Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

Multi

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Hayden Pike/Jackie Pike, Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander/Hayden Pike/Jackie Pike/Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander/Hayden Pike, Jackie Pike/Ilya Rozanov, please note those last two are axes not core pairings

Characters:

Jackie Pike, Shane Hollander, Hayden Pike, Ilya Rozanov, OFC

Additional Tags:

Character Study, Bisexual Jackie Pike, bisexuality-blind hayden pike, marriage study, a surprising number of scenes involving laundry, not "one time foursome" and not "endgame polycule" but a secret third thing, Pegging, also there's pegging, someone should peg ilya rozanov and i say it's jackie pike, more details about figure skating than you'd expect, the author is gazing respectfully at Tessa Virtue, now featuring: pregnant pike pegging, say that three times fast, pregnancy complictions and postpartum struggles - handled lightly i hope but they're referenced

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-08 Updated: 2026-05-08 Words: 24,278 Chapters: 3/6

Jackie Pike's List Of Acceptable Hockey Players To Invite To A Threesome, And What Became Of It

Summary

"I'll give you a celebrity pass for Tessa Virtue but not Shane Hollander."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Jackie says. "Not without you."
Hayden's eyes briefly bug out of his head.
"I'm just saying, babe, if you ever want to organise me a hot hockey player threesome, you can start with Shane Hollander. No questions asked."
"Shane would die of embarrassment."

Or: Ten years of the Pikes and Shane Hollander (and, eventually, Ilya Rozanov)

Notes

Look, I wanted to write a foursome, but I had to do some character work first to line them all up. And then I had to give Jackie a bisexual identity crisis. So now I have chapters.

I have all the way through to The Important Foursome Scene written and beta-read, I'm in edits and re-arrangements stage now. I expect a couple more weeks, at least.

Note, since apparently this is a bit of a sorepoint in the fandom: yes there's a foursome, yes Shane is still gay throughout. Sometimes people can have group sex which includes their non-preferred gender, straight people do it all the time.

Many thanks to Cloud_Atlas for the very thorough beta notes.

Chapter 1

Chapter Summary

Edit 5 April 2026: now that I have posted ch 2 I can put in the chapter summary that I used on tumblr / DW:

Jackie makes macrobiotic breakfast foods and has a lot of feelings about it. Hayden gets sponsored by a "baby gear but for Dads" company. The Pikes rank the hotness of Canadian athletes (2014 winter Olympics). Hayden is haunted by Shane's underwear ads. Jackie Pike has a bisexual crisis brought on by figure skating. Shane Hollander isn't actually a great person to come out to. You know, normal "preamble before a foursome" stuff.

2011

There comes a point, somewhere in the off-season, when Jackie Pike realises she loves Shane Hollander.

With Hayden doing more of the kid-wrangling over the summer, Jackie tackles household projects. She's deep-cleaning the pantry, all her bulk goods pulled out and spread over the kitchen island. There's two kinds of ginger ale. There’s pasta made from lentils instead of wheat: that had been a good find. She keeps that around, and Shane can just swing by and if whatever she's feeding the kids doesn't work for his diet, he and Hayden cobble together something that complements slightly greenish high protein noodles.

It's good. It’s good for Hayden: he’s been friendly with his teammates as long as she’s known him, but since he and Macca got split up after their rookie years, he’s not had a close buddy. Macca’s somewhere out west now, like Hayden’s family. And Hayden is… Hayden is Hayden, but he’s a lot to handle. Too loud, too goofy for the older and steadier guys, she thinks, and too sweet, too “married with kids” for the partiers and troublemakers. When Hayden had described Hollander as seeming younger, in person, than he did on TV, more nervous than you’d expect for a rising star, and practically allergic to after-practice drinks, Jackie had been curious and redoubled her insistence that Hayden bring him home for dinner.

Hayden had barrelled past Shane’s diet-based excuses to reject dinner invitations, and only afterward thought to check whether Jackie could accommodate Shane’s diet. Jackie made him give her Shane’s number so she could get specifics, and maybe their united front made a difference. Hayden has an unshakeable conviction that the people he likes, Jackie will like. It’s been a pain in the butt, and it’s been a delight, depending on who he’s bounced up to.

Shane seems to bring out in Hayden something that other players don’t; sides of Hayden that Jackie knows and their families know, but which hockey hasn’t called for in the time she’s known him. A protectiveness that isn’t overbearing. A patience which reminds her of how Hayden is with kids, but which is never patronising. A confidence which isn’t hinged on bravado or competition: Hayden is as capable as the next man of leaning into either, but he’s also interested in people and in what makes them tick. Jackie had hooked up with him and punctured his ego and he’d come back, fascinated, but never resentful. Hayden Pike does not go through the world fearing rejection or expecting to justify himself at every turn, which makes him a diamond in the muck of hockey players.

Jackie doubts that Shane has thought this through the way she has - he’s not married to Hayden, and he’s not had to navigate newborn twins with Hayden. But Jackie thinks that Shane sees her Hayden, and Shane needed her Hayden as much as he needed a good winger.

It’s summer, but well into pre-season conditioning, so Shane is back from his family cottage. He and Hayden work out and calculate protein ratios together. They swap some of their workouts to the afternoons and take the twins for the morning, so Jackie can get her hair done or see her friends in peace. Shane comes over on hot days and the three of them hang out in the Pikes' pool while the girls nap.

This particular afternoon, Hayden and the girls are at the park, and Shane isn’t in their orbit. His own family rightly want to see more of him in summer, and his mother - Yuna, Jackie’s met her once or twice and she’s a powerhouse with a schedule the way her son is a powerhouse on the ice - evidently tries to stack a lot of promotional work into the pre-season period.

Jackie pulls out of the pantry bulk supplies of oatmeal, chia seeds, nuts, dried berries. The oatmeal she had already; she makes that for the girls, now they've graduated from baby rice cereal, but the rest is Shane.

Somewhere at the tail end of last season, Hayden had dragged a couple of guys over to play video games - "a LAN party! Like the old days!" he'd said, although it was a Nintendo Wii and they have wifi. He and Shane had kept playing, long after the others left and long after Jackie went to bed. The only surprise about Shane wandering into her kitchen the next morning as she was setting up breakfast for the girls was that he seemed perfectly awake, unlike her husband, who was still snoring in their bed. He'd been wearing one of Hayden's t-shirts, and he'd been looking a little more awkward than usual.

"You're up early," Jackie had said. "Or did you go straight from taking down zombies to morning workout?" He hadn't come from the guest room but rather the games room, where the exercise bike and free weights live, and there was a light sheen of sweat on his brow. A good look on him, she'd thought, and the fact that Hayd's t-shirt was a little too small for him hadn't hurt either.

"I slept some," Shane had said. "I just… habits, you know."

Jackie knew about athletes and their habits - even Hayden, as much a bundle of chaos as any toddler, had them. Shane had a few more than most.

"Could I, uh, shower?" Shane shifted from one foot to the other, like that was an imposition to ask. He was comfortable using Hayden's gear, but not asking this of her.

Jackie had found him a towel and another pair of Hayden's sweatpants - slightly too large for Hayden, probably a bit too small for Shane. "Since you were working out in those," she said, indicating the blue sweatpants Shane had been wearing yesterday and now this morning.

"Yeah, uh. Thanks," Shane had said, ducking into the bathroom.

Jackie had kicked herself, in the back of her mind. She hadn't thought to investigate breakfast options for Shane. She made oatmeal for five and, to her surprise, Shane had accepted a bowl. Oatmeal fitted within his macrobiotic diet, apparently. The maple syrup that usually went with it in their house didn’t, but after some nudging from Jackie, Shane had suggested peanut butter. By the time Hayden came out to claim his, Jackie had ensured that most of the girls' oatmeal went into their mouths and not on the floor, and Shane was rattling off his top five recipes for high-protein overnight oats.

Hence the chia seeds, nuts, and dried berries. The girls eat Shreddies or Cheerios in summer but she does these little jars in the fridge for herself and Hayden. She compares notes and new combinations with Shane and, although he's almost never here for breakfast, he will accept one as a snack when the rest of them are eating ice cream or cupcakes.

Jackie finds an out-of-date packet of sunflower seeds (none of them had liked those in their oatmeal) and tosses it. They have three identical bags of mixed nuts, in three different parts of the pantry, because those are one of the things that she and Hayden both tend to buy "just in case". For instance, just in case Shane's around and they might have run out.

So there it is. Jackie loves Shane Hollander. So does Hayden, clearly.

Jackie turns this awareness over in her mind. It doesn't feel like a problem. She's not lusting after her husband's best friend - although he's hot, that's undeniable. She just… loves him, for who he is, and at the same time, she loves him like an extension of her husband.

2012

The Metros roster gets a shake-up, bringing in fresh talent. Once the trade deadline passes, Jackie breathes out a sigh of relief that she’s been holding in since the end of season. Actually, she’s been holding it since the Metros signed Shane Hollander second in the draft. In a slump like the Metros had been for seasons, when you’re high enough in the draft order to sign the next big thing - or one of the two next big things, that year - you rebuild your team around him. You trade out your weakest players, yes; but you trade out guys like Hayden, too, in return for another team’s draft picks the following year.

Jackie knew this when she married Hayden, of course. She’ll pick up the kids and pack up the house and organise the move, when the time comes. If the time comes, because Shane has said - not to the press, of course, but to her and Hayden - that he wants to retire in blue and white, wants to see the Metros retire his number 24 when he finally comes to the end of his career. If the Metros management see the same thing she sees - that Shane and Hayden click, not just on the same line but as teammates and training partners - if they’re keeping Hayden as Shane’s winger this year, then the Pikes might be in Montréal until Hayden retires.

Jackie doesn’t want to leave Montréal, to leave behind her friends and her parents. And she doesn’t want to leave Shane, or for Hayden to have to leave him behind either.

2013

The Metros make it to the playoffs, although they’re knocked out in the second round. Hayden has his best year yet, putting up serious points for the first time in his career. Mostly assists, but Shane is damn good at scoring goals, and this year, Haden is damn good at setting them up. Not that he was bad, before; the Metros wouldn’t have had him on Shane’s line since Shane’s rookie year if he were, but he’s levelled up this year.

Shane is good for Hayden’s game, as well as a good friend. Shane watches game tape and analyses it in his spare time, and picks apart Hayden’s play style; and Hayden takes criticism better from Shane than he does from any other player. They put in extra time on the ice, and while Shane doesn’t hassle Hayd about his diet, this year in particular Hayden got more serious about talking with the team nutritionist, trying to retain as much bulk as possible to still have energy to burn through the playoffs. It paid off, and there’s little chance of the Metros splitting up Pike and Hollander now.

They’re still rooming together on roadies, most of the time. Jackie’s pretty sure they do that as a strategy to spare Shane from rooming-with-rookies duties; or possibly management let them do it, to spare the rookies from Shane. Hayden had confessed to her, during Shane’s rookie year, that the worst thing about rooming with Shane was that Shane kept his mouth shut during video meetings, but when they were in a hotel room, Hayden would be treated to Shane Hollander’s uncensored opinions on everyone’s weaknesses.

“Do you want to switch roomies?” Jackie had asked. The Metros pair up rookies with older players, on the road, but there was no reason Hayden had to stick with the same rookie every trip. This was before Jackie had really met Shane - she’d seen him after a couple of games, and at team parties, but Hayden hadn’t yet brought him home for dinner or to hang out. This must have been November, still early in the season, and Hayden had just got back from a string of away games.

“Nah,” Hayden had said. “Babe, can you get this dry cleaned for me?” He hung his suit bag on the back of the bedroom door. “I can’t do that to the kid. He’s… particular, I guess?” Hayden pulled out his washkit and went to hang it in the bathroom. “Have we got more of my razor-heads here, or do I need to order more? I should probably just get a subscription, huh.”

“Particular how?” Jackie asked, leaving Hayden to rummage for his own razors.

“Like… really specific bedtime routine, I guess. Likes his peace and quiet. Gets up at exactly the same time every morning. Travels with his weird protein-smoothie powder and has exactly the same thing for breakfast every day. You know what he said to me?”

“No, babe, I wasn’t there. What did he say?” She had a basket of clean laundry and was sorting socks. Two pairs onto the bed, those would go upstairs to the girls’ room after this. One pair for Jackie’s drawer. One sad, lonely sock for the lonely sock bin.

Hayden wandered back into the bedroom and started tossing his clothes into the hamper. “He said he likes that management have the rookies rooming with older guys. Said he hated overnight away trips in Juniors because the guys always wanted to party, or stay up all night watching movies. Said he never understood it, how can you play well without enough sleep?”

“Oh no,” Jackie had said. “You’re right, you can’t leave him to deal with just any roomie.”

“Some of the guys wouldn’t take well to evening Shane Hollander’s Hockey Tips experience, either.”

“Doesn’t sound like you enjoyed it much,” Jackie pointed out. Hayden having emptied his suitcase, she lobbed two pairs of skate socks straight into it, and followed that up with three pairs of briefs. It was easier just to keep the suitcase half-packed, rather than get to the day of a flight and discover that some kid-related laundry emergency had taken priority over the grown-up washing and there weren’t enough of Hayden’s things clean and dry.

“It’s a lot,” Hayden agreed. “Especially after a game. But he’s damn good, it’s kinda impressive how much detail he breaks down and how fast.” He shrugged and started rummaging in his drawers for compression gear.

“Maybe ask him to dial it back, then? Like, not in the evening, or not after a game.”

“Like… no kid talk on date night?” Hayden asked. Jackie had been thinking more of “Less hockey talk when you come to dinner at my parents’ place,” from when they were first dating. Hollander had to be obsessive, to wear out Hayden’s patience for talking puck.

“Something like that,” Jackie had said.

That had been in his rookie season. Now Shane has the A on his jersey - it’s practically a given that he’ll have the C if and when Gionta moves on - and Jackie knows he speaks up more in team meetings, and he’s learned to moderate his feedback: he’s been working closely with one of the rookies, a third-line winger with a promising knack for stealing the puck. Shane has also convinced Hayden to spend two weeks with him before training camp starts, working with a coach in Seattle - some kind of shot doctor, from what Jackie understands. Shane has been doing that kind of thing every summer, but Hayden usually stays in Montréal, works with whoever is local or sticks to conditioning.

Shane apologises to Jackie for taking up more of Hayden’s time with hockey. Jackie can’t really say to him “Hayden’s career would be a blip on the radar of hockey, if it weren’t for you; keep kicking his ass”, but she says something about the nature of the game.

A few days later, Hayden asks her if she’d like to go to Seattle with them, and bring the kids. “Shane suggested it. We could get a rental together? I know it’s no ‘week on a tropical island’ getaway, but there are beaches, and Mitty said there are some great playgrounds for kids in the city.”

Shane’s good for Hayden’s career in other ways, too, the absolute funniest of which is that Jackie’s instagram picture of the two of them on the ferris wheel, each with one of the twins on his lap, gets copied and goes slightly viral online. A lot of hockey fans have strong feelings about Shane Hollander in proximity to toddlers, it turns out. And Hayden’s agent gets calls from multiple baby gear companies wanting him to star in ad campaigns targeting “active dads”.

The company Hayden accepts gives him two of everything - ostensibly because he has twins. If they are transparently hoping that a rather more famous hockey player might be seen out and about with their “practical gear for active dads”, Hayden just thinks it’s hilarious.

2014

"Canada's Winter Olympians: Hottest 100", Hayden reads off his phone. "Got any guesses?"

"Tessa Virtue," Jackie says. "For sure. I bet Moir's in there just because they look so good together."

"Hottest woman and thirtieth-hottest man, apparently."

The Olympic break means she has an unusual stretch of time with Hayden that February. Hayden still has training, of course, but fewer meetings and none of the intensity that comes with two games a week in season. The girls are at kindergarten, and Arthur is usually down for a nap when Hayden gets back from the rink. Hayden, like everyone else who isn’t off skating their asses off in the Olympics, is trying to bulk up a little, regain muscle and energy stores that the first half of the season has already worn down.

"Patrick Chan," Jackie suggests, surveying the living room. For once, it’s in halfway decent order.

"Third hottest man," Hayden answers. He plucks a cashew nut out of the bowl of mixed unsalted nuts on the coffee table, tosses it in the air, and catches it in his teeth.

