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The whole thing was overwhelming. Some of it was amazing. The celebratory sex, for instance, was great. Scott had won the Cup. And then he’d kissed Kip right there on center ice. It made Kip feel like Mia from The Princess Diaries, and he would have popped his foot if he wasn’t afraid of falling on the ice. It was all a fairytale moment.
But the internet was brutal. And Kip had been braced to be called a limp-wristed faggot who didn’t deserve Scott. He had mentally prepared for that and had rolled with the punch when it happened.
People were ranking him on hotness compared to other WAGs. People were ripping through all his social media to figure out every detail of his life. People were accusing him of turning Scott gay.
And then there was Ilya Fucking Rozanov. The asshole made a five-minute video of himself sitting on a couch lecturing Kip on his life.
At first, Kip didn’t even watch it. He didn’t want to know what Rozanov had to say. But he could see the comments, people say, “Wow, Roz, tell us what you really think.” And, “So, it’s possible to be an ally and hater all in one breath.” And, “This man would not piss on Scott Hunter if he were on fire.” As scared as Kip was, he watched it. And, by the end, he was both pissed off and unnerved.
Kip had been lounging in the bedroom, but he got up and went to the living room, where Scott was reading. Scott smiled, “Hey there.”
“Why does Ilya Rozanov hate you so much he’s comparing you to his mean dad? He’s always praised his dad. So why is he outing his dad as an asshole to compare you?” asked Kip. “That’s not mild hate. That’s something-happened-between-us hate.”
Scott blinked, “When did he compare me to his dad?”
Kip sat down, half next to him, half in his lap, and started the video from the beginning.
Ilya Rozanov was sitting on his couch with his dog. He was wearing a mint-green and purple Adidas tracksuit. Kip had never seen it for sale, so it was either custom, created just for their brand ambassador, or a preview piece. Ilya looked comfortable, and he said, “Hello, Kip Christopher. First of all, I like your name. That’s adorable. Now that I know you can get Kip from Christopher, I think it could maybe be future baby name. Chris is boring, Toph is stupid, Kip is excellent.
“So, let’s talk.” He grinned brightly, “Lots and lots of people are having opinions about you. I’m sorry. That must be very hard. Ignore them. They are all idiots. The only people who matter are the people you know.
“Lots of people are calling you a gold digger or a trophy wife. This is stupid. Financial stability will be attractive, but there is nothing to suggest you are a gold digger. You are still working as barista; you're not a stay-at-home boyfriend. And, if you are trophy wife, it is because you are a trophy. Ten minutes on your Instagram shows you're a prize, and Hunter's fucking lucky. You are so interesting and cool. Way too cool for Hunter.”
That was a really sweet thing to say, considering how many people were accusing him of using Scott for money and accusing Scott of just being interested in Kip as a hot piece of ass.
“And that’s what we have to talk about. Kip, you can do so much better than Scott Hunter. This old man, years older than you, hits on a service worker, and you said yes? Kip, what are you doing? That's such a creep move. Why would you agree to date old, creepy guy?
“Everyone is talking about the kiss,” he blew a raspberry. “No one is talking about consent. Did you talk about it beforehand? Because kissing you on center ice is a really messed-up thing to do if you weren’t out of the closet. I know your Instagram has pictures from Pride parade, but now jobs will know you are gay the second you apply. That was the most public coming out ever.
“On the other hand, if you were very out, there is no mention of hockey on your Instagram until three and a half years ago. Did this man force you to be in secret relationship for three and a half years? Because that's also fucked up.
“And you have so much hockey stuff on your Instagram. You have made a big effort for him. Hockey players barely have a thought in their heads. Many have white noise machines where brains should be. Has he learned anything about art for you? Has he learned the difference between Picasso, van Gogh and... I’m sure there’s another one.
