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Joe Jameson has no delusions of grandeur. He’s always been a good, solid player, but he’s also always known that he would never be winning any awards for hockey. He’s no Hollander or Rozanov; the Ottawa Centaurs haven’t seen the playoffs since long before Joe joined, and aren’t expected to see the cup anytime soon. Hockey is a job — one that pays incredibly well, and makes Joe’s life incredibly easy, in the grand scheme of things.
The thing is, Joe likes being on a quiet team. He likes staying out of the news, likes rolling into the new season with relatively low expectations from the talking heads. Most of the other guys feel the same (or at least act like they feel the same to save face). The locker room is chill, the other guys on the team are friendly, and no one has sponsorship deals like Hollander cluttering up their image.
Well, that’s not entirely true of their captain, Erickson. Erickson never got the memo that he’s never winning the cup, so he can be a bit of an asshole sometimes. It’s reasonable — as the captain, it’s his job to lead the team to victory — but Erickson takes it a little too personally when they fall out of the running, yelling at the team for being a bunch of lousy players and fucking pansy-ass little bitches. It’s annoying, but relatively tame for locker room talk, so Joe can’t complain.
The thing is, Erickson has been threatening to trade to a better team that will actually win for as long as Joe has been a Centaur. That would, of course, actually require a team to want Erickson, but no one ever brings that up during Erickson’s post-loss rants. Erickson’s a fine player, but other teams aren’t exactly clamoring to have him.
So ultimately it’s intriguing, but not a shock when the coach calls the team together to announce that Erickson has been traded and they would have a new captain next season.
What is a shock is that the new captain will be Ilya fucking Rozanov. You could hear a pin drop in the locker room, after the announcement.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” their coach said. “I have no idea how we traded Erickson for Rozanov, but we’ll be damn lucky to have him.”
Joe doesn’t feel damn lucky to have him.
Joe tries, instead, to contain the immediate, sickening fear that jolts through his body at the name Ilya Rozanov. Stanley Cup winner, MVP, hockey’s bad boy — on Joe’s little backwater Ottawa team.
Ilya Rozanov. Ilya Rozanov.
Joe stares blankly forward while their coach waxes poetic about their renewed chances at the playoffs next year, and tries not to have a panic attack.
So the thing is….
The thing is, Joe has had a plan. Not a concrete plan, nothing had been set in motion. Yet. But he’s been slowly nurturing a five-year plan that he was maybe hoping to start thinking about implementing the first tentative stages of, maybe, soonish. Next year, probably. Maybe the year after.
Joe has no interest in coming out to the whole world, no interest in being an out hockey player. When he started playing for the Centaurs, he didn’t think there would be any out hockey players in his tenure. That always seemed like too distant a prospect — like maybe in fifteen or twenty years someone would have the balls to try it.
Then, Scott Hunter happened.
While watching it live, Joe could hardly believe what he was seeing, but even as Hunter kissed a man on live TV, Joe knew that he, personally, would never do something like that.
No. Joe’s plan was much quieter. The guys on the team are all pretty cool, except for Erickson, who was always only okay. The locker room atmosphere has, for the last couple of years, been remarkably decent. Joe has some good friends on the team, and the rest don’t seem like ridiculous bigots. None of them make the kinds of homophobic remarks Joe often hears shouted across the ice at games. And so Joe thought that, maybe, he could test the ice. Make a few comments, here and there. Hunter made for an easy springboard, got everyone talking about gay hockey players.
And Joe’s team? Joe’s team was completely cool. Cool as cucumbers. A few people made jokes like “I didn’t see that coming!” but without any heat. No one called Hunter any slurs, or made any cocksucker comments, or speculated on Hunter’s bedroom habits. Just a collective shrug, and the team moved on.
So Joe thought, maybe… that he might be able to tell the guys. About himself. Nothing for the news, no official statement, just enough that his own team would know, and them knowing would give him that little bit of breathing room. The tabloids don’t care about Ottawa, about what the Centaurs players get up to, so the only scrutiny Joe reasonably has to worry about is his team. If he could tell his team, Joe might actually be able to date. Have a boyfriend. Their relationship would have to be private, but not necessarily a secret.
But now: Ilya fucking Rozanov.
Joe’s quiet little team, in quiet little Ottawa, about to be hit by the hurricane of news and speculation and gossip that comes along with the tornado named Ilya Rozanov. Joe’s little plan torpedoed by mother Russia before he managed to do anything at all.
