Chapter Text
When they played Boston, everyone watched Hollander’s reaction. Rivals on ice, high tensions, fights. It was convenient for Hayden Pike. Montreal fans were too focused on Hollander facing his rival, so no one watched Hayden’s eyes dancing, frantically bouncing between the sweat on Shane’s neck, the puck passed between them, and the luscious ferocity of Ilya Rozanov’s eyes.
Boston games were electric. Everything turned to a hundred: the fans’ screams, the team’s synchronicity, and both captains were always a little more “on.” Hayden liked winning, but, if he had to lose, at least Boston gave him the benefit of seeing Shane breathless, eyes heavy with desire. At least Boston let him pass through the hallway, Rozanov’s jersey peeled off, his sweat glistening as he answered the usual boring questions from the usual nice enough reporters.
He kept this part of himself for himself.
It wasn’t shame, exactly. He’d been in locker rooms with men for the better part of his life. It was never anything, really. He’d see bodies, wet hair, and private parts in less than private displays with little to no thought. He’d also been in locker rooms with Shane Hollander since their teen years. His eyes lingered, tracing over the muscles in his shoulders, the arch in his back leading down to the ass made round from years of training. He liked Shane’s hands, littered with little scars from skates and youthful missteps. He’d also liked watching Shane’s body change as they went from 18-year-old rookies to grown men with filled out bodies and rounded arms.
It had been instant with Shane. Kismet. They met after they were both drafted to Montreal, and it was like they’d always known each other. Had Hayden been older, had it been now, it would have scared him. Instead, he’d been eighteen, stupid, and drunk on something he called friendship. They navigated their rookie year together, taking each step and misstep together. For a while it was like the rest of the team didn’t even exist—he’d pass the puck to his center, his center would score, and the whole world would revolve around Shane Hollander for a moment.
His friendship with Shane didn’t strike him as odd, not at first. Some older guys on the team—domestic types, families, wives—joked that the two of them were a bonded pair. They sat next to each other on planes and buses. On more than one overnight Shane or Hayden fell asleep, their head resting on the other’s shoulder. Hayden liked how safe he felt next to Shane. He didn’t need the limelight or the accolades. He liked them, but he didn’t mind being supportive to a real star. He knew Shane was that from the beginning, a rare combination of skill, strategy, and focus wrapped up in a beautiful package. So, he didn’t think anything of it until a couple seasons later.
Boston was always brutal. The rivalry stretched back decades, and, as the league hyped up the Rozanov/Hollander feud, tensions ran high. A few misplaced hockey sticks, some tripping, Hayden found himself rammed against the wall of the rink, Rozanov’s forearm digging into his clavicle. Hayden was short for the league and Rozanov was tall, and he tried to wriggle himself free from the giant Russian’s arm. “Fuck are you doing, Pike? Are you so bored with assists you now choose violence? Is that it?” Rozanov spat on the ice next to his skates. “If you want my attention, just ask.” The ref pulled Rozanov off him, and Hayden’s heart raced.
He'd felt like this before, on buses and planes, in locker rooms, in hotel rooms. But if he felt it while the most notorious dick in the league screamed in his face, what did that mean when he felt it with Shane?
That night after a close win, Shane abandoned him for Boston Lily. He never asked and Shane never offered. He gave him a polite wave and watched him walk away, arms testing the boundaries of his hoodie, hat pulled over his ears, freckles painting his neck. When the door clicked, Hayden slammed down on the bed and put his hands on his face. He felt stupid, naked. Had it just been admiration? Had they just been friends? He thought of how Shane’s lips looked as he dangled a pen from his mouth and how it’d always made his throat tight. He thought of the anger in Rozanov’s eyes, the soft fall of his cheeks down to the soft, fullness of his lips, then dancing as he screamed in Hayden’s face. Both made his eyes widen and his gaze soften.
He thought about leaving the hotel, finding a bar and a stranger. Instead, he went to the hotel shower and jerked off to the image of his best friend and the worst man in hockey, and he went to sleep more confused than he’d ever been.
When they got back to Montreal, JJ successfully convinced Shane to go out, and they joined a small cadre of their teammates in a dark club. He hung back from the crowd, watching Shane nurse a vodka soda as he drank a beer between shots. Shane looked good in this light, the strobes and beams crossing over his face, highlighting each curve and valley. JJ grabbed them each by the forearms, “Boys, did we come to stand?”
So, Hayden and Shane joined their team on the dance floor. He watched Shane’s feet fail to find a rhythm and laughed. Shane shook his head, rolling his eyes as his wrist attempted to groove. Then a woman walked up to Shane, arm on his shoulder, then his arm, then his chest. Hayden downed his beer and grabbed a shot from the table JJ had arranged for them. The woman faced away from Shane, her body writhing in front of him. Hayden drank the shot and then another, before going to the dance floor.
He wanted to dance with someone, anyone. Then he saw her: long, dark hair, tight, corseted top, and black skinny jeans. He walked over to the bar, leaning over it to show off his own well-earned muscles. She looked him up and down and was polite enough to pretend she didn’t notice him notice. “What are you drinking?” He asked.
