Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

F/M, M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike/Jackie Pike, Shane Hollander & Jackie Pike, Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike, Hayden Pike & Ilya Rozanov, Jackie Pike & Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike, Jackie Pike, Ruby Pike, Jade Pike, Kip Grady, Scott Hunter (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Coming Out, Reaction, Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Autistic Shane Hollander, Anxious Shane Hollander, POV Shane Hollander, Bisexuality, Gay Male Character, Post-Episode: s01e06 The Cottage (Heated Rivalry), Light Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Secret Relationship, Jackie Pike & Ilya Rozanov Friendship, Good Friend Hayden Pike, POV Hayden Pike, Hayden Pike Finds Out About Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Eating Disorders, Shane Hollander Has an Eating Disorder, Depression, Shane Hollander Walks Ilya Rozanov Like A Dog, Jackie Pike Finds Out About Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Good Friend Jackie Pike

Language:

English

Series:

Part 4 of My Moon

Stats:

Published: 2026-02-06 Updated: 2026-07-27 Words: 4,530 Chapters: 3/?

Delicate Machinery

Summary

Shane has his cornerstones of control: Ilya, food, and hockey.

He can keep them all discrete and harmonious - a well-oiled machine.

Hockey belongs on the ice. Shane and Ilya belong at the cottage. Hayden belongs at a distance where Shane doesn't have to explain himself.

Except Hayden really should know about Ilya, shouldn't he? And surely telling him can't blow Shane's life up too much. Ilya doesn't think so, but Ilya routinely asserts that his skates are "too American and trying to humble him", so maybe Ilya's opinions aren't always to be entirely trusted.

OR: Hayden Pike loves Shane a lot. Enough to tolerate the Russian shitbag that is Ilya Rozanov? Well...

Notes

Hello there!

Welcome to the Hayden Pike of it all.

To any newcomers, even if you don't want to read the rest of this series, I highly recommend part two (Love You in the Dark), as it's particularly relevant here (I err slightly from canon).

Sorry that this has taken a little while. I've been working on my own WIP (I'd love to be traditionally published with my own novel one day, but slogging through my own work is painful!), and I had a particularly crap weekend last week.

Thank you, once again, for so many fab comments on the rest of this series. I've laughed out loud at so many of your guys' comments❤️

CW: Some allusions to homophobia and disordered eating, but nothing intense.

You can now find me on Tiktok and Tumblr.

Chapter 1: The Rozanov Revelation

It’s early November, and Shane’s running through his head the hundred ways he could tell Hayden about Ilya, and the hundred ways it could go wrong.

He’s at the kitchen counter, listlessly listening to the whirr of the blender as it grinds his assortment of fruit and veg into a pulpy, gloopy mess. Morning slop, Ilya always calls it. And yes, Shane can admit it’s not the most appetising concoction in existence, but it’s important to him. The ritual of it. Starting the day right.

And then there’s the health thing.

His new diet is a little…restrictive, sure, but it keeps him level, keeps him fit, keeps him in control.

Ilya sidles into the kitchen, hair mussed, eyes sleep-heavy. He wraps his arms around Shane from behind. Nuzzles into his neck. “Big day today, yes?”

Shane wants to deny it, to minimise it, but instead he sighs. Leans back into the warm embrace. “Yes.”

“Hayden will not react badly,” Ilya says with his usual threatening certainty. It’s a tone that implies or else. “He loves you.”

“But not you,” Shane says, then winces. He does this sometimes: lets things escape his mouth that are thoughtless, tactless.

But Ilya only shrugs, unbothered. “Loving you will be enough.”

Shane often wishes that he had Ilya’s indomitable spirit, his particular brand of not-give-a-fuck. It’s a skill Shane’s never been able to master. Sometimes, his mom jokes that he was born high-strung; the reincarnated soul of a peasant boy who had been hunted for sport.

Maybe that’s why his heart and mind are always racing away from him, why he can’t manage a simple fucking conversation with his best friend without losing his head over it.

“And if he reacts badly?” Shane asks quietly. He pushes Ilya off. Turns to him.

