Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Golden Oak, Orlando
6 July 2026

A trip to Disney World is designed to transport you away from your mortgage, your existential dread, and the fact that your knees click when you stand up too fast. Shane, however, has never been the type to simply let go. But he’s trying. He’s been trying for five years now, ever since his daughter was born and became the center of his universe. She’s the only thing that’s ever made him feel like relaxing might be possible.

He loves his daughter more than life, but he thinks agreeing to a trip that involves walking ten miles a day in a swamp might be a good way to trigger a heat stroke event that ends up on TMZ. Right now, she is on her hands and knees on the kitchen floor of the Golden Oak house. Her dark hair is cut into blunt bangs that frame her face like a little porcelain doll, the rest of it spilling over her shoulders in tangled waves, still damp from the pool at the Four Seasons. She’s wearing her Minnie Mouse ears—has been since baggage claim—and her face is scrunched in concentration.

She looks up at him, and the afternoon light graces the heavy dusting of freckles that bridge her nose and scatter across her cheeks. She has huge, liquid hazel eyes that she knows exactly how to utilize when she wants ice cream before dinner, but right now, they are laser-focused on the tiles.

“Daddy!” She tugs hard on the hem of his shirt to make him look down. “Grandma said there’s hidden Mickeys! Everywhere in this house!”

“Mmhmm.” Shane leans against the kitchen island, watching her. The house is absurd—a sprawling Tuscan-style villa, filled with details so Disney-perfect that it feels like stepping into a theme park attraction rather than someone’s actual home. His mother bought it two years ago as an “investment,” which Shane suspects was code for “a place to spoil my granddaughter rotten without anyone judging me.”

It worked. Airi is obsessed with this house. She talks about it for months before each visit, asks almost daily when they’re coming back, has memorized the location of every hidden Mickey she’s found so far and keeps a running tally in a sparkly purple notebook.

“I found one!” His daughter points triumphantly at a tile that is, as far as Shane can tell, just a tile. “Right here, Daddy. See? The three circles?”

Shane crouches down beside her, squinting. “Oh, wow. Good eye, baby.”

“That’s seven!” She holds up her fingers, then frowns, counting them again under her breath. “Wait. Eight! I found eight already! And we just got here!”

“You’re a hidden Mickey expert.”

“I know.” She’s so certain about things. So unafraid to claim her own competence.

She didn’t get that from him.

“Grandma said Papa is coming too,” Airi adds, still examining the floor. “So he can help me find the rest.”

Shane’s heart stops as if someone hit the emergency brake on his entire circulatory system.

“What did you say, baby?”

“Daddy?” Airi looks up at him, hazel eyes guileless. “Grandma said Papa’s coming so we can all be together.” She breaks into a grin so wide it shows the gap where she lost her first tooth last month. “Isn’t that the bestest thing ever?”

Shane’s thoughts are crashing in at once and cancel each other out, leaving him paralyzed, mute, standing in the wreckage of his own synapses.

Mom invited Ilya.

“Are you sure Grandma said that?” Shane asks with a nervous smile. “About Papa coming?”

“Uh-huh! She told me yesterday! On the phone!” Airi nods seriously. “She said it’s gonna be a big surprise for you, but—” She suddenly slaps both small hands over her mouth, her eyes going huge. “Uh-oh… was I not s’posed to say that?”

“No, it’s—it’s fine, sweetheart.” Shane’s voice sounds strangled. “It’s fine. I’m glad you told me.”

He’s the opposite of glad. He’s fairly certain he’s about to have a panic attack. Because the woman who raised him, who managed his career, who held his hand through every crisis and bad decision and heartbreak—that woman has just orchestrated the most elaborate ambush of his entire life.

And she didn’t even have the decency to warn him.

Shane has his phone in a death grip, ready to dial and demand an explanation, to scream that this is not okay, but for a brief spark of a moment, the silence of the house is shattered. The next thing he knows, the crunch of gravel is echoing from outside, stopping him cold. He slowly turns toward the window and notices too late that the black Range Rover is, to his horror, already shifting into park in the driveway. He watches as the driver’s side door swings open, and the figure steps out into the sunlight in easy confidence, a walking, breathing, six-foot-three nightmare.

The room goes excruciatingly silent as the reality crashes down on him. Ilya is really here. Shane watches him through the window—watches him straighten up, roll his shoulders, and glance toward the house with an expression that is annoyingly unreadable. And there Ilya is, in the flesh, wearing a fitted black v-neck and jeans, all broad shoulders and messy light brown curls and that calculated stubble he always has now. He looks like he couldn’t be bothered to shave properly, yet somehow emerged fully formed and rugged out of some GQ wilderness photoshoot.

“PAPA!”

The shriek cracks the tension. Airi is off the floor, sprinting toward the front door with her Minnie ears bouncing and her arms already outstretched.

“Airi, wait—”

But she’s gone. Out the door, across the porch, down the steps.

Shane follows. He doesn’t have a choice. His daughter is running full-tilt toward her other father, and Shane’s legs are betraying him, carrying him through the door and onto the porch just in time to see the collision.

Ilya drops his bag and crouches down, catching Airi as she launches herself at him. “Malyshka.” Ilya’s voice is rough and soft at the same time. He pulls her tight, one big hand cradling the back of her head, and closes his eyes. “Moya malyshka. I missed you.”

“I missed you too, Papa.”

Ilya’s eyes snap open. They lift, locking onto Shane’s over Airi’s shoulder, and something like panic or adrenaline spikes in Shane’s gut. He sees the flash of confusion in Ilya's face, followed immediately by the dawn of realization.

Ilya didn’t know either. He didn’t know that Shane didn’t know.

Shane swears internally. Yuna Hollander. She played them both like fiddles.

Shane stands frozen on the porch, staring at the man he spent ten years loving and five years trying to remove from his brain. Ilya stares back. The Florida sun beats down, oppressive and bright. Somewhere in the distance, a bird is singing, and the faint, cheery strains of Disney music drift over from the park, and Shane thinks, with a hysterical edge: This is supposed to be the happiest place on Earth. Sure.

Ilya gives him a nod, his face settling into a mask. “Hollander.” He says it flat. The way he used to say it on the ice, back when they were pretending to be rivals for the press, back when the whole world thought they wanted to kill each other.

Not Shane. Not the way he used to say it in the dark, in hotel rooms, in Shane’s apartment, in all the secret places they carved out for themselves.

Shane blinks, seethes, and lifts his chin. “Rozanov.” His voice comes out steady. A small, infuriating miracle.

Airi pulls back to look at Ilya’s face, completely, blissfully oblivious to the fact that her fathers are currently holding a silent conversation made entirely of accusation and panic above her head.

“Papa! Look! There’s a pool!” she announces, bouncing on her toes. “And Daddy said we can see the fireworks! Right from the backyard!”

She takes a big breath, grabbing his giant hand in her tiny one. “And Grandma said there’s hidden Mickeys everywhere and we gotta find 'em all. Will you help me? I found eight already!”

“Only eight?” Ilya raises a skeptical eyebrow. “This is very low number. I expected more from you, Airi.”

“Papa.” She swats his arm, outraged. “Help me!”

“Excuses.” But Ilya is smiling now—that lazy, crooked thing that used to make Shane’s stomach flip. It still makes Shane’s stomach flip, if he’s being honest, which he’s not. He has spent five years practicing dishonesty with himself, and he’s gotten essentially Olympic-gold-medal level at it.

“Papa! C’mon! I gotta show you my room! It has princesses on the wall!” She gasps, remembering the most important part. “And… and the bed! It’s a Pumpkin bed!” 

She’s pulling him toward the porch now, toward Shane, and Shane realizes with a jolt that he’s going to have to move. He’s going to have to step aside and let Ilya Rozanov into his house. He’s going to have to share oxygen with this man for—Fuck, how long? How long is his mother expecting them to do this?

A week. It’s a week-long trip. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours.

Ilya climbs the porch steps, looming closer.

“Shane.” Ilya says it quietly.

Just his name. And something in Shane’s chest cracks, just a hairline fracture, letting the old hurt seep through.

“Ilya.”

They stand there, three feet of charged air between them, with their daughter bouncing like a pinball, linking their hands.

“Did you know?” Shane asks tightly.

“No.” Ilya’s jaw clenches. “You?”

“No.”

Airi tugs them both forward, impatient with the adult subtext. “Come on,” she whines. “I want to show Papa everything!”

“Sure, baby.” Shane forces his voice into a register that sounds almost normal, or at least not like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. “Whatever you want.”

He steps aside. Ilya walks past him, into the cool air of the villa, their shoulders nearly brushing. To the public, Shane Hollander is the serious, disciplined captain of the Montreal Voyageurs who just happens to be a single dad via surrogacy. And Ilya Rozanov is his former rival turned "family friend," a bachelor with a reputation for being difficult, arrogant, and allergic to feelings.

But Ilya Rozanov is a study in contradictions. In that tall, broad, perpetually slouching body, there is a surplus of arrogance—the natural result of being the best hockey player in the world since eighteen—and a stockpile of prickliness. But beneath the designer t-shirt and the Russian stoicism, there is the most fiercely protective, secretly terrified father Shane has ever known.

Shane walks to the kitchen island. "I printed the itinerary," he says, staring holes in the wall. "We have reservations at 5:30. If we leave now, we can make the parade."

"You have spreadsheet," Ilya says. He’s leaning against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. His biceps flex against the fabric, and Shane’s brain does a little stutter-step. Fuck.

"I have a schedule," Shane corrects, bristling. "You can’t just wing it at Disney, Ilya. If you wing it, you end up eating a dry turkey leg in a parking lot while crying."

"I do not cry," Ilya says. "And I like turkey legs."

"You’ll hate the lines."

"I will charm people," Ilya says, deadpan. "They will love me."

"You’re a villain," Shane says, finally looking up to glare at him. "You’re literally the most hated man in the league."

"That is my day job," Ilya says, looking maddeningly smug. 

"You’re a nightmare," Shane fires back. And looking at him—smug, handsome, and standing in the kitchen—Shane knows it’s true. Ilya is his own personal, six-foot-three nightmare.

Five minutes later, he takes the stairs two at a time. He bursts into the master suite—a room featuring a four-poster bed that looks like it was looted from a Habsburg summer estate and a balcony overlooking the perfectly manicured, uncanny-valley serenity of the neighborhood—and slams the door. He leans back against the wood, sliding down an inch, then catches himself. No. No sliding. Sliding is for people who don’t have a crisis management plan. Sliding is for people who haven't won two Harts.

He yanks his phone from his pocket, hitting the speed dial for Mom. She picks up on the first ring.

“Did the car service arrive on time?” Mom asks. No hello. No pleasantries. Just the efficient, clipped tone of a woman who is currently running a PR empire, raising a champion poodle, and systematically dismantling her son’s life, all before a Cobb salad. “The driver, Gary? He had excellent reviews on Uber, but I worry about his neck tattoos.”

“Gary was fine,” Shane says. He pushes off the door and starts pacing the room, cutting a path through the expensive rug. “Gary was a delight. You know who wasn't a delight? The six-foot-three Russian jumpscare waiting in the driveway.”

“Oh,” Mom says. “He’s there already? Good. I was worried his flight from Ottawa would be delayed. The weather in the northeast is dreadful.”

“Mom.” Shane stops in front of a mirror framed in gilded gold. He looks at his reflection: dark hair rightfully panicked, eyes wide, white t-shirt clinging to a chest that feels like it’s being crushed by a hydraulic press. “Why is Ilya Rozanov in my vacation house?”

“It’s Airi’s vacation house,” she corrects smoothly. “And he is her father. It’s her birthday month, Shane. She asked for him.”

“She asked for a pony last year,” Shane snaps. “We didn't buy her a horse. We bought her a stuffed animal and moved on with our lives.”

“This is different.”

“How? How is it different? You invited my ex—”

“Your friend,” she interjects. “According to the press release we issued eight years ago, you are ‘supportive friends.’ Friends go on vacation together. Friends celebrate their daughter’s fifth birthday at the Magic Kingdom without having a coronary.”

“We are not friends!” Shane hisses, lowering his voice as if the walls have ears. Which, knowing the Disney corporation, they probably do. “We are... whatever we are. Ex-rivals. Co-parents. Acquaintances who communicate exclusively via text messages about dental appointments and ballet recitals.”

“And whose fault is that?”

Shane freezes. He stares, jaw dropping, at the phone. “Excuse me?”

“Shane,” his mother sighs. It is a sigh that implies he is being difficult on purpose. “I am your mother. I love you more than life itself. But watching you these last five years? You are wilting, Shane.”

“Mom. I am not a houseplant,” Shane says defensively. “I am a very successful professional athlete. I just won the Hart Memorial Trophy. Again.”

“You are miserable,” she says. “You sit in that big, empty house in Montreal and you polish your trophies and you watch The Great British Bake Off until 2:00 a.m. because you can’t sleep.”

“I like the baking show,” Shane mutters weakly. “It’s soothing. They support each other.”

“It is pathetic,” Yuna says, with the brutal honesty that only a mother can deploy. “You are thirty-three years old, Shane. You have a beautiful daughter, a brilliant career, and the emotional range of a clam. You need this. You need to be in the same room with him for more than an hour. You need to remember that you are a person, not just a hockey robot programmed to produce championship wins and repressed sadness.”

“I am not sad!”

“You are,” she says.

“You can't just ambush me, Mom,” he says, dragging a hand down his face. “It’s cruel.”

“It’s necessary,” she counters. “Sometimes, when you are stuck, you need a push. Consider this a shove. A very expensive, five-star luxury shove. Now, go downstairs. Put on some sunscreen—you burn if you think about the sun too hard—and be nice to the father of your child. Airi is watching.”

“Mom—”

“Goodbye, Shane. Have a magical day.”

The line clicks dead.

Shane lowers the phone slowly. He stares at the screen, at the picture of Airi he has set as his background—her smiling, missing a tooth, wearing a Voyageurs jersey that is two sizes too big.

He is trapped. He is trapped in a castle with a dragon, except the dragon is his ex-boyfriend, and the only way out is through a week of forced family fun.

He takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says to the empty room. “Okay.”

He walks into the bathroom, splashes cold water on his face, and dries it with a towel that is fluffier than any towel has a moral right to be.

He looks at himself one last time.

Be nice, he tells himself. Airi is watching.

He can do that. He’s good at pretending everything is fine when the building is burning down around him. He squares his shoulders, shoves his phone in his pocket, and walks back out to face the music. Or, more likely, to face Ilya Rozanov singing Let It Go in the kitchen.

Which, frankly, is infinitely worse.

If there’s one thing Shane knows about his daughter, it's that she is a genetic cocktail shaken by a bartender with a twisted sense of humor. She possesses his deep-seated intolerance for unexpected texture changes in food and his suspicious nature regarding new environments. But she pairs these traits with Ilya’s absolute certainty that the world is a stage constructed specifically for her performance.

“I do not like the green ones,” Airi complains. She is sitting at the kitchen island, pouting at a bowl of pasta.

“It’s basil,” Shane says, already reaching to remove the offending flecks. “It’s a leaf. You eat leaves all the time. You ate lettuce yesterday.”

“Lettuce is crunchy,” Airi counters, crossing her arms. “This is wet.”

“She has you there, Hollander,” Ilya says. He’s leaning against the fridge, crossing his arms over his chest. “Wet leaves are gross. Is like eating a swamp.”

“Thank you for the support,” Shane says, his voice dry. “Please, encourage her to survive solely on butter and air. It will be great for her development.”

“She is half Russian,” Ilya says, pushing off the fridge. He walks over, picks up Airi’s fork, and stabs a massive bite of pasta, green flecks and all. “We are built on starch and sadness. She will be fine.”

He holds the fork out to her. “Eat, Myshonok. It will make you strong like Papa. Then you can check Daddy into the boards.”

The reference to violence—even hypothetical hockey violence—appeals to his daughter’s Rozanov side immediately. Airi opens her mouth and accepts the bite. It’s been three hours since Ilya arrived. Three hours of Shane waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the awkwardness to strangle them, for the polite fiction of their “friendship” to crack under the weight of their history. But Ilya is... good.

He’s annoying, yes. Distressingly so. As always. He has already criticized Shane’s choice of rental car (“It is a minivan, Shane, have some dignity, you are an icon”) and reorganized the pantry because the snacks weren't “accessible enough.” But he’s also easy.

Ilya fits into the gaps of Shane’s parenting like he never left, like he hasn’t spent the last five years in a different area code, seeing his daughter only on designated weeks and holidays.

By 8:00 P.M., the Disney magic begins to curdle into the inevitable Disney crash. Airi’s energy, previously manic, nosedives. One minute she is explaining the complex lore of her stuffed animals to Ilya; the next, she is blinking slowly, her head listing to the side like a ship taking on water.

“Okay,” Shane says, checking his watch. “Bedtime. We have a 7:00 A.M. wake-up call if we want to rope-drop Peter Pan.”

“No,” Airi slurs, though her eyes are already drifting shut. “I’m not tired. I want to... find more Mickeys.”

“You can find them in your dreams,” Shane says, moving to pick her up.

“I got her.”

Ilya is there before Shane can bend his knees. He scoops Airi up with an ease that makes Shane’s own muscles twitch in sympathy. Airi doesn't protest; she just curls instantly into Ilya’s chest, her face buried in the crook of his neck, her small hand tangling in the collar of his t-shirt.

“You are heavy,” Ilya murmurs into her hair, but he holds her like she weighs nothing. “You are a sack of potatoes. A sack of very cute potatoes.”

Shane follows them up the stairs. He walks a few steps behind, watching the way Ilya’s hand spans their daughter’s back, the protective curl of his shoulders. It’s a view Shane has seen a thousand times in his head, usually at 3:00 A.M. when the insomnia hits, but seeing it in three dimensions is a different kind of ache.

The villa has five bedrooms but Airi insisted on sleeping in the "Daddy’s bed" with both of them, and neither of them could say no—Ilya sets her down on the mattress.

She wakes up just enough to realize she is being deposited. “Bath?” she mumbles, rubbing her eyes. “Bubbles?”

Shane steps forward, auto-pilot engaging. He is the primary parent. He is the one who knows the routine, the specific temperature she likes the water, the order in which the rubber ducks must be arranged. “I’ll do it,” Shane says, reaching for the bag of toiletries he packed. “You can unpack your stuff, Ilya. I’ve got this.”

Ilya just remains standing by the bed, looking down at Airi, who is currently trying to take off her socks by kicking her feet wildly in the air.

“No,” Ilya says.

Shane pauses, hand on the zipper of the toiletry bag. “What?”

“I will do it,” Ilya says. He looks up at Shane with a kind of longing that steers something within Shane. “I want to do it. Please.”

Shane forgets, sometimes. That while he has the burden of the day-to-day—the tantrums, the fevers, the endless laundry—he also has the glory of it. He gets the morning cuddles. He gets the bath time splashes. He gets the smell of her shampoo and the weight of her head on his chest every single night.

Ilya gets FaceTime calls and one week a month. Ilya gets the highlights reel, but he misses the show.

“She uses the strawberry soap,” Shane says, tossing the bottle to Ilya. “And don't get water in her eyes, or she’ll scream like you’re murdering her.”

Ilya catches the bottle one-handed. A genuine smile breaks across his face. “I am a professional,” he says. “I have elite hand-eye coordination. Go away, Hollander. Go count your spreadsheets.”

Shane doesn't go away. He goes into the bedroom, ostensibly to organize their suitcases, but really to hover near the open bathroom door, listening. He hears the rush of water and the thunk of plastic toys hitting the porcelain.

“Papa, look!” Airi’s voice echoes off the tile. “I’m a mermaid!”

“A very beautiful mermaid,” Ilya agrees. “We must wash the seaweed out of your hair.”

“No!” splash. “I am attacking the ship!”

“Oh?” Ilya’s voice into his 'playful villain' register. “You attack my ship? You think you can sink the Dread Pirate Rozanov?”

There is a massive splash, followed by Airi’s shriek of delighted laughter. Shane moves to the doorway. He can’t help it. The scene inside is carnage. Water is everywhere. The bathmat is soaked. Ilya is kneeling by the tub, his expensive black t-shirt completely drenched, bubbles clinging to his stubble. He looks like neither an NHL captain nor the moody, mysterious Russian superstar who can terrify rookies with a single glare.

He looks like a dad.

“More bubbles!” Airi commands, slapping the water.

“We are at critical capacity,” Ilya warns, but he’s already reaching for the bottle. He dumps an irresponsible amount of soap into the jet stream. The bubbles rise like a foam monster, threatening to consume the entire bathroom.

“Papa, you have a beard!” Airi grabs a handful of suds and smacks it onto Ilya’s chin.

“I have beard already,” Ilya points out, wiping suds from his mouth.

“A white beard! Like Santa!”

“I am not Santa,” Ilya says, grabbing a glob of bubbles and dropping it onto Airi’s head. “I am the Yeti. And I am going to eat your toes.”

Ilya dives for her foot beneath the water. Airi shrieks, thrashing hard enough to drench Ilya’s jeans and half the bathroom with them.

Any reasonable adult would be calculating the spill risk, the cleanup, the bedtime meltdown this will trigger. Shane just settles into the doorway, folding his arms, content to watch the two attempt aquatic murder in a luxury tub.

Ilya glances up. He catches Shane watching. Water is dripping from his nose. He looks ridiculous and happy at the same time.

“She started it,” Ilya says, pointing a wet finger at Airi.

“I saw,” Shane says softy. “You’re making a mess.”

“Clean mess,” Ilya defends. He turns back to Airi, who is now trying to fashion a bubble hat for a rubber duck. “Okay, mermaid. Rinse time. Lean back.”

And to Shane’s shock, she does. Airi, who fights Shane tooth and nail every time he tries to rinse her hair, leans back against Ilya’s arm with total trust. Ilya cups the water in his large hand, pouring it gently over her forehead, shielding her eyes with so much tenderness.

Shane turns away before he does something stupid, like cry, or walk in there and hug them. He goes back to the suitcase, his hands shaking slightly as he folds a t-shirt that is already folded.

Seven days.

He just had to survive seven days.

Shane is downstairs, standing  in the pool of moonlight that spills across the kitchen island.  It takes a moment for the silence to settle around the fixed point of anxiety in his chest where the last five years have lived. He slides his hand across the counter, finding the bottle of bourbon he spotted earlier. He pours two fingers into a glass, no ice. It burns going down, a sharp, purposeful heat.

He has never loved the taste of alcohol, never understood the appeal of drinking for pleasure rather than social obligation, but tonight the warmth spreads through his chest, a substitute for the things he isn't allowed to have.

The villa is quiet, but in the silence, the memories show up in pieces. The ghost of a laugh from dinner. The way Airi looked at Ilya, like he hung the moon and the stars and the fireworks over Cinderella’s Castle. The way Ilya looked back.

Shane takes another sip and leans against the island, fully aware that Ilya is upstairs—part of a history Shane swore he’d burned. As if summoned by the thought, there is a soft scuff of footsteps on the stairs. Shane cranes his neck, and there Ilya is, standing in the shadows of the hallway. He has changed out of his wet clothes and is now wearing a pair of low-slung off-white sweatpants and a worn black t-shirt that Shane recognizes from a training camp three years ago. His hair is damp and curling over his forehead, making him look soft, approachable, human.

"She is out," Ilya says. He stops a few feet from Shane, leaning one hip against the island. "Took three pages of the moon book and she was snoring."

"She had a big day."

"Mmm." Ilya’s eyes drop to the glass in Shane’s hand. His eyebrows lift, a minute expression of surprise. "You are drinking."

"It’s been a long day," Shane says. He reaches for the bottle on the counter and another glass. "You want one?"

Ilya pauses, studying Shane for a second, his eyes scanning Shane's face like he's reading ice conditions. "Sure."

Shane pours a decent amount and slides the tumbler across the marble.

Ilya picks it up, sniffs it, and raises an eyebrow again. "Bourbon? You hate bourbon. You say it tastes like 'angry wood.'"

"I developed a taste for it," Shane says, taking a sip and refusing to make eye contact. "People change, Ilya."

"Some people," Ilya murmurs. He takes a drink, humming in appreciation. "Not me. I am consistent."

"You’re stubborn," Shane says.

"Consistent," Ilya insists. He clinks his glass lightly against Shane’s. "To the winner. Hart Trophy. And fifth Cup. You are becoming greedy, Hollander. You have run out of fingers for rings. You will have to start using your toes."

Shane had been happy. Deliriously, exhaustingly happy, hoisting the Cup over his head in front of a screaming crowd, his teammates piling onto him, confetti falling like snow. It was everything he’d worked for his entire life. Everything he’d sacrificed for. And then he’d gone home to his empty condo and sat on his couch and thought: I wish I could tell him.

"Thanks," Shane says, and the praise lands somewhere soft and painful in his gut. "Coming from the guy who finally brought the Cup to Ottawa last year? You looked like you were going to legally marry the trophy."

"Was a long time coming," Ilya admits, a slow, self-deprecating smile spreading across his face. "Beginning to think maybe I am cursed."

"You’re not cursed."

"No." Ilya takes another sip. "Just like to suffer."

It’s a joke, but there’s something true in it, too. Shane knows the geography of Ilya’s pain—he knows about the mother lost at twelve, the father who treated hockey not as a game but as an escape hatch, a desperate clawing way out of a life that was grinding them both to dust.

Shane knows all of it, has memorized the topography of Ilya’s history, and it still isn’t enough. There are parts of Ilya that are walled off, high towers Shane will never reach, no matter how hard he tries.

Tried, his brain supplies, unhelpfully.

Past tense.

He doesn’t get to try anymore.

“She asked about you,” Shane says. The words slip out, unauthorized, dissolving the demilitarized zone of their hockey talk in an instant. “Airi. Last week.”

Ilya stills, his glass hovering halfway to his mouth. “What did she ask?”

“She wanted to know why you aren't at the recitals,” Shane says, and he wraps his hands tighter around his glass. “Why she has to keep you being her father a secret from her friends.”

A muscle ticks in Ilya’s jaw. “What you tell her?”

“The truth.” Shane’s voice is resigned, heavy with the exhaustion of it. “Or the version of it that fits in a five-year-old's world. That families look different. That she has two daddies who love her obscenely much, and that is the only thing that counts.”

Ilya’s eyes go suddenly glassy with a specific, wet grief that threatens to spill over. “But she does not understand,” he says roughly.

“No,” Shane says, a pained smile pulling at his mouth. “She doesn’t.”

A phone buzzes against the marble, interrupting them. They both look down. Ilya’s phone is sitting face up. The lock screen lights up—a photo of Airi when she was a baby—and the caller ID flashes a name Shane knows from the tabloids: Mikhaela.

Reality crashes back into the kitchen like a brick through a window. Shane steps back, creating distance. Mikhaela Volkov. The ballerina. The thirty-year-old perfection Ilya has been dating for two months now. The person who actually has a right to call him at 1:00 AM.

Ilya hesitates for a second, staring at the screen, then picks it up. "I will be right back," he says and walks out onto the patio, sliding the glass door shut behind him.

Shane grips his glass. He should pour the rest of the bottle down the sink. He should go to bed. He shouldn't be standing here, straining to hear the muffled cadence of Ilya’s voice through the hurricane-proof glass, feeling like an intruder.

The door slides open again. Shane nearly jumps. It’s been barely two minutes. Ilya walks back in, looking annoyed, and tosses the phone onto the counter with a clatter.

"Is... is everything okay?" he asks, hating being the ex who has to ask about the current girlfriend. "Does she mind that you're here?"

"She does not mind," Ilya says curtly. "Because she has no say in where I am."

Shane’s mind goes suddenly blank. “What?”

“We broke up.” Ilya shrugs, like it’s nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Shane says automatically. “I didn’t know.”

“Why would you?” Ilya’s tone is just factual. Why would you know? You don’t ask. I don’t tell. That is how this works now. "Three weeks ago. We ended it."

Shane should leave it there. He should nod,  and let the conversation die a natural death. He has absolutely no right to pry into the inner workings of Ilya’s romantic life. It is arguably a violation of the Code of Conduct of Ex-Boyfriends.

But Shane has never known when to quit. It’s why he has two Hart trophies. His mouth opens before his brain can stop it.

“Why did she call, then?” he bravely asks.

“To ask why I am not at her Swan Lake play in London,” Ilya says. He swirls the last of the bourbon in his glass. “She thinks I am making mistake.”

“Why aren't you?” Shane asks, “there?”

“Because Airi is five,” Ilya says, as if this explains the theory of relativity. “And she only turns five once.”

“Her birthday isn’t until next week.”

“I would miss the actual biblical apocalypse for this,” Ilya says. “She is priority. Always. Mikhaela... she did not understand that. She thought he should come first.” He lets out a short laugh, void of any humor. “No one comes before my daughter.”

Shane swallows, and the sound is loud in the quiet kitchen.

No one comes before Airi.

It’s the right answer. It’s the answer a good father gives. It is the morally correct, gold-star parenting answer. But it also means Shane is safe. Ilya isn't here because of the lingering, magnetic pull of their history. He isn't here because he wants to see Shane. He is here for Airi. Shane is just the logistical hurdle he has to clear.

“Right,” Shane says softly. “Of course.”

"Is late," Ilya says. He sets his empty glass on the counter and straightens up. The moment breaks, the distance rushing back in to fill the space between them. "We have rope drop tomorrow. Airi wants to see mouse open the gates."

"Yeah," Shane says. "See you in the morning."

"Goodnight, Shane."

Shane watches him walk away, watches the shadows swallow him up at the top of the stairs, and thinks with a sudden, violent clarity, that he would rather be anywhere else. He would rather be taking a slapshot to the throat. He would rather stand in the middle of a burning building. He would rather let the ocean swallow him whole than feel the suffocating emptiness of the room now that Ilya isn't in it.

His mom is right. He’s pathetic. He thought he was over it. He thought the five years of distance, the trophies, the carefully constructed walls of his life in Montreal had done the job. He thought he had severed the tie. But he realizes now, as his chest tightens to the point of pain, that he hasn’t severed anything. He’s just been pulling against the leash, stretching it across the continent, pretending the tension was freedom.

He is trapped. Not by the vacation, or his mother’s scheming. He is shackled to a memory that refuses to age. He is stuck here. No matter how hard he tries, no matter how fast he skates, no matter how many distractions he throws in the way, he is exactly where he was five years ago:

Waiting for a call that isn't coming for him.

Unable to let go.

To be continued…

Chapter Text

Ottawa, Ontario
5 November 2020

Ilya watches Shane from the bed. It is five in the morning, which is an ungodly time to be awake, even for a professional athlete. Shane is trying to be quiet, which is funny, because Shane is incapable of being quiet. He is hopping on one foot, trying to pull his jeans up without letting his belt buckle jingle against the floor. He looks disheveled and exhausted and so beautiful that Ilya wants to drag him back under the duvet and keep him forever.

"Stop staring," Shane says, though he doesn't look up from his struggle with a sock. "I can feel you staring. It's creepy."

"I am admiring," Ilya rumbles. "There is difference."

Shane finally gets the sock on and pads over to the side of the bed. He is wearing his puffy jacket already, but he looks reluctant to zip it up. He sits on the edge of the mattress, and Ilya immediately reaches out, wrapping a hand around Shane’s wrist.

Shane leans down. He doesn't just kiss Ilya; he presses his face into the curve of Ilya’s neck and inhaling deeply. A long, shuddering drag of air.

It is a weird thing Shane does because Ilya knows how Shane reacts to other Alphas. He has seen it on the ice for years. During scrums, when the adrenaline is high and the pheromones are pouring off everyone, Shane always looks a little green. He holds his breath in the face-off circle. Shane’s biology rejects the scent of his own designation. He is an Alpha who is allergic to Alphas.

Except for Ilya.

When Shane smells Ilya, he doesn't gag. He melts. He seeks out Ilya’s scent—Sandalwood—like it is the only clean air in the world.

"You are going to be late," Ilya says, though he doesn't let go of Shane's wrist.

"I know." Shane pulls back just enough to look at him. His eyes are swimming with that hazy, post-coital softness that Ilya is addicted to. "I don't want to go. The drive is going to suck."

"Stay."

"Can't." Shane sighs, placing a kiss to Ilya’s forehead, then to his lips. "Captain stuff. Media stuff. Pretending I wasn't getting railed by the enemy all night stuff."

Ilya hums, turning his head to kiss Shane’s palm. A dark, possessive thought coils in his gut. If Shane were an Omega, Ilya wouldn't have to let him go. He could lean up right now, sink his teeth into the gland on Shane’s neck, and leave a mark that would tell every other person on the planet, Back off. Mine. He could bond him. He could fill him with his scent so thoroughly that Shane would never be able to scrub it off.

But Shane is not an Omega. He is an Alpha. A prestigious, high-performance Alpha with three Stanley Cups. The biology doesn't work. The compatibility shouldn't exist. And yet, when Ilya looks at him, his instincts scream Mate so loud it drowns out everything else.

"You smell good," Shane murmurs, blissed out, rubbing his cheek against Ilya’s shoulder.

"I smell like sex and old Halloween makeup," Ilya tells him.

"Best smell in the world." Shane kisses him one last time, hard and desperate, then stands up.

"I'll text you when I cross the border."

"Drive safe, Hollander."

Ilya watches him leave. When the door clicks shut, the silence in the room feels heavy, and the scent of Shane—Honeysuckle—lingers in the air, mocking him.

Montreal, Quebec
18 December 2020

Something is wrong.

Ilya knows it the second Shane opens the door to his condo.

Shane looks like hell. His skin is having taken on a greyish, translucent quality that makes the dark circles under his eyes look like bruises. He is wearing black sweatpants and his favorite blue hoodie, and he is leaning against the doorframe.

"You look terrible," Ilya says, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. He drops his duffel bag on the floor. "Why did you say you were fine? You are clearly dying."

"I'm not dying," Shane croaks. He closes the door and immediately walks—shuffles, really—toward the living room sofa, collapsing onto it face-first. "I have the flu."

Ilya frowns, kicking his shoes off. He walked into the condo expecting to be annoyed that Shane had cancelled their plans to go to the cottage, but now he just feels a cold spike of anxiety. He walks over to the couch and sits on the edge, placing a hand on Shane’s back. Shane flinches, then relaxes, letting out a long, ragged exhale.

"Have you seen the team doctor?" Ilya asks.

"No." Shane’s voice is muffled by the cushion. "I told them I was contagious so they’d stay away. I can't... I can't go to the rink, Ilya."

"Because you are too sick?"

Shane turns his head, resting his cheek on the fabric. He looks up at Ilya, and there is genuine fear in his eyes. "Because I can't stand the smell."

Ilya stills. "The smell?"

"The smell of them," Shane says. "The guys. The locker room. It’s... it’s a thousand times worse than usual. I walked in on Tuesday and J.J. walked past me, and I literally threw up in the trash can. It felt like someone hit me with a chemical weapon."

He knows Shane is sensitive, but this is extreme. He reaches out, brushing his knuckles against Shane’s cheek. Shane leans into the touch, closing his eyes.

"And me?" Ilya asks quietly.

Shane takes a breath. He inhales through his nose, sniffing Ilya’s hand, then traces the scent up Ilya’s arm. He shifts, scooting closer until he can press his face against Ilya’s stomach.

"No," Shane mumbles. "You smell safe."

Ilya runs his fingers through Shane’s hair, confused. If Shane is sick, his senses should be dull, or everything should be repulsive. But Shane is clinging to him desperately. And then, Ilya smells it.

It’s faint, buried under the scent of Shane’s distress, but he smells a shift in Shane’s chemistry. Rich and impossibly sweet. Like warm milk and honey. It is a scent Ilya has only smelled once before, on his sister-in-law, years ago. It is the scent of a nesting Omega.

Ilya’s hand freezes in Shane’s hair. His heart hammers against his ribs, a frantic, staccato rhythm. He looks down at Shane—at the flat stomach hidden under the oversized hoodie, at the exhaustion etched into his features, at the way he is seeking Ilya’s protection against the rest of the world.

"Shane," Ilya says.

"Mmm?"

"When was last time you had your rut?"

Shane draws back slightly, opening his eyes. "I don't know. A few months ago? It’s irregular. The doctor said it’s stress."

"And you have been vomiting?" Ilya presses. "In the mornings?"

"And the afternoons. And the evenings." Shane sits up, rubbing his face. "Why?"

Ilya grabs Shane’s hands. He pulls Shane toward him, leaning in to inhale the scent at the junction of Shane’s neck and shoulder. It’s undeniable. It’s faint, terrified, and masked by suppressants, but it is the sweetest thing Ilya has ever smelled in his life.

"Ilya?" Shane’s voice pitches up, panic bleeding in. "What are you doing?

“You are not sick, Shane," he says, and he is terrified, and he is elated, and he is completely unsure of what happens next. "You are pregnant."

"You are insane," Shane says. He tries to pull away, but his limbs are heavy and useless against the cushions. "I am an Alpha. I do not get pregnant. That is... it is biologically impossible. It’s the flu, Ilya. Or food poisoning. I ate that sketchy sushi from the place on Sainte-Catherine."

"Is not sushi," Ilya insists. He keeps his hand on Shane’s neck, thumb rubbing over the pulse point. The scent is driving him crazy—it is so sweet. "I know what sushi poisoning smells like. Boodram had it last year. He smelled like dying fish. You smell like... nest."

"I do not smell like nest!" Shane snaps, though it lacks his usual fire. He looks on the verge of tears, his face flushed and sweaty. "Stop saying that. It’s creepy."

"I am calling doctor."

"No!" Shane tries to sit up, panic flaring in his eyes. "No team doctors. If they think I’m... if they think something is wrong with my designation, they’ll bench me. They’ll put me on IR. Crowell will find out."

"Shane. You are vomiting. You are dizzy. You smell like an Omega in distress. We are going to doctor." Ilya stands up, crossing his arms. "If it is flu, they give you fluids. If is... other thing, we need to know."

"It’s not the other thing," Shane mutters, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "It’s literally impossible."

"Then you have nothing to worry about," Ilya counters. He grabs Shane’s discarded socks from the floor and tosses them at him. "Put these on. Or I carry you to car in your bare feet. I do not care. I am very stubborn."

Shane glares at him. It is a weak glare, watery and pathetic, but it is pure Hollander. "I hate you."

"I know," Ilya says, already grabbing his keys. "I am terrible. Hurry up."

Shane grumbles the whole way down to the garage, but he leans heavily on Ilya, practically letting Ilya carry his weight. He feels burning hot through his hoodie. Ilya’s heart is pounding a frantic rhythm. He is driving his own car, Shane’s Audi abandoned in his spot.

"Where are we going?" Shane asks, his head lolling against the passenger window as Ilya navigates the snowy streets of Montreal.

"Not team doctor," Ilya assures him. "Private. My guy in Ottawa recommended her. She sees high-profile people. No leaks."

"In Montreal?"

"I have connections," Ilya lies. He actually just Googled 'private celebrity doctor Montreal' while Shane was putting his shoes on, but Shane doesn't need to know that.

They end up at a private clinic in Westmount, a sleek, modern building that looks more like a spa than a hospital. It is quiet. Expensive quiet. Ilya parks the car and helps Shane inside, ignoring the way the receptionist’s eyes widen when she sees two NHL captains stumbling through the door.

"Shane Hollander," Ilya says to her, leaning over the desk. "He is sick. We need Dr. Caroline Taylor. Now."

The receptionist types furiously. "Uh, yes. Mr. Rozanov? We... yes. Dr. Taylor has an opening. Please, right this way."

They are ushered into an exam room. Shane climbs onto the crinkly paper of the exam table, looking miserable. He is shivering now, his teeth chattering.

"I’m cold," Shane whispers. "Ilya."

Ilya steps between Shane’s knees, wrapping his arms around him. "I know. I am here." He scents Shane again, unable to help himself. The sweetness is overwhelming now, mixed with Shane’s Alpha distress. It is a confusing, heady cocktail that makes Ilya want to punch a wall and build a blanket fort at the same time.

The door opens, and Dr. Caroline Taylor breezes in. She is young, maybe early thirties, with honey-blonde hair cut in a sharp, chic bob that swings around her jawline. 

"Hi," she says, her dimples deepens as she smiles at them. "I’m Dr. Taylor. Sorry to keep you waiting." She glances at her iPad, then up at Shane. Her eyebrows—expressive and arched—knit together slightly. "You don't look so good, Shane."

"I have the flu," Shane says. "My… My friend here thinks I’m pregnant, but he’s an idiot. Please tell him I have the flu so we can go home."

Dr. Taylor blinks. She looks at Ilya, then back at Shane. She doesn't laugh. "Okay. Let’s take a look."

She moves efficiently, checking Shane’s vitals. She puts a thermometer in his ear. "102," she murmurs. "Heart rate is elevated." She feels the glands in Shane’s neck, and Shane flinches, letting out a low, involuntary growl.

"Sorry," Shane gasps. "Sensitive. Hurts."

Dr. Taylor steps back, tapping her pen against her chin. She looks at Shane with a calculating intelligence. "Shane, have you been experiencing any... aggression? heightened territorial instincts? Sensitivity to light or sound?"

"Yes," Shane says. "Because I have a migraine. From the flu."

Ilya watches Shane. Shane’s skin is flushed a deep, unnatural red. He is sweating through his hoodie. And the scent... it is changing. The sweetness is spiking, turning into something muskier.

"He smells like rut," Ilya says quietly.

Shane’s head snaps up. "What?"

"You smell like rut," Ilya insists. "But... wrong. Sweet rut."

Dr. Taylor nods. "I’m going to run some blood work. And a urine sample. Just to rule things out."

"Rule what out?" Shane demands. "I am an Alpha!"

"Humor me," Dr. Taylor says, flashing another dimpled smile that somehow brooks no argument.

The next hour is agony. Shane paces the small examination room, then collapses on the paper-covered table, then paces again. Ilya sits in the corner, his knee bouncing a frantic rhythm against the metal leg of his chair. He texts Galina to cancel his session for tomorrow. He texts Shane’s mom to say Shane is 'under the weather' and won't make Sunday dinner.

When Dr. Taylor returns, she is not smiling. She is holding a file, and she looks... baffled. She closes the door carefully behind her and leans against it.

“Okay,” she says, looking at Shane, then at Ilya. “I ran the standard viral panel. Negative for flu. Negative for COVID.”

“See?” Shane says to Ilya, throwing his hands up. “I told you. I am fine. You are just dramatic.”

“But,” Dr. Taylor continues, hesitating. “Your hormone levels are... unprecedented.” She walks over to Shane and hands him a piece of paper.

Shane takes it, staring down at the numbers. They might as well be hieroglyphics.

“Your testosterone is high,” Dr. Taylor explains. “Alpha levels. But your estrogen and progesterone are off the charts. Specifically, human chorionic gonadotropin.”

“I don't know what that means,” Shane says. “Speak English, Doc.”

“It means,” Dr. Taylor says gently, “that you are pregnant, Shane.”

“No,” Shane says haughtily. He drops the paper. It flutters to the floor, landing face up. “That test is broken. I’m an Alpha. I have the external anatomy of an Alpha. I don't have a uterus. Where would a baby even be? In my spleen?”

“You have a uterus, Shane,” Dr. Taylor says.

“I do not!” Shane shouts, standing up so fast the table rattles. “I think I would know if I had a uterus! I’ve had MRIs! I’ve had CT scans! Someone would have mentioned the extra organ!”

“It’s likely undeveloped,” Dr. Taylor says, keeping her voice calm, trying to defuse the bomb that is currently Shane Hollander. “Or it was. Until recently. It’s a condition called Atavistic Reversion. It’s extremely rare. Theoretical, mostly. We learn about it in med school as a footnote, right between 'spontaneous combustion' and 'demonic possession'.”

Ilya stands up slowly. He moves toward Shane, who looks like he is about to pass out.

“Atavistic?” Ilya asks. “Like evolution?”

“Exactly,” Dr. Taylor says to Ilya with approval in her expression. “Before designations were as rigid as they are now, biology was more fluid. Everyone carried the potential for both carrying and siring. In most Alphas, the carrying genes are dormant. Completely switched off.”

“So why are mine switched on?” Shane demands, his voice rising to a panic pitch. He looks down at his stomach like it’s a bomb.

Dr. Taylor hesitates. She looks between them. “Usually? It’s triggered by a mate. A specific genetic compatibility that is so high, the body overrides its own designation to ensure reproduction. Your body recognized Ilya’s genetic material and... woke up.”

Shane stares at Ilya, mouth parting. His eyes are dark holes of shock.

Meanwhile, Ilya wants to fall to his knees and kiss Shane’s stomach. He wants to run into the street and scream that he’s going to be a father.

“I told you,” Ilya says, a breathless laugh escaping. “I told you I have powerful swimmers.”

“This isn't funny!” Shane yells. He sags against the exam table. “This isn't a joke, Ilya!”

“Shane,” Dr. Taylor says softly. “You are about eight weeks along. The nausea, the scent changes... your body is nesting. It’s trying to protect the pregnancy. That’s why you’re reacting so badly to other Alphas. Their pheromones are a threat.”

“So I’m allergic to hockey,” Shane says, staring at the floor. “I’m allergic to my job.”

“For now,” Dr. Taylor says. “Until the hormones settle.”

Ilya takes a step closer. He puts his hands on Shane’s waist. “We figure it out,” he says with full conviction. “We figure it out, Shane. You are not alone.”

“Don't.” Shane slaps Ilya’s hands away. “Don't touch me like that.”

Ilya’s hands hover in the air, empty. “Shane.”

“I can't have this baby,” Shane says. He isn't looking at Ilya anymore. He is looking at Dr. Taylor, his eyes wild and desperate, pleading with her to fix this mistake. “You have to... I can't. It’s impossible. I am the captain of the Montreal Voyageurs. I can't disappear for nine months. I can't come back with a kid that I biologically couldn't have produced. They’ll think I’m a freak. They’ll think...” He chokes on a breath. “I want it gone.”

A punch in the face would hurt less than what Ilya is hearing right now from Shane. He actually takes a step back, his heel hitting the leg of the exam table with a jarring thud.

Gone.

Shane wants their baby gone.

Dr. Taylor looks between them. She looks at Ilya, silently asking if he is going to intervene, but Ilya is frozen. He feels like he is watching a car crash in slow motion, glass flying everywhere.

“Shane,” she says gently. “I understand you are in shock. This is... a lot to process.”

“It’s not shock,” Shane insists, his voice rising, hysterical. “It’s reality. I can't do it. I have a contract! I have a team!”

“You have options,” Dr. Taylor says. “You are early in the pregnancy. Termination is... it is a simple procedure. We can schedule it here. Private. Safe.”

Ilya feels the blood drain from his face. He knows, logically, that it is Shane’s body. He knows Shane is terrified. But the thought of stopping this makes bile rise in his throat.

“But,” Dr. Taylor continues, “you don't have to decide today. In fact, I strongly suggest you don't. Your hormones are spiking. You are in a high-stress state. Go home. Talk to your mate. Sleep on it.”

“I don't need to sleep on it,” Shane mutters, but the fight seems to drain out of him all at once. He slides off the table, his legs shaking so hard he has to grab the edge to stay upright.

Ilya steps forward to help him, then stops. Shane doesn’t want his touch. He clenches his fists at his sides.

“Get dressed, Shane,” Ilya says flatly. “We go home.”

It is snowing again, big, wet flakes that stick to the windshield and turn the Montreal streets into a grey blur. Ilya drives automatically, his hands tight on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the taillights of the car in front of him. He is thinking about his father. Grigori Rozanov, and the way he looked at Ilya when Ilya failed. The cold disappointment. The knowledge that Ilya was never quite what he wanted.

Maybe his father is right. Maybe Ilya is poison. Maybe his seed is cursed, creating something that Shane—perfect, golden Shane—looks at with horror.

Shane is huddled against the passenger door. He is shivering, despite the heat blasting in the car.  The sweet, nesting scent is still there, but it has turned sour.

“Say something,” Shane says finally, sounding helpless.

“What you want me to say?” Ilya asks without giving him a glance. “You want me to agree with you? To say, ‘Yes, Shane, let’s get rid of it’? I cannot do that.”

“I didn't ask you to agree,” Shane snaps. “I asked you to say something.”

Ilya wants to pull over. He wants to shake Shane and ask him how he can throw this away. Our baby is a miracle, he wants to say. Science says she cannot exist, and she exist. Why is that not enough for you?

But he choose to say nothing. He drives. He is the villain, after all. And villains do not beg. When they get to the condo, Shane doesn't wait for him. He gets out of the car before the engine cuts, stumbling toward the elevator.  Once they’re inside the condo, Shane immediately starts pacing. He throws his keys on the counter with a clatter. He rips his hoodie off, as if his own skin is too tight, leaving him in a white t-shirt that clings to his damp back.

