Chapter Text
From Rozanov 1:22PM: Send me Kip’s phone number
To Rozanov 1:31PM: Absolutely not.
From Rozanov 1:31PM: Why not? You worried I will steal him? Maybe he should know he has options
From Rozanov 1:32PM: Please
To Rozanov 1:34PM: Why?
From Rozanov 1:34PM: I am buying you a present and need advice.
To Rozanov 1:35PM: Really?
From Rozanov 1:35PM: Yes
To Rozanov 1:35PM: No you’re not.
From Rozanov: 1:36PM: Make a group chat if you are worried
To Rozanov: 1:36PM: Why do you want to talk to my boyfriend!
Incoming call from: Rozanov
Scott almost declined the call. With a frustrated sound, he accepted it. “What, Rozanov?”
Across the room, Kip looked up and frowned at him, brow furrowing. He was at the kitchen table, laptop open, checking his email.
“You are at home?” Rozanov asked.
“Yes,” he said, forcing himself not to growl the word under Kip’s watchful eye.
“Is Kip home?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Put him on phone, I just want to talk for a second. I promise.”
Scott gazed heavenward and sighed. He pressed the phone to his chest. “Ilya Rozanov wants to talk to you,” he reported, voice flat.
Kip’s brow furrowed deeper. “What? Why?”
“He won’t tell me. You can say no.”
But Kip stood up and crossed the room, holding his hand out. He took the phone. “Hello?” His lips spread slowly into a smile, the furrow disappearing. “So I hear,” he said, sounding amused. He turned himself to the side so Scott could only see his profile, but he was visibly holding back laughter. Finally, he said, “Oh, that’s actually very nice. Thank you. I think that should work, but let me check my schedule and get back to you. Can I give you my number?”
Scott’s jaw dropped open. He waved his hands, trying to get Kip’s attention, mouthing, No! No!
Kip waved him off while he recited his number. “Great, send me a text, and I’ll let you know. Thank you again. Do you want to talk to Scott?” Then he turned to face Scott, reining in his smile and biting his lip. “Uh, his face is a little red. Okay. Okay, goodbye Ilya.” He hung up.
“Ilya?” Scott nearly shouted.
“Don’t be a baby,” Kip chastised.
“What the hell did he want?”
“He was offering me his seats for your game in Boston next week. He seems very nice.”
Scott frowned.
Kip rolled his eyes. “He’s funny, okay? He clearly has a very specific sense of humor.”
“What did he say.”
“He said he’s going to beat you very badly, so I should be there to support you emotionally.”
Scott shook his head and collapsed back against the couch. “I can’t believe you gave him your number. Now you’re gonna see what I’m talking about. He’s relentless.”
Kip didn’t look convinced. His phone buzzed on the kitchen table. He retrieved it and read, “Kip, it was very nice to talk to you for the first time. I hope I can meet you in person in Boston next week. The seats are excellent. Please let me know if you can come. Thank you, Ilya.”
Scott’s phone buzzed against his thigh.
From Rozanov 1:43PM: Kip is very nice very polite
From Rozanov 1:43PM: I think you forget manners in your old age
From Rozanov 1:43PM: ❤
“Scott Hunter!”
He was going to start hearing that in his nightmares. Scott looked up from his stretches and saw Rozanov at the red line, beckoning him impatiently.
“What the fuck does he want?” said Bennett from beside him.
“Guess I’ll find out.” Scott skated over, stopping short at the red line. “Rozanov.”
Rozanov made a gesture at his chest, hard to read with gloves on. “I am wearing mic,” he advised, making it sound like a brag instead of the warning it probably was. “You should tell everyone what good friends we are. Everyone think I am homophobic because I am Russian.”
Scott shook his head. “What lunatic decided to mic you again? Aren’t you still canceled from the last time?”
“Yes, probably, so you should help me out.” His smile looked more menacing than friendly.
“I’m gonna get back to warm-ups,” Scott decided.
Rozanov made a quick grabbing gesture, though even he knew better than to actually do it. “Wait, wait! I take you and cradle-rob boyfriend out for drinks after we beat you, yes? If you don’t die of old age on the ice, of course. You can drown your sorrows.”
“I would rather eat dirt,” Scott told him.
“It’s fine, I’ll text Kip. We can go without you.”
Scott lowered his voice and hissed, “Stop texting my boyfriend, Rozanov.”
“I see you after game! I tell the boys not to break your hip if we can help it.”
If Scott were challenged to describe what hell might be like for him, it would look a lot like this: a noisy club that stank of fruity vapes, sitting across a booth from Ilya Rozanov, who would not stop talking to his boyfriend, right after Boston beat New York. He tried to console himself with the thought that, if Rozanov had lost, he would probably be even worse. Somehow.
