Chapter 3: Hayden, part
April, 2021 Boston, MA
It was nine am on Hayden's fucking day off when the phone rang. If it had been the special ringtone he'd set for Jackie or their parents, it would be one thing. He'd be wide awake in an instant, torn between visceral homesickness for his family and fear that something had gone wrong—because seriously, how many times could Arthur lose Chompy? He'd had to mail the damned alligator stuffy the day he'd arrived in Boston because his only son had managed to shove the thing into his suitcase when he wasn't looking. Cliff was still trying to get their teammates to call him Daddy Pike.
Anyway… this wasn't the Jackie ringtone. It was the annoying one, the one reserved forteammates. He knew for a fact that after last night's team dinner and subsequent drinkapalooza that the boys were all down for the count. He and Cliff had practically made a blood pact after ushering the kids into their Ubers at three am, agreeing not to speak to one another until they'd drank a full cup of coffee and the clock said it was after noon.
So who the fuck was calling him? They knew his phone was on do not disturb, which meant they'd called twice to get around it, for fuck's sake. Hayden blindly groped around his nightstand for the damn thing, swiped at the call screen and closed his eyes lest he be blinded by it when he held it to his ear.
"Someone had better be dead or dying or you're gonna be," he grumbled in lieu of answering like a normal person.
"Câlisse, what the fuck are you doing in Boston that has you sleeping past sunrise?"
"Team dinner, you fuck," Hayden slurred at the familiar caller. It took him a second to remember they hadn't played on the same team in years. His eyes fluttered open. "JJ?"
Hayden hadn't spoken to JJ since All StarWeekend, when JJ had called him, raging in Quebecois Hayden barely spoke, demanding to know if Hayden had known all along. He'd been almost inconsolably suspicious, but Hayden had gotten him to begrudgingly accept that Shane hadn't trusted either of them with his secret.
Before that, Hayden couldn't really remember when they'd stopped talking regularly, but not long after Hayden was traded to Winnipeg, JJ had gone to Colorado and won a cup.
"Yes, yes, I need to bother you more if you do not remember my voice—"
"Isn't it like fucking—"
"Unlike your sorry selves, champions have practice leading into the playoffs." JJ paused. His easygoing tone went a bit sour. "I assume you have not checked the news this morning, hmm?"
"Not unless it's plastered to the inside of my eyeballs," Hayden levered himself upright in bed, swiped a bit of dried drool from the corner of his lip and tried to focus. He'd gotten almost five hours of sleep. He'd done more with less. "Not that you aren't a pleasure, JJ, but what the fuck happened now?""MLH insiders are reporting on Shane's secret lover," he said. "They've received confirmation that it's a player in the league, though nobody knows if he is still an active player, but…"
"What the fuck?" Hayden had to search for the tv remote, which had fallen to the floor in his scramble to grab his phone while half asleep. "How the fuck do they know that?"
JJ continued. "Osti de crisse de tabarnak," he said, with feeling, "Shane has been writing their name on his stick."
"If that were true," Hayden used his shoulder to keep his phone pressed to his ear, and tried to remember which fucking channels were sports in Boston, Americaland, "They'd know if he were active or not."
"It's—tabarnak, Hayden. It's Lily."
"Boston Lily?"
"Yes."
Mind racing, Hayden tried to fling his brain back in time to remember the details. "But they broke up. There was that weird day in Boston, then you introduced him to Rose Landry. He said it was over. We were there, JJ.""Yes, and now he is saying he is gay and there is Lily on his stick and the MLH's people are saying the information is vetted. Shane's camp is not denying it. They posted a statement that said they would not be sharing the sexuality of any queer players in the league, past or present."
"Oh, fuck."
JJ grunted his agreement. "Yes. His Boston girl is a Boston boy, and you in particular are about to become very fucking relevant."
Hayden gave up on the TV. "I don't give a fuck about that. I need to know if there's a player on my team that needs to be hidden from the fucking media. If the media finds out…" His brain, which had gone from lightly hungover to oh fuck, emergency! was very suddenly firing on all cylinders, resulting in a rip roaring headache. "JJ, man, you can't say anything. To anyone. Not about Boston, not about how long—"
"I fucking know that, salaud," JJ sighed, clearly insulted. "He was my fucking friend too, for how little he trusted us when it counted."
"It wasn't safe. It's barely safe now, when he's got a fucking lawyer."They fell silent. It wasn't comfortable.
"You will tell me if he contacts you." The forcefulness in his voice receded. He sounded tired. They both were. "I just want to know he is okay. I know—I am angry, tabarnak, I know it's not about us, but he is—you don't have to tell me what he says, I just need to know that he is okay and that he is coming back to us."
"You can message him on Instagram too, you know." Privately, Hayden was pretty sure whatever JJ might have messaged him, a long, long time ago before they knew what was going on was probably pretty incendiary and their friendship might never recover from it. Hell, Hayden wasn't sure Shane would ever speak to him again, even though he'd gone rounds with a therapist over it and come to the healthy realization that Shane's choice to withdraw was not his fault, though he had the right to be hurt about it.
