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Look, it’s not— it’s not like it was on purpose, okay? Hayden wasn’t trying to snoop, it’s just…
Shane isn’t the most subtle guy in the world. Locked down, sure—if you don’t know him, it’d be easy to think that the guy doesn’t really feel anything in degrees other than mild. Hayden does know him though—has been rooming with him since the kid was a rookie. He knew that Shane felt things far deeper and harder than anyone would guess from the outside.
He also knew what he sounded like when he was lying. What his face did when he was hiding things.
So. Hayden wasn’t trying to snoop, but it would be a lie to say he wasn’t curious. He’d known about Lily for, god, years at this point. Had been seeing her name pop up on Shane’s phone basically since his first year in the league. Had watched as Shane stumbled through weird, pointless excuses before ducking out to see her every time they were in Boston.
But Hayden still didn’t actually know anything about her. Shane refused to talk about her and like, Hayden got it, but c’mon. Hayden was his best friend. He wasn’t like the other guys on the team—he wasn’t about to look at a photo of Shane’s girlfriend and call her ugly or fat or whatever it was that Shane was worried about.
So Hayden was curious. And Shane had that particular dopey smile he got whenever he was texting Lily—the one that he clearly thought he was hiding, the one that was so fucking obvious if you knew what to look for. So maybe, maybe, Hayden was watching Shane out of the corner of his eye. And maybe, maybe, he’d been a bit too quick to fully look at Shane’s phone screen when Shane sucked in a sudden, surprised breath.
Shane slams his phone down on the mattress a second later, but it’s too late.
Hayden keeps his expression carefully neutral when Shane shoots a nervous look at him, making an awkward, wordless noise—apology, excuse, dismissal—before picking his phone back up. Keeping the screen fully angled away from Hayden as he resumes texting.
Well, sexting, Hayden guesses. He knows what he saw. Clear as day, right there in the middle of Shane’s text thread with Lily.
A dick pic.
Hayden keeps mindlessly scrolling Instagram—a pantomime of paying attention, not really taking in anything that’s passing across his screen. Mind racing as a series of realizations wash over him.
Christ, no wonder Shane was so cagey about Lily. No wonder he didn’t want to introduce her to the guys.
Hayden would like to believe that everyone would be chill with it, but he could think of at least five guys off the top of his head that would a hundred percent take issue with Shane dating a trans woman. He can imagine, far too easily, the kind of slurs that would get thrown around the locker room if anyone ever found out. Towards Lily, sure, but towards Shane too—because Shane had to be gay, if his girlfriend had a dick, right?
Hayden takes a few deep breaths, trying to calm down the righteous indignation he feels flowing through him, at the argument now taking place entirely in his own mind.
Okay. Okay.
So. Hayden hadn’t been trying to snoop, but now he knew something about Shane’s girlfriend that Shane clearly hadn’t wanted anyone to know. There was no way for Hayden to, like, un-know it, but he could at least do Shane the solid of keeping his mouth shut about it.
Except to Jackie—even if Hayden had wanted to lie to his wife, he fucking sucked at it. One look at him, and she’d know he was hiding something. One question, and he’d be folding like a deck of cards.
Other than her, though, Hayden would keep his mouth shut. And he wouldn’t—couldn’t—bring it up to Shane directly, either. He could only imagine how much that would freak out the poor guy, knowing that Hayden knew something he’d never meant for him to know—knowing that someone else knew this huge secret he’d been keeping, one that could seriously fuck things up for him, if not on the ice then for sure off of it.
But… he had to do something. It had to suck, so much, to be in a relationship for years and not to be able to talk about it with anyone. For Shane, but also, Christ, for Lily too. Never being invited to any of the watch parties with the other WAGs, never able to come to Shane’s games, proudly wearing his jersey. Never getting to meet any of his friends, his teammates.
Hayden didn’t know what that felt like, but he couldn’t imagine that being kept as a secret did anything but hurt.
Tilting his phone away from Shane, Hayden opened up a new incognito browser window. Typed out how to support friend dating trans woman.
Reddit is the best site on the internet. Fuck anyone who said otherwise.
Hayden runs his plan past Jackie first, obviously. She looks kinda impressed with him, tells him that she’s proud of him. That he’s doing the right thing. Hayden spends the rest of the day kinda walking on air.
His beautiful, smart, perfect wife thinks that he’s doing the right thing.