"I have to call Farah," Shane says. He is hyperventilating, his breaths coming in short, sharp gasps. "I have to figure out a cover story for the doctor's visit. If anyone saw us... if anyone leaks that I was at a fertility clinic..."

"Shane," Ilya says. He stands by the door, boots still on, feeling like an intruder in the home he has spent half his life in. "Stop."

"I can't stop!" Shane spins around. His face is blotchy, his eyes watering. "You don't get it, Ilya. You never get it. You think everything is a joke, or... or some romantic movie. This is my life! This is my career!"

"Is baby!" Ilya roars. The volume of his own voice surprises him.

“It’s a clump of cells, Ilya!” Shane spits back.

“Is baby for me.” He walks into the room, ignoring the snow melting off his boots onto Shane’s hardwood. "Mine. And yours."

"It’s a mistake.” Shane shakes his head. “It’s a biological glitch."

"Is that what you think?" Ilya asks. "That we are glitch?"

"Yes! No! I don't know!" Shane runs a hand through his hair, pulling at the dark strands. "Ilya, look at me. Look at us. We have been lying to everyone for ten years. Ten years of sneaking around, of pretending to hate each other. And now you want to add a baby to that? How does that work? Hmm? Do I play the third period with morning sickness? Do I breastfeed in the penalty box?"

"You take a year off," Ilya says. "You tell them you have injury. We go away. We figure it out."

"And then what?" Shane demands. "I come back with a kid? Who is the father, Ilya? Who? Do I lie to the kid too? Do I tell him his dad is some random donor? Or do I tell the world that the captain of the Voyageurs has been fucking the captain of the Centaurs since he was eighteen?"

"Maybe we tell them," Ilya says quietly.

Shane stops pacing. He looks at Ilya as if Ilya has suggested they set the condo on fire. "Are you insane?"

"Maybe I am tired of hiding," Ilya says. He feels the crack in his chest widening, splitting him open. "Maybe I want to be father more than I want to be hockey player."

"Well, I don't!" Shane shouts. "I am not ready to be done, Ilya! I have more to do. I have a legacy to protect. If people find out I carried a child... if they find out I’m not a... a real Alpha..."

"You are real Alpha," Ilya says, desperate. "You are the toughest Alpha I know."

"Alphas don't get pregnant!" Shane’s voice shatters into a sob. "Freaks get pregnant, Ilya. And I won't be a freak. I won't let them look at me like that. I won't let them look at us like that. I have worked my whole life for this reputation. For this career. If I do this… I lose everything. I can’t be the first pregnant Alpha NHL player. I can’t be the poster boy for biological anomalies. I just want to play hockey. I just want to be normal.”

“Normal,” Ilya scoffs. He feels a bitter laugh bubble up in his throat. “We are not normal, Shane. We never were. We are hiding in closets for ten years. What is one more thing?”

“A baby isn’t one more thing!” Shane half-yells. “It’s a person! A person I would have to hide! A person who would grow up knowing their father was ashamed of how they were born!”

“I would not be ashamed!” Ilya snarls. “I would be proud! I would love them!”

“And I wouldn’t? You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t feel…?” Shane weakly  gestures to his stomach. “I can feel it, Ilya. My body… it wants this. The instincts… they are telling me to build a nest. To stay safe. To keep it.”

Ilya’s heart leaps. “Then keep it. Listen to instincts.”

“I can’t!” Shane sobs. “Because if I listen to them, I lose myself. I lose Shane Hollander. And I… I can’t do that. I’m not ready to give up who I am.” He looks at Ilya, his dark eyes imploring. “Please, Ilya. Please understand. I can’t have this baby. I need you to be on my side. I need you to tell me it’s okay to let it go.”

Of course he understands. Shane is a king, and this will knock his crown off. Shane is a creature of control, and this is chaos. But understanding doesn’t stop the shattering feeling in Ilya’s chest.

“I cannot tell you that,” Ilya murmurs.

Shane flinches. “Ilya…”

“I cannot tell you is okay,” Ilya says, his voice trembling. “Because is not okay for me. I want this, Shane. I want a family. With you. I never thought I could have it. And now is here. And you want to throw it away like trash.”

“It’s not trash,” Shane says. “It’s… it’s impossible.” He wraps his arms around his stomach, maybe trying to hide it. "I’m booking the appointment. As soon as they open tomorrow."

Ilya looks at the man he moved teams for. The man he moved countries for. The man who holds Ilya’s heart in his hands and is currently crushing it into dust.

Shane is ashamed. He is not just scared. He is ashamed. He is ashamed of the biology that connects them. He is ashamed of the evidence of their love.

"You are coward.”

"I’m being realistic."

"No. You are coward. I moved to Ottawa for you. I gave up Boston for you. I would give up hockey for you. And you? You cannot even handle little bit of hard because you are so scared of what people think."

"It’s not just people!" Shane pleads. "It’s my life!"

"I thought I was your life," Ilya says.

The silence that follows is terrible. It is the sound of something breaking that cannot be fixed.

Shane looks down. He doesn't answer. And that is answer enough.

Ilya nods. Once. He feels numb. The anger is gone, replaced by a cold emptiness.

"Fine," Ilya says. He turns around and walks to the door. "Do what you want, Hollander. You always do."

"Ilya, wait," Shane says. "Where are you going?"

Ilya opens the door. The cold air of the hallway rushes in, smelling of nothing. "I am going home.”

He stops with his hand on the doorknob, and he looks back at Shane—standing alone in the middle of his perfect, empty living room, shivering in his oversized hoodie, clutching his stomach. “You have made your choice. And I have to go before I say something I can never take back.”

Magic Kingdom
7 July 2026

Shane has been to Disney World eleven times. He has the annual pass. He has opinions about the best time to ride Space Mountain (first thing in the morning, before the line becomes a special circle of hell) and the optimal route through Fantasyland (counterclockwise, always counterclockwise, anyone who says otherwise is a liar). He has, on more than one occasion, cried during the fireworks.

Airi is bouncing between them, holding a hand of each. She’s wearing a princess dress—Rapunzel, because Rapunzel has “the best hair.” 

“Daddy,” his daughter shrieks. “Daddy, look. Look. It’s Mickey.”

“I see him, baby.”

“He’s waving at me.”

“Yes.”

“He’s waving at me. Because I’m special.”

Shane glances sideways at Ilya, who is standing on Airi’s other side, wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses and a white shirtsleeves button down shirt that is already starting to show sweat stains in the Florida humidity.

“She gets that from you,” Shane murmurs.

Ilya doesn’t look at him. “Gets what?”

“The confidence.”

“She is special. And she already has more charisma than entire league,” Ilya says. “She is natural star. Like her papa.”

“Oh my God.”

“Daddy.” Airi jumps up and down. “Can we go? Can we go now? I want to see the princesses. And the teacups. And the Dumbo.”

The welcome show ends with a cascade of confetti and a surge of the crowd toward the castle. Shane feels the spike of anxiety—too many people, too much stimulation, too many variables he can’t control—and takes a breath.

“Okay,” he says, pulling out his phone.

“According to the schedule, we have a FastPass for Peter Pan at 9:15, which gives us exactly twenty-three minutes to—”

“Shane.” Ilya’s hand lands on his shoulder. Shane instantly gets electrocuted. “Put phone away.”

“I’m checking the—”

“You are being robot.” Ilya plucks the phone from Shane’s hand. “Today, we follow the tiny dictator.”

“Give that back.”

“No.”

“Ilya.”

“No.” Ilya slides the phone into his own pocket, patting it once like he’s tucking in a child. “You will survive. I promise.”

“She’s leaving without us,” Shane says as Airi has already started walking toward the castle.

“This is her day, Hollander,” Ilya says. “Not yours.”

Shane wants to argue. He wants to point out that structure is important, that children thrive on routine, that the FastPass system exists for a reason and that reason is to prevent exactly this kind of schedule-free madness. But Airi is already twenty feet ahead, and she’s turning around with her hands on her hips, and her face has that impatient, imperious thing that is pure Rozanov.

“Come on,” she yells. “You guys are so slow.”

“You heard the boss,” Ilya says. “Move your legs, Hollander.”

Airi wants to see everything, touch everything, ride everything. She drags them to the Dumbo ride and screams with delight as the elephant lurches into the sky. She demands a churro before they’ve even passed the first food cart, and Shane watches Ilya hand over twelve dollars for a stick of fried dough without blinking. They’re now standing outside the Princess Fairytale Hall, waiting for their turn to meet Cinderella and Rapunzel. The line is forty minutes long. Shane is going to die.

“Daddy.” Airi pulls his hand, her face streaked with churro sugar. “I have to go potty.”

“I’ll take her.” Ilya is already reaching for Airi’s hand. “You stay in line.”

“You don’t know where the—”

“I will find.” Ilya gives him a look that borders on pitying. “Is not complicated, Shane.”

“But the schedule—”

“Will be fine.” Ilya steers Airi out of the line with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We come back. Five minutes. Do not have heart attack while we are gone.”

“I don’t have heart attacks,” Shane mutters, but they’re already walking away, Airi chattering up at Ilya about something involving a Shrek and Donkey, and Ilya nodding along.

Ilya shortens his stride to match Airi’s, he bends down to hear her better while his hand stays on her. Airi looks at him like he’s her hero.

Because he is, Shane thinks. He’s her hero. And she’s only with him one week a month.

Guilt hits him, sudden and nauseating. This is what Ilya gets. Brief bursts of fatherhood sandwiched between lonely silences. He gets FaceTime calls and scheduled visits and the constant, gnawing knowledge that his daughter is growing up without him.

And whose fault is that?

Shane knows the answer. He’s known it for five years. He just doesn’t like to think about it.

The line inches forward. Ilya and Airi return in seven minutes, not five, but Shane doesn’t say anything because Airi is now wearing a Rapunzel braid that she definitely wasn’t wearing before and Ilya is pretending very hard that he didn’t just spend probably thirty dollars on a hair accessory from a cart vendor.

“I’m Rapunzel now,” Airi says proudly, swishing the braid over her shoulder. “Papa said I look just like her.”

“You do,” Shane says. “You’re the prettiest Rapunzel in the whole park.”

Airi giggles as Ilya rubs their noses together.

They meet Cinderella. They meet Rapunzel. Airi curtseys to both of them, and Shane takes approximately four hundred photos because he can’t help himself. Ilya stands off to the side, arms crossed, watching with an expression that could almost be mistaken for boredom if you didn’t know him.

Shane knows him.

He knows that Ilya is memorizing every second of this because he won’t get another one for three more weeks.

“Papa!” Airi runs over after the meet-and-greet, grabbing Ilya’s hand. “Did you see? Cinderella said I have pretty eyes!”

“Of course she did,” Ilya says. “You have best eyes. Like little stars.”

“Like yours,” Airi says. “Daddy says I have your eyes.”

There’s a pause. Shane feels his face heat.

Ilya looks at him. Shane looks at the ground.

“Well,” Ilya says slowly, “your daddy is very smart man. Sometimes.”

“Sometimes he’s grumpy,” Airi says.

“Yes,” Ilya agrees. “This is also true.”

“I’m right here,” Shane mutters.

“We know,” they say in unison.

They spend the next four hours in manic joy that only exists inside the Disney bubble. However, Florida in July is less “summer vacation” and more “surface of the sun,” and even the carefully maintained Disney landscaping can’t disguise the fact that they are essentially walking through a swamp dressed up in fairy lights.

The humidity has turned Shane’s carefully styled hair into a tragedy, and even Ilya is looking a little wilted, his t-shirt clinging to his back.

“I am melting,” Ilya says. He is draped over a bench in Frontierland, legs sprawled out, taking up space in a way that is both rude and objectively attractive. “My body does not understand this... soup air.”

“It’s Florida,” Shane says, handing him a water bottle. “Drink. If you get heat stroke, I’m leaving you here. I’ll tell the press you defected to Splash Mountain.”

“You would not.”  Ilya cracks eye open behind his sunglasses. “You love me too much.” He says it so casually, so easily, like it’s a joke. Like it’s not the truest thing anyone has said to Shane in five years. 

“I love the child support payments,” Shane quickly deflects.

Ilya just grins lazily and takes the water.

“Daddy,” Airi says. She is sitting between them, her head drooping. “My feet hurt.”

“I know, baby,” Shane says, wiping the sweat off her forehead with a Micky Mouse towel. “We walked a lot today. You want to go back to the house?”

“No,” she whines, rubbing her eyes with a fist. “I want to see the... the...” She yawns, a massive, jaw-cracking thing. “The fireworks.”

“That’s hours away,” Shane says gently. “I don’t think we’re going to make it, mi amor.”

“I make it,” she insists, but her eyes are already sliding shut. She leans heavily against Ilya’s side.

“Come here, Myshonok,” Ilya murmurs. He sits up, sliding his arms under her. He lifts her easily, shifting her so she’s cradled against his chest, her legs curled around his waist. She buries her face in his neck immediately, out like a light.

Shane stands up, gathering the backpack, the water bottles, the half-eaten popcorn bucket. He looks at Ilya—sweaty, sunburned, holding their sleeping daughter. “You got her?” he asks quietly.

“Always,” Ilya says.

The drive back to the villa is a quiet study in domestic hallucination. Airi sleeps the sleep of the innocent and the exhausted in her car seat. Ilya stares out the window at the passing palm trees, his hand reaching back to stroke her leg in comforting, rhythmic circles. Shane drives, his eyes locked on the road, gripping the steering wheel. He is trying not to think about how natural this feels, how they weren't the Captain of the Voyageurs and the Captain of the Centaurs, mortal enemies in the court of public opinion.

They were just parents. A family unit.

Shane mentally shakes the image out of his head.

When they get back to the villa, the sun is setting, painting the sky in bruises of purple and violent orange. Ilya carries Airi up the stairs. Shane follows, carrying the Minnie ears, the autograph book, and the heavy, crushing weight of his own repressed emotions.

“I’ll make dinner,” he says to Ilya’s back.

The villa’s kitchen is a monument to late-stage capitalist excess. It has three ovens. Shane has counted. There’s also a Sub-Zero refrigerator that could comfortably house a family of four and their golden retriever, a wine fridge, and a center island the size of a small aircraft carrier, complete with a built-in pasta maker that Shane is fairly certain no one has ever used in the history of this property.

Shane stands at the massive, restaurant-grade stove, staring down a skillet of chicken breasts. Beside it, a pot of broccoli is steaming—no butter, no salt, just green, fibrous virtue. It is a sad meal. One that says: I am an athlete and I treat food as fuel, not joy. I eat to optimize my glutes, not my soul.

He reaches for the tongs to flip the chicken.

“She is not going to eat that.”

The voice is right at his ear. A warm, Russian purr.

Shane jumps, his hand spasming. The tongs clatter against the side of the pan, sending a droplet of hot oil hissing onto the burner. He spins around, and Ilya is there, leaning against the counter directly behind him, smirking like the cat who ate the canary and then critiqued the canary’s seasoning.

“What the fuck, Ilya!” Shane gasps, pressing a hand to the chest that is currently trying to escape his ribcage. “Do you not believe in personal space?”

Ilya ignores his outburst, reaching past Shane—too close, his arm brushing Shane’s waist, sending a jolt of electricity straight to Shane’s groin—and snatches the handle of the skillet.

“You are committing hate crime against poultry,” Ilya says, peering into the pan. “Look at this. Is dry as a puck. If you serve this to her, she will call Child Protective Services.”

“It’s lean protein,” Shane argues, trying to grab the pan back, but Ilya boxes him out with a hip check that is frustratingly effective. “Airi needs healthy fats and protein for brain development. The pediatrician said—”

“Did pediatrician say to bore her to death?” Ilya opens a cupboard, scanning the contents with critical, sniper-like eyes. “Where is butter? Where is garlic? Where is the will to live, Shane?”

“Joy is in the nutrients,” Shane mutters, crossing his arms defensively. He feels unmoored without the spatula. “Where is she, anyway? Did you leave her unattended? She’ll find the hidden Mickey in the electrical socket.”

“She is watching the show with the blue dog,” Ilya says, grabbing a stick of butter from the fridge. “She is in a trance. We have ten minutes before she realizes she is starving.”

“Bluey,” Shane corrects. “It’s called Bluey.”

“Yes. The Australian dogs who have better parenting skills than all of us combined.” Ilya drops a slab of butter into the pan. It sizzles aggressively, a sound that is decidedly happier than Shane’s sad steaming. He starts chopping garlic with a speed that suggests he’s been hate-watching The Bear in his spare time.

Shane leans back against the island, watching him. It’s annoying how competent Ilya is. For years, Shane was the one who cooked—Ilya’s idea of dinner used to be ordering three pizzas and eating the crusts first. Now he’s sautéing shallots like he’s auditioning for a Michelin star.

“So,” Shane says, needing to fill the silence with something other than the sound of sizzling butter and his own heart rate. “Camp starts next month?”

Ilya pauses, knife hovering over a shallot. “Yes. The kids are excited. Registration is full.”

The Irina Foundation Summer Camp. It was Ilya’s dream—a camp for underprivileged kids, named after his mother—but Shane had helped build it. He’d done the paperwork, organized the sponsorships, and spent three summers on the ice in Ottawa, blowing a whistle and teaching ten-year-olds how to skate backward without dying.

Then came the breakup. And Shane stopped going.

For the last five years, their partnership has been purely administrative. Shane is the silent partner in Montreal—he approves the budgets, signs the checks, and handles the donors who want to feel important. Ilya is the face. He is the one on the ice. They pass emails back and forth through assistants, sanitized updates about quarterly goals and liability insurance, avoiding the fact that they built this thing together in the glow of a love they thought would last forever.

“We got a new sponsor,” Shane says, staring intently at his blue slippers. “Tech company out of Toronto. They covered the new equipment costs.”

“I saw,” Ilya says. He scrapes the garlic into the pan, and the smell fills the kitchen—rich and savory and overwhelmingly domestic. “You did good work on that, Shane. The email was very... professional.”

“I am professional.”

“You are.” Ilya turns the heat down, adding a splash of chicken stock to deglaze the pan. He doesn't look at Shane. “We are missing a coach for the 12-to-14 group. Max tore his meniscus.”

“That sucks.”

“It does.” Ilya stirs the sauce. “You could do it.”

The air in the kitchen suddenly feels very thin, like they’ve been transported to the top of Everest.

“What?” Shane blurts.

“You could come,” Ilya says casually, as if he isn't lobbing a grenade into the demilitarized zone of their lives. “To camp. You are good with that age group. You are scary, but they respect you.”

“I’m not scary,” Shane says automatically.

“You are terrifying. You have ‘Captain Face.’ It makes them listen.” Ilya turns around, leaning back against the stove, looking at Shane with an expression that is far too open. “Come to Ottawa, Shane. For a week. Airi would like it. She can wear her little skates and skate around us while we yell at teenagers.”

Shane feels the trap snapping shut. He doesn’t want to admit that he misses it. He misses the cold rink in August, the sound of pucks hitting the glass, the feeling of Ilya skating up beside him to murmur a joke about a kid’s form. But going back means stepping into Ilya’s world. It means sleeping in a hotel in Ottawa, or worse, staying at Ilya’s house. It means blurring the lines they’ve spent five years drawing in permanent marker.

“I can’t,” Shane says. “I have... training. And the media tour for the new jersey launch.”

Ilya watches him for a second, then he nods.

“Okay. Just thought I would ask.” He turns back to the stove. “Dinner is ready.”

“Already?”

“Yes. I saved the chicken. Is now edible.” Ilya plates the food—sliced chicken with a pan sauce, the broccoli tossed in the garlic butter—and sets three plates on the island table. It looks really good. Better than the dry, sad fuel Shane was preparing.

“Thanks,” Shane mumbles, feeling shy and stupid. “You didn't have to.”

“I did,” Ilya says, grabbing forks. “If I let you cook, Airi would file for emancipation.”

Ilya sets a plate in front of Shane, then one for himself. He leans against the counter, picking up his fork. “Eat. I will go get her.”

“I’ll wait,” Shane says.

Ilya pauses, halfway to the hallway. He looks back. “What?”

“I’ll wait,” Shane repeats, feeling his ears turn a violent shade of red. “For you. And Airi. We should... we should eat together.”

“Okay,” Ilya says slowly, a soft look entering his eyes. “I will be right back.”

He disappears into the hallway. Shane exhales a breath he didn't know he was holding, pulling out a stool and sitting down. Two minutes later, the thundering of small feet announces their return.

“Chicken!” Airi yells, scrambling onto her stool. She is wearing fresh pajamas with unicorns on them. “Daddy, did you make the yummy kind or the sad kind?”

Shane sighs, defeated by his own genetics. “Papa made it.”

“Yessss,” Airi hisses, pumping a tiny fist in a victory gesture that is alarmingly similar to Ilya’s goal celebration.

Ilya sits down next to her, smirking at Shane. “She has a refined palate, Hollander. Do not be jealous.”

“I’m not jealous of a five-year-old’s preference for butter,” Shane says, stabbing a piece of broccoli. “I am concerned for her arteries.”

They eat. And it’s... normal. That’s the worst part. It’s seductively easy. They talk about hockey—the new rule changes for the upcoming season. Airi interjects with important updates about the plot of Finding Nemo and the urgent news regarding her dental situation.

“It wiggles,” she demonstrates, opening her mouth and poking the tooth with a finger. “See?”

“Do not poke it,” Shane says instinctively. “It’ll get infected. We are not doing oral surgery at the dinner table.”

“Push it with your tongue,” Ilya advises, ignoring him. “It will come out faster. Then the Tooth Fairy comes. She pays better in Ottawa. Inflation.”

“Ilya,” Shane warns. “Do not negotiate rates with the Tooth Fairy.”

“What? Is economics. Supply and demand.”

Airi chews her chicken thoughtfully. She looks from Shane to Ilya, her big hazel eyes calculating, assessing, plotting.

“Papa?”

“Yes, Myshonok?”

“Are you coming home with us?”

The question lands in the center of the table like a puck hitting the crossbar. Clang. Shane freezes, his fork suspended halfway to his mouth.  Ilya goes statue-still next to him. The air in the kitchen is suddenly sucked out, replaced by a vacuum of panic. Airi is just looking at them both with innocent and hopeful gaze while swinging her legs under the table.

“What do you mean, sweetheart?” Shane asks carefully, buying time.

“When we go home,” Airi says, like it’s obvious. “After my birthday. Is Papa coming to our house? To live with us?”

Shane puts his fork down. He looks at Ilya, pleading silently for an assist, for anything, but Ilya is staring at his plate, his jaw tight enough to snap steel. How do you explain a breakup to a five-year-old? 

“Um,” Shane says eloquently. “No, baby. Papa’s not—Papa has his own house. In Ottawa. Remember?”

Airi’s forehead scrunches up in confusion. “But why?”

“Because…” Shane flounders. “Because that’s where Papa lives. And Daddy lives in Montreal. We have different houses.”

“But Tommy’s dad lives with him,” Airi argues, her lower lip wobbling. “And Mikey’s dad lives with her mom. Why can’t Papa live with us?”

Shane looks helplessly at Ilya. Fix this, his eyes say. You’re the fun one. Fix it.

Ilya sighs. He turns on his stool to face Airi.

“Airi,” he says gently. “You know how you have room at Daddy’s house? With the pink walls?”

“Yeah.”

“And you have room at my house? With the stars on the ceiling?”

“Yeah.”

“If I lived at Daddy’s house, you would only have one room,” Ilya explains. “This way, you have two. You have two castles. You are the Queen of Montreal and the Queen of Ottawa.”

“But I want you both,” she says. “At the same time.”

Shane feels his heart splitting into pieces.

“I know, sweetie,” he says, reaching across the table to stroke her chubby cheek. “I know. But think about the perks.”

Airi sniffles. “Perks?”

“Yeah. The good stuff,” Shane says, putting on his best cheery voice. “Two Christmases. Two birthdays. Two sets of toys. If Papa lived with us, he’d eat all the ice cream. You know how much he eats. He’s like a garbage disposal with nice hair.”

Airi giggles wetly, looking at Ilya. “Papa does eat a lot.”

“I am a growing boy!” Ilya protests, feigning outrage, clutching his chest. “I need sustenance! I am an elite athlete!”

“See?” Shane says. “If he lived with us, we’d have no snacks. This way, you get all the snacks in Montreal to yourself.”

Airi nods slowly. She seems to accept this, or at least, she accepts that the negotiation is over. She picks up her fork and stabs a piece of chicken.

“Okay,” she says. “But he can still visit? For the hidden Mickeys?”

Shane looks at Ilya. The Alpha is looking back at him, waiting, stripping Shane bare.

“Yeah,” Shane says softly. “He can visit.”

They end up watching Lilo & Stitch.

It’s such  a small thing. Parents watch movies with their kids all the time. But Shane can count on one hand the number of times they’ve done this—all three of them, together, in the same room, without ten other people present.

He doesn’t even remember agreeing to this. He remembers Airi saying something about wanting to watch a movie. He remembers Ilya standing up from the table, clearing the plates. He remembers following them both into the living room, his brain still stuck on the conversation at dinner—Are you coming home with us?—like a record skipping.

Now he’s on the couch. A massive, L-shaped sectional with Airi sprawled between them, her head in Shane’s lap, her legs kicked up onto Ilya’s thighs. She’s clutching her Rapunzel doll like it’s a flotation device. Ilya already gave her a warm bath while Shane loaded the dishwasher and tried very hard not to think about anything.

The movie is arguably the worst possible movie for two closeted ex-boyfriends co-parenting a secret child to watch. His daughter picked the movie, scrolling through the Disney+ menu. She’d paused on Frozen, considered Moana, then landed on the little blue alien and the girl with the tragic backstory.

Onscreen, Nani is explaining to the social worker that her sister is her only family now. That they’re trying. That it’s hard but they’re making it work. The social worker looks skeptical, he’s full of concerns about stability and appropriate guardianship.

Shane runs his fingers through Airi’s hair. It’s soft, still damp from the bath. She purrs, pressing her face deeper into his stomach.

“This part is sad,” she murmurs, not looking away from the screen.

“Yeah,” Shane drawls. “It is.”

“But it gets happy,” Airi insists, like she needs to reassure him. Like she’s the parent and he’s the one who needs comforting. “At the end. They get to stay together.”

Shane’s throat closes. He doesn’t look at Ilya. He can feel him there, across the couch, his hand resting on Airi’s ankle, his thumb moving in slow circles. The glow from the TV paints everything in blues and purples, making the whole scene feel like something out of a dream. Or a memory Shane isn’t supposed to have.

Nani is trying to find a job. Lilo is trying to be good. Stitch is trying not to destroy everything he touches. It’s a story about a broken family held together by sheer will and the refusal to give up, even when the universe is screaming that they should. Shane feels a phantom ulcer developing.

He stares at the TV, aggressively not looking at Ilya. The credits roll, but neither of them moves to reach for the remote. The silence in the room unfurls awkwardly.

Shane looks down at his daughter. She’s out cold. The day’s manic energy has finally crashed, leaving her slack-jawed and soft. His thumb traces the curve of her cheekbone, the slope of her nose.

She looks like him.

It’s something Shane has noticed since the beginning, since the first time he held her in the hospital and thought, Oh God, she has my nose. The slight, ski-slope upturn at the end. She has his dark hair, thick and prone to tangling. She has the shape of his mouth and his freckles. She is entirely Hollander, except for the eyes. When they’re open, they are all Ilya—that impossible, shifting hazel that looks gold under the sunlight.

She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and she’s half him and half Ilya, and sometimes the weight of that is so overwhelming he has to look away.

“She looks like you.”

His gaze snaps up.

Ilya is watching him. He’s slouched in the corner of the sectional, legs stretched out, one arm thrown over the back of the sofa.

“What?” Shane mumbles, though he heard him perfectly.

“Airi,” Ilya says.

“Well, she got your eyes,” Shane says, keeping his voice low to avoid waking the sleeping monarch. “And your volume control issues. And your inability to walk past a mirror without checking yourself out.”

“She has my eyes,” Ilya concedes with a crooked smile. “But the rest? Is you, Shane. She has your face. She has your... worrying.”

“She doesn’t worry.”

“She worries about the hidden Mickeys,” Ilya points out. “She worries if Anya is lonely. She worries if the fireworks will be too loud. She is little Hollander.”

Shane looks back down at his daughter. “I guess.”

“Is good thing,” Ilya says softly.

“Why?”

“Because,” Ilya says slowly. “When I look at her... I see you. Even when you are not there. I see you.”

A nameless emotion stabs at Shane’s chest. It hurts. Every single thing he has missed, every thing he has hidden, every moment he stole and buried—it all hurts. He looks back down at Airi, at the rise and fall of her chest. At the miracle he almost didn't meet.

Five years ago, he sat in a clinic exam room with Ilya and asked a doctor to make the problem go away because he was terrified that he would cease to exist if she began.

“I almost didn't...” Shane starts. The words stick in his throat like glass.

“Shane,” Ilya says.

“I was so scared.” The confession spills out, five years late. “Ilya. I was so scared. I thought... I thought if I had her, I’d lose everything. I’d lose hockey. I’d lose the respect. I’d become a joke. A biological anomaly.”

“You are not joke,” Ilya says firmly.

“I know,” Shane says, his vision blurring, tears threatening to spill. “But I didn't know then. And I... I almost... I look at her now, and I think about that day in the clinic. And I feel sick. I feel like... how could I? How could I ever have thought that was the answer?”

“But you didn't,” Ilya says.

“I almost did.”

“Almost doesn't count,” Ilya says. He reaches out, and for a second, a heart-stopping second, Shane thinks he’s going to touch him. But Ilya’s hand lands on Airi’s ankle. “You kept her. You were terrified, and you kept her. That is what matters.”

“Ilya—”

“You are good father, Shane,” Ilya says, looking him dead in the eye, stripping away the defenses. “You are best father. You worry because you love her. You protect her. You give her everything.”

“I kept the truth about her a secret,” Shane says, the guilt that lives in the depths of his heart finally finding a voice in the dark.

Ilya tears his gaze away, focusing on a spot on the carpet, refusing to let Shane see whatever emotion is happening in his face.

“And I’m sorry,” Shane says. He’s never said it. Not like this. “I’m sorry I made you hide.”

“We did what we had to do,” Ilya says. “To survive.”

Shane swallows the tangle of emotions rising in his throat—anger, confusion, hurt, bile. Unforgivably, he feels like he might cry. He wants to grab Ilya by the shoulders of that stupid, soft t-shirt. He wants to say, I did it for us.

But the words turns to ash on his tongue. Because they aren't "us" anymore. They are just two people sharing a daughter who bridges the gap between their separate lives.

Ilya stands up, leaning down to scoop Airi up. He slides his arms under her knees and her back, lifting her.

Shane’s lap feels suddenly  cold without her warmth.

"I take her up," Ilya says. He holds her close, her head falling naturally into the crook of his neck. "You get lights?"

Shane nods. "Yeah. I’ll get the lights."

"Okay," Ilya says, carrying their daughter upstairs.  "Goodnight, Shane."

"Goodnight.”

Shane is staring at the blank TV screen, his reflection a dark, distorted shape in the glass that looks suspiciously like a man having a midlife crisis at thirty-three. His phone starts buzzing on the coffee table, vibrating aggressively against the wood.  Shane glances at it. A name flashes on the screen, accompanied by a photo of a woman flipping off the camera while wearing a sheet mask and holding a glass of champagne.

Rose Landry.

Shane picks it up with the enthusiasm of a man picking up a live grenade. He accepts the FaceTime call, bracing himself. Rose’s face fills the screen. She is wearing green silk pajamas, and her hair is wrapped in a silk turban that looks architectural.

“Where is she?” Rose demands, skipping the hello entirely. “Where is my goddaughter? I have purchased a tiara. It has actual Swarovski crystals. If she is asleep, wake her up. I need to see show it to her.”

“She’s asleep, Rose,” Shane says tiredly. “She walked ten miles today. She passed out before her head hit the pillow. She is currently comatose.”

“Unacceptable,” Rose says, examining her nails. “Tell her Auntie Rose demands an audience. Also, tell her I saw the pictures you posted. The Rapunzel braid? Iconic. She has better hair than I do, and I pay a team of people to maintain mine.”

“I’ll tell her,” Shane promises. “But I’m not waking her up. Ilya just put her down.”

Rose’s hand pauses mid-air. Her eyebrows shoot up so high they disappear into the towel. “Ilya?” she repeats slowly, her voice dripping with implication. “As in, Ilya Rozanov? As in, the man you have been aggressively avoiding for half a decade? As in, the Russian specter haunting your love life?”

“I haven't been avoiding him,” Shane lies. It is a weak lie. It is a lie that deserves a two-minute minor for unsportsmanlike conduct.

“Shane,” Rose says. “You have avoided him with the dedication of a monk avoiding sin. You have avoided him geographically. You have avoided him emotionally. You have avoided him spiritually. You have practically moved to a different astral plane to avoid him.”

“He’s here,” Shane says, flopping back onto the couch cushions like a sullen teenager. “Mom invited him. It was an ambush. A Yuna Hollander special.”

Rose lets out a low whistle. “Yuna. The woman is a genius. Remind me to send her a fruit basket. Or a bottle of tequila. Or a medal.”

“Send the tequila to me,” Shane groans. “I need it. Intravenously.”

“So,” Rose says, moving closer to the camera, her eyes gleaming with predatory delight. “He’s there. In the house. With you. Right now. Is it terrible? Are you killing each other? Is there blood on the imported marble floors?”

“No,” Shane says. “It’s... fine. That’s the problem. It’s fine. We went to the park today. We rode Dumbo. We ate pretzels. We acted like a family.”

“And that’s bad because?”

“Because we’re not a family, Rose!” Shane sits up in frustration. “We’re two exes who share a kid and a mountain of unresolved trauma the size of Everest. Pretending otherwise is just... it’s torture. It’s like playing house in a building that’s already burned down to the studs.”

Rose softens slightly. The shark-like gleam in her eyes fades into something like pity. “Oh, honey. And how does Ilya feel about that?”

Shane thinks about the way Ilya looked at him on the couch. When I look at her, I see you.

“I don’t know,” Shane says, his gaze slipping away. “We don’t talk about it. We talk about hockey. We talk about logistics. We talk about Airi.”

“Of course you don’t.” Rose sighs. “Okay. New topic. Tell me something good. What have you guys been doing? Give me content.”

Shane tells her about the day. About Airi dragging them through the park, about the princesses and the churros. Rose laughs at all the right parts, makes exaggerated gasping sounds when he describes Airi’s meltdown over the Rapunzel braid.

“She’s perfect,” Rose says. “I need to see her soon. When are you back in Montreal?”

“Next week.”

“I’m in Toronto for a shoot in two weeks. I’ll drive down. We’ll do brunch. You, me, and my goddaughter. Mimosas for us, pancakes for her.”

“She’d love that.”

There’s a pause. Rose is still watching him, her expression shifting into something more serious.

“So,” she says carefully. “Anything else happen today? Anything you want to talk about? Anything involving the six-foot-three elephant in the room?”

“Airi asked him to come home with us,” Shane whispers.

Rose goes silent. “Oh.”

“Yeah. At dinner. She asked why he can't live with us. I had to tell her it’s because Ilya has his own house. I had to sell her on the idea of ‘two castles.’ It felt like lying.”

“It was lying,” Rose points out gently. “Look. You have a week. Use it. Talk to him. Or don't. But stop pretending you’re okay with this half-life you’re living. It’s boring. It’s tragic. It’s beige.”

“Ilya invited me to come back to the summer camp,” Shane says suddenly. He instantly regrets it because now Rose won’t let him get away without telling her the details. “Next month. They need a coach for the twelve-to-fourteen group.”

Rose sits up straighter. “The Irina Foundation camp?”

“Yeah.”

“Shane, that’s great! You should go.”

“I said no.”

She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Why? Why do you hate happiness?”

“Because I have work!” Shane protests. “I have training! I have the jersey launch! I have obligations!”

“Bullshit,” Rose says calmly. “You have assistants who handle the launch. You can train anywhere.”

Shane goes silent. He looks at Rose—Rose, who has listened to him cry over Ilya more times than she deserves. Rose, who knows him too well. She can smell his excuses from three thousand miles away.

“Shane,” she says gently. “What’s wrong?”

She’s the only person outside his family—besides Ilya and Hayden—who knows the whole truth. Who knows about the pregnancy, about the breakup, about the years of hiding and lying and pretending. She’s the one who never once made him feel like he was a freak or a failure or a biological impossibility.

Shane lifts his hand and points it to his chest, right over his heart. “Here,” he says quietly. “It’s… it’s in here. The thing that’s wrong. It’s in here, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

Rose’s face screws up in sympathy. “Oh, Shane.”

“I can’t go back to Ottawa,” Shane says. “I can’t be in his city, in his house, pretending that we’re just friends. Co-parents. Whatever the fuck we’re supposed to be. Because the truth is, Rose, I’m still in love with him. I’ve been in love with him for fifteen years, and it doesn’t matter that we’re not together anymore. It doesn’t matter that I ruined everything. I look at him and I still feel like I’m eighteen years old, standing in a hotel room, realizing that the person I hate most in the world is the only person I’ve ever wanted.”

He takes a stuttering breath. “If I go back... if I let myself want it again... and it doesn't work? I won't survive it, Rose. I barely survived leaving him the first time.”

“So don't leave,” Rose says simply. “Stay.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is,” Rose insists. “You love him. He loves you. Everything else is just logistics. Stop hiding, Shane. You’ve been hiding for five years. You hide behind your schedule. You hide behind your diet. You hide behind your reputation. And look where it’s got you. You’re sitting alone there, miserable, while the love of your life is sleeping down the hall.”

“He’s in the guest room,” Shane mumbles.

“Who cares where he sleeps! He’s there! The media said he’s now single. He reached out. He invited you into his world. And you slammed the door in his face because you’re afraid of what? Getting hurt? Newsflash, Shane: You’re already hurting. You’ve been hurting for five years.”

Shane shakes his head. “I don't know if he loves me. Not anymore.”

“He’s cooking dinner for you,” Rose says dryly. “He invited you to his camp. Men like Ilya Rozanov don't do that for ‘friends.’ They do it for the people they want to keep.”

Shane looks at the phone, at Rose’s expectant face. He feels cornered by the truth he’s been trying to outrun.

“What if I’m wrong?” Shane asks. “What if I go, and he just... wants a co-parent? What if he just wants help with the camp? What if I’m reading into it because I’m desperate?”

Rose looks at him with a pity that burns. “Then you’ll know,” she says softly. “And you can move on. For real this time. But right now? You’re stuck. And you’re dragging Airi into the quicksand with you.”

That hits home. Airi.

Shane stalls. He tries to find the words, the logic, the defense. But there isn't one. There is only the ache.

“Shane. Go get him back.”

Rose hangs up.

He drops the phone on the cushion and puts his face in his hands. The silence of the room rushes back in, louder than before.

Go get him back.

If only it were that easy. If only he could just walk down the hall, knock on the door, and say, I made a mistake. I’m still yours. Are you still mine?

But he can’t. Because he’s Shane Hollander. And he doesn't know how to do anything without a plan, a strategy, a guarantee of victory. And with Ilya, there are no guarantees. There is only the terrifying, exhilarating possibility of falling.

Again.

To be continued…

Chapter Text

Montreal, Quebec
18 December 2020

Ilya gets as far as the parking garage, his hand on the door handle of his car, before his legs simply stop working. The engine is purring, the heat is blasting, turning the cabin into a cocoon against the Montreal winter. The seat is warm beneath him, the leather supple. All he has to do is put the car in reverse, pull out onto the street, and drive the two hours back to Ottawa.

Back to his life.

Back to his team.

Yet he cannot do it.

Shane’s words keep replaying in his head, a broken record scratching the same groove over and over. I want it gone. I want it gone. I want it gone.

He has every right to be angry. But underneath the anger, buried deep beneath his pride, there is something that feels like grief, even though nothing has died yet.

Yet.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket. His thumb hovers over Shane’s name, the contact photo a blurry picture of Shane laughing at a team dinner three years ago. He doesn't tap it. He can’t call. He has nothing to offer but more pressure. Instead, Ilya opens the browser. He stares at the search bar and types, his fingers clumsy and thick: Atavistic Reversion Alpha pregnancy.

The results are sparse. Most of them are medical journals, dense blocks of text hidden behind paywalls, or weird conspiracy forums that Ilya immediately closes because he does not need to read about alien DNA right now. Finally, he finds a PDF from a university in Sweden. A case study.

He zooms in, squinting against the glare of the screen.

...extremely rare resurgence of dormant reproductive traits... typically triggered by intense histocompatibility matches (see: True Mates)...

True Mates. He almost laughs. Of course. Of fucking course.

He scrolls down, reading faster.

...Clinical presentation includes severe nausea (Hyperemesis Gravidarum), heightened olfactory sensitivity, nesting behaviors, and rapid hormonal fluctuation...

...Risks...

...Due to the lack of structural support in the Alpha physiology during the first trimester, the risk of miscarriage is significantly higher than in Omega pregnancies. Stress, physical trauma, and lack of pheromonal support from the sire can trigger rejection of the fetus...

Lack of pheromonal support.

"Fuck," Ilya mutters under his breath.

He drops the phone into the cupholder and rubs his face, dragging his hands down his stubble, feeling the scrape of it against his palms. He is the villain. He is the one who ruins things. And he is doing it again. He is letting his pride, his hurt feelings, get in the way of the one thing his biology is screaming at him to do: Protect.

Ilya puts the car in drive.

As he enters the grocery store, he sees a guy stocking shelves who takes one look at Ilya’s coat and decides his minimum wage isn't enough to deal with whatever is happening on Ilya's face.

Ilya grabs a basket and stalks the aisles.

Bland, the internet said. Saltines. Ginger.

He grabs two boxes of premium saltines. He grabs a box of plain water crackers. He finds the beverage aisle and loads four large bottles of ginger ale into the basket, the glass clinking together. He adds a six-pack of electrolyte water because Shane looked gray, dehydrated, his lips chapped.

He turns the corner and almost walks into a display. He stops. He is in the baby aisle. His heart does a painful flip in his chest as he stares at the jars of pureed peas. He looks at the stacks of diapers. He looks at a small, soft yellow blanket with ducks on it.

Is a baby for me, his alpha brain chants. Mine. And yours. Ours.

Ilya grits his teeth until his jaw aches. He turns away. He cannot buy the duck blanket. If he buys it, he will have a breakdown in the middle of the cereal aisle, and someone will take a picture, and Rozanov Cries Over Ducks will be the meme of the year.

He goes to the pharmacy section instead and buys Tylenol. He also buys a heating pad, because he remembers the way Shane was shivering in the passenger seat, trying to hide it. He adds a bag of those peppermint candies Shane always has in his pockets during playoffs.

The cashier, a bored teenager with blue streaks in her hair, scans the items with agonizing slowness.

"Late night?" she asks, yawning.

"Flu," Ilya grunts.

"Sucks."

"Yes."

He drives back to Shane’s building. He parks in the loading zone, hazard lights flashing. He takes the bags and walks into the lobby. The night concierge, a guy named Angelo who Shane tips excessively at Christmas, looks up from his tablet. Angelo knows Ilya. The beta has seen Ilya do the walk of shame out of this building at 6:00 A.M. more times than Ilya cares to count, usually wearing yesterday’s clothes and a satisfied smirk.

Tonight, there is no smirk.

"Mr. Rozanov?" Angelo asks, surprised. "I thought you left."

"I forgot something," Ilya lies smoothly. He puts the bags on the counter. "Angelo. You are good man. Discreet man."

"I try, sir."

"Shane is sick," Ilya says. "Very sick. He is sleeping. I do not want to wake him with buzzer." He slides a hundred-dollar bill across the marble counter. "You take this up. You leave it outside his door. Do not knock. Just leave it."

Angelo looks at the money, then at the bags, then at Ilya’s face. "Is he okay?"

"He will be," Ilya says. Shane has to be. "Make sure he gets it when he wakes up."

"Of course."

Ilya nods. He turns to leave, the heavy glass doors swinging open automatically. Then he stops. The instinct claws at him again, demanding insurance.

"And Angelo?"

"Yes?"

"If he... if he calls down. If he needs doctor. You call me. Before you call ambulance. You call me."

Angelo’s eyes widen slightly, realizing the gravity of the situation, but he nods. "Understood."

Ilya walks back out into the cold. He gets back in the Range Rover. He should go to a hotel. He should drive back to Ottawa. He has practice tomorrow. He has a life that does not involve sitting in a parking garage in Montreal like a stalker.

He reclines the driver’s seat. He pulls his coat tighter around himself, burying his nose in the collar, wishing it smelled like Shane. He locks the doors.

He isn't going anywhere.

He pulls up the PDF on his phone again. Heightened olfactory sensitivity. Ideally, the article says, the Alpha should scent the Omega’s bedding, their clothes, to create a 'safe zone.' To lower cortisol. To tell the carrying body that it is not alone.

Ilya looks at the dashboard. He looks at his own jacket then takes off his scarf. It’s a red cashmere, soft and worn. He wraps it around his hand, pressing it to the scent gland on his wrist, rubbing it against his neck until the fabric is saturated with his scent. He stays there all night, clutching the scarf, guarding the building like a sentinel, waiting for the sun to rise.

The dream is a sanctuary.

Usually, Ilya’s nights are a chaotic assault of noise—the scrape of blades on scarred ice, the roar of a sold-out arena, the shouting of his father. But this dream is silent, wrapped in the cotton-wool stillness of heavy snowfall.

He is at the cottage. The lake is frozen solid, a vast expanse of white stretching out to the tree line. It should be biting cold, but Ilya feels a deep, radiating heat in his chest. He is sitting on the edge of the dock, skates dangling, and his arms are full.

A heartbeat against his own.

He looks down.

It is a baby. Not a faceless dream-construct, but a solid, undeniable reality. She is wrapped in the yellow duck blanket he was too cowardly to buy. She has a tuft of dark, stubborn hair that sticks up in the back—Shane’s hair—and when she blinks up at him, her eyes are a startling, shifting gold.

Mine, his Alpha purrs. Ours.

“You’re going to drop her,” a voice says.

Ilya looks up. Shane is standing on the ice. He has shed his armor—no shoulder pads, no helmet, no Captain Serious scowl. He is wearing a brown beanie and a smile that reaches his eyes. He looks rested. The Shane in his dreams is always softer than the real one.

“I played hockey for fifteen years,” Ilya tells him. He lifts the bundle slightly, showing her off to her sire. “I have good hands.”

"She’s tiny," Shane says, gliding over. He stops between Ilya’s knees, leaning down to brush a knuckle against the baby’s cheek. "Ilya. She’s so tiny."

"We will feed her," Ilya promises, an oath sworn to the winter air. "We will give her blinis. And maple syrup. She will grow strong."

The baby makes a sound—a soft, bird-like coo—and wraps her tiny hand around Ilya’s thumb. Her grip is a reflex of survival.

"My little wingman," Ilya rumbles.

"You're going to spoil her."

"Yes," Ilya says. "That is the job."

He leans forward to kiss Shane. He can smell him—honeysuckle and rain, the sweet, milky scent of a carrying Alpha. He closes his eyes, leaning into the warmth, into the future, into the pack he never thought he was allowed to keep.

"Stay.”

"Always," Ilya vows.

He opens his eyes.

The world is cruelly gray. Freezing. The world is the interior of a Land Rover that has been turned off for six hours in the brutal heart of a Montreal winter.

Ilya gasps, his body jerking as the cold reality slams into him. The baby in his arms is gone.  The smell of honeysuckle and milk is ripped away, replaced by his own recycled misery. He is curled in the driver’s seat, his neck bent at an agonizing angle, his legs cramped into a pretzel. Condensation has frozen on the inside of the windows, turning the view of the street into a blurry, distorted prison. For a second, he squeezes his eyes shut, trying to drag the dream back by the edges. He reaches for the phantom sensation of that small hand wrapped around his thumb.

Please, he thinks, a desperate, pathetic prayer to a universe that stopped listening to him years ago. Just one more minute. Let me stay in the nest.

But the dream is dead. It dissolved the moment he woke up, leaving a crater where his heart used to be.

He looks at the dashboard clock. 7:14 A.M.

The penthouse windows are dark. Or maybe the curtains are just drawn against the morning. Shane is up there. Shane is waking up. Is he still sick? Is the nausea curling in his stomach? Is he eating the crackers Ilya bought, or did he throw them in the trash because they smelled like the man who ruined his life?

