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Hypothesis 1: David and Ilya
Ilya tapped at his glass, feeling his heart begin to race. The late morning had been surprisingly lovely given the circumstances. Shane’s parents, these strangers, did not feel like strangers. He saw the man he loved in them so clearly. David pressed for knowledge, as if knowing more could help him wrap his mind around the new truths revealed. Yuna questioned everything else, as if gauging their sincerity could help her understand the lies.
What’s the plan…?
…That’s so sad.
It is what it is, Ilya had thought. He had lifted his cup, as had Shane. What ate away at him about Shane’s plan to keep their love quiet until retirement was the fact that if either of them ever won the cup again, they’d still celebrate in secret. There would be no Hunter-like moment, no kiss in front of the cameras. Still better than Russia, where Ilya could be put into prison to waste away far from skateable ice and further from the sunshine.
Yuna’s absence at the table set the dining room off-kilter immediately. The moment they heard the door shut, Shane was already lifting himself out the door to follow her, swiping her cardigan from her chair and taking a steadying breath.
A passing thought hit Ilya of how much Yuna’s acceptance would mean to him. She was exactly the kind of woman he liked best: sharp, strong, loving fiercely. The fact that she hated his on-ice persona was strangely validating even if it was a battle to overcome now.
Ilya looked to David. He looked nauseous, lost at sea without Yuna and Shane at the table. He saw Shane in the worry lines, the concern on his face. The poor man had accidentally blown up his son’s life but Ilya felt like he’d accidentally given them a gift. The rip of a bandage that needed to come off.
“Have you eaten?” Ilya asked.
They’d been in the house for over an hour at that little table letting the awkwardness subside. Lunch time delayed. Gregori, bastard he was, would never tolerate a late meal. He got meaner and more faded when his blood sugar dropped. Ilya doubted the soft Canadian in front of him was capable of anywhere near such a personality turn but his instinct was to avoid it.
Plus, his own stomach was threatening to growl now that the adrenaline of the morning was wearing off.
Shane’s father had clearly been wracking his brain desperate for his own topic of conversation with Ilya. Something safe. Yes, lunch.
“Let’s make lunch,” David suggested. He scooted from his chair and moved into the kitchen, glancing at the pantry. The plan had been to pick up his charger at Shane’s cottage on the way into town for groceries.
As he looked at what was on hand to make, he called out to the other man, “We’re a little bare here, I, uh…soup? Chicken and rice, I think. Or spaghetti?”
To Ilya soup that wasn’t borscht was a waste of time and it was already so hot out.
On the other hand, filling Shane with off-season carbs was becoming a treasured hobby. He wanted to see Shane with a belly and a beard one day, happy, like the vets he’d gotten to know in locker rooms. The ones with twenty year careers and many children, the ones who got slow eventually. But his Shane would never get slow…or any faster…but bellied yes. In his glasses, which he would need approaching retirement.
Ilya was happy with whatever was on offer.
“Pasta is good.”
David launched into action clattering in the kitchen, filling a pot with water and salting it heavily before settling it on the stovetop. Ilya decided his role was helper, beginning with tending to the drinks.
“Where did you find such good vodka in Canada?”
Ilya was moving to Ottawa. It was as good as settled in his mind. He needed sources. He also recognized the distinctive bottle from room service in Las Vegas. From the night he won MVP, the night he realized how hopelessly perfect Shane was for him.
“What? Oh,” David fiddled with the oven distractedly. “I don’t remember. We bought it, I think, for Christmas last year.”
“Mm,” Ilya delivered the man’s refreshed glass to the counter beside him, sipping his own. “How can I help?”
“Uh,” David was sputtering. Hollander trait.
“Why don’t you slice up that loaf, we’ll make garlic bread,” David nodded to a half-stale bread sitting out, the cutting board and knife at the ready.
Ilya sliced off the chunky end-piece and helped himself to it while he performed the task, his mind still on the vodka. David retrieved a container of homemade pasta sauce from the freezer, tipping it into a second pot and flicking the burner.
Each man felt more comfortable, staring at something edible, touching metal, being useful.
“Shane does not drink vodka,” Ilya said through his last bite, wanting to tip his hand and prove his decade of orbit in Shane’s life. Only with me, only sometimes.
“No, not usually, but at Christmas we enjoy having Whi—” David stopped himself, glancing guiltily at Ilya very quickly.
Ilya raised an eyebrow as he completed his slicing, moving for butter without asking where it was kept.
“—White Russians,” David finished the sentence, glancing to the other man and catching his reaction.
