Archive of Our Own

Lanaudière, Summer 2017

For two weeks, they have slept spooned together, sometimes with Rozanov behind him, sometimes the heavy bulk of him draped over Shane like a blanket. On the last day, Shane wakes up alone. Ilya’s pillow is cold. Panic clutches at him until he sees the packed duffel, idling by the door. 

Shane finds him sitting on the dock, legs dangling in the water, his face tilted towards the sun. There’s an unlit cigarette in his hand. Shane sits next to him, lets the familiar lake sounds and easy conversation lull him into forgetting about the rest of the day and all the days after that.   

The lake is perfectly still, like it hasn’t quite woken yet up. If it wasn’t their last day, it would be a good day for teaching Rozanov to water ski. As always, they need more time. As always, they will have to accept what they have been given. 

The spell is disrupted by Shane’s phone buzzing in his pocket. It could be texts from his mother about a new branding opportunity, or an email from his agent about contract negotiations, or another request from his team’s social media manager, always looking for summer content. Outside, the business of being Shane Hollander continues on. Here, it has come to a standstill. 

“I can’t believe my dad almost caught us,” he says. “That was fucking close.” 

“What would you have done if I wasn’t in the shower?” asks Rozanov. 

“I don’t want to think about it.” Even the idea of it makes him feel like his throat has plunged into his stomach. 

Ilya grabs his hand, gives it a quick kiss and then shoves it back at him. “Maybe you should think about it,” he suggests. 

“We haven’t really talked about what happens when we go back,” says Shane. He’s been looking for the perfect opening for days and now he just has to accept the imperfect one, split open the calm of their last morning like a watermelon. 

“I’m guessing we play hockey, but maybe you have other plans.”

“I don’t know if I can go back to exactly how things were before,” he admits. His cheeks feel hot. 

Ilya lets out a dramatic groan, but his lips twitch into a soft smile. “Ah yes, I have heard about this discussion from my teammates. You want to, how do they say, define the relationship.” 

“Shut up,” says Shane automatically. 

“Okay, so we are not defining it?” 

It’s not that he needs a definition exactly. He knows they are in uncharted territory; he can’t expect Ilya to hand him a map. But he wants to operate on a different baseline, to assume that Ilya wants him to be there, that he, Shane, offers something other than sex. 

He opens his mouth and closes it, and Rozanov, who has a sixth sense for his discomfort despite or because of the many years spent making Shane uncomfortable, squeezes the spot where his shoulder meets his neck. 

“Just tell me what you want, Hollander. No big deal.” 

The things he wants float around him like driftwood, somehow both too specific and indefinite; he wants to keep these soft smiles, he wants standing video calls, he wants to know everything Ilya does every hour of every day. Just thinking about it makes him feel like his chest has been scooped out, and he cannot stand the thought of Ilya saying no, how it will be the only taste left in his mouth after he leaves. 

“I want to know that we will do this again. Every time we can. And if we have like two days off or a holiday or something, I want to see you then too,” he says instead. 

“Okay. I want this too.” Ilya smiles at him, his whole face reflecting the sunlight, eyes so bright it almost hurts to look directly at him. 

“I want you to come back here next summer. And the summer after that.”

“Of course. You still need to teach me to drive that motor boat.” 

Easy, thinks Shane. He licks his lips. He should’ve written down a list because Rozanov is so fucking distracting, muscles bulging out of his white tank, messy swirls of hair spilling into his eyes. He smells like the cottage, like home. He wants to push him into the ground, rub the dirt into his skin, force him to take a piece of Shane back with him. 

“And I want to be able to ask you questions about Russia. And your family. Or fuck, whatever,” Shane says.  

“What is whatever? Is anything off limits? Like if I ask you if you’re hurt, will you tell me where? Or is like press release, upper body injury only,” Ilya asks as he pinches Shane's bicep.

Shane grins at that, and he understands the question wrapped in hockey: can we trust each other with the soft parts of ourselves. 

“Injuries seem fine–relevant to us,” Shane says, pointing between their bodies. And whether he admits to them or not, Ilya has a knack for spotting his injuries. Even now his talented fingers are already working his traps, right in the spot that always hurts. 

“The rest of the team, maybe not,” Ilya suggests and Shane nods. This boundary seems fine, sensible even. There’s no reason to create potential conflicts of interest.

“I don’t want to talk about other people either,” says Shane, applying the same logic; their bodies are relevant, other people’s are not. 

Ilya blinks. His fingers drum a quick beat into the dock. “Okay,” he says. 

“What do you want?” asks Shane, as if Rozanov needs to ask, as if he can’t turn every no into a yes. 

Ilya’s hand is already on his thigh, and now he slides it under his shorts, moving to Shane’s dick, which has spent the last few weeks in a dazed state of euphoria. “I have what I want,” he says, fingers wrapped around the length of him as he pulls Shane in for a kiss.

Lanaudière, Winter 2018

In December, Shane sprains a ligament in his thumb. The injury coincides with a three day game break and Theriault orders him to take a maintenance day or two. He’s under strict instructions not to even fucking think about picking up a hockey stick. 

When he gets back to the locker room his phone is lit up with a string of messages. Ilya has been out for a month with a separated shoulder that nearly required surgery, but it doesn’t seem to be slowing down his texting. 

He does the calculations quickly in his head, then writes, Coach says I’m out until wednesday with this fucking thumb thing. Let’s go to the cottage. If we leave now, we’ll have three nights.

The response is immediate: yes. 

It’s not like the summer, Shane responds. 

No shit, Canada in winter no joke. When can you be at the airport?

They make it there just as the first real storm of the season hits. The snow covers the roads, removing any trace of their journey there. 

Ilya has more manic energy than usual, which Shane chalks up to four weeks of cabin fever. His arm is in a sling, except for when he forgets or it’s not convenient. 

“I need two hands for this,” he tells Shane as he pushes his face against the cold glass, his fingers moving in and out of him at a lazy pace. Outside, fat snowflakes swirl downward, the familiar scenery coated in white; like being trapped inside a snow globe. Shane can almost believe the rest of the world has disappeared, and they are all that is left. 

By the third day, they have eaten through the nutritionist-approved groceries Shane picked up en-route and have been reduced to eating the dregs of his pantry. Ilya dips his creation, a sandwich of stale potato chips and pickles, into expired mustard and smacks his lips. 

“That’s disgusting,” says Shane, wishing he’d left behind even a single jar of protein powder. 

Ilya makes eye contact with him before taking another bite. There’s a glob of bright yellow on his mouth.

“You next,” he says, guiding a chip towards Shane’s mouth like an airplane. Shane dodges it and kisses him instead, sucking the taste of mustard seeds and salt from his lips.

“Is it frozen enough to skate?” asks Ilya, nodding in the direction of the glittering lake. 

The sky is blue and clear, at last. Shane almost points out that they should stay inside, that they’re here to rest, that they shouldn’t be risking two of the MHL’s most valuable assets, and they've already been so careless, unbelievably, intoxicatingly careless. Shane can’t shake the sense that they’re on the lam. It feels like their bodies belong to each other, but at the end of the day, they are both stolen property. 

Twenty minutes later, they’re striding out into the yard, Shane warning him, watch your shoulder, while Ilya waves him off. 

Shane shakes snow off a long fallen branch and pokes at the ice with it. It looks thick but it’s too early in the season to be entirely trustworthy. He takes one cautious step onto the ice and slips, landing with a thump on his ass. 

Ilya is laughing, doubled over so hard that he tips into the snow, half buried in a soft drift, and then Shane starts laughing too. The sound echoes across the lake. 

By the time Shane has made it back to his feet, Ilya is standing next to him, a wolfish smile on his face, curls peeking out from under the toque Shane loaned him. There are icicles clinging to his eyelashes.

Ilya’s expressive eyebrows direct Shane towards his crotch. 

“You’re fucking crazy,” says Shane. “It’s freezing. Your dick will fall off.”

“Better be quick then,” Ilya says.  

Shane peers around but there’s nobody within sight. There’s probably nobody left in the entire county but them and the ice fishermen.

Shane drops to his knees. The ice crunches underneath him. He unwinds his scarf and tugs his gloves off so he can work the zipper of Ilya’s jeans. For a second he considers using his hand, except he’s pretty sure that hand jobs break the spirit, if not the letter, of his coach’s orders. 

Ilya’s dick is already half hard. It feels hot and alive in his mouth. He runs his tongue along the thick vein on the underside, sucking the soft foreskin, as Ilya pulls his hair, hard enough to hurt. As Shane wraps his lips around his cock, Ilya keeps his head in place, his fingers digging into the back of his neck, gasping his name. He closes his eyes but he can still feel Ilya’s gaze on his face. He could crawl inside this moment and stay warm forever. 

He is not quick. 

