Chapter Text
It had only been an hour since Rodion Tsetsov had gotten the call in his Laval apartment that he needed to catch a team flight in two hours. He was to fill a spot on the Montreal Voyageurs roster during an away game in Nashville.
“Pack for a while, Roadie.” His coach told him. “This isn’t a quick one. They have a three game road trip and they expect you on the ice tonight. You’re almost certain to be there for the entire road trip, and maybe more. I’m going to miss you here a lot. But this is a great opportunity, and you’re ready. Go get ‘em.”
Rodion was elated to be called up. At 21, he had been in the minors for almost three years now and was the starting center for the Arrows. He pulled good stats in points, plus/minus, and Power Play. Every minor leaguer waited for this call. It was true that it could be for only a day or two. Rodion knew that. But even a single day was a chance to demonstrate his skills. This could be his shot.
Someone on the team must have gotten hurt in the morning practice for him to be called midday—and so early in the season. The Montreal Voyageurs were only four games into their regular schedule. Rodion guessed he would find out more when he met up with the team, since the league standard was to be as vague as possible about injuries. He knew he wouldn’t find details in the news.
The Arrows minor league and the Voyageurs major league teams were both centered around Montreal, so it wouldn’t even require a hotel room, if he played for longer than this road trip and even that would mercifully, delightfully, be conducted via jet instead of bus. Rodion could not wipe the grin from his face as he called his boyfriend.
“Hey.” Yannic answered on the second ring.
“Yanya. Hey. I am not going to be home tonight for dinner. I got the call! I got…” he squeaked in his excitement, “Called up!”
Rodion’s Russian accent was thick, despite his extensive English vocabulary and comprehension. He was proud of his language skill, but knew it would take time to diminish his accent. Still, communication was not guaranteed, because he played on a bilingual team, and neither language was his native Russian. His English was the far better of the two, and he was learning Québécois French from Yannic. But since Yannic Paquet had a Québécois accent when he did speak English, as did several of his teammates, Rodion didn’t hear English without a foreign accent very often as a model. It made trying to reduce his Russian accent harder, but he kept working on it. Too slowly. But from their time together, Yannic understood him very well either way.
“Rodion! c’est incroyable! You’re playing tonight?”
“Yes, it is a road trip. Nashville. They said I would probably play the whole trip, so it is at least three games. Yanya, this is going to be my first NHL game. I am…” he blew out a huge breath that had been building up as he spoke excitedly. It came out as an incoherent shout. “I am leaving for the airport in a couple of hours. So, I will be gone before you come home.”
“You’re so excited! I’m so excited for you! You’ve got this, babe. Kick ass. I’ll check online how to watch. And don’t worry, I’ll stop up at your apartment and check on things for you.”
Being gay in the hockey minor leagues was not a prudent thing to be. But if you were gay in the minor leagues, having an apartment one floor above your boyfriend made things very easy to hide. Yannic was a computer programmer in the specialized field of data science, so he made more money than Rodion’s minor league salary, but chose to live in the low-cost apartment building so they could be close to each other.
They practically lived together. Rodion spent most nights at Yannic’s place, but kept up the pretense of his own apartment and was able to have teammates over at any time without raising questions. They had been together almost three years, and their relationship was solid, having found they were a matched pair in so many ways, and complementary in others. Yannic was three years older than Rodion; they had met just after he graduated college and had started his new job in Laval, right after Rodion signed with the Arrows. It was comfortable, loving, and, three years on, still as exciting as their first months of dating.
Rodion packed his gear, put on his suit, and plugged the address into his Uber app that the Voyageurs team manager’s office had sent him for the corporate jet hangar where he would join the team for their road trip.
….
Rodion arrived at the corporate hangar with plenty of time to spare. He was the only one carrying his own gear, as the rest of the team had had theirs transferred from the practice rink by the equipment manager. A man came up and held out a hand for his bag, and Rodion handed it over to be loaded along with his suitcase, hanging on to a small backpack for use in the cabin. The team captain, Shane Hollander, came over to him with a smile and held out his hand.
“Hi, I’m Shane. You’re Rodion?”