He’s gonna be the best fucking trans ally ever.
“Have you ever watched Orange is the New Black?” Hayden asks Shane as casually as he can. They’re at team breakfast, but they’re sitting a fair way away from anyone else, so Hayden feels like it’s a pretty safe time to start putting his plan into action.
Shane looks up, bleary-eyed, Hayden’s question knocking him out of the weird pre-game fugue state he always falls into. “What?” he asks around a mouthful of eggs.
“Orange is the New Black,” Hayden repeats. “Jackie’s got me watching it.”
Shane’s now giving him a weird look, which is— yeah, okay, fair. Shane doesn’t watch TV. Hayden knows this. Shane watches hockey and reads books about hockey and plays chel. He probably fucking dreams about hockey.
Hayden bravely presses forward.
“It’s got this one actress in it,” he says. “Laverne Cox? She’s incredible. And they had her twin brother play her in this recent episode that had, like, a flashback to how she ended up in prison? Because they’re in prison— I mean, that’s where the show is set, which is— orange is the new black, as in the orange prison uniforms? And the new black, like, prison jumpsuits are the new style… okay, anyway, I was reading an article that was talking about how they did that because they didn’t want her to have to like, dress like a man and uh, disrespect her gender identity.”
Hayden finishes with a solid nod. Nailed it, he thinks to himself.
Shane swallows his eggs. “Oh,” he says. “That, uh. That sounds cool.”
“Yeah,” Hayden says. “I just think it’s really great, y’know? That, uh, that there’s more trans people in media or whatever. Now.”
“Right,” Shane says, shovelling another mouthful of eggs into his mouth. “Cool.”
Hayden feels himself deflate slightly, and tries to remind himself that this is only his first attempt to ally. It’s going to take more than one conversation for Shane to be willing to open up to him about Lily.
A bunch of the Reddit posts had talked about how allyship couldn’t just be a one-time thing. He just needs to be keep showing up for Shane. Keep proving to him that Hayden is cool with trans people. That he won’t judge Shane, or Lily.
They’ll get there. He knows they will.
“Woah,” Hayden says, looking at his phone.
Shane looks up from his own phone with no small degree of reluctance. He’s got his Lily face on—an embarrassing combination of totally irritated and utterly besotted—which Hayden thinks maybe makes this the perfect time to bring this up. Like, this is some legit psychology shit that Hayden’s working on right now. Making Shane subconsciously connect Hayden being cool with trans women and Lily.
“Bruce Jenner just came out,” Hayden says, turning his phone screen to show Shane the headline. Shane looks confused, and—right. Not a hockey player.
“He’s a decathlete?” Hayden tries. “He— shit, wait, no— She won gold at the Olympics for it.”
Shane shrugs, and Hayden fights not to roll his eyes.
“He— she was married to Kris Kardashian?”
Goddamn pronouns. Fuck. Pull it together, Hayden, he tells himself. Fucking up pronouns was not the way to show Shane what a good ally he was.
Luckily, Shane doesn’t seem to have noticed, forehead scrunched in obvious thought.
“Like, from the show?” Shane finally asks.
“Yes, like from the show,” Hayden says, and doesn’t bother to hide his eye roll this time. Shane shoves at him, grinning, and Hayden shoves him back.
Looking back down at his phone, Hayden scans the article for a moment, until he sees— yes. Perfect.
“My brain is much more female than it is male,” Hayden reads. “It’s hard for people to understand that, but that’s what my soul is.”
He looks up, finding Shane looking at him with something inscrutable in his expression.
“It’s kinda beautiful, right?” Hayden asks. “Like, poetic.”
“Poetic,” Shane repeats, slowly. “I didn’t know you even knew what poetry was, Hayds.”
“Oh my god, shut up,” Hayden says, shoving Shane again, harder this time. His friend lets himself be pushed, laughing. “I read!”
“Poetry?” Shane asks, doubt heavy in his voice as he sits back up.
“You don’t know everything about me,” Hayden says with a sniff. “I could read poetry.”
“Sure you could,” Shane says, condescending and indulgent.
“I could,” Hayden says, feeling weirdly insistent about it at this point, and a bit offended. “I could be reading poetry all the time.”
“Uh-huh,” Shane says, nodding, slow and exaggerated.
“Whatever. This from the man who’s never read a book that wasn’t about hockey.”