Ilya shrugs. “Then he reacts badly. And in a few weeks, he shows up dead in a dumpster.” He winks. Pulls Shane away from the blender, which whirrs to a stop. “No more worrying, Shane.” Ilya kisses the tip of his nose. “Your morning slop is waiting.”

 

---

 

Two years ago, Shane slinked back into the hotel room he was sharing with Hayden and dumped on him—hopelessly, unthinkingly—that he had been fucking Ilya Rozanov.

At the time, he’d been unable to see past that single moment; the words had left him without forethought, without guile. He’d regretted it the moment he’d seen the shock and pity and dawning anger on Hayden’s face.

How could Hayden have ever understood it? Shane hadn’t even understood it himself. So Shane had told him to forget it. It was nothing. It was over. It had splintered him in two.

And Hayden had acquiesced. Said nothing. Pretended nothing had ever happened. In quiet moments, when Hayden thought he wasn’t paying attention, Shane would feel the press of his gaze.

He’d never quite been able to figure out what he felt from Hayden in those moments. Curiosity? Worry? Or—worse—judgement? Disgust?

Shane had been too afraid to ask, and Hayden had never given him an opening.

So they’d continued as usual, this horribly conspicuous thing trembling between them, unspoken.

Today, Shane makes his way to Hayden’s home alone. It was initially discussed whether Ilya should be with him, as he had been with Shane’s parents. But Hayden Pike was no Yuna or David Hollander. He wouldn’t be softened by Ilya Rozanov scarfing spaghetti like it was his last meal.

Shane knew this was an endeavour he must undertake alone.

He pulls up on Hayden’s drive. Takes a deep, steadying breath.

By the time he knocks on the door, his heart is pounding at double speed. He strains his ears, listening for Ruby and Jade giggling from somewhere within. Instead, he hears only silence, and it rings to Shane like a death knell.

Don’t be so fucking dramatic, he orders himself, and knocks again.

Hayden is at the door in moments, bright-eyed and smiling. “Hey, buddy!” he says, leading him through the now familiar hallway to the living room. “How are you? I know Kent got you with a nasty hit during Wednesday’s game…”

Hayden’s voice trails off into white noise. Shane follows him, silent and almost shaking.

“It’s just you and me,” Hayden says, dropping down onto the couch. “Jackie took the kids out. I said you called. That it sounded serious.”

Hayden’s looking at him with poorly veiled curiosity. Shane has yet to take a seat. Instead, he finds himself pacing back and forth, hands wringing, his morning slop churning in his stomach.

“I can’t—I have to just say it, I think. And you have to listen.”

He sees Hayden straighten in his periphery. “Shane—”

“When I told you I was fucking Ilya Rozanov—”

“Oh, yes, my weirdest fever dream.” There’s the usual joviality in Hayden’s tone, but also a warning. Don’t tell me, he seems to be saying. Don’t make it true.

Shane takes a deep breath. Centres himself. Reminds himself that this is Hayden, his best friend of many years. If he can’t tell him, he can’t tell anyone. “It wasn’t a joke or a lie,” Shane blurts.

He’s never been verbose. Bluntness is his best approach here. Just rip the band-aid off, get it over with. “I was fucking him—I am fucking him. Because we’re together, and we’re in love.” It’s the plain truth. To him, something new and wondrous. But to the rest of them, to Hayden? Fucking the enemy. A crime. A cutting betrayal.

Hayden goes entirely still. His mouth opens slightly on a breath that he never seems to exhale.

Well done, Shane, he thinks to himself. You’ve broken Hayden.

“I think,” Hayden says at length, “that you should sit down.”

Shane halts. Looks at him. He’s got this thousand-yard stare going on, akin to the ‘Nam vets in his dad’s favourite war docs. “Okay,” he says quietly.

He sits on the armchair adjacent to Hayden, keeping his distance.

Hayden makes a point to meet his gaze. “Tell me everything,” he says.

And Shane opens his mouth and unravels.

 

---

 

In the darkest pits of his soul, Hayden had wondered, when Shane called him, saying he wanted to talk, if this would be the outcome.

