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Lilian Harris wakes up with the worst hangover of her life and she doesn’t fucking care. Not when she’s sharing a bed with three of her teammates and the freaking Walter Cup. Not when she can see sunrise behind the Montreal skyline from the hotel room window, the morning after destroying their team and claiming the cup for the Boston Fleas. Not after keeping her record clean last night.
Forty two shots on goal. Not one got past her.
Lilian Harris does not have a care in the world. She might have two small questions — can she get her captain’s leg off her back without waking her and is there any champagne left — but she does not have a care. She doesn't need to know whose phone is buzzing itself of the bedside table, or where her own is.
She makes it to the bathroom without waking Alice, who simply snuggles to the next player available when Lillian scoots out.
Ignoring Megan and Anna, the massive defensive duo that somehow managed to stove themselves for the night into a bathtub in a macabre composition of limbs and hair sticking in all directions, she washes her face with cold water, rubbing at spit and juice dried at the side of her mouth. Her hair is a crime scene of blond curls, glued together by leftover gel and dried sweat. Running wet fingers through it feels better than cold breeze in August.
Lilian is not being quiet, but the pair in the bathtub doesn’t stir. She wonders, still clutching the sink for balance, if she should try to find her hotel room (and the more difficult task, the key to it) or if she can get away with using this bathroom at its current occupancy.
Before she can decide, she is unceremoniously beaten to it by Alice who drags herself into the bathroom, ignoring the audience as she plops onto the toilet herself.
That is just Alice. Alice doesn’t care.
‘Fuuuuck, should have brought my phone,’ she groans. There are some things Alice cares about.
‘And Lilian, fuck, you need to get yours to shut the fuck up before I throw it out of the fucking window!’
‘How do you know it’s mine?’
‘It’s fucking yours,’ Alice replies in her captain voice and there is no arguing with that.
The offending phone is still making its escape off the bedside table, although its pace is getting less persistent. The congratulations had all night to pour in and somehow, it is still not enough time and more are coming.
Lilian sits at the foot of the bed as she reads. Just her family takes ten minutes to get through, everyone has something to say, congratulations, incredible game, but, always a but —but you could have smiled more for the photos from grandma Rose, but you almost let the last one in, didn’t you from uncle Caleb, but you could have put on a little make up before the celebration from mum.
At least for all their interest, they are content watching from home.
Messages from the Boston management and staff are long, but essentially the same, impersonal congratulations and can’t wait to work together next year. Even the men team’s management reaches out with equally stilted emails.
It doesn’t matter what application she opens, there are more messages to read. She makes way through all of them and her phone still vibrates occasionally during the process, announcing more are still incoming.
Old chats come to life, months or years after going silent. Christmas party 2016 shows three new messages, even u20 2008 is buzzing. Old teammates, old coaches, reaching out. The chat Bears with fleas contains a seven minutes long video.
Since everyone is stirring anyway, Lilian just plays it, volume on low.
‘Congratulations!’ the faces of eight men in matching Boston shirts jump onto her screen, shouting somehow in unison before they break up into separate messages, speaking one over another.
Mari stirs in the bed behind her, muttering something under her breath before throwing a pillow at Lilian’s head. It’s only her and the cup in the bed at this point.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ Lilian rolls her eyes and lowers the volume even more as the men’s team keeps bickering in the video.
‘Captain first, assholes!' Marleau’s voice raises about the others and the reaction is immediate.
‘Thank you, Marley.’ Rozanov stumbles a little as he pats his friend’s shoulder.
‘Congratulations from all of the team,’ Rozanov repeats, looking directly into the camera, ‘not just us losers with no one better to watch with!’
The guys complain, but he shushes them. He shows his phone in front of camera, and although the image is not great and far from centred, it is clear he’s scrolling through photos from other players, watching the game with different groups of people. Their families, probably.
‘See? We Boston players stick together, even if we are jealous of your cup,’ he says before stumbling back towards the rest of the party. It looks like they’re in a sports bar and as they take turns shouting at the camera, other patrons stumble in and out of the frame. The video must have been recorded very late into the night from the state of them all.
Towards the end of the video, a man walks right in front of the lens.
‘Fuck off from there, we’re recording a message!’ Marleau shouts at him and the poor drunk sob seems to only then realise that there is a camera right in front of his face.
‘Uh, sorry. Happy Birthday,’ he slurs, giving thumbs up before the video cuts off.
Lilian saves the video. She could not have asked for a better city to play in.
