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Jackie sometimes thinks the few hours before dawn might be her favourite time of day.
It didn’t used to be—she’d been a night owl all through university, avoiding 8 a.m. classes like the plague, and, when she’d started her first 9-to-5, had struggled every morning to drag herself out of bed and onto the métro on time.
Then, when the twins were born, things like sleep schedules ceased to have all meaning. It didn’t really matter when she woke up at that point; she was just grateful to have gotten any sleep at all.
But once things had settled down a bit—and the girls had gotten a little older—Jackie had learned to love the early morning. The bird song and silence, the beauty of the first few rays of sun cresting on the horizon. The steady drip of the pourover, the scent of coffee rising from the glass brewer that inevitably summoned her husband to join her if he was home.
The comfortable, easy quiet of those sacred hours that they got to spend together, just the two of them.
“So,” Hayden says, breaking that quiet. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Dangerous,” Jackie teases, looking up from where she’d been bagging the twin’s lunches.
Hayden makes a face at her, so she leans over the counter, soothing the tease with a quick kiss that leaves her husband smiling by the time she pulls back.
“You’ve been thinking?” she prompts, walking over to the fridge to grab the juice boxes. There’s only apple left. She makes a face as she grabs two boxes. Ruby was certainly going to have things to say about that.
Jackie mentally crosses her fingers that Ruby wouldn’t open the bag until she was already at daycare, sparing her a full-on pre-drop-off meltdown. She tries not to feel guilty about the fact that she’s hoping to pass her daughter’s ire off onto the daycare workers (she doesn’t have to try that hard).
“Yeah,” Hayden says, but doesn’t add anything else.
Jackie turns, finding her husband looking uncharacteristically uncertain, staring down into the mug of coffee cupped in his hands as if searching it for answers. She frowns, walking back to the counter. Still, she doesn’t say anything, just tucks the juice boxes in the bags before zipping them shut. Giving him room to work through his thoughts.
“I just… I can’t stop thinking about Shane,” Hayden finally says with a sigh.
“Oh?” Jackie says, rounding the counter to take the barstool next to her husband. “Should I be jealous?” she asks, gently knocking her shoulder into his before picking up her coffee mug.
The joke achieves what Jackie was hoping it would—Hayden laughs, some of the uncertainty falling from his face. Jackie hides her smile behind her mug.
“No, no,” Hayden says. “Not like that. It’s just… it’s the whole situation with him and Lily.”
Jackie’s smile fades as quickly as it had appeared. The revelation of Shane’s sexuality—and his secret boyfriend—that had arisen from her husband’s attempt to show Shane how much he supported him and his trans girlfriend had been equal parts funny and sad. Funny, mostly for how badly her husband—and then Shane—had misread the situation. Sad, because, well.
She can only imagine how lonely it must be, for Shane. For Lily, whoever he was.
Hayden glances at her, his eyes scanning her face. She can see the sadness she feels reflected back at her in his eyes. She knows, from their previous conversations about the same topic, how much her husband wanted to find some way to make the situation more bearable for Shane.
There was only so much they could do, though, with Shane remaining so tight-lipped about anything to do with his mysterious boyfriend. With his refusal to tell them his real name, much less introduce them to him. With the way that he seemed to think that even knowing that his boyfriend lived in Boston was already too much information.
“I was thinking,” Hayden says slowly, carefully, “that it might be nice to add Lily to the WAG group chat? He couldn’t come to events or anything still, and he’d have to go by Lily, but it might be… nice? A way for him to— to be a part of things, that would still let him and Shane keep his real identity a secret.”
Jackie sits back in her seat, taking a sip of coffee as she considers her husband’s proposal.
It wasn’t a terrible idea. It’d involve lying to all the other WAGs, but Jackie wasn’t too bothered by that. If Shane ever decided to come out, they would either understand or they wouldn’t—a line that would probably pretty closely mirror those who would be okay with Shane being gay and those who wouldn’t. And those who wouldn’t—well, fuck them anyway.
Jackie was pretty sure she already knew who would be good with it and who wouldn’t, and she couldn’t say she’d be sad for an excuse to stop talking to the ones who wouldn’t.
“That does sound like it might be nice,” Jackie finally says, smiling when Hayden immediately sits up straighter at her approving words. A smile growing on his own face in response to hers.
“Yeah?” Hayden checks anyway.
