Work Text:
July 1, 2019
11:56am
Shane Hollander is a UFA on July 1, 2019 at 12pm Eastern. An Unrestricted Free Agent, or UFA for short, is a player of a certain tenure whose contract has ended and can sign with any team of their choosing. If it were anyone else, a player walking to his UFA day would strike fear into the fans and managers hearts. They could lose a player for nothing.
(Or, if they're lucky, they could sign and trade him before July 1, when the player is only an RFA—a restricted free agent who can only sign with their current team unless they get offer sheeted, but the latter almost never happens and trading has always been off the table here.)
On the morning of July 1, 2019, with Shane Hollander set to test free agency, the Montreal Metros and their fanbase aren't worried. It's well documented that Shane Hollander has always held out for the best deal, and being a free agent is his leverage. Everyone knows that he’ll sign another deal with the Metros. They might grumble about him being a little cold, making the team work for it, make them make moves to give him just a little bit more than whatever it is Rozanov's being paid to babysit those fuck ups in Ottawa these days, but when you're the beloved captain of a historic franchise, nicknamed Hollywood and begrudgingly respected by Canadians everywhere because of your talent and work ethic, it's the kind of cold-hearted rockstar shit you can get away with.
The Metros might not like it, but they respect it. Business is business.
This is how it will go: the Montreal Metros’ General Manager Gerard Toussaint will call Farah Jalali, Shane's agent. She will tell him to call back in two hours, which is a crock because everyone talks to everyone long before the clock strikes noon—anyone who doesn’t participate in ethical tampering is bad at their job—and she already has her comparables. He'll call her back in one hour, they will exchange meaningless platitudes for approximately ninety seconds after which the temperature of the conversation will plummet and negotiations commence. The Metros will lowball. Farah will come in high. They will go back and forth for about nine minutes before they arrive at a satisfactory number somewhere in between. Gerard will threaten to go back on the dollar amount unless they agree to a seven year deal. Farah will tell him four years maximum, because if the salary cap finally goes up, her client will not be underpaid. They will argue some more about that and Farah will accept a five year deal for her client, but only if the Metros agree to a full no movement clause. The Metros will agree after a moment of pretending not to. Despite their terse negotiations, Hollander is their guy. He’s still in his prime and will be for the majority of this deal. A no-move is harmless.
The whole thing will be wrapped up and registered with MLH Headquarters by 3pm Eastern, Hollander’s mother will record him signing the contract for instagram followed by a 5 minute media availability from the dock at his cottage and so long, merci beaucoup, allez les Metropolitans, see you all at camp.
For all the drama, it’s basically a done deal. Gerard has been Metros GM for the last three seasons. He already has the contract drafted. All he needs to know is if Hollander’s number will be closer to ten or ten and a half. The media team already has the graphic ready to go out on socials, they’re just waiting for him to give them the AAV and the go ahead.
On the wall of the war room, the red digital clock strikes twelve. The game is on.
Gerard picks up the phone, scrolls through his contacts and puts the call on speaker as it rings because this one’s important. His assistant GMs are already at work in their shared ready room, talking to other teams and agents, working on the smaller items that he can quickly approve or deny with a glance at an ipad. A couple of them look up, knowing exactly who he’s calling, but for most of them it’s none of their business, just another day in the office.
“Hi, you’ve reached Farah Jalali of Pinnacle Sports Management. Please leave your name and a brief message, or reach out to our office at—”
Gerard taps the end button and dials again. It rings out a second time.
“That’s odd,” Patrice, one of his senior advisors remarks, rubbing his chin and swiveling idly in his chair.
The thing about Patrice is that he’s been a special advisor to the Metros since Gerard was in diapers. “Has she ever done this in negotiations before?” Gerard asks. “It could be some new tactic.” Farah was known for playing hardball.
“No.” Patrice’s watery eyes are steady, but around them his face hardens with concern. “I’ll try the office.”
Gerard dials again. While he waits through the endless ringing he composes an email to her. A glance at Patrice, whose mouth moves like a man who spent most of his life chewing tobacco when distracted, suggests he’s not getting anywhere either.
“The line is busy,” Patrice informs him. “What the hell is going on over there?”
The rest of the room is starting to catch on that something is amiss. Gerard can’t afford that. “Well, it wasn’t like she’d actually talk business with us anyway. I’ll give her ten and call her back. She’s probably running behind for once in her life.”
The lie tastes bitter in his mouth, his stomach kicking uselessly to say something is wrong, but Gerard’s options are limited. He rises from his chair, squeezing Patrice’s shoulder as he edges between their chairs. “I’ll be right back.”
He doesn’t need to say where he’s going or what he’s doing, Patrice can see it in his face. His nod is like a blessing, confirmation that Gerard is choosing the best option available.
He takes a moment to exhale his nerves in the much cooler hall outside. The nerves won’t help. He taps his foot impatiently as he dials.
Hollander’s phone doesn’t ring. It goes straight to voicemail.
Gerard knows Hollander is a weird one, with his silent retreats and the way he is about his body, not to mention the whole sexuality crisis situation he’d sprung on the team last fall, but as long as he keeps the drama to a minimum and plays his ass off like usual, Gerard honestly doesn’t give a shit. That's a problem for Theriault.
At least he isn’t purposely ghosting, unlike his agent. Knowing Hollander, he’s probably out in cottage country communing with nature beyond the reach of Bell’s less than stellar cellular coverage. Once Holly’s back on wifi he’ll call back and things will proceed as usual, if they don’t resolve themselves in the meantime.
Hollander wants to be a Metro forever. He wants his name in the rafters. He’s been saying it for years. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.
March 17, 2019
2:36pm
“I don’t have a lot of time,” Shane says on a sunny afternoon in March, his expression tense, “But I really need to talk to you about this in person.”
Beside him is Rose Landry, who would be a whole other list of concerns if not for certain news he shared last September, is eyeing the plant in her office with the kind of studious expression nobody ever does authentically, even if she’s pretty fucking smooth about it.Thankfully for Farah, there is a less than zero percent chance of Landry being pregnant by way of Shane, so she'll just have to monitor the headlines that suggest their relationship is back on and tell a couple insiders that he and Rose are close friends.
Farah leans back in her chair. When Shane had asked to meet during the Metros’ California roadtrip, she’d happily opened up her home in LA. Her husband is away for the week and it’s just her and the cat, which is to say she’s practically alone outside of feeding times, unless being glared at from doorways counted for something. The cat was probably plotting to hurl in her Louboutins. Again.
“I’m always here for you, Shane,” she assures him easily. “And it’s a pleasure Miss Landry—”
“Rose, please,” Rose insists, looking away from her very fake plant. “I’m just an alibi,” she adds, like that isn’t obvious now. Farah still kicks herself mentally for not seeing it earlier. “Don’t mind me.”
Years of working with Shane Hollander tell her looking back to Shane for an explanation will not increase her chances of being provided with an explanation, so instead she pulls up her files on him, just in case she needs to take notes for whatever he’s about to hit her with.
“About my contract,” he begins, and promptly stalls out.
It's not what Farah’s expecting. Shane’s contract, and the negotiations required to ascertain said contract, are pretty easy from a technical standpoint. As a client, he performs admirably both on and off the ice, and in general, he’s a good person. Farah actually likes him as a person, which she cannot say for all her clients. At the end of the day, this is a job. That’s what the money is for. (Liking someone doesn't necessarily enter into it. It's more about what the client is looking for in an agent and if they can work together.)
