what difference would my own make? I will answer for it, if I must, and I will defend it still to Saint Peter. They have changed the rules now, for suicides for people with diseases of the mind. How can something be a sin in 2003, but not in 2016? Where is the sense in that?

But how to explain it to our boys? I did not do it well. Alyoshka, I think, took it as fact (the signs of a natural born subordinate were always there, if I had not been so blind to them), but Ilyusha took it as a betrayal of his dear mama. He was always too smart for his own good, could sniff out a lie from anywhere. Do you remember how we laughed that it was a blessing he had not been born in your generation? He would have denounced the propaganda in the streets and stamped his little foot.

Without your presence, there to poke fun at my staid ways and force me to justify myself, Alexei committed to deifying the outward mask I wore, the strict and imperious soldier. Ah, Irina. If I had not been so selfishly consumed by my own failings, could I have seen it more clearly? Or was he always destined to tread this path?

He enrolled in the Politsiya on his eighteenth birthday. Were you watching? Were you proud? Or beating your fists bloody on the barrier between our worlds, begging us to heed you?

I was still blind at the time. I believed the foundational training might replace his weaker tendencies with iron self-clarity. Cut out his snide superiority, temper his entitlement, excise his greed. I recall the time when he was thirteen? Perhaps? Or close enough. That day he threatened a teacher to boost his grade or he would have his papa in the police investigate her. What a load of rot. Remember how I fretted, and you schemed to have me ‘share the news’ over dinner? You could have been an actress, my dove, the way you shrieked with laughter at the suggestion, to hammer home to him the improbability of his attempted intimidation. I am afraid I was incapable of replicating your influence, and he only grew more settled in his ways. The academy did nothing to humble him.

Do you know where his sense of entitlement came from? I know it could not have come from you, which suggests it came from myself. Perhaps I am too blinkered to recognize my own faults, but I do not think I have been entitled. I have pursued self-interest over loyalty, yes. Taken advantage of opportunities. Relied on you, my wife, for guidance that I passed off as my own insights with my superiors. Was blessed with a great deal of dumb luck. Lied, and schemed, and played my colleagues against each other, yes: guilty. But entitled? No. I have never taken my successes as a birthright.

I can almost hear your words. You are not wrong, how self-centred I am being. ‘Are you the navel of the earth, Grisha? Look up!’

It did not help that, at the same time, Ilyusha was becoming renowned for his hockey. The younger brother, always in trouble, disobeying his papa, being rewarded with skill and acclaim. The older brother, following in his papa’s footsteps, being looked over and learning the world is abundant with policemen’s sons. They were never as close as we hoped for, and this cracked an unnavigable schism.

At that time, I struggled with Ilya (I will explain myself soon), and, foolishly, sought to repair that break by giving Alyoshka undue recompense. Believe me, if you can: I thought I could even the scales by rewarding them both. I know, I know. All I achieved was to kick the wedge in further. Ilya thought Alexei was favored, Alexei thought Ilya was churlish. It was disastrous, and has been ever since.

I continued to lie to myself: when he is deployed in the field, when he realizes what leadership should look like, when he settles down with a family, when, when, when. They never came. I tried to explain to him that leadership is not an inherited crown and a fiefdom, but servitude that flows both upward and downward. In more ingratiating words, he called me a Sovok (yes, yes, laugh all you like: I too know that I am a Sovok). I tried to coach him to recognize opportunities that were of importance, not the chance to shake down minor thugs for bread money. If you were watching, know this: I was not trying to have him promoted for the sake of appearances. I was trying to open his eyes to the way the world truly works, and allow him to weigh the difference between his expectations and the facts of life.

As Ilyusha’s star ascended, and Alyoshka’s failed to peep above the horizon, his resentment only grew. I admit, I am a coward. I did not want to know what was said between those two. I did not ask. Alexei, bored beyond belief with the humdrum of working life as an unpromotable subordinate, began to flash money. Do you know where it came from? I asked him, and he laughed and would not tell me, even as I threatened and yelled. Perhaps he did inherit some traits of yours, the ability to laugh in the face of anyone. I imagine it was a combination of petty thievery at work, and Ilyusha’s salary. If we meet again, please tell me. I would like to know.

I admit, I was not in favor of Darya. A pregnant party girl. Marriages have been built on worse, yes, but they have also been built on better. Not that I said that last half out loud, to either of them. I had little trust that she could forge him – too flighty, too happy to please – and my hope that he would mature to the occasion was soon dashed.

Now, facing down the final months, I am too late to influence him. Approaching thirty, set in his ways. I fear he will always view his life as a series of debts that were owed to him and never paid. Too many friends were lost in Afghanistan for me to ever lust for war, but that may be a saving grace for Alexei, if he is forced to fight: a chance to rebalance the scales of what should be valued in a life.

If that day comes for him, he has a good woman in Darochka (I can see your fox-like smile: I assure you, a beautiful face and breasts are the least of it). She surprised me. It turns out a sympathetic ear and a caring nature are boons in her old professions, and for her, they are a natural talent. She worries about money, but not for the sake of money. Because she is astute enough to play out the scenarios Alyoshka puts himself in, and understand a small career and a wealthy brother-in-law are not eternal pillars of security. Against the odds, I like her. I think you would like her too, with your penchant for sweet old souls with interesting stories.

Lenusik is a delight, of course. She looks more than Dasha than Alexei or you or I, but I hunt for your hints in her ravenously. If I were left to roam the earth as spirit, I would spend my days with her. Watch over her, please, for all of us.

Ilya looks more like you than ever, day after day, growing into your cheekbones and your eyes and your nose (your nose if you had broken it a few times). I am most ashamed of anything of how I have failed Ilyusha. He is a constant reminder of how I failed you too.

I do not understand him, Irina. And perhaps it would have always unfolded in this way, a father and a son separated by two generations and different temperaments, but I am plagued by counterfactuals. What if I had not failed you, and you were here to guide him and I to mutual comprehension? How would he have been different if he had had you all along? What if I had not erred so badly in the hardest years, after you left? I suppose I will never know. Is that a vision that comes to you in life after life? The paths untraveled? I am unsure if that would be a blessing or a curse.

When I am in a fatalistic mood, I believe I lost him irreparably the moment you passed. I am forever stained by the blemish of survival, forever not his mama. That may be true, to some extent. And then I compounded it. The betrayal that shimmered over his face when I told him that your passing was an accident. It stabs at me still.

He maintained a vow of silence for months after your nine-day memorial. Not universally, just towards me. Your son, always, even down to how he nurtures a grudge. Were you already watching? Were you telling me that a kind word is pleasant even to a cat? I was so deep in self-pity, I had no space for sympathy. What is the penance for selfishness that wounds one’s children? Does the Church prescribe one? If not, beat me with your shoe when we see each other next, as long and as hard as you like.

By the time I realized he needed reeling back in, he was far out to sea. My attempts at solace were returned with spite. My attempts at condolence were met with silence. They were clumsy, fumbling attempts, I know – I never possessed your deft heart. But the spirit was pure, I swear it. Were you watching? Were you bemoaning my maladroit idiocy? I tried, Irinushka, I promise I was trying.

Were you watching when he began to spend every waking moment at the rink, a ready-made excuse to avoid my presence? I thought it was good for him to have a passion, to care so deeply in the months after we all reconsidered whether it was worth the pain of loving if it ended in loss. The Dynamo scout was impressed that his natural talent was being supplemented by dedication, he told me it showed the maturity he had been waiting to see. I did not have the heart to say it may have been motivated by avoidance, not commitment.

But if hockey was what he needed, I would never stand in his way. I attended his games when I could. I stood with the other fathers and learnt the analysis and shouted with them. When Seryoga returned from America, I asked him to work with Ilyukha. He said our boy could be the finest forward in a generation. I was bursting with unearned pride, guilty to the bone. He hated me, that much was clear. Getting a word out of him required something just short of torture.

Then, as Ilya began to shine in the Junior Leagues, it became clear that Alexei was losing his way. I did not learn my lesson, the one I paid so dearly for. I still believed that austerity was a motivator, as it was for me. I thought it would power Ilya onward, reaching for greater heights, comparing my dearth of attention towards him with Alexei’s favor. In my defence, it was how his coaches and trainers treated him too, sparse with praise. He was willing to respect them, why not me?

He rebelled. I know, you do not need to say it: of course he did. Obedient to his coaches, devoted to his team, pugnacious towards me. He never skipped a practice, but he never held to my curfew. Never told me where he was going. Never told me what he was doing. I brought down an iron fist, like my father and his father before him. But it was still my own sin.

I am not so coarse as to subject you to a dissection of my second marriage. All I will say is this: I had hoped the paired influence of a strict father and a softer feminine figure might open a door for him to return to a familial embrace. I was wrong.

He smoked, he drank to excess, he ran riot around the city, he attracted and dispensed with beautiful girls. I became crueller and meaner, desperate to locate the magic phrase that would keep him home and safe. I found that if I criticized his hockey, he would throw himself into that, at the cost of his licentiousness, and would not backslide until he had achieved the next impossible feat. It was the only trick I had left to control him, to stop him from joining you in an early grave.

I cannot tell you how often I dreamed of mourning him. Of your cheeks and nose, on his face, pale and cold, kissing him goodbye for the final time and throwing clumps on his coffin. What I did, I did to keep him in this life, I swear it. He was hauled into the station with drugs in his pockets. I would have done anything to stop him from throwing his life away, and the only method I found was to let him loathe me. There probably was another way, I am just too old-fashioned and narrow minded, too Sovok, to have found it.

The first three years dragged by in an endless sludge, and then it all happened in the blink of an eye. Promotion to the KHL and away as often as he was home. No more pretence of schooling, except for English studies, no more assumptions that he was someone’s boy: he was supposed to be a man now, and he ran towards it. Whatever tenuous influence I had was almost gone. To Canada, to Finland, to Sweden. Phone calls from American agents. The world was so much more exciting that his old and angry papa.

I went to the NHL draft with him. There was an expectation, from the league, otherwise I do not think he would have let me. You must have seen me there, if you could tear your eyes away from his smile for half a moment. I understand if you could not. It should have been you there, of course. I wish I could have held your hand in my arm. The smile he had for the cameras, I felt you there, watching it. I wish it had been different. I wish I had found a way for him to let me love him.

How often do you watch him skate? Every game? Every practice? I have never seen such a magnificent athlete, it is difficult to reconcile that this powerful elegance comes from the same boy who kept smacking his forehead into the corner of every table when he learned to walk. People congratulate me. What for? All he does, he does in spite of me. The elegance is yours, the first skates he wore were your gift, it was you who pushed him across the frozen ponds. The rest he has done completely on his own. It is astounding.

Now, I only see him in the summers. I know I would upset the life he has built for himself in America if I were to visit him. Our boy, who always clung to your skirts for a kiss, who cried at fireworks, he packed his bags and moved to America, alone, barely a man.

I thought once he was free of me and his brother, perhaps he would settle too. Leave his self-destructive tendencies behind in the streets of Moscow and learn a new way to live. I see pictures and stories of him: drinking, women, parties, expensive clothes and cars. No mentions of drugs, but he was never an idiot. I have been waiting years for the call: Ilyusha, in a car accident; Ilyusha, overdosed. They do not tell you this when you have children, that the worries never stop, that they cannot be herded into safety.

I do not understand him, Irina. I am sorry. It should be you here, and me there. You would do this better. Why does he risk himself? Why is all he has already not enough?

At first, when my memories failed, I could tell when I had become confused. Not during, but after. I could remember the weird misplacement of time. Then came the periods when I could not tell anymore. Gaps in my thoughts: first I was sitting at the café, then, a blink, I was reading in my study. I was angry, aggressive, raging against the inevitability of my decline, calling those around me liars and fools.

Ilyusha hired a nurse to babysit me (you can imagine how well I received that news. Remember when you threatened to bind my wrists together if I insisted on going to work with diphtheria? Remember that you actually did it?). One night, the nurse recorded me, and showed me what had happened, to give me back the memories of the vacated hours. I had telephoned Ilyusha, and berated him for staying out too late. I told him that I knew the game had finished hours ago, that he was supposed to come straight home. The embarrassment I felt, when I listened to myself the next day. This disease is not kind to one’s dignity.

He could have been so dismissive, our Ilya. He would not be wrong to be, I am not myself. Or he could have been rude, played the part of the teenager all over again. That is what I expected, when I listened to myself insisting he stop spending time with that no-gooder from school.

Were you already listening, Irina? Did you hear what he said?

He told me he was sorry to have caused me to worry. He said he would be home directly. He promised he was not friends with Ruslan any more. He said he would buy tea and biscuits on his way back to the apartment.

It is all you, my Irinushka. You were gone too soon, but the twelve years he got with you must have been enough. Such kindness. I do not understand him, the years of resent and now the sympathy. I never understood you either, but I cherished you. God was too generous when it came to granting me my family. And too cruel, to take you away so soon. And to give me sons I treasure whom I was not intelligent enough to care for as they deserved.

I write you this as my confession and my defense. I was stupid and fallible, yes. I failed both our boys. But if I stand before you one day, without the wits to answer your questions, believe me here and now: I loved them both, always. I love you too, always. I have never been the husband nor the father any of you deserved, but do not charge me with apathy. My heart was filled with the three of you.

It is awful, to be a burden on those around you. It only occurs to me now that you may have felt that way, with your sickness. Never. Do you hear me? Not ever. I wanted you to get up and carry on because I thought it would help you to feel better. And I missed you, my light and bright Irina. But it was never a burden. It was a gift to be your husband, through any sickness. I would have waited on you hand and foot for the rest of my life if I could.

Perhaps that will be the Heaven God provides for me: my Irinushka, cozy in a soft, warm bed, while I ferry endless trays of tea and baranki and buterbrody between you and the kitchen sink and plump your pillows and brush your hair. I pray to be so fortunate.

Goodbye for now, my darling wife. Until we meet again.

With love,

Your Grigori

Chapter End Notes

Everyone please clap for the idiot who accidentally deleted Chapter 8 in her rush to post Chapter 9 and might possibly be a bit teary all day about all your kind and generous comments she's lost.

---

Chapter 10 dropping in about 24 hours xo

Chapter 10

Chapter Notes

Shane had set an onslaught of alarms for the morning, and woke at the first. Ilya was just where he’d left him, his nose buried in Shane’s side. He lifted his arm – slowly slowly, careful – from under Ilya’s ear and silenced his phone. They’d been sleeping for no more than three hours. He’d let Ilya steal another ten minutes.

Rolling to his side – careful careful, quiet – Shane watched the last moments of Ilya’s night. He looked like he’d been through the playoffs, every round lasting the full seven games, every game going to overtime. His skin was grey and the ridges under his eyes were deep-etched. He was so fucking beautiful, still, always. There was no emotion in his veins while he slept. Shane dreaded the moment of realization, the moment after the moment when he’d wake up.

He leaned in when his third alarm vibrated – quiet quiet, slowly – and kissed Ilya’s cheek repeatedly – which was no longer just Ilya’s cheek, but his mother’s cheek too – waiting to feel the flutter of morning breath and the opening eyelashes against his face. “Morning.”

“Mning,” Ilya tried to repeat, his lips sticking together. Shane watched him wake. And then he watched him remember what day it was, why he was so tired, the decision to cauterize his feelings, the skip of his breathing and the slackness of his mouth. “Time?”

“Eight thirty.”

“Okay.”

A new fundamental force of the universe had formed overnight. He couldn’t move more than a few feet from Ilya without feeling its resistance, insisting he align back into orbit. He didn’t try to push past its boundaries. They stayed elbow-to-elbow throughout the preparations: passing the toothpaste between them; sharing a shower, gritting their teeth through sixty seconds of ice water to wake themselves up; choking down eggs; dosing out servings of creatine; turning brewing a pot of coffee into a two-man job. Shane detached the dry cleaning receipt from Ilya’s black suit and passed it to him before beginning to don his own. Ilya smacked Shane’s hand away as he attempted to dress, and took over threading the buttons on Shane’s shirt.

“You look good,” Shane said, with nothing to do but watch his Ilya.

“You do not think I always look good?”

“Did I fucking say that?”

Ilya shucked his cheek. “Would it kill you to say it?”

“Probably.”

They brewed another pot of coffee and took it to the balcony, wrapped in their coats, and shared it under the overcast sky. Shane looked at Ilya, and Ilya looked at Shane – when he wasn’t looking at where the flame of his lighter kissed the tip of his cigarette – and they didn’t say much of anything at all until it was time to go.

Ilya sat by the entrance to force his feet into shiny tight shoes and tie up the laces. They probably cost more than Shane’s entire wardrobe. He loved him so much, this ridiculous man. He kneed Ilya’s thighs apart and stood between them, hands on his shoulders. “Today’s gonna be shit.”

“Yes.”

“And then it’ll be over.”

“Yes.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.” Ilya nodded, resolute, and rested his forehead on Shane’s hip. “I don’t sleep with Svetlana anymore.”

Shane’s heart flipped over, a full three-sixty. “Okay.”

“I have not slept with anyone but you since last summer.”

