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Hayden comes home from practice with a shit-eating grin that promises nothing good.
“You stink,” is the first thing she says when he leans in for a kiss, “did you not shower?”
“Didn’t want to get found out,” he says with that same grin.
He slips her a piece of paper. It’s tiny. It’s about to ruin her life. Her husband kisses her and wanders off for a shower, she doesn’t even call after him to tell him to be quiet.
She’s protective of Shane, is the thing. It feels sometimes like she’s known both him and Hayden her whole life. Like she’s grown up with Shane as her little brother and Hayden as his best friend. Some whirlwind coming-of-age story locked away in the attic with all the other books from her childhood she’ll show to the kids when they’re older. She thinks maybe she was too lonely growing up – thinks, sometimes, it’s why she was so happy when the twins were born, her Ruby only had to spend twenty-three minutes alone in this world. She thinks Shane was lonely, too. So, she’s filled the void with a hockey player as she is wont to do, and he’s filled that same void with her. She’s protective, is the point.
So, when she unfolds the slip of paper and sees a string of digits and the name Lily, she knows exactly what she’s holding.
She kind of wants to kill Hayden about it. Or kiss him. Maybe both.
On one hand, she’s appalled at this invasion of Shane’s privacy. She knows how cagey he gets about this girl. She knows damn well he didn’t give Hayden this number willingly, which means he probably took it from his phone while Shane was showering.
On the other hand… she’s been really curious about Lily.
She likes to think she knows more about this girl than Hayden does, just from watching Shane. She knows Lily’s in Boston, of course, and she knows there’s some external factor stopping Shane from talking about her. If she had to guess, she’d say Lily probably works in the hockey world, presumably on the Bears’ team somewhere. She’s a physical therapist, maybe, or a nurse, or any other non-public-facing job that would require she travel with the Bears.
Because what she’s noticed that Hayden hasn’t, is that Shane sneaks off any Boston game, not just the away games. She’s sat outside the locker room plenty of times, waiting for Hayden, and watched Shane dart away while barely greeting her. He’s always quick to leave, but he usually at least talks to her. Not if they’re playing Boston.
There’s a secret, hidden part of her that has another theory. The part that’s noticed the way Shane’s hands and eyes stay respectful around the many, many women Jackie’s seen him around who would love to take him home. The way the only girl she knows about is Rose Landry, who hadn’t lasted long enough to even get introduced to her. The way she knows he’s still friends with Rose Landry.
It’s this part of her that wins out in the end, so she doesn’t text Lily that night. She tucks the piece of paper away in her nightstand, tells Hayden off for snooping, and decides not to figure out the answers for herself – Shane will come to her when he’s ready. He always does.
At least, that’s the plan.
When Shane goes down, he goes down hard. Jackie hears her own desperate gasp over the uproar of the crowd, watches in horror as the medics rush the ice and carry her baby brother off on a spinal board. She doesn’t have eyes for anyone else, so she doesn’t find out about Hayden’s fight with Marlow until after the game. She doesn’t even scold him for it. She thinks she would’ve killed Marlow if it’d been her on the ice.
They visit Shane immediately after the game, but he’s still out cold. The doctors say he needs to rest for now, that his condition isn’t critical, so they leave when Shane’s parents get there. Yuna hugs her. Jackie hugs back. They don’t say anything.
I love him, Jackie wants to say, all the love I would’ve given my siblings has gone to him.
She doesn’t sleep easy.
Hayden is the one to bring it up. It’s the next morning, Jackie’s feeding Arthur while Hayden is wrestling the twins into something like proper meal etiquette. It’s futile, which they all know.
“You should text Lily,” Hayden says when he manages to get both of the girls to have their mouths full of pancake at the same time.
Jackie frowns. She hadn’t exactly forgotten about the slip of paper burning a hole into her nightstand, but she’s so confident in her theory that Lily is on the Boston crew that she figures Lily’s already up to date.
“I’m sure she knows, Hayden. She was probably watching the game last night,” Jackie says, attention going back to Arthur.
“Yeah, but she doesn’t know how he is! Shane barely talks about her to us, do you really think he gave her number to Yuna?” Hayden asks incredulously. Jackie supposes he has a point, which is always her least favourite thing in the world.
“Fine,” she says, “you get everyone ready to go, I’ll text Lily.”
“Everyone?” Hayden asks, staring wide-eyed at her at the girls get back to seemingly trying to get as much chocolate syrup as possible into each other’s hair.
“I’m six months pregnant with your baby, Hayden Pike. You can get the kids we already have ready for the day.”
Hayden leaves, Arthur on his shoulders and the girls hanging off his arms. He tries to complain, but Jackie reminds him he’s a fucking hockey player, he can handle three small children.
She sits down the couch, slip of paper in hand, and types out a text to the number on it.
