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36 Minutes

Ilya looked at the contraption that Shane had come home with after going out to pick up things from a shop for clothing for Nika. They had not done a baby shower or anything like it and had just asked those who wanted to buy them things for her to get from a list that Yuna had complied. It had been a lot of things that Ilya had never once thought about buying, and it had been a massive list. There were some expensive things on there for people to get together and get them, and then there were smaller things as well. Ilya had thought it was weird, but then he noticed that the guys in Boston went and got a few of the bigger price tag items, while other guys who Shane knew who were not players got the smaller things.

This thing, though, Ilya wasn’t sure about it. He didn’t think it could support Nika at all. He had no idea how it was supposed to work.

“Why did they have to do it at the same time?” Shane demanded. He huffed before coming out of the closet, dressed only in a pair of underwear and socks. Ilya thought that they had time to do something else, but as soon as he thought it, Shane looked at him, a glare on his face.

Ilya decided that they did not have time for something else. He was already dressed, and he didn’t want to get undressed and then dressed again.

“Because they don’t care about that,” Ilya said.

Shane huffed, and he laughed. He grabbed the tie he had come back with after shopping for Nika, he asked. Ilya had not gone with him because he was already sick of shipping for things in New York. The apartment was as filled with stuff as it was going to get until their things followed them from Boston and what little would come from Montreal. The rest of their things were going to go to the cabin to replace things they had there or be stored there in case they wanted to have them on hand later. Ilya wasn’t sure how big this cottage was, but he was pretty happy that Shane was already talking about it like it was both of theirs. Shane had pulled Ilya into his life full throttle, and Ilya could only stand and marvel at it. He wasn’t sure if he was going to be happy there or not, but wherever Shane and Nika were, he thought it would be good.

“Scott’s taking me. They are sending a car for you, right?” Shane asked.

Ilya nodded. He had told them that he wasn’t driving in New York City traffic, and if they wanted him there and not on public transport, they were going to send a car for him. He was glad of it, but that meant that one of them had to choose to take Nika with them, or they could leave her with David, who was working on the little suite that they had within the penthouse apartment. He was happy with the size of it; it was a large space given how much of the floor it took up. There was not as much kitchen space as David would like, but they had already agreed that since the door to the suite was just off the kitchen, if he needed more space, he could slip into that kitchen as long as he asked first.

Shane was probably not going to get naked in the kitchen for a while, but Ilya knew that the day would come because he wanted to have Shane everywhere in the apartment.

“Your phone is ringing,” Ilya said the second he noticed the screen was lit up with a call.

Shane huffed, and he looked over at where it was lit up. He walked over and picked it up, swiping to answer the call as soon as he did. He pressed the phone to his ear.

“Oh, um, we hadn’t decided yet. You know that Rozanov’s doing his paperwork at the same time?” Shane said. He looked at Ilya.

Ilya just looked at him just as shocked. He had no idea what the hell was going on. He checked his phone; his car was still twenty minutes away. Thankfully, they didn’t need to wear suits, but Shane was going to wear one. Ilya had tried to talk him out of it, but it was him wanting to show that he took this seriously. Ilya was in a nice pair of jeans and one of his nice tops; it wasn’t one of his slut tops, as Sveta liked to call them.

He missed her already, and he knew that it was going to take a while to adjust to life here, not just Nika and Shane but also new routines. new ways of going out with the team when he had a baby at home. He knew that he needed to bond with the team; it helped in some ways with the way they played on the ice. Even if it was just him going out and doing little because going out meant drinking, and that meant hooking up with women. That was something that he was not going to do now.

“I guess that could work. I’m not fully dressed yet. Yeah, I’ll find something else. Thanks for letting me know.” Shane dropped the phone onto the bed, and he looked at his bag that was laid out on the bed and picked it up before returning to the closet. Ilya followed him. The walk-in closet was massive, and it had been a big reason that Ilya loved this place. It was more than enough for both of their clothes. Even if Ilya’s clothes took up a lot more space. Shane had a lot of clothes that were in the dresser, folded up neatly because they were athletic stuff. Maybe Ilya would take him shopping and make it fun. He could talk him into modeling the clothes for him, to give him something else to wear that didn’t make him look like he was going to a game. Or just make him wear Ilya’s clothes.