“Yeah,” Jackie says, tilting her head to the side as she rolls the idea over in her mind a few more times. “As long as Shane and Lily are both comfortable with it, I think it could be good for both of them. If you get his number from Shane, I can text him and check—he does know that we know about him, right?”
Hayden frowns. “I think so?” he says, but it sounds more like a question. “Or— I guess I just assumed that Shane would have told him. I don’t know.”
Jackie hums. “Okay, so check with Shane about what he’s told him,” she says, “and if he has, we can see if they’d be okay with sharing Lily’s number with me.”
“Sick, okay, yeah, I can do that” Hayden says. He raises his mug up to clink against the side of hers; a tiny, private celly for their plan.
Jackie only manages to take one more sip of coffee before the sound of footsteps running down the hall comes from above them—impressively loud, for how small the body they belong to is. A moment of silence, and then a voice yells something indistinct—again, impressively loud. She can’t actually tell from this distance, but she’d bet Hayden’s entire signing bonus that it was Ruby.
Hayden groans, and Jackie laughs at him, even though she kind of feels like doing the same. Hopping down from her seat, she presses a quick kiss to her husband’s cheek.
“Love you,” she says, before she starts to head towards the stairs, bracing herself for whatever it was that was going on—there were now two voices shouting back and forth, so at least she didn’t have to worry about getting Emma up.
“Love you more,” Hayden calls after her, and Jackie privately rolls her eyes even as she smiles.
Hockey players—they just had to turn everything into a competition.
“Hey,” Hayden says to her a week later, voice tight in a way that he was clearly trying to hide. “I got Lily’s number from Shane.”
He hands her a piece of paper, but Jackie barely glances at it before her eyes return to her husband, instantly suspicious. She was pretty sure Hayden had been aiming for something along the lines of airy and casual. She was also pretty sure that he already knew just how badly he’d missed the mark, given how he was now studiously avoiding meeting her eyes.
Jackie narrows her eyes at her husband.
Hayden shifts from foot to foot, still avoiding her eyes.
Jackie crosses her arms.
Hayden looks at the ceiling. At the counter. At the plant slowly dying on the windowsill, the one that Jackie cannot figure out for the life of her if it needs more water or sunlight or what. Back at the ceiling.
“Okay, so Shane didn’t give it to me,” Hayden blurts out, giving in without even a word from Jackie.
It’d be embarrassing how bad he is at holding out on her, if it wasn’t so incredibly endearing. And a bit reassuring—she knows her husband loves her, trusts him completely. But she’s heard enough drunken confessions from other WAGs about their boy’s suspected or confessed cheating that she doubts that she’d be entirely able to prevent any doubt from creeping into her mind year over year, roadie over roadie, if not for the fact that Hayden absolutely cannot hide a single thing from her.
“How did you get it then?” Jackie asks.
Hayden looks down at his feet, mumbling his reply. Jackie only catches about half of it, but it’s enough.
“You what?” she asks, incredulous.
Hayden throws up his hands, defensive. “Look, you know he’d never give it to me—he’s still so fucking cagey about Lily, even though I know he’s a dude now.”
“So you used Shane’s face to unlock his phone while he was asleep?” Jackie asks, disbelieving.
Hayden sets his jaw stubbornly, not backing down.
“He wouldn’t have given it to me,” he repeats. “This way, you can reach out to Lily directly, and check with him if he’s okay with it.”
“And you don’t think he’ll tell Shane that he’s randomly heard from his teammate’s wife?”
“No, I’m sure he will,” Hayden says, looking almost… embarrassed?
“Ah,” Jackie says in a sudden wave of understanding, “you’re trying to dodge having to confess to Shane directly.”
“I’m not dodging,” Hayden dodges.
Jackie shakes her head, not quite able to completely tamp down on the smile creeping across her face. Watches her husband relax as he catches sight of the expression.
“You’re ridiculous,” she says anyway, pointing at him with the hand still holding the paper, now slightly crumpled.
Hayden shrugs, smiling freely now that he knows he’s not in trouble.
“Maybe,” he says. “You love me anyway, though.”
“God knows why,” Jackie says. She looks down at the paper, sighing. “Fine,” she concedes, because this whole thing will truly never go anywhere if she waits for Hayden and Shane to pull it together and actually talk. “I’ll text him.”
She pauses, pointing again at Hayden—the gesture both a threat and a promise.