It’s not until afterwards, as Ilya helps him to his feet, that Shane realizes he is shivering and his legs are heavy and numb. When they get inside, Ilya peels off his damp clothing down to his briefs. The knees of his sweats are ripped through. 

“Warm me up,” says Shane. His teeth are still chattering. 

He almost suggests a hot shower, but Ilya is already wrapping him in a flannel blanket. He disappears and reappears with the duvet from their bed, tucking it around both of them, with Shane spooned into his uninjured side. 

Shane makes a mental note to invest in a larger sofa. 

“Better?” asks Ilya. He nods. His eyelids feel heavy. 

“Should get some ice for your shoulder and my thumb,” he mumbles into Ilya’s chest. 

Rozanov grins and says, “I’m not here to fix your hand, Hollander. You think I forget that we play Montreal in two weeks?”

So there’s no ice, but Ilya’s talented hands are already running along his stomach, moving down to his dick, and he decides that’s just as good. 

The next morning, the snowplows arrive and the roads reappear, stretching to Montreal and the airport and beyond. He cannot stay. And if he cannot stay, he has no idea how to make Ilya stay.

Montreal, Spring 2018 

They have gotten into the habit of calling each other over breakfast, one of the only times they’re reliably alone. Shane likes the ritual of it, slotted into the down time between morning meditation and the first workout of the day. Like he was making room for Ilya all along. 

“What’s going on with your free agency?” Shane asks as he drinks his coffee, a drizzle of almond milk over the top. 

“Everybody is very interested of course,” says Rozanov. 

Loud crunches punctuate each word, and Shane wonders what he’s eating, cereal maybe or toast. He closes his eyes and imagines Rozanov moving confidently around his kitchen, trying to picture himself there too, standing next to him, hip to hip. They live in their bodies so differently. Rozanov always moves with such effortless purpose, never needs to sync up his hands and his brain.  

“Not Montreal,” counters Shane. 

“No,” Rozanov agrees. “Their cap is already filled by expensive, mediocre players.” 

“Asshole,” says Shane. Even he can hear the fondness in his voice. 

“My agent says he is being stalked by Anaheim and Vegas. But, I don’t know.” 

“The west coast. Better weather,” says Shane. He aims for cheerful and lands on toneless. It is almost too easy to imagine Rozanov in Las Vegas. “Farther away,” he adds. He doesn’t specify from what. 

“Yes. Moscow will always be home, but Boston is home now too.” 

Shane is only marginally better at reading Ilya’s voice. He’s gotten much better at reading his body; the flex of his fingers, the sharp lines of his postural muscles, the way his chest muscles twitch before he comes. But none of that helps him now. 

“So, probably Boston,” he says. 

“Probably,” agrees Rozanov. 

The next month, the ESPN headline pops up on his phone: Raiders Sign Rozanov to Most Lucrative Contract in NHL History. It’s good news, he tells himself. After all, Boston is so much closer than Anaheim. It’s technically the closest city except for Ottawa and he cannot imagine Ilya Rozanov in Ottawa.

So irritating, but helpful to have a high benchmark for your extension next year, his Mom texts. So everybody agrees that it’s a positive development, really the best thing he could’ve hoped for. 

Lanaudière, Summer 2019

He lets himself float in the hazy space between waking and sleeping, curled into Ilya’s chest, his bicep around his waist. His body is spent from the night before in a way that feels both different and the same as a game. 

The first time he only lasted a few minutes in Ilya’s mouth, moaning the entire time. The second time was more respectable, right after Ilya, thrusting frantically into the sheets. The third time was hours later and slow, Shane straddling Ilya’s hips, still open and slick. 

Rozanov never says, touch me, fucking touch me, I haven’t been touched in months. There must be other girls, maybe even other guys. But it’s an old scar; a memory of pain rather than the real thing. It’s fine, it’s okay, he couldn’t expect Ilya to live on crumbs the way he does. Shane has had years and years of practice. 

So he doesn’t ask who is it, who’s touching you and how often, but it’s not the same right, it’s not this. He keeps those words safely behind his teeth, lets them sit there, turning his mouth sour. 

There are other things they don’t say. Shane doesn’t say, I think I’m probably in love with you. I think you’re probably in love with me too. 

Ilya doesn’t ask again if he’s told his parents. 

Neither of them discusses their plans for the future because they know it is a closed door. Shane wants to explain that he thinks about life in distinct segments of time: line shifts. Road trips. Seasons. And Ilya running through all of them, like a line through a reel, the only thing holding them together. 

But it’s probably better not to talk about it at all. Easier to just soak up their time together; morning swims that flow into morning blowjobs, twin coffee mugs side by side on the dock, matching sunburns on their shoulders turning from pink to gold. 

He remembers from last summer how quickly the two weeks disappear, but here, on the first day, it feels like eternity stretching out before them.  

Los Angeles, Winter 2020

That year, the All-Stars Game is set in California. At that point, their teams haven't played each other in months.

Boston played Ottawa in January, but Shane gets recognized every time he goes home, and despite Ilya's best efforts, he couldn't bring himself to agree to a quickie in the backseat on the side of a highway somewhere between Montreal and Ottawa. So for weeks leading up to All-Stars, Shane's thoughts are tangled up with visions of Ilya’s thighs in shorts, Ilya glowing in the sunshine. A taste of summer, when they get everything they want. 

When can I see you, Lily asks as soon as his flight touches down at LAX. 

On my way to lunch with Rose, back soon. Tonight? Through sheer luck, he’s catching Rose in the six hour window between when he lands and she heads back to her film shoot in Japan. 

Shane doesn’t find Rozanov until after the draft, when most of the players are gathered at the hotel bar. He’s nursing a beer at a booth by himself, far from the center of the party. He appears wholly absorbed by shredding a napkin to pieces. 

“Oh look, Shane Hollander,” he says, letting out a small annoyed huff. “Where’s your beard?” 

“Shh,” he says. There’s a cold shiver of fear, like a sliver of ice sliding down his spine, but the familiarity of it is almost comforting. It reminds him of the man in front of him. “And she’s on an airplane.”   

“Glad you could make it,” Rozanov says, sliding over and nodding at the seat next to him. 

“You don’t think people will think it’s weird for us to sit together?” Shane asks as he scoots next to him. 

“They think we are two hockey players discussing hockey things. You think people will see us talking and think, wow, those two probably like cock?”

Shane flinches. “Are you okay?” he asks. 

“Yes, I am great,” Ilya says. “Let’s leave,” he adds unexpectedly. “There’s a shitty bar down the street. We can drink their shitty drinks and not make little talk.”

“You know we can't do that. Let’s just make the rounds for a few minutes and then we can head upstairs.” 

“Hollander, this is L.A. Nobody gives a shit about hockey. I could fuck you in the middle of any bar here and nobody would look at us twice.”

“Can you please shut up?” hisses Shane. 

A few people are glancing in their direction curiously. Scott Hunter is blatantly staring at them, a strange expression on his face. 

“I’m going to head back to my room. I already texted you the number,” Shane says. It seems like his presence is escalating things, and it will be easier to explain to his teammates why he went to bed early than justify wherever this discussion is headed. 

Rozanov doesn’t show up for another hour. Shane wonders if he’s still assaulting the hotel napkins or if he rejoined the party, if his mouth will sting like vodka; which Ilya Rozanov is knocking at his door. There are so many of them, and he wants all of them, even the ones he’s barely allowed to know. 

When Shane lets him inside, Ilya moves to kiss him, his arm wrapped around him like a vise, accompanied by the familiar fog that always follows his touch. It’s like looking through a microscope; Ilya in sharp focus, everything else fading to black. With real effort, Shane steps back. 

“What’s going on?” he asks.   

“You disappeared,” says Ilya. Shane wants to point out that he left for like an hour, but Rozanov must sense it because he barges on in a raised voice. “For once I am here, but you are not. I go home and you’re not there. I go out but it is no fucking fun, L.A. is so boring, Boston is boring, I am boring. I have caught it from you, maybe.”

“Ilya, you’re not making sense.” 

He can’t shake the feeling that if they shared a language, maybe this would be easier. He thinks of the russian he has been learning, none of it applicable here. Hello. How is the weather? Where is the train station? 

Rozanov lets out a long sigh, dropping his head in frustration. “I am tired of always wishing it was different.” 

Shane understands some of what he’s saying; that they thought it would get easier, this long distance fucking with feelings, that two weeks a year would be enough to live on. But having more just seems to mean wanting more. Sometimes, the hunger feels bottomless, like it's all that's left of him.  

But it’s still so much more than he ever expected. 

“I am too. I’m fucking sick of it. But I don’t know - what’s the alternative?” he pauses, his chest prickling with cold. He never forgets that they are not in the same cage; Ilya could decide the trouble isn’t worth it. 