“Neither have I.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

They hadn’t kissed since Ilya had woken. Separated by the middle seat in the back of their ride, their hands rested a few inches apart. It would’ve been so easy to lift his right hand up and put it back down so that his pinky and ring finger curled over Ilya’s. He didn’t. He couldn’t. In front of the Yandex driver, they were friends. It didn’t sting today, none of it did. He held pieces of Ilya that no one else did.

In his mind, Shane sketched a family tree and did his best to label it. Grigori and Polina. Alexei and Darya and Yelena. Those were the easy ones. Lev and Zoya, their three children, and the children of those children (he hadn’t even tried to coerce the names of the cousins downwards from Ilya, the aunt and uncles were an ordeal enough). Kirill and Zinaida, and their two children, plus Kirill’s ex-wife – also called Polina, just to fuck with Shane – and their child and grandchildren. The spinster aunt Yelisaveta. All the cousins’ husbands and wives, their children’s husbands and wives, family friends, old colleagues, former and current neighbors, Darya’s parents, Alexei’s friends and colleagues, Polina’s brother and his family, Polina’s friends. Every one of them with formal names and multiple nicknames that he was going to butcher if he attempted, insinuating an elderly uncle was a dear infant relation. And then there was Ilya. And Shane.

The last funeral Shane had attended had been years and years ago, when he was too young to pay much attention beyond imitating what the others were doing, standing and sitting at the correct times, trying to ascertain how others handled a conversation when the other party was crying; and obsessing over how it was that every old woman smelled identical. Shane’s mom was there to help guide him through it.

He was resigned to not fitting in at all this time, with his non-existent relationship to the deceased and his Russian illiteracy and his ignorance of church rituals. Whatever. If his shoulder bumping against Ilya’s shoulder, climbing the icy stone steps to the thick wood door, brought the slightest modicum of reassurance, he’d persist through any number of grievous faux pas.

A priest – Shane assumed, a safe gamble given the white robes and yellow sashes and scarves and accessories that he didn’t have the vocabulary to name even in English – greeted them. Shane watched, a baffled anthropologist, as Ilya cupped his hands together and bowed, and the priest made some gesture over Ilya and rested his hand atop Ilya’s palms. Ilya kissed the back of it. And people called Shane odd for having locker room superstitions.

Then he turned to Shane, a serene and passionless expression to his face that Shane immediately pocketed to mimic. It’d psych the hell out of his opponents. “Uh, hello? Sorry, I’m not Russian.”

Behind the priest’s numinous impassivity, he could see Ilya failing to swallow a smile.

He sat on a pew in the back row, close by but not obtrusive. If he turned his head around, he could watch Ilya greeting the arrivals. It was incredible how many versions of Ilya there were, and here was yet another: aloof and respectful, dispassionate and starched. If Shane hadn’t been standing by him ever since he’d woken, he could almost suspect a doppelgänger had taken his Ilya’s place. No cracks were apparent, but he knew they were there.

One of the cousin’s children – a suave teenager in a snappy suit he’d outgrow by the end of the day – had just shaken Shane’s hand and, without asking, put up his phone for a selfie, when Svetlana and her father arrived. She deftly side-stepped the priest and smacked the kid’s hand, unleashing a whispered tirade at his retreating back. “Vultures,” she hissed at Shane.

“I’m used to it.”

“That’s good. It will be much worse at the meal,” she said grimly. “Come on.”

She had insisted on handling the bouquets for him and Ilya, and doled him out a spray of white carnations and led him down the aisle. He’d been dreading this part, but Grigori, in the open casket, was so still and pale that he was patently no longer human, just an uncanny imitation of a man who had once been alive. He didn’t see traces of Ilya at all in the face that was left, not even in the waxwork mask Ilya was wearing today.

Svetlana exhaled. “Here we go. Have you met Alexei yet?”

There might have been a paternal resemblance in the way Alexei moved or spoke or smiled, but without the animation to compare it to, Shane couldn’t see why Polina had insisted Alexei looked so much like his father. But he knew which person Svetlana was referring to, the one with a woman and child by his side. He had never seen Ilya look so bereft of spirit.

“No. Not yet.”

“Lucky you. I’ll take Alexei, you take Dasha.” He thought that was rather the better end of the stick. “For now, until Polina arrives. She hates me, but I hear she wants to adopt you.”

Ah. There was the catch. He could handle it. He was Shane Fucking Hollander, right? Skated through pain, did what was necessary? He’d do so much worse than this for Ilya.

Play decided, man-to-man defense in action, they marched back towards the entrance ever so slightly faster than was probably decorous in a church. The relief he’d felt after hearing Svetlana was no longer fucking Ilya on the side had sapped at his resentment of her, and playing on the same team had now cored out what remained. He didn’t feel like he’d won, but didn’t feel like he was losing either. He hoped he would’ve been noble enough to have felt like this regardless of what Ilya had said to him before they left, but at heart, he knew he was a sore loser. This kind of amity couldn’t be faked.

Svetlana made a clean intercept of a tumble of five-year-old in a black and white polka dot dress sprinting towards them, hoisting her up and continuing on without breaking stride. “Gde tvoy papa?” she asked. “Dasha, have you met Shane?”

“No. Hello, Shane.”

“I’m sorry we’re meeting like this,” he said, kissing her cheeks like everyone else was doing to each other.

“Me too.”

Both of them looked back, at Svetlana talking at Alexei and Yelena peeping over her shoulder, exchanging faces with Ilya.

“They look … hmm, I cannot think of the English word,” Dasha said quietly. “Opposite of ka-boom,” she mimicked with her hands.

“Calm?”

“Ah, not that opposite.”

She smiled at him. Their team might have just gained a new player. The odds of this day ending without a screaming match increased seismically. “Would you like to sit?”

“What, back here? No, no, you must sit at front. With us. Come, with me.”

He didn’t like being so far from Ilya, walking away felt like wading through deep water, but he figured it was temporary. Sitting in the front pew seemed horrifically disrespectful, but was it worse to disrespect a dead man, or a living woman who insisted upon it? He could feel the back of his neck burning up.

Dasha was pretty, but in a hard, rough sort of way. Cheeks too puffy, hair too brittle, fake lashes too big, nails long enough to put the fear of God into a man. And didn’t he feel like an asshole for thinking that, when she returned from laying her flowers at the coffin with tears in her eyes, and he realized she was the only person he’d seen crying today.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh, do not worry for me,” she said, pressing at her eyes. He couldn’t not wonder she managed not to poke an eyeball out. “How is Ilya? How are you?”

They chit-chatted in murmurs for a while, seats filling up behind them. Dasha deflected every attempt he made to learn about her, turning each question into an opportunity to speak about Yelena or Ilya. The service was delayed five minutes by the belated arrival of Polina, who had to be physically supported down the aisle by her brother. He caught Ilya’s eye, and watched him set his jaw. He caught Svetlana’s eye, and watched her grimace.

It was not until the front pew filled: Polina, Polina’s brother, Ilya, Shane, Dasha, Yelena, and Alexei, that the discomfort of separation eased, his and Ilya’s elbows serried together again. And then it started and he had nothing but his own thoughts to entertain him for about forty minutes of liturgical Russian he knew not a fucking word of.

The thoughts he had were all of last night, of finding Ilya crying his eyes out and everything that followed. Shane had rushed in, clumsy in his haste – don’t fall, don’t fucking fall – and sat down hard, pulling Ilya in between his thighs and wrapping arms and legs and hands and feet and neck around him, holding him firm while tears overflowed in the reservoir made between Ilya’s eyes and Shane’s upper left pec.

They’d stayed there until Ilya smeared at his face with his wrists and muttered: “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“Not the holiday you thought it would be, yes?”

“Rozanov, you fucking idiot.” He held him tighter, squeezed even closer, somehow. “It’s not a holiday. This is exactly why I came.”

“You do not want to be dealing with this.”

Honestly, he thought he deserved the Lady Byng for not strangling him. “Yes. I do. Is this your mom’s stuff?”

“Yes. Her old skates, and her … I remember this, this sweater. She was making it before … before things got bad.”

“It’s nice.”

“She hated knitting,” Ilya laughed, all humid and damp. “But everyone said it would be good to do something with her hands. Keep her focused.”

“Was she sick?”

“Yes. She had depression.”

“Oh.” He rubbed the spot behind Ilya’s ear. “Is that how she died?”

“Mm, yes. She took some of my father’s heart medication pills. The whole bottle of them. Atenolol.” From the way Ilya said it, it sounded like the name of an old friend, the kind of word that had burrowed into his head and made a home in there. “I have looked it up, before. They say it does not hurt, when you die from too many.”

“That’s good.” That’s good? he’d thought. Jesus, Shane. You should be ashamed.

But Ilya didn’t seem to take offence. “Yes, I do not like to think of her hurting. At the very end. And she was so peaceful. I thought she was sleeping.”

“You saw her?”

“I found her.”

Oh, Ilya. His laughing, cocky, jackass, teasing, rude, brilliant, clever, funny, omnipotent, six-foot-two mountain of an Ilya. He was one of the people Shane knew best in the world, and he hardly knew him at all.

“That is how I knew that my father lied, when he said it was an accident. When I came home, the rest of the pills were still lined up on her bedside table.” Ilya dimpled his fingertip up Shane’s bare thigh, dotting out a straight line.

He held Ilya tight, sitting groin-to-hip in the gap between Shane’s thighs, and listened to the solemn oath little Ilya had made, to never forgive his father; and the escalating desperation for release, from hockey to sex to vint (“like speed, amphetamines” Ilya explained, without Shane having to ask); the brawls and the arguments; and the feeling that the whole world was a cage, that escaping to America still hadn’t been far enough to fly the coop. All the while, he plotted schemes to try to convince Ilya to boycott the funeral. He’d done enough for his father, hadn’t he? More than enough. Too much.

He’d had no idea how correct Ilya had been, to say his father and Shane’s father were not the same.

“And then,” Ilya had said, waving his hand at the debris all over the floor, “he writes me this, fucking … and I don’t even know what to think anymore.”

“Is it a good thing? Or a bad thing?”

“It’s fucking … both. Neither. I am so fucking sad and also so mad. Fuck. You tell me. I wish you could read Russian.”

Ilya didn’t even know the half of it. “You want me to read it? If I could?”

“It is faster than fucking translating it.”

“Right.” If Ilya was going to act as if it were obvious Shane should be welcome to read a letter from his dead father, he could play along as if he weren’t absolutely fucking chuffed. “Isn’t there an app for that?”

There was an app. There was about a million of them. They downloaded one. It didn’t work on handwriting. They downloaded another. It didn’t work on handwriting. They downloaded another. It promised to work on handwriting if they paid for a membership. They paid for a membership. It recognized, at best, one word in fifty. They downloaded twenty apps at once. None of them worked. Waiting for another batch of apps to download, they began to lose it. Something about the lateness of the hour, the crashing of the emotional whiplash, the absurdity of Ilya’s crowded home screen put them both in fucking fits of giggles. When the next app didn’t work, both of them were laughing so hard they were almost wetting themselves.

“Fucking waste of time,” Ilya wheezed. “Come on. I will make tea.”

It had been three-thirty in the morning by then. Over three cups of tea, Ilya translated the letter out loud, word by word, slurring in his exhaustion but determined, rebutting all attempts to go to bed. By the time he finished, the first fingers of grey were hinting in the sky.

“How do you feel about it?” Shane had asked.

“I don’t know. I feel tired.”

That wasn’t nearly good enough for Shane. He wanted every conflicted tension, every implication. He wanted to know if Ilya thought Grigori was telling a version of the truth, or making a delusional attempt at absolution. He wanted to ask if Ilya was proud of himself, because he should be.

“Let’s go to bed,” he said instead. His shattered Ilya, that’s who took priority here.

Despite their attempts at shocking themselves awake in the morning, the drone of insensible words was a soporific to Shane. Given his ability to fall asleep in most circumstances, he had to use every trick in the book to stop himself from nodding off.

Shane wasn’t sure he could ever forgive Grigori. When Ilya stood to say goodbye, kissing Grigori’s forehead – Shane wasn’t one to criticize other cultures outside the confines of his own judgemental mind, but: weird – and muttering a few words, Ilya looked like a bundle of broken glass, put back together with Krazy Glue and shoved into a black turtleneck. He couldn’t be impartial. Not about the man who he’d been waiting and waiting and waiting to say I fucking love you to, not about the father who hadn’t been capable of showing the same sentiment.

He offered to escort Polina out, trailing the casket. A mixed blessing: specks of damp white tissue from within her clawed hand stuck to his suit jacket where she’d clutched at his elbow, but she also invited – no, insisted – he join the family for the internment, gifting him another hour or two with Ilya that he’d been planning on white-knuckling through solo.

Sergei Vetrov – the Sergei Vetrov – volunteered to ride with Alexei’s family so Shane could travel in Ilya and Svetlana’s car. A fucking legend. The three of them squished into the back seat, an absurd decision considering their median weight was on par with a baby elephant, but that was the only way they were going to make it through the day, acting as buttresses, their centrepiece in the middle seat despite the numerous physiological reasons why it should have been Svetlana. Ilya closed his eyes and rested his head on Svetlana’s shoulder.

“Um: no. Your fat head is too heavy. Other side, please.” She nudged it over to lean on Shane instead.

“You are a bitch,” he muttered, eyes staying shut.

“Takes one to know one.”

If crawling through Moscow at 40kph with Ilya’s head on his shoulder was acceptable, Shane figured it was probably acceptable in other circumstances, so long as he didn’t do anything stupid, like smell Ilya’s hair or kiss his head or try it at a time when it wasn’t manifestly obvious that Ilya was in dire need of fraternal comfort. He pulled it out again after Ilya threw a handful of dirt onto the coffin, once he’d returned to stand by Shane and was visibly trembling. Shane put his good arm around Ilya’s shoulder and let their heads prop together, performing rapid hetero-normative calculations in his mind.

Alexei interrupted them after about eight seconds, as if Shane needed another reason to despise him. “Shane Hollander,” he drawled – just like Ilya did, it was bizarre – sticking out a hand. “Thank you for coming.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said automatically.

“Yes. We have lost a … good man. A very good man. You are coming to the … I do not know the English word. The pominki?”

“The wake,” Ilya translated. Shane watched a tic throb in Alexei’s throat. “Yes. I want a minute, you go first.”

Alexei responded with something in Russian, a sing-song tone that Shane could’ve fucking tripped him in his size ten shoes for. He didn’t give a shit that Alexei hadn’t read the letter, wasn’t aware that Ilya’s perspective of their ossified family relations had been turned upside down. Instead he stood by Ilya’s side and watched Alexei leave, then Yelisaveta and Zoya and Lev leave, then Kirill and Zinaida and Polina leave, then it was just the three of them, finally.

Ilya crouched in the dirty thin layer of snow, in his ridiculous Dior shoes, in front of Irina Rozanova’s tombstone, and though his mouth moved, Shane and Svetlana were too far back to hear him.

“It’s fucking online already,” Svetlana hissed, invective flowing through her scrolling thumbs. “Look.”

He took the phone she shoved at him and looked. Pictures of him and Ilya on the church steps, pictures of the procession cavalcade stumbling out the doors, pictures of him escorting Polina to her car, pictures of Ilya hollow-cheeked and flinty watching the hearse depart. He still looked like a fucking model, the asshole. Intemperate frustration filled him. Shane wanted to take it out on someone. He wanted half an excuse to take someone to court and rinse them for all they were worth.

They were posted on VK, stripped of contextual positioning for a non-Russian speaker. “What are they saying?”

“It’s all: poor Rozanov, lovely Hollander. Big deal here, that you have come. I would not be surprised if all these thirsty comments are government bots.” He was still mulling over that when she added: “No offence.”

“None taken.”

“Yes, see?” she scowled, tapping on a tag marked #ВремяОтдыхатьВРосси. “This is the Rozturism slogan. Fucking sharks.”

“Who is a shark?”

“The whole world, Ilyusha,” Svetlana sighed. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” he said, with all the enthusiasm of a walk to the gallows. “Hollander, last chance. You do not have to come.”

“Would you fuck off already?”

A smile cracked through, lecherous and smug. Shane had a heart-stopping moment where he thought Ilya was about to imply their friends-with-benefits status in front of Svetlana, and mentally fortified himself to Handle It, for Ilya’s sake. Instead, Ilya turned to her and said: “You see how he treats me?”

“Yes. I am taking notes, it is very effective.”

“Oh! All sides now! I am being attacked!” He was frowning and pouting, which was indescribably better than attempting to play the part of an immovable giant. Shane’s Ilya, not his family’s Ilya. He swung an arm around each of their shoulders as they trudged down the slippery frozen path back to the car, idling ignobly at the Gazpromneft next door, gasoline smell and cheap sandwiches mingling with the sepulchral beauty of the iron gate and worn stone vaults.