“They call me Roadie,” he said in his heavy, Québécois-laced Russian accent, trying to enunciate carefully so Hollander would be able to get his name right. Not that he cared much; Shane Hollander could call him anything he wanted and Rodion would be thrilled. “I am so happy to meet you!” He thought that sentence probably all came out as a single word.
Rodion played center, just like Hollander, and he had watched the star player’s career for years. He was a little taller than the Voyageur’s captain, but still on the shorter end for a hockey player. And he was fast—something most of the shorter players had in common.
Rodion’s light brown hair was cut with the intent to lie flat, but it had about a half a curl at this length, and ended up looking fluffy most of the time. Yannic thought it was funny, and Rodion didn’t care at all, so he didn’t bother to try for a better style. At twenty-one, he knew he still looked like a teenager. Yannic called him handsome, but Rodion knew he was average, except for his dark grey eyes, which people—including Hollander in this moment—seemed to look at twice, trying to figure out if they were blue. They were not.
“Well, welcome. Glad to have you on the ice tonight. I think they’re ready for us to board.” And he put his hand on Rodion’s shoulder to guide him out the glass doors past a man with a clipboard checking off names.
The first game was as thrilling as Rodion knew it would be. He was playing on the 4th line, and only clocked about five minutes compared to his usual eighteen-plus on the first line at home, but that didn’t dim his enthusiasm a bit. It was an NHL game, and he was on the ice. The Voyageurs beat Nashville 2-1, playing a technical game on both sides without much hitting, and no fights or even shoving to speak of.
The next game was in Detroit, and Rodion was doing his best to follow the habits of the team as they moved from bus to plane to arena to hotel. He didn’t know the names of any of the support staff, which bothered him, because he had made great efforts to get to know the Laval staff so he could ask the right people questions when he had them. He hated to ask his teammates for help. They had enough to do, and most spoke in small groups, making it hard for Rodion to break in. So he kept his head down and tried to always be on time, grinning with his delight at playing NHL games at last.
They lost to Detroit 4-2. The bus back to the hotel was busy with conversation about what to work on.
“Riley, what was the deal with that pass you missed? You need me up there sooner, or…?” Olivier Gagnon, the curly-haired second line right winger, asked his liney.
“Naw, pass was good, that was me rushing the line. You stay with the play and I’ll correct.” Tall and wiry left winger Riley Henault replied.
“Roadie, you good with that cross play?” his left winger, the German Ekke Lindner, asked, his dark eyes peering around the seat almost obscured by a thick flop of dark hair.
Rodion turned in his seat to face Ekke in the row behind him. ”I will be further out next time. I’ll be there for it.” he replied, but Ekke looked at him with that I’m trying hard to understand you look that Rodion was used to.
His right winger, Braden, slapped Rodion’s shoulder, his long narrow face friendly with laughter. “I swear to god, I can’t tell if you’re speaking Russian, French, or English, Roadie.” Several others laughed as well, in a good-natured way.
Drapeau’s deep voice called out, “It’s not French!”
“Veux-tu du Francais?” Rodion called back.
“That’s French!” Drapeau announced.
Rodion laughed, and Ekke put a hand over the seat onto his shoulder. “I got you pal, I heard you. It just took a sec. Don’t mind these assholes.”
“It is, of course, okay,” Rodion said.
“Yes, it was a good play, you got that right, Roadie.” Braden replied.
Rodion shook his head and smiled.
Hayden Pike helped him out sometimes, when people needed to wait and listen to Rodion speak, by shushing and saying “hear him out.” Still, people tended to underestimate his grasp of English due to his conversation-limiting accent, unaware that he could understand them very well indeed. Which meant when the teammates were talking about the player he was replacing, they did not try to be discreet in front of him.
It wasn’t an injury—it was rehab. And based on their conversations, it seemed like the player was in inpatient care with an extended treatment. Someone mentioned sixty days. Someone else mentioned how unnerving it had been to find him nearly incoherent in the showers. He couldn’t help but speculate that this might mean a lengthy time with the Voyageurs for him, but he didn’t count on it because the possibility of being replaced by a different minor leaguer was very real. So he resolved to play his ass off and earn his spot.
