Chapter Text
Chapter One
Ilya looked at Troy. He had pulled on his black wool Mütze; it sharpened his features. The porch light caught in his pale blue eyes.
Troy’s smile faded into confusion, with something curious beneath it. When Troy really smiled, it changed his whole face. Not the sharp, performative smirk Ilya remembered from Toronto.
Back then, Ilya had looked straight past him.
But now he made Harris happy. Ilya trusted Harris’ judgement. He trusted his own too. He was, what was the word Troy taught him? Perceptive.
Hayden Pike’s irritating face flickered through his mind. Pike had guessed. Shane had confirmed it, outing Ilya, and Ilya hadn’t minded. Shane had him. That had been the point. The porch suddenly felt too bright.
He blinked at the brightness.
It would come out soon anyway. The date had moved. The rings were bought.
He could hear Shane now.
Ilya, stop. Hayden’s my best friend. I’ve known him for years.
A pause, sharp with warning.
Can you really say that about… Troy Barrett?
Ilya’s jaw tightened. Of course, Shane would say that. Shane needed protecting – from people, from assumptions, from consequences. Ilya had been good at that.
Then Galina’s voice cut in. Calm and clinical.
Do you have many friends, Ilya?
Her voice waited.
Is there someone on your team who you feel you could open up to? It seems very imbalanced.
Imbalanced.
Troy had stood in front of the entire team and let them see him. They had not turned away from him.
His chest tightened. He drew a slow breath.
He could hold on a few more months. Of course he could. He had for years.
Once he said it, it would be done.
Ilya exhaled.
“Not here.”
***
Troy swallowed. Ilya’s face didn’t move.
Holy shit.
In the instant after the confirmation, a memory slammed into him: Toronto. The charity announcement. The whole team crowded around the television. Ilya’s mother. The rawness of it. Shane beside him.
They’re probably fucking.
Kent’s voice, laughing. Gross! Rozanov would never. But I bet Hollander is a fucking homo.
The shame came later. He’d been trying to be funny. Now the laughter in his head felt louder than the wind.
They’d had no idea.
Wyatt Hayes cutting them both down in disgust. Ryan Price following. So casual, so fearless. Ilya’s ice-cold reception in the Ottawa locker room. Maybe all this time Ilya knew.
Probably not.
But the urge rose anyway, to confess. To apologise.
Ilya turned away from the light, into the cold. Troy followed. Just before leaving the porch, he caught Harris through the glass and held his gaze. Harris met it with a small, steady nod.
Gravel crunched under their feet.
Soon they were out of earshot of the porch, beside Harris’ truck. Ilya leaned back against it. Troy did the same, leaving a small, careful space between them. It was cold. Their breath hung in the air. Ilya wouldn’t look at him.
“Do you remember your World Juniors?” Ilya stared up at the stars.
What a strange question. Troy thought of his father’s cruel disappointment. His mother’s quiet sadness. The old fear that he was… different. That he’d end up alone.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“My first World Juniors was in Saskatchewan. My first time in North America. I’d heard about this Canadian they said was the best of his generation. I wanted to crush him.”
“You won gold that year,” Troy said. “Beat Canada in the final.”
“Yes. Good times.” Ilya’s mouth twitched. “That Canadian found me outside the rink before the tournament. Introduced himself. So confident. I don’t remember what we said. I just know I was a complete dick to him.”
Troy could see it.
“I remember his freckles. They haunted me. I think I might have fallen for him then. I was young.”
Troy tucked his hands into his pockets, trying and failing to warm them. Ilya had his hands in his pockets too.
Ilya drew a slow breath and kept talking.
“We were drafted first and second. I was first. That was the second time I met him. Afterwards I couldn’t sleep. I told myself it was time zones. But really, I couldn’t get those damn freckles out of my head.”
Ilya adjusted against the truck. The metal rattled.
“It was after midnight. I went to the gym. To run myself into the ground. But who the fuck was in there but Shane fucking Hollander. On the only other treadmill. I got on the one beside him. I needed to prove I deserved that first pick.”
He let out another long breath, fogging the air.
“Once I started running faster, he did too. Obviously, I responded. We kept pushing each other. Faster than was reasonable.”
Troy smiled despite himself.
“Afterwards, we were exhausted. Just sitting on the floor.”
Ilya glanced at him, like he was deciding something.
“Troy. I… just wanted to kiss him.”
He turned to meet Troy’s eyes.
Troy opened his mouth. Closed it again.
He had no idea what to say.
