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Zhenya didn’t hear from Sid for a few days after leaving Pittsburgh. He thought Sid might be mad at him for traveling, even though he’d told Sid he was flying private, or maybe mad that Zhenya’s leaving meant he didn’t have faith that the season would start again soon. Whatever the case, Sid’s name didn’t pop up in Zhenya’s notifications a single time, even though Sid was busy blowing up the group chat with his usual earnest responses to everyone else’s bullshit.
A decade ago, Zhenya might have let his pride get the better of him and said nothing until too much time had gone by for them to pick up where they had left off. But he was older now, and tried to take more care with his friendships. He broke down and texted Sid a picture of a cruise ship going by, because Sid liked boats, and added, send me photo of dog. The dog in question was a corgi that lived two doors down from Sid and that Zhenya found hilariously and endearingly stupid-looking.
He went to rollerblade around the golf course, and when he got back, Sid had replied, Find your own dog, and then a picture of said dog, and then, How’s Miami? :)
So they were back in business.
+ + +
“I need a hobby,” Sid said.
Zhenya tucked his phone between his shoulder and his ear. His fish was almost ready to come out of the oven. “Hm? Why you say? You have lots.”
“Not the kind I can do by myself without leaving the house.”
“You have books,” Zhenya said, kind of arguing now just to be a dick, because he understood what Sid meant. “TV. Video games—”
“That’s just bullshit to kill time on airplanes. The golf courses are closed. I went to the Academy to rollerblade and a security guard kicked me out. I don’t think he recognized me. Stop laughing.”
“I don’t laugh,” Zhenya said, laughing. He opened the oven and slid the baking sheet out. The salmon was maybe a minute or two overdone, but no one needed to know. “I know, Sid, I’m bored, too. It’s like, swim, work out, eat breakfast, now it’s ten o’clock, you know?”
“I bet you’re playing lots of Counter-Strike.”
“Okay, yes.” And jerking off, but Sid didn’t need to know that. “It’s stupid, like—Miami is good to see friends, go to dinner, fish, and now it’s just I work on tan.”
Sid cleared his throat. “Yeah. Well. Whatever it takes, eh? Hey, I’ll let you go, sounds like dinner’s out of the oven.”
Zhenya didn’t mind talking while eating, but he had long since learned that I’ll let you go was Canadian for I want to end this conversation but politely. He said his goodbyes, then texted Sid a picture of his pretty good salmon, nearly the perfect shade of pink. He could cook more than just eggs, no matter what Sid tried to tell the new guys.
+ + +
Zhenya didn’t like talking on the phone in English, or texting in English; really he didn’t like communicating in English at all, but Sid had unfortunately failed to osmose much Russian beyond some key profanity, so he had no other choice.
“We could video call,” Sid offered, after Zhenya did some grumbling on this subject, and video calls were better, although seeing Sid’s face like that on his laptop screen, pixelated and oddly lumpy from the overhead lighting, made Zhenya feel punctured in some way, like he was slowly leaking.
“My mom told me I should take up needlepoint,” Sid said. He was sitting at his kitchen table; Zhenya could see the window behind him with the stained glass panel hanging from its chain, a housewarming gift from Flower and Vero. “I think she was pulling my leg, but I’m not totally sure.”
Zhenya opened a new browser tab to look up needlepoint. “I think it’s joke, Sid.”
“Yeah, probably. I should have gone home, I guess. I thought…”
“Yes?” Zhenya prompted, when Sid didn’t continue.
“Nothing. Doesn’t matter.” Sid scratched his thumbnail through one eyebrow. “How’s your rollerblading going?”
“Sweaty,” Zhenya said. “Boring.”
Sid laughed with his head thrown back, showing off his white teeth and his nostrils. “Remember when you didn’t even skate over the summers? I still can’t believe you got away with that for so long.”
