Chapter Text
Ottawa, Ontario
16 July 2021
The cottage is quiet.
It is already 2:00 A.M., and the world outside is dark and still, except for the occasional call of a loon across the lake. Inside, the only sound is the crackle of the fire Ilya has kept burning and the soft, rhythmic breathing of the tiny creature in his arms.
Ilya sits in the rocking chair he assembled three weeks ago. He is exhausted. The Centaurs played against Boston two nights ago, then he drove straight here, and hasn’t really slept since. But he has never been happier in his entire life, holding his daughter. They have been parents for exactly fourteen hours, and Ilya has already decided that he will never do anything else for the rest of his life. He will sit in this chair and hold this baby until the sun burns out.
He shifts slightly, and she makes a tiny, squeaking noise. Ilya freezes. He holds his breath until she settles again, her small fist curling against his chest.
“Okay,” he says soothingly. “Is okay.”
She is so small. That is the thing that keeps hitting him, over and over. Her entire hand—fingers spread wide, grasping at nothing—is smaller than his thumb. Her face is a crumpled pink thing, eyes squeezed shut, lips pursed in a tiny rosebud pout. She has a shocking amount of dark hair, fine as silk, sticking up in every direction.
She has Shane’s hair.
“You are so beautiful,” Ilya whispers to her. His voice is rough from exhaustion and emotion and the fact that he has been crying on and off for the better part of a day. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Do not tell your daddy I said that. He thinks he is most beautiful.”
Shane is asleep in the bedroom. He had a long labor—twelve hours of pain and cursing and gripping Ilya’s hand so hard Ilya thought his metacarpals might snap. At one point Ilya briefly wondered if this was how he’d end his career—not a bad hit, not a knee injury, but his husband’s death grip during childbirth.
But Shane did it. He was magnificent.
Stubborn and fierce and so beautiful. When the doctor finally placed the baby on Shane’s chest, still wet and screaming and perfect, the expression that flooded Shane’s face was something Ilya had no word for in English or Russian. And when he’s eighty years old and half his memories have dissolved into fog, when he can’t remember his phone number or what he had for breakfast, he’ll still come back to this exact moment. Shane’s face when he met their daughter for the first time. Pure love.
He is afraid to move. He is afraid that if he shifts even slightly, he will wake her, or hurt her, or somehow break this fragile, perfect creature that he and Shane made together. Against all odds. Against biology. Against everything.
He looks at his baby again. She needs a name.
They have argued about names for months. Shane wanted something traditional, something that wouldn't stand out. Sarah. Emily. Jessica. Ilya wanted something with fire. Something that sounded like where she came from—a mix of ice and storm.
“Airi,” Ilya says, testing the sound.
Shane had suggested it yesterday, in a delirious haze. It means ‘beloved’ in Japanese, he’d said. My mom’s favorite name.
Ilya likes it. It sounds light. Like air. Like breath.
“Airi,” he says again. “Airi Hollander.”
But she needs a middle name.
Ilya immediately thinks of his mother. He thinks of her laugh, her warmth, the way she used to sing to him when the winters in Russia were too cold and too dark. Irina.
“She would have loved you,” he murmurs at his daughter’s sleeping face. The words hurt to say. They always hurt, no matter how many years already passed.
“Airi Erina,” he whispers. “Airi Erina Hollander.”
Hollander. Not Rozanov. Not Hollander-Rozanov. Just Hollander.
The baby would have Shane’s name. Only Shane’s name. Because Shane was the one who would be listed on the birth certificate. Shane was the one who would take her to doctor’s appointments and enroll her in schools and sign permission slips.
He will be Uncle Ilya to the world.
A friend.
A godfather, maybe.
“I am sorry. I am sorry I cannot give you my name. But I give you everything else. Papa promise. I will protect you,” he tells her, his lips brushing the top of her head. The baby stirs, making a small snuffling sound. “From everything. From everyone.”
Life with a newborn is a fugue state of exhaustion, bodily fluids, and overwhelming, terrifying love.
Ilya learns that sleep is a concept, not a reality. He learns that a human being can survive on three hours of rest and a diet consisting almost entirely of coffee and Shane’s leftover lactation cookies (which are delicious, actually). He learns that Shane, the rigid, structured, control-freak captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, is a complete pushover for a seven-pound dictator
“She’s hungry again,” Shane says at 4:00 A.M., his voice groggy with sleep. He is sitting up in bed, Airi latched onto his chest.
“She is growing,” Ilya says from the doorway. He has just come back from a run. “She will be linebacker.”
“She’s going to be a center,” Shane corrects, yawning. “Obviously.”
Ilya walks over and sits on the bed. He reaches out and strokes Airi’s cheek with one finger. Her skin is impossibly soft. She pauses her feeding to grab his finger with her tiny hand, her grip surprisingly strong.
“Strong hands,” Ilya murmurs. “Good for stick handling.”
Shane snorts. “You’re obsessed.”
“I am visionary. I see her future.”
“Her future involves sleeping through the night,” Shane says pointedly. “Please.”
“I will talk to her. We will have meeting.”
Ilya takes over the burping duty. He lifts Airi against his shoulder, her tiny body warm and solid against his chest. He rubs her back in slow circles, murmuring to her in Russian. He tells her about the cottage, about the lake, about the stars. He tells her about her Papa’s goals and her Daddy’s assists.
Airi is six weeks old now, and she has opinions. She hates wet diapers (understandable). She hates the sun in her eyes (also understandable). But mostly, she hates when Ilya stops moving.
“She is tyrant,” Ilya says. He is pacing the length of the living room, bouncing Airi on his shoulder. If he stops, she makes a sound like a dying pterodactyl. “She is training me for camp. This is cardio.”
Shane is on the floor, stretching. His recovery is going well. Dr. Taylor say his hips are healing, but Ilya sees the wince when he pushes too far into a lunge.
“Keep going,” Shane says from the floor. “My turn is in ten minutes.”