He listens quietly as Shane speaks, tempering the many unkind words that want to escape him.

I never meant for it to happen, Shane says. It wasn’t meant to be love, he says.

Like it was an accident. Like he tripped and fell and found himself in Ilya Rozanov’s bed.

It’s never a good day for your best friend to tell you they’re in love with the enemy.

Hayden can see him now, that smug, self-assured Russian. Chirping them on the ice; pummelling them against the boards. How he must have laughed to himself as he fucked the captain of the Montreal Metros.

But what bothers Hayden more is Shane’s complicity in all of this. The lies. The commitment to secrecy.

When Shane is done, Hayden remains silent for a moment, eyeing him; Shane staunchly avoids his gaze. “Why did you never tell me?”

Shane twines his fingers together nervously. Looses a breathy laugh. “Because you hate him. Because he’s a man.”

“But—but we’re friends.”

“Of course.” The response is quick, certain. Hayden feels something tightly coiled within himself start to loosen.

“I always knew you were serious. But you looked so—destroyed, that day. And you never spoke of him much again. I figured it was over, whatever it was.” But even as he says it, Hayden recalls Shane’s accident on the ice, and Ilya Rozanov, circling him like a vulture; the bird’s eye view of a predator. And yet there was nothing predatory in his stance, nor in his eyes, which were glazed with worry.

Respect, the commentators had said. How had they all been so fucking blind?

“It’s not over,” Shane says. “It was never over. Not the feelings, at least.”

“Buddy, I get why you’d keep this quiet. I do. But Rozanov. Really?”

“He’s it for me.”

Hayden thinks he might be reaching previously undiscovered levels of incredulousness. “Why?”

Shane is quiet for a moment. Something flashes briefly in the black of his eyes. “If the game wasn’t gendered,” he says slowly, “if we played against everybody—men, women, whatever—and I was fucking a woman on an opposing team, do you think you’d still feel this confused, this—this betrayed?”

Hayden’s immediate response is defensiveness. Of course he’d feel equally betrayed, because it’s a betrayal, isn’t it? The gender doesn’t matter. Hayden Pike considers himself a lot of things, but he’s not a bigot.

What takes Hayden more by surprise is the sudden calm steadiness in Shane’s tone—the subtle censure, too.

Shane’s always been so…awkward. So fumbling. So quick to assume wrongdoing on his own part. Hayden looks at him now, nervously but steadily staring him down, and sees someone he’s not sure he’s ever seen before.

He wonders if Ilya Rozanov knows this Shane.

“Of course I would,” Hayden says.

“Would you?” Shane shakes his head. “I don’t think you would.”

“It’s not a homophobic thing. Shane—you know me—it’s not.”

Shane tips his head back. Sighs. “I know you think it’s not.”

“I just—I don’t like him, Shane!” Hayden explodes. “He’s smug. And he’s mean to you—mean to all of us.”

“Any meanness you see against me has probably been flirting, honestly.”

Hayden feels a bit sick. “Christ.”

Shane stares down at his hands. The light is cutting through the open blinds, and it alights on his face, which is faintly devastated. And that, more than anything, makes Hayden feel like shit. “I’m not—I’m not trying to manipulate you by calling it a gay thing," Shane says. "And I know you mean it when you say you don’t care that it’s a guy. But I think maybe some small part of you does care. Just a little.” 

“I don’t—” Hayden feels the sudden urge to bury his face in his hands and shut the whole world out. He detests Ilya Rozanov. He detests him for his smugness, his arrogance, his constant air of superiority. But Shane’s right. If some self-important, shit-eating hockey-playing girl had Shane’s heart, he’d probably give her a chance to prove herself worthy.

“When do I meet him?” Hayden mutters into his hands.

He hears, more than sees, Shane stiffen. “What?”

Hayden looks up. “When do I meet him?”

A pause. “You’ve already met him. Plenty of times. Remember?”

“Ha-ha. I meant your version of him. The one you apparently love so fucking much. I’d better meet him, right, since I apparently don’t know him at all?”

When Hayden finally focuses on Shane’s face, he’s wearing the brightest smile Hayden’s ever seen. “Yeah, Hayd,” he says. “I’d like that a lot.”

