Chapter Text
1. Montreal.The Club
Rose is a good dancer. Shane is not. He knows it, Rose knows it, and she drags him onto the dance floor anyway, because there's a photographer by the door, and the photographer needs Shane Hollander dancing with his girlfriend.
His girlfriend. Shane repeats it in his head a few times, like a drill, like a shot he needs to get right. Girlfriend. Mine.
Rose Landry is a movie star — smart, funny, the kind of woman who spent the night they met sitting alone in a booth eating fries and finished every single one. She's easy to be with. Everything about her is right. With her, he can walk down the street.
Then he sees Rozanov at the bar.
Boston is in town tonight; three hours ago Shane played against them and won in the last minute. But he didn't know Rozanov would come here — to this bar, of all the bars in Montreal.
Rozanov is leaning against the bar with a drink in his hand, in a black shirt unbuttoned one button lower than necessary. There's a blonde next to him. She says something in his ear, and Rozanov laughs with his head thrown back — loudly, too loudly. Shane knows that laugh. It's for an audience.
The blonde puts her hand on his arm, and Rozanov doesn't move it.
Shane steps on Rose's foot.
"Ow," says Rose.
"Sorry. Sorry, I—"
"It's fine." Rose studies him. "What are you looking at?"
"Nothing. The bar. There's a… line."
This isn't jealousy. Shane checks, the way he checks his laces before a game — slowly, one at a time.
Fact one: Rozanov has the right to talk to anyone he wants. Fact two: Rozanov has the right to laugh. Fact three: Shane is here with a girl himself, a girl who is holding his hand while the photographer by the door takes pictures.
Fact four is the worst one. Two weeks ago, Rozanov lay next to him in broad daylight in his apartment and said something quietly, for real, without his usual smirk — something that made everything inside Shane clench and made him want to run. And Shane ran. He got up, got dressed, said "I've got practice in the morning," and left without looking back.
So no, this isn't jealousy. How can you be jealous when you're here with a girl yourself? When you're the one who ran?
The blonde goes up on her toes and kisses Rozanov on the cheek. Rozanov turns his head and looks straight at Shane — across the entire dance floor, past Rose, past the photographer — for a long time. Then he turns away and puts his arm around her waist.
Shane squeezes Rose's hand so hard she says "ow" again.
That night he does everything right. He drives Rose home, says all the right things, and stays when she asks him to stay. And the whole time, he thinks about that undone button.
Toward morning, back at his own place, he stands under the shower until the water runs cold, furious — at Rozanov for the button, at the blonde for her hand, and most of all at himself.
That night Shane learns something about himself: it turns out he knows exactly how to be jealous. The only thing he doesn't have is the right.
2. Tampa
The All-Star Game is three days during which the best players in the league pretend to be friends. Shane has always found it torture, and this year the torture is special: he and Rozanov are on the same team.
They've barely talked since Montreal — a couple of texts, nothing important. And a week ago, at dinner, Rose looked at him across the table and asked if he was gay, as casually as if she were asking him to pass the salt, and Shane, to his own horror, couldn't say no. Now he and Rose are friends. She says it's the best breakup of her life.
When you're on the same team, everyone sits together on the bench, and everyone wants to sit next to Rozanov. The defenseman from Dallas tells him jokes, and Rozanov roars with laughter. The goalie from Vancouver taps his helmet. Someone leans across him to ask a question and rests a hand on his shoulder. Shane sits two guys down and stares at the ice with such concentration you'd think the playoffs were being decided out there.
After the game, the singer who did the anthem comes over — sparkly, in heels — and asks for a photo with Rozanov. Only with him, of course. She holds her phone out to Shane.
"Would you mind?"
"Of course," Shane says, and smiles his sponsor smile.
The singer presses a little closer to Rozanov than strictly necessary, and Rozanov puts an arm around her waist, because Rozanov always knows where the camera is. Shane takes one perfect shot.
"Done."
"Can we do one more?"
"We have to go."
Rozanov turns his head. Shane hands the phone back with a polite "Thanks, have a good night," and the singer thanks him and leaves.
Rozanov waits exactly until she's disappeared around the corner.
"We have to go?"
"Yes."
"The bus is in forty minutes."
"I know."
"Then where do we have to go?"
Shane looks at him. "I don't know. Somewhere."
Rozanov slowly smiles — not the smile from the photo, but a different one.
"Hollander."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Then stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like that."
The smile gets wider. "Right now you are like a little angry kitten."
"I'm not—"
"Very angry."
"I'm not angry."
"Of course."
