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Troy took a steadying breath, staring at the locker room door. He didn’t know why he was so nervous. He just was. It’s not like anything mattered here. The Centaurs were a garbage team and he had been dumped here to be swept under the rug. His punishment for speaking up against Dallas. His teeth clenched together so tightly at the thought of his former best friend that his jaw hurt.
If you had told him a few weeks ago that his life could fall apart completely in the span of ten days, he would have scoffed. But here he was. Ten days ago, he had a boyfriend that he loved, a career that meant something, and a best friend. Well, the best friend part was questionable. Dallas was an asshole, but he was safe. In a way. Now he had… nothing.
He was broken out of his reverie when someone shouldered past him, opening the locker room door and entering without so much as a sidelong glance. He could hear the music and laughter floating out. Great. They really did take themselves about as seriously as it looked from the outside.
Rolling his eyes, Troy took a breath and stepped forward, making sure his face was the usual carefully crafted blank mask. He was an asshole. These guys knew it and he knew it. That was fine. That’s how he needed it to be. He didn’t need them to like him. This wasn’t a long-term thing. His contract had two years left on it and then he could leave. Maybe he could talk to management to get traded away again at the end of this season.
He pushed the door open. The room barely reacted when he walked in. Wyatt Hayes glanced at him and gave him a small, tight nod of recognition, but immediately turned back to the man to his right. Ilya Rozanov, the team captain, didn’t even stop the conversation he was having with the darker-skinned man beside him, although his expression turned hard and flat as his eyes tracked him across the room. A few others he didn’t recognize watched him curiously as he made his way to where his name was above an empty stall. In the back corner of the room. Great.
Maybe he should know who these players were. The team had a few rookies, sure, but most of these guys had been in the league for years. But really, who paid attention to Ottawa?
He settled himself down quietly, sitting and fiddling with his gear bag, giving himself something to do. The man next to him - Dykstra maybe? - glanced over once and gave him a tight smile. It seemed that the team was taking their cues from their captain. He wouldn’t expect anything less, honestly. Troy was content to just fade into the background.
He kept his face blank and just observed. A group of rookies stood huddled in a raucous group a few stalls away. He assumed they were rookies anyways. They looked positively prepubescent. And they were arguing about… a Disney movie? Troy scoffed, glaring down at his equipment bag. This team was ridiculous.
Dykstra and another veteran began arguing next to him about the playlist for practice. Troy took a deep breath, tuning them out.
He did glance towards Rozanov, though, surprised that any of this was being let go. He knew that the Centaurs were a joke, but surely Ilya Rozanov, previous captain for the Cup-contending Boston Raiders, would try to run a tight ship. Practice started in thirty minutes. Dallas would have kicked people’s asses if they were fucking around this close to start time.
Troy began to slowly get dressed. The rookies settled down, much to Troy’s relief, and began getting dressed themselves. Troy tried to focus on his own routine, but kept getting distracted by a rookie (LaPointe? Maybe? He swore that’s what one of them called him) who kept turning in a circle, grumbling. Troy finally glanced up, watching him with his usual aloof expression.
LaPointe finally sighed dramatically and glared around the room.
“Can someone help me with this? Something is wrong,” the kid huffed, gesturing vaguely at his shoulder pads.
Troy scoffed audibly, staring at the kid in disbelief. Was he actually stupid? Did he possess a shred of survival instincts? He was a fucking professional athlete for god’s sake, and here he was admitting to the whole locker room he couldn’t even dress himself properly. A retort was on the tip of his tongue.
It didn’t make it out though, as Dykstra stood and shouldered him as he slid by. An accident, surely? The man didn’t even look at Troy as he walked by.
Then, to Troy’s amazement, he stepped up to the kid and shook his head.
“Turn around,” he demanded, and the kid did. Dykstra fiddled with the pads for a moment before patting the kid’s shoulder and stepping back.”You had the strap twisted.”
“Oh.”
“Moron,” Dykstra laughed as he walked back to his own stall and sat down.
The kid laughed and thanked him, reaching down for his next piece of equipment. Troy looked on in amazement. What the fuck was going on here? The rookie would have been eviscerated if he were in the Guardian’s locker room.
Another vet piped up from across the room, “Hey, kid, you need D to tie your skates too?”
Troy braced for more chirping, but the kid just laughed, sticking his foot out towards Dykstra and waggling it. “Could you, D?”
The laughter was interrupted when the door opened again, a burly man in a dark polo glancing around the room quickly, settling on Rozanov.
“Hey, Roz!” he called out.
Rozanov glanced over, an easy smile breaking out on his face.
“Henry! What can I do for you?”
