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Hayden tugged on the laces of his sneakers, half listening to Drapeau complain about some idiot that cut him off on the road earlier and half tuning it out in favor of wanting to get out of practice faster. Most of the team had already left, including Shane, who for once was gone early in an effort to pick up his parents at the airport.

They had a strange tendency to lie about their flights in order to not put him out, but he had double checked the arrival schedule and was damn near insistent on being there this time. Hayden was actually pretty curious to know how that would end up, since Yuna would no doubt try to get a cab before her son ever makes it to the airport.

“Do you think we’re actually beating Seattle next week?” Mitty wondered skeptically, lazily tossing one of his shirts into his bag.

“Not with your footwork,” Wilson retorted, cracking a smile that had Mitty rolling his eyes and the others cracking up.

“Oh, hardy har har,” he muttered, shaking his head in annoyance. “Excuse me for actually being invested in the rest of our season.”

It hadn’t been their best, and everyone knew it. They weren’t at the bottom of the leaderboard or anything, but they weren’t top contenders for the playoffs, either. That wasn’t where they wanted to be. Ever.

“I think we can beat Seattle,” Hayden admitted with a soft nod, straightening his back up after he put his shoe down. “Ottawa on the other hand has been on a streak that’s got me worried.”

JJ groaned, scrubbing his face. “Don’t remind me, man,” he grumbled. “I’d rather not remember our last game against them.”

Against pretty much any team, five goals would be more than enough to win a game. Hell, sometimes one was enough. But they had just been on fire that night, he supposed, and scored one extra goal in the bottom of the third period before they ever went into overtime.

“I blame Barrett,” Comeau said, voice tinged with annoyance. “They’ve been winning ever since he was traded.”

“No, they’ve been winning since 2018,” Berkes corrected gruffly, bag slung over his shoulder as he checked his texts. “They got Rozanov, Hayes, and Haas, then never looked back.”

Mitty huffed, nodding in agreement. “That’s for sure.” They might not have won a cup, yet, but everyone knew it was just a matter of time until they had it. The Metro’s were just hoping it wouldn’t be this season.

“Well, let’s focus on Seattle next week and then deal the Centaurs,” JJ suggested.

He didn’t even want to think about the team until the day before the game. Well, he might actually be able to push it to the moment they stepped on the ice, too, if he tried hard enough. That would probably be his plan.

Drapeau hummed. “Yeah, no use stressing about when they aren’t even in the city—”

“Holy shit,” Berkes muttered, his bag sliding off his shoulder as he dropped it to the floor with a resounding clamor. “This isn’t- there’s no fucking way.”

Wilson furrowed his eyebrows, head tilting. “What is it?” he questioned, the tone of his teammates voice worrying him a bit.

His eyes flitted up, then back down, looking like he was having a full epiphany of some sort. “It- Top Sports twitter account,” was all he could manage to spit out, making a rather rushed gesture with his hand like he needed the others to also check their phone this very instant. “Hollander and Rozanov.”

Hayden frowned in confusion. “What about them?” he wondered, digging through his bag for his phone and pulling it out.

Some of his other teammates already had their phones open, jaws falling open and eyes bugging out. He heard a chorus of curse words and clamoring over each other like they were arguing over it. Hayden finally opened his twitter, not even needing to go to the Top Sports page because the post was the first one he saw.

“Holy shit,” Hayden whispered, his own eyes widening to match the others as he read the headline. He felt a wave of shock roll over him that he wasn’t even sure how to get rid of.

“We don’t actually believe this, right?” JJ asked, leaning over Hayden’s shoulder instead of bothering to get his own phone out. “It has to be a gimmick for them or something. Clickbait.”

Shane was in the headlines all the time for things that weren’t really true, just twisted to sound more dramatic than necessary. None of them even bothered to read half of the stuff said about their friend anymore because of it.

“By one of the most respected sports broadcasts in the world?” Mitty replied skeptically. “They don’t report things that aren’t true.”

“We shouldn’t read them, right?” Wilson wondered, lips pursed as he stared at his phone. “That’s invasive.”

“Yes,” Hayden retorted immediately. “It’s private. And besides, JJ is probably right. They’re reading into something, I bet. They could be friends or something.”

“Our Shane friends with Rozanov?” Drapeau repeated dubiously, shaking his head a bit. “That feels so wrong, Hayd. I mean, you know how they talk about each other. To each other.” In general, they were always staying as far away from each other as possible whenever they could.

He glanced down at his phone, a sinking feeling growing in it. There were already tens of millions of views, reposts growing as the seconds passed. This was bad. If it was fake, their team would be ridiculed. And if it was true...well, then he didn’t even know what to think, then.

“Okay, maybe a few texts,” Hayden agreed reluctantly. “Just to figure out what the fuck is going on.” This was about their captain, after all. If something affected Shane, it would impact all of them. Not to mention the rest of their season.

Nodding in agreement, Wilson lowered his own phone, sitting beside Hayden and glaring over his shoulder while Drapeau, Mitty, and Berkes kept scrolling on their own phones.

Hayden could feel his brain malfunctioning a bit as he scanned his eyes over the texts between them. The teasing tone was almost...easy. Familiar. It read like some sort of conversation he would have with some of the other guys; only Shane was never so informal with them or theatric in his texts.

Shane was always methodical when he texted, almost robotic. Good punctuation, clear information. Texts used for their intended purpose of communication, not connection.

