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“You know I’m bi,” Roz says, as if he’s talking about the weather, not dropping a giant fucking bomb.
Cliff Marleau had not known that, or at least hadn’t really put it to himself in those terms.
He glances around, suddenly aware of their surroundings. They’re in the corner booth of their hotel’s bar in downtown Phoenix and the place is dead. It’s 11:15 on a Thursday night. The bartender and the waitress are chatting to each other over the bar, looking bored.
Roz stares at him, and it wasn’t really a question, but Cliff realizes he’s expecting a response.
“Uh, I guess?”
There’d been a few times in clubs over the years when it had been just the two of them and and he’d thought he’d seen something between the strobing lights and dark corners, Roz in that crazy Slavic fuckboy couture of his, moving to the music, moving in on his target, hand trailing over the hard plane of a masculine chest rather than a round, feminine shoulder. Disappearing for the rest of the night.
Cliff had never asked, never said anything. He was never too sure what he was really seeing anyway, never wanted to make assumptions. It was just something he’d noticed in flashes and filed away. Roz has voracious appetites—for hockey, good Russian vodka, greasy diner food, finding something weird and fun to do in every city they stay in. It hadn’t seemed too strange that he was maybe a little adventurous, maybe a little omnivorous about that too. Cliff’s cousin’s gay, and anyway, he’s never been into judging that shit.
Roz lifts his eyebrows, so he tries again. “I mean, it’s none of my fucking business, right? But for the record it’s cool. We’re good.”
Roz smiles, his real smile, the one not too many people get to see, and it starts sinking into Cliff how big this is. Roz talks a lot, but he doesn’t really say much, not about himself, not about his personal life. Cliff is one of the few people who know about his shitty relationship with his family, for example, and that’s mostly from picking up clues along the way.
All of a sudden, Roz is opening a door Cliff hadn’t really realized was there, something that had been closed, right at the edge of his peripheral vision. And Roz doesn’t do anything without a reason.
So Cliff asks. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“I have a boyfriend now. It is serious, it is love.” Roz looks down at the table, like he’s suddenly shy, and isn’t that a new look for him. “You and I are friends, and I don’t want you to be surprised by some things that are going to happen. I want you to be able to understand.”
Cliff blows out a breath as pieces start clicking into place. Roz has been different this season. Came back to training camp looser and more relaxed than he’d ever been, with a spark that reached deep into his eyes. But also quieter. Turning down invitations to go out, sticking to a few drinks and leaving early on the rare occasions when he’d accepted. Disappearing suddenly to take phone calls in private.
Inviting Cliff down for a drink in the hotel bar to talk after the game instead of going out to meet a hookup or hit a club.
“This happened over the summer?”
Roz takes a sip of his beer and nods. “Yes. This summer is when it really got serious.”
Cliff picks up his own beer and considers what he’s just learned. Now that Roz has made this whole thing his business, officially, he can admit to himself that it’s super fucking interesting.
The only woman he’s seen Roz with more than once is Svetlana, and Svetlana is extraordinary. He’d figured out a long time ago that it was some type of friends with benefits situation with her. Not romantic. But to lock down Ilya Rozanov, this boyfriend must also be extraordinary, must be Svetlana-level.
“Who is this guy? Am I going to get to meet him?”
Roz’s face does something complicated. He looks into his glass, tips his head from side to side, as if he’s deciding how much more to say.
Cliff tries to reassure him. “I mean, I’m not telling anyone shit unless you want me to, you know that.”
He hopes Roz knows that already, but it’s worth saying.
The league had been officially supportive of Scott Hunter coming out, but the man had done it in a way that hadn’t given them many other options, which was pretty well played in Cliff’s opinion. But Cliff has been playing hockey since he was six and has spent the last ten years in the MLH, and he knows the score.
