Chapter Text
It was weird to have Ilya Rozanov in her kitchen.
Jacki Pike had been a Montreal WAG since she’d met Hayden during his rookie season, which had been the same year as Shane Hollander’s. Which had been the same year as Ilya Rozanov’s.
Ilya had been the big bad wolf, more or less; the cocky asshole who crosschecked Hayden in the first game she’d watched, who trash-talked and showboated and generally made himself obnoxious. Jacki had encountered him several times and he had leered and sneered and generally lived up to his reputation, though she’d never actually spoken directly to him except on one occasion when he had nodded politely as she was introduced and introduced himself in return and shaken her hand like an adult. But apart from that, it had been six, maybe seven years now of thinking of him as some big jerk.
But then Rozanov had been knocked out of active play with an injury, was apparently visiting Montreal during his recovery, and Shane had revealed to Hayden that they were friends now, and working on some charity project thing together for a cause they had discovered they both cared about. The Pikes had been awkwardly trying to understand that ever since. How did this brazen asshole fit in with their beloved Shane? She couldn’t see it, and didn’t understand it, but that was how it was and she had to make it work.
Rozanov was looming at the edge of the counter, leaning on it and looking around a little warily. His broad shoulders were pulled in a little, his head still but his eyes moving, and after a few moments as she bustled around she realized he was nervous. He was looming nervously. She knew the body language.
He hadn’t said a single offensive thing so far, so she unbent herself and decided to be nice. “Do you think you can reach the top cabinet?” she asked. “I put the extra napkins up there but then I put the stepstool away and I can’t get them back down.”
“Ah,” he said, “this one?” as she pointed. He wasn’t so enormous as he looked on the ice. He was much bigger than Hayden, but that wasn’t saying much; most hockey players were bigger than Hayden’s lean, wiry build. Shane was bigger than Hayden. Actually, now that she looked, Rozanov wasn’t any bigger than Shane. She’d always sort of assumed he was. Huh.
He reached into the cabinet fairly easily, went up onto the toes of his socked feet to get a better look, and got down the bag of paper napkins. She knew it was his left leg that was injured, because he was still wearing a big knee brace on it, but he only favored it a little, which might just have been because the brace was awkward. She’d have to watch him walk to assess how healed it was. “Is this them?”
“Yes, perfect,” she said. “Thank you!” She smiled at him, and he smiled back, the first non-sneering smile she’d seen from him.
He went back to his spot at the end of the counter, which she realized had a good vantage point down the hallway Hayden and Shane had disappeared down, but also gave him a view of the door through which more Montreal players could come at any time. And it also let him rest some of his weight on the counter, and not on his injured leg.
Jacki hadn’t really needed the napkins but now that she had them, she could refill the napkin holder, she supposed. She set the bag down next to the holder, but then remembered she ought to check on the slow cooker, so she went around the other end of the counter to do that. When she came back, Rozanov had retrieved the napkin holder and was carefully arranging as many of the paper napkins as he could fit into it.
“Oh,” she said. “Thanks!”
“Should I put the ones that don’t fit back into the,” he gestured at the cabinet.
“Sure!” she said. “That’d be great, it would get them out of my way.”
He did, managing rather adroitly to avoid brushing too close to her in the small space, and going up on his toes again to make sure the napkins were well placed and not just crammed in there. Things did tend to get crammed into that cabinet.
“What else still has to happen?” he asked.
“Oh,” she said, “not much, I’m just, you know. Fussing.”
It was a rare chance for her to have the kids out of the house, but it meant she’d raised her standards for herself and had kind of taken on too much. She had two different slow cookers going, and two dishes in the oven, and had assembled several cold dishes she still had to get out and plate. Shane was here early because Hayden needed his help putting a bunch of furniture up into the attic to get it out of the way for the party, which meant Hayden wasn’t there to help Jacki. They’d decided Rozanov couldn’t help them, with his injury, and he’d been left behind in the kitchen.
Jacki was the current acting head WAG for Montreal. It was traditionally the role of the captain’s wife, but Shane had no wife or girlfriend, never had. It was unthinkable that he shouldn’t be captain, with his dedication and skill, analytical abilities, and excellent manner with the refs. So Jacki had volunteered to do it, and there were a lot of jokes now among the other WAGs that Hayden and Shane were her brother-husbands. They were funny jokes, but-- well, Shane was a strange guy but she had grown to love him. And he was, at heart, deep down a momma’s boy. All hockey players were on some level primed by years of conditioning to take orders, and he was no exception. Jacki could always tell which of the hockey boys had grown up with strong mothers, because they all also were primed to listen to her. Shane was one, but she’d met Yuna Hollander and understood that perhaps more than anyone, he was right to obey.
