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Sai Hollander had sort of assumed she was a lesbian, mostly given that she’d grown up surrounded by semi-naked athletic boys and had never given it much thought.
It was pretty normal, she thought, for girl hockey players to be lesbians. Not that it was abnormal for them to be straight either, but she figured that if she was lesbian, she was in good company. Poulin is a lesbian, or so Sai has heard, and she was the most recent captain at the Olympic Games. She had figured that her lack of experience with girls was because she never really got close enough to one to start liking them. She could imagine the allure of girls—with their pretty smiles, and windblown hair, and the softness to the way they treated each other, even when they didn’t necessarily love each other—in a way she had never really been able to with boys. Sai had seen it for years, albeit from the outside, and had always wished for it, just a little bit.
So it’s strange when Ilya Rozanov comes and throws a wrench in the whole mess.
It’s not about how he looks. Sai has seen beautiful men before, and none of them had particularly struck her fancy. She can appreciate the hard lines of his face or his bulging biceps as much as she can appreciate any piece of art. She knows, objectively, that it is nice to look at, but doesn’t find herself lingering the way a true connoisseur might. No, her eyes don’t linger on those parts of him at all. Instead, they are drawn to his smile and the crookedness in the bottom row of his teeth. She finds herself wondering how many of them are fake, and how many of them will remain when their careers are nothing more than trophies shelved in a too-big house. She stalls on his eyes, the blues and greens within them, and the way they crinkle when he laughs loudly at his own jokes or when she says one of those weird things she says when she’s not paying enough attention to her mouth. She thinks that there must be something about the way he moves, about the way he breathes and just is, in his essence, that makes her want to lean closer, and be closer to him, and talk to him through her phone, even as she wears down the letters on her beloved BlackBerry Bold.
But then again, maybe this was just what it was like to have a real friend, rather than acquaintances of convenience. She wouldn’t really know anything about that either. Was it normal to feel this way? To look forward to every meeting with an eagerness that she can feel in her chest? Maybe it was. She wishes that she knew better.
She is going to the Awards tonight, and she is wearing a dress. It’s floor-length and nothing spectacular. A plain navy blue, with a boat neck that could’ve been daring if she had the boobs to fill it, and thin straps that rest on her wide, hockey-player shoulders. Secretly, she likes wearing them, likes the way they make her feel pretty when she rarely does. She likes not wearing pants and the freedom of a skirt, and the swish-y way it moves around her legs when she turns at just the right speed. Tonight, she is mostly excited that Rozanov will see her like this. For all that she tried to be more of a hockey player than a girl when she was at the rink, and for all that doing so had gotten her here, to her dream, she had never really relished it. It was an identity formed from necessity, a version of herself crafted to please the archetype of the men who filled and ruled the locker rooms of her youth, and now, her profession. Along with the base layers, paddings and jerseys that she pulled on each time she played, being seen as one of them, as a hockey player, is its own kind of armour. She doesn’t like to think about what would happen if they started seeing her as a girl instead.
Which is a shame, really. She really likes being a girl.
When Sai arrives at the awards, she can feel the eyes on her, can feel the way some of the other players only just clue in to who she is underneath the pads. She can understand why it might be easy for them to forget. She’s not exactly small or dainty. She’s taller than the average man and more muscular too. When she stands next to some of her male cousins in photos, she makes them look like string beans. This not-smallness of hers was another reason why she’d been fairly satisfied with her apparent lesbianism, struggling to think of a guy who would want her looking like this anyway.
When she wins Rookie of the Year, she wonders how many of them are thinking that it was politics that won her this award instead of her objectively stellar stats. The only one who came close was, of course, Ilya, but even he had been knocked out a round before her in the playoffs, giving her more opportunities to score and ultimately pull ahead of them in their scoring race. She wins, fair and square, but there is still something marring it. It’s in the faces of her colleagues, of her peers, in the tightness around her eyes, in the way that, despite winning one of the major awards of the night, she leaves them all at a distance.
