Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Kip Grady/Scott Hunter, Kip Grady & Shane Hollander, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau & Ilya Rozanov, Kip Grady & Shane Hollander & Scott Hunter & Ilya Rozanov, Kip Grady & Shane Hollander & Scott Hunter & Cliff Marleau & Ilya Rozanov & Carter Vaughn, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau/Carter Vaughn, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau/Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marleau/Ilya Rozanov/Girls

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Kip Grady, Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Carter Vaughn

Additional Tags:

Non-Linear Narrative, Husbands in love, Chirping, Queer Found Family, Public Flirting with Your Husband, Comfort Sex, Secret Relationship, supportive friends, Being Walked In On, Bisexuality Realization, Shane Hollander Is A Menace Too, Fuck AI, POV Outsider

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-04-26 Words: 4,977 Chapters: 1/1

The Friends They Made Along The Way

Summary

In which Kip asks Shane if any other hockey players have ever hooked up, and various secrets come to light.

(Featuring Shane Hollander being a menace, husbands flirting in public, queer found family, and a non-linear narrative.)

Notes

The Kingfisher, summer 2024

Shane Hollander was fun when he was tipsy, Kip decided.

He’d met Shane before, at various games and events and award ceremonies. Scott had always seemed to have a soft spot for him, still occasionally calling him Rook, despite the fact that the man was the greatest hockey player alive and hadn’t been a rookie in, what, thirteen or fourteen years? Kip’s impression had always been that he was an awkward jock, like a lot of the hockey bros in Scott’s world. (A lot hotter than the usual hockey bros, though, to be fair.)

This Shane, though – sun-kissed from a celebratory post-Cup week on a beach somewhere, his hair long and an earring sparkling in his ear, sitting in the Kingfisher with one of his husband’s legs casually thrown over his, drinking beer and making deceptively dry jokes – this one, Kip thought, was much more interesting. (And hot as all hell.)

“So,” Kip asked him, sipping his drink. “You know all about the inhuman, godforsaken stench from the depths of hell that is a hockey player and their gear. How do you survive? And what the fuck made you decide to willingly sign up to double that?”

“Showers,” Shane said.

Shane’s husband – who in Kip and Scott’s apartment was known as “fucking Rozanov” – had been arguing with Vaughny and Scott and drinking an exceptionally colorful cocktail that Kyle had named “The Centaurs.” At Shane’s pronouncement, he inhaled the wrong way and started coughing. Vaughny’s date helpfully thumped him on the back.

Shane nodded thoughtfully. “It’s very important to take a lot of showers.” He passed his husband a napkin.

“Yeah,” Kip said, “sure. But that only goes so far. And don’t say you go nose-blind to it. Because it’s been years and I still haven’t."

Shane shrugged. “Well, I like hockey. So.”

Kip made an exaggerated disgusted face. “Girl, that is way too much info.” Secretly he was a little thrilled. The Hollander-Rozanovs were famously tight-lipped. Oh, everyone could see the besotted heart-eyes they had for each other, but apart from that, they were a very private couple. Getting a wink to I like the way he smells was probably more than Shane Hollander had willingly divulged in a long time.

“So,” Kip asked, leaning back and letting his fingers trail along the scruff of Scott’s neck, “do you think there have ever been any other guys in the league huffing each other’s hockey sticks?”

Shane wrinkled his nose.

“Okay, ew,” Kip admitted. “But seriously. Scott gets all uptight and like, I wouldn’t want to speculate. But you guys can’t be the only ones who’ve ever – indulged.”

“Ilya would probably be the better person to ask,” Shane said. “He has much, much better gaydar than I do.”

Fucking-Rozanov swiveled from his argument and grinned at Shane. “I do.” He swirled his drink and tongued at it lasciviously.

Shane added casually, “Of course there was Ilya and Scott.”

Fucking-Rozanov spat cocktail all over the table.

“Jesus!” Scott said, springing upright and out of the line of fire. “What the fuck, Rozanov?”

Kip sat still, blinking.

