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"Hey, bud," David carefully approached their son. "How ya feeling?"
"Greeeat," Shane smiled like a little kid, pulling at Yuna's heartstrings.
"Oh, honey," she went to sit on the chair by his bed and fiddled with his hair.
"Hi, mom," he replied cheerfully. "What's up?"
She and David both chuckled, "What's up?"
"You're asking us that?" David pressed a hand to his own chest.
"Yeah?"
She briefly looked at her husband and murmured, "He's so out of it."
"They did warn us."
She turned back to Shane, "We're good. A little worried about you but the doctors reassured us everything's okay. A few weeks of rest and then you'll be good to go! And we'll have fun, okay? While you stay with us."
Shane, who had been nodding at the start of her small reassuring speech, was now slightly frowning so she asked him, "What's wrong?"
He sighed, smooshing half of his face onto the pillow.
"What?" she pressed.
He mumbled something incomprehensible to her so she turned to David, "Did you get what he's...?"
He shrugged, "Couldn't make out a single word. Shane, kiddo, mind repeating that?"
Shane groaned, "I said, that's not fair."
"What's not fair?" the other man asked.
"My plans. They're- they're all ruined," he squeaked.
Being high on meds, his voice almost sounded like the one he had back when he was a teenager going through puberty and constantly getting voice cracks.
"What plans?" she asked.
A soft smile replaced the sighing and frowning, "Ilyaaa…”
"... what?" She looked at David, thinking maybe she had misheard him but her husband seemed even more confused than her.
"Uh- Ilya? Buddy, you mean Ilya Rozanov?"
The smile got wider, "Ilyaaaa..."
“What’s… what do you want from Rozanov? They told me he visited. Did he say something to you?”
Even Rozanov couldn’t be such an asshole as to harass Shane while he was in those conditions… Yuna hoped.
Perhaps Shane’s confused mental state had led him to misunderstand the other player, who most likely just (finally) showed some sportsmanship by wishing him a speedy recovery.
“Did he forget something here?” she looked around but didn’t find anything of notice.
Shane shook his head with his eyes closed, when he reopened them he had a twinkle in his eyes that she wasn’t so sure was due to the pain medication he was on.
“Ilya was here,” he smiled again.
“Yes, honey. I know. They told us. What do you want from Rozanov?”
Shane threw his head back, staring at the ceiling, “him.”
Before she could ask Shane what on earth he was talking about, he shifted on the bed again and continued, “Always. Ilya.”
“We were supposed to meet after the game!” he whined. “But, fucking Marlow, ugh-” he gesticulated with his uninjured hand, “aaaand now I won’t be able to play… and I won’t see him.”
Shane’s adorable pout was not nearly cute enough to distract her from… whatever was happening.
“You’re… Rozanov? You- you and… Rozanov are… friends?” she raised an eyebrow. “And you hang out after games? Since when?”
Shane had never been the type to keep secrets from them or lie, even as a kid he barely ever let out a little white lie or two. Dishonesty had never been his thing.
“Yesss,” he nodded somewhat smugly.
“Well… I certainly wasn’t expecting that,” said David.
“I should-” he patted the bed and looked around.
“Shane, careful. You have a mild concussion. What are you-”
“Mooom,” he whined.
“Yes?”
“My phone?”
“Oh, your phone? Yeah, we have it.”
“Can I-”
“You can’t. No screens for a while.”
“I need it!”
“Why do you need the phone, Shane?”
“‘Cause what if Ilya calls? Or- or what if he texts me? And I couldn’t even text him last night and- I want to talk to him. The nurse came in and he had to leave, like, immediately and then I won’t see him for weeks.”
“Look, I’m sure Rozanov knows you’re not avoiding him or skirting his calls. He’s also a hockey player, he knows what having a mild concussion entails. Alright?”
Shane pouted so hard it gave her deja vu to when he was eight and they had had to break it to him that he couldn’t play hockey for a week or two because he had come down with a case of chickenpox.
“See? Not fair. He’s gonna worry… but, well, it’s not like Marlow did it on purpose. But it sucks.”
She looked to David again for help but the man remained silent, watching their son with wide eyes.
Eventually, Shane huffed and replied, “Can I at least call him later? Like…” he raised his hand up, “five minutes. And I’ll keep my eyes closed so it’s fine, right?”
She gave in, “Fine, fine, okay. We’ll… we’ll hand you the phone later so you can talk to him for a few minutes. Okay?”