Rodion Tsetsov was nothing if not eager, so the last game of the road trip at Buffalo saw him putting everything he learned so far into practice to make sure he didn’t miss cues or plays. He was able to maintain pressure in the offensive zone, and contribute on the backcheck to keep the defensive end clear. He ended up with eight minutes of ice time and a smile that wouldn’t quit.
“That faggot needs to stay in the closet and get off the ice.” Reece Boudreau’s locker room comment after the game about one of the Buffalo players completely erased Rodion’s good mood.
“Cut the shit, Boudreau,” Hollander said, and Rodion was impressed that he would speak up. Boudreau did not look like he intended to cut the shit, though.
“I said what I said,” he growled, putting down his shoulder pads and leaning forward like he was about to get up.
Hollander stood up, further impressing Rodion, but worrying him, too, given Boudreau’s size and Hollander’s lack of it, until J.J. Boiziau’s six-and-a-half-foot frame rose from his stall. Boudreau sat back and ground out under his breath, “I said what I said.”
The threat of violence abated, but not the tension Rodion felt. Hollander and Boiziau sat back down and the sound of post-game conversation resumed.
“Maybe the bigots should stay in the closet,” he muttered in Russian while leaning down over his skate.
Suddenly Hayden Pike was in front of Rodion, “Do we have a problem?”
Rodion looked up at Pike, trying to keep his face neutral. “My skate lace is knotted,” he said, in careful English. He hoped Hayden wouldn’t look too closely. He saw Shane looking at him and was mortified that Shane might think he was a bigot. But he didn’t know how to reverse course on his Russian comment. Maybe he could say something later. Shit, the last thing he needed was to harm his ability to fit in with the team.
On the plane ride back to Montreal the coach called him to the back of the plane and Rodion feared he would be taken to task for what appeared to be participating in the slur. Fortunately, Coach Thierault eased his fear of being disciplined by quickly getting to a point that was unrelated to the locker room incident; that he needed to report to the Voyageurs rink in the morning for practice and tape review. That he’d be staying with the team for several weeks at least.
“You played well, Rodion. We’re going to need you for several weeks while Kuhn’s out. Come in ready for practice with the team tomorrow. You know the practice rink location?” Rodion did, and he confirmed that he’d be there on time.
Even better, it seemed, was Hayden Pike stopping him on the way back to his seat and saying, “Hey. Sorry I snapped at you in the locker room. I shouldn’t have assumed. You okay?”
Rodion, surprised, nodded too vigorously and said, “Yes. I am, uh, thank you. Uh.” And moved up back to his seat.
When they landed, Rodion texted Yannic with his arrival time home. Yannic had a second dinner waiting for him when he arrived. It was late, but Rodion couldn’t help but regale his boyfriend with all the events from his first NHL games and road trip, the game, the chatting on the bus. The relative luxury of the team jet, compared to a twelve-hour bus ride. His locker room blunder, and Pike’s apology. It pleased him to be out of the dog house, because he had not expected that at all. He honestly had no idea what had changed Pike’s mind about his muttered comment.
“You said it in Russian?”
“Yes. He probably thought I was agreeing with Boudreau. I feel like shit about that. It just fell out of my mouth; I was not thinking how it would sound. Pike did not say why he changed his mind, or why he ‘shouldn’t have assumed.’”
“Maybe he was just deciding he shouldn’t assume?”
“I do not know. I will look for an opportunity to correct that. Because it looks like I will be with the team for sixty days.”
Yannic looked at him with a wrinkled brow. “That is strangely specific.”
“It seems that Kuhn is in rehab. In-patient, for sixty days. So, there will not be any early recovery from physical therapy or anything. They found him after practice before the flight to Nashville, and that is why I got the call in the middle of the day.”
“Oh. That sucks. I hope they can help him. Was it pain-related? Or recreational?”
“I do not know,” Rodion shook his head, slowly. “I just overheard them talking about how it was going to be sixty days of rehab. No one was really talking about it much, just that. I hope they can help him, too. But if it is sixty days, I hope I will get a chance to play a lot.”