Ilya looks down at his hand that is still clutching the red cashmere scarf. He must have held onto it while he slept, burying his nose in it like a child with a security blanket, searching for a scrap of scent that isn't there. He lifts it to his face now, inhaling deeply, desperate for a hit of Shane, but all he smells is his own scent and the bitter cold.

The wind on the rooftop of the parking garage is not so much wind as it is a sentient creature made of ice and spite. It whips around the concrete pillars, searching for exposed skin, for weakness. Ilya does not feel it.

He is numb.

He has been sitting in the driver’s seat of the Range Rover for six hours and forty-three minutes. He knows this because he has checked the dashboard clock approximately four hundred times. He has also received seven text messages from his teammates and one increasingly frantic voicemail from Coach Wiebe asking if he has been kidnapped by a French separatist group or if he is simply dead.

Are you alive? Troy texted at 9:02 A.M.

Alive. Personal emergency, Ilya typed back. Cover for me.

He watches the elevator doors from the outside. Every time they slide open, his heart performs a painful, frantic stutter-step against his ribs. He is tethered to this spot by a biological imperative that is stronger than his pride, stronger than his logic, stronger even than the crushing weight of Shane’s rejection. His Alpha is pacing inside his chest, howling at the locked door of the penthouse.

Protect, it screams. Protect the pack. Protect the mate. Protect the pup.

"Shut up," Ilya says to the empty car.

The elevator doors open again. This time, it is not a businessman with a briefcase or a woman walking a poodle. It is Shane. He is wearing a black wool, wrapped tightly around his frame. A brown scarf is wound up to his nose. He is wearing sunglasses, even though the sky is the color of a bruise.  He steps out onto the concrete, the wind immediately assaulting him. He hunches his shoulders, shivering violently, and starts walking toward his Audi.

Ilya opens the car door.

Shane freezes. He turns, slowly, as if his neck hurts. Even behind the sunglasses, Ilya can see the shock register on his face.

Ilya steps out. His legs are stiff, protesting the hours of confinement. He walks around the hood of the Rover, stopping ten feet away.

"You are still here," Shane says.

"Yes," Ilya says.

Shane sniffles. It is a wet, miserable sound. He lifts a hand to wipe at his nose, knocking his sunglasses askew. "I thought you left. You said you were going home."

"I lied."

The wind whips Shane’s dark hair across his forehead. He looks exhausted, gray-faced and hollowed out. "Have you... have you been here all night?"

"Yes."

"In the car?"

"Yes."

Shane makes a small, choked noise. "You’re an idiot. You’ll get hypothermia."

"I am Russian," Ilya says automatically. "I do not get cold."

It is a lie. He is freezing. His bones feel like ice. But looking at Shane—shivering, miserable, pregnant their child—the cold is the least of his problems.

"Did you eat?" Ilya asks.

Shane shakes his head. "No. I couldn't."

"Did you take the crackers?"

"Angelo gave them to me," Shane says. "And the ginger ale. And the heating pad." He looks down at his sneakers. "Thank you."

"Do not thank me," Ilya says roughly. "I did not do it for you. I did it for..." He trails off. He cannot say it. He cannot say the baby. Not when they are standing in a parking garage on the way to a clinic that will turn the baby into a memory.

"We should go," Ilya says instead. "You will be late."

Shane looks up, startled. "Go where?"

"To the appointment."

Shane flinches. He takes a step back, pressing himself against the door of his Audi. "You... you’re coming?"

"Yes."

"Why?" Shane’s voice cracks. "Why would you come? You want to... you want to keep it. You hate this. You hate me for doing this."

"I do not hate you," Ilya says. It is the truth. He wishes he could hate Shane. It would be easier. "And yes. I want to keep. But you have made decision. And I cannot let you go alone. I cannot let you sit in waiting room by yourself."

"Ilya..."

"Get in the car," Ilya says. "I will drive."

"I can drive," Shane argues weakly.

"You are shaking," Ilya points out. "You will crash. Get in."

Shane hesitates. He looks at Ilya, searching for something—judgment? anger?—but Ilya keeps his face blank. Finally, Shane nods. He walks over to the passenger side of the Rover and climbs in.

The drive is silent. Every mile brings them closer to the end. Every mile is a betrayal of the tiny heartbeat he held in his dream. He glances at Shane.

Shane is huddled against the door, staring out the window. He has taken off his sunglasses, revealing eyes that are swollen. He looks like he has been crying for hours.

Ilya reaches into the back seat, blindly groping until his hand finds the red cashmere scarf. He pulls it forward and tosses it into Shane’s lap.

Shane jumps. He looks down at the soft fabric. "What is this?"

"Put it on," Ilya says. "It smells like me."

Shane stares at the scarf. His hands tremble as he picks it up. He lifts it to his face, inhaling shakily. His shoulders drop an inch. The scent of Alpha—of safety, of pack—floods the car, warring with the smell of Shane’s distress.

"Why are you doing this?" Shane whispers into the cashmere. "It just makes it harder."

"Because I am here," Ilya says. "Because even if you do not want this... pack is pack. And I do not leave pack behind."

They pull up to the clinic. It is the same one as yesterday. Sleek. Modern. Discreet. It looks like a place where rich people go to get Botox, not where dreams go to die.  Ilya puts the car in park. He leaves the engine running. He grips the steering wheel, fighting the urge to lock the doors and drive Shane to a cabin in the woods until the baby is born.

"We are here," Ilya says.

Shane doesn't move. He is staring at the building, terrified.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Shane whispers.

"You don't have to," Ilya says. The words slip out before he can stop them. A desperate, last-ditch plea.

"I do," Shane says. "I have to. My career... my life..."

"Is just hockey," Ilya says. "Shane. Is just game."

"It's not just a game to me!" Shane snaps, turning to look at him. "It's who I am! Without it, I'm... I'm nothing."

"You are not nothing," Ilya says fiercely. "You are Shane Hollander. You are smartest person I know. You are kind. You are..."

"Broken," Shane finishes. "I'm broken, Ilya. Alphas aren't supposed to be like this."

"You are not broken."

"I am." Shane unbuckles his seatbelt. "I have to go. Before I lose my nerve." He opens the door. The cold air rushes in.

Ilya watches him get out. He watches Shane stand on the sidewalk, swaying slightly in the wind. He looks so lonely against the gray stone of the building. Ilya turns off the car. He gets out. He walks around to where Shane is standing.

Shane looks at him. Tears are leaking out from under his sunglasses again. "You really want to come in? Watch me... watch me get rid of your child?"

Ilya winces. The words are a knife to the gut. "I want to be with you," he says. "That is all."

Shane lets out a sob. He covers his mouth with his hand, shaking his head. "I can't... I can't ask you to do that. It’s cruel."

"Life is cruel," Ilya says. "We are together. That is less cruel." He reaches out, intending to take Shane’s arm, to guide him inside, to get this over with.

"I had a dream," Shane says.

His hand stops mid-air. "What?"

"Last night," Shane says. He isn't looking at Ilya. He is looking at the dirty slush on the sidewalk. "After you left. I fell asleep on the couch. And I... I had a dream."

Ilya’s heart starts to pound. "About what?"

"A little girl," Shane says. "She was... she was dancing. Standing on your feet. You were holding her hands, and she was standing on your skates, and you were spinning her around on the ice."

Ilya feels the blood drain from his face. The dock. The lake. The baby in his arms.

"She was wearing a yellow blanket," Ilya says.

Shane’s head snaps up. His eyes go wide behind the sunglasses. He rips them off, staring at Ilya with raw, terrified shock. "How did you know that?"

"I saw her too," Ilya says. His voice is shaking. "On the dock. At cottage."

Shane stares at him. The wind howls around them, but Ilya doesn't feel it. He only feels the sudden, crushing weight of hope.

"She had your eyes," Shane says, tears spilling over his cheeks. "Hazel. Like yours."

"She had your hair," Ilya counters, stepping closer. "Stubborn. Like yours."

Shane lets out a half-sob. He presses his hands to his stomach, clutching the wool of his coat. "I can't... I can't do it, Ilya."

"What?"

"I can't.” Shane  looks at the clinic, then back at Ilya, panic rising in his brown eyes. "I thought I could. I thought I could just walk in there and fix it. But she... she was so real. She was dancing with you. And if I go in there..." He chokes. "If I go in there, she never gets to dance."

Ilya closes the distance in two strides. He grabs Shane, pulling him into his chest, wrapping his arms around him so tight it probably hurts.

"Okay," Ilya breathes into Shane’s hair. "Okay. Okay."

Shane collapses against him, sobbing openly now. He buries his face in Ilya’s coat, his hands clutching Ilya’s back. "I'm scared," he wails. "Ilya, I'm so scared. What are we going to do? My career... everyone will know..."

"We figure it out," Ilya promises. He is crying too, hot tears trailing down his cold face, soaking into Shane’s hair. "We figure it out. I promise. I protect you. I protect her."

"I don't want to be a freak," Shane sobs.

"You are not freak," Ilya says, framing Shane’s face with his hands. He wipes the tears away with his thumbs, his touch fierce and tender. "You are miracle."

Shane looks at him, his dark eyes searching Ilya’s face. "You really want this? You're not just... you're not just saying it?"

"I want this more than anything," Ilya says. "More than hockey. More than Cup. I want her. I want you."

Shane takes a shuddering breath. He leans his forehead against Ilya’s. "Okay," he mewls. "Okay. Let's... let's go home."

Golden Oak, Orlando
8 July 2026

The club-house is a short walk from the house—a sprawling building that houses not just the gym but also a pool, a spa, and a dedicated “Family Room” designed for kids to hang out while their parents pretend to be normal wealthy people instead of the neurotic helicopter parents they actually are.

Perfect. Shane can drop Airi off, hit the gym, and burn off some of the anxiety that is currently making his skin feel two sizes too small. Physical exertion is the only coping mechanism he has left that doesn’t involve bourbon or bad decisions.

He waits until 7:30, when Airi finally stirs. She stumbles downstairs in her unicorn pajamas, eyes still heavy with sleep, demanding pancakes in a voice that sounds exactly like Ilya’s when he’s grumpy.

“How about we go to the clubhouse?” Shane offers, crouching down to her level. “They have a special room for kids. Movies. Snacks. You can watch Moana while Daddy works out.”

“Can I have popcorn?”

“Yes.”

“And juice?”

“Yes.”

“And can we get ice cream after?”

Shane sighs. She is her father’s daughter. The negotiation never ends. “We’ll see.”

“That means no,” Airi says, crossing her arms.

“That means we’ll see.” Shane stands up, extending his hand. “Come on. Let’s get you dressed.”

Twenty minutes later, they are walking down the shaded path toward the clubhouse. Airi is wearing a Moana t-shirt and has begrudgingly allowed him to brush her hair into two messy pigtails. She chatters the entire way, telling him about a dream she had involving a talking dolphin and a castle made of ice cream.

Shane walks down the lobby of the Summer clubhouse with Airi in his arms, her other arm clutching a stuffed Hei Hei the rooster that she refused to leave in the house. A reception desk sits to the left, staffed by a woman in a crisp white polo with the Golden Oak logo embroidered on the chest.

“Good morning!” The woman smiles warmly as they approach. Her name tag reads JARA, and her hair is pulled back in a sleek bun that emphasizes high cheekbones and green eyes.“Welcome to the Summerhouse Clubhouse. How can I help you today?”

“Hi.” Shane shifts Airi’s hand to his other side, reaching into his pocket for his membership card. “I’d like to set up my daughter in the Family Room while I use the gym.”

“Of course! We have a wonderful setup this morning.” Jara leans down slightly to smile at Airi. “Hi there, sweetie. What’s your name?”

“Airi,” his daughter shyly says.

“That’s a beautiful name. We have Moana queued up in the theater room, and Chef Marcus made fresh popcorn. Does that sound good?”

Airi looks up at Shane, seeking confirmation. He nods. “Sounds perfect.”

Jara leads them toward the Family Room. It’s a dedicated space for the younger set—plush beanbags, a massive screen, and walls soundproofed against the inevitable shrieks of joy. Shane gets Airi settled in a beanbag chair that swallows her whole. He sets up the movie, arranges her juice box and a bowl of popcorn within easy reach, and kisses the top of her head.

“Daddy’s going to be in the gym,” he tells her. “Right down the hall. Jara is right outside. You stay here, okay?”

“Okay,” Airi says, her eyes already glued to the screen as the Disney castle logo appears. “Bye, Daddy.”

Shane walks out, feeling that parental guilt whenever he leaves Airi. The private gym is empty, as he hoped. It is a sleek, glass-walled space overlooking the lake, filled with top-of-the-line Technogym equipment. He starts with a warm-up, moving through the motions automatically, letting the burn settle into his muscles. Then he moves to the bench press. He loads the bar. 225 lbs. A warm-up weight for him, but enough to feel.

He is on his second set when the door opens.

Shane just keeps pushing the bar up with a steady exhale.

"Form is sloppy, Hollander."

Shane racks the bar with a clang and sits up.

Ilya is standing there. He is wearing a black stringer vest that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. His arms are on full display—thick, corded with muscle, the veins running down his forearms like a roadmap of Shane’s worst decisions. He is wearing headphones around his neck, and he is holding a water bottle.

Shane feels his mouth go dry. It is unfair. It is scientifically unfair for anyone to look like that at 10:00 A.M. on a Friday.

“My form is perfect,” Shane snaps, grabbing his towel to wipe sweat that has suddenly appeared on his forehead. “You’re just jealous of my arch.”

“Is not textbook. Is lazy,” Ilya says, walking past him to the dumbbell rack. He picks up the 50s. “And my arch is better. You cheat the lockout.”

“I don’t cheat.”

“You cheat,” Ilya hums. He sits on the bench opposite Shane, facing him. He starts doing bicep curls. Slow. Controlled. The muscle in his arm bunches and releases, mesmerizing and infuriating.

Shane watches him. He tries not to, but his eyes are traitors. They trace the line of Ilya’s shoulder, the thick column of his neck, the way the black fabric of the vest dips low enough to show the definition of his chest.

And then he sees it.

On Ilya’s left bicep, just below the shoulder. A new tattoo.

Japanese characters.

愛理

Airi.

Shane stares at the ink, black and stark against Ilya’s skin. It’s small, elegant, tucked away in a spot that would be hidden by a jersey but visible every time Ilya lifts his arms. Visible to Shane right now.

Ilya catches him looking. He doesn't stop curling. He just smirks.

“You like?” Ilya asks.

“You got a tattoo,” Shane says, his brain stalling out.

“I have many tattoos.”

“You got her name.”

Ilya pauses at the top of the rep, the muscle straining. “Yes. Got it last month. In Ottawa.” He lowers the weight. “She is part of me. Now she is on me.”

Shane swallows hard. It’s Ilya saying, without words, that he is Airi’s father, that he belongs to her, that she is etched into his skin just as deeply as she is etched into Shane’s heart.

“It’s nice,” Shane manages to say around the lump in his throat.

“I know,” Ilya says. He switches arms. “Now stop staring at guns, Hollander. You make me blush.”

“I am not staring at your guns,” Shane lies, picking up his own weights. “I’m staring at your terrible technique. You’re swinging.”

“Is momentum,” Ilya corrects calmly. “Is dynamic.”

“It’s cheating.”

They work out in parallel for nearly an hour. Shane is doing a final set of shoulder presses when the door opens again. He straightens up, grateful for the interruption, for a chance to break the tension that is threatening to suffocate him.

A woman walks in. She is tall—nearly Shane’s height—with legs that go on for days and skin the color of polished bronze. She is wearing a matching workout set in a pale lavender that looks incredibly good on her curvy figure, and her dark hair is pulled back in a sleek, high ponytail. She pauses, looking around the gym, her gaze landing immediately on Ilya.

Ilya is doing pull-ups now. His back is to the door, the muscles rippling under the thin black vest, the sweat making his skin gleam. He looks like a Greek statue that decided to play hockey.

The woman smiles. A sultry one. She walks over to the water cooler, which happens to be right next to the pull-up bar.

“Hi,” she says, her voice smooth and confident.

Ilya drops down from the bar. He lands lightly, turning around. He looks at her, blinking sweat out of his eyes.

“Hello,” Ilya says politely.

“I’m Anne,” she says, extending a hand. She doesn't look at Shane. He might as well be a piece of gym equipment.

“Ilya,” he says, shaking her hand briefly before letting go. He reaches for his towel.

“I know,” Anne says, her smile widening. “I saw the game against Toronto last season. You were incredible.”

“Thank you,” Ilya says. He wipes his face, then glances at Shane. A quick, unreadable flicker of eyes.

“I didn't expect to see you here,” Anne continues, leaning a hip against the water cooler. She is flirting. It is overt, practiced, and effective. She tilts her head, exposing the long line of her neck. “Are you staying at the resort?”

“Yes,” Ilya lies. “Vacation.”

“Me too,” she says. “I’m here for a week. Solo trip.” She pauses, letting the implication hang in the air. “What brings you to Orlando? Hockey training?”

“Family,” Ilya says.

“Oh.” Her face falls for a fraction of a second, then recovers. “You’re here with your family?”

“Yes.”

She glances around, as if expecting a wife and children to pop out from behind the treadmill. Seeing no one but Shane, she relaxes. “Well,” she says, pulling her phone out of her waistband. “I don't want to interrupt your workout. But... could I get a picture? My brother is a huge fan. He’d die if he knew I met Ilya Rozanov.”

Ilya hesitates. Shane knows he hates the intrusion, the performance of celebrity when he’s trying to exist as a person.

“Sure,” Ilya mutters.

Anne beams. She steps in close—too close—pressing her side against Ilya’s. She holds the phone up high, angling it so her chest is pressed against his arm.

“Smile!” she chirps.

Ilya gives a tight, closed-mouth smile. The camera clicks.

“Thanks,” she says, lowering the phone. She doesn't step back. She stays in his personal space, looking up at him through her long lashes. “You really are bigger in person.”

Shane drops his dumbbells.

The sound is a loud, aggressive CLANG that echoes through the glass room.

Anne jumps. She finally looks at Shane. Her eyes widen slightly, recognizing him.

“Oh!” she says. “Shane Hollander. I didn't see you there.”

“Hard to miss,” Shane says, his voice ice cold. He picks up his towel and walks over. “I’m huge.”

Anne laughs, a tinkling sound. “Right. Sorry. You two are... friends, right? I read about that. The big rivalry that turned into a bromance.”

Bromance.

The word makes Shane want to throw a 45-pound plate through the window.

“Something like that,” Shane says tightly.

“That’s so sweet,” Anne coos. She turns back to Ilya, dismissing Shane again. “Well, if you ever want to escape the... family time... I’m in Villa 4. By the lagoon.” She winks. “I make a great margarita.”

“I am good with family,” Ilya says. “But thank you.”

“Offer stands,” Anne says. She gives his bicep a squeeze—right over the tattoo of Airi’s name—and then saunters out of the gym, hips swaying.

The door clicks shut.

Silence descends.

Shane’s blood is boiling, hot and toxic in his veins. He is jealous. He is so jealous he can taste it, bitter on the back of his tongue. He hates her. He despises  Anne with her long legs and her lavender workout set and her easy, casual flirting.

But mostly, the acid churning in his gut is reserved for himself.

Because he has no right.

He broke up with Ilya. He pushed him away. He is the one who insisted on boundaries, on secrecy, on this half-life they are living. And now he has to pay the price. He has to watch the world flirt with him, seeing Ilya smile at someone else, while Shane stands on the sidelines like a glorified chaperone.

“She was friendly,” Ilya says. He is drinking from his water bottle, watching him over the rim.

“She was hitting on you,” Shane mutters, shooting him a glare. “She practically climbed you like a tree.”

“She wanted picture.”

“She wanted a margarita. In Villa 4.”

Ilya lowers the bottle. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why do you care, Hollander?”

“I don't,” Shane scoffs. “It’s just tacky. In a family gym.”

“Is private gym,” Ilya says. “And she was polite.”

“She touched you.”

“So? I am single. I can be touched.”

A jolt of instinct makes Shane want to flinch, but he wills the reaction away.

Single.

Right. Mikhaela. The breakup. Ilya is free. He can go to Villa 4. He can drink margaritas. He can do whatever—and whoever—he wants.

And Shane? He can go back to the Family Room and watch Moana for the fifth time.

“Right,” Shane says. He feels sick. “Right. You’re single. Do whatever the fuck you want.”

Shane snatches his water bottle from the bench, his fingers gripping the plastic hard enough to make it crackle. He needs to get out. Now. Before the buzzing static in his brain takes over and he does something catastrophic. Like pivoting on his heel and driving his fist into Ilya’s arrogant, beautiful jaw.

He heads for the door, his stride choppy, fast. He is almost free.

Scuff.

The sound of a sneaker on the rubberized floor. Behind him. Close.

Shane stops dead. He can feel Ilya’s gaze burning into the back of his neck. He glances over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing into slits.

“I change too,” Ilya says nonchalantly, following him. “Workout is done.”

Shane ignores him and walks into the locker room. It is small, luxurious, and thankfully empty. Shane goes to his locker, ripping the door open. He grabs his fresh clothes—jeans, a polo shirt—and starts stripping off his sweaty gear.

He pulls his shirt off over his head, throwing it into his gym bag. He is angry at the image that flashed in his mind when Anne touched Ilya’s arm.

He thought about Ilya’s rut. The weeks when Ilya disappears. When he needs release.

Who does he spend it with?

Does he call Mikhaela? Does he find someone like Anne? Does he spend days in bed with some faceless Omega, knotting them, filling them, while Shane sits in Montreal and pretends he doesn't care?

The thought eats him alive.

Heat flares low in his gut with the ghost of a memory: legs wrapped around a waist, a mouth biting into a shoulder, a knot locking him down and filling him. He can feel the slick. It gathers, shamefully, sliding between his asscheeks. He is an Alpha. He shouldn't be slicking up just because his ex-boyfriend is breathing the same oxygen. He shouldn't feel his hole pulsing, empty and aching, begging to be stretched. But his body remembers the invasion. His body misses the invasion.

Ilya is changing a few feet away.

Shane discreetly watches him in the mirror. Ilya has taken off the black vest. His back is a landscape of muscle. Shane knows every inch of that back. He knows the spot under the shoulder blade where Ilya is ticklish. The sweat gleams on Ilya’s skin, sliding down the deep groove of his spine, pooling at the waistband of his shorts.

Shane wants to lick it off.

He clenches his hands at his sides, fighting the itch to grab Ilya’s throat. He wants to shove him back against the metal lockers, letting the loud clang announce their collision. He wants to rip those sweatpants down and sink onto Ilya’s cock right here, taking the knot just as he used to. His teeth ache to bite over that tattoo of Airi’s name and remind Ilya who gave him that daughter.

Fill me, his body weeps. Claim me again.

“You are quiet,” Ilya’s voice cuts through the haze.

Shane struggles to step into his jeans, the denim rough against his sensitized skin. “Just thinking.”

“About Anne?”

Shane zips his jeans. He turns to face Ilya. The Alpha is shirtless, holding a clean t-shirt in his hands. He is looking at Shane with a steady, unblinking gaze.

“I’m not thinking about her,” he says briskly. “Unlike you.”

“What you want me to do, Hollander? Push her? I said I was with family.”

“Perfect shield,” Shane smiles bitterly. 

The shirt hangs from Ilya’s hand, forgotten. “Is that what this is?” he asks. “Are you jealous?”

His eyes drop to Ilya’s arm. To the tattoo.

Airi.

The black ink stands out against the flushed skin of Ilya’s bicep. Right there. That’s where she put her hand. That’s where that Omega touched him.

Mine, his instincts scream. You bred me. You knotted me. You don't get to let strangers touch the ink that bears our pup's name.

“Fuck off,” Shane snaps, grabbing his bag. He shoulders past Ilya. “I don’t give a shit who you flirt with, Rozanov. But don't you dare do it in front of our daughter, or I’ll kill you.”

He quickly walks out of the locker room, out of the gym, back to the Family Room. He expects to find Airi glued to the screen, mesmerizing herself with singing oceanic voyagers. Instead, the beanbag chair is empty.

His pulse spikes, before he spots her near the reception desk.

Jara is there, rocking gently on her heels. In her arms, she holds a baby—a boy, perhaps a year old, with cheeks like risen dough and a shock of blond fuzz on his head. Airi stands on her tiptoes, her hands clasped behind her back, leaning in as if the child were a rare exhibit in a museum.

“Gentle,” Jara murmurs, smiling as Airi reaches out a finger to poke the baby’s sock-clad foot.

“I’m being gentle,” Airi says dutifully. She looks gigantic next to the infant, her limbs long and gangly, her baby fat melting away into the lean athleticism of a growing girl.

“Airi,” he calls out.

She spins around, her face lighting up, but she doesn’t run to him immediately. She points frantically at the bundle in Jara’s arms.

“Daddy! Look! It’s a baby!”

“I see,” Shane says, walking over.

Airi rushes to her him and grabs his hand, tugging him closer. “Daddy, look at his hands. They’re tiny.”

The baby blinks at him, drooling slightly, his fist opening and closing around a fold of Jara’s polo shirt. A visceral memory washes over Shane when Airi was that small, the terrifying fragility of her spine against his forearm, the way she used to smell like milk and powder and newness. It feels like yesterday.

“He belongs to the guests in Villa 5,” Jara explains softly. “Mom is in the spa, Dad is on a call. He was getting fussy, so we’re going for a walk.”

“He’s cute,” Shane says.

“Daddy, up,” Airi demands, lifting her arms.

He scoops her up. She immediately turns to wave at the baby.

“Bye, baby,” Airi coos. Then she turns her hazel eyes on Shane, her expression shifting from adoration to determination. “Daddy. I want one.”

“One what?”

“A baby,” she says, as if ordering a side of fries. “A baby brother. Like him.”

Shane’s stomach drops. He briefly thinks of Hayden. His best-friend has four of these. Four. How is he not dead? Shane is barely keeping his head above water with one, and Hayden is apparently running a small militia.

“Airi, no,” Shane says, speeding up his walk toward the exit. “That’s... that’s not how it works. You can’t just order a baby.”

“Why not?” She pouts, her lower lip trembling dangerously. “I have money. The Tooth Fairy gave me five dollars.”

“It’s not about money,” he says. “We are not having a baby. It’s impossible.”

“But I want one!”

“Airi, stop,” Shane says, his voice dropping to that firm, serious tone that usually works on rookies but has a zero percent success rate with his daughter. “The answer is no.”

She throws her head back, letting out a loud wail that likely registers on seismic monitors in downtown Orlando.

“NO!” she screams, thrashing against his hold. “I want a brother! It’s not fair! Tommy has a brother! I want it too!”

“Airi, that is enough,” Shane hisses, mortified as heads turn in the lobby. He tries to adjust his grip, but she is a squirming eel of fury, kicking her legs. “Stop it right now.”

“No!” she shrieks. “I want baby!”

The glass doors of the gym slide open.

Ilya stands there. He has showered quickly; his hair is wet and dark, curling over his forehead, and he wears fresh sweats and a round-neck olive green t-shirt. His mouth curls down at the corners as he takes in the scene—Shane struggling with a screaming child, Jara looking sympathetic but helpless, the baby starting to whimper in response to the noise.

“Hollander,” Ilya says, his voice cutting through Airi’s screams. “Why is she screaming?”

Airi stops mid-wail. She hiccups, tears streaming down her face, and twists her body violently toward him.

“Papa!” she sobs, reaching out with desperate, grasping hands. “Papa, save me!”

Ilya gathers her up against his broad chest, one large hand splaying over the back of her head to cradle her. Airi buries her face in his neck, her small shoulders shaking.

“Chto sluchilos, myshonok?” Ilya murmurs. What happened, little mouse?

Airi sniffles, pulling back to look at him with tragic, wet eyes. She whispers something in his ear, her hand cupping her mouth to ensure secrecy.

Shane stands there, arms empty and aching, feeling a foolish, childish pang of exclusion. Ilya and Airi are a closed circuit, they both speak a language he doesn’t understand, sharing secrets he isn't privy to. He can do nothing but scowls at the floor.

Meanwhile, Ilya listens, nodding. Then, he lifts his head and stares Shane down.

Shane feels a treacherous heat creep up his neck. He knows exactly what she told him. He clears his throat. “Airi,” he says, trying to sound authoritative despite the fact that he is currently losing a stare-down with his ex. “You don’t need a baby brother. You already have Anya.”

Airi kicks her legs against Ilya’s stomach, her face crumpling again. “Anya is a dog!” she wails. “She eats her own poop! I want a baby!”

Ilya’s lips twitch. He looks down at the demon child in his arms, then back at Shane, one eyebrow raised in silent judgment of his negotiation skills.

Shane lets out a long, ragged exhale. “You deal with her,” he mutters, waving a dismissive hand at them. “She got the attitude from you.”

“She got drama from you,” Ilya counters, but he’s smiling a little. He bounces Airi gently. “Okay, okay. No more crying. We go get ice cream. Ice cream fixes everything.”

“Ice cream?” Airi sniffles. “Chocolate?”

“Double chocolate,” Ilya promises.

Shane watches them walk out, Airi’s head resting on Ilya’s shoulder, the request for a sibling temporarily forgotten in the face of sugar. He looks at the empty doorway, and for a second, letting himself imagine it. Another child. 

A boy with Ilya’s curls and Shane’s brown eyes. A pack of four instead of three.

He immediately pushes the thought away.

It hurts too much.

The villa’s pool is a glowing incision of turquoise cutting into the humid, heavy darkness of the Florida night. Shane floats on his back, the water lapping against his ears, muffling the distant, rhythmic boom of theme park fireworks. Above him, the sky bruises red and gold, but there’s a persistent, low-level hum under his skin that the cool water refuses to soothe.

Shane dives, letting the silence swallow him. He glides through the illuminated depths, a temporary suspension of the gravity that feels increasingly heavy on his bones. When he breaks the surface at the shallow end, shaking the chlorine-heavy hair from his eyes, his breath hitches.

“Nice form.”

The voice comes from the shadows of the patio, wrapping around Shane’s spine before he even sees the speaker.

Shane wipes his eyes. Ilya stands there, leaning against a column with the casual, predatory grace. He wears only cream sweatpants, low-slung on his hips, the V of his pelvic muscles disappearing into the fabric. His chest is broad in the moonlight, a landscape Shane’s fingers itch to map.

“I thought you were asleep,” Shane says, wading toward the steps. The water drags at his thighs. “Did Airi go down okay?”

“She fought,” Ilya says, pushing off the column to walk to the edge. “She wanted to wait for you. I told her Daddy was being a fish.”

Shane climbs out. Water sluices off his body, soaking his swim trunks, dripping onto the porous patio stones. He feels violently exposed under the weight of Ilya’s gaze. The Alpha isn’t just looking; he is drinking him in. Ilya’s eyes track a droplet rolling down the plane of Shane’s chest, over the ridges of his abs, darker than the night around them. The look is a physical caress, heavy and heated, making Shane’s scent spike with involuntary distress.

“Here.” Ilya holds out a white towel.

“Thanks.” Shane takes it. Their fingers brush—a static shock of contact that zings up his arm, settling hot in his groin. He ignores it, wrapping the towel tightly around his waist, shivering as the air conditioning from the open door hits his wet skin.

“She asked about the baby again,” Ilya says quietly.

Shane stiffens, clutching the terry cloth like armor. “Of course she did.”

“She was very specific,” Ilya continues, his voice rumbling in the humid air. “She wants a brother. She has a name picked out. Nemo. From the movie.”

“She’ll get over it,” Shane snaps, turning toward the glass doors. His heart is beating too fast. “She wanted a pony last year. Kids want things.”

“This is different.” Ilya follows, his presence a wall of heat at Shane’s back. “She is lonely.”

“She has friends in school.”

“She has no pack,” Ilya corrects. “She is an only child. We are her whole world. And we are... split.”

Shane stops in the living room. The artificial chill of the AC raises goosebumps on his arms, but his blood is running hot. He turns slowly.

“So what do you suggest? We get her a puppy? Another one?”

“No. I think we give her what she wants.”

“A baby?”

“Yes.”

“With whom?” The question tears out of Shane’s throat, ragged and bitter. “Are you volunteering? Going to find some nice, soft Omega in Ottawa to carry for you? Maybe Anne from the gym is available.”

Ilya frowns. “Do not bring her into this.” He approaches slowly, crowding Shane’s space.

“Why not?” Shane pushes, the jealousy bursting ugly and corrosive in his chest, souring his own scent. Damn it. “You said it yourself. You’re single. You can do whatever you want. You’re Ilya Rozanov. You probably have a line of Omegas waiting outside your door, desperate to get knocked up by the great Russian superstar.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I think you won’t have any trouble finding someone,” Shane spits, stepping back, though there is nowhere to go but the sofa. “Go for it. Breed someone. Give Airi her brother. Just don't expect me to throw you a baby shower. I’m busy.”

He turns to leave, the need to escape overwhelming. He needs to lock himself in his room, bury his face in a pillow, and scream until this burning, possessive rage burns itself out.

“I do not want anyone else.”

The words are low, lethal in their certainty. Shane freezes. His hand grips the back of the sofa.

“I do not want any random Omega,” Ilya continues. His voice is right behind Shane’s ear now, a warm breath against his damp neck.

“Then what do you want?” Shane whispers, his resolve crumbling.

“I want you, Hollander.”

Shane spins around.

Ilya is right there, looming, his eyes blown wide with a hunger that threatens to devour Shane whole.

“You...” His voice fails him.

“Say you don't want it,” Ilya challenges, his gaze dropping to Shane’s lips.

“If I say no,” Shane taunts, voice trembling, “will you find someone else?”

Ilya reaches out. His large fingers curl around the edge of the towel at Shane’s waist. He gives a sharp, demanding tug. The knot loosens.

“You think I want to knot some stranger when I have you right here? Smelling like this?”

“You said you wanted a baby,” Shane gasps, his breath hitching as the cool air hits his stomach.

“I want our baby.” Ilya tugs again, and the towel falls, pooling in a white heap around Shane’s feet. Shane stands there, shivering, feeling exposed.

Ilya’s gaze drops. It devours the flat expanse of Shane’s stomach, lingering on the faint, silvery stretch marks on his hips—the map of where he carried Airi. His eyes burn lower, noting the way Shane is already hard against the wet fabric of his trunks, betraying him.

"See?" Ilya rasps. "Your body remembers who put a pup in here."

“Fuck you, Rozanov,” Shane breathes, but his hips are already tilting forward, seeking the heat. A betrayal of his own flesh that Ilya catches with a dark, satisfied smirk.

"You are trying," Ilya murmurs, he presses closer, his heavy thigh slotting between Shane's legs, creating a friction that makes Shane's breath stutter. "But your scent tells the truth. You smell sweet. Like you are waiting for me."

Shane tries to step back, but the sofa blocks him. He is trapped, cornered by the one Alpha who knows exactly how to dismantle him. "I'm not waiting for anything," he snaps, though the bite lacks venom. "I'm just... adrenaline. The swim."

"Liar." Ilya’s hand slides from Shane’s waist to his lower belly, his palm broad and scorching against the cool, damp skin. He presses down, rubbing the flat expanse where their daughter once grew. "You are empty. That is why you are so angry. Your womb is crying out to be full again."

"Stop it," Shane gasps, his hands coming up to push at Ilya’s chest, but his fingers curl into the bare skin instead of shoving him away. The contact burns.

Ilya leans down, his lips brushing the shell of Shane’s ear. "You remember how it feels? To be knotted? To feel me pouring my seed into you until you are so full you can't move?"

Shane shudders, a hot flush spreading from his neck to his hairline. His knees feel like water. "Ilya..."

"You want it," Ilya whispers, relentless. He nips at the sensitive cord of Shane's neck, sending a jolt of electricity straight to Shane's groin. "You want me to pin you down and breed you until you are heavy with my pup. You want to waddle around this house, round and ripe, smelling like me. Smelling like my mate."

"I'm not your mate," Shane protests weakly, his head falling back, exposing his throat to Ilya's mouth.

"Then why are you leaking slick for me?" Ilya challenges, his hand dipping lower, his thumb brushing the waistband of Shane's trunks. "Why is your hole twitching, begging for my knot?"

The crude, possessive words shatter Shane’s last defense. A whine tears out of his throat—a needy, desperate sound that belongs to an omega in heat, not the composed Alpha Shane Hollander.

"Please," Shane whispers, though he doesn't know if he's begging Ilya to stop or to never stop.

"Good boy," Ilya growls.

He captures Shane's mouth in a searing, possessive kiss that fights him for dominance. Ilya devours him, his tongue sweeping into Shane's mouth with the same arrogance he uses on the ice, taking everything he wants. Shane melts against him, his arms locking around Ilya’s neck, his body molding to the Alpha’s hard planes.

They stumble back, crashing onto the sofa, limbs tangled. Ilya is heavy on top of him, a crushing weight that Shane craves more than air. The friction of their bodies is maddening, the wet swim trunks doing little to hide the hardness between them.

"Mine," Ilya rasps against Shane’s swollen lips, his hand sliding down to cup Shane’s ass, kneading the soft flesh. " You are mine to breed. Say it."

Shane bites his lip so hard he tastes copper, refusing to give Ilya the satisfaction of the words. But his body is a traitor; his hips jerk upward, grinding against the heavy ridge of Ilya’s cock through the damp layers of clothing. It’s a desperate, friction-seeking motion that answers for him.

"Stubborn," Ilya murmurs. He crashes his mouth down on Shane’s again, swallowing Shane’s gasp.

Shane’s hands scramble for purchase, sliding over Ilya’s wet, slick shoulders, his fingers digging into the hard muscle. They wrestle for dominance, teeth clashing, breath mingling in ragged bursts. Shane tries to flip their positions, to regain some semblance of control, but Ilya is an immovable object. 

Shane is drowning. He is hard, leaking slick, his entire body humming with a painful, electric need to be taken, to be filled until the emptiness stops aching. He whimpers into Ilya’s mouth, his legs hooking instinctively around Ilya’s waist, trying to pull him closer, trying to bridge the frustration of the fabric between them.

And then, as abruptly as a storm breaking, the weight lifts.

Shane gasps, his eyes flying open, his body arching up into cool, empty air where Ilya’s heat just was.

Ilya stands over him, chest heaving, his hair a disheveled halo in the dim light. But he isn’t reaching for his waistband. He isn't peeling the wet swim trunks off Shane’s shivering body. He steps back, adjusting his sweatpants with a grimace, hiding the evidence of his own arousal.

"Give it a thought, Hollander," Ilya says. He looks down at Shane—sprawled, trembling, and visibly aching—with a heavy, intense stare. "Offer stands."

Shane stares at him, the haze of lust shattering into disbelief. His erection throbs painfully against his stomach, a cruel reminder of what he isn't getting.

"You..." Shane scrambles to sit up. "You’re stopping?"

"I am giving you space," Ilya says simply. "To decide."

"You sadistic prick!" Shane shouts, the humiliation burning hotter than the lust now. He grabs a throw pillow and hurls it at Ilya, but his aim is off; it bounces harmlessly off the armrest. "You get me like this—worked up, leaking—and you just walk away? Who does that?"

Ilya turns, walking toward the hallway that leads to the guest suites. 

"Fuck you, Rozanov! Get back here!" Shane yells. "I’m going to kill you!"

"Take cold shower, Hollander," Ilya calls out over his shoulder. "Think about our baby while you touch yourself."

Shane seizes another pillow and throws it at the retreating figure with all his might. It hits the doorframe with a soft thump.

"I hate you!" Shane screams at the empty hallway before striding down the to his room. He slams the shut door shut. His heart pounds so hard it hurts.

He leans back against the door, and his legs give out. “Fuck.”

He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his swimmers and shoves them down. The reality of the situation hits him.

Slick.

It coats his inner thighs in thick, oily streaks. It runs down from his entrance in slow rivulets that catch the dim light. His body is producing it faster than he can control, faster than he’s felt in years. He kicks the shorts away, across the room. God, he is leaking.

Shane reaches down. His fingers brush the inside of his thigh and come away wet, sticky. He stares at his hand—slick webbing between his fingers when he spreads them. It’s humiliating. It’s intoxicating.

His cock is hard. Painfully hard. It juts out from his body, flushed and leaking, bobbing with the frantic rhythm of his pulse. Pre-come beads at the tip, rolling down the shaft to mix with the mess already coating his thighs. His body is preparing itself. Opening. Waiting.

He’s in pre-rut. No. It’s worse than that. He’s been triggered. Ilya did this.

Shane pushes himself up from the floor, stumbling to the nightstand. He yanks the drawer open. Melatonin bottle. Receipts. Old coins. His fingers scrabble blindly until they hit cool silicone.

There.

He grabs the dildo and the lube beside it, then drops to his knees on the plush rug. He’s panting already, the sound harsh in the empty room. When he presses one finger inside, it slides in to the knuckle with zero resistance, his body swallowing it eagerly. Slick gushes around the intrusion, coating his hand, dripping onto the rug.

"Oh god—"

His body has already decided what it wants, and Shane’s conscious mind is just along for the humiliating ride. He lines up the toy. The blunt silicone head presses against his entrance, and his rim flutters, clenching in anticipation. He imagines Ilya’s hands instead of the toy. Ilya, pinning him to the locker room tiles, the humidity heavy in the air, his eyes dark with the same feral hunger Shane feels now. Ilya, biting down on his shoulder, claiming him, knotting him.

Shane shoves the toy inside.

“Ah—fuck!”

His thighs shake, betraying him, spreading wider instinctively to accommodate the invasion. His head falls back, a ragged gasp tearing from his throat. His hand clamps around the flared base of the toy, and he starts to fuck himself with a frantic, punishing rhythm.  The toy drags against his sensitive interior walls on every withdrawal, then snaps back in, hitting that sweet, ruinous spot deep inside him that makes his vision white out.

Slick coats the silicone, runs in warm rivulets down his wrist, and pools beneath him, ruining the expensive rug. He listens to it—the wet, undeniable noise of his body taking exactly what it craves—and his cock twitches, harder than ever, weeping pre-come onto his stomach.

He squeezes his eyes shut, and suddenly, he isn’t alone. He sees Ilya. He sees those dark, arrogance-filled eyes burning into him, stripping him bare. Ilya looks right through the defenses, right through the attitude, straight to the needy, desperate Alpha Shane has been fighting to suppress.

Say you don’t want it.

“I do,” Shane whimpers, pumping harder. “I do, I do, I do—”

Suddenly, the woman at the gym flashes in his mind. Her manicured hand on Ilya’s forearm, fingers trailing over the ink. Over Airi. The way Ilya smiled at her, soft and inviting. Rage flares white-hot in Shane’s chest, distinct and terrifying, mixing with the lust until he can’t separate them.

She can’t have him. She doesn’t get to touch him. She doesn’t get to carry his pup, doesn’t get to take his knot, doesn’t get to stand beside him at Airi’s school concerts and pretend she belongs there.

He’s mine!

Shane took his knot first. Carried his child first. He knows Ilya’s body better than anyone else.  The angle shifts and suddenly the toy is hitting his prostate on every stroke, a relentless assault that has him gasping, drooling.

“Knot me,” Shane gasps. Saliva pools in his mouth, drips down his chin. His hand on the toy is slick with lube and pre-come and his own desperation. “Fuck—knot me. Fill me up. Breed me.”

His other hand wraps around his cock. It’s leaking steadily now, an uncut stream of pre-come that makes the glide easy, obscene. He strokes himself in time with the thrusts, squeezing tight on the upstroke.

I want you, Hollander.

The words echo in his skull, in Ilya’s voice.

Shane sees it. He sees himself, heavy and round with Ilya’s child. He imagines the swell of his stomach pressing tight against his jersey, the indignity of waddling through the locker room while his teammates stare. Everyone knowing. Everyone seeing exactly what Ilya did to him.

Look at the Golden Boy. Rozanov knocked him up again.

He’d be marked. Irrevocably claimed. Ilya’s come deep inside him, Ilya’s baby growing in him, Ilya’s scent stamped all over his skin like a brand. No one would ever question who Shane belonged to again.

“Ilya—” His voice breaks, shattering on the name. “Ilya—”

His whole body seizes, every muscle locking tight in a blinding peak. His cock pulses in his fist, spilling over his fingers, coating his stomach, soaking the rug beneath him. Hot ropes of come jet out, seemingly endless, his orgasm dragging on and on while his rim spasms wildly around the toy, clenching rhythmically, milking a knot that isn’t there.

Shane slumps forward, his forehead pressing against the damp rug. He reaches back with a shaking hand and pulls the toy out. It is slick with lube and his own mess, coating every inch of the silicone. When it finally pops free, his rim flutters, clenching on nothing but air, and a fresh gush of slick follows. He is still open. Still wet.

Shane tosses the toy aside and rolls onto his back, his chest heaving as he stares up at the ceiling. The fog of desperate need has burned away, leaving behind a cold, precise logic. He isn't going to wait for Ilya to scout an alternative. He will tell him tomorrow. As soon as he can look him in the eye without shattering. He will tell Ilya that he agrees. Only him.

If Ilya breeds a child with some "nice" Omega, Airi has to share her Papa with a picture-perfect family that doesn't have to live in the shadows. Shane won't let his daughter feel that sting.

Though he can’t make Ilya love him again. That bridge burned down five years ago. Maybe they’ll never find their way back to what they once were—but it doesn’t matter. As long as Ilya is with him now, they can both be damned.

To be continued…
 

Chapter Text

Ottawa, Ontario
20 December 2020

Ilya stares at the grain of the table in the Hollander’s cottage. It’s mahogany. Or maybe walnut. He doesn’t know wood. He knows hockey, and he knows he’s about to blow up his entire life.

Shane’s leg bounces under the table, a rapid-fire jitter that shakes the water in the glass in front of him. Ilya lands a hand on his thigh.

"So," David says, clicking his pen. He looks between them with the standard mix of weary patience and professional alertness he reserves for this ‘situations.' "You asked for this meeting. Urgent. In person. What’s going on, Shane?"

Yuna is sitting perfectly still, her iPad ready.

"I," Shane starts. His voice cracks. Great. "I have a... medical thing."

"A medical thing," Yuna repeats, flat. "An injury? Did you hurt yourself training?"

"No. Yes. Sort of." Shane risks a glance at him.

Ilya is leaning back in his chair, looking bored, but he is ready to fight everyone in this room if he has to. "Just tell them, Solnyshko," Ilya says, his voice a low rumble. "Or I will."

Shane turns back to David. He takes a breath. "I’m pregnant."

Silence. Absolute, ringing silence.

David stops clicking his pen. Yuna blinks, once, slowly.

"Pregnant," David repeats dumbly.

"Yes."

"With my baby," Ilya adds helpfully. He ignores the glare Shane is throwing at him.

David takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Okay. Okay." He’s pivoting. Ilya can practically hear the gears grinding in his agent’s head, moving from Panic to Damage Control. "How far along?"

"Eight weeks," Shane says.

“But you’re—” David can’t string his words together.“You’re both—you’re Alpha.”

“Yes,” Ilya says. “Very good observation.”

“Ilya,” Shane mutters.

“What? Is true.”

Yuna’s gaze snap to Ilya. “How?”

“It’s called Atavistic Reversion,” Shane answers instead. “It’s… it’s a genetic thing. Really rare. Like, almost nobody has it. But I have it. And when two people who are… compatible… when they—”

“When we have sex,” Ilya supplies, because this is taking forever.

Shane makes a strangled noise. “When we’re together. It can trigger… changes. Biological changes.”

“Changes,” David repeats, looking confused.

“I can get pregnant,” Shane says flatly. “That’s the change.”

Yuna stands up. She walks to the window, looks out at the snow. Ilya watches her shoulders, trying to read her. Is she angry? Disappointed? About to kick him out and tell him to never come near her son again?

She turns around. “Have you seen a doctor?”

“Yes. In Montreal. A specialist. She’s… she knows about the condition.”

“And the baby is healthy?”

“Yes. So far. Everything’s… normal.”

“Normal,” Yuna repeats. She almost smiles. “Well. That’s something.”

David is still sitting on the sofa, looking like someone hit him with a truck. “I don’t… I don’t understand. You’re pregnant. Shane. You’re pregnant.”

“Yeah, Dad. I noticed.”

“With Ilya’s baby.”

“Yes.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“David,” Yuna says with a little shake of her head.

“I’m not—I’m just—” David runs both hands through his greying hair. “How did this even happen? When did this happen?”

“We didn’t know,” Shane says regretfully. “About the condition. We didn’t know it was possible.”

“You didn’t use protection?” Yuna asks. Her voice is dangerous.