Zhenya didn’t take joy in practice and hard work the way Sid did. What he wanted was to play hockey: to be on the ice with the puck on his stick, scoring goals as the approving roar of the crowd thundered through the rafters. Blading was a means to an end. He didn’t have to try to express any of this, because Sid already knew. He said, “Crosby is not so good, it’s sad. Always practice, practice, practice, stay late at the rink,” watching with each word how Sid’s face crinkled up further until his eyes were nearly hidden in delight.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before,” Sid said, as squinty and pleased as he ever was. “Okay, I’m hanging up. I’ve gotta talk to some reporters in half an hour and if I don’t eat something ahead of time I’m going to cuss Yohe out for sure.”
Zhenya grinned. He’d pay good money to see that. “Okay, Sid. I think of some hobby for you. Not needle thing.”
“Great, text me,” Sid said, and ended the call.
+ + +
“I think I’m going to get into birding,” Sid said.
Zhenya was sitting on his balcony with his laptop on the side table, eating a burger and watching seagulls squabble on the riprap. “What’s birding,” he said absently, as one gull lifted its wings overhead, raised its rear end, and took a stringy white shit.
“You know, like, bird-watching. You go out with binoculars and try to find birds.”
Zhenya redirected his attention to his computer. “What? Birds? Why.”
Sid shrugged. He was wearing a gray T-shirt that draped lovingly over his arms and shoulders. He was outside somewhere, maybe on the patio. “Birds are cool. I always like seeing hawks around the lake back home. And there are a lot of them in my back yard, you know? Birds, I mean. Since I’m home now to see them. So I got an app and I’ve been learning how to ID them.”
“Red bird,” Zhenya said. “Blue bird. Like, orange bird—”
“No, come on,” Sid said, laughing. “I know you’re fucking with me. You sent me a picture of that heron—”
“I look at birds right now,” Zhenya admitted. “Gulls.” He hoisted the laptop and turned it around to face the channel. “See?”
“I just see the water,” Sid’s voice said, tinny from the new angle. “Why are you looking at birds when you’re supposed to be talking to me?”
“I do both.” Zhenya returned the laptop to its position and lifted his burger. “See. It’s lunch, too.”
“You got some…” Sid touched his thumb to the corner of his mouth. “Mayo, eh? It’s always mayo.”
Zhenya took an obnoxiously large bite of his burger and chewed as he replied. “So you birding now, okay, so what, you get ugly hat? You go out in woods—”
“Yeah, I’ll go to your house and camp out on the back porch. Peer at the trees through the banya screen.”
“No, you have your own house. I tell Marian don’t let him stay, kick him out like when guard tell you to go home.” Marian was his neighbor across the drive and in fact hated him; when he put in his basketball court, she told him he was ruining the sanctity of the wilderness or something along those lines.
“Marian hates you,” Sid said. “So I’m not too worried about her telling me to scram.”
Zhenya wished he had stayed in Pittsburgh. He could be with Sid right now, sitting on Sid’s back patio, watching birds flit around in the bushes.
“How many birds you see?” he asked, instead of continuing to work the Marian angle, which they both knew was bullshit. “Lots?”
Sid picked up his phone. “Nine species this morning. Oh, and I saw a woodpecker, that was pretty cool. Except I’m not sure if it was a downy woodpecker or a hairy woodpecker. They’re basically identical except one’s bigger, so how are you supposed to know unless you see both of them together?”
“Maybe, like. They sound different,” Zhenya said, because of course he was letting himself get sucked into Sid’s bird nonsense, because indulging Sid was his primary occupation. He had been following after Sid for—Christ, nearly fifteen years. He was ready to let himself think of the course of his life in those terms, to come to grips with the choices he hadn’t made and the paths that were not only closed off but fully erased now, lost to the weather and underbrush of all the years that had passed since he’d considered them and turned away. He had stayed in Pittsburgh. He had chosen to end his career with Sid.
He hadn’t stayed in Pittsburgh, though. He was in Miami, eating a mediocre burger he’d paid too much to have delivered. Stupid. He’d talked so much about going to Miami that he’d felt backed into a corner when Sid didn’t take the hint to ask him to stay.
