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Ilya smells like alcohol. So does Boyle, and Haas, and the very essence of the air. They’re in a bar for a defenseman's twenty-second birthday just a handful of days after their second-round elimination from the playoffs, it’s one in the morning, and the pleasant buzz in Ilya’s ears is comforting as he says his goodbyes to his team.
The hilarity of half the party guests being in their thirties is not lost on Ilya, and he makes the appropriate amount of fun of the birthday boy as Shane drags him outside by the wrist.
It’s warm and cloudy outside as they wait for the car, Shane tipsily talking with their friends and only stumbling over his own toes one time. Ilya knows his expression is gooey and lovestruck as he watches his man laugh so openly, but he cannot be asked to care.
Troy is a couple steps ahead of him, twirling both Shane and Harris by the hand as they all wait for their cars together. Ilya, being himself, lets his mind wander to the things that Shane may let him do to him when they’re dropped off at their house. He could be too tired, sure, and of course Ilya would be happy to wrap him in blankets and his arms and sleep until three in the afternoon.
That, or he could be what Shane usually is when he’s drunk, which is a goddamn menace in the bedroom. Or the kitchen. Or the bathroom. Or in the garage that one time. Last month, after the Centaurs had cinched a playoff spot, they hadn’t even made it through the foyer before Shane had Ilya in his-
His phone rings. Ilya almost groans out loud. He ignores so many calls every day, not caring or too busy or simply preferring to text, so he could very easily just turn off the damn thing, but the vibration of the phone in his pocket is extremely irritating to his half-drunken body, so he chances a look, and his heart drops to his ass.
The number begins with +7, followed by 495. Moscow.
It’s been years since he’s received a call from his birthplace. For a while after their father died, Andrei had left Ilya screaming, profanity-laden voicemails of guilt trips and preaching of homeland values, none of which Ilya had ever returned. After the news of his marriage spread to Russia, he stopped listening to these messages altogether. Eventually, they’d ceased entirely, as if he’d only remembered Ilya’s funeral-dinner promise five years later.
Ilya steels his nerves and picks up the call.
“Ilya Grigoryevich?” A woman’s voice, unfamiliar, words clipped with professional brevity.
“Yes,” Ilya says, throat tight, “this is him.”
“My name is Maria Mikhailovna. I am calling on behalf of the Commission of Minors’ Affairs of Russia. I have important news concerning your family. You may wish to leave the room, if there is anybody around. It may come as a shock.”
Ilya hums once, stepping back towards the bar doors and covering one ear to hear her better.
“Your brother, Andrei Grigoryevich, and his wife, Khristina Teodorovna, were in a car accident last night, on the thirty-first of May. They were both killed in the impact.”
Ilya goes still, freezing atom-by-atom from his fingernails to the breath in his lungs.
Maria Mikhailovna is silent for a beat. How kind.
“As I said, this is likely a shock for you-“
“I have had no contact with Andrei for nearly nine years. I have no interest in his life or how it has ended.” Ilya snaps before he can stop himself.
Because, sure, he’s gone over his fraternal relationship with a fine-toothed comb with Galina, but merely understanding his abuse hasn’t stopped him from remaining hurt, and angry, and ashamed, and everything else that he’s spilled in those sessions. Galina had said that was okay as well, and Ilya had made it so very clear that he never intended to forgive and forget.
Still, he isn’t sure how he feels about this revelation.
The woman passes over his argument. “No, Mr. Rozanov, I am calling concerning his daughter. Your niece.”
Heat rushes Ilya’s body, piercing right through the thundering heartbeat in his ears. His niece. The quiet little girl he’d left so with much money and even more prayers when he’d spat on Andrei at their father’s funeral. What year had she been born in, again? She must be, what, fourteen now? Sixteen?
“Lena.”
“Yes, Yelena Andreevna-“
“Has she died as well?” He doesn’t want to ask and doesn’t want to hear.
“No. She was not in the vehicle when it crashed. She is alive and healthy.”
Ilya exhales the fear that had pierced through his stalled reactions. Maria Mikhailovna waits for a moment, then continues relaying her information. “Ilya Grigoryevich, you are Miss Rozanova’s only living relative, and therefore you are her guardian until she turns eighteen years of age.”
It takes a second for the words to click in Ilya’s head. “What?” He says, bewildered. “What about her mother’s parents, or Polina, or-“
“You are her only living blood relative. I have contacted you through old records of your information. I apologize for the shock, but you are in charge of Miss Rozanova.”
Ilya is silent. He feels like he’s drowning despite the hummingbird flutter in his heart and throat. “I- I’m not allowed to adopt from-“ he swallows hard, fearful to even allude to his marriage. He continues carefully. “I renounced my Russian citizenship last year. I am Canadian now.”
“I understand this, Mr. Rozanov. It does not change the biological relation between you and your niece. You are her guardian. Not her parent, just her guardian.”
Ilya breathes in deep, taking in the stench of beer and gasoline and city-street smells as a way to ground himself against the rush in his head. “What do I do?”
“You will have to approve her transfer to a home until she reaches adulthood. You will be informed if a Russian family wishes to foster or adopt her-“
“No,” he says at once, “no, she will not live in those places.” He’d had a friend in the foster system, back in primary school. Vova was scared every day of his life and flinched far too easily.
Maria Mikhailovna continues, every word measured and even. “Mr. Rozanov, the alternative action is to take her in yourself, which is nearly impossible considering your citizenship-“
“Oh. Yes, then. Lena will come to Canada.” Ilya says, making a fist. He’s suddenly clearheaded, entirely sure. “She will come and live with me and my-“ He cuts himself off. Any mention of his legally-bound homosexual partner would surely eliminate the possibility of what he’s already decided upon.
“Okay. I will inform my colleagues and we will begin to sort out transportation. I will need proof of your citizenship change, as well as financial information.”
At that, Ilya thinks that this could all be a scam. His information isn’t that hard to locate, and he can imagine that it’s easy enough to fake a phone number.
“Tell me about her.”
Maria Mikailovna begins to rattle off facts. “Yelena Andreevna Rozanova is fifteen years of age, and will turn sixteen on the twentieth of July, two-thousand and twenty-six. Her schooling records are average, and she is physically capable. She scored a three in her last English exam, which will allow her to communicate with Canadians on her own. Her father was in financial debt, the details of which you are not privy to and are being handled by the State. She was signed out of school last April by Svetlana Sergeevna Vetrova, who was not authorized to do so and caused quite a fuss.” She pauses. “I assure you, Mr. Rozanov, I am not lying to you.” The line is silent for a moment more, and Ilya bites his lip so hard it may bruise.
“He is really dead then, yes?”
“Yes, Mr. Rozanov. Your brother and sister-in-law were both pronounced dead on site at approximately six-fifty-seven this morning.”
Ilya shuts his eyes tightly and takes in another breath. Shane and Galina’s soft voices echo in his head, and he nods even though she can’t see it. He thinks of his niece the last time she saw him, at his father’s house after his funeral. She had been seven then, with a black bow in her mousy hair. She’s almost sixteen now.
Fuck.
“Okay. Yes, Lena will come to Canada. Tell me what to do, and how soon she can come. I want her to arrive as soon as possible.”
“The process will take several weeks at the least. Until then, Yelena Andreevna will be allowed to attend school and sleep at the apartment under her father’s name, unless you would rather she be moved to a children’s home-”
“No.”
“-and if you have any further questions, or if you change your mind, you will call this number or communicate via email. I will take your preferred contact information now.”
Ilya gives her an email address that has nothing to do with his job or his hyphenated surname or anything else that could be concerning to the Russian government. Maria Mikhailovna says that they will be in touch soon, and then hangs up. Ilya drops his hands to his sides and stares at the sky.
—
Their Uber, sleek and discreet, pulls up just a minute after Ilya is left staring at the stars. Shane collapses in the back seat with the unhelpful assistance of Troy and LaPointe, teasing him for something or another, and Ilya is only snapped from his underwater trance when he hears his husband’s drunken giggle and call of his name.
Troy, too far gone to see more than a foot in front of his nose, claps Ilya on the back before he stumbles into his own car, prompting Ilya’s feet to move on their own until he’s sat next to Shane and their driver pulls away.
Ilya watches his husband’s profile as it’s lit in the swishing city lights. He’s exhausted, in his thirties and past his bedtime, but he looks so, so happy.
Ilya could keep this news from him, just for a few hours. He could get them both clean and ready for bed with hangover cures waiting on the counter, and only inform his man of his niece’s orphaning once he’s bright and awake the following morning.
Ilya also knows that Shane would be very, very upset with him if he ever found out that Ilya had stewed alone in this knowledge for even a moment longer than he had to.
“Shane.”
“Mm?” Sweet, sleepy, beautiful Shane Hollander-Rozanov lifts his head off of the car windowpane and turns to look at Ilya.
Ilya’s lip trembles and he bites it in an attempt to sober up, physically and emotionally. “My brother is dead.”
“What? Oh, my God-“
“His wife as well. Car crash, hours ago. Don’t worry, I am not upset, I think,” he says lowly as Shane’s expression turns awake, alert, and miserable, “but their daughter-“
“Yelena?”
“Yelena,” Ilya confirms, “is safe. And, Shane, she’s my responsibility.” He meets Shane’s gaze, hoping both the shock and determination he feels is clear through the intensity in his eyes.