“Unless you’re saying you want to stop,” Shane adds, offering the out. “You have a choice.” 

“Oh and you have no choice. My dick is so good you cannot say no?” Ilya makes a growling noise and steps towards him again, his hand curling around his jaw, tilting his head to the side. 

“I just, it doesn’t have to be like this for you. If you don’t want it to be,” Shane mumbles.

“I want it,” Ilya says, moving his thumb along Shane’s cheekbone, like he’s imagining brushing away tears. 

Some of the nervous energy in the air burns away. Shane moves toward him, digging his fingers into the silky dress shirt, feeling the hard slab of muscle underneath. He is aware, as always, of their window of time closing, disappearing as quickly as it arrived. 

“I don’t want to stop either,” Shane says in a thick voice in case there was any doubt.

He pushes him backward, and Shane almost stumbles over the bed, falls back on it with all two hundred pounds of Rozanov already on him, eyes still fixed on his face. 

“No stopping,” Ilya repeats and if he says anything else, it’s lost in Shane’s skin. 

Lanaudière, Summer 2020

“I’m not wearing shoes for small children,” says Rozanov, nodding his head at the matching water shoes Shane purchased for both of them. His lips are still flushed and swollen from Shane’s dick. He looks sleek and satisfied, like a well fed cat. 

“It’s for the zebra mussels, they’re all over the beach this year. Fucking hurts when you step on them.” 

“Zebra mussels?” 

“Yes. Invasive species from Russia,” says Shane, raising an eyebrow. “Sound familiar?”

“Can you blame them? Everybody in Canada is so nice, make invasion so easy.” The words sound obscene in his mouth. Ilya climbs over him, trapping his thighs into the couch with his knees. 

His cross dangles over Shane’s face and he takes part of it into his mouth, pressing the cold metal into his tongue. He pushes away the urge to swallow the necklace, to bury this piece of Ilya deep inside him. Their eyes meet and Ilya looks away. Shane wonders if he can see the thought in his eyes, the same way all of Shane’s desires are visible to him, like his skin is just for show.  

Rozanov tweaks his nipple and releases him, pulls the mesh shoes on instead, modeling his feet for Shane. “Very sexy. I am a real Canadian now.” 

“Someday maybe,” says Shane, feeling heat on the back of his neck. 

It’s something they’ve talked about, drunk on each other’s skin, in the late summer nights. When retirement is closer, when hockey is different, when they are different, someday, somehow.  

The first time Shane invited him to the cottage, he only thought about coming together, wanting as much as he wanted, in every way he wanted, for once. He did not think about the price they would pay, the act of walking away, year after year, becoming an unsolvable equation, a shark at rest. 

“Someday,” agrees Ilya. “For now, just invader.” He smiles at Shane, but it’s only the shape of a smile. 

Boston, Fall 2020

My house won’t work, Ilya texts him right before the game, send room number.

Shane wonders at the sudden change, but tries to push the question away and focus on the game. It’s early in the season, but it’s still Boston, it’s still Rozanov versus Hollander. And there are a million innocuous explanations, none of which remove the lingering feel of unease, like something curdled in his stomach.

Later, as he waits for Ilya, he wonders why he didn’t just ask, when the rules changed again. It feels like they’re going backwards in some way he doesn’t fully understand. Back to hotel rooms, the ubiquitous duvet covers, the grey light filtering through the curtains. No more sunlight through glass windows, no more toothbrushes lying side by side. 

When Ilya arrives, the Boston cold seems to cling to him. His freshly showered hair is damp and steaming from the night air. 

Rozanov stands in front of him, dark eyes fixed on him. It is a long time for them to be in the same room, alone, without touching. After another beat, he smirks and asks, “I won, what do I get?” 

Shane wonders what is left for him to offer. He says nothing; Rozanov usually has something in mind. On cue, he nods at the chair in the corner. “Hands there. Clothes off. No moving until I tell you to.”

Shane pulls off his clothes, leaving them folded by his side of the bed and moves to the chair. 

There’s a long silence, long enough that he wonders if he’s done something wrong. Then he feels Ilya behind him, sucking at the pulse point of his neck, biting down on his shoulders, soft at first and then not. Ilya’s dick is rock hard against his thigh. 

Ilya holds his wrists against the chair arms, pinning them down, as if he expects him to object, even though he never does. Ilya reaches around, gripping the base of his cock, stroking him until he’s fully hard, and then moving to Shane’s ass. It’s only a few seconds until he’s pushing inside, crooking his finger in exactly the right away. 

There’s a pause and he hears the crinkle of a condom wrapper. When Shane looks back, Ilya’s eyes are hungry and shining, even in the dim light. 

“No moving,” Rozanov reminds him in a low, stern voice. 

Shane looks forward again, doesn’t even push back against him when Ilya presses in, no hesitation or easing in. 

There’s a part of him that always dreads this as much as he anticipates it, worried that this time, it will feel humiliating - it should be humiliating. But every time his mind just goes blissfully blank. In a good game of hockey, his brain is working in overdrive; in a great game, he’s just floating. Sex with Ilya Rozanov is a really great game.

Ilya’s hips are moving at a punishing, maddening pace. The sweet stinging stretching feeling keeps growing until it seems as though his whole body is being remade just to fit Ilya’s cock. Shane has to dig his fingers into the chair to keep steady. The wallpaper is a dark blur. He wants friction on something, anything. Out of its own volition, one hand jerks in the direction of his dick. 

“What did I say?” says Rozanov, grabbing under his chin, pulling it back so his throat is tilted up, exposed. 

He slams into him again, his mouth hot in Shane’s ear, like he’s chasing him. Shane closes his eyes, riding wave after wave, right on the line of being too much. He still wants something, hands, the chair, even the fucking wall, to grind and rub against. He wants to say, please, please, but he knows it’s written all over him. 

When he finishes, Ilya lets out a choked moan that sounds like something hurts. Shane is shaking or maybe they both are. Rozanov slips his hand under him and finally, finally wraps his hand around Shane’s cock. 

“Oh fuck, fucking finally,” he says. 

It just takes a few quick strokes and he’s shooting through Ilya’s hands. He collapses into the chair, the heavy weight of Ilya’s body pressed into him, both of them letting out matching shuddering breaths. 

Shane twists around so his face is pressed against Ilya’s sweat-shiny chest and he can hear the rapid thump, thump of his heart. He kisses the side of his neck, running his fingers along the lines of his abs, feeling the sharp dips and hollows around his hipbones. The apples of his cheeks are stained red, from heat or anger or something else. Ilya’s eyes are closed and Shane wishes he would open them; has to fight the desire to push his eyelids open. He wants Ilya to look at him.    

Instead, he finds his mouth, tugging them both towards the bed. They break apart for air and then come back together. Rozanov kisses like he always kisses, like he’s trying to swallow him whole. But for once, he doesn’t seem to have anything to say. 

Shane falls asleep quickly, the exhaustion from the game and another intense preseason catching up with him. He can sense Ilya playing with his hair, maybe touching his cheek, but it feels very far away. He doesn’t open his eyes again until his alarm goes off at 5:30. He’s surprised to discover Ilya is still there. It would have been smarter for him to go, but Shane can’t bring himself to regret it. 

“Gotta go,” Shane mumbles through a yawn. “Breakfast before the flight. At this point, it might be better for you to wait until the team has left.” 

As he swings his feet out of bed and starts reaching for his clothes, Ilya sits up, apparently awake and fully dressed. 

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Rozanov says. He does not seem nervous but Shane suddenly is. Something heavy swoops through his chest. Later he will think that his body knew before he did. Much, much later, he will think that he had been waiting for this moment for a long time. 

“I’m getting married. In June,” Ilya says. “My team will know soon and I wanted you to hear from me.”  

“Are you - is that a fucking joke?” He feels like he has been dropped into a cold plunge, his breath knocked out of him. 

“What does it matter?” asks Ilya in a frozen voice. His face is still as stone. “Think about it, Shane. We were secret, we’re still secret. I told her, a cat doesn’t change its spots.”  

Last month, he was checked so hard he lifted into the air before hitting the boards. This feels the same; a body in motion and then impact. It’s good to be a hockey player, he thinks dumbly, it’s good to know about all the ways you can get hurt. 

Ilya reaches for his hand, some of the cold seeping out of him, a boy again. Shane lets him take it, watches, rather than feels, their fingers wind together. 

“Nothing will change.” Rozanov’s voice is edged with bitterness, sharp as a knife. 

“Why?” Shane asks finally, wobbling, unable to swallow the word back. 

“Will make citizenship easier.” 

“This can’t be the only option. There must be something else you - we can do.” 

“Enough,” Rozanov says. He smacks his hand down on the mattress, hard. “Nothing will change, we both know this. And I want to, also,” he admits. “I would like to have family here. Flesh and blood.”