Anyway, Farah has never been a big fan of the Metros, but their GM could be worse. Old man Theriault is misogynistic and traditional in the worst way, but that is the more unfortunate part about hockey culture. Those kinds of people are pretty damn common. She hates that Shane is starting to learn that these people he's spent years with are exactly as bad as advertised, that they'll turn on him at the first possible opportunity for the crime of being honest about himself.
“Hey, I work for you, kid,” she turns on her best big sister voice—she’s an only child, but she’s had enough hot mess friends whose lives she’d helped sort out that she’d somehow turned it into representing athletes for a living—and it seems to help. Shane stops looming in the middle of her accent rug and pours himself into the plush chair in front of her desk, sitting cross-legged on the wide base the same way her husband does on the rare occasions he hangs out in her home office. She’s been putting them meeting for years because Rohit would try and poach him, the bastard. God, she misses her husband. Anyway, back to the panicked hockey player across the desk. “Whatever’s going on here, I’ve got your back.”
His smile is more like a grimace and he doesn’t look up from the glossy marble of her desktop, but he nods and that’s enough. Rose looks over at them and says, in that gentle way of hers, “I’m going to wait outside, I think. Alright, Shane?”
Shane grunts, which she takes as an affirmative.
Farah tells her, “Drink fridge is under the countertop facing the living room. If you see the cat, just ignore him. He’s an asshole.” She clocks Shane’s smile at her commentary and completely misses Rose’s departure. It’s a real smile, not the fake, media-forward one. A rarity for him.
“He can’t be that bad,” he tells the desktop.
She allows him the conversational detour. “He is. This morning he hopped in the shower with me, then bit my wrist when I tried to save him from the water—which he’s afraid of, for the record,” She shrugs. “He yowled the whole time like I put him there.”
Shane’s smile deepens as he finally drags his gaze up to meet hers, though it doesn’t last. He tends to look at noses or lips, or occasionally foreheads. It had taken her years to learn that he doesn’t really do eye contact. It's nothing personal. Right now, his gaze is somewhere around her right cheek, if she were to guess—
“I don’t want to sign with Montreal this offseason,” he blurts, and wow, okay. Bandaid ripped off.
The thing about talking with Shane is that there’s always a little bit of whiplash. He holds onto conversational threads for a really long time, internalizing things, taking a little longer than most to reach his endgame. Sometimes he doesn’t share enough detail and then she has to backtrack through his thoughts to figure out exactly what he’s asking for.
What he’s saying here and now is very, very cut and dry. But it’s a doorway opening to a lot of things and she has to be certain it didn’t come from nowhere.
“Okay,” she agrees, easily. Ultimately, she can do this. It’d be fun. Different. From a purely selfish perspective, he could make them both a fuckton of money. She watches him carefully, noticing he’s also doing the same. Probably looking for disappointment.
She’s seen the way he looks to his mother, or at least the way he had in those early days when Yuna Hollander kind of ran everything in his life—from a place of love, of course. Farah loved Yuna, but she was a lot. Shane is very sensitive. She'd describe him as being allergic to disappointing the people he cared about.
Idly, she wonders if Yuna knows her baby boy is about to blow up the dream. She thinks there's no fucking way, but knows she definitely can’t ask Shane. Hopefully he brings it up, but for now there are more important things.
“I have to ask, and I’m very sorry that I have to ask, but,” she watches the blank mask sort of ripple over his features, the way he steadies himself so as not to display distress—which is bullshit, he could throw a fit, tear up her office and she’s still contractually obligated to listen to him, “This isn’t because of the rainbow striped elephant in the room, is it?”
It takes him a second to get what she’s asking. His face scrunches up. “Not really,” he decides flatly, which is better than a patented no comment, which she’s spent years trying to convince him isn’t necessary because their arrangement comes with an iron clad NDA. “I think it’d be worse if they knew I was seeing someone, but,” he trails off. That's a new development.
Farah is curious by nature. She’s human, okay? Shane Hollander is seeing someone and now he doesn’t want to stay in Montreal, which means it’s serious.
Very serious, even. Hockey is Shane’s life. They are one in the same. People joke that Yuna ejected him in May of ‘91 already wearing a Metros jersey. He’s been told as much in interviews and laughed, saying yeah, that sounds about right.
“Okay.” She defaults to that single word and very narrowly avoids asking, So, how long has this been going on, because she’s very, very good at client relations. “What’s the play? Do you want me to talk to them now, get them to trade your rights when the season ends?”
Shane shakes his head. “I know that’s probably, like, the team friendly thing—”
He’s precious, has Farah mentioned that? In fact, this might be the first time he’s ever asked her for something for himself. He’d shown up for their first meeting with Yuna saying he wanted to play for the Metros forever, that it was her childhood team, and Shane, who wrote his mom’s name on his sticks and had probably never rebelled against her aspirations for him, nodded like that was simply the way his story would be written. It was maybe a little brainwashy, but that wasn’t her business, and thankfully the kid’s woken up. In Farah’s professional opinion, which just so happens to coincide with her personal one, fuck the Metros. They looked at Shane Hollander, three days before his eighteenth birthday and saw a statistic that would boost their position in the market. It was probably dollar signs long before they ever laid eyes on his stats sheet.
“But I,” he swipes his thumb across his lower lip, which is Shane Hollander for Serious Thought™, “I don’t want there to be rumors about it. I want to get through playoffs and then it’ll be, like, done.”
Tabling her inner thoughts, Farah thinks about the standings. The Metros, as of right now, are probably good enough to make it to the second round, but deeper than that would be a stretch. She doesn’t need to tell him this, she’s sure he knows it. “Alright. What’s the plan for after that?”
She asks without any assumptions on the matter, mostly because she’s never really considered the prospect of him leaving. He’s currently fourth in all-time goals and points for the Metros. She assumed, incorrectly as she now realizes, that he’d want to go out on top for him and Yuna both. Before her, Shane squirms a little.
“I reread our contract before I came over,” he begins. She blinks, confused for a second before she realizes he isn’t talking about the contract between himself and the Montreal Metros. “I’m going to tell you something and it has to stay between us. I really like working with you,” he adds, “And I don’t want that to change.”
Holy fuckballs, Farah thinks to herself, her usual polished demeanor breaking faith with her internal monologue. Shane Hollander is trying to threaten me.
“Shane,” if he were anyone else, she’d reach across the desk and squeeze his hand or his arm, reassure him the way her high school guidance counsellor had when she’d worried that failing the AP calculus exam was going to fuck up her chances of making it into college even though she’d only been in tenth grade. She’s pretty sure Shane would react not unlike the cat did when she tried to pet him this morning. “As long as you haven’t murdered anyone who didn’t deserve it, and possibly even if you did, because you are my favorite and I literally don't think you're capable of wrong doing, that NDA will hold. What are we working with?”
December 13, 2018
3:05pm
David pocket-dials Shane at least once a month. Usually he’s at the bar with his friends from work, even though work is more like a thing he does two or three days a week as a consultant because he loves what he does and not actually because he requires the funds. Sometimes he’s fallen asleep with the family group chat open and a couple hypnic jerks of his thumb are enough to make the call, which is technically not a pocket-dial, but Shane counts it as such just because it’ll kill him to quantify every individual methodology.
On one memorable occasion, David was mowing and the sound had grated on Shane’s unsuspecting eardrums. That time in particular, Shane called his mom to tell on him because he literally pays someone to landscape all of their properties and also his dad is notoriously terrible about actually putting on sunscreen.
