Rating:

General Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Ilya Rozanov, Anya | Ilya Rozanov's Dog, Shane Hollander, Hayden Pike, Hayden Pike's Children, Jackie Pike, David Hollander, Yuna Hollander, ilya Rozanov's niece, Katya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Married Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Soft Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov's family, Ilya Rozanov has a niece, Post-Canon

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-07-04 Completed: 2026-08-16 Words: 16,417 Chapters: 8/8

family matters

Summary

After the death of his father, Ilya Rozanov cut ties with his remaining family in Russia. Ten years later, his niece comes to Canada for school.

Ilya has walked many a gauntlet: loss and abuse in his family, nearly two decades playing a violent sport at the highest level, a forbidden love affair and shocking public outing. Now he meets a new foe: the withering sneer of a thirteen-year-old girl.

Notes

I usually prefer to finish one thing before starting another, but I couldn't keep this idea at bay and I thought I'd get it out there because I'm considering bowing out of all this (because let's be honest, things are getting weird out here). Enjoy!

Chapter 1: arrival

Ilya sighed. “I want it to be good. Not fine.”

Shane took his hand. “It will be good.”

“I wanted to meet her at the gate,” Ilya said, for the fifteenth time.

“They said someone will escort her here. They know how to manage this.”

Shane had been unusually calm all day. All week, even. Ilya had been unraveling for a month, but Shane had serenely worked his way through the to-do list, shopping online and coordinating calendars.

Ilya had been surprised by his own nerves. He was good with kids—good with people. 

But Ekaterina Rozanova wasn’t just a child, or a person; she was one of Ilya’s only remaining blood relations and blood relations had never worked for Ilya like they did for Shane. 

The sliding door nearby opened, and a petite woman in an Air France uniform appeared, pushing a luggage cart piled with duffel bags. Alongside her was a tall, slender girl with hazel eyes and dark brown hair cut in a messy, chin-length bob.

“Ekaterina,” Ilya said.

Shane squeezed his hand.

“Katya,” she said, curtly.

“Can I see your documents, please?” the escort said.

Shane handed over the bundle with their IDs and Katerina’s travel information.

“I’m your uncle, Ilya.”

Katya eyed him up and down and answered, “You look like my father.”

Ilya must have made a horrified expression, because Shane looked at him with a sympathetic little smile, and tapped Ilya’s foot with the tip of his sneaker. “Hi Katya, I’m Shane.”

She turned to Shane and said, “I know.”

“Well, everything seems to be in order here,” The escort said. “Thank you for flying Air France, enjoy your stay in Montreal.”

“Thank you,” Shane said. He turned back to Katya. “Do you want to get something to eat before we go? It’s about a two-hour drive.”

She shook her head.

Ilya took hold of the luggage cart, and they headed toward the parking lot.

*

“This is your room,” Ilya said. Katya had muttered no more than ten words on the drive from the airport, most of them yes or no.

“I don’t need a room. I’m not going to live here.”

Ilya swallowed. Don’t take it personally, Shane had whispered when they were bringing in Katya’s luggage. Girls this age are mean. Remember what Ruby said about my last Rolex campaign?

“You will be here for three weeks before you go to school. We wanted you to be comfortable.”

She didn’t answer, but she did flop down on the bed and begin to text furiously on her phone.

“Do you want to rest a while?” Ilya asked in Russian. He could remember the first time he had come to Canada, how much he had struggled to understand when people spoke to him, how long it had taken him to formulate his replies so that the words were in the right order.

“I guess,” she said, in English. She sat on the bed and scooted up so she was propped on the headboard, but she didn’t put her phone down.

“We’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”

-

“Why won’t she talk?” Ilya asked when he reached the kitchen. Shane looked up from the grain bowl he was assembling for lunch.

“She’s probably exhausted.”

“She looks miserable.” 

“Well…she might be?”

“Shane!” Ilya hadn’t expected her to run off the plane and into his familial embrace, though he had daydreamed about it once or twice. He tried to remind himself what it had been like to arrive in a foreign country as a young person—despite the fanfare at the start of his career, he had still been a little shell-shocked. He had felt the distance from home acutely, no matter how eager he had been to escape.

“Ilya, we know it wasn’t her choice to come here.”

Katya was here because Alexei and his wife were getting a divorce. A big, ugly, nasty divorce in which they fought over everything down to the dust on the baseboards of their condo in Moscow. Katya’s mother wanted to move in with her boyfriend, two hours outside of Moscow, and take Katya with her, but Alexei was arguing that she should stay in her current school. This led to him calling Ilya for the first time since their father died to say he needed to pay for Katya’s school fees out of her trust fund.

Ilya said no, but that he would pay the tuition directly. This set off another battle between the parents, ostensibly about the child support agreements. But then Katya’s mother called Ilya herself one night in tears and told Ilya that she didn’t want Alexei bringing his friends around Katya without her there to supervise. Ilya suggested she could go to boarding school in Canada, as a compromise. Alexei agreed immediately, and Yuna Hollander went to work on securing Katya a spot at a very prestigious private school in Montreal. 

“She is thousands of miles away from her parents and all her friends,” Shane continued. “It probably sucks.”

Ilya went to the refrigerator and pulled out a cup of greek yogurt. He wrinkled his nose at it as he pulled off the foil, but his days of junk food were over. Playing professional hockey at the age of thirty-seven required sacrifices.

“She has to eat something eventually,” Ilya grumbled.

“Give her a couple hours to recover from the trip, then she can pick what we have for dinner.”

Katya was a vegetarian, so Shane went to pick up takeout from their favorite sushi place. Ilya wanted to go to the restaurant—he liked to order enough sushi that it came on a fancy little boat platter—but Shane had talked him out of dragging Katya there on her first night. 

She ate two pieces of her avocado roll, and half a cup of miso soup. Ilya had stuffed the kitchen with desserts in the run up to her arrival, going so far as to track down a bakery clear on the other side of Ottawa that made medovik, but she declined the array and went back to bed barely having spoken another word.

Ilya watched her go up the stairs. Shane dragged him to the couch, put on the latest Mission: Impossible movie, and ran his fingers through Ilya’s hair until he dozed off.

Chapter 2: shane makes progress

“Ilya, leave her be,” Shane said. Ilya could hear the exasperation in his voice.

“It’s been four days!”

“I don’t think that’s very long, considering the situation.”

Shane’s calm was infuriating. Shane was supposed to be the anxious one, and Ilya was supposed to help him relax.

“She will leave for school in less than three weeks!” he said, throwing his hands in the air.

Shane just shrugged. “And it’s not like we’ll never see her again. She’ll come back for Thanksgiving, and probably Christmas, too, right?”

Ilya slumped onto one of the stools at the kitchen island. “I wanted to get to know her.”

Shane approached and smoothed his palm over Ilya’s back. “You will, Ilyusha.” Ilya leaned until his cheek was nuzzled against Shane’s pec. “Maybe we can go somewhere this afternoon. All together.”

“Where?” Ilya asked.

“Hold on, my mom and I made a list.” He pulled out his phone and scrolled for a minute. “Probably not Parliament Hill, or a museum…what about ByWard market?”

“Maybe,” Ilya mumbled.

“Why don’t you go ask her?” Shane said.

Ilya approached the door carefully. It felt ridiculous to be scared of a thirteen year old girl. But Katya had a way of looking at him like she was totally disgusted, an expression that couldn’t help but remind her of his father and Alexei given the family resemblance, and he found it profoundly unsettling.

He knocked.

“Da?” she said from inside.

He opened the door and found her where she always was, tapping away at her phone on the bed. She was wearing another pair of huge jeans, and a black t-shirt for a band Ilya had never heard of. Ilya was grateful that Shane had talked him out of the pink striped bedding ensemble Ilya had seen when they were shopping online; the gray and white floral was a jarring enough contrast as it was.

“Hi Katya,” he said in Russian. Her eyes shot toward him, glaring, and he corrected himself. “Sorry, do you want to speak English?”

“Whatever,” she said.

“Shane and I thought we could go out today. There is a shopping area we could go to, if you need anything for school?”

She held his gaze for a long time, then glanced over at the corner, where her suitcase sat underneath a pile of clothes. “I want to go to Sephora.”

“Okay,” Ilya said. “We’ll leave in half an hour?”

“Sure,” she said, her eyes already back on the screen.

Ninety minutes later, Shane and Ilya were hovering in the corner of a crowded cosmetics store while Katya made her way through the aisles.

“Is she allowed to wear makeup?” Shane asked.

“Maybe I should ask her?” Ilya said.

Shane’s mouth twisted in a little grimace, it was the same expression he made on the bench when the second or third line screwed up. “I think it’s too late for that. Let’s just…see what she picks, I guess.”

Katya was making her way back to them when a pair of young women approached nervously.

“Oh my god,” the first one said. “My boyfriend is like, a huge fan. Would you mind if we took a picture?”

“Which one?” Ilya asked, smiling, gesturing between himself and Shane. 

The woman’s expression faltered. “Oh, I mean—both! Of course, right?”

Ilya couldn’t help but tease a little more. “It’s okay if it’s just me, I can tell Shane very nicely to step aside. He will understand, because he is only assistant captain.”

The woman stuttered, blushing furiously, and Shane chuckled and shook his head a little. “Don’t mind him,” he said. “He’s just giving you a hard time.”

Shane arranged the two women between them, and Ilya, who had the longest arms, reached out with the phone to take the picture. The women thanked them profusely and went on their way, and Ilya turned back to find Katya standing not far off, scowling at him.

“Did you find what you need?” he asked.

She held up her hand, which was clutching several small boxes.

“Great—let’s go.”

Ilya walked with her to the register and paid. He turned to ask Katya if she wanted to find a coffee shop and get something to eat or drink, but she mumbled thank you before he could say anything, and spun on her heel to leave.

Ilya caught up just as Katya crossed through the store’s entrance, picking up Shane who had been waiting just outside.

“Do you like boba?” Shane asked. “There’s a place nearby that’s super popular.”

Ilya was prepared to keep chasing her through the crowded street, but instead she slowed down and he nearly slammed into her from behind. She turned back to Shane, without looking toward Ilya at all.