Sid was saying something else about birds. Zhenya redirected his wandering attention. “—mourning doves and that’s it. I don’t know how people do it.”
“Who knows,” Zhenya said, which seemed like a safe answer.
Sid smiled at him, lopsided and toothy. “No help from you, eh? That’s fine. I’ve got time to wear you down. You’ll be a bird fan by the end of the month.”
Zhenya snorted. “No chance.”
+ + +
Zhenya didn’t realize they had been talking every day until Sid had some kind of media blitz scheduled and texted Zhenya that he was sick of looking at his laptop and would call tomorrow. Zhenya was disappointed and then mad at himself for being disappointed and then just mad, at himself and at the fucking pandemic, and how difficult it was, still, solidly into his thirties, to navigate human relationships. He had never mastered the art of it, and maybe it was impossible to master, because people were so complex and contradictory, or maybe it was just Sid, who only said bland things that conveyed nothing of what he actually thought or felt.
Zhenya went out blading for a second time that day mostly to give himself something to do, an easy skate around the island, long strides that warmed his muscles and worked out some of the soreness from yesterday’s burpees. The late March weather was a little hot for skating, but the sunshine and the breeze rustling through the palm trees had Zhenya feeling pretty good. He saw some pelicans flying along the shoreline and made a mental note to tell Sid.
Why the fuck had he left Pittsburgh? He was doing nothing but lying beside the pool and masturbating—not at the same time—but somehow he and Sid didn’t seem to run out of things to talk about. He was certain Sid wasn’t talking to anyone else so frequently, not even his parents. They had been hanging out a lot more than usual since Tampa, since what had happened in Tampa, but their lengthy daily video calls were really taking things up a notch, and Zhenya had put some serious thought into what they might be doing if he hadn’t left.
When he got back to his condo, he texted Sid: I see pelican
+ + +
“So.” Sid crunched into his apple. “I finally found my binoculars.”
“What, like…” Zhenya formed his hands into circles and pressed them to his eyes. The Russian word was similar, but he’d been burned before.
“Yeah.” Sid picked a fleck of apple flesh from his lengthening beard stubble. “They were buried in my garage. I walked to that little park near my house to check them out. Total game changer. Turns out it’s a lot easier to identify birds when you can see them up close.”
Zhenya’s life would be a lot less complicated if he didn’t find Sid so adorable or funny. “What you see? Exciting?”
“Nothing too exciting. A bunch of sparrows, mostly. Couple of blue jays. Those guys are so loud.”
Zhenya opened a new tab to look up blue jay. Right: those. The familiar suburban birds of the eastern US weren’t the birds of his childhood, but after so many years in Pittsburgh, he’d come to know the most common ones, like the cardinals that sometimes nested in his yard.
“You come to Moscow,” he said, an offer he’d made before, jokingly at first and then more seriously. “It’s lots of different birds. Not like in Pittsburgh.”
“There are different birds in Miami, too. Lots of people go to Florida for bird-watching.”
Zhenya couldn’t read anything from Sid’s expression. “Maybe I take picture for you, then. So you see new bird.”
“Sure,” Sid said. He nodded, and took another bite of his apple. “Take some pictures.”
+ + +
Red-tailed hawk!! Sid texted, followed by a picture of a small, blurry smudge in a tree. Zhenya zoomed in. Okay, sure, he would buy that he was looking at a hawk, but Sid’s bird photography left a lot to be desired.
how u know
Sid didn’t reply, but when they talked later, he said, “I could see it way better with my binoculars than the picture shows. I was just zooming in with my phone. I need to get a better camera.”
“Sid! How much shit you need for birds? Camera, hat, binokl—”
“I didn’t buy a hat,” Sid protested, laughing. “I don’t know. I might buy a new pair of binoculars. These ones I have are okay, but I could do a lot better.”
