Life Changing – 3 – DarkJediQueen

Reading Time:
37 Minutes

Shane watched his phone like it was going to attack him. He had Nika in his arms, feeding her. She was getting sleepy and was nearly done, so he tried to watch her closer to make sure that she wasn’t going to get too much air. She didn’t handle the air well at all, as they found out just hours before, and the way she had been uncomfortable for a while until they got it all out of her had been better.

“Shane,” his mom said as she came up behind him, her hand going to his shoulder. She smiled at him. “Your father and I would like to talk to you and Ilya alone. Sveta’s going to take Nika right now.”

Shane nodded his head. He stood up and handed off the bottle. Nika just closed her eyes.”

“I’ll burp her and make sure that she’s down,” Sveta said. She gave Shane a comforting smile.

“Thanks,” Shane said. He looked at his mom, trying to figure out what they wanted. Her face was impassive, so she wasn’t going to give away any of it. He sighed and nodded before following her to the living room.

Marly was putting things together in the second guest room for Nika’s things; a delivery had been taken by Shane’s parents during the game, and it had been worked on little bits here and there by everyone in the house except for Shane. He wasn’t the best at those things, and he knew it, and he wasn’t even going to try it. Marly was enjoying it, so he had been tasked with the bigger stuff. They had moved the bed to a different area to give the place a lot of space for things. The crib had been put together in the main bedroom.

Shane was glad that they hadn’t bought anything for his place yet because if he were moving, it would make sense to buy things wherever he was traded to. It was going to fucking suck, and he knew it. Farah was trying to get an answer from someone inside of Montreal, but they were being so silent on it and secretive. Shane knew that it was a reality of the job. He had just thought that since he had been doing so fucking good with them, they would never want to trade him. Or get rid of him at all and just not sign him again. He had years left on his contract, and that meant that he would be in whatever new city he was traded to for years. They could trade him again as well if they ended up not liking the whole being with Ilya and having a kid with him. It wasn’t like they asked for it. The love was there, and they were handling it well.

There was so much research he had been doing into the phenomenon of couples getting a baby to fix them. If it had fixed them, Shane hadn’t run away and hurt them both more by denying what he was feeling. He just found it so strange that a baby had fixed them and that it had been all that was needed.

Ilya was sitting on the couch with Shane’s father already sitting down, looking at some paperwork.

“Hey, this is not bad,” David said.

Shane relaxed because his father had never lied to him. Not once at any point had he lied to him about things like this. Shane dropped to the couch beside Ilya and curled into him. It was nice to have someone he could do that with. He had grown up seeing both of his parents doing it, and he had wanted a love like that one day. He had just thought it would be with a woman and not a man. He had also seen the woman helping him with his career while also having one of his own. He hadn’t ever really imagined kids. It showed what he thought he was going to have a marriage about: not kids but a love and a dedication to their jobs. Which, Ilya was dedicated to his job as well, but they both loved Nika with all they had. She was now the center of their worlds.

“We were wanting this to talk about something else, but Farah has been messaging me things as she finds them out. She’s gotten the paperwork with Boston filed, and the first thing that they did was reach out about them not being willing to trade things around for Shane,” Yuna said.

“I figured that they would not. I had been…vague about the upcoming year,” Ilya said.

“Yes, well, Farah understands that. She said that the call you had with her half an hour ago helped her understand things. She hopes that it’s okay that she’s messaging me this stuff.”

“Is fine. I know that we are in a crisis mode right now with figuring things out, and Shane and I are both overwhelmed, despite the help. It’s a lot,” Ilya said. He got an arm behind Shane on the couch and pulled him just a little bit closer before pulling the arm up and draping it over his shoulder, pulling his head like they had done before the whole thing had gotten too intense.

“You weren’t planning on signing with Boston again?” Yuna asked.

“No, I wanted…safety. I wanted something that would get me a team in Canada. Things are different now because there will be a different path to that, and Nika needs more protection than me.”

“You wanted to start the road to Canadian citizenship?” David asked.

“Yes, I did. Is better than an American passport, but I also don’t mind dual wielding at the moment, or whatever it’s called.”

“Dual wielding is right,” David said.

“I was thinking about it, but things got weird yesterday.”

“Yeah, because you changed the rules without telling me you were changing them,” Shane said.

Ilya laughed and dropped a kiss on the top of his head. “Sorry. I know better. Don’t surprise him with changes.”