“Was that the first time?” Oh shit. “Sorry… I mean…”
Ilya gave a quiet huff of a laugh. “No, Troy. I get it. Big question though.”
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer.” Heat crept up his neck. He’d overstepped.
Ilya studied him for a long moment. Then he smiled.
“It’s okay. Back in Russia, I realised I liked both. At first it was just women. Then I knew it was men too. I felt more… smart. Evolved maybe. It was thrilling. I found a guy to… how do you say… 'test it.' I knew he wouldn’t talk. It was dangerous to do these things in Russia, Troy. You understand?”
He didn’t look away as he said it.
“I think so. Well. No, not really. But I can try. Ilya, that’s… seriously brave.”
Ilya waved it off. “No. I was arrogant and horny. Maybe just desperate to rebel. Maybe a bit self-destructive.”
Troy clenched his hands. “Rozanov. No. Don’t. Don’t do that.” His words surprised him.
Ilya raised that fucking eyebrow.
“Ilya. I am gay. From Canada. When I was seventeen, I was scared out of my mind. I lived somewhere pretty safe. And I still wanted to hide. Hide from myself. And you’re there, risking everything and acting like it was… I don’t know. Like it was nothing.”
Ilya didn’t respond, didn’t argue. He just held Troy’s gaze.
Troy let the cold fill his lungs, and he allowed the conversation move on.
“Did you think Hollander felt the same?”
“What?”
“That night. Did he feel it too?”
Ilya smiled faintly. “I can be… perceptive. He left quickly. But I think I knew, even then. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I now know he did. He was… more like you. He hadn’t accepted it yet.”
Ilya paused.
“No, stop.” His voice lost its warmth. “That is enough about Shane.”
Troy nodded. “Okay.”
Ilya looked away, straightening his back. “I am already outing him to you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“He outed me first,” Ilya said, as if it cost him to admit it. “To Pike.”
“Pike?” Troy repeated. “Hayden Pike?”
“Yes. And his wife and kids know.”
Troy exhaled. “Right. I won’t ask about Shane.”
The name still felt strange on his tongue, but he let it stand.
“Between being drafted and my second World Juniors, I followed him from Russia as closely as I could. I was… obsessed. I was so excited to see him again. I think it distracted me on the ice. He beat me. Russia took silver.” He let that hang. “My father could not even look at me,” Ilya said, quietly.
Troy’s jaw tightened before he could stop it.
“I know that,” he responded, barely beyond a whisper. Ilya leaned in, wrapping his arm around Troy’s shoulder. Troy knew Ilya had met his father. Ilya had seen him then. Fathers can be difficult.
Ilya held him there, his eyes glancing back across the orchard. Carefully he removed his arm.
He pushed away from the truck and started down the drive towards the fence. Troy followed. It was too cold to stay still.
“My next time in America was for a CCM commercial. It was just me and Hollander.”
“I remember that! The two star rival rookies. Big campaign. I was so excited for that year.”
What Troy didn’t mention was the advert he’d found from that photoshoot in one of his hockey magazines as a teenager. They were standing in their gear, side by side, looking away from each other. He’d found it powerful. Two young rookies starting their careers. It motivated him.
He kept it in his nightstand for years. It disappeared at some point. He didn’t remember when.
“Yes. We showered together after. Just the two of us. And then I really knew Shane wanted me. So I took a risk. I asked him for his hotel room number. He gave it to me. I went. And that was how it all began.”
Troy’s eyes widened. Ilya was walking too fast now. Restless. “Before your rookie year even started. Fuck. That was, what, eleven years ago?”
Ilya shrugged. “I told myself it was just sex. Dangerous, exciting sex. It was… useful. Someone regularly around. Someone to scratch an itch that was hard to scratch. Especially as a well-known celebrity.”
Memories of Adrian came rushing back. The way he justified their breakup, that they weren’t serious. We only were hanging out because it was easy. “But it wasn’t?”
Ilya turned back to look at him. “Every time, we pushed it further. We always wanted more time. I remember convincing him my apartment was safe.”
Troy smiled. It was very Ilya, Troy thought, to cut straight through the anxiety. Just come to my apartment. Adrian had only been to Troy’s a couple of times. It had felt thrilling. Then the thought of Adrian wiped the smile away. Fuck.
They reached the fence, far from the farmhouse now. Ilya leaned on it, arms along the wood. If the fence hadn’t been there, Troy was sure he’d have kept walking. Instead, he stood beside him. Close. It was cold. He let himself take the warmth from Ilya’s body.
