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Evan Dykstra drew the short straw. Literally, the team drew straws to see who had to broach the subject this time.
He decided to ask the questions after practice considering Cap’s bad mood during practice after the previous conversation.
There was no way Cap was going to send them back out to the ice for bag skates, was there?
“So, Hollzy, what did you mean the other day about the ‘timeline’?”
“If you have a question, Dykstra, ask it.” Ilya Rozanov knew this day would come. It didn’t mean he necessarily wanted to experience it.
“Fine, when did you guys get together?”
“Well, that depends on what you mean by ‘get together’.” Shane Hollaner, practical as ever, deflected.
Wyatt Hayes couldn’t contain his curiosity any more. “You know what we mean. When did The Rivalry become The Relationship?”
“You’re asking the wrong question.” Shane had a little smirk Ilya found extra sexy. Maybe this wouldn’t be as unpleasant as the big Russian feared.
An exasperated Zane Boodram pressed on. “What’s the right question?”
“That would be too easy. Knowing that one isn’t the right one should get you started.” Shane realized he was enjoying this.
“Was there ever actually a rivalry?” Luca Haas’ small voice cut through the clamor.
“My son is thinking! Yes, rivalry very real.” Ilya had fully gotten into the conversation now that it was a competition to see how long he and Shane could keep their teammates guessing.
“The rivalry started before you guys were even drafted. They were hyping it at Juniors in ‘09.” 14 year old Troy Barret had been glued to television that summer. He knew all the (publicly available) lore.
“Accurate, but largely irrelevant.” Shane pointed out.
“Not so.” Ilya insisted. “You crossed an entire parking lot to tell me I shouldn’t smoke.”
“I saw you in a parking lot and came over to introduce myself. Pointing out the smoking area was” Shane waved a hand vaguely at something across the room, “over there was just being polite. I didn’t know if you could read Latin letters.”
Wyatt by now had a finely honed sense of when the hockey husbands were flooding the field with nonsense so they didn’t have to actually discuss any given topic. “What we know: you were rivals in 2009 and not in a relationship. Roz is a noted ho for most of his career, but it’s unclear when he stopped showing up in tabloids with bimbos on his arm.”
“No bimbos. Classy ladies, every one. And you owe the reparations fund $50, Hazy.” Ilya would not let anyone disrespect the many, many women he’d entertained over the years.
Wyatt would not be sidetracked again. ”In 2016 Hollzy dated Rose Landry. You two go to the cottage in 2017, so at some point before that you began a relationship. In 2018 Roz signs with Ottawa. The Irina Foundation, and more importantly your “friendship”, is announced later that year. Knowing what we now know about our beloved Hollzy, when, exactly, was that plan formulated? Did you have it fully fledged leaving the cottage or did it take him some time to come up with all of it?”
Ilya beamed at the memory of being awoken at the cottage by an excited Shane eagerly explaining his plan for the rest of their careers. “My dear Hazy, you have not known мой статистик (moy statistik) for long, but you know him well!”
“Statistician? I guess it beats being a lawnmover.” Shane pretended he didn’t enjoy the impromptu vocabulary tests Ilya packed into his endearments. In truth, he loved demonstrating his growing understanding of Russian.
Wyatt continued as if the cutest couple in hockey hadn’t interrupted his train of thought, again. “So we’re pretty clear from the cottage on, but we still don’t know when you two got together in the first place. Gotta say, bagging your biggest rival is quite the rebound from Rose Fucking Landry.”
“You’ve got that backward.” Shane seemed positively gleeful at once again derailing their understanding of the timeline.
“What part of it?” Bood was quickly losing patience with the game.
“Ilya wasn’t the rebound, Rose was.”
“Rebound from what?” The youngsters were getting involved as Eric Holmberg jumped into the fray.
“Delicious tuna melt.” Ilya tried his hardest to be inscrutable. His scrute was not inable.
“For the hundredth time, it wasn’t the tuna melt. I freaked out because it was the first time you’d ever called me ‘Shane’!”
“No, was my masterful cooking skills.” Smug, Ilya did well.
“You two were together before you dated Rose Landry?” Holmberg was really stuck on Rose Landry.
“Yes,” reverberated through the locker room in stereo.
The entire team had been in Ilya and Shane’s home. They had all gotten the tuppence tour, which of course included the trophy room. They’d all seen the pictures on the wall in that room. But none of them, including Wyatt, had lived their childhood with posters of these titans of hockey on their bedroom walls. Except Luca Haas.
“The CCM campaign.” It was just louder than a whisper. “The picture you have from the CCM campaign. The one of you two laughing.”
The entire locker room fell silent.
“Yes, that’s when we first… kissed,” Shane said softly.
“But not the beginning,” Ilya countered.
“Right, the parking lot in ‘09.” Barret had been paying attention.
“That was just handshake.” Ilya fell into the reverie of memory. “That summer after we got drafted. We found each other in hotel gym late at night. Neither of us could sleep from excitement.”
“You made me drink water, and then drink more. You were bossy even back then, <sarcasm>Cap</sarcasm>.”
“And our hands touched as we passed the bottle back and forth. That’s when I knew this slow freckled Canadian with a weak backhand was going to be trouble.”
“And I knew this Russian asshole was going to make my life a lot more interesting than I was going to be able to handle.”
It’s almost as if every eye in the room suddenly had a speck of dust in it.
“But what about the rivalry? When did that end?” Barret couldn’t quite let that go.
Shane and Ilya stared at him.
Wyatt was way ahead. “Ilya didn’t say the rivalry was real. He used his “oh, I’m Russian and don’t speak English good” trick to leave the helper verb out of the sentence and muddle the tense. The rivalry never ended. We see it every day. It’s why game night is such a major pain in the ass around here now.”
“You say ‘pain in the ass’, we say ‘interesting’,” Ilya insisted.
“Speak for yourself, asshole,” Shane gazed fondly at the love of his life.