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“Do you ever wonder what life could’ve looked like, if it wasn’t for hockey?” Rose muses.
It’s technically their fifth date, but they’re at her friend’s party—Jillian maybe or Jennifer—so privacy comes in fits and starts.
He likes a lot of things about Rose, some more obvious than others: her soft hands; the flash of her teeth, whole and white; the warm glow of her charisma, which sometimes seems to envelop him, like an umbrella. He likes how disinterested her friends are in him. He gets curious smiles, the occasional, good luck!, but hockey is not their business.
But what he likes the most is how many questions she asks him. How determined she is to know him. Like someday there will be a quiz she needs to pass.
“Not really. It was always hockey for me,” he says.
He has wanted exactly one thing since he was old enough to lace up his own skates. Maybe from the second he first wobbled onto the frozen lake behind his parents’ cottage.
He wonders how Rozanov would’ve answered. He probably would have said something filthy, with just enough truth to be funny.
“It was the same with acting for me. I guess we’re just a pair of weirdos. Just think, we could’ve been accountants. Our lives would be so much easier,” Rose says, rolling her eyes at herself.
He doesn’t know how to explain it wasn’t hockey that was hard. Even the pressure—the scouts, the training, the hype—seemed like a fair price to pay for greatness. Wanting one thing was easy; wanting anything else risks bringing the rest of his life tumbling down, like pulling out the wrong jenga block.
A beat too late it occurs to him that he should’ve replied. He’s lucky she usually assumes he is thoughtful rather than just really fucking awkward.
He’s spared any further response when her friend appears with two bright, frothy cocktails that look out of place in a Montreal winter. The game against Philly is in less than 40 hours so Shane’s nursing a luke-warm can of ginger ale that he really wishes he’d poured into a glass for appearance’s sake.
“Nothing for Shane,” Rose explains on his behalf. “Not during the season.”
“That must be tough,” says Jillian or Jennifer with a sympathetic pout.
“Shane’s discipline is legendary. Vices don’t stand a chance,” says Rose, beaming at him.
“Except for me, of course,” she adds, her smile turning mischievous as her straw spins back and forth in her hand.
Anything can be a vice if you want it badly enough. He blinks the thought away.
“Of course,” he says, trying to mirror her smile.
When he walked out of Rozanov’s house, he thought it was finally done. He didn’t expect that he would need to wake up every day and do it again and again. How it sometimes feels like he’s still there, in the heartbeat right before he left.
Later, during his uber ride home, as the city lights flicker across his lap, Shane scrolls down to his text thread with Lily. He ignores the familiar pang, and types out, if you weren’t a hockey player, what would you be? He tries to picture Rozanov as a salesman or a lawyer, all easy, sleazy charm. But he can’t imagine him as anything else. It’s one thing they share; if they weren’t hockey players they would be somebody else entirely. Maybe that’s a relief. There’s just this version of them. And only this ending.
Slowly, letter by letter, he deletes the message.
**
For a week the pressure builds in his chest, pushing up until it feels like something is jammed in his throat, and for a week he resists. The second he starts typing, the searches autopopulate: Ilya Rozanov, date. Ilya Rozanov, club. Ilya Rozanov, pool. Like dipping his fingers in wax, one finger at a time. Pain and relief, all at once.
He picks one photo and lets himself gaze at it for as long as he wants. He stares at the soft curve of her breast, Ilya’s hand covering the round of her ass, the dark dress dipping lower in that spot, as if it’s been tugged up. Rozanov’s long curls plastered to his cheek. The familiar jut of his lip. The glint of gold on his chest, only visible if you know it’s there.
Something clenches and unclenches in his stomach, a fist opening and closing.
It would feel good, cleansing, to throw up. But he needs every calorie he can get for tomorrow’s game. The team has been on a hot streak that social media is attributing to Rose. He knows what the narrative will be if they slip.
He shuts his laptop and closes his eyes, keeping his hands firmly on the table. He does not touch his dick.
For a long time, he wondered if all the excitement around sex was just excess energy. Maybe another round of suicide drills or the right balance of macronutrients would cure them of the whole madness.
He knows better now, mostly, but he still pulls on his running shorts.