Shane finally smiled again, nodding, “Yes, okay. Great!”
— — —
By the time of the call, Shane was still pretty out of it.
She had wanted to give her son some privacy but he had immediately yelled Rozanov’s first name into the phone as soon as the russian had picked up and she had had to remind him to keep his voice down because of the mild concussion so with that excuse, she decided to remain in the room although in the far corner, to still offer some form of privacy.
She wasn’t close enough to hear whatever Rozanov was saying but she could hear most of Shane’s replies and so could David, who was standing next to her and didn’t seem all that comfortable with the idea of semi-eavesdropping on their grown son.
(Which she understood and she usually did try to respect Shane’s privacy but she genuinely didn’t think it was a good idea to leave him alone with a phone in his hand while he was so energetic, she wanted to try to prevent a migraine.)
Shane, on his part, still high on plenty of medicine and painkillers, didn’t seem to mind the intrusion, all caught up talking to his…
“Ugh, I knooow, Ilya. I thought I was the boring one… yeah, yeah. I will. Yeah, I’m- uh, I’ll be staying with my parents but I’ll be fine soon and then,” he bit his lower lip and blushed, “the cottage is still there and you’ll come and it’ll be great! Right?”
Her eyebrows shot up and she sent David a knowing look.
They had been… theorising for a while that Shane might be gay, then with the whole Rose thing they thought they had been wrong but they had been trying to get him to invite her over for quite some time and he stood his ground every time and it did lead them to wonder again if…
“I’m literally still in the hospital so you have to say yes. That’s like- illegal to say no. To me. Right now. While I’m like this,” he briefly detached his phone from his ear to use his non-injured hand to gesture to himself as if Rozanov could see him from the other side.
Quickly pulling his phone back to his ear, he let out an excited, “Yeah! Yeah, it’ll be fun!”
“…And… I- I missed you and two weeks is, um-” he let out a sound that could be described as half of a chuckle and half giggling, “two weeks is great! Yeah?”
There was no doubt anymore
“Yeah, alright. Okay, okay,” he nodded. “Will do. Yes, Sir,” he did a military salute with the hand he was using to hold the phone up, yet again forgetting the man on the other side of the call couldn’t see him.
“Thanks again for coming to see me here,” he said in an incredibly soft manner, “I uh- I really appreciated it and I like being close to you, so uh- yeah…”
His whole face was red, “Right, yeah, yeah. Um- you too, yeah? So… see you… soon? Alright, bye-byeee!”
The phone call had been quick and yet, at the same time, longer than Yuna had expected.
And one thing was for sure: her son was definitely gay.
And possibly dating? Ilya Rozanov too…
The latter being a lot more surprising than the former.
— — —
Once they had finally gotten Shane home and all settled in…
“So, uh- that was… that’s-” David gestured randomly, “something. Huh?”
“Something?” she asked sarcastically, then she shook her head. “I- yeah, David. That was something indeed.”
“Do you…” she waited for him to continue, “do you think he remembers? Everything? All the stuff he said to us and in front of us?”
She bit her lower lip in worry, “No.” She shook her head, “No. No way he does. He’d look embarrassed. And ever since his head cleared up again, he hasn’t mentioned Rozanov once.”
“So, what do we do?”
She sighed, “I- nothing? I don’t think there’s anything else we can do.”
She paced back and forth as she continued, “It’s not like we can sit him down and ambush him. And he’ll freak out if we plainly ask him about Rozanov.”
David huffed and hit his knees with his palms, “So… we do nothing.”
“I mean,” she stopped and turned to him, “we wait? He’s bound to… come out eventually, right? He invited Rozanov to the cottage… somehow, this has to have been going on for a while… it’s probably serious too.”
She shuddered at the thought of Ilya Rozanov, known ladies’ man, of all people, being her son’s… boyfriend?
“How long do you think…”
“I don’t know, David. I- I honestly don’t know. I mean, how often are they even able to see each other with their hockey schedules? But… maybe that goes to show how serious it is, if they made… make it work while doing long distance like this?”
“You know, I think it’s been a hot second since we’ve read anything about Rozanov being seen out and about with some model or actress or something.”
“Uh… it has, hasn’t it? Fuck,” she groaned. “Okay, this is really happening. Wow. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what Shane does.”
David hummed.
— — —
Weeks.
Literal weeks had passed and nothing.
Shane was as tight-lipped as ever.
She tried to show her support in the meantime in small ways that hopefully wouldn’t spook him but nothing.
