Chapter Text
This was how Hayden Pike (Loving Husband and Father, Self-Proclaimed Brother of Shane Hollander, Struggling with level 8,501 on Candy Crush) found out:
The year was 2014, and Montreal Metros just lost to Boston Raiders. It's the nature of the game of course; you win some, you lose some, you try harder next time to not get a Russian Asshole get to you and made you miss passes.
Sitting alone in the hotel's outdoor bar seating (everyone else had gone back to their respective rooms, probably to lick their wounds over today's lost) Hayden fiddled with his brand new Samsung Galaxy S5 Zoom, a birthday present from his dear old dad, who had been on a campaign for the last few months since his retirement to get Hayden to participate in his photographing hobby, "You need to start getting into the habit of taking Jade and Ruby's pictures," he had insisted, after presenting the thoughtful if a little confusing gift, considering he still have a perfectly functioning phone, "Kids grew up so fast before your eyes. The next thing you know, all you have of them are just pictures,"
It was a touching enough reason that Hayden had just accepted it without any other comment. It seemed straightforward enough at least, and in all honesty, it was kind of fun to stop for a while and just immortalised his surrounding into his phone memory.
He opened the camera roll, and scrolled down the dozens of pictures he had taken so far. The majority of them were of Jackie and the twins, but the latest ones had been filled of things he had seen during his time on the road; Photos of his teammates goofing off, of his own selfies (he unironically started enjoying taking these), of the views and places he would later send Jackie, promising to bring her and the girls to visit during off season. With a quiet sigh, he glanced towards the city view offered by the hotel's balcony, admiring the sight of Boston at night from the hotel's level 7 balcony.
It's a beautiful city, acceptance of annoying Russian players nonetheless.
Hayden stood up and leaned against the cool metal railing, letting the breezy night air hit him in the face. At times like these, he missed Jackie, and it won't be the first time he actually wished she was here with him, admiring the view of the twinkling metropolitan city in the dark of night, while aimlessly discussing the places they can visit. Maybe when the kids are older he could do that, but for now, he'll just have to be content with sharing the experience through digital images.
With that in mind, Hayden lifted the camera up and aimed the lens against the view. With his fingers, he toggled the zoom option, bringing it to 10x optical zoom, the maximum that this version can apparently achieve. It's kind of impressive really, for all he had little interest in photography aside from taking the most aesthetic shot possible. Even from up here, he managed to take a pretty clear picture of what seemed to be Bunker Hill Monument from afar.
"Huh," Hayden sniffed, reevaluating the image. Okay, wow, he didn't know it can come out this nicely.
A little curiously, he aimed the lens up to the sky, allowing the zoom to show the sight of cloudy skies that hid a myriad of stars behind them. With a little impressed whistle, he watched as the camera also caught the sight of a passing American United airline passing through the night, the logo even visible from his screen.
"Damn, this is kind of cool," he felt like such a dork after he said it and was genuinely glad that he was completely alone. Slowly, he turned around and moved his phone lower, allowing him to see the top of the hotel's rooftop and lower, passing the empty and occupied hotel rooms-
Oh, wait a second.
Hayden flicked his phone back a few a bit.
At first, it was just the flutter of the curtain that caught him, but now that he focused his phone on that specific point, he could obviously see a familiar back and short black hair. Of course, it could've been anyone, had the person not be looking out of the window, seemingly enjoying the view just as he was.
He let out an involuntary snicker. No way, he can even see into Shane's hotel room!
It's a miracle in of itself that Shane was even still in the hotel; he was never forthcoming about it, but Hayden knew of Boston Lily for a while now. They seemed to have a falling out a while ago, but something seemed to change following the Stanley Cup Finals and subsequent season break, after which Shane had gone back to texting with her a lot. He would've thought that he would use their final night as an opportunity to see her, but evidently, maybe not.
Hayden considered waving, or even calling Shane to tell him of this new discovery, but that would mean tapping out of his camera view. And waving would really do nothing when the actual view was far enough, Hayden highly doubted that Shane could see him all the way from down here. So he let the sudden mischievous urge take him, used his other hand to hold the phone to further stabilise the shot, and tapped the capture button.
He grinned as the white flash of his screen faded away, displaying the result of his photograph. Hayden stared at it.
And quickly felt his grin drop.