Some of the players reach out separately too — Rozanov, Marleau and a couple more guys who’ve been with Boston as long as Lilian, brushing shoulders at events enough time to exchange contacts and an occasional cigarette.
What Lilian decidedly does not expect is having just as many Voyagers in her DMs. She knows most of the team was at the game — the camera crew made sure they were impossible to miss — but they were there to root for their competition.
Still, there are eleven Voyagers in her messages. All of them saying congratulations. Most of them adding how impressive her game was — which she knows, but it still feels fucking incredible to hear from people who know what they are talking about.
A few say something about wanting to watch her on ice against Hollander one day, which is both completely random and fucking hilarious. Everyone and their mother is obsessed with Hollander, but it is funny to know it apparently includes his own team as well.
But most annoyingly, all to the dot are calling her Lily. Short for Lilian, sure, but she never uses it herself and it feels weird. Her terrible, mean, homophobic grandma used to call her that and Lilian never uses the name if she doesn’t have to.
She is Lilian to her family and friends. Harris or Harry on ice. Why the Voyagers insist on calling her Lily, she has no clue.
She is just finishing with the Instagram messages when another pings, bringing the Voyagers count to twelve, with Hollander himself making an appearance this time. A chuckle escapes her and it must summon Mari because suddenly she is at her shoulder, staring at her phone. The disregard for privacy or personal space a known personality trait of hers.
‘Who is Lily?’ Mari asks, her eyes still half closed as she reads the open message. Lilian rolls her eyes.
‘Are we meeting with the Montreal teams or something today?’ she asks Mari, even though she knows she wouldn’t miss something like that on the calendar. But there must be a reason for the messages.
‘Why would they want to see us?’ Mari asks with a groan and she isn’t wrong. They did just humiliate them in front of their own fans. Pretty badly, actually.
‘The Montreal guys’ team is spamming my Instagram,’ Lilian admits, trying to keep her surprise out of her voice, hoping to get an honest reaction from Mari.
‘Seriously?’ Mari’s eyebrows shoot up and she scrambles out of the bed, searching for her own phone. ‘I know they were at the game but that is so nice of them! Or just very Canadian, maybe?’
Mari is ranting as she shakes the sheets, waiting for her phone to fall out rather then search through them properly. It’s not there, but she finds it under the bed eventually.
‘It was your Instagram, right?’ she asks and from the disappointed tone of her voice, Lilian knows there is something different.
‘Hey guys!’ Mari shouts into the adjoining living room where more players are piled on the sofa and massive rug. ‘Anyone got messages from the Voyagers?’
She is cursed heavily, but eventually obtains multiple negatives back.
‘Why would they message us?’ someone asks, voice so groggy it could be anyone.
‘They’re spamming Harry!’ Mari shouts back and that gets their attention, bringing a pile of bodies onto to bed behind her.
Lilian dutifully scrolls through the messages, starting with the oldest. The rest of them are just as confused as she is, which is disappointing because she still doesn’t know what to think. And everyone else checks again, but she’s the only one they’re texting.
‘Could they have the wrong person?’ she asks, unconvinced, but Alice echoes her own thoughts about the game details being too specific, and everyone agrees.
Finally, Hollander’s message remains the only unopened one and Lilian moves to it automatically, expecting more of the same.
I’m sorry about my teammates, I only just found out what they’ve been up to. I don’t think they’re going to stop so I should probably explain. Are you still in Montreal? It would probably be easier in person.
A second message below assures her he does not mean to kidnap her or scare her. Which is sweet and also pretty funny and not something she would have worried about anyway.
‘Hollander wants to meet you?’ Mari explodes into laughter, which is probably the most sane reaction to the absolute insanity of Lilian’s inbox.
She considers it, of course she does. He is a living legend of their sport whom she’d be thrilled to meet under any circumstances. He also seems to know what is going on, and Lilian knows it’s going to bug her if she doesn’t find out. It is freaking bizarre, why would they single her out of all her team?
If she has any doubts, the vaguely threatening wording of I don’t think they’re going to stop certainly helps convince her. As does another incoming message, from one of the players that had previously reached out. Can I get your phone number for the group chat? Jackie — that’s my wife — has been asking since last night.
She shows the message to the girls and no one can make sense of it. Except Mari, who is braver than the rest of them, probably, and swipes the phone to send a screenshot of the conversation straight to Hollander.
Can you explain this too?
The response come back immediately. Just one word.
Fuck.
It is so honest Lilian laughs.
Please let me explain before you reply anything to them. I’ll tell Hayden to fuck off, I’m sorry.