Shane’s face was frozen, the picture of guilt. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know Scott didn’t –”

“You didn’t know Scott didn’t what?” Scott asked.

Fucking-Rozanov, mopping his face with a napkin, spluttered, “Nothing!”

Kip looked up at Scott and raised his eyebrows. “Apparently you’ve been holding out on me on a very sexy story.”

Scott looked at him, then at the Hollander-Rozanovs.

“You hooked up with Russia’s greatest love machine?” Kip prompted.

Scott’s face morphed instantly from confused to horrified.

“I’m not mad,” Kip assured Shane in an aside. “Just exceptionally curious.”

Scott dropped back into the seat next to Kip in order to whisper-shout “I have never slept with fucking Rozanov!” into his ear.

Fucking-Rozanov groaned. “What he said!”

Vaughny and his date were pretending very hard that they were not listening to this conversation, and doing a very bad job.

Shane was biting his lip. “Uh. Apparently I misunderstood something Ilya said once. Uh. Sorry?”

Kip wondered very much what that had been. He was only a man, and Shane and his husband were objectively the hottest couple he had ever met. He could picture the vision of the four of them in a big bed together. Pity that anyone who’d ever spent any time with the Hollander-Rozanovs could see that they were the two most possessive, non-sharing motherfuckers who ever sucked cock.

Fucking-Rozanov recovered from his choking fit and started laughing into Shane’s shoulder. Scott growled, “Rozanov!” at him.

“Well,” Kip said, because it was apparently on him to be the adult in this equation. “That all got very interesting very quickly.”

Scott muttered under his breath, wiping down the table.

seven years earlier

It was a quiet morning at the cottage. Ilya was drinking coffee, and Shane was looking at the pillow-crease on his cheek and thinking delightful private thoughts.

When Ilya set his cup down on the counter and opened his mouth, Shane was so busy watching the way his lips moved and envisaging them wrapping around his cock, that he barely heard what Ilya was saying. (Sue him. He had a boyfriend now. A boyfriend who loved him, and was there with him in the morning and at night and in all the hours in between. And, memorably, one time at 3 AM when Shane woke up craving him and shook him awake so he could sit on his dick. Ahem.)

He dimly registered that Ilya looked a little nervous, which was odd. He cleared the horny thoughts from his brain and replayed the last twenty seconds. There’s something I need to tell you. “Uh, sure. What’s up?”

Even though Ilya looked nervous, Shane wasn’t worried. Anything serious, Ilya would have already told him. It was much more likely to be something like “Hollander, you have to go to the store and get real pasta. I will die if I have to eat chickpea shit one more time” than “Hollander, I have secret love child”.

“You are not the only hockey player I have fucked.”

Shane blinked. Okay. Okay, that was somewhere in the middle.

“Was it – someone I know?” he said, carefully.

Dumb question. Of course it was. If Ilya was talking about someone on the Russian Olympic team in Sochi or something like that, he wouldn’t be looking so hesitant.

“Yes,” Ilya said. “Not – not serious, not like us. I never told anyone before. But now that I have super sexy boyfriend, it is his business.”

Shane thought about this. He remembered the first time they’d hooked up, the panicked way he’d begged Ilya not to tell anyone. Somewhere out there, there was another closeted hockey player who’d probably begged Ilya the same thing. He’d be living on the scraps of memories now, while Shane had the real deal in his arms whenever he wanted. “Are you going to fuck any more hockey players?”

Ilya smiled the little close-lipped smile that meant he thought Shane was funny. Shane loved the way it reached his eyes. “Only the most boring one.”

“Right answer,” Shane said, swallowing. “Very right answer.”

Ilya came to him, drawing him in, kissing the words from his mouth.

After a moment he drew back. “You are ok?”

Shane nodded, and rested his forehead on Ilya’s shoulder. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

Ilya’s fingers caressed the back of Shane’s neck. “Was when you were trying to fuck Rose Landry…”

the previous December

Something was wrong with Rozy.