Chapter 2: The Pike Problem (Pt.1)

Chapter Notes

Sorry for taking so long. Life. Also, other muses (I'm obsessed with The Pitt rn).

Anyway, I will try and be more consistent from here on out with this fic (I make no promises, though. I am famously useless). And thank you also to all of the lovely people who commented on Worth It (the fic before this). Super touched by how many people have enjoyed it 🥹

Ilya’s waiting for him when he returns home. It’s a rare few days off for both of them. One of those precious in-between times in which they sequester themselves away at the cottage and pretend the upcoming separation and secrecy won’t kill them.

Ilya accosts Shane at the door like an over-excitable child, plying him with question after question. But there’s something else tucked away there, something bright and sharp in his eyes, that makes Shane acutely aware of the power he holds here. A single hint of hurt—proof that the conversation has not gone well—and he knows Ilya will be over at Hayden’s with a Molotov post-haste.

Shane does his very best to sound calm. Pleased. Hayden was accepting, he says. He wants to meet with them both.

“Dinner?” Ilya says. “With Hayden Pike?”

He sounds horror-struck. He sounds, also, a little excited.

Shane is immediately nervous.

“And his wife, Jackie.” 

Ilya is silent for a long moment. “…why?”

“Because he wants to meet you.”

“He has met me. He hates me. Shane, is your bird food diet turning you stupid?”

“No! Ilya, shut up. He wants to meet this you. My version of you.”

“There are no other versions of me. I am me. Always.”

It is a very Ilya thing to say.

“I was thinking here,” Shane says. “I’ll cook.”

They both look down at tonight’s meal: a tofu curry. Low-fat coconut milk. It’s one of the rare nights that they’re eating at the table, as opposed to fucking on it.

Shane had felt very brave adding the coconut milk.

“So they can be horrified at your terrible attempt at nutrition?” Ilya asks.

“You rat bastard.”

Ilya slams his fork down with a sigh. “I won’t do it, Shane. I won’t play a role for your friends. Roleplay is for bedroom only, yes?”

Shane scowls. “You’re misunderstanding me on purpose.”

“I misunderstand nothing,” Ilya replies with surprisingly perfect enunciation. “You want me to impress him.”

“I want him to see you how I see you. Not as the Russian asshole. As you.”

“I cannot make him like me.”

“You made me like you.”

“Making you like me involved acts I’m not willing to commit with Hayden Pike.”

“Jesus fucking—okay. All right. Forget it.” Shane slams his own fork down. It’s a novel experience, this sort of domestic. His parents weren’t fighters, and he and Ilya, for all their differences, rarely argue in a way that isn’t some prelude to sex.

Ilya is quiet for a moment whilst Shane blinks angrily at the table. Then he says, with audible pain, “I will…try. With Hayden. I don’t want you upset. I just…” He seems to struggle for a moment. “I don’t want you making me be someone else to impress him. For his acceptance. We are who we are. If you’re really friends, it should be enough, da?”

And Shane gets it. Of course he gets it. It was his own issue with Hayden. The pressure of playing a certain part to maintain his friendship. It was why he’d put his foot down so firmly. Called him out on what may or may not have been some covert bigotry buried somewhere beneath the benign smiles.

Shane feels himself deflating. “I know,” he says. “I just want this to work. I want you guys not to hate each other. You don’t have to start, I don’t know, braiding one another’s hair. I’m not asking for a miracle here.”

Ilya hesitates, then reaches for him. Shane’s hand is an unwitting fist atop the table. Ilya takes it within his own. Unwinds his fingers. “Okay, I will try. Invite them.” He says it the way he says most things—with a confidence that borders on arrogance—but his eyes are soft. “But don’t make this curry. It fucking sucks.”

Shane lets their fingers intertwine. Sighs. “It does fucking suck, doesn’t it?”

He goes to bed hungry.

 

---

 

It takes another month to align their schedules.

Shane is shamefully glad of it. He gets a stomachache every time he thinks about facing Hayden and Jackie across a dinner table with Ilya at his side.