“Scott Hunter’s near retirement and his boyfriend is art history student. Is more simple than us.” Roz’s thumbs rub up and down the sides of his glass, and there’s something a little hopeless in his agitation, like he’s thought about this a lot and hasn’t liked any of the conclusions he’s reached.
Simple as opposed to what. Besides the obvious pro hockey player fucking dudes of it all, what can be so complicated about this boyfriend? Because that is a giant complication right there. Someone else who can’t admit…?
“Oh shit, is it another player?” Cliff blurts out before he can stop himself.
Roz exhales sharply through his nose, which is not a no.
Something starts moving in Cliff’s brain. A switch has been thrown and the gears are starting to turn on their own, outside of his control.
“Your Montreal Jane is a dude! Another player.” Cliff puts a hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of his own assumptions over the years. The sweet, delighted grinning over texts, the fucking blushing, the way Roz’s leg always jumps and bounces like it’s got a life of its own on flights to Montreal. Impatient, eager. Secret. It’s starting to make more sense.
Wait. Another player. In Montreal. Holy shit. That means… “Your Montreal dude is a Metro.”
Roz looks up to the ceiling, seems to come to some type of decision, and leans back, gesturing impatiently. Please proceed.
Cliff couldn’t stop if he wanted to. The gears are turning faster, running through what he knows of the Metros roster on a loop. None of them are Svetlana-level. But he’s not thinking about this right. Amazing, superstar, enough to catch Roz’s lasting attention looks different in another dude, never mind another hockey player.
There’s really only one hockey player in the league that comes close to fitting that bill. And yeah, he’s a fucking Metro.
And then Cliff’s remembering how intensely Roz had reacted to his hit on Hollander last spring, the cold fury on the ice right after, the acknowledgment through clenched teeth later in the dressing room that it was a clean hit, that these things happen. Like Roz knew it was true and hated saying it anyway for some reason, maybe because it was true. The insistence that the captain should handle the hospital visit.
But it can’t be. Can it?
Jane.
Shane.
“Oh shit,” he says, once he’s able to form words again. “Hollander.”
He looks at Roz, one final hope that it’s a prank, the biggest joke yet from the king of mayhem.
“Hollander,” Roz agrees, and then a secret smile creeps across his face, like he can’t help it, like he’s the cat that got the fucking cream.
Jesus Christ. Not simple doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Things get weird for a while, as Cliff tries to mesh this single fact, this enormous fucking secret that would blow the whole hockey world apart, into the ordinary fabric of his reality. It’s like trying to cram another pair of shoes into a suitcase that’s already too full—things don’t fit.
He and Roz have been on the same line most of the time since Roz’s rookie season. Which means Cliff’s played against Hollander a lot. The coaches, the league, the fans all love pitting those two against each other. And Hollander is famously a hockey robot: precise, fast, flawless. No discernable personality on the ice besides hockey. Or off it, according to league scuttlebut and Cliff’s own brief experiences at MLH events. Not much in the way of partying or even socializing, no interesting hobbies, just polite, cagey interviews and an endless string of sponsorships and commercials, impossible to escape during game broadcasts.
He’s gay or bi and on the down low in the league, which is theoretically interesting, but evidence is mounting that it’s not actually that unusual.
So what the fuck does Roz see in Hollander besides the hockey?
Cliff doesn’t feel like he can ask, because “Him? Really? Why?” is a kind of a shitty return for the level of trust Roz has put in him. And Roz is a good friend. Maybe it’s a Russian thing, but once you’re in with him, you’re in. Under the chirpy asshole crap, he cares, he notices when you’re having a bad day and actually asks what’s up, and listens to the answer.
But Ilya Rozanov loves huge porterhouses dripping with herb butter at fancy steakhouses, lines of shots on the bar, fast cars, movies with lots of explosions. Shane Hollander is probably on some kind of nutritionally optimized, plant-based diet and turns the lights out by 9pm sharp after reading his daily 30 pages of nonfiction. Nonfiction about hockey.
How is this even a thing?
