Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories:

F/M, M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid, Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov & Svetlana Vetrova, David Hollander/Yuna Hollander, David Hollander & Shane Hollander & Yuna Hollander & Ilya Rozanov, Alexei Rozanov's Daughter & Ilya Rozanov, Hayden Pike/Jackie Pike, Shane Hollander & Hayden Pike & Jackie Pike, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau & Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander & Rose Landry, Shane Hollander & Alexei Rozanov's Daughter, Kip Grady/Scott Hunter, Shane Hollander & Scott Hunter

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Alexei Rozanov's Daughter, Svetlana Vetrova, David Hollander, Yuna Hollander, Cliff Marlow | Cliff Marleau, Hayden Pike, Hayden Pike's Children, Jackie Pike, Rose Landry, Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Team Ensemble (Game Changers), Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Kip Grady

Additional Tags:

The Tuna Melt Meltdown does not happen, BAMF Shane Hollander, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander is Obsessed With Ilya Rozanov, Dark Shane Hollander, Manipulative Shane Hollander, But not in any horrible way i promise that Shane is a good guy just bad to those who deserve it, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Being Assholes (Game Changers), Shane Hollander Leaves the Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros, Boston Bears | Boston Raiders Player Shane Hollander, Good Significant Other Shane Hollander, Codependent Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov is Obsessed With Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Walks Ilya Rozanov Like A Dog, Confident Shane Hollander, Good Friend Svetlana Vetrova, Good Friend Hayden Pike, Supportive Boston Bears | Boston Raiders (Game Changers), Ilya Rozanov is a Menace, Alternative Perspective, Shane Hollander Speaks French, Shane Hollander Speaks Japanese, Loverboy Ilya Rozanov, Freak4Freak Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Social Media, Parents Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, This is not really that dark, It is quite wholesome, Multilingual Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov is Hollander Catnip, Momager Yuna Hollander

Language:

English

Series:

Part 3 of Hollanov Lulu-verse

Stats:

Published: 2026-06-11 Completed: 2026-06-21 Words: 47,822 Chapters: 13/13

The Sun Beyond Winter

Summary

There was something wrong with Shane Hollander.

He had known it since he was young.

Most people-most kids, in general-had different hobbies and interests. Their attention drifted from one thing to another. They became fascinated with something for a few weeks, only to abandon it for the next shiny obsession that caught their eye.

Shane had never been like that.

When it came to him, there was only ever one thing: hockey.

Obsessive.

That was the word most people used when referring to his temperament.

Chapter 1: Shane Hollander

There was something wrong with Shane Hollander.

He had known it since he was young.

Most people—most kids, in general—had different hobbies and interests. Their attention drifted from one thing to another. They became fascinated with something for a few weeks, only to abandon it for the next shiny obsession that caught their eye.

Shane had never been like that.

When it came to him, there was only ever one thing: hockey.

Obsessive.

That was the word most people used when referring to his temperament.

When he was a child, they said it with a certain unease. Teachers exchanged looks during parent-teacher conferences. Other parents smiled politely while subtly steering their children elsewhere, while his peers found him strange.

He was the intense and a little unsettling kid of Asian descent that was all but ostracized by his peers.

Shane remembered all of it.

He remembered the way people looked at him when he spent hours memorizing statistics for no reason other than the fact that he wanted to. The way he could spend months focused on a single skill, a single goal, while everyone else moved on.

Back then, it had been considered odd.

Concerning, even.

But people were funny.

As Shane grew older, taking after his beautiful mother, and became the golden boy of Canadian hockey, their perception changed.

The obsession remained exactly the same.

The only difference was that now it was backed with success.

He was the captain of the Montreal Voyagers, who had two Stanley Cups won back-to-back. He was the face of luxury campaigns his mother carefully selected, and the athlete every analyst called a once-in-a-generation talent.

Suddenly, the same obsession that had once made people uncomfortable became admirable.

His rigid routines were no longer strange, instead they were considered discipline. His fixation was no longer unhealthy, if anything he was commended over his dedication. His inability to let things go was no longer concerning; it was the mindset of a champion.

People called him a prodigy and an example to follow.

The best thing hockey had seen in decades.

The first player since the dynasty teams of the eighties to lead his franchise to consecutive Stanley Cups.

And through it all, Shane had come to a simple realization: People's perceptions were hopelessly skewed. When he had been a skinny, awkward child, they had looked at him and seen something wrong. Now they looked at the handsome man he had become and saw greatness.

The obsession had never changed.

Only the trophies had.

Shane found that oddly ironic.

Another thing he discovered as he grew up was that his reaction to other people's opinions was quite different from what most would expect. There were people whose opinions mattered. His parents, Hayden, Jackie, and their kids. And as he grew closer to Rose and she became one of his closest friends, her opinion mattered too.

Other than that?

Not really.

People respected and admired him. They wrote articles about him, talked about him on television, and treated him as some sort of symbol. The poor kid with Asian heritage playing in an almost entirely white sport in Canada. How difficult it must have been. How brave he was. How important his success was for inclusivity and diversity in hockey. How he was paving the way for future generations of Asian hockey players.

Honestly, Shane never cared much about any of that.

Maybe he should have.

Maybe that made him a bad person.

There was a part of him that understood why it mattered, mostly because he saw how important it was to his mother, and because he wasn't stupid enough to ignore the fact that representation had value. He understood that.

He really did.

But at the end of the day, all he had ever wanted to do was play hockey.

That was it.

He liked hockey, so he played hockey. He happened to be good at it, so he kept playing. Then he became very good at it, and suddenly people started assigning meaning to everything he did. He became captain and led his team to victories. People looked at those accomplishments and saw something bigger.

Shane just saw hockey.

As for what people said about him, whether it was in interviews, online, or behind his back, he couldn't bring himself to care very much. Why would he? Why would the opinion of someone who couldn't even score a hat trick matter to him?

That sounded arrogant.

It probably was arrogant.

He didn't particularly care about that either.

The only reason he had never publicly come out wasn't because of homophobia. It wasn't because he was ashamed of being gay, and it certainly wasn't because he cared what strangers thought about who he slept with.

It was hockey.

It had always been hockey.

Some instinctive part of him was terrified of the one thing he loved being taken away from him. Not because he thought the league would throw him out, legally they cannot fire him because of his sexuality. But the Voyagers could trade him to a shitty team, and he could not let that happen.

He loved playing at the highest level. He loved competing and he especially loved winning.

The idea of doing anything that might threaten that, no matter how small the risk, had him on the edge of a panic attack any time he thought about it. If someone traded him to a team that spent every season rebuilding and hoping for a miracle, he might actually lose his mind.

Oh, Kami-sama, can you imagine Shane Fucking Hollander playing for the Ottawa Centaurs? He would jump off a building before ever letting that happen.

So, he kept certain things private and carried on with his life. People talked and speculated, creating stories about him. But Shane mostly ignored them. It wasn't even an active decision. He didn't wake up every morning and chose not to care. Their opinions simply never mattered.

They were like flies buzzing somewhere in the distance.

Occasionally annoying, but easy to forget.

That wasn't to say Shane was cold, despite what many people assumed because of his composed behavior on the ice or the calm, measured way he answered interviews. Nor was it to say that he wasn't grateful, because he was.

His parents had raised him to be grateful. To be polite. To understand that nothing was guaranteed and that success did not excuse arrogance. Those lessons had stayed with him long after he became famous. Not simply because they were part of the structure he had built his life around, but because he genuinely believed in them.

So, when Rolex gifted him one of their expensive—and, in Shane's opinion, ridiculously overpriced—watches, he accepted it with a smile and made a point of wearing it whenever appropriate. He took care of it and appreciated the gesture. What he didn't do was wave it around and tell everyone to look at the Rolex on his wrist.

Once upon a time, owning even one of those watches would have seemed absurd.

His family had never been poor, but they certainly hadn't lived the kind of life where people casually collected luxury watches.

Shane remembered that.

He remembered a lot of things.

That being said, gratitude and politeness didn't mean he was incapable of recognizing opportunities when they appeared.

While hockey remained his priority above almost everything else, he had spent years making sure that he was as difficult to replace as possible. Part of that meant being the best player he could be. Part of it meant winning. Part of it meant making himself so valuable, both on and off the ice, that nobody would want to get rid of him.

Because Shane had always known he couldn't stay in the closet forever.

Accidents happened.

Mistakes happened.

Someone could see something they weren't supposed to see. A photograph could be taken at the wrong moment. A careless comment could spread. The possibilities were endless.

And homophobia wasn't the only thing stacked against him.

There was also racism.

There always had been.

He was half Japanese in a sport that still struggled with diversity, no matter how much the league liked to congratulate itself for progress. So, he had let his mother do what she did best. She built relationships and negotiated contracts for him. She turned Shane into the face of more luxury brands than he could keep track of.

Rolex.

Reebok.

Speedo.

Ray-Ban.

And dozens of others that had taken an interest in him over the years. He was a very popular choice as ambassador. Part of it was obvious; he generated money because people liked looking at him and companies liked selling products using attractive athletes.

But that wasn't the whole story.

He was reliable and professional.

He never got involved in scandals or got caught drunk outside a club at three in the morning. He showed up on time, smiled for photographs, remembered people's names, and did exactly what was expected of him. From a company's perspective, he was probably the perfect ambassador.

The fact that he was Asian only made him more appealing. Fans praised brands for becoming more inclusive and journalists wrote articles about representation. All while, marketing departments congratulated themselves on their progressive campaigns.

Everyone benefited.

Including Shane.

Because all of those partnerships created something far more valuable than money.

Influence.

Powerful people had invested in him. Powerful companies had attached their image to his. The more successful he became, the more difficult it became for anyone to touch him without creating problems for themselves.

Which was precisely the point.

Because while Shane's carefully maintained public image had become one of the strongest brands in professional hockey, the same couldn't necessarily be said for organizations like the Montreal Voyagers.

And that mattered more than most people realized.

It was almost childlike how easy it had been to bring the Montreal Voyagers to their knees.

Honestly, after almost a decade playing for the team and winning them two back-to-back Stanley Cups, Shane would have expected some kind of loyalty. Not blind loyalty, because he wasn't stupid enough to expect that, but at least enough loyalty to survive one injury.

Then again, Shane had never been under the illusion that the Voyagers cared about him. His position as captain had always been dependent on one thing: results.

As long as he brought results, everybody loved him.

As long as he scored goals, won games, sold jerseys, and filled seats, he was the face of the franchise.

The moment he stopped doing that, things changed very quickly.

All it took was one accident on the ice.

One bad hit.

One season spent watching the playoffs from home.

And suddenly administrators were calling him and asking why he hadn't been more careful. Why he hadn't seen Cliff coming. Why he had put himself in that position in the first place. Almost as if the hit had somehow been Shane's fault.

Almost as if the fact that the Voyagers failed to make the playoffs without him was somehow his responsibility.

Which was honestly ridiculous.

They had eight years.

Eight entire years to build a team around him.

Eight years to find players capable of carrying some of the weight instead of expecting Shane to be the one scoring every goal, making every play, and dragging the entire organization forward.

I mean, seventy percent of the goals over the last few years had been scored by Shane.

And fifty percent of those goals hadn't even involved an assist.

At some point you would think an administrator would look at those numbers and conclude that maybe the problem wasn't Shane. Maybe the problem was that they needed better players.

Instead, they kept making the same decisions.

Trading for people like Comeau and Drapeau because they fit the image they wanted. The kind of hockey players management loved. The kind who helped maintain the carefully manufactured all-white no-homo image the organization wanted to sell.

The fact that some of them happened to be racist homophobes never seemed to bother anybody.

Which, honestly, was bullshit.

But Shane had never cared enough to fight them over it. And that was the funny thing. Because all of that stupidity ended up giving him exactly what he needed.

An opening.

Not because he suddenly discovered that the Voyagers didn't care about him. He had known that for years. It was just that now they had finally crossed the line. And once they did that, it became very easy for Shane to stop pretending otherwise.

You see, Shane had only ever been obsessed with one thing in his entire life.

Hockey.

Everything else came after hockey.

Everything.

Then he met Ilya Rozanov.

And somehow, without Shane noticing when exactly it happened, he found himself with a second obsession.

Ilya Rozanov, unlike Shane, cared too much.

Most people wouldn't know it at first. Hell, Shane hadn't noticed it at first. Ilya was a good actor.

The funny thing was that the media had somehow managed to get the two of them completely backward. They liked to portray Shane as the caring one, the thoughtful one, the golden Canadian boy of hockey who always said please and thank you and gave the perfect answers during interviews. And to be fair, Shane did say please and thank you. He was the polite, respectful Canadian boy his parents had raised him to be.

The thing was that most of the time his words were just words. They were polite words, certainly, but they rarely carried any particular emotional investment behind them.

Ilya, on the other hand, was always on fire.

He was constantly chirping, throwing insults around like candy, and got into many fights on ice. And yet he cared so much.

Every time he threw a punch, there was usually a reason for it. Somebody had said something about a teammate. Somebody had mentioned his family. Somebody had crossed a line that Ilya had decided was worth defending.

While the media painted him as some rebellious problem child and Shane as the respectable face of hockey, the reality was almost the opposite.

Most of the time Shane didn't give a fuck what other players chirped about.

If they talked shit about the Voyagers, fine.

If they talked shit about his teammates, also fine.

Shane didn't particularly care about most of his teammates. Now, if somebody went after Hayden, that was different. You did not get to talk badly about Hayden.

Hayden had made Shane the godfather of his children. As far as Shane was concerned, those kids were his nieces and nephew, and anyone stupid enough to go after them was going to have a very unpleasant conversation.

Other than that, however, Shane's emotional investment in hockey-related drama was remarkably low.

The difference in how the media portrayed him and Ilya sometimes bothered him, mostly because it was wrong, but at the same time it was also incredibly useful. Because, you see, Shane could do no wrong.

Well, that wasn't entirely true, obviously, but for most people it might as well have been.

He was the golden boy of hockey. Canada's sweetheart. Sponsors liked him, fans liked him, and even journalists liked him, which was honestly impressive considering journalists rarely seemed to like anybody.

So, when his leave suddenly needed to be extended, people were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The Voyagers, however, were less enthusiastic.

They could tolerate half a season. They didn't like it, especially because it meant missing the playoffs, but they could tolerate it. But a whole year?

Oh, the administrators were not happy about that.

They tried very hard to hide it, but Shane had spent enough years dealing with executives to recognize when somebody was smiling through clenched teeth.

So, being the polite and respectful Canadian boy he had been raised to be, Shane met with them, apologized for the inconvenience, and very kindly informed them that if his absence was creating such difficulties, he would be willing to waive the no-trade clause in his contract.

And oh boy, they were happy.

Not immediately, of course. First came the concerned expressions, the assurances that they valued him, the speeches about how important he was to the organization.

Then came the relief.

Because in their minds, the Voyagers had made Shane Hollander.

The Voyagers had given him the captaincy.

The Voyagers had given him a platform.

The Voyagers had turned him into a star.

And now they had two Stanley Cups sitting in their trophy case. The franchise was healthy, successful, and profitable again. They didn't need an Asian-descent captain anymore. They could finally put a proper white Canadian in the position and continue pretending hockey was changing while making sure nothing actually changed at all.

The problem with that line of thinking was that it required believing the Voyagers had made Shane Hollander.

They hadn't.

Not even close.

The Voyagers did not make Shane Hollander.

Shane Hollander made the Voyagers.

And Shane knew that all too well.

It didn't take much for the backlash to start. After all, everybody loved Shane Hollander. That was the funny thing about becoming Canada's sweetheart. People tended to take your side.

The sponsors certainly did.

Rolex, Reebok, Speedo, Ray-Ban, and all the other brands attached to Shane didn't specifically sponsor the Voyagers, but they were powerful companies with a lot of influence, and influence had a way of spreading. A recommendation here, a warning there, a conversation over dinner, and suddenly people started questioning whether investing in the Voyagers was such a good idea after all.

Especially now that Shane was gone.

Because that was another funny thing.

A lot of people had invested in the Voyagers because they had Shane Hollander. Without Shane Hollander, the organization suddenly looked a lot less attractive. So, money became a little tighter.

Then a little tighter still.

And while Shane didn't particularly enjoy watching organizations struggle, he also couldn't pretend to be surprised.

The fans were far more entertaining.

They rioted online for months.

Poor Shane Hollander.

The captain who had brought the Stanley Cup back to Montreal after sixteen years.

The captain who had delivered two championships.

The captain the organization had apparently decided was disposable the moment he stopped being useful.

Comeau and Drapeau were dragged through the mud. So were the administrators. So was the coaching staff. The only person who somehow escaped the collective wrath of the fanbase was Hayden, mostly because Hayden had been the only one publicly defending Shane from the beginning.

Then came the trade announcement.

And that was where things became truly ridiculous.

Because Shane had been traded to Boston.

Boston.

To play on the same line as Ilya Rozanov.

A few years earlier, that news would have caused absolute chaos.

People would have called him a traitor.

A sellout.

They would have spent months talking about how a captain could abandon Montreal for the Raiders. Instead, the reaction was almost universally positive.

Good for Boston.

Good for Shane.

At least Boston takes care of its players.

It was Cliff Marleau who had put Shane out of commission for almost a year and a half, and yet the Raiders were still willing to take him even knowing he wouldn't be able to play immediately.

Unlike the Voyagers, people said.

Unlike the Voyagers.

Shane found that particularly amusing.

The same people who would have burned his jersey a few years ago were now wishing him luck. Of course, it helped that everybody assumed he would succeed.

Shane Hollander was hockey.

That was the general consensus.

He would thrive in Boston.

He would have thrived anywhere.

All anyone had to do was look at what had happened to the Voyagers after he left.

Shane would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy that part a little. Not because he hated Montreal.

He didn't.

Montreal had been his home for years. But there was something deeply satisfying about being proven right. The Voyagers had spent years acting as though Shane needed them more than they needed him.

Reality had been remarkably quick to correct that misconception.

He almost felt bad when he saw a clip from the Bell Centre.

Almost.

An entire section of the arena had shown up wearing Boston Raiders jerseys with Hollander's name on the back. And the funniest thing was that Shane watched that clip from Ilya Rozanov's couch.

Well, technically it was Ilya's couch.

In practice, however, Sofia Alekseyevna Rozanov was currently occupying most of it.

Shane had somehow ended up trapped between the two of them, with Sophia asleep against his chest while Ilya nearly fell off the sofa laughing at the sight of Bell Centre fans showing up in Boston Raiders jerseys.

The Raiders weren't even playing.

Honestly, Montreal fans could be a little dramatic. Then again, Shane wasn't exactly in a position to criticize dramatic behavior. Because the real reason his recovery had somehow stretched into a year and a half might have involved a few decisions that, in retrospect, could be described as questionable.

The thing was that Shane might have paid a certain doctor to say a few things.

Not directly, obviously.

Shane wasn't stupid.

The doctor might have also been influenced by a few emotional conversations involving carefully timed tears and a very convincing performance about how the racism and homophobia inside the Voyagers organization had only gotten worse over the years.

Now, Shane wasn't saying he had lied.

He was simply saying that certain details may have been presented in a manner that encouraged sympathy.

The doctor, being both sympathetic and apparently a very dedicated Shane Hollander fan, might have become somewhat flexible when discussing recovery timelines.

As a result, Shane was declared perfectly capable of living a normal life while simultaneously being completely incapable of returning to professional hockey for at least a year and a half.

A remarkable medical condition, really.

Then again, extraordinary circumstances sometimes required creative solutions. Especially after one phone call from Russia that had changed everything. Ilya's father had died first, which was sad but expected. The man had been suffering from dementia for years.

Then Ilya’s brother died immediately after the funeral.

An overdose.

Also, not that surprising, considering Alexei Rozanov’s habits.

And then, as if the universe had decided that wasn't enough tragedy for one week, Sophia's mother disappeared.

Left.

Vanished.

Shane still remembered listening to Ilya on the other end of the phone. For perhaps the first time since they had met, Ilya had sounded completely overwhelmed. There was no anger in his voice. No fight left in him.

Only exhaustion and fear.

And Shane had discovered something unfortunate about himself.

Namely that hearing Ilya Rozanov break down over the telephone apparently caused whatever remained of Shane's common sense to immediately leave the building. Because from that moment onward, the objective became very simple.

Get to Boston.

Preferably as fast as possible.

As he sat there watching Ilya laugh himself breathlessly beside him while Sofia slept peacefully against his chest, Shane was forced to admit that perhaps he had gone a little overboard.

Not much.

Just a little.

But then again, he had ended up in Boston.

He had Ilya.

He had Sofia.

And if a few administrators, doctors, and journalists had been gently encouraged toward certain conclusions along the way, well...

Bygones would be bygones.

Chapter 2: Ilya Rozanov

Ilya hated Russia.

It was cold, colorless, and somehow managed to suck the life out of everything around it. Even the nightlife was disappointing, not because there wasn't any, but because it lacked the freedom he had gotten used to in Boston. Everything felt dull here. The streets were dull. The people were dull. Even the boredom was dull.

Not that all boredom was bad.

Shanya could spend an entire evening doing absolutely nothing interesting and Ilya would still happily sit beside him. His precious Shanya, his sweet, sweet Shanya, who he loved with all his heart. Honestly, sometimes Ilya still wasn't entirely sure how he had managed to fumble his way into Shane Hollander's life, much less convince the man to stay there. Every time he thought about it for too long, he started wondering how many mistakes he could make before Shanya finally came to his senses and realized there were better options available.

The thing was that everything had changed in Boston.

Or maybe it had changed before Boston and neither of them had been brave enough to admit it. Shane certainly seemed to think so. Still, Boston was where Ilya first allowed himself to believe there might be something more between them.

It started when he asked Shane to stay.

One night became one day, and somehow, they ended up making out on the couch with Shane straddling his lap. For a little while there was no Hollander and Rozanov, no captains and no rivalry. They were simply Shane and Ilya, and that should have made Ilya happy.

Instead, it terrified him.

Because he knew how people usually felt about him.

They wanted him, certainly. Plenty of people wanted him. They liked spending time with him, liked sleeping with him, liked the version of Ilya that existed for a few hours or a few weeks, but nobody ever stayed. Eventually they found a reason to leave, and after enough years of watching it happen, Ilya had stopped expecting anything different.

If people who shared his blood couldn't find a reason to want him around, why would Shane Hollander?

Why would someone as bright and kind and beautiful as Shane choose him when he could have anybody else? Surely there is a nice Montreal man out there without the emotional baggage Ilya carries, and with significantly fewer issues.

So, Ilya spent most of that night convinced he had pushed too far and moved too fast.

Instead, Shane stayed. And somewhere along the way he stopped being one more person in Ilya's life and became the only one.

It was something Ilya finally admitted during the All-Star weekend later that year. A confession, really, because admitting feelings had never come naturally to him. He told Shane that there hadn't been anyone else since Boston.

Then Shane responded by casually informing him that Ilya had been the only one for much longer than Boston.

Ilya still wasn't over that conversation.

He suspected he never would be.

That was also around the time Hollander officially became Shanya, which was obviously the superior name. Then his father died, and suddenly Ilya found himself back in dreary Russia, staring out at another gray morning and wishing he was anywhere else.

As if Russia wasn't already making his life miserable, Ilya had also just spent a foolish amount of money on a funeral for a man who had abused him for most of his life. Then his brother spent most of the funeral drunk, which in hindsight should probably have worried Ilya more than it did.

The next day he was found dead in his apartment from an overdose.

At this point, Ilya genuinely didn't know whether his brother had done it on purpose or whether he had simply been too drunk to realize how much heroin he put into his body. He had spent weeks turning the question over in his head before eventually giving up. The answer wouldn't change anything.

His brother was dead either way.

Of course, the police immediately started dressing the whole thing up as some heroic tragedy. A brave officer killed in the line of duty. What a terrible loss for the community. The usual nonsense. Apparently admitting that Alexei had been a junkie was too embarrassing for everyone involved. Ilya didn't bother arguing. Let them lie if it made them feel better.

As it turned out, however, his brother dying wasn't even the worst thing that happened that week.

That honor belonged to Ursula.

Because his sister-in-law simply disappeared.

She did not say goodbye or even had the guts to leave a note on the kitchen table explaining why she was leaving. One day she was there and the next she was gone, leaving Sofia behind as if her daughter were an inconvenient piece of luggage she couldn't be bothered carrying anymore.

Poor Sofia.

She was the only good thing to come out of that entire disaster of a family, and now she was an orphan in all but name. One parent was dead. The other had willingly walked away. And somehow, through a combination of terrible luck and bureaucratic efficiency, Ilya ended up with full guardianship.

The idea was honestly terrifying.

Ilya knew how to play hockey. He knew how to fight. He knew how to survive almost anything life decided to throw at him. Raising a toddler, however, seemed like a completely different skill set, and one that nobody had ever bothered teaching him.

So, there he was, holding Sofia while she slept peacefully against his chest, completely unaware that her entire life had just changed.

And Ilya knew what his first thoughts should have been.

A normal person would have immediately started worrying about schools, doctors, childcare, and whether their home was safe for a small child. A normal person would have focused entirely on Sofia.

Instead, the first thing that entered Ilya's head was Shanya.

More specifically, whether this would finally be the thing that made Shanya leave. Because everyone had limits. And surely inheriting a toddler from the world's most dysfunctional family had to be somewhere near that limit.

The worst part was that Shanya had never given him any reason to think that. If anything, Shane had spent years proving the opposite. Still, anxiety wasn't exactly known for being reasonable, and as Ilya sat there staring down at Sofia's sleeping face, he found himself wondering whether this would finally be the disaster that sent Shanya running back to Canada.

Probably to his fortress of solitude deep in the wilderness of Ottawa.

The person who finally snapped him out of it was Svetlana.

She didn't even bother knocking before walking into his apartment in Moscow, which would have annoyed Ilya if it weren't for the fact that she had been doing it for over a decade. By then Sofia was asleep in his arms, taking one of the rare naps she seemed willing to grant him, so when Svetlana took one look at his face and immediately sat down across from him, they both kept their voices low.

"What's with the face?" she asked.

Ilya stared at her for a moment.

"Seriously?"

Svetlana raised an eyebrow.

"My father is dead," he said. "My brother overdosed the day after the funeral. My sister-in-law vanished and left me with a toddler. You tell me what's with the face."

To his annoyance, Svetlana rolled her eyes.

"No."

"What do you mean no?"

"I mean that's not what's with the face."

Ilya opened his mouth to argue, but she pointed a finger at him before he could.

"You and I both know that what you're feeling right now isn't guilt. If anything, you're feeling relieved and then feeling guilty about being relieved. You can untangle that particular mess with a therapist because I'm not getting paid enough for it." She leaned back in her chair and studied him for a moment. "What I'm talking about is what you're feeling right now. And right now, Ilyusha, you look terrified."

Ilya looked away.

Unfortunately, that was as good as an admission when it came to Svetlana. He loved and hated in equal measure how easily she could read him.

"Maybe I'm scared because I'm responsible for a toddler now," he muttered. "Maybe I'm realizing I have absolutely no idea how to be a parent. It's not like Grigory Rozanov was exactly a shining example."

Svetlana rolled her eyes again.

"Don't be cute."

"I'm not being cute."

"You are. And it's embarrassing. Try again."

Ilya groaned.

"You are impossible."

"And yet here I am. Does this have anything to do with Shane?"

The question landed so directly that it knocked the fight right out of him.

For a few seconds he just stared at Sofia's sleeping face.

Then he crumbled.

"Oh God, Sveta," he whispered. "What if he leaves?" The words seemed to escape before he could stop them. "What if this is what finally makes him walk away from me? I won’t survive losing him."

Svetlana's expression softened immediately.

"Ilyusha…"

"I've already lost so much," his throat tightened. "I have nobody."

"You have me," the response came so quickly that it almost sounded offended. "You always have me."

For a moment neither of them spoke.

Svetlana reached across the coffee table and squeezed his arm.

"You're not alone, okay? And if Shane walks away because your life got complicated, then he wasn't good enough for you in the first place."

Ilya immediately shook his head.

"No."

"Ilya…"

"No, you don't understand."

Because she didn't.

Nobody did.

How could they?

How could he explain something that had taken him years to understand himself?

"You have no idea," he said quietly. "Shanya is..." He stopped and laughed once, a broken little sound. "God, this is going to sound insane."

"Most things you say sound insane."

"Shut up."

Svetlana smiled.

Ilya looked back down at Sofia.

"Shanya is my sun," his voice was barely above a whisper. "He is the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Svetlana said nothing.

"I know how that sounds," Ilya continued. "I know how ridiculous it sounds, but ever since we met, ever since we shook hands for the first time, it was like..." He struggled for the words. "It was like somebody turned the lights back on."

The apartment had gone completely silent.

"It was the first time since Mama died that life felt..." He shook his head. "I don't know. Bright again."

The confession hung between them.

"I can't lose him, Sveta."

Svetlana stared at him. And in her eyes, Ilya could see his fear reflected. But unlike Ilya who was afraid of losing his sun, Sveta was afraid of losing Ilya. And the thing that frightened her most was that she believed him. She believed him when he said he wouldn't survive losing Shane.

"I can't lose him."

In the end, it was Sveta who convinced him to make the phone call.

Not immediately.

First they put Sofia back in her nursery, where she remained blissfully unaware that the adults in her life were currently having emotional crises. Then they moved into the living room, Svetlana settling beside him on the couch while Ilya stared at his phone as if it might explode.

"You are being ridiculous," she informed him.

"I know."

"So, call him."

"What if…"

"Ilyusha."

He sighed, as he called.

The phone rang once.

Twice.

Three times.

And then Shane appeared on the screen.

For a moment, Ilya forgot entirely why he had called.

Because Shane was wearing glasses.

Somewhere over the last few months, after they moved on from Hollander and Rozanov, into Shane and Ilya, glasses had become one of his favorite things. Maybe because they belonged to a version of Shane that very few people got to see. Not Captain Hollander. Not Canada's sweetheart. Just Shane, sitting at home reading something.

His Shanya.

God, he missed him.

"Hi," Shane said, immediately smiling when he saw him. "You look terrible."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

The smile lingered for a moment before Shane's expression softened.

"What happened?"

And suddenly there was no putting it off anymore.

So, Ilya told him.

He told him about the funeral. About his brother overdosing, Ursula disappearing, and the courts giving him guardianship of Sofia.

By the time he finished speaking, the room had fallen silent.

Shane didn't say anything immediately. And unfortunately, that was enough time for every terrible possibility in Ilya's head to wake up.

Maybe this was too much.

Maybe this was where Shane finally realized what a disaster Ilya's life actually was.

Maybe…

"Oh."

Ilya blinked.

"Oh?"

Shane nodded.

"Okay."

The response was so calm that it actually confused him.

"Okay?"

"Yes."

"That's all you have to say?"

"No, that's just where I'm starting."

Shane reached for something off-screen.

A notebook.

Then another notebook.

Then what looked suspiciously like a folder.

Svetlana made a strangled noise beside him, but Ilya ignored her in favor of staring at his boyfriend in disbelief.

"First of all, I'll take the next flight to Boston as soon as possible. Second, we're going to need to childproof your house because from what I've read, toddlers are apparently very creative when it comes to finding ways to accidentally kill themselves."

Ilya stared.

Shane continued.

"Third, we'll need to figure out the guardianship paperwork in both countries. Fourth, I have a few contacts who can help with immigration issues, which should make things easier."

"Shanya…”"

"Fifth, now that you have family in the United States, this might actually be a good time to seriously consider citizenship."

Ilya opened his mouth, but Shane kept going.

"The Raiders will probably be willing to help. Organizations love family-oriented publicity, and you're one of their biggest players. Also, Sofia being involved changes a lot of things legally, so I'll need to read more about that."

Somewhere beside him, Svetlana was trying very hard not to laugh.

"Shanya."

Shane finally looked up.

"What?"

And that was apparently the moment Ilya stopped holding himself together. Because Shane wasn't running. He wasn't hesitating or even particularly surprised by the curveballs Ilya kept throwing at him.

