Shane looked at his phone and then at the door, and he knew. He knew that Rozanov wasn't late. He just wasn't coming. Shane swallowed, and he turned off the light before he got up from the chair to head to bed. He wasn't even sure he wanted to jerk off. He didn't want to deal with the mess or the feelings that were going to come from it. He needed to move on. He knew that. He had been the one to push things because he thought that Rozanov wanted him to. The last time they had met up, he had come, but this time, there had been nothing from Rozanov.

The idea of finding a woman to settle down with made Shane feel like he was lying. He knew that he had not really been attracted to the women he had tried to be with. Maybe he needed a little more time to figure things out. Maybe he needed to find a woman who was like Rozanov. Someone he wasn't supposed to be with, someone who made him feel excited, like every single time that he got with him.

Shane just had no idea where to find someone like that. He wasn't even sure how to go about finding someone like that. Could he Google it? What the fuck kind of help would people on the Internet be? Was there a subreddit that could help him figure out what kind of woman he would need to find that could make him feel like Rozanov did?

He lay down and checked his phone to see that Rozanov was typing. Shane waited, but it stopped. He stared at his phone, not letting it sleep until it had been ten minutes and there was nothing from Rozanov. Shane thought about what he wanted to do, but he was going to sleep on it. He wasn't going to make decisions while he was feeling like this. He would just settle in and decide what to do later when he felt more like himself.

---

Shane looked at his date as she sat at the table where he was supposed to meet her. She was on her phone, smiling at it. She was a reader, and it was what they connected with online. She was also very built. As much as online dating kind of sucked, it had worked out well for Shane so far; they had had a spread of horrible, but he was able to weed out a lot of women from contention because of how they were online. It allowed him to think before he spoke.

Sky was the third woman he had agreed to date. His online profile didn't have anything in it that would connect back to him, and he told them up front that he liked his privacy and that if they made it to the in-person date, they would understand why he was like that. Sky had seemed like the best of the ones so far, so Shane was trying to psych himself up to head over there. If the dates went well, he would take her to the All-Stars with him. Which was still a ways away.

He didn't want to be late, so for five minutes, Shane headed inside and waited for the hostess to point him in the direction of Sky. He knew her, but he also wanted to do this the right way.

Sky looked up at him as he sat down, and she opened her mouth, then shut it. She looked at her phone and then laughed. "I never once had the thought you were a professional hockey player, though sitting here staring at you, Shane, I should have. I really should have. There are enough pieces there to connect it all the way to you."

"I had one person connect it, and she got really weird. So I didn't go out with her."

"You could have any woman, why online dating?" Sky asked.

"Because a certain subset of people I am looking for is not going to be easy to find in person with the people that I actually spend my day-to-day life with. I...am getting out of a situationship that taught me a lot about what gets me going."

"And it can't be more?"

"No, it can't. There are a lot of reasons why. And I'm hoping that finding someone who is not them is a good way to go on that."

Sky looked at him, and she looked around where they were. It wasn't private dining at all, and Shane knew that she was nowhere near the profile that he was, but she was still someone whom many would look weird at all on his arm. He just hoped that she was someone who was more than willing to live with his own profile.

Shane just thought that the parts that got him going with Rozanov would be the same with Sky.

"You know that my brother will probably want to kill me."

Shane raised an eyebrow.

"You...You know that my name is Sky Marleau, right?"

"Yes, you have it on your full profile. I have a fake name, and I assumed that before you said that it was your name, that it was a fake name as well."

"Yes, well. I like hockey players. I have always been around them. The family is obsessed, we are just Boston fans."

Shane nodded, and then he realized what she meant.

"And in Cliff?" Shane asked.

Sky smiled and nodded.

Maybe this would be better. Yeah, there was the forbidden there. Dating the sister of a player on a team he's supposed to hate. That should be close enough to what was going on with Ilya without actually doing it.

---

It was not better.

Shane sighed, and he looked at his phone before looking around to see when he could slip out. He saw his friends and knew that the mood he had been in when he got there had changed. Sky had just broken up with him over text, not even a text to his number, which she had, but a text through the dating app they had used to connect with each other. It was impersonal, and Shane knew why. The sex fucking sucked.

"Are you going to help me eat these fries?"

Shane looked at the person sitting at the table. He knew her. Rose Landry. He knew that she was there, but he had tried not to just go out and look for her. He sat down and looked at her. She was smiling. She knew him. He knew it.