And, listen: Shane loves his father. He’s a good man. He’s the calm that their family desperately needs with Shane and Yuna being Shane and Yuna all the time.
But the accidental dialing gets really fucking annoying, especially when Shane’s trying to take his usual ninety-minute pre-game nap.
It happens right at the beginning of the REM cycle, too, which means Shane’s groggy and disoriented, but years of hearing that familiar buzzy tone he’s got reserved for his parents and living with the rule of always answering when your parents call—the prerequisite of having a cell phone as a teenager sent off to the OHL—has him reaching over on autopilot and grumbling some half-formed greeting that probably doesn’t even make it into the microphone.
Shane blinks himself all the way awake before he hears anything beyond the subtle jingle-jangle of Christmas music his dad listens to at home, which is clue enough that it’s an accident, but before he can yell into the phone to see if his dad can hear him, he hears a very familiar sniff that makes him pause.
Ilya hadn’t said he was going over to his parents’ house, but—
“Chort,” he mutters in that watery, apologetic tone he favors whenever he can’t muster his usual charm or slavic stoicism and expresses an unpleasant emotion, “I’m sorry. I just—”
“All good, kiddo,” His dad is saying, and the sound gets more muffled. The phone must be in his pocket, but the swishing suggests he’s moving around. “I know it’s hard.”
“I don’t know if I can—” Ilya makes a sound that makes Shane feel like he’s been struck by lightning, like he’s suffered a grievous wound, like he’s injured, “I mean, I will, of course I will, I would do anything for Shane, for us, I will wait until retirement, i-it’s just,” he sniffs again, thick and wet and ugly, and Shane leans in, pressing the volume rocker to make sure he can commit to memory whatever it is that’s hurting Ilya this way. If it’s something he’s done, he doesn't know if he’ll be able to forgive himself.
“I’m so fucking lonely,” Ilya warbles, but he hisses out a breath and immediately goes to clarify, “Not that I—I appreciate you and Yuna—”
His dad’s voice is softer, warmer, in that way that usually precludes a hug. Shane knows it well. “None of that now, son. I know.”
Shane is too busy hearing I’m so fucking lonely in his head on repeat to spare a thought for how his dad has just potentially made it worse because Ilya doesn’t know what to do with paternal affection. He’s told Shane that it’s so wonderful but it hurts like he’s being broken down into tiny little pieces.
He wants to listen in more, but knows that none of this was actually meant for him. His dad doesn’t have the same kind of manipulation skills as his mom does. She’s the one who would dial with her phone under the table so he could listen into a conversation that wasn’t necessarily meant for him. His dad… he isn’t like that.
He hangs up the phone and lays on his back, hands folded over the phone on his belly as he stares at the ceiling.
At the moment, his mind is racing, and none of his thoughts are completely formed. They’re just nebulous things, priorities that maybe aren’t priorities, compromises that seem like compromises but might actually not be, the lingering doubt that he couldn’t possibly be a good boyfriend if after nearly two years he doesn’t realize that Ilya is literally falling apart in Ottawa while pretending that everything is totally fine and normal.
All he knows for certain is that he has some serious thinking to do, a plan to tear up, a new one to make (preferably with less agony for his partner, holy shit he must be the worst boyfriend in history), and that he’ll never be mad at his dad for pocket-dialing again.
July 1, 2019
8:12am
Ilya wakes up on the morning of July first to the smell of coffee and bacon. He scratches his nuts and flops dramatically out of bed like he would on any other day, glancing at his phone to see what time it is.
It’s just after eight.
He stops in the bathroom to piss and brush his teeth because rule number one of co-habitation with Shane Hollander is that morning breath is not acceptable once you’re out of bed. Ilya wants to kiss and be kissed, so he forces himself to be patient long enough for the electric toothbrush Shane has him using these days to buzz for two minutes but lets himself skip the mouthwash.
“Why do I smell bacon?” Ilya calls as he rapidly descends the stairs. He’d stopped long enough to fish a pair of sweatpants out of the dresser because there is a chance Yuna or David are present—hence the bacon smell, Shane never makes, much less consumes bacon—palming the bannister as his toes touch the hardwood on the ground floor and striding toward the delicious smell.
Shane is at the range, eyeing the bacon. It’s thick cut, and starting to look a little burned, which is mildly concerning, but there’s a plate with paper towels and grease spots which suggest there is other bacon that might not be as well done.
In Ilya’s defense, he’ll eat whatever Shane puts in front of him, burnt or not.
“Hi,” Shane says, shyly, with a little smile. He’s got one of Ilya’s hoodies on, the collar gaped wide. It’s the least ugly of the Centaurs ones he owns. Shane had stolen it sometime over the winter, wearing it long enough for it to smell like him before he’d give it back. Ilya would then wear it non-stop until it didn’t smell like him. The next time they were together, Shane would wash it and the cycle would repeat itself.
Ilya really likes that. He hopes that it continues into next season. Shane had always refused to wear any of his clothing that had Boston or Ottawa’s logos on it before, so he might have to buy a couple plain ones too. Maybe they can start a rotation.
It’s a thought for later. Right now it’s summer, which is Ilya’s favorite season because they spend almost all of it together. He will spend the next few days with the new Centaurs at their development camp and doing some easy content for Harris and Shane will be signing an extension with the Metros later today, then they will be done for a while.
What he’s looking forward to is Thursday, when he and Shane will leave for the cottage to spend ten whole days together without interruptions (he’d already convinced David to get Yuna on board for this, especially considering how much time they’d be spending together after that), then they’ll go to Montreal for the first Irina Foundation camp. It’ll be more exciting than painful, Ilya believes it. His mama would be proud of them. Of him, and Shane.
“Um,” Shane pulls him out of his own head with a confused look, which only lasts as long as it takes for him to fish out some partially black, very crispy bacon from the pool of grease on the bottom of the pan. “Want scrambled or over easy?”
“You are over easy,” Ilya says, which has Shane shaking his head and leaning in to accept the kiss to the cheek Ilya bestows upon him. “That is okay,” he adds, “I am easy too. I will eat whatever, you know this.”
“The chewy bacon is on the bottom,” he answers, cracking two eggs directly into a pan with oil—actual oil, Ilya notes, with a little bit of wonder. “Crispy is for me.”
“I thought you only ate like normal person at the cottage,” he marvels aloud, earning a swat to the ass with an unused flipper.
“We’re not going to be at the cottage for as long as last year,” Shane points out, ever rational. He must be in a good mood if isn’t telling Ilya his performance diet is normal. “Besides, I sign my new contract today. Maybe I wanted to celebrate.”
“With burnt bacon,” he answers, pretending to be confused. Shane’s idea of a celebration would be a normal breakfast for any other person, but Shane wouldn’t be Ilya’s person if he wasn’t like this, so he doesn’t mind at all.
“It’s crispy, not burnt.” Shane salts and peppers the eggs the way Ilya likes as he argues, heatless, “Chewy bacon is gross.”
“Mm,” Ilya answers inelegantly, slotting in behind, hands on Shane’s hips and chin hooked over his shoulder. He likes watching Shane in the kitchen, likes watching him flip eggs like it’s nothing, feeling him pivot to put toast—sourdough for Ilya, always sourdough, not the whole grain seeded shit Shane swears is delicious and makes for himself—in the toaster before pulling down a plate from the cupboard and putting everything together.
