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“I don’t think it’s gonna be a problem,” Sid said, the first time they talked about it, in June, his voice filled with blithe confidence. In July, he sounded less certain, and by August, he was worried.
“Come play here,” Zhenya said. “If there’s lockout, I play for Metallurg. You come here, we play together.”
“Maybe,” Sid said. “I think there’s still a chance, you know? We’ll see.”
There wasn’t a chance. The lockout began in September, and Zhenya announced his commitment to play for Magnitka two days later. He tracked the progress of the lockout from afar, struggling through articles in English during the long plane rides intrinsic to the KHL, parsing Sid’s carefully worded quotes. He knew Sid well enough to read between the lines.
More and more games were cancelled. In late October, Sid called him and said, “I talked to Pat. You think Metallurg would want me?”
“I call you back,” Zhenya said, and got on the phone with Velichkin at once.
+ + +
He met Sid at the airport in Magnitogorsk a week later. The timing couldn’t have been better: the team had a long break between games—twelve days—and Zhenya thought, watching Sid’s expression as he came into the baggage claim, where Zhenya was waiting for him, that Sid could use a few days to settle in. He looked tired and a little uncertain. Sid had travelled some and played in international tournaments, but a tournament was only a few weeks, carefully organized and structured, and you were surrounded by people you knew, who spoke your language. There was a different quality of arrival in coming to a foreign place you meant to stay for a while.
Sid clung to him when they hugged. Zhenya didn’t say anything about it, and held Sid past the time he normally would have stepped back. He hadn’t seen Sid in more than six months, and had thought of him some during that time, probably more than he thought of any of his other teammates, but not an inordinate amount. But he was so glad to see Sid now.
He wouldn’t let Sid regret his decision. Zhenya had struggled in Pittsburgh, the first year or two, but with help, he had stayed and thrived. Now he would help Sid through the hard parts, and Sid would be glad he had come.
“How is trip?” Zhenya asked, as they went out to his car.
“Well—long,” Sid said. “I mean. You know.”
“Yes,” Zhenya said. A full twenty-four hours, or longer, with all of the layovers and connections. Sid was far from home.
The airport was to the west of the city, a good fifteen kilometers out of town, and there wasn’t much to see until they hit the outer road that looped around to the south and east, toward the river. The sky was overcast, and all the trees had lost their leaves, but there was no snow yet. The whole landscape was a dreary brown. Sid looked around curiously anyway. Zhenya knew how it was: even the small differences were fascinating, the billboards in an unfamiliar script, the not-quite-right architecture of the homes.
The house where Zhenya lived with his parents was in an older part of town, near the university. Zhenya took the long way around, east on Gagarin Street and up Oktyabrskaya Street through the oldest parts of the city, the wide tree-lined boulevards and the grimy apartment blocks. Zhenya had seen nothing like it in North America, and Sid kept leaning forward to look through the windshield, which pleased Zhenya’s loyal heart. Magnitogorsk wasn’t anything much, and Zhenya had long since abandoned it for the more exciting pastures of Moscow, but this was still his home.
“You know, I looked it up,” Sid said. “Magnitogorsk and Halifax have almost exactly the same population.”
“Oh?” Zhenya said. Sid sounded pleased by this parallel. Knowing him, he’d taken it as a sign he was meant to come play for Magnitka. “It’s like this? Halifax?”
Sid laughed and shook his head. “No. It’s nothing like this.”
His tour complete, Zhenya took Sid home. The house he had bought for his parents was on a quiet narrow street which in Pittsburgh would probably have been classified as an alley. Brick walls and a gate hid the driveway and yard from any curious passers-by. Zhenya had been so proud when he bought the place, his first season of making good money playing for Magnitka. The house seemed less impressive now, but his parents insisted they didn’t want to move.
His parents were waiting in the foyer, probably having heard the gate open. They were familiar with Sid from past visits to Pittsburgh, and Zhenya smiled to see the hugging and hand-shaking that ensued, before Sid had even had a chance to set down his bags.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Sid said, in atrociously accented but perfectly comprehensible Russian. He had practiced.
“We’re so happy to have you,” Zhenya’s mother said. “Zhenya, tell him.”