In that still image, he could still see that it was clearly Shane staring out of the window, his short hair a little messy as if it had been ran through multiple times before. The shirt he was wearing seemed a little bit loose on him, a far cry from the compression shirt under the sport tee he had been wearing last Hayden saw him. All of this was normal, and exactly what he had intended to grab; the slightly blurry image of his friend caught off guard in what he would've thought was a private moment.
But if anything, it was Hayden who was caught off guard.
Standing right behind Shane was definitely a person's figure. There was a hand on Shane's shoulder, gripping tight enough that the shirt bunched around the hold, and maybe it was just the photo's resolution, but the hand seemed a little too big for it to be a woman's. Worse still, though the person was looking away, he caught part of the person's face, and there's something familiar to it those sharp features that made something in his stomach grew unsettled.
Hayden stared at it for a while. With some level of trepidation, he held the phone still, aimed up to where he last saw Shane's hotel window, and tapped back to camera.
He almost dropped his phone.
For what he saw on his screen was indeed still Shane, now turned away from the window and only showing his side profile, but the human figure had stepped closer, so close that it left very little interpretation of what they were doing. Blond hair was the first thing that Hayden noticed - hard not to the way Shane was tightly pulling it - and the obviously build of a naked muscular man was the next, with strong arms circling around his friend's back and waist.
They pulled away after a while. Hayden did drop his phone then, though he caught it before it can hit the floor.
Ilya Rozanov.
That was definitely Ilya Rozanov just now.
"What the fuck," Hayden found himself gasping as he fumbled with his phone, shaking hands trying valiantly to open the camera app before he aimlessly tried to find the spot earlier where he could see Shane's room. He needed to see, maybe he was wrong, maybe it was a mistake, but there is no way Ilya fucking Rozanov, NHL's Most Punchable Face was in Shane's room, kissing him, holding him like one would a lover-
Oh no, it was. It really was. That cocky grin, those sly eyes, the sharp way his mouth moves as he definitely said something dastardly the way Shane suddenly slapped his arm, that's... that's Rozanov.
Holy fucking shit, Shane's Boston hookup, the enigmatic Lily (and what a dumb fucking name with this evidence now sitting in front of him, it's gotta be Rozanov's idea, the fucker) was his own rival.
On his phone screen, displaying the live view from his lens, Hayden could see Rozanov (the fuck?? the fuck???) tugging on the sleeve of the shirt Shane was wearing. And as if that was a signal to something, Shane (holy shit, my brother in hockey, but what the actual fuck) took the shirt off, with Rozanov (fuuuuuuuucking whaaaat???) gleefully helping him with the material. He then carelessly tossed the shirt off to the side as Shane pulled him down, all eager (No! Bad Shane! Stay away from the Rabid Russian!) as they tangled together and moved away from the window, still attached by the lips and everything else.
Mouth agape, Hayden let his arms dropped, wide eyes still trained on the vague direction of his best friend's hotel room.
(It only occurred to Hayden long after the whole thing that, of all the things that he was shocked about that day, Shane being gay wasn't one of it. That even if that wasn't actually Rozanov, he had seen Shane obviously being in the embrace of another man.
In his defense, he would reason to himself, that of course he wasn't shocked about that because there's nothing wrong with his best buddy being gay. He'd love Shane as a brother no matter what.
Even if he had the worst taste in men.)
Shane never told him anything. Hayden never found the courage to ask, or even tell him he knew about Rozanov.
2 years later, Shane dated Rose Landry. Hayden felt like cheering over the obvious return of Shane's good sense until he realise how miserable he looked the whole time. When they broke up a short 2 months later, Hayden did nothing but offer his condolences, swallowing down the intense urge to ask "Was it because of Rozanov? Was it because you still have feelings for him?"
He didn't have to; Boston Lily was back as soon as the news broke, the same time Shane came back from All-Star in Tampa. One that Rozanov had also participated in.
Hayden never deleted the image. It was kept in a locked folder that took him 3 hours of panic filled search online on incognito on how to make in his phone - and boy, if this is how Shane felt every time he has a panic attack, he does not envy his buddy - placed in some obscure part of his phone, never to be seen again.
At least, not until training camp, 2017.
This was how Cliff Marlow (Desperately Single, Can Deadlift 160kg, Makes a Mean Jambalaya with His Gramma's Recipe) found out:
The year was 2015, and Boston Raiders just lost to Montreal Metros. It's the nature of the game of course; you win some, you lose some and at the end of the night, you still party like you don't have a morning training at 10am tomorrow.