He was making plans, building a system, and creating spreadsheets to help Ilya and Sofia out. Treating this entire catastrophe as if it were merely a complicated scheduling issue. Which, in Shane Hollander language, was probably the closest thing to a love confession a person could receive.

"Thank you," Ilya said quietly.

For once, Shane seemed to understand everything that those two words meant, and his expression softened. "You don't have to thank me."

"I do."

"You really don't."

"I really do."

Shane sighed. Then he smiled, and somehow that smile made everything feel manageable again.

They talked for another hour before finally ending the call. The moment the screen went dark, Ilya sat there staring at his reflection for several seconds. Then he turned toward Svetlana and a strangled laugh escaped him.

"I can have it all."

"Of course you can," Svetlana smiled.

"No, seriously." He shook his head. "I genuinely thought this was the thing that would make him leave."

"I know."

"But he didn't."

"No, he did not."

For a moment neither of them spoke.

Then Svetlana leaned back against the couch. "From what I've heard tonight, your Shanya is completely in love with you."

Ilya immediately smiled.

A stupid smile.

A ridiculous smile.

The kind of smile that would absolutely get him mocked by his teammates, but he didn't care. "I know."

"Good,” Svetlana patted his knee. "Because I cannot wait to meet him."

And for the first time since arriving in Russia, Ilya found himself looking forward to the future instead of dreading it.

The trip back to Boston should have made everything better.

Instead, it somehow made everything worse.

Not because of Sofia. Sofia was thriving. Within three days she had claimed ownership over half of Ilya's house, and within a week she had completely conquered the nursery Shanya had prepared for her. Even Svetlana seemed happy, which was impressive considering she was currently sharing a house with a professional hockey player whose idea of cooking involved setting off smoke alarms.

No, the problem was hockey.

Specifically, the fact that the entire hockey world seemed determined to lose its collective mind the moment Ilya got back.

Apparently, the hit Marleau had delivered during the last Boston-Montreal game had caused more complications than people originally thought. Shane's recovery was still progressing, but not as quickly as everyone had hoped, and suddenly the timeline had stretched from months to an entire year.

An entire year.

Which, according to the geniuses running the Voyagers, was enough reason to start discussing whether they should move on from the man who had spent nearly a decade carrying the franchise on his back.

Ilya was going to commit a crime.

Several crimes, actually.

The only reason he hadn't already booked a flight to Montreal was because Shanya had physically prevented him from leaving the house. Now he paced back and forth across his bedroom while Shanya sat on the edge of the bed looking entirely too calm for the situation.

"They are traitors," Ilya snapped, switching to Russian halfway through the sentence. "Absolute traitors. You bring them championships, you bring them money, you spend years making them relevant, and this is how they repay you?"

Shanya didn't even look up from the tablet in his hands.

"Mm."

"'Mm'?"

"They've always been a business."

"They are idiots."

"That too."

"You are the face of Montreal hockey!” Ilya threw his hands into the air. “Half their fans probably think you founded the city."

That finally got a laugh out of Shanya. "I think that's historically inaccurate."

"I am serious."

"So am I."

Ilya stared at him.

Shanya stared back.

The worst part was that he genuinely seemed unbothered. Which only made Ilya more annoyed. Then another thought struck him, and his eyes narrowed. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" Shanya tilted his head in confusion.

"That your recovery wasn't going as well as it was supposed to."

For the first time since the conversation started, Shanya looked genuinely confused. "My recovery is going fine."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is."

"Shane."

"Ilya."

They stared at each other, not moving or blinking.

Eventually Shanya sighed. "My recovery is going well, my doctor is simply being cautious."

"Cautious."

"Yes."

"Cautious enough to keep you out of the ice for a year."

"Cautious enough to make sure I don't permanently damage my shoulder and collarbone by pushing too hard when I return to training." Ilya stopped pacing, as Shanya continued in the same calm tone. "Everything is healing properly. He just wants me to take things slowly."

"Slowly."

"Yes."

"You hate slowly."

"I do."

"And yet you're listening."

"I hate taking a year off hockey, but what is a year compared to my whole career?"

Unfortunately, that was a reasonable argument. Ilya hated reasonable arguments so much. Especially when Shanya was the one making them.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

Then Ilya crossed the room in three strides, grabbed Shanya by the front of his shirt, and kissed him. When they pulled apart, Shanya looked entirely too pleased with himself. "Feel better?"

"No."

"You're lying."

"Maybe."

Shanya laughed softly and reached up to brush his thumb across Ilya's cheek.

"I'm fine."

"You better be."

"I am."

The certainty in his voice finally managed to calm something inside Ilya. Not completely, but enough that he no longer felt like flying to Montreal to burn the Bell Center.

"Besides, Farah got a call earlier."

That immediately caught Ilya's attention.

"A call?"

"From the Raiders."

For a second the words didn't register.

Then they did and Ilya froze.

Slowly.

Very slowly, a grin spread across his face. "The Boston Raiders?"

"The only Raiders in the NHL, yes."

"The Raiders are interested in you? What I am saying, of course they are!" Shanya nodded, and suddenly all thoughts of Montreal disappeared. A laugh escaped Ilya before he could stop it. "We'll be playing together."

The grin on his face grew wider.

"We'll actually play in the same team."

Shanya’s smile softened into something warm and familiar.

"Looks that way."

"Every day."

"Hopefully."

"Just like at the All-Star."

Shanya looked at him for a moment before reaching for his hand. "We'll be on the same team," he agreed.

And just like that, the future suddenly looked a lot brighter than it had a few minutes earlier. A few weeks later, Ilya found himself asking a question he never thought he would have to ask.

"Why," he said slowly, "are we watching a Montreal game?"

From his spot on the couch, Shanya didn't even look up from where Sofia was currently napping against him. "Because Hayden is playing."

"Traitor team."

"Hayden is still my best friend."

"Traitor adjacent."

Shanya sighed, and across the room, Svetlana snorted into her coffee. Ilya ignored both of them.

The problem wasn't Hayden. Hayden was acceptable. Hayden had excellent children and, more importantly, excellent judgment considering he had made Shanya the godfather of those children.

The problem was Montreal.

Specifically, the fact that the Voyagers had spent years benefiting from Shane Hollander and then decided to act surprised when their actions had consequences. Still, because Shanya had Sofia curled up comfortably in his lap and looked entirely too content, Ilya generously decided not to complain anymore.

"Fine," he grumbled. "I will tolerate the fifteenth-best hockey player in Montreal because his children are cute."

"How kind of you."

"I know."

The game continued, Montreal is being humiliated, which Ilya found deeply satisfying. He wasn't paying that much attention, however, mostly because Hayden wasn't doing anything particularly interesting and because Sofia looked adorable cuddling beside Shanya.

Then the camera panned across the crowd.

At first Ilya didn't think much of it. Hockey broadcasts were always showing fans. Usually, it was some kid with face paint or some old man who had been attending games since before the invention of electricity. Then he noticed one jersey.

A Boston Raiders jersey.

At a Montreal home game.

His eyes narrowed.

Then the camera moved again and revealed another one. And another. And another.

For a moment Ilya simply stared at the television before a laugh escaped him. By the time the broadcast showed an entire section filled with Raiders jerseys, some of them even sporting HOLLANDER across the back, he was practically bent over laughing.

"Oh, that is beautiful."

Across the room, Svetlana looked up from her phone.

"What?"

"Look at them."

She followed his gaze to the television and immediately started laughing too.

Because it wasn't just a handful of people. It was an entire section of the Bell Centre dressed in Boston colors during a Montreal game that the Raiders were not even playing. The fans had simply decided to make a point.

"Oh, they are never recovering from this," Ilya said, between chuckles. "Do you know how much this must be driving them insane?"

Beside him, Shanya had the decency to look slightly embarrassed, though the effect was ruined by the fact that he was smirking.

"They brought that on themselves."

"Ilya."

"No, they did. They spend years acting like you are replaceable and then act surprised when half their fanbase decides otherwise." He pointed at the screen as another shot of the crowd appeared. "Look at that. They aren't even cheering for the game anymore. They're cheering for you."

"He has a point," Svetlana nodded in agreement.

"Thank you!" Ilya beamed.

Shanya shook his head. "Don't encourage him, Sveta."

Unfortunately for Shanya, encouraging Ilya was one of Svetlana's favorite hobbies.

The broadcast returned to the game, but Ilya had already lost interest. The hockey itself wasn't nearly as entertaining as the thought of Montreal management sitting somewhere in the building and realizing that the player they had spent years taking for granted remained more popular than the entire organization.

Serves them right.

Maybe it was petty.

Actually, no. It was definitely petty.

Ilya simply didn't care.

They had thrown away the best thing that had ever happened to that franchise, and now they were being forced to watch the consequences unfold in real time.

A warm, possessive satisfaction settled in his chest as he looked away from the television and toward the couch where Shanya was sitting with Sofia curled comfortably against him. The thing was, Montreal had always acted as though Shane Hollander belonged to them. Their captain. Their golden boy. Their franchise player.

Not anymore.

Now he was Boston’s.

He was Sofia’s.

The thought should probably have sounded unhealthy, but Ilya couldn't bring himself to feel guilty about it. After everything that had happened over the past year, after Russia and funerals and hospital reports and lawyers and custody paperwork, he felt entitled to enjoy this one thing.

Because Shane was Ilya’s.

Chapter 3: Cliff Marleau

Cliff had never felt like a bigger asshole in his life.

Which was saying something, considering he played professional hockey for a living.

Hockey wasn't a gentle sport. Nobody signed up expecting safety. Players got cross-checked into the boards, hit by pucks traveling fast enough to break bones, and occasionally lost teeth simply because they happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Getting your bell rung at least once during your career wasn't unusual. Most players got their bell rung far more than once.

Cliff certainly had.

At this point, he had lost count of how many times he had been helped off the ice, carted down a tunnel, or spent a few days recovering from a hit that looked worse on television than it felt in the moment.

The Boston Raiders weren't exactly known for playing gently either.

They were physical. Aggressive. Annoyingly fond of pushing the limits of what officials would allow before blowing a whistle. Some people blamed that on Ilya Rozanov, which was ridiculous considering the Raiders had been playing like that long before Ilya inherited the captaincy.

Violence was simply part of the team's identity.

Cliff had been on both sides of it. He had delivered hits, and he had taken them. He had injured people before, but none of those injuries had ever followed him home the way Shane Hollander's did.

Because Hollander wasn't just another player.

He was Shane Fucking Hollander.

A future Hall of Famer. The face of Canadian hockey. The guy every commentator spoke about as though he had personally invented the sport. And Cliff had been the one who knocked him out before the playoffs.

Montreal fans, predictably, lost their minds. It did not take long before his invoice was filled with death threats.

Which honestly felt unfair.

If an entire franchise collapsed because one player got injured, then maybe the problem wasn't the injury. Maybe the problem was building a team that depended so heavily on one person in the first place.

The Raiders didn't work like that.

As incredible as Ilya was, he wasn't carrying Boston alone. Every player on the roster contributed. Every line supported the others. If Ilya had gone down, it would have hurt, obviously, but the team wouldn't have fallen apart overnight.

Montreal, meanwhile, seemed to have built its entire identity around Shane. At times it felt like Hollander was Atlas, and the second he stepped away, everything started to sag under the weight he had been carrying.

Then the Voyagers somehow managed to make things even worse.

Instead of supporting the captain who had spent nearly a decade carrying the franchise, they practically pushed him out the door the moment his recovery timeline became inconvenient.

The whole thing left such a bad taste in Cliff's mouth that he almost forgot he was supposed to be angry at himself.

Almost.

Because every time another article appeared about Shane's recovery, every time another fan mentioned the hit, the guilt came creeping back. Especially after it became clear that Shane wouldn't be missing a few months.

He would be missing over a year.

That was the part Cliff couldn't shake. Back during the playoffs, he had comforted himself with a simple thought.

It's fine.

Shane Hollander will be back next season.

Then next season became much further away than anybody expected. And suddenly that reassurance didn't work anymore. The guilt started settling in properly after that.

Not immediately. At first there had simply been concern. Then concern became discomfort. Then discomfort became the growing realization that every time somebody mentioned Shane Hollander's recovery, Cliff felt a little bit sick.

Which was unfortunate because everybody seemed determined to talk about Shane Hollander.

Constantly.

The man somehow managed to become even more popular while sitting at home than most players ever became while actively playing. The worst part was that fans didn't even seem to blame Montreal anymore.

Well, they blamed Montreal too. They blamed everybody. Montreal management, their coaching staff, the medical team, and Cliff.

Especially Cliff.

The death threats doubled after the recovery timeline became public. And the truly terrifying part was that it was no longer just Montreal. Boston fans started sending him threats.

So did New York fans.

And Chicago fans.

And random hockey fans from countries that didn't even have NHL teams.

Apparently, everyone had collectively decided that Shane Hollander belonged to the entire sport. Which meant hurting the Golden Boy was apparently considered a crime against hockey itself.

The strange thing was that nobody seemed to hate Shane.

Not anywhere.

Normally when a superstar left a franchise there would be bitterness. Jersey burnings. Angry interviews. Fans declaring eternal betrayal. Instead, Shane somehow escaped completely untouched.

Honestly, Cliff wasn't even surprised.

Why would anyone dislike Shane Hollander?

The guy was annoyingly perfect.

Other captains spent interviews talking about how badly the opposing team had played. About how they deserved to lose because their defense was weak.

Ilya certainly did.

Half of Ilya's post-game interviews sounded like he was actively trying to start a fight with somebody. Meanwhile, Shane would win six-to-one and still somehow spend ten minutes complimenting the opposing goalie.

“The defense played well.”

“The other team worked hard.”

“The effort was there.”

“They made us earn it.”

The man was physically incapable of being rude in public. Which was probably why every fanbase in the league had collectively adopted him. Somewhere along the way Shane had stopped being Montreal's player and become hockey's player.

The face of the NHL.

The mascot.

There was practically an unofficial Protect Shane Hollander Club. They had memberships and everything! Which was exactly why Cliff nearly laughed when the management of the Boston Raiders approached him a few weeks later.

"How would you feel," they had asked, "about giving up the alternate captaincy?"

Cliff hadn't even let them finish.

"To Hollander?"

"Yes."

"Absolutely."

The executives looked almost surprised by how quickly he answered. But honestly, what exactly was he supposed to say?

No?

Imagine how that would look.

First Cliff accidentally ended Shane Hollander's season.

Then Shane got pushed out of Montreal.

Then Shane arrived in Boston.

And then Cliff refused to give him the alternate captain position.

At that point people wouldn't be sending death threats anymore. They would be showing up at his house. So yes, he had agreed immediately.

Hell, he had even offered to take a pay cut if necessary.

Fortunately, the executives had informed him that three veterans were retiring at the end of the season, which meant the organization had plenty of cap space available. Nobody needed a pay cut, and Shane would get a salary exactly what a player like Shane Hollander deserved.

As far as Cliff was concerned, that was the bare minimum.

The announcement went over surprisingly well. Especially after Cliff posted an Instagram story congratulating Shane and welcoming him to the team. The comments section, for once, did not contain death threats.

Mostly people seemed relieved.

Which should probably have been reassuring. Instead, it somehow made Cliff feel worse. Because none of it changed the fact that the hit had been his.

A clean hit, sure.

Everyone agreed it had been clean. Nobody accused him of playing dirty or claimed he had intended to hurt Shane. But intent only mattered so much when the result remained exactly the same.

Eventually the guilt became annoying enough that Cliff decided he needed to do something about it. Preferably before training camp started.

Which left him with one obvious solution.

Talk to Shane.

Unfortunately, Cliff had absolutely no idea how to do that. So naturally he decided to talk to the one person who might be able to help.

Ilya Rozanov.

The idea would have seemed much smarter if Ilya's life hadn't completely imploded over the last few months.

His father and brother died.

His sister-in-law disappeared.

And somehow, in the middle of all that, he became the legal guardian of a toddler.

Under normal circumstances Cliff probably would have left him alone. But training camp was getting closer every day, and eventually Cliff convinced himself that one conversation probably wouldn't destroy whatever sanity Ilya still possessed.

So, he drove over to Ilya's house one afternoon, rang the bell, and waited. But the person who opened the door was not Ilya Rozanov.

It was Shane Fucking Hollander.

For a moment Cliff simply stared in sheer disbelief.

Because that alone was surprising enough. Then he noticed the toddler sitting comfortably on Shane's hip, and his brain nearly short-circuited. The kid looked like somebody had copied Ilya and then decided to make her adorable.

A beautiful girl with golden curls, bright blue eyes, and tiny little hands wrapped around Shane's shirt. Most importantly, she looked entirely comfortable there. Like being carried around by Shane Hollander was a normal occurrence.

Which immediately raised several questions.

None of which Cliff was brave enough to ask.

Luckily for him, Shane took the initiative. "Come in. Ilya is out meeting his lawyers for some paperwork," he explained as he bounced the toddler lightly. "They're finalizing some things regarding Sofia’s adoption."

Sofia giggled, and for a brief second Shane smiled at her. Not the polite smile he used during interviews. Nor the carefully practiced smile sponsors love. A real, warm and effortless, smile.

The kind of smile Cliff had never actually seen from him before.

Then Shane looked back at him, and the smile disappeared. Somehow that made Cliff even more nervous. Because he did not think Hollander was being rude, it felt as if someone had flipped a switch.

No normal person could go from warm and happy to polite and distant with the snap of a finger. Then again, Shane Hollander has never been normal.

It was then that Cliff noticed something else, Shane looked weirdly familiar standing in Ilya's doorway. As if he was no guest simply visiting, but at home. Like he belonged there.

Before Cliff could think too hard about that, Shane stepped aside. "Shoes off."

Cliff blinked.

"What?"

"Shoes off."

Shane pointed toward the entrance mat.

"Oh."

That was new.

Ilya had never cared. Half the team had tracked snow, mud, and various questionable substances through this house over the years without receiving so much as a comment. Apparently, Shane cared. So, Cliff obediently removed his shoes.

By the time they reached the living room, Cliff was feeling as though he had somehow entered an alternate universe. He had spent years in this house. Had watched playoff games, celebrated wins, and on one special occasion, he had seen Ilya nearly destroy the television here.

Yet, everything looked different now.

A large playpen occupied one corner of the room where it remained visible from both the kitchen and the couch. Several toys were neatly arranged inside, while childproof locks had magically appeared on cabinets.

The entire place looked less like a professional athlete's bachelor pad and more like somewhere an actual family lived.

Shane carefully settled Sofia into the playpen before turning back toward Cliff. "What would you like to drink?"

Cliff stared.

"What?"

"We have Coke, water, and ginger ale. We also have a selection of teas and coffee." Shane paused. "We do not currently have beer or vodka. Now that we have Sofia around, the house is alcohol-free for the time being."

Then, completely seriously, he added:

"I hope you can understand that."

Cliff understood absolutely nothing.

Mostly because Shane had said we.

We have Coke.

We have ginger ale.

We are keeping the house alcohol-free.

Since when exactly did Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov become we?

Apparently deciding it was safer not to ask, Cliff pointed at the first option that came to mind. "Coke, please."

The please slipped out instinctively, which was embarrassing. Because somehow Shane Hollander had managed to make a thirty-year-old professional hockey player feel like he was speaking to a particularly strict elementary school teacher.

Shane nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. A minute later he returned carrying a Coke, a ginger ale, and a small cup of diluted apple juice.

The apple juice went to Sofia, which was accepted with a delighted giggle. Then Shane sat down on the couch beside Cliff and handed him the Coke.

Cherry Coke.

Ilya's favorite.

Of course it was.

For several moments they sat in silence.

Cliff drank his soda.

Shane drank his ginger ale.

Sofia babbled happily to herself from the playpen.

The silence stretched.

And stretched.

And stretched.

The weird thing was that Shane didn't seem bothered by it. Most people would eventually start filling the silence with meaningless small talk. Comments about the weather. Questions about training. Literally anything.

Shane apparently saw no reason to do that; he looked perfectly content simply sitting there. So, eventually Cliff gave up.

Fuck it.

Rip the bandage off.

"I actually wanted to talk to you."

That finally got a reaction.

"Me?" Shane looked genuinely surprised.

"Yeah."

A small frown appeared on the other’s face. "I thought you came to talk to Ilya."

Oh.

That explained the silence.

They had been waiting for Ilya.

Shane genuinely had not realized Cliff wanted anything from him.

Interesting.

"Well," Cliff rubbed the back of his neck, "I mostly came to talk to Ilya because I didn't know how else to get a chance to talk to you before camp."

Shane tilted his head. Somehow, the gesture should have looked friendly. A head tilt was the sort of thing that reminded people of dogs. Instead, all Cliff saw were those big eyes fixed on him, watching, assessing.

It reminded him of a panther studying its prey.

A very intelligent panther.

Shane Hollander, the Black Panther... someone should patent that.

The thought was so absurd that he nearly laughed.

Instead, he forced himself back on track.

"I wanted to apologize."

"For what?"

Now Shane looked genuinely confused.

"The hit."

Understanding flickered across Shane's face.

"Oh, the hit."

"Yeah," Cliff swallowed nervously. "I never wanted it to turn into all this. You missing playoff was bad enough, but a whole year, and then being kicked off the Voyagers… I am so sorry."

For a second Shane simply stared at him.

Then he laughed.

It was not mockingly, but a small amused sound. As if he found Cliff adorable.

"You really don't have to apologize for that."

Cliff blinked.

"What?"

"It was a clean hit," Shane said it so matter-of-factly that it almost sounded obvious. "Hockey players get hit all the time. And sometimes people miss games."

"A year and a half isn't exactly missing a few games."

"No," Shane smiled slightly. "But it's also not because of you."

That made Cliff pause.

Shane leaned back against the couch. "If I played baseball, tennis, golf, or almost any other professional sport, I'd already be back competing." He gestured vaguely toward his shoulder. "The problem is that we play hockey."

"That seems backwards."

"It usually is."

The smile widened slightly.

"My doctor is being cautious because hockey players have a tendency to get slammed into boards, cross-checked, and occasionally punched."

"Occasionally?"

"Frequently."

"That's more accurate."

The conversation felt surprisingly easy after that. Calm and comfortable, the exact opposite of what Cliff had expected.

By the time Shane explained that he would attend training camp, take part in conditioning and puck training, and only stay away from contact until the doctors cleared him, a significant amount of Cliff's guilt had finally begun to ease.

Then another question occurred to him.

"You're okay with taking the alternate captain position?"

For the first time Shane looked uncomfortable.

Only slightly.

But enough for Cliff to notice.

"Actually," Shane admitted, "I was going to ask if you're okay with that."

"What?"

"I don't want to join the team and immediately disrupt the hierarchy."

Cliff stared.

Then laughed.

Actually laughed.

Because that was ridiculous.

"Shane."

"Hm?"

"I was never really an alternate captain."

Shane was frowning now. "You’ve been wearing the A for years."

"I might have worn the A, but I was more of Ilya's right-hand man." That earned a small smile from the Canadian. "I can still do that, with or without the A," Cliff shrugged. "If anything, you deserve the job more than I ever did."

And that was the truth.

Nobody in the league had more captain experience than Shane Hollander.

Nobody.

By the time Ilya finally returned home, the conversation had shifted from hockey to Sofia, then from Sofia to training camp, and then from training camp to a lengthy argument about whether toddlers should be allowed near hockey equipment.

Dinner happened shortly afterward.

Sofia spent most of it demanding pieces of everyone's food, while Ilya complained dramatically about lawyers, and Shane ignored him. Somewhere during the evening, Cliff realized something surprising.

For the first time since the playoffs, the guilt felt lighter.

Not gone.

Probably never gone.

But lighter.

And that, he suspected, was the closest thing to forgiveness he was ever going to get.

Chapter 4: Hayden Pike

Chapter Notes

Hayden Pike was tired.

Not the kind of tired that disappeared after a good night's sleep or a weekend away from the rink. This was the sort of exhaustion that settled into a person's bones after months of frustration, disappointment, and watching something they used to love slowly tear itself apart.

For the second year in a row, the Montreal Voyagers had failed to make the playoffs. The thought alone was enough to make him want to punch someone.

Preferably Comeau or Drapeau. 

For nearly a decade, making the playoffs had been as natural as breathing. Eight consecutive years. Two Stanley Cups. Endless deep playoff runs. They had become one of the strongest franchises in the league, the team everyone expected to see competing in May and June.

Then everything had fallen apart.

The first year, people called it bad luck. Shane was out from an injury and without their captain the Voyagers were left without a clear leader. The second year, nobody could pretend anymore.

The organization was rotting from the inside.

Hayden knew it.

The fans knew it.

Hell, half the league knew it.

And what made him angriest was that none of it had been unavoidable.

The administration had spent years treating Shane as if he were some magical solution capable of fixing every problem they created. Every bad decision, every mediocre acquisition, every gap in the roster had eventually become Shane's responsibility to cover. Then the moment he got injured, the same people who had benefited from his talent for nearly a decade suddenly started acting as though he had somehow failed them.

It was bullshit.

Complete and utter bullshit.

The worst part was watching teammates he had respected for years quietly fall in line behind the narrative.

Some of them he expected.

Others hurt.

JJ especially.

Hayden understood the position JJ was in. He understood it better than most people probably realized. Being the only Black player in that locker room came with pressures that nobody else had to carry. There were battles JJ fought every day that the rest of them never even noticed.

After years of being friedns with Shane, Hayden learned how unfair the locker room could be for some players.

It didn't stop the disappointment. Because seeing JJ stay silent while people called Shane a traitor still felt like a betrayal.

Hayden had thought JJ to be their friend, but it seems that his friendship was cheap compared to what Shane and Hayden had. 

It was not like the decisions had been Shane's. The administration chose to push him out. They were the ones who chose to destroy years of goodwill with both the fans and their own captain.

Yet somehow Shane ended up carrying the blame.

The entire thing made Hayden so angry that his hands tightened around his equipment bag as he stepped through the front door.

The anger lasted approximately three seconds, as two small missiles launched themselves across the hallway.

"Papa!"

The equipment bag barely hit the floor before Ruby and Jade collided with him at full speed. 

Hayden laughed despite himself. The sound surprised him. It felt like the first genuine laugh he'd managed all day.

He bent down, scooped up one daughter under each arm, and spun them around, making them burst out in giggles.

"There are my girls."

Ruby wrapped both arms around his neck, as Jade immediately demanded more altitude.

Higher.

Always higher.

Apparently neither daughter believed their father had physical limitations.

Hayden continue to spin them around the hallway anyway, listening to their laughter echo through the house until he could feel some of the tension finally beginning to leave his shoulders.

Home.

God, he loved being home.

Eventually he set them back down, though the twins immediately grabbed his hands and began dragging him toward the living room with all the determination of tiny hockey players charging toward a loose puck.

"Papa, come see!"

"Look what Uncle Shane gave Mama!"

The moment Shane's name was mentioned, Hayden felt himself smile. A smile that only widened when he entered the living room.

Jackie was settled comfortably on the couch, Amber nestled against her chest while she breastfed their youngest daughter. Nearby, Arthur sat on the floor surrounded by blocks, completely focused on a construction project that seemed determined to defy both architecture and gravity.

The scene was so perfectly domestic that Hayden felt that his heart could almost burst from all the happiness he was feeling.

Then the twins shoved one of Jackie's wrists directly into his face.

"There."

"Look!"

Hayden laughed.

"Okay, okay."

His gaze dropped to the bracelet, and the newest stone caught the light immediately.

Amber.

A beautiful golden amber stone nestled beside the others.

For a moment he simply stared.

The bracelet had been a gift to Jackie back when they had named Shane the godfather of the twins. It started with one ruby and one jade stone. 

Then Arthur had been born and Shane, being Shane, had somehow found a stone connected to the legend of King Arthur. Flint, as swords used to be forged from that material.

Now Amber had joined them. It was another reminder that Shane remembered everything. Every birthday and milestone. Every tiny detail that most people forgot.

Hayden reached down and gently touched the bracelet. The stones glittered beneath the living room light.

Ruby.

Jade.

Arthur.

Amber.

All four of his children represented there.

A gift from their godfather.

A gift from his best friend.

His throat tightened unexpectedly. Because that was the thing people never seemed to understand about Shane Hollander.

The media talked endlessly about the goals, the trophies, the endorsements, and the records. They talked about the superstar captain who is the face of hockey.

Very few people ever talked about the man who remembered every birthday. 

The man who spent entire afternoons helping children build blanket forts.

The man who had shown up at the hospital every single time one of Hayden's children had been born.

Shane had been there for all of it.

Every single part.

And standing there looking at the newest stone on Jackie's bracelet only made Hayden angrier at Montreal than he already was. Because they hadn't simply pushed away a generational player.

They had pushed away his best friend and the man who loved Hayden's children as if they were his own nieces and nephew. The godfather who never forgot a single important moment in their lives.

It was then that he noticed Jackie smiling at him. It was not the easy smile she gave the children when they were being adorable. Nor the amused smile she reserved for Arthur when he managed to make a mess out of absolutely nothing.

This was the smile she gave Hayden whenever she noticed something was wrong, even when he tried to hide it. Unfortunately, Jackie had spent over a decade married to him, and there was very little she missed.

The moment Hayden stepped into the living room, she had seen it.

The anger, the frustration, and especially the exhaustion.

He tried his best to hide it for the twins. He always did. Ruby and Jade deserved a father who smiled when he came home, not one carrying the weight of an entire hockey season on his shoulders.

Apparently, Jackie wasn't fooled.

"Girls," she said gently, shifting Amber slightly against her chest. "Why don't you go upstairs and get ready for your bath?"

"But Papa just got home!"

"I know."

Ruby pouted and Jade immediately copied her sister's expression. Hayden almost laughed.

Twins.

God help him, they were exactly alike sometimes. 

"You can show me more of your drawings after dinner," he promised.

That seemed acceptable, because the girls exchanged a look before racing upstairs together, nearly knocking each other over in their hurry.

The second they disappeared around the corner, Jackie turned back toward him. And just like that, the smile disappeared.

"Don't you think it's time for a trade?"

Hayden blinked, startled by the sudden question. For a moment he genuinely thought he had misheard her.

"A trade?" Jackie nodded, and Hayden's confusion only grew. "You want me to ask for a trade?"

"I think you should consider it." The surprise must have shown on his face because Jackie immediately sighed. "Hayden..."

"I thought you wanted to stay here," the words came out before he could stop them. "You just had Amber. Everything is here. We have the house, and the girls finally started school."

"Exactly."

That wasn't the response he expected.

Jackie adjusted Amber slightly before continuing. "The girls only just started elementary school. They're six years old, Hayden. If we move now, they'll make new friends."

Her voice remained calm. It was practical and reasonable. It reminded Hayden of Shane at times. Did she pick up that trick from his best friend? Or was it the other way around? He could not remember. 

"If we wait another five years, that's would have been different. But right now?" She shrugged. "Children adapt."

Hayden stared at her.

Jackie stared right back.

"I don't think I can watch you do this anymore," she continued softly, 

Something painful tightened in his chest. "What?"

"You used to love going to the rink."

The words were said simply, so matter-of-factly. And somehow they hit harder than anything else she had said so far.

"You used to come home talking about games and practices and stupid locker room stories. You used to be excited."

Her eyes softened.

"But now you come home angry."

Hayden looked away, because she wasn't wrong.

God, she wasn't wrong.

"You deserve better than this."

"Jackie—"

"No."

The interruption was gentle but firm.

"I will not trade your happiness for stability."

The room fell quiet.

For a moment all Hayden could hear was Arthur pushing blocks across the floor. The sound seemed strangely loud.

"You can't be this unhappy for the next five years."

Something inside him finally cracked. 

God.

He loved this woman.

He loved her so much. Sometimes he genuinely had no idea what he had done to deserve her. 

With a sigh, Hayden lowered himself into the playpen beside Arthur. His son immediately shoved a wooden block into his hand as if assigning him an important construction project. Hayden accepted the responsibility.

"Montreal is..." He stopped.

