Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Hayden Pike, Jackie Pike, Hayden Pike's Children, Farah Jalali, Svetlana Vetrova, Rose Landry

Additional Tags:

Racism, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Being Assholes (Game Changers), Fluff, Marriage Proposal, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Homophobic Language, Coming Out, nobody let shane and ilya make the plans, they're both very bad at it, no hockey in my hockey fic, Idiots in Love, Shane Hollander Leaves the Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of all the stars aligned

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-01 Completed: 2026-03-05 Words: 32,186 Chapters: 3/3

all the stars aligned

Summary

They’d agreed on a plan. It was cautious. Designed to keep them safe. Laying the foundation for a future after hockey. It didn’t include Shane going nuclear one fucking day into pre-season, blowing up his entire life on something he should’ve expected to happen if he was being honest with himself.

Or, when the long game falls apart, Shane and Ilya need a new plan. (Or or, from the ten year plan to the one week speed-run.)

Notes

I want a softer world for these boys, so that's mostly what this is (after we get past the canon-typical assholery of the Montreal Metros.) This was going to be a giant, many-chaptered long fic but after writing about 30,000 words over the past week, I have accepted that that's not who I am. So, have the first fic in what is probably a multipart series. Chapters 2 and 3 will be up expeditiously. Further fics...TBD.

Mostly show canon (i.e. Metros, Raiders, Ilya's relationship with Svetlana), but a little bit of books where I felt like it.

Unbetaed, so all the extra commas are nobody's fault but mine. The em dashes are also all me, miss me with that AI bullshit.

Chapter 1

Shane drives home from the first day of training camp, feeling like he’s covered in grime despite already showering at the rink. It’s a different sort of feeling than the sweat he earns on the ice; this is under his skin, itching, miserable and persistent. It’s the feeling of twenty-pairs of eyes on him, the oppressive silence of the locker room, the feeling of giving away too much without even meaning to. If there is any saving grace today, at least it wasn’t the rookies and everybody called up from Laval for training camp, too. If it had been tomorrow, instead of today, it could’ve been forty pairs of eyes on him instead.

He can’t help replaying it, over and over in his mind. 

Can’t believe we’re playing against that fag Hunter for the season opener, Comeau had said. 

Better Hunter than that Russian cocksucker, Wilson had said. 

I don’t want to hear that shit in my locker room, Shane snapped. Not anymore. Had even said it again in French, for good measure.

If he had just left it there it might’ve been fine. They would’ve rolled their eyes at him, maybe complied for a week or two, and then it would’ve crept back in, one “joke” and “harmless” comment at a time, slowly eroding their captain’s order, one of the only ones he’d ever given. 

That wasn’t the kind of captain he was, and maybe that was his downfall. He had always been more likely to pull a teammate aside to talk to them individually if he needed to offer a correction. He didn’t shout out orders to the entire locker room. He didn’t put his foot down with all twenty of them when only two or three were the problem. But this is different, because Shane doesn’t know how many of them are the problem. It’s an issue of culture, not personality clashes or line dynamics or competition, so Shane had no choice, really.

And then Comeau had gotten in his face, and Shane had doubled down. 

He parks in his assigned spot at the apartment building he’s supposed to be moving out of next week, to the house out in Brossard he just closed on. All steps to make his life with Ilya more possible. A hysterical laugh bubbles up out of Shane’s chest. He hadn’t even made it through a single day. 

His phone has been buzzing nonstop in his pocket since he left the arena, and Shane scrolls through the notifications in the elevator. Theirault. Montreal’s GM. Hayden. Hayden. Hayden. Farah. 

He unlocks his apartment door and lets it close behind him. A week ago, Ilya was here, helping him pack. Now, Ilya is back in Boston and Shane would give anything to have him still here, close enough to touch. 

He ignores everyone else’s calls and texts, swiping into his recent calls and tapping Lily’s name. 

“I fucked up,” he says, as soon as Ilya answers. 

“Shane—” Ilya says, his tone the same one he used only two months ago when Shane was melting down after his dad walked in on them. The difference is, then Shane was panicking about things that weren’t real, fears that he’d built up inside his head. Now, things are very real.

“I did,” Shane insists. “It’s bad.”

“How bad?”

“I broke Comeau’s nose. In the locker room. He called me a faggot first, but I don’t think that’s going to matter to the league.” 

Especially because it’s unlikely anyone is going to back him up, except Hayden. One voice in a room of twenty won’t carry much weight. 

“Also, I’m pretty sure I’m out now. To all of them.”

“Tell me what happened,” Ilya says.

“They were just running their mouths. The usual stuff. I told them not anymore, not in my locker room. Comeau got in my face about it. I think I told him to stop making his small dick everybody else’s problem.”

Ilya snorts. “Where are those chirps on the ice?”

“He told me to suck it, I told him I’d rather suck my boyfriend’s.” Shane feels a strange sense of separation, like the Shane in the locker room this afternoon was a different person. He doesn’t even really remember the argument or throwing the punch. He does remember the startled look on Comeau’s face, like he hadn’t expected Shane to do anything more than yell at him. 

“And that’s when he decided to call you names.”

“Yes.”

“And you punched him.”

“Yes. He didn’t even try to take a swing at me, which is probably also going to make it easy for the league to discipline me and not him. He can claim it was unprovoked.”

Ilya mutters something in Russian. Shane has some guesses, but the Duolingo owl is still teaching him basic nouns, not curse words. (Will the Duolingo owl even teach him curse words? Probably not. Ilya would be offended not to do it personally, anyway.) “Will you be safe?” Ilya asks.

“Yeah, I’m home, I’m going to make food and start dealing with the fallout.”

“I mean in the locker room. On the team. Now that they know.”

“Oh,” Shane says. There was a time when he would’ve said yes immediately, without even having to think about it. But that was when he didn’t even know who he was, so of course they didn’t either. Now, he stops and thinks. About who makes jokes. About who uses slurs. About the silence, today, after Shane had said my boyfriend’s dick and Comeau had called him a faggot. About the stack of notifications on his phone screen, and not one single teammate’s name except Hayden’s among them. “I don’t know. Maybe…not?”

Ilya sucks in a ragged breath, loud in Shane’s ear. “I think we need a new plan, then, sweetheart,” he says, sounding worried. 

It hits Shane—like a bucket of ice water over his head—what he’s done. What he’s ruined. They’d agreed on a plan. It was cautious. Designed to keep them safe. Laying the foundation for a future after hockey. It didn’t include Shane going nuclear one fucking day into pre-season, blowing up his entire life on something he should’ve expected to happen if he was being honest with himself. He knows that locker room. He’s been dreading walking back into it all week, hasn’t seen any of them since his injury and had mostly been able to blame his concussion for ignoring the group chat when Scott Hunter came out. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, feeling miserable and guilty. “I’m so sorry, Ilya. I should’ve—”

“Should’ve what?” Ilya interrupts him. “Should’ve let him keep running his mouth? Should’ve kept letting your locker room talk about you that way?”

“They didn’t know—”

“So what? They didn’t need to. We do not do this in Boston. I don’t think they do in New York, or Hunter would still be in the closet. Not every team is like Montreal but you can tell the ones that are from what they say during games.”

“Toronto,” Shane says. “St. Louis. Carolina.” Places where he’s had to fucking Google some of the shit that’s been said to him on the ice.

“Yes,” Ilya says. “Fucking Toronto.” Ilya sighs. “Why didn’t we talk about this at the cottage? Why are we trying to get me to Ottawa when we should be trying to get you out of Montreal?”

“Your visa,” Shane says, helplessly, because Shane’s locker room is one thing but Russia’s laws are another. 

“Can we switch to video?” Ilya asks. “I want to see you.”

“Yeah, okay,” Shane says, and pulls the phone away from his ear, tapping the video icon on the screen. Ilya’s face fills his screen, skin and hair even more golden from their summer at the lake. His eyes always look more blue on video, somehow, and they’re soft and worried. 

“Sweetheart,” Ilya says. “Do me a favor.”

“What?” Shane asks. 

“In your closet, in shelves you emptied out for me. Open the second drawer.”

Shane, a little confused, goes to the walk-in closet in his bedroom. He’d cleaned out one of the built-in dressers for Ilya so that Ilya would have a place to put his clothes in the week they stayed here after leaving the cottage. The closet in the primary bedroom in his new house is bigger, enough for them to share and Ilya to have a whole set of clothes he keeps in Montreal if he wants to. He’d assumed Ilya had taken everything with him back to Boston, since they’d packed up a lot of the closet already, just leaving the clothes Shane needs until he moves, but there are a few pairs of socks and underwear in the top drawer and a couple t-shirts in the second drawer.

“What am I looking for?” Shane asks. 

“At the back. Under the shirts.”

Shane reaches to the back of the drawer and his fingers hit something. Shane closes his hand around a velvet box. What the fuck, he thinks, and it clearly shows on his face, because Ilya laughs.

“I think you found it,” he says, and Shane flips the camera to show him, just in case. “Yes,” Ilya confirms. “Open it.”

Shane sets the phone in the drawer and even though he knows what he’s going to find when he opens the box, he still sucks in a startled gasp at the two gold rings sitting side by side. 

“Shane,” Ilya says, “I can’t see you. I really want to see your face for this.”

“Fuck you, are you asking me to marry you over FaceTime?” Shane says as he scrambles to pick up the phone and flip the camera back around. 

“Was not original plan,” Ilya admits.  

“No shit.”

“But yes. I am. Please, will you marry me? Be my husband. Not just for passport, although obviously it will help. But because my heart has been yours since you folded all your clothes but left your socks on in room 1410. Maybe since you told me I wasn’t allowed to smoke in that parking lot.” Ilya pauses, his eyes searching Shane’s face on his screen. “Probably since then.” 

“Obviously I’ll marry you,” Shane says, “even though this is how you’re asking me. We were together all summer in the most beautiful place in the world.”

“I know,” Ilya groans. “But the rings were in Boston. Sveta had to FedEx overnight them to me when we got to Montreal. I was going to ask before I left and then I didn’t, so I was going to come back this weekend and surprise you. Put yours on. Please.”

Shane stares at Ilya. “The rings were in Boston,” he repeats. 

“Yes. I bought them here.”

“When?”

“Oh.” Ilya’s cheeks go pink under his tan, although Shane knows he’d deny it if asked. “I cannot say. Is too embarrassing. You will laugh and say ‘actually, no, I won’t marry you’.” 

Shane figures out which of the rings is his through trial and error and shows Ilya. “I’m wearing it. I can’t take it back now. Tell me!”

Shane’s not sure he’s ever seen Ilya genuinely embarrassed until now and he can’t help but be a little delighted by it, the way he pulls the collar of his shirt up over his face, trying to hide. “Is it more embarrassing than proposing to me on FaceTime?”

“I think so.”

“Wow, that is dire,” Shane says. “Was it before or after the Olympics?”

Shane’s not sure why it’s the reference point he picks, except that it’s always felt like a turning point for Shane. He’d been so worried about Ilya in Sochi, more worried than he’d had any right to be over a casual hookup. Ilya’s face pops back up out of his t-shirt and looks so stricken that Shane knows he’s close to the mark. 

“Oh my god,” Shane says, the pieces clicking into place in his brain. “Did you leave here the first time we fucked and buy rings, Ilya?”

“No,” Ilya denies automatically. Then, “Maybe.” A shrug, pretending to be casual. “I don’t have receipt anymore, I guess we’ll never know for sure.”

“And then you ghosted me for six months?”

“I panic. A lot.”

Shane laughs. “I love you so fucking much.”

Ilya’s pained expression fades and a smile spreads across his face. “I love you too. My husband.”

“I mean, not yet.”

“Fucking soon,” Ilya says. “Is part one of my plan.”

“Okay. Tell me your plan, since I think I blew mine up.”

“You don’t have to stay in closet for this,” Ilya says, and then he grins. “Which is also in my plan.”

Shane snorts, but leaves the walk-in closet, still carrying the ring box. 

“We get married. Soon. Maybe this weekend.”

Shane nearly drops the phone on his way back to the couch. “This weekend?” 

“I have plane tickets already,” Ilya says, like that’s enough of a reason. 

Honestly. Maybe it is. They’re about a week away from spending eight months bouncing around North America like pinballs, only getting close enough to touch once a month or so, let alone get married. 

“It will be hard to keep it secret,” Shane says. “Marriage licenses are public records.”

“I know,” Ilya says. “We can wait.”

“No, tell me the whole plan first.”

“We get married. We tell Farah. We find you new team. Maybe one that can afford both of us after I am free agent. Maybe that’s still Ottawa, you said they are way under cap. We can still do the charity and find ways to change the narrative. But we could also just…hard launch? Or maybe soft launch.”

“So…kind of the opposite of our first plan?” Shane asks. 

“Yes. Basically.”

“Can I think about it?”

“I will cancel my Instagram post telling everyone we are engaged.” Ilya grins wide so Shane knows he’s joking. “Of course, yes, think about it.”

Shane gets a notification that Farah is trying to call him again across the top of his screen. “Farah’s calling again,” he says. 

“Talk to Farah. Call me back after.”

“Okay. I love you. I’m sorry.”

Ilya shakes his head. “No sorrys. I love you.”

Shane hangs up the call with Ilya and accepts Farah’s, bracing himself for the consequences to be swift and harsh. She won’t drop him, will she? 

“Shane,” she says, “are you okay?”

“Uh,” he says. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Tell me what happened,” Farah says firmly. “I can only help once I have the facts.”

Shane tells her about all of it. Not just today’s fight, but the overall culture of the locker room, of the organization. 

“Some of this is going to be hard to prove,” Farah says, when he’s done.

“I don’t need to prove it. I just want out.” He sighs. “I’m engaged. I don’t want to play for a team where I’m living in fear of people finding that out.”

“Congratulations. I wish I were finding out under better circumstances.”

“Me too.”

“I think, most likely, you’re going to end up fined and suspended for a few pre-season games for the fight.”

“Yeah.” Shane frowns. “I figured.”

“But if you want out, a suspension gives us a little time. Montreal might be willing to buy out the rest of your contract. And then it’s just a matter of finding a team that feels right. Do you have any preferences?”

“Not Toronto or St. Louis or Carolina,” he says, immediately. “And I’d like to stay in the same conference, if I can. Actually, Farah, can you give me a second? I just need to check something.”

“Of course.”

He mutes the call and opens his text thread with Ilya.

Shane

Can I tell Farah?

We’re talking about teams.

I think more context will help

when I explain what I want.

Tell her specifically that I’m 

engaged to you, I mean.

Lily

Yes

Just don’t tell your parents that

your agent found out we’re getting

married before they did.

I am trying to win them over 🥺

 

Shane makes a mental note to figure out how he’s telling his parents he’s engaged two months after coming out to them. He unmutes the call with Farah.

“I’m back,” Shane says. “My, uh, fiancé is Ilya Rozanov.”

For a long second, Farah is silent. Then she says, “Oh my god.”

“I know.”

“This explains a lot. He emailed me last week, asking if I was taking on new clients. I was surprised, there weren’t any rumors he was looking for new representation. Usually things like that get around.”

“Yeah, uh, we thought it might be easier. In the long run. To consolidate some things.”

“Like the team you play for?” Farah asks, a little slyly. 

“Maybe,” Shane says. “I mean, that didn’t really even seem like a possibility until today.”

“Okay, so I’ll look into Boston.”

“It doesn’t have to be Boston. Ilya’s a free agent next year. But…teams that are interested in both of us would be good.”

“That would be every team in the league, Shane.”

“And can afford us.”

Farah laughs. “Yes, that does narrow things down.”

“We talked about Ottawa as a possibility.” 

“You’d be building them up from nothing. But they do have the cap space, and the new generation of owners took over last season, so they might be hungry to make some big changes. Plus it’s your hometown team and that’s a lot of good press.”

Shane doesn’t always easily pick up on subtext, but he understands what Farah is saying. He’s probably going to need some good press in the coming weeks.

“Ilya and I aren’t telling anyone yet. I mean, obviously now my team knows I’m gay. But nobody except my parents knows about me and Ilya.”

“Understood. Once he signs with me I’ll be able to make some discreet inquiries. I would also recommend that we start vetting publicists. If you and Ilya decide you want to make any statements or if you find yourself in a situation where you need to, it will be much easier if we’ve already hired someone and briefed them. I can pull together a shortlist.”

“That would be great,” Shane says, and he regrets not bringing Farah in sooner. Her unflappable competence is incredibly soothing, even as they talk about things that would’ve been nightmare fuel for Shane just twenty-four hours ago. Well, some of them are still nightmare fuel. But Farah doesn’t seem worried about any of it, and Shane wonders what kind of plan she could’ve come up with if he’d called her from the cottage a month ago. 

“Okay, action items: do not talk to anyone from Montreal.”

“Anyone?” Shane asks, surprised. “Coach and the GM both called me.”

“And now they’ll be calling me. If anyone texts or emails you, send me copies immediately. If you have any older texts or emails that speak to the culture of the organization, please send those to me, although if your team has any sense they’ll have either scrubbed the group chat or kicked you out of it by now.”

Shane isn’t so sure about that, mostly because sense is pretty thin on the ground in Montreal.

“What about Hayden?”

“Hayden is fine, if you trust him.”

“I do. He’s the only one, probably.”

“I’m sorry,” Farah says. “Also…don’t plan on practice tomorrow unless you hear otherwise from me.”

“Shit, really?”

“Technically you’re benched, but that came from the GM, not the league. It’s unclear how much they want to involve the league right now. I’ll keep you in the loop as I learn more.”

“I’m sorry,” Shane says. “I really didn’t expect today to go like this.”

“This is my job, Shane. I’m very good at it and you pay me a lot of money to do it, so you don’t need to apologize.”

“Apologizing is like a reflex to me.” He just barely manages not to say sorry again. “Also…I’m not really used to being the guy who pisses off the coaching staff, the front office, and the entire locker room all at once.”

“I know. You’re Canada’s Golden Boy, but I’ve been wondering how long it would be until your image started to feel more like golden handcuffs. It seems like maybe we’ve hit that point?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“That’s something we can work with a publicist on too. And maybe also start the conversation with Yuna about what brand deals make the most sense moving forward. You get to decide those things, not the league or the media.”

“Jesus, Farah, are you sure you’re not a therapist too?”

She laughs. “Definitely. I like numbers, not feelings. Okay, I’ve got plenty to do. I’ll call you with an update tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. Thank you.” 

“You got it. Speak soon.”

She hangs up, and Shane sits on his couch wondering if there’s a human emotion left that he hasn’t felt today. 

Shane

Call with Farah was good

But I think I’m talked out

for a little while

Need food and sleep

Can I call you after?

Lily

Yes

Eat and sleep please

I love you

Shane

I love you too

So much

Shane thinks about dragging himself off the couch to go find something to eat but the meal service he uses during the season doesn’t start until next week, and he doesn’t feel up to really cooking anything. He stretches out on the couch, deciding a nap first will help with that problem. 

---

Shane’s not sure how long he’s been asleep when he jolts awake to someone knocking, loudly, on his door. The living room is still lit with afternoon light and he still feels like he’s being weighed down with lead, so it can’t have been very long. 

“Shane! If you don’t open this door in one minute I’m letting myself in!” 

Hayden. Shane rolls off the couch and shuffles to his door. “I’m coming,” he shouts, to forestall Hayden digging out the spare key Shane gave him four years ago for emergencies, after he got taken out with the flu and nobody in Montreal had any way to check up on him. Shane peers through the peephole to check if Hayden has anyone with him (he does, but it’s just Amber strapped to his chest in a carrier). He also appears to be holding a bag of takeout. 

Shane unlocks the deadbolt and swings the door open. 

“I called you like fifty times,” Hayden says by way of greeting. “Jackie finally sent me over here because she’s worried about you too. I brought Thai food. And also your goddaughter you haven’t met yet. Slacking off a little, you met the other three when they were fresh.”

“I don’t think I like fresh to describe a baby.” Shane winces. “And I’m sorry about not meeting her yet, there’s been a lot going on.”