“Okay...maybe they have some really weird friendship,” Wilson suggested, shrugging. “They're sending packages and messing with each other.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Drapeau agreed. “Those weren’t personal or anything, just a way to mess with each other.”

“The whole thing could be about drumming up publicity between them, like they’ve done in the past,” Mitty muttered, tugging his lips to the side as he contemplated. “It’s gotta be that, right?” Sweatshirts calling each other names or stupid puzzles didn’t scream romantic involvement in his opinion.

“I don’t know,” JJ remarked, feeling conflicted. “I’ve seen Rozanov wear that sweatshirt for at least two years now. He loves it. Even snaps at his teammates when they try to move it off his spot on the bench.”

At least, those were the rumors. He wore it in casual interviews with the media team and always showed up to the airport wearing it. A lot of fans had pictures taken with him when he was wearing it, too.

“The names, too,” Wilson murmured, starting to get a bit light headed. “Why the hell would they call each other Lily and Jane if this was some stunt? Or if they were actually friends?”

“Inside joke?” Mitty questioned, a bit disgusted to even think about the two of them having inside jokes.

Hayden felt his stomach plumet. Lily? He had been so busy reading the texts, he didn’t even look at the names they called each other. Shane had been texting a Lily for years. At least as long as they had known each other, maybe longer.

“Friends or not, did you see how cozy the tone was when Rozanov asked about his injury?” Berkes questioned, still reading through the texts.

Hayden snapped out of his crisis, gaze immediately ducking back down to the screen because no, he hadn’t gotten to those texts, yet.

JJ covered his mouth with his hand, like hiding his expression could also help him hide his feelings. Which, frankly, he didn’t quite understand at the moment. “That’s...shit, that’s not platonic,” he agreed, tone incredulous.

He didn’t want to go as far as to call it romantic, not because he doubted it, but because he really just hated to say it out loud. So, he settled for not platonic. Because what the hell else was he supposed to say when he found out his close friend was texting ‘I miss you’ to his sworn enemy? Their whole teams sworn enemy, really.

It was hard for his brain to even make a single thought, let alone actualize that in verbal form.

“Wait- you guys don’t think that he- that Rozanov...you know...?” Mitty noted skeptically, his brain working overtime to try to put together the pieces that he kind of hoped wouldn’t align properly.

“That he what? Is using Shane and planned to embarrass him all along?” JJ questioned. That’s where his mind that gone, anyway. To the worst possible thought because with Rozanov, it was never that far off.

Mitty furrowed his brows. “What? No, you asshole!” he retorted. “I was thinking how weird it was that Rozanov randomly signed with the worst team in the league. Unless...he was doing it Hollander.”

Everyone froze, staring at him for a moment like he had either grown a second head or unlocked the secret of the universe. They couldn’t tell which. Because that, while not on any of their radars, was a ridiculously sensical assumption.

They had all always wondered what drew Rozanov towards the worst possible team, especially when the Bears were projected as a top prospect for the cup the next year. Some speculated he had a girlfriend there, others said it was boredom, even ego. That he wanted a shitty team to make him look even better or carry them to the top and prove just how good of player he really was.

Shane…made sense. Given new information, anyway. Ottawa was only a few hours away and given the number of fast cars Rozanov owned, he could make it pretty often. At least, more frequently than if he was in Boston.

“He could have,” Wilson almost whispered, like daring to say it made it far more likely to be true, somehow.

“Shiiit,” Mitty grumbled, scrubbing his face in realization. “It’s gotta be serious, right?”

It wasn’t necessarily disgust or anything. He could never hate his captain. But his mind was reeling and he didn’t really know how else to process what was happening right now. Besides, the curse felt rather appropriate, for some reason.

“I mean, Rozanov called Shane’s mom Yuna,” Berkes remembered. “The fact that she texted him first is a sign of familiarity. She probably knows him in real life aside from their rivalry.” He squinted at his phone. “Oh yeah, Shane’s parents both know him pretty well.”

“What?” Hayden commented, looking back down at his phone. He could feel JJ leaning further down, breathing on his neck and Wilson scooted closer to the point he nearly bumped him.

“Okay, that was sickeningly couple-like,” Wilson murmured, turning his head to look at Hayden. “Like the type of shit I expect from you and Jackie. No offense.”

Hayden scoffed. “I can’t take offense since I have no idea how that was meant to come across,” he replied.

He considered lovey dovey and coupley stuff to be a compliment, personally. Except when they threw that other word, sickening, in front of it. He honestly didn’t know he would live to see the day it was used to describe his best friend. Shane was more like the type of person people called helpless when it came to love, rather than cute.

“Yeah, me neither,” Wilson admitted, rubbing the back of his neck as he tried to sort out his thought, which, to say the least, was pretty difficult.

“Rozanov seemed…like he wanted Yuna and David to like him,” Mitty muttered, sounding confused. “I mean, did you see how excited he got when Shane said that his parents liked him?”

Comeau nodded. “He wants to be considered family, I guess,” he mumbled, looking a bit perplexed by it. “But why? Doesn’t he get enough attention from the media and all the women draped around him?”

Rozanov was, well, a player. That was the only word for it. He always had been. One or two girls were always on his arms at every club he went to, usually photographed leaving with them. Was that seriously all just a ruse? It made no sense.

“He can’t actually be with those girls, though,” JJ remarked, shaking his head. “Shane wouldn’t be in an open relationship.” Honestly, he probably didn’t even know what that meant.