“You look so sad!” Rozanov declared. “I will get you another drink.” He waved his hand for table service. Once the waitress had spotted him, he turned to Kip and cooed, “Is good you are here for him. I knew he would need you after I destroy him on ice.”
“You won in overtime,” Scott snapped. “You didn’t destroy shit.”
Their waitress sidled up with what Kip would call ‘a big ol’ customer service smile.’ “What can I get for you boys?”
Rozanov leaned out of the booth toward her, grinning flirtatiously. “My friend here is getting very old. I think if he gets a hangover, he will die. What do you recommend?”
Scott reached over the table to yank Rozanov back into his seat. “Another gin and tonic, please.”
“Oh, that’s a good choice!” she said, chipper. It occurred to him that she was terribly young. Younger than Rozanov, even. “I read that it’s actually the sugar that gets you with hangovers.”
The others ordered, too. Whiskey sour for Kip; straight vodka for Rozanov, who had made the waitress recite the whole list of brands the first time around and ordered the most expensive one, a Russian brand, because he was a walking stereotype.
Once she left, Scott asked, “Would your boyfriend like you flirting with girls like this?”
“Who is flirting? I’m just being nice,” Rozanov insisted.
Kip asked, “Are you two exclusive? That must be tough, long-distance.”
Rozanov all but batted his eyes. “Now who is flirting? And in front of your boyfriend, Kip! But, yes, sorry, if you two are trying for threesome, we are exclusive.”
Scott no longer regretted losing his game. He now regretted not beating Rozanov into the hospital during the game, win or lose. Kip was laughing. Scott was two seconds from breaking a glass over Rozanov’s head, and Kip was laughing.
Their drinks arrived. Scott resisted the urge to chug his. The last time he got a hangover he actually had felt like he was dying, not that he would ever admit it to Rozanov.
Rozanov confessed, “We are talking about maybe some changes so we can live closer. I am free agent next season. It might be little crazy to leave Boston, but maybe…”
“You should do whatever will make you happy,” Kip advised. “Hockey is important – believe me, I know how important hockey is for you guys – but it’s just one part of your life. You deserve to be with the person you love, even if you can’t come out just yet.”
Scott was still processing the idea that he might switch teams. To Montreal? They didn’t need a center. Denver or Seattle might make sense for a trade, but not for being closer to Hollander, and neither would New York, if he was thinking Scott might retire soon. Ottawa was the only reasonably close team, and that was crazy.
Kip elbowed him. “Right, Scott?”
He cleared his throat. Sipped his drink and nodded. “Yeah. I mean, depends on what your options are. Or what about him moving?” There were more options close enough to Boston. Jersey and the Islanders weren’t great options, but the Admirals might make space for Shane, and even Philly wasn’t that far away from Boston.
The question seemed to trip him up. Rozanov’s brow furrowed. He took a long sip of vodka. “It would make less sense, him moving,” he said, but didn’t explain.
Scott didn’t see how, but it wasn’t his business.
Rozanov shifted so he was facing Kip entirely, his shoulder to Scott. “Kip, I hear you are… waiter? Bartender? Something like this, yes?”
“Mostly I bartend these days,” he replied, “but I pick up catering gigs sometimes. I’m a grad student in the NYU history department.”
“What will you do with history degree? Teach?”
Kip shrugged. “Yeah, probably stay in higher ed.” He only let Rozanov frown for half a second before jumping in to clarify, “Teaching at universities, doing research – that sort of thing.”
“Ah,” Rozanov said, his expression smoothing out. “You must be very smart. Too smart to hang out with dumb hockey players. We never went to university at all.”
Falling for the pity play without even trying to defend Scott, Kip placed his hand flat on the table so it nearly touched Rozanov’s. “You’re literally speaking to me in your second language right now. You’re not dumb, Ilya.”
Rozanov smiled sweetly, and then his eyes snapped over to Scott like a predator’s. “Hunter, why you make this beautiful man work shitty waiter job? You can’t afford to take care of him?”
Kip intervened: “I like to pay my own way.”
“Pay your own way? You are student, should focus on studies. Hunter is disgusting wealthy. You know how much they pay us? You know how many sports car I have? Hunter, what is your last contract?”
“I offered to pay for him,” Scott insisted, because he had. It was an awkward, tense conversation that neither of them left feeling good about.
“How much?” Rozanov pushed.
“Seven point five hit cap,” Scott sighed.
Rozanov turned back to Kip. “They pay him seven point five million dollars a year to lose to me at hockey. You should take his money.”
Because clearly he was trying to start shit, Scott interjected, “Rozanov, you and I agree on this, okay? I’ve tried to tell him, he doesn’t want to.”
Kip’s head whipped around so fast, Scott swore he heard his neck crack. “What do you mean you agree? We talked about this, Scott.”
Scott froze. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a little smirk settle into the corner of Rozanov’s mouth. Motherfucker. “I just – I mean that you could, not that you should.”
