Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

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

Relationships:

Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais & Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Shane Hollander

Additional Tags:

Mentioned Ilya Rozanov, JJ is neither a good nor bad friend but somewhere in the middle, but mostly bad, Relationship Reveal, Situationship Era, Episode: s01e05 I'll Believe in Anything (Heated Rivalry), Overheard Phone Call, that phone call, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, POV Outsider, Angst, Jealousy, Misunderstandings, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, jj is bad at feelings, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, these em-dashes are mine, we don't do that robot thing

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-26 Words: 4,906 Chapters: 1/1

The Stairwell

Summary

The elevator was full. Too many people were packed in like sardines, and their suitcases just made the squeeze even more unbearable. JJ didn’t feel the need to add to it. He was six-foot-five and as wide as a brick wall. He didn’t want to be packed in there any more than they wanted to share the space with him.

He decided to take the stairs.

OR

JJ takes the stairs at the exact wrong time and overhears The Phone Call™️ from Moscow. He, in canon typical fashion, does not take this well.
(Fuck AI)

Notes

Heyyyy

This isn't a happy-go-lucky fic. For once, I have returned to my angst roots. JJ fucking SUCKS in this. Please for the love of God know that I do not agree with his point of view. I actively hated him the whole time I was writing.

Thank you Dani, love of my life, for editing/beta reading this, and asking the very important question of "what could have possibly distracted you from the Haasy fic?" This, my love. This is what distracted me from the Haasy fic. Go follow Dani here as @the_navistar_carol or on tumblr as @the-navistar-carol.

FUCK AI. We don't use AI here. These are home grown em-dashes and grammar mistakes.

CONTENT WARNING: JJ briefly uses homophobic language, and some anti-bisexual rhetoric.

The elevator was full. Too many people were packed in like sardines, and their suitcases just made the squeeze even more unbearable. JJ didn’t feel the need to add to it. He was six-foot-five and as wide as a brick wall. He didn’t want to be packed in there any more than they wanted to share the space with him. 

He decided to take the stairs. 

That was the only reason he was in that stairwell that afternoon. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop — wished he hadn’t, actually. Part of him knew it would have been easier if he’d never known. It certainly would have been easier if he hadn’t found out like that. 

JJ was on the fifth floor when he heard the stairwell door creak open above him. The soft ring of a phone clued him into the fact that someone had gone looking for privacy they hadn’t found, but JJ couldn’t exactly stop two floors down from his own room.

He probably didn’t even know them. Had no reason to care.

He’d just wait them out. He leaned back against the wall and caught his breath, resigned to stay out of sight until the call was over.

“How are you?” 

Oh, shit. That was Shane. 

That was JJ’s captain — his friend — and there was something off in his voice. He sounded worried. More worried that JJ thought was normal, at least. Shane was always a little on edge about something. JJ had gotten used to that over the years.

But this… it sounded serious. Like something had gone horribly wrong. And if he was hiding it, then it was even worse than that. He was notoriously private, but when it really mattered, he always told JJ. He always told Hayden.

Was it his parents? His father worked for the government, and JJ had heard that people were getting laid off. Maybe it was that. 

But Shane made more money than, like, half the team combined, so it didn’t make sense that he would be worried about that. He could definitely afford to support his parents if something went wrong. He wouldn’t be worked up about something like that. And who in Canada would be dumb enough to fire Shane Hollander’s parent?

His agent, then. Some kind of brand deal could have fallen through, or he could have accidentally signed with a controversial brand. That would make more sense to be worried about. JJ himself had found out the hard way a few years ago that a mess like that could stick.

Since when did Shane ask his agent how they were like he wanted a real answer?  

So, maybe JJ didn’t know enough. 

“How’s your family?” 

It was personal. Okay, fair enough. Shane was allowed to have a personal life outside of hockey if he wanted one. Just because he rarely did didn’t necessarily mean it never happened. The problem with that was just… 

Well, Shane didn’t have a fucking personal life. He had three friends, all on the team, and all three in this hotel right now. 

He could have been on the phone with Jackie, maybe. Her brother was getting married, JJ thought. Or… a divorce? Something like that. She could have been having a hard time with it, though JJ couldn’t imagine why. 

But Shane was sharing a room with Hayden, so why hide that call from him?