‘He apologises a lot,’ Lilian notes. It doesn’t feel necessary and makes her think she’s missing some bigger picture behind it all, like she is the butt of a joke she can’t yet see.
‘He swears a lot too,’ someone else chuckles.
Before Lilian manages to compose a reply, Hollander sends her an address.
On a map, it looks like a café, a sad little hole that has been in the same spot for decades probably. There is no web site and the most recent review is two years old.
‘Do you think this is an elaborate catfish trying to kidnap me?’ she asks, because it looks like that kind of a place. One that could have closed long time ago and she wouldn’t know.
‘We can walk you!’ Mari offers and other voices join before Alice shoots them down.
‘He’s probably hoping for a little privacy, choosing a place like that.’
It makes sense. Lilian sighs. She looks back at her phone and there is time in the messages now as well. It’s earlier than she’d like, earlier than she was originally planning on getting up, but maybe it’s a good thing, less time to think about it.
So she accepts, and the hunt for some clean clothes begins. With the key to her own hotel room finally located — thanks to twelve women determined to get her to her coffee date in time so she can return back to them with gossip — she has enough time for a shower. She even manages a half decent job of taming her curls, a challenge after the celebration of the last night gave them a life of their own.
‘Ready for your big date?’ Mari teases when she walks out of the room. They are all apparently seeing her out. Not just from Alice’s room, someone managed to rouse and collect the rest of the team as well.
‘Not a date, Mari,’ she rolls her eyes.
‘Does Hollander know that?’ Anna asks, awake just enough to be a pain in the ass. As most of days before the noon.
‘That would be the weirdest way to ask a person on a date!’
‘Wouldn’t make my top five,’ Anna shrugs. She sometimes says things like that and Lilian doesn’t think she’s joking.
‘Is dating men really that tragic?’ she has to ask, but she does not wait for an answer. She’d never get there on time if she did.
Lilian is the youngest person in the café by a couple of decades. At least until Hollander walks in.
‘Sorry, hi, I’m Shane.’ He starts even the introduction with an apology.
‘Lilian.’ She shakes his hand and they quickly look over the menus as the waiter starts walking towards them.
‘Do you ever go by Lily?’ he blurts out when they’re alone again and of all the questions that was not one she expected. Shane himself looks like he didn’t expect it to come out either.
‘Not if I can help it.’
Shane nods. He looks content with the answer, like she passed a test.
‘Lilian is fine, or Harry,’ she offers the hockey nickname too, not sure if it’s the Lily thing — which she still doesn’t understand — or first names in general that are making him uncomfortable.
‘You are an incredible player,’ Shane pivots out of nowhere and looks immediately lighter as he does. ‘I mean, I’ve been following the whole series of course, and the season as much I could during our own, but the last game was something else. I can’t even be mad that you took the cup from our girls after a game like that.’
He’s so sincere, the compliment lands with a weight she couldn’t dig herself from under if she tried.
‘Your girls played great.’
It feels like the right thing to say and Shane chuckles. He starts saying something else, but when he notices the waiter walking towards them again, he switches to ‘My dad loves this place. He discovered it when I moved Montreal and he’s been coming here since. Sorry it’s so… old. But I just wanted to say this in peace.’
He’s definitely stalling but Lilian let’s him.
She thanks the waiter as he places a cappuccino in front of her and sighs happily as she brings it to her lips.
‘Sorry,’ she laughs it off, realising it might have been a little loud, ‘I got like two hours of sleep.’
‘Two more than I got after our last cup,’ Shane returns her smile before turning serious.
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have suggested meeting this early —’
‘It’s fine, really, I was already up and very curious, so…’
‘Yeah, right. About that. I honestly don’t know where to start.’ He laughs a little, a short nervous sound and Lilian focuses on her coffee, giving him a moment to collect his thoughts.
‘My teammates think you’re my girlfriend,’ he starts with a fucking bomb of an information and Lilian chokes on her coffee.
‘Please let me say it all,’ he asks before she can say anything back and Lilian nods. Yeah, she probably needs a little more information than that anyway.
‘They never met my girlfriend. They know about her because they are nosy bastards and there is little privacy in the locker rooms and on the road —’
Lilian nods again. She knows first hand that no message received in a locker room is private. Barely any thought is as far as Mari is concerned. That woman is a witch when it comes to gossip.
‘Anyway, her name is Lily. And they’ve been trying to figure out who she is since they've known about her,’ Shane sighs.
