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The lights were bright overhead, the air a little too cold. A big crowd watching in person, more at home. Ilya rolled his shoulders a little. He was in his element. As his name was called, he stepped forwards, and walked onto the stage of the ballroom to the loudest applause of the night. Game on.
Ilya shook hands with the male MC first, a retired American football player whose name he’d already forgotten. Ilya had heard someone say the man was a recent contestant on the Bachelor. A weird show, Ilya thought, invented for dumb men who were too uncharismatic or unkind or ugly to find partners on their own.
Ilya greeted the female MC, Petra Mäkelä, more warmly. Remembering she was European – a beautiful Finn who’d won two Olympic bronze medals before becoming ESPN’s favorite new commenter – he said hello with a friendly kiss on each cheek. This generated at least two wolf whistles from the crowd and a loud shout of “you gotta pay him for that, Mäkelä!”
Petra and Ilya both chuckled – Petra’s wife was a goalie on the Canadian women’s national team. Funny how no one blinked twice at it when the women rivals married each other, Ilya thought wryly as he surveyed the crowd, spotting more celebrities and team owners that he would have expected.
“Well, Rozanov,” the uncharismatic bachelor man began, “you’ve been our most anticipated prize of the evening. I doubt I need to introduce you, even to our non-hockey fans. Fresh off captaining the Raiders to your second Stanley cup, voted Sports’ Most Eligible Bachelor by GQ two years in a row, and apparently – is this true? – your jersey is the one with the highest rate of purchases from female fans.”
“Get that bag, Rozy!” a voice that sounded like Marleau’s called out from the back of the room, to another round of laughter.
Ilya smiled. He had already known he was the most anticipated prize of the evening. It wasn’t arrogance, it was a fact, at least according to a segment in this week’s Netty Boys hockey podcast. They had speculated about how much a charity date with Ilya would go for and to whom. Not that Ilya listened to boring hockey podcasts, but he’d enjoyed hearing their theories, and enjoyed it even more when Shane had snapped it off halfway through the segment with some excuse about needing to call his mother.
Petra took over, handing Ilya an extra mic as she spoke into her own. “Ilya, since you need so little introduction, we had another idea. You play games for us all year, so we thought it’s only fair if you get to make us play one. Two truths and a lie. You tell us three things about yourself, and we guess which is a lie. Want to play?”
“Always.”
“Okay, game on,” Petra said seriously.
“Hello, room, nice to meet you, thank you for coming to charity auction. My name is Ilya Rozanov,” Ilya said into his mic.
“And yes, is good idea Petra. You all play game for me tonight. See if you can guess which is lie. Fact one, I can speak Russian. Fact two, I am best player in the MLH. Fact three, I have tattoo of an Ottowa Centaur on my ass.” Ilya raised a finger for each of the three statements, the third of which was greeted with rowdy cheers.
Petra had to pause a moment for the laughter to die down before responding. “Hmm, I wonder which it could be! Vy russkiy, verno?” Her Finnish accent was stronger in Russian, but the words were intelligible.
“Da, eto pravda, khoroshaya dogadka.” Ilya winked at the crowd as he put down one of his three fingers. He wiggled the remaining two suggestively in a sort of “come on” motion that definitely could have been interpreted as something else, too.
“So that leaves two options,” Mr. Bachelor said. “I can imagine Shane Hollander would have something to say about one of them. Should we bring him up here a little early and ask him?”
“What,” Ilya said, eyes wide in mock innocence. “Ask Hollander about tattoo on my ass? He wishes he knew.” That had even Petra tipping her head back in surprised laughter.
“As much fun as it would be to bring Shane Hollander up here and ask him if whether he thinks you’re the best player in the MLH, we’d like all our prizes to be in their best shape before they’re bid on tonight. I don’t think an on-stage brawl would help that,” Petra said.
“Nooo! Let em fight,” a female voice teasingly called out from a nearby table, generating another round of laughs.
“So if we can’t settle the best player debate tonight, how will we find out if the centaur fact is true? Are you planning to drop trou here and show us your ass, Rozanov?” Petra goaded.
Ilya lazily raised the mic to his mouth and raised his eyebrows at the crowd. “Prize tonight is me, no? What’s on my ass is for me to know, and my date to discover.” Another wink, and Ilya began to lower the mic before quickly raising it again to add one more quip.