She didn’t just love him because he was obedient. He was socially awkward, missed a lot of cues, and needed a lot of time to catch up to things that happened when he hadn’t expected them, but he was also incredibly conscientious and attentive, and his deep-seated desire to always do his best literally never took a break. But he was also funny, if he got a chance to be, and every time he was comfortable enough in her presence to exercise his sense of humor, it made Jacki melt a little. He was so fucking cute, and she loved him.
She wished he had a wife not just because then maybe she could offload some of the head WAG duties, but also because he deserved to have someone love him like that. She loved him, but not like that. His mom loved him and took care of him, but not like that. Maybe he didn’t need like that, some people didn’t, but she felt like he did. She wasn’t sure. It was just a feeling. Someone should memorize him in ways that weren’t just his stats. Jacki did her best, with his weird food and his ginger ale and his dislike of harsh overhead lighting, but she didn’t have time to know him as well as he deserved.
“You have list,” Rozanov said. “What’s on it?”
She collected her scattered thoughts and looked up at him. She supposed he didn’t really have anything else to do besides help her. And the way he’d put those napkins into the holder, making sure they fanned-out attractively… “How are you at decoratively arranging a buffet table?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I know these words but not in this order. So let’s find out.”
It turned out he had a great deal of experience at setting up a buffet table. Apparently cold salads were a mainstay in Russian cuisine. But not these recipes. He looked with great interest at the pasta salad, but upon sniffing it, shook his head slightly.
“I had not thought I would miss these kinds of food,” he said, “but North American side dishes-- you are so afraid of flavor here. Would it kill you to put pickle in it. I should find recipes. I did not know how to cook when I came here and I have only had a little chance to learn but it is not rocket surgery.”
“Rocket… surgery,” Jacki said, but then she put it together and laughed. “I think you either say rocket science or brain surgery.”
“More efficient to combine,” Rozanov said. “Rocket surgery. Can’t do that either. But I could make olivier or shuba if I could just get recipe, it is all just chopping things.”
“What’s in… shuba?” Jacki asked, stirring the other slow cooker’s contents to make sure they hadn’t separated.
“Is like…” Rozanov thought a moment. “Ah, I have to look up. My hockey vocabulary is good and I know all the words I need for trash talk and stupid media appearance but I do not know food words. Terrible gap in vocabulary.” He finished arranging the bowls to his satisfaction, then pulled out his phone and frowned at it for a moment. “If I search this in English I get results I don’t need to translate,” he said after a moment. “Okay, Latin keyboard, let’s go. But what is called in English? How do you spell the word re-sippy?”
Jacki told him, and he tapped at his phone another moment. “Shuba,” he said. “Ha. Yes, literal translation-- fur coat. Herring in a fur coat is name of my favorite salad.”
“That-- what?” Jacki stood on her toes to look at his phone over his arm, and he tilted it so she could see. The screen displayed a colorful image of a disc, pink on top and then orange and then white, made of compressed chopped foods. It wasn’t, thank heavens, furry.
“Is potatoes, onions, herring, carrots, mayonnaise, beets, then more mayonnaise,” Rozanov read off, pointing delicately at the layers with his thumbnail as he described them, starting at the bottom. “Layers, see, like heavy coat for winter. Beets, what is beets-- svekla, yes, they are pink like this. Mayonnaise, yes, same word. There is a lot of this in Russian food. But I think ours is better there, I do not like it so much here. Maybe because is never pickles in it. Would it kill you to put pickle in.”
“Herring,” Jacki said.
“Herring,” he said. He frowned. “Is translated wrong? Little silvery fish, you get it in jars pickled a lot of the time?”
“Fish in salad,” she said. “Well, I guess we do tuna salad, I guess that’s not weird.”
“Herring,” he said. “It’s my favorite.” He frowned at the recipe. “My mother’s shuba always had, um.” He gestured. “Eggs, cooked hard. Is very good.”
“It sounds… flavorful,” Jacki said.
