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When Alyosha lands in the United States, he only knows a few English words. He has a few hundred rubles and the name of one Russian in Las Vegas and the promise that they will let him play hockey.

He has just hockey. Just that, and nothing else.

…

He was supposed to be here last year, except the KHL took his passport and his contract and told him, just one more season, just one more.

If he was here last year, he wouldn’t be a rookie now. He would maybe be the star the Aces promised him he would be, would maybe be joking around with the veteran guys instead of standing nervously in this clump of rookies, he would maybe be already speaking English and winning trophies.

It is training camp. There is one other Russian on the team—Kolya—and he was there to pick Alyosha up at the airport and to translate for him in all his meetings. One of the General Managers speaks a little Russian, but it is very bad. Still better than Alyosha’s English, but very bad. Kolya explained that this camp is when the team will be selected for the season, which means that if Alyosha does not play well, he might be sent to another team.

Alyosha must play very well. He did not hide in a bathroom and fly all the way to America by himself to play in the AHL.

There is only one other rookie that Alyosha recognizes, because his face has been on newspapers and TV all summer. He can’t remember his name, but he knows his face. There had been some trouble at the draft, with this boy and another, but both of them have short, sharp English names and Alyosha had been running away from home and had had bigger things to worry about.

“Hello,” Alyosha says to the boy. It is one of the only English words he knows, and that fact makes him feel like a small child. It must work, because the other boy says something back, but his English is too rapid for Alyosha to even make an attempt.

He puts a glove to his chest. “Alexei,” he says, because this boy barely knows him and because that name seems to be easier for an English tongue. All the other Aces, the coaches and staff, they all call him Alexei. A few call him Alex, which he does not like much, but he does not correct them because he is new here and all he really wants to do is play hockey—they could call him Maria and he would not much care.

“Kent,” the boy says back. “Kent Parson.”

“Kent,” Alyosha repeats softly.

Kent smiles, a little tentatively.

Alyosha worries for him. Kent is smaller than him, than most of the other men on the ice. Alyosha does not want to see him hurt, and the North American game is more physical than the Russian. He hopes there is not too much fighting today, but Alyosha is here to play for the NHL. If he must check this Kent Parson and knock him down and battle the puck away from him to play for the NHL, then he will do that.

Right now, he has hockey, and nothing else.

…

Alyosha does not check Kent Parson into the boards, because Kent Parson is so fast that Alyosha sees three different prospects try to hit him and end with their own faces against the glass, Kent already skating away, and so Alyosha decides not to try to check him at all.

They battle for the puck briefly and they are very closely matched, the few seconds so challenging that even when Kent wins Alyosha cannot help but smile.

He does not mind losing to very good hockey players so much, and Kent Parson is a very good hockey player. He does not like to lose, but when he does, then he can see how the other man won and then make his own hockey better.

The coaches must think that Kent makes him better, too, because they practice on the same line for a while and they are almost unbeatable, even by the men who already play for the Aces. The coach switches out the center a few times, but with Alyosha and Kent on the wings it does not seem to matter who is there in between them.

When practice is over for the day, Kent skates over to him and says something very fast in English. Kolya is down the ice, so Alyosha just nods and smiles and says, “Good,” which is one of the only other words he knows in English.

Kent laughs. “Good,” he says back, “Yeah, good.”

…

Kent is the only other rookie to make the team right out of camp, and he moves in with the captain, a much older veteran that Kolya calls Woody.

Alyosha moves in with Kolya and his wife and two girls. At first, Kolya tries to speak English at home because he says that it is the fastest way to learn. This is probably true, but Alyosha spends all day with men who only speak English and it makes his head hurt and after a few days, Kolya lets them all speak Russian in the house.

He rooms with Kent on the road, and Kent will talk to him even though he must know Alyosha does not understand much and can only smile in self-defense, so Alyosha assures Kolya that if just listening to English all day long will make him understand better, he will soon speak English just because he spends so much time with Kent Parson.

Luckily, Kent does not seem to mind so much when Alyosha will talk in Russian back, and he likes to do this at the end of the night when he is too excited by hockey to sleep. Alyosha once talks through every game of a tournament he played three years ago and the next night tells Kent the story of the day his niece was born. He tells Kent sometimes how strange the desert is to him and how much he misses his mama’s cooking.

He does not know the things Kent tells him, except that Kent sometimes sounds very sad in the same way that Alyosha feels when he describes to Kent the house he grew up in. He is only one year older than Kent, but Kent often seems very young to Alyosha.

…

At the end of October, Woody corners him in the hotel lobby and asks him a question that Alyosha does not understand, except that it has Kent’s name in it.

Kolya ambles over, because he has to stay by Alyosha almost always so that he can talk to the team. Alyosha thinks that it must be frustrating sometimes, but Kolya is very kind to him, like a big brother, and he never seems to mind.

“He wants to know if Parse is okay?” Kolya translates after consulting with Woody.

Alyosha frowns. “Is… okay,” he tries in English.

“Not just today,” Kolya clarifies, “Is he okay being here in Las Vegas? Woody is worried that he is feeling depressed. You talk to him the most on the team.”

Alyosha doubts this very much, because they can hardly talk to each other at all. Kent is easy to like, and Alyosha thinks most of the men on the team like to look after him. But now that he thinks of it, Kent almost always sits by him on the plane, or at meals, and besides Woody, maybe, doesn’t see too many teammates off the ice. He’s not allowed to drink in America—neither is Alyosha—but many bars do not care about that when they win their games. Kent goes out with the team, but he often leaves early. “Is okay,” he says again, frowns, tries, “Yes, is sad.”

Woody glances at Kolya, so Alyosha sighs and says in Russian, “I think he is sad sometimes, maybe he is homesick, but I think he is mostly okay. He is very happy when he plays hockey.”

Kolya translates this to Woody, who shrugs and replies.

“I know he and Zimmermann were close, and I’ve been thinking the draft must have messed with his head. He’s playing good hockey, nobody is complaining about that. He just seems down sometimes, he isn’t always himself around the house.”

Now Alyosha shrugs. “I will look after him,” He tells Kolya.

“Thanks, kid,” Woody says, and slaps him on the shoulder.

Across the lobby, Kent raises an eyebrow at him and smiles.

…

Alyosha’s English isn’t improving as quickly as he himself would hope, but he’s getting better at hearing words he knows.

After Woody asks him about Kent, Alyosha  looks up the name Zimmermann, painstakingly picking out the Latin letters—the other boy at the draft, it turns out—and realizes all at once that Kent talks about Zimms, about Jack, more than anybody besides his sister.

He doesn’t understand much of what else Kent says about him, only that he talks about Jack almost every night, but then something in the tense cut of Kent’s shoulders, the wounded tone of voice, makes Alyosha thinks that it is better he does not know at all.

…

Kent scores a hat trick in November, and as he stands smiling almost shyly under a rain of hats, Alyosha thinks that maybe he is seeing Kent for the first time.

“Good,” he says, patting him on the ass. Alyosha had assisted two of his goals, and he’s happy he could help make this moment come true for Kent. He’s been noticing more of what Woody had noticed, of how sad Kent sometimes seems, but only when he thinks nobody is watching.

“Good,” Kent agrees. Alyosha knows more English than he had at training camp, now, but this has stuck for the two of them. They are good.

Hockey is good.

Alyosha bends to scoop an Aces’ brand hat off the ice, hands it to Kent. “You will…” he starts, and mimes ‘sign it.’