—
The buzz of speculation starts immediately.
“So what do you think happened?” Bryce asks.
They’re at the sports bar down the street from the rink, the TV on in the background, Rozanov’s photo taking up the whole screen. The talking heads are speculating — about Boston’s chances without Rozanov, about what the Centaurs must have offered to get Rozanov, about how unexpected the whole announcement was. The talking heads are delicately avoiding saying anything salacious, but somehow the concept is still conveyed.
The guys, not so much.
“I bet he fucked someone he shouldn’t have,” Terry says.
“Yeah? Like who?” Bryce asks, leaning forward. There’s no one standing close enough to hear them over the music, but the conversation feels like something delicate anyway.
“Who knows,” Terry says with a shrug. “You know what they say about Rozanov and his parade of beautiful women.”
“He’s the most important player on the team, though,” Joe says. “I can’t imagine them trading him because he slept with someone’s wife.”
“They might if it was the coach’s wife,” Terry says.
“Or the owner’s,” Bryce adds with a waggle of his eyebrows.
“Have either of you ever actually talked to the guy?” Joe asks. Both Terry and Bryce shake their heads. “So we have no idea if he’s as much of an asshole as the media says he is.”
Terry shrugs. “No clue.”
“Yeah, but we’re going to find out,” Bryce says.
Joe knows very little about Rozanov, outside of what he sees on TV. The man has always been polite when playing Ottawa, though everyone knows Rozanov is the king of pissing people off on the ice. Joe would like to believe that Rozanov keeps his snide comments to himself while playing Ottawa for any reason other than that he literally couldn’t be bothered to rile up the Centaurs players.
Rozanov doesn’t need to throw them off of their game — Boston has kicked their asses every time they’ve played without difficulty.
“Maybe he won’t be that bad,” Joe says, trying to forcibly replace his misery with optimism.
“Maybe we’ll actually start winning games,” Terry says.
“Hey!” Bryce says, mock-offended. “We win games.”
Terry rolls his eyes. “Okay, maybe we’ll start winning important games.”
“At least Boston will be easier to beat,” Joe says. “They’re going to have a hard time replacing Rozanov.”
“We’re probably still not going to beat Boston,” Terry says. “Or Montreal. But we’re totally going to kick Vegas’s ass.”
“I don’t really care if Rozanov is an asshole,” Bryce says. “I’d just like to make it to the playoffs before I retire.”
“Yeah…” Joe says, taking a miserable sip of his whisky. “Same.”
—
The first practice with Rozanov is weirdly normal. Their coach introduces Rozanov to everyone, and then they go run some drills so that they can start getting used to each other. Rozanov is a good player. Great. He’s fast, accurate, confident. Rozanov seems to take the team seriously, too — he watches each player with focused eyes, tracking and cataloguing strengths and weaknesses.
It’s what Rozanov should be doing, of course, but somehow Joe is still a bit surprised that the man is taking his transfer to Ottawa seriously. Part of him worried that, if the transfer truly was punishment from someone powerful, that Rozanov would resent the team, not even bothering to try and play well. He could do a mediocre season or two at the Centaurs and then try to get traded to the Admirals or something. After all, Scott Hunter would probably be retiring in a year or two, leaving the captaincy up for grabs.
But if Rozanov is biding his time, he doesn’t show it.
—
“So what do you think happened?” Shawn asks, beer in hand.
They don’t come to the bar after every practice, but a handful of the guys showed up at the bar with mutual, silent understanding after their first practice with Rozanov.
“What do you mean?” Joe asks, taking a swig of his beer.
“I mean, you don’t trade Boston for Ottawa unless you’re running from something,” Shawn says.
“Or had your ass kicked out,” Austin adds.
“I haven’t heard anything,” Joe says, because everyone involved in hockey is a bunch of gossips even though they pretend not to be, and he legitimately hasn’t heard anything. At all. “Terry and Bryce think he slept with the wife of someone important,” he adds, because they do think that, and Terry and Bryce are across the bar flirting with a couple of pretty women.
“Hmm, maybe,” Shawn says consideringly.
“What do you think?” Joe asks, morbid with curiosity. He doesn’t want to gossip, not really, but he also can’t help himself. Anything he can learn about Rozanov — or what other people think about Rozanov — might be helpful.
Shawn shrugs. “I have no idea. Maybe he got a woman pregnant and decided to flee the country rather than owning up to it.”
“C’mon man,” Joe says. “That’s shitty.”
