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He’d assumed Rose was bullshitting when she’d said they should stay friends, but she really did text him, and he really had enjoyed talking to her the whole time, and it was actually even easier to talk to her now that he wasn’t worrying about Performing Boyfriendness.
He couldn’t tell her about Ilya, exactly. But he could bitch about how his own taste in men was terrible. That was something they could relate about. And from there it wasn’t crazy to sort of… glide into the conversational topic that perhaps he did have a current interest. Well, on-again off-again, and he’d sworn off, but. The temptation was terrible.
“Well,” Rose said reasonably, and from the echo she had him on speakerphone, but the room was silent apart from that. He knew she was at home, and probably alone. “What are the reasons behind the off?”
“Uh,” Shane said, “mostly, I don’t want to get hate-crimed or lose my job or both.”
She knew he wasn’t just being paranoid. She said, perhaps too perceptive, “Is it another player?” He didn’t say no, which was enough. “That’s a tough row to hoe,” she said. “It really is, Shane. I get it.”
“If it wasn’t for…” He sighed. “We’ve been hooking up occasionally for… my whole career.”
“No,” she said, disbelieving.
“Yes,” he said. “Since I was a fucking rookie. And the entire time, every single time, we’ve been like this is a really bad idea. And the last time we met up was before I met you. And he tried to get me to stay the night. We’ve never done that.”
“Yikes,” Rose said. “But like-- apart from the yikes of it all, you actually are… pretty good?”
“We’re really good at sex,” Shane said. “The thing is, he’s bi, and I thought I was too. He hangs around with women all the time, so nobody ever suspects anything with him.”
“But it sounds like maybe you both would like it to be more than just sex,” Rose said.
“Yeah,” Shane said, and sighed. “Well, but I freaked out and left. So. And we haven’t really spoken since. So. And I’ve been in every tabloid with you.”
“Oh my god,” Rose said.
“Yeah,” Shane said. “So. I don’t. Think. Well. I don’t know. I don’t know if he’ll want to talk to me.”
“Shane Hollander,” Rose said. “Wait I need your middle name so I can say that properly.”
Shane sighed. “Masaru,” he said, resigned. It wasn’t on his Wikipedia page but there were trivia sites that had it, it wasn’t exactly private information.
“Shane Masaru Hollander,” Rose said. “Wait, really?”
“Yeah it was my ojichan’s name,” Shane said. “Er, grandpa.”
“Oh wow,” Rose said. “Shane Masaru Hollander. I like that! That’s cool. Did your mom middle-name you when you were in trouble?”
“Yeah,” Shane said. “I mean. Yeah. I think that’s universal.”
“Well,” Rose said. “Anyway. I am shocked at you. But I guess not that shocked.”
“I mean,” Shane said. “I was a dick to you too. I’m kind of a dick. That’s my big secret.”
“You weren’t a dick to me,” Rose said.
“I was,” Shane said. “I was using you to try to prove to myself that I could be normal. Which is objectively a shitty thing to do to another person. But this other guy has been like. The dominating factor in my entire sexual identity since I realized I had one, and it’s fucked up that I thought I could like. I don’t know. Will myself into heterosexuality and escape the evil wiles of his…” He sighed. “Incredible dick.”
“Is it good?” Rose asked eagerly.
“Girl,” Shane said, which wasn’t something he had ever said in his life, but the way Miles and Rose said it to to one another was really funny, and he thought he’d nailed the tone pretty well.
“No,” Rose gasped. “God. Really?”
“Yes,” Shane said. “It’s-- he’s really fucking good in bed. It’s not fair. Basically every single worthwhile orgasm I’ve had in my life has been either directly or indirectly caused by him.”
“That sounds pretty serious,” Rose said.
“The thing is,” Shane said, “I think he’s like that with everyone, though.”
“Is it big?” Rose asked, in a hilarious quiet sort of squeaky voice.
“It’s fucking huge,” Shane said. “It’s not as big as he says it is but. It’s big. But also. He knows how to use it. And he’s good with his hands.”
“I love a man who’s good with his hands,” Rose said a little dreamily.
“Fuck,” Shane said. Then, as if he couldn’t believe he was saying it, “His mouth too.”
“Jesus,” Rose said.
“Fuck,” Shane said, clearly thinking about that.
“And he asked you to stay the night and you walked out on him and immediately hooked up very publicly with a movie star,” Rose said.