People were messy. Hayden would know: He and Jackie have made enough of them.
"I know," JJ huffed. "You're not going to tell me who Lily is if you find out, are you?"
"Not a chance, buddy.""Tabarnak."
"I know that's not what you want to hear but, yeah." Hayden found a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt in the clean laundry basket near the closet he hadn't bothered using for more than his rotation of game-day suits, shimmying into the pants one-handed. "Thank you for telling me, JJ. I love you buddy."
JJ sounded frustrated, but Hayden knew that deep down, he understood. "Love you too, you fuck. I better see you in the final. Been too long."
He hung up before JJ could continue yapping—the man would not stop if you gave him any leeway, impending practice or not—and padded into the ensuite. A moment later he threw open his bedroom door, cursing loudly into the bright, airy living room of Cliff's definitely not as bachelor as advertised bachelor pad.
If he was going to break the oath he'd sworn last night, emergency situation or not, he'd better do it with a pot of coffee already brewed.
—
The ceramic cup slipped through Cliff's fingers, bounced off the counter and landed in piece the sink."The fuck—Cliff, you good?"
To Hayden's infinite surprise, Cliff hadn't been all that different to get moving. He'd rolled over, shotgunned the bottle of water he'd set next to the bed for himself, and popped up like a daisy, scratching his nuts and telling Hayden to let him take a piss before hitting him with whatever clusterfuck had befallen them.
He'd listened carefully as Hayden ambushed him in the hallway, followed him dutifully into his own kitchen and then thunk. Raiders mug, meet sink.
"You said," Cliff swallowed, turning away from the open cupboard and broken ceramic in the sink. His eyes were very wide. He looked like a massive, confused owl. "How long have you known about this Boston Lily person?"
"I don't know, like twenty-eleven? That's not the important part. I thought sh—they were, I don't know, a trainer on your staff or something? Shane would always fuck off to spend time with her—shit, him—when either team played each other, so it had to be someone who traveled for games. He never had a roster like some guys do, you know?"
Cliff closed his eyes, seeming to do some mental gymnastics.Hayden continued, "But they broke up early in the last season Shane played, fall twenty-sixteen. Rose Landry was a thing and then, poof."
"Poof," Cliff repeated back, deadpan. He opened his eyes slowly, almost like he was afraid he'd be taking a blow. "Okay, I think," he nodded a couple times as if that would convince him to say whatever his tongue clearly couldn't work out saying.
"We just need to figure out who the common denominator is. It's not you, right?" Hayden froze, realizing all of the criteria lined up. "You know I'd be totally cool if it was, right? Like, whatever you need—"
"It's not me," Cliff interrupted, seeming to pick each word very carefully. "Do I look like a Lily?"
"No, but I don't think Lily looks like a Lily either, if you know what I mean." Hayden crossed his arms. "Why are you looking like I punched you in the solar plexus—"
"What the fuck is—"
"Stomach," he clarified. "Spill, Marleau."
"Give me a minute, fucking Christ." Cliff banged hisfist on the counter. "Actually, fuck. I'm gonna sit my ass on the floor."
"There could be shards—"
"I'm fine, Dad." He flopped onto his ass on the cold tile and looked up. "You sit down too."
"I'm good here, thank you."
"No you're not. Floor time, Pike. Captain's orders."
Rolling his eyes and muttering that it was no surprise Cliff had called him dad seeing as he was acting like a toddler, Hayden crouched down, then sat so they were facing, his feet near Cliff's torso, the two of them wedged between the sink and kitchen island.
"You know who it is," Hayden guessed, because well, parenting instincts kind of came in handy, "Don't you?"
He was answered with a question. "You ever hear about Montreal Jane?"
"No, but…" Hayden would be the first guy to admit he was lucky at times to have two brain cells to rub together. However, he could do a lot with those two brain cells, especially when he was locked— "Jane sounds a hell of a lot like—""One of our guys had a Montreal girl," Cliff said over Hayden, not letting him reason through any realization he was trying to have out loud. "Jane. He was nuts about her. Like, full-on batshit. He had a roster, but never really did repeats, 'cept for her."
"Oh, fuck." Hayden crossed his arms. "Okay, so who are we protecting?"
"What?"
"I mean, this team is full of lifers, Cliff. We gotta support our guy."
Cliff looked at him, bewildered. Like he was missing something.
Hayden was already three steps ahead, parenting brain sorting tasks into buckets, ready to divide and conquer. "So we don't put him anywhere near the media, we pull him aside and let him know that he's supported—or you can, it's—you don't have to tell me who, I just—I can do fuck all for Shane, so the least I can do is—"
"He's not on our team anymore."
