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Kip really needed to stop agreeing to things without getting all the details. Agreeing to blind dates, taking shots without questioning what was in them, helping friends move into 5th floor apartments where oh, did I not tell you? The elevator is broken. All of these things could have been avoided with a few more questions.
Yet another case in point: agreeing to travel to the All-Star Game with Scott. A lot of players brought their significant others and kids, so Kip wasn’t worried about standing out too much. And Kip loved watching hockey, so it wasn’t exactly a hardship to get to watch the game and skills competitions.
The problem was that Scott had asked him to go before the location had been announced. Thinking things would be like the previous year in Miami, Kip imagined a downright tropical vacation and escape from the brutal New York winter. He couldn’t jet away and completely leave his responsibilities behind - his advisor wanted the latest draft of his master’s thesis by the end of the week - but he figured editing it wouldn’t be as bad if he were doing it while sipping a mai tai by the pool.
Then the league announced that the All-Star Game this year would be held in Minneapolis and poof! went Kip’s vacation fantasy. He couldn’t drink a mai tai in the snow. That was just wrong.
Unfortunately just because sunny skies were out of the picture didn’t mean his thesis worries were too. Which is how Kip found himself staring intently at his laptop not at a poolside bar, but in the hotel’s cafe. Thankfully through years of collegiate education, he had Pavloved himself in knowing that coffee shop equals school work time, so he had been cruising through this latest round of rewrites.
Kip had also trained himself to ignore the background hustle and bustle of the coffee shops he worked in, which meant he didn’t register someone approaching him until the screeching of chair legs on the floor alerted him that they had pulled a chair up to his table.
“What are you doing?” Asked none other than Ilya Rozanov. Because, really, who else would see Kip working as hard as he was and think that what he really needed was a distraction.
Kip doesn’t know where exactly it ranks on his list of weird life experiences, but becoming friends with Ilya was certainly top 10. Earlier this season after a game in New York, Ilya had wandered into the Kingfisher for a drink and wheedled his way into a friendship with Kip. One thing graduate students and professional athletes had in common was hectic schedules, so he hadn’t seen Ilya since that day, but they had a fairly active text thread. Ilya Rozanov, captain of the Boston Raiders, terror on the ice, loved raccoon memes. Who knew?
“Working on my thesis.” If Ilya wasn’t going to bother with greetings and niceties - which, when did he ever? - then neither was Kip, who didn’t even look up from his screen.
“I think you misunderstand,” Ilya said. “I mean, what are you doing and why is it not spending time with your bestest friend and favorite hockey player?”
Kip couldn’t afford to get drawn into banter right now. He was so close to finishing this section of the paper, after which he would reward himself by locking his laptop in his hotel room and not looking at it for the rest of the day. He just needed a little more time.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, highlighting a sentence that didn’t have a citation. That was an easy fix, he could do MLA citations in his sleep. “Let me write one more paragraph in peace and then I’ll indulge you in whatever bullshit this is about to be.”
“Deal.” True to his word, Ilya went as quiet as a church mouse.
Kip tried to get back to the flow state he had been approaching before he was interrupted, but the words weren’t coming as easily to him now. It was like something was buzzing around the edges of his brain. Maybe not buzzing. Rustling might be more accurate.
He looked up and realized it wasn’t an internal distracted rustling, but a real rustling sound. Across the table from him, Ilya was stacking and unstacking sugar packets and little cups of creamer.
“What are you doing?”
Ilya looked up from his pyramid of creamers. “I am giving you peace so that you’ll indulge my bullshit.”
Kip sighed. There were certainly more distracting things Ilya could be doing. Two sentences to go. He could do this.
The result wasn’t the strongest conclusion he had ever written, but the point was that it was written. This wasn’t intended to be his final draft anyways. He could always fix it on the next go around. Kip hit save on the document and slammed his laptop shut.
“You are done?” Ilya asked, putting the sugar packets back in their little bin.