“What flavors do they have?” she asked.

Shane checked his phone. “Like, all of them.”

She fidgeted with the handle of her small black and white shopping bag. “Okay.”

“Okay, great,” Shane said, sounding nearly as surprised as Ilya felt. “I think it’s this way.”

The bubble tea shop was overrun. Three fans approached them for selfies while Katya studied the long menu. After they ordered and paid, Shane and Ilya retreated to the back corner while Katya waited closer to the counter.

“How did you do that?” Ilya murmured in Shane’s ear.

“Rose told me this place is a whole thing on social media.”

“Oh.” Why hadn’t Ilya thought of that? He was on social media some, certainly more than Shane was. Even though these days his feed was mostly hockey, fitness, and compilations of cute animals.

“It was just a shot in the dark, Ilya.”

“I know. I just—I should have thought to ask.”

Shane’s phone dinged and he checked the screen. “We spent two hundred and thirty three dollars at the makeup store?”

Ilya shrugged. “What was I going to do, make her put everything back? We can afford it.”

Shane grumbled and tapped briefly at his screen.

“Ready,” Katya said. She was suddenly standing in front of them, holding a huge cup of milk tea with at least three inches of boba at the bottom.

“What did you pick?” Shane asked.

“Honeydew melon.”

“Good choice.”

“Did you want to go anywhere else?” Ilya asked carefully.

She pursed her lips around the straw and shook her head.

They were home within an hour. Ilya invited Katya to walk Anya with him, and though she declined, she at least did so after pausing briefly and giving the dog a few gentle pets on the top of her head.

Walking Anya always helped to clear Ilya’s head. She was older and slower now, just like Ilya, but still game to do the long loop, especially if the sun was out.

Ilya knew that he could be overwhelming, especially since Shane had methodically dismantled all of his defense mechanisms so many years ago. Katya was at a difficult age, in a difficult situation, in a foreign country with two men she didn’t know. He should not have expected her to run into his arms at the airport and cry dyadya.

But Katya looked like Alexei. Not exactly, but enough to remind Ilya how it felt to be a man without a family. That wasn’t true anymore—he knew that Shane, and Yuna and David, and Svetlana, and even the Pikes were his family now—but it didn’t stop the cruel, gray whispers of his depression from reminding him every once in a while that his blood relatives had not wanted him. Even his mother—

He’d thought maybe Katya would want him.

It hasn’t even been a week, Shane’s voice said in his head. Stop being dramatic.

He and Anya arrived home. They stopped inside the front door so Ilya could take off her leash, and he saw how hard she was panting. “I’m sorry, dorogoy, did we go too long? Come, we will get you some water.”

He walked into the large open living room and found, much to his surprise, Shane and Katya sitting together at the kitchen island, looking together at Shane’s laptop. He busied himself filling Anya’s water bowl, and tried to lighten his steps on the hardwood floor so as not to disturb them.

Be normal, he thought to himself.

He walked over, gave Shane a quick kiss on the top of his head, and said, “Hello.”

“Hi llya, we’re just looking at the calendar.”

The screen was filled with Shane’s color-coded rectangles: red for the Centaurs, of course, blue for Shane’s personal schedule, yellow for Ilya’s, green for social items, and blue for Katya.

“I was asking Katya if she might want to go to Montreal a few days early. We could show her the city, and go to Hayden and Jackie’s before she starts school.”

Hayden had been traded to Buffalo in 2025. Though he had been eager to leave the Metros by then, he didn’t want to uproot Jackie and the kids, especially since Ruby and Jade were just about to start junior high school. He made it one season in Buffalo without them and retired, and had been happily coaching an elite juniors team in Montreal ever since.

“That’s a nice idea,” Ilya said, trying to read Katya’s face for any signs of excitement.

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before,” Shane said to himself, already tapping away to edit the calendar. “And it will be good for you to meet the Pikes, we’re obviously not very far if you need anything but they’re, like, right there.”

“Montreal is more exciting than Ottawa,” Ilya said carefully. “Not quite like Moscow, but it is very nice.”

Katya stilled for a moment, then slid off the stool. “Fuck Moscow,” she said, then made her way back up the stairs.

Chapter 3: cats and dogs

Sephora and bubble tea marked the beginning of a slow thaw, but only for Shane.

If Ilya asked what Katya wanted for dinner, she said whatever. But if Shane asked, she sometimes made a suggestion. She had displayed some decent manners when Yuna and David came over for lunch. One day, she even asked Shane questions about the herbs he grew in the large wood planters on the deck.

Shane had all sorts of good reasons as to why Ilya shouldn’t be hurt by it, which he would enumerate like a mantra while rubbing his hand in circles on Ilya’s back.

She will love you, she just needs time.

Ilya had fretted for months that Shane and Katya wouldn’t get along, because, as much as Ilya loved him, Shane was a hard person to get to know. Even in the Centaurs locker room, one of the friendliest, most accepting places Ilya had ever been, it had taken nearly two seasons for Shane to even crack a joke with his new teammates.

Ilya had never worried about meeting new people, at least not since he started to speak English somewhat decently. And kids had always been the easiest of all, because they were so ready to like someone new, to play silly games and be loud. Kids loved Ilya.

But, surprise: Katya wasn’t a kid. Not only was she already thirteen, but she seemed older and more wary than other thirteen-year-olds Ilya had known. And the more she shunned Ilya, the more bruised he became, the more he had to fight the long-entrenched impulse to turn his back and minimize the damage.

As they packed her bags into the trunk of Shane’s SUV and prepared to set out for Montreal, Ilya realized that he would be relieved when she was gone, and he had never been so ashamed of himself.

Shane had a handful of investment properties in Montreal, including a few short-term rentals. But they were all booked for the weekend, so they stayed at a hotel instead. Because they booked so late, and Shane wanted a suite with two bedrooms, they ended up in a penthouse. Ilya hoped that Katya might enjoy the little bit of luxury, but she only wrinkled her nose as they entered the room, and disappeared into one of the bedrooms with her backpack.

The next day, Shane took them on a tour of the city. Katya seemed intrigued, and even agreed without any eye-rolling to an hour-long ghost tour of Old Montreal. They ate dinner at a quiet French restaurant, and she asked Shane if it had been difficult to learn French. Back at the hotel, she actually said goodnight before retreating into her room, and though it was very clearly directed at Shane, Ilya tried to celebrate the milestone, anyway.

They left for the Pikes’ house right after breakfast the following day. Hayden answered the door and met Katya, then led them back to the large open living area where the twins were seated at the kitchen island, each wearing a matching set of sweats—baby blue for Ruby, and green for Jade. Hayden pulled a fruit salad from the refrigerator and set it on the counter next to a plate of croissants.

“Jackie didn’t have to make anything,” Shane said.

“Hey! I made it,” Hayden answered. “Well, the fruit salad. The croissants are from the bakery because I’m not doing all that.”

“Why not?” Ilya asked. “You are retired, yes?”

Hayden narrowed his eyes. “You know that I have a different job now.”

“House husband, yes?”

Ilya truly didn’t know why he got so much joy from bothering Hayden. After a few challenging years, they had eventually found their way to an actual friendship. More than anything, Ilya respected the ease with which Hayden had hung up his skates when it meant being too far from his family.

Hayden just snorted.

“Did you bring a bathing suit?” Ruby asked Katya. “It’s supposed to get hot later, we could sit by the pool.”

“Ah, nyet. No,” she said.

Had Ilya known swimming was an option? Shane was usually prepared for this sort of thing.

“Oh don’t worry,” Jade said, eyes still on her phone. “I have one you can use.”

Ruby cocked her head and asked a question without speaking. Jade widened her eyes as if to say come on, you know. “The one I ordered online last year that was crazy small? I never even wore it.”

“Oh right. That one is nice, too.”

Katya fidgeted, then pulled one of the gazillion dollar Sephora tubes out of her pocket and smeared something on her lips.

Ruby gasped. “What flavor is that?”

“Guava,” Katya said, trying to hide a smile.

Ilya didn’t feel silly about dropping $200 at the makeup store any more.

It was a nice day, really. The weather was excellent and they brought Hayden’s fruit salad and croissants to the patio. Hayden even produced his own cold brew coffee, which was surprisingly excellent. Jackie picked up antipasto, caprese salad, chicken parm sandwiches for lunch from an Italian deli, and they spent the afternoon watching the kids play in the pool. Ilya obliged Amber and Arthur by tossing them into the water a few times, even though he ended up with his t-shirt soaked through to the skin.

He made a point not to fuss over Katya, who was huddled with the twins on the other side of the pool, swiping through social media. He was grateful to Ruby and Jade for being so welcoming, even though they were a couple years older. He was grateful to Hayden and Jackie for raising such good kids.

“So how is it going with—” Hayden gestured across the pool with his beer.

“Okay,” Shane said, though his eyes slid carefully over to Ilya.

Hayden nods. “It’s a tough age. Ruby told Jackie she hated her the day after the twins turned thirteen.”

“Why?” Shane asked.

“I genuinely don’t remember.”

“It was because I wouldn’t buy her this ridiculous $400 sweatshirt that one of her classmates had,” Jackie said. “I cried for two hours that night.”

Hayden leaned forward in his chair. “The thing is that little kids are kind of like dogs.”

“What the fuck, babe?” Jackie asked. Shane chuckled into his bottle of fancy seltzer.

“No, seriously. Bear with me. Little kids are like dogs: they just want to play. They’ll play with anyone. You want to be friends? Bam. Friends for life. They’re high maintenance and exhausting and sometimes extremely destructive, but they’re ride or die.”

Jackie was nodding along, convinced. Ilya had to admit it was a solid analogy.

“But teenagers are like cats. They need you but they’ll never admit it, and they’re finicky. You can’t force it, and the more you try, the worse it will get.”

“That actually makes sense, Hayd,” Shane mused.

Hayden shrugged. “It’s been a crash course in adolescence at work. Do you remember being fourteen? They’re a disaster. Nothing they do or say off the ice makes any sense at all.”

Ilya slouched in his chair and drained the rest of his beer.