Zhenya rolled his eyes, but obediently translated. “Sid, you hungry? You like to sleep? We eat dinner soon.” He could smell whatever his mother was cooking in the kitchen, and his own stomach grumbled.
“Maybe a shower?” Sid said, and so Zhenya took him upstairs and showed him the room where he would sleep, and the bathroom across the hall where he could shower. Zhenya’s mother had set out towels and shampoo, and put fresh flowers on the table beside the bed. Zhenya watched Sid look around and then rub his hands over his face. Fondness welled up inside Zhenya’s heart. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed Sid.
“Glad you here,” Zhenya said.
Sid smiled at him. “Yeah. Me too.”
+ + +
Zhenya took Sid to practice with him the next day, at the new arena that had opened since Zhenya left for Pittsburgh. He deliberately arrived early so he would have time to show Sid around before practice. The seating capacity was less than half that of the arena in Pittsburgh, but the building was modern and the amenities suited even Zhenya’s pampered NHL sensibilities. He took Sid to see the display cases that held the team’s trophies, because he knew Sid would be interested in that, and Sid predictably made him translate each identifying placard and provide the full history of every award.
“Okay, let’s go,” Zhenya said at last, having tired of this activity. “Time to meet team.”
Sid would have an easier time of it than Zhenya had at first in Pittsburgh. The lockout had lured two other Canadians to Magnitogorsk, and Zuccarello spoke English, and Kolya, a little. Even the coach was Canadian. And of course there was Seryozha, who rose to his feet, beaming, as Sid and Zhenya came into the locker room.
“Here’s Crosby,” Zhenya announced, as Sid and Seryozha greeted each other, their mutual happiness evident on both of their faces. “I told him that you’re all very nice, so don’t make me a liar, please.”
Seryozha patted Sid on the back and said something to him that Zhenya couldn’t hear. Sid cleared his throat and said, in Russian, “I’m pleased to meet you.”
Everyone seemed to like that, to Zhenya’s relief. They all knew who Sid was and were excited to play hockey with him, and Zhenya had maybe talked a lot about how great Sid was, how friendly and kind, and he hoped he had biased the team in Sid’s favor. He wanted them to like Sid as much as he did.
“He speaks Russian, then?” asked Seryozha Mozyakin, who would probably be captain next year after Zhenya was gone.
“No, that’s all he can say,” Zhenya said. “That and some swear words.”
“I can’t imagine who might have taught him,” Kolya said.
“It was Gonchar, I had nothing to do with it,” Zhenya said.
During practice, Sid immediately made friends with the two Canadians, Hodgman and O’Reilly. Maurice, the coach, spoke no more Russian than Sid did, and all of the drills were explained and called in English. Sid had played on international ice before, and adjusted quickly. He even seemed able to communicate with the two wingers he was assigned for line rushes, using an improvised language of hand gestures and smiles.
“Looks like Sid will do fine,” Seryozha remarked to Zhenya.
“Yeah,” Zhenya said. “Better than I did.” He had thought Sid would need his help more, and had perhaps secretly looked forward to it: an excuse to show off a little, to show Sid that people here thought he was funny and competent.
“You were twenty, shy, and had never lived away from home,” Seryozha said. “It’s a different situation.” He knocked his elbow into Zhenya’s ribs. “He’ll still need you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zhenya said with dignity.
“No idea,” Seryozha said.
+ + +
Sid acquired Russian on two fronts: hockey terminology and domestic matters. The latter was entirely due to Zhenya’s parents, because Zhenya spoke only English to him. Sid arrived knowing how to say “please” and “thank you,” “good morning” and “good night,” and soon he learned the words for basic households objects and the weather. He helped Zhenya’s mother in the kitchen and learned the names of the foods they ate, and he walked around in the back yard with Zhenya’s father and Geoffrey and learned to baby-talk to the dog. “What a good fat boy,” Zhenya heard him saying one morning, which made him smile. He doubted Sid even knew what the words meant.
He had never spent this much time with Sid, and certainly never in this context: early mornings with Sid still in his pajamas at the breakfast table, evenings with everyone hanging out in the sitting room, Geoffrey farting happily in the corner. Zhenya took Sid to his favorite restaurants and to the history museum, where Sid wanted to look at every single exhibit and ask Zhenya a bunch of questions he struggled to answer. He didn’t have the vocabulary to explain Soviet military history in English.