Kent laughs.

“I want Kent Parson hat,” Alyosha says. They have staff clearing the ice, they have a moment. He takes Kent’s helmet from his head, snugs the hat down over his sweaty hair, backwards so he can see the way Kent beams.

Kent wears the hat back to the bench before he pulls his helmet on to finish up the last five minutes of the game. He wears it in his interview, and when Alyosha comes out of the shower, it’s perched on his duffle bag, autographed.

…

Woody has a holiday party for the team on a rare day off in early December. It’s the first time Alyosha has seen where Kent has been living, and yet it’s somehow strikingly similar to the way Kent lives on the road. The walls in his room are almost bare, with just one framed picture of Kent beaming with his mother and sister. The splay of Kent’s shoes against the wall is the same, the way a hat is tossed onto the dresser next to a bottle of hand lotion.

The Wood house is a home, warm and well-lived in and filled with children’s toys, but Kent’s room is temporary.

It, like Kent, makes Alyosha a little sad. He knows Kent will probably move out in the next year, but then, Alyosha will too, and his room at Kolya’s is a haven of Russian language books, pictures of his family, a little painting of his saint on the table.

Kent’s left the door open, which is how Alyosha finds his room, and if they hadn’t been roommates for three months he might not have known it was anything but a guest room with its neatly made bed.

“Tater,” Kent says, rounding the corner. He follows Alyosha’s line of vision, stuffs his hands into his pockets.

“Is your room?” Alyosha double checks, and Kent nods. “Sorry,” he continues, “Was… bathroom? But.” He gestures to the open door.

“It’s okay,” Kent says, “I mean, not much, but nothing to hide, obviously. Bathroom’s up to the right, there.”

Here, too, there is not much of Kent, though Alyosha thinks this must be his bathroom because the kids share one closer to their room and Woody and his wife wouldn’t use it. It’s very clean, maybe because of the guests but more likely because Kent doesn’t seem to want to make an impression here. Alyosha recognizes the brand of toothpaste tucked into the corner, the faint smell of the aftershave Kent uses. Nothing else.

He finds Kent back in the living room with everyone else, but held apart from the rest of the team, somehow. Most of the other Aces have brought their wives or girlfriends, their kids, and Kent is one of the only other single players at the party. He’s perched on the end of an overstuffed couch with Woody’s son in his lap, entertaining a whole gaggle of the littler Ace babies—he’s very good with children, Alyosha has noticed. Kent will almost always stop to sign something for a little child, and always asks their name and talks with them.

Alyosha settles on the floor among the other children, and misses his little niece. Kolya’s daughters are both in middle school, very nice, but preoccupied with their own lives. Woody’s kids are younger, and Alyosha likes the baby best, partly because she’s so placid and partly because she’s only eighteen months old and doesn’t care when he speaks Russian to her.

She toddles over to Alyosha when he sits down and he talks animatedly to her for a moment before she sits near him, playing with her little stuffed dog. The little boy in Kent’s lap—Woody’s middle baby—is telling him a story that may involve hockey and certainly involves a dragon.

When he finishes, Alyosha says, “You like here? With Woody?”

Kent glances up. “Yeah, of course,” he says. “They’re really nice.  We have dinner together a lot. I’m really glad they let me stay here. And the kids are great, of course.”

“Yes,” Alyosha agrees. “Your room is… what is word… plain?”

Kent looks almost startled. Over his shoulder, Alyosha can see Woody’s wife, Cecile, coming to check on the babies. “I want to keep things nice,” Kent says slowly, “I owe them a lot just staying here, and I won’t be here next season, probably, so I don’t need to change anything. I don’t want to be inconvenient.”

“Kent,” Cecile says. She looks concerned, but not so much about the children. More about Kent, maybe, because she heard the last part, but she doesn’t say anything about it. “Don’t feel like you have to babysit all night. Have a good time!”

“I am,” Kent says earnestly, and the little boy he’s holding whines, “Mom, can we watch TV now?”

“I can take them,” Kent offers, and Cecile sighs and says, “You can if you go in the family room.”

Alyosha follows Kent in, carrying the baby, while Kent cues up a show that the children must like watching.

Alyosha sits, too—he’s tried watching American television before, but the characters always speak too quickly or use words that he doesn’t know. Now, he can understand almost everything, and it’s a little silly, with the puppet characters, but when they use new words, it’s slowly enough that Alyosha catches himself mouthing along, trying to learn the way they feel in his mouth.

He flushes, when he realizes that Kent is watching him. He can only understand this show because it is meant for small children, and that makes him feel childish, too.

He feels that he can be quite smart, quite funny, when he is speaking Russian. He only wishes that his teammates could know that.

“You know,” Kent says softly, so he doesn’t distract the children from the show, “I had to learn French, when I moved to Quebec.”

Alyosha feels his forehead wrinkle as he takes a moment to process, then he says, “Okay.”

“I did not speak any French,” Kent continues. “Like, at all.” He’s being better at using smaller words, now, and speaking slowly. When he chatters to his sister on the phone, Alyosha can still barely understand him, but he knows most of what Kent says directly to him, now.

“I, um… I had this teacher, a French teacher? He would give me children’s books. In French. He said it was good for my reading, and to learn new words.”

Alyosha nods again. Kent clears his throat. “Zimms… Some of the guys sometimes laughed. Chirped me because I had to learn like a baby. Learn with kid’s books and TV shows and stuff. But…” Kent shrugs. “Learning a language is hard. There’s nothing wrong with learning slow.”

He’s not looking at Alyosha. The lights from the television keep flickering across his profile, but Alyosha doesn’t think he’s watching the show at all. He’s barely in this house, his mind somewhere far away.

“Yes,” Alyosha says finally. “Is… hard with English? But is good.”

Kent does look at him then, smiles faintly. “Good,” he says. “Um. You know, if you want to watch more Sesame Street, we watch a lot of that together.” He motions around at the children, all transfixed by the screen. “You could come watch with us, sometime.”

“Okay,” Alyosha says, “Is good.”

…

Kolya is traded in January.

Alyosha has been mostly avoiding how homesick he is over Christmas because Kolya’s family put on a special Russian celebration and he has also been playing very good hockey, but when Kolya knocks on the door midway through their eastern Canada trip, Alyosha does not handle it gracefully.

It’s Kent who opens the door with his toothbrush in his mouth, but he must know something is wrong when he sees Kolya’s face, because he ducks back into the bathroom and stays there for almost an hour while Kolya sits him down on his bed and explains gently that he’s flying to Nashville the next morning.

Alyosha knows that this is how hockey works, that it could be him tomorrow, or Kent, or any one of the guys.

But this isn’t one of the guys, this is Kolya, his big brother, his only connection to home here in the desert.

Masha and the girls are staying for a while, until Kolya can find a house for them in Tennessee, and he says that Alyosha is welcome to stay in the house until it is sold, but Alyosha isn’t thinking about the house in Vegas right now, is only thinking that maybe nobody will call him Alyosha, now that Kolya is leaving. The team calls him Tater, everybody else calls him Alexei.

Kolya holds him for longer than a grown man should need to be held, but he must leave to call his wife and his agent and arrange things, and Alyosha must let him go.

He’s crying when Kent comes out of the bathroom, and he doesn’t try as hard as he should to hide it.

“Tater,” Kent says softly, “I don’t… what can I do?”

