Chapter Text
Zane was up relatively early when you considered how much he’d drunk the night before, but for whatever reason he’d always been an early riser after a big night.
Cassie had looked into it once for him, apparently it was fairly common, something to do with sleep cycles being messed up whilst your body tries to process and get rid of the alcohol in your system.
It was frustrating, a little, but at least it meant he could always get his day started no matter what he’d been doing the night before. Definitely didn’t make the hangover any better though.
He was glad they had a day off, they all needed it after the stress of the previous day. The hotel had one of those crappy buffet breakfast things, and normally he skipped these and went out to find something decent to eat, but Zane didn’t feel up to going anywhere today, and he wasn’t sleeping anymore anyways, so he figured he’d head down and check it out.
Zane’s head was pounding on the lift down to the buffet and he was regretting not having some ibuprofen or something before he came down, but before long he was staring down about eight bain maries and trying to decide between some sad looking hash browns and sad looking bacon.
He fills his plate mindlessly and is about to go find a place to sit down and nurse this hangover when he sees a couple of the guys have had the same idea as him and have already found a good corner table to hide out.
Wyatt notices him looking and calls out, “Boodram! Come sit.”
Wyatt being there he probably should have suspected, he had always been an early riser, although he was surprised to see Barrett sitting across from him, who he was pretty sure was the kind of guy who usually liked a bit more of a sleep in.
Maybe he had the same sleep thing after drinking that Zane did. Although Zane didn’t think Barrett had drank that much, he’d certainly drunk less than Zane, and he’d left far earlier too. He doesn’t lift his head or acknowledge Zane at all as he walks over, so maybe he’d drunk more than he thought and was nursing a hangover.
When Zane gets over there and sits down, he claps Hayes on the shoulder.
“Should’ve guessed you’d be first up, you’d never let a hangover keep you from breakfast.”
Wyatt speaks through a mouthful of pancakes, “Yes it’s called the most important meal of the day for a reason, but Barrett actually beat me down here today, I’ll get him tomorrow."
Troy looks how Zane feels, so he must be right about his drinking theory. It’s probably the hangover.
“Morning Barrett”
And he just hums in response.
Zane shoots Wyatt a look and raises his eyebrows, which leads the other man to lean over and whisper to him,
“He’s quiet today”
“I can hear you y’know” Barrett snaps.
Zane laughs a little “Ah so he speaks! Hangover hit you bad?”
“Something like that” Barrett grumbles, as he shoves a spoonful of some kind of cereal into his mouth.
Zane chats with Wyatt as they eat slowly. Neither of them bring up what happened yesterday, planes and phone calls included, and it’s kind of nice to turn his mind elsewhere.
But he is itching to talk to someone about the whole Rozanov/Pike situation, so he texts Dykstra, who he knows will either be awake or waking up soon. A bunch of their stuff that had been left on the plane was brought to the hotel late last night, so Zane is hoping Dykstra’s bag with his phone in it was amongst the returned items.
It takes Dykstra another 15 minutes before he’s joined them. He says hi to everyone and starts ribbing Barrett about being grouchy.
Zane really wants to talk out what he’d figured out on the phone with Cassie. But he realises looking at their table that there’s one person missing from their group yesterday.
“Yo Barrett you seen Harris this morning?” he asks.
Troy frowns at him “No, What? I’ve been with you guys all morning? When would I have seen him? Why would I have seen him?”
“Alright man! Calm down, it’s just a question.” Damn Barrett really did wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
Zane considers texting Harris as well, but it’s still early and he doesn’t want to wake him, so they’ll just have to have the debrief without him.
Zane is about to bring it up when Wyatt calls out beside him “Haasy! Over here, come join the early risers!”
Zane turns to look behind him and sure enough walking towards their table carrying a plate of what looks like way too much scrambled eggs for a person to eat in one sitting, is Luka Haas.
“Morning guys!” he says, far too chipper for this early in the morning in Zane’s humble opinion.
“The others still sleeping?” Dykstra asks him.
“Yeah, Holmberg and LaPointe are both still sleeping off last night, I don’t think they’ll be down before this breakfast thing closes.”
This slightly complicates things. Luka is a good kid, but Zane had sort of wanted to have this conversation only with people that already knew about the situation. He doesn’t want to like, out Pike and Rozanov or anything, but also this was almost killing him to not talk about.
Whilst Zane sits considering if telling their Rookie about the phone call yesterday is a betrayal to his Captain, Dykstra beats him to it.
“So that phone call from Pike yesterday, that was weird as anything right?”
Troy responds almost immediately, “I really don’t think we should be talking about this”
“Wait what phone call” Haas asks.