Because he wasn't entirely sure how to explain it. Arthur handed him another block and Hayden took that one too.

"It's weird."

Jackie waited patiently for him to collect his thoughts.

"I never realized how toxic everything was until Shane left." The admission tasted awful. "He kept everyone in line."

Another block. 

Arthur was apparently building a castle. Or maybe a spaceship. With toddlers it was difficult to tell.

"The administration couldn't get away with half the things they're doing now because Shane would've shut it down."

Jackie nodded in agreement. There was a glint in her eyes that said she understood what Hayden meant. The Pikes knew perfectly well how stubborn a Shane in planner mode could be.

"And the players?"

Hayden laughed, but the sound contained absolutely no humor. "The players are worse."

He stacked another block.

"Half the locker room spent years smiling to Shane's face while complaining about him behind his back."

The words came easier now. Once he started, it became difficult to stop.

"Calling him arrogant and cold. Acting like he thought he was better than everyone else."

Another block.

Another.

"And then the second management pushed him out, suddenly everyone started talking about how he abandoned the team," his jaw tightened in irritation. "As if any of this was his fault."

The tower collapsed, and Arthur looked personally offended by the development. So, Hayden quickly started rebuilding it before his son started to cry.

"I am the worst fucking friend in the world."

"Hayden Pike," the warning was delivered immediately. "Swear jar."

Right.

Children.

He glanced at Arthur.

Luckily, his son was currently attempting to eat a block. Good parenting was apparently a full-time job.

"You are not a bad friend," Jackie shook her head.

"It feels like it."

"You know that's not true."

Hayden didn't answer, because part of him did know. The rational part. The problem was that guilt rarely listened to rational arguments.

Jackie seemed to understand that, so she continued in a more gentle tone. "Shane never needed rescuing."

That earned a reluctant laugh.

No.

No, he definitely didn't.

"If Shane needed help," Jackie continued, "he would've asked for it."

Which was true.

Terrifyingly true. Shane was many things, but subtle wasn't one of them. If he wanted something, he usually found a way to get it.

"And honestly?" she added. "The only opinions Shane has ever cared about are yours, his parents', and maybe Rose's."

Hayden snorted. "Maybe? Definitely Rose's. He worships the ground she walks on. Had he not been gay, I am sure he would have proposed by the end of the first week of meeting her."

"Okay, definitely Rose's," Jackie laughed in agreement. Then she tilted her head, thoughtful. "Why don't you call him?"

"Call Shane?" Hayden repeated incredulously.

"Why not?"

Because Shane was busy.

Because Shane had a new life in Boston.

Because Shane was probably helping Ilya raise Sofia while simultaneously preparing for his return to hockey and reorganizing half the Raiders franchise without anyone realizing it.

Jackie rolled her eyes. The fact that she somehow knew exactly what he was thinking after all these years should probably concern him.

"You need advice."

"Maybe."

"You need contacts."

"Definitely."

"Then call him."

The logic was annoyingly difficult to argue with. After all, Shane was the planner of the friendship. He was also the most well-connected hockey player Hayden has ever met.

"Maybe he could get you trade to the Raiders," the idea immediately brightened her expression. "The girls would love Boston and it would be nice to have Uncle Shane close again."

For a moment the possibility made him smile. Boston meant Shane and a fresh start. Then reality shattered his budding hope.

"Impossible."

"Why?" Jackie frowned.

"Because they barely managed to afford Shane," Hayden leaned back against the side of the playpen. "Three players had to retire just to create enough cap space."

And that wasn't even an exaggeration. The numbers simply didn't work, not for a contract like Hayden had with Montreal. He could get a pay cut, but he had four children to think about.

"So no," he said. "Boston is out."

"Then somewhere else."

"Maybe."

"Which is why you should call Shane."

Hayden smiled despite himself. Jackie had always been annoyingly efficient, just like his best friend. Should he be concerned over the fact that he surrounds himself with competent and objective oriented people? 

Nah, he was happy. Why should he create problems where there's none?

"You know," she said casually, "you're surprisingly bad at asking for help."

Hayden laughed, and this time the sound was genuine. For the first time in months, the future didn't seem quite so bleak.

Maybe Jackie was right.

Maybe it was time to make a phone call. 

Dinner ended up helping more than Hayden expected. For a little while, he managed to forget about hockey entirely.

Ruby and Jade spent most of the meal talking over one another while trying to explain their latest drawings, each insisting theirs was clearly the superior artistic achievement. Arthur contributed by throwing peas onto the floor whenever he believed nobody was looking, while Amber remained blissfully unaware of the chaos from her spot in Jackie's arms.

For perhaps the first time in weeks, Hayden found himself laughing. A full body laugh. Not the forced smiles he wore at practice or the carefully controlled expressions he gave reporters whenever they asked another question about the season.

After dinner came bath time, followed by the usual negotiations surrounding bedtime. Ruby wanted one story. Jade wanted three. Arthur wanted to stay awake forever despite the fact that he could barely keep his eyes open.

Eventually, all three children ended up piled around him while he sat on the edge of Ruby's bed with a book resting in his lap. Or rather, it started with a book resting in his lap, but the moment the girls saw the cover, they immediately objected.

"No."

Hayden blinked.

"No?"

Ruby crossed her arms. "We want Uncle Shane stories."

Jade nodded emphatically beside her sister. "Japanese ones."

Of course.

Of course they did.

The request sent an unexpected ache through his chest. Because he knew exactly where that tradition came from.

Yuna used to read those same stories to Shane when he had been a child. Then Shane, who adored Hayden's children with an intensity that occasionally bordered on concerning, had started reading them during sleepovers and babysitting nights.

Now the twins demanded them whenever possible. So Hayden set the book aside and began telling the story from memory.

A story about a fox spirit and a wandering samurai. A foolish lord who learned an important lesson.

The girls listened with wide eyes while Arthur slowly drifted asleep against Hayden's shoulder. By the time the story ended, all three children were asleep.

For several moments Hayden remained exactly where he was. Watching them and listening to their soft breathing.

Jackie was right, something had to change. Because Hayden no longer wanted to be angry.

Eventually he carried Arthur to his room before checking on the girls one final time. Then he headed downstairs, while Jackie was upstairs putting Amber to sleep.

The house had gone quiet.

For a few moments Hayden simply stared at his phone. Then he pulled up Shane's contact information, and pressed call.

The ringing lasted longer than expected.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

By the fourth ring, Hayden was beginning to realize this had been a terrible idea.

It was late.

Really late, and Boston was an hour ahead. Shane was probably asleep. Actually, no. Shane was definitely asleep.

Hayden was just reaching for the screen to hang up when the call connected.

"Hayden?"

The familiar voice immediately sent relief rushing through him. Then he heard another sound.

A small laugh.

A toddler's laugh.

Hayden froze.

Somewhere in the background, Sofia was apparently very awake. A complicated feeling crashed over him. Because the first emotion that he felt wasn't fondness.

It was jealousy.

The realization hit so suddenly that it almost made him feel sick.

Jealous.

God.

What kind of person felt jealous over something like that?

He might not like the Russian and he for sure questioned his best friend's taste in men, but nobody deserved what had happened to Ilya. 

Nobody deserved to lose their father, their brother, and effectively their entire family in a matter of days before suddenly finding themselves responsible for a toddler. And yet a small selfish part of Hayden still mourned the fact that Shane wasn't in Montreal anymore.

That he wasn't dropping by after practice, or sprawled across Hayden's couch while Ruby and Jade climbed all over him. That he wasn't reading bedtime stories in terrible dramatic voices, that his children somehow adored.

The feeling lasted only a second.

Maybe two.

Long enough to make Hayden hate himself for it.

Then Shane spoke again, without even bothering to say hello properly. "Hayden, why are you calling me so late? Did something happen? Are the girls okay?"

Hayden swallowed.

"Yeah."

"Arthur?"

"Fine."

"Jackie?"

"She's okay."

A pause. 

Then, softer:

"And you?"

That did it.

It broke him completely. Because Shane was still Shane. Thousands of miles away, living in another city, playing for another team, helping Ilya raise Sofia, and somehow his first instinct was still to ask about Hayden's family.

It wasn't as though Shane had disappeared from their lives. They talked constantly, not a day passed without a video call to the kids, he sent bithday presents anad care packages.

Shane remained present in every possible way. And yet Hayden had spent months feeling abandoned. Before he even understood what was happening, his vision blurred.

His throat tightened.

Then suddenly he was crying.

Not quietly either.

Years of frustration came pouring out all at once.

The missed playoffs.

The locker room.

The resentment.

The guilt.

The anger.

Everything.

For several moments he couldn't even speak. The only sound was his own breathing and the occasional sniffle he failed to suppress.

Through all of it, Shane never interrupted. He did not try to rush him, or fix it. He simply stayed on the line. Present, and patiently waiting.

The way he always had.

Because Shane understood something most people didn't. Sometimes people didn't need solutions. Sometimes they just needed someone willing to sit beside them while everything hurt. 

And Hayden knew with complete certainty that Shane would never judge him for this. He would never mock him, or tell him to get over it.

So he cried.

And for the first time in a very long time, he let himself stop pretending he was okay.

Shane had once told Hayden: "I am not a mind reader."

It had become one of his favorite phrases back when their friendship was in its fledgling state.

"Tell me what you need and I will help. Tell me what you want and I will try to make it happen. But I cannot fix a problem you refuse to tell me about."

So, that is what Hayden will do.

When he finally managed to stop crying, he wiped at his face and took a shaky breath. "I need to get out of here."

The words tasted bitter as they left his mouth. Across the line, Shane remained quiet, so Hayden continued.

"I can't do another season in Montreal," his voice cracked slightly. "I can't."

The confession hurt far more than he expected. Because Montreal had been home. He had built a life here, and for years he had honestly believed he would retire with that team. Now the thought of walking into that locker room made his stomach turn.

"I need a trade, Shane," the confession came easier now. "I need out."

He laughed bitterly.

"And before you say anything, I already know management would love to dump me in a second-rate team. Ottawa, or Buffalo. Somewhere they think I deserve for causing problems."

A pause.

Then another.

"They kind of hate me right now," Hayden stared at the floor. "They hate that I stood up for you." The words spilled out before he could stop them. "And I'm not saying that because I think you owe me something. Even if I end up getting traded to Buffalo tomorrow, I would still do it all over again."

His jaw tightened.

"What they did was bullshit."

The anger returned immediately, directed at management, at the executives who had decided Shane Hollander was expendable, at teammates who had quietly gone along with it, and most of all at himself for sitting there and watching it happen for far too long.

"They deserve to fucking rot."

For a moment there was silence.

Then Shane said, in the exact same tone he used every time one of Hayden's children swore in front of him: "Swear jar."

Hayden froze.

Then he burst out laughing. Some things will never change. It reassured him, more than it frustrated him. 

Somewhere in the background Sofia giggled too, apparently delighted by whatever was happening. When the giggles and laughter finally calmed down, Shane's tone softened slightly.

"Hayden."

There was something warm about the way he said his name. Something sincere and supportive. 

"I would never think that of you. I accepted being the godfather of your children because I know exactly what kind of man you are."

Hayden swallowed hard. 

"I know what kind of husband you are."

The knot in his throat tightened.

"I know what kind of father you are."

His eyes started burning again.

"And I know what kind of friend you are."

Shane paused.

Long enough for every word to settle. "I could not be prouder to call you my best friend."

For a moment Hayden couldn't speak. Because that wasn't how Shane usually expressed affection.

For years Hayden had watched teammates complain that Shane wasn't emotionally expressive enough, that he wasn't the type to shower people with reassurance or automatically know the perfect thing to say.

The thing was that those people never understood him. Because Shane showed his love through actions. Through plans and always showing up.

Through gifts and spreadsheets and late-night phone calls and impossible levels of reliability. Words of reassurance almost never happened. Which somehow made them mean more.

Hayden found himself staring at the wall as his vision blurred again. Apparently tonight was simply going to be one long emotional roller-coaster.

Fortunately, Shane seemed determined to rescue him from drowning in his own feelings. "You actually called at a good time."

Hayden let out a weak laugh.

"Did I?"

"Yes."

"I thought I was calling in the middle of the night."

"You are."

"Then why are you awake?"

"Sofia decided sleep is optional."

A tiny voice immediately protested something in the background, followed by what sounded suspiciously like a giggle. Hayden heard Shane laugh softly before continuing.

"You see, I've been working on something with Ilya."

That caught Hayden's attention. "What kind of something?"

"A foundation."

Hayden sat up a little straighter.

"A foundation?"

"Mm."

Shane shifted slightly, and Hayden could hear the rustle of movement from the other side of the call.

"Ilya and I, are still figuring out most of the details, but the goal is to organize hockey camps to rise money for charity. The earnings would go toward suicide prevention programs and community outreach."

There was a brief pause before he continued. "Scott Hunter has been helping with some of the planning. At least, he was last time I spoke to him."

That made sense. Hunter had always seem to be someone who cared deeply about that sort of thing. If Hayden remember correctly, Hunter lost his parents young and benefitted from one of those programs.

"Especially if we are also planning on helping out the LGBTQ community," Shane added. "He's been doing a lot of work in that area recently."

Hayden nodded despite the fact that Shane couldn't see him. "How's he doing?"

"Good. Apparently most of the Admirals were supportive when he came out."

Hayden immediately became suspicious when he heard the smirk on Shane's voice.

"Most?"

"Most."

Now Hayden was definitely suspicious. "What does that mean?"

"It means there are apparently a few idiots left."

Hayden barked out a laugh.

"A few idiots?"

"Scott's words, not mine."

"Sure."

"I'm serious."

"I know, buddy. You are physically incapable of calling someone an idiot. Yuna and David raised you too well."

Shane ignored his teasing, and continued speaking.

"Anyway, Scott informed me that there are still a handful of players who make their displeasure known," the dry tone made Hayden grin. "Not enough to cause problems, apparently. Just enough to remind everyone they're there."

There was a small pause, then Shane added, completely deadpan. "Which is why I am sure I can convince Scott to trade them all to Montreal."

For a second Hayden froze.

Then he nearly choked laughing.

"What?"

"I'm serious."

"No, you're not."

"I am."

"If we're going to collect all the league's homophobes and racists in one location, Montreal seems as good a place as any."

Hayden laughed so hard he nearly dropped the phone. "Oh my God."

By the time he finally calmed down, his chest hurt. "Well, unfortunately for your master plan, I don't think Montreal will be trading me to the Admirals any time soon."

There was a pause, before Shane hummed thoughtfully. "I don't know."

"Oh no."

"You'd look good in red."

"Shane," Hayden groaned.

"What? You'd look good in red, just ask Jackie."

"Shane."

"The kids would love New York."

"Shane."

"And I could find Jackie a nice brownstone in Brooklyn."

Hayden buried his face in his hand.

"There he is."

"Who?"

"Mr. Real Estate."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The innocence in Shane's voice would have been much more convincing if Hayden hadn't known him for almost ten years.

"You started house hunting for me in under thirty seconds."

"I simply said we could find a brownstone."

"You have already looked, haven't you?"

The silence that followed was answer enough. And Hayden started laughing again, because of course he had.

Of course Shane Hollander had somehow managed to turn Hayden's emotional breakdown into a hypothetical real estate search.

Somehow, impossibly, Hayden felt better than he had in months.

Chapter End Notes

I just wanted to explain one thing because one of the comments made me realize a point that I probably didn't communicate very well in the story.

This isn't meant to justify the outcome or tell anyone they're wrong for reading the situation the way they did, but I do want to explain why I made certain narrative choices.

I don't actually see Shane's departure as a heroic stand against racism, even if some characters in the story interpret it that way.

One of the points I wanted to make with Shane is that he isn't universally compassionate. He is incredibly devoted to the people he considers his own, but that devotion doesn't automatically extend to everyone else. Hayden, Ilya, and the people within his circle experience the best version of him. Others don't.

JJ being left behind was a deliberate choice because I wanted to show that limitation. Shane's decision wasn't based on a desire to help JJ or challenge the system on JJ's behalf. In fact, part of Shane's flaw is that he often doesn't engage with problems that don't directly affect the people he loves. His focus is narrow, and at times that can make him apathetic toward people outside that circle.

That doesn't mean JJ's situation isn't difficult or that the circumstances around him aren't important. It means that Shane, as a character, is not as altruistic as some readers or characters within the story might assume. The fact that he leaves JJ behind is meant to be uncomfortable, because it's one of the moments that highlights the limits of Shane's empathy rather than his virtues.

Chapter 5: Scott Hunter

Scott Hunter was happy.

It was a strange emotional state, if he was being honest. For years he had been in the closet and his every interaction with others was predominated with fear of being discovered.

Now he woke up every morning beside Kip and wondered if he could have had this little piece of heaven earlier if he had been braver.

His penthouse in the East Side finally felt like home. Kip was currently occupying most of the couch while pretending to watch television and stealing fries from Scott's plate whenever he thought nobody was paying attention. The Admirals had stood behind him, and most of his teammates had welcomed him without hesitation. 

Life was good.

Far from perfect, of course. Social media still contained plenty of people eager to explain why Scott Hunter had somehow destroyed professional hockey by being gay. A handful of players around the league remained determined to make their opinions known whenever possible. None of that surprised him. He had expected criticism long before he ever came out.

What surprised him was the support.

Current and former players reached out. Coaches, trainers, broadcasters, sponsors, and fans reached out. Messages arrived from people he had not spoken to in years. Some wanted to congratulate him, while others wanted to thank him. A few simply wanted him to know that he wasn't alone.

Most of the hockey world turned out to be far kinder than the loudest voices online wanted everyone to believe.

Not every locker room, unfortunately.

Toronto remained a disaster, and Montreal was hardly any better.

Scott had played long enough to recognize the difference between acceptance and tolerance. When people accepted you, they treated you the same way they always had. Tolerance felt different. Tolerance came with forced smiles, awkward silences, and the constant awareness that some people would have preferred you stay quiet.

Or worse, that you were not in their presence at all.

There were players on both teams who fell firmly into that category. And then there were others like Comeau, Drapeau, and Kent who made sure you knew how much they loathed you.

The funny thing was that two men Scott respected most in the NHL played for Montreal.

Shane Hollander and Hayden Pike.

Thinking about Shane immediately soured his mood.

What happened to him was complete bullshit. There was no prettier way to describe it.

The man had spent nearly a decade carrying that franchise on his back. He dragged them through rebuilding years, playoff runs, injuries, media disasters, sponsorship obligations, and every catastrophe management seemed determined to create for themselves. 

Whenever something went wrong, Shane fixed it. Whenever somebody needed an interview, he gave one. Whenever the organization needed a face, a spokesman, a captain, or a miracle worker, Shane showed up.

Then the moment he was the one who needed support, they pushed him out the door.

It was disgraceful.

Worse, it was stupid.

Because Shane Hollander was more than a generational player. He was one of the genuinely good people Scott had met through hockey.

The thought brought back memories of their first All-Star weekend together.

Shane had barely been old enough to drink in the United States. Every veteran expected another young superstar with a massive ego and an even bigger attitude. Instead they got this ridiculously polite kid who bowed when introducing himself, thanked equipment managers by name, and somehow managed to make grown men feel rude for forgetting their manners.

At one point Scott had become genuinely convinced the kid couldn't possibly be real. 

There had been that fight later, of course. Scott still winced whenever he thought about it. 

In his defense, he had behaved like an ass. Looking back, Scott could admit that most of the blame rested firmly on his shoulders. He had been missing Kip, after screwing things royally with his boyfriend, and he had taken it out on poor Shane.

The truly embarrassing part came afterwards, when Shane showed up prepared to apologize despite carrying far less responsibility for the argument than Scott did.

That was probably the moment Scott realized exactly what kind of person Shane was. Professional to a fault, and annoyingly decent.

So when the news broke that Montreal had effectively forced their captain out, Scott reached out to check on him. The conversation went in a completely different direction than expected.

Scott called prepared to offer support and somehow spent the first ten minutes being congratulated instead. Shane seemed far more interested in discussing Scott's decision to come out than talking about himself, offering sincere congratulations and asking thoughtful questions before eventually allowing the conversation to drift toward hockey.

Even then, Scott found very little bitterness.

Disappointment, certainly.

Frustration, probably.

But never anger.

Shane simply explained that Montreal was a business. Businesses made decisions. Some decisions worked, while others didn't. This one just happened to be spectacularly stupid.

What surprised Scott far more was how genuinely happy he sounded in Boston.

The explanation became clearer as the conversation continued. Somewhere between discussing moving cities, and adjusting to a new team, Shane casually mentioned helping Ilya Rosanov with daycare schedules, lawyer appointments, and Sofia.

Sofia.

Ilya's niece.

Or rather, daughter now.

Scott remembered staring at his phone for several seconds while trying to process the information.

Because apparently Shane Hollander and Ilya Rosanov had gone from bitter rivals spending a decade attempting to murder each other on the ice to roommates co-parenting a toddler.

As one does.

The entire situation sounded completely insane, like something straight out of one of those rom-coms Kip loved to watch. But the more Scott thought about it, however, the more it felt exactly like something Shane would do.

A child needed stability, Ilya needed help, and Shane just happened to be there. The equation practically solved itself.

Hayden's children adored him. There was a fucking #UncleShane which was ridiculously popular online. So, it should not be a surprise that Sofia adored him too. Scott was beginning to suspect that if hockey vanished tomorrow, Shane would somehow stumble into a second career working with children and become just as successful there.

The thought made him smile.

Because beneath the trophies, endorsements, records, and impossible expectations that came with being the face of professional hockey, Shane remained exactly who he had always been.

A man who showed up when people needed him, and who helped whenever he could. He was a man whose actions always spoke louder than his words.

For all the league liked to talk about sportsmanship, Scott could think of very few players who embodied it better than Shane Hollander. 

The man was practically co-parenting with his archival!

The funny thing was that during the last few months, Scott had spoken to Shane more often than he had during the previous decade combined.

That realization carried a surprising amount of guilt with it. Because the truth was that he had always liked Shane.

Maybe not in the way Hayden Pike liked Shane, with the kind of friendship that made people family, but enough that Scott genuinely enjoyed every interaction they had ever shared. Every All-Star Weekend. Every NHL Awards ceremony. Every charity event where players from different teams ended up trapped together for a few days.

Somehow, Scott and Shane always gravitated toward one another. Perhaps because neither of them had much patience for drama. Or perhaps because every time they ended up in the same room, they inevitably started doing shots.

A tradition Scott fondly recalled that had started during their first All-Star Weekend.

The point remained that there had always been a friendship there.

A casual one.

And looking back now, Scott couldn't help thinking that as the older player, he probably should have done a better job maintaining it.

At least they had the opportunity now.

Their conversations had started because Scott wanted to check on him after everything that happened in Montreal. They continued because talking to Shane was surprisingly easy. The younger man had never mastered small talk and could be so direct that some people mistook him for blunt, yet he had a way of making others feel comfortable. Even while possessing one of the most intimidating resting expressions in professional sports.

Over the months Scott learned quite a bit about Shane's new life in Boston.

Even though he still wasn't cleared to play games, he had been training with the Raiders regularly and, from everything Scott heard, the transition had gone far more smoothly than anyone had expected. The veterans respected him immediately, which surprised nobody, while the rookies seemed to have collectively adopted him.

According to Shane, they followed him around the practice facility asking questions about skating, conditioning, sponsorships, media interviews, nutrition, recovery routines, and apparently life in general.

Scott had laughed so hard he nearly dropped his phone the first time Shane complained about it. The image was simply too funny.

A group of twenty-year-old rookies trailing behind Shane Hollander like a flock of ducklings desperately trying to absorb decades of hockey knowledge.

What made it even funnier was the fact that Shane pretended to find the attention annoying. But Scott knew better.

Anyone who had spent enough time around Shane understood that he genuinely enjoyed teaching people. He liked helping. Whether it was younger teammates, Hayden's children, or apparently half the Raiders organization, Shane always found himself slipping naturally into a caretaker role.

Which was probably why he fit so seamlessly into his new life with Ilya and Sofia. Even now, months later, Scott still occasionally found himself shaking his head at that particular situation.

If somebody had told him two years ago that Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov would end up living together, raising a toddler together, and functioning like some strange co-parenting unit, Scott would have laughed them straight out of the room.

Yet somehow it worked.

Shane spoke about the little girl with the exact same affection he used whenever he talked about Hayden's children.

Outside of hockey, his schedule somehow seemed even busier than before. Sponsorship contracts continued rolling in, photo shoots filled entire weekends, commercial appearances occupied large portions of his off days, and despite all of that he still somehow found time to train, help with Sofia, and answer phone calls from friends scattered throughout the league.

Scott honestly had no idea how he managed it.

Then again, this was Shane Hollander. The man seemed physically incapable of sitting still. Which was precisely how the idea for starting a foundation came about.

One conversation about community outreach had turned into another discussion about youth programs, which somehow became an entire project involving charity hockey camps. 

The original concept belonged to Shane and Ilya. They wanted to organize training camps and events that would raise money for suicide prevention programs, youth support initiatives, and mental health resources.

The moment Scott heard about it, he wanted in. For years athletes spent endless hours talking about making a difference, talking about supporting communities, talking about using their platforms responsibly.

Scott had grown tired of talking.

Coming out had changed many things in his life. It had shown him exactly how much support existed throughout hockey, but it had also exposed the gaps that still remained. The overwhelming majority of players, coaches, executives, and fans had welcomed him with open arms. Others made their discomfort known through comments, awkward silences, or carefully chosen words.

And sometimes not so carefully chosen words.

It reminded him why visibility mattered, and why young athletes needed support.

If he was going to become one of the public faces of LGBTQ athletes in professional sports, he wanted that title to mean something. He wanted actions to back up the speeches. He wanted real resources and opportunities for kids struggling with the same fears he had once internalized.

So when Shane and Ilya opened the door, Scott walked straight through it.

The suicide prevention programs would remain a central focus. Those mattered deeply to both Shane and Ilya, and Scott fully agreed with their importance.

At the same time, he wanted the foundation to extend its reach toward LGBTQ youth programs as well. 

The more they discussed it, the more excited Scott became. For the first time in years, he felt like he was building something that would matter long after his hockey career ended.

Perhaps that was why Scott didn't hesitate when Shane finally called asking for a favor. 

In retrospect, he probably should have been suspicious. Shane was so aggressively self-sufficient that getting him to ask for help felt like trying to convince a mountain to move. During all the years Scott had known him, he could not remember a single occasion where Shane Hollander had outright asked him for something.

The man preferred solving his own problems. Which was why Scott had practically jumped at the opportunity.

The moment Shane called to explain that there was a situation involving Hayden Pike, Montreal, and a potential trade, Scott had already decided he was going to help before the conversation even finished.

Because Shane never asked.

And because somewhere along the way this casual friendship they had maintained for years had become real.

There was also a small and admittedly embarrassing part of Scott that felt ridiculously proud. After all, Shane Hollander could have called dozens of people.

General managers, executives, former teammates, hell, league officials would have jumped at the chance of lending a hand to the Golden Boy of hockey.

Instead, he had called Scott.

That favor ended with Scott sitting in his room trying very hard not to laugh while Shane calmly explained, over the phone, what was arguably one of the funniest trade proposals he had ever heard.

Apparently, there were a handful of Admirals players who had made their displeasure regarding Scott's sexuality known. The sort of men who made locker rooms smaller and less welcoming.

On the other side of the equation stood Hayden Pike, trapped in Montreal and growing more miserable by the day.

According to Shane, the solution was obvious. Trade the homophobes to Montreal, and bring Hayden to New York.

Problem solved.

Scott still remembered staring at his phone after hearing the proposal. "You can't be serious."

"I am serious."

"No, you're not."

"Believe me, I'm completely serious. I do not play when it involves my best friend."

The frightening thing was the steel behind Shane's tone. The even more frightening thing was that the proposal actually made sense.

The Admirals would gain a veteran defenseman, one of the most respected players in the league, a two-time Stanley Cup winner, and by all accounts one of the best locker-room presences hockey had to offer.

Montreal would receive players who clearly fit their current organizational culture considerably better.

Everybody won.

Well.

Almost everybody. Scott was fairly certain the players being shipped to Montreal weren't particularly thrilled about the arrangement.

A tragedy, truly.

The negotiations moved surprisingly quickly after that. Partly because the Admirals wanted Hayden, and partly because Montreal seemed eager to get rid of him after his increasingly public disagreements with management.

But mostly because hockey executives occasionally shared the emotional intelligence of concussed squirrels.

By the time the paperwork was finalized, Scott found himself wondering whether he had actually helped Shane accomplish something or whether Shane had somehow manipulated the entire situation into helping everybody else. Because the more he looked at the outcome, the more it felt like Shane had quietly solved multiple problems at once.

Hayden escaped a locker room that had become toxic, while the Admirals improved both on the ice and off it. Scott, especially, would no longer have to deal with a handful of players whose presence made the atmosphere noticeably worse.

And somehow Shane wasn't benefiting from any of it.

At least not directly.

The man had essentially used his one favor to improve the lives of two friends. Honestly, Scott should have expected it. It was annoyingly on brand for Shane.

That was how he found himself standing on a quiet Brooklyn street a few weeks later, a bottle of wine tucked beneath one arm while Kip stood beside him staring up at a beautiful brownstone that looked as though it belonged in one of those absurdly expensive real estate magazines Shane seemed addicted to.

The house was gorgeous.

Three stories, with large windows, and a small fenced front garden. Enough space for four children to run around without driving their parents completely insane.

Which, considering the Pike household contained Ruby, Jade, Arthur, and baby Amber, was probably a necessity.

The hilarious part, is that the entire property practically screamed Shane Hollander. Scott would have bet actual money that Shane was the one who had found the place for Hayden.

Probably within fifteen minutes. Possibly while helping Sofia color. Definitely while pretending he wasn't house hunting.

A smile pulled at his mouth.

Kip adjusted the bottle of wine in his hands before ringing the doorbell. Immediately erupted from somewhere inside the brownstone. 

There was the distant sound of running footsteps, a child's voice yelling something incomprehensible, another voice shouting back, and what sounded suspiciously like somebody dropping an entire box of toys.

Scott exchanged an amused look with Kip. Well, at least the Pike family appeared to be settling in. 

A few seconds later the front door swung open. But person standing there was neither Hayden nor Jackie.

It was Shane Hollander.

For a moment Scott simply stared.

Because Shane looked less like somebody attending a housewarming gathering and more like a military commander attempting to coordinate a battlefield.

A clipboard rested beneath one arm, several pages covered in notes were clipped neatly into place, and a pen was tucked behind one ear. Most concerning of all was the small frown settled between his eyebrows as he looked down at the papers before finally glancing up toward his unexpected visitors.

"What are you doing here?"

The question came with enough suspicion that Scott almost laughed. "Hello to you too."

"I did not schedule visitors."

Scott blinked.

"You scheduled visitors?"

"Of course," Shane looked genuinely confused by the question.

As though allowing people to arrive at a house unannounced was a concept completely beyond his comprehension.

His gaze immediately dropped back toward the clipboard. "I had breakfast scheduled, followed by unpacking, grocery delivery, and dinner."

A pause.

"There is currently no housewarming party scheduled."

Scott could feel Kip slowly moving behind him like a man attempting to use his boyfriend as a human shield.

Honestly?

Reasonable.

Scott had spent years lining up across from Shane at faceoffs, staring into those dark eyes as the younger man locked in on the puck. Even so, he occasionally forgot just how intimidating Shane could be whenever he became laser-focused on a task.

Apparently housewarming logistics activated the same terrifying instincts as playoff hockey. 

"We just... wanted to welcome Hayden and his family to New York?" Scott replied.

Shane raised a single eyebrow. The expression somehow conveyed enough skepticism to fill an entire paragraph.

"Is that a statement or a question?"

Scott opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Then glanced sideways toward Kip, who made a small squeaking noise that sounded alarmingly uncertain.

"Statement?" Scott finally offered.

The eyebrow remained raised for another second. 

Then Shane sighed. 