“I have been with Miss Montreal since we were seventeen. She doesn’t care about rocks or hiking. She now plans out our hikes, and she owns a rock tumbler to turn broken bottles she finds in Montreal into sea glass that we can drop at the beach for people to find. She doesn’t care, but I love my rock collection and hiking. I love sea glass, and that made her see the value of it. I don’t care about architecture. I have been to so many famous buildings and listened to all the audio tours. It matters to her, so it matters to me. Happy couples do that. You learned about hockey. Did he learn about art?
“I worry about you, Kip. My mother was twenty-two when she met my father, who was in his fifties. But he was handsome, and he had a good job in the USSR. He pretended to care about ballet and bought her flowers. He lost his job when the USSR collapsed. She had two children, and he stopped pretending to care about what she cared about. Depression killed her, but... Having a husband who didn't care about her or her interests didn't help.”
It was a shocking admission to hear. Ilya had always praised his father as a great man who had pushed him to do his best. When his ad for an antidepressant had come out years ago, people had questioned the narrative that his dad was a good person. In the ad, he said in Russia, instead of medication, his depression had been treated by people throwing him in the shower and dragging him onto the ice. People had questioned how great his dad could be if that was how he treated his son. Ilya had angrily said that everyone loved a foreign culture until it was foreign. He said diagnoses and medications were hard to come by in Russia. He said being sad had killed his mother, and his father had done his best to prevent his youngest son from suffering the same fate with the tools he had available, because skating and being outside made Ilya happier. This was the first time he was admitting his father was anything but a great man.
“You deserve better than an old man who likes you because you’re hot and doesn’t care about your interests and well-being. You are at grad school. You can meet someone who is your age, shares your interests and is so cool and into you.
“You’re not a gold digger. You still work and are getting a degree while dating a millionaire. I know financial security is sexy. But you will make your own money. You are going to be a curator at a museum or a gallery. You don’t need him and you can do better than Scott Hunter.”
As the video ended, Kip said, “That is five minutes of him calling you an asshole. So is he the biggest dick of all time, or did you do something? Because, Scott, he has to be a real dick for this to be coming out of left field. But this is truly brutal. So, what is the deal?”
Scott didn’t meet his eye, and after a few moments of silence, he said, “The worst thing I have ever done, I did to Rozanov and Miss Montreal.” Then he put out his pinky.
Kip looked at him, “Am I swearing to not get angry?”
“You’re swearing to not tell anyone their secret. Because what I did doesn’t hurt me,” said Scott. “You can hate me. Hell, maybe you’ll agree with Rozanov and leave me.” Kip didn’t believe that for a second, but he linked pinkies in a childish swear.
Scott nodded and looked at their joined fingers, not Kip, as he said, “Miss Montreal is Shane Hollander. Years ago, after I met you but before we were dating, I chirped at Hollander and he got so angry he dropped his gloves and punched me.”
“I remember, you said something he thought was homophobic.”
Scott nodded but then shook his head, “I said he sounded like Rozanov. What I meant was, ‘I know you’re together and I can out you whenever I want.’ He punched me to shut me up.”
Kip felt cold inside, and he drew his hand away from Scott’s. “I didn’t know about Russia’s anti-gay laws,” said Scott earnestly, wanting to be believed. “And I wasn’t thinking about Roz’s visa. I had no idea that if he got outted, he could end up in a Russian prison. I was just thinking that I was having a bad week, and I was pissed at both of them. Getting outted was my worst fear. So, I threatened them with it.”
Shrugging, he said, “A part of me resented them. I was painfully, brutally single. You are my first boyfriend, and I’m seven years older than them, and they’ve been together forever. Back then, I wasn’t sure how long, but I knew they were together ever since Rozanov had the room next to me at All Stars in 2011. I was single and had a pathetic crush on a barista. They were happy and had been a thing for years. I was jealous and mean.
“When I called to apologize and say that I had made the video as cover, Hollander was a wreck, begging me to tell people I was making fun of him for being gay and having a crush on Rozanov. He was thinking of ways to protect Rozanov, willing to throw himself under the bus. He also told me that I had outted him to his parents because they didn’t know. His mom called me the next day. Apparently, she’d always known and was waiting for him to be comfortable and ready to say it himself. She said I wasn’t a good man and if I ever messed with her kid again, she was going to stab me to death with a bartender’s ice pick at a gala. I believe her. Yuna Hollander scares the shit out of everyone who isn’t her family.”