The honest answer is nothing, but Kent has been wearing the ‘A’ since McCall was traded last month and he’s taking his newfound responsibility very seriously, and after regarding Alyosha for a long moment, he says, “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

He breaks curfew to sneak to the gas station and returns with two tubs of ice cream that are not on either of their meal plans and a bag of fifty plastic spoons, because they do not sell them in smaller bags, Kent explains.

They share one of the double beds and Kent puts on a movie that Alyosha barely understands but that Kent keeps sniffling at and they both eat their own pint of ice cream.

“He is… was… like home,” Alyosha says finally, when the credits are rolling. “Is very hard to say goodbye.”

Kent hums. “Zimms was my best friend,” he says suddenly. “And he hasn’t talked to me since June. I still don’t know why.”

They fall asleep like that, tangled together, sticky with ice cream.

…

Alyosha scores what Woody calls a Gordie Howe hat trick the next week.

The assist is on one of Kent’s goals, and the fight is because some large defenseman has not stopped chirping Kent all night. Alyosha doesn’t hear half of what he says to Kent, and he probably doesn’t understand half of what he does hear. He’d be able to tell that it was something awful just by the look on Kent’s face, tight and almost defeated.

He’s wanted to punch something since Kolya knocked on his door, anyway.

So the defenseman tries to check Kent and Alyosha knocks one of his front teeth out.

Kent doesn’t thank him—he’s a leader on the team now and he can’t encourage players to fight. But he thumbs gently at the cut on Alyosha’s cheekbone where the blood is clotting and he makes Alyosha sign a hat he finds in his bag.

…

They go to the Olympics, both of them, and neither of them come home with a gold medal.

But Alyosha sees Kolya again and every Russian in the NHL gives him their phone number and it feels like being back home in the KHL more than it does when he is playing in Las Vegas.

Wearing a different color jersey, Kent looks hardly anything like the boy Alyosha shares a room with on the road. His face is hard behind his visor and he chirps at Alyosha’s teammates ruthlessly and scores three goals, even playing on the fourth line.

Only when they shake hands after the USA beats Russia in the semi-finals does Kent look at him like a friend.

“Good game, Tater,” he says, hesitantly, like Tater might not want to shake his hand.

Tater is not happy, but there are other Olympics. Next time is in Russia.

“Good,” he tells Kent, and pats him on the ass.

…

Alyosha finds a little apartment close to the rink. He still wishes for a roommate, sometimes, but he doesn’t mind living alone as much as he thought.

He goes over to Woody’s more after Masha and the girls leave town. He plays ball hockey with Kent and Woody’s oldest girl in the driveway, and watches Sesame Street with the two little babies.

Cecile makes him stay for dinner and he teaches the children—Kent, too—how to say words in Russian. Kent’s accent is terrible, but it makes Alyosha laugh and it is nice to still speak the language to more than himself.

“What is… Tater?” He asks Kent one afternoon when Kent is shirtless, panting in the shade and drinking water as a break from taking shots on the net Cecile lets them put in the driveway.

“Your nickname?” Kent asks, sounding surprised.  In Russia, pet names are something else than hockey names, but he nods.

“It’s like… it stands for ‘potato,’” Kent says.

“Like food?” Alyosha asks, surprised. He’d asked Kolya earlier, when the name caught on, but Kolya had chuckled and had never actually told him what it meant in English. To Alyosha, it was just a new sound, at the time.

“Yeah, like…” Kent furrows his brow, “Okay, like, Americans have this dish called ‘mashed potatoes.’ Cecile made it the other night.”

Alyosha nods.

“So,” Kent says, “Your last name is Mashkov, so it’s like mashed potatoes. And then a word for potato is tater. So that’s why your nickname is Tater. I thought you knew.”

“No,” Alyosha says, and then his next shot goes wide of the net and Kent laughs, so he doesn’t think any more about it.

In the kitchen before dinner, Woody is chopping up a potato.

“My name is for potato?” Alyosha asks him, gesturing to it, and Woody has to put the knife down to laugh.

“So I guess Parser told you, huh?”

Alyosha shrugs. He doesn’t mind the name, so much, but he probably should have made Kolya tell him earlier.

“Tell you what,” Woody says, and pulls something out of the refrigerator and holds it up for Alyosha to see. It looks like a white carrot. “This is a parsnip,” Woody says significantly. “A parse-nip, if you will.”

Alyosha smiles.

“Would you like a tater, Parsnip?” he asks at innocently at dinner, and Woody chokes on his water and Kent freezes for a moment and then laughs and laughs.

They’ve been sharing a room for almost six months, and Alyosha has never heard him laugh like that.

He laughs, too, and Cecile, and then the children just because the people around them are happy.

“Parsnip,” Kent says softly, and then laughs again. “That’s a new one.”

…

Alyosha’s mama and papa come to Las Vegas in May, and Alyosha cries at the airport when they see him and wave.

His apartment is not so big, so he gets them a nice hotel room, though his mama says she would be happy to sleep on the couch to see him. They are going to stay for a few weeks because it is a long flight from Russia, and maybe for a few more weeks if the Aces make it past the first round of the playoffs. The day after they come, there is a home game and Alyosha insists they have very good seats. He has never been so happy to win, even though it’s only a regular season game against the Falconers and the Aces already know that they will be in the playoffs.

His parents just saw him win a game in the NHL, and he had the last goal. Kent gives him the puck after the game and says, “I sent my mom my first game puck. I thought your parents might like to have this one.”

Alyosha’s never seen his papa so happy as when he holds that puck.

His mama insists they have Kent over to Alyosha’s apartment after the game, because they’ve been playing on the same line all year and sharing a room all year and because his mama probably knows more about Kent Parson than maybe she should.

Kent looks incredibly nervous, maybe because his parents speak only Russian, but his mama hugs Kent right when he comes out of the locker room in his suit and Kent smiles sheepishly as his mama pats his cheek, though he can’t know what she’s saying.

“She says is nice to meet you,” Alyosha translates, though it’s difficult with his mother chattering away to focus on English, “you play nice hockey with me, you—mama!”

“What,” Kent asks, and Alyosha finishes grudgingly, “You take care of me on road.”

“Oh,” Kent says, flushing, “It’s nice to meet both of you, as well,” and then holds his hand out to Alyosha’s papa, only to be pulled into another embrace. His face falls, twists, before he brings his arms up to hug back.

“You want tea?” Alyosha asks when he unlocks his front door, because he knows his mother will immediately put the kettle on, “Mama will make tea, always.”

“Oh,” Kent says, “Uh, sure.”

Alyosha leaves him in the living room with his papa and goes to help his mama find mugs for the tea, and she immediately says, “That is a very sad boy. Why was that boy so sad when you introduced us, Alyoshenka? Why was that boy sad to hug papa?”

“Kent is not sad, mama,” Alyosha insists. “Not always. Not so much anymore.”

“He is a sad boy” His mama insists, just as the kettle boils. “A mother can tell.”

Alyosha sighs. “He does not have a father, mama. Maybe that is why he is sad to see papa here. Or maybe… his last linemate, they don’t talk anymore. They are not friends like we are.”

His mama regards him, for a moment. “Very well,” She says finally, “The tea is ready, Alyoshenka. Take some to your friend.”

…

His parents stay for a very long time, because the Aces stay in the playoffs for a very long time.

Before the first game of the finals, Kent disappears into the bathroom, where Alyosha can hear him retching.

When he sees Alyosha outside, he looks at his feet. “I did this before the Memorial Cup, too,” Kent says.

