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So maybe Hayden Pike has a bit of a reputation.
Look. His life lowkey rocks, these days. People think of him as a good-natured guy, and, like: yeah. He’s married to the greatest woman in Canada, he’s got four fantastic children, and he gets to play hockey for a living. He doesn’t have much to be angry about, so, for the most part, he isn’t angry.
Which honestly maybe shouldn’t be notable, but he does play hockey for a living, where most people are angry as a matter of course, so it gets him a reputation. It’s not like he minds it, really; there are far worse reputations to have than good-natured.
But this means, of course, that Hayden Pike’s best friend Shane Hollander’s husband Ilya Rozanov has not seen him angry until that evening.
Hayden gets the sense that Rozanov thinks he’s seen Hayden angry, which is to say, Rozanov has bought into Easygoing Hayden Pike Theory and believes that Hayden’s blustering mostly-for-show annoyance at all of Rozanov’s bullshit is the highest Hayden’s pissed-off-ometer goes.
(And that, really, is just further proof of where Rozanov’s attention has always been, because if he had ever had eyes for anything other than Hayden’s best friend, he would presumably have noticed when Hayden tried to kill Cliff Marleau on the ice after Marleau laid out Shane in 2016. Hayden was angry, then. He knows he was because he doesn’t remember the fight, not really; it’s what happens whenever he gets really, really mad, which is part of why he tries not to do it anymore, because it scares the shit out of him when he loses time like that. Makes him wonder if maybe his whole easygoing reputation is just complete bullshit, if it is only the good luck of a good life that keeps him from being like every other angry man.)
(The first time he got mad, like, mad mad at Jackie, he’d gone to their shower, turned it on the coldest setting, and walked into it fully clothed. Jackie had followed him up the stairs, furious at him for walking away in the middle of an argument until she saw him. Then she’d just stared for a full minute before hugging him, soaking wet clothes and all.)
So he doesn’t get mad anymore, if he has any say in it. He’s pretty good about making sure he gets a say in. And so it’s been years, now, since Hayden’s gotten mad like this, and the truth is, he’s ashamed as soon as his fist connects with Comeau’s jaw.
He’s sort of ashamed of being ashamed, too; what kind of guy feels bad for defending their friend? What kind of hockey player is scared to drop gloves? What’s wrong with him, that he doesn’t know how to leave his anger in the locker room, that he can’t throw a punch and be done, that he gets back to his house, to his fantastic fucking life, and he’s still so mad he’s shaking?
Jackie’s in the kitchen chopping something when Hayden opens the door, and Ilya Rozanov is by the couch, on the floor, nodding solemnly as Jade explains the socio-economic hierarchy of her Polly Pockets.
(Jade’s complicated Polly Pocket society can’t even make Hayden smile right now. He might actually be a bad person.)
“Hey,” Jackie says, and then, seeing his expression, “that bad?”
Hayden nods tightly. Fucking - he needs to text JJ. They need a new plan. He wants to never show up to practice again, and he wants to turn around, drive back to the rink, and rock Comeau’s shit all over again. Maybe he should just kill the guy. Comeau’s a shitty fucking player in addition to an asshole; surely no one will really care if he disappears.
Jackie drops the knife in the sink as she turns toward him, and out of the corner of his eye, Hayden sees Rozanov go stock-still next to Jade.
It all happens so quickly. One moment, Hayden is moving towards his wife so he can fall apart in her arms, and the next, there’s six feet of oddly nervous Russian hockey player separating Jackie from him.
“Is ok,” Rozanov says, hands in the air as though Hayden’s holding a gun. “Pike, whatever you are upset about. Is not Jackie’s fault.”
Jackie gives him a perplexed frown around Rozanov’s very large frame, and Hayden returns it.
“Yeah?” he says. “Rozanov, what the fuck?”
He doesn’t even mean it in a bad way. He’s genuinely baffled, which is the first thing besides pissed off and ashamed he’s felt since hitting Comeau, so that’s actually huge. Now if only Rozanov could get out of the way, he could hug Jackie, call JJ, and figure this shit out.
“Maybe she goes to other room?” Rozanov’s voice is halting, unsure. Hayden’s never heard him like this before. “Jackie and Jade do not need to be here. You are angry, but not with them, yes?”
