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Cliff texts before he calls. They’re pro athletes—no one picks up the phone for an unknown number, and he doesn’t think Roz has shared Cliff’s contact with his people in Ottawa.
He decides not to let that sting.
“Hello?”
Hollander sounds a little wary. Cliff wonders if he thinks he’s going to get a shovel talk. Cliff kind of wishes he had the right to give one.
He almost introduces himself again, even though he’d done it in the text. This is awkward as hell already.
“Hollander. I got the wedding invite.”
“Yes?”
The caution in Hollander’s voice sucks. Cliff knows why it’s there. He was online when Kissgate brought Roz and Hollander’s whole secret fucking life down around their ears. People can be assholes.
Cliff clears his throat. Here goes nothing. At least Hollander has a reputation for being a decent guy, if standoffish. He’s probably not going to laugh in Cliff’s face, call him a shitty friend, and hang up on him.
Even if Cliff maybe deserves it.
“I hoped we could meet up before then. If you have time. Do a bachelor party kinda deal.”
He can practically hear the gears turning in Hollander’s head. “For…Ilya?”
“More for you, I guess. You and me.”
The gears keep on grinding. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
Hollander doesn’t sound like he’s turning Cliff down cold; more like he genuinely doesn’t understand. That’s fair—Cliff made up a bullshit excuse to call him anyway.
He could try telling Hollander the rules for weddings probably don’t count when it’s two dudes getting hitched, or that stupid shit like strip clubs and last hurrahs isn’t for guys like Roz and Hollander anyway.
Instead, he goes for the truth.
“Roz was my best fucking friend in the world when we played in Boston, and it’s at least half my fault we’re not still close. Either way, he’s about to get married, and I didn’t have a clue. I want to get to know his future husband. I owe him that.”
The silence stretches on for so long that Cliff pulls his phone away from his ear to check it’s still connected. He’s not sure he has the courage to call back after a dropped call and give that speech twice. He’s glad to see the timer ticking up, even if the lack of response is ominous.
“Okay,” Hollander says finally. “When?”
Cliff exhales, way too obviously to sound casual. “You tell me, brother. I’ve got nothing but time.”
Hollander, who famously has very little time in between team obligations, charity hockey camps, brand sponsorship deals, and now planning a fucking wedding, gives a thoughtful little hum. The silence this time has the quality of someone checking a calendar, not debating whether to hang up on a former friend of his husband-to-be.
Shit. Cliff still can’t quite get over that. Roz is getting married.
“Two weeks. I can get away for a few days, but I have to be back by the weekend. I’ll probably have some wedding stuff to do over the phone.”
“No problem.” Cliff would have made nearly anything work, but a few hours of listening to Hollander politely tearing a florist a new asshole is nothing. Cliff would help him do it. “Send me the dates. I’ll meet you in Ottawa?”
“No.” Hollander’s reply is short and decisive. “I’ll come to Boston.”
Cliff isn’t sure he’s ever seen Hollander off the ice. He’s seen him on TV, obviously, in ads and interviews, but never up close and in person. It’s weird, like seeing your schoolteacher in the grocery store. Hollander doesn’t seem like a guy who exists outside of a hockey rink.
Cliff flags him down from the rideshare lane outside baggage claim. Hollander walks over fast, with his head down and his shoulders around his ears like he doesn’t want anyone to see him. Cliff almost takes it personally, but then he remembers Hollander is a superstar who lives in the land of hockey, and had his life blown up on the internet not long ago. In his place, Cliff wouldn’t want to be recognized in Boston either.
“Hey. Can I get your bag?” Cliff pops the trunk. He ignores the traffic cop’s shrill whistle demanding he move the fuck along.
Hollander heaves a tidy black carry-on into the back of Cliff’s SUV, ignoring his outstretched hand. Belatedly, he shakes his head. “Thanks.”
“Sure thing, man. How was the flight?”
Small talk gets them through mid-morning traffic to Cliff’s place in Seaport. Hollander doesn’t talk much, giving short answers to Cliff’s questions without asking much in return. He has the harried look of a man fresh off a commercial flight, so Cliff shows Hollander the guest suite and leaves him alone to shower off the plane funk.