“What’s going on?” Ilya asked.

“They changed where I’m going and are sending a car for me. It feels weird, not like weird where I think they are doing something but just something weird.”

Ilya nodded. He watched as Shane put the suit back exactly where it had been hanging up before, and then he went over to where his jeans were hanging and started to move the hangers to see which pair. Ilya moved up behind him and grabbed the pair of black jeans he had been excited about from the moment he had watched Shane unpack them. With the whole moving countries, they had been given grace on doing the big to-do signing stuff that they wanted to do with the trade. Usually, trades didn’t get this much attention, but there was something about making sure that the world knew that they were happy to have them. Well, the Admirals were happy to get him. Brooklyn wanted to show the whole world that they had taken him in to make sure that he was close to the man he was outed as having a child with. There was a lot of shit that went on behind the scenes that Ilya knew that the MLH was going to have to scramble to make sure that their whole appeal didn’t go down. There were more eyes on the whole of the sport than there had been before.

“So they want you in jeans?”

“They want me dressed down. I was thinking about one of the hoodies. I have a couple that are not Metros branded.”

“Hmm, you brought those along?”

“Well, just the one. I like it because it’s nice and soft. I’ll have to get one for the Admirals and make sure to wear it in to make it soft.”

Ilya had learned that Shane liked soft things on his skin. He rubbed a few fingers on the jeans to find that they were butter soft. He thought about Shane’s athletic clothes. There was an issue with texture on skin going on there, and Shane might not even notice that he liked clothes like that. The suits had to be soft as well. Ilya knew that he would be able to get Shane into his clothes because he had a lot of soft stuff there as well.

“I’m pretty sure that we can do that. So, a hoodie. Now I feel overdressed. I should check my phone.” Ilya pulled the jeans off the hanger and put them back, and he held them out to Shane.

Shane took them with a smile. He reached out to pull Ilya in for a kiss. Unlike most of their kisses in their life before this, this wasn’t meant to arouse. It was just a comfort. Something that Shane had been doing more over the last few days of them getting settled in New York. It was nice. The kind of thing that Ilya had craved before but never wanted with anyone who wasn’t Shane.

“I’ll be right back,” Ilya said when Shane finally decided to get his jeans on.

Ilya checked his phone, and when he found the text that told him to be comfortable and not flashy, along with dressed down, he decided to change his top. He had a few hoodies that were also not Boston branded. He would find one that was in a complementary color to Shane’s since Shane had fewer of them.

When Ilya got back into the room, Shane was trying to find a T-shirt to wear under the hoodie; he had it down to three, hanging on the wall next to the hoodie. The little hooks here to lay out things were nice but also to use for this, to look at things together without having to throw them on the bed.

“This one,” Ilya said as he touched the green shirt.”

“Why?” Shane asked.

“Because you look really good in it and it’s pretty thin. It’s cooler out there, but we will have lights on us.”

Shane nodded. He hung the other two shirts back up and then started to get dressed. Ilya found a red shirt, and he was pretty happy with it. Then he found a nice dark gray hoodie to look soft beside Shane’s faded black one. They looked pretty good even if it was weird to be in this.

“You take Nika with you,” Ilya said.

“Okay. I can do that. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, we will have plenty of time for her and me tonight, but she’s still a little clingy to you after we were apart for a while.”

Shane nodded, and he slipped out of the room to let Ilya get dressed the rest of the way. Ilya followed when he was out of there. There was the travel car seat with him that had a base that was attached, and it was something that Ilya hadn’t thought much about, but now he understood why Yuna wanted it. Nika was in the living room doing some tummy time with a baby monitor right beside her so that they could hear her if she started to cry.

“I’ll tell Dad that I’m taking her with me,” Shane said.

Ilya nodded and waved for him to go. Ilya would grab the weird strap thing and then the carrier and follow him out of the room.

It took a few minutes for Ilya to get his hair like he wanted it given his new clothes, and then he was finally out of the bedroom area and into the living room, where he found that Shane was looking at his phone. Then something in his hand. Ilya stepped up behind him, setting the car seat down on the couch and looking at the paper.