“No. We never did surprising things like that because it didn’t work out and Shane never had fun. Fully planned trips were the way to go. He could change things while on the trips because what he wanted changed or a ride was broken or something like that, but never just a day of doing whatever we wanted.”

Ilya kissed Shane’s head again, and he said nothing about the whole thing. He didn’t care. He liked how he was, and he felt like he didn’t need to change who he was to make others happy; at least with Ilya he didn’t have to. Ilya met him where he was at, never forcing the eye contact when Shane didn’t want to.

“Before, I had planned on taking leave for two months from work. I can do that. I have the time, and I also figured that if I needed the money, Shane would be more than willing to pay for it, and I thought that between Yuna and me, we could help you two settle into being fathers and learn how to navigate this whole thing while also looking for a nanny who would be able to fill the needs that you would have for Nika. I am not sure how that’s going to change if you are both traded elsewhere.”

Shane looked at his father. He never would have asked for his father to do that. He just would have gone with the best candidate in Montreal and been happy with it. Now, though, he had no idea where to even start to look.

“I’ll pay you no matter what; your salary you would get from work, and just take a leave of absence without pay, which I know would make them happier to give it. I don’t care.”

“Thank you. We can talk about that just between you and me later. Your mother already gets more than enough money from you, but the money isn’t the issue.”

Shane understood that. He paid his mother what she was worth through the brand deals and everything that she did. She got the standard rate, and it was all in a contract. That was what paying his father to be a nanny would be, a contract between them because it wasn’t the money; it was the respect of making sure that his father wasn’t going to get fucked over in his life.

“I’m sure that we can figure out something when it comes to me following along as your nanny to wherever you are traded to, even if it’s in the US.”

“I’m sure that we can figure out something,” Yuna said.

“But I wanted to talk to you both about this before setting any plans in motion.”

“I would not mind the first few months of her life just being us taking care of her,” Ilya said.

“What he said,” Shane said. He sat up but kept himself plastered to Ilya’s side. He didn’t know what he was going to have to deal with next, but knowing that his father was going to be the one who was there for Nika, along with his mom, helped to calm him down. His mother hadn’t worked a real job since Shane’s first big brand deals had started to pay. Before that, she had worked a job that she could do while going around with him to hockey things, all from her computer and on the phone. So, it had been easy to figure things out with him and get things done.

Yuna’s phone vibrated, and she sighed. “It’s Farah, and she needs to talk to Shane. Is now a good time? Do you want us to leave?”

“No, just call her,” Shane said. He didn’t care. They would all be the ones who were going to hear about this as well. He was glad that Nika wasn’t with them right now because he was sure that he was going to be angry as hell about this. He knew that Montreal was full of old people who didn’t see the world was changing and they needed to change with it. It had been a shock to him that they had offered him as much as they had after his ELC had ended. Because it just wasn’t what the people of color on the team earned compared to the white guys.

Yuna laid her phone on the table as it rang through, on speaker.

“Shane?” Farah asked.

“Yeah, I’m here with Ilya and my parents. You are on speaker.”

“You are going to New York, specifically the Admirals. There is a lot of chatter, and they want a second center to match with Hunter because they have realized through his very crappy play this year that they need more than him. That was my take on what the GM said to me from Montreal.”

Shane nodded. He swallowed, and he knew that things were going to be interesting to live in New York.

“When do I need to report there?”

“I am not sure. I’m going to get in touch with them and leave the whole thing because of a baby and shit. I’m sure that they have seen everything. Your locker?”

“Hayden can empty it out and bring me my stuff. I never want to go there again. Or I can have someone else do it. If they are dropping me over this, then I’m going to make sure that they understand that this bridge is burned, and if they ever want me back, they are going to have to get on their knees and beg.” Shane was a little shocked at his words. He knew he was passive when it came to things, but that wasn’t going to serve him in the time to come.

“And about me?” Ilya asked.

“I had a few moments, and from what I know of the cap for Brooklyn, you might be able to get a comparable salary there. They are rivals, and it would mean that the rivalry could still live, but on the ice. I’m sure that the fans who aren’t massive bigots would love that. Seeing you two going head to head all the time and then going home to the same bed. Pictures out and about with Nika. I could sell it. Boston had two other really good centers who are pretty much ready to step up to fill your shoes, but they need a little more depth on defense, and there are two nice defensemen who are looking at free agency at the same time as you. Trading them two for one might just be a good thing.”