Shane, three whole beers in, pauses to let the cogs in his mind work through this implication. “But that’s illegal. We’ve looked at adopting from Russia. We aren’t allowed to for, like, ten different reasons.”
“It’s not adoption. I am her legal guardian by default of blood relation. She is permitted to come to Canada if that’s what I say is what I want to do.”
“Sure, but you’re also gay married and you only gave up your citizenship last year. Isn’t that, like, four of the ten reasons?”
Ilya exhales harshly through his nose. Not in anger or impatience, but with something he can’t name in the sloshing ocean of his brain. “Shane, they know we are married, and yet it hasn’t come up in any conversation. If your name isn’t attached, it isn’t relevant to their laws, no matter how much they wish it was. At the end of the day, to them, she’s just an orphan that they want to get out of their hair.”
His husband reaches over, brings Ilya’s hand to his mouth, and presses a kiss to each fingertip. “I’m being too logical. I’m sorry.”
“No, no. It’s okay. I have been down Wikipedia rabbit hole as well, trust me.” They share a sad smile as Shane runs his thumb back and forth over his husband’s knuckles.
“Are you okay?”
Ilya turns to stare out the window and nods. “I’m fine. Andrei was never good to me, not once in our lives, and Khristya did nothing to stop him. From what I heard from Sveta, she drank her weight every week and yelled almost as much as he did.”
“Sounds like a real catch.”
Ilya snorts. “I don’t want to talk anymore, I think. I just want to see my dog, and then sleep, and then process this all much, much later.”
“Okay. Don’t worry, baby, I’ll take care of you.” Shane murmurs into the darkness between them in the backseat. Ilya squeezes his hand three times.
—
Ilya wakes up at nine the next morning with a light headache and roils of anxiety in his gut. It takes a moment for his brain to catch up to what his body is aware of.
Andrei. Khristina. Yelena.
Ilya feels that lump rise in his throat, the annoying one that he’s only recently come to acknowledge as the need to cry. Ilya has cried more in the last nine years than he did for the first twenty-five of his life.
So he lets himself cry for a moment. Not a heaving, mourning, screaming choke of an outburst, like he’d developed a tendency for since starting therapy, but rather a slow march of tears that trickle down his jaw and soak into his pillow. He keeps his eyes unfocused, staring at the sunlight as it filters through sheer curtains and lands on the hardwood flooring, or the tissue box on the dresser, or the framed promotional poster of himself and his future husband in 2010. Ilya stares at the last one the most and thinks about the definition of family.
There are painkillers and a glass of water on his nightstand, because Ilya’s husband is practical and intelligent and heavensent, and Ilya is able to get himself showered and dressed in a ratty pair of old Boston sweats that are never meant to be seen outside the house. Anya lets herself into the bedroom when she hears Ilya’s electric toothbrush start up, and she practically walks between his legs as he begins the trepidatiously hungover journey downstairs.
Shane, naturally, is bright and alert. Ilya finds him in the office (the trophy room, as they call it between themselves, but, really, it’s just an office featuring an admittedly impressive wall of awards), and the only echoes of a hangover are the blotchiness of his skin and the relaxed way he rests his cheek in his palm as he types. When he hears Ilya enter the room, he perks up like a small dog glad to see its human home from work.
“Good morning, baby.” He smiles as Ilya walks up beside his desk, letting him tilt his chin up and kiss him slow, like they’ve got all the time in the world. He reaches up to run his thumb over Ilya’s cheekbone, asking a ‘how are you’ with his eyes. Ilya shrugs, just barely, and he knows that Shane understands.
“What is this?” Ilya hums, straightening up and turning his attention to Shane’s Mac screen. He plants his hands on the back of the office chair and lets Shane reach up and take a loose hold on his wrists, guiding him forward until Ilya’s bent over enough so that his elbows rest on his husband’s shoulders and their fingers are entwined.
The computer screen displays a Google Doc. The Google Doc, Ilya spots, is titled “PROJECT YELENA.” What is on the Google Doc is neatly separated paragraphs of musings and information. At the top, there’s a checklist, featuring things such as ‘Research kinds of Visas for minors’ and ‘Obtain Yelena’s medical records’ and ‘Locate the smoothest order of flights from Moscow -> Montreal (has she been on a plane before?).’ As Ilya watches, a little green flag labeled ‘Yuna Hollander’ adds another bullet point to the checklist. From hours away, she’s jotting down notes about which of their guest bedrooms she thinks Yelena will like most.
That lump lodges itself in Ilya’s throat again. He feels tears prick at his waterline and he blinks them away, wanting to use his eyes to catch every line of text he can see. There are other tabs open too; a Google Sheet titled ‘Visa pros and c…’ and a few with government seals as their website icons.
“Mom’s already got half the lawyers that sped up your citizenship process on the line. They’re saying that her visa can be processed in just three weeks, and we can get her on a plane the same day. It’s not legally bribery, but we are rich as fuck, so it’s not not bribery.” Shane is rambling, motioning with their joined hands to certain parts of the screen as he describes them.
Ilya shakes his head, swallowing anything that would stop him from pressing his forehead into his husband’s hair and whispering, “Oh, moy lyubimyy.”
Shane stops speaking, moving to kiss Ilya’s knuckles, each squeezed between his own. “I don’t want you to worry about any of this. The legal shit, the plane tickets, all that. Mom and I will tell you exactly what you need to do and when, what you need to sign and what we can pay for ourselves without bringing attention to the whole gay-married-thing. All you have to focus on is Yelena.”
Somewhere, Ilya thinks that he must have done something incredible in a past life, or maybe even in this one, to make the God he tries to love send such a perfect man into his life. A man that loves him as fiercely and fully as he himself had fallen; something he had used to think impossible for someone like Ilya Rozanov.
“You are everything to me, you know that?” Ilya says, breathing in the scent of Shane’s hair products like a grounding anchor.
“I do,” this man responds, in Russian, because of course he does, “and you are everything to me. Let me make this easy for you.”
Ilya smiles and it’s annoyingly watery. He pulls his hands back from Shane’s just long enough to pull up a second chair, and then he’s resting his aching head on Shane’s shoulder, his left hand held in Shane’s right, and saying, “Okay. Tell me more.”
Shane launches back into it with the speed and vigor that he does everything. “When she lands she’s gonna need her passport, obviously, and a copy of both her parents’ death certificates, and you’ll have to fill out all of the guardianship paperwork before she even gets on the plane. Mom said she’s got a call scheduled for-” Ilya falls in love with him for the fourteenth time that week.
—
Svetlana Vetrova is an angel sent from Heaven above, a generous and perfect woman that any man would be goddamn lucky to have. Ilya is reminded of this often.
“You double-checked everything, yes?” Her voice sounds brisk and slightly breathy through the phone. Ilya pictures her clicking through Sheremetyevo International in her five-inch heels.
“Triple-checked and Shane-checked,” he replies, nodding even though she can’t see it, “and I will be available to speak any time some cop says that they need me. Thank you, Sveta, for everything.”
Ilya can hear her earrings hit the phone as she shakes her head. “Stop thanking me, you sap. I would do many things for you, and being an envoy for your broken family tree is high on that list, apparently.”
“A very sexy envoy,” he insists, “and my guardian angel.”
“Shut up. I have to go. I love you.”
“Love you too,” Ilya goes to hang up, but Svetlana beats him to it.
Shane hooks his chin over Ilya’s right shoulder. “All good?”
“All great,” Ilya answers, turning to nip at Shane’s ear, “as you already know, because you were tracking her flight all morning.” His husband smiles and bites him back, teeth grazing the juncture of Ilya’s jaw and neck, and Ilya chuckles.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish, Hollander.”
“Oh my God, I was being playful-”
Forty-five minutes later, Ilya picks up his phone again.
—
Света 👧🏾
Here is Lena’s number (+7 496-992-6798)
International messaging rates apply, etc, etc
You’re welcome xx
—
Ilya’s eyes nearly pop out of his head, and he sits up so fast that Shane makes a sound that can only be described as a squawk. Lena’s phone number. He hadn’t even thought of that, of trying to get anything that the government didn’t hand to him.
“Did Trump die? Did they revoke your citizenship? Did another video of us leak?” Shane asks as he shuffles to meet his husband on his side of the bed. Ilya can hear his smile and shakes his head.
“Sveta got me Lena’s number, so I can talk to her directly.” He swipes to open Telegram and enters the information while he sees Shane grin out of the corner of his eye.
“Hey, that’s great!” Shane replies in English, squeezing at Ilya’s bicep. Ilya is too in his phone to generate a response. Shane smiles, kisses his shoulder, and stands up to dress himself. Ilya feels like he’s buzzing inside.
—
Елена Розанова
hello?
Hello
Ilya
Lena!
how are you?
Ok
—
Ilya tries not to be disappointed at the lack of immediate enthusiasm. Her fucking parents just fucking died, he yells at himself, and you haven’t spoken to her in nine fucking years. It doesn’t help his little frown go away.
But, also, she isn’t even close to fluent in English, he reminds himself. Pretentious educated adult Ilya, with the trilingual husband and the orphan niece.
—
Елена Розанова
I am glad to hear from you in any way
Sveta is the best
Yes
She is
I do not like English
me neither
but it is good to practise
do you speak english with Sveta sometimes?
No
Do you
touché
??
