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There are many benefits to being one of the best hockey players in the world in a hockey-obsessed city. Chief among them, in Shane’s opinion (disregarding all the ones related to hockey, of course) was the fact that nobody ever made him sit in a doctor’s waiting room. He was too high-profile not to cause a commotion, even when he tried to go incognito, and medical admin staff everywhere agreed that commotions in waiting rooms were not conducive to their mission of doing their fucking jobs, and Shane had enough experience with medical admin staff to know not to get in their way.
So he was always polite, always called ahead, and in return reaped the benefits—namely, being let in by a side door where possible and ushered into an exam room immediately, even if he still ended up having to wait to see an actual practitioner. This particular exam room was almost as familiar to him as the physio rooms at the Voyageurs’ facilities. The walls were painted a soothing pale green which did not match the clinical grey of the plastic chairs and cold overhead lights, and Shane had always hated all the overly cheerful posters and brochures about fertility support, but he’d been coming here for almost ten years and there was something comforting in the vague but unchanging discomfort.
Dr. Bourdieu knocked but did not wait before coming in. She patted Shane’s shoulder in greeting as she walked around her desk, which he disliked, and did not waste time with small talk, which he appreciated. “Your next appointment isn’t for another couple of weeks,” she said, consulting her tablet. “What can we do for you today?”
He’d made a list. It was just a note on his phone but he’d been adding to it for a couple of weeks now, ever since he’d noticed that something was off. He was a professional athlete. Paying attention to his body and making it do what he wanted was his job, and he took his job very seriously.
“I think something’s off with my suppressants,” he said, pulling up the list. The fatigue, the random dizzy spells, the week-long depressive episode leading up to his carefully scheduled heat that had kind of ruined the precious window of time he and Ilya had spent at the cottage after the inaugural Game Changers Camp in Montréal. “I need to get this sorted out before the season really gets going.”
“It’s totally normal for your body to change over time,” Dr. Bourdieu said calmly, like a high school educational video. It kind of pissed him off. “This doesn’t really sound like a suppressant issue, though, so let me see what we have you on right now.”
It was the same one he’d been on since he presented at seventeen, but he didn’t say that. Doctors, in his experience, did not like being told what they should already know.
“You’ve been on the same compound since you presented”—Shane gritted his teeth—“and your labs have been consistent throughout, which confirms my suspicion that it’s not your suppressants. To be honest, it sounds like your body is just adjusting to the lower-dose contraceptive we’ve been giving you—”
“What?” He’d been on the same contraceptive for ten years, too. Injection, every twelve weeks, like clockwork, because he wasn‘t an idiot. He’d done his research about it, spent six hours assembling a spreadsheet with all the pros and cons and side effects and logistical issues of an implant versus a pill versus injections. “I didn’t request a lower dose.”
“Oh,” she said, lightly, “your chart says the order came from Dr. Winkler. He’s head of medical with your team, isn’t he?”
Dark spots danced at the edge of his vision. “I am not required to disclose my designation to my team,” he said, because he wasn’t, there were laws about it: real actual laws and agreements with the players’ association and clauses in contracts.
The NHL was his employer and therefore subject to laws about the discrimination on the basis of sex designation, even though everybody knew they found ways to discriminate anyway. Shane had known since the day he was drafted that he could only get away with hiding because he was really fucking good at hockey, and because he kept his fucking head down so nobody had ever looked at him too closely. He followed procedure as required by his contract and the players’ association agreements, which meant he was registered with a reproductive and endocrine care provider and dutifully wrote that provider’s details in the requisite section of his medical forms at the beginning of every season. There were questions the medical staff were entitled to ask and routine answers he was mandated to give, but he abso-fucking-lutely had not informed anybody on the Voyageurs staff that he was omega or, what the fuck, given permission for them to make decisions about his contraceptive methods.
