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Zhenya got sick a couple of weeks before Christmas: only a cold, nothing serious, but certainly enough to make him feel terrible.
“My throat hurts,” he told Sid the first morning, when he woke up and realized that swallowing was uncomfortable.
“Uh-oh,” Sid said around his toothbrush, and sure enough Zhenya was in the depths of it within forty-eight hours.
He spent three solid days on the couch in Sid’s den, suffering in pointed, noble silence, wrapped up in a quilt and sniffling pitifully every time Sid passed by the room. He wanted Sid to fuss over him a little.
“We can’t both get sick,” Sid pointed out, very reasonably, and he did bring Zhenya soup and tea, and went to the store for cold medicine and tissues, and Zhenya overheard him on the phone with Zhenya’s mother, talking with her in his slow Russian about home-grown cold remedies. Sid was doing plenty of fussing, as much fussing as he would ever do, but Zhenya was still sulky. He wanted Sid to sit with him and stroke his hair and maybe kiss his forehead a few times. But the team needed Sid; he couldn’t get sick.
Zhenya needed him far more than the team did. The team would be fine. Zhenya, on the other hand, might die. Men had died from colds before. It was a distinct possibility.
He watched a lot of cooking shows. They were soothing: nothing ever went wrong. And he was too congested to taste anything, so he had to live vicariously through all of the holiday treats being produced on Sid’s flat-screen, gingerbread and peppermint bark and cookies shaped like reindeer.
“How long have you been watching this?” Sid asked, on day two of the profound misery that would surely last for the rest of Zhenya’s life. Sid was in his suit, getting ready to head to the arena to play Toronto, and Zhenya was in sweatpants, getting ready to watch the game on TV and possibly polish off another box of tissues.
“I fall asleep,” Zhenya said cagily. He’d been watching the Food Network all day. He rolled onto his back and tried to look pathetic.
Sid’s expression softened. He crouched down to palm Zhenya’s cheek. “There’s soup for you in the fridge. Just need to heat it up. Don’t wait up for me, okay?”
“No, I don’t wait,” Zhenya said, which was a filthy lie. He hated going to bed without Sid.
“I’ll score a goal for you,” Sid said, and kissed Zhenya’s cheek.
When he was gone, Zhenya pulled the quilt up to his chin and fell asleep to the sight of a cheerful woman rolling out cookie dough.
+ + +
He felt a little better the next day, and the day after that he was in the lineup to play the Avs, well-dosed with decongestants and feeling like his head was floating above his body. They won that game. He stopped thinking about Christmas cookies for a while. The team flew out west for a week, and that ate up a lot of Zhenya’s attention, because Sid hadn’t seen Flower since the summer and had refused to talk about it at all.
Sid was the world’s biggest pain in the ass. He wasn’t usually like this. He was much more even-tempered than Zhenya, but he was pretty in touch with his feelings and knew how to talk about them; he wasn’t an emotional Neanderthal. But with this specific thing, with Flower, he had been silent for months.
Maybe he thought he was being low-maintenance by keeping everything to himself, but Zhenya hated the way Sid kept him at arm’s length with this, even after so many years together. Did he think Zhenya would get tired of listening to him? Did he think Zhenya didn’t care? They had argued about it before, and Zhenya didn’t expect it to be resolved at any point in the near future.
But Sid came to his hotel room that first night in Vegas, the night before the game, after going to Flower’s house to have dinner with his family. Zhenya wasn’t expecting him and at first thought the knock on his door was coming from further down the hall, but then there was a second knock, a little louder, and he got out of bed and went to see who it was.
“Hi,” Sid said, his hands shoved so deep in his pockets they were halfway to the South Pole. “Can I, uh.”
“Always,” Zhenya said, his heart unfolding.
Sid undressed and got in bed with him, lying with his head resting on Zhenya’s shoulder, one foot drawn up and tucked between Zhenya’s shins. Zhenya had been watching hockey, but he changed the channel now to the Food Network. They were running a holiday baking special. Zhenya had found it comforting while he was sick, and he thought Sid needed comfort now, instead of getting all worked up about the Preds.
Zhenya waited until the tension eased out of Sid’s body, and he went limp and heavy at Zhenya’s side. Then he brought Sid’s hand to his mouth and kissed his fingertips. “You have nice time, see Flower?”