“Ilya, what’s going on?” Jackie asks, and Hayden’s stomach drops. Is there something Rozanov knows that they don’t? Some threat he and Hayden need to take on together, something Jackie and Jade need to be protected from? Is he —
“You are angry,” Rozanov says again, looking at Hayden. His words come in a rush. “Better not to be angry with your girls in room. Is not their fault. Let them go into other room. I stay here. You can be angry with other hockey player, yes? I am better at taking this.” He’s almost pleading with Hayden to understand, and then Hayden just — does.
Fucking great.
What a day! Apparently it’s not enough that Comeau’s an asshole, he’s got a two game suspension, and he’s still so angry at the whole thing it’s a bit hard to breathe. Also, he doesn’t get to hug Jackie because Ilya Rozanov, for reasons Hayden cannot begin to understand, not only thinks Hayden’s a piece of shit husband, but also, specifically, seems to think it is his job to protect Jackie and Jade from whatever the fuck he thinks Hayden’s about to do, and for reasons Hayden deeply does not want to get into, is doing it in the weirdest, least aggressive way possible.
“Man,” Hayden says, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Did you have to do this now?”
Rozanov seems to take this as agreement because he starts trying to shuffle Jackie toward the door. Jackie, for her part, steadies her feet and does not go. Jade’s looking up at the three of them, as confused as Hayden had been a moment ago.
“Ilya, what’s going on?” Jackie asks again. “What do we need to do?”
“I’ve got it, Jackie,” Hayden says tiredly, and then goes over and drops himself into a seat at the kitchen table, angled so he’s still facing both of them. He places both hands flat on the surface, takes the space of a breath to mourn his now-delayed Jackie hug, takes another to be annoyed at Rozanov for doing this now, a third to acknowledge that, yeah, that’s affection he feels for Rozanov for trying to protect Hayden’s wife and kid, even if it’s Hayden he’s trying to protect them from. Another to be annoyed at himself for not getting his anger under control fast enough to prevent this, another to try and get that under control now, another to decide that he’ll go for a run with JJ later, another to be grateful for JJ for being a literal fucking rock in a storm or however the expression goes — nothing save nothing fazes that guy, and Hayden is so jealous of how good of a dad JJ’s gonna be whenever he gets around to it — and another to be grateful to Shane for bringing the mess of a man in front of him now into Hayden’s life who, despite everything else, will clearly do quite a lot to protect Hayden’s family.
When Hayden looks up, he realizes he has taken enough small moments to add up to a good chunk of time. Jackie and Rozanov are both watching him.
“Right,” he says aloud.
“Please,” Rozanov says. His voice is low. “I will not - I will let you be angry. I am good at this. But, Pike, you know is not worth your girls. They leave. I will stay.”
“I don’t think I know what’s going on,” Jackie says carefully, voice only a little tight. She’s looking at Rozanov, but Hayden can feel her attention absolutely locked onto their daughter. “But it sounds like something’s wrong, and I gotta know what it is.”
Rozanov’s really freaked her out now; unfortunately, her being freaked out is freaking Rozanov out even more, and, wow, this might go really bad in another moment. Hayden’s betting everything on having read this right and so he stays where he is, but sitting at his kitchen table with an on-edge Rozanov between him and his wife is maybe the hardest thing he’s ever done.
Rozanov opens his mouth, looking oddly lost. Almost like a kid, Hayden thinks, and he knows he has read this exactly right, after all.
Christ. He does not want to do this.
He does anyway. He glances at Rozanov, then at Jade, then looks back around to Jackie.
“Dad, what’s happening?” comes Jade’s voice from where she’s still sitting on the floor. She sounds upset, and Rozanov’s hackles go all the way back up. Like a cat, almost; Hayden thinks Roz might like the comparison.
“Is ok,” Rozanov tells her urgently, his tone conveying that it’s anything but. “Jade, you and your mother can go to other room now.”
“Uncle Ilya, what’s going on?” Jade’s up now, running over to where Rozanov is standing and wrapping her arms around his waist. “Are you crying? What happened?”
It is the first time Hayden has ever seen Ilya Rozanov not hug his daughter back. “Jade, shh, is ok, is ok. Go now, yes? We will play later.” He looks up at Jackie, eyes pleading.
“Ok,” Jackie say, voice sharp now. Scared. Fuck. “I’m going to need one of you to tell me what’s going on. Now.”
There’s nothing for it.
“Roz thought —thinks I’m going to hit you,” Hayden says. He flips his hands face up on the table and looks back at Rozanov. “I got that right, yeah?”
Rozanov is standing stock-still. He manages a jerky nod. Jackie sucks in a breath, but it only takes the space of a heartbeat for her to look directly at Rozanov and say, “I see. He wasn’t, and he’s not.”