Dr. Bourdieu said, “The hope was that a lower dose would help resolve some concerns about your conditioning and recovery times going into the playoffs last season,” which was bullshit, there hadn’t been any concerns, he kept his body on a tight leash and he would have noticed any dips in his performance—in fact, noticing a dip was what had brought him here today.
“I did not consent to my information being passed on to a third party,” Shane said, which was one of the lines on all the informational posters and in the contracts and league memos. He had it memorised. I do not consent. I am complying with regulations. As per the ADDA, I am entitled to privacy.
“Oh!” Dr. Bourdieu said. “Well, I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding.”
It was not a misunderstanding. If it had been a misunderstanding, Dr. Winkler would have reached out to the provider listed in Shane’s file and been told that they were not permitted to even disclose that a person was a patient registered with their clinic unless and until that person submitted the pertinent forms. If it had been a misunderstanding, Dr. Winkler would have spoken to Shane at one of his bi-weekly check-ins, explained his concerns, and asked all the questions he was legally allowed to ask, to which Shane would have given the answers he was legally required to give, and then he would have made an appointment with Dr. Bourdieu to pass on Dr. Winkler’s concerns and they would have discussed the situation and agreed on next steps and Shane would have gone back to Dr. Winkler and informed him that he was pursuing a solution with his personal healthcare provider and that would have been the end of the matter.
He would never, ever have disclosed to anybody on the Voyageurs’ staff that he was omega. It was bad enough that they knew he was gay; it had been his decision to come out to his team but it had taken less than a year for the rumours to spread into the far corners of the hockey world and it was getting harder to pretend that everything was fine. Disclosure was definitely not on the table.
“Of course, if you’re concerned about the adjustment period, we can talk about alleviating symptoms,” Dr. Bourdieu was saying. “There are a couple of home remedies we can discuss but we’ll check your hormone levels again just to be sure. Did you have breakfast this morning?”
He was not going to have a breakdown right now. He just wasn’t. He refused. He closed his right hand into a fist so his fingernails dug into the flesh of his palm. “We are not discussing anything,” he said. Later, he would be proud of how calm his voice sounded in that moment. “Clearly I can no longer trust you or this clinic with my endocrine or reproductive health. You will be hearing from my lawyers.”
He had his breakdown in the car, like an adult. Then he drove home, ran a 10k on the treadmill, and called Ilya.
“Shane, this is bad.” Ilya was in, fuck, Philadelphia, preparing to play the Pamphlets tomorrow afternoon for a pre-season game.
“Yeah, I know.” He was dripping sweat onto his gym floor and he was going to be really annoyed about that later.
“That was not misunderstanding,” Ilya said.
Shane blew out a breath. “Yeah, I know.”
Ilya said nothing in a way that meant he had a lot to say and was saving it. “Let’s talk about this when I get back, yes? Lawyers can do their thing and we come up with a plan.”
“What even is there to plan? There’s nothing I can do. Coach probably already knows. I can’t even file a complaint without disclosing—”
“Sweetheart,” Ilya said, “stop. Think first, panic later.”
“Bit late for that,” Shane muttered, which got him a huff of a laugh.
“Talk to your lawyers. They know how to handle things. There has to be—precedent, yes?”
“That’s a big word.”
“I am big man, I know big words.”
Of course, there had to be precedent. At the very least, designation was covered by PHIPA and there were probably additional regulations laid out in the Against Designation Discrimination Act. But you couldn’t just make people not know something they already knew.
“I can hear you thinking, мой адвокатник. Is not your job. There are people you pay good money to do that for you.”
Unfortunately, the people Shane paid good money to think about these things agreed with his assessment: the cat was out of the bag and there was not really anything they could do to stuff it back in.
“We should definitely file a complaint against the clinic,” his lawyer, Gina, said. “This breach of trust is completely unacceptable and illegal and actively endangers patients. There will be consequences.”
Apparently, this at least could be done anonymously. That was a small comfort, but it was something. Gina told him to let her do her job and promised to keep him in the loop.