“Still, even just pretending is cruel,” Drapeau commented, clearly disgruntled by the idea of his friend having to watch Rozanov flirt and

“Like Hollander doesn’t do it, too,” Berkes scoffed, giving them a knowing look. “He was dating Rose, after all. And that model from his sponsorship, too, remember?”

Hayden groaned slightly, nodding. “Shit, yeah, I remember,” he admitted.

That had to be a mistake, though, right? Shane had to be doing it for a reason. Or he and Rozanov were broken up or something at that point. JJ was right, Shane wasn’t the kind to be in an open relationship, but he also wouldn’t cheat.

“Gimme,” JJ muttered, reaching for Haydens phone.

He pulled it back, frowning. “No way, get your own phone out,” he snapped back, grip tightening like his protectiveness for his best friend was physically manifesting for his phone, too.

JJ huffed, rolling his eyes. “Then at least scroll, please,” he encouraged, gesturing with his hand. “I saw something about Rozanov kissing someone.”

“What!?” Comeau exclaimed, immediately checking his own phone as Wilson leaned back into Hayden to try to see what JJ had noticed.

“Rozanov watches Sex In The City?” Comeau wondered, huffing slightly.

“That was your takeaway?” JJ replied, tilting his head up at him. “They’re both frothing at the mouth with jealousy.” It was actually kind of impressive, if he was being honest.

He didn’t know Shane was capable of certain emotions, like envy or pure rage. He had never seen it before. Even when Marlow put him in the hospital, Shane still wasn’t all that pissed, just sorry he couldn’t finish the season. Some crazy fan trying to kiss Rozanov was the absolute last thing he ever thought he’d see his captain lose his temper over.

“It’s kind of sad,” Wilson admitted. “Accepting dates and being seen with women to keep up the pretense they’re both straight. I mean, Rozanov kind of seems like the type of guy who doesn’t care who he’s in bed with as long as he’s getting off, but Shane? How the hell did none of us know we was gay?”

They stared at Hayden.

“Don’t look at me!” He exclaimed. “I had no idea.” In fact, he had tried, repeatedly, to set him up with some nice girls Jackie knew. Which he was now feeling like an absolute piece of shit over.

“Well, to be fair, we didn’t know about Scott Hunter, either,” Drapeau noted, shrugging.

Comeau reached over, smacking him in the back of the head. Hard. “We don’t play on the same team as Hunter, dumbass,” he reminded him. “Shane is our captain and our friend. We should have known.”

“Maybe we never made him feel safe enough to,” Berkes murmured quietly. “I mean there have been certain…comments thrown around the locker room.”

They all knew the kind he was talking about. Quips about homosexual acts as an insult instead of something that many queer people did as an act of love. The kind of comments that could easily scare someone out of being honest.

“I wish we didn’t make him feel that way,” JJ noted. “We could have, I don’t know, helped them or something.”

“Helping Rozanov feels like an oxymoron,” Mitty admitted, not rudely or bitterly, just as a fact. It seemed weird, if not downright impossible.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Hayden agreed, nodding slightly. “But he’s like…smitten or something,” he added, forehead creased slightly. “Look, he even sends Shane fanart he’s found.”

JJ practically snatched the phone from Hayden’s hand. “Wait, that’s what the fight with hunter was over!?” he exclaimed, bringing the screen closer to his face. “I thought he was racist!”

Comeau frowned in confusion. “Does Scott Hunter really scream racist to you?” he questioned dubiously. “Even before he came out he was one of the most inclusive guys in the league.”

Hayden blinked, glaring at his friend as he put his hand out, waiting for him to return his phone.

JJ reluctantly returned it. “Yeah, but what other reason would Shane have for starting a fight with him?” he wondered, always driven insane by not knowing. “We literally won the game before they went at it. There was no way it wasn’t personal.”

It hadn’t been some fight caused by purposeful tripping or a harsh body check. It was because of something Hunter said to their captain, that much was clear.

“Oh, Shane attacking his age was sure as hell personal,” Mitty agreed. “I didn’t know he had it in him until then.”

“I guess Hunter took a shot at Rozanov or something and Shane couldn’t take it,” Wilson muttered.

Berkes frowned. “Do we really think Hunter knew?” he asked. “I mean, isn’t that kind of homophobic to just assume all gay people can recognize each other?”

They paused, glancing at each other with slow blinks like they weren’t quite sure. None of them really had much insight into the queer community aside from putting rainbow tape on their sticks during June. Even that had earned some backlash from certain individuals.

“Something to ask Shane about, I guess,” Mitty mumbled under his breath.

“God, with how much we bash Rozanov in front of him do you think he hates us?” Drapeau questioned, almost sounding scared of his friend secretly despising all of them this entire time. “We probably deserve it if he walks in next practice and hits us. Or, me at least.”

He could name five times in the last week alone he insulted Rozanov, either in passing or more blatantly. He wouldn’t blame Shane in the slightest for slugging him one day because of it.

“No, Shane doesn’t get violent very often,” Hayden assured him, shaking his head. “He likes winning honorably and all that.”

“Well duh,” Comeau noted. “But clearly, not very often doesn’t mean never. Even if he only does it for Rozanov.”

“One time doesn’t mean he only ever fights because of Rozanov,” Hayden defended.

“No, but the fact that there’s another text here about him fighting over some chirps about his sexuality kind of does,” Berkes replied, turning his phone around to show them another conversation he had been scrolling through.

“Jesus, that’s what set Shane off against Detroit?” Wilson murmured, propping his chin on his palm. “I thought it was because Geroth tripped him at the end of the game.”

