Five hole heart, p.4
Five Hole Heart, page 4
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Leo took a seat three rows back next to Murphy, who was deep in a crime novel and unbothered by Leo’s presence. The flight attendant ran through safety procedures. The plane taxied, lifted, carried them west toward Seattle and whatever fresh disaster waited there.
Leo pulled out his phone and stared at the last text exchange with his sister: How’s babysitting duty going? Fixed your broken goalie yet?
He hadn’t known how to answer then. Still didn’t know now.
Through the gap between seats, he could see the back of Ilya’s head—perfectly still, unnaturally rigid, like the goalie was carved from ice instead of flesh and bone and trauma. Leo wanted to walk up there, yank the headphones off, and make Ilya acknowledge what had happened between them. Make him admit that last night had meant something.
But he’d learned enough about Ilya in the past week to know that pushing now would only make him retreat further. So Leo stayed in his seat, watched Seattle’s skyline materialize through the clouds, and tried to convince himself that patience wasn’t just another word for cowardice.
Practice the next day felt like attending a funeral where the corpse kept moving.
Ilya was there—on time, gear perfect, going through every drill with mechanical precision. But the man who’d shattered in Leo’s arms was gone, replaced by a perfect replica that moved correctly and made all the right sounds but was fundamentally hollow.
Leo watched from center ice as Ilya positioned himself in the crease for the shooting drill. The goalie’s stance was textbook: knees bent, weight forward, glove positioned at his hip. But his eyes were dead. Flat grey instead of that sharp, predatory focus that had made him elite.
Shaw fired first. Clean wrist shot, glove side. Ilya tracked it, caught it, absorbed the impact with proper technique. No emotion. No reaction. Just execution.
Murphy went next. Slap shot from the point. Ilya went down, butterfly style, and the puck hit his pad. Bounced away. He reset without comment.
Then it was Leo’s turn.
He lined up the puck, looked at Ilya—really looked, trying to catch his eye, trying to find some hint of the man who’d asked how do I fix this with such desperate honesty. But Ilya stared through him like Leo was made of glass. Like last night had never happened.
Fine.
Leo fired. Not his hardest shot, not his best placement, but decent velocity, blocker side. Ilya’s blocker came up. Too slow. The puck slipped past him, hit the post, and bounced into the net.
No reaction from Ilya. He just retrieved the puck and tossed it to the next shooter.
The drill continued. Ilya stopped most shots but missed enough that Coach’s expression grew progressively darker. When a weak backhand from the fourth line somehow squeaked through Ilya’s five-hole—the kind of shot that shouldn’t beat any NHL goalie, let alone a Vezina finalist—Coach blew his whistle.
“Vasiliev! Off the ice. Foster, you’re in.”
Ilya skated to the bench without protest. Pulled off his mask. His face showed nothing—not embarrassment, not frustration, not the soul-deep exhaustion that Leo knew was eating him alive. Just blank professional acceptance.
Coach grabbed Ilya’s shoulder, not gently, and steered him toward the tunnel. “Film room. Now. We’re watching last season. Every save from the playoff run. You’re going to remember what you used to be.”
Leo caught Ilya’s eye as he passed. For half a second, something flickered there—a crack in the armor, a glimpse of the man underneath. Then Ilya looked away and followed Coach into the tunnel.
The rest of practice dragged. Leo went through the motions, took his shifts, scored twice in the scrimmage and felt nothing. His mind was in the film room, imagining Ilya forced to watch his own highlight reel, confronted with proof of everything he’d lost.
After practice, Leo showered quickly and waited. The other guys filtered out—some heading home, others to the training room for treatment, a few to grab lunch at the usual spot downtown. Leo loitered in the parking garage, leaning against his car, phone in hand like he was checking messages while he watched for Ilya’s truck.
Forty minutes later, Ilya emerged. He looked worse than he had that morning—shadows under his eyes, shoulders hunched, moving like every step required conscious effort. He didn’t see Leo until he was ten feet from his truck, and when he did, something in his expression shuttered.
“Hey.” Leo pushed off from his car. “Talk to me.”