“Dude, I’m joking. She barely even existed until like last week. She was just, you know, a lump of need. C’mon, let me in so I can tell Jackie you’re alive and I fed you.” 

Hayden unpacks the food onto the kitchen island and for a while they’re quiet as they dish up food and settle into their usual spots at the island, side by side with one stool between them. It’s easier to talk without the expectation of making eye contact, sometimes.

“So, uh, I’m guessing you weren’t referring to, like, a hypothetical boyfriend’s dick when Comeau called you…what he called you.”

“No,” Shane said. “I was talking about my actual boyfriend’s dick. I’m gay. ”

“So Boston Lily is actually, like, Boston Liam or something?”

“Or something.”

Shane’s phone starts to ring again and he’s honestly surprised it hasn’t died yet from how much it’s been blowing up today. He’s about to turn the damn thing off or maybe fling it across the room but the caller ID says Lily. 

“Hi baby,” Shane answers, and Hayden smirks at him. 

“Did I wake you up?” Ilya asks.

“No, Hayden did. He came to check on me.”

“He’s there now?”

“Yes. I just told him Boston Lily is not a woman.”

“Does he know more than that yet?”

“No. Do you want him to?” 

Ilya sighs. “He is your best friend, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think he should know. I need to tell Sveta later, although she has probably made some guesses after the errands I had her run. And I suspect she is much smarter than Hayden.”

“Be nice.” 

“You like it when I’m mean,” Ilya says. “Did you eat? I will order you food, if you did not. Actual food. Protein. Carbs. Fiber. Is important.”

“Hayden brought Thai food. I’m eating now.”

“And then you will sleep?”

“Yes, Ilya, then I will sleep.”

Hayden stares at him, mouth hanging open. Then, he says, very slowly. “Boston Lily is…Boston Ilya?” Silence unspools between them. Even grading on a curve for how sleep deprived Hayden probably is with a newborn, a toddler, and twins who could terrorize a small country without trying particularly hard, Shane thinks it still takes him an astoundingly long time to connect the dots. “Rozanov?”

“All right, I gotta go.” Shane tells Ilya. “I love you.”

Ilya laughs. “Please take a picture of his face when you tell him we’re engaged.” 

“I’m not going to do that,” Shane says, and hangs up.

“That was Ilya Rozanov?” Hayden asks, pointing at the phone. 

“Yes. If you’re going to freak out about it…I don’t know, go do it in another room maybe? I don’t have the energy to fight with anyone else today.”

“I’m not going to freak out,” Hayden says, and Shane’s not sure he believes him. His eyes look a little crazed. “I’m just maybe…rearranging my entire perception of the world. You started texting Boston Lily in like…2014.”

“2011,” Shane says. “It took you a few years to notice.”

“Hold the baby,” Hayden says. “I need to…” He makes a hand gesture Shane doesn’t understand, but he accepts the baby Hayden takes out of the carrier. Once Shane is holding her, Hayden sort of slithers out of his stool and lies flat on Shane’s kitchen floor, staring up at him. “You’ve been with Rozanov as long as I’ve been with Jackie?”

“Longer,” Shane says. “We got together in July of 2010. It was just casual for a long time though.”

Casual is the word Shane forgot existed during that excruciating conversation with his parents and Ilya. It had come to him later that night, once they were back at his cottage, but when he’d told Ilya, Ilya had just laughed and reminded him he’s never been casual about anything in his life. Which is true.

But Ilya doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on there, now that Shane knows he bought rings in 2014, impulse purchase or not.

“And we’re, uh, engaged.” 

“Shane. I just need to process. For like two minutes.”

Shane looks down at Amber, who he assumed was asleep from her total lack of reaction on being removed from her carrier and handed to a stranger, but her brown eyes are open and she seems surprisingly alert for how little she is. “You’re only like the fourth person in the world to know about this, Amber. Good thing you can keep a secret, huh?”

“Four?” Hayden croaks at him.

“Yeah. My parents and you. My agent knows the highlights, but you’ve got the whole story.”

“I have a timeline. That’s not a complete story.” 

Shane sighs. “You’re right. What do you want to know?”

“I mean…the rivalry?”

“We’re competitive,” Shane says. “But the rivalry was built up around us before we even knew each other. They started talking about us like that the first time we played each other at World Juniors, and then obviously going one and two in the draft to rival teams didn’t help.”

“And Rose Landry? Was that just like a media thing too?”

“No, we dated. Ilya and I weren’t exclusive then, or maybe broken up for a bit, I don’t know. Can you break up with someone you’re not officially dating? But we’ve been together basically since Rose and I broke up.”

“The All Stars this year?”

“Yeah,” Shane says. “Since then.”

“Shit. I owe Jackie fifty bucks.”

“What? Why?”

“We were watching the game, and you guys were playing like you could read each other’s fucking minds, and Jackie goes ‘do you think they’ve ever explored each other’s bodies and/or that they’re about to?’ and I said no fucking way. And then she bet me fifty bucks when Rozanov kissed your helmet.”

“You should know better than to bet against Jackie.”

“I know. She’s so fucking smart.”

“Swear jar. Like four times.”

“I just processed that you’re engaged.” Hayden gapes at him. “You’re going to marry Ilya Rozanov. On purpose.”

Shane blinks. “How would I marry him accidentally?”

“I don’t know. Drunk in Vegas, I guess.”

“Yeah, we’re not doing that. I love him, Hayd.”

“Fuck, you must. Weddings are not worth it otherwise. They’re so expensive and people get so pissed off about seating arrangements and the food is never as good as you want it to be and someone gets too drunk and ruins the whole thing for everyone else.”

“You were the drunkest person at your wedding. You started crying at like nine P.M. and didn’t stop until Jackie tucked you into bed at midnight.”

“Exactly my point.” Hayden gives him a long, considering look and Shane braces himself. “You could’ve told me.”

“I know,” Shane says. “But I could barely tell myself until about January of this year. And then…it was so much to tell. I only told my parents over the summer.”

“Jesus. How did that go?”

“It was okay, mostly. Ilya described us as lovers to them.”

“Gross.”

“I know. I’ll have nightmares for years about that, probably. Also about my dad walking in on us at the cottage. That was probably the worst part, and we were only kissing.”

“Rozanov was at your cottage this summer,” Hayden says, his voice creeping an octave higher. 

“Yeah?”

Hayden makes a noise like he’s either about to start laughing or crying, and Shane’s truly not sure which. “Honestly, that explains so much and I’m like…a little relieved because I did think you were having a stroke or something that time I called you—”

“Oh. Fuck.” Shane says, his face getting hot. “I forgot about that.”

“Ha!” Hayden points at him. “Your turn for the swear jar!” And then he squints at Shane. “You forgot? How often is Rozanov blowing you that—nope, you know what, I don’t think I want that information in my brain.”

Shane grins. “You definitely don’t.”

“That was too close to answering the question,” Hayden protests. “Should we talk about the team?”

“Do we have to?”

“I mean, probably.”

“Do you still need to be lying on the floor?”

“Honestly, I’m pretty comfortable.”

“I’m probably leaving Montreal,” Shane admits.

“Fuck. Are they putting you on waivers?”

“No. Jesus, I don’t think so. My agent didn’t say that. But…I can’t stay. Not how things are.”

“If it helps, I don’t think it’s the whole team,” Hayden says. “It’s just like three loud fucks who are actual assholes—”

“And fifteen silent ones who didn’t back me up. You’re the only one who has even tried to talk to me since this morning, Hayd. And I saw the group chat, after Scott Hunter came out, even on restricted screen time.”

“Yeah, that was fucked up.” Hayden frowns. “I have your back.”

“I know you do, you don’t have to tell me that.”

“No, I do. Because you’ve been carrying this shit for a long time, and I’ve been one of those silent assholes a lot of the time, and I get it if that’s part of why you didn’t tell me. I’m going to be better.”

Shane considers that. Would he have been more willing to tell Hayden—to tell anyone?—if he’d made it more clear he disagreed with the shit Comeau and Drapeau and the other loud assholes were saying? How much of it was Shane’s slow journey to accepting his own identity, and how much of it was the culture in the locker room? In most of the locker rooms he’d grown up in? He’s maybe been too deep into it for too long to know for sure. His life has been about hockey for so long that Shane’s not sure where his career ends and the rest of him begins, sometimes. 

But he doesn’t want to unpack it with Hayden. 

“Okay,” he says. “Thank you.”

Amber lets out one of those young baby squawks that Hayden immediately understands means she’s hungry. He finally levers himself up off the floor and rifles through the diaper bag he’d brought with him for a bottle. Shane hands her back to Hayden so he can eat the rest of his food while Hayden feeds the baby. 

“Can I tell Jackie?”

Shane has long since accepted that anything he tells either Hayden or Jackie will get to the other. “Yeah. But nobody else. Not yet.”

Hayden nods. “Okay. Maybe we can have dinner. The four of us. Next time Rozanov’s in town.”

Shane doesn’t mention that Ilya will be here this weekend, that they might get married. He doesn’t want to share that with Hayden yet. With anyone, maybe. It’s his to keep, for now, a good kind of secret. 

“Shit,” Hayden says. “Maybe you won’t be in town much longer either.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Shane promises. 

The idea of leaving Montreal doesn’t feel real yet, maybe won’t until it actually happens. And there are no guarantees that it will. They might refuse to trade him. 

Hayden stays long enough to finish feeding Amber and finish his own dinner. Shane helps bring her down to Hayden’s car rather than him having to put her back into the carrier while she’s asleep, and Hayden pulls him into a tight hug once Amber is buckled in to her carseat. 

“I love you, brother,” Hayden says. “Call me or Jackie if you need anything.”

“I will. Love you, too.”

---

Shane wakes to the sound of his phone buzzing on the nightstand, his bedroom still dark. He squints at the clock and sees it’s not yet five in the morning, which is way too early for Farah to be calling him with an update. He reaches for his phone and answers as soon as he sees who’s calling.

“Ilya?”

“I am sorry to wake you up. Can you come downstairs? I am in murder alley but I forgot my key in Boston.”

“You’re here?”

“Yes, I am here. Please come let me in.”

Shane kicks free of the sheets and scrambles out of the bedroom and down the stairs, shoving his feet into the slides he keeps by the kitchen door and running down the two flights of concrete stairs. He swings the door open, not really believing Ilya is going to be standing there until the door opens and he is, in a black denim jacket and a tank top and jeans, a duffel over his shoulder, and Shane almost launches himself through the doorway and into Ilya’s arms. He hesitates long enough for Ilya to get inside, for the door to close behind them, and then Ilya’s arms are around him.

“I am sorry,” Ilya says. “Was very stupid of me to propose on FaceTime instead of when I was close enough to touch you. I couldn’t sleep thinking about it, so I started driving.”

A startled laugh escapes out of Shane’s chest. “Was it this spot where you decided you were going to buy rings?” 

“No.” Ilya says. “Was in your bed.”

“Want to ask me again there?”

“Yes,” Ilya says fervently, touching his forehead to Shane’s. 

They lock the door behind them and Ilya keeps his hands on Shane the whole way back up the stairs, into his apartment and then up again to his bedroom. Ilya peels away to drop his duffel inside the closet and when he comes back out he’s also shucked off most of his clothes, reappearing in just his boxer briefs. Shane reaches for him and Ilya comes back, pressing in close, and Shane can’t help burying his face against Ilya’s neck, warm and smelling like his cedar-scented soap. 

Ilya steers them the final few steps to the bed, and then he’s on Shane, covering him, pressing him down into the mattress, heavy and perfect.

“Ask me again,” Shane says. “Please.”

“Rings?”

“On the nightstand.”

Ilya reaches, a little blindly, and Shane hears something slide off and hit the floor (his phone, maybe) and then Ilya is back, the oval ring box in his hand. He sets it on Shane’s chest and props himself up on his elbows.  

“That night,” Ilya says. “I just thought…maybe I can keep him. I do not deserve him, but maybe the world owes me just one good thing. When I was back in Boston I just wanted to be here, and there is a jewelry store on my way home from the practice rink. It would have been crazy to ask you then, anyway, but I kept the rings thinking maybe someday it wouldn't be so crazy. But then we were in Sochi and it seemed like the world was telling me I could have nothing good. I decided it was stupid to think I could.”

“Ilya, you deserve only good things,” Shane says, tears stinging his eyes. “Let me be good to you forever.”

“Who is proposing here, me or you?” Ilya asks, his lips curving into the small, soft smile that Shane has always wanted to belong to him alone, even years before he had any right to claim it. Shane closes his mouth, and waits for Ilya to continue, pressing his fingers into the soft skin beneath Ilya’s ribs. “Will you marry me?” Ilya asks, and holds his breath even though Shane has already said yes to this question, could never say anything but yes.

“Yes,” Shane says. “Can we actually do it this week? Is it a bad idea?”

“Everything we do is a bad idea,” Ilya says, opening the ring box. Shane had worn his ring for most of the day yesterday, but he took it off to shower and then he wanted to wait to wear it again until Ilya could put it on his finger.

Ilya picks up Shane’s ring and Shane offers him his left hand. Ilya slides the ring on, past Shane’s knuckle, and it settles perfectly at the base of his finger.

“How did you get the right size?” he asks. 

“I didn’t. It would’ve been too big, but I tied a string around your finger at the cottage to measure when you were sleeping, like internet said to do, and Sveta took it to the jeweler to be resized before shipping.”

Shane isn’t sure if he’s going to laugh or cry, so he slides Ilya’s ring out of the box, reaching for Ilya’s right hand. “Unless you want left?” he asks. He’d Googled once—not as early as 2014 but still early, all things considered—which hand Russians wear their wedding rings on. 

Ilya shakes his head. “Right, I think. My mother wore hers on her right hand.” Shane slides the gold band onto Ilya’s finger and Ilya pitches forward, his face in Shane’s neck. “We can remember this one,” Ilya says. “Forget FaceTime.”

Shane shakes his head. “I’m keeping both. They’re just for us, anyway.”

Shane can feel it all crowding in on them: the outside world, the decisions they’re going to have to make, sooner than either of them thought they would. What they will share. What belongs just to them. 

Shane’s alarm starts going off, muffled by the carpet on the floor. 

“Shane,” Ilya gasps, appalled. “Is five in the morning. Do you get up so early every day before practice?”

“Yes,” Shane says. “I wake up at five, I go for a run, I come back and eat breakfast, and then I get to the rink early enough for an hour of weight training before practice. What time do you get up?”

“Eight. Sometimes eight-thirty. Sometimes I even am late to practice.” 

“You’re fucking with me,” Shane says.

“A little,” Ilya grins. “Would rather just be fucking you, though. Maybe instead of your run this morning? More fun cardio than running, yes?”

“Yes,” Shane says. He’d already planned on skipping his run today, but Ilya doesn’t need to know that. 

---

Later, after they’d fucked and showered and each come again in the shower and then crawled back into bed, Shane sprawled out on Ilya’s chest, Ilya’s arms around him, Shane asks, “Don’t you have practice today?”

Ilya cranes his head to look at the clock on Shane’s bedside table. “Two hours and eighteen minutes.”

“What?”

“How long I was able to make you forget about hockey. Is good, new record to beat.”

“Ilya.”

“Shane.”

“It’s training camp. You’re the captain.”

“I talked with Coach,” Ilya shrugs. “And HR.”

“HR?”

“I had paperwork to update.”

“Ilya.”

“Is confidential. Nobody sees except HR, and only if there’s emergency. Farah said it was a good idea.”

“I don’t actually know what you’re telling me right now,” Shane says.

“Oh. I updated emergency contact, insurance beneficiary, next of kin. Then last night I called Coach, said ‘I’m so sorry, family emergency, I will be back in Boston next week.’” Ilya tightens his hold on Shane. “Farah says once we are married we have more legal protections. We can sue for discrimination, if league tries to…” Ilya frowns. “Re-something.”

“Retaliate. When did you talk to Farah?”

“Yesterday when you were with Hayden. She’s my agent now too. She is very smart.”

“I know. I think I should’ve called her when we were at the cottage and filled her in sooner. I think any plan she helps us come up with is going to be better than the one I put together at three in the morning.”

Ilya laughs softly. “It was not a bad plan, sweetheart, but I think you are right. We already pay many people who can figure these things out for us, instead.”

“You should sleep,” Shane says. “You drove all night.”

“You will stay here?” Ilya asks.

“Of course,” Shane agrees. 

He dozes next to Ilya, but true sleep evades him. There are too many uncertainties weighing on him, waiting for an update from Farah or for some kind of news to break. He wouldn't put it past Montreal to cut him and announce it in a press release before they call him or his agent. 

Eventually he sits up, moving slowly to not wake Ilya, and reaches for his phone. After yesterday’s shitstorm, it’s surprisingly devoid of notifications (although it helps that Shane doesn’t have notifications turned on for any of his social media or email apps), minus a few emoji-filled texts from Jackie. She is eloquent in her ability to communicate exclusively in emoji. Even Shane can put together 🤯🥵🍆😏. He makes a mental note to call her later. 

Part of him can’t believe it’s fallen apart so quickly with the team that drafted him, the team he thought he’d stay with his entire career. He’d imagined them retiring his number, hanging his jersey in the rafters with the seven championship banners he won them. He’s brought two cups home to Montreal; he was confident he could bring them five more, that he could achieve the goal he’s been keeping secret since his rookie season. Seven is a good number. Lucky. They would’ve been contenders this year, if not for his concussion and his broken collarbone. (He still thinks New York would’ve won, ultimately. Scott Hunter had been on a tear since January, tackling the back half of the season like a man possessed. Shane doesn’t think even he could’ve powered through that kind of single-mindedness. And he doesn’t begrudge Scott the win, not with everything he’s done with it. He seems to be applying the same determination to singlehandedly attacking homophobia in hockey. Shane had sent him an email in June, and Ilya had seen him in Vegas, but Shane wonders if the two of them should reach out together. Soon, maybe.) 

But when Shane really thinks about the years he’s played with Montreal, he can’t be all that surprised about what happened yesterday. There have been slurs and snide comments flung around the locker room for years, and never once has a single member of the coaching staff or management tried to put a stop to it. Shane remembers a “joke” Comeau made, the way the locker room erupted in laughs, the way it’s now a frequent callback among the team, in the locker room and in the group chat. Drapeau seems to call Shane a cocksucker more than he calls him anything else. Pretending it was a joke, obviously, but it never felt like a joke. And Shane could never do anything but pretend it was a joke right back, not without giving too much of himself away. Even Theirault has said things to him, over the years, that Shane has had to ignore or shove down, has had to pretend he doesn’t understand what his own coach is alluding to.

Management will accuse him of overreacting, of letting one disagreement with a teammate get the better of him, when Shane knows now he’s been the proverbial boiling frog, the water temperature around him rising gradually, not realizing until it was too late. 

He looks down at Ilya, sleeping with his face against Shane’s hip, his hand on Shane’s thigh, gold ring glinting in the sun that peeks through a gap in the curtains. He gets to marry this man, and Shane is surprised by how little he can care about Montreal in the face of that. For a long time, hockey has been the sun his entire life has revolved around, but this summer changed that, shifting hockey to a planet in the solar system that is Ilya Rozanov. Shane loves hockey, is good at hockey, will keep playing hockey as long as he can. But hockey is what he does, and Ilya is everything else. Shane almost wants to shake him awake to tell him this, to make sure he understands.

Ilya snuffles in his sleep and Shane lets him keep sleeping instead. 

---

Ilya wakes hungry, and Shane isn’t surprised, considering it’s after ten. In the kitchen, Ilya pouts at the state of Shane’s fridge, mostly just protein shakes and condiments. 

“My meal service starts back up next week,” Shane protests.

“Food is for enjoying,” Ilya insists. Shane has eggs, at least, and Ilya makes them omelets, covering his own in hot sauce. He wrinkles his nose in disgust when Shane puts ketchup on his, but doesn’t protest when Shane leans over, kissing him softly, a thank you for making breakfast. 