Shane just shrugs, because he’s shameless, at least in this—wears his label of boring if not with pride, then at least with indifference.
Fuck, was Hayden going to have to start reading poetry just to make a point? Maybe Jackie could recommend something to him? Did his wife even read poetry?
Oooh, she’d probably be impressed, though, if he started.
Sick.
“Anyways,” Hayden says, trying to get them back on topic. “It’s pretty cool, right? Like, it really just proves that you can be a professional athlete—at the top of your game, like, one of the best in the world—and be trans, too.”
Shane gives him a look that Hayden really isn’t sure how to interpret.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Pretty cool.”
“Dude, look at this!” Hayden shoves his phone at Shane’s face. Maybe a bit too closely, as Shane takes a stumbling step backwards before blinking, focusing on Hayden’s phone screen. There’s a moment of silence as he reads, then he looks past the phone screen, meeting Hayden’s eyes.
“Um,” he says.
Trying not to be disappointed at Shane’s initial, slightly lacklustre reaction, Hayden pulls his phone back towards himself, turning it to re-read the headline himself. Honestly, he thought Shane would have a bigger reaction to it. Sure, Shane didn’t watch movies, and— actually, Shane might not even know who the Wachowskis are, but still.
Lilly had the same name as Shane’s girlfriend! That was like, actually super cool!
“Lana and Lilly,” Hayden reads out loud. “That’s fun. That they choose names that start with the same letter.”
“Sure,” Shane says, in a tone that Hayden isn’t sure how to interpret.
Hayden keeps reading, feeling his stomach sink slightly at the realization—
“Oh,” he says before he can think better of it, “it sounds like she only came out to avoid being outed. That kinda sucks.”
He glances up at Shane to see that his friend has gone pale. Looks almost nauseated and shit shit shit. That was not what Hayden wanted.
Hayden tries to rally.
“It sounds like people are being really supportive, at least,” he says. “And it must be a bit of a relief, right? To not have to hide.”
If anything, Shane looks even paler. Fuck, Hayden is fucking this up so bad.
“Yeah,” Shane says, voice flat. “A relief.”
Shit.
Okay. Lesson learned. Read the whole thing before showing Shane anything trans related.
“Oh this is cool,” Hayden says, genuinely surprised for once.
He’d been reading through the article on the ACA out of actual interest—you never knew when you might get traded to an American team, though he prayed every day for that to never, ever happen. Metros until death do them part, god willing.
Anyways, he hadn’t even been looking for it, but if hockey had taught him one thing, it was that you always, always took an opportunity when it presented itself to you.
Shane hums in reply, clearly not intending to actually listen to what Hayden was saying. He was too busy frowning down at his phone. He’d been doing that a lot lately. Hayden hoped that it wasn’t about Lily, though it had also been a while since he’d seen his Lily face.
Maybe the secrecy was getting to them? Shit. Hayden needed to step up his game, if that was the case—the only thing that made Shane happier than Lily was hockey, and even then, Hayden thought it might be a closer tie than Shane would ever admit to.
“Obama’s put a ban on healthcare discrimination on the basis of gender identity,” Hayden says. Looking back down at the article, he reads, “this ban will end exclusions of transition-related surgeries from coverage plans.”
He looks back up at Shane, hopeful, but Shane had only stopped frowning at his phone so he could start frowning at Hayden. Fuck.
“That’s pretty cool, right?” Hayden tries. “That, uh, more people will be able to get—” he pauses, searching his brain for the right terminology, shit, he’d just been reading about this the other night… oh no, wait, he remembers, it’s “—gender-affirming surgery,” he finishes, triumphant.
Shane’s frown deepens. He’s staring at Hayden like he’s trying to figure something out. Like he’s trying to peer into Hayden’s brain, to read his actual mind.
It’s a bit unsettling.
“Cool,” Shane echoes, distracted, like he’s not even thinking about what he’s saying. His expression shifts, then, thoughtfulness turning to determination. He takes a deep breath, like he’s bracing himself, and Hayden feels his heart rate pick up.
This is it, he thinks.
“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Shane says, and—
Wait, what?
Isn’t that supposed to be Hayden’s line?
Oh fuck, it is supposed to be Hayden’s line.
“Yeah man,” Hayden says, stumbling over his words in his haste to get them out. “And, uh, you too. You can tell me anything, I mean.”
Shane smiles at that, sweet and real, and Hayden can’t help but return the expression. Beneath all the weird hockey stuff, his best friend really was the nicest guy out there.