“Are you thirsty?” She asked back.
“You seem like you’ve got good taste.”
She shrugged. “Scotch, on the rocks.”
“In a club?” Hayden asked. The woman laughed, white teeth beneath burgundy lips.
“What do you drink in clubs?”
“Beer, or whatever’s cheap, or a tequila shot,” he said. The woman smirked at him. “Hey, you may be classy, but we’re both here.”
“Touche.”
“Do you want to drink or to dance?”
“Are those my only two options?” She asked.
“No, but I don’t think either is bad,” he said. She gave him her hand, letting him lead her away.
Their bodies melted together, dancing, letting the smoke fall over them in waves. His hands found her waist, hers found his neck, and before Hayden could look over to see if Shane noticed, he was kissing a beautiful stranger. They danced, made out, and he followed her, hand-in-hand, to her apartment. The next morning, as he got dressed, she handed him a coke and an Advil. “I’m Jackie, by the way.”
“Hayden Pike,” he said, taking the drink and pills in one hand, and offering to shake her hand with the other.
She was also 21, finishing her undergrad at a local university. In daylight she had beautiful green eyes, bright skin, and a kind smile. Most importantly, he didn’t think about Shane or Rozanov when he was with her. So, six months later, he bought a ring, asked her to marry him, and they had a grand hockey wedding where she looked a mystical type of beautiful, and Hayden almost didn’t notice how handsome Shane looked standing beside him at the altar.
It became easier with time and, perhaps more importantly, with Jackie. She was as beautiful as the night he met her, kinder than she needed to be, and stern as she had to be. Hayden hadn’t been the most irresponsible hockey player he knew, but Jackie ran their lives like the navy. When she found out she was pregnant only six months after their nuptials, they both laughed and cried. Once they decided they were having the baby, Jackie kissed him on the forehead and took over the wheel once again.
Jackie had their twins. Shane won awards. Montreal got stronger as a team. It felt normal again, at least a bit. Sometimes his throat still tensed, sometimes his eyes lingered. He did his best to push down those feelings. He developed a rhythm for himself. His eyes traced down Shane’s back, he imagined Jackie’s back, taut and flexing from her Pilates practice. He got lost in Shane’s eyes, he drew back to being wrapped up with Jackie on the back porch, her eyes sparkling in the firelight. Shane was his best friend. Jackie was the love of his life.
A year later, Jackie got pregnant again. Their girls couldn’t fully grasp the news, but the team did. He got a hundred hugs and slaps on the back, but mostly he got congratulations on managing to not only find a beautiful, kind woman, but one who would put up with him continually getting her pregnant.
In the locker room before Boston matches, everyone shit talks Rozanov and the rest of his team. Hayden didn’t mind speaking his mind. “I fucking hate Rozanov, man. He’s always an arrogant dick.”
“Yeah, he’s such an asshole,” Shane replied.
“Do not worry, boys. Tonight, we will fuck Rozanov so loud all of Boston will hear,” JJ shouted.
Hayden focused on the game, as much as he could. Ilya’s curls peeking out the bottom of his helmet were distracting; so was watching Shane’s footwork on the ice. When Rozanov chirped at him, Hayden yelled back. Sometimes he wondered how the mouth that screamed obscenities at him tasted.
These things haunted him in the quiet parts of night. He closed his eyes and practiced shoving them out of his mind. He felt desire, but he also felt guilt, deep in his bones. He loved his life. He loved his children. He loved his wife. There hadn’t been anything like this before Shane, and he didn’t even realize it could be attraction until he’d felt the same thing for that dickhead Rozanov.
But 2015? 2015 was good. Jackie had their first son, a blonde little muppet they called Arthur. Montreal won the Cup. On his day with it, Jackie helped him make an ice cream sundae, and their perfect little family ate out of it as they watched cartoons. Jackie reached a hand out over their girls’ laps, their son sleeping in the baby wrap on her chest. He pulled her hand to his lip to kiss it, and Ruby whined as he blocked her view of the TV.
He teased Shane about his love life, mostly in jest but a small part of it was done selfishly. He wanted Shane to be partnered off. He knew Shane was straight and Shane, at his core, was a good man, so even if he wasn’t it wasn’t like anything would ever happen. Maybe Hayden just wanted the parts of him that longed for Shane to die off, and maybe he thought seeing Shane with a woman in his arms would do that. He did notice there had been a lightness to Shane the last couple years. He couldn’t name any big changes in Shane’s life, other than the ever-present texting of Boston Lily. Maybe she’d be the one.
In 2016, they won the cup again. Hayden hugged his teammates and looked up at the stands to see Jackie’s arms wrapped around another WAG, jumping. Shane handed the cup off to him and he handed it off again in quick succession. He put his hands on the side of Shane’s face, sweat on his hair. “Two consecutive cup wins,” he said. “We fucking did it!” Shane’s smile stretched his entire face, and Hayden’s eyes wettened. As the families came down to celebrate, he played it off as the overwhelming joy of the moment. Jackie came down arm in arm with the other WAG, letting go of it only at the last minute to hug Hayden. He closed his eyes, hoping the tears looked like sweat, as he hugged his perfect, beautiful wife, and wished for just a day she could be his perfect, beautiful captain.