—
Over the span of twenty-seven days, Ilya grows increasingly excited to have Lena coming to live with them. He’s silent about it publicly, of course, but he’s basically blowing up his in-laws and the team group chats with questions every waking minute. None of the guys have kids older than Lena is, so he’s forced to text Pike with questions about what teenage girls like and hate and are indifferent to. When Pike is unhelpful, he texts Jade and Ruby directly, and they are vastly more accommodating.
He texts Lena at least twice a day, keeping the time difference in the back of his mind during every hour, just like he did when he was living in Russia and wondering what Shane Hollander was up to back in Montreal.
She responds to his prompts but doesn’t start the conversations, and Ilya understands this.
He finds out that she has two friends at school that she will miss but nobody else. He finds out that she is one-hundred-sixty-two centimeters tall. He finds out that she owns three scarves, had a cat that used to come by her house when she was ten, and that she really likes the youngest member of BTS.
Ilya turns thirty-five halfway through the month. Him and Shane attend one of the dozens of Pride events they’re invited to, go to dinner with friends and with family, see movies most weekends, and yet all Ilya wants to think about is his niece.
For the latter half of the three-week wait, all of his sentences start with, “Lena says that-” and he doesn’t care if his listeners are annoyed or not.
—
Лена
you are on plane?
you are comfortable?
да, дядя
Thank you
my name is Ilya. i have told you this
tell sveta i love her lots and lots and lots
Ok
Plane up soon
first time flier alert 🚨🚨!!!!!!!!!!!
are you nervous?
No
I was almost in a plane crash once
but it did not crash
and here i am)))
Ha ha))
Car crash
oh shit
Im sorry
i didnt think about that
—
Their plane takes off just after that, and Ilya is left horrified that he has just destroyed the tentative bridge he’d rebuilt with his niece with one thoughtless text. Shane laughs at him as he rubs his back in reassurance.
The two of them keep the flight tracking footage up on the TV screen as they clean and tidy the house until there is nothing left to clean and tidy, and then they both sit and stare at the crude graphic as it lands in Stockholm.
Hours later, Shane watches a second plane land in Montreal while Ilya checks the fuel gauge in the Range Rover for the third time. Shane turns off the TV, opens his laptop, and pulls up the train tracking website.
—
Ilya frantically taps his fingers on the Range’s steering wheel, which is a tic he didn’t even remember he had until he was stuck in the car for half an hour and realized he’d forgotten both his AUX cord and CDs at home. He’d then thought, wait, Bluetooth, but then didn’t feel like pulling over to sync his phone, so he’d left himself in his busy head. And his tapping fingers, apparently.
He’s sitting in the car in the train station parking lot, and his eyes keep darting around to catch a glimpse of Louboutins and familiar reddish curls or any young girls that resemble himself. She’d looked more like his brother, Ilya thought, when he’d seen Lena last, and he hopes that the fact won’t distress him if and when he sees that man in his niece’s face. That’s something he should talk to Galina about, if the issue arises.
Andrei had looked like their grandfather and Ilya had looked like their mother, something that he knew enraged his father since he was a kid. He saw the disdain in the clear blue eyes that they shared, and he had been ashamed of it. Like it was his fault for being born with her moles and her cheekbones.
Maybe it would be better, then, if her face favored Andrei. At least then he’d know that she hadn’t been on the receiving end of those glares.
There’s a knock on the driver’s side window, and Ilya’s heart jumps. “Fuck, Sveta!”
She’s standing there in huge sunglasses and a wide grin. Ilya hadn’t even realized he’d zoned out. “I have a delivery for you, my friend.” Svetlana sing-songs, stepping back to let him open the door. She brandishes her arm backwards, and Ilya is briefly left speechless.
Yelena is his spitting fucking image.
Her hair is brown, yes, but it’s long and thick and curly, springing around the same way that his own does when he forgets to book a haircut for too long. Her eyes are squinted up against the sun, and they are brown like he remembers, but they’re the same shape as the ones that look at Ilya in the mirror. Her brows, her nose, the curve of her jaw. They’re all Ilya. Which is to say, they’re all Irina.
“Hi.” Lena says plainly. Ilya realizes he looks stupid, and climbs out of the car with all the grace of a goose.
“Hi, Lena.”
The corner of her mouth quirks up at the round of Russian. Like she had been expecting the rest of her life to be narrated in English.
Ilya holds up a hand for her to shake, then reconsiders, because she’s not some NHL representative. “Can I give you a hug?”
“Okay.” She says, and he does. She’s short and curvy and the hug is awkward at best, but she lets him touch her and he considers that a win.
Svetlana, saint that she is, doesn’t prod at the obvious stiffness between the two, instead starting to complain about the quality of the coffee at the Stockholm airport and handing Ilya her bags to pile into the Range’s trunk. Lena only has one suitcase and a backpack, which Svetlana says is because the rest of her things are getting shipped over in the next month. Ilya motions for Lena to get in the passenger seat, and she does. She barely looks at him.
The drive from the train station to Ilya’s house takes about a half hour, mostly city and then all suburbs. It’s not wildly different from Moscow in concept, nothing Lena hasn’t seen before, so Ilya can’t tell if the reason her eyes are glued to the window is because she’s taking in the sights or if she just doesn’t want to look at him.
“Your flight was alright?” Ilya starts, about three minutes in. Lena nods and glances at him.
“It was good. The food was shit, but it was warm. This man kept sneezing behind us.”
“That happens. Any crying babies?”
“Not on the second flight. But this little girl stared at me for, like, the entirety of the first one.”
“Maybe she thought you were pretty. You look like me, after all, and I am gorgeous.”
Lena scoffs, but it sounds like a laugh. Ilya celebrates that and continues. “Maybe she has heard the tales of the hockey-playing deserter, fleeing the good state of Russia for a life of sinful domesticity.”
“She was four.”
“You never know!”
That gets him an eye roll, which Pike had said is a good thing to get after you annoy a teenage girl. In the back seat, Svetlana’s long nails click against the glass of her phone screen.
Ilya loves talking, loves filling the air with noise of any sort. Lena clearly does not. Or maybe she does, and he just doesn’t know that yet. He grips the steering wheel and forces himself to be comfortable in the quiet.
A minute later, Lena initiates conversation for the first time in nearly a decade.
“So, I’ll be going to school here and everything?”
Ilya nods. “Yeah. Your Visa is all worked out, and we shouldn’t have any problems unless Russia decides that they want you back for some reason.”
“I would kill myself if that happened.” She sighs, choking a shocked laugh out of Ilya. He’s beaming afterwards and she is too. Well, she’s smiling, which is the native Muscovite equivalent of a face-splitting, toothy grin.
“What, you don’t wake up every morning with the State Anthem as your alarm?”
“I think I will enjoy free speech. That’s all I’ll say. Oh, and TikTok. I want to make a TikTok account.”
“TikTok spies on you.” Ilya quips as he takes a left at a light. Without looking at her, he can basically feel his niece’s unimpressed expression.
“Russia is our sacred state, Russia is our beloved country. A mighty will-“
Ilya is laughing now, not even thinking about the directions as he drives through the city by way of habit.
“I think we can get along again, Lenochka.”
She flinches at the sound of the diminutive. Ilya furrows his eyebrows, nervous that he crossed a line. “Is that not okay? I’m sorry if it’s not-“
“It’s okay,” she says, too quickly, “I’m just not used to it anymore. Nobody has called me that for years.”
“Ah.” Ilya takes a breath and steers his mind towards the next subject; the one he’d been preparing to approach with cautious optimism.
“Okay, then. Well, Lenochka, I just want to make sure of something before we get home. You do know that I’m-”
“Gay. Yes.” She says in the same flat, apathetic tone she’s used for all fifteen minutes that he’s known her for.
Still, she’s not being weird about it. That’s good.
“I’m not gay,” Ilya huffs, “I’m bi, and there is a difference.”
Lena waves a hand. “Not really. You like boys.”
“Men,” he corrects, “and I like one man in particular very, very much.”
“If you are asking if I’m homophobic, the answer is no. I don’t care what you do with your heart or your body, or what anyone else does either. I had a friend at tutoring who is a lesbian. She was not very smart, though.”
Ilya snorts despite himself. “Did that have anything to do with her being a lesbian?”
“Of course not. She was just very bad at both spelling and mathematics.”
“Well, then I’m glad she’s not the one coming to live with us.” Ilya keeps his eyes on the road, but he thinks that Lena smiles. He presses on, rerouting the conversation back to the start. “‘Us’ being myself and Shane. My husband. Who is a man. Who I am married to. While also being a man.”
“Oh, I know,” the girl sighs. “Trust me, dude, the only times my dad talked about you was when he was calling you a f- um,” she cuts herself off and Ilya can see how her brow furrows, “words. Bad words. Ones that I should not repeat.”
“No, you shouldn’t. Thanks for catching yourself, Lena. That means a lot, really.” He chances a grinning glance at her and is met with the back of her head.
Lena lets them both sit in silence for a solid minute before she continues. “He is nice to you?”
“Your dad?” Ilya jokes, and hopes it isn’t in poor taste.
He can practically feel the girl roll her eyes. “No. Clearly I’m talking about Putin. Your man, Ilya, is he nice to you?”
“When he wants to be.” Ilya responds, hoping that the affection in his tone is clear to his niece.
Lena nods. “And you love him?”
“More than life, kid. More than anything.”
“Okay.” She says, in English, and then takes a pair of earbuds out of her bag and puts them on.