Alyosha tucks Kent under his arm. Kent has come over for tea many times since the first night, and every time he leaves Alyosha’s mother says quietly, “That is a sad boy, Alyoshenka.” Kent calls his parents Mama and Papa because he couldn’t pronounce their names correctly even after practicing for weeks, and because his Mama threatened to stop making Kent tea if he didn’t.

It still makes Kent stutter and blush, but he does it. Alyosha has always made his team family, but he thinks that maybe Kent has not, until now.

“What is to worry about?” Alyosha says in his ear, pulling Kent closer, “Is just hockey, yes? We are best at hockey, yes?”

“Yeah,” Kent says, and they win.

…

One minute left on the clock in the third period of game six of the final series, Aces up three games, score 2-2, and Alyosha saucers a pass to his right and prays.

He’s on a breakaway, two defensemen on his heels, and if he doesn’t pass, he’ll lose the puck, only there’s nobody there.

Until Kent is, and he taps it in like it’s the easiest thing he’s ever done, and the goal light is red and thousands of fans are cheering themselves hoarse, and in the moment before the weight of twenty-eight grown men fence them against the boards, it’s just the two of them, Kent and Alyosha embracing wildly behind the opposing net, and Alyosha thinks quite clearly, you are an angel.

He says this to the press, high on adrenaline and excitement when they ask him about that last assist, a Stanley Cup Winning assist. He hasn’t been giving interviews for very long, but now that his English is getting better the press wants to talk to him more. Still, he doesn’t have as much experience as some of the other Aces talking to the media, and maybe that’s why he says it.

“Kent is like angel,” he says, “I pass and I pray and he is there like a miracle.”

He doesn’t mean like the little blonde angels with halos and wings that Americans like to put on cards, though that is what the media assumes in the following weeks.

Alyosha went to church with his mother every week growing up. He knows angels that are fearsome, fleet-footed, that men shuddered to look at. Angels who go into battle. When Kent lines up to take a face-off, cheeks pink and lips parted, when he scores that final goal, his face is like one of those painted angels: vengeful.

Victorious.

…

There’s a picture of them that becomes almost as famous as that quote—wet with champagne and sweat, Alyosha kisses Kent on his smiling cheek, a little too close to his mouth.

…

They stay in Vegas an extra week because they’ve both been nominated for the Calder. Alyosha would be honored to win, of course, but everyone knows that it will be Kent.

Kent brings his sister as his date; Alyosha goes alone but meets both Kent and Jess on the red carpet and they take many pictures together and Alyosha struggles to talk to the media.

Inside, their parents all nod at each other because none of them speak the same language and Kent painstakingly introduces his mother to Mama and Papa using Russian he must have gotten off the internet, because it’s not quite right.

Alyosha smiles until his cheeks hurt at the way his mama hugs Kent when he uses Russian, the way Kent says, “Mama,” and then blushes and glances sideways at his own mother to see if she minds.

Kent is trembling in the seat next to Alyosha and holding his sister’s hand when they announce the candidates for the Calder Trophy—when the announcer calls his name, Alyosha grins even wider than Kent and hugs him, shouts, “I knew it!” In his ear over the applause.

Kent won him a Stanley Cup. He can have the trophy.

Mrs. Parson looks teary when Kent comes back with his trophy. Papa embraces him and claps him on the back and says, “My boy!” In a thick accent and Kent says, “Thank you,” in a thick accent of his own, stumbling on the Russian.

“You look so happy,” Jess says, when she gets to hold the trophy. She makes Kent take a picture of just her and Alyosha and the trophy and they both stick their tongues out, and she posts it to Kent’s twitter and says ‘Me and my favorite sister + liney!’ It takes a moment for Alyosha to understand the joke—she has a strange sense of humor but Alyosha likes her already.

“I am so happy,” Kent says, and he sounds stunned, like it’s new to him.

…

Alyosha flies home with his parents after all the parades. He has missed Russia and his brother and his niece, but after a few weeks he is thinking about going back to America again.

He thinks that maybe he will never have a true home again, which makes him very sad.

He sees the pictures from Kent’s day with the Cup—on his birthday, which is also an American holiday that Alyosha still does not quite understand even though Kent tried to explain it to him. He looks happy helping his sister hold up the cup, and there are pictures of his mother crying, so proud of her son.  

There is a picture of him eating cereal out of the cup, which makes Alyosha laugh, and one of Kent’s little cat sitting in it.

There is one of Kent with a man that Alyosha remembers from watching NHL hockey growing up, and the caption says—“Kent Parson with the Stanley Cup and ‘Bad’ Bob and Alicia Zimmermann.”

“Zimmermann,” Alyosha says out loud.

He will have the cup for a day here in Russia in a few weeks, and maybe he will let his niece sit inside it and he will drink vodka from it with his brother and let his papa kiss the Stanley Cup so that he can brag to his friends.

Sorry not for cup day he texts Kent laboriously. He doesn’t expect him to respond right away, but a few moments later he gets back, It’s okay, Tater! Send me pics from your day. See you in a few weeks : )

Americans have a different way of smiling through text, but Alyosha is smiling and so he sends back ))))

…

He goes to the club with his old school friends and he kisses his old girlfriend behind the building when he has had too much vodka. She is a very nice girl and Alyosha had once thought maybe they would marry, but then he moved to America and it was too hard to be a boyfriend and a professional hockey player.

It has been a very long time since he has been with a woman—in America he can barely speak to anyone, and he is always so tired from hockey that he sleeps in almost all his free time. He met a Russian girl once in Washington and took her back to the hotel, but Kent was uncharacteristically sullen when Tater texted him to tell him not to come back and was angry with Tater for the next few days, and the sex was not so good that he wanted to do it again.

He had told Kent he didn’t mind if he wanted to bring a girl back, sometime, but Kent had only flushed and said he wouldn’t. Kent draws many eyes when he comes out with the team and Alyosha has seen Kent talking to girls almost as pretty as he is, but he has never brought them home. Even after they won the Stanley Cup when any girl in the city would have kissed him, Kent stayed with Alyosha or Woody or went home to see his mother and sister and cat.

Alyosha had asked him only once, and Kent had said, “I have hockey,” and Alyosha had shrugged because he understands not needing—or wanting—anyone else when the game is going well.

It is nice to kiss Nadya, though. She is warm and very pretty and remembers just what he likes. They both know that when he leaves in three weeks their relationship will be over again and so it is easy for them to be together, just for a little while.

…

They are at training camp again, but this time Kent is wearing the “C” on his jersey and they are standing together watching the scared rookies in their clumps across the ice.

Woody is moving his family back to Canada, now that he is retired, and Kent has found a nice apartment not far away from where Alyosha has moved. They ate dinner together last night, but Alyosha’s English has gotten worse again over the summer because he never practiced and so they mostly smiled at each other and split cake for dessert.

“Is good?” Alyosha asks him. Kent looks grimly determined—“I’m scared to be captain already,” he said last night, even though every Ace knew it would be Kent when Woody retired, and they had cheered when he walked into the locker room this morning—but this makes him smile.

“Yeah, good,” Kent says.

…

Alyosha gets the call in November and he knows immediately what it is.

“Where,” he says, because either he is being traded or he is getting an “A” while Willy is injured and they would have told him that in person.

“Providence,” the tinny voice tells him.

He is not mad, really. They have too many forwards and too many expensive players and they will not be able to pay Kent and Alyosha both, next year, and Kent has the captaincy so they won’t trade him.