"And I'm not a kitten."
"That is true. You are too scary."
Shane knows he's being made fun of. The worst part is that Rozanov looks happy — really, genuinely happy. Shane walks past him toward the locker room, and Rozanov follows.
"Hollander."
"What?"
"I like it."
Shane doesn't ask what. He already knows.
He makes it exactly as far as the equipment room. Somewhere, it turns out, is the equipment room. Shane stops, turns around, takes a fistful of Rozanov's All-Star jersey, and pulls him inside.
The door clicks shut. It's dark, it smells like tape and rubber, and Shane realizes, roughly two seconds too late, that he has no plan whatsoever.
"And now?" Rozanov asks, very interested.
"I don't know," Shane admits. "I didn't think this far."
Rozanov laughs, low and delighted, right against his mouth. "Look at you," he says, as if it's the best thing he has ever seen. "Little kitten. With claws."
Shane kisses him to shut him up. It doesn't work; Rozanov is smiling too much for it to work.
When they finally come up for air, Shane hears himself say it — fast, before he can take it back. "Come to the cottage this summer."
Rozanov goes completely still.
"There are no singers there," Shane adds, mostly to the jersey. "Only loons."
There's a long pause. Then Rozanov rests his forehead against Shane's and laughs again, softer this time.
"You were jealous of the woman who sings the anthem," he says, "and now you invite me to your cottage. Hollander. This is the best All-Star Game of my life."
3. The Lake
In July, Rozanov comes to the cottage with one duffel bag and a face that says he's ready to turn around and leave at any second.
For the first three days they barely leave the house. On the fourth day they run out of milk, which becomes a problem.
There's only one store near the cottage and only one cashier in it: a girl of about twenty in a local junior team T-shirt, who sees Rozanov for the first time in her life and instantly forgets how much milk costs. She rings up the milk twice and the cereal three times. Rozanov gives her the smile that breaks cash registers, signs her T-shirt with a marker she produces from under the counter, and asks where the best place to swim is.
"I could show you," says the cashier. "After my shift. There's this one spot…"
Shane silently puts his hand on the small of Rozanov's back.
He didn't decide to; his hand decided on its own. It's the first time he's done it in front of another person — not in the dark, not in a hotel room, not somewhere no one will see, but in a store, in daylight, next to the milk and a rack of fishing worms. His hand rests on the small of Ilya's back, and Shane feels him go still under it, all of him, as if he's stopped breathing.
"He's with me," Shane tells the cashier — politely, very politely, in the same tone he uses with reporters when he tells them, "We're just trying to play our game."
The cashier blushes to the roots of her hair and finally rings up the milk once.
In the parking lot, Shane discovers his hand is still in the same place. He only takes it away when they reach the car, and very slowly.
In the car, Rozanov is quiet for two whole minutes, which for him is a world record. Shane starts the engine, pulls onto the road, and waits for the joke. There's no joke.
Then Rozanov says, looking out the window, "Say it again."
"What?"
"'He's with me.'"
"No."
"Shane."
His own name, said like that, does something to Shane's hands on the wheel.
"He's with me," Shane tells the road, very quietly.
Rozanov turns toward the window, but Shane can see his reflection in the glass, and he will never forget that face.
This still isn't jealousy, Shane thinks. It's a clarification. For the cashier.
When they get back to the house, Rozanov asks again: "I am with you?"
"Shut up."
"Just clarifying."
Shane sets the milk on the table, turns around, and kisses him. The milk makes it into the fridge considerably later.
That night, on the dock, Rozanov brings it up again, because of course he does.
"You were jealous of a cashier."
"I was clarifying."
"You put your hand on me. In a store. Next to the worms." Rozanov sounds like he's describing a miracle. He's lying on his back on the warm boards, looking up at the stars, smiling so hard it looks like it hurts. "You know how long I waited for that?"
Shane does know. That's the problem.
"Eight years," Rozanov says anyway. "Eight years of hotel rooms. And then you do it next to the milk." He turns his head. "I am very proud of you."
"Of what?"
"Of you. My brave kitten."
Shane throws a towel at his face. Rozanov catches it, laughs, and keeps it, and somewhere across the lake a loon calls, and Shane thinks that maybe he could get used to this. To being seen. Just a little. Just next to the milk.
4. Ottawa.The Puppy
This season, the Centaurs get a puppy. Shane finds out the way the whole league does — on social media.
The puppy's name is Chiron. He's golden, with enormous paws and ears that live lives of their own, and he's officially the team mascot. Apparently someone in Ottawa decided that if hockey couldn't save the season, a puppy would.