They’re home and off on a Tuesday night and Roz has invited a few of them over to watch the Metros game after practice.
As a Boston Raider, hate-watching the Metros is a professional as well as a personal pleasure. The coaches are always reviewing Metros tape, going over weaknesses and opportunities in strategy sessions.
Roz opens his door looking oddly shorter, tips his head expectantly towards the shoe rack lined up along the wall right inside the door.
Cliff unties his shoes and toes them off, and the weird height difference disappears. He racks them next to a delicate pair of sparkly platforms.
“That’s new,” he observes.
Roz shrugs, leads the way to the fridge, opens the door. “You want beer? I have soda too.”
Cliff looks past his arm to the shelf lined with red cans of Coke and green cans of… Canada Dry? Sitting next to a couple of bottles of something with labels with Asian writing on them. That’s also new.
He realizes Roz is staring at him.
“Beer’s good,” he says.
He takes the offered bottle, waits while Roz opens one for himself.
“So, you like ginger ale now?” he tries.
Roz shrugs again, leading the way to the living room, where the pre-game show is wrapping up.
Connors and Wrislowski are there, on one side of Roz’s huge couch, Svetlana curled up on the other. Roz takes his usual seat in the middle. Cliff makes sure to sit next to Svetlana. She gives him a dimpled smile that makes something in his insides curl with warmth.
The Metros are playing the Centaurs tonight, and nobody in the room thinks it’s going to be much of a challenge.
“Bet Hollander barely gets any ice time,” Connors says. “They’ll let the first line rest tonight.”
Roz tips his head back and forth. “Ottawa’s rebuilding. Could be interesting.”
Wrislowski snorts. “If you find slaughters interesting.”
Roz tips his head again, and Svetlana purses her lips and sighs.
When the game starts, it’s not quite the predicted slaughter. Ottawa’s surprisingly scrappy out there, putting up a better defense than Cliff’s seen from them in a while for the first ten minutes. Then Montreal’s first line goes on the shift. Hollander and Pike and Andropov come over the boards and Svetlana sits up straighter.
Hollander’s on ice for about 3 seconds before he has the puck and is racing towards the Ottawa goal. He and Pike pass easily around Ottawa’s defense and Hollander shoots straight past the goalie’s raised glove.
“Like taking candy from a baby,” Connors mutters. Cliff silently agrees.
Hollander’s line goes off the shift, damage done. It’s 2-0 by the end of the first period.
Svetlana’s quiet, which is weird, Cliff realizes. Usually she’s breaking the play down constantly, savaging whoever’s making mistakes. But she’s mostly watching silently now, her mouth pressed into a thin line. A few times she turns to Roz, not saying anything, just staring, and every time, Roz just shakes his head. They’re not speaking Russian, but they’re saying something to each other that Cliff can’t understand.
During the intermission between first and second periods, Cliff’s talking with her about the new Italian place that just opened near the practice rink when she stops mid-sentence, her eyes swiveling to the television. One of Hollander’s ads has come on. Calvin Klein, the black and white film and dramatic lighting highlighting every hard ridge of muscle in contrast to the white briefs, the sharp cheekbones and dark eyes.
“Such a beautiful man,” Svetlana coos, then says something in Russian, her eyes sliding towards Roz.
Roz is watching the ad too, his face giving nothing away.
“Hollander beefcake should be a, whatchacallit, oxymoron?” Wrislowski jokes, but nobody runs with it.
Cliff tries to pick up the thread of his conversation with Svetlana, because he’s trying to figure a way of working in an offer to try that new restaurant together. But as much as he wants that, the gears in his brain are turning in uncontrollable directions.
Like—does Svetlana know? He’s pretty sure Svetlana knows. Something strange is going down between her and Roz during this game, and it seems to involve Hollander.