“I know,” Shane replies, simply, like it is simple. Like he means it, like he believes it.
Hell yeah. Hayden’s fucking nailing this ally thing.
Shane takes another deep breath, and this is it, this is it, this is—
“And I just want you to know that there’s nothing you could say that I would judge you for,” Shane says.
Hayden deflates. This, apparently, is not it.
“Or that would make me love you any less,” Shane continues, which is nice, even if it wasn’t what Hayden was hoping for. “You’re my best friend, man.”
Shane winces after saying the word man, which— Weird, but okay.
“I know,” Hayden says, echoing Shane’s earlier words, because it really is that simple.
Shane clears his throat. “And— and I’d never tell anyone anything that you didn’t want me to. If you told me something. It’d stay between us.”
Hayden frowns, because— what?
“Yeah, same,” Hayden says slowly, trying to figure out what Shane’s trying to get at—why he’s saying all the things that Reddit says Hayden is supposed to say.
Shane’s looking at him like he’s waiting for Hayden to say something else, but Hayden doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say—
Is he supposed to ask directly about Lily now? Maybe just drop her casually into the conversation? Like, as an indirect way of saying I know, you can trust me. Though he’s really not sure how subtle it would be, bringing her up now.
Shane looks slightly disappointed when Hayden doesn’t immediately reply, but in Hayden’s defence, he’s still trying to figure out what the fuck he’s supposed to say. Still, Shane squares his shoulders, like they’re out on the ice, like he’s bracing himself to take a hit. Continues, even in the absence of Hayden figuring out what his response should be.
“So if— if you ever wanted me to, to call you by, uh, another name, I just want you to know that I would do that, no problem,” Shane says, which—
What?
“What?” Hayden asks.
Shane looks more uncomfortable than ever, shifting in his seat, before raising his head and continuing anyways. “Yeah,” he says, “or, uh, if you’d like me to use different, um, pronouns? For you? In private? I’d— that wouldn’t be a problem, dude.” Shane winces again, and Hayden—
Hayden has no idea what’s happening.
“What?” he repeats.
Shane shrugs, a parody of a casual gesture. “Y’know,” he says. Clears his throat. “If you, uh, if you wanted me to… to use, um, she/her? For you? That wouldn’t be— I can do that.”
“What?” Hayden says again, the only word he’s currently capable of thinking, much less speaking.
Shane looks like he’s regretting ever speaking. “I’m just… I just wanted you to know that. That I’m, uh, fine with trans people— trans women. Or whatever. Just. It’s all good with me.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Hayden says, and Shane blinks at him, surprised.
“You do?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Hayden says, “obviously. Your girlfriend is trans, I know you’re cool with trans women, Shane. I don’t— you think I’m trans?”
Shane looks more confused than ever.
“I thought that was why you— wait, my girlfriend? I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Hayden gives him a look, because seriously, dude? Straight to his face? After how many years?
Shane at least has the decency to blush in reply, though he still shakes his head in silent denial.
“I don’t,” he says, insistent, words reinforcing the gesture.
Hayden groans. “Dude, I know about Lily.”
Shane blanches. “What? I don’t— Lily isn’t— it’s not—”
“I saw your texts,” Hayden says and Shane, somehow, gets even paler. Hayden throws up his hands quickly, attempting to ward off some of the panic he can see growing in Shane’s eyes. “Not, like— not all of them. And I wasn’t— I wasn’t trying to snoop man, I swear. But I did, uh, I did— and it was totally by accident! But I did see when she sent you a, uh. A dick pic.”
Shane’s back to blushing. It can’t be healthy, to go from blushing to pallor to blushing again, that fast. Hayden really hopes it doesn’t make him faint, or something.
“That— that wasn’t…” Shane’s pointless denial trails off as he frowns, thinking. “Wait, you saw a dick pic and you— you think Lily is trans?”
Hayden throws his hands up. Obviously, they say.
Shane stares at him for a long moment, and then, to Hayden’s surprise, he starts to laugh. It’s too loud for how late it is, for the fact that the hotel room walls really aren’t that thick. It’s also more than a bit hysterical, but Hayden can’t help but join in after a long beat, when it becomes clear that Shane isn’t stopping anytime soon—even if he still isn’t a hundred percent certain what they’re talking about.