They were the last to arrive at the restaurant, and as they walked in, Alexei said something that made the people around him laugh. Shane, obviously, had no fucking clue what he’d said, but knew it wasn’t good by Ilya’s deep, focused exhale, and the way Dasha’s face fell. Someone – presumably Dasha, and he planned to shake her hand for it later – had arranged the remaining empty seats such that he could sit himself between Polina and Ilya, and had put Svetlana and Sergei opposite them, buffering the space between Ilya and Alexei with additional bodies.

“You okay?” he asked Ilya, as quietly as possible.

“Fine. Stop asking,” Ilya hissed back. Which was super believable.

The portrait and medals Shane had delivered were propped at the head of the table, he was relieved to see. The sheer amount of liquor on the table he was rather less relieved to see. Exactly what this ordeal needed: reduced inhibitions and a flaming hot Molotov cocktail of bravado.

It began mildly, with false hope: a sombre toast and carbohydrates, thank God. Ilya was talking to his uncle Lev on his left, and Shane headed off Polina interrupting their conversation by asking a million and one questions about her time in London in the nineties. So far, so good. Then, in the breaks between courses, Alexei began bringing his friends over to the table and introducing them to Shane, which was the first wobble of the wheels coming off. Shane didn’t give a shit, he’d take a thousand selfies and make days upon days of inane small talk if it cushioned Ilya from Alexei’s attention, but he could feel Ilya’s frustration vibrating in the air.

He was posing for a photo with some guy with the poor luck to be called Gleb, a crowd of men laughing at … well, he wasn’t actually sure whether they were laughing at Shane for smiling when his picture was taken, or at Gleb for not smiling, but they were definitely laughing at one or the other. Gleb was very animatedly speaking words at Shane, which Alexei was translating as an invitation to join Gleb on patrol, see the “real Moscow.” He had to search for the right combination of words that conveyed both politeness and the strength of his no-fucking-way convictions in simple enough English for Alexei to translate, and that was when something took a turn in the rest of the table’s conversation: whatever Polina had said to Ilya, it made Svetlana arc up and spit something that sounded scathing.

Alexei yelled something at Ilya, Polina yelled something at Svetlana, Svetlana yelled something at Alexei, Sergei clapped his hands and yelled something at everyone, and Shane sat there blinking like a gormless turkey.

Ilya pushed to his feet and announced he was going for a cigarette. In the interim, Shane took another two selfies and the next course was brought out: bone broth jelly. He respected the macros, but the texture was enough to make a life of nicotine addiction sound like the better option.

To avoid eating it, avoid anyone noticing he was avoiding eating it, and to avoid a continuation of whatever the fuck had happened, once Ilya returned Shane did his damn best to carry a conversation with both Sergei and Polina, praying for the spirits of Rose and J.J. to inhabit him with their extroverted charm. Somehow, it actually worked: Shane’s lame opener of: “What are you working on at the moment?” led them down a garden path of the World Cup and Polina’s enthusiasm for Premier League and her distaste for English soccer fanatics.

“They are children,” she complained, “who cannot drink beer without vomiting on the Tube and starting fistfights.”

“Well, our hockey fans are not so different,” Sergei said, inclining his head towards Shane and the otherwise engaged Ilya. “The fans of Montreal and Boston take any excuse to be angry.”

“Very true,” Shane agreed.

“Our poor policemen will have a very difficult time, with all these hooligans. Alexei already works so hard.”

“Ah, yes. But the army will be helping too, of course.”

“Hrani ih Gospod’. It should begin with the Ministry, though. The trouble makers should not be granted visas.”

Sergei knocked a fist on the table. “Now, there is a problem. No visas will be needed for ticket holders.”

“Oh, really?” Shane said, mainly just grasping for grist to politely continue the conversation, but he was drowned out anyway by Polina’s dramatic “No!”

“How does this make sense?” she continued, inflamed. “Poor Shane here must jump through hoops for a visa, the most polite and most decent young man, bringing pride to us all; and we gladly let some, some … otmorozki in because they wish to watch football?”

“I know, I know, it is barbaric. But: the logistics, you see?” Sergei shrugged. “Are you a football fan, Shane?”

“I mean, yeah, sure. I watched some of the last one, definitely.”

Polina shot straight up. “You must come! Next summer! With Ilya! We can all attend together.”

“Um—”

Sergei latched on too: “I can get you very good tickets. VIP. Finals, semi-finals. It would be an honor to host you.”

He remembered Ilya’s phrase, the exact Ilya-esque cadence of it, friendly-friendly, to describe the World Cup as an image rehabilitation effort. And Svetlana’s theory about bot accounts. Maybe the bargain he’d struck to get an expedited visa hadn’t been quite as one-sided as he’d thought.

Beside him, talking separately to Dasha, Ilya leaned back in his chair and his legs splayed open, just a little, enough for his knee to brush against Shane’s.

“That’s very kind of you,” he said, in his most anodyne, noncommittal voice. “I’ll talk to my agent about it.”

Polina patted his hand. “You must. Ilya would be so h— gospodi, daj mne sil i terpeniya.”

Turning his head, down the table he could see Ilya’s uncle and aunt making tsks of disapproval at Alexei, who had lit a cigarette, right there, at the table.

“Can you smoke inside in Russia?”

“No,” Sergei answered him, curtly.

“There is no problem!” Alexei boomed over whatever Dasha was whispering to him. The English made him think this might be a stunt intended to have an effect on him. “My brother is a rich man, yes? He will pay the fine.”

Shane pressed his knee back into Ilya’s.

“Our noble police! Sluzhim Rossii, sluzhim zakonu!”

The fact that it was Svetlana who said it, not Ilya, and the fact that Alexei’s friends were among those laughing was probably what saved it from further disaster, though Alexei continued to smoke, and Dasha continued to pale, and Ilya continued to fester, the aura of antipathy growing ever stronger. Whenever Shane looked at him, he was chewing the inside of his cheek.

They made it so close. All the way to the end, to the porridge, thick enough for their spoons to rest upright in the bowls. Shane’s brain was ready to pack it in and quit without two weeks notice, it was overworked and overtired and buzzing from the strain of trying to monitor everyone and all their emotions and maintain relentless composure. It had struck him, more than once, how much effort it cost him to interpret and read all these people’s faces, and how he’d grown used to not having to worry about it after spending almost all of his time with Ilya, whose expressions were so familiar.

He wanted to take Ilya home and tuck them both into bed and sleep curled up together for the next twenty hours. Ilya was hardly talking at all anymore, quiescent and rigid, and Shane didn’t blame him in the slightest.

What if the notary hadn’t been so diligent? What if he’d skived off today? What if, what if, what if?

Four phones chimed in unison. Looking down at the table space between his plate and Ilya’s, an email had arrived on Ilya’s phone, subject line in the Cyrillic alphabet that he couldn’t even pronounce, let alone translate. Around the table, Alexei and Polina and Dasha were fumbling to open their own phones. Ilya huffed and followed the herd.

Polina was the kind of reader who mumbled as she read, which was fucking annoying, but he drowned her out with attention on the look on Ilya’s face. It was the dimpled smile, the internal chuckle of a good joke. Shane was fucking enchanted: look at his resilient Ilya. He was magnificent.

Alexei shoved his chair back, tipping it over with the force of it. “Alexei,” Dasha called to his disappearing back.

“Leave him, Dari,” Ilya said. “Papa knew what he was doing.”

“What’s happened?” Shane asked, aimed at Ilya, but open to anyone who’d answer.

“He didn’t. He didn’t know, he was unwell. That is it, that is what this must be. He was so sick, I was there —”

“Not so sick he couldn’t file it,” Ilya replied to Polina, all smart-ass joviality, like when Shane faced him on the ice. “Not so sick he could not see who only cares about the money.”

Shane turned to look at Svetlana, hoping she’d take pity on his cluelessness, but she was shrugging. “The will?” she said. “I don’t kn—” and then her face fell.

Blocked from Shane’s periphery by Ilya’s “fat” head, Alexei stomped up from behind and punched Ilya across the mouth.

Distantly, he noticed some people had screamed or shrieked, some people gasped, some people were rushing over, but that was secondary to his main motivation, which was to stand and slug Alexei on the nose. It hurt like a motherfucker, but no more than it ever had before, fighting his way out of a brawl on the ice.

“You okay?” he asked Ilya.

He looked a mess, a gorgeous mess, blood on his teeth and a cut lip and dribbles of red on his chin. Oh fuck, Shane thought belatedly, I’ve just decked a cop. But now, but here: this was Captain Rozanov, back in both flesh and spirit, sparkling eyes and bleeding and bruised and grinning, invincible. “Please, please, Shane. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Chapter End Notes

My beloved readers who went back and re-commented on Chapter 8: you are such lovely, kind souls who made my heart grow two sizes even as I was attempting to rip yours out with Grigori's letter. May your freezers never need de-icing, may your houseplants never droop, may your favourite pens never run dry xoxo

Chapter 11

Chapter Notes

Shane wandered down the aisle, thinking: Tony, Tony, Tony, Tony, Tony. He dumped his duffle on the as-yet unoccupied aisle seat and checked his passport, charging cable, headphones, and spare underwear. The overhead bins were jam-packed, so he mangled it under the seat in front.

“Who are you sitting on this time?”

“What?”

“Your seat, Hollander. Who is it?”

“Tony Esposito, number thirty-five.”

Ilya, in the window seat, cracked a huge grin: incisors out, ear-to-ear, the cut on his lip straining, and laughed. “You are ridiculous.”

“Shut up.”

“Hmm, no. No, thank you. I like it.”

The flight from Minsk to Odessa took ninety minutes, which was enough to watch Boston’s game against Arizona that Shane had hastily downloaded in transit at the airport. They split Ilya’s earbuds between them, and leaned into each other to share the screen. And also to avoid stealing the seat space of the poor girl who claimed the aisle spot, unluckily assigned to share a row with two men over six feet tall. They would’ve booked business class, but Belavia didn’t offer it for short haul, and the emergency row seats were already taken by the time they bought the tickets.

Ilya had booked the flights the night before, one-handed while pressing a dish cloth full of ice cubes to the inflamed knuckles on Shane’s good hand. That was after they’d sucked each other off in a frenzy under the shower, specks of dried blood spinning down the drain. They couldn’t fly direct from Russia to Ukraine, but they got on the first flight to Belarus out of Moscow, leaving just after nine that morning. They made a fine pair: wrist brace and sore knuckles, fat lip and a bruise on Ilya’s jaw. People stared at them, but didn’t recognize them after they left Russia – Shane had had enough exposure to be able to parse the difference. He had no idea what kind of mischief their fellow passengers would ascribe to them, a couple of bloodied up brutes.

Belavia didn’t offer them modern interiors or fancy amenities, but their bags and their bodies arrived on the same flight, which was pretty much all he required of them, and that was more than he could say of American Airlines. At Odessa airport, they used a gnarly combination of English and Russian to hire a Volkswagen hatchback at the Avis outlet, and paid through the nose for it.

In the sanctity of the car, finally, they were alone together and outside of Russia for the first time in a week. The land was flat as anything, Ilya driving down a highway with acres of grain pulling away as far as Shane could see. He wanted to hold Ilya’s spare hand, resting lazily on his thigh while he held the wheel with just his left, but Shane’s stupid fucking brace was awkward and clumsy and provided enough of a hesitation that he second-guessed himself out of it.

They’d avoided Odessa proper, heading west and then south, and plowed through Velykodolyns’ke, skirted the edges of Oleksandrivka, and made a pit stop in Chornomorsk for sachets of instant porridge, coffee, tea, honey, bread, pasta, sausages, canned tomatoes, Coke, beer, crackers, tuna, protein bars, chocolate cookies, dried apricots, apples, yogurt, cream cheese, salami, mustard, pickles, laundry detergent, dish detergent, toilet paper, and whatever else Ilya managed to sneak into their bags without Shane noticing. He made Shane try to pronounce the names of everything and nitpicked every attempt. Shane wanted to fucking live in Chornomorsk if it could keep Ilya this persnickety and gleeful. Not a soul asked them for a photo.

South, south, for another ten minutes, keeping the Black Sea by Ilya’s left shoulder, arguing whether Shane’s aversion to Russian rap was xenophobic, the energy between them ratcheted up to buoyant trampolining nerves, inane and stupid threads of conversation, garrulous talk about anything so long as it wasn’t Russia or Ilya’s family or the funeral; each twist in the road another he loves me, he loves me not plucked off in Shane’s mind.

The turnoff for the winery was well-marked, a series of roadside placards counting down to a gravel road with a gold-embossed wooden sign. Then an immediate hard right turn, past a hedge row ending in a parking spot of travertine stones. The winery was owned by Svetlana (nominally: it was really Sergei’s, but gifted away as a precaution against sanctions, Ilya explained), and it rented out the cottage to visiting tourists, described on Airbnb as “secluded, close to the beach, private and picturesque.” Svetlana had called the manager the night before and told him her friends were coming to stay.

It wasn’t his cottage, it didn’t have the appeal of being home, but it was beautiful and simple. Two-story brickwork, a terrace covered in bare vines with a stone outdoor grill, a chimney rising above the sloped roof. The wind was strong enough to send them stumbling, and it blew the taste of salt onto their lips. It was a balmy six degrees, according to the Weather app, not accounting for the gale.

Since Ilya insisted on handling the luggage, Shane made a point to carry all the groceries inside in one load, five plastic bags clasped in his one good hand and the toilet paper under his left armpit. It was a wasted effort. He could hear Ilya gambolling up the stairs to the loft already, entirely ignorant of Shane’s stubborn prowess.

“What do you wanna do?” Shane yelled, stowing away perishables in the fridge. “We could go walk on the beach?”

“You are trying to seduce me?” Ilya yelled back.

“Yeah. Sure. Ten degree wind chill, you into that?”

Above his head, he could hear Ilya racing down the steps. “Shane?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

Shane spun on his heel, fridge door still open behind him, plastic bags at his feet. Ilya was standing at the base of the stupid floating staircase, looking twitchy and contrite.

“You fucking dick,” Shane spluttered. “I’ve been waiting ages to say that first.”

Ilya’s shoulders fell down from his ears. “Well, you are always slower than me.”

“Oh my god, Ilya, you asshole, I fucking love you too.” He was sprinting in his rush to flense Ilya’s uncertainty but it still took forever, an eon of approaching Ilya’s diffident, angelic smile and his outstretched arms, twelve feet was so fucking far away, when he got there he was never going to let go again, and then: home, home, not even kissing, not yet, just burying his face in Ilya’s neck and clutching onto him so tight, smelling the exact spot where he dabbed his cologne and the hint of clammy travel sweat and blunt stubble scratching Shane’s forehead. Ilya kissed his temple, his ear, his pulse, the corner of his jaw.

“I love you so fucking much,” Shane said, out loud – out loud – into Ilya’s skin. He moved his hand to Ilya’s face and held it in place, ear slotting between pinky and ring fingers, forefinger along the side of his head, thumb pressed hard into his cheekbone, and kissed him. This was different, this wasn’t how they usually did it, but that fact didn’t worry him at all. A delicate brush, soft against the split upper lip, slow and languid. There wasn’t a rush.

“I love you,” Ilya whispered back, around Shane’s kisses, his smile so wide Shane had to kiss him in segments. “Ya tebya lyublyu.”

“Teach me how to say it.”

“Later.” He dropped his hands to the backs of Shane’s thighs and hoisted him up. “Bedroom.”

“You can’t carry me upstairs.”

“Oh, my boyfriend does not think I am strong enough?”

Fuck, he’d always known how to push Shane’s buttons, right from the fucking beginning, before they’d even met, all the way back when Shane had watched tape of this precocious boy from Russia, the first time Shane had ever felt threatened by someone else’s hockey, when he’d thought: I want to destroy that guy, and also: I want to meet that guy.

“Your boyfriend thinks staircases without handrails and riser boards are death traps.”

“Ugh, my boyfriend is so fucking boring,” Ilya whined, but he also pressed Shane up against the brick wall and kissed him properly, thoroughly, lips aching from the force of it. He could taste traces of blood on Ilya’s mouth.

“Didn’t he come to Russia with you? Is that boring?”

“Ah, you see, sometimes he is insane, also. Boring and insane.” Their foreheads knocked together. “He even punched a guy. Was very hot.”

“He sounds kinda weird.”

“No no, you are saying it wrong. He is weird, yes, because he is so perfect. Perfect, and boring, and insane. And I love him very much.”

Shane couldn’t see him properly now, just a blurred watercolor facsimile of the eyes he knew so well. “Ilya.”

“Shh, no crying. This is good, yes?”

“Yes.” He dashed his unwept tears. “This is very good.”

The refrigerator began beeping, protesting its abandonment. “You couldn’t close the fucking door?” Ilya said, with a petulant whinge.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I was kind of distracted.”

“First time we take our clothes off, you stop to fold your underpants, but now you forget the fucking fridge?”

“Well, yeah, some asshole stole my thunder.” Shane rubbed their noses together, to ensure Ilya understood he was teasing.

“Your boyfriend?”

“Yeah. What a dick, right?”

“Yes, fuck that guy.”

“I’d like to, if he put me down already.”