“Sandwich or—”
“Or,” Ilya says, because if he was alone he’d make a sandwich but he wants to make this meal last, wants to hoard these moments, keep Shane all to himself for as long as possible.
He’s selfish like that. He knows they have the whole summer, but he needs these little insignificant-seeming memories to tide him over when the days are shorter but feel so much longer and more empty, when he throws together an egg sandwich at home because the drive-thru at McDonalds involves talking to a person and being Ilya Rozanov and some days he just can't muster the happy, carefree facade.
“Hey,” Shane turns around, plate in one hand. He scoots up on his toes to give Ilya a little peck on the lips, tasting like coffee and whatever a person tastes like—skin and spit and dna, but Ilya thinks it’s probably something more like soulmate, or home (so he’s a romantic, so what?)—and Ilya realizes he’s probably a little more lost in his thoughts than usual, which might be freaking Shane out.
Except, Shane just seems… normal. Settled. Warm and rumpled and Ilya’s. “Go, sit,” he orders gently, pushing the plate of eggs and toast into Ilya’s hands. “I’ll bring you coffee and the plate of bacon.”
“You are eating too?”
“Yup. My omelette’s in the microwave.”
“Wait, how come you get omelette?”
He swipes a crispy, blackened strip of bacon off the top of the pile and bites off the tip of it as he presses the button on my microwave, revealing a plate with a lump of yellow-green on it. He points the rest of his piece of bacon at Ilya on his way to the toaster. “Because I like spinach and you don’t.”
Ilya sticks out his tongue at Shane’s back as he pulls his toast out of the toaster.
“Stop sticking your tongue out at me.”
“Oh, now you are mind reader,” Ilya teases.
“Nope,” he answers, setting his plate next to Ilya’s on the counter over his stool. “I just know you.”
Ilya swallows at that, feeling warm and prickly and maybe a little gooey too. He likes being known very much.
July 1, 2019
12:53pm
Most of the general managers around the league are busy on July first. Most of them are frantically calling one another, trying to pluck players or picks to convince their high profile players not to leave or their fans that they’ll be relevant in the fall, they promise. Monty Blankenship, GM of the Ottawa Centaurs, has learned his lesson when it comes to rash decisions. He’d worked his way up the ranks in Dallas as a younger man and promptly blown it all to hell, been banished to Atlanta for a couple years before they fell out of favor and lost their franchise and spent years in the minors figuring things out.
So, while other guys are kicking tires from executive chairs in their war room, Monty is here, at their practice facility, ready to watch the fifty-some kids they’d invited to development camp. His AGM, Casey Swain sits beside him, clipboard at the ready, phone and ipad beside her on the bleachers. Their scouts are situated around the arena in a pattern that only made sense to them. They’ll report back on their findings at the end of the week, then he and Casey’ll determine who gets a camp invite sometime in August.
There would certainly be some phone calls and maybe even a couple of moves if the asks are decent, but the free agent list this year is minimal at best, and Monty isn’t buying high for the handful of guys out there, even if they have the cap space. They can add at camp, in season when the teams who fail shed quality guys in the name of ethical tanking, and at the deadline, if it’s looking like the playoffs are imminent. He’s pretty sure they’re still a year or two away, but they have time. Roz signed for eight years, and Monty’d bet his left foot that he’ll still be relevant when it ends.
All of them watch as Rozanov skates breezily around the rink, alternating between sinking pucks into the net, touching shoulders, and swatting shin pads as he talks to each of the kids like they’re his lifelong teammates. They are damn lucky Roz had chosen them last year, even if Monty—and Brandon and Casey and everyone else, really—still can’t figure out why.
Roz is a cornerstone, load-bearing. That Boston is still standing without him is shocking. Exactly one year ago today he’d signed his contract in person, hamming it up for the cameras. The following day he was on the ice chatting with Luca Haas even though nobody had told him about the camp schedule, much less gave him a full set of gear in black and red. They’d already planned to make him captain, but it went from a social media post to a full on knighting, because Monty knew how to recognize something special.
Ilya Rozanov is an insanely talented player, hot-headed and sharp tongued and cocky, but he was a good man, a leader, a protector, and the kind of guy who holds franchises together. He’d asked Monty to build a winning team around him and said that he could be patient, that he wasn’t going anywhere, even agreed to a no movement clause when they suggested it, even though his agent had looked at him like he was crazy. Monty hadn’t understood the Russian, but he could read are you fucking stupid, they will trap you here, on the guy’s face over a Zoom call.
“I can’t believe we got him,” Casey comments as Roz bumps gloves with Luca Haas. The young man flushes so pink it makes the bits of hair that stick out from under his helmet look white rather than blonde.
“You don’t have to be the best,” Monty reminds her, “You just have to be smart and lucky.”
“Agreed.”
Four minutes later, when Roz is sitting on the boards, listening to the coaches and nodding with second hand authority, Monty’s phone rings. His lockscreen reads 13:16.
“Monty speaking,” he answers, Casey looking over at him with a confused expression. Nobody calls this early unless they’re trying to do some moving and shaking, and since he’s not trading Haas and he’s sure as shit not entertaining anything on Rozanov, nobody ought to be calling him until closer to four pm for the usual a fifth and a sixth for a couple of minor leaguers that might someday be relevant. Honestly, he's expecting more business to get done tomorrow.
“Hello, Mr. Blankenship,” a woman’s voice greets him, prim and polished and business forward. He knows who it is even before she announces herself. “This is Farah Jalali.”
Monty chuckles. Right, he thinks, this is a Hollander year. “Monty, please, Farah. I’ve worked with you for what, five years now?” He shakes his head and watches Casey roll her eyes because they’d both casually deleted Hollander from the board months earlier when he’d stuck to his usual resolve not to talk in-season about extending. “I take it you’re calling for a comp on Hollander,” he says genially. It’s a little late, but everybody knows Farah Jalali’s thoroughness. She’s probably called thirty other teams and Monty’s the final box to check for her due diligence. “Tell me your number and I’ll tell you something to make Toussaint shit himself, the bastard.”
The Centaurs don't do business with the Metros. That's a fact.
“Actually,” she sounds amused. The ambient sounds he hears in the background suggest she might be driving somewhere, which is not the usual for a free agency day. Most agents are holed up in their offices, firing off calls and emails and text messages. “I think I might surprise you. I’m in town and, while this might be a smidge unorthodox, I was hoping we might be able to speak in your office. I have a client with me.”
Monty frowns, feeling his forehead wrinkle. On the ice, Rozanov runs through a drill, making the kids whistle and groan, showing them what they ought to strive for even if most of them would never come close to it. “Who’s the client?” he asks, which has Casey sending a furtive glance his way.
There’s a sound, another voice. It's male, but indiscernible.
“Confidential, I’m afraid. Though technically,” Farah revises, “My client picked me up.”
Monty throws his hand over the speaker. He doesn’t know a lot of guys who would chauffeur their agents, and there is no fucking way— ”Casey, give me a list of everyone Farah represents.”
She doesn’t question it, bless her, fingers flying over the screen of her tablet. Farah represents seven clients who play at the MLH level. Only one of them needs a contract. Holy fuck.
He doesn’t finish reading the list. “I’m at the practice facility. Do you need directions?”
“I think we know the way,” Farah answers cooly, sounding almost like she’s teasing. “Oh, just to clarify, you do still have eleven million in cap space, right? Are you planning on spending to the cap or…”
“Farah, if you’re seriously suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, I’ll spend every goddamned penny.”
