Chapter Four
Olivia Starling [off-screen]: So, Kilian, how are you feeling about your recent performance?
Kilian: I’ve been playing like [bleeping noise]. We all know that.
Olivia Starling: I know you can’t give specific information about injuries, but is it to do with the hit from Damir Denisov during the season opener against Chicago?
Kilian: No.
Olivia Starling: The Firecrackers are coming to town soon. Are you looking to get revenge for that hit—
Kilian: It wasn’t a dirty hit. [Pause] My head was down, he caught me at a bad angle, and it’s lucky I wasn’t hurt. Hits like that happen every game. But the way people have been talking about it…
Olivia Starling: How have people been talking about it?
Kilian: Well, Olivia, they’ve been really awful.
No player should be getting hateful messages about their religion, and I’m willing to bet none of the Christians do.
And death threats? Totally unacceptable.
Hockey is supposed to be for everyone, isn’t it?
I don’t want to play for a team that accepts threatening behavior from its fans. We can do better.
Top comments:
calabreezy: Okay, not my fave player or anything, but this is solid. Good guy Howie.
hockeyfanofcolor88: [hands-clapping emoji three times in a row]
sfclions2010: Ugh since when are hockey players so political
(From postpractice media availability, 11/09/2025)
Damir frowned down at the pan.
It hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, it smelled delicious. Finding a good butcher for lamb shanks had been worth the effort. The meat practically dripped off the bone, and the sauce smelled spicy and rich.
He plated up dinner and passed a portion to Ketchup, who had his headset on and talked to someone animatedly as he dug in. Something about chameleon objects and how some rooms in the castle simply didn’t have any.
After his first bite, he paused midsentence, looked up, and said, “Dude.”
“Hm?”
“This is ridiculous. Like, no way is this on the meal plan. What’s in this?”
“It’s on the meal plan.” Damir took a bite and closed his eyes in bliss. Americans didn’t understand there was a whole world of delicious foods not involving dairy.
And fine, perhaps the trainers hadn’t envisioned the amount of oil that had gone into the marinade for the slow-roasted lamb or the copious drippings the meat had left in the pan, forming the base of the sauce. But so long as it was on the plan, it counted. Damir even used wild rice.
“Okay, well, if hockey doesn’t work out, I am hiring you as my personal chef.”
Damir raised his eyebrow. Of the two of them, Damir was not the one who ought to be concerned about his hockey career not working out.
Ketchup shot him the finger with the hand not occupied shoveling more food into his mouth. “Yeah, no, bro, sorry. My roommate just made the most delicious meal. God-tier food. Lamb something. With spices and rice and…I’ll ask him. Hey, Denny, my friend wants to know what this is.”
“Your friend.”
“Yeah, my friend, Geo. We’re on Discord.”
“Ah, yes. The gaming friend.”
“You don’t need to say it like that.”
Damir would say it however he pleased. “Braised lamb shanks in stewed vegetables. Would be better if the grocery store had any decent okra.”
“What’s okra?”
“Never mind.”
“Okay, did you hear him, Geo? Lamb shanks and stewed vegetables.” Then Ketchup continued to Damir, “Is there a recipe, or are you just magic?”
Damir looked up. He’d thought his contributions to this conversation were finished. “It’s how my mother makes it. Balsamic vinegar and pomegranate juice. A lot of recipes say to use wine. I’ve never tried for obvious reasons.”
“No shit. Wow.” Ketchup shook his head in wonderment. “Pomegranates. Crazy stuff, dude.”
Not for the first time, Damir wondered if this was his actual personality.
“I got something on my face?” Ketchup asked as Damir continued staring at him.
“No, I just…” Damir took another bite, chewed slowly, and then came right out with it. “Did you tell Howard to talk to the press?”
“Did I who with the what now?”
“Howard. I know you’re friends; did you tell him to talk to the press about the…” Damir waved a hand to indicate “rampant Islamophobia in sports media.”
“Hey, Geo? Yeah, I’m gonna mute myself for a second.
Don’t go into the dungeon without me. I gotta see how you crack the minigame on the lock.
” Ketchup took off his headset, pressed a button on the side, and laid it down on the table.
Then, he said, “I haven’t talked to Howie since that time he asked for your room number. ”
Damir eyed him. “Are you sure?”
“Yup.”
There went the only reasonable explanation for Howard’s behavior.
“Why? Did Howie say something?”
“Yes. To the press.”