“We won’t do anything without consulting you,” she assured him. “I know this must be terrifying, but we’re going to do everything we can to protect you.”
It was nice, Shane supposed, that he would probably win the discrimination lawsuit against the Voyageurs if they did something obvious like reducing his ice time without an actual injury to justify it. He’d still never get to play to his full potential again, because then everyone would know, and you didn’t build a team around an omega player even if he’d won three Stanley Cups.
#
When Shane let himself into Ilya’s house, his boyfriend pulled him into a tight hug and didn’t let go until Shane had stopped shaking with either anxiety or rage. He wasn’t really sure.
“Come sit down,” Ilya murmured into Shane’s hair. “Time for the battle plan.”
The first step, Ilya said sensibly, was to find a new repro-endocrinologist. “You got them to give you your chart, yes? With all the notes?”
“Yeah, but I haven’t looked at it.” He’d been too angry. Part of him still couldn’t believe that this was actually happening.
Ilya nodded and pulled out his phone. “You need somebody to look at it. Fix what is wrong. Because something is wrong.”
“What’s wrong is that my team doctor decided to fuck around with my medication for no fucking reason,” Shane said through gritted teeth. “Because of fake fucking concerns about my performance.”
“Yes, that.” He held out his hand, palm up, and waited for Shane to link their fingers together. “You and I know you are best player on that team. You played like a god last season, so deadly and beautiful I could cry.”
“So.”
“So they are looking for excuse.”
Shane deflated and sank back against Ilya’s side, burying his face in the crook of Ilya’s neck. He didn’t smell like much, which Shane had always liked. He liked that Ilya just smelled like a person, like skin and soap and sweat and maybe aftershave. He knew he was supposed to want an alpha to claim him and look after him, but Ilya had never demanded any part of him and he was the most caring person Shane had ever met.
“I can’t take it back,” he said. His voice sounded small and defeated even to his own ears and he hated it. “I knew it was a risk to come out to the team but I thought it would be safer to do it on my own terms. Clearly it just made them suspicious.”
Ilya made a noise that was neither agreement nor disapproval. “Is not your fault. It would have been bad if they found out you are gay because you cannot keep your hands off me.” He winced when Shane bit him, sinking his teeth into the side of his neck just above his inert scent glands.
“Don’t make me laugh about this,” Shane said. “It’s really not funny. They’ll probably try to take the C from me.”
“If they are idiots, maybe. They have not sent Hunter to big rink in the sky yet and he is much more annoying about his boyfriend than you are.”
The fact that Hunter was annoying about his boyfriend was probably the reason that he hadn’t been quietly pushed out, Shane thought, but there was no point in saying it aloud. It had been a shock, of course, when the captain of the Admirals not only hounded his team to a Cup win but also decided to kiss his boyfriend right there on national TV, but it wasn’t like Shane could do the same. Especially not now. Designation might be a protected status, but that wouldn’t stop it from spreading if the media got a hold of the information and he had absolutely zero doubt that it would get out, if he made himself too much of a distraction.
They would be asking different questions than they asked Hunter, and they were asking Hunter some really stupid and offensive questions. Hunter wasn’t threatening to spontaneously go into heat on the ice and cause a minor riot (and that wasn’t how it worked, anyway), he wasn’t biologically programmed to shack up and contribute to the birth rate, he hadn’t had to prove that he was strong enough, aggressive enough, man enough to play contact sports his entire life already.
Besides, it would put Ilya in danger. Russia had tightened their morality laws a couple of years ago and if the gay thing wasn’t bad enough, a beta man taking an alpha’s place and shacking up with an omega of any gender could get you very publicly disappeared for re-education. Shane could never forgive himself.
Ilya’s arm tightened around him. “Can I help?”
Exhaling against Ilya’s skin, Shane nodded.