“Worse than fucking your coach’s wife?”
“Is abandoning your child worse than sleeping with a married woman? Obviously yes,” Joe says.
“Yeah, okay, you’re right, you’re right.”
“We probably shouldn’t be talking about our new captain this way, anyway,” Austin says, eyes scanning the people at the bar. “Not in public.” Rozanov isn’t here, of course, but there are ears everywhere. It would look bad if someone recorded this conversation, or even just posted about it. Now that Rozanov is around, the Centaurs are more conspicuous. Joe hates that he has to think about that kind of thing at all.
“Yeah,” Joe says, drumming his fingers against the bar. “He’s our captain now, so I suppose he deserves the benefit of the doubt.”
“I suppose,” Shawn echoes.
The three of them sit in silence for a few moments, before Bryce wanders back over to where they’re sitting.
“Anyone wanna play pool?”
—
The Centaurs play a game against New York; they lose.
The Centaurs play a game against Montreal; they lose.
The Centaurs play a game against Toronto; they win.
The Centaurs play a game against Boston; they lose.
—
After the Boston loss, Rozanov invites some of the Boston players and the Centaurs players to the bar down the street from the rink. Rozanov buys the first round, in high spirits even after their loss.
That’s one of the things Joe didn’t expect from Rozanov: he doesn’t seem to get angry after their losses the way Erickson always did. They lose a game and he gives a little pep talk about what they need to focus on for next game, then moves on. No shouting, no finger-pointing, no bitching and moaning about their terrible team. He’s not sure if Rozanov has always been that kind of Captain, but Joe thinks that he might have been.
“Okay, okay, Roz, you have to settle something for us!” Connors, one of the Boston guys, shouts over the noise of the bar. “Marleau claims that you traded to Ottawa for a woman!”
“A woman?” Rozanov laughs. “What are you, a bunch of gossipy WAGs?”
“According to Marleau, you’ve had some kind of long-time thing with a Canadian girl, and then all of a sudden you up and move to Canada! What are we supposed to think?”
Rozanov shrugs.
“Marleau says that you’re pussy whipped by some Canadian hottie-with-a-body who has been leading you around by the dick for half a decade,” Connors says, laughing, and then holds out his drink as though it’s a microphone. “How do you respond to these allegations?”
Rozanov shrugs, shakes his head. “Is not true.”
“Bullshit!” Marleau shouts, jumping in. “That Canadian Jane has had you fucked up for years man, don’t try to deny it.”
“I have not been led around by the dick for half decade.” Rozanov smirks. “Has been full decade,” he says with a wink, and then takes a sip of his vodka.
The Boston guys are stunned into silence. The Ottawa guys, too, but they had all been quiet for this particular exchange.
“Hoooooooly shit, Roz,” Marleau says, wide-eyed. “Ten fucking years? You haven’t even been with Boston for ten years.”
“Was before rookie year, yes.”
“But you were…” Connors makes some wild hand gesture, “there were women coming out of your ears man, there’s no way you were faking that!”
“Faking?” Rozanov frowns. “No. For many years we were not exclusive. Now we are. It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal!? The biggest manwhore in the league decided to settle down and move to Canada! You left Boston for this place? No offense.” The latter, Connors aims at Bryce.
Bryce snorts. “None taken.”
“Why not just have Canadian Jane move to Boston, huh? Then you could have stayed on the team and gotten pussy whenever you wanted it.”
“Is complicated.” At Connors’ exasperated look, Rozanov elaborates. “Immigration is complicated.”
“You could have just married her, man, you’ve been together for ten years already!”
“Married her? For what, citizenship?”
“Yeah! People do it all the time.”
“Have you been hit on the head too many times? I am not American citizen. She is not American citizen. Marriage solves nothing in Boston.”
Connors blinks. “Oh yeah. I forgot.”
“But,” Marleau says, “marriage does solve something in Canada.”
Rozanov rolls his eyes.
“See? I told you guys. Pussy whipped by Canadian Jane,” Marleau says, and this time Rozanov doesn’t try to argue. “I thought for a long time that she lived in Montreal, because this guy would take off the second we were done with the game and wouldn’t come back until it was time to leave, but he did that in Ottawa, too. There was one time we had a game canceled for snow and I thought Roz was gonna cry. I’d never seen him like that before.”
“Fuck off,” Rozanov says, but it’s good-natured.
The conversation pivots, then, from Rozanov’s personal life to more general hockey stuff, and Joe tries to fit this new picture of Rozanov into his image of the man.