He hadn’t thought of what it would be like to have Sid living with him, beyond simple excitement over playing hockey together again, and so the way he felt about Sid’s presence was entirely unexpected. Sid was an early riser, and every morning Zhenya came downstairs and found Sid sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, and every morning Sid would turn his head as Zhenya came into the room and smile, one of his big happy unselfconscious smiles. Zhenya’s answering smile was irrepressible and drawn straight from the center of his heart, like Sid was tapping directly into the core of him. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t believe Sid had come, that he was really here, befriending Zhenya’s dog and his parents. Because Zhenya had asked him to come.
“How you like Russia?” Zhenya asked him on the way to practice, after Sid had been in town for a week. A few centimeters of snow had fallen the night before, the year’s first dusting. Sid liked winter and snow, so Zhenya hoped the weather would improve his overall opinion.
“Too many pickles,” Sid said, grinning over at him. “But otherwise I like it.” He fell silent for a few minutes, gazing out the window. Sid was chatty at most times, but riding in the car seemed to put him in a contemplative mood, and Zhenya was growing accustomed to these silences, often followed by Sid seemingly out of nowhere saying something that revealed more of his private thoughts than Zhenya had ever been privy to before. Sure enough, as Zhenya stopped at a red light, Sid said, “What do you miss most about living here?”
Zhenya thought about it for a moment. “Of course family, my old friends. But also, it’s like, sky is so big here, you know? Because it’s so flat.” Magnitogorsk was built on the great plain that stretched from the Urals to the Yenisei River in the east. Zhenya loved the sheer size of the landscape, the sky stretching unbroken from one horizon to the other.
“I miss the ocean,” Sid said. He looked over and smiled at Zhenya. “And my family, of course.”
“No ocean here,” Zhenya said. He hadn’t seen the ocean until he was twelve, in San Francisco for a hockey tournament with Metallurg’s youth team. What had surprised him most was the fierce wind whipping off the water, which no film or picture could capture.
“Well, nowhere’s perfect,” Sid said, and laughed at his own tepid joke. Zhenya scowled at the traffic light so he wouldn’t smile.
At practice, Sid learned a new swear word and skated by to yell “pancake” at Zhenya. Antipin had been taking great delight in teaching Sid the mild profanity that small children used, and Zhenya hadn’t yet told Sid what was going on because it was hilarious to hear him call Ahonen a poopy head when he was denied a goal.
“Who’s going to tell him?” Kolya asked, as Antipin corrected Sid’s pronunciation in a loud bellow.
Zhenya shrugged, leaning on his stick. “Why tell him? He’s too polite to say these things except around the team, so it’s not like he’ll say it to a fan and then be embarrassed.”
“Funny that he ended up here, don’t you think?” Seryozha said. “I read that he was thinking about Switzerland or the Czech Republic. That would be less travel, and more English. But instead he’s here in Magnitogorsk.”
“He wanted to play with Zhenya, obviously,” Kolya said.
“Well, I asked him to come,” Zhenya admitted.
Seryozha smiled. “I see.”
+ + +
Sid’s first game with the team was the first of a three-game road trip, Omsk to Khanty-Mansiysk to Astana in Kazakhstan. Each of the flights was only an hour or two, and only two time zones were involved. Nothing like the grueling trip out to Khabarovsk in October that had almost made Zhenya regret signing with the team.
Zhenya usually sat with Kolya on flights, but this time he sat by Sid—to answer questions, if Sid had any, he told himself, but really he just wanted to play around with Sid’s video game thing and see if his mother had packed better plane snacks for Sid than she had for Zhenya. (She had.)
“What’s Omsk like?” Sid asked, after the plane had taken off and Zhenya had fully satisfied his curiosity about the contents of Sid’s bag.
This was of course what Zhenya had been hoping for: Sid’s attention focused on him, an excuse to spend the flight chatting. He reclined his seat, ignoring Yakubov’s protesting squawk behind him, and racked his brain for factoids about Omsk. He had only ever been for hockey. “It’s bigger than Magnitogorsk.” Wasn’t there some museum there? An art museum? Did Sid care about art? “Maybe we have time for look around today.”