“I have practice tomorrow,” Ilya complains, though he does not stop bouncing. “I need energy.”
“You have practice?” Shane sits up. His face falls. “You’re going back to Ottawa?”
Ilya stops. Airi immediately whines, and he resumes the bounce. “Yes. Camp starts in two weeks. I have meetings with GM. Media things.”
The bubble is popping. The summer of isolation, of just the three of them in the woods, is ending. The real world is clawing its way back in.
“Right,” Shane says. He looks down at his yoga mat. “Camp.”
“I will come back on weekends,” Ilya says quickly. “And any days off. is only two hours.”
“I know.” Shane forces a smile, Ilya knows it. “It’s fine. We knew this was coming. We have to… we have to get back to normal.”
Normal.
Normal means Shane alone in Montreal, pretending to be a bachelor. Normal means Ilya in Ottawa, smiling for cameras, pretending he doesn’t have a heart living in another city.
Ilya walks over to Shane. He squats down, balancing Airi effortlessly.
“Hey. Is not forever,” Ilya says. “We play long game. Remember?”
“The long game sucks,” Shane mutters, smiling sadly.
“I know.” Ilya leans in and kisses him. Then he turns his head and kisses Airi’s fuzzy head. She smells like baby powder and Shane. “But look at the prize.”
Airi burps loudly against his neck.
Shane laughs. It is a startled, genuine sound.
“Yeah. She’s a prize alright.”
“She has your manners,” Ilya says. He stands up, offering a hand to pull Shane up. “Come. We take her to dock. She likes the wind.”
“Ilya.”
“Yes?”
Shane stands there, holding Ilya’s hand. “You’re really a good dad, Ilya. I don’t say it enough. But you are. She’s lucky to have you.
“I know,” he says, masking the ache with a grin. “I am best at everything. Now come. Your daughter demands fresh air.”
Ottawa, Ontario
20 September 2021
The sun dips low over the lake, painting the water in strokes of violet and orange. It is precisely the sort of evening that poets write about, the sort Ilya usually ignores because he is too busy checking his phone or obsessing over his edges.
Tonight, though, he notices.
Tonight, everything must be perfect.
Ilya stands on the deck of the cottage, critically surveying his work. He has strung Edison lights along the railing—the fancy kind, not the cheap Christmas ones—and set a small table with a white cloth, a bottle of very expensive sparkling water (for Shane), a bottle of vodka (for himself, for later), and a platter of sushi that required a forty-minute drive to procure. Shane is currently in a phase where he will only eat raw fish and kale.
“What do you think?” he asks the supervisor.
Airi is sitting in her bouncy chair, gumming her own fist. She is wearing a onesie that reads My Papa is the best Captain, which Ilya purchased specifically to annoy Shane. Because, technically, Ilya is also a captain.
The shirt is delightfully ambiguous.
Airi blows a spit bubble.
“I agree,” Ilya says solemnly. “The lighting is excellent. Atmospheric.”
He checks his watch. 6:45 P.M. Shane should be back any minute. He had driven to Toronto for some “business meeting” with his agent—though Ilya suspects it is actually a meeting about endorsements, or perhaps Shane is secretly filming another commercial where he must look brooding and Canadian.
Not that Ilya cares. He just wants him home.
He pats the pocket of his jeans. The velvet box is there, a square weight against his thigh, and he is suddenly, absurdly grateful for its presence.
He has carried this ring for months. He has hidden it in sock drawers, glove compartments, the pocket of his gym bag. It has burned a hole in his patience. But tonight feels right. Camp is over. The season has not started. The baby is fed and happy.
They have, against all odds, survived the newborn trenches.
Tonight, Ilya thinks, he locks it down.
“We are going to be official,” he tells Airi, picking up her discarded rattle. “I will ask him. He will say yes. Then he will cry. Then—” He pauses for dramatic effect. “He will organize our wedding spreadsheet by colour code.”
Airi kicks her legs, clearly delighted by the prospect of spreadsheets.
This is a good sign.
Gravel crunches in the driveway, and Ilya’s heart executes a double-thump. He smooths his shirt—a primrose yellow button-down that Shane particularly likes—and fixes his hair.
“Okay,” he whispers. “Showtime.”
He picks up the baby carrier and heads inside. Shane is just coming through the front door, and he looks—
Well. Wrecked is the only word for it. He is wearing his navy suit, but the tie is loosened, and his hair is messy. His skin is gray, the freckles standing out in stark relief like splashes of mud.
“You are alive,” Ilya says, smiling. “I was about to call the Mounties.”
Shane blinks, as though surprised to find himself standing in his own hallway.
“Hey,” Shane says.
“Hey yourself.” Ilya sets the carrier on the floor and crosses to him, wrapping his arms around Shane’s waist. “You look terrible. Did traffic suck?”
Usually, Shane melts into these embraces. Usually, he leans his forehead against Ilya’s shoulder and complains about the idiocy of Ontario drivers. Today, he stands like a board.
“Yeah,” Shane says. “Traffic.”
Ilya pulls back, placing a hand on Shane’s forehead, checking his temperature. He is too warm. “You are sick? You need water?”
“I’m fine.” Shane breaks out of the embrace. He walks past Ilya toward the kitchen, putting distance between them. “Just a long day. Meeting ran over.”
“Did you get the endorsement?”
“What?” Shane stops at the sink, gripping the counter. “Oh. No. No endorsement.”
Something is off. But Ilya knows how to handle Shane’s anxiety—has been handling it for years, in fact. Shane needs food. He needs a plan. He needs, above all, to be told what to do.
“Go change,” Ilya orders gently. “Put on sweatpants. I have surprise.”
Shane turns, squinting at him. “Surprise?”
“Yes. Go.” Ilya makes a shooing motion. “Five minutes. Or I start surprise without you.”
Shane chews his bottom lip. His gaze moves from Ilya to Airi in her carrier and back again. There is a strange, wet sheen in his eyes.
