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Shane was sitting on the couch in his parents’ home in Ottawa, fiddling with his thumbs since he still wasn’t allowed to look at screens for very long. His right arm still being in a sling made doing much else pretty difficult. He’d tried to get Mom to at least let him use his phone unsupervised for a little, but he should’ve known it would be a futile effort. He’d inherited his stubbornness from one of his parents after all, and it definitely wasn’t Dad. Although maybe she was finally relenting a little; he’d been caught texting someone (Ilya) last night after his game and she’d only gently chided him and reminded him to turn off the lights before going to sleep.
He was planning on watching Boston play in the playoffs tonight with his parents, so Mom had strictly forbidden him from screens for most of the day, on account of needing to stare at the TV screen for an extended period of time later. At the very least, Shane had managed to send Ilya a quick text wishing him good luck, even though it seemed likely that Boston was going to get knocked out of the playoffs tonight.
It had been surprisingly easy to convince his parents to follow the Boston games, despite it being only the second round of playoffs, so there were often multiple games being televised at once. Maybe it was because Montreal had gotten knocked out in the first round, which Shane still felt guilty about. Sure, there was no telling for sure that they would’ve beaten Detroit even with him there, but it certainly would’ve been a more competitive series, at least.
They’d seemed…different after his hospital stay, but Shane couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was or what had caused it. Maybe his near (but not really) brush with death had changed something about the way they viewed hockey. Reminded them that the sport they loved so much could just as easily take him out, one day.
And they’d asked very little about Rose. He’d even been caught texting Rose once or twice - she hated the new movie they had her shooting and Shane was her favorite backboard to complain off of - but they pretty much had left the conversation at how she was doing. Nothing about how they were doing. Had it been so obvious that his parents had already figured out they’d broken up?
Unfortunately, Shane remembered scant little about his time in the hospital. He’d been on so many different drugs and painkillers for so long that his memories of the time had kind of blended together into one big soup, letting him pull random fragments out every time he dipped a ladle in to try to remember something. He knew Ilya had visited and vaguely remembered asking Ilya if he would come to the cottage this summer, but not much else, including Ilya’s response. Mom and Dad had confirmed that Ilya had visited but couldn’t give much more detail. They probably hadn’t even seen him in the hospital and had only noticed his name on the visitors’ list.
By the time the game started, Shane was a bundle of nervous energy, sitting on the couch with his parents. Everybody thought that New York was about to knock Boston out of the playoffs tonight, but Shane was hoping that somehow Ilya would push through, despite playing with bruised ribs. Things didn’t look much better after New York scored a goal in the first 5 minutes of the first period.
“Rozanov is hurt,” Mom said, observantly.
“What makes you say that?” Shane asked.
His parents exchanged a brief look, its meaning lost on Shane, before she replied, “He’s protecting his ribs. You can tell by the way he was angled. Look,” she said, pointing at a replay of Scott Hunter checking him into the boards, “Right there. He turns away from the hit.”
Sometimes Shane was surprised at how observant his mother was, despite having never really had the knack to play hockey herself. But, she did this all the time, pointing out mistakes and players’ tendencies that sometimes even Shane hadn’t noticed. She would make one hell of a coach, if being a player (and a man, probably) weren’t more or less requirements to become one.
By the end of the second period, the writing was more or less on the wall. Ilya wasn’t playing especially well, looking a bit haggard on the ice. New York was already up 4-1, nearly insurmountable unless they all suddenly forgot how to hold their sticks or skate.
“I think New York is going to win the Cup,” Mom mused.
“How could you possibly know that?” Shane asked, although he had a feeling she could be right.
Scott Hunter had been playing exceptionally well this season, even for someone of his caliber. He’d often run into mid-season slumps and come out the other end playing maybe as well as he had been at the beginning of the season, but this year he had a fire under him. A mid-season slump had come, but almost immediately afterwards he’d played like a man possessed. He’d been on fire throughout the playoffs, making nearly 2 points per game against Boston.
“Your mother’s a witch,” Dad quipped, getting up to tend to something in the kitchen. She shot him an unimpressed look. “Alright, Boston’s lost. Let’s get the table set and eat.”
“Dad,” Shane said. Or, was all that he could say without making it too clear that he really wanted to watch this game until the end, even if Ilya lost.
“What, you want to sit there and watch Boston lose?”
“Oh, be nice, David,” Mom said, although she was getting up herself. “Rozanov visited Shane in the hospital, remember?”
“So we don’t hate him anymore, do we?” Dad said, his lips curled into a wry smile that reminded Shane a little too much of Ilya.
“Well, we hate him less, I suppose,” Mom replied.
Dad looked like he could barely stifle a laugh, Mom tapping him on the shoulder as she passed by him and walked towards the kitchen.
“Stop that,” she chided.
“Or what?” Dad replied, still barely keeping it together.
“Or I’ll cast a spell.”
[...]
Shane glanced at his phone as it buzzed, hopeful for a text from Ilya but instead seeing a text from Hayden. He felt a little guilty at that; Hayden was his best friend, of course, and although he hadn’t gotten injured like Shane had, the loss in the playoffs stung for him just as much. Both he and JJ had been texting him pretty frequently even though Shane couldn’t always reply right away on account of the concussion. He was still surprised that he hadn’t had to field questions about Rose from either of them, especially JJ.
Ilya also hadn’t texted much since Boston got knocked out of the playoffs a few days ago, which was fairly normal but also saddened Shane in a way that he’d never felt before. Ever since that night at the All-Star Game this year, since that phone call from Russia, things had felt different. He felt it, and he knew that Ilya did, too. Shane loved him, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to tell him, or anyone, really. He hadn’t even come out to his parents yet, even though he’d wanted to so badly.
And there was something about that day in the hospital that Shane just couldn’t quite place. He knew that Ilya had visited him, and that they’d talked about something, but everything was so hazy. Even still, there was a certain…brightness in his mind surrounding that time. Whenever he tried to remember what had happened then, Shane found himself feeling a little relaxed despite the frustration of being unable to recall any clear memories.
There was a knock at the door, which shook Shane out of his head. Had his parents been expecting visitors?
“Shane, sweetie, could you get that?” Mom called out from somewhere upstairs. “I’ve got my hands a bit full at the moment.”
“Sure Mom,” he called back, getting up from the couch in the living room.
Shane pocketed his phone and walked over to the door, briefly wondering where Dad had gone. When he opened the door, his heart stopped. Because Ilya Rozanov was standing right at his parents’ doorstep.
“Hello, moya lyubov,” he said sweetly. “How is your head?”
There was a pregnant pause where Shane must’ve stood there in shock, his mouth slightly agape as he lost the ability to use any of his bodily functions. Then Ilya moved to pull him into a hug, the physical contact shocking him back to reality. He pushed Ilya away from the door with his good hand, Ilya going along willingly, and closed the door as quietly as he could in his panic.
“Ilya, what are you doing here?” Shane asked, his voice barely contained. “How did you even get this address, did you find it online somehow?”
The softness in Ilya’s face morphed into a wicked grin, which didn’t make Shane feel any better.