“But I’m throwing you right under the bus if either of them are even a little bit upset about it.”
“Fair enough,” Hayden says, now fully, unapologetically, grinning.
Jackie shakes her head.
Ridiculous, she thinks.
Jackie spends another week trying to figure out the right thing to say to start a conversation with someone that, technically, she has not at all been given permission to contact. She fills a note in her phone with draft after draft, opening message after opening message, ranging from simple hellos to entire paragraphs.
Fuck it, she finally thinks, sitting on her couch in the middle of the afternoon, staring down at her phone. The girls were down for a nap; this was as good a time as any for her to finally bite the bullet. And clearly overthinking it wasn’t getting her anywhere.
She types quickly, and hits send before she can change her mind.
Jackie: Hi Lily!
The reply is near instantaneous, coming before she has the chance to even begin typing a follow-up message introducing herself.
617-81O-1221: what
617-81O-1221: who is this?
Okay. Not the strongest start, but it was fine. She could turn this around, easy.
Jackie: Jackie Pike
Jackie: my husband got your number from Shane
Jackie: sorry if this is weird, but I just wanted to reach out, say hi
Jackie: I don’t know if Shane would have mentioned that I heard about you from Hayden?
617-81O-1221: no, he did not
617-81O-1221: he told Hayden about me?
Shit. Shit.
Jackie is struck with an abrupt and painful awareness of just how blind she’s flying here. Fuck. She should have made Hayden actually talk to Shane—or hell, she should have just talked to Shane herself.
It’s too late to back out now, though.
She types as fast as she can, praying as she hits send that she’s not unintentionally throwing a grenade straight into the middle of Shane’s relationship.
Jackie: he told him that he was gay and that you’re his boyfriend, but he didn’t tell him your real name or anything
Jackie: hence, Lily
Jackie: sorry, I thought Shane would have told you
The reply is longer coming this time, long enough that Jackie begins to bounce one leg, nerves building in her stomach.
617-81O-1221: is okay
617-81O-1221: he gave Hayden my number?
Jackie leans back onto the couch, breathing out a long, relieved breath. She reads and then re-reads Lily’s reply. It’s a small thing, the missing pronoun, but it’s enough to make her wonder if Lily might be ESL.
Maybe he was originally from Montréal? It would certainly help explain how Shane ended up with a boyfriend in Boston, when he’d never, as far as Jackie knew, spent any significant amount of time in the city. It wasn’t exactly like they had a ton of leisure time to go out and meet people when they were playing there, aside from the partying Jackie knew the team liked to sometimes do after games. And given Shane’s careful guarding of his sexuality, she doubted he’d be willing to pick up a guy while anywhere even vaguely in the vicinity of his team.
He might go out by himself, of course, but Jackie had a hard time picturing Shane hitting up a gay club even somewhere as disinterested in hockey as like, Phoenix, much less a big hockey city like Boston.
Whatever. That didn’t matter right now. She could ask later, maybe, if this whole thing didn’t end with Lily just blocking her.
Jackie had a confession to make first.
Jackie: not exactly
Jackie: Hayden may have stolen it from his phone
Jackie pauses for a second, trying to decide what to say next—how the fuck was she going to explain her husband’s decision, her decision, without freaking the poor guy out?
A slight sense of panic begins to flare to life in her stomach, growing with each second that goes by without her sending another message. Shit, why had she spent so long workshopping her opening? This is what she should have been worrying about.
She types quickly, rushing to send another text before any more time can pass.
Jackie: but not maliciously, I swear!
Okay. That was better. Maybe. It at least hopefully would let the guy know that they weren’t psychopaths who were planning on like. Cyberstalking him or something.
It’s still not an actual explanation though, and she needs to explain, quickly. Typing rapidly, she doesn’t let herself reread anything before hitting send.
Jackie: we were just talking about you and Shane and how it must be kind of lonely for both of you to have to hide your relationship from everyone and never be able to be out in public together or anything
Jackie: and like, as the wife of a hockey player, I can’t imagine what it would feel like to not be able to cheer for my husband in public, much less be excluded from all the WAG chats and meet ups
Jackie: Hayden and I both love Shane a lot, and want to be able to be here for him, and support him and his relationship, especially because you can’t be public or talk about it with anyone else
Jackie: I know I’m making a lot of assumptions, but I just wanted to reach out, in case you were feeling idk, isolated? or anything like that
Jackie: and because I’d love to get to know you, if you’re comfortable with that! you’re so important to Shane, and such a big part of his life
Jackie: sorry if this is all totally off base, I know this is kinda out of the blue
Jackie looks down at the huge block of blue on her side of the screen, and makes a face at herself. Still, for all that she’d just sent Lily a wall of text, at least it provided a full explanation for why she was texting him out of nowhere. And hopefully would let him know—and help him to believe—that they only had good intentions.