Time kept passing and Shane never broached the topic.
It wasn’t until they were watching the Boston Raiders vs New York Admirals game that Shane started acting weird.
Though he still didn’t exactly say anything.
Yuna watched him like a hawk as she tried to act casual but she still threw in a few pointed comments to see what reactions they would get, “He’s playing hurt. It’s his ribs, I bet.”
“How do you know that?”
“Am I right?”
“I don’t know…”
David entered, “Your mother’s a witch.” Then, looking at the tv, “Okay, the Raiders have lost, dinner to celebrate.”
“Dad!”
“What? We don’t hate him anymore? I can’t keep up.”
Yuna sent David a knowing look, his approach less than subtle hers.
“No, we do,” almost as if on autopilot, Shane corrected himself, “it’s just…”
There it is.
“He visited you at the hospital. Right. That was nice of him, wasn’t it, David?”
“Yeah, no. Right. That was uh- that was really nice of him.”
Changing the topic, seeing Shane wasn’t budging, “Anyway, good for Scott Hunter.”
“Why good for Scott Hunter?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “It’s his year.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“She’s a witch!”
— — —
More time passed and suddenly Shane was mysteriously holed up in his cottage during the off season and telling his parents to not visit because he wanted some alone time…
Right… alone.
She had hoped Hunter’s post-victory on ice kiss with his boyfriend would boost Shane to open up and yet… once again, nothing.
Still, she and David both respected his privacy.
Besides, they weren’t even sure Rozanov was at the cottage in the first place.
“Ah shoot, we ran out of dishwasher tablets.”
She sighed, “Seriously, David?”
“I know, I know. I should’ve checked sooner. And probably should’ve bought more too. It’s okay, I’ll get some from Shane’s.”
“Wait! David…”
“Uh?” His expression shifted, “Oh. Right. Right. The whole Rozanov thing… right…”
“I mean, the odds of him actually being there aren’t that high, no?”
David shrugged, “I don’t know. So, do I…”
“We should respect Shane’s privacy.”
“But you’re dying to know.”
“That’s not what’s important.”
She bit her lower lip and thought hard.
“Though, I mean, it’d be just a quick trip…”
He raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t interrupt.
“You ring the doorbell, wait for Shane… it should be fine. If Rozanov really is there, and that’s a big if, if Shane doesn’t want us to know… he can just tell him to wait upstairs or something while you get the dishwasher tablets and then as soon as you’re gone, that’s that.”
“Okay so… I do go get the dishwasher tablets?”
“Fuck it. Yeah. We’ve been good and patient and we love Shane and we’ll support him through any… peculiar decision of his-”
“Yuna…”
“So… it’s… fine. Yeah, I- try to go. See what happens. I’ll wait here.”
— — —
Little did Yuna know that in a matter of weeks, she would be thanking the universe for bringing Ilya to Shane, making her son so incredibly happy.
Not only that, Ilya had also turned out to be a great son-in-law (okay, so, technically he wasn’t their son-in-law yet but she was sure that would eventually come and she, for one, couldn’t wait).
The idea everyone seemed to have of him was so wrong.
Sure, he was a bit of a tease (and she could tell a lot of it was a defence mechanism more than anything) and, to his own admittance, he had been a bit of a ladies’ man but everything else? Couldn’t be further from the truth.
He was kind and thoughtful and sweet and considerate and… a good person.
With an incredibly sad past.
Most people in his position wouldn’t have dealt with it as well as he had.
She was really glad to get to know the real version of him and to have him in Shane and their family’s lives.
“You need help? I can grab it for you.”
She looked behind her, “Oh, yeah, that would be lovely.” She stepped aside, “Thank you, Ilya.”
He nodded at her as he stepped up, “Of course. No problem.”
He grabbed the small box she had been reaching for from the top shelf of the pantry and handed it to her.
“You know, this is where I keep a copy of all my recipes. Or most of them anyway,” she opened the small container and dug through it, quickly finding what she was looking for, “here it is.”
“In alphabet order,” Ilya hummed and grinned, “just like Shane. I can’t keep up with him, all his books and notes, everything, all in order like that.”
She snorted, “Yeah, I’m afraid that’s on me.” She deposited the box on the table, “How do you organise things?”
“Easy, I don’t,” he said matter of factly, shrugging.
She burst out laughing, “Oh, man. You and Shane truly are an opposites attract sort of couple, huh?”
“I suppose,” he smiled.