Flesh and blood. How many times has Shane let Ilya inside his skin, pressed his fingers into his mouth, tasted him. If he could burrow into Ilya’s flesh he would. Once the stitches in Ilya’s thigh came loose and Shane got a mouthful of his blood, metallic and sharp. He sucked the cut dry. You cannot be that stupid, Ilya told him later although at the time, he watched him do it without a word. 

“Is it Svetlana?” he asks.  

Rozanov lets out a laugh like a bark. “Ah, no. She thinks I am, how do you say, eating my cake twice.” The look he gives Shane is indecipherable. 

“You must have known this summer. Why are you just telling me now?” he asks. To throw him off his game, to ruin his focus, because he forgot, because this doesn’t matter, not really.

“I did not want to ruin it,” Ilya says, surprised, as if this is obvious. “And it broke your rule,” he adds in a softer tone. 

Shane can feel his eyes starting to burn. If he can get out of there quickly enough, maybe he won’t cry. He pulls on his dress shirt first. Each button requires a lot of focus. Then his pants. His socks are not in sight, so he slides his bare feet into his sneakers. His coat is hanging up all the way across the room and he decides it’s not worth the extra trip. He does not cry. 

“Shane?” asks Ilya. 

“I have to go,” he says. 

As the door closes, he can hear Rozanov saying something, but it’s drowned out by the ringing in his ears.  

On the way to the airport, he notices his pants smell like Ilya’s cologne. At the hangar, he changes into jeans, just to get away from it, but the scent is still there. He changes his shirt too, dumps the old one in the garbage, covers his hands in the artificially fragrant hand soap, but the smell is buried in his skin, tangled up in his hair. It lingers all the way home. For months, he will wake up with that smell in his nose, and for one hopeful moment, he will think, Ilya is here. 

Montreal, Spring 2021

The entire league gets a kick out of Rozanov’s impending marriage, particularly Shane’s teammates, who can't seem to stop themselves from bringing it up during the Boston Detroit game. Each time they mention it, he grips his drink a little tighter. 

“Can you believe that guy is getting married?” asks Hayden. “It comes for all of us, I guess. Even Russian fuckboys.” 

“What does?” says Shane automatically. 

“Kids and marriage and shit,” Hayden says, although he looks like he immediately regrets it, realizing perhaps that kids and marriage and shit have not come for Shane. 

“I feel bad for her, kinda,” says J.J.

“She’s gotta know what she signed up for,” says Comeau. 

It’s just like the childhood story, thinks Shane. The frog is as much to blame as the scorpion. They both could have made different choices, but then they would be somebody else entirely. 

That night, he scrolls back through the months of texts. The calls stopped after a few weeks, but the texts continued. If Rozanov was bothered by the one-sided nature of the conversation, he never complained. 

Call me back later. Shane? 

Call me. Is not a big deal, Hollander. Call me and we talk.

It is your fault, Shane, you taught me to want these things. 

Shane. 

Is Hunter injured or is he just playing more like shit than usual. Angles all wrong. 

What is your room number? I will come and knock on every door until I find a hockey player who wants to suck my dick. Shane. I will do it. Hollander. 

Is your shoulder okay, that was a dirty hit. Fuck New Jersey. 

Are you really injured, I hear you won’t be at all stars. It will not be as much fun if I don’t beat you. 

A seagull stole my chips. Very embarrassing to be robbed by ugly bird. Do you speak gull too? 

It is raining here and I am thinking of the storm last summer when you left the window open and your gear bag floated away. 

My teammates tell me a squirrel has predicted a long winter. This is a very strange country. I am still thinking that summer is soon. 

I will stop if you want me to stop. Tell me to stop. 

The new taco bell is so delicious I like to eat it and picture you not eating it. Maybe you are eating me instead. 

It goes on and on. The last message was from the day before: you should block the puck with your stick not elbow Hollander. 

And for the first time since October, he texts back.

Nice game. And yeah, my elbow fucking hurts. 

He’s not sure what he expects exactly. Rozanov is probably out celebrating or on a date, maybe. But the dots appear almost immediately. 

Let rookies use their elbows next time. Only one of you. Many rookies. 

There’s a pause and then: I knew you didn’t want me to stop. 

Lanaudière, Summer 2021

In some ways, Rozanov is right. Almost nothing between them changes. The differences are only around the edges. A feeling of being on the outside of a secret, when he used to be on the inside. There are more calls, more texts, more distractions vying for Rozanov’s attention. The space they’ve carved out for themselves keeps shrinking.  

Most of his understanding of marriage is based on his parents and his teammates. He puts aside his parents, not wanting to consider them and Rozanov in the same thought, but he finds the locker room chatter comforting. Shane understands that generally, wives want less sex after marriage. It’s a common theme in the locker room, the vast chasm between the amount of sex his married teammates want to have and the amount they’re having. It’s one of the few ways in which Shane thinks he might be the perfect husband for some WAG out there: he’s clean, rich, and only interested in a blow job once or twice a season. And now it’s a relief because Shane still serves a purpose.

But that doesn’t help on days like today, when Rozanov’s phone is vibrating all morning and into the afternoon. Each buzz stabs at him like a hot poker. He can’t understand why Rozanov doesn’t turn it off or hide it away unless he is trying to make a point. 

Shane wishes he had the guts to ask what Rozanov had told her, how he carved a week out of his schedule so soon after the wedding. She must know there is some slice of Ilya that doesn’t belong to her. But maybe that’s the only way he will let himself be loved — in pieces. Nobody is allowed to have all of him. 

Halfway through the day, Shane finally gives in, nods at the phone, still making frantic beeps. “Is she pissed you left so soon after the wedding? Is this technically your honeymoon?” 

He’s being a dick. He’s been a dick all day, all week, maybe all year. But Rozanov likes him when he’s mean, likes to cut him down to size until he is soft again. 

“Da,” says Rozanov. “I tell my wife I have nice Canadian boy I like to fuck in July. We will go to Ibiza next year.” 

Rozanov yanks him closer, his hands squeezing his ass through his shorts.

Shane stares at the ridge of Ilya’s parted lips, still thinking about the round shape they make when he says the word wife. It’s the same shape they make when he’s fucking him senseless into the bed. The same shape as the bruises he loves to leave behind. 

In season, Ilya is always careful. No thumbprints sealed into skin, nothing that could be seen in a locker room. All marks need to be left on the inside. 

But the summers are different. 

After Ilya leaves, he will stare at his body in the mirror, indifferent to it as always, except for the teeth marks tattooed across his chest, winding their way from the white of his thighs to his sun-darkened calves, train tracks leading nowhere. For weeks he will find bruises secreted into his skin like love letters, watch as they fade from blue to green and back to skin again. 

Bite me, he wants to say now, but doesn’t. Rozanov knows anyway. He’s always one play ahead. He takes the meat of his shoulder into his mouth, bites down. Again, he breathes into him. Again, he says with his legs, twisted around him. Again. 

Lanaudière, Summer 2022

That summer, Canada burns. 

The horizon disappears into wildfire smoke. When Shane wakes up he can’t tell if it’s morning or night. The talking heads warn that the air quality is still at code red and any outdoor activity should be avoided. He moves his cardio circuit indoors and can still barely finish. It hurts to swallow or take a breath. Even inside, it smells like the entire county is barbecuing. He’d run back to Montreal or Ottawa, but the smoke is there too.

He opens up his text thread with Ilya. The last message from Lily is from two weeks earlier: I wish I was at the cottage. Does not feel like summer here. 

Rozanov got married in Cape Cod. There were purple hydrangeas in all the photos. 

Shane sends him a photo of the orange haze sitting on the lake, and then writes is this what it feels like to smoke? Because it sucks. 

Ilya’s response is almost immediate: I quit. I am papa now. It includes a photo of a wrapped bundle, a tiny scrunched up red face nestled in a too large hat. 

He waits twelve hours to answer; short enough that Rozanov won’t worry, but long enough for him to know a boundary was crossed. Cute, he writes back. 

Dallas, Winter 2023

Shane’s mouth still feels swollen and warm. He can’t stop worrying at the cut with his tongue and teeth. 

There is something deeply unsatisfying about an injury at All-Stars, even something minor. This one is particularly stupid, the result of a collision that was entirely his fault. 

He had spent the whole game avoiding looking into the crowd. The odds of glancing up and finding her face were admittedly low, but it still felt like too much of a gamble. The day before he had skipped out on half the events, during the game itself, he was gazing at the ice like a starstruck rookie. 

After the hit, which was really more of a wipe out, he wished yet again that he had not come, that he had paid the fine, and spent a week at the beach with Rose, like she suggested. 