“Yeah,” Sid said.
That would have been the end of it, if he got his way. Zhenya kissed Sid’s knuckles and rested their joined hands on his sternum. He struggled for a few moments to think of what to say, and finally gave up and switched to Russian, speaking slowly and clearly so Sid would understand him. “I wish you would talk with me about this. It would mean a lot to me if you did.”
Sid heaved a huge sigh. “What’s reason? Talk won’t—make different. Fix?”
“Well, I won’t force you,” Zhenya said stiffly.
Sid sighed again, and turned his head to push his face against Zhenya’s neck. “If I’m going to talk about this, I can’t do it in Russian. Okay?”
“Okay,” Zhenya said. That was fair. Sid was always willing to struggle through when Zhenya slipped into Russian at a heated moment.
“They have a nice house,” Sid said. “The girls seem happy. Vero’s happy.”
“Flower?” Zhenya asked. He rubbed his thumb over the back of Sid’s hand.
“I miss him,” Sid said. His eyelashes flickered against Zhenya’s neck. “I’m worried about his fucking head. Every time we get on a plane I expect him to be sitting beside me.”
“I know,” Zhenya said. He tugged at Sid until he repositioned, more on top of Zhenya than beside him, and Zhenya could wrap his arms around Sid’s broad back. “I know you miss.”
“It’s gotten better,” Sid said. “It was good to see him tonight.”
“But you still miss,” Zhenya said.
“Yeah,” Sid said. He inhaled, and let it out slowly. “So, that’s it.” He kissed Zhenya, just underneath his jaw. “Sorry I didn’t—I don’t know why I couldn’t talk about it before. I know it’s been pissing you off.”
Zhenya made comforting noises and pressed awkward kisses to the top of Sid’s head until Sid finally looked up at him. “Thanks for tell,” Zhenya said. He felt swollen with pride and tenderness. Sid had come to his room. Sid wanted to be here with him.
“Guess I should get going,” Sid said, after a few more minutes of peaceful snuggling. The people on the TV were decorating a gingerbread house. It looked inedible.
“No, stay,” Zhenya said. “Team knows, so it’s okay. You sleep here.”
“Okay,” Sid said. He tugged the blankets up a little higher.
In the morning, Zhenya woke up with Sid drooling onto the pillow beside him and felt very pleased about their relatively minor but satisfying relationship breakthrough. Sid didn’t say much as they got dressed for skate, but he leaned against Zhenya for a few moments in the empty elevator, and even sat beside Zhenya on the bus to the arena before skate. But he still turned his head away when Zhenya tried to kiss him, which popped Zhenya’s good mood like a needle through a balloon.
“I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that,” Sid said.
“I don’t look,” Zhenya said, and turned away to stare out the window so that it would be true.
Fine. It was a stupid thing to care about, anyway, when they spent every night together when they were in Pittsburgh, and Sid had told Zhenya he loved him, and Sid’s parents and sister were coming to spend Christmas with them, all of them together in Sid’s house. He cared a lot, though.
All of that was distracting, and the bottom line was that he completely forgot about the team’s Christmas party until Sid mentioned it in the car on their way to Zhenya’s house from the airport. “Are you taking anything to the party tomorrow? Horny’s got that spreadsheet, but I forgot to look at it.”
Zhenya stared at him blankly for a moment before he figured out what Sid was talking about. Kuni used to throw the party, or Duper, but there were no old guys left on the team, now, and they had all squabbled about it a little before Horny put his foot down and said he and Malin would host. Zhenya hadn’t realized he was expected to bring something.
“We bring together,” he said. “Make Christmas cookie. Good kind of Russian cookie for holidays.”
“Well, he wants everyone to bring something,” Sid said, and signaled to cut into the other lane.
“No, we bring together,” Zhenya insisted, because he had been to enough parties to know how this worked. Couples brought one item, and Sid was ignoring that rule, he was acting like nothing had changed since they told the team, when the entire point had been for them to be able to act just like any other couple. “We make cookie together, and we bring.”
Sid glanced at him. “If you really want cookies, we can make cookies.”
“Okay, let’s go to store,” Zhenya said, already pulling out his phone to find a suitable recipe.