Yannic cleared the dishes to the dishwasher. “It’s late. Do you want to be alone tonight to pass out, or do you want company? I could stay here, instead of us going downstairs, since you’ll still need to unpack.”
Rodion smiled and reached out to touch Yannic’s arm. “Stay. I will unpack in the morning. I am going to fall asleep fast, but I am glad you are here.”
“You’ve got it, babe. Let’s get you to bed.”
Yannic was taller than Rodion by a few inches, but weighed almost forty pounds less. He could not have been a more exact specimen of a Hollywood computer nerd, except for his graceful and confident way of walking that came from years of dance, both as a student and now as an instructor in his spare time. Rodion knew Yannic loved the nerd look he presented to the world; messy straight hair, rectangular plastic glasses and short-sleeved button-down shirts—like it was a cosplay prank he played on the universe.
Rodion had always been charmed by his boyfriend’s look, especially when paired with Yannic’s mischievous smile and the way his whiskey eyes always seemed to have an inside joke. And that smile and those whiskey eyes were hustling a very tired Rodion Tsetsov to his bed, where he only had time to pull Yannic onto his chest before he fell asleep. Tomorrow, they would say hello properly.
__________
Rodion continued to keep his head down and his energy in the game for the next two weeks of games and practices. He started feeling more in tune with his lineys, and had a strong road series keeping his plus/minus up.
When the lineup against the Carolina Thunder was announced and Rodion was named as third line center, he practically shouted out loud. Liam would be sitting in the press box for a day due to a heavy bruise in his knee that needed rest so the swelling could go down. The coach pulled Rodion up to fill the third line center position between the repulsive Reece Boudreau and the quiet Swede, Hannes Falk. The presence of Boudreau was a damper on the excitement of the upgrade to third line, but the press, the fans, and the potential scouts would not know that from Rodion if he could help it.
In the second period, only seconds into their shift, Boudreau broke the puck free from a three-player pile-up on the boards, and Rodion was there for the pick-up, bringing it past one defenseman and passing to Falk, who deked the other defenseman and clanged it against the back post. The red light lit, and Rodion raised his arms while Falk made a small arm pump with his knee raised.
Falk skated past him and patted Rodion’s helmet. “Nice assist,” he smiled as Boudreau roared behind him in a tackle.
“First NHL point, Roadie! Fucking yes!” Boudreau shouted while the home crowd celebrated the score. Rodion would take it, the only non-growly thing he’d ever heard from Boudreau.
Falk retrieved the puck from the ref and handed it to Rodion. “You must keep this. Your first major league assist and point. Give it to equipment manager. He will have it for you later. Nice pass.”
Rodion handed the puck to the equipment manager as they high-fived at the bench then headed back to center ice for the face-off. He was buzzing. He won the face-off.
He supposed it was a good lesson to learn to play with a man he felt no respect for, and still do his job. He wished his first point was not off the stick of Reece Boudreau, but he consoled himself that it was Falk who scored, and he had done his job getting it there.
Yannic had come to the game and got to see him get the assist and more than twelve minutes of ice time—Rodion’s best so far in the NHL, and a strong signal that he was playing NHL-level hockey. A hopeful sign for Rodion’s future prospects.
He hadn’t broken his habit of muttering in Russian, though, talking to himself because he wasn’t very good at talking to others. He soaked up the conversations around him, but no one really tried to start a conversation with him, even when he went out with some of the team after a game. But Rodion was fine with that. He was working on it. He was enjoying his time with the Voyageurs so much and skating seemed like a better focus than speaking.
So no one knew what he was saying when he talked to his gear in Russian, “Ah, bad tape. Do it again,” or “Better get sharpened.” Or when he told himself to “Hurry for the shower” or “No media for me again! Poor Captain, having to explain that loss.”
The guys even chirped him a bit for it, and Rodion laughed along with them because they usually said it with fun, not meanness.
He got up to get a hydration drink and was disappointed to find that again it was only the orange flavor in the bin. He really missed the lime that the Arrows had.
“Still no lime,” he muttered in Russian, “Orange every day. They are killing me!”