"And you think that I have the calorie space for that many fries?"

"They are so good, though. I hate to see them go to waste. You can help me eat them, and maybe both of us won't go so far over our intake for the day."

Shane settled into the seat more. He smiled at Rose and then looked at the fries before taking one. She scooted the plate over closer to him. He tried it, and it was fucking good. They were one of the better fries he had ever had in his life.

"So, Shane Hollander, what has you hiding from the world?"

Shane laughed, and he exhaled. "My girlfriend just broke up with me."

"Is she still here? She left, right? It would be horrible if she stayed."

Shane waved his phone. "She broke up with me over text."

"Damn, that's..."

"And not even a normal text, which we had been doing since she lives in Boston, but no, she sent it through the dating app that we met on."

"You need more fries, Shane." Rose scooted the plate a little closer. It was kind of nice to have her be like that. To be calm and settled while he was in a storm of emotions. Shane wasn't sure what to do about this. He had been the one to break things off with the few friends he had when it wasn't working for him. He had always done it in person or at least with a phone call if they were not in a place to get to see each other. It was the kind of thing that he felt was good.

"I think I do, as well as maybe another beer."

Rose raised her hand, and one of the staff came right over. She smiled and waved at Shane. Shane ordered a beer, and she ordered a cocktail. Then they were alone again. Shane wasn't sure why she was talking to him, but he liked it. He just fucking hoped she didn't want to date him, too, because that would not be good.

---

Shane heard the knock, and he wasn't sure who it was. He checked his phone because Hayden usually messaged before he came over, and if his parents were there, they had to have come from Ottawa, so that meant that they would always message him. He had no missed texts at all. At the bottom of the screen was Lily. Rozanov. Shane had deleted his text thread with Sky because he didn't want to see her name all the time. It had meant that Lily's name came up again. Shane wasn't able to delete it. He had tried a few times.

Opening the door, Shane pasted on his smile that he used for the media, and he paused as he took in the man standing there in his hallway. Cliff Marleau. Shane felt like he was going to be punched or something.

"She's the one who broke up with me," Shane said.

"I'm not here to defend my sister's honor. She would kill me if I did anything like that at all. My sister makes her own life choices."

"Then why are you here?"

"Can I come in?"

Shane just stared at him. Marleau was a good man. Shane knew that. It was the kind of thing that was known. On the ice, he was a beast, but for the rest of his life, he was good. He was a good man. Shane stepped to the side to let him inside. Marleau came in, shut the door, and locked it. That should have felt like something that should scare him, but it just made Shane calm down a little.

"Something to drink? Snack?" Shane asked. He had some things on hand for other people; he didn't crave things like that often because he liked his diet. He liked the food in his diet, which meant that he didn't crave the other stuff too much.

"I'll take a pop of some kind, I'm not picky at all except maybe it's late and caffeine would be something that I don't drink right now."

Shane went to get a Ginger Ale for Marleau. He grabbed a second for himself and walked over to the island, where he settled on the stool. Marleau did settle there as well, sitting across from him.

"Sky's a good woman. She was telling me about her boyfriend. Well, the guy she was dating. She said nothing about him as far as his name went. Just why does she think that he and she were not good together? Never knowing his name allowed me to be objective, and I agreed with her that it seemed like he was trying to be with her because he felt like he should be. That he might be gay." Marleau snapped open the tab on the Ginger Ale and took a sip of it. "More than she probably should have, but I never heard his job or his name. Nothing was personal enough to connect to the man. Until last night."

Shane swallowed, and he wondered if he was going to be killed. Not by Marleau but by someone else. That it was going to be told what he was, and then his team or someone else would tell him. He knew that there were other players who were gay, or at least bisexual. There was no chance that there wasn't, but Shane had never met anyone other than Rozanov who came out to him. He had never had someone want to do that to him.

"Sky got drunk as hell last night, and she called me. She called me crying. She's always been a very sad drunk. She cried about how you will never be happy. How much it sucked that even someone as good as Shane Fucking Hollander can't come out and be happy with the man he loves. I stayed on the phone with her until she went to sleep. I made sure that I texted her what she told me and that I was not going to do something stupid."