Hollander reappears half an hour later and joins Cliff at the kitchen bar. He takes Cliff up on his offer of coffee, so Cliff brews a fresh cup with the fancy machine Roz bought him a while back for Christmas. There’s probably a better one on the market now, but Cliff hasn’t looked for a replacement. He doesn’t need anyone to shine a light on that particular metaphor.
There’s a familiar silence while both of them look for something to say. Cliff is the one to break it. He figures this is still on him.
“Gotta say, I was surprised you came out here. Unless you didn’t want Roz to know we were meeting up.”
He’s half-joking, but he can tell Hollander isn’t when he answers. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”
Cliff stands frozen in his kitchen and stares. “Woah, I’m not trying to start a fight and break up your marriage or anything.”
Hollander rolls his eyes. He looks so much like Roz in that moment that it throws Cliff for another loop. “No, I mean. I didn’t lie to him. I told him I had something to take care of, and I’d tell him about it afterward.”
Cliff sits down slowly on his bar stool. He thinks he knows why Hollander wants to keep this under wraps. “Waiting to see how this week goes, in case you decide to tell me to piss off and lose my wedding invite?”
Hollander shakes his head. “More like, I didn’t want to get his hopes up. You mean a lot to him.”
Cliff’s throat feels thick. “He means a lot to me.”
“I thought about what you said, about us not knowing each other. There’s a lot I don’t know about his life in Boston. He’d probably want to show me around himself, but you were here when he was new to the city. You know what it was like. I want to see that side of Boston—to get to know this part of him, before we start the next chapter of our lives together.”
It’s plainly a rehearsed speech. Hollander’s hands are folded on the counter in front of him, knotted tight to hide any nerves. He avoids Cliff’s eyes the whole time he talks.
Cliff gets it, though. He thinks about how little Hollander must have seen, hiding out of sight with Roz in enemy territory. They were on the DL the whole time Roz was with the team. They couldn’t have gone out together for a North Shore 3-Way or seen a cheesy horror flick at Coolidge Corner.
“You got it, brother,” Cliff tells him.
Cliff hopes the Boston fans wouldn’t give Hollander any shit if they spotted him, but they for sure won’t try it with Cliff looming beside him, a snapback shading his eyes and a full playoff beard still bristling around his face. Hollander is a brick wall of muscle, but Cliff has a few inches on him in just about every direction, along with the aura of a man who starts fights professionally and is usually the one to finish them.
“Where are we going?”
Hollander has his hands shoved into his pockets, but he doesn’t look rattled the same way he had at the airport. He’s wearing a t-shirt and jeans that look expensive as hell. The paps haven’t really left him alone since his thing with Landry, and the Roz news hasn’t helped. He’s dressed like he expects to be photographed, and he’s probably right.
“Tourist shit first,” Cliff decides. “We’ll see the highlights, and then do whatever else we have time for after.”
They stop by the 24-hour Dunks that’s always easiest to hit on the way back from the practice rink, then visit the cop slide. Cliff half-expects Hollander to chirp him over Tim Horton’s as a Canadian point of pride, but he solemnly accepts a Munchkin from the bag when Cliff offers it, licking sugar glaze off his fingers.
The team’s favorite sports bar won’t open for a few hours yet. Cliff takes them to the used bookstore Roz used to browse for romance novels to help him learn English. Cliff only found out about it by accident—a combination of Cliff being nosy and Roz leaving his place a mess.
They go candlepin bowling for shits and giggles. In between rounds, Cliff tells Hollander about the cemetery Roz would visit whenever he got homesick.
Standing beside his best friend’s fiancé, Cliff is more aware than ever of how little Roz let them see. Cliff knows more than any other guy on the team, he’s pretty sure, but that’s not much to be proud of.
They grab a late lunch along the waterfront. Hollander had asked about tuna melts, then changed his mind. Cliff talks him into trying a lobster roll instead. Who the fuck comes to Boston for a tuna melt?
He runs out of ideas after that. They just ate, so there’s no point in hitting up the team’s post-game hangout. That might be for the best. He didn’t really think through taking Shane Hollander to a Boston hockey bar.
He looks over at Hollander, who’s watching the after-work runners and bike commuters pass by. Maybe they should hit the gym. Roz certainly logged enough hours there.
Cliff clears his throat. “Still got a few hours of daylight left. Anything else you want to see?”
Hollander shrugs. “What did you usually do?”