Shane’s face is bright red. “Only a very few times.”

Ilya clears his throat. “Is my fault. I should have been more careful.”

“It’s not your fault,” Shane says quickly. “It’s both of us. We both didn’t know.”

Yuna crosses her arms. “And now you’re eight weeks pregnant. In the middle of the season. While playing professional hockey.”

“I’ll took a leave,” Shane says. “I’m not playing. I told the team it’s my hip. Chronic injury. Needs surgery and rehab.”

“Hip surgery,” David says slowly.

“It’s believable,” Shane insists. “I’ve had hip problems before. Everyone knows that.”

“And after?” Yuna asks. Her eyes are shrewd. “After the baby is born. What’s the plan, Shane?”

Ilya opens his mouth. The words are right there, sitting on his tongue. We tell the truth. We tell them it is ours. We tell them we are a family. He wants to stop hiding. He is so tired of the shadows, tired of the lies, tired of loving Shane in the dark. This baby is a miracle, not a shame.

This is it. This is the moment Ilya has been dreading. He watches Shane’s face, sees him take a breath and hold it.

“I used a surrogate,” Shane says.

Ilya’s mouth snaps shut. The fire crackles. Ilya feels something cold settle in his chest. Colder than the Montreal winter outside.

“I will say I always wanted kids,” Shane says. He is talking too fast when he tries to plan his way out of a panic attack. “And I decided to do it on my own. It’s not that unusual anymore. Lots of people do it.”

David leans forward in his armchair. “And the mother? The egg donor?”

“Anonymous,” Shane says quickly. “Closed arrangement. No contact.”

Ilya can’t stay quiet anymore. “Shane.”

Shane doesn’t look at him. “It’s the only way, Ilya.”

“Shane,” Ilya says again, louder this time. “We talked about this.”

“We talked about hiding the pregnancy,” Shane shoots back, looking up. His eyes are pleading and defiant all at once. “This is the only way to explain the baby without explaining... everything else.”

“Everything else meaning us,” Ilya says.

“Everything else meaning my biology,” Shane hisses. “Meaning the fact that I’m an Alpha who got knocked up. Do you know what they would do to us, Ilya? The league? The press? They would tear us apart. I’d be a sideshow. A freak.”

“You are not freak!”

“I am! And I’m doing something that could end my career!” Shane stands up, swaying slightly. “I can’t be the poster boy for Alpha pregnancy, Ilya. I just want to play hockey. I just want to be normal.”

“So you lie,” Ilya says. “You lie about our child.”

“I’m protecting our child!” Shane yells. “And I’m protecting us! If people know... if they know I carried it... they’ll know we’re mates. They’ll know everything.”

“Would that be so bad?” Ilya asks.

“Yes,” Shane says. “It would.”

Ilya feels a dull, breathless shock. It is the same sensation of taking a cross-check to the unprotected space between his pads.

“Okay,” David says. He stands up abruptly, slapping his hands on his thighs. “Okay. I think… I think we all need a minute.” He walks over to Yuna and takes her hand. “Yuna, let’s go for a walk. Get some wood for the fire.”

Yuna frowns at the window. “David, it is snowing.”

“I like snow,” David says firmly. “Come on.”

He practically drags her to the door. There is a flurry of movement, the rustle of coats and the thud of shoes, and then the heavy click of the latch.

Shane sinks further into the armchair. He buries his face in his hands, his shoulders curling inward as if he is trying to make himself small. Trying to disappear. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice muffled by his palms. “I’m sorry, Ilya.”

Ilya stared at the man he loves more than life, more than breathing. “For how long?” he asks. “Until you retire? Until baby is grown? When do we stop lying, Shane?”

Shane drops his hands. Tears are welling in his eyes, spilling over his cheeks in messy tracks. “I don’t know,” he says. “But please… please just do this with me. Please let me have this one thing.” He reaches out into the empty space between them. “Let me protect my career. I’ll give you everything else. I promise. But I can’t… I can’t lose hockey.”

Ilya sighs. It is a heavy, resigned sound. It takes the last of his anger with it, leaving only a deep-set ache. He hates the lying. But he hates seeing Shane broken like this even more.

He closes the distance between them, tugging Shane into his embrace. “Okay,” Ilya concedes. “Okay. We do it your way.”

“Thank you. Thank you.” Shane lets out a sob of relief. He sounds so shattered, so grateful, that Ilya almost hates himself for making him beg.

Outside, the snow continues to fall, burying the world in white, hiding everything under a blanket of silence. Just like them.

Golden Oak, Orlando
9 July 2026

Ilya and Airi have been gone for twenty minutes. They went to get ice cream, a mission that Airi treats with the gravity of a tactical special ops deployment. Shane stayed behind. He claimed he had a conference call with his financial advisor, which is a lie. He just needs a minute to breathe without the scent of Alpha-who-wants-to-breed-me clogging his pores.

Shane should be relaxing. He should be enjoying the rare moment of solitude to read a book, or stretch, or just stare at a wall without a five-year-old asking him why clouds don't fall down.

Instead, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and jabs at the contact list. He needs a voice that isn't Ilya’s (too confusing) or his agent’s (too stressful). So he taps Rose.

She picks up on the second ring. The video connects, but the screen is a blur of movement and harsh lighting.

"Hold on, hold on, I'm trying to find light that doesn't make me look like a goblin," Rose’s voice comes through, tinny and breathless. The camera swings wildly, showing a flash of a trailer ceiling, a rack of period costumes, and finally, Rose’s face.

She is wearing a corset that looks painful and a wig that is piled high in intricate, powdered curls. "There we go," she says, beaming at him. "Hi, honey! You look... stressed. Why are you stressed in Florida? Isn't that illegal?"

"I'm relaxing. It's vacation."

"Uh-huh. You have your 'I'm about to take a face-off in overtime' face on. What's wrong? Did the mouse run away? Did Ilya eat all the protein bars?"

"No," Shane says. He rubs the back of his neck. "They're getting ice cream. I'm alone."

Rose’s eyebrows shoot up. "Alone? In that giant house? Shane Hollander, are you calling me for a booty call? Because I am flattered, but this corset is literally fused to my ribs."

Shane feels the heat rise in his cheeks. "Shut up. I need... I need to say something out loud to see if it sounds as crazy as it feels."

The teasing drops away, replaced by the focused, intense empathy that makes her such a good actress. Rose props the phone up against something. "Okay. I'm listening. Lay it on me."

Shane takes a deep breath. He looks at the flamingo floating in the pool. "Airi wants a sibling," he says.

"Okay,” she says. “That's normal. Kids always want siblings until they actually get them and realize they have to share their toys. Then they want to return them to the hospital."

“She’s relentless, Rose. She even has a name picked out. Nemo.”

“Nemo?” Rose snorts. “Cute. But Shane, just tell her no. You’re the parent. You’re the captain. Pull rank.”

“I did tell her no,” Shane says, sounding tortured. “But... Ilya wants one too.”

Silence stretches on the line. Rose picks up a makeup brush and twirls it absentmindedly. "And?" she prompts gently. "What does Shane want?"

“I don't know,” Shane says. Then, because lying to Rose is pointless, he corrects himself. “I do know. I want it. She's by herself. I hate that when we're gone, she won't have anyone who understands what it was like to grow up with us. And...” He swallows the lump in his throat. “I liked being pregnant. The morning sickness was a fucking nightmare, and the fear was... a lot. But I liked it. I liked feeling like I was doing something important that was just mine.”

"So do it," Rose says. She says it like it’s simple. Like he’s debating ordering a pizza.

“It’s not that simple,” Shane snaps, frustration bubbling over. “Ilya and I aren't even together. We’re this... weird, co-parenting, ex-boyfriend mess. If I do this—if I let him... if we have another kid, I’m tying myself to him forever. Even more than I already am.”

“Newsflash, honey,” Rose says dryly. “You have a child with him. You are currently vacationing with him in a gated community for rich people who love mice. You are already tied to him forever.”

“It’s different,” Shane insists. “A baby... it’s intimate. It requires...” He waves a hand, his face heating up.

"Sex?" Rose throws in. "It requires sex. Unless you do the turkey baster method, which, frankly, seems like a waste of Ilya."

Shane groans and covers his face with his hand. “Why the fuck do I talk to you?”

"Because I'm the only one who tells you the truth," Rose says. "Look. Are you sleeping with him?"

Shane peeks through his fingers. "No. Well. Sort of. Not really. It’s a fucking mess."

"Oh my god," Rose laughs, throwing her head back. "You are such a lesbian. 'It's complicated.' Shane, you're either boning him or you're not."

“We aren't,” Shane says, thinking of the gym. Thinking of the slick on his thighs last night. “But... the tension. It’s unbearable, Rose. It’s like the air is thick enough to chew on. And he knows. He looks at me like he’s just waiting for me to cave. He knows I want another baby, and he’s weaponizing it. He’s trying to... I don't know. Checkmate me.”

"And is it working?"

Shane drops his hand. He looks at Rose, his ears turning pink. “I almost let him knot me on the couch last night.”

Rose’s eyes widen. She moves her face closer to the screen. “On the sofa? Like, that white sectional you’re sitting on right now? Shane, that is unsanitary. And hot.”

“It's a disaster," Shane exclaims.  “If I get pregnant again, the circus starts all over. The hiding. The lies. The baggy sweaters. The ‘hip surgery’ bullshit. I barely survived the guilt last time. Can I do that again? Can I look my team in the eye and lie to them for another year?”

Rose sighs. She adjusts a curl on her wig, her expression softening.

"Do you remember what I told you? In L.A.?"

"Live how I want," Shane recites, sounding tired. "Love who I want."

“Exactly. And back then, you were terrified. You thought the world would end if you even held hands in public. But look at you now. You’re still playing. You’re still winning. You have this amazing little girl.” She pauses. “Is the hiding hard?”

"Exhausting," Shane admits.

"Is it worth it?"

Shane thinks about Airi. He sees her sleepy face from this morning, the way she demanded pancakes with the imperiousness of a tiny queen.

"Yes," he says softly.

“Then there’s your answer,” Rose says. “Stop thinking about the press. Stop thinking about the league. Think about ten years from now. Do you see four of you at the dinner table? Or three?”

Shane can’t help it. Against his will, the image forms: a chaotic dinner table. Airi stealing food off a little brother’s plate. Ilya laughing. Shane sitting there, annoyed, but... happy. Surrounded by his pack.

"Four," he says.

“Okay then,” Rose says briskly. “So you have a baby. And you let Ilya be the dad. Because honestly, Shane? Watching you two try to pretend you aren't soulmates is like watching a dog try to pretend it doesn't want the steak that fell on the floor. It’s painful for everyone involved.”

“I hate that word,” Shane mutters, looking away, though his heart gives a painful little flutter. “We aren't... whatever that is.”

"Right. And I'm a natural blonde," Rose deadpans. She glances off-screen. "They're calling me. I have to go pretend to be a repressed Victorian duchess."

"Have fun."

"Shane?" Rose says, her voice serious again.

"Yeah?"

"Life is too short to be this disciplined."

She blows him a kiss, and the screen goes black.

The front door beeps.

"Daddy!" His daughter’s voice booms through the hallway. "We have brain freeze!"

Shane walks into the kitchen and immediately regrets it. He should have gone to his room. He should have locked the door and pretended he’s reviewing a portfolio of high-risk bonds. He should have done literally anything other than walking into the room where Ilya Rozanov currently exists.

Ilya stands by the island, helping Airi up onto her stool. And he looks stupid. That’s the word Shane’s brain supplies, desperate to construct a defense mechanism. He looks stupidly good.

He’s wearing a crisp, yellow button-down shirt that is oversized that looks intentional and expensive. Of course, the top buttons are undone, exposing the expanse of his chest and collarbone, and the sleeves are rolled up just enough to show off his forearms.

Shane’s eyes travel down. Dark, wide-leg denim trousers that are cuffed at the bottom, revealing black woven leather loafers. Ilya looks like a rich, hot dad, which is exactly what he is.

“Daddy!” Airi shouts, abandoning her struggle with the stool to wave a spoon at him. “We got mint chip! And the blue one! The blue one tastes like clouds!”

“I see that,” Shane says, forcing his eyes away from Ilya’s forearms.

“Tried to make her eat vegetable first,” Ilya says, not looking up as he pries the lid off a carton of what looks like radioactive blue ice cream. “I failed. She is stubborn. Gets it from you.”

“She has the dietary habits of a raccoon because of you,” Shane counters.

Ilya doesn’t look at Shane, but the corner of his mouth ticks up. “Raccoons are survivors, Hollander. They thrive in urban environment.”

He finally gets the lid off and hands the carton to Airi, who immediately dives in like she’s excavating for gold.

“Daddy, come here,” Airi commands, her mouth already stained a terrifying shade of azure. “I have to give you a scoop. Papa says you need sweetness because you are sour.”

“I said salty,” Ilya says, leaning back against the counter. “But sour works too.”

“I don’t want ice cream,” Shane says, eyeing the chemical sludge.

“You have to,” Airi insists. She’s already digging a precarious mound of blue sludge out of the container. “Open up, Daddy.”

Shane sighs. He walks over to the island, accepting his fate. He bends down, allowing his daughter to shove a spoonful of sugar and artificial vanilla flavoring into his mouth.

“Good?” she asks, watching him with big, expectant eyes.

“Delicious,” Shane lies. He swallows. “Tastes like blue.”

“See?” Ilya says, grinning. “She has excellent taste.”

Ilya reaches into the drawer and pulls out a spoon for himself. He doesn’t grab a bowl. He just leans against the marble island, ankles crossed, the carton of mint chocolate chip between his forearms, and digs the spoon in.

Shane doesn’t want to steal a glance, but his eyes are magnets and Ilya is the fridge.

Ilya takes a bite. His lips wrap around the spoon, and he hums, a low sound of appreciation.

Shane watches, transfixed, as Ilya’s throat works. He watches the way Ilya’s tongue darts out to catch a stray drop of melting cream on his lower lip.

He remembers that tongue. He remembers it on his neck. On his chest. Lower.

Heat flares instantly, scorching and heavy in his gut. It’s humiliating. He is standing in his kitchen, watching his ex-boyfriend eat Rocky Road, and he is visibly, stupidly turned on.

Ilya takes another bite. He sucks the ice cream off the spoon with a small pop of suction. “You are staring,” he suddenly says.

Shane snaps out of it. “I’m not.”

“You are,” Ilya says. He lowers the spoon, a smirk playing on his lips. “You look at my ice cream. You want some? I can share.”

“I don’t want your germ-ridden ice cream,” Shane mutters. “And I wasn’t staring. I was… zoning out.”

“Zoning out at my mouth,” Ilya clarifies.

“Zoning out in your general direction,” Shane defends, though he knows his face is burning. “Don’t flatter yourself, Rozanov. You have chocolate on your lip.”

It’s a lie. There’s no chocolate.

Ilya licks his lip, slow and deliberate.

“I am enjoying dessert,” Ilya says innocently. He takes another bite, and this time, he holds eye contact while he does it. “You are the one making it weird, Shane. Why are you so tense? Is vacation. Relax. Have some mint chip.”

“I hate mint chip,” Shane mutters. “It tastes like toothpaste.”

“Tastes like sophistication,” Ilya counters. “But fine. More for me.”

“Daddy, why is your face red?” Airi asks, looking up from her blue massacre. “Are you hot?”

“Yes,” Ilya says, before Shane can answer. “Daddy is very hot.”

Shane glares at him. “It’s the humidity,” he tells Airi, his voice tight. “And the stress. Your Papa causes stress. It’s his superpower.”

“I thought his superpower was hockey,” Airi says.

“That too,” Shane says. He needs to leave the kitchen to find a walk-in freezer and sit in it for an hour. “I’m going to… check the itinerary for tomorrow.”

“Running away, Hollander?” Ilya calls after him, his voice rich with amusement.

“Strategizing,” Shane corrects, and walks out of the kitchen.

He really hopes there’s leftover mint chip later.

Later in the afternoon at Winter Park, the shade offers a temporary reprieve. The light filters through the leaves in soft, dappled patterns, catching the brick sidewalk and the window displays of boutiques Shane has zero interest in entering. Airi walks between them, her small hand clasped in Shane’s, her other hand clutching Ilya’s fingers. She swings their arms in an exaggerated, rhythmic motion, forcing both men to accommodate her pace, which is somewhere between “leisurely stroll” and “interpretive dance.”

“Daddy, look! A dog!”

“I see it.”

“It’s fluffy!”

“Very fluffy.”

“I want to pet it!”

“No.”

“Papa, can I pet it?”

Ilya glances down at her with the expression of a man who has already lost every negotiation he has ever attempted with this child. “Maybe we ask owner first, myshonok.”

Shane tightens his grip on Airi’s hand as they pass the dog in question, a golden retriever whose owner is on her phone and not paying attention to anything. The last thing Shane needs is his daughter developing a new obsession. The baby sibling request is still too fresh. They continue north along Park Avenue. Window boxes overflows with flowers. Couples stroll past with shopping bags. A woman walks by with a Dachshund in a stroller, which Shane refuses to make eye contact with because he does not want to have a conversation about dog strollers.

The hostess at Prato seats them on the year-round patio, at a table near the large window-paned doors that separate the outdoor seating from the restaurant’s interior. Shane catches a glimpse of the long bar running through the center of the space, the warm tones of exposed brick and rustic wood, the open kitchen visible in the back.

It’s nice. It’s the kind of place Shane would bring someone if he wanted to impress them.

He is not trying to impress Ilya.

Ilya slides into the chair across from him, stretching his long legs under the table. His hair is pushed back from his forehead, still slightly damp from the humidity, curling at the ends. Airi clambers onto the chair beside Ilya, immediately reaching for the paper menu to fold it into something that is probably supposed to be a boat but looks more like a deformed frog.

The server, a young woman named Jennie with an easy smile, appears with waters and a kids’ menu with crayons. Shane orders an iced tea and Shirley Temples for Airi while Ilya orders a sparkling water with lemon. The server disappears, and Shane opens his menu, using it as a shield.

“The meatballs are supposed to be good,” he says to no one in particular.

“You order meatballs,” Ilya says. “I will try the pasta. We share.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to share.”

“You always want to share. You pretend you don’t, but then you eat half of my plate.”

“I don’t.”

“You do. Every time.”

He does, in fact, always end up eating half of Ilya’s food. But that’s before.

“Daddy, can I have gnocchi?” Airi asks, pointing at the kids’ menu with a purple crayon.

“Sure.”

“With extra cheese?”

“Yes.”

“And can I have Papa’s pasta too?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you already have your own food.”

“But I want to try everything.”

The food arrives, and Shane has to admit it’s excellent. The meatballs are tender, swimming in a roasted tomato sauce with a sweetness that cuts through the richness. Ilya’s pasta—some kind of handmade campanelle with black pepper and pecorino—is exactly as good as he’d expected because Ilya keeps making smug little sounds of satisfaction as he eats.

Shane steals a forkful.

Ilya pretends not to notice.

This is almost nice, Shane thinks despite himself. The three of them, sitting on a sunny patio, eating good food, existing together in public like any other family.

He should have known it wouldn’t last.

Shane looks up, taking a sip of his iced tea, and his gaze catches on movement at the edge of his vision.

A woman is walking down the sidewalk on the other side of the brick-lined street, heading south toward their table. She’s wearing a sculpted, strapless black leather corset paired with dark denim and black stilettos.

It’s Anne.

Turn left, Shane thinks viciously. Go into a store.

But the universe, as established, hates him.

Her eyes scan the patio, and Shane sees the exact moment she spots their table. Her face lights up with recognition, and something in Shane’s gut curdles.

“Ilya! I thought that was you!” She laughs, one hand pressing to her chest in a gesture of delighted surprise. “I was just thinking about our conversation at the gym. You know, about the margaritas.” She winks.

Ilya looks up from his pasta. His expression flattens into neutral, which Shane recognizes as his “I am being polite but would rather be literally anywhere else” face. It’s a small comfort.

“Anne,” Ilya says, inclining his head. “Hello.”

Shane’s grip on his fork tightens.

“I didn’t expect to run into you guys,” Anne says, stopping right at the edge of their table. She shifts her weight, popping a hip, letting the Sultre bags on her forearm dangle conspicuously.

“Is nice,” Ilya agrees blandly.

“Hi, Shane,” she adds, throwing him a bone.

“Anne,” Shane says, forcing a tight smile. “Did you enjoy your margarita?”

“Oh, I haven’t had it yet,” she says, her gaze sliding immediately back to Ilya. “I was waiting for better company.”

She’s leaning in slightly, invading the invisible boundary of their table. Then her gaze drops to Airi, who is watching the exchange with curiosity. “And who’s this little cutie?”

“My daughter, Airi,” Shane says, putting a protective hand on his daughter’s back.

“I’m five,” Airi says, holding out five fingers.

“Five! Wow, you’re practically grown up.” Anne crouches down slightly, bringing herself to Airi’s level. “I love your dress. Is that Moana on it?”

“Yes,” Airi says, warming immediately to the compliment. “She’s my favorite. She goes on the ocean.”

“She does! She’s very brave.” Anne straightens up, her attention already sliding back toward Ilya. “So, are you guys enjoying the food? I was thinking of grabbing a table, but it’s so crowded. Maybe I should just get something to go.”

She pauses, clearly waiting for Ilya to invite her to join them.

“The pizza is excellent,” Ilya lies, not moving an inch to make room.

“Good to know,” Anne purrs. She rests a hand on the back of Ilya’s chair, her fingers dangerously close to his shoulder. “You know, my offer still stands. About Villa 4. It’s supposed to be a beautiful sunset tonight.”

She is asking Ilya out. In front of Shane. In front of their daughter.

Shane’s fork scrapes against his plate with a harsh sound.

“Papa, can I have your pasta?”

Anne’s hand freezes on the chair. Her smile falters, then freezes in place, a rictus of confusion. She looks at Airi, then at Ilya, then at Shane.

“Papa?” she says, a nervous laugh escaping her. 

The panic in Shane is instant. One wrong word and this becomes a story. One wrong word and by tomorrow, this will be on every sports blog and gossip site.

“It’s a nickname. Ilya has been around since she was born,” Shane says quickly. “He’s like an uncle to her. She calls him Papa because she, uh, she couldn’t say his name when she was little. It stuck.”

He can feel Ilya’s gaze on him. Blazing.

Anne’s face immediately clears. “Oh! That’s so sweet. So you’re practically an uncle.” She turns back to Ilya, her smile brighter than before. “You must be so good with kids. That’s such a rare quality in a guy. Most hockey players are so... self-absorbed.”

Ilya says nothing. But his scent deepens—ambered heat with musky undercurrents. Shane has always been hypersensitive to Ilya’s pheromones. He could pick Ilya out of a crowded arena blindfolded, could track his moods by the fluctuations in his scent like reading a weather report.

He kicks him under the table.

Ilya’s jaw tightens, but his expression smooths out.

Anne, oblivious to the fact that she is standing next to a biological bomb, keeps talking. “My nephews love hockey. You’d probably be great with them. Maybe you could show me some pointers? Or... tell me about it over a drink?”

Ilya picks up his fork, twirling it menacingly.

“I am not uncle,” he says.

“Sorry?” Anne asks, leaning closer.

“I am not uncle,” Ilya says again, loudly. He lifts his head, and even with the sunglasses, the glare is palpable. “And I do not want drink.”

“Oh,” Anne says, taking a half-step back. “I just meant—”

“I am eating lunch,” Ilya cuts her off. “With my family.”

The color drains from Anne’s face, then rushes back in a hot flush. Her smile wavers, then hardens into something brittle.

“Oh,” she says. “I see.”

Ilya stares straight ahead, radiating a dark, brooding energy that is practically pushing Anne away from the table.

Shane reaches under the table and kicks Ilya’s shin again. The Alpha doesn’t acknowledge the kick. Ilya just sits there, seething, smelling like a storm about to break.

Anne grips her shopping bags tighter. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Sorry. I’ll let you get back to it. Enjoy your meal.”  She walks fast, her heels clicking rapidly on the pavement.

Shane looks back at Ilya. “You didn’t have to be so rude,” he says.

“You did not have to lis,” Ilya shoots back, looking annoyed.

“Papa, are you mad?” Airi asks, looking between them with worried gaze.

Ilya’s expression softens instantly as he turns to her. The change is terrifying. “No, myshonok. Papa is not mad.” He reaches out and boops her nose, though his hand is tense. “Eat your crust. It makes you strong.”

Shane picks up his fork, staring at his pasta. He has lost his appetite completely.

Ilya hasn’t spoken since they got home.

Shane wants to say something. He opens his mouth three times and shuts it again. What is there to say? I’m sorry? Is that all he can say?

They pull into the driveway. Ilya cuts the engine and gets out without a word, moving to the back to unbuckle Airi from her car seat. Shane watches him lift their daughter, her small body curling instinctively against his chest. Even unconscious, she knows who her father is.

Shane follows them inside, feeling useless.

“I will put her down,” Ilya says quietly, not looking at him.

“It’s my turn.”

Ilya pauses at the bottom of the stairs. His shoulders are rigid. “Is fine. I do it.”

“Ilya. Please. Let me.”

Slowly, Ilya turns. He transfers Airi into Shane’s arms, their hands brushing during the exchange. The contact is electric, a jolt that runs up Shane’s wrist and settles somewhere behind his sternum.

“She did not finish her gnocchi,” Ilya says. “She might be hungry later.”

“I’ll handle it.”

Ilya nods once, then turns and walks toward the kitchen. Shane feels the distance between them stretch like taffy.

He carries Airi upstairs.

Her room is at the end of the hall, the one with the window overlooking the pool. Shane had let her pick it when they first arrived, and she had chosen it immediately because, in her words, “the flamingo can see me sleep.” The inflatable flamingo, apparently, is a source of comfort rather than the mild horror Shane finds it.

He lays her down on the bed, careful not to jostle her awake. She stirs anyway, her eyes fluttering open.

“Daddy?”

Shane reaches for the hem of her Moana shirt. “Let’s get you into pajamas.”

Airi is mostly asleep, her limbs loose and uncooperative, and Shane has to wrestle her into her nightgown like he’s dressing a particularly stubborn octopus. She is now tucked under her duvet, her eyelids are drooping and then fluttering open, determined to squeeze every last drop of attention out of the day.

Shane sits on the edge of Airi’s bed. The room is bathed in the purple glow of her nightlight—a projector that casts rotating stars onto the ceiling. It’s dizzying if he looks at it too long.

"Book," she whispers, pointing a sleepy finger at the nightstand.

"You're tired, baby," Shane says softly. "Daddy can just sing."

"No. Book." She is relentless. "The duck one."

Shane sighs. He never won an argument against her. He reaches for the thin hardcover resting on the top of the stack. Finding Family: The Duckling Raised by Loons.

"Okay," Shane says. "But then straight to sleep. No questions about why the moon follows us."

"Okay," she agrees, snuggling deeper into her pillow.

Shane opens the cover. The illustrations are soft watercolors, blues and greens.

"Once upon a time," he reads, "there was a little duckling named Puddle. Puddle was very small, and very lonely. He didn't have a nest. He didn't have a flock."

Airi blinks up at him. "He was sad."

"Yeah," Shane says. "He was sad." He turns the page. "One day, Puddle was swimming in the big lake when he heard a strange sound. Woooo-oooo. It was a haunting, beautiful call."

Shane skips the part where he has to do the sound effect, because he feels ridiculous doing it, but Airi nudges his arm.

"Do the noise, Daddy."

Shane coughs against his fist. "Woooo-oooo."

"That's a loon," Airi comments.

"That's right. Two loons. A Mama Loon and a Papa Loon. They saw little Puddle all alone in the water."

Shane looks at the picture. The two loons are sleek and black-and-white, with red eyes. They look nothing like the fuzzy yellow duckling.

"'We don't look like you,' said the Papa Loon," Shane reads. "'And you don't look like us. You don't dive deep, and we don't quack.' "

Airi’s eyes remain fixed on the page.

"But," Shane continues, his throat feeling suddenly tight, "the Mama Loon opened her wing. 'It doesn't matter,' she said. 'Your heart beats like ours. You can swim with us.' "

"And they adopted him," Airi murmurs. She knows the story by heart.

"They did. 'We will be your flock,' the Papa Loon said. 'And we will keep you safe from the cold wind and the big waves.'”

Shane turns the page. The illustration shows the three of them—the two sleek loons and the awkward little duckling—swimming in a line. The water is calm. The sky is pink. It’s perfect.

"And so," Shane reads, "Puddle wasn't lonely anymore. He learned that family isn't about looking the same. It's about who stays when the winter comes."

He goes to close the book, but Airi’s hand shoots out to stop him.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, baby?"

"The loons," she yawns. "They stay together."

"Yeah. In the book."

"They don't live in two castles," she says. "They swim in the same lake."

He looks down at his daughter, at the absolute trust in her hazel eyes—Ilya’s eyes—and he doesn't know how to answer.

"That's just a story, Airi," he says gently. "Real life is... different."

"Why?"

"Because," Shane says, struggling. "Sometimes... sometimes the loons have different jobs. Sometimes they have to swim in different lakes to keep the duckling safe."

Airi frowns. It’s a small crinkle between her eyebrows that mirrors his own. "But the Papa Loon," she says. "He misses the duckling."

"I know," Shane says wistfully. "He does. He misses the duckling so much."

"Does he miss the other loon?"

Shane stares at the illustration of the two loons, their heads bowed together, touching—just like the ink permanently etched into Ilya’s skin.

"Yeah," Shane whispers, the truth slipping out before he can catch it. "Yeah, baby. He misses the other loon."

Airi nods, her eyes finally fluttering shut. "That's sad," she mumbles. "They should just swim back."

"Sleep now," Shane whispers. He leans down and kisses her forehead. She is warm and soft, the only thing in his life that makes sense.

"Night, Daddy," she breathes. "Love you."

"Love you too, my little loon."

Shane turns off the lamp, plunging the room into the dizzying starlight of the projector. He walks to the door, looking back one last time at the small lump under the duvet before closing the door softly. His chest suddenly aches, a physical, bruising pain.

He stands at the top of the stairs for a long moment. He tells himself he is gathering his thoughts. He is not. He is being a coward, and he knows it, and knowing it doesn’t make his feet move any faster.

Finally, he forces himself down the stairs, his hand sliding along the cool metal railing. Ilya is sitting at the kitchen island with his back to the staircase. He has shed the yellow shirt from earlier—a small mercy, perhaps, because Shane has always been weak for Ilya in yellow—and is wearing a plain black T-shirt instead. In front of him sits a bottle of Belvedere and a single glass.

He is sipping the vodka like it is water.

Shane stops at the bottom of the stairs. His heart is a frantic, useless thing, beating against his ribs like a bird trying to escape a cage. He doesn’t know how to start this conversation. He’s not entirely sure there are words in any language that can fix what he’s done.

Ilya doesn’t turn around. “She’s asleep?”

“Yeah.” Shane walks into the kitchen, keeping the island between them like a fortification. “Just now.”

“Good.”

Ilya picks up the glass and drinks. He swallows a significant amount without so much as a wince, which is either impressive or alarming.

“Hey,” Shane starts. He crosses his arms over his chest, hugging himself. “I’m sorry.”

Ilya finally looks at him. His eyes are glittering in the low light, stripped of all the charm and humor he usually wears like armor. Without it, he looks more dangerous.

“You are always sorry,” Ilya says. “Five years, Shane. Five years of sorry.” He tilts his head, studying Shane with an expression that makes Shane want to take three steps backward. “How long will you be sorry to me?”

Shane opens his mouth.

Nothing comes out.

“I thought so,” Ilya mutters, and takes another sip of vodka.

“What the fuck do you want me to say, Rozanov?” Shane demands. Frustration bleeds into his voice. “I panicked, okay? She was asking questions, and I didn’t know what to do. I stuck to the script. The same script we agreed on five years ago.”

“We agreed?” Ilya scoffs. “No. You decided. I went along.” He sets his glass down with enough force that liquid sloshes over the rim. “Is difference.”

“You could have said no.”

“Could I?” Ilya’s voice is deadly quiet. “Could I have said no, Shane? When you were pregnant and terrified? When you were begging me to help you keep your career?” He laughs, but there is no humor in it. “What was I supposed to do? Walk away?”

“That’s not fair.”

“None of this is fair.” Ilya stands abruptly, and Shane is reminded—forcefully, viscerally—of exactly how large Ilya is. How he can fill a room just by existing in it. “You know what is not fair? Watching you smile at reporters and say, ‘Oh, he is like uncle to her.’” His accent thickens the way it always does when he’s upset. “Like I am nothing.”

“You’re not nothing. Ilya, you know that’s not—”

“Do I? Because I am not in school records. I am not listed as emergency contact.” Ilya yanks up his sleeve, exposing the dark ink on his bicep. “I tattooed her name on my skin because it was only way I could claim her. Is the only proof she is mine.”

Shane knew this, of course. He had made these decisions deliberately, carefully, brick by brick. He had built a fortress to protect them.

He is beginning to suspect he built a prison instead.

“I did that to protect her,” he says.

“No.” Ilya points the glass at him, and his hand is terrifyingly steady. “You did it to protect yourself.”

“That’s not true.” 

“You are protecting your image.” Ilya pours another drink and slams the glass down hard enough that Shane flinches. “Your precious reputation. Captain Serious. The Golden Boy.” His lip curls. “Can’t have Russian ex-boyfriend and bastard child ruining the brand, can you?”

“You don’t understand.” Shane blinks hard, furious at himself for the weakness. “I protected our daughter. I protected us. I protected your career—”

“I never asked you to protect me!” Ilya roars. The sound bounces off the marble countertops, fills the kitchen, fills Shane’s chest. “I asked you to stay! I asked you to let me be father!”

“I let you be a father!”

“When convenient for you!” Ilya shouts. “When no one is looking!” He slams his palm against the island, and Shane jumps. “Today. At lunch. That woman looked at me like I was fresh meat. And you sat there and let her flirt with me while our daughter ate next to us.”

I hated it, Shane wants to say. The words are screaming in his chest, clawing at his throat. I hated every second of it. I wanted to rip her eyes out. I wanted to take your hand and tell the whole restaurant that you’re mine, that you’ve always been mine.

He wants to tell Ilya that every trophy felt heavy. That every silent night in his empty cottage felt like a prison sentence. That he would have traded every ring, every record, every single moment of glory just to have woken up beside Ilya one morning without fear.

But the shame seals his lips shut. It always does.

“But you did nothing,” Ilya says quietly. Quietly is worse than yelling. “Because admitting I am yours is worse than watching me walk away. Right?”

Shane says nothing.

“Do you even know what is like?” Ilya asks. “To have Airi call me Papa in secret? Like is dirty word?”

“It’s not dirty,” Shane chokes out.

Ilya moves around the island, and Shane’s heart skips. He steps back without meaning to, and his spine hits the refrigerator.

Ilya stops inches away. “It feels dirty,” he says softly. “It feels like shame.” His eyes bore into Shane’s. “You make me feel like shame.”

Shane can’t breathe. He can’t move. He can only stand there, pinned by Ilya’s furious gaze.

“I accepted all your conditions,” Ilya continues. “All of them. Because I love you. Because I wanted you to play. Because I wanted you to be Captain.” His voice cracks, just barely, and something in Shane’s chest shatters. “I gave you everything, Shane.”

“Ilya—”

“Why did you leave me?”

It is, he thinks distantly, a bit like being shot. He imagines this is what it feels like—that split second before the pain hits, when the body knows something catastrophic has happened but the mind hasn’t quite caught up.

He has imagined this conversation a thousand times. In hotel rooms. On airplanes. In the dark hours between midnight and dawn when sleep refused to come and all he could do was stare at his daughter and wonder if he had made the right choice. He had practiced his answers. Rehearsed them until they sounded reasonable. Logical. It was for the best. 

“Was it because I was too much?” Ilya asks. His eyes are searching Shane’s face, desperate, hungry. “Or was it because you just didn’t love me enough to fight?”

No, Shane thinks. No, no, no.

“Shut up,” Shane whispers. He can’t do this. He can’t.

“I gave up everything for you, Hollander.” Ilya’s voice has gone weak, and somehow that’s the worst thing of all. “I came to Ottawa. Played on team that loses. Spent my prime years watching you win Cups while I sat at home.” He  smiles bitterly. “I let you hide me. I let you pretend I am just rival. Just friend. I let you take my pride.”

He turns away, pacing a tight circle. Ilya stops and slaps a hand against the back of his neck, squeezing the tension there, his head bowed.

“And Russian men,” he says to the floor, “we have lot of pride. But I gave it to you. Because you are my heart. And then… you gave me Airi.”

He looks up, and his eyes are wet. Shane has seen Ilya cry exactly three times—once when he first talked about his mother, once when he first confessed his love for Shane, and once when Airi was born. “And you asked me to hide her too.”

Ilya watches him, waiting. His eyes drop to Shane’s mouth, desperate for a single word that changes everything—a stay, a no more, a you are mine.

Shane has no doubt that if Ilya reach out, pull him close, whisper Shanyushka against his temple, he will shatter completely. He’ll never find all the pieces again.

“Ten years,” Ilya says, his gaze hallow.“Was so easy? To unloved me?” 

No. Because he never stopped.

Shane’s fingernails bit into his palms. “I never said it was easy.”

“Well.” Ilya’s voice was soft. Terribly, terribly soft. “You made it look easy, Hollander.”

The silence stretches.

And stretches.

And when it becomes clear that Shane has nothing to offer, Ilya doesn’t just look away. He steps back, putting a wide distance between them, as if standing close to Shane is what hurts.

Because it is, Shane realizes. He is the radiation of a dying star. He is Ilya’s festering wound, the one that never quite heals, the one that pulses with sickening heat every time the wind changes. He is the ghost limb Ilya keeps trying to use, only to remember, over and over again, that it’s gone.

Ilya walks back to the island and picks up the bottle. He doesn’t look at Shane anymore. He just stares at the label, his fingers white-knuckled around the glass. “Bought another house in Ottawa,” he says. “Big one. Has backyard. I thought… maybe one day. Maybe you change mind.”

Ilya looks up at him, and the pain in his eyes is unbearable. “But you never called,” he says. “You just sent papers. Lawyers. Custody agreements.”

“I had to,” Shane chokes.

“You are right,” Ilya says suddenly.

Shane blinks through his tears, his heart seizing with painful, desperate hope. For a split second, he thinks Ilya is relenting. He thinks maybe—

“About baby,” Ilya says. “We should not have another one.”

Shane actually staggers, like Ilya has put a fist through his chest. “Ilya—”

“I cannot be denied twice. It would kill me.” Ilya picks up his glass and downs the remaining vodka in one long swallow. “We stick to plan,” he says, turning away. “We are friends. We co-parent Airi. And that is all.”

Ilya doesn’t wait anymore for a response. He simply walks away, his footsteps fading up the stairs, and Shane is left standing alone in the vast, silent kitchen.

He looks at the empty stairs where Ilya’s shadow had just been. He wraps his arms around his waist, trying to hold his shattered ribs together.Upstairs, his daughter sleeps beneath a ceiling of rotating stars, dreaming of loons who swim in the same lake. Who stay together when the winter comes.

Shane stays where he is.

He doesn’t swim back.

To be continued…

Chapter Text

Ottawa, Ontario
12 March 2021

The drive from Ottawa to the cottage takes an hour. If the roads are clear and Ilya drives like a maniac, it takes forty-minutes. The roads are not clear. It is March in Canada, which means the highway is a sheet of black ice disguised as asphalt, and the wind is doing its best to shove Ilya’s Range Rover into a ditch.

He drives with the radio off and the heat blasting high enough to make his eyes dry. The Centaurs played the Guardians last night—a disastrous 4-1 loss where Ilya was apparently the only one who remembered they were playing a professional sport—and they have practice tomorrow at ten. He should be in his lonely, depressing condo in Ottawa, icing his knees and feeling sorry for himself.

But Shane is at the cottage. Alone. In the middle of nowhere. Hiding from the entire world.

Ilya cannot breathe properly when he is more than fifty kilometers away from him.

He pulls into the long, snow-covered driveway. It has been plowed, thank God. David probably hired a service to keep it clear—to ensure ambulances can get through if Shane’s convenient “hip injury” suddenly turns into “going into labor in the Canadian wilderness.”

The cottage looks different in winter. Darker. Quieter. Smoke curls from the chimney, a gray ribbon against the black sky. It looks like a hiding place.

Ilya grabs the grocery bags from the passenger seat. He has four jars of the specific pickles Shane requested (garlic, no dill), a box of high-protein pasta, and three bags of salt and vinegar chips. Shane claims he hates salt and vinegar chips. Shane also eats them in secret.

He unlocks the front door and steps into the warmth. The scent hits him immediately. To anyone else, the cottage probably smells like woodsmoke and lemon polish. To Ilya, it smells like warm milk, honey, and distress.

Shane’s scent. Intensified by pregnancy into something almost unbearably sweet.

“Ilya?”

The voice comes from the living room.

Ilya toes off his shoes, leaving them in a puddle of melting snow, and walks into the main room.

Shane is on the sofa. He has built himself a nest—every throw pillow in the house, plus the duvet from the master bedroom. He is wearing one of Ilya’s hoodies, the charcoal gray one, and sweatpants that are stretched tight across his hips. He is utterly beautiful. Pregnancy really suits him.

“You’re supposed to be in Ottawa,” Shane says. He doesn’t look up from the iPad resting on his stomach. “You have practice in the morning.”

“Coach moved it to noon,” Ilya lies. He drops the grocery bags on the coffee table. “I brought the pickles.”

Shane’s eyes snap to the bags with alarming speed. “The garlic ones?”

“Obviously.”

Shane struggles to sit up. He is five months pregnant, and while he is still Shane—lean muscle, stubborn as hell—his belly is a hard, round curve under the hoodie. Possessiveness curls in Ilya’s chest every time he sees it.

He reaches out to help him, but Shane slaps his hand away.

“I can do it.”

“You are like turtle on its back, Hollander. Just let me—”

“Fuck you. I’m an elite athlete.” Shane grunts, leverages his elbow against the back of the sofa, and manages to haul himself upright through sheer spite. There are dark smudges under his eyes, and his skin is too pale. “See? Fine.”

“You look like shit,” Ilya says affectionately.

“Thanks. It’s the parasite draining my life force.”

Shane reaches for the jar of pickles. He struggles with the lid for approximately three seconds before shoving it at Ilya. “Open.”

Ilya pops the lid with a satisfying thwock and hands it back. Shane fishes out a pickle with his bare fingers and bites into it with a feral snap. Brine drips down his chin.

Ilya sits on the edge of the coffee table, watching him. He cannot stop watching him. It is terrifying, this pull—this need to be near Shane at all times, to protect him, to wrap him in bubble wrap and burn down the world for making him hide like this.

“How was the game?” Shane asks around a mouthful of pickle.

“Bad. We lost.”

“I saw the score.” Shane takes another bite. “I meant how did you play?”

“Fine. One goal. Two hits.” Ilya shrugs. “Boodram is useless on the power play. He stands there like pylon.”

Shane hums thoughtfully. “He needs to move his feet. He gets caught flat-footed watching the puck instead of anticipating the pass.”

“Exactly.”

It is a relief to talk hockey. It is the one thing that has not changed. The rest of their lives is a minefield of lies and biology and impossible choices, but the neutral zone trap is still the neutral zone trap.

“Did you do your exercises?” Ilya asks.

Shane rolls his eyes so hard Ilya worries they might get stuck. “Yes, Mom. I did the yoga. I did the pelvic floor shit. I walked on the treadmill for thirty minutes until I got bored and wanted to die.”

“Good.”

“It’s not good. I’m going insane, Ilya.” Shane gestures at the room with his pickle. “I rearranged the kitchen cupboards today. By expiration date. I watched a three-hour documentary about fungus.”

“Was it interesting?”

“Disturbingly so.” Shane takes another aggressive bite. “I miss skating.”

“I know.”

“I miss hitting people.”

“I know.” Ilya reaches out and rests his hand on Shane’s belly, right where the hoodie stretches over the curve. Shane goes very still. “Is only a few more months. Then you are back. Hip is healed. You win Art Ross.”

Shane snorts. “I’m not winning the Art Ross next year. I’ll be lucky if I can skate without falling over. My center of gravity is going to be completely fucked.”

“You are Shane Hollander,” Ilya says simply. “You will be fine.”

The isolation is eating Shane alive. Ilya can see it, clear as day. Shane thrives on pressure, on cameras, on the roar of twenty thousand fans at the Bell Centre. Here, in the silence of the cottage, he is just a man with a secret that is growing larger every day.

“Ilya,” Shane says softly.

“Yeah?”

“It’s moving.”

“The baby?”

“No, the fungus from the documentary.” Shane gives him a withering look. “Yes, the baby, you idiot.”

“Funny.”

Shane’s hand hovers over the hoodie, right at the center of his stomach. “It’s active tonight. More than usual.”

Ilya stares down at Shane’s belly. Shane has been weird about it. Protective. Dissociative. He calls the baby “it” or “the situation” or, once, memorably, “the hostile takeover.” He hides his body under layers, even from Ilya.

“Can I?” Ilya asks.

Shane hesitates. He looks at Ilya’s hand, then at Ilya’s face. He swallows hard.

“Okay.”

Ilya moves slowly. He slides off the coffee table and kneels on the rug between Shane’s spread knees. He places the palm gently on the center of the hoodie and rests the side of his face against the belly. Warmth. That is the first thing he notices. Shane is radiating heat like a furnace, his whole body running hot the way it has been for months now.

Then—a flutter.

“Blyad,” Ilya breathes.

“Weird, right?” Shane murmurs. “It feels like an alien.”

“Is strong.” Ilya presses a little firmer, spreading his fingers wide. The baby kicks again, harder this time, right against his thumb. A rush of emotion hits him all at one. Pride. Wonder. And a fierce, overwhelming possessiveness that makes his Alpha instincts roar.

Mine. My pup. My mate.

“He will be a skater,” Ilya says thickly. “Strong legs.”

“She,” Shane says quietly.

Ilya looks up. “What?”

Shane is refusing to meet his eyes. “Dr. Taylor called today. The results from the blood test came back.”

Ilya’s heart stops. Then restarts at double speed. “Is a girl?”

“Yeah.” Shane sniffs. “A girl.”

A little girl.

A daughter with Shane’s dark hair and Ilya’s terrible personality. A tiny human who will be half of them.

“A girl,” Ilya repeats. A wet, breathless sound comes out from him. “Shane. A girl.”

“Yeah.” Shane’s hand comes down, resting tentatively on Ilya’s hair. His fingers thread through the light brown strands, scratching lightly at Ilya’s scalp. “I’m terrified. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be a dad. I barely know how to be a person.”

“You will be great,” Ilya says. He turns his head and kisses the hoodie, right where the kick happened. “You are intense. Structured. She will need that. You will give her schedules.”

“She’s not a hockey practice,” Shane mutters, but his fingers tighten in Ilya’s hair.

“She will have skating lessons by three. Power play drills by five.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I am right.” Ilya looks up at him, resting his chin on the curve of Shane’s belly. “We will not screw this up.”

“We already are,” Shane says. The gloom is creeping back into his voice. “I’m lying to everyone I know. You’re driving an hour in a blizzard to touch my stomach in secret. This is insane.”

Ilya straightens up. He cradles Shane’s face with both hands. Shane’s skin is hot, his cheeks flushed. “We figure it out,” he says fiercely. “We play the long game, yes? We survive this season. We get through the birth. We get the baby. We get the Cups. We get everything.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“Is not simple. Is worth it.” Ilya brushes his thumb over Shane’s lower lip. “You are worth it. She is worth it.”

Shane surrenders to Ilya’s touch, his eyes fluttering shut. “You’re staying tonight?” he asks.

“Yes. I drive back at five tomorrow.”

“You’ll be exhausted at practice.”

“I am motivated.”

Shane slowly opens his eyes. He shifts on the sofa, rearranging pillows, making room. “Come here. You’re warm. I’m freezing.”

“You are always freezing.”

“This baby takes all my resources.”

Ilya climbs onto the sofa, maneuvering his large frame around Shane’s belly until they are tangled together—legs intertwined, Shane’s back pressed against his chest. He pulls the duvet up over both of them and wraps an arm around Shane, his palm settling protectively over the curve of their daughter.

The scent of milk and honey is overwhelming this close. Ilya buries his nose in the back of Shane’s neck and inhales deeply.

“No,” Shane mumbles, already half-asleep.

“You smell good.”

“I smell like pickles.”

“My favorite.”