“I got address from your mother, silly,” Ilya replied, without a hint of irony or sarcasm.
“My mother. You got. This address. From my mother.”
“Yes, she would not let me bother you about it. She is very worried about your brain, you know?”
If that was what Ilya was worried about, this wasn’t helping. Shane felt like his brain was short circuiting. He tried to find a joke in all of this, or some hint that Ilya was talking out of his ass like he always did, but for once Ilya just looked so earnest. He could feel panic rising in the back of his throat, trying to figure out how he could either get Ilya out of here unseen or explain to his parents somehow that this was all a mistake, Mom had texted a wrong number or something.
“You really don’t remember much from the hospital, do you, son?” came Dad’s voice from around the corner. He must’ve been working on something in the backyard.
“What should I remem–”
“David! Good to see you,” Ilya said, bringing Dad in for a hug. A hug that both parties did willingly. “Did you watch the games? Is too bad we lost, but maybe Scott Hunter needs to win a Cup before he turns into dust.”
“Yuna said the same thing, you wouldn’t be surprised to hear,” Dad said. “Well, not the turning into dust part, but she was probably thinking it.”
They both laughed, and Shane was shocked at how light and unrestrained Ilya sounded. It wasn’t his PR laugh, or the one he put on to joke around with teammates. He’d only ever heard that sound between the two of them, and even then only a scant few times. He was so relaxed, joyful.
“Um, can one of you tell me what in the world is going on?” Shane asked, blissfully unaware of how much he sounded like his mother.
Dad and Ilya exchanged an amused look before Ilya walked to Shane’s side, gently taking his good hand. Shane’s first instinct was to pull away, feeling exposed, but when he looked at Dad all he saw was fondness in his expression.
“Let’s go inside, yes?” Ilya said gently. “I would like to see Yuna as well.”
“Inside?” Shane asked dumbly, as if he hadn’t just been inside his parents’ house.
“Yeah, let’s all go inside,” Dad said. “I’m sure Yuna would be happy to talk, too.”
Mom was just coming downstairs as the three of them walked in, which made Shane’s hairs stand on edge. It was like all of his worst nightmares were coming true, but somehow everything was going wrong, not the way he expected and yet better than he could’ve ever hoped for. A dissonant feeling that only deepened as he saw her face light up upon seeing Ilya.
“Ilya! Glad you made the drive over,” she said, pulling him in for a hug. He planted a soft peck on her cheek. “David and I are making chicken parmesan tonight, special for you.”
“Chicken parmesan!” Ilya said giddily. “I’m so flattered that you remembered.”
“Of course, it’s our first time having you over, we need to make a good impression, right?”
Shane watched this interaction with a sort of detached interest, because none of it was computing properly in his brain, and he didn’t think it was his lingering concussion symptoms. They were making chicken parmesan for Ilya? Which was apparently something he greatly enjoyed? Shane didn’t even know that Ilya had a particular fondness for chicken parmesan. And she’d said ‘first time’, like they were expecting to see Ilya more regularly.
“Okay, maybe we should explain to Shane what’s going on before his brain explodes,” Dad said, patting him on the back.
They sat down at the dinner table, Shane and Ilya on one side and his parents on the other. Mom had made them all tea, which at least gave Shane something warm and solid to hold onto as he gripped the mug with both hands. Ilya looked over at him, uncertain, but Shane didn’t think he could meet his eyes. Ilya settled on bringing his arm around Shane but behind the wooden back of the chair he was sitting in; present and available, but not touching, just in case. Sometimes he hated how well Ilya could read his moods.
“Where can we start,” Mom mused, looking between Dad and Ilya. The mood had shifted considerably, no thanks to how brooding Shane must’ve looked.
“I think it’s obvious…you know, right?” Shane asked. “That I’m gay. And me and Ilya…”
Shane still didn’t know what to label whatever they were to one another, regardless of the fact that Ilya had shown up at his parents’ house. His parents, who had welcomed him in with open arms. They still hadn’t talked about it. He felt another pang of resentment for Marlow, because Shane had definitely wanted to talk about it that night, before he was injured.
“Yes,” Dad said. Then, more gently, “Shane you…you said a lot of things, while you were in the hospital. You really don’t remember any of it, at all?”
Shane racked his brain, trying to dredge up those bits and pieces of his memories. It still frustrated him how little he remembered from those few days, how little there was available for him to solidly grasp onto. Some memories were as clear as any other one, while other memories slipped away like trying to grab a bubble from the air.
“I remember…I do remember Hayden and JJ visiting, in the morning, I think. I also remember Ilya visiting,” Shane said, slowly. “I remember him telling me that Marlow felt bad, and I remember asking him if he would come to my cottage over the summer.”
“Anything after that?” Dad asked.
The question unsettled Shane. After? Had something happened after? “No, not really. I don’t even remember what Ilya’s response to my question was.”
Mom and Dad exchanged concerned looks. Ilya still hadn’t moved or said anything, as stiff as a statue in the chair beside Shane.
Mom sighed, giving Shane a sympathetic look. “Hayden and JJ left the room to meet your Dad and I, which must’ve been when Ilya went to visit you. Because when we all got back, Ilya was still in the room.”
Shane’s eyes widened, his mind running through all of the possible implications. His parents were weirdly comfortable around Ilya, and Ilya back. They knew Shane was gay. They knew that he and Ilya were…something. And both Hayden and JJ must’ve known, too.
“You…you told them?” Shane asked, turning to look at Ilya. Ilya wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“It’s not Ilya’s fault, Shane,” Mom said. “Hayden and JJ…ugh, I don’t want to phrase it like this, but…they pressed Ilya for more information. I get it, I do; we wanted to know why he was in the room as much as your friends did. Ilya was being careful not to say anything, but then…”
Mom looked at Dad, silently asking him for help. Dad had always been the one who was better with emotional things, even with all of the PR speaking skills that Mom had built up over the years. Dad looked conflicted too, but Shane was pretty sure he understood what they were trying to ease him into.
“But then I said something, because I was drugged out of my mind,” Shane said flatly. “That’s what happened, right?”
“Yes,” Dad admitted, his eyes soft. “But it’s not your…’fault’, right? It’s not anybody’s fault. It was just a…product of the circumstances.”
“And you guys didn’t, like, freak out or anything?”
“Well, it was definitely a shock at first,” Mom said. “I didn’t even imagine that you and Ilya had ever talked off of the ice if it wasn’t at a press conference, maybe at the All-Star Game. But then it was…nice. To hear you speak so earnestly about this kind of thing, to know that you cared so much about Ilya.”
Shane didn’t know if he wanted to know what things he said about Ilya. He still wasn’t sure that he knew now what kind of things he could say about Ilya. It was good that nobody seemed to be taking this as badly as he’d anticipated, but…
“So why didn’t you tell me, then?” Shane asked, his voice a little sharper than he’d intended. “It’s been like, a month since that happened and I had no idea.”
His parents exchanged looks again. Obviously they’d been unprepared for this kind of reaction. With the way both of them had greeted Ilya earlier, they’d been expecting this to go in a much happier, more fun direction. But Shane couldn’t help but feel somehow that he’d been betrayed. He was fucking this whole thing up as every cell in his body fought between that feeling of betrayal and the happiness that he should be feeling.