“Clubs and bars, mostly,” Cliff admits.
Hollander makes the sort of face Cliff should have expected from being reminded of Roz’s notorious playboy past. Honestly, remembering the hotties Roz used to pick up, Cliff considers Hollander even more impressive for locking him down.
Cliff wracks his brain for local attractions that aren’t too touristy. He can’t imagine Hollander enjoying U.S. history lessons on the back of a duck.
“There’s kayaks.” Cliff sounds dubious because he is, but people do it. They’re not that far from the boat rentals. “Never tried it, but, uh. Think we could figure out how to paddle an oar?”
Hollander’s lips curve into a small, private smile. It takes Cliff a few seconds before it clicks. Hollander is Canadian—the poster boy for the Great White North.
“Wait. Don’t tell me. You know how to kayak. You have your own kayak.”
Hollander’s smile blooms. It’s still small, but less restrained than Cliff’s seen him all day. “I have a place out on a lake.”
“Fuck, man.” Cliff is still getting used to seeing Hollander outside of an arena. Imagining him in a boat, becoming one with nature, is a whole other headtrip. “Does Roz kayak?”
Hollander shrugs. “He prefers the jet skis.”
“That sounds like Roz.”
As soon as he says it, Cliff feels a wave of guilt and melancholy. Does it sound like Roz? Cliff never knew he liked jet skis, or lakes, or learning how to kayak.
He didn’t even know Roz liked Hollander.
If Hollander thinks the same thing, he doesn’t mention it. “It’s our favourite place to be,” he says instead. Cliff recognizes it for an olive branch—a shared secret about a man they both care a lot about. “We spend the summers there.”
Cliff gives the water another long look. “We could try the kayaks, I guess.”
Hollander smirks at him, a slantwise look that Cliff is startled to recognize from the ice. “I’ll spare you the embarrassment.”
“Hey.” Cliff can’t raise more of an objection than that. For all he knows, he’d flip the stupid thing as soon as they pushed off.
Hollander shakes his head; some internal struggle resolved, and a decision made.
“Fuck it. Let’s go to a bar.”
Jesus Christ, Cliff thinks. Roz is gonna straight up murder him.
In his defense, he hadn’t known Hollander had a three-drink limit. How could someone marrying Roz be this much of a lightweight?
Hollander stumbles up the steps onto Cliff’s front porch, and Cliff grabs the back of his shirt so he doesn’t brain himself on the brickwork. It takes real effort to get them both through the door and into the house.
“You’re a heavy motherfucker,” Cliff says as they stagger down the hallway. Hollander is listing sideways, most of his weight slumped against Cliff’s side.
He should probably take Hollander straight to the guest suite to sleep it off, but his body is on autopilot after years of corralling drunk rooks. Water first, enough carbs to keep Hollander’s blood sugar from tanking, and then bed. Cliff steers them toward the kitchen.
Hollander’s phone rings on the way there. It takes three uncoordinated attempts for him to fumble it out of his pocket, and Cliff is the only reason he stays on his feet. Cliff deposits him onto a bar stool just as Hollander finally gets his phone into his hand with a sound of triumph. His face lights up when he sees the display.
“Ilyaaaaa.”
Ilya, Cliff thinks, marveling a little. It’s not like he doesn’t know Roz’s first name. He just can’t remember anyone actually using it. But of course, Hollander doesn’t go around calling him Rozanov.
“Hi,” Hollander continues, with the volume and enunciation of someone very drunk, and trying badly to hide it. “Hey, you.”
Cliff doesn’t listen in on whatever Roz says in return. He gets two glasses, fills them with water, and shoves one across the bar toward Hollander.
Hollander doesn’t seem to notice. The expression on his face is soft and gooey, a slight crease in his forehead as he concentrates on whatever Roz is saying.
Cliff’s go-to on a night like this is instant ramen, but he’s not sure Hollander will stay awake long enough for him to cook it. He grabs a banana instead, and sticks a spoon into an open jar of peanut butter. Behind him, Hollander insists loudly that he’s not that drunk.
When Cliff turns around to set out the food, he has to stop for a few seconds to recalibrate, because Hollander is speaking Russian.
It doesn’t come out smoothly, like when Roz or the Russian guys on the team speak it. Each word is distinct and a little stilted. But Hollander is three sheets to the wind right now, and he’s not stumbling over his sentences. That tells Cliff a lot about his fluency right there.