He sounds exhausted just talking about it and Lilian notes he doesn’t say how long it’s been. So, pretty long then.
‘And you don’t need to know the details why,’ Shane continues quickly, ‘but Lily really doesn’t want that, okay? She is a private person. She has, uh, complicated family history and drama that would get dragged into media if people learned about us. Let’s just leave it at that. It’s pretty bad and it’s no one’s business.’
‘Certainly not mine,’ Lilian agrees.
‘Right. So. They want to know anyway. And it’s annoying but whatever. I didn’t think anything about it, they haven’t figured it this far, so why would they now, you know?’
‘But now they think they did?’ Lilian guesses. It would be funny if Shane wasn’t mortified. And a little miserable.
‘Yeah, you sort of match some of the things they found out over the years. Like, my Lily is from Boston, and we talk about hockey a lot. And she has hair a lot like yours — although I am not sure if they know that?’
Lilian has to smile, watching Shane talk about his Lily. Just the sound of it keeps tugging at her heart. His Lily who loves hockey and has curly blond hair and makes Shane Hollander smile so wide his whole face lights up and his hands can’t keep still.
‘Your Lily is a lucky girl,’ Lilian says. Shane nods happily and leaves it at that.
‘How long have you been together?’ she asks after a moment. It feels like an innocent question. And Shane looks like he really enjoys talking about her.
‘That’s a bit complicated to answer, with things being what they are. When do we start counting, you know?’ he shrugs, a little sad, a little distant, very much in love.
‘But we met in 2007,’ he admits, ‘and we kept running into each other since. Anyway, my teammates, they think they put it together when they announced you as the playoffs MVP and they learned your first name. I think they just assumed your name was Harry before.’
‘They thought my name was Harry Harris?’ Lilian stares at him, bemused.
‘They do get professional-grade concussions, some of them repeatedly…’
Lilian thinks of Anna and all the terrible dates she wears like a badge of honour before going for more. Julie and her insane superstitions. Mari’s ghost stories that she swears are all true and happened to her or some close relative.
‘That’s fair,’ Lilian admits.
‘Anyway, they are certain it is you and I don’t know to get them to stop. I told them it’s not, but I don’t think they’ll believe me until I produce the real Lily.’
And okay, Lilian doesn’t mean to be an asshole, but she has to laugh. No one in their right mind would actually think they are dating. Did the Voyagers really know nothing other than her name and hockey position? Did they even look at her Instagram profile for ten seconds before messaging her?
‘Shane.’
He looks up to her, folding the sugar packet that came with his tea in his fingers, but he finds her eyes.
‘No one with two brain cells can think we are dating,’ she assures him, but it is clear he does not understand what she’s talking about.
‘Shane, I’m gay.’
She watches him spit his tea back into the mug. He looks like a deer caught in headlights.
‘I am pretty public about it. Like, social media, all of it. Half my Instagram is pictures with my ex, Jesus, did none of you notice that when you messaged me?’
Shane doesn’t move. He blinks, sporadically.
‘Fuck, I can’t believe my boyfriend is homophobic,’ she teases, because his reaction is fucking weird, but it doesn’t look like disgust. Or anger. At least she hopes she’s reading him right.
The comment breaks something and Shane laughs. Well, at least that’s something.
‘I’m sorry,’ he elaborates once he gets his giggles under control, ‘it’s just, it sounds like something my Lily would say to me.’
He chuckles once more before realising how that might sound.
‘Fuck, I-I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not, obviously, sorry, I’m not,’ he shakes his head, stumbling over his words. ‘Like, good for you, I’m, yeah, good for you. Do you have a girlfriend? Sorry —’
He takes a break to take a long breath, which is his best idea so far. Lilian just watches the train wreck of his thoughts manifest out of his mouth.
‘Sorry. It’s just, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone admit it before? Like, I know your league is way more normal about it but it’s still weird to hear a fellow player say that? It would be — it IS such a big deal to say that in the men’s league. And you don’t even know me and you can just say it and it doesn’t threaten to end your career?’
Shane does look like he expected the world to end when she said it. She doesn’t know him well enough to read his expression, but even if she did, she probably couldn’t make sense of all the things happening on his face.
Then the emotions converge into something that looks like fear.
‘You’re, you’re looking at me like she did,’ he almost whispers. The words mean nothing to Lilian, but she asks anyway.
‘Your Lily?’
There is no reason to call her his Lily, not when she is the only Lily. But something about the way Shane says it, my Lily. Just Lily doesn’t seem adequate.
