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Ilya Rozanov knows many things about Shane Hollander. He knows his stats, his height and weight, the sounds of his skates on the ice and his breath in his ear when he’s coming up on his outside to (try to) recover the puck. He knows his weak backhand and his nasty wrist shot. He knows that for breakfast, he drinks black tea and two grey-green smoothies that should be bagged as hazardous waste. He knows that if he drinks, he will nurse one beer for most of the night, but that even that will make two red spots bloom high on his cheekbones and his laugh burst from his chest like confetti. He knows that when he’s about to come, his voice gets high and reedy like little bird. He knows that when he’s pretending to be pissed, he is an angry kitten and when he’s actually pissed, he is one of the old gods.
Ilya knows all of these things about Shane Hollander, but it is not until announcement of 2017 All-Star teams and Hollander mentioning that it will be good to be on the same team for once that Ilya realizes he has never shared a dressing room with him. Never seen Hollander’s pre-game rituals. He doesn’t know how he tapes his stick, or whether he puts left or right skate on first. The man is made of routines – it is impossible that he does not have a ritual so elaborate it would make bird mating dances look like bad improv. As soon as Ilya realizes this, he is desperate to know about it, wonders if he could bribe one of the Voyageur’s rookies to spill the seeds now so he does not have to wait.
No, no. It will be better to experience it in person.
And then Ilya forgets about it for a while, because there are other things to think about. Rose Landry, mostly, and whether Shane makes the same noises with her, whether he lets her kiss his freckles, whether he holds her hips hard enough to bruise. Rose Landry, mostly, but also the fear in Shane’s eyes as he ran out of his house, like Ilya’s kindness was a poison. Maybe it was.
(It is not a good month.)
The ritual thing pops into his head once or twice, when Marleau pitches a fit in Seattle because he is out of yellow KT tape and no other color will do, or when Templeton calls his girl in a panic because he brought the wrong cup to a Thursday game, but when this happens, Ilya shakes his head like a dog with water in its ears and cranks his music up louder. Britney tells him to work, bitch, and he can only obey.
#
Tampa is warm and damp as the space under Hollander’s arm that Ilya liked to kiss sometimes after they used to –
He sits at the bar and orders a Corona, because there was an ad in the car from the airport with a bird and a woman in a very small bathing suit, and Ilya is on closest thing to vacation the NHL allows. He doesn’t even have time to enjoy it before Shane Hollander is there in new clothes that make him look like American children’s television presenter, the one who changes into house shoes and a sweater and has train track in his living room like some autistic child’s wet dream.
Hollander is there in awful clothes he paid actual money to a stylist to choose for him, and he is not contemptible with Rose Landry, and when he shoots Ilya a look from up under his eyelashes, Ilya hooks his foot under the bar rail to keep from floating away into the sky.
#
The dressing room –
The dressing room is –
OK.
Ilya makes sure he is first person there. He is captain, after all, has responsibility to do... something responsible. Maybe greet every man by name and give him little gift basket with snacks and airplane-sized bottles of tequila for after they crush the West? (It is possible, maybe, that Shane Hollander in his new suit jacket and cologne that smells like crystals fucking has broken his brain.)
Ilya greets every man by name. Ilya gives every man a little gift basket with snacks and airplane-sized bottles of tequila for after they crust the West. Everyone but Shane shakes his hand or claps him on the back or grabs him by the back of the head and slams their foreheads together like any of them has got spare brain cells to sacrifice on the altar of friendship.
Shane looks at the bag like Ilya has offered him a warm shit in the palm of his hand, mutters, “What the fuck,” and stalks to his locker.
Shane in the dressing room is even better than Ilya could have hoped. He pulls out of his bag three glass Tupperwares filled with horrible pre-game snacks that he calls, apparently without a bit of irony, his fuel. He wraps his stick with pink tape and then covers up all the pink with black. Then he does this again on a whole second stick, in case first one breaks. He puts his neck guard on backwards twice before putting it on the right way. There’s a small stuffed tiger in his locker and he rubs its left ear before he puts his socks on. He only picks his water bottle up with his left hand. He drinks from it exactly eighteen times, one swallow after every piece of gear. Ilya counts. Ilya tracks the bob of his throat, licks the corner of his own mouth to chase a phantom droplet clinging to Shane’s lip.
