Chapter Text
"Good night, Ilya."
"Good night, Shane."
Shane watched as Ilya's icon disappeared from his screen, signalling that the other man had hung up after their extremely-hot facetime phone sex. Shane felt Ilya's absence immediately. Rozanov was due to fly back to Boston the following day, following his father's funeral and sorting out his affairs over there, but Shane didn't know how long it would be until they saw each other again, or until he got an answer about Ilya coming to his cottage that summer. He wondered what could be possible between them, and how to deal with all of the feelings which had built up inside him for so long.
He had the rest of the day to himself, sorting out his meal plans and preparation, going on a run and watching a game between Detroit and Calgary. Still, it was the Russian man who occupied his every thought.
Shane woke the following morning to message alerts on this phone. Something about the rarity of this made Shane instantly alert, even though his alarm wasn't set to go off for another half an hour. He was even more shocked to see it was the Montreal Team Whatsapp group which was active at this hour, seeing he had 6 unread messages. Scrolling up them, he found the first to be a link to The Sporting Herald, posted a few minutes earlier by Comeau. Shane only saw the words 'Rozanov Revealed', before carrying on his scrolling. Gilbert had also written beneath it: 'Lads, sorry for the early message but thought you'd want to see this piece of news! Rozanov is gay lol and sexts another man who may also be in the NHL????? Fucking mad if true'.
Shane's breath hitched instantly and he looked at the other messages sent following this, in such a daze that he didn't even see who sent each one. They included: 'no fucking way, and to think he's always with women?! that's sick', and 'I was in the showers next to him at All Stars last year 🤢', before the latter few messages began to discuss who the other sportsman might be. Shane's phone pinged again - 'Has anyone looked at the actual messages?' asked Drapeau, who follows with 'I can't do it, I'd have to burn my eyes out after lmao'. Shane's world suddenly felt like it was spinning, and he closed his eyes for a few seconds, desperately willing everything to turn back to normal. When nothing changed, he re-opened them and clicked the news link, needing to understand exactly what had been shared.
The title of the article caused Shane's mind to freeze again as his eyes darted over all the words. He took a deep breath and read onwards:
Rozanov Revealed: NHL and Russia's Star Player Ilya Rozanov Found to be in Explicit Relationship with a Man, Believed to be a Fellow Sportsman
Ilya Rozanov clearly receiving (and wanting to receive) pictures of another man's penis was certainly not on my Bingo Card for 2017. But, the evidence is clear - a source entitled 'RozanovBreakingNews' posted simultaneously onto Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook in the early hours of this morning, claiming to have screenshots from the Bear star's personal phone. These screenshots include a message thread between Rozanov and 'Jane' , who is clearly identifiable as a man from the genitalia photos 'she' sends to him. Rozanov is also incredibly distinctive in the message thread, and he would appear to send 'Jane' photos fairly regularly, both of his face and other regions, along with captions far too graphic to be able to include in this article.
Sadly, at this time, we don't appear to have the full message thread between the two men, but the extracts we do have clearly demonstrate they have a sexual relationship as well as an emotional one, and that this has been ongoing for several years. The latest messages include Rozanov asking 'Jane' to "come over" for an hour, saying "it will be worth it." Previous ones show Rozanov complaining about 'homophobes in the league' , along with him asking 'Jane' how many times he can orgasm in one hour. The relationship is clearly still current, as screenshots of their call logs even show that they were video-calling for 34 minutes only yesterday.
While it is not clear what the motivations of the poster were, or how Rozanov's phone was acquired, the material between the two men can certainly not be challenged. This is pretty ground-breaking, considering there are currently no out gay players within the NHL. Rozanov, who lost his father last week and is yet to return to the League, has currently not publicly commented on the material shared. We have reached out to him and the Boston Bears for comment and to enquire about Rozanov's partner. This man is very clearly also a professional sportsman, quite possibly also within the NHL - Rozanov messages about how well he has played one evening, and on another congratulated him on a nice goal. This surely limits 'Jane' to a few sports, and I'm sure the internet sleuths can narrow this down further with some analysis of the dates when the sport-related messages were sent. The photos of 'Jane' also don't give much away as no facial photos have been shared by RozanovBreakingNews, and it's not clear whether Rozanov has been sent any. He looks to have olive skin and dark hair, but this does little to narrow down the options. The question we must ask: #WhoIsJane?
For those of you who want to see the messages and photos, click here for a link to the Tumblr post.
Shane took a few moments after reading to the end, before he took stock of his own body - his left hand holding on to his duvet cover for dear life as it shook, and his breathing surely too loud and too fast. The messages from the group chat kept pinging in - teammates laughing, mocking and theorising. Shane closed the notification screen instantly each time, his eyes unable to abandon the article. After the instant panic subsided enough for other thoughts to enter his brain, Shane was suddenly overcome with feelings of anger towards the posts, and questions of whether they had been published with viscousness or stupidity. No one was out in the NHL, Ilya's father had just died, and Ilya was ...
"Fuck," breathed out Shane. Ilya was in Russia. Shane took hold of his phone with both shaking hands, closing down the website and clicking dial against Lily's name. There was no response.