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The locker room was always loud after a win. Tonight it was uncontainable. The Centaurs had just punched their ticket to the playoffs. Music pounded from a speaker balanced on top of the water cooler. Sticks clattered against the concrete floor. Voices overlapped, competed, dissolved into laughter, and underneath all of it ran the steady, percussive rhythm of gloves and pads being stripped off and dropped into stalls.
Shane sat in his own stall with his helmet already off and his hair damp against his forehead. He'd pulled his jersey and shoulder pads free but was still in his base layer, working the buckles of his shin guards with fingers that trembled from adrenaline and exertion. His legs ached. His lungs still burned from the final shift, when he'd blocked a shot and then skated the length of the ice at top speed to set up the play that Ilya had finished.
The goal that clinched it.
Across the room, Ilya was surrounded. Six reporters had converged on him before he'd even got his gloves off, and now he stood in his full gear with microphones angled toward his chin and phone screens glowing in a loose semicircle. His black and red jersey was dark with sweat across the chest, and his hair was wild, golden-brown curls pressed flat on top and sticking up on the sides. He looked, Shane thought, like someone who'd wrestled a bear and won and was now being asked to describe the experience in a calm and orderly fashion.
"Can you walk us through that third-period goal?" one of the reporters asked.
"Sure. Shane gives me a beautiful pass along the boards. I see the lane. I take the shot." Ilya shrugged one shoulder. "The goalie does not see it. That is his problem, not mine."
Laughter from the reporters. Shane bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling too wide. Two decades of listening to Ilya give interviews and his matter-of-fact statements still hadn’t lost their charm. Shane doubted their ever would. Ilya made everything sound both effortless and inevitable, as though the universe had arranged itself in his favour and he'd been polite enough to accept.
"This playoff berth, your..." The reporter checked her notes. "Sixth in seven years. What's changed for the franchise since you arrived?"
"Everything," Ilya said, and grinned.
Shane finally tugged his shin guard free and dropped it into the stall. He was reaching for the second one when the locker room door opened and the noise shifted. Not quieter. Different. A murmur rippled outward from the doorway, and Shane heard a sound so familiar it bypassed his ears and went straight to the centre of his chest.
"Papa!"
Shane's head snapped up.
Misha was already three steps into the room, walking, no running, towards Ilya. He had somewhere to be and no interest in anyone who wasn't his destination. Despite Shane’s best attempts to push his own jersey that morning, Misha was wearing a miniature Centaurs kit, the name ROZANOV stretching across the back in letters nearly as wide as his shoulders. His dark hair, Shane's hair, stuck up at the crown where his toque had been, and his cheeks were flushed pink from the cold of the arena.
Behind him, Yuna stood in the doorway with an expression Shane knew well: I tried, and also, good luck.
"He wouldn't wait," she said, catching Shane's eye. "I mean it. He physically would not sit in that chair for one more second."
Shane was already on his feet, one shin guard still half-buckled, hobbling across the room in his socks. "Misha. Misha, come here, Papa's busy."
Misha did not come. Misha had locked onto Ilya with the singular focus of a heat-seeking missile, and Shane's voice was an unwelcome distraction he chose to ignore.
"Misha." Shane intercepted him halfway, scooping him up with one arm. Misha squirmed at once, all sharp elbows and furious wriggling. For a four-year-old, he had remarkable core strength. He also had remarkable volume. Shane blamed that on Ilya.
"Papa!" Misha craned his neck toward Ilya, one hand outstretched as though he could close the gap through sheer force of will. "I want Papa!"
"I know you do, bud. Papa's talking to the reporters right now. Come sit with me and we'll wait."
"No."
"Misha."
"No, thank you."
The politeness was new, and Shane would have appreciated it more if it hadn't been delivered at the same volume as a flock of half a dozen offended macaws. He hitched Misha higher on his hip and retreated toward his stall, murmuring all the usual nonsense: come on, just a few more minutes, we'll go see Papa in a second, do you want a snack, look here’s dad’s hockey stick, very exciting.
Misha was entirely unmoved by all of it.
Across the room, Ilya was doing an admirable job of maintaining his composure. He'd glanced over once when Misha first appeared, and his expression had gone soft for half a breath before he caught himself and turned back to the reporters. Shane watched him field a question about the upcoming playoff schedule while, ten feet away, his son staged a not-so-quiet revolution.
"How does it feel to be making another deep playoff run at this stage of your career?" another reporter asked.
"Feels the same as when I was twenty," Ilya said. "Except now everything hurts more." He paused. "And I go to bed at nine thirty, sometimes eight."