He slanted her a look. “You think I eat weird food,” he said. “Well, I don’t, I have not had this in years.”
“When did you last go home?” she asked quietly, because it wasn’t something she’d really ever thought about.
He looked down at his phone, swiped away the recipe window, put the phone back into his pocket. “Home is Boston,” he said, with an air of finality. “What is in oven, does that need to go into, ah.” He gestured. “Nice dish, for on table.”
“Oh,” she said, “I was going to serve it in the baking dish, it’s not quite that fancy a party.”
“Ah,” he said. “Do we wait, then, until people arrive?”
“I was thinking I’d give it a few more minutes,” she said. “I don’t want things to get cold.”
He nodded. “Where are,” and he mimed. “Spoon things.” And he very clearly mimed clacking a pair of serving tongs.
“Utensils,” she said, and opened the relevant drawer. “Serving utensils.” He helped her lay those out where the various dishes would go. “Do you have parties at your house much?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “Team captain, I have hosting duties. But not usually so much. No, my parents had dinner parties and things when I was child, and I always help my mother set up. I had no sisters.” And he shrugged.
“Big family?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. A few relatives, but. My father was politically connected so he was expected to entertain… connections. It was… lot of pressure on my mother I think. So I always try to help.”
“Oh,” Jacki said. “That’s interesting. Were you from a small town or a big city?”
“City,” Rozanov said. “Very big city, big enough you probably heard of it.” And then he laughed. “That sounds mean but I just mean, many cities in Russia are not famous but Canadians know about Moscow, not that you specifically would not know any geography.”
Jacki laughed too, because it hadn’t been a cruel laugh at all. “I have heard of Moscow but I don’t know if I could find it on a map, isn’t that terrible?”
“Russia is easy to find on map,” he said. “Because it is so big. And then Moscow is right where you would expect. Bonk, on Europe side of country. Easy to find.” And he mimed sticking a pin in something, perhaps, though she wasn’t sure what shape his hands were describing.
“I guess so,” she said, but she had no clearer idea than before where Moscow was.
“What about you?” Rozanov asked. “Are you from small town, or big city?”
“I grew up in a medium-sized town, not too far out,” Jacki said, “and I moved to Montreal for school, and just stayed here I guess.”
“Is good Pike has not been traded,” Rozanov said, grimacing a little.
“I worry about that,” Jacki admitted. “I don’t want to go too far, my mom’s just across town and my sister’s nearby, and with the kids so little it’d be so hard to move. But if he did, of course I’d have to go with him, I couldn’t stand to have him miss out on the kids any more than he already does. But as it is he doesn’t have time to help me much, and it’s a lot do to do on my own. I really need my mom’s help.”
Rozanov nodded thoughtfully, looking solemn. “Would be hard,” he said. “Schedule can be brutal.” He shrugged. “Well, coaches do not always listen, but I think Hollander gets whatever he wants, no? So as long as he wants Pike on his line, I think they will not trade Pike. Safe bet.”
“That’s what Hayden said,” she mused. She looked thoughtfully at Rozanov. “Do you have a Pike, on your line?”
He raised his eyebrows. “No, he is on the Metros,” he said, but more in bafflement than sarcasm.
“No,” she said, “I mean, who’s the Pike to your Hollander? Who is your--”
“My right winger?” Rozanov asked. “Currently, Virtanen, but. Well, recently. Currently, I am bench. I think you are asking if I have someone I am that close to, and the answer is no, we have had a few players cycle through on my line. Coach has been experimenting with different styles of play and different players to do it.” He smiled. “I have played wing, as well. Most recently, I played wing to Hollander’s center, at All-Star game, and I admit I enjoyed very much.”
Jacki laughed. “Are you gunning for Hayden’s job?”
He shook his head, smile curving wicked-sweet. “Montreal could not afford me,” he said. “And if they had me they would not use me just to feed passes to Hollander.” He must have caught something in her expression, because he said, “It would be pleasure and honor to feed passes to Hollander all day every day, I am not knocking it, but I have other skills I am specially known for.”
“Hayden seems to like it,” Jacki said, and she knew if Hayden were in earshot Rozanov would have said something cutting about his skill or lack thereof, but Rozanov clearly had no interest in provoking her.
“Do you ever play sport?” Rozanov asked.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I did volleyball, lacrosse, field hockey, soccer, and figure skating in high school, and then at college I was on the soccer team. I was pretty good, but nothing special.”
