Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander

Additional Tags:

Yuna Hollander adopts Ilya Rozanov, Christmas, Episode: s01e02 Olympians (Heated Rivalry), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, when your mom invites your secret rival with benefits to family christmas, Forced Proximity, Falling In Love, Or rather Admitting it

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of A Viral Friendship

Collections:

ICE OUT HR 2026

Stats:

Published: 2026-04-29 Words: 6,008 Chapters: 1/1

A Christmas Surprise

Summary

His mother hums. “And you’re staying the whole five days?”

“That was the plan. Why?”

“Food logistics. And there’s a chance we’ll have a guest, so, you know. Gotta stock up.”

“As if they could make a dent with a hockey player in the house,” Shane jokes, yawns again, and then lets himself be sent off to bed.

In hindsight, he should really have paid more attention to the carefully casual way his mother had said, there’s a chance we’ll have a guest.

---

Shane is looking forward to Christmas break: five days with no one except his parents. Unfortunately, his parents have picked up a stray… one that Shane is rather more familiar with than he’d like anyone else to know.

Notes

Thank you to Malenkiykrysenok for supporting ICE OUT! I hope you like this 😊

Yes, I have remembered I do more than just join multi-voices ^^ Life has been a lot, but I had a chance to pick up this prompt and have a lot of fun with a carte blanche :D

A huge thanks goes out to spideykell who picked out all my superfluous commas and Scrivener autocorrects and brain farts – any and all remaining mistakes are my own.

This was almost titled “You’ll NEVER believe who Shane Hollander encountered at his parents’s house!! (not clickbait)” but the title was too long for my tastes

There’s certain rituals that are just part of Shane’s life: the protein shake he drinks every morning after his run, the soothing pattern of retaping his stick just right, the helmet-bump he shares with Hayden before leaving the locker room, bi-weekly dinners at the Pikes’ during homesteads, and weekly calls with his mother.

Even if they sometimes come at the tail-end of a brutal stretch of games.

“I’m making Christmas plans right now,” Yuna tells Shane on their call a couple of days ahead of the league-wide Christmas break. It’s a welcome reprieve in a season even more gruelling by virtue of a condensed schedule to accommodate the Olympics. Shane may be a little too enticed by the notion of five days at his parents’ where he doesn’t have to be the responsible young captain. “So, do you know when you’ll be in Ottawa yet?”

“Hng,” Shane says, mid-yawn.

His mother chuckles.

“We’re playing in Nashville on the twenty-first,” he says, once he’s managed to stop yawning. “So not until the twenty-second.”

His mother hums. “And you’re staying the whole five days?”

“That was the plan. Why?”

“Food logistics.” She chuckles, and Shane finds himself grinning along through another yawn. “And there’s a chance we’ll have a guest, so, you know. Gotta stock up.”

“As if they could make a dent with a hockey player in the house,” Shane jokes, yawns again, and then lets himself be sent off to bed by his mom like he’s still a teenager back in Ottawa.

In hindsight, he should really have paid more attention to the carefully casual way his mother had said, there’s a chance we’ll have a guest.

When Shane’s alarm blares to life, he’s barely blinked.

Shit.

This is, of course, not entirely true. The team had flown out of Nashville right after the game, everyone eager to get home and do absolutely nothing for a luxurious five days straight. Still, by the time Shane had stumbled through his front door, it had been half-past two in the morning. He had managed to change out of his travel clothes. He had clearly not managed to turn off his usual alarm.

With a groan, he fumbles for his phone until he can turn his alarm off. He drops back into his pillows, but the damage is done: he is very much awake. So much for sleeping in on his first free day.

He has to piss anyway, so he climbs out of bed with a groan. The elbow he’d injured last season twinges, his ribs are bruised from a massive hit he took two games ago, and there are various other scrapes and bruises that have accumulated over the season.

But it’s still the morning after a game, so he compromises with half an hour on the bike – not so much that it exhausts him anew or aggravates his injuries, but enough to wake him up properly and get rid of the bleariness and the early morning brain fog from the lack of sleep. Then he sorts his carry-on for his cleaning service to take care of, and finally repacks it for the five day stay at his parents.