Not out of shame—never shame. His own hangups, perhaps. Still mourning the version of himself he lost, the version of himself that still exists in the minds of every one of his teammates.

He knew the cost of his choice—knew it the moment he invited Ilya to the cottage. He’d choose him every time. That doesn’t seem to make it any easier.

By the time the night finally comes, the cottage feels wrong. Too small. Too full of them. The obviousness of what they are. Pictures on the mantle: arms wrapped around one another, eyes glinting. Ilya’s jacket slung over the door hook. Their perfect sanctuary, invaded.

Shane deals with this by completing vague, unnecessary tasks.

The sink needs wiping (it doesn’t).

The curry needs stirring (it doesn’t).

The music is too loud (it isn’t).

“Stop hovering,” Ilya says from the couch. His body is languid, but his hands are tense. He’s nervous, too.

“I’m not hovering,” Shane says, immediately proving that he is.

Ilya rises. Stalks toward him. “Hayden has been your friend for how many years?” he demands.

“A decade,” Shane admits breathily. He can’t help it; Ilya’s intensity always makes him weak.

“A decade,” Ilya repeats sharply. “He will not throw it away. And if he decides to, no amount of cleaning or stirring will stop him. Although” Ilya pauses. Considers. “Your tofu curry may be enough to make someone break a decade of friendship.”

Shane laughs breathily. Leans into him. Tells himself to calm, be calm. Yuna and David love him. Shane loves him. So what if Ilya’s abrasive sometimes? That’s part of the charm.

The doorbell rings, then, and Shane pulls himself reluctantly out of Ilya’s orbit and orders himself to be normal for once. The food is diet-approved. The cottage is immaculate. Ilya is…Ilya.

Shane nods once, steels himself, and makes for the door.

Chapter 3: The Pike Problem (Pt. 2)

Chapter Notes

Glandular fever (round 2). Passed driving test. Distinction for uni year. Bereavement of a pet of 18 years and a family member of even longer. Is it a W or an L overall? Who knows.

It may not be my best work - try not to be too harsh.

Pt.3 will be better for our heroes (and worse).

“Shane is in love with Ilya Rozanov. We are going to have dinner with them.”

These words escape Hayden mere hours after Shane has left his home. Jackie is curled beside him on the couch, glass of wine in hand. The kids are already in bed.

The commercials for Real Housewives are playing. Jackie abruptly mutes the TV, shrugs off his arm, and turns to him.

“I’m sorry,” she says, wide-eyed. “What?”

“Shane and Rozanov are in a romantic relationship. They would like dinner with us.” Hayden grins, nervous. “What do you think?”

There’s a long silence. “What do I—what do I think?” Jackie finally echoes. She shoves herself away from him, retrieves the cushion from behind her, and whacks him with it. “What do I think?” she cries. “Shane—our Shane—and Ilya Rozanov?”

Hayden’s gaze flits nervously upward. At this rate, she’ll wake the kids. “Jackie, look, I know it’s shocking.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know,” Hayden says. “A while. Too long.”

“That’s—”

“Unbelievable, I know—”

“Hot,” Jackie breathes.

Hayden freezes. He stares at his wife, brow furrowed. “Hot?”

“Ice hockey rivals! And—and when Shane got hurt, and Rozanov looked so messed up about it. Oh! It makes so much sense. And—”

“Jackie, I don’t know if you’re quite picking up what I’m putting down here. Shane and Rozanov are—”

“In love.” Jackie sighs. “How lovely.”

“Lovely?!” Hayden splutters. “Shane’s in love with Rozanov. Shit-talking, cocky, archnemesis, man-whoring Rozanov.”

Jackie pulls back further. Her hand is back on the cushion, fingers clenched, as though in threat. “Shane’s in love,” she says. “Can you think of anyone more deserving?”

“Of course Shane’s deserving of love—” Hayden begins.

“Then what,” Jackie snaps, “are you moaning about?”

“I’m not—”

“We love Shane. Shane loves Ilya Rozanov. It’s not complicated.”