Zhenya tsked. “It’s lots of money,” he said, as though he hadn’t invested several thousand dollars in a gaming computer and chair. “I never know birds need so much.”
“I mean, you don’t need anything except a cheap pair of binoculars and maybe a notebook if you want to keep track of your sightings, but you know how it is, the sky’s the limit if you feel like dropping some cash.” Sid shrugged, a little sheepish. “I figure there are worse things to spend money on.”
There were, and Zhenya had spent money on most of them, and hadn’t expected Sid to take his teasing seriously. “It’s only joke, Sid. I think it’s good you do. It’s good you have like, fun thing for keep you out of trouble.”
Sid smirked. “What trouble do you think I’m getting into alone in my house?”
Their eyes caught. On Zhenya’s laptop screen, Sid’s smile faded. He glanced down at something beside him, then back at Zhenya, then away again, maybe out the window.
“You’re never trouble,” Zhenya said, when really the exact opposite was true.
Sid made a noise, maybe amused. “Yeah. Anyway, enough about birding, tell me what you’re up to.”
“Nothing,” Zhenya said. “Okay, no, I finish book I tell you about…”
+ + +
Zhenya ordered two bird field guides, one for Pennsylvania and one for Florida. When they arrived a couple of days later, he sat out on the balcony to flip through them. A storm had passed through earlier, and the trees were still dripping steadily, a gentle accompaniment as he turned the pages. He found the woodpeckers Sid had talked about, and they really were identical. Good luck to Sid figuring out which was which.
He heard a bird calling in a tree nearby and looked up. He couldn’t see it at first, but then it called again, and he spotted it: a little bird with a yellow belly and a brown head. He opened the Florida book and turned to the yellow section. Was it a palm warbler? Why did all of these fucking birds look so similar? He took a picture of it anyway and texted it to Sid. find bird for u)))
His phone buzzed. Looks like a warbler. Nice!
Zhenya got up and went inside, abandoning the books and his phone on the balcony. He had hoped for more from Sid without really knowing what, exactly, he wanted.
He went into the kitchen to stare aimlessly into the fridge. He had been alone in Miami for three weeks. He missed hockey constantly, more than he had expected he would. It was worse than being out with an injury, because he was perfectly healthy, and he’d been having a good season, and now there was nothing to do but sit around and wait.
His laptop was in the back bedroom he used as an office-slash-gaming cave. He ate a yogurt cup as he checked the weather in Pittsburgh. Kind of cold, really, which was why he had come to Miami in the first place. Why freeze his ass off through spring in Pittsburgh when he could have summer in Miami? Sid probably hadn’t even opened his pool yet.
He Googled palm warbler. Yeah, that was probably it.
+ + +
In Tampa, in February, two days before the game, a bunch of them went out for an early dinner and took over a big table on the back patio of the restaurant, shaded by climbing vines growing through the pergola. Day drinking was a time-honored Penguins tradition. You could get a nice buzz and still have enough time to sober up before bed. No hangover, no problem.
Zhenya had gone fishing with Kucherov and was already kind of drunk when he rolled up to the restaurant. He claimed an empty seat by Tanny and Canner and ordered a glass of wine. The appetizers flowed freely. A glorious sunset drew everyone out onto the beach to ogle, and Zhenya lost interest before the rest of them—he saw Florida sunsets all the time—and went back to the table to find Sid sitting there by himself, scrolling through his phone.
Zhenya sat down beside him. Whoever’s seat he had stolen could deal. “You miss sunset.”
“No, I was out there.” Sid put his phone down and smiled at Zhenya. “Just needed a breather, eh? Tanger’s been yapping my ear off.”
That didn’t sound like Tanger, but Zhenya was riding a good buzz and didn’t feel like pressing the issue. “Where he sit? I take his seat, then he don’t bother you.”
“You’re in it.” Sid folded his arms on top of the table and leaned closer, all of his attention focused on Zhenya. “So you’d better stay and keep me company.”