“Yep,” Shane said. “So. Not my best moment. Really this whole clusterfuck has been a pretty bad showing on my part.”
“If he’s another skater you probably see him for work,” Rose said. “I’m not going to ask too many questions because the schedule is going to out him for you if you say too much, but--”
“I will probably see him at the All-Star game,” Shane said, “unless he manages to get out of it somehow.”
Rose was silent a moment. “That kind of narrows it down,” she said carefully.
“Well,” Shane said. “If you figure it out don’t tell me and it’s just like I never told you who it was,” he said. “I’m. Pretty tapped-out on being good with all this.”
“You could just tell me,” she said.
“I can’t,” he said. “I’d never be able to look him in the eye.” He paused. “Not that I can really look him in the eye now. Fuck. He’s never going to fucking talk to me again, is he.”
“Girl,” Rose said. “Do you want him back?”
“I fucking do,” Shane said. “I do. Even though it’s… God, we could never even risk anyone guessing about it.”
Rose sighed. “I know the closet can be pretty miserable, Shane,” she said. “But being alone in it has got to be worse.”
“Being alone in it isn’t so bad if you don’t… want anyone,” Shane admitted quietly after a moment. “Being alone in it but wanting is. Yeah. Pretty bad.”
“You could be in it together,” Rose said.
“I spent years,” Shane said, “figuring out what the rules were. He clearly had rules. Some things got him to pay more attention, some made him shut me out. And I trial and errored my way through all of that to figure out what was allowed and what wasn’t. And he changed the rules on me, Rose. He bought soda I liked and invited me to stay the night and-- I had rules, I counted how long the afterglow could be before I got up to shower. It was measured in minutes. For years. And then he asks me to stay the night.”
“Oh Shane,” Rose said.
“I live my life in increments of under two minutes mostly,” Shane said. “I can count a minute in my head really easily. Ninety seconds was usually okay, two minutes was pushing it. I could go as long as three minutes if he wasn’t actively touching me, but if I was lying on him it had to be more like a minute. Longer than that and I was being a clingy bitch and he’d get twitchy.”
“Okay,” Rose said. “I might rescind some of the scolding.”
“He never called me that,” Shane said. “He doesn’t-- he calls me mean names sometimes during sex but like. Only shit I like. He’s never been-- he’s not actively mean like that. But he gets twitchy and defensive and then ghosts me, sometimes for months.”
“Oh,” Rose said. “So, obviously, he’s fucked-up about you. He doesn’t think he’s allowed to have you.”
Shane considered that. “How do you figure?”
“He’s counting too,” Rose said. “If he’s that consistent? He’s rationing it out. He gets you for so long and no longer. And he’s kind of pushy? Like, he takes the lead in bed, a bit?”
“Uh,” Shane said. “Yeah. I mean-- I’ve pretty clearly… liked that, he’s not doing it to be an asshole.”
“Right,” Rose said. “Oh sweetheart. And you’ve been doing this since you were seventeen?”
“Eighteen,” Shane said. “Not like-- constantly, but. Yeah. On and off.”
“Is he older or younger than you?” Rose asked. “Normally I wouldn’t say it matters but if you were teenagers--”
“Same age,” Shane said. “Or-- okay he’s like. One month younger.” He sighed. “He seemed a lot older than me then but. I was kind of sheltered I think.”
“I’m not totally surprised to hear this,” Rose said. “But. My point is. You’ve both been doing this in, what, stolen moments and hotel rooms and things, this whole time?”
“Yeah,” Shane said. “And, pretty early on, I tried to ask if we could-- be something, if we could like talk out what this meant and set some rules. And that-- he was not receptive to that. So the whole time it’s been like. I’ve been trying to figure out the rules as I go.”
“Well,” Rose said. “So has he, then. And if he’s the one setting the pace in bed he probably feels like he has to set the pace for the rest of it. Like, if he’s in charge, then it’s his fault if you guys go too far and get too deep into it.”
Shane considered that. “I guess,” he said.
“So he was finally ready to establish some rules,” Rose said. “He felt like you were on the same page enough that he could give actually talking about boundaries a try, now, without being the one who’s taking it too seriously. And it freaked you out.”
“Fuck,” Shane said, glum. He let himself slide down on the couch, lying on his side. “I freaked out and now I’ve reset us to worse than we were in the beginning.”
