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Cliff Marleau was sat completely still, rooted to the seat of his car, staring blindly at the very sensible, very practical Toyota Corolla he had assumed was Rozzy’s when he’d pulled into the driveway five minutes ago. He knew better now. To be fair, it hadn’t made much sense in the first place: Roz had always preferred fast and low, not safe and slow, but in his defense he’d never known Roz have a guest before. Not of any kind. But then, in the interest of fairness, Cliff had never shown up announced before either.
Shane Hollander.
Fuck.
Five minutes ago he’d shown up at Rozzy’s door, fuming from a fight with his girl, hoping for a drink and a few hours of fucking around on the PS4 until he’d cooled off enough to go home and face the music.
Maybe Hollander lived here. Maybe every time Roz had them over, he’d clear out so no one would know. Except. No. That was fucking dumb. Idiot. Hollander lived in Montreal. With the rest of his team. They must have arrived for tomorrow’s game already.
Cliff groaned.
Ten minutes ago the sky was blue, the grass was green and Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander were straight. They weren’t together, weren’t anything to each other but league rivals. Now? Now Cliff was sitting in his car, raking over every interaction he’d ever seen them have. Press, face offs, cross checks, the All Stars games. He was pulling up every time he’d heard Hollander mentioned in Roz’s presence and he realized pretty fucking quickly, with sparkling certainty, that Roz had never once said he hated him. The press and the league made a big hoot about the rivalry thing, sure, but Roz himself had never said anything bad against Hollander. Sure there were the hockey taunts, right? The ribbing about being a better player than him, chirps about his puck control, his back hand, his speed, but Hollander did the exact same back. They all did. That was hockey. It wasn’t hatred. Hell, Ilya threw those exact same taunts at Cliff too.
When he really truly thought about it, it made a weird kind of sense. Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander had been at the top of the score board every year since they were drafted, handing off MVP and top scorer and most points like they were sharing custody. The year Ilya arrived in Boston, Cliff had taken him under his admittedly very large wing right from the off because he could see from his tapes he was a generational talent. He played better than Cliff ever fucking had, never mind when he was sixteen. But if Boston had taken Hollander instead he’d have done the same, because he was just as fucking good (if not better, don’t tell Roz).
Not that Cliff would change it, mind, the way the draft had fallen, the choice Boston had made back then, it made sense. Roz suited Boston and Hollander suited Montreal. But there was no denying it was the two of them up at the top. Together.
Shit.
It made sense.
One of the easiest ways to get a girl fired up was a game of something. Pool or darts or snooker or even just quarters. Get ‘em competing with you, get ‘em fighting for something, then get them laughing and relaxed and invite them back to your place. Worked most of the time.
Sara’s vice was Mario Kart. If he could get her to play Mario Kart with him he knew he had her. He could count on one hand the amount of times she’d said no to a fuck after Mario Kart. She loved to beat him and even better, she loved to put a stop the victory lap he’d take when he won.
Maybe that was hockey for Hollander and Rozanov. Elaborate foreplay.
Cliff snorted. This was fucking insane.
And, God. Sara. He’d been so fucking rude to her for no reason, picked a fight over and over until she couldn’t ignore it anymore. Now more than anything he wished he could spend the rest of the day wrapped in her arms figuring out what the fuck to do about this. She would know. She knew everything better than he did. Cliff was hockey smart, and he was proud of that, but she was actually fucking smart smart. It was one of the things he’d gotten hooked on, just listening to her talk with all her brains and shit. He’d dropped the playboy lifestyle for something better and never looked back.
Sara liked Roz. She’d taken one look at him the first day they’d met and immediately adopted him, started looking up Russian recipes to cook for him the next time he visited. Cliff had rolled his eyes but she had just ignored him, happily carried on with her research, and cooked Roz dinner the next time as if she hadn’t even heard him. The cabbage thing. Roz had tears in his eyes as he was eating it, much as he pretended he didn’t, and he’d hugged her when he left, smiling wider than Cliff had ever seen him. The next day at practice he’d told Cliff to marry her.
God, he wished he hadn’t started shit. She would know he should do here.
He was calling her before he realized it.
“What,” she said, sharp and annoyed, answering before the end of the second ring.
His heart clenched with guilt and he closed his eyes, pressed his forehead against the steering wheel and asked, voice thick, “Can I come home?”
She sighed, short and frustrated.
“It’s your house, Cliff.”
“It’s not. It’s ours. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You know how I get before a game. I’m sorry. Please can I come home?”
She sighed again, but slower this time, more like she was letting out a held breath, then said, “I didn’t want you to go. You left. You can always come home if you want to.”