He tells her—him, because he's driving—where to park, she provides an ETA, then hangs up. Eighteen minutes. They’re on the fucking Queensway.
Monty’s hands are shaking as he turns to Casey, whose eyebrows have risen to comical elevation. “Youre kidding,” she says, having guessed what’s happening based on the list, Monty’s very pale complexion, and the shaking. “Harris is pranking us. Rozanov’s probably in on it, you know they’re friends, they’ve got the charity. He probably got one of the interns—”
“I don’t think so,” Monty says, Casey’s they’re friends percolating in his brain amongst the rest of his and Farah’s brief conversation. He pinches himself, just to be sure this isn’t some elaborate dream, or that he’s died and this is some weird reward from the hockey gods on his way to heaven. It hurts, which is both a good sign and incredibly confusing. He looks down at his phone, which is still in the hand attached to the arm he’d pinched, and checks his call history. “Her number’s programmed into my phone, Case. It was Farah.”
Casey shoves her phone into her pocket and rises. “No offense, but sometimes I think you have a lucky horseshoe stuck up your ass.”
Monty laughs. “None taken.”
June 22, 2019
6:26pm
Shane is Yuna’s baby. It doesn’t matter how big he is or how old he gets, he’s always going to be her little boy. So she knows, when she and David arrive at his condo and park next to Hayden’s SUV in visitor parking, that something serious is going on.
Shane isn’t big on inviting people over and Ilya is in Minnesota for the draft, getting ready to welcome the Centaurs’ first round picks that will be selected this evening. They’d been planning to watch together at their cottage before he drove back to Ottawa in the morning, but Shane had called them this morning with a change of plans.
Yuna’s mind races with possibilities. Maybe something is going on with the kids? Jackie could be pregnant again, but usually they announce that at a barbecue. Or maybe Hayden’s asked for a trade? Jackie’s family lives just outside Winnipeg, maybe they’ve decided they want to be closer to family? It would make sense. It’s a full time job raising one kid, much less four.
She opens the door without knocking—a rule that’s normally in place when Ilya is the same province for reasons mothers know but should never have to think about—and there is sniffling coming from the living room. It kicks her motherly instincts into overdrive.
“Is everything alright?”
They round the corner to find Shane and Hayden sitting kitty corner to one another on the massive three-sided sectional that takes up the majority of the living room. Hayden’s crying, swiping at his face and clinging to Shane, and Shane, who normally hates any form of physical contact from people not named Yuna or Ilya, is hugging him back, the two of them rocking back and forth like an odd, human triangle. The TV that’s mounted over the electric fireplace is muted, playing draft coverage.
“Yeah,” Hayden sniffles, which has Shane wincing. “I’m just gonna…” he jerks a thumb toward the washroom. “Be right back.” He disappears down the hall.
“Shane,” Yuna murmurs, mindful that the walls in this condominium are not particularly soundproof—or so David says, and Yuna shudders to think about, “What’s this about?”
Shane, her beautiful, perfect son, who simply doesn’t know how to sugarcoat anything, blurts, “I’m going to free agency,” like he’s confessing to a crime.
“Well, yeah.” Yuna drops her purse on the counter and perches in her usual spot on the end of the couch’s right side, diagonal to where Hayden and Shane have been sitting. David hasn’t joined them yet, he’s probably too busy rummaging around in the fridge for Ilya’s good vodka. “Obviously. You want the best deal, and even if you don’t plan to go, they don’t know that. You could probably make eleven million if Farah starts a bidding war.”
There’s a flush from the bathroom, the hissing of the tap, and then Hayden emerges. He looks splotchy faced, but composed, and goes to join David in the kitchen. She hears the quiet tinkling sound of glasses and wonders if David’s blanket vodka permissions extend to Hayden. Probably not.
“No, Mom,” Shane corrects. “I mean, I’m going to free agency.” He stresses each word like it changes the meaning.
“You always go to free agency,” She tells him.
He pulls at his hair, frustrated. “No, I’m not—” he groans. “I mean, I’m not going to sign with Montreal.” Sending her world careening sideways with nine devastating words, he finishes, “I already talked to Farah.”
She blinks. How long has he known he was going to do this? “When?”
“Before playoffs. I went to see her in LA.”
Yuna would say she’s processing, sitting there, mouth hanging open, but she isn’t. For years, all Shane has talked about is seeing his name in the rafters, winning as many cups as he can with the team that drafted him. Had something happened? He hadn’t said anything. Sure, they’d barely made it to the conference final since winning back to back cups a few years ago, but things had been good. He’d even come out to the team and things had been, well, not perfect, but as good as one could hope considering the sport’s more conservative roots.
“Did Ilya put you up to this?”
The sounds of drink pouring stops in the kitchen. One of the downsides of an open concept, which she’s always told him, is that everyone can hear and see everything that’s happening in the house. Not that this is a private conversation, but still. David and Hayden are probably watching their back and forth like the Hollander version of Wimbledon.
“What the fuck, Mom, are you serious?” Shane’s expression is hurt, his voice laced with something sharp, maybe disappointment.
“I mean, I have to ask,” Yuna defends herself. It had been nearly two years ago that he’d told her he’d give up Boston for Shane. People’s minds change all the time. Not to mention just how bad the Centaurs were. They were going to pick third, eighteenth, and twentieth just tonight.
“He doesn’t know, Mom. I haven’t told him.”
“This is a big decision to make on your own.” To be fair she doesn't think Ilya would purposely gaslight him, but Shane can be sensitive sometimes—
“Yuna, come on,” David comes back with a glass of wine in one hand, his rocks glass in another, and sets them down before scooting by her to sit. Hayden follows, his vodka glass a little higher than David’s. He sets a ginger ale down in front of Shane’s usual coaster as David continues, “I know you’re hurt, honey, but think about it.”
She is thinking about it. Someone has to think about what Shane wants. He wants to leave a legacy. He wants to be the greatest Metro of all time.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Shane tells her, looking just south of her nose. He has yet to open his ginger ale, cradling it in his palm and making half circles atop the lip of the can with his thumbs. “I know you wanted me to be a Metro for my entire career, but I can’t—” he sucks in a breath like it pains him, even though he left Yuna’s heart in the dust somewhere around I know you wanted, and she's going to need some time and space to reconcile just how much of her baby’s life she’s controlled with her expectations, because this second only to him apologizing for being gay, “I won’t let him spend the next ten years miserable and alone for the bleu, blanc, et rouge. He means more to me than hockey. I know I’m, like, bad at showing it, obviously, but I,” he nods, resolute. “I want to do this. For both of us.”
Sometimes Yuna thinks that her baby grew into a man without her noticing, that she’d blinked and somewhere in the space between he’d gone from this sweet, innocent boy to a quiet, independent man with his father’s gentle heart and his mother’s sharpness. It’s like she looks at him and she knows him, knows he’s always going to be hers in the ways that matters, but he’s not just hers anymore. He belongs to someone else. He gave himself away and she has to live with it, has to share him with the world, has to let him go and find his place in it.
And it seems that he has, she just hasn’t quite wrapped her head around it.
She exhales, forcing the air out with a gusty sigh. He didn’t make this choice with her in mind, and he shouldn’t have to. He shouldn’t have to curate himself for anyone, least of all his mother. She brought him into this world, nurtured him with her body, raised him to be kind and good and he is. They’d done good, her and David.
“No,” she says, because she can cry about it later, when she's alone, but for now there are more important things “I’m sorry. If this is what you want, that’s what I want, too.” He looks at her, meets her gaze head on, and she knows that what she tells him in this moment, he’ll remember. “I just want my boys to be happy. However that looks.”