**
“Are you meeting Rose tonight?” Hayden asks him with a grin.
He asks it loudly enough that their neighbors can hear, even through the cheerful post-win chatter. Shane suspects the question is for the team’s benefit rather than Hayden’s. Check out our boy.
“Tomorrow,” he says.
A few of his teammates whistle. It sounds halfhearted, more habit than conviction.
“No, thank you so much, J.J.? No, I owe you, J.J.?” J.J. pipes in. “If it weren’t for me, our capitaine would still have girls sliding into his DMs and getting Yuna instead.”
This gets more laughs, a few hollers. Shane hopes he’s not blushing. The team patter is familiar, but he’s not used to being at the center of it. Not like this anyway. For a second it feels like crossing a gap he’s been staring down his whole life.
He unlaces his skates, feeling the release of the bruising pressure on his shins. His legs always feel unnaturally light after a game. You learn to live with the feeling of things missing.
“Was Boston Lily a celebrity too? Was that why there was so much secrecy?” Hayden asks at a lower volume, seemingly out of the blue, as he goes through his usual ritual of unwinding layers of tape.
Shane tries to keep his entire face still. Fails.
“No, that’s not why. I mean, it wasn’t - we were never - dating.” His voice catches and sputters.
Hayden seems unsurprised by Shane’s response, apparently expecting nothing less.
“Well, I’m happy for you. You deserve it. She’s pretty perfect for you. I mean, I don’t get what she sees in you but the heart wants what it wants, I guess.”
“Asshole,” Shane says.
The easy dig bothers him for reasons he can’t quite pinpoint. Maybe the heart wants, but he’s spent twenty years conditioning his body to push itself past all limits, to obey him, to need nothing that does not serve hockey.
One of the assistant coaches ducks in and asks Shane to handle the post-game interviews, doesn’t even wait for Shane to nod before he disappears again.
Hayden shakes his head. “Sometimes I don’t know how you put up with doing that every game.”
Shane shrugs. It’s no different than anything else.
He puts together the right locker room sounds (you’re such an asshole, Drapeau. That motherfucker. We’ll get them next time) and then he makes the right media sounds. (Yes, they came prepared and ready to play. It was helpful that we got off to a fast start and we were able to set the tone for the game. Yes, we’re looking forward to the game against Boston. It’s always a great match-up. No, I have nothing to say about Rozanov’s comments. I think we’ll let our record speak for us.)
**
He can tell what an effort his parents are making to not ask him about Rose. The flow of their conversations skip and pause like a scratched record. He almost wants to put them out of their misery, to volunteer something, anything, but after spending so many years refusing to discuss dating, he has no idea how to begin.
Finally, after a month of this his mother tells him that it’s nice to see him so happy. As he opens his mouth to issue a denial—of what he doesn’t know, she puts her hand up.
“I know, I know. You don’t want to talk about it with me. I just - I worry sometimes we didn’t spend enough time talking about things other than hockey. We all need some balance, Shane. Even superstars.”
“I know, Mom,” he says, resisting an eye roll.
But he appreciates the confirmation that he’s doing the right thing. After all, nobody knows him better than her. Down this path lies happiness. Down another path lies something else entirely.
**
Their longest road trip of the winter takes the team to Calgary, Seattle, Chicago, Toronto, and then finally back home. Boston plays Toronto the next day and he imagines the planes’ paths moving in parallel but opposite directions; maybe they’re touching down just as Montreal takes off.
“So, this is what it’s like to date a professional athlete,” says Rose. “And I thought my schedule was bad.”
She’s tucked under his arm at a booth at their favorite restaurant. The diners two tables over are trying to surreptitiously take their photo. Her fans will be relieved, he thinks, keenly aware that the first comment on everything she posts is where’s shane??
“There must be hockey players with girlfriends,” she says and immediately makes a soft oh, like she’s surprised to have asked the question out loud.
“Famously so,” he confirms.
“So there’s only a month left in this shoot, then it’s back to L.A., then Ireland, then New York, maybe, and L.A. again.”