And then it’s 6:00am and he’s out of things to do.

Might as well make his way to his parents, eh? At least at this time of the morning, the roads should be clear of traffic.

So he throws his duffel in his car, double-checks that he’s put the house back in travel-mode, and hits the road.

Two hours later, Shane pulls into his parents’ driveway. Two familiar cars are in the carport: his parents’, which makes sense. It’s a Sunday, after all, and his parents are very likely sleeping in.

Shane smiles to himself as he locks the car and then digs the key to the front door out of his pocket. No use waking his parents unnecessarily.

He lets himself into the house quietly, toes off his shoes, and pads into the kitchen…

… which is occupied.

Shane stops short, a ludicrous thought zipping through his mind before reality sets back in. There’s a stranger in his parents’ kitchen, their back to him – broad-shouldered with a tapered waist visible through the tight exercise shirt, well-fitting trackpants hugging an ass worthy of a hockey player and riotous curls at their nape still damp with sweat – as they rummage through the fridge with ease.

“Uhm,” Shane says eloquently. It’s probably lack of sleep that turns the stranger’s feature into something achingly familiar, but Shane’s brain refuses to move on.

The stranger stills. Turns around. Familiar grey-blue-green eyes meet Shane’s, the eyebrows raised in a slightly mocking expression. “You are early, Hollander,” Ilya fucking Rozanov says.

Ilya Rozanov. In Shane’s parents’ kitchen. Acting like – like he belongs.

Shane pinches himself unobtrusively. Blinks again. The scene in front of him does not change. What the fuck?

“What the fuck,” Shane says out loud, “are you doing here?”

Rozanov’s eyebrows climb impossibly higher. “Your parents invited me,” he says, his distinct accent familiar in ways Shane doesn’t know what to do with. “Did they not tell you?”

“No,” Shane says. His heart is pounding, blood rushing through his ears. “You’re – there’s no fucking way.” Except Rozanov is very much in his parents’ kitchen. Filling – a shaker, Shane realises – with a protein powder Shane has never seen his parents buy, because he uses a different brand.

Rozanov tilts his head forward a little, that incredulous look still on his face. “Your mother said she told you.”

“She didn’t,” Shane denies immediately, tongue tingling as his mind races. Except – There’s a chance we might have a guest, his mom had said.

As if on cue, a familiar tread comes down the stairs from the master bedroom. Yuna.

“Mom—” Shane says, voice faint to his own ears. He glances at his mother in the stairwell, her face calm but her eyes just a little wide. Not surprised. Not alarmed. Just a little concerned.

“Shane,” she says softly. Apologetically. “I didn’t expect you yet.”

Shane swallows convulsively as his gaze skitters back to Rozanov, standing five feet away from him, his back to the fridge like he’s bracing himself. “Woke up too early,” Shane hears himself say while his mind whirls.

His mom may very well have invited Ilya fucking Rozanov for Christmas. Rozanov. Who’s Shane’s arch-rival. Who’s his mother’s most hated player in the league, always vying for the top spot with Shane. Whose cock Shane has had in his mouth and in his hand and rubbing against his thigh and between his buttocks and— he wrenches his thoughts away before they can veer down even more dangerous paths.

“I’ll –” he says nonsensically, pivots, and makes a strategic retreat back into the entryway.

“I thought you told him!” he hears Rozanov back in the kitchen.

“I figured it would be best to… tell him in person,” Yuna answers, and it’s the last thing Shane hears before the front door falls shut behind him.

The door opens a few minutes later, just long enough that Shane has started shivering. There isn’t far for him to go; in his panicked flight, he hadn’t thought to grab his shoes or jacket, nor had he taken his keys. The cold of the stoop is biting into his socked feet, but it’s a welcome sensation. A grounding one, keeping him from fully getting lost in his own head.

Ilya fucking Rozanov. Standing in Shane’s parents’ kitchen like he belongs.

He shoves his hands further into his pockets and doesn’t turn around.