Svetlana meets his gaze in the rear view mirror, and she smiles. The car lapses back into quiet, and Ilya’s fingers are still against the steering wheel.
—
Andrei hadn’t been poor, per se. Ilya knew that the apartment that he’d left to that trio of his family members had been beautiful and expensive, but he was also incredibly aware of his brother’s lifelong spending habits and could safely assume that they hadn’t improved in the years since he’d broken contact. That being said, Lena was likely used to a decent level of comfort.
Still, Ilya is glad when her eyes go wide when they pull through the gates to his house.
“Welcome home, Lena.”
“Oh my God, I’m rich.” The girl all but drools out the words, leaning forward to get a better view of the driveway, the motorcourt, the house on its one-point-two acres of grass and forest.
Svetlana makes a noise of protest. “Excuse me? This is nothing compared to my dad’s home in the country. It’s so beautiful, Ilya. Such a shame you’ll never be able to visit.” Ilya reaches behind him and slaps her on the knee.
“I have a lot of money. I’m very, very good at my job, you see. Actually, the house is too big for just us and the dog, so it’s good that you’re here to fill out a second bedroom. We have five. It’s too many. Our life is so hard, Lena.”
And Lena smiles at him. A real smile, with yellow-white teeth and a dimple in her right cheek.
—
Shane Michio Hollander-Rozanov, five-time Stanley Cup champion, four-time Olympic medalist, the man whose name is so synonymous with sheer skill and talent that half the AHL calls their prospects ‘the next Hollander,’ as if Shane himself isn’t still years from retirement, is standing in a T-shirt and jeans on their front step. He has his arms crossed in that nervous way of his, the way that people think is defensive but Ilya knows is self-protective, and he’s smiling the best he can into the glint of the setting sun against the cars in the motorcourt.
Ilya shoots out of the car all but runs up the steps, taking Shane into his arms and kissing him twice, and Shane says, “Happy?”
“Happy.” Ilya confirms, taking one of Shane’s hands in his own and dragging him down the front path. Lena is shuffling out of the passenger seat and stretching her arms to the sky, rolling her head in a circle on her shoulders, and then quickly glancing around to see where everybody went. Her gaze lands on Ilya a meter behind her and then on Shane behind him, and he sees her posture stiffen.
Svetlana has the trunk of the Range open and she’s pulling luggage out of the back to the best of her ability in such expensive shoes. Ilya feels how his husband’s grip tightens and he starts to pull away, already muttering something about helping Sveta, but Ilya yanks him back into step alongside him.
“Hollander.” He tosses back, half-empathetic and half-demanding, and he notes how Shane seems to force his grip to relax.
Lena is shuffling around in her purse, shoulders tense. Ilya uses his free hand to snap his fingers in her face. “Stop being weird.”
The girl glares up at him. “You don’t know that I’m being weird. Maybe this is normal for me. Maybe I’m just really interested in finding my airplane peanuts.”
“You already ate those. You are scared of my husband,” he tugs on Shane’s hand to pull him forward and all but presents him to his niece, “who I promise you is not scary at all, unless you are a hockey puck or a Google Sheet.”
Shane’s polite PR smile is on full display as he holds out his hand for Lena to shake, which she does, and Ilya feels a thrill in his chest at the eye contact that they make. “Privyet, Lena. I’m Shane, and I guess I’m your uncle.”
Lena blinks at him, and then at Ilya. “Does he speak Russian?”
Ilya winks at her as Shane replies in place of his husband. “I do. My pronunciation isn’t great, I’ve been told, but I can understand what you’re saying. Or, I guess, what Ilya is saying. I don’t know anybody else who speaks Russian.”
“That’s straight up not true,” calls Svetlana’s irritatingly accentless English, and Shane visibly winces.
“Sorry, Sveta-”
“Not me,” the woman waves him off, “that defender on your team. Kiselyov. He’s good, no?”
From the corner of his eye, Ilya watches how Lena’s eyes glaze over the second the word ‘defender’ is used.
Okay, so she’s not a hockey girl. Yet. That’s okay.
Ilya tosses one arm around his husband and grins like he means it, like he isn’t worried sick over how this could change his happy household for life. “Lena, Shane is my husband, and he is a genius. Of course he knows Russian. He knows three fucking languages, and he scored two hundred and seven points in his eighth season. Put some respect on his name, kid.”
Lena sighs, loud and dramatic and so much like Ilya himself. “Okay. Shane, it is good to meet you. My name is Yelena. Thank you for letting me into your home.” Her accent is thick, words clumsy, and Shane just tilts his head towards her and smiles tightly.
Ilya jostles Shane into his side. “Shane is very happy that you’re here, I promise. Come on, lyubimyy, let us take the princess to her chambers.”
At that, Lena laughs, and that one note of vocal expulsion lands right in the middle of Ilya’s chest. He lets Lena walk ahead of them and kisses Shane’s temple, whispering a soft “she’s tired,” into his hair.
Several steps in front of the trio, Svetlana is opening their door and rolling her suitcase into the foyer.
“When did you give her the door code?” Shane leans into Ilya’s ear and hisses.
Ilya side-eyes him, equally baffled. “I didn’t.”
—
Anya barrels into the entryway, and had Ilya been a smaller man she would knock him down on the daily. He’s used to this, though, and he’s able to practically catch her midair and twirl her around like she were a human toddler. “This, Lenochka, is your cousin.” He presents the dog to her new housemate with a wide grin, dipping the dog’s head towards her.
“My cousin.” She repeats, hand still clutched tightly around the strap of her purse.
“Yes. I said we have a dog so many times. Don’t tell me you forgot already.” Lena chews the inside of her cheek, and it makes her high cheekbones that much more prominent. Ilya feels his breath hitch again at the resemblance.
Lena extends her hand and lets Anya sniff at her fingertips. Ilya’s heart feels like it’s going to explode out of his chest. “There you go. Nyusha, this is Lena. She’s going to be living with us now, so I want you to be very nice to her.” Anya presses the dome of her head into Lena’s palm, making the girl giggle and bite back what must have been a giddy smile.
“Aw, the Rozanova girls are friends.” Svetlana coos, coming up from behind Lena and squeezing her shoulders. The size of her grin rivals Ilya’s own, radiant as she always is, and Ilya looks up at Shane.
He has one of his soft expressions on, like when he’s having a silly conversation with Arthur Pike, and at first Ilya thinks he’s enjoying the scene like the rest of them are, but Shane’s eyes are fixed solely on Ilya’s face. His gaze is shiny, like he’s going to cry but won’t, and Ilya raises his eyebrows at him in a silent question. Shane shakes his head, a flash of white teeth between his lips. ‘Nothing. I love you.’ He mouths, and Ilya knows to not press further nor tease him about it. He knows exactly how Shane feels, and it makes him feel like he’s made of sunlight.
After a minute, Anya starts squirming and Ilya sets her down, then throws out his arms to the sides. “This is the foyer,” he declares, “but that word is French and stupid, so it is the hallway, or the entryway.” One swift look at Shane confirms that his fond smile has dropped, replaced with a just-as-fond roll of his eyes. Anya and Svetlana saunter towards the kitchen, the woman talking to the dog in high-pitched Russian, and Ilya pulls Lena in to wrap one arm around her shoulders while he picks up her suitcase with his free hand. She stiffens at his side but doesn’t pull away.
Shane motions down towards the main hallway. “Your room is down here. If you don’t like this one, then we can move everything to another guest room. Anything is fine, really. Um-” Shane’s hands flex at his sides, and Ilya hands him Lena’s carry-on to have something to hold.
He leads the three of them across the open-plan living space, down the hall, and into the bedroom they’d set up for Lena’s arrival. New sheets in what Ilya had discovered to be her favorite colors (green and pink), a small box of empty picture frames for her to use how she likes, and part of the bookshelf filled with everything from the reading list that she had shared two weeks ago. The closet is empty save for some cold-weather gifts that Yuna and David had provided, and the bathroom has been cleaned so many times over the past three weeks that you could eat a full meal off the shower floor. Ilya hopes that, come the start of the hockey season, the space will be a mess of clothes and trinkets and hair products, with Yelena stamped across the walls.
Ilya sets the luggage down by the foot of the bed, watching his niece closely enough to pick up on her reactions but not so directly that she notices. It’s an art he’s mastered, really, after years of captainship and growing up anticipating his father’s moods. (A tensed jaw means he’s nitpicky. A hand on Andrei’s back means he has news of some sort, but one on Ilya’s means he should brace himself. A kiss to his mother’s cheek means he had a good day at work.) Lena seats herself in the desk chair and swivels back and forth, looking around like a frightened but curious puppy.
“We can get new stuff too, if you hate all of it,” Shane smiles tightly, “we won’t be offended.” Lena glances at him, and he blinks, then realizes. “Oh, do you need just Russian?”
“No,” Lena says, “I know some things.” Her face is a mask of Slavic indifference, not even a twitch of the lips to indicate her thoughts on the room.
Shane doesn’t seem to know that he’s staring, and Ilya takes a step and wraps one arm around his waist. “Lena,” he starts, and she hums in acknowledgement, “what Shane is trying to say is that you can tell us anything you want. If you want a new room, you have it. If you want to rearrange all the furniture, we will help you. This is your home now too, right?”