“For charity, of course,” he whispered seriously, placing his right hand on his heart in mock sincerity.
“Well Rozanov, thank you for the game. Sounds like whoever secures you tonight will be the lucky winner,” Mr. Bachelor said. “Shall we remind them just how lucky they are, Petra, before we open the bidding? Let’s take a look back at some of Rozanov’s highlights from this season. Potential bidders, please play close attention.”
The lights went down, and the screen behind Ilya, Petra, and Mr. Bachelor lit up at the same moment that a familiar tinny drumbeat flowed through the speakers.
There lived a certain man, in Russia long ago. He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow. Applause and laughter as the audience recognized the tune. On the screen, a smash cut montage of Ilya’s on ice warm up stretches kicked off.
Most people looked at him with terror and with fear. Now a clip that had gone viral this season, a ridiculously zoomed-in shot some videographer had somehow managed to get. In it, Whales’ rookie Bobby Vail was skating quickly, a terrified look in his face. Looming behind him was Rozanov, who had a glint in his own eye as he chased him.
But to Moscow chicks, he was such a lovely dear. A video of Petra and her wife pawing at him, taken the last time he’d seen them and recorded specifically for this joke, with Ilya in the middle in his favorite silky Jean Paul Gaultier shirt. The leopard’s head on the shirt was difficult to make out, on account of the shirt being unbuttoned nearly to Ilya’s belly button.
But he also was the kind of teacher, women would desire. A few more professional shots now of Ilya playing and celebrating with teammates, a shot of him hoisting the cup, a wink in an interview, all presumably to remind the audience of his varied charms. But not for long – they were back to the stretches quickly enough.
Ra Ra Rasputin! With each syllable, a new suggestive shot of Rozanov gyrating through stretches on the ice landed in tiles on the screen, the right two mirrored to face the left two and a head on shot placed in the middle, till five Rozanovs were grinding on the ice side by side. Russia’s greatest love machine!
The crowd went wild.
Shane Hollander was not going wild.
Shane was sitting at table 10, halfway across the room from the stage, taking sips of his beer to steady himself. For charity, he whispered to himself after Ilya said it. For charity, he chanted in his head, teeth gritted as he tried to remind himself to smile when those around him laughed.
This year’s ESPN charity dating auction proceeds were going to a charity doing great work to advance awareness of mental health in sport. Shane and Ilya’s nascent charity, which would be having its first camps this summer, had been involved in advocating for that. So it was important they were here. He could keep a poker face on for five goddamn minutes while Ilya spoke Russian and flirted with Petra Mäkelä. Shane was pretty sure Mäkelä was gay, anyway. So it was fine, this was all fine. Shane forced out another laugh when those around him did, only a half second late, and took another sip of his beer.
The steadying sip of beer backfired spectacularly when Shane’s name was mentioned of course. Ask Hollander about tattoo on my ass? He wishes he knew. Shane promptly choked and spluttered, and a laughing tablemate had to clap him on his back a few times. Had Romanov fucking said that? And the crowd was eating out of his hands like putty.
Then the montage. Ilya dancing with Mäkelä and a woman Shane recognized from the Canadian national ice hockey team. Ilya in that shirt, holy shit. Was that what he missed by not going out to clubs with Ilya? Shane thought of their recent proclamation of friendship and mutual respect. Was enemies-turned-friends the the types of friends that could be seen going to clubs together? Shane turned it over in his mind, imagining what it would be like to see Ilya dancing like that in person instead of –
Ra Ra Rasputin! BAM, five gyrating Rozanov’s thrown onto the screen, each one bouncing provocatively through pre-game stretches. The screen was so large that each screen-Ilya was twice the size of the man himself. Shane felt his cock twitch.
Shane took a deep breath and willed both his thrumming cock and his pounding heart to calm the fuck down. He did relax a little when he noticed a scrap of blue jersey in the sides of two of these suggestive stretching clips. Two of “Ilya’s five greatest stretches” had been from games against Montreal. Show off.
Russia’s greatest love machine! That did get a laugh out of Shane – if only they knew.
But then it was over, the lights were coming back up and Ilya and Mäkelä and the NFL guy were back on stage and and then they were bringing the auctioneer back up and it was starting, the auctioneer’s fast voice piping through the speakers.
“We’ll start the bidding at five-thousand-dollars, do I have five-thousand-dollars?”