A smile bloomed on Ilya’s face as the words landed, wide and wild. The drink with the coffee liqueur and cream, a waste of vodka, and perhaps the most romantic thing he’d ever heard of. Every year the Hollander family toasted to him, sort of. Every year Shane blew his diet for the joke.
“How many years of Christmas?”
David returned his attention to the saucepan, stirring unnecessarily at the frozen hunk of tomato sauce. The smile Ilya was putting off was too blinding to look at.
“Many. It became our little tradition,” he answered. “Shane’s gonna kill me.”
A giggle escaped Ilya’s throat, a giddy sound that shocked them both. David cracked a smile after the initial shock.
Ilya imagined Shane, teenaged like when they’d met, coming across the cocktail somewhere and thinking of him. And then thinking of him every year when he reached for a blue bottle to bring home. It seemed the man Ilya loved might have been romantic about him far more intensely than he liked to admit. Not at Ilya but to himself about Ilya, for a very long time. It made him think of all the ways he’d been affected. Most notably how his favorite corner shop in Boston had a neon 24hr sign in the window that Ilya winked at on lonely nights.
He moved slow and on his best behavior, finding a fluidity with Shane’s father as they prepared the meal.
When Yuna and Shane returned they were smiling, talking, too quick and dense for Ilya to catch much besides scary terms he knew like “the commissioner” and “morality clause” and “marriage equality.” Shane was palpably calmer and the graceful determinate aura of Shane’s mother was magnetic to overhear. Still, the quick strategic English of their conversation was making his head spin trying to keep up.
He was still starving.
Shane’s elegant mother moved for wine and Shane moved for plates, both of them folding in to the needs of the meal they would share together without needing a word. Ilya sprinkled garlic powder over the bread and was glad to fall into the background a little.
David placed a block of cheese in front of him with a grater next, gifting him the distraction of a task and another thing to nibble upon. Thoughtful.
“You know, Ilya,” David glanced back at their partners, lowering his voice. “I really am sorry—”
Ilya saw a glint of guilt in the older man’s eyes. It felt kind. He got the impression Shane’s father felt he’d outed Ilya too, somehow. His head swam to explain fully, to tell David he’d been coming out over his lifetime to people in quiet rooms carefully choosing who to trust but determined to not be a coward about what his dick rose for. He wanted David to really know that Shane felt like it for him so the plan of Canada, the foundation, playing hard in the seasons for the reward of the cottage in the summers, altogether had given him a supreme sense of calm. Pasta with his in-laws, without the fear of police. It was a better life than he could have imagined and he’d do anything to keep it.
“Is okay,” Ilya shook his head. “I’ll give you my number. Will not happen again.”
———
Hypothesis 2: Ilya and Shane
Ilya hadn’t rushed getting Shane up off the floor. After several minutes, Shane rose on his own, breathing out slowly. There was no more delaying something like this. He tugged Ilya’s arm around him for strength and lead him to their bedroom.
They each stripped their swimsuits, into underwear and going slow. Shane was hesitating at the wardrobe, distracted on the conversation to come. Ilya tossed on what was convenient, desperate not to crowd the other man in this moment.
“We should,” Shane sputtered, half over his shoulder as he tugged on a pair of shorts. He was hiding his chest, shy, lost in thought. “Bring them the leftovers.”
A peace offering. Two pounds of congealing pasta they’d shoved in the fridge right in the giant pot they’d made it in, avoiding cleanup in favor of a long shared shower the night before.
“I’ll take it,” Ilya agreed, wandering to grab the pot and bring it out to Shane’s car. He buckled it into the backseat and moved back into the house for a desperate, nervous, piss.
Shane eventually got his act together, “Ilya? I’ll be outside waiting,” he called out, his voice and footsteps carrying past the bathroom.
An hour later when Yuna and Shane spoke outside, Ilya lifted his gaze from his vodka glass to the walls of the Hollander house. Seeing the photos made him feel warm inside, each one of the frozen moments tender and well-dusted.
Russians did not do this. Maybe with the dead, maybe a few photos on the mantle, not a shrine to their son as if it was art.
He thought back to his home in Massachusetts and the two photos he had framed: one of his mother swinging him about in Delegatskiy park and another of his niece’s goofy grin in his Boston jersey. They both lived in his closet above his watch drawer, to be seen by only him when he put on the armor of Rozanov. He’d often longed for a photo of Shane to sit between them. He was tempted to steal one off the wall on the way out. Surely the Hollanders would not miss one.
What Shane sometimes misunderstood when Ilya called him ‘boring’ was that it was not the opposite of sexy or thrilling to him. Boring was stable, reliable, appealing to everyone. It made Shane the poster boy of the league Ilya could never be, in the same way his childhood of being well-loved was on clear display.