Scott Hunter offers her shots, but it doesn’t feel smart to take him up on his offer. She doesn’t think that this is the crowd she wants to be around when she gets drunk. Letting them see her like that doesn’t feel like a good idea. Instead, she searches the room for Ilya, checking every nook and cranny, and sticking the walls as she combs through the crowd for a familiar head of curly hair. It feels like she’s been stabbed when she can’t find him. It’s a winding road that takes her up to the roof, but pleasant surprise when she finds him there, staring over the edge of the building.
“Here you are,” she says. “Didn’t want to show your face down there?”
It comes out a little mean, she can tell, but she can’t help it. He was hiding from her, even if he wasn’t doing it on purpose. She thought they were friends. She walks slowly up to the edge of the roof so that they’re next to each other, both of them leaning against the railing. She waits for him to turn to her. He doesn’t.
“Big night for you,” Ilya says in lieu of a true response. “Congratulations.”
There is bitterness in his voice. He isn’t even looking at her, instead choosing to glare at the Las Vegas skyline, his jaw set into a hard line and his brow furrowed.
“You didn’t come to say that to me down there,” she says, gesturing vaguely towards the stairs.
“What, you need one more person falling over for you?” He asks. The normal smile that accompanies his chirps is nowhere to be found. No, this time it just feels mean. “You want me to get on my knees for you, Golden Girl?”
“When did I say that?” Sai huffs. “I just…” She grips the fabric of her skirt. The blue colour looks darker in low lighting. “I don’t know. It would’ve been nice to hear from you.”
“Congratulations, Hollander. Fuck.” Ilya sighs and covers his face with his hands, pressing the tips of his fingers into his forehead and brow. “Good job winning Rookie award. Everyone is so shocked.”
“What, do you not think I deserve it?” Sai snaps. “I had better stats than you. I had better stats than over half the league.” She feels the pressure building in her skull. She won’t cry though; she refuses to. Not in front of Rozanov. She takes a deep, shaky breath.
“I deserve this fucking award,” she spits. She’s pushed herself into his face now, an accusatory finger on his pec. “Not Lemaire, not you, not any of the other fuckin’ rookies who performed worse than me with half the pressure that I have on my shoulders.”
He says nothing, but he has at least turned his head to actually look at her. Good, she thinks vindictively. Let him look.
“Fuck you, Rozanov,” she spits his name with more venom than has ever left her before. “You’re just like the rest of them. You have no idea what it’s like to be me. You’re just a boy.”
Ilya flinches at her words, almost as if Sai had slapped him instead of speaking.
“You are right,” he mutters. He curls into himself, his shoulders crawling up to meet his ears, while his back curves inwards, as if to protect some soft middle. “I do not know.”
Sai feels oddly wrongfooted, like she has stepped into something she doesn’t really understand. Ilya doesn’t get it. How could he? How could anyone? There has never been anyone like her. There has never been a girl in the professional league. If Sai fucks it up, she fucks it up for everyone. She knows that; everyone else knows it too; they just don’t have the privilege of feeling it all the time. Ilya, even if he listens to her, even if he responds to her anxious texts in the middle of the night, he can’t feel the weight of it, can’t bear any of this load. It’s Sai’s to carry and no one else’s.
“I am sorry, Hollander.” Her last name feels purposeful as it falls from his mouth. “I do not mean to be…” He gestures vaguely to himself, then to the space between them. “I do not mean to be like this.”
“It’s fine,” she says automatically, her voice still sort of stilted. “I didn’t mean to get angry like that.” She swallows. Her own words were surprising to her, even as she said them, but she finds, thinking about it more, that they were true.
Ilya isn’t looking at her. She glances around the roof and spots no cameras. Slowly, she reaches for his hand. When she makes contact, he freezes, and his eyes widen in shock.
“I’m sorry too,” she says. “You are different from them. I didn’t mean to group you in with everyone else. You do get me, you know? I just get so frustrated.”
Her eyes sting traitorously again. She doesn’t let them leak.
“I just want them to see me,” she says wistfully. “But they never will.”