Cliff hadn't really been in a partying mood by then. His latest girlfriend, a beautiful, ambitious woman by the name of Leah had broken up with him through text of all things. The same text that he saw following their loss this evening.
To be fair, she had been pretty polite about it, as polite as you can be when breaking up with someone over text. She could not deal with the lifestyle of having to wait for Cliff to come back home after months, respected his job as a pro hockey player but do think he could've spent less time in the gym, and, as the final devastating blow, had been pretty forthcoming in the fact that maybe she's actually been getting close to someone in her office, who can meet her needs and lifestyle better than Cliff can.
Leah offered to give him a call after the game, so they can talk like adults. Cliff decided to not act like one and instead drowned his sorrow using the content of the hotel's mini bar, moping and feeling sorry for himself.
There's a gentle thump on the bed as his phone was tossed on the soft sheets, courtesy of his Captain. Roz blew air out of his pursed mouth, grimacing and wincing at the same time, "Yeeesh," he hissed, "This woman, she has brutality of a Russian bear,"
"She's straightforward," Cliff defended morosely, despite feeling his heart being shattered into pieces.
Roz made a disagreeing noise, "Mm, no. Straightforward means speaking the mind, yes? Straightforward people can be kind. This woman does not care for your feelings,"
"She..," Cliff started, voice slurred from the Smirnoff - that Roz had sneered at - but found that between his addled brain and the heartbreak, it's kind of hard to find something good to say against that. He leaned back against the foot of the bed, lolling his head back against the plush mattress,
Miserably, he choked down a sudden wave of emotion as he found himself uttering, “I really thought she was the one, man,”
From the other bed, Roz made another clicking noise, but it sounded a little sympathetic, at least to him, "Better women will come, Marly. Some little darling that will appreciate the care you put into your muscles and is willing to make it work even if you are not always together,"
"Easy for you to say," he groused, glaring weakly at his friend and Captain. Roz can be brusque, owing to both his mastery of the English language and genuine devil may care attitude, but he’s really not in the mood for it now, "You got Montreal Jane willing to put up with your ass for years now,"
Even bleary eyed, Cliff did not miss sudden soft look crossing Roz’s face, “Yes, she is special,” he muttered, nodding a little absently. It went away as he gave Cliff a reproachful look, “My Jane is straightforward too, but she did not hurt my feelings. No, there is no.. ah, what you call, mean bone in her,” there was a brief pause, before he started snickering, “Only my bone in her,”
Despite everything, Cliff started laughing too under his breath, “Special girl, huh?,”
“Very,” Roz sniffed, sounding a little offended that Cliff would doubt that, “Jane appreciates my body, and always makes time to see me no matter how difficult. See, is not hard to find person like that, Marly,”
Cliff didn’t feel like arguing that point with him, because it’ll be like talking to a brick wall. Roz has come a long way from denying that he even had a girl to Montreal, or that the girl was special (“Russians do not blush!”) to acknowledging that there was someone. By this point, there was no one in Boston Raider and any adjacent crew that did not know that Captain Ilya Rozanov, notorious slut, had his heart stolen by a mystery girl in Montreal.
Not that he’d admit it out loud. Roz’ll call her all kind of sweet things, like his girl, his sweetheart, and his darling, anything but admit that he’s in love with her.
Cliff took another swig of the half empty Smirnoff bottle, and offered it to his younger teammate. He felt himself grinning at Roz’s disgusted face, and felt unexpectedly touched when the Russian actually took a swig from the offered bottle.
It wasn’t a big gesture, but that’s everything that Cliff learned about Ilya Rozanov in the 8 years they have been friends; you need to ignore the fake grand theatrics and pay attention to the small things he did to really know the man behind the mean mask.
No one would know Roz the way Raiders would. Not the man who gotten on the nerves on every NHL player out there but the one who remembered each of their birthdays and their partners and kids birthdays. Not the shit talker, but the passionate captain hyping them up every chance that he got no matter the play’s outcome. Not the irredeemable playboy, but the guy who apparently was so into a girl, he would genuinely pout in the middle of a busy airport for not having a chance to meet her due to their cancelled flight.
On the screen of the abandoned TV, ESPN was rerunning the result of their game. Highlight montage of Roz’s goal interspersed with Hollander’s game winning one. The logo animation overlayed over the post-game interview with Montreal’s Captain, his awkward smile the only stark thing to pay attention to with the volume all the way down.
Cliff took the Smirnoff bottle back, and blindly reached for the remote, only to realise it was on Roz’s bed. He turned, suggestion to change the channel on the tip of his tongue, when he caught the look on Roz’s face.