“That’d be great,” Sid said, smiling, which sealed the matter. If Sid wanted to go to an art museum, Zhenya would pretend very hard that he gave a fuck.
It was snowing in Omsk. As the bus pulled up to the hotel, Zhenya saw a crowd of fans gathered outside despite the weather. Some of them held Malkin signs. Some of them, to Zhenya’s total lack of surprise, held Crosby signs. Everyone in Russia knew that Sid was playing for Magnitka.
He grabbed Sid as he exited the bus, and tilted his head toward the waiting fans.
“Oh, they’re—really?” Sid said.
“Hockey fans hear about Crosby even in Russia,” Zhenya said. “Let’s go.”
While he wished the fans were there exclusively to see Sid, the truth was that most of them wanted to see Zhenya, too. He had signed a distressing number of autographs in the last two months, and talked to far too many reporters. He had always been grateful for Sid’s willingness to deal with the media in Pittsburgh, but he had a new appreciation for it now, after having to answer stupid questions after every single game. What was there to say? They won or they lost, and nothing Zhenya said about it in the aftermath would change the outcome. And still the reporters wanted his thoughts.
Zhenya signed autographs until his hand went numb from the cold, and then spent a few minutes talking to a little boy wearing a Penguins jersey. He caught Sid’s eye and said to the boy, “Would you like to meet Sidney Crosby?”
The kid’s eyes widened, which was answer enough. Zhenya grinned and beckoned Sid over.
Sid introduced himself and signed the kid’s jersey, right below Zhenya’s name. Zhenya watched, full of pride that Sid was his friend, and warm affection for the way Sid’s eyebrows drew together in concentration as he wrote. He was a good and generous person. Maybe the best person Zhenya knew.
Zhenya said, “Sid, tell him word you call Ahonen in practice, when he’s not let you score.”
Sid make a skeptical face. “G, I’m not gonna—I can’t swear at a little kid.”
“It’s only a little bit swear,” Zhenya said. “It’s fine, I promise.” In Russian, he said to the kid, “Crosby is going to tell you a Russian word he learned. Are you ready?”
The kid nodded eagerly.
Sid sighed. “Poopy head.”
The kid and his father both dissolved into laughter, and Zhenya laughed, too, at their delight and at how confused Sid looked. He would have to explain himself to Sid and ruin the fun the team was having, but it was worth it for the look on the boy’s face.
“It’s not real swear word,” he told Sid as they walked into the hotel lobby at last. “It’s like, how kids say. Like—” He tried to remember some of the English insults Natalie had used on him when she was mad at him for some reason. “Like, you have stinky butt.”
“Stinky—oh my God.” Sid stopped in his tracks and grabbed Zhenya’s coat sleeve. “You fuckers have been teaching me playground insults?”
Zhenya smiled sheepishly. “Yes?”
“I can’t believe you,” Sid said, shaking his head, but he was smiling.
+ + +
Zhenya loved his family and his friends. He loved traveling, and the Steelers, and going to movies, and winning at cards. But the sharpest routine joy of his life was hockey: he loved playing good hockey, and playing with Sid. He loved to play for his hometown team, in front of his parents and his friends and the fans who had watched him grow up, losing or winning, passing the puck to Sid on the power play, watching Sid fling his arms above his head when they scored. Nothing could be better.
The weeks passed. Sid picked up enough Russian to get by at practice and at home. Zhenya’s parents taught him to play durak, and the four of them spent many evenings at home playing cards, and sometimes with Denis, if he dropped by. Sitting in the warm kitchen with the radio on and his father trying to sneak peeks at everyone’s hands, Zhenya felt that time had stopped for a while and the rest of the world had gently fallen away.
Every day his feelings for Sid deepened. The change seemed inevitable to him, like it had been pre-ordained. How could anyone see Sid first thing in the morning, rumpled and sleepy, and not have the same thoughts Zhenya did? He tried to stamp them out, but they smoldered and flared up anew.
In December, a break in games preceded a road trip that began in one of the many exurbs of Moscow. Zhenya got permission from the team to fly out a day early with Sid, so he could show Sid the city. Sid liked quiet and nature and was less impressed by Moscow’s glitter than Zhenya was. But he still made the appropriate noises as they took a car into the city from the airport and Zhenya pointed out landmarks.