Studying Kip’s face, he said, “Rozanov’s not being a dick. He’s just telling you the truth. You can do better than a gay guy who isn’t kind to other gay people. He’s right. He’s completely right. But I’ve read self-help books since then. I’ve grown a lot.”
Kip nodded but said, “You have to go to therapy.”
“Probably,” agreed Scott with a dry laugh.
“No, not probably,” said Kip. “That level of anger and misdirected spite? Threatening someone you see yourself in with your deepest fear? Scott, you have to go to therapy. This isn’t a request or a suggestion. You have to talk to someone. I love you. But that’s not healthy.”
He nodded, “Yeah, okay. I’ll get a recommendation from the team docs tomorrow, say I want to talk about stress.”
Kip leaned in and pecked him on the lips. “I love you. I’m going to go make a response to Rozanov.”
He went back to the bedroom, watched the video with fresh eyes and wrote a bullet point list. Then he set his phone to record and said, “So the internet is a rough place today, and I’m not… I’m not dealing with it. I’m replying only to Ilya Rozanov. Hi, Ilya. Thank you. Thank you for telling me about your mom. I’m horrified that she went through that. It’s terrible that her life went that way. And I’m so sorry you had to watch and live with that. I honestly can’t imagine what that must have been like. My life is nothing like that. So, thank you for sharing because you were worried. I’m gonna go through your concerns point by point to put you at ease.
“You’re worried he’s old. He’s only six years older than me, and I think he’s hot. And we met when I was applying for grad school — we were both adults. Your second worry was that he hit on a service worker. I one hundred percent agree with you. If someone walks into a Starbucks and hits on a barista, like, ‘I’ll take a coffee and your number,’ that is the grossest thing they could ever possibly do. So creepy. You can’t hit on a stranger while they’re working; it’s happened to me a lot because I’m hot and people are awful. People try to order a smoothie and me. It is disgusting. Scott came in frequently. We knew each other. He would do all of his emails in the shop, and we would talk about his games, and my dad, and my other jobs, and if I had heard back from schools, and Carter Vaughn’s increasingly absurd luck rituals, what BuzzFeed quizzes Scott had taken that morning and if there were any dogs on his run, he would take a picture for me. We had been spending time together for three months, and then he asked me out at a different one of my jobs when I was serving food at a gala, where I could have walked into the kitchen, and he could have just left in shame and never come back to my smoothie shop if it went horrifically badly. He did it exactly right. If anyone out there wants to hit on a service worker, you have to get to know them for months, be their friend and then not ask them out at their main employment location.
“You worried about the kiss. We didn’t talk about it beforehand. But I am a huge romantic who loves huge romantic gestures, and Scott knows that. I have made him sit through so many rom-coms. So, for me, kissing on center ice — I felt like the prom queen in the teen movie. The Admirals won the Cup, but I won at life. I loved it. I have no problem. I was the main character of the on-ice celebration. I felt like fairytale royalty getting a happily ever after. I’ve never been in the closet. I came out to my dad when I was nine, and if an employer didn’t want me because I’m gay, I don’t want the job.
“As for your question about if secrecy has been a problem, that’s more complicated. I think Scott and I have only ever had one fight, and it’s about secrecy. It took him almost two years to meet my dad. Only one of my friends ever officially knew about us, and a second one, who works at the smoothie shop, unofficially knew because she’s not an idiot. That, for me, was hard. I’m an open person. And I wasn’t asking Scott to be on a float in the Pride parade covered in body glitter. I just… my friends threw a birthday party for me at a bar that’s half gay bar, half sports bar. It’s a sports bar where most people are gay. Everyone there knows Scott Hunter comes into my shop for his smoothies and that we’re friends. So, I said, ‘Just come as my straight friend Scott and celebrate my birthday with my friends,’ but he was scared of stepping foot in the bar. It was like he thought ‘gay’ would suddenly appear in bold letters on his forehead when he crossed the threshold. And Carter Vaughn was planning stuff for the Admirals’ Pride Night, getting excited, apparently talking about the importance of making space in the sport. Scott’s best friend is loudly and actively an ally, and I was like, ‘I’m not asking you to tell your team, but we could have Carter and his girlfriend over for dinner.’