It is possible, maybe, that Ilya’s not being entirely normal about this.
When Shane is finished gearing up, he puts his headphones on and stares at the ceiling for three and a half minutes. Ilya wonders what song he listens to. Maybe no song, maybe something boring from yoga class, like rainfall or whales trying to fuck. His face is blank, but not in the way that means he is hurting. It is in a way Ilya has never seen, maybe. This is Shane focused, preparing to do what he does best. (Well. Second best.) Ilya watches for so long that he nearly forgets he, too, needs to dress for game.
Ilya’s routine is much simpler. He puts everything on top on first, then everything on bottom. Boston does not like it when he gives captain speeches in full Pooh Bear mode, so he usually saves it for after skates are laced. Today, though, he is only Bear here, Pooh or other, and it’s not like Hollander is going to tell him to put his pants on.
“Put your fucking pants on, Rozanov, Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Hollander yells as soon as he hops on the bench.
Very rude. Ilya has barely gotten past “Okay, listen up, fuckos” in the speech he’d outlined in his head in the pool yesterday in between games of Marco Polo.
“And you are welcome,” he tells him, and flexes his quads in a way he knows makes him look like action figure.
“As I say, listen up, fuckos. This is All-Star game, not something that matters. Play clean, don’t get hurt, but if you let those slow, dumb chucklefucks from St. Louis and Vancouver score more than one goal on us all night, I will take all your little tequilas back and drink them while I cry tonight, yes? I am Russian, is very important to me West does not win.”
He winks at Hollander as he hops back off the bench, gets angry-kitten eye roll in response. As Ilya hurries into the rest of his pads and laces up his skates, he continues watching Shane. He’s shifting his weight, keeping his lower back loose. His right hand is tucked into his left armpit. His lips are moving.
This was bad idea, maybe, knowing these things about him, because every new piece carves more space in the place behind Ilya’s ribs where he keeps the little bits of Shane that he squirrels away from meeting to meeting. He catches the smile Shane flashes him as they leave the dressing room for the ice, and Ilya keeps that, too.
#
They win 7-1.
In the dressing room after, Shane lets him, for all of ten seconds, throw one arm around his shoulder in celebration. He does not drink the tiny tequila, but slips it into Ilya’s pocket when no one is looking. Shane unwraps the tape from his sticks, puts his Tupperwares back in his bag. He rubs the tiger’s right ear before he takes off his socks. Ilya watches this, too, until it is too much, and he has to flee to the showers. It should be illegal, feeling like this. It is far, far too much. It may never be enough.
On the plane home, Ilya orders a new roll of tape. Before his next game, he goes through his routine. Top gear. Bottom gear. And now, yes: double wrap the stick, pink under the black. Give the speech. Kiss the крест. Win the game.
It’s fine. He orders twelve more rolls of pink tape. It’s fine.
Ilya Rozanov knows many things about Shane Hollander. He knows his stats, his points, goals, and assists, the sound of his skates on the ice and the grin on his face when he’s coming up on his outside to pass him the puck for the smoothest goal of his career. He knows his strategically weak backhand and his weird dekes. He knows that for lunch, he drinks nasty electrolyte water and eats a pound of salmon unless it’s Sunday when he allows himself a burger. He knows that if he drinks, he will nurse one beer for most of the night, unless, apparently, he is naked and laughing in Ilya’s bed after the All Star game, when he will consent to taking one small tequila shot out of Ilya’s navel. He knows that when Shane’s got a cock in his mouth, his eyes get wide and watery and he looks up through clumped lashes like he’s saying thank you. He knows that he’s slow to identify his feelings but when he finally does, you’d better watch out. He knows that he’s got a pre-game ritual that makes the Unabomber manifesto look reasoned and pithy.
Ilya knows all of these things about Shane Hollander, and he also knows, deep in that place behind his ribs, that he is so fucking fucked.