Shane huffs a laugh. Ilya feels the tension slowly drain out of him, his breathing evening out, his body going heavy against Ilya’s chest.

“Ilya?” Shane murmurs after a few minutes.

“Mm?”

“If you eat my chips, I will kill you.”

Ilya smiles into Shane’s hair. “Go to sleep, Solnyshko.”

He listens to Shane’s breathing slow and deepen. Beneath his palm, their daughter shifts and kicks—restless, apparently, even in the womb. The drive back to Ottawa in the dark awaits him, along with the empty condo and the practice he will definitely be late for.

Worth it.

He closes his eyes, still smiling.

Ottawa, Ontario
5 May 2021

The Ottawa Centaurs do not make the playoffs.

They do not even come close. They finish the season with a record that is mathematically impressive in how terrible it is, and when the final buzzer sounds on their last meaningless game against New York Admirals, Ilya feels only a frantic, dizzying relief.

He does not have to fly to Tampa. He does not have to pretend to care about exit interviews. He does not have to smile for cameras and say things like “we’ll get them next year” when everyone in the room knows they will not get them next year.

Ilya spends the next three weeks living a double life that is rapidly becoming his only life.

In public, he is Ilya Rozanov: rich, single, enjoying his off-season in mystery locations. He posts a beach photo—old photo—to throw them off the scent. The comments are full of heart-eye emojis and requests for thirst traps. He does not post thirst traps. He is too busy assembling a crib.

In reality, he is living at the cottage, where Shane Hollander is expanding daily.

Shane is enormous now. Thirty weeks along, and the baby—apparently training for a career in kickboxing—has annexed his entire torso. Shane waddles when he walks, though saying that word out loud is a death sentence.

Domestic life with a heavily pregnant Shane is… specific.

It involves pillows. An alarming number of pillows. Pillows for Shane’s back, pillows for between his knees, pillows to prop up his feet, and pillows that serve no purpose other than to shove Ilya out of the bed.

It involves the daily war with socks: the strain to reach a foot, the inevitable failure, the socks flying across the room, and the sulk that lasts until Ilya retrieves them and slides them onto Shane’s feet without comment.

And it also involves Shane standing in front of the open refrigerator at two in the morning, eating cottage cheese directly out of the container, his glare daring Ilya to speak.

Ilya never says anything. He just hands him a spoon.

They fall into a rhythm that is dangerously permanent. Ilya wakes up first, makes coffee for himself and herbal tea for Shane, who misses caffeine more than he misses alcohol, more than he misses skating, more than he misses anything except possibly his abs. They sit on the deck wrapped in blankets as the ice slowly melts off the lake. They talk about the playoffs—the ones they are not in. They critique Montreal’s power play, which is noticeably less formidable without Shane on the ice.

They do not talk about the future. They do not talk about what happens after the baby comes, or how they will explain the truth behind her  existence to the world, or what it will mean for their careers. They do not talk about any of it.

Ilya needs insurance. Something solid.

“I have a meeting,” he tells Shane one morning. “Financial advisor. In Toronto.”

Shane is deeply, frighteningly obsessed with nesting. He is currently reorganizing the linen closet by thread count, a metric Ilya did not know existed for towels.

“Okay,” Shane says absently, not looking up. “Drive safe.”

“I will.”

“Bring back food.”

“What kind?”

“Surprise me.” Shane waves a hand. “Make sure it’s healthy.”

Ilya does not drive to Toronto. He drives to Montreal instead.

The jeweler does not have a sign out front. It is on the second floor of a gray stone building in Old Montreal, a place you only know about if you know someone who knows someone. Ilya knows someone.

“Mr. Rozanov,” the jeweler says when Ilya walks in. He is a small man with wire-rimmed glasses and an air of quiet competence. “We have prepared the selection you requested.”

Ilya nods. The leather jacket is stifling, which is ridiculous because the room is climate-controlled to protect the diamonds. “Show me.”

They sit at a velvet-lined table. The jeweler brings out a tray. Princess cuts, cushion cuts, and emeralds sparkle under the carefully calibrated lighting. They are nice. They are shiny. They are very expensive.

“This one is a princess cut,” the jeweler says, pointing to a square stone. “Very classic. And this is a radiant cut, which has more—”

“No.” Ilya pushes the tray away. “Not these.”

The jeweler blinks. “No?”

“They are too…” Ilya waves a hand, struggling to articulate the problem. “Standard.”

“Ah.” The jeweler removes his glasses and polishes them thoughtfully. “Perhaps you could describe what you are looking for?”

Ilya leans back in his chair. He knows exactly what he wants. He has thought about this for months—years, maybe, if he is being honest with himself. He has memorized the things Shane likes, the way Shane looks at things, the quiet hunger in his eyes when he sees something beautiful.

Shane likes clean lines. He likes elegance. But he also likes to be the best. He likes to shine.

“Oval,” Ilya says firmly. “Big oval. But not chunky. Delicate band. Gold.” He pauses. “Yellow gold.”

“Yellow gold is very trendy right now,” the jeweler notes.

“Is not about trendy.” Ilya shakes his head. “Is about warmth. He is…” How to explain that Shane is cold to the world but warm to him? That Shane loves the sun because he spends his life on ice? That Shane deserves something golden?

“He likes gold,” he finishes lamely.

“And the stone itself?”

“The best one you have. I want it to look like a frozen tear. But happy.”

The jeweler stares at him for a long moment. “A happy frozen tear,” he repeats slowly. “Oval cut. Yellow gold.”

“Yes.”

“I believe I have something in the vault that might suit.”

He disappears through a door in the back. Ilya taps his fingers on the velvet-lined table. He checks his phone—no texts from Shane, which means he has not gone into labor and has not burned down the cottage.

Good.

The jeweler returns holding a single black velvet box. He sets it on the table and opens the lid.

Ilya stares in awe.

The ring is magnificent. It is a massive, elongated oval diamond—four carats at least, maybe five—set on a band of yellow gold so delicate it looks like a thread of captured sunlight. It is simple, but it is loud. It is a ring for a rock star, or a queen, or the greatest hockey player of his generation.

“It has a hidden halo,” the jeweler says softly, tilting the box so Ilya can see. “Tiny diamonds set beneath the main stone. You cannot see them from above.” He meets Ilya’s eyes. “Only the wearer knows they are there.”

Ilya’s chest aches. Only the wearer knows.

Like them. Like everything about them.

“Is perfect,” Ilya says.

“Would you like to review the specifications? The clarity is—”

“I do not care about specs.” Ilya reaches for the box, then stops himself. “I buy it. Whatever it costs.”

“Very good, sir.” The jeweler permits himself a small smile. “And the ring size?”

Ilya smiles back. He knows Shane’s ring size. He knows Shane’s glove size. He knows every inch of Shane Hollander’s hands—the calluses, the scars, the way his fingers curl when he sleeps.

“Size nine.”

“I will have it resized immediately. You can pick it up in an hour.”

Ilya walks out of the building an hour later with the velvet box tucked safely in his jacket pocket. He drives back to the cottage with the radio turned up loud, singing along to a pop song he does not know the words to. He makes up his own lyrics. They are terrible. He does not care.

When he pulls into the driveway, the sun is setting. The sky is a bruise of purple and orange, the colors reflected in the still surface of the lake. It looks like a painting.

Shane is in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, eating a bowl of cereal. The bowl rests on the shelf of his belly.

“You’re back,” Shane says. His hair is sticking up on one side, and he is wearing sweatpants with a hole in the knee. Ilya loves him so much it hurts. “Was the financial guy boring?”

“Very. Talked about diversified portfolios.” Ilya crosses the kitchen and presses a kiss to Shane’s temple. “Very dry.”

“Gross,” Shane says, but he leans into the kiss.

Ilya slips his hand into his jacket pocket. His fingers brush the velvet box. Not yet. He will wait. Until the baby is born, until Shane feels like himself again, until there is a quiet moment on the dock in the morning light. He will ask, and Shane will say yes, and they will wear the rings on chains around their necks until they retire.

“What?” Shane asks, narrowing his eyes. “You’re staring. Do I have milk on my face?”

“No.” Ilya smiles. “Just looking at you.”

“You’re being weird.” Shane sets the bowl down on the counter. “Did you bring me anything?”

“I brought you me.”

“I wanted donuts.”

“I will make you donuts.”

Shane’s eyes narrow further. “You don’t know how to make donuts.”

“I am quick learner. YouTube exists.” Ilya reaches out and pulls Shane closer, careful of the bump between them. “Come. Sit down. I rub your feet.”

Shane sighs. “Fine.”

Ilya guides him to the couch, settles him among the mountain of pillows, and kneels at his feet. Shane’s ankles are swollen. His feet are sore.

He starts rubbing his thumbs into the arch of Shane’s left foot, and Shane makes a sound that is almost a moan.

“God,” Shane groans. “Don’t ever stop.”

“Never.” Ilya means it.

The ring sits in his pocket, waiting. The baby kicks in Shane’s belly, restless. The sun finishes setting over the lake, painting the world in shades of gold.

“I love you,” Ilya says quietly.

Shane peeks through one eye. “You’re definitely being weird.”

“Maybe.” Ilya smiles and keeps rubbing. “Is okay. You love me anyway.”

Shane lowers his eyelid again. “Yeah,” Shane murmurs, his voice soft and sleepy. “I do.”

Ilya pats the pocket with the ring.

Soon.

Montreal, Quebec
20 July 2026

Hayden Pike’s backyard is less of a relaxation zone and more of a sonic weapon. It is a Saturday afternoon, the sun is blazing, and the pool is currently occupied by five children operating at maximum volume.

“Watch this! Watch this!” Amber screams. At eight years old, she has the lung capacity of an opera singer and the fearlessness of a goalie. She launches herself off the diving board in a cannonball that sends a tsunami over the pool deck.

“Nice form!” Shane calls out from the safety of a lounge chair, wiping a stray droplet of water off his sunglasses.

In the shallow end, Airi is engaged in a splashing war with Arthur, who is ten now and gangly, looking more like his father every day. The twins, Ruby and Jade, are twelve, which means they are too cool for splashing. They are floating on oversized pink flamingos, looking bored and judgmental behind matching sunglasses.

“You’re squinting,” Hayden says, dropping into the chair next to Shane. He hands Shane a bottle of water—sparkling, lime-flavored, because Hayden is the only person on earth who remembers Shane’s beverage preferences accurately. “Relax. Airi is fine. Arthur knows if he dunks her, I’ll trade him to a boarding school in Switzerland.”

“She’s holding her own,” Shane says, watching his daughter expertly shield her face from a splash attack. “She has good reflexes.”

“She’s a Hollander. Of course she has good reflexes.” Hayden takes a long swig of beer. He’s graying at the temples now, the lines around his eyes deeper, but he still has that chaotic, protective energy that makes him Shane’s best-friend. “So. You going to tell me why you’re shaking the deck chair.”

Shane stills his leg. “I’m not.”

“You are. You have your ‘I’m about to take a penalty kill’ face on. What’s up?”

Shane takes a sip of water. The bubbles bite his tongue. The ring is heavy against his sternum, a secret weight under his T-shirt that he is hyper-aware of. Every time he moves, the metal warms against his skin.

“I’m going back to the camp,” Shane says.

Hayden chokes on his beer. He coughs, pounding his chest with a fist. “You’re what?”

“I’m going to coach. Next month. Just for a week.”

“At the camp,” Hayden clarifies, wiping his mouth. “The camp run by Ilya.”

“It’s a hockey camp, Hayden. You coach there.  It’s for kids.”

“Uh-huh. And you’re going to just… what? Blow a whistle and teach crossovers while your ex-boyfriend stands three feet away wearing those tight track pants he likes?” Hayden stares at him intently. “Shane. You haven’t been in the same room with him for more than an hour in five years. And you think you can survive a week?”

“We were in Florida together,” Shane points out. “For a week.”

“Yeah, and look how well that went. You came back looking like you went five rounds with a grizzly bear. Emotionally speaking.”

“It’s fine,” Shane insists, though his heart does a little stutter. “We’re professionals. We’ve worked together before. We did the All-Star games.”

“That’s different,” Hayden snaps. “All-Star weekend is a circus. You do a few skills competitions, you wave at the fans, you go home. This is intimate. It’s long days. Late nights. Just the two of you and a bunch of kids who probably ship you.”

“They’re children, Hayden. They don’t ship people.”

“Have you met the internet? Everyone ships you. Bromance.” Hayden crushes his empty beer can in one hand. “I just don’t want to see you get wrecked again, man. Watching you these last five years… it’s been brutal.”

Shane averts his gaze, focusing on the pool. Airi is laughing, her head thrown back, her wet hair plastered to her cheeks. She looks so much like Ilya in that moment that Shane’s breath catches.

“I’m fine,” Shane says.

“You’re not,” Hayden counters. “And neither is he. I saw the photos of him with that ballerina. What’s her name? The one who looked like a praying mantis?”

“Mikhaela.”

“Right. Mikhaela. I almost threw a party when I heard they broke up.” Hayden shakes his head, disgusted. “I was literally looking up caterers. I was going to order a cake that said Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.”

“They broke up already.”

“I know. But still. It pisses me off.” Hayden’s voice lose its joking edge. “It pisses me off that he’s out there trying to replace you with these cardboard cutouts. And it pisses me off that everyone blames you.”

Shane clicks his tongue. “Hayden.”

“No, I’m serious. I hear the chirps, Shane.” Hayden’s jaw works. “They don’t know. They don’t know you’re the one who saved him.”

“I didn’t save him,” Shane says quietly. “I let him go.”

“You protected him,” Hayden insists fiercely. “From Crowell. From the league.”

“Don’t say his name.”

“Why? Because he choked to death on a piece of steak in a high-end steakhouse a year ago? Karma is a bitch, Shane. I’m glad he’s dead.”

“Hayden. The kids.”

“They can’t hear me. They’re screaming about Marco Polo.” Hayden runs a hand through his hair, agitated. “I hate that you carry this alone.”

“It was my choice,” Shane says. He presses his hand to his chest, feeling the outline of the ring through his shirt. “I made the call.”

“Because of what Roger said,” Hayden says angrily. “I still remember your face when you came out of that meeting. You looked like a ghost.” He turns in his chair, pinning Shane with a hard look. “He started this fucking mess. Threatening you. Using Ilya against you. He did it to trap you.” 

He doesn’t need to be reminded. The words are branded into his hippocampus.

“Ilya Rozanov is a national hero in Russia,” Hayden mimics, his voice dropping into a cruel, bureaucratic cadence. “He is the pride of the Motherland. If news gets out that Russia’s Pride is involved in a ‘perverse’ Alpha-Alpha male pregnancy… how do you think that plays back home?”

Shane remembers it perfectly well. Two months after he gave birth to Airi. He remembers Roger Crowell, the NHL Commissioner, sitting behind his desk with a file folder that contained Shane’s medical records. Shane had walked in there thinking he could negotiate. He was Shane Hollander. He was the golden boy. He had leverage. He had endorsements. He had a reputation so clean you could eat off it.

He thought he could trade his reputation for their silence. But Crowell hadn't cared about Shane. He had smiled, a thin, oily expression, and opened the folder.

“We can handle you, Shane,” Crowell had said. “We can spin a hip injury. We can spin a surrogacy. The Canadian media loves you. They’ll eat whatever we feed them.” He had leaned forward then. “But Ilya? Ilya is different. Ilya is Russian. And Russia… they don’t like this sort of thing.”

Shane had felt a cold prickle of dread. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Crowell said, tapping a photo of Ilya on the desk, “that if this gets out—if it gets out that their Alpha superstar impregnated another Alpha in some freakish biological anomaly—they won’t just be disappointed. They’ll be humiliated.”

“So?” Shane had challenged, though his voice shook. “Ilya doesn't live there. He lives here.”

“Accidents happen, Shane. Passports get revoked. Families get… harassed. And Ilya? He goes back every summer. If he goes back and this is the story? He might not come back.”

Shane curls his hand to a fist. “Are you threatening him?”

“I’m protecting the league,” Crowell sternly said. “And I’m telling you the reality. They don’t have the same tolerance we do, Shane. It would be a humiliation. A stain on the national image. They might revoke his passport. That they might ensure he never plays in the NHL again.”

Shane’s fist fell slack. “I’ll retire for a year. I’ll say it’s an injury. I’m giving up hockey. Just let us be.”

“If you stay together,” Crowell said, “if you have this baby together, you destroy him. You destroy both of your reputation. You destroy everything he has worked for. And Ilya has more to lose than you. That baby isn’t even supposed to exist between two Alphas! It’s abomination!”

He had walked out of that office, gone back to the cottage, and lied. He had looked Ilya in the eye—Ilya, who loved him, who wanted this baby more than anything—and he had told him that he cared more about his career. He had told him that he was ashamed. He had told him that he couldn't be a freak.

Shane had made the only choice he could.

He had broken Ilya’s heart.

And he would do it again. He would rather Ilya be safe and hate him than be a tragedy. He would rather watch Ilya succeed from a distance, alive and whole, than risk a single hair on his head. He would rather be the villain in Ilya’s story than the reason Ilya’s story ended.

That wasn’t your choice to make.

The voice in his head is quiet, treacherous, and sounds a lot like the guilt that waits for him in the dark.

You didn’t save him, the voice whispers. You just stole his fight.

“Stop,” Shane mutters.

“That’s why you did it,” Hayden says. He reaches out and squeezes Shane’s shoulder hard. “Maybe you should tell Ilya.”

“What for? Ilya is already living a peaceful life. And even with Crowell dead, the league… the league never forgets.”

Hayden sighs, a heavy, frustrated sound. He leans back in his chair, watching his son attempt a handstand in the water.

“So you’re going to the camp,” Hayden says eventually.

“Yeah.”

“To do what? Torture yourself?”

Shane’s hand drifts to his chest again. He traces the shape of the oval diamond through the cotton.

“No,” he says.

“Well,” Hayden says, raising his empty beer can in a toast. “As your best-friend, I support you.”

“Daddy!” Airi screams from the pool. “Uncle Hayden! Watch me! I’m gonna do a flip!”

“We’re watching, kid!” Hayden yells back. He glances at Shane. “Just… try not to get knocked up again, okay? My heart can’t take the stress.”

Shane manages a weak smile. “Shut up, Pike.”

The afternoon sun has softened into evening, casting long shadows across Hayden’s backyard. The kids are finally exhausted, draped over pool chairs or huddled in towels.

Airi is asleep on Shane’s chest. Her small hand is curled into a fist, clutching the fabric of his T-shirt right over his sternum.

Right over the ring.

Shane rests his chin on the top of her damp head. He can feel the hard outline of the diamond pressing into his skin under her grip. He’d kept it in a velvet pouch for exactly three days after Ilya left it on the kitchen counter.

Three days of staring at it, of picking it up and putting it down, of wondering if he should throw it into the lake or mail it to Ottawa.

On the fourth day, he’d put it on.

He’d slipped the chain over his head, letting the gold settle against his collarbone, the ring falling to rest over his heart. It was cold at first, then quickly warmed to his body temperature.

He told himself it was just for a day. Just until he figured out what to do with it. But a day turned into a week. A week turned into a month. A month turned into five years. He wears it everywhere. Under his jersey during games, taped down so it doesn’t move. Under his dress shirts during interviews. In the shower. In his sleep.

The only time he takes it off is when he’s with Ilya.

In Florida, at the villa, he’d taken it off. He’d hidden it deep in his suitcase, terrified Ilya would see the outline of it under his shirt, terrified of the questions it would raise. Why do you still have it? Why do you wear it?

The oval diamond blazes in his memory. He knows every facet. He researched it obsessively in the lonely nights after the breakup. The carat weight, the clarity grade, the hidden halo of tiny diamonds underneath the main stone that only the wearer knows about—he memorized it all.

He shifts slightly, and Airi murmurs in her sleep, her grip on his shirt tightening. She pulls the fabric taut, and the outline of the ring becomes visible for a split second—a small, hard circle against his chest. He knows everything about this ring except how to deserve it.

Ottawa, Ontario
3 August 2026

Telling his parents is an exercise in crisis management. Shane treats it like a press conference: stick to the talking points, show no weakness, and get out before the difficult follow-up questions start.

They are in the kitchen of the Hollander family home. Mom is slicing dragon fruit for Airi. Dad is reading something on his tablet, his reading glasses perched on his nose in a way that makes him look professorial.

“I’m going back to the camp,” Shane says, trying to sound casual. “Next week. Montreal session.”

Dad stops scrolling. He looks over his glasses with the expression of a man who has just been told his son is planning to juggle chainsaws. “I thought you stepped back from the administrative role only.”

“I did. But Max Riley is injured—tore his meniscus training—so they’re short a coach.” Shane keeps his voice even. “Ilya asked if I could fill in.”

Though Ilya has not spoken to him since the trip ended. So Shane emailed Harris, the camp coordinator, and added himself to the roster. Harris had responded with seventeen exclamation points and a string of emojis that Shane didn’t fully understand.

His mom sets down the knife. She wipes her hands on a towel, her expression unreadable in that particular way that means she is reading everything. “And you think this is a good idea?”

“It’s for the charity, Mom. It looks bad if I’m not there.”

“It looks bad if you have a nervous breakdown in front of fifty children,” his mom counters. She walks around the island and puts a hand on his arm. Her fingers are cool from the fruit. “Shane. You just saw him in Florida. It didn’t go well.”

“It went fine. We co-parented.”

“You came back and reorganized your entire pantry by sodium content,” Dad points out dryly. “That is not the behavior of a man who is ‘fine.’”

Shane wants to argue. He wants to point out that organizing by sodium content is actually very practical for someone on a performance diet. He wants to say that he’s thirty-three years old and doesn’t need his parents’ permission to attend his own charity event.

Instead, he says, “I’m doing it. I need to be there. For the program. For… everything.”

His parents exchange concerned looks.

“Okay,” Mom says finally. “But you call us if you need anything. And I mean anything, Shane.”

“I will.”

He won’t. But it’s nice that she offered.

Later, he FaceTimes Rose. She answers immediately, wearing a mud mask that makes her look like a swamp creature with excellent bone structure.

“You’re going to the camp,” she says, before Shane even opens his mouth.

“How did you—”

“Hayden texted me. He said, and I quote, ‘The eagle has landed, and the eagle is horny and terrifying.’”

Shane groans. “I hate him.”

“You love him. And good for you, honey.” Rose shifts, and Shane can see she’s lying in bed with what appears to be a face mask, a glass of wine, and a Vogue magazine. Living her best life. “Go get your man. Just remember: if he tries to ice you out, you don’t retreat. You check him into the boards.”

“Rose—”

“Metaphorically,” she adds. “Please don’t actually concuss the father of your child.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good. Now tell me what you’re going to wear.”

Complexe Sportif Bell, Brossard
10 August 2026

Shane walks in carrying his stick and gear bag. He is twenty minutes early, because being on time is late, but the lobby is already buzzing with staff and volunteers.

“Shane!”

Harris Drover, the camp’s director and the Centaurs’ social media guy, comes jogging over. He looks stressed but happy. “I didn’t think you were actually coming! I mean, I saw the email, but I thought maybe it was a glitch. Or a prank. Or—”

“I’m here,” Shane says, forcing a smile. “Ready to work.”

“Awesome. Seriously. The kids are going to lose their minds.” Harris lowers his voice, glancing around like he’s about to share state secrets. “Uh, Ilya is in the coaches’ room. Just so you know.”

“Thanks.”

Shane walks down the familiar hallway until he reaches the coaches’ room and pushes the door open.

The noise stops.

It’s a full house. Ryan Price is there, taping a stick, looking massive and anxious as he always does. Wyatt Hayes is laughing at something J.J. said, his goalie pads stacked beside him. Leah Campbell is stretching on the floor. Max Riley is sitting on a bench with his leg in a brace, looking grumpy about being sidelined.

And Ilya.

Ilya is standing by the whiteboard, holding a marker. He looks… expensive. He’s wearing black track pants that fit too well and a gray camp T-shirt that stretches tight across his chest. His hair is pushed back from his face, and there’s a thin gold chain glinting at his throat.

He looks like he slept twelve hours, ate a balanced breakfast, and has never experienced a single moment of emotional turmoil in his entire life.

“Hey,” Shane says thinly.

“Cap!” J.J greets with a salute.

“Hollander,” Wyatt booms. “Look who decided to grace us with his presence! The prodigal coach returns.”

“Hey, Hazy.” Shane bumps fists with him, grateful for the distraction. He nods to the room. “Hey guys.”

“Glad you could make it,” Leah says, smiling kindly. “Max is useless on the ice right now.”

“Hey!” Max protests. “I can still chirp. My chirping leg is fine.”

Shane risks a glance at the whiteboard. Ilya hasn’t moved. His face is perfectly neutral.

“Harris said you were coming,” Ilya says.

“Yeah. Thought I could help out.”

“Good.” Ilya turns back to the whiteboard and uncaps the marker with a soft click. “We need someone to run the edge work drills. My knees are old.”

That’s it. No hello. No how are you.

“Sure. I can do edge work.”

The first hour is manageable. Shane takes the Group B forwards—mostly ten and eleven-year-olds. They are cute, eager, and completely unable to understand Shane’s instructions.

"Okay," he says, demonstrating a pivot. "You want to engage your outside edge at a forty-five-degree angle, keeping your center of mass low, and then explode out of the turn using your glutes."

The kids stare at him. One of them picks his nose.

"Coach Shane?" a little girl asks. "My ankles hurt."

"That means it's working," Shane says.

From across the ice, he hears a whistle. He looks over. Ilya is with the older kids. He’s laughing, demonstrating a deke that makes the kids cheer. He looks loose. Happy. He looks like the Ilya Shane fell in love with.

"He's really good," Ryan Price says, drifting over to Shane’s circle. Ryan is helping with the defensemen, but he looks relieved to be near Shane.

"Yeah," Shane says. "He’s a natural."

"You okay?" Ryan asks quietly. He knows. He’s one of the few who knows everything.

"Yes," Shane says. "Why?"

"You're gripping your stick hard."

Shane loosens his grip. "Just focused."

"Right," Ryan says. He hesitates. "For what it's worth... I'm glad you're here. I think... I think he needs you here. Even if he’s being a dick about it."

Shane watches Ilya ruffle a kid’s hair. "I don't think he needs anything from me, Ryan."

By the time they get off the ice, Shane is sweating and his own edges feel dull. He heads to the locker room reserved for the coaches. Most of them have already showered and headed to the cafeteria for lunch. Shane walks in, expecting it to be empty.

It isn’t.

Ilya is sitting on the bench in the far corner, still in his gear. He has his phone pressed to his ear. He’s speaking Russian.

Shane freezes by the door. He hates that he never learned it. Ten years, and all he knows are the curse words and the endearments—Suka, Solnyshko, Lyubov.

He doesn’t hear any endearments now. But Ilya’s voice is low. Soft. Intimate.

“Da, ya ponimayu,” Ilya says. Yes I understand. “Net, Mikhaela. Ne perezhivay.” No, Mikhaela. Don’t worry.

Mikhaela.

The ex. Why is he talking to her? Why does he sound like that?

Shane walks to his stall, trying to make as much noise as possible. He drops his bag. He unbuckles his helmet.

Ilya doesn’t spare him a glance. He keeps talking, a rapid stream of soft consonants. He laughs once—a quiet, private sound.

Shane feels sick. He wants to march over there and throw Ilya’s phone into the toilet.

“Da. Poka,” Ilya says finally. Yes. Bye. He hangs up.

Shane pulls off his jersey. He is hyper-aware of the ring resting against his chest, burning his skin.

"So," Shane says. "I hope it's okay that I'm here. I didn't want to leave the camp short-staffed."

Ilya starts untying his skates. "Is fine. Harris was panicked. You fixed problem."

"Right." Shane focuses on his own laces. "Problem fixed." He can't help himself. The jealousy is a living thing, clawing at his heart.

"Was that Mikhaela?" Shane asks. "On the phone?"

Ilya pauses. He looks up, his hazel eyes cool. "Yes."

"I thought..." Shane stops. "You said you guys broke up."

"We did."

"Oh." Shane tries to process this. "You... stay in touch with your exes?"

"Some of them," Ilya says pointedly. "She is having hard time.” He pulls off a skate. "With performance. She needed friend to talk to."

"Friend," Shane echoes.

“Yes. Friend.” Ilya stands and strips off his shirt, and Shane hates his traitorous body for noticing the way the muscles shift under golden skin.

Buzz.

Ilya’s phone lights up on the bench again.

Ilya glances at it. He picks it up.

“Hi,” Ilya says into the phone. He listens for a moment. “Yes. I am in Montreal. For the camp.”

Shane watches Ilya’s face. He sees the corner of Ilya’s mouth twitch up.

“Tonight?” Ilya asks. “Yes. I can do tonight.”

Shane’s blood immediately turns hot and itch-scratchy under his skin.

“No, I know a place,” Ilya continues. “Le Serpent. Is good Italian. Nine o’clock?” He pauses, listening. “Okay. See you then.”

Ilya hangs up.

"Who was that?" Shane asks before he can stop himself.

He instantly wants to kick himself. Stupid, he thinks, the word echoing viciously in his head. You sound desperate. You sound possessive. He presses his lips together, wishing he could drag the question back into his throat.

Ilya tosses the phone into his bag. "Anne."

“Anne?” His brain stalls, trying to place the name. “From Florida? The one who flirted with you at the restaurant?”

"Yes."

"What... what does she want?"

"She sent message. Said she is in Montreal for business. Wanted to know if I am around."

"And you said yes."

"Yes."

"You're meeting her? For dinner?"

"I was rude to her in Florida," Ilya says, grabbing a towel. "I want to apologize. She is nice woman." He walks toward the showers. "I am single man, Shane. I can have dinner with nice woman who wants to buy me pasta."

"You don't even like her!" Shane yells at Ilya’s back. "You said she was annoying!"

Ilya stops. He turns around.

"People change, Shane," Ilya says.

Shane stands there. He feels like he’s been hollowed out with a melon baller. The pain in his chest is physical. He presses his hand over it, gasping for air.

Ring. Ring.

His own phone buzzes in his pocket.

Shane ignores it.

Ring. Ring.

It keeps going.

Shane yanks it out, furious. He’s about to throw it across the room, but he sees the name on the screen.

Lorenzo Russo - Architect.

Enzo. The guy renovating the house in Ottawa. The same guy Shane hired for the cottage years ago.

He wipes his eyes roughly with the back of his hand and answers. "Hello?"

"Shane! Ciao, bello," Enzo’s voice is cheerful, oblivious to the fact that Shane’s life is currently imploding. "Sorry to bother you on a Monday. I know you’re at the camp."

"It's fine," Shane says. "What's up?"

"We need to finalize the kitchen finishes. The supplier is pressing me for the marble order. If we don't pick it by tomorrow, it’s a six-month delay."

"Okay. Just... pick whatever you think looks good."

"Shane, it's a forty-thousand-dollar slab. I need you to see the samples. I'm actually in the city right now, meeting a client. Can you swing by and sign off on them? It’ll take ten minutes."

"I can't... I'm not..."

"I'll buy you a drink," Enzo insists. "I’ll be at Le Serpent. Come on, you have to eat, right?"

The phone slips slightly in his sweaty palm.

"Le Serpent?"

"Yeah. It's in Old Montreal. Great spot."

Nine o'clock. Le Serpent.

That’s where Ilya is going. That’s where Ilya is meeting Anne.

Shane looks at the clock on the wall. It’s 5:45 P.M

He should say no. He should go home, eat his pre-prepped kale salad, and stare at the wall. He should protect himself.

But then he feels the ring.

"Shane? You there?"

"I'll be there," Shane says. His voice is sudden steel. "nine o'clock."

"Perfect. See you then."

Shane hangs up. He looks at the shower entrance where steam is billowing out, hiding Ilya from view.

He isn’t going to hide anymore.

Shane grabs his bag. He needs to go home. He needs to shower.  If Ilya wants to have dinner with a nice woman, fine. But he’s going to have to do it while Shane Hollander sits two tables away, looking like a fucking dynasty.

Shane does not own a suit that is "dinner casual." He owns suits for the NHL Awards (tuxedos), suits for post-game press conferences (navy or black, boring), and suits for weddings (usually gray, also boring).

He stands in his closet, glaring at the rows of hangers. The ring burns against his chest. He needs to look… capable. Not desperate. Not like a man who just spent twenty minutes hyperventilating in his car. He needs to look like Shane Hollander: five-time Stanley Cup champion, father, businessman, and generally functional human being.

He bypasses the navy—too corporate—and grabs the one suit that scares him. He bought it in Italy years ago, back when he and Ilya had gone on that one reckless vacation, mostly because Ilya had stood outside the dressing room and refused to let him leave until he bought it. It is a deep, rich brown—almost espresso—double-breasted, with wide lapels. It is too fashionable. It is too loud. And he still puts it on.

The trousers are the same sharp Italian cut: high-waisted, slim through the leg, tapering at the ankle. He pairs it with white linen and slides on his loafers, feeling like an impostor. He looks like he’s trying to be Ilya.

He drives to Le Serpent with the windows down, letting the warm summer air mess up his hair. He parks the Jeep, checks his reflection one last time, and walks toward the restaurant. Le Serpent is cool, industrial-chic. Exposed pipes, white tablecloths, art on the walls.

The hostess greets him with a smile that suggests she knows exactly who he is. “Mr. Hollander. Welcome to Le Serpent. Your party is already seated.”

“Thank you.”

He follows her through the main dining room, trying not to bump into the tables. And then Shane sees him. Ilya is seated at a table near the back, in a corner booth that offers both privacy and a clear sightline to the rest of the room. He’s wearing a gray herringbone blazer over a black shirt that’s unbuttoned just enough to show the hollow of his throat and the thin gold chain that rests there. He looks effortless. 

And sitting across from him, leaning in with her chin propped on one manicured hand, is Anne. She’s wearing a navy blazer dress that hugs her curves, cinched at the waist with a gold belt. She is smiling at him like he is the funniest, most charming man in the world.

Which, unfortunately, he is.

Ilya looks up. Their eyes meet across the crowded room.

Shane’s stomach drops through the floor. He waits for the wink, or the smirk, or the tiny nod.

But Ilya just tightens his jaw. He deliberately turns his attention back to Anne, dismissing Shane as completely as if he were a stranger.

It hurts. It hurts worse than a slash to the unpadded back of the knee.

“Shane!”

Shane forces himself to tear his gaze away from Ilya’s table. He blinks, refocusing on the man rising from a booth near the window.

Enzo is impossible to miss. He is tall with broad shoulders and the kind of dark, brooding features that make people stop and stare. He has thick, wavy dark hair, a perfectly groomed beard, and eyes that are almost black.

They’d met fifteen years ago, when Shane was a rookie with more money than sense and a desperate need to renovate the cottage he recently bought. Enzo had been fresh out of architecture school in Milan, working for a firm in Montreal. He’d walked through the cottage with Shane, pointing out structural issues and design possibilities, and Shane had been struck by how seriously he took the project. How he listened to what Shane actually wanted instead of imposing his own vision.

They’d worked together on three projects since then—the cottage, Shane’s house in Westmount, and now the house in Ottawa that Shane is renovating for reasons he refuses to examine too closely.

Enzo stands up when he sees Shane. “Ciao, bello!”

The Alpha pulls him into a hug—a real, European hug. Shane stiffens, his arms pinning awkwardly to his sides, as Enzo kisses him on each cheek. Shane holds his breath, waiting for it to be over. He never knows what to do with his hands during these greetings. Pat the back? Stand there like a statue? He chooses statue.

“Come stai? You look incredible. This suit—” Enzo steps back, holding Shane at arm’s length, his dark eyes sweeping appreciatively over the linen. “Madonna mia. Who dressed you? Because I know you didn’t pick this.”

“I dressed myself,” Shane says, looking down at his loafers.

“Lies. You have help. I remember the sweatpants phase.” Enzo grins and steers Shane toward the booth with a firm hand on his lower back. Shane tenses at the contact but allows it. “Sit, sit. I already ordered wine. You still drink the Barolo, yes?”

“I don’t really drink during the season—”

“One glass. It’s good for the blood. The Italians live forever, you know why? Wine and olive oil.” Enzo slides into the booth across from Shane and pours him a glass from the bottle already breathing on the table. “And how is my favorite tiny client? Airi? She must be so big now.”

“She’s five,” Shane says, accepting the glass. “She grows fast.”

“Cinque anni!” Enzo clutches his chest dramatically. “I remember when you called me about the nursery in Montreal. You were so nervous. ‘Enzo, it has to be perfect, Enzo, the crib has to face east for the morning light, Enzo—’”

“I wasn’t that bad,” Shane mutters, shrinking in his seat.

“You were worse.” Enzo’s smile softens. “But you were right to be nervous. Becoming a father, it changes everything. My Sofia is twelve now, and I still check on her three times before I sleep.” He raises his glass. “Alla famiglia.”

Shane clinks his glass against Enzo’s. “Alla famiglia.”

He takes a sip—the wine is excellent, deep and velvety—and tries very hard not to look at the table in the corner. He fails.

Ilya is looking at a menu, his head tilted toward Anne, who is gesturing animatedly about something. Her hand brushes his arm. He doesn’t pull away.

“Shane.” Enzo’s voice is gentle. “You are somewhere else, I think.”

Shane drags his attention back, blinking rapidly. “Sorry. Long day. The camp started today.”

“Ah, yes. The hockey camp.” Enzo nods knowingly. “You are coaching?”

“Filling in. They were short-staffed.”

“And Rozanov? He is there too, yes?”

Shane chokes on his wine. He grabs his napkin, coughing into it. “Yeah. He runs it.”

Enzo studies him for a moment with those dark, perceptive eyes. He looks like he wants to say something, but he mercifully decides against it. He reaches into the leather portfolio beside him and pulls out a stack of marble samples. “Okay. Let’s talk about your kitchen, and then you can go back to brooding about whatever is making you look like a kicked puppy.”

Shane bristles. “I don’t brood.”

“Certo.” Enzo slides the samples across the table. “The first option is Calacatta Borghini. Very classic, very clean. The second is Statuario—more dramatic veining. And the third—” he taps a sample with gray and gold striations “—is Arabescato Orobico. Very rare. Very expensive. Very you.”

Shane picks up the Arabescato. It’s beautiful—subtle movement in the stone, warm undertones that would complement the white oak cabinets they’d selected. It looks like something Ilya would like.

“This one,” Shane says immediately.

“You don’t want to think about it?”

“No. This one.”

Enzo grins. “I knew you would pick that. I already put the order on hold.” He makes a note in his portfolio. “The kitchen will be finished by November. The master suite by December. You and Airi can move in by Christmas, Dio volendo.”

“We’re staying at the cottage until then,” Shane says. “It’s closer to her school anyway.”

“And to Ottawa,” Enzo observes neutrally.

Shane freezes. He stares at Enzo. “It’s a coincidence.”

“Of course,” Enzo says, his face the picture of innocence.

Shane sets the marble sample down and takes another large sip of wine. From his peripheral vision, he can see that Ilya and Anne have been served their appetizers. She’s eating something with her fingers, laughing again. Ilya is watching her with an expression Shane can’t read from this distance, but it looks dangerously like fondness.

“The renovation is good,” Enzo continues, either oblivious to Shane’s internal crisis or politely ignoring it. “The contractor says the foundation work is ahead of schedule.”

“Good.”

“You know, most of my clients, they renovate a house to sell it. Or to impress someone.” Enzo tilts his head, studying Shane like he is a blueprint that doesn't quite add up. “But you, Shane—you are renovating a house you don’t even live in. A house in a city where you don’t play. Why is that?”

“Investment,” Shane says flatly.

“Mm-hmm.” Enzo doesn’t look convinced, but he lets it go. “Well. The investment will be beautiful. I promise you that.  As beautiful as the cottage. I remember when we did the deck. You were... different then."

"Different how?"

"Happier," Enzo says simply.

It is a direct hit. It pierces right through Shane’s armor and lodges in his chest. That deck—the one overlooking the lake, the one where he and Ilya had sat for hours drinking coffee and pretending the world didn’t exist—had been built on hope.

“I was twenty-one,” Shane says. “I hadn’t won a Cup yet. I was naive. I didn’t know how hard it was to stay at the top.”

“Mm.” Enzo studies him over the rim of his glass. His gaze is warm but piercing, seeing far too much. “Perhaps.”

“We should order,” Shane says abruptly, closing his menu.

Enzo smiles, a small, knowing thing, but he mercifully lets it drop. “Sì. Let us eat.”

His senses are entirely attuned to the table in the corner. He is positioned so that Ilya is in his sightline whether he wants him to be or not. Every time Anne touches Ilya’s hand—light, playful touches that suggest an easy familiarity—Shane feels it like a rasp against his own skin. Every time she leans in close to whisper something, and Ilya leans in to listen, the distance between them shrinking, Shane stares at his fork, debating the social ramifications of snapping it in half.

Ilya isn’t looking at Shane anymore. He is focused solely on Anne. He is smiling at her. A real smile.

This is what he wanted, Shane reminds himself bitterly. He wanted Ilya to be safe. He wanted Ilya to have a life that didn’t involve hiding in the dark.

He just didn’t realize how much it would hurt to watch him live it.

They finish dinner. Enzo insists on ordering espresso, and Shane watches him drink it, the tiny cup looking ridiculous in Enzo’s large hand. Finally, Enzo signals for the check.

“I have an early flight to Toronto,” Enzo says, smoothing his napkin. “The marble order is placed. I will send you the updated timeline tomorrow.”

Shane reaches for his wallet. “Let me get this. You came all this way.”

“No, no.” Enzo waves a hand dismissively, slapping his credit card onto the table before Shane can argue. “I said I would buy you a drink. This is my treat. You are making me very rich with this house, Shane. The least I can do is buy you fish.”

Enzo guides him toward the exit. Shane is hyperaware that they’re passing Ilya’s table, that Ilya is right there, close enough to touch. He keeps his eyes fixed on the door. Do not look.

“It was good to see you, Shane.” They stop near the door. Enzo pulls him into another hug, then pulls back and kisses both of Shane’s cheeks. Shane stands there, rigid as a board, letting it happen. “Stammi bene, eh? Take care of yourself. And give Airi a kiss from Zio Enzo.”

“I will.”

“I’ll see you in November. For the final walkthrough.” Enzo flashes him a brilliant smile, and slides into the waiting Maserati. The car purrs away into the night.

Shane stands on the sidewalk. The cool air hits his face, but he feels feverish. His own car hasn’t arrived yet. He should go back inside the vestibule and wait. It’s safer there. But he can’t make himself to move. Instead, he turns slightly, looking through the glass window of the restaurant.

He sees them.

Ilya isn’t looking at Anne. He is looking at the door. He is looking right at the spot where Shane is standing. Then, Anne says something. Ilya turns back to her, smiling.

Shane immediately looks away. He feels foolish. Pathetic. He is standing on a sidewalk, spying on his ex-boyfriend’s date, wearing a suit he put on specifically to inflict pain, and the only person bleeding is him.

"You're an idiot, Hollander," he whispers to himself.

The valet pulls up with the Jeep. It rattles slightly as it idles, a stark contrast to Enzo’s sleek sports car. Shane tips the guy and slides behind the wheel. He grips the steering wheel, staring at his reflection in the rearview mirror. 

He waits.

Five minutes. Ten minutes.

They don't come out.

He wonders how long Ilya will stay.

If he’ll take Anne back to Ottawa. If he’ll kiss her goodnight. If he’ll do more than kiss her.  

There’s a pathetic part of him that hopes Ilya will come running out the door, abandoning the nice woman and the pasta to chase after Shane. But life isn’t a movie, and Ilya Rozanov isn’t a chaser. Ilya is a man who was told "no" five years ago and eventually learned to listen.

Shane starts the car. The engine catches with a rough cough. It’s after ten already. Airi is safe and asleep at his parents’ cottage, but Shane should still get on the road. He has practice tomorrow at ten. He needs to sleep. He needs to stop thinking about Ilya Rozanov.

It’s humiliating enough, but now it appears his Jeep—his beloved, loyal, thirteen-year-old Jeep—has decided to betray him as well. One minute he’s driving through the darkness, classic rock blasting, trying to convince himself he’s a powerful, independent man who doesn’t need anyone. The next minute, the engine makes a sound like a dying cat, sputters twice, and dies. He barely manages to coast onto the shoulder before the Jeep becomes a two-ton paperweight.

He sits there in the sudden quiet.

“Perfect,” he says to the dashboard. “This is exactly what I needed.”

This Jeep was his first "big" purchase after his entry-level contract. His mom had begged him to get something reliable, something with a warranty. Shane had bought the Jeep because it looked cool and he was twenty-one and an idiot.

He can practically hear his mom’s voice. It’s a very old car. A garbage.

"It’s not garbage," Shane murmurs to the empty seat beside him. "It’s reliable."

Except it isn't. It’s dead.

He looks at the passenger seat again. He can see the faint scratch in the leather near the door handle, from that time Ilya had tossed his gear bag in without looking, too busy trying to pull Shane into a kiss before they’d even left the parking garage. Shane had been furious about the leather. Ilya had just laughed, that infuriating, crooked grin taking over his face, and said, Now it has character.

He smacks the steering wheel again, hard enough to sting his hand.

"Work! Just work, you piece of junk!"

The Jeep does not answer. It sits there, silent and dead, mocking him.

Shane pulls out his phone. 7% battery. Fantastic. This night literally cannot get worse.

He calls CAA. It rings. And rings. And rings.

A cheerful, automated voice finally picks up. "Nous sommes désolés. We are experiencing higher than normal call volume. Please hold."

Shane hangs up. He stares out the windshield. It is pitch black. The only light comes from the occasional car zooming past on the highway, their headlights slicing through the dark like searchlights. He is stranded.

He rests his forehead against the steering wheel. “Fuck my life,” he grunts.

He gets out and tries to salvage this old man jeep. The wind hits him instantly, cutting right through the wool of his jacket. He pops the hood and stares at the engine like he has any idea what he’s looking at. He doesn’t. He can take apart a hockey play in a fraction of a second, but car engines are a mystery wrapped in a mechanical enigma.

Smoke billows out, stinging his eyes.

“Shit,” he mutters, waving it away. “Perfect.”

Dad’s phone goes to voicemail. Mom’s does the same. He is considering the logistics of walking to the next exit—it can't be that far, he runs marathons for fun—when the darkness behind him is shattered by high-beams.

Shane shields his eyes, squinting against the glare. The car slows, gravel crunching under expensive tires. It’s a Range Rover, massive and black, idling with a low, menacing purr.

He knows that car. He knows the license plate.

Fuck, Shane shouts inside his head.

Of course the universe is this cruel. Of course Shane is going to be humiliated in front of the one person he most wants to impress, stranded on the side of the road in his dead car, holding for roadside assistance like some kind of helpless civilian.

The driver’s side window slides down. Ilya Rozanov is sitting there, bathed in the soft glow of the dashboard lights. His lips curve into a half-smile that somehow manages to convey both amusement and concern.

“Nice spot for picnic,” Ilya calls out.

Shane slams the hood of the Jeep shut. “I’m taking a break.”

"In dark? On highway?" Ilya leans an arm out the window, looking far too comfortable. "Is this new training method?"

“My car broke down, Ilya. Obviously.”

“Ah.” Ilya nods sagely. “Jeep. American engineering. Very rugged. Very… temporary.”

“It’s a classic!”

“Is a corpse. Get in.”

Shane plants his feet, crossing his arms over his chest to hold in the warmth. "I have CAA coming."

The driver’s door opens. Ilya steps out, unfolding his long frame and walking toward him. He looks at the smoking vehicle, then at Shane. "Old car. You should have bought new one."

“I like this car.”

“This car hates you.”

Shane shivers, though he tries to disguise it as a shrug. The night air is  cool, but his face feels hot, flushed with a toxic mix of anger and humiliation. "Why are you here? Where is Anne?"

He looks at the Range Rover. The passenger seat is empty.

“She went home,” Ilya says.

“You let her go home alone?” Shane asks, channeling his jealousy into self-righteousness. “What kind of gentleman are you?”

“She has car. Working car.” Ilya gestures to Shane’s dead Jeep. “Unlike some people.”

“I have CAA!” Shane snaps. He holds up his phone. “They’re coming. Any minute now.”

“Show me your call log.”

“I don’t have to show you anything.”

“Get in the car, Hollander.”

“No.”

“Shane.” Ilya’s voice drops into something that sounds almost like pleading. “Is dark. Get in the car.”

“I am waiting for the tow truck!”

“Tow truck will take two hours. I will take you home. We will call them from the cottage.”