“Well, L.A. and New York both have hockey teams. For Ireland you’re out of luck.” Their eyes meet and they both smile. Look how easy it is, he marvels. It’s so simple to want the same things; to offer and receive. He imagines basking in the California sunshine, Rose at his side.
“I love a good hotel room,” she says. “It’ll be romantic.”
He tries to picture a shared hotel room, their clothes mingling in the closet, their toiletries side by side in the bathroom. He ignores the mental image of a hotel bed, Rozanov half asleep in sheets twisted and piled around him like drifts of snow.
“Maybe I’ll have a few weeks off in July. Do you get time off in the summer?”
He nods, pauses, and then plunges. “You should visit me. Check out Canada when it’s not a frozen tundra.”
“You don’t need to teach me about lake life,” she says, offering her oh shucks I’m just a Michigan girl at heart smile. “I can fish with the best of them, Shane Hollander.”
She shares a long story involving a fishing line and a canoe that he only sort of follows. Rose gives away pieces of herself like it costs her nothing. He could recite her parents’ names, tell the saga of her first dog, name her favorite lipstick.
“I really want this to work,” he says, folding her hands into his, and he does.
There’s possibility here, a whole life he had started to believe wouldn’t belong to him. If he gets a choice, he chooses this.
**
Their schedules align for once and Rose arrives at his doorstep before the sun goes down. She collapses into his couch and lets out a dramatic sigh.
“I thought today would never end.”
She smiles up at him and he bends to kiss her. He pauses sniffing, wrinkling his nose. His dick twitches. He knows it’s just his body’s pavlovian response but it still feels like betrayal; revenge for a lifetime of strict discipline.
“You smell like cigarettes.”
“Sorry,” she says. “I know you hate it. Miles and James were smoking like chimneys all day.”
When she suggests he should take off her sweater to get rid of the smell, he obliges. The over-sized sweater comes off easily, soft in his hands. Underneath, her core is lean, long, and tanned. Objectively beautiful.
She scoots deeper into his couch, hair splayed out behind her, and he kneels in front of her, burying his head in her neck, where the smoke smell still lingers. He can feel her breath catch.
Rozanov liked to start with his jaw, strong fingers cradled against his face, before moving to his chest and then to his dick. Shane kisses her ear, leaving a trail of light kisses along her jaw, down to her collarbone. He squeezes her breasts, strokes the flimsy lace of her bra, pulls it aside to kiss her nipples, thumbs them until they harden. She moans, giving him hope that this is working. He has to remind himself that she’s a skilled actress.
Her hands slip under his sweatpants, tugging his dick free. When she pulls his pants down, she gasps at the dark blue weal sealed across his left thigh. There’s a matching gash on his right. She touches the bruise lightly with her fingers, her breath puffing out.
“Does it hurt?” she asks.
“It’s not a big deal,” he promises.
Not even worthy of an ice pack. Some bruises feel good, like an ache after a hard workout. Her body is intended to be admired and his is engineered to survive; to hit and be hit.
The color rises in her cheeks and he remembers that she grew up in hockey country; she would probably have watched her boyfriend’s games, maybe they would fumble around in the locker room afterwards. Maybe his skin still tasted like salt and gear stench when she sucked his cock. His dick thickens and Rose’s hands speed up in response, her long nails scraping the sensitive skin by the head.
“Fuck me, Shane,” she says.
He spits on his hand and crooks his fingers inside her, picturing fingers pushing into him, one, then two. He tries to move at a gentle pace, but can’t shake the feeling she expects him to move faster, harder, better.
Rose whispers into his ear, “tell me what you want. I’ll do anything.”
For a moment, he feels frozen, pinned in place. He flips her over onto her stomach and hopes that’s an answer.
He closes his eyes, remembering the rhythm of Ilya thrusting into him. He pushes into her and he can almost feel hips pressing into him from behind. He wishes he could believe the opposite was true. That somewhere in Boston, Ilya feels him like a phantom limb as he peels a girl’s clothing off.
She has a single mole tucked under her shoulder blade, marring her otherwise smooth back. It looks lonely to him. He pushes the thought away, but can’t remove the feeling.
He thrusts harder, feels her jolt slightly. He thrusts again and again and again, but he knows he’s losing steam, can feel himself deflating. He pauses.
