Chapter Text
“You know you could have just passed me the puck instead of trying to show off.” Troy huffed as he untied his skates, the locker room buzzing with post-game adrenaline and chatter.
Ilya rolled his eyes next to him, sitting down by Troy’s cubby in his towel. “I didn’t see Burkhardt; Thought it was going to be an easy goal.” He shrugged, smirking. “Why are you crying? we won the game anyway.”
“I’m not fucking crying.” Troy said, “It’s a team sport, not the Ilya Rozanov show.”
“Is a little the Rozanov show.”
Troy glared at him, frustrated by Ilya’s cocky grin and the way Bood shrugged as though he agreed with Ilya’s statement.
“Are you two still bickering about that miss? Let it go.” Wyatt laughed throwing his gloves into the back of his locker with a laugh. “The games over.”
“Exactly!” Ilya said, gesturing at Wyatt. “Thank you Hazy.”
“We would have had an extra goal if he had passed the puck.” Troy grumbled.
“We did not need an extra goal.”
“Please, you just didn’t want anyone else to score tonight.”
“Barrett. I am the captain; your goals are my goals.”
Dykstra and Wyatt rolled their eyes.
“Don’t be mad, you can score a goal next time.” Ilya said, throwing his arm around Troy’s shoulder with a smirk. “I’ll help you.”
“Fuck off.” Troy swore. “I don’t need any help from you to score goals.”
“Hmm, the stats say I have more goals than you this season, and last season… and the season before. Maybe you could use a little help.”
“I wasn’t even here last season!”
“Stats don’t disappear when you get traded Barrett.”
Troy grumbled unhappily but decided that he was going to rise above Ilya’s childish teasing. If he engaged, Ilya would only get worse and Troy didn’t want to be stuck in the locker room arguing all night.
“Sorry Roz but your work wife is right. You should have passed the puck. Even if we didn’t need it.” Bood said. “There is no such thing as too many goals. Especially now we’re heading into the big leagues.”
Troy felt every muscle in his body tense.
“My work wife?” Ilya repeated. Grinning.
Troy didn’t need to look at him to know that Ilya had lit up like a Christmas tree next to him, his whole-body buzzing with a new level of excitement. There was no way he was going to let that phrase go easily. Troy wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.
“Please don’t call me that.” He begged.
“Why not? The pair of you have been bickering like a married couple since the game ended.” Bood laughed, looking around at the rest of the locker room for support.
Troy hated that they all agreed.
“Roz’s got a whole work family at this point.” Dykstra snorted.
“A work family?” Ilya asked and Troy almost smiled at the look of pure joy that filled Ilya’s face.
“Yeah,” Bood laughed. “Barrett is your work wife. Haas and Young are your work kids, Holmberg and LaPointe are those weird kids that hang out with yours after school and you’ve somehow adopted them.” He added, ignoring Holmbergs middle finger. “Coach can be your work dad, he’ll love that. Wait no, I’ll be your work dad, coach can be your work grandad.”
“I want to be the fun work uncle.” Wyatt chimed in.
“I’ll be the brother!” Dykstra shouted.
“Shit I wanted to be his brother.” Chouinard said, shoving Dykstra with a grin.
“You can both be his brother.” Boyle said.
Troy watched with a fond smile as Ilya’s face broke into a grin.
Ilya always smiled when the team was like this, having fun. Even if it was at Ilya’s expense and any mention of family just seemed to make Ilya’s face fill with pure joy and affection. It was public knowledge that Ilya’s parents had passed away and aside from Troy’s suspicion that he was seeing Hollander, Ilya didn’t have anyone.
As far as Troy knew, Ilya hadn’t gone back to Russia since his father died, so he probably didn’t have any actual family left.
For Ilya, the Centaurs were his family, so it must have been nice to hear them all validate that sentiment in the locker room. Even if it did make Troy feel like he was getting the poor end of the deal.
“The point is.” Boodram interrupted loudly. “You should have passed the puck. You should listen to your work wife more and share some of the glory with the rest of us. Happy wife, happy life as they say.”
Troy frowned, he was happy for Ilya and his newfound family, but he really didn’t want to spend the rest of his NHL career being referred to as Ilya Rozanov’s work wife.
“You all know that I’m dating Harris, right?” Troy said, hoping it would be enough to discourage the idea. It did not. instead Ilya gasped dramatically and stared at him.
“Cheater! think of our children.”
“I hate this team.” Troy grumbled, shaking his head miserably.
“Aww babe don’t say that! I don’t mind being your mistress.” Harris grinned from the locker room door where he had been listening. “It’s exciting knowing that I can sex you up better than Ilya Rozanov.” He winked and Troy felt his whole body go red with embarrassment.
“Harris!” The rookies whined together.
Harris laughed at them, almost as happy as Ilya was.
“Really? You’re going to feed into this madness?” Troy asked, pleading with his boyfriend to put an end to his misery.
“Who do you think started it?”
“Bood started it!” Troy said, looking accusingly at the alternate captain.
“Not true,” Bood said, pointing at Harris. “He said it the other week when you brought Roz’s lunch and then started bickering about it after.”
Troy looked at Harris, betrayed by his own boyfriend.
“You two bicker all the time.” Chouinard backed. “And the pair of you hang out without inviting us off the ice.”
“That’s not true,” Troy said, his cheeks a little pink.
“Really? Did anyone else get invited to Hunters bar?” He asked to the room, everyone shook their heads. “No, what about last week when they went to that animal shelter?”