“Ilya, I’m not really in the mood for—”
“Is not mood thing,” Ilya interrupts, keeping his voice light. “Is mandatory. Go. Change.”
Shane nods, and disappears into the bedroom.
Ilya exhales. He clips the baby monitor to his belt, picks up Airi, and carries her out to the deck, settling her into the portable bassinet in the corner. She is already half-asleep, lulled by the fresh air. He then lights the candles and pours the sparkling water next. He checks the ring in his pocket one last time.
Five minutes later, the sliding door opens.
Shane steps onto the deck. He has changed into a hoodie and track pants, but he still looks cold—shoulders hunched against the mild September breeze.
“What is this?” Shane asks, taking in the lights, the sushi, the candles.
“Date night,” Ilya announces. He leans against the railing with studied casualness, though his heart is drumming fast. “Since we cannot go to restaurant, I bring restaurant to us.”
Shane stares at the sushi platter. He does not move toward it. “Ilya.”
“I got the good tuna,” Ilya continues. “And I did not get soy sauce because sodium, blah blah blah.” He takes a step forward, closing the distance between them. “Come here.”
Shane stays rooted to the spot. “You did all this while I was gone?”
“Yes. Airi helped. She is excellent sous-chef.” Ilya reaches out and takes Shane’s hands. They are ice cold. He rubs them between his warm palms. “You are freezing.”
“Ilya,” Shane says again, tutting.
“Shh.” Ilya looks down at him, at the way the lights reflect in Shane’s dark eyes, making them glitter. He is so beautiful it hurts. “I have question for you.”
Shane yanks his hands away. “Don’t.”
Ilya pauses. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t do—” Shane gestures at the table, the lights. “Whatever this is. I can’t do this right now.”
“You can,” Ilya says softly. “Is easy question.”
He reaches into his pocket.
Shane sees the movement. His eyes blow wide in genuine horror. “Wait,” he says, shaking his head. “Ilya.”
Ilya drops to one knee.
He pulls the velvet box from his pocket and snaps it open. The oval diamond catches the light of the Edison bulbs, fracturing into a thousand tiny rainbows. Heavy. Gold. Perfect. The happy frozen tear.
“Shane,” Ilya says, looking up. “I know we are messy. I know we are secret. But I look at you, and I look at her—” He nods toward the bassinet. “And I know. I want everything. I want the house. I want the dog. I want the rings.”
Shane makes a sound—a low, wounded noise in the back of his throat. Both hands press over his mouth.
“Marry me,” Ilya says. “We do it private. Nobody has to know. Just us. Please.”
Shane shakes his head. Back and forth. Violently.
“Stand up.”
“Say yes, and I stand up.”
“Stand up!” Shane yells.
The smile slides from Ilya’s face. Slowly, he snaps the box shut and rises. He feels cold, suddenly.
“Is ring too big?” he asks stupidly. “I can change setting.”
“It’s not the ring.” Shane drops his hands. His face is twisted now, ugly with misery. “I can’t marry you, Ilya.”
The words do not make sense. They are in the wrong language, surely.
“What?”
“I can’t.” Shane wraps his arms around himself, fingers digging into his biceps. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?” Ilya steps closer. Shane steps back, hitting the glass door. “You cannot do dinner? You cannot do marriage?”
“I can’t do us,” Shane says.
The silence that follows is louder than the loons. Louder than the wind in the trees. It rings in Ilya’s ears, high and shrill.
“You are tired,” Ilya says. He forces a chuckle, but it sounds like grinding glass. “You had long meeting. You are stressed about baby. Is okay. We talk tomorrow.”
“No.” Tears spill over Shane’s lashes. “No, Ilya. Listen to me. I’m done.”
“Done?”
“We’re done.” Shane takes a shuddering breath. “I want you to leave. Tomorrow. Go back to Ottawa for camp. And stay there.”
Ilya’s jaw slackens. He feels as though he has been cross-checked from behind, sent smashing into the boards without bracing.
“You are breaking up with me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” The shock is turning to anger now. “Because is hard?”
“Because it’s impossible!” Shane explodes, gesturing wildly at the dark lake, the cottage, them. “Look at us, Ilya! We’re hiding here! We’re terrified of the pizza delivery guy! This isn’t a life. It’s a prison.”
“Is our life,” Ilya argues. “We are building it.”
“No!” Shane shouts. “There’s just this! Hiding forever! Lying to everyone! I can’t do it anymore. I can’t live like this.”
“So we stop hiding.” Ilya’s voice is desperate now. “We come out. Fuck them. Fuck the league. I don’t care.”
“I care!” Shane screams. He is panting, chest heaving. “I care, Ilya. I care about my career. I care about my reputation. I have worked my entire life to be Shane Hollander. To be the Captain. To be the best.” He wipes his face aggressively. “I’m not throwing it away. Not for you. Not for this.”
The words wash away the ground Ilya has been standing on, leaving him suspended over a void. “I can wait,” he says, and it’s the most pathetic thing he’s ever uttered. “Ten years. Twenty. When we are old. I can wait, Shane.”
He is the best player in the world, a man built of iron and arrogance, and yet he is standing here on a deck, offering to let his entire life bleed out into a holding pattern. Because a life without Shane Hollander is a world where the colors are muted, where the wins don't taste like anything, and where Ilya Rozanov is just a name in a stat book.
He realizes, with a crushing weight, that he hasn't just built a life with Shane; he has built his entire self around him. Without Shane, Ilya isn't "home." He is just drifting. He is a satellite that has lost its planet, destined to spin into the dark until he runs out of air.
A sob rips from Shane’s chest. “I can’t ask you to do that,” he says.
“You do not ask. I offer.” Ilya takes another step forward, reaching for the man he’s losing. “Please. We fix it.”
Shane opens his eyes. They are now black holes of misery. “I don’t want you to wait,” he says. Each word is a nail in Ilya’s heart. “I want you to go. I want to be just Shane Hollander again. I want my life back.”