“It—“ Hayden cuts himself off this time. Because it’s not complicated, is it? Jackie’s right, as always. She’d stripped the situation down to its bare bones and found the core of it. Hayden loves Shane; Shane loves Rozanov. It’s enough. It should be enough.

Hayden remembers, stupidly, that day he’d first invited Shane to join him and Jackie for dinner. He’d been nervous, but he needn’t have been; Shane was surprisingly awkward for a rising hockey star. There’d been genuine surprise in his voice at Hayden’s invitation, a humility that Hayden had always admired.

“Jackie’s obsessed with being the first WAG to feed you.”

That macho nonsense—Hayden cringes just remembering it. It hadn’t been Jackie obsessed; it had been Hayden. Shane was the best in the league. Kind, reclusive, soon to be a legend. Hayden had wanted to know him, and perhaps, on some very embarrassing level, to be him. Can he truly resent Rozanov for claiming some part of him first? 

“I imagine this has been very hard for them,” Jackie frets. “Not just because they’re queer, but because they’re hockey nemeses. The optics! And Ilya! He’s Russian! In Russia, homosexuality is a criminal offence, Hayden!”

Hayden finds he has nothing to say. He’d sat across from Shane and let him say his piece. He’d found himself affronted by the mild censure, Shane’s insinuation that Hayden, somewhere deeply-pitted, was bigoted. But he hadn’t considered any serious stakes in this. Beyond friendships, beyond hockey, Ilya Rozanov was taking a seriously fucking big risk.

In Canada, the biggest worry was public scrutiny and career suicide. For Rozanov, there was the possibility he might never go home—or that he might go home and never return.

“It’s dangerous for him,” Hayden murmurs.

“It is,” Jackie agrees staunchly. “No wonder he’s an asshole.”

I don’t know them at all, Hayden thinks dumbly. He feels something splinter, something between what he thought he knew and what he actually knows. It’s humbling. It’s terrifying.

Jackie seems to sense him spiralling. Her hand finds his. The cushion’s been discarded. “Is there a diet-appropriate dessert I could bring, do you think?”

 

---

 

Shane forces a smile onto his face as he opens the door. He knows that the smile is probably strange, caricature-ish. He feels this way sometimes, like he’s mimicking what comes to others so naturally and not doing a very good job of it. But not usually around Hayden.

His best friend stands in the doorway with his wife, tense but smiling. “Hey, buddy!”

The forced casualness doesn’t help Shane relax; if anything, it does the opposite. Still, he forces himself to open his unusually dry mouth and greet them. “Hey, guys. Hey, Jackie.”

“Shane!” Jackie rushes forward and envelops him in a hug. Shane works not to flinch back. Touch is difficult for him today; a lot of things are difficult for him today.

The stress of this dinner has had him in a funk all week. He’s been difficult, especially with Ilya, who deserves it least of all. He finds himself somehow simultaneously yearning for both reassurance and distance.

Still, he lets himself relax into Jackie’s arms for a moment. It feels familiar. It’s the same hug he’s received a dozen times from her, seemingly unchanged by the knowledge of Shane’s queerness and the man currently waiting for them inside.

“Welcome to the cottage,” Shane says stupidly, stepping back.

“Yes!” Hayden says. “The cottage! Which I’ve never been invited to.”

Jackie elbows him. “Better late than never.” She grins at Shane. “A tour, please?”

Shane lets them in. The door falls shut. He leads them through into the open-plan living room. There’s a picture of him and Ilya on the wall—one of the CCM commercial outtakes. Shane’s looking at something in the distance in the image, biting his lip in a suppressed grin, and Ilya is watching him, smiling, eyes alight.

Hayden seems to fixate on the photo for a moment. Something strange contorts his face, then it smooths, as though by concerted effort.

“What?” Shane asks flatly.

Hayden stiffens. His laugh is humourless. “What do you mean?”

“Your face. It just did something.”

“My face does things all the time. I have a very expressive face.”

“No. It did a thing,” Shane insists.

Hayden sighs. Relents. “I—it’s just—how long, Shane?”