“Harris was there!” Troy argued.
“I’m usually the third wheel.” Harris said, Troy glared at him.
“I am not his work wife.” Troy said firmly, sighing when everyone laughed.
“Don’t listen to them, darling.” Ilya smirked. “They’re just jealous.”
Troy felt his cheeks heat up when Ilya threw his other arm around him in an awkward hug. From embarrassment or anger, he wasn’t sure, but Ilya’s shit eating grin did not help with either emotion.
“Don’t worry, I’ll buy you something pretty to make you feel better.” He said and Troy elbowed him hard enough to make Roz wheeze as he laughed and let Troy go.
“A pretty little diamond ring maybe?” Dykstra laughed. “To make it official.”
Troy threw his gloves across the locker room at him.
“I fucking hate the lot of you.”
“Ooh, she’s a feisty one.” Ilya teased.
“You don’t know the half of it.” Harris added with a wink, Troy felt his face turn red again and he groaned. “Anyway, tonight is my night with Troy so hurry up and get changed. You can see your husband again tomorrow.”
“Do not encourage him.”
“Don’t wear him out too much Harris.” Ilya winked.
“No promises Roz.”
Troy swore under his breath as he stood from the bench and grabbed his towel. Sticking his middle finger up at the whole locker room as he headed towards the shower. Hiding a smile when they all laughed and whistled.
___💚___
“Why did you just get a text from someone called ‘work wife’?” Shane asked, reaching for Ilya’s phone on the counter. His face scrunched up in a way that made Ilya want to squeeze him as he stared at the screen.
“Relax, it’s just Troy.”
“You mean Troy Barrett?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged, grinning when Shane huffed unhappily.
“The same Troy Barrett that you took on a date to the kingfisher and told you were bisexual?”
Ilya’s grin almost split his face as he nodded.
“What does it say?”
Shane looked back down at the text but didn’t read it out.
“What is my name in your phone?” Shane asked instead, frowning at Ilya when he laughed at him. “It’s Jane, isn’t it?”
“With a heart at the end. I can’t put Shane, can I? You would have a breakdown.” Ilya teased, turning to put their empty plates in the sink before he leant across the kitchen island smugly. His face inches from Shane’s. “Are you jealous of my work wife?”
“He’s your teammate, not your wife.”
“Ah, so you are jealous.”
“No.” Shane said, his jaw tense and his eyes burning.
Ilya’s phone pinged loudly between them in Shane’s hand.
Ilya kept his eyes on Shane, daring him to look and Shane tried to do the same, but his head got the better of him and instead he swore and looked down at the second message. “What does it say?”
“He asked if you were free on Friday? What’s happening on Friday?”
“Tell him I’m free.”
“I can stay until Saturday.”
“You have practice Friday morning.” Ilya pointed out, smirking.
“Optional practice, I don’t have to go.” Shane said and Ilya’s eye brightened.
“You would miss practice just to stop me seeing my work wife?”
“Your teammate.” Shane stated plainly. “And no. I would miss practice to spend more time with you.”
“We both know that you won’t.” Ilya said, a little sadly but he continued to smile when Shane looked guilty. Shane really wished that Ilya was wrong, but he knew that he wasn’t.
“I could drive back down after?”
“You leave for Tampa Saturday afternoon.”
Shane sighed, his jealousy turning to guilt. It felt even harder now, like they were closer and yet still didn’t have enough time to actually be together.
Ilya smiled sadly, he knew that Shane wanted to stay but couldn’t. It was always the same when they saw each other. He leant forward to kiss his cheek, Shane smiled softly and turned to look at him.
“You know, my work wife doesn’t make me clean dishes or leave me to spend his morning surrounded by sweaty hockey players, well he does but I’m usually invited too.” He said, trying to lighten the mood again. “He also has a really cute dog.”
Shane stared at him, his freckles bunched up as he stared at Ilya, Jealousy and anger flaring in his eyes. Ilya grinned happily. Shane very rarely got jealous, not in the same way at least that Ilya did but something about Ilya and Troy’s new friendship just nagged at him.
It brought out this awkward little insecurity that Shane hated.
Troy was cute and a little younger than Shane and he and Ilya played on the same team. Troy was out publicly and Ilya had made it obvious to Shane that he was ready to be out too. That he wanted to be with Shane openly. But Shane wasn’t ready.
The league wasn’t ready.
He sighed. The last thing he wanted was to ruin the night by being overbearing and turning Ilya’s playful teasing into a full-blown argument.
They wouldn’t get to see each other for another two weeks after this and Shane didn’t want them to be fighting while they were apart.
Instead of reminding Ilya about their plan or making an unnecessary comment about how important Hockey was to him, he decided to just play along.
“Sounds perfect, maybe you should go and spend the night at his house.”
“You’re kicking me out of my own house, Hollander?”
“You’re right, I’m sorry I’ll leave.” Shane said, smiling when Ilya smirked. “I’m pretty sure, Hayden is free tonight. I’ll go and spend the night with him.”
Ilya’s smile fell and he huffed unhappily which only made Shane smile wider.
“It’s okay, you can stay.” Ilya said, smiling again. “He is cheating with the social media guy from work tonight. But I’m cheating with sexy NHL superstar, so I’m okay with it.”
“You’re a dick.” Shane laughed, shaking his head.
Ilya laughed taking his phone from Shane’s hand and replying to Troy’s message.