“Maybe I need more wine,” Zhenya said, and Sid raised his hand for the waiter.
He couldn’t remember now what he and Sid had talked about as the evening drew on. He remembered laughing a lot, and drinking more. Sid drank, too, and got a little giggly, and then turned somber, the way he did sometimes. They started reminiscing, which any Russian could tell you was a dangerous activity when alcohol was involved. They had years of memories to rehash: their failure in 2008, their victory in 2009, teammates Zhenya hadn’t thought about in a decade. Guys peeled away, heading back to the hotel or on to another bar, until it was only Sid and Zhenya left at the table, sitting together in the warm night air.
A silence settled between them. The string lights overhead cast strange shadows on Sid’s face. He rolled his empty glass between his hands, back and forth. Zhenya felt heavy and sleepy, a little sunburned from his day on the water, ready to get a car back to the hotel and fall into bed. He said, “Sid—”
“I have something to tell you,” Sid interrupted. He lifted his glass, then seemed to realize there was nothing in it and set it down again. “I think I’m—G, I like guys. You know.”
“Huh?” Zhenya said, and then realized what Sid was talking about and felt all the blood in his body surge to his head. His ears started ringing.
“You don’t have to say anything. Or, I mean, maybe I don’t want you to say anything, if you’re—fuck.” Sid pressed one balled-up fist to his forehead and looked away. “Sorry. I drank too much.”
“Sid,” Zhenya said. He swallowed, and decided to spit it out. Why the fuck not. “Me, too.”
“Yeah, you and your white wine,” Sid said, and then shot Zhenya a sharp glance and said, “Or, you mean—”
“Yes,” Zhenya said. “Sid.” He rubbed his eyes. Had Sid planned this all evening, or had he just gotten tipsy enough to do it on the spur of the moment? Not that it really mattered. “I don’t know you, ah—”
“I haven’t ever. But. I think I’d like to.” Sid groaned and kneaded his knuckles against his forehead. “I don’t know why I decided to tell you.”
“I’m glad you do.” Zhenya pried Sid’s hand away and patted it a few times, muzzily affectionate, feeling that he needed to offer some form of reassurance. “Let’s call car, okay? It’s late. I need water and sleep.”
“Sure.” Sid nodded. Zhenya was inexplicably still holding his hand. “Are you really…?”
Zhenya hadn’t ever, but he would like to. He thought that counted. “Yes.”
“Okay.” Sid nodded some more. “Okay. Let me get a car.”
+ + +
Zhenya didn’t own binoculars, and his vision was worse than Sid’s, but he went out looking for birds anyway, just an amble around the island to see what he could see. Sid was right, unfortunately: it was hard to identify birds at any greater distance than arm’s length. He could recognize a seagull flying overhead, but according to his field guide, there were like fifteen different species of fucking seagull, and there wasn’t a chance he was going to spot the ring on the bill or the dark tail feathers or whatever. He could see a flicker of motion high in a tree, but squinting through the leaves told him nothing more than what he already knew, namely that some type of bird was up there.
It was a nice morning, not a cloud in the sky. Zhenya walked to the tennis courts and sat under a tree in a nearby courtyard to check Twitter and Instagram. Birds were calling all around him, invisible in the trees, doing their mysterious bird things.
Something landed nearby. Zhenya glanced up from his phone. A dark bird with a yellow bill perched on one of the courtyard tables—a starling: Zhenya recognized the white speckling on the plumage. He hadn’t known they lived in Florida. They were a familiar and noisy bird in Moscow in the summer.
Above his head, a dove cooed. He craned his neck to look for it. There, on the roof, beige and plump. He flipped through his field guide. There were collared doves here, but also mourning doves, and something called a common ground dove. It definitely wasn’t a ground dove, but he couldn’t see the back of its neck from where he was sitting.
“Turn, you fucker,” he muttered, but instead it lifted its wings and flapped noisily off. Oh well.