"All of the Dufour-Lapointe girls." Jackie drops onto the opposite side of the couch, and steals a peanut.

"No, Maxime isn’t on the list."

"Objectively wrong,” Jackie declares. “Next guess: no hockey players, because my husband's not selected." Hayden gives her a wry smile that re-confirms that neither of them expected him to be in Olympic contention, and they both know he’s a local darling but Canada at large isn’t desperate to see him shirtless.

"Shane Hollander: hottest Canadian Olympian," Hayden reads, with an air of satisfaction. "Well, hottest man. Right up there with Tessa Virtue."

"Good for him," Jackie says. "Hey, do you reckon she's single? That would be a gorgeous couple, Hollander and Virtue."

Hayden chokes slightly, and throws his next cashew at her instead of into his own mouth. Jackie catches it in her mouth. "I think if anyone told him that, he'd be terrified to even say hi to her in case someone made a big deal of it," Hayden says. He's not wrong.

"He hates these 'hottest player' ranking things, doesn't he?” Jackie says, because she knows Hayden is right. “Though that doesn't seem to have put him off doing another underwear ad."

"The duality of Shane," Haden says, and flops across her legs. "Babe, there's another one. I passed it on my run this morning. I can't go on an innocent run without running past my best friend plastered on the side of a bus shelter in just his tighty-whities. They're not even trying to, you know, disguise the package, either."

"I think that's the point of underwear ads, to show off the package in Calvin Klein's finest wrapping."

"Do they have to do it with my best friend?"

Jackie ruffles her husband's hair. There's something here that she hesitates to press too hard on. "You see him in his underwear all the time, Hayd. And out of it! I know all about those locker rooms of yours." She waggles her eyebrows, exaggeratedly.

"Babe, you've met Shane. The least likely man in Montreal to stand around half-dressed in locker rooms. Or anywhere, really."

"More's the pity," Jackie says, and Hayden splutters. "What? He's hot!"

"Hotter than Tessa Virtue?" Hayden asks.

"Hmm…" Jackie pretends to think about it for longer than is strictly necessary, just to make Hayden squirm. "No, not possible."

"Good, because I'll give you a celebrity pass for Tessa Virtue but not Shane Hollander."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Jackie says. "Not without you."

Hayden's eyes briefly bug out of his head.

"I'm just saying, babe, if you ever want to organise me a hot hockey player threesome, you can start with Shane Hollander. No questions asked."

"Shane would die of embarrassment," Hayden says, reproachfully. Jackie had been mostly joking, partly testing Hayden's responses, but now Hayden sounds hurt that she'd even consider suggesting it. She leans down and kisses his forehead.

"I know, it's not his style of thing. But a girl can dream…"

"You'd be into that? Like, not Shane, but two guys and you?"

"Hmmm… two hot guys in peak condition and with incredible stamina? No. Can't see the appeal there at all."

Hayden sits up and pulls her into a kiss that turns filthy fast. "I can do stamina," he says. "I can do stamina for two."

2015

They do not have a threesome with Shane Hollander, or any hockey player. And if Jackie had been wondering a little, about Hayden and the way Shane’s underwear campaigns seem to haunt him personally, she ends up thinking that she might have been projecting. Actually, she ended up not thinking about it at all for a while, because while the Metros were having their strongest season ever, Jackie was wrangling two five-year-olds in their first proper year of figure skating. They’d done an intro clinic in the fall - they’d done two, actually, one for hockey and one for figure skating, and the girls had been insistent on “the dancing one”. Jackie had worried a little: the gender divide was clear even at that age, and perhaps she ought to nudge them in favour of hockey.

When she’d asked Hayden, he’d shrugged, and said “Maybe Arthur should do figure skating, too. I think I like the idea of my kids taking up a sport that won’t claim all their teeth.”

Really, Jackie blames figure skating. The Tessa Virtue thing had been a joke. Mostly a joke. She and Hayden had been jokingly checking out celebrities for years. Hayden had fewer opinions on men than he did on women, but he certainly knew who she would find hot. She admired women he didn’t, too, and he knew which ones; but everyone liked looking at women, right?

The thing is that everyone in her world looks at women. She sits in the family reserve seats with the other WAGS, gossiping and checking out Instagram. Rose Landry is getting more gorgeous every year, and always at the centre of some Hollywood gossip. Janelle Monae’s 2014 Met Gala outfit has broken out of her trademark black-and-white with that stunning cape; with the 2015 theme announced, Jackie isn’t the only one of her friends looking forward to seeing what Monae and her stylist have planned this year. Tina Fey, the WAGS agree, looks better in a tux than any of their husbands. Amy Adams’ stylist must be trying to wash her out under floodlights.

Gina Rodruigez could wear the lovechild of a Little Black Dress and a tablecloth and have the self-confidence and poise that meant she looked good in it, better than Jackie or most of her friends did when done up in formalwear and then photographed by strangers. Jessica Chastain is… well, Jessica Chastain in her black-and-gold Globes gown is where Jackie started to wonder if she was looking at celebrity fashion coverage with different eyes to the rest of her friends. Jackie doesn’t want to wear that gown. She doesn’t have hair like that or want to have hair like that. She starts to think that perhaps she doesn’t envy all of these women - at least, not exclusively. She does envy their poise and their ability to hire stylists who would bring out the best in them.

The thing is, she might also want to… not even touch. These are celebrities way above “local hockey famous”, she doesn’t expect or realistically desire to touch Rose Landry in her (no doubt carefully curated) relaxed, laughing panel show persona. If presented with Jessica Chastian and her gorgeous, Golden-Globes perfect curls, Jackie cannot imagine touching. Just to admire would be … well. At this point, she has to concede she isn’t looking at only with scrutiny, nor with envy.

Enter, into this new phase of Jackie Pike self-awareness, Josiane. Josiane is not red-carpet perfect. Josiane is a little older than Jackie, and she is the twins’ figure skating coach/choreographer. Josiane had a daughter of her own, four years older than the twins. She is a single mom; Jackie never found out the story there, and the fact that Jackie hesitated to ask should have been the first internal warning sign that something is not quite moms-as-usual here.

The second warning is the time she takes the girls down to the rink for after-school free skating, meeting up with a couple of the other kids from the twins’ lessons. The rink has a section fenced off for younger kids, so she doesn’t feel she needs to be on the ice to supervise or shield them from the bigger kids. She and the other moms - Céline and Amanda - settle on the bleachers with coffee, and are chatting about nothing in particular when Jackie spots Josiane’s daughter Emilié on the ice, in the section not reserved for little kids. Jackie loses track of what Céline and Amanda are saying immediately, as she scans the rinkside area. She spotted Josiane easily, a gym bag over her shoulder and - oh. Josiane has seen them, she’s smiling and waving. She’s headed their way. Jackie is suddenly very aware that there is space on the bleacher next to her; but there is space next to Amanda, too. Is she going to sit with me, Jackie’s brain asks, like she’s fucking twelve.

Josiane does sit next to her, and for the record, they have a normal chat, all four of them. About their kids, about the wobbly bunny-hops the girls are doing on the ice. Amanda’s daughter loses her footing and falls; it looks for a moment like she might cry, her head whipping around to look for mom. Jade and Ruby are there in a heartbeat, each holding out a hand to help pull her up. Jackie is proud of her girls, and they are all pleased to see Amanda’s kid shake it off and forget to look for mom. The kids start practicing two-foot turns, and eventually rink staff have to intervene and remind them not to skate backwards during open skate.

Josiane used to be a competitive figure skater, but, as Jackie gathers over the first half of the season, never a national medalist, and her international appearances were few. Jackie’s husband has never been selected for the All Stars, and has never even been in the running for the Olympics. Jackie herself faded out of playing around the age of seventeen, after a promising few years on a junior girls’ hockey team. Puberty hadn’t given her the height or body mass to go with the speed and accuracy that she’d had in her early teens. Jackie thinks she can understand Josiane - certainly she respects Josiane.

She also, clearly, has a bit of a crush on Josiane. But she’s busy; she doesn’t have time to have a crisis of sexuality, if that’s what this is. It obviously isn’t going anywhere. Jackie is married, Jackie’s very much into her husband - more so than a lot of her friends are into theirs, and she feels weird about that sometimes. And, as noted before, she is busy. Also there’s no reason to think Josiane might be into women at all, let alone Jackie specifically.

In the spring, the hockey season gets intense. It always does, but this year is a new level. Hayden gets more snappy with the kids, and Shane comes over less often and leaves sooner when he does. The Metros are definitely going to the playoffs this; they might make it all the way to the cup. Shane seems to be carrying the responsibility of it as if he was personally answerable to the maîre de Montréal for any weakness in his game, or that of his teammates. Jackie worries about him. Hayden worries about him. Jackie tries banishing Hayden to hang out at Shane’s, instead of hanging around their place getting snippy with everyone, but Hayden is very sure that Shane wants to be alone.

Also in the spring, Jackie’s daughters need costumes. Jackie mentally revisits her summer thought process and wishes she’d pushed harder for hockey. At least with hockey you can just pay up the (often alarming) cost and acquire sticks, jerseys, other gear.

Josiane laughs at her bafflement, but not cruelly. “Oh wow,” she says. “I’m guessing you don’t have ballet girls in your family?”

No, Jackie does not.

“Okay,” Josiane says. “We start with the dance basics. Measure your girls - I’ll send you instructions - and I’ll tell you where to get tights and leotards.” Josiane pauses for a moment. “Can you, how do you say?” Josiane, unlike Jackie, has French as her native language. “Coudre?” she asks, in French, and Jackie knows that one, but Josiane makes a needle-in-and-out gesture for good measure. Her face wrinkles up adorably.

“Sew?” Jackie shrugs. “I can take up and let down hems, but that’s about it.”

“Good enough for this stage,” Josiane says. “There are places that you can buy costumes from, in bulk - lots of ballet classes do it this way. But that costs a lot, and I don’t think it’s worth it for this age. I was thinking: every skater’s family buys the leotard and leggings, and we pool together to buy fabric… I’m planning to have this class skate to “You are my sunshine”, so shades of yellow and orange? It’s easy to drape a little skirt onto a leotard. Just enough that everyone has something that twirls. I have a hot glue gun - we can bedazzle the necklines. Maybe matching headbands?”

Josiane stops suddenly, and laughs. “Sorry, that was a lot.”

“No, it sounds great,” Jackie says. She does not say I love learning how you think.

“I make all of Emélie’s costumes,” Josiane says, like she can read Jackie’s mind. “Maman made mine when I was a kid, and it’s… cool. Interesting. I didn’t have much input into that side of things, when I was seriously competing.” She looks across at Jackie. “Would the other parents agree to this, do you think? My idea was that we could have a craft party, to make the costumes together. Someone cannot sew? Okay, she can do the hot glue gun.”

“That’s a great idea,” Jackie assures her, and before she knows it she’s offering her rec room for the purpose: odds are that she and Hayden have the biggest house, so it made sense.

Jackie ends up going shopping with Josiane, too, for fabric and various bedazzlements. Josiane works a regular job four days a week, so they go craft-shopping on a Friday. The craft store is vast and cavernous and full of fascinating things Jackie has never given much thought to. Some of them make sense - fabric. Buttons. A lot of beads. Other things - who needs styrofoam shaped like a human head but one third the size? What craft could you possibly do with that?

“I’m making my own costume, too,” Josiane tells her, hovering over some roll of shiny, stretchy fabric. “With Emélie, so far, I have bought leotards and sewn skirts onto them, but I want to sew the whole thing for myself. If it is a disaster....” She waves a hand. “There are one or two of my old costumes I still fit into, I think.”

Jackie trails around the store, carrying first one then two baskets, watching Josiane’s excited gestures as she talks about fabric, stick-on diamontes, the routine she’s planning for the girls and the one she is planning for herself, as a capstone to their little gala. She has to text the nanny to let her know that Jackie will be much later than planned.

As they round another row of incomprehensible craft supplies Jackie thinks: I’d follow her anywhere if I could get on my knees and blow her. Wait. Not blow. Her brain glitches out at that point, cross-referencing her body and her experience and telling her that while “get on my knees and blow him” worked for her and, as far as she knows, every man she’d ever had that impulse toward, standing is just a really awkward position from which to be eaten out. Even if the other party looks good on their knees, which Hayden does, and Josiane - fuck.

Jackie snaps the lid down on that line of thought, and stares intently at a selection of ribbons.

“This one, do you think?” Josiane asks, holding up a ribbon somewhere between orange and red. “Or this one?” Somewhere between orange and brown. Josiane is blissfully unaware of what is going on in Jackie’s head and Jackie wants to keep it that way. “The first one,” she said, for no particular reason.

When she gets home, while she’s making dinner and sorting out the kids, Jackie thinks: I really do have to tell Hayden about this. But Hayden is away on a roadie, and she can’t just call him and be like “Hi, husband, love of my life, I’m crushing on a woman. A woman I spend significant time around, no less.” Well. She could, in theory. She’s pretty sure that if she were lightly crushing on, say, a male teacher at the twins’ school, she would have already told Hayden. Hayden would have been giving her shit for it for months. Hell, he has been giving her shit about her “girl crush”. Just less shit than he would give her if this was a hot guy.

So that’s one thing: Hayden kind of knows, but she ought to tell him he's been missing an important bit of it. So did she, but it’s still weird. And when it comes to "Honey, I’m bisexual", there’s two problem outcomes that, realistically, were fairly likely. The first problem would be insecurity. Jackie didn’t think that was overwhelmingly likely, with Hayden, but it was more likely if she brought it up while he was away. The second problem would be endorsement, of a sort, in the “hell yeah, let’s plan threesomes” way, which might also be made worse if Hayden was away and surrounded by hockey players.

Fantasy threesomes and hall passes had been fun when Jackie knew she and Hayden were on the same page, or close to it: straight but a little flexible, in theory. They might be fun again, but not right now. And certainly not with Josiane, dear god. Jackie would die. Of mortification, not hotness.

And Jackie is still a busy woman who wrangling kids, a household, a husband who is only home half the time. Not to mention driving her mom to medical appointments, because her Dad still works and with how much help she gets from her parents with the kids, she owes them that much. So she doesn’t bring it up immediately when Hayden gets back, and it just sort of slips down her endless to-do list.

Somehow, it ends up being Shane she tells first, because Shane brings her a sewing machine the day before the craft-party. Josiane has one, but a second one would be handy, so Jackie asked the WAG chat. Someone must have told Hayden, who told Shane, and it turned out that while none of the Montréal wives had sewing machines, Yuna Hollander did and wouldn’t mind lending it to Jackie.

Shane wanted to set the machine up for her. “Not the actual needle and thread bit, I don’t understand that, but where will you be using it?”

While he’s arranging the machine on the table in the rec room, fiddling with cables and connections, Shane says, with a little frown,

“No offense, Jacks, but couldn’t you just pay someone to make the girls’ costumes? I didn’t know you knew anything about sewing.”

Jackie doesn’t, really, but she wants to. She tells Shane all about it: what Josiane had said about keeping it simple; the fact the whole class needs the same costume and this is better for everyone; the plan for working on them as a group so not everyone needs to know how to sew. When she’s pulling out her phone to show him the sketches Josiane sent, showing the design and then the template for the skirt piece, she catches herself. This is not really Shane’s idea of fun.

“Sorry,” she says, putting a hand to her mouth. “I’m just. It’s cool. She’s really cool. Josiane, I mean.”

Shane nods, with a little smile that’s as good as a hearty laugh from anyone else. “I get that. Hayden mentioned you had a bit of a… what does he call it? Girl crush?”

Jackie’s heart clenches. “He told you that?”

Shane must sense her anxiety, but he misreads it. “Not - he doesn’t mean it like that.” Of course he doesn’t. “It’s just a thing people say. Apparently. I don’t hang around with a lot of girls, but like… I looked it up online. Like a friend crush, I guess? Or being really impressed with someone?”

“That’s what girl crush means, yeah,” Jackie tells him.

Shane pulls out a box from his bag and adds, “Mom sent these, too. Spare needles and those little wheel things, and other… sewing machine stuff.”

Jackie takes it from him, and then reaches for his wrist. Shane freezes when she touches him; he often does that, if people touch him unexpectedly.