“Christ,” Shane says, wiping at his eyes when the laughter finally subsides. “Oh my god dude, I love you, I just— was that what all this was about? All the—” he waves his hand around, a vague, all-encompassing gesture, “—bringing up trans stuff?”
“Yeah?” Hayden says. “I wanted you to know that I was cool with it. And that, like, I know it doesn’t make you gay, or anything, to like your girlfriend’s dick.”
The last of the laughter drops from Shane’s face as if it had never been there, but he at least doesn’t go back to looking freaked out. Instead, he just looks thoughtful, running his eyes over Hayden’s face.
“Okay,” he finally says, the words slow, careful. “I am, though.”
“You’re what?” Hayden asks.
“Gay,” Shane says, with a shrug that so badly wants to be casual. “Lily isn’t a trans woman, dude. She’s a guy. It’s— it’s a fake name.”
“Oh,” Hayden says. “Oh,” he repeats, as a whole lot of things abruptly re-arrange themselves into an entirely different picture.
“Yeah,” Shane says, huffing out a laugh that is more exhale than anything else. “But, uh, I appreciate your support man. Really. It’s good to know that you’re so, y’know. Down with trans people.”
Hayden can’t help but smile, a bit smugly. He did kill the whole ally thing after all, even if he’d been barking up the wrong tree. Whatever. It was the tree like, right next to the one he should have been barking up, he hadn’t been that off-base.
There’s a moment of comfortable silence between them, one that Hayden is loath to break, but—
“You seriously thought I was trans?” he asks. Shane groans, covering his face with his hands.
“I thought you were trying to like, vibe-check me? By talking about all the trans stuff? Like, making sure I would be cool with it, before you told me,” he confesses into his palms, slightly muffled.
Hayden maybe shouldn’t, because it was a sweet gesture, really, now that he’s thinking about it from Shane’s perspective, but he can’t quite stop himself— he laughs.
Shane flips him off without looking.
“Okay, okay,” Hayden says, once the laughter finally subsides. “So, just to make sure we’re on the same page. I’m a dude,” he says, pointing at himself, “and you’re into dudes,” he says, turning his finger towards Shane.
Shane finally drops his hands from his face, nodding his agreement. A slightly panicked look crosses his face a second later, and he holds up his hands, speaking quickly, “but not— I’m not, like, into you or anything,” he says. “I haven’t been like, secretly checking you out in the shower or anything.”
Hayden snorts. “Yeah man, I know,” he says, and tries not to feel too sad for Shane, for the way that his shoulders immediately slump in unspoken relief. Desperate to bring some levity back to the moment, Hayden continues, “I mean, I’m hot, so I’d get it if you did—”
“Oh, fuck off—” Shane says.
“But you’re for sure too obsessed with Lily to be checking out other guys.”
“I am not obsessed,” Shane says. It’s such an obvious lie that Hayden almost feels bad for him.
“Sure you’re not,” Hayden says.
“I’m not,” Shane insists.
“Whatever man,” Hayden says, rolling his eyes. Ignores the way that Shane scowls at him. “So, when do I get to meet this mystery dude, then? Now that I know Lily is a guy, I can meet him, right?”
“Oh, absolutely the fuck not,” Shane says, eyes widening like this is some whole new emergency—like its not the extremely obvious next step, now that Hayden knows that he’s gay. “You are never meeting him.”
“What?” Hayden says, a bit offended by the immediate hard denial. “Why not? You’ve been dating him for years, dude. I want to meet the guy who makes my best friend so happy.”
Shane blushes again. Gotcha, Hayden thinks.
“It’s not— we’re not dating.”
Hayden levels him with a look that he hopes conveys exactly how full of shit he thinks Shane is. It must work, because Shane crosses his arms, defensive.
“We’re not,” he repeats, like a total liar.
“Sure man,” Hayden says. “Whatever you say.”
Shane relaxes slightly at the implied concession. Good. Better for him to be lulled into a false sense of security. Because he is an actual idiot if he thinks Hayden’s gonna let this go that easily.
Now that Hayden knows what he needs to actually ally about, he’s gonna ally harder than ever. He’ll be such a good ally that Shane won’t have any choice but to introduce him to his boyfriend.
He might have gotten his wires a bit crossed before, but this time, this time he knows for a fact that he’s on the right track.
Opening up a new browser window, Hayden types how to support gay best friend.
He’s gonna be the best gay ally ever.