Ilya opened his truck bed, started loading his gear bag with methodical care. “There is nothing to say.”
“Last night—”
“Was a mistake.” Ilya cut him off, his voice flatter than Leo had ever heard it. He didn’t look up from his gear. “I was drunk. You were... convenient. Do not make it into something it was not.”
The word convenient hit like a cross-check to the ribs. Leo’s lungs seized, his vision narrowing to the careful way Ilya was avoiding eye contact, the rigid set of his shoulders that screamed stay away.
The words were designed to wound. They worked. But beneath the sting, Leo saw the fear in the tight line of Ilya’s mouth, the way his hands gripped the gear bag too hard. This wasn’t rejection. This was panic.
“Bullshit.” Leo heard his own voice turn hard, sharp-edged in a way he usually reserved for opposing teams’ trash talk. He crossed the distance between them, stepped into Ilya’s space before the goalie could retreat. “You don’t get to share that with me and then call it convenience. You don’t get to fall apart in my arms and then pretend it didn’t matter.”
Ilya’s jaw worked. His hands stilled on the gear bag. “Marchand—”
“Leo. My name is Leo.” He was close enough now to smell Ilya’s shower gel—something pine-scented, astringent, nothing like the vodka-and-desperation scent of last night. “And I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me, remember? Your shadow. Your problem. Whatever you want to call it.”
“You should go.” Ilya’s voice dropped to something dangerous. “Find easier assignment. Easier person to fix.”
“Yeah, probably.” Leo held his ground even though every instinct screamed to give Ilya space. “But I’m pretty stubborn. Ask anyone. They’ll tell you I’m annoying as hell once I commit to something.”
“This is not—” Ilya’s throat worked. “You do not understand what you are doing.”
“Then explain it to me.” Leo kept his voice level, gentle, everything Ilya’s wasn’t. “Tell me why you’re running. Tell me what scared you so badly that you’re willing to throw away the first real conversation you’ve had with someone in years.”
Ilya’s hands clenched on the edge of the truck bed. His knuckles went white. “My father is in Seattle.” The words came out clipped, forced. “He wants money. For Misha. For surgery. And if I do not give it to him, he will tell media that I am...” He trailed off, his expression twisting.
“That you’re what?” Leo pressed.
“Distracted. Unfocused. Choosing personal life over hockey. Over family.” Ilya finally looked at him, and the bleakness in his grey eyes made Leo’s chest ache. “He will destroy me. My career. Everything I have built. And you—” He stopped, shook his head. “You should not be near this. Near me. I am toxic, Marchand. I ruin things. I ruin people.”
“Stop calling me Marchand.” Leo reached out slowly, telegraphing the movement, and gripped Ilya’s forearm. The muscle was rigid beneath his fingers. “And stop deciding what I can handle. Maybe I’m tougher than you think.”
“You are not—” Ilya’s voice cracked. “This is not your burden.”
“Neither is it yours. Not alone.” Leo’s thumb stroked across the tendon in Ilya’s wrist, felt the rapid flutter of his pulse. “Let me help. With your father, with the money, with whatever’s coming. You don’t have to do this by yourself.”
Ilya stared at him for a long moment. Whatever internal war was playing out behind those grey eyes, Leo couldn’t read it. Then Ilya pulled his arm free—not violently, just firmly—and stepped back.
“Go home, Leo.” He used Leo’s first name like a gift and a dismissal in one breath. “This is not your fight.”
He climbed into his truck and drove away before Leo could formulate a response. Leo stood in the parking garage, the exhaust fumes from Ilya’s departure mixing with the damp Seattle air, his hand still warm from where it had touched Ilya’s skin.
His phone was in his hand before he consciously decided to take it out. He should text Shaw. Should call his sister. Should do something productive with the frustration and worry and something else he didn’t want to name that was tangling in his chest.
Instead, he stood there like an idiot and tried to figure out how to save someone who was determined not to be saved.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
5 AM. Bring coffee. Black. Do not be late. I.V.
Leo’s pulse kicked up, his thumb hovering over the screen. Before he could reply, another text came through.
Please.