In the first video, Ilya is sitting on the locker room floor while Chiron licks his face. In the second, he carries Chiron down the hallway like a baby, saying something to him in Russian. In the third, he's asleep on the couch in the players' lounge with the puppy curled up on his chest.
The third video has four million views. Shane watches it at two in the morning, in Montreal, under the covers like a teenager. Then he watches it again, and again.
There's a puppy on Ilya's chest, in front of everyone, in front of four million people. And in all these years, Shane hasn't appeared in a single photo with him — not counting the official ones, the handshakes where they're looking in opposite directions.
This isn't jealousy. Being jealous of a dog is below rock bottom. It's not even rock bottom; it's the basement under rock bottom.
He texts Ilya: Cute dog.
The reply comes a minute later: he is better than you. at 6 am he talks about squirrels, not protein. squirrels are more interesting
Shane doesn't answer. He turns off his phone, then turns it back on and watches the video again.
A week later, Montreal plays in Ottawa. After the game, in the hallway outside the locker rooms, Shane runs into Chiron face to face; someone from PR is walking him. Chiron looks at Shane. Shane looks at Chiron.
"You're not even that cute," Shane informs him.
Chiron wags his tail.
"And I'm not impressed."
Chiron licks his hand, and Shane gives up in about four seconds. By the time Ilya comes out of the locker room, Shane is crouched in the middle of the hallway with Chiron flopped belly-up in front of him.
Ilya stops, looks, and takes out his phone.
"Don't you dare," says Shane.
Click.
"Too late."
"Delete it."
"Never. It will be my lock screen."
"You already have a picture of me on your lock screen."
"Now it will be better. In this one you are happy."
Shane opens his mouth, then closes it. Chiron takes advantage of the moment and licks his hand again.
Being jealous of the puppy is no longer an option. The puppy, it turns out, is on his side.
5. Ottawa. Svetlana
Svetlana is beautiful. That's the first thing Shane understands about her, and it doesn't matter.
What matters is the second thing: she's known Ilya since they were kids. She knows what he was like at twelve, what he likes for breakfast, and which song he belted out drunk at somebody's wedding in Moscow. They haven't seen each other in years — Shane knows they barely spoke — but ten minutes into dinner, it feels like they said goodbye yesterday.
They speak Russian, fast, talking over each other and laughing at things Shane will never understand. Ilya, who picks his words carefully in English and sometimes mixes up his tenses, speaks Russian like someone has finally let him take his skates off. And Shane sits beside them with his glass and feels like a guest in his own life.
This is worse than the blonde at the bar, worse than the singer, worse than the puppy. Those he could compete with. Not Svetlana. She has twenty years, a whole country, and a whole language.
Shane stays quiet all through dinner, answering only when someone asks him something, and cuts his steak very evenly into identical pieces, as if with a ruler.
When Ilya steps out to take a call, Svetlana turns to him and props her chin on her hand.
"You hate me," she says, clearly delighted.
"No."
"A little."
"No."
"You are cutting your steak like it is me."
Shane looks down at his plate and puts down his knife. Svetlana laughs.
"Do you know what we talked about all evening?"
"No."
"You."
Shane looks up.
"In Russian, for two hours. How you eat oatmeal. How you weigh chicken on a kitchen scale. How you once made him throw away a pizza because it had 'empty calories.' How you fluff the pillows before bed. How you make that face when you are jealous."
"What face?"
"That one." She points at him. "He said you look like an angry kitten."
Shane opens his mouth, then closes it. "…Two hours?"
"Two hours and ten minutes," Svetlana clarifies. "The most boring evening of my life."
She sips her wine, and then her smile softens.
"He loves you very much."
Shane looks at the door Ilya disappeared through. "I know."
"Good." Svetlana picks up her glass again. "Then finish your steak. It did nothing wrong."
When Ilya comes back, Shane is finishing his steak, and Svetlana — in English now — is telling him about the time nine-year-old Ilya tried to cut his own bangs with kitchen scissors.
"Traitor," Ilya says in Russian.
That word Shane understands, no dictionary required.
At the end of the night, by the coat check, Shane gets to Ilya's scarf before Ilya does. He takes it off the hook and wraps it around Ilya's neck himself — slowly, thoroughly, twice around — tucks the ends into his coat, and smooths the collar flat, all while maintaining steady eye contact with Svetlana.
Ilya stands very still and lets him, with the expression of a man receiving a lifetime achievement award.
Svetlana watches the whole thing with her arms crossed. Then she says something to Ilya in Russian.
