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Everyone is staying in the same hotel. The teams are on separate floors, fortunately, but Ilya still thinks it was a stupid idea. Putting two teams competing for the Cup within walking distance of each other… but he hasn’t heard fighting yet.
After Hunter’s big move, it seems there is not much else to say.
So Ilya goes downstairs to the alley to smoke, because he is not technically allowed to smoke on the balcony and because he is tired of hotel rooms. Always hotel rooms, always temporary places.
He inhales the nicotine. Always temporary places until summer. Until next month when he goes to Shane’s cottage, for one week or maybe two.
Hunter finds him there, somehow. “Hunter.”
“Rozanov.” Hunter leans back against the wall. Ilya doesn’t know why. They aren’t friends. In fact, Hunter should be rubbing it in his face by now. Should be telling him about the Cup, about how good it probably feels to fuck his boyfriend after a win like that, should be telling him better luck next time.
But he doesn’t. Hunter just stands there quietly.
Ilya takes another drag. He has to say it. “What you did,” he says. Hunter’s jaw tenses. “Very brave. Good.”
His English sounds like a caveman. He’s… nervous, maybe. Nervous that Hunter will smell it on him somehow, will see him for what he is. Or, that Hunter won’t, and will think Ilya is just another asshole who can barely scrape out a congratulations.
“Thanks, Rozanov.” Hunter chuckles, and says, “Jesus. Jesus Christ.”
“Yes,” Ilya says, half-laughing too, because it is crazy. It is the craziest thing that has ever happened in front of Ilya, and Ilya has seen many crazy things. He is totally untethered to the world. He has no victory to lean on, no homeland waiting for him, no mother and no father and no brother. All he has is the promise of a cottage he has never seen before.
“I feel insane,” Hunter says, “totally nuts, man, I can’t believe—” and he chokes. “I can’t believe I did that.”
“It was very well done,” Ilya says. It’s the truth. No one could say that Hunter had done anything inappropriate. It was very gentlemanly to bring his boyfriend down the way everyone else had their family. The press would say it was a courageous thing, and timely.
It would be different in the locker room, of course. Ilya imagines that Hunter has not talked to his team yet. Maybe they are very happy for him. Maybe they cannot bring themselves to touch him. Ilya doesn’t want to know.
Hunter says, “Can I ask you something, Rozanov?”
No, of course not, Ilya wants to say. But today is a day of reckoning. Ilya is going to the cottage. Ilya is going to walk on his knees and beg Hollander—Shane—for the chance to make him happy. He is going to say, I am not good for much, but what I have, I will give you. He is going to say, I made you happy before, yes? I made you sandwiches and gave you ginger ale, yes? Is it enough? When I am no longer the only man who is safe for you, when you are true to yourself and can look around you to see the men who will go home with you in an instant, will I be enough? And he is going to say, You like sex and hockey, and I am good at sex and hockey, so you like me. And maybe there is more to me, and maybe you would like to see that too. Can I show you? Can I show you what I am?
He knows that he will never say any of that, not in words. But he will kiss Shane’s throat, and press his fingertips into Shane’s thighs, and love him, and love him. And maybe it will be true enough.
So Ilya says, voice hoarse, “Yes. Ask me.”
Hunter looks at him. Ilya finishes his cigarette. Hunter says, “Do you remember when we were hotel neighbours, at the 2011 All-Stars?”
Fuck. Fuck. Ilya turns his head away, sharply. He says, “Yes.”
“You need… you need to be more careful. You never know.”
“Okay.”
“But… not so careful that you lose what you have.” Ilya nods. He can barely hear him. “Hey. Rozanov. I’m serious, man. I almost threw everything away—”
“He is not fucking hockey player!” Ilya snaps his head back, furious. “You have no idea—no idea, you have no fucking clue—”
“Fuck you, Rozanov, you think I have no clue—”
“He will not choose me.” Ilya breathes with that, heavy. It’s the truth. “It is not a matter of what I will or will not throw away. It is what he will let me have.”
Hunter lets that sit in silence. Ilya sniffs. It’s untrue, probably. Shane invited him to his cottage. He said, alone together. He said, when Ilya held his hand, better.
But he did not say, I will introduce you to my family. He did not say, Come to my apartment in Montreal where my neighbours will see you. He did not say I love you.
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Yes.”
Like every conversation the day of losing a Cup, it ends in that hollow feeling. There’s nothing good to say, exactly, only condolences. Hunter says, “Take care of yourself, Rozanov.”
“You too.” Ilya’s mouth fits around the words awkwardly, as if he has not said them thousands of times by now, but he says: “Good game.”
“Hah. Yeah, man.” Hunter knocks his fist against Ilya’s shoulder. “Good game.”