One word. Six letters. The hardest thing Ilya Vasiliev had probably ever typed.
Leo looked at the empty space where Ilya’s truck had been, then back at his phone. His hands were shaking—adrenaline or relief or the sick understanding that he was in so far over his head that drowning was a real possibility.
He typed back: I’ll be there. Always.
Then deleted Always and just sent: See you at 4:58.
He sat in his car for another five minutes, forehead pressed against the steering wheel, trying to slow his breathing. Trying to convince himself that this was still just a coaching assignment. That the way his chest felt too tight and his hands too empty wasn’t what he thought it was.
He was failing spectacularly at the convincing part.
Merde. He scrubbed both hands over his face and started the engine. He had fourteen hours before he had to be at the arena. Fourteen hours to figure out how to help Ilya without making everything worse.
Fourteen hours to stop lying to himself about what this had become.
Chapter 6
Ilya’s POV
The pattern established itself without discussion.
Leo arrived at 4:58 AM. Always 4:58, never earlier, never late—some internal clock Ilya didn’t understand but had come to rely on with an intensity that should have alarmed him. The rookie pushed through the arena gate carrying two paper cups, steam rising from the lids in the pre-dawn chill. He set one on the boards near Ilya’s water bottle, took his position at center ice, and waited.
They didn’t speak. Didn’t need to.
Ilya took the coffee—black, no sugar, still hot enough to burn his tongue, and drank while his body finished warming up. Leo stretched at center ice, loose and easy, his movements economical. No wasted energy. No performance. Just preparation.
When Ilya set the empty cup down and tapped his stick against the left post, Leo knew. He loaded a puck, positioned himself at the right circle, and fired.
The shot came fast—wrist shot, glove side, waist-high. Ilya tracked it, his glove snapping out, leather meeting rubber with a solid thwack. He held it for a beat, then tossed the puck back. Leo retrieved it, moved to the slot, waited for Ilya’s nod.
They worked.
For two weeks, this was their morning. Five AM became sacred in a way that had nothing to do with solitary suffering and everything to do with shared purpose. Leo learned Ilya’s language—the one spoken in stick taps and head nods and the precise angle of Ilya’s shoulders that indicated he wanted a backhand instead of a slapper.
The slight tap of stick on post meant ready. A sharp nod meant left circle. Glove tapping blocker meant high shots only. Leo absorbed it all without asking questions, without needing verbal confirmation, until they moved together like they’d been doing this for years instead of days.
Game three came and went. Home game against Arizona. Ilya stopped twenty-eight of thirty-one shots. They won 4-3 in a shootout. Not elite numbers, but better. Progress.
Game four: road game in Vancouver. Thirty-four saves on thirty-seven shots. They lost 3-2, but Ilya had kept them in it. The GM had watched from the press box with his clipboard and hadn’t looked quite as grim.
Game five: home against Calgary. Twenty-six saves on twenty-eight shots. A 5-2 win where Ilya finally felt something close to the old certainty return—that ability to read plays before they developed, to know where the puck would be half a second before it arrived.
Game six: Vegas at home. Thirty-one saves on thirty-three shots. A 4-3 loss that wasn’t his fault—the team had played poorly, couldn’t generate offense, left him exposed. But he’d done his job. He’d been solid.
Four games left. His save percentage had climbed from .738 to .891. Respectable. Not elite. Not enough to guarantee they wouldn’t make the trade.
So every morning at 5 AM, Ilya fought for his career while Leo shot pucks at him and somehow made the darkness less suffocating.
Day eleven of their ritual, Ilya woke from a dream about Misha.
Not the usual nightmare—not the pond, not the blood, not the screaming. This one was worse because it was good. Misha at seven, gap-toothed and laughing, skating circles around Ilya while their mother watched from the snow bank and smiled. Misha’s leg was perfect. His future was perfect. Everything was still possible.
Then Ilya had woken to his empty apartment and the crushing understanding that the dream was a lie. That version of Misha—whole, unmarred, full of limitless potential—had died fifteen years ago on a frozen pond while Ilya stood in goal and failed to protect him.