Providence will not be so bad, probably. Alyosha does not care much for the desert, and Providence will have winter. It is a shorter trip home, and Alyosha will probably be their high scorer and maybe even captain in a few years.

He’ll still have hockey, and that’s all he needs.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

…

Kent knocks on his door an hour later. They must have called him after Alyosha hung up.

He looks like he is trying very hard not to be upset.

“I thought maybe you could use some help,” he says, “I heard your flight is tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Alyosha says, even though he does not really need help. He likes that Kent is here right now.

He puts his clothing in a suitcase and packs up his hockey bag. The furniture came with the apartment. “Maybe new Ace will stay here,” he says Kent, and gives him the extra key, which Kent grips so hard that his hand turns white around it.

“I’ll tell the front office,” Kent says, and looks at his feet. He doesn’t want to leave, Alyosha thinks, because when he does leave then they will not see each other for a long time. “Tater…”

“We play Aces next month,” he says. He’s part of a different ‘we,’ now, and for the first time he thinks he might cry for his own trade like he did for Kolya’s. “You will buy me dinner, yes?”

Kent blinks. “You still want to… be friends?” He asks. It’s a very silly question, until Alyosha remembers the way Kent had told him that Jack won’t speak to him anymore. The last linemate Kent had lost to hockey didn’t want to be his friend, afterwards.

“Kent Parson,” Alyosha says and takes him by the shoulders, shakes him gently. “We friend. Maybe we not teammate, but we friend. Okay?”

“Okay,” Kent says.

He’s smaller than Alyosha. When they hug, Alyosha can tuck him into his big arms, can feel Kent’s nose against his neck, the way his wet eyelashes feel as Kent pretends not to cry.

“I’ll miss you,” Kent mutters like it’s been torn out of him.

“Miss you, Parsnip,” Tater says back.

…

Providence is nice, and he gets an “A” very soon after he arrives and the guys in the locker room respect him because he has a Stanley Cup Ring, even though most of them are older than him.

They win some games, but not as many as Kent Parson does. They see each other in December and in April, but Alyosha flies home after their last season game because the Falconers are not in the play-offs.

He is in Russia when the Aces lose in the first round. Kent’s face is pinched and sad and he’s fighting back tears. The camera zooms in on the ‘C’ on his chest. Alyosha’s mama tuts sadly.

Alyosha wants to text Kent, but he cannot think of a thing to say. He misses him, sometimes more than his family when he is in America, certainly more than Nadya or his other friends.

“His heart is breaking,” he tells his mama as they watch Kent give an interview, hat pulled low over his eyes, slumped into a hoodie.

“I’m definitely responsible,” Kent is saying, “It’s a team game and we had a great team out there, but sometimes it just doesn’t come together. I wasn’t scoring as much as I wanted and I’m a leader on this team, it’s my responsibility to come through for the guys and I just wasn’t able to deliver tonight. It’s rough, definitely, but I think this is a group that can come back strong next year.”

“Thanks, Kent,” the reporter says, and just before the camera leaves his face, Kent closes his eyes in defeat.

…

They see each other twice a year when they play and then have dinner. They would see each other at the All-Star game, but Alyosha’s shoulder is in a sling and he stays in Providence.

Alyosha gets a twitter and follows Kent first—he mostly posts pictures of his cat and sometimes talks with fans or other players. He can be very funny, Alyosha thinks fondly, when he’s not playing hockey.

Bet me who win next cup he texts Kent in March. It’s probably not a safe bet, because the Aces are very good and the Falconers probably will not make the playoffs again, but Kent says, What do I get when I win?

Loser wear jersey, Alyosha says.

It’s not too bitter when he has to wear Kent’s jersey. He puts a picture of him wearing Aces 90 on twitter and says Kent Parson I am biggest fan.

Where did you get my jersey? Kent texts him, I was going to send you one.

Alyosha laughs. Of course I have already, I am biggest fan, he sends back.

…

Alyosha is at home right before Halloween and someone knocks on his door. He is not expecting company, and he is certainly not expecting Kent Parson to be standing on his doorstep with red eyes.

“Parsnip?” He says cautiously, “What you doing here?”

“We play in Boston tomorrow,” Kent says shortly.

Alyosha lets him come in and kick off his shoes. “Are you drunk?” He asks. He doesn’t think so, but he doesn’t know why Kent is here, either.

“No,” Kent says, “I drove here. I want to be, though. Do you have anything?”

“I am Russian,” Alyosha says. Normally it would make Kent laugh, but now he just goes to the freezer and takes out the bottle of vodka and a mug and takes a long drink straight from the bottle before he pours another drink into the mug.

“Okay,” Alyosha says slowly as Kent wrinkles his nose and coughs, “Why you here, Kent?”

Kent takes another drink. “Jack started college. His school is close to here, Samwell. I haven’t… we haven’t talked since the draft, really, except when he kept telling me not to call him. So I should have fucking known better, right? But here I am thinking, It’s been, like, three years and whatever I did back then can’t matter that much anymore, right? I mean, I don’t even know what it was, so how can he still be so mad he never wants to see me again?”

He pauses, drinks. Alyosha thinks maybe he should take the bottle from him, because he doesn’t see Kent drink like this very often. “He was mad?” He asks instead.

Kent laughs, but not because something is funny. “He was very mad. He said…” He breaks off, shakes his head. He is crying again, and Alyosha finally pulls the bottle away from him after he pours more into his mug. “He just said some things. Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Alyosha drinks himself, straight from the bottle. He has seen Kent very angry after bad games and very happy after good ones and he has seen the way he was with Woody’s children and knows the sound of his voice in the dark of their hotel room. He’s never seen Kent like this before. “Kent,” he says helplessly, and Kent scrubs at his eyes.

“My fucking fault, you know. He said before he doesn’t want to see me. But I just… God, I just missed him so much, Tater. And I’ve never seen him be that mean, before.  He could be really fucking difficult sometimes, but never mean like that.”

“Not your fault,” Alyosha says with feeling. Kent swallows the last of what’s in his mug. He’s had a lot to drink in only a few minutes, and his face is flushed and he is harder for Alyosha to understand.

“It was,” Kent says, and drops his face into his folded arms on the table. His hat falls to the floor and Alyosha suddenly wants to put a hand in Kent’s hair the way his mama would when he was a child. “I just… I just miss him, Tater.”

Kent’s phone rings in his pocket, breaking the silence, but Kent doesn’t lift his head. “I’m missing curfew,” he murmurs, “I don’t care, though.”

“Kent,” Alyosha says, “You not play tomorrow if miss curfew.”

“I don’t care,” Kent says again, and Alyosha worries, then. Kent has never wanted to miss hockey in his life.

“Let me see,” he says when the phone rings again, and Kent passes it to him.

To say coach is surprised to hear Alyosha answer the phone is an understatement. “Mashkov?” He says curiously, “Where the fuck is Parson?”

“He is here,” Alyosha says, “He is… he is not well, I think.”

“He’s missing fucking curfew, is what he is,” Coach says, but he sounds worried. “Is he sick? If he’s sick he should be here with the trainers. What kind of dim-witted fucking…”

“He cannot go now,” Alyosha says hurriedly, “Is… sick so cannot leave. I can bring in morning. Will be there in morning.”

Coach grumbles and says he still can’t play Kent in the Bruins game, but Alyosha finally convinces him to let Kent stay the night. When he hangs up, Kent is looking at him, eyes glassy.

“Sorry,” he whispers.

“No sorry,” Alyosha says firmly. “Bed.”