“So did I,” Mitty admitted, nodding in agreement. “What the fuck kind of comments was he making anyway, to have Shane lose his temper like that?”

He wasn’t proud of it, but there were a lot of sexual and sexuality-based chirps in hockey. And as many as there were, pretty much none of them ever saw Shane react to them. He was so good at staying passive that it made the fact that he was gay hit them even harder.

“Must have been bad, whatever it was,” Berkes noted. “I can’t believe we didn’t hear any of them.”

“He probably went for Shane specifically,” Drapeau assumed. “Shake the captain and the whole team falters, right?”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m actually agreeing with Rozanov for once,” JJ murmured, shaking his head. “Shane should have reported Geroth for it.”

Comeau frowned instantly. “No,” he disagreed, earning him some questionable looks. “I mean yes, it’s terrible and Shane should be able to, but you guys know that stuff isn’t uncommon. If he reported it, he’d just have a target on his back.”

The other players would likely call him weak or a sissy, maybe mock worse if not take it as an excuse to become more physical with him on the ice.

Hayden found himself clenching his jaw, torn between the feeling of being absolutely blindsided by the news and also needing to try his best not to be affected by it. He knew he didn’t have any inherent right to his best friends sexuality or his personal problems. But…didn’t he?

Shane was the godfather to his kids, he was the first person he told when he was planning to propose to Jackie, he was the guy he always went to when his head wasn’t in the game the way it was supposed to be. And Shane hadn’t even felt comfortable to tell him he was gay, something that was so low of the list of things that defined him in Hayden’s eyes.

It didn’t change how kind he was, how awkward he got and how much he rambled. All those little details that he liked about his best friend. He felt, suddenly, like he might know him very well. If he ever knew him at all, that was. And that wasn’t fair, either, because deep down he knew it wasn’t okay to be upset over it, but he was.

“Uh, guys?” Berkes muttered, stiffening a bit.

“What?” Hayden mumbled, still fighting with his own inner monologue as his teammate spoke up again.

“There’s another post by Top Sports,” he admitted.

“You’re kidding,” JJ almost hoped, reaching over his friend’s shoulder and tapping out of the current one to search the page.

Sure enough, at the top was a new one, with more texts between Rozanov and Hollander linked for millions of people to see.

“Jesus, there’s like another two dozen or something,” Drapeau realized in disbelief. “How many of them are they going to publish?”

“They’ve been texting since before Shane even got drafted,” Comeau reminded him. “I’d bet ther He’s thousands. Maybe more, honestly.”

How many of those actually got uploaded would depend on a lot of factors, but he kind of hoped this would be the extent of all they managed to find. His life wasn’t interesting enough to be scandal material but if his texts ever got leaked, he would certainly make some people angry.

After all, his own private messages were a place for him to give his opinions on certain players in the league or have emotional moments without worrying about being treated like a lesser person for struggling sometimes. That stuff wasn’t meant to be torn apart by public scrutiny.

“Tagging them is fucking ridiculous,” Mitty murmured, shaking his head in disagreement with the accounts decision. “Sharing their messages is bad enough, but they’re practically trying to goad a reaction of them.”

“We’re horrible people, aren’t we?” Wilson asked. “I mean, in general for not knowing about Shane but also for this. We shouldn’t be reading them, it’s not right.”

It wasn’t and they all knew it. They just couldn’t help themselves. This was the most they had ever learned about their captain before. News reporters had often commented on how quiet he was, how humble. They also pressed the others for the ‘real’ Hollander when the cameras were off, never believing them when they said he acted mostly the same.

None them knew this side of him that was good with quips, cursed, or flirted. And the flirting was, well, a mix of enlightening and traumatizing all at the same time.

“Am I insane or does that text mention chewing?” Wilson questioned, squinting at Hayden’s screen.

Hayden glanced at his phone, lips pulling into an uncontrollable grimace as he tapped on the new texts that had been uploaded, started at the top of several. “Yeah,” he muttered, slightly disgusted. “It definitely does.”

Comeau sucked on the inside of his cheek, truly unsure how he felt about some of those messages. His mind wanted to be extremely distressed by it, and partially waS. But then his gut had to go and kind of find it adorable, too. Sort of.

“I really didn’t need to see like half of those texts,” Mitty muttered, pursing his lips a bit as he surpressed a shudder.

“Me neither,” JJ agreed, scrunching his face reluctantly. “It was kind of cute, though. Some of them.”

Not the others, as much. But the general idea of Shan ebeing comfortable enough to give and accept such comments when he usually hated affection in physical or verbal form was strange. In a good way. He deserved to have someone who supported and encouraged him.

“Do you think Rozanov wears the pants?” Wilson wondered, unable to help himself.

“What, like figuratively in their relationship?” Drapeau questioned sort of already nodding his head. Seemed that way to him, from what he had read.

Mitty reached over and smacked him, a loud thud resounding through the locker room. “No, dumbass,” he retorted. “He meant the actual pants.”

“King of ego?” Hayden reminded them bluntly. “He definitely wears them.”

He wondered Haas actually knew he would when he got them for him or not. He must have, right? Rozanov’s supercilious nature was pretty public knowledge, especially amongst his own teammates.

Drapeau huffed. “Probably specifically for Shane to see,” he muttered.

Mitty hit him again, even harder this time, on purpose. “Ow,” he exclaimed, rubbing the back of his head. “Knock it off.”

“I don’t want to think about my captain knowing what the inside of Rozanov’s pants look like,” he retorted. “It kind of makes me feel nauseous.”