He’s endured this already with Scott. The shock. The judgment. The eyes. But Scott mattered less, somehow. Shane respected Scott, but he hadn’t loved him, hadn’t spent endless years playing hockey alongside him, babysitting his children, attending family meals.

Hayden’s judgment burns.

Shane feels it, then. It’s an old sensation. An ugly one. The need to dig his nails into himself and peel his way out of his own skin. He’s too conspicuous. Too exposed. He can’t find the words. How does he explain it? How long? How long have they been fucking? How long have they been in love? How long have they been together?

Shane doesn’t know how to answer. How does one configure a timeline around an inevitability?

Thankfully (or perhaps unthankfully) Ilya steps from the kitchen into the living room, a tea towel over his shoulder. “Since before Rookie season,” he says. “Although it was not love then. Love came after.”

Shane stares at Ilya in his dark jeans and fresh-pressed shirt and tries to imagine what Hayden and Jackie must see. It must be strange, seeing Ilya Rozanov in Shane’s private getaway cottage with a hand towel thrown over his shoulder, turmeric staining his nails.

Do they see what Shane sees? Does anyone?

Hayden makes a sound—half-scoff, half-choke. “Since Rookie season?”

 

---

 

Hayden had promised Jackie open-mindedness, and he intends to stick to it.

His first test is the picture on the wall. Shane and Rozanov, so painfully young. The look in Rozanov’s eyes…it’s unmistakable.

Hayden, too, had once been young and in love.

“Love came after,” Rozanov says, but Hayden glances again at that picture on the wall and wonders if it’s a lie.

It’s incongruous. It’s despicable. Rozanov would square up on the ice and chirp all manner of assholery in their direction back then. That’s the man Hayden remembers, but it’s not the man in the picture.

Then Rozanov is in front of them, smelling faintly of spices, his hair curled from the humidity of the kitchen, and Hayden is forced to remind himself of his promise to Jackie again. Because it’s undeniably odd, seeing Rozanov so…domestic. And his immediate urge is to say something scathing. He’s not even sure why. It’s something about Rozanov’s face; it brings out the worst in him.

“We have been fucking since Rookie season,” Rozanov says. He smirks. “That surprises you, Pike?”

The Russian’s tone is wheedling, baiting. Jackie steps forward. “Nice to meet you, Ilya,” she cuts in, averting crisis.

Ilya’s grin broadens into something more genuine. “And you, better Pike.”

Hayden goes to kick up a fuss, then tamps it down. Jackie is the better Pike, after all.

“Please,” Shane says awkwardly, “sit.” He motions to the couch.

Hayden perches nervously, still eyeing Rozanov with thinly veiled distrust.

“Drink?” says the Russian.

“Wine, please,” Jackie says politely. She turns to Hayden. “Beer, love?”

“Yeah, okay,” Hayden mutters.

“Yeah?” Rozanov echoes. “Yeah, what?”

Hayden blinks, stunned, before realising Rozanov is looking for a please. “You,” he says slowly, “are chastising me for manners? You?”

The incredulity is rising alongside the anger; Jackie’s hand on his arm does nothing to quell it this time. “Go fuck yourself, Rozanov.”

“This is Shane’s place,” Rozanov says. “You should show respect—”

“Yeah, Shane’s place. Not yours.”

“What’s his is mine,” Shane cuts in, quiet but firm. “Always." Then: "Ilya, stop being a dick.”

That quietens everyone momentarily. Rozanov catches Shane’s eye before slinking back toward the kitchen, unthanked. Hayden can only glance between them, silent, wide-eyed. He’d somehow come to imagine this thing between them as something Rozanov controlled. He’d thought of Shane—quiet, naive Shane—as someone almost vulnerable. Enamoured with Rozanov. Snared by him.

But Rozanov had done Shane’s bidding with nary a protest.

“I’ve told him to try with you,” Shane says quietly, fiercely. His hands are twined together in his lap, fingers blanched white. “I need you to try with him.”

Jackie nods earnestly. Hayden finds himself biting back a feeling he can’t name. “Rookie season,” he says. Shane had admitted some things at his house—but not that. Not the sheer duration. “Do I even know you at all?”