Sid detoured to the grocery store without arguing, but once they were inside, Zhenya was confronted with the agonizing revelation that Sid’s idea of Christmas baking involved purchasing pre-made cookie dough in a tube.
“No,” Zhenya said, horrified. He was a kitchen ignoramus, but even he knew that cookies from a tube had no place at Horny’s Christmas party.
Sid gave him a fond, knowing look, standing there in the refrigerated section in his suit pants and coat, holding the stupid tube in one hand, so handsome that Zhenya still felt a little overwhelmed sometimes just from looking at him. “Have you ever baked a cookie? We need to start you on easy mode.”
“You help,” Zhenya said, because while he had no direct evidence, he was positive that Sid had some cookie baking experience under his belt.
“I’m already regretting this,” Sid said, but he took Zhenya’s phone to look at the recipe and guided them confidently through the aisles. “What’s this word?” he asked a few times, because the recipe was in Russian, and Zhenya felt like a petty child for throwing a fit over the cookies as he watched Sid frown at the phone for a moment and then unerringly snag a pound of confectioner’s sugar from the shelf. So what if Sid wouldn’t kiss him in front of the team? Sid had learned Russian for him. Sid called his mother to ask for her chicken noodle soup recipe. Sid was here in the baking aisle after a cross-country flight because Zhenya wanted to make cookies.
“What?” Sid asked, glancing at him.
“Nothing,” Zhenya said, and added, in Russian, “I love you.”
Sid smiled and ducked his chin down into his scarf. He said, “Let’s get out of here, Zhenechka,” which always made Zhenya’s heart melt completely, both from the tender name and the way Sid said it, soft and secret, a private name for the two of them to share.
At home, they changed out of their suits and then went downstairs to Zhenya’s kitchen. It was mid-afternoon already, between the flight and the time difference, and they had eaten on the plane, but Zhenya heated up some food anyway, leftover chicken and broccoli rabe, and they ate at the table with Zhenya’s feet in Sid’s lap. Sid was nicely cushioned: a good footrest.
“You help with cookies?” Zhenya asked.
Sid smirked at him. “I’m going to make the cookies. You’re my assistant.”
“Okay, fine,” Zhenya said, more than happy to be demoted. He had played second fiddle in his own kitchen for years now and saw no reason to contest the arrangement.
He messed around with the radio until he found a station playing Christmas music. Sid loved Christmas, got really into the whole Christmas spirit, but tried to pretend he didn’t care. But Zhenya knew him by now, and he watched Sid smiling a little as he got the butter and eggs out of the refrigerator. He would start humming along, soon.
Zhenya pulled up the recipe on his laptop and helped Sid translate the instructions. “Okay, I’ll start on the butter mixture, and you can get the spices out,” Sid said, and he was definitely humming as he started unwrapping the butter.
When Zhenya was growing up, his mother made pryaniki every December, in time for New Year’s. Zhenya never participated in the actual preparation or baking, but he took great pleasure in the eating. As Sid melted the butter with the sugar and instant coffee, and then stirred in the spices Zhenya excavated from his pantry, the kitchen filled with a familiar smell, powerfully reminiscent of home, childhood, and family.
Zhenya stood behind Sid at the stove and wrapped his arms around Sid’s waist, and buried his face in Sid’s neck. His mother had made these cookies because she loved him, and that was the same reason Sid was making them: because he loved Zhenya, and indulged most of his whims and passing moods.
“Thanks, Sid,” he muttered into Sid’s neck.
“Hmm? You’d burn everything,” Sid said, which was true, but not the point; but Zhenya didn’t know how to say what he meant.
The dough needed to sit overnight. Sid covered it with plastic wrap and set it on the counter, and then turned to give Zhenya a kiss. “What are we gonna do with all our spare time this afternoon?”
Zhenya pulled Sid in close and slid his hands down to squeeze Sid’s ass. “I think sex,” he said, and Sid laughed and kissed him again.
+ + +
They had practice in the morning, and then went back to Zhenya’s for lunch and to bake the cookies. It was snowing, and the forecast called for heavier snow into the evening and overnight, maybe close to a foot if the storm didn’t track too far to the south.
“White Christmas,” Sid said happily, standing at Zhenya’s kitchen window to look out over the yard.