And if not, well.
She could still always blame the whole thing on Hayden.
There’s no immediate reply, and Jackie’s leg resumes its earlier bouncing. She rereads everything she just sent as she waits, making useless mental edits as she goes. Christ, she really just dumped all of her thoughts out, hadn’t she?
God, she’d probably scared Lily off for good. He probably thought she and Hayden were total weirdos and had already blocked her. Or he was pissed off at how presumptuous they’d been, and was calling Shane right now to tell him about how they’d been getting all up into his private business, and then Shane would be mad at them too.
Or, shit, if he was ESL, maybe he was struggling to read through it all?
Fuck, she really should have written out a real explanation in advance, even if it would have probably taken her a full month to draft.
Once again, Jackie curses herself for letting Hayden talk her into this.
She’s only brought out of her spiral when her phone buzzes in her hand, the screen lighting up with an incoming text. Straightening, Jackie quickly swipes to unlock her phone even as it vibrates with another message, and then another.
617-81O-1221: I don’t know about that
617-81O-1221: but is very kind of you
617-81O-1221: you are not wrong
617-81O-1221: is lonely, keeping secrets
Jackie frowns down at her phone. The confirmation is heartbreaking on its own, but it’s the first reply that’s really tripping her up.
She doesn’t know exactly which of her many messages it was in response to, but she has a sinking feeling that it was about how important he was to Shane. Surely Lily knew that, though? She’d never actually seen Shane in a relationship, but he was such a sweet, kind guy beneath all the hockey robot stuff. She couldn’t imagine him dating someone and not letting them know how much he cared about them.
Jackie can’t ask though. Not right now, when she was more focused on her feeling of relief than anything else. Lily clearly hadn’t blocked her, and though there was still a chance that Jackie would be getting a pissed-off phone call from Shane later, nothing that Lily had said indicated that he wanted her to stop talking to him.
She takes her time with her next messages, carefully considering what she wants to say.
Jackie: I’m really sorry to hear that, I can only imagine how hard it’s been for both of you
Jackie: I want you to know that I’m here for you, any time you want to talk
Jackie: about this ofc, but also just in general
Jackie: I really do care about Shane, and want you both to be happy. and I’d love to be a support for you, as someone who at least gets the hockey partner side of things. if that’s something you’d want
Jackie holds her breath as she waits for Lily to reply. This time, she doesn’t have to wait long.
617-81O-1221: okay
617-81O-1221: thank you
Jackie lets out a breath, long and slow.
Okay. Okay.
Tapping the number at the top of the screen, Jackie navigates to the new contact screen. Lily, she types, then hesitates, finger hovering over the Done button.
Switching to her web browser, she searches photos of lilies, scrolling down the page, looking for the prettiest one. She pauses on a beautiful photo of a single yellow, black-speckled flower—colours that immediately remind her of Boston, if only for the familiar, hated jerseys of the Raiders. Smiling to herself at the private joke, she saves it to her phone, then uploads it to the contact photo. Hits save.
The rest of the contact details were blank, but that was okay. Maybe one day she’d be able to add more, filling in the gaps, little by little.
For now, this was more than enough—a single bright string, stretching across the darkness.
Jackie’s already typing as she rises from her seat in the lower bowl of the practice arena, the twins racing ahead of her. She yells after them to slow down before one of them trips and breaks something, then hits send.
Jackie: if you talk to Shane tn, pls know that the bruise on his face was NOT Hayden’s fault
Lily: this is suspicious text to get
Lily: what happened?
Jackie: the boys were acting like idiots
Lily: ah
Lily: typical for hockey boys no?
Lily: pucks where brains should be
Jackie laughs as she grabs the back of Ruby’s jacket, pocketing her phone so that she can take her other daughter’s hand. She looks down at her now visibly rounded belly and despairingly thinks, not for the first time, that she’ll soon have more kids than hands. She hopes this one is maybe a bit less energetic than the twins, but has a feeling that they’re probably doomed, judging by the way that they seemed determined to unceasingly dance on top of her bladder.