"Fine," he stepped aside. "Shoes off."

The command was delivered with the same tone most military officers probably used when issuing deployment orders.

Scott immediately obeyed.

So did Kip.

Some survival instincts transcended common sense.

The moment they stepped inside, the source of the chaos became obvious. The beautiful brownstone looked as though it had been invaded.

Boxes sat stacked near walls. Toys occupied approximately every available surface. Somewhere upstairs somebody was singing loudly and completely off-key.

Near the center of the living room stood Shane's latest victims. 

Hayden held Arthur against one hip while attempting to untangle what appeared to be a collection of superhero capes. Jackie sat nearby with Amber resting comfortably in her arms.

Scott and Kip had barely taken two steps into the room before another blur of motion appeared from upstairs. Two little girls came racing down the staircase at full speed.

Ruby and Jade.

Scott recognized them immediately from photographs.

The twins reached the bottom step, spotted Shane standing near the doorway, and stopped so abruptly that Scott genuinely feared one of them might fall over.

Instead, both girls straightened. Then simultaneously snapped perfect little salutes.

Scott froze.

Beside him, Kip made a choking sound.

"Mission completed, sir!" The twins spoke in unison.

The room fell silent, as Shane looked down at his clipboard. Shane looked completely serious, as though this was a perfectly normal interaction.

"Both missions?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Bedroom and bathroom?"

"Yes, sir!"

The pen immediately began moving across the paper, and Scott watched in horror as Shane apparently checked something off a list.

"Good work."

The twins visibly brightened.

"New mission," Shane continued, and both girls stood even straighter.

Scott could practically hear Hayden trying not to laugh.

"The toys currently occupying the living room floor need to be placed inside the toy box."

The twins saluted again.

"Yes, sir!"

Then they spun around and charged toward the toys with all the determination of elite military recruits.

For several seconds Scott simply watched, then he slowly turned toward Hayden. "Is this..."

He pointed toward Shane.

Then toward the children.

Then toward the clipboard.

"Is this Captain Shane in action?"

That got a reaction immediately. Jackie burst out laughing, and Hayden nearly dropped Arthur as he wheezed. Even Amber seemed suspiciously amused.

Only Shane remained focused on whatever organizational masterpiece existed on that clipboard.

Hayden finally managed to collect himself enough to walk over and offer a hug. "Hunter," he greeted cheerfully. "Thanks for coming to visit."

Scott returned the embrace. "I feel like I'm witnessing something I was never meant to see."

"You are," Hayden nodded solemnly. "The Pike family is a tightly run ship."

Scott glanced toward Shane, who was currently checking another item off the clipboard while Ruby and Jade sprinted across the room carrying toys.

"And the captain is Shane Hollander." Hayden's expression carried the sort of certainty that suggested there was a deeper meaning behind his words. "The only captain we'll ever have."

Without even looking up from the clipboard, Shane pointed his pen toward him. "And don't you forget it."

The room immediately dissolved into laughter. Every single person except Shane, who looked around with faint confusion, apparently unaware of what everyone found so funny. He had been entirely sincere.

By the time the last box had been unpacked, the final shelf assembled, and the endless mountain of children's toys organized into something resembling order, Scott had come to one undeniable conclusion.

Hayden had not been exaggerating.

The Pike household truly was run like a military operation. The terrifying part was that nobody seemed unhappy about it.

Quite the opposite.

Everyone appeared perfectly content.

The twins completed assignments with military precision. Arthur happily followed instructions whenever Shane redirected him away from whatever disaster he was attempting to create. Even Jackie somehow moved through the chaos with the calm confidence of someone who knew exactly how every part of the machine functioned.

And at the center of it all sat Shane Hollander. 

With a clipboard.

Scott still couldn't believe the clipboard.

Every so often Shane would glance down, cross something off, add a note, then assign a new task to whichever Pike child happened to be available. The girls accepted every mission with the seriousness of elite soldiers receiving classified orders.

At one point Ruby proudly announced that she had completed Toy Retrieval Operation Alpha. Shane had actually checked it off.

Scott nearly cried laughing, and even Kip, who had spent the first hour looking mildly terrified of Shane, eventually relaxed enough to join in.

By late afternoon, when Jackie announced dinner, Scott realized just how hungry he was. The smell alone had been torturing him for the last hour.

They gathered around the dining table together, children included, and Scott found himself staring at what looked like something straight out of a cooking magazine.

There was perfectly cooked Japanese rice, grilled salmon glazed with teriyaki sauce, and pickled vegetables arranged with almost suspicious neatness.

Everything looked healthy.

Painfully healthy.

The kind of meal that made Scott suddenly understand how Shane had managed to keep performing as though he were still in his prime despite approaching his thirties.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered while looking at the spread. "Do any of you eat food that's actually fun?"

Across the table, Shane calmly took a sip of ginger ale. "This is fun."

"No," Scott disagreed immediately. "This is nutrition."

Jackie chuckled, while Hayden looked entirely too accustomed to this conversation. Meanwhile the twins were already eating without complaint, which honestly felt suspicious. Children weren't supposed to willingly eat vegetables.

That had to be another one of Shane's projects.

Still.

The food was incredible.

Scott hated how incredible it was.

By the second helping, he had completely abandoned his earlier complaints, as conversation flowed easily throughout dinner.

The children talked excitedly about their new school while Jackie discussed the move. Kip somehow found himself listening to a detailed explanation from Ruby about why dinosaurs would make excellent hockey players. Meanwhile, Arthur was attempting to demonstrate something involving his spoon to his dad.

Then the conversation drifted toward hockey. Which, in hindsight, was probably the mistake.

"We've got a real shot this year," Scott said confidently while leaning back in his chair. "Who knows? Maybe the Admirals will join the Voyagers as one of the few teams to win back-to-back Stanley Cups."

Across the table, Shane slowly placed his ginger ale down. "Good luck with that."

Scott narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "What does that mean?"

"It means," Shane replied calmly, "that with Ilya and me on the same line, the Raiders are winning the Cup this year."

Silence.

Complete silence.

Even Arthur stopped making noise.

Hayden blinked.

Kip blinked.

Scott blinked.

Then Jackie frowned.

"Wait."

Her eyes widened in concern.

"You're playing? Shouldn't you still be recovering? Isn't that what the doctor told you?"

Now everyone at the table was staring at him. Shane looked around the table, before saying. "It seems that my doctor in Montreal was being overly cautious. The Raiderss doctor disagrees with my previous recovery timeline."

Scott didn't like how casual Shane sounded. 

Apparently Jackie shared that concern. "Shane."

"I'm serious," Shane assured her, the expression on his face remained completely calm. "The recommendation was to take things slowly during the regular season."

Scott still didn't like where this conversation was heading. "But?"

Shane smiled.

A small smile.

The kind that usually preceded disaster.

"But according to the Raiders' medical staff, I'm cleared for playoffs."

For a second nobody reacted.

Then the twins exploded.

"UNCLE SHANE IS PLAYING!"

Ruby nearly launched herself out of her chair, and Jade wasn't far behind. The girls immediately began cheering while Arthur copied them despite having absolutely no idea what was happening.

Jackie looked relieved.

Kip looked happy.

Even Hayden managed a smile.

Scott, meanwhile, felt his soul leave his body.

Slowly.

Painfully.

Across the table Hayden's smile was fading too. Their eyes met then, and the same horrifying realization appeared on both faces. Because unlike everyone else at the table, they fully understood what this meant.

Ilya Rosanov and Shane Hollander will be playing on the same team.

On the same line.

"Oh no," Scott whispered.

Hayden looked equally horrified. "Oh no."

The twins continued celebrating, while Jackie was congratulating Shane, and Kip kept smiling.

Nobody else seemed concerned.

Scott and Hayden exchanged another look. The kind soldiers probably exchanged before walking into battle.

Because the situation was suddenly very clear: the Admirals were fucked.

Hell, the entirety of the NHL was.

They were all completely screwed.

Chapter 6: A story about two rivals who became best friends

@cliffmarlow

[Photo]

—Cliff standing alone in the empty Boston Raiders arena after practice. His alternate captain's A is visible on his chest.

Text:

Some things matter more than letters on a jersey. I've been lucky enough to wear this A for a long time.

But when Shane Hollander finally gets back on the ice where he belongs, he'll be the one wearing it.

Because he's earned it.

The kid lost almost two years of hockey because of one hit. Most players don't come back from that.

Most players don't spend that recovery helping teammates, mentoring prospects, showing up every day, and somehow still making everybody around them better.

He does.

So this will be my last season as alternate captain. When Shane joins us, that A belongs to him.

Can't wait to have you in Boston, kid.

🖤💛🤍

#BostonRaiders #ShaneHollander

Comments:

@BostonSportsDaily

Well.

I wasn't expecting to cry today.

@goalieproblems

CLIFF 😭

Buddy you are the best!

@PuckTalkDaily

THIS MAN.

@MapleLeafOnIce

Boston really adopted Shane before he even put on the jersey.

@CanadiensNation

This is actually beautiful.

@oldschoolhockey

This is exactly who Cliff has always been.

A real stand up guy!

@rinkrat44

The fact that he's stepping aside voluntarily.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Meanwhile Shane is probably staring at this post in absolute panic.

@goalieproblems

100%.

@PuckTalkDaily

Shane Hollander:

"Please stop noticing me."

Boston:

"No."

@BostonSportsDaily

The funniest thing is that all this attention probably made him more uncomfortable than any playoff game.

@CanadiensNation

Someone check his blood pressure.

@oldschoolhockey

All jokes aside, losing almost two years is brutal.

@goalieproblems

Career-changing brutal.

@PuckTalkDaily

Which is why people are still angry.

@BostonSportsDaily

Because everyone remembers exactly what happened.

@MapleLeafOnIce

Yep.

@CanadiensNation

And everyone remembers who got hurt.

@oldschoolhockey

Let's be clear though.

Being angry is one thing.

The death threats people have been sending are another.

@goalieproblems

THANK YOU.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Seriously.

Some people have completely lost the plot.

@BostonSportsDaily

I've seen people acting like Cliff is a monster!

This is hockey! People get hurt all the time!

@MapleLeafOnIce

The amount of hate he's gotten is ridiculous.

I love Shane Hollander, but there should be a limit!

@CanadiensNation

Oh it got weird.

@goalieproblems

Some fans desperately need hobbies.

@oldschoolhockey

There is criticism.

Then there's sending threats to a guy because of a clean hit.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

The internet was a mistake.

@BostonSportsDaily

The funniest part is that Cliff was probably more worried about Shane than himself.

@PuckTalkDaily

That's the kind of person he is.

@MapleLeafOnIce

Honestly this post feels like him trying to calm everyone down.

@goalieproblems

And instead everyone is crying.

@BostonSportsDaily

Mission failed successfully.

@CanadiensNation

I won't lie.

Part of me is relieved seeing this.

@rinkrat44

Same.

@CanadiensNation

After some of the things people have been posting lately, it's nice seeing confirmation that Cliff and Shane are actually good.

@goalieproblems

Yeah.

Because some people have been inventing drama for months.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Internet:

"They hate each other."

Cliff:

"I'm literally giving him the captaincy."

@PuckTalkDaily

😭😭😭

@BostonSportsDaily

That has to be one of the funniest ways to end a rumor.

@MapleLeafOnIce

Nuclear-level rumor destruction.

@goalieproblems

Also can we talk about how terrifying it must be to receive some of those messages?

@oldschoolhockey

For real.

People joke about it, but if even a fraction of what I've seen is real, I'd be scared too.

@CanadiensNation

Same.

Nobody should have to open their phone and see that kind of stuff.

@BostonSportsDaily

Hopefully this post finally convinces people to knock it off.

@PuckTalkDaily

Probably won't.

But we can dream.

@goalieproblems

At least everyone can agree on one thing.

@MapleLeafOnIce

What's that?

@goalieproblems

Shane better come back healthy.

@CanadiensNation

Amen.

@oldschoolhockey

Amen.

@BostonSportsDaily

Amen.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

And when that first game happens?

@PuckTalkDaily

The arena is going to explode.

@MapleLeafOnIce

And Shane is going to look deeply uncomfortable during the standing ovation.

@goalieproblems

As is tradition.

@BostonRaiders

Start of training camp means learning from the best.

🎥 Rookie Skills Session with Shane Hollander

[video]

The clip opens with Shane standing at center ice wearing a practice jersey and helmet, stick tucked under one arm.

A group of rookie players are gathered around him.

Shane skates backward while demonstrating shooting mechanics.

"You're losing power here," he says, tapping one player's stick position. "You want the weight transfer first. Don't try to muscle it."

The rookie nods.

Shane immediately takes a puck, and one smooth movement later, the puck rockets into the top corner.

Several rookies simultaneously go: "Jesus Christ."

The camera shakes because whoever is filming starts laughing.

Cut.

Another clip.

A rookie misses wide, so Shane skates over. "Okay, what were you aiming at?"

"The net?"

"Clearly not."

The entire group bursts out laughing.

Cut.

Another clip.

Shane physically moves one player's shoulders. "Relax."

"I am relaxed."

"No, you're not."

The rookie starts laughing.

"Soften your grip."

The next shot goes bar down, and the entire group loses their minds.

Cut.

Final clip.

Practice is ending and players are skating toward the tunnel. Somehow six rookies have ended up surrounding Shane.

One asks a question.

Then another.

Then another.

Shane answers all of them while continuing toward the exit. The camera zooms out, showing that the rookies are literally following him in a line.

One after another.

Across the ice.

Like ducklings.

The social media admin completely loses composure.

Video ends with:

"🐥🐥🐥"

Comments:

@goalieproblems

THE DUCKLINGS 😭😭😭

@PuckTalkDaily

WHY ARE THEY FOLLOWING HIM LIKE THAT?!!!

@MapleLeafOnIce

NOBODY TOLD ME THE VIDEO ENDED WITH A WHOLE FLOCK.

@BostonSportsDaily

I am crying 😭😭😭

@coldcoffeeandchaos

The admin adding the duck emojis killed me.

@CanadiensNation

No because it genuinely looked like they imprinted on him.

@rinkrat44

One question.

Why is it all SIX OF THEM!

@goalieproblems

Because Shane answered one question and they sensed a safe adult.

@PuckTalkDaily

"Safe adult" 😭

@oldschoolhockey

Honestly though.

This is exactly why veterans love him.

@MapleLeafOnIce

You can tell he actually likes teaching.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

The rookie saying "I am relaxed" while visibly not relaxed.

@goalieproblems

My favorite part is him immediately roasting the guy who missed the net.

@PuckTalkDaily

"What were you aiming at?"

💀

@BostonSportsDaily

The delivery was perfect.

He was not even mean, just disappointed.

@rinkrat44

The rookie looked devastated.

@MapleLeafOnIce

And then immediately started laughing.

@oldschoolhockey

You can see why people keep talking about Shane mentoring prospects during recovery.

The rookies have already decided.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

The rookies saw one demonstration shot and immediately became followers.

@goalieproblems

Religious conversion through hockey.

@MapleLeafOnIce

The puck hit the corner and six careers changed direction.

@CanadiensNation

😭😭😭

@rinkrat44

Can we talk about the rookie saying "Jesus Christ."

@BostonSportsDaily

The most realistic part of the video.

@oldschoolhockey

Every hockey player has that reaction the first time they see an elite shot up close.

@PuckTalkDaily

It's always funny watching young players realize NHL-level skill is DIFFERENT.

@goalieproblems

You think you understand it.

Then you see it.

Then suddenly you don't.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

The funniest thing is that Shane doesn't even seem aware he's intimidating.

@MapleLeafOnIce

Meanwhile the rookies are treating every sentence like sacred wisdom.

@CanadiensNation

One of them looked like he was taking mental notes.

@BostonSportsDaily

He probably was.

@goalieproblems

No because the last shot genuinely looked like ducklings.

@PuckTalkDaily

I'm going back to watch it again.

@rinkrat44

Same.

@oldschoolhockey

The way they all matched his speed too.

@MapleLeafOnIce

And whenever he turned they all turned.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Mamma duck behavior.

@BostonSportsDaily

Papa duck.

@goalieproblems

Father.

@CanadiensNation

Single father of six rookies.

@PuckTalkDaily

Trying his best.

@MapleLeafOnIce

I believe Rozanov would disagree 😭😭😭

They are already co-parenting a kid, what is six more rookies? 😂

@BostonRaiders

we are never posting that clip again 😅

@goalieproblems

TOO LATE.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

It's already saved forever.

@CanadiensNation

-Future Hall of Fame career.

-Olympic medals.

-Records.

-Championships.

None of it matters.

@MapleLeafOnIce

He will now forever be remembered as the duckling guy.

@BostonSportsDaily

A legacy is a legacy.

@SportsIllustrated

FROM RIVALS TO FAMILY

How Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander unexpectedly became hockey's most wholesome story.

For years, hockey fans knew them as rivals.

One was the golden boy of Montreal.

The other was Boston's bad boy.

They spent a decade trying to beat each other. Now they're raising a little girl together.

Following the deaths of his father and older brother, Boston Raiders Captain Ilya Rozanov became the legal guardian of his niece, Sofia.

What began as a tragedy eventually became one of the most unexpected stories in professional sports. Because standing beside him every step of the way has been Shane Hollander.

Friends say Hollander immediately stepped in to help when Rozanov suddenly found himself balancing NHL hockey, grief, and parenthood overnight.

Today the three share a home in Boston.

And according to teammates, Sofia has completely taken over both of their lives.

[photos]

— Shane and Ilya walking through a grocery store in Boston. Sofia sits in the shopping cart seat wearing a tiny Raiders beanie while Shane studies the back of a cereal box and Ilya appears to be arguing about which brand to buy.

— A candid photo outside a children's clothing store. Ilya is holding several shopping bags while Shane crouches beside Sofia, showing her something in a store window.

— Sofia sitting in the penalty box after practice because she apparently wanted to see what it looked like. Shane is laughing too hard to stand while Ilya is unsuccessfully attempting to explain why this is not an appropriate playground.

— The three of them crossing a street downtown. Sofia is holding Shane's hand on one side and Ilya's on the other while carrying a stuffed teddy bear wearing a miniature #81 Raiders jersey.

— A fan-taken photo from a local café patio. Ilya drinks coffee while Sofia colors in a children's activity book. Across from them, Shane is helping her hold a hot chocolate without spilling it.

According to teammates, Hollander's experience as godfather to the Pike children made the transition easier.

"He already knew how to talk to kids," one teammate explains. He knows how to calm them down, how to entertain them, how to make them laugh."

What should have been a disaster somehow works. Does this co-parenting experiment mean they'll have the same kind of teamwork on the ice? Because we already saw them at the last All-Star Weekend, and they were terrifying.

One Raiders staff member recalls arriving at the arena one morning to find Sofia sitting in Shane's stall coloring while Rozanov reviewed game footage.

"It looked so domestically normal," he says. "That it ended up being weird."

Because that's what this became.

Normal.

The Hollander-Rozanov family.

One veteran Raider summed it up best:

"People always talk about what hockey takes away from you.Nobody talks enough about what it gives back." 

Comments:

@goalieproblems

I opened this expecting hockey.

Why am I crying.

@PuckTalkDaily

THE PENALTY BOX PHOTO 😭😭😭

@MapleLeafOnIce

"Sofia wanted to see what it looked like."

Honestly valid.

@BostonSportsDaily

The image of two professional athletes getting bullied by a little girl is sending me.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

The grocery photo.

THE GROCERY PHOTO.

@CanadiensNation

Ilya looks like he's negotiating a peace treaty with those cereal boxes.

@rinkrat44

Meanwhile Shane looks completely committed to get his way. Which most likely means some boring nutritional cereal instead of the superior Lucky Charms.

@goalieproblems

Shane has strong "girl dad" energy and nobody can convince me otherwise.

@oldschoolhockey

The children clothing store photo got me.

Look at those bags! 

What child needs Kenzo, Burberry, and Dior clothes?!

@PuckTalkDaily

SOFIA IS GOING TO BE THE BEST-DRESSED CHILD IN BOSTON IF ILYA HAS ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT 😭

@MapleLeafOnIce

You know they were competing about who chooses the best outfit 😂

@BostonSportsDaily

"Mine is cuter."

"No mine is."

@CanadiensNation

Meanwhile Sofia is wondering why she's being paparazzi'd.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

The café photo is incredible.

Sofia committing crimes against her coloring book, while Shane makes sure she does not spill her hot chocolate, and Ilya dissociating with coffee.

Perfect family portrait.

@goalieproblems

That coffee stare is every parent I've ever met.

@rinkrat44

The funniest part is that Ilya genuinely looks more stressed in a café than he does during playoffs.

@oldschoolhockey

Have you tried keeping a little girl entertained in a café? It is hard! 

@PuckTalkDaily

At least they did not hand her an IPad and called it a day.

@oldschoolhockey

Can we talk about the street photo?

@goalieproblems

That bear teddy is everything!

81! 🖤💛🤍

@PuckTalkDaily

-Professional athletes.

-Millions of dollars.

-International stars.

-Family of three.

Sorry, four! The teddy is clearly their second child 🧸 

@CanadiensNation

We all know that the Hollander-Rozanov household will be on fire if that teddy is ever lost 🤣🤣🤣

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Sofia: WHERE’S MY TEDDY BEAR?!

Shane: WE WILL FIND HIM.

Ilya: fuck it! Let's buy another one!

@BostonSportsDaily

Shane will treat the teddy bear rescue like Game 7.

@goalieproblems

Somewhere there's a stuffed bear that has no idea how loved it is.

@rinkrat44

The thing that gets me is that Shane didn't have to do any of this.

@oldschoolhockey

Exactly.

People keep focusing on the rivalry angle, but that's what stands out.

He didn't have to step in, he chose to.

@CanadiensNation

There's something really beautiful about that.

@MapleLeafOnIce

Especially because Sofia clearly adores both of them.

@goalieproblems

From the photos, it looked like she owns Shane.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

She absolutely does.

@BostonSportsDaily

Honestly?

She has both of them wrapped around her little finger.

@rinkrat44

And everyone knows it.

@oldschoolhockey

That's fatherhood, baby.

@MapleLeafOnIce

The real winner here is Sofia.

@CanadiensNation

Seriously.

After everything she's been through.

Look at her now.

@oldschoolhockey

Safe, loved, and happy.

That's what matters.

@BostonSportsDaily

One of my favorite sports stories ever.

@goalieproblems

Not because it's about hockey.

Because it's about people.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Okay who gave Sports Illustrated permission to emotionally devastate me on a Tuesday?

@rinkrat44

The fact that Ilya Rozanov somehow went from "league menace" to "family guy" remains one of the greatest character arcs in sports.

@BostonRaiders

We would like everyone to know that sofia has already seen this article and informed us that she is "the boss."

@PuckTalkDaily

I BELIEVE HER.

@MapleLeafOnIce

No further questions your honor.

@CanadiensNation

Case closed. Sofia wins. ❤️

@BostonFanMoments

Home opener moments ❤️

[video]

The video starts during warmups.

Players are circling the ice while the crowd slowly fills the arena.

In the front row sits Sofia Rozanov wearing an oversized ROZANOV #81 jersey that nearly reaches her knees.

Tucked under one arm is a teddy bear wearing a miniature matching jersey. Beside her is Shane Hollander in a Reebok hoodie and leather jacket.

The person filming is clearly focused on the ice at first.

Then Sofia starts talking

And talking.

And talking.

The camera immediately zooms in.

Nobody can hear what she's saying over the music and arena noise, but she's explaining something with the confidence of a head coach addressing the media.

At one point she lifts the teddy bear up between herself and Shane. Apparently the teddy bear is part of the conversation.

Shane nods seriously. So, Sofia continues. More hand gestures and explanations. The teddy bear gets involved again.

Shane points toward the ice and Sofia immediately shakes her head.

Wrong.

Shane laughs, then tries again. This time she nods approvingly.

The person filming can barely keep the camera steady, from how hard they were laughing.

A few moments later Sofia leans against his side while continuing her story. Without interrupting her, Shane pulls part of his jacket around her shoulders.

Neither of them seems to notice.

The video ends with Sofia holding the teddy bear toward the ice as warmups finish.

Caption:

I have no idea what they were discussing but Shane looked like he was receiving instructions.

#Hollander-RozanovFamily #UncleShane

Comments:

@goalieproblems

Uncle Shane is genuinely my favorite version of Shane.

@PuckTalkDaily

The way he listens to her like every word is important 😭

@MapleLeafOnIce

No because she was CLEARLY explaining something and he was locked in.

@BostonSportsDaily

The teddy bear being an active participant in the conversation killed me.

@CanadiensNation

I love that he got the answer wrong the first time.

@oldschoolhockey

The immediate correction from Sofia 😭

@coldcoffeeandchaos

You just know she talks his ear off constantly.

@rinkrat44

The automatic jacket adjustment got me.

He didn't even stop listening.

@goalieproblems

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

That man is going to be an incredible dad someday.

@PuckTalkDaily

Honestly?

He already acts like one half the time.

@BostonSportsDaily

The rivalry between Hollander and Rozanov gave us years of entertainment.

But their friendship is somehow even better.

@MapleLeafOnIce

Nobody could have predicted this timeline.

@CanadiensNation

Ten years ago they were trying to murder each other on the ice.

Now they're sharing childcare duties and teddy bear updates.

@oldschoolhockey

Character development.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

I still can't believe these are the same people.

@rinkrat44

Cute video but can we please stop posting Sofia's face everywhere?

@goalieproblems

Yeah, agreed.

The moment is adorable, but she's also a kid.

@PuckTalkDaily

Exactly.

Keep the wholesome stories, but leave the kid some privacy.

@BostonSportsDaily

I second this ☝️

@MapleLeafOnIce

Anyway Uncle Shane remains undefeated.

@CanadiensNation

Sofia definitely runs that household and nobody can convince me otherwise.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Not a chance she doesn't.

@goalieproblems

The teddy bear probably has voting rights too 😂

@TMZ SPORTS

DID THE VOYAGERS TRADE AWAY THEIR FRANCHISE?

Shane Hollander's playoff return is coming... and it's wearing a Raiders jersey.

When the Montreal Voyagers traded Shane Hollander after his devastating injury, the move was defended as a necessary business decision.

The timeline was uncertain and recovery was expected to take well over a year.

Many insiders believed Hollander might miss not only the remainder of the season but potentially significant time beyond that.

Montreal chose to move on.

Boston took the gamble.

Now that gamble is looking very, very smart.

Sources around the league indicate Hollander's recovery has progressed significantly ahead of schedule, putting him on track for a return during the playoffs.

The catch?

He won't be returning in a Voyagers jersey, he'll be returning as a Raider.

And suddenly a question nobody in Montreal wants to answer is becoming impossible to ignore: Did the Voyagers just trade away the face of their franchise?

The numbers are uncomfortable.

Before his injury, Hollander was consistently one of the team's most impactful players, driving offense, controlling possession, and acting as the emotional heartbeat of the locker room.

Fans called him the soul of the organization. While his teammates called him standard, and management called him expendable.

Since the trade, the Voyagers have struggled to find consistency while Boston continued to be one of the league's most dangerous teams.

Now add a healthy Shane Hollander to a roster already built around Captain Ilya Rozanov and suddenly the Raiders look terrifying.

That's making the situation even worse for Montreal is the growing perception that Hollander may have been carrying more of the franchise than people realized.

For years, whenever the Voyagers stumbled, Hollander found a way to drag them back into relevance.

Big games.

Big moments.

Big performances.

Again and again.

At the time, many fans assumed that was simply what good players did. But now they're asking a different question.

Was Montreal ever actually great?

Or was Shane Hollander simply making them look great?

Because one organization gave up on him.

The other welcomed him with open arms.

And if Hollander skates onto the ice during the playoffs wearing black and gold while Montreal watches from home...

The answer might become impossible to ignore.

Comments:

@BostonSportsDaily

This article is going to start a war.

@goalieproblems

"While his teammates called him standard, and management called him expendable."

OH THAT IS NASTY 😭

@RaidersNation

The worst part is that none of it is wrong.

A first one for TMZ! 👏

@PuckTalkDaily

Montreal fans currently typing essays.

@CanadiensNation

As a Montreal fan?

I am not reading this for my own mental health.

@oldschoolhockey

The real nightmare scenario is Boston making a deep playoff run with Shane returning.

@rinkrat44

Imagine being a Voyagers executive watching that happen.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Imagine him scoring against Montreal.

@MapleLeafOnIce

Stop.

I physically felt that.

@BruinsGuy77

No because if he scores against Montreal the internet may actually explode.

@HockeyHistory

People forget how much of that team's identity was built around him.

@goalieproblems

Exactly.

You can replace production, but you can't replace culture.

@PuckTalkDaily

The article is asking the question everyone's been asking for months.

@RaidersNation

Boston immediately treated him like family.

Meanwhile Montreal treated him like shit.

@BostonSportsDaily

The funniest thing is that Shane isn't even saying anything.

@MapleLeafOnIce

HE DOESN'T HAVE TO.

THAT'S THE PROBLEM.

@goalieproblems

He's literally just recovering, while everyone else is fighting the war for him.

@BruinsGuy77

Shane's biggest contribution to the discourse lately has been teaching rookies how to shoot.

@RaidersNation

And accidentally adopting half the locker room.

@PuckTalkDaily

The duckling video changed lives.

@BostonSportsDaily

Not the ducklings 😭

I had forgotten about that!

@oldschoolhockey

How could you forget about that?!

I still can't get over the fact that rookies were literally following him around the rink.

@CanadiensNation

That video genuinely made Montreal fans more depressed.

I can verify that 😢

@goalieproblems

Leadership isn't something you can put on a spreadsheet.

@MapleLeafOnIce

THIS.

@HockeyHistory

The uncomfortable truth is that franchises often realize someone's value only after they're gone.

@BruinsGuy77

And if Boston wins the Cup with Shane Hollander on the roster?

@RaidersNation

Montreal fans are going to need government-funded therapy.

@PuckTalkDaily

The comments under this article are somehow less brutal than Twitter.

@goalieproblems

Twitter is currently calling this:

"The Worst Trade Since Selling The Family Farm."

@BostonSportsDaily

💀💀💀

@CanadiensNation

I hate that that's funny.

@oldschoolhockey

At this point the only thing that can save Montreal fans is Shane not returning this season.

@RaidersNation

Every recovery update makes that look less likely.

@MapleLeafOnIce

Imagine the camera panning to him stepping onto the ice for Game 1.

@goalieproblems

Stop writing playoff trailers in my head.

@BruinsGuy77

No because the crowd would lose its mind.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Meanwhile somewhere in Montreal an executive is staring at the ceiling wondering where it all went wrong.

@PuckTalkDaily

The answer is: "when they traded Shane Hollander."

@RaidersNation

And that's why this article has 200,000 views in two hours 😭

HOLLANOV FAN CLUB BLOG

Posted by @LuluLives

I Am Once Again Asking Everyone To Explain To Me How This Is NOT A Family

Before anyone starts:

Yes, I know they were rivals for years.

Yes, I know they're now friends.

Yes, I know Sofia is Ilya's daughter.

I am aware of all of these facts.

However.

I would like to present the following evidence:

[photos]

— A blurry cellphone photo from a public park. Sofia runs several feet ahead while Shane and Ilya follow behind. Shane is carrying her discarded jacket over one shoulder while Ilya holds an ice cream cone she apparently no longer wanted.

— A picture taken after a Raiders home game. Sofia sits on the boards near the bench wearing oversized hearing protection and a Rozanov jersey while Shane and Ilya stand beside her talking to fans.

— A fan photo from a bookstore. Shane is sitting cross-legged in the children's section reading aloud from a Japanese picture book while Ilya stands nearby pretending not to be involved despite clearly listening too.

— Outside a farmer's market. Sofia is sitting on Shane's shoulders while Ilya carries bags full of groceries. Both men look exhausted. Sofia looks delighted.

— A winter photo from Boston Common. Sofia is bundled in enough layers to resemble a small marshmallow while Shane and Ilya attempt to help her skate on a public rink.