Pay attention to the small things, he thought, as he watched the little upturned smile on Roz’s lips, and the twinkle in his eyes as Hollander gave little stiff smile to the interviewer. The way he kept that expression as he reached for his phone and started typing, teeth flashing behind the peek of tongue.
His ‘Jane face’, they all call it. A little perverted, a little affectionate and a whole lot of something.
And like a lightning bolt out of the skies, a realisation dawned upon Cliff Marlow.
He had no proof of this. Nothing concrete at least. But… How many circumstantial evidence were needed until it becomes an irrefutable one?
He always thought it was weird, how Roz found a girl in freaking Montreal of all places. The hometown of their team’s greatest rival, owing to their respective captains. He’d buy it if she had been some incredible lay, but he texted her every time Cliff saw him, regardless of where they play. Like it was more of a long distance relationship. What do they even talk about? There must be something common tying them, like a common interest… or a common job.
And speaking of Hollander… Yes, they were rivals, but Roz would know Hollander’s stats from the top of his head. Roz would watch Hollander’s game footage the most out of anyone. He would even watch something of Hollander’s in the privacy of his own home; once, he caught him watching this Architectural Digest cover on Hollander’s home in the middle of the night while he was staying over. That doesn’t feel very ‘rival-y’. It didn’t even feel like sportsmanship.
Roz bullies Hollander the most on ice, and it’s expected from him by the league but to Cliff, it felt, at times, almost like he was pulling pigtails instead of antagonising.
Besides. Jane, Shane. Really? Who came up with that stupid name?
(Probably Roz. Hollander seemed like the kind of guy who’d give their codenames a bit more thought)
Roz’s phone made a little ‘ping’, signalling for an incoming message. The grin on his face was increased three-fold. Russian’s don’t blush, his fucking foot.
He looked up, catching the sight of Cliff, and the way his grin died down caused a twinge in Cliff’s chest, “Ah,” he began hesitantly, lips twitching as if he wasn’t sure what expression would be acceptable to have, “Hm. I have to-“
Cliff didn’t let him finish, “Jane?”
Roz had the gall to look surprised. He turned a little sheepish then, or as much as he could when he’s obviously eager to bounce, “She is home now, finally. Night is also still young,”
Game ended roughly 2 hours ago, and post-game interview usually takes 30-45 minutes at best. Add showering and debrief, that’s at least an hour and a half. Hollander strikes him as someone calculated, so even his house would be close to their home stadium. Given traffic, and possible team invite to hang out being turned down…
Yeah, he thought, a little bit fuzzily, sounds about the right time for Hollander to have arrived home.
Cliff gave him a hand wave, watching with humour and a strangely distant shock as Roz stood up and walked over to pat his shoulder, “Next stop in Washington, I will find you nice woman. And buy you many drinks,”
”Go get ‘im, tiger,” he huffed, and tried to see if Roz noticed his pronouns usage. He didn’t.
The door shut behind the obvious bounce to Roz’s steps.
And suddenly, Cliff Marlow was left behind in this hotel room, sitting on the floor with a half drunk bottle of Smirnoff and the aftermath of a world-shaking revelation.
A year later, almost to the date, Roz came into practice in a flurry of raging storm. The week after, entertainment news channels reported how Shane Hollander started dating actress Rose Landry.
Roz stubbed his toe and had screamed his pain. It felt deeper than just an injured foot.
The storm goes to pass 2 months later, just as the news of Hollander and Landry’s break up became public. Roz’s dad died, and instead of a grieving man, the one that returned to them carried the air of a newly released prisoner.
They went on season break, and after 2 weeks of radio silence, Roz came back with a healthy tan, a bright grin and, most tellingly, a men’s shirt way too tight and too short for his build. Like a little personal joke for himself, and the last coffin in the nail to erase any doubt in Cliff’s mind.
He kept quiet, because of course he did. It’s none of his business who Roz shacked up with, and he trust the man for his professionalism. He has no reason not to, he’d seen how hard he actually hit Hollander in matches.
There’s no reason for him to meddle. Maybe one day, Roz would even come clean to them. He’d keep his secret.
At least, he will, until training camp 2017.
J. J. Boiziau (Life of the Party, Constantly Smelling of Creed Aventus, Proud Owner of 2 Custom Made Santos de Cartier Watches) was blissfully unaware of all of this.
This did not last long.