“It kind of is a crush, though,” Jackie says. “The other kind.”

“Oh.” Shane says.

Jackie forces her fingers to let Shane’s wrist go. Shane wraps his own hand around it, standing with his hands in front of him like he’s in trouble. Jackie realises this must be weird for him.

“Not - I’m not - there’s nothing for Hayden to worry about,” she says.

“So you’re not…?” Shane is looking at her now, with confusion and something that might almost be fear in his eyes.

“Um,” Jackie says. “I mean. I am… bi?” Shane looks even more confused. “Bisexual. Probably. I mean, I have a crush on a woman. I’m not gonna do anything about it, Hayd and I are fine, but like… I have eyes. I see hot men all the time, I can admire them from a distance. And now hot women, too? Interesting women. Cool women.”

“Okay,” Shane says. “That’s… good?”

“I. Yeah. Don’t worry about it,” Jackie says. “I’m just a bit silly, because it took me this long to figure it out.”

Shane nods, and it seems like it’s at this point that he understands something, some shred of what she’s just blurted out to him. “I get that. And Hayd knows. Alright, here’s the manual as well, you’ll need that to figure out threading it.” He pulls that out and lays it next to the machine. “It’s pretty common with girls though, isn’t it?”

“Sewing?” Jackie says, and Shane snorts.

“No. Liking… both.”

“I guess,” Jackie says. She doesn’t try to explain the difference, or that she actually doesn’t know any women in her circle of WAGs and moms who call themselves bi. Shane is Shane, but he’s still a hockey guy. Not really the ideal audience for Jackie Pike’s Big Bisexual Awakening.

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

Jackie Pike picks the weirdest and/or most effective way to come out to Hayden; the List expands in gender and sporting parameters; Shane tries his best to be supportive; Hayden does more Dad Ads; Shane gets an agent. Then Ilya Rozanov hits "like" on some oddly specific pornography from his main twitter account: Jackie becomes the Ally in the Group Chat; Hayden is way more interested in Rozanov's sexuality than he ought to be; and Jackie learns that Shane's had a girl in Boston for years (except perhaps now he doesn't).

Chapter Notes

Projected chapter count updated, due to Improved Characterisation and Plot Arc.

Author note with some chagrin: I thought this would be nice and simple - the second half of 2015 needed something, and 2016 and 2017 were thin, but I was totally going to get all the way through to "Jackie Pike injures her ankle and Shane and Ilya babysit" in ch 2.

Alas/hooray, with my beta-reader's notes on what needed to be improved re Shane characterisation in the 2020+ parts, I realised there needed to be more engagement with Shane's arc, including both canon plot points and the Shane-Jackie axis. With time to let it cook I also realised that if the Jackie Pike Bisexual Awakening arc isn't bending toward "and then she made out with A Woman" (which it isn't), I needed to double down on giving her other Relatable Bisexual Experiences.

I aspire to get all the way through to 2020 in the next chapter!

There will also be citations in the endnote. Of course there will. It's a miracle we got through chapter one without me giving citations for something.

Final note intro note: cloud_atlas delivered a fantastic combo of SPAG and developmental edit beta on my first full draft, and has provided alpha-reading/cheerleading for chunks of subsequent development, but I am flying by the seat of my pants / relying on "I come home from work and write stuff then I wake up earlier than expected and edit what I wrote: rinse/repeat for weeks" as my SPAG checker for the newer stuff. Blame not cloud_atlas for any horrors I may have committed in the New Bits.

2015

Jackie told Shane. She told Shane, and she let him think that Hayden knew. Well, that’s one way of making sure she actually talked to her husband, she supposes. She doesn’t do it as soon as Hayden gets home that afternoon, but she does tell him that she’s lined up for the kids to spend Sunday with her parents.

“Something up, Jacks?” Hayden asks, rocking Arthur on one hip as Jackie lines up dinner for four.

“You’re on a roadie again on Monday, I thought we could just… chill. Together.”

Hayden’s I know you smirk starts to bloom on his face, but his attention is dragged away by Arthur squirming and fussing. Jackie’s mom-senses tell her that if she just scooped Arthur up, he would settle; but if she did that, Hayden couldn’t make this dinner. Hayden can feed the girls, sure, and he can feed himself. He can feed himself and Shane, even. He can’t cook this specific meal, a complex mix planned - Jackie’s actually been in correspondence with the team nutritionists - so that there’s a core dish that works for both Hayden and the twins, and Arthur will eat the same sides as the girls if not the same meat dish, and Hayden’s sides are different but they freeze well, and… well. There are easier ways to solve this: Comeau has a private chef who comes in twice a week when he’s home and cooks in bulk, and his wife has her diet. Jackie might be a fool but she feels like family dinner together means something. It might even mean more, if it’s a rare thing.

While Jackie has been thinking about that, Hayden has gone to the freezer and pulled out a bag of frozen mixed peas and corn. He’s poured a handful into one of those bowls intended for dip at parties, and is feeding them one by one to Arthur.

Arthur had been an easy baby, but he’s shaping up into a fussy toddler. If it weren’t for the nanny, Jackie would never get a moment alone with the girls when Hayden’s on a roadie. As it is, when Hayden’s away, Jackie hands her son to Maria and does the school run unshowered, and when she gets back there’s a solid ten minutes where she has to be in the same room as Arthur and Maria, before she can slink away and get her own morning underway. At the other end of the day she stretches out the school pick-up when Hayden’s away - takes the girls to a park, or to get ice cream. She has the three-kid bedtime routine down pat, but without Hayden home at least a couple of nights in the week so they can split their attention, she relies too much on the fact that the girls keep each other occupied.

Thank god Arthur loves her mom and dad. They haven’t tried an overnight yet, but he’ll toddle off to gramma and pa’s happily enough on Sunday.

Arthur trusts Shane, too. Arthur had been exempt from Hayden-and-Shane-take-the-kids days out until almost five months old, because - unlike the girls - he wouldn’t take a bottle. He started showing an interest in food early, though, and once he’d figured out mashed banana and baby yoghurt as a sometimes food, he would also accept a bottle - cooled formula, no less! From the first “Arthur-included” outing, Shane had been insistent that he wanted to wear the baby carrier. Hayden and Jackie had both been skeptical, but Shane with a clear preference was not a man to be argued with; you could warn him, at least once, but after that you had to let him figure it out the hard way.

They were wrong. Baby-wearing had turned out to be Shane’s element. The “active dads” company - who had got Hayden to do a whole ad campaign and sent him a baby-carrier and a differently-arranged Dad Bag, got their wish: a couple of fans posted to their social media “I met Shane Hollander” pics clearly depicting their product. Shane always had his hand cradled around Arthur’s head, so while Arthur’s legs and arms might be in the shot his head wasn’t. Once Arthur was facing outward in the baby carrier, that stopped. Jackie isn’t sure if it was Shane or Hayden who checked that, but she didn’t have to.

Then, according to Hayden, the first time Shane took charge of Arthur in the pram, he spent the whole outing fretting because he couldn’t see Arthur to check on him. Jackie might have crowdsourced the WAG group and bought a second-hand pram that had a transparent plastic insert in the canopy. The WAGs might believe that Hayden is adorably unable to push a pram without being able to see his kid in it. In her defence, she donated the Active Dad pram to the local women’s shelter. Some struggling mom who does not give a fuck about what colour the pram is is now enjoying a pram with all the high-end features albeit in khaki. Jackie donated one of the Active Dad Bags from the previous sponsorship, too. She kept the other one for herself, because it’s a surprisingly versatile backpack.

Here in the present, Hayden finishes feeding Arthur frozen peas and corn, and leans his head down to gently bump his forehead against Arthur’s.

“We good, bud?” Hayden asks their son.

“Dada!” Arthur says, clearly affirmative, if less articulate than his sisters were at his age.

Jackie is suddenly very glad she’s cleared their schedule for Sunday, for entirely different reasons than expected. Her husband is bonking heads with their precious, fussy, difficult son the same way he bonks heads with Shane before a game. She needs to fuck him about it. She needs to make dinner first.

Come Sunday, Jackie is rattled. Saturday’s craft party didn’t get as much done on the costumes as they’d hoped, and so Jackie is left with not only the clean-up but a task list. The tasks are pretty well matched to her (minimal) crafting skills, so while she’s frustrated and resentful, she’s also impressed by Josiane’s insight, and at the same time, unsure whether to be mad about being under-estimated or galvanised by desire to impress in her assigned tasks.

Hayden drops the kids off at her mom’s place while Jackie works on tidying up the rec room and questions her sanity. Fuck. She hasn’t had a crush like this since… high school, maybe. She’s had other kinds of crushes, and she’s not convinced that “crush” is even the right term for what happened between her and Hayden. They met in a club, they realised they wanted to fuck; they fucked; they fell in love or realised they were in love pretty damn fast on the heels of that hookup. She’s had crushes since that were mostly about admiring someone who was hot and competent.

This kind of oh my gosh she’s so cool, I wish I was like her, I want her to like me, I want her to kiss me crush that is only able to exist because there’s no actual prospect of acting on it? That takes her back to high school: to wondering if her best friend’s brother will speak to her when she visits; to suddenly developing a keen interest the book they were reading in English class because the shy nerdy guy with braces had become a tall nerdy guy with curls she wished she could touch and he wasn’t shy at all when talking about books.

With a pang of recognition in hindsight, it takes her back to her first year on that junior team, and to Marla, who was tall and broad (defensewoman, but not Jackie’s pair) and two years older than Jackie and so sure of herself and what she wanted (from life, from hockey, from other people). There had been others, too, she slowly realises. A new friend in her final year of high school, whose hourglass figure led to too many circular conversations about weight: Jackie remembers her own frustration, because it was obvious that Alice was the hottest girl in the grade. Alice wouldn’t have been any more likely to internalise the compliment if she had realised why this was as obvious to Jackie as it was to guys around them. Still, it seems a bit unfair that Jackie hadn’t figured it out either.

Hayden comes looking for her as soon as he gets back, puts his hands on her hips and pulls her against him.

“Hi there, gorgeous,” he says, swaying a little, as if they’re dancing. “Looking to have some fun… this morning?”

Jackie can’t resist stretching her arms up to wrap around Hayden’s neck and kiss him, but she gathers her wits and her will and pulls back before things get too far.

She’s run through so many versions of this conversation. She could start with a simple declaration. She could start with “so I have this crush”. She could start with “so Hayden, you know the Tessa Virtue hall pass…”

In their rec room, standing in between Hayden’s exercise bike and a table drowning in sequins and ribbon, she spits out what is possibly the least strategic option possible.

“Hayden,” she says, and notes the look on Hayden’s face when he registers that she had said they needed to talk about something, and this was probably it. “I came out to Shane. I mean. I’m bisexual, and I told Shane about it.”

Hayden stares at her. “As a… prank?”

“No. I’m… I’m bi.” Hayden continues staring. Jackie makes an I don’t know what to tell you shrugging gesture. “Babe. I’ve been crushing hard on Josiane, you know it. Shane knew it!”

“Yeah but that doesn’t make you… you know.”

“It does, though.” Jackie reaches a hand out and snags Hayden’s hand with hers. “I’m a bit slow on the uptake maybe? But it’s not the first time. I guess there’s more men I’m attracted to than women, but… yeah.”

Hayden lets her tug him over to the sofa.

“So you… want to sleep with her?” He does a remarkably good job of neither veering into jealousy or leering.

“No,” Jackie says, and then stops, refocuses. “No, but, like… in the same way I didn’t want to sleep with Enrique from daycare last year: because I’m married to you, but I still have eyes.”

“Right. So why’s this a big deal? Why were you telling Shane?”

The second question is easier to answer.

“Shane knew about the “girl crush”, but the way he described it… Hayd, it just felt wrong. If I said yeah, that’s it, all women are like this about other women sometimes I’d be lying. Would you lie to Shane?”

“No, obviously,” Hayden says, before he’s processed the rest of what she said. Imagining lying to Shane would be… well. Deceiving Shane - allowing Shane to keep on with an incorrect assumption, would be wrong. It’s not comparable to their children, in any real sense. Shane is not a child. Shane isn’t dependent on her or Hayden to explain anything to him. Nevertheless, it would feel wrong to give him lies of convenience.

Hayden processes as much of what she’s said as he can process right now, and Jackie can tell he has processed it because he stops asking impulsive questions, and just looks at her. They’re still holding hands and he wraps his other hand around the back of hers and rubs gently with his thumb against her skin. Jackie reaches up to ruffle his hair and he leans into it. They’re going to be okay. She might have to have some version of this conversation a few more times, but maybe she will end up more sure of what she’s trying to say.

One of the background, pre-considered speeches resurfaces and morphs in her mind.

“So I was thinking,” Jackie says, “I should probably hand back the Tessa Virtue hall pass.”

Hayden, quite predictably, says, “What?”

Jackie considers for a moment. “Either that or we should both nominate more hall passes.” Hayden continues to look utterly perplexed. “Hayd. I was joking about the Tessa Virtue hall pass. I mean I kind of wasn’t, but I never joked around about hot man hall passes, right? Well. I don’t expect to ever have an opportunity with Tessa Virtue, any more than Ryan Reynolds.” Hayden nods, but Jackie isn’t sure he’s following. “But they should be in the same category. Hot people I don’t expect to have an opportunity with but I’m definitely really attracted to them and not just saying that because it turns you on to think about two hot women.”

Hayden continues looking perplexed for a second and then says, “Babe, you want a hall pass for Ryan Reynolds? That sounds hot. Just tell me about it later.”

Jackie cracks up laughing, and smacks him lightly in the side of the head. “Dingus. No. I’m saying… remember the list of hockey players you could invite to a threesome?”

Hayden snort-laughs and says, “Yeah, I remember it involves Shane, otherwise known as the MLH’s least likely threesome participant.”

“Cool, let’s expand that, I now have a list of Athletes You Can Invite To A Threesome.”

Hayden looks at her in the way he does when he’s trying to figure her out.

“Tessa Virtue and Leah Campbell are both on it.”

Hayden continues to look interested but puzzled. “Sounds great to me.”

“But you need to know that if you somehow managed to make a Tessa Virtue threesome happen, I’d be as into that as I would be if it was… Ryan Gosling, or, like… Eric Bennet.” Eric Bennett wasn’t previously on the list, but Hayden knows she has a soft spot for goalies and knows she thinks Eric is hot.

“Right, got it,” Hayden says, and Jackie thinks that might be that sorted. Only for a moment, though; Hayden frowns for a moment and then says,

“So what did Shane say? Was he, you know, cool?”

“Babe, when has Shane ever been cool when talking about feelings? Or sex?” Hayden shrugged, conceding the point. “But yeah, he was cool with it, if that’s what you mean. He wanted to check that I wasn’t cheating on you or anything, but he was fine. Happy for me, I think?”

“He wouldn’t be as cool with it if it was one of the guys,” Hayden says, a little too fast.

Jackie had been pretty sure by now that she’d been projecting when it came to Hayden. She dials that certainty back, but she’s no less certain about what Shane would be (awkwardly, with few words) cool with.

“Hayd,” she says, taking his hand again. “No one in hockey would have a clue what to do if one of you guys came out as bi, or gay. Shane wouldn’t know what to say, but this is Shane. He’d say something like we’re all here to play hockey, and figure it out later.”

She has a vision of some player - married, with kids, a bit quiet maybe, or a bit weird - telling Hayden that he’s bi, the same way she told Shane. Hayden’s response would be worse than Shane’s, she’s pretty sure. No need to point that out to him.

“You think?”

Jackie nods. “I think.” She takes a steadying breath, and reshapes her goals for this conversation. “He’d benefit from backup, though.” Hayden would come good, the same as Shane; and Hayden had her. They both had her. “I’d tell him to get on the phone and call Leah Campbell, or the girls over at La Gloire, and find out what a good captain does in that situation.”

Hayden looks startled for a moment then cracks up. “Yeah, I guess the PWHL have got this figured out.”

Jackie thinks about explaining to him that better than the MLH isn’t great, an easy environment to be gay in, but decides to call this conversation a win.

“Coffee?” She says, instead. Hayden nods. “I’ll make it, you find something on Netflix.”