Look.

I am not saying anything.

I am simply observing that these photos have the exact energy of:

Dad.

Other dad.

Daughter.

And every time one of them gets photographed doing something ridiculously domestic, it gets harder to argue otherwise.

At this point they don't even look like two professional hockey players. They look like exhausted parents trying to survive a weekend.

Comments:

@HollanovDefenseSquad

The farmer's market picture ended me.

That is not the body language of two men casually hanging out.

That is the body language of people who forgot half the grocery list and are trying to remember it.

@Captain81

The bookstore photo is my Roman Empire.

Why is Shane reading children's books in Japanese?

Why is Ilya pretending he isn't listening?

Why does Sofia look enchanted?

Since FUCKING when is Shane good at storytelling?

@LuluLives

It must be all the training with the Pike children!

@PucksAndFeelings

I know this is a fan club and all but some of you are absolutely projecting 😭

They're raising a kid together as friends.

Friends can do that.

@MarshmallowSofia

Counterpoint:

The winter skating photo.

Explain the winter skating photo.

I'll wait.

@BlueLineBeliever

I swear half this fandom sees two men standing within six feet of each other and starts planning a wedding.

@LuluLives

Normally I would agree.

But then I saw Shane teaching Sofia Japanese words.

@MarshmallowSofia

EXACTLY.

THANK YOU.

@PucksAndFeelings

That proves literally nothing 😭

@HollanovDefenseSquad

It proves EVERYTHING.

@RivalsToRoommates

My favorite thing is that none of these pictures are explicit.

Nobody is kissing, or holding hands.

They're just doing grocery shopping and somehow it looks more intimate than half the relationships in sports media.

@CoffeeAndCrossovers

The park photo is insane because Sofia is running at full speed and neither of them look concerned.

That's veteran parent confidence.

@BenchMinorMoments

Not parent confidence.

Parent exhaustion.

Different category.

@Captain81

The funniest part is remembering these two used to spend entire games trying to murder each other.

@BlueLineBeliever

This remains the wildest part.

Ten years of rivalry, and now they're buying strawberries together.

@RinksideChaos

Sports journalists:

"They have developed a strong friendship."

The photos:

A family of three searching for applesauce.

@PucksAndFeelings

I am begging this fanbase to calm down.

@LuluLives

No.

@MarshmallowSofia

No.

@HollanovDefenseSquad

No.

@RivalsToRoommates

Absolutely not.

@BeanTownHockey

I don't even ship them.

I just think Sofia clearly adores Shane and that's genuinely sweet.

@CoffeeAndCrossovers

Same.

The bookstore photo especially.

She's completely relaxed with him.

@Captain81

And Shane always looks so patient with her.

Which is hilarious considering he spends hockey games threatening grown men.

@BlueLineBeliever

The duality of man.

@BeanTownHockey

The public rink photo is still my favorite.

Two future Hall-of-Famers worth of skating talent combined and they're losing to a kid.

@MarshmallowSofia

Sofia falling: 😄

Shane panicking: 😰

Ilya panicking: 😰

@RivalsToRoommates

The child has figured out she can emotionally control two professional athletes.

@Captain81

As she should.

@LuluLives

Anyway.

My official position remains unchanged.

I don't know what they are.

I only know that every new candid photo somehow makes them look even more like a family.

And honestly?

That's my favorite plot twist in hockey. ❤️🏒

Chapter 7: Coach LeClaire

Coach LeClaire was having a very good day.

In fact, he was having such a good day that he had spent the better part of ten minutes staring at the practice whiteboard while mentally planning a Stanley Cup parade route through downtown Boston.

Which was premature.

Probably irresponsible.

Definitely something ownership would prefer he not admit out loud. But Coach LeClaire did not particularly care.

Because after months of waiting, endless medical updates, cautious recovery schedules, and enough restrictions to drive everyone involved insane, the Raiders' medical staff had finally given him the answer he had been hoping for.

Shane Hollander was cleared.

The first playoff game was only weeks away, and for the first time all season, LeClaire would have the lineup he had dreamed about ever since management somehow pulled off the impossible and brought Shane to Boston.

More importantly, he would finally get to unleash Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov on the same line.

The thought alone was enough to make him grin. 

LeClaire had watched last year's All-Star Game like every other coach in the league. He remembered exactly what happened the moment those two played together.

The rest of the All-Stars looked helpless.

For nearly a decade Shane and Ilya had spent every season trying to destroy one another. Then they were placed on the same side and promptly demonstrated that they fit together with terrifying precision. The passing had been effortless, the positioning flawless, and the creativity almost unfair. Every shift looked like two grandmasters playing chess against people who had only just learned the rules.

Now he had that.

For an entire fucking playoff run. And if everything went according to plan, the Stanley Cup was coming back to Boston.

LeClaire was so absorbed in those pleasant thoughts that he barely noticed half the roster moving across the practice facility.

A sudden wave of movement caught his attention, followed by several players abandoning whatever conversation they had been having and heading toward the same destination with suspicious urgency.

The snack table.

Of course.

A smile tugged at his mouth. The snack table had truly become a phenomenon.

It had started innocently enough several months ago when Shane first joined team practices. At the time he was allowed to skate, train, and participate in most drills, but the moment practice became too physical, the medical staff would immediately pull him out. Most players would have spent those stretches sulking on the bench or taking advantage of the free time.

Shane apparently responded to boredom by deciding the entire Raiders organization needed better eating habits.

At first he brought a few protein shakes.

Then came fruit.

Then came healthy snacks.

Somewhere along the way a folding table near the locker room transformed into what looked suspiciously like a miniature nutrition center.

Containers of roasted edamame sat beside bowls of mixed nuts and dried fruit. Individually wrapped onigiri filled entire trays, some stuffed with grilled salmon, others with chicken or tuna. 

There were roasted seaweed snacks, hard-boiled eggs, yogurt drinks, protein smoothies, electrolyte beverages, and enough varieties of tea to open a small café. Things LeClaire had never heard of before Shane arrived.

Naturally, every item came with nutritional information neatly displayed beside it. Because of course it did, this was Shane Hollander.

The truly ridiculous part was that it worked.

The first week, most of the players only touched the food because Ilya Rozanov stood behind Shane with his arms crossed and the expression of a man prepared to personally fight anyone who rejected his roommate's efforts.

LeClaire still remembered watching Cliff Marleau reluctantly accept an onigiri while looking like he had just received a court summons.

Months later the situation had completely reversed. Now the players were obsessed. If one day passed without the snack table, the entire locker room would have a meltdown.

Sergei Dovonchezky had somehow developed strong opinions regarding different matcha blends. St-Simon openly admitted that he craved salmon rice triangles after workouts. Meanwhile, Hammersmith had once spent fifteen minutes arguing that roasted seaweed was a superior snack to potato chips.

LeClaire still wasn't sure how Shane had managed that particular miracle.

The funniest part remained the contrast between his two best players. Shane would politely explain nutritional benefits while arranging food containers. Then Ilya would stand behind him with crossed arms, like an enforcer standing behind his prince, making it abundantly clear that refusing was not an option.

Together they somehow formed the world's most intimidating health campaign.

The coach was still chuckling to himself when he noticed Cliff reaching the table first. Immediately, three other players rushed to get in his way.

"Move."

"No."

"I was here first."

"You absolutely weren't."

"I literally was."

"You came from the opposite side of the rink."

Nearby, Koslov narrowed his eyes at Sergei. "Why do you have three protein shakes?"

"I have two," Sergei looked offended.

"You have three."

"I don't."

"The third one is behind your back."

A brief silence followed. Then St-Simon casually walked past and stole the hidden shake. The resulting outrage could probably be heard from another zip code.

LeClaire rubbed his forehead.

Professional athletes.

Elite competitors.

Some of the best hockey players in the world, and they were arguing over protein shakes.

His attention shifted toward the far end of the table where Hammersmith was staring into an empty container with genuine despair.

"No."

The defenseman looked devastated.

"No, no, no."

Every nearby player immediately turned.

"What happened?"

"The seaweed snacks are gone."

A collective gasp spread through the room. Someone muttered a curse, while another player actually looked offended.

"The sesame ones?"

"All of them."

The horror was immediate.

"We have playoffs next week."

"And no seaweed."

"This is a disaster!" 

LeClaire closed his eyes and prayed for patience.

Three months ago these men survived almost entirely on energy drinks and takeout. Now they were holding a group mourning session for roasted seaweed.

The locker room doors opened before the discussion could escalate any further. Silence immediately descended as every head turned toward the entrance.

Shane walked inside carrying two grocery bags. Behind him came Ilya.

The reaction was instantaneous.

"HOLLANDER!"

"THANK GOD!"

"THE SEAWEED IS GONE!"

"We need reinforcements!"

Shane stopped.

Looked at the players.

Looked at the snack table.

Then looked at LeClaire.

"What happened?"

LeClaire pointed toward Hammersmith. "It is a seaweed situation."

Understanding immediately crossed Shane's face. "Oh."

The players surged forward. Not aggressively, but desperate. Like survivors spotting a rescue helicopter.

Shane instinctively stepped backward.

"Guys."

Nobody listened.

"Guys."

Still nothing.

Beside him, Ilya let out a long sigh that carried the exhaustion of a man who had clearly dealt with this problem before.

Then he crossed his arms, and like a magic trick, it worked. Every player immediately stopped moving and looked down like a group of scolded puppies.

LeClaire had never fully understood how Rozanov managed it. The Russian rarely raised his voice and almost never threatened anyone. He simply possessed the ability to look disappointed in a way that made grown adults reconsider their life choices.

Satisfied, Ilya nodded toward the table. "Let him unpack."

The players obediently retreated.

Shane blinked once, before looking up at his roommate. "Thank you."

Ilya shrugged lazily, as though controlling twenty professional athletes with a single look was a completely normal skill.

LeClaire bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing.

There it was again. 

The deadly combination of polite Canadian and terrifying Russian. A partnership that somehow worked far better than anyone could have predicted.

While Shane began restocking the table, immediately drawing a crowd of grateful players, LeClaire leaned back against the boards and allowed himself another smile.

Somewhere, he supposed, there was probably an opposing coach studying game footage and trying to come up with a strategy for dealing with the Hollander-Rozanov duo.

LeClaire almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

The crowd around the snack table descended immediately after Shane finished unpacking.

Within seconds, containers of onigiri, seaweed snacks, protein bars, and fruit cups were disappearing at an alarming rate. Sergei was already arguing with Koslov about whether taking four rice triangles constituted greed, Cliff had somehow acquired two matcha protein shakes without anybody noticing, and Hammersmith looked positively emotional after discovering that the missing roasted seaweed had, in fact, been replaced.

The entire scene looked ridiculous, like something straight out of a comedy movie. Even more ridiculous was the fact that Shane seemed completely nonchalant about it.

While the players happily raided the table, he simply continued arranging containers, occasionally answering questions about ingredients or nutritional values whenever someone asked. There was a relaxed quality to his movements that immediately caught LeClaire's attention.

Not careless. Shane Hollander was never careless. But comfortable and at ease. The sort of quiet confidence that appeared whenever he felt everything was under control.

Which was why the contrast standing beside him felt so noticeable.

Ilya looked tense.

Not visibly enough for most people to notice. The Russian was too disciplined for that. His posture remained straight, his expression remained neutral, and every outward sign suggested nothing was wrong.

But LeClaire had coached the boy since he was eighteen.

There was a stiffness in the man's shoulders that hadn't been there yesterday. His jaw looked tighter than usual. Every so often his gaze drifted toward Shane before immediately returning somewhere else.

It wasn't much. Just enough to make LeClaire file the observation away for later. But later became now, when he caught movement near the locker room.

Connors.

The young forward had been attempting what could only be described as a tactical retreat. Unfortunately for him, he made eye contact with the coach halfway through.

Connors froze.

LeClaire pointed toward the hallway.

Outside.

Now.

The rookie sighed but followed his coach's silent order, trudging forward like a condemned man marching to his execution.

LeClaire followed.

The moment the door closed behind them, Connors turned around. "Are you part witch?"

"What?" LeClaire could only stare at his rookie with a deadpan. 

"I'm serious!" Connors pointed accusingly. "How do you always know when something's going on?"

"Connors," the coach sighed, folding his arms.

"No, really."

"I'm a coach."

"That's not an answer!" 

"I've been coaching the Raiders for over twenty years."

Connor opened his mouth, but LeClaire kept going.

"I've dealt with rookie drama, veteran drama, contract drama, playoff drama, family drama, divorce drama, and one particularly memorable incident involving a goat."

The younger player looked confused. "There was a goat?"

"We're not talking about the goat."

Connors looked disappointed.

"The point is that after two decades, you develop instincts."

"A sixth sense?"

"A survival mechanism."

That seemed to satisfy him.

Somewhat.

Connors still looked nervous, though, and now that they were standing alone, LeClaire could see the restless energy bouncing beneath the surface.

"Okay," the coach said. "Spill."

Connors immediately looked away.

Then sighed.

Then sighed again.

Then rubbed a hand over his face.

"I was coming back from the equipment room."

LeClaire waited.

"And I noticed Shane and Ilya were in one of the meeting rooms."

Another pause.

"So I figured I'd go say hi."

Still waiting.

"And maybe help carry stuff," LeClaire raised an eyebrow, and Connors shifted under the scrutiny. "Okay, maybe I just wanted to call dibs because I knew Shane was bringing snacks again."

"Connors."

"Right," the younger man visibly gathered himself. "I heard them arguing."

That got LeClaire's attention. Not because arguments were unusual, after all locker rooms were full of arguments. What made him pause was the fact that Connors looked genuinely disturbed.

"They weren't just disagreeing?"

"No," Connors shook his head. "They were full on fighting." 

For the first time since leaving the practice rink, LeClaire felt concern prick at the back of his mind.

"Shouting?"

Connors nodded and his expression tightened. "And Ilya kept switching languages."

That wasn't good.

Every player who spent enough time around Rozanov eventually learned the signs. The more emotional he became, the thicker his accent got. If things escalated far enough, Russian started slipping into conversations whether anyone understood him or not.

"I heard English."

Connors counted on his fingers.

"Then Russian."

Another finger.

"Then more English."

Another finger.

"Then more Russian."

LeClaire winced slightly. Well, that had certainly turned into an emotional blowout.

"And Shane?"

Connors actually looked more confused at that question. "That's the weird part."

"Weirder than Russian yelling?"

"Much weirder," the rookie leaned closer. "I think Shane was muttering in Japanese."

LeClaire blinked.

"What?"

"I didn't even know he spoke Japanese."

"His mother is Japanese."

Connors just stared.

"Seriously?"

"Connors, the snack table is full of Japanese food and drinks!"

"What? Nobody told me that."

LeClaire rubbed his forehead. He knew hockey players weren't always the brightest people in the world, but surely there had to be a limit.

The conversation rapidly derailed after that.

"I've heard him speak French before," Connors continued. "A little. Sometimes with reporters or on the phone."

He just kept on babbling nervously.

"But Japanese? Never. I didn't even know he could get angry enough to switch languages."

"Connors."

"And honestly that scared me more than Ilya yelling."

"Connors."

"Because Ilya yelling is normal. Well, not normal, but it happens and I've gotten used to it."

"Connors."

The rookie finally stopped.

And silence fell between them.

LeClaire waited until he was sure the babbling had ended.

Then he spoke. "You think something's wrong."

"Yeah," Connors nodded with no hesitation.

He looked genuine concerned, and LeClaire understood it.

The entire Raiders locker room had spent months watching the strangest friendship in hockey develop right in front of them.

For years Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov had been rivals. Not casual rivals either. The kind of rivals whose names became permanently linked together by the media.

Then Shane arrived in Boston and somehow everything changed. The two men trained together.

Raised Sofia together.

Spent so much time together that half the team had started referring to them as a package deal. If somebody saw Shane, Ilya was usually nearby. If somebody saw Ilya, Shane wasn't far away.

They disagreed plenty. Everyone did.

But actual shouting?

That was unusual.

Very unusual.

LeClaire sighed. Then he reached out and squeezed Connors' shoulder. "Take a breath."

The younger player blinked.

"What?"

"I said take a breath."

Connors obeyed, and took a deep breath.

Good kid.

"Now go back inside."

"What about—"

"Go eat something."

"Coach..." the rookie looked unconvinced.

"Connors."

"They were definitely fighting..."

"And if they were, I'll handle it."

The certainty in his voice seemed to help.

A little.

Still worried, but noticeably calmer, Connors finally nodded. "Okay."

"Good."

"And Coach?"

"Yes?"

"If they're getting divorced, I don't want to get caught in the custody battle."

LeClaire stared at the retreating back of Connors blankly. Kids. Every year they somehow got stranger.

For a moment he remained where he was, considering everything Connors had told him. None of it sounded particularly encouraging. Eventually he pushed away from the wall and headed back toward the practice facility.

Because apparently resolving whatever crisis existed between the two most important players on his roster had just become part of today's coaching responsibilities.

At this point, LeClaire was beginning to suspect the Stanley Cup might actually be easier to manage.

After the snack break, the team returned to the ice in considerably better spirits. The energy level around the rink seemed to double the moment practice resumed, fueled partly by playoff anticipation and partly by whatever magic Shane managed to work through rice crackers, protein shakes, and enough matcha to supply an entire café.

More importantly, this was the first full-contact practice Shane would participate in since joining the Raiders.

For months LeClaire had watched him train from the sidelines during contact drills, skating through systems and conditioning work while the coaching staff carefully followed every recommendation from the medical team. Those restrictions had finally disappeared, and judging from the expression on Shane's face when practice resumed, he had been waiting for this day for a very long time.

The rest of the team quickly discovered that a healthy Shane Hollander remained an absolute nightmare to play against.

Cross-checking drills turned into an exercise in frustration. Players would line him up along the boards only to find empty ice waiting for them. Gaps vanished before defenders could close them. Passing lanes that looked sealed one moment somehow opened again the next. 

Several Raiders ended up chasing him in circles while Shane calmly continued moving the puck exactly where he wanted it to go.

LeClaire spent most of the session fighting the urge to laugh.

Years of coaching had taught him to appreciate talent, but there was something uniquely entertaining about watching elite professional athletes become visibly annoyed because another elite professional athlete was making them look silly.

Only one player seemed capable of consistently matching Shane's pace.

Ilya Rozanov.

That, however, created an entirely different problem.

At first LeClaire couldn't quite put his finger on what felt off about their drills. The timing looked right. The positioning looked right. The effort certainly looked right.

Then he noticed the hesitation.

It appeared most clearly whenever Shane and Ilya battled for the puck. Ilya was one of the few players in the league strong enough to match Shane physically, and under normal circumstances he never hesitated to use that advantage. 

Yet now there was always a moment of restraint. He could have finished the check, could have driven harder into the boards, could have turned the battle into the kind of bruising contest he used against everyone else. 

Instead, he eased off. Not enough for anyone to accuse him of taking it easy, but enough for LeClaire to notice. Ilya wasn't worried about losing the puck battle. He was worried about aggravating an injury Shane had only recently recovered from.

Unfortunately, Shane noticed it too.

The change in his mood became impossible to miss as practice continued. Earlier that morning he had been relaxed, discussing snack inventory with Sergei and patiently explaining the difference between three varieties of Japanese tea to a deeply confused Hammersmith. Now frustration seemed to settle deeper into his posture with every training drill.

His skating became more aggressive, and his responses grew shorter.

Several times LeClaire caught him deliberately driving toward traffic instead of skating around it, almost as if he was daring Ilya to treat him like every other player on the roster.

Each time, Ilya pulled back.

And each time, Shane became visibly more irritated.

By the end of practice the tension between them practically radiated across the ice. LeClaire lasted exactly thirty seconds after the final whistle before deciding he had seen enough.

The rest of the team headed toward the locker room. Shane and Ilya found themselves intercepted before either could escape.

"My office. Now."

Neither argued.

That alone told him the situation was serious.

A short time later LeClaire sat behind his desk while the two players occupied the chairs across from him. The sight almost broke his concentration.

The image was absurd.

Shane sat with his arms folded across his chest while Ilya stared stubbornly toward the opposite wall. Together they looked remarkably similar to a pair of teenage boys hauled into a principal's office after getting caught doing something they absolutely should not have been doing.

For one disastrous second LeClaire's imagination supplied a supply closet and a very different explanation for the tension.

He immediately shoved the thought aside. Twenty years of coaching professional hockey should have prepared him for many situations.

This was not one of them.

Once he trusted himself not to laugh, he folded his hands on the desk. "Connors told me he overheard an argument earlier."

Neither man spoke.

"He seemed concerned. Which means I'm concerned." His gaze shifted between them. "So somebody is going to tell me what's going on."

The silence stretched for several seconds before Shane finally broke it. "Why don't you ask Rozanov?"

The surname landed heavily inside the office. LeClaire's eyebrows rose, and across the desk, Ilya visibly winced.

Since arriving in Boston, Shane had referred to him as Ilya almost exclusively. Sometimes there were nicknames. Occasionally there were Japanese words LeClaire couldn't pronounce. Hearing him use Rozanov felt strangely formal, like watching somebody draw a line in the sand.

Ilya rubbed a hand across his face before letting out a frustrated huff. "I am concerned about his health."

The words came out sharper than usual. His Russian accent thicker. "The doctor in Montreal told him to rest for a year. They didn't make that recommendation for no reason."

His attention shifted toward Shane.

"Now everybody suddenly decides playoffs are more important?" The irritation in his voice continued building. "Because the Raiders want Stanley Cup, somehow everything changes?"

LeClaire raised a hand before the Russian could continue.

"Enough."

Ilya fell silent immediately.

The coach leaned forward with a stern frown. "I understand exactly why you're worried. Anybody who cares about Shane would be nervous watching him return after an injury like that."

His voice remained calm, though a harder edge entered it as he continued. "However, I won't sit here and listen you question the integrity of my medical staff."

The room feel into a tense silence.

"Every doctor working for this organization cares about the players. They care about their health and their careers. They care about making sure these men can walk away from hockey someday with their bodies intact."

Ilya opened his mouth, but LeClaire kept going.

"The evaluations here were actually far more optimistic than the ones he received in Montreal. Several doctors believed Shane could have returned during the regular season."

That finally got the Russian's full attention.

"We still waited," LeClaire gestured toward Shane. "We monitored his recovery and followed every recommendation. We took our time because there was absolutely no reason to rush him back."

His expression softened slightly.

"Nobody here is risking a player's future for a playoff run. Certainly not Shane's."

Across the desk, Shane slowly lifted a hand and pointed directly at LeClaire. The gesture was small, completely silent, and somehow managed to be unbearably smug all at once. 

LeClaire stared at him in disbelief. He had never seen Shane behave so unprofessionally. Then again, it would be Ilya who managed to bring out this side of him.

When Shane pointed again, the meaning became impossible to miss.

See? I was right.

For a brief moment LeClaire thought Ilya might actually throw something at him. Instead the Russian groaned and buried his face in his hands while Shane sat back looking entirely too pleased with himself.

The coach finally gave up and laughed.

After the meeting in LeClaire's office, things gradually settled back into place.

The argument disappeared, though LeClaire strongly suspected it had never truly been about hockey in the first place. It had been about concern, stubbornness, and two men who cared far too much about one another while possessing wildly different methods of expressing it.

Whatever remained unresolved stayed between them. As far as the team was concerned, Shane and Ilya returned to functioning exactly as they always had.

Actually, better.

Once Ilya finally accepted that Shane had been medically cleared by every doctor Boston could throw at him, he stopped treating him like fragile glass and started treating him like Shane Hollander again.

The difference showed up immediately. Ilya stopped holding back. Board battles became harder, cross-checks sharper, and every loose puck turned into a vicious contest. 

Shane seemed delighted by the change.

Several times during practice LeClaire caught the familiar competitive grin appearing on his face whenever Ilya drove him into the boards or fought him for position in front of the net.

Meanwhile, Ilya looked considerably less stressed now that he wasn't spending every training drill worrying about accidentally breaking his roommate.

The result was exactly what LeClaire had hoped for.

Both players elevated one another, and the rest of the Raiders quickly found themselves caught in the middle of an arms race between two superstars determined to push each other higher.

By the time the first playoff game arrived, LeClaire felt more confident than he had at any point during the regular season. The fact that the opening game took place at home only made the occasion sweeter.

The atmosphere inside the arena felt electric long before puck drop. Fans packed every section of the building, filling the stands with a sea of black and gold. Playoff towels spun through the air, as music thundered through the speakers, and every camera seemed focused on the ice.

LeClaire stood near the bench watching warmups when the arena presentation crew finally played the video.

A tribute.

One loudly declaring that Boston had fully adopted Shane Hollander as one of their own.

The giant screen hanging above center ice lit up with highlights from throughout his career. Goals and assists gave way to Stanley Cup celebrations, Olympic memories, and All-Star appearances. There were clips from community events, footage of him signing autographs for children, and moments from his time at the Raiders' training camp.

Even the fucking duckling video made an appearance.

The entire arena rose to its feet as one, and the roar that followed rolled through the building like a wave. LeClaire had witnessed standing ovations before; every coach who stayed in the league long enough eventually did. This felt different. 

There was a weight behind the applause, this was something larger than a routine show of appreciation.

"HOLLANDER!"

Thousands of voices.

"HOLLANDER!"

Louder.

"HOLLANDER!"

The chant spread across every section until it seemed to shake the arena itself. And LeClaire found himself smiling despite years of experience teaching him to remain professional during these moments.

The kid deserved it.

God knew he deserved it.

His attention drifted toward the crowd, and he immediately noticed something that nearly made him laugh.

Hollander jerseys.

Everywhere.

Rows and rows of them. Far more than he expected. Enough that he was fairly certain there were actually more Hollander jerseys in the crowd than Rozanov ones.

It amused him immensely. Especially when he glanced toward Ilya, and the Russian appeared completely unbothered.

If anything, he looked so fucking proud.

The giant screen shifted toward the players standing near center ice, and the crowd's reaction somehow became even louder.

Shane stood between Cliff Marleau and Ilya Rozanov. Ilya had draped an arm over his shoulders, and Cliff had done exactly the same from the other side.

The result left Shane trapped between them like the filling in a particularly expensive hockey sandwich.

The arena exploded.

LeClaire actually heard laughter mixed with the cheering.

Above them, the massive screen displayed all three players together.

Cliff was grinning, while Ilya looked smug. Shane, for his part, wore an expression that suggested he was trying to decide whether this counted as affection or harassment.

The crowd absolutely loved it. Phones appeared throughout the arena as fans scrambled to capture the moment. Somewhere behind the bench, somebody started chanting Hollander again.

Another section joined in.

Then another.

Soon the entire building was roaring again.

LeClaire shook his head. 

Half a year ago, Montreal had practically shoved their captain out the door. Tonight an entire city was welcoming him home.

As the chants continued to echo throughout the arena, Shane unsuccessfully tried to escape the grip of his two enormous teammates. The coach smiled before glancing across the ice at the DC Defenders.

A perfectly respectable hockey team.

A playoff-caliber hockey team.

A team that had spent the last several days preparing for the Raiders.

Unfortunately for them, they were about to discover what happened when Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov shared a line.

LeClaire almost felt sorry for them.

Almost.

Chapter 8: Yuna Hollander

People often said Shane took after her.

Yuna had heard it for years. Reporters said it. Neighbors said it. Teachers used to say it when he was younger. Even distant relatives who only saw him a few times a year seemed convinced that Shane had inherited her determination, as well as her planning and discipline.

It always made her smile. Because the truth was that Shane was much more like David.

Yuna supposed people missed it because David never attracted attention the way Shane did. Her husband had never been loud, or sought recognition. He preferred spreadsheets to conversations, books to parties, and quiet evenings at home to almost anything else. People saw Shane's achievements and assumed they came from ambition. But Yuna knew better. What drove Shane was the same thing that drove David.

Obsession.

Not the frightening kind people imagined when they heard the word. David's obsessions had always been gentle things. They simply consumed his attention so completely that the rest of the world faded into the background.

Before Yuna, there had only been numbers.

David could spend hours staring at financial models and emerge happier than most people returned from vacations. He loved patterns, probabilities, systems, and equations. Numbers made sense to him in a way people often didn't.

Then he met Yuna.

And suddenly there were two things.

Looking back, she probably should have been alarmed by the intensity of it. Plenty of women would have run in the opposite direction after realizing a man had centered his entire universe around them.

Yuna never could.

Because David's love never felt suffocating. It felt safe.

There was a gentleness to him that made everything easier. He remembered every little detail she mentioned. He listened when she spoke, and paid attention in ways that made her feel seen. 

When she worried about fitting in, about being a Japanese immigrant in a country that constantly reminded her she was different, David somehow made those fears seem smaller.

He treated her like she was the most important person in the world. Perhaps because, in his eyes, she was.

She never doubted his loyalty, nor his affection. She never wondered if another woman could take her place.

David loved with a kind of certainty that left very little room for insecurity.

When Shane was born, however, Yuna discovered that she was capable of worrying. At night, she wondered if David only agreed to have a child because she wanted one. She worried that eventually the novelty would fade and David would retreat back into his comfortable little world.

The concerns lasted exactly three weeks. Then David became obsessed with Shane.

Yuna still remembered waking up in the middle of the night and finding her husband sitting beside the crib simply watching their son sleep. He had looked completely fascinated, as though someone had handed him the most important project in human history.

From that moment forward, Shane joined the very small collection of things David obsessed over: Numbers, Yuna, and Shane.

The entire list fit comfortably on one hand. And their little family became David's whole world.

Yuna had been happy inside that world.

Very happy.

Perhaps that was why her next concern also revolved around Shane. A mother's job, it seemed, was finding new reasons to worry.

As Shane grew older, Yuna began noticing similarities between father and son that nobody else seemed to see. 

The obsession with hockey was the obvious one.

Yuna noticed how completely Shane committed himself to things he cared about. She noticed the way his attention narrowed until everything else disappeared. She noticed how easily he could set aside subjects that failed to capture his interest.

The same way David could spend six hours discussing market trends and completely forget someone's birthday.

The same way David could ignore an entire room while listening to Yuna speak.

The same way David's world naturally shrank around the people and things he loved.

For a while, Yuna wondered if she should be concerned. Perhaps it was hypocritical. After all, she had never minded David's small world.

She liked being the center of it. As selfish as it sounded, she enjoyed being loved with that kind of certainty.

But Shane was her son. Motherhood had changed the way she saw everything.

She wondered whether his obsessions would limit him. Whether his tendency to focus so intensely would eventually cost him opportunities or relationships.

The concern faded slowly over the years.

Partly because hockey gave Shane purpose. Mostly because Shane possessed the same fundamentally kind heart as his father.

Whenever Yuna worried he might become cold, he surprised her with compassion; when she feared he cared too little, he showed up for someone who needed him; and when she worried his world might become too small, he somehow kept finding room for more people.

Shane remained polite and respectful. At times he could be strangely apathetic toward things that seemed deeply important to others. Yuna recognized that trait immediately because she had spent decades married to a man exactly the same way.

Yet that indifference rarely extended toward people who truly mattered. And perhaps that was enough.

The world already demanded too much from Shane. Being half Japanese meant he spent his entire life navigating a world that wasn't always welcoming to people who looked like him.

Hockey had never been particularly welcoming to anyone who was different. Racism and homophobia lingered just beneath the surface, no matter how much people pretended otherwise. Yuna had lived long enough to recognize that truth for what it was.

A softer heart would have been crushed. Shane's ability to keep a certain emotional distance had protected him more than once.

So she stopped worrying.

She watched him become the face of professional hockey, carrying expectations that would have broken many older men. He endured criticism, scrutiny, injuries, and impossible pressure, and through it all he remained Shane—good, kind, and steady.

Then something unexpected happened.

His world started growing.

First with Hayden.

Then Jackie.

Then the children.

For years Yuna quietly observed the way Shane integrated himself into the Pike family until he became something far more permanent than a friend.

An uncle.

A brother.

Family.

That development eased many of her concerns. David's world had always remained beautifully small. However, Shane's world kept expanding.