It turned out that Ilya had already booked him an appointment at a private practice on the other side of town, as far away from both the rink and Shane’s childhood neighbourhood as possible without leaving city limits. The building was nondescript and also housed, among others, an ophthalmologist, a dentist, and a podiatrist. Shane sat in the car for ten minutes wrestling with himself, trying to come up with a reason not to go in that would hold up to an argument, and hating himself for it. He never had any issue talking to the physios about a twitchy muscle and he didn’t even mind the dentist. Sure, he didn’t like to be told to rest when he knew he could push through and keep playing but at the end of the day, he took care of his body because he needed it to play hockey. He ate clean, he exercised, he rested when necessary. His body usually got with the program.
Except about this. Which was the whole problem.
Ilya had offered to come in with him. Shane had shut that down immediately and then felt bad about it, but he hadn’t actually had to disclose to anyone since he’d resentfully informed Ilya of the fact, sometime in 2011, because it had become rapidly relevant. Ilya, at least, hadn’t been weird about it.
Right now, he could probably handle the uncomfortable, invasive ordeal of a doctor’s appointment. He did not think he could handle doing that while also worrying about his relationship hitting Twitter because somebody coming in for a root canal spotted Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov walking into a repro-endo clinic together.
His phone chimed. Get off your ass and go inside, Ilya texted. Shane typed back a fuck off, dropped his forehead against the steering wheel, counted to thirty, and got out of the car.
He kept his hood up all the way into the clinic and was, predictably, shown into an exam room as soon as he gave his name and health card to the spiky-haired young man at the reception desk.
“Since this is your first appointment, we have a ton of paperwork for you to fill out,” he said, sounding sincerely apologetic as he handed over a clipboard whose clip struggled to contain a stack of crusty photocopies. “Do you have any documentation from your previous provider?”
Shane handed over the USB stick with his chart, which he had bullied out of Dr. Bourdieu’s administrative assistant, and tried to achieve a flow state of ticking yes or no and circling all applicable answers. There were no posters on these walls, he noted; the wallpaper was a geometric pattern in earthy tones and the only decorations were a handful of random trinkets on the desk, the kind of clutter one would presumably find on the desk of anyone who had the kind of job where you sat at a desk for most of the day. The back corner of the room was separated by a light grey curtain that did not match the blinds on the window. It was, really, just a slightly nicer doctor’s office.
Dr. Zhao entered the room fifteen minutes later with a knock and a serious expression. She wore slacks and a patterned button-up under her white coat and introduced herself while rubbing hand sanitiser into her hands.
“Are you comfortable seeing a female provider?” she asked, sitting across from him and accepting his clipboard to start flicking through. “My colleague isn’t in today but we can make a note in your chart that you’d prefer to see him from now on, if you want.”
“Um. No, that’s okay, thank you.”
“Teddy says you’ve brought in your chart from your previous provider but I haven’t had time to look through it yet, may I ask what prompted you to switch? You don’t live in Ottawa.”
So Shane had to explain what had happened without throwing anything at the wall, and he was humiliated by how proud he was of himself when he achieved this. His heart was racing, though, and his mouth was bitter and hot with anger that didn’t have anywhere to go.
“That,” Dr. Zhao said, leaning back in her chair, “should never have happened to you, and I would be more than happy to help you lodge a complaint. I am so, so sorry. I’m sure it was not easy for you to come here today and I just want you to know that I feel very honoured that you are placing so much trust in me.”
Shane shrugged, uncomfortable. “Yeah, well. I don’t have much choice in the matter.”
“I can connect you with some advocacy groups for when you do need support. The ADDA is invaluable but it leaves a lot to be desired.” She looked genuinely outraged on his behalf, which Shane had not expected.
“I really just want to get my medication fixed,” he said. It was almost true: what he really wanted was to pretend that none of this had happened and go on with his life. It wasn’t perfect, but he couldn’t see an alternative that wasn’t worse.
With a nod, Dr. Zhao returned to Shane’s clipboard and made a few notes on her computer. “That’s okay. You’re in charge in here. Just so I’m caught up, can you walk me through what your usual routine is and what made you realise something was off?”