Sometime after the cup win, paired glasses of scotch and Jackie’s brother babysitting gave them a little gift to be delivered in April. Jackie gave him no fanfare with the test, handing it over to him with his coffee. “Oh shit,” he said.
Jackie nodded. “Your mutant sperm has struck again.”
“I thought we were careful.”
“I’m careful in every single part of my life,” she said, sipping, “except with you.”
“A family of six?” Hayden laughed.
Shane was distracted when Hayden told him the good news, and Hayden chose to assume he just had a lot on his mind with the pre-season and the team’s hope for a threepeat looming above them. Jackie’s girlfriend from the WAG group was over all the time. Shane and Hayden hung out where they could.
Shane was fiercely focused that season. He usually only wandered off in Boston, where he’d leave Hayden for Boston Lily. Hayden didn’t mind, enjoying the little alone time he had. When Shane didn’t come back to the hotel that night, he didn’t concern himself. Shane was a big boy, and maybe Lily would make an honest man out of him. Not that Shane had ever been anything other than honest. In the seven years they’d known each other, he’d never known Shane to lie or cheat. He rarely even chirped. He was their perfect captain. Other than his weird diet, he may have been the perfect man.
Shane came back around lunch time rattled. When Hayden asked what was going on, Shane dismissed him, muttering about the game. It was a terrible match. Shane was in a terrible mood the whole flight home, quiet even for him. More than once, Hayden wanted to reach a hand out to him and bring his friend back down to earth, to comfort the man he loved more than almost anyone else in the world.
He noticed what rest of the team didn’t. When JJ drug them out to a bar, and Shane met Rose Landry, the rest of the team laughed and poked fun at him. Hayden told himself Shane was happy, and that should have been good enough, but it wasn’t, nor did he know why. Rose was charming at dinners with Jackie and appropriately oohed and ahhed over their growing family. Shane’s eyes glossed over like they did when he was elsewhere, mind riddled with the anxiety that plagued him. Had they been at work or traveling, he’d have put a hand on his buddy’s shoulder, breathed him back to reality. Instead, he drank his soda, smiled at his pretty wife, and laughed at all the jokes his best friend’s new girlfriend made.
Scarcely a month later, Shane told him he and Rose had broken up. Hayden hadn’t been surprised. As much as he’d like Shane to have his own Jackie, he didn’t want it like he’d seen Shane with Rose. He couldn’t quite place it. Shane liked Rose and could talk about her for hours. He also seemed happy whenever he and Rose hung out and played better when she came to games. It was just missing something. Affection, sure, but nothing like love.
Hayden watched the All-Star game from home. Jackie balanced a bowl of chips on her stomach as they watched Rozanov plant a fat kiss on Shane’s face. Hayden’s face contorted. It was something like jealousy and disgusted, intermingled. His throat grew tight again, and he imagined himself as Shane’s helmet, wrapped around Shane and so close to Rozanov. Jackie laughed beside him. “What?” He asked.
“Your boy Rozy is making moves on your man.”
He rolled his eyes. “Shane isn’t my man. He’s…”
Jackie turned her head toward Hayden and put a hand out. He took it and she brought it to her lips and then to her belly. “Shane is whatever he is, and I am your wife and the mother of your children.” She groaned and adjusted her hip. “This baby is looking to be my least favorite though.”
“Vasectomy is scheduled for July 15th,” he said.
“And thank God for that.”
The rest of the season went okay, but not well enough. Hayden knew earlier than his teammates that they weren’t making it to the finals, but he barely cared. Since the All-Star game, Shane felt lighter, joy came back to his eyes. Hayden could deal with however disappointing the playoffs were going to be.
Shane was in rare form before the Boston game. Hayden didn’t even fight the feelings as they arose within him. He didn’t picture Jackie’s body in lieu of Shane’s. He didn’t place her eyes over his. He didn’t even hate when the same feeling struck as he passed Rozanov in the hallway before the game. He could deal with his desire later, punish himself and try to train himself not to feel it at a different time. He was just happy Shane was Shane-ing. His boy was back.
The game went well. Shane had Rozanov fighting for his life. Then, in the neutral zone, Shane uncharacteristically looked back at Rozanov. He didn’t see Cliff Marlow skating toward him, nor could he maneuver away from the hit. Hayden’s heart shattered in his chest as Shane hit the ice, the thud echoing through the arena. The match paused and he raced to Shane, still lying on his side, not moving. The heat in his neck flew to his ears, and as soon as medics reached Shane, Hayden pushed Rozanov aside, fists flying at Marlow. Two refs had to pull them apart, Hayden throwing punches blindly at his opponent. His ears rang, and, in the penalty box, he panted. His whole team looked worried as Shane was carted away. He looked at Marlow, nose bleeding in the corner getting patched up. Then he looked at Rozanov. Those beautiful blue eyes were frantic, and if Hayden didn’t know better, he’d think he was concerned. He spat on the ice. Maybe there’d been some respect formed through the rivalry. More likely, Rozanov wished he’d been the one to knock Shane out of the game.
