Page 127 of Two for Roughing

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(From post to X by the official NHL account on 06/25/2026)

“Again,” Valeria barked.

Kilian obeyed, repeating the waltz jump clumsily.

Valeria tutted. “You can do better than that, zaichonok.”

She said it with such vitriol Damir was sure Kilian would never guess she’d been running through all sorts of cute woodland animals to describe him during their on-and-off training sessions. He hid his smile by looking down at his phone. His job was to keep an eye on the score.

As soon as the Sea Lions won the previous game, Kilian texted Valeria to schedule their practice to coincide with the possible knock-out game. It was too tense, he claimed. He couldn’t watch it happen. So Damir found himself sitting in the stands watching the Stanley Cup Finals while his boyfriend practiced figure-skating jumps they could never tell the Firecrackers’ coaches about because, technically, they were too dangerous and violated Kilian’s contract.

Apart from a few players who lived here year-round, they were the last of the Firecrackers remaining in Chicago after their own round-one exit from the playoffs. Everyone else had gone home to lick their wounds or booked vacations in exotic locations. Everyone except Fulls and Matheson, who had decided to use their summer to hike the Appalachian Trail for reasons Damir was unclear on.

But Kilian and Damir stayed on, in part so they could continue training with Valeria. Her instruction had seen Kilian go from a midlist player in terms of speed to a top-twenty sprinter. Damir’s own progress was much slower, hampered in part by a lingering strain in one of his hamstrings. He could see improvement in his turns, though, slow as it might be. They’d gotten sharper, and his backcheck had improved accordingly.

The other reason they stayed on was that the bureaucratic process to get Damir’s green card sorted ended up being needlessly complicated, and he still hadn’t received it in the mail. He didn’t dare travel to Canada with Kilian without it, and Kilian didn’t want to leave without him.

“You not going to Russia this summer is my fault, so I’m not leaving you,” Kilian had argued.

Damir had accepted rather than fight him on it. He’d learned that the urge might not strike Kilian often, but when he did want to take care of Damir, he was very firm in his ideas.

Damir wasn’t complaining.

Ketchup, on the other hand, had finally begun looking for his own place, not because they’d been indiscreet when it came to sex but because they were, in his words, “sickeningly cute.” He’d come to this conclusion the third time Damir hadn’t made it through watching an entire hockey game on TV without snaking an arm around Kilian’s shoulders or playing with his hair.

Damir would accept the verdict gratefully, especially since it had been awkward at first to find a line to walk with the team. The news had spread like wildfire after New Year’s, and Damir had to ask everyone to keep quiet about it until his green card arrived—not his favorite experience. The team had been nice, but if he never had to talk about his emotions in front of a crowd again, he’d be very thankful. An audience of one was enough. With the exception of a few off-color and very off-the-mark jokes about their sex life, courtesy of Lissy, it had otherwise been unremarkable. One might say it had been pleasant to be known so well by his friends.

On Damir’s phone screen, Luca Mazetti scored off of a pass from Chris Calabrese.

“Luca scored,” he called out. “It’s three–two for San Francisco.”

Kilian cursed and fell on his next attempt to jump.

“Don’t distract my pupil,” Valeria said. “Or I will make you get on the ice again yourself.”

“But my hamstring.” Damir widened his eyes. Even when no Cup Finals interrupted, he usually called his own practice sessions quits after an hour or two. Kilian preferred to push himself until utterly drained, especially when he had something on his mind.

Or when he was nervous about a hockey game.

Valeria made a disapproving guttural sound. “You are ridiculous,” she informed him.

Damir shrugged.

The game was down to the last minute. The Liberties had pulled their goalie, but the Sea Lions had the puck again, with Tom Crowler making for the offensive zone in a burst of speed. At the last second, with two defenders on his heels, he dropped a pass over to Jax Grant, blind, and Jax scored in the dying moments of the game.

The final whistle sounded, and the Sea Lions poured onto the ice, cheering wildly. Damir grimaced and lowered the volume on his phone.

“It’s over,” he told Kilian, who skated over immediately. “The Sea Lions won.”

Kilian skated a ridiculous celly, pumping his fist and spinning in circles.