“Try it. I want to be where Shane and Nika are and make it easier for us. New York was the second-best option.”

“First?” Shane asked.

“LA. Ottawa after, but I doubted they would want to drop that much money at the moment. We can see about that one in a few years.”

Shane laughed. He felt like his world was spinning out of control. Fucking New York. Being with Hunter on his team. After Hunter had called them, he wasn’t sure what else was going to happen that would make this all something big. He wanted something else to happen to make him and Ilya not the subject of what was to come. He knew it was pretty much impossible, though, because they were going to be news; they had been for the whole of their careers.

“I’ll call you back as soon as I figure out anything about getting the trade details figured out.”

“Thanks,” Shane said.

“New York,” Ilya said.

“Fucking Scott Hunter,” Shane said.

Ilya sighed, and he pulled Shane in to kiss his forehead. He closed his eyes, and he heard his parents getting up to leave them alone. There were too many emotions, and Shane was feeling out of control.

A knock on the wall had Ilya moving to look at who it was.

“Your parents are going to help Cliff with what he’s doing because he needs more arms. Nika is asleep in the crib in your room.”

“Thanks, Sveta. We have gotten word.”

“Oh, I saw the news. It broke just two minutes ago. Montreal made a fucking horrible trade-off for you, Hollander.”

“Shane, please.”

“Okay.”

Shane opened his eyes to see Sveta sitting down on the couch where his parents had been.

“They are going to figure out pretty easily that they have spent too much time building a team around you that they cannot function without you.

Shane’s phone vibrated where it was, and he ignored it, but Ilya reached out to pick it up.

“A week and a half,” Ilya said.

“What?”

“New York wants you to report to practice in a week and a half; that’s longer than Montreal was going to give you.”

Shane took his phone and looked at it. The message from Farah was short and to the point. He would have time to actually do fucking something about finding a place he likes in the city without having to stay in team housing. They had a day to make sure that Ilya was going to get what he wanted before they figured out a place. He didn’t know what he wanted when it came to a place to stay. He hoped that he would have something good, but he also knew that New York meant a lot of money. He would have to get his place in Montreal ready to rent out. Which was fine. He didn’t mind keeping those properties as a way of passive income. The group that he had maintained, the one units he had already rented out, would take on the new place as well. Then he would figure out what he wanted to do with them down the road. He could head back and get help on getting his place boxed up when the season ended. He would need clothes and his food, but that would be easy to get, and then he could drive it all down to New York in that time. He didn’t mind about the furniture, and he would just get new stuff with the new place. Renting an already furnished place was going to get him more money. There were more than enough business people who didn’t mind just slipping into a place like that.

“I need to get my clothes and food from Montreal, but I’ll leave everything else to take care of later after the season ends. Then I can rent the place as a furnished apartment.”

“The trip would take a whole day. Your car is there, so it’ll be easy to fly into Montreal and then drive back right into New York after you find a place and go right there.”

Shane nodded. The week and a half was going to be busy as hell. Shane looked at his phone when it vibrated again, and he smiled as he saw the message. “Farah wants you to call her,” Shane said to Ilya.

Ilya patted his pocket and looked around before he laughed. “Left phone in the bedroom I think.”

Shane nodded. He was getting tired, and it was going to take a while for him to get to sleep because while the body was tired, his mind was going a mile a minute. He was no longer with Montreal.

—

Ilya looked at the message from Farah after they got off the call and talked about the whole thing with Boston. Brooklyn was very interested in him, and there was the whole narrative that was being spun out from this. Yeah, the whole two guys fucking was a hard thing for many to come to terms with, but the whole wish baby of it all meant that there were more eyes on them than normally would be. There were moves that had to be made because they looked good, not because of business, but Farah pushing the whole thing of it being a good narrative and a good business practice was something that would do well with them.

Boston was willing, and Brooklyn was willing, so they were going to figure it all out. Being with Nika and being with Shane was the point of all of this. It was what he wanted, what he wanted to have happen. He loved hockey but he wasn’t like Shane. He didn’t need to be in the same place for all of his career. He would miss playing with Marly. He would miss some of the other guys, but he knew that he had kept his relationships outside of Marly’s surface only.