Now, he’s cornered by half his team, congratulating him on his goals, buying him drinks. Rozanov has managed to maneuver himself so he’s seated across from Shane without addressing him even once. Shane touches his lip with his tongue again and immediately feels Rozanov’s eyes zero in on him, desire coming off him in waves, so obvious that it seems like sheer luck that nobody else notices. 

His foot bumps into Shane’s calf, soft enough to be accidental. Their teammate, a Detroit defenseman, is asking Ilya about married life.

“Very nice,” says Rozanov with a wink. He’s not looking at Shane anymore, but he still feels pinned by his gaze, horribly, like he’s a fish on a reel. 

“Roz never shares details,” says Cliff Marlow. “He’s a tight lipped motherfucker.” 

Rozanov grins at this and then runs his foot along Shane’s leg. Shane’s whole body jerks. He gives him an angry look, which Rozanov pretends not to notice. He wedges his knee between Shane’s legs, inches from his dick. Shane’s cheeks feel hot, his mouth still hurts, and any reasonable line is miles behind them, in their dust. 

He’s hard enough that he has to leave carefully, adjusting his pants more than once. Rozanov catches up with him before he even reaches the elevator. 

“Bed so early, Captain?” 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Shane asks. He can’t resist jamming his finger into the hard wall of his chest. 

“I think you like it. Or some of you does,” says Rozanov, nodding in the direction of his crotch. 

“Upstairs,” Shane grits out. 

“No, here is better,” Rozanov says, leading them down a hallway to a storage closet, which he locks behind them. Shane wishes he could say no, but it’s been months, and his body is vibrating. 

“Why is this better?” Shane asks between sloppy kisses, the taste of bleach and synthetic citrus burning his throat. 

“Because it is now,” he replies and then goes straight for his torn lip. He sucks down, bites until it gives way, and it hurts, but it’s a good hurt, a counterbalance to the throb of Shane’s dick. He can taste his blood in Rozanov’s mouth, salty sharp. 

He pushes him further into the room, past a line of buckets and mops. Shane almost asks how he knew there was a locked room here, but maybe it’s better if he doesn’t know. Besides, Rozanov is busy working his hands between Shane’s legs while he rocks against the pressure of it.
This close, his face is all angles, no softness at all. Rozanov’s mouth is almost pressed against his so with each breath, Shane takes the air, warm, from his mouth. 

Rozanov shoves his pants down and his hand closes around Shane’s cock. It’s a familiar rhythm, strong enough that he could come just from that, but as his breathing starts to quicken, Rozanov turns him around, pressing him against the filthy concrete.

Shane doesn’t ask why he has condoms and lube on him; more questions he doesn’t want answers too. 

When Rozanov enters him, Shane whimpers, a tiny, hurt sound that he hates. Rozanov moves faster and he makes the noise again and again, hating it more each time. They fuck like that, with Shane gasping open mouthed into a wall, his ass clenching tight around the thickness of Rozanov’s cock, Rozanov murmuring familiar russian obscenities, and somewhere in the building, his wife asleep.

Boston, Fall 2023

The smoke drifts inside from the balcony. Rozanov is standing outside in just his hotel slippers, a tawdry front page tabloid article waiting to happen. 

Shane knows he should care, but he feels so jelly-limbed and fucked out it’s hard to work up the energy. He buries himself deeper into the pillows instead.  

“Do you have to go soon?” he asks through a mouthful of pillow. Rozanov shakes his head, exhaling another stream of smoke in Shane’s direction. Shane is torn between disgust and a desire to suck the nicotine from his tongue. 

“I thought you quit,” says Shane. 

“It’s nice to quit, yes?” Rozanov asks. “The last cigarette is always the best.”

“That stuff’s gonna kill you someday,” Shane says, more out of habit than real feeling. He regrets saying it instantly; he does not like to think about someday or Ilya together. 

“Hollander, I am a professional hockey player. I’ve had four concussions, probably more. I am not going to die from a little smoke.” Despite this, he pinches the end of the cigarette and tosses it off the balcony. 

He slides back into bed, bringing the cold with him. Shane turns over, wrapping his arms around Ilya’s chilled skin. He can’t resist drawing his fingers down the round curve of his ass. He loves Ilya's body this time of year, before hockey has devoured every ounce of fat, worn him down to nothing but wiry muscle. 

Rozanov rubs his hands on Shane’s back like he’s a furnace. 

“Next time, maybe wear a shirt,” he suggests. Rozanov responds by biting the shell of his ear. 

“Are you coming to the cottage this summer?” he asks. It’s easier to ask into a swirl of dark prickly chest hair.

Even post-shower, the familiar smell of sweat and locker grime clings to his skin. Shane resists the urge to move lower and bury his entire face in Ilya’s crotch. 

“I think so. Need to find the right dates.”

“It must be hard to explain.” 

He feels rather than sees the shrug. “Eh, not really. I am gone much of the time. Honestly, I think it is better. When I’m not home. I’m not the easiest person to live with,” he admits. 

“A slob,” Shane says, trying to smile, regretting bringing up this subject. He does not think about their sneakers lined up like soldiers in the entry of his cottage. 

“No,” he says, “I mean, yes, that too. But I can be difficult. Sometimes, I can be, how do you say, blue?”

Shane’s grip on him tightens. He is surprised by the admission, but maybe not as much as he should be. Maybe less the admission than the act of admitting. He imagines Ilya standing in front of a dark lake, blue-black, like a rip in the earth. Something you could fall into. 

“What–” he starts to say but Ilya shushes him. 

“Always the questions,” he says. “No more tonight.” His hands slide down to Shane’s cock, still soft and sticky, gives it a squeeze and it twitches. 

Shane almost says it, you agreed, you said I could ask, but he never actually did. Ilya swerved away from that one and at the time, he hadn’t even noticed. That was back when he still believed that maybe his legendary tenacity could wear down their circumstances. 

So now, Shane puts his mouth on him instead of asking the questions he wants to ask. Are you still sad, even now, here with me. What if I let you take and take and take, just like this. What if I cut open my chest and my guts spill out, what then, Ilya?

Montreal, Winter 2024

The end happens slowly and then all at once. The gaps between text messages widen until there is only silence from Ilya. For years, he felt the threads between them unspooling and now they are retracting, returning home.  

Maybe she caught him or maybe he got tired of the way Shane’s hunger spilled out between them endlessly, like he was a teenager, except even as a teenager, Shane had more self control, or maybe Shane broke some rule that was never fully articulated, or maybe he just got some fucking sense, finally, or maybe ––

Shane knows he should be relieved, should be grateful to Rozanov for finally simplifying things. 

He can go back to the essentials now, back to his first love: the ice, bisected by crisp red and blue lines. This is clean, this is easy. Hockey is oxygen. It will expand to fill all the spaces of his life, all the little nooks and crannies Ilya Rozanov left behind, just like before. 

But now even hockey makes him think of Rozanov. He pictures him as a teenager, when they first met, skating ferocious circles around the rink, all gristle and grace. The thrill of discovery, and a whole lifetime spilled out since then, and it still somehow felt like the first time every time. They’d seen something they recognized in each other all those years ago, and ever since, they’ve been burning through seasons circling each other, chasing and falling back. 

He’s been waiting for things to come together or fall apart, and now that it’s here, he’s not sure he can tell the difference.

Los Angeles, Spring 2024

Three days after the Metros lose to Toronto in round one of the playoffs, Shane flies out to Los Angeles. He wants to sleep, but the lows of the last game are playing on a loop in his head. That missed shot in the second period, that pass that skittered through his legs, and then the rookie Kremer, drawing that pointless penalty. 

For a rebuilding season it was not bad, good even, and he knows that not every year can be a championship year, but it still leaves a bitter taste. 

The flight attendant hands him a flat can of ginger ale, and he resents he wasn’t allowed to open it, misses the soothing crack and hiss. He wishes he was the kind of person that could charm an unopened can from her. He wishes for a lot of things. 

After they land, he knows there’s a driver waiting for him, but he still does a round of stretches and a lap around the LAX terminal. 

His body doesn’t tolerate flights well anymore, not even in business class. He can feel his bones in ways he never could before. Like there’s not enough skin between him and the world. No matter how much protein he eats, how much muscle he puts on, his bones creak, they demand attention. He is aware now, of how many joints he has, how many tendons, of all the different ways they can hurt. 

The average hockey player’s career lasts five years. Tomorrow, Shane will be 34 years old and he’s already living on a half life. 

But Rose promised him a spa day and fun, actual fun, so here he is. Although right now, all he wants is a nap. After a quick hug, she scoots him in the direction of a guest bedroom, the phone on speaker and close to her face. She says, hmm frequently, and rolls her eyes. Sorry, she mouths at Shane. 

He glances at his own phone, routine rather than expectation. He hasn’t heard from Rozanov in more than four months. He’s not even sure that he knows his birthday; they never spent one together. Never spent a single holiday together, except for one muggy Canada Day. 