“I, uh, did some research while you were asleep,” Shane says. “If we want to get married this week, I think we’re going to have to go to Ottawa, or anywhere in Ontario really. Quebec requires you to publish a notice of marriage at least twenty days before you get married. In Ontario we can get a license and get married as soon as the next day.”

“And your parents can come.”

“You want them to?”

“Do you want them to?”

“I mean, yeah—”

“Then so do I.”

“Would you want anyone to come? Svetlana?”

Ilya smiles at Shane. “Maybe. She is probably still laughing at me. Yesterday, I went to her apartment in Boston for dinner and I told her Jane is actually Shane Hollander.”

“Yeah?” Shane asks. “How did that go?”

“She says she has known for years, that I have been very obvious.” Ilya’s eyes dart to Shane’s, worried. “She is joking,” he says. “The only time I was obvious was when you were injured.”

Shane has watched the footage of his injury and has seen the way Ilya hovered close by while Shane was down on the ice. At one point, he can be heard demanding to know if Shane is okay. It’s damning, for sure, but the commentators unknowingly give them a lot of cover, talking about respect and sportsmanship and how shocking it is to see anyone go down that hard.

“I think we were both pretty obvious at the All Star game,” Shane says, mostly to take the worried expression off of Ilya’s face. “Hayden said yesterday that when he and Jackie were watching the game, she bet him fifty dollars we had,” Shane tries to remember the exact wording, “explored each other’s bodies.”

Ilya laughs. “We have done more than explore. Conquered, maybe.” 

Shane certainly feels that way. Ilya has conquered him, staked a flag and claimed him. 

“So…Ottawa?” Ilya asks him. “Is two hour drive, yes?”

“Yes. Do you want to go today?”

“Do you need to stay in Montreal for anything? Meetings?”

“I don’t think so.” Frankly, Shane’s skin crawls at the idea of stepping foot inside the rink right now. “I’ll check with Farah.”

She answers on the first ring. “Shane, I was just about to call you.”

“Already?”

“Nothing major,” she says, “just a couple updates, if now is a good time.”

“Yes, it’s fine,” Shane says.

“You’re going to be benched for the first two pre-season games for punching Comeau. They aren’t involving the league, so there is no fine. Currently there are no consequences for Comeau. Management is aware that we find this outcome unacceptable.”

“So what’s next?”

“They’ll put out a press release about your suspension, probably this afternoon. It’s going to create some reactions. I’d suggest turning your phone off.”

“I can do that.”

“The rumor mill will start to churn which for us, in this case, is a good thing. Other teams are going to want to know what’s going on and what’s possible.” 

Shane nods, even though Farah can’t see him. “Okay,” he says. 

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” Farah asks.

“Ilya’s here,” Shane says. “We’re considering driving to Ottawa today to get a marriage license and then get married sometime this week.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem with Montreal. I’m dealing with them entirely over the phone for now. At most we may need to get on a Zoom but I’m certainly not expecting that we’ll need to turn up in person at any point this week.” Farah hesitates. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that marriage records are public. People need to know what they’re looking for, of course, but this move isn’t without some risk.”

“We know,” Shane says. “But not doing it seems riskier for Ilya.”

“I am very in favor of legal protections for everyone,” Farah says. “But I’ll also send you that shortlist of publicists so we can get the ball rolling on that.”

“Thanks, Farah. You can send it to both of us.”

“Will do. Seriously, Shane, turn your phone off for a few days. I can reach you through Ilya or Yuna if needed.”

“Okay, thanks Farah,” Shane says again. They hang up, and he looks over at Ilya, now leaning against the counter, posture relaxed. Shane wonders if there’s a world where it can be like this all the time: the two of them in the same space, comfortable, not trying to race an invisible clock. “We’re good to go to Ottawa.”

Ilya grins. “Do we tell your parents we are coming or surprise them? Just show up at their house with no warning? Is a Hollander family custom, yes?”

Shane laughs. “We’ll text them from the car.” 

---

In the garage, Shane throws his duffel and Ilya’s into the trunk of his Land Rover. Ilya’s going to park his car in Shane’s parking space while they’re in Ottawa. When the orange Porsche with its Massachusetts plates rolls into the garage, Shane shakes his head. So much for discretion. He backs out of his space so Ilya can pull into it, and then Ilya is climbing into the passenger seat. 

“It would be more fun to take the Porsche to Ottawa.”

“Secret weddings need practical cars,” Shane argues. 

They’re just rehashing the conversation they already had while Shane was packing, and Ilya leans across the console, smacking a kiss on Shane’s cheek, loud and obnoxious. 

“So boring, my husband,” Ilya sighs. 

“What does that say about you, then?” Shane grins while he plugs Ottawa City Hall into Maps. 

They’re an hour outside of Ottawa when Shane’s phone starts buzzing nonstop in the cupholder, notifications on the dashboard display lighting it up so rapidly that the thing glitches and freezes. Shane yanks the cord out of his phone to disconnect it and then it starts ringing, his mom this time. 

Shane hands the phone to Ilya. “Answer it.”

Ilya shoots him a look Shane can only describe as panic, one he’s not used to seeing on Ilya’s face. So far, Yuna and Ilya have met three times and have had zero conversations without Shane also in the room. “Put it on speaker,” Shane says, laughing.

Ilya slides the answer button across and taps the speaker icon. 

“Hi Mom,” Shane says. “You’re on speaker with me and Ilya.”

This news derails her initial line of questioning, which was exactly Shane’s intent. “Ilya’s there?” she asks instead.

“Yeah, he came up early this morning. We’re actually on our way to Ottawa.”

“You’re coming here? Now? What’s going on? The Metros just put out a press release that you’re suspended from the first two games of pre-season for an altercation with a teammate in the locker room.”

“Altercation,” Shane says. “Farah must already have them on the ropes, I would’ve thought they’d go straight for assault.”

“Shane,” Yuna says, tone harsh. “What?”

“Comeau called me a faggot. I punched him in the face. Broke his nose,” Shane doesn’t mean to say this cheerfully, but he feels pretty fucking good about the way Comeau’s face had gone slack in surprise (for the second before he started swearing about his nose). Ilya grins at him. 

“I’m sorry, Shane,” Yuna says, and then there’s silence in the car. Shane waits. Ilya raises an eyebrow. Yuna…sniffles.

“Mom?”

“I’m glad you hit him,” she says, and yes, she’s definitely crying. Shane’s not sure what to do with that. They cried together, only a handful of weeks ago, but aside from that he’s never seen (or heard, in the case of this phone call) his mother cry. Crying is more his dad’s purview. “Although I imagine things are now very complicated.”

“Honestly,” Shane says, “I think they’re actually less complicated now. We’re working on a new plan.” Shane is struck with an idea. “Hey, does Dad know anybody who works at city hall who might be able to sneak us in a side door in…” he glances at the clock, “an hour and ten minutes?”

“I’ll text him,” Yuna says. The penny drops a second later. “Shane!”

“We’ll come to the house after,” Shane says. “We’ll explain everything.”

“You’d better,” Yuna says a little darkly, and Ilya pulls a grimace. Shane shakes his head. That’s one hundred percent his mom’s why was I left out of this plan voice, and not anything with actual teeth to it. She’ll be fine once Shane lets her take over on immigration paperwork and research on which brands to cut loose now that he isn’t angling to be Montreal’s perfect captain anymore. “I assume you boys will be staying for dinner? Should I have Dad pick up stuff for chicken parm?”

“Yeah,” Shane says. “Sounds good.” Ilya’s eyebrows almost hit his hairline. “Shut up,” Shane whispers. “You don’t understand, my dad’s chicken parm is like…next level." Then, loud enough for his mom to hear, “We’re staying the night, probably. Unless it’s easier for us to get a hotel.”

“Don’t be silly, you know the guest room is always ready. I’ll call your dad and ask about city hall and chicken parm and we’ll see you boys here later this afternoon.”

“Yep,” Shane says. “Maybe three-ish. I don’t know how long city hall will take.”

“Okay, see you then,” Yuna says, and then she’s hanging up, armed with her to-do list.

“She was upset,” Shane says, a few beats later.

“Is upsetting,” Ilya says. “Hearing about what someone on your team says to you. Seeing that organization does not have your back.”

Shane reaches over to hold Ilya’s hand, and Ilya lifts their hands to his mouth, kissing his knuckles. 

“I don’t think they ever really have. It didn’t matter so much when I fit exactly into the box of who they wanted me to be. But I’m so tired of how hard it is to fit in that box. It’s like it’s been getting smaller and smaller every season.” Shane frowns at the road. It’s easier to say this in the car, facing forward, than it is if he had to look at Ilya while he did. “At the beginning, it was kind of okay…they wanted their diversity checkmark and I didn’t care as long as I could just play hockey. But then they gave me the C, and I had Drapeau and Comeau and Wilson acting like it was a joke, like it was just another way to check the box, and maybe it was for management. I bet they give Comeau the C when I leave.”

“They will get exactly what they deserve, then.” Ilya kisses his knuckles again. “I wish you had told me.”

“I got really good at keeping it all locked up,” Shane says. “And the stakes are so much higher for you, I thought I could keep going for another year or two, anything to help keep you safe. But it felt so much worse yesterday than it ever has before after getting to spend the summer being so honest.”

“I understand that, a little. Yesterday when Marly and Vic and Connor and Carm were talking about their summers, it felt like a lie not to be able to tell them about you. Vic’s wife is pregnant again. Connor met a girl on Cape Cod in July and it is already serious. Marly is still Marly, but he is like a big brother sometimes. Other times he’s just a pain in my ass. Which also makes him like a big brother.”

Shane smiles at that. “They sound like good guys.”

“They are,” Ilya says. He hesitates for a moment and then adds, “is good team.”

“Do you want to tell them?” Shane asks.

“Not yet,” Ilya says. “Carm has no poker face and Marly can’t keep his mouth shut.”

“Turns out neither can I,” Shane tries to joke, but it comes out wrong, sad and miserable. Ilya squeezes his hand. “You would be okay in Boston,” Shane asks, “if it came out accidentally? It’s not like Montreal?”

“No, Boston is not like Montreal. The man in HR when I filled out the forms yesterday didn’t even blink. There is a woman who works in legal who talks about her wife. One of the comms people uses they/them pronouns, they have a little pin on their lanyard that says so. Coach’s daughter had a girlfriend last year, she brought her to a game when they were home for Christmas.”

Shane tries to imagine any of that with the Metros and can’t. “That’s good. That makes me worry a little less.”

“When I was a rookie,” Ilya continues, “they gave me packet with information about Boston. Neighborhoods, restaurants, tourism things…but there was also information about the organization. Diversity values. Anti-harassment policy. Copies in Russian and English.”

During Shane’s first team dinner with the Metros they handed him the check to do the math on the tip. He’d thought it was just rookie hazing until Ouellet, an asshole of a defenceman who retired the next year, had said “all you Chinese kids are good at math, right?” Shane hadn’t even told him to fuck off, hadn’t known what he was and wasn’t allowed to say as a rookie, especially as the rookie being held up as the future of the organization.  

Boston has Ilya and a Finnish rookie they just picked up for their second line center and probably no wiggle room in their salary cap, so Shane figures there’s no point getting his hopes up. It will probably be Ottawa, and Shane will spend the next year in his hometown, even farther from Ilya than Montreal is. But then, maybe, Ottawa will be able to sign Ilya too.

He glances over at Ilya and doesn’t need to ask to know Ilya’s thoughts are running on the same track. It’s there in the determined set of his mouth and the sad, hollow look in his eyes. 

Maybe Farah can work a miracle.

 

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

I will never again make any promises about the timeline of posting updates, because as soon as I did that AO3 crashed. Multiple times. At least once while I was in the process of posting. I have learned my lesson. 😭

Now we get to have some Ilya POV, as a treat...

Shane parallel parks smoothly on a side street by city hall and then checks his phone for the information from Yuna about David’s friend of a friend who is going to sneak them into the city clerk’s office. Ilya slips his own phone out of the pocket of his joggers; he’d felt it buzzing a few times on the drive, most incessantly when Shane’s was also lighting up right after Montreal’s press release.

The team group chat has about fifty messages, mostly speculating on what the fuck is going on in Montreal. At one point, about twenty minutes ago, Miller tagged Ilya specifically and asked hey Cap, does your Montreal girl have any local info? Ilya ignores this, because it doesn’t do much for his family emergency story to start responding to texts in the group chat. He has a couple texts each from Vic and Marly, checking up on him, and one from Svetlana demanding an update.

“Okay,” Shane says, “This guy Frank is going to meet us in the staff parking lot. Do you have your passport and your driver’s license?”

Ilya digs into his backpack between his feet, pulling out his wallet and his passport. He has the distinct feeling like he’s getting away with something, like it shouldn’t be this easy. He never had any real doubts that Shane would say yes (what was the plan with the charity and Ottawa if not a marriage proposal in its own way), but Ilya had been pretty sure they’d spend years engaged, wearing their rings around their necks instead of their fingers, delaying an actual wedding until it could be a big, public thing.

Maybe they’ll have one of those someday too, but Ilya wants this now, just for them. Svetlana has been giving him shit for two weeks about how sickeningly romantic he’s become, and Ilya keeps trying to insist he’s being practical (marriage is the most expedient solution to his citizenship problems, and he now knows is also very useful to them in terms of offering legal protections in their workplaces), but it’s a hard position to take when he’s had rings locked in the safe in his house since 2014. 

Almost as an afterthought, Ilya slides his sunglasses onto his face despite it being a fairly overcast day. He’d done an ad for Ray-Ban a few years ago, and they’d given him so many pairs of sunglasses to keep, and it wasn’t until he got home and tried them all on jokingly with Sveta that he realized how few of them actually looked good on him. (Probably why Ray-Ban hasn’t had him back since.) Really just the aviators did, but he’d kept the Wayfarers for the way they made his face look completely different, squaring it off into something hard and blocky, making them the ideal sunglasses for when he doesn’t want to be immediately recognized. He’d worn them on the plane to the cottage and they’ve been in his backpack since.  

“Good idea,” Shane says, flipping open the sunglasses compartment above the rearview mirror and doing the same. 

Except they’re in his hometown, and even in sunglasses (and of course Shane looks good in Wayfarers) he still looks like Shane Hollander, so Ilya pulls a baseball cap out of his backpack and hands it over. Luckily it isn’t a Raiders-branded one, just the same plain black one he wore to the cottage.

“Thanks,” Shane says and puts it on. It’s too big on him and sits awkwardly on his head, pushing the tops of his ears out but that, at least, makes him look less like himself. They don’t run into anyone on the walk around the corner to the staff parking lot, aided mostly by the fact that it’s one in the afternoon on a Tuesday in September. Schools are in session and most people are at work. 

“You must be Shane and Ilya,” says the man—Frank, apparently—waiting for them by the door. He looks exactly like someone who would work at Ottawa City Hall, Ilya thinks. Bland. Forgettable. “I’ll bring you up to the city clerk.”

They follow him through the building, through staff rooms and hallways closed to the public, while he makes mindless conversation about the weather and the mutual friend he has with Shane’s dad. Ilya can tell from Shane’s politely neutral expression that he has either never met or does not remember this mutual friend.

“Let me know if you need anything else,” Frank says, depositing them in front of a door that has Client Services Center etched on the glass. “But you guys are good to go back out the way we came in.”

“Great, thanks,” Shane says, and Ilya nods at him. With any luck, Shane was paying attention to the way. 

Shane tells the woman at the desk that they’re there for a marriage license, and she hands them a form to fill out. It asks for shockingly little information, and takes all of three minutes to fill out. Ilya is still processing that apparently all the province of Ontario needs from him to get married is his name, his parents’ names, his address, and two forms of ID, meanwhile Shane is already paying the fee and asking about ceremony availability this week. 

“You’re in luck,” the woman at the desk smiles at them. “We’ve got ten tomorrow morning or two on Thursday. If it were still summer we’d be booked solid.”

“Tomorrow,” Ilya says and Shane beams at him. 

“Yeah, tomorrow,” he says. 

She clacks a few keys on her computer and the printer next to her spits out…their marriage license, apparently. Ilya wonders if he might have fallen on the ice yesterday morning and everything since then has actually been a concussed dream. He’s going to be heartbroken if he wakes up in Massachusetts General with Marly sitting next to him, running his mouth. She hands them a map of where they’ll need to go tomorrow, and rattles off a bunch of information Shane nods along with and Ilya barely hears. 

It’s been barely ten minutes when they step back outside into the staff parking lot. Ilya can’t help it, doesn’t care that they’re outside, that anyone could walk by. He pulls Shane into his arms, holding him tight. 

“I didn’t bring a suit with me,” he says, a little mournfully.

Shane wraps his arms around Ilya’s waist, holding just as tight as Ilya is. “Me either. I hate wearing a suit anyway. We’ll get married in jeans and t-shirts, it will be perfect.”

Ilya’s pretty sure the one pair of jeans he had with him (the ones he was wearing when he drove from Boston to Montreal) are still sitting in a crumpled ball on the floor of Shane’s closet. That’s a problem for future Ilya. 

“You are sure?” Ilya asks.

“So sure,” Shane says, lifting his head to look into Ilya’s eyes, so Ilya knows Shane knows he means getting married, not just their lack of suits. “I’ve never been more sure about anything.” 

Ilya is pretty sure he’s about to cry in the staff parking lot at Ottawa City Hall. He can never admit this to Svetlana. “Me too.”

“C’mon,” Shane says. “I’ll give you the Shane Hollander driving tour of Ottawa on the way to my parents’ house.”

“Sounds boring,” Ilya says.

“It is, you’ll love it.”

---

Shane’s parents’ house isn’t hugely different from Shane’s parents’ cottage. There are pictures of Shane on every possible surface (Ilya’s favorite is the row of school pictures hanging on the wall going up the stairs, so Ilya gets to watch Shane grow up as he follows Yuna up the stairs to the second floor to drop their bags in the guest room, gets to learn that Shane had the same hairstyle from the time he was six until pretty much 2012); the furniture is comfortable and broken in after years of wear; there are stacks of the The New Yorker on the side table next to the couch, and on the nightstand in the guest room, and in a magazine rack in the sun room off the dining room; the fridge in the kitchen is covered in magnets from years of Hollander family trips (although Ilya can tell that these were mostly hockey-related, as they’re from cities like Toronto and Buffalo and Winnipeg and, he can’t help smiling when he notices, Regina). 

The bed in the guest room is made up with white sheets and a white duvet with a patchwork quilt across the foot, and Ilya tucks their duffels into the corner of the room. He wonders if Shane’s bedroom still exists as a shrine to his childhood, or if it’s been updated since he moved out. He resolves to discover this before they leave.

“There are clean towels in the bathroom,” Yuna says, pointing at the door across the hall from the guest room, “and more in the hall closet if you need them,” she points to the closet next. “Obviously Shane knows where everything is, too.”

Ilya nods. “Thank you for having us. Sorry it is last minute.”

Yuna waves a hand. “You’re welcome any time.”

Ilya finds this hard to believe, given that she barely knows him, knows him more by reputation and media narratives than as her son’s boyfriend. (Fiancé? Husband, as of tomorrow. Ilya is actively dreading the conversation with Yuna and David later that confirms this information for them. Surely there is a limit to how understanding someone’s parents can be, even parents who love Shane as much as Yuna and David clearly do.) 

Ilya follows Yuna back downstairs, where Shane is on the phone with Jackie Pike. He’d gotten the call right as they’d pulled into the driveway, and Ilya had been a very kind and generous fiancé by agreeing to deal with Yuna and their bags on his own while Shane answered this phone call. In the absence of anything else to do, Yuna offers him a snack and Ilya accepts, following her to the kitchen and away from the rise and fall of Shane’s voice in the living room. 

Yuna pulls out plastic containers lined with paper towels and filled with cut up fruit and vegetables from the fridge, a sight Ilya had gotten quite used to seeing at the cottage all summer with Shane, who treated the preparation of such containers as a necessary Sunday ritual. 

“How was the drive?” Yuna asks. 

Ilya shrugs. “Not bad.” As long as Yuna is only asking about the traffic and not about the upsetting things that Ilya learned about the Montreal Metros’ treatment of Shane over the past seven years. 