Jade looks up, indignant. Her arms are still wrapped around Rozanov. “Dad, why would you — “
“I wouldn’t,” Hayden says, before his daughter can finish the sentence, before he loses the ability to speak entirely.
“Jade, honey, can you go check on Arthur?” Jackie says, voice calm. “He’s been upstairs for a while.”
“But -“
“Everything’s good here,” Jackie says. “But I think Arthur’s rebuilding the Tower of Babel out of his legos again, and he might be able to use some sisterly supervision.”
Jade narrows her eyes for a moment. Very carefully, Ilya Rozanov peels Hayden’s daughter away and whispers, quietly, “is ok. Is all ok.” She stands there a moment before walking away from him, from all of them, and making her way to the steps. There’s the pitter-patter of her feet on the stairs, then the sound of a door opening, and then quiet.
Rozanov does not move.
“Ilya?” Jackie says from her position by the sink. Roz is still standing like a barricade in front of her, making the whole conversation unnecessarily weird. She steps around him, now, so the two of them are evenly spaced by the kitchen counter, a good five feet away from where Hayden is sitting, so tense he thinks he might break something, at the table. “You want to walk us through what happened there?”
Hayden has never learned how to prove a negative. He doesn’t know how to prove to Rozanov that yes, he might get angry in a way he knows is shameful, but he will never, would never, not ever, ever —
“He came home angry,” Rozanov finally gets out, haltingly, voice achingly low. “He — you — was home angry. And, Jackie, you had knife, you put down. In sink, out of way, out of sight. So that—“
Ok, yeah, Hayden’s going to throw up. He crosses his arms on the table, drops all his weight onto them, and tries to keep breathing.
“Oh, man,” Jackie says. She glances toward the sink, then back at Ilya. Hayden thinks, fleetingly, that he’s lucky his earlier move happened to put him sitting down, because he doesn’t think his legs could hold him right now. “Ok, Ilya? I put the knife down because I wanted to hug Hayden. That’s all. I wasn’t thinking about him hurting me. He’s never done it and he never will.”
There’s another pause, and then Ilya looks down, then up, then at Jackie, then at Hayden.
“I am not trying,” he says, voice low, “to say you are bad man. bad husband. You are - you love your girls very much. I do not want you to make mistake. To do thing you cannot take back. and —“ he shrugs, and it’s so strange to see Ilya rozanov shrug, all six Russian feet of him suddenly unsure, hesitant, worried. “is what I am good for,” he says.
“What,” says Jackie carefully, voice tight underneath the care, “is that supposed to mean.”
“Means I am good for this,” he says, cocking his head at her. “You are - perfect wife. keeps everyone happy. Everything is good. Pike is, for all else, mostly good husband. If he is going to get angry - can get angry with me. not with you. You are not hockey player. You are,” he considers his words, “strong person, yes? but not strong like this.”
Jackie lets out a long breath. “Whoa. ok.” She looks at Hayden, trying to communicate something with her eyes that Hayden doesn’t get. “There’s a lot there. Ilya, I’m going to go sit down at the table, ok?”
She’s not forceful with it, just steadfast as she moves past him to take a seat at the table. After a very long moment, Ilya follows her.
So now this is maybe the weirdest moment of Hayden’s life; he’s sitting at his kitchen table with his wife and Roz, with it having fallen, apparently, to him and Jackie to explain to Ilya Rozanov how a relationship is supposed to work.
And —
well, shit.
Hayden lays both hands on the table and glances at Jackie. It’s a strange thing, being a step ahead of her in a conversation. He knows it’s probably not great how much he likes the dumb hockey player stereotype, but, fuck it, it usually fits him, and he likes it quite a lot. It’s safe and comforting and easy.
“Roz,” Hayden says, looking straight at him. “You gotta know that’s fucked, right?”
Rozanov slowly lifts his eyes to meet Hayden’s. He blinks once, then twice, and says nothing.
Hayden tries to make his voice go gentle. He looks at Jackie again, but she’s studying Rozanov and doesn’t catch his eye. Is she not following him? Is he wrong? Does he not have to —
Fuck everything and the fucking horse, he does.
“Ok,” he says, exhaling. “I gotta ask, man. Are you safe?”
Jackie’s eyes snap back to meet his. Rozanov’s eyebrows go up, just slightly; Hayden might not have noticed if he weren’t watching him as carefully as he’s ever watched any hockey game.