The main takeaway from the next ten minutes, it turned out, was that Shane had been suffering unnecessarily during his (carefully scheduled, carefully managed) twice-yearly heat. For years, his main coping mechanisms had been prescription sedatives and a selection of entirely insufficient silicone simulacra, which had fucking sucked but got him through alright. Now, of course, he had Ilya, who was better than drugging himself unconscious but also just a beta man with above-average appetite and stamina.
“I am not interested in finding an alpha heat companion,” Shane said sharply. “I know that’s the most effective—”
Dr. Zhao snorted. “Is that what your provider was telling you? Sure, physiologically, that’s the most straightforward, but it’s a bit like killing a mosquito with a baseball bat. Recent studies have shown very definitively that having someone you trust spend your heat with you is actually the most important factor in alleviating symptoms and preventing both emotional discomfort and designation-based violence.”
“Oh.” That was exactly why Shane had always fended off the suggestion and tossed the leaflets for match-up services straight in the nearest bin. He couldn’t imagine letting a stranger—who could permanently mark his body, who was just as little in control of themselves as Shane was in that situation, who could tell people—anywhere close to his bed or his body when he went into heat.
“You said you are in a committed relationship? Awesome. Come in a month or so before your next cycle and we can go over some options. Synthetic pheromones might sound unappealing but your body doesn’t know the difference and they can offer a lot of relief, and we should definitely try you on oxytocin. When was your last heat?”
Shane told her the dates. Dr. Zhao raised an eyebrow.
“Here’s what I would like to do,” she said, typing away rapidly for a moment. “We definitely want to do a workup to use as a baseline, and you obviously know your body very well so if you say something is off, I am going to make sure we get that taken care of ASAP. Ideally, we do some tests and send some samples to the lab today, I look through your chart, and you come back in tomorrow to discuss next steps. Is that doable for you?”
There was an optional morning skate tomorrow, which usually really meant mandatory. “I’m not sure.”
“Okay.” Folding her hands on top of the desk, Dr. Zhao gave him a look that he did not like at all. “Here’s the thing. Do you prefer ‘Mr. Hollander?’”
“Shane is fine.”
“Here’s the thing, Shane. With the way the dates line up and how your body has been reacting since your dosage was changed, one of the things you definitely need to do is a pregnancy test.”
Shane’s brain shut down.
“Of course, you can do that by yourself if you’d prefer that, and I’d be happy to refer you to a colleague in Montréal. Like I said, you’re in charge. But I’d say it’s a fifty-fifty chance and I do not think you want to take that bet.”
He couldn’t. He couldn’t take that bet. He was going to throw up. He was going to die. He was going to find a bridge and jump off.
“I can come back tomorrow,” he said.
“Okay. I’m glad.” She did not reach out across her desk to touch him. “Let’s get started so you can get out of here. I know that’s quite the bomb I just dropped on you.”
It turned out that the mismatched curtain in the corner concealed all the oddly-shaped medical equipment that you usually found in doctor’s offices, and this, at least, was familiar enough that it allowed Shane to dissociate a bit. He could follow instructions: height, weight, blood pressure, heart rate. Dr. Zhao’s hands were cool on his skin as she checked his scent glands and asked about his scent blockers.
“I am going to send Vi in to draw your blood,” she said finally, “and set up an appointment for tomorrow just before our lunch break so the office will be empty when you leave.” She paused. “Just this once, I am going to be a little bit unprofessional. Of course I know who you are and what you do. I understand what’s at stake here. And I promise you that I will help you achieve whatever outcome it is you want out of this, alright? One way or the other.”
#
This time, he did ask Ilya to come with him. Shane had asked Hayden to make up an excuse for him because Coach Theriault would not push Hayden for answers the way he would push Shane, and Ilya faked a tweaked knee to get out of practice an hour early. It felt awful, to lie and to make other people lie for him (he hadn’t told Hayden why he needed to skip morning skate, when he had never skipped before), but the knowledge of what he might find out today had crawled like a thousand centipedes under Shane’s skin and there wasn’t a lot of room in his brain for anything else right now.