“I’m glad you were with him,” Yuna says. “Yesterday. That he hasn’t been alone.”

“I think he has been alone in Montreal a lot of the time,” Ilya says, unable to keep from saying it. 

“Yes,” Yuna agrees sadly. “He hasn’t told us anything.” Ilya winces, because it’s feeling a little too similar to the conversation around the Hollanders’ cottage dining room table and Yuna shakes her head. “I’m sorry, honey, I don’t mean it like that. Shane bottles a lot up, he always has.”

They hear Shane start to approach as he ends his call with Jackie, sending his love to the kids and Hayden. 

“How’s Jackie?” Yuna asks. 

“Good. We just had some stuff to catch up on,” Shane says, shooting Ilya a grin. Ilya smiles down at the container of watermelon in front of him and stuffs a chunk of it into his mouth before Yuna can ask him any questions that feel like landmines. Shane grabs a handful of sliced peppers from another of the containers. 

“When’s Dad getting home?” Shane asks Yuna.

“He’s aiming for four.” The clock on the microwave tells Ilya that’s still an hour and a half away.

Shane nods. “Can we wait to talk about everything until he’s home? Rather than do it all twice?”

“Of course.” 

She already figured out why they were going to city hall, and Ilya is sure she’s clocked their rings, and he’d been expecting an interrogation the minute they crossed the threshold. This is better, but it does leave them with something of an awkward silence in the meantime.

“I was wondering if you could help me with something, Yuna,” Ilya says, mostly to fill the silence, and both Shane and Yuna’s eyes widen in twin looks of surprise. “I am signing with Farah, and she sent me her standard contract. I trust her because Shane trusts her, but maybe you could help me look it over? Tell me if there is anything else I should ask for?”

“Of course. Let me get my computer.”

Shane slides his arm around Ilya’s waist, his hand squeezing Ilya’s hip. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Is good,” Ilya says. “Give us something to do besides stress about conversation at four, and means I can sign the contract and send it back to Farah.”

“For the record,” Shane says, “I’m not too stressed about telling my parents. We already had the scary conversation with them over the summer.”

Ilya smiles, because Shane is definitely a little stressed, he can see it in the set of his shoulders and the way he keeps fidgeting with the peppers instead of eating them. He leans in to press a soft kiss to Shane’s mouth. “I love you,” he says.

“I love you too,” Shane says back, and Ilya hopes he never gets tired of hearing it, hopes it keeps setting off something like a small explosion of fireworks in his chest every time.

By the time David gets home, carrying bags from the grocery store, Yuna has gone through the contract with Ilya, pointed out a few areas where it differs from Shane’s contract with Farah, and is now helping them work through the list of publicists Farah sent.

“I think we should schedule calls with Bethany and Phillip. They’re the best writers on the list, but I don’t think you’ll know for sure who’s the right fit until you speak with them.”

“Do you want to vet them, Mom?” Shane asks. “You’ll probably have to work with them too, and I don’t really care as long as it’s someone we know we can trust.”

“Is that okay with you?” Yuna asks Ilya. He nods. He wonders if Yuna and Shane have a contract and if he should ask Yuna if they should have one also. Maybe she can get him a Rolex deal too. Or Adidas. Or Porsche. All of the above? 

“Do you need help with dinner, Dad?” Shane asks. 

“Sure. Many hands make light work,” David says cheerfully. 

“We can, uh, fill you in while we work.”

“Sounds good. Who wants a glass of wine?” Yuna offers. They all accept, Shane included. 

David puts Ilya in charge of grating the cheese. Shane cuts up onions and garlic and tomatoes. Yuna is on cleanup, washing utensils and bowls as soon as they’re done using them. David is responsible for the chicken, clearly the most complicated part of the whole process.

“We’re getting married tomorrow,” Shane says, when David has finished pounding the chicken with a rolling pin to make it thin. “I mean, you guessed that already, obviously. And I know it probably seems really soon, but it isn’t, not really. And some of it is practical, so Ilya can start applying for Canadian citizenship sooner, but mostly it’s for us. Because we want to.” 

“We’d like you to be there,” Ilya adds, “if you want to be.”

“Of course we do,” David says. He sounds emotional, and when Ilya looks across the kitchen, his eyes look wet. 

“It’s at ten tomorrow morning, at the courthouse,” Shane says. “We got lucky with the timing.”

“What does this mean for the rest of your plan?” Yuna asks (of course). “Ottawa, the charity?”

“We don’t know yet,” Shane says. “Things are bad in Montreal.” He looks down at the cutting board. Ilya watches a muscle jump in his jaw, knows he’s grinding his teeth together. He steps closer, pressing his shoulder against Shane’s. “It’s just…really toxic. Almost everybody says homophobic shit, some of them say racist shit, management and the coaches included, and yesterday it was just too much. I can’t do it anymore.” Shane’s voice cracks, and then a sob rips out of his chest, and Ilya feels almost relieved, because he’s been on edge waiting for this to happen since Shane called him yesterday. Shane turns to him and Ilya holds him against his chest, Shane’s face hidden against his neck as he cries. There’s a flurry of activity at the sink, David washing his hands and Yuna setting aside the sponge and the plate she’d been scrubbing, and then they’re both coming around to the other side of the counter, Yuna wrapping her arms around Shane and David pulling all three of them into a hug, one arm around Ilya’s shoulders and the other behind Yuna. 

Ilya doesn’t think he’s ever been in the middle of a hug like this; the closest thing was maybe being in the middle of the dogpile of his teammates when they won the cup, but nothing like this with family, with parents. He feels his own eyes start to burn with tears and he blinks them away hard. He will be grateful that Shane grew up with this, and that he maybe gets to be part of it now. To wish for his own childhood to have been different is a fool’s errand. David squeezes Ilya’s shoulders. 

“Okay,” Shane says, a few minutes later, lifting his face and pressing a kiss to the edge of Ilya’s jaw. “I’m okay.”

They drift back to their assigned tasks, although Ilya is done grating the cheese so he stays close to Shane, his arm around Shane’s waist. 

“Farah is using my suspension to her advantage,” Shane says. “She thinks today’s press release is going to generate enough rumors that teams will start to reach out, and I’m pretty sure she’s going to threaten the Metros with a workplace harassment lawsuit to get me out of my contract. I’m hoping to stay in the same conference. I think it will probably be me going to Ottawa, not Ilya.”

“It’s a shame that Boston just picked up Heikkinen,” Yuna says. She shoots Ilya a considering look. “Although…you were strong on the wing during the All-Star game.”

“Mom,” Shane groans. “Ilya isn’t going to give up his position and Boston doesn’t have the cap space for me anyway.”

Ilya squeezes Shane’s waist. “I would play wing if it meant we could always be on the same line. Maybe in Ottawa in a few years.”

Shane shakes his head. “You’re crazy. You have the best faceoff stats in the league.”

“Oh, are you saying you didn’t play your best hockey on a line with me?” Ilya teases.

“The line I centered, you mean,” Shane shoots back. 

“Boys,” Yuna says, but she’s laughing. Yuna and David haven’t really seen the bickering, competitive side of them yet. Ilya had been on his best behavior for both dinners they hosted at Shane’s cottage this summer. “We’re getting off track. Farah is looking for a new team, and she also has you vetting publicists.”

“Yeah,” Shane says. “She knows about me and Ilya, now that she’s representing both of us. She thinks it’s a good idea to bring a publicist on board, someone to help us figure out how we deal with the media stuff. We’ve let them and the league control the story for a long time, but that’s not going to work for us if we ever want to be out.”

“Do you want to?” David asks. “Before you retire?”

“Yeah,” Shane says. “I don’t think I realized how much until yesterday. I mean…we’re still not ready right now. We have to make sure Ilya’s safe—”

“And that you are safe,” Ilya says. “Out of Montreal.” 

“But…I don’t think trying to hide this for years is going to be sustainable for either of us.”

“That does seem a little more realistic,” Yuna says diplomatically. 

Shane rolls his eyes. “You can admit you thought it was a bad plan, Mom.” 

“It wasn’t bad! It was just a very long term plan for a situation that requires some shorter term thinking. I still think the charity is a good idea, once you lay a little groundwork with your new media strategy.”

Ilya is sure Yuna is already thinking about what their new media strategy should be so she can thoroughly vet the two publicists she likes from Farah’s list. 

Yuna’s attention suddenly zeroes in on Ilya and he feels a shiver run down his spine. He assumes there will be a point someday in the future where he doesn’t find her just a little bit scary, but he definitely hasn’t reached it yet. “I can’t believe I didn’t ask…where does Boston think you are right now?”

Ilya grins. Like mother like son. “Family emergency. I was very vague, they may think I am in Moscow.”

“So you definitely can’t be seen in Ottawa or Montreal.”

Ilya shrugs. “I am not so worried about what Boston finds out. Is good team, good management.”

“I’m just thinking, maybe you boys should go to your cottage for a few days after the wedding tomorrow. Better than being cooped up in Shane’s apartment in Montreal or hiding out here.”

Ilya has very few objections to being cooped up with Shane anywhere, although under his parents’ roof is perhaps not ideal in the days following their wedding. And he’d assumed when he and Shane left the cottage in August that he was saying goodbye to it until next summer; to go back so soon is like an extra reward on top of what is shaping up to be one of the best weeks of Ilya’s life (aside from Shane’s career falling apart, obviously). 

“That’s probably a good idea,” Shane agrees, with a practiced air of nonchalance that Ilya is pretty sure fools nobody in this room. Ilya nudges his foot against Shane’s anyway. 

“I’ll reach out to Peg and ask her to open everything up again and bring you some groceries for a few days,” Yuna says, pulling her phone out of her pocket to text the neighbor who lives year round in a cottage somewhere between Shane’s and Shane’s parents’ cottage and who does handyman (handywoman?) things for both Hollander cottages when they are not there.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Thank you, Yuna. Is very thoughtful.”

“What are you wearing tomorrow? Do you need anything ironed? I’m pretty sure we’re about to be kicked out of the kitchen.”

David grins. “None of you have done anything helpful for at least the last five minutes, and I can’t reveal my secret ingredients.” He makes a shooing motion with his hands.

“No, we don’t need anything ironed, Mom,” Shane says, taking Ilya’s hand and pulling him in the direction of the living room. “We’re not dressing up. We didn’t pack anything special.”

“Oh, but there’s at least one nice shirt in your closet, I’m pretty sure—”

“It’s fine, Mom. I promise you can help pick out my tux if we decide to do some big fancy wedding at some point in the future.”

Yuna hums, thinking. “Maybe at the cottage next summer. Imagine it, at sunset—”

“You’re about to start a spreadsheet, aren’t you?” Shane asks, laughing. 

“Do you mind if I call Svetlana before dinner?” Ilya asks when Yuna switches on the TV, spinning through channels until she lands on ESPN. 

“Of course not,” Shane says. “Do you want privacy?”

“I’ll just go up to guest room.”

“Tell her I said hi,” Shane says, a little cautiously, and Ilya smiles. 

“She will like that. She is big Shane Hollander fan.”

Shane smiles. “I remember.”

Ilya climbs the stairs past all the pictures of Shane. His favorite is the one where Shane is missing both his front teeth. In the guest room, he dials Svetlana’s number and grabs his duffel bag from the floor, unzipping it and dumping its contents on the bed while he waits for her to answer. 

“Finally he calls,” Svetlana says by way of greeting. 

“Sorry, Sveta,” Ilya apologizes. “It has been busy. Shane says hi.”

“Tell him I say hi too,” Sveta says, and Ilya can hear the soft smile in her voice, but it turns serious a moment later. “What is Montreal playing at?” 

They will be friends, Shane and Svetlana, Ilya is sure. No one else he knows cares about hockey the way they do. “Montreal has made the mistake of thinking that they deserve Shane Hollander without doing anything to earn him,” Ilya scoffs. 

He continues, telling her some of what Shane has told him. The locker room culture. The blind eye from management and the coaches. It is easier to say in Russian, knowing no one else in the house can understand him even if he is overheard. Sveta can hear the pain underneath his words, and Shane probably would be able to pick it up too, after that phone call from Moscow in February. “He is trying to leave.”

“The timing is not good for that,” Sveta says, more to herself than Ilya. “I assume he wants to stay in the same conference. Better for both of you, yes?”

“Yes.” Ilya dreads the idea of Shane moving somewhere in the west, reduced to seeing each other a handful of times a season. 

“Buffalo needs a better center but doesn’t deserve Shane. Same for Ottawa. Detroit could work, but anyone they put him on a line with will need months to adjust to the way he plays because they are so fucking slow. From what you have told me he should not go to Carolina or Toronto—”

“It would be as bad as Montreal,” Ilya agrees. “Maybe worse.”

“He’ll get no good minutes in Pittsburgh with Crosby there and the Admirals should move Hunter to their second line, but they won’t so soon after winning the cup. He could go to Columbus but then he will be in Ohio, which is a punishment neither of you deserve. Washington? No, they just want someone who will feed pucks to Ovechkin, Shane would be underutilized there. Maybe New Jersey? Maybe Philly?”

“Neither of them has cap space or anyone worth trading.”

“So he will end up in Ottawa or Buffalo,” she says grimly. 

“Probably Ottawa,” Ilya agrees. “But they might be able to afford me next year too.”

“Ilya!” Svetlana sounds appalled. “Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov cannot play for Ottawa. This is the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Would Buffalo be better?” Ilya asks, mostly to wind her up. 

“No!” she screeches. “Could you murder your new Finnish center, maybe?”

“Murder? No. Scare him until he runs back home to his mama? Maybe. But that still leaves the salary cap problem.”

“So maybe he stays in Montreal another season—”

“No,” Ilya says. “I would retire to make space in Boston before I will let that happen.”

“I don’t think Shane would want that, Ilyusha.”

“No.” Ilya sighs heavily. “He would not.”

“Ottawa is not so terrible. Maybe it is a good experiment. How many generational players does it take to turn an otherwise mediocre team into cup winners?”

“Thank you for humoring me, Sveta.” Ilya digs through the clothes he dumped on the bed, hoping that maybe there was at least one pair of jeans still in the duffel since he never really fully unpacks it between trips. “I have news.”

“You’re getting married,” she guesses. “Did the ring fit?”

“Yes and yes. The wedding is tomorrow. Just us, at the courthouse. Maybe we will do something big someday but—”

“You have gotten smart and realized if you don’t lock down Shane Hollander after years of fucking around he might not wait forever?”

“Yes.” Ilya says, even though he knows it’s not true, really. Shane would wait forever for Ilya. Ilya just doesn’t want either of them to have to.

Svetlana laughs. “You need to have a big wedding someday so I can be in it.”

“You could come tomorrow,” Ilya says, knowing this is probably not possible given that it’s nearly dinnertime. 

“Some of us work regular jobs, Ilya,” Sveta says, not unkindly. “What will you wear?”

Ilya groans. “All my suits are in Boston and Shane says he does not care, he hates wearing suits anyway, we can just wear jeans, but I think all my jeans are in Boston too. And one pair on the floor of Shane’s apartment in Montreal.”

“So you will be getting married in Adidas joggers and a hoodie. Men,” Sveta huffs. 

Ilya starts putting his pile of clothes back into the duffel, one item at a time. “I should go,” he says. “Shane’s dad is making dinner, it will be time to eat soon.”

“Yes, go,” Svetlana says. “Send me pictures in your terrible outfit tomorrow. I love you.”

“I love you too. I will call when I am back in Boston.”

Ilya shoves his phone back into his pocket once they hang up and continues putting his clothes back in the duffel. Joggers, shorts, t-shirts, hoodies…

“What are you doing?” Shane asks and Ilya jumps. Shane leans in the doorway, watching Ilya dig through the clothes on the bed. 

“I think I left my jeans in Montreal. I will have to wear sweatpants or shorts tomorrow.”

Shane grins and goes to his bag, crouching down to unzip it. Everything inside of it is organized in packing cubes (of course), but there are a few loose items on top.

Ilya’s jacket. A few t-shirts. And the jeans he’d left crumpled on the floor of the closet. 

“I grabbed them right before we left. I wasn’t sure how long we’d be here, and if you ended up needing to fly back to Boston or something, I didn’t want you to be missing anything.”

“I will be missing so much when I go back to Boston,” Ilya says seriously. “My whole heart will be here.”

“That’s okay. You’ll have mine with you.” 

Ilya pulls Shane into his arms, and Shane comes willingly, letting his head rest on Ilya’s shoulder and his arms wrap loosely around Ilya’s middle. 

“Is it time for dinner?” Ilya asks.

“Soon. We have a few minutes. I just wanted to check on you. How’s Svetlana?”

“Good. Angry with Montreal.”

“She can join the club.”

“Maybe you can meet her, next time you are in Boston.”

“I’d like that.”

“She will probably ask for your autograph. And Rose Landry’s phone number.”

“Really?” Shane asks. 

“All I hear from Sveta when you are dating Rose Landry is ‘oh she is so beautiful’, ‘she has such good style’, ‘aren’t she and Hollander pretty together?’”

“Do you think maybe she was trying to get you to admit you and Hollander are prettier together?” Shane teases, grinning.

“Probably yes. But still. Was the longest month of my life. You and Rose all over the internet, Sveta in my ear about it, seeing you in that fucking club.”

“I know. I’m sorry. If it helps, I was miserable too.”

“That just makes me sad, moy lyubimyy.”

Shane kisses his shoulder. “Spoiler alert, it works out okay. We’re getting married tomorrow.”

Ilya tightens his hold on Shane, pulls him a little closer. “Tomorrow.”

---

David’s chicken parm might be Ilya’s favorite thing he’s ever eaten. 

“We’ll send the leftovers with you tomorrow,” David promises, when they clean up the kitchen after dinner and Ilya looks sadly at the chicken left after not being able to fit one more bite in his stomach. 

“Do you boys want to watch a movie?” Yuna suggests. “I’m sure we can find something everyone will like.”

“Honestly, I kind of want an early night,” Shane says. “I slept like crap last night. You can watch though, if you want,” he says to Ilya.

“No, I am tired too.” 

“Eating that much chicken parm would make anybody sleepy,” David says, laughing.

“Sleep well,” Yuna says. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

They take turns in the little bathroom across the hall from the guest room, showering and brushing teeth, and when Ilya comes back into the guest room, Shane is pulling the duvet back on the side of the bed closest to the windows. Ilya closes the door behind him and flops happily into the bed. 

“Ugh, I forgot how soft this mattress is,” Shane complains, crawling in next to Ilya.

Ilya has gotten used to sharing king-sized beds with Shane, so it takes some adjusting to fit comfortably in the double bed, but eventually they settle into Ilya’s preferred arrangement, Shane curled around Ilya, mostly using him as a pillow. 

“Was this your room growing up?” he remembers to ask. “Or is there a Shane Hollander museum somewhere in this house with hockey posters and a single bed?”

“No museum. This was my room, and then in high school I moved into the basement because my alarm kept waking everyone up when I got up to work out before school.”

“Let me guess, at four in the morning.”

“Four-thirty.”

“If your alarm goes off this early tomorrow, I will cancel the wedding.”

Shane snorts. “No, you won’t,” but he scoops his phone up off the nightstand and checks. “Seven-thirty?”

“Eight would be better.”

“I’ll wake up at seven-thirty and you can snooze until eight.” 

Ilya runs his hand absently up and down Shane’s back, the t-shirt he’s wearing wrinkling and smoothing under Ilya’s hand. “Should I have asked for your parents’ approval to ask you to marry me?” 

“This isn’t a Victorian novel, so no.”

“This is still a thing people do,” Ilya insists. “Carm made a big deal about asking his wife’s father’s permission. He took him golfing and to a steakhouse.”

“First of all, I think that’s extreme. She’s a grown woman, why is her father getting involved? And secondly…you know you already have their approval, right? You don’t have to ask for it, you just have it. Because you’re the one I chose. Because I love you. They have to love you, too, now, it’s the law.”

“This is not how it works in every family.”

