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Rose Landry had dated her fair share of gay men. A background in theatre had made her well-rehearsed ‘maybe you’re into men’ speech necessary more than a few times. Shane Hollander, she mused as he sat next to her, blushing at Miles’ greeting, might be another.
“Good game tonight,” she tells him.
“Oh, thanks,” he says absently, “you watched?”
Rose tells him she had been checking the score, and he nods, not saying more about it. Shane had played decently, from what she’d seen in clips online, which was good since their opponent had been Boston, home of the other half of the Hollander-Rozanov rivalry in addition to the long-standing rivalry between the teams as well. When she had asked him a couple days ago about both rivalries, he had blushed and shrugged, “usually I like playing Rozanov, actually,” he’d confessed, “he uh, challenges me. He’s annoyingly good.” Rose had nodded. She’d seen a few Hollander-Rozanov face-offs. They were intense games, hockey at its finest. She reckoned if they ever played together it would be a thing of beauty. Tonight’s game had actually been a bit of a slump for both players, though.
A server comes by their table and Shane orders a beer. They all sit around chatting for a while, Rose and Shane with their hands entwined. Shane looks, well, a bit awkward. He hadn’t said too much the whole night and was sipping on his beer as slowly as he could in what she assumed was an attempt to look busy without getting drunk. This really was not his scene, but it was sweet of him to agree to coming for her. Even if he did look absurdly out of place amongst her friends. Well, we can fix that, she thinks, and asks him to dance with her.
“Oh,” Shane says, “no…I, uhhh.”
“Come on,” she urges him, “I never get to dance.”
And she does manage to get him on the dance floor, no thanks to Miles, who she is pretty sure is trying to sabotage her to get time alone with Shane. Maybe she’ll offer Shane his number, if she’s right about this whole thing. And what better way to gather more data than dancing, really?
Dancing with Shane was kind of like most things with Shane in that he was very awkward about it. She danced with him, and to his credit, he did sort of sway with her a bit, but he mostly seemed focused on her. He was staring a little, seemingly entranced by her movements. He smiled at her, but didn’t escalate or even return any of the advances she made. He didn’t even seem to know the lyrics to any of the songs, simply smiling along as she sang the lyrics. She had no doubt Shane Hollander liked her, there was a massively endearing earnestness about him, but she was now almost 100% convinced he didn’t like her. The way he had his hands hovering on her waist sealed the deal.
Then Miles cut in, and though he was admittedly a better dance partner than Shane, he kept making eyes at the boy in question. Rose wasn’t too offended by it. She spins around once and then when she looks back at the spot, Shane is gone. Probably back to the VIP area, or possibly home. But then she sees his head a bit farther away, towards the edge of the room and she figures maybe he’s just going to the bathroom.
He makes his way back over nothing after.
“We were thinking of heading out,” Rose tells him, spinning out of Miles’ grasp. “Maybe hitting up another club. You wanna come?”
“Oh, no that’s okay,” Shane tells her, and he doesn’t seem quite himself. He almost seems like he’s going to cry. “I, uh, I’ll walk you out, though,” he tells her, almost frantic.
“Are you okay?” Rose asks.
Shane just nods. She takes his hand, mostly as a comfort, and they make their way out of the club while Miles goes to collect his jacket.
They step out into the brisk night together, and she pauses for a moment, trying to decide if she should ask him what happened in there or not. She decides to start with the simpler question, “you drove, right?”
“Yeah,” Shane confirms, dropping her hand to root around in his pockets for his keys. He’s shaking a little.
Her follow up question is going to be are you okay to drive? but the doors to the club bang open behind them and someone stumbles out. “Fuck!”
The voice isn’t familiar to Rose, but Shane stiffens immediately and whips around. Rose turns to look. Ilya Rozanov stands in the doorway, the light from the club extinguishing slowly as the door closes behind him. He sees them at the same time as Rose notices him. They all three stare at each other for a moment. Or rather, Rose watches the other two stare at each other. When it becomes apparent no one else is going to say anything, Rose extends a hand towards Rozanov.
“Hi,” she says, “I’m Rose.”
He blinks at her, looks down at her hand, and then back up at her with hatred swimming in his eyes. He doesn’t shake her hand.
Rose looks over to Shane, who looks possibly more miserable than before. No one says anything for another moment and lets her hand fall kind of awkwardly to her side. “This is Rozanov,” Shane tells Rose, apparently deciding to introduce the man, “he’s-” Shane trails off briefly, obviously trying to decide what to say about the man in front of them, “he plays hockey, too.” Is what he finally lands on.
“I know,” Rose says slowly, turning back to look at Shane, “Michigan, remember?”
There’s the sound of a lighter flicking open, and Rozanov fishes for a cigarette. His hands are also shaking, Rose is interested to note. He finds a cigarette, and lights it.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Shane says, almost like an instinct, “it’s so bad for your lungs.”