She wouldn’t actually have it any other way, but.
It would be nice, sometimes, to feel like she’s even slightly in control, rather than simply weathering an endless storm.
At least she had a new friend she could vent about it to. Lily had proved surprisingly willing to be an outlet to all of the things she’d never actually say to her husband’s face, never telling her that she was being irrational or overreacting. Taking her side, sight-unseen, in any complaints she had.
It was kind of hilarious, given that he was her husband’s best friend’s boyfriend, that he was always willing to side with her. Maybe he just got it, without her having to say it, that she didn’t really mean most of it. And the parts that she did mean, she just needed to get off her chest—just needed to say them to someone, that none of them were actually that serious or things that she needed to talk to Hayden about.
Well. Maybe not none of them, but Lily had been good about that to. Gently encouraging her to talk to Hayden when she needed to with a kindness that she’d been a bit surprised by at first. Though she’d eventually decided it made sense—of course Shane would date someone who was as sweet and thoughtful as he was.
Jackie: is Shane skating a bit weird tonight or is it just me?
Lily: is my fault
Jackie: what?? what happened??
Lily: is sex injury
Lily: fuck him too good 😔
Jackie: LILY
Lily: my bad 😔
Lily: is okay. st. louis is terrible team.
Lily: defensemen like pylons
Lily: even Metros can beat them easy
Jackie: wow.
Jackie: “even the Metros”
Jackie: so rude
Jackie: where’s your loyalty Lily??
Lily: I am loyal to Shane, not mediocre hockey team he plays for
Jackie: boooooooooo
Lily was still refusing to let her add him to the WAG group chat.
She understood it, she did, but she still couldn’t help but check in, every once in a while. What had started as her not wanting him to feel so alone quickly turning into her wishing that the other girls could get to know him. He was just so… fun to talk to. Quick, with sharp chirps despite his occasional struggles with English.
Still, despite his refusal to let her add him to the group chat, the other girls had inevitably started to learn about him. Not from her, not directly, but when she’d told him that Naomi was pregnant, he’d insisted that she pass along her baby registry, had badgered her for an address to send flowers to when Kaylee’s mom had died.
So. The girls knew that Shane had a girlfriend named Lily, and had accepted Jackie’s explanation of her absence from the group chat—that she worked for a rival hockey team’s front office and couldn’t see the insider info they texted each other—easily enough. They’d also all gone along with Jackie’s attempt to get them to swear not to tell their husbands and boyfriends about that, though of course Jackie had no way of knowing if any of them broke that promise.
The fact that Shane had yet to call either her or Hayden to yell at them did seem like a positive sign, though, that that particular tidbit hadn’t spread around the team.
Jackie was still pretty pleased with herself, to be honest, for coming up with that lie.
Jackie: the girls loved the cookies
Jackie: <img>
Lily: cutest girls in whole league!!
Lily: I am glad they liked them, pryaniki was my favourite as child 🥰
Jackie: thank you again!! it was so sweet of you to send them gifts, you didn’t have to ❤️
Jackie: though I’m not sure the Rozanov shirseys were really necessary
Lily: what? you do not want your girls to look up to best player in league?
Lily: you wait, they grow up watching him, become big hockey stars themselves
Jackie: 😒
Jackie: I’m so sure
Jackie: and I’m so sure it had nothing to do with knowing how much you know Hayden would hate it, right?
Lily: Jackie, I am hurt
Lily: such cruel accusations
Lily: how mad was he?
Jackie: aaaaaand there it is
Jackie: they’ve refused to wear anything else for the last four days
Jackie: I think Hayden’s about ready to pull his hair out
Lily: 😈
Jackie feels like she’s going to throw up.
Shane’s down on the ice. Shane’s down on the ice, and he’s not getting up.
Even Rozonov looks worried, circling where Shane is lying on the ice, horribly still, ignoring the ref trying to push him away. He’s yelling something, but she can’t hear it from this distance. She’s vaguely aware, too, of her husband getting into it with Marleau, but it doesn’t seem to be anything more than a scuffle, and she can’t quite convince herself to pay attention to it, not when Shane still isn’t moving.
It’s not until the paramedics come out onto the ice that Jackie remembers.