“Maybe not, but it’s how it works in our family. It will be the same for our kids too, someday.”

Ilya feels his breath hitch in his chest. “Our kids?”

“Yeah. I mean…you want kids, don’t you? I just sort of figured, the way you were with all of them in the pool at the All-Star game…”

“Yes,” Ilya says. “I want them.” He feels strangely shy, admitting this, nervous to look at Shane even though Shane has already said our kids, like it’s a given. Like it’s something else Ilya doesn’t have to ask for, another thing he’s just allowed to have. 

“Me too,” Shane says. “Two, at least. Maybe more.”

“Four,” Ilya insists. “Then we can play three-on-three. Team Hollander versus Team Rozanov. Like our first All-Stars.”

“Except they’ll all be Team Hollander-Rozanov.” 

“Maybe should be Rozanov-Hollander.” Ilya pauses, considering this. “Actually no, Hollander-Rozanov does sound better. Is probably why everyone always says your name first even though they know I am the best. But this is a very long name. Will be hard for the league to fit on a jersey.”

“The league will just have to figure it the fuck out. If not for us, then definitely for our kids.”

“Even the girls?” Ilya asks, mostly just needling Shane to see where this is going, how much Shane’s thought about this part of their future. Ilya has assumed maybe he’s the only one, right now, has kept the idea of wobbly-ankled toddlers their first time in skates and little kids in life jackets jumping into the lake at the cottage close to his heart, nervous about revealing too much too soon. 

But he thinks he was wrong, because Shane says, without hesitation, “Especially the girls. My mom tells this story about being seven and figuring out she was never going to be able to play for the Metros. It broke her heart. If our girls want to play for the Raiders or the Centaurs or whoever, they fucking will.”

Shane’s going to be such a good dad. Ilya can’t quite believe he’s going to be the one to see it up close. To do it with him. 

“I love you so much.” Ilya is definitely crying. He has cried more in the last six months than in all the prior years of his life combined, he thinks. “More every day. How is this possible? There’s already so much.”

“I don’t know,” Shane says. He props his chin on Ilya’s chest and reaches to swipe away the tears snaking out of Ilya’s eyes with his thumb. “But me too. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to walk around not telling everyone you’re my husband.”

“So tell them.” 

“Ilya.”

“Shane.”

“When it’s safe.” 

Boston is safe, Ilya feels surer of it with everything he learns about how different it has been from Shane’s experience in Montreal. But maybe Shane needs to see it himself, first. Ilya can’t begrudge him that, not after so many seasons in Montreal. Next time Shane is in Boston, they will have dinner with Svetlana. Maybe Marly, the time after that. Then Vic and Carm and Connor. 

“Get some sleep, sweetheart,” Ilya says. “You don’t want to look tired in the pictures tomorrow.”

“We’ll take pictures?” Shane confirms, a little urgently. “I don’t have any pictures with you.”

Ilya’s heart clenches. The only pictures he has of them together are from the stupid selfie bit they did when presenting the sportsmanship award in 2014. Shane is visibly annoyed with him, rightly, and Ilya’s smile is so fake, plastered on for the sake of the audience. When he was feeling especially self-pitying about their situation, Ilya thought about how there was no proof that their relationship exists. They don’t follow each other’s social media accounts. They never left anything behind in each other’s homes. In the text thread between Jane and Lily, they delete any message that might identify them, even tangentially, so it’s just six years of hotel room numbers and sexting.

He knows that’s part of what spurred him to step into that jeweler in 2014. He’d wanted to get the rings engraved but even that had felt too risky. When he was at his lowest, when the ache for Shane was like a crater in his chest, he would open the safe and hold the ring box in his hand and at least have the reminder that he felt something real, even when he wasn’t sure if Shane did. (The month that Shane was dating Rose Landry, the ring box lived on Ilya’s nightstand instead of in the safe.) 

And now…there is a marriage license on file in Ottawa City Hall and a stack of new HR paperwork in an office in Boston. Maybe there will be legal name-change paperwork at some point and soon Ilya will begin filling out immigration forms. Ilya wonders if, under different circumstances, he’d find the bureaucracy and the paperwork annoying. He certainly doesn’t now, not when he gets to see their names in print next to each other on a legal form, proof that he hasn’t been in this alone for seven years.

“We’ll take so many pictures,” he promises. “We won’t delete any of them, not anymore.”

“Good,” Shane says. “My mom is probably going to fill her camera roll tomorrow.”

Ilya’s not at all surprised given the eight million pictures of Shane in this house that Yuna likes to document. Thank god. They’ve got years of not taking pictures to make up for.

Shane falls asleep not long after that, his head still on Ilya’s chest, his hand curled in the neck of Ilya’s t-shirt. Ilya has pictures on his mind, so he reaches for his phone and takes a picture of them like this. It’s not good, grainy and too dark, but Ilya starts a new folder in his photo app that he labels 2481, and moves the photo into it. He makes the album a shared one and adds Shane to it. It’s a start.

---

Ilya wakes the next morning to Shane rolling away from him to turn off the alarm, so he knows it’s seven-thirty. The mattress really is too soft, enough that Ilya feels absorbed by it, like he’s sleeping in a marshmallow.

“Maybe we buy your parents new mattress for this bed for Christmas,” Ilya says around a yawn. “Same one you have in Montreal, maybe.”

“Yes,” Shane says, typing something on his phone. “Let’s. This thing makes my whole body hurt.”

Ilya noses at Shane’s cheek and delights when Shane turns to kiss him, soft and sweet.

“My husband,” Ilya whispers.

Shane smiles at him and it’s like looking into the sun. Ilya ducks his head into Shane’s chest, but lifts it almost immediately when he realizes which shirt Shane is wearing. “Unfair,” he pouts, pointing at the Raiders’ logo on Shane’s chest. “Wearing this in your parents’ house where you’re definitely not going to let me fuck you.”

Shane looks down at his chest. “It was an accident. I thought I grabbed one of mine.”

“Sounds like something a liar would say.” 

Shane grins. “I’ll put it back on at the cottage tonight.”

“Promises, promises,” Ilya growls, biting Shane’s pec through the shirt. Shane laughs, and tugs on Ilya’s hair.

“Want to go for a run?”

“Mmm, no,” Ilya shakes his head. “I will stay in this too-soft bed and you can wake me up again when you get back. Need to save my energy for our honeymoon.”

Shane rolls his eyes, but he kisses Ilya’s forehead before he climbs out of bed. Ilya watches with interest as Shane changes into his running shorts and a compression shirt, hooking his fingers into his running shoes to bring them downstairs. “Last chance,” Shane says but Ilya stretches like a cat and burrows deeper under the duvet. 

“Your last chance to stay in bed with me.”

“I’ll be back by eight-thirty,” Shane says. “We need to leave by nine-fifteen.”

“Okay,” Ilya nods. 

Shane leans over the bed to kiss him again, and Ilya resists the urge to tug him back into it by the front of his compression shirt. Ilya knows Shane is itching to run, to channel some nervous energy into movement, especially after not running yesterday. “My parents will be awake by now, if you get lonely or want coffee.”

And then Shane is gone. Ilya listens to him pad down the carpeted stairs. There’s a murmur of voices, nothing distinct enough that Ilya can make out, and then the front door opens and closes. Ilya reaches for his phone. There’s another stack of notifications on the screen, again most of them from the team group chat. He thumbs open the smaller group chat he has with Marly, Vic, Connors, and Carm. All of them sent him messages checking in yesterday. 

Ilya

I am okay

I am with Jane’s family

Carmichael

Holy shit

 

Marly

So either you lied about 

a family emergency to fly up

to Montreal to get your dick

wet

Or we’re finally admitting 

Jane is more than just a 

casual hookup

After like ten fucking years

 

Ilya puts the thumbs down reaction on Marly’s first message. 

Ilya

Only 7 years

And was not a lie

There was an emergency

Jane is family now

Connors

blink twice if you need

to be rescued

 

Vic

How would this work over

text?

 

Connors

idk

but are we sure this is 

definitely roz and not like

his captor? 

none of us have ever met

jane or even seen a fucking

picture of her

what if she’s a crazy stalker

chick who’s just been biding 

her time until she can lure roz 

into the canadian wilderness to

kill him and wear his skin?

Ilya

Fuck off

Or I will tell your new Cape Cod 

girlfriend about Vegas 2015

Vic

Jesus Christ

 

Carmichael

Shots fired 

 

Marly

Obviously it’s Roz

No idea why you thought NOW

was the time for this shit, Con. 

You know Roz has zero sense

of humor about his Montreal

girl when there ISN’T a fucking

emergency 

 

Connors

yeah okay

sorry roz

i hope jane is okay

please don’t tell maddie about 

vegas

 

Carmichael

Wait are we just going to ignore

that Roz said he and Jane have 

been together SEVEN years?!

Since 2010???

That’s longer than I’ve known 

my actual wife

Ilya

This is not news to anyone else.

Also Jane agrees with me that

was weird you took Cayla’s dad

golfing and for steak dinner to 

ask if you could propose.

Jane said 

“she is a grown woman, why

is her father getting involved?”

Marly

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

Vic

I like Jane 

 

Connors

💀

 

Carmichael

Fuck off, it’s a whole thing in

Cayla’s family

But literally HOW did that even

come up?

 

Marly

Holy shit

Are you and Jane ENGAGED?

 

Ilya grins and switches his phone to Do Not Disturb. He watches a few more alarmed text bubbles appear in the thread before he kicks free of the duvet and gets out of bed. He takes a few minutes to make the bed even though he suspects Yuna will come up here and strip the sheets to put them in the wash the minute they have left for the cottage. Like a fancy hotel.

The smell of coffee wafts up the stairs, and Ilya is powerless against it. The choice between caffeine and avoiding being alone with his in-laws is unfortunately no choice at all. He decides the t-shirt and sweatpants he slept in are acceptable to wear downstairs to drink coffee and eat breakfast and makes his way downstairs. 

Yuna and David are sitting at the table in the kitchen, David with the morning paper in front of him and Yuna scrolling through Twitter on her phone. Both of them have bowls of oatmeal and mugs of coffee, and Ilya gets a strange feeling of deja vu, but like looking into the future instead of the past. Or both? How many mornings this summer did Ilya come out of the shower or the bedroom to find Shane in the kitchen with his overnight oats, reading hockey news on his phone? 

And it’s going to be Ilya’s life from now on. Forever. 

“Good morning,” he says to Yuna and David. 

“Good morning, Ilya.” David looks up from the newspaper. “There’s coffee in the pot, if you want some.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Ilya takes a mug from the little rack where they hang from their handles next to the coffee pot. 

“Milk is in the fridge, sugar is in the bowl right there if you take either,” Yuna says.

“Both.” Ilya pours himself a mug and scoops sugar into his coffee. He finds the milk in the fridge. There’s something nice, he thinks, about making his own coffee in Yuna and David’s house. Neither of them rushed to get up and make coffee for him, because he isn’t a guest. He is part of the family. 

Either that or they hate him and don’t want to make coffee for him, but Ilya thinks Shane would insist it’s the first one. 

He brings his coffee to the table, and David moves the sections of the paper he isn’t reading (has already read? How long has he been awake?) out of the way to make room for Ilya to sit down. 

“Did you sleep well?” Yuna asks him. “Shane hates the mattress in the guest room.”

“Is very soft,” Ilya admits. “But yes, I slept well.”

“Do you want any breakfast? There’s plenty of oatmeal.”

“I like coffee first, by itself. But then yes. Thank you.”

A small, awkward silence falls. Ilya sips his coffee. Yuna glances at David and then at Ilya, and then back again. 

“Is okay,” Ilya says, “to say what you want to say.”

“Oh.” Yuna looks a little flustered, maybe surprised Ilya noticed. “We were talking last night and we just wanted to check…” Yuna hesitates.

That you are serious, Ilya’s brain fills in the gap. That you are doing this for the right reasons. That this isn’t because you want to get rid of your Russian passport. 

“If there’s anything we can do for you today. Since your family can’t be here.”

Ilya blinks. He is not sure he’s ever been so close to crying with so little warning before in his life. “Oh,” he says, and his voice betrays him immediately, cracking on that single syllable. “Is mostly good thing that my family is not here. They are not…like this family.”

Yuna and David know that he lost his mother young because it came up in conversation briefly at one of their dinners over the summer, and of course they know that his father died this year. He has never had any cause to mention Alexei to them, nor does he expect he’ll ever want to. 

“We’re sorry to hear that,” Yuna says, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. “Do you have a picture of your mom? Sometimes people save chairs for loved ones who can’t attend a wedding and put a picture of them there.”

Ilya shakes his head. “I have some, but they are in Boston. Is okay. I wear her necklace, is how she is with me.”

“That’s lovely,” Yuna says. “If you do think of anything, just let us know. We’ll do what we can to make it happen…in the next two hours.”

“Ten in the morning is maybe a silly time for a wedding.” Ilya says, smiling. “Probably why it was still available the day before.”

“Probably,” Yuna smiles. “Makes it easier that you’re two grooms. I was up at six in the morning to get ready before our wedding, and the ceremony wasn’t until four in the afternoon.”

“You get up at six anyway,” David says.

Ilya pulls an exaggerated grimace. “Are all Hollanders morning people? I think Shane should’ve told me this before I proposed.”

David laughs. “Maybe he didn’t want to scare you off.”

“He tricked me this summer at the cottage. He didn’t set alarm once. And now the season starts and it’s five every morning.” Ilya appreciates that neither Yuna nor David points out that this is a short term problem, since Ilya will be going back to Boston at the end of the week. 

Shane comes back from his run not long after, and Ilya gets to enjoy his bemusement upon discovering him sitting at the kitchen table with his parents, Ilya being deeply unhelpful while David does the crossword. Shane gulps down two glasses of water and pulls a container of overnight oats out of the fridge.

To Ilya’s surprise, he drops into Ilya’s lap instead of taking the last empty seat at the table. Ilya loops his arms around Shane’s waist. 

“You’re buying a new chair if that one breaks, Shane,” Yuna says, getting up to bring her mug and her empty bowl to the sink. “It definitely wasn’t designed to hold two professional hockey players.”

“You won’t let me buy you a new house, but furniture is fine?”

“We don’t need a new house. We’ll need four chairs at the dinner table from now on.”

Ilya hides his smile against the back of Shane’s neck. “I should get ready now, anyway, so bathroom is free for you to shower.”

Shane sighs, but lets Ilya up. “Don’t mess with your hair too much,” Shane calls after him. “It looks good already.”

---

Ilya wonders if they’ll regret not doing a big wedding up until the minute they’re in the room in the courthouse with the officiant and Yuna and David, and Shane is looking at him with the kind of open, unguarded expression Ilya has gotten used to only seeing when they’re alone. He can’t imagine Shane looking at him like that with a hundred of their closest friends there too. 

Shane’s in his usual white t-shirt/black jeans/brown leather jacket outfit that he’s been wearing since long before he paid that stylist to buy him some new clothes, and when Ilya had shrugged his own jacket on in the guest room less than an hour ago, Shane had dragged his eyes all the way up Ilya’s body and grinned.

“This look is really taking me back to room 1410.” 

Ilya hadn’t done it on purpose, exactly. But he hadn’t not, either. 

“You are sure?” he asks Shane one more time, while the officiant makes sure she has their names right on her paperwork. She’s given them no indication that she has any idea who they are, so either she’s not a hockey fan or she has a very good poker face.

“Ilya.” Shane takes Ilya’s hand. “I’ve been sure about you as long as you’ve been sure about me.”

They make other vows, official ones, familiar and unfamiliar at once, because Ilya has heard them before but the words feel different in his mouth, and he thinks he’ll probably remember I’ve been sure about you as long as you’ve been sure about me just as much as he remembers the official ones. For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish, for the rest of his life. 

Ilya manages to say the words without crying (barely) but as soon as Shane says them back the floodgates open, so much so that Shane pauses to pat down his pockets and produces a little travel pack of tissues from one of them. He presses the pack into Ilya’s hands and goes back to saying his vows, smiling brightly the entire time. 

They’re already wearing their rings so they don’t bother taking them off to put them back on, and Ilya likes that that part stays just theirs, stays in Shane’s bed. 

The officiant tells them they’re husbands, that they can kiss, and Ilya takes Shane’s jaw in his hand as gently as he did the first time, kisses him just as softly. To love and to cherish. 

He hopes Yuna is taking a picture. Ilya wants to frame it.

---

Incredibly, luck continues to be on their side. They don’t run into anyone on their way back to David’s car, which is good because Shane and Ilya can’t stop beaming at each other and can't manage to let go of each other’s hands. 

In the backseat of the car, Ilya pulls his phone out of his pocket and slings his arm around Shane’s neck, pulling him close and taking at least seven selfies where they’re cheek to cheek, but then he turns and can’t help kissing him, and his thumb hits the shutter button a few times to capture this too. 

He doesn’t let go of Shane for the twenty minute drive back to the Hollanders’ house and Shane doesn’t complain, just fits his body against Ilya’s side as best he can given they’re both wearing their seatbelts because the car beeps increasingly shrill warnings when they don’t. 

Inside the house, Shane pulls Ilya into his arms and they stand hugging in the living room until they’re startled apart by the pop of a champagne cork. 

“It’s eleven in the morning,” Shane says as Yuna presses a flute of champagne into his hand. 

“Shut up, Hollander,” Ilya says so fondly he feels his own face turning pink. Yuna takes a picture of that too.

They toast and then David starts packing up the leftover chicken parm in a cooler for them to take with them to the cottage. Ilya sits with Shane on the couch, Yuna between them, so they can look through the pictures she took and decide which ones they want printed or shared with them. Ilya quickly realizes he wants all of them, even the ones that are basically the same photo just one or two seconds apart, and he shows Yuna how to AirDrop them all to his phone. He will add them to the shared album and he and Shane can delete the ones where one of them is blinking later. 

When he takes his phone out of his pocket, there are thirty seven unread messages in his group chat with Marly, Connors, Vic, and Carm and about twenty new ones in the team group chat. There’s also, a little ominously, a text from LeClaire from just a few minutes ago that just says call me when you can. Morning skate will have just wrapped up, so it might just be an update after that. 

But it could also be that someone they didn’t see took pictures of them this morning and they’re already on the internet. Ilya doesn’t think it’s very likely to be this, but he opens Twitter anyway, just in case. All of his mentions are normal, and quick searches of their names don’t bring anything up that isn’t hockey-related. 

(The exception is a whole thread someone posted about how they think Rose Landry is pregnant with Shane’s baby and that’s why she hasn’t been seen in public since March. Ilya knows from Shane that Rose is still on location for X-Squad reshoots that have taken two full months longer than they were supposed to. Ilya suspects that this is going to be a very bad movie, whenever it finally is released.)

“Do you boys want lunch before you get on the road?” Yuna offers.

“I’m not hungry yet,” Shane says. “Ilya?”

Ilya shakes his head. Breakfast was barely two hours ago. “No, me either.”

They bring their duffels back down to Shane’s car, and David hands over the cooler which is too heavy to only have the chicken parm leftovers in it. He winks at Ilya, and Ilya puts it in the trunk with their luggage. They exchange hugs in the garage, Yuna kissing each of their foreheads in turn. 

“Text us when you get there,” Yuna says. “Drive safe.”

They’re quiet as they back out of the driveway, quiet as Shane drives through his parents’ neighborhood, and it isn’t until they’re on the highway and it’s not even noon yet that Shane bursts into laughter.

“What?” Ilya asks him.

“I feel like we robbed a bank and got away with it and now we’re driving off into the sunset.”

Ilya grins. “I felt the same way yesterday when we got to city hall.”

“We’re married,” Shane says, his voice dropping to an awed whisper. “You’re my husband.”

Ilya wishes he’d insisted on driving. He’s pretty sure he could shave forty minutes off the trip. He wants to hear Shane call him his husband in their bed at the cottage, but they’re still at least two hours away from that. 

“Solnyshko,” Ilya says, reaching to hold Shane’s hand. “My Shane. My husband. Finally.”

