Chapter Text
January 2021 – Ottawa
The club that night was packed, something that would have made Ryan anxious just a few short years ago. By now, though, he was used to it. And it was easy to forget about everyone and everything else when Fabian was onstage. Lovely, beautiful Fabian. Even after two years together, Ryan sometimes still couldn’t believe that Fabian was his. That this gorgeous, talented man loved him back.
He stared with rapt attention as Fabian sang the final chorus of his encore song and the crowd erupted into thunderous applause, his concentration only breaking when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed someone approaching him. He pulled his gaze away from his boyfriend, who was blowing kisses at the crowd, and refocused it on the dark-haired man headed his way.
He looked familiar.
Wait.
No. It couldn’t be…
Troy Barrett?
At a Fabian Salah show?
In Ottawa?
“Hey,” Barrett said, coming to a stop in front of him.
What the hell was this? Ryan should already be making his way backstage to meet up with Fabian. That’s where he wanted to be. With Fabian. Not trapped in a conversation with Troy fucking Barrett, of all people.
But curiosity got the better of him. “Barrett? What are you doing here?”
“I came with a friend.”
A vague response that did nothing to clear the situation up. As he stood there, unsure of what to say next, an unwelcome memory pushed its way to the front of Ryan’s mind.
He’s on a plane, somewhere over the flat vastness of the American Midwest. There’s turbulence, sending his brain spiraling into a panic. He grips the arms of his seat, knuckles white. In front of him, Dallas Kent is showing Troy Barrett something on his phone, both of them seemingly unbothered by the bumpiness the plane is currently experiencing.
Normally, Ryan would try to ignore whatever it is that Kent and Barrett are saying, but he finds himself focusing on their words, anything to take his mind off the fact that he is hurtling through the air in a metal tube that is being jostled roughly up and down.
“She’s fucking hot, right?” Kent is saying.
“Totally.”
Ryan wonders if Barrett has ever disagreed with anything Kent’s said. Kent must love it, having a best friend who’s actually more of a devoted little lackey.
“She was so fucking desperate for it too, man. You wouldn’t believe it,” Kent says. “And get this, afterwards, we’re lying there, right? And she tells me that a couple years ago, she hooked up with Rozanov. She said it only happened the one time. She thought he’d text her the next time he was in town, but he never did. She was like, ‘You’ll text me, right? You won’t ghost me like he did, will you?’” Kent snorts. “So fucking desperate.”
“Damn,” Barrett says. “You’ve resorted to nailing Rozanov’s leftovers? Maybe you’re the one who’s desperate.”
Kent whacks Barrett in the arm. Barrett whacks him back. They both laugh.
Ryan’s stomach churns and not because of the turbulence.
Back in the present, he glanced around. Was Dallas Kent the friend that Barrett was here with? He couldn’t imagine that Kent would ever show up to one of Fabian’s shows. But, up until mere moments ago, he couldn’t have imagined that Barrett would either. Luckily, at least from his cursory glance around the room, it appeared that Kent was nowhere in sight. “Why are you in Ottawa?” he asked, redirecting his attention back to Barrett.
Barrett looked surprised by the question. “I play here now.”
Wow, Ryan was even more out of the hockey loop than he’d realized. “Oh,” he said. “Sorry. I don’t follow hockey too closely anymore.”
The fact that Barrett was playing for Ottawa now still didn’t explain what he was doing here in this club though. And why it appeared that he’d come over here to make small talk with Ryan like they were old pals.
“It’s okay.” Barrett tilted his head toward the recently vacated stage. “Is that really your boyfriend?”
Ryan smiled, forgetting, for a moment, who he was talking to. “Yeah. I know, I can’t believe it either.”
Barrett didn’t respond right away, his gaze fixed on Ryan’s face. The pride Ryan had been feeling a second ago slipped away. He suddenly felt very nervous. What was Barrett going to say next? He could make an unkind remark about Fabian’s elaborate makeup or the outfit he’d been wearing onstage—a black minidress, large feathered wings, and strappy gold sandals. He could throw out a slur or say something nasty about the two women—one with pink hair and the other with a buzzcut—who were feverishly making out in the corner a few feet away. Ryan wasn’t sure he could stomach any of it.
“You look good,” Barrett said instead.
Oh.
He certainly hadn’t been expecting that. A compliment? From Troy Barrett?
“Look, um, I know this probably won’t mean much to you,” Barrett continued, “but I want to apologize. I was a complete asshole to you when we played together, and I’m sorry. It makes me sick thinking about how I treated you.”
The idea that Barrett had given Ryan even a passing thought in the years since Ryan left Toronto was shocking, let alone that he’d apparently been plagued by guilt over his behavior. Ryan hadn’t realized he was even capable of self-reflection.
“Uh, okay. No problem.”
“Especially about the fear of flying thing. I can’t believe how horrible and immature I was. And I kind of got a taste of how you must have felt.”
Ryan’s palms instantly started sweating.
“Right. I heard about the plane thing,” he said, trying to sound as casual as possible. He hadn’t been on the plane. It hadn’t crashed. The Ottawa Centaurs had not all died horrible, fiery deaths. They were safe. He was safe. “I didn’t know you were on that plane because I didn’t know you played for Ottawa, but, um, it seemed like a nightmare.”