“So, on that concern, you’re right, that was difficult. For all the time we’ve been together, that was our tension. I wasn’t asking Scott to come out. I was asking him to take up more space in his own life. I know that the MLH… all of you are contract workers. None of the teams have to re-sign anyone. No one has job security and even if you think your team likes you, it’s a homophobic industry. I understand that the life of a professional hockey player isn’t the life of an art history PhD student. But statistically speaking, there are fifty-four to seventy-one not-straight players in the MLH, and I hope they are taking up space in their lives. I hope they have circles of friends. It was hard for me to stomach that Scott made himself small to appease others.”
He swallowed hard, “But the morning after the Cup, we celebrated the way my friends always do: a group trip to the Met Museum to look at the new stuff and to have brunch at the café. He finally met Shawn and Kyle and officially told Maria. We all went to the scary sports bar in the evening, and Scott saw it’s literally a bar; there was tennis playing on the TVs because hockey season is over, and people were drinking beer. There was no nudity or orgy. And, tonight, Carter’s coming over for dinner. I’m living the dream.
“The rest of your concerns can just be summed up as worrying that he might not give a shit about my shit, and you don’t have to worry about that. From the word go, he took an interest. Before we were dating, he read a book about how the Reformation harmed the work of Europeans art historians because I said offhand that it was interesting. And one day he said he was at a loose end and I said, ‘God, I wish I was, the weather is perfect for the Cloisters.’ Where did he go? The Cloisters. He’d never been. And then, when we started dating, he would read my papers to make sure they made sense when my eyes started swimming. He started buying and reading coffee table books of art because he liked the covers. He watched PBS with me. There’s this one show of this guy who just walks around his incredible house, and Scott and I are obsessed. It’s awesome, but also so weird. Like, does he actually own it all? Is PBS just staging his house with amazing art? If he does own it, how? Does his family own a diamond mine? Scott and I have theories. And I thought, for a while, that Scott just watched it with me and wasn’t into it. But then I watched an episode without him when he was on a roadie, and he was quietly hurt about it. So, I have not done that again. It’s not my show that he watches with me; it’s our show. Scott didn’t care about art or art history when we met. But he made it important to him because it’s important to me.
“Thank you for worrying, Ilya. You seem to be the only person not doing something weird where you’re trying to figure out where to rank me in the hotness of WAGs scale, or saying something horribly homophobic or just jealous because my boyfriend of three and a half years isn’t single. People always say you’re a jerk. I have watched you brutally check my man enough times to believe it. But Scott always said you were fine and I didn’t believe it until now. It’s really sweet of you to worry, thank you. But, we’re honestly great.”
Kip posted it and breathed out slowly, thinking back to his and Scott’s early days when Elena had been against the relationship. Things had been hot, heavy and rough. The situation had been tumultuous and overwrought between them. He had never been mic’d up and put on TV. Instead, he had moved home several times and dated a few other people while Scott had waited for him and stewed.
Things had been horrible at times. They had both been messes. But, they got through it. And Ilya and Shane got through it. They were all fine and here. Ilya wasn’t in a Russian prison, and Scott had won the Cup and was finally no longer sneaking around.
He shook his head and got out of bed. The past was a foreign country and, thankfully, he didn’t live there. He straightened the comforter and, as he walked to the living room, he called, “Hey, Scott, I’m going to go to Citarella for bread and Dorian’s to get shrimp and mussels for tonight. Do you wanna keep me company?”
Scott grinned at him from the couch, “I would love to come with you.”
As they walked out the door, he took Kip’s hand in his, and Kip felt like everything was right in the world.