“That is my fault,” Ilya said, speaking for the first time.
Shane turned to look at him, just now realizing that Ilya had moved his arm from behind him. His hands were in his lap, his body turned slightly to finally face Shane somewhat, his shoulders bowed in. He looked smaller, somehow.
“I asked them not to say anything, because I wanted it to be a surprise, when I came here.”
Shane was torn. This should’ve been an incredibly romantic gesture, Ilya surprising him while he was injured and making the leap to spend time with his parents at their own home. Ilya was trying so hard to show that he cared, that he felt for Shane as more than just a hookup, someone to share a physical relationship with. But he couldn’t help but feel like everything had been ripped out of his control while he had no say in it, and now he was just expected to accept it.
His mind was spinning, trying to reconcile these two things together. He knew he should be happy, playing the perfect son and…boyfriend? Is that what Ilya wanted to be? But there was another part of him that was irrationally angry - was it really irrational? - that he couldn’t let go of. Maybe it was the way he’d been practically micromanaged by his parents while staying with them due to his injury. But Shane couldn’t help but feel that his choice had been taken away from him by something he couldn’t even blame. It might’ve even been easier if there had been a particular person that he could get upset with. Well, one that wasn’t himself.
Shane suddenly felt like he was either going to cry or start screaming. He stood up abruptly, his chair scraping loudly across the floor.
“I, um. I just need - I just need a moment,” he mumbled, already walking towards the stairs.
Shane made his way to his childhood bedroom, closed the door behind him as he entered, and plopped himself down on the bed. Only then did the tears he barely even knew he was holding back come. There were just too many emotions going through his mind that Shane didn’t really know what to do with.
He knew logically that he should be happy, but was having a hard time actually feeling that elation. He felt terrible for his reaction; Ilya had looked so excited to see him but at the table just now he’d ended up looking nearly as closed-off as he did when Shane had first asked him about his family, years ago. His parents had clearly been incredibly excited to see Ilya and about seeing the two of them together in a safe environment. That’s how they were expecting everything to go: safe, happy, and excited.
But if there was anything that could upset Shane on any given day, it was losing control. He knew that it was nearly unhealthy, how deep his need to feel in control of every aspect of his life ran. Getting into this accident had only heightened those feelings, his bodily autonomy and chance at another Cup having suddenly been taken away from him. He’d had plans - well, sort of - on how these things were going to play out. He wanted to invite Ilya to the cottage, figure out what they were and how they were going to do it, if Ilya wanted to continue, then maybe, maybe he would come out to his parents. At what point this plan involved introducing them to the idea of him dating Ilya, he didn’t know. All of those things had happened without his knowledge or consent, which had left a bitterness in his mouth that ought not to be there. It was just too much being sprung on at him at once, with the expectation that he would be happy about it.
There was a knock at the door, and Shane wasn’t sure which of the three other people in this house he hoped it was.
“Shane,” came Ilya’s unmistakable voice. “Are you okay? Can I come in?”
Shane felt, with a pang of guilt, that he actually didn’t want Ilya to come in, but now he was trapped in the very room he’d sought solace in. Somehow, he knew Ilya would listen to him if he said no.
He wiped his eyes as best he could and walked to the door, opening it tentatively. Ilya was standing there, and for once he wasn’t trying to look casually indifferent, like he didn’t give a fuck about anything or anyone. His eyes focused on Shane with genuine concern, mixed with something that he couldn’t quite decipher - remorse, maybe. God, this was why Shane loved him, wasn’t it? Ilya would never let anyone else see him like this.
“Please, um, come in,” Shane said, nearly a whisper. He opened the door wider and moved back to sit on the bed.
Ilya closed the door silently, with the care of a child trying not to wake up his parents while he snuck presents early on Christmas Eve. To Shane’s surprise, Ilya sat right next to him on the bed, the poor thing sagging under their combined weight.
Shane felt the need to talk first, to try to fix this. “I guess we should talk, right? Because I –”
“I’m sorry,” Ilya said softly.
Shane turned to look at him, but he was staring at the floor.
“I should not have kept this from you, or told your parents to do the same,” Ilya continued. “It was selfish of me.”
Despite how shitty he felt, Shane didn’t like the tone of Ilya’s voice, how sad he sounded. It reminded him too much of when they were talking about his family at the All-Star Game, when Shane finally learned why Ilya had always been so cagey around the topic.
“Ilya, it’s okay, really. I just –”
“No, is not okay. I knew that you did not remember much, although is even less than I thought. It feels like I…took advantage of you.”
Shane didn’t know what to do with this. He was glad that Ilya was validating his feelings, because he did feel like shit, but he didn’t like that Ilya seemed to be taking this so hard, blaming himself for everything that seemed to be going wrong here. He didn’t feel like Ilya was the one at fault, if there could be anyone.
“Ilya, you didn’t…take advantage of me,” Shane ventured. “I don’t…”
“But you do,” Ilya said back, quietly. “You feel like I took choice away from you, yes? Because I did not ask, told your parents not to say anything. You did not get to come out to them on your terms.”
Fuck. Shane wished that he had the same kind of emotional insight that Ilya had into him. Because of course he was right, even if Shane didn’t necessarily blame him alone for his feeling this way. He still understood the core of the issue. Maybe he could try validating Ilya’s feelings back?
“I do,” Shane conceded. “But I guess I’m more upset because I know I should be happy, but…it feels like that’s holding me back. That I feel betrayed, or something.”
Ilya nodded. “Betrayal. That sounds correct, probably.”
“But, maybe I overreacted? I know you only had good intentions, not because you were trying to make me feel bad.”
“I just…” Ilya trailed off. “I don’t ever want to be the thing that ever makes you feel like this, so sad and…betrayed.”
Shane internally cringed at the word; he probably shouldn’t have used the word ‘betrayal’, its weight obviously heavy on Ilya’s shoulders. Maybe he could use this as an opportunity to change the direction of this conversation. Because there was another reason why Shane felt so awful that they hadn’t touched on yet.
“...What do you want to be, Ilya? With me?” Shane asked carefully.
Ilya turned his face away. “Do you remember what else you said to me in the hospital? Anything else?”
“No, I really don’t. It’s just all so…hazy.”
Ilya nodded, but didn’t say anything else. He sniffled, making Shane look over, when saw a tear running down his cheek. He was trying to hide it from Shane, like he’d tried back in that Florida hotel room a few months ago, but Ilya just felt things too strongly. And sometimes things slipped through cracks in the walls he put up no matter how hard he tried to keep them hidden.
“Hey, Ilya, it’s okay,” Shane said, putting a hand on Ilya’s thigh. “I was on so many different drugs, I don’t really remember much at all. It’s not that important to me that I’m missing things from then...”
Apparently that wasn’t what Ilya needed to hear, because his whole body shuddered, and more tears ran down the one cheek that was visible to Shane. Fuck, he was fucking this up even more when Ilya had been the one trying to comfort him at first. Suddenly he felt a little sick, wondering if all the excitement that Ilya had shown earlier was him covering up his anxieties in a way that he was so good at. This hadn’t come from nowhere.