In the end, it had been a concussion and broken collarbone. Shane was out for the season, but he’d be fine, come September. He didn’t come out when Amber was born, and he watched the playoffs from his parents’ house in Ottawa. Jackie and the baby were the best distraction. He managed the three older kids, Jackie took care of little Amber, and they waited out the playoffs with as much normalcy as possible.
At least they did until the finals.
The two of them were at home watching the game. After years of disappointment, New York and Scott Hunter had finally pulled it off and won the cup. Jackie ate popcorn. “He deserved a win,” she said.
“Should have been Montreal.”
“Don’t be greedy,” she said. “Besides, Montreal isn’t doing shit without your man.” Hayden glared at Jackie, now laughing with each bite.
When the families walked onto the ice and Hunter handed off the cup, he looked up at the stands. The announcers mumbled something about a fan, and Hayden crossed his arms, reading messaged in the Montreal group chat. Jackie sat up and Hayden turned his eyes back to the TV.
A man had walked from the top of the stands down to the ice. Hunter had helped him over, and the pair made their way toward the center. “What’s he doing?” Hayden asked.
“He can’t be,” Jackie mumbled.
“He can’t what?” Before Jackie could answer him, Scott Hunter kissed the stranger, both hands on his face, beards mingling in the ice.
“Holy shit,” Jackie said.
“Holy shit. Can he do that?”
“Do what?” Jackie asked. “Be gay?”
“No, that’s not,” Hayden paused. His throat grew hot and his heart fell into his stomach. Scott Hunter played hockey and was kissing a man. Hayden didn’t even consider that to be an option. Men don’t kiss in hockey. They aren’t gay or bi or whatever. Whatever confusing feelings they had, they had privately, in their own heads, hearts, and bodies. How can Scott Hunter just kiss a man? Was this always a possibility? Were men always allowed to kiss each other, to pull each other’s bodies in closer? He imagined Shane in a towel, clean from the showers, the water wicking off his back, dripping down from his hair. Could he have put a hand out? Could they have been 19 and frantic, kissing in a locker room? Could the shared rooms have been a hideaway? Would any of it even matter if Shane wasn’t gay? Why did any of it matter, Hayden wasn’t gay. There was only Shane. Shane and the stupid beauty of a dickhead with a dumb accent. That was just lust though. But Shane?
“Babe,” Jackie said.
“Sorry, what?” He turned to Jackie blinking his eyes.
Jackie opened her mouth and then closed it, slumping back onto the couch. Hayden looked away from his wife. He was leaning over, elbows on his knees. Jackie put her arms around him and pulled him down into her lap. She stroked his hair as they watched the after-game interviews. Hayden’s phone buzzed constantly, and he didn’t check it once.
On July 15th he got his vasectomy. On July 16th he sat on the couch, ice pack on his balls. He picked up the phone and called Shane. The phone call was stilted, and Shane sounded distracted. Hayden swallowed, trying to keep it light. What would he even say to Shane? Scott Hunter is gay, have you ever considered dabbling? Don’t mind the wife! But he rambled on, talking about the baby and Jackie’s recovery, and how Mark was helping out with the older ones while Hayden was decommissioned. Shane didn’t sound like himself though, at one point letting out a strange sound Hayden almost confused for a moan. He ended the call unsatisfied, balls hurting, chest aching.
Why didn’t Scott Hunter do this in 2008? The man was ancient and people were coming around on the whole gay thing. But if he had, would he have Jackie? Or his kids? He closed his eyes, and images of both Shane and Jackie flew through his mind. He fucking loved his wife. She was too good for him in every way, smarter than him, more beautiful than him, kinder than him. He was so lucky to have her. But he’d never gotten to have Shane. His best friend. The closest person in his life besides Jackie, but he didn’t know how Shane looked with the moonlight dancing on his face amidst ecstasy. He didn’t know how Shane’s body moved with another man’s on top of it. Was his gay fantasy version of Shane a bottom? Would a hockey captain even be a bottom? Hayden couldn’t imagine himself beneath anyone, but even that was false because he could imagine himself on his stomach, Rozanov behind him.
Fucking hell.
The summer was boring. They took care of the kids and the baby. The only shocking hockey news was Rozanov’s transfer to Ottawa. It would be a good season. It had to be.
A couple weeks before the season started, Shane called Hayden. “Long time no see stranger,” Hayden said. “All ready?”
“I am,” Shane said.
“Did you have a good summer?” Shane paused, and Hayden panicked over what it could mean.
“I did,” he said, finally breaking the tension. “I wanted to tell you something before we go back.”
Hayden tensed up again. “Sure, bud. What’s going on?”
He heard Shane cough on the line and Hayden’s mind raced with a million and one possibilities. Shane sighed. “I’m planning on telling everyone once pre-season begins, but I wanted to tell you first.”
“Are you pregnant? Because we will support you in whatever way you need,” Hayden said.
“Fuck off, I’m serious.”
“Of course, so sorry. Continue.”
Shane sighed again. Hayden could picture him, standing straight up, thumb hanging in his pocket. “I’m gay.”
