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Shane closed his door slowly when heading out of his room, nervous that someone might hear him leaving his hotel room and decide to investigate what he may be up to. He contemplated tip-toeing up to Ilya’s room, but quickly decided that that would be way more suspicious.
“Okay.” he thought to himself “Act normal. Scott Hunter is a fossil and probably went to bed already.”
His heart was pounding in his chest, the excitement of knowing that he was about to see Ilya again mixing with the nerve wrecking fear of someone finding out.
“Right, just the cream chicken steak dish.” Scott said while holding the hotel phone up to his ear with one hand. “Actually-”
He used his shoulder to balance the phone so he could flip through the menu pages a little more easily. He landed on a page that had an assortment of wines and beers.
There were drinks in the mini bar fridge, but Scott loved the idea of having a beer with his meat. Or maybe he could get some wine. That would make the dish feel fancier.
“And a bottle of your Chardonnay, actually” Scott added, before ending the call with the receptionist.
He leaned back on the hotel couch and turned on the TV, careful not to accidentally open any pay-per-view content. He remembered seeing a post online about someone on his team.
“I work at the hotel where the New York Admirals were staying a while back and one of them racked up insaneee pay-per-view porn charges 😭😭😭😭😭”.
They never found out which hotel this was referring to, because that would have required the teammate to come forward and explain where this happened. Or maybe the same teammate was racking up these charges at every single hotel.
He pulled out his phone and called Kip.
“Hey!” Kip beamed on the other side of the line, happy to talk to his boyfriend.
“Hey, I’m back at the hotel” Scott couldn’t contain his urge to smile “Just ordered some chicken.”
“Oh! Sounds tasty!”
Scott looked around. He was in the corner of the single occupancy suite and sure that no one would be able to hear Kip unless he was on speaker.
“I seriously miss coming home to your home cooked meals right now” Scott said quietly, like someone might overhear the fact that another person may be cooking for him.
Just then, Scott heard a knock outside. He looked at the time on his phone. “Well… that was fast.” He knew that calling Kip was kinda risky. Maybe no one would know who he was talking to, but the deadly fear of being outed by either another player or a random hotel staff member made everything feel ten times more nerve wrecking for Scott.
“One second, food’s here.”
He opened the door. No one was there.
Scott stood in front of the door dumbfounded wondering if someone just ding-dong-ditched him. He stepped out and looked to the left. Nothing. Was he going insane? Then he heard what sounded like someone dropping their phone to his right and quickly turned around.
Scott lifted his eyebrows in shock.
“Hollander?”
Shane was standing right in front of the next hotel room and staring at Scott like he had just been caught stealing. Scott could have sworn he didn’t remember Hollander being his hotel neighbor this time. The entire section of this floor was reserved for the Boston Raiders and the only reason Scott was placed up here was because his last room had a broken coffee machine and the hotel upgraded him to the corner suite upstairs.
Scott furrowed his brows and looked at Shane. “Are you switching rooms too?”
Shane looked like he was having a panic attack. Scott knew what it was like to have those panic attacks all too well. But there was no way Shane knew what Scott went through. Scott knew he had to give himself a reality check and remind himself that others weren’t like him.
“I, uh…” Shane was freaking out. There was no way he would get away with seeing Ilya tonight. He had already been nervous about them making too much noise and Scott overhearing them, but now Scott would definitely try to overhear what they were up to. He wondered if he should just leave, but he felt frozen and stuck in the hallway in front of Ilya’s room.
Just then, the door opened and Scott saw Rozanov pop out from behind the door with a menacing look. Ilya froze when he realized that Shane was looking at someone else to his side.
“What on earth are you guys doing?” Scott remembered their little exchange earlier that day. His tone sounded both accusatory and beyond confused. He knew something was up, but he wasn’t even sure which conclusion to reasonably jump to.
Ilya felt just as stuck as he felt during all those interviews where native speakers used complex vocabulary and weird sentence structures that were too hard for him to follow. Ilya was still hoping Shane would take over this one too, but Shane looked stiff.
“Just… shittalking?” Shane managed to muster.
Scott looked at him with the most confused expression. “You guys are… meeting up to shittalk… off the ice?”
Shane felt like a deer in headlights. “Yes.”
“Like… gossiping?” Scott still wasn’t sure what conclusion to come to. This was definitely not right.
Ilya looked at Shane and realized it was his turn to take over. “Okey fossil sorry I do not understand you. What the fuck is ‘gossiping’?” He interrupted, trying not to let his voice show any shred of nervousness.
“It’s like shittalk. For women.” Shane’s voice sounded quiet and slightly shaky. He sounded more like he was asking a question than answering what Ilya had just asked.
“Aa yes Scott” Ilya exclaimed. “We are gossiping about your mother.” He felt like he was nailing this. He waved his hand. “You want to come? Help invite her for us? Is she on phone now?”
The absurdity of the whole situation had made Scott forget he was still holding his phone up to his ear.
“Oh - uh” he felt jumpscared as he re-processed the sensation of the phone against his face that his brain had tuned out. He had to hang up on Kip.
“I’ll call you back.” His voice sounded rushed, like he was running out of time to hang up.
“Okay. Love you-”
Fuck!