“Netflix and chill?” Hayden asks as she stands, leering exaggeratedly.

“If you’re lucky!”

“I’m lucky I have you!” Hayden shouts, as she heads for the kitchen.

By the end of the year, Jackie concludes that it’s a good thing that Hayden is not at the level of athlete prestige where he’s likely to actually get to know Tessa Virtue or Scott Moir, because the Tessa Virtue thing becomes some kind of cipher between them. Hayden started with the cliche, of course: he cupped her breasts in his hands and looked up at her and said, “babe, you’re missing out, tits are so good.” He does that, still, and it still gets her going. Jackie tries to keep the upper hand, tells him to explain, or demonstrate, depending on her mood. Hayden, mischief in his face, usually ends up saying something like “but when I invite Tessa Virtue home for that threesome…” and then they have really good sex about it. It’s not always Virtue, and the scenarios that started with clichés around boobs diversify, and get filthier.

If, when Hayden is on the road and Jackie has time to herself, she ends up watching a lot of Virtue/Moir routines, and sending Hayden YouTube links and commentary… well. They end up agreeing that Scott Moir isn’t particularly attractive (or not their type) in and of himself, but they both watch him end their 2012-2013 routine on his knees with his face up against Tessa’s pelvis and they both think that’s hot as fuck.

They both know perfectly well that it’s an act: it’s a sport. But it’s hot in a very particular way that none of the porn they watch is (Jackie lets Hayden select the porn exactly once; he knows what to show her in straight porn, but wow, he has terrible taste in lesbian porn). Both Virtue and Moir have sweated knives to produce something that is both athletic and sexy. Anyone who’s trained at a sport knows it’s not hot to the athletes, it’s precision and execution. That makes it hotter to watch, for some reason. Or maybe Jackie and Hayden are just both equally into the idea of getting on their knees for gorgeous, competent women. As the immediately relevant gorgeous woman (competence aspired to but not assured), Jackie benefits in some very specific ways from this bonding experience with her husband.

2016

Jackie and Hayden continue to not have threesomes with hockey players, or other athletes. They do have some new and very interesting developments in their marriage partly because of another hockey player, but that’s not the first notable development in the year. The first notable development is that Hayden’s manager, Craig (who is a sort of triple-duty manager, agent and if necessary publicist) contacts him with a sponsorship proposal. A multi-year sponsorship, no less. One of the Japanese car brands wants him and his Wholesome Dad branding for a campaign advertising their mid-size SUV (versatile for the urban family!) and depending on the success of that campaign they would either contract him for another next year - they strongly imply that if his family is expanding, they would like him to advertise people movers - or pay him a lump sum and cut him loose.

Hayden’s manager, when he emails, says he’s already negotiating “I drive this car for a year and then I can sell it or donate it or whatever” clauses. That’s not the problem. The problem is that the sponsors would love to pay Hayden more, and imply that they would weigh this in their decision at the end of year one, if his own actual children also appear in their ads. Craig references this in his email and even words it such that, when she reads it, Jackie can tell Craig would like to loop her in. It’s unclear if Craig over-estimated Hayden’s attention to written detail, or in fact underestimated Hayden by supposing that his wife handles his admin emails at a first pass.

Whichever way it came about, the actual sticky-fingered problem is that Hayden bounced into a kitchen where Jackie and the girls were making breaded chicken in a mostly functional production line: one twin for the eggs, one for the breadcrumb and seasoning mix, then Jackie puts them in the George Foreman grill press. Mr Foreman is not on her list of hottest athletes she might wish to meet, but he is on a list of athletes she would like to personally thank, because he has seen fit to endorse and advertise a kitchen gadget that fulfils both “these kids would eat nothing but chicken nuggets if I let them” and “this athlete would like to eat more chicken nuggets but knows he ought not to” needs.

“I heard from Craig, there’s some car company that wants to sponsor me, get me to do some ads - show off how good their car is for dropping your kids off at Saturday sport and stuff.”

Ruby and Jade, who never listen to their parents when it’s good for them, swivel around at that. “You can take us to skating!” one of them points out, and the other says, “Can we be in it too?”

“They said…” Hayden starts, and then catches Jackie’s eye and thinks better of it. “Maybe. I’m not sure, we have to look into the details.”

Jackie is really not sure about starting her kids on a modelling career aged six. On the other hand, she can tell, when she and Hayden talk about it, that Hayden kind of wants this. Both girls had doubled down on wanting to be in an ad - the more Hayden had backpedalled and the more Jackie had tried to suggest that maybe this was a Dad thing, not a family project, the more certain they had become.

Part of Jackie suspects that the twins particularly want there to be an ad campaign featuring Hayden dropping them off at the rink because he so rarely gets to do so. A lot of Saturdays, even if he’s home, he’s got to be at training himself. He’d missed their little exhibition last year, due to a road trip, and he’ll have to beg off mandatory practice if he’s going to make it this year. Maybe that’s part of the appeal for Hayden, too.

She and Hayden agree immediately that Arthur isn’t going to be involved, either way. And they have time - Hayden tells his manager to let the sponsor know he’s interested, and enquire about the timeline. It turns out they aren’t looking for fast-turnaround ads to run during the playoffs this year, so there’s time to negotiate.

Jackie needs to borrow Yuna Hollander’s sewing machine again - the crafting party approach to ensemble costumes had worked out well last year and is back on for this spring. Josiane started work on designs earlier, this year, and Jackie started working on the logistics of it earlier, too. She’d noticed that the moms from their little squad who were most keen on the idea weren’t the ones who were best at crafts but the ones who, if she had to guess, were going to find the cost of gear and training for ice sports the most difficult if their kid wanted to keep going. So Jackie sets a date earlier than she had last year, and goes out of her way to talk to the dads, and occasional grandparents, who pop up before and after lessons. She’s pretty confident that without actually mentioning money, she’s convinced Pierre, grandfather of Théo, the only boy in the class, that since he knows how to use a nail gun, he would be a welcome addition to the costume-making party. Théo’s mom has to work. Théo’s Dad, if there is one on the scene, has no interest in figure skating.

The satisfaction Jackie gets out of quietly pulling those strings, making things - she devoutly hopes - easier, maybe even better, without putting anyone on the spot - is equal to the bloom of delight when Josiane shows her sketches. Josiane shows her drafts of her designs for Émilie’s costume this year, and Josiane’s own exhibition costume, and Jackie oohs and aaahs with earnest admiration. When it comes to the girls’ ensemble, though, Jackie has to point out that what Josiane has planned is stretching the skillset of the group - and more importantly, the time that they have available for the costume-making party.

“Merde,” Josiane says, “you are right.” They hash out a feasible option. Jackie gets a fucking kick out of being consulted, respected; but she’s no longer giddy with it. The crush is fading. Part of her mourns it - what if that never happens again? What if it was just a phase? Well, if for some reason a phase could galvanise her to talk to not only Hayden but Shane about sexual identity… She's still got three kids and a hockey player husband; she has no more time to wig out about not having a crush than she had for wigging out about having a crush.

Shane drops the sewing machine off, again.

“Tell your mom thanks,” Jackie says, as once again Shane insists on setting the machine up and testing the power connection. “I think I should probably just buy one, but I haven’t had time to figure out what kind to buy.”

“Couldn’t you just ask your… friend?”

“I probably will,” Jackie says, easily, “Over the season break, when both of us have more time.”

“Right.” Shane looks sideways at her, and away again, and Jackie’s brain belatedly registers the hesitation he put on friend. He’s not - surely he’s not thinking she’s having an affair, or he wouldn’t be asking so casually.

“How are things going there?” Shane asks her. “With your… I mean. Are you okay with… everything?”

“With bisexuality? Or with Josiane?” Jackie asks him, trying her very hardest not to laugh.

“Either. I was just thinking it could be hard. For you.”

Damn, Jackie wants to hug him, but she’s pretty sure now would be the worst possible time for that. “Firstly, I’m gonna say again so you don’t worry, Hayden and I are fine. You don’t want the details, I’m sure, but we’re doing great.”

“Fuck no,” Shane mutters, at the prospect of details.

“As for Josiane, we’re friends. Crushes fade, you know?”

Shane looks at her intently for a moment. “I guess they do.” Now that she thinks about it, Shane probably doesn’t meet many women to crush on. Girls in bars and clubs and sometimes at parties, sure, but it’s pretty clear that Shane isn’t a hookups kind of guy. Jackie makes a mental note to keep an eye out for quieter, more homebody type women in her circles. Granted, most of her circles are moms or already the partners of hockey players, but she’s a sociable woman.

Sewing machine set up, Jackie puts a hand on Shane’s shoulder. “Time for a coffee, Shane? There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

Shane looks a little concerned, but agrees, and she runs past him the situation with Hayden’s sponsorship and the twins.

“Of course he said it in front of them,” Shane says, shaking his head. Then he taps his fingers on the table, obviously thinking.

“I mean, I know you were a fair bit older when you started getting media attention, and this isn’t really the same, but…” Shane has been a marketable commodity since his early teens; Jackie’s pretty sure he’ll understand her reservations, even if it’s not a comparable situation.

“I’m trying to think what my mom would say,” Shane says, frowning at his coffee.

“Maybe I should have asked her,” Jackie says, laughing.

“Actually, let me text her,” Shane says, pulling out his phone. Sure, why not? It’s not like this is secret or deeply personal, and if anyone would have advice here it’d be Yuna Hollander.

Text sent, Shane fidgets with his cup again, and then says, “I’m getting an agent, actually. Mom’s still going to manage my sponsorship stuff, but I’m getting an agent for the rest of it.”

Huh. “Why now?” Jackie asks.

“I’m a restricted free agent this year,” Shane says. “It’s fine to have your mom handle your contract stuff your first year, or even at the end of the rookie contract, but … doesn’t look great at my age, does it?”

“You’re looking to move?” Jackie asks, shocked.

“No. But…” Shane taps the table again. “I want them to know I know what I’m worth, you know?”

“I guess.” Jackie doesn’t really know. Hayden’s salary has gone up, sure, but she’s not really paid attention to how that got negotiated. It probably wouldn’t have gone as much in Hayden’s favour had he not become Shane Hollander’s winger first and foremost. “So you… shop around for an offer, and then you go back to the Metros who offer you more money?”

Shane shrugs. “That’s what mom thinks. If that’s what we’re going to do, I want someone who has had more hockey clients than just me.” Seems fair, Jackie thinks. Shane checks his phone, and evidently Yuna hasn’t texted back. Someone has, because he shakes his head at the screen before locking it again. He looks soft, unguarded, the way he only usually does around the kids, or sometimes Hayden.

Shane looks across at Jackie, then out at the Pike’s patio and the pool beyond. “It’s not really the money I care about,” he admits. “I want a no-trade clause. They might renegotiate without me finding another bidder, if my agent suggests I would go to, say, Ottawa, if they gave me a no-trade clause.”

“Ottawa, really?” Jackie says, spluttering. The Centaurs suck. “Yeah, I see how having your mom negotiate that wouldn’t look great.” Real momma’s boy stuff, that would be.

“I don’t think my mom could convince anyone that she wanted me to leave Montréal,” Shane says, drily. “Not for love, money, or no-trade clauses.”

Shane’s phone lights up, and he swipes through to his texts. “Yeah,” he says, to the phone, and then to Jackie: “This is what I thought, but I wanted to check with mom first in case I got it wrong. If you and Hayden agree the girls can do this, you should make sure they have separate contracts from Hayden. Not just for money, for conditions - like maybe they only appear in the ad from behind? Getting out of the car, walking away from the camera?”

Oh, Jackie thinks. Of course.

“Mom says to tell you you negotiate that. You specifically. She says, um, I’ll read it: Hayden has his manager. The girls have Jackie.” Shane closes the phone. “It would be better for Hayden, too. If you have to draw a line somewhere, better that it comes from you, not him, the guy they’re sponsoring.”

The Metros win another cup. Josiane says Ruby is definitely ready to start the STAR assessments next season; Jade less clearly so, but if they move to the more intensive classes, the program there would give them both more focused support. The suggestion isn’t really a surprise, not if she wants the girls to get the most out of this. Better they start now, at the lower levels and with less intensive schedules; if they change their minds and want to take up something else, there will still be time later.

“And here I was thinking I should buy a sewing machine before next years’ crafting party,” Jackie says.

“Believe me, you’ll have plenty of costumes to work on,” Josiane says. Jackie knows she won’t, though; she and Hayden can afford to buy costumes.

In the short term, Jackie needs to bedazzle the backs of Ruby and Jade’s leotards, to console them for the “no faces in the ad” condition. She pulls out a note book and shows Josiane her sketches; Josiane agrees to loan her the hot glue gun.

When the 2016-2017 season starts, Quebec is treated to an array of TV and poster ads advertising the convenience of a medium-size family SUV for urban life, featuring Hayden Pike. Good for getting to work on time (hustling out of the car at the Bell Centre in full game-day suiting), good for coming home to (the car pulls up at a simulated airport quick pick-up and Hayden tosses his bags in - not that that’s ever how he returns from road trips), and perfect for the things you can’t miss. The last one is actually pretty adorable: Hayden takes an alarmingly pink gym bag out of the back of the car along with the girls’ skates, and all three walk toward the rink, each twin with her skates in one hand and Haydens’ hand in the other.

If the campaign goes well, maybe Hayden will be advertising that people mover by this time next year. It wouldn't hurt; Jackie's pregnant again, and four kids is too many for either Jackie's SUV or Hayden's new sponsor-provided one. Jackie seems to be having an easier time with the first trimester than she did with Arthur; she hopes that isn't an ominious sign for what's to come. She warns Hayden not to say anything - especially not to Craig or anyone from the sponsor team - until she's at least past the twelve week mark. Hayden has already told Shane, but Shane doesn't gossip. Hayden is thoroughly enjoying the chirps from the team about his ad campaign. He and Jackie have agreed that the fourth will be the last, and Jackie thinks she probably wouldn't have been so keen on either a third pregnancy or a fourth kid, if she was dealing with the kind of player who takes this opportunity to remind Hayden that he's better known for having many kids than for his hockey skills. It's intended as an insult, and Hayden just laughs it off. He likes being a Dad, wants everyone to know how great his kids are, and now there's ads on every TV in Quebec letting people know.

The fact that all of North America, and probably Europe as well, is presented with Ilya Rozanov’s joint partnership with Maserati and Ermenegildo Zegna the same week does take some of the shine off local celebrity. Jackie, scrolling instagram, finds out that her insistence on not showing the girls’ faces, which resulted in a long shot where Hayden’s body was blocking the view of the girls as they got out of the car and took their skates from him, has not been a detriment to the campaign. On the contrary: the segment of the population who are horny for hot dads are very interested in Hayden Pike’s ass. That segment of the population might be smaller than the segment of the population who are interested in Ilya Rozanov’s whole… deal, but on the other hand, it’s easier to understand that Hayden’s ads are advertising cars, and on what basis. Ilya Rozanov’s ads appear to be advertising the sexiness of Ilya Rozanov, specifically as he lounges on sports car hoods in improbable locations wearing Zegna suits.

Jackie has never met Ilya Rozanov, although by all accounts he’s kind of a dickhead. He’s the kind of guy who says shit on the ice, goads people into retaliating, then skates away, giving Boston’s enforcers an excuse to go after the opposition. That in itself wouldn’t be damning; it’s part of the game. The dickhead part comes in where everyone - and especially Hayden - agrees he’s like that off the ice, too. Worse, in Jackie’s eyes: he seemed to really have it in for Shane, at least in the early years. It was like his ego couldn’t stand the fact that he was being compared to the number two draft pick. That’s tapered off; maybe Montréal’s two back-to-back cup wins have shut him up. Maybe he’s matured as a person, or found a new threat to focus on.

About a month after Rozanov’s slutty Maserati campaign drops, Rozanov becomes a hot topic for entirely different reasons, and Jackie is forced to consider that she has something in common with Ilya Rozanov. So does Hayden, although it takes him a while to admit it.

Rozanov isn’t the first hockey player to have failed to understand that what he “likes” on Twitter or Instagram is not in fact private information. However, he is suddenly notable for his particular taste in porn artists. And his taste, apparently, is a woman calling herself “Straponikia”, and videos of her… artwork.