“Ilya, I…I don’t…” Shane stammered.
“You said you loved me, in the hospital,” Ilya croaked out, his voice breaking.
Shane’s heart stopped. “I…I did?”
“Yes. When Pike and Boiziau and your parents were all so unsure about me, that was what you said. Was so easy, the way you said it. It made me so happy, I wanted to pick you up and kiss you.”
Shane’s blood ran cold as Ilya recounted his time in the hospital that he couldn’t remember. Now he knew why Ilya was so remorseful and downtrodden. Even if Ilya hadn’t mentioned whether he felt the same way, the implication was obvious. He hadn’t just been excited for this, he’d been hopeful. All things considered, his parents probably had been, too.
“But I’m sorry, really,” Ilya continued. “I was too excited, I do stupid things. I did not think about how this would make you feel.”
Ilya stood up abruptly, still unable to look Shane in the eyes. He took a few steps to the door before stopping, looking somewhat like a kicked puppy.
“I will leave now, if you want me to go. I can find hotel in Ottawa, or…”
It had felt like this entire situation was slipping through Shane’s fingers, with himself, with his parents, and now with Ilya. But here it was, a chance. Ilya was offering Shane a lifeline, a way for him to let Ilya know where they stood, how he wanted to proceed. But even though it was presented as his way to let Shane decide, even Shane could tell that this was for him, too. Ilya was being vulnerable, offering Shane his heart on a platter.
“No,” Shane said forcefully, jumping up to his feet. “Please don’t go, that’s not what I want.”
Ilya didn’t move, but the tension still hadn’t left his shoulders. Shane wanted to just walk around to the other side of him and take his face in his hands, but he didn’t want to feel like he was forcing Ilya to do anything.
“What is it that you want, Hollander?” Ilya said, quietly.
In another context, Ilya using his last name like that might’ve even been hot. But now, his intentions were anything but. He was distancing himself, just a little bit, trying to protect himself in case whatever it was that Shane was going to say wasn’t what he’d hoped to hear. It saddened Shane to think of how easily Ilya put safeguards up like that, and saddened him even further that he’d seen enough of it to recognize it right away.
“I want…I want to spend the rest of my life with you, together,” Shane said, through the lump that was forming in his throat. “Sometimes so much it terrifies me. I’ve been denying these feelings from myself for so long that I don’t know what to do with them anymore. I can’t blame you, or me, or anyone, for it all spilling out when I was high on painkillers. It was agony, fucking killing me because I felt like my heart was going to burst, keeping it all in.”
Shane ventured to take a step forward, closing a little bit of the distance between them. Ilya still hadn’t turned around, and Shane could see in the shuddering rise and fall of his breaths that he must’ve still been crying. He hated this. He hated how Ilya had been conditioned from so young to never show his emotions.
“I love you, Ilya, drugs or not. I’ve loved you for longer than I was even able to admit to myself. I’m sorry that I freaked out, I really am. It was just…a lot to take in. But that doesn’t change the fact that I will always love you. I’ll always love only you.”
Shane placed a hand on Ilya’s shoulder tenderly, letting out a small sigh of relief as the tension in his shoulder seemed to melt beneath his grasp. He gently tugged on the shoulder, urging Ilya to finally turn to face him. Ilya turned to face him willingly, the expression on his face making Shane’s heart race. He just looked so relieved, like he’d been preparing for the worst, for Shane to tell him to get out and never contact him again.
“Ya tebya lyublyu. I love you, Shane,” Ilya said, his voice thick with emotion.
Ilya practically collapsed onto Shane, like he was a puppet whose strings had been cut, releasing all the tension in his body at once. A part of Shane wanted to yell at Ilya to be careful around his still-slinged arm, but Ilya managed to hold him in such a way that he landed on his good shoulder. They landed on Shane’s bed, probably a little bit too hard for the old thing, but it managed to stay upright. The two of them lay there, soaking in the moment as both of them let tears flow freely for probably the first time since they were kids.
They had to sit up before long, because the position they were in was really uncomfortable for Shane’s arm while in a sling, but they barely moved. Shane leaned on Ilya with his head in the crook of his neck, allowing Ilya to turn his head and plant kisses all throughout Shane’s hair. Shane wished that he’d had mobility in both arms right now so that he could reach up and run his hands through Ilya’s hair.
“I did not know you were so romantic,” Ilya said eventually. “Maybe you should write poetry, instead of being second best hockey player.”
Shane rolled his eyes, but he knew that this ribbing meant Ilya was in a better headspace. “Maybe I should. I had to be the first one to say ‘I love you’, didn’t I?”
Ilya sat up and gave Shane a knowing look. “You did not say it first.”
“Uh, I think I did, unless you were whispering it to yourself while you wouldn’t look at me.”
“No, not now. I said to you when I called you from Russia.”
Shane scanned through his memories of the phone call, coming up blank. There was a huge missing chunk when Ilya had spoken to him in Russian, of course. But then, he realized that Ilya’s ‘I love you’ in Russian just now sounded strikingly familiar.
“You said it in Russian?” Shane asked. Ilya nodded. “That doesn’t count! You don’t get to say you said it first, I didn’t understand it the first time.”
Ilya’s grin changed into something horrifically lovesick, looking almost alien on his normally-stoic features. “Wow, I love you so much,” was all he said.
[...]
Shane had managed to fall asleep in Ilya’s arms, the two of them somehow as comfortable as could be in a bed barely meant to hold one of them. A knock on the door woke him up, his rustling waking Ilya up, too.
“Hey boys,” came Dad’s voice through the door. “Dinner’s ready, don’t make your mother wait.”
Shane let out a deeply contented sigh as he sat up. It warmed his heart to hear his father refer to Mom as ‘your mother’ to both him and Ilya. Although his freak out earlier had meant he hadn’t gotten any explanation about how they’d managed to achieve such a familiarity with Ilya without Shane knowing. At least that was a good conversation to have over dinner.
He and Ilya walked into the dining room hand in hand, looking obviously much better than they had earlier. Shane’s parents looked pleased by the sight, the tension that they’d been holding during their conversation in the afternoon having melted away. The chicken parmesan smelled delicious; if Ilya liked it maybe he’d have to actually learn the recipe so that he could make it for him one day.
They’d eaten for a little bit and settled into comfortable conversation before Shane decided to ease into the conversation with something a little simpler.
“So,” he interjected into a lull in the conversation. “How did you know about Rose? Is that something else that I blabbed about while I was high?”
Mom gave him a good-natured smile. “Yes, sweetie. JJ was the one who brought up that you two were dating, something that you summarily rejected, without any consternation whatsoever.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Shane saw Ilya cock his head slightly. “Ah, like…anxiety, or…panic,” he explained.
Mom and Dad exchanged a fond look between each other.
“I see,” Ilya said. “Con-ster-na-tion? That is right?”
“Yes, and sorry Ilya,” Mom said. “Your English has really gotten so good. I can never tell which words you may or may not know.”
