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"I am, again," the voice says over the phone, "so incredibly sorry about this."
"And I appreciate it," Svetlana says with less venom than she feels, which is a win for both of them in her book. "But you must understand: It is almost 10 PM, the car has dropped me off already, I am in heels, and the road is entirely flooded."
"I do understand," the voice—Larry? Lars? Luke? Says. "I very much do. I'm told it's a water main break, which means all of the townhouses are currently shut off from the supply and they don't have running water right now."
Svetlana says nothing, because silence is sometimes more effective than righteous anger. She listens to the echoes of furious typing coming over the line. Of course her townhouse doesn't have water right now if the main broke; what a silly and redundant thing to say. She briefly closes her eyes and ignores the urge to pace the sidewalk. She's been in these stupid fucking heels all day, had chosen this pair of stupid fucking heels because she had been seated all day, and they were not exactly meant for navigating more than the bare minimum of concrete.
Larry-Lars-Luke huffs into the receiver.
"Okay," he says finally. "Okay. It's a bit small, but I have a fully furnished two-story in Eagle Hill—"
"Absolutely not," she interrupts. "I work in Allston and I am in no mood to be woken up at 6 AM by jet engines."
"Of course." He is immediately cowed. "Yes, of course. Um. I do have one more furnished property, located in, um, Needham—"
"Hold, please," she snaps, the thought of commuting from Needham tipping her past patience. She mutes her receiver and opens her texts, scrolling through her latest couple messages. Nothing. She quickly navigates to her photos, opening an album titled «Idiot» and zooming in on her screenshot of the Raiders 2017-2018 schedule. She checks the date and sighs. She pats a section of her Jacquemus purse and, feeling the vague outline of her keychain, un-mutes the receiver and puts the phone back up to her ear.
"I've arranged my own accommodation. Please call the car back and I'll give the driver the address."
"Of course, of course, and we will gladly reimburse you for any expenses you incur."
"That won't be necessary," Svetlana says, suddenly tired. "I am going to stay with a family member."
—
It is almost 10:30 by the time she finally reaches Ilya's penthouse. The living area is dark but there's the faint outline of sneakers and a jacket near the entryway bench. She winces as she steps out of her heels, calves burning against the stretch, and pads into the kitchen for a glass of water. She deposits her purse onto one of Ilya's bar stools and makes quick work of some dates and cheese in the fridge before opening the bedroom door and slipping inside.
She has yet to meet an athlete who's not weird about sleep so of course Ilya's room is pitch black, his phone face down on the nightstand. Any ambient light from electronics or switches has long since been taped over. She dims her phone screen and uses that to navigate her way to the closet for a nightshirt and to the bathroom for her emergency toiletries. It has been so long since she's stayed over that her bag contains her summer products, and she scowls at Ilya's medicine cabinet as she looks for anything that might function as a barrier cream for her already stressed skin.
She finds nothing and so settles for double moisturizing and applying copious amounts of chapstick. If Ilya doesn't want his pillowcase stained, then he should buy a barrier cream. Easy solution. She brushes her teeth and plugs her phone in before turning the light off and padding over to the bed.
She's momentarily caught off guard. Ilya typically sleeps on the right but tonight he's sleeping on the left.
What a wonderful night of surprises, she thinks sarcastically.
He stirs briefly as she slips under the covers, his foot arching back to press against her shin as he huffs out a drowsy, inquisitive sound.
«It's just me, go back to sleep,» she murmurs, cupping the nape of his neck and sliding her fingers into his hair, stroking the thick, silky, straight? Short?
Wait.
«What,» she says, at the same time a voice that is not Ilya's says, "what—" and they're lurching away from each other. She stumbles to her feet, reaching for the lamp as something thuds somewhere in the dark. Her heart pounds in her chest as she fumbles for the switch with trembling fingers. Finally, finally, light fills the empty room and—
The empty room?
"Hello?" She calls out, voice unsteady, blood rushing in her ears. There's an agonizingly long pause before something opposite her rustles, and two hands slowly rise up from behind the side of the mattress, palms outward.
"I'm sorry," a shaky voice says. "I'm not— I didn't— I'm— I'm so sorry, oh my God."
"Oh my God," she echoes, as a sleep-rumpled Shane Hollander cautiously gets to his feet. "Oh my God."
"This isn't what it looks like," he pleads, hands still up like he's in a hostage situation. "I swear, it isn't—"
"Put your hands down, I'm not going to shoot you," she snaps, because of all the ridiculous things happening right now, that is somehow the most ridiculous and also borderline insulting.