Another bird trilled. Zhenya turned sideways on the bench, peering into the branches overhead. He heard it, but he couldn’t see it. No, there—a quick flutter of movement. He waited. The bird moved again, and then a third time, and then he could see it, a tiny thing with a yellow breast. He watched it tilt its head at him, trying to note any defining features. The face was gray, and the wings looked blue. Then it flew off.
He looked through his book. It was a warbler. Maybe a northern parula? He wasn’t totally sure, but those pictures looked most like what he had seen. He unlocked his phone to text Sid, then stopped before he opened his messages.
Oh, no. He was having fun.
+ + +
Sid took his cap off and raked his fingers through his hair, making it stand up wildly in front. “I’m planning my first birding trip. State park about an hour and a half from here.”
“Where you go?” Zhenya opened a new tab to look up the location. He’d gone fishing outside Pittsburgh a few times with Seryozha, but aside from that had gone nowhere in Pennsylvania that wasn’t for hockey. He couldn’t even say what existed between Pittsburgh and Philly. Mountains and Sheetz.
“Yellow Creek State Park. Looks like a lot of water birds. I’m hoping to add a few new lifers.” Sid squinted at his computer. “What?”
“Nothing,” Zhenya said. He pretended to lean over to pick something up so Sid wouldn’t see him smiling. He was lying on the couch with his laptop propped against his bent knees; there could be all manner of crap on the floor for all Sid knew.
If he were in Pittsburgh, he would go to Yellow Wherever with Sid and walk around in the mud. He would complain about it a lot, partly to mostly for show, and ask Sid stupid questions about birds to make him laugh. They would both get sunburned.
“I know you’re laughing at me,” Sid said, already looking pleased about the thorough roasting he probably anticipated.
“No,” Zhenya said. “Sid, I think maybe I come back to Pittsburgh soon.”
Sid sat back in his chair. “Oh. Really?”
Zhenya shrugged. They hadn’t acknowledged their drunken confessions in Tampa; there had been no discussion of what it all meant, or why they had begun spending so much time together. He wanted Sid to read between the lines now, but knowing Sid, he wouldn’t.
“I thought it was too cold for you here,” Sid went on, predictably either oblivious or pretending to be.
“Yes, it’s cold, but.” Zhenya puffed his cheeks full of air and blew out a long breath. “I hope you ask me to stay, you know? Before I leave.”
“Okay. Wow.” Sid sat there without moving for long enough that Zhenya wondered if he had really managed to misinterpret everything so badly. Then Sid said, “I was pretty disappointed when you decided to leave. Guess I didn’t read that play too well.”
Zhenya’s heart started beating a little faster. He sat up so that Sid would have a better view than directly up Zhenya’s nostrils while they had this conversation. “I’m so obvious! ‘Oh what you think, maybe I go to Miami, it’s nice there, what you think Sid? Maybe I stay, what you think?’ And you just say—”
“Whatever you think is best, yeah, yeah, I know.” Sid was grinning now, rubbing one hand over his eyes. “Look, I was distracted, and also, you could have just said something.”
Zhenya didn’t typically have any trouble being direct when he was interested in someone, but Sid was the exception to every rule. Zhenya couldn’t imagine a bigger gamble in life than rolling the dice on whether Sidney Crosby wanted to touch his dick. But fuck it: he was going for it now. He said, “I say now. Okay? I can fly back tomorrow. If you want.”
“Jesus,” Sid said. He moved his hand to cover his mouth, but Zhenya could still see his smile in his eyes. “Wow. Okay, yeah. Come back.”
+ + +
Flying private was the only way to go. Zhenya could leave at a civilized time, avoid the sweating, contagious masses in the airport, and nap in comfort on the flight. He landed in Pittsburgh feeling fresh and cheerful instead of haggard and irate. It was good to be rich.
His house smelled like cleaning products instead of cooking, but otherwise everything was just the same as he had left it. He unpacked, took a shower, and then texted Sid: home))
Sid came over within the hour. When Zhenya opened the door, Sid was standing on the front stoop, holding a distinctive white cardboard box. “Hope you didn’t eat lunch on the plane.”