“Done,” Kip confirmed. “And terrified of whatever you’re about to get me into.”
“‘Whatever you’re about to get me into,’” Ilya spat. “Can I not just want to talk to my newest best friend Kip? Best part of All-Star Game is so many players bring their families that everyone has their own room, no need to share like on normal roadies. I think we go back to my room, it will be like slumber party, braid each other’s hair, talk about boys.”
Ilya Rozanov couldn’t express a sincere feeling in public without risking his reputation, but couched in layers of sarcasm, was a sentiment Kip was all too familiar with. He had recognized it when he first talked to Ilya at the Kingfisher and he recognized it again now. Ilya was lonely in the gilded cage of his secret. There was catharsis in sharing even the smallest details about a relationship with a trusted friend, and Kip knew that when the relationship was kept so quiet, every minor detail felt major.
Kip was pretty sure that if he expressed honest understanding, Ilya would combust right here in the hotel cafe, so he erred on the side of sarcasm. “Okay, but every good slumber party needs snacks, so you’re paying for room service while we talk.”
“I see how it is. You are going to make me pay for room service because Hunter is-“
Kip shot him a look before the words boring or broke because he’s bad at hockey could leave his mouth.
“Does not seem like the type to indulge,” Ilya amended.
Kip grabbed his laptop from the table and put it into his bag. “Let me drop my stuff back in my hotel room first.”
“Ooh!” Ilya exclaimed as the two stood and made their way out. “We could do drinks too. It seemed like the bar here had decent stuff.”
“Ilya, it’s eleven in the morning!”
“Okay, fine,” he conceded. “No hard liquor. Do you like mimosas?”
Kip laughed and shook his head. While his friendship with Ilya was undeniably weird, he was glad he could be part of the man’s support system, even if all he could really offer was an ear while Ilya talked about Shane. He couldn’t help but wonder, though, who did Shane have to talk to?
_____
Team practices at the All-Star break were a lot less formal than during the rest of the season but some things always stayed the same. Chirping your teammates during a water break, for example. Scott was taking a long pull from his water bottle when Shane Hollander skated up to him.
“Hey, Hunter,” he said with a smirk. “I heard you’re trying to set a new record in the accuracy competition this year.”
Scott dropped the bottle from his mouth. “A couple young guns wrecked my last one, so I guess I have to.”
“I looked up to you in juniors. Shit, I still do. But like hell are you coming out on top this year.”
It really did mean a lot for Hollander to say that he still looked up to Scott after he came out. Not everyone who had started out a fan had the same reaction. But Scott couldn’t just let that kind of disrespect slide.
“Fuckin’ prove it, Hollander,” Scott retorted without too much heat. “Hang back after practice and we’ll have a shootout, see if you’re still talking then.”
A whistle blew, ushering them all back to center ice.
“You’re on,” Hollander said as he skated away.
Scot wasn’t as young as he used to be. He might not be as young as when he had set the accuracy shooting record. He also might not be as young as he’d been when Rozanov and Hollander had smashed it. But he was certainly still young enough to kick Hollander’s ass.
_____
Truth be told, there wasn’t a lot of ass kicking done by either side. Despite the ribbing from the other players that they were taking things too seriously by staying after to practice for the accuracy competition, once everyone else cleared out, Scott and Hollander were shooting the shit more than shooting pucks.
It was nice getting to talk to him in a low pressure environment. Scott didn’t know too much about Shane Hollander. He knew the basics: current golden boy of the league, number two draft pick, rose quickly to Montreal’s captain, a quite frankly impressive amount of sponsorships (seriously, whoever this guy’s manager was must be terrifying). The most he knew about him personally was that he was fairly quiet and threw a mean right hook.
Scott didn’t hold the fight last season against him. He understood as well as anyone that adrenaline got high during games and seemingly innocent chirps could turn into gloves dropping. He still wasn’t sure what exactly had set Hollander off but even those of them in the league without reputations for being fighters can have bad days.