“It was pretty fucking scary.”
“I don’t even want to think about it,” Ryan said. “I haven’t been on a plane since I quit hockey.”
“Really?” Barrett asked, his eyebrows knitting in confusion. “I heard that you travel with your boyfriend when he tours.”
The casual way Barrett said “your boyfriend” didn’t escape Ryan’s notice. There was no vitriol or mocking behind it. It was surprising, but nice. But how did Barrett know about any of this?
“We drive. Or he flies alone. I don’t go on every trip,” Ryan said. “Who’s telling you all of this?”
“Uh...” Barrett looked like he was considering his next words carefully. “My friend Harris. He’s a big fan of Fabian’s and he does the social media for the Centaurs. He’s...gay.”
Ryan’s eyebrows shot up. Barrett really was full of surprises tonight. “You have a gay friend now?”
Now it was Barrett’s turn to look nervous. “Yeah, uh. That’s the other thing I wanted to apologize for. I said a lot of homophobic shit when I played for Toronto and I shouldn’t have. I don’t want to make excuses, but I was kind of...hiding behind it, if you know what I mean. That doesn’t make it less shitty. But it’s why I did it.”
Hiding behind it?
Surely he didn’t mean—
“Wait,” Ryan heard himself saying, before he could ponder if he even should. “You’re gay?”
“Yes.”
Ryan let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d even been holding. “Didn’t see that one coming.”
“I know.”
Ryan thought back to the day that the NHL’s most infamous rivals, Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander, had announced the Irina Foundation. The team had been gathered around the TV in Toronto’s practice facility, watching in shock as Shane explained that he and Ilya were actually friends off the ice and were starting a charity to raise money for mental health organizations. Then Ilya had discussed how his mother, who the foundation was named for, had lost her battle with depression. It had been poignant and heartfelt, and it was hard to imagine that anyone with a heart wouldn’t have been touched by Ilya’s words.
Which is why it had been so jarring when Barrett had opened his mouth. “They’re probably fucking,” he’d sneered, the guys around him all laughing. And Kent, never one to pass up the opportunity to be the biggest asshole in the room, had chimed in with, “Gross. Rozanov would never. But I’ll bet Hollander is a fucking homo.”
How many other homophobic things had Ryan heard them both spew during the season he’d spent playing for Toronto? Sure, Kent had been worse. But he’d heard plenty of homophobic comments slip out of Barrett’s mouth with such casual cruelness. It was hard to wrap his mind around this new piece of information.
There really was no excuse for it. Ryan had spent years in the closet while playing hockey, but he’d never resorted to hurling around homophobic insults to help cover the truth. And neither had Ilya or Shane or Scott Hunter.
Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the guy, thinking about how miserable he must have been.
“Does your friend know you’re gay?” Ryan asked.
“Who? Harris?”
“No, Dallas.”
Barrett made a face that Ryan couldn’t quite decipher. “Wow. You really haven’t been following hockey. We’re not friends anymore.”
“Oh,” Ryan said, wondering how he had missed what had apparently been a public falling out between two of hockey’s most notorious best friends. Apparently Kent’s devoted little lackey wasn’t so devoted after all. “Good.”
“I know.”
They looked at each other for a moment longer, an awkward silence settling over them.
“I should go meet Fabian backstage,” Ryan finally said. “But, um...” He trailed off, realizing he had no idea how to wrap up this very unexpected conversation. The man had just come out to him, after all. Should he try to offer some words of wisdom? He wasn’t really a words of wisdom kind of guy.
“Yeah. Of course. Go." And then, with more earnestness than Ryan would have ever thought Troy Barrett was capable of, he added, “I’m glad you’re happy, Ryan.”
Ryan was aware that Barrett was considered one of the most attractive players in the league. Hell, in 2016, he’d been ranked #2 on Cosmopolitan’s list of Hottest Men in the NHL. Ryan only knew this fact because, when he’d joined Toronto two years later, Kent still occasionally liked to bring up what a grave injustice it had been that Barrett had lost out on the #1 spot to “that cock-sucking pussy Shane Hollander.”
But Ryan had never really been able to see the appeal. Barrett’s personality had overshadowed his looks, the nasty smirk on his face whenever he taunted Ryan marring his features. But now, in this nightclub in Ottawa several years later, Ryan could finally see it. His soft, sincere eyes and the shy smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He wasn’t Ryan’s type, but yeah, Troy Barrett was handsome.
He was, however, no Fabian. Ryan missed Fabian. He wanted to hold him in arms, tell him how wonderfully he’d performed. He wanted to kiss his perfect mouth. He wanted to go back to their hotel room and think of no one else for the rest of the night. It was time to officially wrap this conversation up.
“Good luck with, y’know, figuring everything out,” he said with a nod, as he turned to go.
“Thanks, man,” he heard Barrett murmur quietly.
What a weird fucking night, Ryan thought to himself, as he maneuvered his way past the scattered groups of people still hanging around on the dance floor. Troy Barrett was gay. Ryan really hadn’t seen that one coming. And he seemed so different. Like, somewhere along the line, he’d maybe become a decent guy. Ryan really, really hadn’t seen that one coming.
Then he was backstage. And Fabian was smiling at him. He was radiant, dazzling. Ryan’s heart fluttered. And all thoughts of Troy Barrett disappeared.