“Okay,” Lena nods, pauses, then smiles. It’s forced but not unnatural, and Ilya can finally read some anxious excitement in her expression. “Thank you, Shane. Thank you, Ilya.”
Ilya grins, kissing his husband loudly on the cheek and then releasing his waist to clap his hands together. “You are so welcome, my girl. Now, love of my life, you made us dinner, yes?”
—
When they return to the living room, Svetlana has made herself at home with a glass of white wine and a plate of strawberries, which she picks at while navigating their Netflix account. “You’re staying the night, right?” Ilya asks, leaning over the back of the couch to scratch at Anya’s ears.
Svetlana rolls her eyes at him, like she did when they were teenagers. “Of course I am staying, Ilyusha. My charge for accompanying this girl is a free meal and for Anya to sleep with me in my guest room, and then to take pictures of myself wearing all of Shane’s Stanley Cup rings on one hand. Also, I want another Chanel bag. I’ll send you the specifications. It’s the least you can do.” Ilya shrugs, because she’s right. It is the least he can do.
Shane serves salad and borscht, which gets a nod of approval from all three of the Russians he’s surrounded by. Lena is quiet the whole time, jaw set when she isn’t eating and responding to the adults’ questions with either a sharp nod or a quick “nyet.” Anya sits patiently by Ilya’s side, all clingy and nosy, awaiting a bite of food that Ilya tells her will make her sick.
Svetlana chatters enough to fill any potentially awkward quiet, which Ilya appreciates. She’s always been able to read a room perfectly and take control of the flow when she needs to. In the past, that had meant thick silence when she knew Ilya was keeping something from her until he’d inevitably broken and vented about his brother, or secondary school, or Montreal Jane for an hour. The three adults talk and joke like they always do, like everything is run-of-the-mill and easy, like Lena has been living there for months already. Lena sticks to her one-note answers, cleans her plate, and then waits in silence until Svetlana asks how she’s feeling.
“Tired. I want to go and sleep, but I can’t be rude. May I be excused, Ilya?” She looks at him with a set jaw and wide eyes, and Ilya remembers too-well how strict his brother had been about ladies manners.
He gives her a steady smile and says, “Of course.” After she leaves for her room, Svetlana leans over and kisses his cheek, knowing and loving.
—
Svetlana leaves early the next morning. Ilya barely has time to dress before her Uber arrives at nine sharp, and he hangs back with Lena as they watch Shane carry her bags to the car. It’s warm out already, but Lena has her arms wrapped around herself in her tank top and sleep shorts.
“You slept okay? The jet lag isn’t too bad?” Ilya asks, elbowing her lightly. The girl nods and gives him a short smile that he thinks is meant to be reassuring. They stand side by side on the front step, when Anya comes running out the door to go circle Shane’s ankles and plant her front paws on Svetlana’s thighs while they try to hug goodbye. “I already gave you kisses, sweet girl!” He hears her tinkling laugh reverberating through the motor court.
A look down tells Ilya that Lena isn’t thrilled about Svetlana leaving. He reaches into his own head to find the memories of being dropped in the middle of a new country, himself only a few years older than his niece is now. Dead mother, sick father, the dark sap of half-formed depression in his brain, with too much money and nobody around who spoke his language. Lena, at least, won’t struggle with translations, and he hopes to God that he can make everything else smooth and easy for this vulnerable, resolute girl.
Shane jogs up to meet them at the door. “Is there anything you want to do today?” He tilts his head towards them both. Ilya shrugs.
Lena stares down the road, where Svetlana’s car disappears behind the bend. “I think I just want to rest,” she doesn’t look at either of them, but Shane and Ilya look at each other.
“Sure, Lena,” Ilya watches his husband place a comforting hand on her shoulder, “whatever you need.”
—
“Are you alright?” Ilya asks softly, coming up behind Shane to wrap his arms tight around him and bury his face in his neck. Shane’s whole body relaxes into the touch, head rolling back to press his temple against Ilya’s. They’re standing in their bedroom. Anya is on the carpet and Shane looks out the window. Ilya nuzzles closer, breathing in the shampoo-and-linen smell of his husband.
“I’m okay,” Shane answers quietly, “I just feel helpless. And lost. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“I know. All we can do is our best, right?” Ilya breathes, echoing what Galina had told him last week. Shane’s skin is warm against his own and he can feel his heartbeat through the pulse point in his neck, pressed tight against Ilya’s cheekbone.
“She’s just so-” He twirls his hands in the air, but it looks funny because of how Ilya’s hold has his biceps pinned to his torso.
“Russian?” Ilya offers.
Shane laughs. “No-”
“Female? Teenaged? Short?”
“She’s so much like you.” He concedes, and Ilya’s heart stops. “I don’t even know her yet and I can see that. It’s almost scary, Ilya, how I saw her for the first time and got hit with the memory of you in that parking lot. So many walls up, you know? Scared but hiding it. Short sentences, just a hint of personality if you really listen. It makes me nervous, like I was when I met you.”
The telltale lump in Ilya’s throat has returned and he feels tears prickling behind his eyelids. He sniffles into Shane’s shoulder, and Shane lets him, one hand raising up to rub circles on Ilya’s arm.
“It’s a lot. I can’t imagine how it must be for you. But we’ll work it out. We always do. Just, I dunno. With therapy, and help from my parents, and the guys. Hayden, if you’ll let him. He’s got two teenagers now.” He’s trying to make Ilya laugh at the potential of asking Hayden Pike for advice on anything, but Ilya can’t muster it up. “Baby?”
“I’m okay,” Ilya replies, muffled by Shane’s shirt and skin, “I love you so, so much, my Shane.” He feels a kiss pressed to his head, then another to the base of his palm when Shane entwines their fingers and squeezes.
“What a month, huh?” He sighs after a moment of comfortable quiet. It’s a rhetorical question, Ilya knows, but he answers anyway. “Ugh, I know. We had so many plans, too.” He pretends to complain and relishes in Shane’s breathy giggle. “I was so close to asking my parents to stay with Lena the week after next so we could still go on our anniversary trip, but I thought that would be rude.”
Ilya lifts his head and kisses his husband’s neck. “Five years, almost, and here you are telling me about the day we met.”
Shane shrugs, and he’s smiling for real. “It was a good day.”
—
“I want a cigarette.” Lena announces, appearing in the doorway to the TV room.
“You smoke?” Ilya asks, even though he can guess the answer.
Lena stares at him. “You don’t?”
“I quit.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
They’re both silent for a beat, the irritated voice of Gordon Ramsey the room’s only sound, until Lena takes one step closer to the couch. Anya lifts her head off of Ilya’s lap for a moment, sniffing the air, until he scratches behind her ears and she settles back down. “I don’t have a cigarette,” Ilya lies, not wanting to open that can of worms when Shane just happens to be out of the house, picking up their lunch. “I have lollipops that helped me quit craving them. And I have weed, but I don’t want you to try that until I know how you’d respond to it.” Lena doesn’t say anything. Ilya tilts his head to look at her over his shoulder and smiles in a way he hopes is friendly.
Lena nods. “Can I go buy some?”
“No.”
“Fine.”
Lena leaves. Ilya wonders if that was a fight.
—
The sun sits at the perfect angle to illuminate the main living area, and the three of them eat sushi on the kitchen barstools and Ilya learns that Lena was raised on that horrifying Russian cartoon about the blonde girl and the bear. He says, “I do not like that show,” and she replies, “well, you are old.”
Shane asks how Lena likes her room. She shrugs. “I like the bed. I told you I slept well, right? And it’s bigger than my room back home was. I would like to paint the walls, though.”
“Oh?” Shane’s lips quirk up. “What color are you thinking?”
“All different colors. One white, one green, one blue, and then one I haven’t decided on yet. Maybe black, or brown. Or pink. And then maybe the ceiling could be black.”
Ilya catches Shane’s imperceptible eye twitch and holds back a laugh. “That sounds great.” He watches him grin tightly, brain clearly working through the logistics of that request, before stuffing another roll into his mouth.
Lena gives the softest of nods and Ilya swears she almost smiles into her tempura bowl. He knocks their legs together under the counter. “We can go shopping tomorrow, yeah? Clothes, decorations, books. You like k-pop, right? My good friend Ruby has this store she loves where they sell little toys and such. I’ll buy you anything you want.”
“Within reason.” Shane adds, in English, and Ilya leans over to Lena and rolls his eyes melodramatically.
“Two days and he’s already the boring one. We’re extremely rich, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Shane throws a napkin at his face.
—
Jane
She literally hates me.
—
Ilya’s eyes dart up from the dishes and lock on the back of Shane’s head. He’s sat on their L-shaped couch with ESPN playing on the television, and Lena is lounging three feet away from him with a lollipop in her mouth, staring at the ceiling. Ilya catches the twitch of his husband’s shoulders and watches him put his phone face down on the coffee table.
—
Jane
she literally does not
She does not know you
she barely knows me either
also her parents just died and she’s Russian
just like you said this morning “Oh God there are two of you!!!”
you remember me as a teenager
Watch your game Shane
it will be ok
—
Shane looks at his Apple Watch, clearly reading Ilya’s texts without picking up his phone again. His head turns slightly, and Ilya knows he’s looking at Lena. When he looks away, Ilya sees Lena’s head turn towards him, linger, and then swivel back to the TV. Ilya looks down at Anya, who is laying by his feet with a plush rabbit in her mouth. Ilya raises his eyebrows at her, as if to say ‘oh, Nyusha, what are we going to do with them?’