No, if Shane had left his hotel room, walked all the way down the hall, and hidden in the stairwell, he hadn’t wanted anyone to overhear him. Not even Hayden. 

Rose? JJ knew that Shane and Rose spoke on the phone often. Or, as often as they could with their schedules, which wasn’t much. They had, however, broken up. Why would Rose Landry call her ex-boyfriend about a problem, and why would Shane respond to that as if the problem was just as equally his own? 

“Is it… very upsetting?” 

God, when this phone call was over, JJ was going to give Shane lessons on how to sound more empathetic. Deep down, he knew Shane really meant it — he always did — but wow, was he bad at sounding like it. He was trying, that much was obvious, but the effort didn’t quite land. The words were stiff, too rehearsed.

If the person on the other side of the phone was looking for comfort, they probably should have called anyone else. It was almost painful to listen to. 

At this point, JJ considered announcing his presence. Shane deserved to know he wasn’t alone, and whoever he was talking to deserved to know their privacy was being invaded by a weirdo defenseman who chose to take the stairs at the exact wrong time. 

And then JJ’s brain lit up like a cartoon lightbulb. 

Lily. 

Shane’s Lily.

Hayden had said she was back in the picture. Shane always denied that it was serious, but he had always been clearly fucking lying about that. They’d been halfway to marriage once, before Rose entered the picture.

It had to be her. That was the only explanation. Something had happened, and she’d called Shane because after so many years, she knew he would answer. And Shane had picked up, because for Lily, he always would. 

“You mean, not your father?” 

Wait. Had Shane met this girl’s parents? How serious were they? And why the fuck had JJ never even seen a picture of her? 

“I wish I spoke Russian.” 

Hold on. Stop. 

Russian? Since when did Shane need Russian? That was a random language to pull out of nowhere. 

Was Lily Russian? Two minutes of eavesdropping and JJ had already learned more about her than he had ever known before. Her first language wasn’t English, she was upset about something, she… had a family. 

Not much to go on, to be honest. 

Shane huffed, something close to a laugh. Something warm. “That’s French, Ilya.” 

Ilya. 

JJ froze. That name didn’t make sense, except…

Ilya. 

No. That—no.

Ilya. 

Fucking what? Was Shane on the phone with Ilya fucking Rozanov right now?

JJ’s thoughts tripped over themselves so quickly that they barely had time to form coherently. Since when were they friends? Since when did they call each other? Since when did Shane even have his number?

Actually, more importantly: since when had Shane cared enough to want to learn Russian for the asshole? 

You mean not your father?

Oh shit, Rozanov’s father just died. They had started talking about it in the media a few days ago, after almost a week of Boston’s captain being AWOL. 

Rozanov’s father had died, and he called Shane?

Shane Hollander, his rival. 

Shane had known.

Oh, God — Shane had known.

In the locker room, when JJ said that Rozanov hadn’t flown to Nashville, Shane had been worried about him. JJ had seen it on his face and chosen to believe it was just Shane thinking too much about hockey. About his rival dropping off the face of the Earth without warning. 

JJ had ignored it.

But Shane had known. He knew Rozanov wasn’t sick, wasn’t injured. He had known that something happened. For a week, Shane had known where Rozanov was. He had known what had happened. He had known about Rozanov’s father. 

All week, Shane had been glued to his phone. Texting Lily. Texting Ilya. 

Lily. Ilya. Boston. 

JJ very quietly lowered himself to the floor as it all rushed over him. Lily had never existed. Or, no — Lily wasn’t Lily.

Ilya Rozanov was calling Shane from Moscow because his father died, and he found comfort in Shane. And JJ pressed the back of his head against the wall, dizzy with it. He felt like he was losing his mind.

“Hey, uh, I have an idea,” Shane said. It was something he tended to say when he already had a plan that most people were going to follow without question. People always followed Shane. JJ always followed Shane. “How about, you tell me everything that’s on your mind, but in Russian? I won’t understand, but maybe it’ll help.” 

It was so painfully, unmistakeably, honestly Shane. Earnest and considerate. He wanted to be there, wanted to offer comfort, and he found a way to do it. Because Shane always bent over backwards for the people he cared about. Even if his tone came out all wrong and awkward. 