“Yes, I think,” Zhenya said. He had already scouted out the best places in Sid’s back yard for a snowman. Sid’s family would be arriving in two days, and Taylor would certainly help him, even if the rest of the them pretended they were too mature.
He and Sid got out the baking sheets and parchment paper, and Sid produced a cookie scoop from a drawer, which Zhenya hadn’t been aware he owned.
“Have to roll,” Zhenya said, making the motion with his hands.
“Okay, wash up,” Sid said.
Zhenya turned on the radio, and they worked side by side at the island, rolling the cookies into perfect spheres and lining them up on the baking sheets. The snow fell outside. Inside was warm and cozy. Sid hummed along with the radio. Then the song changed and he looked over at Zhenya with wide eyes. “Geno—”
It was too late. Zhenya grabbed the cookie scoop from Sid’s hand and brought it to his mouth like a microphone. “Don’t care about presents,” he bellowed, deliberately off-key, “underneath Christmas tree—”
“I’m kicking you out,” Sid said, “I’m going home,” holding Zhenya off with one sticky hand, trying not to smile.
“Make my wish come true,” Zhenya sang, doing an admittedly excellent job of hitting the high notes.
“You’re the worst,” Sid said, “I can’t believe you,” and he was grinning now. Zhenya dropped the scoop back into the bowl and reeled Sid in for a kiss. Sid laughed and squirmed in his arms as Zhenya kissed his neck, and Zhenya left sticky handprints all over his sweatpants and wouldn’t let him go until Sid was pink and thoroughly rumpled.
They washed their hands again, and managed to roll out the rest of the dough without incident. The smile lingered on Sid’s face, and he bumped his hip against Zhenya’s a few times. Zhenya loved him so much, and he always worried a little that he needed to tone it down, that maybe Sid wasn’t quite as invested. Four years in and he was still secretly waiting for Sid to come to his senses.
“These turned out well,” Sid said when they were done, surveying the unbaked cookies all neatly arranged in rows. “How long do they bake?”
Zhenya consulted the recipe. “Twenty minutes. Then we check.”
“Just enough time to make out on the couch,” Sid said, to Zhenya’s immense delight. He grabbed the hem of Zhenya’s shirt and start walking backwards toward the den.
When the timer went off, Sid had both hands down the back of Zhenya’s sweatpants. “Better go get that,” he murmured into Zhenya’s ear, and Zhenya grumbled a lot and climbed off Sid’s lap to go check on the cookies.
The cookies were done, perfectly golden-brown on the bottom, and they needed to cool for a while before they could be glazed. Zhenya made stir-fry for lunch, because he could cook, he just didn’t like to. Sid cleaned his plate and thanked Zhenya with a kiss. Four years in and Zhenya still glowed every time Sid smiled at him.
Zhenya cleaned up while Sid whisked milk and confectioner’s sugar in a bowl, and they worked together to coat all of the cookies. With two people, it didn’t take long.
“There,” Zhenya said, surveying the glazed cookies with satisfaction. “Now they dry.”
“We’ll box those up for you, and I’ll swing by the store later to get some pop,” Sid said.
Zhenya frowned at him. “You don’t need pop. We bring cookies together.”
“You’re bringing the cookies,” Sid explained patiently, like he was talking to a stubborn child. “But I need to bring something, too—”
“No,” Zhenya said. He couldn’t believe Sid was still so dramatically missing the point. “We together, we bring one thing together! Not friend, not roommate, we take one thing, because we together!”
Sid was drawing back from him now, pulling his shoulders back the way he always did when Zhenya raised his voice, and Zhenya swore and turned away, rubbing one hand over his face. All of the safe sweet intimacy of the afternoon drained away, leaving Zhenya feeling tired and cold. They would never stop having this fight.
“Geno, come on,” Sid said. “You have to tell me why you’re upset. Don’t shut me out, I hate that.”
“You shut out,” Zhenya said. The snow was falling harder now. “Don’t tell about Flower, don’t let me kiss. Now you want pop. You think Tanger and Cath bring two things? No! They bring one thing. Only cookies, not cookies and pop.”
“I can’t believe we’re having a fight about pop,” Sid said.
Zhenya didn’t want to look at him. He folded his arms across his chest and felt ridiculous and spiteful. He couldn’t help his feelings. “It’s not about pop. It’s—we tell team, and I think, okay, now it’s different, now I can kiss, now we hug in locker room after reporters go. But still you won’t.”