—
Ilya wakes up hard. Which, while probably unusual for a thirty-five year old, is not as annoying to him as it used to be. In the past, Ilya had to hurriedly take care of himself in the hotel room shower before his teammate had woken up on a road trip, and he’d hated it almost as much as he’d hated waking up to the women he’d drowned himself in while unwittingly waiting for Shane. Now, he’s able to press himself right against his husband’s body and rut until Shane is stirring and sighing. “Mmf, God. Good morning, baby.”
It’s Ilya’s very favorite thing in the world: to wake up next to his husband of almost five years, to let Shane turn and roll on top of him and then kiss the breath from him, slow and lazy, as Ilya rests his hands on his lower back and presses him down, just a bit, just to encourage the friction. He’s lost in it immediately; that familiar low thrum starting inside his brain and body as Shane hums into his lips, each brush of skin on skin sending warmth that starts on the surface and settles in his bones. The feelings he’s only gotten when he’s with the love of his life, the only person who has a piece of his heart inside. Shane, his Shane, only Shane-
Someone pounds on the door.
“It is late, Ilya!” Lena shouts from the hallway. “We are going to the mall, remember?”
Shane’s eyes fly open and he gasps, not in the soft way he does when they’re usually pressed together but in a sharp, horrified intake of air. Unhelpfully, he sits up straight, and the shift on Ilya’s lap has him gritting his teeth into the pressure against his cock.
“There’s a girl in our house.” His husband says, plainly, staring at the bedroom door, frozen like a deer.
Ilya snorts. “Yes.”
Shane slaps his bicep. “Shut up, asshole. I forgot.”
“And now you remember. So, speaking of asshole-” Ilya makes a loose grabby hand towards his husband’s chest, wanting nothing else but to get his mouth back on his skin. Shane, unfortunately for Ilya’s dick, shuffles backwards and all but rolls off the bed, stumbling towards their en suite, leaving both Ilya and his dick heated and wanting on their shared mattress.
“So, no?” Ilya calls after him, propping himself up in his elbows and looking down at his problem.
Shane’s hand appears in the doorway to the bathroom. It wags a pointer finger at him, then that finger jabs towards the door to the hallway. Ilya’s head lolls back, and he’s frustrated but compliant.
A minute later, disciplined, capable Ilya Hollander-Rozanov has rid himself of an erection by the force of sheer willpower. He makes a mental note to tell Shane of this later, maybe when his niece isn’t on the other side of his bedroom door. Still, he makes a point to keep most of himself hidden behind said door when he opens it. Lena stands on the other side, dark eyes unblinking and expectant. Ilya gives her a tight smile.
“Lena, I know you’re jet lagged, but it’s barely noon. Just give us twenty minutes, okay?”
“Fine. I just wanted to make sure you’re awake. By the way, I figured out how to use the Keurig by myself, and I ate the rest of the open Goldfish bag. Also, Anya is on my bed.”
Ilya blinks. “Okay.”
“There’s food at the mall, right?”
“Definitely.”
“Good. I’ll eat lunch there. Twenty minutes, Ilya.” She nods sharply and turns to leave. Ilya smiles at her back, at the wild brown curls she pushes out of her face as she descends the stairs.
He turns on his heel and goes to join Shane, mid-skincare routine, in the bathroom. “We gotta talk about this, right?”
“Talk about what?” Ilya hums, rummaging through a cabinet to find his curl cream.
His husband meets his gaze in the mirror’s reflection. “Sex now that Lena is here.”
Oh, right.
“I don’t feel comfortable going on as we did now that she lives here,” Shane continues, “and I know that’s really sudden, and it might be a big change, but, well-”
“We can be very loud.” Ilya grins, and Shane rolls his eyes, wiping his face with a cloth to hide his own smile.
“Loud, yes, and messy, and stuff. I just don’t want to freak her out. And I definitely don’t want her actually seeing us doing anything. She’s a kid.”
Ilya thinks about what he had been doing at fifteen-slash-sixteen, and after, but he knows now that his experience was abnormal, so he just nods. “Of course.”
“So, I can brainstorm some, like, guidelines and stuff? For our super-fun new life. But, obviously, we can’t just leave lube everywhere anymore.”
“I picked it all up last week, right? At least from all the guest rooms, and the living room, and the-”
“Right,” Shane pauses, staring at his reflection, thinking through something, “you did. And I collected all the, uh- kink items and put them back in the box, and all that. But we can’t be fucking with the door unlocked anymore.”
“Or in the yard.”
“On the deck.”
“No more screaming, if you can help it.”
“If I can help it?”
“Yes! Do not forget that Hayes called you a siren that one time.”
“Fuck you, Rozanov.”
“Yes, but quieter now, and not on the kitchen counters.”
Shane splashes his face with water and moves on. “We make sure we know where Lena is whenever she’s home. We lock our door when we go to bed, and we clean up after ourselves.”
“Yes.”
“And we should probably revoke the blanket consent.” Shane adds, lips turning downwards. Ilya, enjoying the back-and-forth, almost laughs.
“Good idea, Shane. I don’t think Lena would appreciate knowing what we have done on the TV room couch, or the staircase, or the kitchen floor.” He’s teasing, grasping, and he gets rewarded with a pretty blush across the other man’s cheekbones.
Right, as if the “blanket consent” that occupied their house hadn’t been his own idea when they’d officially moved in together, because Shane Hollander-Rozanov is a fucking freak without even trying.
(“What if you fuck me while I’m asleep, Ilya?”)
(“What if we invite the team over and we both have to cum twice before they arrive, Ilya?”)
(“What if I told you I have a spreadsheet of every surface in every room in the cottage and I want to fuck on all of them before preseason starts?”)
(“What if, when we’re at home, I give you full, one-hundred-percent consent all the time, so you can do whatever you want to me?”)
(Ilya had just blinked at him, and then said, “Jesus Christ, Hollander.”)
“I’m not asking to stop having sex.” Shane clarifies, turning and leaning against the counter as Ilya squeezes toothpaste onto his toothbrush.
“Of course not. If you did, I would be very concerned. ‘Who are you and what have you done with my Shane Hollander?’ The police would ask how I knew you had been replaced, and I would have to tell them, ‘well, he said he didn’t want to have sex with me today.’ My Shane would never say that.” Ilya watches the other man hang his head and laugh softly, fond and too-used to the shit that his husband spills on the daily.
“Right. And we can’t have that, can we?” He takes a step towards Ilya’s half of the counter, slips an arm around his waist, and drops a kiss to his bare shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be less sex, per se. We just have to start being quieter, and more deliberate, I guess. Like when we’re on the road with the team. Like real, actual parents.”
Ilya wrinkles his nose, and Shane huffs another laugh. “I know, I know. That being said, she does sleep downstairs, so…”
Sharp teeth run against Ilya’s collarbone, and Ilya has to shrug his husband away before his dick betrays him again. He watches Shane pout in the mirror and reaches back to slap at his hip.
“We will figure it out. Make a routine that still keeps things fun, yes? I love you and I love your brain. You know this. Now go get dressed. Make sure Lena hasn’t burnt anything.”
Shane beams at him and does just that.
—
Their first adventure as a trio goes smoothly enough. Shane is brisk through the mall even as Ilya and Lena wander, picking up some things for himself and his mom and then walking hand-in-hand with his husband through department stores for the better part of the afternoon. Lena has her first-ever Chipotle bowl, which she heaps with avacado and cheese, watching the workers with wide eyes like a kid in a candy store. Which, Ilya supposes, she is.
They do end up taking her to the candy store, and they buy her a big box of truffles. She likes caramel like Ilya’s mother did, and he tells her as such. She seems pleased to know this, and she even convinces Shane to try a chocolate-covered marshmallow. He tells her that he likes it, but he makes Ilya finish the package.
Each time a cashier rings up a purchase, Ilya spots Lena tapping the conversion rate into her phone and going still when she sees the number. Twice she tries to put items back, to bring down the cost, but Ilya insists, firm and warm, trying so hard to let her know that she is not a burden, or just an expense.
—
On their drive home, Ilya makes the bad decision to check his Twitter timeline. There are the usual things: late birthday messages, NHL updates, something or another about a pop star that Ilya is too old to know of but has heard his rookies mention a few times. And, of course, the Shane Hollander Updates account that he follows, shameless in his obsession with his husband.
The Tweet that makes him pause his scrolling is made by them, posted only half an hour ago, and the vague statement has his heart beating out of his chest.
—
Shane Hollander Updates @hollanderhive
Reminder that we never post pictures of the Hollander-Rozanovs that were clearly taken without their consent. Their privacy has been invaded enough times, and Shane has spoken about the literal PTSD symptoms that he experiences. Like we’ve said many times before, we will never take part in speculation or gossip regarding his personal life. Thank you!. -SHU Admins
—
Ilya breathes deep into his stomach, trying to calm the rush of worry that washes over him immediately. He knows that people recognized them on their outing as they’d received some friendly waves and two requests for photos, but the one thing that Ilya knows Shane hates the most is the unsolicited pictures. The ones taken from a low angle or around a corner, more often than not of the two of them being more affectionate than Shane is usually comfortable with showing publicly. It’s too close to Pike’s leaked Cameo that had outed them, or those paparazzi leaks in Vegas last year, or the time they’d been recorded having sex through a hotel window. Each of these things had been different levels of catastrophic to Shane, and Ilya wants nothing more than to hide him away from these vultures who have nothing better to do with their droll lives.