After a long nap that almost veers into a full nights’ sleep, Rose asks him whether he’d rather go out for dinner or watch the playoffs. “I think Boston is playing Toronto,” she says. He shakes his head, no, no. 

“I’d rather go out, I think,” he says. “Meet some of your friends.”

That gets him a real smile, blinding teeth bracketed by glossy lipstick. “It’s your birthday,” she says, “so you get anything you want.” 

Anything he wants, he thinks, but not everything. 

The night gets blurry fast. Rose has lots of friends, lots of handsome male friends that she keeps introducing him to. She knows he had a breakup of some kind, and although she doesn’t know the details, he suspects she has some pretty astute guesses. 

“You should be fucking dating,” Rose tells him. He had forgotten that she curses like a sailor when she’s drunk.  

“Just because it’s not that guy doesn’t mean it needs to be nobody. This body should not be wasted on celibacy.”  She pinches his abs through his shirt as his cheeks redden. “Even if you still don’t want to come out, there are tons of guys out there who are closeted or famous or whatever the fuck and looking for something on the down low.” 

“You remember what my schedule was like. Hockey makes it pretty impossible, even if I could go on like a normal date," he reminds her. 

“It sounds lonely,” Rose says. Yes, he agrees, yes, it would sound lonely to somebody else.

Their conversation is disrupted by the appearance of another one of Rose’s friends, who gives him a smile so unambiguous even Shane can clock it. Rose buys them all shots and drags him onto the dance floor. Without the specter of straight sex hanging over him, he almost manages to enjoy it. The night goes from blurry to black. 

He leaves his phone at their booth tucked into Rose’s purse, so he doesn’t see the midnight text from Lily until the next morning when he wakes up bleary-eyed and disoriented by the unfamiliar bed sheets and the color of the sun blinking in through shades. 

Happy birthday, Shane. 

Montreal, Fall 2024 

The days get filled fast. His game day routine is fucking nuts, what is wrong with you, according to Hayden, but it’s the only way to get through everything he needs to get done: wake up, thirty minutes of meditation, thirty minutes of yoga with his trainer, one hour for breakfast and digestion, team skate plus thirty minutes for travel, thirty minutes of light lifting to activate his nervous system, one hour for lunch, digestion, and to call his mom, two hours for a nap, ten minutes for meditation, and then to the stadium. 

It’s hard to imagine how he would make time for anything else, anybody else. Today, they’re playing Boston so he slides in an extra thirty minutes of meditation. Anything can be learned, anything can be practiced. 

It’s also Shane Hollander bobblehead night so he has to get there early to make nice with the media and take photos with fans. His mother left one of the dolls behind in the apartment and it went straight into the trash. There’s something obscene about the way the head moves, about the shape of the mouth. The Boston locker room jokes write themselves. 

Maybe he could ask to skip the first face-off, could probably get out of it somehow just this one time, but it’s his job to give the crowds what they want. These are his fans, this is his stadium, those are his fucking championship banners. And it’s always a pleasure to see Rozanov’s face, even now. 

He hops the boards and skates out to center ice as the crowd’s roar reaches a crescendo. It’s his name they’re chanting. 

Rozanov is waiting, his stick tapping against the ice impatiently. His smile holds a promise of violence. Shane returns the smile and waits for the puck to drop. 

Tampa, Winter 2025

Rose calls him twice before he picks up, balancing the phone on his thigh between ice packs. They’re still weeks away from the playoffs, but nobody has told his body that.  

“I want to hear all about your date with Nico, but first, are you okay?” asks Rose, somehow managing to sound both worried and cheerful.

“You were watching the game?” he asks. 

“I’m home in Michigan this week. Hockey is literally always on.” He can hear the eye roll in her voice. 

He assures her that the hits look worse than they feel. It’s a familiar lie; it’s what he’s always told his mother. 

Even with the painkillers and the ice and the red light therapy session, his knee fucking hurts, but what matters is that he doesn’t need to go to the hospital, that he’ll be able to skate in the next game. The amount of pain is besides the point. 

“Okay, my brothers will be relieved. They were pretty freaked. So, yes, now tell me everything.” 

He already knows some of the things he won’t tell her. The small smile that Nico gave him when the check came. The feeling of scratchy carpet on his bare knees. The sheen of sweat on Nico’s skin like rain on asphalt. How nothing ever empties it but the sex blunts the edge of the need he keeps tightly curled inside himself, siphons out just enough to keep it manageable. 

“He was nice,” he says.

He was nice. He was friendly in a Midwestern way that was Canadian but with the wrong accent. His teeth were shockingly, impossibly white. He only mentioned the television show he stars on twice and in Rose’s world that passes for being humble. 

“What could possibly have been wrong with Nico?” Rose asks. “He’s beautiful, he’s discrete, he’s kind. Shane, if he was straight, I would marry him. Honestly, if I go on one more bad date, I might marry him anyway.” 

“Nothing was wrong with him, exactly,” he mumbles. He doesn’t know how to tell Rose that yes, he wants nice, but he also wants a threat of something else; a stick aimed at his throat. 

“I’m starting to think maybe you’re not gay after all,” she says.  

“I just – he thought hockey games were played in quarters. Maybe an athlete next time?” he suggests apologetically.

“Oh my god, what am I, Grindr for famous closeted men?” Rose says, puffed up with indignation, and he can’t quite tell how much of it is real and how much is for effect. 

“I mean, basically?” he says.

“You know it might be easier to meet somebody if you weren’t locked into that closet of yours.” 

“Rose,” he warns. 

“Who cares if you get some dirty looks in the locker room? You’re a legend. They don’t get to own you forever.”

One of the things that Shane likes about Rose is that she’s one of the few people in his life that isn’t careful with him, that isn't invested in his performance. These days, maybe the only person. But that means he’s not always sure how to talk to her. Their worlds are so different. In hollywood, the stars are the center of all things and everything rotates around them, bends to their will. In his world, hockey is at the center and it does not bend for anything.  

He realizes the line has been quiet for a long time. It’s Rose who breaks the silence. 

“You’re really okay?” she asks again. 

“Really. I won’t even notice my knee tomorrow.”

“I wasn’t asking about your knee,” she says. There’s a sudden rush of background noise, and then Rose says, “I’m so sorry I gotta go,” like it’s all one word. 

People keep asking him if he’s okay. He wonders what they’re seeing. He’s used to pushing so much down, it should be nothing to add more, but he feels so heavy all the time and maybe it’s starting to show. 

His hockey stats haven’t gotten worse, except for the matches against the Raiders, and even then, it’s negligible. In the absence of other metrics, he has to assume that nothing has changed. For the first time he considers the possibility that he is not okay, wonders what that would even look like. 

He thinks about the hospital trip he almost had to take but in the end, didn’t because his knee is fine, he is fine. Shane has been lucky and he hasn’t been to the hospital since that nasty hit almost ten years ago. But someday he will because that’s the nature of the game, so he tries to imagine it. His parents would be there, obviously, Hayden, maybe a few other players, his coach. Not Ilya, of course. Even if he wanted to, nobody would believe him. Even if it was serious, if Shane fucking died, Ilya Rozanov would be thrown out of the funeral, laughed out of the cottage where his swimming trunks still gather dust in the dresser. 

He needs somebody to know, he realizes. Even if it’s over, especially if it’s over, he needs it to be real. What the fuck does it even matter, it’s over, it’s done. Stop breathing life into this dead thing. It’s Rozanov’s voice in his ear again, but he shakes him off. He wants to say Ilya’s name out loud to another human being, and just once, he doesn’t want it to be a lie or a chirp.

He texts Rose: call me back when you have the chance. 

Ottawa, Winter 2026

On the drive home from the stadium, Shane catches Rozanov’s eyes gazing at him from over the top of a bus. 

He’s gotten very good at not thinking about Rozanov when he’s not right in front of him. The problem is that these days he’s inescapable. 

He’s always been on ESPN and on the ice, trash talking everybody but him, but now, suddenly, he’s fucking everywhere. He’s on television selling CBD drinks with a smirk. He’s on Instagram, the distinct lines of his abs emerging from low slung sweats to promote athleisure. Shane never clicks but Instagram serves the ads to him again and again; even the algorithm sees right through him.

And now the latest, Rozanov’s lips frozen in a perfect pout, blown up fifty times larger than their usual size on a billboard for whiskey. Even here in Ottawa, there’s no escape. Shane feels momentarily betrayed by his hometown. 

His dad glances over at him, noting his line of sight. He waits a beat, and then says, “that must be weird for you.”

Shane shrugs. “It’s fine,” he says. “Comes with the territory.” He stretches out his left knee, feels bone grind on bone. 