“He’s okay, but-”
Rozanov’s smile fell instantly, and he was on his feet before the man could finish speaking.
“-your kid slipped on the ice coming in. We brought him to medical, just in case.”
The rest of the explanation faded away as Rozanov had all but run out of the room after the man. Troy stared, a dumbstruck look on his face that he couldn’t quite smooth out. Rozanov had a kid? How did the media not know about this? How could anyone possibly keep a secret like that for so long?
Troy did the math. Rozanov was a few years older than he was, he knew. 28? 29? And he was a notorious playboy. So a secret love child wasn’t the wildest possibility. But still, for this to stay a secret for however long?
Looking around, he was just as surprised to see the lack of surprise on everyone else’s face. They clearly knew Rozanov had a child. A whole team keeping a secret this big? What the hell was going on in Ottawa?
A tense quiet had come over the room when the captain had stormed out, and muttering broke out after a few minutes.
The assistant captain, Bood, let out a low whistle.
“I hope RJ is okay,” he murmured.
“For his sake, I hope so too.” A rookie across the room laughed. “Roz is going to kick his ass if he got himself hurt.”
The room erupted in low laughter at this, breaking the tension. People started moving around again, getting ready for practice.
Troy’s brow furrowed as he glanced around, a scowl forming on his face. He knew Rozanov was a complete ass, but the team was acting like it was okay for him to be an ass to his kid. He really hoped they were just exaggerating.
Hayes glanced over, catching the scowl on Troy’s face. The goalie’s face hardened.
“You good, Barrett?”
“Yeah. Just didn’t realize Rozanov had a kid,” he muttered.
For some reason, that caused another round of laughter but nobody explained. Whatever. Troy wasn’t going to ask. It wasn’t his business or his problem.
The jokes and chirps continued for the next fifteen minutes, only quieting down as Rozanov neared the dressing room again. Troy could hear him, his voice getting louder as he approached, berating whoever was with him. Troy cringed again, hearing him. The rant was near-constant, only interrupted here or there by a softer voice. The voices paused just outside the locker room door.
“How stupid can you be, maloy? You may not be Canadian but you have lived with snow long enough. You don’t know how to walk on ice? Ridiculous. How do you think you can be successful here if you cannot even walk on ice? Last time I let you go to Starbucks on your own. Was it worth it? Now you will have to be grounded until you are better.”
“Yo, Roz!” Chouinard called to where the Russian had stopped in the partially opened doorway, one hand on the door as he turned to talk to where his kid stood somewhere behind him. “Lay off RJ.”
Rozanov whirled around, opening the door enough to poke his head in and scowl fiercely at the defenceman.
“Do I tell you how to parent, Chouinard? I didn’t think so. Just wait until your twins are old enough to make stupid choices.”
“I think he gets it, Roz,” Dykstra chimed in with a laugh. “He must be okay if you are laying into him like that. Leave the kid be.”
The room erupted into laughter again.
Rozanov levelled the entire room with a glare before huffing and turning to glance back at the kid in the hallway.
“Fine. Team saved you. Come sit. I will take you home after practice, unless you need to go home now?”
“Oh my god, Ilya. You are so fucking embarrassing,” a voice snapped out.
Troy choked on his water as a fully grown teenager shoved past Ilya into the room. His face was bright red, a scowl fiercer than Ilya’s on it as he stomped across the room. He slumped into the stall a few down from Ilya’s, flipping off a rookie across the room. That was Luca Haas, not a fucking child.
“I hate you all,” the rookie grumbled.
The chirping started up anew, but Troy noticed it wasn’t the jeering taunts that he was used to in the Toronto locker room.
Rozanov followed Haas across the room, shaking his head at the rookie, a fond smile on his face. An expression he never would have expected the Russian to be capable of. The expression hardened, though, as he made eye contact with Troy.
“Yes, Barrett? Something to say?”
Troy quickly shook his head, ducking his attention back to his gear bag to continue dressing for practice. The rest of the team settled back into their routines as well, mostly ignoring Troy. He was okay with it, though. It let him observe, mostly unnoticed.
He watched Rozanov. He noticed how the asshole exterior softened every time he talked to Haas. How he fussed over the tensor bandaging wrapping the rookie's wrist. How the fierce Russian captain disappeared and came back minutes later with painkillers and a gatorade. How Bood asked if ‘his kid’ was okay, and how Ilya’s face tightened with worry as he confirmed the rookie was fine and that medical just wanted him to rest the wrist for a day or two. How he grumbled and acted angry about the situation, but still dug out a spare hoodie for the kid to switch into when Rozanov realized that Haas’ was covered in coffee.
Yeah, Rozanov didn’t have a secret love child. But that kid was definitely his.