He dropped Shane in an instant and laced their hands together, dragging him over and making a show of closing the fridge door, pressing his right palm over the edges to confirm the seal. “Okay?”

“Hurry up, you’re so slow.”

Shane led them upstairs, never ever wanting to let go of the hand he was holding, willing to go through life as an obligate six-limbed beast if it meant he could stay glued to Ilya forever, never more than one sharp tug away from holding him.

He had to let go, though, to pull Ilya’s tee over his head, bare-chested like Shane always wanted him, and folded it, as precisely as he could with only one thumb, while Ilya shucked off his sweats and underwear and socks in one swoop. “I think I loved you right from the start,” Ilya said. “First time I saw you folding your clothes.”

“Fuck off. This gets you going?” He picked up the rest of Ilya’s things and folded them too, arranging them in a pile.

Ilya clutched his chest and swooned onto the bed. “You kill me. Do yours too.”

He did, deft now at undressing one-handed, while Ilya reached off the mattress to drag his suitcase over, unzipping it and nabbing the leather wash bag where he kept their lube and condoms. Neither of them could stop smiling, tiny puffs of giggles bubbling out of them. “Hey, Ilya?” Shane said, pulling off his socks.

“Hey, Shane?”

“I love you.”

“Hurry up,” Ilya grumbled, pouting. “I need you.”

Shane kneed up the bed, towards the top where Ilya was sitting, leaning against the wall. His face made it there first, mouths snapping together, Ilya’s hands supporting his elbows as he settled himself into Ilya’s lap. Underneath, he could feel Ilya’s cock pressing against his balls and nudging at the base of his dick, which was fucking fantastic and all that, but he needed skin more than he needed to get fucked right now: their bellies touching; their chests brushing; his hand on Ilya’s face and his thighs on Ilya’s sides and his calves crossed around Ilya’s back; long, slow kisses, threads of saliva between their lips; and nose on nose and forehead on forehead.

Except then Ilya grabbed a handful of his ass, and he did, in fact, need to get fucked, the only possible way to be closer. He ground down, pressing against Ilya’s dick. “Please.”

“Please?”

“Please fuck me. Please.”

“You ask so nicely,” Ilya said, leering, already reaching across for the lube. “My pretty boyfriend.”

Oh, he was so done for now, for forever, if ‘boyfriend’ continued to hit like that. “Fuck,” he swore, and again, once Ilya’s fingers started to stretch him: “Fuck.”

He sucked his fingers and slid them in between their bodies to toy with Ilya’s cock, mouthing at his shoulders, tracing the flush that spread across his chest. They’d been fucking too frequently for it to take long to open up, and he’d barely made any progress by the time Ilya patted over for the condoms, still scraping his teeth against a nipple. “Do we need that?”

“What?”

“Do we still need condoms? If we’re … I mean, it’s just us now, right?”

“Wh— yes. Of course, just you, milyy. But we can still … if you want?”

Leaning back to look at him, his Ilya was fire-engine red, all over his face, ears burning, hair scuffled and wild. Look what I can do to Ilya Fucking Rozanov, Shane thought. My boyfriend. “We don’t have to, right?” he asked, genuinely wondering if there was a rule he was missing here. He’d never been in love before, but he thought it’d go without saying.

“No, is … is okay?”

“Jesus, Rozanov, fuck me already.”

Ilya’s chest was heaving as he lubed himself up, breathing hard and eyes wide and glued to Shane’s face. Shane lifted himself up, tilted his hips, and sank back to sitting, this time with Ilya’s dick filling him up, a perfect, perfect stretch and heft. The lack of condom didn’t feel so different to him, mainly psychosomatic, the knowledge that Ilya was inside him with nothing between them at all. That was fucking hot.

That, and Ilya’s reaction, how his groan choked off, how he had to grip the base of his dick and breathe through his mouth. “Fuck. Shane. Fucking … fuck. Don’t move, just …”

“It’s good?”

“Too good. Oh, fuck, too fucking good.” He laughed, scratchy, hysterical. “I cannot last, like this.”

“I don’t care. If you have to come, just: stay here, yeah? It’s perfect. You’re fucking perfect.”

He was taller than Ilya again, leaning down to kiss him, but not in charge this time. Ilya spat on his hand and stroked Shane’s cock and he was gone too, so much closer than he’d realized. He could still grip into Ilya’s hair but didn’t have enough control of his mouth to kiss properly, just let Ilya suck on his lips, feel the constant throb of pressure against his prostate, and Ilya’s hand bringing him higher and higher.

“Ilya … Ilya, honey,” he moaned, trying to warn he was right there, but Ilya groaned too, setting off a chain reaction of Shane thrusting into Ilya’s hand, feeling the drag of dick in his hole, Shane whining, Ilya panting, rinse and repeat. As soon as he came, spurting into Ilya’s fist, Shane rode him properly, bouncing in his lap just a couple of times before Ilya clutched him close and came too.

“You are not real,” Ilya said, voice wobbling, into Shane’s chest once he was done. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Hey. No. This is real, yeah? I love you.”

Ilya looked up, a sheen across his eyes. Oh, his Ilya. Shane kissed his forehead, between his eyebrows, the tip of his nose, the cut on his lip, the mole on his cheek, his ear lobe, his temple. He could hear Ilya sniffling, and he was only human, so he cupped Ilya’s face into his neck and buried his face in his hair and whispered “I love you,” inculcating for as long as it took for Ilya to say it back.

They held each other in the grey harshness of afternoon light, wind roaring outside, exchanging promises that this was real, they hadn’t dreamed it, excruciatingly sincere. Ilya’s cock hadn’t gone completely limp, and they stayed meshed together in all their debauchery: rumpled hair and saliva trails and dried cum on their chests.

When they were ready again, Ilya flipped them and pulled back to apply more lube, staring at where they joined, at the cum on his cock and pooling out of Shane’s hole. It sent him feral, fucking into Shane like he’d been fucking possessed, and Shane was so desperate for it, clawing at his back, clutching at his ass, trying to draw him closer, harder, more-more, his own dick heavy and red and glistening across his stomach. He wondered if anywhere in Chornomorsk sold butt plugs, so he could keep himself open and ready to get fucked like this, rough and desperate, at any moment.

Ilya pulled out and jizzed all over Shane’s chest, and licked a stripe up, through both their cum, all the way up to his collarbone and his jaw and his mouth, forcing the taste of both of them onto his tongue, then settling himself down and applying himself to the task of kissing until the taste was gone again, and all Shane could taste was Ilya, Ilya, Ilya.

It was increasingly impossible to avoid the need for a shower after that, the shuddering yuck crawling all over Shane’s skin, even though he loved the scent of Ilya’s sweat and cum on bare skin more than was sane. They quibbled about the design of the stairs, again, on the way down, and crowded themselves into a stall they barely managed to both fit into, and Ilya couldn’t stop mocking Shane’s bewilderment that the shower was untiled, bare brick and wooden slats as its walls.

One of the purest, tenderest joys in life, Shane decided, was hugging. Kissing and sex did something similar, when they were with Ilya, but they performed double duty in pursuit of the reward of an orgasm. Hugging, when done outside the platonic framework of: hello/goodbye/congratulations/I’m sorry; was just saying I love you, I love you, I need you, be near me. They hugged in the shower, half-warm and half-cold. They hugged in their towels, standing on the timber floor. They hugged in the kitchen, between eating handfuls of dried apricots and protein bars. They hugged under the sheets, noses nestled together and arms draped over backs.

They woke from their nap to a dark cottage, only faint gloom revealing the edges of furniture. One of their phones was ringing, which meant it was someone who could break through their Do Not Disturb settings. His parents, his coach, Farah, and Celine; for Shane.

Ilya rolled over and draped his torso out of the bed, patting his hands across the floor. Shane was struck by the impulse to kiss the moles on his back, not for the first time, and then remembered he didn’t have to overthink it anymore, just reach out and touch when the desire struck. “Just Sveta,” Ilya mumbled, the viscous slur of just-awoken voice one of Shane’s favorite Ilya-isms. “I can call her later.”

He rolled back into Shane’s chest, burrowing in. The heating was on, but at the barely-warm temperature the manager had set it to before they arrived. Neither of them had taken a second with the thermostat yet, too busy with loftier ineffable shit like getting acquainted with what it was like to have a boyfriend than worry about nonsense like light switches and temperature. Under the blankets, between their skin, it was a sauna of warmth.

“Hey.”

“Mm. Hello,” Ilya murmured, nuzzling in harder.

“Did you see a woodpile outside? I wanna light a fire tonight.”

“My boyfriend, he is so manly and strong, lighting fires. Like lumberjack.”

“Really?” Shane said, as droll as he could make it. “Lumberjack? I’ve only got one wrist.”

“He broke it, chopping a big tree into pieces.”

“Not slipping on the street?”

“No, that would be too embarrassing, not my boyfriend. Fire would be nice, yes. If there is no wood, I will get Sveta to call the manager. She said there would be some, behind the kitchen.”

“Okay.” Or, alternatively, Shane thought, they could lie in bed all night, without food or water or fire, until the sun came up again. His hierarchy of needs had all moved down a rung with Ilya softly exhaling onto his collarbone. He kissed the top of Ilya’s head.

Something clicked into place, gear teeth meeting gear teeth. “Wait, Ilya: Svetlana’s been here before, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“So she knows there’s only one bed?”

“Ah.” Ilya leaned back, looking every inch an unprepared tourist who’d just stumbled across a bear on their hike. “She does not know. You and me. But she thinks.”

His first reaction was panic, and his second reaction was shame for his first. Svetlana, who’d been so unerringly kind when Shane had been flat and brusque. Svetlana, whom he’d teamed up with to put Ilya under their aegis. Svetlana, who’d spat vitriol when she saw the pap shots. Svetlana, who’d screamed bloody murder at Alexei and fetched their coats and ordered them a ride home. Svetlana wasn’t going to be the person to bring this down about their ears.

“What does she ‘think?’”

“Ah, well, she thinks I have been messaging Jane for many years. She thinks maybe I am in love with Jane. And, maybe, she thinks Jane is sounding a lot like the name of my new best friend? I have never told her anything,” Ilya rushed to append. “She is just … thinking.”

“Ilya. Honey.” He kissed a wincing eyebrow. “It’s fine. She must know by now, right?”

“She does not have to. I can call her and complain about bed, pretend I have been sleeping on the couch. No problem.”

“You don’t have to. We can tell her. If you want.”

“This is really okay?” Ilya asked, suspiciously.

“Yeah. Of course.” Of course, he told himself sternly. Be cool with this. Svetlana clearly is. “Don’t you wanna brag about your new boyfriend? The lumberjack?”

Ilya rolled on top of him, kissing at his neck. “I do, I want to tell everyone, whole world, all the things about Shane Hollander.” His stomach turned, nauseous for a moment at that idea, before he rationalized that Ilya was exaggerating. “That he is so beautiful, that I love his freckles,” he paused to kiss a cluster of them, “that he is a secret asshole, that he is so kind, and funny, and sweet. That he cannot cook for shit —”

“Hey!”

“— that he has no taste in books. And that he is my sexy boyfriend, hmm?”

Ilya’s hand reached for Shane’s dick. He wondered, somewhat indulgently, if there were records for things like most number of orgasms in a day, or fastest consecutive orgasms, and where they’d rank and what kind of work – ‘work’ – they’d have to put in to beat them. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that last one?”

“That my boyfriend is so hot? That one?”

“Yeah. Say more about that.”

“Like what? That I love choking on his fat dick?”

It it were anyone else, it’d be a little embarrassing how fast he could go from zero to a hundred and back to zero again. But never with Ilya, the only person it was acceptable to lose to. Sometimes. Once he’d come down his throat, Shane threw the duvet off and pushed Ilya to his back and reciprocated, because, dammit, he loved choking on Ilya’s dick too and he couldn’t allow Ilya a clean sheet.

It was easier to commit to getting out of bed once they’d let all the warmth out. Shane cranked the heating, in hopes of Ilya remaining shirtless, and they ferried in buckets of wood. Ilya crouched by his side and watched, spellbound, chin resting in his hand, while Shane stacked two logs and kindling in a crosshatch and a fire starter on top.

“This is very hot,” he said, totally serious. “Where did you learn this?”

“They actually make you do this when you get your driver’s license.”

Ilya frowned. “No they don’t.”

“They do. I know it’s not a thing in the States. And not everywhere, just some provinces. It’s in case your car breaks down out in the middle of nowhere during winter.”

Shane thought he had him, for a second. “You liar. You fucking liar, milyy.”

“It’s the truth, I swear!”

But he’d ruined it anyway, already laughing. Ilya cuffed him around the head and squished his cheeks, grumbling about how mean and cruel Shane was.

He wanted to keep an eye on the burn, and Ilya was reluctant to leave either Shane or the fire, and also the combination of Shane tending the fire, so Ilya laid on the rug with his head in Shane’s lap and his phone resting on his broad wall of bare chest, set to speaker.

“Ilyusha,” Svetlana answered. “Is Shane there too?”

“Hey, Svetlana.”

“Ah, good. You made it, then?”

“Obviously.”

“Don’t be a dick, Ilya. Thank you for organizing this, Svetlana. It’s perfect.”

“Good. You both needed to get the fuck out of here, I’m glad you went. Even though, yes, Ilya, you are being a dick.”

“I hate you both,” Ilya announced, clearly absolutely fucking delighted beneath his scowl. “Have you heard from Dasha?”

“No. Have you?”

“No. I will try again tomorrow.”

Ilya had had to do some frenzied translations of uncommon legal vocabulary in the backseat of their ride from the restaurant before he’d been able to explain to Shane what was happening, and his phone screen kept being interrupted with incoming calls and messages. He’d blocked everyone and hadn’t seen a reason to unblock them yet, except for Dasha, the one member of his family he’d tried to contact today.

The gist of it, as far as Shane could tell – and this was third-hand telephone game by now, the notary’s summary to Ilya’s translation to Shane’s under-educated brain – was that Grigori had declared Yelena his primary beneficiary, with instructions to sell the apartment as soon as possible. Polina would be granted ten percent of the net profit, and the remainder invested in a Hereditary Fund, with small tranches to be released on Yelena’s sixteenth and eighteenth birthdays, and the balance once she turned twenty-five, plus whenever a petition submitted by Dasha – and only Dasha – for Yelena’s living and schooling and extracurricular expenses was approved by the Fund’s governing board. Grigori appointed just one member to the board: his youngest son, Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov.

This was made possible, Ilya had explained gleefully, because the apartment was gifted by Ilya directly to Grigori, excluding it as a marital asset. Shane had been so happy to have his Ilya back, fucking thrilled to bits, but didn’t it just claw at his insides that Ilya had bought his father an expensive home when the man hadn’t even been able to tell his son he loved him, always.

“Papa says Polina is going to try to find a doctor who will declare her disabled.”

“I don’t get it. Why?” Shane asked, over Ilya’s cackling.

“A disabled spouse can override the will. Regular bitch spouse cannot.”

“Is being a bitch a disability?” Ilya pondered. “Cannot be true. It would bankrupt the Social Fund.”

“You’d be eligible,” Svetlana added, beating Shane to it.

“So would you. Anyway, Sveta: that thing, that you were yelling at me about? Is all sorted.”

“Sorted,” she repeated. “This is meaning: you did what I said, right?”

“Yes. And you were correct. All good.”

“Okay. Shane, tell me he did a better job that this when he told you he’s in love with you?”

“She told you to —”

“It was not like that —”

“‘Sveta, Shane is my friend, that is all —’”

“I do not sound like that —”

“‘I only watch his yoga video five times a day —’”

“Wait, wait, what —”

“Stop talking, now —”

“‘If you hit on him, I will kill you d—’”

Ilya ended the call.

“Ilya.”

“She is no longer my friend. Now she is my mortal enemy.”

“Hey. You remember I love you too, right?”

Ilya grunted, but let Shane bend down and kiss him. Which put Shane in the perfect position to nab the phone and accept the call when Svetlana called back.

“Hey.”

“He is your problem now, Shane. Good luck.”

Shane kicked at the arms flailing towards him. “Happy to help. I’ll take good care of him.”

“Oh, I know you will.”

“I will break your other wrist,” Ilya hissed, all spit and flared nostrils. It was adorable.

“Next time he has a big panic about getting married for citizenship, he will call you now.”

Nobody spoke for a moment, except the fire, emitting ember crackles.

“Oh, silly me, whoops,” Svetlana said, sounding thoroughly unrepentant. “Enjoy the cottage, I’ll call you later.”

“Okay, so, I can explain.”

“You’d fucking better.” Shane tossed the phone onto the couch and crossed his arms, ready to enjoy being begged to. Except Ilya’s eyes were wild, his throat swallowing hard, and it was just too close to all the grief and fear and frustration Shane had already been watching for the last week. “Hey. Come here. I love you, you idiot.”

“Say it again?”

“I love you.”

Shane opened his arms and Ilya came crawling into them, slotting his shoulder into Shane’s armpit just so. He could see Ilya’s tongue moving inside his mouth, and his lips silently forming syllables, and waited until the words were ripened.