Out of nowhere he put his attention on Shane’s father, intense but not meaning to be, as he killed the silence with a question. “Do you have cheese?”
David looked at him like he was an alien, blinking slow. Hollander trait. “Pardon?”
“We brought spaghetti. Lots. Leftovers. Is baking in the sun in the car, probably, not good, but if good needs cheese.”
“We have cheese,” David cracked a small smile, tickled by the softness of those sorts of words in Rozanov’s accent.
“I will get it,” he popped up and headed for the door, turning back to scoop Shane’s keys off the table with a comfortability that seemed obvious given the conversation they’d just been having.
David was setting the table when he’d returned, eavesdropping on the conversation outside.
Ilya carried the pot to the stovetop, turning the burner on to heat it a little back into an edible state.
“Tell me about McGill, Mr. Hollander, please,” Ilya wanted to distract the man, wanted to distract himself, wanted to prove he was interested. “You must be where Shane gets his weak backhand from.”
———
Hypothesis 3: Yuna and David
Shane had excused himself to the bathroom. Ilya was fairly sure he was typing messages to ‘Lily’ at a furious rate, recapping his conversation with his mother. His pocket kept vibrating, making him jump, but he ignored it.
As discretely as he could, he turned it off as he caught a glimpse at the latest notifications.
Jane: She’s going to want you to sign with my agent.
Jane: She also has endorsement ideas for you.
Jane: We can talk about it.
Jane: Probably would be suspicious to do anything so soon.
Jane: This is going well, right?
Jane: Are you ok?
Yuna had pulled a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator as she questioned Ilya. He couldn’t focus with a double Hollander attack.
“Was supposed to fly next week. Don’t tell Shane but I cancelled to reschedule. He said he would like me to stay longer, I am surprising him,” he didn’t want the summer to ever end.
David and his wife shared a glance and the older man rose, moving toward her to help with something. Alone at the table Ilya folded his hands in his lap, letting them attend to whatever it was.
“Grab the pasta, sweetheart. 2 boxes,” Yuna’s use of the pet name made Ilya smile, grateful they could not see him.
This was a household of love and hockey familiarity. They did not need 2 pounds of pasta for lunch, but there would be plenty and Ilya would not have to be polite with a small portion. He was grateful for it.
“I will check on Shane,” Ilya excused himself, wandering into the cavern of the unfamiliar house to find Hollander.
Shane hadn’t even shut the door. He sat on the closed toilet, still texting, hopefully him.
“Hi.”
Ilya leaned against the doorframe, an immediate presence, “I turned my phone off. Buzzing was annoying. Talk with me.”
Shane seemed slightly collapsed, hunched over the phone and pulled from his thoughts.
“I’m starving,” Shane finally said, daring to rake a flirtatious glance up the line of Ilya’s body.
“They are making pasta for us, very nice to do.”
“They’re nice people.”
Ilya nodded, not taking the bait of the counter-stance. Not directly.
“Very nice to carb-load the man who fucks their son. Lots of energy for later.”
He expected Shane to tell him to be quieter, or maybe to go pink at the impish joke. Instead he tucked his phone back in his pocket, cracking a small smile. Shane decided to dismiss him with sentiment, as was becoming their way. “You do more than that,” he offered with soft insistence.
“Obviously. I also score more goals.”
Shane’s smile cracked wider. Success. It felt nice to be sure-footed again.
Ilya did him the favor of not mouthing in time with his reply but he knew exactly what it would be as he said it.
“You’re such an asshole, Rozanov.”
In other words, I love you.
“Let’s go eat like good sons. Healthy growing boys,” Ilya gestured, waving him out. “Not toilet boys.”
Good sons.
Shane moved to follow, stealing half a hug to the back of Ilya before he left the corridor. He stilled and took the embrace, warm hands coming up to keep Shane’s arms wrapped around him. For a long moment they stood like that, listening to David and Yuna chop and stir and talk in the other room from the shadows.
David was apologizing.
“I’m sorry Yu, but now you know why I didn’t know what to say, it was his thing to tell, I was thrown for a loop, I didn’t…” He’d shut up, followed briefly by the smack of lips that must have been a kiss.
“It’s okay,” her voice was cool, silky, as she diffused her husband’s sputtering. Hollander trait. “Will you get the colander please?”
Shane didn’t seem to notice or care about the exchange, but he moved forward, breaking away to stride into the room first.
“I’ll set the table,” he announced, moving for cabinets and plates.
Ilya joined him to help, his mind still whirring on the dynamic they’d overheard. A spinning out Hollander and his perfect partner to redirect, an open heart and hope.
As the scent of tomatoes hit him he decided one day he would make them all pelmeni. Some day. Soon. They would love it.