Hollander rattles off another awkward string of Russian and finishes with something that sounds like blue blue. He seems to get caught up, drawing out the sound as he repeats it. “Blue. Bluuue.”
Hollander giggles. Cliff kind of wishes he were filming this. There’s no way he’ll believe in the morning that this really happened: Shane fucking Hollander in his kitchen, giggling into his phone, eyes half-closed and cheeks a rosy pink.
Cliff jolts out of his gobsmacked state when Hollander loses his balance and starts to slide off the barstool, flailing out for something to steady himself. Cliff thinks oh shit as Hollander’s hand closes on the hanging light fixture overhead, which isn’t nearly sturdy enough to hold his weight.
He makes it around the bar in time to keep Hollander from crashing to the floor. It puts him close enough to hear Roz say, on the other side of the line: “You are safe, solnyshko? You will go to bed now, and call me again in the morning?”
Hollander fixes Cliff with a look like he’s weighing Cliff’s soul. It’s sharp and uncompromising, and goes on for an uncomfortably long time. Cliff breaks out in a light sweat.
“Yes,” Hollander says at last, slow and certain. “I’m safe here.”
Cliff wakes with the sun, which comes early now that summer’s here. He’s drinking coffee in the kitchen when Hollander rolls downstairs, wearing the careful, queasy look of a man praying not to revisit last night's mistakes.
“Mornin’, sunshine.” Cliff doesn't hide his grin. “You call Roz?”
Hollander gives him a long, assessing look, like he’s trying to reconstruct their last few hours together. Cliff wonders if Hollander remembers fellating a banana in front of him last night. He decides it's safer if he doesn't ask.
“Texted,” Hollander says at last.
“You want some food, and something for the headache? I’ve got breakfast stuff, or we can go out for something with grease.”
The queasy look returns. “I mostly stick to a performance diet.”
Cliff thinks about the buttery lobster roll, donut holes, and drinks Hollander put away yesterday without complaint, all because Cliff told him they were part of Roz’s life in Boston.
He must really love you, brother, he thinks. It’s not like he’d ever doubted, after Hollander stood by Roz through the shitstorm of being outed, but he’s starting to see it for himself.
“You got it. Turkey bacon and eggs?”
He can tell that still isn’t quite Hollander’s usual breakfast, but Hollander just nods.
When they’re mopping up the last of the eggs with sourdough toast, and the only remaining sign of bacon is an oily imprint on a paper towel, Cliff looks Hollander over.
“So, what’s the plan? You wanna go sightseeing? Hit the aquarium? Fenway Park might have a game tonight, if you’re into baseball.”
Hollander glances down at his phone. He could be avoiding Cliff’s eyes, or checking for messages from Roz, or something else entirely. Cliff doesn’t know him well enough yet to tell.
“I should do some things for the wedding.”
Cliff tries not to be disappointed. Hollander’s here in Boston, and they spent all of yesterday hanging out. That’s a lot more than Cliff thought he’d get.
“Sure thing. I can set you up in my office if you want some privacy. Roz isn’t slacking off and making you do it all yourself, is he? You’ve gotta stay strong when he starts whining, or he’ll walk all over you.”
One of those rare, soft smiles curves Hollander’s mouth, crinkling the corners of his eyes. Cliff is starting to think of it as his Roz smile. “We’re pretty evenly matched, despite his many claims otherwise. He wins some, he loses some.”
Cliff throws back his head and laughs, a real one that comes from his belly. “Right on, brother.”
Hollander looks down for a moment, his smile fading a little. “I want to do this part myself, anyway. It’s the reservations for our honeymoon. Scott Hunter gave us some ideas, but I want to call around to a few resorts.”
Hollander’s mouth pinches closed, like there’s more he isn’t saying. Cliff waits him out until Hollander finally cracks.
“Hunter said nobody in Spain would care about us, but…”
It takes an embarrassingly long time for the penny to drop. Cliff has never had to think about whether a fancy resort will treat someone like shit if they show up gay and married. Hollander wants to make sure Roz doesn’t have to think about it, either.
The thing is, if Hollander’s calling around in advance to find out if people are homophobic assholes, then he’s the one who might end up hearing that shit. And it’s his honeymoon, too.