“Hey,” an unexpected voice says behind him after a moment.

Shane tenses further. Rozanov. It’s not unexpected in the sense that it’s impossible – not like it had been to encounter him in his parents’ kitchen. But… Shane had figured it would be his mom following him outside. Maybe his dad. Certainly not Rozanov.

There’s a touch on his shoulder that makes Shane flinch, and then something heavy falls around him. His jacket. Part of him wants to shrug it off, wants to shove Rozanov away until he falls down or, better yet, disappears fully. Instead, Shane pulls the jacket on. It is cold out here, after all.

“You are not even wearing your shoes,” Rozanov says, softly chiding. His voice is odd – almost tentative. Shane’s mouth twists. As if hesitation was something Rozanov experienced.

He studiously avoids thinking about how quiet, how intense he’s seen Rozanov get in their few meetings that hadn’t started and ended with nothing but sex. Christ. He’s had sex with Rozanov, and now Rozanov… what? Befriended Shane’s parents?

“You’re not my mom,” Shane bites out.

Next to him, Rozanov chuckles. “Would be weird if I was.” There’s a leer in his voice, and while it still stings that it wasn’t either of Shane’s parents who followed him out, he finds himself smiling despite himself. “We should go inside,” Rozanov adds after a moment.

Shane scoffs.

“Can have your freak-out inside. Where it is warm. And you will not lose feet to frostbite.” Rozanov gasps theatrically. “Or are you frozen to ground already?”

Shane scoffs again, lips curling into a smile he hates. “I grew up around here. I like the cold.”

Now Rozanov is the one to make a dismissive sound. “You are being stubborn,” he says, like he has any right to judge Shane for his reaction to this situation. “Come.” He turns away, ready to move inside, when he stops.

Shane stares down at his own hand, now wrapped around Rozanov’s wrist without his conscious decision, and then up at Rozanov. Rozanov’s eyebrows have climbed back up, a silent question on his face. “Just – what have you told them?”

“Told them?” Rozanov repeats.

“About –” Shane gestures with his head. When Rozanov only raises his eyebrows further, he exhales, watching his breath curl up between their faces. “About – us.”

“Ah.” Rozanov’s eyebrows lower, and odd expression flitting over his face before he smirks. “What do you think?”

Shane gives him an unimpressed look.

“Nothing. Your mother had very soft spot for me a couple of days ago, and then again closer to Christmas. I did not tell her about you.” Another odd expression. “She knows you better than I do.” Shane can’t parse the look on Rozanov’s face. Isn’t sure what to do with the tone, either.

“She doesn’t know about this. Any of this,” Shane tells Rozanov. “She can’t.”

Rozanov’s expression changes to a familiar one: mocking disdain. “I will not tell her. I do not need her ire for… deflowering her son.”

“Don’t say that,” Shane hisses, glancing behind them. The door is still firmly shut. “And – you didn’t?”

Rozanov gives him another mocking, incredulous look, so Shane brushes past him and rings the doorbell. His mom opens the door within seconds, expression searching as she lets them in.

It nicely preempts any further conversation with Rozanov.

For lack of something better to do, Shane returns to the kitchen. His mother and Rozanov – Rozanov! – follow him, both quiet. After a moment’s hesitation, Rozanov goes back to fiddling with his protein shake, while Yuna looks at Shane and then starts the coffee maker.

For maybe the first time in his life, Shane understands the need for something stronger, though coffee will have to do.

“I didn’t think you’d be here this early,” his mother says again, breaking the stilted, fragile silence.

Shane can’t help but scoff. “So you could hide Rozanov in the attic?” He doesn’t look at either of them; can’t stomach the thought of meeting his mother’s eyes at his cheek, and doesn’t want to know what kind of innuendo Rozanov can put into the statement.

“Shane,” Yuna says, a gentle reprimand. “No, but—”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Shane says bitterly when Yuna doesn’t go on. “How – how did this even come to be?”