First he’d stopped picking up as much this year, just every now and then. Cliff had teased him about being whipped by Montreal Jane, and Rozy had just blushed. (Whatever Roz said about the subject, Cliff was best friends with the man, and he knew from experience that Russians most certainly did blush.) He’d been playing as well as he ever had. It was like the year they’d won the Cup, except Roz had seemed much happier.

And then it had suddenly all changed. Happy, loved-up, got-regular-pussy Roz turned into a miserable, spitting menace overnight. Literally. One day Cliff had been teasing him about Jane coming to town to watch them destroy her Metros, with Rozy smirking and saying Hollander wouldn’t know what hit him. And the next day, in the actual game, it was like Roz had seen a ghost. Cliff had never seen Roz play that mechanically, or with his face that empty.

It didn’t take a genius to know what had happened. (Which was good. Cliff had had far too many concussions and was well aware that his braincells were an endangered species.) Roz had been ready to lock down a girl for the very first time, and she’d dumped him.

Now Cliff was at a bar for the fifth time this week, watching Rozy stare glassily into the distance, and he didn’t know how to make it better.

“Hey man,” he said, jostling his elbow into Roz’s shoulder. “Feelin’ anybody tonight?”

“Fuck off, Marly,” Roz said.

Oh, they were at this stage of baby’s first breakup now. Well, Cliff wasn’t an older brother of three for nothing. “C’mon, Roz. If you don’t want to get your dick wet, let’s get you home.”

Roz looked murderous for a second, but then his shoulders slumped, and he let Cliff manhandle him off the bar stool and towards the door.

Cliff took him back to his own apartment. It was closer to the rink, and they had practice the next morning, for their sins. He was getting too old to be Roz’s wingman. Especially when it wasn’t even taking care of a drunk Roz – getting his shoes off, bullying him into brushing his teeth, pushing him into the guest room – but dealing with a mostly-sober one, sitting on Cliff’s couch and looking like a lost puppy.

Cliff had never had a breakup that he’d taken this hard. There had been regular hookups here and there that it stung a little to lose, but so far he’d never met a girl who could turn him inside out like Jane did Roz. So he didn’t have any wise words of wisdom he could offer, and he didn’t think Roz would want to hear them anyway. He settled for pulling him into an awkward side hug instead. “Women suck, man.”

Roz turned his face into Cliff’s shoulder. “Not helpful, Marly.”

“Naw, man. She woulda been lucky to have you. Fuck Jane.”

Roz flailed a hand blindly at him. “No. Do not talk about –”

He cut himself off, as if he couldn’t even say her name. Fuck. Cliff’s chest felt weird.

Roz’s hand, waving sadly, drifted down and landed on Cliff’s lap.

And Cliff’s dick, which had been an entirely uninvolved participant thus far, woke up.

It was just biology, and memories. There had been a few times over the years where they’d hooked up with the same girl (and once, with a pair of best friends). Girls went wild for having the two of them, and Cliff had never seen anything quite as hot as making a girl come a scientifically astounding number of times by switching off shifts with Roz. His mind helpfully tossed him a memory of Roz sitting up from where he’d been face-down in a girl’s cunt, his mouth glistening as he smiled that cocky smile, wiping his face and gesturing down with his eyebrows and chin – and then Roz holding the back of his head, shoving him further into the girl’s soaked pussy –

Biology, that’s all it was. Or did he mean anatomy?

His dick was hard, and Roz’s fingers brushed lightly across it.

Cliff swallowed.

He could get up and go to bed. They had practice in the morning. He could go to bed, and get a hand on himself, and think about Lacey from last night, or Mika from the night before.

Roz’s hand stroked again, more purposefully this time.

Cliff remembered the time a girl had begged them to kiss for her. She had been so hot, and Rozy had shrugged and laughed, and Cliff had rolled his eyes and kissed him. He’d been expecting it to do a whole lot of nothing for him, however technically-talented Roz no doubt was, but that was before Roz opened his mouth and slid his tongue against Cliff’s. The girl had made a little punched-out noise, and Roz had grinned against Cliff’s lips and kept kissing him, his tongue filthy and sure.