He’d never been a cat person.

Shane nudged him. “Hey.”

“What?”

“Stop sulking.”

“I’m not sulking,” he said, though the tone of his voice belied the denial.

“Ilya. Ilyusha.”

He took an extra moment before he turned to fully look at Shane, because his eyes were stinging and he was worried he would not be able to blink away the tears if Shane was looking at him with that furrowed brow hurt kitten face.

“You are totally a cat person,” Shane said.

Damn, Shane had gotten good at reading his mind.

“I am not,” he said.

“What are cats like? They’re skittish. They’re aloof. They overreact when cornered.”

“So?” Ilya said.

“That doesn’t remind you of anyone?”

Shane was also thirty-seven years old. His skin was still perfect, though Ilya had noticed the deepening laugh lines around his mouth, which Ilya liked to consider his personal property since Shane so rarely smiled that big around anyone else. Mostly, as he got older, he had just gotten a little more angular, a little more rugged. He had even allowed himself a little more bulk, to help him absorb the tough hits from ambitious rookies.

But sometimes, Ilya could see so clearly the freckled teenager with eyes that gave everything away, who was jumpy and snappish, right up until the minute Ilya got his tongue down his throat. Don’t scare him off, he would tell himself. If you push, he will run.

Ilya breathed in through his nose on a five count, a trick Galina had taught him long ago.

“Are you calling yourself a pussy, Shane?”

Shane swung his arm out and thwacked Ilya in the arm with the back of his hand. “Later, if you’re good.”

A couple hours later, after they’d gorged themselves on grilled salmon and couscous, they said goodnight to the Pikes. Ruby, Jade, and Katya exchanged phone numbers, and Ilya pretended to let Arthur tackle him to the ground. Jackie also gave Katya her number, and Hayden’s, in case she needed someone close by.

Ilya thought that Katya had had a nice time, and he was glad. He wanted her to have people here, more than he had when he arrived in North America. But it still stung to watch her smile at Hayden’s children, and answer politely when Hayden and Jackie asked questions, and ask Shane to translate the twins’ Quebecois slang. She had barely said three words to Ilya all day.

Hayden pulled him into a hug at the last minute, just as Shane and Katya were heading toward the car. “Remember, buddy. Cats. I know it can really suck, but she’ll get there. I promise.”

That evening, Katya and Shane huddled together on the sofa in their hotel room and went over her school packing list one more time. Her large luggage had been shipped ahead, but Shane wanted to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. Ilya sat across from them in a leather swivel chair, sipping a Coke and pretending to be a part of the conversation.

Ilya couldn’t sleep. Only a few days ago, he had chided himself for being relieved at Katya’s departure for school. But now he felt the opposite, a panicked sense of failure. His time had run out, and he had made no progress at all. He padded out to the sitting room, so he didn’t wake Shane up, and opened one of the complimentary bottles of water.

He was standing at the picture window staring out at the city when Katya’s door opened. He turned around, and she stopped short, startled, and muttered blyat. Then she immediately blushed, and said sorry.

Ilya smiled. “It’s okay. I do not care if you curse. Is everyone okay?”

“Da. I am just thirsty,” she answered groggily, in Russian.

He gestured to the table with the two remaining water bottles.

She took one and unscrewed the cap. After she took a long sip, her eyes fell down to Ilya’s chest. “Do you go to church?” she asked.

He was confused at first, but then he glanced down and remembered that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. She was looking at his mother’s cross.

“No. This was my mother’s. Your grandmother’s.”

“Oh.” She paused. “Papa never talks about her.”

Of course he didn’t. Alexei had been older when their mother died, almost sixteen, and while Ilya had been devastated, Alexei had been furious. The night after the funeral, he had stolen a bottle of Papa’s vodka, screamed for an hour about that stupid, weak bitch, how could she do this to us, and then broke his hand punching a hole in his bedroom wall.

“I will tell you about her sometime, if you’d like.”

Katya didn’t answer.

“You should try to get some sleep,” he said gently. “Big day tomorrow.”

“Da,” she said quietly, and shuffled off to bed without another word.

*

Ilya had a notion that the boarding school was fancy, but it hadn’t really sunk in until they arrived at campus, a set of stone buildings positioned around a lush green quad, right in the middle of one of Montreal’s oldest and most expensive neighborhoods. The drop off was a well-organized affair, with signs and queues, and Shane grinned the whole time.

Finally, the registration was done and they made their way to Katya’s dorm, welcome folder in hand. Parents and guardians were not allowed inside, at least not today, so they said their goodbyes near the entrance.

“You can always call us,” Shane said, Ilya nodding along. “And we’ll see you for Thanksgiving?”

She nodded, but her eyes were dancing around the quad, tracking the other students.

“Holy shit,” someone gasped. “Are you Ilya Rozanov?”

He turned to find a cluster of teenage boys staring at them, agog. “Da,” he answered, because fans loved it when he spoke Russian.

“Can we get a picture? Oh holy shit! Hollander, too!” Shane had stepped out from behind Ilya. His hands were in his pockets, cheeks glowing pink behind his freckles, and he was glancing worriedly at Katya.

One of the boys looked at Katya, wide-eyed. “Are they like, your dads?”

“Nyet,” she said, emphatically.

“This is my niece, Katya,” Ilya explained. “Maybe not today, guys—family time, da?”

“Right right,” the first boy said, his face turning bright red. “Totally cool. Will you, like, be around?”

Ilya looked back toward Katya, who was wearing a perfectly Slavic, stone-faced expression. He knew that look. He had mastered it at just about Katya’s age. She was livid, possibly even on the verge of tears.

“Maybe,” he said curtly, effectively dismissing the boys.

“Will you text us when you can, let us know how you’re settling in?” Shane asked Katya.

“Yes,” she muttered. “Thank you for dropping me off.”

“Thank you for coming to stay with us before school,” Ilya said simply. 

Cats cats cats cats cats cats.

He made no move to hug her goodbye. She turned abruptly, and disappeared into the dorm.

Chapter 4: patience is a virtue

Shane set up a group chat. They waited a respectable three days before texting to check-in, and she responded politely. After that, it was radio silence except for one question about whether permission slips should go to them or her parents.

“She doesn’t even ask for money,” Ilya whined.

Shane blushed.

“How much did you put in her school account?” Ilya asked, eyes narrowing. When Shane admitted the amount, mumbling and still red-faced, Ilya laughed out loud. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I didn’t want her to have to ask for more! That would be so uncomfortable!”

Ilya conceded the point.

The next text to the group chat was about Thanksgiving. They would play their season opener against Buffalo the night before the break began, and the tentative plan had been to fly to Montreal early the next day, pick up Katya, and go back to Ottawa. They had two home games over the weekend, which Ilya daydreamed about Katya watching from the owner’s box, clad in a brand new Centaurs jersey.

But she wanted to stay at the dorm with her new friends, and Shane wanted to let her.

“Maybe we can go for parents’ weekend,” Shane suggested.

“We can’t. We will be in Florida,” Ilya sulked.

Shane retreated, having long accepted that there was no reasoning with Ilya until the initial tantrum had subsided. He spent the rest of the day furiously texting, and presented his new plan to Ilya as they walked Anya after dinner.

“What if we went to Hayden and Jackie’s for Thanksgiving? That way we can spend the day with Katya, but she can stay for the weekend with her friends.”

“What about your parents?” Ilya asked.

“Hayden invited them, too.”

Ilya grumbled, but mostly because he didn’t want to admit it was a good idea. Actually, he loved the idea of Hayden’s house, loud and chaotic with a big crowd.

“Ilya, she might be at school there for another five years. If she’s making friends we should encourage that.”

Ilya looked at his husband. Shane’s brow was furrowed in the way it always was when they were discussing something serious, his dark eyes clear and pleading below.

“Fine. It’s a good idea.”

They asked Katya if she could FaceTime that evening so they could discuss the holiday plans. She was sitting on her dorm bed when she appeared on screen, wearing a faded zip up hoodie over her school polo shirt. There was a pile of small stuffed animals next to her on the bed that Ilya had never seen before; they must have been buried in her luggage when she stayed with them. Behind her on the wall was a poster of a piece of art, riotous with colors and shapes. Ilya loved it immediately.

“Ilya and I had an idea about Thanksgiving,” Shane said.

“Okay,” Katya answered. She was looking off camera, maybe tracing a pattern on her bedspread with one finger.

“Would you want to go to Hayden and Jackie’s? Then you could spend the weekend on campus.”

Her eyes flicked toward the screen. “Okay, yes. Thank you.”

Ilya suddenly felt sad again, because he couldn’t stop wondering whether her objection to going to Ottawa was about spending the weekend with them (with him), rather than leaving school. Ottawa wasn’t that far, they could have offered to drive her home late that night or the next day. Maybe what Katya wanted was as many people between herself and Ilya as she could manage.

Shane squeezed his hand.

Cats cats cats cats

“I like your poster,” Ilya ventured. “Who made it?”

Her eyes widened in surprise at his question. “Kandinsky. We studied famous Russian painters in school last year.”

“Ah.” Ilya’s could not recall receiving any education in art at all, Russian or otherwise. He had gone to a special school for hockey players which had spared little time for any actual academics. He’d managed to fill some of the bigger gaps in his knowledge by listening to audio books on the plane, and had nursed a brief obsession with Russian classical music after Svetlana dragged him to see The Firebird on one of their visits to New York. He wondered if Katya liked music, too.

“So we’ll pick you up at ten on the 9th?” Shane said.

“Okay,” she answered.

Later that night, Ilya lay with his head in Shane’s lap while they watched a movie. He was barely following the plot, something about time travel and a heist, instead savoring the gentle pull of Shane’s fingers through his hair. When the movie ended, they lingered, scrolling on their phones in lazy silence while Anya snored in her bed by the fireplace.

Ilya found himself on the Wikipedia page for Wassily Kandinsky. He wasn’t sure he understood the style, but there was something intriguing about splashes of lines and shape and color. Even if they weren’t really pictures of anything, they still felt like…something.

A message popped up from Shane. Ilya opened it and clicked on the link, which brought him to the website for the National Gallery of Canada.