Zane sighs, and listens to Dykstra summarize what happened yesterday for Haasy’s sake, from the texts to the call with Pike to Rozonov’s excuses on the bus back.
Well, cats out of the bag now.
Dykstra turns to the rest of the table when he’s done with the story. “There’s no way any of us believe that story about the summer camps right? So…what do we think it was about.”
Troy once again cuts in first. “What I think is that we should mind our own business about the whole thing”.
This is the most Barrett has spoken all morning.
“Yeah but it’s Roz” Dykstra says, “If this was anyone else he’d be all up in their business cracking jokes about the whole situation. We deserve to gossip about this a bit.”
Barrett frowns, and Zane sighs. Both Barrett and Dykstra make good points, and Zane considers whether it’s really fair to tell the guys about what he and Cassie talked about on the phone.
Zane’s burning curiosity wins out in the end. He explains to the table what Cassie told him last night, and what was said during her phone call with Jackie Pike. And then when he’s almost done, he gets to the part of this that he knows the rest of the guys are gonna bite down on, the bit that he’s really wanted to talk about this whole time.
“…So I guess at this point Cassie and I started to wonder if Pike and Roz might be like…a thing?”
The table is quiet for a moment, before Dykstra breaks the silence.
“Okay I was waiting for someone else to say it, but yeah, I totally have also been wondering that”
Troy puts his head in his hands, “I get the distinct feeling that nobody is going to listen to me about this.”
Luka tilts his head and says “Wait I’m clearly missing something here”
“A thing, like together, romantically” Wyatt explains.
Zane continues, “Cassie and I have kind of thought for a while that Rozanov had a secret girlfriend”
Wyatt perks up at this “Yeah I’ve also thought that”
Dykstra scoffs “Wait what? Damn and neither of you told me?”
“I mean it makes sense, he’s always on his phone and gets weird if we ask who he’s texting. It would also explain the not coming to team hangouts thing.” Luka says.
“Right, okay, so we think Hayden Pike is the secret girlfriend?” Dykstra asks.
Zane watches as Troy Barrett lays his head on the table and groans.
Zane ignores him and turns to Dykstra, “Yeah, maybe, I think so, but the thing that’s throwing me about this whole thing is Pike’s wife.”
Dykstra laughs, “Oh so you’ve never heard of a gay guy being married to a woman before? You’ve never heard of a hockey player cheating on his wife?”
Zane smiles back, “No obviously, I know that but like, she was the one who called Cassie and gave her Pike’s number, and she basically had to beg Cassie to do it. Why would she want so badly for her husband to be able to speak to the guy he’s cheating on her with?”
Luka chimes in, “Maybe they’re in a throuple?”
“A throuple?” Zane asks.
Luka continues excitedly, “Yeah a throuple. It’s this thing where basically three people get together and-”
Zane interrupts him, “I know what a throuple is. Roz isn’t in a throuple with Hayden Pike and his wife.”
At least Zane doesn’t think so, because, well, if that were true, wouldn’t she want to speak to Rozonov as well, why would she be so adamant on giving Cassie her husband’s number rather than her own.
Wyatt hums, “I figure they have some kind of agreement about the whole thing. She probably knows he’s gay and they have an understanding about it,” he says.
Dykstra nods, “I mean yeah, they’ve got a couple kids right?”
“Exactly, like, as long as he still provides for her, and is a good father to the kids, she lets him go off and I don’t know, have nice gay sex and be boyfriends with Rozanov” Wyatt says.
Barrett makes a sound like he’s been shot.
“I don’t think I’ve ever got gay vibes from Pike” Luka says.
“Yeah but it’s not like any of us have ever got gay vibes from Rozanov either” Dykstra counters.
Wyatt pulls a face “Well… I don’t know about that”
This gets Zane’s attention. “You thought Roz was gay? Like before yesterday?”
“I don’t know, probably more like bisexual or something? I’ve considered it at least”
“Really? What do you know that we don’t” Dykstra asks.
Wyatt waves his arm at that “Nothing, nothing, it’s mostly the secret girlfriend thing, like when I’ve thought about why he’d have so much secrecy around the whole thing, I have considered for a while if the secret girlfriend might actually be a secret boyfriend.”
Zane is about to tell Wyatt that his logic makes sense when the man in question continues his train of thought.
“Also, sometimes I think he looks at guys.”
And Zane had definitely not noticed that.
“Looking at people makes you gay?” Haas says, with a hint of alarm.
Wyatt shakes his head “No I mean looks looks at guys, y’know what I’m saying.”