Zhenya took him to lunch, and then to the Red Square and the Kremlin. They toured the Armoury and then went for tea as the afternoon faded. Sid had loved the museum and wanted to look through the pictures he had taken and talk about it more. To Zhenya’s surprise, Sid’s favorite part had been the Fabergé eggs and not the weapons and armor.
“You buy one,” Zhenya said, after a solid five minutes of Sid scrolling through his point-and-shoot and shaking his head and muttering “wow” and “jeez.” “Put in house. Then you see always.”
Sid glanced up and made a face. “How much do they cost?”
Zhenya laughed. “Too much. Even for you.”
Night had fallen when they left the tea room. They strolled around until it was time for dinner, taking in the New Year’s decorations and going into shops for Sid to look for souvenirs. Zhenya’s happiness was too big to hold inside his body. It spilled over in the form of a smile he couldn’t stop, that grew wider every time he glanced at Sid. He was so pleased and proud to share Moscow with Sid, but there was more to his feelings than nationalistic pride. Secretly, shamefully, he wanted Sid to know him better, to know everything about him. He had driven Sid past his old school in Magnitogorsk, and taken him to the old arena where he had played his first professional games, the whole time thinking—a small thought, barely acknowledged—see me, know me.
“What do you think about this for Taylor?” Sid asked, holding up a beautifully painted matryoshka doll.
“Yes, it’s good,” Zhenya said, his smile tugging at him again. Sid was flushed from the cold, and Zhenya wanted to adjust his scarf, to pull it a little higher around his chin, but more than anything he wanted to stop having these feelings about Sid, which Sid hadn’t invited and which Zhenya knew he couldn’t act on.
After dinner, Zhenya took Sid home to his apartment, where they would spend the night. Giving Sid the tour was surreal but wonderful: Sid setting down his duffel in Zhenya’s guest room, Sid standing in his socked feet in the kitchen, inspecting the fridge magnets. Zhenya had never expected to have Sid here, in this part of his life.
He opened a bottle of wine and turned on the TV, to give the pretense that they were watching something instead of only sitting together on the couch. Hanging out shouldn’t have been fraught, but Zhenya couldn’t stop wondering if he was sitting too close or smiling too much or looking at Sid too long. Nothing was how it had been.
Sid took a sip of his wine and smiled at Zhenya and said, “I had a good time today. Thanks for showing me around.”
“Glad you like,” Zhenya said. “Now you go home, tell everyone Moscow is cool.”
“It’s been neat, like. Getting to see these places,” Sid said. “I never knew much about your life in Russia. I feel like—” He broke off and watched his wine as he swirled it around in his glass.
“What,” Zhenya said, watching Sid’s downcast eyes, the dark sweep of his lashes.
“I don’t know,” Sid said. His eyes flicked to Zhenya and away. “It’s probably dumb. I’ve known you for a long time. But seeing you here, with your parents, and all of your teammates, and—it’s like I’m getting to know you in a different way.”
Sid’s words so neatly dovetailed with Zhenya’s private thoughts that he felt his face heat, and was glad Sid wasn’t looking at him. He couldn’t think of any safe response.
Sid cleared his throat. “You, uh. You like playing at home, eh?”
Zhenya welcomed the subject change. “You know about how I leave Metallurg,” he said. “My contract. So now it’s like, I play for them, maybe it’s like—team forgive me, fans forgive me. I can say sorry.” Redemption. But he didn’t know how to say that in English.
“People love you here,” Sid said. He turned toward Zhenya, one leg drawn up and resting on the couch. “The fans. Everyone’s really—and you deserve that. People should pay attention to you.”
He looked so earnest, his dark eyes fixed on Zhenya’s face. Zhenya shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with this praise. “Sid—”
“Look, I’m just. It meant a lot to me how you kept the team going while I was out,” Sid said. “You’re an incredible player. And I feel really lucky to have had you in Pittsburgh for so long.” He reached over and touched Zhenya’s knee, a brief brush of his fingers. “I’m really happy to get to play with you.”
Sid’s cheeks were pink. Zhenya was sure his own were, too. He was frozen with the sudden overpowering longing to push Sid back into the corner of the couch and kiss him.