“Why did you send me this? Do your parents want to go again?” Ilya asked.

“Look at the upcoming exhibits, at the bottom.”

He scrolled down and saw it: Art of the Russian Revolution, running February through May.

He bought three tickets.

“You should email her about it,” Shane said. Ilya recognized that tone of voice; Shane always used it when he was trying to casually suggest something that he actually thought was deathly important. 

Ilya, have you tried Coke Zero? Everyone says it tastes the same as regular.

Ilya, maybe it's not worth it to antagonize Dallas Kent at every game.

Ilya, you know you can just post the stuff that Harris sends us, right?

He answered with a non-committal hum. Maybe he could print out the reservation and put it in a pretty envelope for Christmas.

And maybe add a Sephora gift card, too.

Chapter 5: happy holidays

Chapter Notes

everyone who has read this already was very nice not to point out the heinous continuity errors in this chapter. they are now fixed.

Christmas was a quiet day. David and Yuna came over for a late breakfast; Ilya made strata, and teased Shane gently about his diet until he tried a few bites. They exchanged gifts after eating, and Shane’s face scrunched up in confusion when he opened the small box from Ilya and pulled out a long beaded strand.

“Did you…make this?” he asked, slightly hesitant.

Shane smoothed his expression into something carefully cheerful, Ilya watching as Shane resolved to love whatever silly craft project Ilya had ginned up. God, he loved this man. Ilya made a note to learn to knit, so he could spend the rest of his life watching Shane wear his ugly scarves.

“Ah, no. It’s for your glasses, to keep them around your neck. Because you are always losing them like an old man.”

Shane’s face broke into a wide grin, and Ilya grinned back. Shane knew all about Ilya’s fondness for his glasses, and was fond enough of that fondness that he occasionally wore them when even Ilya knew he didn’t really need them. 

The end of their careers was looming, and they were both struggling with the realities of getting older, like the bruises that took too long to heal, and the lingering fatigue from long road trips and jet lag. Sometimes, when Shane’s knee was stiff, or when he was squinting at a restaurant menu (because he still wouldn’t put his glasses on in public), he grumbled about how it would be nice to be twenty three again. Ilya did not agree; a few aches and pains were a bargain basement price for living in a world where he and Shane left the rink holding hands, and went home to their beautiful house where their wedding picture was displayed on the mantle. Twenty-three year old Ilya had been a remarkable specimen, basically indestructible, but he’d spent too many nights alone in bed, staring at the ceiling, or scrolling through the fits and starts of his text chain with Jane.

Ilya loved Shane’s glasses because they were a harbinger of things to come: a Shane who was no longer in peak physical condition, who moved a little slower in the mornings, who was still Ilya’s, after all those years, not just because they were young and hot and caught up in the drama of their secret affair, but because they loved each other.

Shane had found an antique copy of War and Peace, to add to a small but growing collection of vintage Russian books that Ilya was building, and Ilya made a joke about only nerds wanting books for Christmas to hide the fact that he had teared up immediately upon opening it. 

When Katya opened her gift, she smiled briefly, then turned directly toward Shane and said thank you.

It was okay, Ilya told himself. Russians didn’t celebrate all that much on December 25th. 

In the late afternoon, he put out some cold caviar and squares of black bread, and watched from across the room as Katya approached it slowly, looking around as if someone might scold her for eating it. He still didn’t say anything when she took a square of bread and dabbed it with a small spoon of the salty caviar, or when her eyes drifted closed for a minute as she bit into it.

Cats.

That evening, after they cleaned up from dinner and David and Yuna had left to go home, Katya inched toward Ilya and Shane where they were sitting side by side on the sofa.

“Thank you again for the gift card, and the tickets.”

“It was Ilya’s idea,” Shane said quickly.

“Well, um. I have a question to ask,” she said haltingly. “One of my friends from school is having a party for New Year’s Eve. Can I go?”

Shane’s eyes flicked toward Ilya.

“Which friend?” Ilya asked, trying not to sound suspicious.

“Olivia Gauthier. Her family has a house in Westmount, and they have big party. For adults, too.”

“Do you know her parents?” Ilya asked.

“Yes, I met them when they picked up Olivia for a family thing a few weeks ago.”

Ilya looked at Shane, and hoped that his panic wasn't showing on his face. He desperately wanted to say no. Not just because he wanted Katya to celebrate New Year’s with them, but because this Olivia person could have been be anyone, and her parents could have been monsters, and she was only thirteen fucking years old.

Shane rescued him. “Is it okay if Ilya and I talk about it tonight, and let you know tomorrow?”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” Shane asked. She stood still for a moment, weighing her options, probably thinking to herself that she would have a better shot at the party if she pretended to enjoy family movie night now.

“Okay,” she said, and sat carefully on the chaise side of the leather sectional.

“Ilya likes to watch A Christmas Carol every year. Have you seen it?” Shane said, queueing up the movie.

“No,” she said.

She was quiet during the movie. As usual, Ilya cried at the end, when Scrooge brought his bounty to the Cratchett household. It was probably a stretch, but the story always made him think about how he had nearly given up on the possibility of happiness, until Scott Hunter had accosted his boyfriend on the ice after winning the Cup and Ilya had begun to think that anything was possible if you were brave (and stupid) enough. 

Shane nudged his shoulder and gave his thigh a little squeeze. Ilya reached up to swipe away the tears on his cheeks, and caught a glimpse of Katya, who was looking at him like he had grown a second head. Her attention made his cheeks burn; she had probably never seen a Russian man cry before. He could only imagine what she was thinking to herself—probably that all the awful things Alexei probably said about him were right. 

He had always loved to call Ilya names.

He’s big and strong, sure, but he cries like a pussy for his mama at night.

“What did you think?” Shane asked.

“It was fine,” she answered. Then, after a pause: “I am happy Tiny Tim didn’t die.” Then she said goodnight and went up to bed.

As soon as they heard her door close at the top of the stairs, Shane took Ilya’s hand in his. “Ilya, I think we should let her go to the party.”

“What? No! We don’t know these people, Shane. They could be criminals!”

Shane snorted. “I seriously doubt that.”

“Rich parents let their kids run wild. There could be alcohol at this party. Drugs!”

“Ilya, come on. They’re not going to let the kids do drugs a couple rooms away.”

“Shane,” Ilya said, leveling his husband with a look. “I did cocaine for the first time when I was fifteen, in the bathroom at my cousin’s wedding.”

Shane had the decency to look alarmed, but then shook it off. “We’re going to call this girl’s parents and talk to them about the party. If they make us nervous for some reason we can say no. But if they seem normal we should let her go.”

Ilya glowered. 

“We’ll be in the city, anyway, if anything happens.”

The Centaurs were playing Montreal on New Year’s Day. They had planned to bring Katya with them so they could have a nice dinner together on New Year’s Eve. The reminder that they would be close by made Ilya feel a little better. 

He sighed, knowing he had been defeated. Shane’s plan was reasonable, because Shane was always reasonable—Shane’s penchant for resolving impossible situations with practical solutions was one of the only reasons they were even together. But Ilya still had a bad feeling about the party. He knew he was agreeing because he didn’t want Katya to hate him, and that was a bad reason to cave. 

He could put his foot down, then tell her that Shane said ‘no’.

But they weren’t Katya’s parents, and trying to act like they were would probably just make everything worse. What would Ilya have done when he was young, angry, and sick of people other than his mother trying to tell him what to do?

Snort cocaine in the bathroom at his cousin’s wedding, is what.

“Okay,” he said. Then Shane kissed his cheek and took him up to bed. After, Ilya curled himself around Shane and squeezed him tight, so tight that Shane chuckled and murmured calm down, I’m not going anywhere.

Chapter End Notes

my kids are still pretty little; watch me as I work through my anxiety about their oncoming teenagerhood!

Chapter 6: new year, new something

Chapter Notes

Realized upon going to update this chapter that I left a few paragraphs off the end of the last. Not essential to the plot if you don't feel like going back to read them!

The Gauthier’s were upstanding citizens. They weren’t hockey fans, which could be forgiven, and they assured Shane and Ilya that the party would be supervised all night, and that only girls were staying over in Olivia’s room. They all exchanged phone numbers, and Shane sent them Yuna’s number, and Jackie Pike’s number, too, just in case.

On December 30, Katya asked to go shopping for something to wear. She darted around a few stores, disappearing in and out of dressing rooms, until she approached with something carefully bunched in her hands and asked if $120 was too much.

Ilya bit his tongue, and did not ask to see whatever it was she was buying.

They left early on the 31st, so that Katya could meet up with a smaller group of girls and get a manicure before the party began. When they dropped her at the nail salon she was wearing her usual uniform of enormous faded jeans and a band t-shirt, and staring at the wall of polish bottles like it was the Holy Grail.

Shane had gotten them a table at one of their favorite restaurants—even though he defected to Ottawa, and won two Cups for the enemy, Montreal still loved their former capitaine. Ilya put on a pair of aubergine trousers and a cream cashmere t-shirt, and spent too long fussing with his hair so the curl in the front sat just right above his eyebrow. Shane wore black slacks and a jacket over a raspberry-colored silk shirt that Ilya had bought for him when he and Svetlana went to Paris the year before. Ilya knew it was a plot to distract him from worrying over Katya all night, and that it would probably work.

After dinner, Shane agreed to send one brief text to Olivia’s parents to check in. They responded immediately that Katya was fine and the kids were having a great time.

They were having slow, quiet sex at the start of 2029, finishing to the crackle of the fireworks bursting over the St Lawrence river.

Shane was in the shower when his phone rang, Katya’s name lighting up on the screen.

Ilya lunged across the hotel bed and grabbed it off the charger.

“Katya? Is everything okay?” he asked in Russian.

Wherever she was, it was loud. He could barely hear here above the background noise.

“Where is Shane?” she asked.

“In the shower,” Ilya answered. “Katya, are you okay? Where are you? Are you at Olivia’s house still?”

This was too much noise to be a house party.

“We went to the Old Port.”