“Do you ever play anymore?” he asked.
She barked out a laugh. “With four kids? And I’m Head WAG? In what time?”
He shrugged. “Not even a little for fun?”
“I don’t do fun,” she said, and then stopped herself. “That’s not fair. We’re just really busy. When the kids are a little older maybe I’ll… well, I’ll be so busy driving them around to all their sports, I probably won’t get back into any of my own. But that’s all right. I do Pilates and yoga sometimes, if I can get out to classes. Or I just do.” She shrugged. “Workout videos.”
“Kids do need lot of driving around,” Rozanov conceded. He was arranging the silverware decoratively instead of in the jars she’d gotten out. It looked better his way, she observed a little glumly. “My rookie MLH season they house me with older teammate and I won over his wife to liking me because I would sometimes drive middle daughter to horseback riding lessons. They were so far away, it was such long drive, it would screw up her whole schedule and poor little sister would have to ride along and be so bored. But if I went, was good excuse for drive, was pretty scenery, I could read book in car, wasn’t so bad. She loved me.”
“I would too,” Jacki said. “I’m surprised you had time.”
“I very often did not,” Rozanov said. “But I did it enough times that it made difference to her, I guess.”
“That’s actually sweet,” Jacki said.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Rozanov said, with a toothy and strangely bitter grin. “Spoil my reputation.”
“It would, wouldn’t it,” she said.
“What you have told me, however,” Rozanov said. “Is that you know how to ice skate.”
“I do,” she said.
“Ho ho,” he said. “This is big news.”
“Why does it matter?” she asked.
“I do not yet know,” he said. “But.” He tapped the side of his head. “I file this knowledge. Someday it will be important.”
“I’m not amazing,” she said, “but I can do like. Spins and like. Basic jumps.” She shrugged. “I never competed very high-level or anything.”
“Do you ever skate now?” he asked.
She snorted. “In what time? And no, I think this family spends enough time at ice rinks without my actively seeking it out for my own amusement.”
Rozanov pulled out his phone. “I need your phone number,” he said.
“Why?” she asked, but told it to him anyway. He put it into his phone. She spelled her name for him.
“Is short for something?” he asked, rather than answering her question.
“Jacqueline,” she said, “but I don’t-- nobody ever calls me that.”
He grinned without looking up from his typing. “In Russia if someone calls you by your real full name it is because they hate you and disavow all knowledge of you,” he said. “Is like that, if someone calls you Jacqueline?”
“Really?” She laughed. “Kind of! It makes me think you got my government name from a data leak.” Her phone buzzed; he had sent her a text. She pulled it out and started to add him to her contacts. “Well, then, if nobody calls you your name, what do they call you?”
“Oh,” he said. He sounded a little blank. “No, I just am called Ilya.”
“But-- no nickname?” She tilted her head.
He shrugged. “People have to like you to give you nickname,” he said.
She stared at him, open-mouthed, and he laughed.
“No, is also because name is short. Ilya is too short. Sometimes my mother would say Ilyusha or my grandma Ilyushka but for grown man,” he wavered his hand, made a face. “Americans just call me Rozy.”
“Rosie,” she said. “Like-- that’s a woman’s name. Rose. The flower.”
“I know is woman’s name,” Rozanov said, amused. “Shane dated a Rose. I got her number, you know.”
“You what,” Jacki said.
Rozanov shrugged. “I DM her on… somewhere. I was prepping for surgery and I was bored. So I got a meme of that hobbit girl from the movie, her name was Rosie, and I sent it to her. She gave me her phone number and when I got out of surgery I texted her things that she thought were so weird she called me.”
“You have Rose Landry’s phone number,” Jacki said.
Rozanov laughed. “I do,” he said. “I do. She was very nice. I understand now why Shane dated her. She called me and I was still all fucked-up on the drugs from surgery so I am sure I tell her many strange things. But now she and I call each other Rosie. Is very funny.”
“Wow,” Jacki said.
“Like I said,” Rozanov shrugged. “She is very nice.”
“Oh, well, speaking of that, I don’t know if I can have your name in my phone,” Jacki said, amused. “What if someone sees me texting Ilya Rozanov? I’d get in trouble. I should put you in as Rosie too, to throw people off the scent.”