“We can stop,” she says.
“I just need a second.”
“It’s really okay,” she says, offering him a conciliatory smile. “I’m honestly pretty wiped.”
She’s already pulling up her underwear, tugging the sweater back on. He wishes it didn’t feel like a relief.
I’m sorry, I’m so exhausted, he wants to say. I sucked at practice and I think I’m going to suck again tomorrow. I’m sorry, I’m being haunted by Ilya Rozanov’s cock. I’m sorry, I think I’m losing my mind.
“I’m sorry,” he says lamely.
“It happens,” she says. “Really you’d be amazed how often this kind of thing happens.”
**
A memory. Not the last time, but the time before.
When he arrived, Rozanov acknowledged him with a quick nod and flung off his coat before moving to the mini bar. Now he seemed content to paw through the fridge. Shane sat on the bed, waiting for whatever would come next.
The HVAC was still blasting hot air into the hotel room despite the unseasonably warm fall weather. Shane felt a single bead of sweat slip down his neck.
“Top shelf vodka,” Rozanov muttered. “Same as the hockey shot. Such a stupid language.”
There was something sharp in his voice and he couldn’t tell if it was aimed at him. Shane didn’t ask; he’d already accepted that he would never know the source of Rozanov’s anger. He was allowed to borrow Rozanov’s body and Rozanov could borrow his, but they couldn’t take anything back with them.
On the ice Shane always knew which way his opponent would move, what each dip of the shoulder signified. Now he stared at Rozanov’s bare shoulder, gleaming, golden; a single puck shaped bruise on his arm the color of a rotten peach.
“It’s too fucking hot,” Rozanov said, directing himself to Shane at last.
“I already called down. All they can do is send somebody from maintenance…” he trailed off.
He didn’t need to explain why that wasn’t an option. Anyway, there wasn’t time. They were always short on time. The second they were in the same place, they were already leaving.
“Open window, Hollander. You know these,” he said, tapping on the thick glass.
“You want people to hear?”
“We’re on the 20th floor. You think you’re so famous people on the street know what you sound like?”
“No,” Rozanov said, answering his own question with a smirk. “Only I know what Shane Hollander sounds like when I put my cock in him.”
“Fuck you,” he replied, but there was no bite to it.
Rozanov’s phone buzzed.
Some nights, Rozanov would forget to put his phone on silent and the texts would come in, vibrating at regular intervals. Shane couldn’t help glancing at the names: Buffalo Anna. Detroit red head. Tiffany piercings. Mimi Porsche. Names plus an identifying feature seemed to be Rozanov’s organizational system.
In another life, he would have been Shane hockey. Shane asian. Shane mouth. Shane boring.
Tonight the buzzing seemed unusually insistent. Rozanov cursed, pressed a button and shoved his phone back in his pocket.
He tossed back a chug of something clear and finally stepped towards Shane.
They came together like magnets, body parts clicking into place. They gripped each others’ faces, mouths warm and wet.
Rozanov tasted sharp, like vodka and Shane mostly didn’t mind it. There was a version of him that only existed here, in these hotel rooms, a Shane whose existence could be counted on two hands. When this ended, he wondered where he would go.
They both tumbled out of their clothing as Rozanov shoved him onto the bed. He looked like he could consume him, eyes swallowed by their own dark pupils. Rozanov held his jaw so hard it hurt and kissed him, biting at his lip before releasing him. Shane couldn’t help chasing his mouth, wishing it back, but Rozanov’s attention had shifted to his chest and then down to his dick.
He worked the slit with his tongue before swallowing him whole. The sight of his curled head between his legs, his calloused hands kneading Shane’s thighs sent a hot spike of longing through him.
Rozanov started moving his mouth up and down, sliding his finger inside him in tandem. He added a second finger, opening him up more, already too much and not enough. Just as Shane started to feel close, which seemed like it happened embarrassingly fast, Rozanov slowed down, giving him one last exaggerated lick before he rolled Shane onto his stomach.
He pulled lube from the pocket of his jeans, pooled on the ground, and spread it generously over himself, already hard. Shane regretted that he had not taken him into his mouth, felt the soft skin expand on his tongue.