Perhaps he inherited that from her. Or perhaps it was simply who Shane was.

Yuna still wasn't entirely sure.

What she was sure of was that she had always been proud of Shane.

Perhaps every mother said that about her child, but Yuna felt she had earned the right. She had watched him grow from a stubborn little boy who refused to leave the ice until somebody physically carried him away into one of the greatest hockey players in the world. Along the way he became something else too, something far bigger than goals, championships, and records.

For an entire generation of Asian children, Shane Hollander became proof that they could make it too.

Shane never intentionally sought that role. It was quite the opposite in reality.

The funny thing about her son was that he never cared much about being a symbol. He cared about hockey, and everything else existed around that fact. Sponsorships, interviews, public appearances—they all mattered only insofar as they were attached to hockey.

If somebody stripped away every camera, endorsement, article, and award, Shane would still happily spend eight hours at a rink. Hockey itself had always been the center of everything.

Yet despite that, he always made time for the children, for interviews about diversity, and for speaking with young Asian athletes. He always showed up, and Yuna knew exactly why. Not because he enjoyed it, but because she did—because he knew how much those things mattered to her.

As a young immigrant, Yuna had spent years feeling conspicuous in ways she could never fully explain to people who had never experienced it. There was a loneliness that came from constantly being reminded that you were different. Sometimes it appeared in the form of stares, or in comments people believed were harmless. Sometimes in opportunities that somehow seemed easier for everybody else.

Shane understood how hard it had been for her, and how much this meant for her. So, he showed up for those children.

Again and again.

It still warmed her heart.

Whatever obsessive tendencies he inherited from David, whatever strange way his mind categorized the world, none of it changed the fact that he was a genuinely kind man.

That didn’t stop her from fearing for her son’s life the moment Montreal kicked him off the team.

For most of his life, hockey had occupied the center of everything, giving structure to his days, purpose to his decisions, and direction to his future.

Watching Montreal rip that away left Yuna lying awake more than once, staring at the ceiling while wondering how her son would react. The thoughts took her to dark places more than once.

Places no mother enjoyed visiting.

By the time Yuna finally stepped back and examined the situation honestly, she found herself laughing.

Of course.

Of course this was what had happened. This had been part of her son's plan all along. Shane Hollander had simply found another obsession.

Or perhaps another two.

Sofia occupied one corner of his heart.

Ilya occupied the other.

Perhaps another mother would have panicked. After all, Ilya Rozanov possessed a reputation that frighten most parents.

He was intimidating, aggressive, and stubborn. Plus, he was a well-known playboy. Entire highlight reels existed solely because he hit people hard enough to knock their teeth.

Then again, Yuna remembered what people said about David when she first introduced him to her family.

She remembered relatives warning her that his intensity was strange. That the way he focused on things was unusual. And that he cared too little about the opinions of others.

They weren't entirely wrong.

David was unusual.

So was Shane.

And Yuna loved them anyway. More importantly, she understood something many people missed.

Once a Hollander decided somebody belonged in their life, the discussion was effectively over. David had pursued Yuna with the same relentless certainty Shane approached life.

The target simply happened to be a six-foot-four Russian hockey player this time.

Once Sofia entered the picture, any concerns Yuna had were forgotten. And what a novel experience it was to be a grandmother.

Technically, Sofia belonged to Ilya.

Yet, the little girl had wrapped herself around the entire family before anybody realized what was happening.

Yuna certainly wasn't complaining.

Meanwhile, life continued moving forward.

Shane settled into Boston, his relationship with Ilya flourished, and Sofia became the center of their household.

Yuna kept a quiet eye on public perception. She manipulated social media carefully, shaping the narrative in small, controlled steps to make the transition easier for everyone involved. 

With Farrah’s help, the shift from rivals to friends to co-parents was easy to sell. When the relationship eventually became public, most people would react with amused acceptance rather than surprise. 

"Of course they were together."

"Looking back, the signs seemed obvious."

The internet would then spend weeks compiling old interviews, photographs, and clips as though they were uncovering some grand mystery.

Yuna found the entire thing deeply entertaining. Especially because she knew how carefully those breadcrumbs would have been placed.

A smoother transition protected everyone involved. Most importantly, it prevented a wave of nonsense from entering the discord. Like conspiracy theorists, claiming that Ilya and Shane were throwing games all along.

Exactly as intended.

If Montreal suffered a few public relations disasters somewhere along the way, Yuna found it difficult to feel particularly guilty.

Shane genuinely didn't care.

The organization occupied so little space in his thoughts these days that she occasionally wondered if he remembered they existed. His attention remained fixed firmly on Boston, Sofia, Ilya, and the future he was building.

Yuna's feelings were slightly less charitable. Her early years as an immigrant had left her with a strong dislike for bullies. So, if her son was not going to take revenge on the team that used him, it was her duty as mother to step up.

And step up she did. Not only for Shane, but for JJ as well.

JJ hadn’t made it into the small circle of people Shane was obsessed over, and because of that, he had never gone out of his way to help him.

Yuna wondered if he ever thought about JJ anymore—or if, in his mind, JJ had simply become just another Montreal player.

But that was the thing—JJ was never just another Montreal player. He was one of only two players of color on a predominantly white team, and now that Shane was gone, he was the only one left.

So, when JJ's situation started deteriorating, Yuna stepped up.

JJ might have had different circumstances and challenges from her, but the underlying problem was painfully familiar.

Too many talented people spent their lives in environments that told them, quietly and constantly, that they didn’t belong. Whenever possible, Yuna preferred opening doors.

A conversation here.

A recommendation there.

An introduction at the right moment.

Small interventions often changed lives, and in this case JJ eventually found himself traded to the LA Kings. 

Yuna hoped he would find a better life in Los Angeles than the one he had in Montreal.

She never expected to solve every problem, but after everything she had achieved, after every opportunity she had been given, standing by while others struggled felt wrong.

So she helped where she could. Quietly and without drawing attention to herself, much like Shane.

The thought brought another smile to her lips.

For years she insisted that Shane took after David, but every now and then Yuna caught glimpses of herself in him too.

The desire to protect people.

The habit of planning three steps ahead.

The willingness to move mountains for those he loved.

Perhaps that was why she found herself worrying less these days. Her son was happy—truly happy. He had people he loved, and people who loved him in return, a daughter who adored him, and a future he was building exactly the way he wanted.

And if that future happened to include a stubborn Russian hockey player and an energetic little girl who had completely stolen the family's heart, Yuna could only count that as a blessing.

After all, life had a funny way of rewarding obsession.

She should know.

It had given her David.

And eventually, it had given Shane the same kind of happiness.

As the playoffs progressed, the Boston Raiders tore through the league exactly the way everyone had feared they would.

Yuna watched every game from home.

The rest of the hockey world spoke endlessly about talent, coaching systems, chemistry, and momentum. Analysts filled television segments discussing line combinations and defensive structures. Commentators debated whether Boston's success came from Ilya Rozanov's physical dominance or Shane's playmaking.

The Raiders marched through round after round, leaving frustrated opponents behind them. Every series seemed to end the same way. Teams entered believing they had found a weakness, believing they had discovered a solution for containing Boston's first line, only to spend the next several games learning that containing Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov at the same time bordered on impossible.

The Admirals gave them the hardest fight.

Scott Hunter's team pushed Boston farther than anyone else. The games were faster and meaner. Every victory felt earned, even if the outcome never truly felt in doubt.

Eventually the Raiders claimed the Eastern Conference and earned their place in the Stanley Cup Finals against the LA Kings.

Yuna was watching the celebration from her living room.

Teammates poured onto the ice, as coaches hugged players, and equipment staff celebrated alongside everyone else. The cameras chased the chaos from every angle while thousands of fans screamed themselves hoarse.

But her attention never left Shane.

It rarely did.

Hayden Pike reached him first.

Yuna smiled as she watched Hayden wrap Shane in a fierce hug. He might have lost, but he was still celebrating Shane’s win. He was a good friend.

Both of them laughing as years of friendship and shared victories condensed into a single moment. It lasted perhaps three seconds before another figure appeared.

Ilya.

The Russian inserted himself between them with absolutely zero shame, hooked an arm around Shane's shoulders, and physically pulled him away.

Hayden looked offended, while.Shane was deeply amused. The crowd, though, loved it.

Yuna stared at the television and, after a moment, sighed. For perhaps the first time in years, she was worried about someone else than Shane.

"David."

Her husband looked up from his book.

"Yes?"

"We need to go to Boston."

David considered this for all of three seconds, before saying: "All right."

That was the end of the discussion. It always was. Yuna could count with one hand the number of times David had told her no.

Twenty-four hours later they were on a plane. Another few hours after that, they found themselves seated in Ilya and Shane's Boston home.

At the kitchen, David was teaching Sofia how to make pancakes, or at least attempting to. Sofia helped in the way only small children could help, which meant flour had somehow reached every available surface, while beside her Ilya looked equally uncertain yet strangely invested in the process.

It seems that her husband's world has expanded once more, adding two more people to his obsession list: Numbers, Yuna, Shane, Sofia, and Ilya.

Yuna watched for a moment before shifting her attention toward her son, who sat across from her. Neither of them spoke. They simply observed one another as the silence stretched between them.

Eventually Yuna spoke up. Japanese flowed naturally from her tongue, a private conversation that belonged only to them.

"Does Ilya know?"

Shane's eyes lifted from his cup.

Most people would have acted confused, stalling for time, or innocently asked what she meant.

Her son skipped both steps.

"Does he need to?"

Yuna studied him. There it was again—that same certainty, unchanged and unshaken, resting behind every word. 

Slowly, she shook her head. "Do you think he would leave if he knew?"

The question hung between them.

Shane leaned back and smiled, a small smile that carried something almost too calm. "Mom," he said quietly, "do you mind Dad?"

For a moment Yuna couldn't answer, because the truth was obvious.

She never had.

She had known exactly what she was stepping into, and she had stayed anyway.

Ilya deserves the same courtesy. To know what he was walking into by choosing to stay with her son.

"I will tell him."

It wasn’t a threat, but a statement. She didn’t even think Shane would argue.

As if to prove her right, he held her gaze for several seconds before shrugging. The reaction carried all the indifference of someone discussing tomorrow's weather.

He rose from his chair and turned toward the kitchen, smoothly switching back to English. “Ilya, my mother wants to talk to you.”

Yuna watched her son walk away.

As always, he seemed entirely unconcerned about what would happen next. It was a stark contrast to the man who joined her in the living room five minutes later.

The moment Ilya entered the room, Yuna could see the nerves immediately.

He was always nervous around her and David. Unlike her son, Ilya cared too much, and she had known it since day one.

Since that video call, when he hid behind overconfidence, trying to sound in control while clearly not knowing what the hell he was doing.

But every time Yuna and David had welcomed him so easily—welcomed Sofia so easily—there had always been that same glint in his eyes. Awe, quiet and unguarded, like he hadn’t known a family could be like this.

That might be why it had been so easy for Yuna to accept him—and also why she worried.

So when Ilya sat down on the sofa, looking overwhelmed and like a kid about to be scolded, Yuna didn’t ease into it. She went straight to the point, because otherwise she knew Ilya would overthink everything.

“Ilya,” she began, straightening slightly as she spoke, “I need you to understand something about my son.”

She paused, her gaze fixed on him, measuring his reaction before she continued. “He is an obsessive person. He always has been. He takes after his father in that way.” 

She shifted her hands lightly in her lap. “When something captures his attention, it becomes everything to him. Hockey was the first thing. Later, it was you, and Sofia. The Pikes as well. Outside of that, though, he can be quite apathetic about things... and people."

She leaned back slightly, then forward again, as she tried to choose her words carefully. “It’s not that he doesn’t care, or that he lacks kindness. He simply doesn’t seem the need to go beyond his circle.”

She paused for a minute, her eyes never leaving his. "I know you think the world of him—and as a mother, there is nothing I could ask for more than that for him.”

She sighed, steadying herself.

“But you need to understand this. The injury that started all of this was never as severe as it looked. It was a cover. A way to get to Boston, away from Montreal, and to be positioned on the right side of the story when everything came out. Because my son knows how to manipulate situations until they give him what he wants.”

Then her tone shifted, sharper now. More direct.

“And what he wanted was you. And Sofia. And a life in Boston. All three of you together.”

Yuna’s fingers tightened briefly against her own knee before she forced them to still

“So he brought down an entire organization. Yes—it was corrupt, homophobic, racist. But that wasn’t the reason. That was just what made it acceptable to everyone else.”

A beat.

“If it had been a good organization, he would have done the same thing. The outcome wouldn’t have changed. As long as it got him out of Montreal—and into Boston, beside you and Sofia—he would have found a way.”

Silence settled for a moment.

"If you’re going to stay with him,” she said finally, “I need you to understand what you’re choosing.”

Her gaze held on Ilya a moment longer, unblinking. “He will never hurt you. Neither of you. But he will always go as far as he needs to, to get what he wants. And when you are what he wants… that becomes very far indeed.”

She let out a deep sigh.

“When I married David, I knew exactly what kind of man he was. And the lengths he was willing to go.”

Silence fell, as Ilya didn’t have an answer immediately.

His face stayed blank, almost expressionless. But his eyes were not. So, Yuna watched them closely.

She could see it happening—the shift, the way the pieces started falling into place, one after another, like the puzzle he had been carrying finally made sense.

And then—

“Oh my God.”

For half a second, there was something that looked almost like shock.

It didn’t stay that way.

Instead of fear or horror, he beamed.

“That makes so much sense now, blyat. I should have known this before. No wonder he never gets angry at chirps or at Montreal, he just doesn’t care. I mean—having the confidence to not care like that…”

A breathless laugh slipped out of him.

“…Shanya is truly stronger than I give him credit for.”

His expression wavered—just slightly—as the weight of what Yuna had actually said started to dawn on him.

He blinked once.

“And he did all of that…” His voice thinned for a second. “He brought Montreal to its knees for me and for Sofia so we could all be together. I—”

He didn't finish the sentence as his voice broke.

And then he started crying.

Yuna didn’t move at first. She simply watched him fall apart and she understood the instinct. Most people would have been horrified by the weight and intensity behind a love like David and Shane's.

But not Yuna.

And not Ilya.

She stood up and sat beside him, pulling him into a hug as he bent forward into her shoulder.

Between breaths, he kept talking. “What about Sveta and Cliff, or the rookies at the Raiders? He’s always been so kind with them, so caring.”

“I think he’s neutral about them,” Yuna answered gently, “but because they’re yours, he cares about them more than he cared about Montreal. If you’re happy, he’s happy. So he tries to keep them happy for you. David does the same in regards of my friends."

That was when Ilya broke down crying again. Yuna just held him while he cried, because for people like Ilya—and people like her—love like that wasn’t something to fear.

It was the safest thing they had ever known.

Chapter 9: Rose Landry

Rose threw herself into Shane's arms as soon as he stepped out of his Range Rover. It didn't matter whether her friend lived in Montreal or Boston. Shane Hollander would always choose a practical car.

Her amused thought was cut short when he spun her around, making her burst into a fit of giggles. Once he finally put her down, they stepped back from one another.

That was when she noticed the small smile on his face.

The sight warmed her from the inside. Shane Hollander did not smile very often, so knowing she was one of the few people capable of making him do so always left her feeling strangely giddy.

Then again, she had watched plenty of Boston Raiders games lately. Games in which the Raiders had thoroughly humiliated NHL teams, and in every single one Rose had seen Shane beaming across her television screen.

The media interpreted the change as Shane finally being freed from a racist and homophobic organization and welcomed into a more accepting locker room.

Mrs. Hollander must be working overtime.

The Raiders' reputation had never been better.

Honestly, Montreal used to be the team that could do no wrong, mostly because of Shane's image, while the Raiders were often discussed as though they were one bad day away from killing somebody on the ice.

Now the Voyagers were dragged through the mud daily while Boston was squeaky clean.

Rose made a mental note never to piss Yuna Hollander off.

Anyway, while the media continued to delude themselves with the roommates narrative, Rose knew better. The smile on Shane's face was the work of a certain Russian.

Shane led her inside the Japanese restaurant and pulled out her chair before taking his own seat. He was the perfect gentleman. Honestly, it would be very easy to fall for Shane Hollander. If it wasn't for his sexuality, or his obsessive nature.

Oh, Rose knew all about that.

You did not survive in Hollywood without learning how to read people. And learn she did. At the end of the day, it was often the people with angelic faces who hid devils beneath them. Or, in some cases, a fox hiding among rose bushes.

It was a friendship made in heaven.

Or hell.

Depending on who was asked.

And friendship was all Rose could handle from Shane. Anything more would leave her feeling suffocated. But judging by how content he looked these days, Rozanov seemed to be a perfect fit.

When the waiter approached, Rose ordered the shogayaki. It was a delicious dish of sliced pork loin fried in a savory sauce made from fresh ginger, soy sauce, mirin, and sake. Shane had introduced it to her back in Montreal, and she had been obsessed with it ever since.

Of course, Shane ordered the boring option.

Nishime.

A classic Japanese dish of root vegetables, konnyaku, and smoked tofu simmered gently in a savory and slightly sweet dashi broth. 

They also ordered a side of kinpira gobo to share, and after a bit of prompting Shane agreed to have a glass of sake with her.

Once the waiter left, Rose turned toward him with a raised eyebrow. "What's up with the waiter? He knew you by name and had your order memorized, but the moment he laid eyes on me, he frowned."

"He is probably confused as to why I'm bringing a woman here," Shane answered without missing a beat. "I usually come with my family to celebrate wins."

He even shrugged as though he couldn't care less that the waiter apparently thought he was cheating.

And family?

Interesting.

"To celebrate?" Rose asked instead. "You mean victories? Gosh, you must come here every week."

"Ilya got it into his head that he and Sofia need to learn everything about Japanese culture now that I've recently started learning Russian." Shane accepted his sake from the waiter and took a sip. "Starting with the food. By now, Ilya has gone through most of the menu. The chef loves him."

Rose laughed, taking a sip from her own glass. 

Shit! This was the good sake. Most likely, imported from Japan. No wonder it hadn't taken much convincing to get Shane to partake.

"So why bring me here?" Rose asked as she set her glass down.

"What do you mean?" Shane looked and sounded ingeniously genuinely confused.

Honestly, for being such a manipulative mastermind, he could miss the most obvious social cues.

"Shane, darling, you brought a woman who isn't family to the same restaurant you reserve for your partner and daughter," Rose explained gently. "The waiter most likely thinks you're cheating on your loverboy with me."

Shane's eyes widened in horror. The reaction was so strong that Rose almost burst out laughing. Apparently, the very suggestion of cheating on Ilya ranked somewhere alongside war crimes in her friend's mind.

Being loved by someone for whom the idea of cheating never even crossed his mind had to be reassuring.

It also sounded exhausting.

Rose certainly couldn't imagine herself in that sort of relationship.

But to each their own.

"Do you think this will hurt Ilya?" Of course Shane's first concern was his loverboy. "It's just that you're only in Boston for a week, and I remembered how much you liked the shogayaki. This is the best Japanese restaurant in the city."

Rose's heart ached for her friend. As obsessive as he was, he could be so sweet sometimes. Shane remained a fascinating mixture of light and dark.

"I'm sure if you explain and apologize, he won't mind," Rose placated him, hoping she was right.

She didn't know the Russian very well, and the last thing she wanted was for her one-week filming stint in Boston to somehow turn into a scandal that damaged Shane's family.

As though her thoughts had been prophetic, the following day, all everybody seemed to be talking about Rose Landry and Shane Hollander dating. Pictures appeared online comparing their dinner in Boston to the many times they had been seen together in Montreal while she filmed the X-Squad movie.

@CelebrityWatch

🚨 NEW COUPLE ALERT? 🚨

Rose Landry and Shane Hollander spotted having dinner together in Boston.

Sources claim the two spent over two hours together at an upscale Japanese restaurant.

👀👀👀

Comments:

@hockeygirlie44

WAIT.

THEY LOOK GOOD TOGETHER.

@xsquadfan99

Didn't they spend a ton of time together in Montreal while Rose was there for a movie?

@hollywoodtea

I always thought there was chemistry.

@canadiangoldenboy

Shane Hollander dating America's sweetheart was not on my bingo card.

@pucktalkdaily

The internet is going to be normal about this.

@goalieproblems

Narrator: They were not normal about this.

@RoseAndShaneArchive

I HAVE BEEN SILENT FOR YEARS.

NO LONGER.

[Photo Collection]

— Shane exiting a coffee shop in Montreal carrying two drinks. Rose is walking beside him wearing sunglasses and laughing at something he just said.

— Shane holding open the passenger door of his Range Rover while Rose climbs inside.

— Shane standing beside her beneath a large black umbrella during a rainstorm. Rose is smiling up at him while Shane appears entirely focused on keeping her dry.

— Shane carrying three shopping bags while Rose walks beside him empty-handed, scrolling through her phone.

— Rose asleep in a folding chair on the X-Squad set while Shane sits beside her reading game footage on his tablet. One of Shane’s jackets is draped over her shoulders.

Text:

Explain this.

Comments:

@hockeygirlie44

WAIT.

ISN'T THIS THE SAME COFFEE SHOP HE GOES TO AFTER MORNING SKATES?

@PuckTalkDaily

How do you know that?

@hockeygirlie44

That's not important.

@goalieproblems

It feels important.

@MapleLeafOnIce

Actually, she's right.

It's the one near Bell Centre.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Why do all of you know this?

@canadiangoldenboy

The umbrella photo is actually adorable.

@goalieproblems

Stop inventing relationships for celebrities.

Shane carries things for literally everyone.

@RoseAndShaneArchive

THAT IS WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK.

@pucktalkdaily

😭😭😭

@hockeyconspiracies

People are missing the REAL evidence.

[Slide 1]

Rose Landry attended a charity gala in Montreal on February 8th.

[Slide 2]

Shane Hollander attended the exact same charity gala.

[Slide 3]

Coincidence?

Comments:

@goalieproblems

Please seek help.

@hockeyconspiracies

YOU FEAR THE TRUTH.

@canadiangoldenboy

😭😭😭

@pucktalkdaily

Not the PowerPoint.

@hollywoodtea

How many slides is this?

@hockeyconspiracies

Thirty-two.

@goalieproblems

THIRTY-TWO?

@NHLWagsDaily

A source close to the situation claims Rose and Shane have always shared a special connection.

Comments:

@goalieproblems

The source:

Instagram.

@pucktalkdaily

The source:

Vibes.

@canadiangoldenboy

The source:

A guy who made a thirty-two-slide PowerPoint.

@goalieproblems

😭😭😭

@RoseAndShaneArchive

NEW EVIDENCE.

[Photo]

Rose wearing a blue dress for dinner at the Japanese restaurant.

[Photo]

Shane wearing a blue suit during a charity event three months earlier.

Text:

Interesting.

Comments:

@goalieproblems

I am begging you to stop.

@CanadiensNation

Absolutely not.

@MapleLeafOnIce

I refuse.

@RoseAndShaneArchive

Blue.

@PuckTalkDaily

THAT'S YOUR EVIDENCE?

@RoseAndShaneArchive

Blue.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

I'm crying.

@hollywoodtea

This account is my favorite thing on the internet.

@canadiangoldenboy

The funniest part is that Shane is literally living with Ilya Rozanov.

@RoseAndShaneArchive

MISDIRECTION.

@pucktalkdaily

MISDIRECTION 😭😭😭

@goalieproblems

The commitment is incredible.

By the time Rose reached the account claiming that she and Shane had secretly maintained a long-distance relationship for two years while expertly deceiving the public, she put her phone face down on the table.

Then she picked it back up.

Then she put it down again.

Because honestly, what exactly was she supposed to do with any of that? Couldn't a girl hang out with her male friend without being accused of sleeping with him?

Even after the joint statement Rose and Shane released clarifying that they were only friends, Rose still felt awful. Which was why she eventually made her way to the Hollander-Rozanov household to explain everything to Ilya personally.

Rose hoped Shane had already done most of the explaining after dinner.

But she knew her friend.

For all his brilliance, Shane could be a little awkward when it came to social situations. And Shane's family was far too important to leave something like this to chance.

Rose barely had time to knock before the door swung open, and her eyes widened.

Well.

Shane certainly had excellent taste in men.

Ilya stood in the doorway wearing nothing but fitted black Adidas track pants. His blond hair was slightly messy, as though he had only recently gotten out of bed despite it being well into the afternoon.

The effect was not subtle.

Not even a little.

Rose was fairly certain the man was determined to let the entire world know that Shane was taken without actually saying a word.

Honestly, she almost admired the commitment.

Her eyes tracked the numerous love bites scattered across Ilya's neck, a few looked suspiciously close to actual bite indentations.

Yep.

Message received.

When Ilya turned around, Rose had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing. The love bites along his neck had been bad enough. The bloodied scratch marks running down the back of his neck and disappearing beneath his pants only made the message more obvious.

The Russian was laying it on remarkably thick.

Then again, perhaps that was only fair. The internet had spent the last twenty-four hours insisting that she was secretly dating his boyfriend.

Rose slipped off her shoes without being asked.

She had spent enough time in Shane's apartment back in Montreal to know that any home Shane occupied eventually fell under Hollander law. Everything had its place, and God help anyone who moved it.

The Boston house was no exception.

Although Rose quickly noticed one important difference.

While Ilya clearly followed Shane's rules, he lacked Shane's instinctive host behavior. Instead of offering drinks, snacks, coffee, tea, and possibly a full three-course meal within thirty seconds of her arrival, Ilya simply wandered toward the living room and dropped onto the blue sofa.

Not that Rose minded.

Honestly, this was the normal reception she got everywhere else. She had simply grown so accustomed to Shane's butler-like tendencies that normal hospitality now felt strange.

Taking a seat beside him, she decided to get straight to the point. "I mostly came here to reassure you that Shane and I never dated and never will."

Ilya snorted.

"Of course not."

Rose blinked.

"Of course not?"

"Shane is super gay."

The words were delivered with such certainty that Rose burst out laughing. There was something surprisingly childlike about Ilya. The way he popped the p whenever he said words like super, and the brief flash of possessiveness in his eyes, like a child announcing that this toy is mine.

Not yours.

Mine.

The fight seemed to leave Ilya's body as quickly as it had appeared, and he leaned back against the sofa with a shrug. "A few years ago, maybe I would have cared."

Rose tilted her head, but remained silent as he spoke. 

"Maybe I would have been jealous. Most likely insecure." He waved a hand dismissively. "Look at you! America's sweetheart to Shane's Canadian golden boy. You are the paper perfect couple."

"Do you mean perfect on paper?" Rose corrected with a chuckle.

Ilya frowned.

"That is what I said."

Rose laughed harder.

She was beginning to understand what Shane saw in him. Once you got past the terrifying reputation, Ilya Rozanov was somehow incredibly endearing.

His gaze drifted briefly toward the television, where highlights from the last Raiders game were playing. Ironically, they had been talking about Shane, and now Shane appeared on the screen as well, scoring the game-winning goal against the Admirals.

"A few years ago, I probably would have looked at the articles and wondered what you could give him that I couldn't."

Honestly, that was fair.

Publicists would probably sell their souls for a couple like that.

"But now?" Ilya continued. "Now I know that Shane would choose me. He will always choose me."

The statement was delivered matter-of-factly, without a single shred of doubt. Beneath that certainty, however, Rose caught a dark glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes.

She stared at him for a moment before finally looking away.

Right.

It seemed Shane had somehow found the one person on the planet capable of matching his particular brand of obsession. Which was simultaneously adorable and slightly terrifying.

"I also understand that you are Shane's Svetlana," Ilya added as an afterthought. 

Rose frowned. "I am a what?"

"Svetlana is my best friend. We're close, and people have mistaken us for a couple more than once."

Understanding immediately dawned.

"Oh."

"Telling Shane he cannot be friends with you would not be fair."

Rose found herself smiling.

That was unexpectedly mature. Especially coming from a man who had apparently answered the door looking like a walking territorial warning sign.

Then again, people contained multitudes.

"I appreciate that."

Ilya nodded before suddenly brightening. "You should come to game."

"The game?"

"The first Kings-Raiders game." His grin widened. "Last Challenger Series. It will be on home ice."

That was right.

How could she have forgotten? Her filming schedule wrapped that very same week.

"Svetlana will be there," Ilya added. "I'll put you both in the same box."

The invitation caught her completely off guard, and for a moment she simply stared at him.

Ilya could be childish.

Possessive.

Ridiculously dramatic.

But there was no denying how much he cared about Shane. And perhaps more importantly, how much he cared about the people Shane loved.

"Thank you," Rose said sincerely.

Ilya merely shrugged as though it were no big deal.

But Rose understood what the gesture meant.

As she sat there in the home Shane had built with the man he loved, listening to Ilya ramble about hockey, Sofia, and some ongoing argument between Shane and a Russian language app, Rose found herself smiling.

She was happy for her friend.

Truly happy.

Shane had finally found someone who loved him as fiercely as he loved them. And Rose could not think of anyone who deserved it more.

Chapter 10: David Hollander

Chapter Notes

"Once upon a time.

The planets and the fates and all the stars aligned."

That was how the song started.

David did not care much for music, it had never been his thing. Most of the time it was simply background noise. Something that filled the silence during long drives when Yuna put on one of her cassettes and hummed along to songs she loved.

Those he knew.

Plastic Love by Mariya Takeuchi.

Stay With Me by Miki Matsubara.

Fast Car by Tracy Chapman.

The Night We Met by Lord Huron.

Beyond that, however, music remained something of a mystery to him.

David had never understood why people connected to it so strongly. He had seen people cry because a song reminded them of an ex. He had also lost count of the number of times teammates used music to motivate themselves before games or during workouts.

How could a collection of notes provoke such powerful reactions?

Enough that people paid fortunes to see their favorite artists perform.

Then again, David had always preferred quiet. His life in Ottawa had always been tranquil. Peaceful, with only his numbers, Yuna, and Shane.

For a very long time, that had been enough. 

Then Shane brought Ilya and Sofia home.

And somehow David's small life became a little bigger.

"You and I ended up in the same room at the same time.

And the touch of a hand lit the fuse.

Of a chain reaction of countermoves."

David found himself paying closer attention to the lyrics.

Across the kitchen, Sofia sat perched on the counter while he prepared breakfast. She clapped along enthusiastically, kicking her little feet against the cabinet doors.

He smiled.

Her joy had quickly become his joy, just as Yuna's, Shane's, and more recently, Ilya's had become his.

When he was younger, David had never imagined himself becoming a father. Certainly not a grandfather. Yet the moment Shane was born looking so much like Yuna, something inside him had changed permanently.

Perhaps he should have wondered whether he would have loved Shane as fiercely if his son had looked more like him. The thought lasted all of three seconds before David dismissed it. Unlike Yuna, he saw little value in worrying over things that would never be.

The question was impossible to answer.

Therefore, it was irrelevant.

Looking at Sofia, who resembled a miniature version of Ilya, David found himself wondering something else instead. Was Shane so obsessed with Sofia because she looked so much like Ilya?

Perhaps.

Then again, Shane had inherited Yuna's heart. His son seemed capable of collecting people the same way other people collected hobbies.

The Pikes.

Rose.

Half of Boston, apparently.

David had never worked that way. For most of his life, he had only ever had room for three obsessions: numbers, Yuna, and Shane. The fact that he had somehow found space in his heart for Ilya and Sofia still surprised him.

Maybe he had been waiting for them all along.

"To assess the equation of you.

Checkmate, I couldn't lose."

Sofia attempted to sing along. Most of the words came out wrong, a few sounded more like excited babbling than actual lyrics. Yet somehow she remained perfectly on pitch.

David paused, considering that perhaps music would become Sofia’s obsession. Most parents would have called that jumping to conclusions, but David didn’t think so. He had known he wanted to work in finance since he was a child, and Shane had been the same.

The moment Yuna had placed a hockey stick in his hand, there had never really been any other possibility.

And yes, it had been Yuna's doing.

