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2007
Shane has played hockey with Luke since they were kids.
They lived a few houses down from each other, so their parents would take turns picking them up from practice and dropping them off. It was an easy friendship for Shane. They both liked hockey so Shane never had to feel bad about constantly bringing it up. Luke never seemed to mind when Shane would list statistics from memory. He seemed impressed.
Shane didn’t always get along with other guys on the teams he played with. They would get easily annoyed with him. He often overheard them talking about him, throwing around words that Shane would recoil at. He wasn’t always welcomed by everyone, but Luke didn’t mind.
In high school, before Luke quit hockey because he was more interested in figure skating, he and Shane shared a hotel room while they were out in Michigan for a game. They had shared hotels before, and Shane always loved it.
Tonight, they lie in their beds and talk as the clock hits nearly midnight. Shane knows he’ll be tired tomorrow, but he likes talking to Luke. He doesn’t always find people he can easily talk to.
“Did you know that Jackson slept with Carter’s sister?” Luke asks, laughing to himself.
“What? No way.”
“Yes! I swear.”
“That’s crazy.”
Luke hums in agreement. “I don’t see how it’s fair fucking Jackson can get with a girl, but I can’t.”
Shane laughs, but it doesn’t sound convincing, not even to him. He hates when this topic comes up. He has no interest in girls. For a long time, it was easy for him to tell himself it was because he prioritized hockey. Lately, though, he’s worried that’s not the only reason.
When Shane doesn’t say anything, Luke goes, “You haven’t even kissed a girl.”
“Fuck you!” Shane throws one of his pillows at Luke’s bed. “I have!”
“Oh my god, Shane, that does not count.”
Shane has told Luke plenty of times about when he kissed Abbey at the end of the night at their grade seven dance. “Yes, it does. How would it not?”
“Because you haven’t done anything since.”
Shane picks at his fingers from underneath the covers. “So?”
Quietly, Luke says, “You don’t even seem interested.”
His chest aches when he hears this. He can tell where this is headed. Shane has had enough guys chirp at him for acting gay, even when Shane didn’t think he was doing anything that would suggest his sexuality wasn’t straight. This isn’t some guy in a locker room or on the ice, though. This is Luke. Shane feels like he can trust him. He needs to talk to someone about it.
“I, um, I don’t know if I am,” Shane admits. He stares at the ceiling. His face feels hot.
There is a long pause. “Like…you don’t want to have sex at all?”
“No. Not like – “ Shane swallows thickly. “I just sometimes wonder if I’m not even interested in girls. At all.”
“Shane,” Luke says. There is an urgency to his words that makes Shane look over. He’s sitting up in his bed now, eyes serious as he looks over at Shane. “You’re really good at hockey. Better than anyone on any team we’ve ever been on. You know that you’ll be scouted. But if anyone hears anything about you like that…it’s over. They won’t take you seriously.”
Of course. Right. Shane tries to breathe evenly.
“You can’t tell anyone, okay?”
Shane nods. “Yeah, no. I wouldn’t. It was just a stupid thought. I don’t know.”
Luke lies back down in bed and Shane rolls over slightly so he can’t see his face.
2011
After dragging his feet for months about it, Shane finally agrees to get his wisdom teeth out.
They give him something that makes him feel so good that he really doesn’t remember much of anything from the procedure. When it’s done, his mother picks him up and drives him back to their house. She keeps turning her head every few seconds to check on him.
“I’m fine,” he says, mouth weirdly full. “I feel great actually.”
Shane’s mother laughs. “You’re in a good mood.”
“So, so good,” Shane mutters. He can’t remember the last time he felt this good. He presses his fingers against the cool glass of the window. “Can’t wait to get back on the ice.”
“You’ll have to recover for a few days.”
Shane groans.
“And don’t forget you have a few different ads to film next month.”
Shane groans again.
“I know. But they’re important. You know that.”
“Dumb.”
“It’s not all bad. You’ve been invited to some event in Paris later this year. C’est bon, non?”
Shane has been to Paris before. It kind of smelled weird. He loved the food, though. “Ooh, baguettes. I’m not supposed to eat those.”
“It won’t kill you to have one baguette, honey,” she says. She smiles at him, and Shane thinks maybe he can allow himself one baguette. “Plus, that famous singer will be there. You know, the one with the short hair.”
Shane squints at her for a long moment. “Who?”
“I don’t know her name. But she’s famous, and she seems like a nice young woman. Maybe you two could get to know each other.”
Shane buries his head in his hands. “Ew.”
“Ew? She’s gorgeous, Shane. Don’t be so mean.”
“Sure, she’s pretty. She’s just…not for me.”
His mother laughs. “You don’t like short hair on girls?”
Shane and his mother do not talk about girls. They talk about hockey, and ad deals, and family, and things that are not about Shane’s romantic interests. Shane feels like he is in middle school getting the sex talk again.