He does, and as he does she takes in multiple things at once: There's an unfamiliar phone on the usually empty nightstand, an unfamiliar toiletry bag on the dresser against the far wall, and a neatly folded pile of clothes next to that. Space has been made in Ilya's room for this stuff. For Jane's stuff. Jane, who isn't really Jane, but is—
"You're Shane Hollander," she says at exactly the same time as he says, "that's Rozanov's shirt."
Silence. Hollander's face, somehow, blanches even more.
"Do you typically call your boyfriend by his last name," she says, "Jane?"
He winces bodily. She's unsure which part of her question hit him so hard.
"No," he finally says, his voice cracking with nerves. "Um. No. Are you, um—"
"Svetlana Vetrova," she says, straightening her shoulders and crossing her arms. "Good to finally meet you, I suppose."
He doesn't say it back. A tense silence stretches between them until he finally breaks.
"What are you doing here?"
"Oh," she says, louder than she means to, around an exasperated smile. "What am I doing here?"
"I—" His eyes flicker to the closed door, as if Ilya will suddenly walk through and save him. "Okay. Yeah, sorry. Uh. I— I meant the bed."
She blinks. "You meant the bed," she repeats slowly.
He nods, undeterred. "Yeah."
She doesn't answer. He shuffles his weight and clears his throat.
"Why were you in his bed," he clarifies, slightly more confident.
She cocks her head. "Is that any of your business?"
"It is, actually, yeah." He rubs at his bicep and then crosses his arms awkwardly, like he's trying something new on for size. A new what, she doesn't know, but it's charming in its fumbling relation to Ilya. "Why were you getting into his bed at—" he leans over to tap at his phone, "—almost 11 at night?"
"Well, it certainly wasn't a booty call," Svetlana says, irritated.
"I know," Hollander snaps, his voice tight. "He wouldn't do that to me."
Svetlana nods, something in her hind-brain appeased by his answer.
"Look," she sighs, because reeling in hot-headed hockey players is one thing she's very good at, "it's a long story and I've been on my feet all day, so we can either get back into bed—" Hollander physically takes a step back at that, "—or make some tea while we wait for the man of the hour to show up."
"Tea," he says quickly, like Svetlana knew he would. She smiles.
"Well, lead the way then, Hollander."
—
"I would like for you to know," she says as she rounds the couch, "that Ilya didn't know I was coming here."
"Okay," he says cautiously, taking the proffered mug. She sits down next to him.
"I was at a friend's birthday dinner and came home to my street flooded and my townhouse without water." She sips her tea. "I checked Ilya's schedule and thought he would be home and asleep by now, so I didn't bother texting and just came over."
Irritation flashes across Hollander's face. "You have his schedule?"
His public schedule, but he doesn't need to know that. "You don't?" She says innocently.
"Of course I do."
"Well, then, there you go." She doesn't owe him any more than that, but she loves Ilya more than she wants to antagonize Hollander right now, so she continues. "The company that manages my property couldn't place me anywhere, and I couldn't reach my house to get my things." Another sip. "I keep spare toiletries here, and it was closer than a hotel."
"Okay. I get that. I'm sorry that happened. But my question is— sorry, is this caffeine free?"
"Yes."
"My question is why were you getting into his bed."
She visibly rolls her eyes. "Have you ever slept in the guest bedroom?"
His mouth closes and opens and closes again, his cheeks flushing from pink to red. "I— um. No."
"It has pee pads on it."
"It— sorry—" He blinks and looks at the wall and then back at her, like he's trying to comprehend the words. "Do you mean like a…waterproof cover?"
"I mean that, and actual pee pads. Like for dogs." She makes a dismissive gesture with her hand. "It's where he throws his drunk teammates when they can't make it home. He had to replace the mattress twice his first year here, and now it's so waterproofed that it sounds and feels like you're laying on plastic grocery bags. It's a miserable night's sleep."
"Oh." The suspicion has fallen from his face, but he still looks irritated. She tries to tamp down the schadenfreude she feels about the discussion they'll have once she leaves.
"Anyway." She taps her phone. 11:22 PM. "What time does his plane land?"
"It was supposed to land five hours ago," he mutters into his tea. He takes a sip. "They— oh." He looks momentarily surprised. "This is good. Thanks."
"You're welcome."
"The plane had a mechanical failure and then the crew timed out so they had to find a new pilot." He pauses, like he's considering something, before clearing his throat. "Their charter's terrible. He texts me all the time complaining about it."