His lip wobbles, but he nods and fuck, it breaks her heart all over. He’s spent his entire life trying to justify her faith in him that sometimes she forgets that she needs to earn his faith in her, too.
Later—much later, after the draft coverage ends, after Hayden drinks all of Ilya’s vodka and Ubers home, hugging Shane and crying like he’ll never see him again, even though they’re still going to coach together at the Game Changers camp next month and Shane had just spent a year proving that two hours was far but easily drivable—when she and David are alone in the car back to their cottage, she can’t help but ask.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
David, steady and sure, like mountains or oceans or—wow, Yuna cuts herself off with a mental shake, clearly she drank a little too much wine—doesn’t deny it. “I did.”
He says it like it’s simple. Like that’s it.
“Did you tell him he should?”
“No, of course not. It was his decision.”
“But you think he’s doing the right thing.” She likes to fact check her moral compass against his sometimes. Sometimes she gets things twisted and he has this way of looking at the world and uncomplicating it. Things are or they aren’t.
“I know he is,” David tells her. He indicates left, turns on the highbeams so he’s not blindsided by any deer moving through the trees, and thinks about his words before he continues. “I was always pretty sure he loved Ilya more than hockey, but he told me so, verbatim the week before he talked to Farah.” He doesn’t go into more detail, and Yuna suspects whatever else they’d talked about in this discussion isn’t anything he plans to share.
“Were you shocked?”
“Not really.” He glances over at her, a smile curling his lips. “Were you?”
“Honestly? Yeah.”
He nods, but it’s not like he’s judging her. They’re only a couple miles from home, the forest yielding to an ink black lake on the right. David doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “He’s a good kid,” he tells her. “They both are.” He must decide that’s enough for her to chew on for now, because he adds a sly, “And just think about all the cups they’ll win for my Centaurs.”
July 1, 2019
3:23pm
There aren’t many things that surprise Harris Drover. As an intern, he’d learned to just roll with things, because from management on down, everybody had their quirks. Fast forward two years and he’s coming off his first season as the full time social media manager for the Ottawa Centaurs—his dream job, thank you very much—and it’s been downright magical.
He’s got his major summer posts already lined up and scheduled in his calendar and there’s lots of footage from development camp, including a bunch of Rozanov content that will definitely come in handy for gifs and memes that will be great to have in his back pocket. He’s just finishing up a couple edits when Casey Swain, the Centaurs’ Assistant General Manager, knocks on the open door of his office. She looks weirdly giddy.
“Monty and I need you for something top secret,” she tells him, in lieu of pleasantries.
“Hi Casey,” Harris tilts his head. “I’m all yours,” he tells her, smiling genially even if he doesn’t have a clue what could possibly be going on.
His briefing about free agency was to have some stock graphics ready in the event of a trade, but that they weren’t planning to sign anyone. He has them ready, and he goes to pull his macbook off the charger, just in case, but she holds up a hand.
“You won’t need the laptop. I just need you and your camera. The good one.”
They’re all good ones, but he doesn’t tell her that. “Photo or video?”
“Both,” she says. “We don’t have time for the full video crew, so you’ll have to make due with whatever content you can scrape together on this one.”
He grabs his bag with the good DSLR and a couple lenses, and then she’s practically dragging him down the hall. It’s a little scary and very impressive, considering she’s always in heels. He does not know how high fashion people do it. He’s a big fan of his converse. They’re simple, utilitarian. He’s been wearing the same pair for years.
Instead of leading him directly to the ice or the administrative offices, they end up taking a detour through to the equipment lab, where Vinny, the team’s equipment manager, is already pressing a jersey.
“Less than two minutes,” Vinny tells them.
“I take it we had a signing?” Harris guesses, though he’s smart enough to check to make sure there weren’t other people nearby to listen in. There were plenty of crazy secret things that happened that he found out about in post, from his fellow admins across the league, and anyone who leaked secrets before they were public was pretty much never heard from again.
“Not just a signing,” Vinny lifts the press. “The signing.” He pulls the jersey free and shakes it with a sharp thwack of fabric, and Harris catches a glimpse of just exactly what name and number are on it.
Twenty-four. Hollander.
Holy shit.
What happens next is very simple, when you think about it: Harris is just your garden variety gay man. People talk. He’s heard the rumors. So maybe he gasps. Audibly. Possibly at a very high pitch. Maybe it’s actually kind of a squeal.
“Please, for the love of fuck,” Casey says, a note of understanding in her voice somewhere underneath the mountain of exasperation, “Do not do that in front of him.” She looks over at Vinny next, pointing a manicured finger at him. “And if you see Roz, do not, under any circumstances, tell him what’s going on. Monty wants a reaction clip for socials. That’s why we’ve got Harris on the case.”
Harris offers a jaunty salute, because otherwise he’s going to say something silly like I had that man’s poster in my bedroom as a teenager and Casey will probably take his camera and try to figure it out herself, which will be a disaster. Management is allowed to film on their phones only, and most of what they do film is generally unusable.
Once the jersey is steamed and put on a hanger, which is sandwiched between two blank jerseys for secrecy’s sake, Vinny gives them a baseball cap. Then, it’s showtime.
“What’s he like?” He whispers because this is top secret, and he feels like he probably shouldn’t speak louder than that in public areas. He’s seen interviews, so he knows that Hollander seems pretty serious and appears to be well spoken.
“He’s pretty much as advertised,” she murmurs back, carefully angling the jerseys away as they pass a couple maintenance workers out in the hallway. “Or so I thought before he crash landed here two hours ago with his agent.”
“He came here?”
“Yeah.” She makes sure there's no one around, then gushes like she's grateful to have someone to let in on the secret. “He showed up and said he wanted a contract. Craziest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Most guys have their agent call. He picked his agent up from the airport and had her call Monty to basically invite himself to his own homecoming.”
“That’s kind of badass.”
“It’s very badass,” she agrees, because Casey’s cool like that, “But also very fucking annoying. We’re actually going to have to do some work this summer, because Monty’s suddenly decided the playoff window’s open.”
“I mean,” Harris gave a little shrug. “Forgive me for my lack of general knowledge, but isn’t it?”
She gives him a bland stare. “Of course it is, but I was looking forward to day-drinking skinny margaritas on my sister’s boat by Friday.”
“There’s still a chance,” he points out.
“I appreciate your optimism,” she laughs, nudging him with a bony elbow as they stop in front of the GM offices.
“If you’re still here Friday, I’ll make you a margarita myself,” he offers, which makes her smile. He really would. He’s got a mini fridge in his office and he’s filled in at his sister’s bar enough times to know how to make a good one.
She swipes her badge against the black access point and gestures for him to follow her through the door. Just like that, they’re back to business. “Thankfully we keep the photo room set up year round,” she says, referring to the mid-sized conference room halfway down the hall.
The door is open, revealing a sliver of the plain backdrop Harris has been begging them to replace. When he gets closer, Shane Hollander comes into view, sitting patiently on the stool in the center of the room while the woman who must be his agent and Monty talk amongst themselves in the corner. Harris isn’t close enough to eavesdrop, unfortunately, but that’s okay.
Hollander turns toward them when the door opens, but Harris is a little distracted by the staredown he receives from Hollander’s agent. She looks him up and down as if to cast judgment, but her gaze snags on his jacket and the pride pins that dot the collar, and the storm on her face clears instantly. She turns back to Monty and nods.