“No,” Zhenya said. He started to move forward for a hug, then stopped himself. The pizza box was in the way, which was probably just as well, because Zhenya didn’t know where they stood. What message would a hug send? Sid resolved the situation by giving Zhenya a sturdy whack on the shoulder as he came into the house.
“Good to see you,” Sid said, so aggressively normal that Zhenya thought maybe Sid really did just want some friendly companionship. Then Sid smiled at him, and it wasn’t a smile Zhenya had ever seen before, not once in all his years of knowing Sid.
“Hi,” Zhenya said helplessly.
They ate at Zhenya’s kitchen table, still cluttered with the mail his cleaning service had brought in. The pizza was pretty good, although Sid’s go-to place wasn’t Zhenya’s favorite. It was still pizza.
He couldn’t stop looking at Sid. It was weird to see him in person again after so many weeks of seeing him only on a laptop screen. He was far more overwhelming in person, bigger, brighter, and crisper. His beard was longer than Zhenya had realized. His nondescript black T-shirt exuded a faint scent of fabric softener. Zhenya had been attracted to him forever but had never really let himself think about it until February, but he had thought about it approximately every second since, and it was really hitting him now, the full force of Sid in the flesh.
“You sorry you came back?” Sid asked. “It was warmer yesterday. Spring’s always unpredictable here.”
“No, not sorry,” Zhenya said, although he was thinking about putting on thicker socks, and maybe another sweater. “You bring me pizza, so. It’s good.”
“It’s good pizza,” Sid said, which wasn’t the point, but he smiled down at his plate and bumped his elbow against Zhenya’s, so maybe he understood.
After they ate, Sid wanted to go outside and shoot hoops, an activity he was abysmally bad at. Usually, when Sid was bad at something, he refused to do it, but for whatever reason he liked to play horse with Zhenya and didn’t seem to mind that he lost most of the time. Zhenya was no LeBron, but he was better than Sid.
They were just fucking around, but they still got a little competitive about it, because Sid could get competitive about taking a shit or brushing his teeth and Zhenya was no better. Zhenya worked up enough of a sweat that he stripped out of his hoodie. Despite the chill in the air, the sun was warm on his bare neck. The daffodils were blooming. Spring was here.
“Okay, I’m calling it,” Sid said, after he’d lost three times in a row. “I’m garbage at this.”
“You too short,” Zhenya said sympathetically, then had to dodge when Sid threw the basketball at him.
They sat together on the swing at the edge of the basketball court, cooling off. A bird sang from the trees behind them, nothing Zhenya could identify; aside from that, the afternoon was still and quiet. Thin clouds streaked the sky high overhead.
“Sid,” he said. He turned to look at Sid beside him, and Sid was looking back. “In Tampa. Why you tell me?”
“Oh, jeez.” Sid toyed with the zipper on his windbreaker, crumpled up in his lap. “Well, I mean—I’d been thinking about it for a while. I wanted to tell someone. It was between you and Tanger, and then I got a little drunk and you were there, so it was you.”
“Oh.” Zhenya considered this. “So you don’t, like, say to me because you think I’m hot?”
“Because I—oh.” Sid lifted his head with a grin. “No. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely do think you’re hot, but I thought you were going to awkwardly pat me on the shoulder and offer your support and then we’d never talk about it again.”
Zhenya eyed him, wrong-footed by this easy admission of Sid’s attraction. He’d expected more beating around the bush.
Sid’s easy smile dimmed. “I’m not reading this wrong, am I? I thought, when you said you were coming back—”
“Yes,” Zhenya said, when maybe he meant no; English was too confusing. He scooted closer, until his hip was pressed to Sid’s. He laid one hand on Sid’s shoulder. Sid’s T-shirt was a little damp. His hairline was flecked with sweat. His eyes, when they met Zhenya’s, were filled with light.