And, okay, the ad. Cliff’s as straight as they come, but he has functioning eyes. Hollander’s an objectively good-looking man if you’re into that sort of thing. Literally Svetlana-level, as in has the Svetlana seal of approval as well as Calvin Klein’s, which Cliff’s trying not to feel too insecure about. Ranked Cosmo’s hottest MLH player. There’s a large and vocal female Hollander following online, and boy are those ladies apparently doomed to disappointment.
There must be something more there, though, besides looks and hockey. Roz can have his pick, and he’s picked something complicated. Boyfriend, he’d said. Serious. And Rose fucking Landry dated Hollander for a hot minute last year. Not a woman who probably cared that much about the hockey, at the end of the day, or needed arm candy.
Oh shit, Roz had been a little beside himself about that, hadn’t he? Seething, and not doing a very good job of hiding it. Jealousy, just maybe not the kind Cliff had assumed at the time.
But then Roz had come back from All-Star weekend in Tampa like a man reborn, light in his eyes and spring in his proverbial step. All-Star weekend when he’d played wing to Hollander’s center on the same team for the first time. And the club hookups had stopped around then, hadn’t they? So had the gossip items about Hollander and Rose Landry.
So maybe that was really when things started getting serious, even before this summer.
Which means it hadn’t been serious before then. But it had been something.
Huh.
Two nights later, after they beat San Francisco at home, Cliff’s walking past the media scrum in the hall outside the locker room where Roz is holding court at the center of a semicircle of microphones and cameras and lights, as usual, shirtless and shining with sweat.
“Your hat trick tonight puts you two goals ahead of Shane Hollander. Do you think you’ll be able to maintain that momentum?” one of the reporters shouts.
A slow, wicked smile spreads across Roz’s face. “It will be hard for him to catch up with that backhand, yes? I hear he is seeking help for it, though. They say the first step is admitting you have problem, eh?”
Then he winks directly into the camera, the way he does sometimes, and Cliff thinks: That’s kind of a jerk thing to say about your boo, on top of being a complete lie. Hollander’s backhand is legendary.
And then he thinks: Those two have been chirping each other like this for years. While also, apparently, falling in love? What the fuck.
And then he realizes it may actually be flirting, and he needs to go back to the locker room to sit down for a minute.
After the next Metros game—he knows when that is, and that it’s against Vancouver, because he’s got the Metros schedule bookmarked now, he’s apparently invested, this mystery needs to be solved—he does a little searching on YouTube.
There it is, Hollander’s pre-game press availability. He’s wearing a branded black base layer, logo prominent along the neckline, probably part of some endorsement contract knowing the guy, looking cool and perfect the way he always does in these things. A reporter repeats Roz’s chirp to him, and his eyes slide to one side, the corner of his mouth curling up.
“Ilya Rozanov has a lot of opinions. He might be able to inflate some party balloons with them, but I’m not sure they’re worth much otherwise. We’ll see at the end of the year,” he says, mild as can be. But Cliff is pretty sure he’s fucking blushing. His freckles are really noticeable all of a sudden and his cheeks are pink in the glare of the oversaturated camera lighting.
Oh yeah, they are flirting. Chirp flirting. Through major media outlets. It’s so obvious if you know. And Cliff has to admit to himself that that’s kind of an interesting thing for Shane Hollander, golden boy of the MLH, to do.
The next roadie’s Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, Columbus. First Metros game since Roz dropped the bomb.
At the airport, on the plane, Roz’s leg is bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. He keeps glancing at his phone, occasionally tapping out a text, crucifix pendant caught between his lips. Reading a response, grinning to himself.
Cliff watches him and thinks about hockey and relationships. A lot of hockey players get married young, and most of the ones that do make it work. The wife, the kids. FaceTiming on the road, long-distance birthday wishes, family celebrations experienced alone through a screen from across the country. Threads of contact that keep relationships tied together.
Cliff’s been wanting to make something work for a while too. At this point, the clubbing is just filling the time until. But he’d tried last season, and Teresa had broken it off by Thanksgiving. “I never see you,” she’d said, and slid his apartment key back to him across the wine bar table, picked up her purse and walked out.