“Yeah?” Roz said, in his ear, his voice husky.

Cliff should have said no. Roz was brokenhearted and newly broken-up-with.

“Yeah,” Cliff said, and turned his head to kiss him.

Roz kissed just like he remembered, just as overwhelming and dirty and certain. There was no horny girl encouraging them on, but Roz didn’t seem to mind. He kissed like there was a race, like he wanted to suck Cliff’s face off, like he was desperate for it.

Cliff put a hand on his face and tried to slow him down, tried to gentle the kiss a little. He could feel his heartbeat racing, his body trying to decide if this sudden acceleration was an attack.

Roz made an ungraceful sound into Cliff’s mouth and broke away, and then he was dropping off the couch and pushing Cliff’s knees apart, folding himself into the space between them and faceplanting onto Cliff’s dick.

And oh, Cliff’s dick was apparently into this, Roz on his knees – but Roz wasn’t in any shape for this, Cliff had to stop it –

“Please, Marly,” Roz said, indistinct, his face muffled in Cliff’s pants, and Cliff found himself petting Roz’s hair, once, twice.

"Okay,” Cliff said, soft. “Okay, Rozy.”

And if Rozy sucked cock like he ate pussy, like someone who’d done it a million times, like someone who was starving, like someone who loved exactly where he was, Cliff wasn’t going to say anything about it. And if Rozy looked surprised when Cliff pulled him onto his lap afterwards and put his hand on Rozy’s dick, Cliff wasn’t going to say anything. And if Rozy shook apart in his arms, with his teeth set against Cliff’s collarbone, and Cliff pressed his mouth against Roz’s curls, and tried not to see the glimmer at the corner of Roz’s eyes – Cliff wasn’t going to say anything.

After, Cliff sat on his couch, with Rozy on top of him and his arm around Rozy’s shoulders, and said nothing at all.

“Jane’s a man,” Roz said, into his shoulder, voice nearly inaudible. “And he was mine.”

Cliff tightened his arm around Roz, and they fell asleep on the couch together.

When they woke up, they didn’t talk about it. Roz showered and changed in the guest bedroom that was practically his, and they got greasy breakfast on the way to practice. Cliff stayed at his elbow all day the same as always, and Roz’s shoulders seemed a little less tight, his mouth not quite as tense.

It only happened the one time. They never even shared another girl. But once was enough, apparently, to make Roz feel less alone. Maybe it had something to do with how Cliff stayed exactly the same, never mentioning Roz’s surprising cocksucking skills or the secret breathed in the darkness. He could give Roz that. He could give Roz steady and reliable, the big lunk who wouldn’t run off and leave him. He could give Roz chirps and grins, claps on his shoulder and big chest-bumping bro-hugs, could even get away with ruffling his hair occasionally and needling him into mock-yelling arguments that helped blow off the head of steam that was still frequently orbiting Rozy’s moody thundercloud.

Rozy was still miserable, but he wasn’t alone. He had Cliff, and Cliff was going to make sure that was enough to get him through.

the next summer

Even Cliff Marleau, with his lack of functioning braincells, could put two and two together when Roz went from miserable to blissfully happy over the course of one All-Star weekend. He’d watched Roz kiss Hollander’s helmet, his eyes alight, his chin jutting in glee, and felt nothing but fondness and a soul-deep sense of relief. Fucking Rozy, he’d thought. You’d better take good care of him, Jane.

Now Roz was calling him, and sounding way more relaxed than he ever usually did during the summer, when he was stuck in Russia. “So,” Cliff said, not wasting time beating around the bush, “you’re shacked up with Jane, aren’t you?”

Roz huffed, but admitted, “I am on vacation.”

“With Jane.”

“…With my boyfriend.”

“Roz,” Cliff said, and went to his fridge for a cold one. “Congrats, man.”