“Is okay. Shane does not use big words with me very often. Maybe he’s scared to confuse me, or his vocabulary is just not very good. I’m always happy to learn new English words.”
“What was that about my vocabulary?” Shane said. “At least I know the word ‘consternation’.”
“I hope you’d know that word, Shane,” Dad said. “I think it’s admirable that Ilya’s so dedicated to learning new words.”
“You’re taking his side?”
“I don’t think there are exactly sides in this discussion, son.”
“Is always like Shane to be so competitive, yes?” Ilya said. “He cannot let it go even for English language.”
They all shared a laugh as Shane let out a petulant huff. Even if they were kind of ganging up on him, he couldn’t help but feel amazed at how easy this conversation was. How easily they all laughed, joked, and shared banter with one another.
“How did..this happen?” He gestured between Ilya and his parents. “I know you all met at the hospital, but obviously there’s more to it than that. I didn’t even know that Ilya liked chicken parmesan.”
“Well, the parmesan part is easy,” Dad said. “Once we knew when Ilya was coming, Yuna just texted him to ask if there was any dish that he liked. To be honest, she was pretty relieved that he didn’t say some Russian dish we’d never heard of.”
“David!” she said, elbowing him in the arm. Dad gave her a teasing smile. “Anyway, the day after all of that happened, we asked Ilya if he’d come to dinner with us. You remember that restaurant, Alouette, downtown? They have those private rooms; we were able to get one of those.”
“Felt like an interrogation,” Ilya quipped.
“Well, in some ways, it kind of was, wasn’t it?” Mom said. “Even after what we saw in the hospital, we had to be certain.”
“Wow, and sharing a meal alone with Ilya Rozanov made you like him more?” Shane said through a mouthful of pasta.
“Mm. I made you like me, yes?” Ilya said. “And in much less…glamorous locations than a restaurant like that.”
Shane fought the urge to bury his face in his hands as he felt his cheeks heat up. He was mortified to hear both of his parents chuckle at what Ilya was implying. He knew that they weren’t total prudes, of course, but Shane didn’t think that he could ever joke about sex with them the way Ilya was doing so effortlessly. Why did he have to be so goddamn charming?
“And then you’ve just been texting together ever since?” Shane said quickly, trying to steer the conversation away from his sex life.
“Yes, actually,” Dad said. “Sometimes I send him articles from The New Yorker when I find one I think he might like. He actually reads them unlike someone who I’ve stopped sending them to.”
Shane suppressed a scowl as Ilya sent a sneer in his direction. Oh god, was this going to be his life now? Maybe he should’ve told Ilya to find a hotel in Ottawa.
“He’s happy to talk hockey with me,” Mom said. “That’s how I knew about his ribs, even though he was making it quite obvious when he played the other day.”
“Yuna, that is not fair!” Ilya almost whined. “I got bruise from Jalo. Getting checked by him is like fighting polar bear!”
“Well, after 7 years in the league, I would hope that something like that wouldn’t cause you to miss a shot on goal off a perfect pass from Marlow.”
Ilya looked at her, speechless, which finally gave Shane a turn to giggle. Shane knew exactly which moment she was talking about, and no doubt that Ilya did, too. It had happened at the beginning of the second period in their last game, resulting in a missed chance for Boston to tie the game up at 2-2. It might not have mattered in the end, since they hadn’t scored any more goals after their first, regardless.
“Welcome to the family, son,” Dad said, giving Ilya a good natured chuckle.
“Yeah, get used to it,” Shane added. “Why do you think I watch tape like my life depends on it? It kind of did, when I was younger.”
Ilya still looked mildly offended, but before long his face settled into a pleased expression, a genuine smile that even Shane had rarely gotten to see. It struck something deep inside Shane, and he was suddenly reminded that Ilya hadn’t had anything close to this in years, at least. From how he talked about his family, probably not since his mother died, which Shane only knew was some time when he was much younger. His heart swelled with the thought that maybe his family could be the one he so deeply needed.
[...]
A few days after Ilya arrived, Shane awoke to find himself alone in bed. They’d been sleeping in the guest room, since it at least had a queen bed that they could mostly fit comfortably on together. Shane had learned that Ilya wasn’t a particularly late sleeper, but it was still strange that he’d woken up before him, and even stranger that he’d decided to slip out of bed alone. It made Shane feel uneasy.
Shane slipped on a shirt and shorts and walked downstairs quietly, careful not to wake his parents. They were early risers, too, but it was barely 6 AM on a day that none of them had anything in particular planned, so they weren’t awake, or at least hadn’t left their bedroom.
It was too quiet downstairs. Normally it would’ve been quite serene, relaxing even, but not when Shane was worried that Ilya had disappeared off somewhere. Shane peered into the dining room and kitchen, finding them empty. When he turned to the living room, he could see Ilya through the massive window looking out over the driveway, standing in the distance. He saw a puff of smoke emanating from his stoic figure.
“You woke up this early just to steal a cigarette when I wouldn’t see?” Shane asked as he walked up to Ilya.
“Hmm. I didn’t want you to be upset,” Ilya said, his voice subdued.
Shane thought about it, and realized that he hadn’t smelled cigarettes on Ilya for a while. That was a little concerning, that he’d needed one so badly that he had broken his dry spell, this early in the day?
“It’s been a while since you’ve smoked, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, at least a month.”
Shane understood that probably meant the last time he’d smoked was when he’d gotten injured. But if that’s what got Ilya to smoke last time, then now…
“Could you tell me, what’s on your mind?” Shane asked, trying to be as gentle as possible. “Even when you used to smoke all the time, I doubt that you regularly smoked at 6 in the morning.”
Ilya looked at Shane with a heavy expression. He looked like he hadn’t slept very well last night, dark circles under his eyes that weren’t there the previous day. He gave Shane a weak smile before returning to his cigarette, inhaling deeply. Shane was beginning to think that Ilya wasn’t going to tell him. That was okay. They’d have the rest of their lives together to figure these things out, or maybe never at all. He’d support Ilya regardless.
“Today is the anniversary of my mother’s death,” Ilya said, surprising Shane. “Now, it has been fourteen years since she passed away.”
Shane did the mental math. “I’m sorry, Ilya. It’s terrible that she passed away when you were so young.”
“Yes.”
There was another pause, where Shane tried to figure out if it was appropriate to push further. He really wanted to. Shane knew that he missed her dearly; he wanted to know everything about her, how to best support him. And maybe, in the future, how he could ease some of the pain he felt when this day passed every year.
“Could you tell me a little about her, maybe?” Shane asked gently.
A faint smile appeared on Ilya’s lips, but it looked bittersweet. “She loved to watch me play hockey. Even when my father and my brother were not there, did not care to show up, she never missed a game. Even when…when it upset my father. She was such a strong woman, because she loved her sons, through everything.”
There was another pause, the silence interrupted only by the sound of Ilya exhaling a puff of smoke. His cigarette was almost finished.
“She liked to garden, even though she was not very good at it. Or maybe it was just because of the weather in Moscow. But I still remember when she managed to grow a single white flower. A lily. I was so amazed that I told my father later. The pot was gone by the next day.”