He showed up to the arena at 4:45, earlier than usual, needing the ice more than he needed sleep or food or anything else. Leo wasn’t there yet. The ice was empty, dark except for the work lights that cast long shadows across the surface.
Ilya stepped through the gate and immediately regretted coming early. The silence wasn’t peaceful. It was accusatory. Every echo of his skates reminded him of that pond, of Misha’s laughter turning to screams, of—
The arena door banged open. Leo, three minutes early, carrying two coffees and moving with purpose. He took one look at Ilya—probably saw whatever was written on his face—and skated directly to the boards. Set down the coffee. Took his position.
No questions. No concern. Just presence.
They started working. But Ilya’s focus was fractured, his mind half in Seattle and half in Novosibirsk, fifteen years in the past. Leo fired from the right circle. The puck sailed past Ilya’s blocker, hit the back of the net.
Reset. Leo moved to the slot. Shot again. This time Ilya got a piece of it, but the puck trickled through. Two misses.
Concentrate.
But he could hear Misha’s laugh echoing in the empty arena. Could see his red jacket bright against the snow. Could feel the weight of their father’s disappointment settling over him like a physical thing.
Leo fired again. Five-hole. Ilya’s pads didn’t move fast enough. Three misses.
The frustration built in Ilya’s chest—a pressure that had no outlet, no release. His hands tightened on his stick. His jaw clenched hard enough that his teeth ached. The next shot came and Ilya tracked it poorly, his timing off by fractions that felt like miles.
Four misses.
Pathetic. You are pathetic.
Leo stopped shooting.
Ilya looked up. The rookie was skating toward him, stick resting across his shoulders, his expression calm and unreadable. He came right up to the crease and stopped there, blocking Ilya’s view of the net. Blocking everything except Leo’s steady presence and those impossibly blue eyes.
“Breathe,” Leo said. Not a command. An invitation. “Just breathe.”
He didn’t touch Ilya. Didn’t crowd his space. Just stood there, close enough that Ilya could smell the soap Leo used—something citrus-based, clean and sharp, cutting through the usual arena staleness. Close enough that Leo became a barrier between Ilya and the memories trying to drag him under.
Ilya’s lungs were tight, his chest refusing to expand properly. But Leo was still there, still waiting with infinite patience, and something about that steadiness made it possible to force air in. Hold. Release.
Again.
The tightness in Ilya’s chest loosened fractionally. The roaring in his ears quieted. He closed his eyes, focused on breathing, on the sound of Leo’s skates shifting slightly on the ice, on the real and present instead of the past.
When he opened his eyes, Leo was still there. Patient. Solid. Real.
“It’s just ice,” Leo said quietly. His voice carried that particular gentleness he used when Ilya was close to breaking. “It’s just a puck. It’s just you and me.”
The simplicity of it cut through the complexity in Ilya’s head. Not Misha. Not his father. Not fifteen years of failure and shame. Just ice. Just a puck. Just Leo, who showed up every morning at 4:58 and stayed even when Ilya gave him every reason to leave.
The knot in Ilya’s chest unraveled. Not completely—never completely—but enough that he could function. Enough that he could nod once, sharp and decisive, the signal that he was ready.
Leo skated backward, his eyes never leaving Ilya’s face. When he reached center ice, he picked up a puck and positioned himself. Waited for Ilya’s stick tap.
Ilya tapped. Left post, then right. Reset his stance. Felt something in his body click into place—muscle memory finally overriding mental chaos.
Leo fired.
The shot came fast, glove side, high. But this time Ilya saw it clearly. Time didn’t slow—that was fantasy, not reality—but his perception sharpened. He tracked the puck’s rotation, calculated trajectory, and moved. His glove snapped out with the certainty he’d been missing for weeks.
The puck hit leather with a satisfying thwump.
He held the pose—glove extended, body balanced, every part of him aligned correctly for the first time in too long. Then he looked at Leo.
The rookie was grinning. Bright and genuine and so completely unguarded that something in Ilya’s chest clenched. “There he is,” Leo said, and his voice carried pride and relief and something else Ilya didn’t want to examine. “That’s my goalie.”