It hit JJ like a truck — Shane knew how to comfort Rozanov. Not a guess or an attempt. Not stumbling through it like he did with everyone else. He knew Rozanov so intimately well that he knew exactly what to say to him, what to offer him, how to care for him. Shane knew how to love him.

It wasn’t fair. 

It wasn’t fair that JJ was sitting there, listening to this. It wasn’t fair that Shane hadn’t told him. It wasn’t fair that there was someone on the planet that Shane knew better than anyone else, and JJ had no idea. And it really wasn’t fair that, halfway across the world, Rozanov was experiencing a version of Shane that no one else ever had. That no one else ever would. 

JJ tried not to be angry. For one minute, then two. He tried not to stew in irritation as he heard the muffled voice of Rozanov coming through the phone in the silent stairwell. He tried so hard not to spiral as he listened to Shane’s breathing. 

The anger came anyway. He couldn’t help the way it began to bubble in his stomach. Not chest — stomach. It was guttural. He felt sick. He felt worse than sick. 

This was betrayal.

It had always felt a little like a betrayal when Shane hid something from him, from Hayden. Like there was a part of his life they weren’t allowed to touch. Like their entire relationship was one-sided. JJ gave and Shane decided what came back.

Sometimes, he felt it in smaller ways. When he stayed out too late. When he picked up too much. He always felt judged by Shane in those moments. Judged by the perfect hockey golden boy who did no wrong. 

Every time someone brought up Lily, JJ felt just a little vindicated. Because Shane did have something. There was a weak spot, an imperfection. Something he kept secret because, for some reason, he was ashamed of it. 

So when he never said anything — when months turned into years of secrets about this girl — it felt wrong. Like JJ was standing just outside of some sick joke he was supposed to be part of. The longer it went on, the more it felt like every time he told Shane something about his own life, it was for nothing. 

Were they even friends if Shane didn’t trust him enough to talk about something so insignificant? Some girl he saw four times a year. One who apparently mattered more than JJ ever did.  

It was worse now, that feeling of betrayal. Not only was Shane keeping it from him, not trusting him, but it was Rozanov. The biggest asshole in the league. The captain of their rival team. Shane’s rival. Someone who had once punched out Hayden’s teeth. 

Did Shane care at all? Did he care that the guy he was on the phone with was an awful person? 

Did Shane trust him more than he trusted JJ? 

JJ’s chest tightened, and suddenly everything felt different. Maybe it had never meant as much as he thought it did.

And what about on the ice? That was all fake, then? All the chirps, all the hits against the board, every competition they had pretended was life or death. It was all a fucking lie. Shane wasn’t even Shane anymore, just someone that JJ shared a job with for the last seven years. 

“Do you feel better?” 

God, JJ hoped Roznov felt fucking worse. That it hurt. That he was stuck in it, turning over every bad decision he’d ever made, every mistake catching up to him all at once. He hoped Rozanov was on the other side, realizing that Shane was too good for him. 

And on this side of the phone, JJ was starting to wonder if that was even true. Because the Shane that was too good for Rozanov wasn’t even real. Not in the way JJ thought he was. 

“Maybe you can teach me Russian someday.” 

Had they planned a future together? Was that what this was? Shane said someday as if it was real. As if he knew someday would eventually come. Like he planned to keep doing this for as long as he could. 

Maybe one of them would transfer teams so they could play together. Maybe the All-Stars game had put the idea in their heads. Maybe Shane would leave at the end of his contract, and JJ would never see him again. That was only two years away. 

Fuck, the All Stars game. Rozanov had practically flaunted it on the ice. He’d kissed Shane’s helmet. JJ had fucking watched it happen, had teased Shane about it after. He had pretended to gag and told Shane that if Rozanov ever did that to him, he’d break his jaw before he thought about doing it a second time. And Shane had just—

Shane had laughed. 

“Fuck you.” That was so familiar to JJ. Those words. He had heard Shane say that to Rozanov a hundred times, always with a scowl. Always sharp or irritated.

This time was different. Softer. It was said fondly. JJ could hear the smile on his face. Shane didn’t mean it at all. Not even a little bit. 

“How about, ‘I wish you were here right now?’” 

JJ felt dizzy. He tried to tune it out, tried not to listen to the rest of the conversation. He couldn’t avoid it, even as he pushed the sound away. Shane’s voice was too close. Too clear.