About 50 paddles shot up in the air. Rozanov on the stage surveyed them, eyes bright.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, Shane thought, and he pulled out his phone under the table.
"Te-thousa-dolla-I-have-te-thousa-dollas" Fuck, why was the announcer talking so fast.
“Fifteen-thousand, do I hear fifteen-thousand,” and Shane glanced up to see almost no reduction in the number of raised auction paddles.
“Twenty-five thousand, I have twenty-five.” Shane was sweating a bit now.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Shane closed his eyes and took a steadying breath as “Thirty-five-thousand dollars, folks,” echoed around the ballroom. He opened his eyes. Still about 15 paddles up. He looked at some of the women – and a few men – with their paddles up. The men were alright, they probably just wanted to talk about sports with Ilya, but it was the women Shane was worried about. They all thought they knew what they were buying, the flirty forward from Boston who had had sex with a hundred women. Ilya would have to keep that up, would have to actually be flirty. Shane swallowed and swallowed the urge to put his own paddle up.
Shane chanced a look on stage. Ilya Rozanov was looking right at Shane, a smirk playing across his lips. Shane looked down quickly, typing fast.
Shane was distantly aware of a wild round of applause as the auction crossed some kind of threshold, and he looked up to make eye contact with Ilya, who wasn't even trying to bite back his shit eating grin now. “Fifty thousand, folks, fifty thousand!” the auctioneer’s voice was too fast and Shane felt beads of sweat down the back of his neck.
Shane tuned back into the auction. Sixty thousand now. He counted the paddles up…. One… two… just three were left.
“Seventy thousand,” a female voice called from a few tables away from Shane. He breathed a sigh of relief as recognized the voice and spotted a new arm, Rose’s arm, waving a paddle.
He looked around, as though daring any of the other bidders to match that.
“Seventy five,” came the answering bid after a moment, and even the auctioneer seemed shocked, given 15 seconds ago they were at 60k.
“Eighty-one-thousand,” Rose responded loudly, and the other paddle finally came down.
“We have eighty-one-thousand dollars,” the auctioneer recovered himself, now eager at how well this is gone. “Eighty-one-thousand-dollars for a date with Ilya Rozanov, going once, going twice… SOLD to this lovely lady. Come up here madam, come and fetch your date!” Shane saw Rozanov’s smile at the number, knew he must be thrilled with the attention and the amount he’s raised and that the donation ended up at 81. Ilya hasn’t seen the winner yet.
All eyes swiveled to table 14 as Rose Landry, looking stunning in a sort of toga-inspired dress, arms covered with golden bracelets, rose from her seat. She was a good actress - anyone but Shane would only see a confident woman, gladly claiming her prize. A shout of “Go get him, Landry,” caused her to pump her fist in the air as though in triumph. Shane barely noticed, eyes immediately back to Ilya.
Ilya Rozanov watched Rose Landry make her way to the stage with a strange expression on his face. His smile was the same smile as a moment ago, but almost too similar, like it got stuck there. Shane noticed his left hand flex.
Now it was Shane’s turn to smirk.
“And what is your name, may I ask?” said the auctioneer when Rose finally reached the stage, which got another laugh out of the room. Everyone there knew who she was. All of North America knew her.
“Rose Landry,” Rose offered into the mic. “Nice to meet you, Ilya.” She said his name delicately, as though testing it out, while stretching out her right hand to Ilya. He blinked, twice, before recovering himself
Ilya knew his role. He took her hand gracefully and bent his head to place a slow kiss on her hand. The bracelets on her arms jingled loudly. Another burst of applause for this, two more wolf whistles. Ilya flashed the crowd a wink.
“Jealous?” Shane’s tablemate leaned over to ask. “Your ex and your rival, right? Or is it worse now if he’s your friend too?”
“Yeah, man,” Shane said, lips pursed to stop a wide smile from breaking through. “Pretty rough.”
“Well, Rose Landry,” the NFL announcer said, taking over again. “Thank you for your generosity, we hope Rozanov will do it justice. What are your plans for him on your date night?”
“Oh,” Rose replied easily, “I was hoping he’d show me that tattoo. Working on Hercules has given me a bit of a thing for Greek mythology – I’d love the chance to ride a centaur.”
Even Shane joined in on the laughter, enjoying the shocked look that had finally replaced Ilya’s arrogant smirk.