Ilya had tried to help. He was just as freaked out as Shane was, though, so he’d been at a disadvantage and they had managed to work themselves into a proper spiral before they’d realised that there wasn’t exactly anything they could do until they knew for sure. No point in getting worked up over it. Of course, that hadn’t stopped either of them freaking out, but at least the panic had settled into a kind of very loud, high-pitched background noise they could pretend to ignore while they made dinner and went through the entirety of Ilya’s wardrobe one last time to make sure nothing of Shane’s had survived the previous round of post-summer disentangling. It had been weirdly soothing and horribly sad at the same time.
In the car, in the same spot Shane had sat in yesterday, Ilya reached over the middle console to squeeze Shane’s hand, hard enough to hurt. “Will be fine,” he said. He was clenching his jaw and it made his accent stronger. Shane wanted to kiss him so badly it hurt and also thought that he would burst into flames if he did.
If Dr. Zhao recognised Ilya—and of course she recognised Ilya, his face was on several large billboards across Ottawa—she hid it very well. “I won’t beat around the bush,” she said once they were all settled in their respective chairs. “The good news is that there is nothing in your bloodwork that I’m worried about and I’m happy for you to stay on your current regimen for the foreseeable future. However, the pregnancy test was positive.”
Next to him, Ilya cursed. Shane felt his mind leave his body and yanked himself ruthlessly back.
“I am going to explain your options to you,” Dr. Zhao continued. She was very calm. That was reassuring, probably. “And then I will leave you to discuss what you want to do. You don’t have to make any decisions today, but we are on a deadline and I know that your schedules only make this more complicated.”
Shane did not process a word of what she said next and was about to freak out about that, but it turned out there were pamphlets. That was useful. He liked to have information all laid out like that.
As soon as the door closed behind her, Ilya turned to grab Shane by the shoulders and haul him into an awkward, uncomfortable hug. “I am so fucking sorry.”
From very far away, Shane heard himself say, “It’s not your fault.”
“Is not not my fault. Fuck.”
“It’s fine. It’ll be fine, right? We’ll figure it out?”
“Shane. Sweetheart. We are not having this baby.”
For the first time, Shane let himself imagine it. He knew they’d both thought about having kids; they’d talked about it a little, in the abstract, five or ten years from now the same way they talked about retirement and coming out and maybe marriage. It was easy to imagine that future probably because it was abstract and far away and they had more urgent problems to solve and dreams to chase. Ilya still needed Canadian citizenship. He was starting to be cautiously hopeful about the Centaurs’ potential. Shane still wanted three more cups.
If they had a baby right now, Shane’s career would almost definitely be over. He’d have to go on LTIR immediately, barely a month into the season. There was no way he could do that without the reason becoming public knowledge eventually, even if they came up with a believable lie for the official listings. There was no way the Voyageurs would let him come back and no other team would take him after they found out, and they would find out, because people talked.
The mere thought of it made his bones itch.
He forced his lungs to take three deep breaths. The room smelled like hand sanitiser and single-use gloves, but Ilya’s shoulder smelled like a hoodie on its second day of wear and Ilya’s favourite shower gel. The edge of the chair dug into the backs of Shane’s thighs.
He tried to feel inside himself, to poke around in the far corners of his body to see if he felt the difference. But there wasn’t anything there for him to feel other than what he had written in the list on his phone: fatigue, dizzy spells, low mood. A vague and general unease in his body that he supposed made sense now, if his body had started preparing to grow a whole other person instead of playing a season of hockey, like it was supposed to, without asking for permission.
Nobody had asked his fucking permission.
The fact that this would not have happened, that he’d had everything under control, made him incandescently furious. Almost furious enough to throw away his life and become exactly what he’d always known he didn’t want to be.