“Sometimes, Russia scares me,” Ilya began, speaking slowly. “It used to not be so bad, but now it is worse and worse for people like me, and you. Okay for a week, or a month, but when I think of being there forever, it is like … I am drowning.

“And it is fine, most of the time. I can hold on in the summer, but … sometimes my brain is having a hard day, and all I can think of is: what if I lose visa? What if I have to move back?”

Never. Never, never, not ever, Shane answered to himself. He put his right hand on Ilya’s thigh, palm up, and watched Ilya hold it.

“Last summer, when WADA released the Olympics doping report, I thought: that could have been me, yes? And what if it was? NHL could ban me, no visa, deportation, bye bye. But Sveta has American passport, so I called her and said: ‘Would you marry me, if I lose the visa?’”

“Hey. Hey. I get it,” Shane said, nudging his nose behind Ilya’s ear.

“You are not mad?”

“I’m very mad. At the Russian Olympics Committee. Not at you, you dork.”

Ilya picked up their hands and kissed the red and swollen tips of Shane’s knuckles. “Okay. Now I call you, anyway, yes?”

“You’d fucking better. And you know my answer’s yes, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’d marry you, if you lose the visa. Or, you know … whatever. If you’re worried about it, we could do it anyway? Sooner? It’s just … you know.” Hives were breaking out inside Shane’s esophagus, a prickling, burning awareness that he’d read the situation incorrectly. “An idea.”

“I was meaning: when I have a bad day, I call you, and you tell me boring shit. Like, fucking, building codes for staircases. Terrible YouTube videos.”

“Oh.”

“You would do this, marrying? Really? For me?”

“Well, yeah. Of course.”

The only clue he got was the sound of Ilya sniffing, all moist and congested. Shane tipped Ilya’s face up and kissed the brackish tears away from his eyes.

“Ya tebya lyublyu,” Ilya whispered, and kissed Shane’s jaw. “Ya tebya lyublyu.”

“Teach me how to say it.”

“Ya. Tebya. Lyublyu.”

He did his best, which was sufficient to make Ilya snort, watery and rough. And again, and again, until Ilya was barely containing his amusement, until his face hurt from concentrating so hard, until he had to stack another log on the fire, and until the fire was actually giving off heat, when Ilya stood and stretched.

“Hungry? You want a beer?”

Shane stood and followed Ilya into the kitchen, stowing away the rest of the groceries from where he’d left them on the floor, and sat on a stool with a bottle of Kaiserdom Pilsner they’d bought in town, watching Ilya’s shoulder blades while he stood in front of the stove and sautéed ground beef and tomatoes. The movement of Ilya’s wrists when he stirred, and the bob of Adam’s apple when he drank, and how he whistled when he pottered around: Shane had never been so happy in his whole fucking life. My boyfriend, my boyfriend, my boyfriend, his whole chest sang.

“Hey, you know that first time you called me, when you had a shitty day?” Shane asked. “What happened?”

“Ah. That was day after news said CIA found evidence of Russian interference in the election. Some fucking journalist asked me about it, in post-game press.” Ilya shrugged. “I was so sick of being responsible for all Russia’s problems, yes?”

“Yeah. That sucks.”

“Your turn.” Ilya planted his hands on the butcher block and raised his eyebrows. The hickeys on his chest diminished his attempt at being menacing.

“What?”

“Why did you have panic attack at All-Stars?”

“Oh!” Shane sat up straighter, brightening. “You’ll enjoy this.”

“I will enjoy your panic attack?”

“Shut up. That’s the night I realized that I’m gay.”

Ilya waited for a beat, and Shane nodded his head, confirmation that that was it, and Ilya’s beautiful face split in two, lips stretching, dimples showing, spittle bursting forth between his teeth. His whole body wracked with laughter, bending down to rest his hands on his knees, then further, squatting on the floor, an infectious, wonderful wheeze bellowing out of him, eyes reduced to narrow almond slits, and then Shane started giggling and Ilya lost it all over again, shoving his fists into his eye sockets.

“Shane, oh my God,” he sputtered. “I fucking love you, you idiot.”

“Your idiot,” Shane answered, and lumbered down to the floor, shoving Ilya onto his back and laying his cheek on his chest. Ilya wrapped his arms around him and laughed and laughed, the vibrations rocking Shane’s skull against his Ilya’s ribs, feeling the squeeze of comfort and the dropped-stomach rollercoaster thrill of Ilya’s joy.

Chapter End Notes

Chapter 12

In Odesa Oblast, where they had nowhere to go and nothing to do and nobody else to please, they rose with the sun, at six thirty in the morning. Ilya put on a sweater and sweatpants and runners, and Shane put on one of Ilya’s muscle tees and a hoodie and sweatpants and runners and his jacket, and they crossed the highway to the dirt paths carved into the scrub. Shane traipsed between the bluff and the tussocks, watching the spume whip up and feeling the salt abrading his skin. Ship after ship after ship petered past, out on the sea. He learned there was a marine equivalent of flight tracking, and traced the positions of the ships to dots on a map on his phone and discovered what flags they sailed under and where they’d sailed from, imagining what the derricks would unload at Chornomorsk or Odessa. It was barely engaging enough to distract him from his keening jealousy that Ilya was running and he wasn’t.

Ilya loped along the dirt paths or the sand, running away away away, then doubling back, circling Shane, and running away again. Sometimes he’d shadow-box Shane, or Shane would try to punch his arm, or he’d stop and walk for a moment, sipping from the water bottle Shane carried for him. His cheeks were rose-red and his nose was frozen-pink and if he stopped running for too long, he’d get clammy shivers from the wind turning his sweat to ice. Every time he looped back, Shane thought he was the most beautiful fucking thing he’d ever seen.

The night before, he’d woken in the dark to the sound of Ilya sighing. Too deliberate to be somnolent. “Are you awake?” Shane had whispered.

Ilya’s voice was clear and thin: “Yes.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I have been thinking about Papa.” Shane reached for him, not remembering his stupid fucking brace until it was what rubbed against Ilya’s bicep instead of his palm. “He was so … all this time, I thought he didn’t know me, but I was never thinking that I didn’t know him. I wish I had … I do not know. Asked him better questions.”

“Do you think he would’ve answered them?”

“Hmm, maybe. Maybe not. He was a very stubborn man.”

“Gees, who does that remind me of?”

To Shane’s horror, he heard Ilya’s breath catch, and in between berating himself for his pathetic fucking reading of the tone (it was hard, without Ilya’s face to help clue him in), he wormed his good arm under Ilya’s neck and squeezed him tight. “I’m so fucking angry he didn’t tell me earlier. But, I mean, yes, he was stubborn, I am stubborn, I understand. I think that, if he was alive still, I would not believe him. But now he is gone, I … I want to believe him, yes?”

“Yeah. Do you believe him?”

“I think so, yes. Because … because maybe I am more like my dad than I had thought. I know what it is like, to love someone very much and not know how to say it properly.”

“Ilya. Ya tebya lyublyu.”

“Ah, see? You do not know how to say it properly either.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Shane snorted, and went searching in the dark for Ilya’s mouth, tracing the tip of his nose down the plane of Ilya’s face and kissing him solidly. “You do know how to say it properly.”

“But only now. Before, it was … too much. It scared me. But now, after Papa said those things, it is … I cannot be angry anymore. Because now I have you, milyy, and I do not know if I would if it weren’t for my dad. So, I am just … sad. And happy. And I miss him.”

There was a matching lump in Shane’s throat then. He’d pulled Ilya onto his chest and whorled spirals into his hair until Ilya’s breaths became slack and unmeasured, and it was safe for Shane to sleep again too.

And look, now: his Ilya, running towards him with bright skin and pure snow-white sclera and flushed lips, healthier and haler than Shane had seen him in a week and a half, despite their interrupted night. He looked like he could run clear across the country. He reached for the water bottle and Shane swiped it out of his grasp.

“Hollander, get back here,” Ilya whined.

Shane took pity on him and fell back to walk side-by-side. Ilya put an arm around his shoulders.

After two mornings without meeting another soul, seeing someone’s head pop up from the switchback track leading down to the beach was akin to a horror film. “Hello baby,” Ilya said, talking not to the woman but to the little dog that came bounding up behind her, squatting down and offering his hand for inspection.

The dog sniffed him and left, evidently unimpressed. Ilya rose and replaced his arm around Shane’s shoulders: right in front of her.

“Hello,” Shane said, smiling despite the anxiety. Ilya just nodded at her, which she returned, and then she was passing them and gone. “She could have recognized us.”

“Okay, but she didn’t.”

“But what if she did?”

“Is no big deal. We are friends, no?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Ilya ruffled Shane’s hair and went sprinting off again, long legs pushing into an easy stride. Shane was dying to watch him run in summer, shorts hugging his ass. He followed, flexing the fingers on his left hand, and talking himself down from his rapid heart rate.

As soon as they stepped back inside, Shane fell to the floor and tugged Ilya’s waistband down, filling his mouth with dick that went from limp to diamond-edged at the speed of a fucking race car. He fucking loved it, the brine of sweat and Ilya’s own earthy piquancy and the aroma of the laundry detergent they’d bought, the bristle of bush against his nose, the sharpness of Ilya’s inhale, the increasing weight against his tongue, and the way there wasn’t room to think about a single thing other than the jab of Ilya’s dick against the back of his throat.

“Wow, Shane,” Ilya groaned, resting his hand on the wall and tangling the other in Shane’s hair. “Fuck. You’re so fucking desperate, yes?”

Shane nodded, best he could, and rubbed his tongue along the tender underside of Ilya’s cock. Ilya spewed out praise, calling him good, and perfect, and pretty, and made for me, holding Shane’s head in place and fucking into his mouth. He’d mostly forgotten what he’d even been worried about by the time Ilya pulled out and hoisted Shane up, bustling him upstairs.

Stripped bare, Ilya arranged him folded over the edge of the bed, knees nudged apart, and rimmed him to the brink of insanity, until he was sobbing and pleading to no avail, the only relief when Ilya paused to kiss up the ridges of his spine.

It was during one of those breaks when Ilya deked, pushing his cock in, lips still pressed to Shane’s middle back. He hadn’t been fucking joking about how close he was, he came at once, and by the time Ilya swore and finished inside him, he was close enough to a second one that he came in just a few swipes of his hand, cum plastered across Ilya’s navel where he lay beside Shane, and dripping down into his pubic hair.

“You okay, milyy?” Ilya asked, resting on one elbow, rubbing a thumb across Shane’s mouth.

“I’m fucking great,” Shane said, and genuinely meant it.

Ilya kissed him so sweetly, and washed him so sweetly, and re-strapped his brace so sweetly, and made them both scrambled egg breakfast sandwiches so sweetly, that Shane thought he’d probably do anything in the world Ilya asked of him.

“So, we watch Boston first?”

Except that. “That wasn’t the deal, Rozanov.”

“Was a stupid deal.”

“It was literally your idea.”

“The part where you cheated was not my idea.”

He pouted for as long as it took Shane to clear the coffee table of the remnants of last night’s card game – Gin Rummy (which he’d been playing since he was six years old, not that he’d mentioned that part to Ilya until afterwards), absolutely Ilya’s idea, as was his suggested prize of which replay they’d watch first in the morning – and gave it up the second Shane handed him a mug of coffee and kissed the side of his head.

Montreal hosted Nashville the night before. That morning. A few hours ago. Whatever. Ilya loaded up the game and they settled in with eggs and coffee and seriously low expectations.

“They only defend,” Ilya observed, over the sound of Shane’s grinding teeth, after Nashville scored their second goal. “Is like watching Detroit: block, block, block. T— oh, you see that?” Shane obviously had. “They do it again, fuck up the pass. Why do they put Pike with Andropov? Pike is so much faster.”

“Andropov’s okay.”

“I mean: sure, yes, barely, but not with Pike and Koch. Better with Laine.”

“Mm.”

“They play better with you there.”

“Well, yeah, I’d fucking hope so.”

“Not just because of you, Hollander.” Ilya pinched his thigh. “Hogging all the goals. Even when you are not on a shift, they play better.”

At the end of the first period, Ilya slid their plates underneath the couch and lay on his side, pulling Shane to spoon in front of him. They barely fit, even squished up together, though they were aided by the inward-sloping seat cushions, cupping them inside. The design made it a huge trial to get up and off the couch whenever they sat. Truth be told, in the noble tradition of holiday house couches, it wasn’t very comfortable.

“Remind me: who did they trade to get Ortloff in? To replace you?”

“McIlreavie.”

“Eh?”

“McIlreavie.”

“You are lying liar, milyy.”

“No I’m not.”

“I have never heard of McIlreavie,” Ilya declared, who had once boarded McIlreavie hard enough he had to have a CT scan to check for rib damage.

“Defender? Red hair?”

“No, no c— oh, fucking interference!”

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

“Was not! Get your eyes checked.”

“Maybe I will, maybe I will also get slutty little glasses.” On the television, the cameras showed Hayden arguing with the ref. “Anyway. I was going to say it was a bad trade, but since I cannot even remember this McIlanie —”

“McIlreavie.”

“Whatever. See? Told you. Interference.”

The penalty stood. Shane sucked the inside of his lip between his teeth. He would’ve been able to argue that down, he was certain. Ilya pressed his mouth to Shane’s ear, and his body remembered it needed to exhale.

Ilya paused the game at 3–1 during intermission and went to take a piss. Shane stacked their plates in the dishwasher and checked his inbox for the first time in days. An email from the NHLPA about the latest upcoming round of Pyeongchang negotiations, an email from Celine confirming his availability for summer shoots, another offer of Wimbledon tickets from Rolex, Jasminder asking (a) when he’d be back and (b) how he’d feel about shooting something “lighthearted” for Montreal’s socials while he was still on LTIR, a compressed summary of this week’s charity and fundraising invitations, and something from his accountant about RRSP contributions.

He locked it again when Ilya whinged: “Hurry up,” and folded himself back into Ilya’s chest.

Laine scored a goal in the opening three minutes, which made him … perhaps not smile, but frown a bit less. And then Nashville answered in seventeen demoralizing seconds.

“Ooof,” Ilya grunted, continuing to comb his fingers through Shane’s hair like a two hundred pound cat. “I make you a deal. If Montreal can beat Boston on Monday – no Vicky, no Hammy, no Feller, no me – I will say to the press that Metros are not totally useless without Shane Hollander.”

“And what if they lose?”

“Oh, that is easy. I will say to the press that my boyfriend carries a whole franchise on his back.”

“Har-har.”

“Is not a joke.” He held Shane’s head in place and kissed the nape of his neck, filthy wet ones that made Shane squirm. “Very sexy back. Very pretty boyfriend.”

“Mm hmm.” Shane twisted his ankle between Ilya’s calves and cuddled in tighter.

Nashville didn’t score again, which was merciful, given how aggressive their offense was. Montreal didn’t either.

“Well, that went exactly as expected.”

“Ah, no. I expected much bigger goal difference,” Ilya retorted, loading up Boston–Winnipeg on his phone. “You need a break?”

“Nope.”

This was a more even match, and so much more interesting to watch, even if it was objectively worse hockey. Boston’s lines were uncoordinated without their veterans and their captain to anchor them, and Winnipeg’s were fumbling even with a full squad. The tussles never resolved – still goalless after twenty minutes – but at least the puck spent some time at each end. Shane saw the necessity behind LeClair’s strategy, and respected both the decision and the timing, far out enough from the playoffs that it wouldn’t turn into a story about aborted momentum.

Ilya paused the game. “Okay, Hollander.”

“‘Okay?’ Okay what?”

“Time for you to tell me what is wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Okay, sure. But something is wrong.”

“Ilya.” Shane turned to face him, almost rolling off the couch in the process – he could hear Damiano’s voice, pleading with him not to fall, for the love of all that was holy – the downward slope of the cushions practically smooshing him into Ilya’s chest, and Ilya’s big arms did the rest of the work, dragging Shane on top of him. “Nothing’s wrong. Why are you saying that?”

“Because you are so stiff, like you are frozen. And not breathing. And you did not even chirp Boston once, not even for that stupid fucking penalty from Sebby.”

“I’m fine.”

“Hey, milyy. Is just me here, yes?”

Ilya rubbed his thumb over Shane’s cheek, and in what was breaking news to Shane, he was actually not fine, tears developing in the corners of his eyes. “Oh my God. What the fuck?” he choked out, half-laughing.

“My Shane,” Ilya said plaintively, guiding Shane’s head down to his chest and fastening his arms around him.

“I don’t even know what’s wrong,” he cried, still hovering on that hysterical line between devastated and amused.

“Is okay. Maybe you can just be not fine for a little bit.”

There couldn’t exist anywhere safer to be, face pressed in his boyfriend’s herculean bicep, the point of Ilya’s chin on his crown, being swayed softly side to side, his own personal bromide. Ilya hummed something tunelessly and let Shane sniffle without interruption, his head so full of thinking he couldn’t think at all.

“Tell me what goes on in there,” Ilya said, once it slowed to a putter, kissing Shane’s scalp.