His dad's fingers tap out a familiar tune on the steering wheel. “Do you mind if I ask what happened between you? You didn’t tell us much.”  

This strikes Shane as the understatement of the century. He could barely get the words out to tell his parents he was gay; they bashed against his teeth like they were doing their best to stay put. The worst part was that after years of self-torment, his parents’ surprise seemed polite rather than genuine. After all, his hair is peppered with gray and the last time he brought home a girlfriend, he still had teenage acne.  

The thing he remembers most of all was afterwards, as he tiptoed to their kitchen for a glass of water, hearing the low murmur of their voices. His mom said, what do you think made him finally tell us?

Oh Yuna, his dad replied, he got his heart broken. 

He wondered then if this is why he told them; so they could put a label on it for him. Maybe he wanted his mother to make sense of it, the same way she makes sense of his contracts. 

Since then his mom occasionally asks him if he has any plans to come out, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that any plans are ten years too late. Once or twice, she’s nudged him, nodding at a handsome fan or their waiter. Like he’s Scott fucking Hunter. 

But this is the first time either one of his parents have brought up the second half of his confession: Ilya Rozanov. Hilarious, his mother had said. But seriously. 

“There isn’t much to tell,” Shane says. “We could never figure out a way around the impossibility of it all.” He doesn't say, short of blowing up our hockey careers. He doesn't want his parents to know that was ever on the table. 

“And his marriage?” his dad asks, pushing as much as he knows how. He’s working hard to keep his expression neutral but the soft creases around his eyes give him away.

“It has nothing to do with me,” he says. His voice is a little too quiet, thin, like it's been stretched to the breaking point.

“C’mon,” his dad says. “You can be angry at him. To me.” 

Shane doesn’t know how to explain that he swallowed all of his anger and brought it inside him. That Rozanov made the right choice, the sane choice, the choice Shane would’ve made if he could have. It would be more fun for me, Ilya had said, if I thought you were jealous of her and not me. 

“It was a long time ago,” he says instead. “There’s no point in being angry about any of it.” 

Toronto, Fall 2026

The second he steps into the hall, Shane feels lost in the sea of hockey players. It looks like every player who ever touched the ice as an Admiral is there.   

Shane has felt vaguely uneasy in the days leading up to the hall of fame induction. He’s been to half a dozen of these, and the idea of his turn someday was always something sweet to think about, a way to pass the hours of speeches and small talk, but it was always in the distant someday. But now Drapeau is retired. Robertson retired. Hayden retired. Scott Hunter retired. Rozanov isn’t retired, but he was out for large chunks of the last two seasons with injuries. Suddenly, it feels like the future is tapping at his door. Okay, maybe not at his door yet, but definitely in the neighborhood. 

Or perhaps he just feels uneasy because he heard through the grapevine that Rozanov would be here today. He doesn’t see him but he senses him in his orbit, circling like a fucking shark. 

It’s still a shock when Rozanov slips into the chair next to him just as the speeches start. For the next hour, Shane can feel his foot tapping next to his, his hip against his hip, the heat of his thigh against his. He looks at his neighbors to see where they have put their hands before clasping them carefully in his lap. 

As if from a great distance, he can make out pieces of Scott Hunter’s speech, longevity in sport comes from discipline and luck...to my husband, for waiting until I was brave enough to be loved in the open…

Out of the corner of his eye, he analyzes Rozanov’s familiar profile. His hair is slicked back carefully except for a single loose curl that he palms flat over and over.  

After the ceremony, Rozanov disappears without a word. Shane spots him having an animated conversation with Scott Hunter before losing track of him again. He chats with Carter Vaughn and another former Admiral lineman whose name he can’t quite remember, and then a former Metro player, somebody from the league, the names swirling together on his tongue, before Shane finally finds an opportunity to excuse himself. He stakes out a position at a cocktail table in the corner, clasping his soda water. He squeezes juice from the bright lime wedge, sucks air into his diaphragm at the right count, and breathes out, squeezes the lime again, and takes another deep cleansing breath. 

This time he’s not surprised when Rozanov finds him.  

“Hollander,” he says, nodding at him. It feels like he’s standing a hair closer than he should.

“Seems like everybody’s here this year,” says Shane, because it seems like a nice neutral thing you might say to your long-time professional rival when you’re in the last act of your career, and suddenly all those years of competition are just fodder for nostalgic commentators.

“So many supporters for gay men and yet just one man who likes to suck dick in the whole league. Amazing," replies Rozanov. 

Shane chokes on his drink. Just the word in Rozanov’s mouth is enough to wake up his body, suddenly alert after a long hibernation. Rozanov looks pleased, like this is the reaction he was hoping for. 

“What did you say to Hunter?” Shane asks, hoping it’s not too obvious he’s changing the subject. 

“Ah, I told him that he deserved this, that it is award for old men.” 

“Bet he loved that.” 

Rozanov smiles, although it’s what Shane thinks of as his hockey smile: gleeful, a little bit vicious. Like he’s hoping somebody will be stupid enough to try and start something. Somewhere along the way, he lost his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt, leaving his forearms bare. He is still the most beautiful person Shane has ever seen. 

“He likes my jokes more now. We are friends, maybe.” 

“That’s new,” says Shane, “retirement really has softened him.”  

“I told him I was bisexual,” Rozanov admits. “Many years ago. At All Stars.” 

“You’re kidding.” 

He shrugs, sips at his drink. “I asked him how it was, coming out with the league and his team.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me if I liked girls, I should stick to girls.” 

“I guess that was good advice,” Shane says. 

Rozanov turns his body away from the table, eyes his watch, looking into the crowd, perhaps contemplating his next move, and Shane can’t help but turn with him, like they’re planets rotating on the same axis. 

“I told my parents last year,” Shane blurts out. He’s not sure why he’s sharing this with Rozanov, except perhaps that he still wants to prove he can surprise him. 

“What did you tell them?” 

“Everything. That I’m gay, about you. All of it.”

Rozanov lets out a sharp exhale like a whistle. “You’re joking.”

“They won’t tell anyone,” he assures him. “Obviously.” 

“What else? You make instagram post? Come out to Crowell? Is pride banner in Montreal I don’t know about?” 

Shane’s cheeks flush. He places his water down on the table next to Rozanov’s tumbler. Ilya brushes his hand lightly, maybe accidentally. Every nerve flares to life. Shane pictures his fingers on his jaw, in his mouth. He fights an urge to bury his head in his chest, leave a ring of teeth marks right above the last unbuttoned button. 

“I have to go soon,” Rozanov says. “I have to fly back to Boston this evening to pick up my daughter. Show I am very responsible dad who understands schedules.” 

Something about the statement feels like an invitation to ask more, but Shane isn’t sure what he’s supposed to ask. There’s a long beat where Shane can feel his eyes on him. 

“I’m getting a divorce,” Rozanov says, slightly amused, as if he's pleased that Shane has failed this latest test.  

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he says, trying to sound like he means it. 

Rozanov raises an eyebrow at him and he laughs. “Okay, I’m not. But are you, you know, okay?” I’m blue sometimes. 

“I am okay. I am poor now, but I will be okay.” 

Ilya takes a sip from Shane’s water. The intimacy of it makes his stomach hurt. 

“Wait, is that why you’ve been doing all those ads?”  Shane asks. 

“Ah, you noticed. American divorces are very expensive. But I am lucky, I have a handsome face.” His eyes are fixed on Shane, as if he’s daring him to disagree. He looks at his watch again. 

“You and Hunter were both wrong, you know. I do not get to choose, not the way that you think.”

Shane blinks. 

“I have to go. See you soon, Hollander.” 

Ottawa, Winter 2027 

Over and over that year, Shane pulls up their old text thread, savoring the familiar zing. It feels like an archaeological dig, coming across something very old and brand new, all at once. 

He changes the name from Lily to Rozanov, studies it, turns it back again. 

It’s the first time in years that one or both of them won’t be out with an injury during the All-Stars weekend. He could skip it, rest his fucked up shoulder, take long naps. He could do a lot of things. He opens the thread instead. Lunch on Saturday? 

Rozanov gives it a thumbs up, leaving him almost nothing to analyze. But then lunch gets eaten up by a fan event that runs straight into the alumni event that turns into dinner. 

Now? Lily texts. I am sitting outside the south door. This seems like code for smoking, but when Shane finds him, he’s leaning back on a bench, his hands jammed into his pockets. He didn’t bother to wear a coat.

Rozanov slides over just enough to make room for both of them. Shane sits. He’s always willing to squeeze himself into whatever space Rozanov offers.

“You must be freezing,” says Shane. 