“No,” Rose said, “no, not that. But. I think it’s reasonable to think that, well. Maybe he wasn’t ready for a serious boundaries discussion six years ago, but now I think you’ve got the leverage to come to him and say you need some things said straight up-front. Now he knows you’ll walk. I was a pretty good negotiation tactic actually. Maybe he was taking you a little for granted. You didn’t have any rumors of anybody else.”
“He actually pointed that out,” Shane said. “In that conversation, when he asked me to stay, he actually said, I never hear about you with girls, and I couldn’t tell if he meant that as a criticism. Like I thought maybe he meant I wasn’t trying hard enough to hide?”
“He said that?” Rose perked up. “Oh fantastic. Well! Now he’s heard about you with girls. Now you can come back and renegotiate.”
“He was telling me about one of his girls in particular,” Shane said, “and I couldn’t figure out why. Like, obviously to make me jealous, except I really don’t think he was. He was saying he liked her a lot but she was just a friend, or something, and maybe he’d find someone else.”
Rose paused, at that. “Oh sweetheart,” she said. “Yeah no. I think that was him telling you he wasn’t serious about anyone else, and trying to figure out if you wanted to be serious.”
“He can’t have been asking me to get serious,” Shane said. “Like, I really mean. He can’t. We can’t.”
“He was probably trying to propose a more formal friends-with-benefits arrangement,” Rose said.
Shane considered that. “We’re not friends,” he said despairingly. “We can’t be!”
“People are friends with players on other teams all the time, though,” Rose said, and she sounded like she thought she was being really reasonable.
“Not us,” Shane said.
“So you don’t like him as a person,” Rose said.
Shane considered that, for a long moment. “No,” he said slowly, “I do, is the thing.” He realized he was chewing on his lip, and stopped himself. “We don’t get to talk much. Not really ever. And we mostly sext. But he’s really funny, is the thing. And I just. I always want to know what he thinks about things.”
“Yeah that’s not a hookup,” Rose said.
“That’s all we do, though,” Shane said.
“So it sounds to me like he wants to be friends with you,” Rose said, “and still fuck.”
“I don’t know if I can do friends who fuck,” Shane said, astonishing himself with the revelation. “I just-- I don’t think I can do that.”
“Well,” Rose said. “So there’s your counterpoint. It explains why you ran out, too. If you could do hookup-with-strict rules, but you’re not a friends with benefits kind of guy, it makes sense for you to counteroffer, now, with: No, I want this to be real.”
“It can’t be real,” Shane said.
“It can,” Rose said.
“Rose! It can’t,” Shane said. “It can’t be fucking real!”
“Turn your camera on, baby,” she said patiently.
Shane sat up, then bent over to put his head down by his knees, leaning on the coffee table. “No I just need a minute,” he said. “Let me freak out for a minute.”
“Oh that makes sense,” Rose said. “It’s okay, baby. Freak out for a minute. Should I wait, or should I talk about other stuff?”
“Tell me stuff,” he said, between careful breaths. It can’t be fucking real, he thought, and then breathed for a while.
“Okay,” Rose said. “Let me tell you about the latest saga from my friend Chloe. Remember how she was doing like, remote yoga consults over video chat?”
Shane listened to that for a while, and eventually sat up, started answering, and resumed the conversation. After a while Rose said, “Can we go back to your thing? Because I’m invested now.”
“Okay,” he said.
“So you can’t be friends who fuck,” Rose said. “But I really have to say, you’re not hookups either, you don’t do hookups for seven or eight or however many years.”
“Right,” he said, resigned.
“So you’ve got to be something,” Rose said.
“I don’t think he’d be exclusive,” Shane said. “He like. Sleeps around a lot.”
“Well,” Rose said. “But could you stand it if it was just like, you, and the woman you mentioned before who’s clearly been a regular for a while without catching feelings, and like, some kind of negotiated level of exclusivity?”
“I don’t want anyone else,” Shane said, despairing. “But I think-- it would bother me so much if he was it for me but I wasn’t it for him.”
“Has it bothered you the whole time?” Rose asked.
Shane considered it. “Well,” he said. “No.”
“Have you been seeing other people?” she asked. “Besides me?”
“Well,” Shane said again. “No. I sort of-- it’s such a hassle, and I just don’t. Like anybody, like that.”
“So it’s not non-monogamy that’s a dealbreaker,” Rose said. “It’s that you don’t want to feel like you’re more invested into this than he is.”
“I guess,” Shane said.
