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It was a warm night, even for Los Angeles in February. The street spilled over with women in shimmering plastic dresses and men in tight black t-shirts. In Boston, the men wore button-downs, but it was too warm in Los Angeles, even in the dead of winter, for that kind of thing.
It was McArthur’s birthday, and he’d splurged on a 10-passenger limo to tote them from club to club.
One of the other guys had coordinated various bottle services and VIP rooms along the way. Ilya had come along because he was team captain, and it was something to do.
The whole night had seemed more about conspicuously showing off rather than actually dancing or even getting drunk, but that suited Ilya fine under the circumstances.
He had no intentions of bringing anyone home. His conversation with Shane in Tampa last week, and their subsequent activities in his hotel room, had sated him. Well, sated him when it came to other people. He still wanted Shane. He wasn’t sure it was possible not to want Shane. But it was better not to think about that, and he let Marlow pound him on the back and offer him a cheap plastic flute of cheap plastic champagne. No, not even champagne, it was prosecco. But he drank it anyway.
The club looked like every other club in Los Angeles, with vertical strips of neon pink strip lighting and circular couches that probably wouldn’t fare well under a black light.
The line snaked around the block, it was some sort of special VIP night. Ilya remembered going to clubs in Moscow when he was a teenager with his teammates and waiting for ages, his entire evening dependent on a gruff man with a clipboard whose only goal was to ensure that there were at least two women for every man. But now, of course, their group strode to the front of the line. They were on the right list, because they were celebrities (albeit very minor by Los Angeles standards). He doubted anyone in here would recognize them. Los Angeles was most certainly not a hockey town. But that had never bothered Ilya. They were ushered to a VIP table in the VIP section with VIP table service and VIP champagne that still tasted like carbonated cardboard. His teammates whooped happily when an attractive woman in a two-piece silk outfit showily presented them with a tower of shot glasses. The tray had cheap flashing lights along the edges, and something about them was giving Ilya a headache. They did a round, and Ilya sank back into his seat slightly while the others, most of them younger, yelled meaningless charmless remarks at each other about what a great time they were having.
He liked clubbing, liked dancing, but he could feel the charm of it beginning to slip away with each passing year. He couldn’t hear for shit either.
Carmichael, Ilya’s favorite defenseman after Marlow, seemed to sense Ilya’s mood. Probably because he was a good defenseman who paid attention to what his forwards were thinking. Unfortunately, he solidified his status as Ilya’s second favorite by shoving Ilya off the couch and saying, “Come on, man, let’s get out there.”
A few of the rookies bobbed behind them as Ilya and Carmichael made their way to the VIP section of the dance floor, but the rest of his teammates were still at the table, apparently wanting to make sure that everyone saw them at the VIP table before they made any approaches on the dance floor.
A woman in a tight green bandage dress danced on him. It was fine, fun even, to gyrate against her, though his cock remained uninterested. But he was a good dancer and so was she, and Carmichael had paired off with a willowy friend of hers. Carmichael liked tall women. Ilya didn’t particularly care about height. In fact, he didn’t care about most things about women these days. He was attracted to them, of course. He could recognize that this woman and all of her friends were exceptionally beautiful. But there was no action to it. It was as though he was watching a distant actress on the other side of the screen instead of a real person who, if only he were to ask, would very possibly do more with his cock than merely grind into it through two layers of clothing.
Perhaps sensing a slow in his momentum, the woman twisted to make eye contact with Ilya, sweeping her slightly damp hair to the other side of her neck in a familiar preamble to pressing her lips against his. Ilya smiled and repositioned his hands on her hips, but did not move in to match. She seemed unruffled, and they danced face-to-face for the rest of the song, but when the beat shifted, she broke apart and gave him a friendly parting squeeze before beginning to dance on a giggling friend in precisely the same manner she had with Ilya.
Carmichael had drifted off with a different girl. Ilya moved back toward the VIP table, checking his phone. It was only 11. Midnight seemed a reasonable enough time to bow out, he bargained with himself. An hour of drinking and shooting the shit with his teammates (who he did, he reminded himself with some difficulty, generally like), and then he could go home, put something on the TV, and— And text Shane. Because if he was being honest with himself, he would rather have spent this entire evening on his phone gossiping with Shane about their respective teammates or asking Shane what he thought about the Abernathy-Smith trade rumors. He opened his texts with Shane reflexively. They hadn’t texted each other at All Stars, hadn’t needed to really, so the last texts were from that disastrous night in November.