Lily.
Fuck. Fuck.
Feeling like she’s going to throw up for an entirely different reason, Jackie stands, squeezing past Mia and Ashley, waving off their questions. She has her phone open and unlocked already, but she waits until she’s out of the stands before she hits the call button on Lily’s contact for the first time.
“Come on, come on, come on,” she mutters, pacing the empty concourse, listening to the distant, uninterrupted ringing with a growing feeling of dread.
She’s not even certain if Lily had been watching, but if he had been—God, she couldn’t even imagine how scared he must be right now. She wonders if she could somehow sneak him in to see Shane at the hospital. It would be a risk, but—
Jackie’s thoughts are interrupted by the click she had been dreading hearing—the one that indicates that she’s about to be sent to Lily’s voicemail. Her stomach sinks even further. Fuck, she doesn’t want to tell Lily about this over a voicemail.
She’s about to hang up and try again when the voicemail greeting starts to play, freezing her in place.
Hi. This is Ilya. I will never listen to your voicemail.
No.
No, that was—
That couldn’t be—
Jackie pulls her phone away from her ear, looking down at it, as if she might have somehow dialled the wrong number. As if she could have somehow accidentally hit the wrong contact, when she didn’t even have Rozonov’s number—
Except—
Lily, the phone screen says.
Lily. Ilya. Holy shit.
Holy shit.
Okay. Okay.
So.
Apparently she did have Rozanov’s number.
Jackie tries her best to project an air of purpose and confidence as she loiters outside of the visitor’s dressing room. Looking down at her phone screen and pretending to text whenever anyone else passed by.
The rink staff didn’t seem at all concerned by her presence though, thank God. None of them so much as gave her a second glance as they hustled past her, too wrapped up in whatever after-game work they were doing. Their recognition of her as a player’s wife is apparently enough to excuse her presence, even in an area of the arena that she has no reason to be in.
She’s so preoccupied with not getting questioned that she almost misses him.
Rozanov leaves the dressing room with his head down, long strides propelling him quickly down the hallway, away from her. He’s alone, and Jackie again sends up a quick prayer of thanks to God or the universe or whatever as she hustles to catch up with him.
“Rozanov,” she calls out once she’s close enough to not have to shout the name, but Rozanov just ducks his head, shoulders tightening.
He has no reason to recognize my voice, Jackie realizes. Speeding up, she ignores the twist in her gut as his back goes even more tense as the sound of her rapidly approaching footsteps. His own steps pick up to match hers, trying to outpace her.
Jackie glances behind herself and is relieved to see they’re still alone. She breaks into an embarrassing half-jog, quickly closing the remaining distance between them.
Rozonov starts speaking just before she can draw level with him, head still down. Not so much as glancing in her direction.
“No com—“
“Lily,” Jackie cuts him off with a whisper-shout, and Rozonov jerks to a stop, sudden enough that he sways slightly in place.
Jackie barely manages to stop herself from running into him, taking a stumbling step backwards as he spins to face her. His eyes are wide, the shock in them dwarfed by the fear covering his face like a mask. It’s not an unfamiliar look. She’d seen him wear it earlier—can recognize it now, in retrospect, as the same thing that had taken over his face on the ice.
God, she has no idea how he’d managed to keep playing after that.
“I’m Jackie,” Jackie says as quickly as she can, urgent with the need to abate whatever part of that fear she had caused by saying that name aloud.
Rozanov’s mouth opens and shuts, but no words come out.
“I called you—tried to call you,” Jackie says. “When Shane went down.”
For a long moment, Rozanov just stares at her.
“Oh,” he finally says.
“I’m sorry,” Jackie says. “I know you didn’t— I didn’t mean to find out.”
Rozanov shakes his head, but Jackie doesn’t know what part of that he’s responding to. She barrels forward anyways.
“I’m going to go to the hospital to check on Shane,” she says. “I wanted to see if you wanted a ride? His parents are out of town, so if we go right now, we can probably beat anyone else there. And I can keep everyone else out of the room until you leave.”
Rozanov—Lily, Ilya, Christ—continues to stare at her. Jackie belatedly wonders if that was too much English, too fast. She knew from watching his post-game interviews and from their texts that his grasp on English is pretty good, but it must be harder right now, still trapped in the shock and terror of watching Shane go down.