“I don’t know. I really don’t, I’m not lying. I’m so happy, Ilya, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Pfft. You do not have to always make sense. Tell me. What are you thinking, right now?”

His inhale was thick and shuddering, like he’d been dredged up, barnacle encrusted from the depths of the sea. “Um. I guess, I’m thinking … I’m so happy that it makes me think … I don’t want to leave you.”

“Well, you are only human. I am very hot.”

“It’s just, like … I don’t know how we’re supposed to do this. I’m so fucking happy here, with you, and this is … I want this to be every day, you know?”

“Mm. Of course.”

“Like: I love you. So fucking much. How do we go back to four times a year? And All-Stars? I don’t wanna go back to my apartment alone, and I can’t even think about you in Boston alone. Especially after, like, everything. In Russia. How the fuck am I supposed to just … not be there? What if you have a bad day again?”

Ilya made a noise in his throat. “I will call you, like we said.”

“But that’s not enough,” Shane whined, esophagus swelling in frustration. “I wanna be there. I can’t … if you get really sad, I just … I think I’d go insane if all you could do was call me.”

“Mm. I understand. If you called me like this, now, I would … I don’t know. Get on next flight.” Ilya scratched his scalp. “But, this trip was not normal, right? This was special level of shitty.”

“But things don’t need to be a special level of shitty. Going running, and making tea, and … arguing about the fucking game. I want to do that on the normal shitty days too.”

“Shane. You have been … the best boyfriend. The whole time, in Russia, even before I stopped being an asshole. So kind. The best, yes? I will let you have the award, this time. Next time, is mine.” Shane scoffed. “But you do not always have to do all these things, I am okay now. And now, I can stay in America for summers. Or Canada. I hear my boyfriend has a cottage there.”

“He does.” Shane lifted his chin to press his lips to Ilya’s, and rested his head by the side of his neck, Ilya’s jaw notching against his forehead. They fit together so easily. “Do you wanna come to the cottage this summer?”

“I mean, obviously. Yes. Either I come stay with you, or —”

“I could come stay with you.”

“Ah, no, I was going to say: I will make a tent outside your gate and spy on you with binoculars. Like bird-watching stalker.”

“Bird-watching,” Shane mused. “Sounds boring.”

“Ugh, so boring. Perfect for us.”

“So: that’s it? Four games a year, and summer?”

“And All-Stars. And I will call you, maybe, fifteen hundred times a day. Probably more. But, yes, I think so. Unless you want to tell whole world you are super gay and obsessed with my big dick.”

He could feel the shape of Ilya’s leery smile, mandible pressing into a different angle against his skull. “You joke about that a lot.”

“My big dick? You are calling my dick a joke?”

He whacked Ilya’s chest. “Shut up. You joke about telling everyone.”

“Is just a joke.”

“Is it? Like, really, is it?”

Ilya didn’t say anything for a minute. Before he spoke, Shane could hear him swallow. “I mean, yes. I have been joking. But I think, for me, it would not be the most terrible thing. I am very proud of my boyfriend, and I do not care so much if anybody knows I like both.”

“Bu—”

“I know it is different, for you,” Ilya interrupted. “Because I am big asshole, and you are perfect, polite Hollander.”

“Catchy.”

“So, I know it is not the same. I would tell TSN tomorrow: ‘I love Shane Hollander,’ and be very happy, and punch everyone who is a dick about it, but I know that would not make you happy.”

“I was going to say: but what about Russia?”

Ilya shrugged. “I do not want to go back there anyway. I have said goodbye to Mama, and to Papa. And I have two people I could marry for a passport.” Shane dug his fingers into Ilya’s side and tickled him until he screamed: “One person! One person!”

“Fucking right, you asshole.” Shane laid his head on Ilya’s shoulder again, and watched his chest rise and fall. The aureate tufts of hair on his pecs glistened in the muffled light. “I’m really proud of you too.”

“Ugh, Hollander, don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“So sappy.”

“Oh, fuck you, I’ll say it how I want. I just mean, like … it’s not you why I can’t tell everyone, you know?”

“I know, I know. Is —” Ilya waved his hand in a circle, and brought it back down to Shane’s forearm, “— everything else.”

“The league, and … yeah.”

“NBA has had first gay player. And MLB. Maybe NHL will too, one day.”

“Yeah.”

“But does not need to be us, Shane. You are already in all the fucking advertising, Olympics team, All-Star captain, half-Asian player, everyone can see your team is fucking falling to pieces without you. It is enough, yes?”

“Yeah.” Fuck, he was fucking sniffling again. “Yeah, it’s a lot.”

“So much.”

“It’s like … I love it, you know? I always wanted to be the best —”

“Second best.”

“— and this is what happens when you get there —”

“Almost there.”

“— but I love you too.”

“Hmm, not as much as I love you.”

“I just feel like … no matter what I do, I’m gonna disappoint someone.”

“No, no crying. Come on, sweetheart, up.” Ilya hoisted him higher and tilted Shane’s chin up towards his face. “You do not disappoint me, okay? Not ever. Not possible.”

“It’s really okay?”

“Of course. Before, I thought: this is impossible, and now I have the whole summer with my Shane. Is perfect.”

“You’re perfect.” He grabbed Ilya’s perfect jaw and kissed his perfect lips and smelled his perfect smell, and afterwards Shane felt like his body had recalled how to manage subconscious respiration on its own again.

They un-paused the game and watched Boston’s lower lines handle the pressure and remember that they did, actually, know how to play some half-decent hockey. Enough for a 2–0 shut out, at the very least. Shane bemoaned Winnipeg’s poor prospect pool, with no centre depth and no one coming up to fill the ranks, and Ilya shouted at the ref for every Boston penalty, even the most egregiously bald ones.

Ilya had a habit of whistling or humming to himself. Shane had heard him do it before, over the last six years, but he’d never been exposed to so much of Ilya, hours and hours of unbroken time with him, just the two of them and nothing to hide. He did it in the shower and on the toilet, when he was loading and unloading the dishwasher, driving, walking, cooking, stretching. If it’d been anyone else, Shane thought it probably would’ve been a grating irritation (it sure as shit was when J.J. did it in the locker room), but this was Ilya, and it never failed to make him smile.

Once Boston had clinched victory, they switched off the television and Ilya rose to prepare lunch. Shane was being entrusted to handle the grilling of chicken skewers and mushrooms and peppers. It was a responsibility he didn’t take lightly. Ilya wafted in and out of the kitchen and the terrace, stopping by with kisses and paper towels and plates and the salad he’d been making, and pretended he wasn’t extremely concerned that Shane was going to overcook the meat. Today, the tune he was whistling was O Canada, and he was talking about grilling burgers over the summer, and it melted Shane’s insides.

They played footsie under the table and talked about Ilya’s weird aunt Yelisaveta who’d tried insisting that Ilya come and stay with her in Omsk for the summer, and Ilya explained to him how Omsk was an internet joke. Shane rinsed and loaded the dishes and Ilya cleaned the grill, and they walked up to the loft, Shane thinking all the while: we’ll have the summers, and also: how is summer going to be enough?

Tucked up in bed, a light rain pinging on the sloped roof, they kissed for an eternity and fucked for even longer, slow and lazy, satiated. The cut on Ilya’s lip refused to heal because Shane refused to stop kissing him and neither of them gave a fuck. He held Ilya’s head and kissed him and asked him never to stop, and Ilya was panting “I love you,” biting the words into Shane’s chest. Afterwards they napped, limbs jumbled every which way, it didn’t matter whose was whose or which was where, so long as they were touching.

The people in Chornomorsk were the same people as everywhere: talking, and arguing, and giving each other the silent treatment, and holding hands, and elbowing each other, and chatting on their phones, and texting in the middle of the fucking grocery aisle blocking everyone else’s passage, and buying bread and yogurt and eggs. He and Ilya bought buckwheat and cabbage and carrots and two tuna steaks. In the queue at the checkout, Shane wrapped a pinky around Ilya’s pinky, in between their hips where no one could see, and the resultant smile pierced clean through his chest.

Standing at the kitchen island, drinking a beer and harassing Ilya by squeezing his ass while he was unable to retaliate, hands covered in oil and salt as he slathered the fish, Shane’s phone rang in his pocket.

“It’s Rose.”

“You should answer,” Ilya said. “She is my good luck charm.”

“If anything, she’s my good luck charm.”

“Ah, no, I think I am the one who is lucky you realized you are so obsessed with dick.” Ilya ground his ass back into Shane for good measure.

Back on the stool, a safe distance away from both Ilya and Ilya’s dick, Shane answered the call, switching on video to match Rose. "Hey!”

“Aha! Jay! I’ve got him!”

J.J. dive-bombed into view, and now he was there, Shane twigged the background as being J.J.’s living room.

“Surpriiiiiiiiiiiise,” Rose sang. “Guess where I am.”

“Look, a wild guess, but —”

“Hollzy!”

“— I’d say you’re in an apartment on Rue Drummond. Tenth floor?”

“He’s good, hey?”

“Okay, now your turn. The whole internet’s speculating, have you seen those ‘Where in the World are Hollander and Rozanov’ memes? Hey, wait, did you have Carmen Sandiego in Canada?”

“We had it in Russia, I am sure it made it to Canada.”

“He speaks!” Rose gasped, over-theatrical. “Hiiiiiiii Rozanov.”

“Hiiiiiiii Rose,” Ilya imitated in falsetto. “Hiiiiiiii Boiziau.”

“Sorry about your dad, Rozanov.”

Ilya groaned, rolling his eyes even though he was off-camera, washing his hands. “Do not try to be nice, Boiziau, I will still make you weep on the ice.”

“Ignore him,” Shane said. “He’s incapable of being serious.”

“Am I allowed to ask what happened in Russia? Last I heard from you, the funeral was tomorrow, and then there was some grainy-ass photo of you two at the airport looking all banged up. Like: the fuck? Totally cool if you don’t wanna say, just tell me I’m being nosy,” Rose said, settling herself into J.J.’s side.

“No no, wait, first: where are you?”

“We’re in Ukraine. Near Odessa.”

“Jesus, Hollzy, isn’t there a war there? Or something?”

“Other side of the country, man.”

“How big is Ukraine? Wait, do I sound really dumb? Rozanov, don’t judge me, I swear I’m not super dumb.”

“I mean, I don’t fuckin’ know either, Ro.”

“Hang on, I’m gonna Google it. So: what happened Shane? Or tell me to fuck off, that’s cool.”

On his screen, he could see Rose and J.J. peering at the phone, their heads tilted together while Rose pinched and zoomed. He looked up at Ilya, who gave him a laissez-faire shrug. “My brother is a dick,” he said, loudly. “May have been a small fight.”

“Moscow was pretty intense. We needed a break,” Shane added.

J.J. whistled. “A break. I mean, wow, Hollzy, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Shane gave him the finger. Ilya snorted out a laugh.

“Okay, so, Ukraine is, like, actually pretty big. Wow. I mean – whoa, it’s bigger than Germany? I had no idea, babe. Anyway, Shane: sorry, distracted. You two are just chilling? Didn’t wanna come home?” He took a fraction too long to decide how to answer, and Rose quickly added: “None of my business! Sorry!”

It was the faces of J.J. and Rose that made him remember it, the last night of All-Stars weekend, when he’d broken down in his hotel room and decided no one could ever know he was gay. That night, he’d thought there was no benefit associated with being honest with his friends. He had a habit of making decisions and sticking by them through thick and thin, failing to shed outdated assumptions for longer than he should have, his own personal cage of dogmatism. Like: assuming he was straight. Like: assuming he was mostly-straight. Like: assuming he was bisexual.

He cleared his throat. “Nah, it’s fine. Ilya’s got a friend with a cottage here. We just wanted some space away from the media and everything, you know?”

“I do know,” Rose said, full of sympathy. “I do know.”

“Makes sense, man. Tell you what, though, we miss you.”

“You miss my left wrist,” Shane said dryly.

“Well, that’s included in the package, right?”

Across the kitchen, Ilya grabbed his crotch and mouthed ‘package.’ He was such a predictable idiot. Shane’s idiot.

Right then, as he was struck dumb by the impulse to brag about his idiot boyfriend to his friends, to bore them to tears dissecting every little detail of how deeply wonderful Ilya was, the idiot boyfriend himself sidled alongside him on the camera, his hand on Shane’s back, safely out of view, and said pointedly: “Looked like you missed him last night. Can Metros even make the wild card still?”

“Ohmigod HI!” Rose shrieked.

“We can!” J.J. insisted. “If we just —”

“Do not lose another game all season?”

“It’s not that bad. Tell him, Hollzy.”

“I mean, it’s not far off, Jay.”

“Listen to your girlfriend, Boiziau. She is a wise woman.”

Which fucking hat was he supposed to wear? Hollzy, or Hollander, or Shane, or milyy? He needed all of them, all at once. He hated it, he fucking hated it, he hadn’t had time yet to figure out the rules beyond their private hermeticism. He needed a guideline, he needed instructions, he needed to sit down and sort out the scenarios and how he was supposed to handle each of them and write it all out in tabular notes.

In their reflected camera, he could see Ilya take a swig of his beer, his throat bobbing and his lips wrapped around the bottle, his perfect fucking lips with that cut Shane kept opening up.

“Did we interrupt your dinner? We can go, we just wanted to, like, check you’re still alive? Fuck, sorry, that came out wrong. I just —”

Ilya’s fingertips were on Shane’s shoulder blade. J.J. and Rose’s shoulders were pressed together.

“— wanted to say hello.”

“Yeah, we can talk to you later, dude. You deserve a break.”

“Wait,” Shane said, heart pounding, fingers shaking. He had two choices now: follow through, or throw up all over his lap. “I wanna tell you something.”

He could see in the video feed Ilya’s moment of realization of what Shane was about to do, a flicker of excitement and then reserve. “Sha—”

“I’m gay,” he said. One letter apiece for Hollzy, for Hollander, for milyy, for Shane, and for his nameless innermost self.

“Whoa, dude,” J.J. said, in the kindest possible way to say that. “That’s so cool.”

“‘Cool?’” Ilya sneered. “Jesus, Boiziau.”

“I mean … shit. Just —”

“Don’t be a dick, Ilya.”

“Thank you for telling us.”

“You see, Boiziau, that is what you say.”

“I just mean: you’re … you’re a fucking legend, man. You know I love you no matter what, yeah?”

His breath was still heavy and his hands were still trembling, but Shane smiled. “Thanks dude.”

“Hmm.” Ilya raised the hand that had been hidden, thumbing across Shane’s back, and wobbled it side-to-side. “So-so. A bit better.”

Rose had turned on her high-wattage smile, looking intently at where Shane must be on her phone. “Are you okay? This must be a big deal for you.”

“Yeah. Fuck,” he laughed, awkwardly. “I haven’t really said that out loud.”

“That must’ve been scary.”

Ilya’s hand came down to rest on Shane’s neck. His scratchy callouses were so fucking familiar. And just in case it wasn’t sufficiently evident: “My Shane is very brave.”

“Holy. Fucking. Shit.”

“I knew it,” J.J. swore. “I fucking knew it!”

“Oh, come on, babe.”

“Dude. No you didn’t.”

“Ah, no, you did not.”

“I did!”

This was the benefit of honesty, Shane thought, listening to his friends and his boyfriend argue about what J.J. had ‘known’ (Ilya said: “If a tree falls in the woods —” and Rose finished: “And no gay is around to hear it?” and Ilya snapped his fingers and said: “I like her very much.”) He could be Hollzy and Shane and milyy, all at once. He didn’t have to disappoint anyone, or lie to anyone, or think too hard about the right thing to say to the right person. With Ilya’s hand on his neck, Shane leaned minutely into his side.

“Do Montreal and Boston play each other again this season? Hand to God, I’ll cancel all my shoots to be there. I mean, not that that’s so many: Shane, did I tell you we finally wrapped? I’ve still got fucking paint in my ears, but i— ooooooh! We can double date! Yes! I make a mean coq au vin, it’s, like, the one thing I can c—”

“Hey man,” J.J. interrupted. “You okay? You’re looking a bit …”

“I think it’s just, like, adrenaline crash.” Shane lifted his hand into camera view, visibly trembling.

J.J. barked: “Right, Rozanov. He needs post-game recovery, sort out his cortisol.”

“We can go for a walk, blood circulation.”

“Some protein?”

“I am making fish. Crocodile breathing, you guys do that?”

“Works for me, yeah. No screens. Skip the cold plunge, do a warm shower instead of the sauna.”

“Guy, you remember I’m a fully grown man, right?”

“You’re our fucking friend, you dick. Fuck us for wanting to help you, is that your deal?”

“Do not worry. He is crippled and cannot fight back,” Ilya said, the fucking bastard. “I will make sure he does the things.”

“You two are so fucking cute.”

“We are not cute, Landry, we are hot.”

“We’re still cool, right, J.J?” Shane asked, gripped by a vice that J.J.’s unfamiliar expression was second-guessing his immediate acceptance.

“Man, shut the fuck up with that. We’re always cool, yeah? I’ve got your back.”