The sound of feet on the carpet told Ilya he wasn’t alone. He didn’t even look up, but he shifted to allow Sveta to climb into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and held on. He wasn’t sure what he was going to end up doing with her. They had not had sex for a while; she knew that it was because of the mysterious Jane, whom Ilya knew that she knew was a man. The Shane of it all hadn’t really processed in Ilya’s head yet.

“You love him so much,” Sveta said in Russian.

“I do,” Ilya said back in Russian.

“You will do anything that you can for him and now for your daughter. I would expect nothing less after the life you had with your father and how your mother took her life.”

Ilya dropped his phone to the bed, and he closed his eyes, tipping his head back to allow her to do what she wanted. Ilya wasn’t sure how to explain the relationship to Shane. He wasn’t going to cut Sveta out of his life. She was his older friend, but there was also the fact that he just didn’t want that. He wanted her in his life like she was now. She could handle less of the emotional burden, and Shane could pick that up. He didn’t know how to make Shane believe that Ilya didn’t want to have sex with her anymore. Not after the way he had used her to gauge if Shane was into women or not since he hadn’t ever been linked in public with any woman. There had been vague mentions of a girlfriend but never a picture, never a name.

“He could be the best thing in the world for you, if you let him,” Sveta said.

“I know. I worry that he cannot talk to all of me.”

“He can, just like I can.” Sveta’s hold on him tightened, and then there was a hand on the back of his head. He knew that hand better than he knew his own hand, it seemed. He opened his eyes to look at Shane. Shane was smiling at him.

“Let’s lie down,” Shane said.

Ilya moved Sveta, not even letting her go until they were lying on the bed with Sveta on one side of him; Shane climbed into the bed on Ilya’s other side.

“I’m not jealous,” Shane said.

“You were earlier,” Ilya said, not even giving a better time for it.

“Yeah, well, you were talking about fucking women while I was sitting on the couch. You were giving me a lot of mixed signals. I thought that you were going to tell me that you didn’t want to fuck me anymore.”

Sveta smacked Ilya’s chest, huffing at him. He caught her hand and laid it over his heart. He loved her like a sister, or at least that was what it had settled into recently. He was sure that there was a person out there who would love to study him and his love of this woman.

“But I’m not worried about you hurting me. Nika might have been dropped in our laps to stop us from making a big mistake, but it never would have happened if you had any chance of feelings for someone else. I’m not so worried about things that I worry about her. Yeah, the close affection might be weird, but I’ve never had a friend like that, of any gender. I have fun with Hayden, but we don’t cuddle.”

“Do you not like cuddling?” Sveta asked.

“I don’t know, to be honest. I’ve never had someone to do it with, not until yesterday and sleeping in the same bed as Ilya did. I’ve never been one to have too much of anything close to that. “I don’t think I would hate it if I liked the person and knew them pretty well.”

“Then I will be that to you as well. We can make Ilyusha pout with how much we cuddle.”

Shane laughed, and he snuggled into Ilya more and laid his hand over Sveta’s over Ilya’s heart.

“I’m glad that you can be that for me as well. I’m not good at making friends. I had a lot when I was in Ottawa growing up, but we all pretty much lost track of each other as we moved on with our lives. I never thought about them much once I was drafted. They went their own ways. There are only two who live in Ottawa, and we do catch up somewhat when we are there for the summer. Before I head to my cottage.”

“Will I get an invite to this cottage?” Sveta asked.

“Maybe,” Shane said.

Ilya thought about what he had seen about the cottage. He heard people taking about it a lot more since Shane had started to talk about it.

“I will need to do some work to the place over the next bit of the season because it’s not set up for a baby, much less a kid at all. Mom can handle going in person and doing what I want.”

“She will do what you want, not what she wants?” Sveta asked.

“Of course. She’s pushy on things, but she does what I want in the end. She’s not that much of a pushy person. She is just like me and is passionate about things. I’ve been the center of her world for a while.”

Ilya thought about what he heard from other people in the league about Yuna Hollander. She had been good since she got there that morning, bringing up things and dropping them as soon as Shane said no. Or if it was something she thought was needed, she pushed a different way with a different angle that made Shane stop and think. Then they worked to find a middle ground. Ilya thought that maybe many had the woman wrong. They saw what they wanted to see. Shane offloaded some things, but he didn’t not care about them. He had his style, and he made sure that people got it when they decorated his place. The pillow situation notwithstanding.

“If we stay like this, I’m going to sleep,” Ilya said.