“Are you,” he says, “ashamed of us? Of me?”
It’s the way Shane won’t meet his eyes. It’s the way he’s standing near the door, already halfway back to the life where Ilya doesn't exist. Ilya realizes then that he isn't a partner to Shane anymore—he is a liability.
“I’m ashamed of myself,” Shane says.
And that, Ilya thinks, is the worst thing he could have said.
He nods. He understands now. He is the mistake. He is the dirty secret Shane is finally tired of keeping. He is the stain on the spotless reputation of Shane Hollander.
“Okay,” Ilya says. “Okay.”
He looks down at the velvet box that he is still holding. He snaps it shut. He is a fool. A brightly colored, desperate fool.
“I pack my things,” he says. He feels thousand miles away already.
“Ilya—”
“No.” Ilya doesn't let him finish. He cannot even look at Shane. If he does, he will fall to his knees and beg, and he has just enough pride left to refuse himself that humiliation. “You want your life back, Hollander. I give it to you.”
He turns away from the man who is his entire world and walks toward their daughter. He wants to scoop her up and run. He wants to demand that if Shane is throwing him away, he can’t have the best part of him, too. But one look at Shane and Ilya knows. He knows Shane will fight him. And Ilya can’t survive a war with the person he wants to protect.
“Ilya, please.” Shane mewls softly.
“Do not,” Ilya mutters. “Do not say ‘please’ to me while you are killing me.”
He walks past Shane. He walks into the warm, beautiful cottage that was supposed to be their home. He walks past the first family photo of them on the mantle and goes to the bedroom and pulls out his suitcase.
He leaves the ring on the kitchen counter. Next to his keys of the cottage. It is the last thing he does before he walks out the door, into the dark, alone.
The rain stops like someone flipped a switch, leaving the world outside the Range Rover dripping and glittering in the high beams. The silence that rushes in to fill the space feels less like peace and more like the held breath before a verdict. Shane stares at the dashboard. He counts the seconds, waiting for Ilya to kick him out.
When it doesn’t happen, he clears his throat. “Thanks for the ride.”
Ilya says nothing.
Shane tries again. “Do you want to come in? I can make tea.”
More silence. Ilya just sits there, staring at the cottage like it’s maybe a crime scene he’s trying to forget.
This was stupid. Ilya’s not going to come in. Why would he? This place probably smells like failure to him. Like the ghost of a future they almost had, decomposing in the walls. Shane’s about to bail—to throw himself out of the car and sprint for the door—when Ilya reaches over and kills the engine.
Click. The doors unlock.
Ilya climbs out without a word, leaving Shane sitting there with his mouth open like an idiot. By the time Shane catches up, Ilya’s already halfway to the front porch. Shane’s fingers are shaking so hard it takes him three tries to get the key in the lock, and he’s babbling before he can stop himself.
“It’s a mess,” Shane hears himself say as he pushes the door open. “I mean, it’s not dirty, obviously, the cleaners came on Tuesday, but Airi leaves her toys everywhere. She thinks clean-up time is a suggestion, not a rule.”
He hits the light switch, flooding the entryway with a warm glow that makes everything look softer than it is.
Ilya steps inside.
Shane’s brain does this unhelpful thing where it fast-forwards through every memory of Ilya in this house. Ilya on the couch with a newborn Airi asleep on his chest. Ilya in the kitchen at 2 a.m., eating cereal straight from the box. Ilya standing the deck five years ago, holding a ring box he’d leave on the counter before walking out and taking all the sunlight with him.
He repainted after that. Cream walls instead of the old blue-grey. New rug, new throw pillows, new everything he could replace without demolishing the whole structure. He filled the house with Airi—her finger paintings, her light-up sneakers, and her Frozen soundtrack on repeat. But the house remembers anyway. Houses are like that. Or maybe it’s just Shane who can’t forget.
Ilya’s taking it all in with that laser focus he usually reserves for game tape. The row of shoes by the door—Airi’s pink rain boots next to Shane’s sensible runners. The stick leaning in the corner.
“She’s not here?” Ilya’s voice is careful. The same tone he uses with journalists.
“No. Sleepover at my parents’.” Shane kicks off his shoes.
Ilya nods. Doesn’t move. Just stands there in the hallway like he’s trying to decide if this was a mistake.
“Tea,” Shane announces to no one, fleeing toward the kitchen before the silence can strangle him.
He fills the kettle, pulls two mugs from the cupboard—his Voyageurs one from his rookie season and a chipped yellow thing that says World’s Best Papa. He has no idea where the Papa mug came from. It just appeared one day, the way things do when you’re not paying attention to your own life.
While the water heats, Shane risks a look over his shoulder. Ilya’s migrated to the fireplace, hands still buried in his pockets, staring at the mantel which is composed of their daughter’s greatest hits. School pictures where she’s missing teeth. Action shots from the park where she’s covered in mud. A photo of her on the ice in gear, holding a stick like she’s about to take on the entire league.
“You have lot of pictures,” Ilya says.
“She’s my kid.” Shane sounds defensive. He is defensive. “I’m allowed to document her existence.”
“Is this from last year?”
Shane carries the mugs over—chamomile because it’s the only tea he has that won’t keep him wired until sunrise. Ilya’s pointing at the Timbits hockey photo, and Shane nods.
“First practice. She fell down seventeen times. Cried twice. Demanded I buy her a Gatorade on the way home like the big kids.”
Ilya’s mouth does something that might be a smile. Then his eyes catch on another frame, and Shane’s heart free-falls.
No.
He’d meant to hide that one. He’d held it in his hands a hundred times, telling himself to put it away, to stop picking at the wound. But it’s right there on the mantel, front and center: the three of them on the back deck that first summer. Shane’s asleep in the hammock with Airi on his chest, and Ilya’s taking the selfie, grinning like an idiot, his face pressed close to Shane’s. They look happy. They look like people who don’t know better.