Monty, in turn, nods to Harris, swift and cordial. For Hollander’s benefit, he says, “This is Harris. He’ll take a couple of pictures and capture the reaction video for socials. Since you're local, we can figure out what kind of media circus we want to entertain tomorrow.”
“Sounds good,” Hollander agrees, impassive. He accepts the jersey that’s handed to him, inspecting the back. He nods once he’s confirmed that everything is in order, pulling it over his head.
“I need everyone but Hollander to clear out, please,” Harris tells them, setting his bag on the floor and rummaging through it for the correct lens, which he pops carefully onto the camera. “Too many shadows.”
It’s kind of a half-truth, but Harris doesn’t like a bunch of people watching him work one on one with someone. It’s too reminiscent of school, especially in a setting like this. The backdrop kind of makes the whole thing look like a yearbook photo station, except it’s in an office, not a gymnasium.
They close the door behind themselves, which is nice, though they fan out around the door like an oddly assembled security detail.
The photos themselves are easy. They’re just the usual series of poses most social media managers use for announcements, so it’s kind of an abbreviated version of photo day, just with less strobing lights. It’s the rest of it that’s odd. Hollander leads off with a gentle, “I’ve heard a lot about you from Rozanov,” while Harris checks his camera, explaining that they always text each other the question of the day they’re asked at practice. So far, they’ve only gotten the same question once.
He’s not a chatterbox like Ilya, though, doesn’t really have that cocksure presence in front of a camera, but Harris can work with ‘unassuming Canadian.’ The only coaching he needs is when Harris asks him to smile. It looks stilted, kind of. Maybe a little nervous, but Harris thinks that can’t be right. He knows this guy does photo shoots for Calvin Klein. He's seen them.
Fuck, he should not be thinking about the gay hockey player standing in front of him whose poster hung in his childhood bedroom modeling underwear for the Calvin Klein.
“Pretend someone you really like is standing just outside,” he says, “Like they’re just about to open the door.”
Hollander maybe takes it a little too literally, looking toward the door itself, but upon review, the photos that come from it are perfect. They’re practically candids. Honestly, Harris wonders who he was thinking about because his smile, the one Harris just got on film, is devastating.
“Are we doing signing photos?” he asks Hollander after he’s confirmed he’s got enough material for several signing posts. This is essentially his Christmas, news-wise. He might actually do a different shot for each of their socials.
Hollander seems confused by the prospect. “I mean, I already signed the contract, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, I mean the one where the guys sign a copy of the contract for socials.”
“Oh.” He thinks on that for a minute. “I think I did that with my ELC,” he admits, rubbing his chin. Harris sees him hesitate when he moves toward the door. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something,” he smiles, sheepish. “Before we go back out there.”
Harris nods, interested, possibly a little terrified, and very confused. What the hell could Shane Hollander want with him? “You got it,” Harris tells him, because what else could he say? “I’m all ears.”
“The GM—Monty,” he corrects, sounding actually honest-to-goodness nervous, “Really wants to get Ilya’s reaction. I’m kind of worried that he’s not going to get the reaction he wants.”
Harris frowns. “Oh-kay,” he splits the word, trying to figure out what that could possibly mean. “Did you sign here to mess with Roz or something? Because that wouldn’t be very cool.”
“No!” Hollander looks horrified at the prospect, which is a relief. Harris didn’t think he was like that, but people sometimes surprised you. “If anything, I—” he shrugs, resets, changes course. “You’ll see. I don’t care that it’s filmed, but would you just make sure Ilya approves it going out before it’s posted?”
“I always do,” Harris promises him. “If the video comes out really bad, we can always stage a video of you signing instead. It’ll take like two whole minutes to do and people will still love it. I’ll think of a couple other options, too, just in case.”
Hollander nods. “That’ll work. Thank you,” he says, sounding well and truly relieved. “I really appreciate it.”
“For what it’s worth,” Harris offers, sensing it’s okay to go to the door and release them from this overbright prison, “Ilya’s pretty good in front of the cameras. We surprised him on Halloween this year and got a really hilarious reaction. I don’t think you have too much to worry about.”
July 1, 2019
4:03pm
It is just past four pm and Ilya has been at the rink and away from his phone for hours. His last message from Shane was sent at 11:03am, exactly five hours ago, and reads, I love you, try not to make the kids look too bad, okay? Ilya had responded to it with a kissy face.
He considers sending a sexy text, because he loves sending Shane unsuspecting sexy messages, imagining his pouty lips and flushed cheeks, the way it makes his freckles look extra beautiful and in need of kisses, but he still has this morning on his mind, the casual intimacy of having breakfast together, of Shane eating burnt strips of bacon in Ilya’s hoodie in the kitchen and calling it a celebration. It is maybe a little worrying that he has not messaged gloating about signing for more than Ilya’s ten million dollars per season like he should be.
He shoves his phone in his pocket and resolves to call Shane from the car, even though he will be home in less than twenty minutes, he lives near the practice facility for exactly this reason. He will not be able to wait that long because he is co-dependent, which is a word he learned from Pike who had shouted it at him while he was video calling with Shane a couple days ago. It is true. Ilya is co-dependent. He'd looked it up. He is always trying to be where Shane is.
In his pocket, his phone buzzes, because he flipped it to vibrate when he got inside the rink. Thinking that it’s Shane calling, he quickly tugs the phone out and frowns when it isn’t.
“This is Ilya,” He says, squinting at the name on the screen. Why the fuck is the general manager calling him? He realizes belatedly that Monty knows who the fuck he is, but there are only so many ways he can answer the phone in English, and this one is one size fits most or whatever they call it.
“Hey Roz,” Monty says, in his drawling voice. It had taken Ilya nearly a month to be able to understand him the first time around, but the man swears his accent is light. Why Americans had so many stupid fucking accents, Ilya would never understand. “If you haven’t left yet, would you mind stopping by my office?”
Ilya does indeed mind, but he can’t exactly say that to the man he is hoping will build him an actually relevant team unless he wants to get asked to waive his no move for fucking Carolina or something. He sighs, hoping the phone doesn’t pick it up, but it probably does. “Sure,” he replies blandly, turning away from the exit. “I will be there in two minutes.”
“Great. See you shortly.” He hangs up, to the point and cheerful as ever.
Fuck, Ilya thinks, waiting for one of the building’s two slow as fuck elevators. Maybe he should have sexted Shane after all.
He has his phone out already, so he sends the text as the elevator finally opens its doors. It’s tame for him, but Shane gets worked up over little things, so it is good enough. What’re you wearing, he asks.
Shane’s typing bubble shows up immediately, soothing something rough-edged inside him. Wouldn’t you like to know, he replies, with a fucking winky face, which is leagues ahead of the first time Ilya had asked. Shane had responded with clothes?????? Ilya had laughed himself hoarse, half-way in love even back then. It had been, what, 2011?
“Who is teaching you to text like this,” he mutters to himself fondly, thunking his head against the elevator’s metallic door, the cab making an annoying shush-shush sound as it rolls up from the basement to level one, then two, and finally three, because manager-type people always need to have perfect views of parking lots or whatever. The training facility is in a suburb off the Queensway. There are no views to be seen.
When the elevator finally spits him out, he forces his phone back into his pocket. Harris is waiting for him, his foot between the door to the GM suite and the frame, the little door panel flashing angrily because it cannot lock the door.
“Should I be worried?” He asks, because Harris is pretty good about telling him when things are happening.