“I’m not going to the cottage with you!” Shane yells. He feels wild, unhinged. “Why aren’t you still at the restaurant with your—with Anne?”

“I told you. She left.”

“So you decided to follow me? To what, gloat?”

“I am not following you,” Ilya says patiently. “I am driving to Ottawa. This is highway. You are on it.”

“Of course you are,” Shane hisses. “Of course.”

Pick up, pick up, pick up, he thinks, dialing CAA again. The hold music starts immediately.

"Shane," Ilya says from behind him.

"Go away."

"I am not leaving you here."

"Yes, you are." Shane slams the hood so hard the car rocks on its tires. "You are going to leave me the fuck alone!"

“I am not—”

“I don’t need you!” They’re standing in the middle of the empty highway now, headlights from Ilya’s car cutting through the darkness. “I have handled everything by myself. I can handle a broken car, Rozanov.”

What happens next is so fast Shane doesn’t have time to react. One second he’s holding his phone, and the next Ilya has snatched it out of his hand.

“Hey!” Shane lunges for it. “Give it back!”

Ilya holds it over his head. He’s taller than Shane, damn him, and he knows exactly how to use every inch of that advantage. “You are 3%. You are calling no one.”

Ilya walks back to the Range Rover, opening the passenger door. “Get in. We can stay here all night arguing, or we can drive to cottage. Your choice.”

Shane glares at him, he wants to fight. He wants to dig his heels in and wait until morning on the side of the Trans-Canada Highway just to prove a point, just to not give Ilya the satisfaction. But he is tired. And cold. And Ilya’s scent—sandalwood—is already drifting toward him, undoing his resolve.

"You don't have to do this," Shane says. "I'm not your responsibility."

"I cannot leave the father of my child stranded on highway," Ilya says. "If something happens to you—if you get hit by truck, or freeze to death—Airi will never forgive me."

Right. It’s not about Shane or the lingering look across the restaurant. It’s about co-parenting logistics and trauma prevention for their daughter.

Don’t think ahead of yourself, Shane, he chides himself bitterly. It’s practical. It’s Ilya being a good dad.

He makes a huffing, frustrated sound, then marches past Ilya to the Range Rover  and climbs the passenger seat. He slams it shut so hard the chassis shudders. Ilya slides into the driver’s side a moment later. The car is warm, and the air smells, overwhelmingly, of him.

"I will text Harris," Ilya says, tossing Shane’s phone into the cup holder. "He has brother with tow truck company. He will come get your Jeep."

"Whatever." Shane crosses his arms over his chest, staring resolutely out the window. "Just drive."

Ilya puts the car in gear and merges back onto the highway. "So," he says after a few minutes. His voice is casual. "Where is he?"

Shane frowns, not looking away from the window. "Who?"

"The man. From restaurant." Ilya’s fingers tap a rhythm on the steering wheel.

"He had a flight. To Toronto."

"Ah." Ilya makes a low sound in his throat. "So he leaves you. In restaurant. With no ride."

"I had a ride! My car worked when I got there!"

"He should have waited."

"He has a life, Ilya. He has clients."

"He is not your boyfriend?"

"No," Shane says, exasperated. "He's my architect."

Ilya is silent for a beat. Then he snorts. "He is architect? Like... he draws houses?"

"Yes. He's renovating my house."

"Architects do not look like that," Ilya says firmly. "Architects wear sweaters and have glasses and look like they eat drafting paper. That man looked like underwear model."

"He's Italian," Shane defends. 

"He kissed you."

"A friendly one.”

"He held you," Ilya counters, his voice becoming more serious. "For long time. He held you like he knew you."

"He does know me. He designed the cottage. Years ago.”

Shane thinks that’s the end of it. He turns back to the window, watching the trees blur into a wall of black.

“Is he single?” Ilya asks.

Shane whips his head back around. “What?”

“The architect. Is he single?”

Why? Why does it matter? Unless Ilya liked what he saw. Unless Ilya is the one interested in the underwear-model architect.

“I don’t know!” Shane exclaims. “I didn’t ask for his relationship history while looking at marble samples.”

“You should have asked,” Ilya mutters. “He was looking at you like he wanted to polish you.”

Shane lets out a short, incredulous breath.

"You are unbelievable," he says to the glass. He refuses to dignify the 'polish' comment with a reaction. Ilya is seeing things that aren't there. “He’s married to his job, okay? And he has a daughter.”

“So he is single dad,” Ilya concludes darkly. “Even worse. You love dads. You have dad fetish.”

“Fuck off, Rozanov! I don’t have a dad fetish!”

“You are practically drooling over Hayden whenever he holds baby. And you looked at this man like he was water in desert.”

“Hayden is my best-friend. And I looked at Enzo like he was a friend buying me dinner,” Shane says when the car suddenly surges forward—just a micro-tap on the accelerator that presses Shane back into his seat before Ilya corrects it.

“I bought you dinner for ten years.”

“Why do you care? You were there with Anne. You were laughing with her."

"I was being polite."

"You looked like you were having fun."

"I was eating pasta," Ilya says comfortably. 

"Do you like her?" Shane holds his breath, his fingernails digging into his palms.

"No,” Ilya says.

"Why not?" Shane asks. He needs to understand why Ilya is here, with him, instead of with the woman who smiles like sunshine. "She's pretty. She's nice. She's not a secret."

"She is not my type," Ilya says.

Shane rests his elbow on the window ledge and leans his temple against his knuckles. He rolls his eyes, though he isn't sure Ilya can see it in the dark. "So Mikhaela is?"

"No."

Shane turns to look at him, genuinely bewildered. "What the fuck, Rozanov? You date them, you let the paparazzi take photos, you bring them to events... and they’re not even your type? Why did you even bother?"

Ilya shifts gears as the road begins to incline. "I tried. Was boring," Ilya says. He glances at Shane, a quick, burning look that scorches Shane’s skin. "Was empty."

You loved someone boring for ten years, Shane wants to say.

"People change.” He throws Ilya’s own words from the locker room back at him. "That's what you said."

The passing headlights reflects in Ilya’s eyes like distant stars. "Yes," Ilya says.

Rain hits the windshield like a handful of gravel thrown by an angry god. It happens instantly—a sudden, violent deluge that obliterates the view of the highway. The wipers slash back and forth against the sheet of water hammering the glass.

Ilya turns his head, his hazel eyes locking onto Shane’s for a second that feels like an hour. "But not me, Hollander.”

To be continued…

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.

1. Pajamas (4 pairs, plus the Elsa nightgown)
2. Tablet (fully charged, downloaded with educational games that she will ignore in favor of watching videos of people unboxing toys)
3. Timmy (The purple stuffed Bunny. Non-negotiable)
4. Sunscreen (SPF 100)
5. 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…

Chapter Text

Montreal, Quebec
26 September 2021

When Shane was a kid, silence meant success.

Silence meant the homework was done, the drills were finished, the curfew was met. Silence was his coach not yelling, the world running exactly the way it was supposed to. Silence was the sound of everything going right. Now, silence is the thing that’s going to kill him.

It lives in his Montreal condo like a fourth resident—him, Airi, Mrs. Potts (Airi’s nanny), and the Silence. It sits on the white bumper chaise sectional his stylist picked out. It spreads across the granite countertops like morning fog. It fills every white space in his color-coded Google Calendar, which is hilarious because the whole point of color-coding is supposed to be that it makes you feel organized, but instead Shane just stares at all those neat little blocks of time and thinks: This is what my life looks like now. Tetris.

The condo doesn’t smell like anything.

That’s what gets him, actually. It doesn’t smell like that Tom Ford perfume Ilya wore—the one Shane used to complain about even though it  made him purr every time he caught it. It doesn’t smell like coffee that’s too strong or bread that’s too carby or any of the other things Ilya used to leave scattered around like landmines.

At night, Shane tells himself this is what he wanted. He says it while brushing his teeth for exactly two minutes. He says it while eating his egg white omelet. He says it in the car on the way to practice, half-listening to a podcast about urban planning because music makes his chest hurt now, makes him think of road trips and Ilya singing off-key to Russian pop songs Shane couldn’t understand but loved still.

This is what you chose, he thinks, gripping the steering wheel. This is winning.

And he is winning.

That’s the truly fucked-up part. On the ice, Shane Hollander is having the best season of his career. He’s faster than he’s ever been. Sharper. Every pass finds its target. Every shot is calculated. He’s a machine, operating at peak efficiency, and his stats are objectively beautiful.

It turns out that when you’re not spending half your mental energy on hiding—on checking over your shoulder, on deleting texts, on that very specific terror that comes from being in love with someone the entire world thinks is your enemy—you can be really, really good at hockey.

“Looking focused, Cap,” his teammates say after practice, clapping him on the back.

“Like a man on a mission,” J.J adds, and Shane wants to laugh because mission implies you know where you’re going, and Shane doesn’t know anything anymore except how to put the puck in the net.

They don’t notice that he’s hollow. That if you knocked on his chest, you’d hear an echo.

He comes home after beating Toronto Guardians 4-2. The adrenaline is still buzzing under his skin—that electric aftermath that used to end with him in a hotel room somewhere, or the secret condo he bought just so they’d have a place, with Ilya’s hands in his hair and Ilya’s mouth in his and the scratch of stubble against his throat.

Now it ends with Mrs. Potts asleep in the armchair, reading glasses sliding down her nose.

“She was perfect,” Mrs. Potts says, gathering her purse. “Slept the whole time.”

“Great. Thank you.” Shane’s voice sounds wrong. Rusty. “Drive safe.”

The door clicks shut, and the silence comes roaring back.

Shane walks to the nursery on autopilot. Airi is asleep on her back, arms thrown up beside her head like she’s surrendering to the universe. She’s growing so fast Shane can barely keep track. Her cheeks are fuller. Her hair is darker. He reaches down and strokes her left cheek.

“Hey, mon amour,” he whispers.

She makes a soft contented sound and doesn’t wake.

Safe, Shane thinks. The word he clings to like a life raft. This is safe.

No one’s digging through medical records. No one’s asking questions. No one’s wondering why Shane Hollander’s daughter has hazel eyes and a cleft chin. He’s protected her. Protected their career. Protected the elaborate house of cards that keeps them all upright. He just had to sacrifice everything else.

In the kitchen, Shane opens the fridge. It’s organized like a diagram in a nutrition textbook. Rows of sparkling water—ginger-flavored, because he likes ginger ale but sugar is the enemy. Tupperware containers of pre-measured vegetables. Almond milk.

No vodka in the freezer. No frozen hand pies. No jar of those insane Russian pickles that made Shane’s mouth water when he was pregnant, standing at the counter in his underwear while Ilya hugged him.

Shane grabs a water. Takes a sip. It tastes like nothing. He sits on the edge of the sofa and picks up his phone. He opens Instagram even though he knows he shouldn’t. The algorithm serves up a photo from today’s Centaurs practice immediately. Ilya, center frame, laughing at whatever Wyatt said. Head thrown back. Throat exposed and golden under the rink lights.

He looks happy.

The caption: Captain Rozanov keeping spirits high in Ottawa 💪.

Shane stares at the screen until it goes dark.

Ilya is laughing. Playing hockey. Living his life like Shane didn’t just blow up both of theirs.

The anger comes first, followed immediately by shame.

You did this, a voice whispers in his head. You sent him away. You don’t get to be mad that he left.

Shane locks his phone. Throws it on the couch. He should go to bed. He has practice at 8 A.M. A PR meeting at noon about some “Bachelor of the Year” piece they want to run, which is humiliating for roughly seventeen reasons he will never, ever articulate to another human being. He has to be Shane Hollander tomorrow—the Golden Boy, the guy who made the right choice.

He walks to the window instead. Montreal spreads out below him, all cold lights and distant stars, and Shane thinks that he has everything he ever wanted.

“It’s better this way,” he says out loud to the empty room. The words sound exactly as convincing as when he told that reporter he “wasn’t focused on individual achievements.”

From the nursery, a cry splits the silence.

Shane is moving without thinking. Across the living room, down the hall, through the doorway. He scoops Airi up and clutches her to his chest. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs to hus daughter, rocking. “Shh, shh. You’re okay. Daddy’s got you.”

Later, Shane is sitting in the rocking chair at 2 A.M., and Airi has finally unlatched from his chest, milk-drunk and boneless against his arm. Her chin has a dimple. He’s spent enough time staring at every angle of Ilya’s face to recognize the blueprint. In a year, maybe two, that dimple is going to deepen into a cleft chin, and every time Shane looks at his daughter he’s going to see a part of the man he sent away.

He should put her down. Walk to the kitchen, drink his regulation amount of water like a responsible adult who has his life together. But he doesn’t, because if he stands up, he has to walk past his bedroom. And if he walks past his bedroom, he has to walk past the closet. And in the back of that closet, behind winter boots he hasn’t touched since February and a pile of dry cleaning he keeps forgetting exists, there’s a safe.

He finally puts Airi in her crib—she doesn’t even stir, which feels like a minor miracle—and stands in his bedroom doorway. The room looks like a hotel. Gray bedding. Gray walls. Abstract art his stylist picked out because Shane’s idea of interior decorating is “I don’t know, whatever’s fine.”

He opens the closet.

The safe is small and black and completely ordinary, the kind of thing you’d keep passports in, or expensive watches, or apparently engagement rings from the man you’re in love with but too terrified to actually be with.

Shane’s fingers hover over the keypad.

0-6-1-5.

Ilya’s birthday, because Shane is nothing if not a walking cliché of self-destruction.

The lock clicks. The door swings open.

The velvet box sits there, small and dark and accusatory. Shane picks it up. It’s heavier than it should be, like Ilya somehow managed to pack all of Shane’s failures into four ounces of jewelry packaging. He sits down on the floor—because standing suddenly seems like too much to ask of his body—and opens the box.

Oval diamond. Gold band. Nothing flashy, nothing ostentatious. Exactly the kind of ring Shane would have picked for himself if he’d ever let himself imagine a future where he got to have things like this.

He picks up the ring. It’s cold in his palm—just an object that shouldn’t have this much power over him. He slides it onto his left ring finger, and tells himself he’s just checking the size. Seeing if Ilya got it wrong, if this whole thing was built on assumptions that don’t actually hold up under scrutiny.

The ring slides on.

Perfect fit.

Not too tight, not too loose, not catching on his knuckle or spinning around his finger. It sits at the base of his hand like it was made for him—because it was made for him, because Ilya knows him, knows the exact circumference of his finger and his favorite color and the way he takes his tea and every single one of the thousand tiny details that make up a life.

Shane stares at his hand.

He’s wearing Ilya’s ring.

His chest is tight and his eyes are cloudy and he’s actually crying, which Shane Hollander does not do, because crying is inefficient and solves nothing and does not help you win hockey games.

But he’s crying right now.

For the cottage, for Ilya’s laugh echoing off the lake, for the way they used to look at each other across the ice like they were sharing a secret the rest of the world would never understand. For the silence in his house now, for the way his bed is too big, for the fact that he finally has everything he thought he wanted—the career, the Cup, the perfect public image—and it turns out none of it matters because the person he wants to share it with is gone.

He cries because the ring fits.

Because Ilya exactly knows him, and that’s the worst part of all of this.

He wipes his face on his sleeve and looks at the ring. He can’t wear this. Can’t walk into practice tomorrow with a diamond on his finger. Can’t go to team meetings or media availability or the fucking grocery store. Can’t explain to Coach Theriault why he’s suddenly wearing an engagement ring from a man he’s supposedly not in a relationship with.

He tries to pull it off.

It doesn’t move. Fuck.

Panic spikes. He pulls harder, twisting, his knuckle going red and then white and then some alarming shade of purple.

The ring stays put.

“Come on,” he mutters, yanking. “Come on—”

His body seems to understand what his brain is still trying to deny: taking this ring off feels like cutting off his own finger.

Shane gives up.

He stumbles to his dresser and digs through the top drawer—past the rolled socks, past the tie clips he never wears, past all the carefully organized evidence of a life lived in perfect control—until his fingers close around a chain.

Gold. Thin. His mother gave it to him for his confirmation and he’s never worn it, but he kept it because Yuna Hollander raised him to keep gifts even when they don’t fit. It takes three tries to get the ring off his finger—three tries and what feels like a minor dislocation—but finally it comes free.

Shane threads the chain through the ring. Fastens the clasp at the back of his neck. The ring slides down and settles against his sternum, hidden under his t-shirt. It should feel cold. It doesn’t. It’s warm from his hand, from his skin, from the heat of his body trying to hold onto the one thing he should have let himself keep.

He sits there on his closet floor, hand pressed over his chest where he can feel the ring like a second heartbeat.

Another secret.

Another lie.

Another thing he’s going to carry alone, because that’s what Shane Hollander does. He carries things. He performs. He wins.

He just doesn’t get to keep anything.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Two Weeks Later
Bell Centre, Montreal
3 October 2021

The chain is heavy. Which is ridiculous, because it’s basically nothing—a thin strip of gold, tucked under his compression shirt and shoulder pads and jersey, invisible to everyone except Shane, who can feel it like a fucking anchor dragging him to the bottom of the St. Lawrence.

Shane sits in his stall, staring at his phone while the locker room chaos swirls around him. J.J. and Patrice are arguing about the playlist—Patrice wants Drake, J.J. wants literally anything else—and there’s the familiar soundtrack of tape ripping, skates hitting rubber mats, someone’s protein shaker bottle rattling like a maraca.

Shane is in his own personal soundproof booth. He pulls up the photo he took this morning. Airi in her high chair, face absolutely demolished by mashed sweet potato, grinning that gummy baby grin that makes his heart swell.

It’s cute. It’s the kind of photo you send to your partner with a caption like Look at this monster or She misses you or Remember when we were happy?

Shane types nothing.

Just attaches the file. Hits send.

Watches the three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.

Ilya: 👍

That’s it. No words. No question about whether she’s sleeping through the night or if she’s still doing that thing where she screams when you put her down. Just acknowledgment of receipt, like Shane’s submitted a form to the DMV.

Shane shoves his phone deep into his bag before he can do anything pathetic like stare at it for another ten minutes hoping Ilya will add literally anything else. It’s been fourteen days since the cottage. Fourteen days since Shane said no to everything and Ilya walked out. They haven’t seen each other—not really, not in any way that matters—since then. Just the handoffs. Those agonizing parking lot exchanges where Shane passes over the car seat and Ilya takes it without looking at him, and they speak in clipped sentences that sound like they’re negotiating a hostage situation.

She ate at noon. She needs a nap. Here’s her bag.

Co-parents. Professionals. Strangers who happen to share a child and a soul.

“Earth to Hollander.”

Hayden Pike nudges Shane’s shin with his stick, and Shane blinks back into his body. The locker room solidifies around him—the smell of skate sharpening dust, the bass vibrating through the speakers, the pre-game energy that usually makes Shane feel alive but today just makes him feel tired.

“Yeah,” Shane says. “I’m here.”

Hayden gives him that look that says your mask is slipping and I can see all the ugly stuff underneath.

Hayden knows. He’s the only one on the team who knows everything: the baby, Crowell, the breakup, the fact that Shane is currently held together by masking tape and spite.

“You okay?” Hayden lowers his voice. “You’ve been… I don’t know. Quiet. Even for you.”

“I’m fine.” Shane stands, grabs his helmet. “Let’s go.”

It’s the home opener against Ottawa. Saturday night. Hockey Night in Canada. The Bell Centre is going to be deafening, because Montreal versus Ottawa is always deafening, but especially now that Ilya Rozanov is captain in Ottawa, facing off against Shane Hollander in Montreal.

The media is calling it a rivalry. They’re writing think pieces about leadership and legacy and all the narrative bullshit that makes good television.

They don’t know the half of it.

Shane skates out for warmups and the crowd noise hits him like a physical force. He does his laps, shoots some pucks at Patrice, keeps his head down and his routine tight. But his body knows. His body is a compass, and it always points toward Ilya Rozanov, no matter how hard Shane tries to recalibrate.

Ilya is at the red line, stretching. He’s talking to Troy Barrett, but he’s not smiling. He’s not doing his usual warmup showboating—the puck flips, the winks at fans pressed against the glass, the general look at me, I’m having the time of my life energy that usually drives Shane insane.

He looks grim.

And then, like he can feel Shane staring, Ilya turns.

Their eyes lock across the ice.

For one second—one stupid, hopeful second—Shane thinks maybe Ilya will nod. Or give him literally any sign that Ilya still acknowledges his existence. Instead, Ilya’s lip curls into pain than arrogance, and he turns his back.

The game starts and it’s brutal.

Not fun-brutal, not the playful rivalry of their early twenties when Ilya will chirp at him and there was always that undercurrent of heat, of I’ll see you later. This is cold. Vicious. Warfare.

The Centaurs are playing surprisingly well—their new Coach Wiebe has them structured and disciplined—and Ilya is playing like a man possessed. He’s hitting everything that moves, finishing checks with a violence that borders on reckless.

Midway through the second period, Shane takes a pass from J.J. in the neutral zone. He crosses the blue line, head up, looking for the shooting lane when a black jersey slams into him. The impact almost knocks the wind out of his lungs. Shane hits the boards hard, helmet rattling against glass, and for a second everything is white noise and pain.

He glances up.

Number 81 is skating away, not even looking back.

“Clean hit!” the ref yells, waving off the penalty.

It was clean.

But it was personal to him.

Shane scrambles up, gasping. By the third period, it’s 2-2 and the Bell Centre sounds like the inside of a jet engine. Shane is exhausted emotionally. He’s drained by the proximity, by the sight of Ilya’s shoulders, by the absolute refusal of Ilya to acknowledge his existence except to try and shove him.

With four minutes left, there’s a scramble in the Ottawa zone. J.J. fires from the point. Hazy makes the save but the rebound spills loose into the slot, and Shane is there, he has the open net—

A stick comes down hard across his wrists. Pain flares, white-hot. Shane drops his stick, spinning around.

Ilya is standing there, chest heaving, stick raised. He doesn’t look apologetic. He looks furious, like he’s been holding this rage in for two weeks and it’s finally found a crack to pour through.

“You want to be hero?” Ilya snarls. “Go be hero somewhere else, Hollander.”

Shane snaps.

Maybe it’s the pain. Maybe it’s the empty cottage. Maybe it’s the ring burning against his heart—or the fact that he’s missed Ilya every single second of the past fourteen days, and Ilya is looking at him like he’s trash scraped off the bottom of a skate.

“Fuck you!” Shane shouts. He shoves Ilya. Hard. Two hands to the chest. The impact jars Shane’s own shoulders, but the satisfaction is visceral. He expects Ilya to shove back. He expects the refs to blow the whistle.

What he doesn’t expect is the sound of the arena.

Usually, when a fight breaks out, the crowd roars. It’s bloodlust and excitement. But this isn’t a normal hockey fight. This is Shane Hollander, the Lady Byng winner, the golden boy of the NHL, losing his mind.

The crowd gasps. A collective, sharp intake of breath that sucks the air right out of the building. Both bench teams are frozen. They aren’t banging their sticks on the boards. They’re staring. Mouths open. Shocked.

Ilya stumbles back, surprise flashing across his face for half a second, then a dark and twisted satisfaction takes place. Like he’s been waiting for Shane to finally break. 

“Go on, Hollander,” Ilya taunts. 

Shane lunges forward, grabbing Ilya’s jersey, trying to wrestle him down—but Ilya is immovable. Ilya is six-foot-three of Russian muscle and fury, and Shane is just an exhausted single parent who hasn’t slept more than three hours a night in eight weeks. His hips scream in protest as he twists—still knitting themselves back together after literally growing and birthing a human two months ago—but the pain is better than the numbness.

“Is that all you have?” Ilya snarls in his ear as they grapple. “Come on, Hollander. Stop pretending you are perfect.”

Shane grunts, shoving his forearm into Ilya’s chest. “Fuck you, Rozanov. Fuck you.”

“You are so tired, yes?” Ilya yanks him forward, their helmets cracking together. “Tired of being perfect Captain. Tired of hiding. Tired of your bullshit golden boy mask.”

“Shut up—”

“Show them,” Ilya hisses. His eyes are manic, glittering. “Show them you are ugly like rest of us.”

“Rozanov!”

“Hollander!”

Bodies pile on. Linesmen appear, shouting, pulling. Troy Barrett wraps an arm around Ilya’s chest, hauling him backward.

“Ilya! Back off!”

“Shane!” Hayden’s voice, close and terrified. “Shane, stop—”

Shane feels hands on his shoulders but he’s still reaching for Ilya, still trying to—what? Fight him? Hold him? He doesn’t even know anymore.

“Back the fuck off!” Hayden roars at someone. “Don’t touch him! Everyone back up!”

And then his body just… quits. The world tilts sideways and Shane is falling, expecting the crack of ice against his skull, but Hayden catches him.

“Whoa, whoa—I’ve got you. Shane, I’ve got you—”

Shane doesn’t care. He just wants the world to stop spinning. He closes his eyes, but that makes it worse. The darkness behind his eyelids is spinning, a carousel of Ilya’s furious face, their baby’s cry, the empty cottage, the silence.

“Hey.” Hayden’s voice, sharp with panic now. “Shane, look at me. You’re pale. Shane—”

“I’m fine,” Shane mumbles, but his tongue is too thick, and the words come out slurring.

Through the blur of bodies, Shane sees Ilya.

Still being held back by the linesman, but he’s not fighting anymore. He’s staring at Shane, and all the rage has drained from his face, replaced by terror.

Their eyes meet.

Oh, Shane thinks, do you still care?

“MEDIC!” Hayden screams. “Someone get a fucking medic—”

The static rushes in and swallows Shane whole.

The next thing he knows, he wakes up to the smell of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol.  The room is too bright. Fluorescent lights, cinderblock walls painted that specific shade of institutional white that makes you want to die just looking at it.

Shane blinks. Tries to sit up. His brain sloshes around in his skull like liquid in a too-full container.

“Easy there, Mr. Hollander.”

There’s a woman beside him. Small, gray hair in a severe bun, scrubs and a name tag that says Marie – RN.

“What—” Shane’s voice comes out like sandpaper. “What happened?”

“You passed out,” Marie says, matter-of-fact. She’s checking a monitor Shane didn’t notice. “Middle of the game. Very dramatic. Your teammates were beside themselves.”

Shane shuts his eyelids. “Fuck.”

“Language,” Marie says mildly. “Though I understand the sentiment.”

“I’m sorry. How long was I out?”

“Twenty minutes, give or take.”

He’s still wearing most of his gear. Someone took his helmet and gloves but he’s still got his breezers on, skates still laced.

“Your blood pressure is garbage. You’re dehydrated. And I’m guessing you haven’t eaten a real meal or slept more than three hours at a time in… what? Weeks?”

“Stress,” he says. It’s the catch-all excuse. The shield he uses to deflect everything from missed parties to bad moods. “It’s been a long month.”

He cannot say that his body is currently manufacturing food for another human being. That he’s only three months postpartum. He’s eating. He swears he is. He’s eating oatmeal and lean chicken and spinach until he feels sick, but it’s like pouring water into a cracked vase. It all goes to his daughter. And whatever is left goes to hockey.

“That’s what I thought.” Marie makes a note on a clipboard. “Your body shut down, Mr. Hollander. It decided you needed a break whether you wanted one or not.”

“I need to get back out there—”

“The game is over.”

“What? Who won?”

“Montreal. Overtime. Your friend Pike scored.” Marie gives him a stern motherly look. “And before you ask, no, you’re not going anywhere. Doctor’s orders. You’re staying here for observation, getting fluids, and then someone who is not you is driving you home.”

“I’m fine—”

“You passed out on live television, sweetheart. You are the opposite of fine.”

Shane slumps back against the table.

“There was…” He shouldn’t ask. He knows he shouldn’t hope. “Was anyone else here?”

Marie reaches under the counter, she pulls out a wrinkled brown paper bag. “The captain from the other team,” she says. “Mr. Rozanov.”

Shane’s heart almost leapt in his chest. “He was here?”

“Tried to get in,” Marie says. “Security stopped him at the door. He argued with them for five minutes. Very passionate. Lots of hand gestures.” She holds out the bag. “He gave me this. Said you’d need it.”

Shane slowly takes the bag.

Ilya was here.

Ilya, who is supposed to hate him. He came.

Shane opens the bag. Inside is a scarf. Red, soft wool, the one Ilya’s been wearing all month in paparazzi photos and Instagram stories. He reaches in and pulls it out. The scent of sandalwood hits him before the fabric even touches his skin. He brings the scarf to his face and presses his nose into the soft wool and inhales. His body, which has been rigid with tension for weeks, suddenly goes slack. The scent is safety. It’s home. It’s the cottage at 2 A.M. with the fire crackling. It’s Ilya’s heavy arm thrown over his waist.

Marie heads for the door, giving him privacy. As soon as she’s gone, Shane buries his face in the scarf and finally lets himself cry.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Ottawa, Ontario
September 2, 2026

This is what dying feels like, probably.

Ilya lies in the center of his bed, which is too big and too empty and currently feels like a raft adrift in a sea of fever sweat. The sheets are tangled around his legs like they’re trying to strangle him. His t-shirt is soaked through. His head is a balloon filled with concrete, and every time he swallows, it feels like his throat is lined with broken glass.

He has been sick for three days now. The flu, his doctor said over a video call. Rest. Fluids. Acetaminophen. As if Ilya Rozanov, captain of the Ottawa Centaurs, three-time All-Star, father to the most perfect five-year-old in existence, has ever been good at resting.

He checks his phone. The brightness stabs directly into his brain. 2:47 PM. He should be on the road now. If he weren’t a disaster of a human being who had to cancel on his own daughter because his body decided to betray him at the worst possible moment.

Papa’s car broke down, Shane probably told her. Or maybe, Papa is busy with work. Some sanitized lie that protects her from the truth, which is that her father is currently lying in his own sweat, too weak to drive, too sick to hold her without risking passing this plague along.

He should text Shane. Ask for a photo.

Instead, he drops the phone onto his chest and drifts off. The dreams come fast when he’s sick. They always have. It’s like his brain, freed from the constraints of consciousness, decides to run a highlight reel of every painful memory he’s spent years trying to bury. Tonight—or this afternoon, or whenever this is—the dream is his mother.

She’s standing in their old Moscow apartment, the one with the radiator that never worked properly and the window that let in drafts even when it was closed. She’s wearing the blue dress she used to save for special occasions, the one with the tiny white flowers embroidered along the hem. Her long wavy golden hair is down,  the way Ilya always exactly remembers.

“Ilyusha,” he hears—or thinks he hears. It’s not a sound, just a warm feeling that wraps around him, nothing like the silence she left behind.

You’re burning up. The words aren't spoken, but he feels the meaning of them as she reaches out.

“I know, Mama.”

She looks at him with that sad, knowing smile, the one that says he needs to take better care of himself. Her hand is cool against his forehead, and it feels so real that Ilya’s chest cracks open with longing.

“I am okay,” he lies in Russian, even in the dream. “I don’t need help.”

She tilts her head, her hand moving to cup his cheek the way she used to when he was small and the world was still a place that made sense. Everyone needs help, Ilyusha. Even you.

He wants to stay here. Wants to sink into this fabricated memory and never surface. But the dream is already dissolving, his mother’s face blurring, and her voice is fading into static.

“Mama,” he whispers into the unraveling fiction. “Wait. Please.”

She never answers. And that’s when the real horror arrives. When did he last truly hear it? Not the vague impression of warmth, not the feeling of words, but the actual sound of Irina Rozanov speaking?

He tries to summon it—the pitch, the timbre, the slight rasp she’d get when she was tired. He reaches for the memory of her laugh, the way she’d say his name when she was exasperated with him for tracking snow through the apartment.

Nothing comes.

He’s forgetting.

After everything—after the years of carrying her with him, after Shane—he’s still losing her. Memory is a cruel curator, and it’s stripping away his most precious recordings of her one by one, replacing her actual voice with approximations, with the useless static of knowing she once spoke but being unable to hear it anymore.

“Say something,” he begs the disappearing shape of her. His throat is raw. “Anything. Just one word. Please, Mama. Need you… Am hurting, Mama.”

Ilya wakes up with his tear streaked face and his mother’s name lodged in his throat like a splinter. The bedroom is dark now—he must have slept longer than he thought—and the shadows feel too close. He grabs his phone again. 5:23 PM. Fourteen missed texts from Troy asking if he needs anything. Three from Zane about some team logistics that Ilya cannot make himself care about right now.

Nothing from Shane.

Of course nothing from Shane. Why would there be? They are co-parents. Professionals. Adults who communicate through color-coded calendar blocks and monosyllabic text messages. Shane is probably relieved to have an extra week with Airi. Probably already rearranged the schedule, updated the spreadsheet, moved on.

Ilya scrolls to his photos instead.

Airi at the camp last week, wearing her Centaurs hat backwards, grinning up at him.

Airi on the ice, her stance all wrong but her determination terrifying.

Airi asleep in his arms at the Disney house, her face pressed into his neck, trusting him completely.

He has not cried in front of another human being since he was twelve years old and found his mother’s body on the bathroom floor. He has built an entire personality around not crying—around being the cocky one, the flashy one, the guy who laughs too loud and cares about nothing.

But alone, in the dark, with a fever of 102 and his daughter two hours away?

He lets himself feel it.

He curls onto his side, hugging a pillow to his chest, waiting for his lungs to stop trying to escape through his mouth. When it finally passes, he feels wrung out.

His rut is coming. Maybe a week away, maybe ten days. His body is already restless with it, even through the sickness. Now it just makes everything worse. The fever amplifies the pre-rut symptoms, or maybe the pre-rut amplifies the fever. Either way, Ilya is simultaneously freezing and overheating, exhausted and wired, desperate to be touched and disgusted by the thought of anyone coming near him. Well. Almost anyone.

He should eat something. The last thing he consumed was a protein bar approximately eight hours ago, and before that, nothing since yesterday’s sad attempt at toast. But the kitchen feels approximately three thousand kilometers away. He decides, very maturely, to stay exactly where he is.

The pounding starts sometime later.

Ilya is floating in that awful half-sleep state where nothing makes sense and everything hurts, and at first he thinks the noise is part of a dream. Construction, maybe. But then it happens again. Louder. More insistent.

“Papa! PAPA! Are you in there?”

Ilya’s eyes fly open.

Airi.

He must be hallucinating. The fever has finally melted his brain and is now producing auditory delusions of his daughter’s voice, which is cruel, even for the universe.

“PAPA!”

He sits up too fast. The room spins, tilts, threatens to dump him onto the floor. He grabs the headboard for balance, breathing hard, trying to separate reality from whatever fever dream is currently hijacking his senses.

The pounding continues.

“I think he’s asleep,” says a lower voice that sounds like Shane?

His heart lurches and stutters and then starts racing, which cannot possibly be good for someone in his current state of physiological collapse. Shane is here, in Ottawa, at his door, with their daughter, and Ilya is standing in his bedroom in sweat-soaked boxers and a t-shirt that smells like death, trying to remember if his legs work. They do. Barely.

He snatches a hoodie from the pile on the floor. It pulls on inside out, the seams rough against his skin, but the distinction is meaningless to him right now. He stumbles out of the bedroom, moving into a living room that currently feels less like a home and more like a high-altitude glass cage.  The western exposure, usually the condo’s selling point, is currently an assault. The floor-to-ceiling windows channel an aggressive amount of sunset, the dying light bleeding a bruised orange across the low-profile cream sofa and the blocky slab of the coffee table. It is a striking space—sleek, minimalist, ostensibly perfect for entertaining—but in his feverish state, the endless white tones and the vast, echoing open-concept layout feel desolate.

There is nowhere to hide here, just exposed surface area and expensive emptiness. The corridor stretching toward the foyer seems to have elongated since the last time he walked it. The walls refuse to stay still. He braces a hand against the cool plaster, navigating the space with the unsteady grace of a drunk, which carries a bitter sort of irony; he has never felt less desirable, less like himself, than he does in this moment.

The intercom glows by the door, a small square of blue-white light. He squints at the feed. There are two figures standing in the hallway. One is small, bouncing on her toes. The other is tall, dark-haired, and wrapped in a black coat.

He recognizes instantly the crimson wool around the man’s neck. It is the scarf he gave Shane five years ago, after a collapse on the ice, when Ilya had been desperate to leave him an object with his own scent to act as a phantom embrace when Ilya couldn’t be there to hold him. And Shane is still wearing it.

Ilya’s hand hovers over the door handle. His brain is producing a lot of thoughts very quickly, none of them coherent:

This is definitely a hallucination.

Shane would never come here.

Shane hates to be with me.

Why does he still have my scarf?

I am going to pass out.

“PAPA!”

The pounding again, small fists against wood, and a part of Ilya snaps into motion. He fumbles with the deadbolt, yanks the door open, and Airi immediately launches herself at him like a tiny heat-seeking missile. She hits his legs with enough force to knock him back a step, her arms wrapping around his thighs, her face burying into his stomach.

“You’re sick,” Airi says. “We brought soup.”

Ilya stares down at her. Stares up at Shane, who is standing in the doorway holding a Tupperware container and looking at Ilya with an expression that Ilya cannot begin to decode.

“You are here.”

“Obviously,” Shane says, trying to remove Airi from him. “Baby, don’t squeeze your Papa so hard. He’s sick.”

“I’m being gentle,” Airi argues, squeezing harder.

Ilya’s hand finds the top of her head automatically, tangling in her dark hair. She’s real. Shane, standing in his doorway with a container of soup, is real.

“I thought—” Ilya starts, but another coughing fit hits him. He doubles over, one hand braced against the doorframe, the other still resting on Airi’s head.

“Inside,” Shane says strictly. “Now. Airi, let go of your Papa.”

“But—”

“Now.”

Airi releases her grip, and Shane steps forward, crossing the threshold into Ilya’s space for the first time in years. His hand lands on Ilya’s elbow, steadying him, guiding him backward into the condo.

“You look terrible,” Shane says.

“Charming as always, Hollander.”

“I mean it.” Shane’s eyes are assessing the damage. “When did you last eat? Drink water? Take medicine?”

“I am adult,” Ilya manages between coughs. “I know how to take care of myself.”

“You’re swaying.”

“Am not.”

“You’re literally swaying right now.” Shane’s grip on his elbow tightens. “Airi, close the door. Find the kitchen. We’re making tea.”

“Do not want tea,” Ilya protests weakly.

“Too bad.” Shane is already steering him toward the couch, which is good because Ilya’s legs have apparently decided to stop cooperating. “Sit. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

“Bossy,” Ilya mutters, collapsing onto the cushions.

Shane pauses, halfway to the kitchen. Looks back at him with a look that might be concern. “Someone has to be,” he says quietly, and then he’s gone.

Airi climbs onto the couch beside Ilya, worming her way under his arm until she’s snuggled against his side. “Papa,” she says seriously, “you smell bad.”

Ilya laughs, which triggers another cough. “Thank you, myshonok. Very helpful.”

“Daddy says we’re going to make you better.” She reaches up to pat his cheek with one small hand. “Daddy was worried. He made that face.”

“What face?”

She cutely scrunches her own face in demonstration, pinching her mouth and furrowing her brow. “Like this.”

Ilya glances toward the kitchen, where he can hear Shane moving around—opening cabinets, running water, muttering words under his breath.

“Is that so,” he says softly.

“Uh-huh,” she says proudly.

Ilya’s chest suddenly gets awfully tight. Shane Hollander, captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, the most rule-following person on the planet, ran three red lights to get here. Brought soup. Brought their daughter. Brought himself, when Ilya was sure—so sure—that Shane wanted nothing more than to keep as much distance between them as humanly possible.

“Airi.”

She looks up at him.

“Papa is very glad you are here,” Ilya says, and his voice comes out hoarse, not entirely from the illness.

“Me too.” She snuggles closer, pressing her face into his hoodie despite his earlier declaration of bad smell. “I missed you, Papa.”

Ilya rests his chin on top of her head. “I missed you too, malysh. So much.”

Shane returns carrying a tray. On it: a mug of steaming liquid, a glass of water, two pills, and a bowl of soup that smells like Yuna Hollander’s kitchen, which means Shane didn’t just bring soup from a store. He brought his mother’s soup. Homemade. Probably organic. Definitely packed with nutrients and healing intentions and whatever else Yuna puts in things when she’s worried about someone.

“Drink the tea first,” Shane says, setting the tray on the coffee table. “Then the soup. Then the pills.”

“I thought I am adult who takes care of himself.”

“Clearly that was a lie.” Shane sits on the edge of the armchair across from him, posture rigid, hands clasped between his knees. He’s still wearing the red scarf. He hasn’t taken it off.

Ilya picks up the mug. Chamomile. Of course. Shane’s terrible, tasteless, anxiety-reducing chamomile.

“Is disgusting,” Ilya says, but he drinks it anyway.

“Just drink it, please.”

They sit in silence for a moment, Airi humming a  tuneless melody against Ilya’s side.

“You did not have to come,” Ilya says finally.

“I know.”

“Is long drive.”

“I know.”

“Shane—”

“She wanted to see you.” Shane’s voice is clipped. “She’s been talking about Ottawa Week for days. She packed a special rock that looks like a potato. I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her she couldn’t see her father.”

Ilya looks down at Airi, who has apparently fallen asleep against his ribcage in the three minutes since Shane started talking. Her breathing is slow and even, her hand still clutching a fistful of his hoodie.

“You told her my car broke down,” Ilya says quietly.

“I told her what she needed to hear.” Shane’s jaw tightens. “Would you prefer I said her Papa was too sick to drive? That he was alone in his apartment with no one to take care of him?”

“I am taking care of myself.”

“You were dying on the couch in your own sweat.” Shane gestures at the soup. “Eat.”

Ilya eats. Because arguing with Shane Hollander is exhausting even when you’re healthy, and right now Ilya is operating on approximately zero energy reserves. The soup is good. Warm and salty and exactly what his body has been crying out for, even if he didn’t know it until now.

“Your mother made this,” Ilya says.

“Yes.”

“She still sends you home with soup?”

“She heard you were sick.” Shane’s ears go slightly pink. “She insisted.”

She heard. Which means Shane told her. Which means Shane and Yuna talked about Ilya, about his illness, about the fact that he was alone.

Ilya sets the bowl down. “Thank you,” he says. “For coming.”

Shane looks away, staring at a spot on the wall. “You would have done the same thing.”

“Yes. But you are not me.”

Shane’s hands flex against his knees.  “You should sleep,” he says, standing abruptly. “I’ll put Airi in the guest room. Is it still where it used to be?”

“Yes.”

Shane carries Airi into the guest room, supporting her head against his shoulder. He returns a minute later. Ilya watches him from the couch, too exhausted to move, as Shane’s gaze travels methodically around the living room.

The walls.

Shane is looking at the walls that are covered with framed photos of Airi from every month of her life. The ones Shane sent in their shared Dropbox folder, the ones Ilya took during his visitation weeks, the candid shots Shane didn't know Ilya had saved from video calls. Airi taking her first steps. Airi with a missing tooth. Airi in her first pair of skates. There are dozens of them, a mosaic of the daughter they raised separately.

“Your girlfriends,” Shane says slowly, still studying the wall. “Don’t they think it’s strange?”

Ilya considers the question. It’s not unreasonable. Any omegas walking into this condo would see the obsessive documentation of a little girl who, according to the public narrative, is merely the daughter of a rival-turned-friend.

“No one comes here,” Ilya says.

Shane turns to look at him, his gaze boring into Ilya’s. “No one?”

“No one.” Ilya shrugs, which triggers a small cough. “Not even Mikhaela. She did not know about Airi.”

“She didn’t know you have a daughter?”

“She knew I have goddaughter,” Ilya corrects, and that’s why Mikhaela—or any omega—never understands why he keeps prioritizing Airi when she’s just… “friend’s child. She did not know Airi is my daughter.”

The truth is simpler than any explanation Ilya could offer. He doesn’t bring anyone here because this is Airi’s space. This condo, with its expensive furniture and its walls covered in her face, is the only place in the world where Ilya gets to be her papa without hiding. He will not contaminate it with strangers who don’t know the truth, who would look at these photos and see only a peculiar hobby rather than the documentation of everything he loves most.

Shane is quiet for a long moment. His jaw working, like he’s chewing on words he wants to say but can’t quite bring himself to voice.

Then Ilya’s body betrays him again. The coughing fit comes without warning, violent and deep, ripping through his chest. He doubles over on the couch, one hand pressed to his sternum, gasping between spasms.

“Ilya—” Shane’s voice goes tense with alarm. He crosses the room in three strides, his hand landing on Ilya’s shoulder blade.

The touch burns, even through the hoodie. Or maybe that’s just the fever spiking again. Ilya can feel it climbing—the way his skin has gone from merely warm to actively radiating heat.

“You’re burning up. We need to get your temperature down. Can you walk?”

“Can walk,” Ilya manages, though his legs feel like they’re made of wet paper.

“Good. Bedroom. Now.”

Shane hauls him up from the couch, one arm around Ilya’s waist, taking more of his weight than Ilya wants to admit he needs. They shuffle down the hallway together, Ilya’s feet dragging against the hardwood, Shane’s grip steady and unrelenting. The bedroom is dark, the blackout curtains still drawn from this morning. Shane deposits him on the edge of the mattress and immediately starts moving around the room, flipping on the bathroom light, rummaging through cabinets.

“Take off your clothes,” Shane calls over his shoulder.

“What?” he says breathlessly, his heart suddenly galloping.

“Your clothes.” Shane emerges from the bathroom empty-handed, already heading for the linen closet in the hallway. “They’re soaked. You need to cool down, not marinate in your own sweat. Strip. I’m getting towels.”

Shane disappears before Ilya can argue.

Ilya stares at the empty doorway for a moment, his fever-addled brain struggling to process the instruction. Shane wants him to take off his clothes. Shane is currently in his bathroom, getting towels, and he wants Ilya to be naked when he returns.

This feels like a fever dream. A very specific fever dream that Ilya has definitely had before, though usually it involves fewer body aches and more—

He cuts off that thought before it can fully form.

With trembling hands, Ilya peels off the hoodie. The t-shirt underneath is worse, plastered to his skin like a second layer of misery. He wrestles it over his head and drops it on the floor. His sweatpants follow, leaving him in nothing but his boxer briefs.

He’s still sitting on the edge of the bed—half-naked, shivering despite the fever, feeling approximately as attractive as a drowned rat—when Shane walks back in.

Shane stops in the doorway. His eyes do that quick, involuntary sweep from Ilya’s face down his chest, across his stomach, lower—and then back up again, so fast that Ilya might have imagined it if he didn’t know Shane’s tells so well.

Shane’s throat moves as he swallows. “Lie back,” he says, his voice slightly rougher than before.

Ilya complies, sinking into the mattress with a groan. The sheets are cool against his overheated skin, a small mercy in this disaster of an evening. He watches through heavy-lidded eyes as Shane approaches the bed, a damp cloth in his hands.

“This is going to be cold,” Shane warns.

“Good,” Ilya mumbles. “Am dying of heat.”

The first touch of the cloth against his forehead makes him hiss. It’s not just cold—it’s shockingly, blessedly frigid, like Shane somehow found ice water in Ilya’s disaster of a kitchen. Shane drags it slowly across his brow, down his temple, along the edge of his jaw.

Ilya’s eyes fall closed.

Shane’s other hand comes up to steady Ilya’s head, fingers pressing gently against his scalp. The dual sensation—cold cloth, warm palm—sends a shiver through Ilya’s body that has nothing to do with the fever at all. Even after all the wreckage that happened between them, his body will always be a creature of instinct, forever burning for the touch of the one who once conquered him.

History, it turns out, is no match for muscle memory.

“You should have called a doctor.”

“Did call the doctor.”

“A real doctor. Not a video call.”

“Is same thing.”

“It’s not the same thing.” Shane moves the cloth down Ilya’s neck, across his collarbone, leaving trails of cool water in its wake. “You could have pneumonia. You could have—”

“Is flu, Shane.” Ilya opens his eyes to find Shane’s face very close to his own. “Not dying. Just feel like dying.”

Shane doesn’t respond, just keeps methodically wiping down Ilya’s chest—across his pectorals, down the center of his sternum, along the ridges of his ribs.

Ilya becomes acutely aware of his own breathing. Of the weight of Shane’s gaze as it tracks the path of the cloth. Of the way Shane’s fingers brush against his skin with each pass, featherlight and devastating.

This is torture. This is exquisite, unbearable torture, because Shane is touching him—for the first time in five years—and it’s caretaking, it’s nothing, and yet Ilya’s traitorous body is responding, heat pooling low in his gut despite the fever, despite everything.

He shifts slightly, trying to create distance between his brain and his groin. The movement makes Shane’s hand stutter against his stomach.