Shane shoves the Papa mug at Ilya—too fast, too hard—and their fingers brush. Just for a second. Just long enough for Shane’s nervous system to light up like a scoreboard.
“It’s hot,” he says stupidly.
Ilya takes the mug, studies it. “Thanks.”
He walks back to the island, putting the granite between them. Ilya follows, takes a sip, makes a face like Shane just handed him poison.
“Is terrible. You still buy cheap ones.”
“It’s organic. It’s supposed to be good for you.”
“Organic is not same as good. This tastes like hot sadness.”
Shane watches Ilya drink it anyway, and it’s so surreal he almost laughs. Ilya Rozanov, standing in his kitchen at midnight, drinking chamomile tea and hating every second of it. Five years ago, this would have been normal. Now it feels like a glitch in the matrix.
“Is chamomile?” Ilya asks, wrinkling his nose.
“Yeah.”
“You are still not sleeping?”
“Sometimes,” Shane says, because it’s safer than saying always. Safer than admitting that the silence in his house is so loud it wakes him up at midnight, his hand reaching across cold sheets for a body that hasn’t been there in half a decade.
“Sometimes,” Ilya repeats, flat.
“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
Ilya doesn’t push it. He just leans against the counter, running his finger along the edge of the new tile backsplash. “You changed things here.”
“The floor was peeling. Airi tripped.” Shane’s gripping his mug so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t shatter. “Safety hazard.”
“Mm.” Ilya’s quiet for a second then says, “You fix the window yet? In Westmount? The one that let in all the cold?”
And just like that, Shane’s back in 2019, buried under a duvet during a blizzard, Ilya complaining about Canadian construction while Shane laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe. He remembers Ilya’s cold hands finding warm skin. He remembers thinking he’d never been happier.
“I sold that place,” Shane says.
Ilya goes still. “You sold it.”
“Yeah. Eight months ago.”
“Why?”
“I bought a house in Ottawa.”
There’s a pause. A long one. Ilya sets his mug down very carefully. “Ottawa.”
“Yeah.”
“Why Ottawa?”
Shane’s already talking, the words rushing because if he stops he’ll say something true and terrible. “It made sense financially. Montreal’s market was plateauing. The National Capital Region’s been seeing steady growth—four percent annually. It’s just smart asset management. Diversification. I mean, it’s also closer to my parents, and the cottage, so logistically—”
“You moved to my city,” Ilya interrupts, “for logistics?”
“It’s not your city.”
“I am King of Ottawa.”
“You’re really not.”
“And me being there,” Ilya says, “is just… accident?”
Shane turns to the sink, starts rinsing his mug even though it’s still half-full. “I wouldn’t call it an accident. More like an acceptable variable. I figured we’d never run into each other. You’re always at the rink or buying hideous designer shirts.”
“My shirts are art.”
“Your shirts look like a paint factory exploded.”
“Where is the house?” Ilya suddenly asks.
Shane’s hands stop moving. “What?”
“The house. In Ottawa. Where?”
Absolutely not. Shane is not admitting that he bought a place in Westboro, six minutes from the arena and eight minutes from Ilya’s condo. He’s not admitting that he sometimes drives past Ilya’s building for no reason, craning his neck to see if the lights are on, mentally checking which windows are lit like he’s conducting surveillance on his own stupid heart.
“Near the canal,” Shane says.
“The canal is five kilometers long.”
“It’s a nice area. Trees. Good schools. For when Airi’s older. Eventually. Maybe.” He’s drying his hands now, scrubbing the towel between his fingers roughly. “It’s just a house.”
“You hate moving.”
“I don’t hate moving.”
Yes, he does.
“You have spreadsheet labeled ‘Spontaneity Protocol.’”
“That’s called being prepared.”
Ilya’s looking at him with that expression he gets when he’s reading a play before it happens. “So you move to Ottawa. You sell the house you loved. And you don’t tell anyone.”
“I told people.”
“Not me.”
“We don’t exactly have coffee dates, Ilya.” Shane’s voice comes out defensive than he means. “What was I supposed to do? Text you? ‘Hey, just FYI, I’m in your city now, try not to freak out’?”
Ilya doesn’t react to that. He just watches Shane with those too-perceptive eyes, and Shane feels like he’s being x-rayed. The truth is that there’s been no room for casual texts. No room for anything except The Schedule.
For five years, they’ve been running a military operation disguised as co-parenting. They don’t talk. They coordinate. Blue blocks on the calendar for Daddy. Red blocks for Papa. Grey blocks for handoffs that Shane’s mom handles because putting Shane and Ilya in the same room is apparently a recognized safety hazard.
Their text threads read like hostage negotiations:
Shane: She needs new skates.
Ilya: Ordered. Bauer Vapor 3X. Tracking info in shared folder.
They’re running a very small, very expensive corporation with one extremely cute but chaotic board member. And Shane’s made damn sure they never have to actually see each other, because if they do—if Shane has to watch Ilya date someone else, or see evidence of Ilya’s life without him, or know that Ilya’s sleeping eight minutes away—the fortress crumbles. And Shane’s been living in the rubble for five years. He doesn’t need a reminder of what it looks like fresh.
“You think I would have been angry?” Ilya asks quietly. “If you told me?”
Shane stares at the logo on Ilya’s shirt. “I think you have enough to worry about. The team. The playoffs. You didn’t need me hovering around your city like some kind of pathetic ghost.”
“Ottawa is very boring. Could use haunting.”
“Happy to haunt.”
Ilya’s mouth quirks. Just barely. Then he picks up his mug, looks at it, sets it back down. “You move to my city. You keep the photos. You are very bad at this, Hollander.”
“Bad at what?”
“Burning bridges.”
Shane bites his tongue. He doesn’t have an answer for that. Doesn’t have anything except the ring on the chain under his shirt and five years of pretending he’s fine.