"Ah," she says, smiling, because she finds it cute despite herself— the Shane Hollander, needlessly jealous of her and asserting his claim over Ilya in the most passive-aggressive Canadian way. Well, she can throw him a bone. "Is this his excuse why the Raiders suck so bad this year?"
"The Raiders suck because their third line acts like every game is the first game they've ever played and they fumbled St Simon's UFA last year," he says with no hesitation. "And two years ago they traded Donahue mid-season and Billings in the off season for 2019 draft picks, which is insane."
"Wow. Now tell me what you really think," she teases. He frowns and ducks his head.
"Sorry. We, um, have pretty strict rules around talking about the other's team, so I don't actually get to say that to him." He thumbs the handle of his mug. "It frustrates me sometimes."
She nods. "Management got sloppy after the Cup win," she says. "Risky."
"Yes!" He gestures so forcefully that she's surprised his tea doesn't spill. "Risky. They're deciding things off of an image of Ilya's play style instead of looking at how precise and careful he was in 2014."
"Ilya's not the whole team, though," she teases, bringing the mug to her lips.
"He might as well be at this point," he grumbles. It sounds fond in its grumpiness, and she does not think about the warmth that blooms in her chest in response.
"I think we will have plenty to say to Ilya when he gets here," she says instead, setting her mug down on the coffee table. "So let's talk about the real hot mess: Jersey."
"Holy shit," he says, shaking his head. "We played them two weeks ago, and—"
—
Shane Hollander, as it turns out, is not a bad conversationalist once he gets past the shock of waking up to find his boyfriend's childhood friend in bed with him.
The conversation meanders from Jersey's terrible showing this year to Edmonton's GM's public butting of heads with their owner; from the Metros' own lackluster season start (quickly deflected) to the schedule that has almost all of the teams in the divisions facing a breakneck game pace. They talk briefly about Boston restaurants, and Svetlana graciously recommends a place that won't deliver them a soggy, cold meal, discovered through much trial and error.
By the time the whirring of the front door lock reaches their ears, Svetlana looks at her phone and realizes that it's 12:50 AM.
The door closes, followed by the heavy thud of a bag and clothes shuffling. Ilya goes quiet in the entryway, clocking the lights, and cautiously says, "Shane?"
"In here," Hollander replies, and Ilya rounds the corner into the living room, the look of vague confusion on his face shifting to wide-eyed horror as he sees both of them looking over their shoulders at him from the couch.
"Blyat," he says forcefully.
"Yeah, blyat," Hollander says, his face a storm cloud.
«Sveta.» He turns to her, desperate. «Listen, this is—»
"I know what it is," she continues in English. "Welcome home. You're in deep shit. Will you please go take that waterproof monstrosity off of the guest bed so I can sleep in peace?"
"I'll do it actually," Hollander says, his body a tense line as he stands and heads into the guest bedroom without looking at either of them.
Svetlana watches him go and sighs. «We were having such a good time, too.»
She looks back at Ilya and immediately has to stand up. His face is ashen, body stock-still and eyes locked on the door Hollander vanished into.
«Ilyusha,» she says gently, and he snaps back into focus. She crosses over to him and puts a hand on his arm. «I'm sorry. This is my fault.»
She feels his shoulders drop.
«Sveta. What is this? What happened?»
She repeats the story, the short version, smoothing over her gloating internal satisfaction at having solved this long-standing mystery and Hollander's cold fear and fury at being discovered. When she's finished, he presses the heels of his hands to his eyes and swears again.
«Fuck.»
«Yeah. Fuck.» She rubs his arm. «I've caused enough chaos for one day, so I'm going to set my alarm early and schedule my car for 7 so I can make it to work on time. Don't get up to see me out.»
He shakes his head. «No, I can—»
«As far as I'm concerned, this never happened. I'll be out before you both wake up and maybe you can convince Hollander that this was all a bad dream.»
"My name is the same in both languages, you know," Hollander says from the hallway. He still looks pissed off, but it's undercut by a heavy exhaustion. "The bed should be ready for you."
"Thank you," she says pleasantly, and ducks into the master suite to retriever her toiletries and phone. She emerges to see Ilya and Hollander hovering near the end of the hallway, Ilya with his hands jammed in his pockets and Hollander's arms crossed over his chest. She gives them her most polite tight-lipped smile and waves. "You won't see me in the morning. Very nice chatting with you."
"Good night," they say in English, barely out of sync. As she closes the door to the bedroom, she hears Hollander say:
"I missed you. Can we just go to bed?"
She doesn't hear Ilya's reply, but something in her chest loosens at the words.
His Jane is taking care of him now. She climbs into bed and falls asleep almost instantly.