“So, when did it stop being just… you know?”
Ilya didn’t turn to him. He kept staring into the dark, speaking into nothing. Their breath still fogged the air.
“Maybe when I first asked him to stay. I went out to buy his ginger ale. Planned what to cook. What to put on the TV. How to make him stay. I told myself I just wanted more time. That I wasn’t done with him.”
Troy thought of Harris. Of how easily you could build a story and live inside it.
“Yeah,” Troy whispered – soft enough Ilya might miss it. “Did he stay?” He said more firmly.
Ilya sighed. He pushed away from the fence and began to pace. Troy could tell he wasn’t leaving. He just needed to move. Troy turned his back to the fence and folded his arms, pretending it was just the cold. It was good to lean on the wood.
“For a while,” Ilya said, “and then he panicked. It was too much. I was sure he was ready to end it.”
Ilya stopped. Turned back to Troy.
“That’s when he got a girlfriend.” He left it hanging there. Giving Troy’s brain time to catch up.
Girlfriend? Then it hit him. “Rose Landry. I forgot.” Ilya nodded.
Rose Landry was a famous, beautiful, talented movie star. The kind of partner his dad would simultaneously love Troy to have brought home to show off but then got annoyed at her independence.
Kent had been furious, at the time. How can that boring faggot date a bloody movie star? As if Shane Hollander wasn’t voted hottest hockey player by Cosmopolitan.
He wanted to tell Kent Shane was exactly the hockey player Rose Landry would pick. Who he would pick. Troy had just laughed. Not because it was funny. Because it was easier.
“Do you think he did it to, like… prove something? That he wasn’t… you know.” Troy had known he was gay. He’d spent years wishing he wasn’t. Before Adrian, he assumed he would die alone.
Troy realised he was making assumptions. Maybe Shane was bi, like Ilya. Troy didn’t know anything; he needed to stop pretending he did.
Ilya looked like he was wrestling something inside himself. “I cannot speak for Shane. I know that Rose is incredible. They’re close. She helped him.” He exhaled, a long cloud in the cold. “She’s actually lovely, I’ve met her a few times.”
Of course, Troy thought. Ilya could charm anyone.
“They broke up.” Ilya smiled again, properly this time. Troy preferred him like this.
“Shane accepted himself. At the All-Star game in Florida that year, we were on the ice together for the first time. It was… amazing. Troy, I love playing hockey with him. He told me he wanted more. With me.”
“You beat Rose Landry,” Troy said, unable to stop himself from smiling.
“No competition.” Ilya’s grin was crooked, a wink following. Troy had to admit it did something to him.
“We knew it was more than sex, Troy. I didn’t know what to do. But we didn’t have a chance to explore it. My father had died; I had to go back to Russia.”
Troy remembered. And he remembered, too, the cold, calculated way he’d thought about it at the time. How without Rozanov, maybe Boston would be easier to beat, maybe Toronto’s playoff chances would improve. He wished he could drag that thought back out of his own head.
He didn’t admit this. “I remember. I just… don’t know the details.”
Ilya was already moving, heading to the orchard, and Troy pushed off the fence to follow. “Ilya, wait. Slow down.” But Ilya didn’t. He kept going, long legs eating the distance, his voice carrying back over the crunch of snow.
“This is the last time I was in Russia, probably the last time ever.” Ilya shrugged, as if it meant nothing. But Troy could see it meant a lot. “Just a week. It was… hard. Family.” He shook his head, and Troy sensed he did not want to go there. Not yet.
“Shane had no idea why I had disappeared. He was so worried. He called. We never called. He made me feel so good. And then he was gone. And I was alone in Russia. Again.”
“I think Shane thought we could keep this going indefinitely. Not seeing each other for months between games. And my heart… I mean… I just couldn’t. Troy, I wanted him so much. I really did. And that’s when I knew I had to end it.”
Then Ilya’s face sobered. He turned away again.
“Why?” Troy blurted it out.
“Isn’t it obvious, Troy? I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. Whenever he left my room it hurt. I just always wanted to see him. It was so fucking painful.”
At last Ilya stopped by a tree and gave Troy a chance to catch up. Ilya leaned into the tree, forearms against the bark.
“I was going to do it after the next Boston-Montreal game. But of course, he ended up in the hospital. Broken. I had to be there for him. It was not the right time.”
“I saw that documentary that showed you during the hit,” Troy admitted. “You were standing over him when he went down. And you’d just buried your dad and – I don’t know. You looked… I don’t know. Nobody clocked it. I didn’t.”