Sid huffed. “That’s what you’re mad about? Because I won’t hold your hand on the plane?”
Zhenya moved over to the sink and stared out the window. His face flamed with anger and humiliation. Sid wasn’t taking him seriously. “Other guys kiss girlfriend, kiss wife—”
“Yeah, well, I’m not your wife,” Sid said.
Zhenya’s throat tightened. What did Sid think they were to each other? “Sid, you like husband for me.”
Sid didn’t say anything. A few eternal seconds dragged by. Zhenya forced himself to turn around, finally. Sid’s face was wiped clean of all expression. As Zhenya watched, he opened his mouth and closed it again, his lips compressed.
“I know we can’t,” Zhenya said. “But it’s how I think, okay?”
“We aren’t, uh,” Sid said, his voice uneven. “Is that what you want?”
Zhenya took a step toward Sid, hesitantly, and then another step when Sid didn’t back away. “We live together. Have two house, okay, but like, we always together. We tell all friends, parents, everyone know. You my—” He shook his head, and tried again in Russian. “Sid, you’re my whole world.”
Sid made a raw noise and closed the distance between them, burying his face against Zhenya’s shoulder and wrapping his arms around Zhenya’s waist. “Geno—”
“Shh, okay,” Zhenya said, swaying them back and forth a little. He hadn’t expected Sid to react like this. Surely he knew exactly how much Zhenya adored him.
“I love you so much I don’t even know how to think about it,” Sid said to Zhenya’s collarbone.
“Oh, my Sid,” Zhenya said. He could never manage to stay angry with this idiot for long. He held Sid and murmured sweet things to him in Russian until Sid tensed in his arms and drew back.
He stayed close, his hands still at Zhenya’s waist, and looked up at him. “I feel weird about the team knowing.”
“Okay,” Zhenya said slowly. It was too late to put that particular genie back in its bottle.
“It’s dumb,” Sid said. “But—we hid it for so long. So now, when you try to touch me, it’s like—there’s still that split second of panic. Someone’s going to see. You know?”
“I feel same,” Zhenya admitted. “But then I remember it’s okay now, and I’m so happy. So for me, remember is worth it.” He bent to kiss Sid’s temple.
“You get so upset,” Sid said. “You get this look on your face like I just slapped you. It makes me feel like shit.”
“Okay,” Zhenya said. He bit back all of the defensive, uncharitable responses that sprang to mind. “When I try to kiss and you don’t let, I feel like shit. So that’s why I make face.”
“Okay,” Sid said. “I know this is important to you.”
“Yes,” Zhenya said. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Sid said. He folded into Zhenya again, their bodies nestled close. “We’ll work it out. Okay?”
“Yes, we always work out,” Zhenya said.
“Good thing, too,” Sid said. “Since we’re married now.”
Zhenya squawked, outraged. “You make fun—”
“No,” Sid said. He pulled back to look Zhenya in the eye, expression serious. “I would never joke about that.”
Zhenya’s heart grew the proverbial three sizes. “We take cookies together.”
“Yeah,” Sid said. “And I’ll kiss you under the mistletoe.”
Zhenya couldn’t think of any way to express the emotions wrestling for space inside his chest. Words were overrated. He dragged Sid back into his arms.
+ + +
That evening, they drove over to Horny’s together. The roads were a mess; Sid was smug about his four-wheel drive, and Zhenya left him to it, content to snuggle inside his coat and complain about how cold it was.
The exterior of Horny’s house was cheerfully festooned with evergreen garlands and strings of white lights. An animatronic reindeer nodded its head on the front lawn.
“Don’t even think about it,” Sid said.
“We go shop day after Christmas, buy on special,” Zhenya said.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Sid said, and Zhenya rang the doorbell.
Horny came to the door with his daughter perched on his shoulders. “Hello!” she said, towering above them, and Horny ushered them into the house and shook both their hands, beaming.
“Glad you could make it,” Horny said. “Snowing hard now, huh?”
“White Christmas,” Zhenya agreed.
Standing beside Zhenya, Sid took a deep breath. He offered the Tupperware container where the pryaniki were stacked in careful layers. “Geno and I brought cookies,” he said.