It sounded a little lukewarm. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy for Roz, because he was. But he’d also been there when Jane stomped on his guy’s heart and made his playful-asshole shtick turn a lot more real-asshole for a while, and he’d been the one to try to help Roz keep from falling completely apart.

“Fuck, try to sound like you mean it, Marly,” Roz said.

Cliff sighed. “I’m happy for you, man, I really am. Just – the guy hurt you. And you’re my guy. So.”

Roz took a second before he replied. “He was not trying to hurt me, Marly.” His voice was softer than usual. Maybe it was easier on the phone. “It is – not easy for us. I have hurt him too before. But now we have – talked.”

“Uh-huh,” Cliff said. “Talked. I don’t think that’s most of what your mouth’s been doing.”

Too much? But Roz was laughing, bright and sunny.

“Are you happy?” Cliff asked.

“So happy,” Roz said. There was a smile in his voice. “I love him. And he loves me. And he is never going to try to fuck another girl, so I will not be angry asshole captain anymore.”

“Thank fuck,” Cliff said, playfully growling.

Then a thought popped up. “Does this mean I get to retire as wingman? No more Russia’s greatest love machine?”

“Yes.”

Only one word, but it came out so quickly and so sure, like it was the simplest and easiest answer Roz had ever given. Cliff blinked, and found himself smiling at his phone. “Wow. Jane locked you down. That’s maybe the most impressive thing he’s ever done, and he’s my personal nightmare.”

“Marly,” Roz said.

He sounded hesitant, and Cliff didn’t like a world where Roz sounded hesitant. “Oh come on, man. I’m not saying it out loud. But you look at him like you want to eat him.”

Roz didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he said, “I will ask him if I can say it out loud. I would like to say his name to someone.”

“Fuck, man, you’ve got it bad.”

“Yes,” Roz said. “Yes, I know this.”

There was something Cliff needed to say. Even if it made it weird. “Look, Roz. I don’t know – you might have already told him. And it’s okay if you did, or if you do. Okay?”

“Okay,” Roz said.

“I mean, I guess it’s not completely okay,” Cliff said. “I don’t think he’s gonna, like, be homophobic at me or anything. So, whatever. But I’m pretty sure it’s gonna suck if Hockey Jesus decides I’m his personal Enemy #1 for hooking up with his boyfriend.”

It sounded like Roz was choking on the other end of the line.

“Or, you know, the whole concussion-collarbone-fucked up his playoffs thing. Man. He does have a right to be pissed. So if you tell Hockey Jesus, you better use your magic dick powers to convince him not to kill me. Okay?”

“Stop calling him that,” Roz said, but he was laughing like a kid.

Cliff grinned.

the next day

“Was when you were trying to fuck Rose Landry,” Ilya said.

Shane rested his forehead against Ilya’s shoulder. He could still hear the echo of the hurt in Ilya’s voice when he mentioned Rose, as much as Ilya was trying to make it lighter.

“I was not doing so good,” Ilya admitted. “And Marly, he always tries to help. You’re scaring rookies, Roz. Let’s get laid, Roz. Other girls out there, Roz. No more vodka, Roz. You’re gonna throw up in the street, Roz.”

“Did he know…”

“He knew there was Jane, and then there was not Jane.”

“Oh,” Shane said. As much as Hayden had always teased him about Boston Lily, he’d never really thought about anybody on Ilya’s side knowing about Jane.

“And one night, I only wanted to fuck pretty, boring boy with freckles, and nobody at club was him. So we left club and went to Marly’s. And I sucked his dick.”

That was – a very sudden escalation. “Why?”

Ilya shrugged. His hand was drawing slow circles on Shane’s back. “I was very sad, Shane. And long time ago, we hooked up with girls sometimes. Didn’t do things together then, only kissed for girls. Eiffel Towers, yes?”

“And he just – let you suck his dick?”

“I am very good at it,” Ilya said, playing offended. Then he softened again. “Marly was worried about me. And I needed him then.”

“Okay,” Shane said.