“Then quit while you’re ahead,” Berkes suggested, eyes laser focused on the phone in his hand. “The next ones mention his thighs.”

Mitty blanched and Hayden had to scrub his face with his hand just to attempt to clear his mind. He really didn’t need to see his best friend mentioning Rozanov’s thighs. Or any part of his body, for that matter. Any other man in Canada or hell, the entire world, would be a different story.

Still, even as his entire being seemed to tell him to put the phone down, Hayden couldn’t help his curiosity screaming at him to know exactly what Berkes meant by that.

“You know what I’m thinking about?” JJ asked with no specific person in mind.

“Please don’t say Ilya’s thighs,” Hayden pleaded, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“First of all, ew, no,” he replied instantly. “Second of all, don’t call him Ilya, it’s weird.”

“It’s his name!” Hayden retorted, defensively. “We should get used to using it considering he and Shane are…you know.”

Sleeping together sounded crass, but dating seemed too romantic, too. Not that there hadn’t been some pretty romantic texts to sort through. He couldn’t really figure out what the word that felt best was, or if there even was one.

“I…will contemplate that later,” JJ admitted, not quite conceding his pent-up emotions towards Rozanov just yet, just because Shane clearly had some sort of attachment. “But I was actually referring to that time Shane ditched us after we won in Colorado and went swimming.”

Drapeau looked up from his phone. “Oh, yeah, I remember that,” he admitted, nodding. “He said he wanted to burn off some energy or something.”

“Or implement some new exercise because his- because Rozanov suggested it,” Comeau noted, huffing slightly in disbelief.

He had always thought there were pieces of Shane’s life that they weren’t privy to. Knew it, even. There were a lot of moments where he seemed to restrain himself or random disappearances and weak excuses as to why. There was something so odd, though, about knowing how every single one of them was linked to Rozanov. That the whole team, in a way, was linked to him too.

“Now that I think about it, we’ve never really known a version of Shane where he wasn’t with Rozanov, did we?” Mitty murmured.

The others paused, some of their shoulders slouching as the realization really began to sink in. They didn’t. Every single day they knew him, he had known Rozanov. Loved him, even, in some way. That was a punch to the gut for some inexplicable reason.

“No,” Hayden admitted reluctantly. “We haven’t.”

“This is just fucking insane,” Wilson commented, shaking his head, still not able to push past his immediate disbelief. “I mean, I thought Rozanov was an asshole and playboy. I didn’t think he was secretly whipped for anyone, especially not Shane. But now, with he jealousy and the random flowers—”

“Flowers?” JJ interjected, furrowing his eyebrows. “What flowers?”

Wilson pointed at Hayden’s phone, the corner of which was a picture of a bouquet in it. “Those flowers,” he replied.

“Oh,” he squinted, looking closer at the screen while Hayden reluctantly scrolled down a bit to help him see it better. It beat letting him breathe on him.

“Woah,” JJ stated in shock. “Forget the flowers, they’re talking about marriage.”

“I- how many times can we say Jesus fucking Christ before it becomes redundant?” Mitty questioned, the absurdity covering how authentic he was actually being.

“I think we’re already past that point,” Drapeau admitted. “But Jesus fucking Christ, man. Marriage? Shane and- and Ilya?”

He grimaced over the name struggling to say it without some sort of sarcasm or disdain in his voice. He was so used to some form of contempt slipping out that forcing himself to be amicable was a struggle. He was trying though, not that Shane was around to notice it.

“Shane of all people actually bringing it up is insane,” Comeau agreed.

Their captain was a lot of things but romantic, clingy, or affectionate in any way was definitely not one of them. He shied away from it constantly, always claiming he was focused on hockey or waiting to meet the right person. How come he never told any of them that he already found that person?

“Did you see how Rozanov practically jumped at the suggestion,” Wilson added, nodding.

“Yeah, then immediately tried to play it off,” Berkes replied with a huff. “It makes sense, though. A decade is longer than most people wait. Hell, Hayden was at the alter after like, what, ten months?”

Hayden glared at him. “I waited a year, thank you very much,” he retorted, tone slightly clipped. “And it was fast, but it worked out. I’m pretty damn happy.”

“I must be jumping off the deep end,” Mitty muttered, shaking his head a bit. “I’m actually kind of rooting for them. Not Rozanov, really. Just Shane being happy with him.”

Hayden hummed slightly, nodding in agreement. “He does seem happy, doesn’t he?”

He always just thought Shane didn’t like texting, but clearly, he was just picky about who he talked to through it. Or maybe his general fears about his sexuality and his relationship with Rozanov bled into his conversations over the phone the same way they did in person. He wasn’t quite sure.

“He really does,” Comeau concurred. “Is it wrong if I’m a little jealous?”

“You want to date Rozanov?” Drapeau questioned.

Mitty reached out to hit him but before he could, Drapeau ducked, shielding his head. “Stop cowering,” he insisted. “Be a man and let me hit you!”

“No!” he retorted, ducking again and practically dashing to the other side of the room to stay far away from him, standing beside Berkes instead. “I was just referring to Shane’s general openness. Like how he told Rozanov about his sponsorship hours after signing it and none of us knew until the advertisement came out.”

Mitty frowned slightly, glancing back down at his phone. “Oh,” he stated, humming. “I didn’t see that.”

“I had no idea that deal meant so much to him,” Wilson confessed. “He does energy drinks or bottled water commercial all the time.” It was practically his second job to be at filming studios and was pretty much the only reason he would ever be late to practice.