“I don’t… I cannot go,” Rozanov—Ilya—says. “Not right now. There is… there is no reason to, would be… is too risky.”
Jackie can almost feel her own heart break in response to the obvious pain on Ilya’s face, the way his voice is shaking, ever so slightly.
“But—” she starts, and something in Ilya’s face shifts, his eyes turning stony as all other expression is wiped away.
“I will go tomorrow,” he says. “Captain to Captain, yes? Check on him then.”
“But—” Jackie tries again, but Ilya is already shaking his head.
“I cannot,” he says, losing some of his composure, voice shaking slightly even as he stands firm in his refusal. “Shane… Shane would not want.”
He sounds like he’s breaking his own heart.
“He wouldn’t want to see you?” Jackie asks, frowning.
She doesn’t believe that. She can’t. Not with the way Ilya talks about Shane.
Ilya shakes his head again. “No,” he says, “he would not want risk.”
Jackie feels her stomach sink even as she forces herself to confront the truth of Ilya’s words. She— God, she knows how anxious Shane can get. Knows from Hayden just how scared he is about this getting out. And that was before she even knew the true scope of the secret Shane was keeping.
If this got out… fuck.
It could ruin them both.
“Okay,” Jackie finally says, and feels her heart break all over at the way that some of the tension leaves Ilya’s shoulders, sinking with relief. “Okay, but can I— are you okay?”
“What?”
“Are you okay?” Jackie repeats, then shakes her head at herself. “No, sorry, obviously— obviously you’re not. What can I do?”
“What?” Ilya says again.
“What can I do?” Jackie asks. “What do you need?”
“Wh— you are not angry?” Ilya asks. He’s lost the last of his stoniness—his voice small, lost.
“No,” Jackie says as quickly as she can. “No, of course not. Sweetheart. Of course I’m not angry at you.”
“But… I lied to you.”
Jackie shakes her head again.
“No,” she says, then, “okay, yes, you did,” she corrects as she continues, acquiescing to the incredulous look Ilya had shot at her, “but I understand why. And I was the one who put you in the position of needing to lie by reaching out to you in the first place.”
“So,” Ilya starts, speaking slowly, “you will not tell?”
“Never,” Jackie says, as fiercely as she can. “Ilya. Not ever. Not to anyone.”
Ilya lets out a disbelieving noise. “Not even to husband?” he asks, and Jackie again shakes her head.
“No,” she says, voice firm. “Not unless you and Shane both say it’s okay.” Attempting to force some levity into her voice, she adds, “unlike my husband, I’m actually capable of keeping some secrets to myself.”
Ilya’s lips quirk up into a broken half-smile that has a wave of relief rushing through Jackie.
“Okay,” he says. “I trust you.”
The words hit like a blow, as the true magnitude of how true that must be washes over her—of how incredibly precious, and incredibly dangerous, the knowledge she now held was.
“Thank you,” she says, and Ilya frowns.
“Why are you thanking me?” he asks. “I should be the one thanking.”
“For trusting me,” Jackie says, reaching out to grab his hand without thinking. He looks down, surprise obvious on his face, as she gives it a tight squeeze before dropping it. “I’ll text you instead, then? Let you know what I hear about Shane?” she asks.
Ilya looks even more surprised as he raises his head to again meet her eyes.
“You still want to talk to me?” he asks.
Christ. Jackie isn’t sure how many more times she can bear to feel her heart breaking for him—for them both.
“Of course,” she says, blinking back the tears now threatening at the corners of her eyes. “You’re my friend, Ilya. Of course I want to keep talking to you.”
The smile that creeps across Ilya’s face is far less crooked than his previous one. Shy and sweet, it makes him suddenly look at least five years younger.
“Okay,” he says, ducking his head again, but this time she can tell that it’s out of simple embarrassment. “Yes, that is— you are my friend too, Jackie.”
“Good,” Jackie says, nodding once, sharp and decisive, before reaching out and pulling Ilya into an impulsive hug. He stiffens for a second, before hugging her back, returning the tight squeeze she gives him.
“Good,” she says again when she lets him go. “I’ll text you,” she repeats, because she thinks its worth emphasizing.
“Okay,” Ilya says, his smile small, surprised and pleased.
Ilya Rozanov. Christ.
Shane really just couldn’t do anything by halves, could he?
Jackie: oh my god, the shirseys
Lily: 😈😈😈