Shane felt the world pulling in on him. His vision blurred, and it wasn't tears; it was the start of a fucking panic attack. Mealeau knew he was gay. Something that he had only recently accepted when it came to who he was. Rose had helped with that. She had figured it out, even if Shane was dating Sky at the time. They had become good friends, and she had been good for him. Good in a lot of ways. He was still worried about what could happen if Marleau told anyone about it. It was good to have someone who knew, but Shane wasn't sure he could trust him. He wasn't sure that he wanted to, not with this. His life could be over if he came out. If he was outed.

"I think that coming to my house a day later might count as something stupid."

"No, I don't think that it does. Look, I've seen how isolating it can be for Roz to be at the top. I know that you have your friends, and I know that you love your team, but we all know what that fucking locker room is like." Marleau was staring at him, but Shane wasn't looking at him; he was looking in his general direction, but that was it. It was something that he did a lot. He didn't like looking people in the eye.

Shane nodded. He agreed that his locker room was horrible, but it was something he had never been able to change. He had tried, but then he had been too new as captain, and the things had been set for too long. Pushing back too much meant that he was called weak, and he was a woke warrior. There was going to be no changing the room for him. He wasn't the one to do that.

"So, I thought that I owed you to tell you in person. Sky's on the family plan of where we can track each other, and I was able to track her here a few times, and seeing the building, it wasn't hard to figure it out. I asked one of your nice ladies on the second floor which floor was yours. I even showed her pictures of you and me from All-Stars to sell it, so please don't be mad."

"I'm not. So you just took her at her word that I'm gay?"

"I trust my sister's instincts. I trust that she knew, and I wanted to let you know in person that I'm never going to tell another soul this. No matter what. No matter if you fucking score on me, and it's what wins the Metros the cup. I am not that kind of person. I have someone on my team I suspect is bisexual, and all I do is make sure that when he's flirting with a man, the rest of the team that would maybe not be accepting about it. So I do what I must to protect him. I thought that maybe you have too many people who are too close and no one who is far enough away to make it feel like you aren't going to lose everything."

"You could still make me lose everything."

"That's not the kind of game I would play. That's not the kind of game that Roz wants to play. He wants to beat you fair and square, and we honestly don't have enough of that in this game anymore. It's why I've loved what you two do. The rivalry between the two of you is something that this game needs more of. You two play so much fuckin better against each other, and that shows n everything."

Shane wondered if Rozanov was the one whom Marleau suspected was bisexual. It was the kind of thing that he didn't want to tell Marleau. It was the kind of thing that made Shane feel like he was going to burst. He loved fucking Rozanov, and he knew it. After accepting he was gay, the thing with Rozanov came after it. He knew it. Being with Sky helped him as well. She would have been perfect, the little bit of illicitness of dating the sister of another player from another team, their rivals. It was as close to Rozanov as hew as going to get, and it was fucking horrible. It had been there, and then there was just nothing.

"You are panicking," Marleau said.

"I'm..." Shane could feel it. He slipped off the stool and put his back to the wall of the island. He could hear Marleau coming to him. Shane wanted to stop this, but he had no idea how to do it.

"Roz, Rozz, stop. I need help. You helped that one fan who had a panic attack that one time. What did you do?"

Shane laughed a little. The panic attack made it worse, and he had no idea what the fuck was going on. Marleau had called Rozanov to help Shane with his panic attack.

"Okay, you are on speaker."

"Tell me how fast he's breathing," Rozanov said.

Shane felt his world slipping away. He was almost to the point of passing out from this.

"Fast, fucking fast, even after we play, he's never breathed this fast."

"We play? Marleau, you said you were going to visit your sister."

"I was and I...fuck."

"Shane, Shane, breathe with Marleau. Put your hand on his chest and try to mimic his breathing." Then Rozanov slipped into Russian, the kind of words that made Shane calm down. He didn't understand him, but he understood the tone. Rozanov was trying to calm him down. He slowed his breathing, matching the expanding of his hand when Mareleau breathed in. Then he blinked and looked at Marleau, who was smiling as he came back to himself.

"What do you see?" Rozanov asked.

"Marleau grinning like an idiot, his phone. The stain on the floor from pasta sauce that I didn't realize fell there."

"Good, good. Hear?"

"You. My heartbeat. Marleau's heavy breathing."

"Fuck you," Marleau said.

"Marly, he'll be good. What are you doing there?"

"I...wanted to talk to him about breaking up with my sister."

"Ah, you didn't like him dating your sister?"

"I didn't know it was him!" Marleau said.

"I knew it was him. How did you miss that?"

"I thought he was with Rose."

"They said they were friends."