“Your father went out?” Ilya asked.

“We told him that one of us would take her with us. I just…I guess I didn’t realize that he was going to leave like that. It’s fine. At least he knows that she’s going with us first. Um, I’m ready. I’m sure that your car is down there. Scott probably as well.”

They took their time getting things together to make sure that Shane had enough stuff with him for the event that they were going to. They didn’t rush this stuff because there was no rushing it. They had not really gotten the practice to know what to take and what to not take. The bag was well used, and I figured that it was kind of normal to have a lot of time at the start to make sure that we weren’t missing anything. Though, they could afford to buy things if they forgot things, so that wasn’t an issue.

They went down together, Shane carrying Nika in his arms while Ilya had the rest of the stuff. When they got down to the ground floor, Ilya could see a single town car out there waiting with someone who was very much from the Admirals. He wondered where his car was when the door opened and a lady got out of the back, followed by a man. That was the PR people that both of them had been talking to. Ilya had no idea what was going on.

Shane headed for the car, pushing out the doors and taking in the scene of people who were there to get pictures. It hadn’t taken long to figure out where they lived, which wasn’t a shock. That was part of the reason why this building was picked. The security was fucking good. They couldn’t get through those doors, and the elevators and doorways had locks to make sure that only residents got up there. The other residents were also more than willing to make a fuss if they thought someone didn’t belong there.

“Welcome, boys, and Miss Veronika. We have a few things to discuss. Do you mind getting in? We have a car seat in the car already, unless you really hate it.”

Ilya set the carrier down on the ground, and he looked into the backseat. It was one of the top-of-the-line models in there, and it looked a little well-used, not old, just used.

“It’s a hand-me-down from one of the players. They had given it over to a teammate to do even when their daughter was born early. It’s still in date and everything. We just figured that it was easier to have one that was already buckled in.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Ilya?” Shane asked.

“It’s good. I’ll take the other back inside and have Jerry watch it or put it outside of the doors to our place or give it to your father when he gets back. Whatever he wants to do.” Ilya swiped to get back into the building and was met with Jerry right there, holding out his hand. “Thanks.”

“Of course. I’ll keep it until I see one of the four of you.”

Shane had Nika mostly buckled in by the time that Ilya joined them. He settled the bag they used down into the car and waited for Shane to get himself settled before he peeked at Nika. The set of straps and stuff was on the floor across the way, so Ilya moved the bag over there.

“We know that the optics of this whole thing are…not the best. Not the Scouts’ side of things, of course, nor the Admirals’. It’s the whole thing with the Metros,” Stacy said. She was the Scouts’ PR person assigned for getting Ilya on the team.

“But we also know that we have to be very, very good or things can go south for us,” the man said. Ilya knew that he and Shane got along well, but he could not for the life of him remember his name. He didn’t need to really, but he felt bad that he couldn’t.

“Thanks, Steve,”Shane said.

“So, with that in mind, we decided to reach out to the Scouts. Despite being division rivals, we will work together to do a lot of things; we do the same with New Jersey as well, big promo things that benefit the teams. We are going to do this as a joint thing, capitalizing on the family aspect of this. We will have limited questions allowed from the reporters on hand, and you can veto any of them at any point. We’ve already made sure that they know to keep certain things out of their mouths. There will be no mention of the Metros or Boston to make it look better. The trashing of the Metros can happen in other ways.”

“That’s why you wanted me to bring her,” Shane said.

“Well, we figured that it would go better. We didn’t want you freaking out about doing it jointly as well,” Steve said.

“Also, that part of things only started this morning, so we were still working out a lot of kinks.”

“That’s why Scott said that something came up and he wouldn’t be able to get me?” Shane asked.

“Yes, he’s there just like he said he would be, but he also knew that we wanted to do this early enough. If he had been around you, he said he would give it away. There were a lot of moving parts we had to work on. You both have friends and family there.”

Shane frowned, and he thought about what friends could be there for him. He and Hayden were good, but he doubted that he would be able to be there.

“Who?” Ilya asked.