“You got a list?” Cliff asks, before he can second-guess himself. “Places and dates and everything? Questions you want to ask?”
Hollander looks up at him, brow furrowing. “Yeah?”
Cliff raps on the counter with his knuckles. “You can tell me to fuck off, but it’ll go faster with two of us. Give me the list. I can make calls, and you can work on the other shit. Cakes, flowers, whatever else you’ve got to do. I hear wedding planning is a bitch.”
Hollander’s gaze darts between Cliff’s eyes, searching his face. “Are you sure?”
“Put me in, coach,” Cliff assures him. “Let’s get you guys a honeymoon.”
“Fuck, maybe I should go to Ibiza,” Cliff says a few hours later. The resort staff have really sold him on it as a vacation spot. “You got room in your luggage?”
Hollander’s mouth goes crooked in a smirk that reminds him of Roz. “Probably. I don’t think Ilya's planning to pack clothes.”
Cliff barks out a laugh. Now that Hollander’s coming out of his shell a little, Cliff’s surprised at how funny he is.
Hollander sits back and sets down his phone. Cliff’s brain does that thing it does sometimes on the ice, when he sees a hit coming and instinctively braces for it. Here it comes, he thinks, even before Hollander squares his shoulders and opens his mouth.
“Why did you really call me? Why not Ilya?”
Cliff hadn’t lied before, but there’s honesty, and then there’s the dig-deep kind of soul searching he thinks Hollander is asking for.
He gives it his best shot.
“I was pissed when Roz left Boston. We all were, but I took it personally. Figured if he was going to throw us away without giving anyone a reason, then he could fuck off and we’d talk when he was ready to say sorry. Only he didn’t. We stopped talking, I got stubborn, and we lost touch.”
Cliff takes a deep breath. “I knew about you. Earlier than anyone else, probably. Not that it was you, but that he had Jane up in Montreal. I guessed that’s why he left Boston, but he wouldn’t admit it. Denied there was anyone in his life, and made up bullshit excuses about how we weren’t winning enough cups, and he wanted a bigger challenge.
“Look, in hindsight, I know he was protecting you. I had my head up my ass, making it about me. He’d just say ‘forgive and forget’ if I called him about it. I want to show him I mean it.”
Hollander sits with that for a minute before he answers. “He misses you, you know. That’s why I came.”
Cliff blinks, surprised. “You talked about me?”
“It’s a short guest list. We talked about everyone before we sent invitations.”
That makes sense. Before Cliff can do anything pathetic, like ask how Hollander knows Roz really misses him, Hollander keeps talking.
“I think he would have called you sooner, if he could. Things were really hard for a while. He was…”
Cliff knows how to finish that sentence. “In a dark place?”
Hollander doesn’t confirm it, but he doesn’t deny it, either. Cliff had wondered, after the fire of betrayal and anger had died out. He remembers how Roz used to get, sometimes; how he’d just stop trying. He always dragged himself out of his funk eventually, but he wouldn’t call or text the team when it got bad then, either.
It makes Cliff feel guiltier for not reaching out. Even if Roz hadn’t been ready to pick up, he still could have tried.
Hollander says slowly, “It’s hard to stay close to someone when you have to lie to them. When a big part of your life has to stay secret. There’s not really anything you can say.”
They’re interrupted by the buzz of Hollander’s phone.
Hollander gets that soft, happy look Cliff has seen the edges of a few times now. He knows who’s calling even before Hollander picks up.
“Privet, Ilyusha,” Hollander says in his stiff Russian. Roz says something on the other side, angled up into a question. Hollander looks Cliff over with deliberate consideration before he answers. “Nyet. Boston.”
There’s a pause, and then Hollander says Cliff’s name. Cliff’s head snaps up. He strains to hear Roz’s response, but can’t make anything out.
Hollander’s lips twitch. “Because he misses you too. I don’t know what you promised Barrett, but he’s hoping to be your best man.”
Cliff wonders if Hollander switched to English for his sake. He makes a sound that comes out like a grunt-wheeze. Hollander ignores him, rolling his eyes at whatever Roz says next.
“I know I am. But I can’t stand up for you at my own wedding, asshole. Fine. Best men, then.”
Best men, Cliff thinks, swallowing hard.
He can work with that.