Ilya pushes off the counter. “I should go. This tea is terrible. I cannot drink more without being sad about it.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
They walk to the door in silence. Shane trails behind, pulled along by some gravitational force he’s never managed to escape. At the threshold, Ilya stops. His hand’s on the knob. He’s not looking at Shane.
“Kiss her for me,” Ilya says. “Tell her Papa loves her.”
“I will.”
Ilya opens the door. The wind rushes in, cold and damp, smelling like the lake and wet earth.
“Goodnight, Hollander.”
There are a thousand things Shane could say. I’m sorry. I miss you. I still love you. Stay.
But sorry doesn’t fix anything, and Shane gave up the right to ask Ilya to stay the same night he ruthlessly pushed him away. So he just stands there in his own doorway, watching the best thing that ever happened to him walk away for the second time.
“Drive safe,” Shane says.
The door closes. The lock clicks. And Shane’s alone again, which is exactly what he chose. He just wishes it didn’t feel so much like losing.
The next morning, Shane pulls the now-functional Jeep into his parents’ circular driveway. He finds his daughter on the back patio, dressed like a tiny anarchist who raided a costume shop during a power outage. Airi’s wearing a neon-pink tutu over her pajama pants, rubber rain boots, and a Montreal Voyageurs helmet that’s slowly migrating down her face like a glacier. She’s armed with a plastic lightsaber and is currently engaged in what appears to be a duel to the death with his dad, who’s wielding a pool noodle with the gravitas of a man defending his honor.
“DIE, MONSTER!” Airi shrieks, whacking David in the shin with surprising force for someone who weighs thirty-two pounds.
“I YIELD!” David drops to one knee with the theatrical flair of a Shakespearean actor. “The galaxy is yours, Princess General Commander!”
“Pack it up, General,” he calls out. “Transport’s leaving in ten.”
Airi spins around—helmet now completely covering her face—and somehow locates him through the face guard. The joy drains from her expression so fast Shane can practically hear it gurgling down an invisible drain. Her chin juts out in that specific way that makes her look exactly like Ilya when he’s about to get a game misconduct. (Shane fell in love with that exact expression when he was eighteen years old. He’d thought he was over it. He was wrong. He’s been wrong about a lot of things.)
“No,” Airi declares.
“Yes,” Shane says, walking toward her.
“No.” She drops the lightsaber and latches onto David’s leg like a koala being evicted from its eucalyptus tree. Her face disappears into the denim of his jeans. “No home. Stay Papa D.”
David pats her helmet awkwardly, which just makes it slide further down. He shoots Shane a look that says you’re on your own, son. “She’s been… passionate this morning. We had an incident involving pancakes.”
“It was SQUARE,” Airi’s muffled voice says from somewhere in the vicinity of his dad’s kneecap. “Wanted CIRCLE.”
“I know, mon amour.” Shane crouches down until he’s eye-level with the helmet’s visor. He can see one dark eye peering out at him, suspicious and betrayed. “But listen. Daddy has something in the car.”
The sniffling pauses.
“What?”
“I have…” Shane pauses for maximum dramatic effect, “…a box of Timbits. And I think—I’m not entirely sure, but I think—there might be a birthday cake one in there.”
There are actually three birthday cake Timbits because Shane specifically excavated the display case at Tim Hortons, because Shane knows his daughter. He knows that birthday cake Timbits are the only currency powerful enough to break a siege. Airi’s working through the cost-benefit analysis. On one hand: unlimited grandparent paradise. On the other: processed sugar in donut form.
“Two Timbits,” she negotiates, holding up three fingers.
“Deal,” Shane says.
She releases David’s leg, snatches her lightsaber, and bolts inside the house, screaming, “CAKE CAKE CAKE CAKE!”
David laughs, brushing imaginary dirt off his jeans. “Good luck with the inevitable sugar crash. I’m going to hide the pool noodle before she weaponizes it again. Your mother’s in the garden. She says you look ‘concerning.’”
“Concerning,” Shane repeats flatly. “That’s even worse than peaky.”
He leaves his father to the pool noodle crisis and heads around the side of the house. His mom’s kneeling in her hydrangea bed, attacking weeds with a hand trowel. She’s wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat that makes her look like she’s about to attend a garden party in a Jane Austen novel, and pristine linen gloves that have somehow remained pristine despite the dirt.
“Hi, Mom,” Shane says, hands in pockets.
She doesn’t look up. Just eviscerates a dandelion with one vicious yank. “You’re late.”
“I’m exactly on time. Airi was holding Dad hostage.”
“I meant late for your life,” she says, finally glancing up at him. Her eyes—the same dark brown as his—sweep over him in that way that makes Shane feel like she’s running a full diagnostic scan. “You look thin. Are you eating?
“I eat constantly. I had a smoothie this morning.”
“Smoothie is not food. Smoothie is sadness you drink through a straw.” She stands, brushing dirt from her knees, and peels off her gloves. “You look like those dogs that shiver even when it’s warm.”
“It’s called being in playing shape.”
“It is called stress shape.” She walks to the stone bench beneath the weeping willow and pats the spot beside her. The pat is not optional. “Sit. Tell me why you are buying a house in Ottawa when you work in Montreal.”
Shane sits.He keeps a careful distance between them—six inches—but his mom bridges it immediately.
“I haven’t told anyone,” he says. “How do you know?”
“I have my sources.”
“Mom. Seriously. Did you hack the land registry?”
“Ilya told me,” she says simply.
The name hits Shane like a puck to the sternum.
“Ilya?” His voice comes out strangled, a full octave higher than normal. “You—you talk to Ilya?”
“We text.”
“You text.”
“He sent me a message this morning. He wanted to know if you made it here safely.” She examines a smudge of dirt on her thumb with great interest. “He said your car died. He said you looked…” She pauses. “Like a wet cat that has lost its way.”
“He did not say that.”
“Of course I talk to Ilya,” Mom says, looking at him like he’s asked whether the sun is hot. “He’s the father of my granddaughter. Of course we talk. He sends me photos. We discuss recipes. He’s a lovely correspondent. Much better than you, who sends me text messages that say ‘OK’ and ‘Thumbs up emoji.’”