“For you, Ilya, we have Svetlana and Cliff. When we asked him, he said yes. He’ll get on a plane and fly to where the team is as soon as he is done. For you, Shane, we have your parents, as well as the entire Pike family. They are staying in a suite in a hotel near where we are going to be doing this.”

Shane looked shocked. Ilya reached over and laid a hand on his knee, the only part of him that he could reach with Nika between them. It was going to have to be good enough.

“Hayden?”

“He will tell you more about things as soon as you get there. We will have half an hour for you guys to talk to your family, and then we will be doing the whole photo op, and the social media team will be doing the filming of that part; the reporters will not be in there. That part will come after. You both opted for hoodies; that’s good. They are nice and plain. Do you want to wear branded ones? We didn’t even think about offering that beforehand. We can make sure that someone gets you some right now.”

Shane looked at Ilya, and Ilya nodded. Shane nodded back.

“We would love that,” Shane said. He smiled and touched the hoodie he was wearing. “I didn’t have anything really that casual, and the idea of a sweater just wasn’t doing it for me.”

“No, it’s fine. Like I said on the phone, we want you boys to be comfortable in this. I see the carrier you have for Nika there. Who will be wearing her during the whole thing?”

Steve was letting Stacy handle things while he worked on something on his phone.

“Start with Shane,” Ilya said. It wasn’t that Ilya didn’t trust them or think that Shane couldn’t protect them, but he wanted to have his hands free, and he wanted to be able to do anything needed to keep people away from Shane and Nika.

“Okay, that’s good. I will make notes about it, and we will work on whatever you need. This whole thing is about you guys. We will not do a single thing you don’t like. We just thought that it would be good for both of you as well.”

Ilya understands that. “It would be good to put the new spin on the rivalry.”

“New spin?” Stacy asked.

Ilya grinned. “We will still play our hardest against each other. We will make sure to make a spectacle, but we will not be assholes to each other.”

“Well, no more than what we already are,” Shane said.

Ilya laughed. He looked at Steve, who was looking at him like he had grown a second head. “We play the best against each other. There are few who can keep up with us, who push us to be our best out here. We will be happy to do what is needed to keep things kinder, though. Chirping is fun; it makes him blush.”

Steve looked between the two of them, and then he flushed and looked at Stacy.

“What?” Shane asked.

“It was flirting and foreplay before, wasn’t it?” Steve asked.

Shane closed his mouth, and he looked away from Steve.

“Yes, it was,” Ilya answered.

“That’s a whole new spin on things,” Stacy said.

“Not one that can be well used,” Shane said.

“Oh, no, I think we can use it. Not with those words, of course, but to make sure that people can see that things are very good between you. There is already chatter online about how much they think this is a PR stunt.”

“The first game where the two teams play is in two weeks, right?” Shane asked.

“Yes.”

“We do some promo if you want, something that each team can air and play up in the arenas. We are okay with things as long as we have an input into them.”

“We will work together to come up with some things that both sides like, and we can work on that. I know you both go back around the same time, and that your father is going to be Nika’s carer while you guys are settling into everything, then getting a nanny later, right?”

“Yes, that’s the plan. We don’t want a random person in there while we are getting used to life on the road.”

“That’s a good plan. So, there is one more thing that we are going to have to ask you two to do for us,” Steve said.

Shane stiffened; the whole thing was noticeable, and even Stacy flinched at how fast Shane went from relaxed to stiff.

Stacy pulled out a small bag, and it had tissue paper sticking out of it. She handed it over to Shane, but he shook his head and waved toward Ilya. Ilya took the bag, and he pulled the tissue paper out of it. He laughed a little bit before pulling out the onesie. It was cute as hell. It had very small writing on it, but he looked at the back of it. He turned it so that Shane could see the left side was the colors for the Admirals and had the name Hollander on it, and then the right side was the colors for the Scouts and had the name Rozanov on it. It looked to be about the right size for her.

“We guessed based on the few pictures that you two have put online. One of the WAGs for your new team, Ilya, does these kinds of things for new babies on the team. Soft fabrics, safe dye jobs, and hand-stitched letters. Steve told me all about her, and we thought of this together days ago. She took the rush job with a nice paycheck too.”