Ilya pulled the phone away from his ear and pulled a long breath in through his noise. There was an enormous party at Jacques-Cartier Quay on New Year’s, with concerns and thousands and thousands of people counting down to watch the fireworks. They were supposed to be at Olivia’s house, not milling around a horde of drunk strangers.

He put the phone back to his face. “Are there any adults with you?”

She took a few long seconds to answer. “No.”

He was already grabbing clothes out of his overnight bag. “Do you want us to come and get you?”

Another long pause. “Yes.”

“Text me your location, I am not far away. Don’t move. I will call when I get to the Old Port, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Do not talk to anyone who is not a police officer, one of your friends, or me or Shane.”

“Okay.”

He left before Shane had even gotten out of the shower, texting him from the elevator. It took an eternity to get a car, seeing as it was nearly 1am on New Year’s Eve, but he got lucky when a towncar dropped off another hotel guest and he was able to offer an enormous tip if the driver would take him back into the belly of the beast.

They couldn’t get that close to the pier on the roads, so Ilya hopped out of the car with nearly two kilometers to go and began to pick his way through the crowd. It was bitter cold, and while his wool coat was warm, he had not thought to grab his toque, scarf, or gloves.

He pulled out his phone and found Katya’s location pin on the map. He was close now, but the crowd was thick, and loud, and he wondered if she would be drawn away by the current of the bodies. Almost everyone was drunk, or at least acting like it, and what the fuck had Katya been thinking and oh my God what if something happened to her before he could get there?

His phone buzzed; it was a message from Shane. Do you have her yet?

He was only a hundred meters away now. He called Katya and she picked up immediately. “I’m almost there,” he said, shouting over the noise. “Are you okay?”

“I’m standing by the little ticket house!” she shouted back.

He stopped in the midst of the crowd and craned his neck until he saw the kiosk. The crowd seemed thicker than ever, but he charged ahead only to reach the little blue-painted kiosk and see no sign of her. He ducked around the other side, mystified, until he looked down at the ground.

She was sitting on the ground, knees curled up tight in front of her chest, staring straight ahead.

“Katya,” he said.

She looked up and immediately scrambled to her feet, and he watched her expression shift from relief into defiance. He swallowed a thousand questions, along with the urge to wrap her in his arms and pull her close.

“Are you okay?” he asked simply.

She nodded.

“Okay,” he sighed. “Okay. I will text Shane so that he knows you’re safe and then we will go back to the hotel. Let’s go this way,” he said, pointing south. “I think it will be easier to get a car over here.”

She followed him silently, her face unmoving no matter how many times he looked back to make sure she was close.

They were halfway to the arterial street when he realized that her baggy jeans were gone; underneath her long coat her legs were bare. What had she changed into at Olivia’s house? How on earth had she ended up fucking alone in a crowd of drunken revelers, barely dressed in sub-zero weather?

But he said nothing. No matter how angry he was, he could tell she was scared.

The crowds were thinning by the time they reached the road, and they only had to wait a few minutes for the car to pick them up, even though the peak fare was outrageous. Katya pressed herself up against the window as they pulled away and Ilya hated the way she was shrinking from him. He kept his eyes on her as the car inched through the holiday traffic, wondering if maybe he could see how bad it had been if he looked hard enough. Had someone hurt her, tricked her, forced her to go somewhere?

“Just do it,” she muttered in Russian.

“Do what?” Ilya asked.

“Yell at me! Scream, tell me how I fucked up and how mad you are!”

“I’m not going—” he began, but she wasn’t done snarling at him.

“You are a big strong Russian man so of course you always know best! You will tell me what to do and I will obey, right? Just like my father, you are all the same.”

“Katya, I don’t—”

“You are the best hockey player,” she pressed on, “the team captain, you bother Shane about his food and his glasses and his calendars, and you take your sad niece from Moscow and straighten her out?”

She sniffed, swiping hard at her face with her sleeve. Her eyes blazed at him for a moment, alight with anger and, underneath, fear, before she looked back to the window. Ilya was struck with such a powerful sense of recognition that he could hardly believe. Should he reach for her? No. If it were him—and it had been, many times before—he would have turned away from a comforting hand, no matter how badly he wanted it.

He had assumed Katya would see immediately that he was nothing like Alexei, but he was still Ilya Rozanov. Big and loud, pushy and Russian, a famous player of a violent sport. No wonder she had gravitated toward Shane, and his quiet, unconditional goodness. Hadn’t Ilya done the same thing, basically the very moment his feet hit North American soil?

 A few moments later they pulled up in front of the Ritz.

He stopped just inside the doors.

“Katya, all I care about right now is whether you are okay. We will talk about the rest…later. I hope. Okay?”

She nodded.

“Let’s go upstairs.”

He could feel her exhaustion setting in as they rode the elevator. Shane opened the door to the room before he could even retrieve his key card, and ushered Katya in past him.

She stood in the center of the room, uncomfortably still, like she was waiting to be sentenced.

“Do you want a cup of tea or something?” Shane asked. “You look cold.”

She sat gingerly on the loveseat and murmured. “Okay, yes. Thank you.”

She uncrossed her arms, and the coat fell open. Whatever she was wearing was short, low cut, and sequined, her adolescent gangliness far more pronounced in the skimpy dress than it was in her usual oversized jeans. She had the audacity to glare at Ilya, and for a brief, upsetting moment, she reminded Ilya of the steely-eyed Slavic girls that would swarm him at clubs when he first arrived in Boston. Imported to work as models, many of them were just like Ilya: still struggling with English, too young to be on their own, pushing their bodies past their limit and counting on the force of their bravado to carry them through to the finish line.

Shane brought her a steaming cup of tea from the fancy’s machine on top of the mini bar, and sat down next to her.

“We do need to talk about what happened. Do you want to do it now, or tomorrow morning?”

Ilya was overwhelmed by a wave of tenderness. Shane had never wanted to be captain of the Centaurs, even though Ilya would have handed him the C in a heartbeat. But he would have loved to play on his husband’s team, to watch him work quietly and methodically to bring it all together. People liked to call Ilya a force of nature, which he didn’t consider to be entirely complimentary. Privately, he thought that it was a description better suited to Shane, who was just as relentless as Ilya, but slowly, and subtly, like whichever river it was that carved the Grand Canyon out of desert rock.

He would be such a wonderful father.

“Now,” she said, much to Ilya’s surprise.

“Okay,” Shane said, shooting a brief look at Ilya to convey his shock. “Was it always the plan to go to the pier?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t know until Olivia said it was time to leave.”

“Did her parents know you were going?”

“No, but she said they would never know. We went out the kitchen door, on the ground floor, and all the adults were upstairs for the party.”

“Did you take any drugs?” Ilya asked.

Both Shane and Katya shot him a dirty look, but he had to know.

“No,” she said. “Nothing like that.”

“Did you have anything to drink?” Shane asked softly.

“A little,” she said. “Olivia snuck upstairs and brought down a bottle of vodka.”

“Have you had alcohol before?” Ilya asked.

She nodded. “Once or twice, in Moscow.” Her lip ticked up on one side. “That was better vodka, though.”

Ilya let himself smile back, just a little.

“What happened at the pier?” Shane said.

She shrugged. “It was fun. Crowded. We saw the fireworks, but then the crowd started to move and we got separated. I called Olivia a few times and she didn’t answer. When she finally picked up she told me they were in a car going back to the house.”

“They left without you,” Ilya said. He had to clench his jaw to keep from shouting, though he couldn’t do anything about his tone.

In all their years of poor decisions, Ilya and Svetlana and Sasha had never left someone behind. The three of of them had been complete idiots, too often ending up with blistering hangovers, broken cell phones, maybe even a black eye for Ilya or Sasha. But they had gotten into all the worst trouble together, goddammit.

Who the fuck were these little psychos, to abandon their new friend in the middle of a huge, unruly crowd, in a city she barely knew?

Katya’s cheeks were growing pink, embarrassment and hurt glowing on her pale face. “She said she thought it was okay because I could come here.”

Ilya and Shane exchanged looks.

“We’re just glad you’re okay,” Ilya said.

“And I’m glad that you called us,” Shane added.

There was a knock at the door. “I called down to see if they had a cot for you to sleep on,” Shane added.

A bellhop rolled the folded bed in and they set it up in front of the loveseat.

“We’ll let you get some sleep,” Shane said.

“I—” she began, letting out a little huff of breath. “All my stuff is at Olivia’s house.”

“Oh! Well, hold on,” Shane said, then disappeared into the bedroom.

“Do you want to pick it up on the way home tomorrow?” Ilya asked.

Katya shook her head hard. “She can give it to me at school.”

Shane emerged with his hands full. “I’ve got a spare toothbrush and a travel toothpaste, and this t-shirt is actually brand new if you want to wear it to sleep? Also I have some samples of, like, face stuff—not sure if you want to use any of it.”

“Shane, we are here for one night. How many toothbrushes did you bring?” Ilya teased.

Shane blushed. “I just have a bunch of stuff in my dop kit.”

“We’ll order room service for breakfast tomorrow, yes?” Ilya said. “Then you can come to the game, if you want?”

He tried not to sound too hopeful. Cats cats cats cats.

“Okay, yes.”

Chapter End Notes

why yes, my older child is leaving for sleepaway camp for the first time today and i am absolutely freaking the fuck out about it. why do you ask?

Chapter 7: truths will set us free

Chapter Notes

Katya didn’t come back to Ottawa again until Easter. She had a break in February, but Shane and Ilya were playing on the west coast for most of that week. Ilya had suggested they fly her out to San Francisco for two days, and Shane had looked at him like he was crazy. She stayed on campus, but spent a few days with Jackie and the twins. 

She did not mention Olivia Gauthier.

Luckily, the Centaurs were playing at home for nearly the whole week before Easter. Ilya was pretty banged up, nursing a sore shoulder and the type of nagging hip injury that made him wonder if he was closer to retirement than he’d realized at the start of the season. Shane would be disappointed if Ilya pulled the plug before he did, but Ilya thought about it more and more. He could…garden, or something. Get better at cooking. Revisit the Russian adoption websites he occasionally found himself on late at night, when he couldn’t sleep.

