Page 16 of The Long Game (Game Changers #6)

“You should still do it, though. Kids are the best.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, maybe Ruby and Jade will be old enough to babysit your kids! Man, that’s wild to think about.”

It was wild to think about. Every aspect of it was wild. “Yeah.”

“You got plans for tomorrow?” Hayden asked.

“I’m hanging out with Rose.”

“Oh, sweet! Can I come?”

“No. Last time you babbled the entire time like a drooling fanboy.”

“Yeah, because she’s a giant movie star!”

“She’s also one of my best friends. And a totally normal, real person.”

“I’ll be cool, I promise!”

Shane shook his head. “She’s taking me shopping. I don’t need a witness to that. I’m weird enough about clothes without you being there.”

“Fine.” Hayden turned his attention back to the TV. After a minute of watching, he chuckled. “That guy’s back tattoo. Sheesh.”

Shane squinted at the shirtless white guy who was being yelled at by another shirtless white guy. “What’s it say?”

“‘No Worries.’”

Shane huffed. “Must be nice.”

There were two kids—Willa and Andrew—who lived in the house down the street from Ilya. Almost every home game day, the kids would stand in their driveway and wave at Ilya as he drove by on his way to the arena. Sometimes they wore the jerseys he’d given them. Sometimes they held homemade signs.

Ilya slowed down as he approached their house and rolled down his window. Willa was wearing her jersey, and Andrew had an Ottawa Centaurs foam finger.

“How many goals should I score tonight?” Ilya asked.

“Three!” said Willa.

“Eight!” said Andrew.

Ilya chuckled. “No problem. Will you be there?”

Andrew—the younger one—started jumping up and down. “Yeah! And I’m going to get popcorn!”

“Aw. Lucky,” Ilya said. “I never get popcorn at the games.”

“Because if you ate popcorn while playing hockey, you would get a cramp,” Willa said wisely.

“This is true,” Ilya agreed. He noticed the kids’ mother sitting on the front steps. “Hello, Kate.”

Kate waved. “Good luck tonight, Ilya.”

Ilya nodded and gave a final wave, then drove away smiling.

There were a lot of things that he found difficult about living and playing in Ottawa, but he absolutely loved this pregame ritual with his neighbors.

He loved having neighbors. His penthouse in Boston had been sexy and private, but being on the ground in a house surrounded by other houses was nice.

To be fair, it was a big house. With a gate and trees and an enormous semicircular driveway. He still needed some privacy.

The drive from Ilya’s house to the arena was only about fifteen minutes, and he passed a Starbucks drive-thru on the way, so it was basically a perfect commute.

It was a sunny day, so Ilya had decided to take his orange Porsche 718 Cayman, which was the coolest of the cars he had left.

These days he mostly drove his Mercedes SUV with all-wheel drive.

Sometimes on nice days he rode his Ducati, but both Shane and Yuna strongly disapproved of his decision to buy a motorcycle, so Ilya didn’t take it out often.

Shane was so sure Ilya was going to die in a crash. It was annoying.

Ilya drummed his fingers on the steering wheel to the rhythm of the Bad Bunny song that he’d recently added to his pregame playlist. He needed to get his fill of good music now because it was Evan Dykstra’s turn to be in charge of the locker room music, and that meant country.

Ilya tried to be open-minded about music, and maybe not all country was bad, but the particular songs Dykstra was into were definitely bad.

He pulled into the Starbucks drive-thru, ordered a coffee with cream and sugar for himself and a black coffee for Luca Haas because he’d found that he liked the way Luca got flustered when Ilya gave him any attention at all.

Ilya had always been against hazing or making rookies feel uncomfortable or bullied, but he got a kick out of being nice to the starstruck ones.

The first person Ilya spotted in the parking garage at the arena was Wyatt Hayes, who was just getting out of his army-green Jeep Wrangler. It had a Green Lantern logo on the tire cover on the back because Hazy was a fucking nerd.

“Hey, Roz,” Wyatt said with a small wave.

Ilya nodded back because he was carrying two coffee cups. “Hazy.”