“It’s so cute,” Ilya said. He shook it, and Shane nodded and smiled. “You want us to put her into it before we get there, right?”

“Yes. I know she’ll be in the carrier on Shane’s chest for most of this, but even just a picture of her from behind at some point would be good enough for both of us. We want to market you two as a family unit who are damned good at your jobs,” Stacy said.

Shane nodded, and Ilya did as well. He liked that. The rivalry could exist as it always had. Just on the ice. It didn’t go any further, and if it did, those parts were for no one else to know.

—

Ilya looked at his taped-up sticks, the ones that were extras and the one in his hand that he had just finished up. It was his favorite, but it was going to break soon. He would need to figure out which of the others were his favorite. He looked at where “Nika” was written at the top. He had done that first thing, and he pressed a kiss to the name. This game was no different than the last five he had played. He knew that. Everyone knew that. Yet, it was very different. There were rivals that happened because of stupid shit from years and years ago that just kept on getting worse. The rivalries between the original six teams were something else.

This was a rivalry because they shared a city. There was a lot of shit on the ice, but off the ice, it wasn’t nearly as much. The teams were sharing the same spaces; they went to the same places. The office rivalry was nothing. Yeah, there were clashes that were aired on social media, but those were all staged. When out and about, the teams were not assholes to each other. No punches were going to be thrown. It was honestly perfect that Boston had given up Ilya, like they had. They could have been assholes and not done it. He had been contracted with them for longer. There was no reason why he should have been allowed, but in their eyes, they would rather trade him and get something out of it and maybe keep that person than to keep him and have him be shit because he was away from his daughter. Boston looked like the heroes, and Montreal were the villains.

The Montreal fans were not happy at all.

“Hey, Roz,” Scout said.

Ilya looked up at him, and he smiled when he saw that there was a visitor to the locker room. Everyone was pretty close to ready enough that his daughter wasn’t going to be scarred for looking at a whole bunch of naked men. He abandoned his stick and walked over to take Nika from David’s arms. She was dressed in her onesie that had been given to her on the day they had filmed the welcoming of him and Shane to their new teams.

“She’s fucking adorable,” one of the guys said.

Ilya hadn’t learned all of the voices when he wasn’t looking at them. He knew that he would have to figure something out about that, but he would be fine.

“She’s just woken up from her latest nap. I figure that she’ll be awake long enough for warmups,” David said.

Ilya laughed.

“Shane seen her?”

“Yeah, I just came from there. The passes are nice and thankfully allow me to move around.”

“The headphones are working well?” Ilya asked.

This was Nika’s first game. If she took well to it, there was hope that she would come to a lot more when one of them was playing, or maybe just the few games a year where they played each other. One of those games had already happened the month before, so there were only two more after this one. Ilya was okay with that. Of course, there was also when they played Boston. Maybe there would be a little more than just those games.

Ilya turned around. The team hadn’t met her yet, not all of them, just the ones who had been tapped to come to welcome him to the team and give him the tour of the arena that he would need that he had never seen before because he was a visitor to the place. The A on his jersey was still weird when he caught the look of it, but it was a good thing. The other guys had voted when one of the guys had been willing to give up his A if they wanted him as one of the alternate captains. The captain was probably going to be retiring in a few years, and Ilya could take that C from him if they were still there. All of Ilya’s and Shane’s contracts were going to be signed for the same length from here out to give them the chance to make sure that one of them didn’t leave before the other. It had been said when they had talked to their teams after the trades.

“She’s got freckles like Hollander,” Scout said as he held out a finger for Nika to grab if she wanted. She was getting pretty good at doing the reflex things. Ilya had bought a Kindle to read a few books on babies that Shane felt like were good ones. It was easier than carrying a lot of books around, and it helped him because he could look up words with ease as he read. He had never known that he could do that until Shane had looked up a word he was unsure of on the Kindle.

Ilya had stolen it, and he did what Shane did for the words, and he had been so shocked at it. He had gone out and bought one that he liked and a case for it that was Scouts-branded because he wanted to rep his new team. Shane had laughed at him for how much he loved it and apologized for never telling him about the feature. Ilya had said there was no reason to ever share that feature given that until this, Ilya had never been around him when reading because they were fucking.