Be home when Katya had breaks from school.

Shane had a whole plan for after retirement: coaching, a general manager job, maybe even partial ownership in a team. He often talked about it as if it was something they could do together, side by side, but Ilya wasn’t sure he was the right man for MLH-level coaching.

Juniors, maybe. Ilya had a lot of opinions about juniors coaching, given the number of rookies he had encountered who arrived in the league worn thin already, having long-since forgotten that games were supposed to be fun to play. 

As a kid, hockey had been a haven for Ilya only because home had been even worse, but then it had well and truly rescued him once he’d been drafted and whisked away to North America. He sometimes felt like he had a debt to pay, and maybe he could do it by making hockey something more than a ticket out, for a kid like him. He figured that Shane was doing something similar, looking for an opportunity to make things a little easier for the future generations of MLH players who weren’t straight, or weren’t white. Or both, of course—Shane was nothing if not an overachiever.

Much to Ilya’s surprise, Katya said yes when Shane asked her if she wanted to go with his parents to one of their games while she was back in Ottawa. Ilya caught sight of her once or twice, hovering near the window of the box suite, arms crossed. He got one goal and two assists, then missed the last seven minutes of the game when one of the Raiders slammed him hard against the boards, hitting his janky hip at just the wrong spot.

It had been ten years, and Boston still gave him a hard time on the ice. He loved it.

On Friday, they had an optional practice in the morning. Ilya went because he was the captain, and Shane went because he was Shane, but the afternoon was free and the weather was unseasonably humane for late March.

“I’m going to do it today,” he told Shane on the way home from practice.

Shane reached over and put his hand on Ilya’s thigh. “Good.”

“Unless you think I should wait,” Ilya added.

“I don’t think you should wait. It will be fine. It will be good.”

They got home and ate their grain bowls for lunch. There were exactly two edible recipes, in Ilya’s opinion, from the meal service that Shane preferred, and this was not one of them. But this was the time of year when he had to choke it down anyway, to keep up his muscle mass and optimize his energy usage and whatever other MAX PERFORMANCE nonsense they put in their marketing material. 

Katya had made herself a grilled cheese for lunch; he knew from the leftover bit of crust on the plate in the sink.

“Your hip is really fucked, huh?” Shane said as they cleaned up in the kitchen.

“It’s not too bad,” Ilya said.

“You were wincing just now when you bent down.”

“It will hold for the rest of the season.”

Shane was watching him closely. Maybe Ilya hadn’t been as subtle as he thought, thinking about retirement.

“I’m going to make an appointment for you at that massage place you like.”

“I can get a massage from the trainers,” he said.

“Yeah but you like that mean Ukrainian lady better.”

“I do. She hates me, makes her press extra hard.” Ilya kissed him. “Thank you, moy pomodor.”

Shane put his hands on Ilya’s waist. “Ready?”

Ilya sighed. “Not really. But I think it will be good.”

Shane kissed him again before he went upstairs.

Katya’s door wasn’t fully closed, but he knocked anyway and waited for her to say, “Come in.”

She was folding clothes from the laundry, her duffel bag open on the bed, half-watching a video in Russian on her phone.

“I’m going to walk Anya. Will you come with me?” Ilya said, the words tumbling out breathy, in a rush.

She paused and looked over her shoulder to the window.

“Is it raining?”

“Not anymore. Please, I would like to talk to you.”

She narrowed her eyes a little and placed the folder t-shirt in her hands down in the open bag. “Okay.”

Ilya whistled for Anya as they descended the stairs, and she scuttled over while they put on their coats. He squatted down in front of her and scratched her ears. “I do not think you need your boots today,” he said in Russian. “Snow and salt are almost all gone.”

“You speak Russian to her?” Katya asked.

“Of course,” he said. “I had to speak Russian to somebody, and she learned faster than Shane.”

Katya snorted.

It was cold, but the stinging dryness of winter had finally lifted and a fine mist floated in the air. Spring would be a rainy mess, as always, but Ilya still enjoyed watching the city become green again, the grass and trees and the flowers mounting their improbable comebacks after the onslaught of winter.

“On New Year’s Eve, you said I was like your father,” he said, because he had to dive in head first or he would probably lose his nerve.

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” she said.

“I don’t care about that,” he said, noting her surprise. “You were upset and everyone needs to yell sometimes. But I would like to talk to you about Russian men, if that’s okay with you?” She nodded. “Okay, good. Because I think you and I probably think the same things about Russian men.”

She scrunched her nose. “What do you mean?”

“Do you mind if we talk in Russian? It’s still easier for complicated things.”

“Sure.”

“Your father and I do not get along. You know that, right?”

She shrugged. “He says you don’t help your family.”

“I don’t help him because he was cruel to me for a long time. I worshipped him when we were younger, because he was my brother, and he let me hang around with him and his friends. But after our mother died, he became very mean. He would punch or kick me if he saw me crying, and called me ‘pussy’ and ‘faggot.’ He told me that I was weak like she was.”

She huffed. “He’s such an asshole.”

“And when I was drafted and came to America to play, he called me all the time demanding money. And I sent it to him, because he was my brother, and our father was sick, and then later, because of you. But then our father died and I said ‘no more,’ except for your trust fund.”

“He brags about you to all of his friends,” Katya said. “About his little brother who is so talented and famous and rich. He slapped Mama once for telling someone he hadn’t spoken to you in years.”

“I am not surprised to hear that, sadly. But listen, I am not trying to make you hate your father. Sometimes I feel very bad for him.”

Katya gasped, disbelieving.

“I do. You say Russian men tell you what to do—but this is what they tell us to do. They say you have to be strong, all the time, and in charge, or else you are weak. Or else you are a faggot. This is what our father told us, but our mother did the same sort of thing sometimes, too. ‘Do not cry, Ilyusha, you are a strong boy’—that sort of thing. And it is very hard to stop hearing those things in your head all the time, you know?”

“Was it better when you came here?” Katya asked.

Ilya shook his head. “Not right away, because they say a lot of those things in hockey, too. Same bullshit, right? Shane’s parents are nothing like mine, and Canada is not like Russia, but he did not come out for years because he thought it meant he would lose his career. It took us a lot of years to break through all of this stuff.”

“My father tells his friends that you aren’t gay, that you only wanted to make Shane Hollander your bitch.”

Ilya laughed, then laughed again at the surprised look on Katya’s face.

“That is very creative, and very wrong. If anything, it is Shane who walks me like a dog. I love that man a great deal.”

“He is a very gentle person,” Katya said. Her eyes flicked toward Ilya nervously, like she was worried he might be offended.

“Yes. Very different from the men we’re talking about. This is why you like him better than you like me?”

“I don’t—” she stuttered, slightly panicked.

“It’s okay, Katya, I’m joking. Shane is the opposite of men like your father, and my father. He never needs to make anyone feel small to feel big. When I met him, he seemed like an alien to me. I was fascinated, and I kept going back to do a closer study.”

She didn’t answer, but he could tell from the purse of her lips there was something she wanted to say.

“What is it? You can say it,” he said.

“You tease him a lot.”

“Yes.”

“He doesn’t do it to you.”

Ilya opened his mouth to argue the point, but then thought about his answer more carefully. Had Shane been censoring his responses to Ilya’s ribbing? Usually he shot back a cool go fuck yourself or suck my dick, but Shane wouldn’t have said any of those things around Katya. His Canadian golden boy manners wouldn’t have permitted it. 

“I see why you would think that. But he has his own ways of teasing me, and he is not a pushover. And I think that the teasing was one of the things he liked about me, when we were younger. He was so serious, Katya, and everyone was so serious about him.”

“Hm,” she said, her lips still pursed.

“You should ask him, actually,” Ilya said, because why not? Shane would tell her the truth, and it would probably be awkward and adorable.

“Really?”

Ilya shrugged. “Sure.” He wouldn’t give her a hard time about it now, but Katya wouldn’t be the first person to mistakenly assume Shane was meek or timid just because he was quiet, and kind, and, probably in a number of cases, Asian. But in the twenty years—dear God—since they had met, Ilya had watched as Shane went after what he wanted with ruthless discipline and, often, remarkable bravery.

“Hm,” she said again, but this time the noise was contemplative, rather than skeptical.

Anya stopped to nose at a patch of weeds that had forced itself up through a crack in the sidewalk. Sometimes, Ilya suspected that she just wanted a little rest.

“But I did not make you walk with me so we could talk about Shane. I have been thinking since New Year’s Eve that I don’t understand well enough. I know about Russian men from trying to be a Russian man, but it is probably different, and much harder, for you, and your mother. And my mother.”

“Yes,” she mumbled. “I was happy when Mama told me she was leaving Papa.”

“Do you like her new boyfriend?”

“No. He is not much better. He calls me ‘kitten’ and is always telling me I should wear a dress.”

“I’m sorry. If you want, I know two Russian ladies that you can talk to, if you would like.”

“Who?”

“One is my friend Sveta, I talk about her a lot. She lives in Boston. She knows your father, too. The other is my therapist, Galina.”

“You have a therapist?” she asked, shocked again.

“I do.”

“Okay. I will think about it.”

“Okay, now for the second thing.”

Katya wrapped her arms around her waist.

“Do you like being here for school?”

“It is a very good school,” she answered.

“I don’t care about that right now. I am asking if you like it, because I don’t know if anyone ever asked you if this is what you wanted.”

She sighed. “I didn’t want to come. And I miss my friends in Moscow. But I do like it. II like being away from —”

“From what?” Ilya asked.

She shook her head. “It’s bad. I shouldn’t—”

“It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone.”

“I like being away from my parents. All I can remember is them screaming at each other. And now they’re separated and they scream about each other. And Papa fills his apartment with his obnoxious friends and Mama’s boyfriend calls me kitten…I miss Moscow but I don’t want to go back and be with them.”

They were nearly back at the house, having made most of Anya’s long loop. Ilya slows their pace a little.

“Lots of people want to be away from their parents. Even Shane likes to be away from his parents sometimes.”

“That’s different. You know that’s different. Papa says family is the most important thing.”

Ilya snorted, which made Katya smile a little. “Well, I am family too, yes?”