“Roadie, you talking to the other Russian in the room?” Farrell asked.
“Da. He is a good listener.” Rodion joked back, while Ekke Lindner repeated it in better English and everyone laughed. Which felt good. He chugged his drink before grabbing a second.
When he finished showering, he changed into club clothes to go out dancing with Yannic. The few guys left in the room stared at him.
“Roadie, holy shit, you look sharp, what the hell. You’ve been holding out on us!” J.J. looked appreciatively at Rodion’s outfit: snug black pants and a deep purple button front silk shirt. He planned to remove the black jacket and tie when he got to the club—those were just to comply with the “must wear a suit” dress code after games.
“Do you think the jacket makes it okay to leave the rink this way?” Rodion asked carefully, not sure if he was violating the dress code with his silk shirt and slim fit pants.
“Yeah, you’re good.” J.J. replied, “Hot damn, bring that outfit on the next road trip. You going on a date tonight?”
“I am going dancing with friends.”
“Roadie!” Liam Twomey, the third line center, spun around at him, his tattoos peeking out from his shirtsleeves. “You like to dance? You haven’t come out yet! Next roadie, you’re coming out to dance.”
Rodion heroically held back his look of shock at the phrase come out, and took two breaths before answering. “Next road trip, I will go out dancing with the team. I like to dance.”
“You said you’re coming out next time?” Liam verified, clearly unsure of what he’d heard.
“Yes,” Rodion smiled and nodded. Dancing. Not out of the closet. Exhale.
“Sweeet!” Liam danced out the door.
…
The next day was a practice, and Liam and J.J. asked him about his night out. He kept his answer short to avoid the twin difficulties of being hard to understand and hiding who he went out with. But it seemed to work out. He warmed at the camaraderie of being asked, too.
After skate, as he was changing for the video session, he was surprised to hear Liam shout at the drinks table as the caterer was refilling the bins.
“Lime! When did we start getting lime? I’ve never seen lime here. Thanks, Bud!” He patted the worker on the shoulder.
“Don’t thank me,” said the man whose name patch read Barry. “I didn’t bring any lime. Didn’t think anyone liked it. Someone else musta brought that in.”
“Wait, seriously?”
Barry shrugged and started rolling his hand truck with the empty cartons toward the door.
Liam looked around the room. “Who brought lime?” There were only blank stares around the room. Liam shrugged back at Barry and drank one of the six bottles of lime that were swimming in the ice water, unconcerned about solving the mystery.
“You want lime next time?” Barry asked from the door.
“Yeah, that’d be great, yes.”
Rodion was not so blasé. He had just yesterday wished aloud for lime. And here it was. Except he had wished aloud in Russian. Was this just a coincidence? That was weird. He did get up quickly to snag two bottles for himself, though.
“Daryonamu kanyu v zuby nye smotryat.” He said, as he grabbed them. No sense looking a gift horse in the mouth, amusing himself with the knowledge that it was the same idiom as in English.
…
“That’s weird. Buy a lottery ticket, eh? With that kind of luck!” Yannic was amused by the lime drink mystery.
“But who brought it in? I do not think anyone has done that before. And no one answered when Liam asked. So who brought it in and why today? And why did they not say so when asked?” Rodion had been puzzling about this all day.
“The Lime Drink Marauder,” Yannic joked. “There’s a secret drink-bringer ghost in the building. But seriously, I’m sure someone will say something and it will be all obvious. Meanwhile, it is definitely your turn.”
Rodion lost this game, as he did most of the games he played with Yannic. They had tonight off together, which they did not always get. Since Yannic’s dance classes were on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, it often got bungled up with Rodion’s schedule. Usually they went out on these free nights, but tonight they felt like relaxing instead. After their pre-dinner dance that they did every time they could, and eating, they sat down to play a board game. He loved playing games with Yannic, it was their unplugged time, with their attention on each other, and laughing about the fierce competition that so often ended with the W in Yannic’s column.
It was almost a week later that it happened again.
