Chapter Text
July 2018 – MHL Awards - Las Vegas
Shane was pacing back and forth, fiddling with the pockets of his dress pants. He desperately wanted to stay hidden backstage forever, blissfully cocooned in the shadows with the final few fleeting fragments of his dignity intact.
He also really wanted to get this over with. It felt like the ceiling was covered in swords, all of them hanging over his head, swaying precariously. Standing here waiting for them to fall was psychological torture. Either way, waiting for him on the other side of the worn velvet curtain was lifelong humiliation. Photos that would plague him, chirps he’d never live down, and headlines he couldn’t possibly out-skate.
Being Shane Hollander, the prince of hockey, meant there was no escaping the spotlight. Not tonight, or any night, no matter how hard he tried to blend into the brick wall beside him or how many times he’d visualized himself abruptly disappearing from the public consciousness and fading into obscurity like the third overall pick his draft year.
Whatever happened to that guy, anyways?
An image of the three of them — him, Ilya and that guy proudly holding up their new jerseys — cut through Shane’s panic. Being chosen second had been gut-wrenching. Shane had struggled to muster a half-hearted smile, too distracted by the cocky Russian grinning beside him, to introduce himself to whatshisname. Now whenever that photo is published, it’s just the two of them, Hollander and Rozanov, and third place dude isn’t even a footnote in the story of the league’s most lucrative rivalry.
“Please welcome to the stage 2010-2011 Calder Memorial Trophy winner, Captain Shane Hollander” said a disembodied voice. The sound of his name echoing through the amphitheater, jolted Shane back into the present moment.
Shane stepped onto the stage. He wasn't carrying himself like an elite athlete about to hand a career-defining award to a kid who probably idolized him. Instead, he approached the microphone like he was about to deliver his own eulogy or take a woman to bed.
To stop his hands from shaking, Shane gripped the podium tightly. He read his scripted lines from the teleprompter in his monotone captain’s voice, wondering for the first time in seven years what had happened to the third nominee who’d been up against him and Ilya for this honour.
Was he happy with his life choices right now?
Because Shane Hollander was not.
Shane Hollander was wearing a short-sleeved black sheer blouse, lovingly chosen by his ex-girlfriend as an apology to his secret boyfriend, who’d possessively marked his neck and chest with a field of hickeys that were definitely visible beneath the unforgiving overhead lights. He was sure everyone could see them. Players. Coaches. General Managers. People watching on TV. His parents! His sponsors!
Not for the first time that evening, he asked himself how he let this happen.
Logically, he knew being too good at hockey wasn’t why he was on stage dressed sluttier than Hudson Mildred Williams at the Oscars. His fate had been sealed three weeks ago.