Rozanov laughed. “No, use Lily,” he said. “Shane has me in his phone as Lily. Rosie is only funny to use with Rosie.”
Jacki typed his contact in as Lily Rose, saved it, and then stared at it for a moment. “Lily,” she said. Then, slowly, “Boston Lily.”
Rozanov’s eyebrows were raised when she finally turned her face up to his. “Oh my god,” she said.
“Who is Boston Lily?” Rozanov asked.
“The girl Shane was texting for years,” Jacki said slowly. “Hayden chirped him about it constantly. And he’d tell me, and we would talk about it like-- oh my god. Boston Lily. He had a girl in Boston, and Hayden saw the screen enough to know she was called Lily.”
Rozanov bit his lips, then tapped at his phone and turned the screen so she could see it. It was a message history with a contact named Jane. The most recent messages were about going to the Pike house. “I put myself in his phone as Lily during rookie season,” he said, “and put him in mine as Jane. So if anyone found our phone would not be quite so.” He tilted his head. “We are supposed to be enemies, yes?”
“You’re Boston Lily,” Jacki said. “Oh my god Hayden is going to shit himself. That’s years!”
Rozanov bit his lips again. It was distracting, he did have an unfairly pretty mouth. “I mean,” he said. “Maybe don’t, um, tell…”
“Hayd thought he was sexting with Lily,” Jacki said. “He was so sure of it.”
“Oh,” Rozanov said, strangely uncomfortable. “I mean, was a lot of texts sometimes, but… maybe don’t tell him it was me.”
“Oh my god,” Jacki said. She realized she had grabbed his arm at some point, and was holding it just as Hayden came through the door.
“It smells amazing in here,” Hayden said, and Jacki for some reason let go of Rozanov’s arm in a weirdly intense way and stepped back. “Hey,” he said, looking unnerved as his gaze traveled between Rozanov’s arm and Jacki’s face.
Rozanov laughed, and turned to look at him. “Just in time to not help,” he said. “Pike, did you know your wife can ice skate?”
“Of course I knew,” he said, frowning. “Why wouldn’t I know that?”
“She is beautiful soul, Hayden Pike,” Rozanov said.
Shane trailed into the room behind Hayden, clearly still thinking about whatever they’d been talking about. He was wearing one of his happy faces, Jacki thought. Shane had his own categories of facial expression, and most people thought he was blank most of the time, but she knew him well enough now that she could generally read him. He lit up just from catching sight of Rozanov, in that understated way he had-- just a shift in his eyelids, a little lightening of his mouth; he was delighted by Rozanov’s mere presence.
That more than anything convinced her they were really friends. But the bombshell about Boston Lily-- she wasn’t sure she could even tell Hayden that one.
“Are you hitting on my wife, Rozanov?” Hayden asked, genuinely confused and slightly upset.
“Hayd!” she said, involuntarily evoking the Mom Voice. “No. Cut that out right now.” Not only did it show an upsetting lack of faith in her, it made Hayden sound like a whiny little shit. She had been alone with the man for ten minutes, it was ridiculous.
Hayden turned a startled glance on her, and Rozanov laughed, but immediately covered his mouth. “No,” he said to Hayden, “no, I am not, Pike, she deserves better than even me, I would not do this. Not that it would work on her anyway if I did.”
“I,” Hayden said, wounded and still confused. God, he was cute, but sometimes she did want to shake him a little. “That was-- it was weird, okay?”
“It was weird,” Rozanov admitted. “I am sorry, Pike. I have very bad upbringing and it gives me instinct to start shit.” He held out his hand toward Hayden. “I have no genuine wish to cause chaos in your home. I want to be nice so you invite me back and let me hold babies.”
“Ilya was really sad when he found out there weren’t going to be any babies at this party,” Shane put in helpfully.
“You like kids?” Jacki asked him, but as soon as she thought about it she wasn’t surprised.
“I love kids,” Rozanov said. “Kids judge you for good reasons, not dumb ones.”
“What are you saying?” Hayden asked, not taking Rozanov’s hand. Rozanov drew his hand back pretty smoothly. God, Hayd was so prickly sometimes, and she knew why he was so fragile, he’d spent so much of his childhood being bullied and still was in his adult professional life sometimes-- life could be hard, as a small nimble offensive forward in a league of behemoths-- but it still grated sometimes.