“No, not really”
Dykstra laughs, “We’ll tell you when you’re older Haasy.”
“No shut up, I know what you mean by looks and looks looks but I’m just saying I don’t know how you think you can tell the difference.”
“Goalies see everything Rookie, everything” Wyatt says.
Zane tries to get back on the main point, “Okay so Roz is probably maybe bisexual, and Hayden Pike what? Bi, gay? Maybe cheating on his wife but maybe it’s not cheating cause she probably knows about it?”
“See this is why we need Harris here, he’d have a better idea” says Dykstra.
Barrett still has his head in his hands when he asks “And why exactly would he have a better idea”
“Look Barrett, we’re a bunch of straight guys y’know, it’d be good to get an alternate perspective from, like, an expert in the field,” explains Dykstra.
“An expert in the field??” Barrett cries.
“Someone with a better gaydar” Wyatt chimes in, as though that was the part Barrett was confused about.
“Troy, have you seen him this morning?” Dykstra asks.
Troy bristles at this, “What? Why does everyone keep asking me? Why would I specifically have seen him?”
Okay, so Troy had clearly woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Or maybe he and Harris got into a fight or something?
Dykstra raises his eyebrow at Troy, “Because you guys are friends..?”
Barrett sighs and stands up from the table, “I’m going out for a run, need to clear my head” he then pauses before walking off and adds, “If Harris were here he would tell you all the exact same thing I’ve been telling you. We shouldn’t speculate about this sort of stuff, it’s none of our business” and with that, he’s gone.
Barrett’s words clearly do hold some weight to the others, because it kind of puts an end to the conversation there.
Wyatt starts talking about their next game against Tampa, and then Dykstra is telling Haasy a story about the last time he was in Florida that Zane laughs along with but is pretty sure is at least 80% made up.
A couple more people from the team end up joining them. Chouinard’s there, Boyle too. Different people go back to the buffet and refill their plates a couple of times, and they eat breakfast and chat about nothing.
It’s like everything goes back to their regular scheduled programming.
Eventually Wyatt leaves, followed not long after by Dykstra. Holmberg actually does end up making it down before the thing closes, and chats with Haasy, the pair of them end up smuggling some pastries in their pockets to take upstairs for LaPointe and Young for when they finally wake up.
Meanwhile Zane just…stays.
Nobody seems as stuck on this as he is.
He watches Dale the equipment manager and Coach Wiebe talk, but can’t bring himself to engage.
Not when he knows what he knows. Or at least suspects.
In truth, Zane mostly sticks around so long because he’s hoping Rozanov will come down. He wants to talk to him about this. He needs clarity.
Time blurs, and all of a sudden it’s 11:20 in the morning and the staff are giving a 10 minute warning for the buffet, and Zane realises he’s been sitting here for 4 and a half hours.
Harris had finally come down as well only 5 minutes prior. So Zane watches him quickly grab some last minute food to pile on his plate. He’d asked about Barrett when he got here, Zane had told him about the run, but didn’t mention the bad mood.
Maybe Harris could fix him if they talked.
As Zane watches Harris butter his toast, he so badly wants to use these last 10 minutes of buffet breakfast to ask him about Roz and Pike.
But he considers what Troy had said to them, right before he left, and the words get stuck in his throat.
Zane thinks better of it, and says nothing.
When he’s kicked out of the buffet breakfast after almost 5 hours, he finds himself out the front of Rozonov’s hotel room.
It’s instinctual, he doesn’t even know what he’s going to say to him, but they definitely need to talk.
He knocks on the door.
No answer.
Surely he’s gotta be awake by now.
He calls out to him, and bangs again.
No response.
He must have gone out.
Zane huffs, and leaves, but he doesn’t go back to his room. He wanders down to the lobby of the hotel and just sort of waits.
He doesn’t exactly know why he does.
At least, he’s pretending he doesn’t.
Zane doesn’t feel up for going anywhere right now, but he just doesn't really want to be completely alone. He knows if he goes up to his room, he’ll just be sitting on his bed and spiraling thinking about it.
So hotel lobby it is.
He can sit here, catch up on emails, and scroll instagram. This is also the perfect spot to engage in one of his favourite pastimes.
People watching.
He watches people come and go from the hotel, and wonders about their lives and what they’re doing. He eavesdrops on parts of their conversations as they walk past, and makes up stories in his head about what they’re talking about.
It’s actually quite nice to just sit and think about something other than Ilya Rozanov and Hayden Pike.
But, if Zane is being honest with himself he also knows in his heart of hearts that there’s another motivating factor in his decision to hang out here in the lobby.
He’s really hoping to get a glimpse of Roz coming or going, so they can talk.
