Page 67 of Two for Roughing

He also didn’t push when they got to the apartment. Ketchup opened his mouth, presumably to ask, but Damir elbowed him into silence, and Kilian disappeared into his room. He left his phone on the kitchen counter, where it lit up over and over again. Finally, Damir turned it face down so he’d stop flinching every time a new notification arrived, and then he went to his room.

After two hours of lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, he gave up on sleep, went back to the kitchen, and started meal prepping.

Kilian emerged from his own room at five in the morning, looking as if he’d gotten the same amount of rest. He ignored his phone and settled on one of the bar stools with a cutting board and every onion in the apartment. Damir watched him warily for a few minutes, but when no conversation was forthcoming, he showed Kilian the best way to chop onions and let him work at it.

If Damir pretended to ignore him, Kilian could pretend the onions were what caused the tears.

I want to be that person for gay kids, Damir remembered. Maybe the article could be a blessing in disguise. Maybe it was what Kilian had been waiting for.

Maybe.

The brief, thready hope had persisted until they had to go to practice, and Kilian spoke not a single word to anyone. He kept his back turned while he changed; he followed instructions to a tee; he didn’t meet anyone’s eye.

With practice over and Kilian absent, Lissy’s urgently hissed, “What do I do?” was no surprise. The problem was, Damir didn’t know the answer, not for Kilian, not for himself, and certainly not for Lissy.

“It’s not about you,” he snapped before he could stop himself.

“I know,” Lissy claimed, “but it’s my locker room. How do I make it…I don’t know, welcoming? Not shit for him? What do I do?”

Oh. Oh.

A week ago, Damir would have had a list of suggestions as long as his arm for how to make the locker room less shit. No more naked pep talks. No more helicopter. Less alcohol showers, or if they absolutely had to douse the first star in spirits, they should clean it up themselves and not leave it for whatever poor staff member drew the short straw. No more discussion of everyone’s favorite sex acts. They’d all heard about Ketchup’s joy in cunnilingus more than enough.

“Nothing,” Damir said, voice cracking on the word. “You don’t change a thing.”

“But…” Lissy looked down at himself. “I should wear pants more often, shouldn’t I?”

Damir had waited years to hear those words. Sadly, his days of witnessing Lissy in all his debatable glory were nowhere near over. “You’ve never treated me differently even though I have different beliefs. Don’t do it to him either.”

“That isn’t the same.”

It was the same. It was exactly the same, and Damir nearly said as much, the words tripping up to the tip of his tongue and clinging tight to his gritted teeth before he could let them fall out.

The thought of coming out himself had occurred to Damir in the three seconds between when the first journalist had asked Kilian and when Damir realized what had happened. Kilian was a deer in the headlights, and Damir wanted nothing more than to jump between him and oncoming traffic. He couldn’t for all the many reasons it was a bad idea in general—his parents lived in Russia, he lived in Russia in the off-season, his religious fans would turn on him in an instant, the NHL, as a whole, would turn on him in an instant. And the list went on. But he wished he could make things easier for Kilian.

“It’s close enough,” Damir told Lissy as evenly as he could. “Don’t make him feel different. Don’t single him out. If anyone else treats him like shit or says anything, make an example of them. People are going to think whatever they want, but don’t let them say it out loud.”

After a long pause in which he studied Damir far too closely for comfort, Lissy nodded sharply. “Fair enough. And thank you for taking care of things when…well. Thank you.”

For once, Damir was glad of his reputation as a monosyllabic grump. He couldn’t have spoken if he’d tried.

After his shower, he tracked Kilian down in the PR office. The door was angled open but only Brianna’s voice wafted into the corridor.

“…so ultimately, it’s a question of what you want. Let us know, talk to your agent, to your…partner? No? Okay. We can ‘no comment’ till the cows come home. It’s up to you.”

Damir peeked around the corner. Kilian sat at the edge of the visitor’s chair, staring at the floor.

“Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”

There was a long, pregnant pause in which Brianna watched him expectantly, but he made no further reply. Damir cleared his throat.

Both of them turned toward the door.

“You ready to go?” Damir asked.

Kilian nodded and got to his feet.

He remained silent on the drive home. Damir had never been good about filling silences, not the way Ketchup was, but Ketchup had stayed at the rink to work with the trainers. Damir could have said something about Lissy, about the earnest attempts of straight men to be allies, but he didn’t know how to start the conversation. Besides, what could it accomplish besides reminding Kilian he was alone in this, and while Damir could help, he didn’t?