The WAGs who stick are a special breed. There’s a reason they’re a fucking club, group chat and all. They share battle plans, survival strategies.
Hollander at least will get it. Fuck, though, it’s not one travel schedule to work around for Roz and him. It’s two. From different cities.
No wonder Roz is keyed up to bursting when Boston and Montreal play.
In Bell Centre, the Metros fans greet the Raiders with roaring jeers, boos echoing up to the rafters, where those two recent Cup banners hang. Roz’s face is alight with glee as he takes in the hate like it’s a nourishing meal. He blows the crowd a theatrical kiss as he comes out to finish warmups. The boos ring out louder, hands bang against the glass.
Montreal fans burn Roz in effigy outside before every game. Boston fans do the same with Hollander. It’s been Hollander and Rozanov since the draft, the two of them like twin moons orbiting a planet, moving on the same path, tied together by gravity. Here on Hollander’s home turf, Cliff can only wonder again at Roz’s taste. Complicated.
Hollander and Roz face off over the dot, grinning at each other like all their wishes just came true, and maybe they have. Roz takes the puck, Hollander takes it back, and Cliff’s mind narrows down to the game, calculating passes, clocking the positions of other players, skating up the side when the chance comes. Metros games are always intense, and Hollander and Roz are in each other’s faces every time they’re on the ice at the same time, skating around each other with astonishing speed, checking each other into the boards, fighting for the puck every second. But now that he knows, Cliff thinks that for them it may be a little like dancing.
Boston wins 3-2 in overtime. Roz fist-bumps with them all and tells them he loves them as they come off the ice, gives a speech in the locker room about how proud he is of them, stands for post-game interviews. Gets on the bus back to the hotel, fends off a couple of plans for bar crawls, phone in his hand, texting. Sometime between when they pull up at the hotel and when the rookies finally get their chance at the elevators, he’s vanished. Cliff doesn’t even see him leave.
The next morning he’s back, though, on the bus to the airport, loose-limbed and giddy, exchanging silly jokes with the rookies. Obviously and glaringly well-fucked. As if Shane Hollander, hockey robot, possesses some kind of diabolical sex magic, and that’s something Cliff really doesn’t want to think about too hard.
It would certainly explain some things, though.
A couple of days before the Metros are due to play in Boston, Roz takes him aside after practice.
“You should come to my house tomorrow night to hang out. Shane will be there.”
Cliff’s known Roz for ten years, has spent more time with him than most men spend with their wives and children, and they’re still Roz and Marly to each other. It’s the Shane that cracks something open inside of Cliff.
He feels like he should bring something to mark the occasion, so he splashes out on a good bottle of Russian vodka, the kind with Cyrillic lettering on the label that you can only get at that one liquor store in Brookline.
Roz’s face lights up when he sees it. He pulls Cliff into a half-hug, slaps his back, shuts the door against the early March snow flurries. “You’re the best, Marly.”
Cliff takes his shoes off at the door out of habit now, sets them in the rack next to a wickedly high-heeled pair of feminine ankle boots and some Reeboks he’s never seen before.
In the kitchen, Roz holds the bottle out towards Svetlana, who’s sitting at the island. “Look what Marly brought!”
“Nice!” Svetlana stands to give Cliff a hug, and Cliff returns it, letting his palm rest on her lower back for a few extra seconds before letting go.
They’d finally tried that Italian restaurant near the practice rink, and it was really nice. She’d kissed both his cheeks softly before taking off at the end of the night, and he’s not quite sure what’s going on, but he’s feeling a little hopeful.
Shane Hollander’s on the stool next to Svetlana, forearms resting comfortably on the countertop. He stands up and sticks out his hand.
“Hi, I’m Shane. Nice to finally really meet you.”