“Yeah, but that’s publicity stuff,” Hayden reminded him. “He hates energy drinks; says they make him too jittery and unfocused.”

He had, however, seen his best friend finish several cans of Canada Dry on a long plane ride to their further games. And order it specifically for the mini fridge in their hotel room when they shared one. Being excited over it made plenty of sense in his opinion.

The fact that he shared with Rozanov first was the part that didn’t click. Or shouldn’t have, anyway. It was slowly becoming more and more apparent that Shane trusted Rozanov more than he trusted any of them.

“Don’t shoot me, but I think it’s kind of adorable how Rozanov immediately started using all capitals when Shane told him,” Mitty confessed at the risk of their wrath. Complimenting the enemy was a brave choice, after all. “He clearly knows how much of that stuff Shane drinks.”

JJ huffed. “He probably keeps a case of them at his apartment in Ottawa,” he assumed.

“Oh, come on…” Berkes complained.

“What? That’s logical!” JJ defended.

He glanced up, furrowing his eyebrows. “Huh? No, not you, JJ,” he replied, shaking his head as he gestured to his phone. “More texts are being released.”

“You’re fucking kidding,” Hayden muttered, head dropping for a moment or two in utter disbelief. Or maybe disappointment. Rage. It was hard to pinpoint one emotion specifically when he felt so much hitting him all at once.

Mitty looked over Berkes’ shoulder, his expression falling instantly. “Oh my god,” he muttered softly.

“What?” Hayden dared to ask, even though there was already a knot in his stomach that he couldn’t seem to unravel. “Don’t tell me they’re sexual.” Some had been a bit flirtatious but nothing explicit, yet. He really hoped it would stay that way.

Berkes shook his head. “No, they’re…” he frowned, seeming confused and upset all at once. “They’re about Shane’s eating disorder,” he eventually admitted much to the confusion of everyone.

“Shane doesn’t have an eating disorder,” JJ replied.

“According to these texts, he does. Or did, at least,” Berkes insisted. “He literally said it himself.”

Hayden didn’t believe him. Or maybe he did, but couldn’t seem to let himself think it was true because it opened an entirely different can of worms that he had no idea how to start closing.

Reluctantly, with a pit in his stomach, he looked back down at his phone, trying to find whatever Berkes was referring to. It didn’t take long, near the top of the pile of new texts that had been leaked.

Hayden wanted to throw up. He even glanced around for a trash can, just in case he did. He hadn’t ever felt so guilty and disgusted with himself in his entire life up until that moment as he set his phone down, burying his hands in his face.

“I made fun of his diet,” he mumbled into his hands. “I called it bird food.”

Not once or twice, but a lot.

“I just thought he was a freak about his calories,” Wilson murmured, feeling his own stomach churn with guilt. “I didn’t know it was serious.”

A lot of players tracked their calories. They bulked and cut and were meticulous about staying in shape, especially on the off season. Shane, he thought, was just an extremely disciplined player. He turned down sugar, got a bit short-tempered if his workout was interrupted, kept track of his meals, never drank alcohol. He was the epitome of restraint.

“He’s not anorexic, though,” Comeau reminded them. “If anything, he’s bigger than most of the rookies.” Maybe not as large as Drapeau but definitely larger than Pike. He wasn’t stick thin.

“He’s not overweight, either,” Mitty defended for some reason. “He couldn’t be with what he eats.”

“What’s even left if it’s not anorexia or binge eating?” JJ wondered, sounding a bit ignorant.

He was, he supposed. He didn’t struggle with food very much. He kind of loved it, always grabbing burgers and fries whenever there was a chance despite multiple people trying to tell him to cut it out with the fast food.

“Isn’t there one about being obsessive about healthy diets?” Drapeau commented, pretty sure he read something about that at some point on a long flight when he ran out of material.

Hayden nodded. “Orthorexia,” he murmured, having learned about it a while back. “It’s when every type of food seems bad, in a way. People say it kind of makes you think artificial foods or dyes are poison to your body.”

He and Jackie were determined to make sure the girls grew up with healthy self-images, not wanting them to ever feel any dysmorphia over their bodies. Especially knowing it could start so young, they both tried their best to never discuss weight or shape, not even mentioning calories and sticking strictly to considering the amount of fullness or energy a snack would provide them.

He never thought the disorders he was trying to protect his kids from were the kind that his best friend was going through, though.

“God, this shit is so fucked up,” Mitty mumbled, shaking his head. “This shouldn’t be public.” If they hadn’t even known, there was no way the general public should.

“You think that’s bad? Keep scrolling,” Berkes commented, wrinkling his nose in frustration as he powered through a few more texts.

“Why?” Wilson wondered hesitantly. “What are the others about?”

His answer cleared things up, but seemed to complicate things all at the same time. “Rozanov’s depression.”

“Okay, it’s officially growing redundant but I’m saying it anyway,” Comeau prefaced, holding both hands up. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He covered his mouth for a moment, trying and failing to find something to say. “I- he’s…God.”

Mitty just nodded, staying silent.

JJ swallowed harshly, feeling some of his disdain for Rozanov melting away. “Do you…really think he’d do it?” he asked quietly. “Commit suicide?”

The brazen, egotistical, asshole who the league loved to hate. That was so damn difficult to reconcile with the man who seemed to be struggling enough that Shane was actually willing to drive one-hundred miles just to make sure he didn’t do anything rash or irreversible.