“I told you.” Rozanov turns around, bottle in hand. For a few seconds, the sound of him shaking his concoction vigorously forestalls any further conversation. Shane does not blush from the hand motion, even though the corner of Rozanov’s mouth quirks in a tiny smirk. “Your mother took pity on me.”

Shane presses his lips together at the non-answer.

“Well, Ilya–”

“Ilya?” Shane repeats, aghast.

His mother silences him with a look. “Ilya caught a pretty bad case of food poisoning before the Ottawa game, so I invited him to stay with us while he recuperates.”

It answers absolutely none of Shane’s questions, but he suddenly doesn’t know he’d even begin asking for clarification. He remains silent.

Rozanov takes a pull of his shake, head tilted back so the column of his throat is on display. Shane can’t quite make himself look away. “What your mother isn’t saying is that I puked at her feet and her retribution was making me sit out my games.”

“You were in no condition to play,” Yuna throws in.

Shane’s thoughts are still a mess, but that is something he can’t chew through with an audience, so he latches onto the one thing that jumps out at him. “Retribution? That’s quite a big word.”

Rozanov’s eyebrows go up again. “Didn’t you know? Your father reads The New Yorker.”

Heat shoots into Shane’s face as he’s transported back three years into a deserted bathroom in Las Vegas. “Whatever,” he says, more petulant than is probably warranted. “I’ll – drop my stuff in my old room. Unless you’ve also given that over to Rozanov.”

Rozanov opens his mouth, and for a chilling fraction of a second, Shane imagines him taking the obvious opening – So scared of me in your bed, Hollander? – before Rozanov gives him a bland smile. “No, I am in guest room.”

Shane does not dignify that with a response and instead goes to do as he said, and maybe, just maybe, take a moment to sort his thoughts with the unexpected beginning to his stay at his parents’.

There’s a knock on his door a couple of minutes later, while Shane is sitting on his bed and spinning his phone in his hands. It’s open on his messages with Hayden, though he hasn’t actually sent anything. It’s tempting, to vent, but he finds himself oddly reluctant to share the most recent developments with Hayden.

Not because Hayden wouldn’t understand – much the opposite, he’d probably be up in arms on Shane’s behalf, ready to come over and fight Rozanov – but… maybe because Hayden would suggest Shane kick Rozanov out, or that Shane come spend Christmas with them. Neither option sounds as desirable as it probably should, though it’s probably not a bad backup plan to have.

“Come in,” Shane calls out when nothing happens.

The door opens to reveal Rozanov. Again.

“Come to bother me in my own room, too?”

Instead of answering, Rozanov steps inside and closes the door behind him. Shane’s heart rate picks up a notch at having Ilya fucking Rozanov in his childhood bedroom, leaning against the door like he belongs. His face is carefully neutral. “I can leave, if you want.”

“Right after coming inside?” Shane shoots back.

Rozanov tilts his head forward a little like Shane is being slow. Shane frowns back. “No. Leave here. Your mother invited me to Christmas, probably out of pity, but I do not belong. I know this. I told her this. But… I think she wants us to get along.”

Shane exhales abruptly through his teeth. “Rich of her.” His mind is still stuck on Leave here. On the straightforward way Rozanov had said, I do not belong. He isn’t wrong, of course, but somehow it still leaves a sour taste in Shane’s mouth, like he’s suddenly the villain.

At this, Rozanov smiles a little. “What can I say? She sees my natural charm, wants you to see it too. You are very similar to her, in many ways.”

Great, Shane will definitely be the villain if he makes Rozanov leave. He focuses on his hands, loosening his death grip on his phone a little and unclenching the other one so it lies easily on his knees.

“That’s – not the problem.” If anything, he’s been a little too aware of Rozanov’s natural charm from the get-go, long before his mother apparently decided to adopt him because of some stupid food poisoning. Shane had dimly been aware that Rozanov was out with an undisclosed upper body injury following the game in Ottawa and hadn’t travelled with the team, because word does travel in the league. Never in his life had he imagined that that was a euphemism for recuperating with Yuna and David Hollander, though.

“Then what is?”