It was Yuna who loved telling people she had married a McGill hockey player. The one who pulled out old game tapes for toddler Shane to watch, and who would sit beside their son as he stared, enchanted, at the television.

Looking back, perhaps Shane had known even earlier than that, before he even made it to the ice.

At four years old, Shane had looked adorable, watching David play on the TV with his eyes wide open and mouth agape. Not that David could understand the fascination. He had never cared about hockey beyond it paying for his tuition and, later, allowing him to meet Yuna.

"What if I told you none of it was accidental?

And the first night that you saw me, nothing was gonna stop me.

I laid the groundwork and then, just like clockwork, the dominoes cascaded in a line."

Maybe David could start to understand the obsession over music. It would never be his thing, but he enjoyed the journey through his memories that this song brought, because this was exactly how he had met Yuna.

She had been the cute freshman he had spotted one day in the library. She looked adorable with her hair piled into a messy bun, frowning whenever she did not understand something and smiling in satisfaction whenever she got something right.

David had been mesmerized, much like the first time he had encountered an equation as a child. And just like then, he knew he needed to learn how to solve it.

Just like that, David Hollander gained his second obsession.

And just like that, he knew he had to have her.

So, he got to work.

Finding her name was not difficult. She was the only exchange student from Kyoto, Japan. A few questions here and there, and David knew more about Yuna before ever speaking to her than he knew about half the teammates he had been playing alongside for the last two years.

The most important piece of information, however, was that she was a massive hockey fan. David had never expected his sports scholarship to help him in this particular way.

Recalling a drunken rant from a literature student whose name he never bothered learning, David started to plan. The girl had spent half the night talking about the magic of a fated meeting and how a single glance could change someone's life. At the time, David had not cared what she was babbling about. He had not even wanted to attend that party, much less spend twenty minutes trapped in a conversation with a stranger about destiny.

Later, however, he found himself grateful.

Getting two tickets to the next McGill game into Yuna's roommate's hands had been easy. David could not give them directly to Yuna. She would have asked questions if an envelope suddenly appeared on her bed out of nowhere. She was far too smart for that.

Her roommate, however?

She fell hook, line, and sinker.

David made sure to play his best that day. And after scoring the winning goal, he removed his helmet and "casually" looked in Yuna's direction.

Just like magic, their gazes locked.

The rest was history.

Said roommate eventually became Yuna's maid of honor at their wedding.

But who cared?

"What if I told you I’m a mastermind?

And now you're mine.

It was all by design."

As if summoned, Yuna entered the kitchen of Ilya and Shane's Boston house. Decades of marriage later and David's heart still skipped a beat, just like it had the first time he laid eyes on her in that library.

She smiled beautifully, pressing a kiss to Sofia's head before leaning up to kiss David good morning.

"Taylor Swift? Are you secretly a Swiftie, David?" she teased.

David laughed. He did not understand a single word coming out of his wife's mouth, but she was happy.

So, he was happy too.

"Oh, tamagoyaki, my favorite! You are the best."

The Japanese breakfast earned him another kiss. David would cook tamagoyaki every morning for the rest of his life if it earned him Yuna's kisses.

His wife hoisted a giggling Sofia onto her hip before looking around the kitchen. "Where are our champions?"

Right.

The reason they were in Boston in the first place.

The final Challenger Series between the Raiders and the LA Kings had ended two days ago. The Kings had put up a respectable fight, but by Game Six the Raiders had won on home ice.

Which left Yuna and David on grandparent duty while their sons attended the parade and celebrated with the rest of the city.

"Ilya called this morning," David explained as he finished plating the tamagoyaki. "They crashed at Svetlana's last night."

The call had come while David was on his way to wake Sofia.

Ilya had sounded tired.

Happy too.

The sort of happy that only appeared after winning a Stanley Cup.

"Sorry," Ilya had said immediately. "We probably won't make it back until late lunch."

David had waved the apology away despite the fact that Ilya could not see him. "That's fine, son. Enjoy yourself."

The line had gone strangely quiet.

At first David thought the connection had dropped.

Then he heard a sniffle.

"Ilya?"

"Sorry," Ilya laughed weakly. "I just really like when you call me that."

"Call you what?" David asked confused.

Another sniffle.

"Son."

Ah.

David had not thought much of it. The word came naturally these days. Shane loved Ilya; therefore, Ilya belonged to the family. The logic seemed straightforward enough.

"I never really had a father," Ilya admitted quietly. "Not a real one anyway. Mine was..." He trailed off before sighing. "He was not a very good man."

David already knew that.

Shane had informed him and Yuna about it before their introductory video call at the start of the season, but David kept that to himself and allowed Ilya to vent in peace.

"My mom died when I was young, and..." Another pause followed. "I don't know. Having you and Yuna around is nice. Your wife is..." Ilya laughed softly. "She's like a balm, you know?"

David found himself smiling. Yuna tended to have that effect on people. It was one of the reasons he kept her.

While Ilya continued talking, David's thoughts drifted toward the ring he had seen Shane purchase several months ago.

David understood his son perfectly. The ring had never really been about marriage.

Marriage itself meant very little to either of them. A piece of paper was a piece of paper. A ceremony was a ceremony. Neither one had ever needed a government document to know who belonged to them.

David had known Yuna was his long before they married. Shane was exactly the same.

Ilya was already his.

The ring changed nothing.

Then again, wedding rings had their uses. They were, after all, the socially acceptable version of a collar. A visible reminder that Yuna and Ilya belonged exactly where they were, and another chain ensuring they stayed there.

Not that either of them seemed particularly interested in leaving.

Still, David could understand the appeal.

Some statements were worth making publicly.

"You do not need to worry so much," David eventually told him.

"Easy for you to say."

"Not really."

David glanced toward the bedroom where Yuna was still sleeping. Almost thirty years had passed since he first saw her in that library, and his obsession had never wavered.

Not once.

"Trust me, son. If Shane loves you, then he will continue loving you for as long as he breathes."

Silence followed.

Then a shaky laugh.

"That is actually the most reassuring thing anyone has ever said to me."

David smiled.

Poor lamb.

Ilya sounded relieved, which meant he had completely missed the warning hidden inside David's reassurance.

Shane would love him for as long as he breathed.

That was not a promise.

It was simply a statement of fact.

By the time they ended the call, Ilya was considerably happier.

Looking back on it now, David supposed he should perhaps feel bad for Yuna and Ilya. After all, they had somehow stumbled into the full attention of a Hollander.

There were certainly worse fates. Shane worshipped the ground Ilya walked on, adored Sofia, and would quite happily move mountains for either of them if asked. Then again, David would do the exact same for Yuna and Shane.

Still, David suspected most people would find that level of devotion overwhelming.

Ilya and Yuna, however, seemed strangely suited to it.

Which was fortunate.

Because there was absolutely no escape now.

So really, David failed to see the problem.

"Good. They deserve to celebrate," Yuna replied as they moved into the living room to eat. "Svetlana seems like a good friend. Also, we need to talk to the boys about getting a dining table. They cannot keep eating every meal on that sofa."

David blinked.

Apparently, he had become so distracted by the memory of his conversation with Ilya that he had missed half of what Yuna said. Fortunately, years of marriage had taught him exactly how to navigate situations like these.

"You're right," he agreed immediately.

He knew better than to go against her. When Yuna got started on a rant, she could go for hours, just like Shane. Their voices were the only noise he willingly tolerated in his otherwise quiet life.

This time, however, Yuna's rant was cut off midway when their attention returned to the television. The headline splashed across the screen was not about the Raiders winning the Stanley Cup.

"Oh, Kami-sama," Yuna gasped.

ROGER CROWELL AND DALLAS KENT ARRESTED THIS MORNING.

Well.

David's son certainly worked fast.

If David was a mastermind, then Shane would be a chess grandmaster.

Chapter End Notes

The song referenced in this chapter is: Mastermind, by Taylor Swift.

Chapter 11: Svetlana Vetrova

Chapter Notes

The streets of Boston were a sea of black, gold, and white. Fans packed every sidewalk, crowded rooftops, leaned out of windows, and waved Raiders flags with enough enthusiasm that it seemed the entire city had collectively forgotten how to behave.

Not that the team was much better.

The Stanley Cup had changed hands so many times during the parade that Svetlana was no longer entirely sure who officially possessed it. Several players were already drunk, several more were rapidly working toward that goal, and somewhere in the middle of it all Ilya Rozanov was hanging off Shane Hollander like an overly affectionate dog.

Svetlana smiled despite herself.

She had seen Ilya win a Stanley Cup before.

Back in 2014, he had celebrated just as hard. He had smiled for the cameras, laughed with his teammates, sprayed champagne, and lifted the trophy over his head exactly as every champion was supposed to. Looking back, however, Svetlana remembered feeling strangely unsettled even then. At the time she had not understood why.

Now she did.

The difference was obvious.

Back then, Ilya had been happy about the victory itself. The problem was that once the excitement faded and the cameras disappeared, there had been nothing waiting for him. He had spent years chasing the Stanley Cup, convinced it would finally fill the emptiness that lived inside him, only to discover that winning changed far less than he expected.

The trophy had made him a champion.

It had not made him content.

Now, as she watched him practically draped across Shane's shoulders while the parade rolled through Boston, Svetlana could barely recognize that version of him.

He looked at peace.

The smile on his face appeared constantly these days, so often that people probably no longer noticed it. Svetlana noticed because for years she had watched Ilya force himself forward through injuries, disappointments, loneliness, and the endless pressure he placed upon himself. The man smiling beside Shane looked like somebody carrying half the weight he once had.

A roar erupted from the crowd when Ilya leaned over and kissed Shane's cheek, who reached up and pulled him back for a proper kiss. The reaction from the fans was instantaneous. Phones appeared, as people screamed, and someone even nearly fell over a barricade.

Neither Shane nor Ilya seemed remotely embarrassed.

Then again, they rarely were.

Honestly, it was almost disgusting.

Not that Svetlana would ever admit that out loud.

The truth was that she had spent years worrying about Ilya. About the drinking, the isolation, and the way he convinced himself that hockey was enough. She had watched him build his entire life around a sport while quietly neglecting everything else.

Then Shane Hollander had happened.

Svetlana still was not entirely sure how two stubborn, obsessive hockey players had managed to stumble their way into a functional relationship, but somehow, they had made it work. More importantly, Shane loved Ilya with a steadiness that never seemed to waver.

And Sofia.

That part mattered just as much.

Perhaps even more.

Svetlana had seen the bedtime stories, the family dinners, and the countless tiny moments that happened when nobody else was paying attention. Shane never treated Sofia like an obligation or a responsibility he had inherited alongside Ilya. He loved her completely; with the same quiet certainty he seemed to apply to everything involving his family.

That was all Svetlana had ever wanted. She wanted Sofia to grow up safe and for Ilya to be loved. Shane was capable of both.

As the parade continued through the city, Svetlana found herself watching her best friend again. Ilya was laughing at something Shane had whispered into his ear, and whatever it was immediately earned him an elbow to the ribs and another kiss.

Ridiculous.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Yet Svetlana could not stop smiling.

Because she remembered the man who had lifted the Cup in 2014 and still looked lost afterward. The man beside Shane looked nothing like him. For the first time since she had known Ilya, he seemed completely certain of where he belonged.

Somehow, that felt like a much bigger victory than the Stanley Cup.

By the time they reached the club, most of the team had already abandoned whatever dignity remained after the parade.

The music was loud enough to shake the floor beneath Svetlana's feet, while black, white, and gold decorations hung from every available surface. Somewhere near the bar, St. Simon was attempting to explain hockey strategy to a potted plant, while Hammersmith seemed determined to convince half the roster to join him on the dance floor.

After years of following Ilya through championship celebrations, Svetlana had learned that Stanley Cup victories and good decision-making rarely occupied the same room. As the designated responsible adult for the evening, she resigned herself to keeping an eye on things.

Or rather, keeping an eye on Ilya.

Shane certainly did not require supervision.

The man looked almost comically out of place in a crowded nightclub. While the rest of the Raiders celebrated around them, Shane remained planted beside her with a can of Canada Dry in hand, looking exactly as he had during the parade. Calm, collected, and entirely uninterested in joining the chaos around him.

Honestly, it was difficult to believe he and Ilya belonged to the same species.

Meanwhile, Ilya seemed determined to celebrate with every single person in Boston.

One moment he was laughing with Cliff near the dance floor. The next he was draping an arm around Connors’ shoulders and somehow convincing him to accept another drink despite the younger man insisting he was finished for the night. A few minutes later he disappeared entirely into a sea of teammates and flashing lights, only to reappear somewhere else across the room with a completely different group.

Yet no matter where Ilya wandered, whether he was laughing with Cliff, bullying Connors into another drink, or disappearing into a crowd of teammates on the dance floor, his attention always found its way back to Shane.

Every few minutes Svetlana would catch him glancing across the room, sometimes raising his glass in Shane's direction, sometimes flashing him a grin, and once even blowing him an exaggerated kiss that earned nothing more than an eye roll.

What fascinated her was that Shane was always looking back.

Years ago, she would have expected someone like Shane to be jealous and possessive. The type of partner who hovered nearby whenever Ilya spoke to someone else, eager to remind everyone exactly who Ilya belonged to.

Instead, Shane did the complete opposite.

He never interrupted conversations, never inserted himself into whatever Ilya happened to be doing, and never attempted to drag him away from his teammates. Most of the time he simply stood wherever Svetlana happened to be standing, drinking his ginger ale and quietly observing the room.

Or rather, observing Ilya.

Because that was the strange part. Shane never looked interested in anyone else. The club was packed shoulder to shoulder with people, yet it often felt as though he only registered one person in the entire building. If Svetlana had witnessed that level of fixation in almost anyone else, she probably would have found it alarming. But, every time she looked at Ilya, she found the exact opposite reaction.

Ilya thrived beneath Shane's attention. He seemed to bloom under it, his smile widening every time he caught Shane watching him, his entire posture relaxing with the certainty that no matter where he went or who he spoke to, Shane's eyes would eventually find their way back to him.

Perhaps that was why Svetlana found it difficult to worry.

She remembered the years after Ilya's mother died. The endless loneliness hidden beneath the confidence, the bravado, and the charm. People saw the superstar. The captain. The charismatic troublemaker who could walk into any room and immediately become the center of attention. Very few ever noticed how desperately he wanted to be chosen by the people he loved.

Ilya had spent so much of his life afraid of being left behind. Now he never seemed to doubt his place in Shane's life.

Svetlana could not remember a single moment during the last year when she had seen genuine uncertainty in him. Shane loved him. The certainty existed in every part of their life together, from the way Shane instinctively prioritized Ilya and Sofia over everything else, to the way he structured his entire world around their happiness. More importantly, Ilya knew it. He never questioned whether Shane would stay. He never wondered if he was enough.

For someone who had spent so much of his youth starving for affection, that certainty was priceless.

Watching Ilya laugh with his teammates before inevitably turning toward Shane again, Svetlana felt a familiar sense of gratitude bloom in her chest. She had spent years worrying about him. Wondering who would be there after she was gone. Wondering whether anyone would ever love him enough to quiet all the old fears he carried.

Now she knew the answer.

Shane would.

It was then that a new song started playing.

At first, Svetlana barely noticed. The music had long since blended into a single uninterrupted wall of sound, every song bleeding into the next beneath flashing lights and drunken celebrations.

Ilya noticed immediately.

Halfway through a conversation with Cliff, his head turned toward the speakers. A grin spread across his face before his gaze swept across the room and landed on Shane.

Then he crooked a finger.

The gesture was unmistakable.

Come here.

To Svetlana's surprise, Shane actually listened.

It also got a reaction from the Raiders, as several players started cheering the moment Shane pushed away from the wall. St. Simon nearly spilled his drink, and Hammersmith looked delighted by the development.

Apparently, she was not the only person shocked to see Shane voluntarily enter the dance floor.

The crowd parted just enough for him to reach Ilya, who immediately wrapped his arms around Shane's neck. Shane settled a hand against his waist, and before Svetlana fully processed what was happening, they began slow dancing.

In a nightclub.

In the middle of hundreds of people packed together like sardines, most of whom were grinding against each other.

Svetlana shook her head.

They truly existed in their own universe.

The amusement lasted until she finally started paying attention to the lyrics.

“You leave me high and dry.

A rush comes to my mind.

At the drops of blood, you leave behind.”

Her smile faltered.

That was certainly a choice.

The melody was upbeat enough that most people probably never thought twice about the words. Judging by the state of the room, nobody else seemed particularly concerned.

Svetlana, however, was sober.

Which meant she continued listening.

“Run as you might, my love will never, ever stop.”

Her eyebrows rose.

Then rose even higher.

“And I've always heard it's what's inside.

'Cause my insides are red, and yours are too.

And the red on my face is matching you.”

By this point, Svetlana was beginning to suspect somebody had disguised a horror story as a love song.

Unfortunately, the lyrics only became worse.

“And goodness, you're bleeding, what a wonderful feeling.

You're down and you're pleading, my head is just reeling.

The red means I love you.

Tasting your blood means I love you.”

Svetlana nearly choked on her water.

What the fuck is up with this song?

Across the dance floor, Shane had tilted his head up toward Ilya, his lips brushing against his ear as he whispered something. It took her a moment to realize what was happening, but when she did, her eyes widened in horror.

He was singing, quietly, so the words belonged only to them. And most likely, Shane was singing that fucked-up song about how, “Tasting your blood means I love you.”

Ilya’s reaction only made the whole scene worse.

His eyes drifted shut, as the tension left his shoulders. He relaxed against Shane with such complete trust that for a second, he reminded Svetlana of a dog leaning into the hand of its favorite person. Whatever Shane whispered next earned a laugh, followed by the sight of Ilya hiding his face against Shane's shoulder while a faint blush crept across his cheeks.

Svetlana felt a brief flicker of unease.

She had spent her whole life watching people love each other. It could be simply friendship, familiar bonds, or even lovers. But most kinds of love had limits.

Boundaries and conditions.

What existed between Shane and Ilya, Svetlana now realized, was different.

The song playing through the speakers should have sounded ridiculous. The sort of exaggerated devotion people laughed about online. Instead, watching the two of them together, it felt strangely fitting.

Not because Shane would ever hurt Ilya.

Svetlana would bet her life against that possibility.

But because there was something undeniably relentless about the way Shane loved. The certainty of it. The permanence. The complete absence of hesitation whenever Ilya or Sofia were involved.

Years ago, that realization might have frightened her.

Now it mostly made her tired.

Because she had already lost count of the number of times Shane had chosen Ilya.

The number of sacrifices he had made.

The number of decisions that had begun and ended with what was best for his family.

Perhaps the relationship was unhealthy by conventional standards.

Perhaps it was obsessive.

Perhaps no sane person should find lyrics about blood, possession, and eternal pursuit romantic.

Yet as Svetlana watched Ilya melt against Shane's chest with the contentment of someone who had finally found his home, she found it difficult to be alarmed. After all, she remembered the years when she had been so afraid that her best friend would end up like his mother.

Now, that fear was nonexistent, and it was all thanks to Shane.

Perhaps that was what finally settled the unease in her heart. Because whatever else could be said about Shane Hollander, he loved Ilya completely. For a man who had spent most of his life wondering if he was worth loving at all, that certainty was probably worth a little obsession.

The following morning, Svetlana woke with the familiar certainty that she would never understand how hockey players survived championship celebrations. The apartment was quiet when she shuffled into the kitchen, still half asleep and craving coffee.

She froze in the doorway when she realized she wasn’t the first one awake.

"Ilya?"

Her best friend looked up from the stove.

"Good morning."

Svetlana blinked.

He looked completely fine.

Not perfect. His hair was sticking up in several directions and there were faint shadows beneath his eyes but considering the amount of alcohol she had watched him consume the previous night, he should have been dead on his feet.

Instead, he was standing in her kitchen making breakfast.

"How are you alive?" she asked.

Ilya laughed.

"Strong Russian genetics."

"That is not how genetics work," Svetlana rolled her eyes and moved toward the coffee machine.

The smell of food filled the apartment. Eggs, toast, something frying in a pan. It felt strangely domestic.

“Thank you for letting us stay here,” Ilya said after a moment. “I did not want Sofia seeing Shane and me drunk.”

Svetlana understood that completely. It was the sort of thing Alexei would have done, and Ilya had never wanted to resemble his dead brother in any way. It is also why Sofia had spent the night at David and Yuna's house while half the Raiders organization attempted to drink the city of Boston dry.

"You are always welcome here," Svetlana replied.

And they were.

They always would be.

She poured herself a cup of coffee before leaning against the counter and studying him, which Ilya noticed immediately. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Why? Because she had spent the previous night watching his boyfriend quietly sing disturbing lyrics about obsessive love directly into his ear while Ilya looked one step away from melting into a puddle.

That was why.

"I need to ask you something."

The expression on Ilya's face instantly became cautious.

"Okay."

Svetlana took a slow sip of coffee.

"Are you aware that Shane is obsessively devoted to you?"

"Yes."

He answered so quickly that she nearly choked on her coffee.

"Yes?"

Ilya looked confused now.

"Of course."

"No, I don't think you understand what I am saying."

"I understand perfectly."

Svetlana pointed at him with her coffee mug.

"No. Listen to me. This man is obsessively devoted to you."

Ilya smiled.

"Isn't it wonderful?"

She stared.

He stared back.

Completely sincere.

Svetlana tried again.

"Ilya. He watches you constantly."

"Yes."

"He tracks your location."

"That is practical."

"He remembers things you told him years ago."

"He has a good memory."

"He looks at you like the rest of the world does not exist."

Ilya's smile somehow widened.

"I know. Isn’t it great?"

Svetlana rubbed a hand over her face.

This conversation was going terribly.

"I am serious."

"So am I," he lowered the heat beneath the pan before glancing back at her. "Sveta, I know Shane is obsessive." The amusement faded slightly from his expression. "I know he worries too much and overthinks everything. I know he would probably move mountains if I asked."

Probably?

Svetlana had absolutely no doubt he would.

"I know all of that."

"And?"

"And I like it."

For a moment neither of them spoke, then Ilya shrugged.

"My entire life people left."

The words landed heavily between them, and Svetlana immediately regretted pushing.

"My father was abusive, Alexei was not any better, and my mother died when I was twelve. Coaches would call me lazy, teammates got traded, and friends moved away." He looked down at the food for a second before continuing. "Then Shane showed up."

His smile returned.

Smaller this time.

Softer.

"Shane never leaves."

Svetlana's heart ached, because suddenly she understood. To her, Shane's devotion was overwhelming. But to Ilya?

It felt safe and permanent.

Like solid ground.

"I never have to wonder if he loves me," Ilya continued. "I never have to guess, or worry about where I stand."

That part, more than anything else, explained everything. Svetlana had seen relationships built on uncertainty, or mixed signals. On people pretending not to care.

Shane did none of that.

Nobody who looked at Shane Hollander for more than five seconds could possibly doubt how he felt about Ilya Rozanov.

The man practically broadcasted it.

"Besides," Ilya added with a grin, "I am pretty sure I am obsessed with him too."

Svetlana laughed despite herself.

That was unfortunately true.

The two of them were ridiculous.

Completely ridiculous.

But somehow it worked.

Looking at Ilya now, standing barefoot in her kitchen while making breakfast and smiling like the happiest man in the world, she found it difficult to argue with the results.

Shane was strange, a little frightening at times, and certainly obsessive.

Yet he loved Ilya fiercely. He loved Sofia just as much. And for all his quirks, he had spent the last few years giving Ilya something Svetlana had wanted for him since they were children.

A home.

Someone dependable, who stayed, and loved him enough that he never had to question it.

"Oh well," Svetlana muttered into her coffee.

"What?"

She shook her head.

"Nothing."

If Ilya was happy, then she was happy.

And despite being a bit weird, Shane Hollander had taken remarkably good care of her family.

At the end of the day, that was what mattered.

Breakfast eventually migrated from the kitchen to the living room. Svetlana carried her coffee while Ilya balanced three plates with the sort of coordination that should have been impossible after the amount of alcohol he had consumed the previous night.

Honestly, hockey players were not built correctly. She was still running on caffeine and spite, while Ilya looked perfectly functional despite having drunk his weight in vodka.

Settling onto the sofa, Svetlana reached for the remote. She was not particularly interested in whatever happened to be on television. At this point every channel seemed determined to replay the Raiders' championship victory from a dozen different angles, and she expected more of the same. Instead, the moment the screen flickered to life, a bright red banner stretched across the bottom of the broadcast.

ROGER CROWELL AND DALLAS KENT ARRESTED THIS MORNING.

The room immediately went silent.

Svetlana stared at the television.

Beside her, Ilya did exactly the same.

Without exchanging a single word, both of them leaned forward and turned up the volume.

The reporter spoke rapidly as photographs of Crowell and Kent appeared on the screen. Dallas Kent had been arrested on multiple counts of rape following an investigation involving several women. Roger Crowell, meanwhile, faced charges related to obstruction, extortion, witness intimidation, harassment, and attempts to suppress evidence connected to the case. Additional allegations were still being reviewed, including claims that Crowell had actively helped protect certain players while creating a hostile environment for others.

The reporters remained careful with their wording, very careful, yet some things did not need to be stated outright.

References to maintaining organizational culture appeared alongside mentions of players who did not fit the image league leadership wanted to project, as well as quiet discussions of discrimination complaints that had allegedly been ignored for years.

The implication hung beneath all of it with a weight that no careful phrasing could really hide.

It was there in the gaps between sentences and in the reluctance to name things directly, pointing instead toward queer athletes, players of color, and anyone Crowell had ever considered inconvenient.

Svetlana slowly looked toward Ilya.

Ilya slowly looked toward her.

Neither needed to say what they were thinking.

Then both of their heads turned toward the hallway when footsteps approached.

Shane shuffled into the living room looking thoroughly unimpressed by the fact that the NHL commissioner had apparently been arrested overnight. His black hair was sticking up in several directions, and he looked only marginally more awake than the coffee table.

He glanced at the television.

Paused.

Then immediately lost interest.

Without acknowledging either of them, Shane crossed the room and climbed directly onto Ilya's lap.

Svetlana gaped in disbelief.

Ilya did not even seem surprised. One arm wrapped around Shane’s waist automatically while the other continued holding his fork, as though having a grown hockey player casually settle into his lap first thing in the morning was a completely normal occurrence.

Perhaps it was.

At this point, Svetlana was no longer certain what counted as normal around these two.

Shane buried his face against Ilya's neck while Ilya pressed a kiss into his hair. Neither appeared remotely concerned by the absurd contrast between their domestic affection and the television discussing arrests, criminal investigations, and the collapse of several powerful careers.

"Good morning," Ilya murmured.

A muffled sound emerged from somewhere near his shoulder.

Svetlana assumed it was good morning.

For several moments they simply sat there listening to the report. The investigation had apparently been ongoing for months, but according to several sources, significant new evidence had accelerated proceedings overnight. The timing alone made Svetlana suspicious.

Apparently, she was not the only one.

Ilya's eyes drifted toward the television before dropping to Shane. A familiar expression settled over his face, the one he wore whenever he already knew the answer to a question but wanted confirmation anyway.

"Shane?"

A sleepy hum answered him.

"Was this you?"

For the first time, Shane actually looked up.

Svetlana watched him consider the question.

Then shrug.

Just shrug.

As though they were discussing the weather.

"Roger called me during the parade."

Svetlana stared.

Ilya stared.

The television continued outlining criminal charges while both of them focused entirely on Shane.

"He called you?" Ilya asked.

Shane nodded.

"He was upset."

The understatement was so severe that Svetlana almost burst out laughing.

"Upset?" she repeated.

"He spent twenty minutes screaming."

That sounded significantly more believable.

Shane yawned before settling more comfortably against Ilya's shoulder. "The interview made him angry."

Ah.

The interview.

The one where Shane and Ilya had casually informed the world that they were dating and raising Sofia together, and were very much not just “roommates,” as the narrative liked to insist.

The internet had spent the last twelve hours collectively losing its mind.

It seems like Roger Crowell had reacted similarly.

"He said our relationship was bad for the league," Shane continued, sounding mildly annoyed by the memory. "That people like us were turning hockey into a circus. Then he started talking about sponsorships and public image."

Ilya's arm tightened around his waist, and Svetlana felt her stomach turn.

The reporters continued talking in the background, but neither of them was listening anymore.

"Then he mentioned Sofia," Shane's tone had not changed. If anything, it had become calmer, which somehow felt far more threatening. "He said she would grow up confused."

Svetlana closed her eyes.

There it was.

The fatal mistake.

Because insulting Shane was one thing. But bringing Sofia into the conversation was something else entirely. Roger Crowell had apparently looked at every terrible decision available to him and selected all of them simultaneously.

"So, I stopped waiting."

The simplicity of the statement nearly gave Svetlana a headache.

"Stopped waiting for what?"

"The investigation was already happening." Shane sounded increasingly sleepy as he spoke. "I already knew people were building a case. Roger just gave me a reason to make some phone calls."

A reason.

Some phone calls.

As though arranging the downfall of one of the most powerful figures in professional hockey required roughly the same effort as ordering takeout.

Svetlana looked at Shane.

Then at Ilya.

This proved to be a mistake, because Ilya was absolutely glowing.

His entire expression was a mix of pride, relief, and gratitude, the kind of look that practically said you did this for us without needing the words at all.

Shane, of course, noticed.

The moment their eyes met, he relaxed further into Ilya's embrace like a cat receiving attention.

That, more than the arrests, more than the scandal, and more than the realization that Shane Hollander apparently possessed enough influence to topple powerful organizations when sufficiently motivated, was what finally broke Svetlana.

The conversation had somehow turned romantic, in spite of everything. The television was still discussing rape charges and corruption scandals, yet none of it seemed to reach them. Ilya looked ready to kiss his boyfriend, and Shane, for his part, looked entirely pleased with himself.

Svetlana rubbed both hands over her face.

These two were going to be the death of her.

Chapter End Notes

The song referenced in this chapter is: The Red Means I Love You, by Madds Buckley.

Chapter 12: BOSTON RAIDERS WIN STANLEY CUP

🎥 POST-GAME CLIP — BOSTON RAIDERS WIN STANLEY CUP

Posted by @HockeyNightLive

The camera cuts into mid-celebration chaos as a reporter leans in, shouting over the noise.

REPORTER: “So—people have been saying your chemistry as teammates comes from the fact that you’re roommates off the ice. Do you think living together is what made this partnership so strong?”

A beat.

Shane Hollander slowly turns his head like he’s trying to understand a language he’s never heard before. Meanwhile, Ilya Rozanov bursts out laughing.

ILYA: “Roommates?”

He points between himself and Shane like the question itself is offensive.

ILYA: “We’re dating.”

The room erupts for half a second—confused laughter, someone dropping a cup, another reporter audibly going “WHAT?”

The reporter tries to recover.

REPORTER: “I—sorry—what?”

Shane is still staring, genuinely confused now, like he’s trying to figure out where the misunderstanding began. He gestures vaguely between himself, Ilya, and somewhere off camera where Sofia is clearly being held by Yuna Hollander.

SHANE: “We are living together. And we’re raising a daughter together.”

An awkward pause as Shane squints slightly.

SHANE (continuing): “How at any moment does that look like ‘just roommates’?”

Ilya is now fully bent over laughing.

The reporter looks like they’ve forgotten how journalism works.

Cut to blackout laughter from the locker room.

Cut to someone yelling “OH MY GOD HE SAID IT LIKE THAT’S NORMAL.”

Cut to confetti hitting the camera lens.

Comments:

@LuluLives

VINDICATION!

@RivalsToRoommates

“How at any moment does that look like ‘just roommates’?” 😭

@goalieproblems

Reporter tried to do soft media framing and got emotionally bodychecked.

@PuckTalkDaily

Shane Hollander has the comedic timing of someone who doesn’t know he’s funny.

@Captain81

“We are living together. And raising a daughter.” delivered like it’s a weather report.

@BeanTownHockey

Ilya just casually dropping “we’re dating” like it’s an accepted fact of physics is insane.