Their eyes meet. A spark passes—a shared memory of every time Shane’s hands have touched Ilya’s bare skin. Different contexts, different intentions. Same electricity.

Shane’s cheeks have gone pink.

“You need fluids,” Shane says abruptly, pulling back. The cloth disappears, and with it, the contact. “And more acetaminophen. When did you last take it?”

“Do not remember,” Ilya admits.

“Of course you don’t.” Shane stands, putting distance between them. “I’ll get water. Don’t move.”

He’s gone before Ilya can respond, fleeing to the kitchen like the bedroom has caught fire. Ilya stares at the nothingness, his skin still tingling where Shane touched it.

Five years.

Five years of careful distance and coordinated handoffs and professional co-parenting, and all it takes is one damp cloth across his chest to reduce Ilya to this—desperate and wanting and pathetically grateful just to have Shane in his apartment, even if the only reason he’s here is because Ilya is too sick to function.

He is, he thinks, completely fucked again.

The fever pulls him under, and Ilya stops fighting it. He sinks into the darkness, and the dream comes without warning. One moment Ilya is floating in feverish darkness, and the next, he’s in their bedroom at the cottage. Not the cottage as it exists now—renovated, sanitized, stripped of everything that once made it theirs—but the cottage as it was. The cottage with the blue-gray walls and the worn quilt and the window that overlooked the lake where they used to watch the sun set over the water.

Shane is there, and he’s—

God.

He’s wearing Ilya’s shirt. The black button-down, the one Ilya used to wear to charity events because Shane always said it made his shoulders look obscene. It’s unbuttoned, hanging open, revealing the smooth expanse of Shane’s chest, and his heavily, magnificent, pregnant belly.

Shane looks like a figure out of a Renaissance painting—if Renaissance painters had understood what Ilya understands now, which is that there is nothing more beautiful in any universe than Shane Hollander carrying his child.

“You’re staring,” Shane says, and his voice is sleep-rough, amused, a little self-conscious.

“Yes. Am allowed to stare. You are my mate.”

Shane rolls his eyes, but his cheeks flush pink, and Ilya watches the color spread down his neck, across the freckles on his collarbone.

“Come here,” Shane says, reaching for him.

He crosses the bed on his knees, settling between Shane’s spread thighs, and runs his hands up the warm skin of Shane’s legs. Shane shivers. His belly brushes against Ilya’s chest, round and firm, and Ilya leans down to press his mouth to the place where their daughter is growing.

Shane kisses him, sucking his lower lip. Ilya’s hands slide up Shane’s sides, pushing his shirt off. Shane’s skin is impossibly soft, warm with more than fever. The pregnancy has changed him—fuller, rounder, riper. His chest is heavier, nipples darker and more sensitive, and when Ilya brushes one with his thumb, Shane gasps.

“Please,” Shane moans.

Ilya doesn’t need to ask what he wants. He knows. He’s always known.

Suddenly, Shane is in his lap, straddling him on the bed. He sinks down onto him, and the sensation is everything.

Wet heat envelops Ilya’s cock, tight and perfect, and Shane is moving, rolling his hips in slow, lazy circles, fucking himself on Ilya with the same single-minded determination he brings to everything. His head falls back, exposing the long line of his throat, and the sounds he’s making are obscene—soft moans and bitten-off whimpers.

“So beautiful,” Ilya hears himself say. His hands can’t stop moving—across Shane’s belly, up his chest, down his thighs. “Most beautiful thing I ever see. Shane. My Shane.”

Shane looks down at him, and his eyes are wet, but he’s smiling. “I love you,” he says. Simple. Devastating. The words Ilya spent ten years earning and five years grieving.

“I love you,” Ilya answers. “I never stop. I never—”

He wakes up.

The bedroom is dark.

The curtains are still drawn, but there’s a sliver of streetlight bleeding through the gap, casting a pale stripe across the ceiling. Ilya lies very still, his body tight with unfulfilled need. The dream is already fading—Shane’s smile dissolving at the edges, the weight of him disappearing from Ilya’s lap—but the ache remains. The want remains.

He’s hard. Painfully, impossibly hard, despite the fever, despite the exhaustion, despite the fact that his body should not have the energy for this particular betrayal. He wants to touch himself. Wants to close his eyes and chase the dream back down, let it carry him to completion.

Ilya cranes his neck.

Shane is here. Real Shane who is currently curled up on the armchair beside his bed, the red scarf wrapped around his neck like a security blanket, his face soft with sleep. He stayed. His dark hair is falling across his forehead. His lips are parted slightly, his breathing slow and even. In sleep, all the tension has drained from his face, leaving him looking peaceful.

He stares at Shane’s sleeping face, at the dark fan of his lashes against his cheeks, at the constellation of freckles across his nose and cheeks that Ilya used to kiss when he thought Shane was asleep. He drinks in every detail with the desperate hunger of a man who has been starving and has finally been shown a feast he cannot eat.

Why?

Why do you do this? Ilya thinks, the question a jagged shard in his mind. Why do you bring me soup and cool my skin and wear my scarf if you are just going to wake up and be Shane Hollander again?

It is the cruelest thing Shane has ever done. To offer this glimpse of domesticity—this tantalizing picture of what their life could have been if they hadn’t let the world tear them apart—only to snatch it away when the sun comes up.

Ilya wants to go to him. The urge is a magnetic pull, terrifying in its intensity. He wants to cross the room, kneel by the chair, and wake him up and beg.

Stay. Don't go back to Montreal. Stay here, and let me love you.

But if Ilya touches him now, if he breaks the truce, Shane will shatter. He will panic, he will retreat, and he will take Airi and the little scraps of peace they have managed to build with him.

So Ilya stays in the bed.

He starves, with the banquet right in front of him.

Shane shifts in his sleep, murmuring unintelligible words, and burrows deeper into the scarf. Ilya watches him for an hour. He does not sleep again. He is afraid that if he closes his eyes, when he opens them, the chair will be empty.

Shane’s eyes soon flutter open. For a moment, he looks confused—disoriented by the unfamiliar room, the darkness, the man watching him from the bed. Then his gaze sharpens, and he’s up and moving before Ilya can say anything, crossing to the bed.

“You’re awake.” Shane’s hand lands on Ilya’s forehead, checking for fever. His touch lights up Ilya’s skin.

“Better,” Ilya says.

“Let me check.” Shane’s fingers move to Ilya’s wrist, pressing against the pulse point. A cute little furrow appears between his eyebrows. “Heart rate’s still elevated. But not as bad as before.”

“Is probably because you are touching me,” Ilya says before he can stop himself.

Shane’s hand stills. The silence stretches until Shane breaks it. “You should drink something with electrolytes.”

Ilya lies in the dark, listening to the distant sounds of Shane in the kitchen. His body is cooling, the fever finally breaking. He pushes himself upright, the room swaying aggressively, and waits for the vertigo to pass.

He needs clothes. He cannot face Shane Hollander in his underwear, not after his sex dream. He rummages through the bottom drawer of his dresser, bypassing the crisp designer gear he wears for the cameras, and pulls out: a faded Boston Bears t-shirt, and gray sweatpants that have lost their elasticity. Dressed, he feels slightly more human. Or at least, less like a exposed nerve ending.

He follows the scent of food down the hallway. It pulls him toward the kitchen—a savory, rich aroma of chicken stock and thyme that clashes with the unused atmosphere of his condo. Shane is standing by the stove, stirring a pot with one hand. On his other hip, he balances Airi, her legs dangling against his thigh.

Shane is saying something to her, his voice too low for Ilya to catch, and then he turns his head and presses a kiss to her temple. And he smiles.

It isn’t the strained, apologetic grimace he has given Ilya when they’re in Florida. It is a soft, unguarded blooming of light that transforms his entire face. Ilya stares, his chest seizing. He had forgotten how that smile looks when it isn’t being suppressed, how it used to look directed at him across a pillow or a breakfast table. Seeing it now, reserved only for their daughter, feels like taking a slapshot to the ribs.

Airi lifts her head and spots him.

“Papa!” She shrieks, then she makes a desperate grabby motion with both hands, nearly launching herself out of Shane’s grip.

Shane spins around, startled, his hand flying out to steady her. His eyes widen when he sees Ilya, the smile vanishing instantly, replaced by that mask of solicitous concern.

“Papa!” Airi demands, wriggling.

“No, sweetie,” Shane says, hoisting her higher. “Papa is still sick. We don’t want you to catch his germs.”

“I am okay,” Ilya says. His voice is gravel, but he steps into the kitchen.

“You’re not okay,” Shane counters, eyebrows drawing together. “You were hallucinating twenty minutes ago.”

“Doctor cured me.” Ilya holds out his arms.

“Ilya—”

“Shane. Give me my daughter.”

Shane hesitates, his gaze searching for signs of collapse. Finding whatever he is looking for—or perhaps just yielding to the inevitability of Ilya’s stubbornness—he sighs and transfers the warm weight of the their daughter into Ilya’s arms.

Airi latches on immediately. She wraps her arms around his neck and presses her cool cheek against his fever-warm one. “You came back,” she whispers into his ear.

“Did not go anywhere, malysh.” Ilya kisses her hair. He sways her slightly. “Was just sleeping.”

He closes his eyes for a second, and imagines in another timeline, this is their regular Tuesday night. In another universe, Shane is cooking dinner because it is his turn, and Ilya has just come home from practice. But the universe is cruel, and hope is a dangerous drug, so Ilya opens his eyes.

Shane is watching them. He stands with his back pressed against the counter, clutching a wooden spoon.

“What are you doing?” Ilya asks, nodding at the pot.

Shane blinks, snapping out of his trance. He turns back to the stove, stirring aggressively. “Chicken soup. Real soup, not the canned sodium-bombs you probably have in your pantry. I made enough for you to reheat for a few days.”

“You make dinner?”

“I’m making you and Airi dinner,” Shane says, keeping his eyes on the broth. “You need to eat solid food before you take the next dose of meds.”

Ilya shifts Airi to his other hip. She is getting heavy, or maybe he is just weak, but he refuses to put her down.

“And you?” Ilya asks. “You stay for dinner?”

“No,” Shane says. “I have to drive back. I have practice in the morning.”

The rejection is swift and sensible, and it stings like acid. Of course. Shane Hollander has a schedule. Shane Hollander has a color-coded life in Montreal that does not include playing house with his ex in Ottawa.

Airi pulls back from Ilya’s neck. Her face crumples. “No,” she says firmly.

Shane turns around, heartbreak written in his expression. “Baby—”

“No! Don’t leave!” Airi’s lower lip trembles. Tears quickly well up in her hazel eyes. “Daddy stay! I want to eat with you!”

“Airi, honey, I can’t,” Shane says, crouching down so he’s eye-level with her. “Daddy has work. Papa is here now, he’s going to eat with you—”

“NO!” She bursts into full-volume sobs, burying her face in Ilya’s shoulder. “I want you here with me and Papa!”

Shane looks helpless, his hand hovering near Airi’s back but not touching, as if he has forfeited the right to comfort her by being the cause of her distress. He looks, frankly, like his heart is breaking right there on Ilya’s kitchen tiles.

Ilya cannot watch it.

“Stay,” he says.

“Ilya, I can’t—”

“Stay the night,” Ilya cuts in. He says it casually, as if his heart rate isn’t spiking. “Is late. You are tired. Driving to Montreal in the dark is stupid.”

“I have practice,” Shane repeats, but the protest is weak. Automatic.

“You are the Captain. You can be late once. Or call your Coach. Tell him…” Ilya smirks, though it feels fragile. “Tell him you had family emergency. Is true.”

Shane stands slowly. He looks at the dark window, then at the pot of soup, and finally at Airi, who is sniffing wetly against Ilya’s shirt. “I don’t want to intrude. This is your time with her. I’m not supposed to be here.”

Ilya hates the insecurity he hears, the way Shane tries to make himself small.

“Shane,” he says, and he waits until Shane meets his gaze. “You are not intrusion. You brought soup. You brought her. Is…” He struggles for the word, settling for the simple truth. “Is good you are here.”

I want you here, Ilya wants to say.

Shane swallows. “Okay,” he says.

Airi’s head pops up instantly. The tears miraculously vanish, replaced by a suspicious amount of brightness. “You stay, Daddy?”

“Yeah, baby,” Shane says, reaching out to pinch her nose. “Daddy’s staying.”

“Yes!” She wiggles, demanding to be put down, effectively cured of her grief now that she has won.

Ilya sets her down, and she scampers off toward the living room, presumably to retrieve the potato-rock she dragged all the way from Montreal.

Shane stands there, looking suddenly unmoored in the center of the kitchen. He tugs at the hem of his sweater, a nervous, tactile fidget that draws Ilya’s gaze immediately.

"I didn't bring a bag," Shane says, the confession quiet. "I don't have clothes."

Ilya feels the corner of his mouth tick up, a reflexive betrayal of his own fondness. Shane might have matured—might have grown into himself in a hundred different ways—but he is still just as awkward and devastatingly cute as when Ilya first met him.

"You can use mine," Ilya says. "I have sweatpants. T-shirts." He lets his eyes drag over Shane’s frame, imagining the fabric draping loose over him. "They will be big, but is fine.”

"Okay," Shane mumbles. He offers a little smile, the expression soft and hesitant, and the sight of it squeezes Ilya’s heart. "Thank you."

"Is nothing.”

He watches Shane, hyperaware of the shifting air between them. He doesn’t know what this means—if it could be more, or if they’re just two people surviving proximity, bound by their child and a history too heavy to set down. But for the first time in five years, Ilya allows himself to hope.

The sensation is rushing into his throat like water.

Hoping feels a lot like drowning.

To be continued…

Chapter Text

Montreal, Quebec.
18 October 2021

Shane thinks about control the way others think about God—believing in it with the fervor of the converted, the way you believe in what saved your life. Control is his morning routine, his color-coded calendar, his meal prep containers stacked in perfect rows. Control is the reason he has three Stanley Cups, and a career that looks, from the outside, like a case study in excellence.

Control is also the reason he’s sitting now in the lounge of the law offices that Fortier, Cabot & Associates occupy on the thirty-second floor of a glass tower in Old Montreal, trying not to throw up into a potted fern. It’s all floor-to-ceiling windows and aggressively modern furniture that seems designed to remind him exactly how much money he’s spending today.

Three weeks. It has been three weeks since his world ended, and Shane has spent every one of those twenty-one days constructing the scaffolding of a life that no longer has a center. He has played four games. Won three. Collapsed on live television during the fourth, which the medical staff attributed to exhaustion and dehydration, and which Shane attributed to the slow, methodical process of his body realizing it had been abandoned by its other half and deciding to stage a mutiny.

He is still breastfeeding. He is still playing professional hockey. He is still, somehow, alive.

“Mr. Hollander.” The receptionist gestures him toward a set of frosted glass doors, and Shane follows her down a hallway. She deposits him in a corner office and closes the door.

Nathaniel Cabot is already standing. He’s tall. Maybe six-one. Dark chestnut hair, cut close at the temples, longer on top. Sharp jaw. Icy blue eyes. His suit is tan, clearly bespoke.

Shane has done his research. Nathaniel is the best family law attorney in Quebec, possibly in Canada. He handled the Du Pont-Tremblay divorce—the one that involved two Fortune 500 families, a custody dispute over seven children, and a vineyard in Bordeaux. He is discreet, ruthless, and ferociously intelligent, and his hourly rate makes Shane’s accountant weep.

He was also, notably, recommended by Shane’s mother, which means Yuna has been preparing for this eventuality longer than Shane wants to think about.

“Mr. Hollander.” Nathaniel extends a hand. His grip is firm, brief, professional. “Sit. Coffee?”

“No. Thank you.”

“Water?”

“I’m fine.”

Nathaniel sits behind his desk, which is vast and immaculate—a single legal pad, a Mont Blanc pen, a MacBook Pro laptop angled just so. No family photos. No personal effects.

“Let me tell you how this works,” Nathaniel says, looking at Shane with that appraising gaze. “You tell me the truth. All of it. The things you’d tell your therapist, the things you wouldn’t tell your mother, the things that wake you up at three in the morning. I don’t judge. I don’t moralize. I use the information to protect you and your daughter. That is the only thing I care about.”

“I know,” Shane says.

“Good.” A beat of silence. “Because what you told me on the phone last Friday was enough for me to clear my Monday afternoons, and I don’t clear my afternoons for anything short of a catastrophe.” He picks up the pen, uncaps it with a soft click. “So. Let’s start with the basics. The child’s name?”

“Airi. Airi Erina Hollander.”

“Date of birth?”

“July fifteenth, 2021.”

“Three months old.” Nathaniel writes this down. “And the other parent?”

Shane’s throat constricts. He gulps and stares at a point just above Nathanie’s left shoulder—a sliver of gray sky through the window. He has rehearsed this. He has said these words in his car, in his bathroom.

“Ilya Rozanov.”

If Nathaniel is surprised, he doesn’t show it. Not a blink, not even the faintest ripple across his composed features. He simply writes the name on the legal pad in small, precise script.

“Captain of the Ottawa Centaurs,” Nathaniel states simply.

“Yes.”

“Russian national.”

“Yes.”

“And your relationship with Mr. Rozanov. Current status?”

“There is no relationship.” The words taste like metal. “We ended things three weeks ago. We’re—” He fumbles for the vocabulary. “We need to formalize a custody arrangement.”

Nathaniel sets down the pen. He edges forward and steeples his hands. “Shane. I need to ask you some questions that are going to be uncomfortable. They’re not personal curiosity. They’re legal necessity. I need to understand the full picture before I can build you anything worth building.”

Shane knew this is going in. He prepared for it the way he prepares for everything—mentally rehearsing answers, organizing facts into neat categories, telling himself that if he just maintains enough control over the narrative, it won’t hurt.

“Go ahead.”

“Is Mr. Rozanov listed on the birth certificate?”

“No.”

“Who is listed as Airi’s father?”

“I am. As the—” He swallows. “As the birth parent. Other parent is listed as unknown.”

Nathaniel writes in his legal pad. Shane has never understood why lawyers still use paper in 2021, but maybe there’s a quality to pen and ink that makes tragedy feel more official.

“And publicly?” Nathaniel asks. “What’s the story?”

“Ilya’s her godfather.”

Nathaniel’s eyebrows do a tiny thing. Not quite surprise—lawyers probably train themselves out of surprise in law school, right between Contracts and Constitutional Law—but a reaction close to it.

After a minute of silence, Nathaniel says, “Okay.”

Shane’s palms are sweating. He wipes them on his pants. “The pregnancy was—look, it wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m an Alpha. Ilya’s an Alpha. We didn’t think it was possible. When we found out, we kept it quiet. As far as anyone knows, I used a surrogate. Ilya’s just a friend. That’s the story.”

“And Mr. Rozanov agreed to this arrangement?”

“No. He wanted to tell everyone. Wanted to come out, announce the baby, do the whole thing. I’m the one who said no.”

“Is that why you broke up?”

“Among other reasons.”

“What were the other reasons?”

Shane shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “He proposed. I said no,” he says, and it feels like ripping a band aid off on a wound that never truly heals. “He left.”

A beat.

“Okay,” Nathaniel says. “Here’s the situation. Right now, you have sole legal custody. Mr. Rozanov has no claim. Zero. You could walk out of here and never let him see her again, and there’s nothing he could do about it.”

“I would never—”

“I know.” Nathaniel holds up a pen. “I’m not suggesting it. I’m just making sure you understand the landscape. You have all the power here. The question is what you want to do with it.”

“I want him to have custody,” Shane says immediately. “Joint, shared, whatever the legal term is. He’s her father.”

“Biologically,” Nathaniel says. “Legally, he’s nothing. And that’s the problem. If we put his paternity in writing, we create evidence. Paper trails. The kind of thing that could surface in a lawsuit, a leak, a really determined journalist with a records request.”

“So what do I do?”

Nathaniel leans back  in his chair, loosening his tie a bit. “We draft a private parenting stipulation. Not a court-filed custody order—those are public records in Quebec. A private contractual agreement between two parties, governed by NDA provisions and enforceable through arbitration rather than family court. It’s less common, but for clients in your situation—public figures with significant confidentiality concerns—it’s the gold standard.”

“And Ilya’s lawyer—”

“Already called me. Claire Duval. She’s with Cadieux & Duval in Ottawa. Reached out this morning.” Nathaniel tilts his head, reading Shane’s face. “Mr. Rozanov hired her the day after you two split. He’s not messing around.”

“What do they want?” Shane asks.

“Their opening position is generous.” Nathaniel pulls the laptop toward him, opens it, and angles the screen so Shane can see a document. “Duval proposed a tiered custody schedule based on the child’s age. I’ll walk you through it.”

Shane nods because what else is he going to do. The document on screen looks like a cross between a legal contract and a hockey practice schedule. Tiers. Phases. Contingencies. The architecture of a fractured family rendered in Times New Roman.

“Tier One,” Nathaniel says. “Pre-school years. This is what’s operational now—or will be, once we sign. Mr. Rozanov receives seven consecutive days per month of physical custody. We’re calling it ‘Ottawa Week.’ Dates are selected based on the NHL schedule released in July. He gets priority selection during home stands.”

Seven days. One week a month. Shane’s jaw tightens. One week out of four where Airi is two hours away, in Ilya’s condo in Ottawa.

“Tier Two,” Nathaniel continues. “This triggers when Airi turns six and enters Grade One. Mandatory schooling makes the Ottawa Week schedule untenable—she can’t miss twenty-five percent of the school year. So the agreement reverts to a restricted schedule: three weekends per month, Friday evening to Sunday evening. Holidays compensate for lost time—Rozanov gets Christmas break and spring break in full.”

Shane stares at the screen. He can feel the math of it. Right now, Ilya gets eighty-four days a year with his daughter. Under Tier Two, that drops to roughly seventy-two—but it’s the quality that changes. No more full weeks. No more lazy Tuesday mornings or bedtime stories on a Wednesday. Just weekends. Concentrated, compressed bursts of fatherhood that are never long enough for either of them.

“There’s a relocation clause,” Nathaniel says. “This is important. Listen very well. If you—the primary residential parent—establish a residence within forty kilometers of Mr. Rozanov’s primary residence, the agreement upgrades to fifty-fifty shared physical custody. A two-two-three rotation—you get Monday and Tuesday, he gets Wednesday and Thursday, Friday and weekends alternate.”

Forty kilometers.

The math is simple. If Shane stays in Montreal—the city that built him, the city that worships him, the city where his jersey will one day hang from the rafters—Ilya gets scraps. Weekends. Holidays. A life lived in the margins of Airi’s existence.

But if Shane moves…

A house in the suburbs between Montreal and Ottawa. Or maybe closer to Ottawa. The commute would be hell. Two hours each way to practice? The media would have a field day. Captain Commuter. They’d speculate. They’d ask why he is driving four hours a day to live in some nondescript town in Ontario because it’s absurd. 

But Airi would have her Papa. She would have Sunday nights with Ilya. She would have Wednesday mornings where Ilya makes those pancakes she’s obsessed with. She would have a life where her parents aren’t separated by a provincial border and a lifetime of bad decisions.

“Shane?” Nathanie’s voice interrupts his train of thoughts.

“Sorry.” Shane refocuses on the screen. “That clause,” he says, pointing at it. “The fifty-fifty trigger. Did Ilya ask for that?”

Nathaniel nods once. “Explicitly. Duval made it clear that was non-negotiable. It’s a carrot, essentially. Mr. Rozanov is betting that eventually, you’ll get tired of doing seventy-five percent of the parenting alone.”

No, Shane thinks, feeling a stabbing sensation in his chest. That’s not it.

Ilya isn’t betting on his exhaustion.

He is betting on Shane’s guilt.

“Keep it,” Shane says without even thinking.

“You’re sure?” Nathaniel warns, leveling him a piercing gaze. “It limits your mobility. If you move there, you’re stuck there. You can’t just pick up and move back to Montreal proper without triggering a massive custody battle.”

“I know.”

“And the commute—”

“I said keep it, Nathaniel. Please.”

Shane looks out the window at the gray Montreal skyline. He loves this city. He has given it his blood, his sweat, his knees, his youth. But looking at the clause, at the possibility of a life where Airi gets to have both of them, the city suddenly feels like just a backdrop.

“Ilya deserves the option,” Shane says, certainty laced his voice. “And so does our daughter.”

Nathaniel nods, tapping a key on his laptop. “Done. Now, let’s talk about child support. Given the disparity in incomes isn’t significant—you’re both max-contract players—standard guidelines suggest—”

“I don’t want his money,” Shane interjects. “We split costs. Education, medical, extracurriculars. Fifty-fifty. Everything else, we handle on our own time.”

“There are additional provisions. Right of first refusal—if you travel for an away game exceeding forty-eight hours, you’re required to offer custody to Rozanov before utilizing a nanny or family member. And there’s a playoff clause,” Nathaniel continues. “If either parent’s team advances to the playoffs, that parent’s custodial time is temporarily suspended. Make-up time is banked and redeemed during summer. And the summer schedule is fifty-fifty regardless of tier—week-on, week-off, July and August—with blackout dates for your annual trip and Rozanov’s hockey camp.”

“The Irina Foundation camp.”

“Yes. Two weeks reserved.”

The camp he helped build. The camp he stopped attending. Another piece of their shared life he amputated and left to bleed.

Nathaniel scrolls down. “Now. Section three. Confidentiality and lifestyle clauses. This is where it gets delicate.”

“Define delicate.”

“Both parties agree that the biological paternity of the child is strictly confidential. The public narrative—godfather, family friend—remains intact. Any intentional disclosure by either party is grounds for an immediate review of the custody arrangement.” Nathaniel pauses, letting Shane digest it. “Duval pushed hard on this one, actually. Mr. Rozanov wants it ironclad. He’s as invested in the secrecy as you are.”

The irony is so sharp it nearly cuts Shane open. Ilya, who wanted to come out. Ilya, who begged Shane to tell the truth—is now the one demanding an NDA so airtight it could survive a congressional subpoena. Because this isn’t about them anymore.

This is about Airi.

“Romantic partners,” Nathaniel says. “No introductions to the child until the relationship has exceeded seven months of exclusivity. Partners are not to be informed of the true paternity without written consent from both fathers.”

Shane’s stomach lurches. He sees Ilya’s future in bullet points: Someone who gets to share Ilya’s bed and never knows that the little girl with the hazel eyes is his flesh and blood. Someone who will think Ilya is just a devoted godfather. Someone who will never understand why he drops everything for that child, why he buys a house with a backyard, why his walls are covered with her photos.

“Medical decisions require joint consent,” Nathaniel adds. “Including—and this was an unusual addition from Duval’s end—any future children involving the parties’ genetic material. Surrogacy, natural conception if biologically applicable, any scenario in which both parties’ genetics are involved. Both must consent in writing.”

“That’s—” Shane’s voice fractures. “That’s reasonable.”

“Shane.” Nathaniel closes his laptop. “This is a good agreement. Duval is fair, and Mr. Rozanov is being more than fair. Most non-custodial parents in his position would be fighting for primary residence. He’s not. He’s asking for seven days a month and the promise that you won’t deny him his rights as a father.”

A weight collapses in Shane’s chest. He presses his hand to his sternum, over the ring, and breathes.

“I know how this feels,” Nathaniel says, and his voice is now stripped of its courtroom polish. “It feels like you’re dividing a child into calendar blocks. But the alternative is ambiguity, and ambiguity breeds conflict. You give this agreement a structure, you give Airi stability. That’s what matters.”

Shane nods without saying anything. 

“I’ll have my team review Duval’s draft and prepare our counter-position,” Nathaniel says, slipping back into his professional tone. “There are a few things I want tightened—the right of first refusal language is vague, and the playoff clause needs a clearer make-up mechanism. We’ll conference with Duval’s office next week. Is that timeline acceptable?”

“Yes,” Shane says, standing.

Nathaniel stands too, extending his hand. “Call me if anything changes. Anything at all.”

Shane shakes Nathaniel’s hand. When he tries to pull back and leave, the lawyer’s grip tightens just enough to stop him.

“One more thing.” Nathaniel holds his gaze. “Whatever happened between you and Mr. Rozanov—whatever broke—that’s none of my business. My business is Airi. But I will tell you, Shane, in twenty-five years of practicing family law, the custody arrangements that fail are never the ones with bad terms. They’re the ones where the parents can’t be in the same room. So whatever you need to do to make this functional—therapy, mediation, screaming into a pillow—do it. Because this agreement is only as strong as the two people who sign it.”

“I’ll be functional,” he says. 

Nathaniel gives him a look that says I believe you mean that, and I also believe you have absolutely no idea how hard it’s going to be.

“I’ll be in touch,” is what Nathaniel says.

The elevator ride down is thirty-two floors of silence. Shane stands with his back to the mirrored wall, watching the numbers descend. His reflection stares back at him—jaw tight, the collar of his coat hiding the chain at his throat.

He pulls out his phone. Opens the text thread with Ilya.

The last message, from two days ago:

She ate at noon.

She needs a nap by 2. 

Ilya:

👍

Shane stares at it. He types three words. Deletes them. Types them again.

I miss you.

The cursor blinks at the end of the sentence. I miss you. It pulses like a heartbeat. I miss you.

He holds down the backspace key. The letters vanish, one by one, eaten by the white void of the screen.

I miss y—

I mi—

I—

Gone.

Ottawa, Ontario
15 July 2022

If overcompensation had a physical form, it would be the balloon arch currently framing the back deck of Shane’s cottage. It is a cascading architectural marvel of sage green, matte cream, and chrome gold balloons that took three hours and a very questionable amount of lung capacity to assemble. It is flanked by transparent square blocks stacked to spell O-N-E, filled with smaller, color-coordinated balloons, because apparently, simply telling people your child has survived a full orbit around the sun is insufficient.

You need a color palette that screams organic luxury to distract from the fact that the family hosting this event is currently held together by a specific legal contract and a lot of repression.

Shane adjusts the "A" block by a millimeter.

"Stop touching the decor, Hollander," Hayden Pike says, wandering onto the deck with a beer in one hand and a half-eaten hot dog in the other. "It looks like a Pinterest board threw up on a Pottery Barn catalog. It’s perfect."

"The arch is leaning," Shane says, eyeing the structure with the same scrutiny he applies to game tape. "Does it look like it’s leaning to the left?"

"It looks like balloons, Shane. It looks like a one-year-old’s birthday party." Hayden leans against the railing, his gaze drifting out toward the lake where a few of the guys from the camp—Ryan, and his boyfriend Fabian, and a rookie named Eric—are trying to skip stones. "Relax. She’s having a blast."

Shane looks toward the grass.

Airi Erina Hollander is, objectively, having the time of her life.

She is sitting on a quilt in the center of the yard, looking like a tiny, regal distinct combination of her fathers. Her dark hair is currently wrestled into a small fountain-spout ponytail on top of her head. And her hazel eyes are shifting from gold to green in the sunlight, wide and expressive and currently fixated on a blade of grass with intense fascination.

His lovely daughter is wearing a red lace dress with a matching headband flower that she has already tried to remove seventeen times.

“It’s beautiful, Shane,” Jackie Pike says, coming up behind Hayden and squeezing his arm. She’s holding their youngest, Amber, against one hip, and she looks at the party setup with genuine admiration. “Seriously. The silly goose theme? Genius.”

The dessert table is the centerpiece. Shane did this himself. A two-tier cake anchors the display: the bottom tier is wrapped in pink-and-cream gingham fondant with a piped rope border, and the top tier is ivory buttercream decorated with hand-painted geese waddling through a field of tiny fondant flowers. A pink metallic number one candle sits on top, waiting. Beside it, the smaller smash cake—white frosting, a single painted goose, a garland of green vines piped around the base—perches on a ruffled white cake stand.

It is excessive for a child who has not yet mastered the concept of object permanence.

And Shane does not care.

His daughter deserves all the best in this world.

“Shane.” His mother materializes beside him, adjusting a goose figurine on the dessert table. She’s wearing a linen dress the color of driftwood. “The lemon bars need to come out. And your father is doing alarming things with the grill.”

“He’s grilling salmon,” Shane says.

“He’s arguing with salmon. It’s different.” Yuna straightens a daisy that has tilted approximately two degrees to the left.

“I’ll handle it.”

“You’ll handle the salmon. I’ll handle your dad.”  She pats his cheek and disappears toward the pool.

The guests filter in throughout the late morning. Hayden and Jackie are here with all four kids—Ruby and Jade (the twins, eight), Arthur (six), and Amber (five). Amber has already claimed Airi as her personal project and is following her around with the devotion of a lady-in-waiting. J.J. arrives with a wrapped gift the size of a small refrigerator and a grin that suggests the contents are either wonderful or catastrophic. Leah Campbell brings a bottle of rosé and a card signed by half the Ottawa Centaurs roster.

“Happy birthday, little goose!” She crouches down in front of Airi’s, offering a stuffed animal that appears to be a goose wearing a tutu.

Airi takes it, examines it, and promptly attempts to eat its beak.

“She approves,” Shane says.

“Where’s Rozanov?” Max asks from his seat, accepting a lemonade from Yuna. “Thought he’d be here.”

They know Airi as Shane’s daughter. They know Ilya as her godfather, Shane’s close friend, their camp co-founder. They don’t know the rest. And the distance between what they know and what is true is the exact width of the ring hiding beneath Shane’s shirt.

“He’s coming later,” Shane says. “He had something to take care of in Ottawa.”

Airi is then placed by Shane’s dad in front of the smash cake and stares at it like it’s a riddle. She pokes the frosting tentatively with one finger, examines the evidence, and then plunges both hands into the cake up to the wrists.

The table erupts. Hayden is recording on his phone. Jackie is laughing so hard she’s silent. Amber is cheering like this is a sporting event. Airi is grinning—that gummy, gap-toothed, full-face grin that makes Shane’s heart inflate to a size that cannot possibly be medically sustainable—her red lace dress now destroyed, frosting in her dark hair and on her cheeks and somehow in her ear.

Shane smiles, records, and enjoying himself in the present, but underneath it all, there is an empty place where someone should be standing.

"Is he coming?" Hayden asks from behind him.

"He has a scheduled visitation block from 1:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M.," Shane says, checking his watch. It is 12:58 P.M. He’ll be here."

"You sound like you're talking about a dentist appointment."

"It’s a contract, Hayden. We follow the contract."

"Right. The contract." Hayden takes a sip of his beer, his eyes sympathetic in a way that makes Shane want to jump into the lake. "You know, for two guys who supposedly hate each other, you sure put a lot of effort into making sure the other one is happy."

"I don't care if he's happy," Shane lies. "I care that Airi is happy. And Airi likes it when—"

His phone buzzes in his pocket.

July 15, 2021

12:59 PM

Ilya:

I am outside.

Where do I park?

 Driveway.

Behind my mom’s car.

 

He excuses himself from the table, where Airi is being wiped down by Jackie, and walks through the cottage to the front door. His heartbeat races. He smooths his shirt, adjusts his hair, catches himself doing both, and wants to die.

He opens the door.

Ilya Rozanov is standing in the driveway beside a matte-black Range Rover, and he’s—

Okay.

He is wearing dark jeans and a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing forearms that Shane knows the map of better than his own hometown. He has sunglasses on, hiding his eyes, and his hair is that perfect, messy windswept style.

Something in the driveway snags Shane’s attention. It is a miniature, retro-styled convertible car. Hot pink, with chrome detailing and a purple seat. It looks like something a 1950s movie star would drive in Palm Springs, shrunk down to toddler proportions. And it is, without question, the most aggressively extra gift Shane has ever seen for a child.

“No,” Shane says.

Ilya slides his sunglasses down his nose and peers at Shane over the rims. “Happy birthday to Airi,” he says, grinning. “I am best Papa.”

“Ilya, she’s one. She can barely walk.”

“She can sit. Car has seat. Math checks out.” He proudly pats the hood of the toy car. “Is custom. I order from Germany.”

Shane is gobsmacked. “You ordered a children’s ride-on car from Germany.”

“Best quality.” He shrugs. “Also I buy wrapping paper. Princess ones.” He gestures into the backseat of the Range Rover, where Shane can see a pile of additional wrapped presents—at least six or seven boxes in pink wrapping paper covered in cartoon princess faces, each topped with elaborate pink ribbon bows.

Shane stares at the tower of gifts, gaping. “This is too much,” he says.

“Is not enough,” Ilya says. “She turns one once. I missed the morning, yes? This is… making up.”Because Ilya always respects Shane’s boundaries, even the cruel ones.

“Let me help you carry the gifts,” he says.

“I carry,” Ilya says, already loading his arms with wrapped boxes. “You carry the baby car.”

“It weighs forty pounds.”

“You bench two-twenty. Is warmup. Come.” He hoists the gifts against his chest and walks toward the cottage door like a man on a mission, the pile of pink boxes swaying dangerously.

Shane grabs the ride-on car. It is absurdly heavy. The bow flutters against his forearm as he hauls it toward the backyard. He can hear the party continuing—Amber’s shrieking, Hayden’s laugh, music from the speaker someone rigged to the patio railing—and underneath it all, the sound of his own heart, beating too fast, too loud, too aware of the man walking ahead of him.

They round the corner of the cottage, and the party comes into view. Ilya pauses at the edge of the patio, the gifts stacked in his arms, and Shane watches his face as he takes in the scene. The gingham tablecloths. The balloon arch. The banner of Airi’s faces in tiny party hats. The goose cake, half-demolished now, surrounded by a carnage of frosting and crumbs. And Airi herself, freshly cleaned and re-dressed in a simpler onesie, sitting on Jackie’s lap with a cookie in each fist, looking like a tiny empress surveying her domain.

Longing flashes across Ilya’s face. Longing. It lasts half a second. Then the mask goes up—the grin, the swagger, the energy that fills a room like light—and Ilya steps onto the patio.

“Hello!” he announces, setting the gifts down on the nearest table with a flourish. “Godfather has arrived. Party can begin.”

“It began two hours ago,” Max calls from his chair.

“Party was in warmup. Now is game time.” Ilya turns, scanning the yard until his eyes lock onto Airi. His entire body changes—the shoulders drop, the grin softens into private, and he crosses the patio with three long strides, crouching down in front of Jackie’s lap.

“Hey, myshonok,” he says, a soft rumble. “Happy birthday.”

Airi’s face cracks open into the biggest smile Shane has ever seen. She drops both cookies—just abandons them mid-grip—and lunges forward with both arms.

“Yaya!” she shrieks. Her name for him. Not Papa—never Papa, not in public—but Yaya, the sound she made the first time she tried to say his name and it stuck.

Ilya scoops her up, lifting her high above his head, and she screams with delight, her legs kicking, her hands grabbing fistfuls of his hair. He brings her down against his chest and she immediately buries her face in his neck, clinging to him with the ferocious, full-body attachment of a child who has been waiting.

“I miss you, malysh,” Ilya murmurs. He presses his lips to her temple, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, they are shining.

The afternoon stretches on, golden and warm, and Ilya folds himself into the party like he was always there. He helps David at the grill, and he lets Amber drag him into a game of tag that leaves him breathless and laughing. He eats three goose cookies and tells Shane they are “acceptable,” which from Ilya is a five-star review. He sits beside Max and they talk about the kids in the camp while holding Airi.

He holds her constantly, shifting her from one hip to the other, pointing out birds in the trees, feeding her bits of watermelon from his plate, narrating the world to her in a low murmur of English and Russian.

“She has good hands,” Ryan observes, watching Airi grab a blueberry off Ilya’s plate with startling precision. “You should get her on skates early.”

“Already ordered,” Ilya says. “Bauer Vapor. Custom.”

“She’s one,” Shane says, from across the table.

“Is never too early,” Ilya says solemnly. “She will be starting lineup by three.”

“She can’t even say ‘offside’ yet.”

“She said ‘Yaya go fast.’ Is basically same thing.”

The table laughs. Then J.J. asks, “So when are you two doing another camp together?” and the moment shatters like glass.

The question is innocent. J.J. doesn’t know. He’s asking because the camp is a shared project, because Shane and Ilya are supposed to be friends, because this is the kind of thing friends discuss at birthday parties.

“Next summer,” Shane says, at the same time Ilya says, “We will see.”

Their gaze briefly meet across the table.

“Schedule is complicated,” Ilya adds smoothly, looking away first. “Two captains. Many obligations. But foundation is important. We make it work.”

The conversation moves on. Shane excuses himself to the kitchen, where he allows himself a brief escape. The cottage is quiet inside. He can see Ilya through the glass door, sitting on the lawn with Airi on his lap, showing her the pink car. He’s placed her in the sparkly purple seat and is slowly pushing the car across the grass while she grips the steering wheel with both hands, her face concentrated.

Ilya is crouched beside the car, one hand on the back of the seat, guiding her. He’s talking to her. Shane can’t hear the words, but he can see Ilya’s mouth moving, can see the way he leans in close to her ear, and Airi tilts her head to listen.

"Happy birthday, baby," Shane whispers to the wind.

By 5:30 P.M., the cottage backyard looks like a Pinterest board that got hit by a tornado. There are smashed lemon bars trodden into the deck planks. There are deflated balloons drifting across the lawn like sage-green tumbleweeds. The impressive goose cake is now just a sad, crumbled mound of fondant.

Most of the guests have filtered out. Hayden and Jackie packed the Pike brood into their SUV twenty minutes ago. Shane stands by the back door, holding a trash bag that contains the ruins of the smash cake, and watches Ilya.

Ilya is walking toward the driveway. He has Airi perched on his hip, and he is walking slowly. Painfully slow.

Shane drops the trash bag. He wipes his hands on his jeans—a nervous, useless gesture—and follows them. The sun is dipping low over the lake, casting long, golden shadows that make Ilya look even more unfair than usual. The light kisses the gold in his hair, the sharp line of his jaw, the way his linen shirt—now rumpled and stained with a suspiciously purple substance that is likely frosting—clings to his shoulders.

Ilya reaches the black Range Rover and stops. He doesn't open the door. He just stands there, holding his daughter, staring at the personalized license plate.

"She's tired," Shane says, coming up beside them. "She skipped her afternoon nap."

"Is big day," Ilya says. He keeps his eyes on Airi, who is currently batting at the sunglasses tucked into the collar of his shirt. "She is allowed to be tired."

Airi yawns, a full-face event that shows off her four teeth, and lays her head on Ilya’s shoulder. She grips a handful of his shirt in her small fist.

Ilya’s hand comes up to cup the back of her head. His fingers are large, calloused from hockey, and they look so gentle against her dark hair.

"Be good, myshonok," Ilya murmurs. He switches to Russian then. “Slushaysya papu.”Listen to your dad.

Airi makes a soft, gurgling sound that might be agreement or might be gas.

"Ilya," Shane says. The name is a splinter in his throat. "It's time."

Ilya looks at Airi one last time, drinking in the details of her face, before handing her off to Shane. Their daughter looks around, blinking. Then she sees Ilya standing three feet away, empty-handed.

Her face scrunches, and her little arms strains toward the Range Rover. "Yaya!" she screams. "Yaya, up! Up!"

Shane bounces her gently. "It's okay, baby. Daddy’s got you. It’s okay."

"No!" She kicks her legs, fighting him. "Yaya! Yaya!"

"Don't cry," Ilya says. "Malysh, please. Don't cry. You are breaking Papa's heart."

"Yaya!"

"I have to go," Ilya says, though his feet are rooted to the gravel. "I see you soon."

"Yaya," Airi sobs, fat tears rolling down her cheeks.

"You should go," Shane says. He hates that he is the one who has to say them. "Ilya. Go."

"Take care of her," Ilya says, his eyes shimmering with a glass-like sheen.

"I always do."

"Take care of yourself, Hollander."

Ilya touches Airi’s cheek one last time, then walks around to the driver’s seat.

"Be safe.” It’s the only thing he’s allowed to say. 

Shane stands in the driveway, clutching his screaming daughter to his chest, and watches the taillights fade.

Ottawa, Ontario
3 September 2026

Ilya cannot sleep. He should be so deep in sleep now that nothing short of a fire alarm could drag him out. Instead, he is lying in his own bed, staring blankly at nothing, deeply aware that Shane is beside him.

Between them, Airi sleeps.

She is sprawled in the shape of a starfish. Her left arm is flung across Ilya’s stomach. Her right foot, bare and inexplicably damp, is wedged against Shane’s lower back. Her dark hair fans across the pillow in a chaotic spray, and her mouth is slightly open, producing a faint, rhythmic whistle that would be adorable if Ilya were not currently in the middle of the most excruciating night of his adult life.

This is Airi’s doing. She had refused the guest room. Refused it with the full tactical brilliance of a five-year-old who has identified the precise emotional weak point in both of her parents and is exploiting it without mercy.

“I want Papa’s bed,” she had announced, standing in the hallway in her pajamas—an oversized Boston Bears t-shirt that hung to her knees, one of Ilya’s old ones, faded and soft. She had her arms crossed. Her chin, with its small, deepening cleft—Ilya’s chin, God help them—was tilted upward. “And I want Daddy in it too.”

Shane had tried to argue. “Baby, Daddy can sleep in the guest—”

“No.”

“Airi—”

“No.” She had turned those hazel eyes on him, and delivered the final blow. “I never get to sleep with both of you. Never. Please, Daddy.”

Shane had looked at Ilya.

Ilya had looked at Shane.

Shane’s expression said: This is a terrible idea.

Ilya’s expression said: I know.

Shane’s jaw had tightened in that specific way that meant he was calculating the odds of surviving the night without his heart imploding. Ilya had shrugged, the gesture carefully casual, as though sharing a bed with his ex for the first time in five years was roughly equivalent to choosing between salad dressings.

“Is big bed,” he had said. “Plenty of room.”

There is not plenty of room.

Airi has seen to that.

She has migrated steadily toward Ilya over the past hour, dragging her blanket with her like a determined caterpillar. Her warm weight is pressed against his ribs now, her fingers curled loosely around the fabric of his t-shirt.

Ilya breathes her in. He lets his hand rest on the back of her head, his thumb moving in small circles against her scalp, and tries very hard to feel nothing else.

He fails.

Because Shane is right there. Shane, who changed into Ilya’s clothes two hours ago and emerged from the bathroom looking like a controlled demolition of every defense Ilya has spent five years building. The borrowed sweatpants hang low on his hips, the waistband rolled twice. The t-shirt—a soft, ancient thing with a cracked Centaurs logo across the chest—is too wide in the shoulders, the neckline slipping to expose Shane’s collarbone and the thin gold chain that disappears beneath the fabric.

The chain Ilya has never asked about.

He wants to ask about it now. Because Shane is not the person to wear accessories, not until now. But stops himself, because Ilya has learned the terrain of Shane Hollander’s boundaries the hard way.

The clock on the nightstand reads 1:47 AM.

His body aches. The flu has stripped him—not just energy, but his usual armor of competence and bravado. He feels peeled from inside out. Every nerve exposed and humming with the proximity of the man lying less than two feet away.

For ten years, they shared a bed. Not every night—the distance, the secrecy, the insane logistics of two NHL captains conducting a clandestine relationship across provincial lines made that impossible—but often enough that Ilya’s body built itself around the architecture of Shane’s sleeping form. He knows that Shane runs cold and burrows. He knows Shane’s breathing pattern. He knows the exact moment Shane slips under, because his left hand always unclenches first, the fingers going slack against the mattress.

Ilya knows all of this the way he knows the angles of the rink. Muscle memory. Instinct.

And right now, every instinct is screaming the same thing: Shane is not asleep.

Ilya watches the back of Shane’s neck. The short dark hair at his nape. The knob of his vertebra just visible above the neckline. No. He should roll over, face the wall, and force himself into unconsciousness through sheer stubbornness. This is what a reasonable person would do.

Ilya has never been reasonable.

Not about Shane.

Airi shifts in her sleep, her knee driving into Ilya’s thigh. She mumbles something that sounds like “more pancakes” and rolls toward Ilya, her back now pressed fully against Shane. The movement pushes her foot harder against Shane’s spine.

Shane makes a tiny, involuntary jerk. He moves her foot to a less aggressive position against his hip, and his hand lingers there for a moment, cupped around her heel. Then he pulls his hand back. Tucks it under his cheek.

“Stop pretending,” Ilya says.

A beat passes. Then another.

“I’m not pretending,” Shane whispers back, still facing the wall.

“You are. Your breathing is wrong.”

“My breathing is fine.”

“When you actually sleep, you make small noise. Like—” He catches himself, realizing he is about to describe the precise sound Shane makes when he is truly unconscious, which is an intimate detail he should not be able to recall with such devastating clarity after five years apart. “You are different,” he finishes instead.

“How long have you been awake?” Shane asks.

“Have not slept.”