He takes another breath, pointedly doesn’t look at his husband in the driver’s seat, and types “shane ilya” into the search bar. The results show mostly stats from their playoff stint last month, and somebody had posted the picture she’d taken with them at the mall. He scrolls a bit further, and, well. Fuck.
It’s nothing crazy. Shane and Ilya in Simons. They’re both facing the camera, faces visible. Shane is looking at his phone, brow furrowed, but Ilya has an arm thrown around the shoulders of a girl. A short girl wearing green and white, with a mop of dark hair and her uncle’s distinctive genetics on full display. Lena is pointing at something on a rack, and every feature of her face is clear as day.
The comments are as expected: wildly curious, confused, and speculative. Within the past thirty minutes, it seems that everybody has come to the conclusion that the girl is related to Ilya. Which, Ilya thinks, is not a great feat of detective work.
The girl in question is sitting in the backseat, admiring her freshly-manicured nails and seemingly trying to read the text on the back of her brand new iPhone box. Ilya, again, sees himself in the way her eyes squint to dissect the Latin alphabet. She doesn’t notice his glance at her, too enchanted with her new possessions like the undervalued, underloved child she was raised as. She’s stiff and quiet and probably traumatized but she had seemed so damn happy during their outing. Ilya swallows the lump in his throat, the one full of tears and the overwhelming love that drives his every action.
Yuna had told him, once, how the love a parent has for a child is unlike anything else in the universe. She’d been a few drinks in at their cottage, all but rambling to him about her bond with Shane, how she regrets not approaching him about his sexuality earlier, how stupid she’d felt for not putting him in therapy as a child, and how deliriously happy she got the moment she realized how deeply Ilya knew and loved her son.
Ilya isn’t anybody’s parent, at least not yet. But he knows how his protectiveness lunges towards his loved ones, how it makes him circle Shane especially like a snarling dog, staring down anybody who dares to even breathe around him the wrong way. He feels it too for Svetlana, his team, any one of the children he meets at their summer hockey camps. And now Lena, his favorite part of his Moscow years, who had been such a delicate child, had restamped her place in that part of him the second he saw her, fifteen years old, in the train station parking lot.
Ilya swipes away Twitter and opens his iMessage.
—
SPS (Shane Protection Squad)
somebody posted a photo of us and Lena online
nothing really invasive but her face is out there
And people are speculating
of fucking course
Farah J (agent)
Okay. Thanks for letting me know. Yuna, did you finish the statement we discussed?
Yuna 🧑🧑🧒🧒
Oh honey, I’m sorry.
I did. Let me email it to you both.
I can post it when we get home
i will tell Shane and lena now. thank you both
Yuna 🧑🧑🧒🧒
Anything, Ilya.
Stay safe. Let us know if there is something else we can do to help. ♥️
—
Ilya sighs out loud, because he knows Shane will ask him what’s wrong. On cue, he feels a hand on his knee and turns to smile at the other man. He keeps it calm, loving, standard, so his neurotic yarn ball of a man doesn’t swerve into oncoming traffic.
“Love of my life,” he starts. Shane hums.
“There is absolutely nothing to worry about-”
“Dude.” Shane smacks his thigh, knowing damn well that Ilya could have started that any other way.
“I promise! I was just going to tell you that somebody took a picture of us today,” Shane’s grip on his thigh tightens and he places his hand over his husband’s, “and it is nothing crazy. It’s just us and Lena standing around in Simons. You can see her face, though, which I know isn’t the best with safety.”
He watches Shane’s expression carefully, like he always does. His jaw is tight, eyes set firmly on the road in front of him. “Just a matter of time, right?” He all but spits out the words, and Ilya knows he’s just relaying what his first (terrible) therapist had told him about their other run-ins with the claws of the Internet.
Ilya’s heart melts. “No, lyubimyy. Not normal, and not okay. But also not the worst way for this to come out, I think.”
“I heard my name.” Lena pipes in. Shane’s eyes flick up to meet her dark gaze in the rearview mirror, then down to Ilya, and they have one of their nonverbal conversations that never fail to freak out their teammates.
She’s not a baby.
She’s a minor.
But not a baby. I’m going to tell her.
Fine. You’re the guardian.
“You know how Shane and I are extremely famous?”
Lena scoffs, and she sounds like Shane. Ilya beams.
“Well, not Rose Landry-famous, but very hockey-famous, and definitely Ottawa-famous.”
“Just tell me what happened, Ilya.” She props her cheekbone on the heel of her hand and looks out the window.
Ilya takes a second to pull up the picture, then twists his body the best he can to show it to his niece. She leans in, squinting again as she tries to read the caption. “That’s us.”
“Yes. The cat’s out of the bag, or whatever. Now the people are saying I have a secret child, which is absurd. I never got anybody pregnant, thank God, and that would also mean I was a teen parent. Which, again, is ridiculous. Anyways, Shane’s mother has prepared a statement clarifying everything and we’ll post it when we get home.”
He says it in Russian so both his niece and his husband can understand it, watching Shane’s slow nodding as he absorbs the information. Lena’s nails make tapping sounds against the car’s interior.
“At least I’m pretty.” She says decisively, making Ilya chuckle. It’s just so, so him. Shane thinks so too, clearly, as he digs his fingertips into Ilya’s thigh in his affectionate, grounding way. Ilya squeezes his hand and stuffs his phone into his pocket.
—
This past May, members of Ilya Hollander-Rozanov’s biological family passed away in Moscow, Russia. Ilya’s niece, Yelena Rozanova, has now come to live with her uncle in Ottawa.
Due to homophobic laws set in Russia, public image is very important to the safety of Miss Rozanova. We expect full respect and privacy for the Rozanov family at this time. Any distasteful press or behaviour concerning Ilya, Lena, or Shane will be met with legal action.
-The Hollander-Rozanov Family -
—
The statement gets posted to Ilya’s Instagram and he captions it: “grief counseling resources are available at the irina foundation. info linked in my bio and tagged in this post.” Shane reposts it to his story and comments three heart emojis.
They eat dinner and then Lena says she wants to be alone, so she gathers her immense amount of shopping bags in her arms and nearly prances down the hallway.
“I really don’t want to paint every wall a different color.” Shane says as soon as they hear her bedroom door close. Ilya tosses his head back and laughs. “Don’t worry, moya кисть.” He waits for Shane to translate in his wrinkly, beautiful brain.
Shane squints at him, then shrugs. “Beats me, baby.”
“My paintbrush.” Ilya concedes, leaning in to press his lips against Shane’s pulse. “Now, do you want to revisit what was interrupted this morning? I’ll do my best to keep you quiet.” Shane practically whines.
—
They spend most of the fourth day on the phone with the Internet provider, trying to add Lena’s new information to their plan. They end up having to change their plan entirely, which Yuna later tells them was a marketing ploy. Shane argues that he knew that, but they had already been on the phone for two hours and he was getting frustrated. Ilya doesn’t care either way. It rains all morning and halfway through the afternoon, so he spends his time adding a new setting to their TV so that it’s pre-programmed to be in Russian when Lena picks her profile out on the starting screen, and then he signs her in to all of their streaming services. (“I haven’t had Netflix or Disney for years, Ilya. I feel like that happy little orphan girl with the red hair who sings and gets adopted by the rich man, except you are not that old, and you are not bald.”)
Lena lies on her stomach on the couch until ten at night, watching the first season of Gossip Girl dubbed in Russian. Shane brings her soda and bread and soup, and Ilya sees her smile and thank him, and his heart nearly bursts out of his chest. When bringing Ilya his own bowl, Shane mouths ‘she smiled at me!’ And Ilya just kisses him.
—
Ilya can’t sleep. He tries his usual can’t-sleep activities, like getting water from the fridge and counting backwards from one hundred in two languages, but his brain is loud tonight and his skin feels loose, somehow.
He finds himself on the back patio with his monthly cigarette.
It’s way past midnight and Shane has been sound asleep for an hour, not even stirring when Ilya had gently removed himself from their bed. He’d walked as lightly as he could as a two-hundred pound man down the stairs and paced the lower level. He’d downed that glass of water and touched every cabinet handle in their kitchen, and then walked the perimeter of the living space. Then, when nothing had changed, he’d located the half-empty cigarette carton and taken himself outside.
Ilya sits on the step down from the deck to the yard, bare feet in the rain-damp grass and eyes unfocused as he stares at the expanse of the property, at the thick trees beyond the back fence. There are bird noises. A woodpecker. An owl. He hears a car drive by, far away on the other side of the house.
He blows smoke into the empty air and watches it curl.
“You said you quit.”
The voice comes from behind him, where the glass doors separate the kitchen from the deck. Ilya looks back over his shoulder, lips quirking up as he takes in his niece’s messy curls and Canadian-flag pajama pants. A welcome gift from Yuna.
“I did. I have one a month. Sometimes I skip. I am very brave.”
“Day eto mne,” Lena demands, holding out a hand as she walks up and sits down on the step, a few feet to Ilya’s right.
“Yelena,” he says sing-songingly, smiling, “smoking is very bad for you.”
“Zamolchi,” she raises her eyebrows and makes a gimme motion. Ilya sighs loudly and hands it over.
