Page 13 of Two for Roughing

Baba kept on, steady as a metronome, morning and evening, and he never said anything about Damir not joining him. Baba’s belief that Allah would forgive him for missing out on three of the five daily prayers—if he apologized and explained that Russia did not make time for him to stop work and pray when he needed to—was as steadfast as the rise and fall of his body, forehead to floor and up again. It had seemed very important when Damir was young and thought the only way faith could count was if you did every part of it exactly right. As a teen, Damir thought it was stupid to put so much stock in the forgiveness of a God who couldn’t even be bothered to make Baba’s life a little easier, to make the country he lived in inclined to accept him.

Nowadays, they didn’t talk, relying on Mama to pass greetings back and forth during her weekly phone calls to Damir.

Going to the mosque alone as an adult and praying with a large group of strangers felt like a lie. Damir did not apologize for missing all the prayers between last Friday and now like he used to when he was younger. He did not think Allah would care about the missing prayers, and he did not want to know if he could be forgiven for everything else. Damir wasn’t sure he wanted forgiveness for the crime of being himself.

After their prayers ended, there came a phase where everyone mingled, chatting about their weeks and the weather and politics and their children. Damir stayed long enough to talk to a few of the boys who accompanied their fathers, signing autographs and giving generic advice about working hard in school. He heard a few men his age talking about their jobs and how difficult it could be to navigate clueless coworkers making racist assumptions. For a moment, Damir paused and considered joining them, sharing his own experiences. But no one wanted the millionaire hockey player to complain about how it hurt his feelings to be misunderstood by his fans. He gave them a tight smile and left.

He took a longer route home and stopped by a halal grocery store for vegetables. The tomatoes were better than in the big American stores. By the time he got home, Ketchup had already left for whatever his evening plans were, including, apparently, helping Rocky hook up—an awful concept.

This left Damir alone with his thoughts, which meant he pulled his phone out after three-and-a-half minutes of standing around in the empty, dark kitchen.

Good thing he had decided early on that alcohol wasn’t for him. He was shit at resisting temptation.

Damir had only been back on Reddit for a moment when he received a message from Brianna, the team’s PR manager. This was unusual enough to pique his interest, so he tabbed over.

Brianna: Hi, just wanted to touch base about some of the less savory social media commentary following your hit on Kilian Howard, especially with the second game against San Francisco coming up next week. Is the Islamophobia something you want to address, or would you rather we continue deleting what we can and declining to comment?

Address the Islamophobia? How would Damir even do that? If he went on camera and asked very nicely for people to stop calling him a terrorist, he would be labeled a whiner and an ingrate by most hockey fans. He didn’t want to imagine the comment section on a video “addressing the Islamophobia.” Damir was already publicly a minority without having ever mentioned it to an English-speaking journalist. It would get worse if he himself thematized it. And what if he got outed? He liked to think he was careful, keeping his hookups largely confined to discreet clubs or old friends in Russia where his partners had as much to lose as he did. But anything could happen. If he spoke out about being Muslim in American professional sports now, being outed later would be career suicide. Damir was not naïve enough to believe other Muslims would stand by him.

No, America was lonely enough without painting a giant target on his back.

He ignored Brianna’s message. The living room needed cleaning. Ketchup never remembered to return things to where they belonged, so Damir tidied up before dusting the shelves, wiping down the coffee table, and folding the blankets on the couch.

When he finished, he surveyed the room.

He’d done the bathroom on their last off day. It was too late to vacuum without annoying the downstairs neighbors.

His phone still beckoned on the gleaming kitchen countertop. Damir swiped away from the confusing text and opened Instagram. A red number blinked at him under the field marked “message requests,” but he knew what it hid: pictures of naked women and death threats from Sea Lions fans. He ignored them and scrolled down his inbox (not even very far; no one who actually knew him tried to get in touch via Instagram) to find the thread he was looking for.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Reaching out to Howard didn’t strike him as a smart move, but neither did feeling lonely, worthless, and lost when he earned millions for playing hockey. Damir had grown tired of his own melancholy. And a hot man who wanted on his dick and had as much to lose as him if anyone found out was as good a way as any to take his mind off it.

ddenisov88: Did I miss my chance to repeat what we did last winter?

Chapter Three

Stats don’t lie: Howard’s SOG are down, his turnover rate is up, and his plus-minus is at a pretty pathetic negative 2. I know this guy looked good in Juniors, but it’s becoming increasingly clear he’s the weak link on the Sea Lions’ otherwise decent roster this year. How much can we really blame the coaching conspiracy (still can’t believe that happened, lol) and how much is just him?

Top comments

puckpuckstick: yeah, Howie seemed promising last year, but either the Sea Lions’ system isn’t working for him, or he isn’t working for it

phileastonfanclub: sure, but Howie’s on an ELC, trading him doesn’t give us cap relief or, if he keeps playing like this, anyone valuable in return. Send him down.

sealionsfan8216: I know hockey is a business and all, but Howie turned twenty less than six months ago. Let the kid develop.

Jefferson_h: @sealionsfan8216—Kids need to grow up sometime!

(From “The Howard Problem,” posted to r/sf_sealions on reddit.com, 10/11/2025)

“Do you know why I wanted to talk to you?”

Kilian hunched his shoulders and sank deeper in his chair. “Because I’ve been playing like shit.”

“Got it in one.” Lindy smiled broadly at him as if she was proud, when the whole reason he got called into her office proved that she was not. “Why?”

Kilian shrugged.