Hayden freaks out about it. Apparently Shane told him to shut the fuck up about Rozanov’s perversions, so he comes home and freaks out about it to Jackie.

“Rozanov!,” Hayden repeats, coming downstairs from settling Arthur for the third time that night. “Rozanov, gay?”

"There's no reason to think that," Jackie says. She loves this man but god he's stupid sometimes.

"He likes videos of men taking it up the arse!" Hayden paces across the living room.

So do I, Jackie thinks, but knows better than to say. That was a long time ago, anyway; these days her limited time for looking up porn skews in the opposite gender direction, although there are still strap-ons at times.

"He likes videos of a very hot woman," Jackie points out. A woman with tacky taste in equipment, but that's neither here nor there.

"And men!" Hayden half-trips on a toy, and flops onto the recliner chair.

"There's multiple men in that video," Jackie points out. "And a hot woman. You don't know which one he’s looking at most, or which one he identifies with. Maybe it's just a hot combination of people to look at." The lighting is too stark, she thinks, and Straponika isn’t the kind of woman she’s into. But there’s something compelling about it all the same. It might be the way the two guys being fucked are looking at each other, like they’re sharing something precious, while Straponika and the third man are fucking them.

“Rozanov, though!” Hayden says. “He’s slept with half the women in North America!”

“That doesn’t say anything about what porn he’s into,” Jackie points out. Hayden is really bothered by this. “You seem freaked out by it being Rozanov, specifically.”

“Well yeah. No way Rozanov is gay.”

“Bisexuals exist, babe.” Jackie’s voice is a little sharp; this is not the first time she’s had to remind him of that. “And we don’t really have any reason to think he is bi. This Straponika seems to have plenty of straight guy fans.”

"It's fucking weird," Hayden insists.

Why not Rozanov, Jackie wonders, as she shuts the conversation down and turns on the TV. Any MLH player being gay, or bi, would be unlikely - it’s hardly a welcoming sport, even at the junior levels.

Hayden leaves the topic alone for the next day or so, but he comes back around to pick at it a few more times. The WAG chat has a bit of a field day, too, and a spiky, hot sense of obligation runs up Jackie’s spine. She doesn’t even know this man. She has no reason to think he’s actually bi, or gay, or even actually into pegging as more than a fantasy.

She thinks about Josiane. She and Josiane have never had a conversation about sexuality; not for adults, at least. But she knows Josiane is protective of Théo, the only boy in the twins’ skating group last season. Théo doesn’t seem all that different to other boys his age - not that Jackie spends much time with young boys who aren’t Arthur, but he wants to do figure skating. He’s younger than the twins, but will be moving to the more intensive classes with them.

“He’s lucky he has his grand-pére, as well as his maman,” Josiane had said, in a conversation that began with Jackie reporting she had recruited Pierre for crafting activities. “We lose a lot of boys, even at this age, when their schoolmates get wind of what kind of skating they’re doing. Too gay, even for a kid who’s half a decade from puberty! Having an older man in the family involved and supportive seems to help.” She had sighed, and added, “Having male coaches helps, too, but a lot of parents get the idea that men who made figure skating their career must be gay and can’t be trusted with their sons.” She’d then muttered something in French that Jackie didn’t quite catch but which sounded bitter.

So now, Jackie looks at the WAG group chat. Sabine, Comeau’s wife, is telling everyone she always knew Rozanov was a freak. Ella Taylor speculates that Rozanov plays so rough on the ice because he secretly wishes their boys would fuck him. Sandra Berkes is more interested in the pegging side of things, but wonders if Rozanov is desperate enough to get fucked that he’d take it up the ass before a game, and if so, can someone organise for this to happen before the next Metros-Raiders game?

The back of Jackie’s neck is hot. She wants to say “bisexuals exist”, but that would not actually defuse this situation. “Plenty of straight men are into pegging” wouldn’t be much better, and she knows perfectly well that that would be fired back at her and eventually reach the ears of the team as an implication about Hayden.

Then Sabine picks up Ella’s comment and quotes it, saying, Given the way he goes after Hollander, I think it’s our Captain he wants. Hey, Jacks- because Jackie is the dual-duty WAG for both Hayden and Shane, of course she is- tell Hollander to flirt with him. Use it against him on the ice.

That sharpens something in Jackie’s mind.

Girls, Shane wouldn’t go there, she texts. It’d be weird if he did: he’s pretty well known for not talking shit on the ice.

The chat marks a few people as read, but doesn’t throw up a reply. Jackie wants to shout that Shane has never so much as made a your mom joke. He does chirp, but exclusively about hockey. If there was a player who had a crush on him, it’s impossible for her to imagine that he would exploit that. But Jackie only knows this via Hayden, and she could be wrong. Still.

She knows Shane cops more than his fair share of insinuations about his sexuality, because he rarely picks up girls. There are players who think his style of play - despite the point-scoring powerhouse that he is - is too neat, too clean, too feminine. Especially in the first few years there were- according to Hayden- plenty of jokes about how Jane Hollander had come to the wrong arena, La Gloire train over in Verdun. Some of that is possibly underlying Sabine’s suggestion, even: that Shane would be willing, would know how to flirt with or even seduce Rozanov. Jackie would rather die than relay this to Shane, or Hayden for that matter.

That brings her back to being the Ally in the Group Chat. She doesn’t even know if Rozanov would welcome an ally, let alone whether he’d endorse the angle that she focuses on.

Girls, Jackie texts, in her senior-WAG-by-length-of-relationship mode. A twenty-something guy accidentally exposed himself as liking weird porn. This isn’t shocking news.

The chat indicates that 2-4 people are drafting a response. Jackie hits send earlier than she might have otherwise.

We don’t know anything about his actual sex life, though.

The chat appears to stop in order to read that.

He’s 25 and on the internet. So he watched some weird porn and liked at least one example of it. Men like weird shit sometimes.

Of all people, Sabine locks onto this idea the fastest. This turns out to be because Comeau watches S/M porn and has convinced Sabine that it's just a weird bored interest. Jackie decides this is none of her business. It could be true. They could be in need of a talk about sex positivity, or spousal communication, but it's not her job to give it to them.

I agree with Jackie comes a text from Sarah Wilson. I am praying for Rozanov, that he overcomes his pornography addiction.

The group chat goes silent for a moment.

If he addresses this immediately it may not be ideal for him in hockey terms. Adjusting can be difficult, abstinence may affect his focus. But if he changes course we should all support him.

Jackie stares at the group chat and contemplates her least welcome ally. A couple of others - wives of newer call-ups or trades who haven't mixed much with the rest of them - join in endorsing Sarah.

As long as he plays good hockey, she texts, it’s not our business. And if he plays bad hockey, all the better for us.

Jackie’s most desired ally, Hayden, keeps making Rozanov’s pornography choices their problem. Right before the Metros take off on a roadie that includes Boston, Hayden turns in the doorway of their ensuite bathroom and says - apropos of nothing Jackie has said that evening,

“You said that porn star Rozanov likes has lots of straight fans. How do you know?”

“I looked her up, babe, and looked at the commenters.”

“They’re like, saying 'I’m straight but I love this'?”

“Some of them, yeah.”

“Sounds like something a guy who wasn’t straight would say,” Hayden says, with unusual perceptivity. Jackie pauses in this evening’s installment of endless laundry sorting, and marshalls her thoughts.

“Brush your teeth, Hayd, and then we’ll talk, okay?”

She thinks, while sorting her tops from Hayden’s t-shirts, about hockey players. About the way “fuck you” as a generic insult bleeds into we’re going to fuck you, and “this guy is dancing to the beat of his own drum” translates to cocksucker, in a way that makes no sense when you think about it logically. But hockey players are humble; hockey players are team players. Hockey players accommodate peculiar routines and superstitions because they believe it helps the team.

Hockey players lash out at guys who break with the mould too much. Shane is Canada’s Golden Boy in the eyes of the media, but peculiar, prickly, just slightly wrong in the eyes of other players. Rozanov is a shithead in the eyes of the media, and a dirty player on the ice, but also - and Jackie realises she has noticed this too late - suspect in the eyes of other players. It probably has to do with him being Russian. She knows - she knows perfectly well - that men’s hockey culture is a weird pipeline with basically no contact with women’s hockey. Women’s hockey isn’t great for queer players, but everyone knows there are plenty. With the men, if there are any queer guys in the league they’re keeping it quiet, and words like “faggot” are thrown around without real suspicion of homosexuality.

Jackie thinks about her stint in Juniors. Rather than Marla and Jackie’s half-realised crush, she thinks about Paulie. Paulie had asked Jackie to do her nails a few times: even then Jackie had the sense that this was something that made Paulie more anxious than excited. Any girl on the team heard some variation on ooh, she’s a big girl or a bit rough for a girl isn’t she or shame to risk that pretty face, if not about themselves then about other players or the Tridents or actual goddamn Olympians, but Paulie was different. Paulie copped something extra within the team - little snide comments about failure as a girl, we forgot, you’re not a girl you’re a goalie, and so on. Paulie had turned up to parties in dresses and makeup, and looked as out-of-place in them as a figure skater would in Paulie’s goalie gear.

Jackie has been idly wondering what might have been different for her if she’d realised she was crushing, actually crushing, on Marla. Now she wonders what might have been different if she had admired Paulie, instead of pitying her. Jackie has never regretted proactively dropping out of her junior team, before they had a chance to downgrade her; but now she wonders if the sense of relief at being away from all hockey, at being a normal girl wasn’t only about dropping the pressure and the schedule of serious competitive sport.

Jackie never considered joining a recreational women’s team, even though she knew there were teams around that took players from 16 up. Perhaps if she had, she’d have found people who had reconciled being a normal girl with the satisfaction of planting yourself in someone’s goddamn way and scrapping with all your might. Or perhaps she’d have met some dykes who had given up on being normal girls and didn’t have the pressure of promising Young Women In Sports and figured some other things out earlier. Too late now, Jackie thinks, but files the insight away to come back to later.

For now, while Hayden is, presumably, freaking out in the bathroom, Jackie folds clothes and thinks about Rozanov - or rather, about the hypothetical hockey-playing guy who gets pegged, because she doesn’t know anything about Rozanov. You could be straight as a slide rule and still stifled by hockey. Last she heard, Paulie has shacked up with a large bald man who plays the drums, and who, if the photos on Facebook are any indication, worships not only the ground she walks upon but also the sensible shoes and Carhartt pants she walks in. This, Jackie is now acutely aware, doesn’t mean Paulie is straight (or, necessarily, her husband), but it’s a future that teenage Jackie couldn’t envision - for Paulie, or any of them.

Shit, Jackie thinks. “We’re going to fuck you” meets “You skate like a girl”. What if a girl fucked you? What if exactly the kind of girl you’re into wanted to give you the opposite of what your sport demands of you? Wouldn’t that be hot as fuck, to. Well, the hypothetical man who isn’t necessarily Rozanov. Shit. Hayden wants to know why would a straight man be into that; Jackie wants to know why the MLH isn’t full of pegging enthusiasts.

She reigns that train of thought back in as Hayden emerges from the bathroom, and casts her mind back to the early 2000s, before she met Hayden, and the combo BA and Education program she had faded out of, in a more tapered way than her previous exit from hockey but with less regret

She hadn’t been a geek. She’d hooked up with guys at parties. Hayden was actually her first club hookup, but she’d more than once hit a vibe with a guy in class and fucked him within 24 hours. By the time she met Hayden she was more experienced than he was. But in hindsight, she had also researched sex, like a fucking nerd. She’d started with the “lifestyle” pages in the newspapers and the wisdom of Sex and the City, but Jackie had had university-standard broadband access and a curious mind. Dan Savage; Heather Corrinna; Jessica Valenti; a stream of half-remembered citations and their contents.

Hayden gives her a bashful smile and folds himself into their bed, patting the space beside him. Jackie puts aside the endless pile of laundry-to-sort.

She’s thinking about what she needs to say to Hayden. When she sent Hayden to brush his teeth and get a grip, she expected that she would get a grip and give him a balanced and Sex Positive Perspective. She doesn’t want to take Hayden on the mental journey she’s been on, not right now. But she remembers - some time after she heard about “pegging” as defined by Dan Savage, actually hunting up a book in the university library. She doesn’t even remember the author’s name, just that some blog had recommended it as relevant for pegging enthusiasts. Jackie read it, and kind of forgot it, but right now she realises she internalised it.

She does her best to explain to Hayden the appeal of assplay for straight men. The prostate is not a sexuality-specific organ. In the same way that some men - Hayden, for instance, but she lets him draw that conclusion himself - can be very on board with a woman who will make demands, give him orders, pin him to the bed and ride him like a carousel pony, but also perfectly able to fuck into a blissed-out state of goo, as the occasion and/or the lady demands, well. A man so into women he wants to be fucked into the mattress by one is a clearly logical kind of man.

Hayden seems to accept this explanation. He goes on the road trip the next day. Jackie wrangles kid schedules; she answers Craig’s emails about Hayden’s stuff where she can; she accepts her mom’s help a couple of nights throughout the week. She uses what spare time she has to pre-order the Christmas chocolate baskets for the nanny (which will be augmented by tips) and for the nanny agency, along with the girls’ teachers and their new figure skating coach.

She also looks up the book she vaguely remembers. It has been updated since the version Jackie first consulted. It might even have been updated before Jackie went looking for it, but either her university hadn’t held the new copy or she didn’t know to look for the newest edition. Jackie could acquire the updated edition as a library e-book from the public library, which is a startling discovery but not a bad one. She orders it in hard copy and online, because what is the point of having an NHL medium-notable husband if it isn’t “if it seems sexy, buy it”?

Hayden does not get home from the road trip with more questions about pegging. He gets home stressed.

Actually, this is the first time that Hayden really explains to Jackie about “Boston Lily”, who is - or was - Shane’s regular hookup. Jackie isn’t in the locker room; she isn’t the one running interference for Shane, or the kind of interference she runs is different. She remembers, after Hayden catches her up, that somewhere between the “untouchable Captain Canada” Shane persona and the “Jane Hollander” of hockey slurs and implications, there has been “okay Shane doesn’t pick up girls in clubs but you know he has a girl in Boston, he’s just private about these things.” Hayden has covered for Shane at curfews, stepped up to do media in Boston and Boston specifically. Hayden has done this without asking Jackie’s advice, but he sure has grumbled to her about it.

Now, he tells her that he knows the girl’s name is Lily, and while at first Hayden only noticed her as a Boston fixture, in the past year Shane has been texting Lily a lot on the road, and at home during training.

“She’s probably a Raiders fan, though,” Hayden says. His tone is glum, because apparently things have gone south between Shane and Lily lately.

“How do you figure that?” Jackie asks, settling into the bed beside him.

“Oh, he’s always getting texts before we play Boston at home,” Hayden says. “Boston girl riling him up before her team face him? That’s… I wouldn’t have said that seemed like Shane’s kind of thing but hell, I’d be into it.” Hayden thinks about that for a moment. “I’d be into it if it wasn’t Boston. Yikes. Do you think she’s, like, sexily comparing him to Rozanov?”

“I have no idea about this woman, if she even exists,” Jackie points out. “But fans sexily comparing Shane and Rozanov is not new.” Hayden looks at her, stunned. “It isn’t!,” Jackie says. “No, Hayd, listen. Shane and Rozanov have been doing this rival thing for the NHL for their entire careers.”

“Shane hates him,” Hayden says.

“Sure, and would you like to be asked about and compared to some guy you hate, in and out, every week, for six years?”

Hayden actually contemplates this for a moment, and then says “Fuck McTavish, he’s crashed and burned and look where I am now.”

Jackie has never even heard of McTavish, but she can follow up on that later. “Right. Well, if it wasn’t Shane and it wasn’t you, but one of the Metros guys had a thing with a Boston fan… think about that for a moment, in abstract.” Hayden makes an eww face. “Okay but she’s perfect in every other respect for your guy.” Hayden nods. “And she texts him on the road, generally?” Hayden nods again. “But before Boston-Montreal games there’s something else to it?”

Hayden nods, then tilts his head, then frowns. “I guess?”

“Babe,” Jackie says. She loves him but he’s a fucking idiot. “That’s foreplay.”

“About hockey?” Hayden says, and he actually recoils away from her.