They were on the team plane on the way to LA, and two groups of players were playing cards at the table seats. Rodion was not asked to join the card games, which he understood as it took communication to play. But he looked over his shoulder and saw that one table was playing Rich Man Poor Man, which was a game Rodion particularly enjoyed and didn’t take much talking. He had learned it from a Japanese friend as Dai fugo-Dai hinmin, but it was the same game. “Maybe I ask to play. I like that game,” he mused aloud and in Russian as his habit. Then decided “next time,” and went back to his book.
Ten minutes later he heard Hayden call out, “Roadie! We need you, man! Ekke’s out and we need a fourth! Come play Rich Man Poor Man. You know this game?”
Rodion blinked. He had just said that he wanted to play. In Russian. He tried to think of who he saw going back to the game table after he had spoken. He knew it was one or two people, but he couldn’t think who.
He shook his head to clear the weird feeling and stood up. “Yes, I would like to play,” he answered, and made his way back to the table area.
The other three players were already in a raucous mood when Rodion joined them: laughing Hayden, loud and funny Liam, and Olivier Gagnon, the second line right winger who was always up to hijinks with Liam. They’d been shushed a few times by other team members in nearby seats, and they tried to stay quiet, but they were clearly feeling good.
Rodion took a seat and was dealt his hand; several high pairs and three twos. He kept his face straight but smiled inside. This was going to be an upset entry.
“You know the rules?” Olivier leaned over like he was ready to explain and help.
“I think I do. Two is high, three is low. Play after pass?” Rodion was careful to speak slowly.
“Yah, we play after a pass. Wait, what monsters are you playing against that don’t?” Liam was aghast.
“Computer programmers,” Rodion replied, smiling.
“Commuters? Fuck, that’s hardcore. And wrong. They’re wrong. Tell them I said so.” Liam declared. Rodion laughed at his certainty and his error.
“Roadie’s laughing! Roadie, when did you get a sense of humor?” Olivier teased
“Hey be nice to the new guy,” Hayden broke in.
“I ordered it on Amazon. Next day delivery.” Rodion deadpanned.
“What?” Liam squinted at Rodion.
“He said he ordered it on Amazon, his sense of humor.” Olivier crowed, slapping Rodion on the shoulder. “You’re all right, kid.”
Rodion won the first hand with his surprise twos, and became the Very Rich Man, to a round of despairing cries from the others. He held the position for four more games until he lost in a revolution, and the game went on in playful hushed tones as the long flight continued.
“Nice game, Roadie,” Hayden said as they picked up for landing. “You should have told us you were a ringer.”
“What is a ringer?” Rodion asked, making a guess but wanting to learn the new term correctly. He might use it on Yannic one day.
“It means you’re secretly good enough to win the game without trouble and take everyone’s money because they aren’t expecting it.” Olivier leaned in, glaring at Rodion accusingly. His curly hair a complete mess from a staggering run of losses and the fingers he’d been running through it.
“Ah.” Rodion said. He would not be using this term with Yannic any time soon. Or in this lifetime. Applied to himself, anyway. “But if I tell you in advance, can I still be a ringer? Would that not harm the secret?”
“Well it wasn’t a secret after the first game anyway. So there’s that.” Olivier lamented.
Rodion was delighted with his time on the plane. Playing cards with the others had made him feel welcomed, and he was grinning as they disembarked and headed for the hotel. As much as he was elated with his chance to play in the NHL, he had missed the camaraderie that came from knowing his teammates well. Today felt great.
The game against LA was a win, with two pretty goals by Hollander, and one each from Hayden Pike and Olivier Gagnon versus two from the LA team. They’d taken the lead late in the first after two fast ones from LA’s first line, and kept it till the final buzzer. The team was riding high. Despite the long day there was a push from Liam and Olivier to go out dancing, and they made sure Rodion came along in his club outfit.
“Wait, that’s not even the same outfit, Roadie!” Olivier was scanning his look from top to bottom. Slim-fit charcoal pants with jazz style sneakers and thin, dark emerald tee shirt. “You have multiple threads? What are you all doing over there in Laval? How do we not know this?”
“My friends.” Rodion shrugged. “We like to go out.”
“Holy shit, and I thought the NHL was pick-up central. I’m thinking you don’t go home alone very much!”