He doesn’t even have a bed in his guest room. He’s going to sleep on the couch, until Kent says, “Tater. Alexei. Remember… remember during playoffs? When we talked? I miss that. I get so lonely. I don’t have a roommate, anymore.”

Alyosha helps him pull his jeans and button down shirt off, guides him into the bed in his boxers and undershirt. “Yes, I remember,” he says.

“I miss,” Kent says, and squeezes his eyes shut.

“Jack,” Alyosha says softly, sitting where Kent pulls him down onto the bed.

“No!” Kent says, eyes flying open, “Yes, I do. I miss you. I miss Woody. I miss how it was with you there my first season. I used to have a family there.”

“Kent,” Alyosha says.

“You should stay,” Kent says.

He shouldn’t. But he does.

Alyosha curls up on the edge of the mattress, but Kent pulls him close, buries his cold nose in Alyosha’s neck.

“Love you, Zimms,” he says, and sleeps.

…

Kent doesn’t play in the next game, of course, but the coach tells media he’s day to day with a lower body injury instead of telling them the truth. Maybe he didn’t want to embarrass Kent, or maybe he just believed that Kent was truly sick. He hadn’t looked very good when Alyosha had dropped him off at the team hotel in the morning, so it probably wasn’t hard to believe.

The next time the Falconers fly to Vegas, Kent and Alyosha get dinner like usual, and neither one of them mention Jack Zimmermann.

…

In Sochi, Kent nods at him from across the cafeteria.

Alyosha waves; Malkin grumbles. Russia’s out of the medal rounds, and they’d watched the USA v Canada game last night, watched Kent put up three points and grin widely as the final buzzer rang, victory USA.

“This is the man who you said is like an angel?” Malkin had said, eyes lingering on Crosby’s disappointed face.

“Maybe like an angel of death,” Alyosha had said.

…

Alyosha’s been wearing the C for the Falconers for two seasons when the GM calls him into his office. They’re not anywhere near a playoff spot; Alyosha is counting the days until his flight back to Russia.

“We’ve signed Jack Zimmermann,” he says, grinning widely. “Or, I should say, Georgia did. All credit, of course.”

Georgia nods at him.

“This is good,” Alyosha says slowly. Of course it’s good—Zimmermann is a good hockey player. So is Alyosha. They will probably play good hockey together.

“We’re expecting him to be a big presence on the ice and in the room,” Georgia says. “PR is pushing him, hard, we’re hoping to rally the fanbase around him and stir up some new interest in the team. Of course we’ll have you shoot some TV spots with him in the fall, do a few promotional things. We just wanted to keep you updated, Alex.”

Alyosha startles at the nickname. He never tells them to stop because his teammates call him Tater and his family calls him Alyosha and Kent calls him Alexei. Only a few Americans have ever called him Alex, and he always forgets that they mean him.

“Okay,” he says, “Thank you.”

He stands, awkwardly, feeling too tall and underdressed in his sweatpants, which he pulled on hastily after practice when Georgia had fetched him up to the office.

“Okay,” he says again, and leaves.

By the time he pulls into his driveway, Kent has texted him: keep an eye on Zimms out there for me.

To say it’s not what he expected is something of an understatement.

He bites his lower lip, texts something jokingly back.

Love you, Zimms, Kent had said two years ago. Keep an eye on Zimms out there for me, he says now.

Sad boy, Alyosha thinks.

…

Jack Zimmermann is not like what Alyosha expected. He’s very good at hockey, but that, Alyosha had expected.

He knows Jack from old pictures and from watching game tape and from listening to Kent cry over him; he had expected someone cold, or perhaps very charming.

He doesn’t know how someone as magnetic as Kent Parson could have fallen in love with someone as quiet and awkward as Zimmermann. He’s beautiful, Alyosha supposes, in a way. Not as pretty as Kent.

Alyosha smiles, and asks about his girlfriend, and wonders if she’s as pretty as Kent.

…

Alyosha is Russian, but he’s not naïve.

He knows that there are men who love other men—often, he wonders if he is one of them.

(He is not, because he is a man who would like to go home and see his mother. But he used to look at the way that Kent Parson’s eyelashes fluttered on his cheek in sleep and wonder.)

He knows what the way that Kent cries about Jack means. He knows.

He smiles, and asks Jack about his girlfriend, but he knows.

…

Alyosha looks out for Jack in the preseason, because he is a rookie and Alyosha is his captain and because Kent had asked him to.

Before their first game of the season, reporters ask Jack about playing against Kent, even though they won’t for months.

It makes Jack tense, almost angry. “What Parson is doing doesn’t really affect me,” he says. “Of course he’s a talented player, but I’m focused on my own game right now. I’m not thinking about him.”

“You know Kent Parson?” Alyosha says in the locker room after the media clears out. Sometimes he can get away with asking stupid questions because his English is still not perfect and because he has an accent. Anyone who has ever watched a single period of hockey knows that Jack Zimmermann and Kent Parson know each other. And yet.

“Not really,” Jack says, “We played on the same team once, but that was a long time ago.”

“Okay,” Alyosha says, but he texts Kent and tells him not to watch that interview anyway. He doesn’t want to imagine what Kent’s face might look like when he hears it, the “I’m not thinking about him.”

…

They get dinner after the Aces win in Providence, because they always do.

Kent would ordinarily take gleeful pleasure in picking the most expensive or trendy place in the city, since Alyosha has to pay. Tonight, he lets Alyosha pick, is quiet during the car ride.

He looks tired, the way he tips his head against the window.

It’s only his second game back after sitting out injured for over a month, and he’d played hard tonight. Coach had yelled at Alyosha after the game for missing that big check on Kent in the second period. Alyosha should have made it, he knows; he also knows how fragile Kent’s knee is, and he’d lose a meaningless midseason game rather than risk Kent’s career.

He shouldn’t think like this, he knows. His coaches tell him. But Kent smiles at him over dinner, and he doesn’t regret it.

They talk about the game, about Kent’s sister and Alyosha’s mother and how Alyosha wants to get a dog.

Kent’s phone buzzes, just as the waitress brings by the check, and Alyosha recognizes the hopeful, confused look on his face.

“Jack wants to see me,” he says, and Alyosha’s heart clenches at the way his voice breaks at the end, surprised and happier than Alyosha has seen him look all season.

“Is good!” He says enthusiastically. It is, probably. Alyosha doesn’t like the way that Kent allows himself to be torn up by Jack Zimmermann, but he wants him to be happy.

Kent thinks that Jack will make him happy. Maybe he will. But Jack has a girlfriend, and Kent has a tender heart.

“Yeah,” Kent says slowly.

Alyosha pays the bill.

…

The car is dark and quiet when Alyosha drives Kent back to the hotel where the Aces are staying, where Jack is supposed to pick him up.

They stop at a red light, and Kent doesn’t look at him when he breaks the silence.

“I’m gay,” he says.

When Alyosha glances at him, the stoplight makes him look as though he’s blushing. His face is still, but his hands are twisted up fiercely in his lap.

The light turns green; Alyosha doesn’t pull forward, even when the person behind him honks and then veers around him, swearing.

“Kent Parson,” Alyosha says slowly. This is important, he knows, but he can’t think of the right words to say. “Is okay,” he says, his accent thicker than it’s been in years. “Is good, yes? You think I care? I do not care. I do care, but in good way. I think is good.”

Another car honks at him. He doesn’t budge. He reaches an arm out, cups Kent’s shoulder.