“He did handjob afterwards,” Ilya said. “And that is all. Only time. I asked him if I could tell boyfriend and he said yes.”

In the entirety of this conversation, that was the most shocking thing. “You – asked Marleau if you could tell your boyfriend that you hooked up with him. And he said yes.” It sounded even more unbelievable when he repeated it.

“He knows Jane is a man,” Ilya said. He sounded nervous. More nervous than when he’d been admitting to hooking up with another hockey player. “I told him that night. Not who. Just that my Jane was a man. But … I think he has guessed now. Probably because of way I acted when you were hurt.”

Part of Shane was definitely freaking out about another player knowing their secret. He could feel his muscles stiffening, and the panic curling in the bottom of his stomach.

But if Ilya had really blown him… maybe he was as safe as he could be. “You trust him not to tell anyone?”

“Yes,” Ilya said. “I do.”

“And he’s – okay with it?”

Ilya hummed a little. “He calls you Jane, and Hockey Jesus. He is worried you will kill him for hooking up with your boyfriend, and also for wrecking your playoffs. He is still mad at you for Rose Landry, but I think he will learn to like you. Because I like you.”

“Lucky me,” Shane said. He turned his head on Ilya’s shoulder and kissed the underside of his jaw.

“And because I will be much nicer Captain now, with pretty freckle boy letting me fuck him again.”

“Pretty freckle boy is going to beat your ass and win a third Cup this year,” Shane said, and then bit down and started to work on a hickey. Because he could. Because it was Ilya whose pulse was beating hard against Shane’s fingertips, and Ilya whose breath was shuddering in little gasps.

“No,” Ilya said, “no, it will be Boston, I will give them something to remember me.”

“Hockey Jesus is taking you back to bed now,” Shane informed him, and dragged him by the hand, laughing, all the way to the bedroom.

~

After, Ilya lay in the curve of Shane’s arm, his head pillowed on Shane’s chest.

“So it was just me and Marly?”

Ilya licked his nipple. Shane thought sometimes Ilya just liked to see him twitch. “Well, there was one time with Scott Hunter…”

“Shut up,” Shane said, and tugged his curls hard.

The Kingfisher, summer 2024

“Seriously, though,” Scott said, “not in a million years.”

“You would know this,” Fucking-Rozanov chirped, “because you are –”

“Don’t say it.”

“One million years old.”

Kip rolled his eyes, and looked at Shane for solidarity. “Your husband needs some new material.”

Shane, sipping his beer placidly, said, “I agree.”

Fucking-Rozanov turned a wounded expression on him. “You support dinosaur and paleontologist over your own husband?”

Shane tipped his head to the side. “I think I just showed that you can come up with more original chirps than that, Ilya.”

His husband stared at him for a moment, his face blank. Then a delighted grin started to spread across his whole face, lighting him up like a Christmas tree. “Shane Hollander.”

“Hollander-Rozanov,” Shane corrected, and slow-blinked at him.

Scott groaned. “Shane, tell me you didn’t just do that on purpose. As a fucking joke. You’re killing me here.”

“He got you both, though,” Vaughny pointed out. “Nice work, Hollander. Two-in-one.”

“Thank you,” Shane said, smiling at Vaughny. He lifted his beer glass to his lips again, and as if absentmindedly, his tongue darted out to the rim.

Kip admired the masterclass. He hadn’t known awkward-jock Shane had it in him. Married life obviously was going well.

“Stop eyefucking Rozanov right in front of my beer, Hollander,” Scott said. “Jesus.”

Shane leaned into Fucking-Rozanov’s ear and said something too low for Kip to hear.

Fucking-Rozanov threw his suddenly-brilliant smile around the table, said “Bye, hockey gays,” and pushed his husband bodily up to standing.

“See you next time,” Shane told the table, smirking, and then the First Husbands of Hockey were departing at high speed.

“Fourteen years,” Vaughny’s date said. “Fourteen years those motherfuckers have been going at it, and they’re still just as horny as ever.”