“I meant what I said earlier,” Hollander said, lazily whipping at a puck and sending it dead center of the net. Say what you would about Shane Hollander, but the kid played good hockey.
Scott should probably stop thinking of Hollander as a kid since he was now a multi-cup winning captain in his own right. Some habits died hard though, and the rookies he had seen rise through the ranks since their draft day would always be kids to him.
“Oh yeah? That I’m going down in the competition tomorrow?” Scott was half tempted to pull out the now listen here, young whippersnapper voice he used when whatever rookies he adopted in a given year got mouthy with him.
“No.” Hollander gently swept a puck to him from their dwindling pile. “Well, that too. But mostly what I said about looking up to you. I mean, hey, if my mom wasn’t such a die hard Montreal fan, I’m pretty sure yours would have been my first jersey.”
It was an undeniably sweet sentiment. But fuck, was Hollander on a mission to make him feel old today?
Before he could reply, Hollander continued. “And I meant it when I said I still do. Last season, you- you made a difference for a lot of people.“
Ah. So that’s where this was going. Despite the nasty remarks from some conservative sports commentators, the reaction he had gotten from other players had been largely positive. Hollander was just the next in a long line of players to tell Scott how brave or important him coming out was in an effort to prove - to him or themselves or maybe both - that they weren’t homophobic.
Scott appreciated it, he really did. Every player to assert themselves as an ally made the sport - and the world - a safer place. But after a while, the constant commentary was a little grating.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said, lining up his next shot on the goal.
“I really do.”
“I know, Hollander, it’s-“
“No, you don’t.”
“It’s okay.”
“Youmadeadifferenceforalotofpeopleandyougavemyboyfriendthecouragetotellmehelovedme,” Hollander said, not bothering with things like breathing or spaces between his words.
Scott was pretty sure he caught a few words in that sentence, but wanted to be sure before he said anything more. “What was that?”
This time, Hollander did take a breath. Two, even. “You made a difference for a lot of people.” Another breath. “Including me.” And another. “And what you did gave my boyfriend the courage to tell me he loved me.”
Scott was wrong. Hollander was not the next in line to give him empty phrases about his bravery. He was the first in line for something very different.
“Thank you for trusting me with this,” Scott said. It felt cheesy to say, but it was a classic response for a reason.
He cleared his throat, suddenly thick with emotion. He was happy for Hollander, knowing that he helped somehow. Selfishly, though, Scott was relieved by the knowledge that even if Hollander never came out to the public like he had, he wasn’t alone anymore.
Hollander laughed weakly, clearly trying to cover up some emotion of his own. “Seems like you might understand a little bit.”
Scott hoped he could be someone in Hollander’s corner who understood. He hadn’t intended to become a guru on how to be gay and play hockey, but he supposed it came with the territory of being the first out player. Not that anyone should take relationship advice from him. He had almost ruined his first real relationship by being terrified of being seen in public anywhere near his partner.
It also seemed like he might not exactly understand what Hollander was going through. You gave my boyfriend the courage to tell me he loved me, Hollander had said. Not you gave me the courage to tell my boyfriend I loved him. Hollander’s boyfriend also had something to fear. Maybe the guy was just grappling with what it meant to love an MLH player in secret. Scott had seen Kip go through the same thing. But something about Hollander’s phrasing made him think that the boyfriend could have just as much to lose from being involved with Hollander as Hollander could from being involved with him. Someone from the Metros’ front office, maybe? Or perhaps someone even closer to the game?
Scott skated over to Hollander and clapped him on the shoulder. “What do you say we call it a day? I’m pretty sure this much emotional vulnerability might make hockey robots like us short circuit.”
_____
Hollander finished up in the locker room around the same time as Scott and fell into step with him on the walk back to the hotel.
Inhospitable temperatures of the host city aside (seriously, couldn’t the go back to Miami like last year?), the organizers had planned things well. The hotel the players were staying at was only a five minute walk from the arena.