Shane’s brain is short-circuiting.
For five years, he has treated the separation of Church and State (his family and Ilya) with the seriousness of a nuclear treaty. He sends his parents curated updates. He tells Ilya necessary facts. He ensures the streams do not cross. He thought he was the gatekeeper. He thought he was the exhausted traffic controller of their lives. And this whole time, his mother has been trading kimchi and sushi recipes with Ilya Rozanov behind his back?
“I can’t believe this,” Shane says. “I thought you didn’t talk to him. I thought you were on my side.”
“This isn’t a war, Shane,” Mom says, sharp enough to draw blood. “There are no sides. There’s only family. And Ilya is family.”
“He’s my ex. Technically.”
“Technically.” She makes the word sound like something she scraped off her shoe. “You and your technicalities. You treat your life like a contract negotiation. ‘If I do X, then feelings will equal Y.’” She sighs. “He told me you bought the house. He was worried.”
“Worried?” Shane bristles. “About what? My mortgage rates?”
“He said ‘stressed and skinny.’ But I read between the lines.” She turns to face him fully, her expression serious. “He is worried about you, Shane. He says you are buying real estate in his city and drinking chamomile tea at midnight. He thinks you are having a breakdown.”
Shane palms his face and groans. “I am not having a breakdown. I am diversifying my portfolio.”
“You are diversifying your misery.” A pause. “So. You saw him.”
There is no point in lying. She knew when he was faking sick in third grade. She knew when he was sneaking out in high school. She knew, somehow, that he was still in love with Ilya Rozanov before Shane had even admitted it to himself.
“Yeah.” Shane speaks into his palms. “I saw him.”
“And?”
“And nothing.” He lifts his head. The sunlight is too bright; it makes his eyes sting, or at least that’s what he’s going to blame. “My car died. He gave me a ride. We drank tea. He made fun of my kitchen renovation.”
“He made fun of the renovation?” Mom actually smiles. “Good. I told you the white subway tile was derivative.”
“Mom.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Nothing.” The word comes out helpless. “We talked about absolutely nothing. I made him tea, and he asked about the window in the Westmount house, and it was like making conversation with a stranger, except the stranger used to know what I fucking look like naked.”
He stops. Rewinds. “Please forget I said that.”
“Already forgotten,” she says. “Shane. Look at me.”
His mom reaches out and cups his face with both hands, and Shane is suddenly seven years old again, coming home crying because some kid at school said he talked weird.
“You are a turtle,” she says.
“Wow. Thanks, Mom. Really needed that today.”
“You are,” she insists. “On the ice, you’re the bravest person I know. You’ll throw yourself in front of a puck. You’ll fight men who could snap you in half. But with your heart?” She shakes her head. “The second there’s danger, you disappear into your shell.”
“The shell is safe,” Shane mutters.
“The shell is lonely,” Yuna counters. “It’s dark in there. It’s cold.”
“What do I do?” He’s thirty-three years old. He’s the captain of a professional hockey team. He shouldn’t be asking his mom how to fix his life like it’s a broken toy. “He hates me. He looked at me like I was a stranger.”
“He gave you a ride,” Yuna points out. “He drank your terrible tea. He texted me to make sure you got here safely.” She pats his cheek. “Ilya Rozanov doesn’t do things he doesn’t want to do. If he hated you, he would’ve left you on the side of the highway to fend for yourself against bears.”
“There are no bears in Ottawa.”
“There are always bears. Metaphorically speaking.” She’s quiet for a second. “Ame futte ji katamaru.”
"Mom.” Shane looks helplessly confused. “My Japanese is rusty. You know that."
“After rain falls, the ground becomes solid,” she translates. She traces his jawline, her expression shifting into something sadder. “Storms compact the earth. Without the rain, you just have loose dirt that blows away. You and Ilya have been in the storm for a long time, Shane. Maybe it’s time to check if the ground beneath you is solid now.”
Shane pulls back, staring at his loafers. “There is no ground. I salted the earth five years ago. Remember?”
“You were terrified. Young and terrified and you panicked.”
“I’m fine now.”
“You bought a house in the same city with your ex-boyfriend because you think geographical proximity will somehow fill the hole in your chest,” Mom says, easily slicing through his defenses. “That’s not fine. That’s pathological.”
“The Ottawa market is actually experiencing significant—”
“Stop talking about markets. I’m your mother. I know the difference between financial planning and running away.”
Shane shuts his mouth. Stares out at the lake doing its whole serene, unbothered thing. “You really don’t pull your punches, do you,” he mutters.
“I’m not here to make you feel better. I’m here to make you move forward.” She stands, linen rustling like autumn leaves. Looks down at him, backlit by sun. “Now go extract your daughter before she eats herself into a coma and ruins your upholstery. And Shane?”
"Yeah?”
She adjusts the brim of her hat. "You and Ilya are worthy of happiness.”
The hockey camp schedule is like a mythological creature—cut off one activity and two more immediately spawn. Shane’s spent the entire week operating in what he’s privately termed Dissociation Mode: running drills, smiling at parents who treat the glass barrier like it’s an aquarium full of exotic fish, eating his pre-measured meals in the cafeteria exactly two chairs away from Ilya Rozanov.
It’s a one-man show called This Is Completely Normal and I’m Definitely Not Dying Inside.
“Salt?” Ilya asks on Tuesday.
Shane slides it across the table without making eye contact. “There.”
“Thanks.”
“Yep.”
Absolutely riveting. Someone should option this for television. Call it Two Men, One Condiment, Zero Emotional Honesty.
Meanwhile, Airi’s living her absolute best life. She’s the unofficial camp mascot, following Ilya around like he’s giving away free puppies. Shane watches them from across the rink—Ilya hoisting her onto the boards, Airi whispering something that makes him crack up—and it feels like watching old home videos of a family that doesn’t exist anymore.