Ilya: 8pm
Jane: Here
The texts were nothing. Most of their texts were nothing. Especially since Ilya deleted anything particularly juicy.
Maybe it was the cheap prosecco that made him text now.
Ilya: Aren’t you going to congratulate me?
He regretted it as soon as he sent it. He knew Shane would tell him it was only Los Angeles, hardly a top-caliber team. But there was something too vulnerable about even asking. They hardly congratulated each other after every win, not when they both had so many. But Shane responded at once.
Jane: Congratulate you on probably losing your goalie after this season? Sure.
Shane followed this with several party hat and confetti emojis, which made Ilya smile.
Ilya: Lucky that you’re the only Metro who can find the back of the net.
He headed back to the VIP table. Walters caught his eye and gestured at him almost frantically, and he sped up, wondering if one of the rookies had overindulged. A perfect excuse to leave.
His teammates were clustered around the table, along with a few newcomers, most of them women.
“Rozy!” said Eriksson. “Look who it is!”
Ilya looked, and his stomach flipped over. Rose Landry was perched on the edge of the VIP couch. Ilya felt like he had been punched in the face. Or maybe he wanted to punch someone in the face. Probably Eriksson.
Ilya retroactively amended his earlier thoughts - he fucking hated his teammates, every one of them, even Marlow.
Rose Landry was smiling at him. Ilya felt a strange sense of deja vu.
Her brother Michael was practically levitating, more dazzled by this company than any red carpet awards show she’d brought him to. He had tripped over his tongue in his attempt to compliment the players present, rattling off stats they no doubt already knew, but had quickly fallen into a conversation with a player who had been introduced to her as Marlow.
She could have left. Michael was a grown man who was perfectly fine on his own, but the Boston players had been eager to talk to her too. She wasn’t sure if it was because they simply wanted to be around a celebrity, because they imagined “stealing” her from Shane, or because they hoped she had a type, but it hardly mattered.
They’d called her “Hollander’s girl,” which she disliked. Both because of the implied sexism (she was after all quite successful in her own right) and the implication that she was still in a relationship with Shane Hollander. They had broken things off two months earlier.
She doubted Shane was telling people they were still dating, but it wasn’t like he’d sent out a mass email to every player in the league informing them that he would no longer be papped with Rose.
She smiled tolerantly and discreetly pulled out her phone.
Rose: Ran into half of the Bears at a club in LA wtf lol
Shane: That’s crazy
“Shit, you have to meet Rozy!” said one of the Bears players, waving into the crowd behind her head. If she was being honest, she did want to meet Ilya Rozanov. The other players were somewhat interchangeable, but Ilya Rozanov was Shane’s rival of a decade. Shane hadn’t talked about him much, only to say once that he was an asshole, but then later, contradictingly, that he “wasn’t so bad.”
Ilya Rozanov was a specimen. He was tall, looming over them. His soft curls balanced out his perfectly masculine jawline. He knew he was attractive, men like him always did. He wasn’t necessarily her type, but, like Shane, he did have a kind of undeniable leading-man kind of beauty—the sort that drew the eye and held it, equal parts arrogance and charm, impossible to ignore once noticed. Though he didn’t look charming now. He was staring flatly, mouth tight, but she could see something working under his jaw.
She smiled awkwardly. Did he hate Shane that much? That he would find the sight of Shane’s supposed girlfriend infuriating?
She smiled awkwardly.
“We’re gonna make her and Mike here into Bears fans!” said Marlow, the player who had been talking to Michael, giving her brother a familiar thump on the back. Michael looked like all of his Christmases had come at once, sitting here surrounded by Bears players about to be introduced to one of the best players in the league.
Rozanov graced them with a curt introductory nod.
“That fight with Larsson last week was incredible, man!” Michael gushed, apparently taking Rozanov’s coldness as his natural state. “What did you say to him?”