“That we – that we’ve never been just rivals.” Shane hisses the last part, too conscious that his mother is just a door and a short hallway away in the kitchen.

The mocking expression is back on Rozanov’s face. “You do not need to tell her that.”

“That’s also not what I am worried about,” Shane says, frustrated at what must be wilful obtuseness.

Rozanov lifts his eyebrows again. “Are you saying you are worried you will not be able to keep your hands off me?”

More heat shoots into Shane’s face. “No!” Now that Rozanov has put it out there, the thought lingers, though. Having Rozanov close for four or five days. In touching distance. Away from cameras, with only his parents’ prying eyes on them. But that’s not the public. And their bedroom is on the other side of the house from Shane’s.

Rozanov takes a step towards Shane, and then another, and another, until Shane has to crane his neck to meet Rozanov’s gaze or get a face full of Rozanov’s crotch. He chooses the former.

For a long breath, Rozanov meets Shane’s eyes. Then, his hand comes out to cup Shane’s jaw, fingers trailing over the shell of Shane’s ears until he can tilt Shane’s head just a little more up. “You still owe me,” he murmurs, all dark intensity. “And I have a promise to keep to you. Maybe you are scared about that?”

“I’m not,” Shane denies, but he’s breathless. It takes all his willpower to keep from straining into Rozanov’s touch. “I told you, I’m not scared of that.”

Abruptly, Rozanov drops his hand and steps back. “Then what is harm in spending the next week with me?”

Shane, still reeling from the sudden loss of contact, cannot come up with an answer.

“Boys?” his mother calls from the kitchen, once again saving him. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

And Shane isn’t hungry for food, but it sounds like an excellent distraction, and so he pushes past Rozanov to join his mother. If he takes a moment to breathe and adjust himself in his pants, Rozanov, for once, is kind enough not to mention it.

Breakfast with Rozanov is weird.

They’ve never had a morning after, even though they’ve been hooking up for years at this point. Mainly because most of their hook-ups were hurried affairs in hotel rooms, mostly after games, where they parted ways within minutes of coming.

Which is not something Shane wants to be thinking about at a table with his parents, so he doesn’t. Instead, he glares at Rozanov while he stuffs his face with too-sugary cereal, daring Shane to say something about the empty calories. Yuna just sighs as she prepares the same egg-white omelette that Shane has eaten every morning while at his parents’ house for as long as he can remember, with a slice of wholewheat bread and a glass of orange juice his father prepares.

Rozanov has the grace not to turn that down.

Since Rozanov seems intent to just stuff his face with definitely-not-meal-plan-approved junk, Shane hesitates a moment, and then cuts off part of his omelette. He adds it on top of half a slice of toast and pushes it over towards Rozanov, in turn daring him to say something.

Briefly, it seems like Rozanov will, but then he heaves the world’s biggest sigh and reaches for the toast. “You are trying to murder me with boring food,” he complains.

Shane averts his gaze and accidentally meets his mother’s eyes, which makes him blush again. “It won’t kill you,” he grinds out, and then stuffs his mouth with his own omelette before he can say anything else.

It doesn’t get less weird from there.

David comes down the stairs a few minutes later, stopping when he sees Shane. “You made it alright.” He smiles, and Shane smiles back even though the words grate. Usually, his father’s tendency to state the obvious like that barely even registers, but today… it takes Shane a moment to realise he’s bracing for a scathing comment from Rozanov, which never comes.

Instead, Rozanov pulls the morning’s paper from the dresser behind him, glancing briefly at Shane, before focusing on David again. “Crossword first?” he asks hopefully, and–

Shane had thought he’d been kidding. But, as it turns out, he hadn’t, and within moments he and David are engrossed in the day’s puzzle section. Yuna meets Shane’s look of disbelief with a mild smile of her own.

“You have the dishes?” she asks as she gets up, looking at David and Rozanov. Like it’s common. Like Rozanov is part of the family after a few short days. The food turns to ash in Shane’s mouth.

“Of course,” Rozanov agrees, without looking up from the clue or something he’s frowning at. Now who’s boring? Shane thinks to himself, and viciously chews his last bite of toast.