“And?” Shane asked, yawning.

“We need to stay up a little or we will be up too early even with feedings.”

Shane grumbled, but he didn’t move. Sveta laughed, and she sounded so relaxed.

This was just the start in making sure the two sides of his life blended well, but Ilya wasn’t upset with it. He knew that things were going to be hard to deal with, but having these two not be upset at the other being in his life helped a lot.

—

Shane knew that things were going to go to shit, but he could control it when things went crazy. He just hadn’t expected the whole Internet to get pissed. Well, it wasn’t everyone online, but it was a lot of them. He also learned that it wasn’t just hockey fans, but once it was known that Montreal was treading Shane over the whole wish baby because it broke containment in the hockey side of the Internet, Shane found that most were on his side. He was lying in bed with Nika on him. He had taken off his shirt to get the cuddling and skin-to-skin time in at the same time. Ilya was making dinner of some kind.

The official announcement of the trade came online without Farah being told first. Montreal wanted to get in ahead of it, but at the same time, they fucked themselves. The trade had gone through exactly as it seemed it was going to. Shane for two of the players as well as a second-round pick from Montreal from the next draft. It sounded lopsided to most people who didn’t understand hockey.

“You are not freaking out, are you?” Ilya asked.

Shane looked from where he had his phone in one hand and looked at him. Ilya looked fucking good. Not even just the sexual side of things; he looked soft right now, something that they had never really gotten before.

“No, I am not freaking out. I’m enjoying watching as Montreal is fucked over online by people realizing that I got traded because I’m gay. Well, they don’t know about the gay part but because of having a wish baby with my male rival.”

Ilya laughed. He walked over, crawling into bed. They were still in pajamas because today was a relaxing day for them. Tomorrow Shane would head home to Montreal while Nika stayed here with Ilya. Shane would pack up what he wanted to take with him, as well as getting what was needed to take the food back to New York with him. Then he would be driving straight to Hunter’s place, and the day after he would be viewing the unit above Hunter’s in his building. It was laid out exactly like Hunter’s, which would be good, but since it was the top unit, the whole floor was the same unit.

The draw to it was that the main unit was bigger, but there was a smaller unit inside of it. There was a mother-in-law suite, as it was called. It had been empty for a while since the last person had moved out of it, and it was just too big for what a lot of them wanted. Hunter had called the people he bought his unit off of and had them hold that unit until Shane could look at it. Ilya was going to meet him that morning, with Nika with him. Ilya had already ordered a fancy car that he would use to transport Nika around, picking two of his cars that he was going to sell to have the space in his place for the new car since it was bigger. It had a good safety rating.

Ilya lay on his side beside Shane, and he laid his hand on top of Nika’s back and smiled at them both.

“I am looking forward to this summer at the cottage,” Ilya said.

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Your father is working on what he needs to go to New York to watch her, yes?”

Shane nodded.

“Good. Good. So, we haven’t discussed what we are going to do about me coming to New York.”

“Ilya,” Shane said. He knew that it was a possibility. He knew that things could happen.

“GM called me. He asked what my plans were, and I said that I was going to not be signing again because I had already wanted to head to Canada for a team and get a Canadian passport as soon as I could, but the baby had changed things. Brooklyn wants me.”

“Seriously?” Shane asked.

“Da, I was shocked as well. They reached out to Boston before anyone could really make my wants known. Farah’s been busy with you, and that’s fine. Montreal was the one who messed itself up. I know that we talked a little about me going to Brooklyn or even New Jersey, but we hadn’t set anything out. Farah said that I could eat what I wanted. I could get it. So, I do want to look at your place even more now. I wonder if Hunter’s hearing has gone so far that he will not hear us.”

Shane laughed, and he looked down at Nika to make sure that she wasn’t awake. She wasn’t. She was sleeping like the dead as she seemed to always do as soon as she was laid on them and there was skin-to-skin contact. They had settled into a good rhythm with taking care of her. They were still working out when they could, staying in shape for what they were going to be doing when their leave was over.

“So we move to another set of division rivals and do it over again?”

“With more flirting,” Ilya said.

“There can be more flirting? I mean, you already flirt with me all the time.”

Ilya kissed Shane’s shoulder, and he then laid his head there, curling around him as much as he could with how they were lying. It felt fucking good. They were still learning each other, the soft sides of who they were allowed to be now. Shane was hesitant about touching, and he knew that it was because he was afraid that their bubble would burst.