‘Sorry, no, I, uh, meant someone else. My friend Rose, she… ugh, it doesn’t matter, sorry. I don’t know why I brought her up.’
Lilian doesn’t know either. She’s looking at him like his friend Rose. Which could mean literally anything.
She decides to let it go.
‘Sorry I reacted like an asshole,’ he says again.
‘Definitely not the worst reaction I got,’ she lets him off the hook. ‘You’re not around many gay people, are you?’
‘There is one gay player in our whole league and he’s been out for like a year. If you’re wondering about running into gay people in my line of work.’ He forces a smile.
‘Shane, I also play hockey. I know who Scott Hunter is.’
‘Yeah, of course, right. I wasn’t, I wasn’t sure you watched our league. Anyway. He’s literally the only gay person I know.’
‘Well now you know two,’ Lilian laughs.
‘Right. I guess I do. Sorry again.’ He laughs back.
He takes a moment to sip his tea, but the silence they settle into is more peaceful than before.
‘So, you didn’t answer my question,’ he throws her a conspiratory smile.
‘What question?’ Because Shane did just blurted out a dozen of sentences, finishing less then half of them.
‘Do you have a girlfriend?’
The flight to Boston is not long enough for… anything. Not to catch up on the missing sleep. Not to come to terms with the fact that Lilian is now, apparently, friends with Shane Hollander. Not to prepare for the people waiting everywhere to welcome them back.
The airport is loud and crowded. People want to see them. The arena is quieter and somewhat worse. People want to be seen with them. People their managers want to be seen with them.
It feels like least a hundred of handshakes and hundred of photos of those handshakes before Lilian can sneak out for some air. And a cigarette. The cigarette might be more of an excuse and less of a need, but it gets her out.
She finds the usual spot occupied but doesn’t mind. The company is usually decent.
She just rolls her eyes, watching Rozanov try to make his lighter give him more than a fickle spark. For the millionaire that he is, the man refuses to buy anything buy the cheapest lighters. He’s even called the struggle a beloved traditiononce.
Lilian calls it idiocy as she, as many times before, holds the flame of her own lighter under his cigarette.
‘Ah, future Mrs Hollander,’ Rozanov teases, but he leans into her cupped hands and lets her light his cigarette. He offers her one of his own before she can fish out her pack and Lilian accepts.
Before she can ask about the nickname, he repeats the congratulations. After the video, the message, and the press room, it is the fourth time and she tells him as much.
‘Was drunk for the first two. Press room — they made me. This one is honest. Was hell of a game.’
‘At least you finally got it right then, on the fourth time,’ Lilian chuckles. For a moment, they smoke in peace, but the question refuses to remain unasked.
‘Why did you call me that?’ Because she definitely didn’t tell what her conversation with Shane was about to anyone. Not even when her teammates wouldn’t stop begging — yes, begging, there was nothing dignified about that — the whole flight home.
‘A friend said you had a date,’ Rozanov shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly as if it isn’t the most absurd thing. Maybe she stepped into a parallel universe somewhere between last night and now. Has the whole of the hockey world gone insane?
Sure, the Voyagers are idiots. And Shane seems a little too deep in his own drama to really notice anything. But she’s known Rozanov for six years now. They aren’t friends, but they’ve chatted plenty of times. He’s met Diana when they were dating for fuck’s sake. And jokingly called Lilian a useless fucking lesbian a thousand times over drinks when they broke up and she was too brokenhearted to let him cheer her up and be her wingman.
‘Didn’t take you for a homophobe, Rozanov,’ she says at last because fuck it. He can drop the bullshit. Or go fuck himself and start lighting his cigarettes on his own.
To his credit, Rozanov seems offended at the comment.
‘I know it was not a real date.’ He adds an overdramatised eye roll to emphasize the joke in it. ‘He’d. Eat you, uh, out. You’d make good friends though.’
Lilian stares at him in shock. Then she realises what he is trying to say and chokes on a chuckle. She really doesn’t want to be the kind of asshole that laughs when someone makes a mistake, especially since English is not Rozanov’s first language.
Rozanov opens his phone, checking something that looks a lot like a dictionary before he joins her reaction.
‘Not the right phrase,’ he says when the moment passes, ‘stupid English.’
Lilian nods. She also can’t help but wonder where this characterisation of Hollander is coming from. How well does Rozanov know him?
‘So, you have a friend on the Voyagers?’ she goes after the real elephant in the room instead, because really, it is either that or Mari actually isn’t lying about mind-reading running in her family.