“Then I’ll be in the garage. A few last things to do, if you want to help me.” This part is directed at Shane. It’s their tradition, to wrap David’s present together in a brief bubble of just the two of them.

Part of Shane wants to refuse. But the larger part knows that would be childish, that he would resent missing out this opportunity. That he’d hate breaking their routine like that. “Of course,” he says, and only realises a moment too late that he literally repeated Rozanov’s words. No one calls him out on it, not even his mom once they’re outside.

“I am sorry for springing this on you,” Yuna says as she picks out this year’s wrapping paper. Shane waits patiently next to her, his own gift to his father in his hands. The one for his mother is already all wrapped, because there’s no tradition around that part. “I really meant to warn you properly.”

Shane doesn’t ask why she didn’t tell him over the phone. They both know that he wouldn’t have come then – or, worse, figured she was lying to him. “I should have rung the bell.”

Yuna exhales a brief laugh. “Nonsense. This is also still your home, and it wasn’t fair of me. I… I’m glad you took this with so much grace. Thank you.”

Shane’s chest constricts at this much undeserved praise. If his mother knew how close he’d come to being the villain in this Christmas fairy tale… “Not like I have much choice.”

Yuna huffs again. “Of course you did. This is still your home, and I meant this. But – I think you’ll like him. I know it sounds impossible, and I wouldn’t have believed it either, but he’s quite a charming young man underneath his prickly exterior.”

I know, Shane almost says, because while Rozanov is an asshole at the best of times, he’s not, like, a shitty guy. He’s bluster and chirping and walls so high that even three years into their arrangement, Shane knows pretty much nothing about him. But if there’s one thing that he does know, it’s that Rozanov is secretly far softer than he’d like to let on.

That he’s let Shane’s mother see those parts of him feels big. Or like he’d been really sick.

“If you say so,” he says out loud, a beat too late.

“I do,” Yuna says, and then finally selects one of the rolls of wrapping paper. “Now come help me wrap this – and another small thing for our guest.”

Rozanov is still in the kitchen when Shane gets back inside, this time helping David prep what looks to be dinner.

Shane can’t help but give the setup a sceptical look. “So… should I organise separate food?”

“Fuck you,” Rozanov says without looking up from the careful way he’s cutting up onions. A moment later, the tip of his tongue pokes out between his lips in concentration.

Shane yanks his gaze away, just in time to see the easy way his dad looks at Rozanov. “Ilya,” David chides.

Great. Both his parents are apparently on a first name basis with Rozanov, like it hasn’t been Shane who’s been sleeping with him for years. Which is not a thought he needs to have standing in his parents’ kitchen, watching Rozanov and his dad work side by side. A-fucking-mazing.

Shane makes the executive decision to retreat to his room and text Hayd and Jackie for updates about the kids. Anything is better than having to endure this bizarre… domestic scene here.

After a time that Shane deems safe, he ventures back out, book in hand. True enough, Rozanov is nowhere to be seen.

“Looking for Ilya?” David asks where he’s stirring something that smells unfairly good. Shane determinedly does not think about whether or not it fully fits in his diet plan as he steals a spoonful. It’s not yet done, but already really good. God. He’s missed his dad’s cooking.

“Not really.”

David gives him an inscrutable look. “Well, he’s gone to call a friend of his, if you were looking for him.”

“I wasn’t,” Shane says, and then makes his way to the den to claim the couch. He won’t let Rozanov of all people make him hide in his own damn room in his own childhood home, damn it.

“You are wearing glasses.” The familiar accented voice pulls him out of his flow of reading an undetermined amount of time later.

On instinct, Shane scrambles up, yanking his glasses off and nearly sending his book tumbling to the floor. Fuck. “Only for reading,” he says defensively.

“That is a shame.” Rozanov pads over, dropping down onto the couch a respectable distance away from Shane.

“Fuck you.”

Rozanov smirks at him. “They suit you.”

There isn’t much he can do in the face of that, so Shane just rolls his eyes. “Did you come just to bother me?”