Jackie reaches out and drags Hayden back toward her. He gives over immediately, nestling into her side.

“Hayden Pike,” she says, resting her chin on his head, “I hate to break it to you, but many women find hockey, and hockey bullshit, kind of hot.”

Hayden tucks his head into the gap between her neck and shoulder. “Are you saying you don’t find my slapshot hot?”

Jackie thinks about it. She’s thrilled when Hayden scores a goal, but she doesn’t find any shot type more exciting than any other. She’s not getting off to hockey, yikes no. But if for some reason she was required to pick a highlight reel to masturbate to, the one she'd want probably isn't on YouTube, because where Hayden fucking shines is playmaking assists, second only to Hayden’s ability to be wherever the fuck Shane needs him to be when Shane - apparently pushing forward toward the goal - makes a last minute pass. Perhaps if someone made the compilation she'd get a little hot under the collar about it. If Boston Lily is seeing Shane, well. There's plenty of footage of Shane in his "locked the fuck in" mode that she has to concede would be hot. And if Boston Lily's a Raider's fan, the best of Shane Fucking Hollander footage, outside playoffs, comes from games against Boston.

Dragging Hayden away from the hypothetical erotics of Shane hooking up with a Boston fan, Jackie re-directs him toward explaining the current problem. Shane and Lily broke up; or Hayden thinks they broke up; Shane won’t admit there ever was a Lily. The story, when Jackie gets it straight, goes like this: Shane had gone off as soon as they got to Boston, telling Hayden he was meeting a friend and ignoring Hayden’s chirping about Shane playing better after he gets laid. Hayden hadn’t been expecting him back until late - maybe not even until the morning, because Hayden would always cover for him. Still, Hayden hadn’t been all that worried when he got back from dinner out with JJ to see signs of Shane’s presence.

“Bit weird, though,” Hayden says to Jackie, “in hindsight. His clothes were just thrown on the bed.” Normal for most guys, weird for Shane.

Shane then hadn’t reappeared until Hayden was actually in bed; shuffled in in workout clothes (“completely dripping”, Hayden says, “like he’d been training for hours.”) and into a shower without a word to Hayden. He’d snapped “Just stressed,” in answer to Hayden’s questions about whether he was okay, and the next day switched to “Focused on the game”.

“He wasn’t though,” Hayden says now. “I’m not stupid,” he says, glaring at Jackie as if she might have suggested this. “I know Shane doesn’t eat hotel breakfasts, and when he’s stressed on the road he switches over to pretty much exclusively those nutrition shake things. I know he barely got one meal worth of those into him before the game in Boston.”

“Well that might explain him playing like a zombie,” Jackie says. “Was he like that the whole trip?” He’d been a shadow of his usual self on ice for the following two games, but not as bad as in Boston.

“Not quite,” Hayden says. “But he wouldn’t - still won't - tell me anything.”

Jackie ruffles Hayden’s hair. “I mean, if he wasn’t telling you anything about Lily before this, he’s probably not going to tell you now.”

“Uuurgh,” Hayden says, knocking his head into her shoulder with frustration. “I though if he was keeping it quiet because it wasn’t, you know…” Hayden frowns. “I guessed it wasn't the kind of relationship that ends with another WAG in your group chat. If they’re long-distance or not exclusive or, I dunno, she’s famous or something? Whatever. I figured if he’s mad or heartbroken he might be able to talk about that, more easily than when it was going well?”

Jackie has to credit Hayden; the logic holds up. It wouldn’t be the first time one of the guys had been “no, nothing serious” and then had a complete crash out when it ended or they had a fight or something. Even if Shane didn’t want to reveal this girl’s identity, if it was on the rocks or over he could probably talk about the situation to Hayden in a way he couldn’t before. The problem is, though, this is Shane.

“Other guys,” Jackie says, “I’d say you’re right. But this is Shane.” She doesn't need to explain: Hayden has clearly already figured out that his instincts weren't bad but were wrong when it came to Shane, and that is part of what he's mad about.

“I have terrible taste in friends,” Hayden says, knocking his head against her shoulder again. Then, wriggling a little closer to kiss Jackie’s neck, he adds, “Good taste in wives though.” Jackie pulls him closer and kisses him properly.

Shane seems to stabilise, or at least not do anything that causes Hayden to wig out in the next week. It is probably a related development that it is less than a week before Hayden comes back around to the topic of pegging. Of course he doesn’t come at it directly; he’s still fixating on Rozanov, for one thing.

“You know Rozanov’s… thing,” Hayden says, apropos of nothing. They’re sitting on the deck, with an hour or so to spare before one of them has to head out to pick up the kids. Jackie has her tablet up and is turning meal plans (kids, Hayden, herself when she remembers) into grocery lists. Jackie makes a non-commital noise, and Hayden goes on.

“Do you think it’s illegal in Russia?”

“What, getting pegged? Or liking pegging porn?”

“Gils was saying maybe Rozanov would get arrested back home. Or at least kicked off team Russia,” Hayden says, sounding concerned. Hayden Pike, concerned for Ilya Rozanov. Wonders would never cease.

“I don’t think Comeau is an expert on Russian law,” Jackie says. “Being gay isn’t illegal in Russia, for a start.”

“It isn’t?” Hayden’s gaze swings across to her. “I thought - there was all that stuff around the Olympics.”

Jackie hadn’t even known Hayden had noticed that. She had, but she’d been following figure skating - Team USA had taken Johnny Weir with them as a commentator, that had been a whole thing. Anyway, you couldn’t be arrested for existing while gay, or even for having gay sex, you had to be promoting homosexuality: granted, in Russia covered just being out, and possibly either being gay or having gay sex while being a public figure. Still, Team USA had got Weir through it safely, and he remained a popular, if divisive, commentator. Jackie remembers one particularly cutting Twitter post arguing that Weir’s bitchy persona would turn anyone off homosexuality, ergo he was totally safe in Sochi.

By the time she’s caught Hayden up on all that, Hayden seems like he might have forgotten Rozanov’s porn; but no such luck.

“Well, there’s three guys in that video,” Hayden says, after a minute. “And Rozanov’s a public figure. Couldn’t that be promoting homosexuality?”

Huh. If you put it like that. “I don’t know,” Jackie says. Her mind scrambles through all the conversations they’ve had since Rozanov’s rash twitter like. “I think if he was gay and that’s why he was watching that, he’d be a lot more careful about what he clicks on on Twitter, though. This seems like a case of straight guy doesn’t think about it all that hard.” Not as hard as Hayden is thinking about it, that’s for sure. She doesn’t say that.

“Yeah, I guess,” Hayden says.

“I’m pretty sure plenty of straight couples in Russia are having a great time with Russia’s finest strap-ons,” Jackie says, shaking her head and laughing gently at him.

If anything, Hayden looks even more concerned.

“That’s the other thing I don’t get,” he says. “This Straponika woman, that’s her job, okay, I get that. But it’s pretty far out there, right? I mean, even if the guy’s into it, unless she’s a freak dungeon mistress or something, what’s in it for the woman?” Hayden tears a piece of paper apart into tiny pieces. “Some straight guys are into that, sure, but are straight women?”

“So I’ve heard,” Jackie says.

“Why?”

Some part of her does kind of want to make him walk through figuring this out, but she’s not that cruel. Also, she’s not a straight woman and she’s really fucking into this idea.

“Babe,” she says, “Do you want to just try it?”

There’s not much left of 2016, but it only takes a couple of well-chosen online purchases and the remaining months to turn this into a stand-out year for their sex life. Jackie buys her own Christmas present that year: she knows that's supposed to be something to complain about, as a wife, but really, the present is the blank cheque from Hayden to get a boutique, adjustable-for-several-stages-of-pregnancy, harness made to her exact specifications.

Chapter End Notes

Citations

1. Virtue/Moir, Free Skate Worlds 2013. I am on some kind of "admiring Tessa Virtue Respectfully" kick, and if you're interested I did a bit of a metapost about this routine on dreamwidth.

2. Ermenigildo Zegna fall/winter 2016. I'm pushing the boundaries of plausibility here, because a partnership with a hockey player would probably focus on ready-to-wear, and even at couture tailoring level, Zegna, like most Italian coturiers, is not where you'd go if you have thighs like tree trunks and broad shoulders and big biceps. But for idiosyncratic reasons, when I was trying to think of "what designer would work for pushing the Gay or Just European" boundary, Zegna sprang to mind. Since, as The Onion pointed out, Heated Rivalry takes place in an alternate universe where hockey players wax their body hair, let us suppose that it also takes place in an alternate universe where Zegna's couturiers could work with a hockey player body shape, because that would make me happy.

3. I became aware, some time in the last three months, of the 2016 Evgeni Malkin Pegging Porn Incident. Although I adopt this Incident, I do not propose to ascribe all of Geno's interests to Ilya, any more than I ascribe all of Brad Marchant's career to him (but Ilya definitely has licked someone on the ice).

4. "Jane Hollander". As we know Shane's character and skating style is partly based on Sidney Crosby. I recently learned that Crosby was regularly called "Cindy Crosby". The first reference I saw attributed this to his play style being insufficently aggressive; this blog post from 2013 attributes it to him having an early reputation for "whining" to referees and "diving": I suspect that Shane, with the added pressure of being racialised, would have been on guard against giving that impression in a way 18-y old Sid the Kid may not have; but Shane would be open to misogyny and emasculating slurs just by being Asian. The obvious name for Shane, as Cindy is to Sidney, would be Jane.

5. Jackie Pike's pre-Hayden "researched sex like a nerd" journey. I've deliberately charted her about 45 degrees off from my own experience in roughly the same period. I read around the 2005+ sex positivity blogosphere / publishing culture / etc, but ultimately locked in to fandom and ended up getting my anal sex related info from fandom in general, Minotaur's List, friends, partners. The book that is not specified is Tristan Taormino's "The ultimate guide to anal sex for women". I have for the purposes of this fic skimmed the pegging-relevant chapters of the 1998 edition and believe it sufficient unto "explaining things to Hayden Pike".

6. Russian anti-queer laws: I knew various parts of this already (first heard of it in 2014, re Johnny Weir & Sochi) and checked up various details during the Yuri On Ice era. For Heated Rivalry purposes you may appreciate stele3's timeline of the show interlaced with Russian anti-queer political developments.

FURTHER NOTES:

Consider: you are Shane Hollander. You know two (2) bisexuals. One uses the term but only has sex with one person. The other is fucking every third woman in North America and also you. One of them is telling you that crushes fade easily; one of them is about to make you a tuna melt and tell you about his girl fuckbuddy. You're not prepared for the first conversation and you have no way to prepare for the second.

Apparently my kink is dramatic irony, and I will be putting the Characters through the "misunderstanding nexus" repeatedly for the enjoyment of a) me, the author and b) hopefully you, the audience.

Pedant Note: it dawned on me that I have committed to TV timeline Hayden (clearly older / longer on the Metros than Shane) but didn't adjust the ages of the kids accordingly. I like "Ruby and Jade" better than "Ruby and Emma", and I guess I'm striking out on a triangulated canon-divergent timeline specifically re the Pike kids. The only way this affects Shane is the acquarium scene, pls fudge Arthur's age.

Chapter 3

Chapter Summary

Ilya Rozanov continues to haunt the narrative. Shane gives unexpectedly good parenting advice. The temple charm for victory in sports doesn't protect Shane from major injuries on ice. Scott Hunter kisses a man and Jackie shuts down some bullshit.

Almost no bisexual crisis or sexual tension. Shane and the Pikes continue to blur the line between "a teammate is a kind of family" and "accidental platonic polycule".

Chapter Notes

When I realised I couldn't skip from "Jackie and Hayden discover pegging" to "Hayden wigs out after he realises Shane is dating Rozanov", obviously I had to deal with the All Stars, Shane's injury, and Hunter's coming out. At that level of detail, Jackie needs to have her own shit going on (like being Very Pregnant).

So here we are. Not even halfway through 2017 yet.

2017

While she and Hayden were having a truly spectacular time with harness and accessories, Shane spent the tail end of 2016 dating Rose Landry. Whatever happened with Lily in Boston seemed to have blown over. Jackie had been happy for him. Rose fucking Landry, damn. Jackie fended off pressure in the WAG chat, where the girls think she ought to be getting Rose’s number. Firstly, it was early days yet; secondly, Rose Landry is significantly more famous than Shane - and lives in LA! Whatever the relationship status, Rose Landry wasn’t typical WAG material.

The relationship status, whatever it was, appears by late January to have fizzled out, and Shane tells Hayden he and Rose are better off as friends. From what Hayden and Jackie can tell, he means that, and he doesn’t seem heartbroken. If anything, he seems calmer. Maybe a brief fling was a good rebound from whatever happened with Boston Lily. Leave it to Shane Hollander to have a “brief fling” with an A-list celebrity.

The league makes a big deal out of Shane and Rozanov playing on the same team at the All Star game. Jackie and Hayden watch it from home, with the kids - there’s a Metros gathering at Comeau’s place, but Comeau’s place isn’t really kid-friendly.

“I can’t believe Rozanov’s playing wing,” Hayden says, for about the third time, as Shane faces off for the puck-drop. Rozanov is neatly placed behind him in the circle, with Dahlstrom (LW, Florida) not far off.

“Well we both know Shane would suck at it,” Jackie points out. It’s a point of light mockery among the Metros: even for drills, even filling in when there’s a gap in a line at practice, Shane cannot adjust to playing wing. Rozanov, evidently, can, and he and Shane on a line together is - well, it could have gone just about any way and the league would be happy. If Rozanov hogged the puck, or if they fought each other as well as the western conference lines for control of the ice, that would be good television, too. But they don’t.

Jackie’s seen Shane play with various wingers. The Metros first line left wing has changed a few times since 2010. Shane’s a great player, and Desjardins pushes the guys hard on knowing their team, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of every player you might be on the ice with. She also knows that when Hayden’s unexpectedly out, the whole first line suffers. Not massively, but just a little, because no one else has built their whole playing style around Shane Hollander in quite the way Hayden has. Hayden can read Shane better than anyone, and Shane doesn’t have to read Hayden at all, he simply knows that Hayden will be where Shane needs him to be.

All Star games are chaotic, pulling together players who barely know each other and egos that don’t all fit on the ice. They’re played fast and loose, too, in a way that doesn’t show off the best of players like Shane, who is all control and precision. It’s not a good setting to really assess a player, let alone team chemistry… but to Jackie’s surprise, Rozanov and Hollander seem to click. You’d hardly guess Rozanov was out of his usual lane, as he drops the puck back, through an impossible gap between the West’s defencemen and right onto Shane’s stick. Was he even looking at Shane when he passed? Maybe if you’ve been the league’s most talked-about rivals for going on seven years, you learn to hear the difference between the other guy and everyone else on the ice, like Jackie can just tell the difference between kids being quiet and kids being suspiciously silent.

Shane tucks the puck right to the back of the neck, and the camera goes straight to Rozanov skating toward him. The guy’s beaming, like he’s having the time of his life, and he skates right up to Shane and plants a kiss on his cheek.

Jackie thinks she catches Shane’s shy, genuine smile - the one he gets around the kids, or goofing around with Hayden - briefly, as he and Rozanov exchange words.

“Ugh, the nerve of the guy,” Hayden says. “He can’t cut Shane a break, even when they’re on the same line?”

“What?”

“Kissing him, ugh. It’s just such… like, playing gay chicken is midget locker room shit, these are grown adults! On TV.”

“Shane doesn’t seem pissed off,” Jackie points out.

“Of course he doesn’t seem pissed off,” Hayden says. “What’s he going to do, throw a punch?”

The broadcast helpfully replays the cellie, and Jackie catches Shane’s surprise flicker into delight, again.

“You’ve never gotten over the time Rozanov licked you on the chin, have you, Hayd?”

“He’s such dickhead! I was confused, Pike was so close to me, I thought he wanted to cuddle,” Hayden says, in an atrocious imitation of Rozanov’s accent.

Jackie elbows her husband. “You sure you’re not jealous that Shane got a kiss and a hug and all you got from Rozanov was a lick?”

“As if I’d want to cuddle him,” Hayden says, sulkily, as Shane and Rozanov pass the puck back and forth like the Western players are minor obstacles. “And who licks people when they cuddle, anyway?”