“They did just win their second Cup in a row,” Kip pointed out. He remembered Scott’s post-Cup summer with great fondness. Something about having all your dreams come true at the same time as detonating your closet door had made his then-boyfriend insatiable. “We’re lucky they bothered to put on clothes and come out with us at all.”

“Kip,” Scott said. “I love you. But –”

“Grow up and stop being a prude, Hunter,” Vaughny’s date said. Vaughny laughed, which made Scott look at him, wounded. “They’re hot, they’re married, they fuck. Same as you.”

“Fuck you, Marleau,” Scott said.

Marleau grinned at him. “Not my type.” His following look at Vaughny was softer and a little shy. Kip thought they were cute, those two. Both so boisterous and loud, but with these adorable flirty glances that made Kip remember his own early days with Scott.

With all these memories coming up, he might just have to abduct his own husband soon.

He put his hand on Scott’s thigh underneath the table, and after a minute Scott’s fingers tangled with his own.

epilogue (one year earlier)

In fairness to Cliff, he was not expecting Rozy to be leaving the master bedroom that night.

He’d crashed at Rozy and Hollzy’s house after the camp kickoff dinner, because why go back to a hotel room when Rozy had the good vodka and there was a heated Chel tournament going on.

After a while, Hollzy had dragged Rozy off to bed. Hollzy was an early sleeper, and Rozy –

Well, for everyone in the living room’s sake, it was a good thing that those two had soundproofed their bedroom to professional-grade levels, that was all Cliff had to say about the matter. These days, you couldn’t have heard it if someone screamed. (Which – they probably did.)

Once Chel was over, with Max Riley taking the champion title, almost everyone left, trading goodbyes and see you tomorrows.

And then Cliff was standing in the Hollander-Rozanov living room, grinning a deliberately sharky grin at Carter Vaughn.

Carter grinned right back at him. His eyes were bright and dancing.

Cliff kissed him, pulling him in hard and tight.

It felt like twenty minutes later, although it was probably only five – Cliff breathless and panting, his dick hot and throbbing under Carter’s teasing hand, his mouth swollen from making out – when someone shrieked like a banshee, far too close to them.

Cliff almost jumped out of his skin, and Carter bit his lip. Cliff tasted blood.

“MY EYES,” the banshee wailed at the top of its lungs, in a Russian accent. “SHANE!”

The slam of a door. Hurried running footsteps. “Oh fuck, is the kitchen on fire?”

Cliff pulled back from Carter’s mouth, but kept him in the circle of his arms.

“Shane!” the banshee wailed, still at the top of his lungs. “There are hockey players fucking in our living room!”

Hollzy skidded to a halt. He was in his underwear, and never had a man looked more thoroughly like he’d recently come his brains out. Rozy wasn’t any better. He was stark naked, and the fingernail scratches were impressive.

Cliff rolled his eyes. “Fuck off, Rozy.”

“Sorry,” Hollzy said. “I got nervous that we maybe forgot to turn the oven off. We thought everyone was gone.” His eyes were on the ceiling, but his lips were twitching.

“Well, if Captain Cockblock could calm the fuck down –”

Carter was laughing in Cliff’s arms. He had a really nice laugh. Very infectious.

“Why, Marly, why do you do this to me?!”

“Go fuck your husband and let me fuck my boyfriend in peace,” Cliff said, exasperated.

The wailing cut off abruptly. “MARLY.”

Cliff directed a beseeching look at Hollzy, but the man was still looking at the ceiling like there was a hockey net on it. “Hollzy, a little help here?”

“Ilya,” Hollzy said, “can you check the oven please?”

This is not over, Rozy mouthed at Cliff, but he turned and stalked off to the kitchen.

“Guest room before he gets back,” Hollzy told the ceiling. “Debrief over breakfast.”

Carter’s fingers tucked themselves into Cliff’s. “Thanks, Hollander.”

And then there was a door between them and a burst of Russian from the living room, answered by Hollzy’s laughter.

Carter was laughing too, and they were falling onto the bed together, kissing before they even hit the sheets.