“I want to. I’m coming. I’m sorry.”
“You said that already, baby,” she said as he started the engine. “I’m not talking to you while you drive. It’s not safe,” as if he hadn’t spent half his twenties driving around ten miles over the speed limit with two or more beers in him.
He smiled at the phone like she could see him, “I know. I’ll be ten minutes, okay?”
“You’re at Rozie’s?”
Cliff glanced back at the door to Ilya’s home, he couldn’t see anything more from this position, didn’t know where they were anymore, if they’d stopped, or carried on, and fuck, he had to get that image out of his head.
“Uh— Not exactly. I’ll tell you. I love you.”
“Love you too, baby. Drive safe.”
He spent the evening making up for the fight, then the night wrapped up in her arms as she walked him through a crash course on sexuality on her tablet.
The next day she sent him to the arena with a plan: win the game, bring Roz home for dinner, tell him what he’d seen, make sure he felt supported. Make sure he knew he was safe with them.
If Cliff was being honest, he’d never in a million years have pegged Roz as gay. He felt a bit dumb for it now —and Sara had given him a long hard talk about assuming things— but in his defense, the only gay guy he’d ever met long enough to know he was gay was Patrick, Sara’s cousin, an extremely camp theatre director who was about as gay as the day was long. And now Roz. Apparently.
After a long-ass game and eight minutes overtime, Connors cinched a garbage goal from the exhausted Montreal goalie and the Raiders scraped a 1-0 victory. Roz had played 26 minutes on the ice and was in a foul fucking mood the whole time. It was nothing how he usually played. Roz was usually the life of the team, zipping around the rink with a laugh and a chirp for anyone who came close enough. Especially when it was Montreal. There was none of that on the ice that night. His focus was still there, sure, his sheer determination, but it wasn’t fun. He definitely wasn’t having fun.
“We’re kidnapping you for dinner, Roz,” Cliff said when it became clear Ilya wasn’t gunning for a post game victory lap in the bar near the stadium. “Sara’s cooking that thing. Plo-fotski?”
“Po-flotski.” Roz corrected with a tired sigh, “I’m not really in mood, Marly.”
“Nonsense, brother,” Cliff clapped a hand on Ilya’s shoulder. “You’re coming home with me, unless– Unless you’ve got plans?” Thinking about it, maybe Hollander was waiting—
“Fine,” Ilya replied, still sort of dull around the eyes, but smirking now at least. “I will come and eat your girl’s food. You should be very careful, Marly. Maybe one of these days, I will take her home with me to cook good Russian food whenever I want.”
Cliff barked a laugh, “Don’t even joke, Roz. She’ll be trading me in for a younger model anytime soon.”
Sara and Roz were kind of incredible. They weren’t similar, not really. Not at all, actually. She was soft and kind where Roz was all hard edge and sharp witted humor, but they were both so fucking smart. Cliff sometimes felt like they were having a whole other conversation he wasn’t able to follow.
She excused herself to bed after dinner with a hand on Cliff’s arm and a pointed look, pressing a gentle kiss to Ilya’s cheek as she passed, “It was good to see you, Rozie. You are welcome any time.”
Roz nodded, and sent her a smile as she padded away up the stairs. He watched her go, his eyes following her, suddenly sharp and assessing. Cliff waited until he heard their bedroom door click closed.
“She is okay? She does not usually go up this early,” Roz asked quietly, a frown pulling his face small and worried.
Cliff hadn’t considered that he might worry.
“Hah, yeah. No. She’s good. She’s– Uh– She’s not very subtle, huh.”
Ilya’s frown grew a little deeper, assessing eyes turned on Cliff now.
“Subtle?” he asked, every edge of the word careful and precise.
Cliff rubbed the back of his neck, “Yeah, she wants us to talk mano-a-mano. She thinks it’ll be better.”
Roz didn’t respond to that, just stared back at him with the frown etched into his face.
“Right. Out with it then. I came by your place yesterday.”
Ilya’s face flickered with something Cliff didn’t understand, dark but scared, and God he wished Sara had stayed and helped him do this. Talking was not his strong suit.
He barreled on, before he lost his nerve. “Hollander was there. You were kissing. And that was— you know— insane, so I left. It was my fault, right? I didn’t tell you I was coming. So I just left, Roz. Didn’t want to fuck up your day, right? So— Yeah. So I know. And Sara knows. I told her. Which I know, bro code and everything or whatever, but I was kind of freaking out and she helps, so I told her.”
Ilya stared at him. Cliff swallowed, reached a hand out across the table to comfort him then put it down on the table halfway instead when Roz starting tracking the movement like a cobra about to strike.