"What did she say?" Shane asks in the car.
Ilya is grinning at the windshield. "She said you are marking your territory."
Shane's hands tighten on the wheel. "I was not—"
"I told her yes," Ilya says comfortably. "I told her it is my favorite part."
6. Now
The new guy on the Centaurs — a twenty-one-year-old defenseman with a smile straight out of a toothpaste commercial — has been following Ilya around like a puppy since day one. He asks about Ilya's shot, about Russia, and about whether they could maybe practice together sometime.
"Just the two of us, after morning skate, if you have time, Captain."
Shane hears "just the two of us" from the other end of the locker room.
Facts. Shane is married. Shane is an adult. Shane is over thirty and has a ring, a joint mortgage, and a joint mattress they spent four hours choosing. The new guy is twenty-one, and he most likely just meant the shot.
Shane stands up, crosses the entire locker room, and sits down on the bench between Ilya and the new guy — where there's no room, so the new guy has to scoot over. Then he puts his hand on Ilya's knee.
"He's busy," Shane informs him politely. "After morning skate."
The new guy blinks. "Oh, I—"
"And before." Shane thinks for a second. "And in general."
The locker room goes very quiet. Bood is the first to crack.
"Is Hollander ovulating?"
The room explodes. Everyone's howling — even the new guy, uncertainly, even the strength coach in the doorway. Shane's ears are burning. He's already halfway to pulling his hand back, halfway to standing up, halfway to doing what he's done for fifteen years: retreat first, before anyone gets a chance to look too closely.
Then Ilya raises his hand — just raises it — and the laughter stops.
"You can laugh with him," Ilya says calmly. "Not at him."
In the silence that follows, the new guy looks like he came to ask about a shot and accidentally wandered into couples therapy.
"So what's with him?" he asks carefully. "Captain. Is he always like this?"
Ilya covers Shane's hand on his knee with his own. He looks at the new guy, then at Shane, and smiles.
"This is my angry kitten."
"Ilya."
"I like it when he is like this."
Shane wants to sink through the floor. Shane also wants this moment to never end. Honestly, he can't decide which he wants more.
By lunch, Bood has renamed the team group chat Defending His Zone 🐱. Shane doesn't leave it. He mutes it, which everyone agrees is basically a confession.
That evening at home, he sits silently over his plate for a long time.
"I don't know what came over me," he says at last.
"Of course."
"It wasn't jealousy."
"Of course."
"It was defending my zone."
"Of course."
"He said 'just the two of us.'"
"I heard." Ilya leans across the table and kisses his temple. "Eleven years I waited for you to make that face in front of everyone. Eleven years, Hollander. Don't you dare apologize."
Shane is quiet for a while. Then he puts down his fork.
"Fine."
Ilya waits.
"It was jealousy."
Ilya doesn't laugh. He just smiles, so wide that Shane immediately regrets handing him this weapon.
"Say it again."
"No."
"Shane."
"Don't start."
"One time."
"I was jealous."
"Very?"
Shane looks at him — at that completely self-satisfied face, at the man who for eleven years could say two sentences to him and make him forget his own name — and for the first time it occurs to him that the rules might work both ways.
He gets up from the table. Ilya follows him with his eyes as Shane steps closer and stops between his knees.
"Enough that the next time someone asks you to practice 'just the two of us,' you'll remember who's going to be taking your gear off afterward."
The smile vanishes from Ilya's face — not because he didn't like it, but the opposite. A flush starts somewhere at the collar of his T-shirt and slowly climbs upward, and Shane watches it with almost scientific interest.
"Oh," he says.
"Shut up."
"You're blushing."
"No."
"Ilya."
"It is very hot in here."
"Of course."
Shane puts his palm on the back of Ilya's neck, and now his ears are red too. It's so delightful that for a few seconds Shane forgets about everything else. Ilya Rozanov — the man who flirted with him in front of entire arenas, undressed him with a single look across a banquet hall, and once got him so worked up that Shane forgot his own room number — is blushing. Because of him.
"You like this," Ilya says accusingly.
"Very much."
"Angry kitten."
"Keep going, and dinner stays on the table till morning."
Ilya goes quiet, and Shane smiles. Turns out you can win this one too.
The next day, the new guy asks Shane to show him his shot. "Just the two of us, after morning skate, if you have time."
Shane only manages to open his mouth before Ilya, somewhere behind him, makes a sound suspiciously like a hiss.
Shane turns around. "What?"
"Nothing."
"This isn't jealousy?"
"Of course not."
Shane smiles. Now he definitely knows that face.