“You’re the first person I’ve told,” Kent says, finally looking at him. His eyes are wide, surprised at his own bravery. “Besides my sister, I mean.”

Alyosha squeezes. “Am glad you told me,” he says.

Kent snorts. “Yeah. Thanks, man. And, uh…”

“Yeah?” Alyosha says. Jack and I used to…

“You have to drive,” Kent says, “We’ve been parked here for like ten minutes.”

…

Jack’s waiting in the hotel lobby when they pull up. Alyosha can feel his eyes lingering on them when he hugs Kent, wrapping him tight in his longer arms.

“Next time we win,” he whispers in Kent’s ear, and Kent laughs.

Alyosha lingers by his door, feeling apprehensive. Jack is team, and that means something. But the last time he knows Jack and Kent saw each other, Kent cried himself to sleep in Alyosha’s bed.

That means something different.

Jack raises a hand to him, a tentative wave. Alyosha nods back.

…

Alyosha sees his press conference, of course. The whole world sees Kent’s press conference.

In fact, the whole team sees the press conference at the same time, watching video replay after practice crowded around the small screen of Thirdy’s phone, after he’d seen the news alert and said, “Holy shit,” only half out of his pads.

A very small Kent Parson is folded into an Aces sweatshirt on the screen. “I’m gay,” he says, “And I’m not ashamed of that. I’ve been afraid for a long time of how people might react, how this might impact my career, but, uh… It’s time. I know I have the support of my family and my friends and my teammates, and that means the world to me. I’m excited to continue the great season we’re having, I’m excited to keep playing hockey with my team, and I’m excited to lead a playoff push. And I think it’s going to be really rewarding to do that and not feel like I’m withholding an important part of myself from the world.”

The audio cuts off and the team disperses, silent. Tater strips out of his jersey and sets to work on his pads, feeling numb. When he looks up, he catches Jack’s eye immediately—he looks tense.

“Don’t look at the comments,” Thirdy says grimly, standing up to finish undressing, and something flashes in Jack’s eyes that makes Alyosha think for the first time, so you did care for him once.

The rookies are flashing him wide-eyed glances. Maybe it’s because he’s their captain. Probably it’s because he’s Russian.

Snowy nudges him. “You want to say something, or should I?” He asks in his lightly accented English, too quietly for anyone else to hear.

Alyosha clears his throat. “You think is problem?” He asks too loudly, and Snowy wrinkles his nose. Of course Snowy doesn’t think it’s a problem—it’s an opening, anyway. “Any of you think is problem?”

All eyes are on him. In the corner, Poots is shaking his head frantically.

“Anybody here think this changes way he play? Changes man he is? I think does not matter. I think… I think must be brave man to be first to do this in hockey, yes?” There’s a brief murmur of assent.

“I think when we play Aces, will be a good, clean game. I think if media asks how we feel about Kent Parson, we say is like a brother in hockey and Falconers are proud of him, yes?”

Another murmur.

“Okay,” Alyosha finishes weakly. Snowy claps him on the shoulder.

Conversation picks up again, and Alyosha collapses into his stall, still half dressed. He stares for a long time at the tweet he has drafted up. There’s a chance that he might not ask him to play for Russia again, if he sends it. There’s a chance that something might mysteriously go wrong with his passport, or with his parents’—that he might not be able to go home this summer.

Jack pushes out of the locker room without saying a word.

Alyosha presses send.

…

Kent texts him a few hours later. Alyosha wishes he could see him right now—he looked tired in the press conference, drained. He wishes he could take Kent’s phone away from him and make him pet his cat and drink the tea Alyosha’s mother still sends him and maybe let Kent fall asleep in the same bed as him, again.

Instead, he flirts a little, pushes on what’s always been between them.

It’s good, easier than he expected. He thinks about calling, and doesn’t. What would he say?

He asks if Kent’s somewhere safe, instead. Kent just sends back a picture of Schwindeman frowning at his microwave.

Safe from everything except Swoop’s cooking, he says.

…

The next time they play the Aces, it’s in Vegas, and Jack collapses into the seat next to Alyosha on the plane there. Usually, Jack sits next to Snowy, and they either speak in furious French or stay silent for the entire ride. Alyosha still does not really understand their relationship.

Jack doesn’t speak until they’ve reached altitude.

“Kent’s had some rough games recently,” Jack says, voice muffled by the hum of the engines.

“Still leading scorer,” Alyosha says. He’s proud of that, though maybe he doesn’t have the right to be, since he’s not on the ice with Kent anymore. He has to study game tape for his job—still, he never gets tired of the way Kent weaves around stunned defensemen, fools elite goalies with a flick of his wrist.

“Yeah,” Jack says. He falls silent again, and Alyosha’s only just closed his eyes to sleep when Jack turns to him, blue eyes serious when Alyosha blinks his back open at the sound of his voice. “Listen, I know Kent told you about being gay before his press conference.”

Alyosha shrugs. “I tell you before, we are friends.”

“He told me that he told you because he thought I might want to tell you, um,” Jack takes a deep breath. “I don’t have a girlfriend. I have a boyfriend.”

Alyosha regards him. He could say, I thought so, maybe. But he says instead, “This is Bitty?”

Jack smiles, and it’s written there on his face. “Yeah, Eric. He’s great. And, um, you’re my friend, too, and I just…”

“Okay,” Alyosha says, and reaches out to tousle Jack’s hair. “Maybe I date boy someday, huh?” It’s the first time he says it out loud, and he laughs afterwards, almost in disbelief.

Jack clears his throat. “You could, if you wanted.”

“Of course I could,” Alyosha says, suddenly serious. “If I like boy, maybe I date boy. Why not?”

“Why not,” Jack echoes. Alyosha can feel Jack’s gaze long after he closes his eyes to sleep.

…

When Kent drives them back to the hotel after they all have dinner together, he lets the car idle out front while Jack and Alyosha climb out.

Jack exchanges a few words with Kent, too quietly for Alyosha to hear, and ambles off to the side, hands shoved in his pocket.

“I am not sorry we win,” Alyosha says, but he’s lying, because he’d made the mistake of looking at Twitter after the game, had seen what people were saying about Kent.

“They talk when we win, too,” Kent says, and Alyosha holds him for a moment too long. He knows, because Jack catches his eye and looks away too quickly.

“They talk too much,” Alyosha says. “Dare them to beat you on ice.”

Kent laughs, hugs him again.

He texts Alyosha before they even get to the elevators.

He smiles down at his phone, and Jack presses the button. “That was a good night,” Jack says neutrally.

“Good,” Alyosha agrees.

…

When Kent wins the Stanley Cup again, Alyosha is in Russia, and it’s bittersweet.

He’s at home, despite his fears that he might never have been able to watch a hockey game with his father again, bouncing his niece on his lap, his mother bustling in the kitchen. He’d said something nice about a gay man, and his world is still turning.

But his team is out of the playoffs, and when he sees the way Kent grins as he hoists the Cup for the third time, Alyosha wishes he was with Jack there in Las Vegas, that he could be the first person in Kent’s arms.

His mother passes him a mug of tea, raises her eyebrows knowingly.

“I told him I would go back to America for his cup day, mama,” He confesses. He feels like he’s saying more than he means to.

“Yes, Alyoshenka,” His mama says. “You should go.” She touches his cheek, just for a moment. “Go and be with your boy.”