Scott hung up faster than he ever had before. Shane recognized that reaction. There was no way Shane heard that voice coming out of Scott’s phone just now. Scott looked mortified and Shane felt like he was looking into a mirror. Scott looked… just as frozen as Shane too.
They stood there staring at eachother, and no one felt truly able to move.
“Who was that?” Shane sounded accusatory but his face looked just as terrified as Scott’s, like they were mirroring each other.
“What the fuck are you talking about Hollander?” Scott barked back. A part of him felt like they might start drawing attention soon, and he realized that him yelling wasn’t helping.
“That wasn’t your mother was it?” Shane’s voice was a lot more quiet than Scott’s, but that just seemed to add even more weight to his words.
Ilya, who hadn’t even managed to overhear what Kip had just said on the phone started laughing. “Okey Hollander you are so childish. Maybe we do not invite fossil’s mother yes, maybe-?”
Scott wasn't sure he could even afford to let Rozanov finish that sentence out loud at that point. He quickly rushed towards Ilya like he was trying to steal the puck and shoved him into room 1221. It was all happening way too fast and Scott’s reaction took both Shane and Ilya by surprise because they would never expect something like this off the ice.
Ilya was saying “Woa woa man what the fuck” at this point, but Scott quickly turned his focus to Shane. Before Shane could react and run away, Scott yanked him into the room and slammed the door behind them.
“Okay! Is joke! What the fuck is your problem?” Ilya was waving his hands around to emphasize how absurd Scott’s reaction was to him.
“You guys can’t say a word about this” Scott was being dead serious. He looked at Shane “Hollander if you ever run your mouth I swear I will tell everyone you guys are fucking!”
“What?” Shane looked like he had just seen a ghost.
“Mouth about what! You imagine us fucking in fantasy because you are gay?” Ilya was raised to hide any fear he may feel with anger. You could not show fear growing up in Russia.
“Shut the fuck up Rozanov!” Scott moved to punch him, but Shane rushed to fill the space between them.
“Hunter, stop!” His eyes were red. Scott finally looked at Shane, and realized that unlike Rozanov, he wasn’t joking or teasing him.
Shane looked Scott right in the eyes. “You can’t tell people. You can hit me if you want but… don’t actually tell people that. It would fuck everything up.”
There was so much panic in his voice. It took Scott a second to process this.
Scott had wondered if Shane and Ilya were up to something from the moment he overheard their conversation earlier that day, but he also had to remind himself that most people weren’t actually gay.
The thought that someone might be just like him was usually just a way to cope. Scott knew that at the end of the day, he was completely alone in what he was going through. He knew that even if he sometimes projected hard enough to see himself in others, that’s all it ever was. Just projection. There was no way someone else could be going through the same thing. Right?
“Wait. Fuck.” Scott lowered his shoulders. He raised his hands to his own face so he could take a deep breath and exhale into them.
Maybe there was no “okay, but he’s not actually like that” reality check here. This was real.
“Right. I won’t.” Scott started while avoiding Shane’s gaze. “We gotta look out for each other, right Hollander?”
It took Shane a second to process what that actually meant. Was Scott… actually like him? Maybe he didn’t just imagine overhearing a guy say “love you” to Scott Hunter. Normally he would have told himself that there are a lot of girls that just happen to have deeper voices. He had certainly met women that just naturally had deeper voices before. But with the way Scott reacted… and the way he was acting right now…
It hit him that Scott had just gone through the same thought process.
Just then, a knock outside startled them.
“Room Service”
Scott tried to pull himself together “One second”
Scott stepped out and was met with a scrawny redhead that was clearly just picking up night shifts at this hotel after college. There was no way this kid knew who Scott was, and that was the most comforting thing in that moment.
“Yes, hi. That’s my cream chicken and wine” Scott nodded.
The redhead turned around from the door next to him and looked at Scott. “Sir this is for 1223. You’re in 1221”
“Yup. Just… about to get drunk with some teammates over here.”
The redhead raised an eyebrow and looked at him. “Sir this is being charged to room 1223. Do you at least have your key on you?”
Scott panicked. Did he just lock himself out of his room too? He frantically checked his pockets and realized that the only thing he had on him was his wallet.
“I… uh…” He opened his wallet hoping to at least find his ID, but the spare key card was there too. “Right here. 1223. Hunter.”
The redhead took the card that was being offered and balanced the tray on one hand. “What does he expect me to do with this” he thought before deciding to just use the key card on the door in front of him.
The door made a familiar unlocking noise and the redhead decided that he was not being paid nearly enough to care about what this guy was up to. “Alright. Enjoy your night” He said as he placed the key on the tray and handed the tray to Scott.
Scott slid back into 1221 and let the door close behind him.
“Right. I guess I should leave you guys to it” Scott looked at them awkwardly “I’ll just head out in a second when the coast is clear.” He wondered Shane and Ilya said anything to each other while he was talking to the room attendant.
“Ugh Scott you are so boring. I can not invite your mother if you just eat chicken in other room and listen.”
Shane looked at Ilya.
Ilya huffed, annoyed with both of them. “Okeyy. You can stay to… “gossip”. But you pay wine for everyone, fossil.”
Scott chuckled, feeling the tension ease a little. “Alright, well for the record I’m not even that much older than you guys.”