@MarshmallowSofia

The reporter’s soul left his body at the word “dating”

@BlueLineBeliever

This is what happens when PR teams lose control for 12 seconds 😭

@HollanovDefenseSquad

SHANE’S FACE AT “ROOMMATES” IS GOING INTO MEME HISTORY

@RinksideChaos

Someone already captioned it “ARE YOU A FUCKING IDIOT?” I AM CRYING

@BeanTownHockey

To be fair he did look personally offended by the concept of roommates.

@icedancerarchive

The funniest part is that he wasn’t even angry. Just deeply confused. Like reality had been misfiled.

@Captain81

“I’m sorry, what do you mean we’re not married with dependents” energy

@LuluLives

I KNEW IT.

@RivalsToRoommates

Shane explaining his entire household structure like he’s reading a tax form will never not be funny.

@goalieproblems

Reporter: “roommates?”

Shane: “incorrect classification.”

@BeanTownHockey

Ilya laughing like he’s been WAITING to say that for years is even worse.

@HollanovDefenseSquad

This clip is going to be used as evidence in 500 different internet arguments

@RinksideChaos

“we’re dating”

“we’re raising a daughter”

“how does that look like roommates”

bro delivered a full domestic audit in 20 seconds

@BlueLineBeliever

Sports media is never recovering from this interview

@PuckTalkDaily

Shane’s confusion is the real highlight. He genuinely thought the question was about logistics.

@RivalsToRoommates

He answered like the question had been, “Do you own a couch together?”

@MarshmallowSofia

Someone edit this with courtroom music immediately

@Captain81

The cup celebration is just background noise to the most awkward domestic reveal in sports history 😭

🧠 HOLLANOV FAN CLUB BLOG

Posted by @LuluLives

Okay, I need everyone to put their detective hats on for this one

So.

We now have confirmation (unhinged, unplanned, and emotionally devastating confirmation) that Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are not, in fact, “roommates.”

They are, quote:

“We are living together. And we’re raising a daughter together.”

and also apparently:

“We’re dating.”

So that’s settled.

Now we move to the only logical next question: WHEN did this start?

Because I have been thinking, and we know Ilya hasn’t been publicly linked to anyone since roughly 2017–2018, around the All-Star Game era.

Meanwhile Shane: went from Montreal Voyagers → Boston Raiders and somehow ended up living with Ilya Rozanov. And now they are… this.

So, I’m asking seriously: was there a beginning point, or did we all just miss it happening in real time?

POSSIBLE TIMELINE OPTIONS (I AM NOT CLAIMING ANYTHING, I AM JUST ASKING QUESTIONS)

• 2017–2018 All-Star weekend (last known “pre-chaos” Ilya era)
• Rookie rivalry phase (violence but… emotionally charged violence?)
• That infamous CMM shoot (you know the one)
• Post-Montreal trade fallout (this is where I personally start sweating)
• Boston arrival period (new city, shared ice time, emotional instability on both sides)

I’m just saying.

Two elite athletes do not go from:

“I would like to destroy this man in every possible competitive setting”

to

“We live together and have a child”

Without something happening in between.

Comments:

@IceColdAnalytics

I’m not saying anything it all started in 2017 but I AM saying the rivalry had a very specific tone that was not normal hate.

@RinksideChaos

You people are one press conference away from writing a 600-page thesis on “eye contact frequency during line changes”

@GoalieProblems

The Montreal trade moment is where I’d put my money.

@LuluLives

THANK YOU.

I am also open to the idea that it was earlier, but I am trying to stay grounded.

@BlueLineBeliever

No one is staying grounded in this thread 😭

@HollanovDefenseSquad

“No confirmed relationships since 2017” is CRAZY framing like we’re discussing missing persons cases

@PucksAndFeelings

Okay but hypothetically—

IF—

the rivalry was just cover—

what would that even look like timeline-wise

@BeanTownHockey

Rookie year is too early.

They genuinely looked like they wanted to fight each other.

@Captain81

Or did they look like they wanted to fight each other because they didn’t have language for anything else yet 👀

@RivalsToRoommates

I hate that I understand what you’re implying.

@MarshmallowSofia

CMM SHOOT THEORY IS BACK AGAIN NOOOOO

@IceColdAnalytics

I’m just saying that shoot had no reason to feel that intense for a promo.

@GoalieProblems

This is how every conspiracy starts btw

@LuluLives

I am not saying it’s real.

I am saying: If we map behavior patterns over time, there is a discontinuity after 2018.

@HollanovDefenseSquad

“behavior patterns” 😭😭😭

@BlueLineBeliever

SOMEONE GET THIS WOMAN OFF THE INTERNET

@PucksAndFeelings

Okay but I’ll play along hypothetically

if it DID start after Montreal trade—

that would mean Ilya “cured the heartbreak”

@BeanTownHockey

Bro stop making it poetic I’m losing it

@Captain81

No because that’s actually insane framing

@RinksideChaos

So my theory is: rivalry → emotional suppression → trade incident → Boston → “oh no I am in love” ???

@MarshmallowSofia

This is literally fanfiction math 😭

@IceColdAnalytics

I prefer: rivalry was always emotional complexity, not pure antagonism, people just didn’t have context for it.

@GoalieProblems

You just used a lot of words to say “we don’t know”

@LuluLives

I accept all interpretations.

I am simply collecting data.

@RivalsToRoommates

“collecting data” she says while emotionally destabilizing the entire fandom

@BeanTownHockey

I’m starting to think the real timeline is: we were all wrong, and they were just weird about each other for a decade

@HollanovDefenseSquad

That is somehow the least insane theory in this entire thread

@PucksAndFeelings

I hate that I agree.

@BlueLineBeliever

Anyway I’m muting this before someone says “they were in love in juniors” next

@LuluLives

Junior footage is under review.

Boston Raiders Capture Stanley Cup in Historic Return Season

The Boston Raiders have officially reclaimed the Stanley Cup in a dominant playoff run, marking their first championship win since 2014. After four seasons without a title, the organization’s return to glory has been defined by a reshaped roster, high-stakes trades out of Montreal, and a playoff performance that analysts are already calling one of the most complete modern campaigns.

Central to the story is Shane Hollander, whose controversial departure from the Montreal Voyagers earlier in the season followed a severe hit by Cliff Marleau that extended his recovery timeline and ultimately led to his trade. Despite speculation that his season might be over, Hollander returned in time for the playoffs—this time wearing a Raiders jersey and immediately becoming a defining force in their championship push.

Alongside him, Captain Ilya Rozanov led both on and off the ice, forming what commentators repeatedly described as a “dual-engine leadership system” that overwhelmed opponents. Their chemistry, long rumored during their time on opposing sides, now sits at the core of Boston’s identity, with both players openly confirming their relationship during their victory interview, ending years of speculation.

The Raiders’ path to the Cup was anything but easy. The New York Admirals pushed them to the edge in the Eastern Conference, forcing a physical, tactical series that many believed could swing either way. In the West, the Los Angeles Kings emerged as equally formidable finalists, extending Boston deep into the final stretch before ultimately falling short in a tightly contested series.

What has drawn even more attention, however, is the unusual thread connecting this postseason’s strongest teams: each of them featured at least one former Montreal Voyagers player. From leadership roles to key playoff performances, ex-Voyagers were present at nearly every critical moment of the bracket. Post-series interactions reflected that shared history—most notably, a postgame embrace between Shane Hollander and Hayden Pike following Boston’s win over New York, and a long on-ice exchange between Hollander and JJ following the final.

Analysts have pointed to this as evidence of Montreal’s former developmental dominance, even as questions continue to circulate about whether that legacy was tied more to system structure or to individual talent that has since flourished elsewhere.

For Boston, however, the narrative is simpler: a rebuilt core, a reunited leadership duo in Hollander and Rozanov, and a championship run that reasserts them at the top of the league.

And yet, even in the midst of celebration, one storyline continues to dominate fan discussion beyond the trophy itself—the now-confirmed relationship between Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, which has become an unavoidable subplot to a season already packed with controversy, redemption, and history.

Comments:

@PuckAnalytics

The craziest part of this article is still the "every contender had a former Voyager" statistic.

@RaidersFaithful

Shane Hollander wins a Stanley Cup in his first season after leaving Montreal.

You genuinely cannot write this stuff.

@VoyagersForever

Please stop reminding me.

@WestCoastKings

People are acting like LA got steamrolled. That Final went six games and three of them could have gone either way.

@rinkrat44

So, are we just casually skipping over the "raising a daughter together" part?

@StatsGuy88

No, because I'm still trying to process Boston finishing first in offense and second in defense.

@ColdCoffeeAndChaos

I'm sorry but "raising a daughter together" feels like information that should have been in a different article.

@HockeyHistorian

Honestly, the bigger story is how badly Montreal mismanaged their roster.

Half the league's contenders were former Voyagers.

@CanadiensNation

Every article this year somehow becomes a Montreal slander piece.

@PikeFan21

The Hayden and Shane hug after the Admirals series almost got me.

Eight years as teammates and they still looked devastated to eliminate each other.

@BostonSportsDaily

People in this comment section are discussing marriage.

I'm trying to discuss the fact that Rozanov had 27 points on the playoffs.

@ClosetedAndCold

Counterpoint: Shane immediately calling Sofia "our daughter" in the interview was adorable.

@OldSchoolHockey

As someone who has watched hockey for forty years, the relationship isn't even in the top five craziest things that happened this season.

Roger Crowell got arrested twelve hours ago.

@NewsJunkie

THANK YOU.

Why is nobody talking about Crowell and Kent?

@RaidersFaithful

Because Boston won the Stanley Cup and Shane finally looked happy.

Let us have this.

@MapleLeafOnIce

Half the comments are discussing forechecking systems.

The other half are planning a wedding.

This might be the most hockey comment section imaginable.

@rinkratfamilies

Quiet afternoon in Boston.

[photos]

— Ilya and Yuna walking through a Japanese market, Ilya holding a basket while Yuna compares two items like it’s a strategic decision that will decide the outcome of something important. Ilya is nodding like he agrees, even though he probably doesn’t.

— Frozen yogurt shop near the window. Yuna is mid-laugh, leaning slightly forward as she talks. Ilya is carefully building a cup that looks unstable, but he refuses to acknowledge it.

— Bookstore with a small Japanese section. Yuna flipping through a book, completely focused. Ilya is standing beside her with shopping bags, waiting without urgency, like this is just how time passes now.

— Outside on the street. Yuna adjusts Ilya’s scarf without asking.

Caption:

Some days are just normal.

Comments:

@MapleLeafOnIce

I’m sorry, but did Yuna Hollander just casually adopt Ilya Rozanov in broad daylight?

@PuckTalkDaily

“Some days are just normal” this is the least normal thing I’ve ever seen

@icedancearchive

The scarf adjustment photo is doing something to me I don’t understand

@coldcoffeeandchaos

He went from “league menace” to “quietly follows mom through bookstore” arc

@rinkrat44

YUNA SAID “I ALREADY HAVE ONE SON AND HE’S HAVING ENOUGH DRAMA SO I’LL TAKE THE OTHER ONE TOO”

@BostonSportsDaily

This is not a hockey post anymore, this is domestic documentation

@catboyshane

Ilya walking behind her with bags like he’s been assigned permanent errands duty is insane.

@goalieproblems

The emotional tone shift between “elite athlete” and “holding yogurt cup carefully” is crazy.

@edgequeen

Montreal fans are going to lose their minds seeing this.

@CanadiensNation

This is what happens when you let Yuna Hollander into your life apparently.

@closetedandcold

“Some days are just normal” meanwhile this is the most cinematic grocery run ever posted.

@MapleLeafOnIce

I need someone to explain how we got here from on-ice rivalries

@PuckTalkDaily

We didn’t get a press release.

We got a family soft launch.

@icedancearchive

This is the calmest Ilya has ever looked and that is terrifying in its own way

Posted by @LuluLives

IN YOUR FACE, @RoseAndShaneArchive!

I HAVE BEEN WAITING.

FOR TWO YEARS.

TWO YEARS.

You all spent every interview, every photo, every award show, every public appearance insisting Shane Hollander and Rose Landry were secretly together.

Every single time.

And what happened?

Nothing.

Because they were friends.

Just friends.

Meanwhile every time someone pointed out that Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov were weirdly obsessed with each other, we got:

"They hate each other"

"They're rivals"

"They're teammates"

"They're roommates"

WELL APPARENTLY, THEY WERE NOT ROOMMATES.

THEY WERE DATING.

SO.

RESPECTFULLY.

HOLD THIS L.

Sincerely,

The Entire Hollanov Community.

Comments:

@RoseAndShaneArchive

Oh my god can you people be normal for five minutes

@LuluLives

NO.

@RoseAndShaneArchive

Rose and Shane still have better chemistry than half the couples in this league.

@HollanovDefenseSquad

THAT'S GREAT.

ONE OF THEM IS DATING SOMEONE ELSE NOW.

@RoseAndShaneArchive

IT HAS BEEN SIX HOURS.

@RinkRatStatistics

Guys please.

The confirmation happened six hours ago.

@LuluLives

I HAVE BEEN PREPARING FOR THIS DAY FOR TWO YEARS.

@PucksAndFeelings

The funniest part is that the "they were roommates" joke aged catastrophically.

@goalieproblems

Actually.

Historically.

Possibly the worst-aged fandom argument I've ever seen.

@RoseAndShaneArchive

Nobody thought the rival was the actual love interest.

That is not a normal outcome.

@HollanovDefenseSquad

Skill issue.

@BlueLineBeliever

I'm crying because both sides sound equally insane.

@IceColdAnalytics

As a neutral observer, I'd like to point out that both communities have assembled evidence folders.

None of you are normal.

@RoseAndShaneArchive

THANK YOU.

@LuluLives

WE WERE RIGHT THOUGH.

@RoseAndShaneArchive

YOU WERE RIGHT BY ACCIDENT.

@LuluLives

RIGHT IS RIGHT.

@MarshmallowSofia

I don't even ship anyone and this thread is the funniest thing happening today.

@RinksideChaos

The best part is that everyone else is talking about the relationship confirmation and these people immediately resumed a two-year shipping war.

@PuckTalkDaily

The funniest outcome would be if Shane and Ilya saw this.

@goalieproblems

Absolutely not.

@PuckTalkDaily

Ilya would think it's hilarious.

@RinksideChaos

Shane would stare at the screen for twenty seconds and ask why strangers are arguing about Rose.

@IceColdAnalytics

The real victim today is Rose Landry, who somehow got dragged into another shipping argument despite not being involved.

@RoseAndShaneArchive

FREE HER.

@LuluLives

YOU WERE THE FIRST ONE TO INVOLVE HER!

@BlueLineBeliever

As someone who doesn't belong to either side:

You all lost.

The players won.

@goalieproblems

Correct.

@BostonHockeyUpdates

Respectfully, I am very happy for Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov.

However.

I would like to remind everyone that the Boston Raiders won the Stanley Cup approximately twelve hours ago. Can we please discuss hockey for five minutes?

[photos]

— Shane Hollander standing on the parade bus holding the Cup over his head while confetti cannons go off behind him.

— Ilya Rozanov wearing championship sunglasses and pointing at fans along the route.

— Connors somehow wearing three different championship hats at once.

— Sergei Korsakov sitting on the roof of the bus with a drink in one hand and the Cup in the other.

— St. Simon laughing so hard he's bent over against the railing.

— Entire Raiders roster packed together for a team photo, several players visibly incapable of standing in a straight line.

#BostonRaiders #StanleyCupParade

Comments:

@PuckTalkDaily

THANK YOU.

HOCKEY.

LET'S TALK ABOUT HOCKEY.

@BostonBorn91

WE WON THE CUP BABY

@goalieproblems

FINALLY, A POST ABOUT THE ACTUAL CHAMPIONSHIP 😭

@rinkrat44

Okay, but look at photo three

Connors has absolutely no idea where he is

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Connors looks like he woke up on the wrong parade bus and decided to commit to it

@icedancearchive

Sergei is somehow drinking from a cup while holding the Cup

That feels symbolic

@BlueLineBeliever

My favorite parade moment was when Marleau tried to start a chant and forgot the words halfway through

@PuckTalkDaily

HE DID

I THOUGHT I HALLUCINATED THAT

@CanadiensNation

The amount of alcohol consumed by this roster should be studied

@edgequeen

The best part was Ilya trying to give a speech and immediately getting interrupted by three different teammates

@goalieproblems

He got maybe four words out

@coldcoffeeandchaos

And those four words were "we won the—"

Before someone started spraying champagne

@MapleLeafOnIce

The real shock is Shane

@rinkrat44

YES

@MapleLeafOnIce

I HAVE NEVER SEEN SHANE HOLLANDER DRUNK BEFORE

HE WAS SOBER FOR THE WHOLE PARADE, SO WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED AT THAT CLUB?!!!

@PuckTalkDaily

I genuinely didn't know he was capable of it

@icedancearchive

There's a video of him laughing at absolutely nothing for thirty seconds

I blame Rozanov

@goalieproblems

The one where he forgets what question he was answering???

I blame Rozanov too

@icedancearchive

THAT ONE

#BlameRozanov

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Reporter:

"How does it feel to win the cup?"

Shane:

"It feels..."

[pause]

[pause]

[pause]

Starts laughing

#BlameRozanov

@BlueLineBeliever

The funniest thing is that he wasn't even messy drunk

He just looked delighted by everything

#BlameRozanov

@edgequeen

Ilya was exactly as drunk as everyone expected

@goalieproblems

Actually less

2014 was a trip!

#BlameRozanov

@edgequeen

Fair

@bruinsguy77

My favorite moment was St. Simon attempting to carry two cases of beer and immediately dropping one

@rinkrat44

The crowd cheered

@coldcoffeeandchaos

HE TOOK A BOW

@BlueLineBeliever

That entire parade felt like a group project where nobody was supervising

@bruinsguy77

Okay but seriously

Congratulations to the Raiders!

-playoff rounds

-countless heart attacks

-and somehow, they actually did it!

@goalieproblems

Agreed

Relationship discourse can resume tomorrow

Today is for hockey

@PuckTalkDaily

Bold of you to assume the relationship discourse ever stopped 😭

@PostSeasonPanic

Can I ask a genuine question?

Why is nobody talking about the fact that Boston won the Stanley Cup?

HELLO???

THEY WON THE CUP.

THAT FEELS IMPORTANT.

WHAT HAPPENED TO HOCKEY?

Comments:

@PuckTalkDaily

Buddy

@PostSeasonPanic

What?

@PuckTalkDaily

You need to catch up on the news.

@PostSeasonPanic

What news? They literally won yesterday!

@goalieproblems

Oh, no.

@BlueLineBeliever

Nobody tell him.

@PostSeasonPanic

TELL ME WHAT?!

@MapleLeafOnIce

The NHL commissioner got arrested this morning.

@PostSeasonPanic

WHAT?!

@MapleLeafOnIce

-fraud

-harassment

-extortion

-covering up crimes

You know, the work.

@PostSeasonPanic

EXCUSE ME?!!!

@RinksideChaos

And that's somehow only the second biggest story.

@PostSeasonPanic

SECOND???

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Dallas Kent got arrested.

@PostSeasonPanic

… for what…?

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Multiple rape charges.

@PostSeasonPanic

...

@PostSeasonPanic

WHAT DO YOU MEAN MULTIPLE?!!!

@goalieproblems

Last count was six.

@PostSeasonPanic

I LEFT THIS APP FOR ONE AFTERNOON

@PuckTalkDaily

And the league exploded.

@BlueLineBeliever

To be fair, the relationship reveal was the biggest story for almost one evening.

@MapleLeafOnIce

And then reality entered the chat

@PostSeasonPanic

Hold on!

Let me get this straight.

In the last twenty-four hours:

-Boston won the Stanley Cup

-Hollander and Rozanov confirmed they're dating

-The commissioner got arrested

-And Dallas Kent got arrested

@RinksideChaos

Correct

@PostSeasonPanic

WHAT IS HAPPENING?!!!

@goalieproblems

History 😭

@coldcoffeeandchaos

The worst part is that you're not exaggerating

@PostSeasonPanic

I WAS WORRIED PEOPLE FORGOT ABOUT THE CUP

@BlueLineBeliever

People did not forget.

It just got buried under several catastrophes.

@MapleLeafOnIce

This might genuinely be the craziest day in league history

@PuckTalkDaily

And it keeps getting worse every time someone refreshes

@PostSeasonPanic

I would like to go back to arguing about hockey please 😭

@goalieproblems

That option is currently unavailable.

@RinksideChaos

Error 404

Normal sports discourse not found

@BlueLineBeliever

Imagine being a Boston player.

You win the Stanley Cup, and within twelve hours nobody can even decide if that's the biggest news story.

@PostSeasonPanic

I'M LOSING MY MIND

@MapleLeafOnIce

We all are.

@PuckTalkDaily

Welcome back to the timeline 😭

@BostonRaiders

🏆 JUNE IS HERE. CHAMPIONS ARE HERE.

[photo]

— Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov standing on the ice in full championship gear, both holding the Stanley Cup between them. Confetti still stuck to their shoulders. Shane is laughing mid-sentence at something off camera. Ilya has one arm around him like it’s the most natural thing in the world, the Cup tilted slightly forward like they forgot it was heavy.

Caption:

Happy pride month from your 2019 Stanley Cup Champions.

And from everyone in this organization:

-we stand with our players, straight and gay.

-we stand with love in all its forms.

-we stand with Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov.

Always.

Comments:

@CliffMarleau

Yeah, okay this is my team.

Proud of the captains and of this locker room!

@SergeiKorsakov

They’ve been like this for a while anyway.

Some of you are just catching up.

@ConnorsTheRookie

Love wins, hockey wins, chaos wins.

Mostly chaos.

@St-Simon

Not getting involved in the “who is mom and who is dad” debate.

You will not get me fined!

@BostonRaiders

We are NOT moderating that discourse.

Good luck.

@JJ-Hockey

They are both terrifying and I say that with respect.

@HaydenPike

Happy for them.

Also terrified of them.

@rinkrat44

This is the most official “we are done pretending this is just hockey” post I’ve ever seen.

@icedancearchive

The way they just said it like a corporate statement and moved on is insane.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

I NEED ANSWERS. WHO IS TEAM MOM? AND WHO IS TEAM DAD?

@edgequeen

You are not getting answers.

@CanadiensNation

Montreal watching this like 😐

@closetedandcold

This is not a pride post, this is a FINAL BOSS REVEAL

@IlyaRozanov

The admin got it wrong.

Unlike my fiancé, who is super gay, I am bisexual.

Anyway…

@rinkrat44

HE LEFT??? AFTER SAYING THAT?!!!

@PuckTalkDaily

DID ILYA ROZANOV JUST DROP THAT AND LOG OFF?!

@MapleLeafOnIce

“unlike my fiancé” SIR??? YOU CANNOT JUST SAY THAT AND DISAPPEAR!

@goalieproblems

THIS IS WHY SPORTS MEDIA IS BROKEN

@icedancearchive

He said that like it was a routine correction and vanished into the void

@coldcoffeeandchaos

“super gay” vs “bisexual” taxonomy discourse was NOT on my bingo card 😭

@edgequeen

He is 100% laughing somewhere off-screen

@PuckTalkDaily

This is going to be cited in sports journalism textbooks as “what not to publish unverified chaos adjacent statements”

@icedancearchive

The worst part is he posted it like he was correcting a mislabel on a grocery item 😭

@closetedandcold

HE REALLY SAID “ANYWAY” AND LEFT

@catboyshane

COME BACK YOU ASSHOLE EXPLAIN YOURSELF

@YunaHollander

🎥

[video]

A lakeside ceremony at dusk. The light makes everything look softer than it should be, like reality has been turned down slightly. A white floral arch stands at the edge of the water of the still lake.

Sofia walks first.

Small, careful steps down the aisle, scattering petals in a slow, focused rhythm like she’s been given a very important job and is taking it seriously. A pink dress, sleeves slightly too long, basket held tight in both hands.

Behind her: Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov.

Both in white suits, stopping only when they reach the arch. Shane exhales once, as Ilya glances at him.

There’s a beat where nothing happens, and then Shane says it—barely audible:

“I do.”

Ilya follows immediately after, quieter but certain.

“I do.”

That’s all.

Just hands finding each other, and then a kiss that the camera catches only briefly before cutting away to black.

Comments:

@rinkrat44

EXCUSE ME??????

@coldcoffeeandchaos

I NEED A MINUTE. I NEED SEVERAL MINUTES.

@MapleLeafOnIce

THEY’RE MARRIED???? LIKE ACTUALLY MARRIED????

@icedancearchive

I just watched that and I feel like I interrupted something I wasn’t supposed to see.

@goalieproblems

I AM SHAKING. HOW DID THEY KEEP THIS SECRET???

@closetedandcold

SOFIA AS FLOWER GIRL IS MAKING ME CRY SHE LOOKED SO SERIOUS ABOUT IT 😭

@edgequeen

This is insane. THIS IS ACTUALLY INSANE!

@CanadiensNation

Okay, but HOW did nobody know?

LIKE HOW?!!!

@BostonSportsDaily

I don’t care how. I care that I just found out like this.

@rinkrat44

They just got… married??

@coldcoffeeandchaos

No because I’m happy for them but I’m also offended?? like hello?? communication??

@MapleLeafOnIce

They really said “you’ll find out when you find out”

@goalieproblems

I feel betrayed and also deeply emotional at the same time.

@closetedandcold

This is the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen and also the most unhinged way to find out.

@edgequeen

I support them. I also need to scream into a pillow.

@rinkrat44

Okay but they looked SO calm like this wasn’t life-changing information.

@PuckTalkDaily

I’m happy for you guys. I love you. I hate you.

Congratulations, I guess.

🎙️ LIVE BROADCAST — STANLEY CUP FINAL CELEBRATION (ICE LEVEL + COMMENTARY FEED)

📍 Boston Arena — Post-Game Ceremony

───

The camera shakes slightly as it tracks the Boston Raiders skating slow celebratory laps around the ice. Confetti rains down in thick waves—black, white, and gold sticking to helmets, jerseys, and the Stanley Cup itself as it gets passed from hand to hand like it weighs nothing at all.

The crowd is still roaring, but the broadcast audio is mostly locked onto the commentators.

───

🎙️ COMMENTATOR 1 (voice slightly hoarse, overwhelmed)

“And that’s it. That’s three Stanley Cups in a row for the Boston Raiders.”

🎙️ COMMENTATOR 2 (laughs, almost disbelieving)

“They’ve broken Montreal’s modern record. Two was the benchmark. Three… three is something else entirely.”

───

On ice, Shane Hollander circles with the Cup raised slightly above shoulder height, turning just enough so the lights catch it. Ilya Rozanov is beside him, one hand on Shane’s back like he’s keeping him anchored in the chaos.

───

🎙️ COMMENTATOR 1

“I mean… at this point, what do you even say about them? Do you think Rozanov and Hollander are doing this for the rest of their careers? Just—winning. Year after year?”

───

A pause. The camera briefly catches Shane laughing as he nearly drops the Cup, recovering it instantly while Ilya steadies him without looking.

───

🎙️ COMMENTATOR 2 (dry, almost amused)

“Who knows. Maybe. You don’t bet against those two anymore.”

───

The Raiders complete another lap. A cut to Shane handing the Cup to Ilya. Ilya holds it for a moment longer than necessary, then passes it back like it’s part of a rhythm only the two of them understand.

───

🎙️ COMMENTATOR 1

“I think the league has kind of stopped trying to predict them at this point.”

🎙️ COMMENTATOR 2

“Yeah. You can’t predict them anymore. You can only watch history happen.”

🎙️ COMMENTATOR 1

“They’ve become a system. Not just a team. A system.”

🎙️ COMMENTATOR 2 (a small laugh)

“A fortress is the word fans keep using.”

───

The camera zooms out slightly: the entire Raiders roster moving in orbit around them, but the center of gravity is unmistakably Shane and Ilya.

───

🎙️ COMMENTATOR 1

“Three straight championships, and they don’t look like they’re done.”

🎙️ COMMENTATOR 2

“Yeah… I don’t think we’re supposed to understand this era. I think we’re just living in it.”

🎙️ COMMENTATOR 1

“Yeah. That sounds about right.”

Comments:

@rinkrat44

THREE. IN. A. ROW. I don’t even have words anymore 😭😭😭

@bruinsburner91

The commentators basically said “yeah we’re done guessing, they’re just winning forever”

And honestly? Fair

@icedancearchive

“Yeah. You can’t predict them anymore. You can only watch history happen.” Is the most exhausted commentator energy I’ve ever heard

@coldcoffeeandchaos

They sound like they’ve given up professionally and emotionally and I respect that.

@goalieproblems

At this point I’m not even surprised I’m just witnessing history repeatedly.

@edgequeen

“fortress” is actually the only accurate description left.

@CanadiensNation

Okay but watching Shane win THREE cups after leaving Montreal is genuinely painful 😭

@MapleLeafOnIce

“don’t bet against those two anymore” = league surrender document

@BostonSportsDaily

Commentators: “they’re a system”

Everyone else: “they’re unstoppable”

@closetedandcold

I love how even the broadcasters are just like yeah… this is their world now.

@PuckTalkDaily

They stopped analyzing and started narrating inevitability 😭

@rinkrat44

SHANE DROPPED THE CUP AND ILYA JUST CAUGHT HIM LIKE IT WAS NOTHING AGAIN I’M SICK

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Montreal fans watching this must be physically unwell

@MapleLeafOnIce

Nah, I’m gonna say it

MONTREAL REALLY FUMBLED THIS ENTIRE ERA 😭

@goalieproblems

Five years no playoffs and now watching Hollander win THREE IN A ROW with Boston is CRAZY

@CanadiensNation

We do NOT have to do this right now—

@MapleLeafOnIce

I’m sorry but it’s true.

@PuckTalkDaily

This is what happens when you let a dynasty walk away and don’t fix your structure.

@edgequeen

“Fuck Montreal” is CRAZY but also the timeline is what it is.

@coldcoffeeandchaos

I’m not even a Montreal fan and I feel attacked watching this.

@rinkrat44

THEY ARE ACTUALLY JUST BUILT DIFFERENT! LIKE HOW DO YOU STOP THEM?!

@icedancearchive

Apparently, you don’t.

@BostonSportsDaily

The league is just watching and accepting it at this point.

@closetedandcold

The commentators really said “yeah they’ll just keep winning” like it’s weather forecast.

@PuckTalkDaily

“Expected dynasty conditions, no relief in sight”

@MapleLeafOnIce

I’m crying this is insane 😭

@coldcoffeeandchaos

Anyway, congrats to Boston and I guess… condolences to everyone else

@edgequeen

Mostly condolences to Montreal specifically.

@rinkrat44

NO ONE IS RECOVERING FROM THIS ERA LMAO

Chapter 13: Playlist

Chapter Notes

I'm reading a new series and One More Chapter has got me addicted to reading while listening to the books while listening to the Playlist they organized. So, I decided to create my own Playlist for The Sun Beyond Winter. I hope you enjoy it!

1. Shane Hollander - Achilles Come Down, by Gang of Youths.

2. Ilya Rozanov - Take Me to Church, by Hozier.

3. Cliff Marleau - Hurt, by Johnny Cash.

4. Hayden Pike - Losing My Religion, by R.E.M.

5. Scott Hunter - Scott Street, by Phoebe Bridgers (I had to! 🤭)

6. A story about two rivals who became best friends - O Children — Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

7. Coach LeClaire - Viva La Vida, by Coldplay.

8. Yuna Hollander - Saturn, by Sleeping At Last.

9. Rose Landry - Count on Me, by Bruno Mars.

10. David Hollander - Mastermind, by Taylor Swift.

11. Svetlana Vetrova - Red Means I Love You — Madds Buckley.

12. BOSTON RAIDERS WIN STANLEY CUP - Can’t Hold Us — Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

Do you agree with my selection? Or do you have better ideas? 😉

Works inspired by this one

[Fic Cover] The Sun Beyond Winter by therebaeka