“You are Hollander’s dad, right?” Scout asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“I know that you picked out glass seats for this game, but my wife would like you to know that you are more than welcome to join for later games in the family section, and once you are trusting of them, they can watch her while you get things or use the bathroom.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” David said.

“She is pretty alert for a kid her age,” Scout said.

Ilya shrugged. He knew that things were a little different with wish babies, but he hadn’t really looked at what would be different with the development of them as they got older. He hadn’t really cared. He had something that he had never thought he would have, a baby that was theirs. It was going to be interesting to see if they got more later. The next babies would all be because they wanted a baby, not to save them from fucking up their lives.

The world was still having so many thoughts about them having the baby, as it were. The MLH was taking the whole rivals-to-lovers thing with enough grace, and there had been nothing from the commissioner. Ilya hoped that it meant that Crowell had been cowed enough by his legal team that he had no leg to stand on when it came to the optics of it. Any move on them would be something that they could use to sue him and the MLH. There was nothing in the contracts and code of conduct of the MLH that made fucking another guy on a team something that was against the rules. Ilya had looked at one point, or he had Svetlana look at the stuff he had access to. There was nothing because the people who made it didn’t think that any gay or bisexual man would want to be a hockey player. They let their short-sightedness make this happen. Not that Ilya would have stopped because of it, but Shane would have. There would have been nothing at all of them after it all.

They wouldn’t have this. It was hurtful to not have this, but Ilya knew that it wasn’t going to happen. They were together, out, and happy to the world. There would be issues; he knew that. There were going to be a lot of players who didn’t like it, but the way that it came out made it hard to have anything bad happen when it came to their jobs. They had the support of their teams. Shane lost a lot, but moving to a team that was accepting was worth what he had lost, Shane had said just hours before they had gone into the arena.

The first matchup was on Ilya’s home ice, and it was going to be electric.

Nika was passed to a few guys who wanted to hold her, and she didn’t freak out about being held by them.

“She didn’t like Carter,” David said.

“Why?” Ilya asked.

“Shane thinks it’s the aftershave he had on. It made him sneeze. So we are going to be careful when it comes to that, and Carter said that for it, he was going to change what he used.”

“That’s good. They don’t need to make him play for shit because of it.”

“He stripped and went to shower and will get back into his gear after it, just to be safe.”

Ilya laughed. The lines had been changed up on the Admirals. Scott had moved to the second line to work with the two wingers who had been working on getting good enough for the first line. He had taken it with aplomb and wasn’t being an asshole about it, which was good. Shane had been upset about being put on the first line, but Scott said that it would take some pressure off him. Having two lines that could dominate as much as they could once Scott got his mojo back would make things easier.

“How are you doing with this?” Ilya asked when they took Nika back from Scout, who was enamored with her.

“I’m good. I’m going to miss work, but I’ll go back to it when the time is right. I’ve been given the leave that I need for it. It’s fine. I’ll go back to the same position and the same pay.”

Ilya had worried about it, but David was one of the better employees at the treasury board. Shane hadn’t been worried, and neither had Yuna. It was easy to settle down into something that was like that.

“How are you feeling about tonight?”

“Pumped up,” Ilya said. He kissed Nika’s cheek and then started to finish getting ready.

“I’ll head to our seats.”

Ilya was looking forward to getting out there to see her in David’s lap in the seats that were close to Shane’s box. It had been the only one that had been good for David. Ilya wasn’t sure what kind of seats were approved by the Hollander family. There was not going to be a lot of time when he was sitting with them anyway. So it wasn’t going to be an issue. The family box was something that would be used by them; he figured at some points there were going to be other times when they wanted Nika at glass level, which was every time they played together.

There was already a waiver by the league to allow them to go over to greet her for this season and this season only. The crossing of the red line was a no-no, and Ilya usually was pretty good at that, but them both going over for the optics of getting pictures of them was going to mean that they were allowed a few things that others didn’t get. If the PR went well, there might be more stuff like that for other guys. Their lives were going to be in the realm of the public until they retired, and if they could use that to get things, they would do it.