“I— We won’t say a fucking word, Roz. I swear. To anyone. We’ve got your back, man. But I– I didn’t want to just fucking pretend or something? Like I didn’t know? It felt like I would’ve been keeping something from you or something, so I figured I’d say. So you know. That I know. And Sara knows.”
Roz just kept on staring, his hand tight around the beer bottle.
“Fuck. Sorry. I’m shit at this. It doesn’t change shit all for me, okay? It’s totally good by us that you’re gay or whatever. I don’t give a fuck. And I’ll cave anyone’s face in who says otherwise. Shit, actually, don’t tell Sara I said that. I’m supposed to be being supportive not threatening to fucking hit people.”
Roz still seemed frozen, but he interrupted and said, “Not gay. Not totally. Both. I like both. Bisexual.”
“Both. Fuck. Good. God. Jesus.” Ilya frowned again, and Cliff jumped in quickly, “No, shit. Fuck. I don’t care. It’s just— I was worried you’d been fucking all these girls just for fucking show all these years. That would’ve sucked. For them, obviously, but mostly for you, right?”
Roz snorted, and took a sip of his beer.
Cliff swallowed, took a moment, then asked, “Did you– Did you think I’d care?”
Ilya shook his head, slowly, “I have not said it out loud before now. Was not about you.”
No. Right. Shit.
“Sorry, man. To have— To have forced it. Is he– Is it a new thing? With Hollander?”
“No,” Ilya said quietly. If Cliff had to take a guess he’d have said Roz was sad. But that didn’t make any sense. Shit. Maybe he wasn’t being accepting enough.
“Is it— You could bring him by for dinner? Next time?”
Roz shifted his shoulder, cracked his neck, then swiped the back of his hand across his nose before saying, “It is not. It’s not anything. We meet, we fuck. That’s it.”
That didn’t really tally with the kiss he’d seen. It had been soft, gentle. Ilya’s hand had been gently holding Hollander’s wrist like it was something precious and not like he was a 200 pound hockey player made of pure muscle that he was just planning on fucking. It looked soft. Loving. Cliff frowned. Maybe… Maybe he was embarrassed?
“It’s okay, brother. You can have feelings. Hollander’s fine in my book, as long as he’s good to you.”
Roz snorted, put his beer down on the counter with a sharp bang, then grimaced at the sound, “He is not anything to me. He owes me nothing. We are not anything.”
“Oh.”
Cliff watched as Roz suddenly downed the rest of his beer, then hopped down off the barstool he’d been sitting on and stood.
He was meant to be taking Ilya’s lead, that was what Sara said, so Cliff stood too, bumped him with his shoulder, “Sara’s got a gay cousin who’s single if that’s of any interest. Patrick. He lives in Boston so might be easier than waiting for Montreal game days to get your stick cracked.”
Roz rolled his eyes, but the tension had bled out of him as he said, “Jesus, Marly. No. Fuck. Is fine. I have to go.”
Cliff frowned, “Oh. He waiting?”
“No.” Ilya paused, mouth screwed up like he was considering what to say, then he shrugged, too casual and said, “It is done, I think.”
“Oh,” Cliff said, walking with him to the door and hovering while he put his sneakers back on. “Like done for this trip or done for good?”
Roz shrugged again, half-hearted, “I think for good. Doesn’t matter. It is better this way. Was getting dangerous.” He frowned, then shook his head and gestured at Cliff, “Obviously.”
Fuck. Had Cliff broken them up? No. Dumbass. Roz didn’t even know he’d been there. They must have broken up after he’d left. They’d broken up by coincidence on the day Cliff had found them out? Fuck. That was almost worse.
“That’s rough, brother.”
“Is fine,” Ilya said, repeated the same too casual shrug. “Tell Sara thank you. For food. And for—”
“You’re good, Roz. See you tomorrow.”
Ilya grunted a goodbye.
Cliff watched him go, then stood on the doorstep for a few minutes watching as Roz peeled away in his sleek expensive-ass bright yellow i8, just taking a sec to process everything he’d learned.
Yesterday, he’d thought Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander were nothing to each other. Never thought anything of it, never wondered if it might be more, never seen anything that suggested otherwise. Then right as he’d realized they were something, they’d broken up? Or something else, something worse. And Roz was past gone about it.
It sucked.
Cliff sighed into the night sky. He hated sad Ilya.
If he didn’t cheer the fuck up Cliff was going to have to do something about it. Talk to Hollander? Maybe? Somehow?
He really fucking hoped he didn’t have to do anything about it.