“Is not about me,” Roz says, a little carefully, but confused. Hayden can feel that.
“No, what I mean –” He stops. Shakes his head a little, then leans forward on his forearms because he does, unfortunately, have to say this. Fuck everything, but he does.
“Rozanov. I’ve never hit Jackie and I never would. She knows I won’t. You don’t seem to, and you’re acting like it’s…fuck, Roz, you’re acting like violence would be normal if only it was against against someone like you.”
Rozanov just keeps looking at him, but very slowly turns his hands so the palms face up. Hayden doesn’t know how he knows what it means, but he does. And? Roz is asking.
He glances back at Jackie. She’s watching him like she genuinely doesn’t know where he’s going with this.
He just has to say it. There is no way to make saying this suck less. He thinks, bizarrely, of that first fight with Jackie, of the shock of the cold water in the shower, of stepping in without thinking because he was so afraid of what would happen if he didn’t, if he kept going, if he followed himself to the end of the path he was on —
If he thinks about it, if he does anything to let himself out of just fucking saying it –
“Has Shane ever hit you?” Hayden asks, and his voice doesn’t sound like his own.
The room is silent for a second
“What?” Rozanov sounds actually baffled. Pissed off, confused, and genuinely surprised, a little bit of normal Roz back in the room.
Next to Hayden, Jackie has gone still.
“You thought I was going to hit my wife,” Hayden says, still feeling like he’s watching himself speak from a long way away. “You put yourself between us. You said it would not make me a bad husband if I was going to hit her, but that it would be a problem because she’s not a hockey player. It could make a guy worried, Roz.”
The brief flash of normal Roz vanishes.
“Pike, I would not,” Rozanov says, somewhat desperately, looking at Jackie and then back at Hayden. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but you have to know I would not. I would die first, I would make sure.”
Jesus fuck. Hayden wishes he didn’t get it.
“I’m not asking that.” Somehow, his voice is steady. “I’m asking if you’re safe, man.”
“Yes,” Rozanov says, but it’s still too fast. “Obviously am safe. Am big scary Russian hockey player. No problems for me.”
Hayden is going to be sick. “Roz, please, has Shane ever —“
Rozanov throws his hands up. “No, fucking Christ, Pike. Obviously Shane has not. Would never. What the fuck?”
And that’s —
It takes Hayden a moment to place the roaring in his ears as relief. Momentous, cool, relief, cascading over him as though off a cliff.
The kitchen is quiet. Still.
“You really were not going to hurt her,” Rozanov says finally.
Hayden lets it sit in the air for a moment, and then Jackie says, gently but firm, “No, Ilya. He really wasn’t.”
Rozanov turns to her, raw and worn and desperate. “How can you know this, Jackie?”
Jackie actually sits back at that. Hayden knows her thinking face the same way he knows every one of her expressions, the same way he knows his own name. He wonders if maybe that is the answer here, all that knowing.
They’ve been together nearly twenty years, now; since they were sixteen. An absurd amount of time to know someone, to love someone. Hayden plans to to at least triple it, maybe quadruple it, before he dies. Jackie never met Hayden’s dad, for which he is, always has been and always will be, grateful, but it has also always made him a little bit worried that she might not have known what she was getting herself into, all those years ago. She knows what Hayden has told her, which is just about everything he knows about himself, but he worries that being told something and knowing it are different. He has told her he looks like his father, but she doesn’t know it, not really. She can’t know how the cut of his shoulders, the lines of his jaw, the color of his hair and eyes and the tenor of his voice each match those of the person Hayden has always promised not to become. And so maybe — maybe she cannot, truly, evaluate whether he is capable of keeping this promise.
Because he is — always has been and always will be — no matter how much he fights it, hides it, plays where his father preached, pushes anger aside where his father held it in, lets his children’s hair grow floppy and long where his father buzzed theirs — no matter how hard he leans into dumb hockey player instead of trustworthy upstanding man— he is, always has been, and always will be, his father’s son.
He does not think he will ever raise a hand to his family. He has told himself the same thing as Rozanov, I would die first, I would make sure of it, but he doesn’t know and no one can tell him if this promise, too, is something he has in common with his dad. They say it gets passed down, one man to his children, each generation to the three after, and so maybe his father had told himself the same thing, and so this, too, is no protection.