Shane had no idea what was going on. He put his head back against the wall again, and he waited to figure out what he wanted to do. "Marleau came here to tell me that his sister got shit drunk and was crying because of the MLH keeping me in the closet and making me feel like I needed to date women or I would be outed."

Rozanov was silent. Shane couldn't even hear his breathing.

"Shit, Hollander, you really just wanna come out swinging, right?" Marleau asked.

"We have All-Stars next week," Rozanov finally said.

"I know," Shane said. He missed Rozanov so much. Ilya. He wasn't sure what the fuck to call him in his head. He wasn't sure what the fuck to do. Marleau knew about him, but he didn't know about Ilya, and that meant that Shane couldn't say what he needed to say.

"Maybe we can finally go on that public date, but make Marly go with us to cover up that we are on a date," Ilya said.

"What the fuck is happening?" Marleau asked.

"I would like that, I think. But I am fully gay. I don't like women."

"Should we be doing this on the phone like this with Marly listening in?" Ilya asked.

"Ilya," Shane said.

"Shane," Ilya said.

It wasn't the first time that Shane had heard his name from Ilya's lips, but it was the first time that he could tell there was more than just what they had been before in that. Shane wasn't sure what the hell was going to happen right now, but having someone else he was out to. Having Marleau not care and being friends with Ilya made it feel like it was a lot more.

"Boys," Marleau said, like they could forget that he was there. "Can I crash here tonight, Hollander?"

"Um, sure. I don't have clothes that will fit you."

"Eh, we can wash these, and I'm sure that I can find a pair of shorts that will fit me. I am not getting into dirty underwear in the morning before driving back. We have tomorrow off with only an optional skate. Told a few guys I was going to my sister to help her over a bad breakup."

"Oh, you painted a target on Hollander's back," Ilya said.

"I'll lie about that and make sure they know that it wasn't him. That she was rebounding from another relationship, and this one just pushed it all up, and she has to face it. I'll make sure that none of them go after you, Hollander."

"You can call me Hollzy or Shane or...I don't know." Shane sighed, and he opened his eyes, finally looking at Marleau, who looked like he was trying to figure something out.

"Montreal Jane? Roz, really?"

Shane laughed, and it was an honest one. One that he wasn't sure what kind of laugh it was, but he leaned over and nearly fell to the floor. Marleau was there to hold him when it turned into crying. He had too many emotions inside of him.

"Hold him tightly," Ilya said.

It wasn't Ilya, but it was someone who seemed to care, so Shane just held onto him, and he cried.

---

Shane knew he was in bed. He didn't remember getting into bed. He didn't remember a lot of things. There was someone with him, and it was a few seconds for Shane to recognize the scent of the shampoo that Ilya used. The night came back to him, and he stiffened and then relaxed himself. It was good. It was okay. They had sort of talked.

"Marly's in your guest room, and I bought him new clothes. You cried yourself to sleep in his arms, and he laid you down and covered you up, but I am the one who got you mostly naked."

"I feel hungover." Shane wasn't used to feeling hungover. He had only gotten drunk like that a few times when he won the cup. "Is that from crying?"

"Da, it is. I remember what it was like when I lost my mother. I felt horrible. I have felt it a few more times when I have gotten skunk drunk."

"Who taught you that one?"

"Hmm, I think it was Vaughny," Ilya said. He loosened his hold and allowed Shane to move if he wanted.

Shane wanted to, but he just rolled to his back. He looked up into Ilya's face to see worry there. Shane knew that he needed to be the strong one here. He needed to say something that he felt like was going to end the world. "I love you."

Ilya ducked his head and lay it on Shane's shoulder and turned to where he could cover Shane and bury his face in his neck. They stayed like that, and Ilya said something that Shane had heard before, words that had been uttered once the last time they had been together; he had thought he had been half dreaming. Ilya repeated the words again, and then he pulled his head up.

"I love you," Ilya said.

Shane realized why Ilya had pulled away from him. Ilya had said it, and while he said it in Russian, he had been afraid of what it meant. Ilya still had to go home to Russia. He had his father and his family there. This was something that they had to be so careful with. Shane would never forgive himself if something happened to Ilya because of this. They just had to be careful. They had to be so careful. They would use the All-Stars to make sure that they were able to be around each other as friends, strike up a friendship that they could easily turn into something more.

There was so much that Shane wanted to say right now, but the silence was good. They could exist together, and they would be fine. They would be.

The End