“I am not saying anything to you, Pike,” Rozanov said, “I just got done to explain how I am trying not to antagorize you.”
“Antagonize,” Shane filled in quietly.
Annoyance flitted across Rozanov’s face and was instantly gone, so fast Jacki wasn’t sure that was really what it had been. “Oh what is it in French?”
“Contrarier,” Shane said, though his expression had gone flat and wary.
“No accent,” Rozanov said, sounding genuinely fond. “Bilingual, no accent,” and he kissed his fingers. “I waste my childhood. He speaks bird too, do your fucking loon call.”
Shane flushed slightly, eyes averted, but he didn’t look wary anymore. He knew Rozanov wasn’t really making fun of him. “No,” he said, and his mouth curved up a little.
Jacki found herself helplessly smiling at Shane. She glanced over and Rozanov was doing the same, but saw her look and smiled at her, shaking his head slightly. “He’s so fucking cute,” she mouthed. Rozanov nodded fervent agreement, eyebrows up emphatically. Okay, they really were friends.
“What,” Shane said, noticing her movement.
“Nothing,” she said. Hayden looked wounded. “Not you either! Hayd. Chill out.” There was nothing for it, she was going to have to be a clingy and devoted wife to soothe Hayden, who really seemed to believe Ilya Rozanov would come to his house just to cause trouble there. “Sweetie, come help me get these pans out of the oven, people will be here in a minute.”
People did arrive, and she arranged herself decoratively at Hayden’s shoulder for as much of the posturing as possible, because of course everyone who arrived had to make a big show of reacting to Rozanov’s presence, and Shane had to patiently (impatiently) explain over and over that yes, he had invited Rozanov, yes, they had a project they were working on together, yes, it was an opportunity because of Rozanov’s injury, no, he wasn’t an irredeemable asshole, yes, this was fine, and it was all the worse because everyone in attendance had been forewarned Rozanov would be there and it should have been a surprise to none of them.
And Jacki had to spend the whole time managing Hayden, when really she could have perhaps been better utilized defending Rozanov. But she couldn’t be too friendly to him. Every time she touched his arm reassuringly she had to go back and press her breasts into Hayden’s shoulder or lean adoringly against his chest, bending her knees slightly so she’d be even shorter than him (he never noticed she did this but she did it in almost every photo), or something to calm him down. He wasn’t normally the jealous type, not to this extent, but he really prickled up at Rozanov.
She felt bad for Rozanov, though. The guys were all vaguely uncomfortable and slightly hostile with him, but several of the wives and girlfriends were downright cold. She understood; Rozanov had probably crosschecked or tripped or hooked or dropped gloves with or at least offensively chirped most of the Montreal players, and she knew firsthand how hard it was to watch your guy get fouled, or punched. But she couldn’t exactly rush to his defense without setting Hayden off.
She had an excuse after about an hour, though. Rozanov had managed to get himself a plate of food and wedge himself into one of the chairs in her living room, but had long since emptied the plate and was holding it in his lap smirking faintly and looking somewhat like a trapped animal. He had his legs bent at a careful angle and she could tell from here that wasn’t how he ought to have that injured leg braced.
Yet more distressingly, Shane was standing robotically in the corner of the room near the kitchen, not eating, not really talking to anyone, looking completely blank and shut-down, and she knew by now that that was him being miserable. He had wanted his friends to get along, she understood that immediately.
So since Hayden was in the midst of a happy conversation with a couple of the guys, oblivious to both Shane and Rozanov, Jacki loaded up a plate with desserts, went into the living room, seized an unattended ottoman, and dragged it over to Rozanov.
“Here,” she said, “stack this on your empty plate,” and handed him the plate of desserts. “I can tell that’s not how the trainer would want you to be sitting with that leg. Let’s get it elevated.”
“Oh,” he said, “it’s-- ah--”
She retrieved several throw pillows, which people had shoved off the couch to make room for bodies, and built him a support for his injured leg. “Need a hand getting it up on there?” she asked.
“Actually,” he said, “if you could.”
She knew exactly what she was doing, so she carefully took his ankle between her hands and very, very gently helped him straighten the leg-- she could see in his taut face that it hurt, but she was good at this-- and arrange it on top of the pillows, carefully at just the right angle. It wasn’t just the knee, he probably had ligament damage all the way up into the hip. That was probably going to be brutal to rehab once he was healed, which he visibly was not. But she knew how hockey went, and Rozanov’s contract had been expensive; he’d be under pressure to get back in it before the playoffs, and that deadline was looming. They were probably doing all kinds of illegal shit with steroids and things to get him healed, and the long-term afteraffects would be pretty shitty for him the rest of his life.