If Sid were a woman, Zhenya would do it. He would have done it already. He would have read the signs and known how to respond. But what did it mean when a man touched your knee and looked at you like that? Was it the same? He didn’t know enough, or anything.
“Happy you come here,” Zhenya managed after a few moments of terrible stomach-flipping eye contact. “Happy you play for Metallurg.”
“Yeah,” Sid said. He exhaled and then smiled, lopsided. The moment broke. He set his glass on the coffee table and rose from the couch. “Okay. Gotta take a leak.”
He went off down the hall. Alone, Zhenya covered his face with his hands and took a deep, shaky breath.
+ + +
What did it mean when a man drank your wine and touched your knee and told you that you were an incredible hockey player? Zhenya thought about it through that whole road trip, watching Sid as discreetly as he could, which probably wasn’t all that discreet, because Sid kept catching him at it. Or maybe—and this thought, when it first occurred to him, had the brutal force of a blow to the head—Sid was watching him, and their eyes met because they were both looking: because Sid was giving Zhenya the same shy hopeful glances that Zhenya was giving him.
Hockey was suddenly an unwelcome obstacle. Zhenya wanted to keep Sid in Moscow for a week and see what happened. But he was the captain, and he had to go to team meals and sign autographs and talk to reporters and attend practice and do his best to win every game: a full schedule every day, without much privacy or free time.
He did manage a few hours in Nizhny to take Sid to tour the old fortress at the heart of the city, and he used the winter chill as an excuse to stand too close and tuck his fingertips into the pockets of Sid’s coat. Sid went pink and smiley every time he did it, which only encouraged Zhenya to do it more.
The fortress was perched on a bluff above the river, overlooking the old city and the ice forming on the water. They walked along the walls and Zhenya pointed out landmarks, even though he knew almost nothing about Nizhny and had only been a handful of times. “There’s church,” he said, “there’s other church, there’s, ah, bridge—”
“You’re useless,” Sid said, grinning up at him, standing a little too close, and Zhenya’s stomach tightened with a guilty twist of pleasure as he admitted to himself that they were probably flirting with each other. He was out here in the cold, translating boring signs and freezing his ass off, for the sole reason that he wanted to spend time with Sid.
“Okay, so buy tour book,” Zhenya said. “Or you make Gonch take you—”
“I don’t like Gonch as much as I like you,” Sid said, close, pink, and smiling. Zhenya might have kissed him then, but they were in public.
What did it mean when a man turned pink and said he liked you? Zhenya was pretty sure he knew.
At the end of that road trip, flying home from Yaroslavl, Sid said, “You’ve heard the latest about the lockout?”
His voice was hushed in the quiet of the plane, the shades down, most guys sleeping or watching something on their laptops. Zhenya slouched down and braced his knees against the seat in front of him, folded nearly in half, and Sid slid down to mirror him. They were sitting together because they always sat together now, because Zhenya couldn’t get enough of Sid, and Sid didn’t seem to mind; or maybe he couldn’t get enough of Zhenya.
“Yes,” Zhenya said, into the small space between them, their heads turned toward each other, their elbows brushing on the armrest. Games had been cancelled through the middle of January, and if no deal had been reached by then, there would be no NHL season.
“Maybe we’ll get to add the Gagarin Cup to our resumes,” Sid said. His smile looked a little sad. “Hoped we’d be home by Christmas.”
“You miss your family,” Zhenya said.
“Yeah,” Sid said. “It’s great being able to play. But it’s a long way from home.” His mouth pulled to one side. “Probably shouldn’t complain about this to you, eh?”
Zhenya shrugged. “It’s okay you’re sad. I know.”
“Yeah,” Sid said. He studied Zhenya’s face, a close searching look that Zhenya wanted to turn away from. He forced himself not to move. Sid said, “Do you think—I mean, you could always come back here and play in the KHL. Maybe for one of the teams in Moscow. You know you could take your pick. You could be captain.”
Zhenya sighed. “I think about. But I don’t like to be captain. It’s too much, like—responsibility, talk to reporter, you know? And I don’t like so much travel. And…”
“And?” Sid prompted.