Hollander looks a little different here, in person and off the ice, not smaller exactly, but no longer larger-than-life. He’s wearing a Metros hoodie and joggers. In his sock feet, he’s a few inches taller than Svetlana—same height as Roz, basically—and his hair is a little messy, like someone’s been running their fingers through it.
Cliff takes his hand. “Cliff. Hey, I never got a chance at the time, but sorry about that hit. I was definitely not trying for anything that hard.”
Hollander shakes his head and smiles. “It’s hockey. Anyway, it actually worked out okay in the end.”
His eyes track to where Roz is stashing the vodka in the freezer, and the look Roz gives him back makes Cliff feel like he’s interrupted something private.
Roz blinks, pulls out of it, rubs his hands together. “I let Shane order dinner. I hope you all like twigs and leaves.”
Hollander rolls his eyes. “You like sushi, you giant baby. Sorry, everyone, if you were hoping for Ilya’s usual deep-fried bacon cheeseburgers with donut buns, you’re out of luck.”
Cliff finds himself grinning. “He’s got you there, Roz.”
Roz makes a production of acting offended, arm to forehead, and Svetlana snickers.
And just like that they’re all talking at once, and then they’re settling in the living room for the Colorado-Seattle game.
Hollander sits next to Roz on the couch, drawing his knees up to his chest, and Roz wraps an arm around his shoulder. He leans against Roz and sips from a can of ginger ale, and mystery solved. One of them, at least.
The game isn’t great, both teams playing choppily together and against each other. Vancouver gets a major penalty and Colorado goes on the power play.
“Uch, why always Matheson on the power play line? Such a waste!” Svetlana complains.
Cliff nods, because Svetlana does not like Matheson, and she’s usually right, so there’s no point in arguing.
Hollander doesn’t seem to know that.
“Against Vancouver it’s smart. They’ll put Berry on him to kill the penalty, because they think he’ll play selfish like usual, but it’s a 4-minute major and Matheson’s started passing more at the end of long power plays in the last couple of weeks.”
Svetlana hums skeptically, sitting back and crossing her arms.
Roz tips his head back and glances at Cliff along the back of the sofa, behind Hollander’s dark hair. “You should see his mother. She’s worse. It’s where he gets it from.”
Hollander shoves a hand against Roz’s chest, then leaves it resting there.
With 35 seconds left in the power play, Matheson gets the puck in the left end, and Berry’s on him, countering a move on goal. Matheson passes instead and Colorado scores.
Svetlana turns and points at Hollander and says something deliberate in Russian, and Cliff is glad he’s not Hollander, because she looks a little scary.
But then Hollander says something back. In Russian. It’s halting, and he stutters over a word, frowns and repeats it, but it’s recognizably Russian. Svetlana laughs at whatever the hell he’s said.
Roz’s arm tightens around Hollander’s shoulders, pulling him sharply back, and he buries his face in Hollander’s neck, murmuring something.
Hollander flushes and hisses, “Ilya!” He pushes away from Roz and stands up, his eyes anywhere but them. “Be right back.”
Roz looks after him like he just won the fucking lottery. Then the doorbell rings and he pauses the game and goes to get the food delivery.
“Those two idiots,” Svetlana says, but she’s still smiling. “It took them long enough!”
Cliff’s so relieved he finally has someone to talk with about this after all this time that he can barely contain himself, it just spills out like water overflowing a dam. “I know, right? Roz has been twisting himself in knots over Montreal Jane for years. When did you know it was Hollander?”
“It was obvious it was a man for a while. Started getting obvious it was Hollander a couple of years ago. You should have seen Ilya, watching that ESPN documentary on Hollander and his dacha on repeat when he thought nobody knew. With cartoon heart eyes.”
Svetlana brings up her fingers in circles in front of her own eyes and giggles, and Cliff laughs too, because he can see it now.
He can see a lot of things now.
Like how full of shit Roz is when he complains about the food over the stacked takeout containers.
“You’re trying to starve me so Metros win.”