If Hayden’s heart were glass, it would have shattered. His throat ran hot, his face went cold, and for a moment he felt so nauseous he thought he was going to throw up all over the new deck in the back yard.
“Hayden. Say something. Please.”
Hayden didn’t know what to say, so he said, “Is it because of Scott Hunter?”
“What? No, I,” Shaned sighed. “I mean, yes, kind of, but no. Not the being gay part. That predates Scott Hunter. But the telling you and telling other people part, yes.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
“Okay,” Hayden said. “Okay, you’re gay.” Fuck. Shane was gay. He was beautiful, perfect, his very best friend, the best goddamn hockey player in the world, and gay. Fuck. Why was he fucking gay now? Fuck why are all the hockey players gay at the wrong time?
“Is… is that it?”
Hayden sighed. “I’m gonna be honest, Hollander, I’m more shocked than anything.”
“You’re not the only one,” he said.
“Who all knows?” Hayden asked, but he didn’t want the answer. Any number greater than 2 would probably crack his heart down the center, even easier now with the ruptures pulsing at the news.
“My parents. Rose Landry. A couple guys I hooked up with I assume know, and,” Shane paused again. Hayden closed his eyes, waiting for whatever shoe was going to drop. “my boyfriend knows.”
A boyfriend.
A man was kissing Shane Hollander. Making love to Shane Hollander. A man watched Shane Hollander shower, watched his body tense and twitch. A man pleased and was pleasured by Shane Hollander.
No one in the world was worthy of him. Would anyone in the world even understand him? Shane, the perfect, handsome man riddled with anxiety, who had to eat his food a certain way and only liked 3 of the forks in the Pike household? Shane with his perfect face, his perfect body, his scarred hands and freckled neck. He had a boyfriend. Did he love him? Was he loved in return?
“Hayden, I,” Shane’s words shocked Hayden back to reality.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said. “Thank you for trusting me. Fuck dude. That must have been so scary.” That part was true. He’d only known his fear and he had the alibi of the world’s most beautiful woman and their gaggle of children to hide behind. What was it like for Shane doing it alone?
“I think part of me wanted to tell people, but it was just too much. Too much was on the line.”
“But now?” Hayden asked. He didn’t ask if it was the boyfriend. Was he so in love that he had to tell the world? If it could be some man he met in the last year, why couldn’t he have told Hayden earlier? When it could have mattered?
“I’m in love, and I want to be in love. I don’t want to hide every part of myself.”
Love. For now, he put that word in a box and packed it away in his mind. Now he would be the friend. Tomorrow would be the time for everything else. “So, you’re telling the team?”
“I am, when the season starts, but it didn’t feel right to tell you with everyone else. You’re not just my teammate,” Shane paused. Hayden imagined a hundred different phrases after that. He wasn’t his teammate, he was what? His best friend? His soulmate? His platonic life partner? The man he should run away with? The most important man in his life? “You’re my best friend, Hayd. I should have told you a long time ago. I was just so scared, but I’m tired of being scared all the time.”
“Of course,” he said. He wondered if Shane could hear his voice crack. “Whatever you need man. I’ve got you.”
“Thank you. That means a lot.”
“Oh, I think Jackie needs me. But I’ll see you in a couple weeks, yeah?”
“Yeah, of course. Thank you again,” Shane said.
When Hayden hung up, he placed the phone face down on the railing. He placed both hands in front of him, leaning into it. He hung his head and in the first time in years, he sobbed. He cried heavy, aching tears until his breath caught in his throat. He thanked whatever gods existed that Jackie and the kids were out with his parents because snot ran down his face, he coughed with each trying breath. Shane Hollander was fucking gay, and Hayden Pike was married with four children with a wife he fucking loved and sobbing over a life he’d never have.
He eventually moved to the ground, his back against the back wall, knees curled into his chest. He didn’t know how long he sat out there crying, but the sun moved across the sky, and eventually tears stopped, only to be replaced with a chafed face and burning headache. He leaned his head back against the wall and watched the sunset, the miraculous pinks and blues mixing into an almost lavender. Maybe he should take all his hatred for Ilya Rozanov and give it to Scott Hunter, the geriatric asshole whose cowardice enabled every wall to remain up and every heart to remain untouched. Scott Hunter was hot too, but it never elicited the same feelings in him as he had with Shane or, begrudgingly, Rozanov.
He was only twenty-seven years old, and somehow he felt like he’d missed out on an entire life because he was too afraid to ask the question. What would have happened if he had? Maybe Shane would have rejected him anyway. Maybe he’d get a pity fuck out of Rozanov who’d mock him the whole time for getting hard for someone he hated. None of that mattered though, not really. He didn’t live those lives. He lived this one.
After he and Jackie put the kids to bed, he joined her in the kitchen. He leaned on their counter as she dried a plate. He chewed the words in his mouth until the inside of his lip bled. Jackie rambled about the day at the zoo, and Hayden felt even worse, crying while his wife and children formed core memories. His head hung as he said, “Shane’s gay.”
“What’s that?” Jackie asked, drying a dish.