Rozanov didn’t leave Boston because of a scandal, he left Boston for love. That’s… frankly hard to believe, but the Boston players seem pretty sure of themselves, and it’s not like Joe knows any better.
—
“Lee asked me to give him your number,” Britt says, handing him a beer and then sitting down next to him on the couch. They’re on her sofa watching the Metros play the Admirals.
Joe sits with that statement for a few long seconds. He takes a pull of his beer, then glances at his sister out of the corner of his eye.
“Did you give it to him?” Joe asks finally.
“I said maybe. Do you want me to?” Britt looks at him, considering. “You mentioned that you were thinking about telling some of the guys, so I wasn’t sure where you were on that… journey.”
“Yeah,” Joe sighs. “That was before Rozanov joined the team.”
“That bad?”
“No,” Joe says, reflexive, and is surprised to find that he means it. “Rozanov is… actually… fine. Weirdly nice, actually.”
“Not a super macho homophobe type?”
“Not at all.” Joe considers. “Or, if he is, he’s not acting like that yet.”
“Hmm…” Britt says, glancing at him, then back to the game. “It would be weird to join the team as a nice guy, and then do some pivot later to being a jerk. If he was going to be a dick he probably would have led with that.”
“True.”
On screen, Pike gets a hold of the puck and races down the ice, weaving between Admirals players, then shoots the puck to Hollander, who scores.
“Sooooooo… Lee?”
Joe sighs.
Lee.
One of Britt’s friends, Joe has known Lee since they were both teenagers. One year older than Joe, Lee was part of Britt’s college friend group that stuck together well after graduation.
Lee has always been Joe’s might-have-been. Joe’s in-another-life. If Joe had decided to go into physical therapy, instead of pursuing professional hockey, he’s always imagined that him and Lee would be married with a couple of kids by now. It’s a pipe dream, really. Joe has never spent much one-on-one time with Lee, mostly because he doesn’t trust himself not to act on those feelings. And he knows that Lee, openly gay and prone to long, lingering eye contact with Joe, would let him.
But Joe is a professional hockey player, and he’s in no position to come out of the closet, so it’s not fair to either of them to pursue something impossible.
“He knows what you do for a living,” Britt says. “And he knows you’re not out. He knows what he’s asking for.”
“Dating a closeted guy is one of those things that seems easier than it actually is. I don’t wanna find out the hard way that he’s not cut out for it.”
For a long time, Britt says nothing, and Joe ostensibly watches the game, while paying too much attention to his sister from the corner of his eye. She’s not even bothering to pretend to watch the game. Instead, she bores holes in the side of Joe’s face, until finally Joe gives up with a huff, turning to face her.
Joe’s expecting that smug-older-sister look, the know-it-all expression that she wears when she thinks that she’s right and he’s wrong, nah nah nah boo boo.
Instead, Britt looks… sad.
“So that’s it?” Britt says, her mouth doing that thing that she does when she’s trying to hide how upset she is. “You’re going to fuck that closeted guy you’ve been seeing forever and never try for anything real?”
Joe has a friends with benefits situation going with a guy, Clay, who is somehow more closeted than Joe is. There’s nothing romantic to their trysts. Clay kind of sucks, actually, but he’s from a deeply religious family, and has even less interest in coming out than Joe does. Clay’s married with two kids, and has some kind of agreement with his wife. He comes from money, she doesn’t, so they both seem to be getting something out of the arrangement, not that it’s Joe’s business.
Joe thinks for a minute, about Lee, about Rozanov, about his maybe-kind-of-five-year-plan, and folds.
“Give him my number.”
—
For the next week, Joe twitches every time he gets a text message, but over the next week, Joe gets texts from seemingly every person on the planet other than Lee.
So when Joe’s phone buzzes while in the middle of cooking dinner, he forces himself to finish what he’s doing instead of dropping his knife and rushing over to his phone. It buzzes again, and again, and again, enough times that Joe knows it’s a group chat and not from Lee, which takes away the urgency. He finishes chopping, finishes sauteeing, and sets to simmer before picking up his phone.
The text is, of course, not from Lee. It’s from the group chat labeled “The Boyz” containing Shawn, Austin, Bryce, and Terry.
Shawn:
Holy shit guys did you see the news?