“No, no, that’s not what you said,” Kip insisted. “You don’t think I should be working?”
“You would still be working!” Scott held his hands up, trying to surrender even as he kept arguing. “Like he said, you’re a student. And you have TA gigs – you could take on more of that kind of thing, you know? Stuff that’s actually relevant to what you want to be doing.”
Kip leaned away from him. “What I want to be doing, huh? Sure, because this is about what I want and not you thinking a bartending job is below me now that you’re making headlines.”
Rozanov gave a scandalized gasp, admonishing, “Hunter!”
Scott shot him a look that he hoped conveyed his murderous intent, then turned back to Kip, placating. “Babe, do we really need to do this right now? With him sitting here?” He thrust a thumb at Rozanov.
For a moment, it looked like he’d keep arguing, then Kip let out a slow breath. He turned to Rozanov. “Sorry, it’s rude to argue in front of you.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Rozanov practically cooed – what was he doing? “It sound like you have some things to work out, you know? But clearly you love each other very much, so this is healthy.”
Scott stood up. “Can I talk to you for a second?” he said, glaring at Rozanov, who smiled placidly back.
“Scott,” Kip sighed.
“No, no,” Rozanov said, getting up. “Is fine. He’s upset from losing – I let him fight me in the alley, he’ll feel better.”
“Don’t you dare,” Kip said.
“We’re just going to talk,” Scott said, maybe trying to convince himself more than Kip.
The back door didn’t actually let out to the alley – at least not the door they found – but instead to cement basement stairs fenced in so tightly with the dumpster at street level, a couple of girls smoking up there, that they had to stay at the bottom, less than a foot from one another.
“What the hell are you doing?” Scott demanded.
Rozanov held his arms out, playing innocent. “What? We are having night out.”
“I’d say you’re trying to hook up with my boyfriend, but if you actually were, you wouldn’t do it in front of me, so clearly you’re just trying to piss me off,” he reasoned.
“I’m being nice. Not my fault I’m better at hockey and at being nice.”
Scott ran a hand through his hair, trying to find some meager scrap of patience in his own soul. He thought about how Rozanov had acted at their dinner: the obnoxious deflections, the sad silence. Taking half a step closer, Scott lowered his voice. “I offered to help if you were struggling with this thing. I didn’t say you could come fuck with my relationship.”
“What struggle?” Rozanov said, blowing it off just like he had in New York. “What help?”
“Don’t bullshit me – I invented that shit,” Scott snapped. “Doing what you’re doing, it’s painful. I know that. It made me miserable, and obviously it makes you a bastard. So cut the bullshit and ask for support or get out of my life.”
Rozanov stared at him, his stony bravado caving in microcosms. His jaw clenched. His lips twitched toward a frown, then back. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Very quietly, he said, “I just like that you know.”
Scott nodded. “Okay.”
“Can we go back inside?” For a second, he looked godawful young. What was he, twenty-six?
“Yeah,” Scott agreed. “Stop pissing me off.” He held open the door and gestured Rozanov inside.
To his credit, he quit picking at his and Kip’s relationship for the rest of the night. They talked about the upcoming season, about what rookies showed potential and which ones were going to burn out. Kip was only just getting used to this kind of shop talk, and Rozanov was actually decent at stopping to explain things to him.
At the end of the night, he shook Scott’s hand and gave Kip a hug with a promise to visit soon. He couldn’t decide if he hated the thought or not.
“He seems sad,” Kip said when they got back to the hotel – separate from the block his team had booked for the night.
“He’s Russian – they all seem sad,” Scott joked. He relented when he saw Kip starting to frown. “He’s a little messed up, clearly. I told him to quit being an asshole about it.”
Kip sat on the end of the bed to take his shoes off. “We should have him over for dinner the next time he’s in New York. It’s probably harder to have a real conversation out in public.”
Scott stepped up to the end of the bed, tipping Kip’s chin up until their eyes met. “You know I support you no matter what, right? If bartending makes you happy, keep doing it. If it’s making things harder for you, I want to help.”
Soft hands settled over his own, squeezing. “I know.” He kissed Scott’s palm. “I love you.”
He bent and kissed Kip chastely, then less chastely, until the two of them were crawling up onto the bed, hips rocking together.
Kip started laughing suddenly, ducked his head against Scott’s chest.
“What?”
“I was just thinking about what Ilya said,” he laughed. “That I should be here to support you emotionally after he beat you,”
Scott’s head thumped back against the bed. “Great. Just what I want to hear,” he sighed.
“No, wait,” Kip whined, coaxing him back, though he was still grinning. “Do you feel supported? Emotionally?” he teased.
“I’m feeling harassed by a jackass that isn’t even here,” he grumbled.
Kip slid down his body, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. “Poor baby,” he said. “Let me make it better.”
And, of course, he did.