“Shane’s gay,” he said, louder. He didn’t look up to see Jackie pause, her hands frozen on the dish.
“Why do you say that?” She put it down on the counter, walking toward her husband.
“He called today. Said he’s going to come out to the team but thought he should tell me first.” Hayden didn’t look up, his gaze still resting on his bouncing leg.
His wife sat down on the barstool next to him. She placed a hand on his bicep. “How are you feeing?”
He sighed and looked up at her. “Surprised, mostly.” She made a face. “What?”
“Nothing!” She said. “It’s not my place.”
He gestured around them. “No one where in the world is more your place.”
“That’s not,” she paused. “You never thought Shane could be gay?”
“No! Why would I?” He shook his head before looking back at her. She had the same expression she wore when explaining why they couldn’t logistically get two dogs or why the girls couldn’t have cake for dinner. “What? Did you think he was gay?”
“I mean, it was certainly an option. I thought it was a possibility for years, and then after we met Rose it was all but nailed down for me.”
Hayden felt even more stupid. Of course his wife would notice things he hadn’t. If he wasn’t a mess, he’d be grateful he married someone so much smarter than he was. “He said only four people know, six now, I guess,” he gestured between them. “His parents, Rose Landry and,” his voice trailed off. Jackie looked at him, doe eyed, quiet. He coughed and sat up straighter. “And his boyfriend.”
Jackie nodded, her thumb rubbing against Hayden’s forearm. “That’s a lot of information for one day.”
He laughed and pushed every feeling into a box. “It is, but, hey, now I get to know a fancy secret before the rest of the team!” He hoped his smile didn’t crack or shudder. He breathed shallow breaths. “And maybe we can double date with this mystery man at some point.”
“That would be nice,” Jackie said. “I know you’ve always wanted Shane to be happy.”
“Of course, he’s my best friend.”
“And I know you’ve tried to set him up with multiple friends of mine.”
“You’re wonderful and have wonderful friends,” he said.
Jackie smiled and sighed. “I’m going to get ready for bed. Do you want me to run you a bath?” He nodded, and his wife stood up. She pulled his head into her chest and he wrapped his arms around her waist. She breathed deeply and his own breath marched in sync with hers. They stayed there for a while, breathing, heartbeats mingling. She put her hands on either side of his face and leaned down to kiss him. She tasted like cinnamon and honey.
When Shane told the team, Hayden stood behind him, hands at his waist. He watched the entire room, prepared to fight whoever wanted to give their captain shit. Fortunately for Shane and the team, people were supportive. Curious, sure, but otherwise unbothered. Hayden breathed for the first time in weeks, he was more tightly wound than Shane had been. One of the only older players from their rookie days cracked a joke, “So, Pike, you finally gonna make an honest man out of Hollander?”
Everyone laughed, and Shane clasped a hand on Hayden’s shoulder. “Do you really think I could take Jackie in a fight?”
It made it all almost normal. They practiced. They played games. Hayden poked and prodded, trying to learn more about this mysterious boyfriend. He constantly dreamt up different scenarios about how they met, what he was like. Sometimes Hayden imagined him pretty, clean shaven, what was the word, a twink? Other times he thought Shane had found a big, burly Quebecois guy, a chance encounter in the city leading to more. Maybe it had been a nurse or doctor when he got injured. He never imagined Shane’s boyfriend as anything less than stunning.
In November, car trouble led to carpooling. Hayden was grateful, four kids were expensive and he enjoyed being chauffeured from time to time. He didn’t mind following Shane’s schedule, arriving early and staying late. He liked seeing this side of Shane, and the worst parts of him were happy he had access to parts of Shane his boyfriend would never get. His boyfriend wouldn’t ever truly understand Shane’s love of hockey or his dedication to the sport. How could anyone unless they were also in the thick of it? And even then, they would need to perform at Shane’s level, which almost no one did.
So, this was his. These parts he kept greedily for himself.
After a long practice, they stayed behind in the team sauna. The teammates filed out one by one until just the pair of them remained. They finished sweating, then showered. In the locker room, they gathered their things, and Shane roughly dried his hair with a towel. “You’re going to catch a cold with hair that long,” Hayden said.
“Jesus, are you, my mother, and my boyfriend in a group chat?”
“You’re well loved,” he replied. “You still haven’t told me about the boyfriend though.”
Shane’s movements slowed down, they often did when he had to make hard decisions. Life wasn’t hockey, and Shane lacked the killer instinct off the ice. Hayden tied his shoes and waited, like he usually did. It was the only way to get anything out of Shane. “I just don’t want it to be a big deal, and I think it would be.”
“A big deal?” Hayden laughed. “You’ve already told us you’re gay.”
Shane laughed and avoided Hayden’s gaze. “Sometimes I think being gay is the least of my worries.” Hayden raised an eyebrow. Being gay was the hard part, he thought. What would make being gay more complicated? Shane shook his head. “I just don’t know if you’d be so eager to know if you knew what you were asking.”
Hayden sighed. He knew what he was asking. He wanted to know who was so important to Shane that he’d risk his career. He wanted to know who made his best friend so happy. He wanted to know who would be the quiet object of envy for the rest of his life. “It can’t be that bad.”