“We could,” he said, shaking Ilya off and sitting back in his chair. “Who knows if I’ll be able to later.”
“Сердце моё.”
“They can’t push me out if I quit. Maybe this was the plan all along. Pretty little omega like me doesn’t belong on the ice, I belong at home with half a dozen kids where I’m safe and looked after and can’t be a distraction to real men.”
Ilya’s hand cupped his cheek, gentle at first, then slid down to grip Shane’s chin and force him to make eye contact. “That is fucking bullshit. You are Shane fucking Hollander.”
“And what good is that? Fuck. I shouldn’t have—”
“Shouldn’t have what?” Ilya’s voice was suddenly sharp. “What the fuck could you have possibly done to make this not happen?”
Shane threw up his hands. “I don’t know! I don’t know. I didn’t—I’ve done everything they’ve asked for ten years and it’s all going to shit and this isn’t my fault and I don’t know what to do.”
They both knew that their lives, their bodies weren’t their own. That was the price you paid for playing: you signed the contract and the league owned you. They told you where to be and what to do, what to eat, how to exercise and when to rest and they taped up your sprained wrists and busted shoulders and sent you back out on the ice because that was your job. Shane had never tried to imagine what his life would look like without hockey. There had never been any reason to. He’d been happy to follow the diet plans and the physio routines and conditioning drills because he knew the people who made those plans were just as invested in his ability to perform at peak physical fitness as he was. It had always seemed like a fair exchange.
But the league didn’t like distractions. The league didn’t like change.
He didn’t know how he could go back and pretend nothing had happened.
“What do you want?” he asked, because he needed to know. “I know you want kids. I want you to have kids.”
Ilya exhaled and scrubbed at his eyes. His hair was frizzy and there were shadows under his eyes and he looked both too old and too young in that moment. “I want you,” he said finally. “I want future with you, like we planned. I want you and me and yes, I think I want to have children with you if you want that too. One day. Probably want it sooner than we can have it. And I think that if we do it like this, now, we will never forgive each other.”
Dr. Zhao wrote the prescription without comment. “You’ll want to call in by the end of the week to set up the appointment for your next contraceptive injection. If you need anything at all, call this number. You don’t need to leave a message, I’ll call you back and we can discuss whatever it is in confidence.”
The offer she’d made yesterday, about advocacy groups and support networks, hung in the room but was not repeated. Shane knew he would not take her up on it.
He had to drive back to Montréal that afternoon. Ilya made him call Hayden before he did and ask to stay in the Pikes’ guest bedroom for a couple of days. His best friend knew something was up of course, because Shane had missed a total of maybe five optional skates in his entire Voyageurs tenure. He tried to get an explanation out of him for a full ten minutes, until Ilya took the phone from Shane’s hand and walked off with it and by the time he returned, Hayden apologised for being pushy and told him to stay as long as he needed.
In the driveway, Shane allowed his boyfriend to hold him like he was a fragile, precious thing. Ilya’s big hand cupped the back of his head and Shane could feel his heartbeat against his own body, strong and steady and familiar. “I love you so much,” he murmured into Shane’s hair.
Shane heaved a breath into Ilya’s collarbone. “I love you too.”
“I wish I could be there with you.”
“I know.”
“You will call me.”
“Yes.”
“You have your pills and instructions and phone numbers.”
“I’ll be fine, Ilya.”
Ilya didn’t say anything to that, because there wasn’t anything to say. It wasn’t fine; it wouldn’t be fine. In a few hours, Shane would take the first round of pills in the guest bathroom at Hayden’s house, in between reading Arthur a bedtime story and pretending not to notice the way Hayden watched him like a bomb about to explode. In a few months, Shane would have to call his agent and his lawyers and start thinking about how to get out of Montréal without blowing up his career or ending up on the opposite end of the continent.
Somewhere on the street, a car door slammed and they both jumped. Shane tugged Ilya down to kiss him goodbye. He watched the gate close behind him in the rearview mirror and tried not to let the current pull him under.