“Nope,” he smiles, bright and sunny and cheerful. Normally Ilya would be happy to see him but he really does just want to go home. “They’ve got some new guy in there and want you to welcome him to the organization. I’ll be filming it for socials.”
“Ah, okay.” He can do that much. “My line is, ‘Hello and welcome to Ottawa Centaurs. I am Ilya Rozanov, and I will be your captain now,’ yes?”
Harris nods enthusiastically, which is a weird response to a very normal sentence, but maybe Ilya is just too tired and cranky from spending the day at work when had a very beautiful boyfriend waiting for him at home. He opens the door for him instead of just kicking it, which is fine, but kind of makes him feel like Harris is a butler and not the team’s social media guy, but whatever. Ilya will go in there, say his line, smile for the camera, and then he will go the fuck home.
The door to Monty's office is open at the end of the hall. The man laughs, the sound carrying throughout the little suite with all of its offices. Harris follows him inside the suite and lets the door click shut behind him. He’s silent, which must mean he’s got the camera rolling, so Ilya squares his shoulders and goes. He gets to the doorway and stops, because there are a ton of people in the room. Monty is at his desk flanked by two women—one is the assistant GM, Casey, who is looking at her tablet like she always is, though it's held up at a strange angle. The other looks vaguely familiar, but Ilya isn't sure who she is. The third person, sat across from Monty, is the new player, clad in a blank home jersey and the default Centaurs ballcap.
“Is this the guy?” He asks, even though there is no one else it could be. He guy doesn’t so much as twitch, so Ilya comes in and makes a show of the whole two steps it takes to get from the doorway to the side of his chair, turning to the side and looking down as the guy looks up and—
“Hi,” the man says brightly, tugging off his cap and rising to his feet, smiling. Ilya’s brain promptly goes offline or fucking fails, or something because this is not some new guy but actually Shane fucking Hollander and he is wearing an Ottawa Centaurs jersey.
What happens next is heavily contested. Ilya insists that he neither jumped half a metre in the air nor screamed, but there is video evidence of exactly that. His hands fly up to cover his mouth as if to stop the sound he makes. He lands awkwardly, back pressed against the far wall of the office—it isn’t a big office, despite all the people in it.
“What the fuck?” He demands, looking around the room, hands falling to his chest, as if ensuring his heart hasn’t beat out of it. He recognizes the other woman now. He’d met her last November at the press conference for the Irina Foundation. Her name is Farah and she is Shane’s agent and, again, what the fuck? “What is happening?”
Harris is still filming, he realizes. Monty and Casey are laughing.
“Ilya,” Shane says, pulling his attention away from Harris, whose hands are steady even though he looks as surprised as Ilya feels.
Ilya feels like he's maybe had a stroke, not that he knows what that feels like. Maybe he is dead. Maybe he got concussed by one of the kids at camp and his brain is broken. He shakes his head hard, but he doesn't feel dizzy. The room settles and everything looks the way it did a moment ago and Shane is still standing in front of him.
“What are you doing here?” He asks. “You are pranking me?”
Shane’s smile grows wider, but he shakes his head. “I'm not pranking you, Ilya.”
“Then what is—” There is no possible way. Everything in his brain falls out. It’s all static now. He shakes his head. “I am dreaming,” he says, to no one in particular.
Casey’s face is hidden behind her massive tablet, but Monty’s isn’t. He looks surprised, but pleased. Not business pleased. Like, actual happiness.
“Shane,” he forces himself to say, and Shane is looking at him and wearing that ugly fucking jersey and the world is starting to feel a little more solid around him and no, this cannot be fucking possible. Things like this do not happen to him. “Moy lyubimyy,” he pleads, because there was celebratory bacon this morning and Shane was wearing his hoodie, “Why are you wearing a Centaurs jersey?” His voice cracks in the middle, right around the time Shane’s eyes meet his and hold, like an anchor.
Shane’s lips move and it’s like white noise comes out, but Ilya’s pretty sure he said—
“You signed a contract with the Centaurs.”
Shane nods.
Ilya does not think he's breathing. “You didn't.”
“I did.” he gestures to the table, looking up at Monty, a little bashful. “Told you he wouldn’t believe me.”
Ilya is—there isn’t a word that could describe what he is feeling. Disbelief did not even begin to cover it. “There is no fucking way,” he argues, because he believes Shane but he must be sure, “We had whole plan. I play in Ottawa, you play in Montreal. We are only two hours apart and we play hard against each other every game and we start foundation, and,” he croaks “When we retire—” his throat clicks and the words don't come. There are tears in his eyes that are overflowing, running down his cheeks and his breathing is shaky but Shane is fucking smiling at him, like this is normal, like it’s easy.
“It was a terrible plan,” Shane confesses, condemning it with a shrug. “I mean, not all of it was terrible, but a lot of it was really bad, so I made a new one. I'm sorry I didn't tell you but tampering is a thing, so…”
Ilya waits expectantly because he's not sure he can actually speak without the words coming out choppy and breathless. He's still convinced he's maybe dying or in a coma or something, but then Shane tells him the plan.
“You play in Ottawa,” he explains, fingers tapping Ilya's chest the way they had the first time, except the next part changes. “I play in Ottawa, and we win a bunch of cups together. We still do the foundation, and—” Shane looks over at Harris.
Harris, who looks somewhere between passing out and ascending, a spectrum which Ilya is also on at the present moment, has already lowered the camera. The screen is off and the lens points at the floor. If this is real, Ilya will buy him a million cameras and that fucking backdrop he's been begging the finance department for. Whatever he wants.
Shane squeezes his fingers, pulling him back to the more important conversation, even though Ilya doesn't remember when they started holding hands. “And maybe we don’t wait until retirement to be like, out, or whatever.” he finishes, exhaling in that way he does when he could laugh or cry that sounds like both. “I think maybe that might be the better plan.”
Ilya sniffs. “It sounds like a good one.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
There’s an awkward moment where they’re both nodding at each other like broken bobbleheads, but that’s quickly resolved. Ilya mostly falls into Shane’s open arms, finding himself wrapped in the kind of hug that would break a normal man’s back. Ilya maybe cries a little bit (okay, maybe a lot) into Shane’s sweater because it’s real, so it takes him a moment to realize that Shane has a second one underneath the first.
“Why the fuck are you wearing two jerseys?”
“The second one has my name on it,” Shane says, grinning. He yanks the top one off, draping it behind the chair, revealing his very official Hollander jersey. “I was already wearing it for pictures and we were trying to surprise you. It was Harris’ idea.”
Ilya runs his fingers over the name plate, and Shane indulges him with a little twirl. “Good thinking,” he concedes belatedly. “I was maybe a little surprised.”
“Only a little, huh? That’s what that scream was about?”
“Mm, no, I did not scream. I only maybe yelled a little. Completely normal reaction.”
“Right.” The others are chuckling at him.
“I thought—” he looks at them, then back at Shane because there is no possible way these people have not figured out that they are together. “You said we weren't telling anyone.”
Behind Shane, Farah clears her throat. “Everyone in this room is NDA’d within an inch of their life, Mister Rozanov. If anyone outs either of you, I will personally end their career.”
“You said Ottawa was good,” Shane murmurs. “I trust you. I'm still scared, obviously, but,” he looks up at Ilya with those dark eyes that can probably see right through to the broken, gooey bits at his core, “Maybe we can figure out the next part together.”
“Yes,” Ilya tells him, sniffing indelicately, because there is nothing he would like more.