Shane. JJ’s Shane. His friend. His captain. The guy JJ had known for seven whole years, had brought to clubs, had played countless games with. Ten minutes ago, JJ would have said he trusted the guy with his life. Now, he didn’t even know who he was. 

JJ should have squeezed into the fucking elevator. 

“You’ll be back by the time Boston’s in Montreal?” Fuck, Rozanov was coming back. Soon. And JJ was going to have to look him in the eye — stand across from him on the ice and know. That he had corrupted Montreal’s captain, that he was a pebble in the shoe of everything good, that he was an asshole who was stringing Shane along. JJ knew now. “Boston’s not the same without you.” 

That was a fact, but not one JJ would have said out loud. Certainly not to Rozanov. 

It was Rozanov’s fault. It had to be, because there was no way JJ had known Shane for seven years — had seen him almost every day — and not known him. Not this whole time. Rozanov must have done something. 

He was fucking with Shane. He found out somehow that Shane was gay or queer or something and thought it would be funny to make it a game. Whatever this was, he must have started it as a sick joke. He was an equal-opportunity whore who would do anything to chirp an opponent. 

Even now, he was still using Shane. He saw the opportunity to use Shane’s care for him while he was gone. He took advantage of the fact that Shane would always answer. Surely no one else wanted to deal with him. He had no friends to lean on, so he leaned on Shane, the guy he’d been messing with for years. 

That’s what this was. 

That’s what it had to be. 

“Ilya, it’ll be, like, four in the morning there.” See? Even Shane sounded exasperated. He couldn’t stand Rozanov either. JJ knew it. “Okay. Fine. Yeah, I–I’ll talk to you then.” 

JJ pushed himself off the wall, back to his feet, as Shane finished the call. There was a beat, and then a long sigh from where Shane was sitting. Relief, JJ assumed, to be out of that conversation. Because that’s what it had to be. 

He would admit, later, that the way he walked around the corner was aggressive. His head was still spinning, and he was pissed the fuck off. There was nothing careful in the way he came at Shane. Nothing gentle. Not what it should have been, maybe. 

And Shane was still just… sitting there. Staring at his phone a little wistfully, as if he wished the line to Moscow was still connected. 

When he noticed JJ, he tensed. His hand clutched tighter around his phone, and his eyes went wide. He opened his mouth to say something; JJ didn’t give him the chance. 

“Rozanov?” he demanded. Yes, aggressive was the word for that. There was nothing subtle about this. “What the actual fuck are you doing on the phone with Rozanov? Why is he calling you? Why is he talking to you in Russian?” 

The questions came out fast. Too fast. Tripping over each other before Shane could answer even one of them.

JJ didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t know if he wanted answers, or a fight, or just for Shane to look guilty enough to make this make sense.

JJ didn’t know what his goal was anymore. 

He wasn’t prepared for Shane to just accept it. He wasn’t prepared for his best fucking friend to roll over and take it. 

“He needed someone,” Shane said simply. Like it wasn’t the most fucked up thing in the world. “I can be that someone. I want to be.” 

“Why?” JJ shot back. “Why would you want to be anything for that cocksucker?” 

JJ could see the way it hit Shane in the chest. He flinched, small enough that most people would’ve missed it. JJ didn’t. And for a split second, it felt like winning. 

Deep down, he knew exactly what that word would do. Knew it carved a line in the sand that wouldn’t wash away — not completely. Because if JJ was right, and he knew he was, then Shane was also… 

The hurt that Shane showed vanished as quickly as it appeared. It was swiftly replaced by anger, or something worse. “Don’t fucking call him that,” he snapped. It was calm. Too calm. Enough so that JJ could hear the way he’d fucked up. That was worse than yelling. “You don’t know anything about him. You don’t know anything about us. His father just died, JJ. Show some decorum.” 

“Decorum?” JJ echoed. Wow, what a fucking ironic thing for him to say. “Let’s talk about decorum, Capitaine. How long have you been fucking the Russian?” 

And there it was. No taking it back.

Shane stood from the stair he was sitting on. He was still too calm about this. He should have been panicked. He should have been angry. JJ was provoking him, practically begging for a reaction, so why wasn’t he biting back? Why wasn’t he—

Why wasn’t he proving it? That JJ never knew him.

Why wasn’t he acting like a completely different person than he’d always been? 