Rozanov’s head is tilted up, gazing up at the sky. Shane looks up too. The sky is clear, stars sparkling through the residual city light. The air smells clean and sharp like after a snow storm. Shane closes his eyes and when he opens them, Rozanov is looking at him. Shane is so used to staring at him through a helmet that his face looks strangely bare, exposed. He looks away, tucks his hands safely into his pockets, like Rozanov’s mirror image. 

“I thought maybe it would look like the sky at the cottage,” Rozanov says. 

“Too much light pollution,” says Shane, amused by the admission, but moved by it too. He also sometimes finds himself hunting for that same familiar expanse of sky. 

"It must be nice, playing back on home ice," says Rozanov, gesturing at the familiar rink ahead of them.  

“What happened with your marriage?” Shane blurts out. He had planned to work his way to this topic, but his mouth can’t seem to form any of the polite sentences that might serve as a normal prelude. 

“She never knew about us,” Rozanov says, knowing as always what Shane really wants. “Ask your other question, Hollander.” 

“If you already know–” 

“I didn’t seem to be making you happy,” Rozanov says. “It seemed like the polite thing to do. Very Canadian of me.” His gaze bores into the side of Shane’s face. 

“The polite thing,” Shane echoes, “and you just never said a fucking word to me? Never checked in to see how I felt about it?”

In the long list of possibilities, he had never considered this one. Probably because the truth was the precise opposite; nothing that wasn’t Rozanov had been making him happy. 

“There were other reasons too, probably,” says Rozanov. 

Rozanov exhales, his breath visible in the night air. “I fell out of love with you,” he admits. Shane doesn’t know what part to react to. You were in love with me, he wants to ask. You’re not in love with me anymore, he almost says. 

He compromises by saying nothing and Ilya fills the silence. “Not just you. Everything. Hockey. My wife. One day, I wake up and I just don’t want any of it.” Rozanov pulls his hand free and rests it on his leg, his fingers twitching, before he shoves it back into his pocket. 

“I can’t imagine not loving hockey,” Shane says. 

A genuine smile splits Rozanov’s face. “That is the thing you cannot imagine. Of course.”

“You had 40 points last year, even though you were out half the season,” says Shane. “How can you do that and not love it?” 

Rozanov nods, amused. “You memorize all of my stats? You still want to beat me that bad, Hollander?”

“I just – I see you out there. On the ice. I know you love it,” says Shane.  

“You are right, maybe. With hockey, I did not fall out of love forever.”  Their eyes finally meet and he feels it like a hook, tugging at his rib cage, peeling it back, bone by bone. 

“You didn’t think I was happy?” he asks, still stuck on this point, a loose thread on a nail. 

“It was good for both of us to focus, yes? You get the career you want, no distractions. I do too. It’s not nothing,” says Rozanov. 

“No, it’s not nothing,” he says. It’s not everything but he was never foolish enough to think he would get that. “I still wish you had talked to me.” 

“You would’ve made a different choice? You would have said, ah Rozanov, now that I know you are unhappy, I will tell my parents I will never marry a woman because I am too busy fucking the enemy, I’ll move to New York, become an Admiral just like my gay hero Scott Hunter,” he pauses, waiting for him maybe, and then continues. “No. I didn’t ask because I knew the answer.”

It makes him dizzy to even imagine it. But Rozanov should know, he must know that Shane could never say no to him, that he turns every no into a yes. 

“I don’t know what I would have done,” says Shane. “And I did tell my parents.”   

“Yes, only took twenty years,” says Rozanov. 

“And who have you told?,” Shane says, angry now, feeling like he’s trying to play fair and Rozanov is swiping at his feet. “It’s not like you were trying to shout it to the rafters.”  

“I will tell anybody you want, Shane. I’m a US citizen. And I’m thinking of retiring,” Rozanov admits. “Not next year. But soon maybe.” 

Shane allows that to sink in, takes a deep steadying breath. His phone has been vibrating on and off this whole time. “They’re probably looking for us,” he says. 

Rozanov reaches over and touches a strand of his hair, rubs it between his fingers. Shane lets a warm ache wash over him. 

“The gray suits you,” he says. 

Shane closes his eyes. The air simmers between them. It makes him think of long sun-kissed days; summer again. Winter ends eventually. Even in Canada. 

“Ready to go back?” asks Rozanov, the wood slats of the bench creaking as he stands up. 

“Yes,” he says, and follows him back inside. 

Montreal, Spring 2027

His mother keeps asking him what he plans to do on his Cup day. 

“He’s running out of things to do with it,” his dad teases him. 

His dad is not entirely wrong, but the truth is the only thing he can think of is bringing it to the cottage, having one day where all of his happiest things are assembled together in one place, like a jigsaw puzzle. 

Four cups. One more and he will surpass Gretzky.  There’s less thrill in it than he expected. There are still records to break but more and more they just seem like a question of time. And the rookies keep getting younger and greener. He is having a hard time remembering their names. He never thought about how lonely it would, to be the only one left. 

You can’t let them own you forever, Rose had said. If Shane’s playing, he wants Rozanov playing. And if he’s not playing, then he wants him there too. 

Rozanov answers on the first ring, as if he’s expecting Shane’s call. 

“Are you still thinking about retiring?” Shane asks without preamble. 

“Mm, sometimes. On back to back game days, yes.” 

“You shouldn’t retire.” 

Rozanov lets out a huff. “You think they should bury us together too, Hollander?”

“You should come train with me this summer. I’m putting together a new training team that specializes in longevity. The meal plan really isn’t that bad, I promise. And I have this amazing yoga instructor who will make your knees feel ten years younger.” 

“I never had any trouble with your knees,” says Rozanov and he can picture the exact smirk on his face. 

“Shut up. You know what I mean.” 

“Hollander, I do not want your nutritionist or your yoga instructor.” There’s a long pause. Shane’s heart thumps so loudly that he’s sure Ilya can hear it through the phone. “But I will come to the cottage this summer, if that is what you are asking.” 

It wasn’t. Or maybe it was; another question wrapped in hockey, just like them. Rozanov always knows what he wants before he does.

“You are still very bad at this,” says Rozanov, but he’s smiling, Shane knows he’s smiling. 

“I’m bad at this,” he says in disbelief. 

“Yes, very,” Rozanov says, pausing and then plunging ahead, “we will have to work on it.” 

Lanaudière, Summer 2017

For two weeks, they have slept spooned together, sometimes Ilya behind him, sometimes the heavy bulk of him draped over Shane like a blanket. On the last day, Shane wakes up alone. Ilya’s pillow is cold. 

He finds Ilya sitting on the dock, legs dangling in the water, his face tilted towards the sun. There’s an unlit cigarette in his hand. Shane sits down next to him, knees bumping, legs pressed together. Shane kisses him lightly despite the morning breath. He can feel the warmth of Ilya’s skin seeping through his t-shirt. 

“G’morning,” he says with a yawn. 

He wants more mornings just like this one, slow and sweet as honey. In the spring, two weeks sounded like forever, but the days have bled away and now the world is coming for them and he doesn’t know how to stop it. 

“It’s so quiet,” Ilya says. “I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere so quiet.” 

Shane can hear the frogs and the chittering birds and the water lapping at the small pebbly beach. 

“Is that bad?” he asks. 

“No, is good. But hard to think sometimes.” Shane wants to ask what Moscow sounds like, but Russia has not always been a good subject between them. He’s still unlearning how to be careful. 

“I like the quiet.” 

Rozanov grins. “I know Shane.” He kisses his shoulder with a loud smack. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so few people before,” he says and it’s not clear to Shane if it’s a complaint or a compliment. 

“I told you it was private,” Shane says. 

“Feels like we’re on an island with no other people. I would not want this with any one else,” Ilya says. “With you, it is okay.” He’s looking at Shane intently. 

“You want to be castaway together,” Shane says, amused. 

If they were marooned somewhere, he wonders how many days it would take for Ilya to miss his cars, his friends, his espresso machine; how many days it would take until he didn’t feel that warm glow every time he looked at Ilya’s face. Forever seems like a lot to ask. 

“Yes, our suitcases will fall in the sea. We will drink from coconuts and you will wear a skirt made of leaves.”  

“There’d be no ice,” Shane reminds him. “No hockey.”  

“Is fine, I will find other ways to beat you,” says Ilya, but there’s something wistful in his voice.  

Shane can feel his phone buzzing in his pocket. It’s probably texts from his parents, who will be eager to see him again. He reminds himself to listen to that podcast on silent meditation on the way home from the airport. 

The thought of the airport fills him with a deep dread. Ilya is almost gone, this moment is almost a memory, and he is keenly aware of all the conversations they didn’t have; the things he should’ve said out loud instead of hoarding to himself. I like you, he had said, so much. I want to do this every year. It was close, it was almost there. 

There’s always next time, he thinks, and marvels at that: the distance between every time feeling like a last time and now, suddenly, everything is a first. There will be a next time, he knows, a next time, and other summers.