“I could do more flirting, yes. Make you blush all pretty during a face-off.”

“The socials are going to have so much fun with this. We will need to both put a foot down on what is allowed and what is not.”

“Hmm, maybe when we go for an introduction and meeting with people, we have a video call so that both sides are seeing our faces. You think they would do that?”

“Social media is not nearly as guarded as the rest; I can’t see why they would have an issue with it. They have had a lot of brothers who play over the years, so I am sure that there are times when things are in conflict with that. And they could always go to the women’s league and ask how they do it.”

Ilya’s hand dropped off Nika’s back and trailed down to rest on Shane’s thigh. It wasn’t meant to arouse, and Shane knew it; it was just a claim. It was something that he had gotten well used to over the last while because Ilya liked to have that claim while Shane just liked to lean into him. They were doing things their way.

“So, we are both going to NYC,” Shane said.

“We are.”

“And Boston is going to frame it as them being a good sport about this when the whole hockey world knows that your contract is going up and right now they can get good things out of trading you rather than lose you without getting anything.”

“Yes, they will still look at it as good PR. After the shit that is happening with Montreal, they are going to look so much better. Other teams who have people who are friendly toward gays will be gunning for them too. Boston’s smart about things.”

Shane knew that Boston had to be. They were another original six team, and they had to make sure that their image was as clean as they wanted it to be.

“I told Farah what my terms were already, and they are working on things. The official signing will happen later. Farah said that they were wanting to do something fun with it, and I am not sure what the hell that would be.”

“Who knows.” Shane reached for his phone, where he had laid it down when Ilya had gotten into bed. He checked his email another time. This time it was from the management group of the building that Hunter lived in. It was the official walk-through information and how to gain access to the building in case they got there earlier than the people who were going to be showing them the place. There was a list of amenities as well. “Huh.”

“What?” Ilya asked.

“There is a pool. I’m looking at the shared space amenities in the place. There is a pool, which I don’t care about most of the time, but sometimes it’s easier to rehab after an injury to have the low-impact movement in the pool to do things. Here.” Shane turned his phone so that Ilya could look as well. The list wasn’t that long, but there was a gym, and Shane would have his things moved from Montreal to the new place, and Ilya would as well. There was a room that was more than big enough for all of their things because the only overlap of items they had were ones that they would want to do at the same time. Ilya usually used the facilities more than he used his things at home unless he was doing PT with an injury and the like.

“And a yoga room.”

“Yeah, no. I am not doing yoga in public, Ilya. No matter how limited access the place is, it has glass walls that don’t let anyone look in, but they let us look out. No.”

Ilya laughed, and his hand slipped up to brush against Shane’s soft cock.

“Not with our daughter laying on me,” Shane said.

Ilya’s hand moved back down to where it had been. Shane was shocked that the touch didn’t get him aroused a little. Usually it was anything small that made him get hard when it came to Ilya. The sexting before games still had an effect, but he had learned to not look at his phone until he was in his gear so that his erection could be hidden away from being seen.

“Do you feel better now that things are moving?” Ilya asked.

“Yes. God, it’s only been three days with her, and our lives have changed, but I can’t…I can’t regret it, Ilya. I hate what Montreal is doing, but I am not going to sit and stew about it.”

“Stew?”

“Um, think about it all the time, just never move on from it.”

“Ah, yes. No stewing about it.” Ilya kissed Shane’s shoulder under his cheek and then moved again to where he was pressed even more to Shane.

Nika was starting to move around on Shane, and it meant she was getting ready to wake up, and she was going to want to eat. She was hungry as hell all the time, but it was okay. They were going to get things settled in New York and then find a doctor. There was leeway in getting to the first doctor visit when it came to wish babies, and with the whole moving countries with Shane, it was going to be easy to make sure that no one cared too much about things taking too long. Shane would get recommendations from his new team, and Ilya could do the same, and then they could pick one.

Things were easier right now, but things were going to get harder when they were on the road and they missed each other and their daughter. It was going to be hard, but with work, they could do it.