“You won’t be allowed to keep that habit for long here. I’ll get you patches and gum, if you need.”
“I thought you are not my parent?” Lena retorts, flashing him a smile as she brings the cigarette to her lips. Ilya can’t stop himself from smiling back. In the strange lighting, with the smoke rising, he can see why everybody says that the two of them look so alike.
“No, but you live with two athletes now. We can be very strict about our health.”
“Oh,” the girl rolls her eyes, “is that why you had leftover McDonald’s for lunch today?”
Ilya throws his head back and groans. She giggles and hands the cigarette back to him.
“It’s summertime! I can eat what I want, so long as I am running every morning. That’s the agreement between me and the team nutritionist.”
“Your man eats light. All salads and fishes.” Lena says offhandedly. Ilya’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t puff this time, just passes her the tube.
She doesn’t know how deep that goes, he thinks. How many teary breakdowns and borderline-screaming matches had to happen before Shane started allowing himself to listen to his therapist, and his parents, and his husband. She is just making conversation.
Ilya does the same. “Shane is nice, yes?”
“Yes,” Lena nods, and takes a drag of smoke, “but he is scared of me.”
Ilya smiles despite himself, a flash of that 2008 parking lot glimmering behind his eyelids. Shane had been so cute, clearly intimidated, and so awkward. Ilya hadn’t given him much, to be fair, and the way Shane had kept his hands stuffed in his pockets had clearly communicated his anxiety. Annoyingly intriguing. Irritatingly endearing.
God, they had been so young.
“We’ve known each other longer than you’ve been alive, you know.”
He can’t see Lena’s reaction but notes how she stills next to him.
“That’s a long time.”
“Yes.”
She says nothing. A faint birdcall echoes across the lawn.
“You don’t have questions about that?”
“No. Is not my business.”
“Okay.”
She hands him back the cigarette. He looks at it burning down.
“I want you to be happy here, Lenochka. More than anything else. You do not need to be my friend, or ever see me as a parent. I just want you to be safe and healthy until you are eighteen. After that, you are free to live where you like, do what you like.”
“Okay,” The girl says, and then it’s quiet again.
“Too much English?” Ilya offers.
“A little.”
“I remember.” And he does; the almost-tangible way that he’d internally translated every word in real time. He’d felt so slow and stupid every day of those first few years. “Is my accent different?” Ilya asks. Lena kisses her teeth and waves her hand out in front of her.
“Is lighter. It sounds like you have been away for long time. Your Russian is good, though.”
“I’d sure fucking hope so!” Ilya scoffs, feigning offense but smiling wide, like he does when Shane calls him a bitch.
“You are Canadian now, no?” She scrunches her nose at him, the words lilting as she teases.
“No, you’re right. I can thank Sveta for that. She won’t let me lose a letter of it.”
“Good,” the girl says, “you will remember the motherland. Our beautiful country. Home of the brave men and the beautiful women and the strongest president.”
Ilya meets his niece’s side-eye and bites his tongue, the both of them holding in a laugh that neither wants to start on. It’s something Slavic in them, Ilya thinks, to bury that outburst of emotion, even when it’s just the two of them and the Ottawa birds in their backyard.
The want to laugh passes and, instead, Ilya sighs loudly, dramatically. “You are right, though. I am boring Canadian by law. Gone is Ilya Grigoryevich of bright orange Bugatti and twenty vodka shots. Here is Ilya Hollander, who buys only dog toys and takes in this wild little girl to his house and lets her paint her walls all different colors.”
“I’m not little,” Lena argues, reaching for the cigarette. Ilya pulls it away, snickering, before he takes a long drag himself, just out of her reach. The teenager scoffs.
“You are younger than my relationship, Yelena. I just said this two minutes ago.”
“Ugh,” she says.
“Ugh,” Ilya mocks. He takes another puff before handing her back the offending little tube. She breathes it in with ease, and Ilya wonders with some concern how early she started this habit.
“I do remember you well.” Lena smiles, just a bit. “We played Just Dance a lot.”
“Oh, Christ, so much Just Dance,” Ilya laughs for real, tilting his head towards his niece.
Lena points at him as she taps ash off the cigarette. “Rasputin, you loved, I remember.”
Ilya beams, memories of little girl laughter and tired muscles flashing through his head. “That’s my goal song, you know.”
“Nyet!” Lena says, and her smile is huge and bright.
“Da,” he shrugs one shoulder, “I’m so good, they give me my own goal song. Ra-ra-Rozanov. You will have to come and watch us soon, Shane and I. We’re the best in the whole league.”
“You are,” Lena says, “Sveta has told me so, since you stopped coming to visit-”
She keeps talking, saying something about Russian sports media, but Ilya doesn’t hear it. He swallows hard. She didn’t mean it like that, he knows. He knows. But the words, said so casually and bluntly, feel like a slap across the face.
Ilya waits for her to pause before he looks at her again, meeting her honeyed gaze with what he hopes is apology, or guilt, or regret. “Lenushka,” his voice is thick around the diminutive, “I don’t want you to think I abandoned you, when I stopped going home for the summers. I knew what Andrei was like. I could have done more than leave you some cash. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to help you.”
Lena stares at him. Ilya notices how her eyelids flutter, just for a second, before she turns away again. “Not your fault. You are not my parent. You did not know how he treated me.”
“I could’ve guessed.”
“Ilya,” Lena sighs, “is fine. I am big girl, yes? You had your life, I had mine. I know this.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you for the money. Is a lot of money. I am excited to spend it.”
Ilya barks a laugh at the shift. God, she does sound like him, fifteen years back. “You still have years before then. Shane will teach you about stocks and investing, I’m sure.”
“Ugh,” Lena side-eyes him, and Ilya grins, “fuck that. I want a Birkin bag.”
“I am serious-”
“Me too! I want a pink one, with the gold, and I want to take it out to mall with Rose Landry.”
He knows she’s deflecting, or rather skating over the deeper level of his conversation. He knows because he does it too. Less so now, but every damn day when he was younger. Shane has called him out on it more than a dozen times over their sixteen years of – well – contact.
He tries to rein it back in. “You were always the best part of summer, Lenochka. Your dedushka was sick, Sveta was always busy, and your father was so-” Ilya cuts himself off. Lena finishes the sentence for him.
“Mean. Angry. Cruel.” She exhales loudly. “I don’t even know if he loved me.”
She says it so resolutely. Had Ilya been another person, he would have grabbed his niece by the shoulders and shaken that belief out of her brain. But he’s not, he’s him, and he knows too well what Andrei’s love had felt like.
“Me neither, Lena. Not even when I was a child.”
“Yes, me too. My mother loved me, but she was very bad at it.”
“My mother loved me,” Ilya sighs, “and she would have loved you enough to fuck over your father before his drugs did and run away to Estonia with us both.”
Fuck. That felt way too far. That was a Shane comment, or a Galina one.
After a beat, Lena snorts, bites both her lips into her mouth, and starts shaking with barely-contained laughter.
Ilya laughs this time, unrestrained and free and loud, and Lena follows suit, this instance of their Russian restraint crumbling under a dark joke. His niece’s light, hiccuping laughter is the best thing Ilya has heard in weeks.
“Oh, you cannot say those things!” The girl sighs as her laughter subsides. “It makes me think of other worlds, Ilya, which is something we cannot do. This is our world. Our reality. Any other is a dream. My parents are dead.” She swallows, and shrugs a shoulder.
Ilya’s heart lurches towards her, but he keeps it light this time. “Mine are too.”
Lena tips her head towards him. “And now I live with my – what is word, uh – sodomite uncle in Ottawa.”
“Yelena Andreevna!” He yells, slapping a hand to his chest. “Who taught you that word?”
She gives him a sly, toothy grin. “Bible study and Russian tabloid.”
That makes sense, actually.
Ilya rolls his eyes. “Do not say that around Shane. He will have a heart attack.”
“I am nice Russian girl, Ilya. I know this.”
She hands him back the cigarette butt and they don’t say anything for a few minutes. They don’t look at each other, or share a laugh, or anything. Ilya inhales so that every crevice of his lungs is filled with the warm night air and counts his heartbeats. He watches the smoke from the cigarette stub swirl and then dissipate. He hears more birdcalls and realizes that he can name some of them. He tries to look at the stars, but the outdoor lights make his eyes hurt. He listens to the click of Lena’s manicured nails as she tip-taps them on the concrete.
After a bit, Lena stands up. “I am going to bed.”
“Okay.”
“I will see you in morning.”
“Okay,” he looks back over his shoulder, watching this young, odd, smart girl he’s known for so long and so little as she goes to open the sliding door.
“Goodnight, Lenochka.”
“Goodnight, Ilyusha.”
—
Ilya slips back into bed after locking every door to the house and mouthwashing all the nicotine from his taste buds. Shane, the neurotic freak, is shaken awake just by the dipping of the mattress. He turns over and hums in acknowledgement, slitting open his eyes and reaching up to take Ilya into his arms. He’s warm and soft, and Ilya loves him so dearly. “All good?” He whispers, and the sleep-slurred syllables of the words make Ilya’s heart turn to mush.
“All good. She will be okay. I know it.”
The way Shane smiles when he’s half-asleep is one of Ilya’s very favorite things. “We’re all gonna be okay. Yeah?”
Ilya kisses his husband’s cheek and lets himself get wrapped up in both his comforter and his man.
“Yes, Shane. We will all be okay.”