“And I like Pittsburgh,” Zhenya said, which was true, but not what he had stopped himself from saying. “I like fans, my house. I miss team, if I leave. I miss—”
“Yeah?” Sid said. His gaze was dark and warm and—fond, maybe. He was close enough to touch, and so Zhenya did, lifting his hand to brush his fingers along Sid’s jaw. Sid’s lips parted. Zhenya’s blood sang. He was certain now that he wasn’t misreading the signs.
“I miss you,” Zhenya whispered.
“So don’t leave,” Sid whispered back. He raised his hand to touch Zhenya’s knuckles.
“Okay,” Zhenya said.
+ + +
Even with an afternoon start for the game, the flight and the time difference meant they got home that night after Zhenya’s parents had gone to bed. His mother had left a note in the kitchen consoling them for the loss, and a pot of borscht keeping warm on the range. They sat at the table to eat, in their usual spots across from each other, and Zhenya nudged Sid’s feet with his own. Sid smiled down at his bowl and nudged back.
Upstairs, they took turns in the bathroom. Zhenya changed into his pajamas and listened to the sounds of Sid brushing his teeth: the tap cutting on, the horrible gargling sound he made toward the end. Sid had let Zhenya hold his hand on the plane, hidden under Zhenya’s coat, Sid’s thumb stroking a gentle line along Zhenya’s palm that made his heart pound. He couldn’t go to sleep now without pushing his luck.
He went next door to Sid’s room and sat on the bed. His heart was pounding again. He had just about talked himself into going back to his own room before Sid found him, when the door opened and Sid came in and it was too late.
“Oh,” Sid said. He was in his own pajamas, and his mouth was wet and pink from brushing his teeth. He looked at Zhenya for a moment, as Zhenya tried not to die of shame on the spot, and then he smiled and closed the door behind him.
The mattress sank beneath Sid’s weight as he sat down, rolling them toward each other. Instead of a safe margin of a few centimeters, Zhenya’s thigh pressed against Sid’s, hip to hip. But it was okay, because Sid was still smiling, and turning his upper body to plant one hand on the bed behind Zhenya: opening, waiting.
“Sid,” Zhenya said quietly. The house was silent. The room was lit by a single lamp on the nightstand, and Sid had come all this way to play hockey with Zhenya and look at him like that. Sid’s expression was soft in the yellow light, filled with affection, and Zhenya teetered in frozen anticipation for a few heartbeats before Sid leaned in and kissed him.
His mouth was so soft, and minty fresh. Zhenya lifted his hand to cup Sid’s jaw and took the slow, messy kiss he wanted, because he’d been watching Sid’s mouth for weeks and didn’t have the patience to be polite about it. Sid kissed him back until Zhenya’s toes curled inside his socks, and then Sid lay back on the bed and pulled Zhenya down with him.
“I haven’t done this since junior,” Sid said, and kissed Zhenya’s face.
“I’m never do,” Zhenya confessed. He had only thought about it.
“Aw, G,” Sid said. He kissed Zhenya’s mouth, gently, and then again. “Maybe we shouldn’t. Your parents—”
They were two doors down, and asleep, and Zhenya wanted to do whatever Sid would let him. “You just be quiet,” he said, trying not to be completely undone by the look on Sid’s face, compassionate and tender. He was certain Sid knew how it was. Sid had probably made a lot of the same choices Zhenya had. But Zhenya didn’t want to talk about it right now, not when Sid was warm and rumpled beneath him, looking like he needed to be kissed.
“Silent as the grave,” Sid said, and slid his hands beneath Zhenya’s shirt.
+ + +
Zhenya’s parents hosted a party on New Year’s Eve: friends and relatives, a few neighbors, Seryozha. Zhenya ate until his stomach hurt and talked until his mouth went dry, circulating and catching up with second cousins and friends of his parents he saw once a year at most. He lost track of Sid for a while, and found him again in the kitchen, where it was quieter, sitting at the table with Seryozha and a bottle of vodka. Sid was laughing with one hand over his eyes as Seryozha wiped tears of laughter from his face. Zhenya smiled to see them, although he also wanted to know what he had missed.
“We’re sharing stories,” Seryozha said when Zhenya asked, which wasn’t informative.
Sid smiled at Zhenya, his cheek propped on his fist. He looked a little drunk. Zhenya said, “I want to take him down the road to look at some of the decorations. We’ll be back by midnight. If my mom wants to know where I am, tell her we’ve decided to run off and join the circus.”