It’s mostly the others he ends up seeing.
The rookies all say goodbye to him as they leave to go do minigolf of all things.
Wyatt tries to tempt Zane to go out with him, Dykstra, and Chouinard for some late lunch, but he just tells them to go without him.
He waves Coach Wiebe out when he goes to catch up with some people he knows locally.
He almost misses Barrett coming back inside.
He’s still in his workout gear, and he’s taking his headphones off when Zane walks up to him.
“Don’t tell me you were running that whole time, your legs will fall off”
Barrett startles a bit, and seems surprised to see him “No, I sat on the beach for a bit, had a swim, Florida you know?”
Zane smiles at him, “All good man” and then, because he’s feeling brave he adds, “You feel any better?”
Barrett, somewhat surprisingly, returns his smile “Yeah, heaps better, just needed to clear my head. Sorry, I know I was a bit uh, snappy at breakfast”, then almost too casually, he adds "You seen Harris at all?”
“Yeah he came down to breakfast after you left.” He watches Barrett’s face carefully. “You should give him a call or something. He asked after you, I told him you were going off on a run.”
“Yeah maybe, uh I should probably have a shower first.”
“Yeah all good man” Zane says, and waves him off.
Barrett turns to head towards the elevators, but then seems to think better of it and turns back to Zane. “Hey, um, I was just wondering, was Pike with anyone?”
Zane tilts his head at him “What?”
“Yesterday on the phone call, was there anyone else there? Like, was he speaking to anyone else whilst he was on the call with you?”
Zane chuckles, “Ohhh, so the rest of us should stop speculating and need to stop talking about this, but when you have a question it’s all fair game”
Barrett's smile drops, and he cringes a bit, “Yeah, right, sorry, yeah never mind.”
Zane grimaces, shit, clearly the run and a swim hadn’t completely fixed whatever was getting Troy down, he’d kind of forgotten that he was in a sensitive mood this morning.
He tries to recover. “Nah, man I’m just teasing, but to answer your question, ah no? At least not that I noticed. I’m pretty sure he was alone. His wife was in Montreal, at least that’s what she told Cassie, and the Voyageurs had a game in like Washington, so I’m guessing he was just like at the hotel on his own”
Troy hums, and has a thoughtful look.
“Why do you ask?”
Troy clams up at this, “Oh, um nothing…you were right, I shouldn’t be like…just forgot I said anything.”
And with that Barrett tries to slink away, walls back up.
Zane calls out to him “Do you know something? Something you’re not sharing with the class?”
Barrett just turns and shakes his head, “I don’t know anything, gotta go shower, talk to you later!”
And he’s gone again.
Barrett knows something, Zane is so sure Barrett knows something.
Another person with Pike? Why would he be asking about that?
Maybe Barrett was more on board with the throuple theory than he was pretending to be.
At 3.30pm with not one sign of Rozanov, Zane’s about to have him labeled as a missing person. He texts the others and asks about Roz, but nobody’s seen him all day. Wyatt apparently invited him out for the same late lunch he had invited Zane to, and he’d ignored his messages.
Zane tries to call him. It rings out.
Zane considers for the first time that Rozanov is probably avoiding them all. In fact, he thinks there’s a good chance he’d never left his hotel room to begin with, and Zane has been sitting in the lobby for hours like an idiot for no reason.
He only begins to spiral when he starts thinking about the why.
Rozanov has to know based on their reactions yesterday that they don’t believe the story he gave them. Zane doesn’t know why, but it’s only just hitting him now what this must mean for Roz. This is a secret relationship, and now half of his teammates know about it.
Roz must know that they know. Or that they at least suspect. He’s not stupid and when you consider how suspicious they all were yesterday on the bus, how could he not know that they know.
What if Roz thinks they’re upset with him about this? Or that they’ll hold this against him? What if Roz thinks they’ll tell other people, or spread it to ESPN?
He’s been so entirely selfish with the whole way he’s been thinking about this all morning. He’s been letting his own curiosity and need for answers be the driving force behind all his decisions.
Fuck, maybe he should’ve listened to Barrett this morning. Rozanov’s probably upstairs locked in his room freaking out. He’s probably worried that Zane is like homophobic, and that he’s gonna out him and Pike in the press.
Zane regrets so badly not saying something supportive yesterday when he figured it out. He just grilled him for more information on the bus. He was a terrible friend.
Zane has to speak to him. Has to reassure him that he’s supportive. That he’s an ally. That he’s happy for him and Pike, and he won’t tell anyone about it.
He’s going back up to his room, and he’s not gonna stop knocking until Rozanov lets him in.