Jackie passes Hayden the popcorn and goes back to watching Hollander and Rozanov take the Western Conference lineup to pieces. She feels a little sorry for Carter Vaughn, who’s on the line with them: half the time they’re on the ice you’d think no one else existed except those two and the goalie. Perhaps they realise that mid-game, because in the third period they take turns feeding assists to Vaughn, who appears to find this hilarious.

Once the All-Star break is over, it’s back to the grind for Hayden and Shane. The Metros are on the up, with a good chance of that coveted dynasty totem: a third back-to-back cup. Jackie, meanwhile, is moving from “pregnant” to “very pregnant” at an alarming rate, given it’s only the start of the third trimester.

The girls’ coach declares Ruby ready for the level two novice tests, skipping level one, but Jade isn’t progressing so fast. Jackie prepares herself for some difficult conversations with the girls, together and apart. She and Hayden seriously consider whether to simply enter them both for STAR-1 testing - leave it to next year, or the year after, before splitting them up. Hayden must talk to Shane about it, too, because on one of the miscellaneous afternoons when he’s at their place, Shane asks about it. He asks in general terms, first: have they decided yet? How soon do they have to decide?

Then he asks the obvious question. “Have you talked to them about it?” He has Arthur on his lap, sitting at the barstool at their kitchen island, and he kind of covers Arthur’s ears as he says this, even though it’s way above Arthur’s comprehension.

“Not yet,” Jackie admits, surfacing from the fridge. Shit, she’d been inflicting on Shane the unsightly view of her enormously pregnant ass in ugly sweats, struggling to bend over to the crisper draw.

“We don’t want to… if it’s better not to split them up yet, I don’t want them to worry about it now,” Hayden says, from where he’s rummaging for lentil-based pasta or other Shane-approved foods. “We don’t, I mean. Am I right, Jacks?”

“Jade knows she’s not mastering skills as fast as Ruby,” Jackie said, turning to dump the veggies on the chopping board. Her back aches. Maybe she should get a meal subscription, or pay someone to do meal prep a few times a week, just for a few months. Hayden’s great, on the scale of hockey playing husbands, but playoffs are playoffs and she’ll be obscenely pregnant by the Cup finals.

Focus. Jade and Ruby.

“She doesn’t seem bothered by it yet, and I’m not sure Ruby has really noticed. At least, she doesn’t know their coach sees them differently.”

Shane tucks his arms tighter around Arthur, and, adorably, steals a handful of frozen corn from the bowl in front of them. He thinks about this for a while.

“Hayd, when did you notice that coaches and so on were treating you differently?”

“Way older than you, bud,” Hayden says, cutting straight to the point.

“Maybe,” Shane says. “But it had to have happened, right? You were drafted at, what, eighteen, nineteen? Straight to Toronto, you didn’t do a year in the AHL first - that means you must have been standing out in, like, midgets at the latest.”

Jackie keeps chopping carrots, utterly fascinated. She’s always thought of Shane as the phenom to Hayden’s solid reliable player, and Hayden as a professional compared to Jackie, who flaked out at seventeen. Shane, she suddenly realises, may have a different perspective on all of that.

“I was thirteen,” she finds herself saying. “In hindsight Coach did it fairly tactfully - his daughter was eleven or so, and everyone knew he did extra coaching and stuff with her. He talked to my mom: he said it could benefit me and it would be easier for him and good for Hannah to work with an older defence player. I only realised later, when some of my teammates noticed, that that was special treatment.”

“Huh,” Hayden says, and Jackie realises she might never have told him about that. Why would she? She doesn’t know Hayden’s answer to Shane’s question, either. They’ve only really talked about their “baby’s first skates” and “juniors” experiences, and the latter not in much detail.

“You played hockey?” Shane asks. Apparently, Jackie has talking puck with Shane Hollander, making bizarrely specialised snacks for Shane Hollander (and adjusting every time his diet changes!), watching with pride as Shane Hollander pushes her husband in every aspect of his game, trusting her babies to Shane Hollander for seven years… and she never mentioned (or he never noticed) that she had, at one point, played hockey.

She has to sit with that for a moment. Fortunately Shane, unlike Hayden, doesn’t take thinking-silences as a problem, and fortunately, she has Hayden, who doesn’t so much speak before thinking as think by speaking.

“Man, didn’t I ever tell you?” Hayden says, and starts rattling off Jackie’s mediocre teenage hockey CV. Admittedly, he gets to the part where she quit, and stalls, looking at Jackie. Maybe she never had managed to explain that properly.

“You just… quit?” Shane asks.

“Yeah,” Jackie says, taking her discomfort out on an unsuspecting onion. “I wanted… normal teenage girl stuff, I guess?”

Neither Hayden nor Shane say much to this, although Hayden gently hip-checks her as he starts on his own onion. Jackie takes a moment to turn to the other side of the kitchen and grab the baking tray and the oil spray.

Hayden, being Hayden, fills the gap. “Kind of the opposite,” he says. “I guess I was eleven or twelve, and the first few times Coach suggested extra training, I was mad, because I was fine? If you’d asked me who was the best on our team I would have said Dickie, but thought it was probably even between us. It took a few tries - from Coach, from my Dad - for me to realise they were trying to give me,” he makes a quote-unquote gesture, “extension opportunities.”

Both Jackie and Shane try to stifle their laughter at that.

“In my defence,” Hayden says, pointing at both of them, “every time special extra instruction came up at school it was code for you can’t read. I knew I didn’t suck at hockey, so why was I getting special extras?”

Jackie knew this part. Different anecdotes, but it fits into the overall story of Hayden and hockey, and certainly it matches his hit-and-miss approach to understanding emails. Her half-finished degree means she knows about dyslexia, but Hayden right now doesn’t have the signs you’d expect in an elementary school kid. As well as worrying about figure skating, she has been keeping an eye on the girls’ reading progress. So far they seem to be in what her abandoned studies would call “the top quartile” for their age group. If Arthur is a different kind of challenge by the time he starts school, there are many ways that could pan out, but Jackie can do the reading, and Hayden will do the Dad-ing. And Uncle Shane will still be around. He will still be Arthur’s favourite, and Arthur will be his, no matter what happens for the girls, or for Arthur when he starts school.

Jackie realises she’s been arranging vegetables and chicken in the sheet pan, while Hayden prepares Shane-acceptable chicken for the George Foreman grill and Shane-compromise vegetables to stir-fry, and no one has been saying anything. She also realises that she and Hayden have both answered Shane’s question, but Shane hasn’t volunteered his own examples to justify the question, or picked up anything to link their answers back to the topic of Ruby and Jade.

Jackie regains the puck that is the conversation and passes it back. “So Hayd and I both… well.” She stalls, completely. “I guess the short answer is we don’t want to push this kind of question on them before we have to.”

Shane nods, and clearly takes time to process that. He eats another couple of Arthur’s frozen corn kernels.

“I’m not saying I’m right about this,” he says, pushing the frozen-vegetable nibble bowl closer into Arthur’s reach, “But what if you talked to them now, before it becomes, like, a one of you is an elite potential question?”

“Fair point,” Hayden says, busy fiddling with the stove and the pasta pot. Jackie has already set the oven to pre-heat.

Shane scoops up stray steadily-defrosting peas and corn that Arthur has let drop onto the counter, and piles them neatly on Jackie’s abandoned chopping board.

“I don’t know anything about figure skating,” Shane says. “Or kids their age. But this isn’t a Mr and Mrs Pike, one of your daughters is a future national champion, if only you make this one choice situation, right?” Both Hayden and Jackie make noises somewhere between surprise and actual laughter, because it very clearly isn’t that kind of situation.

“So why not let them choose?” Shane asks. “Or, well, let Ruby choose, but talk to them both, about… different strengths, skill development happens differently for different people, all that stuff. Teach them that it's normal, before other people make it weird.”

Huh. There it is, wrapped up in Shane Hollander’s carefully thought-through logic, the bit that she and Hayden and everyone else Jackie had run this passed just… missed.

Somewhat anti-climactically, Jade cuts through Ruby’s protest that she wants to stay with Jade by pointing out that when Ruby gets bored in class she tries to correct Jade’s work, and it’s annoying, mom. STAR-2 tests, then, for Ruby, which means her very first solo program. Jade thinks for twenty seconds about sewing the costume, and then comes to her senses and buys one.

The Metros playoff expectations take a sharp swerve in March, when Shane fails to spot a legal incoming check from Marleau, and goes down hard. The results are better than they could be, but less than ideal: a concussion, from which Shane is expected to bounce back; but a broken collarbone that puts him out of action for the rest of the season.

The team rally enough to clinch a spot in the first round: Taylor is no match for Shane on the first line, but he’s a solid enough player, and he racks up assist points (consequently, Hayden and JJ’s goal points are looking healthy). The Metros are a strong team, and that means not being solely dependent on any one player - even if that player is Shane Hollander. Nevertheless, they’re third seed in round one, and the series against the Falcons is going to be brutal.

The second-to-last game of the regular season is in Ottawa, and on a Saturday, too, so Jackie ends up co-ordinating with Shane that she and the kids meet up with Shane and his parents and watch from a booth. The metros win easily: Desjardins has even moved Hayden’s line down to third in the lineup, and similarly rotated out the top defence line, resting the stronger players in anticipation of the play-offs. With that adjustment, Ottawa could really put up a better fight, but they’re playing like their souls were already on vacation.

“They were looking up, earlier this year,” Shane says, frowning as if the existence of a shitty team is a personal insult to him. “They had that win streak back in December. Their defence line is solid since they brought in Chouinard, he and Dykstra are a good pair.”

“Well,” Jackie says, “you’ve gotta have a few terrible teams, otherwise some of those kids down there would barely see ice time.” She nods to where the Metros’ weakest forward, a young guy who’ll probably be sent down to the AHL next season, has just lost the puck to Tanner Dillon.

“Professional development, courtesy of the Ottawa Centaurs,” Shane says, drily.

Jackie makes a frustrating number of bathroom trips over the course of the game. This part of pregnancy is definitely in her top five least favourite indignities of the whole experience. Deciding on an outing that involves a two-hour drive was a poor life choice, but at least Hayden has cleared with management for him to travel back with Jackie and the kids.

Shane checks in about Jackie’s health, in that hesitant way where he’s clearly torn between genuine concern and not being sure if he’s supposed to ask, which is endearing, given he knows more than anyone except Hayden and Jackie’s mom about how her last pregnancy went. It wasn’t that Shane had been a backup “hospital trip companion” or even “emergency babysitter”, because if Hayden wasn’t available then Shane certainly wasn’t. But instead of the straightforward pregnancy followed by a long but not ultimately dangerous labour with the twins, she’d encountered a storm of complications in the third trimester with Arthur. Her parents had wrangled the emergency childcare and Hayden-less hospital trips, but Shane had kept Hayden on an even keel.

Shane had gone with Hayden to talk to the coaching staff about needing to be contactable. More than once, when Jackie had agreed to let her Mom or Dad take her to the hospital, Shane had driven Hayden from the rink. (More times than that, Hayden had been in the wrong city.) When he and Hayden had an off day at home, Shane had turned up with a pre-formulated Disney Marathon While Either Dad or Uncle Shane Is Doing Cardio plan. Ruby and Jade would probably have sabotaged it if it came from Hayden, but since it came from Uncle Shane, the twins focused on testing Shane and Hayden’s respective abilities to sing along while cycling. That bought Jackie time alone, and time with Hayden.

The thing is, Shane had kept that up, that pragmatic focus on freeing up Hayden, through the difficult months where Arthur’s pre-term birth and Jackie’s slow physical recovery bled into post-partum depression. And he always checked in with Jackie, both before Arthur was born and after, with the same mixture of concern and hesitance that he’s now showing as he asks about Baby Four. Jackie knows Hayden talked to him, actually genuinely talked to Shane. Hayden thinks aloud, and during the rough months before and after Arthur was born he needed a sounding board who wasn’t Jackie. Shane’s hesitant questions are a quiet reassurance, in a way. If he’s needed, Shane will be there, in Shane-specific ways.

As some kind of reciprocity, Jackie asks, during the unremarkable third period, much more specific questions about Shane’s injury and recovery than she would have otherwise done in a social context. It turns out Shane’s clavicle is recovering on the expected schedule. Shane is chafing against being banned from major work-outs, but he and Yuna have been power-walking their neighbourhood, and he’s been cleared for some lower-body machine-based training under strict conditions.

On the other hand, Shane’s concussion recovery has been slower than predicted, with headaches coming and going. Jackie, familiar with both Shane and the logic of hockey, quietly thinks that the broken clavicle might be a blessing in disguise. If he had his full range of movement, Shane would be covering up symptoms so as to be back on the ice for the playoffs, and the team would let him.

As it is, Yuna Hollander had enthusiastically endorsed this outing to an actual game because she thinks watching from the rink is better than more screen time. Jackie has no idea if that’s right or wrong, medically. Having said that, watching from a booth, with people he hasn’t seen for a while and topics of conversation he hasn’t already exhausted (not to mention the Ruby and Jade chaos show, or the fact that Arthur climbed into Shane’s lap and dozed off during the first intermission), has got to be a pleasant change from watching at home.

The Metros win, and their party doesn’t hurry to leave the booth; it will be a while yet before Hayden is free to join Jackie and drive them home. Jackie catches a moment when David has the twins’ attention, and activates a plan she hasn’t even fully formulated for herself, let alone talked to Hayden about. The fact that she knows there’s no outcome that would piss off Hayden means it’s a viable plan.

Jackie’s proposition is: Shane could (should, even) come and stay at Jackie and Hayden’s place through round one of the playoffs. For the home games, Jackie will be in the stands, and she’s organised babysitters - figure skaters, in fact. (A conversation with Josiane this past season, then some emails and phone calls, and Jackie has a shortlist she can call on outside of official nanny hours.)

When she suggests this, Shane looks down at his arm in its sling.

“Jacks, I can’t do up my own shirt buttons.” He doesn’t look directly at her while he says it, but he looks to her immediately after. He’s anxious.

“Currently, Shane, I can’t reach to do up my own shoes. The twins can help us both,” she says, guessing - correctly - that that prospect will make Shane laugh. Obviously she’d help Shane if needed, and she knows he’d do the same for her (although with his sling, shoelaces might be a challenge for him, too). Nevertheless, for all that she loves him dearly, they aren’t the hugging sort of friends. The twins, on the other hand, climb over him like he’s a personal jungle-gym or an extension of Hayden, and would delight in doing up Uncle Shane’s shirt buttons.

Shane looks from Jackie to Yuna, clearly uncertain. It’s been a long time since Jackie wondered if Shane was a little too dependent on his mom-and-manager. She’d actually stopped wondering that well before Shane decided to get an agent; but she’s wondering it again. On the other hand, she doesn’t know the ins-and-outs of the Hollander family the way Shane knows her and Hayden and their kids. Case in point: David has apparently not been entirely focused on the twins, and now he comes up behind Shane, putting a hand on his good shoulder.

“Go on, why not?” he says. “I’ll drive you up before game one. It’s game one and two at home, right?” he asks, and both Jackie and Yuna answer affirmatively.

“You could go in with Hayden and watch from the booth,” Yuna says, apparently having made up her mind. “It’d be good for morale if you’re with the team pre-game.”

“Okay, yeah,” Shane says, looking… not exactly relieved, but focused. “Hey, Hayden’s got a stationary bike, I can use that one-armed, right? Like… there’s one-armed cyclists in the Paralympics and everything.”

“Probably,” David says. “But call the physical therapists first, and whatever they say you report back to Mrs Pike here.” David - who hasn’t called her Mrs Pike for five or six years - winks at Jackie. “My honour as a former athlete is on the line,” he explains, still to Jackie. “I promised to supervise.”

Jackie finds herself laughing. “I swear on my honour as a former athlete that I will supervise your son as I would my own husband.”

“I hate you all,” Shane says, at the same time as David and Yuna start asking overlapping questions about Jackie’s former athlete status.

Hayden turns up shortly after, and Jackie makes another tedious bathroom trip. As she does, she notes to herself, in the back of her mind, that she’d described herself as a former athlete and… kind of liked it. It didn’t feel shameful and it didn’t feel like false pretences. Interesting.