Rozanov quirked a small smile at the reminder of his own ability to incite recent player-on-player violence. “Is always easy with Houston. They are soft. Too much sun.” He gestured about the room, seemingly indicating that everyone present in the club shared the same critical weakness.
The occupants of the couch slid down to accommodate Rozanov, and he settled reluctantly on the opposite edge, directly facing her. Instead of speaking to her however, he removed his phone from his pocket and began typing something, though she could feel his eyes on her too. What, he wasn’t even going to talk to her? He hated Shane that much?
She tried to engage with the conversation of the players nearest to them, who had been introduced to her as Duffy and Erikkson. Unfortunately, their conversation seemed to be dissecting that night’s game and complaining about the opposing team’s defense, which held very little appeal for Rose at the moment.
“What are you doing here?” Rozanov said to her.
Rose raised her eyebrows. “I live here.”
“C’mon, man, don’t be an asshole to Hollander’s girl,” said Erikkson, nudging Rozanov in the ribs. He was tall with wispy blonde hair and a faint accent. Erikkson gave her a friendly conspiratorial grin. “We’re gonna get her to tell us all of Hollander’s dirty laundry so you can use it against him in the next face-off!”
It was obviously a joke, but Rose felt her stomach twist a little. “I’m not saying a word,” she said, making sure to inject humor into her tone. But she wasn’t. And it suddenly seemed important that Shane knew she wasn't. In a fun chill ex-girlfriend way, of course.
Rose: They’re trying to pump me for info but don’t worry I won’t tell Ilya Rozanov about your weird fridge organization system lol
Dots appeared as Shane began typing his response, then stopped again. Surely Shane didn’t think she would really say anything, did he?
Rose: I’m just joking.
More dots appeared and disappeared. No response.
“Hollander does not have dirty laundry,” said Rozanov flatly. “He is choir boy.”
“No one is that perfect!” said Duffy. He was younger than the others by at least a few years. He was missing a front tooth. Both of Shane’s front teeth were fake. They’d been replaced twice, he told her, with a paradoxical pride. She couldn’t see Rozanov’s teeth.
Someone interjected with a story about a Philadelphia player who had had an impeccable reputation until he’d been unveiled as the ringleader of a prescription drug smuggling ring. She thought she remembered that story from TMZ.
Rozanov went back to his phone. Whatever he was doing seemed only to be irritating him further, he was practically scowling. One of the other players tried to clumsily look over Rozanov’s shoulder at his phone screen, but was impeded by Rozanov tilting the phone and giving the offender a hard shoulder check. She had to admit some curiosity about Rozanov. She knew of him even before she met Shane, everyone did, but he was always presented as the antithesis of Shane. But she knew better than most that a public persona was not always reality, even if Shane had been remarkably similar to his own wholesome, polite Canadian boy image, save one very specific difference. Was Ilya Rozanov really a terrible heel?
“Shane does not have a secret family or a prescription drug-smuggling empire. And he is much nicer than you assholes.” She kept her voice light, but she meant this too. The group laughed.
“Maybe he has one of those weird secret addictions like that lady on TLC who eats mattress foam,” said one of the other players.
This remark resulted in a brief conversational detour covering the existence and merits of a TV show to showcase people eating mattress foam, and what else the people on this show were habitually eating. Rose was more of a Bravo person, so had nothing to contribute to this conversation, and apparently neither did Ilya Rozanov, though he had finally put away his phone. He was staring at her again instead.
“Yeah, dude, Hollander’s addiction is hockey,” said Erikkson. “He probably falls asleep reading books about hockey and then recites plays in his sleep.”
This was not entirely false, and Rose took a sip of her drink to hide a traitorous smile.
But she caught Rozanov’s eye as she did so. For the first time since he had arrived at the table, he had smiled. Very briefly, but it had definitely been a smile. A small odd moment passed between them. He blinked and reached across the table, plucking an untouched shot from the tray in the middle of the table and downing it.
The waitress came over and offered them another round. Rose made to get up, but Michael gave her a silently pleading look and she acquiesced, ordering a rum & coke and remaining where she was at the end of the couch, facing Ilya Rozanov.
“Okay, but do you power Hollander down at the end of the night?” said Duffy, showing off that missing tooth as he leered.