What would it be like, she wonders. To be one of them. One of the boys. What would it be like for her achievements to exist without the asterisk on the end? Sai Hollander is a generational talent. Sai Hollander is the sharpest shooter in the league. These are the facts. They didn’t need to be modified, and yet, they are always told with an extra word. She imagines walking into the locker room with her teammates and none of them jumping in surprise when they see her and the easy camaraderie and touchiness that they all extend to each other but not to her.
Slowly, Ilya pulls her into his arms using the hand she is already holding onto. He is warm and large and safe as he holds her.
“I see you,” he tells her.
Sai turns to him and gives him a half smile. In the evening lights, Ilya really looks pretty. She loves the way his hair curls around his face and the way parts of it are escaping the gel he’s added to tame it for tonight.
“Sometimes I think you are the only one who does,” she agrees.
She glances down at Ilya’s lips. Will he kiss her? She thinks that he wants to. She thinks he’s wanted to for a long time, actually. Maybe since the first time they met. She doesn’t know when she started to want it, too. It was all so confusing.
“I see you too,” she tells him. “You’re… you’re my best friend, Ilya.”
Ilya smiles at her weakly.
“You are my best friend too,” he admits. He squeezes her hand once before a familiar, comforting smile emerges on his face. It’s a little shit-eating. “Though you can not tell Sveta.”
Despite herself, Sai feels herself frown a little bit at that. “Sveta?” she asks. “Is that your girlfriend?”
“Svetlana is not my girlfriend,” he says. “She is old friend, from Russia. But, ah… we fuck sometimes, but is not serious.”
“You fuck, but she’s not your girlfriend?” Sai asks, bewildered. “How does that work?”
“We do not love each other like that,” Ilya replies. “We tried once, when we were young, but it did not work. Still, sex is good, so why stop?”
Sai couldn’t really comprehend that, couldn’t understand how someone could be that close to Ilya and not want him like that. Fuck, she wanted him like that, and they hadn’t even fucked, never mind the fact that she had thought herself a lesbian.
“Right, makes sense.”
Ilya’s eyes sparkle like he knows that she thinks that it doesn’t make sense. It makes her go pink around the ears.
“You would like her,” Ilya says. “Her father was old goalie for Boston. Sergei Vetrov? You know him, yes?”
“0.896 SV%,” Sai mutters. “He’s a legend, of course I know him. His daughter is your friend?”
“Da,” Ilya says, nodding. “She probably knows as much about hockey as you. Maybe more.”
“She’s not an NHL player,” Sai grumbles.
Ilya laughs. “You will see when you meet her,” he says. “She is like your mom. She might not play, but she knows the sport.”
“Alright,” Sai says. “It might be nice to talk about the game without a stinky boy around.” She crinkles her nose a little dramatically.
She doesn’t hate talking about hockey with boys, really. It mostly depends on who those boys are and how much they’ll actually listen to her. Hayden, Ilya and JJ are some of the only ones on the ice who actually look at her like she has something valuable to say. She thinks that Hunter might be a part of that group if she gave him the chance, but she doesn’t want to make any judgements based on appearances. They’ve deceived her before. So yes, even though she doesn’t know Svetlana Vetrova and hasn’t even heard of her before this moment, she thinks that it would be nice to talk to her about the game.
“Oh? Am I not invited to your meeting with Sveta?”
“You don’t count,” Sai says, shoving him lightly with her shoulder. “You’re not a boy. You’re my friend. It’s very different.”
Ilya seems to light up at that. “Lucky me then,” he says, smiling.
It’s a small one, a different one. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and yet Sai feels as if it is one of the most sincere facial expressions she has ever seen. She feels, in that moment, that she can read his mind through the way his skin crinkles around his eyes, through the way his mouth twists and the shine in his eyes.
“Let’s go back inside,” she says, “We can do a shot together. Hunter was trying to get me to do one with him earlier, but I said no. If he sees me doing it with you it’ll be good chirping material for you later.”
“You are so smart, Sai,” Ilya says, smiling, following her away from the ledge. “Have I ever told you this?”
“I could stand to hear it a little more often,” she says, smiling. “Now let’s go.”
Sai walks across the roof back to the party. Ilya follows close behind.