She unwrapped her arms from her waist. “Yes.”

“You don’t have to decide anything about next year for a few more months. But if you decide to go home, I will still be here, okay?”

She nodded quietly and they walked the last block to the house in comfortable silence.

Katya was quiet that evening while they ate dinner, but she lingered downstairs with them afterward, scrolling on her phone while Shane drank his tea and worked on a kick off email for this summer’s hockey camps, and Ilya worked on the impossible 3D puzzle of the Kremlin that the Centaurs had given him as a joke for Christmas. 

“Can we go to the exhibit tomorrow? Art of the Russian Revolution?”

Ilya’s head shot up from his puzzle so fast that he felt woozy for a second. Katya was looking directly at him. Not at Shane, who had been the target of every question she had asked since the day she arrived in Canada. At Ilya.

“Yes,” he said, before he thought for one second about whether they were busy. Panicked, he looked at Shane, who was grinning back at him like he was trying not to laugh. “Wait, can we? Do we have anything?”

“Tape in the afternoon, but that’s not until 3. Is it okay if we go in the morning, Katya?” he asked.

“Sure,” she answered. “I’m going upstairs. Goodnight, guys.”

She slid off the stool and made her way slowly toward the stairs, her eyes glued to her phone the whole time.

As soon as they heard their bedroom door close, Shane smiled silently at Ilya and opened his hands. “So it went well?”

Ilya smiled back, his eyes stinging briefly like he might cry. “Yeah, it went well.”

Chapter End Notes

really feeling like this needs an epilogue. coming up next!

Chapter 8: they grow up so fast

Chapter Notes

This is a little longer than I expected it to be, enough so that now I'm less confident this is actually finished. But for now we'll call it a day, since there is vacation coming up, then the start of school, and my other original writing projects humming along, and I know my limits. I hope everyone enjoys these little scenes of the next few years!

Ilya did not retire, and Katya came back to Montreal for her ninth grade year. 

In November, Ilya chaperoned her class field trip to Parliament Hill. Katya only glared at him once, when one of her classmates made a comment about the Canadian Tire Center being a senior living community and Ilya couldn’t help but chirp back.

Katya spent New Year’s Eve with the Pikes, because Shane and Ilya started a road trip with a game in New York on December 31. Around eleven, she texted the group chat hi good game, going to Times Square with some friends don’t wait up for me, and Shane nearly choked on his post-game sushi while Ilya laughed and laughed.

Easter was early in March, so Katya went skiing during the break with a few new school friends that she met while working on the sets for the school play. Ilya was anxious about the trip until he learned that the group included the grandson of the Prime Minister, who went everywhere with a special security detail.

In May, the Centaurs made a surprise playoff run that ended in a devastating Game 7 of the eastern conference finals. Even though Shane and Ilya both needed weeks to recover from the season, they did not retire. They couldn’t, when they had gotten so close, and when the nice round number of twenty seasons was just over the horizon. But they did meet with Wiebe and the front office to talk about the next year, and reduced iced time, and passing the torch to Luca, who was a serious contender for MVP.

Katya went home for the summer, but with plans to come back in the middle of July to join a three-week summer theater program in Toronto Arthur Pike was signed up for. Arthur and Katya were nearly exactly the same age, and had taken to spending many of their gatherings with the Pikes tucked in a corner watching things on their phones or talking about the bad CGI in recent movie releases. 

*

In December of Katya’s Secondary III year, a week or so before Christmas, Katya called Shane at five AM, in tears. Her mother had called from the hospital, where she had been admitted with a sprained wrist and a fractured orbital bone.

“She is going to go home to him!” Katya sobbed. Shane looked at Ilya, who was gripping the edge of their duvet so tightly that his knuckles were bright white. “She says there is nowhere else to go.”

“Can she fly?” Shane asked, glancing over at Ilya. “There’s a vacant unit in our Montreal building she could stay in for a while.”

Two days later, Ilya skipped a home game against San Jose to pick Katya’s mother, Natasha, up at the airport in Montreal. They drove in silence to the apartment, which Yuna and Jackie had helped to furnish partially in haste the day before. Katya met them there, and disappeared into the bedroom with Natasha. Ilya ordered dinner and listened to them sob, then shout, then sob more. He played games on his phone and tried to forget the sight of Natasha’s face, swollen and bruised, and the way Natasha had exited the airport with the same pained, abashed expression that his mother had worn on the mornings she emerged for breakfast with similar injuries. 

Before he said goodbye, he pulled Katya into a tight hug and told her he would call Galina for an emergency appointment.

Natasha’s bruises had faded some by the time she joined the Hollanders for Christmas. She tried to refuse when Shane presented her with a gift, a new phone loaded with an English language learning application, but Shane just shook his head and shrugged as if he didn’t understand her, even though his Russian was coming along just fine.

Katya worried for her mother, who was bored in her little apartment. Natasha couldn’t seem to stop herself from showing Katya the many groveling messages she was receiving from the boyfriend, which Ilya only found out about when he asked Katya how she had cracked the screen of her phone, and she confessed that it had hit the edge of her desk one night when she had thrown it in frustration. After that, Ilya had gritted his teeth and called Alexei, who surprised him by agreeing immediately to send an officer to deliver a warning to the boyfriend. He’s a limp-dicked moron, Alexei had said, Natasha is a nagging bitch but she’s still too good for him.

Ilya found the situation highly unsettling. He wanted to keep Katya as far away from the whole mess as possible, but the lure of being able to fix a problem he was not in a position to fix for his own mother was strong.

Shane, of course, proceeded with total mental clarity. He had decided on the right thing to do was to use his many resources to extract Katya’s mother from a dangerous situation, and proceeded to go about it with little fuss or fanfare. Ilya found out in February that Shane had sent a lawyer to the Montreal apartment to help Natasha apply for a temporary resident permit. Yuna and Jackie dropped by the apartment with suspicious frequency, bringing leftovers, new clothes that ‘didn’t fit,’ and the occasional lamp or side table.

In March, during a game against Pittsburgh, a rookie tripped on a breakaway and barrelled helmet-first into Shane. They slid into the boards together at an ungodly angle, and Shane dislocated the shoulder that had already been giving him trouble.

It wasn’t the disaster for the Centaurs that it would have been three or four years ago. Luca and Troy had surpassed Ilya and Shane in point production last season, and a few of the younger players were easily able to fill the gaps as Shane and Ilya had gotten older and slower and spent fewer minutes on the ice. Wiebe was canny, and had been planning for the exit of his two superstars more or less since the day Shane signed with the team, and they reaped the rewards of his strategic brilliance now: it was looking like they would coast easily into the playoffs again, in part because the Metros rebuild had faltered when their new star center shattered his femur   skiing during the All Star break. Shane could take his time with the shoulder, and Ilya’s hip stayed in acceptable, if grumpy, condition as long as his ice time held at fifteen minutes or less.

Shane didn’t do well with rest, so he spent a chunk of his two weeks off on the phone and by the second week in April, Natasha’s application for temporary residence had been expedited and approved—no one in Ottawa would ever say ‘no’ to its homegrown national treasure. He spent an afternoon with Natasha in Montreal, and they made a list of jobs that Natasha might be interested in; ultimately she decided to work a few shifts a week at the Russian bakery that was only a few blocks away, so she could save up money for a car while she worked on getting her Canadian driver’s license.

Shane was back on the ice for the first round of the playoffs. Ottawa bested Boston in five games, thanks in part to some poorly-timed injuries on Boston’s defense, and Ilya and Shane headed to Montreal on one of their days off, and took Katya out for lunch.

“How is your mom?” Ilya asked.

Katya actually smiled. “I convinced her to block Sergei, finally.”

Shane’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s good news.”

“How did you get her to do that?” Ilya asked.

“It was easy, because Sergei is a moron and his new girlfriend tagged him in a picture she posted on Instagram.” 

Ilya snorted. Katya rolled her eyes for emphasis, or lips twisting into a bit of a sneer, and the expression reminded Ilya so much of Alexei that he reflexively looked away. Suddenly he was remembering how funny Alexei could be in his cruelty, how his ruthless insults would draw a reluctant laugh from Ilya, in the rare instance they weren’t directed at him.

Their mother had been funny, without any of the meanness. The meanness was courtesy of their father, of course, who had been utterly lacking in humor, to an unnatural degree, a black hole of merriment of any kind. When Ilya was little, before Alexei had learned to hate him, and Mama would fall into despair, Alexei would put Ilya to bed with stories about Grisha the ogre, an aging monster, embittered by loneliness and the loss of his hair, who would shuffle from the woods at night and go about villages stealing laughter from the children. Ilya would cup his hands over his mouth to stifle his giggling, and Alexei would pinch the ticklish spot on his side and whisper, stop laughing, Ilyusha! Grisha will come!

Ilya was roused from his memories by the weight of Shane’s hand on his thigh.

“Ilya, did you catch that?” Shane asked.

“Ah, no. Sorry,” Ilya said, looking back at Katya.

“Katya asked if she could change her flight back to Moscow.”

She fidgeted with her silverware. “I thought I could stay for your last game, then spend a few weeks with Mama.”

“Have you asked your dad?” Ilya asked.

“He said I can stay longer if I go to the dacha with him when I get back.”

“Do you want to do that?” Ilya asked carefully.

She shrugged. “He’s a little better there, when his terrible friends aren’t around.”

“Katya, you can stay with us whenever you like, for however long. Of course.”

Shane nodded alongside him.

Two months later, the Centaurs were battling Colorado for the cup. Luca Haas appeared to have made some sort of deal with the devil, because he was on a historic scoring tear and had broken Shane’s own record for points in the playoffs in game 2 of the finals. The team didn’t seem to need its two rickety superstars at all, which was wonderful because Ilya was on his last leg, literally and figuratively, and spent every minute between games with his hip encased in ice packs. Meanwhile, Shane was going to comical lengths to avoid lifting his right arm above the shoulder. They made a bet over which of them would get a joint replacement first.