…

Alyosha has never been to Kent’s childhood city, except to play hockey. When the cab pulls up outside the address Kent had given him, a blonde woman spills out, waving frantically at him.

Halfway down the front walk, Kent catches her, throws an arm around her waist and slows her, laughing. Alyosha fetches his suitcase, and shoves a wad of American bills at the driver.

“Alexei!” The girl shouts—Kent’s sister, now that Alyosha can see her closer.

“Jess!” He says, and opens his arms, and they’re embracing like old friends, his suitcase forgotten off to the side.

Kent approaches, rolling his eyes, and Alyosha takes the hat off Kent’s head and puts it on his own because there’s nothing that Kent hates more.

“Kenny,” he says, lifting him off the ground. “Is mean to win Cup again and again. Give someone else a chance!”

“They can have it when they win it from me,” Kent says. “Come inside and see mom, Alyosha,” and Alyosha throws an arm around his shoulder. The way Kent says his name is not quite right, but he’s been practicing.

…

He’s there a week before Kent’s birthday—Kent’s Cup Day—and Kent spends a few days showing him around. The city of Buffalo has some big celebration planned that Kent has delegated entirely to his agent, partly because he’s still staying out of the limelight, when he can.

Buffalo is hot in July, and Kent borrows a boat from a friend to take Jess and Alyosha out on the lake the day before the party.

They can’t swim because the water’s too dirty, but it’s a nice afternoon and they pack a lunch. After they eat, Jess lays out on the bow with a huge book she’s studying from for her Master’s degree and Kent collapses next to Alyosha in his swim trunks and sunglasses.

“How is summer?” Alyosha asks him.

“Nice to be home,” Kent says, “It’s good to see Jess. Kinda miss hockey, though.”

“You are excited for birthday? We can put candles in Stanley Cup for you. Thirty of them.”

“I’m turning twenty-six!” Kent says, offended, and elbows him when Alyosha starts to giggle. “And you’re older than me, grandpa.”

Alyosha laughs again, until he catches the way Kent is biting his lip. “What?” He asks.

“Um, Jack’s coming tomorrow,” Kent says quietly, glancing over to make sure Jess is absorbed in her book. “And he’s bringing Bitty. His boyfriend.”

“You worry?” Alyosha asks him, “Why worry? You and Jack are friends. He come for you, yes?”

“I saw Jack after I won my last Cup, too, and it didn’t go so well,” Kent says. “I don’t know. It’s different now, I know it is. We’re both different. But it’s…”

“Is different,” Alyosha says firmly. He drops an arm around Kent, catches the bare skin around his waist instead of on his shoulders, like he has before. It’s more than friendly, and they both know it. “But is not bad different, maybe.”

Kent hums, slumps down until his body is pressed closer to Alyosha’s. “No, I think it’s good,” he says.

…

By the time Jack’s car pulls up, Kent and Alyosha have already had coffee with the Cup, and breakfast with the Cup, and they’ve made a giant mimosa in the Cup and have had enough to be a little giggly.

Kent and the Cup are in the backyard with Jess, so Alyosha ambles out to wave at Jack when he starts up the walk, followed by another man—small and blond: Kent-like.

Ah, Alyosha thinks.

“Zimmboni!” Alyosha cries, and runs to hug Jack, who stumbles back under his weight and laughs a little.

“Hey, Tater, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Come for Parsnip, of course I am here!” He says.

“Yeah, but it’s a long trip from Russia,” Jack says cautiously.

“Is very big cup,” Alyosha says. “Plus birthday.”

“Right,” Jack says, and runs a hand over the back of his head. “Um, this is Bitty. Eric. Eric Bittle. My, uh…”

Alyosha takes mercy on him, and pulls Bitty into a hug too, but more gently, because Bitty is much smaller, and is holding something in a box. “Eric Bittle the baker!” Alyosha says.

“Bits, this is Tater,” Jack says.

“I know,” Bitty says, and blushes. “I mean, I watch your games all the time.”

“Jack!” Kent calls from the porch, still cradling the Cup. “Bitty!”

They move up the walk, and Jack claps Kent on the shoulder. “Congratulations, Kenny. And, uh,” He glances down at the Cup, “Don’t touch me with that thing, eh?”

“Sure,” Kent says, rolling his eyes.

“Well, I can touch it,” Bitty says, and reaches out to run a finger along the rim, “Lord, Kent Parson, that is one shiny cup. And! I brought you a birthday pie to put inside it, for later!”

“Thanks, Bits,” Kent says, “We can put it in the kitchen.”

Jess pulls the front door open. “Jack,” she says coolly. “Mom’s out back. I’m sure she can’t wait to see you.”

Jack pales. Alyosha walks him inside, arm around his shoulders. “Mama Parson very nice to me,” he says.

“Yeah,” Jack says drily, “I’m sure she is.”

…

They put Bitty’s pie in the Stanley Cup, after the party’s over and it’s just the Parsons and Alyosha and Jack and Bitty.

Jess finds some candles—not twenty-six, but enough to make Kent’s face glow when he leans over the little flames. “Make a wish!” She says, holding up her phone to take a picture.

Just before he blows out the candles, Kent glances up. He meets Alyosha’s eyes, and smiles.

…

The fireworks start after dark, and they all pile out into the backyard to watch. Mrs. Parson and Jess are chatting with the Cup keeper up on the deck, Jack and Bitty sitting very close together down on the lawn. Kent is lying off to the side alone, still holding the cup like he might never get the chance to again.

Alyosha joins him, folding both his arms behind his head, lying on the non-Cup side of Kent.

“You’ve already won one,” Kent says, and turns his head. Their noses are very close. “You can touch it, you know.”

“I have touched,” Alyosha murmurs, “Remember, I helped you drink, I cut pie?”

“I remember,” Kent says. It’s hard to hear him over the crackle of the fireworks, but his voice is right in Alyosha’s ear. When he glances above Kent’s head, he can see how Jack has pulled Bitty back into the cradle of his body, and Alyosha thinks if he did the same thing here, nobody would mind.

Just him and Kent. Well, him and Kent and the Stanley Cup—but they’d both prefer it that way.

He stretches his right arm out straight, nudging Kent’s head until he lifts it, rests it on Alyosha’s bicep. He shivers.

“Cold?” Alyosha asks.

“No,” Kent murmurs. “I’m not cold.”

Alyosha smiles. “Those my favorite,” he says, pointing to the shower of color in the dark sky with the same arm that Kent is pillowed on. It jostles him a bit, but Kent just smiles and readjusts, head closer to Alyosha’s shoulder, body pressed against his side.

“I always liked the big ones, the ones that kind of look like willow trees.”

Alyosha hums. “Buffalo does all this for Kent Parson,” he muses, and it makes Kent laugh, just like he’d hoped.

“It’s for America,” he says, still chuckling.

“No,” Alyosha says. He drops the arm he has around Kent’s shoulder until his palm is over Kent’s heart, breathes in deeply. It’s nice here in America, with Kent. He could probably get used to it here if he had to. His mama and papa love Kent—they would come visit them, if Alyosha couldn’t go home.

Kent sighs, pulls the Stanley Cup closer, cups his free hand over Alyosha’s.

Alyosha thinks about kissing him. He doesn’t, but he thinks about it.

The problems are for another day. Today is Kent’s birthday, and Alyosha’s holding him and he’s holding the Stanley Cup and there are fireworks going off in the sky, and when Alyosha thinks about kissing him, he doesn’t think about anything but feeling good.

“No,” Alyosha says again. “I think is all for you.”