Austin:
Yeah. Pretty bleak
Terry:
Fucked up
Terry:
I’ll be the one to say it: I’m fucking terrified of the paps
Shawn:
Sometimes I’m actually glad we never make it to the finals. IDK if it actually protects us from this shit, but…
Shawn:
I mean, not *this* specifically for me, but I don’t want those assholes up in my business
Joe has no idea what they’re talking about, and he’s almost afraid to ask.
Joe:
What’s going on? I missed it
Shawn:
[Link]
Shawn:
Davis from Vegas just got outed. Paps caught him kissing another guy
Joe has to brace himself against the kitchen island to keep himself from wobbling. His worst nightmare, absolute worst nightmare of a situation, happening to another hockey player. His thumb hovers over the link Shawn sent for an unknowable amount of time, until a separate text pops up on his phone screen and displaces the link.
Austin:
You okay?
Joe swipes away from the direct text from Austin, opens the link.
It’s pretty… unambiguous. Joe stares at the image for longer than is probably healthy, then closes the link without reading anything. He doesn’t think he could handle reading what these people think about the situation right now.
Ottawa plays Vegas in three days.
Will Davis play? Will Vegas bench him? Is Davis’s career over? Joe’s thoughts dissolve into static, until his phone buzzes in his hand again. And again, and again.
Bryce:
Just saw the news
Bryce:
Literally makes me sick
Bryce:
Why don’t these people just mind their FUCKING business and let us play hockey??
Terry:
Seriously
Terry:
Who cares who players are fucking? Mind your business
Joe carefully types out his response, letter by letter.
Joe:
Fuck the paps
The response isn’t enough. Joe knows it’s not enough, but he can’t bring himself to say anything else. Joe lets himself sink down, back against the kitchen island, until his ass is safely on the floor and he’s no longer a fall risk.
The Centaurs play Vegas in three days.
—
“Listen up,” Rozanov says, gathering the team around before hitting the ice. “We have all seen the news. Before we go out there, I want to say this: we are going to win this game. We are going to win, because we are good players, and we are here to kick ass at hockey.” Rozanov’s intense gaze sweeps around the locker room. “But I want this game clean. We are here to play. No slurs, no special attention played to Davis, nothing. You single him out, you will answer to me. Understand?”
A chorus of “yeah cap,” and “of course,” echoes around the locker room.
Rozanov’s intense gaze sweeps around the room one more time.
“Okay,” he says, nods, and heads out onto the ice.
—
Ottawa beats Las Vegas 3-2.
—
After the game, Joe takes one of the longest showers he’s ever taken in his life, trying to unwind. They played a good game. A clean game. As far as Joe could tell, all the Centaurs did exactly as Rozanov said — they played without paying special attention to Davis at all.
Davis played decently, even. He had a shell-shocked look about him whenever Joe looked his way, but he skated fast and even got the puck away from Rozanov once.
Joe had wanted to say… something, to him. To let Davis know he’s not alone. He didn’t, of course, he can’t, but he burned with the need anyway. Hopefully Scott Hunter will reach out to Davis. Maybe Hunter already has.
By the time Joe gets out of the shower, the locker room is empty, quiet. Exactly what he was hoping for. Joe dresses mechanically, trying to shake loose the sticky web of thoughts cluttering up his head. When he finally picks up his phone, he has a text from an unknown number.
Unknown:
Hey, this is Lee. I got your number from Britt
Joe lowers himself down onto the locker room bench, collapsing into a controlled fall. Lee. Joe hadn’t forgotten, not exactly, but the panic and gut-churning nausea of the past few days had at least somewhat distracted him from the impending text. Did Lee wait to text because he keeps up with hockey news enough to know that Joe needed a few days? Or did Lee wait because he was building up his own nerve to send the first text?
Can Joe really do this?
Starting something with Lee seemed risky, but maybe worth it, just last week. Today, it feels like career suicide.
Joe stares at the text for a short eternity, frozen in indecision. Then, his phone buzzes in his hand, a new text alert popping up at the top of his screen, followed quickly by another.
Clay:
Free tonight?
Clay:
It’s been too long since you sucked my cock
Joe sighs and clicks over to the chat with Clay. While some part of Joe would like to get laid tonight, just to get out of his head, Joe doesn’t think he has the mental fortitude to deal with Clay right now. His thumbs hover over the keys, unmoving, until the screen dims, and Joe taps the screen to keep it on.
Maybe it would be nice to get out of his head a little.
Joe sighs, puts the phone down on the bench, and levers himself back up. He needs to stop looking at his phone. He needs to finish gathering his shit, get his bag together and actually get out of this stupid fucking locker room before making any dumb gay decisions, with his dick or with his heart.