But the week’s ending. And the Schedule—the sacred, unbreakable Schedule—dictates that tomorrow starts Ottawa Week. Once a month, Airi spends seven full days with Ilya. No backup. No emergency grandmother. Just Papa, whatever chaos he dreams up, and apparently a lot of cinnamon sugar.
Right now Shane’s in Airi’s bedroom at the cottage, engaged in his favorite anxiety-management technique: aggressively organized packing.
Suitcase open on the bed. Color-coded checklist on his phone. Swimsuit. Goggles. He folds the rash guard into a perfect square and places it in the packing cube labeled WATER ACTIVITIES.
He checks his list.
- Pajamas (4 pairs, plus the Elsa nightgown)
- Tablet (fully charged, downloaded with educational games that she will ignore in favor of watching videos of people unboxing toys)
- Timmy (The purple stuffed Bunny. Non-negotiable)
- Sunscreen (SPF 100)
- EpiPen (just in case, though she has no known allergies, but Shane is Shane)
He is just debating the merits of packing a second pair of sneakers when his phone starts buzzing on the nightstand.
Mom. Why is she calling him?
“Mom?” he says when he answers.
“Shane.” Something in her voice makes him stand straight. “It’s about Ilya.”
Every muscle in Shane’s body turns to ice as his brain starts to imagine the worst case scenario. “What happened? Is he hurt? Was there an accident?”
“He called me. He can’t take Airi this week.”
Shane’s brain refuses to parse this information. “What do you mean he can’t take her? It’s Ottawa Week. It’s been color-coded on the calendar since March.”
“He’s sick.”
“Sick.” Shane says it like she’s just claimed Ilya’s joined a cult. “Ilya doesn’t get sick. He played an entire playoff series with broken ribs. The concept of illness doesn’t apply to him.”
“Well, it’s applying now. Flu. He sounds awful.” There’s real worry in her voice, which makes Shane’s stomach drop six feet. “He could barely finish a sentence without coughing. Said he doesn’t want Airi anywhere near him until he’s not contagious.”
Shane sits down hard on the bed, directly on top of his perfectly organized piles.
Ilya’s canceling.
In the entire five-year history of this arrangement, Ilya has never canceled. Not once. Shane’s the one who cancels—misses bedtime because of overtime, calls from airport lounges full of apologies. But Ilya? Ilya takes overnight flights to make Saturday morning pancakes. Drives through literal blizzards for spring concerts. Left a black-tie fundraiser in a tuxedo because Airi had a nightmare and needed him to FaceTime-read her favorite book.
If Ilya’s canceling, he’s not just sick. He’s actively dying.
“Did he see a doctor?” Shane’s already biting his thumbnail, a habit he thought he’d broken.
“He claims he did. Says he just needs rest.”
“Okay. Right. So we keep her here, tell Airi Papa’s under the weather, reschedule for next week.”
“You tell her,” Mom says immediately. “I’m not shattering my granddaughter’s heart. She’s been packing her backpack since Monday.”
“Mom—”
The call ends, and he has no choice but to go downstairs and handle the difficult conversation with his five-year-old. Airi is wearing the Ottawa Centaurs hat and bouncing on her toes by the window like she’s waiting for a parade that’s running late.
“DADDY!” She spots him at the bottom of the stairs and her face lights up like Christmas morning. “Is it time? Is Papa here?”
“Not quite yet, sweetheart,” Shane says, his heart cracking. “Come here for a second.”
She barrels over and wraps herself around his legs. “I packed Timmy AND the special rock I found. Papa has to see it. It looks exactly like a potato.”
“That’s definitely a critical rock,” Shane agrees.
“And we’re going to the canal,” she continues, words tumbling out at maximum speed. “And we’re getting Beaver Tails—the cinnamon sugar kind, Papa promised—and we’re watching Moana.”
She’s incandescent with excitement. Has been for days, waking Shane up every two hours last night to ask if it was morning yet, if they could leave yet, if the sun was awake yet. Shane looks at her glowing face. Thinks about Ilya alone in his condo in Ottawa, probably coughing up a lung, staring at his phone, hating himself for this.
“Daddy?” Airi’s smile starts flickering. “Where’s Papa?”
Shane takes a breath. Makes a decision that’s going to be terrible for his blood pressure but feels necessary. “Papa’s in Ottawa,” he says carefully. “But his car… broke down.”
“Broke down?” Her eyes go wide as saucers.
“Yeah. So he can’t drive here to get you.”
The devastation is immediate and catastrophic. Her bottom lip starts trembling like it’s about to secede from her face. “So I can’t see Papa?”
“No, no—you can definitely see Papa.” Shane’s already talking faster. “I’m going to drive you there myself.”
The trembling stops. “We are going to Papa?”
“That’s the plan. We’ll bring Papa some soup because he’s not feeling great, and we’ll take care of him together. Sound good?”
“We’re taking care of Papa,” Airi says, nodding so vigorously the hat slides over her eyes. “Timmy can be the doctor. Timmy’s an excellent doctor.”
“Timmy’s the best doctor I know,” Shane agrees, kissing the top of her head before pulling out his phone.
“I’m driving her to Ottawa,” he tells his mom when she picks up.
“Good.” She doesn’t sound even slightly surprised. Sounds downright smug, actually. “There’s chicken soup in the freezer. Grab it. And Shane?”
“What?”
“Try not to catch whatever he has,” she says. “And try not to flee the scene.”
“I’m literally just dropping her off and leaving immediately.”
“Mm-hmm,” Mom says, in a tone that suggests she’s not buying a single word. “Drive carefully.”
The call ends.
Shane grabs the frozen soup. Grabs the suitcase. Grabs his daughter’s hand.
“Alright, Commander,” he says to Airi. “Road trip time.”
He knows with absolute certainty that he’d drive this car straight into an erupting volcano if it meant keeping that joy on her face. He just hopes Ilya has aspirin. Because this is going to be a headache.
To be continued…