Chapter 2
The guy looks sideways at him, hands pausing on the laces of his skates.
From this close, it’s impossible to miss just how big the guy is, shoulders broad and packed with muscle under his practice jersey.
And, yeah, some of that’s the pads he’s already put on, but definitely not all of it.
His head is square and made up of sharp lines, eyes and nose and lips all vying for room on his face.
His smile is as pockmarked as his forehead and hairline; Daniel counts three missing teeth before he speaks.
“Yes, Mr. Hartley, I know this.” He sticks his hand out.
“Dmitri Kozlov.
From the Minors.
Is great opportunity to be here.
I am very happy to play.”
“Oh,” Daniel says, which isn’t what he means to say at all.
“You’re Russian.”
Kozlov cocks his head, heavy eyebrows slanting across his face.
“Sh,” he says, and his tongue pokes out between one of the gaps in his teeth.
“Is secret I am trying to keep.
I am, how you say, beneath the covers.”
Daniel lets out a startled laugh, and Kozlov grins like he’s just been given a special prize.
He’s young, Daniel realizes.
Not rookie young, but definitely a few years younger than Daniel.
He looks like he can’t be older than twenty, maybe twenty-one.
It’s like someone stretched him out, height and breadth wise, gave him the proportions of a man, but forgot to age his face too.
“No, uh, sorry, I just meant—”
There’s not really a good way to finish that sentence, because the truth is too incriminating to say.
It also makes Daniel feel stupid just to think even in the privacy of his own head.
It’s not like Nikolai Volkov’s the only Russian in the league.
Far from it, really.
There’s a bunch of Russians in the league actually.
Enough that they apparently have their own group chat, though Daniel isn’t sure if he should believe Nikolai when he says that or not.
It’s always a toss-up with Nikolai, especially when they’re speaking over FaceTime and Daniel can’t get a read on his face in person.
So Nikolai’s not the only Russian Daniel’s ever met on the ice, and it’s not like Nikolai’s got some kind of claim over the entirety of the Russian language or the country itself or speaking Russian-accented English or saying, how you say.
It’s just that Daniel can’t even walk by a flower shop without thinking about whatever the last thing Daisy texted him was, so he’s sort of hopelessly obsessed with Nikolai Volkov at this point.
Of course Daniel’s thrown off to see another Russian.
Of course Daniel’s immediately thinking about his Russian.
Or, not his Russian.
Just the Russian he knows.
Intimately.
Beneath the covers, one could say.
“It’s undercover,” Daniel tells Kozlov before he wonders if correcting his English is rude.
It never is with Nikolai, but that’s Nikolai.
That’s different.
Ilya’s always different.
“Er, sorry.
I didn’t mean—your English is very good.”
Kozlov’s chest puffs out, and he grins down at Daniel like he’s never been bothered by anything at all in his life.
“Is kind of you to say,” he replies.
“More kinder if you say in front of my team.
There is bet in Minors locker room about if I can learn better English this season than Bobby.
Cloutier,” he adds when Daniel just blinks at him.
“Our goalie.
He is from Quebec, very north.
He already knows English, but he talks like he forget this.”
“Might not be the Quebec thing,” Daniel points out.
“Might just be the goalie thing.”
Kozlov barks out a laughter that sounds like a goal horn, and Daniel finds himself smiling back at him like it’s easy.
It’s never been easy before, and that takes him by surprise.
For all he contributes to the locker room dynamic as the guy they chose to wear the C, for all he gives pretty decent hype speeches and fairly inspirational we’ll get ‘em next time pep talks after losses, he’s never been able to follow along, beat for beat, with the guys when they’re talking shit before practice or after games.
That’s just not a muscle he knows how to stretch.
If it weren’t for Lucas and Nikolai, he’d be pretty sure that he was born without it completely.
“If you want to get on the ice now, I could use a bit of help setting up some of the cones for practice,” Daniel says, yanking his bag closer to him so he can start pulling out his gear.
“The team’s not going to get here for another thirty, but no reason we can’t warm up the ice for them, yeah?”
“Oh,” Kozlov says, and when Daniel shoots him a sideways look, he looks deeply awed.
Like he’s just been handed something very precious.
Like his dream’s never been closer to his grasping hands.
“Yes, I would like that very much, Mr. Hartley.”
Daniel winces, automatic.
“Really,” he says.
“Just call me Daniel.”
Kozlov’s nose wrinkles.
“Is not a good hockey name,” he informs him.
“You do not have nickname, Mr. Hartley?”Daniel blinks.
The first name that pops into his head is, of course, Diana. Which isn’t something he’d confess on pain of death, like.
Not even to his mom.
Then, just as unhelpfully, Daniel’s mind conjures up a sense memory of Nikolai’s sparkling eyes and red-wet mouth pressing into his sternum as he whispers filth in Russian just barely loud enough to reach his ears.
For the longest time, he’d been sure Nikolai was calling him something dirty and degrading in moments like that, something like desperate slut or easy whore or something even worse.
Then, a week ago, after an X-rated Skype call between them the night before Nikolai was set to fly back to the States, he’d paid enough attention to Nikolai’s words to memorize the rough consonants of them—just enough to look the more frequent offenders up on Google after they’d hung up.
And then he hadn’t known what to do with the information that instead of cock-hungry slut or something, Nikolai’s been running his mouth and calling him kitten in the heat of the moment.
He still doesn’t, if he’s being honest.
But that’s not exactly something he’s going to tell Kozlov either.
Or anyone.
Like, ever.
So he shrugs.
“Not really,” he says, trying to make his shoulders relax, like he’s not thinking about another Russian player taking him apart piece by piece and calling him sweet words while making him come on his cock.
He clears his throat and busies himself with untying his shoes.
“Sometimes the guys call me captain.
Like, when they remember.”
“That is very sad,” Kozlov tells him, sounding solemn.
“Little names are very important.
Like, you see, my sister in Russia calls me Dima because I am very tall now but always her little brother.
And here, my boys call me Koz-Mix, which is worse than Dima, but is something.
Is delicious food.
I will find you delicious food, Captain.”“You really don’t have to,” Daniel says.
He isn’t sure he can take being called, like.
Hollandaise or something.
He thinks Nikolai would laugh about it forever.
Which would suck as much as it would maybe be alright.