“My background is in physical therapy,” she said. “I was studying sports medicine but I never finished my degree.”
He gazed reverently up at her. “Your husband is lucky, lucky man,” he said.
She smiled. “I know,” she said. “You want a drink?”
“Water?” he said so hopefully she felt like a shitty hostess for not noticing his plight earlier.
She brought him a glass, and he thanked her politely. She bent close and said, “I’d better go back to clinging to Hayden before he gets prickly again. Let me know if you need anything else.”
He winked up at her, and she left.
Instead of going straight to Hayden she went and brushed her shoulder against Shane’s arm. He straightened a little and gave her a mechanical half-smile. “Hey,” she murmured. “I like Rozy. He’s funny.”
Shane’s mechanical smile softened a little, and he said, hopeful, “Really?”
“Really,” she said. She sighed. “I wish Hayden wasn’t so… threatened.”
“He’s mad I never told him I was friends with Rozanov,” Shane said glumly. “But-- I tried, it’s just every time anyone mentioned him, everyone had to remind me how much I hate him.”
Jacki nodded, and glanced over at Hayden, who was mid-story, very animated, and then over at Rozanov, who was eating with apparent delight. “But you’ve been friends with him a long, long time, haven’t you?”
Shane eyed her blankly. That was wariness again, which for him usually meant he suspected he was being made fun of. “A while, I guess,” he said.
“He told me he’s in your phone as Lily,” Jacki said. Shane’s eyes widened slightly, and his gaze darted away, like he was thinking hard about something. “But Hayden has been talking about you texting a Lily for years! He thought Lily was somebody you were hooking up with.”
“Uh,” Shane said. “N-- no.” His eyes darted toward Rozanov. “He told you that?”
She nodded, and smiled, then leaned in and whispered, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell Hayden who Boston Lily really is. Your secret friendship is safe with me.” She giggled. “Especially since now everyone knows you’re friends. They don’t believe it, but they will.”
“Why is it so hard for people to believe?” Shane asked, sounding genuinely miserable.
“Well,” she said, “on the surface it doesn’t make sense. But I guess it really does, if you think about it for a moment. You two were drafted in such a storm of attention, and then there’s been so much pressure on both of you-- probably there’s nobody in the world who understands you as well as he does, at least in that respect. Isn’t that right?”
Shane looked at her, like she’d said something really deep-- maybe she had? And nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “And nobody else can see that. But you’re right. He’s been there through all of it, you know, going through just about the same thing.”
“Different in some ways, but,” Jackie tilted her hand. “Probably similar enough.”
“Right, like, he had to learn the whole language, live in a new country,” Shane said, “and I didn’t have to do that, but-- well.”
“Well, you’re still the only Asian guy playing at this level,” she said.
“No there’s two other guys,” Shane said. “A rookie two seasons ago, Colorado, and then a guy who came up out of the KHL last year and he’s in Philly-- he’s half, like me, but unlike me the other half is Russian.”
“Right,” Jacki said, “I did know… ok I knew about Cho. I don’t know the other guy.”
“Aitmatov,” he said. “I… text him too. But. Under their real names in my phone.” He laughed nervously. “People don’t expect us to hate each other.”
“No, you’re not in competition,” she said gently. “No, Shane, it makes sense. And I’ll… I’ll talk to Hayden, when he’s feeling less threatened about it all. He’s a little territorial about you, Shane.”
“Huh,” Shane said, because no he probably hadn’t noticed that.
“I think he’s feeling a little threatened,” Jacki said. “Because he always kind of felt like maybe you’re the only one that understands him, since you were rookies together. But you have more in common with Rozanov than with him.” She considered. “He probably hasn’t thought that through all the way but he’s the kind of guy who knows things he doesn’t know he knows, if you get what I mean.”
Shane huffed a little almost-laugh. “I think I do,” he said. “I never thought of it that way before, though.”
“Well,” Jacki said. “He needs a little reassurance, is all.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Shane said.
“It’s because he loves you,” Jacki said, and pressed her shoulder against his arm one last time before moving off to do more hostess duties.