—

Ilya knew that Nika missed Shane. She wasn’t settling for her evening skin-to-skin time. They would be leaving in the morning with the SUV packed full of Ilya’s things. He had already spent the day marking what needed to be brought to New York. They were going to go with a lot of Ilya’s things just to make the transport across the border easier. The rest of the stuff that Shane wanted would be packed up by a team watched over by his mother, like the trophy room that Shane had started. Ilya’s would be taken care of by Sveta. Ilya was grateful for his friend because she was going to make this a lot easier on him. He was going to have to figure out how to make sure that she knew that she was welcome at any point. There would be no free rooms in the apartment, but there were rentals in the building that were open and treated like hotel rooms. They just had to make sure that one of them was open for sure to rent, and then they would have all the time they wanted when she came to visit.

“Are you ever going to settle?” Ilya asked even as he patted his hand on the couch cushion to try and find his phone. Shane would have gotten to the apartment building to spend the night with Scott Hunter about half an hour before. Unless traffic was even worse. The good news was that Ilya would be joining them soon. He was counting down the hours. He just needed her to settle down. They would be staying with Hunter as well once they were there. The guest room had already been set up for them. Ilya knew that he would have to be a little nicer in his chirps, but he couldn’t wait for the first one where he handed off Nika and called Hunter her grandfather.

“Let’s call, Daddy, huh?” Ilya asked. He found Shane’s icon, and he called him on video because it was going to be their normal from now on if one of them had the baby.

“Give me just a moment, Ilya,” Shane said with a smile on his face before he laid the phone down on a counter somewhere. Ilya looked at the ceiling, and he knew that Shane was indeed at Hunter’s. There was no reason to make noise, so he just got himself ready to show off his assets, which included their daughter to him.

Ilya had a set of rings that he had ordered based on a jeweler in Boston. He had done it the first day but had kept it from Shane, and Sveta had picked them up. The guy did custom work, but he had a perfect set of them in his shop that just had to be sized. Sveta had gotten Shane’s size when he had been sleeping. The birthstones had been easy to add to them since that was what the stones were kept out of them for, to make them better custom. He would gladly make sure that Shane was wearing his ring before they played their first games with their new teams.

“Hey, sorry. I had my hands full of food. There was just a single cooler of things in my place that was stuff that was good enough to bring; I figured that I would get new condiments and other things like that. The stuff in the freezer will be emptied out by Jackie, and she will use it. She’s going to help Mom make sure my place is good to go.

“How did the visit with Hayden go?” Ilya asked.

“Good. He’s already looking to go away. His contract is up at the same time as yours, and he said the locker room is rancid as fuck. They got my things out of there before anyone could deface them. My gear that is bought by me is in my SUV. That’s in the garage, and it’s going to stay there for now. I got the Pack ‘n’ play unpacked, and Hunter’s setting that up right now. Things will be good for her to go tomorrow when you get here.”

“That’s good. She’s not settling down at all for skin-to-skin time.”

“Aw, does she miss me?” Shane asked. He sat down somewhere, and Ilya could see visions off to the side, so it was a couch. “I miss her so much.”

“We both miss you.” Ilya wasn’t going to keep up the facade at all. He heard a noise and looked to see David moving from the guest room toward the kitchen. It was close to time for the man’s snack of some kind. Shane knew his routine now, even after so few days together.

Yuna had gone back to Montreal with Shane, and she was going to work on getting Shane’s things worked on and packing them up, and then she was going to go to their place in Ottawa and get what she needed to make sure that she and David had what they needed. Then she would close up the house at a later time. They would have a few things to do to make sure that they didn’t have to worry about the house too much over the next few months. There was no rush for a nanny so they could take their time on that front. It was going to be interesting to see who they got.

Having just David in the house was weird. Sveta had gone back to her place now that Ilya wasn’t in crisis mode. Marly had gone back to make sure that no one on the team was pissed off at what was happening. The Shane Hollander of it all hadn’t really fazed anyone on the team. For the Shane side of things, he had seen more than a few jokes about how if Shane Hollander could marry hockey, he would, and Ilya was the second best thing to marry. Unlike when Ilya heard other people make those comments, Ilya knew that his team meant it fondly. He would miss them and would have to make sure that when Boston played in Brooklyn, he took them out, and when he was in Boston for a game, he would have to make sure to go out with them. Maybe they could talk Shane into going out when it was a home game for Ilya and Shane wasn’t out of town. They would have to work out a new schedule for things, but that was going to come when Ilya joined them in New York.