“You say that now,” Shane laughed. He folded his lips together, and Hayden let his eyes linger on them.
He thought it over in his head. Who could possibly illicit that sort of reaction? Hayden wasn’t a big fighter, nor was he an especially catty guy. He didn’t have any big rivalries in the league. The only person who ever got under his skin was Rozanov. Rozanov with his cutting remarks and quick feet. Rozanov with those curls and those eyes. Rozanov who lit fires in him he indulged and blanketed in equal measure. “I mean, it’s not like you’re fucking Rozanov,” he said. “Can you imagine? The effigies in Montreal would all have your face.”
He grabbed his coat off the hook before looking at Shane, now tight lipped and blushing.
Oh no. Oh no. Not fucking Rozanov. Please, anyone but Rozanov. He willed Shane’s mouth closed, but his captain looked around, and once he was certain the locker room was empty, everything flooded out.
Hayden listened and nodded. For a moment, he wondered if this is what Shane felt like most the time, sinking back into a small part of himself, operating his body like a pilot rather than living inside it. They’d been together for years. They’d declared their love for each other this summer. Shane was why Ilya—Ilya—moved to Ottawa to play for their shitty team. They were starting a charity, and they want Hayden to participate. He was just so madly in love and he wanted to tell the whole world.
“Hayden?” Shane said. Hayden shook himself back to reality. “You good?”
“Rozanov.”
“Ilya.”
Hayden laughed. “Ilya Rozanov.”
“Look, I know you hate him, and I know he can be a huge asshole, but he’s so much more than that.”
“And he loves you?” Hayden asked.
“He does.”
Hayden was grateful Shane missed things right now. Anyone else would have saw it, the quiver in his eye, the tightness of his jaw, the aching in his chest rising to his throat. He swallowed. “And you love him?”
Shane lit up brighter than a Christmas tree. “I do,” he said, “so fucking much.”
Of course it was Rozanov. Of course the man he’d been obsessed with for a decade fell in love with the only other man in the world that elicited these feelings with in him. Of course the two men that filled him with love, lust, and guilt had found their way into each other’s arms. Then the horror rolled in. “How long?”
Shane blushed again, “We started hooking up our rookie year.” Hayden smiled, and his toes gripped his shoes in desperate attempts to keep him from falling into the void opening up beneath him. A decade, nearly. The nights he fell asleep with his chin on top of Hollander’s head, he was already fucking Rozanov. When they were boys pretending to be hockey legends, they were sneaking off together. When Rozanov kissed Hollander on the ice, they were already enraptured. When Marlow ruined the rest of Hollander’s season, Rozanov looked panicked because he was.
“What the fuck, Hollander?”
Shane stepped back, the words piercing him like a bullet. “Hayden.”
“Fucking dudes is fine, whatever. But what the fuck?” He lowered his voice. “Ilya fucking Rozanov? Why not fuck Kim Jong Il? That would be less complicated.”
Shane sighed and pulled his shirt over his head. “This is why I didn’t tell you earlier.”
“Oh don’t pull that bullshit! Telling me five years ago would have made more sense than telling me now. Fuck Hollander. Do you let him win?”
“Are you seriously fucking asking me that?”
Hayden grimace. “I don’t know! Maybe! I don’t know how any of this works.”
“No, I don’t let him win. I’ve never let anyone win ever,” Shane’s brow furrowed.
“Let’s just go,” he said. He looked at Shane, his face now fallen. Shane never realized how much emotion he showed, how often his face betrayed him. Hayden put down his bag and pulled him into a hug. Shane returned it, his strong arms wrapping around Hayden’s back. Hayden breathed slowly, breathing in the body wash the team had purchased, the dabs of cologne he always put behind his ears at his mother’s behest. He wanted to remember Shane like this: tired and sweaty and his. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered. He closed his eyes and leaned his head into Shane’s. “It’ll be okay because it’s you.” When he pulled back, their arms stayed on each other’s back, and Shane looked like he’d been slapped. Hayden put a hand on his face. If he were different, braver, younger, some kind of -er, maybe he’d have pulled Shane’s face to his. Maybe he could taste the lips that taunted him for decades, pull off his clothes to reveal the body he had memorized. Maybe nothing would happen or maybe his world would collapse in on itself until only they existed.
But he wasn’t different. He wasn’t brave. He wasn’t younger. So he patted his friend’s face and said, “You’ve got terrible taste, brother.”
Shane rolled his eyes, but he breathed again. As the light returned to his face, Hayden decided he could act normal for the hour until he got home. He let himself sink away. Some part of him stayed up front, laughing, making jokes, talking to Shane. He was glad that part of him existed so the small part could slink away, sitting against a wall in his mind, the only light reaching him being from the holes where his eyes were and the headlights of passing cars.
Shane dropped him off late, so by the time he dropped his gear, the children were in bed. Jackie sat at the kitchen table reviewing the schedule for the next week, her book resting beside her. She looked up at Hayden and smiled, and that perfect smile broke him. He cried again, like he had months ago when Shane first told him he was gay. She shot up to join him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He collapsed, kneeling on the floor, holding on to her waist. He thought she was speaking, but he couldn’t make it out.