A curious emotion flits across Rozanov's face before he schools it back into a mask of indifference, “and yet I am still best player in MLH.”
Shane scoffs, but the sound is half-hearted.
“What Hollander?” Rozanov asks, “more concerned about my smoking than your girlfriend?” He kind of spits out the last word, angry. Belatedly, Rose realizes, it’s also unmistakably hurt.
Shane blinks at him, then opens his mouth as if to say something. No words come out. Miles bursts through the door then, stopping short when he notices the weird tension in the air. He takes in the scene, then asks, “so, we still going to the next spot, Rose?”
“Yeah,” she breathes.
“I, um, I guess I’ll see you at the All-Star game?” Shane says by way of parting to Rozanov, sounding thoroughly miserable.
Rozanov takes a drag of his cigarette. Shane, very noticeably, focuses on his lips.
“Next time we play, I crush you,” Rozanov veritably snarls at him, and crushes out his cigarette under his foot.
Rose, Shane, and Miles head for the parking lot.
“So the rivalry is alive and well,” Miles comments. Rose just shoots him a look because Miles, who’d never watched a hockey game in his life, was commenting about the Hollander-Rozanov rivalry. That could only mean he’d looked Shane up in his spare time. And also Shane looked like he was about five seconds away from having a panic attack, so like it was so not the time.
“Uh, yeah,” Shane says, “um, I’m…goodnight Rose,” he says, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek and fleeing to his car.
Rose and Miles clamber into their waiting car and as she sits in the backseat she mulls over the interaction. It had obviously unsettled Shane. Maybe that was why he had wanted to leave. Perhaps he’d run into Rozanov on his way to the bathroom? It just didn’t make sense. She’d never heard Shane talk about him in a way that would have indicated he would inspire the kind of reaction Shane had had. And sure, Rozanov was kind of a well-documented asshole, and he had certainly been that, especially to her. It’s that that draws her up short, and the beginning of a thought so seemingly unlikely and shocking she’s inclined to dismiss it outright begins in the back of her mind. She settles back against the seat and just thinks huh.
~*~
Rose picks the location for her talk with Shane carefully. It’s an Italian restaurant, upscale, and private. She doesn’t want anyone to overhear because she’s sure Shane doesn’t want it getting out he might be gay. She tries to ease him into the topic, bringing up Miles and his obvious jealousy. Then she tries a different tactic, asking about gay players. Shane, probably not unsurprisingly, doesn’t really take the hint, so she just comes out and says it.
He looks a little bit like he wants to cry and starts apologizing to her, but there is a quiet resignation in his eyes.
“Can I ask,” she inquires, “if you’ve ever been with a man?”
He nods, as if afraid to say it out loud.
“Was it different?”
“Of course.”
“Was it better?” she asks gently.
He nods again.
She’s honestly a bit surprised. Shane is so reserved, and clearly not fully comfortable with his sexuality. He also has a lot to lose, if he sleeps with the wrong person. The fledgling idea in the back of her brain wriggles back towards the front, but she pushes it back. There’s absolutely no hard evidence to support it. Also Shane is basically the most anxious, rule-abiding individual she’s ever met. It just seems incredibly unlikely Shane would have dated Ilya Rozanov. There’s almost certainly some other reason for the weird behavior at the club the other night.
Rose and Shane continue to make casual conversation over dinner, which is nice. Shane is one of the most earnest people she’s met, and she’s glad he doesn’t seem to be taking their breakup and his coming out as an insurmountable hurdle.
At the end of the night she extracts a promise from him to stay friends and leaves him with a parting kiss.
He seems to take her suggestion they stay friends seriously because when she gets home, she has a text from him asking if she has recommendations for a personal stylist. She laughs, thrilled, and sends him the number of someone she knows locally. Then, because she can’t resist, she sends a follow up message asking if his request is related to “things and stuff” with a winky face.
His response doesn’t come right away. When her phone pings almost an hour later, his response is just a coy ‘maybe’. She grins widely, taking it as the evidence it is that she and Shane are going to be lifelong friends.
~*~
Several things happen over the next few months that make her convinced she had picked up on something that night at the club in Montreal. The first is the All-Star game. She doesn’t watch it live, re-shoots prevent that from being a possibility, but she does catch the highlights. And, well, she would have to be living under a rock to miss Rozanov pressing a kiss to the side of Hollander’s helmet. The moment is splashed all over the internet, paired with any variety of headlines proclaiming the new Hollander-Rozanov bromance. There’s a whole article in Variety, complete with testimony from some unnamed WAG that Hollander and Rozanov were acting friendly at the hotel, and were even seen lounging near the pool. Speculation runs abound that the rivalry is dead. Rose takes it all in, seeing the brilliant smile lighting up Shane’s face while Rozanov has his face smushed into his helmet.
It’s a far cry from the hostility at the club, and it’s clear there’s been a shift in the relationship. It’s the first piece of evidence Rose might be right. She decides to keep an eye out and play detective. She has one piece of something, and she intends to find more.