Zhenya leaned in. He didn’t feel nervous at all. Sid was looking at his mouth. Zhenya could feel the exact spot in his heart where love was going to run riot, right beside the sternum and buried deep.
“G,” Sid said, and kissed him.
+ + +
They left Sid’s house on foot. Rain the night before had turned the weather damp and chilly, and Zhenya was grateful for the spare windbreaker Sid had dug out for him to layer over his hoodie. And also for the breakfast sandwich Sid had made and diligently wrapped in foil. And the travel mug of hot tea. Sid had prepared like they were going on an Arctic expedition for three months.
Even with the low gray sky, the air was full of birdsong. Sid walked slowly, alternately craning his head back to look in the trees and peering low into bushes. “Junco,” he would mutter. “Yeah, there’s the beak.” Or, “That’s a cardinal,” stopping and looking all around, trying to find the source of the sound. “I hear him but I don’t see him. Where are you?”
Zhenya hid a smile by taking a sip of his tea. Of course Sid talked to himself the entire time he looked for birds, the same way he talked—largely to himself—on the bench during games. The new guys, at least, paid attention for their first few weeks with the team before they learned to tune Sid out like the rest of them.
Most years, this far into April, Zhenya was buried in the first round of the playoffs, six feet under. That was always how he thought of it, that he was underground until the end, digging and digging until they lost or won it all. He loved that complete immersion in hockey and missed it, and if someone asked him he would probably say he would rather be playing hockey, but in his heart of hearts, he knew that wasn’t true. He’d had years to burn himself to ashes in the playoffs, but this time he had to devote to Sid was wholly new.
“I know he’s up there,” Sid went on, walking backward now, still determinedly searching for this alleged cardinal.
“There,” Zhenya said, pointing at the flash of crimson on a power line.
Sid raised his binoculars to check, then glanced over to grin at Zhenya. “Look at that. You’re birding. Not so boring now, eh?”
“I never think,” Zhenya protested. “Maybe I don’t buy ugly hat, but I like to see birds, I like to do together. It’s fun because you get so excited.” But that was too much emotional sincerity for so early in the morning, so he added, “But if we don’t see hawk today, I never go again.”
Sid laughed. “Okay. High stakes.”
The red-tailed hawks nested in a tree halfway between Sid’s house and the park, a big evergreen tree in someone’s back yard. “I don’t always see them,” Sid cautioned, for about the fifteenth time, as they rounded the corner to the house in question. “But this time of day’s good for it. They’re usually—”
“Look,” Zhenya said, pointing at the sudden flash of white and brown, a surprisingly large bird spreading its wings and descending toward them, then catching the air and rising.
“Oh man!” Sid raised his binoculars. “Yeah, that’s one of them, you can—see if you can track it. You can see the red tail feathers.”
Zhenya lifted his own binoculars, Sid’s old pair. He had the focus wrong, and then he couldn’t find the hawk and had to take his binoculars away from his face to locate it again, but then he had it, and he could see the copper-colored tail feathers as the hawk wheeled and flew away from them.
“Wow,” he said. “It’s bigger than I think.”
“Yeah, always kind of takes me by surprise.” Sid watched the hawk flap away. Then he turned to Zhenya, pink and beaming, no doubt thrilled that he’d delivered on his promise. “That’s awesome. Glad you got to see it.”
“Me too,” Zhenya said. He put his cold hand inside Sid’s jacket pocket to warm, then leaned in and kissed Sid’s temple, just because he could.
Sid smiled up at him. “You want to keep going? Check out the park like we planned?” He sidled in a little closer, and his voice dropped. “Or we could go home and get back in bed.” He waggled his eyebrows, the corniest man alive.
“Later,” Zhenya said, to his own surprise. Fooling around with Sid was very new and very enticing, but he was enjoying their quiet walk, and wasn’t quite ready for it to end. He tugged at Sid’s jacket. “Come on, let’s go.”