The shouted goodbyes and promises to talk again tomorrow took a fucking lifetime, but then Ilya was all around him like an octopus before he could even put the phone down. “Fuck me, Hollander, where did that come from?” He picked up Shane’s hands and tucked them in between their chests, wrapping his arms around Shane’s back. “So brave.”

“I don’t feel very brave.”

“Well, that is stupid. My boyfriend bullies Russian government into getting a visa, flies to Moscow, takes care of sad Ilya, meets horrible family, gets into a brawl with police —”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“— makes crazy plans to run away with me, then admits he is gay for first time ever? Is so brave. Opposite of boring, no?”

“Insane?”

“Maybe a little insane. Very sexy, though.”

“It went okay, didn’t it?”

“Perfect. I told you Rose is my good luck charm.” Ilya kissed across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. “Okay, what first? Deep breathing? Go for a walk?”

“We’re really doing all that?”

“Ah, yes. Of course. How else will I win best boyfriend trophy?”

Everything felt like too much and too hard. Which was probably a sign he did need to recover, dammit. “Breathing. Until dinner?”

“Very good.” Ilya squeezed him until all the air gasped out of his mouth, then let him go and shadowed him to the rug, fussing about cushions and blankets and supporting his wrist and critiquing Shane’s posture and offering to stay and promising dinner would only take five minutes once the frying pan was hot. “I love you. Crazy man,” Ilya said, kissing him once more after Shane shooed him off.

Face-down on the floor, it only took a few cycles for Shane to slip into the familiarity, the exercise he’d learned back in Kingston to help come down from the high of a game so he wasn't up all night filtering out adrenaline. Breathe in through the nose, filling the belly, three, four, five, six, hold, two, three, feel the expansion through the shoulder blase, exhale, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Repeat. Repeat. And then his mind was free to concentrate on other things.

Things like: the relief of not having to choose who to be for a few minutes. We’ll have the summers. The Metros weren’t going to make the playoffs. Gonna disappoint someone. Not ever, not possible. Ilya whistling in the kitchen. How they’d looked, side-by-side, in the camera inset. The way that Ilya gave and gave and never asked. His unanswered emails. The script he’d been writing in his head to deliver to his parents. Ilya’s parents. Ilya’s brother. Ilya’s niece. The idea of never going home again. The uncountable number of times he’d watched the stupid social media promos of him and Ilya in the week before he’d arrived in Boston. Being photographed with cuts and bruises in Sheremetyovo. Whether it was suspiciously gay to have your best friend come and stay with you in your isolated private rural home for every single second of summer. What if Ilya got traded? What if Ilya lost his visa? Was there such thing as a secret marriage? What if Ilya got injured? Grigori’s dreams of Ilya’s death. The sound clumps of dirt made hitting a coffin. Find it and cherish it. Was Irina watching them? He’s your problem now. Cocksucker, fag, homo, fairy. I am most ashamed of anything of how I have failed Ilya. The people here were the same as people everywhere. LGBTQIA2+ travellers should carefully consider the risks of travelling to Russia. Asian-Canadian, breaking barriers. Eating quinoa brownies on his couch, watching a game. The empty drawers in his walk-in closet. Ilya, shirtless, wearing a cardboard crown. Ilya, shirtless, surrounded by sheets of paper. The sound of Ilya sobbing on his own living room floor; wretched, heaving gasps.

“Dinner’s ready,” Ilya called. “How do you feel?”

“Better. Smells good, honey.” Shane kissed him and watched how ‘honey’ spread across Ilya’s cheeks like a balm. “You’re good at this.”

“I am good at many things,” he said suggestively, all lush and smoulder.

My idiot boyfriend, Shane’s heart sang. How many Ilyas had he seen by now? “Hey, question. Do you ever feel like … like there’s a bunch of different versions of you? And you have to pick which one you’re supposed to be?”

Ilya laid a plate of grilled fish in front of him, and stole the dregs of Shane’s beer. “Yes, of course. This is why I was so … not good. In Moscow. Russia Ilya and Shane Ilya did not fit together. Why are you asking?”

“I think I’m sick of picking which version of me I’m supposed to be.” Ilya laid a hand on the back of Shane’s neck as he walked past to his own seat. Shane waited until he sat, so he could look at Ilya’s face: “What if we were the first gay NHL players?”

Chapter 13

Chapter Notes

On the last day of the summer break of 2016, Shane had pictured what it would be like to return to the cottage having won his third consecutive Cup. He thought there couldn’t be anything sweeter. He made resolutions to keep up his swimming – on his off days, once or twice a week – and stick to his yoga. He’d follow his macros like the letter of the law. Another year of early bed times and as much sleep as he could cram into a day. To get his paws on another Cup, he needed another disciplined, focused season. A hefty dose of good luck was required, but that was beyond his control. What he could control was his willpower, ignoring distractions, and keeping his eyes on the prize.

On his seventeenth day at the cottage during the summer break of 2017, Shane watched game six of the Finals on his television screen. He had played just one single game of hockey since February, game eighty-two, against Chicago at the Bell Centre. It’d been symbolic more than anything. After it became mathematically impossible for the Metros to make the playoffs, everyone was suddenly extremely enthusiastic about the need to not rush his wrist recovery. It’d fallen to him to beg Theriault to let him on the ice for the closing home game of the season, a way to say to the fans: Don’t worry, we’ll be coming for it next year. Theriault had told him that if he wanted to send that message, he’d sure as shit better make sure they won against Chicago. They had.

It had served a triple purpose. One, to give their fans a reason to buy another round of season tickets. Two, to make Shane feel like he was flying again, to dose out a little snort of the reward that was waiting after a summer of training. And three, to remind Montreal management, the NHL brass, the other clubs, and the spectators one more time before he came out that he was Shane Fucking Hollander, and he had grit and talent in fucking spades, that he was so good they couldn’t bury him.

On his seventeenth day at the cottage during the summer break of 2017, Shane’s boyfriend’s bruised rib had gone through the worst of the healing. At least enough that he could laugh without wincing anymore.

He wasn’t laughing now. He was cross-armed and pouting. “Did Hunter sell his soul to the devil this year? He was supposed to get the yips months ago.”

“Ilya. Honey.” Shane grabbed Ilya’s chin and turned it toward himself, making Ilya look at Shane’s very serious face. “I know this is hard to hear, okay? I’m telling you this because I love you, not because I wanna hurt you: Scott Hunter is going to win the Cup.”

“No! Stop it!” Ilya slapped at Shane’s arms. “There is still time. LA could come back.”

“My poor baby. I know it hurts,” Shane cooed.

“Fuck off, Hollander.”

“Ah, no. No, I do not think I will,” Shane said, imitating Ilya’s cadence. “I think you like it.”

“You think you are so funny, yes, yes.”

He dragged Ilya down to rest his head in Shane’s lap and rubbed both hands through his hair. The mineral lake water had made it both prone to tangling and majestically voluminous, springing away from Ilya’s head in leonine clouds. Shane was a big fan. It meant he got to claw snarls into it when they fucked, and then later carefully uncoil them out again. Their proximity to water also meant Ilya had barely worn a shirt for seventeen days. Quelle horreur.

Even now, weeks after he’d met them for the first time, Ilya still sprinted to shrug on a shirt whenever Shane’s parents came over. It amused Shane to no end, how Ilya did everything he could to appear demure and respectful in front of his folks, like maybe they’d somehow missed the coverage of him brawling with defenders and bragging to journalists and doing shirtless corridor interviews for seven years. He was looking forward to the day when Ilya felt comfortable enough around all three Hollanders to remain his puerile, louche, larger-than-life self. He wasn’t there yet, but Shane felt confident he would one day.

Shane had flown direct to Ottawa instead of returning to Montreal (direct was a misnomer: he and Ilya had flown together to Frankfurt then to New York, and then taken separate flights to Boston and Ottawa. Had there been routes with less transfers? Yes, but none of those let them cross the Atlantic together, hands touching under the blankets of the adjoining middle business class seats). Home, showered, armored in one of Ilya’s Krakatau fleece sweaters that he’d taken a particular shine to and exchanged for one of his own SSENSE crewnecks, Shane had asked his parents to sit down and told them he was gay. For himself, yes, and also to emphasize to Ilya that he hadn’t been fucking around, that he was deadly fucking serious about not hiding.

It was nice that it hadn’t been a particularly big deal, but, frankly, he’d been a little underwhelmed by the lack of life-shattering upheaval it was received with. “We’d wondered about that,” his dad said, after the hugs and platitudes, opening a Pandora’s box of questions about what else they’d discussed about Shane outside his earshot.

“Wh—”

“Is there a reason you’re telling us now, darling?” his mom had asked. “Are you seeing someone?”

“Yeah, actually. It’s, um … Ilya. Rozanov.”

His dad tilted his head to one side. “Well. I guess, that … yep. That makes a lot of sense.”

“Okay. Right. Yes, he’s very handsome,” his mom said.

When he’d relayed that back to Ilya on the phone that night, he’d been fucking insufferable, though Shane suffered through it gladly, smiling at every boast about how handsome, how sexy, how irresistible Ilya was, and waiting to hear what came afterwards, what was underneath all that peacocking. “Did you tell them that you are the only one for me, milyy? No? Shaaaaaaaaaaaane, they will be thinking I am still fucking around! A bad boyfriend! You must tell them, okay? Tell them I am very serious about their pretty boy.”

He was no longer a popcorn bag of jangling nerves when Shane’s parents were there, but he didn’t do things like this – lay his head in Shane’s lap – in front of them yet. Shane leaned down and kissed the edge of his mouth. “Intermission’s coming up,” he said.

“I know,” Ilya grumbled. “You do not need to remind me.”

“I thought maybe you could do with a distraction?”

“Nothing will distract me from this horrible day.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

Was Shane really fucking bad at this, or was Ilya being wilfully obtuse? Whatever, he didn’t need to be worrying about overstepping rules and boundaries anymore. He could just fucking say it: “Not even if I sucked your dick?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh.’”

“I mean, it would have to be a pretty good blowjob …”

“Mm hmm.”

“I am not sure if you are up to the challenge. But, yes, you can try.”

“Aren’t you generous?”

“Yes.” Ilya reached a blind hand up to paw at Shane’s cheek, eyes glued to the screen. “Don’t tell anyone.”

His Ilya was generous, no matter how dryly Shane mocked him. He gave and gave and gave, and didn’t even recognize it. Shane had text messages from him apologizing that he was going to be late for their afternoon call, because he was staying back to help Tjernberg – no longer a rookie, but headed to his first ever playoffs – practice face offs. He’d sat next to Ilya while he ordered a flower delivery for Zadonsky’s wedding anniversary – Zadonsky, who’d been traded to Minnesota two years ago. He’d listened to Ilya’s rationale for not selling his Moscow apartment, that he wanted it there for Lenochka and Dasha, if she ever decided to divorce Alexei.

And that was just the stuff for other people. That Shane had happened to hear about. Over the last four months. It didn’t even include that Shane had a bunch of voice note messages wishing him goodnight from when Ilya got home late from a game, when Shane was already asleep. Or that he’d received a weekly flower delivery at his Montreal apartment. Or the night Ilya had stayed up until four in the morning, his soothing voice on the line, calming Shane’s nerves through a bout of anxiety-induced insomnia.

They knew they were going to get press questions next season that would be horrifically intrusive and border on psychotically obsessive, and there was time scheduled in their calendars with their publicists to work out exactly would and wouldn’t be fair game and how long they’d play relationship-twenty-questions for. But if Shane got the opportunity, he was going to inform anyone and everyone how loving and kind and generous his Ilya was. Because it was the truth, and also because it would drive Ilya up the fucking wall.

Los Angeles scored a goal: a beauty, a pass from the wing to Trentham, who was screening Bennett on goal. Trentham passed it in between his own legs, and lifted it over the blocker in one clean motion.

Ilya lifted his head up and clenched a fist. “Yes! Let’s fucking go!”

“You know, some people would want the team they lost to to go on and become the champion,” Shane observed. “So they can say they only lost to the best.”

“This sounds like some Canadian bullshit. In Russia, we want our conquerors to be defeated.”

“That’s funny. Didn’t I knock Boston out in 2015? How’s that going for you?”

Ilya rolled onto his back and puckered his lips, which Shane was insensible to resist, even if he sneaked in a snort of laughter on his way down. “It is going very well,” Ilya said, pinning Shane’s neck in place and stealing a dozen rapid kisses. “My victory will be complete once you are playing for Boston.”

“Or you’re a Metro.”

“Or we are both in Vegas, yes?”

“Vegas?” Shane wrinkled his nose. “Ugh. Fine.”

Their fates were desperately uncertain, but at least they were twinned together. After Ilya transferred his contract to Farah’s purview, they’d sat her down on a three-way video call and laid out the salient facts (re: Shane had two seasons left with Montreal, Ilya had one in Boston, both had no-trade clauses, and, also, by the by, they were very in love). Farah, unflappably professional to the bitter end, had steepled her fingers in front of her nose and gone dead silent for a few breaths before she asked: “What would you like me to do?”

“We want to play together,” Shane had said. “Either in Montreal —”

“— or Boston —”

“— or any team that’ll take both of us.”

“Any team?” she had asked. Not suspicious, just the fastidious tone of a woman who dealt in loopholes and provisos.

“Any team,” Shane and Ilya had answered in unison.

Taking that on the chin, as if they hadn’t just asked for something wildly difficult and uniquely unusual, she followed up with: “And what’s your timeline?”

“Anytime after Ilya’s post-season wraps. We’ll waive our no-trades to move somewhere together.”

“If not next season, I can sign one-year extension,” Ilya added. “So we become free agents at the same time.”

“But sooner is better.”

“Right.” Shane was going to brag to Ilya about how fucking fantastic Farah was as soon as they hung up the call, make him admit that Shane had had the better agent all along. “And how would you like me to spin your motivations externally? What’s the narrative for wanting to play together?”

“Oh, this is no problem. Shane is very desperate to tell whole world he is super gay for me.”

“Would you fuck off? Sorry, Farah.”

“Just checking, for my own clarification,” she had asked, with the self-flagellatory air of a Type A personality who’d realized they’d missed a vital preparatory step in their checklist: “this isn’t a practical joke, right?”

She promised to keep them in the loop with status updates, though she warned she had no projections for how this kind of scenario might play out, given the total dearth of precedent in men’s professional leagues. Neither Shane nor Ilya were patient people – edging notwithstanding – but they were braced to wait it out two more sclerotic seasons if they had to. Or they might get a call in two weeks, who fucking knew.

Shane could cling on if he had to, with a worst-case end date in sight. He knew how to withstand living in a pressure cooker, especially if it was softened by a bajillion selfies of his boyfriends posing alongside every dog he met.

Ilya turned on his side again, but now facing away from the television, his mouth hot over Shane’s crotch. “Do you need a distraction, Hollander? Stop thinking about playing for stupid Vegas?”

“Watch the game, Ilya.”

“Ah, your mouth says ‘no,’ but your dick says ‘please, please, Ilya.’ Tricky, tricky, my two favorite parts of you.”

That was how Shane watched the dying minutes of the second period, New York up by two and playing like they intended to double the margin, with Ilya’s head in his lap and his glorious mouth wrapped around Shane’s dick, making obscene slurping and sucking noises and moaning like a porn star who got paid by the decibel and mauling Shane’s chest with one hand. Ilya and sex and hockey, his eternal idyll.

With just a few seconds remaining on the clock, and Ilya’s cock bursting out of his shorts, Shane rolled him over and straddled his legs and swallowed him down, trying to make him babble and grunt louder than the talking heads spouting intermission analysis. LA needed a complete strategic and momentum shift to have a chance, they were saying, in a polyphony with Ilya spitting “Fuck, fuck, Shane, that’s so good, milyy.”

Ilya head his head down and came in Shane’s mouth with that fucking annoying Geico advertisement playing for the thousandth time that day. The whole thing was so fantastically domestically banal: fucking in front of the television on a summer afternoon, no practice to run to, no flight to catch. It was everything Shane had thought he was supposed to want, just limned in a slightly different hue, punctuated with Ilya’s sing-song voice instead of some faceless woman’s register. He crawled up Ilya’s chest and kissed him and went to fetch them both a beer.

The broadcast switched to a pre-recorded skit of Vaughan and Trentham being interviewed by seven-year-old kids, with brutally cutting questions about their favorite colors and which of their teammates ate the most food. “Ours was better,” Ilya said, pulling Shane back down under his arm.

“You can’t compete with kids, Ilya. They’ve got the whole cute thing going on.”

“So you think they are better?”

“No, I mean, we were clearly better. You just can’t say that.”

The two of them had filmed a bunch of these fluff time-fillers for ESPN to be aired during Boston’s playoff games. A stats quiz set up like a game show, a segment where they shit-talked each others’ highlight reels, a live recreation of their earlier private debate about the best and worst team mascots, a blind tasting of Gatorade flavors. Shane had emailed ESPN to say he’d be in Boston during May for a Reebok shoot and offered to shill himself on the network; and then emailed Reebok to say he’d be in town for ESPN if they wanted to schedule anything while he was around.