There is no safety net. He has never learned how to prove a negative. There is just –
“I think,” Jackie says carefully, like she’s testing the weight of each word on her tongue, “I think, maybe, I can’t answer this the way you both want me to. Ilya, look, I know Hayden. I know what he looks like angry, and sad, and frustrated, and grieving and furious and sleep-deprived and worried and three days into a flu. I know how he moves, and the ways he takes up space, and the way he hugs. I know that he gets scared of himself when he’s angry and that he doesn’t throw things or punch walls but does like to melt into a lump on the couch, or into a hug, or sometimes, he lies down on the floor of our bedroom and doesn’t move for a full hour.” She pauses. Hayden feels – Hayden doesn’t have words for it.
“And, Ilya,” she says, gently, “I’m also not trapped. If Hayden turned into a different person tomorrow and I needed to get out, I could. I have friends here and home; I could take the kids and stay with them. My college roommate is a family lawyer, and she would help me. I don’t –” she breaks off. “I don’t usually think much about this, because it’s not something I’m afraid of. You know, Hayden’s asked me that question a dozen times? After we got married, after we had Jade and Ruby and I quit my job, Hayden started…” she glances at him, and it takes Hayden three beats to realize she’s waiting for permission. He manages a nod. He doesn’t think his heart has ever felt like this before; it’s a miracle it keeps beating.
“After I quit my job,” she says, and Rozanov is ramrod straight across the table, “he started - he’d come home with this hideous fucking jewlery. Expensive stuff. The kind of things that aren’t actually jewelry at all, bracelets and necklaces that are really four months rent you can hide under a shirt sleeve or in your collar. We fought about it, at first; I still hate it. It’s a stupid way to keep money, locked up in a jewelry box upstairs, but it makes Hayden feel safe to know I have it, so I keep it. But I don’t need it. I would leave if I had to, I have a way out if I need it, and I don’t need it.”
She paused again. Hayden wonders if Rozanov is as frozen as he is, staring at his wife. They’ve never said these words aloud before.
“Ilya,” she says, steady but gentle, and she doesn’t say Hayden’s name, but he knows she’s addressing him, too. “I know he wasn’t going to hurt me because he wouldn’t be my husband if he did, and I certainly would not be his wife.”
Hayden thinks the tear tracks shining on Rozanov’s face probably match his own.
The kitchen is silent for a long, long time.
“I think,” Rozanov says finally, voice halting. “I think my mother would have liked to leave. If she had four months rent she could hide under shirt sleeve. If she had friends to stay with. If she was not scared. If he was not in her head. She did not want to — to still be his wife, I don’t think. I don’t know. I was — not very young. But young enough.”
“Yeah,” Hayden says, voice thick.“Yeah, Roz, I know. Mine would have, too, I think.”
Another quiet.
“I think I am going to call Shane,” Ilya says, getting to his feet. He seems almost wobbly. “If - is ok?
“Yeah, Ilya, of course it’s ok,” Jackie says. “Want to use the guest room?”
Ilya nods and then, just like that, he’s gone.
“Wow,” Jackie says, after his footsteps have faded. Her voice is intentionally light. “How you doing, Hayd?”
Hayden quite honestly doesn’t think he can move. He can’t even get his mouth open to speak.
Jackie stands up, comes over, and wraps her arms around him. They stay like that for a while.
***
Hayden is helping Jackie in the kitchen when Shane comes down the stairs an hour later. He pauses in the doorway, then all but hurls himself at Hayden, arms wrapping around him so fast Hayden gets the wind knocked out of him. It is such a Shane Hollander form of affection Hayden thinks his heart might explode as two hundred and twenty pounds of world class hockey player holds onto Hayden like he’s driftwood in a storm.
“Thank you,” Shane says into Hayden’s shoulder. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
The words start to blur together. Shane doesn’t let go.
“Yeah, man,” Hayden says, sort of baffled again. “Uh, for what?” All Hayden had done was not hurt Jackie and imply that Shane hit his husband, which really doesn’t seem that worthy of thanks –
Shane finally releases Hayden and steps back a little. He’s been crying and for once, he’s not trying to hide it.
“He told me you asked if — if he was safe,” Shane says, and then swipes at his eyes. “He doesn’t — he never —“ Shane takes a shuddering breath. Hayden’s just sort of standing there, pot boiling away on the stove behind him. “It’s like he thinks he’s not worth — or, not allowed — or maybe — fuck, I don’t even know how to say it. I don’t have words for this shit, Hayden. His fucking — “
Shane cuts off again, wringing his hands.
“It’s ok, man,” Hayden offers. “I get it.” Because — well. He does.
But Shane just shakes his head. “No, I know you do. I just. I don’t think anyone’s ever said something like that to him before.”