“Good for him! I knew he was a cool dude.”
“What—he’s not—it’s none of his fucking business,” Damir sputtered.
Ketchup shrugged. “Yeah, but someone needs to say something. It’s a really big deal, and it’s messing with your game.”
“It’s not messing with my game. I’m the leading scorer on the team. And drawing attention to it only makes it worse.”
“Who told you that?”
Damir’s agent, the Firecrackers’ PR person before Brianna, his father when Damir complained about it in Juniors. “A lot of people.”
“Well, they sound dumb. We good?”
Damir nodded because how else was he supposed to respond?
Ketchup finished eating in blithe ignorance.
He then put his plate on the counter above the dishwasher because every time he tried to put it in, Damir told him he was doing it wrong.
He picked up his headset, turned off the mute function, and ambled to his room, already talking to Geo about whether the sorcerer’s skull might be in the dungeon.
Damir stared down at his phone.
The dark display stared back at him, unrelenting.
With a sigh, he opened up Instagram. They flew out to San Francisco tomorrow; he had to address this now.
ddenisov88: did you say all that stuff so I’d fuck you again?
The response came gratifyingly quickly.
howza68: wtf no
ddenisov88: why then?
howza68: it was the right thing to do? Sorry, did I fuck up or say something insensitive?
Damir had watched the clip of Howard, frowning fiercely with all the gravitas a cherub-faced twenty-year-old was capable of.
He hadn’t said much, nor anything specific about Islam or how Damir practiced it.
But having someone—anyone—talk about the kinds of comments he got on social media on the regular made Damir clench up in fear.
The reporters would start asking him about it next, and then what would he say?
ddenisov88: no. I just don’t get why you would say anything
howza68: ?? bc I’m not a dick
Damir studied the message. It didn’t explain anything.
His phone buzzed with an incoming Instagram video call.
Ugh.
Who did that?
Kilian Howard, apparently.
He jabbed the accept button. “What?”
“Hi. So, seriously, I didn’t mean to step on your toes or anything.
” Did the video call make his eyes look bluer than they were?
How was that even possible? His face took up the whole frame, his curls falling across his forehead and his high cheekbones standing out in the shitty lighting of what must be his living room based on the couch cushions behind his head.
Damir scowled. “You didn’t.”
“Uh-huh, very believable. Try not looking like you’re about to stab someone with a skate blade when you pretend something isn’t bothering you.”
“I’m not lying, and I don’t look like I’m…whatever. I’m not lying.”
“Hate to break it to you, but you have prime murder face.”
“Screw you.”
“I wish.”
Damir laughed, startling himself in the quiet kitchen.
On his phone screen, Howard’s face lit up, a wide smile dimpling his cheeks. He settled into something more serious quickly, but the dimples stayed. Damir wondered how it would feel to run his thumb across them. Maybe the tip of his cock. He bet Howard enjoyed being on his knees.
“Look, I don’t want to make things worse for you or anything.
” Howard sighed, tugging at the tuft of curls right over his forehead.
“I just…I’ve been going through some shit with…
well, you know.” Damir didn’t, but Howard went right on.
“I really wish I had someone to look up to. I get why no one in the NHL has ever come out, but do you have to come out to say something? Tell people it sucks when they make homophobic jokes in the comments?”
Oh. He meant the gay thing.
Damir had never had the option of hiding his ethnicity nor his religion.
As a consequence, he’d also never seriously considered telling anyone he was gay.
American or Canadian gay men could choose to give up hockey to embrace their sexuality.
For Damir, the idea was laughable since he’d be as decisively ostracized from Tatar, Muslim, and Russian society as he would from hockey circles.
Far better to play the game he loved and earn what he could from the sport.
Being secretive about his own identity was second nature at this point, along with hiding his mixed feelings about religion.
Would it have been different if someone else had gone before him, blazed a trail?
Would it be different if other men in the league took a stand?
Of course it would. But Damir had long since given up hope that might ever happen.
His choices were a closeted life as a minority in Russia or a closeted life as an NHL star earning millions in North America.
He could hardly ask for more than that. Howard would learn.
He was twenty—plenty of time for reality to destroy his optimism.
Damir didn’t have to speed the process along.
“I understand,” he told Howard through clenched teeth. “But you didn’t talk about homophobia.”
“Oh.” Howard laughed nervously. “I figured if no one ever talked about homophobia, they also don’t talk about your thing. You know, be the change you want to see in the world or something.”