The ice was exactly like Ilya knew it would be. The smell was the same at pretty much every single arena. The roar of the crowd made Ilya feel like he was coming home each time he stepped onto it, only not the home he lived in but the home he used to live in. Home was now in a penthouse with Shane and Nika, getting the parts of his life he would never think he could have.

Shane was already on the ice and doing his stretches by the time that Ilya finally had the nerve to want to go over to where David and Nika were. He nodded toward the glass, and Shane got up, leaving his stick in the corner of the bench area, and Ilya put his right beside it as he skated past the line. The lines were there to make sure that nothing was going to happen, but Ilya really liked Shane’s new team. He was sure that Scott would make sure that Shane was treated better than Montreal treated him.

It was only in the wake of Shane being traded that Shane talked about the shit said in the locker room, which was normal but something that Shane hadn’t been able to control at all because he had been told that only pussies were the ones who cared about being called a cocksucker, even if they were straight. Of course, knowing that he had been fucking Ilya the whole time he was there hadn’t helped with how most of the locker room thought about him. Montreal was going to find that those who had people who were at least supportive of gay rights, if not some flavor of queer, would treat them like shit. There was going to be a lot of checking that might cross the line into something that was going to get called.

The first game where Shane was going to have to play them was thankfully going to be a home game, and Ilya had the night off because they flew out that next morning for an away set of games that would take them all across the west coast. Ilya was going to be right there at ice level; he would make sure that every single Montreal player saw him when they were on the ice. He had already made a few plans for it, and he had gotten tickets for him and David. They were in a section that Hunter said would be a good one for him to sit in because the fans were good. They would not be assholes to him and would probably also menace the visiting team just as much as he was.

“She’s getting big,” Shane said.

“She really is. She’s going to be out of that onesie soon.”

“Oh, I got a present today,” Shane said. He leaned into Ilya as they made faces at their daughter through the glass. She looked like she was close to sleep again. The noise-canceling headphones on her ears were secure, and she didn’t seem to be bothered by the noise that was getting through.

“What?” Ilya asked.

“More of them in the next few sizes up as well as a little shirt in Admirals colors that pairs with shorts that are your colors.”

“So, what you are saying is that your team is going to spoil her with clothing for the teams.”

“I think so.”

“You think she’ll be okay with the noise level when we score?”

“It’s going to be better than the cannon. I’ve already told Dad that she’s not going to a game in Columbus until she’s at least five.”

Ilya laughed. He hadn’t thought about it. He ignored the cannon most of the time when they were there, and there were games where Columbus didn’t score, so it wasn’t like it was a big thing. It was just the game opening most of the time.

“You think that they got what they wanted?” Shane pressed his hand to the glass, and Ilya did it right beside as well, and David pushed Nika up to where she was pressing her hands to the glass as well, her small hands looking even smaller given the gloves on their hands.

“Yes, I think so, but I can’t fault this. I love that we can do it. I should go back to my section and finish warming up,” Ilya said.

Shane gave Ilya a peck on the side of his helmet, and Ilya did the same before he skated off. The crowd roared at the sign of affection from them.

They were the poster children for a new wave of PR for the league, to show that they at least looked like they meant it when they said that hockey was for everyone. Ilya knew that it wasn’t. It was for white people with money, but maybe this was going to be the turning point where more players showed up loud and proud, and it was going to be losing players who didn’t want to play, and the league was not going to be able to keep up with the demands of it because there were not enough players who were good or changed and really meant it. Maybe this would be the thing that turned that tide where dinosaurs like Crowell were outed.

It felt like the blink of an eye before Ilya was headed out to center ice, leaning over with his stick just above the ice, waiting for the puck to drop.

“Shane Hollander, will you disappoint Veronika?” Ilya asked, a callback to what he had asked Shane the first time they faced off against each other as Shane got himself ready for the first puck drop of the new phase of their lives.

“Never,” Shane said.

The puck dropped.