Shane couldn’t believe that that was the kind of environment Ilya grew up in. Well, in some ways, it made sense. In the way Ilya was often so guarded, so quick to put up his defenses. And yet, he was also the most romantic, thoughtful person Shane had ever met.
“Can I ask…how she passed away?” Shane ventured, trying not to sound too prying.
“An accident,” Ilya said bitterly. “She accidentally swallowed a whole bottle of pills.”
Shane turned to look at Ilya, feeling tears welling up in his own eyes. Ilya was strikingly stonefaced, his gaze distant.
“Oh, Ilya, I…” Shane struggled to find the right words.
“Sorry, is what my father always said. “Is what he told me to say when I…”
Ilya went to take another drag from his cigarette, only to find it finished and only barely smoldering. He sighed and dropped it, stomping it out with his foot before bending down to pick it up. He looked at it with a sort of detached expression that Shane couldn’t read. He reached into his shirt with his free hand and pulled out the golden crucifix he always wore, thumbing it with reverence.
“...when I found her,” Ilya finished.
Shane’s heart shattered as he tried to stop himself from imagining a 12-year old Ilya finding his mother’s dead body. Tears continued to well up in his eyes, a few even letting loose as his heart hurt so badly for him. He could barely imagine how he might feel if he found his own mother dead, from anything, much less how Ilya must’ve felt.
“I don’t want you to think she was weak,” Ilya continued. “She was so strong, and my father was so hard on her. She tried to not show it, but even when I was so young, I could tell that she was sad. I just wish sometimes that I…that I could have been enough. That I could have done enough for her to stay.”
Shane felt like he’d been shot. Knowing that Ilya had held onto these kinds of emotions, had been accepting some kind of twisted blame onto himself that he had no right to, for so long. Since before he had entered high school.
“Ilya, that wasn’t…” Shane stopped, feeling like he wasn’t about to say the right thing. “No, I mean…I think, you are enough, and you always were. Because, when I look at you, I can’t imagine you ever doing the kinds of things your father did. Even after your mother passed, the lessons she raised you with remained. She has stayed with you, in your heart, in your actions, in the way you…you live to carry on her memory.”
“You really think that?” Ilya asked, hesitantly.
“Yes, Ilya, I do.” Shane finally closed the distance between them, wrapping Ilya in a hug. “You’re so strong. You came to North America by yourself and carved out a spot in Boston with hard work. I can’t imagine how lonely it must’ve been, without your family supporting you like mine has. Even though I’ve never met her, I think she would’ve been so, so proud of you.”
Ilya leaned back into the hug and turned his head to plant a kiss on the side of Shane’s. His breaths were stuttering a little, a tear falling down his cheek as he finally seemed to let himself feel something. Shane didn’t want him to have to hide his feelings like that in front of him, not again and not ever.
“What was her name?” Shane asked. He realized that Ilya had never mentioned it.
“Irina Rozanova,” Ilya replied.
“Was that hers?” Shane motioned to his golden crucifix, which Ilya was still absentmindedly holding.
Ilya let out a faint smile. “Yes. She was religious, Russian Orthodox. I did not really believe, I still don’t. But she always wore this.”
Shane got a silly idea. Well, it wasn’t silly, but he wasn’t sure if it would actually be as sweet as he hoped it would be.
“May I?” Shane asked, gesturing a hand to Ilya’s crucifix.
Ilya nodded and held the golden cross towards him. Shane leaned in, resting his head on Ilya’s shoulder while holding it as gently as he could. It was heavier than it looked, like the crucifix itself was aware of the weight that it carried for Ilya.
“Irina Rozanova,” Shane said, trying his best to get the accent and inflection right. “I love your son, Ilya, so, so much. I want to spend the rest of my life with him, even though it’ll be complicated. I wish I could’ve met you. So I could tell you how wonderful he is, how amazing of a job you did raising him. And I hope that it would give you some peace, to know that Ilya has people around him that love him so much. Me, my mother, my father.”
As Shane looked up, he could see over Ilya’s shoulder that his parents were watching them through the living room window, arms wrapped around one another. They couldn’t hear what he and Ilya had been talking about, of course, but nevertheless they looked proud, content.
Shane gently let Ilya’s necklace fall back to his chest, covering it with his hand and rubbing his thumb over Ilya’s collarbone. He leaned forward and they kissed, slowly and gently. There was no tongue, no urgency, no battling one another for control in ways their competitive streaks would never let them live without. Just the two of them connected, their souls intertwined for a moment. Eventually, Shane leaned back and Ilya pulled him back into an embrace.
“She would have loved you. Like I love you,” Ilya whispered, his voice reverent. A tear slipped down from his cheek and landed on Shane’s lips.
They managed to make their way back inside eventually, the chill of a summer morning by a lake nipping at their heels. It was probably still obvious that they’d both been crying, but that didn’t matter. Shane knew that his parents wouldn’t judge them. But what was even more important to him was that Ilya knew that they wouldn’t, either.
“Good morning, both of you,” Mom said from the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Shane and Ilya said back, in unison.
She came around the corner and took them both in, a warm smile spreading across her face.
“I don’t know what the two of you were talking about outside,” she started, “but I’m so happy to see the two of you look so…comfortable together. I’m just so glad that both of you can have this.”
How this was going to work, none of them knew. But right now, in the privacy of Shane’s parents’ home, a sense of love so pure and familial flowing through every space, that didn’t matter. They could have stayed here forever, hockey and their careers be damned, and it would’ve been perfect.
Mom looked between the both of them, their expressions probably far more telling than they wanted them to be. She looked a little choked up, herself.
“Okay, okay,” Mom said, taking a deep breath. “This is too sappy for this early in the morning. How does coffee and ice cream for breakfast sound?”
“Mom…” Shane chided. Ice cream would never be an acceptable breakfast in Shane’s mind.
“Oh, come on, it’s the offseason! Having ice cream for breakfast one time won’t kill you.”
“What kind of ice cream?” Ilya asked.
“I think we still have some cookies n’ cream in the freezer,” she replied.
“Cookies n’ cream! I cannot say no to that.”
Shane turned to say something snarky at Ilya about how he would never say no to ice cream, but the expression on Ilya’s face stopped him. Ilya followed Mom into the kitchen, Shane trailing behind a little bit. He stood in the doorway as he watched Ilya look on expectantly as Mom dug through their freezer. He practically jumped up and down when she pulled out a tub of cookies n’ cream ice cream, opening it to find more than enough for them to share.
Shane didn’t really want to eat it, still. But, for just a moment, he swore that he could see 12-year-old Ilya again, excitedly waiting for a special treat from Irina. And seeing that, getting to extend that long-lost happiness for as long as he could, was more important than anything Shane could ever think of.
[...]
Life had settled into a comfortable routine by the time the Cup finals came around. Shane had learned a lot about Ilya that he’d never had the chance to learn in the stolen moments they’d had together previously. He was much more helpful in the kitchen than Shane was, and more than a few times Shane had been the only person not in the kitchen while the rest of the family was preparing dinner, having been ushered out by his exasperated mother. He learned that Ilya liked to do puzzles, something he could share with Dad since neither he nor Mom had the patience to be very helpful. He also learned that Ilya was a big fan of fruit jams, which was something so innocuous and basic, yet it warmed his heart to know, like every new thing he was learning about his wonderful boyfriend.