Joe grabs his keys, crams them into his pocket, and grabs his duffle. From behind him, he hears a rustle.
Joe’s heart stops.
Joe whips around in slow motion. Standing behind him, in the locker room, is Ilya Rozanov. Rozanov, whose eyes are on Joe’s phone. Joe’s phone, which is still open to the text from Clay, It’s been too long since you sucked my cock staring, damingly, up at both of them.
Joe’s heart restarts.
Joe snatches the phone off the bench, clutches it close to his chest, mouth moving soundlessly, trying to come up with something to say. Anything. There’s not much — fucking Clay and his stupid bullshit text message. He could have had the decency to talk like a regular hook up, but instead it’s always please Joe come suck my cock, or I miss your cock. Nauseating.
Rozanov puts both of his hands up, like Joe is a cop, like Joe is the one holding a gun to Rozanov’s head instead of the other way around.
“Is not a big deal,” Rozanov says with a too-casual shrug, hands still in the air. “It’s none of my business, yes?”
“I…. it’s not…” Joe sputters.
Rozanov. It couldn’t have been Austin, or Bryce, or even Terry, it had to be Ilya fucking Rozanov.
Rozanov lowers his hands slowly, still watching Joe like a panicking animal at risk of snapping its own neck, fake-casual air slowly being replaced with something… else.
“I am not your enemy,” Rozanov says. “I will not make trouble for you.”
Joe sits with that statement for a few seconds, panting, trying to get in enough air.
“No need for panic attack.”
Joe stares, and stares, and stares.
Rozanov gestures to the phone in Joe’s hand.
“You are not very discreet.”
Joe sputters. What can he even say to that? It’s true. He’s a goddamn closeted hockey player that gets text messages that say it’s been too long since you sucked my cock like a fucking moron. Like a player that’s had one too many knocks to the head.
Rozanov rolls his eyes.
“I said no panic attack. I am very discreet. Give me your phone.”
The phone is clutched so tightly in Joe’s hand that each of his knuckles is white, and he’s starting to lose feeling in his fingers. Some part of Joe’s brain is screaming that he can’t let Rozanov touch his phone. That he should kill Rozanov and then himself before handing over his phone. Dumb, panicky animal. It doesn’t matter now. Rozanov has already seen the text, it’s not like he doesn’t know the worst already.
Rozanov makes a gimme motion with his hand, and Joe forces his fingers to uncurl. He unlocks his phone, even, but he can’t force himself to reach his hand out and actually give it to Rozanov.
Small mercies, Rozanov seems to understand the issue. He plucks the phone out of Joe’s unresisting hand and turns it so that they can both see the screen, It’s been too long since you sucked my cock staring up at them. Rozanov deletes the most recent message, leaving Free tonight? on the screen. Then, he opens the contact for Clay, carefully deletes the name, and replaces it with Claire.
“You want to not get caught, yeah? This is your girl, Claire. Very beautiful woman. She is…?”
Joe blinks.
“...Blonde…?” Joe says, the first coherent thing out of his mouth since Rozanov came into the room.
“Blonde. Bombshell. I met her once, very nice woman. Too good for you.”
Rozanov hands Joe’s phone back to him. Joe finds himself shaking his head as he pockets his phone.
“No. Cl— Claire… you wouldn’t have met… her. She kind of sucks.”
Rozanov raises an eyebrow.
“I was going to end it with her anyway.”
Rozanov frowns. “No need to do that on my account.”
Joe laughs, hollowly, and shakes his head. “I have a different… girl. One that I actually like.”
Rozanov’s eyes light up in understanding.
“This girl, she is…?”
“Lisa,” Joe finds himself saying, as though outside his body, as though someone else is having this baffling conversation with Ilya fucking Rozanov in the locker room of the Centaurs hockey arena.
“Lisa. Very nice girl, very sexy. I met her once, yes?”
Joe nods. Rozanov smiles.
“Go see your girl. I am seeing my girl this weekend.”
And with that, Rozanov claps his hand on Joe’s shoulder, and then turns around and walks out.
Wait.
Did Rozanov just…?
Holy shit.
Joe looks down at his phone, at the worst and best thing that’s ever happened to him. He clicks out of his conversation with Claire, and back to the unknown number, carefully creating a new contact for Lisa.
Lisa:
Hey, this is Lee. I got your number from Britt
Joe:
Hey! I’m so glad to hear from you