Chapter Nineteen #2
Kilian deposited Tom with Jax, who smiled indulgently as soon as he heard what Tom was talking about.
Soon enough, Lissy appeared next to them with an uncharacteristically serious expression.
Kilian turned to find his boyfriend. Jax and Tom could give Lissy pointers on captaining queer teammates.
That seemed like a just punishment for whatever nonissue Tom had been trying to apologize for.
Damir sat ensconced between Fedorov and Dmitriyev with Abrahamov opposite them, speaking in fast-paced Russian. Or maybe it wasn’t fast-paced, but it sounded quick to Kilian, consonants blurring together in ways he couldn’t get his tongue to move.
He hoped they were being nice. Dmitriyev had said a few off-color things about Damir being Tatar, claiming it made him less Russian. He apologized to Kilian for it once, but Kilian didn’t know if he’d meant it.
“Denisov stop your Russian lessons,” Dmitriyev said with a disapproving tut. “You learn nothing.”
Damir’s eyebrows went up. “You were learning Russian?”
“Just a few words. Then I got traded and…”
“Hm.” Damir’s speculative expression gave Kilian pause. If he started using Russian to order Kilian around in bed, Kilian would be screwed. In a very good way.
“You good?” Kilian asked, taking the seat next to Damir’s.
Damir gave him a wordless smile.
“I apologize,” Dmitriyev announced. “For things I say about Tatars. I know is bad.”
“It sounded better in Russian,” Damir told Kilian. “I think he had to go to a sensitivity training.”
“Yes, with Kayleigh.” Dmitriyev added a few other things in Russian to Fedorov, who nodded enthusiastically.
They fell into their native language again, presumably chatting about Kayleigh and whatever she’d had them do in their training.
Every now and again, Damir added something.
His voice was lower in Russian, and Kilian enjoyed the rumble of it.
Damir rested an arm over the back of Kilian’s chair. Kilian leaned into it, enjoying the idea of Damir being casually possessive.
“You should mingle,” Damir suggested after a while. “Spend time with your old team.”
“But I like spending time with you.” Kilian wasn’t proud of the whine in his voice.
Damir’s fingers whispered across the bit of skin where Kilian’s shirt collar revealed the chain of his necklace. “Don’t worry. I plan to spend a lot of time together.”
The words were innocuous, but the tone of his voice sent a heated shiver down Kilian’s spine. “All right, I’m going before you start something you can’t finish.”
“Who says I can’t finish it?” Damir called after him. Kilian shot him what he hoped was a heated look in return.
When he reached the loose group Mooney, Breezy, and Luca had formed with Ketchup, Matheson, and Fulls, Luca told him in his driest tone, “Flirt less obviously.”
“Right back atcha,” Kilian said, glancing at the way Luca’s knuckles brushed against Breezy’s every time he moved. For the very first time, he got to feel, if not superior, at least roughly equal to Luca.
It was one of those nights people talked about years later.
The owner of the bar turned out to be a hockey fan.
So as the evening grew later, and people started moving on toward second locations, he opened a makeshift table hockey game on one of the high tops by the bar.
Whoever managed to deke an ice cube through the glasses with a cocktail stirrer got a free shot.
Ketchup was the undeniable champion and thus was extremely drunk.
Tom begged off around eleven to be with his dog, and Jax let him go with an overdramatic pre-midnight kiss, dipping him low before planting one on him. “There’s more where that came from when I get home!” Jax called after him as he left, flushed and smiling despite himself.
“You let your man celebrate the New Year alone?” Lissy asked, scandalized.
“He’s not alone; he’s with Phil. And he hates crowds,” Jax defended.
“But—”
“Where’s Céline right now?” Damir asked.
“Oh, right.” Lissy subsided sheepishly.
The mention of crowds let Jax segue into moving the group for their midnight venue—a nightclub. When they got to the doors, Kilian laughed, recognizing the logo.
“What’s up?” Ketchup asked.
“This is the place I got photographed,” Kilian told him. “The last night I was in San Francisco.”
“Oh, shit. Is it, like, a bad memory? Can you go in?”
“Do you want us to pretend to be too drunk—to get you out of it?” Fulls added.
A rush of fondness for his new team swept through Kilian.
As clumsy as their show of support could be, they were honest. Looking around at the Sea Lions, much as he loved them, Kilian knew none of them would have suggested acting sick; they’d have wanted an open and honest conversation.
Kilian had done a lot of growing recently, but he wasn’t ready to be that mature all the time.
He wanted to fuck up sometimes. And he wanted to have Damir around to let him know when he did, to comfort him through it, and then make him act like the grown-up he was.
Buoyed by his teammates’ idiocy, Kilian could face anything.
“Nah, I’m good,” he said.
They went into the club.
Before the night ended, Breezy started a limbo competition under a nonexistent pole.
Mooney and Matheson forced everyone to drink something neon blue which made Rocky suddenly able to dance.
Lissy and Vanderbilt got high and made it everyone else’s problem until only Damir’s exasperated intervention stopped them from getting thrown out.
At 2:30 a.m., eyes bleary from alcohol, the smoke machine, and more late nights than he was used to after a month of taking his job seriously, Kilian left the dance floor to get a bottle of water from the bar.
From the corner of his eye, he spotted a slim man wearing eyeliner and a crop top, dancing between two tall, muscular guys.
But when Kilian turned to look at him more directly, he ducked away.
Kilian abandoned his search for hydration to follow.
Liam headed for the bathroom, the most predictable boy-at-the-club-in-an-awkward-social-situation move he could have made. It was a shame to follow him there—Kilian had some fond and formative memories of that bathroom.
“Liam!” he called into the crowded bathroom. Three guys turned around at the urinals, but none of them were Liam. Kilian smiled tightly.
Liam pushed out of one of the stalls, head held high. The top of his styled hair reached up to Kilian’s nose. “Fuck you,” he said.
Kilian’s eyebrows shot up.
“You never told me you were, like, legit famous.”
“I’m not.” Kilian hadn’t been famous, not even in hockey circles, before Olivia Starling’s article. He was moderately well-known in Canada and had slowly gained popularity in Chicago throughout December, but the only reason people knew his name now was due to his outing.
Which was all Liam’s fault.
Liam huffed. “Well, you should have told me. That reporter chick was fucking all up in my business the minute you ditched me in the club last month.”
“Sorry,” Kilian said. He blinked. “No, wait, I’m not sorry! I had to leave. I got traded to fucking Chicago. Which you would know if you actually gave a shit. Why did you sell her those pictures?”
In the bright lights of the bathroom, Liam looked less ethereal than Kilian remembered him. His nose and jaw jutted out sharply, and his makeup was smudgy and inexpert. He crossed his arms and pushed out his chin. “I don’t know. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
Before Kilian could so much as summon a shocked gasp at the blatant lie, Liam continued. “Anyway, I have to go. Unlike you, I have some game, and I’m not spending New Year’s Day alone.” He stalked out of the bathroom, the door slamming shut behind him.
One of the guys at the urinals said, “Brutal, dude.”
Kilian didn’t follow him. Liam might have fucked him over, but that was his guilt to live with.
And though he’d never intended or wanted what had come of Liam selling those pictures, when he rejoined his teammates and Damir brushed a quick kiss across his temple, so fast nearly no one saw, Kilian couldn’t argue with the results.
He was right where he wanted to be.