Yeah, they’d finally talked about it, even though it probably didn’t need to be put into exact words. Shane had taken him down to his cottage on a few occasions (for both obvious and less obvious reasons), and one day it had just casually come up in conversation as they relaxed on the dock outside. It was nice to actually have a label on what they were, anyway.
Shane was happy to finally get to share some of his interests with Ilya, too (other than hockey). Of course, Ilya knew that he was interested in real estate, but he hadn’t known just how interested he really was, not to mention architecture. He shared a few books on modern architecture with Ilya and was surprised to find him reading one of them one night in the cottage, splayed out on the couch. And he was actually reading it, having asked Shane some questions when he’d joined him on the couch.
But as the weeks passed, there was a lingering dread growing in the back of Shane’s mind, one that he was sure Ilya was well-aware of, too: this couldn’t last forever. Before long, the summer would be over, and they would have to head back to Montreal and Boston, now with the added baggage of having to figure out how to survive while hiding an actual relationship. Shane tried not to think about it - it sounded like torture - but the reality was going to hit them, sooner rather than later.
It turned out that Shane wasn’t the only one thinking about it, because dinner conversation with his parents turned in that direction, the night before the deciding game seven of the Cup Finals. Dad had been looking a little pensive all day.
“Can I ask you two something, a little difficult?” Dad asked.
Shane and Ilya looked at one another, before they both nodded in his direction. They probably both knew what was going to happen.
“Is your plan to just keep doing this? Keeping this a secret, until you retire?”
“I mean yeah, probably,” Shane muttered.
“Maybe. I mean, yes. Probably,” Ilya answered.
“Oh, no, that’s…sad,” Mom said, sounding genuinely distressed.
“I know,” Shane said miserably. “It’s just…not something we can just announce.”
The conversation stilled there, but Shane could see the gears in his mother’s head working, trying to figure out how to tackle this problem. She could hardly let any kind of issue she ran into go unfixed, and this was definitely no different. She made a face that Shane didn’t really recognize, then bit her bottom lip.
“I may have an idea, but…” she trailed off. “It’s a little crazy. And Ilya, I love you, but truthfully I don’t know if I know you well enough yet to know if this is reasonable.”
Shane exchanged a confused look with Dad, both of them not understanding. Mom wasn’t really the type to suggest unreasonable things. She definitely had a clear line of logic behind whatever she was going to suggest, but…
Mom pursed her lips, then finally elaborated. “Ilya, have you thought about coming here? To Ottawa?”
Shane looked at her like she was crazy. He loved his hometown, but the Ottawa Centaurs were terrible. They had been in the bottom half of the Eastern Conference and hadn’t made the playoffs for practically Shane’s entire life. Their current head coach was an asshole and not nearly ambitious enough of a person to get the team out of the hole they’d fallen into, although Shane had heard rumors that he was on thin ice.
“Mom, you can’t seriously be asking Ilya to…” Shane started.
“I know! I know it sounds crazy, but…it’s the only thing I can think of,” Mom said. “I tried to think of all the possible ways to get the two of you closer, but I don’t think there’s any other way. None of the New York teams have space in their salary caps. Maybe the Admirals would’ve, but they just brought Matti Jalo on. New Jersey and Washington might be possible, but they don’t need any additional depth at center. And even if I dared to think about you changing teams, Shane, that wouldn’t work, either. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia don’t have space.”
Shane stared at her, a little dumbfounded. Honestly, she probably hadn’t even needed to look these things up. Her mind was a steel trap when it came to hockey teams, even more than his was.
“And I know it’s a lot, it would be a big move to a much weaker team, but. You’ll be a free agent after next season, right Ilya?”
“Yes,” Ilya said simply, although he did sound a little surprised.
“I’m sorry to spring this all on you. It’s not a done deal or anything, it’s just…what I had come up with. I know Ottawa would be happy to have someone like you and maybe, just maybe I think you’re good enough to pull them out of the bottom of the league. Or at least to ignite a spark to get the team moving that way. But I don’t know, Boston drafted you, and that’s a big deal. I don’t want to ask you to betray them, or anything.”
Ilya thought for a moment. “And Ottawa and Montreal do not have rivalry, yes? Even when Ottawa was a better team than they are now.”
“Yes, that’s also true. So maybe, that would help? I still don’t know if you’d be able to…you know, come out or reveal your relationship or anything - if that’s what you want - but it might make it easier. And if you want to stay, you could apply for citizenship in Canada, one day.”
Ilya set his fork down on his plate and wiped his mouth, before he turned his head away from the rest of them. Both of them had cried so much in these past few weeks, out of happiness, longing, whatever, that Shane recognized the tell right away. He hoped that one day Ilya didn’t feel like he had to hide his emotions so quickly.
“Ilya, it’s…like Mom said, you don’t have to make a decision now, or even consider her idea,” Shane said, although the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea, himself. “We still have months before contract negotiations even start.”
“No, is just…” Ilya said, choked up. “Has been so long since anyone cared so much, to ask me what I think. Instead of just making decisions for me.”
A hush fell over the table, but before long all three of the Hollanders had gotten up, wrapping Ilya in a big hug.
Shane continued to think about his mother’s idea for the rest of the day and into the next. He’d double-checked everything she’d said, not that he really needed to - she was factually correct on everything, because of course she was. The Centaurs were well under their salary cap, enough so that they could probably even offer Ilya a bigger contract if they wanted him badly enough. Which, they definitely would.
Ottawa would have the second draft pick in next year’s draft, but for this year they were probably out of luck at snagging anyone who could be a strong center. Of their current centers, Zane Boodram, the Captain and first-line center, wasn’t half bad, but his wings were pretty terrible. Shane had often wondered why Tanner Dillon was on the first line at all. The second line was even worse though, bad enough that Shane barely recognized their names. They also desperately needed a better goalie, although their best defenders, Evan Dykstra and Nick Chouinard, were far from the worst he’d ever seen.
Based on the moves they were making, it did look like management was gearing up for rebuilding the team. They’d waived a few players who weren’t making much of an impact, anyway, and had traded away one of their defenders to get that second draft pick spot. If Ilya showed even the smallest bit of interest, they’d try to snap him up in a heartbeat.
And Shane had formulated another thought, one that could maybe be on its own or done together with Ilya moving to Ottawa, if that’s what he wanted to do. Shane had more money than he really knew what to do with, even considering his investments in real estate, and lately he’d been thinking about putting them into a charity. Maybe, he could open that charity with Ilya. It could help to soften the public image of their rivalrous relationship.
And speaking about Ilya a few weeks ago had given him an idea, that maybe their charity could be focused on mental health efforts. There wasn’t a particular cause that Shane was already dedicated to - maybe supporting inclusivity for players of color - but those things wouldn’t have to be mutually exclusive. And while one issue wasn’t more important than the other, Shane still couldn’t get the devastation that Ilya must’ve felt out of his head. It would be important to him, that’s for sure.