Hey Lily, this is Jackie Pike. I’m a close friend of Shane’s. I’m assuming you saw him go down during his game last night, and I remembered I have your number so I wanted to update you on him. He’s got a concussion and a broken collarbone, he’s expected to make a full recovery!
It’s good, she thinks. Neutral. Establishes that she cares about Shane without sounding possessive. She sends it, satisfied, and almost looks away from her phone when her eyes catch a change on her screen.
She hadn’t saved Lily’s number to her phone, had fully intended on deleting it as soon as Shane was out of the hospital, but her phone had sent it to a contact anyways.
Cute Russian Guy (Moe’s)
She thinks she might bruise with how hard she pinches herself.
About fifteen different realization flash through her head in a single second, including the fact that she should probably tell Hayden about a particularly memorable hookup she had when she was nineteen. She’ll never hear the end of it when she does.
It’d been her first year at college – nursing, not that she’d finish her degree – and she was out with friends at what would become their home bar. It would become the Voyageurs’ home bar, too, in about a year. She would meet Hayden and Shane here. Tonight, she meets someone else.
He was nice, is the thing, with a blinding smile and a mildly cocky attitude. He knew he was attractive, which Jackie thinks might be part of what made him attractive. That, and his arms. He buys her drinks – her friends, too, though his eyes remain trained on her. He seems like the kind of guy who knows what he wants. He’s vaguely familiar, somewhere. She doesn’t care to ask.
He’s good, is the point.
She invites him back to her dorm, tells him her roommate is staying with her boyfriend anyways, and he laughs at her and tells her he has a very nice hotel room and – she shouldn’t. She’s way, way smarter than going with a man she met at a bar to an undisclosed location. But he’s been nice, and he’s disarming, and she’s fine with beating herself up for this in the morning. She says yes.
She doesn’t beat herself up about it in the morning. She doesn’t beat herself up when she recognizes him on the TV, either.
She’s definitely beating herself up about it now, a text exchange from too many years ago still logged under a number that belongs to Shane’s Lily, one Jackie knows for sure belongs to Ilya Rozanov.
Cute Russian Guy (Moe’s)
Ok thank you
Delete this number now, please. Shane would not want you to have it.
Understatement of the fucking century, Jackie thinks.
Hayden wouldn’t want me to have it, either. I never deleted it
She bites her lip, wants to see if Ilya had kept her number, too. She changes the contact name, just in case Hayden sees it. She doesn’t want to keep secrets from her husband, but this is hardly hers to share.
Lily
Ah. I kept it too
Well you know what they say
??? what do they say
Lily
On top of every boring Voyageur is a much hotter girlfriend ;)
Jackie actually laughs out loud, quickly stifling into giggles when she heard Hayden coming down the stairs with the girls.
Lily
Thank you for update. I will see him today
Be nice to him, he’s really out of it
Lily
They gave him drugs? I will film this
Be nice!
Also send me the video lol
Lily
Yes ma’am
“Is that Lily? Is she okay?” Hayden asks when he walks into the living room. He’s managed to wrestle the girls into school-appropriate clothes, which Jackie is genuinely impressed with, and he’s putting Arthur’s shoes on.
“She’s okay,” Jackie says with a smile, “she’s going to see Shane today.”
“Oh, so we’re going to intercept her, right?” Hayden asks with a grin.
“Nope!”
“Come on, aren’t you curious?” Hayden tries. Jackie just shakes her head.
“We’ll meet her when it’s time, Shane will let us know when he’s ready.”
Hayden sighs, arm shooting out like second nature to grab Ruby’s shirt a millisecond before she was about to smack into a doorhandle. He sits down to wrestle her into her coat.
“Why does your mother have to be so wise, Ruby?” he asks her.
“Because you aren’t!” Ruby exclaims before bolting off again.
“Lily’s nice,” Jackie assures him, “very charming. Kind when she wants to be. Shane will be fine, I think she’s good for him.”
* * *
Jackie waits a few weeks to bring up the other thing. The kids are at Hayden’s mom’s, giving them one quiet evening off together. They’ve made the most of it, ordering in everything Jackie wanted – which was a lot, considering the whole seven-months-pregnant of it all. Now, they’re curled up on the couch watching some romcom neither of them really cares about.
“When I was nineteen, I hooked up with Rozanov.”
She never hears the end of it.
* * *
She’s twenty, now, at Moe’s. She’s putting in her group’s orders for the next round. When she goes to tell the bartender to put it on their tab, he shakes his head at her and tells her someone paid for this round. He points the guy out in the crowd, and Jackie’s eyes shine bright with recognition.
She only talks to him briefly, dragging him down by the collar.
“Why didn’t you tell me who you are?” she asks over the noise. He laughs, a bright thing.
“It’s nice, sometimes. Just being nobody.”
She meets Hayden and Shane the next day. She does not talk to Ilya again until he’s Shane’s.