I want Hollanov to be a conspiracy theory among gay/queer NHL players.
(I... have not read books 1 & 3 yet. So I have only the sketchiest idea of the personalities here)
But I'm imagining at some point a handful of hockey queers are sitting back in a secluded corner at the Kingfisher amused at how Rozanov has sent yet another baby gay in their direction for community support, and someone mentions that Rozy has like, crazy good gaydar. Almost... suspiciously good gaydar.
"Okay, but," says someone who's thought about the logistics of being closeted way too hard, "Who's he actually hooking up with? The dude gets around with a lot with girls, so don't you think by now we'd have heard about somebody's cousin's roomie's former equipment manager or something? Like, has he actually ever made a pass at anyone here?"
"Whoa," someone with sightly more practical experience and knowledge of opsec says. "Dude's Russian. We should definitely not talk about that shit if he's not okay with it being shared." Which causes a slight fug of bemused embarrassment to hang over the table, so he hedges this with, "I mean, I can definitely tell you he hasn't done anything with me."
There's a slight circle of suspicious squinting because some of them are definitely good enough to double bluff the others and clean up with the right poker hand, but the shrugs have it. Nobody will admit to or can be sufficiently accused of anything. Conclusion: Rozy is not like, the entire room's unacknowledged ex. Probably.
There are a couple halfhearted noodlings with the idea. It's too enticing just to drop entirely.
"I think his passport's still Russian. You'd think that he..."
"To be honest I always thought he had a thing going on with Svetlana Vitrov, which like, great taste, so..."
"Unless he's, like," someone says just as people are getting distracted and starting to talk about something else, but he's been quiet like a man deep in thought for a while and he says it with a shaky exhilaration, someone who's come up with a bubble of a deeply batshit idea that still, for the moment before it's popped, might not be total BS. "He's running this eternity vengeance quest to fuck Hollzy."
And they all stop. First it was to listen to him to be polite. But after a moment:
"No fuckin' way, man, just—"
"Look, rivalries are all just kind of gay, but that doesn't mean that the dudes in them are gay—"
"Hollzy's married to his fuckin' skates, that's not—"
"Nah, he dated Rose Landry last year, he isn't—"
"Date her? Or just stand still long enough next to her for the paps to—"
Someone who's caught the madness and started to run with it barrels over them to say, "But does Hollzy know? That he's doing it?"
"Well, I mean—"
"The dude's not exactly—"
"No," someone else says. "Yeah. He'd know. He'd definitely know it by now." Which lays down a truth so thick it almost smothers them, so before the table explodes he shrugs it away and says, "Hypothetically. It probably isn't happening at all."
"We really shouldn't speculate," says the person who started it, who has come to feel remorseful about that, mostly because it honestly does sound true but the kind of truth that's a terrible and unwanted amount of compassion to carry for a guy who's honestly kind of a dick.
"Sure," the first true believer says, and mimes zipping his lips before throwing back the last of his beer. "Doesn't leave this table."
"I've kept bigger secrets longer," somebody else says with a shrug.
"Betcha we're all just imagining things anyway," a third person agrees. "It's probably nothing."
"It's probably nothing" is a phrase that recurs so much it acquires its absolute opposite significance. The trade to Ottawa is probably nothing. The Irina foundation is probably nothing. The Hollanders at family night is probably nothing.
The wedding? Definitely probably nothing.
I was so tired when I wrote this I've had to go back and edit it to take out some humdinger of a typo or dyscravia artifact six times now.