He expects Shane to tease him that it’s hardly finally, that they were engaged for all of two days, but Shane just glances over at him and twists his hand in Ilya’s to thread their fingers together.

“I’m glad we didn’t wait until we retired,” he says.

Ilya’s not sure how he ever would have. He could have done it for Shane, of course, could wait forever if he needed to, but it sounds like torture now that the rings are on their fingers. 

“Coach texted me,” Ilya says. “Sometime this morning. He said I should call.”

“You want to call him now? Or wait until we get to the cottage?”

“Now. I plan to be very busy at the cottage.” 

“Want me to pull over somewhere? Give you some privacy?”

Ilya shakes his head.“No. I would just tell you everything he says anyway.”

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and finds LeClaire’s name in his recent calls, just after Svetlana and Shane, after their three minute call on Monday night at almost eleven. He’d woken LeClaire up, and he still feels a bit badly about that. 

“Roz,” LeClaire says as soon as the call connects, “this isn’t urgent, it could’ve waited. What time is it there, anyway?”

“I am in Ottawa,” Ilya says, “not Moscow.”

“Oh,” LeClaire says, “I’m sorry. I assumed when you said family emergency you were in Russia.”

“Ah. No.” Ilya decides to take one small risk. He watches Shane’s face as he does. “I am with my husband’s family.” Shane’s eyebrows rise, and he shoots Ilya a look that could best be described as exasperated, but he’s not pulling the car onto the shoulder to have a panic attack. 

The silence on the line isn’t the hostile kind, Ilya is confident of that. It only lasts a few seconds and LeClaire sounds mostly amused when he asks, “when the fuck did you get married?”

“Recently,” Ilya says, delighted at having a word that isn’t even a lie.

“Do the guys know and I’m just out of the loop because you all only share news in that group text?”

“No. We aren’t out yet. Is complicated.”

“Understood,” LeClaire says. “I hope you’ll let me know if any of the complications are coming from inside my house.” 

“I don’t think so,” Ilya says. “Mostly Russia and my husband’s job.”

Shane shoots him another look at that, and Ilya wonders if he should just put LeClaire on speaker. 

“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope your family is okay.”

“They will be,” Ilya says. “I just needed to be here.”

“Family first, kid, I get it.” LeClaire affirms. “I won’t keep you long, I just wanted to fill you in on a few things.”

“Okay.”

“Firstly, I’m about to kick the ass of somebody at the league once I find out who translated Heikkinen’s medical records before the draft. The kid tore his ACL in the spring, hasn’t let up skating on it since, and now needs surgery and probably a year of PT. Not a word of it in any of the records we got.”

“Shit.”

“He’s getting surgery next week, and then once he’s rehabbed enough to skate, he’ll train up in Providence. All of this season and probably next, too. I’m also about to boot the ones we brought up from Providence back down, since the whole point was to try them out on a line with Heikkinen.” 

Ilya wonders if there might be some entity in the universe that wants good things for him after all. “So we need a center,” he says.

Shane’s head jerks, and his hand in Ilya’s tightens, but he keeps his eyes on the road.

“I don’t know yet, we’ll play with the lines and some of the other rookies this week while you’re gone.”

“I happen to know,” Ilya says as nonchalantly as he can, “that Hollander is trying to get out of Montreal.”

“How the fuck do you know that?” 

“Is complicated,” Ilya says again. He knows LeClaire will put it together.

“Jesus Christ, Roz,” LeClaire says after a beat. “I guess I don’t need to ask if you two could put aside your differences to play together.”

“No, you do not. I’d switch to wing to play on the same line as him.”

“What the fuck?” Shane hisses at him.

 LeClaire snorts. “Very romantic, but that doesn’t solve our center issues. And let’s not count our chickens here.” Ilya sighs. He hates American expressions like this. “Hollander might want out, but Montreal has to be willing to give him up.”

“Montreal does not know how good they have it with Shane Hollander carrying their otherwise terrible team. It will make them stupid.”

“Ilya,” Shane says.

“Jesus Christ,” LeClaire says again, and Ilya figures he probably heard Shane that time. “Do not put any of this shit in writing. I can’t reach out to Hollander and there’s no precedent here with where fucking pillowtalk falls under the tampering rules, but just…tell him to have his agent reach out. I’ll give the front office a heads up. It won’t be a hard sell. They’ll be willing to trade half the roster to make it happen.”

Ilya feels a momentary stab of guilt about that, because yes, getting Shane to Boston probably means freeing up a lot of cap space, which doesn’t mean great things for guys like Miller and Hammersmith and Sebbin, who have big salaries but aren’t the guys the franchise is built around.

“Okay,” Ilya says. “His agent is good. She is my agent now too.”

LeClaire chuckles. “Convenient. I’ll keep you posted.” 

“Ilya, what the fuck?” Shane asks when Ilya hangs up. 

“We need to call Farah,” Ilya says. Her number is farther down in his recent calls list, but not much. “Heikkinen has ACL tear.”

“Heikkinen?” Shane frowns. “The Finnish rookie?”

“Yes. He needs surgery and will be out at least one season and in Providence the next. Or they’ll trade him, I don’t give a fuck.”

“Holy shit…but, Ilya, there’s no way Boston has the cap space, he’s just on a rookie contract.”

“That is for Farah and GM to figure out,” Ilya says, switching to speaker while Farah’s phone rings. 

“Hello Ilya,” Farah says. “I saw your email about the contract, I should have some answers for you this afternoon—”

“Is fine, I am not calling about that,” Ilya says. “I am on speaker with Shane. He is driving.”

“Is it official?” Farah asks. “You boys tie the knot?”

“Yes,” Shane says. “As of about an hour and a few minutes ago.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you, it’s—”

“Oh my god, Hollander, now you want to smalltalk?” Shane smacks Ilya’s thigh and Ilya grins at him.

“Is everything all right?” Farah asks.

“Ilya just got off the phone with his coach,” Shane says, “Boston’s round one draft pick, that center from Finland—”

“Heikkinen,” Farah supplies. He was no Shane Hollander or Ilya Rozanov, but Heikkinen had been one of the biggest stories of the draft that year, mostly for being relatively unknown on the junior hockey circuit and still going number three in the draft.

“Yeah, him. He has an ACL tear. He’s out for the season, at least. Maybe two.”

“That’s very interesting news,” Farah says placidly. Ilya knows she is very good at her job because things like this don’t ruffle her at all, but he does have the contradictory urge to throw his phone out the window at how calm she is. 

“LeClaire knows Shane is trying to get out of Montreal. He is giving front office a heads up. They’ll be expecting your call.”

“Okay, that’s good, that makes it a little easier on my end. Ultimately I do think it will come down to money or if there are any trades Montreal is interested in. I’ll reach out. I’ve had calls yesterday and this morning from Ottawa, Buffalo, and Detroit, plus some teams in the west we’re not going to bother ourselves with right now, but am I safe to assume Boston would be your first choice, Shane?”

“Yeah,” Shane says, his voice flat, and Ilya can tell that he’s starting to spiral a little. “Yeah. If it’s about the money…I can be flexible. I’m not expecting them to be able to match what Montreal was offering for my next contract.”

“We can also do what you and I talked about,” Ilya says. “With my contract.”

“Let me see what I can find out before we worry too much about the specifics,” Farah says. “What’s the plan for the next couple days?”

“We’re going up to our cottage,” Shane says and Ilya’s heart rate kicks up at our cottage. “But we’ll be reachable. We’ll probably drive back to Montreal on Saturday so Ilya can get back to Boston by Monday.”

“All right. Hang in there, I’ll have news soon.”

“Okay. Thanks, Farah.”

Ilya hangs up. “Pull over somewhere,” he says, and Shane doesn’t even argue, he takes the next exit and pulls into the parking lot of an office block. He lets out a shuddering breath and leans forward, his forehead on the steering wheel. Ilya presses his hand to the back of his neck like he did at Yuna and David’s cottage dining room table in July. 

“Freaking out a little?” Ilya asks.

“Yeah,” Shane says. “Maybe a lot.”

“Is okay. Probably we should’ve pulled over before calling Farah.”

Shane laughs a little weakly. “Will you drive?”

“Yes,” Ilya says. “Do you want to talk about it first?”

Shane shakes his head. “Not yet. Maybe when we hear more.”

Ilya nods. He has the distinct impression Shane is trying not to get his hopes up, not counting his chickens, and Ilya knows he should do the same, should temper his expectations because if Boston is on the table and Shane still ends up in Buffalo or Ottawa, the disappointment is going to be the soul-crushing kind. But Ilya wants to hope, instead. For once.

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

Here we go, the last stretch of the speed-run. I've now created a series so you can subscribe for future installments if you are so inclined. I'm not sure when the next one will be up, soon hopefully but I also have two grad school papers to write in the next 10 days so...we'll see.

This chapter may require a bit of suspension of disbelief for the hockey business, because I'm a teacher, not a sports agent or a lawyer. Let's just all accept that Farah is a BAMF and use that as an explanation. 😉

Thank you to everyone who has been reading and commenting and kudosing! I'm so glad you all are having as much fun as I am with this fic.

“Maybe I’ll just quit hockey and stay in this bed forever,” Shane says, his mouth against the skin of Ilya’s shoulder. They’re both sweaty and spent, Ilya making good on his promise to keep them both busy basically since they crossed the threshold at the cottage a couple hours ago.

Ilya’s laugh is a low rumble. He’s flopped facedown next to Shane and he turns his head to look at him. “I think you have a few more years of hockey left in you,” he says. “Three, maybe. And then yes, you can be my house-husband and earn your keep on your back. And your knees. And in my lap.” He grins like a crocodile, all teeth and menace. Fuck, Shane loves him so much.

“Fuck you.” Shane aims a kick at Ilya but he misses, legs still like jelly, so he bites his shoulder instead. “I have at least ten years of hockey left.”

“Okay,” Ilya says. “I will be house-husband then. Win two more cups, retire, wear your jersey to your games, raise our babies.”

“Jesus.”

“You want?” Ilya asks. “Sounds good, da?”

“Da,” Shane says. “I want.” He’s pretty sure they’re just talking hypothetically anyway; he can’t actually imagine Ilya hanging up his skates before he’s thirty. But they got married this morning, and Shane figures if there’s ever a time to be a little sappy about their future, to whisper and joke about it in bed, it’s probably now. 

“Are you hungry?” Ilya asks and his expression goes almost wistful.

“Are you thinking about the chicken parm?” Shane asks, already knowing the answer.

“I’m sorry,” Ilya says, not sorry at all. “I can’t help it. Is sixty percent the reason I married you.”

“Oh yeah?” Shane asks and knows he’s setting Ilya up for one of his favorite punchlines when he adds, “What’s the other forty?”

“Your mouth,” Ilya says, exactly as Shane expected. Shane bites his shoulder again. It’s going to bruise, probably. 

“Yes,” Shane says, picking the original thread back up. “I’m hungry.”

They haven’t eaten since breakfast, and in that time they’ve gotten married, participated in some light collusion that would definitely get them in trouble with the league if anyone had enough information to attempt to prove it, driven two hours to the cottage, and spent another two hours in this bed (well, ten minutes in the entryway first, and then twenty against the window in the dining room and the rest in the bed). It’s now an awkward point in the afternoon where it’s too early for dinner but they’re both too hungry now not to eat a real meal. 

“We can eat in bed?” Ilya asks hopefully. “Honeymoon rules.”

“We’re not eating chicken parm in bed.”

“We are going to change sheets anyway,” Ilya wheedles.

Shane considers this. He’s not wrong. “Fine.” 

Ilya beams and lands a kiss in the corner of Shane’s mouth. “You stay. I will bring.”

Shane doesn’t argue, not sure his legs would cooperate with walking to the kitchen anyway. He rolls and leans over the side of the bed to try to find his phone in the pocket of the jeans Ilya had yanked off him earlier and flung off the bed somewhere. He wants to look at the pictures his mom took this morning. 

When he does dig it out of his pocket, there are once again very few notifications on his screen, and it’s feeling increasingly weird to know that the rest of the Metros are at training camp and he hasn’t been there for two full days now. He doesn’t want to be there, exactly, but this is the first time in his life he’s missed two days in a row of team obligations without being injured. He wonders if Theriault or management has said anything to the team about his absence. Do they know more about what Montreal is planning for him than Shane does?

The thought makes him queasy.

He opens his photos and finds the album Ilya shared with him last night, and for a second there’s a lag, the only photo the selfie Ilya took of Shane asleep on his chest, and then the photos from the wedding appear. All two hundred of them. He wanted pictures of the two of them together, but two hundred photos over the span of about an hour and a half might be overkill. Especially because even in the thumbnail versions, Shane can spot at least three where he’s blinking.

He’s trying to sift through them when Ilya returns, the entire Pyrex container of chicken parm in one hand and two forks in the other.

“Your dad sent a couple bottles of my favorite vodka too, but it wasn’t cold enough. Is in the freezer now.”

Ilya settles on the bed close to Shane, the Pyrex in his lap. He passes Shane one of the forks, and they’re quiet for a few minutes as they both shove pasta and chicken into their mouths. 

“Do I get recipe now that I am a Hollander by marriage?” Ilya asks. 

“You’ll have to ask my dad,” Shane says, knowing he’s smiling like an idiot at Hollander by marriage. “He’s kept it a secret forever. What do I get now that I’m a Rozanov by marriage?” 

“Whatever you want,” Ilya says, and Shane thinks maybe he meant for it to sound sexy but it comes out so earnestly that Ilya’s cheeks are pink when Shane looks at him. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you too,” Ilya says. “But if you keep eating all the chicken and just leaving me pasta I will divorce you.”

Shane laughs. “No you won’t. Now help me go through these pictures, my mom took way too many.”

---

Shane can’t sleep. He wants to, he’s exhausted from the ups and downs of the past three days, but his brain won’t quiet enough to let him. He slips out of bed, sure his tossing and turning is going to wake Ilya up, and goes to the couch in the living room, pulling one of the blankets off the back of it to wrap up in. He settles into the corner of the couch and sends a text to Rose.

Shane

Are you awake?

She replies almost immediately.

 

Rose

Omg a “u up?” text from Shane 

Hollander 😏

 

And then his phone is ringing, a picture of Rose sticking her tongue out on his screen. 

“Hey,” he says. 

“Everything okay?” she asks. “I saw that thing about you getting in a fight in your locker room. I wanted to call but we’ve been scheduled like crazy to try to get these reshoots done.” 

“I can call you another time if you’re busy.” Shane offers.

“No, it’s raining and we’re supposed to be shooting exteriors. I’m stuck in my trailer until they decide to call it or the weather lets up. How are you? What’s going on?”

“Things are really good and really bad,” Shane says. “At the same fucking time. I didn’t know it was possible to feel like this.”

“Wanna start with the bad or the good?” Rose asks. 

“I’m out to my team. That’s why there was a fight. I’m trying to get out of my contract. It’s shitty timing but I can’t stay there. It’s never been great but it’s been getting worse and Monday was just…the last straw.”

“I’m sorry, Shane, that’s awful. Where do you think you’ll end up?” 

“I don’t know. It’s going to depend on who has the cap space, probably, or if there are any trade options. I don’t think Montreal really wants to keep me on the roster, not now that I’m causing problems for them, but I also don’t think they’ll make this easy.”

“Seems more like they’ve been causing problems for you. They don’t deserve you.”

“You sound like Ilya,” Shane says, smiling.

“Oh my god, is Ilya your cottage boy?”

“Yeah. He’s uh…my husband. As of this morning.”

“Shane! What the fuck? Next time the good news is that you got married, start with that! Who cares about stupid Montreal?” 

He laughs. “Man, you guys really are going to get along.” 

“I hope so. Tell me about him. How did you meet? What does he do? I assume I can ask these things now that you’re married and he’s not your secret hookup.”

“Rose…he’s Ilya Rozanov.” 

“Ilya Rozanov.” Rose repeats. “You’re married to Ilya Rozanov. From the Boston Raiders? There’s not a different one I don’t know about?”

“Yeah, that Ilya Rozanov.”

“Shane. Oh my god! He’s so hot!”

“Yeah,” Shane says dryly. “I know.”

“Wait…you guys have played against each other for years. When did you start hooking up?”

“Uh,” Shane says. “2010.”

“Oh my god,” Rose says again. “He’s the guy? I mean, I guess I shouldn’t assume you’ve only hooked up with one guy—”

“Yeah, Ilya’s the guy.”

“Wow. That’s so sweet. And now you’re married. How’s that going to work?”

“Honestly,” Shane says, “we’re still figuring that part out. It will depend where I end up, I guess. We had made this whole plan this summer to start working to change how the media talks about us so we’re not just rivals and it isn’t this huge fucking deal if we’re ever seen together so we could maybe come out when we retired and I then I walked into the locker room on Monday and my team was saying all this homophobic shit about Scott Hunter and I just…lost it. Threw the whole plan out the window.”

“Wow.”

“I just…love him so much. So much more than I care about whatever the fuck my team or the league thinks.”

“Could you guys play on the same team? Like, is that possible?”

“Maybe,” Shane says. “There’s kind of something that might be happening but…I’m afraid to jinx it.”

“Is this another left skate first thing?” Rose teases. 

“Probably. Maybe it’s dumb, I just don’t want to get my hopes up too high in case it doesn’t happen.”

“I don’t think that’s dumb. But I also think you’re the best player in the league and if there’s a team you want they’re probably going to do whatever they can to make it work.”

Ilya’s going to be so annoyed, Shane thinks, when he and Rose finally meet and he realizes they’ve been unknowingly co-chairing the Shane Hollander Fan Club. He won’t be able to hate Rose if all she does is say nice things about and to Shane. 

“What’s going on with you?” Shane asks, and settles in to listen to Rose vent about reshoots and shapeshifting, wishing desperately to be in a movie that didn’t eat up years of her life only to turn out to be pretty bad and therefore a waste of those years. He didn’t realize until he and Rose became friends how nice it is to have a friend who understands what it’s like to have a high pressure, high profile career without their career also being hockey. They can complain to each other about the most annoying parts of their careers and understand where the other is coming from without it feeling like a competition. Or, for Shane, like more of the same noise already in his head.

“I also need to be seen in public, soon, to kill these stupid baby rumors,” Rose says.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s an increasingly loud subsection of the internet that’s insisting I’m pregnant with your baby.”

Shane laughs, a little incredulously. “That’s crazy.”

“Yep," she agrees. "It is. And one of the more weird and invasive side effects of being famous."

“Would it help if I like…tweeted something?”

Rose snorts. “No, definitely not. It was barely a thing and then some stupid blind item Instagram account posted screenshots of a Twitter thread which was honestly a little scary in how detailed it was about the timeline of our relationship and how many weeks it’s been since anyone has seen me. Because I’ve been stuck on this stupid set, keeping my part in this movie top secret.”

“I mean, you could just start telling people I couldn’t get it up when we were dating. That would probably kill the rumors pretty quickly.”

Rose lets out a delighted peal of laughter. “I don’t think you want that kind of press, Shane. Plus they’ll just say I’m a woman scorned, going all scorched earth after you dumped me.”

“We’ll set them straight someday,” Shane says. 

“So to speak,” Rose shoots back and Shane laughs. “Hold on a sec, somebody’s at my trailer door.” Shane waits while Rose has a muffled conversation with whoever is there. “Sorry,” she says, a minute later. “I gotta go. We have a break in the rain and we’re going to try to use it to our advantage.”

“Good luck,” Shane says. 

“Congrats on your wedding. Tell that hubby of yours I’m looking forward to meeting him.”

---

Shane and Ilya slip right back into the routines they established over the summer. Lazy morning sex, breakfast, a run or a hike or a workout in the gym, a shared shower where they both come at least once, lunch, an afternoon spent on or in the lake, dinner, and then a movie which just becomes background noise to making out on the couch until one of them feels motivated enough to drag them toward the bedroom. 

Farah’s call comes when they’re making dinner on Friday (well, Shane’s making dinner, grilling up chicken and vegetable skewers, while Ilya clings to him like a koala or something, his chin hooked over Shane’s shoulder and his arms around Shane’s waist). 