“Yes. I am bored.”

“Well, sucks to be you.”

Rozanov smiles, waggling his eyebrows. Shane rolls his eyes again. God, Rozanov is so childish. “Yuna said you have ‘Laich. So. Game?”

Shane should say no. Should turn back to his book. But the thought of beating Rozanov, even if it’s just on simulated ice, is just a bit too alluring. “It’s an older one.”

Rozanov’s eyebrows climb back up. He has very expressive eyebrows, Shane can’t help but note. “Is this excuse why you will lose?”

“Fuck you,” Shane says again, and then goes to pop the game into the console and grab two controllers.

“We traditionally go skating on the twenty-third,” David says over dinner that evening. After simmering for the afternoon and being properly seasoned, the Bolognese is to die for. Even with whole-wheat pasta. Shane can’t quite make himself say that, though. “Do you want to join us, Ilya?”

Next to Shane, Rozanov freezes. “I do not want to impose,” he says after a moment. Even Shane can recognise that the undercurrent in his voice is longing, carefully controlled.

Yuna huffs. “I think it would be fun to see the two of you on the same ice.”

Shane barely dares breathe as Rozanov glances over at him and then back at Shane’s parents.

“And people will not… be weird about fraternising between league rivals?”

Now, Yuna scoffs. “The rivalry is cute,” she says dismissively, like she hasn’t milked it for all it’s worth. “But you started with a joint ad, didn’t you? And news of your stay with us will break one way or another, and I’d rather prefer taking control of the narrative.”

A joint ad. Shane determinedly does not think about how that shoot had ended – the moment in the showers. The moment in the hotel room. Control of the narrative. Impulsively, he looks over at Rozanov. Rozanov is already looking back. They’re too obvious, part of Shane’s brain is screaming, but he can’t help himself. A future where he and Rozanov can be more than antagonists to each other in the public eye.

Rozanov is the one to break their look. “If you will have me.”

There is a calculating gleam in Yuna’s eyes that Shane also carefully does not think about. “Shane?” she asks.

“Isn’t it already settled?” It’s not a no, and they’re all aware of it.

“Now it is,” Yuna agrees, and that’s that.

Skating with Rozanov instead of against him is fun. They’re in just skates – Rozanov’s freshly bought, because his equipment had been sent back to Boston with his team while he commandeered the guest room at the Hollander residence – and puffy jackets, toques pulled low.

Rozanov is pink-cheeked and wind-swept, grinning so wide it nearly hurts as he zips around Shane on the frozen lake that Shane and his parents have come to for as long as he can remember. No one pays them attention. They’ve been recognised without doubt, but these people know them, and not even the addition of Rozanov can make them disturb the privacy that’s been established.

There’s punch and snacks waiting in the car, but that’s secondary to flying down the ice with Rozanov. After a while, they grab a pair of Shane’s old sticks and fool around with a few pucks: a game of keep-away that turns into easy passes that turn into fancy evasive manoeuvres, all punctuated with breathless laughter.

It’s fun. It’s amazing. Shane cannot remember the last time he was laughing this much on the ice as in this easy, low-stakes competition against Rozanov. Shane never wants to leave the ice.

There is a moment where they’re leaning on their sticks after a race down the ice, both breathing heavily, that Shane almost leans in to kiss the smile off Rozanov’s lips. I never want to play against you again, he thinks, and then, oh, fuck.

A Christmas Miracle

Residents of Kanata, Ontario, were treated to an unlikely sight on Monday: Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander, the leagues biggest rivals, zipping down the frozen Beaver Pond, fooling around with some pucks and sticks like children just before Christmas. A fan video published on Twitter shows the two MLH superstars laughing and joking around, while Hollander’s parents, Yuna and David, look on with smiles on their faces.

While it’s no surprise to see Hollander, an Ottawa native, in the capital’s suburbs around the holidays, Rozanov was a far less expected sight. The young Boston Raiders captain had suffered an undisclosed upper body injury in the game against the Ottawa Centaurs on December 16th and not travelled back with the team. The Raiders, playing their final two games before the league-wide Christmas break without their captain, kept his whereabouts close to their chest.