He’d been caught! He didn’t need to pretend anymore. And JJ needed him to fight back, because if he didn’t, then JJ was wrong. If he didn’t, then Shane was still the same person he’d always been. JJ couldn’t accept that. 

“I’ve been sleeping with him for longer than I’ve been in the league,” Shane said, and God if that fact didn’t smack the shit out of JJ, battering ram to solar plexus, nothing would. He could feel his stomach drop. “Nothing has changed. You just know I’m gay now.” 

He just… confirmed it. No fight. No argument. No insults. He just stood there and owned up to it like a man, a glare on his face as if daring JJ to say anything about it. 

JJ shook his head. “No. No, that’s bullshit.” It had to be. He couldn’t accept that — he wouldn’t. “He’s using you. He’s always been using you,” he decided. That was a fact. Something JJ could hold on to while the rest of him felt like it was drifting off to sea. “It’s a game to him. He’s just — just fucking with you, or — or getting in your head. It’s not—”

“He’s not,” Shane cut him off. He still wasn’t yelling, wasn’t arguing. He was firm, but he gave JJ nothing.

“Yes, he is!” JJ snapped. “That’s what he does! He—he gets in your head. He pushes, he—what? You think you’re special because he lets you suck his dick after a game?”

As soon as it left his mouth, Shane froze. He didn’t flinch or react, didn’t even take a breath. He just went still, and somehow that was worse. “Don’t,” Shane said. “Ilya’s a good guy. Off the ice, he—” 

“A good guy?” JJ cut in. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, honestly. “He broke my nose, Shane.” 

“And you cross-checked him into the boards two weeks later,” Shane reminded him. Not that he needed reminding. JJ had been smug about that for weeks. “Don’t pretend that’s different.” 

“That’s hockey!” JJ barked. “This? This isn’t hockey.” 

“No. It’s not.” That hit harder than anything else had. JJ shook his head, like he could rattle the words loose, undo them somehow, but Shane still wasn’t biting. “I would consider him a friend.” 

“A friend?” JJ scoffed. Sure, a friend. One who was his rival, who knocked him around every game, who never missed a chance to be an asshole. “A friend you fuck? Who just happens to be your biggest rival? That’s one hell of a coincidence.”

Shane nodded. “Yes, a friend.” The stern glare in his eyes didn’t soften. Not even a little. He was so fucking calm. And JJ hated it. It made him feel small. “I recall that you also have friends on other teams. Carter Vaughn, New York. Alexander Foster, Pittsburgh. Douglas Eaton, Toronto. Paul Jakob, Detroit–” 

“Yeah, but I’m not fucking them, Hollander!” JJ shouted. That finally got Shane to flinch. He turned over his shoulder and glanced up the stairs, checking if anyone had come in behind him. JJ felt a smug, unfounded sense of satisfaction. “And they’ve never broken my fucking nose.” 

“None of them are as good at hockey as he and I are, either,” Shane snapped back, his jaw twitching where he’d clenched it. 

In all the years JJ had known him, this was the most arrogant Shane Hollander had ever been. The worst part was that he wasn’t even wrong. Hollander and Rozanov were the best. They always had been.

“You’re convenient,” JJ pushed. He couldn’t leave it. He never could. “You’re there. You’re — fucking — you’re easy. Someone he doesn’t have to care about because no one’s ever going to know.” 

Shane’s glare sharpened. “That’s enough, Boiziau.” His hands curled into fists at his sides, voice low enough to rattle bones. For just a second, JJ thought he might leave this stairwell with a black eye. “Look, you don’t have to like it, but you do have to keep your mouth shut.” 

“Why the fuck would I do that?” 

“Because Ilya is fucking Russian!” Shane shouted. Really shouted. Off the ice, that might have been the loudest his voice had ever gone. The sound bounced off the concrete walls, too big for the stairwell to contain. “You can — can — you can fucking hate me after this for all I care. You can tell the whole team I’m a fairy who loves to suck cock. Fine.” His voice was tight, strained. Unlike the Capitaine JJ thought he knew so well. “But you don’t mention Ilya. He’s not from here. His government—this isn’t safe for him. And I know you’re angry, but I also know you’re a good enough guy not to want him dead.” 

JJ paused for the first time. 