“Shit,” Shane says, when he gets his ringing phone out of his pocket and they both see Farah’s name on the screen. He hands Ilya the tongs he’s been turning the skewers with. “Chicken needs like two more minutes.”

Shane walks a few paces away, down off the deck and to his gently sloping lawn. He forces himself to take several deep breaths before he answers.

“Hey, Farah.”

“Hi Shane. Ilya there too?”

“Just me. Do you need me to get him?”

“No, I just wanted to check. I’ll cut right to the chase.”

“Please.”

“We’re going to be able to make it work with Boston.”

“You’re kidding,” Shane says, half-expecting for it to be a joke, except Farah would never joke about something like this.

“I’m not. Montreal is going to retain thirty-five percent of your remaining contract—”

“Thirty-five percent?!” 

“—which will give Boston two seasons to free up the cap space they’ll need to re-sign you, if you decide you want to re-sign with them.”

“What is Montreal getting?”

“They want you to agree not to sue them or go to the press about the hostile work environment you’ve experienced for the last seven years. They’ll make you sign an NDA. It probably wouldn’t hold up in court if you did decide down the road you want to sue, but unfortunately we also probably don’t have enough proof for a lawsuit.”

“That’s it? I just have to sign the NDA?”

“They’re getting a couple guys Boston called up from the farm team for training camp and a first round draft pick next season. But otherwise yes.”

Shane feels like his knees might give out on him. He sits down hard in the grass. “I can’t believe it. I was sure I was going to end up in Buffalo.”

“I told you, I’m good at my job, Shane.”

“You really are. The best. I owe you a huge bonus and a vacation.”

“I will gladly accept both,” Farah says, laughing. “You want some logistics, or should I just email you?”

“No, logistics are good. Tell me.”

“Boston would like you there as soon as possible. Ideally Monday but they said Friday at the latest.”

“Tell them I can do Monday. I want to get back on the ice, and Ilya and I can drive down together.”

“Great. They should be sending me the contract in the next hour. No changes from your Montreal contract, so that’s straightforward. If Montreal decides they want an NDA, they’ll send that to me as well.”

“Okay.”

“The announcement will be Sunday afternoon with simultaneous press releases from Boston and Montreal. It will just be the trade announcement, nothing more. We can definitely anticipate a lot of press interest, but you and Ilya can focus on training camp and let Boston’s Comms team handle those requests. 

“There’s some debate about your suspension and whether you ought to sit out those pre-season games even though it wasn’t a league disciplinary issue. Boston is going to work that out internally. I also suspect they’re anticipating some major changes to the lines and don’t want to play too many cards too soon, so honoring the suspension gives them an easy out.”

“Right,” Shane says. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“On a more personal note, Yuna has set a Zoom meeting for her, myself, and Bethany, the publicist you decided on, for next Tuesday. You and Ilya are welcome to join but you’re not necessary to proceedings at this point. It will just be a briefing and some preliminary strategy discussions.”

“Does Boston know?” Shane asks. “About me and Ilya? I mean, Ilya basically told LeClaire but did it make it up the chain to management?”

“Not that came up in negotiations. However, I would recommend doing the same thing Ilya did: list him as your emergency contact and your next of kin. A paper trail is a good thing now. If we run into any issues with the league down the line, we’ll be able to point to that as proof that you disclosed exactly the same amount of information any other player would as soon as you had a relevant change to your marital status.”

“Okay,” Shane says. It makes him nervous, but he thinks that’s more about Montreal and less about Boston. Plus, Ilya’s already done it, so if there’s going to be any fallout it’s happening either way and he’s not going to hang Ilya out to dry on his own.

He thanks Farah a few more times and hangs up. When he flops backwards into the grass, Ilya is looming above him, his concerned face upside down from Shane’s spot on the ground. Shane startles.

“Jesus, I didn’t hear you come up behind me.”

“Good news or bad?”

“You couldn’t tell?”

“I thought good, at first, but then it seemed bad when you sat on the ground.”

“It’s good,” Shane says. “The best, actually.”

A slow smile spreads across Ilya’s face. “Boston?”

“Boston,” Shane confirms. 

Ilya whoops, and then he hauls Shane to his feet, reeling him in to kiss him hard. Shane lets himself get lost in kissing Ilya for a few long moments, standing there in their backyard, almost exactly in the spot where Shane started trying to map out their future back in July. 

What a difference two months makes. 

“Come eat,” Ilya says, tugging Shane toward the table on the deck. “You can tell me all the details. Or talk all the panic thoughts out of your brain.”

It ends up mostly being panic thoughts. 

“It just feels too easy,” Shane says, when he’s eaten a few bites of chicken at Ilya’s insistence. “I’m just going to…sign with Boston? We’re going to be on the same team and living in the same city? Just like that?”

“Same house, sweetheart.” 

Shane hadn’t actually gotten that far yet. But he can move into Ilya’s house. He loves that house. They’ll need some kind of cover story, probably, but that’s why they have a publicist now. Bethany, apparently. His mom has probably sent him an email about it. She can help them figure it out. 

“I kind of can’t believe it. It feels like I’m dreaming, or something. I thought it would be years before we could play together, if it ever happened at all. I was bracing myself to get stuck in Buffalo, and then where would we have been?”

“In Buffalo,” Ilya shrugs. “Because I would follow you there too.”

Shane eyes him skeptically. 

“What? You don’t believe me? It can’t be that much worse than Ottawa.”

“Ottawa is in Canada, at least. And my parents are there.”

“The good news is we don’t need to fight whether Ottawa or Buffalo is worse, because you are coming to Boston.”

“It feels too perfect,” Shane says. “It’s like I can’t trust it.”

Ilya’s face softens, and he reaches to hold Shane’s hand on the table. “Is just timing. A coincidence, yes? It just feels too perfect because it is what we want. And I don’t think it is too easy, either. Would you say that the last seven years in Montreal have been easy?”

Shane huffs out an annoyed sigh. Logic usually cuts through the noise when he gets like this, which of course Ilya knows, had figured it out in a hotel room in Nashville in 2011. “No,” he says, knowing it comes out a little petulant. 

“So it is not too easy,” Ilya shrugs. “Or too perfect. It is mostly just good business, yes? Boston wants to win, Montreal wants to not get slapped with enormous lawsuit.”

“When you put it like that,” Shane says, and feels a little bit of tension leave his shoulders. He eats a few more bites of his food. “What did you mean, in the car the other day, when you told Farah she could do what you’d talked about with her about your contract?” Ilya looks a little shifty, pushing a grilled onion across his plate. “Ilya.”

“My contract is up next year. I told Farah if it seemed like the numbers weren’t going to work, we could try voiding it and re-negotiating early. Free up some cap space.”

“You’re crazy,” Shane says immediately. 

Ilya shrugs. “It was just an idea. Farah thought it was a bad one, but I wanted to help.”

“So what, you were going to take a rookie salary again to get me to Boston?”

“Not rookie,” Ilya scoffs. But then his face softens again, “I thought maybe…half. For each of us. My other plan was to retire, but Sveta said you wouldn’t like that.”

“No,” Shane says. “I really wouldn’t. Svetlana and I are going to get along.”

“Yes,” Ilya says with a small smile. “So much.”

“You and Rose are going to get along too. You’re gonna hate it.” 

Ilya laughs, and he tugs on Shane’s hand until Shane stands, and then Ilya is pulling him back down into his lap. Shane’s not sure he trusts these chairs to hold their weight any more than his mom trusted the chairs in her kitchen, but he settles into Ilya’s lap anyway. 

“Talk more,” Ilya says. “I know you have more panic thoughts.”

“I told Farah to tell them I could be there Monday. That we could drive down together. Except your car is at my apartment so we’ll have to drive separately. I have to figure out what to do about the house in Brossard and whether any of my shit is coming to Boston and we have to decide what we’re telling the team about why we live together and we have to be ready with a story for the media because someone will figure that out too and there’s all the rivalry bullshit. They’re going to make us do a press conference probably and I don’t think I’m going to be able to hide anything anymore. I think my face just looks like it did in all the pictures my mom took at our wedding every time I look at you now. And, fuck, I have to call my parents. And Hayden.”

Ilya squeezes him and Shane forces himself to take a deep breath. He realizes belatedly that he skipped a step, maybe the most important one. 

“Hey,” he says, turning in Ilya’s arms to look at his face, “I forgot something.”

Ilya frowns. “What?”

“I’m really happy. In case that wasn’t clear.”

“Hollander, I am very familiar with your panic brain. Is okay. I know you are happy.” But Ilya’s face splits into a grin, and Shane’s glad he said it even if Ilya knows. “Here is plan: tomorrow I will drive us to Montreal so you can make all your phone calls from the car. We will make decisions about furniture in your Montreal apartment. You will have dinner with Pike while I pack for you. Then we will drive to Boston on Sunday. Separately, yes, but we are going to the same house. We will always go home to the same house now.”

It’s enough to make Shane cry, if he really dwells on it. He didn’t think that was something they would have for years. Maybe not until they retired. 

“I’m so glad I punched Comeau in the face,” he says, and Ilya laughs. 

“Me too, and not just because he deserved it. Now eat your food, we have celebrating to do.”

---

Shane lets himself into Jackie and Hayden’s house, wondering for probably the hundredth time since getting in the car at his apartment if he should’ve brought Ilya along. Shane had suggested it, and they’d gone back and forth about it, but eventually Ilya won through sheer practicality: the things Shane needed immediately in Boston still needed to be packed, and Ilya could do that while Shane went to see the Pikes.

“Is too much at one time, maybe,” Ilya had added, “saying goodbye and introducing me.”

Now, taking off his shoes in the foyer, Shane wishes he’d argued harder for Ilya to come. It isn’t too much; if anything, having Ilya with him helps with the intensity of his own feelings, as he learned at his parents’ cottage this summer. 

“Uncle Shane!” shrieks Ruby, catapulting herself into his knees. Jade isn’t far behind, and Shane manages to scoop up both of them. He hasn’t seen them since the spring, and he’s confident both of them have grown since then.

“Oof,” he says, pretending to stagger under their combined weight. “When did you girls get so big?” 

“I growed this much,” Jade says, holding her hands about six inches apart. An exaggeration, for sure, but Shane isn’t going to argue with her.

“Wow, so much. What about you, Ruby? How much did you grow?”

“More,” Ruby says, poking her tongue out at Jade. “I’m bigger.”

Ruby has been the bigger twin since they were born, but Jade has started to catch up. 

“Girls, did you tackle Uncle Shane the second he got here?” Jackie asks when they get to the kitchen. Arthur is in his high chair, repeatedly bashing a spoon against its tray. Faintly, Shane can hear Amber crying upstairs. Ruby and Jade start talking over each other. Shane shoots Jackie an exaggerated grimace. Jackie grins back at him.

“Ruby and Jade, why don’t you go tell Daddy Uncle Shane is here and see if he needs any help with Amber,” Jackie suggests.

“Okay!” they chorus, and wiggle for Shane to set them down, which he does. 

“They’re in a big helping phase,” Jackie says. “Hayden has more patience for it than I do.”

Then she’s coming around the kitchen island and pulling him into a hug. 

“Big week,” she says, and she doesn’t even know the half of it. Shane had called Hayden from the car this morning to break the news about Boston, not wanting him to hear it from anyone else, but he’d saved the marriage news for in person. “I hate that you’re leaving, but I’m glad that you’re getting out.”

“I know,” Shane says, already feeling choked up. He’s pretty sure he’ll just be on the verge of tears for this whole dinner. “Me too. Well…I guess I don’t hate that I’m leaving. But I do hate leaving you guys. And Canada. I never thought I’d play for a team in the states.”

Even the summer he was drafted, knowing Boston and Montreal had the first two picks, and knowing that he and Ilya were predicted to go one and two, as much as Shane had wanted to be the number one pick, he’d had a hard time picturing himself playing for Boston.

Jackie releases him from the hug and puts him to work on assembling a salad to go with the salmon she has in the oven for them while she cuts up fruit for the kids. 

“You’ll be playing with your man, though. That’s got to be worth the move on its own.”

“Yeah,” Shane says, feeling a flush climb up his face. “It is.”

“It’s going to be some great hockey to watch, if the All Star game is any indication of what you two are like on the ice.”

“You should be careful saying that in Montreal,” Shane laughs. “And I doubt Ilya and I will be on the same line. This was only possible because their rookie center tore his ACL.”

Jackie shrugs. “If I were LeClaire, I’d be looking at changing whatever I could to put Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov on the ice at the same time.”

“Jesus, Jackie,” Hayden says, coming into the kitchen carrying Amber. “It’s like you’re a Boston fan now.”

Jackie shrugs. “I’m a Hollander fan. If that means rooting for Boston and for Rozanov, I’ll survive.”

Hayden grimaces, and Shane wonders which is more offensive to him: Jackie rooting for Boston or Jackie rooting for Ilya. As much as Hayden insisted he wasn’t going to freak out about Shane and Ilya, Shane’s a little on edge waiting for it to happen, and he’s pretty sure it will be when he breaks the news that he and Ilya got married. Hayden’s never been the kind of guy who can hide how he really feels about something. 

Shane decides to rip off that particular Band-Aid while the twins are playing in the living room, because once the tornado that is Ruby and Jade starts, he’s not likely to get a word in edgewise. 

“So, uh,” Shane starts, “about me and Ilya. We got married on Wednesday.”

Jackie beams at him. “Congratulations. I wondered, you were a little cagey about wedding stuff when we talked Tuesday.”

Hayden opens and closes his mouth a few times, at a loss for words. Shane feels a small spike of annoyance. 

“You knew we were engaged, Hayd.”

“Yeah,” Hayden says. “I just figured, you know, it was gonna be awhile before you actually pulled the trigger.”

“Why? You two got married after six months of dating. Ilya and I have been together for years.”

“I mean…you and Rozanov—”

Shane interrupts, “Ilya.” Shane doesn’t think he’d make such a thing about it if Hayden didn’t say Ilya’s last name like it was a curse word of its own. It’s not like Shane doesn’t still call Ilya by his last name sometimes (less and less though, lately; the novelty of being allowed to call him Ilya hasn’t worn off yet).

“God, that’s so fucking weird,” Hayden complains.

Jackie points at the swear jar on the counter behind the sink, and Hayden fishes a loonie out of his pocket, handing it to her. She drops it into the jar with a metallic clink. 

“He’s my husband, so maybe get used to it.” 

Hayden blinks, startled. He’d worn the A while Shane had worn the C, which mostly meant that he’d never really been on the receiving end of Shane’s captain voice. Hayden’s face splits into a grin. “Fucking hell, Ilya then.” He hands Jackie a toonie this time. “I just figured you guys would wait it out. Win a cup, pull a Hunter maybe.”

Shane shrugs. They still could. “We’re not planning anything yet. We’ll probably wait until Ilya gets his permanent residency card.” They’d agreed on that easily, whispering in bed the night after their wedding. “But somebody might figure out that we’re married and if they do…we’re not going to lie.”

“Is that scary?” Hayden asks. 

“I mean, yeah. Less now that I know we’ll be together if it happens, not stuck on opposite sides of an international border.”

He still can’t believe his luck, feels like it’s a dream he could wake up from at any moment, but he’s nervous about starting over with a new team, especially Boston. The Montreal/Boston rivalry is the one that’s actually shaped his career; the media’s fixation on him and Ilya is just a reflection of that. 

Jackie pulls the salmon and the chicken nuggets for the kids out of the oven, shouting to the girls to go wash their hands. Shane helps bring the food over to the table while Hayden gives Amber a bottle. 

Dinner is loud. Arthur is in a screeching phase, the twins pepper Shane with questions about his summer, and Amber fusses so much that Jackie, Hayden, and Shane take turns holding her. She eventually falls asleep while Shane is holding her, her little fist clutching the front of his shirt. 

“I really hate that I’m not going to be around as much,” he says quietly, but of course Ruby hears.

“Why?” she asks. 

“We talked about it, Ruby, remember?” Jackie says. “Uncle Shane was traded, he’s going to play for another team.” 

“But he’ll still come to my school,” Ruby says. 

“I hope so,” Shane says. “Not as much as I was before, though.”

About once a month, Shane would pick Ruby and Jade up from pre-school after morning skate. Usually he took them for ice cream or something. It had happened once, when Jackie had a doctor’s appointment that Hayden needed to be at (where they found out they were expecting Arthur, Shane learned later), and the twins had pretty much insisted on it becoming a tradition. 

He’s going to miss it. He’s going to miss all of them. They’re his family; Hayden is the closest to a brother Shane’s ever going to get, so Jackie and the kids are Shane’s family too. 

“We should find a week this summer for you guys to come up to the cottage,” Shane says. 

“That sounds great,” Jackie says, nodding. “Maybe we can come down to Boston around the holidays, too, if the schedules work out. And obviously you’re welcome anytime Boston plays here. We can do dinner or lunch or whatever.”

“Yeah.” Shane nods. He and Ilya had looked at Boston and Montreal’s schedules in their last week at the cottage, calendars side-by-side, mapping out the overlap. There wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing either. He’s still in the same conference. The flight is quick. The drive isn’t terrible. There’s FaceTime and phone calls and texting. 

These are all the things he and Ilya had told themselves as the day Ilya needed to leave for Boston drew nearer and nearer, so in some ways leaving Montreal feels easier. Manageable. He already knows what it will look like, staying in touch with the Pikes. He’ll miss big chunks of the kids’ lives; they’ll grow up in leaps across months instead of millimeters every week. He won’t have Hayden next to him in the locker room, won’t be able to hide in the laundry room with Jackie at team parties when everywhere else starts to get too loud. It will be hard, but not the same agony being separated from Ilya would have been.

After dinner, he helps Jackie with Arthur’s bath and reads four bedtime stories to Jade and Ruby. Ruby cries and clings to his neck when he says goodnight to her, and Shane stops fighting the tears he’s been holding off all night.

He holds Amber again, sitting on the couch with her while she sleeps, and Jackie and Hayden putter around him, tidying and making mindless conversation. By now it’s nearly nine, and Shane needs to leave. He and Ilya want to get on the road early to beat Sunday traffic at the border and get to Boston with enough time to decompress and unpack before they need to be at the practice rink first thing Monday morning.

“Hey,” Hayden says, sitting down on the huge ottoman opposite Shane. “I really am happy for you, you know? It’s good, knowing you’ve had Roz—Ilya this whole time, that you haven’t been alone.”

He has been alone, sometimes more profoundly than if he didn’t have hours of stolen time with Ilya every few months (and then nothing at all in the off seasons, or in the stretches when one or both of them was running scared), but he appreciates the sentiment. And that Hayden is trying not to be a dick.

“Thanks, Hayd. I’m gonna miss you.”

“I know. I’m gonna miss you too, man. You still owe us a dinner with Ilya, too.”

Shane nods. “Next time we’re in the same city. Promise.”

Jackie takes the sleeping Amber from Shane and sets her in the pack-and-play in the corner of the living room so she can hug Shane tight. 

“I love you,” she says in his ear. “This is a good thing.”

She lets him go and Hayden hugs him next, warm and firm and without any of the obnoxious back-slapping they do on the ice. 

“Drive safe,” Hayden says, and Shane knows he means home tonight but also the five hours to Boston tomorrow. 

“I will,” Shane says. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah,” Hayden nods, and Shane’s glad neither of them mentions how weird it will be that the next time they’re on the ice together it will be for different teams. 

They walk him to the door and stand on the front step waving at him as he gets in his car. He waves back before starting his car and backing out of their driveway. 

There’s music playing in his apartment when he gets home, he can hear it before he even opens the door, and when he does open the door, it’s loud enough that Ilya’s lucky the unit Shane still owns next door is empty. 

“Boys only want love if it’s torture, don’t say I didn’t, say I didn’t warn ya,” Ilya sings, enthusiastic but off key. He’s sitting on the living room floor, a cardboard box open in front of him, filling it with the books, DVDs, and video games that were on the bookshelf next to the stairs. 