This was his last night here in this house. He hadn’t cared too much about it; he just wanted a place where he could be happy. Where he could have Shane where he wanted him without having to worry about neighbors or people seeing Shane being dropped off. The only attachment that Ilya had to the place was that it was where they had gotten Veronika. Their first few firsts with her were here, but those would fade as bigger firsts happened.

“Can I see her?” Hunter asked in the background.

Ilya focused on the screen again to see that Shane was sitting on the couch there, and he had been just watching Ilya and Nika.

“I am shirtless; try to contain yourself,” Ilya said.

“You aren’t my type.”

“I’m everyone’s type,” Ilya said, but he focused the screen a little more on Nika. There was something so good about seeing them like that. He loved the way that he looked with her on his chest.

“You are in fact not,” Hunter said.

Ilya laughed, and it made Nika move around.

“She’s adorable. I get to hold her when she gets here, right?”

“Da,” Ilya said, like it was insane for Hunter to think anything else. Ilya was going to want to kiss Shane, and that meant someone else to coo over Nika was a good idea. He would even be good and make sure that sex only happened in the shower. He figured that the shower would be really good to fuck in; Shane bent over and split open on Ilya’s cock. He willed himself to not get hard and waited for it to pass before he looked down at Nika. She was finally trying to go back to sleep.

“Now that you have seen her, go away,” Shane said. He focused the phone back on him and looked at Nika. “You think she needs more of my voice?”

“Sure,” Ilya said. He was glad that he didn’t have to say it. He figured that Shane could talk about the trip and how the house was and what he was bringing with him. There were a few things that would come with the workout equipment. New York was more than willing to make sure that Shane had what he wanted in his place since it was coming across the country line. Still, the rest of the stuff was going to go to his cottage to be taken care of later.

Shane started to talk about the flight and then moved on to getting to his place, then driving back. It was a lot of a whole bunch of things that Ilya didn’t care about, but it made Nika sleep, and that was good. She was used to having each of them once a day for skin-to-skin time, and she wasn’t used to having just one of them. They would have to get her used to David at some point and Yuna as well, but both of them had been adamant that it not happen for a while. The bonding between Nika and her fathers was needed. She didn’t need to have a whole bunch of other people in there.

“She’s dead to the world,” Ilya said ten minutes after he was sure that she was asleep. Shane had been talking about things he wanted to do in New York with Ilya and Nika.

Their lives were going to be different because right now, more than just hockey people knew them. They would have to worry about people approaching them in New York City. There was going to have to be a conscious effort for him to make sure that he didn’t say some of the things he normally said in public to Shane, the stuff that could be heard as wrong. He would make sure that he was good on that.

“I miss you already,” Shane said.

“I know. I do as well. We will be together soon, and then we will be apart a lot more. So we will cherish the time together.”

“Scott said that he moved into his unit pretty much the same day. We can stay with him as long as needed. It comes with a fridge and stove, but that’s pretty much it. We will have to go shopping for beds and the like after the tour, but there are plenty of places that we can throw money at, and they will gladly get us that stuff that day. Scott said that he’ll wait for delivery for us if we want.”

“Best to get the first day out with the baby in NYC out of the way?” Ilya asked.

“That’s what I thought. We can’t hide, not there. So, we stay in public, ask them not to take pictures of her face, and go from there.”

Ilya agreed with what Shane was saying. There was a lot they could do and a lot they could not do to protect her, but some of the reporters and paps would be kind enough not to take a picture that showed her face or edit it out if they did. The three would get no kindness from them. Ilya had set that boundary with himself with the ones who followed the team for pictures and the like. Yuna had done it with Shane starting from when he was first being papped. It was the best way to handle things, covering the face when they could and hoping that people respected them when they could not.

Shane looked at them like he was dying inside. “Can we be on the phone tonight when I go to bed? I want to see you with her and fall asleep like that.”

“Of course we will do whatever you need to sleep tonight. Tomorrow is going to be busy for all of us. I’ll have your father with me, and we will take our time making it to you. Then we will figure out what we need to do. You have a person who does style but for a house?”

“Yes, a decorator. I have one lined up that I think I like. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. Then we can go out with him to buy things.”

Ilya nodded.

Their lives were going to be insane. It was going to happen, and it was going to be weird as hell. Others were handling the Russia of it all, and things were going to be made sure that he was safe as hell, even if there were threats that had to be made about it. Ilya was looking forward to living with Shane and Veronika. He was looking forward to being happy.