“So I’m just saying,” Rose said. “If he’s willing to commit to you in other ways you can recognize as fair. Like, maybe he can see other people, but he’s not allowed to have them back to his place, or something. Like there’s got to be some things he’ll only do with you. Maybe it’s got to be that you’re the only one he calls for phone sex, or whatever. Or he needs to notify you. Or he’s got to be really conscientious about barriers and sex safety with other people, or. More specific boundaries.”
“I don’t know,” Shane said. “Like I really don’t know what I want.”
“You can also say that,” Rose said. “You can just say right out that you’re not cool being more committed than he is, but you’re open to negotiation about what that means.”
“I guess I could be okay with him still fucking other people,” Shane said.
“No,” Rose said, “ask him for some concession about that. Because just telling yourself to be cool isn’t going to work, and then you’re going to resent him, and it won’t be fair because he’ll be doing what you guys agreed on, and then you’re not happy with that, and now you’re mad at him for doing something you said he could do. So you have to be honest about it, and even if he says no, then you’ve opened up the negotiations.”
“I guess,” Shane said, unconvinced.
“It really helps if you can figure out what exactly bothers you, so you can ask for the things you really care about, without winding up getting concessions from him that aren’t actually things you want. So you don’t care exactly if he’s sleeping around, but it bothers you to feel like you’re more invested in the relationship than he is. Say it just like that, and then he’s got something he can reasonably push back with. Maybe there’s something you do that upsets him, and you can negotiate about that.”
“Like what?” Shane asked.
“I don’t know, babe,” Rose said. “You’d have to ask him.”
“This is all assuming he’ll even talk to me,” Shane said, and slumped back in his couch in despair. “What if he won’t even fucking talk to me?”
“You’re going to see him at All-Stars?” Rose said. “So there’s more chance there than at a normal game, isn’t there? There are mixers, and dinners, and things. And anyway will you be on the same team?”
“Did they announce the teams yet?” Shane asked.
“I think it’s East vs. West,” Rose said. “John was talking about it.”
“I didn’t even look,” Shane admitted. Her brother John was the one in the AHL though, so he did likely know. He perked up. “We’d be on the same team, then.”
Rose laughed. “Shane, I still ostensibly don’t know who he is,” she said.
“Fuck,” Shane said. “Right. God damn it.”
“Just tell me,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I can’t lie, you know that. I suck at it. So firstly I have to be like hey. Remember how I dumped you for a movie star and it was in the news for ages? Well I broke up with her and I want you back. Yeah, I slept with her a few times, but like. It’s fine, right? You fuck around all the time I figured it was cool. Also, I told her about us, even though there is no us, and we could both lose our careers and possibly get hate-crimed about it. Yeah that’s cool right? He’s absolutely going to be chill with that.”
“Okay fine,” she said. “But if I was paying attention I could probably figure out who it is by now.”
“Maybe,” Shane said. “Ugh. It doesn’t matter, Rose, there’s no way he’s going to take me back.”
“Yes he is,” Rose said. “Listen, you’re going to go in there-- turn your camera on, babe, we’re going to pick you out some Win Back Your Man outfits.”
Shane laughed. “I don’t have… outfits,” he said.
Rose considered that. “No,” she said finally, laughing. “You don’t. Oh no, baby. You really don’t.”
“I have three pairs of jeans that fit,” he said. “And a couple of suits, and I just got some khakis altered so they fit right, too. And I only just really realized that my mom’s been getting basic t-shirts altered for me before she throws them into my dresser drawers when she comes over.”
“Oh no,” Rose said.
“I have tried to tell her I don’t need her to buy me clothes,” Shane said. “But she does, and then, well, they’re clothes I’ll wear, so I don’t buy other clothes. And I don’t care about clothes, Rose. So it works just fine. The compromise we’ve reached is that she lets me pay her back, now, but I just found out she’s been lying about what they cost, because I bought more jeans to get them altered and they’re more expensive than she said. Which is fucking ridiculous, Rose. I make more money than I know what to do with and she’s lying to me about hundred-dollar jeans.”
“Okay so,” Rose said.
“No,” Shane said. “If he’s going to take me back he’s going to take me back regardless of what I’m wearing. He’s known me like ten years, he knows what I look like and he knows how I dress. It’d be weird to suddenly show up looking like I give a shit.”
“No,” Rose said. “Shane! No. You deserve to look better than you do. And you deserve to wear clothes you like.”
“Well, I don’t have any taste,” Shane said.
“That’s what the stylist is for,” Rose said.