“I don’t know,” Hayden mumbled, shaking his head. “Shane seemed to think it was possible.”

“Or at the very least that he would hurt himself if he stopped texting back,” Berkes noted, blowing out a distressed breath. “This explains the partying, though—a way to self-destruct without leaving scars.” Even managing to get some publicity in the process, too. A win-win, in some way.

“Speculating makes me feel like a bad person,” Drapeau clarified, putting his phone away, like he couldn’t keep prying into his friends private business.

Even Rozanov was a jerk, he didn’t deserve to struggle like that. And Shane sure as hell didn’t deserve to worry from cities away, talking him off the ledge.

“We’re reading private texts between our friend and his secret boyfriend of a decade,” Berkes summarized again. “You feel like a shitty person because you are one. We all are.” Anyone who went through them was. Which, currently, was several million people around the world.

“Yeah, but it’s not our fault,” Comeau defended weakly. “If he had told us—”

“If we had known, how many of would have been furious he was with Rozanov?” Hayden interjected. “How many of us would have been disturbed by his lies and hesitated to trust him on the ice?” He was met with complete silence. “Exactly. He lied because we made him lie.”

Pursing his lips, he looked back down at his phone, staring at the texts Shane sent. He could practically feel the fear through them, the way Shane kept badgering him to pick up the phone or answer texts. Anything to show him he was alright.

Unable to look at it, anymore, he scrolled. Past messages about more little gifts and complaints about being lonely or missing each other, intent on just getting to the end of them. Instead, his eye caught on the word ‘kid’ and he froze, scrolling back up immediately.

The mood had absolutely shifted, into something tense that none of them could really explain. Like sadness and tentative hope all wrapped into one.

“They want kids,” Wilson practically whispered. “They want a while family together. A life.”

Even Berkes seemed to deflate a bit, clicking his tongue in a mix of frustration and sorrow. “And they don’t think they can have it and be apart of hockey at the same time,” he muttered, jaw tightening at the thought.

The thing they loved was keeping them from being in love. That was perhaps the most poetic form of tragedy he had ever heard before.

Hayden sighed slowly, scrubbing his eyes a bit. He knew the other guys could empathize, truly. But for him, those texts felt like a brick to his head. Because he had it. The perfect marriage, the adorable kids, a paid off home with art on the fridge. Jackie and him were even discussing heading to the animal shelter soon.

It was one thing for him to try to set Shane up, to push him into this kind of life because he wanted his best friend to feel the same joy he felt. It was another to know Shane actually wanted it too, and didn’t think he could have it because they worked in the kind of field that would never accept two queer hockey players being in love, let alone getting married.

“I can’t really envision Rozanov with kids,” Mitty admitted, glancing at Wilson. “Can you?”

“Before practice? Not in a million years,” he replied thoughtfully. “Now? I think I could, honestly.”

A little girl with curls and an eye roll that half the world couldn’t mimic if they tried. Or a boy who always made that faux innocent expression Rozanov always gave when he wanted to annoy the other team. It wasn’t that impossible of an image to conjure in his mind.

“Kid would be in the hall of fame before he spoke his first word with both of their genes, that’s for sure,” Drapeau agreed, nodding.

Comeau hummed, glancing down at his phone. “I can’t believe Rozanov wouldn’t even want his kid to have his genetics,” he muttered earnestly, all but sure that if he did have kids, he would have wanted the child to be his carbon copy.

“Can you blame him?” JJ said rhetorically. “Depression is genetic. So is dementia and that’s what his father died of, right?” He didn’t want to risk passing either on to his kids, to inhibit their lives the way his own already was.

“I forgot about that,” Hayden admitted, furrowing his eyebrows as he remembered how quickly after the funeral Rozanov had come back.

“But hey, did you see the way Shane was talking about Rozanov’s mom?” Comeau muttered. “That was sweet. He probably misses her.”

Berkes nodded. “I’ll say,” he noted. “Did you see the texts he sent a few weeks after that conversation?”

Hayden frowned, shaking his head and glancing back down, scrolling past other conversations and stopping on the one he assumed Berkes was referring to.

JJ cleared his throat a bit. “I never thought I’d live to the day I actually wished I could give Rozanov a hug,” he admitted with a small huff, because he wasn’t sure how else to compartmentalize the way he was feeling.

“Me neither,” Berkes muttered, rubbing the back of his head.

“I yelled,” Drapeau admitted, tone filled with shame.

“What?” Hayden murmured, lifting his head a bit.

“At Shane,” he elaborated. “The day he skipped practice, I didn’t believe he was sick and I yelled at him because I- I was in a bad mood and didn’t want to be there, either. I thought it wasn’t fair he could just leave and I had to stick it out…”

Comeau let out a breath, reaching to squeeze his shoulder. “It’s alright,” he assured him. “I’m sure he didn’t take it personally.”

Drapeau didn’t think so, either, frankly. Shane never did. But he should have. He was being difficult for no reason, holding his captain to a high standard when he had done nothing but always exceeded expectations and the one time, he lied to get out of something, he blew up at him.

That would have been bad enough if it wasn’t for the reason he lied. He felt like he might be sick, thinking about Shane worrying about Ilya, having to deal with such a stupid fucking outburst.

“Can’t believe he even let Shane near him like that,” Wilson admitted. “When I lost my mom I- there was no one I trusted enough to see me like that. I was a wreck. Still am, sometimes. Especially the anniversary of her death.”

“It was cancer, wasn’t it?” Mitty questioned gently, not wanting to pry.