“Ilya,” Shane says, but he can’t hear him over the music. Shane grins as he watches Ilya bop his head along with the beat, continuing to sing along. He turns to pick up a stack of DVDs behind him, spots Shane and jumps, swearing in Russian. He reaches for his phone to pause the music, and the apartment is suddenly silent.

“Sorry,” Shane says, laughing, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Ilya puts his hand over his heart and flops dramatically backwards, sprawled out on the rug. “I have lost years from my life. Why are you sneaking around?”

“I wasn’t sneaking! The music was loud and you were too busy singing along to hear me come in. I didn’t know you were a Taylor Swift fan.”

“I didn’t know you knew who Taylor Swift is,” Ilya shoots back and Shane snorts. 

“Ilya, she’s like the most famous musician in the world.”

“This from a man who listens to his own thoughts on the treadmill. Like psychopath. You should listen to 1989 instead. Perfect album, no skips.” Ilya sits up again. “How was dinner?”

Shane sighs. “Brutal. Ruby cried when I said goodbye to her. Arthur and Amber are too little to even know what’s going on. I know we’ll keep in touch, and see each other when we’re in the same city, but saying goodbye to the kids was always going to be the hardest part.” Ilya reaches for him and Shane takes Ilya’s hand, letting Ilya pull him down into his lap on the floor. “I told Hayden and Jackie we’re married.”

“How did it go?”

“Hayden was surprised, Jackie wasn’t. Hayden said he thought we’d wait longer.”

“Seven years is long enough, I think.”

“Me too.” Shane kisses Ilya’s neck. “He was being a hypocrite anyway, he and Jackie got married after like six months.” He looks down at the books and DVDs stacked around them. “You know the movers can do this, right? I don’t need to bring any of these to Boston right away.”

Ilya shrugs. “I finished your clothes and bathroom and kitchen, but you weren’t home yet so I kept going.”

“Thank you for doing that. I wish I’d brought you with me tonight, though.”

“Next time,” Ilya says. “When we are in the same city, I will have dinner with Hayden Pike and I will try to be nice to him.”

Shane shakes his head. “I won’t hold my breath.”

“I am very nice,” Ilya insists. “Everyone says so. They say ‘oh, Ilya Rozanov, nicest man in the league, give him the sportsmanship award’.”

“Do they?” Shane grins. “What do they say about me?”

“Shane Hollander is an asshole.” Shane throws his head back and laughs, and Ilya leans forward and dips his tongue in the hollow of Shane’s throat. “Let me finish this box, sweetheart, and then I will take you to bed.”

“Yeah?” Shane asks. 

Ilya nods. “I have been thinking about it all night. Having you in your bed in this apartment, one more time.”

“The movers can finish the box.” 

“So impatient, my husband.” Ilya pinches Shane’s side, just below his ribs. “Go wait for me there. No touching.”

“Ilya,” Shane whines, but he peels himself out of Ilya’s lap and goes to do as he’s told.

---

Shane wakes up with Ilya spooned behind him, Ilya’s left arm underneath Shane’s neck and his right thrown across Shane’s waist. His leg is hooked over Shane’s, and Shane can feel the surprisingly cold press of Ilya’s nose right below his ear. Shane squints at the clock on the bedside table, except it’s not there, because Ilya packed it for him last night. His phone is charging on the nightstand but Shane’s too comfortable to reach for it. He knows he set an alarm on his phone last night so he’s not worried that they overslept, knows that it’s still sometime before six.

It occurs to him that this is something he’ll get to do every morning now: wake up in the same bed as Ilya after sharing it the whole night. It’s something they never did before this summer, something Shane could never have even hoped to have before now. Something about it makes him want to cry; it’s such a small thing to want and to have and he’s had to wait seven years for it to be a possibility and would’ve had to wait even longer if he hadn’t lost his shit on Comeau six days ago. 

Shane turns, trying not to wake Ilya but definitely not managing it from the way he feels tension returning to the places Ilya’s sleep-relaxed body is touching Shane’s. He pushes his face into Ilya’s neck and takes a shuddering breath in. Ilya smells a little wrong—they’d used up a half-empty bottle of some hotel body wash Shane had in the back of a bathroom drawer last night rather than dig into the packed duffels sitting by the kitchen door. 

“Sweetheart?” Ilya asks. “Okay?”

Shane nods, but his hands are clutching Ilya hard enough to bruise, probably. Shane used to think that the problem was how much he wanted. The feeling of wanting Ilya was fathomless, something that an hour stolen in a hotel room could barely skim the surface of. It was never going to satisfy the ache within him, so it was better to let it stay on the surface, to keep everything locked inside hotel rooms like bank vaults. But now the vault door is open, and Shane realizes the problem isn’t wanting, it’s keeping. He has Ilya now, can wake up in his arms every fucking morning, and now the thing he was so afraid to hold has become the thing he’s terrified to lose. 

It feels like a stupid thing to realize four full days after getting married. 

“Shane,” Ilya says, sitting up a little, sounding uncertain, like he doesn’t know yet how worried to be. 

“I’m okay,” Shane insists. “I’m good.”

“Can you please look at me?” Ilya asks, and Shane is pretty sure if he does his face is going to convince Ilya he’s very much not okay. He searches desperately for the right words. 

“I’m good,” he says again, “but also terrified, yes?” He hopes Ilya will understand, that he’ll remember and take it in the spirit that Shane means it, which is that he’s so fucking happy and also so fucking scared and has been for at least a week. 

(Maybe longer. Maybe since the night he and Ilya exchanged I love yous and Shane tried to hold everything together with a plan that protected them but kept them at arms’ length too, everything built around plausible deniability. Maybe he was being more honest than he realized when he said he wanted to be with Ilya so much it scared him.)

Ilya’s arms around him tighten, and he presses a kiss to the top of Shane’s head. “I know, moya lyubov. Me too. What will help?”

Shane wishes he knew. Would it be better to take a selfie together as they are right now and post it on Instagram even before the trade news comes out or should they protect this thing between them as fiercely as they can for as long as they can? Is there a middle option that doesn’t make Shane feel like he’s going to die from the waiting and worrying and the constant, unending pressure of being Hollander and Rozanov as the league and the media and the fans see them, and not Shane and Ilya who got married in Ottawa City Hall on a Wednesday in September because the idea of waiting a minute longer was suddenly impossible?

“Does your team think we hate each other?” Shane asks. Our team, he should have said, but Boston isn’t going to feel like his until he’s there, in the locker room and on the ice. Ilya doesn’t correct him and Shane thinks he probably understands. “When you won your cup, we were all watching at Hayden’s and I remember someone saying I hated you the most, more than any of them did, and I was confused because I’ve never said that. Even when reporters ask me stupid fucking questions about you, I just talk about hockey. It pisses me off that people don’t see that.”

Ilya takes a few seconds to consider his answer. “Sometimes they give me shit about how much I get asked about you. And they know I think you are very boring. But I don’t know if they think about you and me any more than that.”

“I can’t pretend I hate you, Ilya. I’ve never been able to, not convincingly, and I don’t want to start now.”

“So we won’t,” Ilya says. “I do not want this either. Plus, you are very bad liar. We know this. No point.”

“Shut up,” Shane says, but there’s no teeth to it. Ilya is right, after all. The only reason he’s been able to keep their secret for so long is that nobody has ever asked him directly. The whole thing is going to come down like a house of cards the second someone gathers enough information to put two and two together and just ask. It’s probably going to be in a fucking press conference. 

Maybe a hard launch is the way to go, after all. 

Ilya kisses his neck and his jaw, nips at his earlobe with his teeth, kisses the freckles on Shane’s left cheek and then turns his head with two fingers on his chin to kiss the ones on his right cheek. 

“Ilya,” Shane says on the exhale of a sigh, “we don’t have time.”

“No alarm yet,” Ilya says, so of course it starts blaring, right on cue.

Shane laughs. “I told you so. C’mon. I’ll make breakfast.”

“Nooo,” Ilya complains, all but flinging the duvet off them. “I will make eggs. One more day reprieve from my husband’s disgusting protein shakes.”

“Do we have eggs?” Shane frowns. They cleaned out the fridge yesterday afternoon before he went to Hayden’s, but even then he doesn’t remember seeing any eggs. 

“I bought half dozen at the corner store last night. For breakfast.”

Shane feels a familiar zip of nerves at the idea of Ilya in his corner store, a place Shane can’t avoid because it’s just down the street and even he runs out of milk sometimes, and if Ilya Rozanov is going to get recognized anywhere, it’s in Montreal where they hate him and burn his effigy before Raiders’ games… He forces himself to take a deep breath and reminds himself that it doesn’t matter. It’s not Shane’s corner store anymore. If anyone did see Ilya there, it’s going to get lost in the noise of Shane’s trade this afternoon. 

Ilya makes the eggs, which they have to eat without condiments because Shane didn’t have eggs for breakfast in mind yesterday when he cleaned out the fridge. Ilya also bought a bunch of bananas and a box of granola bars at the corner store (and an entire box of Coffee Crisps, because he can’t get them easily in Boston; Shane makes a mental note to tell his dad this because he knows he'll keep Ilya in Coffee Crisps if it’s something he knows he likes) for their drive.

Shane pulls up their route in the maps app on his phone, even though it’s a little too early to be scrutinizing it for any traffic issues. His main concerns are the border, which is going to take however long it takes, and then the traffic in Boston, which is still several hours away. 

They finish eating and Shane hand washes the dishes while Ilya starts lugging the duffel bags he packed down to Shane’s car. Once he’s done with the dishes, he makes another loop through the apartment, checking for anything he might’ve forgotten that needs to come with him. He doesn’t find anything, but he hesitates at the stack of Montreal-branded clothing folded on the shelf in his closet. He hadn’t known what he wanted to do with any of it yesterday and he still doesn’t really. He takes the navy crewneck from the middle of the stack, the one that just says Montreal Metros on the front and has his number stitched small on the back, right under the collar. It reminds him more of being at the cottage this summer with Ilya than it does of the team, and he thinks maybe he wants one piece of Metros memorabilia with him in Boston. He stuffs it into his backpack with his laptop and his wallet and his passport and leaves the rest sitting in the closet for the movers to pack or his mom to take back to Ottawa.

Ilya’s done loading up the cars when Shane finishes his lap of the apartment, and for a second he just stands in the kitchen, not sure what he’s supposed to do next. Ilya looks at him for a beat, considering, and then he opens his arms. Shane all but runs into them, dropping his backpack at their feet so he can wrap his arms around Ilya in return. 

“This is so weird,” he says, his voice muffled by Ilya’s shoulder.

“I know. But good, too?”

“Yeah.” Shane lifts his face and sees the little worried pinch between Ilya’s eyebrows. “Yes,” he says, more emphatically. “Yes, it’s good, Ilya. I get to play on the same team as my husband. Both of those things were literally just a dream a week ago.”

Ilya’s smile is wide and happy, the one that always makes Shane smile back. Ilya kisses him once on the lips, then again on the bridge of his nose, just to make him laugh. 

“You have everything?” Ilya asks, nodding down at Shane’s backpack at their feet.

“Yeah,” Shane says, because he does. 

---

The drive is mostly boring. Shane doesn’t mind a long drive—has been known to use them to fill the rare unscheduled days during the season, when he’s too tired to try to socialize and too wired to stay home watching a movie or reading—but once he crosses the border with surprisingly little fanfare from the American border patrol agent (maybe not a hockey fan), the rest of the drive drags. Occasionally he catches sight of Ilya’s Porsche, almost always ahead of him except for somewhere in Vermont where Ilya comes screaming up behind him after presumably stopping for gas or a snack or to stretch his legs. 

The long drive gives him time to think, at least. About what comes next, about tomorrow and the rest of the season, about what it might look like now.

It’s just after noon when he turns into the driveway. Ilya is in the garage and out of the Porsche, and two of the four bays are occupied by a black Mercedes SUV and a yellow Ferrari. The one at the end is empty, and Shane wonders if Ilya had called ahead to Svetlana and asked her to move something to make room for Shane’s boring Land Rover.

“We will reorganize,” Ilya says, waving his hand at the other three cars. “Annoying for you to have to walk so far to the door.”

Shane snorts. “Like you’re not going to insist on driving us everywhere in one of these.” He eyes the Ferrari and the Porsche critically. “Can either of them even fit two gear bags?”

“Probably not. We can take the G-Wagon when we have bags, even though it is normally just my winter car.” 

Shane rolls his eyes. Ilya’s winter car. Shane has seen the tour of his cars he did for ESPN the same summer Shane filmed the tour of his cottage, knows that he’s got enough to drive a different one each month of the year, if he wants to. Shane imagines the G-Wagon is probably the only one that isn't a hazard in the snow.

Ilya pushes the button to close the garage doors and then he moves so quickly Shane almost misses it, dropping his shoulder and flinging Shane over it in a fireman’s carry. 

“Oh fuck you,” Shane says, although he doesn’t put up any more fight than that as Ilya carries him to the man door and thumbs in the code on the keypad lock.

“Fourteen-ten,” Ilya says, “is code for most things.”

“That’s not very secure,” Shane protests. “The doors should have different codes.”

“Okay,” Ilya hums, stepping over the threshold. “We can change. Fourteen-ten for garage, one-two-two-one for front door, twenty-four-eighty-one for the back door, one-three-oh-nine for alarm system—”

Shane frowns. “One-three-oh-nine?” he repeats. 

“Our wedding anniversary. Or does it need to be oh-nine-one-three for my Canadian husband?”

Shane squirms, trying to get down, and Ilya complies, setting him on his feet. Shane feels momentarily dizzy now that he’s upright again. There’s so much he could say, so much he wants to, but what comes out of his mouth is, “Do you keep, like, a list of the numbers of every hotel room we’ve fucked in, pervert?”

Ilya starts laughing, nearly tipping over with it as he takes his shoes off. “We very much didn’t fuck in fourteen-ten or one-two-two-one. Is more memorable, maybe.”

Shane laughs too, because Ilya is probably right. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget what it was like to be standing in 1410, his back against the wall next to the door, the first time Ilya kissed him. Or again, in 1221, the way he’d kicked off his shoes and launched himself at Ilya like he was starving, more eager than he’d known back then he was capable of being.

Ilya straightens up, shoes off and settled side by side on the rack next to the door. Shane adds his own and Ilya reaches for his hand, tugging him further into the house he’s visited twice before. The house that’s their home, now. 

“I am sure you remember kitchen,” Ilya points, “and living room, with couch you are so afraid of—”

“Yeah, it was the couch that was the problem,” Shane says, but secretly he’s glad Ilya mentioned it, even just to joke about it. He doesn’t want the specter of that day to hang over them forever, and Shane really fucking likes that couch, wants to sprawl out on it for pre-game naps and post-game comedowns, wants to have lazy evenings on it with Ilya like they did at the cottage, watching movies and making out. 

“Our bedroom you are also very familiar with,” Ilya says, pointing down the wide hallway to the big, window-filled room. 

He shows Shane the three guest rooms, each with their own en-suite. 

“This one for your parents when they visit, maybe,” Ilya says about the guest room on the side of the house farthest from their bedroom. Shane swats at him, but doesn’t disagree. 

In the basement, Ilya has a gym three times the size of the one Shane was able to fit in his Montreal apartment, with pretty much every machine either of them might need and a fucking sauna built into one corner. 

“This is insane,” Shane says, opening the sauna door and peering inside. It’s big enough for two, maybe. If they don’t mind squeezing. Which they don’t. Obviously. 

Shane reaches, slinging an arm around Ilya’s waist and tugging him close enough to rest his head on Ilya’s shoulder.

“Okay?” Ilya asks him. 

Shane nods. “Yeah. We should unpack. Eat lunch. Maybe talk a little about how tomorrow is gonna go?”

“Lunch and talking first, I think,” Ilya says, steering them back to the stairs.

Ilya orders sandwiches and salads and soup from a deli he likes, one he says delivers quickly and never messes up his orders. In the kitchen again, while they wait, Shane sits on the counter and Ilya roots through the fridge, unearthing the ginger ale that had gotten shoved to the back. He hands a can to Shane. Then he spends a few minutes throwing away the stuff that spoiled while he was gone, which is most of it, considering his impromptu trip to Canada had been the same day his meal service started up again. 

“Next delivery tomorrow,” Ilya says. “I doubled everything for this week, and next week we can adjust if we need.”

“Thank you.”

“You are nervous,” Ilya says, “about tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Training camp is open to the public, right?” 

Ilya frowns. “Ah. Yes. I did not think about that.”

“We’re going to have to leave our rings at home, then, probably, but I don’t want to take it off.”

“Oh,” Ilya says, and then he’s disappearing around the corner towards the front door. He comes back a minute later, holding a small package. “I ordered you something.”

“When?”

“Wednesday. Rush delivery.”

“Literally when Wednesday?” Shane asks, laughing and tearing ineffectually at the tape on the small box. Ilya opens a drawer and hands him a pair of scissors. “We were together the whole day.”

Ilya grins. “You fell asleep first.”

Shane gets the box open and finds a soft velvet pouch inside. It has a decent weight to it, so Shane isn’t entirely surprised when something gold slides out into his hand when he opens the pouch. “It’s my turn to buy surprise jewelry next,” Shane says. 

“Okay,” Ilya agrees. “I want a Rolex. Not one of the ones they give you for free, a special one.” Shane realizes he’s holding a gold chain, a little more substantial than the one Ilya’s crucifix hangs on. “For your ring,” Ilya continues. “When we aren’t wearing them. I will do the same.”

“What if we didn’t?” Shane asks. 

“What do you mean?”

“What if we just…wore them and didn’t say anything? Not on the ice, have you seen those videos of what can happen if you’re wearing a ring if you hurt your hand?” They both wince, so Shane knows Ilya has. “But…everywhere else?”

“Are you serious?” Ilya asks, eyes wide. 

“I don’t want to pretend anymore. Like this,” he gestures between them, “isn’t the most important thing in my life. I don’t like how it feels, pretending.” 

“Me either,” Ilya says. “But people will notice. Maybe very soon.”

“I know. It scares me. But I keep thinking that it would be less scary if we just…owned it. Rather than feeling like we’re hiding and waiting for people to find out…what if we just told them?”

“Shane,” Ilya says, startled. 

“Not like, right this second. The trade news is going to be crazy enough. But soon, maybe? Like…sometime this season. I had a lot of time to think, on the drive,” Shane explains.

“Did you also drive without listening to music? For five hours? Who have I married?”

“I listened to 1989 for a bit. It’s good,” Shane admits and Ilya grins. 

“I told you so. No skips!”

“But otherwise, yeah, I was thinking.”

“And with all this thinking you decided you want to hard launch our marriage?”

“I mean…kind of. Maybe it’s more of a soft launch? I don’t know. We wear our rings. We tell the team…we’re probably going to have to do that like, tomorrow. The entire locker room is going to notice we don’t hate each other within minutes. We don’t come up with some crazy cover story about why we live together. That just sounds exhausting. If people see us in public together, buying groceries or whatever,” Shane shrugs, “they see us.” 

Ilya squints at him. “Who are you and what have you done with Shane Hollander?” 

“Well, for starters, it’s Shane Hollander-Rozanov—”

“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya groans, closing the space between them, standing between Shane’s legs and dragging him into a hard, frantic kiss. “This is what you want?” Ilya asks, a little breathless, when they separate.

“I know it’s a lot,” Shane says. “We don’t have to do it, if it’s too much. I feel a little crazy, even suggesting it. But I don’t think I like any of the alternatives.”

“Is not too much,” Ilya says, looking at Shane with the soft, fond expression Shane gets to see more and more now. “We are just going to…exist.”

“Yes,” Shane breathes, relieved that Ilya understands. “Exactly.”

Their phones start to go crazy, Ilya’s dinging and lighting up on the countertop, Shane’s buzzing in his pocket. 

“Cat’s out of the bag,” Shane says, seeing the ESPN notification on Ilya’s screen: MONTREAL TRADES HOLLANDER TO BOSTON. “You’re stuck with me now.”

“Good,” Ilya grins. “This was my plan.”

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