Rose regretted indulging this line of questioning. She was formulating something suitably cutting when Rozanov jumped in. “Shut the fuck up, Duffy,” he said casually. “Don’t be a fucking tool.”
Duffy looked genuinely chastened, shrinking back a little. Erikkson, to his credit, nudged Duffy in the ribs as though to reinforce the same message.
“We’re not all assholes,” Erikkson said to Rose apologetically. “Even if we can’t be as nice as Hollander.”
“I’m bored,” Rozanov proclaimed dramatically, slamming the empty shot glass on the tray. “You idiots are boring me.”
There was a small outcry.
“There is alcohol and dancing and beautiful women and all you want to do is talk about Hollander.”
“Are you jealous, Rozy?”
“No, fuck you,” Rozanov snapped.
Was he jealous? If he was interested in her, he certainly wasn’t acting like it.
Eriksson took the hint and asked Rose a question about a movie she’d done last year, to which she gave the standard press answer, though it seemed to make him happy enough. Michael, who had heard far too much about her career to find any aspect of it interesting, had already become engrossed in a conversation with several of the players on the other side of the table. The conversation drifted toward other movies the group had seen recently, with Rose making periodic low-effort contributions.
She pulled out her own phone, absentmindedly planning her escape, even if she had to leave Michael behind. He was a big boy, he could find his way home.
Shane had finally texted back.
Shane: I know. Thanks <3
When she looked up, Rozanov was staring at her again, because of course he was. He looked happier though. He wasn’t smiling, but his posture had relaxed. The look he was giving her now was more speculative than angry.
“Are you filming any movies soon?” said Rozanov conversationally.
Oh, so he could have a human conversation now? Fine. “I have two weeks off before I have a location shoot.”
“What location?” he asked.
“Atlanta.” Rozanov nodded approvingly, as though she had passed a test.
“Is it a very long shooting?”
She didn’t bother correcting his grammar. There was something off here, though she couldn’t put her finger on it. None of the others were paying attention, too busy shouting over each other about the Fast and Furious movies, the table apparently being split on some crucial plot point. Further down, she could hear the players closer to Michael regaling him with the wild post-game nights out they’d had in other cities.
“I’ll be there until the end of March.”
“Do you have…summer plans then?”
What exactly was with this line of questioning? Why did Ilya Rozanov care how she was spending her summer? “Erm, mostly shooting in LA. I don’t get much time off.”
Rozanov nodded again.
“What about you?” she asked, since it seemed polite.
“Hockey. We will play Montreal in two weeks.”
Weren’t you the one who wanted everyone to stop talking about Shane?
“Lose to Montreal in two weeks, you mean,” she said loyally.
His mouth quirked up again, enjoying the dig more than he should.
“You’re a good friend to Hollander. Is good.”
Rose blinked. She was, of course, Shane’s friend. But as far as anyone knew, as far as Rozanov should know, they were dating. Everyone else at the table had assumed they were together, and Rose had said nothing to contradict this. At worst, she and Shane were exes. Not friends.
Something clicked.
Her mouth fell open.
Rozanov smirked.
Are you jealous, Rozy?
Ilya Rozanov leaned back against the couch languidly. His eyes stayed locked on her, sharp and assessing, like a lion surveying the edges of its territory. Though he didn’t seem threatened – it was more like she was a small prey animal to be observed and dismissed without effort.
“You’ve known each other a long time,” she said carefully.
“Since we were drafted.”
She didn’t bother hiding her surprise. She was trying to reconcile this with everything she’d ever heard about Shane and Rozanov. Did he mean what she thought she meant? Did any of this mean what she thought it meant?
Rozanov’s smirk had become permanent, and he lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug.
His phone lit up again. He broke her gaze to glance down at the screen, then carefully relocked it and tucked it back in his pocket with excessive care.
“It says I must be nice to you.”
The remark would have seemed nonsensical to anyone paying attention, which no one was. It was as though they were alone at the table.
“Are you going to be nice to me?”
He rolled his eyes and sighed with intentional theatricality. “Yes. I think so.”
“Okay then.”
“It was nice to meet you, Rose Landry.”
“It was nice to meet you too, Ilya. Maybe we’ll see each other again sometime.”