you know what is real

“Party’s inside”.

Like, how exactly did this conversation go???

"My name is Andrew Minyard and I am in the team of delinquents your son is a part of. Matt is using drugs and my brother is an ex-addict so I cant have him near your son for risk he might relapse. So my plan is: I am gonna give your son a non addictive drug that will cause a horrible reaction when mixed to the shit he has already taken. It will leave him miserable for at least a week. If he doesnt die, he will be clean by the end. Do I have your authorization to proceed?"

This must have been the phone call of the century, because WTF

The worst is Randy going like "By all means, go on. Offer drugs to my son"

What I would give to have an extra chapter just narrating their talk. This must have been hilarious.

Andrew Minyard character of the century. He will ask for your mom's authorization before drugging you. If you dont have a mom then he will just drug you, but If you do, he will ask her.

What a fucking icon.

Initially, he's too worried about how the conversation between his wife and his son is going to really think too much about the enormous hockey player opposite him. But after a few moments he realises that it's too quiet.

It's not that he's expecting Rozanov – Ilya – to be as loud and showboaty as he is in interviews, but he's definitely not expecting the man to be intently staring into his glass like it holds all the secrets of the universe, not moving a single muscle. David is sure this isn't just normal meeting-the-parents nerves. It's terror, like Ilya is scared to do or say anything. Like he's scared it'll provoke David or something.

And suddenly Ilya doesn't seem like an enormous hockey player at all – just a scared kid in a situation he didn't plan for or expect anymore than his son did. After all, David has also accidentally outed him.

He regards Ilya for a moment before clearing his throat.

"So, Ilya, what do you like to eat?"

Ilya's head snaps up and his eyes meet David's.

"I'm sorry?" He says it carefully, like he's waiting for it to be a trick question, and David's heart gives a little pang. What has happened to this kid to make him so suspicious and anxious?

"What's your favourite thing to eat?" David asks with a smile, making sure his voice is as calm and gentle as possible. It feels a bit like he's trying to coax a scared and cornered animal out from under a car. "I think you and Shane should stay for dinner. Since I think we'll be seeing more of you from now on, I'd like to know what kind of food you enjoy so that we can make it for you when you visit. So what can I get you? Burgers? Pasta? We have a pizza oven if you'd like a pizza?"

"Pasta," says Ilya, the corners of his mouth turning up in an encouraging way. "If it's like the pasta Shane makes, I think I will really like that."

"Pasta it is then," says David, smile growing at the way Ilya's shoulders settle. He resolves right then to make sure that Ilya will never feel this terrified in his home again. "Want to help me get it started? Beats sitting here worrying about how the conversation outside is going, right?"

"Right," says Ilya with the first real smile he's ever seen from him. And David sees it then – sees the man that Shane must have seen beneath the bravado, beneath the act.

Le Gasp!

his things.

But Southern Ohio had a hockey rink, and hockey ended up saving them all. And now Cliff gets to travel, and pay his mothers mortgage, and send his sister through med school, and collect tiny, cheesy magnets for his fridge.

When Roz first came over to his place, he asked Cliff about almost every single one. Why he picked the Space Needle over Mt. Ranier, why he doesn't have the Hollywood sign, what this landmark on the Winnipeg one was. Roz was good at this, at reaching out, connecting. He was really bad at being reached out to.

The next fall, Roz came back from Russia with a magnet to add to his collection, "Moscow" written underneath a building. When Cliff asked what the building was, he explained it was the Bolshoi Theatre, and how his mother would take him and his brother to go see the ballet, and how he pretended it was boring but really, he always thought it was amazing.

Seven months later, Cliff was grabbing a drink for a girl he invited over, when he realized the Moscow magnet was missing. He panicked, and with no explanation to his date, quickly dropped to the floor and started grabbing behind the cabinets, under the fridge. He audibly exhaled when he felt the rubbery edges of it tucked up against the floorboards, and nothing felt right until it was back, stuck to the fridge with the rest of them.

I think David started noticing Yuna when she routinely started showing up to McGill's hockey practices - and of course he noticed her, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. And I'm certain he showed off a lil every time he spotted her, doing showy trick shots that weren't actually practical during a real game but looked cool during practice. Eventually he worked up the nerve to skate over and talk to her in the stands, trying for nonchalant like "sOoo you like hockey? What do you think of my skating?" And then Yuna proceeded to make shredded wheat out of David's play style, I mean truly crushingly specific critiques. The guys on David's team who overheard Yunas monologue were wincing in sympathy on the sidelines, but their pity was unnecessary: from then on, David was down BAAAD. Little hearts were circling around his head at all times. David's college team would pantomime whipping noises every time he'd skate over to her in the stands but he didn't care cause he was in LOoOve~💕✨💕✨💕✨

Ilya: That’s what happens when she puts them on herself.