Ilya straightened, as if pulling himself together. “I’m a ‘ladies’ man, Troy. I get away with things. People assume.” Troy couldn’t argue with that. “I had to wait for Shane to get better before I could end things. You understand? And then…”
Troy’s eyes lit up in understanding. “And then Scott Hunter.”
“Scott fucking Hunter. He made me stronger. I wanted to be stronger. I went to Shane’s cottage that summer. He asked after the injury, when I’d needed to go to see him. There was no reason to go to Russia anymore. Not after burying my father. At the cottage, I told him I loved him. He loved me back.”
“Shit.”
“Shit.” Ilya nodded. “So, we made a plan. I move to Ottawa after I become a free agent. Then we announce the charity and say we’re friends off the ice. All carefully planned.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“After the plane incident, Shane asked me to marry him. We’ll come out after the playoffs, in the summer.”
It took Troy another few steps to realise his hands were shaking. Not from the cold. “Fuck.”
Ilya nodded. “Fuck.”
For once, Troy didn’t think. He closed the distance and pulled Ilya into a hug. “Congratulations. I’m so sorry it’s taken this long. It’s so fucking unfair.”
Ilya hugged him back. The hug lingered.
He thought about all the months waiting for Adrian. The careful scheduling. The not asking for more. Keeping everything hidden like it was shameful. Ilya had been doing that for years.
Troy tightened his arms around him, just a fraction. He heard a quiet sniff and kept his face neutral, eyes fixed on the dark beyond the trees.
“I’m glad it is almost over,” Ilya admitted, pulling back. He rubbed his eyes before he looked up again. They both pretended not to notice. Ilya looked lighter somehow. Looser.
Troy still had one lingering question he could not ignore.
“Can I ask you something?”
Ilya nodded.
“Why did you tell me?”
Ilya didn’t answer straight away. He looked thoughtful. “I think I needed to.” His shoulders dropped, just a fraction. His face relaxed.
Troy nodded. He couldn’t let it go. “I get that. I just… you could have told anyone.”
Ilya’s eyes sharpened. He studied Troy. Recalibrating.
“I told you because I know you.” He held his gaze. “I trust you.”
Troy felt heat climb up his neck. He glanced back down at the snow between them. That felt like more than he deserved.
“Okay,” he said, because anything else would have come out wrong.
Ilya looked past him. “I see Harris is joining us. I think I will tell him too.”
Harris was slowly making his way towards them. He’d wrapped up warm, the new dog at his side.
“Sorry to interrupt, but are you okay? It is cold out here. Mum wants to know if you want coffee?”
Ilya smiled. Sharp, wicked. Before Troy could register what was happening, he said, “I’m engaged to Shane Hollander. We’re together. I’m bisexual.”
And like that, he barely felt the cold at all.
Harris paused, staring at him for a beat too long. Then shook his head and laughed. Unguarded. Huge.
“So this is just how all hockey players come out?”
Ilya smirked. Troy beamed. “Yes, Harris, we had a big meeting. This is the only way. This, or you kiss your boyfriend after winning the Stanley Cup.”
Harris laughed again and pulled him into a hug. “I have so many questions! So, Hollander is why you moved to Ottawa?”
“Yes. But later Harris. I promise. Let’s head back.”
They turned towards the house, the dog trotting at Ilya’s feet.
That was when Troy remembered that they had another problem to solve.
On the porch, Ilya knelt to stroke the dog, murmuring something soft in Russian. Troy didn’t understand the words, but he understood the tone.
Troy glanced at Harris. Then coughed. “You know Ilya, we still need to find her a home.”
Ilya raised that eyebrow Troy had grown used to. “Troy… is this a blind date?”
“It can be.”
“I can’t. I’m always travelling.”
“You can use a dog daycare centre whilst you’re away,” Harris said. “You wouldn’t be the first NHL player to have a dog. I can recommend several hotels.”
Troy shot Harris a look. “You mean a kennel?”
“Dog hotel,” Harris insisted. “They’re amazing.”
Ilya looked absurdly pleased. “Anya. Your name is Anya. I can’t wait to tell Shane.”
Troy was still getting used to hearing Ilya say his name like that. Watching them, something eased in his chest.
“Ilya. We won’t say anything. But we are here.”
Ilya met his eyes. “I think I want you to meet Shane. Properly.”
And Troy couldn’t have been more excited. Or, suddenly, more nervous. But that had been basically his life for months now, so what else was new?