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The Kingfisher was packed. A Saturday night, after a win of Ottawa against New York was the promess of a big night with great sales. The whole two teams were almost present.
A lot had changed in fifteen years. The teams were closer, having friends in other cities wasn’t as badly seen as before. The players knew when and where the chirping stopped to transform into jokes. New-York and Ottawa had great players who were also great humans, capable of being competitive without hate.
They used to hang out in the kingfisher often now, with Scott Hunter’s boyfriend, Kip, working there. And the new generation of hockey couldn’t care less about being in a gay bar. The rookies were more open, and less awkward around the subject. In the lockers, any insult or swear was quickly denounced, but they were becoming rarer and rarer.
It seemed like ages ago the time where gay players had to hide, and agree to these stupid blind dates to not be suspicious.
Shane and Ilya were at a table with other Centaurs, and some New-Yorkers. Except being next to each other and calling themselves by their first name, nothing was really indicative of their relationship if it wasn’t for some discreet glances and smiles if you were observant. In Ottawa they had a little bit more PDA but in front of the players of other cities, they limited it. Shane thought that being called “my tomato” in Russian was still a bit humiliating. Not the whole league needed to know they were saps.
Ilya had just cracked a joke when someone coming from the dance floor exclaimed in Russian : “Ilyusha ?”
Shane snapped towards the man. Tall, fin, he was objectively gorgeous. Behind him was a guy who had a sort of “hot nerd” vibe, and who was glancing at Ilya, confused.
Ilya looked at the tall man for a few seconds, mouth open in shock, before getting up and fastly hugging the man, exclaiming “Sasha ? What the fuck are you doing here?”
Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Sacha ? As in first man hookup Sacha ? As in “make me curious” Sacha ? Shane was trying to keep his calm.
Luckily, Ilya introduced the man at the table :
“This is Sasha, child friend from Russia.”
He was going to introduce Shane, but he presented his hand to shake fastly :
“Hi, I’m Shane Hollander. Ilya’s husband.”
Sasha glanced at him :
“Shane. Of course. Don’t know how you did to settle this man, but congratulations. Was a bit of a shock back in Russia, Sasha said turning towards Ilya, so proud of you, I knew you were dangerous deep down.”
Ilya chucked “I didn’t do it for the danger. But because I fucking love this man.”
Ilya and Shane smiled at each other. But Shane was still tensed. Stupidly. He was married, why did he felt jealousy ?
Ilya opened his mouth and looked at the guy behind Sasha who was looking at them, with a confused look. The nerd guy smiled and with a French accent said to the whole table with a awkward sign of the hand :
“Hello, I’m Maxime ! Sacha’s boyfriend.”
Sacha looked at his boyfriend with a huge fond smile, and put his hand around his shoulders before kissing him of then cheek. He then said to Ilya in Russian “See I’m settled too.” with a proud look on his face.
“Well I was happy to see you here, we should catch up one day ! We come to New-York for Max’s work quite often. Maybe next time ! Bye Shane ! Everyone. Tu viens mon chéri ?”
Shane mumbled a “Goodbye” and kept his eyes on Sasha’s back until he is out of sight.
“Shane, sometimes you really scare me.” Laughed Ilya. The table after an awkward silence started to laugh too.
Harris asked the question that nothing dared to :
“ Who on earth was that ?”
Ilya chucked “A friend.”
Shane rolled his eyes : “An ex.”
Ilya looked at him : “Nothing happened between us since I was seventeen, Shane.”
Ilya tried to catch his eyes. He cupped his face between his hands and kissed his mouth.
In front of everyone. In front of both teams. The table laughed, made some “aww” and someone did a wolf-whistle.
“Ya tebya lyublyu.” Said Ilya to Shane’s lips.