“Noted,” Seryozha said, and poured some more vodka into his glass.
“We’re going somewhere?” Sid asked, as Zhenya herded him down the hall to the coat closet. “You always talk too fast.”
“You listen too slow,” Zhenya said. “We go out, look at lights. Just few minutes. Put coat.”
“You’re so bossy,” Sid said, but he obediently zipped up his coat and followed Zhenya out into the winter night.
They walked down the lane in the darkness, their shoulders bumping. Some houses were dark, the inhabitants gone off to parties elsewhere, but some of them were brightly lit within their walls. Zhenya spared a moment to be curious about other people’s lives, but the only life he really cared about was his own, this miraculous life in which he got to kiss Sid and play hockey.
Looking at decorations was mostly an excuse to get Sid alone, but there really was a house at the end of the road whose inhabitants had gone all out and strung the entire house and yard with multicolored lights. Zhenya led Sid there, and waited patiently while Sid peered through the gate and exclaimed over everything, and finally pushed Sid against one of the pillars bracketing the gate and kissed him.
Sid’s nose was cold against Zhenya’s cheek, but his mouth was a warm smile against Zhenya’s mouth. Zhenya cupped Sid’s face in his hands and pulled back to study him, washed in the red and green and yellow glow. Sid smiled at him. Zhenya bent to kiss him again.
They walked home at last, when Zhenya’s toes were going numb. Sid said, “I have a good feeling about this year.”
“Me too,” Zhenya said. He tucked his hand in the crook of Sid’s elbow and held on.
+ + +
The lockout ended a week later. Zhenya came off the ice at the end of practice in Bratislava and one of the equipment guys had the news. Zhenya was grateful for the warning, because every waiting reporter wanted to ask him about it. He provided some diplomatically phrased soundbites, bubbling inside with happiness the whole time. Home to Pittsburgh, to the Penguins.
Sid came to sit by him when the media finally cleared out. He smiled at Zhenya, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Going home soon, eh?”
“You not happy?” Zhenya asked, because he found it impossible to believe that Sid wasn’t excited to get back to Pittsburgh.
“Of course I’m happy,” Sid said. He glanced around the locker room, and Zhenya could see his thought process: everyone was in the showers except for Misharin and Kazionov, neither of whom spoke any English. Sid hunched his shoulders and said, “What happens after we get back?”
“Play hockey?” Zhenya said.
“No, I mean—with us,” Sid said. He darted a glance at Zhenya.
“Move in my house,” Zhenya said immediately. He liked having Sid close at hand. “What you think? It’s just Russia thing?”
“I wasn’t sure,” Sid said. He looked less hunched, and pinker, which was a sure sign that he was feeling happy. “You really—you want me to move in with you? That seems a little, uh. Soon?”
He was right, but Zhenya couldn’t backtrack now. “Come over lots. Sleep in my bed.”
“Yeah, okay,” Sid said, his eyes crinkling. Zhenya liked him so much. “Good to have some privacy.”
They had managed a handful of silent furtive hasty late-night sexual encounters, but Zhenya was looking forward to an entire empty house and a chance to learn how to make Sid loud. Maybe his thoughts showed in his expression, because Sid was very pink now.
It was too soon to move in together, and it was too soon for Zhenya to say what was in his heart: that he was falling in love, and grateful for everything the past two months had brought him: Sid eating his mother’s borscht after a game, Sid hugging his parents on New Year’s, Sid asleep beside Zhenya on the plane. Sid’s hands on Zhenya’s body, shaping him like clay.
Sid knew him comprehensively now, in each half of his life. Zhenya wouldn’t have to try to explain how big the sky was in Magnitogorsk, or how the steelworks emitted a thick haze that obscured the whole eastern horizon on a windless day. Sid had seen it. He had seen where Zhenya grew up, and where he first learned to play hockey. That was important. Sid could bridge Zhenya’s two separate lives and meld them into something brand new. A third hybrid life for them to share.
Zhenya leaned against Sid for a single moment, like he could communicate all of his hopes through that touch. “We still have season now. Even with lockout.”
“Can’t say I’m sorry it happened,” Sid said. “It all turned out pretty well, I think.”
If they were alone, Zhenya would have kissed him. Sid’s expression said he knew.