Chapter Text
October 2017
Angry kitten was Ilya’s favorite description of Shane’s face when he is silently jealous, staring at Ilya.
But tonight Shane was feeling different, maybe it was the hat trick he delivered a few hours ago against the Admiral, assuring a victory for their team, or being woken up by Ilya with a fantastic blowjob, or maybe it was the life in Boston starting to settle in him. Shane was enjoying a kind of flexi-anonymity in Boston. He was NHL famous, but not US sports famous. Of course, hockey fans recognized him, and maybe sports fans in general, but he was not Naomi Osaka, Messi, or Serena Williams, who get recognized even by non-sports fans. Montreal is a large Canadian city with more population than Boston, yet Boston feels larger and more dense. Yes, Montreal is very diverse, but Boston breathes diversity: Latin-American, Asian-American, African-American, Indigenous-American, in addition to a very large international crowd from the many universities.
Shane enjoyed the fact that his (limited) "party" life (mostly post games) was not completely embedded in hockey-adjacent spaces, being in a team where many players grew up in the city or the state, meaning that they have friends and family around, not linked to the NHL; the world seems bigger, instead of the locker-room extension that Montreal’s tight circle felt like. Tonight was another extension Kip was in town for a conference at Boston University, and Vaughn’s genius sister, Brittany, Ph.D. student in African-American Studies at Harvard (and whom Smith, a Boston Raiders defenseman, was in love with since meeting her last year, but also petrified she was out of his league, because she was), was celebrating a big fellowship. Vaughn had paid for the semi-privatization of Soho House Boston. The hockey players present were the non-problematic ones, teammates and friends of Hunter, the cool ones of Boston; the other guests, mostly friends of Brittany and Kip, were graduate students in doctoral programs, different from the girls, and the queer vibe. In the non-privatized space of the Soho House, the usual crowd, with an influx of model-like women, for the great pleasure of Marleau and other forever-single players.
The music was not loud or overwhelming, and the space had multiple lounges besides the main space and a terrace, so Shane felt less out of place than at the usual bar/club post-game. Also, seeing Scott and Kip displaying PDA (and other queer couples he did know, maybe Brittany’s or Kip’s friends) made him happy (and jealous). Of course, extroverted Ilya is at the bar; he was already surrounded by beautiful women, three, with one advancing her game faster than the others. Since the infamous time in 2016, when he left a club in a similar situation, Ilya has been more careful, putting distance, smiling, but pivoting, and often after 1h or 2h a round, coming to sit next to Shane. But tonight, Shane felt the familiar choreography of their secret relationship needed a little shaking up.
Because even if he had no doubt that Ilya would not do anything with those women or any woman, and that he would leave with him, it still bothered him, because he suspected that Ilya enjoys the teasing, the angry-kitten face, the possessive sex that followed. As it takes two to dance tango, Shane had decided that he, too, could flirt. He was not immune to people hitting on him, but he was, most of the time, totally oblivious, regardless of gender. That did not prevent Ilya’s jealousy, but contrary to Ilya, he never engaged in flirting as a game or (unilateral) forplay.
Shane's Gaydare was limited, to say the least, but he at least understood symbols. He spotted Kip, Brittany, and three other people, one of them a tall, handsome Asian man with a flag pin, seated in a comfortable chair in a discussion. He joined them, and without looking, he knew Ilya was following him. Ilya was always monitoring where Shane was, whether he was comfortable, and jumping into conversation if needed to save him. He felt Ilya’s gaze; maybe he pivoted from the bar to continue to have an eye on Shane.
Shane sat at the table, unnecessarily introducing himself, and learned more about the others. The three, in addition to Brittany, who was working on Black people cross-dressing to escape slavery, Yann and Amber were in the same panel as Kip in a race, gender, and sex section of history studies, Yann working on post-9/11 use of homonationalism in the Middle East, and Amber on archives on the journal of adolescents in Boston orphanages. The handsome man, Iro, was Japanese-American, a Ph.D. student at Northwestern. He was tall, taller than Ilya ( because, of course, any handsome comparison was always compared to his Ilya), but lean, with perfect hair and a very American white smile, crisp clothes, looked like a COS model.
After the presentation, Shane felt a bit impressed; his life was hockey, and he did not go to college, even though he read a lot..of hockey books. But he was surprised that their conversation was both comprehensive and funny, given that they mostly commented on memes and gossip. They talked about being Japanese-American and the differences between being Japanese-Canadian and Japanese-American, as well as the difference between being WASIAN and not, since both Iro’s parents were Japanese, and his maternal side of the family arrived in California from Japan in 1926. Unlike Shane, Iro spoke Japanese fluently and, thanks to the San Francisco school system, went to a dual-language school.
Shane’s flirt plan was sinking in real time, as his flirtatious super-plan was overpowered by the depth and exciting conversation. They laughed about common Japanese grandparent shenanigans; Iro talked about his research on the lives of picture brides who immigrated to America in the early 1900s. They talked about identity, model minority myth, and Iro made a joke with Brittany about educating himself to not have the most annoying kid, as Brittany stated, “Blasian are the most annoying combo.” Shane was surprised, he seemed young to have a kid, of course, Hayden already had (many kids), but he was kockey old, Shane was under the impression that 25-ish graduate students were not on the same timeline.
“Oh, you have kids, you're married?” Shane said, looking at the flag pin marked “We’re queer, and we’re here.”
“I have a husband, actually. I know I am basically a child bride, lol. He is a librarian... Jamaican-American and spent his time sending me video of Blasian being ..Blasian.”
Shane was totally unaware of the reputation; in truth, he found himself very unaware of the subset of cross-cultural communities. When he was in Montreal, he often envied JJ, an embodiment of Haitian-Canadian culture, as the city was very marked by the Haitian presence. JJ had hockey, but he was also up to beat every Haitian in the city with other groups of friends (a lot of parties, but also cultural events). Iro and Brittany went in depth and detail to explain to Shane the breakdown of the annoying-to-problematic pipeline for mixed kids, using an Instagram video, an article, and even a Vang diagram drawn on a napkin (white mom, non-white mom, combo, mixed with two people of color parents, etc.).
At some point, Smith got the courage to ask Brittany if she wanted a drink. Vaughn was sending concerned looks from his seat, and Brittany smiled, "Oh my goodness, finally big man," left with him. Kip went to find his man. Yann and Amber disappeared suspiciously together. Left alone, Shane and Iro talked more, Iro showing pictures of his husband and their two cats. They laughed more at some meme, as they exchanged numbers, Iro sent him a list of novels he thought he would like, and Shane explained the rules of hockey. I tried to convince him that it was better than rugby.
The conflict of being seen, of sharing, to his surprise, Shane, without saying it clearly, let it be known that he also had a “someone,” a “he,” and Iro understood, and they talked more about perception of masculinity, family pressure, and identity. They drink more soft drinks; Iro did not drink due to a "complicated relationship with it," and Shane was the designated driver for Ilya and St Simon (mostly Ilya, the depth of St. Simon's tongue in the mouth of a blonde woman at the bar left no doubt where he would finish the night)
Shane no longer cared that his plan to flirt with Ilya and tease him had been a complete (amazing) disaster. They were wrapping up their conversation, making a plan to keep in touch and send more memes, recipes, and videos, when Ilya crashed next to Shane:
“Shane, I am drunk, I need to get home, give me key, don’t want to disturb you with your friend. Will drive home, maybe die.”