“Girls. Just girls. They’re so…” Shane makes a face. He doesn’t even know how to finish his sentence. He feels sleepy.
His mother is clearly enjoying this version of him, though. “Shane, are you scared of girls still?”
She doesn’t get it. Shane did technically go through a phase where he was a little scared of girls. He spent all his free time with guys playing hockey. At school, he barely had any interest in girls. When he started having to go to dumb events, he had to spend more time talking to girls. His mother used to get such a kick out of how much Shane would blush when they talked to him, or the way he would fumble over all his words.
He wasn’t scared of girls in the same way anymore. He was scared of the way they made him feel, or rather what they didn’t make him feel.
“I don’t want to talk about girls,” Shane whines.
“That’s fine. You don’t need a girlfriend right now. You’re so busy.”
Shane leans his head against the window. He thinks about Ilya and smiles to himself. He wishes Ilya could just be his girlfriend.
2016
Shane finds out that he loves tequila.
He had never really tried it before, but he regrets all the time he wasted not drinking tequila after he tries some. After so long avoiding alcohol, he lets himself get talked into a few drinks with some of his teammates. Hayden could tell something was wrong with Shane. He did try to talk to him, but Shane refused to get into it. Hayden didn’t need to know that Shane was trying desperately hard to forget all about his feelings for Ilya Rozanov.
After some convincing, Hayden takes Shane out because it’s how he deals with his problems. Shane decides that for one night, he’ll try it out. After a few drinks, he loves it. He doesn’t feel awkward and unsure of what to say. He feels warm and surrounded by friends.
“He doesn’t drink. Like ever,” Hayden says. He’s got an arm thrown around Shane’s shoulders. Shane isn’t sure why he’s talking about Shane like he isn’t just right there. “He doesn’t really know his limits yet.”
“Not true!” Shane shouts in his ear. “I’m fine!”
“I think we should get back to the hotel,” Hayden says, finally speaking to Shane. “We have to fly out pretty early tomorrow and I don’t want you throwing up on the plane.”
“Can’t wait to leave Boston,” Shane mutters. “Fuck Boston. Fucking Rozanov lives here.”
“Fuck that guy!” someone shouts.
Shane shakes his head. “No. Definitely not.”
They take an Uber back to the hotel. Shane can’t stop talking about the game. He goes through every minute of it that he can remember, which isn’t much, and Hayden listens patiently.
“God, and Ilya – I mean Rozanov. He is so annoying. I hate how good he is at hockey. Seriously.”
“He’s not good. You are.”
When they get back to the hotel, Shane flops into his bed with his shoes on. Now his bed is dirty, he thinks.
“Rozanov changes the sheets for me,” Shane mumbles quietly.
Hayden is across the room digging through his suitcase. He comes back over to Shane and asks, “What about Rozanov? You’ve brought him up, like, fifty times tonight, dude.”
“No, I have not! Like two times maybe. I don’t want to talk about him.”
“You’re going to be angry at yourself if you sleep in your clothes and shoes.”
Shane struggles to take off his shoes. He gives up after a moment and looks up to see Hayden texting on his phone. He’s smiling at the screen. “Are you texting Jackie?”
Hayden nods, not looking up.
“When did you know that you wanted to marry her?”
“When did I know what?” He is looking up at him now, an amused eyebrow raised at Shane.
“Like…I don’t know. When did you know?”
He laughs. “Jesus, Shane. I didn’t peg you for a sappy drunk.”
“Just tell me!”
“I don’t think I have a moment, okay?” Hayden tells him. “It happened so fast. She was just right for me in so many ways. We got along so well.”
Ilya is not right for Shane.
Shane feels like he could cry suddenly. He wishes he could be like Hayden. He wants to run into a woman at a café or a book store and fall in love after a few conversations. He wants to get married and cry when she comes down the aisle in a white dress. He wants to be normal.
“I wish I had what you had,” Shane admits quietly.
“Hey, you will. Give it some time.”
“No. It’s impossible.”
Hayden puts his phone down now. He’s watching Shane carefully. He looks so worried. “I’m not trying to set you up because I’m worried that you’re behind or something like that. I just want you to be happy. It will happen for you.”
“What if it doesn’t? What if I don’t want it?”
Shane is terrified about having to pretend for the rest of his life. He hates the thought of stringing someone along just so that people can think he’s normal. He doesn’t know if he can do it, and he’ll be a single man for the rest of his life. Everyone will be so disappointed in him. They’ll feel so bad for him.
“I think you should get to bed,” Hayden finally says, quieter than before. He plugs in Shane’s phone and then clicks off the bedside lamp.
2017
Shane sits on a hotel bed in Tampa Bay while Ilya stands across from him.
“I think…I think I’m gay.”