Colorado put up a respectable fight, but Troy and Luca pulled out a nasty little feint in the last thirty seconds of the game 6, and Troy tapped the puck past Colorado’s confused and exhausted goalie, and the goal horn blared and Ilya and Shane collected their fourth and sixth Cups, respectively.

The team poured over the boards and swarmed Luca, and as Ilya felt himself get sucked into the scrum he thought that this might be the only thing he would truly miss: the child-like euphoria of winning, surrounded by your friends and teammates, a few minutes of pure joy before the rest of the world crept in with its aches and pains and obligations. It was the same feeling now, in his MLH uniform with his fancy equipment, that it had been when he skated in one of the public city rinks with the other boys from his apartment complex, half of them wearing skates that didn’t fit or gloves with a split seam somewhere.

The pile broke apart and the refs started herding everyone into place for the cup ceremony, but Shane grabbed Ilya and wrapped him into a crushing embrace, and Ilya could feel the wet streaks on his husband’s face, chilled by the rink air. Ilya had a sense that they were alone, somewhere near center ice, the rest of the team having retreated to neat little lines where they would await the commissioner’s speech. The roar from the crowd didn’t wane, in fact it seemed to grow louder as they clutched each other. Eventually, a hand landed on Ilya’s shoulder and Coach Wiebe said, “OK, guys.”

After they’d shaken the commissioner’s hand, and after they’d each held the cup aloft in victory one last time, a retrospective of their careers began to play on the big screen. Ilya watched as clips blazed by of their draft day, of his first cup win, and Shane’s, the All Star game when they’d first played together and Ilya hadn’t been able to stop himself from kissing Shane’s cheek on the ice, the days each of them signed with Ottawa, and their first cup win together. At the end, the screen flashed red with the words First Husbands of Hockey as their jerseys were lifted high into the rafters, side by side.

Finally, family began to pour out on the ice. Through the throng of wives and girlfriends and children, Ilya spotted David and Yuna and Katya. They broke through the crowd and Katya stopped in front of him, wearing a Centaurs sweater. When she turned to hug Shane, Ilya saw the back: Rozanov 81.

*

Two years later

Katya’s graduation ceremony was threatening to tip into its third hour, and Ilya was struggling to keep his eyes open.

“When are they going to read the names?” he whispered to Shane.

“The program says it’s supposed to be next.”

The graduates were sitting in the front three rows, and Ilya wasn’t sure which hat belonged to Katya. Finally, the headmaster took the stage again and announced they would finally be awarding the diplomas. Music started, and the students stood and began to file toward the stairs to the stage.

“Remember what you promised,” Shane said.

“No cheering, no whistling, no signs,” Ilya said. He would never have dreamed of embarrassing Katya at the ceremony, and was honestly fairly offended by the repeated warnings.

He planned to embarrass her later, with an entirely too lavish gift.

He did allow himself to clap a little louder for Katya’s name, and noticed Shane was doing the same. Katya’s mother, sitting to Ilya’s right, couldn’t stop herself from hopping out of her seat when Katya crossed the stage. When the ceremony was finally over, they went to lunch with the Pikes. 

Later, Ilya would return to school with Katya to get her things, and Shane would go to Natasha’s apartment to help her finish packing. A few months earlier, Natasha’s ex boyfriend had landed himself in jail after being implicated in a far-reaching scheme to defraud the government health insurance program. Natasha was desperate to get back now that she didn’t have to worry for her safety; she missed Russia terribly. The next day, she would fly back to Moscow with Katya, who would split the summer between Natasha and Alexei.

But Katya would be back in the fall to start her two year vocational program. There was much discussion about her university options. Natasha and Alexei wanted her to return to Russia to study; Ilya obviously wanted her to stay in Canada. But Katya had her sights set on the United States, and Ilya could already tell it was unlikely that she would be swayed.

That evening, Katya went to a school-sponsored overnight graduation party, and Ilya and Shane retreated to their hotel.

“When do you want to go to the cottage?” Shane asked as they got ready for bed.

“The team party is next week, we can leave after that?”

Ilya was in his second year coaching an elite U14 juniors team. Ilya loved the boys, and they loved Ilya, and their parents loved the historic winning streak the team had been on since Ilya took over. He had promised them a party if they beat Hayden’s team when they played in March, and his boys had delivered.

The kids were extremely talented—better probably than he had been at that age—and most of his job was running interference with overly-involved parents. Ilya’s illustrious career, and Shane’s god-like hockey presence looming at every other home game or so, shut up most of the know-it-alls, but it wasn’t unusual for Ilya to receive and immediately erase a screaming voicemail about ice time.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Shane hadn’t seemed to miss hockey much at all. For the first few months after retirement, Ilya had waited for a crisis to overcome his husband. When the crisis hadn’t come, he’d braced himself for Shane to present a plan to buy an MLH team, or make himself commissioner of the league. But none of those things happened.

Instead, Shane spent the first summer mostly lounging around. He started reading mysteries instead of hockey books, rejected three invitations from ESPN to join the on-air MLH commentary team, and started researching options for New Year’s vacations. Then, in the middle of that August, he surprised everyone by announcing that he was going to university.

Just a few classes, at first, he told Ilya. So I can figure out what I like.

“Rose is going to be in New York in July. Do you want to go, and see if Sveltana would come down?”

Ilya wrinkled his nose. “New York is so hot in July.”

“Just a few days in the city, then we can go to the beach for a week.”

Not long after Shane and Ilya were married, Rose had purchased a run-down midcentury house on the North Shore of Long Island, away from the scene of the Hamptons. The house was like nothing Ilya had ever seen before, a huge octagonal living room with double height ceilings and a stone fireplace, with two wings of bedrooms on either side. She told them that it had been built as a spiritual living community in the 1960s, then was traded between a couple local millionaires with bad taste across the ‘80s and ‘90s. By the time she bought it, it had been vacant for three or four years, and she spent a full year resuscitating it. Ilya called it the cult compound; he and Shane had dibs on the last bedroom in the west wing, which had a door that opened right out to the pool, and a macrame hanging chair that was useful for a number of activities besides sitting.

Ilya crawled into bed, settling between the crisp hotel sheets. Without warning, he was hit with a tidal wave of unfamiliar emotion. It felt like everything was changing, even though it wasn’t: he would back with his juniors team in the Fall, and Katya would be back in Montreal, and Shane would be taking his classes (he’d decided on psychology for his major), and nothing would be different at all. Only it still felt like something was ending.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Shane said, nudging his elbow.

Ilya gave his head a little shake, and tried to swallow past the tightness in his throat. “Ah, it’s stupid. I am being maudlin.”

“Katya’s not a grown up just because she graduated from secondary school.”

Ilya opened his mouth to respond, but stopped short of speaking. He hadn’t even known that’s what he was thinking, but Shane had figured it out.

Maybe it was the psychology classes.

“I know,” he said, but he knew he didn’t sound convincing.

“She’s only sixteen. She is still going to need…people,” Shane added.

“Am I her people?” Ilya asked. Maybe this is what was bothering him. He and Katya had come a long way since her first year in Canada. She still gravitated toward Shane (Ilya could hardly blame her for this; he did the same), but she and Ilya hugged sometimes, even if it was always Ilya’s idea, and she came to Ilya first when she wanted to complain about Alexei.

“Of course you are,” Shane said, very matter-of-fact about the whole thing. “She’s a happy girl, Ilya, and that’s because of you.”

“And you,” he pointed out.

“Sure, a little bit. But it was your idea for her to come here.”

“I worry sometimes that it was selfish for me to bring her here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wanted to get some of my family back. I took her away from her parents and her friends.”

Shane reached over and took Ilya’s hand. “It’s okay that you wanted that. It doesn’t make what you did any less generous. And it’s good for Katya to have more people, too, right?”

“Right,” Ilya said softly, squeezing Shane’s fingers.

“She could have gone to university right away, you know.”

Ilya’s ears perked up. “But I thought she had to do the CEGEP?”

“Yeah, if she wanted to go to school in Quebec. But she could have applied to an American University right away.”

“Really?” Katya had been talking about going to school in America for at least a year.

“There are at least two kids in her class going straight to uni,” Shane said. “Arthur, too.”

That’s right, Arthur Pike was going to school in New York to study drama in the fall. Shane and Ilya had gone to his last show, and Ilya had been taken aback by how good the youth theater group was. Shane watched polity, then spent the intermission gabbing with Amber about hockey (she was the family athlete, and already dreaming of the PWHL), but Ilya was entranced, and had the finale song stuck in his head for days.

“But Katya decided to stay in Montreal another two years,” Shane continued. “She likes it here.”

Ilya was smiling now, a little pocket of warmth blooming in his chest. She had decided to stay. Each year, Ilya had checked in with her to see if she wanted to come back to Montreal, and each year she had said yes. And now she was done with school but she was still going to come back again.

Ilya still got a little teary at the airport, even though it made Katya blush and made Natasha look at him like he had grown a second head. A porter loaded up a cart with Katya’s two soft-sided duffels and Natasha’s one boulder-sized suitcase, stuffed full of clothes for her friends from their favorite Canadian fast fashion store. Katya hugged Shane first, as always, and Ilya was surprised when Natasha grabbed him around the neck, forcing him down to her eye level so she could talk in his ear.

“I always suspected Alexei was wrong about you, Ilyusha. He’s such an asshole,” she muttered in Russian. Ilya chuckled as they pulled apart.

Seconds later, Katya was leaning in to hug him, too. She’s grown at least four or five inches since they’d first met her at this very airport, she was nearly as tall as Shane now and Ilya did not need to hunch to hear her when she spoke.

“Papa told me some of your mother’s things are at the dacha,” she said in Russian. “I will steal them for you this summer.”

He smiled. “You don’t have to do that.”

Katya shrugged, but she lingered in front of Ilya for another long moment. “Thank you,” she said, finally, in English.

“For what?” Ilya said.

She shrugged again. “I like having an uncle.”

Ilya swallowed hard and lifted his hand up to rest on her shoulder. “And I like having a niece.”

Shane stood at Ilya’s side, and they watched as Katya and Natasha disappeared into the crowd of travelers. Shane squeezed his hand. “She’ll be back.”

Ilya nodded. “She’ll be back.”