Chapter 2
Grady would be a liar if he said he hadn't followed their entire draft process — every press conference, every interview, everything leading up to that day in Stardale a year and a half ago.
He knew Harborcrest would be getting one of them.
The kids never did change.
They'd been the same on and off the ice since the first interaction Grady had seen of the two of them.
This, however, was the first time Grady had ever seen Kirill Morozov grumble. Like, full toddler-in-a-grocery-store grumble.
And he did it again when Rhodes walked past without offering a second chirp.
Grady could swear Mo looked genuinely offended that Rhodes had chosen to yell at a cigarette instead of him.
That night, for the first time in a while, Grady watched Mo turn back into the kid he had been last season.
He spent most of the evening grumbling into his phone, neglecting all other pre-game rituals he swore kept the hockey gods happy.
He'd stayed that way until ten minutes before the puck dropped, when suddenly he was smirking again.
Grady didn't ask.
He didn't want to know, and he was sure Kirill didn't want to share.
They'd both been around enough hockey players to know exactly what kind of text could pull that kind of smirk out of someone.
And on the ice, Rhodes and Morozov chirped at each other like they never wanted the rookie rivalry rumor to die.
It never did, but Grady should have suspected that by now.
No one entertained like those two did, and they were probably getting some pretty damn good bonuses because of it.
Honestly, if someone had offered Grady an extra million dollars on his contract to keep a rivalry burning, he would have done the same.
He could have sworn they were smiling at each other as they shouted insults.
As they slammed each other into boards and stole the puck back and forth like no one else mattered.
It wasn't like anyone else could keep up with them.
Sometimes, it felt like they were the only two actually playing.
Grady was sure he had seen that rare Mo smile as he shouted, "Watch your stick!" at Rhodes, and he was sure he had seen Rhodes grin right back, unrestrained and impolite like he never was in an interview.
He was also sure that he hoped they never ended up on the same team, because that sounded like a nightmare for everyone.
Looking back, though, that was the first time Grady Fletcher noticed it.
Whatever the thing was that Mo had with Callum Rhodes.
It was in Harborcrest, with one cigarette, fifty-five breath mints, and two idiots smiling over shared insults.
The things Grady noticed after that seemed to develop over the years.
Things he picked up on, but never really registered until he couldn't ignore how out of the ordinary it was.
For one, Kirill Morozov almost never talked shit about Callum Rhodes in the locker room.
Sure, he'd toss out the occasional jab about Rhodes being boring, but nothing personal.
Not like the other players.
Some of Harborcrest's roster made it their personal mission to shit-talk every other hockey player in the league in the most personal ways imaginable.
Mo joined in sometimes.
Especially when they were playing teams like Stardale or Crossfield.
He seemed to hate those teams almost as much as he hated Cedarwood.
And he did hate Cedarwood — he'd spend hours before those games tearing down every player he might face on the ice.
But never Rhodes.
Not beyond hockey.
Grady had once heard Morozov call Delacroix a bastard son.
He'd heard Mo speak about how Crosswell's wife must not be satisfied with such a weak man.
But Rhodes?
Rhodes was...
boring.
Rhodes was off his game.
Grady never noticed it in the moment.
Mostly because the team could only bully so many players at once, and nobody had the energy to join every conversation.
Sometimes, Mo didn't participate at all — head too in the game to look up from his skates.
So really, Grady didn't notice any of it until years later.
Not until he started having suspicions and looked back, trying to find anything Mo had said that might prove him wrong.
In reality, he'd only found more proof.
Because of course he did.
The fact was, Mo just knew too much about Rhodes.
Way too much.
More than Grady cared to know, or anyone else could justify as normal.
The kind of deep, specific knowledge that didn't seem strange until it started to slip out.
Like that one time when one of their (now traded, thank god) players had failed in their attempt at racism.
Grady had kicked that guy's ass directly after he was traded — it was pathetic enough to be racist, but even worse to be bad at it.
Anyway, the guy tried it on Rhodes.
Turns out, Rhodes is Japanese, and Kirill Morozov will argue with you about it.
To the point of yelling and almost getting physically removed from the locker room.
It didn't have to mean anything.
And it probably didn't to the rest of the team.
Mo hated racists — like most of them, not including the racist — and he had yelled at the guy.
Simple.
Easy to be explained.
Except Grady knew better.
He had seen how Mo dealt with bigots while they were out, and he never yelled about it.
Mo didn't argue, he just threw his fist.
Something about Rhodes was different.
The other things Mo knew about Rhodes were normal.
Stats, points and goals, facts that had long since made their rounds with the press and the paparazzi.
Of course Mo knew that stuff.
They all did.
It wasn't like they were talking about just any rookie; it was Callum fucking Rhodes.
Grady assumed Cedarwood was the same way, probably able to list off facts about Kirill fucking Morozov. Everyone knew at least some of it.
But Mo... he just knew more.
And sometimes that more didn't seem to have a rhyme or reason.
Like knowing the names of Rhodes's parents, or what brand of hockey tape he used.
Strange things.
The thing that made the most sense, strangely, was that Mo always knew the specifics of Rhodes's injuries — he was the only one who could keep up with Rhodes on the ice.
They were evenly matched in nearly everything, despite their endless press-conference pissing contests.
If anyone was going to notice if Callum Rhodes had fucked up his knee or his elbow, it was going to be Morozov.
Grady was convinced Mo could tell just by the way Rhodes was holding his stick if he had so much as a bruise.
And he was just as sure Rhodes could read Mo the same way.
Sometimes, they weaved around each other so easily that it looked like they were one being.
If they had gone into ice dancing, they might've made history, but instead they were on bulkier skates and making the biggest paychecks the leagues had offered in a decade or more.
Making history all the same, just for a different sport.
But then, sometime around the sixth year, Grady noticed the way Kirill — yes, Kirill, not the big-bad-Mo — had hung back near Cedarwood's bench when Rhodes was pulled from a game.
Almost like he was circling that half of the ice.
The first time he passed, Grady noticed Rhodes nod.
The second time, he swore that Kirill had lifted his hand.
And the third time, Callum Rhodes pointed to his shoulder.
And wasn't that...
something...
They won the game that night, which wasn't surprising since they were already leading before Rhodes got injured.
But Mo just seemed...
off.Not as happy as usual.