Dead. He hadn’t thought about that, because why would he? He lived in Canada. He was a hockey player — a straight hockey player. The world didn’t work like that for him. It never had. Why would he be thinking about the laws surrounding queer people in a country halfway across the world? 

Until this conversation, JJ wasn’t aware he knew any queer people, let alone someone from a country where it could cost them everything. And despite all the jokes he’d made in the past about wanting to see Rozanov’s head on a spike, Shane was right about JJ not actually wanting him dead. 

“I won’t…” he trailed off, sucking a deep breath that barely filled his lungs. “I won’t say anything about him. Or you.” 

He wouldn’t. That wasn’t his goal going into this conversation. At least, he didn’t think so.

He felt lied to, sure, but he wasn’t about to out his best friend. Certainly not when his best friend was the most famous hockey player since Gretzky. 

JJ was hot-headed, and blunt, and careless, but he wasn’t a monster. 

He would never do that to Shane. Even now.

His captain nodded, mostly to himself. His gaze dropped to the floor, avoiding eye contact the way he always did when he was overwhelmed. And JJ knew that because, despite his train of thought for the last fifteen minutes, JJ knew Shane. 

“Thank you,” Shane mumbled. He tugged at the sleeve of his sweater, rocking slightly on his feet. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to find out like this. No one knows.”

No one.

They had been doing this since before their rookie season, and no one knew. Rozanov hadn’t told anyone.

Why would he? He was Russian. Hell, calling Shane today might have been enough to put him in danger.

Why would he get involved with Shane — stay involved with Shane — if it was so dangerous? Why do that if it was just to fuck with him?

That question rang through JJ’s head for a long moment. There was an answer already forming, he just didn’t like it. That answer would only fuck up the thorn-spiked narrative he’d so neatly convinced himself to believe. 

Because if Rozanov couldn’t tell anyone, and if it was so risky for him to do it at all, then the answer was simple: this whole thing was real to him. Just as real as it seemed to be to Shane. 

Shit. 

JJ watched his best friend closely. The slump of his shoulders. The way his chin dipped. The wobble of his lower lip. JJ felt something in his chest tighten, too close to tears for comfort. “Do you love him?” he asked, trying to push past the thickness in his throat. 

Shane looked up cautiously, scanning JJ’s face like he was waiting for the catch. For the insult that wasn’t there. Eventually, he gave up with a soft breath. “I’m not going to answer that,” he said. “We haven’t… feelings are pretty new to us still.” 

JJ didn’t really know how to respond to that, so he just nodded. He didn’t know what to do with the fact that it was a confession on its own. If Shane didn’t love him, he would have said so, and JJ knew it. By not answering, he had.  

“I’m–” JJ stopped himself, the words tangling before they could get out. There was too much he wanted to say. “I’m glad you’re comfortable with yourself, Capitaine. I didn’t mean to make you think I’d… stop caring about you. It doesn’t matter to me that you’re gay.”

It wasn’t much, but it’s what he had to offer. He couldn’t say he was happy for Shane — not if it meant he had to approve of Rozanov. He couldn’t say he supported this fucked up thing going on. He couldn’t even say that he would try to understand it. 

But he would still care about Shane, whether or not he was gay. That part had never changed. 

The corners of Shane’s mouth twitched slightly, but it never quite reached a smile. It never met his eyes. “Thanks, JJ.” 

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and before JJ could say anything else, Shane was already pulling it out, glancing down at the screen. This time, his smile came easily. It was real. And it hit JJ in a way he wasn’t expecting — because he didn’t think he’d ever seen that expression on Shane before. 

“Is that him?” he asked. He hadn’t meant it to sound so harsh, but he couldn’t help it. Knowing it was Rozanov made it… different. Harder. The usual joke about Boston Lily didn’t come. 

Instead of answering, Shane let out a long-suffering sigh and turned the phone around. It was the first time JJ had ever seen a text from Lily. 

Lily
Thank you again

Lily
I do not care how early it is here, call me after game. I want to hear you talk about hockey until I fall asleep again. 

Oh. 

Okay. 

It was real. There was nothing JJ could do to change it. Nothing he could do to stop it. He was either going to get on board, or Shane was going to leave him behind. Even now, JJ could tell that was true. 

He swallowed the lump in his throat, forcing his eyes away from the screen and back to Shane’s face. “Okay,” he whispered. “Your secret’s safe with me, Capitaine.”