July 2017

Shane picked up Nika out of the car seat. She was so freaking big that they had long decided to not carry her in the car seat out of the car and just carry her unless she was asleep. She was very much not asleep, and she was ready to be running around. Shane hadn’t been to the cottage since the summer before. He had been part of the process of making sure that the place had been gotten ready for having a kid running around there, like the back porch area being all fenced in since Shane didn’t want to fence at the edge of the property that would block her from making it to the lake.

Ilya had never been there before. He had seen more than a few things about the whole place, and the puff piece that had been filmed about the cottage had aired. There were gates in place to stop her from getting around, and Shane was going to have to make sure that he remembered about them.

“You could make more than one trip,” Shane said as he turned to look at where Ilya was getting their luggage out of the back of the car. They had blown into Ottawa and then drove from there, his parents picking them up and then taking them to their house, where Shane’s second car was. It had been bought for this reason because he didn’t want to rent a car for the times where they went to and from the cottage. They would be going more and more during small breaks, and Shane was looking forward to Christmas here with Nika when she was older. They would probably drive back to New York with this car. It had been something he had pre-purchased a while back and actually forgot about because it had been months out from being released. The Land Rover model was actually a good one for safety when it came to kids, and so it was going to be used enough for them. Ilya’s fancy cars were all in storage, a place that was close to where they lived, and he could easily head in and get whichever one he wanted. The place kept them in good condition as well as making sure the battery didn’t die on him. He was probably going to sell a few of them at some point.

“It’s pretty,” Ilya said, ignoring Shane’s comment about doing more than one trip.

Shane was getting Nika and opening the door, which meant that Ilya got the first load of luggage. Which to him meant it all. Shane shook his head and he headed for the door to let them in. He put Nika on his hip and unlocked the door using his other hand. Then he stepped inside, leaving the door open for Ilya. He heard a thump, which meant that Ilya had dropped something. He rolled his eyes. He really loved the man, and they were both stubborn as hell, so he understood, but he still loved to roll his eyes at him.

“You are crazy,” Shane said without looking back. He went right for the living room and took in the place. It looked the same, but there were gates that fit the whole aesthetic of the place where they were needed. Wood and were able to be locked into an open position without worry about the gates getting in the way. His mother had done really well with that part. They had looked good in the pictures, but this was something different.

Ilya came up behind him, and Shane moved Nika into his arms fully so that Ilya could wrap his arms round him. He loved this feel so much, having Ilya hold him while he was holding Nika.

“You are a Stanley Cup champion again,” Ilya said.

“Yes,” Shane said.

“You kissed me and Nika on the ice, and then you allowed that dinosaur to try and overshadow us.”

Shane laughed. He hadn’t told Ilya about Scott’s boyfriend and how Scott wanted to come out. He had in fact just not said anything at all even when Scott had told him that he could. He told Scott that Ilya would find out at the best moment. That moment was when Ilya had been kissing him and the whole place had gone kind of quiet, trying to figure out what Scott was doing with the guy in the audience.

Scott’s own issues with coming out and how Shane and Ilya were being treated have been something that he had to wrestle with. Shane and Ilya had wish baby, there was no questioning that they were in love and magic had given them a blessing. That didn’t mean that all gays were going to be accepted. Kip was a darling, and while Ilya had met him a few times when he and Shane had gone to the bar that Kip frequented with his friends, Kip had never once let on that he was dating Scott Hunter.

Shane had paid for that. He had paid for it by being fucked and not allowed to come until after Ilya did. He would do it again if it got Ilya acting like that.

“He didn’t overshadow us; it was his time, taking some of the limelight off us.”

“Limelight?”

“Attention. You can look up the exact details, but the attention was taken off us a little bit.”

“Da,” Ilya said. He raised a hand to lay it on Nika’s back, and they stood there like that, looking at the lake that was visible through the windows.

This wasn’t the future that Shane saw for them months and months ago. This wasn’t the future he had ever seen for himself. He had never planned on letting anyone in the world know that he liked men until he was retired, when he was out of the public eye. It still scared the hell out of him, but he could do it. For Ilya and for Nika, he could do it.

And maybe it would help others become better at being themselves to play the sport that they loved.

That tuna melt had been life changing in more than one way.

The End