Wyatt fell into stride with Ilya as they walked through the garage. He was about Ilya’s height—maybe an inch shorter—with curly blond hair and a wide mouth that almost never frowned. “What kind of crowd do you think we’ll get tonight?”

“Is a beautiful evening, so basically no one.”

Wyatt laughed. “Yeah. Our numbers will go up when it gets cold.”

“A little.”

“Maybe they should offer fans a free hot chocolate or something. That would be an enticement.”

“Sure,” Ilya said dryly. “Or a month’s rent.”

Wyatt laughed again. “That might get a few people in the seats. Maybe.”

As much as the lousy attendance was a running joke amongst his teammates, Ilya honestly fucking hated it.

In Boston the arena had been full every game, cheering for their team.

In Montreal the arena was sold out well in advance for basically the entire season.

Shane didn’t know what it felt like to play for a half-empty arena because even when he played in Ottawa the arena was reliably full.

Of Montreal fans. With Shane Hollander jerseys.

But tonight they were playing Columbus, so no one was going to be there.

“Maybe we should play shirtless,” Wyatt joked. “That could bring in a new audience.”

“Would be cold,” Ilya said.

“Yeah. And also I would probably die.”

“Shirtless goaltending. Bad idea,” Ilya agreed.

“I guess we could start winning,” Wyatt mused. “That might work.”

“I will suggest it at the next meeting.”

“Who’s the extra coffee for?”

“Haas.”

Wyatt snorted. “He’s gonna frame it.”

“Fuckin’ A!” Bood yelled as he slammed into Ilya in the corner, wrapping him in a hug.

Ilya had scored early in the first period, making it 1–0 for Ottawa.

The goal siren blared, the fans who’d bothered to show up cheered, and the team’s goal song started playing (DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win,” which seemed like an ironic choice to Ilya).

“Your turn next, baby,” Ilya said, trying to match Bood’s energy.

He bumped gloves with their other winger, Tanner Dillon, who frankly wasn’t good enough to be on a line with either of them.

Ilya dreamed of a day where his right wing linemate was as strong as his left.

Maybe it would be Haas someday. He had potential.

But Ilya was tired of waiting. Tired of losing. He wanted a star right wing player on his line now.

He wanted a lot of things now.

“Great start, fellas,” Coach Wiebe said cheerfully when they reached the bench. “Keep it up.”

They didn’t keep it up. By the end of the second period it was 3–1 Columbus.

“We played against Boston last week,” said Jake Pierce, Columbus’s star center, as he and Ilya waited for a face-off. “They were really good.”

“Cool.”

Pierce huffed and shook his head. “I have no fucking idea why you signed with this team.”

“Maybe I like the quiet.”

“You know we’ve got rookies who had posters of you on their bedroom walls?”

“Nice. Good taste.”

“You shouldn’t be here, is all I’m saying.”

Ilya’s lips curved up. “Next time I sign with a shit team in a boring city, I will choose Columbus.”

He could tell Pierce was trying not to smile. “You’re a fucking weirdo, Rozanov.”

The game ended 4–2 for Columbus. Most of the crowd had left by the middle of the third period.

“Rough one tonight,” Harris said to Ilya in the locker room after the press had finally left.

“Rough one every night,” Ilya sighed. He remembered when hockey had been fun.

“If it makes you feel better, I regrammed this photo of a pumpkin a fan carved your portrait into. It’s pretty impressive.” He held out his phone so Ilya could see.

“Wow.” As far as pumpkin portraits went, it was impressive. Ilya loved how weird North American Halloween was.

Then he got an idea. He took a few seconds to weigh the pros and cons, then stood up and announced, “Halloween party this year is at my house, okay?”

Everyone cheered and clapped, which made Ilya smile. He never hosted parties, and rarely went to them. Because he was a terrible captain and teammate.

He would host this party, and it would be talked about for years. The best party ever. Epic. In Boston he’d been the one who organized impromptu outings. He’d been the guy his teammates called when they wanted to go out and get drunk and dance and get laid. He could be that guy again. He could try.