“I think no one would have believed us had we said, ‘Ah, yes, Rozanov is recuperating with Shane Hollander’s parents,’” Rozanov tells me in an exclusive Zoom interview earlier this morning, grinning at me from a couch next to Yuna Hollander.

So, has this friendship been going on for long, leaving us all fooled?

“Not at all,” Mrs. Hollander says with a wry smile. She is an imposing woman even across screens, well-poised and intense. Next to her, Rozanov sprawls like a little kid, but there is no doubt that he already adores her. “Just a week ago, I would have been the first to tell you how fierce our household’s rivalry with Rozanov is. But then I was looking for someone on the Ottawa team following the game against the Raiders, took a wrong turn, and ran into Ilya.”

“I was very sick,” Rozanov admits easily. “Food poisoning, the trainers said. Maybe Ottawa was hoping for the advantage.” He winks, showing he is just joking. “Yuna did not believe me when I told her I was fine, and unfortunately the trainers agreed.”

Mrs. Hollander gives Rozanov another wry smile. “My son Shane is the same age, so I’m well-acquainted with stubborn hockey players. Ilya was in no shape to play or even travel. And he may be Shane’s biggest rival, but I’d hope that if Shane was in such a condition, someone would also take care of him like you would of any ill young man.”

There is a lot of love in Mrs. Hollander’s voice, directed towards her son, but now also towards her newly acquired charge.

“And what can I say? Even ill, I am very charming.” Rozanov winks again, giving me a very charming smile indeed. It is not hard to see how Mrs. Hollander got to know him, and got to see the quick-witted, charming young man that Rozanov keeps well-guarded and yet seems to be an open secret in the league.

“And with Christmas coming up, it just seemed right to extend the invitation for his stay over the holidays. Even if he’ll be the first to remind us—”

“That this is not my Christmas,” Rozanov finishes. The Orthodox cross he carries on a necklace has slipped out of his collar, reminding me that Christmas may be ubiquitous but isn’t celebrated the same everywhere.

And Shane?

At this, Rozanov laughs. “It took some getting used to,” he admits, “for both of us. But off the ice, we are just two young men, and it is nice having someone who understands my position so well. I hope I can do the same for him.”

It’s no secret that Rozanov and Hollander are in similar special positions: drafted first and second overall after facing off in the Prospect Cup where the Russian team took gold, only for the Canadians to come back and win the tournament the year after the two were drafted. They started in the league in 2010, after their entry was delayed by a year due to the 2009-10 lockout, pitted against each other in a decade old rivalry between two Original Six franchises. Both have carried their teams into the playoffs for the first time last season, suffering first and second round exits respectively – already respectable results for teams who have been in rebuild mode for years.

They are both the face of their respective franchises, and this is no easy task to bear. So it stands to reason that these things they have in common, once given room to appear, will forge bonds that may last. Will we see more of the two of them?

Hollander, who has wandered into frame with a book – about the history of franchise relocations, he tells me, which counts as light reading in his off-time – gives me a smile while Rozanov smirks in his trade-mark way. “Someone has to keep him on his toes.” It’s accompanied with a smug expression that so rarely shows up on Hollander’s carefully crafted media persona – though most often in relation to Rozanov, who seems to bring out the best in Hollander on the ice and some cheek off it, too.

So they won’t go easy on each other from now on?

Both of them actually laugh. “The only thing better than beating a rival,” Rozanov says once he’s stopped laughing, “is triumph over a friend.”

Hollander gives him a mock scowl. “We aren’t friends!”

“Keep telling yourself, Hollander!”

I watch on as it devolves into squabbles that are lighthearted, while Mrs. Hollander sighs. “It’s never boring, that’s for sure.”

And if that isn’t an excellent preview of the upcoming games as the Raiders face the Montreal Metros three weeks from today on January 21 before the league goes on break for the Olympics, where Hollander and Rozanov will face off for Canada and Russia, respectively, I don’t know what is.