Rodion wasn’t sure exactly how to answer that. Liam must have thought his pause meant he didn’t understand because he repeated, “He thinks you pick up a lot.” Pointing at Olivier. “Because you look good. So you don’t go home alone.”
He settled on, “Only when I want to,” with a grin and a wink.
“Well, you are rocking the look, Roadie. The rest of us are going to have to work harder.”
Rodion, of course, had no intention of picking anyone up, so Olivier and Liam were not going to be competing with his outfit. Not to mention they were a lot better looking than him. But he smiled anyway.
The club they chose was near the hotel and full but not crowded, so there was room to dance and Rodion had a lot of fun. He had learned a lot about dancing from Yannic in the three years they’d been together and their nightly dance before dinner, and subsequently had no trouble having partners to dance with all night.
“Holy shit, you know how to dance, Roadie,” Liam was buying him another drink. His tall frame for once not supporting a woman on his arm. “I’m fucking impressed. I need to get over to Laval and party with you guys.”
I don’t think you’ll find my crowd, we’re in a very different part of town than you go to, Rodion thought to himself, laughing. Liam took Rodion’s laughter as an answer to his comment, and nodded like they had a date.
“You’ve got moves to teach me,” he continued. “New goals. You’ve danced with, like, every woman here.”
Rodion laughed again, his grey eyes sparkling in the club lights, hair tousled and slightly damp from exertion. That was true, there seemed to be a lot of interest in his dancing tonight.
They ended up staying out pretty late after the rest of the team had already headed back. Finally, both Liam and Olivier left with women, saying goodnight to Rodion and asking if he was okay getting back to the hotel. Rodion waved goodnight as he stood talking to his last dance partner. Liam and Olivier bumped hands and winked unsubtly at him before turning to go. After they were gone, Rodion bid her goodnight, bowing regretfully when she asked if he wanted to go to her place. “I must get up early tomorrow,” he said and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He walked back to the hotel in a terrific mood.
…
When he called Yannic the next morning (he knew better than to call at one a.m. Pacific Time), he was bubbling over with excitement about his bonding with the team and the win they got in LA. “It was great, Yan. I will miss this when I go back to the Arrows. I will especially miss how much faster I get home on a plane than on a bus!”
“I’m so happy for you, though, Rodi. The game was great, I saw you got a lot of play again!”
“Yes, that was excellent. I will tell you, playing with these guys is amazing. They are so much tighter than us. Just, every play, you know? We have a lot to learn—the Arrows, I mean.” He sighed and then got excited again. “And Hollander—playing on a team with him is like a dream. I was on the ice at the same time as him tonight during a changeover!”
“Oh, but on the plane,” Rodion kicked back to a thought he’d been wrestling with all day. “Vanya, it happened again. I am seriously thinking someone on this team speaks Russian.”
“What? What do you mean it happened again?” Yannic was switching to the new topic trying to follow Rodion’s train of thought.
“So I am sitting there in my seat on the plane, and I say, ‘I would like to join the card game’ because they’re playing Dai Hinmin…”
“Sweet, I didn’t know that was something they liked”
“Yes, and also they say your friends who do not allow playing the rest of the round after a pass are monsters.”
“There are only two who insist on that.”
“And they are officially monsters. I have witnesses. Well, I said it in Russian, just speaking to myself. And five minutes later, maybe it was ten, but right away, really, they call me over to play. I mean, for the very first time since I got here. I really think someone heard me and told them to ask me. Or maybe one of them is the Russian speaker. But this is too many coincidences.”
“That’s wild, man. That is just weird.” Yannic paused. “You really think someone speaks Russian but is hiding it from you and just using it to do nice things for you?”
“Well, that is the question. Why would anyone do that? Why not just say they speak Russian?” Rodion had been wondering this all morning.
“I don’t know. Maybe it is just coincidences.”
“Vanyusha. Moy Luchik. It is not like you to turn away from a mystery. It could be coincidences, but what if it is not?”
“Oh, dude. You’re right. What am I thinking. Who even am I? We need an experiment plan. We need to test this hypothesis.”
“That is my Vanyusha.”