Hollander smacks Roz’s chest, opens one of them and shoves it in his face. “You can thank me later.”
Roz glances down and purrs, “Oh, I will.”
Hollander rolls his eyes, but he flushes, bites his lip like he’s got a secret nobody can make him tell as he keeps on opening containers, and it catches Cliff up a little. How Roz is focusing the famously panty-annihilating power of his flirtation on Shane Hollander, and Shane Hollander’s not flirting back at all, and they are both fucking delighted with each other.
There’s sushi and sashimi, and Hollander mostly sticks to it, but he ordered plenty of other things as well. Roz and Hollander bicker like children, bright and easy, trading bites back and forth across their plates. There’s something ritual about it, like water following a path worn into stone over the years, and Cliff finds himself wondering again when this all started.
Roz pours out three shots of the now-chilled vodka and Hollander clinks his can of ginger ale against their glasses.
Cliff realizes something must be showing on his face, because Hollander explains, “I don’t drink during the season.”
He and Roz aren’t drinking much either. Morning skate and then the game the next day. But a shot of vodka with sushi isn’t much.
“You just can’t afford any weakness tomorrow,” Roz says casually.
Hollander narrows his eyes. “I’m not worried about weakness on my side.”
“Maybe you should be. You’ve got Hayden Pike on your line.”
Hollander throws up his hands. “One day I want to know what Hayden did to you, besides help us beat you a bunch.”
Cliff’s curious about that too, because Pike’s on Montreal’s first line for a reason.
“Montreal’s fifteenth best player on a line with you.” Roz sounds offended, like Pike pushed his grandmother over or something.
Hollander narrows his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Sorry for what?”
“Sorry we’re going to annihilate you guys tomorrow.”
“You see! You see! Now I have witnesses. Finally!” Roz points triumphantly, leaning over to stage-whisper to Cliff, “Everybody thinks he’s nice Canadian boy. They don’t know he is really an asshole!”
“Pretty sure you’re the asshole,” Hollander says mildly, sipping his ginger ale.
“No, it is you.”
“Nope.” Hollander pops the ‘p.’ “Definitely you.”
Svetlana’s watching them like it’s a fucking tennis match. Cliff thinks it’s more like a nature documentary. Here we see the hockey rivals in their natural habitat, performing their mating ritual. It’s kind of a relief that the rivalry isn’t a total lie—the competition part, at least. Even in this upside-down situation, there are still some constants to hang onto.
After they’ve finished watching the game, Roz and Svetlana go upstairs to get some gift that Svetlana’s going to take to Roz’s niece in Russia, and it’s just Cliff and Hollander.
Hockey would be the safe topic, but Cliff’s got so many questions, and this is his chance.
“So. Shoe rack. Ginger ale. Early bedtimes. What have you done to our Ilya Rozanov?”
“My mom gave him the shoe rack. My parents have kind of adopted him. Sometimes I think they like him more than me.” Hollander smiles, like of course they do, who wouldn’t? “Anyway, he can still go out. He doesn’t need to use me as an excuse.”
“Nah, he’s full on domesticated these days.” Cliff hesitates. “You speak Russian?”
“Oh, yeah, well, I’m learning.” Hollander rubs a thumb across his lower lip, eyes going distant. “When Ilya was back in Russia for his father’s funeral, we talked a lot on the phone.”
Cliff raises his eyebrows, because this is news to him—that Roz had talked to anyone about his father’s death. Cliff had been in the locker room with him when he got the call, and Roz’s face had shut down completely like someone had turned off a light switch inside him, and then he’d gone to find Coach LeClaire, and when he wasn’t on the plane to Nashville the next morning, Cliff had had to learn what had happened from someone on the travel staff. Roz was gone for four days and rejoined the team in Dallas like nothing had happened, and Cliff had worried, a little, about how he could possibly be as all right as he seemed.