Shane rolls onto his back slowly to avoid disturbing Airi, and then tilts his head on the pillow so he is looking at Ilya across the dark expanse of their daughter’s sleeping body.

Ilya lies very still. He breathes through the pressure in his chest. “Your house,” he says, after a while. “In Ottawa.”

“What about it?”

“The custody agreement. You know what happens if you live within forty kilometers.”

“I know what it says.”

“Tier Three. Fifty-fifty. Two-two-three schedule.” He watches Shane’s profile “You already trigger it, Shane. You are already inside forty kilometers.”

Shane stays quiet.

“So,” Ilya continues, and his chest is aching. “Are you planning to tell your lawyer? To activate clause?” He pauses. Wets his lips. “Are you planning to give me fifty-fifty?”

“I spoke to Nate last month,” Shane says. “We’re filing the amendment in October. Before the season starts.”

“You—” He has to swallow twice before words will form properly. “You are filing?”

“It’s the right thing to do. Airi starts Grade One next September. If we don’t activate Tier Three before school enrollment, you lose your weeks. You become a weekend dad. I won’t let that happen.”

Shane starts to be cloudy in his vision. His eyes are watering because his immune system is compromised, not because Shane Hollander just told him, in the flattest possible voice, that he restructured his entire life to keep Ilya from losing time with his daughter.

“You moved to Ottawa for this,” Ilya says.

“The school district is excellent,” Shans says weakly.

“You are impossible,” Ilya whispers into the pillow.

“I’m practical,” Shane corrects. But his voice is unsteady now.

Ilya lifts his face from the pillow. Their eyes meet across the dark, across Airi’s sleeping body, and the distance between them feels both infinite and nonexistent. Airi sighs in her sleep, a long, whistling exhale, and her hand twitches against Ilya’s stomach.

“Can I ask you something?” Shane whispers, after what feels like a very long time.

“Anything.”

Shane’s gaze drops to Airi. He watches their daughter sleep.  “Did you ever hate me?”

“Hate you?”

"When I sent you away," Shane rambles, and it sounds like he’s in pain. "When I kept us a secret. When I... when I broke us. Did you hate me?"

The question is a blade driven straight to Ilya’s heart. It drags him back to the cottage. To the ring on the kitchen counter, the suitcase packed in the dark, and the two-hour drive back to Ottawa at midnight. The times strangers in grocery stores or parks would smile at Airi and look to him with questioning eyes, and Ilya had to swallow the words “I’m her father,” forcing a distant smile while his chest caved in.

"No," Ilya says immediately. It is the easiest truth he has ever told. "I was angry. I was... gutted."

Shane winces, shrinking into the pillow.

"But hate?" Ilya shakes his head on the pillow. "I cannot hate you, Shane."

“Why?”

“Sometimes I wanted to,” Ilya continues. “Would have been easier, yes?” He touches Airi’s hair, a slow stroke. “But I could not hate you. Even when you broke my heart. Even when you say no to ring. Even when you make me godfather to my own daughter.” His fingers still on Airi’s temple. “How can I hate you? You gave me her.”

“Ilya.” A soundless sob escapes Shane. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know.”

His soul does not know how to hate Shane. It only knows how to want to him.

Ilya floats in the haze of waking. He is spooning the sleeping form in his arms, his nose buried in the dark hair at the nape of the neck. The scent is intoxicating—warm skin, sleep, and a faint, lingering trace of vanilla.

My pack, his groggy brain supplies. Safe.

He tightens his hold, sliding his hand up the front of the t-shirt to rest over a steadily beating heart. He nuzzles closer, inhaling deeply.

Wait.

His brain, slowly coming online, stutters over the data. Airi is small while the body he is currently wrapping himself around is broad-shouldered.

Shane.

Ilya’s eyes snap open.

He is curled around Shane Hollander. His arm is draped possessively over Shane’s waist, his hand splayed flat over Shane’s sternum. His thighs are pressed against the backs of Shane’s legs, tangled together in a knot of intimacy that shouldn't exist outside of his dream.

Shane is snoring.

For five years, he has starved for this contact, and now that he has it, letting go feels like tearing off his own skin. The morning sun is a pale, intrusive wash of gold against the gray duvet, but Ilya doesn’t mind. He is too busy watching his entire world wake up.

Woof.

Ilya jolts. The bark comes from the hallway outside the condo door.

Anya.

Reality crashes back in. He’d asked Harris and Troy to take her yesterday when he thought he was dying on the couch. They must be bringing her back for the morning walk.  He looks down. Shane stirs in his arms, the noise penetrating his sleep.

Shane shifts, turning his head, and blinks open his hazel eyes. He sees Ilya. He feels Ilya’s arm around him. Shane gasps. He scrambles backward, nearly falling off the edge of the mattress.

"I—" His face flushes a violent shade of crimson. "I. Sorry. I’m sorry."

"Is okay.” Ilya sits up, messing his hair, trying to calm the erratic thumping of his heart.

"Airi," Shane stammers, looking frantically around the bed. "She must have... she moves a lot. She must have rolled away."

They both look. Airi is curled up at the foot of the bed, perpendicular to them, sleeping soundly with her face pressed into the mattress and her butt in the air.

"Right," Ilya says, clearing his throat. "She moved."

"I didn't mean to—" Shane pulls the gray duvet up to his chin, as if shielding himself from the evidence of their cuddle. "I didn't realize."

"Shane. Is okay." Ilya fights the urge to spoon him again. "We were asleep. Is biology. Heat seeks heat."

Another bark echoes from the hall, followed by a polite scratching at the door.

"Anya," Ilya says, swinging his legs out of bed. The vertigo is gone, and  his limbs feel functional again. "Harris is here."

"Harris?" Shane exclaims in panic. He looks down at himself—wearing Ilya’s clothes, in Ilya’s bed, looking thoroughly ravished by sleep. "Now?"

“Stay here."

Ilya grabs a blue hoodie from the floor and pulls it on over his t-shirt. He pads out of the bedroom, and hurries down the hallway. He checks the screen. Harris Drover stands there, holding a takeout coffee cup in one hand and Anya’s leash in the other. The dog is vibrating with impatience.

Ilya unlocks the door and swings it open.

"You’re alive," Harris says flatly.

"Barely."

Anya doesn't wait for pleasantries. She launches herself at Ilya, nearly knocking him over. Ilya catches her, letting her wash his chin.

"Hi, girl. Yes, I missed you too.”

"She cried all night," Harris says, stepping inside. "She knew you were sick. Troy tried to let her sleep in the bed, but she just paced." He looks Ilya over, his gaze critical. "You look better. Less like a corpse."

"Fever broke," Ilya says, straightening up. "Shane brought soup."

"Shane brought soup," Harris drawls. "Is he still here?"

"He..."

The bedroom door creaks open.

Anya’s head snaps up. Her tail starts to thump a dangerous rhythm against the wall. She lets out a joyous yelp and bolts down the hallway, claws scrambling on the hardwood for traction.

"Anya, no—" Ilya starts, but it is too late.

Shane shuffles into the living room, rubbing his eyes.

"Ilya, do you have any Advil? My head is..."

He stops.

Anya impacts him at full velocity. Shane grunts, stumbling back against the wall as sixty pounds Australian Shepherd mix greets him like a long-lost lover.

"Oh," Shane says, bracing himself as she licks his jaw. "Hey. Hey, baby girl. Down."

He looks up. He sees Harris standing in the entryway.

Harris is holding his coffee cup halfway to his mouth. His gaze slides slowly to Shane—disheveled, drowning in Ilya’s sweatshirt, the unmistakable air of the master bedroom still clinging to him. Then, the inevitable shift to Ilya. 

Harris doesn't say a word, but he doesn't have to; Ilya’s stillness is loud, frantic, and guilty.

"Hi, Harris," Shane says hesitantly, scratching Anya behind the ears.

Harris takes a slow sip of his coffee.

"Morning, Cap," Harris says to Shane. He turns to Ilya. "I brought the dog back. I see you have... everything under control."

"Is not what it looks like," Ilya says, though he isn't sure what it looks like.

"It looks like you’re wearing his blue hoodie and he’s wearing your pants," Harris observes dryly. "And you both have bedhead."

Blushing nervously, Shane blurts out, “Airi is here.”

"Uh-huh." Harris sets the leash on the console table. He looks between them again, a small, knowing smirk tugging at his mouth. He opens the door. "Feed the dog, Ilya. And maybe feed Shane. He looks like he’s about to bolt."

"Goodbye, Harris," Ilya says.

"Bye."

The door clicks shut.

Ilya turns to Shane. Shane is still pinned against the wall by the dog, his face a mixture of mortification and resignation.

"He saw us," Shane says in panic.

"Harris knows we are friends," Ilya reminds him. He walks over, whistling for Anya to get down. She obeys reluctantly, trotting off to the kitchen to check her bowl.

Ilya stops in front of Shane. The hallway is narrow. The air is thick with the memory of the night, of the bed, of the way Shane felt in his arms.

"You okay?" Ilya asks softly.

Shane looks at him. He reaches up, touching the spot on his neck where he had been pressed against Ilya’s chest.  "Yeah," he says with a hint of a smile. "I'm okay."

The moment lasts three seconds. Maybe four. The bedroom door creaks open, and their daughter emerges, shuffling into the hallway. Her dark hair is a wild halo around her face, her eyes still puffy with sleep, and she’s dragging Timmy the purple bunny by one bedraggled ear

"Morning, myshonok," Ilya says.

"Anya is licking Daddy," she observes.

"Yes. Anya has no boundaries."

She lifts both arms toward Shane.

“Up,” she commands.

Shane bends down, scooping her up with one arm, settling her against his hip. “Morning, baby,” he murmurs.

Anya, who has been investigating her food bowl with great disappointment, comes trotting back. Her tail starts wagging before she even reaches them. She sniffs at Airi’s dangling feet, and then licks the bottom of Airi’s bare foot with one long, wet swipe.

Airi shrieks with laughter, kicking her legs. “Anya! Nooo! That tickles!”

Anya, encouraged, goes in for another lick.

“Stop—hahaha—Papa, make her stop!”

Ilya whistles sharply. “Anya. Sidyet.”

The dog sits, but her tail is still going, thumping against the hardwood. Airi giggles into Shane’s shoulder, her small body shaking with leftover laughter. Shane is smiling—a real smile—and the sight of it hits Ilya somewhere deep in his chest.

This, he thinks. This is what it was supposed to look like.

“What do we want for breakfast?” Ilya asks, moving toward the kitchen.

Airi’s hand shoots up, nearly clipping Shane’s chin. “Pancakes! Papa, pancakes!”

“Pancakes,” Ilya repeats, opening the refrigerator. “We have eggs. We have milk. We have…” He frowns at the nearly empty shelves. “Banana and something that used to be cheese.”

“You need to go shopping,” Shane says, settling Airi onto one of the bar stools at the kitchen island. He keeps one hand on her back, steadying her.

“I was dying. Dying people do not go shopping.”

“Dying people should probably eat something other than protein bars.”

“Protein bars are nutritious.”

“Protein bars are what you eat when you’ve given up on life.”

Ilya pulls out the eggs, the milk, the flour from the pantry. He starts measuring ingredients into a bowl. Behind him, he hears Shane helping Airi wash her hands at the sink.

“Use the soap, baby.”

“I am using the soap.”

“Both hands. Get between your fingers.”

“I know, Daddy.”

This is what mornings were supposed to be.  This is what he imagined during those long months at the cottage, when Shane was round with their daughter and they were planning a future that never came.

He whisks the batter harder.

“Can I have chocolate chips?” Airi asks, appearing at his elbow. She’s standing on her tiptoes, trying to peer into the bowl.

“We do not have chocolate chips.”

“What about blueberries?”

“We do not have blueberries.”

“What do you have?”

“Half a banana.”

Airi’s face scrunches in disgust. “Papa. That’s gross.”

“Lemon pancakes are delicacy in some countries.”

“What countries?”

“Countries with no chocolate chips.”

Shane snorts from somewhere behind him. After making pancakes, he then pours two coffees and realizes, with a start, that he has prepared Shane’s automatically.

Black, half a sugar, no cream.

Muscle memory.

“Yours,” he says, setting it by the stove.

Shane glances down at the mug. He doesn’t ask how Ilya remembered. He just picks it up and drinks.

“Thank you,” he says quietly.

They eat at the island. Airi sits on the stool between them, her legs swinging, her plate are filled with syrup and banana. Anya lies at her feet, positioned with her chin on her paws, eyes tracking every fork-to-mouth trajectory with the laser focus of a predator. An hour later, the pancakes are gone. Airi has syrup in her hair. Anya has been slipped at least three bites under the table. Shane is laughing at something Airi said, and Ilya thinks he might combust from the weight of his own longing.

“I should go,” Shane says, putting the dishes away. “I need to get back before traffic gets bad.”

“Okay,” Ilya says. The word costs him. But he has learned that the fastest way to lose Shane Hollander is to hold on too tight.

Shane turns toward the hallway. He takes three steps, then stops. He looks down at himself—at the Centaurs t-shirt, the sweatpants rolled at the ankles.

“I need to change,” Shane says.

“Your clothes are in the dryer. I washed them last night.”

“You washed my clothes?”

“You had soup on your sleeve.”

“You washed my clothes,” Shane repeats, and there is something in his voice that is stunned and soft. He disappears into the bathroom, coming back in his own jeans, his own sweater. He is Captain Hollander again, pressed and proper, and the only evidence of the night is the slight disorder of his hair.

Ilya is still wearing the hoodie. Shane’s blue hoodie.

He pulls it off over his head.

“Sorry,” Ilya says, holding it out. “This is yours.”

Shane looks at the hoodie. “No,” he says. “It’s okay. Keep it.”

“Is your hoodie.”

“It smells like you now.” Shane’s cheeks turn a deeper shade of pink. He says it quickly. “Just—keep it. I have others.”

Ilya folds the hoodie over his arm. He says nothing.

Shane turns to the console table in the entryway. He reaches for the red cashmere scarf, draped over the edge where he left it last night. He picks it up and he holds it out to Ilya.

“Do you want it back?”

“Is yours now,” Ilya says.

Shane’s hand tightens around the cashmere. His Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He nods, small and quick, and winds the scarf around his neck, tucking the ends into his coat.

“Thank you,” Shane says.

Ilya just nods.

Meanwhile, Airi rounds the corner with the Anya in tow, her face already crumpling. “No,” she says.

“Baby—”

“You just got here!”

“I’ve been here since yesterday, sweetheart. I have to go to practice.”

“Practice is dumb.”

“Practice is how Daddy pays for your pancakes,” Shane says, crouching down. He cups her face in both hands, thumbs stroking her cheeks. “I’ll see you next week, okay?”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

"Walk me out?" Shane asks hopefully, looking at Ilya.

"Of course,” Ilya says, hoisting Airi in his hip.

They take the elevator down. Ilya carries Airi, and Anya walks beside Shane, her tail wagging a steady rhythm against his leg. The morning air outside is smelling of autumn leaves and impending winter. Shane’s Jeep is parked at the curb, looking out of place among the pristine sedans of the neighborhood.

"You still drive this tank?" Ilya asks, eyeing the mud-splattered vehicle with feigned disdain.

“Character,” Shane says, patting the hood like it is a beloved pet. “This Jeep has character.”

“This Jeep has tetanus.”

Shane laughs, the sound bright and free, and Ilya wants to bottle it, keep it, play it on loop during the long nights when the condo is too unbearably quiet.

Shane opens the driver’s side door, then turns back. He leans in and kisses Airi on the cheek.

“Be good for Papa, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy.”

Shane crouches down to scratch Anya’s ears. “Take care of them, girl.”

Anya barks softly, licking his hand.

Shane straightens, and Airi—perceptive, meddling, perfect Airi—points at Ilya’s cheek.

“Papa too,” she says.

“What?” Shane says, either shock or sickened.

“Papa too,” Airi insists. She taps Ilya’s cheek for emphasis. “Papa deserves kisses too.”

Ilya’s brain short-circuits. He stares at his daughter, then at Shane, who looks like he might pass out.

“Airi, that’s not—” Shane starts.

“You kiss me,” Airi says. “Papa sad if no kiss.”

“I’m not sad,” Ilya lies.

Airi narrows her eyes at him. “Papa sad,” she declares.

“Airi, sweetheart, grown-ups don’t—”

“Please, Papa?” Airi says, and her lower lip quakes. It is devastatingly effective.

"Is logic," Ilya agrees heartily. "Cannot argue with logic."

Shane rolls his eyes, but invades Ilya’s space. He reaches up, his hand resting tentatively on Ilya’s shoulder. The touch burns through the fabric of the shirt as Shane gives him a peck on the cheek.

Shane pulls back, looking stunned, as if he just realized what he did.  "Right," Shane breathes, his voice shaking. "Okay. Drive safe. I mean—I drive safe. You stay safe."

Shane quickly turns around and fumbles for the Jeep door, nearly dropping his keys. He climbs in, and starts the engine.

Don't look back, Ilya thinks, his heart twisting in his chest. If you look back, I will run after you. I will drag you out of that car and keep you.

Shane looks back.

Their eyes meet through the windshield.

Then Shane shifts into reverse, and the Jeep rolls backward. He waves at Airi, blows her a kiss, and drives away.

Ilya walks back into the condo, carrying Airi, and he feels lightheaded. Drunk. He touches his cheek, his fingers grazing the spot where Shane’s lips pressed against his skin. It wasn’t a long kiss—barely a brush of contact—but it has rewired his entire nervous system.

Idiot, Ilya thinks. You are an idiot.

He sets Airi down, and she immediately toddles off to her play corner, dragging Timmy the purple bunny behind her. Anya follows, settling on the rug with a contented sigh.

He moves to the sofa and sits down heavily. From his vantage point, he can see Airi setting up her stuffed animals in a neat row. Timmy is propped against a pillow. Anya is lying on the floor, her head resting on her paws, and Airi is holding a toy stethoscope to the dog’s chest.

“You have a fever,” Airi says. “You need medicine.”

Anya’s tail thumps once.

“And rest. Lots of rest.”

Ilya watches, but he is not really seeing. His mind is replaying the kiss on loop. He scrubs his hands over his face a few times. He will have to tell Galina about this. His therapist will have opinions.

She always has opinions. Next week, when they meet, she will ask him how he is managing his boundaries with Shane, and Ilya will have to admit that his boundaries are shit. That he let Shane sleep in his bed. That he woke up spooning him. That he is currently sitting on his sofa, touching his own cheek like a ridiculous person.

Galina will probably say something infuriatingly wise. Something like, Ilya, you cannot control how Shane feels, but you can control how you respond.

Or maybe she will say, What do you need, Ilya? Not what Shane needs. What do you need?

Ilya does not know what he needs. He only knows what he wants, and what he wants is sitting in a Jeep driving back to Montreal, probably already regretting the kiss.

“Papa, Anya is sick,” Airi calls out. “She needs you.”

Ilya hauls himself off the sofa and crosses the room. He kneels down beside Anya, who lifts her head and licks his hand.

“What is diagnosis, Doctor Airi?”

“She has a broken heart,” Airi says seriously.

“Like in the movie. The princess had a broken heart, and the prince fixed it with a kiss.”

“Okay,” Ilya says faintly. “And how do we fix Anya’s broken heart?”

“You kiss her,” Airi says, as if this is obvious.

Ilya leans down and presses a kiss to Anya’s head. The dog’s tail wags, and Airi claps her hands.

“All better!”

If only it were that simple.

They go for a walk along the canal, Anya pulling on the leash, Airi chattering about the ducks and the boats and how Daddy promised to take her ice skating when the ice is thick enough.

Ilya listens. He makes the appropriate noises. But his mind is elsewhere. He keeps thinking about the way Shane looked in the morning light. The way his hair was mussed from sleep. The way he blushed when Harris caught them. The way he said, It smells like you now.

By the time they get home, Airi is yawning. Ilya sets her up with a movie (How to Train your Dragon) and a blanket on the sofa. Anya curls up beside her, and within ten minutes, they are both asleep.

Ilya sits in the armchair, scrolling through his phone. He has emails from his agent. Messages from teammates. A reminder from his dentist about his upcoming cleaning.

Nothing from Shane.

Then his phone buzzes.

Ilya nearly drops it.

The message is from Shane.

Made it, Shane texts.

Ilya stares at the words. Two words. But they are not logistical. They are a check-in. A connection.

Three dots appear.

Shane Hollander: Theriault is screaming. Says I’m skating like I’m distracted.

Shane Hollander: [Image Attachment]

Ilya taps the image. It fills the screen. It is a selfie, taken in the locker room mirrors at the Bell Centre. Shane is in his gear, helmet off, hair messy and damp with sweat, and Ilya can see the edge of the red scarf peeking out from the top of Shane’s duffel bag in the background.

Shane is looking at the camera with a slight frown, his brows drawn together, but his brown eyes are alive. He looks like the Shane of six years ago—the Shane who used to send Ilya half-naked selfies from hotel bathrooms, the Shane who liked to provoke him.

September 3, 2026

10:12 AM

Shane Hollander:

Do I look distracted?

 

You look like you slept in my bed.

10:14 AM

Shane Hollander:

Shut up.

10:15 AM

How is practice?

Shane Hollander:

Exhausting.

I’m getting old.

10:18 AM

You are thirty-three.

This is not old.

10:19 AM

Shane Hollander:

Tell that to my knees.

10:20 AM

Your knees are fine.

Stop being dramatic.

Shane Hollander:

Says the man who thought he was dying yesterday.

I WAS dying.

You had a fever.

A DEADLY fever.

You look good.

10:25 AM

Shane Hollander:

I look tired.

You look like captain.

10:26 AM

Shane Hollander:

Flattery will get you nowhere.

10:30 AM

Not flattery.

It is fact.

10:32 AM

Shane Hollander:

Thank you for letting me stay last night.

 

Ilya falls back against the cushions, finds himself smiling at the screen like a lunatic. He glances at Airi, still asleep on the sofa, then back at his phone.

10:32 AM

Airi missed you already.

10:33 AM

Shane Hollander:

Just Airi?

10:35 AM

He almost types Me too but chooses not to, he does not want to scare Shane with his blatant affections. Then he sets the phone down on his lap and closes his eyes. The response takes longer this time. Long enough that Ilya starts to panic, starts to think he has pushed too far, said too much.

Then the phone buzzes.

Ilya exhales heavily.

10:42 AM

Shane Hollander:

I have to go. Coach is yelling.

Go. 

Shane Hollander:

Talk later?

Yes.

Shane Hollander:

Good.

 

The conversation ends. Ilya sets the phone on the armrest and looks at Airi, still curled up with Anya, her small body rising and falling with each breath. He touches his cheek again. The spot where Shane kissed him.

Suddenly, Galina is there. Not in the room, but in his head, repeating what she said five years ago. He is back at his lowest, in the days after the breakup, when he knew, that he would never recover.

You can love him without expecting anything in return. That is the only way forward.

Maybe love does not need to be returned to be worth giving.

But God, he’ll never deny that it feels good when it is.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

To be continued…

Chapter Text

Eastern Conference Semifinals
Montreal Voyageurs vs. Ottawa Centaurs
Ottawa, Ontario 
13 May 2025

They lose Game 6 in Ottawa, and it isn’t even close. Ottawa scores twice in the first period, once more in the second on a power play that Montreal practically gift-wrapped with a bow, and then again in the third because apparently the hockey gods decided four years of Shane’s quiet suffering wasn’t quite enough and needed a punctuation mark.

Ilya has a goal and two assists. The assists are gorgeous passes that find their targets, but the goal is the one that burns. The Canadian Tire Centre—the arena Shane grew up going to as a kid, back when it was still called the Corel Centre and his dad would buy him a hot dog and a foam finger and lift him onto his shoulders so he could see over the glass—is louder than Shane has ever heard it.

The Ottawa faithful have been waiting for this moment for decades. A Conference Finals berth. A real, legitimate shot at something they’ve never had.

And Shane gave it to them.

Though he knows a playoff series is a living organism involving twenty players and a coaching staff and a thousand variables he can’t control. But the slip is the clip. The fall is the moment the broadcasters replay seventeen times with circles and arrows and  commentary explaining how Shane Hollander, the most reliable player in the league, lost an edge at the worst possible moment and handed Ilya Rozanov a breakaway that cracked the series wide open.

Shane watches it on television. In Montreal. On the couch. With Airi asleep in his arms.

He sits in his car in the Bell Centre parking garage—they’d flown back to Montreal after the loss, and his car is here, and the garage is dark and empty, which is somehow the appropriate atmosphere for a man actively listening to people discuss his professional downfall on the radio like it’s entertainment.

"Sometimes the best players make the biggest mistakes," the analyst says.

"That’s the kind of play that haunts you," the color commentator adds. "Hollander knows he let his team down tonight."

Shane turns off the radio. The silence that rushes in is worse, but at least it doesn’t have commentary.

He drives home. He walks into his Montreal apartment—the one with the gray walls and the pre-measured meal prep containers and the fridge organized by macronutrient—and stands in the kitchen and does absolutely nothing for a very long time.

His phone is vibrating. Texts from his parents. From Rose. From J.J., who has sent a single fist-bump emoji that is either supportive or deeply ironic, and Shane cannot currently handle the ambiguity. He ignores all of them.

He opens Instagram, because apparently he’s decided that tonight’s project is locating the precise piece of content most likely to cause him maximum psychological damage. The algorithm is, as always, happy to assist. It’s a story. Reposted by a sports gossip account with a fire emoji and a trophy emoji and a caption Shane doesn’t bother reading.

A photo taken from inside the Canadian Tire Centre after the final horn. The Ottawa players are celebrating on the ice—a tangle of jerseys and sticks and open-mouthed screaming. In the foreground, leaning over the glass partition, is Mikhaela Volkov. She is wearing an Ottawa Centaurs jersey—oversized, falling off one shoulder—and the number 81 is visible across her back. She is reaching down toward the ice, her hand extended.

And Ilya is reaching up.

Their fingers touch. The photo is candid, not posed. She’s laughing. He’s grinning.

Shane had Googled her exactly once,  when he cannot find sleep.

Twenty-nine. Russian. Honey-blonde hair, blue-gray eyes, strong brows, and clean-featured beauty. Bolshoi-trained since the age of twelve. Principal dancer by twenty-four—the youngest in a decade. She’d grown up in Moscow, same neighborhood as Svetlana Vetrova, Ilya’s childhood friend and former fling. Svetlana had introduced them at her birthday party in Boston.

Ilya hasn’t used the d-word yet. Instead, his publicist is insisting the two are just "close friends with mutual interests," a phrase that feels as thin and transparent as a piece of stage gauze.

Shane closes Instagram.

This is what he wanted. Not this specifically—not the loss, not the photo, not the sight of Ilya’s fingers stretching toward someone else’s. But this generally. He wanted Ilya to be safe. He wanted Ilya to have a life that didn’t come wrapped in NDAs and arbitration clauses and the particular darkness of loving someone who refused to be loved in public.

He wanted Ilya to be loved the way Ilya deserved to be loved: openly and loudly and without a single clause governing the terms.

He just always assumed—stupidly, selfishly, in the most fortified and cowardly chamber of his heart—that one day, the person eventually doing the loving would be him.

Ottawa wins the Stanley Cup a month later.

After sweeping Tampa Bay in the Conference Finals, they moved on to face Boston. They beat them in seven games, and Ilya Rozanov—captain, number 81, the self-proclaimed King of Ottawa—lifts the Cup over his head for the second time in his career. The roar inside the Canadian Tire Centre is so loud it probably registers on seismographs at Carleton University two kilometers away.

He watches Ilya from the screen, skating a lap with the Cup. His teammates swarm around him—Troy Barrett with an arm slung around Boodram’s neck, Wyatt Hayes on his knees at center ice crying into his blocker, Luca Haas wearing the expression of a person who hasn’t yet decided whether to believe they won. The camera cuts to Coach Wiebe, who is hugging his assistant, both crying.

Then the broadcast pans to the stands.

Third row, center ice: Mikhaela. She is crying. Beautifully, of course, because people like her don’t get blotchy or red-nosed or snot-adjacent. She’s standing with her hands clasped over her mouth, and the jersey is there—81, ROZANOV—stretched across her back, and the camera holds on her for a long, admiring beat.

Shane forces his eyes from the screen and looks down. Airi is sleeping with her mouth slightly open, a thin line of drool connecting her cheek to his bicep. She is oblivious. She doesn’t know that her father just won the most important trophy in his sport. She doesn’t know that her other father is sitting here with a heart that feels like it’s being fed through a paper shredder one ventricle at a time.

He is happy for Ilya.

Technically. In theory. In the abstract, bloodless way you’re happy when a comet doesn’t hit the earth.

Ilya deserves this. He has worked harder than anyone Shane has ever known. He has dragged that franchise kicking and screaming into relevance, rehabilitated his image, played through injuries that would have hospitalized a lesser man. He deserves the Cup. He deserves the parade. He deserves the adoration of a city that has finally, finally decided to love him back.

The camera cuts back to the ice. Ilya is hoisting the Cup again, screaming something joyously profane into the rafters. And then Mikhaela is there—on the ice now, in heels, because ballet dancers apparently maintain their balance on any surface—standing beside him with one hand on his arm, laughing.

Ilya turns to her. He lowers the Cup. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her against his side, grinning at the camera. They look like a match. Like two people who fit together without friction, without secrets, without five years of legal documents and carefully negotiated handoff schedules. They look like a story with a happy ending.

Shane picks up his phone. Types with his thumb, careful not to jostle Airi.

Congrats on the Cup. Hell of a season, Ilya.

He hits send before the part of his brain responsible for self-preservation can stage an intervention. He picks up Airi and carries her to her bedroom. He lays her in her bed, tucking the blanket around her small body. She sighs, turning her face into the mattress, her dark hair fanning out across the pillow.

“Your papa is a champion,” he whispers against her forehead, pressing his lips there. “He’s the best in the world.”

Then he goes to his own room. Closes the door. Lies down in the dark. The ceiling stares back at him. Indifferent, blank, offering nothing.

Somewhere in Ottawa, there is a parade route being planned, and a trophy being engraved, and a man who just won everything, and a woman who gets to stand next to him while he holds it. Shane’s mind cruelly begins to construct the images he least wants to see. Ilya and Mikhaela at dinner dates, laughing over something trivial. Them with their children between them, a family that doesn’t require forty-kilometer radiuses to justify its existence.

Shane buries his face into the pillow, his jaw clenched tight. He is not going to cry. But he is not strong enough for this. His shoulders starts to shake. His breath catches. And the tears just falls, silently soaking into his pillows.

He prays that entire night for the pain to stop. It doesn’t—just like his fondest memories of Ilya.

Ottawa, Ontario
3 September 2026

Ilya stares at the phone screen until it goes dark, his thumb hovering over the messages. Talk later. It is the kind of vague, non-committal promise Shane used to make when they were twenty-two and sneaking out of hotel rooms at 4:00 a.m.

The phantom heat of Shane’s body still clings to him, a cruel reminder of what he is not allowed to have. A soft snuffle from the other end of the couch makes him open his eyes again. Airi.

She is still fast asleep, one arm thrown over Anya’s flank. The dog doesn’t seem to mind, serving as a loyal, furry pillow for the tiny human who smells exactly like Shane. Ilya shifts carefully, just to get a better look at her. The afternoon light hits her face, illuminating the bridge of her nose. And there they are. The freckles.

Shane’s freckles.

He used to trace those constellations on Shane’s skin. He used to tease Shane that they were the only messy thing about him. Now, they are here, stamped across the face of his daughter.

"You are as beautiful as him," Ilya whispers into the quiet room.

Airi doesn't stir. She just breathes, easy and safe, completely unaware that her father is currently having a mental breakdown over her freckles.

His gaze slides to the phone again. It scares him. To harbor this kind of hope after five years of starvation is dangerous.

Ottawa, Ontario
9 September 2026

Shane Hollander texts like a man defusing a bomb. Every word is measured. Every comma deliberate. Ilya has watched Shane compose a single text about Airi’s dentist appointment that took eleven minutes and four deleted drafts. He knows this because Shane’s typing indicator appeared, vanished, appeared, vanished, appeared, vanished, and then finally produced: Airi’s checkup is Thursday at 2. No cavities.

So when Shane Hollander starts texting Ilya like a person, Ilya notices.

Shane sends a photo at 7:14 a.m.

It is Airi, sitting at the kitchen table in her bed in Shane’s cottage with a bowl of cereal in front of her and a look of deep philosophical offense on her face.

Shane Hollander:

She says the Cheerios are “too round.”

Ilya stares at the screen. He is in the Centaurs’ weight room, mid-set on the bench press, with Troy Barrett spotting him. He drops the bar back onto the rack hard enough that Troy flinches.

“Dude,” Troy says.

Ilya ignores him. He types back.

9:00 AM

What shape does she want?

Shane Hollander:

Square.

She wants square cereal.

Buy her square cereal.

Shane Hollander:

There is no square cereal, Ilya. That’s the point. She’s invented a problem that has no solution.

She is like you.

Shane Hollander:

Shut up.

And there it is. That shut up. Not the cold shut up of the past five years, the one that means stop talking, you’re too close, I can’t do this. This is the old one. The shut up from their twenties, warm and flustered, the one Shane used to throw at Ilya across hotel rooms when Ilya said something that made Shane go hard.

Ilya grins at his phone like an idiot. Troy leans over the bar, looking down at him.

“You good?”

“Perfect,” Ilya says. He lies back on the bench, still grinning, and reaches for the bar. “One more set.”

The texts keep coming. A photo of Airi’s first painting at her new school. A question about whether Ilya remembers the name of the cartoon she liked last Christmas. A complaint about Montreal traffic that is so profoundly boring it loops back around to endearing.

On Wednesday, Shane texts at 10:47 p.m.

Shane Hollander:

Can’t sleep.

Ilya is in bed. Anya is curled at his feet, snoring faintly. The apartment is dark and quiet, and the glow of his phone screen makes the room feel smaller, more intimate, like the walls have leaned in to listen.

Why?

 

Shane Hollander:

Brain won’t shut off.

What are you thinking about?

Shane Hollander:

The season.

Airi’s school schedule.

Whether I packed her lunch right.

 

You packed it right.

Shane Hollander:

You don’t know that.

 

I know you.

You packed it right.

 

Shane Hollander:

She asked about you today.

 

What did she say?

 

Shane Hollander:

She said “When is it Papa’s days?”

 

Tell her soon. The schedule starts next week.

Shane Hollander:

I know. I told her.

What did she say?

Shane Hollander:

She said “good” and went back to drawing horses.

Ilya Rozanov reacted ❤️ to Shane Hollander: She said “good” and went back to drawing horses.

She draws horses now?

Shane Hollander:

She draws everything now. Professional grade. She drew a horse on the kitchen wall.

On the wall??

Shane Hollander:

With permanent marker.

Which wall?

Shane Hollander:

The one I just had painted.

Ilya laughs. Out loud, into the dark room, hard enough that Anya lifts her head and gives him a reproachful look. He types back, still laughing.

Our daughter is an artist.

He sends it before he catches the word. Our. And he watches Shane’s typing indicator appear and disappear three times.

Shane Hollander:

Yeah. She is.

Go to sleep, Hollander.

Shane Hollander:

I’m trying.

Try harder.

Shane Hollander:

That’s not how sleep works.

Close your eyes. Stop looking at phone.

Shane Hollander:

Fine.

Goodnight.

Shane Hollander:

Goodnight, Ilya.

 

He reads his own name four times before he sets the phone on the nightstand. Then he lies in the dark, and the ache is still there, but it is warmer now. He falls asleep with his hand on the phone.

Ottawa, Ontario
16 October 2026

The energy inside the Canadian Tire Centre is wild. Opening night always brought out the loudest crowds. Usually, Ilya thrived on this—the screaming, the pressure, the sheer volume of eighteen thousand people expecting a show. Tonight, though, his focus drifted.

Maybe he will catch Shane’s eye across the circle? Seeing Hollander’s intense glare would be one more bonus on this victorious night.

Winning the Cup last year, bringing it finally to Ottawa, had been the best achievement of his professional life. What he’s done lately is a close second—he has started texting Shane Hollander again. Shane has no idea how much that casual conversation inspired him.

At the sight of number 24 hopping over the boards, Ilya’s smile widens. He is looking forward to crushing Shane in the face-off circle like he always does. But when he glides toward the dot, he is met with utter indifference. Immediately, his heartbeat spikes. No scowl to say hi to him, no narrowed eyes in sight. Where is the fire?

“Rozanov.” Coach Wiebe’s voice in his ear, a hand on his shoulder pad. “Focus.”

“I am focused.”

“You’re staring at the other team’s captain like he owes you money.”

“He owes me many things,” Ilya says, which is not the reassurance Wiebe was looking for, based on his expression.

Ilya skates into the circle and taps Shane’s shin pads. Is he still angry about the last year’s playoffs?

"You changed your tape," Ilya says.

Shane looks down at the ice, resting his stick blade near the dot. He looks fine, not angry or anything. His eyes seem to plead with Ilya. Sorry for not engaging, but I’m a little busy trying to win a hockey game.

Then Ilya’s gaze slides to Shane’s face, and he suppresses a grin.

Catching sight of Ilya, Shane blinks rapidly behind his visor, shifting his weight. With his gloved hands, he grips his stick tighter. It seems the Montreal captain has turned into a stone wall. Well, he is damn good at it, so Ilya won’t stop him from pursuing that career.

"No. Different," Ilya presses, leaning in closer than he usually allows. He is so close that he can see the sweat already gathering on Shane’s upper lip, the flare of his nostrils as he breathes.

"You used to wrap the toe. Now you stop an inch short."

Shane sighs. The exasperated expression has Ilya’s chest aching. "I changed it three years ago," Shane says, refusing to look up. "You just noticed?"

"I notice everything," Ilya says. "I notice you are wearing the new skates. The ones you said were too stiff in training camp."

Shane’s lips twitch. "Shut up, Rozanov."

"Make me."

Ilya’s alpha preens. Mine.

The referee drops the puck.

Ilya is half a second too slow. Distracted. Captivated. Shane wins the draw clean, snapping the puck back to his defensemen before Ilya can even engage his muscles.

Fuck.

Ilya’s body moves on autopilot—checking, skating, passing—but his mind is a mess. Every time he gets near Shane, his skin tingles. The scent of him—or the phantom memory of it—is everywhere. It’s in the corners where they battle for possession, Shane’s shoulder digging into Ilya’s chest, his grunt of effort hot against Ilya’s ear. It’s in the way Shane skates, efficient and graceful, a masterclass in control.

Ilya wants to break that control. He wants to shatter it. Late in the third period, the score is tied 2-2. Ilya’s lungs burn. His legs feel heavy, weighed down by lactic acid and the crushing burden of expectation. He takes a pass from Troy in the neutral zone, gains the blue line, and looks up.

Shane is there.

He isn't playing the puck. He's playing Ilya. He matches Ilya’s stride, angling him toward the boards, closing the gap. Ilya tries to toe-drag, to slip past him, but Shane knows him. He knows Ilya’s hands better than anyone.

Shane strips the puck from him with a stick lift, spins, and transitions the other way.

Ilya turns, chasing him, but he’s gone. He’s flying. Ilya watches from behind, helpless, as Shane Hollander does what he was born to do. He splits the defense. He fakes a shot, freezing Hazy, and then tucks the puck into the top corner with a sickeningly soft ping off the crossbar.

3-2 Montreal.

The red light bathes the ice in the color of a fresh wound. The crowd groans, a collective sound of misery, but Ilya can’t join them. He pants, bent over his knees, staring at Shane as he raises his arms. Shane’s teammates swarm him, burying him in a hug, and jealousy coils in Ilya’s stomach. Not because Shane scored. But because they get to touch him.

They get to celebrate him.

And Ilya has to stand here and watch, pretending he is not in love with the architect of his own defeat.

They lose. 4-2, after an empty-netter seals their fate.

Ilya goes through the handshake line in a trance. Good game. Good game. Good game. Then he reaches him.

Shane stops. He pulls off his glove. His hand is warm, damp with sweat, and when their palms meet, the contact sends a jolt through Ilya’s arm. Shane squeezes his hand. Hard.

"Good game," Shane says. He isn't gloating. His eyes are soft, searching Ilya’s.

"You got lucky," Ilya croaks.

"I know." Shane’s thumb brushes the back of Ilya’s hand—a caress, hidden in plain sight. "See you in the tunnel?"

"Yes."

He lets go. The sudden absence of contact leaves Ilya’s skin screaming for the ghost of that warmth. He forces himself toward the dressing room, head ducked low, desperate to hide the confusion burning through him. Because this defeat doesn't sting the way it should; losing to Shane Hollander feels like winning.

The hallway outside the visitors' locker room is crowded with media and equipment staff. Ily shouldn’t be here. He belongs in his own room, suffering through Coach Wiebe’s defensive post-mortem, but his body has its own gravity, and right now, the center of that universe is behind a closed door. He leans against the cold concrete, concealed by the shadow of a pillar, and waits. The compulsion to be here is stronger than his common sense.

Finally, the door opens. Shane steps out. He has showered, his hair damp and combed back. He shoulders his duffel bag, the movement heavy with exhaustion. He spots Ilya immediately. There is no surprise, only a sudden intensity in his gaze.

"You waited," Shane says, halting a few feet away.

"You asked me to."

Shane glances around, a quick, nervous check of his surroundings. The corridor is momentarily clear, the post-game chaos drifting toward the exit. "You played well," he says quietly, moving closer.

"I played like shit. You beat me."

"I beat everyone tonight." Shane offers a smile that looks painful, exhausted. "Don't take it personally."

"I take everything personally with you."

Shane’s breath hitches, sounding almost like a whimper. His gaze drops to Ilya’s mouth, then drags back up to his eyes. "Ilya," he whispers.

"You looked good," Ilya says. "On goal. Was... beautiful."

"Don't." Shane squeezes his eyes shut, his lashes fluttering against his cheeks. "Don't be nice to me. I just ruined your opening night."

"You can make it up to me."

Shane’s eyes snap open. "How?"

Ilya takes a step forward. His instinct overriding his logic. "Dinner. Next week. When I have my days with Airi."

Shane’s throat works, the movement of his Adam's apple drawing Ilya’s gaze. "You want me to come to dinner?"

"I want to cook for you and Airi. I want to feed you." I want to take care of you. "At condo."

"Ilya—"

"Say yes."

Shane stares at him, and Ilya can see the war behind his eyes—the fear battling the want. The want is winning. It is winning in the flush rising on Shane’s cheeks, in the way his body leans imperceptibly toward Ilya.

"Okay," Shane says. "Yes."

"Good."

"Hollander! Bus is leaving!" A voice booms down the hall.

Shane jumps, his body jerking back. He adjusts his bag, the mask of the captain is coming back in place, but his eyes are still wide.

"I have to go," he says, breathless.

"Go."

Shane turns to leave. Then, he pauses. He looks back over his shoulder, and for a heartbeat, the armor is gone. He is just Shane. Ilya’s Shane.

"See you, Ilya," he says softly.

Then he is gone, disappearing around the corner. The loss is immediate, a physical severance that leaves Ilya aching, standing alone in the concrete tunnel. His body hums with unspent energy, his blood singing. They lost the game. He should be furious.

But as Ilya walks back to his locker room, a smile tugs at his mouth.

Next week.

He can wait. He is good at waiting.

A week later…

The beef stock bubbles sluggishly, releasing a rich, savory cloud of steam. Ilya tastes the sauce for the third time in as many minutes. He has been fending for himself since he was fifteen. He knows how to cook. But tonight, it feels like he has never held a ladle before.

He watches the cream swirl into the dark liquid. It has to be perfect. For Shane and Airi.

“Papa, is Daddy here yet?" Airi is perched on the kitchen island, legs swinging high. She wears her 'helper' apron—a tea towel he clipped to her shirt—and there is a smudge of flour on her nose.

"Daddy is almost here, myshonok," Ilya says. "Do not wiggle. You will fall."

"I won't fall!"

Ilya forces a smile, but the skin around his eyes feels tight. The clock on the microwave glares at him: 6:58 PM.

He glances at the clock on the microwave. 6:58 PM.

Shane is never late. If Shane is not here in two minutes, it means he has changed his mind. It means he has realized that coming to his ex-boyfriend’s house for a dinner is a terrible idea, a trap, a mistake that will ruin the carefully constructed walls he has built around his life.

Ilya’s chest aches at the thought. Does Shane even want to be here? Or is this pity? Is he coming only for Airi, while dreading the suffocating proximity of the alpha he left behind?

Then, the doorbell rings.

"Daddy!" Airi shrieks. She scrambles off the stool, the chip clip flying, and sprints toward the hallway.

Ilya follows, wiping his damp palms on his jeans. Part of him wants to bolt for the door; another part wants to hide in the pantry and wait for the earth to swallow him whole. He reaches the entryway just as Airi yanks the door open.

"Daddy!" Airi launches herself at his legs.

Shane stumbles back a step, a laugh bubbling out of him, and the sound wraps around Ilya’s spine like a warm hand.  Shane catches her, scooping her up in one smooth motion. “Hey, baby. Did you miss me?”

“I helped Papa cook!” Airi announces, her face inches from his. “I stirred the sauce. And I didn’t spill!”

“You didn’t spill?” Shane’s eyebrows rise in exaggerated shock. “Who are you, and what have you done with my daughter?”

“Daddy!” She giggles, squirming. “I’m being responsible!”

Before Shane can respond, Anya barrels out from the kitchen, tags clacking against the hardwood. She skids to a stop at Shane’s feet, tail wagging with such violence her entire backend sways. She plants her paws on Shane’s thigh, whining, demanding acknowledgment.

“Anya, down,” Ilya says, but his voice lacks conviction. His brain is too occupied in appreciating the way Shane’s hair has gotten longer. The way his cheeks are flushed from the cold. The way he is here, in Ilya’s home, wearing Ilya’s scarf, holding their daughter.

“It’s okay,” Shane says, shifting Airi to one hip so he can crouch down. Anya immediately shoves her snout into his face, licking his jaw, his cheek, his ear. “Hi, girl. I missed you too.”

“She likes you more than me,” Airi complains, still clinging to Shane’s neck. “That’s not fair. I live here!”

“You don’t live here,” Shane corrects gently, standing again. Anya circles his legs, still whining. “You visit.”

“I should live here.” Airi’s lower lip juts out. “Then Anya would see me all the time.”

"Airi," Ilya says, trying to be stern. How can he reprimand her for speaking the truth of his own heart? "We have discussed this. You have your room at Daddy’s."

"But Papa has room," she argues, her voice rising to a whine. She gestures wildly at the open space. "Lots of room."

Ilya looks at Shane. Shane is staring at the carpet pattern, his scent spiking with sudden distress.

"Myshonok," Ilya says. He needs to stop this before it ruins the fragile peace they have built tonight. "We do not argue about this. Not now."

Shane’s shoulders drops. He looks at Ilya, his eyes communicating a silent thank you that hits Ilya square in the chest.

"Come," Ilya says. "Food is ready. We eat."

He ushers them toward the kitchen, his hand hovering near the small of Shane’s back but never quite making contact. The heat radiating from Shane’s body is a siren call, pulling at Ilya’s restraint. His alpha paces inside him, agitated and needy, wanting to close that distance, to wrap an arm around Shane’s waist and pull him flush against his side.

Mine.  The word echoes in his head, loudly. My pack. My family.

But he keeps his hands to himself.

"Sit," Ilya commands, pointing to the bar stools at the island.

Shane lifts Airi onto her stool, pressing a quick kiss to her temple before turning to face Ilya. He begins to unbutton his coat. His fingers fumble slightly with the top button, and Ilya watches, transfixed. The movement is innocent, mundane, yet Ilya’s mouth goes dry. As the heavy wool parts, it reveals the dark sweater underneath, the fabric clinging to Shane’s torso, outlining the lean muscle Ilya knows is there.

"Here," Shane says, shrugging out of the coat. "Sorry. I’m... a little flustered."

"Is okay." Ilya takes the coat. It is warm from Shane’s body. He walks to the hallway to hang it up, and for a split second, he buries his face in the collar, inhaling deeply. Hockey-suckle and Vanilla. It makes Ilya’s head spin. He hangs the coat and hurries back to the kitchen before he does something stupid, like sink to his knees and worship the garment.

When he returns, Shane is pouring the wine. The red liquid splashes into the glasses, dark and rich.

"I opened it twenty minutes ago," Ilya says, moving behind the island.

Shane slides a glass across the granite countertop. "Thanks.”

Their fingers brush as Ilya accepts the glass. The contact is electric. He nearly drops the glass.