With each company assuming the other had initiated his arrival, everyone else assumed it’d been the big bucks to draw him down to Boston when, of course, he’d been far more philanthropical than that. He was there to be the guy who prepared protein shakes and hot compresses and magnesium soaks for his boyfriend. Also to point out that Buffalo’s right winger had a gammy elbow, and Florida’s centre had a tell, eyes glancing to the wing he wasn’t going to shoot to (“What, you think I am as blind as Andropov? I know this, Hollander, is basic.”)

They’d been separated for six weeks by the time Shane rocked up on Ilya’s doorstep: a suitcase full of clothes, and a calendar arranged with video call appointments with his hand therapist, and a grip trainer, and an overflowing heart in tow; thirty-nine days of quietly cresendoing desperation that there was no way they could continue to live five hundred kilometres apart. Throughout, Ilya had been insistent that Shane was allowed to change his mind about coming out, and Shane had been insistent that he wasn’t going to, and though they were equally hard-headed about it, their positions weren’t mutually exclusive, so they hadn’t exactly been arguing. Just repeating themselves in increasingly aggressive tones and glowering at their phone screens.

Once Shane arrived and they were together again, not just their voices through a speaker but their hands and their mouths and their clothes intermingled in Ilya’s closet, it all took on a softer tone. Ilya’s “It is okay not to do this” with a cottony, cautious lilt, and Shane’s “I want to do this” infused with an undertone that tried to persuade Ilya he was worth it, he was worth all of it.

It was wrong to say he hadn’t been terrified, but living with the carrot instead of the stick made him all the braver, no longer dreading the moment when he changed it all, rewrote what was going to be the first line of his eventual obituary, laid the first brick of a legacy that wasn’t about his athletic ability. It all seemed more possible with Ilya walking in the door, with Ilya thrown squirming over his shoulder, with Ilya humming to himself in the shower, audible from Shane’s position on his side of the bed.

The summers would be fantastic, obviously: two months of the pair of them just like this, fucked out and cuddling on the couch, sex and bulking and shinny and swimming and hikes and video games and grilling and reading and lighting a fire under the stars. But it was never going to be enough, not once he’d known what it sounded like when Ilya was desperately in need of a hug and unwilling to walk through two doorways to ask for it.

And thank God for that. The spark of ignition was Ilya, but the ongoing hum of relief was his own. No more lists of how to behave, no more worrying about the gap between the hockey player and the friend and the son and the boyfriend, no more insidiously crawling skin that didn’t quite fit like it was supposed to. He’d never felt so relaxed in his own brain. All the less useful versions of Shane he’d had to wear, something he’d considered a fixity, shed in one fresh cycle of apoptosis.

He looked at his Ilya, his mother’s cheekbones and nose, his father’s devotion and stubbornness. Once he’d thought Ilya was a demigod, unknowable, invincible. Now he knew better, and loved him all the more for it, even if his dishwasher stacking defied rationality and he didn’t wash his hands after licking watermelon juice off his fingers and always, fucking always started a new conversation just as Shane was getting up to go piss.

“Hollander, you are staring. I have something on my face?”

“Yeah, there’s something just … oh wait, no. That’s just your face.”

“Oh, ha-ha-ha, very good. For a baby.”

“Speaking of babies, anything you want to do on Thursday?”

“I am not a baby, I am young and strong. Not like you, Old Man Hollander.”

“Shut up.”

“With his senior citizen discount.”

“If I have a senior citizen discount, that means we can get yours on Thursday.”

“You will always be Old Man Hollander to me, milyy.”

For the first ten days after he’d turned twenty-six, Shane had tried to argue that he was only five weeks older. Now he kept his mouth shut and made a mental note to print out an OAS benefits application form to gift to Ilya for his birthday.

The screen cut from an ad for breakfast cereal (Kellogg’s, naturally) to shots of the crowd, panning across a cluster of fans in rainbow-accented clothing. Of course. It was New York, it’d be weirder if there wasn’t any pride merch in the stands. “Here we go again,” Ilya said, rolling his head back so it struck the couch.

“Lots of fans here in Madison Square Garden have dressed in support of the gay community,” one of the commentators said. “Referencing, of course, the shocking announcement from a little over two weeks ago …” A ridiculously over-engineered animation dissolved into a graphic, showing the photo Shane and Ilya had posted on their accounts.

There had been an official statement on their behalves, dry and passionless as only publicists knew how to do it. They’d followed it up with a repost of the photo Ilya had taken while they were waiting in the airport lounge in Odessa, the two of them squished onto a shabby pleather two-seater. The first time it was posted, he’d captioned it: ‘Glad to be back in Boston. Everybody say thank you to @ShaneHollander24 for keeping me sane. If he can carry entire @OfficialMontrealMetros team on his back, one guy is no problems, even with a bad wrist.’

The second time it was posted, they’d both captioned it: ‘Me and my guy ❤️’

To say they’d intended for it to be taken as evidence their relationship began in the spring was overstating it a little, but they’d sure fucking known that that assumption would nullify any questions about conflicts of interest and tampering.

The people who cared were the same as people everywhere. Supportive, derogatory, creepily interested, prurient, surprised, apathetic, suspicious, sycophantic, opportunistic, loving, hateful, weird, and kind. Shane took comfort in knowing he could out-skate any of them, and his eventual biography would outsell anything any of them ever wrote.

“Of course, I’m very happy for them,” another commentator cut in. “But do they have to make such a big deal about it? We’re here for hockey, after all, there’s no need for them to keep bringing it up.”

“We haven’t!” Shane yelled.

“Well, Hollander and Rozanov have been silent since then, actually not a peep outta them —”

“You are knowing you cannot yell loud enough for them to hear you in Manhattan?” Ilya asked. “That probably only reached New Hampshire.”

“— though wherever they are, I’m sure they wish they were in Captain Scott Hunter’s skates this afternoon …”

“No! Booooooo!” Ilya yelled, loud enough for Connecticut, at a minimum.

Shane had waited up when Ilya came back from New York, arriving home after two in the morning. He’d been in Ilya’s position before – in fact, Ilya had been the one to put him in this position before, close enough to smell the Prince of Wales Trophy and book a finals berth, then sent home empty-handed – and he knew that aphorisms were worse than silence. Instead he’d stripped Ilya’s clothes off, ridden him to a sleep beyond dreaming, and brought him coffee in the morning. Ilya had made a superhuman effort to have his cubby cleared out before midday, and by that evening, they’d flown to Montreal, loaded up Shane’s car, and were on the road to the cottage.

The plan had always been to come out as soon as the spotlight had turned away from them, to give as a long a lead time as possible if Russia did something stupid and they needed to rush to fix Ilya’s immigration status, but not so much attention it’d put either of them in the firing line for accusations of blame if Boston were eliminated.

It was at the Centex in Griffith where they’d given Celine the go-ahead and paused to post their photos online, Ilya already alarmed at the rapid depletion of cell signal and spending a minor fortune buying two celebratory cans of Pringles at the General Store. He would’ve preferred to stop at Rosie’s, fifteen minutes further on, but she shut up shop at six on the dot. The proprietors of the Griffith gas station were, in Shane’s experience, absolute cunts, but not even they could ruin his day. The smell of spilled fertilizer on the road and dewy grass had already put him into summer mode. He’d held Ilya’s hand the rest of the trip, pulling into the driveway right as the sun dipped down low enough to coruscate across the rippling lake.

“Welcome home,” he’d said, the fucking mawkish sap.

Ilya had been dicking around on his phone, until he found what he was looking for and waved his dictionary app in Shane’s face. “Cottage means ‘a small, simple house.’ What the fuck, Shane?”

On the first morning, he’d realized they didn’t have enough coat hangers for two people, and placed an online order for another batch. On the first afternoon, he’d boxed up two shelves worth of his books and replaced them with the shitty paperback thrillers he’d found in Ilya’s study and packed in a spare suitcase he’d dropped outrageous excess baggage fees for. On the third evening he’d shown Ilya how to work the washing machine. On the sixth afternoon he’d feigned a headache and told Ilya to go ahead and drive on his own down to Northbrook for groceries. On the eighth morning, Ilya rolled over and asked if they could install a better sound system in the gym, and Shane was satisfied that the not-small, not-simple house was on its way to being theirs, not his.

That is: he knew that both them would give a hell of a lot to be leading their teams out onto the ice right now, three games of the series won and up by two points going into the final period, despite Ilya’s protestations; but he also knew that Ilya was pretty happy with the second-best option.

It was a sad, unspoken truth that the Cup games were a contest of sheer willpower and the ability to grit through broken bones, bruised tendons, overtaxed muscles, and not enough sleep. There wasn’t a whole lot of actual finesse on display at this point. And once New York got another goal, it all seemed a bit of a foregone conclusion to Shane. He leaned into Ilya’s side – the unbruised one – and rested his hand on Ilya’s thigh and felt the pads of Ilya’s fingers against his bare shoulder and only paid enough attention to agree or disagree with whatever Ilya was ranting about.

He’d confessed to Shane, in the safe darkness of his Boston bedroom, his ear pressed to Shane’s chest, that he was glad he didn’t have to torture himself with the idea of his father learning he was in love with a man. That it made it all so much simpler and easier. Wet tears had fallen off the tip of his nose onto Shane’s sternum. “Isn’t that fucked up, Shane? To miss him, and also be grateful that he is gone?”

Shane was unburdened by nostalgia or filial hangovers for Grigori. But he had to acknowledge the debt that was owed. Polina had inherited a modest sum, Yelena the bulk, Ilya was honored by his father’s formal recognition of his trustworthiness, and, unintentionally, Shane had been bequeathed a lesson.

A lesson in what happened to a person when you buried your love for them too far down to be heard. A lesson in what a person remembers and regrets when the end has come. A lesson in the relative importance of medals or trophies to your legacy. A lesson in the love Ilya was and wasn’t shown, and how it’d shaped him.

Without Grigori’s intervention, it would have taken Shane most of a decade, several medieval torture devices, and judicious employment of a psychic to pry open Ilya’s maddening stoicism and decode the scars his teenage years had left on his internal organs. He would’ve listened to what Ilya said: “We do not need to do this,” rather than what Ilya’s face was saying: I’m scared to ask too much of you. He would’ve done what he always did, made a conclusion based on a set of starting conditions, and stuck to his assumptions for far longer than they held true.

On the television, Los Angeles saved a shot on goal. He reached up and kissed Ilya’s jaw. Once upon a time, he’d thought he hadn’t understood the point of kissing, and then he’d thought he’d got it, after he started kissing Ilya, and now he knew he hadn’t understood it at all. Kissing wasn’t just sex, it was affection, overflowing, irrepressible, nowhere else to go but onto his Ilya’s skin.

Shane had been overcome with determination to love Ilya better than Grigori had been capable of. He would love him proudly, bragging and boasting and applauding. He would love him loudly. He would love Ilya the way he deserved, with the same generosity he showed to everybody. Ilya would never, ever go to sleep uncertain that he was the love of Shane’s life, that he was fucking adored, that he didn’t need to be anything other than who he was for Shane to wake up and fall in love with him all over again. And, because Ilya was owed a tremendous debt of overt affection, Shane was committed to repaying it, both in private kisses and by telling the whole world.

In a way, it was Grigori to thank for the first two openly queer NHL players, holding hands in rural Ontario on a summer’s day. If Irina was watching, Shane hoped she enjoyed the joke.

With ninety seconds to go, Ilya disappeared into the kitchen and returned with the vodka and a chilled glass. “Congratulations, Hunter,” he toasted, when the game was won. “Soon I will destroy you.”

“You’re so dramatic. Lighten up.”

“This is a dark day.”

“It’s a Sunday afternoon in the middle of June. We’ve got the whole summer ahead of us.”

“I will never know happiness again.”

So, obviously, Shane had to sit on him and squeeze his cheeks from a moue into a manipulated smile. “Hey. Next season, or the next season, or the one after that, we’ll be on the same team. You and me on the power play against New York? I’ll help you with your revenge.”

“Ughhhh, Hollander,” Ilya groaned. “That is so fucking hot.”

“I mean, Hunter’s a nice guy. But I’d love to help you defeat your conqueror.”

“This is your best try at dirty talk so far.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Ah, no, that is worse again.”

Shane frowned. “Should I be worried that talking about Scott Hunter gets you going?”

“Is not Hunter, is that look you have when you want to hit someone, and instead you find some impossible angle. Yes: that one. Ugh. When we play together, I will be fucking hard, all the time.”

“Maybe we will need that separate locker room.”

It was the first time he’d joked about it, what some of the guys were saying in his team chat. Theriault, to his credit, had promised Shane he’d shut it down and it had definitely gone quiet. But he wasn’t stupid enough to believe they’d changed their minds, just had an educational discussion about their value to the franchise relative to Shane’s.

Ilya’s eyes traced all over Shane’s face before he smiled and kissed his nose. “Best idea for everyone, yes. Maybe I can finally fuck you in rink showers.”

“I was thinking … for your birthday … we could – I mean, only if you want to, of course – it’s just an idea. I thought we could …” Ilya made a hand gesture to hurry-the-fuck-up-already. “Would you wanna fuck in our practice rink?”

“Oh, fuck, Shaaaaaane,” Ilya whinged, flopping his head backwards. “You will not let us do this before Thursday, will you?”

“It’s only four days.”

“I will explode before then.”

“You’re such a baby.”

“It is my birthday, you are supposed to do what I want.”

“And we will.” Shane shook his shoulders, Ilya’s grumpy face lolling from side to side. “On your birthday.”

“I hate you.”

“Okay.”

“You are terrible.”

“Okay.”

Ilya’s hand crept up his sides, holding him tight while he nuzzled into Shane’s collarbone. “Can we go swimming before dinner?”

“Only if you stop pretending you hate me.”

“Ugh. Whatever.”

And that was the exact moment Scott Hunter dragged a – they both had to concede it, after the fact – very handsome man out of the crowd and onto the ice and kissed him on live television.

Without quite realizing how or why, Shane was standing to watch. It just felt appropriate. Still seated behind him, Ilya had curled a hand around the inside of Shane’s thigh and was leaning his head on Shane’s hip. Neither of them said anything.

Not until their phones kicked off. Shane’s mom was the first call, then Marleau, then J.J, and Rose was texting so fast the notification chimes were abbreviated, then St-Simon, then Celine on Shane’s phone, then Hayden, then Celine on Ilya’s phone, their screens loading up with call waiting and their phones vibrating the coffee table into a percussive ruckus to accompany the ringtones. When Svetlana’s call was added to the queue, Ilya leaned forward and snatched up his phone.

“Sveta. You saw?”

Shane still wasn’t quite sure of the names of the emotions he was feeling. Instead, he concentrated on Ilya’s voice: awed and reverential.

“I know, I know, I cannot … we never thought …. Well, yes, we hoped, but …. Yes, you are right. And fucking Hunter, of all people …. I don’t know, maybe? …. Yes, but we thought he was just being all fucking decent, like everyone else …. Fuck, I know …. Yeah, he’s – well, we have not really talked yet …. Okay. Yes, okay …. Yes. We will see you Friday? …. Okay, bye.”

Ilya held his wrist carefully, though it was healed enough for Shane to be back benching seventy percent of his one-rep max. “Shane?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I know. He is … fuck. You should be very proud, sweetheart.”

“What?”

“You were the first. Well, and me, yes, but really it was you, no? And now, others can come out too. He is … he benefits, from what we did.”

Shane twisted his wrist and grabbed Ilya’s hand. He knew what he was feeling now. The fluttering marvel was in there, plus curiosity, and a heady self-satisfaction that he and Ilya had broken new ground that others were journeying along. But also: “I’m fucking pissed.”

“What?” Ilya tugged him down, looking totally flummoxed.

“I was gonna do that.” Shane could recognize he sounded like a bleating toddler, but this was Ilya, whom he never had to alter himself for, so he didn’t really care. “When I win the Cup next year. I had a whole fucking plan!”

“Excuse me: when you win the Cup? I will be winning the Cup, you will be pretty trophy boyfriend.”

“Whatever! He stole my fucking idea!”

Ilya nodded grimly. “Yes, okay, I see. Now we have two reasons to destroy New York. He cannot be allowed to ruin my Shane’s plans. Not without revenge. Okay. New idea: when we play for the same team, we will kiss each other when we both win, yes? Hunter cannot be first to do that.”

“I fucking love you,” Shane said, crawling into his arms.

Ilya kissed the side of his head. “I love you too. You idiot.”

Chapter End Notes

Final "fuck" count: 510, honestly lower than I expected

For everyone with a dad who didn't love them the way they needed: please drop by for a cup of tea and a big hug at your convenience.

Lots of love and kisses to all of you, especially to everyone who kept my hype levels high by following along when this was a WIP: may your coffee always be fresh, may your flights always be on time, may your upstairs neighbours always be soft-footed.

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Side note: my bestie and I are gearing up to write and publish some original fiction! If you want to get notified about updates, head over to https://lapidarytexts.com and join our newsletter.