“He was going through a lot,” Hollander says softly, eyes still focused on something that’s not in the room with them. “I mean, a parent’s death, and they hadn’t had a good relationship. And I think he was also saying goodbye to Russia, in a way. It was hard for him to put it into English. So he told me in Russian, and it helped, even though I didn’t understand a word. So I thought it might be nice if I could, you know, understand more.”
“Huh,” Cliff says, because he doesn’t really know what else to say, too busy reordering his memory of that time around the fact that Roz had grieved after all. To Hollander. That Hollander is learning an entire new language to be able to listen.
“It’s fucking hard, though. Oh my god, the cases. And Svetlana says my accent is terrible.” Hollander snorts, oblivious to the revelation Cliff’s having, the way his brain’s lit up like a Christmas tree and everything looks slightly different than it did 60 seconds ago.
“Is not terrible, just bad,” Roz teases.
He and Svetlana are back, and he rests his hand on Hollander’s shoulder, rubbing his thumb along the line of Hollander’s neck, and Hollander leans into his touch, and neither seem to realize they’re doing it.
Later, Cliff walks Svetlana to her car outside.
“That was really, um, something,” he says, twirling his key ring around his finger.
“Yes,” Svetlana sighs, digging around in her purse. “I think Ilya will not sign with Boston again. He will move closer to Hollander.”
Cliff laughs automatically, because it’s such a ridiculous idea. Roz is the face and the beating heart of the Raiders, and the Raiders are the only MLH team Roz has ever known. They drafted him when he was 18.
But Svetlana’s not smiling.
“Shit,” he says. Because Svetlana is fucking psychic about hockey, and she knows Roz better than anyone else. Maybe anyone else except Hollander.
Montreal’s out because of the salary cap, and anyway there’s no way those two could play on the same team together without giving themselves away immediately, if the eyeful he’s gotten tonight is any indication. But Toronto or Ottawa…
“Guess we’re going to have to figure out how to live without him,” he jokes halfheartedly, trying to adjust his view of the world again, for the second or third time this night.
She tilts her head, traces a finger down his arm, and sparks dance under his skin along its path. “Mmm, yes.”
He can’t quite bring himself to believe they’ll need to, but maybe, if they have to, they can.
The next day, Shane Hollander, hockey robot, is on the ice, scoring a hat trick like he’s checking off boxes on a form, and Cliff has to claw his way through to his own two assists like he’s coming up from ten feet underwater. He feels a little like the previous night was a fever dream until Hollander skates by him after his third goal and fucking winks at him.
Roz is right. Shane Hollander is a lot of things, including a little bit of an asshole. Yeah, Cliff sees it now.
At the end of the season, Roz gets the team together in the dressing room and announces he’s leaving, he’s signed with Ottawa, and Cliff can’t say he’s surprised. He is a little devastated. Everything about playing with the Raiders for the last eight years has been wrapped up with Roz and his boundless energy and his killer instincts and his warmth and funniness and heart. Hockey changes all the time, there are trades, injuries, new rookies, retirements. But for some reason it doesn’t feel real, at first, that Roz won’t be there next year, like when it’s high tide and it's hard to remember that there's bare, empty shore underneath it.
Nobody on the team understands why Roz is ditching a C on an original six team for a nonentity like the Centaurs—nobody but Cliff, and he sure as hell isn’t talking.
In hockey terms, the Raiders are medium fucked next season and they all know it.
Cliff thinks he’ll be okay, though.
He and Svetlana will keep hanging out like they have been, just the two of them, slowly circling closer. By September, he’ll be confident enough of what they’re doing to call it dating.
When he’s in Ottawa for the first Boston-Ottawa game, Roz will take him to his new favorite bar afterwards and they’ll catch up for hours. Two days before the first Metros game of the season, he’ll text Shane Hollander at the number he got from Roz: Hey, it’s Cliff. Wanna grab a drink while you’re in town? Shane Hollander will text back: Sounds good. These are threads he can stitch together over the distance.