Hayden thinks this over. “Just so we’re clear,” he says, feeling a little like he’s stepping off a cliff. “We’re talking about the part where I asked your husband if you had ever hit him?”
Shane’s eyes are shining as he nods. “He doesn’t even think you like him very much, and so coming from you it was — it’s like — he knows I’m never gonna be like his dad, but he doesn’t know why. He thinks it’s about me, not about — decency, or him deserving to be safe. I don’t think he thinks he’s supposed to be safe. And you just — asked him. You said you had to.”
“I did,” Hayden says, because he doesn’t have anything other than honesty left in him. “No one deserves that.”
Shane hugs him again, another patented Shane Hollander hug, anything but gentle. Hayden hugs him back, just as hard.
***
“I have been thinking about what Jackie said,” Ilya says several hours after that, the two of them standing out back, taking out the trash. “About jewelry.”
If Hayden weren’t holding the trash, he would run his hand over his face, but he has to settle for looking down and shaking his head.
“She was so pissed when she figured it out,” he says. “I tried to play it off. You know, dumb hockey boy, doesn’t know what kind of jewelry she likes.”
When he looks up, Ilya’s watching him. “I do not think she would have believed this.”
“No,” Hayden says. “Well. Maybe the first time. But then she knew, and she put up with it for a bit, and then we had this big blow-up fight about it, actually. I got so mad - it was the first time I’d been mad at her like that.”
“And what did you do?” Ilya asks, and there’s something hesitant in it, but not harsh. Like he doesn’t know what the answer is, but he does know what it is not.
“I walked upstairs, turned the shower water on as cold as it got, and stepped in fully clothed,” Hayden admits, and Ilya laughs in surprise. The sound is bright in the darkness. “I know! But I didn’t know if that was what it felt like, the -- bad mad, I guess. I wasn’t ready to face down what it meant if it was.”
“‘Bad mad,’” Ilya repeats, and there’s a little humor in it, his voice, here, in the dark with Hayden. “Stupid fucking rhyming language. No, is just - first time I was mad with Shane. Mad like – bad mad, I guess. Maybe. I wasn’t sure. Did not want to find out.” His lips quirk up. “We were at cabin. I walked outside and jumped in lake. It was May and water was very cold. Shane laughed so much he forgot he was mad, too. Forgot I had been mad at all.”
“No way,” Hayden says, sort of disbelieving. “Really? You too?”
“You are not original, Pike,” Ilya says. “Other dumb hockey men think of these things, too.”
“I kinda like being a dumb hockey man,” Hayden confessing. He doesn’t know why he’s confessing this to Ilya Rozanov of all people, except that maybe he does. Maybe he sort of does know, at this point. “I don’t really know why. But I do.”
“Kip Grady says ‘dumb hockey man’ is form of gender expression,” Ilya says solemnly, and Hayden laughs out loud.
“Ok, Kip Grady,” Hayden says, and the two of them stand in silence for a moment, trash bags in hand.
“How long did she let you get away with jewelry?” Ilya asks abruptly. Hayden tips his head, thinking.
“I got to - there’s enough up there for her to probably take the kids for a year, without working,” he says. “She made me stop after that. She didn’t want that much, anyways, she said - what was it? It was a good line. ‘I’m not building a life with you with one hand on the emergency break.’” He opens the bin and drops his trash bag in. Ilya does the same. “It’s different, you know?”
“From?” Ilya asks.
Hayden shrugs, one hand still on the trash bin. He doesn’t really like talking about this, but he says it anyway. “You know. My mom didn’t have anywhere to go. Jackie doesn’t - I mean, I still think it’s probably a good idea to keep the jewelry, but she’s really just humoring me at this point, because it makes me feel safe. She has her people. She would be – she doesn’t need the escape hatch planned out in advance.”
He moves his hand, and the lid slams closed, echoing in the night. Another moment passes.
“Shane does not need bracelets,” Ilya says. He seems a little lost, but not in a bad way. “He has – he does not need escape route. Not because he is hockey player. Because he has people and places and lots and lots of money.”
“And you,” Hayden says, surprising himself. “Roz, man, he’s also married to you. Not your dad.”
Rozanov wrinkles his nose. “No,” he agrees. “That would be gross.”
They stand there, and stand there, and finally Ilya turns toward the door. He opens it, holds it like he’s inviting Hayden back into his own house. Hayden fastens the latch on the trash so that the raccoons won’t get in, and follows him.