Shane had finally worked up the courage to broach the subject with Ilya just after lunchtime, when the two of them were sitting lazily on the patio in his parents’ backyard.
“Hey Ilya,” he said, reaching over to intertwine his fingers with Ilya’s. “Have you ever thought about starting a charity?”
Shane cringed internally at how stupid his question sounded with no context. Great. Very natural way to introduce the subject.
“Mm. Sometimes,” Ilya replied lazily. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just thinking…maybe we could start a charity together?” Shane offered. “I’ve been thinking of starting one myself, anyway.”
“A charity, together?”
“Yes, Ilya. If we had a public business relationship, maybe it wouldn’t be so fucking crazy if people saw us together in public. And, it’s something we could do wherever you end up, regardless of if you’re on board with my Mom’s whole Ottawa plan.”
He didn’t want to pressure Ilya, but the more he’d thought about it, the more Shane liked the idea. His parents were in Ottawa, which would help to give Ilya some sort of support system. After his incident on the ice, Shane had realized that Ilya probably didn’t have anyone to be there for him the same way that his parents, Hayden, and JJ were. Maybe Cliff Marlow, but he couldn’t be sure. Svetlana, too, but she was out of town often, according to Ilya. And if they had the charity…it wouldn’t be so hard to believe if Shane’s parents were Ilya’s emergency contact once he started playing with Ottawa.
Of course, there was also the tantalizing possibility of only being two hours apart. A distance easily drivable in one sitting, even after a game - or before one. And with Shane’s parents living in Ottawa, it would be easy enough to excuse himself from Montreal at any given notice.
But Shane knew Ilya would have to give up so much for that. His team and career, all of his friends and connections in Boston, including Svetlana, a childhood friend. He didn’t want Ilya to do something so drastic just because he thought it would make him happy.
“Is there another reason, that you are asking me about the charity?” Ilya asked, pointedly.
“I just thought…after you told me about Irina,” Shane said, speaking carefully, “maybe it would be nice to contribute to a good cause. Like mental health initiatives…and suicide prevention.”
Ilya seemed to consider that. “Is a good idea, yes. How would we raise the money?”
Shane smiled internally at Ilya using ‘we’ in his question. “We could do…hockey camps? In the summer. Recruit some fellow players as coaches, too. I think we could get a lot of interest with us running them.”
“You really thought seriously about this, yes?”
“Well, I got it from somewhere. You saw how quickly my Mom put everything together yesterday.”
“She would make good director for a charity.”
“So is that a yes?” Shane asked, hopefully.
“I would like to try, yes. I like the idea of hockey camps, too. Would be fun to teach children how to skate and shoot puck.”
Well, that had gone better than Shane had anticipated. But they didn’t talk about it much more, instead settling into a comfortable silence that they’d been afforded by their current seclusion. The charity was a good idea to think about, but it was also a reminder that their current bliss wasn’t permanent. Once the summer was over, who knew the next time they’d be able to just sit and enjoy their company like this.
The game between New York and Los Angeles was intense. Since it was game seven everyone knew of course that one of these teams was going to walk away with the Cup, tonight. And by all accounts, it was almost certain that the New York Admirals were going to be taking it home.
Shane was perched on the edge of his seat as he watched the third period unfold with his parents and Ilya, a reassuring arm wrapped around his shoulders. LA had taken a terribly timed penalty just now, which had all but sealed their fate as NY scored on the resulting power play, putting them up 3-1. LA could hardly afford to just kill the penalty, either, with how little time was on the clock, but either way, it was too late. And as the final buzzer sounded, the New York Admirals had won the Cup for the first time in decades.
Shane leaned back into the couch cushion, Ilya taking the opportunity to run his hand lazily through his hair.
“Should have been one of us,” Ilya murmured.
Shane sighed. “Well, Hunter’s been playing well this year. At least it didn’t go to an asshole like Dallas Kent.”
The four of them watched as Hunter accepted the Cup as the Captain for his team, lifting it above his head in celebration. He handed it off to Carter Vaughn, who skated around with it like a kid in a candy store.
Before long, the team’s families and loved ones came onto the ice, everyone celebrating their big win. Shane’s heart hurt a little bit as he saw Hunter alone on the ice, remembering how Ilya had been similarly on his own when Boston had won the Cup a few years back. It was public knowledge that Hunter’s parents had died when he was young, and he’d almost never been pictured in public with a woman, or anyone, for that matter. There had been one recently, whom the press had uncovered to be named Elena, but they hadn’t been seen together since that one night.
Shane turned to look at Ilya, thinking about how lonely it must’ve been when he’d won the Cup, an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime (so far) moment that had unfortunately served as a reminder of just how little of a support network he had in the States. Then Ilya’s expression changed, his eyes focusing on something on the TV.
He turned to look, a similar look of confusion settling into his expression as he watched Hunter skate towards the boards, waving someone down from the crowd. The camera panned over to the crowd, and Shane’s eyes widened as it spotted a man in street clothes, heading down towards the ice. He made his way down to the boards, where Hunter helped him hop over them, then pulled him onto the ice.
This couldn’t be happening. Even Shane knew what this looked like, as Hunter held this man’s hands on the ice, before pulling him close in full view of the cameras in the crowd. He was - they were -
They were kissing.
Holy shit, they were kissing. Scott Hunter was kissing a man on the ice. Not a short kiss either, and as a cameraman found his way over to get a closer shot, Shane could see the want on Hunter’s face, tinged with absolute agony. Something raw and pure. Something that Shane could understand far too well.
It felt like the world had fallen away from him as he watched Hunter and this man - his boyfriend, maybe? - kiss in front of the world like nothing else mattered. Like Hunter hadn’t just won the Cup for the first time in his career. It felt like there were walls around him coming down, Scott Hunter suddenly showing up with a sledgehammer to demolish them, using their broken pieces to pave a road ahead of him.
His mind raced with everything this meant. Hunter was well-known and well-respected in the league. An upstanding player and role model in the same way that Shane had become known for. Other than never having been in a confirmed relationship, he was everything that a hockey player could strive to be.
And he had just come out on the biggest stage in hockey he could have.
Shane hadn’t even realized that he had been leaning forward, enraptured by the scene unfolding on the TV, until he turned to face Ilya and found him leaned forward in the same way. Their eyes met, and Shane knew that he understood, because of course he did, how could he not. He could see it reflected in Ilya’s eyes, the same look of wonderment, of possibilities, of hope. The understanding that a future which had seemed to murky and uncertain was playing out in real time, right in front of their faces.
“Ilya, holy shit –”
“Let’s do it. The charity, Ottawa, I want to do it all.”
“You do? Really?”
“Yes. Is possible.”
Whether Scott Hunter knew it or not, he’d just shined a light on Shane and Ilya’s future that they didn’t even know was possible, or probable. It probably wasn’t his intention, not when he was so obviously in love with the man he was kissing.
Maybe now Shane and Ilya wouldn’t have to live through stolen moments and rushed exits through fire escapes. Maybe now their shared world could extend past the edges of his parents’ home and his cottage. With one act, Scott Hunter had done the impossible, at least for them.
He’d changed the game.