She doesn’t have to wait too long for the next. Mind you, the next thing that happens is Shane getting injured, so at first her undivided attention is devoted to his wellbeing. This video, too, shows up on the internet, but Rose doesn’t watch it more than once. It’s a clean hit, just a few moments into the Boston-Montreal game, delivered by the Boston enforcer. One moment, Shane is skating down the ice, having won the face-off, and a heart-stopping second later he’s laid out on the ice, unmoving. The first person at his side is Rozanov, completely stricken. He remains hovering near Shane with a look of, well, terror on his face until he’s forced back to his bench. Rozanov proceeds to have possibly his worst game of the year, but so does Montreal, so Boston prevails in the end.
Rose drops by the hospital to check in on Shane, who is thankfully fine aside from a broken collarbone and concussion, and on some pretty serious pain meds. He’s happy to see her though, greeting her with a wide smile and a joyful call of “Rose!”.
Rose sits and chats with him for a while until the nurse comes in. “My, you’re having quite the collection of visitors today, Mr. Hollander,” the nurse comments, “Ilya Rozanov was here first thing this morning,” she tells Rose.
“Was he?” Rose asks, sending Shane an interested look.
Shane grins widely, “he was!” he confirms joyfully. Rose suspects he probably would have reacted with decidedly more restraint had he not been high on painkillers.
She notes it with a raised eyebrow, and files it into her growing pile of evidence.
The next thing really has nothing to do with Shane directly, but means a lot to gay players in MLH in general. Scott Hunter kisses his boyfriend on live television after winning the Stanley Cup. It’s a moment that makes Rose squeal and kick her feet a little because, c’mon, that is so romantic! She also immediately texts Shane, just a string of exclamation points. He responds in kind and then also writes back something heartfelt about how brave Scott is. Rose retweets the photo of Scott and his boyfriend to show her support.
She calls Shane a few days later and they talk about it, and when she asks if it had changed anything for him he lets out a breath. There’s a pause. “I mean, yeah, sort of. It made me want to be brave too, I guess. Not like, come out, or anything,” he rushes to say, “but just…brave.”
She nods, even though he can’t see it, “I’m glad.”
“And it’s nice to know I’m not alone.”
“Did you reach out?”
Shane makes a noise of agreement. She can hear a rustling on his end and then the opening of a fridge. “Yeah. I mean, I sent him an email. I didn’t say, I was, um, gay, or anything,” Shane rushes over the word, and Rose wonders if it’s his first time saying it aloud in reference to himself. “But, uh, yeah, I just thanked him, basically. I think he could probably read between the lines, but I wanted to keep it vague.”
“Oh hey, my brother loved that puck you signed for him.”
“Did he? Good.”
“I thought he was going to kill me when I told him we’d broken up before he got to meet you.”
Shane laughs, “glad I could prevent a homicide.”
“Seriously.”
“Hey, listen, someone else is calling and I’m about to make a smoothie. Can I talk to you next week?”
“Sure, of course,” she agrees.
Just over a week later she’s in her trailer between scenes and bored and decides to give Shane a call. He picks up on the third ring.
“Shane! Hey!” She greets him.
“Hey Rose,” he says happily.
“How’s your head? You still staying with your parents?”
“No, no, I’m at my cabin now.”
There’s a splashing noise in the background. “Is someone there with you?” Rose asks, giddy.
“No, no, that was just a, uh, duck.”
“If you say so,” Rose agrees.
“Shane!” A voice that sounds an awful lot like Ilya Rozanov calls, “get off phone and in water!”
“Shane Hollander, did you bring a boy to your cottage?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shane whispers furtively into the phone, “but, uh, I’m grilling actually, and I need to flip the burgers so I’m going to let you go.”
“Have fun!” Rose says cheerfully.
“Talk to you later,” Shane promises.
The call ends and Rose sits there for a moment, smiling broadly. She hadn’t been wrong. Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. That was bound to cause quite a stir if it ever got out. She had a million questions to ask Shane, like how long it had been going on and if it was serious (she suspected it was otherwise why would he be at Shane’s cottage?) and could she meet him. And, importantly, how long had it been going on??? Since before she’d known Shane, she was sure of that, but how long before? It seemed likely that they’d had a fight given Rozanov’s downright hostility toward her, but unlikely they’d been actually dating before then.
Rose was thrilled. This was the best thing that had happened all week. She seriously needed all the details. How had this even happened? They couldn’t have had very many opportunities to get to know each other over the years, much less establish their mutual interest in men. It had to have been at an All-Star game, she decided. It was the only time they’d had had more than one night in the same place. Not this year, obviously, though she assumed they’d made up then, but maybe the year before. God, she had to know. The next time she called Shane, she’d tell him she figured it out and then get the answers. She had a feeling it would be a good story.
God, she was good at being a detective. Maybe she’d have to look into playing one for her next role.