She went to her knees and pulled his face up. “Baby,” she said, “what is it?” He opened his mouth, but the words were caught in his throat, and he shook his head. He pulled her into him, crying into her dark hair.
It could have been a minute, or ten, or an hour. He knelt in front of his wife, smelling of lilac and a long day. When his tears calmed, they moved to the couch. His chest ached and cheeks burned. Jackie went to the kitchen and brought him back a glass of water. He drank of it greedily, and then looked at Jackie. If he told her the truth, how would it break her? Would he be cruel? Was it crueler to lie to her? Even now, tears in her own eyes, face wrought with worry, how greedy was he to want when the entire world stood before him. He sighed and through quivering lips he said. “It’s Rozanov. Shane’s boyfriend. It’s Ilya Rozanov.”
Jackie exhaled, something between a sigh and a gasp. Her jaw sat slightly agape and her eyes softened. She closed her mouth and swallowed. Nodding as her gaze turned from Hayden’s eyes to the floor. She turned away, and Hayden closed his eyes, afraid he’d ruined the only thing in his life worth this agony. Instead, she came back with a bottle of scotch and two glasses. She poured him one and handed it to him, before pouring herself a taller glass.
He nestled into her on the couch, her arm wrapped around his head, hand digging into his hair. They sipped the first glass silently. During the second glass, Hayden felt his heartbeat slow down, his breath synchronizing with Jackie’s once more. By the third, she was leaned over, resting her head in her hands.
Hayden tightened his jaw, downed the third drink in one sip, and spoke, “I’m sorry.” Jackie laughed quietly. “I don’t know why. I don’t,” he stopped.
Jackie downed her drink as he had and poured them each other glass. “I know.”
“You know?” He asked.
She shrugged. “I knew it was complicated. I didn’t really know how complicated, but I’m not stupid.”
“I tried really hard,” he said, tears begging to come back to the surface. “I tried so hard to push it away. I don’t know why it didn’t work.”
“Because it’s not that simple,” she said. Now tears filled her own eyes. “Love, attraction, what have you. It’s never that simple.”
“It always was with us.” Jackie whimpered and then took a deep breath. She leaned over and kissed him, and for the first time in hours life felt some version of normal.
“Yeah,” she said.
Hayden leaned back over onto Jackie whose hand went back into his hair. “Are you going to leave me?”
She turned his face toward her and kissed his forehead, down his temple, around his cheeks to his nose, and then down to his lips once more. “No, I’m going to leave you.”
“It’s a betrayal though? Isn’t it?” His voice felt swollen in his throat. “I didn’t mean to. I tried not to, but…”
She sighed again. “Do you remember Jessica?”
“Jessica,” he said, “that’s the uh, the goalie’s ex-girlfriend, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What about her?”
She sighed, then reached forward for her scotch. “We had, I don’t know, something. She was here all the time. She was great with the kids. She took care of me my entire pregnancy with Amber.” Hayden sat still, listening to his wife’s every word. “It wasn’t physical. That probably would have been easier. I just… I just loved her. She was my favorite person to be around. I was in awe of her, every part of her.”
“What happened?”
“We had a late night, and after she helped me put the kids to bed, she joked that she should be my husband. We laughed, and then when I looked in her eyes, it didn’t feel like a joke anymore.”
“Is that why they broke up? I know you said you aren’t leaving, but,” Jackie shushed him.
“Listen. Just listen,” she said. “I realized I’d grown feelings of some kind for her, and because she was a woman, I let myself believe she was just my friend. Had it been different, had we been younger, or, I don’t know, just had it been different, maybe it would have been different, but…”
“But it’s not,” Hayden said. They melted into each other even more.
“But it’s not.”
He sat up and faced his wife, placing hands on either side of her face. She looked at him with those big green eyes he loved so much, the same eyes she’d given half their children. “I love you,” he said. “I love you, I love our life, I love our family. I wouldn’t change any of it.” His voice caught as he said it, and Jackie nodded.
“I know,” she said, crying with him, “but it’s okay if you’re heartbroken.” Hayden pulled her into a hug, and he felt like he was back on the ice celebrating their Cup win again, tears streaming down his face. He was happy it was Jackie, but he wished it was Shane, all the same. “It’s okay,” she said, her own voice shaking now, “because I’m heartbroken too.”
They stayed embraced for some time, alternating between tears and laughter, the sound of each other’s heartbeats calming them down. Jackie picked up the now half empty bottle of scotch and laughed. “I’m glad I saved this bottle for tonight,” she said.
“We certainly earned it.”
She topped up their glasses once more and held hers up to the light. “We could always be poly,” she said. Hayden looked at her scotch and then her face. The pair of them laughed, collapsing backwards onto the sofa.
They didn’t have to say it, not out loud. Whatever version of nonmonogamy that existed or could exist wouldn’t fix it. He could open his heart to the world, and there would always be a vacancy. It was only ever Jackie.
Jackie and Shane.
Or, the worst of the truths, Jackie, Shane, and Ilya.