A week or so later, the Metros are 1-1 in the series. Hayden’s aggravated an old knee injury, and Jackie knows that’s only going to get worse. So does Shane, and while Jackie restrains herself from fussing over it at home, Shane has no such qualms. Make sure you tape it. Get JJ to tape it for you, actually - Shane would do it but he’s not going to be there.

“Shane, buddy,” Hayden says, after the third round of this on the evening before they fly out. “I can tape a knee in my sleep, and if I can’t, there’s team therapists for that.” The kids are in bed, and they have a couple of hours of grown-up time. Were Jackie less uncomfortably pregnant, she might regret that “grown up time” means hanging out with Shane, rather than personally benefiting from Hayden’s idiosyncratic compromise with the “no sex during playoffs” superstition.

(Theoretically, there’s nothing stopping her from enjoying extensive, no-reciprocation-expected - reciprocation forbidden! - oral sex for as long as the playoff run lasts. But it’s a lot less fun when she can’t even enjoy the sight of Hayden’s head between her thighs, unless they arrange themselves and her belly in very specific angles. What’s more, she may have merged as an entity with this recliner chair. Maybe while Hayden’s on the road she’ll sleep here, with her poor swollen feet higher than her butt.)

“I. Yeah. I guess,” Shane says, fretting still. It’s endearing, Jackie thinks, how much Shane wants to take care of Hayden. It’s also very obviously Shane floundering for anything he can do, anything he can take control of when he can no longer affect the game itself. Jackie has a brief, hilarious, vision of introducing Shane to her college friend Melinda, who had been - and if Facebook is any guide still is - into wicca. Shane would absolutely be lighting candles and arranging meaningful votive offerings and casting benevolent hockey spells right now, if someone told him how.

Hayden gets up from the couch. “I gotta finish packing,” he says. “If I get that done now, we can watch something together before turning in.”

“You wanna go over game tape?” Shane offers.

“No,” Hayden says, firmly. “I’ll do that tomorrow. Not the night before a flight.”

Shane chews his lip. “But, I. I won’t…”

Jackie watches Hayden’s face shift from frustration to confusion and then soften, a little.

“That’s the rule in this house,” he says, shrugging. “No hockey the night before a roadie.”

Shane becomes visibly less tense when the rule in this house is cited. Of course, Jackie thinks. He’s missing out, but if there’s one thing Shane Hollander respects, it's structure.

“Okay,” he says. “Go pack.”

The next morning, Jackie is awake and functioning before Hayden leaves. She used to be a night owl, but three kids in, she’s a reluctant morning person. So she’s not just “awake enough to see him off”, she’s up and at it. The girls are dead to the world, having said goodbye and good luck to their Dad last night, but Arthur is an early riser and his breakfast

Shane actually is a morning person, and while he could go straight into his (modified, monitored) workout, this morning he sits by Arthur, making sure that most of Arthur’s breakfast goes into Arthur’s mouth. He’s wearing one of those tanks with the deep-scooped sides, the kind he normally only wears when he and Hayden are jogging outdoors in warm weather. It’s probably easier to get on and off than a regular t-shirt. It also means, with the morning sun streaming into her kitchen-dining area, Jackie’s got first row tickets to the rare Hollander “Suns Out, Guns Out” experience, while she takes advantage of Shane’s Arthur-wrangling assistance to make a proper breakfast for Hayden.

“Gonna be weird without you, buddy,” Hayden says, once he’s inhaled half his breakfast.

“Buddy!” Arthur echoes, and he points at Shane for emphasis.

“Yeah, you’re gonna have to look after my buddy for me,” Hayden tells him, seriously, and the bitter twist to Shane’s mouth gives way to smiling at Arthur. “Since he’s not coming with me.”

Jackie doesn’t sit down with them; if she sits down she’ll start to dread standing back up again. She eats her share of bacon and eggs - Hayden may be packing in protein against the grueling depletion of the late season, but she’s eating for two here - leaning on the kitchen island and watching her boys.

Shane fiddles with something that’s been sitting to the side of his own breakfast, and then pushes it across the table.

“Take this with you,” he says, looking at the object and not at Hayden.

“What is it?” Hayden asks. It looks like a blue gift tag on a white string, but made of fabric.

Shane shrugs. “Call it hockey player superstition," he says. “I had one of these in my bag every year we won the cup, so. Take it.”

“Of course,” Hayden says, picking it up. “But what is it?”

“Good luck charm,” Shane says, and then, “No! Don’t open it!”

“Oh… kay then. That’s why you gotta tell me what it is, buddy. So I don’t let the luck out or something.”

Shane laughs. “That actually is the thing, you can let the luck out.”

Hayden is silent for once; Jackie can picture his raised eyebrow of go on, explain.

Shane rubs the thumb of his good hand over his own cheek. “Omamori,” he says. “From Japan. You get them at temples, I think. My grandma moved back to live with her sister’s family when I was ten. She started losing English soon after, and phone calls were expensive, so…” He shrugged. “We didn’t talk much.” Jackie realised she’d never heard Shane talk about his family, outside of his parents.

“She used to send one of these, the charm for victory in sports, every year. Anyway, she died when I was eighteen, and I didn’t want to not have one for the season leading up to the draft. Mom gets them from her cousins, I think.”

There’s a pause.

“Sorry, it’s a bit stupid,” Shane says.

“No way,” Hayden says, easily. “I’ll take it. You said it’s for victory in sports?”

Shane nods.

“Are there other ones?”

“I think so.”

Hayden pauses again, apparently thinking. “Hey, you had this with you for the game you got that hit from Marleau?”

“Yeah.” Shane bites his lip. “It’s not like - I don’t really believe in it…”

“We won that game, though! You should get your mom’s cousins to send you one for, maybe… not getting injured? Good health? Something like that: double protection!”

Shane’s face, which had been blank while Hayden worked through the logic of protective charms, breaks out in genuine laughter. “I’ll tell her to mention it,” he says.

Jackie then has a few days at home with Shane. Ordinarily, Jackie might join the other WAGs for at least one playoff away game, but while she has been the only girl present for various Metros player hangouts, she can’t remember there ever being a player at a WAG-watch. Now that she thinks about it, that’s actually kind of weird: guys get scratched or put on long term injured reserve every year, but she’s never seen a husband or boyfriend at a WAG-watch? Hayden’s missed playoff rounds before, and Jackie never thought to invite the girls over to their place, she just declined the invite and she and Hayden watched from home. She’s done the same thing, having invited Shane to stay with her, but maybe because he’s not her husband she’s suddenly wondering why everyone treats their husbands like that.

The Metros make it to game six; Jackie and Shane watch from Jackie’s living room. Jackie has Jade wriggling in her lap, elbowing her just as much as the kid in her belly. Shane has Ruby on one side, demanding explanations of everything, and Arthur flopped out sound asleep on his lap. Shane is very obviously struggling to answer Ruby’s questions while also firing off commentary to Jackie.

The team try, and fail miserably, to break through the Tampa Bay Storm’s defensive wall. Worse, JJ is playing injured, and Gagnon took a hit early in the second period which has him out of action for the game, so the Metro’s own defense lines aren’t up to the task. Shane’s focused effort to not jostle or wake Arthur as he twitches in frustration is adorable. Less adorable - although amusing in its own way - is the absolute viciousness with which Shane dissects his own team’s play.

“Wow, tell us how you really feel, Cap,” Jackie says, as Shane hisses about Berkes’ lack of speed and his goddamn ego - it’s like he’s got two cups and he thinks he doesn’t have to get any better after that. Good thing she didn’t try combining Shane and any of the other players’ wives. Jackie likes Sandra Berkes, and Sandra Berkes might straight up murder Shane if she heard him talk about Berky like that. If Shane talks to his team like that, that’s his business, Jackie’s not running his locker room, but aside from the risk of murder-by-wives, Jackie’s pretty sure that none of the guys want their loving (and/or out of love and not yet divorced) partners exposed to the brutal Hollander Live Commentary.

Any of the guys except Hayden, that is. Jackie hears Shane dissect Hayden’s play as they review tape approximately once a week.

By the time Scott Hunter seals his career with the Cup victory that has been eluding him for well over a decade, Jackie has an easy baby in her arms. Is Amber actually easy? Her benchmarks are skewed by first twins, then Arthur. She and Hayden are both waiting for the other shoe to drop, but her mom seems relieved. With Hayden home, and noting that she had actually caved and paid someone to come by twice a week and batch prepare dinner, Jackie’s doing far better than expected.

Hayden is reluctant to leave her, so he isn’t watching with Comeau and the guys. Hayden had suggested to Shane that he join them, but Shane had told him that he was enjoying watching the later playoffs with his mom.

“I get the impression Mrs Hollander is where Shane got his vicious commentary tendencies,” Hayden had said. “And he says they haven’t actually watched a cup final together since his sophomore year.”

Jackie had thought briefly about inviting Shane and his parents to their place, but with the unpredictable nature of games five to seven and David having a day job in Ottawa, that would be hard to plan. And while she would definitely enjoy one high stakes game worth of Yuna and Shane Hollander together critiquing hockey, three games would be too much, even for her.

In the end, when Scott Hunter sets the hockey world on fire by calling some guy down to the ice and kissing the hell out of him, Jackie is watching with Hayden, all four of her kids, Sandra and Berky and their kids. Because she’s realised she can just pay someone to cater, there’s also JJ and a cousin of his - a cousin, not a girlfriend; he’s had to stress that a fair bit - who’s visiting from Haiti. Fischer, last year’s rookie winger, is there as well; Jackie figures either Hayden knew exactly why he was inviting the kid, or Fischer and Hayden are operating on a compatibly chaotic wavelength.

“Ostie de tabarnak,” JJ says, as the broadcast camera lingers on Hunter kissing his… guy. Boyfriend? Secret husband? Jackie has no idea. What she knows is that just minutes ago, the broadcast showed Hunter hoisting the cup - his first, when he’s been one of the best players in the league since he was drafted and he’s now over thirty - with an expression that said fucking finally, this is what I’m worth. The expression on his face as he looks at Mr Denim Jacket says fucking finally in a totally different way.

Jackie doesn’t have much space in her heart for anything outside of baby Amber, Hayden, and their other kids right now. She has space in her brain for hockey, and that’s a good sign compared to the state she’d been in after Arthur was born.

Fucking finally, her heart says.

“Hunter’s a fucking cocksucker?” JJ is saying. Hayden isn’t saying anything. JJ’s tone doesn’t entirely match his words. The tone is all surprise, compared to, say, the way JJ has many times on this exact couch spoken about “that cocksucking Russian” in a way that’s all insult, with zero expectation that Rozanov has ever gone near a dick.

"The fuck," Fischer says, eyes wide.

The moment when Jackie thinks she understands and she’s not the only one thinking fucking finally extends, and then snaps.

“Did he have to make a spectacle of it?” Sandra asks.

“Right!” Berky chimes in. “Hunter’s a faggot, big fucking surprise, but-”

Jackie has Amber asleep in her arms, and she actually barely kept up with the game after the second intermission. When something important happened, the reactions of everyone around her filled her in. If she’d locked in, her tension would have woken Amber, and on the flip side… It's just hockey. She has baby Amber asleep in her arms.

It’s as much a surprise to her as it is to Berky when Jackie is standing up, standing over him. Her arms are occupied with keeping Amber snug against her body.

“Not in my house,” she says. “Not in front of my children.”

Berky and Sandra both nod, and Jackie realises they’ve processed this as a swear jar situation. She looks to Hayden. Hayden… well, kind of like he looks at her when she has him on his knees in their bedroom. This is not informative in hockey terms but she takes it as endorsement.

“That man,” she says, and she feels like she’s watching herself from somewhere outside and above. “Scott Hunter has no family cheering him on. You know this. We all know this. His - his partner wasn’t with the wives-girlfriends-families group tonight.” Berky and Sandra and Hayden are all looking at her, shocked. Hayden is shocked in a somewhat turned-on way, Berky and Sandra are just shocked. Fischer is still wide-eyed, but he nods very slightly when she looks at him. She doesn’t look at JJ and his cousin.

“I don’t know the man,” she says, de-escalating and recouping. “But you don’t either. He did something fucking brave tonight. If you want to talk shit about him, you can do it in the locker room. Not in my house.”

“What she said,” Hayden pipes up. He’s not looking at Jackie right now. He looks both anxious and determined.

She sneaks a look at JJ, and catches him right as his cousin elbows him in the ribs. JJ’s eyes track across the adults in the room, and then he laughs.

“Mecs, Hunter sucks dick and wins a cup! If it was gonna be anyone I’d have thought Rozanov.”

“That’s because you’re delusional,” Hayden says.

At the same time, Berky says, “That’s like.. Even you’d be surprised if Rozanov made out with a guy on the ice.”

Jackie subsides back into her armchair, but she keeps an eye on Hayden. Hayden is tracking between her, Berky, and JJ, and practically vibrating with anxiety.

“Eh ouais,” JJ says. “Beurk. That is Rozanov, we do not want to know whose cock he sucks or why.”

“You want to know about Hunter?” Sandra asks.

“I do not care,” JJ says. He doesn’t wear the A but Jackie recognises “setting the tone” voice when she hears it. “M'sieur Denim is on the ice and Scott Hunter sucks dick, this is tabloid news.” He exchanges looks with his cousin and then he goes on, “No, like, I’m surprised! I would not have guessed this. But good for Hunter.”

Chapter End Notes

I'm doing something in the one published and various WIP-drafts for the series I'm theoretically writing wherein I'm trying to expand (regain) my range of tricks for dealing with the relationship between "story time" and "discourse time". Those aren't the two modes of engagement in fandom, they're technical literary analysis terms. When I first learned them I had already been thinking for quite some time about how I had had to learn what I thought of, circa 2011-2015 as "TV fandom style". Present tense, frequent breaks with the < HR > tag, and either you spell out all the components of a conversation or you add a break. Older fanfic, including mine, was perfectly happy to present a chunk of conversation and then "The next morning, Blorbo asked Shitto about it again", without a scene break. Or to embedd "Blorbo remembered..." instead of a scene break and a cinematic-style flashback.

When I was paid to teach undergrads about this, I ended up thinking about fanfic far more than I could actually deploy in the classroom. It bled into some of my Yuri On Ice fic (this one particularly).

This Pike/Pike/Rozanov/Hollander Pegging Fic was supposed to be a medium-length fic of like, 10-15,000 words that I wrote in the present tense while tinkering around in more detail in past tense in the series-i-aspire-to-actually-publish-more-than-one-thing-in. There was supposed to be one scene per year, until the final "they talk about it, then they have a foursome" point. That's not what's happening, now that I've committed to the Jackie Pike Arc. I was fairly happy with the way I was managing the flow of time in the year-blocks in the second chapter, but I regret having used calendar years instead of Hockey Seasons, or some kind of quarterly break-down. (The Joe the Figure Skater WIP-draft is handling this better)

Anyway, before and after The Skip Kiss is such an important shift in canon, and it's The End Of the Hockey Season for the Pikes (who have no idea about what's going on for Shane). So that's what we've got here: about six months.

CITATIONS:

* A Strange History of Brad Marchand Kissing And Licking NHL Players (USA today, 2018). I recommend this rather than earlier sports media coverage of Marchand licking/kissing Komarov, not least because it has more data on Marchand's Sports Bromoeroticism than the 2017-2018 "Marchand reprimanded for kissing/licking Komarov" breaking news articles (it even seems like he wasn't reprimanded?).

* One can obtain omamori from the Shin Mei Spiritual Centre in Canada, and Yuna does seem like the kind of person who'd order such things online. However, they do not have the "victory in sports" one, and my brief time in Japan leads me to believe that's a very common one. I'm rotating this concept in my head. I may revisit it in the Aspirational Series.

* "Beurk" sometimes spelled "Berk" is French for eww, yuck. It's also a plausible nickname for Berkes. I actually wrote that sentence meaning "ew, gross" but then realised it could reasonably be addressing Berky. Why not both? Let's suppose JJ goes around referring to his teammate as Yucky.

Note: in the first few hours after posting I did some SPAG edits. This entire chapter is, technically speaking, un-beta'd, but it really only exists because cloud_atlas beta'd the hell out of my first draft.