‘How do you know no one from your team told me?’ he smirks. Lilian knows he is bluffing and still she almost believes him. He has that kind of charisma many people try and fail to imitate their whole lives.
‘Because no one on my team knows. Not from me.’ She enjoys telling him that more than she should.
‘Ah. My friend will be glad,’ Rozanov chuckles. ‘And angry that he owes me now.’
‘You bet on… what exactly?’
‘Doesn’t matter. Was stupid.’ He still looks amused, but doesn’t say more. Like Lilian is not part of that particular joke.
So she just shrugs. She knows it’s not her place to ask, but she’d love to know how Rozanov came to have someone feeding him gossip on the Voyagers team. There must be some story behind that.
But the problem with Rozanov is, he likes his secrets and knows how to keep them. There is no sweet-talking him. No baiting him with bad guesses or leading questions. Not even getting him drunk has ever worked.
‘How come you have friend in Voyagers then?’ She can only ask directly and hope he gives her something.
‘Well so do you.’ He smirks, staring her down as if the question was an accusation.
Lilian only rolls her eyes in response. She never understood guys who take the team rivalries this seriously. It’s not like Rozanov got to choose Boston. He could have just as easily ended up in Montreal, and would probably be sneering just as venomously on his current team.
‘And how would you know that?’
‘So is not true?’
The avoidance is so obvious Lilian just smacks his shoulder in response.
‘If we were in middle school, I’d tell you I think your friend might actually be Hollander and he sent you to ask if I like him and want to be his friend,’ she teases him. She can’t help but think he is a little too interested in their supposed friendship.
Rozanov only laughs and types something into his phone, making Lilian realise his secret Montreal friend might be part of this conversation.
‘We have so much in common, you and me,’ Lilian continues teasing as they both pull their cigarettes to their mount at the same time. ‘Playing hockey for Boston, friend in Montreal… You should be careful, or the Voyagers will accuse you of being Hollander’s girlfriend next.’
Rozanov leans his head against the wall as he laughs, the hand with the cigarette falling limply to his side.
‘I don’t think the Voyagers are progressive enough to think that.’
His laughter barely subsides as he says it and Lilian knows the world of men’s hockey will forever remain a mystery to her.
‘Would that be really that unimaginable? I mean for two players to get together?’
‘Yes.’ There is no question and no space for discussion in Rozanov’s voice.
‘It must happen sometimes…’ she says because Lilian is an idiot who can’t help herself. She does not believe, cannot believe, that no players ever think about hooking up. What isn’t hot about hockey? You get sweaty. The adrenaline pumps in your veins. You get smashed against the boards, ground into, over and over again. A mush of bodies and sweat.
Everything about the game screams foreplay. Or she’s just a freak, but honestly, she wouldn’t probably make it even into the five biggest freaks of her own team if they were ranking.
‘If it happens,’ Rozanov sighs; he’s probably bored of the conversation already. ‘I’m sure they are very secret about it.’
‘I guess,’ Lilian admits. Not the most exciting answer. ‘Although is it even necessary? I mean, most hockey players have obviously terrible gaydar.’
She can’t help but chuckle a little, thinking about the Voyagers in her messages. Will they ever figure it out? Shane will probably have to spell it out for them, to get them of his back.
Rozanov looks at her. He laughs. He laughs like it’s the funniest thing in the world and she is missing the joke.
‘So you are friends with Hollander now?’ he asks when he’s done.
‘Yes.’
‘Then we need to be real friends too.’ He is all serious again, offering a second cigarette to Lilian as he takes one for himself. Like the conversation they’re having should go on for that long. But she accepts anyway. Maybe he too is looking for a reason to stay away from the celebration a little longer.
‘You’re that competitive with him?’ Lilian asks.
‘Yes.’ There is no hesitation, no shame in the confession. ‘Everything he does I will do better. He is your friends I will be your best friend.’
They’re both smiling as she offers her new best friend her lighter again.
‘So now we share gossip? Braid each other's hair?’ she offers, not hiding her interest in the first part.
‘Or share cigarettes. And you tell me what Hollander texts you.’
But Lilian will not be satisfied that easily.
‘And what gossip do you share, best friend?’
Rozanov doesn’t have to think it seems, the proclamation is on his tongue the moment she asks, as if he were waiting for the prompt.
‘My friend in Montreal and I have big plans, starting a hockey school.’ He shrugs his shoulders, too casually, before adding, ‘We need good goalkeeper on team. My friend thinks you’re the best.’