That changed things, but Hayden could still work with it. He had friends across the league, surely there was someone who could look out for him. "Okay, so, call him? Surely he could use a friend,"Okay, so, call him? Surely he could use a friend, and I know all you Boston guys stay tight—"
"It's not—I just—fuck," he looked skyward, thunking his head against the lip of the counter. "He's not the kind of guy you just talk to about shit like this." He sighed and Hayden could practically feel it, like a seismic shift on the floor in the kitchen. Cliff said, "I'm going to tell you, and if you tell anyone they will never find your body, kapeesh?"
"It can't be that bad. Shane's a pretty good judge of charact—"
"Rozanov." Cliff interrupted.
"What's Roz got to—"
"Lily." Holding eye contact, he added, "Ilya."
Every nebulous, half-formed plan came to a screeching halt against the inside of Hayden's skull. "No fucking way."
His response wasn't good enough for Cliff.
"Look, Hayd, that's—shit. He's my fucking guy. My captain. We had years. If you're going to be an asshole about it, I'm gonna need you to pack your shit, stay with St-Simon, and never talk about it ever again."So, who knew? Maybe Hayden would have the mad-man freakout later. It was certainly possible: Parenting had taught him to compartmentalize like a motherfucker. Have you ever seen your baby girl smack her lip and bleed enough for six people but been forced to pretend like everything is totally fine because she'll only freak out if you do, then crawl into bed and cry like a baby afterward because that's your whole entire world and how the fuck are you supposed to have your shit together seeing them get hurt?
Fuck, he was so grateful to his rockstar goddess of a wife and their chaotic, messy brood of children. Life skills, baby!
Still on the floor below the sink, Cliff stirred. "I'm—I need back up," he said, smacking his hands on the tile and pulling himself up. He winced, and Hayden hoped it wasn't from the tiny shards of ceramic that were probably dotting the floor. "And a flight to Ottawa."
That drew Hayden out of his not quite successful self-reflection-slash-convincing. "Shouldn't you call him first?"
"He's been dodging my calls since All Star."
"Yeah, been a lot of that, it seems." Hayden said.darkly. "JJ called me. He also knows about—"
"You—you can't tell Dagenais. He can't—"
"Not my place to share, big guy. Already told JJ to keep what little he does know hush hush secret secret, not that he'd ever guess Roz in a million years. JJ's a hothead, but he's not a bad guy." Hayden also stood, grabbing his phone. "So we need plane tickets to Ottawa—"
"You're not going—"
"Oh yes I am. You need backup and I'm practically a local. Shane's from Ottawa. I used to visit him at his parents' place all the time…" they shared a look.
"Oh, motherfucker, you don't think—"
He doesn't think what? That Ilya Rozanov, potentially codename Lily, moved to Ottawa after Shane disappeared as some fucked up way of coping with a broken heart? Not really, but, "I think it's becoming more likely by the second, bud." He pat Cliff's shoulder. "Anyway, what was that about backup?"
—
Svetlana Vetrova, the backup in question, was hands down the scariest woman Hayden had ever met, even though he hadn't actually met her at all. He could tell. She answered the phone in Russian when Cliff FaceTimed her, which led Hayden to a horrifying realization that was, more or less, the Russia of it all. You know, because that was where Svetlana and Rozanov were from: A country which did not appreciate public figures actively practicing homosexuality, as evidenced by the very few Russian players who participated in pride night, when the league wasn't cancelling them in some fucked up campaign to save face.
So yeah, maybe Hayden had experienced a mild freakout while Svetlana went from Moscow club ready to airport bound in under thirty minutes, cried no more than a half dozen very manly frustration tears over Shane bearing the burden of truth on this one alone into the cuff of his hoodie, and had a brief, but no less heartfelt come-to-Jesus meeting with himself.
He'd never liked Rozanov. Probably wouldn't ever like him. But it wasn't because he was possibly gay or however he chose to identify—because there were options. It was because he was an asshole. So if he was Shane's Lily, Hayden was going to protect the fuck out of him, both for Shane's sake and, according to a much quieter voice in his that reminded him of his own father, because not even Ilya Rozanov deserved to go through this shit alone.
"I'm going to shower and book the next flight out," Cliff said. "Svetlana won't make it to Ottawa until tomorrow."
"Throw me your passport, should be early enough to fly there."
An American passport landed on the floor in the hall. "You really don't have to do this."
"Yeah, I do."
"Roz has never liked you. This—he's probably not going to be kind."
"Oh," Hayden rolled his eyes. "I know. It was always 'Fifteenth best Metro,' and 'Do you have enough children to start your own hockey team yet?' with him." He shrugged. "It died down once I got to Winnipeg. I figured he lost interest."
Whatever Cliff said was swallowed by the background noise of the shower running, but Hayden was pretty sure it was to do with the overarching situation.
He booked them tickets for two hours from now, thankful for business flights on a weekday, then...speedran packing a backpack. They'd have to be back for practice on Monday afternoon, so he slapped some clothes in his bag, showered and met Cliff back in the kitchen in under twenty, ready to roll out on a fucked up mission to check on Ilya Rozanov.