The regret faded as soon as Rozanov placed the head of his cock against him. He paused, then pushed in slowly. He pulled out equally slowly. Again and again at the same lazy speed. Shane thought he wanted it fast, but this was better. Rozanov always seemed to know what he wanted or maybe it was the other way around; Shane always wanted what was given to him.
Rozanov’s pace finally quickened and then sped up again. His awareness shrunk down to a pinprick. His world was entirely filled by the wet slap of skin on skin, the rapid huffs of Rozanov’s breath, the rattle of the HVAC.
Rozanov’s hands were holding his shoulders, but they kept slipping on the slick mess of sweat and lube and spit and them. Shane tried to push back against Rozanov’s hips but he couldn’t get traction against him or the soaked sheets. He felt like he was out to sea, waves crashing around him.
Shane took a stronger grip, his fingers clawing into the edge of the mattress and started to roll his hips back.
“Don’t,” Rozanov gritted out. As if it was Shane setting this pace.
After a beat, Rozanov pushed into him again, spitting out a string of expletives so quickly that Shane couldn’t have told you whether they were Russian or even words at all.
“Beautiful,” he mumbled. Shane barely heard it, didn’t register it until much, much later; was never entirely sure that he heard it at all.
Shane finished first, thrusting into the bed, the muscles in his thighs tensing so hard it almost felt like a muscle spasm, a low guttural noise pulled from him.
“Fuck,” Rozanov repeated, over and over, his hips moving frantically. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
A few moments later, Rozanov collapsed on him, nothing between them but the hot stickiness of their skin. Shane’s fingers made a knot in Rozanov’s damp curls, pulling their faces closer together. His cheek tasted like salt.
Shane wondered how long they’d been there, how long they had left before reality seeped back. Give or take a few seconds, he always knew how long each of his line shifts were. But he didn’t know if he’d been there for minutes or days.
Without warning, Rozanov pulled out of him, their skin separating with an audible pop, and Shane flinched and exhaled, preparing himself for the emptiness that was always left in his wake.
Rozanov padded across the room and yanked the window up, letting in a breath of sweet, cool air. Even that small movement showed off the hard, flat muscles of his stomach. Shane waited to hear the sound of the shower and was surprised when he heard the fridge instead, followed by a mysterious crinkling noise. Rozanov reappeared with a chocolate covered ice cream bar.
He propped himself up next to Shane, not quite touching him. His skin radiated heat like the electric blanket his mother used to tuck into bed with him.
Rozanov offered Shane a turn, giving him a genuinely annoyed glare when it became clear he was going to refuse. Shane took a small bite. He did not point out that Rozanov’s small ice cream would probably cost him ten dollars. The room was so warm the ice cream was already soft.
A drop of chocolate fell on Rozanov’s chest, disappearing into the constellation of moles and freckles swirling down the length of his body. Shane resisted the urge to trace shapes between the moles with his tongue, the way he used to lie on the grass and hunt animals in the clouds. The heat was making him crazy, giving him fever dream thoughts.
He opened his mouth to ask which of them should shower first, but Rozanov cut him off.
“Shhh. This is good, no? These were always my favorite. My mama used to give me money to buy them, even when my papa refused.”
Shane tried to hide the surprise on his face. Most of what he knew about Rozanov came from wikipedia and the articles he poured over for competitive advantage. Years and years of circling each other and he was left with almost nothing but this: the way Ilya’s body moved across the ice, the way his body slammed into his. That he loved ice cream.
But maybe he should have known better than to be surprised. Rozanov won games because he zigged when you expected him to zag.
Rozanov offered him another bite. “It’s nice, no?”
“Yes,” he said, “it’s good.”
He took another bite, let the chocolate sit on his tongue, sticky sweet, until it melted.
**
Some nights, he dreams of the ice. Not a rink, manicured and shaved down to glittering perfection, but a lake spanning out before him. The crisp blue bite of the air. A cold puck rippling across the surface. His body moving down the ice the way it was born to do. A crowd in the distance, cheering.
Some nights he dreams of other things. He doesn’t think too much about those dreams.