More laughter. One of the reporters started to follow up, but Misha had escaped.
Shane didn't even know how. One second his son was in his lap, and the next Misha was on his feet and moving, quick and low, as though he'd been studying game tape on evasive skating. Shane lunged and caught only air.
"Misha, no."
Too late.
Misha reached Ilya and wrapped both arms tightly around his left leg, pressing his cheek against Ilya's thigh. He peered up at the reporters with wide dark eyes that were all Shane, and then up at Ilya with a grin that was all trouble.
Shane sighed.
"Papa."
Ilya glanced down. "Mishka. One minute, okay? Papa is talking."
"Papa." More insistent now. Misha tugged on the hem of Ilya's jersey with both hands. "Papa, I want to tell you a thing."
"One minute," Ilya said again, gently, firmly. Fatherhood had taught them both that negotiating with Misha was performative, but Ilya went through the motions anyway. He looked back at the reporter. "Sorry. You were asking about…?"
"The power play adjustments in the third period," the reporter supplied.
"Yes. So we changed the formation—" Misha tugged harder. "We changed to—" Another tug. "Mishka, please." Back to the reporter. "The left side was—"
"Papa. Papa. Papa. Papa."
Each repetition got louder and sounded more urgent. Misha clearly could not fathom why the most important person in this room was choosing to talk to strangers.
Shane, halfway across the room in pursuit, stopped. He watched Ilya's jaw work as he fought to keep his train of thought. Watched Misha pull on the hem of the jersey with both fists now, hanging off the fabric like a tiny, furious rock climber.
Shane gave up trying to grab his son and returned to his stall. He reached into it and pulled out his phone.
He opened the camera, tapped the video icon, and aimed it at his husband and son. Beside him, Yuna laughed softly.
"The power play," Ilya managed. He looked close to desperate now. "In the third, we adjusted—"
"Papa, stop talking!"
It wasn't a whine. It wasn't a tantrum. It was a clear, firm directive, issued with the absolute conviction of a child who had identified a problem and was offering up a solution. Misha stared up at Ilya with round, imperious eyes. He clearly could not understand why this was difficult.
Ilya's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
And then he laughed.
His laugh started deep in his chest and cracked his whole face open, eyes crinkling at the corners, head tipping back. The reporters laughed too, and then the locker room caught it, spreading outward like a wave. Most of the team was used to Misha’s antics by now, but even the ones who’d only been half-listening turned to see what sort of havoc Misha Hollander-Rozanov was causing this time. Shane kept the camera steady and grinned to himself. This was excellent footage. He was already making a list of everyone he planned to send the clip to.
Ilya finally relented. He bent and scooped Misha up with one arm, settling him on his forearm as easily as lifting a stick off the rack. Misha sat there like it was a throne, one arm hooked around Ilya's neck, his legs dangling against Ilya's ribs. His miniature jersey was bunched at the waist. He looked enormously pleased with himself.
"Okay," Ilya said to the reporters, still smiling. "New plan." He turned his head to look at Misha, their faces close together, noses almost touching. "Mishka, you want to give interview?"
Misha considered this with the gravity it deserved. He straightened his small spine, turned to face the microphones, and said, with the earnest solemnity of a keynote speaker: "My Papa is hockey god."
The room erupted.
Not just the reporters, who were laughing and exchanging glances and checking that their phones were still recording. The entire team, too. Shane heard whooping from behind him, heard someone bang a stick against the floor in approval. Yuna had a hand over her mouth, eyes bright. An assistant coach, leaning against the doorframe, was shaking his head and grinning.
Ilya pressed his lips together, trying to rein his face back in, but his eyes were shining and his free hand came up to ruffle Misha's hair. He looked, Shane thought, like he'd just been told the only truth that mattered.
One of the more senior reporters recovered first. "Captain, do you have anything to add to that?"
Ilya pretended to think about it. He looked at Misha, then looked back at the reporter and shrugged.
"I think my son said it best, probably. You can quote."
Shane ended the recording and lowered his phone.
Years ago, the idea of this would have paralysed him. Cameras in the room, their son on Ilya's arm, their life visible and loud and unprotected. He'd spent so long afraid of being seen that he'd forgotten to imagine what it would feel like when being seen wasn't a threat. When it was his family, being his family, in a room full of people who knew and loved them anyway.
Ilya caught his eye over the top of Misha's head and raised one eyebrow. Shane lifted his phone and waggled it.
Ilya's lips curved. His mouth formed words Shane couldn't hear over the noise: send it to me, or I love you.
Shane chose to believe it was both.