They walked in comfortable silence for a while. Scott understood how much it took out of a person to have such a scary conversation, so he didn’t want to push Hollander to say anything more.
Hollander put his hands in his pockets, then quickly removed them, then shoved them back in. “My, uh, boyfriend. Would you want to maybe meet him? You don’t have to or anything, it’s just…” he trailed off.
“It sucks having this person who means the world to you and not being able to show them off the way they deserve?” Scott offered.
Hollander smiled, a restrained but hopeful thing. “Yeah, that. I think he’s at the hotel if you wanted to now? Unless you have plans or anything.”
They rounded a corner and the hotel came into view. Hollander’s boyfriend being here suggested that maybe Scott had been on the money thinking it was someone who worked for the league or one of the teams. Or maybe the other thing.
Since he hadn’t gotten a text saying it was safe to seek him out, Scott figured Kip was still working on his thesis. Until he was done with that, Scott’s afternoon plans were nonexistent.
“Lead the way, he said, gesturing after Shane. He couldn’t say this was how he expected to spend the first day of All-Star weekend, but it was turning out pretty alright.
_____
“So you see, it is not my fault Shane needs to buy a new bed frame,” Ilya said, concluding a story that revealed in great detail why it was entirely his fault that the bed frame in Shane’s condo was no longer functional.
Kip was realizing he would have to hoard tidbits of Ilya that no one else could ever know the way a dragon hoards gold. Fiercely. Never giving nor letting anyone take it away. Breathing fire at anyone who dares to try. This was primarily about the big secret: Ilya’s relationship with Shane.
It also applied to the smaller things, like the fact that Kip has now seen the great Ilya Rozanov lying in bed on his stomach and kicking his feet like a middle school girl thinking about her crush.
Owing to some of the more x-rated parts of their conversation, Kip was sitting on the love seat - cuck chair, as Ilya had so elegantly described it - across the room. Ilya had gone quite in-depth, which Kip loved because he was a sucker for some salacious gossip (and had surprisingly acquired quite a few ideas to bring back to his and Scott’s bedroom in New York), but no way in hell was he sitting on that bed after hearing about it.
“I can’t say I’ve ever had that experience, but I’m sure getting to say you have is an ego boost you’ll be holding onto for a while,” Kip said.
“You’re telling me you have never had sex so hard you broke,” Ilya paused, reconsidering his words, “that the bed frame mysteriously collapsed underneath you?”
Kip shook his head.
“Ah, I see. It is because your boyfriend is boring and bad at sex.”
“Rozanov,” Kip began, trying to stop the smile threatening to creep onto his face in anticipation of Ilya’s reaction to what he had to say. “And I’m using your last name so you know I’m being serious. I think you know that’s not true. Are you really going to sit here and tell me you don’t at all see the appeal of the ‘boring,’ sweet guy next door stereotype, all-around good boy type?”
Naturally the hotel door opened at that moment and in walked two boring, sweet guy next door stereotype, all-around good boys.
Ilya looked pensively at Scott and Shane. Shane looked wide-eyed at Kip’s presence. Scott looked rapidly between Ilya and Shane.
“Fuck,” muttered Ilya.
“What the-“ Shane began.
“It was Rozanov?” Scott asked incredulously.
Kip barely managed to suppress a laugh at the rapid fire realizations the three hockey players were having.
Shane recovered first, turning to Scott. “You really didn’t know? I thought you were just being coy and giving me the chance to say things on my own time.”
“Looking back, I’m seeing some clues, but no, I really didn’t know you two were an item.”
Shane looked away from Scott and back to Kip.
“Hi, I don’t think we’ve really met before. I’m Kip,” he says because despite what any of his friends might say, he wasn’t raised in a barn. His father taught him at least some manners.
“They’re somehow sort of best friends,” Scott explained to Shane, gesturing between Kip and Ilya. “Let me know if you figure it out, because I don’t think I’ll ever understand it.”