He nodded. “Yeah,” he replied quietly. “I still visit her grave every month, though. I bring flowers, tell her about the games, things like that.”

Sometimes he went more, when he could. But traveling made it difficult for him, unfortunately. Still, he made sure she always had flowers and the headstone never grew moss. That was the very least he could do for her.

“God, Rozanov probably doesn’t even get to visit his mom’s plot,” Hayden realized, pressing his hand against his forehead as he felt woozy from all the information he’d absorbed. “He’s barely even in Russia.”

And there was no telling if he would even be allowed to return safely now that he had been publicly outed.

“I bet the tattoo at least helps him feel closer to her,” Berkes noted, trying to at least find a bit of comfort in knowing he had ways to keep her close.

Comeau frowned. “What tattoo?” he asked.

Berkes looked like he was trying very hard not to roll his eyes. “The one he just got last month,” he responded, gesturing to his phone. “Keep up, please.”

He was at least a few weeks ahead of them, reading everything, unlike Hayden who was mostly skimming as a way to try to preserve some of his best friends dignity. Hayden scrolled through a few dozen more texts, pausing when he saw some skin on display with fresh ink over it.

Hayden stared at the text, his chest heavy and aching as he clicked his phone off. The screen went black and he flipped it over on the bench beside him, blowing out a deep breath as everything settled over him.

“That’s it,” he declared, shaking his head. “We’re done.” He couldn’t do any more. He wouldn’t.

“What, no more texts?” JJ wondered, furrowing his eyebrows. There had to be more.

“I don’t know, there’s probably some,” he replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It doesn’t matter, if there are. It’s none of our business.”

None of it was, he had just been fooling himself into thinking it was okay to pry into Shane’s personal life if it meant helping protect him more. But it wasn’t, and he knew that.

Drapeau frowned. “But a few minutes ago—”

“A few minutes ago, I was trying to wrap my brain around all of this,” Hayden interjected. “And now, it’s been wrapped. So, I’m done. It’s Shane’s private life, not ours.”

There was some silence, along with a few mumbles that were quiet but seemed to be in agreement. They had all known, deep down, it was unacceptable. A breach of trust. They were just waiting for one of them to be honorable enough to put their foot down hard enough for all of them to follow in step.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Berkes replied, bending over to grab his bag off the ground. “I should uh- head home. Maybe text Shane later, if he’s up for responding.” Even if he didn’t it would still be the right thing to do.

Drapeau and Comeau both nodded in agreement, finishing up packing the rest of their stuff pretty quickly. “We’ll see you guys tomorrow,” one of them murmured, giving a small wave and following Berkes out of the locker room together.

Wilson stood up. “Yeah, I’m leaving too,” he replied, searching for his bag like it had vanished.

Mitty grabbed it, throwing it at him. “You still wanted a ride?” he asked him.

He nodded a bit, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “If you don’t mind,” he replied.

Mitty shrugged, tipping his head towards the door. “Just don’t hit me, like Drapeau,” he retorted, giving him a gentle shove towards the exit.

Hayden watched them leave, glancing at JJ who hadn’t made any effort to head out with them. Instead, he was still staring at the back of Hayden’s phone, kind of like he was still processing everything. Part of him thought he might crash his own car if he tried to drive right now.

“You alright?” JJ wondered hesitantly.

He blinked a few times, shrugging. “Honestly? I have no idea,” he confessed. “Better than Shane, probably.”

“Think he’d answer if I tried to call him?” he questioned, desperately wanting to talk to his friend right now.

Knowing him, Shane was probably deep into a panic attack right now, and he wanted to tell him he understood why he lied and that it was alright. His sexuality, his relationship, all of it was alright. He just wanted him to be happy. That’s what they all wanted.

Hayden shook his head. “I doubt it,” he admitted. “I’ll try going to his apartment, tomorrow.” For tonight, he figured Shane would just want to be with his parents and probably call Ilya.

JJ nodded, finally hauling himself to his feet to get his stuff. “Tell me how it goes, okay?” he requestioned.

He hummed in agreement, watching him head out of the locker room with far less enthusiasm than he had when he entered it. Sighing, he scrubbed his face again, sitting alone in the empty room. Jackie had been texting; he needed to reply. He needed to text Shane, too, just to say something. Anything that might help him know that he was on his side in all of this, no matter what.

It was just impossible to draft a message, it felt. To either of them.

Hayden felt like a hypocrite, unlocking his phone again and going back to the Top Sport twitter account. There were more posts, updates on Shane’s personal life. But he couldn’t bear to go through anymore of them, not without feeling like he’d throw up from how disgusted he was with himself for it.

Instead, he clicked the comments, scrolling through threads of them. He scanned his eyes over thousands of them, probably, from Metro, Centaur, and Boston fans. Fans from every team, really. Every sport, even people who didn’t watch any. He let his gaze rake over all of them, trying to gauge where the public opinion fell currently.

Hayden blew out a deep breath, lowering his phone again and forcing himself to put it away for good this time. Shoving it back in his bag, his pulled it off the ground and stood up, pushing the door open and flipping the locker room lights off as he made his way to his car.

He was still grappling with how he felt about all of this. To him, Shane was still Shane. Kind, annoyingly humble, always there to give anyone a helping hand whenever they needed it. It was strange, sure. And he wanted, well, needed to know more about it at some point. From his friend, though. Not the internet. But for now, he would settle knowing that the fans hadn’t turned their backs on Shane, just like Hayden never planned too, either.